The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

When I was young, I fancied myself a “scientist,” because I approached the world from a rational and logical perspective. Counterintuitively, that meant that I was willing to consider that miracles and magic could be real. After all, a scientist must consider the facts without letting their own preconceived notions get in the way of knowledge. So it’s possible that magic was real. I was unwilling to simply dismiss the notion. I was going to be the scientist who cracked the mystery of witchcraft! All I needed to do was set up some experiments.

So I purchased a (supposedly legitimate) book of magic from Barnes and Noble’s “spirituality” section, in the shopping mall across town. The shopping mall is, as we all know, where Gandalf, Potter, Sparrowhawk, and all of the greatest wizards of lore got their power.

I didn’t learn much. I learned much more by reading fantasy novels from the library. (Libraries really ARE an almost magical font of knowledge, by the way). After months of study, I came up with a list of common magical tenants:

1. Intent matters. Perhaps the most critical components of any spell is dedicated belief and clear intent.

2. Symbolism helps form intent. Ritual and patience can be used to guide your mind and to signal “the source of power” that it’s time to make stuff happen.

3. Always use your power for good.

Then I met the farmer’s daughter. She was beautiful, intelligent, strong, and happy—so I decided to change her with magic. Oh yes. I DID mention that this was a cautionary tale, after all.

I was young and foolish, and I thought I was in love. Let’s call her “Helen.”

How did we meet? Ah, it was all so long ago. We went to school together. I don’t recall the exact moment. It wasn’t love at first sight. It was both more and less than that. It seemed as if we had always been friends, and there was never a single moment that defined a beginning.

We were both outsiders to the world. Like most wizards (and scientists), I was withdrawn and shy. She was popular and outgoing, but neither of us blended in with our so-called peers. We looked in on society from beyond it, but from different sides.

I never understood this concept of “dating” as separate from “friends.” There’s an arbitrary level of intimacy that separates the two, and everyone places that dividing line in a different place. This got even more confusing if “friends with benefits” is a thing. I had never had any “benefits,” by the way. She had. In fact, she told me once that she wasn’t able to emotionally connect to her sexual partners. For normal people, the experience of having sex is tied to a complicated array of emotions. She never felt that. It just feels good. Why does it have to mean more than that?

If you think that meant she was willing to take my virginity, you’d be mistaken. I got the worst of both worlds—I missed out on the “it just feels good” option, and instead got the emotional baggage of a childhood crush paired with crushing lust. These days, they would say I was trapped in the “friend zone.” Things were not going well for the wizard.

Except that things were going great! We would hang out, watch movies together, go for long hikes in the woods, sit and talk about philosophy… but we were not moving past friendship.

We even did a sleepover one night at her father’s farm. It was a cold winter night, and the old farmhouse was drafty. The heat from the woodstove barely reached the bedrooms. It would have been nice (to say the least) to snuggle together to keep warm… but no. I slept on the floor of her room in a sleeping bag while she slept in her bed.

In the morning, we hitched the horses to the sleigh, and rode into town on the new fallen snow. A two-horse open sleigh ride. It was warm and sunny though, which meant we barely made it back to the farm before the snow melted.

So given what you now know of me, you might expect that I was too shy to ask her out. You would be wrong. I asked her on several occasions. It’s perhaps a testament to our friendship that I didn’t drive her away.

#foreshadowing

She wanted to make her way through this life on her own, using her own strength to get by. A relationship would only serve to “lessen” her. The last thing she would ever want would be for someone to say, “hey look, there’s Helen and Jerr.” By putting an “and” after her name, she was suddenly only half of the subject of the sentence. She wanted to be wholly herself, and not half of an “and.” Nothing I said could convince her otherwise.

Then I got an idea. An awful idea. The wizard got a wonderful awful idea.

It would take some planning and preparation. I had intent. I could create a symbolic ritual. I could work with my strengths, incorporate shared experiences and connections… and as for good vs evil? Well, this was for LOVE! What ill could come of such a noble cause?

I retraced our steps along some of our favorite trails. I found a tree that I thought I could connect with. It was almost, but not quite on the path, much like myself. It was tall, and strong… but not strong for a tree. His strength, I imagined, was not in tensile strength, but an inner strength. He was bent a few degrees downhill, as if gravity was trying to pull him down, but he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. He was also an outcast. The other pine trees along the trail seemed to have rejected it. Bob Ross would have painted a friend for it, but in the harsh reality of the forest, it had been rejected and abandoned, a lone pine in a section of the forest that was mainly hardwoods.

The ground around this type of pine tree is frequently littered with large “flakes” of bark that the tree would naturally shed. The tree and I were both crying.

I sat under the tree and tried to rest, relax and meditate. I tried to befriend my tree. I would sit and listen to the wind in its branches. It stood and listened to my stories. I visited whenever I could. I told no one of my new unorthodox friendship.

I tried to help him as much as I could. I picked up litter. I pulled up invasive weeds from his forest area. I brought fertilizer, and pruned away dead branches.

After months of work, both physical and mental, I believed it was time.

I gathered together the dead branches that I had collected from my tree. In a clearing by a nearby stream, by the light of the full moon, I made a small campfire, fueled by donations from my friend. My goal was charcoal.

When everything was cool, I took a charred stick to the treeside. I selected two large pieces of shed bark. On one, I drew a picture of Helen. On the other, I drew myself. We were separated. I wove pine needles into a coarse twine, and used it to bind our images together. I buried the powerful magic in the loamy earth at the base of my tree. I waited for her to express her endless love to me.

The next day, she approached me. Looking very nervous and hesitant, she paused… then handed me a note before quickly turning and leaving as fast as she could.

I was frozen in place. This wasn’t the response I was expecting. I couldn’t have run after her if I’d tried.

Finally I looked down at the small piece of folded paper in my hand. I remember it vividly. It was standard blue-lined hole-punched notebook paper. She had written her message, then folded the page in half, then in half again, then in half again.

Reversing the process, I unfolded it, and unfolded it again, and again. Her handwriting was small, but clear and neat.

Dear Jerr,

I value our friendship, but I have been growing more and more confused recently, and today it has simply become too much to bear. I know in my heart that i must never lose myself by entering into a romantic relationship. I do not want to date or fall in love with anyone. But at the same time I find myself, in a way that I cannot explain, pulled towards you.

If I ever do decide to begin dating, please know that you are the first and only name on my list. I want to date you. But I simultaneously want to date no one. This conflict is tearing me apart inside.

I need to go away. Or you do. We need to spend time apart until I can resolve this war within me, one way or the other, before it kills me.

Please don’t try to talk to me for a while. You have been a wonderful friend, and I would like for things to someday return to normal. The fastest way to resolve this paradox is for you to avoid me for now.

I’m sorry.

Your very conflicted friend,

Helen.

The message couldn’t have been any clearer.

I should have known better.

I should have…

should have…

...done anything except what I did. Anything! She was worried about losing her identity and strength, and the evil wizard responded by attempting to forcefully change her beliefs?!

The sky grew dark. Ominous clouds rolled in as the evil wizard walked numbly down the road. Suddenly he remembered that the spell was still intact—still actively causing her pain.

The evil wizard ran to the forest with great haste, stumbling over exposed roots on the trail, as if the forest itself had turned on him. It had begun to rain, and the dirt path was slick and muddy. Dropping to his knees, he frantically clawed at the ground beside a twisted tree, bent and crooked with the wicked deeds it had been an unwitting accomplice to. The rain had picked up quite a bit by now, and the wind howled through the branches above.

At last, he found the object of his mad search—a tiny bundle of bark and needles. He easily snapped the twine, and the sky responded with a flash of light and a crash of thunder, close enough to taste the ozone in the air. Heedless of the danger, he raced down the slippery trail to the once peaceful stream, now raging with anger in the storm. Lying in the mud at the riverside, he carefully washed the smudged charcoal markings from the pieces of bark in his shaking hands, while his tears flowed downstream towards the sea.

Repentant of his ways, the wizard swore to only use his powers for good. He still talks to trees, but doesn’t presume to leverage their trust.

Eventually, he met another girl. They fell in love and were married on a Sunday, surrounded by friends and family, including Helen. The man on Helen’s arm that day was my best friend, whom she later married.

All of this happened so many years ago. My wife and I lived happily ever after. As did Helen and her husband. I wish them both the very best!