The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

There’s a feeling that jolts me awake. It’s like that sinking feeling when you dream that you’re falling, only the exact opposite—like something oppressive has just been sucked out of the air, and the clean oxygen that rushes in is so unfamiliar that it burns your lungs.

Something isn’t right.

My heart is racing a million miles an hour. Adrenaline pumps through my veins. What is that? Fear? Hope? Either way, it doesn’t fit anymore. It squeezes and pinches, threatens to burst at the seams. And still, it makes me smile.

Something else unfamiliar to me.

“Mortal,” comes the voice. I used to find its low growl to be overwhelming and menacing, but now it just sounds like the dry rasp of a starving man.

Of course, it’s not dry. Or starving. Or a man.

It’s a cocoon of blackish-red goo in the furnace room of this otherwise-empty three-storey apartment. It sits there day and night, crackling with jet-black electricity. Neurons, as best as I can tell, woven from the flesh of its victims.

My victims, if you want to be a dick about it.

I have to wait for a moment before it continues.

“Something isn’t right.”

‘Yes, master,’ I think at it.

It likes being called that. That’s what it’s always made me call it, back when I couldn’t tell what it was doing—when it convinced me that I was saving the community, letting poor frightened people hide in the basement while this whole thing blows over.

But it’s been years since it’s had any sort of control. It’s been even longer since it’s had a victim. For a while I held out hope that it would starve, but its web of goo hasn’t dried out or receded. It still has me go out to look for victims, but it blindly believes me when I return empty-handed and tell it I saw someone but it’s too risky.

On one hand, it is too risky. Meadowvale was a small town that has a long history of being full of religious fundies, so when heaven and hell came around to duke it out, it was a bit of a curb stomp. Good triumphs over evil. Callooh callay.

I guess I need air quotes around “good”. Because the “good” guys were anti-everything. No sugar salt or fat, that’s gluttony. No days of rest, that’s sloth. And may whatever-miserable-god-you-used-to-believe-in help you if you get caught having sex with your wife. Un-baptized babies? Tainted, killed. Baptized babies? It’d better be the right denomination. Oh, and by the way, there are a bunch of different guys in charge, and they’re of five completely different denominations in total, so what counts as ‘right’ is a bit of a crapshoot. Oh, and some of them think baptism itself counts as pledging your baby to a false god.

Needless to say, there haven’t been many kids running around.

Not that there’s much of anyone running around. Every now and again some ‘true believer’ humans will roll around looking for anything suspicious—anyone they don’t recognize from church, anyone who’s out scraping for food during one of their twelve weekly services, any weary travellers who make the mistake of seeking shelter for the night, any of their own subjects who might be caught flirting or laughing or owning anything nice...

That’s actually why I still put up with that ball of venereal disease in the basement. It lost its sway over me a long time ago, but I still play the part because it deals with those ‘administrators’, as they call themselves. They come knocking on my door, and seconds later the slime-ball has them convinced that I’m an upstanding citizen, and that I’ve got all the right altars to all the right gods set up. It can even make them remember me from sermons, which is pretty handy.

The things it can do are pretty amazing—but this feeling I have isn’t one of them.

Suddenly, my heart sinks as I get a feeling that I’m very familiar with. Like a ball of static off in the distance, gradually getting closer. Worse, it’s big and loud—like a whole pack of cherubs. Maybe even an angel.

But this one is different. Muted. Pink static instead of the white static that terrorizes the streets whenever it gets bored or senses sin. Or the brown static living in the corner of the basement.

“See what it is,” my housemate orders.

I know defying this order will lose me my get-out-of-castration (according to the rumors back when there were enough people to spread them)—free card, but I can’t will myself to move.

The static moves right past the strip mall where a pair of travellers have been hiding the past few days. It’s passing by the houses and side-streets that troublemakers always stop to search.

It’s coming right for me.

Nut up, asshole. If it knows where you are then hiding won’t help. Plus, it’s not like you’re going to be facing it alone.

My hands shake as they put on the closest pair of jeans. I almost snip off my own nuts trying to work the fly while looking for my hiking boots.

Whatever’s approaching is moving the pace of a brisk walk—but it’s not far away.

The clothes in the corner mock me for my lazy laundry habits. Every single shirt that’s befitting a good Christian boy of ambiguous denomination sits in a giant pile, too soiled to pass. At the top of the pile, a pair of praying hands in gaudy gold print applaud what will invariably be my demise.

I have white undershirts, but they’re out of the question—I have tattoos on my shoulders, and I’ve seen those get ripped off before. It’s even less pleasant than you’d think. And more fatal, too, given that antibiotics are the devil and God heals the righteous through prayer.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be stuck in one of the cities that got rape-demons and medicine. The grass is always greener, I guess.

Looks like I’m going to have to dip into my collection of forbidden black long-sleeve tee shirts. If I’m lucky, they’ll peg me as a Satanist and just set me on fire then chop off my head instead of taking me back to one of the cathedrals for who-knows-what.

They’re close. I jog to the front door, peering through the glass at—people?

Five of them. They look like mortals.

Not just mortals—soldiers. And they’re all parts of the same ball of pink static.

I wave cautiously.

A short red-haired woman swats the arm of the tall skinny man next to her and points at me. The man walking in front—the loudest piece of static—smiles and waves back.

Friendly, but cautious.

I think better of going out to welcome them. I know my roommate’s powers extend past the strip mall, but I have no idea if it gets weaker the further you go out, so best not to chance it.

I narrow my eyes at the leader. He isn’t human. He can’t be. He’s walking the streets unarmed, for fuck’s sake.

Behind him a shorter red-haired woman holds a machine gun of some sort (I would have been able to tell you make and model before all this) with an ornate-looking sword dangling by her side (a European-style hand-and-a-half sword with runes of holy origin, likely belonging to a creature of Greek Orthodoxy). The man next to her is carrying a bigger, heavier gun of some sort (my fifteen year old self would undoubtedly jizz upon seeing it), and slung on his back is a long narrow war hammer of some Norse bullshit (we didn’t get much of them in this area). Behind them, a tall blonde with a machine pistol and a pair of daggers with demonic markings (Judeo-Christian of some sort) next to a man with a big scoped rifle in his hands and a stubby old shotgun hanging from his shoulder—the only one not carrying something pilfered off of some otherworldly being.

“So,” the leader says to me as his companions fan out—no doubt to more easily mow me down if necessary.

“Here to teach me the good word?” I ask, poking my head out the door.

The leader chuckles. “Just in town doing some housekeeping.”

The unarmed man jerks his head to the side, directing my attention to the pillar of smoke in the distance, coming from the nearest cathedral.

I wait. I once saw a man throw a rock at that thing because his wife was taken, and cherubs came pouring out of it and literally ripped him apart like a swarm of piranha. And they’re the least dangerous things living in there.

I feel a discomfort in my chest and realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for something to come screaming out of the wreckage and raze the town to the ground.

Nothing.

“How?” I ask.

“Thoroughly,” he answers, knowing full-well that’s not what I meant. “Anyways, we’re just passing through and were wondering if you had anything you wanted us to clean out for you.”

“Kill him,” my roommate orders.

“Clean?” I ask. “How?”

“KILL HIM”

“However we have to,” the man answers. “Soap... bleach...” a smile creeps onto his face as he adds, “...fire...”

“KILL HIM!” This time the order doesn’t come to me—instead, it flies over my shoulder to the man’s four armed companions.

The companions all drop their guns and start to draw their looted weapons. The sword bursts into flame, the hammer crackles with electricity, the daggers trail a dark shadow behind them, and the shotgun seems to glow with angelic runes.

“STOP!” I think at them, blotting out my roommate.

The four companions freeze in place, but not before the leader reacts to his friends’ pending attacks, unfurling a pair of black-feathered wings from his back, shielding himself from his companions.

And suddenly, the pink static is gone.

The leader looks at me, a weird little smile on his face.

“So you’re not human,” I say.

He chuckles. “As human as you.”

The companions stand there, weapons at the ready, each a simple command away from trying to cut their leader down. If I release them now, will they remember trying to kill their friend? Or will this loss of control only come back to them in nightmares a few years down the line?

“I didn’t make them attack,” I tell the leader.

“But you stopped them. Did you learn that from your friend in there?”

Friend. My jaw clenches as if trying to chew that word into dust. “Captor.”

His smile widens as his massive wings somehow impossibly fold into his back and disappear. “I learned from mine too.” He gestures to his friends, completely unconcerned that they’re still poised to strike him down as he adds, “and they learned from me.”

The gruff voice in my head says, “I sense they are deceased, mortal. Bring their bodies to me.”

I glance back to the door and then ask the leader, “You knew it was telling them to kill you.”

He shrugs. “I was planning on letting them give me a whack and playing dead. The best way to get close to one of those things is to let your friends feed you to it. Or—” he grins again “at least I thought that was the best way.”

“So, fire?” I ask.

He nods. “Fire.”

“Wait here.”

I command the redhead with the flaming sword to follow me into the apartment.

I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t expecting the girl to be as impressive as she was. One swipe of the sword sent fire arcing across the room. It’s not as cathartic as I thought it would be—maybe because my roommate didn’t know she was alive, and it didn’t even get a chance to react. Deep down I was hoping for screams of agony, begging for forgiveness, and maybe a chance to deliver some kind of one-liner like, “I guess it’s time to burn old bridges.” You know, if its begging had something to do with a bridge. I had a whole farewell conversation planned years ago, but I don’t exactly remember how it’s supposed to go.

But it doesn’t matter. One swipe, and enough of those neurons are burned away to basically lobotomize it. All it emanates is a sense of mild confusion as a second swipe burns away what little is left.

The third swipe is for good measure. The fourth for fun. The fifth is probably reckless, as the entire basement is already completely engulfed in flames.

As tempting as it is to fulfil my dreams of blowing up my roommate and laughing as the building collapses in on me, I decide against it (after all, my flamethrower is a rental unit) and order the red-haired pyromaniac to follow me outside.

When I release the girl, she’s surprisingly calm.

“Feel better?” she asks with a little smile that’s weirdly out of place on someone who can incinerate me with a flick of her wrist.

“Yeah. Wait—were you in control?”

She shakes her head. “Surprisingly no. I was aware though.”

“Yeesh. Sorry about that.”

The redhead laughs. “I take it you know what that’s like?”

I try to keep a light smile as I nod. “Not fun.”

She gives me a firm punch to the shoulder. “It depends who’s at the wheel.” The smile melts off her face as she says, “Look, there are a few more places in town to clean out before we move, but the big stuff is gone. The guys can handle it without me if you want to talk about what you’ve been through.”

“I’d take her up on that,” the leader says, slipping into our conversation from out of nowhere. “We’re definitely going to need your head straight.”

“You want me to... join you?”

The redhead’s laugh is sharp and reflexive—not intentionally cruel, but it definitely delivers the message.

The leader gives her a look, then lets me down in a much gentler way: “Your gifts aren’t as destructive as ours. What we’re hoping you’ll do is less in the knocking down, and more in the rebuilding.”

My gaze drifts to the apartment building, whose second-floor windows have started billowing smoke. “Not exactly my forte.”

The redhead lays her hand on top of mine (jury’s out as to whether or not it’s a “sorry for laughing in your face about how frail and useless you are” touch) and says, “Your town here was locked down tight. Its people are... well, I don’t know the nice way to say it, but they’re super fucked-up.”

The leader adds, “We probably didn’t get all the collaborators, and communities who had it as bad as yours have usually either converted or burned all the natural leaders. Everyone who’s left falls under the yoke and ends up profoundly scarred from years of abuse. If we just skip town without finding a capable leader who isn’t a fanatic, then everything’s going to go right back to where it was.”

“Only instead of angels chasing purity and chastity,” the redhead adds, “we’re back to people chasing greed and power. Either way, dark ages.”

The leader sighs. “A lot of the time we’ll leave a place knowing something bad will eventually fill the vacuum.”

“But at least the new assholes have natural life spans,” the redhead adds.

The leader shrugs. “The damage is still deep, but in a few generations they might get back to the before-times... if it doesn’t spiral into a theocratic empire or something.”

“But you can avoid that,” the redhead says, squeezing my hand. “You still know right from wrong. And you may not be able to light any fires, but you can get into peoples’ heads. Undo the trauma. Teach them to live again. Rebuild your community.”

I take a sharp breath. Community. I was barely a part of it when thirty thousand people lived here. For years the houses have all been empty, and I can’t imagine more than a few hundred people could be packed into those cathedrals they built around the churches. Not to mention the fact that the cathedrals are on fire, so that probably cuts the number down even more. Besides, what the fuck do I know about doling out therapy to trauma victims? I was a stock boy with an arts degree when the world collapsed.

“I’ll try,” I say.

“Great,” the girl giggles. “Now, would you mind releasing my friends?”

At the far end of the walk, three people with magic weapons stand poised to strike, a glint of frustration in their eyes.

“Shit. Right. Sorry.”

When they’re released, the group sheath their weapons and start murmuring to each other. I can’t hear them, but one of them cracks a joke and they’re all back to normal.

“We’ll be back tomorrow at midnight, Red,” the leader tells the redhead. “Please try to get him going in the right direction.”

“Yes sir,” she says as she throws him the most sarcastic salute I’ve ever seen.

In the blink of an eye, the leader and all the other followers seemingly blip out of existence.