The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Monique pushed open the door of the building with one hand; with her other, she furled her umbrella.

The building was quite nice, she reflected, but they really needed some sort of awning out front. She rapped the point of her umbrella into the metal bowl that Andrew from 204 had put by the front door for just that purpose. His kids liked to play in the lobby, and when the tile was wet it was awfully dangerous.

Satisfied that she’d gotten most of the spring rain off of her umbrella, Monique checked that the door had latched itself behind her, then walked into the lobby proper. The core of the building was a light well, with a broad square staircase curling up around it; here on the ground floor, a half dozen large planters held trees that were almost five meters tall, their bases surrounded by small ferns that draped over the pots’ edges.

Monique looked at the staircase and sighed. She looked wistfully at the elevator, then started up the stairs. When she was alone, she rarely cooked, and all the eating out was adding pounds. Part of her New Year’s resolution—several months in and still going strong—was to not skip the little exercises in life. Such as climbing the stairs to her fourth floor apartment.

But Yvonne would be here in a month, and she could get back to cooking. Thinking of Yvonne made Monique smile. Her daughter was graduating high school a quarter early, and coming to live here in New York with her, all summer, until she went to Princeton in the fall. And for Yvonne, Monique would cook—and maybe take the elevator once in a while.

God, she would be glad to get out of her shoes.

As she rounded the corner dividing the ‘second floor’ apartments from the ‘third floor’ ones—for some reason, the apartments were not level, but offset by quarter stories, matching their place stairs—Monique was surprised to see a man in paint-spattered coveralls up on a ladder, his hands in an overhead light fixture. As she walked up he looked down at her.

“Evening, Ma’am,” he said, and went back to what he was doing.

“Good evening,” Monique replied, walking around the ladder. It was nice that the building supervisor was so proactive. She hadn’t even noticed that light being out.

The thrall watched out of the corner of its eye as the woman continued on up the stairs. When she was at the opposite corner of the building, it spoke into the little microphone sticking up out of the bib pocket of its coveralls.

“The woman is approaching now,” it said.

“Understood,” the acquisition thrall replied.

Monique was unlocking the door to her apartment when she heard someone call out “Oh no!", followed by a loud crash. For an instant she thought that the maintenance man might have fallen from his ladder, but the voice had been female and came from above her.

Then marbles started bouncing down the stairs.

Monique stopped, surprised, as the clear glass beads came hopping in no particular hurry down the stairs. Looking up, she could see more bouncing off the wall of the next corner, and could hear loud cracks from below as some of them fell down the light well and shattered on the tile.

Across the light well from her, up the stairs, she could see someone on their knees, frantically trying to corral marbles.

Putting her purse down, Monique bent over to stop the marbles that had made it as far as her door. No sense letting them escape further down the stairs.

A moment later, their owner stood up, and picked her way down the stairs. As she rounded the next higher corner from Monique, Monique got her first look at the woman—tall, like Monique, with long straight light brown hair. As she came around the corner, she saw that Monique had stopped the marbles from descending any further down the stairs.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, picking her way down the stairs around marbles which hadn’t made it as far as Monique.

There was something... compelling about her, as she weaved her way down the stairs, watching her feet, holding the broken bottom of a glass vase in one hand. She was very pretty.

“It just slipped,” she said, coming to a stop on the corner landing where Monique waited. Monique realized that the woman was exactly the same height as herself.

“Always thought they were so silly—vases full of marbles,” the woman was saying, “but then my friend gave me one and I couldn’t say no, and I was moving it in and then—” she shook her head. “Oh, listen to me babble. I’m sorry.” She extended a beautifully manicured hand. “I’m Moira.”

“Monique,” Monique replied. “Monique Vereaux.”

“Oh, you have the most beautiful French accent,” Moira said. “Are you from France?”

“Quebec, actually.” Despite herself, Monique smiled. Normally, the automatic assumption that Americans made annoyed her—as though speaking English meant one was from England—but this Moira person was so effervescent that she couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh, fantastic. Do you live here? I’m just moving in to four oh three, right up there.” She gestured with the bottom of the vase, and a marble dropped to the floor.

“Oh, drat.” Moira bent to pick it up, and stayed down to collect the marbles that Monique had stopped.

“Hey,” she said, as Monique looked away from the glimpse of green panties which had appeared above Moira’s low-rise jeans, “I’m new in town, and I don’t know any body. Do you want to go out and maybe get something to eat? I’m just sick of teevee dinners.”

“I, uh... when were you thinking?” Monique asked.

“Oh, any time.” Moira stood back up. “How about right now?”

“Oh, I can’t tonight. Perhaps another time?”

“Sure thing!” Moira put a foot on the next step up. “I’ll just gather my marbles, then.”

“It was, ah, nice to meet you,” Monique said.

“You too!” Moira watched as Monique stepped into her apartment, and closed the door.

A couple of hours later, Monique stepped out of her apartment to find the maintenance man on his ladder right in front of her door.

“Oh,” she said. “Excuse me.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he replied. “Just testing the circuit.” He jiggled a yellow plastic device at her. “I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

“It’s not a problem,” Monique said, locking the door.

Stepping around the ladder, she shot a quick guilty look up at the door of apartment four oh three, then went out to get some dinner.

The thrall finished installing the surveillance device, then folded up its ladder, and walked up the stairs.

It tapped at the door, which was opened by the acquisition thrall. Wordlessly, it stepped inside.

Together, the thralls walked through the apartment to the entertainment center. The furniture was mostly new; only the couch and bed and a few larger pieces were left over from the previous tenant, who was at that very moment across town, ceasing to be Shawna Granger and awakening to a new life as Thrall R, although more than likely not for long. An incidental, Thrall R would almost certainly be sold, and re-named.

Neither of the thralls in the former Shawna’s apartment were aware of, or cared, about that.

The male thrall turned on the television, and pressed several buttons on a console beneath it, on the shelf between a VCR and a stereo system.

Images of the stairwell sprung into life on the television. The thrall flipped between them.

“The system is working,” it said. “Tomorrow, when Monique Vereaux is at work, this thrall will install the cameras inside her apartment.”

“Understood,” Thrall J replied.

Without further communication, the male thrall turned, and left the apartment.

Thrall J watched the monitor. On it, Monique Vereaux walked in the front door of the building, a bag of Chinese takeout in one hand.

Monique wearily trudged up the stairs to her apartment.

It had been a terrible day, at the end of a terrible week. The Japanese were still not returning her calls, and the UN kept pressing for the details about Ellesmere but the home office just wasn’t getting them for her. And to make matters worse, Christopher-never-Chris Plain had just asked her to work the weekend, five minutes before seven on a Friday.

As though any of this stuff was important. Bloody Ellesmere. Why couldn’t she have been on the Iraq team?

“Hey, Monique!” someone said, as she was pulling out her key. She looked up the stairs.

It was that woman—Moira, right? Yeah, Moira—that had spilled the marbles down the stairs. In apartment four oh three. She was coming down the stairs, in a light blue dress that somehow set off her light brown hair and golden eyes just right. She must have a great fashion sense.

She really was pretty.

“Just getting home?” she asked, stopping a step up from the landing.

Again, Monique felt that... charisma that she had. Something in the air around her was... alive.

“Ah, yes, just getting home,” she said.

“Want to have dinner with me? There’s a great little Burmese place on one twelve. I’ll treat—I’d really like to get to know my neighbors.”

“Oh, no, I don’t—”

“Please?” Moira blurted, with sudden intensity. “I... I’d really like to have someone to go to dinner with.”

Monique looked at her, surprised. She really meant it—suddenly, she radiated desperation. As though Monique was her only friend in the world. The switch from her previous exuberance to this was like the sun suddenly blinking out.

“I- well, okay,” Monique said. “But you don’t have to pay.”

“Really? Oh, wonderful. Do you need a few minutes to get ready? I could come back.”

“That’s okay,” Monique said. “I just need to change my shoes. Do you want to come inside?”

“May I? That’d be great.”

Monique smiled at her, and opened the door. Moira followed her inside.

“Please, have a seat.” Monique said, gesturing at the sofa. “I shall just change my shoes and then we can go.”

“Thank you,” Moira said, lowering herself onto the couch. She looked around the room—a few framed line drawings, some Inuit masks, a window that looked out onto the street. “You have a nice apartment.”

Monique laughed from the other room. “It is what I can get, in New York,” she said. “Is yours much different?”

“It’s a little larger, but I don’t have the street window. I look out at a brick wall and other people’s drapes.”

“When did you move in?” Monique called.

“This week—the day we met,” Moira replied. She poked at one of the magazines on the coffee table. It was in French. “How about you?”

“Last summer. I work with the Canadian delegation to the United Nations.”

“Really? That’s really cool,” Moira said. “I’m just an accountant.”

“Perhaps not as cool as you think.” Monique emerged from the bedroom corridor, wearing a pair of slacks instead of the skirt she had been in. “My apologies for the delay; I just had to get out of that pantyhose.”

“Oh, I understand totally,” Moira said. “Look, um... I’m sorry for coming on like a stalker back there. I just, I don’t know anyone here, and the people at my work have families and there’s no one to go out with.” She looked at the carpet. “If you don’t really want to go out, that’s okay. I’ll completely understand.”

“No, no, I do wish to go to dinner with you. I was just tired, that’s all.”

“Wonderful,” Moira said. “Okay then—let’s go down and get a cab.”

Monique, to her own surprise, had a great time.

She did the next time, too, and the next.

Moira was, in a word, vivacious. She seemed to simply enjoy life, all the time, and she enjoyed it a lot.

Since moving to New York, Monique hadn’t actually gotten to know many people outside of work. She had forgotten how much fun it was to have a friend that she could go out with, to restaurants and to museums and once to see Blue Man Group down in SoHo.

As they sat in the Bogwater Bar, Moira chattering about the episode of ‘The Daily Show’ she saw last night, and Monique listening with only half her attention, Monique realized that she was finally having fun in New York.

“Huh,” she said.

Moira, in the middle of drawing breath, paused. “Huh?”

Monique looked across the high table at her, and flashed a guilty smile. “Sorry. I was daydreaming.”

Moira never had a problem when Monique revealed that she wasn’t paying attention. It was one of the... endearing things about her. “Oh? Penny for your thoughts.”

Monique leaned back in the tall wooden chair. She lifted her scotch—the reason for the bar’s name—and sipped at it, rolling it around her tongue until it was gone.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “I just... I’ve been enjoying spending time with you. I haven’t really enjoyed myself since leaving Montreal. It’s... I am very glad that you moved in. And that you asked me to come have dinner with you.”

Moira beamed. ”Thank you,” she said, with that way she had of accenting every third word. “I feel the same way. I think we’re really... simpatico.”

“’Simpatico’?”

“Yeah.”

“What does it mean?”

Moira blinked, and laughed. “Sorry, I forget that English is not your native language. Despite that darling accent of yours. It means, um, compatible. We fit together well.”

“Ah, yes. It is a good word—I have heard it before, but I didn’t know what it meant.”

“Here’s to simpatico,” Moira said, raising her glass.

“To simpatico,” Monique replied, and they clinked.

“So,” Moira asked, when she put her shotglass down, “are you going to be able to come shopping with me this weekend? I really need to get some new tops.”

“This weekend... oh!” Monique smiled. “My daughter is arriving this weekend. I think I should probably spend time with her.”

“Your daughter is coming to visit?”

“To stay, actually. She’s going to Princeton next fall, and is coming to live with me for the summer.”

“That’s wonderful! Um... I’m a little embarrassed to ask, and you can tell me to buzz off, but... where’s her father?”

Monique sighed. “He’s in Toronto. Works at a broadcasting station—Yvonne has been living with him for the last four years. We decided, when we split up, that it was better to leave Yvonne in the same high school. So I moved back to Montreal, and she stayed with Rick.” She ran a finger around the rim of her empty shotglass.

“Rick? That doesn’t sound very Québécois.”

Monique laughed. “It’s not. He’s from Hamilton. A very English part of Canada.” She sighed wistfully. “My mother told me that I should have married a nice French-speaking boy.”

Moira, uncharacteristically, said nothing.

“Well,” Monique said, looking at her watch, “it’s eleven, and tomorrow is a work day. We should get back.”

“Sure thing. You want to step out and hail a cab? I’ll settle up.”

“Are you sure it’s your turn?”

“Hold on.” Moira pulled out a business card, and turned it over. On the back was a list of names, ‘Moira’ and ‘Monique’ in order, marching down the page. The last name on the list was ‘Monique’.

“It sure is.” Moira hoisted her purse, took out a pen, and wrote ‘Moira’ at the end of the list. “There. Next time is your turn.”

“Next time it won’t be fair. I may have Yvonne along.”

“I’m sure that the pleasure of her company will make it worthwhile,” Moira said. “Now go fetch us that cab.”

They walked up the stairs together.

Monique had been afraid that adding her daughter to the mix would bother Moira. After all, it was obvious that they couldn’t spend nearly as much time going to bars or out to shows together.

But Moira seemed positively excited to meet Yvonne, and pointed out that they would have to take her to all the Museums and galleries, and of course shopping. If she was bothered by the prospect of seeing Monique less, she certainly didn’t show it.

At Monique’s front door, they said goodnight. Moira kissed her on both cheeks.

Monique went inside to call her daughter.

Thrall J went upstairs to report to its controller.

“Monique Vereaux’s daughter is coming to stay with her,” the thrall said.

“How does the thrall anticipate this complicating the acquisition?” its controller asked.

The thrall’s controller was on the screen, its Asian features as blank as Thrall J’s Caucasian ones. Surrounding its image was a swirl of colors, reds and oranges, that both held Thrall J’s attention and bled it of any extraneous thought. Its controller was doubtless deeply in the power of some similar vision, and equally unresisting.

“Acquiring Monique Vereaux has been problematic. At no point will she take vacation for any extended time, and if she were to simply vanish, there would be questioning from a significant level. This has delayed her acquisition for some time, despite the attempts of this thrall to get her to agree to an explainable absence from her normal life.”

The thrall thought a moment. “The addition of her daughter complicates this task only in that it will almost certainly be necessary to acquire the daughter as well. Since she will be unattached and without commitment, she will be easy to obtain for the required enThrallment period without attention being drawn. However, she and her mother must certainly be obtained at the same time, unless this thrall discovers a pre-planned time when they have agreed to be apart.”

“Understood,” the thrall’s controller said. Its dark eyes were the center of the thrall’s blunted attention. “The thrall will continue to attempt acquisition, remaining in contact with this thrall as frequently as possible.”

“Understood,” the thrall said.

“The thrall will now prepare itself for programming and sleep,” the controller said. “Obey.”

“It obeys,” the thrall said, turning from the screen, which faded to black. The thrall fetched the headset, which it attached to the programming block in the entertainment center. Then it went to the closet, and removed the dildo harness from its box. It returned to the entertainment center, and fitted itself, greasing both dildos, and sliding the harness up its legs. It slid the larger dildo into its snatch, and the smaller into its ass, and tugged the harness up until it was snug. Then it plugged the trailing wire into the programming block.

It sat on the floor, and pressed the ‘start’ button on the programming block. The earphones clicked into life, and the dildos began to vibrate very gently but very fast.

The sleep tone came on, and the thrall was lying back and falling asleep before it was even aware it was hearing anything at all.