The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The woman who was currently calling herself Morphelia, the Mistress of Slumber, had debated how long she should wait before contacting the castle kitchen to reach Queen Gabrielle. The queen was hungry for another trance (even if she didn’t consciously realize it yet), and Morphelia herself was hungry for another pass into that complicated yet incredibly pliable mind. But the rule here was the same as when performing: always leave ’em wanting more. She wanted both the queen, and herself, to leave the second trance demanding a third one. For that to happen, she needed to display some patience in arranging the second session.

But dear fucking Christ the shows she did in between were so boring.

She’d had the once-in-a-lifetime subject, and had done the once-in-a-lifetime show as a result. Now she had to go back to dropping half-caring peasants into half-trance so that she could do a series of half-challenging gimmicks. It was no way to make yourself happy, and it would never make the same kind of money that she had made when the crowd had been captivated by “Amanda” plunging into deep trance.

These were the thoughts that were plaguing her on the third day after the “Amanda Darling show” (as she had taken to calling it in her head). The Jesters were setting up the performance space and Rolf was sharpening his blades. She was wondering if there was any piece she could come up with that could pull her out of the rut she was in, when a voice said, “Excuse me?”

She came out of her reverie and noticed a young woman with light brown hair, plainly dressed, carrying a questioning look on her face. “Are you the one they call the Mistress of Slumber?”

“That I am. Morphelia, please.”

“Angela,” the plain woman said, offering a small curtsy. “Can we speak privately? I have an urgent message for you.”

“Of course.” Morphelia already suspected that this woman was a representative of the queen. She supposed this was how royalty handled most of their conversations. “Come to my dressing space. I have to change for the show.”

The space was nothing but a pair of curtains attached to the troupe’s carriage, forming a makeshift room into which they placed a rickety old wardrobe. “Stand outside, if you please?” Morphelia asked. “I’ll be able to hear you through the sheet.”

Angela nodded, and Morphelia went in, stripping off her everyday garments. “I assume you are a friend of Amamda Darling?” she said.

“Yes,” Angela said. “She has much to discuss with you.”

“I’m sure she does,” Morphelia said. She had a complicated undergarment that she wore under her performance dress, to keep her breasts from falling out of the damned thing. She was arranging this rigid undergarment as she said, “But ‘Amanda’ seems like a very dangerous woman to reach out to, for a commoner like me.”

She turned to take her dress out of the garment bag in which she kept it, and nearly ran neck-first into the blade of a six-inch dagger, held by an arm that arched back over her shoulder. The blade pressed up against her skin, then lifted, raising her up onto her tiptoes lest her throat be sliced.

“Do not move,” Angela whispered into her ear. Somehow, in the space of a single sentence, she had moved past the curtains and drawn her blade without making a sound.

“I’m sure we can talk about this,” Morphelia said. She had to gasp the words out, so afraid was she of accidentally being cut.

“Oh, we will talk, Prudence,” Angela said. “But I want you to understand that if you try to bewitch me in the same way that you bewitched her, your blood will spill.“

“It’s not witchery,” Morphelia gasped. “Why does everybody think—“

“Quiet,” Angela said. “I shall speak first. Our mutual friend was found wandering the halls of her home the other day. Her eyes were as blank as glass. She remembers nothing and cannot explain why. Only one person on earth could have caused this.”

Angela was very good, the hypnotist thought. The moves, the intimidation, all of it. But Prudence Savigne had been put at bladepoint in many kingdoms, by men and women alike who thought trance had stolen away a loved one’s virtue. Talking your way out of it was just a matter of speaking plainly and making the impossible sound possible. She took a breath to center herself, then began:

“Your friend has a unique mind. She doesn’t understand how unique. She’s doing this to herself, and she needs help to control it.”

“Help only you can provide, I suppose,” Angela said.

“Yes.” Prudence’s feet, still strained on tiptoe, were beginning to ache. She hoped this Angela would soon be satisfied with the answers she was getting, because cutting her own throat by accident due to a foot cramp would be just plain humiliating.

“You get her into this situation, and then only you can get her out of it,” Angela said. “That’s convenient.”

“She got into it by accident,” Prudence said. “I didn’t know who she was or how special she was until it was too late to go back. No one was at fault.”

“And what stops you from bewitching me? Or anyone else in her home?”

“The other person has to volunteer. You are too hostile. Most people are too hostile. I told you, she’s special. There’s none like her in the kingdom. Maybe in the entire world.”

Angela was all bluff, Prudence was sure. To kill right now involved too many calculations: how many bystanders had seen her? Could she do it without any sound at all? If not, could she evade the entire troupe? Prudence’s estimation of her visitor was proven right a moment later, when Angela withdrew the blade.

As she came down off her toes, Prudence touched the skin under her chin and looked at her fingers. No blood. “How many people have learned the truth about the Handmaidens and lived to tell the tale?”

“It’s not like that,” Angela said, as the dagger disappeared into her dress. “The Lady of the Fire did not want a normal Handmaiden for her daughter. Since I was a little girl, she had me trained in other ways.”

“And do you sew as well?”

Angela ignored her. “If you are to know her secrets, then I’ll live with you knowing mine. She and I are like sisters. However you have touched her heart, you have also touched mine.”

Prudence Savigne was nobody’s fool. She easily detected the hidden message: If you hurt her, you will be hurt. “I understand,” she said.

Angela’s hand came back out of the dress, this time carrying an envelope with the royal seal. “Her Majesty requests your presence at dinner this evening. Discretion is appreciated.”

Translation: don’t tell the troupe. “I would be honored,” she said as she took the envelope.

“One final question,” Angela said. “Does anyone else know it was her, in the square that day?”

Prudence set her jaw. “Let me tell you something,” she said. “All of the questions you have asked, you could have asked politely. I would have given the same answers. There was no need to put a damned knife at my throat. So if you want to do it this way, you pay a price: the answer to that question. I will never tell you if there are other people who know, because those people would be my friends. And now I think you might show up with a knife for them. Fair?”

Angela looked at her evenly, then turned and walked through the curtains without another word. Prudence Savigne counted to a hundred, making sure that the young woman would be gone, then ran to vomit into the gutter.

There had been two more dreams in the dark corridor with the black cat, and each time Gabrielle had awakened in a place that was not her bed. Those places were both in her bedchamber — once it was the drawing table, and once it was the wardrobe — so Gabrielle hoped that she had not left the room, and no servants had seen her wandering about the castle in the wee hours of the morning. But there was no way to be sure.

She’d canceled her meeting with the advisors on the day that she’d been found in the kitchen, claiming illness. She’d held the Council meetings on the next two days, but had said little and asked for even less, terrified that one of the Ministers would ask her point-blank about the rumors that he’d been hearing. She assumed that everyone, noble and servant alike, had heard some sort of rumors.

She was sitting at that same drawing table, sketching out some ideas that the meeting with the Minister of Agriculture had given her, when Angela knocked at the door. “It’s done,” she said. “Miss Prudence said she’d be honored to come.”

“Did you use the knife?” Gabrielle asked.

“No, m’lady,” Angela said, but there was a tone in her voice that Gabrielle knew well.

“Did you draw the knife?“

Angela said nothing.

“Angela, if she wished to harm me, the best way to get her to do it is to make her angry or frightened.”

“She’s harmed you already, Gabby. I felt it necessary to warn her not to do it again.”

“No violence, Angela. It’s bad enough if a rumor spreads that Gabby the Gray is losing her mind; if people start dying, there will be panic.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

“Leave me,” Gabrielle said. “I’ll need you at dinner, and during whatever Prudence has planned after.”

“So you have no idea what she’s going to do?” Angela said. “I’m glad we’ve planned this so well. It’s not as if your sanity is at stake.”

Gabrielle stared her down until she left.

Prudence had not been expecting to dine in the Great Hall, on the finest china. Her visit from Angela had suggested the queen valued secrecy in this matter. But she was surprised at the quality of the meal that she got.

The side room they ate in had a table made from the same stout oakwood as in the Great Hall. A portrait of Frederick the Fowl, in a gilded frame, stared down at them from over Gabrielle’s head. The meal was chicken broth, which Prudence could have bought from any street vendor for a few coppers, but no street broth would have tasted as good as this.

This is how it is with royalty, she thought as she sipped down the last of the broth. Even when they’re not really trying, they’re still richer than we’ve ever been.

“There will be a few rules,” Gabrielle said, as they finished off the last of the broth. “The first, Angela may have already told you: There will be no secrets here. I doubt I could hide mine from you anyway, but neither will Angela hide from you, nor you from us. That means no stage names. You are Prudence to us, and ever shall be.”

“Prudence Savigne, then,” the hypnotist said, “if there are to be no secrets.”

Gabrielle nodded. “The second rule is that Angela shall go unarmed here. I want to apologize if she was rough with you before. We are quite on edge with this. I can’t trust myself when I lay down to sleep.”

“Perhaps you have reason to be on edge,” Prudence said, “but she was more than just ‘rough’ with me. I feared for my life, and the lives of my troupe.”

“Fear no longer,” Gabrielle said. “I swear it with all of the authority I carry as queen of Vessia.”

Prudence glanced at Angela, who gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. “Your apology is accepted,” she said.

“The last rule may be difficult for you, but it is necessary,” the queen said. “You must devote yourself to me until I am satisfied of my mental state. No shows until the deed is done, and no travel with your troupe. You live in this castle, in servant’s quarters.”

“What I do, it’s not an exact science,” Prudence said. “The deed may never be done. You may never be satisfied.”

“If I am dissatisfied come the spring, then I shall release you from my service,” Gabrielle said.

There was an awkward lull in the conversation, until Prudence said, “Those are all the rules?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle said.

“Then I accept,” Prudence said. “I would ask that I be allowed to tell the troupe tomorrow.”

“You won’t tell them the reason, I hope,” Angela said. There was no menace in her voice as she said this, but after a person has threatened to kill you once, Prudence supposed, you always associated them with menace.

“I’ll tell them I’ve found a benefactor who wishes to explore her past lives,” Prudence said. “It’s happened before.”

“Past lives?” Angela’s distaste for the very idea was frank and open. “They’ll believe that?”

“You’ll have to trust that they will,” Prudence said. “Now, this is a lovely room, but it’s rather ... impersonal. I need a quiet place, where we won’t be disturbed, and you can sit comfortably.”

“Angela? The sitting room, do you think? Can you send word that we’re not to be disturbed?”

Angela nodded, but her eyes never left Prudence’s face.

The sitting room held four chairs, a small table, and a leather divan that had been a gift to some long-ago king from the Prince of Wales. Prudence moved the table and chairs such that her own chair was at the foot of the divan, facing the head, and the other chair (Angela’s) was next to the head of the divan, within reach of it. She bade the queen to lie down on the divan, with a cushion under her head and neck.

“I always liked this divan,” the queen said. “I could fall asleep here. I suppose that is what you wish?”

“No,” Prudence said. “I told you during the show, but maybe you were already under by then. This is not sleep. I will say the word sleep, and I guide people to a place where it might feel like they were asleep, but they were never asleep. It’s as if sleep were in the next room, with the door open, and you could see it from where you were sitting.”

The words hung there in the air, as though the queen was not quite ready to embrace what they might mean. Then Prudence abruptly said, “Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, after I left your show, I—”

“No,” Prudence said. “Tell me about yourself. About what it feels like to be Gabby the Gray.”

“I don’t like that name, for one,” Gabrielle said.

“Why not? Your eyes do look gray to me.”

“Nicknames suggest weakness,” Gabrielle said, her mother’s words fresh in her mind. “And that one was born of weakness. My mother had just died. I was upset. Some buffoon got one look at my pallor and Gabby the Gray was born.”

“Do you think you took your mother’s death poorly?”

“I think I took it as I took it. As I’m still taking it.“

“Tell me about your dreams.”

“Ah...” The changes in subject were becoming difficult for Gabrielle to follow. She never knew where Prudence was going next. “It’s a rare thing, that I remember my dreams. Even before all this affair, I mean.”

“Whatever you can tell me is fine.”

“I suppose ...” (Do you think you’re asleep?) “I’m in a dark place. And there’s a cat.“

“What color cat?” Prudence asked softly. Gabrielle had to concentrate in order to hear her.

“Black.”

“Did you ever have a black cat? As a girl, perhaps?”

“No. Sometimes I would see cats around the castle, but they weren’t black.”

“What colors were they?”

“All different colors, gray and brown and such.”

“Were they your pets?”

“I don’t know.” For a moment, it was surprisingly difficult for her to speak. Her tongue had grown quite heavy. “The servants tolerated them because they killed the mice and rats. That makes them pets in a way, I suppose.”

“Was the cat in your dream wild?”

“No. She jumped onto my shoulders and purred.”

“How do you know the cat was a she?”

“She talked to me.”

Prudence looked over at Angela before she said, “The cat sounded just like me, yes?”

Gabrielle’s eyes seemed to be staring through the room’s ceiling. Her voice sounded dreamy as she said, “Yes.”

Angela cocked an eyebrow at this, as if to say, That was quite a guess. Prudence kept her face straight. “What did the cat say?“

“She said I was safe from Him.” Prudence and Angela alike could sense the proper-noun status of the word.

“Who is He?”

“I don’t know. He was in the other room.”

“How did you know where He was?”

“The cat told me. She was purring on my neck.”

“It was so soft and warm, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Gabrielle smiled, the gray eyes still distant.

“What happened next?”

“Something felt wrong. I thought I should leave. I started walking, but I got tired. The cat looked at me and said I should rest. Her eyes were blue.”

“They were blue like mine?”

“Yes. So blue.”

“Look at the cat’s eyes, Gabrielle. See them clearly.”

Gabrielle’s eyelids drifted closed.

“See the cat’s eyes, Gabrielle. What does she say to you?”

“She says I need to rest. It’s a long walk and I’m so tired.”

“You are tired, Gabrielle. So very tired. Look at the cat’s eyes and rest.”

Gabrielle seemed to sink into the cushions a little more. Both Angela and Prudence had seen her breathing this deep and slow before, and they knew that she had gone somewhere else.

“You’re doing so well, Gabrielle,” Prudence said. “I’m going to talk to Angela for a little while. You can ignore us. Just look into the cat’s eyes and rest. The next time I touch you on your foot like this,” and her she laid her hand on the top of the queen’s ankle, “you’ll start paying attention to me again. Do you understand?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Prudence took her hand back, and gave Angela a level look. They stared at each other in silence for a full minute before Angela said, “I doubt that’s the way you do it for one of your shows.”

“I could have dropped her like I did in the show,” Prudence said. “But she might have expected that, and played along too much. I learn more, this way.”

Angela asked, “What did you learn?”

For one thing, I learned that she’s been dreaming about me, Prudence thought but did not say. Instead she said, “I thought that she was sleepwalking because I made a mistake, in the show. That can happen even to the best performers. But now I don’t think that’s the issue.“

“What is it, then?”

“I’m still trying to figure out.”

Prudence leaned forward and laid her hand on Gabrielle’s ankle. “Can you hear me, Gabrielle?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m sitting on the ground.”

“Where is the cat?”

“In my lap. She’s warm and soft.”

“Are you looking into her eyes?”

“So blue.”

“That’s very good, Gabrielle.” Prudence paused. There was no need to keep the questions back-and-forth, as she had during the induction. She could take a minute to think, to plan, and that’s just what she did. Finally, she said, “Did you sit with the cat all night?”

“No,” Gabrielle said.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“He moved and made a loud noise.”

“Who is He?” Prudence was aware she had asked this question before. She had hoped deeper trance would give Gabrielle better perspective.

She was wrong. “I don’t know,” Gabrielle said.

“What did you do?”

“The cat said I could rest and walk at the same time if I kept looking into her eyes. So I stood up and started walking.”

“What happened next?”

“I heard someone calling my name. It’s Angela. She’s calling to me and telling me that she’s scared. I look away from the cat’s eyes and look for her, but no one’s there. And then...”

Gabrielle was beginning to fidget, moving her head back and forth in her sleep. Prudence waited as long as she dared before asking, “And then what?”

“My ear started hurting. I think the cat scratched me, and... and...”

Gabrielle’s eyes were twitching, the brows moving up and down as she tried to open them. Prudence lowered her voice still further. “You’re doing so well, Gabrielle. I’m going to talk to Angela again. Just remember the cat’s eyes and rest.”

Gabrielle’s eyebrows slowed, then stilled. Prudence looked at Angela. “You twisted her earlobe to wake her up.”

Angela began to blush. “My father used to say...”

“Yes, I’ve heard that one before,” Prudence said. “It was dangerous, you know. Someone that deep needs to wake up gradually. Shocking them awake can do damage to their mind. You were lucky that didn’t happen.”

“The servants were watching her,” Angela said. “They were horrified. I was horrified. I did what I had to.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” Prudence said. She laid her hand on the queen’s ankle. “Gabrielle, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Gabrielle, you were safe and warm with the cat on your lap, weren’t you?”

“Mmmm,” Gabrielle said contentedly. “Yes.”

“If you ever find yourself in the corridor with the cat, you know you can stay right where you are, and sit with the cat in your lap.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no need to walk anywhere. You can look into the cat’s eyes and rest.”

“Rest.”

Prudence let her lie there and breathe, taking the moment for a few deep breaths herself. She’d gotten this far without getting strangled by Angela; best to go out on a high note. “In a moment, Gabrielle, I’m going to count to three. With each number, you’ll feel more and more strength coming back into your body. On three, you will be able to open your eyes and wake up, feeling like yourself again. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“One, you’re back in the sitting room. Two, feeling calm and strong. Three, your eyes can open as you awake.”

Gabrielle inhaled sharply as her eyes fluttered open. She immediately looked to her left, for Angela, who put a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

Prudence asked, “How do you feel, Your Majesty?”

Gabrielle sat up, using Angela’s arm as leverage. “It was so strange,” she said. “I remember talking to you, about the cats when I was a little girl, but as if it was happening to someone else.”

“Some people experience trance that way,” Prudence said. “I’ll have volunteers, from time to time, who tell me that they thought they were still in the audience, watching themselves on stage.”

“Do you remember the rest of it?” Angela asked.

“No,” Gabrielle said. “I feel like I took a nap in the middle of the conversation. Should I remember?”

“There’s no should to it,” Prudence said. “Everyone experiences trance as they like.“

“I’m very thirsty,” Gabrielle said. “I think I shall get some water.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Angela said. After the queen left the room, Angela gave Prudence a frank look. “So?”

“I think I’ve stopped the sleepwalking,” Prudence said.

“Yes, that part about her staying in place with the cat in her lap. But why was she sleepwalking at all?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Guess,” Angela said, folding her arms.

“It feels good, to be in trance,” Prudence said after a moment’s thought. “It’s relaxing, and we all like to be relaxed. She very much wants to go back under but doesn’t know how to do what I do. So she dreams about a cat with my voice and eyes who can do it for her.”

“But she’s already asleep.”

“I told you, trance and sleep are not the same thing. She’s taking herself out of sleep and putting herself somewhere else.”

“You still haven’t explained the sleepwalking.”

“There’s some greater problem,” Prudence said. “You heard her say it: He’s huge, He’s moving around nearby. She doesn’t know what ‘He’ is, but she wants to get away from ‘Him.’ That shows up in the sleepwalking.“

“Do you know what ‘He’ is?”

“Trance often appears as a dream, and dreams are like plays. ‘He’ is like a character from The Tempest. You’ve never met a Puck, but he stands for people you do know and things you see every day.”

They stared at each other for another long minute. Angela looked skeptical, and Prudence wondered if she had even read Shakespeare. Finally Prudence said, “I’ll need to know where my room is.”

“I’ve sworn to my queen that there shall be trust only, and no violence,” Angela said, as though Prudence had not spoken. “So tell me true: is she going mad?”

It was not, Prudence reflected, a question with an easy yes-or-no answer. “Consider this,” she said. “Have you ever had the sort of dreams she talked about? Alone in the dark, with something chasing you?”

Angela said nothing, a response that Prudence took to mean yes.

“Don’t worry about her sanity, as long as she’s describing things that you understand,” Prudence said. “If she’s not making any sense, that’s when you should worry.”

That night, Gabrielle was back in the dark corridor. She held the cat in her arms, its head nestled in between her breasts. There was a familiar rumbling, something immense shifting its position nearby.

Gabrielle looked down the corridor one way, then the other. She could see only a single torch in either direction. Why would she go either way? She could be running straight toward whatever was making that noise. “We’re going to stay right here, Morphelia,” she said, the cat’s name somehow sticking with her through multiple previous iterations of the dream.

“You’re safe here,” the cat said. “He can’t see you.”

Gabrielle sat down, cross-legged, on the stone. It was so comfortable. The cat curled in her lap and looked up at her, with those bottomless blue eyes.

“Such a good kitty,” she murmured. She’d meant to say it playfully, to tickle the cat as she did so, but all that seemed like too much trouble. Looking into the cat’s eyes made her arms feel leaden.

There was another shifting sound, and then a massive thump, like an immense fist pounding on a locked door. Gabrielle looked over her shoulder, but saw no such door, nor could she even determine which wall the giant Thing was behind.

When Gabrielle looked back ahead, the cat was gone. Prudence was sitting in her lap. The queen was not shocked to see this, as we are never shocked by such unusual transitions in our dreams. The entertainer’s blue eyes shone as sapphires do.

“Look into my eyes,” Prudence said.

Gabrielle looked at the gleaming sapphires. She had never stopped looking at them.

Prudence said, “Remember.”

The word rang through Gabrielle’s mind like the church bells echoing off the castle walls. She needed no further encouragement. Just as she had in the alleyway, she palmed Prudence’s cheeks and kissed her. The alley kiss might have been chaste by Prudence’s standards, but this was the most passionate kiss that Gabrielle had ever dreamed. She caressed the soft lips with her own lips, again and again.

Two fingers slid into Gabrielle’s vagina. On some level she was aware that, in a place far away from this dreamworld, they were her own fingers; even as sheltered as she was, she had masturbated before. But imagining that they were Prudence’s fingers so electrified her sex that she moaned, soft sounds of pleasure in between the kisses.

They moved together, in a rhythm that no song had ever described. On one beat the fingers pushed into her, firmly and intensely, explorers searching for secrets whose existence Gabrielle had not admitted even to herself. On that beat she responded in kind with her lips, pulling back on Prudence’s lower lip, even caressing it gently with her teeth in a way that said, You can trust me forever, and I shall never ever bite. Then they went back on the next beat, the fingers retreating just enough for Gabrielle to fear that it might end too soon, and she pushing forward with her lips, begging to continue. They rocked back and forth, faster and faster, until Gabrielle came in her sleep, with such force that she cried out and woke herself up.

“Oh, Prudence,” she gasped, reaching for the lover who was not there. Only then did she fully understand that it had been a dream, and felt a sting of disappointment more bitter than any she had ever known.