The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The three women ate dinner in the same room that they had used the evening before. Gabrielle arrived last, and when she saw Prudence sitting at the table, she felt strange.

She remembered the dream from the previous night, but at a remove, as though it had happened to a different woman who had later told her about it. “Prudence,” she heard the different woman say.

“My queen,” Prudence said. “Angela tells me you slept well last night?”

The strange feeling roiled inside Gabrielle. She did not blush, as she had when Angela had asked the same question earlier that day. “Well indeed,” she managed to say.

Throughout dinner, Gabrielle wondered about the previous night’s dream. She cared not a whit about the church’s thoughts on women laying down with women. But, what queen worthy of her kingdom laid down with anyone on the same day as meeting them? What queen would even dream of such a thing? Prudence had not wooed her as Percy Runier had; indeed, the circus player was all but a stranger to her!

And yet, that full, rich dark hair. Those deep blue eyes. That mysterious smile. Prudence’s spine wanted to tingle just looking at them, then she would ask herself how responsible it was to tingle about a near-total stranger. The tingle would die on the vine, only to start up again next time Prudence spoke, or looked her in the eye.

Finally, after a servant took away the kitchen wares, Angela said, “Are you well, my queen? You look troubled.”

“I’m wondering,” Gabrielle said. “What do you gain from this, Prudence?”

Prudence was so surprised that this question would come now, after she had already entranced the queen multiple times and moved into the castle, that she was not sure she had heard correctly. “Pardon?”

“I know what I gain from this: I want to search the parts of my mind that you can find your way into. But what do you gain? You get into people’s minds that way every day.”

“Well, my queen,” Prudence said, picking her way through suddenly delicate territory, “it’s not the same. Most people in a show, they go into a trance, but it’s a light trance. Normally it takes a long time to bring someone into a deep trance.“

“It did not take me a long time,” Gabrielle said.

“Just so,” Prudence said. “Your trance is different from any subject I’ve ever had. I hope to gain knowledge of how your trance works. I want to explore your trance as Columbus explored the New World.”

“Any subject you’ve ever had,” Gabrielle said.

Bugger, Prudence thought, instantly knowing her mistake. “It’s what we call a person whom we help into trance,” she said. “It’s the word my mentor used.”

“I am not anyone’s subject,” Gabrielle said. “I am queen.”

“I’m not disputing that, my lady,” Prudence said. “It’s just a word that hypnotists say. You need not concern yourself.”

“It’s my mind,” Gabrielle said. “I am concerned with it, and should be. I don’t even know where you are from, and why you only barely speak like a Frenchman.”

“My mother was from France, and my father was an Englishman,” Prudence said, bitterness sneaking into her voice. “We moved about, and I learned many languages and many accents.”

“My queen—“ Angela started to say, but Prudence was not done.

“And furthermore, Your Highness,” Prudence went on, her bitterness turning the honorific into a taunt, “I would have answered any of these questions at any time. They need not have been asked so rudely. Did you not swear me to mutual trust? Did I not agree? Did I not choose to spend the entire winter within reach of your guards and your jails?”

Hearing the sharp, brittle tone in Prudence’s voice, Gabrielle caught herself. They had indeed sworn to mutual trust. Even if she had concerns, why should she challenge Prudence in such a manner? This wasn’t the Inquisition, for God’s sake.

“Gabby,” Angela said into the silence. Her firm tone said, we should retire and discuss this in private.

“Hold,” Gabrielle said, stopping Angela with a gesture of her index finger. “Prudence is right. I was being rude to her in a way that no host should do. Please, Prudence, accept my apology.”

For a moment, Prudence wanted to remain angry, but she was struck by the pleading look in the queen’s eyes. Gabrielle was sincerely sorry, and it occurred to Prudence that the act of apology required levels of humility that might not come naturally to a princess.

“Apology accepted,” Prudence said. “’Tis a common misunderstanding. You will not be my subject, but neither will I be your subject. We want the same thing — better understanding of your mind — and we will work toward it, together.”

“We will indeed,” Gabrielle said. “Shall we retire to the sitting room?”

“Go ahead, Your Highness,” Prudence said. “I have some questions about the castle to ask Angela.”

Angela, who had spent their entire near-argument looking ready to jump in and end all debate, raised an eyebrow at Prudence. After the queen had left the room and Prudence felt reasonably sure that she could not hear, she said to Angela, “There’s no reason to do this.”

“Do what?” Angela said.

“Just say the word and I will leave,” Prudence said. “I have no wish to stand in your way.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Angela said.

“She was eager to work with me yesterday,” Prudence said. “Today, she is suspicious. Those suspicions could have only come from you.”

“I’m turning her against you?” Angela asked, somehow cocking her eyebrow even higher. “To what end?”

“Well, it seems to me that…” Prudence hesitated, then thought, too late to stop now. “That you love her.”

Had Prudence said anything else, they might have found their way to the heart of the problem right then and there. Instead, Angela threw her head back and laughed. Her laughter bounced off of the stone walls until Prudence became concerned that the queen would hear.

“Love her, do I?” Angela said, after her laughter died down into chuckles. “You’re afraid you’d destroy our great romance?”

“Yes, actually,” Prudence said.

“She and I were raised as sisters,” Angela said, smiling from ear to ear. “Even some of the servants think that we are related. Believe me, she is not the sister-fucking sort of royalty, and neither am I.”

Prudence almost said, then why is she suspicious? Which, again, might have led them in the right direction. But instead Angela, still chuckling, said, “Come. Let’s join Gabby in the sitting room,” and Prudence decided to let it go. Her regret of this decision would be bitter indeed.

The sitting room had no windows. Thus, a fire was almost always burning there, for light as much as for heat. Prudence entered the room to see Gabrielle sitting in front of that fire, in one of the room’s two throne-like chairs.

Prudence took the chair opposite the hearth, the two women sitting about two yards apart. Angela stood behind the queen’s chair, out of her line of sight.

“My queen,” Prudence said. “At dinner you struck me as uncertain. Is that fair to say?”

“I …” As the queen paused, Prudence saw the turmoil in her eyes for the first time. At opposite ends of the dinner table, she had not been able to notice. “I feel strange,” Gabrielle finished.

“How so?” Prudence said. She understood that she could not rush this trance; first, their rapport required fortification.

“Well, I’m grateful that you helped with my sleepwalking,” Gabrielle said. “But it’s such a powerful thing, to have you change my dreams.” The queen began blushing. “I’ve never seen its like.”

Prudence nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Hypnosis is personal. Even the best subjects often need time to grapple with how intimate it is.” She saw the queen’s blush deepen at the word.

“I don’t know what is going to happen,” the queen said, still bashful behind her blush. “I don’t know what you are capable of.”

“You must understand, m’lady,” Prudence said. “This is not magic. All it requires is an understanding of how people’s thoughts work, how we focus and relax. As I said before, this will be a partnership.”

“It doesn’t feel like I’m doing any work,” Gabrielle said. “It feels like I’m sleeping through the whole business.”

“I’d like to show you something,” Prudence said. “Look at the fire for me.”

Gabrielle turned her face toward the hearth. The fire painted her skin in yellow and orange light.

“Watch the way the flames flicker and dance,” Prudence said. “They are unsteady, unpredictable. You never know where they’re going next, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Gabrielle said.

“Take a deep breath in,” Prudence said. “Fill your lungs with warm air that smells of burnt cedar. Feel its warmth wash over your body.”

As Gabrielle let out the breath she had been holding, her eyes began to droop. So fast, Prudence thought, amazed.

Just as Prudence was having this thought, Gabrielle’s eyes flicked over to her. They seemed to lose their gray glassiness as she did.

“Just keep looking at the fire, Gabrielle,” the hypnotist said, smoothly. “Let the warmth of the fire settle over your entire body, like a soft blanket.”

Gabrielle’s eyes moved back to the fire, and Prudence proceeded as normal with her soothing suggestions. But after the next set of heavy eye-blinks, the queen looked over to her again. Over the next couple of minutes after that, the cycle repeated itself twice more: Gabrielle’s eyes growing heavier in response to Prudence’s suggestions, followed by a glance over at Prudence which seemed to break the spell.

She’s resisting, Prudence thought. She may not even realize she’s doing it. A change of strategy would be necessary.

“Concentrating on the fire,” she said, and Gabrielle’s eyes instantly moved back to the fireplace, as they had done three times before.

“Breathing deeply. Letting every muscle in your body go loose and limp.” The queen’s eyes began to lower again, and at that moment Prudence leaned forward, coming out of her chair. With urgency, she said, “Gabby, look here.”

The queen moved her head, giving Prudence a glance at eyes that were just the right amount of glassy. Prudence reached out, placing the palm of her hand such that it covered both of Gabrielle’s eyes. She pushed firmly on the queen’s head while barking, “Sleep!”

Gabrielle flopped backward into the depths of the chair, slumped to the side with her hair covering her face. Prudence took one of her hands, swinging it gently back and forth while muttering a mantra too quick and quiet for Angela to make out: “deeper asleep, warm and relaxed, deeper asleep, warm and relaxed...” The arm was loose, heavy, a wet dishrag waiting to be wrung out.

Prudence looked up at Angela, trying to appear cool and professional. In truth, she had only ever induced a person like this in practice with her teacher, and had blown it the one time she had tried it in front of a crowd.

Angela walked across the room to Prudence’s side, leaned down, and whispered, “What is the problem?”

Damn, Prudence thought. Nothing gets past this one. “You don’t need to whisper,” she said, in a more conversational volume. “Just don’t shout, or address her directly.”

Angela gave her a puzzled look, then said in a normal tone, “Why did you do that? It was completely different than yesterday.”

“It’s a thing I do when the trance isn’t quite working,” Prudence said. “But that wasn’t a problem for her yesterday. It’s strange.”

“I swear to you,” Angela said gravely. “I am not trying to turn her against this hypnosis business. I won’t lie, I was suspicious of you, and still am. But I’m suspicious of everyone. It’s my duty. She’s used to it.”

“Right,” Prudence said, thinking fast. “I need to test her. I’m going to try something unusual. It shouldn’t work. Most people would refuse to do it and then wake up, you understand?”

Angela cocked an eyebrow, but all she said was, “You’re the expert.”

“Gabrielle,” the hypnotist said, turning back toward the queen, “I think you’ll find that your dress is quite uncomfortable. The fabric itches and rides up in all the wrong places. I can see it from here. Your dress is so very uncomfortable.”

The queen began shifting awkwardly in the chair. She shook her shoulders once, sharply, as though trying to shrug off the entire dress. Her arms were still too heavy to scratch any itches, but her hands twitched at the wrist and her fingers grew fidgety.

“Yes, Gabrielle,” Prudence continued. “Your dress is very itchy. So uncomfortable. You need to take it off, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle said. Her voice was thick and guttural, not at all suitable for issuing royal proclamations.

“You need to take your dress off, Gabrielle,” Prudence said. “But it’s so uncomfortable that you find yourself unable to go to your room. Climbing all of those stairs in this uncomfortable dress would be so difficult. Climbing those stairs is impossible.”

“Impossible,” the queen muttered.

“You cannot stand this dress, and you cannot climb the stairs,” Prudence said. Though her words seemed urgent, they were made in the same tone as she’d used from the beginning of the trance. In that pleasant, soothing, bedtime-story tone she said, “You must take off your dress now.”

Gabrielle sighed. Her arms twitched at the elbows and the wrists, but she made no obvious move to disrobe. Now this, Prudence thought, is the sort of resistance I expect. She decided to push a little further.

“Gabrielle, I’m going to count to three,” the hypnotist said. “On three you will stand up and remove your uncomfortable dress, and go upstairs to change. One, two, three.”

As she was finishing the count, Prudence wondered if she should snap her fingers as well, but she need not have worried. Gabrielle stood smoothly and began undoing the various knots that tied her dress together. Too late, Prudence realized that the queen had not been resisting the suggestion a moment ago; she had been so relaxed that she lacked the strength to undress. Once ordered to have that much strength, she was happy to comply.

“Is this part of the plan?” Angela said, employing the same nervous curiosity with which a hiker might ask, Do you think those mushrooms are poisonous?

Prudence opened her mouth and nothing came out. Her jaw simply hung open. Her first impulse was to say simply, Shit. But how could she know that the queen would not obey that suggestion as well?

In the space of a minute, Queen Gabrielle stood before them fully nude. Prudence was struck at how muscular she was, with noticeable biceps and thin but powerful-looking ropes up and down her sides. Prudence had always assumed that royalty was a job for the scrawny and the obese, what with all of the servants about. The royal vagina was neatly shaven; Prudence wondered if the queen did that duty herself.

There was a dagger strapped to one of Gabrielle’s forearms, hidden from view to anyone during the day. Prudence presumed this to be a gift from the Lady of the Fire, a fine tool for driving off uncouth suitors.

Gabrielle opened her eyes. The gray irises of de Vess were pointed in Prudence’s direction, but the queen was not looking at her, nor at anything else in particular. Gabrielle pivoted on the balls of her feet and walked to the door. She grabbed the door handle and gave a tug strong enough to throw it open.

Watching this weird, surreal display which was counter to everything she knew about hypnosis, Prudence could only realize that this queen, unlike every duke and prince Prudence had ever met, had no servant to open doors for her. Maybe it’s a tradition here, she thought randomly.

The door opened a foot at most, before Angela caught it in one hand. Gabrielle did not react to this in any way; she simply continued to tug on the door handle, as though the door had stuck.

As she pushed back gently against each of the queen’s attempts to open the door, Angela said dryly, “I suppose this has never happened before.”

“It has not,” Prudence said. The statement was true. No subject had ever responded to such a potentially embarrassing suggestion. Not even Adrienne had responded like this, and her trance had been so deep that—

With effort that was noticeable to Angela, Prudence forced the thought away. She said, “Gabrielle, I’m going to count to three again. On three, you will come out of your trance, feeling awake and alert. One, two, three.”

This time Prudence did snap her fingers. Gabrielle started at the sound, hard, as a servant might jump if a plate was thrown on the floor. She inhaled sharply, gasping for air, which the scientist in Prudence’s mind also noted. Everyone’s breathing slowed down in trance, but this was another case where the queen’s reactions were stronger than any Prudence had seen before. The gray eyes squeezed shut for a moment, then opened wide. She first saw Angela’s hand on the door in front of her, and turned to look at her friend.

“Angela?” Gabrielle said, her voice still slightly blurred from trance. “When did it get so cold in—“

The other two women both saw the recognition hit her at the same time. Gabrielle’s face turned a bright red, and the blush quickly spread down over her body. She turned away slightly, enough that her vagina was angled away from Prudence’s gaze, but not so much that she could not look her hypnotist in the eye.

Throwing her arms demurely over her breasts, the queen said, “What. Are you. Doing?!”

“I’m so sorry, m’lady,” Prudence said, aiming her eyes at the floor. “I had expected you to refuse the suggestion to disrobe—“

“You expected me to refuse?” Gabrielle scoffed. “At what point have I ever refused you anything?”

“Gabby, you were never in danger,” Angela said, reaching out to put a calming hand on the queen’s shoulder.

“And you!” Gabrielle cried. She knocked away Angela’s hand, awkwardly, as she tried to keep her breasts covered at the same time. “What sort of protection is this? What if she had told me to stab myself with my own dagger?”

“M’lady, it doesn’t work that way,” Prudence said. She would have gone on to explain, but Gabrielle was not interested.

“If I am to have any discussion about how this works, I shall do so while fully clothed,” the queen said, her anger turning the last two words into a hiss. “Out, both of you! Leave me be!”

“Yes, my queen,” Angela said, and shot a look at Prudence: do not argue. Prudence took the hint, even taking pains to avert her eyes from the queen’s naked body as she left.

Angela and Prudence closed the door behind them, walked down a hall, rounded a corner, walked down another hall, and climbed a flight of steps, before Angela stopped and gave the hypnotist a frank look. “What does this mean?” she said.

Her tone was not accusatory, but Prudence felt the urge to defend herself all the same. “I have done that trick many times before,” she said. “Everyone else resisted the suggestion to disrobe. When I pushed it, they woke up, angry.”

“Let’s say I believe you,” Angela said. “You didn’t answer my question. What does this mean?”

Prudence felt more comfortable around Angela now than she had at first, but a small voice in her head reminded her, if you lie, she might kill you. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “Her mind works in a way that I’ve never seen before.”

“Listen to me,” Angela said. “I have killed men in Gabby’s defense. Never has she questioned my skill or my discipline. Not until just now. So from where I stand, it looks like you are creating more problems than you solve.”

Prudence wanted to say, I cured the sleepwalking, remember? But of course Angela already thought that the sleepwalking had been the fault of hypnotism. Instead she said, “I am not being reckless. This is a unique situation and I am bringing all of my experience to bear on it. You must believe me.”

“At this point,” Angela said, “I am not the one who needs the most convincing.”

“Floating among the stars,” Gabrielle said, watching Cassiopeia in the crystal.

After dressing, she had stalked out of the castle and gone to the Seers’ tower. If anyone had asked, she would not have been able to describe what drove her to the Seers, especially at such an odd time in the evening. But she had felt let down by Angela and Prudence both, which left few options. Even if the Seers are rubbish, she thought, they are reliable rubbish. I won’t wake up nude in the middle of a reading.

She had no idea how many times Cian had watched her stare into the crystal, just as she was staring now, and fantasized about that very thing.

“You’re doing so well, Gabrielle,” Cian said, pushing the fantasy aside. He knew his libido could easily ruin the long game he was playing here. “How are you feeling?”

Gabrielle blinked. A slight amount of tension appeared on her brow, which would have translated to deep furrows on any conscious person. “Confused,” she said. “Be ... betrayed.”

Cian glanced at his fellows, each of whom gave him an approving nod. All was just as they had hoped for after the last session. “I am here to listen, Gabrielle,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

Gabrielle relayed all of the details of the session with Prudence. She spoke in a flat and disinterested voice, a town crier bored by a day of little news. None of the emotions she had felt at the time crept into her retelling.

Cian was frowning throughout the details of the session. After Gabrielle was done, he said, “You’re doing so well, Gabrielle. I must talk with my brothers. Until I return, let yourself drift among the stars.”

“Stars,” Gabrielle said, her brow once again smooth.

Cian walked to a place along the wall furthest from her, where the other Seers could join him and speak in hushed voices that would be ignored by the entranced woman.

As always, the other two Seers could read Cian’s emotions like a book. “What’s wrong?” Cu asked. “We wanted distrust. She distrusts the hypnotist, and is angry at Angela in the bargain. Is it not perfect?”

“No,” Cian said. “I’ve made a mistake.”

“Mistake?” Cethe, pale even in his best days, looked positively translucent. “We’re doomed.”

“Explain,” Cu said grimly.

“The whole point of planting distrust against this Prudence was so that Prudence would be unable to hypnotize her,” Cian said. “But she went under anyway. Prudence may be more skilled than I expected.”

“So?” Cethe said. “If we plant more distrust, eventually it will work.”

“We don’t have time,” Cian said. “That trick with making the queen strip her clothing, it is meant to test the queen’s defenses. She was supposed to resist the urge to strip, but we have undermined her defenses so deeply that she could not resist. The hypnotist will be suspicious.”

“What do we do?” Cethe said. He seemed to be right at the edge of panic, but that was relatively reserved, by his standards.

“This Prudence must be dealt with,” Cu said. “It’s mere luck that she doesn’t know about us already.”

“My mistake was trying to drive a wedge between them,” Cian said. “In fact we should deepen their trust. If Prudence thinks nothing is wrong, we can catch her unaware; but if the queen thinks Prudence is betraying her, all three women will have their guard up.”

“I’m not even sure she feels betrayed,” Cu said darkly. “The first thing she said was, she felt ‘confused.’ I want to know what that means.”

Cian nodded. This was why he needed the other two men; Cu’s aggression and Cethe’s panic often led him to see angles he would not be able to find on his own. They broke their circle and returned to their places in the act.

“Feeling so calm and comfortable, Gabrielle,” Cian said from across the table. “You said before that you felt confused. Can you tell me what confused you?”

Gabrielle sighed again. “Her eyes,” she said.

“Prudence’s eyes?” Cian said, momentarily forgetting that his tone of voice would not be enough to make his question explicit.

“Prudence’s eyes,” Gabrielle echoed, as she had been programmed to do if she did not understand.

“How do her eyes make you feel?” Cian said, straining against his own nervousness, trying to sound casual and soothing.

“I look at them and my bones turn into clay,” the queen said. “There’s a moment that I get nervous, because I don’t know where I will be when I wake up. But I can’t say no to her eyes. They’re so beautiful.”

The emphasis she put on this last word was the selling point: it was possible from only a bad actress playing Juliet, or a young woman experiencing her first true love. All three Seers paused to look at each other, eyes wide as saucers. None of them had even considered this possibility.

Had Gabrielle been fully conscious, she might have scoffed and said, Men!

“I understand, Gabrielle,” Cian said. “You are upset that she abused your trust. But I think you’ll find that she wants to help you. If you ask her about people she has hypnotized in the past, you’ll find that she wants to help you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Gabrielle, when I count to three, you will return to your bedchamber and prepare for bed as you normally do. When your head touches the pillow you will fall into the deepest sleep. One, two, three.”

The gray eyes of de Vess opened, staring at seemingly nothing, and Gabrielle walked out of the chamber without another word. There was at least a full minute of silence between the Seers before Cethe said, “what in the hell do we do about that?”

Two servants saw Gabrielle during her walk from the Seers’ tower to her bedchamber. Both noticed the oddly distant look about her, and gossiped about it the next day. This gossip would, in time, reach dangerous ears indeed.

A few hours later, Gabrielle was back in the dream-hallway again. She was nude, as she had been during the last dream, but this time she was alone. She looked over her shoulder to see the large, heavily reinforced door. The door had been well-finished, and the firelight gleamed off of it as though it were made of steel instead of wood.

As she was looking at the door, something impacted it from the inside, hard. The heavy crossbars which held the door in place shivered. There was a sliding sound from inside the room, and then the Thing inside the room slammed into the door, hard enough to make the crossbars jump a few inches in their brackets.

Gabrielle spun away from the door, only to receive an even bigger shock when she saw that Morphelia the cat was back in the hallway. This time, the cat was huge. She seemed to fill the entire hall; when she lifted her head, her flexible cat earlobes bent against the ceiling. Her purr was a basso rumble that Gabrielle could feel in her own chest.

Gabrielle pistoned her feet against the stone floor, skidding backward on her butt, away from the giant feline. The great Thing behind the door was all but forgotten.

“Don’t be afraid,” the cat said. It licked one of its paws, the pink tongue wider than Gabrielle’s entire torso.

Gabrielle froze, as though the cat would forget about her if she held still. “Why not?” she said. “I must look like a mouse to you.”

“I’m not the one you should worry about,” Morphelia said. The purring continued; Gabrielle did not ask herself how a giant cat could purr and talk at the same time. “Worry about Him.”

As if on cue, the Thing slammed itself against the door again. Gabrielle had no frame of reference for what sort of Thing it could be. When it slid against the floor she thought of a snake, but she had never heard of a snake throwing its weight around like that.

“He’s locked up behind a door,” Gabrielle said. “You’re right here, looking at me like I’m a mouse.”

“Would a cat talk to you before it ate you?” Morphelia said. It was the sort of statement that made more sense in a dream than awake.

“What do you want?” Gabrielle said.

“That door’s not going to hold Him forever,” the cat said.

“Yes?” Gabrielle said, expecting more. “And?”

“That door’s not going to hold Him forever,” the cat said. It resumed licking its paw, as though the discussion was closed.

Gabrielle looked into the cat’s eyes, as big as dinner plates. She had no word to describe that shade of blue. They were so beautiful.

She might have started masturbating again, like the last dream, but her whole body was still too heavy from the trance at the Seers’ tower. Instead, she simply lost herself in the impossibly blue eyes until she passed into deeper sleep.