The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The following morning was, mercifully, a little less remarkable. Janet was up with the crack of dawn?—her alarm set for 5:30?—and after a morning run around the block, up the hill and back, followed by a half-hour of core-focussed yoga, she heard Owen begin his morning ritual. He’d already hit the snooze button twice, and showed no sign of rising to this occasion. Before his slump, Owen could usually be counted upon to join his wife for breakfast. These days were hit and miss. Janet paused and listened to for his footsteps. “He just needs a little more time,” she resigned, “that’s all.”

And that was true. Janet reserved ten minutes for her habitually quick, cold shower (she only allowed herself to indulge in hot water on the weekends) and by the time she was back downstairs filling the kettle, she heard his alarm ring a final time, click off, and his sheets rustle, followed by the creak of weight on the upstairs floorboards. She filled the coffee-maker, threw a few scoops in a filter, and beeped the machine into action. Set out a second mug.

Water heating up, the towel-wrapped woman reached into the cupboard above the stove exhaust and pulled out her sizable basket of vitamins and minerals. A morning routine of her own, and one she relished with the feeling that it was improving her. Muscles limber from her run, tendons pulled comfortably by her stretches, all her body craved now was the placebo satisfaction of Beta-Carotene, Palmitate, Cholecalciferol, Calcium Ascorbate, B12, Folic Acid, Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc, Iron, Iodine, Equine Enhancement, Potassium Citrate, Fish Oil, and Manganese. She filled her palm, container by container?—muscle memory, at this point?—and popped the whole medley in her mouth. Gulped. By the time Owen reached the bottom of the stairs, she was swishing a combination of water and apple cider vinegar around her tongue, passing it cheek to cheek.

“Morning,” Owen yawned. He plunked himself in a seat at the island, scratching the back of his neck and observing his wife leaning against the countertop with a sour expression on her face.

She intoned a “Mm mm” in response, mouth occupied.

Coffee bubbled and dripped behind him. “For me?” he smiled.

Janet winked, nodded.

“Thanks for starting that for me, sweetie.” Standing, he pecked his wife on her distended cheek before pouring himself a hot cup. Behind him, she turned the water on to hide the sounds of her spitting in the sink, rinsing her mouth. He turned and chuckled: “Everything okay? Am I that disgusting before a shower?”

Janet wiped her mouth on a nearby tea-towel, now her turn to laugh. “No, Owen,” she smiled. “My pills just tasted awful thismorning, I have no clue why. Maybe one of them is going bad or something.” She flicked the stovetop off, hearing the kettle reach its boil and lifting it before it could rise to a scream. She was filling her mug with steaming water, the smell of steeping green leaves rising, when Owen finished his sip of coffee and spoke.

“Maybe it was that new one. Equinase or something?”

Janet furrowed her brow, joined him at the table with two coasters (he always neglected his). “New one?” She slid a cork square to his side of the island.

He accepted it without notice. “Yeah, it arrived on the doorstep yesterday. Equinate? Can’t remember, but figured you’d know. Addressed to you.” He sipped. “Forgot to tell you that I put it up there with all your other supplements.”

“Oh,” Janet recalled ordering something the day prior, forgetting entirely about their “Same Day Delivery!” guarantee. And then again, Janet recalled what she had ordered, and what it was supposed to do.

“Oh…”

The embarrassing situation in which Janet stumbled wasn’t an especially complicated one, but she found herself unable to begin an explanation. To do so would be to confront their marriage in descent, Owen’s physical and social failures, Janet’s rising frustrations. These challenges had been informing the couple’s conversations, decisions, and actions for at least the last month or so, but to point so candidly to the elephant in the room would be to break through an unspoken cease-fire. It would be to acknowledge the distance between them, and in doing so, broach the question: was it surmountable?

“So this is supposed to do what exactly?” Owen held the supplement container in-hand, his expression unreadable.

Janet had to admit that she didn’t know exactly what, if those were the parameters of the question. “Reclaim your virility, I think it said?” She spoke tenuously, afraid that this implicit challenge to his manhood would spark the kind of defensive vindictiveness she knew men cornered in this way were capable of. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first,” she began, Owen unscrewing the cap and holding it up to his nose. “I just thought that maybe—”

“—yugh!” His face contorted in a sour expression. “You seriously swallowed one of these? They smell like donkey piss!” He placed the container back on the table, cap off, and slid it an arm’s length away, hastily filling his mouth with coffee to cleanse his pallet.

Janet sucked her teeth, clearly worried. “Do you think it’ll hurt me? I don’t think they’re intended for women.”

Her husband studied the sparse packaging—they had already determined there were no listed ingredients, and the single line of text, “EQUINE ENHANCEMENT! YEE-HAW!!”, didn’t offer much in the way of help. “I’m sure they’re just sugar pills, or something. Or a multivitamin.”

“Sugar pills that smell like ‘donkey piss’?” She wasn’t convinced.

Owen pulled them back towards him, tapped a few into his palm. “They look like any other normal pill, don’t they?”

Janet had to admit that they did. That’s how they’d mixed so easily into her smorgasbord of other supplements.

“Here.” Owen took a single little yellow pill between his fingers and popped it in his mouth. He scraped the rest of them back in the plastic jar and spoke around his bitter capsule. “Now iph it shcrews wiff you, it’ll shcrew wiff me too!” He gulped, and washed the taste down with the last of his coffee. “Ugh, that’s horrible.”

The gesture was strangely romantic. Janet just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite them.