The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The price of success for me was that I had to come in to work Thursday after flying home Wednesday evening. I’d been meaning to take the rest of the week off—especially Friday, which was the day of my mediation session with Nina—but Chad’s ouster forced a slight change in priorities.

Leah spotted me on my way in and greeted me with mock bows. “Oh great and exalted editor!”

“Please, Leah, you’re embarrassing me. ‘Your Lordship’ will do.”

She giggled. “I just hope you remember the little people who helped get you there, Your Lordship.”

“And I hope you have some juicy details for me on how all this came about,” I countered.

“I’ve done a little research. Buy me a drink after work and I might get loose-lipped.”

“Okay, you’re on. Sullivan’s?”

“Why not?”

At Gayle’s request I went straight to her office first. We talked about what my new duties would be—no surprises there—and then she formally presented me to the team as their new editor. It’s a good group; they clapped for me and seemed genuinely happy, though it may also have been relief that Chad was gone. I’d have been pretty happy in their position no matter who the replacement was.

Since the promotion was technically interim I didn’t bother moving into Chad’s cube/office. My regular desk, right in the middle of the people who now worked for me, would do just fine. Instead I turned Chad’s space into a temporary war room for me and Melissa to work on CES stories. We sat on opposite sides of the desk with our netbooks to collaborate on the main story and divided up the sidebars and interview pieces to do individually.

Melissa’s attitude was interesting. Away from Vegas her manner was still friendly but now, instead of flirting and making cute innuendos, she was all business. Nothing in her behavior or speech reflected that we’d just spent five nights doing the horizontal mambo together. And after spending the week working with her, I had to admit the girl could write.

When I wasn’t working with Melissa that day I was with the other writers, going over their assignments and deadlines and getting my head around the editorial calendar. I even had to skip lunch with Joe in favor of delivery. Before I knew it the day was over and people were filing out.

A lot of those people ended up at Sullivan’s, a pub around the corner that was our favorite location for office social gatherings. A lot of retirement parties had ended up there, along with birthdays and anniversaries and what-the-fuck-it’s-Fridays. So I was more or less prepared to walk in there with Leah and find half the office crew already gathered and a big WAY TO GO, SAM banner posted on the wall. It still got me a little teary, though.

As the happy hour progressed I’ll admit I watched Melissa closely. If a few drinks had been enough to get her into bed with Chad, I had to figure that it wouldn’t take much to get her talking about Vegas. She did well, though—the only stories she told had nothing to do with our extracurricular activities. Perhaps I was getting better at using the power, I mused.

“She was fucking him, you know.”

Leah had quietly appeared in the seat to my right. From the look of her she’d had her drink and then a couple. “Excuse me?”

“Chad,” Leah elaborated, pointing openly at Melissa. “She was fucking him.”

Feigning surprise seemed like the best move. “Really?”

“For a couple of months now. That’s probably how she earned the CES trip.”

I felt a sudden paternal need to defend Melissa. “She did a good job, though. Is that why Chad got the boot?”

“Maybe partly. She must not be that good, though, ‘cause word is that His Nibs was spending his day surfing porn sites and hanging out in sleazy chatrooms. He even used his company credit card to join a hookup club.”

Having started out playing innocent, I figured I should continue. “A what?”

“It’s like a dating site,” she explained, “except it’s just about one-night stands. Accounting saw the charge, checked out the site, and then got IT involved.”

“Ah ... hence the early morning visit by Owen.”

Leah aimed a light punch at my shoulder and almost missed. “Bingo.”

“You’re blitzed,” I said. “How did you plan on getting home?”

“I’m fine, Boss. A little fresh air will clear my head for the drive home.”

“Negative.” I reached out with my magic hand and placed it on Leah’s forearm. “You’re going to give me your car keys now and take a cab home.” The sight of her face going blank got Sam Junior’s attention; I had to let go fast before my mind went into the gutter.

I stuck with Leah long enough to get her into a cab and headed home. For a moment I considered calling up Audrey for a spur-of-the-moment dinner date, but no. My appointment with the mediator was the next day; in less than 24 hours I’d be in the blissful embrace of my wife once again. Audrey had served her purpose.

Even as I finished that thought, though, I felt a tweak in my conscience. Audrey was still hung up on me, thanks to the power. I needed to cut her loose cleanly, for her sake and for mine. A quick phone call confirmed that she was home and had no plans.

Audrey opened the door on the first knock. She wore a clingy tank top and a gauzy skirt that swished invitingly when she walked. Her hair was neatly arranged and her makeup subtle and clean. “Is all this for my benefit?”

She blushed. “I guess I need to pretend harder that I wasn’t hoping you’d call. A drink?”

“No thanks. Actually, Audrey, we need to talk.”

The seriousness of my tone was not lost on her. “In that case, I think I’d better have a drink.”

She poured herself a glass of wine, took a long pull from it, and topped off the glass before coming into the living room. She curled herself up on the end of the sofa, facing me, and cradled the wine glass in her hands. “Ready.”

Audrey was so obviously bracing herself to be dumped. I looked at her, felt my heart go heavy, and trashed my original plan. “Audrey,” I began, “I need to tell you some things you’re going to have trouble believing. Just hear me out, okay?”

And then, in a long stream of words, I laid out the whole story. I told her about the power, about how Joe had compelled her to feel attracted to me, how he’d passed the power to me, and how I’d been using it to turn my life around (but not about my sleeping with Alice and Melissa—I do have some sense of decency). I explained how the power affected me and apologized as sincerely as I could for taking advantage of her with it. I even told her how I planned to use the power to get Nina back.

She listened quietly, obviously suspending disbelief. I watched her face run the gamut of emotions as she digested it all. Minutes passed in silence. Then Audrey sobbed. Instinctively I reached for her.

“Don’t touch me!” She leapt from the couch, dropping her now-empty wine glass, and backed away toward the kitchen.

“Audrey ...”

“Stop it, Sam. You’ve said enough. More than enough. I think you should just go now.”

Great job, Sammy-boy, I thought, and slinked out the door in shame.

A night’s sleep restored my sense of purpose. After all, Audrey had plenty of reason to think of me as a monster. All things considered, her reaction had actually been pretty mild. She could hate me if she wanted to—I probably would in her position—but at least the relationship, if you could call it that, was now clearly over.

The mediation office was named, with no apparent sense of irony, The Couples’ Empowerment Center. I snorted a little as I opened the door to Suite 8330 a full 45 minutes before our 9:00am appointment time. I wanted to be there, preferably in an unobtrusive corner of the waiting area, when Nina arrived.

I walked in and started toward a seat near the door, where I wouldn’t be visible until after Nina had entered, only to have the receptionist stop me. “Can I help you?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m ridiculously early, I’m afraid. Friday morning traffic wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

The cute brunette looked at her appointment book. “Are you Mr. Maskell, then?”

I did my best to look harmless. “Guilty.”

“You are pretty early. Can I get you anything while you wait?”

“I’m fine,” I told her. “I’ll just borrow a magazine or three off the table here.”

The time dragged like you wouldn’t believe. I went through two issues of Sports Illustrated, a Field & Stream, and was desperate enough to consider the Redbook on the end table when a friendly-looking lady in casual clothes came out from an inner office. “Sam?”

“That’s me,” I said.

“I thought so. I’m Margie Hindle. Would you like to come with me, please, so we can get started?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Nina? My wife, that is?”

Margie gave me a disarming smile. “Nina’s already here. My partner Dave is with her now. This way, please.”

Before I even realized it I was out of the chair and following Margie down the inner hall. The lady was good at leading people, obviously, but my mind was still on something else. “Nina’s already here? What did she do, teleport in?”

She rewarded me with a chuckle. “That’s good. No, we haven’t found a reliable system for that just yet, so instead we maintain two waiting areas with separate entrances and suite numbers. It helps to avoid awkward scenes. Not every couple is as mature about these things as you and Nina.”

I suppressed a bitter urge to laugh back. Nina had been ducking my emails and phone calls for a month now. If that was mature, I’d hate to see what passed for childish in Margie and Dave’s world.

Margie led me to a room that looked reminiscent of a shrink’s office. There was a rolltop desk in the corner and several bookcases full of titles on conflict resolution, negotiation, and relationships. A small sideboard held a mini refrigerator, a box of pastries, and a supply of paper plates, cups, and napkins. Instead of the customary couch and chair, though, there were two leather sofas set at right angles to each other. One was empty; the other held a friendly-looking guy in shirt, tie, and jeans—presumably Dave—and Nina.

I approached Nina with my hand out, trying to keep my heart out of my throat, and almost walked right into the glass-topped coffee table between us. Nina shrank back from me a little with a suspicious look. Dave jumped up, though, and offered me his hand across the table. “Dave Foreman,” he said as he pumped my hand.

I kept my thoughts to myself to avoid having him go suddenly blank. “A pleasure. And it’s good to see you, too, Nina.”

Nina nodded to me but still didn’t take my hand. Patience, I told myself.

The session started with Margie and Dave talking about how it was in both of our interests to set aside whatever suspicions or fears we may have had and sincerely work toward finding things we could agree on. Margie sat on the second sofa, with her and Dave on the inside corners and me and Nina on the outside. As they droned on about the process I reflected that this situation was about as bad for my purposes as it could get. In order to touch Nina I’d have to get up and cover six feet of distance, either climbing over the coffee table or walking around it. No way could I do that casually. And while Dave and Margie seemed harmless enough, I suspected that if I made a move that looked too deliberate toward Nina they’d find a way to block it.

Instead I focused on gaining their trust by cooperating with the process. Dave took notes on a legal pad while Margie led me and Nina through building a list of “points of agreement”—her term for things we had to address in our negotiations to make sure we were dividing things up reasonably. Ah, the power of language to obscure true meaning!

The first “point of agreement,” of course, was my insistence that there shouldn’t be a divorce in the first place; that Nina should agree to work with me on our differences instead of just cutting and running. Dave skillfully went to work on that one. “Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” he said, “so it harms nothing to let that point go until we see how much else we can agree on.” And I had to give him that. We tabled that item until the end.

That actually made the session much easier for me, because I knew it was all an academic exercise. It cost me nothing to yield to Nina on a few items—letting her have a share of my 401k, for instance—because I knew that everything would eventually hinge on that first point. Win that and everything else would become moot.

At about 11:30 the receptionist came in with a platter of little sandwiches, a veggie tray, and a few water bottles. Considering Nina and I had each kicked in $500 for this session, I indulged freely. Nina hung back until Dave gently nudged her into picking something off the tray.

“Oops,” I noted as she was loading her plate, “I forgot to grab a napkin. Nina, would you mind please?” And I held my hand out to her.

She was about to go for it, too, but then Margie reached right over and dropped two in my lap. “Here, Sam, I have extras.” Nina put the napkins back down and retreated to her corner of the other couch again. So close!

After we ate, Dave flipped through his legal pad and recapped the discussion. We’d reached agreement on the 401k, the joint credit cards, alimony (none requested), visitation with Jenny (basically, Nina agreeing that Jenny can visit me when she wants to), and division of household property. The only point left to discuss was the real sticking point for me: getting Nina to reconsider the whole process. Margie suggested that I state my case, and then give Nina equal time to state hers.

“My case is very simple,” I said directly to Nina. “I love you. I’ve loved you since soon after we first met. I’m a good husband and a good stepfather for Jenny. I still don’t understand why we’re here at all, Nina. We didn’t fight, we didn’t cheat on each other.” I choked back any reference to Ron, knowing she’d probably started sleeping with him before I knew about it. “You just ... shut me out. It hasn’t even been two years yet since we took the vows; I think we owe it to each other to try harder and make this work.”

“So what you’re saying, Sam,” Dave summarized, “is that you feel Nina is giving up too quickly. You want her to, what? Agree to some counseling with you?”

“That would be a good start,” I conceded. “If she’ll just meet me halfway on this I don’t think anything is so broken we can’t fix it. Getting divorced is a mistake.”

“I am fixing it,” Nina insisted. “Sam, you need to realize that it was getting married in the first place that was the mistake. It’s my fault, really. I knew you loved me, and I thought that I needed you and that needing you was close enough. But it isn’t. I was taking advantage of your kindness, and making it easier for me to live without my ex, and providing a father figure for Jenny. None of those things are reasons to be married, even to someone who loves you.

“And then I met Ron, and I really did fall in love. I know you don’t like him, and I can’t blame you for that. Understand, though, that I feel about him the way you say you feel about me. No amount of marriage counseling is going to change that, Sam. We just aren’t meant to be. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. You’ll meet someone else, too, but first you have to let me go.”

Margie cleared her throat. “You’ve each heard the other’s viewpoint on this. Sam, I know this is hard for you to listen to, but if Nina is adamant that she’s not going to change her mind, that limits your options to just two. You can keep fighting this, and let a judge who doesn’t know either of you arbitrarily decide how this divorce is going to be done. Or you can take the agreement points you’ve worked out here and decide your own fate, within the limits of what’s possible. It will be a lot faster, cleaner, and less traumatic for both of you if you take the second option. I think you’re a smart guy, Sam, and deep down you already know the right thing to do here. You just need to do it.”

She was good. Painted that way, for a second or two I really did want to agree with her. And then I thought of an even better reason. “One condition,” I said.

Dave smiled. “And what’s that, Sam?”

“I want Nina to shake my hand on it.”

Nina looked more surprised than anyone. “That’s it? I shake your hand and you’ll agree to everything else?”

“If that’s really what you want, yes.”

She still looked unsure. “I’m looking for a catch. That’s just too simple.”

“No catch,” I assured her. “Dave and Margie made good points, and so did you. Will you shake on it?” I stood up and moved halfway across to her, stopping at the edge of the coffee table, and waited.

Nina looked at Dave and Margie as if for a cue. They both nodded at her, so she stood up and reached across the coffee table with a hand. My right hand closed over hers and the thrill of victory swept through me. I squeezed lightly, looked into her open eyes, and said, “Stay with m—”

The words choked off because right then somebody caved in the back of my skull with a cast iron skillet or something. I staggered backward, banged against the sideboard, and landed on my ass in a heap. A couple of water bottles rolled off and fell into my lap.

“Sam, are you all right?” Margie’s face was hovering over me. “Should we call 911?”

“No, I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute.” As the room stopped spinning I looked across at Nina, who had returned to her seat on the couch. A hand went to her hair as if to brush it out of her face, but there was no mistaking the triumphant smirk it was hiding from Dave’s view.

She knew! She fucking knew! My inner voice repeated those words like a mantra while the pieces fell together in my head. I knew then why I had fallen so hard for someone so different from me; married someone after knowing her such a short time; found it nearly impossible to deny her anything she asked, to the point where Jenny even noted my lack of backbone. Joe had said he couldn’t tell me who had given him the power. I could take a gander as to why at that point.

Margie had gone for smelling salts or something, leaving me on the floor with Dave and Nina across from me. Dave looked a little scared but also unsure of what to do. Nina, on the other hand, was perfectly composed. “Damned Joe,” she mused softly. “I should’ve known he’d pass it to you when the time came.”

I climbed back to my feet with the aid of the coffee table and sideboard. I started to lurch a little toward Dave when I heard Nina again. “A deal is a deal, Sam. I shook.”

So instead of putting a hand on Dave I plopped onto the sofa. I searched my aching mind for an idea, any idea, and came up empty. “All right, Nina,” I sighed, “you win.”

I had taken the whole day off figuring I’d spend the afternoon making love with Nina at my house. Instead I drove home with the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. And what a defeat: not only had I failed to win Nina back, but my impulsive honesty with Audrey suddenly seemed like the stupidest thing I’d done since getting the power in the first place.

I’d taken quite a liking to Audrey since meeting her. Had I known that Nina would be immune to the power ... oh, well. Too late now. Unless I could sneak up on Audrey from behind, before she realized I was there, and touch ...?

No, came the voice of my bloodied conscience. You fucked up. Accept it and move on.

As I approached the house, I noticed Joe’s car parked on the street. There was nobody in it, but Joe had a key and standing permission to use it so it was no surprise when I found him sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. The surprise was that he wasn’t alone.

“Hi, Sam,” Audrey said with a weak smile. “We, umm, need to talk.”

No clever comeback came to me. I pulled out the third chair and sat with them, looking from Audrey to Joe and making no attempt to hide my confusion. “I’m all ears.”

“Let me start this.” Joe drained his mug and contemplated the inside for a second. “There’s a lot I still can’t tell you, not because I don’t want to but because I literally can’t.”

“I can guess some of it,” I told him. “Nina gave you the power. But first she used it on you to prevent you from telling me where you got it.”

“That’s right,” Audrey confirmed. “And there’s more than that. But she didn’t prevent him from telling someone else ... like me, for instance.”

“Audrey and I have known each other a while,” Joe confessed. “She and Alice used to be coworkers. It’s been in our heads—Alice’s and mine, that is—that the two of you would be great together once you got free of Nina.”

I looked at them both. “So when you introduced us in the deli that day ...”

“It was arranged,” Audrey confirmed. “Joe had told me about you, what kind of guy you are and a little about your situation. He did a good job; I wanted to meet you. I agreed to keep it casual because you weren’t ready to let go of your wife yet.” Then, with a sidewise glance at Joe that screamed of prior discussion, she added, “I did not agree to having my mind made up for me in advance—but I realize now that I can’t blame you for that, Sam.”

“Okay,” I answered cautiously.

“After you left last night, I was upset. I realized that Joe had to have used that power on me, and that you had been using it on me since then. I called Joe and we had a long talk about why he did that to me. We talked about you and what you were doing as well, and Joe realized that if you tried to use the power on Nina today it wouldn’t work. And then he told me ... well, things that Nina expressly forbade him from ever telling you.”

Joe stood up and put his mug in the dishwasher. “I think it would be better if I wasn’t here for the rest. Sam, will you get Audrey home when she’s ready to go?”

“Of course.”

Joe nodded to us both and left by the kitchen door. Audrey waited to hear his car start up before continuing. “Joe doesn’t know where Nina got the power from. He does know that she got it shortly after she met you and that she used it to get you to fall in love with her and marry her.

“At first, apparently, Nina didn’t realize how strong this power is. She’d latched onto you to keep her in the lifestyle she wanted and to be a role model for Jenny, but as her understanding of the power grew she started looking to upgrade, financially if nothing else, before her year was up. She used the power to seduce Joe, but then she met that guy Ron. Ron has more money than you and Joe put together, is single, and is tolerably good-looking. She set her sights on him and started the process of getting the divorce from you.

“But Nina miscalculated and moved too slowly. Her year ran out and she had to pass on the power to somebody. With no time to really think about it she and gave the power to Joe, figuring she could more or less control him by threatening to tell Alice or you about their affair. If she’d had more time to think about that ... well, maybe it’s better for you that she didn’t.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “So then Joe used the power to patch things up with Alice and get himself set up at work, and passed it on to me.”

“Which is where I come in.” Audrey reached across the table and took my left hand in hers. “Or maybe where we come in. Sam, this has not been a great way to start a relationship. I’m still not entirely sure how I would have felt about you if we’d met in the normal way, without Joe fiddling with my head first. But one thing I did glean from this whole mess is that when you touch me with your right hand without speaking, the power takes your thoughts and feelings and transmits them to me. So if you touched me and made me want to make love to you, it’s because that’s what you wanted. If you touch me now and I feel drawn to you again, it’s because you feel that way about me. Last night I thought you were a rapist; today, after thinking it over, I think maybe you’re exactly what Joe said—a good, decent guy dealing with a bad situation the best way he can.” She put her right hand out toward me. “Show me, Sam. Show me how you really feel.”

Doing my best not to think, I reached over and took her hand in my right hand. My eyes met hers and I just let whatever wanted to happen, happen.

My heart fluttered a little in my chest and I felt myself being drawn into Audrey’s gaze. I remembered the warmth of her embrace, the caring in her voice when she was advising me to let go of Nina, the smooth texture of her skin, the throaty noises she makes when she comes...

We both stood up and kissed across the table. The kiss was loaded with passion and desire and energy. We did our best to keep it going as we rounded the table to embrace, holding and groping each other as if we’d never done it before. Her hands tugged at my clothes and I acted in kind, stripping her shirt off while she worked at my pants.

Mindful of the many windows in my kitchen, we slowly moved toward the bedroom but by the time we made it to the stairs they looked good and private enough for our purpose. I pulled Audrey’s panties off and she yanked my boxers down, leaving us both naked. Audrey lay back against the stairs and opened her legs for me, and that was an invitation I absolutely couldn’t refuse. I tucked her legs over my shoulders and dove in with my mouth, licking and kissing and sucking until her thighs clamped around my head to tell me she was coming.

I let her orgasm pass and then kissed my way up her belly to her breasts, nuzzling first one and then the other. My lips played over her nipples, rolling and stroking against the nibs until they stood out hard and firm again. Audrey’s hand went searching and found Sam Junior in full battle readiness. She pumped me with her hand and pulled me toward her snatch, and I was in no frame of mind to argue with her. I plunged myself inside her and stroked hard, holding her legs and counting on forward momentum to keep me in place. As my cock slid so easily in and out, I watched her face and her breasts and her eyes and then suddenly I wasn’t watching anything because my head jerked back and my cock took over. I felt Audrey clench around me and milk me for every drop. And then, spent and weak, I flopped down on top of her and rolled to one side.

“Wow,” she said after a minute or two. “These stairs are horribly uncomfortable.”

“You’re right,” I laughed. “Let’s see if the bed is any better.”