The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

CHAPTER 11

It’d been a month since anyone had heard from my sister. We weren’t particularly close, me and her, but I knew she kept in regular contact with Mom. It was her who put me on the hunt. The text came in early in the morning, a few hours before I awoke: “Hey Charlie: I’m worried about Hannah. Her phone goes straight to voicemail. Last spoke on the sixth, I think. Can you check up on her? Maybe I said something?”

It was totally possible. Mom was a complete suck, but my sister was a sour grape. A total prude. We’d never gotten along, and though I lived we lived in the same city, the only times our paths crossed, save the one occasion we caught each other by surprise on the subway, was at Mom and Dad’s, for visits or Christmas or whatever. I didn’t hate my sister. We just didn’t have anything in common.

“Can do, ma. You sure she’d wanna hear from me tho?”

If you were to ask Hannah, though, it’s entirely possible she’d tell you she hated me. Growing up, her being a couple years my senior, I’m guessing (actually, I’m certain, as she made a point of telling me as frequently as we crossed paths in the hallway) I was an embarrassment to her. Our highschool was small, nowhere near as cliquey as the all-American stereotypes you grow up with on TV, but the analogy works to get my point across. She was popular. Pretty. Well-liked and hard-working. Not a track-star, but competed, and second in line for valedictorian. I’m pretty sure she had a speech ready on graduation day, just in case Tom Schneider was sick or something.

And I wasn’t. I never found my way the way she seemed to, and though we got along as little kids, it felt like she gave up on me around the time I was starting to give up on myself. That’s all in the past, of course—I’m not saying I hold any of this against her or something—but I think it really set the tone for the women we’d become in our twenties, and the relationship, if that’s what you could call it, we carried on today. She was really killing it, says Mom, until this pandemic through a wrench in the gears. I have no doubt that she’ll pick up where she left off when it cools down.

“Of course, sweetie. You know your sister loves you, and so do Dad and I. When you see her, tell her to give me a call.”

And me? I’m still finding my way, I guess. Not much to keep me busy, these days, but plenty of time to work on my art. The coffeeshop will be closed for a few more weeks, no doubt, so I guess that gives me time to solve “The Case of the Missing Daughter”.

“K mom. Love you.”

Moms who live in the suburbs assume that those who reside in the city all live within a three-block radius of one another. In reality, I could probably drive to my parents’ place in about the same time it took me to reach Hannah’s apartment via public transit. I remember the spot, having helped her move in.

“Hey Han, mom’s worried about u. Call her?”

I sent the text and reached for the laptop on the floor next to me. If I could send Mom a screenshot of something Hannah’d posted to Facebook or something, maybe that’d put her mind at ease and save me the trip.

When ten minutes had passed and I’d received no reply, I gave up on pining for a quick solution on that avenue. Hannah was, among many other things, punctual. On the rare occasions we exchanged digital pleasantries, she provided the first, last, and most of the middle words. Her text message and, if I remember correctly, email etiquette was prompt and terse when aimed in my direction. Spell checked and pointed correctly, if I didn’t hear back from her right away, it was worth betting I wouldn’t hear back from her at all.

“Cellphone’s baffed,” I wondered aloud, clicking through to her Facebook profile. “And maybe she can’t find a replacement in the lockdown?” It seemed plausible enough, but that didn’t explain all these pictures—a burst of them, posted three weeks ago. Was my sister usually this active on social media? I selected the first one, dated “June sixth” and was taken aback when Hannah’s beaming face filled my computer screen.