A Way in a Stranger
I love the holidays. I love the crowds and the people. I love how good will towards men rarely includes the person who just grabbed the item that you yourself wanted. I love the long lines and the harried clerks and the brats tugging on mommy’s sleeve, that is when the little hellions aren’t off running roughshod through the store.
I love it all, and why do you ask, do I love all that? My answer is simple. I love it because in my own little way, I’m perfectly positioned to make amends for some of the basest of human emotions.
That having been said, you might think that I have a stake in promoting some higher ground, that I am a virtuous person. I am not. It’s just that I have my own set of baser emotions and so far, at least, no one’s been able to bring me to task for who or what I am.
It was a cold, winter day and I’d gone to the mall in search of my latest victim.
There were so many choices there that day. There was a group of four girls with three of them picking on the fourth. I didn’t know the girl being picked on but I admired her stoicism as she took what her friends were dishing out. She might even have deserved what her friends were doing but I thought not. Still, some of the girls were young, and since I didn’t do kiddies, I let them pass.
There was a woman who was haranguing her boyfriend, hubby, whatever. Buy me this. Buy me that. Yack, yack, yack. The guy was doing a good job holding out but I had the feeling that the man was wearing down and while toying with her might have been fun, I figured he was as much at fault as she was if he was willing to put up with the shrew.
Of course, it wasn’t just the patrons that I was itching to have my way with. In one store, one salesgirl chatted amiably with another even as a customer tried in vain to get her attention. I thought it would be poetic justice if the salesgirl who couldn’t provide even the slightest amount of attention to someone else suddenly found she was getting more attention that she could ever want from me.
And she probably would have got that, too, if it weren’t for the fact that at that very moment, Tess walked by.
Outwardly, there was nothing about Tess that should have garnered my attention ... well, nothing beyond the obvious assets she had which would have got the attention of any red-blooded male ... but I’ve long since come to the conclusion that good looks alone are not enough to get my attention.
As I said, her name was Tess although I did not know that at the time. In point of fact, I knew very little about her except that she seemed to be minding her own business. That, in and of itself, should have been enough to interest me in her. Usually, I found myself attracted to women who needed to be taught a lesson. Why then, was I attracted to her?
I followed her. It wasn’t that hard, considering how crowded the mall was, and Tess seemed oblivious to the fact that anyone was watching her.
If her choice of stores was any indication, she was searching for something, and more to the point, she was searching for something for a man. That was hardly surprising. After all, as I said before, she was an attractive woman, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she had a man in her life.
I followed her into one store where they sold men’s apparel. I watched discreetly. She asked some questions of a salesman and then she left.
Her next store was an electronics store. She lingered longer here, playing with some of the gadgets in the store, but was clearly interested in them not because they were for her but because they were for someone else, but as before, she moved on without making a purchase.
Her next stop was at a golf store. By this time, I had a feel for Tess. I still didn’t know her or really know anything about her but I knew she was looking because she didn’t know what it was she wanted. I followed her into the shop and when the time was right, I sidled up next to her.
“Excuse me,” she asked, not knowing that it was I that had put that thought in her head. “Excuse me, can I ask you something?”
I looked at her as if I was only then taking notice of her for the very first time, and in a way, that was exactly what was happening. You see, I learned early on that my power is not limitless. It wears me out to use it so I try not to use it as much as possible and when I do use it, I try to make as little changes as possible.
But I’d made her talk to me. She wouldn’t have done that on her own. I was, after all, a stranger, but at that moment, I’d made her talk to me.
She’d meant to ask me about golf tees or some such thing but in that moment when her attention was on me, I took that moment to force her mind open.
She was a stranger in town. She’d come here on a business trip. Her fiancee, the man she was shopping for, he hadn’t liked it that she was coming here, but she’d told him, her company needed her to go.
That was as much as I got.
“Hey, Mister,” she said. “Hey, Mister. Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I was fine,” I told her.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I was fine, I told her again, and really, I was. It’s just that reading people for the first time always does that to me. It does get easier as time goes on.
She put a hand on my arm. “You don’t look fine,” she said.
I was fine, I told her again, and really, as I stood there, I wondered why I was where I was. I mean, I seem compelled to find people who need to be taught a lesson, but Tess, and yes, now I did know her name, Tess didn’t seem to need to be taught a lesson of any sort. She seemed genuinely sweet but I’ve learned that when I think there’s a lesson to be taught, there usually is.
“Okay,” she said uncertainly.
“Perhaps you could help me,” I said.
“All right. What do you need?”
“I seem to have gotten a bit woozy,” I said. That much was definitely true. “I noticed a bench outside the store. If you could help me there ...”
“Sure, sure. No problem,” she said. “What do you need?”
“Just walk with me.”
“Okay.”
She walked me out of the store and she led me to the bench I’d seen. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call for help or something?”
“No, no,” I assured her. “I’m fine.”
Actually, I was more than fine. I’d gotten another glimpse into the girl’s mind.
Her name was Tess Martin. She was twenty-five and she’d been sent here by her company. She was supposed to be checking on work by a supplier but she’d done that and she was flying back the next day. Her fiancee’s name was Bryan and she couldn’t wait to get back to him and for the life of me, I couldn’t see just what the heck kind of lesson she needed to be taught.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
I gave her my best disarming grin. I’m told I look quite boyish when I do it. “I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Well, all right then. I got things to do, so if you’re going to be okay ...”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her.
“Okay then. I guess I’ll be on my way then.”
Now, if you thought I was going to let her get away as easily as that, you haven’t really been paying attention. Getting in was the hard part. Making major changes was the hard part but she was already concerned about me. It wasn’t that hard for me to add something new. “I’ll tell you what,” I said, “how about I help you out.”
She was already concerned about me. All I had to do was tweak her just a bit, make her want to stick around just to make sure if I was okay.
“Help me?” she asked.
“It looks like you were shopping for someone.”
“For my boyfriend.”
“Perhaps I could help you with that,” I said and even as I did it, I made her want to agree with that even more.
“I’d like that,” she said.
“You would, would ya,” I said as I pulled myself up off the bench. “Well then, how about you tell me about this boyfriend of yours.”
“His name’s Bryan,” she began but there was no way she could know that I already knew that. “We met about four years ago, and ...”
I wasn’t really listening to her. I just wanted her to open up about the man. I was hoping I’d find something there to hate.
His name was Bryan Melnick and he was older than Tess. Quite a bit older in fact, but there was nothing wrong with that. He’d driven her to the airport even though he hadn’t wanted her to go. Nothing wrong with that either. She was thinking about that, about how he’d kissed her, how he’d told her to hurry home, and how she’d promised him she would. There was nothing wrong with any of that either.
My head was really starting to hurt and I was beginning to doubt myself. Usually, I’m pretty good at this, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see what the heck kind of lesson she was supposed to learn.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again and I told her I was but I knew she wasn’t convinced because even without my powers, I could see her watching me.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “Really. I’m okay.”
I could tell she wasn’t convinced but she accepted what I said anyway.
“So what are we getting for Bryan?” I asked as I tried to change the subject.
“I don’t know,” the girl almost wailed. “He wouldn’t tell me what he wanted.”
“So what’s he like?”
“He likes me.”
If that had been said by almost anyone else, I might have thought Tess was bragging, and pride, at least, is something I can teach a lesson on. There was this one girl ... but you don’t want to hear about her.
The thing is Tess wasn’t being proud. She really meant what she said and she was right. Bryan, it seemed, had a tendency to dote.
But I didn’t care about him. What I wanted to know was what was there about her that was deserving of my attention.
“So you don’t even know what to get him?” I asked and Tess shook her head.
Well that sucked. It really did. “What about sporting goods,” I asked. “Does he like to play sports?”
Tess shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we could go look. Is there a store like that around here?”
Okay, for the record, this was really starting to piss me off. There was a part of me that wanted to do what I wanted to do just because the girl seemed to be so totally clueless, but she was a nice girl, so I wasn’t going to let myself do that. I was going to hold back and I was going to try and figure out just what the heck it was that this girl was supposed to learn. “Sure,” I said. “It’s called Wallingfords. It’s just a little ways down.”
“Okay, let’s go there.”
I already knew it wasn’t going to do any good. After all, she was only going there because I’d suggested it. She wasn’t going there because she actually thought it might yield something interesting.
We walked into the store and the place was a zoo. It was the holiday shopping, of course, and it was just the place I’d be looking for victims if I didn’t already have one on hand.
Tess was looking at some exercise equipment and I let her look. I already knew it wasn’t going to amount to anything but I figured I’d take another look in her mind so I braced myself for what was going to happen and I let myself slip inside.
“It’s only a couple of days,” I heard Tess saying.
“That’s not the point, babe. It’s Christmas. You should be here with me.”
“I know,” Tess said, “but they need me to go.”
“Yeah, but I want you here with me.”
“But it’ll only be a couple of days,” Tess whined.
“But it’s Christmas.”
“I’ll be back before then.”
“I know, but I’ll miss you.”
“Aw-w-w-w-w ...”
I slipped a bit but I caught myself before I fell, and that’s when I found myself looking at Tess for the very first time. She was completely under Bryan’s thumb. Okay, maybe not completely, but enough so that he was complaining because she was taking a little two-day business trip. I knew what Tess needed. Tess needed to learn how to get a life. This was going to be fun.
Tess looked back at me and I figured I’d start her slow if for no other reason than it took less out of me so when she looked back at me, I made sure she liked looking at me. “Do you like this?” she asked.
“I don’t do a whole lot of weights,” I said and even as I said it, I made sure she liked the sound of my voice.
“Oh,” she said and she turned to look back at the weights.
I slipped another thought into her mind. She was bored with this, the thought.
She turned back around. “I’m bored,” she said. “Can we go now?”
I grinned at her. “Sure,” I told her. “We can do whatever you want,” and even as I said that, I made sure she got a thrill from the words ‘whatever you want.’
She nodded but I knew she’d gotten the message.
“What should we do now?” she asked.
“Want to go to the food court?” I asked. “We can get a bite to eat.”
“Sure.” She was still thrilling at the sound of my voice. I hadn’t taken that or any of the other things I’d done away from her, but for the moment, I was saving my strength and I wasn’t doing anything else to her.
We got a pizza. I let her order and I paid because I knew she’d like having a guy let her have what she wanted.
“I told you about myself,” she said, “but you haven’t said anything about yourself.”
I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d planned it myself. Well, in a way, I supposed, in a way, I had. After all, she still liked the sound of my voice. In fact, she liked it a lot, so of course she was going to want to hear me talk.
“There’s not much to tell,” I started out. “I went to school. I got a business degree. I came here. I found a job.”
“Oh.” She was disappointed. You didn’t have to be a mind reader to tell that. She was hoping for more. “Nothing else?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What else would you like to know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Anything, I guess. Like what do you do? Where do you work? Do you like your job? Do you ... Do you have a girlfriend? Anything.”
I knew what she wanted. She wanted to hear me talk, but even so, that last part surprised me. I hadn’t expected her to ask me about a girlfriend, at least not quite yet. I wondered if she was farther along than I thought she was. I decided she wasn’t but as long as she’d brought it up, I figured I might as well use it.
“No,” I said, “I don’t have a girlfriend,” and even as I said it, I made sure to push her buttons hard. It excited her that I didn’t have a girlfriend. It excited her that I was available. She didn’t know why it excited her. She just knew it did.
“Who’s the right girl for you?” she asked.
“I don’t know if there is a right girl, per se,” I said. “It’s more a type, I guess. Mid-twenties. Something of a go-getter. Big heart. You know. Those kinds of things.” Of course, even as I said those things, I was using just the words that she would have used to describe herself.
She took another drink from her soda. “Really,” she tried to ask with as much innocence as she could muster.
“Really.”
She was definitely interested. It didn’t matter that I was the one who’d made her that way. What mattered was that she was interested and getting more and more interested as time went on.
We talked some more as lunch went on and then finally, we were done. “That was good,” I said finally, “but should we continue?”
“Continue?”
“Yeah. Should we go back to shopping for your boyfriend?”
That hit her hard, just like it was supposed to. For the moment, at least, she’d forgotten all about him and she was feeling guilty about that, but not quite as guilty as she thought she should have.
“Should we go?” I asked again even as I once more turned up her interest in me.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
I wasn’t going to do anything else to her, at least not for the moment. Tess already had enough running around in her mind to last her for a while.
We went into a clothing store and more than once, I caught glimpses in her mind of her imagining me in the clothes that we were supposedly looking at for her boyfriend. I smiled to myself at that. She was coming along nicely.
Our next stop was another electronics store because as I explained to her, boys liked their toys, and I couldn’t help but catch the thought of her wondering just who I’d like to use as my toy.
She was ready.
I stepped up to her and I slid an arm around her waist. “You seem distracted,” I said.
“Really,” she murmured, although by that time, my putting my arm around her waist or any touch at all was definitely more than enough to distract her.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just wondering if there was something else you’d like to do instead.”
Of course, there was. She just wasn’t supposed to admit it but that didn’t keep her from admitting it nonetheless. “I was thinking,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I was thinking maybe I should go.”
That wasn’t exactly what she was thinking. What she was thinking was she wasn’t sure if she could trust herself to behave. I knew that but she didn’t know that I knew it.
But I still had my hand around her waist and I was stroking her with my fingers and I heard her gasp as I did that.
“If you think that’s best,” I said.
That wasn’t exactly what she was thinking. She had to get away, she was telling herself. She had to get away before she did something she’d regret.
But wouldn’t she regret it even more if she didn’t do it, she thought, and I didn’t even have to put that thought in her mind.
She was shaking her head. She needed to be true, she told herself. She needed to be true to her boyfriend.
I’d been waiting for that and I had my own thought to put it in her head. He doesn’t own you, my mind told hers. You can do what you want.
He doesn’t own me, her mind thought. I can do what I want.
I am my own person.
I am my own person, her mind agreed. I can do what I want.
“We can do whatever you want to do,” I told her.
I’m a good girl, her mind whimpered. I shouldn’t be doing this.
I didn’t do anything. I see nothing wrong with tampering. That much should be clear already, but I draw the line at some things. I’d done enough already. If she didn’t cross that line on her own, I wasn’t going to push her across.
I’m a good girl, her mind told herself. I’m a good girl.
I’m a good girl, she told herself. I’m a good girl who knows what she wants and what I want is ...
She turned to face me and suddenly, she had her hands around my waist and I could feel her pressing herself against my body. “On second thought,” she said, “I think maybe I should stay.”
I liked the way she was thinking and as much as you might think she was only thinking what I’d told her to think, that really wasn’t the case. All I’d done was show her the way but a lot of what she was thinking was all of her own doing.
I wrapped my arms around her and I heard her moan. Okay, that much was my doing. After all, she loved having me touch her body. “Should we go back to my place?” I asked.
Her eyes were twinkling as she looked up at me. “I think we should,” she said.
It was as easy as that. Her little shopping trip was suddenly a thing of the past. Now, the only thing she really wanted was to go back to my place and be with me and with her having come to that decision on her own, I was making sure that she wasn’t going to have second thoughts.
She was practically quivering with anticipation by the time I got her back to my apartment. All the way up in the elevator, I knew what she wanted. She wanted to rub her hands over the front of my jeans. She wanted to unzip my zipper. She wanted to take my cock out and I didn’t make her think any of that.
I’d barely gotten the door closed when she was pushing me up against a wall and suddenly, she was leaning into my body. “I hope you don’t have a roommate,” she murmured.
I shook my head.
“Good,” she said even as she pulled my shirt out of my pants, “because I’d hate to think that someone could come along and interrupt us at just the wrong time.
Tess was certainly turning into more of a surprise than I’d thought she’d be.
She bent down and she was kissing me, kissing my stomach and pushing my shirt up even as she worked her way up my body.
I took the shirt off. After all, it was clear that it wasn’t needed anymore and Tess continued to kiss her way up my body.
Her hands were back at my waist and she was undoing my belt. “I want to see what’s in here,” she said.
“Don’t let me stop you,” I said.
She wasn’t. Already, she was pushing my jeans down past my hips and then her hand was stroking me through my briefs.
That only lasted for a couple of moments because, after all, that wasn’t really what she wanted to do. What she wanted was inside my briefs and she wasn’t wasting time getting there.
She pulled my briefs down and then she wrapped her hands around my cock. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “Oh my God. That’s what I want.”
I grinned at her. I mean, it wasn’t like she wasn’t the first girl to have ever have said that to me, and if I had my way, she wasn’t going to be the last, but there was something to be said for the way she said it. I mean, you could really hear it, the want for it, the need for it. She really did want my cock.
But if that was what she wanted, she was going to have to show me something first.
“Do you like my cock?” I asked.
She nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, if you like it, you need to open your jeans, too.”
She looked at me with a look that I would have best described as daring, the kind of yeah, you want me to do this, then fine, I’ll open my jeans and let’s see what you do next, look, but then to be fair, she wasn’t just looking. She was opening her jeans.
“Don’t just stand there,” I told her. “Let’s see you push those jeans down.”
For a moment, it looked as if she wasn’t going to do it but I knew better. Down went her jeans.
“Turn around,” I told her.
Again, it almost looked as if she wasn’t going to do it, but then she shrugged just a little and she turned herself around.
She might not have had any idea why it was she was doing whatever I told her to do but I sure did. “Bend over,” I told her.
Once more, she did as she was told to do.
She had a cute ass. To be honest, it was even better than I’d thought it would be when I first saw her, and that was saying something, but there she was with her jeans around her knees and her bent over at the waist and there was no doubt in my mind as to what I was about to do. I let my hand stroke the small of her back and even as she started to moan and then I pushed my hand down inside her panties.
She couldn’t help but moan as she felt my hand slide along her ass. Of course, how could she not moan. After all, I’d conditioned her to love the of me touching her skin and with my hands inside her panties, I was certainly touching her skin. “Do you like that?” I asked.
“Oh yeah.”
I let my hand slide between her cheeks and I just loved the way my hand made her gasp. Hers wasn’t the first butt I’d done that to, but hers was definitely one of the better ones I’d done that to. “Do you like this?” I asked.
She just bit her lip and then she nodded as if she didn’t trust herself to say anything. It was so cute. Of course, the thing was, I already knew that she liked it.
“Do you want me to take your panties down?”
Again, there was the curt, little nod. Again, it was very cute, and again, it was totally irrelevant because I already knew the answer.
I pulled her panties down and I slid my hand between her legs. “You’re wet,” I said.
Again, the girl nodded.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
Again, the girl nodded.
I was going to enjoy this, I told myself as I slipped in behind her. In fact, I was going to enjoy it a lot.
And so was Tess because she moaned as soon as I slid my cock between her legs.
“Do you like this?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” she moaned. “Oh yeah. I love it.”
Not yet, she didn’t. I knew she liked it. I knew she liked it a lot, but she didn’t quite love it. Not yet, she didn’t.
I was back inside her mind but this time was the easiest of all. She was completely open to me and with the time we’d spent together, I was more in tune with the way her mind thought. It wasn’t that hard to find the right places in her mind to go to turn up the heat.
“Oh my God,” she gasped as I withdrew from her mind. “Oh my God.”
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” she gasped. “No. Nothing wrong ... oh geez ... oh geez, fuck me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fuck me,” she moaned. “Oh geez. Fuck me.”
“That’s not what I asked you. What do you want me to do?”
“I ... I don’t understand,” she wailed. “I told you. I ... I want you to fuck me.”
“I think you want something more.”
“Something more?”
“Something more,” she moaned. “I don’t understand,” and yet even as she was saying that, my mind was putting the answer in her brain. “I need you to make me cum,” she moaned. “I need you to make me cum. Make me cum.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I told her. “You know what you need.”
“Make me cum,” she moaned. “Make me cum.”
I was going to make her cum, all right. As soon as I came, she was going to cum, too, but she didn’t know that. All she knew was that she needed me to make her cum.
“Make me cum,” she moaned. “Make me cum.”
I was going to cum. I was so very close now. Her pussy was so very tight. All it would take was a little more.
“Make me cum,” she moaned. “Make me cum.”
I couldn’t help myself. I just started to cum between her legs and it just felt so good.
“Oh God,” she moaned. “Oh God. You’re doing it. Oh God. You’re making me cum.”
“Well yeah.”
“Oh God. I love it.”
“I know you do,” I told her. “You want to do it again?”
I already knew the answer to that one but I just wanted to hear her answer and she didn’t disappoint. “Yeah,” she said shyly and then she seemed to get more flirtatious. “I mean, yeah, I like it. Can we do it again?”
“We can do whatever you want,” I told her.
“Then, I want to do it again, only this time, I want to ride your cock.”
“We can do whatever you want,” I said again and I knew that not all that far into the future, pretty, little Tess would be flying back home and Bryan would think she was still under his thumb, but Tess had learned to do what she wanted. Like I said, I’m all about teaching lessons, and Tess had learned hers, and that’s how I found my way into a stranger.