Phantom

Chapter 03: Mind Games

He lived in her neurons and he had ridden in her mind as she brought him home with her away from the shell of the Victorian Institution where his rule had been law and life and death to the fallen women who had been brought to him. As she slept he had perfected his hold on her and he had drawn strength from the fear and humiliation which had been engendered in her by the dream which he had inflicted upon her.

Trish awoke that Sunday morning feeling weak and hungover after her troubled night. She dragged herself out of her perspiration soaked sheets noticing that the duvet was on the floor where it had fallen as she lashed about in her sleep in a desperate attempt to fight off the horrors which were being perpetrated upon her. The dream was still very real to her in all its horrible detail as she pulled her robe around her over the long white nightdress and made her way to her kitchen to make coffee. And all the while he rode with her in her head seeing through her eyes and, at the same time, exploring the mind which he had made his home. As he roamed around her deep subconscious he plumbed every memory and every pain and humiliation which she had ever experienced. There was much here which he could use.

The woman was unaware of what he was doing in her mind but it would have been impossible for him to probe so thoroughly without his host feeling something. His exploration amounted to running his fingers over very old scars and when a wound is touched it causes pain. Trish sat on her kitchen stool not far from tears and feeling slightly nauseous. She had inexplicable feelings of helplessness and bitter embarrassment as she found memories were seeping back of things which were long past and which she had thought were buried and long forgotten. It had been a horrible weekend beginning with her visit to the grim derelict reformatory where she had been subject to such a shocking attack made all the more horrible by her attacker remaining invisible and then she had spent the whole of Saturday night in unspeakable nightmares. She told herself that it was natural for her to feel groggy and she would return to bed and sleep it off. Carrying the half empty coffee cup she retraced her steps to the bedroom and discarded her robe onto the bed. As she did so she caught a glimpse of the long mirror and froze as the coffee cup fell from her paralysed fingers spilling hot coffee down the front of her gown and onto the carpet.

Instantly she clamped her eyes tight shut to push away the image of the large man in the black suit and dark green waistcoat with gold watch chain. He was from her dream; he could not possibly be here but when she opened her eyes he was still there leering at her from the mirror. She just stared at the awful image as she summoned the courage to look behind her but when she risked a glance over her shoulder there was no one there. Relief flooded over her but was snatched away when she heard her name rasped out in a harsh whisper; looking in the direction of the sound she beheld him on the opposite side of the bed where he could not possibly be reflected in the mirror. He was between her and the door.

Her fear was now overwhelming. It was not merely the fear from the old building or even the terror from her nightmare last night but it was loaded with the things which he was using from her own mind. It was the way she had felt so many years ago when Jimmy Parker had..had done what he had done to her and then there was her Uncle Andy and the things which he had done.

We rely on our memories for our knowledge of the past but what if someone tampers with our memory? As he was becoming more skilful in manipulating this mind in which he had taken residence he found that he could plant memories to order.

As Trish stood hypnotised by the vision of the man who could not be there she was wilting under the shame of what she had done for her Uncle Andy. She had promised him a treat and had gone into his kitchen shutting the door behind her. When Andy had heard her soft call he had gone into the kitchen and found his niece naked and spread-eagled on the floor. There was half a litre of strawberry ice cream on her pubic mound and melting down between her labia. A broad line of cream led up her belly to her pert breasts which were glistening with honey and her face was smeared with lemon curd. Her own free will had desserted her. She was truly a tart and she knew that she could not blame her uncle for falling upon the obscene gift which she was offering to him.

The man ordered his victim to come and stand before him and she obeyed without a word then he issued his next command still in that terrible, soul-searing whisper.

"Take off your gown."

Her mouth fell open and her eyes turned downwards but her arms were no longer under her control as they slipped the nightgown from her shoulders and it fell about her ankles leaving her nakedly displayed to the man from her nightmare. Obeying a command which operated in her mind without the need for words her left hand began to caress her small breasts and her right hand went, despite her efforts to prevent it, between her legs. As she stood there inches from the man she dug her own fingers deep inside her cleft and began to vigorously work herself to climax. She hated what she was doing; she hated the way that she was debasing herself in this way but she was powerless. Her knees were weak and she was moaning loudly as her juices ran down her hand. She knew that her legs would not support her for much longer and it was his will, not hers, which was keeping her standing. He allowed her legs to fold and she collapsed on her back on the bed into the midst of the tangled sheets where her legs came wide apart and she began to writhe as her feet thrashed about beating the air. All the time he was looking down at her as she begged for release. Her buttocks lifted from the bed and her left hand joined her right between her legs as she came to climax and over the edge into total unbridled lust and ecstasy. She was shouting as if to burst her lungs and all her neighbours could surely hear her unmistakable cries of passion and then, after an impossibly long climax she sank back onto the bed with her skin shining and dripping with perspiration and the whole room stinking of hot girl.

She lay there wrung out, humiliated and spent but some vestige of her own fighting spirit remained and she looked up at the man who was towering over her and told him that he could not possibly be real and she wanted her mind back. He could not countenance any defiance and he pressed on some synapses in her memory and her imagination.

The small bedroom melted away and she found herself on her back on a hard wooden table. Her hands were being pulled back above her head and her ankles were shackled at the foot of the table. In her helplessness she could only look upwards at the low vaulted stone roof in this dark dungeon lit only by the flaming torches set in sconces on the wall. Turning her head sideways she saw a small man like a goblin clad in a dark hooded robe. She could smell his body and hear his cackling voice as he turned the wheel and caused the rack to stretch her tortured muscles even further. Beside the cruel rack was a black brazier containing bright red coals and she tried in vain not to think about the hot irons whose handles protruded from the coals.

The laws of physics do not apply inside the human mind; that is why there is no limit to what can happen in a dream so he was able to keep her tightly restrained in the dungeon for many weeks during which she endured an endless stream of torments. And throughout this time she was visited by a flow of people plucked by her tormentor from her memory. Her A level tutor from school looked down at her and shook her head. Her entire university study group stood by and jeered that she was finally getting what she deserved and her father pressed his warm hand to her most intimate parts and reminded her that she had been unable to keep her legs together sufficiently for her own good.

Then the scene changed and she was face down over a wooden horse with her hair hanging over her face. Her wrists were strapped to the front of the horse and her ankles were wide apart and strapped at the rear of the huge ugly piece of furniture. She could feel cold air on her pussy lips which were on display to anyone who chose to stand behind her and a broad leather strap was buckled over her back keeping her body secured to the top of the horse so that her tender breasts were uncomfortably squeezed against the slight padding atop the wood. Looking sideways through her tears she saw that she was in the hall of her school on the platform with the entire school watching. The man in the dark green waistcoat was standing in front of her flexing a heavy cane and grinning.

Then he moved out of her vision and she knew that he had gone behind her. She could not help tensing up and she suddenly felt the cane rest oh so gently across her naked buttocks. It only stayed there for a second then it lifted away and she heard the swish through the air. The first stroke caught her where her left buttock met the top of her leg and her piercing scream drowned out the gasps of the watching school. Another stroke landed before she had fully absorbed the agony of the first and then another and another. Every muscle burned as she was involuntarily pulling against the straps and tears and mucus ran down her face. He was using all his considerable strength and his technique mastered in many years of punishing young women so that every stroke was a masterpiece of pain. She willed herself to lose consciousness but she remained terribly awake and aware of every stroke on her once white body and also aware of the warm blood as it began to run down her legs.

She had no idea of how long the beating lasted. It cannot really have been the many hours that it felt like but when it ended the horse was turned around so that her classmates could see the vivid scars on her flesh and the bruises on those tender puffy lips where the cane had fallen between her buttocks.

Slowly her bedroom seeped back into being but the tears which she was crying were real as her merciless overseer sat on a chair beside her as she lay on the floor beside the bed. All she could see of him were his shiny black shoes and the hem of his trouserlegs.

Speaking inside her head he asked if she were ready to accept his total mastery of her mind, body and soul or if he needed to send her back again into the darkest recesses of her own mind. As a token of her subservience and utter defeat she reached out her tongue and polished his shoes and later on, laying backwards over the bath, she shaved her own pussyhair as he watched.

Now he was speaking in a cold, quiet manner as he set out what was going to happen. For the hours between now and Monday morning he would grant her perfect rest and restoration so that she was fit for her meeting back at the old reformatory. As a project leader for The Consortium she would be meeting surveyors and contractors to discuss whether the building was to be converted into luxury flats or demolished to make way for a new build. It had been preparation for this meeting which had taken her to the property on Saturday morning and her overwhelming sense of the evil in the place had convinced her that it must be destroyed. But now she would argue for conversion and he would ensure that she carried the day. His presence in every meeting would give her access to the private thoughts of everyone around the table so she would know their bargaining positions and where to apply pressure to overcome any objections. Where necessary she would give sexual favours to ensure that every vote went the right way; her morals or her likes or dislikes were not a factor here. All that mattered was that the building was converted and when it was finished families would move in and he would have free access to their minds and their lives to do as he pleased.

She was horror struck at what she was being made to do. Through her actions how many innocent people would suffer to give pleasure to this monster who now lived inside her own mind? And yet she knew in her misery that she would not fight him any more. He had won and he would continue to win.

But a dark thought surfaced. He could give her the power to get her way in any meeting which she ever had with anyone. With power like that she would not remain a junior project leader; she could become a senior executive despite her comparative youth and after that she could have a seat on the board. The Faustian pact was made. The price would be unspeakable but if she must suffer at this man's hands perhaps she could take some rewards as well.