Don't ask me how it works, I haven't a clue. All I know is since I can remember I had the 'ability' β curse really β to get a read and be able to interpret other people's emotions. Empathy I guess, as a kid I thought it was normal, that everyone could do it.
Then come the teen years, and the folks notice that when I'm in a bad mood I carry the proverbial black cloud around, making everyone else feel crappy. Things get to the point where it gets mentioned to the doctor during a visit β and I begin to realize this may not be a good thing. At the same time the amount of β noise is the best way to describe it β I'm picking up from people is increasing. So I work on controlling it. Get pretty good at it too. I figure out how to tune into a single person at a time, then be able to get what I called snapshots of people as they would pass by.
At the same time I get a handle on projecting my emotions out, stop doing it unless I want to. That led to me working on trying to deliberately change other people's emotions β starting with kid stuff really. Tell crappy jokes, get other kids β especially girls β to laugh by projecting happiness while talking. By this time there's no more mention by the folks of having a 'specialist' take a look at me. It gets shrugged off as one of those teenage phases.
This is when it dawns on me that I better get real careful about this. I start to imagine all sorts of bad things happening if I get caught β helped no doubt by all the crappy sci-fi-ish books, movies and TV shows I was watching at the time. So no more fooling around with this 'talent' in school. Being scared of having others find out probably saved me from being sent to the mental hospital or worse. I got cagey about it, not doing anything to take advantage like get picked for a team, or get a date or job or better grades.
I saved it for trips to the mall and other places where kids would hang out, and there were lots of strangers. I started out with simple stuff. Usually picking someone walking by and learn to tune in, then get them to feel happy. Once I was able to master that I went for other emotions. One poor guy ended up puking in a food court when I was working on disgust. A few couples almost had some nasty fights due to me, but I'd make sure to knock it off before it got bad. Once I figured out how to get their sex thang going I made sure the fight would end in a happy evening for them.
Anyway off to college and I met Nancy in our junior year. We hung out, then went on a couple dates. After a while we started having sex, then living together. This felt good for me as I didn't have to do anything to get her to like me beyond just being myself. And I felt, I don't know, dirty or at least crummy when I did catch her feelings. So I worked on tuning her out, relying on the same things everyone else does. Life was good.
Even better Nancy is the kind of girl I like. Tall β actually just a little taller than me and with great legs. Not thin, kind of meaty with soft thighs and shapely calves as well as attractively defined ankles. Nice large well shaped ass and a thin waist. Her breasts were and are just right, not too big and not too small with nice nipples and lovely pink areolas. Long auburn hair and very fair skin. She's pretty but not beautiful. And she's very enthusiastic about sex as long as it's conventional. Example, I can play with her ass β which I absolutely love to do β but don't even think of anal. Stuff like that. I was fine with most of it, come on the kind of girl I really liked and she was eager to do 90% of the kind of sex I wanted? Who would argue with that!
And so we graduated and stayed together, found jobs and then got married. Life was fantastic.
It's a couple of years down the road and I notice Nancy is acting β oh I don't know, suspicious. She's always busy at work, and talks a lot about a fellow worker of hers named Mark. I notice a bit more makeup and the clothes she wears to work are a little sexier than before. After this Nancy tells me she's assisting Mark on a special project, and the hours get longer and irregular. They begin carpooling, with Mark picking up Nancy every other week. I get to meet him and I note that he's a few years older than Nancy, wears nice suits and drives an expensive car.
I begin to catch weird emotions from Nancy. Yeah, I figure if she's having an affair I need to get over not wanting to peek into her feelings. Amazing what happens when you start to think you're getting betrayed. I'm catching feelings of anxiety and guilt when she's around me, but when she's by herself or talking about Mark feelings of sexual excitement.
So naturally I set a trap β sneaky and underhanded, sure. Tell me about it. That's been my whole life to this point. I tried to walk the straight and narrow and what did it get me? I mention to Nancy that I was thinking about going on a little fishing trip, out of town of course. She nibbles the bait, tells me it would be good for me to get out of the apartment, clear my head in the great outdoors, blah blah.
In the meantime I'm catching flashes of excitement, anxiety and sexual tension from her. I decide to make the bait a bit more enticing by working on her emotions. I amp her feelings of sexual excitement just a tad. It works because she gets sloppy, mentions that I shouldn't worry about a thing as she and Mark could use the time to work on their project.
So I spend a couple of evenings getting out my meager collection of camping and fishing gear. Get it loaded into the car and take off on Friday after work. I head out of town to a mall, get some dinner and take in a movie. Then a couple of beers in a sports bar.
It's just early morning when I cruise back home. And yep, I see Mark's car parked on another block away from where Nancy and I live. Luckily for me there's a restaurant on the corner of our street, so I park in their lot and walk to the apartment.
Nancy and I live in the back half of a duplex. No lights on so it's dark, and over those evenings when I had been making a show of packing my gear I made sure to oil the hinges and the lock to the door. Before I open it I check and yes I 'sense' two people in the apartment, from what I'm catching they must be asleep. I get the door open and quietly head to the bedroom.
At this point my emotions are getting into a turmoil. It was one thing to think Nancy was having an affair, but the closer I'm getting to the actual evidence of it β well it's causing a real mix of feelings. I notice a glow coming from the bedroom β they must have been using candles and forgot to blow them out. I enter the room and see both Mark and Nancy in my bed.
I'm still not clear what happened next. No, I didn't kill them or anything physical like that. I'm not that stupid. But I'm sure I said something as they woke up - shocked and surprised of course β and then β they slump back into bed and they are out. I stop in my tracks at that point as I'm more afraid of what I might have done than anything else.