Note: This story is a relatively slow burn -- erotic mind control content throughout but sex only in later chapters.
Chapter One
She entered my life on an unremarkable day in the middle of winter.
I was leaning on the hard plastic seat of a bus-stop in an unfamiliar neighbourhood, using my half-empty delivery bag to provide some amount of cushioning. I blew into my bare hands, cursing the cold and cursing myself for not finding a real part-time job.
Between the work I was doing for my final year at uni and my own reluctance to put myself through the awkward process of applications and interviews, I had found it easier to make money delivering junk leaflets. The pay was dismal and the work time-consuming and dull, but I had simply fallen into it through general apathy.
Numbed by the cold and absorbed in self-recrimination and bitterness, I didn't notice her approach, and jumped in surprise at the sudden closeness of her voice.
"Hi."
I turned to look at her leaning next to me, uncomfortably close although we were alone at the stop. I had always been sensitive to invasions of personal space, and immediately went on guard, sizing up my unwelcome companion with suspicion.
She was bizarrely lightly dressed given the weather, wearing a simple, casual knee-length black dress that bore most of her shoulders and her collarbone to the cold, but despite this I felt warmth radiating from her even through my winter coat. She was a little shorter than me, and her dress highlighted a slim form, yet despite this her presence felt larger than mine. It must have been something in her expression. She wore deep red lipstick on an unwavering smile that was a little more cocky than polite, and the dark blue of her eyes was highlighted by perfectly coifed lashes. I felt a pang of jealousy -- she looked like a movie-star with her makeup expertly applied on an arrestingly beautiful face and caramel hair falling around it in full, bouncy curls.
I didn't say anything in response, just gave a brief, tight smile and shifted a little further along the bench, trying to indicate with my body language that I wasn't in the mood for small talk. I never was. Every unexpected interaction with a stranger was nothing but a pain to me. However, she was undeterred.
"Not very talkative, sweetheart? That's alright, I like to do most of the talking anyway." Her voice was feather-soft, and yet it carried on the air, clear and resonant.
This situation was becoming harder to bear by the second -- she didn't look much older than me, why was she calling me 'sweetheart'? I found terms of endearment like that uncomfortable when they came from my closest friends, let alone a stranger who approached me on the street.
"Now, you don't live around here -- I would have noticed you for sure."
I shivered a little, and not from the cold, as her eyes flickered over me. Sort of a gross, cheesy compliment, I supposed. I very much hoped she wasn't flirting with me. Not only would she be barking up the wrong tree -- I had no interest in other women -- but flirting was another kind of social torture to me. It got worse as she continued.
"So where do you live? Is it nearby?"
I don't know what I imagined she would do with it, but I was certain I didn't want to give even a whiff of personal information to this strange woman. She would get the hint that I wasn't open to conversation when I got up out of my seat and waited for my bus a couple of feet away from her. Before I could get up, however, she reached across me and laid her fingertips on the side of my face, and I felt it for the first time.
The warmth began from where her touch met my skin and pulsed from there through my entire body. My muscles relaxed, preventing me from standing. The grey street before me blurred out of focus as I felt it rush my head, and when my vision sharpened again things seemed brighter, more colourful. Each pulse disrupted my attempts to gather my thoughts; I felt light and hot as a dancing spark. One thing I knew strongly was the desire to turn back to look at her again, and I let her fingers guide my head around.
The feeling intensified as I looked into her face. I had noticed before how beautiful she was, but now I felt that I was seeing something else, something I'd never seen before. The red of her lipstick was brighter than before, and the way it accentuated her lips I could almost feel their fullness. With her free hand she brushed her hair away from her eyes, (so richly blue you could drown in them, I now realised), and the gesture was so elegant it took my breath away. I watched as the curls tickled at her collar, and my eyes were drawn to wonder at her trim figure. The dress was tight against her, not disguising the inward curve of her waist and the gentle outward curve of her hips. Leaning as she was, the material was bunched up just slightly, and for some reason every inch of visible skin was exciting to me, quickening my pulse.
A cloud of breath alerted me to the fact that my mouth was hanging open, and I laughed a little in awkward disbelief at my inability to contain myself. Any thoughts of distancing myself from her were forgotten. Her smile widened a little, and she spoke again.
"That's better. Now come on, sweetheart, indulge me. Whereabouts do you live?"
This time I answered right away, surprising myself with my eagerness. Words tumbled out of me all at once; I told her the name of the area I lived in, how many stops away it was, that I lived alone in a one-bedroom student flat, and before I could stop myself, I'd even told her the name of the street it was on. It must have been because of the way that with every detail I offered, I received an extra-pleasurable pulse, and chasing that high was just about all I could concentrate on.
