Long Story Short

Another light and fun story. All characters are over 18 years of age.

***

"You're a what?" I asked.

"I think.. I think, Tara, that I'm an erotic mind controller," Jim said.

I stared at him blankly. "A what?"

"I can control minds but only in an erotic way."

I stared at Jim. Jim was- Jim was a good guy. Not, you know, a

nice guy

, but a good guy. He was friendly- a little too friendly- and overly plump and somewhat- not

stupid

, his grades were close to the top of the class, but not socially

adept

, you know? Not that I could say much myself- there was a reason that we were close friends- but he was definitely not the sort of person who you would think of as an

erotic mind controller.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I mean, it sounds so unlikely-"

"Can I show you?" he asked politely.

"Sure," I said.

Thirty seconds later his mother appeared at his bedroom door. "Is everything okay in there?" she said.

"Yes," I said, picking myself up. "I bumped my foot."

There was a long period of silence while his mother took a moment to notice that we were a) clothed and b) on opposite sides of the room. "Leave the bedroom door open, will you honey?"

Jim sighed. "Yes, Mom."

"Thanks, dear." She gave me a complicated look before moving back to the living room.

"Okay," I said. "How on earth did you get those powers?"

Jim proceeded to start into a long, tedious story about a hidden cave underneath the school and some sort of fever dream-involving an Egyptian goddess or something. To be honest I wasn't really paying that much attention; I was busy thinking about the implications of it all.

Jim was a mind controller.

Jim was an

erotic

mind controller.

My friend- who once cried during PE class after a dodgeball incident- this loveable idiot- could reach in and command minds. He could make girls do things.

He could make

any

girl do things.

He could make

any

girl do

anything.

There was no limit. He could reach out and touch the minds of girls in our classroom- girls in movie theatres- girls in the street- and make them commit any sort of lewd, depraved acts with him, with other men, with each other...

Whenever he wanted.

"Of course, then it all came collapsing down on me as I ran out of there- Tara? Tara?"

"Huh?"

"Tara? You're not listening."

"I am."

"You're not. You're staring off into the distance and drooling a little."

"I am not!" I wiped my mouth hastily. "I'm just- worried, Jim. Do you have any idea what sort of awful

things

you might do?"

"Things?"

"Can't you see?"

"No."

I sighed. Like I said, he could be so

simple

sometimes. "You'll go mad- mad! With power." I laughed wildly. "You'll end up abusing girls left and right!"

"I will?"

I nodded. "Absolute power, you understand? You'll get to the point where," I let my imagination inform me, "you'll be nothing more than a cold-hearted monster, surrounded by a circle of kneeling, lusty-eyed slaves- your classmates, your friends, your family- all of them nothing but helpless, devoted puppets to your will." I leant closer. "And the worst part is- you won't understand that this is wrong. You'll be nothing more than a master," I licked lips that were dry with fear, "cruel and heartless, seeing every woman in existence as nothing but a toy for your pleasure."

"Gosh."

I nodded. "It will be

awful

."

"Obviously," he said, no doubt contemplating the horror as I was.

"This is an evil power, Jim. You can't use it."

"Ever?"

I paused. Would Jim stop himself from using the power? Could he? Could anyone? I said, "You at the very least need to use it

morally

."

"Morally? How can I do that?"

I sat back. How could you possibly use a mind control power morally? How could you conceivably use a power meant to subvert, to control, to override its victim's minds with pleasure-

"You're drooling again."

"It's a nervous tick!" I said. "Anyway- you need rules. Rules you must

never

break. Absolute rules, lines in the sand that you must maintain with heroic willpower."

"Okay." He nodded. A moment later his face screwed up. "What sort of rules?"

"Well..." I got up and stalked around his bedroom. Cartoon girls stared back at me, smiling guileless smiles of the innocent. "You need to be honest. That's rule number one. You need to tell people about your power and that you'll be using it on them. Honesty is the best policy."

"Honesty is the best policy," he repeated. "Makes sense. Wait, what if I get carted off by the government or something?"

I shook my head. "We're small-town teenagers out in the middle of nowhere. Why would the government find out about us? Besides, remember what I said about Ouija boards?"

He nodded. We'd watched the horror movie recently and I'd had

opinions

. "If it really worked people would have either stopped doing it or industrialised it by now."

"Right. Same with mind control. If the government could actually control people's minds easily, there'd be less political chaos and the like. No, pretty much everyone but crazy people aren't going to believe you're a mind controller unless you show them. Anyway- rule number two. You ask for consent. Every time you want to use it."

"Sure."

I turned back, finger raised. "This is important- no matter how powerful the urge to simply seize their mind and force them into whatever depraved acts strike your fancy, no matter how badly you want to tame them with your orgasmic power...you have to be strong!"

"Okay." He nodded with what I felt was insufficient gravitas for such an important vow. "Are there any other rules?"

"Mmmm...no-one under eighteen."

"Fair enough. That's most of the senior girls anyway." He shrugged. "Is that it?"

"I guess..." I paused. "You'll just need to keep an eye out for signs of corruption and tyranny."

"Tyranny?"

"Oh you know," I waved my hand, "general tyrannical thoughts. That sort of thing."

Jim paused. "What if...what if you help me?"

"Help you?" I had a sudden image my myself by his side, dressed in a black leather outfit, his first slave, really to punish any of his harem that got out of line through elaborate-

"Help me stick to the rules. You know- make sure I don't become a, um, a tyrant master guy."

I paused. Jim and I had been friends forever. We'd survived bullies together, helped each other with our schoolwork and basically kept each other sane throughout most of high school. Jim was the sort of guy that sort of went with the flow a little too much- he kept his head in the clouds a lot and I had kind of resigned myself to the role of Jim-wrangling, making sure he didn't do or say anything stupid because he hadn't been paying much attention.

I suppose this was just more par for the course.

"Okay," I said. "Just- make sure that you don't become all evil."

"Thanks," Jim said. He reached out and touched my hand. "I knew I could count on you."

I smiled back. "Sure."

***

For two weeks, Jim did nothing. No use of powers. No subtle, creeping sexual escapades. No crowds of fawning women trailing after him. He just...held back, no doubt strongly influenced by my dire warnings.

I used the time to research as much as I could about erotic mind control. It turns out that there were loads of stories online- all sorts of scenarios and plots, each one of them a diabolical cautionary tale about power run amok. As Jim's moral compass it was naturally my responsibility to review them, so better to spot signs of degeneracy in my friend. I spend hours in front of my computer, searching through tale after tale of depravity, aware as I read through the litany of sexual acts that the poor women being erotically enslaved could just as easily be

me

.

It wasn't easy, but I did it for our friendship.

Two weeks to the day I got a call from Jim.

"I'm going to ask someone if I can use the power on them," he said.

"Who?"

"Paula Jenningstone."

I sighed. Paula Jenningstone was the sort of girl who, as a child, saw all those depictions of alpha bitches on movies and TV shows- the ones that were inevitably cast as the villains, the ones that the pretty but unpopular girls always had to learn to overcome- and said to herself, "I want to be

that

when I grow up." She somehow managed to cultivate a Californian valley girl accent while growing up in rural Oklahoma. She was- naturally- beautiful and blonde and thin, and her boobs...

Her boobs were the sort of things that teenage boys dreamed of. Worshipped. Did stupid, expensive, dangerous things for a chance to look at. Her boobs were

dangerous

.

I was both unsurprised and slightly disappointed to hear that Jim had selected her as his first victim. "How," I asked, "are you going to use it?"

"Well," he said, "I haven't forgotten your rules. I'm going to be honest, and I'm going to ask for consent. I kind of figure she's going to say no, but it's important that I try, right?"

"You're just going to walk up the Paula Jenningstone and ask for permission to use mind control on her?"

"Well. I mean, she might say yes," he said in the hopeful tone of teenage boys everywhere. "You never know."

This was my fault, wasn't it? Well, there was no helping it. This was going to be brutal.

***

"What the fuck is wrong with your friend?" Paula asked me the next day.

I looked up at the pretty girl with her blonde hair and perfect tits and queen-talking-to-the-dirty-peasant expression. "What happened?" I asked.

"He came up to me," she said, "and he asked me if he could hypnotise me! What the fuck was wrong with him?"

"He's an erotic mind controller," I said.

"What the fuck is that?"

"He can mind control people," I explained, "except only, you know, erotically."

I watched as the concept tried to find a place in her Paula-shaped view of the world. Finally she defaulted to, "He is such a loser!"

"I take it you said no," I said.

"Of course!" She waved her hand in the air as though to wordlessly gesture at my friend's many faults.

"That's probably for the best," I said.

"Obviously."

I sighed. I really, really hated Paula but it was important she understand the danger she was in "Now, you need to understand, Paula. If he asks again you should definitely say no."

"Why's that then?" She folded her arms and looked down at me.

"It's dangerous." She looked entirely unimpressed and so I wearily said, "His power could turn any woman he meets into his sex-slave."

"What?" Her perfect little nose scrunched up in disgust. "That's dumb."

"No- he can make you feel unimaginable pleasure when you obey him," I said. "Can you imagine being trapped in an endless cycle of ecstasy?" I thought back to the stories I'd read. "His power makes sex with him more addictive than any drug. You literally wouldn't be able to say no."

"...Really?"

"Yes. No woman should have to go through that."

"...Sure..."

"So you'll make sure you stay away from him, okay?"

"Sure, sure. Gotta go." She abruptly got up and walked away.

***

I got a text from Jim that night. It consisted of a video attachment and a single line:

Is this okay?

I opened the attachment and blinked.

It was a bedroom- Paula's bedroom, I assumed. Paula stood in the centre of the room while Jim sat on an incredibly pink bed.

She was entirely naked and I shuddered as her blonde, toned, tanned body- and those boobs, those painfully beautiful, utterly unfair boobs- were revealed to me. Her eyes were closed and I could see a sheen on her bronze flesh that spoke of fresh sweat.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Mmmm...." She breathed. "Yes."

"Very good," Jim said, and I noticed that his voice didn't waver or hesitate. "Now, we're going to count down again."

"Okay..."

Jim cleared his throat and shifted on the bed. I realised I could see a sizable bump in this trousers.

"Ten."

Paula gave off a happy little sigh.

"Nine."

She began to take long, slow breaths, her tits moving in a hypnotic pattern.

"Eight."

I saw her brow crease as though she was confused.

"Seven."

She bit her lip. She should be banned from doing that. No-one should look that sexy biting their lip.

"Six."

Her hips began to move in a slow, gentle rhythm. This made her boobs jiggle a little and

holy shit

that was hot.

"Five."

A low, throaty moan escaped her lips.

"Four."

Paula's moan rose in pitch, becoming an eager little whine.

"Three."

Her hips were moving in eager, desperate circles now.

"Two."

Her body began to shake on the spot, her tits wobbling as she vibrated.

"One."

Her body went rigid and she bit her hand to stifle a scream. She collapsed to her knees, as her body began to convulse. For a full minute she knelt next to the bed, shuddering and moaning.

Jim just sort of waited until she recovered before saying softly, "Um. I hope that was good."

"Mmmph."

"Another? That'll make five."

"...Yessssss." She looked up at him with soft, eager eyes. "More..."

I closed the attachment.

Then I watched it again.

Then I carefully typed the words

Yes

back to him.

Then I watched the video a couple more times. Just to be

absolutely

certain.

***

That was the first text I got from Jim about Paula Jenningstone. It was not the last.

Can I make her cum at school if I make it so that it's silent?

Lots of different messages.

If I tell her in advance that I'm going to do it but don't, you know, tell her precisely when? So that it's a surprise?

Each one with a moral conundrum.

She wants me to mind control her into believing that I'm someone else. That's okay, right?

Each one, a maze of potential corruption and madness.

She wants me to mind control Mom into letting her stay over at my place tonight. That's not okay, right?

...Some easier to resolve than others.

There were recordings, too-

Paula lay on the bed, stripped down to her underwear. Her eyelid fluttered and her body moved in gentle, languid movements. I heard Jim's voice speak to her in gentle tones. "Tell me what's happening."

"You- you've killed all the terrorists," she says, moaning, "And now you're taking me back to your luxury mansion. We're all dirty and bloody..."

"You should take a shower," Jim said.

"Mmmm...shower..." she sighs. "I'm stripping down the shower, wondering if you're going to join me..."

"It's a nice, big shower," Jim says. "Room for two?"

"Yes..." She reached up and pulled down her bra. A moment later she was massaging her breasts. "Nice big shower, I'm soaping myself up, I'm waiting for you to come in, I want to reward you..."

"I'm there." Jim's voice was ragged. "I'm coming into the shower. I'm asking if I can come in-"

"Nnnnoooo..." She shakes her head. "Not asking. Just come in. Confident."

"Right," Jim said, his voice a touch subdued. "Confident. I'm coming into the shower and I'm putting my hands around you and-"

Paula moaned, one hand sliding down into her panties...

All of which I dutifully watched.

"I don't get why you want me to do this," said Paula, her eyes narrowed as she stepped into the kitchen.

"It's a surprise," Jim said.

"Fine." She stalked over to the kettle and turned it on. "But you can make your own coffee." She folded her arms and stared at the kettle as the water within boiled. "Wait..." She turned back to Jim. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The kettle continued to kettle. She gripped the edges of the table and closed her eyes. "Fuuuuckkkk...." The water within the kettle began to boil and she began to hump the edges of the counter. "You actually gave me a

making coffee

fetish. You fucking weirdo." She shivered, eyes closed. "Mmmm...one sugar..." she said breathlessly, "or two?"

With each one the same question:

This is okay, right?

Paula opened up the door to her home. She was dressed up, with her hair done up in an elegant mass. "Wow, I can't believe you're actually here," she gushed.

"Ready for our date?" Jim asked.

"Sure," she said. "I can't believe this is actually happening."

"I just want to say I'm really happy to be going out with you. It's been great."

She leant forward, making sure that Jim got a look of her jaw-dropping cleavage. "So am I..." she murmured, "Chris Hemsworth... but the thing is my parents aren't home... sure you don't want to have a night in instead?"

I watched. I waited. I talked to him afterwards. I asked him to detail precisely what happened in their sessions together. In exhaustive detail.

(I needed to be

sure

, dammit.)

And I have to say- he didn't waver. He didn't abuse the power he had over her. He behaved, against all odds, like a good and conscientious erotic mind controller.

All it did was make me more nervous. No man could have that sort of power, surely? There was no way he wouldn't end up abusing that power in the end, right?

Right?

***

And then, just like that, they broke up.

I demanded to know precisely why. Had she begun to break free of his sexual control? Did his power over her frighten her off?

"No," he said one night as we were watching TV, "I broke up with her. She's really hot but...she's kinda mean."

"Okay," I said.

"Like, all the sex was fun," he said, shyly looking down, "but we didn't get on very well outside of that. We fought a lot too."

"About what?"

"Oh," he waved his hand, "she wanted me to control the entire school with my powers. Like, she wouldn't shut up about it. And she wanted me to do other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

He looked embarrassed. "She wanted me to drop you as a friend."

"Oh."

"Actually, she wanted me to make you forget we were ever friends."

"Really."

"Yeah. She called you a 'skinny bitch with no tits'."

Okay, I knew she didn't like me but it was still hard to hear it. "Guess I should have expected it."

"Anyway, that's when I broke up with her. It was really horrible," he said. "Like, she was crying and everything. Kept saying if I really loved her I would dominate everyone and make her a queen."

"That's- wait, did you drop her after she asked you to mind-whammy me into not being your friend?"

"Well..." he looked embarrassed. "It was just kind of the last straw, you know? I guess I realised then and there that I didn't actually like her all that much. Just... you know."

"Her tits."

"Yeah." I realised he was blushing. "I wouldn't give up our friendship for all the tits in the world."

"Thanks," I said. "That means a lot."

Long story short: that's how my best friend dated - and broke up with- the most popular girl in school.

***

Of course, what I didn't know at the time was that his temptations were just beginning. You see, there's one important thing that you need to remember about school:

Everyone gossips.