Looking back now, I realise I always had the gift, but never gave it much thought, or understood its potential at the time. It just seemed completely natural to me; I thought everybody was the same, so it didn't occur to me that what happened around me was in any way out of the ordinary.
As a child I often seemed to get what I wanted, whether it was sweets, or a toy, or whatever trivial things children wanted, but I must stress, not always. I could, it seems influence, but not command, the thoughts of those around me. If my mother or father thought that something wasn't good for me, or I didn't need it, then the decision was theirs to make, which probably stopped me from becoming a totally insufferable and spoilt child. My psychic powers, for that's what I now know them to be, lay almost dormant. Weak and latent, but things started to change as I approached puberty.
Throughout my high school years my 'powers' grew stronger, but I kinda ignored them. I was too busy doing school activities, playing football and having fun with my friends. There was one small incident, where I, 'influenced ,' one of my teachers, a newly qualified young Australian woman, Miss Jones. I saw her masturbating, after normal school hours in her big walk-in store cupboard, rather than something I took part in. She gave herself an orgasm, and only then did she notice that I had seen her. She swore me to secrecy, 'our secret,' she said and that was the end of that. I never betrayed her, and I virtually forgot about it until I met her years later at a wedding reception. However, Miss Jones was eventually to become one of the most important women in my life, but all will be revealed in due course.
I had always been artistic rather than scientific or mathematically inclined, not that either is mutually exclusive of the other. Just think of Leonardo Da Vinci for instance, but I was hopeless at maths, whereas I was usually in the top two or three for English and Art. As my interests developed and were nurtured at secondary school, I realised that I wanted to go to Art College and become a painter.
My parents, although supportive, tried to persuade me to at least follow my talent for English, rather than art. They knew that it was almost impossible to make a career of art unless you ended up teaching, and as teachers themselves, that was the last thing they wanted me to do. However, do teenagers ever listen to their parents? I was determined to go to Art College and study painting, and that's exactly what I did. To their credit, my parents supported me in my, "folly," by taking an interest in all I did, and supporting me financially as well. They did all, and more, than any parents could be expected to do, and I was not ungrateful.
My time at Art College was well spent, for I was determined not to let my parents, nor indeed myself down. I studied hard, painting and drawing virtually non-stop, always practicing and honing my skills, which paid off in my final year when I picked up one of the major prizes for painting. These prizes were awarded to the top students in each discipline; painting, sculpture, and design, etc, who had impressed the adjudicators in their final year. It was my good fortune to be awarded the prize for painting, which allowed me to travel and study in Italy during the long summer holidays. I came back home, inspired by what I had seen in Rome, Florence, Sienna, Padua, and Venice, but inspiration or not, I had to find some way of supporting myself until I set the art world on fire.
I chose some of my best Italian and Scottish landscapes and had them reproduced as limited-edition prints. The prices I set for these were not too cheap, but not too dear. Too cheap means people have no respect for your work, but too dear can be just as bad, deterring the impulse buyer, or at best making them think too hard about buying. I placed some with local art shops and took a stall at craft fairs and such like. I also painted a few portraits of friends and family as samples, with the intention of marketing myself as a portrait artist.
After a year or so of continually working at promoting myself, things began to pay off, and I began to receive substantial commissions for portraits. For some reason my work seemed to appeal to the corporate market, and my work now hangs in the boardrooms of quite a few major company headquarters. From there it was a short step to picking up private commissions from the wives of executives who had seen my work in the company boardrooms. One thing always leads to another, and I was continually aware of the need for the dreaded, but essential "networking," which paid off when I was recommended by existing clients to their friends.
Meanwhile I continued to paint the occasional landscape, and market the limited edition prints in any way I could. I also began to make a name for myself in the world of fine art as a painter of nudes, but I'll tell you about the nudes, a lot more about nudes later. With all these irons in the fire it may seem like I had my nose to the grindstone, but I loved painting, and it was no hardship for me. I had a great social life too, with a few short to medium term relationships, but they always fizzled out for various reasons, not that I was particularly worried. I felt I was too young to "settle down," and had a long way to go before I was financially stable and established as a serious painter.
I guess I should explain my psychic powers before I go any further. I have the facility to think something 'towards,' another person, and 'plant,' that thought in their head. I cannot make them do anything they wouldn't normally do. So, to explain it in the most crass and shallow terms, if I was talking to a young woman I was attracted to, I could plant the thought in her head of playing with my cock. Or sucking my cock, or being fucked by me. I couldn't turn her into a zombie-like creature, and anyway, who in their right mind would want that, but I can certainly plant an erotic idea in her head, and influence her just a little bit in my favour.
It was around this time that Miss Jones (remember her?) came back into my life for one glorious weekend. It was at the wedding of one of my former classmates, Jennifer Riley. Jennifer had been a favourite of Miss Jones and had kept contact with her throughout the intervening years and invited her to the wedding. I saw Miss Jones at the church, and thought she hadn't changed a bit, still beautiful, only more mature, and elegant. Her blonde hair was up in formal style, and she was wearing a cream silk two-piece suit and a lacy camisole type blouse below her jacket. The skirt was short, but classy, her legs were bare and tanned, and just as long and shapely as I recalled. She looked stunning.
I had just turned twenty-four and figured that Miss Jones must be about thirty-four or a little older. Not
too
old my lecherous mind thought, and so, to cut a long story short, I spent the entire forty-five minutes of the ceremony just a couple of pews behind her, in the church, reminding her of her, 'indiscretion,' in the school cupboard, and how she's been seen by me, while projecting the thoughts, 'at,' her.
My powers were much stronger now, and I also added a few more thoughts and fantasies of my own. After all, I knew what I wanted from darling Miss Jones, now that I was old enough to know what I wanted. I watched her get ever more restless and agitated until she turned around and looked at me. I saw the shock on her face and smiled at her as of old. She blushed but gave me a dazzling smile back. Our secret, I thought.
Later, at the reception, I talked to her for a while before we sat down for the meal. We didn't mention what had taken place at school. Frankly, I didn't need to talk about it with her, because all through the catch-up conversation, while I was telling her what I had done at school, Art College, etc, I kept guiding her mind to think of sex. She was trying to maintain a normal conversation, but I knew her thoughts were of masturbating openly for me, playing with my cock, and much more. There was a definite sexual 'tension,' between us.
