The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

PART I

November, 2016

“Are you quite certain we’re in the right place?”

“This is where it happened!” Dr. Wolfe replied, almost sharply. “Right here, 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Readings were off the scale. Of course, I am not completely certain what the scale is . . . or whether there can be a scale for this sort of thing. It may not be quantifiable in the usual sense, given the—“

“All right, Anton, I think I get it,” Roma interrupted, before her colleague could get lost on one of his impenetrable rambles. Physics professors were like that, apparently, older ones especially so.

Roma’s scepticism was well founded. The coffee shop they were sitting in hardly seemed the kind of environment for the weirdness Dr. Wolfe claimed to have found there. It was a cozy place to while away a rainy afternoon, with its glassed-in fireplace and round-backed chairs. Big windows in front looked out over the rainy street. A pair of efficient young women served coffee and condiments from a curved wooden bar along one wall.

Dr. Wolfe said: “Surprised the soul right out of me, I will say that. Unfortunately, yesterday I did not have the detector set up to record, so I have no verifiable data.” As he spoke, he opened a shell case on the low table in front of him, to reveal a complicated electronic apparatus inside. He pushed a button. Several miniature screens on the apparatus lit up.

“Much as I appreciate this excuse to avoid the rain,” said his co-worker, “I don’t see why you need me here. I do have work waiting in the laboratory.” Roma directed the laboratory for one of the other research scientists. The unit had decided that, as a courtesy, someone should indulge Wolfe when he asked for a witness to his absurd observation. Roma had drawn the short straw.

“Oh, no, you must not leave!” He looked up at her sharply. He was a heavy-set man with a florid face, wearing glasses halfway down his nose. His shock of red hair was perpetually standing on end, as if he had just now stuck a fork in an electrical main. “You are my independent verification, Roma,” he explained. “If something happens, you are a second set of eyes and ears to observe. I need steel-clad data to convince the skeptics.”

“If something happens.”

“If it happened once, it is very likely to happen again. Wait and see.”

Roma shook her head. “I’m sorry, Anton, but this doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Paul Harmon is right. What you saw was a blip in the background radiation, not some fundamental change in the structure of space-time.”

Now he shook his head. His round glasses glinted. “The phenomenon is real. Something is different. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant has been determined to thirteen decimal places. It is the most constant of all universal constants. But yesterday afternoon it was reading point zero zero zero two percent greater than normal. That cannot be. The only explanation is a Richmond shift: a jump into another space-time continuum.”

“Yes, I sense a great disturbance in The Force.”

He looked at her blankly. “What?”

Roma tried not to roll her eyes. She mostly succeeded. “Look, theoretical astrophysics is your department. Mine is common sense. Why, if there has been a real Richmond shift—if such a thing even exists—would it be somehow associated with a riverside café? The whole idea is silly.”

This time he hesitated. “I confess I do not understand that either. I had the detector with me when I stopped for tea yesterday. I was calibrating it, trying to tune out the neutrino signature, when it started giving me readings. Utterly unexpected! The outputs were startling. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.”

“A glitch in your machine, nothing more.”

“No. I examined every wire and circuit with the greatest attention.”

“A shift in the space-time continuum,” Roma said thoughtfully, “in a coffee shop. Well, it’s convenient, if nothing else.” She lifted her white cup and drank.

Wolfe made no response to Roma’s sarcasm. They both waited quietly for several minutes. Wolfe fussed with the detector; he arranged two microphone-like extensions on either side of the table. A few people came in for coffee, others left. A parade of umbrellas and macs ed on the street outside.

“What ho!” shouted Wolfe.

“What? What is it?”

“The anomaly! It has returned. Look at the gauges.” He pointed toward a couple of small screens built into the apparatus. Yellow lines danced across the fields, like seismic recordings during an earthquake.

“That’s the anomaly?” Roma asked. “I thought it would be a little more dramatic.”

“Do not be droll, Ms. Fyne. The detector is merely recording the existence of the anomaly. The real shift would be a change in the surroundings, possibly something we could see, or feel, or . . . something.”

“Nothing seems different to me,” Roma replied reasonably.

She looked around the shop for a few seconds, humouring him. What exactly were they supposed to see? A tripling of the speed of sound? The earth cracking open beneath their feet? If there had been a restructuring of the cosmic order, it didn’t appear to be upsetting commerce. The customers in the café continued chatting, or working, or reading, as before.

A young man came in out of the rain. He was neatly dressed and sported a trendy goatee. Yet for a moment Roma wondered if he were drunk. He looked confused. His eyes were wild.

The man made no effort to the queue at the coffee bar. Standing just inside the door, he steadied himself with one hand on a wall. He surveyed the room, apparently uncertain if this was where he should be. When his gaze landed on Wolfe and Roma, it lingered for several seconds. Roma almost gasped. The man’s dark eyes betrayed an endless well of turmoil and anguish, like a glimpse into Dante’s inferno.

At length the newcomer found a seat near the fireplace. He sat down heavily. He unrolled a copy of Foreign Affairs from under his arm, but didn’t read it. He leaned his head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling.

There goes one deeply troubled man, Roma reflected. She continued to scan the room. The business couple at the next table was poring over some sort of report. The woman was a sharp-edged brunette in a grey business suit and low heels. She kept interrupting her male partner to check her text messages.

While Roma watched, the woman set down her mobile. She looked away, as if struck by an idea. Her demeanour changed. She said something to her co-worker, smiling at him for the first time. She laid a hand on his arm. He looked up from the report. He said something in return.

The throat of her blouse had fallen open. He kept glancing at her cleavage. She pretended not to notice.

“She’s looking for a promotion,” Roma muttered.

Wolfe said: “That is all very well. You were young once too, I suspect. Let us keep looking.”

Roma contemplated that comment as she scanned the room. She had always played close to the line between plain and pretty, with her slender figure and aquiline face. Now, divorced and with touches of grey in her short-cropped hair, it hardly seemed to matter.

Roma was dressed in a loose red sweater and black slacks, with low heels. That was as close as she ever came to dres. Anyway, most men were so intimidated by her raging intellect that fashion sense never entered the equation.

The man seated by the fireplace raised a hand. He was still staring at the ceiling. Instantly one of the baristas abandoned a customer and fairly trotted over to take the man’s order. She was a fetching young woman in a green T-shirt, leg-hugging jeans and white sneakers. Her white belt highlighted the sway of her hips as she walked. She smiled indulgently at the young fellow. Roma sniffed; he wasn’t that cute.

Wolfe was scowling at his equipment. The readings had settled from their initial spike. There was still plenty of activity. He said: “Maybe we need to conduct some experiments.”

“Right,” Roma replied. “We’ll explain to the management that we’re astrophysicists studying an obscure, strictly theoretical possibility about space-time and we’ve decided, based on a few squiggles from an untested apparatus, that your café is the locus of a point disruption in the structure of reality. Do you mind if we set up a bank of instruments the size of a small car?”

Wolfe looked deflated. “I had not considered that,” he said.

Roma nodded. “Your specialty is astrophysics; mine is common sense. If you were right about the Richmond shift, surely we would notice something.“

She took another look around the room. The man with the goatee was looking her way again. Those eyes!

Everyone else was going about their business exactly as before. Three college students at a nearby table were hunched over laptops, probably working on a t project. They were all dressed in the standard college uniform of sweatshirts and black leggings, sport shoes. At another table, a slender woman in brown tros was reading a book.

Wolfe was alternately toying with knobs and settings on his machine and scanning the room for anomalies. He looked disappointed. “Anton,” Roma said carefully, “I think you should accept—”

“Would you like a refill?” a chipper voice interrupted. One of the baristas was standing there, smiling, with a coffee urn in her hand.

“Oh. No thank you. I’m fine.” Coffee kept her awake. When did the café begin table service?

“It’s on the house,” the girl persisted. “It’s our new house blend. Give it a try!” She was already pouring. Her green pullover outlined the swell of her breasts as she bent over to pour.

“Oh, all right,” Roma conceded. The beaming girl handed her the cup. Roma added a precise aliquot of cream from the decanter on the table as the bubbly barista scampered away in her trendy white high-tops.

Roma watched the sway of the girl’s ass beneath her tight jeans. So did every male patron in the room. “Exceptional young woman,” she commented. The girl’s smile could be on toothpaste commercials.

“Yes, quite lovely I am sure,” Wolfe replied absently. He gave the receding barista a quick glance before returning to his apparatus. “What were you saying?”

“Hmmm?” Roma murmured. For some reason the image of the comely coffee server was stuck in her head. She sipped coffee. “I’m sorry, I got distracted by that sweet ass; mmmmm—I mean, gracious, distracted by her two full cups—No! I mean, by getting a second full cup of coffee.” She drank some of that coffee to cover her word slips. Then she went on more seriously:

“Anton, I think it’s time to it that the Richmond shift doesn’t exist. Whatever your gizmo is measuring, it has nothing to do with the structure of space-time. This is an ordinary coffee shop on an ordinary, rainy day and there is no nick in the nature of nature here.”

His scowl was a storm cloud. “These readings—”

“Are amplifying noise. Or picking up wifi signals. Or reflecting an overheated diode you didn’t allow for. Look around for heaven’s sake. There’s nothing here!”

Her outburst drew the attention of the couple at the side table for a moment. They were still going over the document on the table in front of them. They were sitting closer together now. She kept finding excuses to touch his arm. The woman was attractive, in a mature, sensous way. Roma hadn’t realized that before.

Dr. Wolfe was implacable. “There is something here. I am certain of it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because—because I can feel it.” He sounded uncomfortable confessing something not based on data. “Do you not notice it as well?”

Roma looked around the coffee shop. “Maybe,” she conceded.

She was loath to it it, but something did seem different. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. A sense of strangeness had descended on the room, as if it were bathed by a setting, summer sun that washed everything in soft light and shadows. Outside, the rain tumbled down.

She considered the business woman at the next table. Something about her seemed unexpected, though Roma couldn’t say how. She was blonde, and strikingly pretty. Her skirt-suit was dark blue, snug, and short. Her legs were fully displayed in smoky hose and open-toed, blue slings. More conspicuously, her white blouse was half undone. And overflowing. Her blue lace brassiere was totally unprepared for the mammoth task it had been given.

The man beside her had a hand on her knee, beneath the table. She was stroking his hair, murmuring. She’ll get that promotion, Roma reflected. She pretty much deserved it just for that awesome rack.

She heard laughter from the two bar girls, sharing a joke. One of them poured a steaming cup of coffee, then brought it to the man with the goatee. She looked right sexy in the coffee-bar uniform: a bust-enhancing top of coffee-brown over shiny green tights. There were no panty lines tarnishing the girl’s perfect behind. Her boot-heels clicked on the terrazzo floor.

“Mmmmm, nice ass,” Roma murmured.

“What was that?” asked Wolfe.

“I said she has a sweet—Wait, why would I say that?” She frowned. Something about the girl’s uniform . . . .

She glanced over at the coffee bar. The other girl, at least as fetching as the one on the floor, was dressed in an identical outfit of brown pullover, green tights and shiny black boots. She filled her top amply.

Roma found herself studying the two girls longer than necessary. This blatantly sexy outfit had always been the uniform for the serving girls here. She was certain of that. It was supposed to be reminiscent of coffee trees. The café wasn’t called Perky’s for nothing.

But hadn’t the girls been dressed differently a few minutes earlier? Or was her memory confused, or . . . something? She ran her fingers through her deep brown hair.

She looked over at Wolfe’s detector. The lines on the monitors were still wobbling. Another miniature screen showed lines of data scrolling upward: energy fluxes and particle densities.

What exactly did this information mean? If the whole universe slipped onto a slightly different existential path, would anyone notice? No one had attempted to address the consequences of a Richmond shift before.

She watched an attractive blonde leave the shop carrying some fancy coffee confection. She was dressed in glamorized office attire: a snug white jacket mostly compensated for the absence of a blouse beneath it. Only an inch or so of her miniskirt extended beyond the bottom of the jacket. Her white, stretch boots ended well above her knees, yet still well below the hem of her skirt. She swung a white umbrella up as she approached the door.

Her umbrella matches her suit, Roma realized. She ired women who could dress that sharply. The gold, spike heels on the blonde’s tall boots seemed impractical though. The two-inch heels on Roma’s black ankle boots were more reasonable. The boots matched her leather stretch-pants.

Something felt not right. Like she was in a waking dream.

She took another look around. Anton Wolfe was alternately scanning the room and inspecting his instruments. He looked puzzled. No one else seemed to be feeling the sensation of oddness that he and Roma were suffering.

The three college girls were laughing over their computers, looking fit and sexy in their bright-coloured yoga pants. The shapely woman in the brown shorts was still reading her magazine. Her glossy nylons glinted in the overhead lights. She idly toyed with a lock of permed blonde hair.

Seeing her reminded Roma that she hadn’t checked her own face for a while. She dipped into her purse for a small make-up kit with a mirror in the lid. She looked herself over. Her face was long but symmetrical, with wide-spaced, grey eyes. Her make-up looked good.

There was something funny about her hair. It swept forward in a short, modern cut, smooth and dark brown. She had been to the stylist just a week earlier. Why was she ing it being frizzy, with streaks of grey?

Her uncertainty extended to the make-up kit itself. It was silver, ornately decorated around the outside edge, with her initials inscribed in the centre. A gift from her grandmother, many years ago. So why did it seem like she had never seen it before?

A reflection in the mirror distracted her from her self-assessment. A couple had come in through the door behind her: two women in their forties, plump and doughty. They were both in boring, sensible attire, dark slacks and sweaters, and looking irritated by the rain. They folded up umbrellas as they advanced on the coffee bar. One of the comely coffee servers spoke to them, smiling. Roma’s eyes went wide.

“Anton,” she said, setting down her mirror, “I think I’ve found it.”

He was instantly attentive. “The Richmond Shift? You can see it?”

“Yes. It’s—It’s not what you are expecting.”

“Show me!”

“You see those two women at the counter? The ones getting coffee?”

“Yes. Oh, yes indeed.” His tone telegraphed that he was not beyond appreciating a well-tended, mature woman.

The newcomers were indeed striking. They both looked rich, fit, and well-coiffed. The one on the left, with the wavy dark hair, was wearing a short leather coat-dress: shiny, black, and mostly unbuttoned. The open skirt revealed perfect legs in skin-tight black boots that extended almost to her crotch. Above, her impressive chest challenged a black-leather bra, inlaid with gold.

Her blonde companion was wearing a red bolero jacket of some filmy material that shimmered when she moved. Underneath, her womanly curves were coated in pink lycra tights and a matching top composed mostly of straps. Her red ankle boots had enough platform heel to elevate her above the deepest puddles.

The blonde noticed Dr. Wolfe looking her way. She gave him a smoky look. Roma was not surprised by the woman’s interest. Despite his advancing years, Anton Wolfe remained surprisingly attractive to women of all ages.

Wait. What?

“They are both notable,” Wolfe said, still iring the new couple, “but I do not see—”

“They didn’t look like that a moment ago.”

“What? What do you mean? I suppose they were under their brollies, of course, but—”

Roma persisted. “They didn’t look like that. I know it sounds bizarre, and I can’t properly explain it, but when they came in, those two were ordinary. Frumpy. They became different. I didn’t see it happen, but . . . .” She threw up her hands in bewilderment.

Her companion drew his attention away from the leather and lycra duo, who were now making their way to a table, backsides swaying like a chorus line. “Ms Fyne,” he began.

“Look, indulge me. We’ll do the experiment. Watch the door. See who else comes in.”

He sighed. “Very well.”

They watched. A lithe brunette in a sparkling black tube-top and low-riding, vinyl tights hip-swayed toward the door. She tottered away down the rainy street on towering heels, drawing stares. A couple of businessmen came in, balding and officious in dark suits. Two women arrived behind them. The older one looked thirtyish, sensible and almost plain. The younger, perhaps her daughter, was a sullen-looking teen in loose denim and plaid. The made their way to the coffee bar, folding up black umbrellas.

“Those two,” Roma said, “the two women getting coffee. Watch them.”

Dr. Wolfe said: “Very well, but I do not see any—oh my word!” He gaped, eyes wide.

The two women were both trim and smoothly curvaceous. Most of the apparent age difference between them had disappeared. They were dressed identically in fantasy schoolgirl outfits: sleeveless half-tops above, insignificant plaid skirtlets below, about an acre of smooth, bare skin between. Both wore immaculate white thigh-highs, completely revealed by the minuscule skirts, and plastic, little-girl rain-boots, in yellow and red. Mother’s umbrella was patterned with a yellow and black spiral. Her daughter’s bore giant red polka-dots.

Anton Wolfe, normally unflappable, was groping for words. “I do not—I do not understand. They were different—before. Yes? But how can—there was no change. I do not—It is impossible.”

Roma threw back her dark hair. “It’s everywhere,” she breathed. “Somehow we didn’t notice.”

She surveyed the room. Every woman in the coffee shop was stacked, stunning and sexy. The office girl at the next table had one leg thrown carelessly over her partner’s knee. Her travesty of a business suit featured a tight microskirt with a wide gore up one side and a gauzy white blouse that strained over her burgeoning, braless boobs, and their distended nipples. Her tits seemed even bigger than Roma ed them. She was kissing and whispering with her amorous co-worker. He was stroking the inside of her leg, high up her mesh stocking. She ignored her buzzing mobile.

At another table, the three college girls were apparently taking a break from work in favour of watching funny videos. All three were in stretch tops that seemed a size too small and painted-on dance tights in rainbow colours. Their high heels matched their tights exactly. Looking them over, Roma felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. She was accustomed to being the prettiest girl in the room.

Nearby, the leggy lovely in thigh-high, suede stretch boots was reading a paperback novel with lurid purple covers. Whatever was in the book seemed to be distracting her intensely. She was breathing deeply. Her free hand quietly stroked the crotch of her suede shorts.

Roma watched one of the chesty coffee servers prance over to the two mature beauties who had so distracted Anton. Her leaf-green tights outlined the exact shape of each ass-cheek as she bent over to pour fresh coffee. Her coffee-brown pullover was deeply low-cut in front. The temperature in the room rose ten degrees. The coffee shop wasn’t called Hot ’N’ Steamy for nothing.

“This strangeness must be the Richmond shift,” Dr. Wolfe said, eventually. He was watching the coffee girl wiggle away in her shiny-tight boots. “But . . . how can this be? These changes are organized, detailed. I expected a random variance in some physical law. There is clearly agency at work here. How—”

“It’s a person!” Roma cried.

He looked at her. “What?”

“Anton, don’t you see? The anomaly, here, in a coffee house, not out beyond Jupiter or in an accelerator at CERN or in the heart of the sun. It’s too much for coincidence. It’s a person. A genuine, ordinary human being is behind this anomaly. He stopped here for coffee and set your machine ringing.” She gestured toward his instrument, which was still showing wild spikes.

Wolfe considered it. He also considered the roomful of sexy women. “A person is responsible for a Richmond shift?”

“He is the Richmond shift! Or maybe he’s at the centre of it, the focal point. The anomaly propagates from him.“

His brow furrowed. Roma had seen that look before. It meant he was thinking intensely. At length he said, “I believe you may be correct. A person is somehow at the centre of this event. A man, evidently.”

“But who?”

Dr. Wolfe pointed over his shoulder without looking. “Him,” he said. He was pointing at the man with the troubled eyes.

It was Roma’s turn to frown. “How can you know?”

“Look at him. Is not something odd?”

Roma looked. “Of course,” she agreed, after a moment. The stranger had come in out of the tumbling rain. He wore no overcoat, carried no umbrella. He was bone dry.

“We need to speak with him,” said Dr. Wolfe.

“Easily done,” Roma replied. “He’s coming to see us.”

The stranger approached their table. He studied Dr. Wolfe’s detector for a long moment. The yellow lines danced on the monitors.

“Hello,” the man said. “My name is Damien. I desperately hope you can help me.”

PART II

“What exactly is a Richmond shift?” Damien asked, five minutes later. The trio was sitting around the table where Dr. Wolfe’s apparatus was blinking and jittering at readings frequently off the scale. Roma didn’t seeing an empty chair at their table.

Damien sipped fresh coffee brought over by one of the bombshell baristas. She had showered attention on Anton Wolfe, of course. The man attracted women like a field of clover attracted bees. Roma squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Everything felt out of t.

Dr. Wolfe said: “The universe as we know it consists of all the particles and radiation expanding outward since the big bang, creating the space-time continuum. Trent Richmond’s paper suggested that the observed continuum was only one possibility; there were infinite others, and it was theoretically possible for the universe to jump from one to another. We might notice such an event by a change in our perceived reality.”

“Richmond’s paper was considered off-the-wall musing,” Roma interjected. “Only a few eccentrics”—she gestured toward Dr. Wolfe with one graceful hand—“took him seriously.”

“My colleague’s scepticism becomes her,” Dr. Wolfe replied, smiling. He glanced across the table at Roma, momentarily inspecting her well-filled sweater.

“Richmond was right,” the newcomer said. “I think. My field is anthropology, not physics. There has certainly been some change in the organization of the universe. That’s because the fundamental forces have been rerouted through me.”

“How?” Roma asked. Damien too was inspecting her tits. She got that a lot. She liked that a lot.

Damien sipped coffee. “It happened three years ago,” he replied. “In Ireland. I was re-enacting an ancient fertility rite, trying to understand the prehistorical culture better. It was work for my graduate thesis, but I was really just being pretentious. I chose a propitious night for it. There was a rare planetary alignment that summer, once in a thousand years.

“Something happened. I cannot begin to describe it. Yet when the ritual ended, when I was lying naked on a rock in the middle of a stone dance, moonlight glinting off the blood on my face, I knew absolutely that I could change anything I wanted. At that moment I became a god.” He made this last statement matter-of-factly, as if he were presenting his credentials.

Roma’s logical mind rebelled. “A god?” she said, incredulous. “Isn’t that a stretch? Certainly there is something strange happening here, but surely you can’t simply change anything on a whim.”

“I can,” Damien replied, unperturbed. “Effortlessly.”

He waved a hand. Roma watched as a gaunt, bespectacled woman ing by blossomed into a dazzling blonde in a foreshortened white tube dress and matching, shoulder-length gloves. Her white, thigh-high boots bore loops of decorative gold chains down the sides, matching her gold-framed glasses. She radiated sexual heat like the tropical sun as she cat-walked away.

Roma said nothing for a long moment. Then: “A god, or something.”

“What does a god need with two very mortal scientists?” Dr. Wolfe asked. He seemed outwardly calm in the face of this surreal situation. Roma’s shaking hand was making ripples in her coffee.

Their interloper drew a heavy sigh. “Godliness was not meant for mortal men, it seems. Not for this one, anyway. This power, this capacity, whatever you want to call it, it’s too strong. Far too strong for one man. It makes life too easy. At first it’s life-changing, like winning the lottery; but then it’s more like”—he gestured wildly—“winning the lottery five times in one day. And then receiving eight marriage proposals, becoming a rock star, and being knighted. It’s too much to assimilate.”

Abruptly he stopped speaking. He looked off into space, perhaps ing. His troubled eyes lost focus. “I looked for the limits of my power and couldn’t find any.” he said at last. “I lived life without consequences. It was intoxicating, a high that never ended.” Another long pause. “But I discovered too late that absolute power truly does corrupt absolutely. I have done improper things. Hurtful things. Things I regret.”

Roma said, “But you’re still doing all this outlandish nonsense.” She waved a hand to indicate the coffee shop full of improbably proportioned women. The two businessmen who had recently entered were chatting up the babes in leather and lycra. The women appeared eagerly attentive.

Damien shook his head. “This is a side effect,” he said. “It happens everywhere I go. I can’t stop it. Well, I can, for a while, but it requires constant attention that cannot be sustained. You see, the power resides in my conscious mind and my unconsciousness, in my ego and my id. I have sexual thoughts, like everyone. But my ing fantasies become immediate reality.”

He waved a hand again. One of the baristas had an orgasm. Eyes rolling upward, she collapsed against the bar, groaning and pitching as her legs gave out beneath her. She blurted “Oh-fuck-yes-yes-YES!” loud enough for the whole room to hear.

A (gorgeous) patron grabbed her arms to keep her from falling. Instantly she began cumming herself. The ecstatic couple stumbled backward, bumping into a third (equally gorgeous) woman sitting at a table, who immediately shared their screaming climax. The trio collapsed on the floor in a writhing mass of ecstatic girl-flesh with perfect hair and enormous breasts.

Roma tried to ignore the additional distraction. “If this is automatic,” she said carefully, “then why is everyone wearing boots? That seems more like a deliberate decision. Maybe a sexual preference, even?”

The self-proclaimed god only shrugged. “Because it’s raining, I suppose,” he replied. “I try to make accommodations like that.”

That almost made sense, Roma conceded. The rain was the reason, or at least the excuse, that she was wearing boots herself, her favourite black ones with the awesome gold heels. They looked good with her leather short-shorts.

Roma was a serious person. She liked to stick with basic black, rather than frivolous colours. Except for that one pair of red stretch boots, she reflected, but those were to match a specific dress. And perhaps the cyan ones, with the stitching; and the yellow ones; and . . . anyway, Dr. Wolfe was speaking.

“Three years,” he reflected. “A long time to live with absolute power. What have you been doing?” He swept back his lion’s mane of tawny hair with one hand. The gesture alone could make women swoon.

Damien thought about it. “I went mad, I think. There is much I don’t . I travelled a great deal, saw the world, explored everywhere. And of course I was having fun. Fucking any woman I fancied. Warping everyone I met.

“I thought I was still in control; I thought the sex-madness that I created everywhere was my decision, my idea. Making the world a happier place. Giving people a break from their mundane lives. But really I couldn’t stop it. The power is too strong, it burns through me like lightning, scorching everything around. Eventually I lost control entirely.

“It was in Fiji, of all places, where I came to myself. My reckless behaviour, amplified by this freaky power, endangered the lives of thousands of innocent people. I avoided catastrophe, barely, but the event made me realize what an awful person I had become. I realized then that I needed to get away from everyone for a while, to be completely alone. I sequestered myself, seeking out remote, empty places away from temptation and where I could do no damage. A walk in the wilderness while I sorted myself out.

“Eventually I decided that the only remedy was to be constantly reminded that I was still a human being. Maybe if I immersed myself in the human race, if I surrounded myself with crowds and people, I could keep a grip on my own humanity. It worked, for a while. Or maybe it didn’t. Not sure. I couldn’t stop doing things.

“And I don’t fully control my power. Things happen now that I genuinely don’t intend. Look, let me show you.”

He turned toward the front windows. Roma and Dr. Wolfe followed his gaze.

The rain stopped. In fact, it looked like it had stopped some while ago. The street was barely wet. The traffic and buildings were awash in sunshine. Despite everything she had seen, Roma still gaped in disbelief. “What” she managed. “H-how?”

“That is impressive,” Dr. Wolfe allowed. The yellow lines on his detector oscillated wildly. No one in the coffee shop was carrying an umbrella.

“Wait for it,” said Damien.

Commotion sounded on the street. Traffic stopped. A herd of large animals galloped down the avenue, darting this way and that among the cars. Their hooves clattered on the pavements. People shouted after them, pointing. Pedestrians scattered.

“Were those . . . zebras?” Roma asked, when the herd had ed.

Damien said, “Something like that happens every time now. Some kind of causality I don’t understand. I’ll make it seem like they escaped from the zoo.”

Dr. Wolfe frowned. “Do we have a zoo?” he wondered.

Damien set his head in his hands. He whispered, “You have to help me.”

Roma said: “I think your issues extend further than a few loose zebras.”

Unreality continued to unfold in the coffee shop. At one table, Leather and Lycra were now sprawled across the laps of the happy businessmen. Both couples were making out like randy teenagers. Jackets and ties were coming off.

The two office workers nearby had lost interest in the report they were editing. The mouth-wateringly sexy girl was perched on the arm of her boss’s chair, legs thrown across his lap, giant chest inches from his face. She was leaning down to kiss him warmly. Her lips were puffy and red. Her hair was golden blonde.

The newly arrived centrefold in the straining tube dress was teasing a young man who was sitting at the bar with his girlfriend. She was seated at a table behind the girfriend, who was (of course) also spectacular. She crossed and uncrossed her knees, flashing her bedroomy boots, and more, every time. She fixed the young man with looks hot enough to set his drink on fire.

It was all ridiculous, over the top. And, Roma reluctantly itted, intensely arousing. Sexual ardour floated through the room like the scent of a thousand roses.

She forced her mind back to the source of it all. “Damien,” she said, “have you considered seeking, well, professional help for your, uhm, condition?” She chose her words carefully. Upsetting a demi-god with psychological issues did not seem wise.

He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I did. Early on, when I first realized how overpowering the temptation could be. It . . . didn’t go well.” He did not elaborate.

“But you can use your ability deliberately when you want to,” Roma pressed on. “You stopped the rain. Never mind the zebras. Wouldn’t doing deliberate, useful things help keep your focus and maybe reduce these one-off’s?” She watched the honey reading the Purple Prose book slyly sneak a hand into her shorts.

Damien shook his head. “I tried that. I mean, I think I tried. It’s so hard to tell. I’ve done so much, I don’t know what’s good or bad any more. Look, here’s Agnes.”

He gestured toward the stout, white-haired woman who had just come in. “Agnes is fifty-five. She was born in Bristol, works as a hospital records-keeper. Her job is tedious and doesn’t pay well. She has rheumatism in her right knee. It hurts, but the medicine makes her dopey. I can help her, I suppose.”

Roma was expecting the instant transition. Yet it still caught her by surprise. Agnes looked about ten years younger, and infinitely more fit. Her hair was dark brown and lustrous, her figure a parade of curves. She was wearing a white tennis dress, surprisingly brief, that showcased still-shapely legs above hot-pink sport shoes. She was all smiles as she greeted the nearest barista. They must have known each other, because the girl greeted Agnes with a long kiss on the lips.

“Agnes enjoys her job at the hospital now,” Damien explained. “It’s easy, has flexible hours and pays handsomely. She pinches prescription drugs for recreational use. She skips work regularly for spas, shopping and tennis. She gets away with all that, and more, because she is having a torrid affair with her supervisor. She has also successfully seduced a half-dozen doctors, including the chief of surgery, and occasionally sucks off her daughter’s boyfriend.” He paused. “That’s better, right? Without the rheumatism?” His dark-roiling eyes shifted this way and that.

Roma blinked at him. “You are confused,” she decided.

Over at the bar, the barista kissing Agnes didn’t want to stop. She was breathing hard when Agnes pushed her away, laughing.

The mother-daughter pair in the scant schoolgirl outfits bounced toward the door with mugs of tea in their hands. Their tiny skirts swished this way and that, flashing their knickers. Since it was no longer raining (no longer had been raining?) their plastic boots had given over to girlish tennies, yellow and red, with sparkles in the laces. Their appearance on the street caused nearly as much stir as the zebras.

For some reason, the schoolgirls set Roma to reminiscing about her own college days. Blessed with a pretty face and a curvy figure, and unrestrained by moral inhibitions, she had slept her way through four years of advanced physics and astronomy courses. The nice thing about being so smart was that she could spend the night bouncing on one of her many boyfriends and still ace the test the next morning.

It wasn’t that she was licentious particularly. It was just that she had so much trouble deciding. The campus was alive with ripping young men. They all wanted her, and she wanted all of them. What was a horny young cutie to do?

“I don’t know how you do it,” her friend Inira said one day. She and Roma were strolling out of Planetary Science class, graded assignments in hand.

“How I do what?” Roma replied. “Oh, hiiii Terrence!” she waggled her fingers at a young man ing by.

Inira said, “I don’t understand how you do that. You seem to know every cute guy on campus, you’re out on dates or parties like five nights a week, you never seem to study, yet your grades never slip. I don’t even know when you had time to write that.” She indicated the paper in Roma’s hand.

“Oh, well, this course is mostly, you know, basic stuff. It’s not like astrophysics, with all that math.”

“Basic stuff? Are you kidding? Orbital projections make my brain hurt.” Inira was a pretty girl, a little shorter than Roma, who wore her blonde hair long and straight. She was dressed demurely in a peasant blouse and a floor-length summer skirt over white tennis shoes. Roma, as usual, was in more up-scale attire, a snug red jacket and blue leather miniskirt. Her heels clicked as the pair sauntered to their next class.

Roma said, “Do you want to know a secret? I had a little help.” She giggled.

“Oh? What kind of help?”

“The best kind. Help from someone who knows the subject. And has a say in grades.”

Inira stopped walking. “Roma! You didn’t! With Professor Hardman? Really?”

“No! Of course not. He’s like totally married or something. Though if he wasn’t . . . god, smart men like that really do something to me.”

“Yeah. I know. Sometimes I just sit there in class and totally forget to take notes.” She sighed. “But wait a minute. If you didn’t sweet-talk Hardman, who was it?”

Another giggle. “The tutorial leader. Ben.”

“Ben Stander? The graduate student? Ohmygod he’s like totally dreamy. What happened?”

“Wellll, I was sitting there in class one day, and I noticed he kept looking at me, at my legs and everywhere. I was wearing the little red skirt, with the slit. So I decided to be friendly, and smiled a lot, and fussed with my hair, and maaaaybe gave him a few peeks under my skirt. I could tell he liked it because he kept looking at me while he talked, smiling and glancing downward. Then I lifted my skirt to adjust my stocking and he totally lost his place in the middle of a sentence!”

“Gawd. What happened next?”

“I teased him all class, keeping his eyes on me, always giving him something new to look at. I could tell he was getting more and more flustered. I undid a button on my jacket and he lost his place again. When the class finally ended I waited until everyone else had gone—you know how the girls always swarm him after class—and when we were alone I walked up to him and told him that I was having trouble with my paper and maybe he could give me some advice?”

Inira said, “Roma you are shameless. But keep going!”

“I could tell he was really turned on. He said something about reviewing my paper over coffee, which was exactly what I wanted. I agreed, of course, all smiles and giggles, but then I leaned over to give him a little peck on the cheek, just for encouragement you know, and . . . ”

“And?” She was breathless.

“Well, I guess I got him more worked up than I realized. Suddenly he was kissing me and I was kissing him and it was like we couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to, and he had a hand on my ass and I had a leg around him and I could feel him against me, and well, that just melts me every time. I started undoing his tros and he helped me and before I knew it I had his stiffie in my hand. It was so beautiful and I was so turned on. I grabbed a chair, sat down, pulled him between my legs and . . . well, I sucked him off right there in the classroom. The door was open. Anybody could have come in. But it was marvellous. We did go for coffee, eventually. And lookie, lookie!“

She unrolled her assignment to display the front page. The title read: Hot Balls and Iron Rods: Formation and Dynamics of Sub-Planetary Objects. A large letter A was circled in one corner.

Inira was vexed. “Gawd, Roma, couldn’t you leave someone for the rest of us. It’s not fair that you get to have Ben, when you know you didn’t really need help. You get A’s in everything anyway. And Ben is such a Baldwin!”

The corridor was nearly empty now. Roma flicked back a lock of Inira’s golden hair. “Somebody’s getting excited.”

“I am not!”

“Honey, when you get turned on, you start wiggling your hips back and forth.”

Her friend stopped twitching. “Well what did you expect after a story like that! It’s not fair. You have bedroom adventures with every hot guy on campus and your friends have to make do with your cast-offs. I mean, I would kill for a chance with Ben the Ten.”

Roma’s smile was impish. “Well you know,” she said, “I could introduce you.”

A pause. Then: “Really?”

“Of course. We meet sometimes at the coffee shop in the quad. I’ll tell him I’m going to bring my cute friend. He’ll you from tutorials. I’ll leave you to get to know each other.”

She bit her lip. “That would be . . . nice.”

“I think Ben really likes blondes. Too bad for me. Oh, and—” she leaned forward to whisper in her friend’s ear—“he has an amazing tongue.“

“Oh gawd.”

“You’re twitching again.”

“Mmmmm, you’ve got me thinking about Ben the Ten.” Her long skirt swayed back and forth.

Roma slipped an arm around her shoulders. She guided the clearly aroused cutie toward an empty room. “We’re already late for class,” she husked. “Why don’t we slip in here, and I’ll tell you all about how I got that A on my paper.” She brushed her lips across Inira’s cheek.

“Oh gawd,” Inira groaned. She kissed her friend full on the lips. They hurried into the room, closed the door, but didn’t turn on the lights.

Ben wasn’t the only one with an artful tongue. Inira’s first climax arrived in less than ten minutes.

Roma sat in the coffee shop, breathing deeply, warmed by the memory. Then she shook her head, alarmed. Wait a minute! None of that was true! Where had those purple imaginings come from? She had been fantasizing, and vividly. She had never in her life had sex with another woman. Yet for long moments the memories seemed wholly real.

In reality she had been a diligent, standoff-ish student with an intense work ethic that left little time for socializing. The Science Library had been her second home, the laboratory her first. She didn’t have time for dates. She had been modestly athletic though, and a trained dancer.

One day Inira suggested she try out for the cheerleading team, of all things. “It’s not what you think,” the blonde girl had explained. “Cheerleading is basically synchronized dancing. It takes co-ordination and teamwork and it’s a great workout.”

Roma guffawed. “Can you be serious? Cheerleading? Inie, I’m a science major, solidly geeksville, not a hood ornament for the sports teams.”

“Stop being coy. You’re a good dancer and you know it.”

“Yes. The product of childhood lessons forced on me by my misguided but well-meaning mother.”

“Well then, you’ll be great. Look, I’m going to try out, and if I can, you can.” She frowned. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get out of the library, meet people.”

To her surprise, Roma made the squad. Cheerleading (or sport dancing, as the coach insisted on calling it) had been pretty much her sole social outlet. It was a good way to relax after a day of laboratory work.

Even more to her surprise, Roma was good at it. Her endless curves looked fine indeed in a tight sweater and little pleated skirt. When Roma was cavorting on the sidelines, the fans tended to forget about the game.

Roma had been promoted to head cheerleader when her predecessor, an athletic brunette named Nola, showed up at an important game falling down drunk. “Hiiiiii e’erybody!” Nola shouted, as she staggered into the room. “’M all ready hic to cheeeeeer!” She was leaning heavily on Roma, who was working to hold her up.

“Great Scot, what’s wrong with her?” the coach demanded.

Roma gently lowered the other woman onto a bench. “She’s had a bit to drink, I think,” she offered.

“A bit! She’s in no fit state to be cheering. She can barely stand up!”

“Been takin’ th’ edge off!” Nola crowed, swaying wildly. “Oh-kay girls, time a’ suit up!” She began to pull off her sweater, immediately becoming entangled in the sleeves. The other girls in the room could only stare.

It had actually been Roma who suggested to the senior, when Nola confessed to being nervous before games, that a little nip might take the edge off. Roma made sure the nips kept coming. Eventually she had a few shots herself, which she immediately transferred to her swaying companion through long, tender kisses.

“Uh-oh,” Nola slurred, still tangled in her clothing, “thing iz time t’ sleep.” She slumped over sideways and ed out.

The coach glared at her. “Well, looks like we need a new head cheerleader,” she decided.

“Roma!” somebody blurted. There were cries of agreement all round.

“All right, Roma, you’re up,” said the coach. “Work your magic.” She looked over at Nola, who was sleeping half on the bench, half on the floor. “Somebody give her a blanket,” she snapped.

Roma had blossomed as head cheerleader. The other girls quickly fell in behind her, especially once they realized how Roma helped them all look hot. She helped design skimpy new uniforms, then redesigned them to make them even skimpier. Under her guidance, the team adopted a suite of provocative routines, more sensuous and erotic than athletic. The increasingly besotted coach readily agreed to each innovation.

Attendance at games tripled. Nobody cared who won. Even the players were distracted. Girls who had doubts about the direction the squad was taking were quickly convinced by private nip-n-kiss sessions.

No, wait, wait! Roma shouted at herself, in the coffee shop. None of that ever happened! She squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing like that ribald cheerleader fantasy ever could happen. Where did these daydreams keep coming from?

She had never been a cheerleader. The idea was beyond ridiculous. Her school didn’t even have cheerleaders. She had briefly been a second-string mid-fielder for the woman’s football team, in her third year. That, of course, had mostly been an excuse to get near the men’s team. Conveniently, they rode the same bus to away games. The driver chose to ignore the action in the seats behind him.

No! That wasn’t true either! Roma felt like someone had hijacked her memory and replaced it with a pornographic version of reality. The sense of non-quiddity she had been experiencing grew ever more intense. She looked around. There was only one possible source of this confusion. It had to be—

“A question of integral field balance!” Anton Wolfe said, out of the blue.

“What?” said the others, at the same time.

“If you consider your talent as a controlled warping of space-time, field constancy requires a reciprocal alteration in response to any deviation of the relational fabric.”

Damien looked bewildered. But Roma saw where Wolfe was going.

“Look,” she said to the semi-mad demi-god beside her, “one way to think about general relativity is to say that gravity bends light. Another way is to say that the speed and linearity of light are absolute and the rest of the universe has to bend to make that work. Maybe your talent is like that. When you make a change, shifting the cosmic order ever so slightly in a new direction, the universe has to compensate by bending reality a different way.”

“But . . . why zebras?”

“Because the space-time compensations are expressed through you too,” Roma said. “And naturally you reshape the distortions into something familiar. A blob of dark matter or a micro-wormhole wouldn’t mean anything to you. So, when you make the rain stop . . . we get zebras instead.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Wolfe agreed. He blessed Roma with a smile that made her heart skip. The man was magnetic.

“It’s giraffes sometimes,” Damien said. “I hate when it’s giraffes. Giraffes are embarrassing.” He was staring into space.

“Damien! Focus!” Dr. Wolfe’s voice was stern. Sterner in fact, than Roma thought was wise, considering Damien’s instability.

“Right, of course,” Damien said, coming to himself. “Sorry. What now? Do you think you can help me?”

PART III

Dr. Wolfe scowled in silence for a long time. Roma took the opportunity to survey the room. Damien’s talent was still running rampant. Ordinary women of all ages and kinds walked into the café for a cup of coffee and tottered out again as walking sex fantasies in skin-tight micro-dresses and sky-high heels. Boobs expanded; waists contracted; hair re-styled; flaws and blemishes disappeared. Any black clothing became hot pink, sapphire blue, or candy-apple red. The café had become an assembly line for living Barbie dolls.

Roma watched a middle-aged couple enter the coffee-shop. He was portly and glum-faced, she was angular and frizzy-blonde. They were bickering. “Fine, have it your way,” the man snapped, “there was a herd of zebras running down the high street. Sure. Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?”

“You could for once set the sarcasm aside and trust me,” the woman shot back. “I know what I saw. And don’t you ever call me stupid.”

Roma sighed. She recognized the signs: the scornful reproaches, the insults, the cold body language. Those two were sliding down the slippery slope to divorce. The scene reminded her too much of her own divorce, years earlier. Jake, her once-devoted husband had grown increasingly distant as their careers took different directions, until one day they both realized that the marriage was over.

Although there were other factors.

“Hey, Handsome, I brought you another drink,” Roma cooed. The room was big, well appointed, and softly lit. Gentle background music mingled with the sound of conversations all around. Neighbourhood parties were a monthly ritual in the upscale condo where she and Jake lived.

“No, not ’nother one,” said the young man, Hadley, in front of her. He was compact, muscular, and one half of a couple that occupied another flat in the building. “I’ve ha’ toomucha drink already.” Nevertheless he found himself accepting the full glass Roma proffered. His eyes devoured her half-bare tits. The ecru party dress she was wearing, and the underwire bra beneath it, displayed her impressive rack to maximum effect.

Roma knew the dress was perfect because every man in the room had been staring at her. Their partners glared in disapproval, but with an undercurrent of envy. Jake said the tight dress showed too much skin. She had to mollify him with an impromptu blowjob before he would let her wear it outside the flat.

“I ire a man who can hold his liquor,” Roma said, sidling in close. She ran her fingers down his arm. “Almost as much as I ire a man with muscles.” She had been bringing him drinks steadily since he walked in the door.

He blushed, confused by the attention of this dark-haired beauty. “Oh, well, uhm, I work out,” he said. “Maybe I should, uhm, get back ’a Mon’ca.” He looked around for his girlfriend.

“She’s busy,” Roma said. She used two fingers on his chin to guide his eyes back to hers. The woman in question was chatting with a circle of other women, oblivious to Roma’s wiles. Roma urged his glass toward his lips. “Here, drink up honey,” she whispered. “And then I’ll tell you a little secret.”

He drank more strong booze. Roma kept his arm up until he had swallowed several times. “Wha—whasa secret?” he asked, when she let him breathe. His eyes were glassy.

Roma’s tiny dress glittered as her hips swayed, a few inches back and forth. She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. “I think you’re very sexy.“

“I—you—I don’ think—” Hadley stammered. Roma licked his ear. One hand feathered over his crotch. It was a light touch, almost accidental. He twitched.

She snuggled up to the hammered hunk swaying in front of her. Her abundant breasts pressed against his chest. “I’ll tell you what, handsome,” she whispered, “let’s step into the cloak room for a minute. Then you can show me all your muscles.” With both arms around him she led her compliant conquest out of the room.

The affair had ended there. Or it would have done except that Hadley came by their flat the next day to apologize. “Last night was my fault,” he said, sitting on the sofa with the glass of orange juice Roma had brought him. “I had too much to drink, and you’re a right hottie, you must know that. I let physical desire get the better of me. That wasn’t fair to you, or to our partners.”

Roma thought he was so cute. Jake was in the shower. She sat down beside her remorseful neighbour, still in her filmy night clothes. Her dressing gown fell open. “I understand,” she said, leaning close. “And I ire your honesty. Let me give you a little something to show there’s no hard feelings.” Her fingers landed on the lump in his tros.

Jake jumped as if bitten. “Oh, my mistake,” Roma cooed, as his zipper slid down, “something here does feel hard.” Then she lowered her head over his crotch and fully accepted his apology. Hadley spilled his juice.

Hadley came back the next day to tell her it was over. “We have been indiscreet,” he explained, “but I’m not going to let it happen again.” He was so stern that it took a good long tittie-fuck to change his mind.

Hadley returned regularly thereafter, mostly to tell her to stop trying to seduce him, or to stop sending ribald selfies to his mobile five or six times a day, or to stop sunbathing topless on her balcony when she knew his girlfriend was at work. But then one day Jake called her from the office while she was bouncing on her boy-toy on the sofa and she couldn’t bring herself to stop long enough to make coherent conversation. No wonder Jake had left.

No, wait! That never happened! Roma came to herself in the coffee shop, still watching the quarrelling couple. The husband became a staring grinagog as he approached one of the busty baristas. She said something coquettish, ignoring the scowling woman behind him. She stroked his chin with two fingers. The flirt only incensed his wife further.

Roma shook her head, flouncing her long hair. She hadn’t cheated on Jake; with a well-hung neighbour or anybody else. It was almost a pity that she hadn’t because the false memory was making her steamy. She felt moisture in her imported silk undies.

The reality of her separation had been much more mundane. Just two people who grew tired of living together. No infidelities on either side. Roma didn’t really count the fling with Jake’s good-looking friend, and best man, because that was before she and Jake were married. Barely before, if one included the good-bye fuck in the chapel.

“Don’t stain my dress,” she told him as she spread her legs on the marble-top table.

“God you look awesome in white stockings,” he panted, unbuckling his tros.

She left him alone after the wedding. Mostly, anyway. Instead she worked her way through the other groomsmen, whom she felt deserved an equal share. They evidently felt that way too.

No, no, no! That never happened! Roma wiped perspiration off her brow. What was going on here? The images popping into her mind couldn’t possibly be true, she knew that. Yet it was getting harder and harder to separate reality from fantasy. Or to disguise her increasing arousal as she tried.

She was distracted by the tap of high heels. The quarrelling couple was leaving with their tea. The man looked more or less as before, except that his chubbiness had transformed into trim muscularity. His arm-candy wife was trotting along behind him, carefully negotiating the six-inch heels on her cherry-red, platform sandals. She was wearing a burgundy jumpsuit with a V-neckline that extended almost to the shiny red belt at her waist. Her bare, bouncing boobs were revealed to the edge of the nipples. Her blonde hair was long and luxurious.

“Wait for me honey,” the transformed wife cooed, “I’m sorry for being so silly. Of course there weren’t any zebras.” She was carrying a cup of tea in each hand.

Roma groaned out loud. It was all too much. She was horny enough already. She didn’t need distractions like the jiggle in the jumpsuit to notch her bi-sexual thermometer even higher.

Wait, what was that? She wasn’t—

Anton Wolfe’s voice saved her from more confusion. “Maybe we can help,” he said to Damien. “Maybe. I am ready to have a go, anyway. But you will have to help us. I have no clear idea what we are working with here. It will take time to even formulate a working theory.”

“Thank you,” Damien replied. “I deeply appreciate your willingness to try. I suppose we should—”

“More coffee for anyone? Treats?” One of the bodacious baristas was standing beside their table, coffee urn in one hand, a tray of snacks in the other. Her arrival did nothing to calm Roma’s arousal.

The server’s uniform had changed again. Above the shellac-thin green tights and shiny black boots she was now wearing a strapless brown bustier that lifted and shaped her astounding boobs while barely covered the bottom half. The café wasn’t called The Overflowing Cups for nothing.

“I’ll leave these here for you,” the girl said. She set the tray on the table, but she was no longer looking at it. She had discovered Anton Wolfe. “Oh. Hello! Would you like some more coffee, Sir?” She was already bending over to pour, displaying her half-exposed boobs for his benefit. Her eyes were adoring. She spilled coffee.

“Thank you. I am fine,” Dr. Wolfe replied.

“Ohmygod are you ever!” the girl blurted. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . ohmygod.” She slipped onto the arm of his chair. “I get off in an hour, Sir. Would like to go somewhere and . . . not drink coffee?” She stroked his arm with her free hand.

Dr. Wolfe was looking distinctly uncomfortable. He kept averting his gaze from the server’s half-exposed tits, which were huge, discomfittingly close, and right at eye level. “Uhm, thank you,” he replied. “Perhaps some other time.”

“Oh, I’ll take that as a promise!” the girl cried. “Give me a call, please, Sir? I’m Emerald. Here’s my number.” She ran her free hand down one lycra-wrapped leg, drawing three pairs of eyes along with it. She pulled a small card out of her left boot. She handed it to Dr. Wolfe. “Call me any time. Really. Day or night. I always have my mobile on.” She ran her hand through his glossy mane. “I know we just met but ohmygod, I think I’m in—I mean, I would love to serve you so much more than coffee.”

“Perhaps you have other customers, Emerald?” Roma asked.

“Of course.” Emerald didn’t even look her way. “Everything here is free for you, Sir,” she said to Anton Wolfe. “Everything.” She got to her high-heeled feet. “Please, please, please call me. Any time. But real soon, all right? I’ll be sleeping with my mobile. Waiting for you. Sir.“

She strutted away, with barely a glance at Damien or Roma. She turned her head for one more look at Dr. Wolfe. She ran her tongue around her lips.

Dr. Wolfe watched her go. Roma was hardly surprised. The girl’s perfect derriere rolled with each step. But while he was iring, Dr. Wolfe was deep in his frown of concentration. Was she missing something?

She looked around the room. Public decorum was collapsing. Sexual hijinks were becoming more and more flagrant. The leather and lycra duo were half on top of their shirtless partners, kissing and fondling. One man had a hand inside his partner’s leather dress, while the other was sliding pink tights down a perfect ass.

Nearby, the girl with the distracted boyfriend was leaning over the bar, deep in conversation with the other super-chesty coffee server. The barista’s goal was apparently to keep the girl’s attention, so she wouldn’t notice that her boyfriend was getting a white-gloved handjob from the babe in the tall white boots, not three feet behind her. She was clearly doing a good job. The two girls began kissing across the bar.

The blonde office ornament and her young boss were outright screwing. She was half-sitting in his lap, facing away from him, holding the table edge while she rocked up and down. Her bounteous breasts bounced and bobbled on the table. She made happy gasping noises. Though the arm of his chair prevented Roma from seeing everything, she could make out the man’s suit tros bunched up around his ankles.

On the television screen behind the bar, a beautiful news presenter in a very short dress and spike-heeled sandals was practically making love to the camera as she described the weather map behind her. She kept bending over to point out high pressure cells. The filmy dress stretched thin across her bubble ass.

At a table nearby, the three gorgeous college students had abandoned their t project in favour of ts of a different kind. A plume of potent pot smoke hung over their table. The girls were laughing and falling over on one another.

Agnes the hospital worker ed by, looking younger than ever, to offer the girls some free pills. They had to grab them off her tongue, using only their lips. The girls waiting their turn practised on each other. At another table, the woman in the tall suede boots was panting and mewling as she read her Purple Prose book. Her tight shorts were unbuttoned to give her pleasuring fingers more room.

The whole shop was soaked in sex, seemingly seconds away from collapsing into orgy. The only place unaffected was the table where Damien was sitting, the mad mock-god who started it all. He was deep in conversation with Dr. Wolfe. They were having a mundane discussion about how Damien had found the café.

“You can sense my detector,” Dr. Wolfe said.

Damien nodded. “I can’t explain how, but yes. I was ing through on the way to Berlin. There was a problem with . . . some tigers, and uhm, baboons, escaping from the zoo.” He looked guilty. “Rather a lot of baboons. Never mind. I felt something different, something I hadn’t experienced before. I came back today to find it. I traced it to this coffee shop.”

Dr. Wolfe nodded. “The detector creates a local wave distortion field. I designed it to find a Richmond shift by the way it would interfere with the detector’s field. Gratifying to see it works.”

Roma perked up at that. The wave distortion field set up by Dr. Wolfe’s detector was a kind of isolated bubble of unreality. And it was interfering with Damien’s power, like two magnetic fields intersecting. What would that interference look like? No one else in the room appeared to notice that their entire world had changed. Yet Roma kept ing impossible events, moments that she was certain never happened but which seemed utterly valid at the same time. Mad barbarians were banging at the gates of her mind.

She studied Anton Wolfe. His movie-star face was lined just enough to give him an air of dignity and avuncular charm. The golden-brown hair sweeping over his crown was edged with silver, as if touched by frost. The man’s eyes behind his round glasses were of the deepest, purest blue. The serving girl’s iration was understandable.

And yet . . . the sense of mental vertigo struck her again. Did Wolfe always look this way? Hadn’t he been different a little while ago? She teetered in her chair.

“Ms Fine!” cried Dr. Wolfe. “Are you unwell? What is the matter?”

Roma’s head was spinning. “I—I don’t know what’s happening!” she cried. She heard the alarm in her own voice. She turned to the man beside her. “Damien! All this outrage. You haven’t changed us, have you?“

He didn’t answer for a moment. He exchanged a glance with Anton Wolfe. “If I had done you would probably know it,” he replied, after some seconds. “For some reason people always notice changes if I am interacting with them directly. I don’t quite understand that either. Look at yourself. Do you seem different?”

Roma did as he suggested. At first, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was wearing the same outfit she had been in before all this strangeness began: a simple red dress and comfortable suede boots.

But again, something was different. Her dress was a carmine sheen of microfibre stretched over her curves to the top of her thighs. Her legs were still mostly covered though, because her stretch-fit boots ended about three inches below the hem of her truncated dress. The soft, micro-suede boots were jasmine yellow, with tall black heels.

Roma was certain that she had never owned, would never own, a pair of boots like these. Yet she distinctly ed buying the attention-grabbing boots a few weeks earlier, after reading a sex story about yellow boots. More confusing still, her outfit clung to a figure of voluptuous maturity, softer and rounder than the gymnastically fit women dazzling the café, and the more attractive for it. Atop it all, a waterfall of coal-black hair cascaded down her back.

Roma felt close to panic. The sexbomb her eyes revealed was not her. She couldn’t possibly look like that! Or maybe she did? Hadn’t she been turning heads on the street since she was twelve? Didn’t she work out every day to keep herself looking this way? She was no longer sure. Or rather, she was sure that she did and equally sure that she didn’t, at the same time.

“No! It’s all impossible!” she cried. Nearly hysterical, she dove into her designer purse (red and yellow, to match today’s outfit) and retrieved her make-up kit. She studied her face in the mirror.

It was her face. Yet it wasn’t her face. It was her face as it would look after magical surgery that enlarged her eyes, plumped her lips and smoothed her skin. The reflection gazing back at her radiated deep sensuality and aching arousal.

The unreality of it all became more than she could stand. She bolted to her feet. She felt momentary surprise at how far the boot heels thrust her up on her toes. The feeling became normal a half-second later.

“You!” she screamed at the devil-god beside her. “You DID change me! All the time we were talking you were working your infernal magic on me, you criminal scum. You made me into—into this!” She indicated her fabulous figure with a sweep of one hand. “We were trying to help you! How could you do this to me! You wicked, traitorous, soulless, man!”

She was trembling with rage. She clenched her fists at her side, right at the hem of her dress. She could feel her chest heaving beneath the straining fabric.

Damien looked shocked. He pushed back into his chair, seemingly unsure how to react to the enraged sexpot he had created. “I—I—I didn’t mean—” he stuttered. “I mean, I—it’s not like that—I just tried to—you were so uptight, I, I thought I could—but it gets away from me, I didn’t really mean to—”

“Shut up!” Roma screamed. “Just shut up and never speak again! I’m a physicist! I have a freaking Master’s degree forgodsake. I’m not another plastic bimbo-doll for you to dress up and play with! You change me back, do you hear! You can’t DO this!”

Anton Wolfe bounded out of his chair. He jumped over the table, where his detector was going berserk, and gathered his companion in his arms. “Roma, Roma, please, it’s all right,” he assured her. “We’ll work this out. Please, calm down.”

“No!” Roma rebelled. “No, Anton, don’t!” She struggled against him. His arms were surprisingly strong. “Please, ohmygod no.” Her voice carried an edge of pleading. He was holding her gently, meeting her fury with abiding patience.

“It’s the detector,” he explained. “Interfering with Damien’s talent. You’re experiencing two versions of reality at the same time. No wonder you’re stressed.”

She turned toward him. She could feel the heat of his body against hers, the confident masculinity of his presence. She found herself getting lost in his eyes. “Oh god, Anton,” she murmured.

Then she was kissing him. If it surprised him, he didn’t show it. The kiss was slow and tender and infinitely long. It lingered like a sunset over a tropical lagoon, warm and reddening, growing gradually more intense from moment to moment. She slipped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She worked her red-glossed lips against his. She could feel the bulge of his manhood pressing against her belly.

Abruptly everything snapped into place. The oscillations of reality faded and disappeared. In that precious, time-frozen moment, Roma realized that giving herself to Anton Wolfe in every way possible was all she ever wanted to do.

They were both breathing hard when she finally let him go. “Anton,” she husked, “please, I need you. Take me. Take me now!” Before he could respond she kissed him again, while tearing at his clothes. Though she adored sex and had been bedding men for fun since she seduced her freshman year physics professor (she was quite certain of this now), Roma had never felt such pure and delicious lust as at that moment. She yanked off his glasses and tossed them aside, then began pulling his jacket down his arms.

“Roma, wait, wait!” he cried. There was no stopping her. She was already working on his shirt. He turned to their bizarre guest, who was watching the proceedings more with concern than prurience. “Damien—what is this?”

He flipped both hands. “I, uhm, felt some sort of recompense was in order. For your assistance. Money seemed somehow inadequate given the uniqueness of the circumstances. Perhaps something more . . . human, would be better.”

“For god’s sake man, how do you know I am even capable, at my age!” His shirt landed on the floor. His belt buckle was yielding.

“Oh, you’re capable,” Damien replied. “I made sure of that.”

Roma was hardly paying attention to the conversation. She showered her lover with kisses as her hands moved closer to her goal. Anton’s hard-on was tenting his tros like a pike-staff. Off in the distance Roma heard someone shout, “Ohmygod ohmygod yes, like that!” followed by the sound of an elephant trumpeting, out on the street.

“Damn!” Damien muttered.

The noise reminded Roma where they were. She turned to Damien. “Please,” she whispered, “a little privacy?” Damien nodded. Tasteful wooden screening appeared around their table. Roma ed that it had been there when they came in. A series of delicate wood-carvings were inlaid into the lattice-work. To Roma’s surprise, the carvings depicted not bawdy erotica but scenes from Le Morte D’Arthur.

The distraction was momentary. Anton Wolfe’s tros were around his ankles. A few deft flicks of Roma’s hand dispatched his underthings and brought his maleness into full view. Roma whimpered. Anton Wolfe said something in his native language that invoked the deity to express amazement.

“Please, darling, lie down here,” Roma said. She guided him to the floor, which was now somehow carpeted, and straddled his hips in her garish yellow boots. The red lace knickers beneath her too-short dress were easily circumvented. She was very wet. “Come on Anton,” she breathed, as she lowered herself onto him, “fuck my silly brains out.”

In fact it was Roma who did most of the active fucking. She rode him energetically, hips pistoning, boobs bouncing, long hair flying about. She cried out in pleasure with every downward thrust: “Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes!”

“Ah, my word!” said the florid-faced man below her. “It has been so long. So long! I had forgotten how—ahh!” Roma flexed her hips and his eyes rolled back.

“Yes!” Roma agreed. “You’re so long, Anton. So long! So long and hard and big and ohmygod you feel good!” She grabbed the bottom of her dress and impatiently yanked it up and off. “Put your hands on me!” she demanded. She took one of his hands in each of hers and guided them to her tits. Her lace bra was not designed to conceal. Wolfe began to knead and fondle, occasionally flicking her stiff nipples with one finger.

Roma felt sexual pleasure rippling through her like electricity. She bounced up and down on her new lover’s staff. From the shouts and noises she could hear through the screens, she could tell that other couples were fucking happily throughout the café. The whole room was caught up in a communion of physical delight.

Abruptly it was too much. Anton Wolfe grunted as he pushed deeper into her. Roma leaned back and grabbed her suede boots at the ankles. She closed her eyes, trembling. She heard Wolfe say something very rude, then stiffen and pitch as he ejaculated deep in her pussy.

The added touch was all she needed to push her over the edge. She screamed, “Yessssss Antonnnn!” as the climax took her. The commotion she could hear from beyond the screens told her that many other couples were finding their peaks as well.

When the world came back into focus, she rested on top of him for a long time, sliding down from her orgasmic high. She felt the press of her breasts against his chest with each inhalation of breath. She and Anton Wolfe made an oddly attractive couple there on the floor, the yellow-booted beauty and the red-haired scientist. Eventually, reluctantly, she let him go. They climbed to their feet and redressed.

“Well, that was altogether splendid,” Anton Wolfe allowed, as he replaced his lost glasses. “I hope we can do that again sometime.”

Roma struggled into her tight dress. She sidled up to him, confidently sexy in her tall heels. “Do it again sometime? Anton, honey, don’t you get it? You can do whatever you want with me; anywhere, any time, any way you like.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Now I understand why women adore you so. You’re the most captivating man I’ve ever met. And I’m captivated. You own me. You’ve transformed me into your horny, helpless, arm-candy love-slave fuck-doll with that giant, magical, cunt-filling cock of yours and if I don’t stop talking I’m going to start tearing your clothes off again!“

“Oh. Uhm, I see. Well, I could use an assistant in my laboratory. There will be much to do now that we know a Richmond shift is truly possible.”

“I’ll tell Dr. Harmon I quit tomorrow morning,” Roma said quickly. “No, I’ll send him a text right now. There. Now I’m your lab tech. Though I hope you don’t mind”—she leaned in close to whisper in his ear—“if I sometimes wear nothing but high heels beneath my lab coat.”

He grinned for the first time. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I am rather fond of heels.” He pushed her away, gently, like he was setting down a friendly kitten, and began to pack up his detector. The yellow lines on the monitors were nearly flat. Roma used the delay to check her make-up. She had to look her best at all times for Anton.

“That was an interesting afternoon,” Dr. Wolfe said, as he pulled back the wooden screen. Throughout the café, men and women were lazily composing themselves from what appeared to have been intensely satisfying sex. One of the baristas was pulling on her pullover; the other was carefully re-applying lipstick. The fellow who had been distracted behind his girlfriend’s back was walking out with the babe in white boots on one arm, his transformed girlfriend on the other.

Someone came in off the street to order coffee. He gaped at the stacked serving girl as she adjusted her clothing. She smiled back at him.

Roma looked around. “Where’s Damien?”

“He must have slipped away while we were—otherwise occupied,” Dr. Wolfe replied. “But look here.” A brightly coloured parrot was sitting on the arm of Damien’s chair. It carried a small card in its beak. Dr. Wolfe gently removed it. “Thanks for listening. I’ll be in touch

—Damien,” he read.

He chuckled. “He has a flair for the dramatic.” He picked up the yellow case holding his detector. “Shall we go?”

Roma stepped forward and wrapped herself around his other arm. “Let’s go, darling,” she agreed. “And the minute we get back to the laboratory I expect you to bend me over your desk and screw me till I’m cross-eyed. So I’ll know what to expect from now on.”

The happy couple exited the coffee-house, into the traffic and the sunshine. Roma held the door open so the parrot could fly away.