The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“I know we’re all excited to be starting a new university semester, but if everybody could just calm down and stop chattering— I’d like to start class.”

The classroom was only of moderate size, tucked away on the second floor of an unassuming brownbrick building.

A sea of faces belonging to young men and women looked up at the professor, having taken her cue to start paying more attention.

She sighed in relief, and met their gazes headon.

“My name is Hetty Mayhew,” she said. “Professor Hetty Mayhew, but this course is a challenging one. Every year when I teach it, I feel a little that I and my students are venturing off on an unknown journey at times, heading into even frightening places— and when you are venturing into frightening places, it’s important to trust the group that’s with you on the expedition. So while you may call me Professor Hetty, in the interest of fostering mutual trust and mutual reliance, I’d prefer that you all just call me Hetty.”

Some of the university students were already writing down what she was saying; taking her seriously right away.

Hetty smiled.

“Check the course number at the top of your syllabus, if it does not match the number you expected, then you’re in the wrong class. Currently you’re on the second floor of our campus’ History building, and though this is a first-year course, it is a course which only allows the enrolment of History majors. This is your first historiography course. In History, it is, of course, important to know what happened and when, but it is also important to lay those facts in the context of everything else known about whatever given event you are looking at; to construct the most complete, accurate narrative, taking all available information into .”

They were all listening closely, now that Hetty was lecturing in earnest. She paced leisurely from one side to the other of the front of the classroom, clasping her hands behind her back.

“The thing that makes this course challenging is that there is no settled history. Even if no new historical sources were ever turned up— even if no pre-existing historical sources ever shed light on a previously unconnected event upon reexamination, the work of creating a complete and accurate narrative, encoming as much as possible would be a serious challenge.

“But new historical sources do turn up, and the ones which, after being vetted, prove themselves as credible, can potentially disrupt previously understood narratives, even destroy them irreparably— or at the least open up entire other worlds of necessary study, which have previously been ignored in connection with whatever historical narrative you’re investigating.”

Hetty stopped pacing and turned to face the students head on.

“It is often thought that history is a static thing— something dead, and sealed, all settled long ago. This is a wrong assumption. It is vibrant, the narratives of it live, constantly shift and transform. And I’m just as much on the edge of all this as you. New journal articles overturning new evidence are published every day— sometimes destroying research I am currently doing— sometimes discrediting research I did in the past. No narrative is ever safe, and together we will all navigate this together.”

Expectant eyes looked up at her, waiting to see if she would elaborate more on that point— waiting to see if there was some more formalized collaboration planned between Professor and students.

Hetty just smiled. “This course is very reading heavy. As I already said, we’ll be examining how to responsibly construct credible narratives of history, using many individual case studies; I will alter the syllabus as I see fit; if some new journal article which overturns my alreadystanding views, I will bump whatever is on the schedule that week to center that article— I will let you watch me grapple with the disruption of it, especially if it is in the context of work I am doing or have done before.”

Some of the students shifted excitedly in their chairs.

“Other than that,” Hetty continued, beginning to pace again, “apart from the case studies and their connected narrative-assembling assignments, we will also get into a history of historiography later, looking at some famous cases in which narratives were deceiving or omitting in the past and how the field shifted to point that they could be made more accurate. If everyone understands what I have covered so far, we’ll begin going through the syllabus week by week.”

Hetty’s eyes surveyed the class— but they found the same thing as the eyes of those students who also turned in their seats to check— no one had raised a hand, no one had spoken.

Hetty nodded, pleased with this finding— it was clear to everyone in the room, then, that they were all on the same page; the professor understood what she had imparted, and her students all understood what she had shared with them.

So Hetty began going week by week through the syllabus as promised— still no questions were asked, still no hands were raised. The rest of the class period went on this way, and while Hetty was gathering up her papers and materials, putting them in an order at the provided professor’s desk at the front of the room, all of her students for that class filed out.

After she had gotten all of her materials portable, and was ready to pick them up and sweep out of the room herself, she happened to glance up from the desk she was partially leant over.

When that upward glance happened, she jumped in a startle.

She was not alone in the room.

“Professor? Or, I guess you said to call you Hetty?”

Hetty nodded once, tensely.

“Sorry to startle you,” the young man who had been the cause of her reaction now said to her.

Hetty shook her head. “No, I’ve partly regained my wits now. It’s just— you were so quiet. I didn’t hear your steps coming up to my desk. I thought I was alone in the room, that’s all—”

She shifted on her feet, to affect a more relaxed stance.

Then she gave the young man an open smile. “Was there something you were confused about, you wanted clarification on?”

The young man shook his head. “I just wanted to introduce myself, and I thought it would be more polite to do it after class and not waste the time of the other students.

He extended his hand over the desk for a handshake.

Hetty looked at it in puzzlement.

“My name is Russel Dennis,” he said, and still held his hand out to her.

“I’m sorry, Russel, but I don’t entirely understand? I don’t usually make my introductions with students this way. I usually just wait to learn everyone’s names in the normal procedure of the course. Generally, it takes me a few weeks, but as people raise their hands to participate in discussions, and as they turn in assignments and write quizzes, I start to pick up name. That’s how I’m used to learning who people are— this is a little overly formal for me. You ed I don’t like having people address me by my academic title, so why did you think I would like a formal introduction like this?”

Her tone was resoundingly skeptical as she continued to consider the young man’s outstretched hand.

He didn’t retract it.

“You didn’t make any impression on me in class today,” Hetty said. “You look like any other student. I’ve seen blonde young men before— even blonde young men who are slightly taller than me, when I’m taller than average anyway. And you definitely look the same as all the other young men I saw today; wearing a grey t-shirt, and dark blue jeans, black sneakers. Hardly an original outfit; there’s nothing particularly memorable about you.”

She shook her head. “I’m not entirely apologetic, if this comes across a bit harsh. All I mean to convey is that if you had made any kind of impression on me in class today— either by making an insightful comment, or by asking a smart question— I would have learned your name through that, and this formal introduction wouldn’t have been necessary.”

Still he held out his hand for a handshake, almost demandingly.

Hetty crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re Russel Dennis. I’m Hetty Mayhew, as you already knew. That’s as introduced as we’re getting.”

Russel smiled in wonder, still keeping his hand out. “You don’t like me Professor, do you?”

“You’re hardly ingratiating yourself to me by insisting on a formal handshake, when I’ve already made it clear I don’t enjoy formal introductions,” Hetty grumbled.

“I’m just going to stand here until you shake my hand, Professor.” He grinned cleverly.

“You used my formal term of address to directly antagonize me that time.”

Russel said no more. Some long moments ed; his hand outstretched, Hetty’s arms crossed over chest.

At last she unfolded her arms, and let out a long-suffering sigh. She took Russel’s hand and shook it once.

The second she’d made one full shake, she pulled her hand back, and grabbed all her materials of the desk. “You should know that you’ve made a horrible first impression,” she said, now holding her all of her teaching aids flush to her chest as she had once carried university textbooks there herself.

“You showed that you don’t listen, you showed that you don’t care about another person’s comfort, even when they’re actively telling you that you’re making them uncomfortable. No, Russel, I don’t like you.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Carrying what she’d brought into class with her, she swept out into the hall to get on with her day.

That particular history class, given how intensive it was, was a class that met twice a week— on Tuesday, and on Thursday. The first class had neatly fallen on a Tuesday, so the second class fell on a Thursday, and in that Thursday class, the actual work of the course began— there had been assigned reading between the Tuesday and Thursday class— all the students realized that Hetty hadn’t been joking when she’d described how demanding class was.

She had the class start up a discussion all together on what they’d read— by this point of the course, about forty-five minutes into an hour and a half period, the discussion had gotten pretty indepth.

This time, because he’d introduced introduced himself, Hetty found that Russel seemed to stick out to her. Not in a positive way— whenever her eyes happened to over him, Hetty distinctly felt as if something was irritating her skin; there was somewhere she wanted to scratch raw, only she had no way of locating where that place was. Russel was an active irritant— just seeing him accomplished this irritation— he was only a blonde, nineteen-year-old young man; why should he have any kind of impact on her at all?

He’d made such a bad first impression, Hetty did understand that. And so that was at least a big part of why he felt like a scab she couldn’t pick off— but she couldn’t, for once, speak forthrightly what was on her mind. Humiliating a student in front of the rest of his peers was not desirable for her— so she tried not to let herself notice him too much. The discussion unfolding was both interesting and impressive— in that it showed how much the students were grasping what they had read. It wasn’t that hard, really, to keep her attention there.

And at least Russel still wasn’t raising his hand and speaking in class— so she didn’t have to deal with him as anything more than a silent observer sitting there.

At the end of class, though, when all the others left, Russel was, once again, still there.

Hetty sighed, letting her hands come to rest on her hips. “What is it, Russel? You can’t hardly be expecting to introduce yourself to me a second time. We’ve officially met, so unless you have a question— and if you do, honestly, you could have raised it during classtime— but unless you have a question there’s no reason for us to be talking right now.”

Russel smiled. “I’m not looking to do another reintroduction, and I don’t have a question. You really don’t like me, and I’d like to fix that, if I can. So I wanted to tell you, you look lovely today.”

Hetty stared at Russel. “As if I want to hear that from you,” she said, finally.

“Is there anyone you would like to hear it from?”

“None of your business,” Hetty snapped. “For someone who professed their goals so openly, you’re certainly doing everything possible to sabotage them.”

Russel smiled again, swinging his arms a little.

“I think compliments are an effective way to convey good intent. People like receiving them— you don’t think receiving compliments from me will warm you up to me?”

Hetty shook her head. She felt her hips beneath her hands— they were still there. “No, I don’t think so. As I already made clear, you’re not someone I’d like to receive compliments from. And besides. The only compliments I enjoy receiving from my students are compliments on my teaching style, or helpfulness as a professor. I don’t like being complimented on my appearance by students, so you’ve screwed up again, Russel.”

She picked up her things and turned toward the door.

“Hetty,” Russel called out. That made her pause slightly.

“You are beautiful, with your thick, rich, blackhair, and I what you said last time, you are taller than average for a woman— and you look so professional all the time, wearing your blackheels, your black dress-skirt, your blackblazer and your white blouse. You’re beautiful but… you could be prettier. You’re so informal in your manner, but so formal in your state of dress. And you have all that lovely blackhair pinned up in a bun. Maybe you could wear your hair down, long and flowing, for a while? Just take the pins out? And if you like that suggestion, you could give me a kiss on the cheek in thanks.”

Russel raised his eyebrows as still he smiled. But Hetty disliked him more than ever— especially disliked his pinpointing of her inherent contradiction: that she acted informally, but dressed completely formal in her style of clothes.

“Completely inappropriate, Russel,” was all Hetty said, and then left the classroom.

The second week of classes went better from Hetty’s perspective. Russel attended both classes, and he still didn’t participate in the discussions. There was a niggling concern in her— it was just because she was a professor, just because she always cared about her students’ performance in her classes, that was why. But she felt that concern— had he been doing the reading at all? He’d be falling behind if he hadn’t.

Still, a meaner side of Hetty was glad that Russel wasn’t speaking up— it meant she didn’t have to spend much time thinking about him or interacting with him. And yes she was his professor, and she was supposed to care about his performance in her class, but on the whole she really didn’t.

Yes, she also spent a substantial amount of time carefully trying to navigate not thinking of him. It was just how much she disliked him— it was natural, in disliking someone so much, to want to think of them so often, to have to restrain from thinking of them. Hetty’s eyes always carefully skimmed the part of the sea of students which Russel always occupied, but she was always aware of where he was.

Luckily, though , that second week of classes ed without Russel saying anything to her— he wasn’t hanging back from class and startling her, he wasn’t doing anything. He filed out with all the others, and every time at the end of a classperiod, she always found that she was alone in the classroom, as she should have been.

At first she thought the third week of classes was going the same way. Russel’s strange behavior at the beginning of the course had been a one-off thing; just that first week, and never again. On Tuesday he filed out with all the rest.

But on Thursday, when Hetty turned around, Russel was again standing in the classroom. Again, she hadn’t heard him, and she startled at his image.

“Russel,” Hetty said tersely. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to ask you a few questions,” Russel said.

Hetty opened her mouth to protest, but Russel spoke before she could get her words out, whatever they would have been.

“The first one is a question about the course. So you have to answer it. You’re my professor.”

Hetty sighed, dropping her air of defiance. “What course related question do you have for me, Russel?”

“We have our first essay due in two weeks,” Russel said.

Hetty’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do,” she acknowledged.

“I wondered if you could recommend a good monograph I could use as my primary research source.”

“Russel,” Hetty said, with the sigh of the long-suffering. “You’re meant to find your own sources. That’s part of the assignment— and you are supposed to use secondary sources, and tertiary sources, but you are supposed to pick ONE primary source— a monograph that was written by someone who introduced new historical evidence to the field which no one had published before. There are quite a few of them— it’s up to you to pick which one is dealing with a historical area you find interesting.

“But picking your sources— I’m making you do this exercise because it’s helping you learn to be a future historian— you need to build these skills. I can’t just tell you which monograph you should pick.”

Russel affected his best hangdog expression. “Please Professor. I can’t find any monographs that fit your criteria. And I want to start writing my essay. You were reminding us in class today that we should already be well underway on it— that it wouldn’t be good if we did all the work for it the night before it was due. So I want so much to be working on it, but I can’t find an appropriate monograph. I’m still going to give you a good essay, I’ll put in all the work myself, all the researching, all the writing. Just— please could you help me with just this one part? Just give me the title?”

Hetty sighed again. “I’m not a stone-hearted woman, Russel. It’s no secret I dislike you but… you have stirred my sympathy, because you do seem earnest in your request.”

Hetty leaned over the classroom’s professor desk. She tore a corner of paper off of one of the sheets she had lying there, and she started to write on it with the handiest pen near to her.

Her eyes tracked the paper as she scribbled on it.

“I’m giving this to you but it’s a one-time thing. And you’re not to mention the fact that I helped you in this way, not to any of the other students, or they would all come in here asking me for recommendations too.”

She had filled the scrap of paper with her writing. She held it out to Russel, who hastily snatched it up out of her hand, looked at it with a sense of wonder. Looked at it as if he had witnessed something impossible become possible before his very eyes. He stared at written-on scrap of paper like something precious to him he had thought was lost forever— something precious he thought he would never recover, no matter what he did— but which he had, somehow, miraculous, found returned into his possession.

“That’s the title of the monograph I’m recommending to you,” Hetty explained. “I also wrote down all the information you’ll need to locate it in the on-campus library. It’s a good one— but not very well-known. I’ll be surprised if any other student finds it. And besides, the library only has one copy— if you check it out, no one else will be able to use it.”

Russel looked back up at Hetty. “Thank you, Professor.”

Hetty put a hand to the center of her chest. “Your sincere thanks warm my heart, Russel. It’s nice to see that you care about this assignment so much.”

Russel nodded in acknowledgement.

But Hetty began to worry when he didn’t leave the classroom.

“I told you I had more than one question.”

Hetty shifted her arms into being crossed over chest again.

“I’m only interested in questions related to the course, Russel.”

“Don’t do that,” Russel pleaded with the same level of sincerity. “Don’t guard yourself, don’t put your walls back up. Just listen to my question, please. Have you thought about letting your hair out of your bun, and wearing it loose?”

Hetty clucked her tongue. “It’s not any of your business how I wear my hair, Russel.”

But Russel was digging inside the bookbag that was strung crossbody by its shoulderstrap. He pulled out a handmirror.

“I know it can be scary to try a new hairstyle. Let me help you. You don’t even have to do it all by yourself. I’m here, I’ll help you do it.”

He held the mirror up by its handle, just the right distance from Hetty’s face that she could see her head entirely, could see all her hair.

He’d had to extend his arm across Hetty’s desk a bit far to manage this.

She sighed again. “You’re a frustrating man to talk to,” Hetty grumbled. “If I let you see me with my hair loose, will you leave me alone, and promise not to ask me about it again?”

Hetty couldn’t see Russel’s hand— it seemed down aside his hip, and the desk was blocking that half of his body, as it stood between them.

Still, when Russel spoke he spoke with sincerity. Hetty decided to believe him when he said. “I promise, Professor Mayhew.”

She was slightly appeased to find he had addressed her respectfully too. She usually didn’t like being addressed formally— but she liked it with Russel, probably because he had been so inappropriate with her at first. It seemed like a re-establishing of the natural order— a re-establishment of propriety. It comforted her. She had felt so strangely about his strange behavior before.

That comfort from feeling familiarity re-establish itself, from seeing propriety come back— it made it easier to raise her lefthand, and pull at the pins were in her hair, taking them out one at a time.

She flinched a little as she pulled the first few pins out.

“Is that hurting you?” Russel asked quickly.

“That’s… considerate of you to ask, Russel— and to ask so fast like you really care,” she granted him. She continued pulling pins out and setting them on her desk. “But no, it doesn’t hurt. I just wear my hair up like this so often I forgot for a minute what it feels like when you take the pins out— how much relief that action gives. I usually only take my hairpins out at the end of the night before I fall asleep. And usually I’m so tired I don’t even notice how it feels— I just get them out quickly and then five minutes later I’m already asleep. So I was just— surprised by the reminder. When each pin comes out, and each section of hair comes down, there’s just a rush in that particular part of my scalp— a little like a throbbing. A throbbing of pleasant-feelingness. I wasn’t prepared for it, that’s all.”

She maybe wouldn’t have answered him so honestly, before— the difference, for her, had been the level of care with which he’d inquired, had seemed to worry she was being hurt. Like she’d been moved to give him the title of the book, and the information needed to locate it, she had been moved to speak to that worry, to reassure it.

Pin after pin came out. Her scalp throbbed that pleasantness in equal measure— and more strips of hair fell.

She pulled the last pin, and Russel exhaled. “Your hair is even more luscious than I thought. It seems to fall in waves— but in places those waves start to roll into loose curves. All that lovely black— like falling material, like a curtain.”

Hetty could see it herself. She turned her head slightly to one side, slightly to another, looking at her reflection in the mirror that Russel was holding so steadily.

She didn’t quite recognize the woman she saw. She was a beautiful woman— a woman who could have been on a magazine cover, a woman who could have been used to sell hairproducts, who could have appeared on billboards or in commercials— anyone seeing this woman’s hair would want to know her secret, would want their hair to look like this too.

She couldn’t think of the last time she’d really seen her hair down like this. It was stunning.

“I wish you would wear your hair down like this,” Russel said, a little sadly. “It makes you look like you’re so much more comfortable with yourself— like you’re being informal and approachable, just how you try to be— it seems so much more natural for you. And it seems like you enjoy wearing it this way so much more. Would you ever consider wearing your hair this way more often? Maybe once a week at first to start?”

Her scalp throbbed pleasantries at her— speaking, almost, of how it could feel like this all the time. The relief of being uncontorted, unforced— free.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, finally. This interaction was feeling strange to her. Russel had been a little nice, maybe— she’d been a little too open with him— but she still, on the whole, did not like him. After all, he had asked her for special help, as if he were more special than her other students. And she didn’t truly believe that was right or just. So she wasn’t impressed with him, on the whole, and a bit of politeness, a bit of kindness, it couldn’t change that, couldn’t undo it.

Russel put the mirror back away in his bookbag. Hetty crossed her arms again.

“You’ve asked me two questions now. Are you finally going to leave?”

Russel shook his head. Before Hetty could sigh in annoyance, he spoke again. “I only have one thing more to ask,” he assured her quickly.

She watched him expectantly.

“I don’t expect that you would want to kiss me on the cheek in thanks. But if I kissed you on the cheek— just one quick peck, would you allow that?”

Suddenly she wanted him out. She didn’t want to have to stand here and listen to more of his chatter. It felt faster just to go along with whatever he said. Appease him, to get him out of here.

“Once,” Hetty granted. “One kiss on the cheek, just one, and this is the only time.”

He nodded in a way that made Hetty feel she was the one currently being appeased.

He leaned his body over the desk to get closer to her. Mostly, she still felt annoyance with him. But there was a little flicker of something else that Hetty really, really didn’t want to look at in herself. So she didn’t.

He reached for her with his hand— it was happening so fast, his hand slipping behind her ear, his fingers gripping in her hair— guiding her head, holding it steady.

Then his mouth was on Hetty’s cheek. And his lips were soft— kissing gently, his mouth only slightly parting. There was warmth there, from his breath— warmth Hetty couldn’t stop her body from slightly inclining towards.

He could have dragged the cheek-kiss on, and been presumptuous. But after only a few seconds, his lips separated, and his hand fell, leaving her hair.

He smiled a small smile. “Your hair was even softer on my hand than I thought.”

He took up the scrap of paper off the desk— held it up. “Thanks for this,” he said, and this time he was the one to leave the room first.

Hetty left all her materials on the desk. She went down to the woman’s washroom, locked the door from inside so she could have privacy for a moment.

She stepped up to the sink, turned the faucet on, bent over it, and started splashing the flowing water onto her face.

She straightened, made eye with herself in the mirror. There were still waterdroplets on her face. She hadn’t wiped it dry with a papertowel yet.

“He’s a nineteen-year-old man,” she said to herself. “And you know you find it helpful to externalize your feeling sometimes. He’s beautiful, like a piece of art. So of course you responded. He’s a golden thing— that golden hair, those golden eyelashes, and he can be warm in his personality, too. And you’ve been kissed often enough in recent memory, in recent memory both recent and stretching back years, but you haven’t been kissed like he kissed you. With that tenderness, that curious exploration— he kissed you like he was authentically showing you himself. And that is alluring.”

She startled herself from a partial daydream by ripping papertowels from the dispenser.

She gave a scraping to her face, making it dry.

“But he’s still just annoying young man in your class. And you honestly still don’t much like him. You had a natural reaction to what happened, but that’s all it was. You don’t feel anything else for him.”

She pushed the papertowel into the garbagebin, looked at her reflection once more, then left the bathroom to collect her things and go.

She didn’t like him. But maybe she tolerated him a little better now.