The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Marvella looked at Tracey.

She was kneeling on the floor, in front of Tracey, while Tracey was sitting in the chair Marvella had pulled out for her.

She was looking at Tracey, but she didn’t need to be looking at her to look into her mind. She could see into her mind even across great distances— that was the useful about being a telepath.

She was looking at Tracey, though, because she thought Tracey was pretty, and so, Tracey was nice to look at. Tracey’s hair was straight, and the most it ever did was frizz, but it was thick, and dark. Such an inky-color that it picked up the lowlights of the color it had been dyed before, which had been midnight indigo. So the black of her hair seemed to become blue, when it was examined closely enough.

Her body was fairly nondescript; she was a little shorter than average, the frame of her bones was a little wideset, and her flesh sat full on that frame. In general, if each part of her was considered in sequence, she seemed average— and even when all parts of her were considered together in composite, she seemed average— but nevertheless, there was a quality about her person— not her body, but her character— which was somehow alluring, and elevated every aspect of her to that illusory prettiness. And it was that illusory prettiness that made Marvella so enjoy looking at her.

Tracey did also know how to dress herself well— to put together striking fashion ensembles, and to put together becoming color-palettes. That skill had extended to her hair— it was why she’d been so clever as to dye her hair that midnight indigo first— and then the inky-color overtop. The same skill translating across multiple categories.

So Marvella was just watching Tracey— and she was watching her thoughts, too. Tuning in and following along with Tracey’s perspective on the world was one of her favorite ways of ing the time. But for right now, Tracey was in the very open and receptive state of being entranced. So no thoughts were disturbing her, just now, and there was nothing to see in her head.

Marvella never brought about trance through direct use of her power, either. That would be to easily done: just mentally intruding, manufacturing any state in question, even holding it in place permanently. Doing it that way was too easy.

That was the challenging thing about being a telepath— at least, it was the challenging thing about being a telepath with a taste for mental destruction. Marvella’s interest lay in fully claiming a target, body and soul— and however effective simple mental intrusion was, it remained, always, a thing which lay on the surface of a mind— which could never put feelers into anyone’s soul. And so Marvella had to go about her goals in a very roundabout manner. She was working on Tracey— only using strategies of basic conditioning, reinforcement and manual entrancement— but she understood the workings of Tracey’s mind very well, and she knew that she would never truly be able to kill it into a taxidermied-state unless she played Tracey off of someone else, and played that person off of her.

And she was going to have to do that in the same kind of roundabout manner she favored, allowing for the two of them to make decisions— decisions which would inevitably lock them into Marvella’s possession forever, but still decisions. She had the target already in mind. She could read that target’s mind at a distance, too. So she was looking forward to following along with what Tracey and Tracey’s target were going to do to each other, and with each other— and she would be able to observe at a distance, and enjoy herself. Seeing into their thoughts, and through their eyes— so they wouldn’t be thinking about her at all, until it was the appropriate time for them to do so.

It had taken her years of disciplining her skill— her mind was not endlessly inundated with the thoughts of everyone who ed her. The first thing to learn had been to learn how to shut out— and then to learn how to let in the one thing she wanted to hear. She was very good at that now— and anywhere Tracey went, Marvella could let that link in and know her thoughts— and anywhere this target went, she could let that link in, and know those thoughts.

It was going to be a very enjoyable medium-term future for her; a little show for her to enjoy, followed by the gains she wanted at the end of it. She could sit back comfortably at home while it went on, and see.

She did intend to do something more hands-on to set it off first, though. And it was almost that time, but first—

Tracey looked at Marvella. She had only been half-aware of her while she had been under trance— but Marvella had pulled the earbuds from her ears, and that action had half-roused her.

She looked at Marvella— had that eerie feeling again, even if there was no sensation that ever went along with it— that Marvella was following and knowing everything that she reflected on to herself.

But she looked at her.

Her hair was longer than Tracey’s— and it was a silvery, wintry blonde. Marvella was also taller than Tracey, when they were standing, and the bones of her face always looked delicate— though also very sculpted. Her eyes were a sharp aquamarine.

While the earbuds had been in, Tracey had been listening to her own voice. Marvella had written out a script for her— it seemed long ago now— and made Tracey sit and read it aloud into a recording. Then she had often made Tracey listen to it— over and over, while she was entranced, so it would sink in. Tracey had heard it enough times that things were at the point where the words just seemed to stream far into her brain while she drifted.

She knew what Marvella was trying to teach her. She knew what Marvella wanted her to learn. She knew what malice was in Marvella’s heart— but so far, she had let herself be changed. It had felt natural. She’d been primed for use by earlier damage, and she was ready to be— the wilting thing taken care of by the established man. She was ready to be— the trap laid by the destroyer who’d found her first. Ready to let Marvella make her anything she wanted, whatever she needed Tracey to be to catch what Marvella wanted caught.

But she was also still half in Marvella’s trance— and Marvella was very big on externalizing things and making them tangible— the act of doing so probably seeming like a luxury to her, since as a telepath she dealt so much with the intangible.

Tracey was well-trained enough already, though, not to try and provide Marvella’s wishes in advance of being invited.

“Tracey,” Marvella spoke, in that rich, half-husked tone. “Tell me about your target.”

“Hector,” Tracey said, and felt something in her chest lift. “And I’m almost ready to meet him, don’t you think I’m almost ready—”

Marvella drew a closing-motion with her hand, and Tracey fell silent.

“Tell me about Hector,” Marvella said again. She never lost her patience, and she had not lost it this time, either.

She should have objections to what Marvella wanted from her. Should object to the fact that Marvella wanted her to play subservience for a man— should think of real women having real suffering, and say, no one should want subjugation like that! Look how painful it is!

But that was not the honest response which happened in her. Maybe it would have been at one time, but even if it would have, that had long-since been ground out of her.

Tracey dispensed with that hypothetical consideration. This was what she cared about doing. She didn’t care to do anything which would put her in solidarity with other women who suffered to be subjugated, didn’t care to think of them. She wanted to get Hector for Marvella, instead. She wanted to think about getting Hector for Marvella, instead.

“I know what role to play to get him,” she rushed out. “I’ve internalized, I’ve had the knowledge drilled into me over and over and I know how to deploy it. I know what—”

The closing-motion was drawn again.

“You’re overeager,” Marvella said, with that unshakeable patience. “Tell me about Hector.”

“Hector is a man who operates underground. All his associates do, too. His associates were there first, and he ed up with them after. But they all have the same shared goal. They don’t like that mental destruction goes on, to the underworld-level that it does. They like to stop culprits when they can— they like to win victims back— and return them to their lives. They can only be reached through word-of-mouth. Friends of friends of friends, who will refer a truly deserving party closer and closer, and only once that party has been vetted do they get a meeting with one of those associates.

“It’s been a long time since Hector has taken any meetings like that himself. He prefers to help out his colleagues, these days, more than he likes to take on cases of his own. And they’re all so committed to their principles that— they do all they do for free— they have full lives and other jobs outside of what they do on the side, there— they only ask for donations if there is true organizational necessity.”

Marvella’s lips pressed together, hinting at delight. Tracey wasn’t so trained that this invoked much in her.

“Say more.”

Tracey swallowed. This was the part of things where the emotions of this information always got very earnest for her.

“Hector is a principled man, but he’s dangerous. He’s poison but I think I can take his poison— I’ve only had it in little doses, in having to learn about him, but I think I can take a continual throatpour of it and still hold up.”

The closing-motion.

“Not about you,” Marvella corrected, brightly. “Say more about him.”

“Hector is a principled man but he’s dangerous,” Tracey started again. “He does a lot of good with his colleagues, and he’s done a lot of good overall. He’s as skilled as the rest of them are. Maybe even more skilled— but the rest of his colleagues— never really have to deal with— temptation. Hector has the inclination which would see to him becoming another culprit for his colleagues to take down, except he holds himself in a very disciplined kind of check.

“He wasn’t always an associate of their organization, though,” Tracey went on, because Marvella had not told her she was done yet. “He always had the same tendencies, and he always did his best to sublimate them. His solution of associating to that organization, and generally refusing to take on cases himself— only working with colleagues, where he can be supervised— is the best solution he’s ever arrived at. But some of his earlier attempts at sublimation were considerably darker.”

Marvella smiled at her. “Such as?”

“He used to go during visiting hours to terminal wards at hospitals. Or to hospice-centers. He’d choose a woman there, and work on her for however many hours to change her thoughts all around to what he wanted them to be. Then he’d change her back before she died. It was like an addiction— he only did it when he’d absolutely broken down and couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“And he did it that way so that he’d never be at risk of— conquering someone he’d then talk himself into keeping forever. So his victims would only have to spend a matter of days or weeks having their independence violated, instead of months or years. By design, he could only ever indulge short-term. And he always made it right in the end, by setting their minds back the way they were when he found them. But since he was dealing with terminal patients, he never had to worry about facing consequences for what he’d done, because in each case they soon died, and all knowledge of him and what he’d done died with them. There was nothing to come back and haunt him or derail his life years later.”

Marvella’s prim, delighted press of the lips. “What happened then?”

“One of the associates got wind of what he was doing by accident— spoke to a hospital staff member who’d seen him come back a number of times in a matter of months. And they happened to catch one of the women before she died of her condition; so then Hector’s secret was out, and the organization decided to try and reform him. Then they had an associate waiting there the next time he came back for his fix. He’d been getting sloppier, needing to indulge more and more often— they showed him quite a lot of comion— and they were able to recruit him. He found that working with them sublimated his tendencies better than anything else had done, and he knew peace of mind for the first time in years.

“There have been a few close scrapes, though. That’s why he stopped doing his own cases unsupervised. He never crossed the line and claimed someone, but the last time it almost happened, he went back to his colleagues terrified of himself, and begging never to be left unsupervised ever again. They all have a lot of comion for him, and consider him to be an absolute success-story. So now they let him be as supervised as he wants to be. But it’s been a matter of years since the last time he almost had a slip-up. So there are some rumblings that they’d like him to take his own case on again, as a reintroduction to going out by himself. The consensus is he’s equipped to handle it now. He disagrees.

“He doesn’t even let himself date. He imposes a strict rule of celibacy on himself, because he is afraid—”

“Why do you say he’s poison?” Marvella interrupted.

Tracey swallowed. “Because I think he is. You didn’t write that into the script— I haven’t had that streaming into my mind over and over— you’ve never commanded me to think it at any time that I’ve been under for you. You’ve prepared me with the information of what he’s done, you’ve prepared me with knowledge of his past, and in that knowledge I’ve seen him be fearsome, I’ve seen him behave badly— and yet somehow delectably too, at times— but you didn’t prepare me to think this about him. It’s just my honest opinion.

“The fact that he had so much practice destroying minds, once, and that he was obsessively addicted to doing so— and that he only keeps himself sober of that addiction at great pains— it makes him poisonous. If he ever really fell off from sobriety, and overindulged, he’d be a real threat to his target. And I mean to make him fall off from sobriety. And I’m going to be his target. But I can take his poison— I’m sure I can take his poison. Whole throatpours of it, and not die. I’m sure.”

The prim, cryptic little smile from Marvella again. “And you’re eager.”

“Yes, Marvella, oh yes, please, I know I can get him. Let me break him to make him capable of the potential you want to see. Let me break him to make him actualize it as you want him to. I’ve learned all my lessons— I — I know the strategy I’ve come up with will work— and I’m ready to implement it, I know— please, I’m sure that I’m ready.

Marvella smiled at her again. “I’m sure, too. The time has come.”

Tracey filled up with relief.

They moved locations every so often; they’d been in the same place now for a month or two. As a group, even a loosely associated and only half-formalized one, they had enough enemies who would have been keen to track them down, so it was important to remain somewhat mobile.

Hector was sitting in one of the backrooms, looking through a file one of the others had asked him to glance over. He’d left the door ajar in case anyone wanted to find him and get his urgent help on something.

But he was absorbed in what he was reading; so he did not hear the tread of a footstep he otherwise would have caught the sound of. It was only the sound of his name— “Hector!” which drew his eyes up from the file.

Alexandra was the one who had come in.

“Alexandra,” Hector said, closing the file. “Do you need help with something right now? No one’s out on active engagement right now, so I’m available—”

Alexandra came to stand in front of the table Hector had been sitting at. “I want you to take a first meeting with someone.”

Hector nodded, thoughtfully. “And then I’ll decide who should handle the case and the information on to them?”

Alexandra chewed into the corner of her lip. “Some of us have been talking, Hector. It’s really been a long time since you’ve had a close scrape.”

“Oh no,” Hector shook his head. “Not this again. Please. I’ve told you all so many times— I can’t be trusted to work on my own again, not ever. It’s better if I just help everybody else out.”

“But Hector,” Alexandra protested. “You’re more skilled than most of us— and if we had another person in our network who could take on cases, we could a greater caseload. It’s not the best utilization of personnel resources to have you tagging along with everyone else. If you were out for yourself, and taking on your own cases—”

“If I had to do this— and I’m not saying I agree— would you at least agree to let me have close supervision? Give me someone I’m able to, that I can keep checking in with to keep them apprised of the situation?”

“We talked about that too,” Alexandra said, shaking her head. “You’re in kind of a rut, Hector. And unless you face your fears, you’re going to stay in a rut. So we were all in agreement on that, too. You’ve got to do this on your own so that you see you can trust yourself. No ability supervisor. Conversations and sessions like that are years in the past for you, now. The last time you had a close-scrape, you did all of that. You know the tools, you know all the lessons— and you’ve spent years just leaving things quiet. It’s time to actually do something again.”

“But Alexandra—”

“Just take this first meeting,” she said. “Then you can decide if you’ll take the case on or not. The woman’s already been vetted. She’s been referred-in, two or three times over. She’s been in talks with us and those who know us, and those who know them, for over four months now. She’s above-reproach; there’s no ulterior motive for her. Something like that would have been exposed by now— but for over four months her behavior has remained completely consistent with her claims. And she’s here, now. I can tell her to come in— or you can go to the room where she’s waiting, and find her there yourself.”

“I’ll meet with her and do the first meeting. I’ll meet with her once. But I’m sure there’ll be someone better suited to her problem than me. And then I’ll refer her to them.”

“Wait until you hear what her problem is,” Alexandra cautioned. “She’s down the hall and behind the third door.”

Opening that third door about two minutes later, Hector entered into the room speaking apologies.

“I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long—”

The woman in the room stood from her chair. “No, not too long,” she said.

It struck Hector that she looked like a very respectable woman— she had silvery-blonde hair which was very well-kept, and she was wearing a gray-toned dress which looked as though it had been tailored to her— they gray of the dress’ color-tone picked up some of the silvery underlights to her hair.

She held herself with real poise— and she was, objectively, pretty— but the sight of her didn’t do much for Hector. It had been a long time since he’d looked at any woman that way, and this woman wasn’t going to prove the exception. There wasn’t anything about her which particularly sent out a pull of draw for him.

“I’m Marvella,” she introduced herself, extending her hand for a handshake.

“Hector,” Hector said, shaking her hand. He had no qualms about sharing his true first name— he had it on Alexandra’s authority that she’d been vetted enough, so she could at least be trusted with this kind information.

Marvella looked at Hector— full of excitement and anticipation inside. It was nice to finally see him after having to watch his mind from afar for so long— she’d have to go back to doing that for the majority of the remaining time, and she wouldn’t mind when she did, but all the same, it was nice to really be in front of him right now.

And it was nice to really be here— she’d had to play quite the role over the past six months, to lay all the groundwork and go through the vetting process of Hector’s associates, and his associates’ associates. Then she’d had to say just the right phrases to Alexandra, to convince her, without any use of her own powers of mental intrusion, to persuade Alexandra without letting her know she was being persuaded— that Hector would be the right person for her “case.” While also making it seem like she’d never even heard of Hector.

She was going to have to do something similar again today. Phrase things in just the right way— so Hector would make the choice she wanted him to make. It would be yet another feat of her skill of influence.

But it had taken a lot of preparation to arrive at this moment, at this day. She’d prepared, and she’d had to prepare Tracey at the same time, on a shortened timeline. But she was finally here, and really looking at him.

She hadn’t minded seeing those thoughts of disinterest about her in his head, either. She was just happy she’d be getting things underway today.

But she took a moment to really appreciate him. He was established in what he was doing by now— Hector was a man in his late-thirties, and he looked like it. A little older than Tracey and herself— they were both only in their mid-thirties. But though he was approaching middle-age, he only looked distinguished. Some of his hair, especially at the temples, was already graying— but there were plenty of sections where it was still a corn-husk blonde. And Hector was tall— Marvella herself often thought she was tall, but he was taller than her— and he was dressed presentably, but not too formally. Button-up shirt, but no jacket— fabric-slacks not made of denim-cords. His button-up shirt was white, and his slacks were light-brown.

He was established in what he was doing, now. Established among his colleagues. They’d found him in hospice-centers and terminal wards when he’d been in his early twenties, so it had been a good fourteen or fifteen years of him being with them.

He was something to take in all at once— Marvella was glad, again, to be getting things underway now.

“So,” Hector said, deciding this was the best way forward. There was no point in delaying, especially because he was still intending to have another conversation after this in which he referred Marvella and her problem off to someone else. “Can you tell me why you’re looking for our group’s help?”

Marvella nodded— there was a sort of tension about her face, as if she was holding some point of deep pain in check. That did make Hector feel sympathetic to her. It didn’t suddenly make him attracted to her— nothing would— but it did make him feel sympathetic to her.

“Have you heard of Designed-Oblivion?”

“Designed-Oblivion,” Hector said in surprise. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say.

Yes, he’d heard of Designed-Oblivion. Everyone in their group had— Designed-Oblivion was, in some ways, the bane of their existence. Their group operated locally, and so did Designed-Oblivion. And while they were a freely associated group of people who sought to liberate, there was, equally, a freely associated group of people who sought to destroy, and they frequented Designed-Oblivion; some of them also had hands in organizing and running it, but it was a kind of hub for them all, and plenty of people were taken in and out of there, to be subjected to treatments which broke them down and remade them into what their destroyers preferred.

In the work that Hector and the group did, they most often dealt with destroyers who were working on their own— but they knew of Designed-Oblivion. It was a shared frustration among them that they’d never yet been able to take it down. It moved from place to place, like they did— it was a part of the same underworld they belonged to— but each of them had visited there on several occasions. Always for reconnaissance. Designed-Oblivion was hard enough to track down that they didn’t actually station very robust security at their entrances. Like Hector and the group, they assumed anyone getting close enough to know who and where they were— had been vetted.

Not to mention they used very destructive methods— and filled that place with so many people they always greatly outnumbered any visitor. It was why the group had never been able to fight them head-on— their group structure was too complicated, there were too many of them, they were too powerful— it was too dangerous. The best the group could do was just target individual after individual, try to liberate any given destroyed person after the fact. They just didn’t have the capacity to try and take the whole thing down.

It was frustrating to take such an individualistic approach, though. All kinds of destroyers took their prospective victims there— it would have been easier just to shut the place down. But they had to let it be, and keep the individualistic approach instead. They didn’t have the capacity.

“Yes,” Hector said. “I’m familiar with Designed-Oblivion.”

“But have you ever been there?” Marvella pressed.

“It floats around, like we do, to keep itself from being discovered by anyone outside its underworld.”

“That wasn’t a no,” Marvella observed.

Hector sighed. “I’ve been there about three times— it was set up at a different location each time, but they seem to set things back up with the same layout each time. I guess that’s not hard for them. They’ve got ranks of the destroyed to do all that menial work at their request.”

He’d slipped into seething the words without fully meaning to.

“You resent it,” Marvella said, sounding hopeful.

“I despise it,” Hector corrected. “But why do you know about it?”

Marvella had been watching Hector’s reaction avidly— and she prepared herself more specifically.

She dangled her bait out for him.

“It’s my best-friend,” Marvella said— Hector thought she sounded on the brink of tears now. “Tracey. She’s fallen in with this guy— she won’t listen to me about him, but I think she’s really in danger! He’s one of these… destroyers, I think. He wants her to go to Designed-Oblivion, die there, and become reanimated by— something else. Please, Hector. That destroyer is— taking hold of her.”

Hector imagined that man— and felt that perpetual, impulsive flicker inside he constantly had to fend against. That destroyer… if I could dominate like he dominates… destroy like he destroys… dominate to the point of destruction…

And he imagined that destroyer’s slow-closing claim over this Tracey— that made her seem like someone else’s desired treasure, made her more valuable in Hector’s mind, even though he’d never encountered her yet.

Marvella again enjoyed seeing Hector’s thoughts. There was no male destroyer— she had a different destroyed-good she was planning to task with playing the role briefly— but she’d called forth a certain idea in Hector’s mind without him realizing she’d done that intentionally, and she’d done it only through implication, below his notice… perfect.

Hector was used to dealing with impulses like these coming up. They were the reason he didn’t trust himself, the reason he didn’t think he should be trusted to work on his own— keeping his addiction in check was a constant struggle, and that longing to return to indulgence was everpresent. But as he always did, he brushed off the impulse, and sent his focus outside himself, to the world beyond him.

This time it meant looking back at a desperate and wild-looking Marvella.

“Hector, I love Tracey, and I don’t want her to die. If she really does go there to submit herself to destruction— then she won’t be my best-friend anymore.”

This is your process of destruction, Marvella thought, as she paused for a moment to take in Hector’s expression. Dark like death, and wearing all those trappings.

“But she won’t listen to me. She’s becoming obsessed with that place. With the idea of what will reanimate her. With the idea of dying.”

This prepares your mind, Marvella thought again. She was slipping him ideas through implication again, ideas he wasn’t even noticing come into him. But not for some tame seduction. The idea your mind must hold is the idea of death. Here is a beloved for you: she must die.

“Her destroyer always makes sure she has the most up-to-date info on where Designed-Oblivion is being hosted that week. She returns there, again and again. They let her wander— they let her watch all they do. It just seems to make her more obsessed— it just seems to make her more certain that she must let herself be killed.”

Marvella saw the expression of confusion on Hector’s face. Your mind must hold the idea that contradicts everything you have ever believed in. You must adopt nonsense-logic. Yes, mysteries like this can happen. A person can want their own destruction and try to bring it about of their own volition. Yes, understandings of the world that are littered with gaps are the most accurate ones, and any fancy you take-to can obscure those gaps and convince you they aren’t real.

“I want to save her— I want to protect her. I want to keep her from dying there, and becoming filled by something else.”

This is your destruction process— your mind prepars itself, you’re hearing this— this is what I’ve put into your mind to think about. Not sex. Death. REAL death.

Hector saw that tears were falling freely from Marvella’s eyes.

He felt a pang in his gut. He saw now why Alexandra had wanted him to take this meeting. Designed-Oblivion was not a thing to trifle with— and someone who was constantly going back to visit it would probably prove very difficult to divert, let alone save. But could he really trust himself to take on a case of his own, for the first time in years? When Alexandra and all the others wanted to push him out the door with no , throw him into the rapids to see if he could keep from drowning? Could he really do it, if he was going to have to be doing it all on his own?

He was curious about Marvella’s friend Tracey despite himself, however.

“Do you know if her— would-be destroyer, is he making her reinforce on what she sees? Or is it her genuine response to what’s before her?”

Marvella shook her head quickly. “I don’t know. I don’t know how hands-on that guy is— it might be that he wants all the work of killing her done by someone else, just so he can have the benefit of using what will fill her vessel after. She’s cagey about him, because she knows I don’t like him. I tried too hard to convince her to throw him over, I said all the wrong things—”

Her sobs had begun to sound almost unhinged.

Hector reached out, to place both hands on her shoulders.

“It’s all right, it’s clearly a very fragile situation.”

“I never get to know much about him, but his name is Fredrick Matthews. And I do know— he likes to take her on walks through this certain park. I could tell you what time they favor— then you could get a look at both of them.”

“If I were going to take this case on, I would— that would be the thing to do—”

But Marvella was looking at him with such wide eyes. There were tears shining in them, and so many tears spilling free of them— and who could he refer this to, really? No one else would want the risk of having to deal with Designed-Oblivion— no one else would want the headache of dealing with a woman already so obsessed with her own destruction— a woman possibly already beyond the point of saving. The thought of losing a target would be demoralizing to anyone sane— but if he got himself involved in this, only to watch her die, he’d be able to brush it off after the fact.

So that made him— the only one who’d be willing to risk visiting Designed-Oblivion as many times as necessary— and that made him— the only one who’d be callous enough to take it in stride if his rescue-target died during the early stages of his work. There was nobody else he could really refer this to. He could either give Tracey up to her fate before he’d even started— or at least give her one last chance to survive, escape, and be free. He was possibly the only who could do that.

Hector sighed. “You better tell me where and when I can take a look at the pair of them.”

Marvella squealed in joy, and wrapped Hector in a squeezing hug, which he allowed.

He spoke, his chin resting on her shoulder.

“I’ll do it,” he said over her. “I’ll try and help your best-friend if I can.”

Marvella and Tracey were around the corner from the park. They’d stepped into a coffeeshop on that block, and gone into the bathroom together, Marvella carrying a paper, patterned shopping-bag that she’d reused and packed previously owned things in.

They’d gone into the multipurpose bathroom together, so they didn’t have to worry about anyone else entering, and have to worry about trying to squeeze into a stall.

Tracey put her arms up, and let Marvella pull her shirt up over her head. Then she let Marvella pull her skirt down.

“I’m more fashionable than you,” Tracey recited. “I know more about fashion. But I’m submitting myself to this— you’re dressing me in what you want me to wear.”

Tracey reflected on the fact that Marvella was dressing her. Reflected on the fact that she herself had already absented her own identity. Why was there no one there, in her? She was already damaged— of course everything could be cleared out for her to become what someone else wanted.

Marvella had Tracey down to underwear. She took a minute to appreciate the way she looked. Then Marvella took the decided-upon dress out of the paper and patterned shopping-bag. It was a solid sky-blue color, with a white stripe down either side to break the color up. She put it over Marvella’s hands, and pulled it down her body, then stood back to consider her.

“You look as sweet as honey in that,” Marvella decided.

And Hector was the fly she wanted to fly into that honey and asphyxiate in it.

She ed the shopping-bag to Tracey, for her to hold, and opened the bathroom-door.

They went back outside, and crossed the street. Marvella’s destroyed-good was waiting there. They were just around the corner from the park now.

“He’s in the park already, sitting on a bench,” Marvella told her two companions. “You can just enter, and follow the path. He’ll see you. Just don’t look over at him or make it seem like you’ve even noticed he’s there at all.”

Tracey nodded— she seemed to be vibrating in place, excited to go. Her fingers were gripping the string shopping-bag handle tightly.

Fredrick didn’t have much of a reaction— but Marvella hadn’t expected one from him. She’d sealed his soul into her service long ago, and so he was never really all that enthused about anything unless she told him to be. He was a destroyed-good— and she hadn’t cared to leave much of him intact. What mattered was that he was complying. He had heard her instructions, and he would follow through.

Tracey, being not-yet-destroyed, was not complying out of necessity— she was still eager to make the choice of doing so—

But what Marvella was really looking forward to was seeing into Hector’s thoughts.

Hector was sitting on a bench in the park, and he had a newspaper up— he glanced over the top and saw Marvella coming down the nearby street.

She sat down next to him, but kept looking ahead.

“You picked a good lookout spot,” she said to him— almost inaudibly— loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough for anyone else.

He held the newspaper a little closer, but kept looking over its top edge.

“Alright, that’s them, coming down the path. Try not to call too much attention to yourself.”

He saw them. They were just ing by the pond— he could see Tracey’s reflection in the pond-water.

There was the woman in question— the mystery in her wanted to rise up, the mystery in her would become the root of her insanity and try to make her die. He felt a little disturbed, considering that as he actually looked at her.

But he was seeing her— this was the first time he was seeing her— and he felt— a little like he’d tripped into a trap— not a trap anyone had intended for him to fall in— but a trap— because he generally tried to keep to himself— had been glad all these years to find he was mostly without romantic response. That sight of her— was an entrancing image. He’d worked to free enough minds— and he’d had enough experience before that of taking them— but this was working on him like an entrancement. It was just her beauty doing that— no one had given him any commands— it was just her beauty—

Marvella was pleased to see Hector responding as she’d hoped he would. She hadn’t had to command him to see this— he was right.

But Hector reminded himself he had experience fending off entrancement. He could fend this reaction off.

You will not be able to later, Marvella thought to herself, feeling very pleased.

Tracey was still walking past the pond. She was walking past something that was showing her reflection to her, but she wasn’t looking at it.

Tracey held onto Fredrick’s arm, swung the shopping-bag with her other hand. I’m just being the trap. I’m already being the trap— clinging to the arm of the man leading me. Hector’s perceiving the performance in me, and assuming... I can get him even when what I’m showing him is pretended.

She savored the feeling of moving in the drifting way she’d practiced— of holding to Fredrick’s outstretched arm— Marvella had malice in her, but Tracey found she had malice inside herself, too.

There was malice in her heart, now, as she was showing the image to him. She was presenting it deliberately. She wanted to be the trap. She was going along with what her destroyer had asked her to be.

She was presenting the image deliberately. Men like this, don’t they? Doe-eyed women who let a stronger man lead them? Men like this, don’t they? Wilting flowers who droop in a man’s shadow?

Hector looked more closely at her— she was a fair amount of distance away, but he could read the expression on her face clearly enough. Marvella hadn’t been sure if the man ever did anything directly to Tracey, but from Tracey’s expression, Hector was ready to make a bet that he did. She looked entranced— and something more than her beauty was playing on him now. Something about seeing her entrancement… made him feel a little foggy himself. Her entrancement was faintly entrancing him…

He shook his head. He could resist the image of her— the effect of beholding her beauty, and that separate effect of beholding her entrancement.

Ah well, Marvella thought. He’d resisted the image, but this had only been shallow first induction. He’d already had the suggestion slipped to him of what he would ultimately become and do… even if he hadn’t noticed that. This had only been the first try at pushing him towards that. And it had been easily enough dispensed with. But this was only to be the first in a long onslaught.

Hector was still looking at Tracey. He saw a third thing about her, now. This was what she looked like— with the shadow of death already cast over her. This was what she looked like— with death’s fingerprints already marking her. That drifting step she moved with was phantom-like. She looked like a ghost with a still-beating heart; like a vengeful spirit ready to smash up the abode she haunted, put it into as many pieces as she wished to. There was a vacantness— as if death itself was lurring her on— as if her fundamental identity was that of someone allured by death.

He wanted to shrink away from that impression, because he found it disturbing still.

But there’s a pretext for you to keep looking, Marvella thought. And you have to focus on the nonsense-logic of this that confuses you. The terror of this that catches you. I’ve promised you puzzles and chessboards— that’s the way to lure your type. Like food could lure rats, or honey could lure flies. Puzzles and chessboards— these can lure you.

Marvella was just so pleased. He wasn’t seeing that he was being induced by a malicious destroyer who wanted to destroy his mind. He was not seeing— the lure of Tracey’s death would lead to his own. The seed was in him— eventually, he must find her death alluring too and follow it to his. He was being given over cruelly to this damage and didn’t even know. He would be damaged. He’d been primed for her by the damage he’d already sustained. Just like Tracey.

Hector was still watching though, because Tracey was still in sight.

What of her, he wondered. What might be imagined? What violations had happened in her past that would make her seek and seek a destroyer like the one she was clinging to the arm of?

He looked at her and then looked at her, and then at the destroyer beside her again. And felt the perpetual impulse again. Oh, to control someone like that man was doing. To dominate to the point of destruction as he’d once done, before reforming.

It was a good thing he did have his addiction in check.