The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Xerxes Trewhitt slammed the door to his private investigator’s office shut sharply behind him, and slammed it harder than necessary. The force had probably weakened its hinges further, and they were already in bad shape; some of the force might even have gotten into the wood, and that wasn’t in good shape either.

Having mostly gotten across his office-floor, dingy linoleum he didn’t bother looking down at, he now faced the interior wall, uninterrupted by windows, of his office. And he’d reached the projector he had set up which pointed directly at it.

He flicked on the frequency-scanner the projector was connected to without regret. These kind of projectors were dated by a good few decades, more out of date even than he was at forty-five, but most of them still worked— and they were the kind of thing a man like Xerxes could afford, and the kind of thing he could find through unofficial channels after making verbal agreements in back-alleys. The richer and more tech-savvy could spring for visor-headsets, or for reception-enabled -lenses, or even for brain-chips; but Xerxes was, if not content, at least accepting of his place in the world. He could afford this kind of projector, and that was fine with him.

He set up a tripod, then set up a video-camera on it. He had enough battery-charge for an hour and a half of filming, which was more than he needed. He set the camera recording, and looked down at his watch. Only 10:29 at night. He’d better get his ashtray over here onto the little table so he’d have a cigarette handy to smoke, and save himself having to turn around and go get it later.

Having gotten the ashtray in place, and having set a new cigarette in it to smolder, he glanced again at his watch. In seeing the minute-hand tick over to 10:30, he knew that he had to get going.

“Officer Kalchek,” he said, because the camera was recording him. “It’s 10:30. I called you about five minutes ago, before I ran all the way back here, and told you to meet me at the diner down the road for 11:30. I told you that when I got there I’d have a solved case for you to carry through your official channels, and that’s exactly what I’m going to have. I’ve got my telepathic frequency-scanner almost tuned, and I’m recording this to show my work. I’ll bring the camera card with me when I meet up with you. I’ll give it to you.”

He raised his hand to the dials of the telepathic frequency-scanner again. “I’m going to be tuning into the mind and memories of a woman named Tara. As far as I know she doesn’t have a telepathic receiver-chip, so the range of co-ordinates for exploring her mind should be narrower than for someone who has a telepathic-receiver chip and whose mind has catalogued a varied number of witnessed-minds. Those people always have a wider range of co-ordinates to navigate. But Tara’s range should be pretty narrow. This part of things should be straightforward, at least.”

He read out the co-ordinates he was about to dial to, for the record, and then dialed to them— and watched as the contents of Tara’s mind, at one specific moment, were projected directly onto the wall.

Tara was sitting in one of the side-facing seats of a subway car— not parallel to the windows on the sides of the car, but perpendicular to them. No one was sitting in the set of three seats that were across from her set of three seats.

There were people on either side of her, as she was in the middle— but no one across, so she could look over those three empty seats into the window above them, and have an unobstructed view of herself.

There were a fair number of people in this subway car, but it was early in the morning on a chilly November day, so the car was not packed. Here and there, there were a few seats empty. But no one had been forced to stand out of necessity.

Tara didn’t take the time to look around the car, though. She kept her eyes on her reflection.

Even in the dark glass of the subway window, she could make out her reflection well. Her light-brown hair was still parted to the right side, as it had been that morning when she’d parted it with a comb. And its length still rested naturally at her collar, the length she kept it to with her frequent hair appointments. She was wearing a pretty blue long-sleeve blouse, a pretty gray-green suit-jacket over it, and a pretty gray-green dress-skirt which matched the jacket. She watched her reflection smile at her, and thought. I look good. Well, of course I do. I’m Tara Mason.

“Her hair looks clean,” Xerxes observed. “It’s clean, but it doesn’t show any signs of having undergone any kind of conditioning treatment.”

Her hair was naturally healthy, and didn’t demand more than a basic hair-care routine in order to look good.

“That’s what I thought,” Xerxes commented.

But though Tara favored collar-length haircuts anyway, in this context she couldn’t help but think her haircut luckily came across as very professional as well.

As Tara kept looking at herself, she felt her life was shaping up nicely: she’d felt that she was getting things onto the right track ever since she’d been hired as a paid intern by her law-firm the week before. Her life was going to change: but the woman she saw reflected back to her looked like she was ready for the challenge. Today, November 17th, was only going to be her first day, but she was going to show up early. And she’d do well in her position today and every day— and then her love-life would be her sole source of disappointment. Tara only cared to date men, and she hadn’t had a man for a long time.

Tara now frowned at her reflection. Even if she had a man, though, there’d be one other thing that put her behind her contemporaries. A lot of them knew just how skilled they were at Running— a lot of them Ran all the time. And Tara had never yet tried her skills in this area— had never yet Run. The right opportunity had never presented itself— so her talents in that area were still untried. She wondered idly if any opportunity might arise now that she was entering a new chapter of her life.

The frequency-scanner whirred, and Xerxes looked to its dials. The last number of the co-ordinates stayed the same, but the first two numbers had shifted up— that meant he was going outside the range of Tara’s mind. Into someone else’s mind? The last number of the co-ordinates had stayed the same— so he might be about to see the same day, the same hour, the same minute— but from inside another mind. Sometimes frequency-waves could interfere with each other this way— but he wondered whose mind he was about to see.

The woman on the subway was lovely, they couldn’t help but think so. Seeing her face just made them want to Run.

Her hair was a nice tawny color, and close-trimmed to her collar. She looked very preppy in her suit-jacket and dress-skirt; and she was fresh-faced and bright. They Ran so often, and the experiences it brought to them were things they subsisted on— almost full meals. But this woman could be the dessert to the meal they were currently preparing for themselves. She was the perfect naïf— clearly a woman but with that irresistible air of innocence and purity, that air of having been sheltered. She just looked so inherently wholesome. Exactly the kind of target they would like to turn their evil towards; irresistible to their evil impulses. She hadn’t seen them— no one ever saw them— but she could be their prey. She would be their prey.

“So that’s what this person is like,” Xerxes mused. “They’re a Runner who’s so invested in the process that they dedicate themselves to it constantly—constantly look for targets— taking them when they can. Some people are more like that, when it comes to Running... but there’s a streak of... something... with this person...that I’m not sure about. I don’t think this person has the fundamental decency other people do. They center the Running they do in their conception of their identity—like others do— but they’re just... indecent.”

The frequency-scanner whirred again, the dials spinning themselves. And for a moment the projector only showed static. Xerxes fiddled with the dials, but even when he returned to what he was sure were the same co-ordinates again, it showed him nothing. For now, he could not re-access that second mind.

He sighed, and took his cigarette out of the ashtray, inhaling deeply from it, and checking his watch.

The time was 10:36.