The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

You already know I succeeded enough that Mira and I kissed in my office, and that her hand reached down to gather a glancing impression of the excited monster that strained for her. The game was in play, and it didn’t take long to start seeing results.

With Grace as my date, I went to The Movement Machine’s dance performance as promised, my friend elbowing me in the ribs when Mira first appeared on stage. That initial dance piece involved the entire company, six male and seven female dancers, in costumes that were shaggy and primitive. Grace whispered “prehistoric lingerie” into my ear, which perfectly caught the spirit of the attire and the interactions of the dancers.

All of the dancers were young and fit, each body a slightly different variation on the classical ideal of human form. Seven very attractive women on stage, yet my eyes were glued to Mira, appreciating how her arms lifted in graceful lines, marveling at how her quadriceps and calves bulged when she went en point. She was simply sexier than the other female dancers, and her physicality and flexibility aroused reactions inside me that were just as raw and primitive as the energy of the dance itself.

“Draw your tongue back into your mouth,” Grace said during the applause, far too loudly.

Mira didn’t appear again until the first dance after intermission. She was sheathed in a midnight blue nothing of a gauzy outfit, the entirety of her legs completely bare. They were just. Fucking. Amazing. To make it worse for me, the scooped neckline of her attire up top was the opposite of downplaying that she was a dancer with a rack.

The in-your-face costuming began to make sense, as the dance was essentially a duet about irresistible seduction. Her male partner assumed countless physical attitudes while sitting upon a wide leather chair, with Mira tempting him in countless ways. Her Siren movements expressed the promise of contortion-filled sex—she beckoned and teased, sometimes draping herself all over him, only to push herself from him or spring away, again and again.

It was as if the choreographer knew all about Mira’s naughty side, and had decided to feed it one erotic expression after another in fluid dance form. She became the physical embodiment of extreme sexual potentialities on that stage, and as I watched the question arose—was the choreographer giving me a glimpse into my own future? Am I actually considering days or weeks of becoming that poor schmuck in the chair? It was almost like the male dancer was the art equivalent of Charlie Brown, with sexual union as the football that kept being yanked away at the last second.

The on-stage teasing became even more robust, and I wondered if I had sweat on my brow. At one point, standing behind the chair, Mira grasped the male dancer’s shoulders with her arms drawn in, squeezing her breasts together in a way that formed, for perhaps two seconds, a cleavage line that made someone sitting near us whisper, “Holy crap!” A second later, Grace’s right knee nudged mine, and when I glanced at her I saw lust beaming from her eyes.

At the end of the dance, Mira wrapped her body around the “exhausted” male in a way that might express the culmination of his hopes, but was also disturbingly reminiscent of a black widow spider, beginning to devour her doomed suitor. There was thunderous applause, with many in the audience giving a standing ovation.

I remained seated and Grace leaned down, commenting into my ear, “Wanna take a bet on how many men are like you, refusing to stand because they have too much pressure in their pants? The woman just cock-teased the entire audience!”

Indeed, and for me this was artistry that raised important personal questions. Mira had said the choreography was a collaboration, and I had to wonder if she’d told the Pierre guy about her naughty flirting nature, or if he’d just taken one look at her and decided to increase the heat through the roof. He walked out on stage and received fresh applause, and there was no doubt—the guy was gay.

He’d have to be, I thought. And then another thought, that Mira must have been practicing this performance for weeks, meaning the whole time I’d known her. How did it affect my chances with her that she’d been acting out a version of her cock-teasing self every day in her professional life, at the same time she’d set her sights on me? Perhaps the coals were burning especially hot?

Another question— how did I want to interpret the dance’s ambiguous ending? I knew what I wanted our ending to be, but could I get it? And what would I have to endure to end up there?

“The male dancer has to be gay,” Grace whispered as the performers left the stage, and the applause died down.“Otherwise he’d have already filed for some boner-fatigue injury compensation.”

I laughed, and I also imagined how wonderful that would be, achieving a state of boner-fatigue because Mira Cassidy just wouldn’t stop going at me. Couldn’t stop going at me, in a perfect world.

In the minute or so of changing props for the next performance, I spotted Taylor sitting very close to the stage, just off-center in the second row. What did a dance like that say to him? Did he want to invite the musicians home so they could play the score outside his bedroom door, hoping Mira would be inspired to make those moves on her own husband?

Fuck the fact that she was married. After witnessing what she had just shown me about the ways her body could move… If my chances were even close to being real, I just didn’t care.

Grace and I did attend the after-performance party, held in the ballroom of an historic hotel, built right after the Civil War. Mira stood with the other dancers, accepting congratulations from well-wishers and donors, wearing a clingy black evening gown and pearls. I came up to her briefly and told her how much I enjoyed her dancing, but then made a point of steering clear, instigating my first deliberate move of our silent game.

She had to be aware that the nature of her performance served as both enticement and warning. That split was not so different than the one I believed to be very real in her psyche—maybe a part of her did want to warn me, telling me to run for the hills. If correct, that would mean that her other side, the side with all the sexual force, must be pleased as punch that I had been there to witness the splendor and carnal potentialities of her sinful body.

I had a plan for the evening, feeble as it was. Let her believe, and perhaps worry for a bit, that I had decided to heed the warning. There is, for some, a great deal of energy and delight that comes from the thrill of the chase, and my intuition said that Mira’s naughty self had little use for prey that could be caught too easily.

I mixed here and there with dance enthusiasts and ers, making a point of keeping my back to Mira as much as possible, keeping myself from being reminded just how devastating she looked in her clinging dress and heels.

Standing out on the balcony at one point with the traffic of Main Street three floors below, Grace came out to me, leaning on the railing right at my side.

Staring into the twinkling lights of the city, she said, “I thought you’d be inside, finding ways to brush against Miss Torso.”

“Miss Torso?”

“It’s the nickname Jimmy Stewart gave to a hot-bodied dancer in Hitchcock’s Rear Window.”

“Ah.”

“She sure does have impressive tits.”

“The actress in the movie?”

Grace kicked me in the lower leg and just gave me a look.

“Oh, right. I noticed that, too.”

“I was trying to make myself believe in a very generous C-cup the first time I met her, because dancer, right? But I came to believe she must be a full-on D, or even… But no dancer in the world can be a double-D like yours truly, can they? But when she squeezed them together, right over the other dancer’s head… I can’t even imagine how hot that must have been for someone like you.”

I nodded, sipping the gin and tonic in my hand, hearing Mira’s voice in my head. I think you’d be surprised by the things I can do, she had said the other day. I had thought that meant her athleticism and the ways she could contort her body, which had certainly been true. But now, having seen the performance, it seemed obvious that she had known all about her cleavage display moment, and how shocking it would be. Unless, that is, compressing her tits like that had been a spur of the moment thing, naughty Mira adding a boob flourish to cock-tease the whole audience, as Grace had said. And possibly me, in particular.

“Why are you out here, Michael? I know you’re smitten, but she’s not the only comely dancer in there. Seek, and you never know what you’ll find.”

“I just needed some air. But what about you? Where’s your redhead tonight? I was sure you’d hook up with her as the night wore on.”

“I’m imposing a bit of discipline.”

“On yourself?”

“Fuck no. I want to hear more than screaming from the lovely Tina. I want begging.”

“You’re a loose cannon, Grace.”

“Honey, you don’t know the half of it. In bed I’m the cannon and the cannonball, all rolled into one.”

“Leaving your conquests the right to be…”

“The poor things this cannonball tore a new hole into.”

“Woof.”

“Woof? Are you barking for your bitch in there? What comes next, howling at the moon?”

“Mira is someone else’s bitch, as you might recall.”

“Oh right, how could I forget? Are you afraid of the vengeful husband wielding a scalpel, or that Mira’s dance was prophetic? A woman who looks and moves like she does could swallow a man whole, just ask Taylor. He’s tall and almost handsome, and very much respected. But standing next to her, he looks like a planet that barely receives any sunlight.”

“She does have a way of radiating, doesn’t she?”

“It’s pure sexual vitality that she radiates, and the dance troupe was smart enough to use that. You noticed the name of that audience-fucking dance of hers, didn’t you?”

“Desire something or other. Only it wasn’t her dance; it was a duet.”

“Like one person tonight will recall the poor male dancer. But my point is this—the dance was called ‘Desire’s Tangled Web’. It’s the perfect title because Mira wouldn’t even have to bite your head off to bite your head off. It’s understandable how you’d yearn to get all sticky with a woman like that, but you need to be careful.”

“You speak as though she and I have some sort of chance together. Or that I have no talents for web-spinning of my own.”

Grace studied my face. “You’re trying to pull her strings right now, aren’t you? ‘Just need some air’, my ass.”

“Grace, just listen to yourself. I’m nowhere near Mira. I’m minding my own business.”

“And I’m nowhere near Tina, because absence makes the slit grow wetter. You’re doing something similar, aren’t you?”

I didn’t reply. I just listened to the sounds of the city below and the crowd inside, and the jazz band providing atmosphere.

“I’ve never forgotten something you said to me in one of our sessions,” Grace spoke softly. “It was right after I landed that part in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, and they said I got the role because my eyes were so wide. You said, ‘Sometimes anatomy equals destiny’. You that?”

“I do. Are we just reminiscing, or—”

“No, and I want to speak seriously to you now. I completely get it, the attraction to Mira. Somebody left the spigot running way too long when they poured great looks into the woman, so I get it. But listen, she’s sure-fire pain for you if you don’t get your dick under control. Maybe you could even get what you think you want, for a time… Who knows. But here’s my point—her incredible anatomy is her destiny. If you try to make it yours, too…”

Grace might be onto something that Mira’s anatomy was creating her destiny. If true, though, the woman ought to have one of the best sex lives on the entire planet.

“You accept that gay women still have women’s intuition, right?” Grace asked next.

“Sure.”

“I have a bad feeling about you and Mira. Sometimes I think I never should have introduced you to each other.”

“You’re really worried for me, aren’t you? It was that spider dance.”

“Here’s another metaphor if it’s not sinking in yet. She could be your iceberg, Michael. You crash into that…”

I let out a laugh, because her metaphor had me as the Titanic.

“That wasn’t meant to be a laughing matter.”

“I know, I know.” I touched her hand, and let her know with my eyes that I appreciated her concerns for me.

“Well then,” she said more brightly. “If you do score, get her bra size for me, so I can stop wondering. Hell, make a porno film of the whole thing, just for me. I’m not at all interested in watching your thing in action, but I really want to see that woman’s jay-jay—does she shave it? Is it as freaking gorgeous as the rest of her? A close-up of her thighs would be especially welcomed, all shiny with her muscles quivering. I’d even pay you for that.”

“Christ! Are you pure evil, Grace, or only evil?”

“Hey, why do anything halfway?”

She was right to be concerned, of course. If I’d told her about my ulterior motives and my intended tactics, coupled with my complete inability to even think about putting on the brakes, she probably would have figured some way to stage an intervention.

I confided nothing, and before leaving that night I went in and spoke with Taylor, calm and friendly as could be. I talked about my practice and the historic hotel we were in, and other unimportant crap that I can’t even . I could feel Mira’s eyes on me at times, and she made a point of intercepting me as I was leaving. I gave her a polite peck on a raised hand and told her again how wonderfully she had danced, and left the party feeling a little bit ashamed of my attempted manipulation. I believed the naughty side of Mira would want me to remain hopeful, so feigning an attitude of premature defeat was likely to bring some friction.

It took almost no time at all. When I saw a familiar number on my phone at nearly one in the morning, I decided not to answer, and Mira didn’t leave a message.

The phone rang again half an hour later, and it was so hard to keep myself from picking up. I’d really developed a hunger for the woman—her spider’s dance and its cleavage display had inflamed my wanting, rather than serving as the kind of warning that Grace wished me to absorb.

Mira calling in the wee hours was proof that she was dealing with her own kind of agitation. If she read my signals of withdrawal the way I hoped she would, she might believe that I was removing myself from these games, just pulling up my gonads and moving on.

But in reality, that part of Mira needn’t worry, because seducing her was becoming something like my life’s mission, at least temporarily. If I screwed-up my strategies and she redirected her flirting sights to someone else, or she worked to give her relationship with Taylor every chance of success… Okay then, fine; I would take my lumps, knowing I had moved the pieces given to me the best way I’d known to move them. On the other hand, if I could get the friction between good Mira and bad Mira to runneth over so forcefully that she got all stirred up and flung herself at me… Well, that would be far more than fine.

There were no phone calls from her on Sunday or Monday, and I began to wonder whether I’d backed off too much too quickly. But then my receptionist punched a call through from a Mrs. Cassidy on Tuesday afternoon, and I probably had a Cheshire Cat grin as I leaned back in my chair. If I wouldn’t answer her calls on my cell in the middle of the night, she would find another way.

“You were so distant at the after-dance party,” Mira started, without even saying hello. “What’s the matter?”

“Your having a husband is the matter.”

“Oh.”

“I thought it best to keep my distance.”

“You didn’t keep your distance from Taylor, I noticed.”

“That’s different. I don’t want to…” I didn’t finish the sentence. Part of her probably hoped I’d say “cause difficulties in your marriage”, while the other side of Mira might want me to finish with, “fuck your husband.”

“Tomorrow is your free day… Well, your client-free day. Could we meet for coffee again?”

“We probably shouldn’t. I think Taylor is right that it would be hard for you to have male friends.”

“Since when do you care what Taylor wants?”

“I don’t want to ruin your marriage, Mira.”

“Ruin it? Half of the time I hate it! But what are you talking about? It’s only coffee.”

Right there, with that “half of the time” remark, was the split that I wanted to exploit. “Maybe it is just coffee to you. For me… You said that you trust me, but you shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t.”

She went quiet, only her breathing on the line. “You’re developing feelings for me,” she finally said.

“Yes, I am.”

“Strong feelings?”

“Yes, they’re very strong and they’re not platonic. I want… I’m not even going to say it.”

“Oh God, I’ve turned you into one of them!”

“One of whom?”

“One of the men I flirt with. I came on too strong… And then that spider dance, oh God. That was art, Michael. Two of the other dancers, Rhonda and Kevin, contributed with the choreography, and they’e a couple. They’ve recently gone through some straying temptations, so… It’s not like the dance was written all about me and the things I could do to you if we…”

She stopped short, probably realizing what she’d just said. Was she picturing me picturing her tit-fucking me with her big breasts? She had just about tit-fucked that other dancer’s face with her boobs, which I would never forget.

She remained silent for several seconds, then said, “We could try to be friends, couldn’t we? I could try to be less… I don’t know…”

“Sexy? Good luck with that.”

“But if I—”

“I think you’re misunderstanding my concerns. I’m not afraid of you. I’m more afraid of what I might be tempted to do.”

A very long pause on the phone, during which I couldn’t help smiling. I was hoping to push a button here and there, and I may have just succeeded.

“What would you do?” she finally asked.

Her voice had gone thinner, and I had the distinct feeling that Miss Torso, as Grace now called her, was beginning to touch herself, or at least she was thinking about that. I could probably start talking dirty to her, but we were on the office phone and that wasn’t what I wanted. Yet.

“Probably anything you’d let me get away with,” I replied. “I would never force anything, ever. Unless you wanted that.”

It was faint, like she’d covered the phone with her hand, but I thought I heard a sigh, or perhaps even a whimper. The sound over the phone changed, like she’d adjusted it to another ear.

“When does your receptionist leave?”

“Around five-thirty, sometimes six. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Mira, don’t even think about it. I’m not to be trusted, seriously.”

“I’ve never let things go too far,” she said, her voice even thinner. “Sometimes I almost throw myself at men, but then I run away. It’s awful of me to do that, but sometimes I can’t help myself.”

“As you’ve told me. So let’s just skip all of that, okay? I don’t have any interest in being just another one among many for you. What we have is more intimate, more… Well, for me it’s far more intense, and serious. Repeating your flirt games that go nowhere would be hard on both of us.”

“It’s not just a flirt game for me. I like being near you. I like your intelligence and directness. And—you just said it yourself—your intensity.”

“My directness intensely says you should stay away, for your own sake.”

For a number of seconds there was just some breathing into the phone, which could mean anything. Then: “I love your smile. It’s the dimples. They’re cute.”

“Mira…”

“Just coffee again. Seeing each other would be fine unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Like I told you. I can find that I’m… I misbehave, without always knowing how much I’m doing it. What if I lost control? I might need you to take over, to stop me from going too far.”

Could she hear herself? This was good Mira, imploring me to intervene if naughty Mira took the reins and steered her hands or tongue or even her pussy towards my cock.

“I’m telling you right now, Mira. You could trust me implicitly, if that means never telling a soul. But if it means putting on the brakes when you’ve… Listen, I’m sorry, but I have a client walking in right now. I really need to go.”

“But… Okay. Bye, then.”

“Bye.”

I did have a client due in five minutes, and it took every one of those minutes for me to recover from that conversation. It was happening, and I was beginning to believe it was going to happen physically. The good Mira had made an appearance but she had strongly implied that her other side might prove the stronger of the two.

And then, the very next day, the knock on my outer office door, just ten minutes or so after Carlotta had left for the day. And that first kiss, with Mira’s fingertips brushing my hard-on through my pants. I’d never given her my work address, but I’d known that wouldn’t be a problem. She had probably parked and watched Carlotta leave for the day. She was resourceful, and very good at following breadcrumbs.

And she was out of control, which meant that I was inching closer to being in control. Not totally, of course; I couldn’t dictate her movements, or impose the timing. And nothing was certain—when she fled my office, the possibility existed that she would never return.

I can’t say that I didn’t worry, but I was confident that I’d hear from her again, perhaps soon. If anything, the dance she’d performed might turn out to be anti-prophetic, because I was determined to become the devouring spider, even though it might not look like it. I was beginning to weave strands right into her, and Mira Cassidy, the beautiful Miss Torso herself, just might find her perfect limbs sticking to my tangled webs.

“I can’t go to bed with you,” she whispered into my ear that night on my personal phone. “What I did in your office today… You have to know that I can’t ever do that again.”

Good Mira’s voice, only good Mira would never have called in the first place. And we were on different ground, now that her hand had rubbed against a private zone. “Where is Taylor right now?” I asked.

“Downstairs, watching a ballgame.”

“And where are you?”

“Lying in bed.”

“And?”

“Talking to you.”

“And?”

“Ohhh…” I heard.

I was in my living room, not bed, in my great aunt’s rocking chair, where I being rocked when I was very little. I wasn’t little at all now, with Mira Cassidy moaning a half-stifled masturbation sigh into my ear.

“Mira, you shouldn’t be calling me like this.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“I’m not a bad person.”

Good Mira, having her say. “No. You just have unmet desires. Unmet needs.”

“Yes.”

“And you feel like you’re going to burst from it all.”

“Yes!”

“What do you do when you feel like that?”

“Mmm…” I thought I could hear, just barely.

“Mira?” I could picture her on her back, the phone in one hand, the other one stretched down her front, disappearing between those ideal thighs.

“Oh God, I really need to see you again. I want you!”

Naughty Mira. “We shouldn’t do that,” I said, hoping she might start arguing the opposite. Better for her to convince herself that she had to fuck me.

“I can’t visit your office earlier than quarter to six on any day but Wednesday, can I?”

“Not without the risk of my receptionist being there, no. And Carlotta is sharp as a tack.”

“Will you be home this weekend?”

“That would be extremely dangerous.”

“Do you have nosy neighbors?”

Naughty Mira wanted the lay of the land, time schedules and a roap in case she took control and went walkabout. “It isn’t that. Logistically I couldn’t be set up any better; my house is at the end of a dead-end street, with woods all around. It’s completely private and would be perfectly safe.”

“What would happen if I… You know.”

“If you came?” I emphasized the word that good Mira had seen as a suggestive trap. “I don’t know. I think it would be up to you.” One of you, anyway.

“I can’t do it. I’m not like that.”

“Then don’t come near my door.”

“Oh God, I feel like I’m going to explode!”

My pants were unzipped and it wouldn’t take much more to get me there, either. “You’ll be okay.”

“No I won’t! I need… Oh crap, he’s coming upstairs.”

The line went dead and I put the phone down. I closed my eyes and saw her as she might look if she visited right now, standing at my front door in warm porch light, her green eyes wide and wet with need.

I had needs, too, hot to the touch. “Mira,” I said, and I repeated her name as I rubbed one out, believing the pictures I could envision in my mind would happen one day. I would say her name as she lay beneath me, or she straddled me from above. I would say that name right into the woman’s glistening pussy, before, during and after she came.

“I’m afraid.” Those were the first words she breathed into the phone the following night.

“Tell me about your fears.”

“That’s therapist talk.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I’ve always been a little afraid... This is so private, so...”

“Yet you want to tell me.”

“I’ve always been a little afraid of men’s things. Not terribly afraid, just… Sometimes I feel like I’d give anything to be the opposite, but they’re so messy. I get shy, and kind of keep my distance.”

Reading into what she was saying, Taylor Cassidy had a fairly miserable sex life. The “messy” part must be spurting semen, which to her ordered and refined self must seem unruly, or tawdry. There were any number of devices in the sexual toolbox, but if good Mira was on the scene when they made love, there was almost no possibility for them to lift the latches to bring out the power tools.

“I’ve only done it with Taylor and one other man,” she continued. “Like I said, I went to all-girls schools, and didn’t lose my virginity until college. I’m completely confident about my body, but the truth is that I’m inexperienced. There’s so much I don’t know. I need—”

“What do you need?”

“A choreographer.”

Oh, this was good, this was really, really good. She wasn’t a virgin of course, but what she was telling me was that her wicked sexual side was. It was truly untapped, a blank canvas just waiting for someone to dictate the colors to splash on.

“I have such exciting fantasies,” she whispered.

“Such as?”

“I do exciting things. It’s like there’s somebody, a sexual choreographer, urging me to do things.”

Somebody making her do sexual things—we were both in the dark at that point as to just how prophetic those words would prove to be. “Is Taylor ever a part of these fantasies?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No, but…”

“Say it, Mira.”

Her breath into the phone, where I would swear I felt its heat. “You’ve become a part of my fantasies. I think about you and I... We do things that I’ve never done before.”

I heard her gulp, and I couldn’t tell if it was naughty Mira heated up, or her good girl side becoming afraid.

“Michael, when I touched you, in your office…”

“Yes?”

It took a few seconds, but it was worth the wait. “You just seemed to go on.”

This really was a delicate subject. She had started the conversation saying that she was sometimes afraid of penises, and I sure as hell didn’t want to scare her off. I went with, “Let’s just say that we both have our physical gifts.”

She went silent for a little bit, enough that I started to worry. When she did speak, it was definitely a message from the naughty side.

“I keep replaying what my fingers felt. When I left your office, I wondered if I might have dreamed it. I didn’t though, did I?”

She sounded intrigued, not skittish, so I said, “No, you didn’t dream it.”

Her breathing was even more audible. Then, with her voice lower than usual: “Oh Michael, sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just let loose. Everyone can see I’m beautiful, but… You don’t know how I can burn.”

Whoa! She had to know how she was making me burn, by saying those words. I wanted to tell her to get in her car to discover what we’d do if she let loose, but then good Mira popped up, her voice so easy to recognize.

“Oh my God! What am I saying? I’m teasing you again, and badly! I can’t go to bed with you, even if… I can’t ever let things get to that point!”

My throbbing erection, guided by understanding, didn’t worry about this almost schizophrenic change in tone. “Are you in bed right now?”

“Stop, please! It isn’t going to happen. It can’t happen. We have to talk about something else or I’ll—”

“What does it feel like to dance on stage like that?” She wanted a breather? I’d give her one, but it would be short.

“I love it. One of my early instructors compared us to wavelengths of light, and I’ve always adored that metaphor.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“From my perspective, the perspective of an individual dancer, it’s like light going through a prism in reverse. The choreography and music are the prism, each dancer a separated color of light. If we dance well enough and the choreography and music are refined so beautifully that they can refract light, then we all blend back in with the source. We become white light.”

“A fascinating way to look at it. Is it difficult getting the movements down?”

“Some of the physical demands are quite extreme; you saw that in my performance. But I’m supple, and really strong. Equally important is that I take instruction well. I absorb the choreography and my entire body comes alive.”

“Grace said you had the entire audience turned-on from the way you performed that tangled web dance.”

“Did that include you?”

“Very much so.”

“Sex-appeal is one of the dirty little secrets of modern dance. There’s so much outright sexuality in the movements, yet everyone pretends that it’s only about aesthetics. We say we want the audience to drive home commenting on our wonderful artistry and technique, but what really happens is that sometimes we turn the audience on, and they hurry home to fuck.”

“Like in your spider dance. That was overtly sexual.”

“I know. I loved performing it.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Like a gifted dancer. And also incredibly sexy. I… Maybe something got into me during that performance. I added a couple of flourishes, spur of the moment… They weren’t choreographed.”

The cleavage display. “Mira, are you lying in bed right now?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you see.”

A long pause. “My hand on my left breast.”

I smiled. Good Mira would have said anything else—the dresser, a mirror, a wall. “Your hand is just resting there?”

Another pause, and an intake of breath. “No, not resting. I’m…”

“Yes?”

“Rolling my nipple.”

“And you feel?”

“Incredibly sexy.”

“And what else?”

“Pressure.”

“From me?”

“No, from... You know, from inside.”

“Tell me where you feel the pressure.”

“In my… In my… you know…”

“Say it.”

“In my pussy. In my cunt. There, satisfied?”

Hardly, until I was inside that cunt. “Tell me what you want, Mira.”

“I want you to help me.”

“Help you, or help you get off?”

“Get… Oh God! I can’t be doing this!”

“And yet you are.”

“It has to stop!”

“You can stop it with a word. You’re in complete control.”

“But I can’t! I can’t stop!”

“Then let me help you with your needs.”

“No! You can’t… Oh God, I’m… so close…”

“Tell me what you want, Mira. I’ll touch you right now, over the phone if—”

“I think… I have to have you!”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes! No! Oh God!”

And she hung up.

Grace wanted me to accompany her to the final dance workshop that weekend, an extravaganza where we got to show off how well we’d absorbed the different styles we’d been taught. I initially agreed to meet her there, but when Saturday rolled around I began to wonder. Mira hadn’t called again, nor had she shown up at my office on Wednesday. I might have frightened her off permanently; that or she was clamping down on her drives, trying to be good while the pressure steadily built underneath.

There was pressure in me, too, from wanting her so much. Every day that went by without hearing from her was concerning, but also a cause for hope. If there’s one reliable thing I’ve learned from my therapeutic practice, it’s that repression never works. It just shakes the effervescent bottle that much harder, making the inevitable explosion more dramatic once the cap is removed.

I didn’t know whether Mira and Taylor would be at the dance or not, but my instincts told me not to go. I didn’t want to provide something like a release valve for Mira, where she managed to vent some of the build-up of sexual tensions by dancing with me.

I picked up groceries on Saturday morning, and mowed my front lawn in the warming sun. It had rained half the week while temperatures behaved like a certain desirable dancer, unable to decide whether to leap towards the warmth of spring or not.

I went for a long run around noon, and while drying off from showering, my phone rang. I thought it might be Grace or even Mira, but it was an unknown area code with initials I didn’t recognize at first.

I debated answering the call for two rings and then it clicked—S. F. was Sam Farnsworth, or Sell-out Sam, from the conference a couple of weeks before.

My thumb accepted the call, and his voice was instantly recognizable. We exchanged a few pleasantries, during which time I wondered whether I should have avoided the call. Then he got to the point.

“ that aptitude test from my lecture? Recording your voice?”

Of course I did. “I got a text message saying I aced the test. We already talked about this.”

“What if I told you that you did better than acing the test. Like, you absolutely crushed it.”

“Are you calling because I’ve won some sort of prize?”

“In a way you have, if you want it. See, here’s the thing—I talked recently with the people I trained with. Nobody ever gets a perfect score like you did; it’s unheard of.”

“Okayyy…” I responded.

“Honestly, when I took that test I scored an 85 and that was pretty amazing. But you, my friend, apparently have far more talent.”

“Okay. And how does this make you feel?”

“Ha! Ever the therapist, aren’t you? But seriously, I’m not calling because my ego is bruised. I’m giving you a heads-up that the school where I trained, extremely exclusive, is going to be ing you soon. With a score like yours…”

“How do you know all of this, Sam? Do you work for these people?”

“No, it’s not like that. I put in a good word for you, mate, and now… All I can say is you have no idea at all, the favor I’ve done you. The immersion technique and what it can do…”

“As you were hinting at breakfast that day. You kept saying what a powerful tool it is, but to what purpose?”

“The purposes that are at hand. Use your imagination; that would be my advice.”

“That’s—”

“It’s life-changing, Michael. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s probably the closest thing in this world there is to possessing actual magic. As in, ‘Holy shit, I can barely believe what I can do!’ Like that. Seriously.”

I was going to say that I didn’t believe in magic, but an image of Mira Cassidy’s legs flashed in my head, and I stayed silent. Those legs were damned close to being supernatural, even when very much real.

“They’re probably going to offer the training to you, Michael, possibly at a discount. You’ve got to get it in your head that unless you’re an idiot, you’re going say yes.”

I sighed. “This training takes how long?”

“It’s very intensive, lasting two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“In Switzerland, yes. Just do it, for yourself, for your clients… Hell, for your future! You’ll never regret it.”

I made no promises—how could I? Getting away for two weeks was virtually impossible. Besides, I was perfectly happy with the way my practice was going.

Sam said he had to go and after shaking off the strangeness of that call, I rang Grace to tell her I wouldn’t be coming to the final dance event. She wasn’t home or her cell wasn’t on, and I set the phone down without leaving a message.

“Who were you calling?”

I must have jumped a foot in the air. When I landed, all my senses buzzing, I saw that Mira was standing a good six feet inside my living room, dressed in a short skirt and heels with a tight white tube-top that accentuated her tits. The front door was shut behind her and she could have been standing there for just a few seconds, or minutes.

“Your door was unlocked,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Who were you calling?”

“Grace,” I replied, very aware that I was standing in the living room shirtless. “I was going to tell her that I won’t be at the dance tonight.”

“But I want you there,” Mira protested, easing to her right and sitting down in my rocking chair.

She spread her legs out wide, but placed her hands in her lap so they flattening the skirt to prevent a view of her upper thighs or panties. It was the perfect positioning of her body for the situation, simultaneously wanton and demure, representing her warring sides. She didn’t meet my eyes; she seemed to be staring at her hands, or perhaps at the region beneath the hands, as though wondering what these parts of her body might do against her will. Her skin was flushed and her breathing looked ragged, just the kinds of signs I’d been hoping for.

“I like your body,” she said, and before I could reply she added, “I shouldn’t be here,” with her lower lip and even her chin trembling like those of a naughty child caught in some act.

She turned her head sideways as if looking for someone who might advise her, or scold her, and I used those moments to study the form of her breasts under the tightly fitting top. Their size kept catching me off-guard.

“Now is when you’re supposed to say that you like the way I look in this outfit,” she said, with a slight pouting of her lips. “You could even tell me that you’re in love with my body.”

I was ready to take the bait but stopped myself, aware that good Mira might object if I made my desires too plain. I let my eyes do the talking, devouring the incredible form of her legs, and on up to her tits. She was probably all of 115 or 120 pounds, but it looked like the chair could splinter from having that much sexual potency weighing upon it.

I think I inadvertently licked my lips before saying, “Let me get dressed, okay? I have some iced tea or lemonade if—”

“I didn’t come here for fucking lemonade! And don’t you dare walk away.”

I knew better than to say a single word. I stood motionless, letting her define the of her foray into extremely dangerous territory.

“When we talk on the phone… I touch myself to your voice.”

“I hoped you might,” I said, daring to move half a step closer.

Her eyes went to my pants, and of course I was completely hard for her. I was freshly showered, my sand-colored hair still wet with a single water trail meandering down the middle of my chest. My cock could not be more clean, nor my wishes more impure.

It was like she was addressing the bulge in my pants when she spoke next. “I think you’re bigger than anyone I’ve ever…”

Back to that again. It felt critical to respond in a cautious way, like having a shy animal in my living room that might bolt if it heard the least threatening sound.

“Like I said on the phone, we both have our physical gifts.”

Seconds ticked. “I want to do so many things… But I can’t make love to you, Michael.”

She couldn’t, but maybe she would. “The signals you give out disagree with what you’re saying. Being here at all tells a different story. So tell me what you truly want, Mira.”

She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and somehow it was so damned sexy. “What I really want is so selfish!”

A light went on, and I thought I might know precisely where she was. “You want me to touch you with more than my voice.”

She answered that with an intake of breath, and legs that wouldn’t stay still beneath the protective hands. These next seconds, and what might happen or not... It was like seduction on the surface of an eggshell.

“But you aren’t ready to touch me back,” I added.

“I can’t. It would be a betrayal!”

I didn’t grow up Catholic or much of anything else, but I’d learned plenty from working with clients struggling to either meet or free themselves from the moral codes of early religious training. All sins, as it turns out, are not equal—some are mortal, or unforgivable, while others are merely venial, meaning lesser and forgivable. Was Mira making such unconscious or barely conscious equivocations? Did she really believe that adultery came in shades of gray, our illicit deeds not so black if she allowed herself to be touched and brought to orgasm, but she didn’t touch back?

There was another way to look at the situation, a way that gave her credit for having found a place of temporary equilibrium. The sex meter between us was tilted way towards the naughty side, and good Mira might not rise up and sabotage everything if she just sat there, taking no active role while all the transgressions happened to her. To an outsider the entire equation might look absurd, but all that mattered was how it worked inside Mira’s psyche.

Moving forward here would not be wholly fulfilling in the usual sense, because I believed her when she said she couldn’t go there with me—yet. But then, how often is it that we swallow a delicious meal whole? We savor the dishes we want one bite at a time, enjoying every mouthful while anticipating the next, and this was no different.

I was being offered my first taste and I would take it, silently swearing that I would find a means for convincing her to taste right back, again and again.