The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Master is no stranger to murder, although from what Paul and I could dig up on the topic, he’s only killed four men. That’s obviously way more than the average person, but in the criminal world you always try to make yourself look like a psychopath even as you keep your hands sparkling clean. When Avery Berman wants someone dead, he has someone else do it for him.

Me. I’m that someone.

So when Master looks at me with his sexy grey eyes, and the words I need you to go down to that spa and cut Marta’s treasonous fucking throat slither out of his mouth, I should be halfway across town with the steering wheel in one hand and a hunting knife in the other. Instead, I sit back on my haunches, still lost in those beautiful eyes, trying to think of how to respond.

I lead with “Of course, Master,” but it’s obvious that I’m about to follow that with a ‘but,’ and those eyes narrow dramatically. Still, I’ve left the dock, no turning around. “But if… I think there’s a way… I know I’m supposed to obey without question and I will, but Master, I…”

Shit. I’m fumbling my words and making an ass of myself. Come on, Tara!

“That’s an order, Tara. You will obey me.”

“B-but, Master… if I can just… you want me to be the best possible slavegirl I can be, right? So… please? Indulge me? That’s also me obeying your commands!”

He wavers, then relents, and nods.

That gives me a second to push the reset button, and I start over. It goes better this time.

“Paul had a lot of enemies. No one will ever guess that I was the one who killed him. It’ll be blamed on the mob, or a gang, or on some cheating husband he busted. But Madame Franz doesn’t have any enemies! Even if we make it look like a robbery, the police will be suspicious. They’ll dig into it in a way that won’t with Paul’s murder. They’ll pull the phone logs. They’ll know that she called you just before she was killed. And… I’m betting that they’ll find links to me, as a client. To Megan, maybe. And then to Paul! And then they’ll take a second look at his murder, too!”

Paul taught me a lot of things about detective work, and I’m throwing all of them at Master right now. I’m silently praying to God, to every god, that he will understand.

“So, Master… what if we do something completely unexpected? Right now, Madame Franz is thinking that either you’re going to send me there to give her what she wants, or that I’m going to show up and kill her. She won’t expect me to hypnotize her, and that’s exactly what we should do. She’s so easy to hypnotize, Master! Tell him, Megan!”

Megan chooses this moment, damn her, to throw up a perfectly logical counterpoint.

“She must have been deprogrammed, Tara,” she says to us. “The trigger isn’t working, so someone else must have gotten to her. Maybe Paul?”

I hate her. That’s absolutely not true. She’s sexy as fuck when she’s like this. So bold. So willful. So ready to throw all of that away the moment Master snaps his fingers and orders her to her knees, mouth open and waiting.

“Paul’s dead,” I counter. Deep inside me, there’s a Tara that’s screaming about that, and it feels so deliciously good. “And the only other people who know about Marta are you and I. And Master, of course.”

Megan rises to her feet on unsteady legs. “Then why didn’t she go under for me?”

A big, fat softball. I swing. “Maybe you’re not as good of a hypnotist as you think you are.”

“No. No! I know someone got to her. It has to be. Maybe not Paul, but someone. Master… someone else must have known! Maybe Paul told someone else, or… or maybe Tara—”

“Don’t put the blame on me,” I protest. How the fuck dare she? “Paul had no idea that I belonged to Master! You would still be working for him if it weren’t for me! Besides… she’s obviously shaken off your suggestions all on her own. Which means that we can put her right back under! Master, please! I’m sure of it!”

He pretends to consider all of the options, but I know in my little hypnotized heart that I’ve made the perfect case. Sure enough, he responds by saying “Tara’s right, Megan. If Marta owed her freedom to someone else, we would know. And…” he nods at me, and…

Oh God, he nodded at me! Yes! Yes!

“…she’s a dangerous loose end. So I’m going to need the both of you to take care of her. Tara, you’re the muscle. Keep her on her toes, make her think that if she plays along, she’ll get the payout. Megan? You’re the brains. Get her back under. Even if it means drugging her.”

“Yes, Master,” we respond in unison.

“Then bring her back here. If we need to, we can always brainwash her later. Right now, I just need her docile and out of the way. Understood?”

Never have two words meant so much to me, or felt so good to say. “Yes, Master.”

Like most men in my chosen profession, I own a hip flask. It ranks right up there with a pistol as a piece of must-have equipment, the only difference being that the pistol gets its own special holster, while the flask finds a home in whatever pocket is available. Some guys are partial to jamming it in a side pocket of a trench coat, like it’s the 1940s and Los Angeles is still filmed in black and white. I prefer a belt loop, or, when June Gloom hits, the breast pocket of a sports jacket.

Those same guys will tell you that it’s the booze inside that matters, not the flask, but they’re full of shit. We all have our first love and we all have our first flask. I bought mine when I was seventeen, at a flea market in Torrence. Was way too young to drink- legally, anyway- but just owning one made me feel like a tough guy. For the first year, I kept it filled with tap water. After that… well, let’s just say the water became a little less clear and a lot more… medicinal.

I still have it. Whoever sold it had no idea what they were giving away, because it’s solidly built, and probably went for a pretty penny back in the day. Real stainless steel, real leather, a properly-machined and tight-fitting cap that’s been screwed and unscrewed almost as many times as I have. There’s something comforting in being able to pull it out, twist that cap, and trickle some liquid courage into a heavy tumbler. You’ve earned this, Paul it whispers, as the bourbon pours out in a nice even stream.

Here and now, it’s the gorgeous brunette in front of me who has earned it. Accordingly, I offer her the tumbler, the brown liquid inside catching the light and sparkling.

“Care for a drink?” I ask, as if it wasn’t obvious.

To my surprise, she shakes her head and puts a hand up, pushing the glass back in my direction.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Marta,” I remind her, “it’s very possible that you just signed your own death warrant. Mine, too. I find that in those cases, a good stiff drink is the least you can do for yourself.”

I offer again. This time, she frowns, hesitates, then thrusts a manicured hand forward. The bourbon disappears faster than the McCann’s baby. She’s about to slam the glass on her desk, like they do in Westerns, then reconsiders. It’s a good idea. Marta’s dainty glass isn’t meant to be abused in that way.

“Ugh.” Her face scrunches. “I think I need another one.”

“You’re no good to either of us drunk. Avery is expecting you to be a confrontational bitch.”

“Oh, trust me. I fully intend to be that person.”

That’s my signal to reward myself. Marta only has the one glass. Everything else in her little office is designed for coffee, so I pour the rest of the flask into a blue and white ceramic Westmont Honda mug and take a swig. Ugh, indeed. It’s fairly nasty, somewhere above bathtub booze and beneath everything else. A private detective can’t afford the good stuff.

“You’re no good to us drunk, either,” she scolds me.

“This isn’t my first rodeo. I usually work cases on double shots. Comes with the job.” I lean back in the chair. It makes a horrible noise, like it’s about to collapse, so I reluctantly sit up straight. My third-grade teacher would be proud of me. “Tara’s a health nut. She’s always telling me…”

That brings me back to the present, and I leave that story for another day.

“I’m scared. I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for this.” Her eyes are a beautiful deep brown, sad and wet with the barest hint of tears. She’s holding it together, but you can tell it’s only barely.

Still, I’m not going to pull any punches. We’re all in deep shit. I remind myself to give Tara a very stern lecture, if any of us actually come out of this with the ability to form words. Another two weeks undercover, my ass.

“You have every right to be scared,” I tell her. “I’m not going to mince words. One of two things is about to happen. Either we’ve lost Tara to Avery for good, in which case she’s going to show up and gun us both down without saying a word, or there’s enough of her left inside Avery’s robot to give us a fighting chance. She doesn’t go down without a fight, Marta. It’s why we’re partners. Even if 99% of her is working for the bad guy, the other 1% is going to be running around her brain trying to trip everything up.”

“And you think that she can do that?”

For some reason, that really hits me hard, and I lash out. “You’d better hope that she can, for everyone’s sake!”

“I am sorry, Paul. It’s just that she is… she belongs to him now. And your friend Megan, too. You haven’t seen how Avery’s girls act when he has them doing the things he orders them to do. His control is more than just hypnotism.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“And you had me goad him into sending her anyway? Se te va la cabeza? She can’t think for herself! Are you prepared to kill her before she kills us?”

I tap my side. Marta’s already seen my piece. Even so, habit takes hold, and my hand lands on an empty pocket. Little detective tip, you never tap your actual gun when you do this; it lets everyone know where that gun is in case they want to borrow it for themselves. You tap an empty pocket, and they’re none the wiser.

“Wasn’t that long ago I was prepared to shoot you.”

“That is not my question. You’re in love with her. That complicates things.”

“If it comes to that, yeah. I will do exactly that. But I said she might kill us. Might, Marta. Besides, what options do you have at the moment? Run, as if Avery doesn’t have the time and money to track you down? Go to the cops, who will probably arrest you long before they ever arrest him? Look, all of this… and I mean it, all of this- was Tara’s idea. She planned for it. Had me prep her for it. If there’s anyone in the world who can dig herself out of a mountain of mind-fuckery, it’s Tara. And if she can’t…”

“We’re dead.”

That rotgut bourbon burns extra hard at times like this. “Yeah, in that case… we’re both dead.”