The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

In the morning, Julia was feeling less optimistic. As her handmaidens carefully bathed her, the beautiful young woman considered the next moves of her scheme.

If Emperor Caligula had a fetish, she realized, he would have already done everything possible to experience it. All of Rome knew that the emperor bedded six different maidens a week. No doubt that some silly girls had detected Caligula’s obsession, and role-played it with him. Caligula would not be impressed by an imitation of his ultimate sexual fantasy.

So what exactly did Rufus say about Caligula? He wanted to put a spell on the aristocratic women he lusted after, so they would become his total and obedient slaves! With a growing depression, Julia realized: Caligula was never be satisfied with anything but actual magic. Her plan seemed to be unraveling.

“My lady?” The first handmaiden said expectantly.

Julia blinked. She was rising from her private bath, allowing the other servant girls to wipe the water from her body. “What?” she snapped.

“Which dress do you prefer? The light blue, or the red?”

“Dress?” Julia echoed stupidly.

“Yes, my lady,” the handmaiden said patiently. “For today’s processional. You and Master Pandion are to attend with the Lady Valeria and her husband.”

Of course! In an instant, Julia ed: The handmaiden was right. The Twentieth Legion was marching through the City Forum, in celebration of their victory over the… so-and-so barbarians to the east. Or something. Julia had lost count of Rome’s wars.

Well, it would be good to see Valeria again. And to be out of the house for a while.

“The red dress,” Julia snapped, gestured that her hair should be combed.

The City Forum was the heart of the city of Rome. A wide, sweeping plaza lined with government buildings, elaborate temples, and many basilicas, the Forum was where almost all of Rome’s most important events took place. As a member of the city’s elite, Julia often had to attend these, if only to maintain her status.

Today, hundreds of banners flew from every flagpole in the city. Down the center of the Forum, a wide parade route had been laid out, with thick crowds of Romans lining up by the thousands. Further back but higher up, private viewing boxes had been constructed, already filled with the top of Roman society. Julia and Pandion found that almost every seat in their ticketed box was full.

“We should have been here an hour ago,” Pandion grumbled to his wife.

“Oh, stop,” Julia snorted back. “The parade hasn’t even started yet. Where’s Valeria?”

Replete in her dark red dress, the beautiful young woman surveyed the box. There were perhaps a hundred of Rome’s well-to-do in attendance, all dressed in their finest, all chatting with one another.

“Ah,” Julia said. “There she is. Come on.”

The young couple elbowed their way through the crowd, smiling and murmuring greetings with their peers. As the crowd politely stepped back, Julia and Pandion found themselves face-to-face with Rufus Mettius. The astonished Chariot-Master was standing beside a fat, sweaty woman in a truly garish dress and heavy makeup. The fat woman was rapidly fanning herself.

Julia and Rufus blinked at one another. “I… eh, good day, Lady Cranaus,” he mumbled awkwardly.

“Rufus,” Julia nodded. Then she swept along, without giving the Chariot-Master another glance.

Valeria had claimed seats right in the front of the viewing box. There were three other aristocratic women with her, including… Julia scowled… Drusilla. Julia’s black-haired rival wore a lady’s toga, one that draped over her svelte body just enough to cover her chest, hips, and legs. Glittering jewelry circled her throat.

“Julia!” Valeria crowed. “Come, girl, we saved you a seat!” She patted a small chair, to her right.

“Ugh, I don’t hang out with women,” grumbled Pandion. Without another word, he edged back into the crowd.

Abandoned by her husband, Julia had little choice but to sit down.

“So,” Valeria said, her voice eager, “what was with you and Rufus? How come his face went slack when you guys met?”

“I dunno,” Julia relied airily.

“Uh-huh,” grinned Valeria.

“Hello, Julia,” Drusilla said, her voice dripping with ice.

“Dru,” acknowledged Julia.

Drusilla’s sharp eyes scanned every inch of Julia’s dress, hair, and makeup. Then she visibly curled one lip.

“Hey,” Valeria said, “the parade’s starting!”

In a Triumphal Procession, Rome’s returning soldiers always marched in tight formation, displaying the weapons they used in battle. The standards of every division in the legion were held high, so that a Roman citizen could spot and cheer for the soldiers they personally knew. Bright confetti fell from the skies with abandon.

And in between the regiments, captured enemies were marched along, always in chains, and dressed in the shabbiest rags imaginable. The idea was to humiliate the losers before the whole Empire, just to break their spirits.

Julia and her friends watched this display of Imperial might as it tromped on by. Unlike the common mobs in the street, the aristocrats did not cheer or boo. They merely observed coolly, as if the entire affair was only mildly interesting to them.

But at the processional’s midpoint, a line of elephants appeared. Atop the lead elephant, a barbarian was waving to the crowd, delighted by the ecstatic sheering of the Romans.

“Who’s that?” Julia couldn’t help but ask.

“Really, Julia, you have to keep up with the news,” scoffed Valeria. “That’s General Houkin, leader of the barbarian army. When our forces approached his city, he knifed his own prince, then surrendered his legions. Emperor Caligula will reward him handsomely, I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Julia said. “So there wasn’t really a battle at all?”

“There was, but the fighting was pretty much lopsided,” Valeria replied. She sighed, and inspected her nails.

“Oh, I get it,” Julia said, disgusted. “So this whole processional is to celebrate one man who is a traitor to his own people. Nice.”

“Betrayal is life, baby,” retorted Drusilla, as if Julia had just said the stupidest thing imaginable. “When history is written, do you think the scholars will care that the fighting was fair? Houkin saw an opportunity to advance, and he seized it. Good for him.”

“Speaking of opportunities, ladies…” the black-haired beauty went on, a smirk on her face, “soon you’ll be addressing me as the First Lady of Achaea.” She raised her head high.

“No!” exclaimed Valeria, obviously delighted. “You little minx! How are you working that?”

“My husband, Lucius, is putting a little something together for the emperor,” Drusilla said loftily.

Julia found herself grinding her teeth. Lucius Gallus, Drusilla’s husband, was the general in Rome’s Africa Legions. Across the Mediterranean, he had almost unlimited resources at his disposal.

“Oh, now you have to tell us!” Valeria insisted, mock-slapping Drusilla’s bare arm.

Drusilla made a show of sighing mightily. “Fine. In Egypt, there are these special soldiers… what’re they called…? Minha Multakhat Bialdima, or something. They’re so badass because they train from the time they can walk, and they take a blood oath to blindly obey their master. Like, they believe that if they fail an order, their souls are condemned in the afterlife. That’s why when they are commanded, they either complete their mission, or die. Badass.”

After a dramatic pause, Drusilla laughed. “And Lucious has purchased an entire phalanx of them for Emperor Caligula! An entire regiment of hardened, obsessed bodyguards! Can you imagine?”

“Fuck me!” Valeria almost cried. “The emperor loves that macho military shit! He’ll flip.”

“Yes, he will,” Drusilla gloated. She laughed, a pleasant, lilting sound. “Why, the emperor may be so jazzed, he might not stop with giving us the governorship of Achaea. Maybe I can be allowed to pick any citizen I want to become my slave.”

“So wild,” cackled Valeria.

“Maybe I’ll enslave Julia,” Drusilla proposed, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “You can see it, can’t you, Julia? Scrubbing my floors? Cleaning my clothes? Shoveling out my stables?”

Valeria broke out into cruel laughter, and Drusilla ed her. Julia fumed.

“Oh, relax, Jules,” Valeria sighed, wiping away a tear. “Dru is just kidding. Right, Dru?”

“Sure,” sneered Drusilla.

“Of course,” smiled Julia. “Very funny, Dru.”

But inside, Julia was boiling with sheer, seething rage.

As soon as the processional was over, Julia made an excuse to leave Pandion. “I’ll be home in an hour or so,” she told him haughtily, then strode away before her husband had a chance to object. He stared after her, bewildered.

In Rome, women of means traveled by liter. Julia owned a fine liter, hefted by eight male slaves, all who were swift on their feet. The men were also pretty good brawlers, should Julia encounter any rough crowds.

Now, Julia was grateful for the protection. Upon her orders, the literbearers carried her south, into the Esquiline, one of Rome’s dingier and rougher neighborhoods. Here, the marble temples and proud statues disappeared. The buildings were wooden, and much dirtier. And the people in the narrow streets wore ugly grey tunics. Julia noticed that they spat into the dirt quite a bit.

The literbearers turned up the Tenebris Aditu Praesaepto, a dusty boulevard of uneven cobblestones. The unmarked building just beyond the taverns had no lanterns in the windows, but Julia hopped out of her liter and boldly knocked on the painted red door, nonetheless.

The door opened a crack.

“I seek an audience,” Julia announced. “Ius condemnabitur.”

The cleric behind the door hesitated, but did not challenge the secret . He opened the door wider.

“Wait here,” Julia instructed her litermen, then swept inside.

Pluto was the Roman God of the Underworld, feared and despised. Of all the gods, he was the deity that the Romans worshipped grudgingly. Few men felt comfortable saying his name aloud. Across the entire Empire, there was only one temple dedicated the death-god.

The Cult of Pluto, however, flourished in the Roman underground. The priests of the cult, fiercely devoted to their master, were careful to practice their religion away from the eyes of the authorities… yet make themselves available to those who wanted to pray to the Lord of the Underworld. Theirs was a world of shadows and secrets.

Julia dipped into her coin purse and dropped coins into the cleric’s hand. “Take me to Pluto’s High Priest,” she commanded. “Now.”

The pale-faced cleric nodded once, then beckoned.

Julia was led deep into the temple, which was little more than an old apartment building renovated by the cult for their own purposes. In the center of the building, there was a large, open chamber, dominated by a crude wooden statue of Pluto himself. A wide basin lay at the death-god’s feet. The room was poorly lit, illuminated by hundreds of dark red candles set in honeycombed pockets in the clay walls.

A bald man in a black robe was kneeling before the statue, muttering softly. His back was to the door.

“Leave us,” Julia ordered the cleric. The pale man bowed once again, then departed. He closed the door behind him. Julia was alone with the High Priest.

The beautiful young woman waited impatiently to be acknowledged. The room stank of dried blood and sweat. Perhaps it was the heat or the candle-smoke, but Julia felt momentarily light-headed.

The black-robed priest fell silent. He bowed his head low before Pluto, then rose to his feet slowly.

“You come to us with a need, my lady,” the priest said, his back still to Julia. His voice was deep and stonelike.

“I do,” replied Julia, straightening.

“Of course, of course,” the priest rumbled. He turned to face his guest.

Julia almost shrank back. The man was tall, but quite old with a withered face and hands. His cheeks were sunken, and both of his eyes were without pupils, merely milky white orbs that stared blindly ahead. A thin, wispy beard of white dangled from his chin. The priest’s black robe covered him like a shadow of ink, and it was impossible to see the folds of the cloth in this dim light.

“I live only to serve, my lady,” the priest smiled. Half of his teeth were missing.

“Very well,” Julia said tartly. “How does this work, then? Do I pray directly to your god, or—“

“The Lord Pluto is your god, he is the god of all that have yet to enter the realm of the afterlife,” the priest insisted. “Do not show He-That-Is-Our-Master disrespect, not in this house.”

“Right,” Julia said quickly. “Okay. So…”

“Why are you here, my lady?” the priest inquired, cocking his head to one side. “Have you recently lost a child? Or a sister? Our Master will allow you to pray for their souls. For a price, of course.”

Julia shook her head. “No. I come with an offer. Something that will interest your Master very much, I’ll wager.”

The priest did not move. He merely said, “…oh?”

And yet, that one word had enormous gravity.

“I need something from your Master,” Julia pressed. “Something that would be a mere trinket to him, yet so important to me. Something… beyond the skills of mortal men.”

“I see,” said the priest, most pleasantly.

“And in return, I will pledge… well, whatever you- I mean, whatever Pluto thinks would be a fair price,” Julia promised. “I can arrange for the sacrifice of… oh… shall we say, a hundred vestal virgins? Only the highest quality girls, I promise.”

The trouble and expense of finding a hundred young virgins on the Roman slave markets would be enormous, but Julia didn’t care. Once Pandion was Governor of Achaea, she could afford to buy every slave in Rome and Athens, and still have plenty of wealth left over. Money was no object.

“One moment, my lady,” the blind priest rumbled. “The price cannot be named unless the purchase is known. What, pray tell, do you seek?”

Julia pursed her lips together. “Have you ever studied the Greeks, sir?”

“All educated men do,” the priest replied.

“When I was young, I studied the Greek histories myself,” Julia said. “I came across the oddest incident, something that had always stuck with me. It seems, three hundred-some years ago, a wise man from the city of Sicyon discovered a strange power. Because that power was given to him by the Greek god Hypnos, he called this enchantment hypnosis. And with this power, the wise man was able to put other people to sleep, and then control their minds. Sicyon nearly conquered the city of Sparta using this hypnosis.”

“I see,” murmured the priest, fascinated.

“That is what I want,” Julia said firmly. “I want the power of hypnosis. If the Lord of Death could grant this to me, I would make sure he is amply rewarded. In fact—”

The old man lifted one hand, indicating that Julia was to remain silent. He bowed his head.

And perhaps it was Julia’s imagination, but the chamber seemed to grow darker.

After a moment or two, the priest turned back to his guest. “Our Master has heard you,” he smiled. “And he accepts your generous proposition. However—“

“Oh, good,” smiled Julia.

“…however,” the priest frowned, “your payment is not acceptable. The Lord of Death wants something entirely different from you.”

The beautiful young woman hesitated. “And what would that be?”

“You must pay, in gold, to our noble temple,” the priest demanded. “We humble priests cannot—“

“Gold, fine,” snapped Julia. She recognized extortion when she saw it. When you were wealthy, every con man in Rome tried to wheedle you out of your money.

“More importantly,” intoned the priest, “you must pledge your soul to the possession of our Master.” His expression became grave. “Nothing less will satisfy Him.”

“My soul…?” repeated Julia, taken aback.

In Roman culture, it was believed that when a body died, their soul journeyed to the Underworld. There, they lived for in a version of eternity that they had created for themselves while on Earth. A warrior would revel in endless glory, for example, while a king might rule over a recreated version of his own kingdom.

But what would happen if Julia sold her soul to Pluto? Would she still reach the afterlife upon her death? The young woman didn’t know.

I shiver of fear raced down Julia’s spine. “Oh, no,” she said dismissively. “Not my soul. I can give you more gold, or more gold and the virgins. But not—“

“Our Master does not negotiate,” boomed the priest, distaste in his tone. “You can accept his generous offer, or go without. Those are the options.”

Julia bit her lip, thinking quickly. In the Old Tales, the gods always demanded impossible sacrifices, but rarely cared about what happened after their tributes were paid. After today, I can buy my soul back, right? Julia reasoned. Once Pandion is ruler of Achaea, I’ll control all the riches of Greece! I’ll promise Pluto the whole of Crete, and every soul on it! What god wouldn’t accept?

Yes. Of course. She would strike the first of two bargains with the death-god today. Once she had the power of hypnosis, she and Pandion would rape Greece for other souls and wealth that Pluto could not dare refuse. And then, Julia would buy her soul back. A perfect plan.

The young women nodded, just once.

Julia and the priest knelt side-by-side, directly before the wide basin and the statue of Pluto. A cleric entered the room, bearing a tray with many small bottles, jars, and bowls upon it, all filled with odd substances. The cleric set the tray on the floor, directly before the older priest. There had been no shout or bell rung; Julia wondered how the cleric had known to bring the tray. The pale man bowed, and retreated immediately.

Then the old priest lifted a clay bottle and tipped it over the basin. A thick oil oozed out, horrid to the nose. Julia cringed. The oil immediately bubbled and smoked, although no flame was under the basin.

“Drink this,” ordered the priest, thrusting a small vial into Julia’s hands. He began chanting in a low tone. There was a small bowl of powder on the tray; the priest scooped it up and sprinkled tiny amounts of powder into the oil.

Feeling uncomfortable, Julia raised the vial to her lips.

“Drink!” ordered the priest. “Before the Lord of Death changes his mind.”

Julia threw back the vial, gulping it all down in a single swallow. The odd liquid had no taste or texture, only a sensation of slight warmth that raced down her throat.

The beautiful young woman erupted into a fit of coughing. Her stomach lurched.

“Very good, very good,” murmured the priest. “He is pleased. Now, throw a coin into the basin! Quickly, now!”

Gagging slightly, Julia drew a single denari from her change purse. She tossed it into the basin.

Now the priest began swaying forward and back, waving his bony hands over the frothing liquid. His chanting grew deeper and more rapid. Julia couldn’t understand a single word he spoke.

One-by-one, the candles in the walls went out. Darkness grew stronger. The air itself seemed to grow thicker and heavy. Soon the room was cloaked in an almost pure blackness. Julia could only see the thin outline of Pluto’s statue, looming over her.

And then, the priest clapped his hands, just once. The noise was like a thunderclap, startling the beautiful young woman.

In an instant, every candle was relit. The room returned to its earlier, flickering illumination.

Julia blinked. Before her, the basin was dry. The oil had completely vanished. Only her coin remained…

Wait! The coin was changed, somehow. It still retained its flat, round dimensions, but now it appeared to be made from sparkling crystal, not dull silver. The coin twinkled and glittered, displaying a thousand rainbow colors under its small surface.

“What in…?” Julia gaped.

Weary, the priest gestured to the basin. “That is yours, my lady.”

Amazed, Julia scooped up the coin. It was slightly warm to the touch, and had almost no weight. It tingled slightly in her palm.

“This… is hypnosis?” she asked, perplexed.

“No,” the high priest replied. “It is an instrument, a tool. Nothing more. Our Master has forged it for you, and bids you use it wisely.”

“But… how?” Julia wanted to know.

“When you hold the crystal, all the knowledge you will need will magically appear in your mind,” the priest told her. “Enough. Put it away, my lady, and show it only to a bare minimum of people. The more who see it, the more they will try to take it from you.”

Julia snatched the coin. It was light and smooth in her hand.