The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Jess:

It was three weeks before I was able to go to the Keep. My wound infected and led to blood poisoning, which was only cured by a half-crazed old woman brought in from the Spice Islands, whose prowess at effecting cures by the most bizarre means was legendary. She re-opened the wound, rinsed it out with some fiery distilled liquor, and packed it with a dank-smelling poultice that looked like moldy bread. Still, my fever came down, the threads of blood poison leading out from the wound site faded, and it healed cleanly. As soon as the healers would let me out of bed, I bathed, dressed, and rode to the Keep.

“Good morning,” I said to the jailer. “I’ve come for my slave; you’ve been holding him for me.” His eyes slid off mine and he licked his lips. “Alas, that won’t be possible just yet, Lady.”

“I have come to retrieve my . . . property, Jailer. How should that not be possible?” My stomach began to tighten with fear. “Do you know who I am?”

“Naturally, Champion Jess, and I am devastated to disappoint you, but I am obeying a directive from the Council.”

“A directive saying what?” I was leaning over the counter, toward his face, my anxiety turning me into something of a bully.

“Council Member Leila wanted to meet you here for the turning over of the prisoner. She asks that you do her the honor of visiting her home briefly, after which she will be delighted to accompany you back here for the transfer.”

“Did that come from the Council, or from Leila?”

“I . . . I do not meddle in politics, Champion Jess, please, I . . . “

“I have my answer,” I said. “Now let me see what is mine, if you ever again want to work for the Council. Or live in Mar. Or live.”

His hands shook as he retrieved his set of keys. “Of course, Champion Jess.”

He led me down a corridor, not to the main cell block but to the infirmary. Now his whole body was shaking, and so was mine, with fear and rage coursing through me at what I might find. The infirmary had a separate locked gate barring our way to a room of sixteen beds, eight along each of two opposing walls.

“Lady and Champion, what you will see . . . I was not present, I was directed to leave the interrogation corridor . . . I am subject to the orders of . . . Your slave is alive and not crippled.”

He saw something in my face that made him cry out, “She said he did it to himself! Please!””

I drove the fork of my thumb and four fingers into his throat and squeezed. His eyes widened in terror and he tried, unsuccessfully, to pry my hand off his throat, while his chest heaved trying to suck in a little air. Now I had to let him go.

“Open it,” I said. “Quickly,” I added when he stood still for a couple of seconds, panting. He fumbled a key out, fit it into the lock on the grillwork door, and swung

it open, but he did not step inside.

“Go ahead of me,” I snapped. “Take me to his bed.” He obeyed, walked jerkily to the third bed in, on the right, and then stepped away from it, as if it held contagion.

Jak was asleep, on his back. A white bandage was wrapped around his head, with an extra pad covering his right ear and the knot of the bandage tied over the opposite temple. His face looked peaceful, and vulnerable.

“Why is he asleep in the middle of the day?” I demanded.

“I’m not sure. I believe the Lady Leila may have enchanted him. I found him like this after she left. He wakes up three times a day to eat, drink, and void, he walks around his cell for an hour, and then he goes right back to sleep.”

“Listen to me, Jailer. This man is my property. I am reclaiming him; some of my other servants will be here within the hour, with a carriage. See that he is awake, washed, dressed, and alert by the time they get here, and that his release certificate is ready for my signature. I am going to Mistress Leila’s house.” My right hand touched the sword at my side as I stared into his eyes. I turned and left.

A quarter of an hour later I was admitted through Leila’s front gate and shown to a shaded outdoor veranda with a splendid view of the sea. I was shown a chair but refused to sit in it. I did not plan to stay long.

I saw her enter from the other end of the veranda, which was almost as long as the huge house. She wore a charming smile as she swayed toward me, but then something she read in my face put her a bit on guard. She raised the palm of her hand toward me, both a peace gesture and a barrier.

“ Jess, you should know that your slave has received no serious injury—“

“You cut off his ear!”

“That was done . . . by his own hand. You need to understand—“

“How dare you enchant him into mutilating himself! He is mine. I could demand satisfaction for this!”

She looked at me for a long, silent moment, and said coolly, “Always at your service, Champion,” a formula that could be used to accept a duel challenge without issuing one. It was a warning that I was pushing her limits. I didn’t care.

“You’ve disfigured him. He is mine, and you have dared to injure—“

“—You let a slave strike you in public. In front of the Council. in front of your comrades in arms. In front of other slaves. Are you truly too stupid to realize the misery that could grow from this one seed?—The things that we will be forced to do to slaves who infringe against the rules in the slightest?—Worse, the things that rebelling slaves will do to Mar, to you and me and every owner, if we lack the will to do . . . what must be done.”

Her voice had been like a sword blade under the sharpening wheel, saying all this. Then it changed, after a pause, became lower as she added,

“However distasteful it is. Even . . . sad.”

I scanned her face. She really looked sincere. She sighed.

“You claimed that you had regained control of him. He claimed that he was – was ‘devastated’ the word you gave to him? I had to know what his truth was. What he really felt. For a slave, that means how deep did his conditioning go? He cut himself . . . to show you how sorry he was. He endured the pain—“

I slapped her hard over her right ear. I didn’t cup my hand and shatter her eardrum. I wanted to.

“You didn’t even have the decency to numb him?”

“For all the gods, Jessica, think! I couldn’t make it easier for him to pretend. I doubted that he could endure that level of . . . discomfort unless he were truly sincere or fully conditioned.”

“I would like to show you more about ‘discomfort,’

Her mouth hardened into a tight-lipped line. “I regret that I had to cause you this distress. So I accept that one blow as your way of righting the balance. However, I would recommend against your presuming upon it. And I must remind you that the Council has yet to rule on punishing his crime. Cutting a portion of an ear was the traditional punishment for disobedient slaves in our grandmothers’ time. Many in the Council remember that time. With my witness, and my support, what he did may be taken as sufficient proof of remorse and future good behavior, but I cannot say absolutely.”

I said nothing. She sighed, as if she were burdened by what she had done, but that could have been merely my impression. Leila was very good at creating impressions. She added, “Jessica, as soon as it was done, I took the pain away. I put him to sleep, and I bandaged him with my own hands. You know me; I’m not some sort of monster.”

No, I thought. You’re just somebody who has found a way to feel justified in whatever she does to get what she wants. You even feel a little sorry for yourself. Is that what a monster feels?

“Of course not,” I said. “So. Now you know how he really feels. And he gets to feel like a crop-eared mastiff for the rest of his life.”

“Jessica,” she said, either recovered from her defensiveness or not needing to pretend any more, “you’re his Owner. If you have the control you claim, he’ll feel whatever you tell him to feel. You can make him see his ear as a badge of honor.” She poured herself another glass of wine. “A bit ironical for a slave, I admit.”

Then I was glad that I had already hit her. It took the edge off. A little.

“Since property rights are the only rights you care much about,” I said, “Kindly contact the jailers so that they will stop violating mine.”

“I’ll send a carriage for him immediately and have him taken to your estate,” she said. “And Jessica, even if you have difficulty believing me right now, I regret what I had to do. I strongly recommend that you enchant him as soon as you get him home and begin reframing this memory for him; it’s the kindest thing to do. I would be more than happy to help you, if you like. I think you know something of my skills,” she added, with a smile that I would have found charming, a few months ago.

“Yes, your skills are famous, in all the dockside taverns of Mar,” I said, as I turned and walked out the door.

I went home, and he arrived in one of her carriages about an hour later, accompanied by a healer’s apprentice, a girl of about fifteen. He was not asleep, but he was entranced, his face placid and empty. The apprentice bowed to me and then handed me a note; it was from Leila.

I trust that you will forgive my need to overlay your enchantment, for reasons that we have already discussed. While I am sure that you’re quite skilled enough to undo my work, I think it appropriate to save you a little time. His release phrase is, “Mistress Leila says, ‘Your spell is dissolved.’”

With sincere regard,

Leila

I knew that I would spend whatever time it took to search his psyche for whatever she might have chosen to leave behind, hidden, immune from the release trigger. I nodded silently, dismissing the apprentice and the driver. I watched them drive away, finding myself reluctant to pronounce the release trigger, restoring his pain and the knowledge of his mutilation.

“Come inside, Jak,” I whispered. He stepped inside the doorway and stood there, waiting for my next order.

“I’ve had a guest bed made up for you,” I said. Choking down something in my throat, I eventually remembered to specify, “Please follow me.” I crossed the foyer and turned down the hallway that led to the guest room. I heard his regular, shuffling steps behind me. When he was awake, he walked silently by habit; he was trained to do so. Now, oblivious of the noise, he shuffled after me into the bedroom, and I closed the door behind us.

“Sit down, Jak,” I said. He looked at the bed, then at the chair in front of the dressing table, then down at the carpet.

“On the bed,” I said. He crossed to the bed and sat down, feet flat on the floor, hands folded in his lap.

“I . . . Just tell me what you need, Jak.”

He stared blankly at the wall behind me.

“Jak. Mistress Leila says, ‘Your spell is dissolved.’”

He blinked, he saw my face, I noted the tightening around his eyes, and his left hand went up to touch the bandage over the stump of his ear”

“Don’t, Jak. Don’t touch it, please.” Tears overfilled the lower lids of my eyes and began to run down.

“Tell me what you need, Jak. What you need. All spells I have cast on you—all spells anyone has cast on you, are now broken. No spells, no enchantments, just tell me the truth of what you need. I want to give you that, whatever it is. If it’s your freedom and a boat passage to the Spice Islands, I will give it. Even if you want passage only for one. I hope not . . . but I will give it.”

He looked back at me. His face was no longer blank now, but it was closed. And he was trying to close his mind, to find a way to block me out. Reading his thoughts was becoming as hard as reading a text in a darkened room. The feelings I could read were the same ones I could see on his face: reserve motivated by fear, coexisting with a vague longing that he did not trust. Something was happening back there, but he was not going to share it with me right now, and perhaps never would.

“I just need you to answer one question truthfully, if you please,” he said, with a cool politeness, as if to a stranger. “Depending on your answer, I might have one more request, a simple one.”

“Ask me. Please. Just ask. I’ll tell the truth if it costs me my life.”

He took a deep breath and looked intently at me. “Am I under the influence of any kind of love spell?”

“Jak, I never put you under a love spell.—Not because I wouldn’t have wanted to; because it’s impossible. I used some spells to find out if you hated me, after the duel, and I learned that you did not.” I paused. “Not then.”

“But there are spells,” I added, afraid that he would not fill the silence following my implied question, “if a man finds a woman at all attractive, that she can use to make him want her more, and I did use one on you. I asked you, first,” I added hurriedly, as if I still thought I could defend myself from whatever resentments he was feeling. I hurried on:

“So there have been no love spells. All I can offer, for whatever magical power it might have, is that I love you, Jak. I’m going to free you, either way, whether you stay with me or not. Because for good or ill, you’re not like our men; I know freedom is what you want, what you can’t live without, and I love you above all men I’ve ever known.”

I had never in my life told a man that I loved him, although I had told a few that they loved me, or at least wanted me. When the words were out of my mouth, I felt the terror of someone who has just jumped off a cliff and realizes that she cannot take back the decision.

And in reply he said, “You never answered my question. Am I under any kind of spell from you?” That was all.

“Think back to the duel,” I whispered. I saw from his face that he had, and that he remembered all of it, or at least the worst of it. He shut his eyes for a moment, opened them on mine, and nodded. I remember wondering if that nod marked the end of us, or if I was insane to think there ever was any “us.” He finally began to talk.

“When I ran, I kept wanting to turn back. I thought the reason was that I knew you’d bleed to death if I didn’t. The farther away I got, the more I wanted to turn back. But I didn’t know where it came from. How could I know that you hadn’t cast a spell so that I couldn’t get away, so that my own mind would betray me back into slavery? I couldn’t trust my own will anymore, after what you did.”

“I’m—“I began, but he cut me off.

“Then I thought that you would need some kind of specific boundary defining where I could go and where I could not. It was obvious: the borders of Mar. So I kept running until I reached the TerMar Line, waiting for some compulsion that would make me run up and down on the Mar side of the border, never letting me cross. There was none. I ran half a league into Ter. And then I turned around and ran back to the cave. But now, I’ll ask once more. Did I do that as a free man?”

I tried to look into his eyes to answer him, but his face blurred and swam in my vision. “Yes,” I said. “I didn’t make you do it.” I looked away. “I don’t know why you did it.”

His mouth compressed while he took a breath and looked away from me.

“I don’t know either. Not all of it. The part I do know, I’m not willing to talk about with you.”

“—Yet?” I added. “Talk about yet?” He didn’t answer. Loving the free was going to be harder than I thought.