The Power of Persuasion
Part One:
When I was six, I got in a fight with Dougie Peterson, the boy who lived next door to us. Dougie and I were best friends. Our moms used to say we were twins born of different mothers. One day while playing “war? in our sandbox, I got real mad at him for kicking over my army guys. We started scuffling- typical kid stuff, more pushing and shouting than a real fight. But something happened. Dougie had wrestled me to the ground and was punching me when all of a sudden, everything got red. I remember yelling at him, “Get off of me! Get off of me!” Dougie stopped hitting me immediately, and stood like a zombie over me, staring straight into space. That should have startled me, but the rush of blood through my ears sounded like a jet engine. “I hate you- I wish you’d die!” I yelled, seeing my nosebleed staining the front of my T-shirt. Dougie looked at me as if he was asking me a question, and then he looked up at the sky. His whole body went rigid as he arched his back and fell spasming to the ground.
“Dougie?” I prodded him. He didn’t move. “DOUGIE!!!” I yelled. Then, scared out of my wits, “MOM! MOM! I think Dougie’s hurt!” My mother rocketed out of the kitchen where she had been making us lunch and ran to Dougie’s side. Just then, I blacked out and remembered nothing until I woke up the next day. My mom told me Dougie had died from a stroke brought on by a blood clot in his brain. I blamed myself, of course, but Mom told me that the clot was so huge that it had to have been there for months before he died.
Somehow, I always knew that Dougie’s death was my fault. Maybe it was the fact that whenever I was excited or mad the other kids would do whatever I told them to do. As I became more aware of what I thought of as my “Power of Persuasion,” I learned to be careful and not say anything that could be interpreted as harmful. I became a very quiet child, almost to the point of autism. But it was the only way my young mind could cope with the enormity of my power. Even the most innocent comment could be taken as an absolute command, and someone could easily get hurt.
It wasn’t until I was in the third grade that I realized the potential of Persuasion. One time, I saw Kelly Branford (the object of my dreams) walking home. I whispered to myself from across the schoolyard, “I wish Kelly would let me walk home with her...” Kelly’s head whipped around and fixed on me. She waved me over, “Carl! C’mere! You want to come over and see my new puppy?” I ran over to her side, and we went to her house to play with Skipper, her cocker spaniel.
Kelly’s mom wasn’t home, but Kelly had a key and let us in. We had some peanut butter sandwiches, and then Kelly and I played in the backyard with Skipper for a while. It was pretty boring. All Kelly wanted to do was dress Skipper up in frilly dresses, which Skipper didn’t like too much. To make things worse, Skipper was scared of me, and she peed on the patio when I tried to make her learn to roll over. I decided to experiment further. (((“I wish we could just go up to your room,"))) I whispered in Kelly’s direction. Kelly’s eyes found mine and she stared blankly at me for a moment. Then she dropped Skipper and the dress she was trying to make her wear and said “Would you like to see my room, Carl?” I nodded.
As we climbed the stairs, I started to get real excited. Here I was, with Kelly Branford, the prettiest girl in the third grade! Her room was the typical girl’s room of the time- lots of lace and pink ruffles. The canopy bed looked cool, but I lost interest when I found out that you didn’t get to sleep up on the top. (((“Kelly, take off all your clothes and lie down on the bed."))) I whispered. She dropped the dumb doll she had been showing me and then slowly undressed. Her skirt and blouse came off first. I laughed when I saw her training bra, more a formality than anything else. She flushed bright red, but kept on undressing. Soon, she was naked. Her soft pink body blended in with the frilly covers of her bed. I had her pose for me in various positions as I examined every inch of her body. It was amazing. I had never seen a girl close-up before, and I had no idea of what half of the stuff I was looking at was for. I never got a chance to find out that day, because just as I was about to start touching those interesting places, I heard a car pull up in the driveway.
“Your mom!” I yelled. Kelly snapped out of her trance-like state and screamed. (((“Stop yelling!"))) I whispered desperately. Her voice cut off in mid-scream. I looked around at some board games on a shelf in her room. (((“Get dressed as fast as you can, and when your mom comes upstairs, tell her we were just playing monopoly."))) While she rushed to put her clothes back on, I set the game up to look like she was winning. I had just put the last hotel on Park Place and Kelly had just gotten her skirt on when her mom peeked around the corner. All she saw was two young kids playing monopoly quietly. Luckily, she didn’t see Kelly’s panties on the floor near her bed. In her rush, Kelly had forgotten to put them back on. We finished the “game,” and I went home to wonder at my new power.
I had never thought of using Persuasion for my own purposes before that day. Mostly I had been scared of it, and rightly so! After all, at age six I had killed my best friend by simply wishing him dead. But I was nine, and the idea of being able to make people do what I wanted started taking on new meaning. After some experimentation, I found that all I really had to do was see the person and I could Persuade them. The effect was permanent, as far as I could tell. I didn’t really have to “say” anything. I could mumble or whisper it to myself, and the object of my Persuasion would respond the same as if I had given them a spoken command. By mumbling, I meant that thing people do when they are talking to themselves. It’s not really mumbling because you don’t make any noise, but you sort of talk in your head. Anyway, I called it mumbling because I didn’t have anything else to call it.
Persuading groups of people to do my bidding was as easy as persuading individuals. The only bad thing was that it was tiring at first. I had to exert a certain amount of will to Persuade someone. Groups were harder than individuals, but not as hard as if I tried to Persuade each individual in the group separately. I practiced at baseball games, making an entire section of the stands scratch their elbows or whatever. It was pretty fun, and the more I did it, the better I got. Pretty soon, I could Persuade up to four or five hundred people without difficulty or straining. It was fun for a while, but then got boring. I mean, to a kid getting a lot of people to do things simultaneously isn’t all that fun. Simon Says gets tedious when nobody’s allowed to make a mistake.
The rest of third grade and into the summer, I used Persuasion on a daily basis. I used Persuasion to make my teachers grade all my homework and papers as A+’s (sometimes I even turned in blank paper!). I Persuaded my dad to up my allowance and buy me a new bike. I wasn’t really a bad kid. I used Persuasion to help my family and friends too. Once, when our family was looking for a RV for vacations, I Persuaded the sales manager to sell it to us for less than half of the sticker price. At the company picnic, I Persuaded my dad’s boss to give him a huge raise. That summer, I got many more chances to explore the naked body of Kelly Branford, and lots of other neighborhood girls as well. Of course, being only nine at the time it was only intellectual curiosity. I didn’t have the “equipment” to fully exploit my good fortune.
Looking back, my one regret is that I didn’t pay any attention at school. I still can’t read as well as I should, and I’m constantly amazed at the amount of common knowledge I’m lacking. It was easier just to Persuade the teachers to give me good marks and ignore my almost-constant truancy. I only recently discovered that reading can actually be fun, and I’m working to overcome my earlier laziness. Writing this memoir is one way I’m trying to improve my skills.
After a solid year of using Persuasion for purely personal benefit, I started feeling guilty. This first happened when I found out that the RV sales manager had been fired, and a bank teller I had Persuaded to give me five hundred dollars (to buy myself a go-cart and a gold bracelet for Kelly Branford) was in jail for embezzlement. So I started using my powers for good. I Persuaded the father of Dougie Peterson (the friend I had accidentally killed) to stop drinking and beating his wife. Then after hearing my dad saying something about our town’s mayor being a crook and accepting bribes, I Persuaded my dad to drive me to his office downtown, Persuaded his secretary to set me up for an appointment, and then Persuaded the mayor himself to tell me about the bribes and to turn himself in. The press searched for weeks for the “brave little boy” who helped the mayor admit he had been skimming millions from the city.
In a philanthropic passion, I tried to use Persuasion to help the mentally ill. I thought all I had to do was tell them to get better and they would, but it had weird side effects. All of them stayed crazy, and one somehow learned Persuasion from me and made a lot of other people crazy too, like nurses and doctors, and almost me! That man was the second human I used Persuasion to kill, and it was the kindest thing I had done (besides giving Kelly Branford the bracelet.)
Four more years passed, and I almost stopped using Persuasion altogether. Trying to help people sometimes backfired, often in horrible ways. Dougie’s dad shot his wife in the head with a shotgun and then put the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I guess I was able to Persuade him to stop beating her up, but I wasn’t able to make the reason for the beatings go away. Of all my attempts at helping people, this one caused me the most grief. I stopped using Persuasion altogether. I just couldn’t stand the guilt.
Then one day when I was in Junior High School, something happened to make me change my mind. I was out in the back yard climbing a tree, when the feeling of the bark through my jeans started to feel real good on my crotch. Rubbing up and down caused the most incredible sensations to percolate through my ragged jeans and underwear. Suddenly, my whole body felt warm and my cock shot tons of goo into my shorts. I had had my first orgasm, but not the last. Not even the last that day. I wasn’t stupid, for all I lacked real learning. I had heard the older kids talking about shooting cum, and I figured out what had happened. I had even seen one guy jack off once, in an impromptu performance behind a storage shed. Back then, I had thought it was gross, but after the experience with the tree, I reconsidered. Maybe that kid had been on to something. I had to find out for myself.
I ran into my bedroom, concealing the stain on my shorts as best I could. Undressing, I slipped into bed and began to touch myself. Almost immediately, cum spurted all over. It felt great, so I did it again, and again, and again. I think I set a personal record that day, because I didn’t bother to keep count but I know I ejaculated at least once every five minutes for three hours. Being a bright young lad, I figured out exactly how to hold my cock for maximum pleasure early on, but control was not one of my strong points. Two or three strokes, and “thar she blows, cap’n!” Most of my time was spent cleaning up the unbelievably copious ejaculate and waiting for the next erection.
After three hours, friction became something more than just a subject in science class (which I usually skipped anyway), and my raw, abused cock could stand no more beating. I rinsed the cum-soaked rag out in the bathroom, changed my sheets, and took a quick shower to wash the dried semen off my body. Returning to my room, I smelt the odor of stale sperm for the first time in my life. “Whew!” I thought to myself, “I’d better be more careful and not stink up the place next time.”
For the next few weeks, I explored the wonderful world of self gratification. Jacking off was nice, I thought, but more and more often images of Kelly Branford kept popping into my head while I was doing it. I hadn’t spent much time with her recently, and the last time I Persuaded her (or any of the other neighborhood girls) to strip for me had been years ago. While jacking off, I kept seeing her slim pale body before me, and reliving my intense scrutiny of her most private parts. When I did this, it was sure to push me over the edge, making me splooge all over myself. I don’t know when I started fantasizing about her jacking me off, but when I did, I knew exactly what to do next.
The very next day, I Persuaded my mom to write a note for me and to call me in sick from school. Then I Persuaded her to forget doing it (something I had quickly learned to follow up with). I ran over to Kelly’s house where the Branford kids were getting ready to go to school. I Persuaded Kelly’s mom to call her in sick too, and to write a note, and then I made sure her younger brother Aaron was Persuaded to go along with it. Kelly stood there, as I had Persuaded her not to move while her mom put Aaron on the bus.
(((“Mrs. Branford,"))) I mumbled to myself, (((“I want you to spend the day at the mall. Get your hair done, do some shopping, whatever. Just don’t come back -till after the regular school day."))) Kelly’s mom stared at me, eyes fixed, and then she smiled and got her purse, left the house, and backed the family station wagon out the driveway. Waving, she drove away.
(((“Relax,"))) I mumbled to Kelly. She blinked, looked around and then saw me standing there in her kitchen.
“Carl!” she exclaimed “Why it’s so nice to see you! Did you come to walk me to our school bus stop?”
“No, Kelly.” I replied. (((“Kelly, Believe me,"))) I mumbled “There’s no school today, remember? They had to repair the gas lines outside and they didn’t want anyone in the school in case there was an explosion.”
“Oh.” Her voice trailed away. “Well would you like to stay a while. We could play a game or something.” She smiled. We had stayed friends all this time, but never really been boyfriend/girlfriend. Once or twice a week we got together to play cards or monopoly, but she was a girl, and I was a boy, so we didn’t like the same stuff, mostly.
I quickly agreed to play monopoly, and we went upstairs to get the game. Once in her room, I looked at her and mumbled (((“Kelly, take off your clothes..."))) Her head snapped around, just like the first time I had done this, years ago. Her hands fumbled with zippers and snaps, but her eyes never left mine. “Carl,” she said, “are we going to do this again? I thought you had lost interest in kid stuff like that.”
I was surprised- I didn’t think she would remember. “What do you mean,” I asked.
“Making me take my clothes off with hypnotism,” she said. “Isn’t that what you’re doing? Just like when we were seven or eight?” Her hands never stopped working, and by now, she was naked from the waist up. Girls mature much more rapidly than boys, and Kelly’s breasts, while not fully developed were clearly growing. There were small, but high and firm, and I could feel my erection making a “pup tent” in my trousers.