Sunday evening found David skulking again. Yes, the
great Imperial mind-controller was up to his voyeurish, nocturnal
activities once again; he thought mockingly to himself. The sun spared
a few tired rays for Standard Hill; the dim, reddish hue of the Western
sky made a pretty sight. One that romantic couples admired as they
cuddled, sitting on the grass or on one of the many benches dotting the
hill.
David felt that today was luckier for him than any other day. This
morning, there had been the powerful boost from Julie. And now, he was
looking at another very possible feast of sexual energy. On the grassy
knoll several feet from the bushes concealing him, a teenage couple was
passionately making out. The girl was a virgin, he saw in her mind. And
the boy was the Bane of all virgins. You saw them in every school. The
horny jock who made a reputation out of seducing and deflowering
innocent young girls. Girls who would swoon if his handsome face even
looked their way. He would date them a few times, going further and
further every time they made out and then finally, he would take their
virginity, which they offered willingly, thinking that he was the boy
of their dreams, the prince charming who would swoop them up onto the
white stallion and ride off with them into the setting sun. Dreams of
happily ever after were shattered after the fiftieth time they fucked;
when he tired of her and moved on to seduce the next sweet young thing
that caught his eye.
Blackguards every last one of them. But to David, they
were gold. He had struck gold. This young, arrogant, heartless jock had
had at least seven virgins in his short career as Cassanova of
Templeton High, and he would have his way with many more naive girls
before he graduated. David felt bad for the girl, but hey, he couldn't
save every girl from the countless heartless males out there could he?
All David needed to do was to follow this guy and several others like
him around, and he would have a ready supply of energy. It was part of
their psyche, their ego - to take the innocence of the daughters that
mommy and daddy painstakingly raised and protected - and then to dump
them when they tired of their toy. This was their behavior, their
habit, their
pattern; they would not be induced to stop - and every conquest they
made would add to David's strength. The Emperor had found his Generals,
in a way.
Part of him called him a cold-hearted bastard. Another part told that
part that every empire was built on blood - in this case, that of
broken
maidenheads. The first part said, whatever happened to retiring to a
secluded mountain to live a quiet life? The second said, you know the
rush we get when we grow more powerful - you know it, and you know you
want it. The first said, what would your dear, old mother say if she
saw you now? The Artifact said,
Undesirable
cognitive dissonance is detected. We advise immediate resolution to
avoid possible impairment to your judgment.
David shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. He could not stop
what was happening. The girl would not want him to either - in her
mind, this guy was still her prince charming - what was about to happen
was something she longed for, had dreamed about. If he was forcing
himself on her, raping her, David could step in. But he wasn't, he had
gone the long way of seducing her slowly. Who was he to judge them?
Though he saw in his mind that the boy's intents were not good, perhaps
he
might later have a change of heart -
maybe
he might genuinely fall in love with the girl.
Maybe they might stand a chance at
happiness together. He could see into minds, but the future was
impenetrable. You are just
rationalizing your actions, or rather your inaction, in this case, he
told himself.
Be that as it may, the reasoning still stands - the
girl did have the right to foolishly throw away her love and
her first time - who was he to be her keeper?
Undesirable
cognitive disso -
Hush! he told the Artifact. The girl was semi-undressed already; her
halter top hanging loosely on her slim shoulders. The guy - sixteen
year-old Ryan
Phillips - was kissing her breasts, making the pink tips ache. She
clung onto him, feeling faint. He pushed her down onto the grass
slowly, the stiff, prickly plants tickling her shoulder blades. Ryan
pulled her skirt off and reached between her legs feeling her. David
could see that the girl was quite pretty in her own way. In spite of
himself, David felt a stirring in his loins.
Ryan entered her. She cried out in pain at the breaking of her hymen.
Ryan tried to go slowly to let her adjust to his cock. After a while,
she began to moan, but not from pain this time. Ryan began to pick up
his pace. The young couple rutted passionately on the grass, beneath
the emerging stars. But Ryan was soon gasping; he was going to blow
soon - fifteen year-old Bethany was so hot, he was going to cum in her
any moment.
David frowned in displeasure. The girl was inexperienced; she
was still adapting to these new feelings and was far from her own
climax. If Ryan came now, he would have gained little energy from the
girl. Thinking quickly, he pulled an image out of Ryan's memory and
flashed it into his mind. It was the picture of Ryan's grandmother, a
withered old crone that Ryan feared with an irrational terror - he had
many painful boyhood memories of the hickory switch she kept handy when
he got into trouble. Almost immediately, his erection shrank to
half-mast.
Panting, gasping and utterly confused. Where had THAT come from? Ryan
took a deep breath and began to concentrate on sweet Bethany's charms
again. He nuzzled her tits and began to pick up speed as he grew as
stiff as a poker for the second time. Bethany began to enjoy it more
and more; the feel of that large sausage sliding in and out; the sweet
nothings Ryan whispered in her ear; the feel of his hands as he groped
her breasts. All too soon, Ryan's firm, buttocks began to quiver as the
sperm in his balls boiled. Oh... oh.. he was going to - SHIT!
Old Grandma Phillips rose up like an apparition, her stern,
disapprovingly
voice booming: You aren't using a condom, are you, young man? He pulled
out so fast he fell on his butt.
"Ryan? Ryan?? What's wrong?" Bethany asked as she felt Ryan suddenly
exit her. She looked at him, he was blinking in confusion. "Ryan?" she
called again. He shook his head - must be the beer he had!
"Nothing, baby..." he climbed up and poised himself near her entrance
again. He paused. Backed away slightly and said, "Wait, I've got a
condom somewhere. Let me put that on first."
"Oh!" Bethany's hand flew to her lips. "I'd forgotten all about that.
It's a good thing you... remembered."
Minutes later, he was inside her again. They fucked like rabbits,
humping each other in a surge of teenage hormones until both Bethany
and Ryan shuddered in mutual climax.
Afterwards, David left the Hill feeling charged and renewed. His
strength was growing by leaps and bounds already. He made a mental note
of the boy's name and personal details. He would be watching Ryan
Phillips with interest.
*************************************************
After Aristides, came Prince al-Jubayr, the son of a
wealthy oil-rich Sheikh who had only recently developed a taste for
young, white flesh. He was not content with the Russian street urchin
Mohammad had brought back from some remote corner of Siberia - or Allah
knows where - when he had told him to bring him a Western bride.
"She cannot speak Arabic, English or French!" he gesticulated
impatiently with his oily, pudgy hands, "And no one in this household
speaks Russian! Do
you speak
Russian? Yet you bring back this Russian wench!"
Mohammad shivered as his master stabbed the air violently with his
fingers. He was known to stab violently with many other sharper
implements as well. He pitied the sobbing heap at his master's feet
whilst the prince gorged his tubby self on the juicy leg of lamb. He
had procured the thirteen year-old through the Russian mob but she did
not please his master. His master wanted a well-educated English,
French or Arabic speaking white girl. He already had three other wives
and he wanted the next one to be a white teenager.
The fact was, his master did not understand the fuss about obtaining
such a person. In their country, a female was of marriageable age once
she entered puberty. Menstruation was the sign of womanhood. But in the
countries where these English and French girls came from, there was
this concept of the
age of consent.
It was a strange, wild, Western concept. The girl was already
biologically ready for childbirth - she was a woman! Why did they have
to wait until she was sixteen, or eighteen or seventeen - even the lack
of agreement at what the marriageable age was showed that it was a vain
imagination of the human mind. But it meant that Mohammad could not
easily obtain his master's fourth wife. And his master would not be
satisfied with anyone older than his own seventeen years of age.
Mohammad had to resort to illegal means to abduct, cheat and steal - or
to
hire someone else to do it for him.
"Go!" the pudgy, young prince commanded, "Find me some decent English
speaking girl. Or French - how do you expect me to have a wife who
cannot understand what her husband wants? Go find someone like...
someone like.. Emma Watson, maybe. Just go!"
His master liked the Harry Potter films very much. And he had an
idée fixe on Emma Watson. At least he only
asked for someone
like her,
not Emma Watson herself.
It was with much consternation that he finally arrived here, in this
country where he hoped to find the bride for his master. He didn't even
know who to contact. He was more used to brokering business deals for
the father of his master, the Sheikh. But the Sheikh had become angry
with him and sent him to serve his son, the Prince al-Jubayr
instead - it was a fitting punishment, the father was unreasonable but
the son
knew not what reason
was.
It was much to his delight then, when he was contacted by an
organization that specialized in providing what he was looking for. He
had done some discreet inquiries on his own and it seemed that they had
heard about what he was looking for from the contact of the contact of
the friend that Mohammad had originally spoken to.
Ten days later, Mohammad was sitting in a comfortable room waiting for
Mr. Black to finish counting the money next door and to hand Elizabeth
over to him. That Mr. Black was in a tiny, windowless room; the only
exit opened into this room. Mohammad's own men sat around the table as
they waited for Mr. Black together. Mohammad was rather pleased. He was
certain, Prince al-Jubayr would be pleased too. Elizabeth looked better
than Emma Watson, in his own humble opinion. He hoped the prince would
agree. Mohammad looked around the stuffy room and yawned. Two of his
men yawned. Mr. Black was taking his time; but then there were many
notes to count. And maybe he was examining them for forgery too?
Mohammad's eyes felt heavy - his dinner weighed down heavily in his
stomach. He yawned again.
Another ten days later, Mohammad was tied to the date palm in
the courtyard of his master's house and being
painfully flogged for returning empty handed, for losing five hundred
thousand of his master's money and for being a fool - mostly, it was
for being a fool.
There was also the story of Mr. Tanaka Katsuo and
Colonel Gallus H. Sanders (Rtd) but they were very much similar to the
story of Jules Aristides and our unfortunate Arabian friend. They
all ended with a certain David Turner, now self-employed, making a
short trip to the Cayman Islands for a visit to his bank.
*************************************************
Cash was good, it was untraceable, but
he couldn't exactly keep them in a biscuit tin under his bed. David had
kissed his job at West, West and Eastman goodbye. In just over one
month, they had made just under two million - including expenses (those
meetings at expensive hotels had cost more than he used to make in six
months) .
Getting the money was easy,
David decided. But getting away
with it was more complicated. What good was money if you didn't spend
it? But the amount you spent was directly proportional to the interest
the good people at the Taxation office took in you. So he had set up an
Internet business; he had been setting up dummy accounts to buy his own
services. Then he paid money from his own bank in the Caymans into his
accounts in this country for services rendered to those dummy customers
he had made up. The dummy customers of course, were based overseas, out
of the reach of the tax collectors and other sinners. Like the
Financial Crimes Division. But it was all boring paperwork, he couldn't
do much with his mental abilities. He could manipulate and misdirect,
but he couldn't exactly fool all the people all of the time. Especially
when these things left a paper trail - he could change minds, but not
the ink on the paper, or the bits in the computer.
Julie still kept her job though. She wanted to be
a financially independent woman. She said that the money earned
belonged to David and Mandy. She wanted to work on her own career.
Perhaps it was this independence in Julie that David found attractive.
She was a free-spirited girl. Though that submissive streak of hers
still rose up from her depths whenever he deprived her from cumming for
too long. Which was something David didn't do often, he felt too
strongly for Julie to torment her so. But occasionally, her craving for
more pleasure than she could handle would overcome her anxiety and
nervousness and she would come and offer David control over her cum.
Mandy left her share of the money in David's safekeeping. For now, she
and Becky wanted to continue being the carefree schoolgirls that they
were. So David became her piggy-bank - she would come and ask him for
her
allowance - extras in addition to that which her parents gave her.
Oh yes, and Mandy's parents were back from visiting Great Aunt Hortense
who was recovering well from her bout of illness.
Which meant lots of sneaking around. Mandy would tell her parents she
was out with Julie and Becky. Which she was, except that David was
there as well. Becky's parents too had little objection to her spending
time with her sister.
He still didn't quite understand the nature of his
relationships with the three girls. It was not normal, he felt, for
three girls who had grown up in today's monogamous society to share a
male among themselves without any of the expected envy, jealousy or
bitching that should have resulted. They had accepted the four-way
relationship with suspicious readiness. He knew the limits of his new
powers; unlike the god-like mental abilities heros in fiction seemed to
inevitably possess, his own abilities were very limited. He could enter
another person's mind and drop suggestions or manipulate their emotions
but he could not directly control or 'brainwash' them. Most of what he
did depended on them being induced to believe that those thoughts,
suggestions and emotions were their own, so that they would accept or
act on them instead of rejecting them outright.
He knew that he did not and
could
not 'brainwash' the girl's, yet they
seemed to take to the four-way relationship like ducks taking to water,
which puzzled him. He was not without his own little pet theory of
course - he called it the 'Imprint theory'. He found early on that when
human minds entered simple animals such as pigeons or rats, they left a
very distinct footprint in those minds. These footprints were not at
all obvious when he entered the more complex human minds. But he had
been going in and out of the four girls' minds so frequently, he
suspected that he may have left an imprint of himself there. What
exactly that imprint was and how it affected the girls he wasn't sure.
Perhaps his own mental acceptance of the idea of having three girls in
bed with him became implanted and impressioned on their minds. Or
perhaps his persona became so deeply embedded in them that he had
unconciously become an inseparable part of them, they needed him and
felt such a deep attachment to him in their souls that whether he
bedded three girls or thirty, they would want him and love him just the
same.
He didn't know the exact reason why they loved him and accepted him the
way they did. And maybe the reason wasn't all that important. He just
knew that they did and he felt incredibly lucky to have them at his
side.
The four friends and lovers spent many more warm
summer nights together; a tangle of limbs, a heap of ticklish giggles,
the occasional sigh of satisfaction, the gasp of a new, pleasant
discovery. Often, in the peaceful calm afterwards, David would lie with
a soft body curled up on either side, gazing out through the windows
and waiting for sweet slumber to overtake him. It was a good life and a
peaceful one.
But whenever he saw a pigeon - and there were many in
this city - a faint shadow would cloud his brows for a moment. He
wondered what would happen if he crossed paths with another person like
him.
The End of Book One.
Teaser /
Prologue for Book 2
The demon wrapped the night around himself like a
velvet shroud as
he stalked through the woods. It was said that they could walk past you
and you would not know it. It wasn't that they were invisible - they
always turned up on the surveillance tapes afterwards - they were just
not there
when you looked. Your mind looked right through them and out the other
side. Or sometimes, you might even have a beer with them, play poker
and all, but you just
couldn't
remember their face afterwards.
The Hunter had hunted these
all his life, just as his father had before him and
his father before that. Just as his
own daughter would after him. Unlike the
vampyrie
of popular myth and fiction, these did not suck blood or turn into bats
or live forever. Though they did live for a long time; longer than a
normal human. He could see where the myths about blood came from,
because blood was often equated with the life of a being. These
accursed things stole away the life, the essence, the
qi, the chakra - whatever you want
to call it. The corpses they left behind would not be drained of blood
- that
would have
been a big media sensation - but they were drained of an even more
basic and essential element that was crucial for life; one that medical
science did not yet know.
The myths about mind reading and mind-control were real enough. But
it did not work on those of the Fellowship of Man who were protected by
the Blessing. The Fellowship had existed since
ages past, founded, as the name suggested, by the First Men to protect
the sons of men
from the demons that walked amongst them. And the Hunter hoped to
protect them again tonight, as he wiped out another one of these damned
creatures. He hunkered down behind the large oak tree, waiting for the
demon to walk past. He had observed it for many weeks now, and tonight,
as it passed through these quiet woods, he would ambush it.
The stake through the heart would work. But then, stakes through the
heart probably worked for anything alive. Hunters relied on a blend of
weapons; modern, traditional - it was still hard to match the stopping
power of six feet of steel, and even the non-corporeal. It was the last
one that he employed at the moment. The Hunter felt the energy
gathering around his open right palm as he concentrated. For the
briefest of moments, the strange sigil that had been drawn in the
middle of his hand felt like it was burning. He could feel the air
thickening around it, static in his clothes, his hair.
The demon walked past the tree he was hiding behind. A flash of
brightness; for a moment, it seemed like it was disoriented by the
ambush. The ball of fire that seemingly flew from the Hunter's hand
missed him, but it struck the pile of leaves and branches around him.
He looked around - it was obvious now, the trap - dry leaves and dead
wood were gathered in a semicircle. He had not noticed them until now;
they were arranged with skill and cunning; seemingly haphazard and
random piles that escaped even his practiced eye.
They blazed fiercely,
cutting off his retreat in that direction. The fire was never meant for
him; they knew it would have done only a little damage. But the wall of
flames fueled by wood and oil was a great deal stronger than any
Hunter's little fire spark.
He whirled round to face the only opening in the ring of fire. A dark
figure crouched behind the tree at the opening - the Hunter. A glint of
black steel.
The demon dove behind a rock as a shotgun rang out. Another shot
chipped the stone. It was a large rock, a convenient shelter for him;
but perhaps too convenient? He
turned around frantically. A different gun boomed. A sharp pain
blossomed in his abdomen just as he turned. His back banged into the
rock as the force drove him backwards. He sank to the floor.
The hunter emerged from his tree. Another dark figure slipped out from
a bush across the clearing and rounded the ring of fire to join the
hunter. Giving each other a quick nod, they entered the furiously
burning circle, edging towards the rock in the middle. The second
hunter had shouldered her rifle and was holding an automatic now. They
approached the rock cautiously, the first hunter taking the left, the
second on the right.
They found the man already dead. The large calibre rifle had almost
severed his body in two at the hips. He was very dead. In fact, a
little too dead. The first hunter peered at him under the twilight red
of the dancing flames. The blood on the massive wound on the waist
looked black, turbid, slow. He moved nearer and sniffed; it stank of
decay. The dead man's eyes opened suddenly and stared back, bloodshot
and bulging. Something white and threadlike was wriggling out from the
corner of his eye where the tear duct should be. His mouth cracked open
in a mirthless grin as his hand
moved like a striking snake.
Two shots rang out. The first hunter collapsed on the ground; his
shotgun had let off one shot but the dead man had fired first. The
second hunter emptied the automatic into the dead man's head, pulping
it into
a pink, well-ground mince. The dead man's hand fell to the ground, the
gun in its grip hanging uselessly.
The second hunter rushed over to the first. "Dad! Are you alright?"
The first groaned, pressing his hand into his shoulder. A dark stain
was spreading on his clothes. "I'm not dead yet. He got me on the
shoulder before I got him. We've got to get out of this blazing fire;
help me up."
She helped him to his feet, one arm draped over her shoulder, and with
some effort, they managed to walk away from the blazing flames, through
the wooded forest and back to the main road where their car
was parked on the shoulder. She quickly gave him some first aid so stop
the bleeding until she could get him to the Fellowship doctor. As she
tended to his wounds, the first hunter cursed under his breath, "Damn
it, I should have known. He knew we were onto him all along."
"I don't understand dad, I got him - it nearly cut him in two." They
had set up a trap. The ring of fire would trap him. The first hunter
would get his attention with the shot gun. They had chosen the spot
well; a large, convenient rock would be able to shield him from the
first hunter. But the second hunter was hidden across the clearing from
the first, she would have a clear view of him if he chose to hide
behind the rock. It would have been riskier if the rock wasn't there -
he would have immediately charged the first hunter who guarded the exit
from the fire trap, and with the powers these creatures had, and the
speed with which they moved, it was
hard to tell if the first hunter would have been able to stop him. The
rock afforded a safer alternative than charging though - and he had
taken it. But as he crouched behind it, he would make nice, still
target for the second hunter. She regretted not pounding a few more
rounds into him after the first one.
He coughed and replied, "It wasn't him. That was a corpse. A fresh one.
But already decaying. He took over the corpse's body and used it as a
decoy."
She gasped. She thought she had seen all that they could do in the
three years since she had started hunting with her father, but she was
obviously wrong. Her eyes darted around, trying to make out any shapes
or movement nearby but it was too dark. If that was just a corpse in
the demon's control, he could be around somewhere, following them.
"I've only seen this done one other time, about
twenty years ago. The one
we're after this time is good. About as good as they can get," her
father continued, wincing at the pain whenever he moved slightly.
She stopped him from talking and quickly got into the driver's seat.
She had called the Fellowship doctor already. He would be waiting for
them when they got there.
*************************************************
Bits of trivia that accumulated over
the chapters:
Chapter 2
"Curiouser and curiouser. Oh dear, what nonsense am I
thinking?" : David's words are a paraphrase of Alice's "Curiouser
and curiouser" and ""Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!", also in
Chapter 2
of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Chapter 4
Ling-Ling : Concerning Ling-Ling's juices, Becky says
that "it's like Ling-Ling
secretes a drug in her juices when she cums". In one of the episodes of
'Drawn Together', the yellow, Pokemon-like creature of the same name is
said to secrete hallucinogens from its skin when disappointed. It was
subsequently licked dry by Wooldoor, Xandir and Toot.
Chapter 5
Great Aunt Hortense : She is also one of the
relatives of the Simpsons family.
Winnie the Pooh : His favourite food is honey! A.A. Milne
would have turned
in his grave.
Chapter 7
The Birch Manor Hotel : Interestingly, a related hotel does
actually
exist in Victoria, Australia (not known to me at the time of writing).
The Birches of Daylesford has several cottages and complexes one of
which is called 'The Manor House'. The website says: 'old-style country
life; "chic" cosmopolitan cafe culture; beautiful established gardens;
and natural mineral springs'. It is also said to
be near a Lake Daylesford.
Chapter 10
Sheikh al-Jubayr : for want of a better Arabic name,
al-Jubayr is
actually the root word for algebra, a topic on which many scholars of
the Islamic civilization wrote about.
Colonel Gallus H. Sanders : We all
know who Colonel Sanders is. Gallus is a Roman
name that
also means a cockerel or an
inhabitant of Gaul.