Roberta smiled and reached across the table to touch Gina's hand. "Is dinner not to your liking tonight, dear?"

Gina stiffened, and her fork clinked against the plate. "Um, no, it's fine, Mom."

Roberta squeezed her daughter's hand. "You were only just picking at it, so I wanted to make sure."

"I just wasn't as hungry as I thought tonight."

Roberta nodded and withdrew her hand.

Gina stared at her mother for another few seconds, trying to see the subtle change she was sure had come over her mother since she had left for her walk that morning. Roberta's touch and her voice had the same tender, loving feel that Gina expected. If she closed her eyes, the illusion would be complete.

Roberta resumed eating her dinner at the same placid pace. Gina wondered if it were her imagination. The more Gina stared, the more her mother seemed like the person she had left that morning. Yet when Roberta raised her eyes once more, it jarred Gina again, like looking at an art masterpiece uncounted times only to now spot the ugly flaw within it.

"Gina, there's something I wanted to discuss with you this evening," Roberta said. "I want you to go to the school counselor tomorrow."

The request was enough of a surprise that Gina hesitated in her response. The pause let her push aside the immediate urge to accept and obey. "What for, Mom?"

"I want you to talk to him about what we discussed yesterday."

"Him? I don't understand. The school counselor is a lady."

Roberta smiled. "I've been told that there will be a special guest counselor for this week, and he specializes in your difficulty."

"My difficulty?"

"Accepting your own sexuality, that is."

Gina put down her fork. Her heart pounded, but she was not sure why. "But you told me to use my judgment."

"Now, now, Gina," Roberta said, her voice firm but gentle. "You'll listen to me. Your mother knows best."

Gina felt flushed. "Yes, of course, but ... wait ..."

"I've decided that you need to explore this topic more for your own good."

Gina nodded before she could stop herself. "Yes, I know you want what's good for me, but do I have to tell him ..."

"Tell him everything. You can trust him."

Gina shuddered. Her pussy warmed. "But will this be about ... about having sex with boys?"

Roberta smiled. Her eyes sparkled in the kitchen light. "Of course. That's what it's all about, as I told you."

"You mean giving myself to them?"

"Yes, that's it."

"And that's what this counselor will tell me?"

"You can trust him, Gina."

Gina swallowed and shivered. Her pussy ached. She struggled to collect her thoughts. "But ... b-but how can he ..."

(You can trust him)

(You can always trust me)

Gina shook her head. "S-stop ..." she whispered in a husky voice.

"The counselor is there for you, Gina," said Roberta, her smile broadening.

Gina lifted her eyes to her mother. They were filled with quiet, glistening desperation.

Roberta lay her hand on Gina's hand. Gina's pussy rose in unbidden pleasure. "You'll feel good about it, trust me. You trust your mother, don't you?"

Her breath a light pant, Gina nodded.

"If you trust me, you will trust your counselor."

(You can always trust me)

Gina failed to push it out this time. All she wanted to do was embrace the pleasure and go back to being her mother's good little girl. Good little girls did not disobey or question their mothers.

But why am I feeling this in my pussy? It never did that before. I just obeyed because I'm supposed to ...

Her mind grasped at realization and missed, and watched it dissolve into mist as her pussy throbbed, a gentle orgasm flowing over her body like a rippling wave of warm water.

"It feels good to trust, doesn't it?" her mother asked.

"Yes, it does," Gina sighed in delight.

"Very good, Gina. I think you'll understand better what I've been trying to teach you once you've had a few sessions with the counselor."

Gina smiled and nodded. Her climax faded, but her pussy was still awash in wonderful wet warmth.

Roberta stood. "If you've had all you care to eat tonight, why don't you go upstairs? I can take care of the dishes."

Gina rose. "Are you sure, Mom?" she asked. She wanted to be good, and a good girl did her chores as her mother expected.

"Of course, dear. You should go upstairs and reflect on what I've said. And what I've been teaching you."

One of Gina's hands clenched. She paused for a long stretch of seconds. "I-I'll try."

"Try hard for me, Gina. And feel free to do whatever comes to mind."

Gina smiled wanly and turned from the table. She moved towards the stairs as if in a daze.

Is this right? Is this what's supposed to be happening?

She paused at the base of the stairs, then ascended them with measured steps.

This is what I should be doing ... but yesterday she said ... I should just trust ...

(It feels good to trust)

Gina's pussy became warm and tingly once more. By the time she reached her room, she was panting again, her pussy inviting her touch. The thoughts she had resisted moments ago now raced through her head: images of herself submitting to another's sexual advances, of being teased into a frenzy of lust and need, of lying on her back and opening her legs ...

Gina stepped into her room and slipped out of her clothes as she approached the bed. She shivered at the thought of a boy's cock sliding into her pussy, and for just a moment it felt real, her legs wanting to part to accommodate her invisible lover.

A thought from the depths of her subconscious, like a dim ember against the dark, manifested at the edge of her perception. Frantic but faint, a voice tried to cry out understanding to her from the other side of a deep fog of lust.

Control ... something ... mother ... controlling ...

Gina fell to her bed and rolled onto her back. She spread her legs and sank her fingers into her willing cunt. She surrendered herself to her own erotic thoughts, writhing and moaning in obedient content, the thought forgotten.

The old husk of the abandoned church stood like a skeletal guardian watching over an approach to a long-deserted kingdom. Set back from a road to nowhere just short of what were the old city limits of Haven, its quaint nineteenth-century architecture was the first thing that once greeted arrivals from the old state highway. After the commercial interests had marginalized Haven's farming community, the port of entry shifted to the US highway that ran through the center of town. Thus when a rockfall closed the road just to the south and was never cleared, the church was abandoned.

Victor's boots crunched against the gravel, sand, and lingering mounds of snow. A small smile was etched onto his lips. This part of the road was aligned with one of the energy lines, the one that ran under both the old church and Gina's house. His powers worked better the closer he was to those lines.

He sensed Gina through the line. Or rather, he sensed the bit of his own essence within Gina's psyche. He saw it as a glowing ember against a velvet backdrop, now brightening as he extended his control through Roberta. Once it was strong enough, he would take direct command. Beside it, his presence inside Roberta shone like a lighthouse beacon, steady and sure once more.

Gina's light flickered, her resistance still manifesting. The ceremony over which he must preside that evening precluded him from assisting in overcoming it just yet. He allowed himself some irritation towards Terri. Had she not been a thorn in his side, he could have delegated his role in the ceremony to someone else.

Victor stepped past the broken front door. A patchwork of fresh planks and splotches of plaster covered the rotting wood and crumbling mortar in an attempt by his cult to keep the building standing.

He picked his way past the detritus and stepped behind the altar. He pulled aside a mildewed carpet to reveal a trapdoor. Victor pulled it open with a creak of ancient wood and screech of rusting metal, and was greeted by a low murmuring noise. He descended the ladder until his feet stood upon hard, packed earth. He lowered the trapdoor with a metal pole leaning against one corner of the alcove. The murmur became a chant, spoken just above a whisper.

"Quixla orgos ron'jessetha."

The Darkness would recognize the words. They were found in the Book that it sought. Victor had adopted them for his cult at its suggestion. The words meant nothing, originating from no known or ancient language. They had their own grammar and their own internal consistency, but they still meant only what the cultists believed they meant.

That was all Victor needed. Belief was his most potent weapon.

Victor entered a narrow corridor of hewn rock and packed clay lined with oil lamps glowing from wall niches. The chanting rose in volume until he could discern its mournful cadence, mixed with a rising excitement.

At the end of the corridor gleamed a gate of bronze bars, like the door to a prison. The chanting came from within the soft crimson depths of the chamber beyond. A simple wooden door lay just before the gate in the side of the passage.

He opened the door and stepped into a small room that consisted of only a closet and a mirror. He stripped off all his clothes, revealing a body broad of shoulder, hard with muscle, and firm with confidence. Despite the atmosphere of growing excitement and concealed desire, he held his emotions in firm check, thus his cock remained flaccid and dormant. He would allow it to rise only when the time was right, when he would need to consummate the additional ceremony Terri had foisted upon him.

His robe was waiting for him in the tiny closet. He slipped it on, deep fiery violet with burnished gold trim flowed down his body and swirled just above his bare feet. Emblazoned in inky black across the breadth of his back was the outline of a human head, the eyes downcast, its overlarge forehead filled with a stylized eye reminiscent of the Eye of Horus.

Like the words of the chant, the symbols were only a source of focus for the cultists, like troops rallying to a flag.

Victor scrutinized himself in the mirror as he tied the robe closed at his waist, the braided ends of the sash hanging down like tassels. He squared his shoulders back before heading out of the changing room and past the bronze gate.

Victor slid into a crimson miasma of burning incense lighted into an eerie fog by oil lamps covered with blood red filters under a vaulted ceiling. A wide carpet of midnight black ran the length of the hall, from Victor's feet to the raised altar at the far end. On either side stood the acolytes of his cult, robed and hooded men and women whose purple attire had deepened to a maroon-black in the dim scarlet fog.

Behind the lines of cultists loomed marble statues of naked men and women in various poses of submission, their eyes glistening from tiny embedded gemstones in the sepulchral light. Between them were more bronze gates, most blocked by rockfalls and packed dirt just beyond the reach of the light, but some led to tunnels that extended into darkness.

At the other end of this underground church, upon the large stone altar, lay a woman.

The middle-aged woman's naked body was spreadeagled, heavy chains wrapped about her wrists and ankles. She shivered with both the chill of the dank air and her own growing fear.

"Quixla orgos ron'jessetha."

Her body shook with a tremor that rattled her chains as the chant rose in volume.

Victor raised his hands. "Sentr'enthra tal'alkqua ron'valtra." Which, in the cultists' minds, meant: all shall give praise and worship to the Glorious One.

The chant stopped. The cultists bowed their heads, then their voices rose again as one: "Toph'sentr'enthra zanthas ron'valtra." We give our total praise and devotion forever to the Glorious One.

The new chant repeated, swelling with each utterance. Finally, Victor spread his arms in silent blessing over his flock. The cultists quieted, and turned as one towards him, hands folded demurely before them.

The touch of their loyalty and obedience was a like a wave of pleasing warmth flowing over him. He was their emissary, the embodiment of their belief, the representative of their god. He was the divine made flesh, infallible and omniscient.

"Renthi'mass'huthra ron'jessetha." declared Victor. Commence the ceremony of punishment on the unworthy one.

The acolytes turned towards the altar, and waited. The two figures closest to the altar, one on either side, climbed the dais and took position at either end, one at the woman's head, the other at the woman's feet.

The woman's soft whimper echoed into the quiet. As Victor began his walk towards the altar, her breathing labored, and cords stood out on her legs and arms as she pulled at her restraints. The two cultists by the altar stood as cold sentinels, inured to her distress.

Victor stopped by the side of the altar and looked down.

He had not been told who was being punished, but now a simple touch to the bit of his essence within her revealed her identity. She was Harriet Dennon, the one he had left in charge of the counseling group that served as the front for his cult, responsible for insuring that Victor's presence would be maintained in Haven even in his absence.

Harriet's dark eyes glistened and looked up at Victor in a silent plea for mercy. Her lips trembled with the desire to beg, but she refrained, knowing that the Glorious One would not tolerate such weakness.

Victor turned to his right, to the acolyte standing at Harriet's feet. "What is her transgression?" his voice rang out so all could hear. "What tenet of our sacred belief has she blasphemed, or ritual of our divine rites she has desecrated?"

The acolyte lowered her hood. "She has failed consistently to observe the proper sex rituals," said Terri Hollis. Her lips curled into a tiny smile. "She has gone three weekends now without attending the holy evening orgies that we hold to remind ourselves of your glory." Her eyes glittered, and she licked her lips. "She must be punished for her failure."

Victor remained impassive despite his disgust. Terri's attitude was most unbecoming of a cult member. Tasks such as this should not be approached with the savage glee he witnessed in her. Their motives were driven not by desire for personal gratification but by fervent belief in their manufactured religion. It convinced him that Terri had never truly immersed herself in the cult.

He nodded once and turned to Harriet. "Speak your mind. How do you respond?"

Harriet fought to get her voice to work. "I-I'm sorry, Glorious One! ... But ... but my husband, my children, I-I had to be there for them ..."

"I always said, Harriet, that it was a mistake to leave your husband out of the cult."

"He wouldn't understand!" Harriet wailed. "He ...!"

"He could be made to understand."

Harriet's eyes glazed. "P-please ... please, no, Glorious One, don't ..."

"You will not assume more wisdom than I, which is what you do when you tell me what I should not do."

Harriet bit her lip and whimpered.

"Now, how old are your children?"

Harriet gasped, her eyes wide. "G-glorious One, you ... you don't mean to--"

"You are doing it again. I will not tolerate it a third time. Answer my question."

Harriet swallowed. "David is sixteen," she croaked. "Jenny is nearly eighteen."

"That is old enough to receive my enlightenment. They will be inducted into the cult within a month's time. Unless you believe that they are not worthy?"

Harriet's lip trembled. "I ... n-no ... they ... they are worthy."

"Very good. You will lead them to their sexual fulfillment."

"Y-yes, Glorious One, of course."

"But this transgression will not go unpunished."

Victor looked at Terri from the corner of his eye. A sadistic smile marred her face once more before she masked it.

Foolish woman, Victor thought.

Victor gestured. Terri raised her hood. Both her and the cultist at the other end of the altar proceeded towards a niche in the back of the underground church, the opening covered by a velvet veil, and extracted something from it that they cradled in their hands. They returned to their positions at the ends of the altar and held their prizes above their heads. Each held a small crystal bottle filled with clear oil.

Harriet's eyes glazed. She let out another whimper but did not dare speak.

Victor raised his hands. The cult began a new chant.

"Kethr'quixla nox'thrissa orgos ron'jessetha."

Harriet's pants became long, husky sighs as the chant swelled once more. Her body trembled, then writhed. Her eyes burned with need. Her thighs quivered. Her nipples became hard, raised points. Moisture oozed in her bare folds.

As Victor waited, and let his senses extend once more along the energy line.

Gina squirmed as her fingers played her pussy, her talent like that of a musician playing a long and intricate piece. No matter how much she burned for relief, or how much her pussy strained and ached, she kept her touches teasing and gentle, forbidding herself to crest too soon.

Her breathing turned to gasps and moans. She lifted her hips as if to meet an invisible lover, the fingers of one hand thrusting into her cunt like a man's cock, while the other swirled fingertips on her swollen clit in a perfect concert of mounting pleasure.

Erotic imagery slid and oozed across her mind, as vivid as the hot, slick moisture that soaked her pussy. They insisted they were real, conjured from the depths of her own psyche and not whispered as alien words of trust from a stranger. She felt foolish fighting against something that was so normal and right.

Gina whimpered as more correct and proper thoughts exuded from sexual fantasy: stop struggling; trust and obey your mother; trust Victor; trust the school counselor; accept yourself as a sexy, lusty girl that should be willing to share herself with ...

"Uhhngg!"

Gina's hips bucked. Her cunt clamped around her fingers like a vise. Her orgasm reverberated inside her, and a euphoria swept her up like a rising tide in advance of the storm. Her fingers pressed hard into her sex, and she shuddered with paroxysms of sexual delight.

All was right.

All was good.

All was as it should be. As she should be.

(control)

Gina gasped and closed her eyes. She forced herself to withdraw her hands from her still throbbing pussy and rolled onto her side. Her cunt convulsed for a moment against the pressure of her closed legs, and a lingering fog of pleasure clouded her thoughts.

(controlling me)

Gina swallowed. She heard something again, but not like before. It was like ...

(forcing me)

... her own voice echoing to her from far away. Gina curled up on the bed and trembled. Only insane people heard voices in their heads. The sane thing to do would be to submit ...

(fight)

... to her mother's will. How could she ever have thought that her own mother could not be trusted? Listen to how confident she sounded, how ...

(different from before)

... assured she was that she knew what was best for Gina. After all, she had been right about Gina exploring her sexuality. It felt so good and natural. She had even shown Gina the proper way to masturbate.

(not normal)

Gina shook her head. Of course it was normal. She wished the voice would stop. Everything would be okay. The counselor would see to that. She could trust him. She would do what her mother wanted of her.

Gina's trembling eased. She moaned in renewed desire. It felt good to trust. It felt good to obey. It felt good to ...

(resist)

... to ...

(stop)

Gina flipped onto her back, panting, her pussy hot with need once more.

Gina needed things to make sense to her again. Was she supposed to be just the good little girl doing what was expected of her? Or was she supposed to think for herself and decide what she wanted to do? And why was the question coming up in the first place?

The moment of limbo between the two competing agendas in her head illuminated a stark truth. Whatever had happened in her life up to that point had been a lie, deceptions reinforced by illusion. Where such an epiphany originated remained a mystery. The voice had fallen silent, but she sensed something trembling at the edge of her perception.

Gina let out a single, husky sigh heavy with want. The moment was fading. Her hands slid towards her willing pussy once more.

Victor was not happy.

Gina still resisted. For a moment it had appeared that his will had triumphed, a role-reversal effected that relegated her resistance to the foreign voice in her head. Then he could ease it out of her mind, and her own psyche would assist.

He had hoped for a quick resolution, so that a day's worth of "counseling" would repair all the damage that Roberta had caused. Instead, he had more work ahead of him, more so than he could accomplish at the school.

Victor cast his dispassionate gaze upon the writhing form of Harriet. The chanting reached a crescendo, the voices of the cultists themselves filled with lust as they were caught up in the excitement of the moment.

He gestured once more. The chant stopped. The glass stoppers clinked as they were lifted from the necks of the oil bottles. In the absolute quiet, Harriet's soft plea of "no, please" was heard by all.

Terri tilted her bottle over Harriet's exposed pussy.

Clear oil dribbled out of the neck of the bottle and flowed into Harriet's already slick folds. At the same time, oil from the other cultist's bottle dripped onto one of her taut nipples, and then the other.

Harriet's eyes opened wide. "Ohh! ... Uhhhh! ... Uhhhnnggg! ... unnggg! ..."

Her lust took on physical form, a molten flow that ran from her pussy like lava and made her nipples throb as if experiencing their own orgasms. Every sexual desire she had ever had in her life exploded in her mind. It consumed all rational thought and left behind nothing but excruciating need.

Harriet writhed and bucked, lust rising from a burning heat to a savage inferno as Victor and the cultists fixed their stoic, uncaring gaze upon her. The more touch was denied her, the more the oil made her pussy ache and her nipples tingle and throb until her gasps of desperation became shrill cries of want, then wailing screams of need.

And all because of her own fervent belief.

Victor no longer needed to maintain the perception. She believed as everyone in the cult did, that the dreaded Oil of Insatiable Lust would work in this manner, despite it consisting of no more than mineral oil and some herbs.

Harriet's scream rose to a tortured shriek. Her arms and legs pulled the chains taut, metal rattling against stone, every muscle tensed in frantic effort to escape her bindings and grant herself sexual relief. A muscle in her left thigh stretched too far, but the flare of pain was lost in her hyper-arousal.

"Krin'mass'hutha!" Victor declared above Harriet's cries.

The cultist near Harriet's head came around her side and lowered his face to her breast, sucking her nipple hard into his mouth. Terri dropped to her knees and licked Harriet's pussy.

Harriet drew in her breath and let it go as a single loud gasp. Her back arched, every muscle straining once more until the paroxysm of orgasm overcame her, and she screamed now in overwhelming sexual ecstasy.

Her entire body fell into sync with her orgasm, until her breath came only in short, staccato gasps, silencing her cries and threatening to suffocate her. She hung at the gray edge of unconsciousness until it eased when her climax finally faded.

Harriet lay limp, wrung-out and spent. She did not feel the pain of her pulled muscle. She was little more than a rag doll as Terri and her cohort undid her chains.

Terri moved to assist her fellow cultist in carrying Harriet to an alcove where she could recover, but Victor held up a hand and stopped her. He gestured to another acolyte to take her place.

"We will commence with the other ceremony immediately," said Victor.

Terri lowered her hood, lips curling into a sly smile. "I am ready, Glorious One," she said, a hint of sultry enticement to her voice. "I have been looking forward to this all day."

As am I, said the Darkness in Victor's head. But I have a request. When this is done, I wish Terri for myself. I do not trust her out of my direct control.

Victor smiled. You will be quite welcome to her, he thought. "So have I, Terri, more than you could possibly know."

Gina lay still, breathing hard from her second powerful orgasm, her pussy finally content. The stream of eroticism in her head had abated, or at least relegated itself to the background where she could ignore it.

She sat up and listened. The voice was silent now. It had not bothered her during her second round of self-pleasuring, nor did it insinuate itself into her thoughts now.

Gina swung her legs over the side and headed towards the bathroom for a shower before bed. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror, even as much as she wanted to remind herself of how pretty and sexy she was.

A conditioned response.

Gina paused just as she was about to turn the spigot in the shower. Had that come from her own thoughts and not from that strange and scary voice? Why would that idea come to her? Conditioned how? And by whom?

She let the water run in the shower and turned to the mirror above the sink.

She stared at herself for a few seconds before breaking out into a smile. But she was pretty and sexy. Her breasts were round and firm, the flesh supple and smooth. Her waist was slim, her hips flared in full feminine curves. Her ass cheeks were rounded and tight. Anyone would want her.

Steam floated before her eyes and fogged the glass, the vision of her beauty dissolving into mist. She stepped into the shower, trying to shake off the odd feeling that everything she was doing was somehow scripted.

"Toph'sentr'enthra zanthas ron'valtra."

Victor stood at one end of the altar, watching with the same dispassionate gaze that he had used on Harriet. Terri's naked body writhed upon the altar, the sound of her soft but escalating moans blending with the clink of the chains.

Terri was lashed to the altar in much the same way as Harriet, just as the chant from the cultists rose again, their words boring into Terri's psyche. Yet where Harriet had to lie upon cold marble, soft wine-dark purple velvet cushioned Terri's body.

The cultists had arranged themselves in a semicircle about the altar, their chant more forceful and delivered with voices heady with lust. Several of the robed men and women trembled as their own arousal grew in sympathy with Terri's.

Another cult member stood next to the altar. Occasionally he teased one of Terri's erect nipples or caressed her swollen clit. His fingertips were coated with a few drops of the same oil used on Harriet. Terri panted hard and whimpered, the slow burning climb of arousal continuing even after his hand had withdrawn.

Victor raised his hands, and the cult fell silent. The acolyte at Terri's side stepped off the dais and joined the others.

"I have decreed that this vessel before me shall receive a measure of my divine power," Victor declared. "But only the most loyal, the most obedient, and the most devoted of my servants shall be worthy of this most holy of gifts." He lowered his hands and crossed his arms across his heart. "I shall now suffer advocates against."

Silence, save for the squirm of Terri's aroused body against the velvet and her own quickened breath.

"And you, Terri Hollis, do you declare yourself worthy of my divine power?"

"Ung ... y-yes, Glorious One!" Terri gushed, her voice heavy with desire and need. "Yes, I am! ... Uhhhh! ...."

Terri gasped, her arousal suddenly spiking as if in response to her own words. Her pussy glistened, and moisture dripped onto the velvet.

Victor let her remain as she was for another moment as he stretched his senses along the energy line. Gina was stable for now, but it was still nowhere near where he wanted her. She would do as she had been conditioned, but she would continue to question it. This would not do.

"So be it," Victor said. He undid his robe and let it slide from his shoulders, revealing his sculpted nude form, his erection standing from his body like a thick pole. As one, the cultists fell to their knees and lowered their heads.

"Incuth'sessla tal'valtra ron'palthra."

Their words were spoken with deep reverence in a low, reverberating tone, like the low vibrations of a gong. Victor climbed upon the altar and crawled over Terri's body. She looked up at him, eyes dark with a lust not for sex but for power. Victor saw past it, to the greed that lay beyond, and her own agenda.

Under any other circumstance, he would have stopped the ceremony and declared her unworthy of his power. It disgusted him that she either would think he could not see it, or that it would not matter to him because she believed his need for her help was too great.

Victor poised himself over her, the head of his cock barely an inch from her willing pussy. Terri moaned and tried to lift her hips to him, but the chains held her just short of the prize.

Disgust turned to revulsion. Humility was nonexistent, nothing to even hint at what a great honor she was to receive. She was not a true cultist. She was simply hungry for power.

Victor sensed another hunger as well, as the presence in his head churned and slavered. The Darkness lived for these moments, filling it with an unholy lust that would wither the resolve of an ordinary man.

Victor's cock descended. Terri gasped as the plump head parted her labia, then moaned as his shaft squeezed into her tight cunt. Victor sank deep into her, until she was filled by his hard presence.

Terri's eyes widened as her pussy suddenly felt tighter and fuller, as if his cock had somehow expanded inside her. Her mouth opened in a wide "O" of shock when he lifted his body and plunged back down, the sides of her cunt stretching with each slow, invasive thrust.

"Nng! ... Uhhng! ... Uhhhn! ..."

Terri soon lost the capacity for even those limited noises. She was forced to remain limp on the altar, letting him set the pace, unable to raise her hips against the force of his overly thick cock.

Victor was pleased that Terri still responded to his power. She felt his cock thicken inside her because he made her believe it. Knowing such a thing was impossible mattered not. It had become her reality, just as he had molded Roberta's reality.

He closed his eyes as he increased his pace, his own pleasure rising. Terri's pants fell into rhythm with his thrusts until her diaphragm ached. She rocketed towards climax, but Victor held her back, letting her strain at the excruciating edge, until her whimpers turned to cries and gasps into pleas.

Now? the Darkness demanded. Is she ready now?

Victor leaned forward and redoubled his pace, until Terri screamed her need for release. Her mind was wide open. He saw every thought, every emotion, every little evil plan she had in store for Heather. He was glad that he did not require her help.

He closed his eyes and gathered his energies. Now.

Terri wailed as her pussy let go. Her skin tingled as if charged with electricity, and sparks danced before her eyes. Her body shuddered, her mind soaring to a height of ecstasy she had never experienced in her life. The power gathered in her mind, her orgasm made that much more intense and sweet.

Then a shiver passed through her, as if a sudden blast of arctic air had whipped around her body, chilling her to the core. The altar felt like a block of ice, floating in a deep and dark void, freezing her thoughts into a crystalline prison.

The sensation was fleeting, and there was only her all-consuming orgasm of lust and power.

The chanting stopped. Victor slowed and pulled back, his cock popping from her pussy with a wet sound, still rigid. A ragged sigh passed Terri's lips. She fell limp, her pussy aching hard in the afterglow. The cold and dark was forgotten as his power surged through her psyche.

Victor climbed off the altar and stood erect. He raised his hands once more. "It is done."

Yes, said the Darkness in his mind. It is done.

Terri's lips curled into a wicked smile.

Gina stepped out of the bathroom, her dark hair exuding a lustrous sheen, her skin smelling faintly of lilac. Her troubled eyes cast a glance over her shoulder towards the bathroom.

She had wanted to do it again, to pleasure herself a third time as the hot water had cascaded over her skin. She had resisted, but wondered if that lingering desire would manifest once more in her dreams. She felt so helpless when she slept. What little understanding she had achieved would be lost by the time she awoke in the morning, leaving her wet and wanting and needful of another orgasm before she could head off to school.

And then see the new counselor.

How did her mother know there would be a new one? She never attended any of the PTA meetings, what few were held anymore.

Gina turned away from the bed. She padded over to her dresser and opened the bottom drawer. She pulled out a large photo album.

She stood and held it up to the light. Cursive gold script read "My Childhood."

Gina sat down on the edge of the bed and placed the album in her lap. The stiff binding crinkled as she opened the cover. The heading at the top of the first page read "My Entrance Into The World." Photos of a day-old Gina cradled in her mother's arms or lying peacefully in her crib filled the page. There were five rows, each row with exactly four pictures.

She looked at the opposing page, titled "My First Year," taken on her first birthday, and saw the same arrangement: exactly twenty photos arranged in five rows by four columns.

She turned the page. Same for her second and third birthdays, the exact number of photos, all arranged in the same matrix. Same for the fourth and fifth, and so on, concluding with her sixteenth birthday.

That was it, the only photos in the album, the sum of all the pictures that her mother ever took of her. The album was not so much a collection of memories as a ritual, done by rote, like reciting the multiplication tables in grammar school.

Like her life had been planned rather than lived.

Gina slammed the book closed and shook her head. She was reading too much into it. Her mother just liked to do things in a very methodical manner.

Or she could have taken this pictures only because it was expected of her.

She frowned. She hated having these doubts. Maybe she did need to see a counselor after all. He would set things right in her head, so she could go back to being her mother's good little girl.

Gina returned the book to its drawer and put on a fresh pair of panties and her nightgown. She turned off the light and slipped under the covers. Sleep was slow to claim her that night.

The veil feels like a cold, cloying mist as she steps through, but passage does nothing to dispel the darkness or the chill against her skin. The air is thin and carries the stale smell of the passage of the ages. It feels like stepping into a mausoleum, time suspended at the moment of passing, standing somewhere between the land of the living and whatever lies beyond.

Cassie trembles, and she wraps her arms around herself but finds no warmth. Her bare feet touch cold stone as she steps forward. The dead, stale air parts at her passage, yet chills her to the bone. She feels bare skin wherever her arms touch herself. She is somehow naked, even though she remembers being clothed before passing through the veil.

The quiet is like that of the grave, and she hears only her own ragged breathing. She swallows and hopes it will remain that way. What could be in a place like this?

Then it comes to her, wafting on the tendrils of a thin breeze: the faint, mournful sound of someone sobbing.

Cassie backs away, shivering, but the veil behind her is so icy that she recoils from it. The sobbing rises to her ears from somewhere in the gray-black ahead of her. She has no choice but to follow it.

Her heart pounding so loud she can hear it, she takes several tentative steps forward. She can see no walls, yet the passage feels so narrow that her shoulders would scrape the sides if she wandered from the path.

The sobbing is louder now, and Cassie shivers once more. Her breath catches, as if she is on the verge of tears herself. She is drowning in waves of grief, confusion, and helplessness.

Ahead of her, the dark crystallizes into tall bars marching in a tight circle. Lying in the middle is a naked, huddled form, shaking and weeping. Cassie takes another step and sees that it is a girl, her knees drawn to her chest, her head bowed, face obscured by disheveled locks of dark blond hair.

"He's caged me," the girl sobs. "Just because ... j-just because I wouldn't ... just b-because I wanted to w-wait before ..."

Her words dissolve into a low wail of despair and sadness.

Tears well up in Cassie's eyes. Her eyes spot the latch on the cage. It is unlocked. She needs only to step forward and raise it, and the girl would be free.

Cassie is about to take a step forward when she hears footsteps.

They come at her from the distance, from somewhere beyond the cage. Each footfall is sharp, crisp, and assured. No hesitation, no rush, a jailer whose confidence radiates from him like a shock wave, making Cassie stagger back.

Cassie's eyes again fall on the latch. The girl's sobs cease, and she stirs, as if now realizing that someone is here with her. Yet Cassie's eyes slide away, towards the darkness beyond, the footsteps speaking to her. Another one for the cage. Another one to keep for my own.

Cassie whimpers and turns away just as the girl lifts her head. Cassie does not see her face.

"Please, come back! Please, you have to help!"

Cassie runs away, blinded by the tears streaming down her face at the girl's plight and her own cowardice. The footsteps grow louder still, as if somehow she were running yet going nowhere. Soon the girl's captor would come up behind her. Soon his hand would land on her shoulder and force Cassie to her knees. Soon he would take her as he has taken the girl, as he has taken others.

Cassie reaches the veil, but it solidifies to ice as she tries to pass, freezing the scream as it rises from her throat.

Cassie cried out and bolted up in bed, a trembling hand lying across her hammering heart. The cold terror of her frozen prison clung to her reality for a few lingering seconds before finally falling away. The dark miasma of her dreamscape dissolved and left her in her darkened bedroom. Her eyes darted towards the glow of the night light in the adjoining bathroom, as welcome as a lighthouse on a stormy night.

Cassie let out a rattling sigh and swallowed between pants of still fading panic. She clutched the blanket with her free hand and drew it towards her as if trying to convince herself it was real. She looked towards the clock on the table next to the bed. It was just past midnight.

"Goodness, not again."

She dropped her face into her hands. Her cheeks were wet. It had to be a dream. An ordinary dream, a nightmare, like other people get.

Cassie got out of bed. She grasped her rumpled nightgown and shook it until the bottom edge fell straight about her legs. Sleep was not likely to come to her without some help.

She turned the corner and stepped into her bathroom, where an electric kettle and her boxes of herbal teas sat under the night light. She set some water to boil and dropped a chamomile tea bag into a bone china cup. She folded her arms and leaned against the door frame, closing her eyes.

Cassie realized she was only fooling herself. The same sequence of dreams happened every Halloween, with the same people whose faces she would never see. Each dream more frightening than the last, each one right at midnight. It came with her Dream Gift, both manifesting at the onset of puberty. She had despised Halloween ever since.

This year was proving no different. The same dreams where she had no power to step back and observe, no power to move on if she found the images too disturbing or private.

But maybe I can change them this time.

Her eyes opened. Could she use her budding new dream powers to change the outcome, or just stop the dream altogether?

All her dreams concerned the living. Yet these dreams contained the same girl, and always the same age, which she estimated to be sixteen. The sense of decay she felt in these dreams hinted that they had nothing to do with the living whatsoever.

Cassie took her hand from her face, clenched it into a fist, and let it fall to her side with a slap against her thigh. She shook her head. I cannot communicate with the dead, she thought. I contact the living only. THE LIVING.

Yet even the small possibility that she was wrong, that at Halloween her power somehow managed to penetrate the ultimate veil between the living and the dead, filled her with such cold dread that she doubted even the warmth of the tea would dispel it.

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