Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Adjusters #59, Part 2

Still rough, of course. But existing.




Intermezzo: The Medicine Man (Part 2)


Colin Blackstone had some difficulty tracking down the girl, Cindy Barnes. Bryan had said she took classes at UCLA, and that she hung out at a bar near the campus, but he had no other information about her. A quick online search revealed nothing about Cindy Barnes.

The old Colin, the Colin that was carefree and not trying to better himself and make Madeleine proud, that Colin would have walked up to the registrar’s office at UCLA, found a female administrative assistant, touched her so that his Gift made her malleable, and simply asked her to look up Cindy in the internal directory. Then, if the assistant was even a little attractive, he would have taken advantage of her, curious to see the level of depravity he could elicit.

But he was different now. He was serious, about his life, about his writing. This girl, Cynthia Barnes, would be his last collaboration, if you could call it that, with Bryan and company. And he wanted to do the job clean.

Colin unfortunately had no other idea than to wander around the campus helplessly, keeping an eye out for the girl. He hung out near the bar that Bryan said she frequented, but did not see her. He went inside, sat and stayed there for two hours. doing crossword puzzles on his phone—a great way to build up and test his vocabulary—sipping large cups of iced coffee, thinking all the while that the ones at Roadside Buddy Coffee were better.

Colin returned to the bar the next day, and Cindy still was not there. Not that Colin was particularly eager for her to show up—but he wanted Bryan off his back, and the sooner Cindy was handled, the sooner Bryan would be out of Colin’s life.

Not knowing what to do, wanting to avoid at all costs snagging another person in his ugly clutches, Colin wandered into one of the main UCLA quads, open and green and welcoming. He affect the penetrating air of a student out for a stroll thinking about a deep problem of philosophy or logic or composition. No one paid any attention to him.

He stopped by a small on-campus convenience store, grabbed a soda and a crossword puzzle book, and found a spot by a low wall that afforded him a good view of the bar. He settled down with his crosswords, and waited.

It afforded him the time to think, to reflect.

Reflect about his relationship with Madeleine, and how he could avoid messing it up further. He was meeting with Radhika at the end of the week, for their weekly meeting, and she had tasked him to try to verbalize what he wanted out of that relationship.

It was a good question. He cared about Madeleine, there was no denying it. He might even love her. But he had to admit he preferred her before, when she was studying, than ever since she dropped her studies to become an underwear and glamour model. And the part that galled at him—that he had tried to explain to Radhika but she had interpreted him as being metaphorical and hyperbolic but of course he had been literal—was that she became a model because at an unconscious level that was something that he, Colin, wanted her to do, because it turned him on, because it had been one of his deep-seated fantasies to date a lingerie model. And because it had been one of his fantasies, she had become it.

Because she had had no choice.

It was insane, but it was true. It was his Gift. Or his Curse. His view was shifting on that topic, had for the last few years—ever since running into Madeleine and falling for her, and falling hard.

He could control his Gift, most of the time, even play it like a finely tuned fiddle. But it was always there, lurking in the background, and sometimes his subconscious had desires even he was not aware of and an inadvertent touch would trigger the Gift and he would affect someone. And Madeleine, because she was around much more than anyone else, would often be at the receiving end of his unconscious drives.

Colin was distracted by a trio of giggling sorority girls, judging by their tank tops, with short skirts and push-up bras, and he stared helplessly, and they saw him stare of course but did not seem to mind and they giggled again, looking at him from the corner of their eyes.

He knew that all he had to do was reach out and touch those three girls and he would feel that spark from his fingertips to their skin like a static electricity discharge and then, well, the sky was the limit, wasn’t it? He could direct them to be however he wanted, could direct them to be whomever he wanted. He could make them strip and beg him to fuck them, could make them fall in love with him, could make them fall in love with each others. He could have them enjoy themselves, could have them hate every second of it but be unable to resist, could make them act like the most debased sluts and then forget all about it even as people around them stared at them in disgust.

All those things flashed in his head as he watched them walk by, all giggles and long hair and fresh young exposed skin, but he did not move. He forced himself to look straight ahead, and think of anything to distract himself from visions of parted legs and young bouncy tits.

Madeleine. Think of Madeline.

Colin thought back to the previous night, when Madeleine had done exactly what she had promised him she would do when she had dropped by at the coffee shop, what he had ensured she would have to do though his Gift.

He tried hard not to think having affected her, despite his best intentions, despite trying hard to be the person that he knew Madeleine—the real Madeleine, the girl he had fallen in love with—would want him to be, the person that he wanted to be.

He had been oddly apprehensive going to visit her the previous night, almost reluctant, almost avoiding it altogether. He had debated staying home or going out to catch a play—there was an ongoing adaptation of Titus Andronicus that he really wanted to see—but experience told him that Madeleine would have simply waited for him, like a dutiful girlfriend (like a dutiful fucktoy), doing absolutely nothing but go through her Gift-induced role until she fell asleep. And since she had told him that she would be working out, that meant that she would collapse in exhaustion unless he showed up and ravished her, or touched her again and affected her out of her single-minded obsession (but then what sort of other terrible thing will you turn her into, you sick pervert?)

He had gone in with the firm desire to correct her, girding himself to restore her to a semblance of normalcy, and he had even spent a good two hours before going to see her masturbating to online porn—he wanted it recognized that he had not gone not to fuck a little floozie but reverted to good old one-handed love instead—to make sure he was sexually satiated.

Of course, that plan, as good as he might have thought it had been, failed miserably. For when he showed up at her place, he had found Madeleine in her living room, exactly as she had said she would be: bumpy music in the background, squatting down on all four in workout gear that would have had her thrown out of any non-X-rated gym—a pink sports bra that supported and thrust out her chest, a painted on pair of lycra shorts that did little more than emphasize her tight ass—she was doing side leg lifts, relentlessly, her hair in a ponytail, looking like any beautiful innocent girl working out in the privacy of her home.

And as soon as he entered, as soon as he stopped to stare at her, he wondered whether she knew he was there. For all he knew, his Gift had changed her so that she was convinced that she was indeed working out and not expecting a visitor, truly innocent, but he could not be sure; she did not stop her lifts, did not acknowledge his presence, and she did not move when he stepped behind her.

It was wrong, of course—he convinced himself that she was role-playing, the dutiful girlfriend happy to fulfill one of her boyfriend’s dark fantasies—but he could not help it. She was beautiful, and there was something enticing about the way she did not even acknowledge his presence.

He knelt behind her, and grabbed her hips. It felt perfect, and it made sense: it was like walking into a fantasy that at some level you were completely comfortable with, because it was your fantasy, it emerged from the depth of your month, and you knew the beats but following those beats, rather than being boring, was heady in and of itself.

Madeleine shouted in surprised, and tried to fight him off, at the same time splaying her legs out, her skin white and soft. His hands roamed and Madeleine begged him not to hurt her until he put his hands on her mouth and told her to shush and then crushed her with his weight as he pawed her breasts.

Whatever good intentions he had held before visiting, and they were indubitably good, flew out the window as she squirmed underneath him, her body at the same time struggling to get away and pressing against him , as her crotch rubbed against his cock, as her hands grabbed his hair in a mimicry of passion.

He fucked her so hard and so long that night that she almost passed out. He still had the scratches on his back to prove it.

He was so distracted by his thoughts—he was trying to figure out how to discuss what had happened to Radhika without going into the details of his afflication because he was not convinced that she was not required to report him, assuming she even believed him, and of course he could make her believe because he could touch her and change her so that she believed him but that would nullify everything that she could do for him—that he almost missed Cindy Barnes.

Across the street, strolling down the sidewalk and turning into the doors of the bar that Bryan Seeker had told him about, came his target.

Colin tensed immediately. Dutifully—it would not do to screw this up—he checked the photograph that Bryan had forwarded him. The picture did not do the girl justice. In real life, because of the way she carried herself, the way moved, the way her face was illuminated by a vibrant smile, she was even better looking than he had originally believed.

Which went a long way towards explaining why she had attracted Bryan’s attention. Colin had no difficulty imagining just how good Cindy would look on camera, getting ravished on film.

He cultivated that thought, that image. If he wanted to turn her, it helped a lot for him to be aroused—it would prime not only his conscious mind, but also his subconscious. As far as he had been able to determine, when he wasn’t kidding himself and what he wanted was clear, his Gift, when he touched a girl, did something to her to make her go along with what he wanted, especially when it had a sexual component. Or maybe just when there was a strong emotional drive underneath it.

Problems arose when his subconscious or his real desires did not match what he consciously wanted, and those subconscious desires sometimes overrode his plans. It had happened before. It had happened often with Madeleine.

He did not think he was in any danger right now of messing things up, but to be safe, he elected to bear down on a fantasy of seeing that girl, Cindy, getting taken over and over again and loving to show off on camera—turning her into a helpless and uncontrolled exhibitionist would be the easiest way to go, one with a strong drive to obey Bryan Seeker’s requests. He cemented things by imagining Bryan plowing into the petite girl, with her short dress rucked up around her waist, her legs spread wide, moaning and groaning and screaming at him to take her harder, all the while surrounded by cameras immortalizing her ordeal for all time.

He was ready.

But he did not move.

His initial reluctance, the one that he thought he might plow through by simply taking care of this dirty business head on, came back with a vengeance.

He remained against his wall, the local paper on his lap, wondering what his next step might be.

What would Madeleine say, if she knew?

What would Radhika say, if she knew?

He waited, unsure of everything, and convinced himself that he did not want to use his Gift in the courtyard of the bar, in full view of everyone, in the middle of the day. It was too risky. Maybe she was not alone? Maybe she was meeting someone?

He went back to his crossword puzzle, unable to make progress, stuck on an eight-letter word for make weak with an f in third position and an e in last. Every two minutes, he looked up, both worried and hoping that he might miss her.

He did not. Forty-five minutes later, Cindy emerged from the bar, cell phone against her ear, bag across her shoulder, her step still as springy, her smile still as wide, her legs still as alluring. Seeing her from the front, he elected to reevaluate his initial assessment. She was more than cute. She was attractive, and extremely desirable.

And he could have her if he wanted.

He watched her look left and right before crossing the street, still on her phone, talking away, heading for the campus.

He followed her, puzzle book in hand, a backpack over his shoulder, looking like any other student, albeit perhaps slightly older, but still fitting in, complete with jeans and run-down sneakers.

Cindy walked quickly, and Colin stuck behind her, sneaking in and out of the students that were strolling the main yard. He watched her the whole time, his sunglasses he hoped camouflaging where he was looking, trying to look busy and casual and taken by a destination only he knew about.

The trick, he had always heard, was to act as though you belonged.

He watched Cindy’s ass sway with every single one of her steps, her dress bouncing about as she walked, always threatening to reveal more than the long expanse of leg it already did.

While he was still prevaricating, it was obvious where his desires lay. He was sufficiently clear-eyed to realize that.

He followed Cindy through campus. He did not know where they were going. It was a glorious day, and he did not mind being outside. And if he were honest, following this pretty girl was not as boring as he might have feared. She was certainly easy on the eyes.

He wondered where Madeleine was now, what she was doing—she had said she had another photoshoot today, a bikini shoot with two other female models. He knew the company, who specialized in skimpy swimsuits.

In front of him, Cindy had run into another girl, and they started talking animatedly. Colin stood by a tree, half hidden, and watched them casually, most of the time staring about as if he were waiting for someone, tapping his foot impatiently, and glancing at his phone.

You had to look like you belonged.

He almost missed Cindy and the new girl turning right into a building. He followed them inside after a pause. An almost empty lobby, a triple set of doors leading into a hallway.

He spotted Cindy and the girl in an elevator just as the doors closed. Heading down. A quick glance to the right revealed that they were headed to the microbiology laboratories.

He frowned. Didn’t Bryan tell him that Cindy was an artist?

He looked around, spotted the stairs going down. There were few people in the building, and he looked casual, grabbing his backpack, try to look like a typical student. He was ready, in case he were stopped, to say that he was lost and he was looking for the Microbiology Department office to get information about one of its courses to fill his schedule. Typical student request.

He pushed the doors open carefully at the bottom of the staircase, peeking in, and saw Cindy and the other girl head down a corridor before turning right.

Once they made the corner, he ran down, holding his bag close to his chest, trying to make as little noise as possible.

He peeked around the corner and spotted them entering a room, chattering away, never having noticed him.

He waited for a few minutes before approaching that door. Like every other door down this hallway, it had a large glass pane.

He peeked inside the room, slowly, saw that it was a laboratory of some sort—microbiology, he guessed, given the building they were in—and he spotted Cindy and her friend put their bags down and pull out books and notes that they spread out on a table before going to a set of lockers and pulling out white laboratory coats.

He watched the girls slip them on, part of him saddened at the fact that the long coat hid Cindy’s luscious body, and watched them chitter away, smiling and laughing as they got ready to do whatever it was that they were there to do.

Cindy’s friend headed to the whiteboard to write down something that Colin could not decipher—it looked like gibberish to him—but that seemed to mean something to Cindy, for she nodded and went up to the board and changed something the her friend had written.

An artist my ass, Colin thought. You’ve been bamboozled, Bryan my friend.

Inside, Cindy said something to her friend and headed to the back of the laboratory, where Colin could not see her, and the first girl remained at the board, staring at it with a scowl of concentration on her face, twirling a blue marker between her fingers.

The silence of the basement was marred by the sound of heavy duty air conditioning and filtering units.

“Why are you following me?”

Colin jumped at the sound of the voice coming from behind him, and nearly slipped and fell as he turned around faster than his body was ready to.

Cindy was behind him, still wearing her white lab coat, her head tilted slightly to side as though she were studying a particularly intriguing species of bug, one arm gently at her side, one hand in her pocket.

Colin surmised that the hand in her pocket was wrapped around a mace or pepper spray bottle, or something equally unpleasant for him.

He felt stupidly proud of her for being able to defend herself. And for not appearing in the least bit scared.

Not that it would help her in any way again him.

“I’m not—”

“You were behind me all through the campus, but you’re not a student here. You were standing by a tree when I met Raina. You followed us in, taking the stairs instead of the elevators. And you’ve been peeking inside the lab window.”

There was no anger in her voice, just mild curiosity.

Colin sighed. He had underestimated her. As had Bryan, he could not help think with a smile, which indubitably explained why said Bryan had come to him.

“What’s so funny?” Cindy asked.

“Didn’t realize I was smiling. Sorry… I think I just realized exactly why I’m here.”

Cindy’s eyebrows tilted in a most endearing puzzled frown. “That’s an odd way of stating things.”

“It’s an odd situation.”

“You don’t work for them, do you?”

Colin had to be careful. She was obviously smarter than Bryan had given her credit for. Much smarter. “What do you mean, them?

Cindy’s frown deepened, and she looked at him more deeply, as if she were staring into his soul. “No, you don’t work for them. You’re not their style.”

She seemed to visibly relax at that, though Colin noted that her hand never left her lab coat pocket. “I’ve seen them around, the team that they have on me, and they try to look casual but they have that stiffness in their backs that speaks of military training. I should know.”

What the hell is she talking about? Colin wondered.

“I’ve got not military training,” he answered truthfully.

Cindy actually laughed. “Yeah, I can tell. You’d be cannon fodder.”

“Hey, I resent that.”

“You’re the one stalking me.”

“I wasn’t stalking you! I was—” Somehow, he did not think the “looking for the Microbiology Department” lie would fly. He sighed again. Decided to lie, but in a minor key. “I spotted you on campus a couple of days back, was too shy to go up and talk to you, figured I’d see if you showed up again and then I just didn’t know how to move on from there and I just followed and… well… here I am…”

Cindy smiled a little smile. “You don’t strike me as the kind that gets flustered around women too too much, though.”

“Well, not usually. But when they’re smarter than I am, it sort of makes me self-conscious.”

That seemed to have struck a chord with Cindy, who nodded as if she had thought the same thing at some point in her life.

“I’m Colin,” he said, almost shyly. “Colin Blackstone.” It was stupid to use his real name, but he felt that anything but the truth she would see through, and beside, she would forget all about it after the Gift affected her.

She looked at him, appraising him. “Cindy,” she said, coming to a decision.

Colin nodded. “I feel I haven’t quite presented myself under the best of light right now. Made a right fool of myself, honestly. I wonder if we could start again. Perhaps over a drink? Coffee, tea, soda, beer, I’m very open-minded.”

Cindy looked at him. “So after I’ve caught you following me like a creep, you think I’ll give you a second chance by going to get a drink with you? So that you’ll what, show me that you’re really a good guy even though you act like a sleaze? Entitled much?”

Colin did not know what to respond to that. There was no way he could come out of that argument in a clean way. Checkmate, a voice inside him came up with. Yeah, really helpful, said another.

He had no other choice. He could leave and hope he would find another opportunity later, go back to Bryan and tell him that he could not do it, or he could deal with it now and be done with it. After all, he did not need her approval. Thought thinking of it that way made him cringe. He definitely needed to talk to Radhika about these things.

He tried the oldest trick in the book. It would not work for long, but it would be long enough. After all, he did not need to subdue her.

He looked over her right shoulder sharply, focused onto something in the distance, and frowned deeply.

As expected, Cindy flinched and almost reflexively started to turn to look behind her. She did not in fact do that—and again Colin had to recognize that she was much better than Bryan had given her credit for—but her eyes left him for a fraction of a second and her whole body was ever so slightly off balance so that when Colin lunged forward with his hand out to grab hers, she could not pull back in time.

He grasped her hand, and felt the spark of energy jump from his skin onto hers and he knew that the Gift had done its job again.

He was looking at Cindy’s face the whole time, and he noted her expression of surprise as she felt what he felt, and her face clouded for a few seconds, as if she did not know what she was supposed to do or think or feel.

When he did it because he wanted to, it always gave Colin a sense of power. Unprompted, the image of Cindy pulling him to her and kissing him and letting his hands roam over her fine body, underneath that short dress, rose up in his mind’s eye, and he felt himself get hard. Which was good, because it made his Gift all the more effective.

Cindy did not let go of his hand, but her face reasserted herself in a look of genuine surprise.

“Interesting,” she said, in a tone of wonder, looking at Colin and at his hand and back at Colin.

What? Colin was confused.

“You felt that, right?” she asked him, her voice full of questions. “Yes, of course you did. Silly me. Oh that’s so interesting.”

She stepped up to him, her eyes fixed on his, and if he thought she looked at him like an intriguing bug before, now he felt like he was a bug that she had trapped into a glass jar and that she was bringing up to her face to study closely.

He expected her to kiss him, the way he had imagined before, the way he clearly wanted, and the image of Cindy disrobing right then and there, shedding her lab coat and then her dress and appearing before him in whatever underwear she wore—was it utilitarian, flimsy, or was she possibly completely naked underneath the short dress?—and offering herself to him was difficult to suppress.

She ran a light finger over his lips. She was looking at him curiously. “Very very interesting,” she said.

She let one of her hands drop down to his crotch and he groaned as he felt her hand press against his cock, hard and throbbing. She gave him a squeeze through his jeans, and grinned. “I’m so excited. Okay, I’ll take you up on your drink offer,” she said. “Tomorrow night. Meet me at the bar where you were spying on me earlier. Seven o’clock.”

She then stepped back from him, gave him a quick look up and down, and reiterated. “So interesting.” She then walked back into the laboratory.

Colin had not moved, had merely followed her with his eyes.

What the hell just happened?

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The Adjusters #59, Part 1

Wow, okay, so this installment is kicking my ass. Had to scrap a scene for it because upon reread once it had rested a while, the scene didn't belong at all. So I pushed it to a future installment where I think it'll fit better—assuming I keep it when we reach that point—but that means I had a hole I needed to fill. Which I'm filling now.

But that doesn't mean I can't give you the installment in piece, as they come. So without further ado, but without the final editing pass that I make only when the full installment is finished up, here's the first scene of the installment. The next two scenes coming over the next several days.

I'll push it the whole installment up to ASSTR at the end, after I've done my final revision. For those that enjoy that sort of thing, you'll get to see what happens on the final editing pass :)





The Adjusters #59

Intermezzo: The Medicine Man


“Iced white chocolate soy milk mocha with one espresso vanilla syrup shot, please.”

Colin Blackstone nodded and stepped to the coffee machine beside the register, his hands automatically picking up the syrup bottle and the appropriate instruments required to make the desired concoction.

He had long passed the stage where preparing overcomplicated drinks with precise specifications bothered him. Not that it ever bothered him that much in the first place—making people happy was happy in and of itself. The only time when it was a bummer was when the customer was rude, or not even tried to treat him like a human being.

But this customer was nice—they had chatted about how fantastic the Los Angeles weather was for this time of the year—and perhaps more relevantly was exceedingly attractive, with a beautiful smile and a fitting tank top that made no attempt to hide her chest.

Colin fought hard to avoid staring, and concentrated on making her coffee.

“Name’s Rosie,” the customer said, tilting her head to look at him.

He nodded to her, smiled. He had to look at the machine, and thus could avoid turning his head and see the way her nipples poked through the thin material. “Colin.”

“You been working here long?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Since the place first opened.”

“Wow. I have no idea when this place opened.” She laughed.

“Well, it was a long time ago.” Eight years, to be exact. He had spent eight years here. It was hard to believe, but sometimes you could not get away from the truth.

He finished preparing her coffee, and she commented on the tribal tattoo that wandered up his forearm to disappear beneath a sleeve. It was a common conversation starter.

He chatted with her, remaining casual. She paid with a credit card, giving him a flirty smile, and he was polite and respectful and tried very hard not to stare at her chest.

She winked at him when she left, and he watched her go, willing his eyes not to dip down to the round ass in those running shorts. She had a pair of orange trainer on her feet. The rest of her body matched what he had seen of her. He could not help trying to picture what she might look like writhing underneath him, begging him to take her harder, as hard as he could, surprised in the middle of a run, or in the midst of a workout.

He closed his eyes, willing his breathing to return to normal.

This was turning out more difficult than he thought it would be.

He was just glad he had managed not to touch her, which was a small victory. Given the state he was in, it might now have turned out so well.

Radhika would be proud.

The Roadside Buddy Coffee was half full, the way it often was on weekday mornings once the commuting crowd had gone through and before the lunch crowd invaded. Mostly what remained where students from the nearby University of Southern California, working on laptops and sipping on coffees with way too much sugar in them

The manager had tried to institute a policy of only letting patrons hold on to a table for thirty minutes, going so far as locking off all the power outlets to force customers to use up their laptop or tablet batteries. It had caused some grumbling, but as near as Colin Blackstone could tell, surveying the crowd, it did little to eliminate the crowd. Progress in modern battery technology, he guessed.

That the shop was lined with shelves of used books for sale that customers felt free to pick up and read while they were in the shop did convey the slightly mixed message that it was perfectly fine for them to be there for as long as they wanted, and as far as Colin was concerned, there was little difference between reading for an hour and working on a laptop for an hour. Either way, one took a chair or a table and did not move.

Not that he cared.

Colin leaned against the counter and surveyed the crowd. It was a good bunch, students, working, dressed less scantily than usual, but this was still Los Angeles, and the weather was still pleasant. The end of the semester was approaching, he could tell—there was just a bit more tension in the air as usual, people were paying a little less attention to their clothes and their appearance, and everyone had taken on that frantic quality of people having too much to do in too little time.

Colin shook his head. Not for him the hustle and bustle. Not for him the pressure of exams and papers and whatnot. It wasn’t that he hated school. It was just not where his interests lay.

Or at least, when he was their age, ten years ago, school was not a priority. Not at all.

Nowadays, he wavered. Maybe he had missed something. Maybe there was more to life than writing failed screenplays and pursuing pussy. At least, that was what he thought now. Funny how life went.

Was it too late, though?

He sighed, and started to clean the industrial espresso machine that saw way too much use. He was getting hungry. He wondered whether he’d go out to eat at the sandwich shop three doors down, the one with the pretty little waitress with the long legs, or whether he’d just grab a snack from the fridge in the back. Either way, he’d go up on the roof, eat, get a cold lemonade, and have a joint. It was that kind of day.

He looked up casually when the door of the shop opened—silently, because he had wrapped a cloth around the bell that the manager had installed. It was one of the most annoying sound, which as far as the manager was concerned was a plus, as it prevented students from lingering too long. As far as Colin was concerned, it just made them more angry and frustrated, which was bad for everyone, himself first. So he smothered it whenever he could, whenever he was working alone or with someone that shared his perspective on the little tingling shit.

A girl and a guy walked in together, deep in conversation, the girl thin and athletic, with a tight flaring dress showing long tanned legs and her long dirty blonde mane falling over her shoulders. The guy with her was her age, and wore a tee shirt with the logo of the Roadside Buddy Coffee on it, the same Colin was wearing.

The girl flashed a broad smile at Colin, one that made even some of the people in the coffee shop do a double take.

“Hey sweetie,” she beamed at him as she neared the counter. Colin gulped and straightened up, pulling his hands to himself. His was not the best state in which to meet Madeleine, his long-time girlfriend. He was too aroused from the previous girl’s presence, and he could not control himself well when he was aroused.

“Hey Maddie.” He tried to remain casual, grabbing a cloth to wipe the counter which was already spotlessly clean. “Dimitri,” he nodded to the young man that had walked her in and who slipped behind the counter with him.

“Ran into her on the way in,” Dimitri said, before signing into the computer at the end of the counter to record his hours. “And let me add that I still don’t understand how a slacker such as you landed a wonderful girl such as her.” He shook his head in fake disgust.

Madeleine laughed with her crystal laughter that made hearts melt, always a sucker for compliments. She winked at Colin, who gave a small smile in return.

He had to agree with Dimitri, of course. Madeleine was not only beautiful, but smart—or at least she used to be, when she was a physics student, before she embarked on a modeling career that had her showing off her body in bikinis and lingerie and lately in softcore glamour shots that were slowly spreading over the Internet.

All of which was Colin’s fault, of course.

His only consolation was that Madeleine seemed happy. Granted, she had no real choice.

He had not told Radhika any of that just yet, at least not the details.

“I’m off to a lingerie gig this afternoon, down the road, and figured I’d drop by and say hi,” Madeleine said, still smiling, and bending on the counter on her elbows, giving Colin a plunging view down her dress and deep into her skimpy bra.

“Oh,” Dimitri said while pulling an apron over his head and sliding up beside Colin. “And what are you modeling today?” He was was shamelessly staring down her dress, and Colin could not fault him for looking. After all, if she had such an exhibitionist streak, it was also his fault. And the view was fantastic, there was no denying.

“Agent Provocateur has their new Spring lingerie line that they need to shoot for. You know, corsets, stockings, the works. Sexy stuff.”

Colin could hear Dimitri swallow next to him, probably imagining Madeleine scantily clad in lingerie designed to tease and produce exactly the kind of thoughts that were going through his head. And fuck, Colin thought, in about three months he’d be able to see exactly those images live in front of him if he did a quiet browse over to the company’s web site.

“Well, I hope you have fun,” Colin said, still wiping the counter.

“I will, don’t worry. Kiss before I go? For good luck?” She leaned forward, and Colin saw from the corner of his eye a man sitting at the nearest table focus his eyes on Madeleine’s ass, lifted high in her position, her dress probably having ridden up, and since she was undoubtedly wearing one of those wispy thongs that he loved so much and that did so little to cover anything, the man had probably a view of her ass that rivaled what the photographer would see this afternoon.

Colin knew first-hand how great Madeleine’s ass was.

“Say, you up for doing something later tonight?” he asked his girlfriend, avoiding the whole kissing issue.

“Sure. Like what?”

“I was thinking of going to see a movie, or a play, or something?”

“See, I was more thinking along the lines of you coming over to my place and fucking my brains out,” she said, breathlessly, her eyes shiny. Colin heard Dimitri mutter a for fuck’s sake under his breath at the end of the counter. “It’s been at least twelve hours I haven’t felt you ripping me open,” she continued. She was insatiable. Loved sex above and beyond anything else. Was open to everything, with no boundary and no limit.

All his fault, of course.

“Yeah, well, huh, we sort of stayed in every day this week, and I thought it’d be nice to go out and, you know, do something…”

“Even if I give you a private little show, with the lingerie that they’ll let me keep from this afternoon? We can play dirty photographer and naive model—you really like that…”

He did, partly because it was a fantasy he had had once and that Madeleine had picked up on and had incorporated into her personality. But he wanted something different tonight, wanted to do something that had nothing to do with sex with her, all part of the exercises Radhika had recommended he did.

“Maybe afterward?” Colin responded, and he knew that Dimitri, who was not missing a single word of this conversation, could probably not believe that Colin would pass up such an offer. Let him wonder, Colin thought. What do I care anyway? “I’d just really like to be out with you. Spend some time as a loving couple, you know.”

He saw her eyes glitter at his mention of the word love, and he suspected he would have gotten his way had he not been distracted by the door opening again. He reflexively looked, and when he saw who came in, he stared.

Bryan Seeker. The last person he wanted to see right now. The man—handsome, sporty, wearing a light blazer, sunglasses, looking relaxed and pleasant—met Colin’s eyes, and smiled.

Colin did not smile back.

Bryan nodded towards a table in the corner, and walked over casually, his eyes temporarily lingering on the body of Madeleine, who paid not a bit of attention.

Instead, she put a hand on Colin’s, who was not paying attention himself.

He felt the spark of energy leap from his hand at her touch, as if he had been a live wire waiting to be grounded, and he pulled his hand back but even as he did so he knew it was too late. Madeleine had taken on that far away look she always had when his Gift affected her, and a little sigh escaped her lips.

Too late.

When her eyes focused again, they were cloudy, and Colin wondered what he had done this time.

Madeleine licked her lips, and leaned on the counter, telling him to get nearer with a crooked finger. Behind her, the eyes of the man who had been staring at her the whole time bugged out at the display of flesh he was privy to. Other people had noticed and were staring as well.

Cursing his stupidity and inattention, Colin leaned over.

“Tell you what,” she said, with a grin that promised so much that he could not help himself and get hard. “I’m going to ditch the modeling shoot and go back home and change.” She winked at him, not at all subtly, and her breathing was hot and her whole face and her whole demeanor just spelled sex.

“I’m gonna change into this little jogging outfit that I have, the kind that you can’t really wear outside because it’s so tight it’s indecent, because my ass just hangs out there for anyone to pinch and slap and with this little tanktop that makes my boobs stand out, and I’ll do a little workout right there in the living room, and you can be the pervy voyeur who watches me through the window and then cannot resist his dark impulses and breaks into my place and overpowers me and ties me up and fucks my tight little cunt over and over again?”

She leaned even closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And when you got me tied up and helpless, well, I won’t be able to keep you from doing anything you want to me, will I? You can bite my nipples, pour hot wax all over me, spank me, even fuck my tight little ass—you might have to gag me with my own panties to keep me from screaming.”

She kissed him then, a long scorching kiss that made Colin’s head spin, and he sank into the kiss and wondered if what he was doing was so bad after all. He wanted her, right then, right there, and that need must have been conveyed through his contact because he felt through his lips the spark of his Gift flash and Madeleine moaned in response and her hands pulled his face closer to deepen the kiss.

When she let him go, Madeleine’s hands immediately went down to unbutton her blouse, completely oblivious to the people in the coffee shop, many of whom were now looking at her. She had clearly internalized his unspoken desire to have her right then and there.

He had done it again.

He had lost control.

And Madeleine was paying for it.

No wonder he needed Radhika.

Not only was she about to strip in public and face possible prosecution, but she might also lose her modeling job, and while it may not have been what she would have chosen to do two years ago, it was what she wanted to do now, and she would not take it well—or she would simply not understand, and feel sad and frustrated.

He could not do that to her.

Not for the first time, he felt like his life was an out-of-control rock careening down a sheer cliff,, and that he was merely a passenger hanging on for dear life.

He did not reach out and touch Madeleine. His own subconscious desires were not to be trusted—the picture she had drawn of herself, obviously placed there in the role that his dirty subconscious had put the girl from earlier, the one that at some level he must have wanted to ravish in some perverse way. If he touched her, it would only make things worse. Instead, he spoke to her in tones that he hoped conveyed both desire and excitement.

“Maddy,” he said, “how about you go to your shoot? You know I love to imagine you dressed up and getting photographed and ogled when I know I’m the only one getting to do you. It’ll get me nice and horny thinking about you all day, and it’ll make tonight even better. What do you say?”

Her eyes flashed with understanding. “And you’re going to fuck me hard tonight?”

“I’m going to ravish you, babe.” He winced internally at his own words, but it was the only thing that would work. He had to play by the rules of the game his own subconscious was dictating. Thanks a lot, Freud! And so much for a movie tonight, he sighed internally. There would be no date tonight, only sex.

She smiled, and reached over to kiss him one last time, but this time Colin was fast enough to pull back. “Go on,” he said, nodding toward the door. “Let me start the slow burn.”

“You’re so kinky,” Madeleine said with a giggle—she never used to giggle, Colin realized with an internal groan—before kissing the air. “I’ll keep my ass lubed for you tonight,” she said loud enough for Dimitri to hear and react by swallowing a bite of muffin the wrong way and choking on it.

Which was just the distraction Colin needed as he rushed to help his coworker. Madeleine waived to them before leaving.

“You okay?” Colin asked the young man who was trying to catch his breath while coughing.

“Yeah… just… fuck… that hurt.” He made no mention of what he had heard.

“Listen,” Colin told him. “It’s quiet, and I’m going on break.”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” Dimitri said before coughing a few more times.

Colin patted him on the back a few times before standing up. He went to the back, put his branded apron on a hook, and headed out into the main room of the shop. Everyone had gone back to whatever they had been doing, paying him no more attention than usual.

Everyone except Bryan Seeker, who sat a table eyeing Colin with an amused look, twirling his phone in his hand.

Colin sat down next to him, his face drawn.

Bryan smiled, never taking off his sunglasses. “I see you’re still with the cutie pie,” he said. “Can’t say I blame you. She still modeling? You think she might be interested in doing some movie work?”

“She’s not that kind of girl, Bryan.”

Bryan raised his hands in mock surrender. “That’s not what I mean, man. Legit work, indy films, the likes. I’m sure the camera loves her. Fact is, I know for sure the camera loves her.”

Colin closed his eyes, tried not to imagine what it would do to Madeleine were he to touch her with the vision of her doing the kind of movies that he knew full well Bryan did once in a while for that disgusting producer friend of his, and pushed the image away as fast as it came so as it not coming up when he least expected it with Madeleine right there.

Bryan either missed or dismissed Colin’s internal struggle, for he took his sunglasses off and grinned. “Though of course if you ever tire of her and decide that maybe she would be good for those kinds of movies, I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“What do you want, Bryan?”

“What, a guy can’t just drop by to see his friend, out of the blue? I was out scoping a location, and then I thought ‘Hey, it’s been a while I haven’t seen my main man the Medicine Man.’ So here I am. Wanna get us drinks?”

Colin did not move. “It’s pretty offensive, you know?”

“What is?”

“That name. Medicine Man. Just sayin’.”

“What? Why? Didn’t you tell me that your mom was Cherokee or something?”

“Cheyenne, actually. And that’s pretty much why it’s offensive.”

Bryan shrugged. “I think it’s cool.”

“What do you want, Bryan?”

“I need a favor.”

Colin sighed. He had expected it. “I told you already. I told you on the phone when you called. I told you last time you dropped by scoping out a location. I’m not doing this anymore.”

“No, come on, listen. There’s this girl, and she’s perfect for this gig I got, and she’s getting cold feet, because she’s one of those that desperately want the spotlight but doubt that they’re good enough, I can tell, and she just needs a little nudge in the right direction, the kind of gentle nudge that only you can provide.”

“I told you—not doing that anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m done.”

Bryan looked at Colin with a long studied glance, then shook his head. “Well, that’s a damn shame. A damn damn shame.”

Colin said nothing.

Bryan twirled his phone a few more times. “Well then, I guess that’s that. But I’d still like you to do this last one for me.”

Colin wanted to protest, but Bryan looked at him meaningfully. “You owe me, Blackstone.”

Colin shut his mouth, and stared out the window. Outside, the Los Angeles winter light was noticeably different from that of the summer, although the temperature was still perfect.

Bryan was right, of course. Colin did owe him, for pulling him out of a jam of his own making several years prior, before Colin had discovered his Gift. Of course, Bryan had not stopped reminding him of said debt ever since.

Colin closed his eyes, and sighed. “Fine. One last time. And then I’m done, okay? I’m serious. I don’t want to keep doing this. It’s… wrong.” He tried to put as much certainty in his tone as he could muster, and he stared at Bryan, who nodded.

“Sounds good to me.” He leaned closer to Colin, and showed him his phone. On it was the picture of a girl, young, medium-length light brown hair—dyed, Colin figured—and glasses. She looked cute, the kind of girl you could fall in love with, innocent and with an easy smile.

“Her name’s Cindy Barnes, and she takes classes at UCLA. She’s sweet, and friendly, with this petite body with the kind of curves that’ll make you groan, and she’s interested in the movies, but she’s not sure. I know I can convince her to do a few roles, but that’d take time, and I’ve got a project that she’d be perfect for. And that’s where you come in.”

Colin did not react, but could easily read between the lines of what Bryan was saying. He was no fool. He knew what Bryan did—he was a genuine filmmaker, doing short films here and there, the odd indy movie, but he also worked for Georgios Pangalos shooting both softcore and hardcore pornographic movies. Bryan had tapped Colin in the past to help convince a girl to shed her clothes on camera, or open her legs on camera, or basically do anything on camera. Bryan did not know the details of Colin’s Gift—Colin never talked about it—but he knew that Colin had a swift convincing hand with the ladies. And in the past Colin had always obliged, many times enjoying the favors of said girl with Bryan and others while they were at it.

But that was all in the past.

Colin had changed.

Well, he was changing.

He was not that man anymore.

He could not help think about what had happened to those girls, some of which merely having the desire to become actresses, bamboozled into become porn stars against their wills—or at least so he assumed, but in complete honesty he did not know how his Gift worked. Sometimes he fantasized that the Gift simply brought to the surface something within the girls themselves, sometimes that they wanted to do but were too afraid to try, or too close minded to pursue.

Sometimes he dearly hoped so. Because otherwise, he was scum. And he could not believe he was scum.

Was he?

Madeleine would not love a man who was scum.

“Blackstone?” Bryan asked.

“Sorry,” Colin replied, shaking his head. He looked at the girl again. “Does she know what you do?”

Bryan shrugged. “She knows I make movies. Anyway. She hangs out at this bar near UCLA. Usually by a table in the courtyard. You can’t miss her. I’ve got the address, and I got her phone number too, if it helps.”

“Just text me the photograph. And the name of the bar. What does she do, anyway? UCLA student?”

“Don’t know. She says she took some courses there. I think she’s an artist. Who cares? She’s a bit of an airhead. You know the type. Nice body, nothing much up there. Fancies herself a student. Good only for looking pretty on film.”

Colin stared at the photograph on Bryan’s phone. Cindy. She had nice eyes, and a wonderful smile.

“Just have her call me when you’ve charmed her panties off. If she could be ready to shoot this weekend that’d be perfect. We’ve got a nice location scoped out for Sunday. Weather’s supposed to be nice too.”

Colin gave Bryan a last look. “Fine.” He stood. He had to go back to work. He suddenly felt like cleaning the back of the counter, make everything spotless. “She’ll call you Friday. But it’s the last time.” He said it with finality.

Bryan flashed him a smile. “Of course, Medicine Man. Of course.”

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Hodgepodge of Stories

Writing Journal: Looks like The Adjusters #59 will be delayed until next weekend—still some work to do on it. Thanks for your patience.

I've been pondering why the stories in Book V have been so much more difficult to write than the previous ones, and I think it's because the way I set things up, every story in Book V is essentially its own unit, and there's a fair amount of context-switching overhead every time I start a new one. For previous books, aside from book transitions, everything in an installment essentially flowed from the previous one, and I could ride the wave. Here, not so much.

Thankfully, Book V is almost done. Only one more installment after #59. And you can all guess whom it's about, since there's only one character we haven't really seen in V yet...



To keep you entertained during the wait, here are stories that I've caught my attention this past month.

Jaycuck has started a new story, Ripples in a Cuckolds Pond: “Nick, Nicole, and David - A Beginning.” A follow-up to his The One Less Traveled By which I thoroughly enjoyed. This is looks promising, since David looks to be much more dominant and forceful than Colin ever was.

I should also note that Jaycuck has a book out on Smashwords, Shattered Crystal, that seems to hit some interesting themes. I've only read the 20% free sample, and I'm on the fence. I'll probably eventually buy it: “Tim and Crystal were blissfully happy together, until Shane moved into their trailer park. The outlaw biker was mysterious, a little dangerous, and ruggedly handsome. Crystal was instantly fascinated by his sexy body and no-holds-barred lifestyle. Shane was happy to fulfill their sexual fantasies…and then introduce Crystal to the steamy world of stripping, Meth addiction, and drug trafficking!”

Into the Deep by One2many: “Prim and proper wife begins lusty journey into slutdom.” As the description says. Some nice idea in this first chapter. Promising.

Marin's Tale by Jawanaut: “A little bit of background.” The Literotica description says nothing. But it's the usual setup: husband want his wife to fool around with others, and she agrees. As of now, pretty well done, if fast. Promising.

User Friendly by Interstitial: “Sara signs up for a three month test of a new high-tech entertainment product prototype. The money is good – but what exactly is the product?” A straight up mind-control story that gets in fast and remains hot throughout. Very well done.

Dreamscape by Darbreslo: “A young scientist is enlisted to create a mind altering drug.” A bit of a slow start, but a very promising setup.

Comments Are Enabled by Villanova: “A girl makes a video, and it has unwelcome consequences.” Twisted, and I'm not sure where the author can go with this, but I love the idea.