Victor watched from his chair behind the desk, his face impassive, his hands folded under his chin. On the sofa, a naked and horny Gina writhed and moaned as she drilled a large dildo deep into her cunt. She trembled as she hung at the edge, denied final release by a simple hold on her mind.

Victor leaned back. He had chosen not to share this artificial reality with Gina to better reinforce the illusion that she was alone in her own bedroom. However, he linked to the now growing bit of his essence in Gina's mind and monitored her thoughts.

The perception was holding this time, though he had to resort to a more mundane hypnotic trick to penetrate deep enough into her mind to make it stick.

Victor eased his control of her pussy. Gina let out a shrill cry, and her cunt clenched hard around the dildo as her hips bucked. Her fingers trembled as they fought to work the dildo and draw out her intense climax until she was spent.

The dildo emerged with a wet pop and fell from her limp fingers to the floor.

"Gina."

Gina blinked. Sexual ecstasy gave way to confusion. She struggled to sit up, her eyes darting back and forth before falling on Victor. "What ... where ...?"

"Where are you?" Victor said with a smile. "In my office, of course."

"In ... but I was ... I ... oh! Oh my!"

Gina's hands flew to her flushed cheeks as she looked down at her naked body.

"You took well to the directed imagery," Victor said. "Very well, indeed."

Gina looked up, eyes like saucers. She swallowed and lowered her quivering hands. She drew her legs together and wrapped her arms around her. She gave Victor a faint smile and a nod.

"Perhaps you are not quite as nervous now about your sexuality where others are concerned," said Victor.

Gina looked down and leaned over, her hand hovering over the dildo for another few seconds before she picked it up by the base. She turned it around in her fingers, holding it away from her, then drew it closer. The shaft was wet and smelled of her sex.

Victor observed without comment.

Gina raised her eyes to his again. "I thought I was in my room."

"And perhaps you really were, in your mind's eye."

She glanced at the dildo again before lowering it. "Did I really ...? Right in front of you?"

Victor nodded. "It is a very good start, Gina."

"A start?"

Victor stood and gathered Gina's clothes as he crossed the room. "I need to work with you some more. As I said, this is a start, but we must take it further. I see that you are on the edge of acceptance of your sexuality. That's why it was so easy to nudge you into masturbating before me."

A small shudder passed through Gina. She felt both scared and thrilled at the same time. It had seemed so real, she thought.

Part of her mind insisted it had been real, that somehow she had been transported to her room and back. Now the office seemed a little more cozy than when she had first arrived.

Victor gestured. Gina stood and accepted her clothing. "Come see me again tomorrow morning, same time, and we'll work on this some more. In the meantime, I want you to remember something. This is very important."

Gina nodded and looked at him, rapt.

"You must trust me, Gina," Victor said, his hand brushing Gina's arm. "Trust me implicitly. Trust me completely."

Gina's lips parted. Heat rolled over her. It feels good to trust, came her unbidden thought, and she shivered with soft delight.

Victor smiled and nodded once. "Now, get yourself dressed for your next class. I'll write you up something so that you're not marked for an absence"

"Thank you," said Gina in a husky voice.

Melinda could not get her heart to stop pounding as she crept along the main hall towards the counselor's office. Other students edged around her, sometimes with impatient sighs or bumps of their elbows against her arms and shoulders.

A gaggle of her friends on the other side of the hall saw her and waved. They gestured in invitation, giggling as they whispered to one another.

Melinda stopped and longed to join them and hear whatever new juicy gossip they had to share. For the past month, she had enjoyed a popularity outside the Harbingers that she had never experienced before. Having lived in the shadow of her big sister for so long, she drank it in with little regard to how it happened.

She sighed and shook her head. "Catch you later!" she called out. Miffed, one of the girls put her hands on her hips and gestured for the other girls to follow her as they left. Melinda frowned and clicked her tongue at them.

She started towards the door again and flinched when the door suddenly opened. A dark-haired girl emerged whom Melinda did not recognize. Melinda scrutinized her as she passed, but saw nothing more unusual than a somewhat spacey look to her eyes. Nothing dark trailed behind the girl save for her raven hair.

"Good morning."

Melinda's eyes snapped forward, and she gasped when she saw she had walked right up to the open office door.

"Apologies if I startled you," said Victor.

"Oh, uh ... s-sorry, I wasn't looking ..." Melinda trailed off. Her eyes darted from his head to his feet and back again.

"Are you here to see me or make an appointment?"

Melinda retreated a step as if only realizing now her close proximity to him. "Are you the school's counselor?"

"Yes, I am Doctor Victor Mann, but I prefer just Victor."

Melinda nodded, then shook her head. "Um, no, I don't want to see you. I just ... took a wrong turn."

It sounded lame to her, but excuses didn't matter now. She even managed a small smile.

"Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask you your name?" Victor asked.

"Oh, uh, I'm Melinda Sovert," Melinda replied. "I better get to class before I'm late."

"It was quite nice meeting you, Melinda. Please do call on me if you need anything."

Melinda's smile widened, and she scampered away. Two sets of lockers down the hall, she heard a voice behind her. "Melinda, hey! Hey, runt!"

Melinda whirled around as Heather ran up to her, Diane in tow close behind. "What?"

Heather rolled her eyes. "What do you mean, 'what?' The counselor, dummy. Did you see him?"

"Oh, yeah, I did. It's okay, he's clean."

Heather glanced back behind her. "He is? You sure?"

"Positive. Not a thing. It's just like Jason said, it's just some sort of coincidence."

Diane let out a relieved sigh. "Thank God. One less thing to worry about."

"I'll get a look at him myself after this class," Heather told her.

"What, you don't trust me?" Melinda demanded.

"Jason said for more than one of us to look at him, runt. I want to make sure he didn't do to you like Nyssa did to Jason."

Melinda rolled her eyes. "I don't get all giggly and silly in front of a good-looking guy like you do."

Heather smirked. "He was good-looking? Good of you to recall that detail."

Melinda's cheeks pinked. "Oh shut up, bubblehead! I have to get to class."

She spun around and bolted. Heather drew back just in time to avoid a slap in the face by her little sister's hair.

From the doorway of his office, Victor stood with his back against the door frame. He followed Melinda with his eyes until she disappeared into the throng of students. She reappeared for a moment through a break in the crowd, and he glimpsed her conversing with whom he assumed to be her sister Heather and Heather's lover Diane.

Victor allowed himself a small smile. He had not touched Melinda's mind at all. His more passive senses had told him that Melinda's mind had become sensitized to mental control. She would have known if he had made the attempt.

But as he had hoped, it was unnecessary.

The Darkness was relieved, as it had been unsure of the extent of the Harbingers' powers of detection. Now it and Victor knew where the threshold lay, that a mere mental link was insufficient to trigger it. This would dovetail quite well into Victor's plans.

Heather rushed to her second class of the day. She wanted to believe that Melinda had seen nothing on the counselor, but something bothered her. A sense of unease permeated her mind, not enough to conjure a vision of the future yet, but many such precognitions of dire events began this way.

She sighed, a husky edge to her voice. She needed the distraction of a minor crisis. The first stirrings of desire kept her pussy in a gentle heat. The crazy notion popped into her head that all the previous attempts to control her in class had left her conditioned to be aroused during the day.

She rounded the corner and stopped short when she saw Brad standing between her and the classroom. She clutched her book-bag strap, as if intending to pull it across in front of her for protection. Heather closed her eyes and forced out the breath she had been holding. Stop it. He's not under Melissa's control anymore and doesn't have that kind of power.

Heather took another breath and marched towards the classroom. She gave Brad an uneasy smile and intended to barrel past him until he stepped into her path.

"Um, hi," Brad said in a low voice. He shuffled his feet, and his eyes seemed unable to decide where to look.

Heather's tension eased somewhat. "Hi. Uh ... we better get inside if we ..."

"Heather, wouldya go to the Halloween dance with me?"

Heather blinked. "What?"

Brad bit his lip and sighed. "Look, I know you're ..." He trailed off and averted his eyes as a dark-haired girl excused herself and slipped between them and into the classroom. He continued in a lower voice. "I know you're into girls as well as guys, and I know you got a thing with Diane ... and I know you think I'm a jerk ..."

"Well, no, not really," Heather heard herself say. Her lips curled into a smile only once she was sure her words had come of her own volition. Well ... he still is a bit of a hunk after all, she thought, and had to suppress a giggle.

Brad paused, having heard the signs of feminine amusement and unsure of how to interpret them. "Anyway, I, uh, just thought ... if you wanted to go, and you didn't have a date ... or you weren't taking Diane ... um ..."

"Brad, I wish I could take a date to the party, but I can't. I'm being made to work at the party as a punishment, and I was told I couldn't have a date."

"Huh? Punishment? For what?"

"For that little incident in Ms. Hollis class where I played with my pussy. Remember?"

Brad's eyes widened. "Oh man ... Heather, you gotta believe me, I didn't wanna do that! It was Melissa that ..."

Heather lay a hand on his arm. "Chill out, Brad, I know. I'm not mad at you, but I can't exactly go to Ms. Hollis and say it wasn't my fault because some girl was mind controlling some guy into mind controlling me into doing it."

"Hey, uh, you really think that was it? Mind control, like outta some kinda freaky sci-fi movie?"

"I don't know how else to describe it, so yeah, I guess."

"How'd she do it? Fuck, how did I do it?"

Heather had no idea how to reply. She was saved from having to do so when the teacher inside the classroom cleared her throat loudly and drummed her fingers upon the desk. She gave Brad an awkward smile and ducked inside.

Cassie drifted into the hallway and paused, unsure of where she was. Several students nudged her aside in their impatience, her eyes casting a confused gaze towards them.

She emerged from herself only when she recalled she had just completed her second period class. She shook her head and sighed at another evening to be spent catching up with what she should have learned in class.

Her Dream Gift had done this to her ever since it manifested years before. She withdrew into herself for much of the morning while her mind made sense of the glimpses into the lives of the townsfolk she received the night before. To her peers she appeared zoned out, as if high, ditzy, or both. Her grades always suffered for it, but her parents did not seem to care. The family's money and breeding meant more than education.

Shaking off her self-imposed trance was too much work; it was far easier to let herself remain in a partial mental haze during the change between periods. Now that she was part of the Harbingers and her presence was required in the here and now, she had to shake herself out of her deep introspection after each class. It felt like climbing out of a deep pit, only to fall back in again, over and over.

Cassie rushed to her locker as her awareness of reality returned. She had not yet learned what Melinda had discovered about the counselor and was anxious to find out.

"Hey, um, excuse me?"

Cassie flinched and spun around, eyes wide.

She received an impish smirk in return. "Hey, sorry to scare you. Think maybe you need to chill a bit, huh?"

"Sorry, I just didn't see you there ..." Cassie said. Her voice trailed off as she stared.

The girl wrinkled her nose and swept curly blond locks out of her eyes with a toss of her head. "What's with all the staring? Jeez, you're the one that needs to get with it."

Cassie was unable to avert her eyes or prompt herself to speak for another few seconds. Tight shorts hugged the girl's hips; black stockings wrapped about her legs; high-heels were strapped to her graceful feet. Melissa had pushed the limits of provocative clothing in similar fashion during her brief reign of terror, and the similarity was enough to thoroughly disconcert Cassie.

A faint odor wafted under Cassie's nostrils, the smell of something stale or old, and vanished in the next breath.

"Sorry," Cassie said. "Um, something I can do for you?"

"Yeah, you can, actually. I got my class rotation changed on me for some stupid reason. I can't find Mrs. Phelps' class."

"Pardon?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Mrs. Phelps. You know, the old bat that teaches American History? Huh, she's old enough to have lived most of it."

"I'm sorry, I don't know any teacher by that name."

The girl frowned. "You're kidding me, right?"

Cassie shook her head, perplexed.

"Oh, for ... How the hell can you not know her? You retarded or something?"

"I just don't know who you're talking about. The only history teacher I know is ..."

The girl craned her neck over the crowd of students and grinned. "Hey, never mind, okay? I think I just spotted Jerry. Wait'll he gets an eyeful of this." She slid a hand down her ass and the back of her thigh. She dropped Cassie a wink as she tilted her hips. "Maybe he'll want to fuck me again tonight. Practice makes perfect, ya know."

Cassie blushed and smiled politely.

The girl giggled. "See ya around!"

She dashed off, heels clicking on the hard tiled floor. Cassie stared as the girl wandered into the now thinning crowd of students.

"Cassie!"

This time Cassie welcomed the voice behind her. Ned jogged up to her as she turned around.

"Heya, babe." Ned raised his eyes and looked past Cassie. "What were ya starin' at?"

"Oh, that odd girl over there that I was ... wait, where did she go?"

"That you was what?" Ned prompted.

"Never mind, she's gone now." Cassie's gaze lingered for a moment where she had last seen the girl. "What is it?"

"The others wanted me ta find ya and let ya know that the counselor got the Harbinger Anti-Evil Seal of Approval."

Cassie breathed a relieved sigh. "No Aura."

"Clean as the driven snow. Gonna get a gander at the dude myself after next class, but if the Super Sovert Sisters didn't see anything, doubt my peepers will either."

Cassie nodded. "Ned, how did Heather seem otherwise?"

Ned hesitated. "Um ... whaddaya mean?"

"I mean was she ... well ... was she getting that way again?"

Ned cleared his throat. "Can't say that I'd notice that sorta thing."

"You certainly pick up on when I'm like that," she said in a low, neutral voice.

"Uh, yeah, but yer special, babe. I kinda look for it."

Cassie smiled. "Still, with her, it's a lot more noticeable."

Ned shuffled his feet. "Well, okay, yeah, I think she was startin' ta feel it." Ned rubbed the back of his neck and fiddled with the buttons of his shirt when Cassie said nothing in reply. "She'll just hafta find her own partner, fer sure."

Cassie sighed. "You started to feel something, didn't you?"

"Uh, I was prolly thinkin' of ya the while time ..."

"This is what I was afraid of, Ned, that she can't control it."

"I wasn't gonna do anything with her, even if she up and asked me," Ned protested. "She didn't even really, like, come on to me. I mean, not directly."

"Not directly?"

Crap, my mouth is as big as my nose some days, Ned thought.

Cassie glanced past Ned and spared him. "We better get to class." She grabbed her books from her locker and closed it. She smiled at Ned, the concern in her face fading.

Ned grinned and watched Cassie walk away. He folded his arms and leaned against the lockers. He wondered how he got so lucky to have Cassie as his girlfriend. He couldn't imagine someone sweeter or more understanding than ...

"Does the school suffer from a structural defect I am unaware of, Mr. Lussander?"

Ned straightened and turned. "Huh?"

Vice Principal Seeger looked up, his eyes roving the ceiling. "Oh good, the roof did not cave in." He fixed his gaze on Ned. "I was so sure you were the only thing holding up this wall, thus saving the students of this school with your valiant and selfless effort."

Ned hesitated, then gasped in dramatic fashion and planted his hands against the lockers. His arms and legs strained as if holding the weight of a mountain. "Quick, Mr. Seeger, hold up the other end before it's too late! The lives of all the students are at stake!"

Seeger folded his arms and glowered.

Ned grinned and retreated from the wall. "Heh. Jus' kiddin'."

"Am I laughing, Mr. Lussander?"

"Ah, I'd say no."

In the brief silence that followed, Ned tried not to look nervous. Cassie would be very upset with him if he wound up pulling detention after only having pleaded with Richie to avoid the same.

"I will say the same thing to you that I have been saying to all potential troublemakers at this school," said Seeger. "Watch your step."

"Yes, sir," Ned said. "Consider my p's and q's minded as well."

Seeger frowned. "There has been a far too permissive attitude at this school since the semester started. Regardless of what others may think, I intend to put a stop to it. Take that message back to your cohorts as well."

"Um, got it, sir."

"Now get to class without further delay."

Ned hesitated a few seconds before leaving, his gaze lingering on the Vice Principal as if looking for something, but not knowing exactly what.

Heather hurried to her third class, her hatred of it notwithstanding. Her feelings had little to do with the incident that had earned the unusual punishment. That could have happened in any of her classes. Ms. Hollis herself engendered discomfort and a vague unease in Heather, which now grew only worse as she approached the classroom.

Her body was not helping matters. The wetness in her pussy would not abate, and it ached and throbbed in need at the smallest stray erotic thought. Melinda had been right, the counselor was attractive, and thinking of him had almost prompted Heather to proposition Ned. Only Diane's arrival had stopped her.

God, Cassie will just go to pieces if I did anything with Ned! Heather thought.

Heather once reserved her most scathing gossip for those girls that stole boyfriends from their peers. Ned was thus the invisible line that she could not cross. She had convinced herself that Jason was the exception. He was a close friend, he used to have a crush on her anyway, and Melinda was okay with it. Most of the time, anyway.

Her steps faltered when she saw a boy standing near the door to the classroom that she thought was Brad. She recovered when she saw she was mistaken.

Heather never thought Brad would want to come back into her life, or that she would consider it herself. Her raging libido tempted her with the prospect of having another willing partner with whom to satisfy her sexual appetite. But Heather once suspected Brad just wanted her for the sex, and it felt wrong to do the same in return. She needed to determine what was driving her lust first.

Heather barreled into the classroom and dived into her seat without a single glance up. She panted from both exertion and unfulfilled desire. Her cunt felt hot as she tried to keep her legs closed under the desk.

"Hey."

Heather's eyes snapped up. "Oh, uh, hey."

Brad gave her a crooked smile. "Um ... sure you can't get Ms. Hollis to let you take someone?"

Heather suppressed a sigh of exasperation. "I can't, really. Please, you're better off asking someone else."

Brad nodded and turned away, but murmured something under his breath. The only word that Heather caught was "already."

"What?" Heather said before she could stop herself.

Brad paused, then finally turned his head towards her in bewilderment. "Huh?"

Heather realized her mistake, but did not want to look foolish. "Didn't you just say something to me?"

"No, nothing. Look, I won't bother you about it any more. Sorry."

Heather felt she had done something wrong.

She reasoned that Brad didn't have to stay fixated on her. Plenty of girls wanted to go out with him, considering all the jealous looks she received from classmates she saw in the mall during the summer while they were going steady.

Thinking about Brad made her pussy swim in moist heat. She tugged her blouse up so it did not feel so tight against her taut nipples. When she realized this might be noticed and seen as an attempt to remove it, she yanked it back down. She bit her knuckle to suppress a moan when her hard nipples rubbed against the tight fabric.

She closed her eyes. At least this time she could count on maintaining self control. She had no urge to touch herself. She wished she could, but felt no compulsion.

She heard the classroom door close. "All right, settle down."

The din of conversation fell, and Ms. Hollis' rigid footsteps strode along the side of the classroom.

"Today will be the unenviable task of going over your midterm exam questions," she said. "Which, sad to say, will be mostly an exercise in pointing out how many of you got the answers wrong."

Heather was reluctant to open her eyes. Ms. Hollis rarely had anything good to say about the students, but excelled at finding fault. Like many of the Harbingers, her own grades had suffered that semester. Schoolwork was the furthest thing from her mind.

Ms. Hollis stepped in front of the class and dropped her satchel atop her desk. "All I can say is you all have to do better on the finals if you expect to pull a decent grade. And I will not grade on a curve."

She opened her eyes, and recoiled in shock as any mere academic concerns flew from her head.

Ms. Hollis' eyes suddenly focused sharply on her. "Yes, Miss Sovert, you care to share a comment?"

Her eyes glazed and her throat tight, Heather shook her head.

Ms. Hollis folded her arms. "You would not be having another ... episode ... about now, are you?"

Several students snickered. Brad glared at the teacher. A dark-haired girl near the front turned her head and looked at Heather.

Heather forced her throat to work. "No, Ms. Hollis."

"I would hope not. You are one of those that received such a miserable score." She turned towards the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. "All right, let's take this from the top. We'll review each question until you all actually understand the right answer. Question one ..."

Heather stared, and her heart thumped hard enough to make her chest ache. Ms. Hollis wore a cloak of inky darkness that trailed into writhing thin tendrils like hundreds of tiny snakes that slithered and snapped at the air. As she turned to face the class, the cloak lagged behind her movements. It twined around her legs and wrapped about her hips as if caressing them.

"Psst! You okay?"

Heather swallowed. Her eyes finally tore from the horrible apparition, and she looked around in confusion.

"Heather, you okay?" came the whisper again, more urgent.

Heather turned her head towards Brad. He leaned out of his seat, his eyebrows knitted in concern. Before she could respond, Ms. Hollis' voice rang out. "Mr. Weston, I would not be so confident in your ability to get the answer from her, considering she did little better on this one than you."

Brad shot the teacher another angry look, but drew back into his seat.

Ms. Hollis' eyes darted between the two of them, her lips pressed together, before she turned to the rest of the class. "Amazingly, there were some of you that got this one right. If one of you would volunteer to dispense your wisdom on the others ..."

Heather tried to calm herself, but to little avail. Events repeated in a cruel cycle. First Nyssa, then Melissa, now Ms. Hollis. She was separated from the other Harbingers, unable to quell or satisfy her lust, and helpless against yet another agent of the Darkness.

For the first time in awhile, Cassie was unable to draw into herself.

The trance-like state usually came easy to her, so much so that she had to fight to stay out of it if she felt the need to be alert. Her teachers were inured to it. They relegated themselves to an occasional sigh or shake of the head as a token protest.

The girl she had seen in the hallway disturbed her beyond just her odd fashion or strange question. Cassie wondered if she had missed seeing an Aura, as that would explain the inherent "wrongness" she sensed from the girl.

No, that wasn't it. The encounter defied classification, drifting between reality and hallucination. The images from her dreams would come back to her with incredible clarity and vividness. The girl was like one of those images manifested in physical form, both there and not there.

Cassie sighed and closed her eyes. Her mind remained in a jumble and denied her introspection. She was forced to think on other matters.

I can't do what Ned wants me to do, not if I can't get my own thoughts straightened out.

Cassie wanted to try, and that was what worried her. Nyssa's legacy still remained with her, making her conscious of desires she wished she didn't have. She wanted control of her own life and her own destiny, not control over others. Her new abilities blurred the line between the two.

If she had been one of the original four Harbingers to have been given their powers and mission by Mara, it would have been easier. She could believe that she had been entrusted with this ability specifically to use it.

She wished she knew if Heather were engaged in the same conflict with herself over her seduction power, or if she had just accepted it. Cassie had to reject the notion that Heather's power was for Heather's own gratification, otherwise she risked generating more bad feelings than the Harbingers already had.

Maybe I could get into Heather's head one night and try to find out what Heather is really thinking about ...

Cassie shook her head. That was out of the question. If she could not trust herself to maintain self-control, she could not be trusted inside Heather's mind.

She ignored the warm tingle that rippled through her pussy for a moment.

Heather kept her head down, struggling to work on the exercise that Ms. Hollis had given them to complete and hand in by the end of class to show that they had understood the review. Concentration was difficult. At any moment, Ms. Hollis would suffocate her will and twist her desires to her bidding. Heather glanced up every minute, expecting to see a grin of sadistic glee as the Dark fog seeped into her mind.

Heather heard a loud sigh off to her right. Her eyes shifted in time to see a girl throw down her pen onto her notebook. The girl tossed her head back and brushed dark brown hair from her eyes. Her next breath came out a low moan.

Behind her, a boy with a swarthy look and dark hair leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, whatsamatter, Ellie?"

Heather's eyebrows raised. He had spoken in a normal conversational tone, which might as well have been a shout in the silent classroom. Her eyes darted to Ms. Hollis. The teacher had not even looked up, all her attention on grading exams.

"I can't do this damn problem, Manny." Ellie replied.

"Too hard?"

She shook her head. "Too horny."

Heather stared. Did she hear that right? She must have misheard, perhaps because of her own...

Heather's jaw dropped when Ellie pulled her shirt up and over her head and kneaded her boobs through her bra.

Manny grinned and got out of his seat. "Let me help you with that," he said in a voice of undisguised lust. Before Heather's incredulous gaze, he unhooked Ellie's bra and started fondling her breasts himself. "Wow, you got nice tits."

"I got an even better pussy," Ellie moaned as she pulled down her zipper.

"Nice and wet, huh?"

"Come see for yourself."

Heather was too stunned to react as Ellie turned in her seat and let Manny pull off her jeans and panties. She spread her legs and threw her head back, a deep moan rising from her throat as Manny dropped to his knees before her and began licking her pussy.

Heather swallowed as her own pussy flashed hot. She tore her eyes from them and looked up at Ms. Hollis. She seemed oblivious, her head still down over her paperwork.

Heather looked towards another part of the class. Another boy had noticed what was happening. He lounged in his seat, grinning and pointing them out to his friends. At first, Heather was relieved that she was not hallucinating, until another girl approached the boy. She leaned forward and kissed him, her hand groping his crotch as she whispered something in his ear.

"Sure thing, Tammy, I'd love to fuck you," he replied.

The boy pulled off his jeans and briefs. Tammy shimmied out of her skirt and panties. Soon, both moaned in unison as she sat in his lap and humped his large cock.

Oh. My. God.

Heather caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and saw Ms. Hollis looking right at the copulating couple. Her gaze then swung to the first two. Her face betrayed no reaction whatsoever. The next second, her head was down again, her pen scribbling across an exam paper.

Another two paired off, both girls this time. Heather gasped, knowing at least one of them to be as straight as an arrow. Yet now the two were sharing a seat, one in the other's lap, kissing and groping each others breasts.

Heather pressed her hands to her temples and willed herself not to moan. Her thighs quivered about an aching, swollen pussy.

Again, Ms. Hollis looked up. Again, she looked around. And again, she simply went back to what she was doing.

Heather was confused. Why control everyone else and not her? Unless ...

... unless ...

... there was nothing wrong at all.

Heather blinked and shook her head. That made no sense! Of course there was something very wrong. This was not normal.

More moans rose all around her. More students shed their clothes. Hands fondled tits, cocks slid into eager mouths or willing pussies, tongues licked at wet folds. Heather panted, her nipples tenting her bra cups and tingling with each press of her breasts against her blouse as she inhaled.

Now Ms. Hollis had lifted her head again, and this time she appeared to pay more attention. A small smile of approval touched her lips, as if in response to nothing more than a student answering a question correctly.

Heather's head spun. She was sure this had to be wrong, but everyone was acting otherwise. She knew they had ...

... that they were ...

... that they were doing the right thing.

That couldn't be it, could it? That it was okay to have sex right out in the open like this in front of everyone?

The moans and pants swelled in steady chorus. Couples fucked, sucked, licked, and fondled in erotic abandon. Heather let out a ragged sigh, her eyes dark with desperate lust. She wrapped her arms about her, shivering hard in unrequited desire, both pussy and nipples aching and throbbing.

"Hey."

Heather looked up. A naked Brad looked down.

Brad grinned. "Need a fuck?"

Heather's lips parted. She stared at his pulsing cock with intense hunger and moaned. "God, yes ..."

So addled with lust and shaking with anticipation as Brad undressed her that she did not notice Ms. Hollis' lips curling into an evil smile.

In his office, Victor stirred from his meditation and leaned back in his seat.

Crude and unimaginative, the Darkness spat in his mind.

Victor nodded. He had expected as such. Terri wielded her power as a blunt instrument. She used a sledgehammer where a scalpel was needed.

She has none of the finesse you do. An utter waste of your power, Victor.

"On the contrary," said Victor as he laced his fingers together. "She will serve as an excellent lightning rod."

The Darkness fell silent. It would bow to his wisdom in this matter. For now.

Gina, model student that she was, finished the exercise early with no errors. She did not need the assignment, as she had achieved an "A" on the midterm, but Ms. Hollis had chosen not to single her out for special treatment.

And like any model student, she spent her free time reading ahead in the textbook to the following day's lesson.

The class was quiet, Ms. Hollis having made it very clear that she would tolerate no chatter whatsoever, that anything spoken would be assumed to be an attempt to cheat. All Gina could hear was the squeak of a chair as a student shifted in his or her seat, the scratch of pen across paper, and the occasional shuffling of feet.

And soft panting.

Gina raised her head. Panting?

She listened and heard nothing. She must have been mistaken. Why would someone be panting? She lowered her head and resumed reading.

A low moan sounded somewhere behind her.

Gina's head rose once more, perplexed. She wanted to look around, but with Ms. Hollis' directives restricting her movement, she could see little from the front row save for the students in her immediate vicinity. Someone from off to the right and behind her let out a long sigh, blowing out his lips as he shook his head at a question that was befuddling him.

That must be what she had heard and just misinterpreted it.

Yet before she could return her attention to the textbook, she heard another soft noise, like cloth or clothing falling to the floor. The panting sound returned, now almost directly behind her.

Gina was curious now but did not want Ms. Hollis to think she was trying to cheat. She arranged her desk so that her completed exercise lay face-down at the edge furthest from her, glanced up at Ms. Hollis, then turned around in her seat.

As she turned, she caught fleeting images at the corner of her eye. A glimpse of a naked breast, a flash of damp pussy, a ...

Gina blinked, and the strange images dissolved into nothing.

Her eyes fell on Heather, who sat the next aisle over towards the back. Her head hung low over her textbook. As Gina watched, Heather's eyes shifted to her assignment pages, she jotted down something, then returned her gaze to the textbook.

For a brief moment, Gina was sure she had seen Heather ...

(everything is normal)

Gina blinked again. Movement flickered across her vision like a ghostly afterimage from a bright light. Yet Heather remained as she was. Eyes on textbook, shift to the assignment, write something down, back to the textbook. Gina saw nothing more than ...

(what you expect)

... what she should ...

Gina turned around in her chair to face front just as Ms. Hollis' gaze swept over the classroom before returning to her papers once more.

The weekend was happening all over again, the odd, distant voices in her head trying to influence her.

A few minutes later, Ms. Hollis' raised her head again. Her chin rested on her folded hands, a rather odd smile on her face. She seemed to be looking at someone.

Gina risked another turn in her seat and discovered Ms. Hollis was looking at Heather.

She stared hard at Heather. Textbook, assignment, write, textbook. Over and over in the same exact rhythm. Something was ...

(normal)

... subtly wrong with ...

(what you expect)

...

"Miss Caligano."

Startled, Gina spun around. "Yes, Ms. Hollis?"

"Eyes forward."

Gina nodded and settled in her seat. "Yes, Ms. Hollis."

Victor stood with his hands behind his back, gazing out the window at the swaying trees. His small sigh was lost in the muffled roar of the wind.

He sensed what was going on in Gina's mind. He saw Terri's manufactured perception slipping.

She is incompetent, the Darkness complained. Stupid cow. She's better off as a slave herself.

Victor shook his head. "No. It is not that."

The Darkness did not respond, but he could sense it seething. It didn't like to be contradicted, but he was sure he was right. True, Terri was inexperienced, and attempting to maintain two competing perceptions at once was taxing her, evident in the repetitiveness of her imagery. She wielded the power too rigidly, bludgeoning instead of nudging, imposing her will with an iron hand rather than finessing people's weaknesses into potent weapons.

This had nothing to do with Terri's competence. It had everything to do with Gina.

She was still resisting somehow. It did not follow quite the same pattern as his biggest failure, the one whose evidence sat cold and decayed in a grave in the cemetery. Yet he had to be careful. Another slip, and it would be twenty-one years ago all over again.

And then there would need to be another grave, and another cover-up.

Feedback

Did you like this story? Hate it? Printed it and lined the birdcage with it?

Please take a moment to send me some comments about this story. Your comments may remain anonymous if you prefer, or you can include an email address in your comments if you wish a reply.

Since this is a multi-part story, you may wait until the last chapter to send feedback about the story as a whole if you wish.