by Morgan Wolfe
The Corolla pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the parking lot exit. In minutes it was on the winding rural road that led to the city. To freedom. To Candi. To revenge!
Am I Evil, Doctor?
“Trans what?” said Dr. Roberta Crofts-Bailey.
“Transcranial Influence,” Woody repeated. “Trans-cranial means head-to-head or brain-to-brain. Transcranial influence is the ability of one mind to influence another through thoughts. You could call it ‘mind control,’ but Dr. Popper didn’t like to use that term. He said mind control is making people into robots. Tell someone to bark like a dog and they have to, even if they don’t want to. With Transcranial Influence, you think ‘bark like a dog’ and they do it, but they think it’s their own idea.”
They were sitting on the sofa in Roberta’s office on the sixteenth floor of the Morgan-Chase building with a view of downtown Houston. On the phone, her new client had sounded sane enough. He told her he was a neurologist who had some ethical concerns and needed the opinion of an objective outsider. She’d thought maybe he was conducting a double-blind experiment with a new kind of drug. That was within the limits of possibility but this… this was wacky!
“Sounds like telepathy,” said Roberta, working to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
“It is and it isn’t. It works the same way but telepathy is basically like a phone call. You’re just communicating your thoughts to someone. Transcranial Influence is making people think your thoughts are their own. It’s also making them act on those thoughts.”
“Telepathic hypnosis?”
“Much stronger than hypnosis. You’re a psychiatrist so you probably know about hypnosis and its limits.”
“All about it. I have clinical training and eleven years of experience.”
“Then you know hypnosis can’t compel people to act against their beliefs or values.”
“That’s right.”
“Ordinary hypnosis can’t, but Transcranial Influence is much stronger. It’s like super hypnosis, except subjects have no idea they’ve been hypnotized. You can make people do anything you want. Or at least I can. That’s why I’m concerned.”
“Concerned about using, uh, Transcranial Influence?”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of temptation to misuse it. Dr. Popper said it was like the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. You know the book?”
“Whoever wore the Ring was eventually corrupted by it. Are you speaking of Otto Popper the neurologist?”
“The same. You’ve heard of him?”
“Every psychiatrist has. His work is the first chapter in any college textbook. He died not long ago, didn’t he?”
“Last year. He was my mentor, you might say.”
“He never said anything about mind control, at least not that I’ve read.”
“He wrote a book on it but never published it. He gave it to me so his discovery wouldn't die with him.”
“Why didn’t he publish?”
“Because it’s dangerous knowledge. The basics of Transcranial Influence are simple enough. Anyone can learn them. It’s sort of like playing the piano. You have to practice and of course it helps to have talent. I happen to have a real gift for it. Dr. Popper said he chose me because I was good and innocent, like a little hobbit. But you know in the book even hobbits can be made evil by the Ring. I worry about the same thing happening to me.”
Roberta worked to keep a smile off her face. Woody Goodman hardly looked like someone with super powers – maybe a little like Peter Parker, except before the radioactive spider bit him.
“What do you mean ‘evil?’ Evil in what way?”
“Um, not so bad as Hitler-evil, but in the last several months I’ve done things I never thought about before, things that some people might consider bad. Like I said, I have a gift for it and it’s become so easy that I sometimes do it without thinking it over.”
“Give me an example.”
“Last week I got stopped by a motorcycle cop for speeding. The cop was writing the ticket and, well, I changed her mind. She tore up the ticket.”
Roberta smiled. “I’d hardly call that evil but I see what you mean when you say it’s dangerous. If every driver knew Transcranial Influence, the streets would be full of speeders.”
“No, that wasn’t so bad but, well, she was a pretty cop so I had her give me a blow job.”
“You did what?”
“She sucked me off.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“No. She thought it was her own idea.”
“I see what you’re getting at,” Roberta said with a straight face. “That’s like hypnotizing a girl for sex. Some people would call it rape.”
“Even if she enjoyed it?”
“It’s no different than getting a girl drunk. Worse, since she didn’t know what was happening. She wasn’t in control of herself.”
“No but actually she did get something out of it. She learned how to give a better blow job.”
“Dubious reward.”
“Not to her. She was ecstatic.”
“Okay, we’ll say what you did was questionable at best. I don’t condone it but it’s not so bad it qualifies as evil.”
“But then I did something else with her.”
“What was that?”
“Before she got back on her motorcycle I had her take off her uniform.”
“And then?”
“She put on her helmet and glasses and rode off.”
“Naked?”
“As the day she was born.”
“Wait a minute, I saw a headline for that in The Huffington Post! You did that?”
“Afraid so.”
“She got suspended. She said she had no idea what came over her.”
“Yeah, I wiped it from her memory.”
“So just what other ‘evil’ things have you done with this ability?”
“Well, I’m living with three women right now, my ex-fiancé and the girls who used to be her roommates. I got a grant through Rice to do research on neurology, so we moved to Houston from Philadelphia.”
“You’re living with your ex-fiancé?”
“Uh-huh, I decided that I didn’t want to trade in my freedom for marriage just yet, so I broke it off. But I like Daisy a lot, Brownie and Happy too. In fact, I sleep with all three. Twice a week for every girl.” He smiled sheepishly. “I sleep alone every Sunday so I can get a full night’s sleep.”
“How does Daisy feel about your sleeping with her friends?”
“She’s fine with it. I put the thought in her mind and she’s perfectly content with the arrangement.”
“And I suppose you made Brownie and, uh…”
“Happy. The girls used to have other names but, well, they’re my pets, you know? So I gave them more pet-type names.”
“Pets?”
“Yeah, when they’re home they run around naked with little collars and name tags.”
“And I suppose they think there’s nothing weird with this set-up?”
“Not at all, but they don’t just think it, they really are happy with it. Like I said, when I put a thought in someone’s mind, it feels just like a real thought of their own. Transcranial Influence works like hypnotism does in the movies or comic books, except it’s easer – for me anyway. Dr. Popper didn’t like to call it mind control. I call it ‘mind hacking’ for short.”
“And can you hack anyone’s mind?”
“There are probably minds I can’t hack, though I haven’t come across any yet. Now Daisy’s mom has a strong mind. She’s a neurologist too. She and Dr. Popper were academic rivals. She didn’t like me because I was his favorite student. And she really didn’t like me seeing Candice.”
“Candice?”
“I mean Daisy. Candice was her name before I changed it. I was able to turn Emma—that’s Daisy’s mom—around with Transcranial Influence, but I worried about her eventually slipping out of control and causing problems so, well, I took care of that.”
>
Roberta was about to ask what he meant but Woody hurried on and she let him. The details of his fantasies weren’t consequential.
“See, I can plant a thought in someone’s mind and it will stay there but I can’t hack anyone at a distance of more than a dozen feet. For instance, I could never get close enough to the president to influence him, not that I want to. I have no idea where Addie, the motorcycle cop, is right now but even though I put a thought in her mind, I can’t do it now because she’s miles away.” He shrugged. “Well, actually I could but not easily. It would take time and effort.”
Roberta leaned back against the sofa. She was a short but elegant woman in her mid-thirties with reading glasses on a gold chain around her neck. She wore her ash-blonde hair in a stylish pageboy—pulled back today—with small gold teardrop earrings. On one wrist was a Michael Kors watch, on the other a discreet gold bracelet. Today she had on a maroon bolero jacket over a silk cream blouse with a charcoal pencil skirt that showed off her legs nicely.
Most female therapists favored casual clothes, not only for comfort but to put clients at ease. Roberta wore expensive clothing because it went with her expensive address and expensive fee. Psychiatry was a business and like any business, people tended to trust someone who seemed prosperous and therefore good at what they do. That was also why she kept her married name even though she was five years divorced. “Roberta Crofts-Bailey” sounded so much more upscale than “Roberta Bailey.” Treating CEOs and trophy wives was just as hard as treating middle-class people but it paid so much better.
She’d had second thoughts about seeing Woody the minute he’d walked through the door. He told her on the phone he’d just completed graduate school and he certainly dressed the part of a starving grad student: sneakers, blue jeans and a shirt from the Target clearance rack. Now that she could see how far gone he was in his delusions, she knew she didn’t want to waste time on him. She’d fob him off on drab Linda Riley, who was always eager for her plate scrapings.
Roberta took a deep breath. Her patient or someone else’s, she had a responsibility to be frank with him. If he’d gotten a doctorate at Templeton, he must be bright. Time for some tough talk. “Well, Woody, this is all very interesting. However, I don’t think you need to worry about becoming evil.”
“No? That’s a relief. Why do you say that?”
“Because this whole rigmarole about Transcranial Influence and the power you have to ‘hack’ minds is all an elaborate fantasy. What’s worrisome is you seem to actually believe it.”
She expected Woody to explode with indignation, but he seemed unperturbed. “It’s not a fantasy,” he said calmly. “It’s real. You saw the article about the naked motorcycle cop.”
“Yes and I’m sure you did too. For someone so far gone in a make-believe world, it was a short hop to imagining you caused that. Everything you’ve told me is a typical fantasy for a man your age. All young males engage in them, young women too. Women’s fantasies are usually romantic dreams. Men’s are more often unbridled lust. Sometimes they’re kinky, sometimes impossible. You’d be surprised at how many men imagine hypnotizing a woman to do their bidding. You’ve just built up a more elaborate series of scenarios. There’s nothing wrong or even sick about it. It only becomes a problem when you can’t distinguish between it and reality.”
“Everyone has sex fantasies?”
“Certainly. They’re most common in adolescence but they occur at every age. Sometimes people need to talk about them so they come to someone like me. More often, people keep them secret because they’re embarrassed.”
“What about you? Do you have fantasies?”
“Of course I do. It’s perfectly…” She felt something like a tickle on her scalp or maybe lower, behind her ear. Left side or right side? Well, whatever, it was gone now. “Excuse me, I lost my train of thought.”
“You said you had fantasies too.”
“Right. Of course I do. It’s perfectly normal. For instance, I fantasize about getting spanked.”
“You do?”
“Oh yes!” Roberta bubbled, suddenly and inexplicably eager to share her favorite masturbatory trigger with this odd little fellow. She leaned forward. “I imagine I’ve done a bad thing, like oh, refusing to finish my homework or clean up a mess. I get scolded and then spanked for it. Really hard whaps too! It makes me cry. Whoever spanks me makes me stand in the corner with my dress and panties down so that my little red bottom is exposed. For me, that’s a very strong fantasy. Just talking about it gets me hot!” She giggled.
“Do you have other fantasies?”
“Oh, lots! That’s one reason I went into psychiatry. To get a grip on them. What a relief to realize other girls fantasized too!” Another giggle and a blush. “Just not so kinky.”
“And you don’t mind talking about them?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve never confided any to a client before. People come to talk to me, not listen to me. A psychiatrist needs to present a very sober façade. I don’t mind telling you about them, though.” She leaned over and placed her hand on his leg. “What do you think of my little spanking fantasy?”
“I think it’s very arousing. This person who spanks you, is that a man or a woman?”
“Usually a man but sometimes it’s a woman.”
“And how does he spank you? Does he put you over his knee and hit you with his hand?”
“Well, sometimes but that’s usually not hard enough. I like to get spanked with a paddle, something nice and hard. Switches are okay but I prefer something broad so more of my ass gets walloped. My dad once spanked me with a ping-pong paddle. Just the thought of… Oh God, I’m getting wet!”
“Are you?”
“Uh-huh.” Roberta took Woody’s hand and guided it to a dark spot on her charcoal skirt. “Feel that?”
“You sure are,” Woody said.
Roberta bit her lip. A fantastic idea had just come into her mind. She’d only known her new client for twenty minutes or so but she had this incredible… Did she dare? She would!
She pressed Woody’s hand against her moist spot. “Woody, I have this… I’d really like… Uh, I’m having trouble getting this out. I’ve never asked a client to… ah…”
Woody smiled warmly. “Tell me, Dr. Crofts-Bailey.”
“Oh, please, call me Roberta!”
“All right, Roberta.”
She blushed. “In fact, call me… Berta. Would you do that?”
“Sure. That’s what your family calls you?”
“Not anymore. That was Mommy and Daddy called me when I was little.”
“All right, Berta. Now what is you want to ask me to do?”
“SPANK ME!” she shrieked. “Spank me, spank me, spank me, please. Oh, say you will. Oh God, I’d love for you to make my ass red!”
“You really want that? You barely know me.”
“I’ve never wanted anything more,” she said with desperate urgency. Roberta suddenly rose and undid her belt, pulling her skirt to her ankles. Woody thought she was going to take it off but instead she dived face-down across his lap, ass across his legs. “Pull my pantyhose down and lay into me! I can’t wait!”
He could feel her wet vagina on his thighs. “Berta,” he said with deliberation, “as tempted as I am to blister your bottom right now, I want to do this right.”
She wriggled on his lap, grinding her groin against his legs. “You can’t do it wrong,” she said, face buried in the sofa. “Just raise your hand and aim for my butt!”
“You don’t have a paddle or switch or quirt here?”
“Not in the office.”
“Get up.”
“What?”
“Get off me.”
“Not until you beat me raw!”
“I’m going to beat you raw all right but not with my hand.”
“Use your shoe then. Anything! Just don’t make me wait. I can’t stand it!”
“I want you to get off me so we can go to the store
.”
She turned her head and looked at him with interest. “Store? You mean like a novelty store? You want to buy a spanking paddle?”
“No, we’re going to a sporting goods store to buy a ping-pong paddle.”
“Oh GOD!” she shrieked. “Oh God, what a great idea! Oh that gets me so wet.” She squirmed off him and got to her feet. “Let me grab my purse and let’s go!” She took a step and tripped on the skirt around her ankles, toppling to the floor.
Woody rose. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, forgot about this stupid skirt is all.” Still on the floor, she raised her legs and shucked it over her heels, then ran to her desk and pulled her purse from a drawer. “Got it!” She headed to the door. “C’mon!”
“Berta,” said Woody. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She turned at the door, stylishly attired in her maroon bolero jacket, silk cream blouse and skin-colored pantyhose. “Forget? What? Oh! What time is it?”
Woody consulted his watch. One thirty-two.”
“Thanks for reminding me. Someone’s coming in at two and someone else at three. I need to cancel those appointments. Once you finish my punishment, you need to make me stand in the corner for at least an hour.” She pulled out her phone and texted her clients. A minute later she tucked it back in her purse. “All done. Let’s get going.” She opened the door and gestured to him. “What are you waiting for?”
“You need to put your skirt on.”
She looked down and giggled. “Oh! So I do!” She grabbed the skirt off the floor, sat on the sofa and hastily pulled it on. “Okay. Now let’s go. I’ll drive.”
“No,” said Woody, pulling out his phone. “I think we should use Uber.”
The pair in the back of his Buick were Mike Harke’s third ride of the day. They were odd ducks, the woman at least ten years older than the man. When they got in, she was dressed very chic, like a professional of some kind, maybe in marketing. He was dressed like a college kid. At first Mike thought maybe he was her younger brother but from their conversation it was clear they were a couple. They had him take them to a mall. The guy gave him three twenties and asked him to wait; they might be as long as a couple of hours. Fine with Mike.
