Superdupervenience

[superdupervenience]

Gail

I went out walking. Nobody knew I had gone. I was restless, like snakes writhed through my torso. I didn’t know what was wrong. Nothing bad had happened. Yet I’d been feeling like this, a little more every day, for months. I went out to feel and breathe the cold night air, hoping to freeze the poison. It was maybe 3AM. Everyone else was asleep.

She must have heard me leave. Her room was next to mine. She came out of the house and ran up behind me in the dark. “Are you going on an adventure?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied, smiling. I’d wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to yell at her and tell her to go inside. I liked her. She was sweet, and cute, and I liked the idea of being the uncle who let her do fun things the other adults wouldn’t allow. “Wanna come?” I said.

“Yeah!” she whispered excitedly, as we passed the chicken pin. “But don’t tell Mom, ok? She’d be really mad.”

“Never,” I told her, and hoisted her onto my back. We took off toward the pond, and she told me about her dolls and their favorite kinds of food, and about what she wanted her life to be like when she grew up. She wanted horses.

“A whole stable,” she said, “Like a noble lady, with black ones and white ones and brown ones, and I’d train them every day.”

I set her down when we got to the far end of the pond and neared th forest. “I had my own horse when I was little,” I told her. She looked up at me, and in the light of the nearly full moon, I could see her eyes widen like I’d just announced I was secretly the king.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” I said. “His name was Lord Alfred.”

“What color was he? What happened to him?”

“He was blond, with a snowy mane. He got old. Horses don’t live as long as people.”

Her face fell. “He died?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I said.

We walked down a narrow path, and the moon’s light was blocked by the treetops. Gail bumped up against my leg, and grabbed my hand. “Are there wolves in these woods?” she said.

“Maybe,” I said, “but they won’t bother us. There are a lot of rabbits this year, and they like those a lot better.”

“Wolves are scared of big people,” she reassured me, “that’s what Mom says. But she told me never to go out alone at night, because I’m not big yet.” She pressed closer, grasping a tiny hand-full of my trouser seam. “But they’ll be scared of you, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Even if we see a wolf, I won’t let it hurt you.”

“Do you have your knife?”

“Yep.” I patted my pocket. Not that a little pocket knife would be much good against a wolf. But she seemed satisfied by that, and relaxed her grip.

We walked for a long time. She stretched and yawned, and I thought several times that I should bring her back. But I still felt that poisonous restlessness, and was compelled to be swallowed by the heart of the forest. I could always carry her out if she fell asleep.

Which she started to do, after not too long. She struggled to keep up, and rubbed her eyes. “Let’s go back,” she said.

“How about I carry you,” I told her.

“Ok,” she said, and reached up. The tips of her fingers barely reached my waist.

She was so light. That’s one of the things I remember most clearly about that night. It was like lifting a kitten. Her body was delicate, and soft.

She wrapped her arms around my neck, and her legs circled my waist. She squirmed to position herself so that what little weight she had rested on my hip bone, and I held her calf briefly as she adjusted. My fingers easily met my thumb, completely encircling the limb. She yawned, then leaned her head over my shoulder, nuzzling my neck and sighing. Her breath deepened almost immediately, and she slept.

I carried her for a long time, out into the forest, farther from town than I’d gone in months. The only sounds besides the quiet crunch of leaves beneath my feet were the night birds, the crickets, and her steady breathing.

The distraction of conversation gone, my mind returned to the restless feeling in my stomach. It had been growing, even while I wasn’t paying attention to it. It was much worse now than it had been when I’d left the house. It burned now, blazed, insistent, like thirst in the middle of last summer when the well was full of rot, like sex before I learned to relive myself on my own. It was an overpowering craving - but I had no idea what it was a craving for.

I came to a clearing where a tree had fallen and moonlight poured down through the hole in the canopy. I laid Gail on a soft patch of grass, covered her with my jacket, and sat down on the mossy log.

I breathed deeply, trying to calm myself. My heart was racing, and my throat was tight and burning. It had never been this bad before. I needed, so badly I needed. I tried to look into my mind, to feel carefully for the source of the desire.

But I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think of anything but the sick tightness in my chest and stomach, the feeling that something huge and powerful growing inside me was choosing this moment to tear its way out of my skin.

I leaned forward, supporting my torso with my elbows on my knees, bouncing my legs and rubbing my palms together. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, then dropped my head and covered my face in my hands. Silently, hoping not to wake Gail, I cried.

I felt so much like a drowning man fighting for air that I suddenly wondered whether holding my breath, as long as I possibly could, might shift my mind’s focus. Maybe, when I finally did breathe again, I’d feel relief from all of it at once. At the end of a sob, when all the air was expended, I shut my mouth and clamped my nostrils between my thumb and forefinger.

The pain in my lungs started after maybe twenty or thirty seconds. I opened my eyes, held my nose tighter, and pressed my other hand over my mouth. I saw Gail, pale and peaceful in the moonlight. The pressure in my chest increased. Gail stirred, but just to reposition her arm to cover her eyes. The intensity of the suffocation did seem to combine with the intensity of the other need, whatever it was. As my vision began to blur, it became difficult to tell the sensations apart.

Gail’s arm was so tiny. She was weak and vulnerable sleeping on the forest floor like that. I pictured the delicacy of her limbs, and imagined how they would crack, just like a twig, if she were held too tightly.

I was starting to lose consciousness, I realized, and through the fog of pain consuming my body, I imagined myself grabbing her arm - I tried briefly to push away the horrible thought, but found I had no control left over my mind - imagined myself cracking it, and the snapping, the splintering sensation beneath my hands, and then I imagined her scream -

And I released my grip on my nose and mouth, and gasped, letting all the air back into my lungs, heaving shuddering sighs in and out. Gail heard me, and lifted her head to look.

“Uncle Mateo?” said her high voice. “Are you ok?”

But I barely heard her.

The vision that had begun would not stop. It was pouring through me like the air through my lungs. Her high-pitched scream, my hand over her mouth, my grip around her neck, her heels beating helplessly against the ground, the momentum of her body as I lifted her to bash her head against the rotting trunk.

I was growing. The creature that had been trying to tear through my chest relaxed, as I became large enough to accommodate it. Expansive and powerful. Indomitable.

The craving wasn’t gone, but it was transformed. It had a name: Destruction. Death. Pain.

At last, I knew what I had to do.

I stood, and stepped toward Gail. Then I stood over her.

“Uncle Mateo?” she said again.

I leaned forward, started to put a hand over her mouth. And then I stopped, grinning with a deep joy I’d never felt before, and reached instead for her shin.

“What are you - “ she said.

And then I snapped her leg, and she shrieked, high and pure and perfect.

I dropped her leg and froze, closing my eyes, listening to the sound of her immaculate suffering. Imagining her confusion and betrayal. Imagining her terror. Imagining her pain.

And then I took the jacket I’d draped over her, grabbed her beneath both arms, and threw her at the log.

She sailed through the air, still screaming, and her face smashed against the bark with a wet thud-crack.

I lifted her by her hair, and draped her over the fallen tree, so that her ribs pressed against the bark. I drew my pocket knife, touched the tip to her side midway down her back, between two ribs. I leaned forward, feeling the resistance give way to a smooth puncture. I twisted.

The scream went on, and on, and on.

I withdrew the knife, and stabbed again. I cackled, feeling tissue tear, feeling blood trickle down my arm, feeling her struggle as I held her in place by the back of the neck.

I put my knife away. Then I pushed her harder into the tree and rolled her slowly from right to left, cracking each of her ribs, one by one.

I inhaled deeply, over and over, feeling like I was breathing fire, and with every exhale I laughed.

Then I flipped her over, thrusting my arms down on her pelvis and chest, and I heard her back snap.

I was conflicted then. I could stand back, and listen to her wails until she finally died. That would be delicious, to let it linger, to savor every last moment until the end.

But I couldn’t do it. I had waited too long, too long not even knowing what I was waiting for, and now here it was.

No more waiting.

Now.

I wrapped both of my hands around her throat, and squeezed. Her screaming cut off with her breath. And then her pale face began to darken as her features twisted.

She looked up at me with dying eyes.

I wished I could be inside her mind, then, to taste her experience directly. I had been her king. Now I was her killer. What is that like, to a six-year-old child?

And then she went still. Her eyes were open, unseeing.

I let go of her neck.

Then I lifted her head with one hand, braced the other against her chin. And with one sharp twist, I snapped her neck.

I moaned, feeling the vibration of the sound through my body, feeling more alive than I’d ever imagined possible.

I straightened up, radiating elation like heat from a barn fire. I just stood there, for - I don’t know how long, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour - letting the newly released predation wash over me, through me, letting it sink into every part of me.

However long it was, those were the happiest moments of my life. I still dream about them now and then, and for a heavenly time, I believe it’s all just happened, and I am free.

Eventually, I threw her body into some bushes, picked up my jacket, and left.

[israelfinn-deactivated20160902]

“Dreamer Above the Mist”

[superdupervenience]

Kink evolution

Kink one month in: I like spanking and bondage and D/s! No limits, will try anything once!

Kink one year in: I like canes, paddles, and floggers, but not thuddy stuff, and I'm interested in pet-type subbing. Can we negotiate some electricity after the violet wand workshop?

Kink three years in: I am extremely interested in a scene involving me being a human cheese board as part of my ongoing cabin boy/Pirate Captain D/s relationship, and my other play partner really wants to add beating me with a baguette. This is before my workshop on how to turn plastic grocery bags into suspendable material for rope bondage, and next week I'm going to a three-day intensive on community building in the Looney Toons furry scene.

[superdupervenience]

"He shrieked at me: I KILLED MY WIFE FOR A SWEET DEAL ON A CONAIR CURLING IRON. And I thought: my god, but he's bald. #talesfromblackfriday" https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23talesfromblackfriday%20from%3AChuckWendig   

[slatestarscratchpad]

Highlight of tonight’s SSC meetup:

- I am standing outside looking for stragglers to direct them into the room

- I see a likely-looking person and ask him if he is here for the SSC meetup.

- He says that his name is Richard Stallman and he is looking for someone to help him arrange a musical piece he is working on, and he saw a lot of people congregating and wondered if any of them were musical arrangement experts.

- I say I think I have heard of him, and isn’t he some sort of famous computer person?

- He says yes.

- I poke my head back in the room, bang on something to get people’s attention, and shout “RICHARD STALLMAN IS OUTSIDE AND NEEDS SOMEONE TO HELP ARRANGE A PIECE OF MUSIC FOR HIM”

- Someone tentatively volunteers

- ???

- Profit

[superdupervenience]

Totally named a monastery and cathedral in my novel after him. “Saint Stallman’s”

[femsubdenial]

Thanks again to JJNaughtiness! This time for writing a very Suesstastic piece of satire about all the “50 Shades” hubbub, and also for allowing me to post it here on Tumblr.

Now, the kink-bellied peeps, they had bellies with kinks. And the vanilla-bellied peeps had none they would thinks. Those kinks weren’t so strange, some liked clamps and some spit, You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter one bit.

But, because they had kinks, all those kink-belly peepses Would brag, “We’re the coolest of peeps on the streetses.” With their snoots in the air, they’d sniff and they’d snort, “We’ll have naught to do with the vanilla-bellied sort!” And whenever they met even ‘swingers’ out walking, They’d walk right on past them without even talking.

When the kink-bellied peeps had meetings or munches, Or play parties, sub dinners or Dominant lunches, They never invited their vanilla-leaning friends And they never smacked them on their rear ends. They kept them away, never let them come near, And that’s how they treated them, year after year.

Then one day the vanillas were looking for something to read When a writer popped up to fill this strangest of need. “My friends!” she proclaimed, “my name is E.L. McDonalds McJames! And I’ve brought you something to make you less plain! I’ve come here to help you, if you’ll just take a look At the stories I’ve concocted in my series of books! My work is quite twisted, some would say non-consensual, With sentence structure and grammar that might be unconventional, But just pay me your money and you’ll find with great speed I’ll make you perverted, and that’s guaranteed!”

Then with enthusiasm quite rabid and fanatical The vanillas they studied it as if on sabbatical. The plotline it jerked. The subtext it berked. The characters woodened. But the thing really worked! When the vanillas got done, they didn’t shout “Horrid!” They raved at this series when they ought have been bor-ed.

And when it was read, all the vanillas had kinks! They actually did! They found kinks in their thinks! Some they liked floggers. And some preferred knives. Some liked to wear diapers. And some others’ wives. And some liked to be tied up. And some big gang bangs. And some liked to bark wearing tails and long fangs. Some were quite horny. And some were cuckolded. Some were choked tightly. And some they were scolded. Some liked to abuse and some liked to be hit. (Together, they found that those made a nice fit!) They found all sorts of things that got them off and realized kinks weren’t a thing at which to scoff.

Then they yelled at the peeps who had kinks from the start, “We’re exactly like you! You can’t tell us apart!” “Good Gravy!” groaned the ones who had kinks from the first. “We’re STILL the best kinksters and they are the worst. But now, how in the world will we know,” they all frowned, “If they got kink from a book, and now like submitting down?”

Then E.L. McDonalds McJames said with a sly wink “Here, read for yourself, and see what you think. So you don’t know exactly what the book says that’s ‘Not Twue’. Well, buy one and read it, then you’ll know what to do If one of them mentions old Christian McGray You can look down your nose, and send them away. You’ll know the TRUE kinksters from pretenders with books who only just recently have taken up what’s been took. You’ll detect the Gray Shades of pretension in these phonies and just like CBT, you can smoosh their balonies! Once again you’ll be the hippest peeps on the streetses And all it will cost you is Fifty Bucks eachses.”

Then, of course, from then on, as you probably guess, the kink scene fell into a horrible mess. The Doms they hated it, subs they berated it, Tops and bottoms dissected and debated it. Masters they flitched about it, slaves they bitched about it, Switches they giggled and glabbered and glitched about it. Not one recommended that trash to another. But they all read that book, from cover to cover. They didn’t want to, of course, they’d much rather have been playing, Or whipping, or biting, or sensual caning, Or wearing latex strapons, or, on each other, peeing. But they had to keep up on what many others were seeing.

And when every last cent of the money was spent, that writer packed up all her kink books and went. And she laughed as she drove away in her Porsche in a fit, “I can’t believe I sold a gadzillion copies of that horseshit!”

Now, the kinkster community was tossed and upended. Those who loved humiliation were deeply offended. The rape play fans all felt exploited very bad And tickle torture lovers all were quite sad. So the kinksters they knew what it meant to be disgusted By the acts of another of whom they distrusted. And the vanillas consoled them in this, though they still said what a wonderful book it was that they’d read.

So the vanillas and kinksters, I’m quite happy to say, Grew a little closer to an understanding that day. The day they decided that fun is just fun And kinky or not, if you get off, you’ve won. That your fun and my fun may not always match, but that doesn’t make one all wrong in the batch. The day they saw getting tortured in bed Was not better or worse than painful novels instead. The day all the peeps they forgot about kinks And whether they had one or not in their thinks.

[superdupervenience]

Wow. That is incredible writing and I don't quite know how to express my appreciation for it. I'm not sure if I've ever read anything that hot before. Thank you.

:-D :-D :-D

[superdupervenience]

The Device

Content Note: non-con, orgasm denial, abduction, bondage The creaking of rusted hinges.

She lifted her head, and instantly regretted it. Stabbing pains pulsed through her neck and shoulders. Her wrists were suspended above her head, as they’d been when she’d finally fallen asleep. An icy draft hit her skin, and she shivered.

Two men in winter coats stepped into the shed. The taller one had visited before--she’d gathered that his name was “Seven”--but the other was new. Both wore coats, open to reveal no more clothing underneath, save a velvet collar each, and two fully erect penises. The shorter man had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. They moved toward her.

Their cold hands clamped around her legs--she didn’t bother struggling--and shackled her ankles to a couple of bolts on the grimy floor.

Reaching into his bag, the shorter man took out the dreaded Device, and Ashley began to whimper. She knew it was useless, but she couldn’t help begging. “Please,” she cried. “Please don’t! Not again! Please.” Her aching shoulders were beginning to shake with sobs.

Neither man so much as met her gaze.

The shorter man slid a cold metal dildo into Ashley’s vagina, and she trembled. There were two cords at the base of it, hanging out of her and trailing off in opposite directions. One ran toward the wall and was plugged into an orange extension cord. At the end of the other cord was a large hitachi-like vibrator.

She was crying hard before the hitachi even touched her. Nothing hurt. Not exactly. The aching in her shoulders had gone completely out of her mind. The only pain was the pleasure.

She couldn’t remember how long this had been going on. More than a week, less than a month. Visits several times a day, sometimes every hour.

The burning was deeper than her clit, now, broader than her pelvis, taking hold of her whole body and mind. It was all she could feel as she anticipated the imminent torment. She felt her vaginal muscles involuntarily contracting in a slow rhythm around the metal. She needed an orgasm, couldn’t survive without an orgasm, and she knew the damned Device would never let her come.

She’d been a masochist, in her previous life. She was used to taking a lot of pain. But this she could not handle. There was no letting go into this feeling, no submission that could make such intensity bearable.

The Device could tell when she was close. It turned down the vibrator, only to turn it back up again once she’d cooled off slightly. It had just been frustrating at first, but the torture of it got worse every time.

There was a serpent made of fire writing inside of her now, twisting and constricting around her internal organs. Day and night, it never stopped, the burning, always moving, the deafening craving always pounding in her head. She would surely lose her mind.

Today was different. As she looked at the vibrator, heard its hum getting closer, she wanted it to touch her. She still knew she would never be allowed to come, but she craved the stimulation nonetheless.

Perhaps she had lost her mind already. She’d not wanted it like this since the very beginning, back when she didn’t understand the game. She sweat and shivered, the cold fear of her own reactions meeting the burning need.

“Ten,” said Seven, “wait a moment.” Ten pulled back, looking up at the taller man by the door. Seven was staring intently at Ashley’s face. He stood there, just watching, for several seconds. Then, “I think it’s time.”

Ten grinned, and made eye contact with Ashley for the first time ever. For a moment Ashley thought he might speak to her. No one but the man she was forced to call Master had spoken to her since she’d arrived. She was treated like a dumb animal, like her own words were meaningless squeals.

But Ten stayed silent, and quickly averted his gaze, reaching between Ashley’s legs. She felt a small click as he flipped a switch on the Device. An LED on the vibrator changed from blue to red.

Ten stood aside as Seven fished in his pocket for a key, which he tossed gently at Ashley, who flinched and tried to block with an elbow. The key bounced harmlessly off her stomach and clattered on the concrete, shining against the grime. “Right,” said Seven. Ten retrieved the key from the floor, reached up, and unlocked Ashley’s right wrist.

Her arm fell limply at her side. She felt nothing. Nothing but the inner burning and the fear.

Ten began to massage her lifeless right arm, beginning at the shoulder and moving down. The pins and needles started. After about a minute, most of the feeling had returned to her arm, and her shoulder held a combination of aching and tremendous relief. The pain dull. Not enough to drown out the craving. Not even close.

Then Ten placed the vibrator in Ashley’s hand.

Tears splashed on her wrist as she tilted her head to focus on the vibrator. Something was very wrong. She felt as though she were holding a grenade. She was so frantic she couldn’t think straight.

They had handed her precisely what she needed so badly. All she had to do was turn it on. But confusion slithered through her panic. There was a reason she hadn’t wanted the vibrator to touch her clit. What was it?

Right, it wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t come.

But her mind wouldn’t let her hold onto that thought. Her attention slipped right over it, unnoticed, and onto the screaming need to feel the vibration on her clit. She didn’t care about coming, such was her delirium. She needed stimulation NOW, and the future wasn’t real.

She looked up at the guards--or slaves, or whatever they were--hoping for some sign that she wouldn’t be punished for what she was about to do. No such luck. But she couldn’t wait any longer.

She flipped the switch on the hitachi, and pressed it to her throbbing clit.

She gasped, startled. It was too much at first, she was so sensitive from the extreme arousal. But she could handle backing off even less, so she left it there, willing her body to adjust and accept the sensations.

It quickly complied. She collapsed internally, surrendering into the quenching ecstasy. Not aware she was doing it, she let out a deep moan of pleasure.

In under five seconds, she was ready to come. Right on the edge, so close, aching more than ever but almost feeling relief just from the anticipation, her muscles tight and preparing to spasm--

And the vibrator slowed.

“No,” she breathed.

It didn’t shut off completely, but it reduced its frequency enough to bring her down slightly. “No no no no no!”, louder this time. The horrible, agonizing nature of the game resolved finally into focus. “No PLEEEEAAASE no no no…”

Her memories returned to her sharply then. The countless edges, perfectly timed by the Device to steal her orgasms and keep her writing in anguish. This, she realized, was just one more episode in her nightmare.

How could she have forgotten?

But she was thinking again, despite the torture. She reached for the cords resting on her exposed labia, took hold--

And received a blinding electric shock, shooting from her vagina through her abdomen and all the way to her fingertips, setting every nerve on fire. She screamed.

The men by the door chuckled.

She sat there, stunned, panting, still desperate. So desparate. The shock had re-muddled her thoughts. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d pressed the vibe to her clit again.

The edge came even faster this time. Three seconds. Again her focus returned, and when the vibrator slowed, she was ready. She began to move the vibe up and down across her mound, over her clit, increasing the stimulation manually.

Again, a blinding shock.

Again, the laughter from the slaves. They were enthralled. She flipped a switch and turned the vibrator off.

Ashley was so disoriented. Her mind was shattered. She couldn’t put the pieces together, couldn’t couldn’t... Back in that maze of disjointed sensation. Burning arousal, pounding heartbeat, panting, shock, silent vibrator in her hand, bewilderment. Thinking was like clutching at whisps of smoke, but she kept trying, ketp trying, because there was no other way to get what she needed. She had to solve the problem.

Without flipping the the hitachi back on, she started to move it back and forth across her clit again.

And received another painful shock.

Shrieking in frustration and rage, she decided to drop the vibrator. Maybe if she moved fast enough, she could use her hand before they stopped her.

But the moment she loosened her grip, another shock came--from the hitachi itself this time, sending a signal through the muscles in her hand, forcing them to tighten, cramping her fingers around the wand.

Fuck, no. Please, she thought to herself, there must be something, some solution, please find it I have to find it I HAVE TO COME.

She couldn’t drop the hitachi. She couldn’t rub it against herself. She couldn’t disable the Device. She was trapped, and the parts of her mind that needed to cooperate were falling away from each other instead. In the tiny moment before she fell completely apart, giving up at last, she found one final hope:

What she should do was nothing. She should stop contributing to her own torture. Don’t feed their game.

But even as she thought it, she knew she couldn’t do that. Her body wouldn’t let her. Her mind was shattered and there was nobody left in control, and the burning need for stimulation was strongest among her various factions.

There was no decision. She turned on the vibrator, pressed it against herself, held it steady.

She edged, it slowed, she didn’t move a muscle. It slowed. She was still so close. It slowed some more. Almost shut completely off. She was rage and pain and desperate hope. She continued not to move, trying to even out her breathing, trying to relax her muscles, trying to trick the Device. And failing utterly.

With a loud hum, the vibrator sprang back to life. This time she really thought she would come, that she’d beaten it finally.

But it slowed again, at the very last instant. Of course. It always had, it always would.

“Not long now,” said the Ten to Seven.

“No,” Seven replied. “She’s one of the quickest yet. I wonder if He’s already picking out her collar…" He grinned. "Shall we?”

The creaking of rusted hinges again, and the door to the shed slammed shut. This time Ashley wasn’t there to notice. Not as a whole person. There was only vibration, wetness, hunger, vain hope, and an endless, furious frustration.

[superdupervenience]

I had a dream that I was abducted, tortured, and dumped at an academic conference where my professor paid my entrance fee. It seems my brain thinks it can satisfy all my desires simultaneously.

[superdupervenience]

Murder by Firelight

[Erotica involving abduction, rape, and torture.]

She might have survived had she not been wearing a sundress.

Not that I had a problem with the slutty-going-clubbing look. The trash that tumbled from the 10th Street bars in great drunken herds made my claws curl around the cool leather steering wheel when I passed. A quiet whimper escaped my throat as I imagined my hands closing around the neck of each who caught my eye. But I kept on driving.

The night was warm, and the college girls clad in next to nothing. So many of them. Why must they travel in packs? I searched for a straggler, weak and abandoned. A mile and a half down the road, I spotted one walking alone. She seemed down; a breakup, perhaps? I slowed to examine my prospective prey. Brushing away a stray chocolate lock, she teetered dangerously on her fuck-me heels. Tears cascaded down her mascara stained cheeks—and onto her smart phone. Shit. I hate texting. Sighing in frustration, I moved on.

The migration toward the frats was thinning. I passed a few more packs, two solitary but strong and relatively sober looking girls, and another weeping over her phone. Just when I was about to give up the hunt for the night, I spotted her. The redhead in the white sundress. Pristine, peculiar, forsaken. Her face was mostly hidden, but I could see from a dozen yards away that her hands were shaking. She had trouble holding her broken sandals and kept dropping them, bending over repeatedly to fumble for them on the pavement. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable. Her slender figure might snap in two from little more than a strong look. She tossed her fiery mane, revealing light pumpkin freckles.

I’d found my perfect victim.

I followed for a while, evaluating and scheming. I had a syringe full of tranqs in the glove compartment, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She dropped her sandals again, and this time she fell flat on her cute little ass while picking them up. Promising. I pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. “You ok?” I asked soothingly, smiling as innocently as I could manage. She buried her face in her hands and her tiny shoulders shook with sobs. “Are you lost, love?” She looked up briefly, nodding. God she was beautiful. Painfully so. “Can I give you a ride?” She didn’t even answer. She just stood up (after a few attempts), opened the passenger side door, and hopped in. “Where to?” She shook her head despondently, mumbling something or unintelligible. “What’s that?

“Home,” she managed.

“And where is home?”

“South? I think.”

“South it is,” I assured her, and headed North. She buried her head in her hands.

“Have Aspirin?” she asked, clutching her hair in polished pink fingers.

“’Fraid not,” I told her. This is too damn easy. “But I’ve got some water if you’d like. Here.” She took. She drank. Three minutes later, she slept.

I brought her to the edge of the forest just beyond the yard. I tied her to the old red oak, binding snugly at her hips and shoulders to support her while she slept. Beside the lantern hanging from a branch was fastened a pair of iron shackles, which I’d installed specially for her. I raised and anchored one limp wrist, then the other.

She was out for well over an hour, making set-up a leisurely affair. I had little left to do; I’d even built the fire earlier that day, so that I now had only to light it. I double checked the line of tools I’d set out beside the tree. It was important to me that all be in perfect order. Not for safety reasons; the abduction couldn’t have gone more smoothly even in my fantasies. I was no longer worried about getting caught. But I wanted my first time to be elegant. I wanted to focus on the vibrancy of her final moments, on her agony and terror, on her death--not on where I’d misplaced the duct tape.

She was still out by the time I’d finished. I leaned back against an adjacent tree trunk, sipped my beer, and took all the time I wanted just to stare. I pondered whether to place the noose around her neck now or later. The transformation of confusion to terrible realization would be so crisp were I to do it now. Exhilaration roared inside of me with sudden intensity as I imagined it. The monster was stirring. Soon my true self would arise to devour this helpless girl. As the patterns of shadow and firelight danced across her naked body sprawled defenseless against the bark, I felt an odd combination of peace and excitement. I could almost hear the gentle click, click, click of the pieces of my life falling together from across the years to deliver me into the moments just ahead, with the fire beside me, the shackles above me, and my victim before me. I saw her head tilt to the side and her eyes begin to flicker open, and at last the monster took over. At last, I was free.

Fear and realization followed surprisingly quickly after complete disorientation. Given the depth of her drunken stupor not three hours prior, I’d expected the screaming to begin much later. No matter; we were miles out of ear-shot, and there are few sounds as thrilling as the shriek of a woman pleading for her life. The nearly silent sobbing of a woman defeated and broken, perhaps, or the howls of one in perfect agony—but all, of course, in time.

My cock was already hard as marble and throbbing to escape as I removed the ropes. The shackles were sufficient now that she was supporting her own weight. I wanted to see her dance, and for that she’d need some room to move.

She was bombarding me with desperate questions I didn’t bother fully to decipher. This was no time for chit-chat. It was enough that they seemed to evidence the proper state of mind. She was fully aware, terrified, and had yet to accept that very soon, at my hands, her bright young flame would go out.

“Lift your feet,” I told her. She did not comply. Quickly I drew a knife from my pocket and grabbed one of her fingers. “Lift your feet,” I repeated, “or I’ll cut it off.” She got quieter, and the fear in her eyes seemed to double. Slowly, she obeyed, hanging now from the cold iron that cut into her wrists and hands. She cried quietly, and tears landed delicately on her breasts.

I filled a large gardening shovel with small coals from the fire and held it in front of her. She expected me to toss them at her. “Don’t!” she screamed. “Please. I’ll do anything.” I grinned broadly at the sentiment, but remained silent. The coals I instead scattered beneath her feet, adjusting a few to ensure a cool, solid footing would be nearly impossible to maintain. Then I stood back and told her to stand. She protested. I swung at her right thigh with the rounded back of the shovel.

She howled so loudly and perfectly that I could barely contain myself. I moaned, pure pleasure surged through me, and I nearly took another swing. But I really did want her to stand, and a second blow would surely shatter what was likely an already fractured thigh bone. “Stand,” I ordered over her frantic weeping. She did her best, hopping from coal to coal in an attempt to find a spot that would not melt the tender soles of her bare feet.

“Good,” I said softly. Now, choose a hand.”

“What?” she cried.

“I’m going to release one of your hands so you can touch yourself. Which is dominant?”

She cried harder. “I don’t--” Again I drew my knife, this time holding it to her throat as I moved behind her.

“This is not a discussion,” I softly snarled. “Choose a hand, or I’ll kill you now.”

“I’m right handed,” she whispered.

“Good girl,” I whispered back. I kept the knife at her throat as I reached up to unlock the right shackle. When I felt her hand clench around my wrist, I dug in slightly with the blade--not enough to draw blood, but enough to make my point. “Touch yourself,” I said, “not me.” She hesitated. “I’m done repeating myself. I think you know now that I mean what I say.” I took her free hand in mine and guided it down her stomach to rest on the small patch of red fluff over her pubic mound. “Listen carefully and keep quiet,” I instructed, “because I’ll say it only once. Understand?” She whimpered, but did so quietly and nodded ever so slightly. “You’re going to masturbate for me. As you do, the pressure from this knife will increase. It won’t stop increasing until you come. If you don’t come, the blade will eventually slice clean through you jugular. If you do-- well, I might like it so much I get excited and slit your throat anyway, to be honest.” I chuckled. She whimpered again and squirmed beneath me. It felt heavenly. “But you’ll probably live, for now, if you do as I say.” There was a pause. “What are you waiting for?”

Her trembling fingers began to circle her tiny clit. I held her head in place with one hand, and pressed the blade, slowly and gently, into her neck with the other. She masturbated for a few seconds, but soon was sobbing too hard to continue. “Just because you stop,” I told her, “doesn’t mean I will.” A single drop of blood fell to her collarbone and glistened there, almost black against such pale skin by firelight. “I know you know how to get yourself off. Your life depends on it.” A few more drops fell, then gathered into a trickle. Not long now. I’d had some other things in mind for her, but this would be a perfectly fulfilling kill as well.

Just before the trickle became a cascade, I felt her body tense and begin to convulse. I let up on the knife lest I kill her through carelessness. She threw her head downward, crying and pleading uncontrollably.

...to be continued...

[superdupervenience]

Phenomenology of Masochism

[This is an attempt to put into words what I experience as a masochist and sub during a scene. 'Twas written in early 2012.]

First, excitement and anxiety. I know I am about to be beaten. I want it exactly as much as I don't. I am so thoroughly conflicted when presented with his desire for me to follow his instructions that I quickly subsume it. At that tipping point, things start to get quiet. Everything outside of the scene slowly melts away. There are no more decisions for me to make, no more concerns about how to ingratiate myself with a new group of people, no more worry about expectations to be met. Anticipation of the pain I am about to feel occupies so much of my mind that there is no room for anything else. In no time at all I even forget that others are watching. Penetration of that kind of silence by a single instruction is magical. I do, think, and feel what and only what he wants. At the heart of submission is a deep and sacred peace.

The next few minutes are a struggle between rebellion and acceptance. When the strike connects and pain erupts, my mind tries to run away. But I don’t run. The bonds are mostly symbolic. I fight to accept the pain and let it sink toward that peaceful heart. I scream, an attempt to release some of what tries to run so that I can accept with stillness and grace more of what he gives me. By this time I am sobbing. With each blow I let go a little bit more.

A few moments at the end are nearly perfect. He’s quieted my will. My body and mind have relaxed. When the bamboo bites the pain is cool and soothing. It’s an exfoliant for the soul.

He unties me, and I feel like the aftermath of a summer storm: battered, refreshed, alive, and liberated.

[superdupervenience]

After the Concert

[This is hypnoerotica from early 2013. It includes covert hypnosis and rape.]

Trepidation and irrational trust sparred for priority as May watched Daniel drape his coat over the sofa. They’d only just met, and she was crazy for inviting a stranger into her house so late at night. But there was authority in the way he moved, in the calm certainty with which he spoke. Somehow, he made her feel safe.

He turned around to meet her gaze, that single piercing look sending a wave of excited anticipation through her body. He just stood there staring. She didn’t break eye contact despite her discomfort as the silence stretched and stretched. Her heart fluttered. Her cheeks flushed. Her awareness shifted and settled into a strange and distant corner of her mind.

Finally, he spoke. “Can you actually play all of these instruments?” he asked, indicating her small string collection.

For a moment, she didn’t notice he’d asked a question requiring a response, and it wasn’t until he looked away toward the music room that she could actually process it. She avoided his eyes as she answered. “Most of them, though I’m not nearly as comfortable with the bass. I spend most of my time with the cello and the violin.”

“And the piano?” he asked, positioning himself directly before her. She turned away and pretended to tidy the counter top. Damn her hands for shaking.

“In high school it was my primary instrument. Now...” His arm brushed hers as he leaned against the counter. She felt dizzy.

“Yes?” he prompted. He was very close now. Focusing on the conversation was a tiring burden. With great effort, she grasped at the tails of her dissipating thoughts for a coherent reply.

The piano. Right. “Now I mainly use it for arranging.”

She wasn’t sure what he was doing to her or how. This was not the familiar kind of sexual tension. Excitement and heat were how it was supposed to go, not this... this cold craving to be subsumed, to be pulled beneath the surface of... what?

“I was watching you closely during your solo in that Brahms piece tonight. Opus 38, I believe? You seemed utterly... absorbed. Focused, yet uninhibited.” He was so close to her. She could smell the aged leather scent his jacket left behind. “Tell me, what is it like when you’re up there?” He took her hand and turned her to face him. She froze as sensation erupted from the point of contact. She kept her head down.

“It’s...” she began. But he tilted her chin upward then, and when she met his gaze directly, the kitchen began to spin and then to melt away. She was confused and frightened, but she felt compelled to continue, to do as Daniel asked. “It’s like the world gets very small.” She paused, stunned by the eerie impression of hearing her own words as though someone else had spoken them. Struggling to concentrate, she closed her eyes tight and forced her mouth to keep talking.

“It’s just you and the instrument, and somewhere you know you’re making decisions to play certain notes at certain times, that you’re the one in control.” As she spoke, his fingertips slowly traced a line from the inside of her elbow toward her palm. “But that place gets so far away. You pour yourself out through the music until you have no will of your own and you just... dissolve... into the sound...” When his touch reached her wrist, May’s voice was barely a whisper.

“And all there is is what you hear?” he suggested. Slightly startled by the sound, she opened her eyes. Again that piercing, steady gaze. She nodded, silently.

“And you can’t tell the difference between yourself and the immediate sensation of sound.” That wasn’t a question. “You no longer feel a need to make distinctions, or to worry about anything at all. A perfect release. A deep relaxation. Effortless. Like breathing. Just listen to it. In, and out. In... and out.”

He raised her hand slowly until she was looking at her palm, struggling to keep it in view while her eyelids dropped helplessly farther and farther down. He moved it back and forth for a moment and watched her eyes follow lazily as he placed his free hand on the back of her neck. Just as her eyes finally shut, he pressed her palm to her forehead, and with a tiny forward tug she collapsed completely against him.“Sleep, May,” he commanded. “Very good. I’ve got you. Just relax. Sink deeper and deeper. Good.”

******************************************************************************

“You don’t need to do anything but drift. Just drift, and listen, and follow the sound of my voice.” She sighed, and he waited for the previous instruction to sink in. “There is nothing but the sound of my voice, and nothing to do but to submit to it.”

Daniel couldn’t have imagined a smoother induction. He spoke in a low and firm voice, matching his rhythm to her breath. She’d followed the leading like a dream. There was no resistance left in her. He’d vastly deepen her trance later, but for present purposes she was already well past what was needed.

He stabilized her and brought her up just enough to walk on her own. Once she was safely in his car, he deepened her slightly for the ride.

It was pleasantly surprising that this had actually worked. He’d once believed that you can’t hypnotize someone who isn’t willing to enter trance. But the will can be so precarious. Perhaps all that is needed to subvert it is a seed of desire and a well-timed nudge.

He knew, though, that May would not desire what was about to happen to her—and all the more rewarding would be his success.

She was exquisite. Her deep chocolate hair fell across her shoulders and rested at her collar bone. He gently brushed it aside to expose her pale and delicate neck, stretched temptingly as her head lolled against the window. Even as he basked in the innocence of her perfectly relaxed face—lips slightly parted, lids closed, forehead soft and broad—he imagined how much more pleasing would be those features when contorted in terror and pain.

******************************************************************************

Blackness reluctantly gave way to white fog, then finally to full awareness. After the confusion, crashing waves of panic threatened to drown her as May struggled to move and found her limbs tightly bound.

She was cold and naked. Her bare breasts were pressed against a wall, and her arms and legs were held wide apart by shackles that cut into her wrists and ankles when she tried to move. She started to turn her head to look around, but a hand grasped the back of her neck firmly. May screamed.

“Don’t you dare move a muscle,” Daniel snarled softly into her ear. “If you try to turn your head again I’ll snap your pretty little neck.” She whimpered and trembled, but she did not move. “Do you know where you are?” he asked.

“What is this?” she shouted. “I don’t—“ CRACK. She was cut off by a sharp lash across the small of her back. Pain blossomed from that point and consumed her whole body for a moment. When finally it cleared, Daniel’s breath was at her ear again.

“I said, do you know where you are?”

“No,” she answered. “I—“

“Do you know how you got here?”

“I can’t remember. We were in my kitchen and then… I think I fell asleep. Did you drug me?”

He chuckled. “Oh no. You went out sans physiological assistance. Sans much assistance at all, in fact. You have a strong imagination.”

Another lash across her back. This time the pain was so intense her muscles started to give out. The shackles on her wrists bit into her skin as they held her up against the wall. She felt warm blood trickle down from her shoulder blades. “And apparently a desperate need to be mastered. You were wonderfully cooperative. I’m curious, what do you see when you look up at your wrists?”

Her forehead rested against the wall as she sobbed quietly. Daniel was talking, but his meaning didn’t register. Another lash, this time across her ass. The pain was definitely getting much worse with each strike. She nearly passed out.

“I told you to look up.” Daniel grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. “What do you see?”

“I see the ceiling. I seem my hands.”

“Yes, and?”

“I see shackles. I see blood.”

Daniel laughed, releasing her hair so her tears fell directly onto her breasts. “Amazing,” he said. “Visual hallucinations are usually extremely difficult to accomplish. I’m delighted that you took the suggestion to heart. I knew an artist would make the best prey. Such a powerfully creative mind. You know, I think you deserve a reward. Edge.”

The moment he spoke that final word, May felt her muscles contract as her body leapt immediately to the edge of a violent orgasm. “Hold,” said Daniel, and she balanced precariously--bewildered, terrified, and profoundly aroused.

“And tell me what you feel when I do this.” The crack of a whip and blinding pain, though not dulling the the ache of desperate pleasure. She arched her back and spread her fingers and toes as she shrieked, pressing harder against the wall. It didn’t feel any longer like a simple whip. The pain seemed to tear deep into her core and explode outward through her whole being. She hung heavily from her shackles, barely noticing their sharp metal edges by comparison.

“Well?” Daniel purred. “What do you feel?” She didn’t think she had the strength to answer. But leather lightly brushed the skin of her back. The knowledge that caress might turn suddenly to lash at any moment set her nerves on fire.

Terror and arousal had gathered to a physical point and were following the teasing whip. She knew what would happen if she didn’t answer. The words were drawn out of her before she’d decided to form them.

“Hurts,” she gasped. “Hurts so much. Scared. N-need to come.” She listened to herself weep. She was beginning to dissociate.

“Excellent,” he said. “Come, then.” CRACK. This time she didn’t feel it on her back. There was no definite source of the pain, and no clear distinction between pain and pleasure. She was simultaneously pure agony and pure relief. No thoughts, no subject, no object.

And then, intensifying into oblivion, May fainted.

[superdupervenience]

One Level Deeper

This is fanfiction of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is the most important fiction I've ever read.

***********************************

"Mr. Potter, you've been standing out there for nearly five minutes," Professor Quirrell called through his foreboding office door. "You're worse than Miss Granger. And you are about to be late to my meeting. I do not like when people are late to my meetings."

  The door opened, and Harry took a few steps back from the highly amused harbinger of Doom--who, strangely, seemed to have left his doominess elsewhere today. "Whatever you fear, young Ravenclaw, it cannot be more frightening than earning my animosity." He returned to his office chair.

  "That," Harry conceded, "is a most compelling argument."

  "Yes." Harry stopped in the doorway for a few moments, dumbfounded by what he was seeing. At first he thought they must be in a totally different part of the castle. But no, it was the same office he'd been in before. Only each detail had been adjusted to create an atmosphere that clashed with everything he knew about professor Quirrell. It seemed... welcoming. Comforting, even.

  The lighting was soft. A hint of musky incense wafted toward the door, and the air was warmer than in the hall outside. The bookshelves were draped in translucent green fabric, obscuring all but the faint outlines of their contents. The furniture was more appropriate for curling up with a novel than for private lessons. A thick fluffy carpet covered the marble floor. The few knick knacks had been removed, and the desk was clear save for a small unlit candle, perfectly centered.

  "Mr. Potter," said Quirrell, smiling, "sit." He gestured toward the overstuffed armchair opposite him across the desk. Harry complied, and was startled again when the chair adjusted beneath him, hugging him gently. He got the disturbing impression it was relieved to be sat upon.

  "You seem ill at ease, Mr. Potter. Is something the matter?" Quirrell looked genuinely concerned--indeed, now that Harry considered it, his manner actually matched the room to some extent. He found that far more disturbing than the chair.

  "Well, no, not exactly," he replied slowly. Harry struggled to articulate his thoughts, shifting nervously. The chair readjusted accordingly.

  "You are wondering, among other things, why I seem to have taken decorating advice from Professor Trelawney." Quirrell was speaking softly in a particularly low register, and he seemed to be taking extra care of his vowels. The effect was... well, it was soothing, actually.

  Harry had imagined many possible scenarios unfolding today, but this was definitely not one of them. "The usual atmosphere of my office is not conducive to the purpose of this particular meeting," the professor explained. "Many believe occlumency must be learned by brute force, that a mind repeatedly assaulted will learn to defend itself more quickly than one tenderly guided. This is false. It is merely difficult for the foolish and impatient to take a more subtle approach."

  "You're going to... to 'tenderly guide' my mind?" Harry barely kept his jaw from hanging open.

  The corners of the Professor’s lips twitched upward. "Yes." He sat back in his own chair, which had not been replaced with an overstuffed sentient cushion.

  There was a long pause in which Quirrell was infuriatingly smug, and Harry was trying to stop his head from backflipping so violently. He ran through several reality checks to ensure he wasn't asleep before concluding that the real world really was out to lunch.

  "As much as I'm enjoying this,” mused Quirrell, “I'm afraid I'm going to need you to stop trying to not be confused. We'll get nowhere if you insist on making sense of everything that happens today. You’re welcome to attempt to sort things out later. Understand that I wear many hats, and leave it at that for now. At the moment, I need you to let your guard down. Will you do that for me, Harry?"

  Harry pondered the request for a long time. Professor Quirrell was the last person on Earth around whom Harry felt it wise to let his guard down, especially in light of his recently acquired knowledge that Quirrell was a telepath. On the other hand, if Quirrell wanted to harm him or violate his privacy, it wasn't like Harry had much say, guarded or not. That was, after all, the point. Finally, he answered: "I'll give it a try."

  "Splendid. Before we begin, I'll need your word not to speak of this with anyone. The particular instructional techniques I'll employ may evidence that my abilities as a legilimens are rather a lot more advanced than even Dumbledore suspects. As I'm sure you'll understand, I'd like to keep it that way."

  Harry nodded. "Of course. You have it."

  "Good. Now then. It will put you at ease to know that I will not be reading your mind. Not in the way you fear, anyway. A sufficiently skilled legilimens can detect the structure of thoughts without intruding upon their contents. I shall monitor abstract patterns and emotional overtones, but that is all the information I'll need to guide you effectively, at least at this stage. I'll continue to obtain whatever other information I desire the hard way. Do you understand?"

  "You'll know how I think, but not what I think."

  "Precisely. In addition, remember that legilimency generally is not mind control. I will not force you directly to think or behave according to my will."

  Harry tilted his head hesitantly. "What exactly do you mean by 'directly’?"

  The Professor pondered this for several seconds--an unusually long time for him--before answering. "The choice to follow my instructions will always be yours. Your thoughts will remain entirely under your own control."

  Harry smirked at this. "Cognitive science is a very new field, but we understand enough already to know it doesn't work the way you’re suggesting.”

  Quirrell seemed puzzled, so Harry went on.

  “Come to think of it, we hardly need to look much farther than philosophy here. Let’s say something is my choice if--and only if--my wanting it to happen causes it to happen. What causes me to want it to happen?”

  Harry paused, gathering his thoughts. “Well, that’s probably really complicated, but it at least has something to do with unconscious parts of my mind. The things in my unconscious are there for a whole lot of reasons, none of which are that I am currently deciding for them to be there. By definition, actually. If things I never wanted and caused to happen can affect the overall makeup of my mind--things like where I was born or how long I slept when I forgot to set my alarm--then you can too. Magic or no."

  Now Quirrell looked a little worried.

  “I assume,” Harry concluded, “you mean I will retain whatever degree of control over my thoughts I usually have."

  "I'm afraid the degree of control you usually have is the best I can offer. I’m astonished that muggles have discovered such things without the use of legilimency, but we will have to save further discussion of it for another time.”

  “Agreed,” said Harry.

  “It would not benefit me to harm you, Mr. Potter, or I'd have done it already. You have my word that I will not. Will that do?" Harry nodded his consent. "Let us begin, then."

  "What do I do?" Harry asked. His heartbeat suddenly seemed quite loud.

  The lights dimmed further. "First of all, watch this candle flame." The candle spontaneously ignited. "Keep watching it. You won’t take your eyes off the flame, no matter how relaxed and drowsy it makes you. Other than that, you don't need to do anything besides what comes naturally." Harry watched the flame. Professor Quirrell continued speaking, very slowly, and with increasingly long pauses that matched up with Harry’s breathing. The rest of the room around the candle flame quickly faded out. It was as though his visual cortex had simply given up on interpreting any other information.

  "The purpose of today's lesson is to enhance your powers of introspection. As you already know, there are many features of consciousness most people routinely neglect to attend to. The ones we'll focus on today are called 'surfaces', and they are the first structures a legilimens encounters when attempting to enter your mind."

  Harry's heart had slowed down. A lot. Quirrell seemed to be speaking from much farther away than the other side of the desk. Surfaces, thought Harry. Got it.

  "This will take a type of concentration you've likely never experienced, for which relaxation is essential. Following my instructions will induce that relaxation. But you needn't be concerned with following my instructions when it does not feel completely effortless to do so. This is not a test--and, I assure you, you will enjoy it immensely."

  It was not effortless to keep watching the candle. In fact, it was becoming quite difficult. His eyes wanted to blink heavily, to drop their gaze from the very bright light. But, strangely, he felt it would have been even more difficult to look away.

  "Relax into the chair. You'll find that no effort whatsoever is required to maintain an upright position. Let go of every single muscle. Besides, of course, your eyelids, however heavy they feel. Keep watching the candle."

  The chair certainly seemed eager to take more of his weight. He obliged, and felt as though he were melting. Which was a surprisingly pleasant sensation. It seemed to be charmed to seek out muscles that were still holding tension. It would then massage them gently until they completely relaxed. He was barely aware of what Quirrell was saying now. It took almost all of his attention to keep his eyes open, to keep watching the candle.

  Then, like a very dim star you can see only when you don't look too hard, he felt something soft at the edge of his mind. He'd never experienced his consciousness as having an edge, or a shape of any kind. But now it seemed to have an outer surface, or at least part of one, and there was a light pressure against it. That part seemed to be in the top left corner toward the back, though that didn't make any sense. It was confusing, though not unpleasant.

  Professor Quirrell's voice was even quieter now, as quiet as a whisper, yet still low and full. "Soon you will not be able to keep your eyes open," he intoned. "The impulse to relax will be too overwhelming, and you will simply be incapable of sustaining your gaze any longer."

  At that, the difficulty at least tripled.

  "It's all right, Harry. When you feel that impulse, just let them close." The pressure on his mind increased, matching the now tremendous weight of his eyelids. Wordlessly, the pressure was giving him permission, seducing him to let go. It was too much. The next time he blinked, he yielded to it, his eyelids finally dropping in delicious surrender. And then the world was gone.

  Harry didn’t know for how long he sat in silence after that. It could have been a few minutes. It could have been hours. It was the most profound calm he’d ever experienced.

  He could often feel that gentle presence drifting about, alighting now and then on the surface of his thoughts, sinking sometimes to chart the convoluted depths of his mind. It moved with a slow rocking motion, propelled by the wind of his breath. Delicately, it guided him to relinquish his unconscious grasp on each cognitive process still running in the background, leading to deeper relaxation than he’d thought possible.

  His mind grew consummately still, until he could not have remembered what it meant to think or to feel anything at all besides this perpetual abandonment to calm. He watched it drift without guessing what would happen next, without caring. He’d completely forgotten he was in Quirrell’s office, that he had a body, that this was all part of a lesson in occlumency. Eventually, even the drifting ceased.

  Utter the darkness, empty the void, silent the endless night.

  Then, smashing through the silence, a single thought thundered across his mind: “It’s full of stars.” For out of the darkness suddenly burst ten thousand points of light, and he thought he was again observing Professor Quirrell's secret spell.

  Even as the true image of distant space enshrouded him, something seemed discordant. Something was different. This was not quite what he remembered. It took him awhile (though time meant little now), as he basked in its austerity, to make out what had changed.

  Oh. He wasn't seeing it. His eyes were closed, but it wasn't even a visual image at all. He was feeling those blazing stars against the abyss. They were his awareness cast about in countless burning points of concentration, crystallized thought glittering across his whole consciousness. If there is something it is like, he thought wordlessly, to be the limitless night sky, perhaps this is it. He was not aware of the tears on his cheeks.

  And then he heard the professor's voice, barely above a whisper. "Those points are your own attention. I am now only observing from the outside. You are maintaining them, and you can control them as you please. Try moving one. You'll find they move along curved planes, if you don't push too hard." Harry tried. Nothing happened. "You can't move them quite like you'd move a limb. You probably won't experience a strong sense of agency when it happens. Just expect it to happen, and don't get in its way."

  Harry expected one of the stars to move. He relaxed, letting its path be empty, and simply knew where it would go. Gently, it began to glide, like a satellite across the upper atmosphere, along the surface of his mind. He felt Professor Quirrell indicate another point of light, and he nudged that one to the left. "Try several," Quirrell instructed. Harry picked a patch of about a dozen stars, and moved them all just a little upward.

  "Excellent, Harry. You have found your surfaces. You are very close to making a rudimentary occlumency barrier." Harry continued sending stars this way and that as Quirrell spoke. He felt like he was simply watching, and that by some incredible coincidence the stars moved as he predicted they would. It was strange to feel a third party to his own actions.

  "Relax, now, Harry. Let the points rest where they are." There was silence again, and Harry sank down a little deeper into the blankness, which he hoped he would never have to leave. "Good. Just keep dropping like that. Don't worry about the stars; they're stable enough now that you needn't tend to them actively."

  Another immeasurable stretch of time passed. He could feel the presence of the Professor again, guiding his thoughts back down to perfect stillness. When next he heard Quirrell's voice, it was only in his mind.

  "The stars are points of intensely concentrated awareness. Imagine they are clenched like fists. Can you feel them struggling, wanting to open?" He paused for Harry to take note of the sensation.

  "Now, let them go." Harry released them all at once, and the lights began to diffuse, to blossom out across his mind.

  They melted into little puddles, like ice cubes on hot pavement. The borders of the pools of light met, merged, and reinforced each other. Now broad stretches of sky hung in soft radiance all around him, the stars replaced with what felt like giant forcefields. They were warm and reassuring. As he poured more of himself into them, they became brighter, and Harry felt strong.

  Quirrell’s words were soft, but with a hint of excitement. “You have much more in you,” he said. “You can reinforce this barrier five times over at least.” Harry felt Quirrell touching a surface, felt him encountering resistance. It was like answering before the question was over, and he knew the barrier was working.

  Without the usual cognitive machinery grinding away, weighing and calculating and inhibiting, his response to his success was immediate, fierce: A colossal dam broke inside of him then. All the certainty, fortitude, and satisfaction he could experience rushed directly into the forcefield. He thought he might have outshone the sun. Harry felt invincible as the barrier blazed across his mind.

  “It is enough, Harry,” Quirrell said. “Remember this sensation, but do not maintain it. Back off now.” It was difficult for him to stem the flow of emotion, but when finally he’d drawn the storm back into himself, Harry was utterly exhausted.

  He spiraled downward at an incredible rate, and Quirrell was there to assist in recovery, even as he continued to speak aloud. “That was very well done. Such a display was beyond even my ambitions for your first lesson. You intuited an effective approach without explicit instruction.” His voice was back to low and soothing, and he was speaking again in a rhythm that followed Harry’s breath. “I’m going to start counting up soon from one to ten, and you will begin moving toward regular wakefulness. But not just yet. Rest here awhile.

  “You have gained full awareness of your surfaces, and the method you employed has its advantages. But it is also terribly fragile.

  "A display like that completely occludes a very brief scan and may even blind the legilimens for a few moments. But any legilimens worthy of that designation would shatter such a barrier completely without thinking twice. All I’d have to do is introduce a seed of self doubt, and it would be over. Not only would I have easy access to the deeper parts of your mind, but you’d have no energy left for further defense.”

  There was silence for several minutes, as the professor simply let Harry sit, keeping his mind to himself. Eventually, he started counting, and little by little Harry became aware of his body, the room, and what he was doing in it. On ten, Harry opened his eyes.

  He took a breath to speak, but gave up on it right away when he realized he didn't know what to say. He’d need to spend some time processing these past two hours before he could think straight enough to say much of anything at all. The professor smiled. “You will return at three tomorrow, and I will answer your questions then. That is also when you will receive your first assignment.” Harry nodded rather languidly. “For now, Mr. Potter, have a light dinner, and do not attempt anything more engaging than checkers. You will sleep very soundly indeed this night.”

  “Yes,” said Harry, “I expect I will.”

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