A Loner Mentalist Pt. 06

He looked deep into her blue eyes. "Ok, Mia. I'll look and see what I can do. Now, rub your fingertips against mine like this and relax and be patient." She followed his instruction and he made holes in his cloak in the shape of the sensation of fingertips sliding against fingertips. He felt her mind, made a shame-shaped hole in his cloak, and started to look around for what she meant. He guessed that he could drop his cloak and safely run amok with his power, but he kept it up. He felt like he could do with the practice and he didn't feel like risking there being another cloaked mentalist lurking around.Better safe than sorry.

He focused on Mia's thoughts. While she desperately wanted to make love to him, over and over again, a huge part of her wanted to punish her for even harboring such desires. She wanted that part of herself removed to free her to enjoy her sex life to the fullest. The fundamentalist teachings had come to her after she had lost her parents, or the people she had grown up thinking were her real parents. After that, she learned that neither her actual birth parents, nor the rest of her adoptive family, wanted her. She had been so lost and alone that she had clung to the fundamentalist teachings like the drowning cling to flotsam. Taking them away from her might cause big damage to her psyche, he realized.

"That's too much, Mia. Too big a change at too important a time in your development. The consequences might turn out to be catastrophic."

Her brow wrinkled. "But...can't you make it work?"

"I don't dare try, Mia."

She rolled away from him and sat up on the edge of the bed. "You don't understand, Jack. How can you not understand? Didn't you see it?"

"See what?"

Mia shook her head and then buried her face in her hands. "I hate myself." Jack raised his hand to put it on her shoulder and tried to think of what to say. "My upbringing makes me hate myself for having grown up to be so hot!" Jack paused. "I hate my own body. Every time a guy leers at me in passing, I feel like I should do penance, or...sometimes I get the urge to grab a knife and hack off my tits. That'd stop the looks."

He sat behind her in mute shock. He had only once before seen something like that in her mind and it had not seemed so severe at the time. He hoped she was exaggerating. "You can't really mean that."

She turned to shoot him a look. "You didn't see it yourself?" He shook his head. "Some mind reader you are."

"Wait! Let me have another go at it!" After some gentle prodding, she relented and again slowly rubbed her fingers against his. He imagined wanting to mutilate himself, made such holes in his cloak, and looked out through them. He nearly lost his concentration when he felt it. It had been dormant before he had deflowered her, but now it raged behind her eyes. A big part of her truly wanted to mutilate herself so she would not be a walking temptation among men.Well, that just won't do. That just won't do at all. Guided by the sexual fantasies he had read in her mind, he worked for a few minutes to change the relationship between her libido and inhibitions. When he finished, he lay back on the bed.

Mia leaned over him. Her face bore a telltale flush of arousal as she licked her open lips. "What did you do?"

He put his hands behind his head and relaxed. "Can't you tell?"

Her hand reached up and cupped one of her tits. She closed her eyes and emitted a soft moan of desire. "Yes," she hissed. "Yes, you changed me. You..." She gasped as she pinched her own nipple. "Oh, my!" She straddled him and smiled. "I don't know how to put it in words."

"From now on, whenever you feel guilty for being beautiful, you will become aroused. Whenever you feel shame over someone finding you sexy, you will become aroused. The more your upbringing tries to override your arousal with shame and reproach, the greater your arousal becomes. As with the crystal, you can't feel guilt for getting aroused and having sex, cause it's all my doing."

She ground herself atop his groin, feeling his hardening shaft through the layers of fabric. "Won't that make me a...mmm...total slut?"

Jack smiled. "Since all that is the doing of my power, it wouldn't do to have just about anyone benefit from it, don't you agree? Every time you feel sinful, or ashamed, those feelings will be converted into arousal which will just lurk in the back of your mind until you're with me. Then, and only then, will it come to the forefront."

She moaned out an, "Oh, yeah," in a tone of voice that would make most porn stars blush. Taught by the day's experiences, Jack had added provisions to release her from the cycle of shame and arousal in case anything happened to him, but, as she reached down to undo his zipper, he figured it wasn't the time to talk about those. Spurred on by her shame-fueled arousal, she released his hard cock and bent down to suck it. Jack moaned at the touch of her raspy tongue and she had him tangling his fingers in her hair when she began to drool all over his cock. Before long, his hips were lifting off the bed on their own and she eagerly swallowed the head of his cock down her throat. He idly noted that he hadn't made any intervention in her gag reflex before she tickled his balls. He pressed her face down to his crotch and shot his load down her throat in a series of shouting spasms.

As he lay there, catching his breath, she stripped naked before helping him out of his clothes. She sucked his cock back to hardness and then mounted it. "I've created a monster," he gasped. She smiled and rode him hard, rubbing her clit along his shaft, making herself cum again and again. He squeezed her tits and flicked her nipples, helping her along to greater heights of pleasure. Pretty soon, his endurance waned and his whole body convulsed as he shot another load into her. She hopped off him to clean his dick with her tongue, but he dozed off, despite the ticklish feelings coming from his groin.

Janice's arrival, late in the afternoon, woke him. Mia was lying in his arms. They both got up at the sounds coming from downstairs and Mia reached over to give his cock a squeeze. He gasped and looked at her. "I want you to fuck me," she demanded.

"Not now," he said. She let go of him and got dressed. When he changed her mind, he gave himself veto power over her sexuality and arousal. A single, serious no from him shut her down cold. He had also left certain inhibitions in her mind, such as the ones stopping her from having sex in public, where his mother could hear them, etc. However, if she was horny enough, she might even overcome those. "How do you like what I've done to your mind?"

Her radiant smile was answer enough. "I love the way you can just say no. I love you being in control like that. I wish you had all the control, all the time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said I need to feel shame to get turned on. I just wish you had the power to simply turn me on with, like, a snap of your fingers, or something."

He smirked and softly said, "You fucking cumslut."

His words cut deep into her.That is not something a good woman gets called, her upbringing told her. She felt like she had brought them on herself with her looks, or behavior. In a fraction of a second, those words made her feel terrible shame. As quickly as it came on, it vanished to be replaced by pure sexual desire. It hit her like a tsunami. Her mouth fell open and she gasped as her skin felt heated with the flush of arousal. She could feel her clit emerging from her lower lips. The fabric of her damp panties tickled it. She grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him closer, saying, "Fuck me! Fuck me hard!"

"No."

With one simple word, she was all but asexual. She let go and breathed deep to calm her racing heart. He chuckled and she shot him a look before going to her room to change into fresh clothes.

He changed, too, and went online. The story of the corpses in the alley just broke. He picked up his phone and called Drew Maynard. "Drew? Jack Watts. I'm fine, thanks. Listen, I need to call in that favor you said you owe me. Yeah. There are five corpses in an alley in the city and four of them have been killed by dogs. I think it's the doing of this one gang that is training man-hunting dogs. I want to stop them. I need you to compile detailed files on these victims. I'm hoping the choice of victims will lead me to the gang itself."

Drew rather vocally registered some complaints and Jack waited patiently until the man made a long enough pause for him to cut in with, "I'mnot doing it alone, Drew. Of course I'm not that stupid. I'll go to the proper authorities, I'm just waiting until I build a solid enough case, alright?" Drew promised to get him all the available information tomorrow, as soon as the city's police department finished gathering it. "Thanks, Drew!"

Mia and he came downstairs and he turned to Janice, saying, "We're going out to eat."

Janice gasped in shock. "What's that?" She pointed at the side of Jack's face.

He reached up and was reminded of Mia having stomped on the side of his face that morning. His face wasn't swollen, or painful, but, as he looked in the mirror, he could see the bruise was well on its way. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?! That's not nothing!"

Mia was looking contrite and Jack pulled her face up with a finger under her chin. He gave her a smile before kissing her. "Come on!" He nodded at the door. They went out and he opened the car door for her.

Janice followed them out and was delivering a tirade in hushed, but insistent tones. Jack tuned her out, closed the door behind Mia and went to the trunk. He pulled out his canister of spare fuel and poured it into the trash can. Janice gaped at him in shocked silence. He grinned at her, pulled the trash can around to the back yard and went into the house. He came out with a box of matches, lit one and tossed it into the can.

Janice exclaimed wordlessly as the can went up in flames.

Jack tossed her the matches. "Don't wait up for us!" He gave her a wink and got into the car. He drove Mia to a little Italian restaurant where they had a nice dinner. After that, they hit the movies and then retired home.

The next day, Janice left for work and they stayed in, hiding from the heat. He ate Mia out and then pounded her doggy style. They had just about recovered for round three when Chrissie's car pulled up in front. A single word from him stopped Mia's libido in its tracks. Chrissie delivered the files and they chatted for a few minutes. She declined their offers of refreshments and left, but not before announcing that the group home was to be raided that afternoon. Jack thanked her for the information and wished her luck.

She winked at him and said, "Won't need no luck with this one, Jack." She left, whistling a cheerful tune.

Mia busied herself with lunch while he studied the files. Jacobs and his four goons were all from the same place, a small Colorado town called Greendale. That was where Jack needed to go to get answers. Jacobs had spent his whole childhood there and the aether would be crowded with recordings of his youth.Finally, a place I can go to and get some answers! He didn't want to think about what had happened in the alley. The mere memory of the tiny pistol made his heart race, but he needed to know why Jacobs had chosen to end himself instead of Jack.

He booked plane tickets to Denver for himself and Mia. After lunch, they climbed to their rooms to pack one small bag each. Mia's wound up being more than twice as big as his. He left Janice a note saying they were gone, and they drove to the city to catch their flight.

Every time she was the recipient of an admiring, or leering, look from passers-by, Mia got aroused. Several times, she begged Jack to drag her into a bathroom and let her suck him dry, but he always smiled and said, "No." She groaned with exasperation, but he could see in her grin that she loved the rush of arousal, followed by the stern slap of his refusal restoring her to normal. She delighted in it, as if it were a game. Her whispered pleas were getting more and more obscene and desperate, but he kept denying her and resetting her arousal to zero. He noticed her getting envious stares from women and was delightfully surprised to find that even those made her feel shame which then turned into arousal. He still shut her down, making her stamp her foot even as she hid a smile.

A TSA agent pulled her aside for a thorough pat-down. When she came back, she whispered into his ear, "My fucking panties are dripping wet," and gave his lobe a discreet lick and nibble.

She reached for his cock, but he said, "No." With a growl of frustration, she pulled back and boarded the airplane with him. A middle-aged woman mistook her for Megan Fox and asked for her autograph. Mia smiled and patiently cleared up the misunderstanding. Her prime argument was the fact that they were seated in coach; those were the only seats Jack could find on such short notice.

After landing in Denver, Jack checked them into the airport hotel. As soon as they got to their room, he instructed Mia to stand watch while he investigated Jacobs' past. He ate several of the pot cookies he brought with him and did his meditative exercises.

He soon found himself in the movie theater. The dog was seated next to him. Jack drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. He didn't really want to see what kind of upbringing, or lack thereof, resulted in the creation of Jamie Jacobs and the filth the man carried in his head. He felt he needed to do it, however, since it was his only link to the dead man and the better he understood what the man's thinking had been like, the better his chances of undoing all the damage he had done to the other mentalists.

"I'm ready," he said to the dog and the theater was plunged into darkness. Jack gripped the armrests of his seat tightly and watched the movie play on the screen. Much to his confusion, Jacobs' childhood was perfectly normal. He was the third child of a warm, loving family. The only thing that could possibly be considered abuse were the pranks his older siblings played on him, but it was all done in good cheer and he gave as good as he got. Jacobs didn't like it when he reached his teens and realized he wasn't going to grow much taller. He hated being the shortest guy in his whole class, but he got over it and compensated for his short stature by having a big heart and an even bigger sense of humor. He quickly became the center of his social circle, which kept growing and growing. He had an almost supernatural knack for knowing what to say at what time and how to get people to like him. Girls loved being in his company. His ability to take a joke and answer it with an even better one at his own expense got him all the female companionship he could handle. He was voted class president and homecoming king over everyone else that was taller than him.

"What the fuck," Jack asked of the dog. "Where's the abuse? The craziness? Where did his crazy come from?"

The movie showed Jacobs coming home for winter break. He had been studying robotics at Caltech and loving it. When he came inside the house, he was dogpiled by the four goons that had died with him. Jack frowned in confusion. The goons, who had been burly, young men at the time, dragged him to the basement, where his family was tied up and gagged.

"Well, shit," Jack said. "Here we go."

The goons tied up Jamie as well, ignoring his pleas for mercy. They gagged him and then made him watch as they raped and murdered his parents and siblings.

"Oh, fuck me," Jack exclaimed as he fast forwarded through the snuff scenes, barely even glancing at them. He took a moment to compose himself and restarted the movie at the point where Jamie was left all alone. Jack could feel the young man's pain and despair. It had broken him.

A nondescript voice rang out in Jamie Jacobs' head, saying, "There must always be one."

Jack stopped the movie and rewound it, changing camera angles and searching for the person that said those words. There was no record of them anywhere in the aether, meaning that they were a cloaked mentalist. There were only their words, floating around Jacobs' uncloaked head.

The camera centered on Jacobs, tied up in the chair. He blurred out of existence as the movie went on. After a few moments, Jacobs reappeared on the screen, standing up from the chair, his bonds falling loose. Only this wasn't Jacobs. This was someone else. Jack felt the man's mind as he gave in to a big, thorough bout of introspection. The new Jamie hated sinners and abominations and wanted to cleanse them from the Earth. As Jacobs thought more and more about traveling the continent and purging it of the abominations, he realized he didn't really think of mental powers as abominations. He had felt like he had a deep intuition himself and that made him think twice about killing those who were different. The pain of losing his family made him hesitant to kill others.

Jacobs blurred off the screen again and Jack turned to the dog. "What's going on? Where did he just go?"

"A cloaked mentalist is changing his mind, restructuring his most basic beliefs and thought patterns. That does not show up in the aether."

Jack faced the screen and saw Jacobs come back on it. When Jacobs searched his heart this time, Jack felt his outrage at the few having powers and abilities that the many did not. He wanted to remove these supernatural one-percenters from the world at large, but, as he thought about it, he realized he didn't want to do that. He envied such people, especially as he had spent his life feeling like he could be one of them. He found himself wishing he had some kind of supernatural power at his disposal so he could have saved his family.

Jacobs blurred away again. Each time he reappeared on the screen, he searched his soul and Jack could see his mind had undergone more major changes. Slowly, over six more tries, the unknown cloaked mentalist turned Jacobs from who he had been into the monster Jack had fought. In Jacobs' latest mind, his family had been slaughtered because of his mental power. Some evil people had been envious of Jamie being so special and they wanted some of him for themselves. They had sent the four goons to do what they had done. The goons had broken off pieces of Jamie's soul and with it, pieces of his power, which the evil ones were now able to use for their own ends. The very existence of other mentalists was a terrible affront to the pain and suffering he had gone through. The guilt of being the special one who could not protect his own family was driving him onwards with every breath he took. He vowed to atone for his failing by ridding the world of mentalists. He decided that he would honor his mother's memory by being the kind of man she had wanted all her children to be; someone people looked up to. Someone like his mother's father, who had been a faith healer of some note. He chose to bring the illusion of healing to the suffering masses as he toured the country, ridding the world of the evil mentalist scum.

Jacobs vanished from the screen. Jack turned to the dog, who said, "That's the last aether recording of Jacobs' mind. I'm guessing this other mentalist, that made him into who you knew him as, taught him how to cloak his mind at this point. We could search the country for more memories of Jacobs, but I'd be willing to bet he never dropped his cloak from that moment on."

Jack nodded in agreement. He rewound the film to when Jacobs had been tied firmly to a chair, screaming at the assailants to stop hurting his family. He froze the film. Even though he had seen the transformation as it had been gradually done to the man, he still had trouble reconciling the broken young man on the screen with the monster he had feared and fought. The crying, desperate boy Jack's age on the screen made him feel such pity. "He could've killed me. Heshould've killed me. The dogs were going to kill him and the goons, but he should have taken me with him." Jack looked at the dog. "But he didn't. The last thing he did in this world was an act of mercy, after a fashion." The dog nodded solemnly. "Whoever the fuck did this to him...I'm going to skullfuck their corpse."