Interview With...

"So did Phillips meet a similar fate to that Kenyan war monger? Having his brain fried or something?"

"Nothing of the sort. A plane crash killed Phillips, not of my doing. Word has it that some from his former agency were looking to get revenge for some things he did to come into power. Had he lived, he would have been my figure-head, the 'pocketed politician' to quote you from an old piece of yours."

It shocked him a bit to find that she wasn't the one to kill him, but something she mentioned suddenly clicked in his head.

"Wait a minute. Five years ago, the blackout in Athens a week before their general election. Was that you?"

She didn't comment on that, but just looked at him as if she was impressed that he connected that dot.

"That really was you!"

"Left to your own devices, every blackout of a major population would be pinned on me in your stories?"

"There's more evidence for why you would be involved than not, for Greece especially. You blew away every political analyst's predictions and got a leader elected whose platform was more international involvement when the masses were screaming for someone to take care of domestic issues. That would make it much easier for someone like you to expand your reach on a legitimate level."

She continued to stay silent, watching him make more connections. Her living was somewhat isolated, and her accomplishments remained unknown out of necessity, but it was nice to see a dedicated fan of hers take in the breadth of what she'd really done.

"What was in Athens that you were after? Influence? Setting up a base of operations for yourself?"

"Truthfully, nothing more than experimentation. I wanted to see how far my influence could reach in an allotted time frame. The blackout lasted for 18 hours, 9 of those were under cover of nightfall. I used everything I had to reach out to as many people as I could. In my mind, it felt like blowing a steady stream of smoke into a hurricane. Feeling the smoke be carried of and expand, my whispers intertwined with those sleeping, dreaming, trying not to trip over things in dark rooms."

"How many people did you reach?"

"I could never tell. The experience was taxing. Apparently it caused me to become comatose for a week and a half. When I came to, I found the experiment a success, but also a limit to my abilities. After a month of recuperation, things went back to normal."

"Did you ever try that kind of stunt again, knowing what it did to you the first time?"

"Yes I did. I was not satisfied that my power would only go that far. Improvements have been made since."

"How would you describe your power?"

"Are you referring to my special powers, or the way I rule?"

"I mean y-both. How do both work?

"For my special powers, from my observations, it is some special ability deep inside my mind that allows me to reach out to others. The darkness, or the absence of light is like a catalyst. When the mind experiences dark through ocular exposure, or when the brain believe it is in darkness maybe, it becomes vulnerable to me. My mind activates the dark, making it work for me. I know I described it with smoke and windy descriptions before, but that was a large-scale connection. Up to a dozen, or especially one-on-one, it is most commonly, most effectively like a mind being saturated by darkness in the form of...tar, I would say. A sweet tar."

"Molasses?"

"Yes, exactly. It works through all the crevices, and thoughts or commands I had in mind for my target, they think or feel or do as I want them to."

"All your subjects feel the same way?"

"Probably. Most never remember anything has happened to them."

"So the darkness becomes sticky like molasses, yet it dissipates or erodes that easy. That's hard to fathom."

"Describe to me how it felt to be ushered into the limo tonight from your hiding place. No details left out, please."

"I thought I was the interviewer here."

"It was never stated that I would not be asking questions, McKinley."

He looked away from her to remember the alley, and what urged him across the street.

"Hard to say what it was. I was perfectly fine off in the distance, getting a look at what I thought were underlings who'd lead me to the boss. Confusion set in after that when you left the door to the limo open. It...it felt like after a while, I was getting the hint that you, or someone wanted me to come forward."

"So were you, in-fact perfectly fine where you were?"

"I should've gone further down the alley, away from you instead of toward you, yet..."

"Yet?" she echoed.

"I wouldn't call it sweet, but a positive feeling came over me, that I understood the offer, and the reasoning for moving forward got easier to accept. The-" he remember the street light overhead, leading to the limo. "Questioning why came back once I was out of the darkness was easier, but then I just lost everything when I entered."

"As I wanted you to. However, you only felt a modicum of my power there; I was curious whether if I even needed to use it, whether your journalistic passion would push you in the same way."

"It might have."

"For the second part of your question, my power structure, I tend to think of it as an autocracy. Absolute control, no one questions me, for those that even know I exist."

"I always took you for a despot, but I guess a queen ant or bee is a little more apt."

"A very little. If humans, or men could naturally make for drones automatically, I would readily accept such a title. But it is somewhat more complicated than that."

The dark-skinned despot didn't elaborate, but waited to see if he would catch on to the truth of how she ruled.

"How big is your organization?"

"In the thousands, though most of those working under me remain unaware of who their true leader is. You might be surprised how many of them might object to working for an African. It makes my taking them all the sweeter though."

"How can you tell who would be?"

"The connection I have with people skims the surface of their minds, giving small identifiers that can help me discern who is whom, and with that who would feel what."

"So you're some sort of Claudius, or your just hidden in your own ranks?"

"The latter; I never play the role of the fool. Phillips may have still been useful, to this day, if I had learned about his plane crash sooner."

"You would've kept who died in the crash from being reported, and Phillips would live on in our minds as a ruling apparition, ever-present but never seen. And you'd be like a lieutenant or major in his army, giving orders by proxy with no one knowing you really rule."

"'Supporting' a 'great man,' as you once put it."

"Heh. Right, I see your point. So everyone knows Phillips is dead, but you still have some kind of cypher at the top?"

"An unseen one. There are several domicile properties that stay vacant worldwide, assumed to be owned and used by my boss, and sometimes appropriated by his staff. I usually live rather modestly, like a mid-level corporate executive instead of a CEO. Knowing I have the power is enough."

"And were it not for this interview, I would've gone on for years chasing the wrong guy, or person."

"Your chasing would have been indefinite, not just years. Are you not happy to see behind the veil?"

"Only to have another pulled over me soon."

"Better to have seen the truth for a moment in time than to have never known it."

He almost cursed at her, but remembered he was on a time limit, and moved on with his questioning.

"So, with Athens, you control one major city at least."

"At the very least."

"How many...countries do you control?"

"Hans, how many as of now?" She looked back to her assistant.

"Through their leadership, around 20 sovereign nations, and 12 more in the pipeline," he accented voice spoke calmly, as if he was listing inventory for the goods in the warehouse they were in.

"Including America?"

"For me, your United States require a different approach," she answered. "City-by-city is a safer way of securing power. Washington is too visible on the world stage, and too many investigators like you running around. That will be my own little pet project, in time. Speaking of pet projects, where did you first hear about my existence?"

McKinley leaned back like he would in the chair in his office when someone asked him a question that got him to reminisce.

"New Orleans. Nothing highly incriminating, just word-on-the-street whispers. A lot of them. It was what they said about you that got me interested. You sounded like a Moriarty-type villain; smart, dangerous, far-reaching connections, super-dependent on the shadows to work." He stopped to chuckle at how her super-dependence might as well be a literal statement. "All I heard got me to start a file on you, and just watch it grow over the years."

"That really is a talkative town."

"All of them are in my experience."

She nodded her head in agreement.

"All of those leaders you took, or acquired, or persuaded or whatever, were they all taken the same way, from afar? Were some up-close and personal?"

"The strategies for how varied. In my earlier years of empowerment, it would have been purely based on how best to ensure my hold was strong and went undetected. But once it could become as easy as lounging in a hotel suite in the same city as a subject and sniping minds to make temporary changes from afar, I decided to change tactics a bit. That was in-part to test whether some strategies would work, and to break up the monotony."

"Such as?"

"Well, for example, there is a small motel deep within Harlem. The kind of seedy place where you would not expect respectable, prestigious, white, sometimes international and multicultural politicians to ever show their faces, at night."

"And yet, they did."

"Several had. And before you ask, the true purpose of that arrangement was purely experimental. Having the influence did not hurt in the slightest, but it was more about myself than them."

The despot rose from her seat and approached McKinley with a deliberate, unbidden strut. Her hand rested itself on his shoulder. He didn't exactly recoil on horror, but the apprehension was screaming from his expression and body language. He tried not to breathe so heavily with her so close. As bad as the turpentine was, it helped remind him of how shitty things were for him there; her scent could be downright pheromonal, and could confuse the circumstances.

"All this wondering and explaining of how I take them," her hand became a finger that trailed up his neck, behind his ear, "I think it might be fun for you to have a more...first-hand account." After tracing an eyebrow, her whole hand quickly grasped his face, covering his eyes. He leaned back to begin struggling against, but the darkness claimed him quickly and the repeated command of calming quelled any further attempt to fight. The sharp, intake of breath he took to prepare to fight surprised him as the base of her wrist laid near his nose, imbued with jasmine perfume.

McKinley felt himself comfortably standing from a chair he couldn't readily remember, and walking out of the darkness onto the street of a fairly busy neighborhood at night. From some of the street names, he immediately recognized it as Harlem. Unlike some other caucasians he knew, McKinley didn't fear places like Harlem as a rule, but the kind of neighborhood he walked through didn't exactly seem safe at first glance. The problem for him was, out of the darkness he emerged from, an invisible haze accompanied him and left his mind seeped in something made of lethargy. It wasn't complete lethargy though, as the haze absconded with his body and took him in a specific path forward. People passed by him, ignorant of him or the lost look on his face. It was a few block of walking until his body turned right, toward a building with a yellow-lit sign brandishing "Motel." He stepped in the narrow hallway to the front desk, an older black man regarded him with an attitude. McKinley was left with some semblance of consciousness, as he was surprised to hear his own voice asking for the 'basement suite,' and shocked to find the attendant's face change and look how he felt. Blankly, the older man handed him a key, and McKinley walked deeper into the Harlem motel.

Not to far from the lobby, he came across a maintenance door, away from the regular rooms. It was locked, but he used the key, and was granted access. He walked down a stairway toward an area that looked very dirty, yet had no odor to it. At the bottom, he expected a boiler room, unkempt, dirty and grimy. He found none of that, and without thinking, he accessed another door that opened up to a room that looked like it belonged in the Four Seasons, comparatively. It wasn't large, but it was pristine as could be. Nothing but candlelight lit the room; jasmine-scented candles in a perfect circle. In the center of the room was a presidential-looking king-size bed, and sitting on top of it was the despot herself. Instead of the green dress, or sexy lingerie, she wore a black business suit. He chuckled in his own head, amused at this is how she did business. She seemed amused too from her smile. She walked over to greet her guest, but faded from sight a few steps before reaching McKinley. He took in a deep breath of jasmine as she somehow grasped him from behind.

"Welcome, 'Senator' McKinley. I am so glad you decided to join me tonight."

He could hear it in her voice, how she loved playing up the idea that he was just another powerful toy to add to her growing toy chest.

"I know it is not exactly the Waldorf-Astoria, but a few key touches have made this locale into something special I believe. Lovely furnishings, ensured privacy, amenities unavailable elsewhere, and a numerable, faithful staff ready to fulfill your every wish and desire."

Though she looked like the motel's five-star concierge, his mental chuckling continued as it was truly subjective who the staff was, and whose every wish and desire was being fulfilled. Submissive sensations welling up in other parts of his body confirmed who was supposed to be feeling what.

"Can you guess what men go through in a room like this? It is not always as you might think. My dark connection can show me things about those I take. Men of 'power,' in particular' can have some of the most amusing, or vile thoughts a human being is capable of. As a leader myself, I do not doubt it takes a special kind of person to deal with the masses, but it is unnerving how many seek power to satisfy their own perverted yearnings. Depending on the level of vile I sense of them, they would likely be introduced to an old folklore known from my village. It is meant to scare children mainly, but the reality could horrify adults alike, the folklore being a cluster of demonic entities grasping you dragging you to that bed you see, ripping your clothes and sometimes your body to pieces with sharp claws. It would also revisit transgressions on to the victim that they have inflicted in their lifetime. Raped some? Experience that violation yourself, magnified. Constantly belittling people for your own pleasure? Feel hands snatching away any sense of self-confidence and remind you of how worthless and undeserving you are, over and over again. I am sure you get the idea by now."

McKinley's hairline and brow became covered with forming droplets of sweat, for how he realized he had entered what amounted to the devil's bedchamber. He tried to think of his life, and what he'd done to deserve what was coming.

"These men all experience the cluster's attentions for any number of minutes, and afterwards, subconsciously know that obedience to my will prevents that cluster from ever coming into their lives again. However, if I happen to encounter what you would call a good-hearted politician, as rare as they can be, I modify that folklore with certain instructions..."

He felt the despot turn him around so that they were staring into each other's eyes. The candle light flashed playfully against her lenses while her dark eyes twinkled. His body became stark and nearly rigid in her hold, and stayed that way as she pushed his body back with a finger to his forehead. He would've landed on the floor were it not for hands catching him. A collection of hands, hands he blankly wondered who'd caught him. The notion of demonic hands ripping his being to shreds, even if an illusion, was immediately dispelled as these hands felt soft, gentle, smooth, resembling a loving touch. McKinley crowd-surfed on these hands rubbing all over his body, all the way to the bed where he was laid down and continuously, sensually assaulted.

He was disrobed slowly, shirt button-by-shirt button, belt unbuckled, pants tantalizingly unzipped; it was hard to tell when he was finally naked because he felt bare and exposed from the moment he was held. Hands gripped his wrists and ankles, pinning them down while more hands and fingers went to work on his spread-eagle positioned body. They found all his ticklish points as he laughed and cried in pleasure. They found points that he never considered to be particularly stimulating, possibly because of the whispers telling him how good everything was feeling. Expert fingers gave him a shiatsu massage between his back and the covers of the bed. His chest was stroked, grasped, his nipples rolled between fingers and squeezed. Hands holding his face and his forehead rotated his head in tandem clockwise until he couldn't tell up from down or left from right. McKinley mindless drooled in pleasure, mouthing gibberish. Every deep breath he took was laced with jasmine. The lightest touches were in his genitals, as if the spectral signatures of the hands played with his testicles and stroked his shaft with the constant pace of the beginning of a handjob.

All the while the whispers speaking of the caveat to all this pleasure. "Obey." "Just obey." "This is what obedience gets you." "You know who to obey." "You know what she wants." "You will give her what she wants." "Every touch, every whisper, a taste of heaven." "These hands are mine; what they touch is mine." "Think of your reward for doing as I say."

Lost in everything, McKinley did in-fact come into a fantasy within a fantasy, an alternate life as a senator. On the Senate floor, he felt his will being tested between what he wanted, which was in conflict with what she wanted. He could not place who 'she' was or could've been. He could not have imagined who she could be in secret. An aid, another senator, another senator's aid? "None of the above," his mind knew; she was above him, somehow that much was clear. The rest was clouded in her will, wanting to do her bidding.

The sensation of a pair fingers rested on his thigh whether he stood up or sat down. Starting at the center of his thigh, every though he had or word he said determined whether the pair took a step forward or back. He fought her intrusive influence and the fingers took a step back toward his knee, making a circular motion that felt nice, but merely nice. Any move against his own inclination toward her bidding meant a step forward, inching closer to his vulnerability. Senator McKinley couldn't believe of the possibility of getting an invisible handjob right on the senate floor. Clinton's impeachment would be nothing compared to what could end up live on C-Span.

But those concerns felt small and insignificant; the rewards for obedience were clear. Somehow his suit jacked hid his erection well, firmly trapped between his stomach and the waist of his pants. Circles the fingers made were more creative and brazen; he got the sense they wanted to do more to him, but it was his decision. Those whispers he first heard from the basement suite returned and put most sounds his colleagues made in the background. The combined efforts distracted him enough to let his mind slip, and relent to lean in her direction. He said what he needed to say, and the fingers took happy steps to his erection, the voice that whispered "obey" to him sounded sweeter, happy to hear that he was obeying; pleasing this one constituent over the rest became the world to him. He got lost in saying whatever he needed to say as his pants were unzipped, and two fingers became two hands to stroke and play with him.