The Dominant Mind

I was annoyed. No. I was angry. No. I was bored. No. I was…

This day was already hotter than the core of hell, and it was only going to get worse. I beat my hand against the steering wheel of my BZ4X. The line at this infernal car wash…

I was fifth in line. At this rate, I’d lose ten miles of battery power to the air conditioner without moving a foot.

It had been so long since I’d fed, too long. Avery was supposed to come over yesterday, but he hadn’t. He’d sworn he wouldn’t leave me starving once I removed his Subjunction, if I let him have just a little bit of freedom…now he was probably fucking that bodybuilding meat sack and leaving me…leaving me…

I was angry. Yes, anger was the right emotion, the right line of thought. I should be angry at this situation. Yes, it was important that the emotion made sense. Anger made sense. These stupid fools in their stupid cars waiting for a stupid cleaning. It was all pointless.

I reached for the door handle and paused. I counted the cars again. They all had at least one driver, maybe passengers. How many Compulsions could I get through?

My hand slid from the door handle. It was too risky. I was too fragile in this state. If one of the Compulsions didn’t take…

I grabbed my phone off the center Qi charger and brought up Avery’s messages, scrolling through his empty promises.

Fucking little whore.

I’d go right now. I’d leave his meat sack lover in a coma and remind him of his duty. To me.

My hand moved to the gear lever. No. A car had pulled in behind me. I was trapped. There was no escaping the carwash now.

I’d demand to see Avery tonight. I’d threaten to put the Subjunction back on him. I would. I’d make it so strong he wouldn’t be able to leave my apartment without having a panic attack. He’d never experienced how strong I could make it. He’d always been willing enough that I’d never needed to…

And I’d been affectionate with him, so I hadn’t wanted to. Weakness. That needed to change. I couldn’t afford to be weak. I couldn’t function like this.

An attendant directed one of the five cars into a bay, and we all plodded forward one car length like a line of cattle marching to slaughter.

The anger was slipping away. I tried to grab hold of it, keep it foremost in my thoughts. I needed the stability of anger. The proper emotional resonance. No. I couldn’t keep a grasp on it. The desperation was bubbling up, like a need to open the car door and run into traffic. A crazed, senseless emotion.

I rubbed my thumb into the palm of my hand, fighting to regain control.

Damn you, Avery.

The idiot behind me honked.

Another car had pulled into a bay, and the line had moved again, leaving a gap in front of me. I pulled forward.

The anger returned, stronger than before, too strong. It crowded out the desperation, but the impulse to open my door and walk up to the driver behind me was so strong that for a moment I couldn’t visualize anything else. Deliciously, I imagined what I might do to him. A quick glance in the side mirror. Yes, it was a him. Paunchy, bald. Nobody would miss him. Nobody should miss him, at any rate. One Sever. He’d never even feel anything. A mercy. It was possible to make a Sever hurt, a lot, prolong it. I wouldn’t be too cruel.

I rubbed even more furiously into my palm, closing my eyes to push out the images.

His car would get in the way.

That was the focus that stopped my escalating fantasy. Yes, his car would get in the way. When he didn’t move, somebody would investigate. Police would be called. Then how would I ever get through this cursed car wash?

My hand ached by the time the attendant finally pointed me toward an open bay. I turned off the car and rolled down the window, my wash pass card already between my fingers. I turned to see the attendant who would service my car.

Then my mind, a moment ago roiling like flame in a tornado, froze. My thoughts gathered and coalesced, crystallizing, a lake with a tanker of liquid nitrogen dumped into it. The anger vanished. The annoyance vanished. I no longer felt hot or cold. I no longer felt. There was no sun, no sound, no sensation of leather seat against my sweating back.

Every thought was desire. Pure. Carnal. Focused.

The man, barely a man, really, was perhaps nineteen, perhaps twenty. His skin was the color of milked coffee. He was shirtless, thin but sculpted with muscle. His neck was long enough to count for two regular necks, but mounted on such a finely chiseled body, it did not seem out of place. I imagined he was a god at basketball.

My eyes traced up to his hair, the color of dark chocolate. It was curly with a fade, blooming into a tall, styled afro. I found it provocative. Beautiful. Perfect. It fit him.

“Sir? Uh, your card, sir?”

His voice, deep yet still tinged with the glimmering echo of the boy he had barely stopped being, drew me back into myself, restarted the engine of my thoughts. My eyes flicked to my hand, to the wash pass between my fingers. My hand had frozen in the air, too far short of the window. As if commanding a machine with an awkward remote, I extended my hand and allowed him to scan the card.

“Apologies,” I blurted. “This heat, you know.”

He cracked a grin, pearl teeth against rose chocolate lips. His face was rather flat, and perhaps some would not have found it to be his most attractive feature, but in this moment, there was nothing except the desire. Everything about him was perfect.

“No worries, My gu—Sir. I know what you mean. I’m Jamar. I’ll be cleaning your car today. Are you staying inside?”

Jamar. His name seared like a brand into the synapses of my memory. The name was more than merely an identifier. For me, it was a tool, a key, a path by which I could implant the Subjunction.

His near slip into familiarity was a good sign. I appeared objectively young, although I was not so young anymore. The Aura had a way of making me appear to others as I wished to appear to them. Some were more sensitive to its effects. Jamar seemed especially sensitive.

I knew, in that moment, that I would put a Subjunction on Jamar. The need for it was overpowering, intoxicating. I was an alcoholic swimming in a pool of vodka. My starving mind reached out desperately, vicious in its craving.

“Yes,” I forced out the word.

“Great,” Jamar said. “I’ll get started.”

I rolled up the window and allowed Jamar to begin. There was no possibility of hiding himself from my gaze. I watched as he soaked the car. Some blowback spray of water glistened on the perfect smoothness of his chest. When he scrubbed with the soap brush, the bubbles blocked my vision, but nothing could block the feelings I took from him. At this distance, without the Subjunction, it was less than a taste, merely the perfume of a drink with the true liquid unreachable.

Jamar felt hot, and he didn’t like days like this one, but at least it was cool in the wash bay. His feet hurt. This was three hours into a six-hour shift. My car was “ritzy”. Was I one of those rich techies? Jealousy. Rebellion. Would I tip him? Maybe he wouldn’t wash my car too perfectly.

He began rinsing. The foam suds cleared, and I feasted my gaze on his body once again. With his immediate physical presence in my awareness, his thoughts and feelings retreated into the background. I didn’t bother trying to hold them. Right now, his body was enough.

Then he began the towel drying, which required him to reach and tighten his muscles. I counted the six rounded bumps of his abs and studied the movements of his darkened nipples with every stroke of the towel.

It was over too quickly. I had not had enough. Jamar stood by the window, as expected, to announce that he was done. I rolled it down.

“Jamar,” I said. Using his name like a wire, I reached out with my awareness, threading my thoughts into his own. There was no resistance. He couldn’t resist, actually, such a thing was impossible, but I liked to believe he invited me, opened himself to it, willing.

“Adriel,” he said, his eyes locked onto mine.

I smiled. Yes, he was very sensitive, pulling out my name even though I had not projected it.

“Are you hot, Jamar?”

He smiled in a bashful and simultaneously provocative way. “Some guys say I am.”

That widened my smile. This connection was easy, more effortless than Avery’s had ever been, as if something about Jamar’s mind and my own clicked together in a way that could not be understood with words.

“You should cool off,” I suggested.

“Have to do what the customer wants,” Jamar replied. He took the sprayer from its hook and adjusted it to its lowest setting, allowing the water to pour over his body as if from a shower head.

I watched the rivulets of water descend across his chest, the tight ridges of his abdomen, across his rounded shoulders. I admired the way his toned arms flexed as he held the wand above his head. He leaned back and doused his face, letting a tiny gasp of pleasure escape his lips.

I drank in more than just his appearance. Our connection was stronger now, not a full Subjunction, that would take time and greater intensity than this, but I could feel his relief as the cool water gave him reprieve from the day’s heat. He’d never be brave enough to do this on his own. His boss would yell at him, or worse, but he’d wanted this for the last hour, and now he could revel in it, my command erasing his inhibitions, allowing him to experience only the pleasure, a pleasure I breathed and licked from the air.

“Jamar!” A harsh voice cut through the savor of our moment. “What are you doing? Don’t you see that line out there? That car is done. Get a move on with the next one.”

I scowled at who must have been the middle-aged manager of the car wash, with his thinning hair and disheveled beard. I reached with my mind, grasping him. This was not the gentle threading I had offered Jamar, but a ruthless clench.

“Come.”

My single Compulsion had the manager trotting to my window, his eyes dulled by my intrusion into his thoughts. I suppressed the urge to Sever him. That was too much, I was too impulsive right now. I had to be careful.

“You will allow Jamar to do as he wishes. You will never speak down to him again. Go back into your office and stay there.” Every sentence was a carefully shaped needle penetrating the man’s mind. He would not be consciously aware of what I was doing, and he would follow my commands as if they had been his own choices. The manager nodded meekly.

“Sorry to bother you, Sir,” he mumbled.

I forgot the manager the moment he was out of sight and settled my gaze back on Jamar. He was dripping deliciously from head to foot, his work pants and shoes soaked, but he didn’t seem to mind. Relief and happiness brimmed off him like a halo, and I scooped as much of it into myself as I could without making him uncomfortable. The draining could be noticeable if I took too much. Considering this was Jamar’s first time, and he’d already proven sensitive, I was cautious and conservative, despite the terrible desire rolling through me. It brought some solidity to my own mind.

“Thanks, Man,” he said, putting the wand back on its hook. “That guy is always on my ass. Do you know him? I’ve never seen him back down from anybody like that.”

“Don’t worry about him, Jamar,” I said, waving my hand in a dismissive gesture. “What time are you done working today?”

Subtle fear flashed through Jamar. I might not have sensed it if we weren’t so well attuned. “Four o’clock,” he said. “One of my friends is going to pick me up.”

Another flash of fear, uncertainty, directed at this friend. They could not be much of a friend if this was the unconscious response he had when thinking of them.

“Tell them you don’t need them. I’ll be back to pick you up.”

My words carried a thread of Compulsion, but I barely needed it. Jamar wanted to agree. My Aura saw to it that I felt familiar, comfortable, more of a friend than whoever was picking him up. Yet something inside Jamar pushed back, taking me by surprise.

“Adriel?” I felt a growing blossom of fear. I took a moment to catch some of it, unable to stop drawing it in, using it to sharpen my senses. “Maybe I should let my friend get me. We’ve got…plans.”

My brow knitted. My Compulsion thread had been subtle, perhaps too subtle if it was already failing. I cast another thread, taking hold of Jamar’s mind more firmly. Firm but gentle. I had no desire to mishandle something so precious.

“What plans are those?” I asked.

Jamar hesitated. He was fighting against the Compulsion. Whatever this friend had planned, he desperately did not want to tell me.

“Tell me!” I snapped, giving his mind a sharp yank. He flinched, and inwardly I cursed myself. I should let this go, drop it. Now. I was not in a condition to handle this kind of resistance. Maybe after I brought Avery back and regained my full focus.

I smiled. Disarming him, felt relaxation flow back into him as I loosened my psychic grip. “Don’t worry about it, Jamar. Perhaps a different day. I’ll be back for you.”

Jamar smiled. I devoured that smile and the boyish joy behind it. “I’d like that,” he said. “Sorry. My friend is…he doesn’t like to be surprised like that.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” I reached into my wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, handing it to him. For a moment, he just stared, dumbfounded.

“For the extra show,” I supplied.

He took it slowly, his eyes shining with a delight that I lapped up like a dog. This was ridiculous. I needed Avery.

I drove out of the car wash, leaving Jamar behind. I hated it. I could have Compelled him to come with me, get in the car, and go home with me right now, but that would be a mistake. Too many conflicting variables would arise from something so drastic and intrusive.

Jamar was an intriguing conundrum. He seemed so sensitive to my connection, so willing to embrace it, but something dark and powerful held him back from compliance, from abandoning another responsibility or connection. Obstacles I would have to disentangle him from in time.

There was only one certainty: Jamar O’blair Lewis would belong to me. And nothing would get in the way.