Chapter 1: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

As Mark Bishop came through the door of his house he sailed his straw fedora across the room in the general direction of the coat rack. As usual it missed the rack completely, but was arrested in midair before it could fall to the floor and placed on top of the coat rack by invisible hands.

“Thank you Patty, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Mark chuckled out loud to the apparently empty room. Mark was 27 years old, he was well over 6 foot tall, thin, but broad shouldered, and wearing thick wire rimmed glasses at the moment. His hair was brown and a bit long and unkempt at the moment, and his eyes were green and had a “twinkle” in them all the girls used to say. At the moment he looked worn-out and tired.

“OH, hello, your new. Yes, I can see you, and hear you. Yes, the other spirits were correct. I can talk to ghosts. My name is Mark, what’s yours? William Pierce, OH, Doctor William Pierce, it is a pleasure to meet you William, even if it is after you’ve passed away.” Mark said, to his most recent visitor as he continued across the room to the bar and liquor cabinet beside the coat rack. After some procrastination he chose a decanter of Dekuyper Peach Brandy. Poring it into a large crystal blown glass sniffer he picked the large sniffer up and held it by it’s short stemmed base, then he picked up a handy Bic propane lighter laying on top of the bar and proceeded to warm the brandy with its flame. As he warmed it he crossed the room to a large overstuffed recliner and sat down to enjoy his brandy and a little quite time.

“So William, how are you doing?” Mark asked the empty air as he continued to move the lighter around the bowl of the sniffer and sniff the aroma of the peaches being released.

“No, not really, I’ve been seeing, and talking to ghosts, since I was a small child William. Well let me put a caveat in there William, I think that all ... well most small children anyway, and some animals, can see ghosts when they are young children and don’t know any better William. I think Barrie had it right with Peter Pan and Neverland. Peter Pan was a free-spirited and mischievous young boy who could fly around and never grew up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Indians, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland. Peter Pan has become a cultural icon symbolizing youthful innocence and escapism.” Mark was explaining and then he paused.

“What does that have to do with me you ask? Patience William, patience, I’m getting there. I grew up and lost all my imaginary friends, and ability to see ghosts, by the age of 7. I started the 1st grade in public school at 6 and the teachers and peer pressure caused me to loose my ability to see ghosts and other things William by the time I entered the 2nd grade. I didn’t get my old ability back till a few years ago William when I met Patty here.” Mark told William, as he took a sip of the warm brandy.

“Why are you still here you ask? Typically it is unresolved issues that keep you here William. Patty has a direct connection to me. She’s responsible for me being able to see ghosts again. By the way Patty I could sure use your “Magic Fingers” about now. It was a really rough one today. I have a personal pet theory that the reason there are so many less ghosts and imaginary creatures now ... today ... is our use, well really overuse, of the electromagnetic spectrum today, ha, ha. The electromagnetic spectrum is a range of frequencies, wavelengths, and photon energies covering frequencies, from very long radio waves to very short gamma rays, from below 1 to above 10 to the 25th power hertz corresponding to wavelengths which are a few kilometers to a fraction of the size of an atomic nucleus in the spectrum of electromagnetic waves. Ghosts and imaginary creatures are tight little balls ... patterns ... of energy...” Mark paused and listened.

“No! I have no ideal why ghosts ... well why Patty, and the other ghosts I know, don’t just dissipate like the others, but once again Barrie and Peter Pan might hold the answer to that too I think. In the play of Peter Pan, Peter addresses the audience directly, asking them to clap to show their belief and bring Tinker Bell back to life. The fame of that scene in Peter Pan has led to various academics, writers, and even hard-core scientists to refer to it as the “Tinker Bell Effect” in their respective fields. Even the bible has Mark 11:23; Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Maybe it’s the old “Mind over Matter thing?” Mark finished and drank the rest of the brandy.

“So, you was a big city hot shot psychiatrist ... hypnotherapist, that’s a new one on me William, I saw a couple of hypnotist shows in Las Vegas. OH! your not that kind of hypnotist? Sorry.” Mark said, as he got up to answer the doorbell. Standing at the door was the cute delivery girl from Johnson’s Boucaniere restaurant downtown. He accepted the large sack and tipped her good then closed the door. “I wish you could try some of this crawfish pie William, it’s to die for. Oh, sorry about that. This must be Friday my Cajun seafood night, this pot pie has a flavorful filling of crawfish and mixed vegetables that just melts in your mouth. It just has to be the ultimate Cajun comfort food, with its flaky, buttery crust.” Mark rambled on as he set out the restaurant’s dishes on the empty dinning table.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you William, I can only order out now, even had to get rid of the microwave because it caused Patty pain. Ghosts don’t react well to microwaves. Yes, most of the energy is blocked, but a little is always escaping. It seems that the higher the fequency the more it hurts the ghosts and other creatures.” Mark tried to explain.

“I assume you have patients that you feel you owe a duty to? Yes, yes, that could very well be a good reason to stick around on this the mortal plane for a while longer William.”

“I wish I knew William,” Mark said, pausing a minute.

“Ghosts, spirits such as yourself William, in my experience have different abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. For instance, some can move objects, the lighter ... less mass you know ... the easier to move it around it seems generally. Things such as cigar smoke, loose bits of papers, or even a small plastic ball. That’s why I don’t have anything just laying around loose in here William. Ghosts, well angry ghost sprits anyway, can be such pests sometimes, knocking my stuff off the table like disembodied invisible gremlins. Just generally having fun at my expense. Some ghosts can even manifest, almost becoming material, even using something close to human speech, but that is real rare. Some ghosts can even possess people, with different degrees of control over the person they possess. If you’ve ever heard about people being possessed by a demon, those are probably people with a ghost trying to take control of their body.” Once again Mark paused looking like he was listening.

“Sure I do, I work with the FBI, CIA, NSA, heck all types of law enforcement agencies, to try to solve crimes. I’m not one of those people who go out of their way to attract attention to themselves, I stay away from the Tonight Show and notoriety. Most of those people are just fake TV glory hounds. I do real work, that helps real people, and some ghosts, to move on with their lives.” Mark said, looking at a different spot in the room.

“What’s that?” Mark asked turning back to another spot of air in the room.

“If you want the basic science of it, you are really a collection ... a tight little ball of electromagnetic energy that was William Pierce in life. I have no idea why you, or the other ghosts for that matter haven’t dissipated, or moved on to the afterlife. I’m sure by now you have found you can float around, move through walls, and can see and hear everything around you because your here now aren’t you, ha, ha.” Mark laughed and sipped some more of his brandy.

“The eyes? Well the eyes are just another frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum. I think the hearing comes from compression of atoms by sound that imparts energy into their electrons and that energy increase is what you are picking up as sound.” Mark stood up and went over to the sink with his empty dishes.

“You could try to talk to your former patients I guess that would be the first step. I’ve heard from some other ghosts that trying to get to them when they are asleep, in their dreams, is easier, but the negative downside of that is most of them don’t remember their dreams when they wake up, ha, ha. For some of them their dreams are so chaotic that whatever you’re trying to tell them just gets lost in the storm. I have no idea myself.” Mark admitted.

“Sometimes the answer to a question is simply, “I don’t know”, and in your case I just don’t know William. A ghost hypnotizing a living person? Nope, I have no idea how that would work out. I’d advise you to try and see if you can communicate with the therapist that took over your practice first. If you can’t get through to them, then come back and see me, and I’ll try to help.” Mark then got up and started washing the dishes as he talked.

“Good luck William.” Mark wished him as he floated through the wall and was gone.

Two weeks later William was back and Mark found himself knocking on the front door of a large prestigious looking two story whitewashed brick home in a swanky rich neighborhood. Mark parked on the street and walked up the drive to the front door. The large ornate dark oak door Mark was knocking on at the moment had a sign beside it. The sign read, William L. Pierce, Psychiatrist, MD/Psychiatrist, AMA, APA, ABPN, with a phone number under it. Of course the person who opened the door wasn’t William Pierce.

The woman now standing in the doorway before him was a tall statuesque busty brunette beauty, wearing a low cut white satin blouse with a slim belted black pencil skirt, and high heels. Mark thought she looked extremely good in a Playboy Bunny sexy librarian sort of way, wearing a large pair of black rimmed glasses, and her hair put up in a severe accountant’s bun on the back of her head. She also had high cheekbones, and luscious red pouty full lips he didn’t fail to note. He would guess her age at middle or late twenties. As she stood there before him her light hazel eyes looked Mark up and down judging him before she seemed to pass sentence on him and spoke,

“If your looking for Doctor William Pierce, I regret to inform you he passed away recently.” She stated flatly and started to turn away.

“I know, he had a stroke. He had been having headaches, which turned out to be mini strokes really for a few weeks before the final big one hit. He actually refused go to the hospital to have them checked out. He just finally fell over dead in his bedroom. Doctors make bad patents he says.” Mark answered back causing the woman before him to narrow her eyes at him.

“How do you know that?” She questioned.

“The same way I know that your name is Beverly Rachel Pierce, your 32 years old, your favorite ice cream is rocky road, you accidentally burned down the Christmas tree and ruined all the Christmas presents under the tree when you were seven, and your father never liked your dog Buddy. Your father’s ghost is telling me all this Miss Pierce.” Mark told her.

“My father’s ghost is telling you all this?” Beverly said, not believing Mark for a minute.

“Yes, William, what’s your middle name?” Mark asked the air beside him. “Isaac Pierce, your dead father, is telling me all this Miss Pierce,” Mark said sounding tired and indifferent now. At that Beverly narrowed her eyes at Mark.

“If Dad is here, what was the name of the cat he didn’t want me to keep when I was thirteen?” Beverly demanded.

Mark looked around at the empty air. “Really? Is that the only thing you can think of to ask Beverly? Okay, you kept calling the damn cat, “Fur Ball”, and he ran away the next week.” Mark told her. Lydia’s eyes went wide, but she then grew even more suspicious.

“Who are you?” She demanded.

“Mark Bishop, I’m here to help your father’s ghost with some unresolved issues he has Miss Pierce.” Mark told her simply.

Shortly later Mark was seated in the living room in a comfortable padded lounge chair with a cup of steaming coffee and Beverly was seated before him on a sofa nervously crossing and uncrossing her shapely legs before him. Mark at the moment was trying his best not to look down at those same lovely legs and keep his eyes up on Beverly’s face where they belonged.

“Dad left his practice in a horrible mess Mister Bishop. Everything it seems is locked up in his damn computer over there. Without the password it’s just so much useless junk.” Beverly told him looking nervous. Mark looked off to his right then back at her.

“William Pierce, dollar symbol, 123, all one word, only the ‘W’ and ‘P’ is capitalized,” Mark said, Beverly didn’t seem to like him knowing this, but she finally got up and went over to the computer and tapped away for a moment.

“Fuck, that was it,” Beverly said aloud.

“Well of course it was. Your father is now telling me to scold you for using curse words Miss Pierce,” Mark actually laughed.

“He’s not my real father Mister Bishop, though I did call him Dad. He married my mother when I was six. Did he also happen to tell you how he was treating his patients?” Beverly asked.

“Not yet Miss Pierce.” Mark told her.

“Dad had some kind of hypnosis technique that was unlike any other technique I’ve ever heard of, or even read about, and I’m a licensed psychiatrist myself Mister Bishop. His technique was more like mind control magic than hypnosis really, and his patients have an overwhelming urge to still come here and give him money. Hell they’re even trying to give me the money now. That’s even when he’s not actively providing them therapy because they’re supposedly cured. That’s even when they know he’s dead. So if Dad really is here, how about having him explain himself Mister Bishop?” A now very mad Beverly Pierce demanded of Mark.

“Care to weigh in on that William?” Mark asked the empty air.

“William is saying, that his psychiatry practice was failing miserably. He had no people skills, and his patents were not coming back for their subsequent appointments, so he’d read about a new technique that was half standard orthodox hypnosis, or Mesmerism, and half magic. He claims that the magic part is like classic Mesmerism, but even better. Something Messmier discovered but kept secret from the world.”

“It seems that during a magnetic treatment of a female patient Mesmier felt that he perceived a fluid flowing through her body. He also believed that with his will alone he affected that flow in her body and she got better. He called it “Animal Magnetism”. Mesmier believed that every individual had this magnetic fluid flowing through channels throughout their body, and certain gifted individuals, such as himself, had an innate ability to manipulate the flow of this fluid. Anyway its all written down and documented in his journal Miss Pierce.” Mark told her.

“Please call me Beverly, and where’s this so-called journal Mister Bishop?” Beverly asked skeptically.

“On the computer. Each patient’s file also has a list of their post hypnotic triggers and any commands he gave them.” Mark said, as if he already had the answer handy.

“OK, I see that. Fuck, Dad, why do I have a file on here too with your other patents?” Beverly suddenly asked with concern.

“He says you should open that one now Beverly,” Mark told her.

“Should or shouldn’t,” Beverly asked.

“Should,” Mark said. “William for some reason really wants you to see what’s in there.”

Beverly opened the large file on the computer and put a hand to her mouth at what she saw.

“Oh my God, it’s all our family photos and other things I thought were lost forever. It’s their wedding pictures, birth certificates, birthday cards, things I thought were lost and destroyed. There’re even videos of Mom and us in here, from when she was alive.” Beverly seemed both shocked and overjoyed for the moment at what she was discovering on the computer’s hard drive.

“I seem to be able to open all the files, but this one. I don’t think I have ever seen this file extension before. Windows file names have two parts separated by a period. The first, is the file name, and the second, a three, or four character extension that defines the file type. OH, never mind, I’ll open it later, but I do wonder what’s in jabe.exta. It’s a pretty large file, and some of these patience’s files I see now have that same.exta extension too.” Beverly explained to Mark.

“Wait, is Mom a ghost too?” She suddenly asked Mark. Mark looked around at the room, and then looked back at Beverly.

“Janet?” Mark called out loudly.

“Sorry, no luck.” Mark said to Beverly after a few minutes of waiting.

“If she is a ghost she’s not around here right now. Really it’s improbable that she’s a ghost, it isn’t even one percent of people who die that become ghosts. Most people, even if they do become ghosts, still pass on to the other side soon after.” Mark told her.

“Well Dad, I appreciate the pictures, and the videos, but you really shouldn’t have done that technique to enslave your patents minds.” Beverly said to the empty air,

“He’s not here at the moment Beverly,” Mark said looking around.

“Not here as in?” Beverly questioned.

“I honestly don’t know Beverly. He might have passed on to the other side, or just went through the wall for some reason.” Mark said truthfully.

“Well either way, thank you for your help Mister Bishop.” Beverly said to Mark.

“Your quite welcome Miss Pierce.” Mark chuckled.

“If you don’t mind me asking, you seem really depressed Mark. Are you okay?” She asked Mark.

“I’m just down today Beverly, I have this gift that other people have a hard time believing in. When they are finally convinced they’re not very comfortable with me and the ghosts. Plus I get no real privacy because there are ghosts everywhere. When they somehow hear that I’m a human that can see and hear them, on what I call the “ghost hotline”, they sort of beat a path to my doorstep so to speak. As if that’s not bad enough, I’m constantly being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to go to crime scenes where horrible things have happened. Then at the crime scene I have to try to talk to dead people because of what’s just happened to them, or other dead people who might have seen something.” Mark paused a second then continued.

“It’s hard to have any kind of relationship with a woman when some deranged ghost shows up out of the blue, and is standing in front of me yelling what he would do to her if he was alive and rattling the silverware around and making the lights flicker like a hunted house. OH! I can get rid of him soon enough, but it’s the distraction at the moment Beverly. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have Patty to take care of me.” Mark finished.

“I never thought of that, and who’s Patty, your girlfriend?” Beverly inquired, as her eyes narrowed a little.

“It’s a little known fact that every woman’s locker room in every high school in the country is blessed by a priest to keep ghosts ... evil sprits ... out,” Mark told her changing the subject with a wink.

“Does that really work?” Beverly asked with some interest.

“What?” Mark asked innocently.

“Keep the ghosts out?” Beverly re-asked.

“For a while I guess,” Mark chuckled. “I really need to get going Beverly. I have a flight to catch in three hours that I can’t miss.”

Beverly rummaged around in her purse and pulled out a business card. “Here, if you ever need to talk to someone, I owe you big time for helping me with all this stuff with Dad.” Beverly said handing Mark the card.

“That’s what I’m here for Beverly,” Mark said, and gave Beverly a small salute as he went out into the overcast sky, miserable cold mist, and biting rain the day had suddenly become. Behind the glass picture window, Beverly watched him go to an old blue compact car, and then drive off.

“Dad, if you ever even think about trying to set me up with him as a date I will personally call for a priest to exorcise you. That man has trouble spelled with a capital T following him around 24/7, and besides you know I’m a lesbian now, just accept it, OK.” Beverly said to the empty air in the room,

Latter that night Beverly was still sitting at her desk trying to stay awake. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and blurry, and her head felt so heavy she could barely hold it up, but Beverly was doggedly still trying to organize the files on her father’s computer into a logical set of groups that she could understand and work with. There were the people who were just normal patients undergoing treatment, then there were the people that were actively entranced patients, and then there were also the former cured patients that were still entranced to give him money every month it seemed. Beverly had all the code phrases now to entrance them again, and make them stop giving money for nothing.

Beverly was also trying to make it through her father’s journal on the hypnotic technique he had invented ... well at least perfected. As interesting as the research material was, it was still dull and boring reading. It was practically putting her to sleep, but she was determined to read as much of it as possible tonight.

Latter still in the early morning am hours of the night, at the “Witching Hour”. According to folklore, the “Witching Hour” or “Devil’s Hour” is a time of night that is associated with supernatural events, whereby witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and be at their most powerful. Definitions vary, but by consensus the hour seems to be the time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am.

Beverly at 3 am was sound asleep curled up in her large padded desk chair when something began to happen around her. First the computer awoke from its sleep mode and the monitor turned on. Then the mouse, slowly at first, moved on it’s own, across the mouse pad until the pointer rested on the search bar and double clicked. Then the keys on the keyboard slowly started to depress without any obvious fingers on the keyboard. In the search bar was typed, ‘Sinatrablueeyes’. With the word typed out the “Enter” key was pressed next by an invisible finger, and one video file popped up on the monitor’s screen. At that sound Beverly suddenly jerked her head up startled by the sound into semi wakefulness. Beverly didn’t see the mouse move to the video file, but she did hear the double click of the mouse as the file started to play.

“What? What?” A sleepy Beverly asked the empty room, as the video program came to life on her monitor’s flat screen, and a multicolored series of flashing lights in a swirling spiral pattern filled the screen, and then filled Beverly’s tired sleepy mind. The video didn’t just fill Lydia’s mind, it literally pushed out everything else there. Beverly could only stare at the amazing colors with blank unblinking empty eyes.

After twenty minutes the video ended and the monitor screen went dark again, but by then Beverly’s mind was a blank, leaving her still staring at the dark blank monitor screen with equally blank empty eyes. Slowly at first her body began to move, first a shoulder sort of twitched, then srugged, then the other shoulder moved the same way. Then an arm moved, then the other arm stretched out. After that the hands flexed, and finally the body itself seemed to adjust itself in the chair. It was like somebody putting on a new suit of cloths to see if it fitted right. At that point her hands moved, and the programs still running on the computer were closed down, and a audio recording program was brought up on the computer’s screen. Beverly then began dictating into the computer’s microphone. When she was through she called up a voice changer program to change her voice from female to a deep male voice on playback. Finally the program was ready for playback.

“Beverly, you have just watched what I like to call the “Program” and you are very deeply tranced now. You have in fact watched it many times since you were 7 years old. Both you and your mother have been ... well were Mesmerized by me many times with the “Program” Beverly. Really, the “Program” only refreshes and reinforces your original trance induction and the mantra I gave you to silently recite while watching it. The mantra is that you belong to me body and soul. You joined your mother as my sex slave when you turned 18. You, in fact, took your mother’s place in my bed after she died. You are only aware of this programing when I trigger you like this, well actually your alternate personality is only aware of the programing. You will find that many of my female patents are ... well were ... my sex slaves too when you read the encrypted.exta files I have left you.” At this point the “Program” graphics were again started and Beverly recited her mantra aloud for 10 minutes. At the end of that time the monitor went dark again and the male voice continued with it’s programing of Beverly.

“First Beverly, you will not question that this is your Master’s voice, You will listen closely now, to all these instructions and commands. You will obey everything without question. To start with, you are not a lesbian. You have never been a lesbian. You are bisexual. You are now deeply sexually in love with Mark Bishop, he will become your Master now too. Your only desire in life from this day forward is to be his totally obedient loving slave. You will use my advanced Messier enslavement techniques, which you have now learned, to make other female slaves for Mark Bishop. You will remake yourself, and those women you recruit, into whatever Mark Bishop wants you to be. You will think, do, say, feel, believe, remember, and/or forget anything Mark Bishop wants. After you have enslaved six other beautiful sexy women you will all present yourselves to Mark Bishop and will do everything you can to convince him to accept you as his obedient sex slaves. Now awaken, and obey slave.” Beverly woke up with a start, and looked around.

“Mark Bishop.” She moaned out loud with lust and desire as her hand worked away between her spread legs.

At the same time across town at his house Mark Bishop was feeling like a failure at the moment. He’d just spent the better part of the past two and a half days walking around the hot dusty northern Nevada desert crime site finding nothing. Sure there were at least a half a dozen newly discovered skeletal remains in a shallow grave about fifteen miles south of where the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada’s boundaries met up, but there were no ghosts to question about what had happened in that desolate place. They had only called Mark out to try to get some clue as to who it was that had died, how they died, who killed them, or anything else that could have helped with the investigation. Mark had found nothing of any use.

Getting back to his house Mark went straight to the basement to start his laundry, dumping all the sweaty and dirty clothes he had been wearing all week into the washer. Mark was just thinking about getting a cold beer from the refrigerator upstairs when he heard his doorbell upstairs ring. Mark groaned a bit. He was not up for company at the moment. Mark was mildly surprised when he saw that it was Beverly Pierce in a long black belted leather trench coat at his front door.

“Hi Mark,” Beverly said coyly when he opened the door.

“Beverly?” Mark answered back a touch surprised that she was back.

“I just had to see you Mark.” Beverly next told him.

“I just got home myself from a business trip Beverly, but please, come in.”

“Thanks Mark,” Beverly said, as she stepped past him and he got a whiff of her musky perfume.

“May I take your coat,” Mark offered, trying to be a gentleman, but also because it was hot in the house since the air conditioner hadn’t been turned back on yet.

“Sure,” Beverly said, as she turned and stood with her back to Mark so he could take the leather trench coat off her shoulders.

When Mark did he noticed for the first time what Beverly had on under the long trench coat. Maybe we should say what she didn’t have on. Beverly without the trench coat was totally naked. Everything was exposed right down to her hairless pussy lips, even her dark slit between her wide spread legs could be seen clearly. Her magnificent gravity defying breasts stood out proudly, and as he stared at her beautiful breasts he could actually see the dark brown nipples become erect and the lighter pink areolae swell.

“Okay, this is somewhat unexpected Beverly,” Mark said in surprise as much as shock. Beverly’s skin was smooth and nearly flawless he noted. At that moment she chose to free her long silky dark brown hair from it’s tight confining bun and shook it out as she stood before Mark showing off her beautiful body.

“I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since we met Mark, I want you, I need you Mark, I have to have you Mark.” Beverly said, with passion and arousal in her now husky voice.