Chapter 8

Eric awoke at his now customary four in the morning on Friday. This morning was different for him though as for the first time in his life he had to disentangle himself from two luscious, warm, soft supple female forms. Liz and Jenny had draped themselves over him during the night, ensconcing him in a delightful blanket of squishy bits.

He was in the process of getting up when Jenny began to stir. She mumbled in her sleep and her hand dropped to his hard cock. He stopped trying to get up and lay back enjoying the sensations.

Erith chuckled in his mind. "No time for that now Young One, we have work to do."

"You're a sadistic bastard Erith!" Eric grumbled.

"I know, I can remember the first time I woke up with a woman. I didn't want to get up either. Of course, I didn't have too. I think I spent two solid days in bed!" He replied.

"So why won't you let me?"

"You know what they say Eric. Misery loves company! I'm not getting any so neither are you. UP, NOW! We have training to do. They will still be there when you get back. Of course, you won't have time to do anything as you have school though." Erith laughed.

Eric formed a mental image of him strangling Erith, much to Erith's amusement but he did drag himself from his bed. Unable to find any cereal to eat, he made himself some toast and coffee and headed out into the back garden.

"Ok Eric, today we're going to work on enhancing your speed and your shields. You're pretty quick now but you are still thinking about your actions. Believe it or not, this will slow you down significantly. This will be our first foray into the merging of your magic's with your physical abilities. Last night, you instinctively placed a shield around you after the vase hit you in the head. That was good thinking but the shield was very weak and inefficient and there was an obvious flaw in your planning. You didn't put it up until after you were hit. I know that there was no real damage but it could have been much worse. Had that been an axe, we wouldn't be having this or any other conversation."

"What was wrong with my shield yesterday? It worked ok." Eric asked him, wondering what he had done wrong.

"Yes it worked but only because the objects that were hitting it weren't travelling very fast. The shield that you created was like a sponge. It was absorbing all of the energy of the flying objects and bouncing them off again. If you had made it hard, the objects would still not have penetrated but it would have taken far less out of you. Had you not been in that particular room where your energy levels were staggeringly high, you would have tired quickly trying to maintain it."

"What difference will it make to have a hard shield rather than a spongy one? How will that take less energy to maintain?" Eric asked, beginning to get confused.

"Think of it this way. Your knights of old; what did they use for armour? Steel! They could easily have wrapped themselves in sufficient layers of blankets so that a sword would not be able to penetrate it but it would have been incredibly heavy and unwieldy. Your shield was much the same." Erith told him.

"Ok, that's a fair point. How do I make a different sort of shield that won't wear me out?" Eric said, finally understanding what Erith was trying to tell him.

"If you will hold your tongue and listen for a moment, I am trying to tell you! It's actually a very simple process. What you did last night was much harder to achieve than what I aim to teach you this morning. All you need to do is envisage a thin sheet of glass all around you. If you can make it so that you are wearing it, so much the better. The closer it is to your body, the less energy it takes to maintain. With practice, all be it a lot of practice, you will be able to maintain it all the time so you will have constant protection."

"Just how effective will this shield be? Will I be bullet proof or just stuff people have thrown at me proof?" Eric enquired. The possibilities were beginning to become clear to him.

"That's up to you Eric. It will depend on how much energy you wish to expend. In its lowest form, it will reduce the impact of a punch or a blunt object strike but you can increase its effectiveness against more dangerous weapons, as and when required. I have to warn you though, shielding is a very draining exercise. With time and practice, you will be able to maintain a low energy shield all the time but you are nowhere near ready for that. This is something that you are going to have to put a lot of work in to become proficient. As for the being bullet proof, it could take you years before you will be ready to erect a shield of that strength."

As the session progressed, Eric began to realise just how tiring it would be. His shield was very weak, barely managing to stop very small pebbles that Yeneya was floating towards him at low speeds. His technique was fine but the energy required erecting and holding his shield was tremendous.

"I thought you were exaggerating about how long it would take me to learn this stuff. I see now that you weren't. I didn't feel this drained last night, even with my spongy shield. Maybe I should just revert to that method." Eric offered.

"Ok, let's try it." Erith told him.

Eric tried to do what he had done the night before but quickly realised that he didn't have the energy left to even erect the shield, let alone maintain it.

"I don't understand. I managed that last night with barely more than a thought. It didn't tire me out or anything. Why can't I do it today?" He asked in an exasperated tone.

"I told you Eric. You were getting a lot of your energy from the portal in the council chamber. Remember Yeneya said that it was like a huge battery charger for her? Well, as you have a certain amount of Fey in you, you were able to unconsciously draw on that energy." Erith told him.

"I thought you said I couldn't do that?"

"No, I told you not to try. All you were doing was absorbing the energy around you. That which was already leaking into the chamber. If you had tried to open yourself up to it more, you would most likely have been overwhelmed by it. That's why I told you not to try. This will be a lesson for a later date. For now, you are highly unlikely to need more than what leaks in across the portal as you are already far more powerful than any in that council. There will however come a time when you will need to be able to access that energy and make use of it but we need to prepare you well in advance of that so it will have to wait for a while. I still have much to teach you before we get to that stage Young One." Erith told him.

"Right, before we finish for the morning, I want to try one more thing with you Eric. What I want you to do today is to practice projecting your voice into the minds of others without creating a mental link."

"How do I do that?" Eric asked

"It really is as simple as it sounds. You just push your thoughts at your intended target. They will hear you but you won't hear their thoughts or responses. It makes for an efficient way to give someone some information but it's much safer for you than establishing a link. Whenever you have an open link with someone, there is always the chance that they can use it against you. So far you have been lucky in that your mental abilities have been far stronger than anyone you have linked with so you were able to keep them out of your head. This won't always be the case though and that will force you to shield your mind as you did the other day to stop the girls from hearing your thoughts."

"Will I still be able to affect their thinking by doing that?"

"That depends on what you are trying to get them to do and how you phrase what ever you tell them. If you just want them to do something simple, something that they would have absolutely no reason to object to then yes you could. For example, you could get someone to scratch their head to acknowledge that they have heard you. They would do this almost on a subconscious level. You couldn't get them to harm themselves or something like that though." Erith replied.

"Ok, let me try it."

Eric closed his eyes and turned to face the house. There were two people in that house who both knew of his abilities and who wouldn't object to his experimenting on them in this manner. He formed a mental image of Jenny in his mind exactly as he had last seen her and almost lost his concentration. Steeling himself, he formed his thought and then "pushed" it towards Jenny, willing her to hear him. It wasn't anything earth shattering, just a request for a kiss.

"I guess I will just have to wait and see if it worked." He told Erith. "Anyway, I need to get my arse in gear and go home to get changed ready for school".

"I wonder if Liz would mind running me home?" he said to himself

Just as he started to walk towards the house, Jenny emerged wearing a thin night dress, her hair was tousled and she was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes but her face lit up when she saw him. He marvelled again at just how beautiful this girl was. Even without her makeup, her hair a mess and barely awake, she still looked fantastic.

"Ummm. Morning handsome." She greeted him. "That was weird. I could have sworn you were right next to me asking for a kiss but then I woke up and you weren't there. Anyway, come here. I want that kiss now." She said as she came up and hugged him.

"Eric. Eric..."

Eric looked round as he walked into the school grounds, fairly sure that he had heard someone call his name. There to his right was Claire looking as pretty and tiny but as shy as usual.

"Oh hi Claire, sorry I didn't hear you. You really are going to have to learn to speak up a bit you know" he said to her with a smile making her blush even more than she was already.

"What can I do for you my tiny, quiet friend?"

"I... erm... That is..." she began hesitantly. "Would it be ok if I were to bring someone else with me tomorrow for the training?" she almost whispered.

Eric realised that he could probably use this to his advantage.

"I don't know Claire, I think we already have a full quota for tomorrow."

Her face fell but she remained quiet. He realised that it had taken all of her courage just to come and ask this of him and he felt a little guilty but knew it would be best in the long run.

"I'll tell you what. As long as you promise to help out with correcting forms and whatever, I'm sure we can fit another one or two in. What do you say?"

He thought the small girl was going to faint but she took a deep breath and nodded her head in agreement.

"Wonderful. Do you know where I live? If not, just come with Robin and Helen. They know how to get there. Make sure you get a good nights sleep though as I am planning on making full use of your talents tomorrow." He told her with a cheeky grin.

Once again she just nodded and quickly scuttled off.

"Nicely done Young One" Brianna whispered to him.

"Bloody hell! Will wonders never cease? I told you that she fancied you" Jenny chuckled as he approached her and Susie who were sat in the now usual place outside the main entrance to the building.

"Now what the hell are you going on about you mad woman?" Eric asked, his confusion evident.

"Claire you dummy! She NEVER speaks to anyone unless she is forced too. That's twice in two days she has spoken to you."

"Careful Jenjen, your claws are showing." He told her dismissively.

"Oh bollocks Eric. I'm not jealous but I'm telling you she really likes you. And if you call me that again in public I will have your guts for garters." She told him whilst simultaneously slapping him on the shoulder.

"I don't know Jen Jen," Susie said with a grin whilst backing up. "I think it suits you."

"Don't you start! I thought I could rely on you to help me out here." Jenny said laughing.

"Ha! All's fair in love and war" Susie told her with a smile.

"Really?" Jenny said, raising an eyebrow. "So are you in love and are we at war?"

"No Jenny, we aren't at war." She replied enigmatically, causing Jenny's eyebrow to raise even further. Eric being his usual astute self completely missed the significance of the entire exchange.

Within the space of twenty four hours, school had become a totally different experience for Eric he now realised as he walked the corridors. No longer was he just an anonymous face to be jostled, ignored or bullied. He could hear the whispers around him and see the looks he was getting. Some were filled with awe, some looked frightened and some down right resentful but all of them made him feel a little uncomfortable. Were he not with his new group of friends he felt sure he would have been embarrassed, or at least a lot more embarrassed than he already was. Having his friends with him meant that he could ignore them and hide behind his conversation with Robin, Jenny and Susie.

Entering his Maths class he decided that it was something he was just going to have to get used to until the excitement of what had happened yesterday died down. His class promised to be its usual mind numbing self. It wasn't that he couldn't do maths; it was more a case of not understanding his teacher. There was a definite personality clash there and Eric firmly believed that his lack of learning ability was less to do with him as it was his teacher's ability to impart the knowledge in a usable way. He'd never had problems with maths before this teacher turned up at the beginning of the year but now he needed extra tuition to even understand what was being asked of him.

Thinking back on his morning's lessons with Erith, he began to wonder if it were possible to hear a thought rather than plant one without establishing a link. As an experiment, he extended his mental probe towards his teacher but stopped it just short of touching him and creating a link. He was stunned to realise that he had hit upon the correct method his first try. With a little concentration he could pick out the answers to the equations before they were written on the board. Whilst this could be handy in an emergency, it wasn't entirely useful as he realised that he would still not understand the method of arriving at the answer. With a bit more practice, he was able to follow the process in his teachers mind. This proved to be so much more efficient in teaching him how to do the equations that he stopped listening to what his teacher was saying altogether.

"Eric! Why don't you come up to the front of the class and show us how its done if you feel you already know it!" his teacher shouted at him. Eric realised that he must have looked as though he were daydreaming as he wasn't paying attention to what was being said. Blushing, he stood and went to the front of the class and faultlessly worked his way through the list of problems on the board, carefully explaining what he was doing and more to the point, why he was doing it until he arrived at the correct answers. His teacher gave him a surprised look as Eric gave him the pen back and returned to his seat.

"Well that was easy enough" he thought to himself. "I wonder if I can read anyone's surface thoughts like that?" As his teacher proceeded to explain Eric's workings on the board, he did a couple of surface scans of other people in his class. This was astonishingly easy to do so he continued to experiment. First he put his probe back in place on his teachers' thoughts so he could keep up with the lesson and then began trying to extend another probe to try to gather the surface thoughts of others at the same time. After a while, he realised that he could maintain up to five separate probes and still make sense of pretty much everything. Six proved to be just that little too much to take in at this stage.

Most of the remainder of his morning was spent in much the same way. He would sit in class, a probe pointed at his teacher to allow him to absorb the lesson and a few others scanning his class mates. It didn't take him long to begin to understand just what a useful and powerful tool this really was. It occurred to him that he was now in a position to become the world's greatest black mailer or gossip columnist should he so choose. With a jolt, his Gran's warning about responsible use of power came back to him and for the first time he began to fully understand what she was trying to tell him.

Once he had scanned his class mates he was surprised to find that everyone there was just as insecure and unsure of themselves as he was. Their problems and thoughts ranged from the mundane to the ridiculous, from thoughts of homework to those of lovers and friends, trepidation towards upcoming events to excitement. Most of the stuff he learnt was pretty useless and of no consequence but there were one or two things that intrigued him.

Putting aside his new found ability it occurred to him that he wasn't doing as Erith had asked. He was supposed to be influencing others rather than snooping through their thoughts so he spent the last hour before lunch getting people to do small things. He kept himself amused by causing people to scratch themselves, pick their noses, pull funny faces but couldn't really see any practical applications for it.

Keith was in torment. At heart he had basically considered himself to be a fairly decent human being. The events of the last few days had begun to shake this belief to the core. He had been dreaming of power and wealth. This in and of itself wasn't too worrying to him but the methods those dreams employed to gain him the wealth and power were vicious and cruel with no regard for anyone or anything. The most worrying aspect of the whole thing was that the more he dreamed, the more he accepted them. In the past if someone had suggested to him that he might be capable of some of the things he had thought of over the last couple of days, he would have been horrified.

He thought back to the incident with Thomas in the washrooms at work. He hadn't hesitated to try and kill a man he had considered his friend and mentor for years. Trying to fathom what had caused him to lash out like that made his head ache. All he knew was it had something to do with the new boy who came in after school sometimes to help Thomas out. Why would he care about a young lad? He hadn't caused him any problems as far as he could remember, in fact Keith couldn't even remember talking to the boy more than to say a brief hello when Wally had first given him the tour of the factory floor.

"He is the one thing that stands between you and all you dream of!" the voice whispered in his head.

"How can a mere boy stop me from achieving what I want?"

"You do not yet understand but know this. As long as that boy walks the earth, everything you want will be denied you. He will prevent you from reaching your full potential and rightful place of leader and conqueror. Will you let him hold you back in this way?"

Keith once again lapsed into a vivid daydream. He was sat on a golden throne, surrounded by scantily clad women. Servants attended to his every whim and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was how things should be. Once he made this a reality, no one and nothing would be able to oppose him.

His dream shifted. Now he was standing in the open, his sword in hand facing the boy. "Eric" he remembered the boys name to be. He knew that they had just fought with swords and that he had disarmed Eric. His imagination took over and filled in the details, Keith saw himself as some sort of character from "Highlander". With a back hand slash, he removed Eric's head and waited for the "quickening" to happen. The dream ended here and Keith roused himself, a look of malevolent hatred distorting his face.

"You're going down boy. How dare you stand in my way" he snarled to himself.

Eric's first lesson after lunch was English and he got the shock of his life. Miss Murray their teacher was a woman he had always fantasised about. He was in the process of extending his "monitoring probe" towards her to stay up with the lesson when he was hit with a wave of arousal. "What the hell?" he thought to himself. Pushing his probe forward again he was shocked to see that his fantasies were being reciprocated. Miss Murray had the hots for him!

Realising that this would be the perfect opportunity for him to practice pushing his thoughts he focused on her and began to feed her instructions, nothing serious, just for her to make an excuse to get him alone so he could see if she would be prepared to act out on her fantasy. He had no idea if they would work or not and knew he would have to wait until the end of the lesson to find out.

"Eric, could you stay behind for a moment please" Miss Murray said to him as the rest of his class piled out of the door.

She looked at him nervously before speaking. "I have the rest of today off now Eric and I could use your help with something. If I can arrange it, would you mind leaving school for the day and helping me with some lifting?"

"Sure Miss, if you can get me out of here without me getting in to trouble I'd love to help" He replied with a smile.

"Ok, you wait right here and I will check with the head of year." She told him as she disappeared out of the door.

The first half of his afternoon didn't go quite as he had envisioned it. The help with lifting that she had asked for involved moving some large rocks in her garden from an area she wanted to put a pond. To say that he was disappointed would be quite an understatement.

"Thanks Eric, you're a real trooper. I would've taken me days to move all of those rocks on my own. I should be able to get the pond liner fitted in the next couple of days now."

Eric looked across at her, she was sweaty, dishevelled and covered in mud. She had never looked sexier to him.

"Do you want to come in and have a drink or something? You must be parched after all that digging and lifting."

He nodded in the affirmative and followed her swaying hips towards the house. She stopped suddenly and spun on her heal to say something to him, almost causing him to collide with her. They stood frozen, a few inches apart. Their eyes locked on each other and time stood still. With infinite care and slight hesitation, Eric reached up and brushed the hair from her face, She leant in and forced her cheek on to his hand, making his contact firmer. Pushing his hand further round the back of her neck, he pulled her slowly towards him. The first touch of their lips was electric. Emma sighed into his mouth and relaxed into the kiss, pressing her body against him.

She broke the kiss and silently led him into the house, pausing only to remove their shoes, she started to pull him towards the stairs. Eric had other ideas. He spun her round and forced her against the kitchen sink. With little more than a thought, he had pushed her shorts down her legs exposing her gorgeous arse, pulled the front of his own shorts down and was pressing against her rapidly moistening opening.

"This is your only chance Emma. Say no now and I stop. Stay quiet and you are mine. Do you understand?" he breathed into her ear.

Emma had absolutely no intention of saying anything of the sort. She had dreamed of this moment since she first saw him in class. It was unbelievable what he was doing to her. "It's almost as if he is reading my mind!" she thought.

Eric put his hand on the back of her neck and slowly pushed her forward until she was forced to grab the taps for support and without another word, thrust into her making her gasp as she tried to accommodate him in her woefully under used pussy.

Sensing that she was seriously turned on by this, he began to slam in to her. He paid no mind to her pleasure, only his own, knowing full well that he would take care of her afterwards but for now, this was what they both needed. He reached forward again, and cupped her breasts, firmly rolling the nipples through her tee shirt and bra; he sensed her arousal rise another couple of notches so he released one of her breasts and tangled his hand in the back of her long dark hair. Pulling roughly on it, he forced her head back and to the side. He leant down and put his lips next to her left ear.

"Do you like this little slut? Do you like to be used and abused, knowing that there is nothing you can do to stop me? Are you on the pill little slut? I hope not because I'm going to cum inside you. Just imagine, my sperm could be worming its way towards one of your eggs in a few minutes. Do you want me to knock you up slut?" He grunted.

"Oh gods yes! Fill me up, knock me up, use me!" she panted before losing the ability to speak as her orgasm washed over her.

As she came, her pussy went into spasm, the hot, tight wet sheath milking his cock and forcing his own orgasm. He slammed in to her, burying himself to the hilt as he unloaded himself in her.

As the aftershocks began to subside, he pulled out of her, untangled his hand from her hair and gently took her by the hand to help her stand.

"Now, how about that drink?" Eric asked her playfully.

Emma blushed prettily and giggled heading for the fridge.

Once they had finished their drinks, Emma looked at him seriously. "Eric, you know that this can never happen again don't you? I could lose my job if anyone ever found out about this. It's not that I don't want to you understand but its just too risky for us to be together like this."

Eric realised that if he didn't do something right away, he was going to lose her. He stood, took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. With a wink, he turned and headed for the stairs pulling her behind him.

"Eric! Did you hear anything I just said?" she asked him in an exasperated tone.

He ignored her protests and pulled her gently up the stairs behind him noting that there wasn't really any resistance there. He led her into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind him. Reaching into the shower, he set it running, slightly warmer than would be comfortable, turned back to her and lifted the bottom of her tee shirt. She raised her arms unresistingly and off it came in one smooth movement. Tossing the shirt to the floor, he stood back to admire the body that had been the object of his fantasies since he had first set eyes on her a few days back. She was a magnificent looking creature. Her pert breasts were straining her bra to almost breaking point; her waist was slender with sensuous curves that led to the slight flare of her hips. Supple thighs led to equally shapely claves and finished with delicate little feet. This was one hell of a woman.

He reached round her, unclipped her bra and slowly pulled it forward off of her shoulders. Eric actually gasped once he had removed it. Her breasts were amazing. Full, firm, smooth and with only the tiniest amount of sag. Not wanting to touch perfection with his filthy hands, he dropped to his knees and hooked his thumbs in the side of the waistband of her shorts. He yanked them down and realised that she was wearing nothing underneath. He was now at eye level with one of the prettiest pussies he had ever seen. It was neatly trimmed with only a strip of hair above, approximately two fingers wide, the rest was clean shaven and looked delightful. He tapped her behind her knee to indicate that she should raise her leg so he could remove her shorts. She did this and he was greeted with a site he was sure would be with him for the rest of his days. Her vulva was slick with their combined juices, her lips puffy from the pounding they had just taken and her clit was just peeking out of its hood. He looked up at her to see that she was smiling coyly and blushing again.

Eric stood up and quickly removed his own shorts and tee shirt. Emma sighed once she saw his naked frame. He bent down and swept her off her feet, carrying her like a bride over the threshold into the large walk in shower. The heat of the water and the touch of her perfectly smooth skin, soon had his cock begging for more attention. He put her down and turned her away from him. Picking up a bottle of shampoo, he deposited a good dollop on her head and slowly began to lather her hair. Emma was almost purring by the time he was satisfied that her hair was clean. Gently he pushed her forward, under one of the overhead jets, tilted her head back and began to rinse the shampoo from her lustrous locks. She looked up at him, her countenance was one of total adoration as he reached for the shower gel. Getting plenty in his hands, he began to wash her. Starting with her neck, treating the soap as a massage medium to remove the stiffness of the days work from her muscles, he worked down across her shoulders and upper arms, carefully avoiding her breasts. He turned her to face away from him once more and began to massage the muscles in her upper back. Emma was in heaven. Never had she been treated like this. She pushed her arse back until the top of her buttocks came into contact with the base of his hard cock once again and began to grind against him. Eric applied some more soap to his hands and reached down and began to soap her lower back and the tops of her buttocks, the feel of her soapy buttocks against his cock was exquisite torture. Reaching around her, he soaped her belly, very gently kneading the flesh to get to the muscles below. He worked his way up her flanks and on to the sides of her delicate bust.