Chapter 10: Control

Val had just barely started getting dressed in her black leather outfit when the door opened. Gianna began to come into the room, then stopped. She looked at me, lying half-naked in the bed, then to Val, who was very nearly all-naked, then back to me. Her eyes were wide.

She let the door close behind her as I scrambled off the bed, pulling my pants up. My ripped shirt fluttered around my chest. Val was smiling.

"I, um, just wanted to see what was taking so long," Gianna said quietly.

"Now you know," Val replied, her smile widening.

"Val, you're not helping," I said. She fell silent as she continued getting dressed, but she was still smiling.

"It's okay," Gianna said, brushing her hand back through her long hair. "I'm not mad, just surprised. I didn't expect to see this."

"You're not mad?" I asked. "Not in the slightest?"

"I'm not. Though I should be." She sat down on the bed, looking up at me in confusion. "First there was what we did in the cave with Atheria, now this. This isn't like me not to be jealous. Why aren't I angry with you?"

"I don't know," I replied. It sounded so lame. I wish I had the answers for her, but I didn't.

"I know why," Val said.

We both looked over at her. She was just finishing getting herself into her black leather suit and looked like she hadn't been paying any attention to us.

"You see," she began, walking over and sitting on the bed right next to Gianna. She crossed her long legs, encased in her thigh-high boot. "There are these things called pheromones. They are chemicals secreted by animals that often function as an attractant for the opposite sex."

"You know about pheromones?" I asked.

"Oh yes, dark elves have known about them for hundreds of years. And you give off an incredible amount of them."

"I do? How do you know?"

"Dark elves are very sensitive to pheromones. And you simply reek of them. It's no wonder nearly every woman who is around you for any length of time is willing to bed you."

"So all the women are attracted to him," Gianna said. "But that doesn't explain why I'm not mad at him when he is with another woman."

"Because, young one, you and Atheria and myself are around him so much that we become addicted to his pheromones. His pheromones weaken our willpower to anything he says. We become susceptible to his suggestions. Like his..."

"Slaves?" I asked, finishing for her.

She gave me a dirty look and said, "I would not have phrased it like that, but yes. We could be considered your... slaves." She said it like it was a dirty word.

"But I wasn't like this back home," I said, then I froze. I looked at Val. She was looking at me oddly, her eyes burning with questions.

"'Back home'? And where exactly is home for you?"

"I can't tell you. At least, not until you've been with us for a while and you've earned my complete trust."

Gianna and I locked stares. She knew what I was thinking. She knew that if I hadn't been like this back home, then the dimensional portal must have changed me, given me this ultra pheromone secretion power. I started to wonder what else may have changed about me.

As I stared at Gianna, I thought about the pheromones, and I wondered if it were true. I thought about Dalana, just giving me a blowjob out of the blue. And though Atheria explained that elves were immodest about sexual activities, I began to wonder how much of it was their upbringing, and how much of it was me. I also thought about the serving girl downstairs, who had flirted with me over some extra coins. I thought about Gianna, a girl who hardly took any convincing to join in a three-way, even with her lack of sexual experience. What Val had said did make sense. After all, back home, I wasn't exactly a magnet for the females. The pheromone secretion explained why I was suddenly scoring with nearly every hot babe that crossed my path.

But, I couldn't help but wonder just how potent the pheromones were. Val said they were like my slaves. I wondered how true that was, and how much control I would have over them, not to mention any other female I came into contact with. There was a test I could do to find out.

"Gianna, could you see if Atheria is back yet?"

She nodded and left the room. Val looked at me with a seductive gaze. "Just what is on your mind now?"

"I need to test this power I seem to have now," I told her.

"And you need Atheria for this test?"

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

The door opened and Atheria and Gianna came in. Atheria was looking at me with curiosity in her eyes. "What is happening?" she asked. "Gianna said you needed to see me."

"I do. Sit down on the bed, please."

She looked at Val, sitting on the bed, then back to me. "Next to her?"

"Yes. Do it now."

She didn't argue any further, instead quietly going to the bed and sitting next to the dark elf. I noticed the fact that she didn't argue with me any further after my voice had grown more stern.

Val seemed to suddenly realize where this was going. She looked at me with wide eyes, the seductive look gone. "You cannot be serious!"

"Val, shut up."

She fell quiet, still looking at me with concern, but she was silent. Atheria looked to her, then back to me. "What is going on here?" she demanded.

"I'll tell you," I said. I walked over to the door, taking Gianna's hand in mine as I did so. "We're leaving, and you two will no longer be welcome to come with us. It's going to be just Gianna, Benthor, and myself. We don't need you two anymore."

Atheria started to say something to argue with me, but I cut her off. Val already knew what I was going to do, so she remained silent. I wondered how much of it was because I had told her to shut up.

"I'm sick of how you two are always fighting. If you want to stay with me, then you need to do something to prove that you won't fight anymore."

"What would you have us do?" Atheria asked.

"Kiss each other. Don't argue with me, don't try and fight it. Kiss each other right now."

Atheria and Val, the bitterest of enemies, both came together as fast as I could blink, their kiss deep, long, and passionate. If I hadn't known better, I would have said the two women were old lovers, not mortal enemies. I looked back at Gianna, who watched in stunned silence.

The two elves kept kissing, the pale skin of one brushing against the dark flesh of the other. I suddenly realized that they could very well keep kissing until I told them to stop.

"Okay, that's enough."

The two of them parted, and it looked like it was rather reluctantly. They stared wistfully into each other's eyes for a moment, then looked to me expectantly.

"Is that what you wanted?" Val asked, her voice subdued.

I started to reply, but Gianna grabbed my arm. "I need to talk to you right now," she demanded, opening the door and pulling me out into the hallway. I shut the door behind us.

She stood there in silence for a moment, her eyes burning into me. When she spoke, her voice could barely contain her fury.

"So we're all your slaves now? You can control us so much that you can make a light elf and a dark elf act like lovers?"

"It looks that way," I said in a soft voice. Although the horny teenager inside of me was jumping for joy at being able to control women, my conscience was trying to rein me in, trying to tell me that this was not a good power to have.

"So how much of what I feel is real?" she demanded, tears welling in her eyes. "I love you so much, Lucas. I've loved you from the moment I woke up and saw you taking care of me. But now I have to wonder how much of that is real and how much of that is caused by this power you have!"

"I don't know," I told her. "But I swear to you, I never once wanted you to act any differently than who you are. I fell in love with you too, sweetheart. I fell in love with who you are, and I've never once wanted you to change."

"I just don't know what's real," she said, sobbing.

"I know that. And I wish there was something I could say or do to convince you that your feelings are real." But even as I said that, something deep inside of me wondered if I had unconsciously manipulated her to fall in love with me, as I had apparently been unknowingly manipulating Atheria and Val.

She dried her eyes and sniffled. "I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to run away, but I can't bear the thought of leaving you. And I wish I knew if that was my feelings or your power to control me."

"I wish I knew too," I told her. And it killed me to know that neither of us may ever know if her feelings for me were genuine.

I volunteered to sleep on the floor that night. I just didn't feel comfortable sharing a bed with either Val or Gianna after what I had learned. I didn't sleep for a very long time, my eyes just staring at the dark ceiling over my head. I thought I could hear something going on in the room next to us, Atheria and Benthor's room, but I just didn't care. They could kill each other if they wanted to that night, I had other things on my mind.