Chapter 15

Jason ran almost all the way back to his house. He wanted to call Frank and see if he could head off whatever it was Frank was going to do. He had a sick feeling in his stomach that, whatever it was, it would involve Frank's stepsister, the subject of his clandestine webcam observations.

"I'm home, Mom," he announced as he came in, careful not to slam the door behind him. He expected to hear his mother's typical response from the kitchen ("that's nice, dear") as she prepared dinner. He didn't hear it, and by the time this registered, he had already come to a sudden halt just inside the threshold from the entry hall to the living room.

"Hello, son."

Jason stiffened, one corner of his mouth twitching. "Hi, Dad," he said in a low voice. "You're, uh, home early."

Henry Conner considered his son for a moment with a critical gaze before setting his newspaper to the side. "Good of you to notice that," he said in a cool voice.

Avoiding his father so much lately had one distinct disadvantage. He never quite got used to seeing the terrible darkness around his father. That was one sight to which he did not want to become desensitized.

He caught glimpses of it. Sometimes he would see his father getting into the car, or going for the mail, and he would see it from a distance. That's why he had no idea that his aura-sensing ability had been nullified. Nyssa had been very selective in what she had done. Or it might have been all she could have done, according to whatever rules under which the darkness operated. Possibly she could only block auras resulting from her own actions.

"Well, uh, glad to see you're getting an early start on the weekend," said Jason. He started moving towards the stairs. "Um, I'll see you later..."

"I need to talk to you, Jason."

Jason slowed but did not quite stop. "Can it wait a little while? I need to..."

"No, you will talk to me now." He turned slightly and draped an arm across the back of the sofa. He gestured to the empty seat. "Come here."

Jason came around the end of the sofa. The inky black flowed around his father like a cocoon. Tendrils from his father's arm lashed at the air towards the proffered seat, as if mocking him.

Jason swallowed. He knew the darkness could not be transferred by casual physical contact. But it was horrifying to him to be so close to it, knowing it could just flow across the intervening space and touch him, perhaps without him really knowing it.

He paused another moment, then steeled himself before sitting down heavily. "What's up, Dad?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

Jason paused a long moment before just shrugging.

"Why have you been avoiding me?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, I haven't. We just..."

"You have, Jason. Don't try to deny it. Now, I sent your Mom out for a bit so we can hash this out and figure out what's wrong."

"But there's nothing wrong, Dad. Everything's fine."

"Then why won't you look at me when I'm talking to you?"

Jason sighed to himself and forced his gaze to rise to his. He would not place his eyes squarely into his father's however. As much as he hated the aura, he did not want it to disappear on him anymore. He now knew that was bad. Instead, he wanted it to stand out in crisp relief against the man he thought his father had been, at least before his eyes were opened to the truth.

"Sorry," Jason said softly.

"All I want to know is if I had done something to upset you," Henry said.

Jason shook his head. "No, you haven't. Really. I'm not angry with you, honest."

This was absolutely true. Whatever had happened or whatever his father had done to gain the pall of darkness over him, he clung to the belief that it had not been his father's choice. His father must be under the control of some higher force.

Yet the pattern to his father's darkness was different than what he had seen on Bendon, or Melinda's mother, or Richie's mother. It was subtle, but it was there. His pattern looked more like Nyssa's. It did not seek to form shapes around his body as Nyssa's had, but the similarity was there just the same.

He refused to accept the idea that his father could be a controller like Nyssa rather than one of the controlled. He didn't want to think that his own father could do something like that to someone else.

Henry sighed. "Jason, I hardly know you anymore."

Jason had to suppress the urge to throw him a sharp look as if to say "look who's talking?"

"I feel no involvement in your life. I don't know what you do from day to day."

"Nothing really different from what we have been doing."

Henry paused. "We?"

Jason silently berated himself. "My friends and I, that is."

"The same friends you stayed with after school for no clear reason?"

Now Jason was confused. His mother had accepted his explanation, even though it had sounded lame to even himself. "I told Mom why..."

"And she told me. She was rather concerned about it."

"Why?" Jason demanded, his voice rising slightly. "I just wanted to wait for him to get out of detention, that's all. I knew his Mom was going to pick him up, so I could get a ride home."

"That's not like you. Since when do you wait on that punk Richie?"

Jason sighed. "He's not a punk, Dad. He's a friend of mine."

"You could pick better friends, Jason," Henry said flatly.

Jason was incensed at that and it showed clearly on his face, but he said nothing more on that subject. Instead, he tried a different tack, trying not to sound too exasperated. "Look, Dad, I'll make it easy for you. I'm not doing anything that I wasn't before. I'm not doing drugs or anything like that. I mean, come on, you know me better than that."

"That's not what I was concerned about, really. I just think it's important for you... for us to be closer than we are."

Jason paused for a long moment and his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"

"I need a reason? The fact that you're my son and I'm your father is not good enough?"

"I just meant why all the concern now? It was never a concern all those times you spent so many long hours at the hospital during the week. Or on weekends. Or all the canceled trips and vacations because you couldn't get away from your work."

Jason's voice had become bitter. Henry gave him a humorless grin. "And you're not mad at me at all, are you?"

Jason fumed. He felt like his father had maneuvered him into that. "Just forget I said that," he said in a low voice.

"No, it makes perfect sense, Jason, for you to be upset. I can only repeat that the work I'm doing is very important."

"So you're saying you want to be closer to me, but you're not going to give up any of the work. You're not going to cut back."

Henry paused and shook his head. "I can't."

Jason looked at him. "Can't or won't?"

Henry just shook his head sadly. Jason wondered if his father really understood the significance of that question.

And his father continued to be maddeningly silent on exactly what research was being conducted at a hospital in some small town hardly anyone knows exists.

Jason changed tack again. "All right, Dad, I'll try not to avoid you. I'm sorry."

Henry hesitated, as if suspicious of how his son was giving in with apparent ease. "And do you care to comment on what you were doing after school today?"

"Hanging out with friends at the school waiting for Richie to get out of detention." He paused. "One of my friends is his, uh, girlfriend, and she was going to wait for him so..."

"Richie has a girlfriend?" asked Henry with surprise. "The poor girl."

Jason bit off a retort hard, clenching his teeth.

Henry looked at his son for a few more moments before standing. "All right," he said in a resigned voice. "I suppose that will have to do."

Jason quickly bolted from his seat and rounded the end of the sofa.

"Wait, Jason."

Jason stopped at the foot of the stairs and whirled around.

"I'm going to need you to help me with dinner. We're grilling steaks on the barbecue tonight."

"Uh, can I go make a phone call first? Local. Just one of my friends. Uh, needed some help with his homework."

Henry nodded absently. "Don't be too long."

"I won't."

"And hopefully you don't have too many plans for the weekend," Henry continued. "I cleared my schedule at the hospital and have most of the holiday weekend free. We can catch up a little."

Jason sighed inwardly. "That would be great, Dad," he said tonelessly.

He turned and bound up the stairs without waiting for an acknowledgment or dismissal.

Jason raced into his room and closed the door behind him. He was glad that his parents had allowed him to have his own phone extension. Shortly after it had been installed, he had made a modification to it.

Two slim wires snaked out from under it to a small circuit board tucked away in a drawer. Attached to the board was a small LED. He opened the drawer a crack so he could see the light before picking up the phone. If it ever came on, it meant that someone in the house had picked up another extension and could hear his conversation. So far the only times that it came on were when his mother picked up the other extension by accident and immediately hung back up.

This was the first time he was afraid that someone would be listening in purposely.

Jason speed-dialed Frank's number and waited anxiously. It was four rings before someone finally answered.

"Hello?"

Jason paused in surprise. "Frank?"

"Yeah. Jason? What's up, man?"

"Um... I needed to talk to you about something."

"Will it take long? I was kinda in the middle of something."

Jason hesitated, his hand gripping the phone tighter. "What... what were you doing?"

Now a pause at Frank's end. "I'll have to tell you about it some other time. Take too long to explain, y'know?"

Jason swallowed. He strained to listen, turning up the volume on the phone to max, trying to hear for sounds in the background. He had no idea what he was listening for.

"Jason?" Frank said suddenly, causing Jason to wince when it blasted through his ear.

Jason quickly lowered the volume. "Listen, I need to tell you something, Frank," he said firmly.

"What?"

"Don't do it."

Another pause. "Don't do what?" Frank asked cautiously.

Jason's heart thumped. "Don't do what you're planning. What you were about to do."

"Um... don't know what you're talking about, Jason, I..."

"Listen to me!" Jason shouted softly. "You wanted to know what was going on before, right? What was really going on at the school?"

"Um, yeah, but..."

"Did you go see the school nurse?"

Silence.

Jason swallowed. "Frank, did you... ?"

"Yeah, I did, just this morning. You were right, man. Wow. She's hot!"

"Did she... did she tell you to do anything for her?"

"Um... not sure what you mean, Jason."

"Frank... we think... my friends and I, that is, we think there's something wrong with the nurse. That she's... she's up to something. If she told you to do anything at all, you..."

"Sorry, man, but I gotta go."

"No, wait! Frank, please, listen!"

"Hey, I'll email ya, 'kay? Bye."

"Frank! Shit..."

Jason stared at the receiver in his hand and heaved a sigh. Frank wouldn't even listen to him. It was too late.

With a shaking hand, he replaced the receiver on the hook.

Frank hung up the phone. He slowly smiled to himself.

He truly didn't understand what Jason was talking about, but he had the feeling he should just end that conversation. He had much more important things to do anyway.

Or rather, important things to continue, as he had already started them.

As he climbed the stairs, his smile broadened as he heard soft and wonderfully erotic sounds drifting to him from Mindy's bedroom. He paused at the top of the stairs, listening to the breathless sighs and soft, deep moans. They were interspersed with some odd creaking noises.

Frank continued on and stepped casually into Mindy's bedroom.

Mindy was seated at her computer, her eyes wide and staring at the screen, her mouth hanging open. Her breathing was labored, somewhere between a pant and a gasp. Now and then, the hand gripping the mouse moved or clicked. Her body quivered, and her hips writhed and twisted madly in the chair, making it creak occasionally. Her legs were spread apart and trembling.

"Still having fun?" Frank called out in a mocking tone of voice.

Mindy shuddered and moaned. Her eyes closed, but only briefly, compelled as she was to keep her gaze fixed on the screen and the image it held.

Frank stepped forward and grinned, turning his head towards the computer. The image it displayed was one of a series of pictures depicting a man having sex with a woman in every possible position.

Mindy clicked to the next picture, her body quaking with renewed excitement.

"So... is it making you wet, Mindy?"

"Oh God..." she gasped. She shuddered as she tried yet again to resist the compulsion to keep looking. She failed again, and each time it was harder and harder to get her mind to even entertain the thought in the first place.

Instead she was filled with a insatiable lust to see more. Yet all through it, she could not bring herself to seek relief. She could not move her free hand to her pussy, no matter how badly it ached, or how desperate she was for release.

"Well, is it, Mindy? Is it making you wet?"

"Y-yes... oh God, yes..." Mindy clicked over to the next image and whimpered. "P-please... F-frank... please... m-make it stop..."

"I'm not doing a thing, Mindy. You're getting off on this. Just like you said I got off on your pics."

Mindy was panting hard. It was only getting worse. "I'm... I-I'm so horny... "

"You wanted the internet connection. So now you get everything associated with it."

"I never... n-never liked this stuff..."

Frank laughed. "You do now."

"Uhhn... yeah... I love it... makes me so wet... n-no more... let me... l-let me..."

"Finger-fuck yourself? Stroke yourself? Wank off?"

Mindy bit her lip and nodded quickly. She clicked to the next image and uttered a high-pitched squeal of delight as a picture of two women having sex came in the screen.

"Ohhh, that's sooo nice... oh God... wait... I'm not... I don't... but... mmmm..."

"You don't like other girls?" Frank leaned over and whispered to her, "Guess what else you like now, Mindy dearest."

"N-no, I don't... I... ohhh... oooo, she licking her pussy... oh God... nice... uhhn..."

There was the sound of the front door opening downstairs.

"Okay, Mindy," Frank said softly. "I need to work on your Mom now, so you have to be quiet."

Mindy moaned and her eyes flickered closed as she finally pulled her hand from the mouse and settled back in the chair.

"That's it. Just sit there and rest, okay?" Frank grinned. "Keep thinking about girls fucking each other."

Mindy flinched and gasped. "Please stop," she begged softly, even as the intense erotic imagery flickered through her mind. "P-please... ohhh... uhhn..."

Sally Franner dropped her glasses to the end of her nose and looked over them imperiously. "You have to be be joking."

Gary smiled and looked into her pretty amethyst-colored eyes. He actually loved it when she peered over her glasses like that. Or would have, had it not come with the supercilious attitude. But he was not concerned about that now.

Sally sighed and shook her head, her light brown ponytail swishing back and forth. "Is this why you invited me over? To recite such silly, pseudo-scientific theories at me?"

Gary knew she would never come over just for that. He had to pretend he wanted tutoring in something. He even put up with her spiel about how he was at least recognizing her superior education in that area.

"You scoff at the idea without putting it to the test?" Gary chided.

Sally raised an eyebrow speculatively. "You wish to touch me?" she asked warily.

"Well, it would hardly be in a sexual manner, now would it?"

"But you claim the result is. So why should I trust you?"

"But you scoff at it. Ergo, in your mind, nothing will happen. You are not in a properly suggestible state for normal hypnotic inductions to operate here, nor can you be accused of self-fulfilling prophesy. I thus cannot trick you in any way. And the moment I attempt to touch you in a sexual manner, you can simply push me away."

Sally looked amused. "Then what is the catch to this?"

"Nothing. It either works, or it doesn't."

She sighed and stood up. "This is ridiculous, but if you wish to play the fool, so be it. How do you want me to stand?"

"Just like that with your arms at your sides," Gary said, stepping in front of her. "All you need to do is fix your eyes on mine, that's all."

Sally rolled her eyes but did as she was instructed. "All right. Now what?"

"Now... I do this..." Gary reached over and slid a single finger down her left arm.

She gazed down at this and watched it for awhile. She felt a small tingle. "Well... I feel something," she admitted. "But how is this supposed to arouse me?"

"And this..." He swirled a fingertip in little circles down her right arm.

Sally's lips parted slightly as she felt a gentle warmth come over her body. Yet as soft as the sensation was, its appearance was a shock to her. "But... but how can..."

He lightly caressed one shoulder.

She shuddered. Pleasure radiated through her body from the touch. "Wait... what are you... oh..."

He brushed his fingers along the nape of her neck.

Sally quivered. Her heart thumped. Her breath became a light pant. "Oh my... h-how are you..."

He lightly brushed his fingers through her hair.

She uttered a low moan and swayed when her legs felt like water. The heat over her skin slipped down between her legs and concentrated there. "Uhhn... what... how... oh God..."

He slipped her glasses from her face.

She squeezed her legs together, making a soft, wet sound in her sex. "S-stop... uhhhn... oh my God..."

He cupped her cheek with his hand.

Sally was trembling, her breath a hard pant. Her pussy was on fire. "H-how... how did you... why can't I... I'm... I-I'm..."

"So horny you can't think?"

Sally just stared at him with deep desire, unable to respond, her cunt throbbing.

"Pseudo-scientific, was it?" Gary said with a smile. "Silly, was it?"

"Oh God, please... p-please..." Sally begged. It was a struggle to hold more than about two or three words in her head at any one time. All she could think about was her all-consuming need. "It's t-too much... I n-need..."

Gary withdrew his hand from her. Sally whimpered pitifully.

"Not now," he said softly. "Tomorrow. Sleep on it."

"S-sleep on... what? I don't understand."

"You want my pleasure. You want to orgasm. The same thing that let me take control of your sexual lust is the same thing that will stop you from consummating it. You need to think on what you're willing to do for that pleasure."

Sally moaned, both in lust and desperation. She nodded to him reluctantly.

After dinner, Jason IM'ed Melinda.

Jason: We have to contact Cassie. We have to find out what happened with her and Nyssa.

Melinda: OK. I'll talk to her tues when we get back

Jason: No, we can't wait that long. I want to talk to her over the weekend sometime.

Melinda: why whats the matter

Jason: Talked to Frank earlier. He's under control of some sort. I want to know how she did it with Cassie.

Melinda: oh no... ok but i dont have her phone#

Jason: I do. It's 555-9876

Melinda: ok... wait how did you get it?

Jason: Don't ask.

Melinda: oh... gotcha... want me to call her tonight?

Jason: If your Mom doesn't give you grief over it.

Melinda: theyre out... and heather said she's going out with diane later...

Melinda: can you come over?

Melinda: please??

Jason: Shit, I can't. My Dad wants to spend time with me. I better not chance it.

Melinda: shit shit shit shit

Melinda: :( :( :( :(

Jason: I know. I'm sorry. Look, I'll see if I can find a way to get some time for us over the weekend, I promise.

Melinda: ok

Melinda: but i'll have to... you know...