Chapter 1 (1985 - 1994)

The dreams of youth are the regrets of maturity.

-- Darkness (Legend, 1985)

AN INVISIBLE EMPIRE

You can see us, but you do not know where we are.

You can hear us, but you do not know what we are.

You can even speak with us, but you will not know who we are.

We are an invisible empire, a secret kingdom, and we rule the world.

Government is a pleasant facade -- one most of our kind can live with. We often just leave such niceties to the mundane. It's not like we don't care about our day to day needs; we can still die of starvation. We die of thirst, and of cold. Like all living creatures, we also die of sickness and old age.

But where your kind needs to toil to earn your living, our kind may come by such basic necessities far more easily through theft or persuasion.

So what exactly are we? We are the gifted and talented, and we exist on the fringe with preternatural abilities of psychokinesis, telepathy, teleportation, and invisibility. Some of us possess abilities beyond what can be described by the elementary physics currently known.

In my case, I am quite ordinary, except for my ability to dull or excite another's mind. With limitations I can cause great physical and mental harm. As I grew, I found I could also control objects to a small degree. Some other individuals in our empire are simply a bit more gifted than 'normal'.

Note we don't consider ourselves "paranormal" -- we also don't go around in battle dress uniforms or fancy costumes. It would be too conspicuous and a definite death sentence. This is the one rule that remained constant.

I ranked as a rarity amongst the telepaths, as there are a majority of us who are only capable of receiving. Their sensitivity varies, but empaths can only take in thoughts from others. Some can control their gift, some cannot. The sad thing is that for those who cannot pose a threat -- they could reveal our existence to outsiders.

Empaths who manifest their powers and cannot control them "vanish". Have you ever wondered about instances of missing children? The countless ones in the United States alone who go missing are not always victim of sexual offenders, disgruntled parents, or odd strangers. Some are victims culled for the safety of the empire.

Most of the empaths I know have passive personalities; very few are aggressive at all, unless they happen to absorb the thoughts of a homicidal or disturbed 'normal'.

Then there are the psychokineticists. Among our kind, kineticists are uncommon -- of that minority, telekineticists are the most common. The more strength one's ego may project, the fewer equals he (or she) will find. Rarer still are pyrokineticists (fire). I suspect it was one particular pyrokineticist who inspired a well known horror author to write his novel. Rarer still were cryokineticists (cold) and even a hemeokineticist (blood), which leads me to believe that is an explanation of the source of some stories about Old World vampires.

Mind control is what we telepaths do best. We can obscure a 'normal's' thoughts, and, given enough time and work, we can even re-write them. Ever see someone who did crazy things? Chances are they might've met one of our more malicious members. We don't consider them blackguards.

Within our ranks, the only crime that mattered was discovery.

While we are formidable in our abilities, our kind understands that we are outnumbered. Discovery means we would be hunted down and killed. We suspect that may have happened before in times past -- if there was a pogrom against the supernatural, it might've been one of our kind who showed off their abilities too much.

The Salem witch trials were likely the result of such a discovery. Whether or not the individual escaped is unknown. It is this risk of discovery that holds us in check. But there is more to this than simply mind tricks. Others have other gifts which manifest in different ways. Perhaps you've heard of them?

David Reese -- or David Rice in more intimate circles -- the jumper. To the extent of my knowledge, he's probably the only one who is semi-officially "well known". His talent of teleportation (literally displacing his body) was what got him caught by the United States' NSA. Fortunately, his knowledge of the rest of us amounts to nothing. Nothing apart from the lies Tseng and I have told him.

The man known only as Tseng is a mystery. His name is likely an alias, as I know of no Anglicized Chinese surname in that fashion. He was one of the few who everyone in the empire knew of; if we had a more open structure, you might consider him an "emperor" of sorts, although he rejects that notion.

All I know is that if he knows you, you're either a threat to him or you will be. The mere mention of his name gives most of us who know of him pause.

It was he who took control after the Russian's excesses in the 1970s. And apart from Rice, Tseng is possibly the only one of us to have knowingly worked with the NSA, although he never showed off more than what he needed to achieve his ends. Tseng is perhaps the most potent of all of us. He is also one of the most hunted men on earth.

Of the Russian, I know only of his tale second-hand, and principally from the man who "killed" him. According to Tseng, the Russian's name was Pyotr and his crimes were horrific -- or so goes the claim. The Russian stole minds by psychically displacing the consciousness of one individual with his own. How many years had he lived or people he had lived through can't be guessed at.

The Russian supposedly met his end at Chernobyl in 1986. Tseng wanted to assassinate the physical brain and the psychic after-image. Chernobyl was the snare that destroyed the criminal's mind and poisoned any victims he could try to displace. A telepath can hope to cheat death by using a mindswap technique but raw nuclear power (according to Tseng) stopped the nightmare.

Then there were a score of the gifted who lived during my time. Of those, I only knew a handful personally -- and of that handful, I was closest with Phillipa Roget. She had a most peculiar condition, but it was that same condition that made her gifted in the first place. The Roget clan's gift for disappearing from the visible spectrum would have destined them to fulfill great roles in espionage before the age of thermal cameras and pressure-based motion sensors. However, those family members who used this gift couldn't adjust to the nature of the world around them, and they would slowly go mad. This, coupled with Phillipa's Catholic upbringing, denied the girl her full potential until we met.

But this brief narrative isn't about faders, jumpers, shifters, or even stoppers; it's about how I met each and every one of them, and how we wound up with the way things are now. I am Stanley Chen and this is my story.

YOUTHFUL SPRING -- A STARTLING DISCOVERY

My own story could've begun on my the date of my birth, but I wasn't really aware of my gift until later. I started tuning into other's thoughts and feelings while I was in elementary school, and I was smart enough to know that something wasn't all the normal. It was in the elementary school yard I learned I could stand in the middle of a crowd and remain invisible.

As the late Ralph Ellison so aptly wrote, "I am invisible ... simply because people refuse to see me."

In my case, I nudged that notion along just a little more. George Lucas coined the term Jedi Mind Trick. I later learned that it was simply survival in this hateful world.

There is a triumvirate of schools in my neighborhood. A high school (grades 9 to 12, with student ages roughly 14 to 17) was sited on four city blocks between the main boulevard, 32nd, 30th, and Balboa avenues. Across the street was the middle school (grades 6 to 8, and ages roughly 11 to 13) and the elementary school (grades K to 5, ages roughly 5 to 10) was no more than five blocks away from the high school. That said, my 'class' of people had a fairly strong sense of community despite living in the big city.

I was dimly aware of my power, having the occasional precognitive dream (I still do), and sometimes hearing (or thought I've heard) things from girls -- those lovely, fabulous girls -- who were classmates (now co-workers and associates). Despite my power, I was still chiefly a loner. I had few people I could call on, and even fewer friends.

My knack for knowing things about girls (especially the pretty ones) marked me as an eavesdropper or with some suspicion by my mates. This simply isolated me more. This isolation did do some good as much as bad; while I was alone, I also had time to study my gift.

All this changed though, when I got tutelage. Despite my ability to tune into a 'normal's' thoughts, I sailed unremarkably through the lower grades and my mother had wanted me to excel. So she got it in her head to hire an older student from a college preparatory school from across town. For a meager $100 a month, this tutor was to sit through and assist me with my increased homework load once a week.

I lived within walking distance to the three schools in our neighborhood. Hence this saved a ton of money when it came to transportation. When I started middle school, I had a small room downstairs, complete with a full bathroom. A small kitchenette was added when I graduated from middle school. It was so that I could learn to cook on my own. My parents rented out the space as soon as I moved out to my own place.

For a young man with a penchant for mischief and gifted as I was, this gave me a degree of independence few others had.

So it was early in February or March of my seventh grade when I met my second tutor. The first one had given up after two sessions. I found out later that I was transmitting my thoughts, which in turn, gave her migraines. The headaches I accidentally gave her agitated her so much that she left school soon after she quit as my tutor. I checked up on her a few years later and found -- thankfully -- she had survived without much injury, and was living as a mundane (if butter-face) housewife.

My second tutor was the one who accelerated my gifts. It was fortuitous that she did, for if Janet Wu hadn't done so, I would not have met the first of my treasured darlings.

JANET STRIKES A BARGAIN

It was Janet's third session when I first felt the unmistakable upwelling of emotion. I was dazedly looking at my math book, with Janet droning absently about the concepts. She was simply reading the lines, hardly emoting at all.

For a high school girl, Janet was all right. She was older than me by a good four years. From middle school, she had been accepted in the prestigious college preparatory school at the get-go. Only the top 10% of the 8th grade student body in the city qualified, and only about 3% get accepted. Janet was above average in intelligence, but she was only a 'normal'.

She had black hair that was tinged blonde to give her that sense of 90s style (as that was in vogue at the time), and she wore a shade too much make-up for her own good. She was pretty but not beautiful. Her face was pear-shaped and she had a flat nose. This did not make her exceptional, although her choice of attire pleaded for attention.

As Janet lectured, I felt she was distracted. And what was more, she was highly agitated. Thinking it was a repeat of the early tutor, I nodded along, hoping to get her out of the house soon so I could goof off and watch after-school cartoons.

"So do you get it, Stanley?" she tapped a pencil on the red inked letters.

"Yeah," I lied.

"Sure you do," Janet snorted and pulled out my last test. "This is why you just got this 'D'."

I nodded silently, not having a good reply.

"Look guy, you're going to fail the class if you keep getting these scores."

"But a 'D' is a barely pass," I chirped, "Why have it if I'm going to fail?"

"Because that's how it's all done," Janet laughed. "You're only going to have worse when you go to the next grade."

"That's bullstuff," I said. "I have to go to the bathroom."

I started to get up and Janet rose to let me by. By accident, her hand brushed mine and she suddenly felt faint. I caught her, but since she was so much older than I, I struggled not to drop her.

"I -- I -- I'm okay," she gasped, "I'm okay."

"Are you sure, Janet?" I wasn't convinced. "If you're not feeling well maybe you should go."

Yeah! Go! And let me goof off for the rest of the evening. Fuck math! Or, maybe not.

I didn't know realize it immediately, but with Janet sitting on the floor of my study, I could see right down her black blouse. Her thin gold necklace dangled off her neck and hung just a breath away from her slick, perfumed skin. Trying to regain her balance, Janet had inadvertently allowed herself physical contact.

Some 'normals' have a particular susceptibility to our 'thought-speech' and Janet was one of them. I must've transmitted some of my subconscious desire to explore my hithero dormant sexual desire with her. A serendipitous combination of my secret desire and her recent break-up with her boyfriend overwhelmed her sense of rhyme and reason.

"Stanley?" Janet was still loosely holding my hand. "Do you want to make a little wager with me?"

I stood over her, slowly learning what happened through observation (and later on, self-analysis).

"Uh, sure," I was hesitant. "As long as it's not money."

She looked up at me and smiled weakly, "It's not money."

Janet got up, a little shaky but otherwise fine. I let her rest while I went off to the restroom. While I was doing my business, I felt my head throbbing as blood rushed all through my body. I was wondering what was going on with this stupid bimbo, fainting like that.

Was she sick? Or in trouble? Man, I didn't want to piss off my mother by having her look for yet another tutor. I was so engrossed with my thoughts that I didn't hear someone come at me from behind. I almost jumped when I saw another pair of hands, reach around me and take hold of my little pre-teen dick.

"What --?!" I was so startled I almost didn't have time to finish.

"Don't move," Janet held me tightly.

"Hel -- help," I said weakly. "You'd better --"

"Quiet Stanley," her grip tightened just slightly.

I winced, too afraid to move as I drained the rest of my liquid waste neatly into the toilet. We stood there in the restroom for a while. I wasn't sure how long. Janet's chin was on my shoulder, her lacquered nails in one hand bit slightly into my scrotum while her other hand held my penis tightly.

As I felt her body pressing against my back, her hand holding my dick pulled back my foreskin. I had barely pulled it so far back before. I felt like my skin would split as Janet tugged on my little sausage. I must've made some noise because I felt her grip tighten on me again.

I was wondering how to get out of this predicament when I began to notice that Janet's fondling actually felt quite pleasant. Sensing my body relax, she began massaging me. Having dropped my trousers completely, I reached back and touched her legs.

"Okay Stanley," her hot breath was in my ear. "Here's the deal. You're going to get something better than money."

Having exposed my penis head for the first time, she began scraping the smegma off with her fingernails. When she'd stop to flick off the stinking mess into the toilet bowl, she'd playfully nip the tip with two fingers. My dick began to stiffen from her delicate attention.

"You score an 'A' grade on the next math test," Janet continued sweetly, "And I'll do this again for as long as you like next time."

As I stood at rigid attention under her tender ministrations, I had a hundred questions in my head.

Why was she doing this? How was she going to get away with it? And the ever important -- wait -- did she say as long as I want?

I barely formed a coherent answer before I felt a strange new urge come over me. It was like pee, but it felt different. Very different. Janet didn't seem to notice as she massaged my little stiff dick between her charming fingers. She didn't really need to hear me answer. When I blasted my load all over the toilet cover, she had the answer she wanted.

DAMMIT. JANET. I LOVE YOU.

So it was with eager anticipation that I took to the next mid-term. Because of the tests across the district, Janet skipped seeing me for two weeks.

"What a studious girl," my mother remarked.

Yes. I thought. Fucking studious indeed.

Since it was customary for my parents to drop in unannounced at my room (after all, I was a minor then), I had to finagle a time of day when Janet and I could expect some privacy. I was sure she had some ideas about what she could do next, but I had ideas of my own.

As for the test, I understood enough of pre-algebra and geometry to pass the test, but nothing to exceed. For that, I finally focused on developing my extra-sensory skills instead. I found that by mild concentration, I could read the different answers off other tests simply by figuring the change in albedo of the surface. That was neat, except if I copied the answers as they were, I'd be cheating.

Instead, I watched how the other students wrote out their answers. Rather than listening to a droning fat windbag, I was learning by both watching and doing. Maybe it was the teacher, or maybe the students I was learning from were better at teaching algebra on the level as I understood it. However it went, I aced the test (and improved my other homework).

Shit. Who said slutty teachers fucking disinterested students was not motivational?

So it was after school on Thursday when I hit the shower so early in the afternoon. As Janet phoned me on Wednesday to plan for our next "tutoring" session, she whispered, 'Take a shower and clean up everywhere, got that?'

Remembering what she did last time, I did exactly that with due vigilance. I had finished drying myself and just finished putting on some clean, dryer fresh clothes when I heard the doorbell ring. I eagerly let her in and waited with bated breath as she looked through my homework and tests.

"So," Janet leaned back in her chair, "You were too lazy to do the work, to have been failing like that."

"I guess so," I remarked as casually as I could. I was all ready for whatever she had in store.

"So I guess a deal's a deal," she threw me a quick grin.

"Yeah. So," I had to sate my curiosity, "Are you sure this is okay? Won't you get in trouble?"

"We'll be okay, as long as we're not disturbed," she replied. "When did you say your parents would be home?"

"They're visiting my father's family," I said truthfully. "I declined to go but they'll be back around eight or nine or whenever they're done with dinner."

"So you're home alone?"

"Yep."

"You're pretty mature," Janet shrugged and sniffed.

I noticed she was wearing a tan trench coat, despite the sunny weather. She had her book bag along, but she also had a small gym bag. Instead of the white moccasins she normally wore, she had donned a pair of black, steel-tipped boots. I could see skin just above the boots.

"You know Stanley," she said quietly, "I could get to like this little room of yours."

"Oh yeah?" I wondered at her sudden interest. None of my friends had seen my room, chiefly because I had no close friends.

Janet looked at me and smiled. "You know, you're not a bad looking guy. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No," I felt my cheeks flush.

"Would you like one?"

"What?" I stammered.

"Would you like a girlfriend," Janet repeated. "I mean not like all the time, but you know, maybe someone you could --"

Now it was she who became embarrassed. She cleared her throat to scatter the awkward silence between us.

"Look, don't worry about it," she said. "If you don't want to."

"No way," I put my hand on her shoulder, "I mean it -- I want to."

"Okay," Janet smiled a little then said, "Why don't you get on the bed."

My study had a bed. It was placed there when the inner area of my room (the area with the bathroom, and later the kitchenette) was still a storage area. I sat up in the bed and watched as Janet undid her trench coat. She must've found my expression funny, because she giggled audibly.

"Like it?" she held her coat open.

"You weren't wearing anything under that?" I gasped.

"Of course I am," Janet crawled over me and whispered fiercely in my ear. "I'm wearing perfume."

I groaned as she settled herself over my body. Already I could feel my pants tighten as my dick hardened appreciably. I could smell not just Janet's perfume but her nutty, intoxicating scent. Despite being older, she was roughly the same size as me. Like an amateur, I reached over her trench coat to hold her as she pressed her body against me. After a little gyration, she slipped off the coat so I was holding nothing but her sweet, supple flesh.

"Oh yeah," I bucked my hips against hers, "Oh yeah. This is good."

"Good, huh?" Janet's face hovered over mine. "It gets better."

"How?" I asked hoarsely.

"Let me show you."

Janet slid herself down my body, undoing my dress shirt and then unbuttoning my jeans. I watched her ass rise up above her head as she tugged my pants down. I felt her warm breath on my groin and thighs. I watched her inspect my nether regions carefully before she softly kissed my stomach and hips.

I groaned and held my head up to watch as Janet put kisses on my belly and chest. As she worked towards my head, I felt her body hanging just within touch of my stiff dick. When Janet swayed her body from one side to the other, her stomach would occasionally scrape my penis. Her developing breasts, small as they were, still excited me. Her erect nipples brushed across my body as she crawled over me.

"You like?" Janet breathed hotly in my face.

I answered her only by savagely kissing her and gripping her ass tightly. I was so eager, I didn't even think about the consequences later. Janet gagged slightly then quickly acquiesced to my assault. Her mouth yielded to me. I felt her tongue fight mine only briefly before she began enticing me with lewd motions.

My blood was pumping as I felt my cock angle sharply between Janet's ass cheeks. Instinctively, my hips began thrusting. My dick was slippery with the pre-cum already oozing from its hole. I saw Janet's eyes widen with fear as I slid my meat sausage over her bare ass crack. Panting heavily, she broke off kissing me, her mind obviously wracked with indecision. I later realized this was partly my fault. Having that much physical contact between us was not a good idea.

Janet was half sitting, half squatting over my body as my hips kept up their thrusting. Finally realizing that I was in no position to risk her getting pregnant, she allowed me to continue my naive method of fucking. She placed one hand on my chest and the other on her ass. This way, she sandwiched my cock between her sweet ass and her equally sweet hand and let my lust run its course.

Of course, I tried to make it last. But honestly, how long was your first few times?

"Aah -- aaah -- aaaAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!"

I thrust so hard against Janet that she gave a short cry of alarm when her body shot up briefly in the air. I felt two weeks of pent up lust flow through my lower body into her waiting hands and back. Her mouth was wide open and she was as breathless as if she had spent herself as well. Her hand milked my slowly shrinking dick, as if urging it to squeeze out what little gunk was left in my body. Janet leaned over me, licking the fingers of her hand that milked my now soft boner. Still caught up in the height of lust, she kissed me fully on the lips, sharing her spit and my cum.

"That felt good," I said as she began kissing my neck.

"Yeah well, if you do this well in school like all the time," she said. "I don't think you'll need more tutoring."

"No more?" I felt my heart sink.

"Of course no more 'tutoring'," Janet sat up and tossed her hair aside. "I mean that in a good way."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean no more tutoring you about school stuff," my tutor put her arms akimbo. "But I'm still going to fuck your brains out."

A COUGAR IN THE MAKING

In the months that lead to Janet's 18th birthday, I found out what a pedophile was.

"You're kidding me right?" I stood awkwardly on the sea wall. Janet and I both strolled along the beach as she mulled over the fate of the next four years.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" She did her best to brush aside her long hair. It was a hard thing to do, as her hands were tucked into her sweater's sleeves to shield them from the chilly wind on the sand swept promenade.

"See this?" Janet's eyes squinted and her lips thinned, "This is my serious face."

"I know," I wrapped my arm around her ample ass, "Because I know that's not your O-face."

She pushed me away and pointed her sweater covered fist at me, "You want me to get arrested?!"

"Of course not," I gave her an assuring grin, "But who'd tell?"

"Well my ex-boyfriend for one," she felt sorry and accepted my hug. "You know -- the guy who dumped me when I met you."

Janet ignored my attempts to engage her in some impromptu groping.

"Besides," she continued, "I need to go to college anyway."

"Yeah."

We both fell silent about that. Despite our relationship, that Janet took money to feign tutoring and having sex with me felt more like prostitution. She and I never brought it up, but I got that feeling from her. When I started actively courting her, she kindly asked me to stop and wait a few years.

"So we can't do it again until I'm eighteen," I mused.

"And I'm twenty-two," her hug around me tightened.

I didn't want to think about it. She would meet someone else, as would I. She didn't need to be telepathically gifted to know that.

"I want to come with you," I gripped her tight.

"Sure," she laughed, "Just get another scholarship."

So it was at a beach hotel where we made what we thought was a final stab at love the weekend before her birthday. Janet and I both lied to our parents about being with friends at a camp site, but in actuality, we were simply sharing a hotel room for three days, sight-seeing and touring the boardwalk by day, and throwing ourselves at each other at night.

A year after she left for university, Janet became a pederast, although you didn't hear it from me. She came home for a visit after finals and looked me up. I met Janet at the beach and we chatted amicably. We were both sophomores, but she was in college, and I in high school.

When she drove me back to my house (her parents loaned her their car for her stay), it was pretty late. Since she wasn't going to be leaving for another few days (it was the winter holiday), I suggested that she bunk for the night and head out tomorrow, preferably before my parents woke up. Janet's eyes twinkled, because she must've been thinking about mischief.

"Sure thing, Stanley," her voice was cool.

I put her up in the warmer inner room (the outer room that had my study and old bed was colder) and crawled into my chilly bed. It wasn't long before I felt something shaking my bed. I was groggy and didn't realize what was going on until I felt Janet's icy hands around me.

"Wha -- what're you--"

"Don't move," Janet repeated the line when she first seduced me.

"It's pretty late," I mumbled.

"I know," she clutched me tightly, "I want you to give me something."

"Can't it wait till tomorrow?"

"No."

I felt her crawl over me. My hand brushed her bare skin and I realized she had readied herself for action. My dick instantly responded as I felt Janet's hands undo my pajamas. Her breasts had grown only a little in the three years since I'd known her, but they still did amazing things when pressed into service.

"I'm probably not going to be able to come back so much anymore," she admitted as she straddled me.

"Why?" I stroked her gently.

"Because it's getting expensive," she murmured, "I might have to stay in Chicago."

My hands slid across her sides, my thoughts churning.

"Will I see you again?" That was the only thing I could say.

"When I strike it rich," she whispered, "I'll get us our own place."

"That'd be like old times," I kissed her shoulder.

I didn't need to be a telepath to know she was crying. I heard her tears drip onto my pillow. We stayed like that for a little while, her nude form splayed over mine. I did my best to dull her sadness, but it was rather hard because I was feeling the same way too. It's difficult to project thoughts on others when you yourself feel differently at the time!

Janet sniffed, "Anyway, I want you to give me something."

"What?"

"Do it in me," she whispered softly.

My silence must've worried her, because she repeated it again.

"Wait," I rolled her off and sat up. I looked at her in the dim light and asked, "Are you sure about that?"