First story I've seriously considered posting. Feedback is requested.
Better than Beautiful
Part 1/2: Childhood (The boring stuff)
My name is John. I have been able to read minds since birth. I am also able to control minds. I do not know when I developed this ability. As a baby, I found that reading people’s happy thoughts was more enjoyable than reading their unhappy thoughts. While most children do not learn empathy until at least two years old, my ability to read thoughts meant I had it at birth. I recall my mother once asked me why I was smiling:
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I was sad.”
“Why would that make you smile?”
“Because it makes you happy. That makes me happy again. I love you.”
Reading my parents’ joy and love was something I enjoyed so I told them I loved them as often as possible.
I could easily continue to describe all the childhood tricks I used to make the people around me happy. I was the only child in preschool who *always* shared. I probably told my parents, “I love you.” more than any other child in the world. Still, I admit that I could be a manipulative bastard, too. After all, making other people happy was not the only thing that made me happy. I recall once saying to my parents, “I love you. Can I have a cookie?” They knew very well that it was a ploy, but they still gave me a cookie. From then on, every request for anything was prefaced with, “I love you.” Any time they did not give in, I replied, “That’s OK. I still love you.” You’d be amazed at how often they changed their mind!
I think you can see at this point why I almost never use mind control. Why control minds when it is just as effective to get people to *want* to do what I want? True, not everyone can be manipulated. But reading minds ensures that I always know exactly which people I can control, and how to do it. I always leave these people happier for it.
I’m afraid you wouldn’t find my time in middle school very interesting. Nobody was out trying to beat me up. I wasn’t having sex with half the girls in the school (or any of them, for that matter. Some of them thought they wanted it but I knew from reading the minds around me that they’d be unhappy if they did so). I was popular, did well in classes, and overall had a rather normal time. Ok, I admit I did manage to find a beautiful 25-year-old woman when I was 14. Unlike most 14-year-olds, I was mature enough to understand what we were doing. However, I’m sure there are people who would accuse her of taking advantage of me. While neither of us feels bad about we did, telling her story would only serve to potentially identify her. Instead, I will tell you the story of how I met my wife, Mary.
Part 2/2: Beauty at the Bar (The good stuff)
I met Mary when I was 22. I had come to a nice little bar in town with the intention of having sex. The great thing about telepathy is that I never get rejected. I immediately know which girls think I’m cute. Also helpful, I know which girls have boyfriends that will try to beat me up if I go near them. I don’t like having to hurt people (I have mind control, remember?) so I don’t go after girls who are already taken.
I saw Mary sitting by herself at a bar. She looked like she was waiting for someone. There are many traits that can be used to identify people who are probably waiting for someone. The tapping of a foot, checking of a watch, staring at a door, that sort of thing. In Mary’s case, it was the fact that she was way too hot to be by herself. Still, I thought a quick mind probe would be worth a shot. That probe told me that A) Mary was the saddest woman in the entire bar and B) The reason she was sad was that she wanted a cute guy to buy her a drink and it wasn’t happening.
I can’t say I blame the other guys for avoiding her; she looked too hot to be by herself. This was reinforced by the fact that 1 guy had already tried to pick her up and failed. Her mental name for this guy was, “The Biggest Asshole in the God-Damned World.” Thinking such a long name takes a bit of extra mental effort; obviously she must have hated him. Personally, I’d have just thought of him as T-BAG.
Unlike T-BAG, I had a chance. I walked straight across the room to her and offered to buy her a drink. I even cheated and checked which drink I should offer. Ladies love it when you know what drink they want (don’t try this if you don’t have mind control. You’ll probably guess wrong). Her reaction was a slightly audible sigh of happiness. Her mental reaction was an explosion of emotion the likes of which I usually only see when I torture (the fun kind of torture) a girl to climax. I didn’t examine her mind to find out why my gesture was so well-received. I was too excited about the fact that she wanted to kiss me.
To digress a moment, I should point out that I usually ignore such thoughts. The fact that a woman wants me to kiss them does not mean she won’t think I am a horrible person if I actually do so. Still, the emotions behind her kiss were extraordinarily strong, stronger than I would have expected to see. She didn’t even know me! I obliged. Her thoughts went into a frenzy. Hell, mine probably did, too. She was a great kisser. She actually managed to transmit her thought tornado through her kiss.
I was almost worried the strong thoughts meant the kiss was not well received. On the contrary, she just did not understand why I would possibly want to kiss her. She was barely able to imagine that anyone would want to buy her a drink and I had gone and kissed her. Apparently, T-BAG had told her she was an ugly, stupid slut. As had his friends. And their friends. Basically, every boy she had ever dated had told her she was an ugly, stupid slut. Apparently, only jerks had the guts to ask her out. But they asked her out a lot. She knew she wasn’t stupid. She also knew she wasn’t a slut (She’d never even had sex, woohoo!). That’s why guys had been so cruel. Why she believed them about being ugly is beyond me. I guess she just hadn’t been told she was beautiful. That was about to change, particularly since she’d just thought, “the only thing that would make this moment any more perfect would be for him to tell me how beautiful I am.” Of course I did:
“Angel, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You are a rose among weeds, a sun that shines even at night.”
“Flower, you are the more beautiful than Aphrodite.”
“Cupid will never shoot you; anyone who has seen you is already in love.”
“Princess, your picture is painted on Peter’s gate and all who pass it weep for not having seen you in real life.”
“You are an angel, a goddess, and everything else.”
“Though I am not worthy to even hear your voice, please tell me your name.”
OK, I admit it. I’m not a poet. That is the worst ode to beauty ever seen by man. Perhaps a better description of her beauty would be say that she was a beautiful as my poetry was awful. Even the bartender was (mentally) laughing at me and I’m sure he hears this stuff constantly. Cut me some slack, I made it up on the spur of the moment. Anyhow, she didn’t notice at all how awful it was. Instead, Mary’s mind went into another one of those thought whirlwinds that I was coming to love. The thought that remained when the whirlwind ended shocked me. “*Mind Control*!”
I was so flustered that this beauty had caught on, I almost ran away. But she hadn’t caught on at all. On the contrary, her next thought was, “I am controlling him!” The fact that she considered this a more logical explanation than the possibility that I was acting without any influence from her thoughts suggests either incredible intelligence and observational skills or a complete and utter lack of self-esteem. I think it was a mixture of both. My urge to laugh at her misunderstanding was totally overwhelmed by joy and excitement he felt at her mistake. Now this was going to be fun! Coincidentally, she had exactly the same thought.
What followed was the most enjoyable day of my life. It’s only equal is every single day that came after it. One might expect that she would use her apparent control to get some sort of revenge on all those who had been cruel to her. Instead, she used it to validate herself. Finally, here was a man who would tell her she was beautiful. The fact that Mary didn’t think it was true did not mean she didn’t want to hear it. If even one of her suitors had said she was beautiful, I doubt she’d have been a virgin when she met me. Of course, the truth is that she wasn’t beautiful at all. Beauty didn’t even begin to cover it.
She didn’t need mind control to get me to tell her she was beautiful. She definitely didn’t need mind control to get me to caress her breasts. Mary could easily have convinced me to lick her pussy, though I admit that there might be someone that wouldn’t have done so without mind control. Maybe a gay guy. If you think she needed mind control to get me to take her virginity, you haven’t been paying attention. And every time I followed one of her commands, her mind went into a little whirlwind. It was the cutest thing ever.
By the end of the week, I was already in love. I knew she loved hearing me say it and so I did so every day. But it was true. It doesn’t take long for a mind controller to know that they are in love. It almost never happens. I mean, you ever had someone nag you? Well, imagine if you could read that person’s thoughts. Every little thing you did that bothered them, you’d know it. I’d rarely be able to spend more than a week with a girl before all the little things she wanted me to do got on my nerves. I once had a girl think to herself, “I wish he didn’t blink so often.” Someday that girl is going to marry someone who blinks too often. Gradually, they’ll start fighting. He’ll have no idea why. The girl probably won’t know why, either. They might live with it. If she ever finds true love, it will probably be with a blind man.
To continue, we were in love. Mary still thought it was all mind control. At one point she considered making me love her. It makes me happy that she was smart enough to realize that such a thing is impossible. Sure, technically mind control make someone love you. But it will be your love behind the emotions instead of their own. You can’t easily tell the difference unless you can read minds, but its there. Still, she was really worried that she’d been unconsciously forcing me to love her using mind control. Was making me say I loved her causing it to be true? In the end, Mary loved me so much that she decided she had to set me free. In truth, she’d been in love with me after only a week. She just hadn’t realized it yet.
When Mary finally said, “I love you,” it was the happiest moment of my life. The fact that I already knew it only made the moment happier. She continued, “I have been using mind control on you. I am sorry. I love you too much to keep you here. I’m not really beautiful, you just think I am because of my mind control. I know I’m you couldn’t possibly really love me. I’m sorry.”
“That’s silly. I don’t believe it. You are beautiful and I *do* love you.”
“It’s true.”
“Prove it. Get someone to do something.”
“I can’t. My powers only work on you.”
“Is that why you love me?” (I knew it wasn’t)
“No. I love that you call me beautiful. I love that you talk to me. I love that thing you do with –”
“You’re changing the subject. Come on, get me to do something.”
“Fine.”
I kissed her.
“See! I got you to kiss me. That proves it!”
“Don’t be absurd. I love kissing you. Why would you need mind control for that!?”
“Ok, I’ll get you to bark like a dog.”
“Roof! Roof!”
“See, it worked!”
“No it didn’t. I barked like a dog because you wanted me to do so. ”
“…Stop thinking I’m beautiful.” (She thought this at me, too).
I frowned a moment. I knew she still thought herself ugly but it hurt to hear her say it. She looked down at the ground, completely misinterpreting my frown. I continued, “You’re not beautiful at all. I never thought you were.” She looked like she was about to cry, so I continued quickly, “Mary, you are neither angel nor goddess nor flower.” Her eyes started to tear. “I apologize for calling you such. You are right that you are not beautiful. Nay, you are beyond beautiful. To call you an angel was an insult. An angel could not compare to you. You are not beautiful. You are perfect. I am sorry I did not properly describe your perfection. There are no words for it.”
“Stop that. I must still be controlling you unconsciously or something.” (She was secretly pleased).
“Can’t you just accept that I love you?”
“No! That’s impossible. Look, I can even make you worship me.”
I kissed her feet, and she continued:
“See, I am using mind control!”
“Heh, no you aren’t! This is a lot of fun, though. Still, I think I can prove that you don’t have mind control powers. So, let’s make a deal. I present my argument. If I prove I’m right, you’ll stop disbelieving me when I tell you how far beyond perfection you are. If I can’t, I’ll admit you’re using mind control.”
“Fine, it’s a deal. You won’t be able to prove it. Besides, obviously you’re right. Clearly, you’ve been doing what I want because it you want to make me happy. You love me too much not to want follow my mental wishes. Though the only time you’ve used mind control on me is right now, you’ve been reading my thoughts and acting on them this whole time. I guess you must be right.”
Her mind went into another one of those little whirlwinds that I enjoy so much. Alas, she was already starting to break her promise. I was forced to interrupt her thought. The following conversation did not take place out loud:
“But I’m not—”
“You promised.”
“But you—”
“I love you.”
“But—”
“I love you.”
“I’m not even—”
“I love you.”
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.”
“Ok?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Better than Beautiful
Part 1/2: Childhood (The boring stuff)
My name is John. I have been able to read minds since birth. I am also able to control minds. I do not know when I developed this ability. As a baby, I found that reading people’s happy thoughts was more enjoyable than reading their unhappy thoughts. While most children do not learn empathy until at least two years old, my ability to read thoughts meant I had it at birth. I recall my mother once asked me why I was smiling:
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I was sad.”
“Why would that make you smile?”
“Because it makes you happy. That makes me happy again. I love you.”
Reading my parents’ joy and love was something I enjoyed so I told them I loved them as often as possible.
I could easily continue to describe all the childhood tricks I used to make the people around me happy. I was the only child in preschool who *always* shared. I probably told my parents, “I love you.” more than any other child in the world. Still, I admit that I could be a manipulative bastard, too. After all, making other people happy was not the only thing that made me happy. I recall once saying to my parents, “I love you. Can I have a cookie?” They knew very well that it was a ploy, but they still gave me a cookie. From then on, every request for anything was prefaced with, “I love you.” Any time they did not give in, I replied, “That’s OK. I still love you.” You’d be amazed at how often they changed their mind!
I think you can see at this point why I almost never use mind control. Why control minds when it is just as effective to get people to *want* to do what I want? True, not everyone can be manipulated. But reading minds ensures that I always know exactly which people I can control, and how to do it. I always leave these people happier for it.
I’m afraid you wouldn’t find my time in middle school very interesting. Nobody was out trying to beat me up. I wasn’t having sex with half the girls in the school (or any of them, for that matter. Some of them thought they wanted it but I knew from reading the minds around me that they’d be unhappy if they did so). I was popular, did well in classes, and overall had a rather normal time. Ok, I admit I did manage to find a beautiful 25-year-old woman when I was 14. Unlike most 14-year-olds, I was mature enough to understand what we were doing. However, I’m sure there are people who would accuse her of taking advantage of me. While neither of us feels bad about we did, telling her story would only serve to potentially identify her. Instead, I will tell you the story of how I met my wife, Mary.
Part 2/2: Beauty at the Bar (The good stuff)
I met Mary when I was 22. I had come to a nice little bar in town with the intention of having sex. The great thing about telepathy is that I never get rejected. I immediately know which girls think I’m cute. Also helpful, I know which girls have boyfriends that will try to beat me up if I go near them. I don’t like having to hurt people (I have mind control, remember?) so I don’t go after girls who are already taken.
I saw Mary sitting by herself at a bar. She looked like she was waiting for someone. There are many traits that can be used to identify people who are probably waiting for someone. The tapping of a foot, checking of a watch, staring at a door, that sort of thing. In Mary’s case, it was the fact that she was way too hot to be by herself. Still, I thought a quick mind probe would be worth a shot. That probe told me that A) Mary was the saddest woman in the entire bar and B) The reason she was sad was that she wanted a cute guy to buy her a drink and it wasn’t happening.
I can’t say I blame the other guys for avoiding her; she looked too hot to be by herself. This was reinforced by the fact that 1 guy had already tried to pick her up and failed. Her mental name for this guy was, “The Biggest Asshole in the God-Damned World.” Thinking such a long name takes a bit of extra mental effort; obviously she must have hated him. Personally, I’d have just thought of him as T-BAG.
Unlike T-BAG, I had a chance. I walked straight across the room to her and offered to buy her a drink. I even cheated and checked which drink I should offer. Ladies love it when you know what drink they want (don’t try this if you don’t have mind control. You’ll probably guess wrong). Her reaction was a slightly audible sigh of happiness. Her mental reaction was an explosion of emotion the likes of which I usually only see when I torture (the fun kind of torture) a girl to climax. I didn’t examine her mind to find out why my gesture was so well-received. I was too excited about the fact that she wanted to kiss me.
To digress a moment, I should point out that I usually ignore such thoughts. The fact that a woman wants me to kiss them does not mean she won’t think I am a horrible person if I actually do so. Still, the emotions behind her kiss were extraordinarily strong, stronger than I would have expected to see. She didn’t even know me! I obliged. Her thoughts went into a frenzy. Hell, mine probably did, too. She was a great kisser. She actually managed to transmit her thought tornado through her kiss.
I was almost worried the strong thoughts meant the kiss was not well received. On the contrary, she just did not understand why I would possibly want to kiss her. She was barely able to imagine that anyone would want to buy her a drink and I had gone and kissed her. Apparently, T-BAG had told her she was an ugly, stupid slut. As had his friends. And their friends. Basically, every boy she had ever dated had told her she was an ugly, stupid slut. Apparently, only jerks had the guts to ask her out. But they asked her out a lot. She knew she wasn’t stupid. She also knew she wasn’t a slut (She’d never even had sex, woohoo!). That’s why guys had been so cruel. Why she believed them about being ugly is beyond me. I guess she just hadn’t been told she was beautiful. That was about to change, particularly since she’d just thought, “the only thing that would make this moment any more perfect would be for him to tell me how beautiful I am.” Of course I did:
“Angel, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You are a rose among weeds, a sun that shines even at night.”
“Flower, you are the more beautiful than Aphrodite.”
“Cupid will never shoot you; anyone who has seen you is already in love.”
“Princess, your picture is painted on Peter’s gate and all who pass it weep for not having seen you in real life.”
“You are an angel, a goddess, and everything else.”
“Though I am not worthy to even hear your voice, please tell me your name.”
OK, I admit it. I’m not a poet. That is the worst ode to beauty ever seen by man. Perhaps a better description of her beauty would be say that she was a beautiful as my poetry was awful. Even the bartender was (mentally) laughing at me and I’m sure he hears this stuff constantly. Cut me some slack, I made it up on the spur of the moment. Anyhow, she didn’t notice at all how awful it was. Instead, Mary’s mind went into another one of those thought whirlwinds that I was coming to love. The thought that remained when the whirlwind ended shocked me. “*Mind Control*!”
I was so flustered that this beauty had caught on, I almost ran away. But she hadn’t caught on at all. On the contrary, her next thought was, “I am controlling him!” The fact that she considered this a more logical explanation than the possibility that I was acting without any influence from her thoughts suggests either incredible intelligence and observational skills or a complete and utter lack of self-esteem. I think it was a mixture of both. My urge to laugh at her misunderstanding was totally overwhelmed by joy and excitement he felt at her mistake. Now this was going to be fun! Coincidentally, she had exactly the same thought.
What followed was the most enjoyable day of my life. It’s only equal is every single day that came after it. One might expect that she would use her apparent control to get some sort of revenge on all those who had been cruel to her. Instead, she used it to validate herself. Finally, here was a man who would tell her she was beautiful. The fact that Mary didn’t think it was true did not mean she didn’t want to hear it. If even one of her suitors had said she was beautiful, I doubt she’d have been a virgin when she met me. Of course, the truth is that she wasn’t beautiful at all. Beauty didn’t even begin to cover it.
She didn’t need mind control to get me to tell her she was beautiful. She definitely didn’t need mind control to get me to caress her breasts. Mary could easily have convinced me to lick her pussy, though I admit that there might be someone that wouldn’t have done so without mind control. Maybe a gay guy. If you think she needed mind control to get me to take her virginity, you haven’t been paying attention. And every time I followed one of her commands, her mind went into a little whirlwind. It was the cutest thing ever.
By the end of the week, I was already in love. I knew she loved hearing me say it and so I did so every day. But it was true. It doesn’t take long for a mind controller to know that they are in love. It almost never happens. I mean, you ever had someone nag you? Well, imagine if you could read that person’s thoughts. Every little thing you did that bothered them, you’d know it. I’d rarely be able to spend more than a week with a girl before all the little things she wanted me to do got on my nerves. I once had a girl think to herself, “I wish he didn’t blink so often.” Someday that girl is going to marry someone who blinks too often. Gradually, they’ll start fighting. He’ll have no idea why. The girl probably won’t know why, either. They might live with it. If she ever finds true love, it will probably be with a blind man.
To continue, we were in love. Mary still thought it was all mind control. At one point she considered making me love her. It makes me happy that she was smart enough to realize that such a thing is impossible. Sure, technically mind control make someone love you. But it will be your love behind the emotions instead of their own. You can’t easily tell the difference unless you can read minds, but its there. Still, she was really worried that she’d been unconsciously forcing me to love her using mind control. Was making me say I loved her causing it to be true? In the end, Mary loved me so much that she decided she had to set me free. In truth, she’d been in love with me after only a week. She just hadn’t realized it yet.
When Mary finally said, “I love you,” it was the happiest moment of my life. The fact that I already knew it only made the moment happier. She continued, “I have been using mind control on you. I am sorry. I love you too much to keep you here. I’m not really beautiful, you just think I am because of my mind control. I know I’m you couldn’t possibly really love me. I’m sorry.”
“That’s silly. I don’t believe it. You are beautiful and I *do* love you.”
“It’s true.”
“Prove it. Get someone to do something.”
“I can’t. My powers only work on you.”
“Is that why you love me?” (I knew it wasn’t)
“No. I love that you call me beautiful. I love that you talk to me. I love that thing you do with –”
“You’re changing the subject. Come on, get me to do something.”
“Fine.”
I kissed her.
“See! I got you to kiss me. That proves it!”
“Don’t be absurd. I love kissing you. Why would you need mind control for that!?”
“Ok, I’ll get you to bark like a dog.”
“Roof! Roof!”
“See, it worked!”
“No it didn’t. I barked like a dog because you wanted me to do so. ”
“…Stop thinking I’m beautiful.” (She thought this at me, too).
I frowned a moment. I knew she still thought herself ugly but it hurt to hear her say it. She looked down at the ground, completely misinterpreting my frown. I continued, “You’re not beautiful at all. I never thought you were.” She looked like she was about to cry, so I continued quickly, “Mary, you are neither angel nor goddess nor flower.” Her eyes started to tear. “I apologize for calling you such. You are right that you are not beautiful. Nay, you are beyond beautiful. To call you an angel was an insult. An angel could not compare to you. You are not beautiful. You are perfect. I am sorry I did not properly describe your perfection. There are no words for it.”
“Stop that. I must still be controlling you unconsciously or something.” (She was secretly pleased).
“Can’t you just accept that I love you?”
“No! That’s impossible. Look, I can even make you worship me.”
I kissed her feet, and she continued:
“See, I am using mind control!”
“Heh, no you aren’t! This is a lot of fun, though. Still, I think I can prove that you don’t have mind control powers. So, let’s make a deal. I present my argument. If I prove I’m right, you’ll stop disbelieving me when I tell you how far beyond perfection you are. If I can’t, I’ll admit you’re using mind control.”
“Fine, it’s a deal. You won’t be able to prove it. Besides, obviously you’re right. Clearly, you’ve been doing what I want because it you want to make me happy. You love me too much not to want follow my mental wishes. Though the only time you’ve used mind control on me is right now, you’ve been reading my thoughts and acting on them this whole time. I guess you must be right.”
Her mind went into another one of those little whirlwinds that I enjoy so much. Alas, she was already starting to break her promise. I was forced to interrupt her thought. The following conversation did not take place out loud:
“But I’m not—”
“You promised.”
“But you—”
“I love you.”
“But—”
“I love you.”
“I’m not even—”
“I love you.”
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.”
“Ok?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
. Seriously though, I still love young adult books as much as I love adult books. Alas, young adult books are usually less cost effective.
