Common People

Mimi sighed. "Thanks, Vincent," she said. "You know just how to cheer a girl up after a long day."

"Long day?" he said, taking another sip of brandy. "It's not even one o'clock!"

*****

Which left a lot of the evening free, after she left Vincent's house. Mimi occupied it by hanging out in chat rooms. It was one of the only places left where she felt like she could carry on a normal conversation, and she happily immersed herself in pointless debates about Star Trek, aimless political discussions, and healthy bickering. But even here, in her sanctuary from her own powers, Vincent's words haunted her.

'You're not trapped like they are.' Was that really how Vincent felt about the rest of the world? She wondered briefly what his life had been like before he'd discovered his telepathic powers. It wasn't something he ever talked about. He looked to be about forty-five, and Mimi knew from her experiences with other telepaths that most of them gained their powers in their late teens or early twenties, just like her. That left a lot of time for him to cultivate his lifestyle as a debauched sybarite without leaving any scars. Or at least not any that showed.

Mimi wondered what she'd be like when she was that age. Three years with these powers, and already she felt like she was losing her humanity. Would she have empty-headed young boys serving her when she was Vincent's age, she wondered? Would she laugh at the innocent young women who came to her, with their talk of ethics and morals that she indulgently listened to while she gave in to her every perverse fantasy with men who couldn't help but please her?

She pushed down the arousal that image brought up. No, she decided. Vincent was wrong. He was wrong because he had to be. She would find a way to be normal. She had to.

She looked up at the clock. Time to get to bed, she decided. She didn't want to be late again for work tomorrow. No sense in making things harder on herself.

A Normal Day In the Life Of A Common Girl:

At first, Miles didn't even remember her. He just thought it was kind of odd that the tall, chubby girl that he'd just given back change to had decided to hand him some more money. Then she said, "For yesterday," and it clicked.

"Oh, right," he said, nodding. "Remembered your purse today, huh?"

She smiled shyly. "Yeah," she said, sounding a little tongue-tied. Miles smiled back. He was right, he decided. She definitely had a crush on him.

The customer behind her coughed meaningfully, and Miles got his mind back on his job. He took the money, rang her up for another coffee, and gave her another little smile as she stepped out of line to take a seat.

She still kept staring at him, though. Miles felt flattered. False modesty aside, he'd always known that he was pretty good-looking. He'd certainly never had any problems attracting women. But somehow, this girl's adoring little gazes meant more than anyone else's compliments. He felt like he was being singled out by someone special for attention, even if he didn't know exactly who she was. Was she famous, perhaps? He certainly felt like she was standing out in his attention, as though she was in color and everyone else in the room was in sepia tones.

He didn't even know her name, really. She came in every day, she looked at him with those puppy-dog eyes, and he hadn't ever managed to really exchange more than even ten words with her before today. He suddenly hoped she didn't think he was being rude or stuck up. She seemed like a really nice girl, and he'd hate for her to think that he was acting this way because he didn't like her or anything.

In fact, he decided, he should really go over there right now and talk to her before she got the wrong idea, or before her bus showed up like it did yesterday and dragged her out of his life. He looked at the growing line of customers, and his heart sank at the realization that with the morning rush in full swing, now, there was no way for him to get out from behind the register, not for even a second. He looked around helplessly, but everyone else was just as busy as he was. They wouldn't even be able to cover a bathroom break, let alone give him time to go hit on a pretty girl.

He glanced over in her direction again. She was still smiling at him, and he felt another twinge of aching guilt at the thought of leaving her all alone like this. He looked back at the line of customers in an agony of indecision. Surely there was something he could do, wasn't there? He didn't want to lose his job, but at the same time, the urge to go over there, to find out her name and see what she was like, if she was single, if she was really as interested in him as she seemed...it tugged at him like an addiction. (Miles briefly thought of his girlfriend, but somehow she felt far away, distant, unimportant. She was all the way over by the cappuccino machine, not right here watching the prettiest girl he'd ever seen give him that beautiful smile again...)

Miles couldn't take it anymore. He just had to go over there and at least say hello. He slipped out from behind the counter, noticing with an internal sigh of relief that Jim took over for him almost as if he'd been expecting Miles to walk away from his station, and walked over to the girl. "Hi," he said, sitting in the chair next to her. "I'm Miles. And you are...?"

"Mimi," she said, blushing just a little. She had an adorable blush, really. She seemed uncertain for a moment, as though wrestling with some great and momentous decision. Even her sudden, unaccountable shyness seemed to add to her charms. She was gorgeous in that moment, with the early morning sunlight shining on her face as she looked at him with a mixture of worry and lust in her eyes, and Miles decided to take the initiative. He kissed her, full on the lips.

For a moment, she froze up, and he almost thought that he might have been too forward. But his instincts told him that this was exactly what Mimi wanted, and sure enough, she melted into his embrace in moments as the two of them kissed. She pressed herself up against his body, and he could feel the heat of her through their clothes. It felt right, somehow. He could tell Mimi understood too from the way her arms found their way around his body to caress his back through his shirt.

The kiss felt like it lasted forever, and Miles almost wished it would. But with every second he spent with his lips pressed against hers, his body started whispering to him of other needs, more insistent and powerful needs that he couldn't deny any longer. He thought about taking her back to his apartment, out to the parking lot and the backseat of his car, even just into the restrooms, but that would mean breaking the kiss and Miles knew that the only way he could even imagine breaking the kiss now would be so that his lips could find other places on her body.

Just the thought of kissing his way down Mimi's breasts, down her belly to the wonderful delta between her thighs seemed to arouse them both all the more, and Mimi squirmed in his embrace as his hands roamed over her. Miles tried to tell himself that they needed to find privacy, that the police would come if they gave into their passions completely right here in a public place, but all the arguments of his mind seemed to give way to the single, powerful, throbbing demand of his suddenly-aching cock. His hands slid under Mimi's blouse, touching her bare skin, feeling its feverish heat under his fingers. He felt her moan into his mouth, and he couldn't imagine a more erotic sensation.

He couldn't help himself now; thoughts of police and staring eyes just melted away from his mind as he unbuttoned her blouse to expose her breasts, so full and lush and the nipples so hard under his thumbs that he finally managed to break the kiss to move his head down and suckle at them, alternating from one heavy tit to the other and feeling a rush of pride at the way Mimi's fingers wrapped in his curly hair to hold him in place. It felt like he knew every secret way to arouse her, knew just where to touch her to make her writhe in pleasure and whimper for more. His fingers brushed at her side, just at the swell of her breasts, and he was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath as she stiffened in pleasure. It was such a wonderful sound, he just had to...to...

He straightened up, and lifted her up to sit on the table. All around him, the café's other patrons, his co-workers and boss stared straight past the two of them as though they didn't exist...or as if nobody else existed but the two of them. It felt like the world itself had made a perfect special place where they could feel nothing but passion, and Miles dropped to his knees and slid his head under Mimi's skirt to inhale the powerful scent of her arousal. He could see how she'd soaked through her panties with lust, and he quickly pulled them down to her ankles to get them out of the way so he could slide his tongue into her hot, wet pussy and lick.

Even more so than before, they just seemed to be resonating on that same perfect frequency, and he knew exactly where and how to eat her out to make her scream in ecstasy. Her thighs wrapped around his head as she spasmed in unbridled lust, and it all just felt so perfect that he knew he could do this forever, that this was all he ever wanted to be--on his knees, between her thighs, giving Mimi the orgasms she needed and wanted and deserved and...

Then the old certainty gave way to a new one. Somehow he knew, absolutely knew, that Mimi needed to be fucked right that second. She needed his cock inside her and as soon as she needed that, he needed it too and he pulled his pants down with manic urgency so that he could pound his cock into her pussy. She slid forward as he thrust into her, and he was balls-deep inside her with a single swift motion. The sheer perfect clench of her cunt around his cock almost made him cum right then and there, but something in the back of his head resolutely refused to allow his dick the release it craved. Instead, he just channeled that arousal into more vigorous motion, more powerful strokes, more of the fucking that he knew Mimi wanted and needed and craved and...

And then she was shuddering, shaking and quivering and her legs were wrapped around his as she came, he knew she was coming and that knowledge finally pushed him over the edge into his own orgasm, and he grunted as he shot his load into her pussy and the two of them finally sagged into each other in exhaustion.

He held her, never wanting to let her go. "I love you," he whispered in her ear.

He was surprised when she responded by bursting into tears.

*****

Mimi burst into Vincent's study, almost before the girl could let her in. She headed straight to the brandy decanter, grabbing a glass and filling it with shaking hands. "You know, the girls can do that for you," Vincent said as he watched her with a slight frown.

Mimi downed the entire glass in one coughing, spluttering gulp and filled it again. "I don't want anyone doing things for me right now," she said harshly.

"Bad grades today, I take it?" Vincent said, taking a small sip of orange juice. "Even I don't usually start drinking this early."

"Fail," she said, her voice as shaky as her hands. "Epic fail." She grabbed the decanter and took it back to the chair with her. "Total failure, complete and total fuck-up on every possible..." Mimi realized she was babbling, and steadied herself with another swallow of brandy. "I raped a man this morning, Vincent."

Vincent raised an eyebrow at her. "Either he was an extremely poor physical specimen," he said, "or you're stronger than you look."

"Don't give me that bullshit!" she shouted. "You know damned well what I mean! I might not have used physical force, but I raped him just as surely as if I held him down and forced myself on him. I made him want it, I made him ignore his girlfriend who wasn't even twenty feet away, I made everyone else ignore it happening, I was horny and he was cute and so I flipped all the little switches in his mind and made him fuck me right there in the middle of a crowded room. Oh god, oh god oh god..." She gulped down the rest of the glass of brandy and poured herself another one.

Vincent just watched her. His look didn't betray any sort of amusement at her shame, she was grateful for that, at least, but it didn't give her any particular sympathy, either. "And then what?" he asked, his tone neutral.

"I made him forget it. I made them all forget it had ever happened and I came here. I couldn't go to work, not after that, I couldn't be around anyone who couldn't defend their minds." She looked up at Vincent with bleary, red-rimmed eyes, slightly unfocused from the sudden infusion of alcohol. "How do you stand it?" she said. "How do you kill your conscience, Vincent, because I can't do it and I can't stop myself from doing things to people and I can't live like this!" She flung the glass aside, hearing the satisfying crack as it smashed against the wall.

Vincent sighed heavily. "Well, I hadn't planned on saying anything, but if you will insist on wasting good liquor like this..." He stood up. "I thought of a way to help you, Mimi," he said, his tones devoid of their usual wry sarcasm. "But I'm afraid you'll have to trust me. Do you trust me, Mimi?"

Mimi looked up at him. She really wished she wasn't pausing like this--whenever someone looked you in the eyes and asked if you trusted them, there was an instinctive urge to reassure them--but she realized that she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Vincent, not even after two years of daily chats with him. He seemed harmless, but that wasn't necessarily the same thing as trustworthy. She'd trusted him with her secrets, she'd trusted him with her fears, she'd trusted him enough to sit in his house and eat his food and drink his drink, but was that really the same thing as trusting him?

She thought about Miles, his mind bent to love by the simple pressure of her desires, and wondered if she had a choice. Vincent just looked at her, his face finally giving back some of that compassion she'd needed to see as he offered his help, and Mimi knew that couldn't have been easy for him. "I guess so," she gulped out.

"Alright, then," he said. "I've been thinking about it, and ultimately, I think the problem is that you need more than just self-control. With the amount of power you have, self-control is never going to be enough. But if you have more than just that going for you...I can put mental blocks around your abilities, make them harder for you to access. We can fine-tune it later, once you've had some time to get used to it, and make them as difficult or as easy for you to use your powers as you want. Perhaps even shut them off completely, if that's what you decide you really want--" He raised a hand to cut her off before she could speak. "But I don't think that's a decision you should make today. Not without taking some time to see how you really feel."

Mimi nodded. "Alright," she said. She felt hollow, like what she really wanted to do was just curl up into a little ball and cry. But she knew she had to face this. She had to find a way to live with herself, and Vincent was offering her the only way out that either one of them could think of. "What do I have to do?"

"Just lower your defenses," Vincent said. "Relax your shields, and let me into your mind."

At first, Mimi wasn't even sure if she knew how. She felt Vincent's tentative, questing probes against the edges of her thoughts and her mind instinctively tensed up, the same way it always had when another telepath had tested her. It took a lot of effort to consciously force those shields to relax, to let Vincent's thought-tendrils into her mind without automatically repulsing his mental probe.

"That's it," Vincent said. He was still a few feet away from her, but somehow he felt like he'd closed the distance between them without moving. "Just relax, just don't try to fight it..."

Mimi concentrated, putting all her effort into relaxing and allowing this to happen. Her instincts kept telling her to tense up, to fight the intruder, but she closed her eyes and soothed those worried nerves and jangled thoughts into submission and let Vincent inside of her. She felt his thoughts, sliding down into her brain, wrapping themselves around the source of her power, the source of those very same shields, and then she felt a soft, soothing, stroking touch on her mind as he enfolded them in his own will and slowly, gently quieted them into sleep.

And then she couldn't even feel his thoughts in her head anymore. She knew they must still be there, but it felt like there was a thick layer of cotton muffling all those extra senses and she couldn't hear his voice in her head. For the first time in three years, she heard nothing but silence in her mind. It felt like she was letting out a breath she hadn't even noticed holding. Mimi almost wanted to cry in gratitude. She was finally safe from herself.

Vincent was probably still inside her mind, but she couldn't feel her telepathic defenses at all, now. Her eyes widened as she realized she also couldn't stand up. Had something gone wrong? she wondered. She couldn't move her arms or legs anymore. She looked at Vincent, about to ask what was happening, but she suddenly realized her vocal cords weren't working either. Speech, movement, everything just seemed to be shutting down. Vincent must be doing something, she realized. But she knew she'd never know what, not unless she could...she struggled, trying to find the part of her mind that held the power to fight back, but Vincent had already put those blocks in place and the part of her that could break through them was on the other side of that mental wall.

Mimi started to panic, but she couldn't scream and then she couldn't remember why she wanted to panic and she couldn't think and the last image in her head before her world rocketed down into blackness was the sight of Vincent's gently smiling face.

An Average Day In the Life Of A Working Girl:

The sun had barely dipped below the horizon, but Mimi had already been out on the streets for close to an hour. Not much choice, really; Mimi didn't have the looks some of these other girls had. She had to hustle twice as hard for every trick she could pull, and that meant getting out here earlier than the other hookers and staying out until after dawn. She adjusted her stockings slightly. It had been a quiet night, so far, but things usually picked up when night fell.

They did, but not in the way she was hoping for. She spotted a cop ambling down the street, pretending to be casual even though she could tell he'd spotted her. She leaned up against the light post and tried to pretend she was just a normal New York party girl, just some carefree young thing waiting for her ride while dressed up for a night on the town...she knew it wasn't going to work. Fuck. A few hours later, and she might have enough cash scraped up to bribe him into looking the other way, but she didn't have a dime in her pockets right now, and that meant she'd probably be spending tonight in a holding cell.

A car pulled up to the curb. Not now, you idiot, she thought. At least if the cop caught her hanging out on the corner, the worst he could do was bust her for indecency. But if this moron tried to pick her up with the cop watching, she'd definitely be screwed.

He leaned out of the window, a handsome gentleman in his mid-forties. "Hello, there," he said, shouting to be heard over the roar of traffic. "You wouldn't happen to be for rent, would you?"

She shot a glance at the cop. He was looking straight at them. He must have heard the man talking; there was no way that anyone on the block had missed that. She looked him square in the eyes, the word 'no' forming on her lips. "Yes," she said instead.