“I know what you are,” said a voice.
Sienna glanced up from her phone looking to see who had spoken. It was some guy, mid-twenties, long dark hair, unkempt. He was sitting at a nearby table watching her, his feet propped up on an extra chair. He had this ineffable kind of sleezy charm that she couldn’t quite describe. He definitely stood out. He was wearing a tight black band t-shirt, black jeans and combat boots. It was July. Who wears combat boots in the middle of the summer?
“…what?” Sienna responded, looking around the coffee shop for anyone else he might be talking to. But aside from this new guy, it was just as empty as when she had arrived. Old man reading the paper in the far corner, a couple of employees shuffling behind the counter, no one remotely close enough to be the target of his declaration.
“I know what you are,” the odd young man repeated. “I know your secret.”
“I think you might have me confused for someone else,” Sienna replied. This dude is really pushy, she thought.
He stood up and came over to her table and pointedly straddled the chair opposing her. “I don’t think so. We can see it in each other, I think. It’s easy to spot after a while, like an echo. You see bits of yourself reflected back at you. Though, I gotta say, you’re doing a pretty good job of hiding it.”
“What are you talking about?” Sienna was getting a little annoyed, and her anxiety was starting to peak. She could feel her face warming, and knew that her cheeks would be fully flushed in seconds. She hated that. She hated that her emotions were so visible to anyone and everyone, which was actually more than a little ironic. She brushed her auburn hair behind her ear, growing more uncomfortable. None of what this guy was saying made any sense. But… it was coming dangerously close.
“You’re a reader, an empath. Like me,” he said quietly. “Well, kind of like me. I’m more of a writer, myself. I think you’re a pure reader though. Must be tough, feeling all that stuff and not being able to change any of it.”
Sienna had never really had a name for what she was. But she knew it was a secret, and she knew she didn’t want it. Hearing that word… empath. That word struck a chord deep down inside and it just felt true. She knew she had always had an uncanny ability tell when someone was upset, or excited, or any intense emotion. But it was more than ‘reading’ people. When she was near people in heightened emotional states, she experienced those heightened emotional states. And it was really fucking disruptive. And sometimes, terrifying. She winced as a brief flicker of a memory passed by, which she quickly and reflexively pushed away.
Thankfully, she hadn’t had to deal with all that in a while though. Years ago, it all shut off, went numb. When it happened. But she tried not to think about that. At least all the intrusive feelings had gone quiet. Even though her own emotions were pretty blocked off too. It seemed that these days the only emotion Sienna really ever felt was embarrassment, and the occasional stab of blind panic.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, dude. Sorry,” Sienna replied, trying to stay outwardly calm.
The man shifted forward, placing his elbows on the table and crossing his fingers below his chin. He stared at her intently. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” His eyes lit up with something Sienna couldn’t quite place. And then it started.
Sienna felt a pressure at her temples, and a bubbling rage fomenting in her chest. She was so angry, it was all she could do to keep from screaming. It was the kind of primal rage that triggers instinctually after being hit in the head from behind, intense and completely unrestrained. If she had been able to move, she might have actually punched someone.
The man cocked his head to the side and gave Sienna the most faux-innocent smirk she had ever seen.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Sienna couldn’t speak. She had never, even before the numbness started, experienced a tidal wave of emotion that intense before, especially without any warning like that. And she was fairly certain that this anger wasn’t entirely hers. Probably. She had no reason to be angry, right?
“How?” she managed to get out.
“Like I said, I’m a writer. I’m an empath just like you, but for me it tends to… work the other direction. I feel what you feel, but I can push the feelings around. I find the seed of a feeling inside you, and then I take it and build on it, and then watch it grow and morph as it becomes yours again. It’s usually not quite that intense, though. I’ve never done it to a reader before. Pretty heady.”
As he was talking, the anger had quickly subsided, and Sienna felt like she could breathe again. She felt like she could think again. She realized what had just happened. And then the anger bubbled up again, but this time it was definitely hers. A much subtler seething anger at the idea of being violated.
“How dare you,” she whispered. “How dare you go inside my mind and take or build anything. It’s not yours. And you have no right to make me feel those things.”
Sienna could feel tears forming, that painful tingle at the tip of her nose and the quiver in her jaw signalling that her resolve wouldn’t last much longer. She had to look away. She brushed her hair back in front of her face in an absent motion.
The man’s expression softened a bit, and he looked slightly ashamed. “Hey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you cry. I just wanted to show you, remind you. And I guess, have a little fun, since you seemed so intent on feigning ignorance. I didn’t know it would be so… loud.”
“What do you mean, loud?” Sienna asked, still trying to get a grip on what she had just experienced. It had been a long time since she had felt anything remotely like that. And honestly, even her own anger at the violation was pretty new. It felt like some kind of hole had been punched in her armor. She felt more than a little exposed.
“Well, usually, I can only start a chain. It’s like lighting a match in someone else and watching it burn from really far away. I do feel it, but it’s kind of a vague feeling, just enough so that I can play with it and then watch it go. I like watching from afar like that. It’s exhilarating.” He shook his head to bring himself back on topic. “But anyway, with you, it wasn’t like that at all. I guess it’s because you’re an empath too? You can feel me feeling you feeling things, and I feel that, and so on. It’s like it creates some kind of emotional feedback, and yeah, it got really loud. Sorry about that.”
Sienna was still reeling, and part of her wanted to run away, but her curiosity started to creep up despite herself. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. But how did you find me? Why did you start talking to me in the first place? What do you want? And who even are you?” she asked, her questions growing more rapid with each word.
The man sat back in the chair. “Reasonable questions. I’ll start with the easy one. My name’s Jasper. We actually met briefly a few years back.” Sienna tilted her head in confusion. She had absolutely no memory of this guy. “Remember that all-girls summer camp you attended? Camp Artemis?”
“Yeah, I went there for years,” Sienna responded. Camp Artemis. That brought up some memories. She quickly pushed them away. Jasper paused for a moment, noting her reaction.
“Well, I spent a summer at the brother camp, Camp Apollo, a few miles away. I saw you at the camp mixer maybe… ten years ago. You were older than me, so you probably didn’t notice me. Three years was a big age difference at that age,” Jasper said. “Anyway, I was just coming into my abilities at the time, just starting to recognize that I could even sense what other people were feeling. And you were like a mirror to everyone around you. The excitement was amplified and I could see just by looking what you were feeling,” he continued, somewhat wistfully.
Sienna remembered that dance. She remembered the surging of teen hormones that had surrounded her, and how she had been able to flit from one thought to the next, party to the experiences of so many people at once. It was indeed exhilarating. She had been so free, so… untouched. Those damn tears again started to well up at the contrast with her current self. Something was definitely different. She didn’t normally get nostalgic about her empathic abilities. She didn’t normally think about her empathic abilities.
“If it was so easy for you to notice me, why didn’t I notice you too?” she asked, trying to stay focused on her questions.
“Ah, I think it’s because our gifts work a little differently. From what I can tell, you mirror the emotions of the people physically close to you. That night, you were dancing around the room, and you always seemed to match the state of the people around you. It was really beautiful to watch,” he added, trailing off again. “But that’s not how mine works,” he quickly followed. “I don’t think I feel emotion as strongly as you seem to, and I don’t really feel it as my own like you do. It’s duller, more like a window into what others are feeling, but very little translates to me. I just get to see what people are feeling, I don’t really feel it myself, so you probably wouldn’t even have noticed anything special about me. You also didn’t really seem to be seeking out anything in particular, just, experiencing whatever passed by you. You might have noticed me if you were looking as hard as I was,” his voice started to strain a bit at the thought.
“Plus, I seem to have a wider natural range than you. That’s why I could sense you from across the room. Across the camp, actually, once I knew what to look for. But I definitely recognized a kindred spirit, even though I didn’t understand it at the time.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sienna asked.
“What would I have said?” Jasper answered. “I didn’t even know what to call my own abilities, much less talk to anyone else about it. And honestly, I was intimidated by you.”
Hah, she thought. Intimidated. That’s not a word Sienna thought she’d ever hear associated with herself. “Okay, then why now? Why ten years later? And how did you find me?”
“Well, after I saw you that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about how this all works, why I felt so different. I stopped focusing on anything else. I dropped out of school, ran away and was basically living off the grid. It was pretty easy, once I figured out that I could make people… more inclined to help me out. I basically just moved from place to place listening to other people, watching them, and sometimes… playing on their innate desire to help wayward teens like myself,” he continued.
“I found a few other people like us, who amplified and mirrored people. Mostly outcast types, street performers, con artists, psychics, sex workers, career gamblers, the kinds of people who can make a living out of knowing what other people are thinking. Some of them seemed to understand what they were and others appeared to have no idea. Some glowed intensely kind of like you did, and others were much more subdued. I generally avoided them though, but my curiosity never really went away. And it always seemed to come back to you. You were so raw, it was hard to get you out of my head,” he trailed off again, lost in some other world. He quickly jolted himself back to the conversation, seemingly slightly annoyed at himself for drifting, “So, I did what I do and I found your name from some old camp records, and started doing the detective thing until I found you. Again, found some very helpful people in the records office,” he smirked.
“I gotta say, I almost didn’t recognize you, though. I’m so used to feeling people instead of seeing them. You feel different now. You still have that echo around you, I’d know you were one of us even if I’d never met you before. But, you’re not really mirroring anymore. Like, not at all. I see little spurts of connection around you, but nothing sticks to you. You’ve got some serious walls up. It’s like the surrounding emotions are attracted to you, but somehow just bounce away without affecting you.”
This was a lot to take in. Sienna knew she had this ‘gift’, had known for a long time. It made her a good friend most of the time, though she’d always struggled with remembering whose emotions were whose. Especially negative emotions. Even before, she felt taken over when someone near her was struggling. She felt everything they were feeling, but it was so much more confusing because she had nothing to ground her feelings. No reason for feeling them. Just pure emotion.
Jasper interrupted her reverie. “So what happened?”
Sienna sank back into herself, walling off the memories that started to creep up. “What?”
“What happened?” he repeated. “What changed?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “I guess it was a phase or something. A fluke.”
“You know I’m a mind reader, right? Well, emotion reader anyway. I can tell you’re lying,” Jasper said.
“Okay, you got me,” Sienna replied sarcastically. “What are you going to do about it? It’s not really any of your business who I am or what I do or how I feel or what kind of shit I’ve been through. And to be frank, you’re kind of a stalker anyway, so I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. I should call the police right now.” She said the words, but she didn’t believe them. This was too interesting. Jasper was too… interesting. She kind of hated him, especially the way he seemed to derive this sick pleasure from using people. But still, she wasn’t quite ready to get rid of him. She paused.
Jasper was staring at her. She could see the hint of a smile forming at one corner of his mouth, and she knew he knew she was bluffing. That smile sent a shudder through her. It seemed like he knew more than he was saying. He knew exactly what had changed for her. He was just testing her, seeing how much she’d actually tell him.
“Do you know?” she asked quietly. It scared her more than she’d like to admit that someone out there could know what happened to her.
Jasper shook his head quickly. “No, not know, per se,” he responded. “I just feel a lot of pain wrapped up in you, and it seems linked to those walls you’ve constructed around yourself. I’m very observant, you’ll find,” he added with a grin.
“It’s not like I put them up on purpose,” Sienna replied, ignoring his self-aggrandizement.
“Doesn’t look to me like you’re doing much to try to get rid of them,” Jasper said flippantly.
“You don’t even know me,” Sienna quipped back. That flash of anger again, this was new. Something was different inside her—she felt more awake than she had in a long time. Jasper smiled again. Her anger flared up suddenly, and Sienna could tell it was Jasper again, moving inside her mind. Why on earth would he be trying to make her more angry with him?
But she had to admit, it felt good to feel angry. Such a long time with just numbness and fear, she had forgotten what it was to experience anything so raw.
“Maybe I know you better than you think I do,” Jasper replied after a few moments. “I know something happened to you, something you won’t even think about, much less talk about. I know your powers shut off after that, and that for some reason you don’t seem too bent out of shape about it,” he paused. “I also know that there’s something inside you that wants to feel something again, even though it scares you. There’s a part of you that even likes the fear.”
Sienna didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she finally exhaled. She was both excited and afraid, her eyes starting to well up with tears again. It was indeed scary to have someone see through her layers of protection so clearly. Even scarier to know that he could reach in any time he liked and prompt anything he wanted inside her.
“Meet me tomorrow night,” Jasper interrupted. “Corner of 43rd Street and Pine, in the industrial zone.”
“What?” Sienna asked, shocked at the brazen command.
“Tomorrow night, 9 o’clock,” Jasper repeated. “I have a place I’d like to show you.”
He stood up and started to walk away before she could find the words to respond. Sienna couldn’t stop him from leaving without making a scene, so despite her curiosity, she remained seated at her table, alone with her coffee and her thoughts. No way she was meeting him at some random street corner. No way.
The next evening, a few minutes before 9, Sienna found herself standing at the corner of 43rd and Pine. This was the old part of town, now mostly warehouses and a few dive bars. She’d never been this way at night before, but it was a known meet-up area for drug dealers and prostitutes and the like. Not a place she’d normally choose for a… second date? She wasn’t sure what this was about, but she definitely felt… something… for Jasper. Was it a date? She had even put on her favorite sundress for this mysterious meeting, which, now that she thought about it, made her fairly conspicuous given the location and time of day. Either way, she was a bundle of nerves.
She heard a whistle from a nearby alley. Jasper. Same black jeans and combat boots with another black t-shirt, this time covered up with a leather jacket. He nodded his head at her, clearly inviting her to follow him.
Sienna followed Jasper through the alleyway until they reached what looked like an abandoned warehouse loading door. As they approached, Jasper went over to the door with his back to her. Sienna, on edge, turned around to keep an eye on her surroundings. This wasn’t exactly her idea of a night on the town. What the hell was she doing here with this man she didn’t know, fumbling around an alley in the middle of the night? Had she gone completely insane? She heard a loud clang and turned around as the door abruptly swung open, revealing a dark hallway.
There wasn’t much to see, but from what she could make out it seemed like her initial assumption that the place was abandoned was correct. There was one dim neon bulb hanging from a metal fixture at the end of the hallway, bathing the interior concrete and steel in a green haze. The rest of the light was filtering through some dirty windows along the exterior wall. Perfect, she thought. A perfect place to be murdered. But despite her internal dialogue, she didn’t feel very afraid. Mostly she was intrigued.
“This place is out of the way, and usually the building owner doesn’t come down here unless there’s been something illegal reported. I’ve been able to keep things pretty quiet by… deterring the locals now and again,” Jasper said.
Sienna glanced around and was indeed surprised to see that despite the run-down quality of this place, there weren’t any signs of squatters. In this kind of neighborhood, this place should have been pretty prime real estate for junkies.
It smelled mostly of rust, with a faint hint of stale cigarettes, but none of the usual smells of piss and beer from the surrounding alleys had made their way inside.
“There’s no one here,” Jasper said quietly, with a hint of urgency in his voice. “You don’t need to be so closed off here.”
“It’s not really something I can control,” Sienna responded. But it seemed true, what he said. She didn’t feel the usual pressure on the edges of her consciousness that signified the presence of other people. If her walls did miraculously come down, she probably wouldn’t be flooded with outside emotions. A comforting thought.
“Come downstairs with me. I’ll lock the front door. This place is boarded up tight. Once we’re in the basement, no one will be able to come within 50 feet of us for weeks if we wanted.”
Jasper led Sienna past a heavy door that latched behind them, and down an old industrial steel staircase. At the bottom of the stairs was a fairly open room, probably an old storage area for machinery and whatever else the loading door was originally used for. Off to the left side was a relatively clean, but disheveled-looking mattress sitting directly on the concrete floor. Attached to the single electrical outlet was a small television and an extension cord sporting a microwave and basic coffee pot, all crammed together on a small wooden chest of drawers.
There really wasn’t much there, but it was clear that Jasper had stayed here before. There were enough supplies to spend a few days in relative comfort, assuming there was a bathroom somewhere down here. But you probably wouldn’t want to actually live here. Well, maybe she could get used to the quiet.
“Want some popcorn?” Jasper asked. “It’s basically that or stale coffee right now. This was never really intended to be a guest-friendly place.”
“I’m okay for now,” Sienna replied. She didn’t really have much of an appetite, and definitely didn’t trust the coffee.
Jasper pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, and held one in his mouth as he tilted the pack toward Sienna and dug around for his lighter. Sienna shook her head to decline. Jasper shrugged, and flicked his lighter while taking a deep pull of his cigarette.
“Sorry, I don’t have much in the way of furniture, but you’re welcome to take a seat on the bed.” Jasper said as he tucked the lighter back into his jeans.
Sienna, still swirling with nerves, sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress, knees bundled together against her chest.
It was nice to be away from people for a change, though. And she was glad that Jasper had refrained from invading her mind again, even though she could feel a yearning building up inside her. It had been so long since she’d felt anything at all—having those emotions flood through her psyche had been terrifying and intoxicating all at once. Sienna wasn’t sure she was ready to experience it again. But then again, she had followed Jasper to this dingy hole in the ground, despite her better judgment.
“What are you thinking?” Jasper asked, after a few moments of observing Sienna’s reverie with interest.
“You can’t tell?” Sienna asked with a smile that conveyed both trepidation and a hint of playfulness.
“I can’t read you without coloring your emotions with my own,” Jasper responded. “My curse!” he proclaimed loudly with exaggerated drama. “Heisenberg and King Midas know naught of my suffering, never to touch without corrupting.”
Sienna giggled uncomfortably. He was clearly intending to joke, but she could hear the twinge of some deeper truth as he spoke, something that sent a shiver down her spine.
“Anyway,” Jasper continued, quickly moving past the slight awkwardness of his dramatic interlude. “I figured it would be more polite if I asked first this time.”
After a few moments, Sienna responded, “I’m… conflicted.”
“Conflicted about what? About me?” Jasper asked.
Sienna felt that pull again as he spoke. Her heart was thumping so prominently she was sure he must be able to feel its vibrations through the concrete floor.
“I guess so,” she finally answered.
“What’s the conflict?” Jasper prodded, pacing slowly a few feet away from the bed. He had a neutral look on his face, but something about his body language was predatory.
“That thing you did. Yesterday. In the coffee shop,” Sienna said with difficulty. “It was… intense. I don’t know if I’m ready for that again,” she continued. “And… it scares me that you can do that, and I have no way to stop it. It’s a lot.” After she got the first few words out, Sienna found that they started flowing a bit more freely. “I’m not used to having my defenses broken down so easily. I didn’t even know it was possible to ever experience that kind of intensity again, until you showed up. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with any of this stuff. I—”
“Don’t you miss it, though?” Jasper pressed, with barely concealed excitement, lunging forward into a crouch near the foot of the bed. “That flood of feelings that aren’t yours? It’s the best high there is.” He took another deep drag of his cigarette.
“For you, I guess,” Sienna said. “You seem to be able to control it better than I ever could, even before…”
“Let me try,” Jasper whispered, twisting the cigarette into the concrete as he looked at her. “Let me try to help you. You don’t even have to use your power, I’ll do all the work. Let me show you how I feel. There’s no one else around, all you’ll feel is me, even if those walls come down completely.”
Sienna closed her mouth tightly, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. She felt a wave of fear flash through her, her heart pounding in her ears again. But also a twinge of some deeper urge. She closed her eyes too, and furrowed her brow, trying to push the feelings down, but they just got stronger. An itch was forming in every crevice of her mind.
“Okay.”
That word was all Jasper needed. Immediately, Sienna felt a penetrating force flood through her mind. Anger, deep anger, flashed through her psyche. Quickly whisked away by pride and a trembling sense of glee. Sienna knew that these were not her feelings, but she was nevertheless swept away by them. Emotion after emotion crashed through her, until she could not physically hold herself upright anymore. She fell backwards, her legs still dangling together off the bed, her torso and arms splayed across the mattress as Jasper’s mental states rushed past the barriers in her mind, snaking through every corner.
His energy coursed through her, searching for a weakness, until he found the itch that had been gnawing at the back of her mind. His need intensified as he found that spark of urgency that matched his own.
There. He planted the seed of hunger and watched it grow, her need morphing and twisting with his until completely unrecognizable. He saw her body prone, collapsed in a heap against his bed, as their mutual longing rose to a crest.
As she laid there, Sienna heard Jasper rise from his crouch at the foot of the bed. She felt a stab of fear. Her own fear! Jasper felt it too—she could feel him in her mind as he took her fear and violently stripped it away to a core of excitement and arousal. Despite her awareness that this transformation was imposed on her, Sienna let herself be pulled along, the rush of emotion too intense to ignore.
Fear again. Sienna had not felt arousal in a very long time, and with it came a flood of memories and a wave of terror. Jasper’s voice cut through the din. “Let me take over. Feel me.”
Sienna could feel Jasper’s arousal coursing through her mind and body. She opened her eyes to see Jasper standing above her, panting and staring intensely into her eyes.
Their eyes locked, Sienna watched as Jasper’s hands moved downward in her peripheral vision. She saw him start to rub the bulge forming in his black denim jeans. She felt a jolt run through her as his cock twitched, as though she were experiencing it directly. Suddenly she wanted more. She nodded at Jasper, begging him through their mental connection.
Seeing his own hunger mirrored in Sienna’s eyes, his eyes glued to Sienna’s, Jasper unbuckled his leather belt and unzipped his pants to release his fully engorged and throbbing member. He began sliding his hand up and down along his length. Every touch and stroke he gave to himself sent shivers through Sienna. As his arousal grew, so did hers. He stood over her motionless body, frantically working his hand along his shaft, his eyes never leaving Sienna’s.
As Jasper stroked himself closer and closer to climax, Sienna realized that her arousal was growing, but her body was not moving as quickly towards release as Jasper’s was. She was sharing the mental component of Jasper’s arousal, but not the physical. Her building desire turned to frustration as she recognized the mismatch as lack of physical stimulation. Jasper, noting her frustration, smiled.
“You want more?” he asked. He kept his hand slowly pumping his cock, but slowed the pace to pull back from his impending release.
Jasper’s excitement at Sienna’s frustration flooded her with another wave of arousal. She could feel Jasper penetrating her mind and feeding that frustration, all the while growing more and more aroused.
Her own breath in a pant, she could not speak. She was completely at Jasper’s mercy, heaving and exhausted beneath him as he continued to slowly stroke his cock.
Jasper, still stroking with one hand, picked up his other to lift the hem of Sienna’s dress, carefully pushing it past her hips. But as soon as he reached her panties, Sienna’s walls flew back up, halting all progress and emotion. A flash of fear and memory, Sienna’s mind flung Jasper out.
She was closed.
She was empty.
Jasper, reeling from the contrast, stuffed his rapidly deflating cock back into his pants as he sat down next to Sienna. Sienna, sitting up on the bed, looked up at Jasper numbly. She could tell she should feel embarrassed or afraid, but those feelings were like whispers muffled by miles of insulation in her brain. She couldn’t access them, and couldn’t even access to the desire to try.
“Too far, huh?” Jasper said.
Sienna couldn’t quite muster the energy to speak, so simply nodded, brushing her hair behind her ears as she looked away.
Jasper reached out gently, taking Sienna’s chin in his hand and turning it back to face him.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, you know,” he said.
That sentence struck a chord in Sienna. She could feel that her emotional walls were weakened, and despite the sudden numbness she could feel the twinge of tears beginning to well up in response.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jasper asked carefully.
“I don’t really know how,” Sienna responded weakly. “I’m not ready for that, I think. For sex, I mean. There’s some stuff, from my past, it brings up… I can’t…” she struggled to get a coherent sentence together.
“Okay,” said Jasper. “No sex,” he continued, “no problem.”
He paused. “I obviously find you pretty attractive though. Hard to hide that kind of desire in a mind-meld situation,” he said. “And honestly, that’s the part you seem to be responding to. I want to help you experience how amazing that gift you have can be. You’ve felt it before—you have to know what you’re missing,” he continued, with an undercurrent of increasing urgency.
“I think I find you attractive too,” Sienna said, choosing to ignore the last few things Jasper said.
“You only think?” Jasper said, half-joking.
Sienna could feel the desire to feel something starting to flicker again in the back of her mind. “I know I want something from you,” she said. “I just don’t really understand what I’m feeling. I’m still pretty blocked.”
“What do you want from me?” Jasper asked, barely concealing his own flaring hunger. Sienna’s eyes darted down to Jasper’s crotch, where she could see the clear outline of a now fully erect dick.
“I want to feel,” she said, not quite meeting Jasper’s piercing black gaze. A catch in her voice developed as she continued, “I want to feel what you feel,” she said, the lust in her voice clearly pushing through again. Their eyes locked once again, and Jasper suddenly stared deep into Sienna, permeating her mind and violently pushing past her mental walls once again.
The first thing Sienna felt, again, was a rush of white-hot rage. But it quickly dissipated and was replaced by unabashed desire. Her face flushed and her muscles weakened.
Overcome with need to feel even more, she started to reach out for Jasper with her mind. With the emotional barrier already weakened by his previous intrusions, she found that she could feel his emotions on her own too. And what she found there was unbridled lust.
As Sienna accessed Jasper’s mind, she felt that lust grow in her as well. Just like before, Sienna found herself in a feedback loop with Jasper, where her echo of him fed back into his experience until it became nearly unbearable.
She closed her eyes and leaned back on her elbows as she heard the unmistakable sound of Jasper’s zipper once again.
Jasper’s weight shifted on the bed, and Sienna opened her eyes to see that he had slid off the bed entirely, propped up only with his left arm. His cock tightly in his right hand, Jasper was kneeling at the edge of the bed, his left thumb sliding along the outside of Sienna’s knee. He pried between her knees and spread her legs apart. He dipped his thumb below the hem of her dress, and he pushed it back up to her hips.
Sienna’s eyes went wide at this, but at the same moment, Jasper thrust his hips into his left hand, held firm against the edge of the bed, forcing his cock through his fist up to the hilt. That motion sent such waves of pleasure through both Jasper and Sienna that she closed her eyes and again collapsed backwards fully onto the mattress.
As Jasper continued to massage his cock, now wet with pre-cum, Sienna felt his other hand exploring below her dress. His hand reached up to her belly and slowly meandered down toward her panties once more. But this time, Jasper was aware of her waiting trauma response. He was careful to find the trigger in Sienna’s mind. He held it, and quieted it, soothing Sienna’s fear response while still fanning her arousal. He slowly pulled down her panties, pushing them past her knees and down to the floor.
With Sienna now completely exposed, Jasper knelt between her legs and began kissing her at the ankle. He let his tongue graze her calf and swept upward in one motion from ankle to knee, causing her to quiver and shake with anticipation.
Sienna moaned, back arched, as she felt Jasper’s soft tongue caress her inner thigh. He worked his way upward, his breath warm on her skin and his fingers dancing lightly across her hips. All the while slowly gliding his other hand along his glistening cock. Their mental link now working both directions, the intensity of each sensation heightened to a new level, almost vibrating the air around them.
As his mouth reached the outer folds of Sienna’s exposed pussy, he paused, letting his warm breath flow over her. Sienna was dripping with anticipation, and Jasper’s redoubled efforts to feed her frustration were building at the edges of her mind. As she became more frustrated, Jasper became more aroused, which in turn fueled Sienna’s own arousal. She felt pressure building deep within her, the seeds of humming violence pushing out ready to explode.
They stayed here in this loop, frustration fueling arousal fueling frustration, Jasper teasing Sienna with gentle kisses and feather-light touches, for as long as they could stand it. Sienna could no longer tell whose feelings were whose, lost to pure craving.
“Beg me” Jasper huskily demanded.
Sienna, overwhelmed with need, both her own and Jasper’s, readily complied. “Please.”
As soon as that word left her lips, Jasper plunged his tongue into the depths of Sienna’s warm pussy, while simultaneously thrusting his own cock through his ready fist. Pumping his cock in time with the movements of his mouth, Jasper pleasured himself while licking Sienna. He twisted his hand around in a swirling motion around the head of his cock as he encircled her clit with his mouth and tongue, and again, Sienna had a difficult time telling which sensations were hers.
Intoxicated by her aroma, Jasper became even more aroused, and began thrusting and lapping more vigorously. Sienna, completely at his mercy, felt her own pleasure building along with his. This was what she needed. Fully inside her mind, Jasper knew exactly where to touch her. And fully in control of her reactions, Jasper could let his urges drive Sienna’s.
Head buried in the folds of Sienna’s labia, Jasper quickened his pace as he felt his orgasm building, with Sienna pulled along every ebb and flow of his pattern, both of them moaning with ever-increasing need. Pulsating and shivering, her mind and body humming with sensation, Sienna clenched her thighs and rode Jasper’s face to climax as he erupted in a thick geyser. Their aftershocks completely in tandem, Jasper continued to spurt onto the mattress. Sienna gasped as spasms jolted through her, finally able to release her thighs from around Jasper’s head as he milked the last drop of cum onto the floor below.
Sienna’s entire body relaxed and her eyes gently opened to gaze aimlessly at the industrial ceiling. Sienna felt a wave of serene calm wash over her. The tension she had held for years was suddenly released and she could finally breathe without strain. The realization of relief brought with it a cascade of tears, her emotions fully her own now.
She could feel.
Herself, and Jasper.
He was still there, calmer now after his own release, but still a raging current coursing through her.
After a few more minutes of contented bliss, Sienna lifted herself up onto her elbows and looked down between her legs to see Jasper still kneeling, his chin resting on her knee as he stared up at her. Sienna could tell that Jasper was far from content. That predatory glint still flickered behind his eyes as he lifted his hand and once again offered her the open cigarette pack.
Sienna decided to see where this would go. She took the cigarette and leaned forward into his waiting flame.
End of Chapter 1
Author’s Note: Thanks for reading! If you have any feedback, comments or questions feel free to contact me via information on the forum. If you enjoyed the story, please consider supporting my work on Patreon under the name quiver. Again, see my profile for contact information. As a Patron you’ll get early access to my new stories and input into future work. Chapter 2 of Empathic Echoes is currently in early access! (Current as of January 23, 2021.)