“I know, I know already!” Tori snapped at the sound of the knock on her door frame behind her. Probably totally unfairly, but with midterms coming up, she was more than a little stressed out and it wasn’t like this paper on ‘Class Structure in Elizabethan England’ was going to write itself when she was off training. It was absolutely absurd for Professor Psyche to stick to the training schedule in the middle of cram week, and if Tori wound up taking a little of her stresses out on whoever it was that was standing outside her room, well…she didn’t have the reputation as the rebellious one on the team for nothing. “I’ll be down there in five minutes! Jeez, do you get extra credit for running the Prof’s errands or something?”
Setting her pencil down, she rolled off the bed and almost immediately felt a little bit bad. Voltaic was standing there, a slightly hurt expression on his face, and he was one of the few members of the Utopians Tori actually got along with. He had cool taste in music, for one thing, and that insulation suit he had to wear to keep his electrical powers under control made him look kind of like Marilyn Manson. (Only cooler, since as far as Tori was concerned, Marilyn Manson was so over. It was all about Rasputina and Crüxshadows nowadays.) “Um…Utopia…I mean, um, Tori?”
She had to have put him off his game a little, if he actually started calling her ‘Utopia Lass’. The only people who still used that lame codename were the Professor and Radiance, and Radiance was a stuck-up little prig with a bug so far up her butt you could see it when she yawned. Tori gave a sheepish grin, trying to put Voltaic at his ease a little. “Sorry,” she said. “This paper’s totally stressing me out, didn’t mean to bite your head off.” He seemed to relax a little, but she could tell he was still a little wigged. He got wigged easily, she knew. Having to wear that stupid rubber suit everywhere made him a total social outcast. (Which was fine by her. Social outcasts were always the coolest people.) “You came from the Prof, right?”
“Um, yeah. She said that she had to go on a mission with the Alpha Team, and that she was sorry, but your special session for this afternoon was canceled.” Voltaic paused, clearly torn between curiosity and shyness. After a few moments, curiosity won. “What special sessions? I mean, I don’t want to, y’know, pry, but…I didn’t know you had special training sessions.”
Tori shrugged. “It’s not a big deal or anything. It’s just that I’ve got some extra powers that kind of require special handling, and Professor Psyche’s been working with me one on one to help me out with them. It’s no big.” Tori wondered why she was being so secretive about it, really. Professor Psyche had never explicitly told her not to talk about her powers or the sessions; in fact, she’d always said Tori should open up more to her teammates. Which she’d do, if they weren’t a bunch of total dorks. Starheart used to live on a farm, for Pete’s sake! What was she supposed to open up to him about, baling hay?
Voltaic frowned. “What sort of powers? I mean, um…sorry, I shouldn’t…I’ll let you get back to your paper.”
Tori held up a hand. “No, it’s cool. I don’t mind talking about it.” Not with Voltaic, at least. “When I first learned I was a nextstep, back when I was thirteen, I was…it wasn’t just telekinetic powers that manifested. I was a telepath, too, like the Professor. But I couldn’t cope. I didn’t know how to shut anything out, it was just like this endless roar in my head. I couldn’t even hear myself think…” Tori shuddered. She was a little surprised at how intensely the memory could still affect her, five years later. She tried to compose herself, get back her usual nonchalant chic, but she could tell from the look on Voltaic’s face that she hadn’t succeeded.
“I kind of know how you feel,” he said. “Before the Professor found me and designed this suit for me, I almost killed some kid. It’s terrifying, having all that power and not being able to control it.”
“I…” Tori felt the memories clutch at her, memories of her stay in a mental institution care of parents who couldn’t even begin to understand what their daughter was going through. But the institution had been just as crowded as the outside world–it had been even worse, ‘hearing’ the shrieking babble of schizophrenics and sociopaths in her head, madness crowding in on her from every side until she thought she’d go mad herself…
Tori abruptly decided that was enough opening up for one day. “Yeah,” she said, with forced casualness. “It was kind of freaky. Anyhow, the Prof locked down my telepathic powers completely, put in mental blocks that keep me from accessing them. And once a week, she and I have a session where she takes the blocks down and teaches me how to control my powers, until I’m ready to handle them all on my own.”
Voltaic shrugged. “So when’s that going to be?”
Tori shrugged back. “She won’t say. Personally, I think she’s probably just being over-cautious. Y’know, like she still thinks we’re a bunch of kids. She barely ever lets us go on missions, she makes us study like we’re really in prep school instead of just putting the information in our heads, which is totally hypocritical because how did she learn all the stuff she’s teaching us? Yeah, she totally stole it from a bunch of experts in a bunch of different fields, that’s how. She…um…” Tori furrowed her brow, her train of thought suddenly derailed. “Sorry, did you hear that?”
Voltaic looked around. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said uncertainly.
Tori said, “You sure? Sort of a thrumming noise, like…like a…” She struggled to find an analogy, and finally gave up. “Anyhow, if it was up to the Professor, she’d probably unlock my telepathy when I was an antique like her. How old is she, anyway? Forty? Forty-five? I…” Tori trailed off, looking around again. “Can you…are you sure you don’t hear that? It’s getting louder now.”
Voltaic shook his head apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t hear it.”
Tori stood perfectly still. “Maybe it’s not a noise at all,” she said. “It’s more like a smell, like…like perfume, that sort of musky smell, but mixed with an engine noise. And velvet, I can feel velvet…”
“Are you alright, Tori?” Voltaic asked, walking closer to her. He was still a little afraid of physical contact, she knew, even through the suit. But he wanted to touch her. He was really glad they were talking like this, he thought it was so cool that she actually seemed to be friendly towards him, but he was so nervous that he could feel sweat on the inside of his insulation suit because she was so pretty, and the thing she did with her eyeshadow was so cool and he wished that just for a second, he could really really touch her but it was never going to happen, not while he was stuck in this suit and that was going to be forever and sometimes it hurt so much to be so close to her but never be able to touch her, that was why he never told her how he felt about her–
Tori practically swooned. How the hell did she know all that? “I…I’m fine, I just…that noise, it’s getting louder, it tastes like chocolate…” She sat down hard on her bed. “How can you not smell it?”
“I…” Voltaic looked around. Tori could tell that he wanted to go get one of the more experienced Utopians, but half the school was off on one mission or another and he didn’t know who to ask for help. “Tori, just hang on, I’m going to go radio Professor Psyche and ask her what’s happening to you.”
Tori grabbed his wrist. She didn’t know why, she just had a sudden impulse to want to be close to another person, especially someone who wanted to be close to her, someone who jerked off every night thinking about her… “No, stay, please. The noise, you’re…you’re part of it. Oh, it’s so loud…” She laughed giddily, and for a moment she was afraid she’d never be able to stop. She forced herself to look Voltaic in the eyes, and said quietly, “I think the mental blocks around my telepathy are breaking down.”
“How? I mean, I thought Professor Psyche…is that bad? Should I go get help?” Voltaic asked. He was scared, it radiated off of him in cold waves, but she knew he didn’t want her to let go of his hand. Not ever.
“I think…” The thrum was all over now, hot and red against her skin. “I think that my brain is just used to the blocks going away at this time every week, and that kind of softened them up, and then the noise hit them and broke them apart completely…it’s everywhere, it’s…” Tori’s eyes rolled up in her head for a moment. “It feels good, Joseph,” she said, not even realizing that she suddenly knew his name, even though he’d always avoided using it. “It’s so powerful, so big, it’s shouting in my head and it’s breaking open my mind and…oh!” she shouted in surprise.
“What?” Voltaic asked, screaming silent fear not for himself but for her.
“Paragon,” she said. “His room is downstairs, just below mine, and it’s the middle of the day and he’s between lessons and…” Tori shivered, feeling the fine details of the sensation resolve themselves in her mind like she was adjusting the antenna on a mental radio. “He’s masturbating. I can feel it, see it, everything he’s thinking and everything he’s feeling, oh, fuck he’s so horny and he thinks nobody would go for him because of the fur, so he’s just jerking his cock and I can feeeel it…” Her voice went all shivery with pleasure for a moment as she felt it just as intensely as Paragon did.
Voltaic was broadcasting fascinated dread with an undercurrent of lust, and it was mingling with the arousal she was getting from Paragon, but more than that, she was feeling… “But he’s wrong. I can hear it, three doors down, Tabby’s working on her paper, but–” Oh God, she’d decided to call herself ‘Princess Starlight’ now? What the hell was wrong with ‘Spectra’? Tori felt like she was drinking from a fire hose, so much information coming in from so many minds that she had to just let the thoughts flow past and catch what she could, but the loudest was always– “She’s daydreaming, she can’t get a thing done because she’s just getting these little tingles down there thinking about Paragon, and she doesn’t even consciously realize how hot she is for him, but fuck, I can see it in the back of her mind, she would fucking ride him like a pony if she ever got the chance, and…”
Tori felt dizzy now, floaty. The sensations of arousal pounded at her mind like waves on the beach. So many teenage students at the school, and all of them non-stop beacons of lust and need…she pulled Voltaic down onto the bed with her. “Come here,” she said. “I can’t fucking stand this anymore, I need to…” She locked lips with him, feeling the electric tingle of tiny arcs of lightning flashing between their mouths as he tried his best to repress his energy field. “Oh, fuck yes…” she moaned into his mouth, shuddering as she felt the sensation in his mind as well as her own.
He was the one to break the kiss, shaking his head in dismay. “I can’t, Tori, I…I want to, but we can’t. Not ever. I can’t even touch you.”
Tori shrugged her skirt off. “That just means we’ll have to get creative,” she husked out seductively. “I’m a telekinetic, remember? I don’t need to touch you in order to touch you.” She brushed out with mental fingers, tweaking his nipples gently with her mind. The gush of pleasure in his thoughts made her pussy tingle. She suddenly felt like she was floating on a wave of arousal, the collective libido of the entire school overwhelming every thought in her head except for her own sudden furious lust.
She slipped her T-shirt over her head. “You’ve wanted this for so long,” she sighed out, unsnapping her bra and pulling off her panties and feeling so gorgeous and sexy as she felt Voltaic compare her body to all his fantasies and decide that she was hotter than he could possibly have imagined.
His hands were all over her body now, the feel of the rubber somehow more seductive than flesh would have been, and at a telekinetic gesture, his insulation suit molded itself around his cock more perfectly than any condom. She leaned down and sucked on it for a long moment, her head bobbing up and down as she lubricated it with her saliva. He wanted to cum, she could feel the absolute need for orgasm coursing through his mind like a physical force, but she blocked it with her own mind, savoring her newfound abilities. Not until I cum too, she spoke into his mind, never taking her mouth off his cock.
Just feeling him slide into her cunt practically sent Tori over the edge; she was drowning in pleasure from the sensations in her own pussy, combined with the undeniable, unblockable signals of his ecstasy. She was both fucking and being fucked, thrusting into herself as she accepted her own cock, losing track of where Voltaic ended and she began and not caring anymore as the utter, pounding bliss of it all pushed her to a level of arousal she’d never even imagined could exist. She never ever ever wanted it to end, but at the same time she couldn’t stop the two of them from riding it all the way over the edge into a thunderous orgasm that drowned out the thoughts of every other mind in the school.
That was why it took a long moment for her to realize that they were being watched.
It was Ekoroji, standing in the hallway and staring through the door they’d never bothered to close with an astonished look on her face. Tori almost slammed the door with her mind, but something about the way the Japanese girl was staring at them made her stop. Instead of closing her out, Tori used her powers to reach into the other girl’s mind.
It was boiling. Tori had never really thought much about Ekoroji; she’d just written her off as dull, studious, and kind of a tight-ass. But inside her head, Midori Murakami was absolutely seething with passion. She’d been holding it in for so long, so terrified that her powers over earth and stone would rage out of control if she gave into her emotions that she’d pushed them down into a dark pit at the core of her mind and locked them away behind an iron will, but now…
Now she was watching Tori and Joseph, their limbs tangled together and their bodies locked in passion and Tori could tell she was about to burst, all that emotion and lust and need barely held in check. Ekoroji was on the edge of something wonderful and profound, an unleashing of all that pent-up arousal, but she didn’t know how to free it. She couldn’t walk away, but she couldn’t move closer. She was absolutely frozen on the edge of that glorious abyss. Tori felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the poor girl.
She looked into Ekoroji’s eyes and gave a little smile. “It’s okay,” she said, beckoning her closer. “Come on in.”
Ekoroji didn’t even seem to acknowledge the words, but she came towards them like a sleepwalker. Tori could see in her head that she didn’t even know which of them she was attracted to; the whole concept of sexuality was an unopened book to her, even deep down in her subconscious. She was only just beginning to understand want and need; either one of them could be the one to touch her this first time.
But Tori felt like being a little selfish. She wanted to be the other girl’s first. Voltaic could join in if he wanted (and she could see it in his mind, he was already thinking about it even as he stammered out incoherent apologies with his voice), but this one moment, the moment when the other girl blossomed, she wanted that.
Tori leaned up and kissed her. And the earth moved.
Literally. They all felt the rumble as the pleasure roared through Ekoroji’s mind, out through her body, and straight down into the bedrock the school was built on. It was the first kiss ever to measure on the Richter scale.
Tori felt the other girl tense up for a moment, worried that everything she’d feared about losing control of her powers was coming true, but she was there inside Ekoroji’s mind. Tori soothed her fears and helped her keep control even as Tori’s hands roamed over Ekoroji’s body. The ground tremors subsided even as Ekoroji’s body started to shake in the throes of ecstasy, and she moaned into Tori’s mouth as she swayed where she stood.
Tori helped her onto the bed and shredded her costume apart with a single telekinetic gesture, simultaneously letting Voltaic know with her thoughts that it was alright to touch, that Ekoroji wanted this. She wanted everything they could give, and Tori wanted to give it all to her. She’d never thought about other girls like this before, but something about telepathy made it seem so natural. What did it matter what gender Ekoroji’s body was? It was her mind that was beautiful, and Tori wanted nothing more than to bring forth the pleasure in that mind. Ekoroji was absolutely stunned with bliss, practically paralyzed by pleasure as they stroked her body, and Tori had never felt anything sweeter.
This was even better than it had been with her and Voltaic, and she let the pleasure in Ekoroji’s mind leak out into his. That just made him more eager to pleasure the other girl, and soon Ekoroji was whimpering and panting. Tori felt like she was a virtuoso, playing a symphony with the other girl’s body as an instrument. She never wanted this moment to end.
“Oh, my god!” Which made it even worse when it ended so abruptly. “Are you three really–oh, gross!” And it was even worse that it was Radiance who’d come running to see what caused the earthquake. Of all the people on the team she didn’t get along with, Radiance was the only one she really hated. She was a stuck-up, brown-nosing, perfect prissy little blonde bitch who thought the sun shone out of her ass. And sure, when she used her powers it probably looked like it did, but that just made it even more obnoxious. And now she was walking in on the three of them.
And she wasn’t alone. She’d gotten there first, but Tori heard other voices now, felt other minds staring at them. It was all she could do at first to calm the stark panic and shame in Ekoroji’s mind, letting the other girl know that it was all right, that there was nothing wrong with what they’d done.
But the babble of voices didn’t seem to think so. “Dude!” “Ew, freak-y!” “Anyone else feel that earthqwhoa…” “Oh, my quarks and chromosomes!” Tori looked up at them all. How dare they? How dare they judge her, stare and act all shocked and disgusted when she could see the things inside their minds, the secret things all of them wanted!
She stood up, not even caring that she was naked. “It’s not that freaky, Tabby,” she said with menace in her voice. “Not as freaky as thinking about grabbing that coal-black fur and wrapping your legs around him and–you even want to look just like him, don’t you?” She felt the fear and shame leaking out of Tabby’s mind, the other girl trying desperately to shield her thoughts as she realized what was going on and failing miserably. “You want to use those illusion powers of yours to make yourself look like Paragon’s literal bitch in heat.”
Tabby recoiled as if struck. Paragon put his arm around her, looking Tori right in the eyes. “If you can read our minds now, Tori, you already know what I’m thinking and I don’t care if you say it. Because I’m thinking that this is cruel. Not just a little mean, not just the kind of acting out that you usually do to demonstrate that you’re a non-conformist, but outright cruel and you need to stop now before you say something you can’t take back.” Tabby practically clung to him, and Tori could feel the lust between them bubbling under her shame and his righteous anger.
He was probably right, too, but Tori didn’t care anymore. “Oh, but somebody here wants me to be cruel. Isn’t that right, Radiance?” Radiance blushed crimson and turned to leave, but Tori held her in place with her powers. “I don’t know why I never saw it, honestly. All those fights we had, all those times I called you a bitch and you sputtered and fumed–you weren’t pissed off, you were turned on.”
Radiance tried to shake her head, but even with her super-strength, Tori’s telekinetic grip held her motionless. “You’ve been hot for me since the day you walked into this school, and all the hate and humiliation I piled on you just got you hotter and hotter. Deep down, you wanted someone to tell you that you weren’t the golden girl you seemed to be, you wanted me to embarrass you and scorn you and…” Tori took a long, shuddery breath. “And this right now? Me telling everyone just what a dirty little slut you really are, and you not able to stop me? It’s the hottest thing you’ve ever felt in your life.”
Tori pulled the other girl towards her, knowing she could use her telepathic powers to make her want to approach but knowing that Radiance wanted to be forced, no longer sure whether she hated Radiance or whether she desperately wanted to be the kinky humiliating domme the other girl needed deep down, but either way, she was loving every second of it as she used her powers to force the other girl into a kneeling position and make Radiance lick her feet.
Starheart was shouting at her to stop, but Tori knew that Radiance didn’t really want her to. She could see into Radiance’s heart, she could feel the pounding lust inside her mind. She knew that Radiance needed this. It couldn’t be wrong, not when she needed it so badly, not when it felt so good and Tori felt that twisted joy in her own mind. The others didn’t understand yet, but they would. Tori would show them all, give them all their secret desires and they’d see that this was a blessing. This was a wonderful thing. Hadn’t the Professor told her to open up to everyone?
She eroded the barriers of propriety just a little in Paragon’s mind, amped up his lust just to the point where he wasn’t sure why it mattered if the others saw him kiss Tabby on the lips. Tori felt Tabby’s joy, all that long-suppressed adoration finally released as Tabby realized that he felt the same way about her as she did about him, and it was like two stars glowing in the sky. How could anyone ever say this was wrong? She looked over at Tsunami, so overwhelmed by the whole drama that he had barely any thoughts going on in his mind at all, and she plunged deep into his mind, looking for his fondest desire.
And found it. “I’m sorry,” she said as he snapped out of his daze and looked at her. “He doesn’t. He never will. He’s got a girlfriend back home in Iowa, he’s never going to think about you the way you think about him.” Starheart looked back and forth between Tori and Tsunami, his eyes growing wide as he realized she was talking about him. He’d never even suspected his friend was gay, she saw. His whole understanding of everything he knew about Tsunami was crumbling into an abyss of shock.
Tsunami could see it too. He saw the look on Starheart’s face, the look that said things would never be the same between them again, and the sorrow of it nearly broke Tori’s heart. She felt him ache with unrequited love, and she wanted nothing more than to heal that pain… “I could make him love you,” she whispered. The words seemed too big to speak out loud.
Now they all looked at her in shock, even Voltaic, but she couldn’t unspeak them once they’d been said. “I could,” she said. “I could adjust his mind, he’d never remember his girlfriend, never even remember I changed him…” They were all shouting now, a babble of anger and fear and concern, but it was only because they didn’t understand. Tori would make him happy. How would it be wrong, if he wound up happier than he’d ever been in his life?
But she could sense it now. Words wouldn’t be enough to calm that fear and anger away. She’d need to use her powers. She’d need to make them understand. And she could. It would be so easy. They’d all be happy once they understood. She could feel the power gathering inside her…
“Exactly what is going on here?” The voice rang out through the hallway, its carefully educated British tones concealing a scarcely-recognizable Greek accent that lingered from childhood. Tori felt like she’d just had cold water poured onto her brain as the barriers around her telepathy slammed back into place. Silently, she released Radiance from her telekinetic grip. She could feel the hot stares of her teammates beating down on her as she suddenly realized what she’d been about to do when Professor Psyche walked in on them.
“I…” For a moment, Tori tried to think of a lie, something that would explain away the enormity of the crime she’d been about to commit against her friends’ souls. But there was really no point in lying to the most powerful telepath in the world. “I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice. The words felt inadequate, but they were all she had left now.
*****
“So what happens now?” Tori asked quietly, her voice nonetheless echoing in the emptiness of the isolated lesson room deep beneath the school. She felt like she’d never be able to get that tone of shame and contrition out of her voice, not ever again.
Professor Psyche stared at her with sightless eyes. No matter how often she saw them, Tori never quite got used to those blank white orbs, nor to the idea that the Professor was seeing everything by borrowing Tori’s eyes with her telepathy. “For now, nothing. I’ve firewalled off everyone’s memories of the afternoon. They’ll just have a blank spot in their minds where the whole event was, at least for the present. I’ll be working with them individually over the next several weeks, helping them to remember things at a pace that won’t cause their minds to fracture under the stress of the revelations.” She sighed. “Something to do in my copious free time.”
“And me?” Tori asked, trepidation shading her tones.
“You’ll just have to live with it, Victoria. That’s my punishment, and I think you’ll agree that it’s much harsher than any detention or demerit. This is a lesson I’d hoped to spare you. I wanted you to learn some other way just how much of a burden it can be, being able to see everyone’s private secrets and alter their minds on a whim. Perhaps I was fooling myself. Either way, you’ve learned it now, and I can tell that it’s definitely sunk in. It would do more harm than good to make you forget it now.”
“But the things I did!” Tori wasn’t sure what she was arguing for. More punishments? She felt like she deserved them. “The things I wanted to do! The things I was about to do…”
“Those are temptations that will be with you every day, as long as you have these powers. I suppose I could keep reinforcing the mental blocks, keep you in a perpetual state of childhood where you never had to live with those responsibilities, but I don’t think that would be healthy for either one of us. No, you’ll just have to learn how to become the sort of woman who won’t do those things.” She patted Tori on the shoulder. “I think you’re up to it.”
Tori wasn’t so sure. She was glad the Professor would be there to help if she ever got out of control again… “Professor?” she asked as the thought struck her. “You didn’t have anyone…helping you, when you first developed your powers, did you?”
Professor Psyche’s eyes stared sightlessly ahead as usual, but somehow Tori could tell that they were looking into the past now. “No,” she said quietly. “No, I didn’t.”
“How did you…did you ever…?” Tori left the question unasked, but it hung in the air nonetheless.
The silence thickened between them for a long moment before she answered the unspoken query. “I wish I could say I didn’t have to learn the hard way too, Victoria. You’ve got such a nice picture of me in your head, it’d be a shame to tarnish it with the truth. But you deserve an answer.” She paused. “Not today, though, I think. It’s already been rather a lot to take in for both of us, and I don’t think you’re ready for a tale of my sordid past. We’ll talk about it next week.”
Tori nodded solemnly. She needed time to take all this in, all the things she found out about her friends, herself, her mentor…was this what growing up felt like? Because if so, it sucked. “Can I go now?” she said.
Professor Psyche nodded silently, feeling the young girl turn and head up the long stairs back to the public portion of the school. She followed Tori up with her mind, the room around her becoming dark as she was left alone in the room with no eyes to see through. Tori walked slowly, lost in thought, and it seemed like ages before she got to the top of the staircase.
Only then, when she was sure nobody could hear, did Professor Psyche allow herself to remember the mental images she’d picked up from Tori’s mind, and let her fingers slip down to her pussy as she relived them in her head, over and over again until she came.
THE END