The Magic Wand

The Magic Wand

by Robert Lubrican

zbookstore.com Edition

Copyright 2019 Robert Lubrican

Second Edition 2025

 

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to zbookstore.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Rights to use cover art purchased at istock.com

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Table of Contents

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven

Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen

Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty

Twenty-one | Twenty-two | Twenty-three | Twenty-four

Twenty-five | Afterword

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Foreword

Think back to news stories you've seen in the past concerning teachers having inappropriate relationships with students. How many names can you remember? Perhaps Mary Kay Letourneau comes to mind, or maybe Debra Lafave. But what about the others? What about the (at least) other forty-eight cases that hit the news in the last twenty years? And those were only cases where the teacher was female. Some were lurid tales of women with what appeared to be a sex addiction. But in many of them, once the sensationalism was stripped away, what surfaced seemed to have roots in honest attraction and feelings between the teacher and her 'victim.' Mary Kay Letourneau got out of prison and married her underage lover. She bore him two children while she was being punished for falling in love with a thirteen-year-old.

It isn't the purpose of this story to defend such behavior. It's unlikely that even a few thirteen-year-olds know enough about life - or themselves - to be able to make honest, informed decisions about complex interpersonal relationships. But is it possible that an older woman and her student could genuinely be in love? Of course it is. That's why lawyers love to ask that question in court. Anything is possible. And what if the 'victim' is sixteen or seventeen? Historically, men of that age were allowed and even encouraged to seek a bride and become contributors to society. Millions of such young men did just that and helped build America. Cultural issues aside, why would the passage of a hundred years make a young man below the age of eighteen incapable of being truly in love with a woman, and she in love with him?

Cultural issues aside, why should it matter that the couple be roughly the same age? Women outlive men routinely. In one sense, it makes perfect sense for a man to marry a woman ten years older than he is. She'll be at her sexual peak at the same time he is. She has enough life experience to be both mentor and partner to him. She's already learned some things the hard way, and might be able to help him avoid some pitfalls in life. They'll fly the bonds of earth at roughly the same time. What's the big deal?

Many of what, in the past, society called "inappropriate and illegal relationships" between people, teachers included, could have been perfectly normal, had they been allowed to be in love. But society, by its nature, restricts freedom, and the denser the society, the more strictures are placed on self determination, until no discretion is left to the individual. It's off the subject, but one example is that some people can't even choose what color to paint their house. Neighborhood covenants and pressure from those who cherish their property values more than they value other people's liberty demand that the house be the "right" color.

All those issues aside, though, what passes through most people's minds when they hear about a teacher who fell in love with a student is: "How could this have happened?"

Well, that's what this story is about. It's over the top. I admit that. It's surreal. I get that. But if you strip away the "sensationalism" of the magical plot device, what I hope you see is something that happens all the time. We call it chemistry.

You can't choose who you fall in love with. It just happens.

I must warn that there is some violence and humiliation in the very beginning, during an almost rape scene, but that is only to establish a critical plot element. After that, there is no further unpleasantness of that kind.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter One

Mindy Middlesex thought of herself as a normal, not-particularly-interesting woman. She was wrong about that. An event in her near future was about to make her life distinctly ab-normal and she was already interesting in spades.

Perhaps a little background would help.

Mindy Middlesex was twenty-six on that particular Saturday evening, the first Saturday in February, and was neck-deep in her dream job. She was the music teacher and Madrigals coach at Indian Springs High School in Indian Springs, Wyoming. It was her first teaching job after college and it was as near to perfect as she could imagine it to be.

"The Springs" as it had been called for more decades than anyone could remember, was the kind of place that a pundit would have called "The backbone of America." The town itself was small, with a population of only eight thousand, but the high school served an area that included another four thousand people. That meant some kids drove forty miles to go to high school every day. If the reader's eyebrows just rose in surprise, or askance, you should remember (or maybe learn) that Wyoming has a total population hovering around 580,000. There are major cities in the United States that have a larger population than the entire state of Wyoming. Alaska's population is only a couple of hundred thousand larger and it's six times larger in land size. Even Washington D.C.'s population exceeds all of Wyoming's.

In other words, it's a sparsely-populated backbone.

What that means, though, is that there aren't enough people for things that can be called a cancer on society to easily form. Crime is rare. Just about everybody who wants a job has one. There is little free time for people to get themselves into trouble. The climate can be challenging. The latest stats on homelessness say there are 873 people in the entire state who have no permanent home. There are at least triple that number in Los Angeles, but of course the climate is much different.

People in Wyoming want to succeed and they're willing to work to achieve that success. People who don't have that work ethic tend to gravitate toward other, easier-to-live-in states.

What that meant to Mindy were things on different levels.

On one level, her students didn't look at "Music" as an easy credit class, or a place to play video games in secret. They liked music, and they liked making music. That's what got her madrigals section, the elite among her musical students, to the finals in the music competition she was currently at, on the second day of February.

On another level, perhaps an even more important one, Mindy could heal in the relative loneliness she enforced on herself.

What was she healing from?

A broken heart.

Mindy Middlesex, without knowing it, had already had her nickname for years before she got to Wyoming. Some guy, trying to be cute, took the Two "M"s that were her initials, and added a few more, to make her ... "Mmmmmm." Even some men who didn't know her name, or initials, thought, "Mmmmm," when they saw her.

This was because Mindy could easily have become a model, instead of a teacher. That part, she knew. It's impossible for a good looking girl to make it through high school without learning that she is good looking and that good looks attract testosterone.

She kept looking for a boy who wanted to love her mind, instead of just her breasts and other girly parts. That didn't happen in high school. She thought college guys would be better, more mature. Not so much. One professor even hit on her.

Like many girls, she thought giving her body to a man might encourage him to commit to her. Like many girls, she found out many men will promise lots of things to get sex ... and then break those promises with impunity.

Then she met Phil and thought that, finally, she'd found her guy. Phil didn't try to get her in bed on their first date. He waited until they'd been going out a month. To Mindy, that was like a year. She believed he had to be serious, and committed to their relationship. When he offered her a ring and begged her to marry him, her heart leapt.

It was then she discovered the real Phil, the Phil he'd hidden from her.

He liked sex, and he liked exploring lots of ways to have it.

Once she was good at pleasing him, he took her to a party at his frat, where there were people she'd never met.

And he tried to share her.

She'd heard of swapping parties but thought they were a bit of twisted history, relegated to the sixties and seventies. She had no idea that his Frat's unofficial motto was: "An orgy a day keeps boredom away."

When she refused, he became enraged and struck her. His apologies were profuse. He blamed it on the alcohol, He'd already been making lots of hits, what with all the sex she'd given him. Now he got only one strike ... and one out. For Mindy Middlesex, the Phil ballgame was over. She was done.

She graduated from college. The bruise on her cheek had healed. It was her heart, though, that rejoiced in the fact that Wyoming was a good place to be alone. All of the male faculty members at Indian Springs High School were either married, or old enough that they weren't looking for a relationship with a woman who looked like she could literally fuck them to death.

True, most of the boys thought of her as "Mmmmm" sometimes, but they were circumspect about it. They were polite. And most of them had girlfriends to act out their fantasies with.

She concentrated on the music. Her kids worked at making the music beautiful.

Which brings us to the second of February, and the annual Wyoming music competition with the unusual (to outsiders) title of "The Equality State Music Rodeo." It was held in Cheyenne and her sixteen-strong madrigal group was pumped to the max to be there. In other states the competition might have been known as "State Finals," but the Wyoming Music Rodeo happened sooner than most such contests. Some fun was needed in Wyoming in February, when it was sometimes cold enough that if a kid touched his tongue to steel playground equipment, say on a dare, he have to have expert help to get it unstuck.

Part of the fun was watching other groups perform. What she was looking forward to the most was when her "Mads" were directed by a guest conductor. As part of the judging, the judges themselves gave a group ten minutes to study a piece of music and then they directed a performance of that music. She was sure her kids would kill it, no matter what they were presented with.

Her conviction wavered a bit after she watched four other groups go. Some were pretty good, but none really wowed her. It was obvious that this test was difficult. She had to remind herself that her musical sight-reading skills were honed by years of practice. For some of these students, they'd only been making music a few years, and sight-reading wasn't one of their skills at all.

Her Mads came on stage at eight P.M. They were the last group to perform that day. The guest conductor was a judge she'd never heard of. A woman sitting next to her leaned over and said, "I've been waiting for this all day."

"Why?" asked Mindy. It was a natural response to the stimulus.

"He's the best in the state," said the woman. "He's also the most demanding."

"Who is he?" asked Mindy.

The woman looked at her, surprised.

"Gabriel Batiste," she said. "Surely you've heard of him!"

"This is my first year, teaching," said Mindy. "I'm not from Wyoming."

"Oh," said the woman. "Well, get ready to enjoy this. He's magical. He'll make this group give everything they have."

"They'll do that anyway," said Mindy. "I know, because they're mine."

Then Batiste tapped his baton on the music stand in front of him and raised both hands. The room was silent instantly.

Within ten measures, Mindy knew something was wrong. This wasn't her group. Granted, she knew all their names, and they looked like her kids. But they didn't sound like her kids. As she stared, her eyes picked out differences, while her ears tried to decide why they sounded different.

Her ears caught up first. They were too good ... too perfect. It was beautiful, but she knew their voices, and those voices sounded different. Of course they were singing something they'd never sung before, and had only had ten minutes to prepare. But that shouldn't have affected the quality of their tone. Especially not in a way that made them flawless.

Her eyes registered the next bit of information. Their faces were wooden. No one showed even one bit of emotion. Her kids loved to sing. They exulted in singing. That was a huge part of what made them so good.

But this group of sixteen students was simply going through the motions, singing what was on the page in front of them and putting little emotion into it. It was technically flawless, but it lacked soul, somehow.

A movement of the director's baton caught her eye. It was a circular movement that ended in a Z of sorts. It made no sense in the context of when it had been made. Both motions could represent a Caesura; a brief pause, during which time is not counted. The pause ends when the director indicates. But there had been no pause. It could have also been a coda, except the music hadn't stopped.

As she watched, he did it again. This time it seemed to be "aimed" at one particular student, a girl named Abbey Carter, who actually weaved back and forth for a second or two.

It was distinctly odd, and a completely unfathomable use of the director's baton.

Then the piece was over and her kids were "back." They looked a tad bit surprised, but the applause from the audience soon overcame that and they were grinning again.

When they left the stage, Mindy noticed that Abbey was walking directly beside Batiste. Somehow, that looked odd, too. Abbey was a senior and a leader in the group. It was as they disappeared behind the side curtains that she realized Abbey had been too close to the man ... had been invading his personal space. It was almost as if Abbey knew him.

That was why Mindy decided to go find Abbey. It was a decision that would change her life forever.

She met her group, who were still clustered together, talking about the things teenagers talk about, and looked around. Abbey wasn't there.

"Where's Abbey?" she shouted into the mix of ebullient students.

Trina Johnston threw her thumb toward a hallway that led off the stage. They were in the Cheyenne Opera House, which had multiple dressing rooms, practice rooms, and other spaces. Since the hallway was empty, Mindy had to assume that Abbey was in one of the rooms the hallway serviced.

It was instinct that caused her to pause beside one door, painted green, with the words "Dressing Room 4" in gold paint on it. The sign on the door was turned to "In Use" but there was no sound coming from within.

She reached, turned the handle, and opened it.

She found Abbey. She also found Gabriel Batiste.

He was standing there, his pants in a pile around his ankles, and his director's baton still in his hand.

Abbey was in her knees in front of him.

And she was sucking his penis like her life depended on it.

Things seemed to happen in slow motion for Mindy. Abbey paid no attention to the intrusion whatsoever. Batiste's head turned and his dark eyes fixed on Mindy. She felt her mouth open and her lungs draw in breath - to scream - when the baton in his hand came up and performed that curious little circle/zee movement. She saw his lips move.

Then everything just stopped. At least for Mindy. She was frozen, immobile.

Gabe - he calmly instructed her to call him that, even though she'd never met the man - had control over her reality, somehow. She knew this because the world was suddenly a bowl of honey, thick, and impossible to move quickly in. She was still standing in the open doorway, where she had frozen. He told her to close the door and come further into the room. Her body obeyed him while her mind tried to parse what was happening. He said, "Stop," and her body froze with one foot forward of the other.

Her eyes worked, though, at least the seeing part. She couldn't close her eyelids, which was why she had to watch as Batiste told Abbey to continue.

He calmly told Abbey finish her task. Mindy couldn't look away. Abbey hadn't stopped during the intrusion. He ejaculated in her mouth, telling her to swallow, and that she loved the taste. Then he told her to stand up.

"You will leave this room and when the door closes behind you, you will forget everything that happened since you finished singing," he said, calmly. "You will join your friends and, if anyone asks where you've been, you will tell them you went to the bathroom. Go now."

Abbey turned and without a word, left the room. She almost brushed against Mindy, but didn't seem to see her at all. Mindy tried to speak, but her throat seemed frozen. Gabe turned to her and, while he calmly pulled his pants up and made himself presentable, spoke to her.

"What have we here?" he mused aloud. "A tasty morsel, indeed, I think."

He instructed her to come with him and speak to no one. The honey thinned and she could walk. She tried desperately to resist, but it was impossible. The worst part was that she knew everything that was happening but could do nothing to change the course of events. She couldn't speak unless he told her to, could not go in any direction other than the one he instructed her to go.

He took her outside, into the freezing cold, and one block to a motel room. He told her to disrobe. He made her take his clothes off until she stood on her knees, his once-again engorged penis only inches from her face.

"You're special," he said. "Who are you?"

Her vocal cords were released and, within a minute or two, he knew everything about her identity, including where she lived, and that she lived alone.

"Grip my penis," he ordered.

Her hand came up while her mind raged.

"That cock is going to enslave you," he said. "You won't be able to fight it. You will grow to crave it above all other things. Even when I release you, you'll believe we're in love and do anything to get me in bed. Now get on the bed and open yourself to me. I'm going to fuck you for hours."

The nightmare wouldn't stop. Her body got on the bed, even as her mind screamed against it. He loomed over her. She could feel his knees making her spread her legs even farther. He told her to spread farther and slapped her when she couldn't. He told her to grip his cock again and put it in her. She couldn't stop her hand from moving. She felt the tip of his penis touch her labia. She felt sudden excruciating pain in one nipple as he twisted it. Her mind was howling, but she could do nothing.

Then there was a crashing noise and her body was thrust to one side as a heavy weight crushed her. The weight vanished. She could hear angry voices and furniture crashing.

Then, as if her dream had been packed into a balloon, the balloon popped and she was free.

Her voice, under her control again, produced a harsh, racking scream, and then she sobbed, scrambling onto her hands and knees to find a way to escape. She was more terrified than she'd ever been in her life. Her eyes scanned the room and she saw her tormentor lying on the floor, his head at an odd angle.

Standing above him, eyes wild and hair disheveled, stood Bobby Pendleton, one of the baritones in her madrigals group.

The dream was back again as she felt unable to move. Her scream died in her throat. Bobby was staring down at Gabriel Batiste, who no longer had an erection. The boy's eyes came up and fixed on her, where she crouched on the bed.

"Are you okay?" he gasped.

She didn't move.

"Miss Middlesex?" Bobby said, taking a step toward her. That required that he step over Gabriel Batiste.

It was the comfortable, normal, routine sound of him addressing her that broke the force gripping her. She felt control flow back into her body.

"Yes!" she gasped, clutching at anything even remotely normal. She was answering his second question, rather than his first. She was, indeed, his music teacher.

Her nudity registered and she grasped in panic at the bedspread, falling to her side and covering herself. Bobby stopped. His hands came toward her, palms out.

"It's okay, now," said Bobby. "I stopped him."

"Yes!" she gasped again.

"Should I call somebody?" he asked.

His tone of voice ... the sound of helplessness in it ... his hesitancy at moving closer, all reminded her he was just a kid. They were all kids, even the ones like Bobby and Abbey, who were eighteen. Her mind still hadn't even begun to cope with what had happened, but what she saw in her student was something familiar. She grasped at that. She needed more of the familiar, not more strangers.

"No!" she gasped. "Wait!"

She tried to think. She was safe, now. Bobby was no threat. Neither was Gabriel Batiste.

At the moment.

The thought of him waking up, of taking control over her again, made energy surge into her body. She threw off the cover and scrambled to the edge of the bed. Bobby stared at her.

"Where are my clothes?" she gasped.

Both she and he spotted the pile of her clothes at the same time. Bobby was closer, and was bending to scoop everything up by the time she stood, suddenly shivering. Her arms came to cover her breasts as he turned towards her, her clothes in his hands. He offered them to her with wide eyes.

"He might wake up!" she panted as she reached for what could cover her from her student's eyes.

She opted to cover herself as quickly as possible, which meant she didn't put on either her panties or bra. She pulled on her skirt, first. Meanwhile, Bobby got down on one knee and shook the man.

"Don't!" she gasped.

Bobby looked up at her, standing in just her skirt.

"I don't want him to wake up," she panted.

Bobby stared at her, and then looked down at Batiste. His fingers went to the man's throat, somewhat awkwardly. He had never done this, but he'd seen it countless times on TV and in the movies. He knew what his pulse felt like in his own wrist. He'd checked that as he worked out, monitoring his training heart rate during wrestling practice.

He felt nothing remotely similar in the man's neck, but he wasn't sure his fingers were in the right place. He changed to the wrist. When he lifted the man's hand, there was no resistance of any kind. It was a limpness Bobby had experienced only once before in his life. He'd been holding the family dog in his arms when the vet injected the drug that had put her to sleep. She had gone so limp that Bobby had feared he'd drop her. He felt for a pulse.

There was nothing.

"I think he might be dead!" gasped Bobby.

Chapter Two

 

Mindy had her blouse on, but his pronouncement stopped her cold before it was fully buttoned.

Her purse had been in the pile he'd handed her and she jammed her underthings in it. She approached Bobby and the man on the floor slowly. Kneeling, she went through the same motions Bobby had.

"We need to leave," she whispered.

"Is he dead?" croaked Bobby.

"I think so," she said, her own voice shaky. "What did you do?"

"I put him in a choke hold," croaked Bobby. "I must have held it too long."

"Okay," panted Mindy. She had no idea what she should do. What she wanted to do was go to someplace safe.

"Should we call the police?" asked the boy who had stopped Batiste from raping her.

"How are we going to be able to explain this?" said Mindy. "He did something to me." She saw the baton lying on the floor a few feet away, and went to pick it up. "With this," she said. "Hypnosis, maybe. I don't know. But I don't have proof. No one will believe me."

"I believe you," whispered Bobby. "I followed you. I could tell something was wrong. I believe you."

"Thank you," said Mindy. For the first time since she lost control of her body she felt a rush of warmth. This young man believed her. Without proof he accepted her word. "But nobody else will. We have to leave."

"What about him?" asked the young man.

The revulsion that swept through her wiped out all traces of the warmth she had been feeling.

"I don't care about him," she said. "He was a monster. Let's just leave."

As soon as they were outside she felt the freezing air on the still-exposed skin between her breasts. She didn't have her coat. It must still be at the opera house. Where was that? She realized she had no idea where they were. She stopped, and swayed as the import of what they were leaving behind them hit her hard.

"I don't know where we are," she moaned.

"This way," he said, reaching for her wrist. He let go almost instantly. "Your blouse," he said, haltingly.

"I think I'm going to lose it," she gasped. "I might throw up."

"Not yet," he said. He suddenly sounded decisive, somehow. "We're just down the road from the opera house. Keep it together until we get back to our motel. But you have to fix your blouse first."

She stood there. Her purse hung from one hand, and the other still clutched the baton she'd picked up. Her body felt frozen again. She let her chin drop and saw that the top five buttons of her blouse were still undone. She lifted the hand with the purse, and then the hand holding the baton.

"I can't," she said, near panic.

His fingers reached and she watched as they fumbled with the buttons. He wasn't wearing a coat, either. He got one done, and then another. She realized that the reversed "ladies" orientation of the buttons were causing his male fingers problems and that somehow calmed her. The pressure of his fingers, brushing the bare skin between her breasts felt wrong, but somehow welcome. He wasn't that man. What she was feeling wasn't because of that man. That, alone, made it welcome. She glanced back at the door they had just closed, half expecting a zombie-like creature to open it and come after them. Nothing happened and he said, "Okay." She looked back at him, aware that her control was on razor's edge. She stared at her student. He was just a boy, a boy in high school, but he was also her savior. He had ended her nightmare ... had prevented her rape. That man couldn't hurt her any longer - couldn't hurt any woman again.

She couldn't believe she'd actually touched him to try to feel his pulse. The thought of touching him now made her feel like she might vomit. Strength didn't quite flood back into her muscles, but she could move again.

"We need to hurry," she said. She didn't know why, but she knew they needed to hurry.

It wasn't until they got to their motel, and heard the screams, that she would finally began to understand what had just happened to her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Channel Nine news had an exclusive and it was on a crazy story, an insane story. As implausible as it sounded, they still reported on it almost constantly for three full days. The national services had been slow to pick up the story. It was too bizarre and the fact checking was taking some time. Still, people from the big networks were beginning to show up, circling like sharks looking for their next meal.

Then the FBI breezed into town and suddenly nobody was willing to talk to reporters. So the TV simply replayed what was already "known."

At precisely 8:34 PM, the previous night, girls and women in three different states started screaming. Most collapsed. Many babbled incoherently. The same phrase, however, began to come from the women: "He raped me."

By 8:45, a full panic was in motion. At best guess, there were two dozen girls and women in the immediate area of the opera house who began to "witness" at once. Unknown to them, there were also over two hundred additional victims, in other towns and cities, who suddenly remembered what had been repressed - that Gabriel Batiste had raped them, or forced them to perform oral sex on him. In most cases, When these memories surfaced the women were alone or with some loved one or acquaintance. Witnesses thought these women were having some kind of mental breakdown. Many were restrained. Most were taken to a hospital. Police were called and responded. In Wyoming there was a cluster of them, so many it caused a general panic, especially since the name of the rapist was that of a man known to be there, in the immediate area, an actual hungry beast, possibly on the prowl. Both in Wyoming and elsewhere the police were all given the same name, and all of them queried the National Crime Information Center. It was that initial rush of NCIC queries pertaining to one "Gabriel Batiste" that set off an alert in the system, bringing the situation to the attention of upper echelon investigative services.

In addition to the name of their tormentor, many of the women also used the word "hypnotized" in their tale of woe, once they were calm enough to speak coherently. Eight weren't able to speak at all, once the screaming stopped. They just stared ...and whimpered.

In the future, the story would become even more bizarre, as DNA tests revealed there were almost three dozen children linked paternally to Gabriel Batiste. But that would be in the future.

Naturally, the Wyoming authorities began looking for Gabriel Batiste. Routine police inquiry revealed that Batiste had rented two rooms in different motels. One was his "official" room, the one associated with his music career and the stated reason he was in Cheyenne. The other was the one his body was found in. It puzzled the police that he would use his real name to rent that room, which prevailing theory firmly suggested was the one he used to commit crimes there, in Cheyenne. Three girls, in fact, would eventually identify that room as the one in which Batiste raped them. All three were, or had been, his students but they all said it happened before the second of February. No one, however, claimed to have been in that room on the second. No one explained how Batiste's neck had been broken.

Mindy and Bobby could have explained that, could have provided Batiste's rationalization that he had nothing to fear from using his own name. He was quite sure his victims wouldn't remember either him or the room. But while the body was being found, Mindy was in the shower, trying to wash Batiste's touch from her body, both physically and emotionally. Bobby was guarding the bathroom door, waiting for the police to burst in and arrest him for murder.

Nobody paid any attention to them at all. Bobby's friends didn't even wonder where he was. Rumors were already racing through the motel, and out into the community. Everybody paid attention to that.

Meanwhile the police found frustratingly little physical evidence in the crime scene. They did find two of Mindy's hairs on the bed but they didn't have anyone to compare them to so it was a dead end, at least unless someone came forward they could be associated with and compared to. The struggle between Bobby and Batiste had been restricted because Bobby knew how to pin him, or at least stop him from moving around. The choke hold had been instinctive and, lacking the adrenaline rushing through Bobby's veins, would have been non-lethal. But there was a surfeit of adrenaline in Bobby's terrified body and that was what caused his arm to pull too hard and snap Batiste's neck. In that instant, Bobby had the strength of one of the great apes.

Mindy hadn't taken fresh clothes with her into the bathroom. She couldn't bear to put the clothes back on that she'd been abducted in ... the clothes that Gabriel Batiste had made her drop on the floor as she stood, helplessly following his commands. She only dimly remembered the walk from the opera hall to the motel. It was tempting to believe that the whole thing was just some crazy nightmare, except there was actual, physical evidence of the assault. He'd pinched her left nipple and pulled it cruelly. The pain had been unimaginable, but she hadn't been able to scream. That nipple was still tender. Her face was still red and tender where he had slapped her.

Now she stood, shivering slightly as her damp body cooled. She didn't even want to touch that clothing again. It would have to be thrown out. Her mind registered the solution in a misty sort of way: Bobby would help. Bobby had helped her already. She could count on him to help again. He'd get rid of the loathsome stuff.

Her mind was so centered on that, that she didn't think about the fact that she was naked when she opened the bathroom door. Bobby, right there, jumped and turned. She watched his eyes grow huge as they jittered up and down, over her nudity. No alarm bells went off in her mind. She had bigger problems than a teenage boy, one of her students, seeing her nude. Besides, he'd already seen her nude.

"I can't touch those," she said, pointing at the pile of cast-off clothing on the bathroom floor.

"Okay," he said, uncertainly. She could tell he was trying not to stare, and that fleeting warmth flowed back into her body. Their unintentional bond was strengthened.

"I need you to throw them out," she said.

His eyes cleared and his face displayed surprise.

"Really?"

"Really," she said, firmly. "I can't touch them. I never want to see them again."

"Okay," he said.

He gathered up the blouse and skirt, balling them up. He headed for the door.

"Wait," said Mindy. He stopped instantly. She went to her purse and, with two fingers, gingerly extracted her panties and bra. She held them out to him. "These, too."

He swallowed, but then reached for them.

"Wait," she said again. He looked pretty obvious, standing there holding a full set of women's clothing. She went to the trash can and pulled the bag out of it. She held it open for him and winced as his hands got her clothing close to hers. Finally it was in, though, and she was able to tie it closed. "Okay," she said, handing it back to him.

He went to the door and paused.

"I shouldn't open the door with you standing there," he said, softly. "Like that," he added.

She looked down at her nakedness and felt a blush begin to stain her chest, moving upwards rapidly.

"Right," she said.

She went back to the bathroom and stood inside the door as he left. As soon as he was gone, she went to the door and locked it. Then she opened her suitcase and got clean clothes out. Her hands shook as she dressed, and she almost couldn't get her bra fastened. She stopped several times and just sat, frozen, until she wrested control back from somewhere. She was just finishing dressing when there came a tap on her door. She went to it slowly.

"Who's there?" she asked.

"It's me," said Bobby.

She unlocked the door and opened it four inches. He had her coat in his hands and she realized he must have gone to the opera house to get it.

"Something's going on," he whispered, his voice urgent. "There are police everywhere ... and yelling." He looked helpless. "I got this but didn't know where to go." He held up her coat.

"You can't come in here," she said. "Somebody might see." She reached and dragged the coat through the crack in the door.

"What do I do?" he gasped. "I don't know what to do!"

"Wait!" she said. She closed the door and looked around the room. The baton ... Batiste's baton ... was lying on her bed. She went to the bed and reached for it, hesitating only briefly. As she picked it up, she heard voices outside her door, raised voices. One of them was Bobby's. She stuffed the baton in her suitcase and went to the door. When she opened it, four of her students were there, not counting Bobby.

"You have to come!" gasped Judy Trimble. "Abbey is freaking out. There are police in the building. I think she needs one. She keeps screaming that some guy made her ... made her ... you have to come!"

"Let's go," said Mindy. From somewhere, strength gave her control over her body again. She concentrated on acting normal.

"What's happening?" asked Mindy as they hurried down the hallway.

"Everything's gone crazy," said Roger Phillips. "It's not just Abbey. It's lots of people."

"Lots of people what?" asked Mindy.

"There's some guy. Abbey says he made her suck ..." Roger faltered. Judy had less trouble. "Abbey says he made her give him a blow job," she panted.

An expert observer might have noticed that Mindy Middlesex took too long to react to that information, but there were no expert observers present at the moment. She stopped.

"What?" she gasped. An expert observer might have noticed that her gasp of dismay seemed forced. Again, no expert observers were present.

"Come on!" gasped Judy. "She's freaking out!"

"I don't understand," said Mindy, as she got going again.

"Neither do we," said Ariel Green. The fourth student, Linda Koswalski, said nothing. She just looked terrified.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The room was full of students when they got there. Dennis Thurlow had found a police officer and almost gotten arrested himself when he tried to drag the woman to Abbey's room. But the cop had too many other problems. She'd been dispatched as backup for the original patrol, who had responded to a 911 call concerning a garbled complaint of rape. By the time Officer Sandra Chalmers arrived at the Bighorn Motel, 911 operators had already received five more panicked complaints, and chaos reigned. Every officer on the shift was enroute, but Officer Chalmers hadn't determined who was in command, yet, when Dennis grabbed her elbow and yelled that she had to come with him.

Her initial response - to put this kid on the ground and then in cuffs - was suppressed and she decided to see where he wanted to take her. He took her to Abbey.

She hadn't actually been able to talk to the victim yet. That was mostly because the victim was still sobbing. The ten other teens in the room weren't helping. Sandra had been a police officer for almost a year, but this situation was a first for her.

"Shut up!" screamed the police officer, just as Mindy and her entourage arrived.

The silence that ensued was almost as deafening.

"I can't hear anything," growled Chalmers. "Everybody go stand against a wall and don't talk!"

"Are we under arrest?" gasped a girl.

"I don't know, yet," said Sandra, grimly. "But you will be if you don't do what I tell you to."

Kids melted away to line the walls of the room, which suddenly looked way too small to contain this many people.

"I'm her choir director," said Mindy, stepping into the room. "What's happening, here?"

"I don't know that, either," said Officer Chalmers. "I just got here.'

Abbey whimpered. The two girls who had been hugging her hadn't moved. Apparently they were willing to risk arrest before they'd abandon their friend.

Ten minutes later, Officer Chalmers was writing down the names of the kids who had been in the room when she arrived. She told each one to leave as their contact information was recorded. Only the two girls comforting the victim - she was now solidly classified as a victim - got to stay. And the choir director. She got on the radio and reported in. The dispatcher was testy, concerning the fact that she hadn't checked in since arriving at the motel.

"Deal with it," said Sandra, who felt testy herself. "I need a detective."

"You and seven other officers," growled the dispatcher.

"I also need an NCIC check," said Janice, ignoring the barb.

"Let me guess," said the dispatcher. "You want to know about somebody named Gabriel Batiste."

"How did you know that?" asked Officer Chalmers, glancing at the choir director who had tentatively identified the man the victim had described.

"I'm psychic," said the stressed out dispatcher. "Hold in place. Somebody will get to you when they can."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The "somebody" who arrived at Abbey's room an hour and a half later was an investigator for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.

By then, Gabriel Batiste's body had been found.

But it wasn't answering questions. All it was doing was posing more of them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

A week later, the furor began to die down a little. Mindy and her choir were back home, where the familiar nature of things calmed the kids. Only Abbey, among them, had been victimized by Batiste. They were all aware that there were now hundreds of victims, some reaching back as much as ten years. Nobody could understand why, at 8:34 P.M. on a Saturday night, all of those victims had suddenly recalled the particulars of their victimization. Actually, it was clear to some of the investigators that this sudden, mass recovery of memory was linked to Batiste's death ... but that didn't resolve anything. What was clear, though, was that there were way too many victims for it to be a hoax.

To an FBI profiler, back in Washington D.C., the pattern suggested some form of either hypnosis, or heretofore unknown kind of 'mental influence.' Nobody wanted to call it mind control. Using that term would end careers, because there was no such thing as 'mind control.' The hypnosis theory was shaky, at best. If it had only been a dozen women, who he had continued access to, so he could reinforce post-hypnotic suggestions, it might have been a viable hypothesis. Unmatched in human history, but viable. There was no way, though, that any human could so thoroughly repress such memories in more than two hundred victims, even if the victims were cooperative.

And Gabriel Batiste was entirely human. There was no doubt about that. His autopsy had been thorough in the extreme. His hyoid bone and C5 vertebra were broken, but that was it. There were no bruises on his neck that matched fingers, or a ligature. The prevailing theory was that some military type, such as a special forces soldier, had used a rear naked choke hold and crushed his throat. The problem was that none of the victims was associated with any military person. Even if they had been, no parent or significant other had been interviewed who had any clue that their child or significant other had been raped at all, much less by who.

That left mind control.

And nobody was ready to believe that, yet ... or even say it out loud.

What the victims had in common was clear. All were involved in some way with choral music. All had been at some event that Batiste had been associated with. And it went back much farther than his recent "magical" reputation went. A cluster of forty-seven victims had been his students at schools where he had taught. It was that cluster that produced his sons and daughters.

Three months into the investigation, the detectives were stymied. Pressure from the victims and their loved ones didn't produce new leads.

The investigation slowly strangled ... just like Gabriel Batiste had.

No one came forward to claim Batiste's body. The few relatives the FBI identified wanted nothing to do with a monster. His body was quietly frozen. Who knew when it might be needed for further examination? And if it wasn't buried ... then no exhumation order was needed to get access to it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Things returned to more or less normal in Indian Springs much sooner than elsewhere. The town only had one victim to succor. It didn't hurt that Abbey had given her boyfriend several blow jobs voluntarily before she was forced to perform one on a stranger. She had, in fact, been thinking about taking Josh to a practice room to blow him when, magically, she woke up in her friend Janice's motel room and she remembered a different penis in her mouth.

Quite honestly, she hadn't freaked out immediately. She couldn't believe what she was remembering was true. Batiste had given her the same post-hypnotic suggestion to forget what had happened as he had the others, but he'd been in a bit of a rush. He wasn't used to controlling two women at the same time, and more of his attention was on the woman than the teen. The woman was the bigger threat, but he wasn't worried. Nobody ever asked any questions. The magic was too strong for that. He'd been doing this for a decade and there had never been a problem.

In fact, Abbey hadn't remembered going into the practice room at all, when she woke up. It was puzzling, but the memory of singing so well rushed back. She was with her friends again when, at 8:34 P.M. she had a confusing memory of sucking Josh's penis, followed almost instantly with the memory that it was actually a strange man's cock, instead.

That was when she had what amounted to a nervous breakdown.

Nobody could get any information out of her, though, about why she was freaking out, for half an hour. And by the time she did share what was freaking her out with her friends, other women's stories already relegated hers to the very back burner. Stories of repeated rapes and of forced anal sex made her little blow job seem almost tame by comparison.

Counseling, back in Indian Springs, had helped Abbey.

The problem was that Mindy couldn't go for counseling ... because she had never identified herself as one of Gabriel Batiste's victims. She couldn't do that.

If she did, Bobby Pendleton ... her savior ... would go to jail for murder.

Both she and Bobby may be forgiven for their ignorance of things lawful and unlawful. Neither had any prior experience with law enforcement or the criminal justice system. Neither knew that Bobby's actions, in the context of the moment, would have been considered "legal defense of another" under Wyoming. State law there allowed lethal force to be used in legal defense of another, to prevent death or grievous bodily harm. The great state of Wyoming considers rape to be grievous bodily harm.

Bobby, had he come forward to claim having killed Gabriel Batiste, in defense of Mindy Middlesex, might have been given a medal.

But he didn't come forward. So he and Mindy had nobody to talk to about what had happened.

Well ... nobody except each other.

And that, as it turned out, would make all the difference in the world ... to both their futures.

 

Chapter Three

 

They did not "talk about it" initially. The situation was too bizarre for them to approach it openly; not at first. Mindy did better than Bobby did. She had almost been raped. Bobby on the other hand, had actually killed another human being.

His parents thought his mood change was just the side effect of being in a place where a monster was unmasked. He was quieter than usual. He was nicer to his sister than usual, too. It was pure coincidence that Gerald Hill happened to say to a couple of his friends that he'd like to "fuck the shit out of Melissa Pendleton" with Bobby's standing at his locker only three feet away. Gerald hadn't intended for Bobby to hear that. Melissa was Bobby's sister.

Bobby wasn't known as a violent person. He wrestled, but didn't get in fights. After they pulled him off of Gerald, who had a split lip, both ended up in the vice principal's office. Gerald confessed that he'd "said something out of line" about Bobby's sister but that didn't cut any mustard with the school disciplinarian. Bobby was given a choice between a month of detention or a week's suspension. He chose detention so he wouldn't have to miss classes. Graduation was as little more than three months away. He couldn't afford to get behind, now.

It was his second week of detention when he walked in to find Miss Middlesex sitting at the detention proctor's desk.

It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other since 'the incident.' He was in choir, after all. But they hadn't talked about 'the incident' either. Neither felt completely at ease in the presence of the other.

Mindy felt badly about that because she really did view Bobby as her knight in shining armor. But he was also her student. And she had kept a very deep, dark secret from law enforcement. Two of them, in fact.

"What are you doing here?" asked Bobby, stopping just inside the door.

"I beg your pardon?" she said, arching one eyebrow. "Do you talk to all your teachers in that tone of voice?"

"No," he said. She could see him blushing.

She picked up the folder on the desk and opened it.

"I didn't look to see who was going to be here," she said. "I'm on the schedule to monitor detention this week."

"You have to do that?"

"All teachers have to do it," she said, dryly. "I usually grade papers, or work on choosing new music for the choir to learn."

"Oh," said Bobby. "I've never been in detention before." He blinked. "Well, I was in detention last week, but that was the first time."

Now it was Mindy who blinked.

"You got two weeks of detention?"

"Actually, I got four weeks of detention," he said. He went to a desk and sat down.

"What on Earth did you do to get a whole month of detention?" she asked.

"A guy said he wanted to have sex with my sister and I sort of beat him up."

Normally, Mindy would have said something like, "Fighting in school? Not smart at all, Mr. Pendleton." She also would have had no sympathy for him. But this was Bobby. -And she understood his reaction ... or thought she did. It was in his psyche to defend a woman.

"Oh," she said. She looked down at the folder. There was only one name on the page. "Looks like it's just you and me."

"Is that okay?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"I understand if you don't feel safe around me," he said.

She stared at him.

"Feel safe around you? Of course I feel safe around you. I probably feel safer around you than any other person in the whole world!"

"Really?" She couldn't miss the relief in his voice.

"You defended me, Bobby. You kept him from doing something horrible to me."

"Yes, but I also ..." He didn't finish.

"You didn't mean to," said Mindy. "I heard you say you didn't mean to do that."

"I didn't!" he groaned.

"It was the heat of the moment," said Mindy. "Things happen in the heat of the moment."

"I wish I could believe that," sighed Bobby.

They sat there, both thinking back to that night. Something wiggled around in Mindy's brain, niggling at her. Finally, it gelled.

"Bobby?"

He looked up.

"That night ... you said you were following me."

He looked down.

"Yeah."

"Why were you following me?"

He looked up. There was anguish on his face.

"I knew something was wrong," he said, softly.

"How did you know something was wrong?" she asked.

He looked down again.

"I just did."

She went to sit at the desk next to his.

"Listen," she said. "I can tell you don't want to tell me something. But we already share some secrets that are big ... huge. We can't afford to keep secrets from each other, Bobby."

"You'll laugh at me," he groaned.

"I can't think of anything you could possibly say that would make me laugh. You're a very special person in my life, Bobby."

"That doesn't help at all," he muttered.

"Just tell me," she said. She reached to put her hand on top of his.

He lifted his head and stared at her hand. Slowly he turned his head and looked at her.

"I kind of had a crush on you," he said, softly.

"A crush?" She blinked. She lifted her hand from his.

"I wasn't stalking you! Honest. I just liked ... looking at you. That's all I was doing, just following you and ... watching. I saw you go in that room, and a little while later Abbey came out, and she was acting completely normal, like it was no big deal to have been in there with you. And then the door opened and you came out. So I ducked back around a corner. And then that guy came out and he was waving his baton like he was leading music. He said something to you I couldn't hear and but you just walked off, with him following you. It looked so weird. I mean you weren't talking to him. You were walking in front of him, like you were leading him somewhere."

He stopped.

"Go on," she said.

"It just looked wrong. So I followed you. Another thing that looked wrong was that when you went out into the freezing cold, he had a coat on, but you didn't. The two of you went to that motel, down the street and the whole time you walked in front of him and never said a word. So ... when you went in the room he opened ... I sort of peeked."

"Peeked."

"Yeah. The drapes weren't completely closed. I could see through a crack."

"What did you see?"

He looked down again.

"Tell me, Bobby. I'm not angry about this."

"You took your clothes off," he whispered.

"Describe how I did that," she said. Her face was pink, but her voice was firm.

He looked up, his eyes wide.

"You want me to describe how you got naked?"

"I do," she said, quietly.

"You just took everything off. You took your blouse off, and then your skirt and then your ... um bra." He looked away. "Then your panties," he whispered.

"And then?"

"You took his clothes off."

"And then?"

"You talked. I couldn't hear much through the window. You were talking kind of quiet like."

"And then?"

"You got on the bed. You ..." He faltered.

"This is important, Bobby. Tell me what you saw."

"You spread your legs. But it looked wrong. It was like there was something wrong with you. Your face was ... weird."

"Weird, how?"

"Like you were asleep. Except your eyes were open."

"Go on."

"He talked louder then. That's when I heard him say he was going to enslave you. I've heard that kind of voice before. Bullies use it. They're bragging about how helpless you are\ and how nobody will do anything to stop them. And then he slapped you."

"That's when you came in and stopped him," she said.

"Yes."

"How did you get in?"

"He left the door unlocked. I guess he was ... in a hurry."

She stood up.

"Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

"I can't go anywhere," he said. "I have detention."

"Right," she said. "I need to go get something. I'll be right back."

She left, was gone for perhaps five minutes, and then returned. She had a director's baton in her hand.

"Was this the baton you saw him waving at me?"

"I don't know," said Bobby. "They all look the same."

"It is," she said, answering her own question. "I picked it up off the floor before we left that motel room."

"Okay," said Bobby.

She stared at the thin, white stick, with the black bulb-shaped handle.

"I think he made me do things with this," she said.

"Made you do things?"

"I think he made Abbey do what she talked about, too."

"I don't understand," he said.

"I've thought about this a lot," she said. "When I first saw that man he was using this baton to direct the Mads. They looked funny, like you described my face looking funny. And I saw him do something ... he waved the tip of the baton at Abbey. He made a motion that didn't make sense."

"Didn't make sense," Bobby repeated.

"Musically," she explained. "There was no musical reason for it."

"What kind of motion?"

She picked up the baton. She tried to do the circle with the zee at the end, but it didn't look quite the same.

"Like that."

"That looks like a coda," said Bobby. "With something extra at the end."

"Yes, but it wasn't where there was a coda in the music," she said. "And the choir didn't perform a coda."

"I still don't understand," sighed Bobby.

"It looked like he was waving the baton at Abbey while you were all singing. When the choir was finished, I looked for Abbey. She wasn't there. So I went looking for her. I found her in that practice room ... with that man."

Bobby's eyes widened.

"That was when she ... " Again, he faltered.

"Was doing what she told the police he made her do," Mindy finished.

"You were there when that happened?" he croaked.

"Yes. He had the baton with him. He waved it at me," she went on. "And suddenly I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't yell. He finished with Abbey and then told her to leave and to forget what she had just done. Then he told me where to go ... to that motel room."

"And he made you do ... all that," said Bobby.

"Yes."

"Made you do it ... with that," said Bobby, his voice tight. He gestured toward the baton.

"I think so," she said.

"How?"

"That's what I don't know," she said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Bobby took the baton from her hand.

"Careful," she said.

"Careful of what? It's not magic. It can't be magic. Magic doesn't exist."

"Something exists," she said. "I felt it. I saw it work on Abbey."

Bobby looked around the room. He pointed the baton at the folder on top of the desk, swished the thin stick, and said, "Accio!" Nothing happened.

"What was that?" asked Mindy.

"Harry Potter? It's the spell for getting some object to come to you."

"This isn't a joke, Bobby," she said, her voice tight.

"I know that," said Bobby. He could still remember feeling his arm tightening around Batiste's neck. "But what you're talking about sounds exactly like the Imperio spell in the book. That spell lets you control another person's movements."

"This isn't Harry Potter," said Mindy.

"Yes, but like you said ... it's something."

She took the baton back. Her hand lifted and she peered at the thin, white spike.

"All those poor women," she whispered. "I should destroy this."

"You sound like those people who want to ban guns."

"Guns kill people," she said, automatically.

"By the same logic, ball bats kill people, and hammers, and screwdrivers, and pool cues, and shovels, and whiskey bottles, and anything else that has ever been involved in somebody's death. My arm killed that man! Should I cut my arm off?"

"You know that's not what I meant," she objected.

"People kill other people," he said. "That stick didn't make anybody do anything. The man holding it made them do all those things."

"I know that," she groaned.

"What if that could be used for good? What if it could cure somebody's sickness? What if it could, like stop somebody from hurting somebody else? I mean he used it to make you do something. Couldn't it be used to stop somebody from doing something?"

"It's dangerous!" she moaned.

"It's a stick!" he argued.

"We don't know how it works," she said, as if that was the end of the conversation.

"Then maybe we should figure out how it works," said Bobby.

 

Chapter Four

 

Mindy looked at her watch.

"Detention is over," she said.

"What are we going to do about that?" asked Bobby, gesturing at the baton.

"I don't know that we are going to do anything," she said.

"We're in this together," he insisted.

"You're a student," she reminded him, needlessly.

"I'm your knight in shining armor," he reminded her.

"Let's talk about it tomorrow," she said.

"When?"

"You have detention, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah." He grinned. "For the first time in my life, I'm looking forward to detention."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Mindy took the baton home with her. It had been in a drawer in her desk ever since they'd gotten back from the trip. She had not touched it until she took it to show to Bobby.

She curled up on the couch and examined the baton. It was completely normal in every perceivable way. It was of good quality and finely made. It was longer, maybe two or three inches longer, than any she had ever used. Her own was all black. This one had a black bulb as a handle and the whip-thin shaft was pure white. There were no markings on it whatsoever. That was odd. Manufacturers loved putting their names on things like this. They wanted their name to be a status symbol.

Her comments to Bobby notwithstanding, she had seen the movie. She pointed the baton at the book on her coffee table, made a swoosh, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Nothing levitated.

"This is stupid," she muttered.

She remembered the curious circle/zee motion Batiste had made.

She tried levitating the book four more times, using the circle/zee. Nothing happened, of course.

"I'm not only stupid," she finally sighed. "I'm crazy, too."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The next afternoon, she headed to the detention room with a perky step. Bobby wasn't the only one looking forward to detention.

She examined that thought as she walked down the quiet hallways. Teachers weren't supposed to look forward to alone-time with a student. Especially a student of the opposite gender. But this was different. Bobby was, quite literally, her savior. What Batiste had been doing to her was the ultimate in degradation. The rape itself was bad enough, but making her completely helpless, yet fully aware, took things even further.

She remembered being frozen, staring at Abbey as the girl bobbed her head, sucking avidly, as if she couldn't get enough of the demonic penis in her mouth. As she thought back on that, Mindy realized Abbey's ... technique ... had been too polished, too easy, too ... familiar. She had obviously done this before. Not to this man - that was unthinkable. But to some man. Or boy. And Abbey hadn't looked traumatized at all when she rose, her throat still working in swallows, her tongue licking lips stained with ...

Mindy didn't want to think about that. Instead she tried to remember Abbey's demeanor. She hadn't said anything. Batiste had told her to forget it had happened, to return to her friends and say she'd just gone to the bathroom. It was obvious Abbey didn't remember her music teacher being there. She'd have told the police about that. At a minimum she'd have asked Mindy about it.

So, whatever Batiste had done with the baton had directly affected the way Abbey had perceived things, not just her memory. Abbey could remember what Batiste had done to her, or made her do. But the things she had ignored, while Batiste had control over her, were gone as if they had never been there.

Mindy's hand reached for the doorknob and she opened it. Bobby was already sitting at a desk. His head came up and his eyes met hers. She felt a rush of heat in her middle. She was shocked at the forcefulness of the feeling. She hadn't felt that for a long time. Not since her last boyfriend.

"This is entirely inappropriate," she said.

"What?" asked Bobby.

Mindy realized she'd actually spoken, and blushed.

"Nothing," she said. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." Bobby looked curious. "How are ... you?"

"Peachy," she said, aloud. In the silence of her mind, she gasped, 'Horny for one of my students!?'

"You look ... flustered," he said.

"I've been thinking about the magic wand," she said.

He grinned. "Is that what we're calling it? The magic wand?"

"It isn't funny, Bobby," she said.

His face went impassive.

"Of course not," he said. "It just seems ..."

"Trite? Cartoonish? I didn't name it that. It just came out of my mouth that way."

"Hey, calm down. You can call it anything you want to. You earned that right."

Now the boy who had so recently - and without knowing it - plucked the strings of her libido, was telling her to calm down. It was as if their roles had been reversed.

She went to stand in front of him.

"Bobby," she said.

He looked up. She hadn't realized his eyes were so deep, so liquid, so brown.

"Bobby," she said again.

"Yes, Miss Middlesex?"

She stared. She had been aware of (and teased about) her last name since she was ten. The innuendo seemed impossible to escape. Since coming to Wyoming she hadn't thought about it so much, but now it was back. The butterflies in her stomach were going absolutely crazy.

"You need to call me Mindy when we're alone," she said, weakly.

He blinked.

"I do?"

"You saved me," she moaned.

"I only did what anybody would have done," he said.

"You had a crush on me," she said. Her mouth snapped closed. She hadn't meant to say that. Where had that come from?

"I did, but you don't have to worry about that," he said, looking uncomfortable. "What I did to that guy sort of took care of that."

"So you don't feel that way anymore?" What was her voice doing to her? Why was she saying these embarrassing things?

He looked away.

"Of course not," he said.

"Still. You saved me. You don't have to call me by my formal name. Not when we're alone."

"Okay," he said.

She turned and went to the desk. She sat down, thinking furiously. What was happening to her? First the wand, and now this? She was having feelings for a student. She was attracted to a student!

"It has to be post traumatic something or other," she muttered.

"What?" asked Bobby.

"Nothing," said Mindy. She sat back in the chair. "I've been thinking about the magic wand." She winced. "I mean the baton."

"Yes. You said that." Bobby looked wary, now.

"I have a lot on my mind," sighed Mindy.

"I get that. I do, too."

Mindy's brain sent up fireworks. Of course he had a lot on his mind. He'd killed a man! Granted, he'd been saving her while doing it, but it had to be affecting him. Batiste had only almost raped her. Bobby had actually killed him. What was she doing thinking of her own paltry troubles. She needed to be there for Bobby!

She stood up and went to sit down beside him.

"You can talk to me about ... things," she said.

"I know that," he said. His head tilted and he examined her. "Are you okay, Miss Middlesex?"

"Mindy," she said.

"Mindy," he repeated. He frowned. "That just sounds wrong."

"You did a service to the world by ... stopping ... him," said Mindy. "You don't have to feel bad."

His eyes cleared.

"I get it. You're worried I might be all twisted up inside because I killed him."

The way he said, "I killed him," with no emotion, made Mindy feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

"Don't be," said Bobby. "What he was doing to you ... what he did to all those other women ... he didn't deserve to live. He needed to be dead. I didn't kill a man. I killed a rabid animal. The only thing I feel bad about is that I didn't find out soon enough to stop him from hurting you and Abbey."

Mindy was beset by multiple emotions. One of them was a chill, brought on by the sincerity that Bobby displayed when he said he didn't feel bad about killing another human being. One was awe that a man so young could resolve difficult issues so easily. And another was another rush of raw sexual desire for the man who had killed to protect her.

"This is crazy," she whispered, fighting the urge to squeeze her breasts.

"It's not crazy," said Bobby.

"Not you. Me," said Mindy.

"What about you?" asked Bobby.

She looked at him. She felt herself falling into the endless depths of those eyes.

"I'm just in big trouble," she whispered. "That's all."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

It took her ten minutes of reassuring him that her "trouble" was theoretical, unformed, inexact, before he dropped it. Finally he changed the subject.

"So what did you think about the magic wand?"

"It's not magic," she said, automatically.

"Maybe it is," said Bobby. "I've been thinking about it, too."

"You have?"

"That guy ... that Baptist guy. He used the wand for doing bad things. But like I said, couldn't it be used for doing good things, too?"

"Theoretically, I suppose you're right," said Mindy. "But I don't know how to use it. Make it work, I mean. I tried, and nothing happens."

"Tried," said Bobby.

Mindy was too embarrassed to admit she'd tried another Harry Potter spell, so she just said, "I tried to make a book levitate. Nothing happened. The book didn't move."

"Of course not," said Bobby. "Imagine Christopher Columbus finding a cell phone in the forest after he came ashore. He wouldn't have even the first clue what it was for, much less how to operate it. But he would have recognized it as something with potential value."

"I'm not sure the analogy works in this situation," said Mindy. "We're talking about magic here, not technology."

"You saw him using it," said Bobby. "He used it on you. We should be able to figure out how it works."

"You might be right," said Mindy. "But, it creeps me out to think about really using it. To do anything other than something like make a book move, I mean."

"Maybe it doesn't work on inanimate objects," said Bobby. "Maybe it only works on something alive."

"Oh, that would make it a lot less creepy," said Mindy, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.

"I'm just saying," said Bobby, shrugging his shoulders. "What if you could cure cancer with it? Do you think that might lessen the creepiness?"

"Of course it would," said Mindy. "But I have no idea where to even start."

"Sure you do," said Bobby. "You saw the motions he used. Half of magic is the right motions, right?"

"Bobby, there is no magic!"

"But what if there was?" he argued, doggedly. "What if there's some aspect of physics, or string theory, or sun spots or whatever it is, but it hasn't been discovered yet? Not discovered by anybody except Baptist, I mean. What if there is magic?"

"Batiste," said Mindy. "It's not Baptist. It's Batiste."

"Like I care?" said Bobby. "All I care about is that he discovered how to use the wand to control people."

"Okay," sighed Mindy. "Let's run with that. There is this miraculous, misunderstood, un-discovered force in the world. Somehow the wand allows it to work, or makes it work, or whatever. We're still only halfway there. He moved his lips, Bobby. He said something. And we have no idea what he said. It's like we hopped in a car to go to California but ran out of gas halfway there ... in the desert ... with no gas station anywhere. In fact, gasoline has disappeared from the face of the Earth! Gasoline is only a concept, now, an idea, a theory!"

"Somebody invented gasoline," said Bobby, undaunted. "I bet that must have seemed like magic at the time."

"I'll grant you that," she sighed. "But I majored in math and music. I'm not a scientist. I have no lab to conduct experiments in. In your scenario, the best thing to do would be to turn this over to somebody in the biology or physiology field. But no serious scientist would even talk about this. I'd be laughed out of the room for even suggesting that wand could do what we know it did!"

Bobby shrugged, and then spoke.

"Whoever invented gasoline probably wasn't a petroleum engineer," said Bobby. "He probably invented the job of petroleum engineer when he invented gasoline."

 

Chapter Five

 

They were deep in what a generous philosopher might have called 'discussion' when the door opened and the janitor came in with his long-handled dust mop. He stopped and looked at his watch. Mindy looked at her own. It was a few minutes past five.

"Good grief," she moaned. "Your parents are probably frantic."

Bobby pulled out his cell phone and called home.

"Hi, Mom. I'm fine. I got delayed by a tutoring session. I got a chance to work on catching up in math and lost track of the time."

He paused. Mindy could hear a high-pitched voice coming from his phone.

"I know. I'm sorry. Do you want to talk to Miss Middlesex? She's the one who was helping me."

There was another pause while he listened. Mindy glanced at the Janitor, who had started sweeping the floor. His practiced, zig-zag motions, as he went around chair and table legs, was almost beautiful to watch. Bobby's phone appeared in front of her face.

"She wants to talk to you," said Bobby. He looked sheepish.

It was an unexpected moment of significance in Mindy's life. She was aware of that, but only in an unformed, mystical sort of way. She could have apologized to Bobby's mother and said it would never happen again and nothing would have changed. Her life could have gone on just as it was. But something deep inside her demanded more. That "more" involved Bobby, also in an un-formed, mystical way, but there was an undeniable desire in her to keep ... seeing ... Bobby. It was more than a mere 'desire.' It was a drive. She took the phone and put it to her ear. As a "muse" sometimes inhabits an author's fingers, something in her brain took over and spoke for her.

"Mrs. Pendleton," she said. "Hi. I'm mortified that I didn't think of having Bobby call you sooner. We're still at school. I got stuck with monitoring detention this week. Bobby was my only charge and we got to talking about his math homework. I minored in Mathematics. We both sort of lost track of the time as I was explaining things to him."

"Thank you," came a female voice on the phone. "I was worried. You know teenagers these days. They get into all sorts of trouble."

"Well, I'm very sorry," said Mindy. "It won't happen again."

"Oh don't say that," said Bobby's mother. "He's getting a D in math. We'd be grateful for any help you could give him. Maybe we could even hire you?"

"That won't be necessary," said Mindy. "I don't mind helping him. He's a good boy, and it's good to get back into the world of math for a bit. Based on what happened tonight, though, he may need more time than we'll have in the time he has left in detention."

"He can meet with you anytime," said Mrs. Pendleton. "Any time at all. Put me back on the phone with him. And thank you so much!"

Mindy handed the phone back to Bobby and mouthed the word, "Sorry."

When Bobby said he was there, he was told that he was to be at Mrs. Middlesex's beck and call until his grade in math was raised to a B or better. That meant doing both extra credit and acing the final. He groaned and complained, because his intuition told him that was what was expected.

But the idea of spending more time around Mindy Middlesex didn't bother him one bit.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

They were standing outside the school, next to Mindy's car. Bobby's beat up 2011 Toyota Corolla was in the student parking lot.

"A D in algebra?" said Mindy, lifting one eyebrow.

"I was sick for a week and got behind," said Bobby. "It just doesn't make sense to me."

"That can be fixed," she said.

"But the real reason we'll be ... um ... getting together ... will be to talk about the wand, right?" Bobby sounded hopeful.

"The real reason we'll be meeting is to get your math grade up," said Mindy, firmly. "If we have time, we can talk about the wand."

"Okay," said Bobby.

"Just like that? Okay?"

"Why not?" asked Bobby. "I do need to get my math grade up."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Mindy had finished Bobby's detention week paying attention only to math issues. She looked at the textbook, based on where they were at that time, and worked backwards until she found the place where he stopped understanding and got fuzzy. Then she took him forward slowly.

A week later they had their first session at her house. He'd already made enough progress that Mindy only made him work thirty minutes on "math stuff," as he put it. Then she brought out the wand. They sat at her dining room table, where the math work had taken place.

"I've tried all sorts of things," she said. "I can't make it do anything at all. It's just a baton."

"What kind of things did you try?"

"I tried moving things. Like a spoon. I tried turning the radio on and off. Things like that."

"Maybe I could try," he said.

She taught him the motion, standing behind him and holding his hand until he got it right on his own.

"Okay, what next?" he asked.

"I don't know," she sighed. "That's the problem. It looked like he was saying something, or mouthing words, but I couldn't tell what it was."

"Well, we know it isn't Harry Potter," he said. "If it was, at least we'd have done something like Neville Longbottom and blown something up."

"That it isn't Potter magic is a good thing," said Mindy. "Can you imagine the chaos that would result if all that was real?"

Bobby waved the wand and said, "Move!" while pointing it at the vase of flowers in the center of the table. Nothing happened. He did it again and pushed at the vase with his other hand. When that produced nothing, he tried "directing" imaginary music while using the wand and telling the vase to move.

"I thought of that," said Mindy. "It didn't do anything for me, either."

Bobby sat back and thought.

"What if it only works on people?" he suggested.

"I'm not trying it on people," she said. "We know what happens to people it's used on. Besides, this is silly. It's not a magic wand. Magic doesn't exist."

"Try it on me," he said, carelessly.

"No. Who knows what would happen? I could make a mistake without even knowing it and turn you into a frog, or something."

"So you do believe in magic." He grinned.

"No , I do not."

"Then wave it at me and tell me to sing soprano. Even if that goes all wrong it won't be terrible. You certainly can't turn me into a frog trying to do that."

"I don't like this," she said. "Let's just forget about the wand."

"Awww, come on, Miss Middlesex." He stopped. "Mindy, I mean. Wait. I know. I know exactly what you should try."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Wave it at me and tell me to forget what you look like naked."

She stared at him. He shrugged.

"You'd be doing me a favor, if it works," he said.

"Am I that hideous?"

"You know better. It's the opposite. I wasn't being exactly truthful when I said my crush on you was gone. Ever since I saw you like that I can't help but think about it. Sometimes, when I go to bed, I have to ... um ...never mind."

Mindy knew what he'd stopped from saying. Several of the boys and men she'd gone out with had masturbated. It seemed that whenever she declined to have sex with a guy, that somehow led to a discussion about masturbation. In some cases, they'd asked her to do it to them. In one case, the guy had asked if he could jerk off and spurt on her naked body. Phil was the only man she'd agreed to do that kind of thing with. He had gotten off by asking her to masturbate in front of him while he jerked until he was about to cum. But he didn't want to shoot it on her body. He'd wanted to ejaculate in her mouth. She didn't make him wear a condom for that.

She stopped thinking about Phil and looked at Bobby. He looked very uncomfortable.

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," she said, trying to sound like this was simply light conversation. "My understanding is that you're completely normal. I've heard that boys your age think about sex once a minute."

"You're not mad?"

"Bobby, you saved me from being raped. I think I can cut you some slack about imagining me naked."

"Try it anyway," he said.

She stared at him.

"It really is awful," he said. "I need to be able to think about something else. I haven't gone on a single date since we got back from state because when I look at a girl, I think about you."

The pleading in his voice made something pull inside her.

"Okay," she said. "But it won't work, so don't get your hopes up."

She picked up the wand, which had been lying on the table where he'd put it when it didn't do anything for him. She imagined herself taking up a stance, and decided that was ridiculous.

He sat there, waiting ... trusting ... willing to accept whatever happened. He claimed his desire was to forget her, or something about her. But was he telling the truth?

In that moment, when she picked up the wand, she made the circle/zee and whispered, "Truth." It wasn't what he'd asked her to do. He'd asked her to help him forget what she looked like naked. But him having seen her naked wasn't all that important a problem to her. He talked as if he did still have a crush on her. That was the more important issue in her mind. It was important because she had feelings for him, too. That was ridiculous. She knew that. But it was real. At least it was real for her. What really mattered to her, in that moment, was finding out what Bobby really thought about her. She stared at him, realizing that she really did want the truth from him. She did the motion again, and said, more firmly, "You will tell the truth."

He sat there. Nothing appeared to have changed.

He seemed frozen until he blinked. When he didn't say anything, it occurred to her that he should have objected to her command, reminding her that he was supposed to make him forget, not tell the truth.

"Bobby?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"What do you have to do?"

"I have to tell you the truth," he said.

"Does that make you anxious?"

"A little bit."

"Why?"

"Because I'm afraid you'll ask me something I don't want to tell you."

"But you'll answer any question I ask?"

"Of course," he said. "I have to."

"And that doesn't make you angry?"

"No. Why? Should it?"

He seemed normal in every way. Was he playing with her? Was he pretending that something had happened? Had anything really happened? What question could she ask that would verify anything?

Something came to mind.

"You said that sometimes, you think about me when you go to bed," she said. "Is that true?"

"I always think about you when I go to bed," he said. "I think about you a lot."

That didn't prove anything.

"Describe your thoughts ... what you think about when you go to bed," she said.

"I think about us naked, having sex," he said.

Boom! Just like that. He didn't even blush.

"Tell me in detail what you think about happening," she said.

"I think about taking your clothes off and touching you all over. I especially want to suck your nipples. I remember your nipples," he said, calmly. "I think about you sucking my dick, too. I bet that would feel really good. And then you want me on top of you, and you tell me I can put it in you, and I do. And we both have orgasms."

Mindy felt a wave of confusion, elation, and lust crash over her. It had worked! Somehow the wand had made him tell the truth! And what kind of truth it was! She was shocked at his revelation, but at the same time it made her tingle all over. The images he conjured up were entirely forbidden, taboo, impossible to contemplate. But they were honest. This was really how he felt!

Sudden clarity wiped her emotional board clean. This must be torture for him. She understood his request to make him forget.

"Do you have an erection right now?" she asked. She blinked. Where had that come from?

"Yes. It's a really good one," he said.

"If I tell you to stop thinking about this, will it work?" she asked.

"Not without the wand," he said, calmly. "It was the wand that let me tell you how I feel. I could tell that. I felt something happen and suddenly it was okay to tell you things. It just feels okay. Am I scaring you?"

"No," she said, thinking furiously. "I just don't know what to do now."

"It would be nice if you could reverse that spell," he said. "I don't feel like anything is wrong, but I remember I'm not supposed to say things like that to you. It's not polite, I mean."

"I'm not offended," she said. "The problem is I'm not sure how I did what I did."

"It's okay," he said. "I'm going to get beat up a lot, though."

"Beat up? Why?" she asked.

"Because I can tell that I'll have to be honest with everybody who asks me a question. And some people might not like the truth."