Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Some Sort of a Hero 2: Mindwalker's Rebound (MC, mf) By Mannheim Knot

   >>>>>

   MC, supers, mf, reluc

   >>>>>

   In the second installment, a darker side of Clay emerges in the wake of
his first break-up and his association with a hot but manipulative high
school girl.  Dynamo becomes aware of his disturbing turn.

   >>>>>

   LATE SEPTEMBER, 2000 Mindwalker had been born just over two weeks ago.
Clayton Teller was less than thrilled with that.  Yes, he had saved Dynamo.
Yes, he would do it again no matter the cost.  But he still resented what
it had cost him.  Becky had not forgiven him.  She had tried.  She really
had.  But in the end, she still shivered when he touched her.  As much as
she loved him, and she did love him, she also hated him.  Being with him
tore her in two.  And he couldn't fix it without using his powers, and he
figured that if he used his powers nothing could ever be truly fixed
between them.

   On the night she made it clear that she had to move on, they both wept,
but Becky held firm.  She knew, as did Clay, that dragging it out was the
worst thing for them.  So, she made a clean break of it.  But even as she
left, he could sense how badly she wanted to stay.  Clay had never really
read a thought before, but as she reached for the door, he heard her voice
in his head.  "Dammit, Clay, just make me turn around!" But he didn't do
it. He couldn't do it, not to her.  He silently watched her walk out the
door.

   He still had his mom.  She had forgiven him, and Clay felt like there
was far more to that than just the influence of his powers.  Rae saw a boy
with the power to do an infinite number of very bad things, and all he had
done was make love to the girl he adored.  Rae, in many ways the least
judgmental person Clayton had ever known, could forgive that.  In a way she
actually admired his restraint.

   But Rae couldn't hold back the storm brewing inside her barely
thirteen-year-old boy.  He was so lost that he didn't even know how he saw
himself.  Was he the hero who had saved Dynamo?  Was he a potential killer
who had only been stopped by Dynamo's plea?  Was he Becky's faithful
boyfriend?  Was he her rapist?  Clayton was an adolescent boy.  He did what
so many adolescents do.  He took everything in the worst possible way.  He
was angry at the world because Becky had left him in the end.  He was even
angry at her.  If she had done it, he would have forgiven her.  Wouldn't he
have?  If she was torn about leaving, why didn't she just turn around and
come back of her own free will?  Did she really think he was that awful? 
He was angry at Dynamo for trying to make him feel like he was supposed to
give up his life to go play superhero.  That was her gig, not his.  She had
been so certain he would just join up and do the right thing that it made
him feel guilty when he didn't.  Who was she to make him feel that way?

   But in the end, the outwardly directed feelings of anger were nothing
compared to those he directed at himself.  He felt like he had pretty much
failed everyone.  He was a boy filled with regret and the sense that he
wasn't good enough to make the people around him happy.  Like most boys who
felt that way about themselves, he tried to put on a tough guy attitude and
show the world that he "just didn't give a fuck about any of that shit."

   But he was also a boy who had always been more attracted to girls than
the other guys were.  Now that they were twelve and thirteen, the other
boys were catching up a little.  Still, Clay doubted any boy in Lake City
hungered like he did.  The thoughts of girls and women were constant with
him.  And unlike every other boy his age, he could do something about it.
So, on the seventeenth day after he met Dinah Rosen, Clayton Teller did
something about it.

   He was in the mall, looking to buy a new videogame, something with a
little more carnage than the things his mom usually let him buy.  He passed
Melanie Ryan and a gaggle of tenth grade girls.  "Hi Clay," Melanie said in
the way she said it every time she saw him.  It was flirtatious.  No, it
was something more than that.  It dripped with false promises of sex and
exaggerated desire.  Melanie was a tease.  She was a very cute-looking and
busty black-haired sophomore, and really one of the few older girls who
even spoke to the boys from the middle school wing of Saint Joan's.  But
she didn't flirt with the younger boys because she was friendly.  She did
it because she knew that they would get all wound up by it.  Clay usually
just gave her a "hi" back and kept moving.  But on that day, he did
something else.

   "Mel, come with me," he said.  Melanie blinked her blue eyes a few times
and looked at her friends as if she had been waiting for this moment.  It
was always a fun thing for her when she got a younger boy to respond to her
siren call.  She opened her mouth to say something devastatingly sarcastic,
but Clay interrupted her.  "Now," he said firmly.  Melanie blinked again,
but this time she closed her mouth and just nodded.  When Clay held out his
hand, she took it and followed him.  He'd felt his command cutting through
her will.  He could tell that it didn't actually cause her pain, but it was
damned close.  This wasn't how he did things normally, but it was how he
felt like doing them today, and it had been how he'd felt like doing them
to this pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside girl for quite some time.

   "Where are we going?" she finally asked him as they walked past all the
clothing shops in the mall and headed toward the big department store at
the end.

   "Where I damned well say we are going," he snapped.  "Keep up." Melanie
hustled a bit more.  Clay was getting fairly tall.  He'd put on three
inches and twenty-five pounds in a year.  Still, the physical ones were the
least agonizing growing pains he'd experienced lately.  Clay pulled the
stunned sophomore girl up to the service counter.  "Where's the storeroom
where they keep the extra furniture?" he asked the woman who was giving him
a suspicious eye as she looked at the somewhat frightened girl next to him.

   "Why would you need--"

   "Answer the fucking question right now, and then forget we had this
conversation."

   "That door, along the wall next to the parking lot," the woman answered.
She pressed her hand to her forehead as the kids turned to go.  Clay had
obviously given her a slight headache.  She hadn't really been rude, and
her attitude toward Clay had probably really just been about her seeing
Melanie looking distressed.  He turned back to the woman at the counter. 
"You feel fine," he said softly.  The woman smiled slightly.  So did Clay.
It was nice to know he could do that.

   "Clayton, I don't think we should be going back there," Melanie said
nervously.  "We could get in trouble."

   "Shut up.  Smile.  Act like you're happy to be with me," he said.  He
led the girl toward the back.  He could feel all the confusion and terror
building inside her, but when he glanced at her he saw nothing but the look
of a lovestruck school girl.  The command was making her do that.  Clay was
glad the door wasn't locked, but was surprised to find that what he'd
thought was the outside wall of the store was really an entrance to a long
narrow corridor with several doors opening off of it.

   "What the fuck are you two doing back here?" a stockboy of about
eighteen or nineteen asked.  Then he looked at Melanie.  "Oh, I see. 
Forget it, kid.  It ain't happening here.  I'd get in trouble for letting
you in.  Too bad.  She's a real honey."

   "You're going to show me to a room with a nice comfy couch or a few
mattresses or something," Clay said firmly.  "Then you are going to fuck
off.  Don't worry about your job.  I can cover for you if anything
happens." The boy nodded, got out a set of keys and opened up a small room.
In the end, the command had gone down pretty easily with the boy.  He
understood what it was like to have a willing girl and nowhere to go. 
Plus, he really didn't care about store policy.  He'd just been worried
about getting caught.

   "Have a good time, my man," the boy said.  "Oh, you have a good time
too, sweetie." The boy turned to go.  "God-damn, that's a sweet piece of
tail for a kid like that," he mumbled to himself as he left.

   The room was crammed with furniture.  At first, Clay thought it looked
like it was too full, but there was a chaise lounge sitting by its lonesome
in the corner.  Clay pulled the door shut and steered Melanie to the
chaise. "You can say whatever you want to now.  Just don't fucking scream
or cry for help," he said quietly to Melanie.

   "What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

   "Give you what you want," he said.

   "What I want?" she asked.  "Oh, Clay, you misunderstood me.  I wasn't
coming on to you.  I was just being friendly.  This is all just a mistake.
Sorry."

   "I'm adding a rule.  You can't lie to me anymore.  Why do you purr at me
and bat your eyes when you say hi?"

   "To get you wound up," she said and then got a look of shock on her face
when she realized she'd just spoken the words out loud.

   "Because you want me to fuck you," he said.

   "No!  I just like watching you younger guys get all horny."

   "Why?"

   "It's what girls my age do," she said.

   "Very few of you actually do it, well not like you do it.  What's the
big thrill of getting us turned on?"

   "I like knowing I can make you do whatever I want," she said.

   "Power?"

   "Yes," she admitted.  She still looked shocked that she was saying these
things, but Clay noticed that she didn't seem the least bit ashamed.  And
she had something cooking in her brain.

   "Feel very powerful right now?" he asked.

   "Well...  yes," she said.

   "What?" That was definitely not the response he'd expected.

   "I have you going batshit crazy, Clayton.  Look at how you're acting."

   "And now's when you're going to tell me that there's no way a hot
sophomore like you is ever going to do anything with a seventh grade boy
like me."

   "Normally, but not now."

   "What do you mean?"

   "Clay, honey, it's obvious you have some kind of power over people.  I
have quite a bit of power over boys, but what you have is something else. I
mean, really something else."

   "What's going on in that twisted little mind of yours, Melanie?"

   She stood up from the chaise and put her hand on his arm.  She rubbed
softly as she spoke.  "A boy like you, together with a girl like me. 
Honey, we could rule that school.  Hell, we could rule the whole damned
town!" Clay was skeptical.  Melanie could read that in his face.  "I could
make your life easier.  I know all the middle school girlies cream their
panties over you, and that's cute.  Now that I've talked to you for a bit,
I can see why they feel that way.  But I can make you popular with the high
school kids.  And Clay, I have a car."

   "A car?" Clay said, realizing that it presented some opportunities that
he had never really contemplated.

   "Daddy bought me a shiny green Mustang convertible for my birthday last
month." She leaned in and kissed his ear.  "I know you brought me here to
make me do things, to teach me a lesson for teasing a powerful man like
you. But you won't have to make me.  I want to be your girlfriend, Clay. 
We could have so much fun together."

   Clay almost melted into her arms.  He almost felt like he was falling
for the beautiful girl.  She had things that none of the middle school
girls had.  The car, sure, but she had tits, too.  Way bigger than even
Becky's, hell, bigger than Mom's friend Kathy, and she was a hell of a
MILF. He'd never really been able to rest his head against a nice full rack
like Melanie's.  Physically, she was like an older version of Becky.  She
even looked kind of like her in the face.  But she would probably know how
to do all kinds of things Becky didn't.  And she would probably do that
thing he was always afraid to ask Becky to do and just couldn't bring
himself to make her.  For just a moment, Clay wondered if he was acting out
because of the way Melanie teased him or because of her resemblance to
someone else.  But then he focused on the offer before him.

   Clay could be Melanie's boyfriend, and she would hold him, and he would
lean against her chest, and she would stroke his hair as he inhaled her
incredible scent.  He could picture it all.  Then, he remembered who she
really was.  She used her body to control boys, and she was doing it to him
right now.  He was falling right into the trap he'd brought her here to
teach her never to try again.  "You're never going to be my girlfriend,
Melanie.  Not really.  You could call yourself that, but you would really
just be my bitch."

   She took in a sharp breath.  Even the older high school and college boys
she preferred had never talked to her like that.  But then she thought
about who he really was, what he had to offer her in exchange.  He was a
potential goldmine, but also a challenge.  She didn't want to get commanded
to act like his plaything, at least not in front of people where they could
see, where they could use it to make her social status sink like a stone.
But if she went along and only he knew about it...  well, she could somehow
manage to end up in control.  "Okay," she said.  "In private, I'm your
bitch.  In public, I'm your girlfriend and you adore me."

   "We're in private right now, Melanie," he said softly.  He was very
consciously not using his power of command.  It was actually a little
difficult to restrain it.  But he wanted to know how far she would go just
to manipulate him.

   "What would you like me to do?" she asked.  She looked at him and
smiled. She was going to do whatever he asked, be his fucktoy, but she
still felt like she was running the show.  He could sense her feeling of
superiority.

   "First of all, you need to learn to look at me the right way.  Your eyes
should be to the floor most of the time, but then you should sneak a peek
up at me once in a while, just to make sure I'm pleased with you."

   "Like this?" she asked.  She looked down and then quickly tilted her
face up toward him.  Her expression was perfect.  If Clay hadn't known
better, he would have entirely bought the whole thing.  He felt the muscles
in his ass tighten, and his semi-hard cock began its final ascent to
full-on erection.

   "Good little bitch," he whispered.  "Drop your panties and pull your
skirt up." She followed the order.  She had her black pubic hair shaved
into a little landing strip.  Her pussy seemed to be glistening with a bit
of moisture.  Clay knew she was a good actress, but he was pretty damned
sure the situation was getting her warmed up as well.  He just figured that
what was heating her up wasn't his command of her, but her control over
him. She was getting what she wanted out of this.  "Open up your blouse."
She did it, and Clay saw that her rack wasn't just full but firm.  He was
just going to have her slide her bra off of her tits, but then he noticed
that it opened in the front.  "Open the bra." She gave him a little look
up, playing the part of the hesitant girl.  Then, she slowly reached up and
opened the clasp between her mounds.  "I think I kind of hate you, Melanie,
but you are fucking gorgeous."

   "Whatever works, honey," she said, letting a bit of her bitchy tease
voice sneak through.  She caught herself.  "I mean, it doesn't matter what
you think of me, Clay.  I'll do anything you ask because I want you to be
happy with me.  I'll work real hard to make you happy, and then maybe
someday you'll learn to like me."

   "Shut up and lay down on the chaise." Clay was almost giving himself a
headache from holding back the power of command.  It had become effortless
with him in the last year or so.  If he had something he really wanted, the
command just poured out from him.  Now, it was like trying to talk with his
mouth closed.  He figured he would see how far she was willing to go
without the command, just as an experiment.  After that, he was going to
order her about however he wished.  "Being my bitch means you're going to
get handled rough, Mel.  I'm going to fuck you hard, and in every hole. 
And I might do some things that hurt a bit."

   "But then, you're going to be my boyfriend in public and help me with
things?"

   "Yes."

   "Then...  I'm your bitch, Clay."

   He smiled.  That was good enough.  "You are so fucking horny you're
going to die if I don't fuck you," he said, using his full voice.  "Beg for
it."

   "Please, Clay.  Fuck me now," she whined.  He had no doubt the command
had taken deep root in her.  "Fuck me and make me your bitch for real. 
Please.  I need it, Clay."

   "Roll over," he said.  She rolled over and knelt on the chaise.  Its
slight downward slant at the end left her just the right height for him to
enter from behind.  Clay stepped forward and smacked her hard on the ass.

   "OW!" she cried.  "Please, just fuck me, Clay."

   "You can't lie, baby.  Do you like getting spanked?"

   "No."

   "Good," he said.  He whacked her three more times.  Then he reached
around and began to stroke her pussy.  Melanie pressed down on his hand,
trying to get it inside her.  It made Clay have to support some of her
weight, and it made it harder for him to control his hand.  He smacked her
again.  She hiked her ass back up and gave him free access.  He could feel
it then, the slight bit of fear in her.  She wasn't in control of the
situation anymore.  "Having trouble?" he asked.

   "I just want you to fuck me, and you won't do it," she whimpered.

   "Poor baby.  Wonder if you've ever made anyone else feel that way?" He
smacked her again.

   "Oh shit!" she whispered.

   "What?" he asked.  He could tell that she was struggling not to answer.
"I asked you a question.  Why did you just say, oh shit?"

   "I-I kind of liked it that time.  God, you are so powerful, and it turns
me on."

   "Good bitch, roll over and lie on your back." She did as she was
ordered, opening her legs to try and tempt him in.  Hell, he hadn't even
opened up his slacks yet.  She reached up for his belt.  Clay pushed her
back onto the chaise.  He smacked her across her right tit.  "When I say!"
he barked.

   "Yes, Clay," she whispered.  She was starting to cry a little bit, but
more from frustration than the stinging in her breast.  Somehow this had
all turned around on her.  When he simply stood and looked down at her with
a little smile on his face, she broke down completely.  "Please, Clay. 
Just do it," she sobbed.

   Clay hadn't really thought he would ever see her fall to pieces like
this.  He wasn't even sure what he had been going to do with her when he
had first dragged her away from her friends.  He couldn't lie to himself
enough to pretend that he wouldn't have done something sexual with her. 
He'd been so angry at her for the way she was, and he had been so
incredibly turned on by her gorgeous face and fantastic body.  He knew
there was no way he was going to have left this room without at least
getting a blowjob.  But he also figured it wouldn't have been like this in
the end.  He would have made her want to do it and then left her wondering
why she had suddenly become so turned on by a thirteen-year-old.  Somehow,
it had ended up being this.

   Clayton controlled his breathing and tried to calm his dark desires.  He
utterly failed.  There was too much anger and frustration inside of him,
and it was all wrapped up in a combination of lust and opportunity.  Hell,
she had agreed to be his bitch without him making her.  She was just a
little too dumb to realize what the deal she'd proposed would really mean.
Clayton told himself it wasn't his fault she had been so stupid in her
greedy attempts to try and exploit his powers.

   He reached down and twisted her left nipple, hard.  She groaned and
arched her hips up.  She was confused, that much he could read.  She had
figured that she would have him banging her pretty hard and talking some
shit, but she had been willing to weather that in exchange for what he
could give her.  Now, he was doing things she hadn't really known a boy
would want to do to a pretty girl like her.  But what had her confused were
her own reactions.  She hated it, and it turned her on at the same time. 
She felt his hand close on her throat as he tilted her face up toward his.
She felt her breath quicken as she imagined his eyes actually flashed with
power.  "Suck my cock, bitch," he snarled.

   Melanie started to slide down off the chaise, but he took her by the
hair and sat her up on it, pressing her head to the backrest.  He stood on
the seat right between her legs and opened his belt and slacks.  Then he
grabbed her hair again and led her mouth to his hard-on.  He let her wrap
her warm mouth around it and then began to fuck her face.  He had seen this
kind of treatment in porn videos, but he had never treated Becky anything
like this.  He rammed his cock all the way into Melanie's mouth, causing a
gurgling, wretching sound from her.  But she was somehow learning how to
take it.  It wasn't impossible.  He was only thirteen.  It wasn't quite
like he was one of the hung studs gagging porn stars in the videos.  Still,
Melanie had to struggle to take the bit of it that found its way down into
her throat.  He would let her off him to catch her breath, but then he'd
ram his way into her throat again.  "That feels good, whore," he said. 
"Now work it with your tongue until I'm gonna cum.  Then it's going back
deep until I drain it all into your throat."

   She pulled off for a second.  "Will you fuck me then?"

   "I just might.  If you make me happy."

   That set Melanie to work on him.  He was letting her do the work now,
and she liked that.  The face-fucking he'd been giving her was kind of a
scary thrill, but she was on familiar ground now.  She had done this enough
times to know how to do it pretty well.  Melanie felt a little confidence
returning.  She could get him to fuck her.

   Clayton realized Melanie had some skill at this.  Still, over the past
year of almost daily sessions with Clay, sweet little Becky had actually
become even better at this type of blowjob.  She did it with desire, but
also with love and playfulness and a genuine desire to see Clayton happy.
With Melanie it was an act of greed.  Clayton could sense that.  She gave
boys pleasure so that she could control them.  Even now that was part of
what she was attempting to do.  She was going to please him so that she
could finally get some relief from the unbearable longing in her pussy. 
Greedy or not, as good as Becky or not, the way she did it was plenty good
enough for Clayton on this day.  She had skills even if she lacked the love
Becky had shown.  Clayton was finding a new joy in this kind of raunchy
play.  There was something...freeing, yes that was it, freeing...  in
taking a girl he wasn't at all fond of.  He just didn't care what she felt.

   Melanie's filthy attempts at pleasing him proved very successful.  He
could tell that she was still torn over whether or not she liked the shift
in power in the relationship.  But he also knew he wasn't feeling a bit of
shame from her.  Everything she did was an attempt to get something she
wanted, and she had no reservations about how far she would go if she
wanted it badly enough.  She had never wanted anything like she now wanted
Clayton to fuck her.  Besides, there was a part of her that liked this as
much as other parts hated it.  He represented power to her.  Melanie craved
power.

   When Clay knew she had taken him past the point of no return, he drove
himself deep into her mouth again.  She squealed, not being quite prepared
for the suddenness of the thrust.  But her throat had already learned how
to do this.  She just grabbed tightly to his thighs and dug her nails into
him as he began to empty his load into her.  She even managed to convince
her windpipe that it was time to drink and not time to breathe.  She took
every last drop.

   When Clayton pulled her head off of him, Melanie gasped and took in a
huge gulp of air and then another.  Just as she seemed to be about to catch
her breath, the hiccups kicked in.  Clayton chuckled.  As she fought to
regain control, he took his wet cock and traced little designs on her
breasts.  She shuddered a bit at the warm, soft touch.  But she couldn't
shake the damned hiccups.  Clayton rolled her over to all fours again.  He
flipped her skirt back up.  He thought a hard smack or two on the ass might
have the same effect as a big scare and cure her of her problem.  It didn't
work.  She moaned, but she didn't stop with the hiccuping.  He pondered it
for a few seconds.  She had been expecting the smacks.  He grinned
devilishly and then stuck his finger deep up inside her asshole.  She made
a little barking noise and then groaned as she tried to make her body
adjust to the invader.  It took her several seconds, but when she managed
to get her body to accept the violation she found her hiccups had stopped.
"New home remedy," he said and chuckled.

   Melanie's reaction surprised him a little.  She giggled.  He laughed
again in response, and she giggled some more.  "That was kind of awesome,"
she said at last.  "Hurt at first, though," she added.

   "How you doing with the stuff that hurts?"

   "I don't know," she said.  He knew she couldn't lie to him.  He just
waited her out.  "Sometimes it's like awful, and sometimes it's kind of a
thrill.  It scares me."

   "Well, I was just curious," he said.  "Not like I'm going to stop either
way."

   "I know," she said.  "Clay, please fuck me." She had used the words
before, but this time there was something different.  She was, more or
less, asking nicely.

   "One thing first," he said quietly.  He leaned in and kissed her gently
on the lips.  Then he guided her to her back.  He leaned in close and
kissed her sweetly again.  "You are so beautiful," he whispered.  "And when
you laughed right now, it made me feel kind of happy.  It almost made me
forget what a horrible, manipulative slut you really are, Melanie." He spat
in her face.  Without another word, he positioned himself between her legs
and started pounding her mercilessly.

   "I hate you so much!  Fuck me!" she cried.  "God, I needed it so bad!"
she said in a half-choked sob.  Clay pushed an idea into her head.  He had
sometimes tweaked out his sex with Becky by pushing feelings of pleasure
into her.  She deserved to feel as good as she made him feel.  With
Melanie, Clay pushed it further.  He made her think that whatever he did
was the ultimate in pleasure.  He pushed it so hard that she became a
helpless thing, wrapped up completely in the thrills of his lovemaking.  It
went beyond pleasure to wildness.  Melanie became a creature of pure lust.
She couldn't form words.  She snarled and barked and wept like some kind of
feral child.  Her nails dug into his back, and she slammed her pelvis into
his as hard as he was pounding into her.

   Melanie's arms swung wildly about unless she was clutching and clawing
at him.  And all the things that Clay pushed into her brain found their way
to her pussy, too.  She became ridiculously hot and wet, and she came about
thirty seconds after he pushed into her brain.  The she came about once
every minute after that.  Clay had already cum once, and he was lasting
longer the second time around.  Still being a thirteen-year-old in a wild
romp like this, he only lasted about five minutes.  Her wet, hot box
constantly clutching at him as she whimpered and snarled beneath him was
too much for even a boy who had been getting it almost daily for a year to
hold back against for long.

   Clay rose up and clutched her around the throat as he emptied himself
into her.  It triggered her sixth orgasm in a very short period of time. 
It was one too many, okay, maybe three too many.  It played havoc with her
nervous system.  Clayton pulled out and stood up as he watched her thrash
and convulse on the chaise.  He had never come anywhere close to taking
Becky this far.  It was a little dangerous, and he never would have put his
love in peril.  But he truthfully kind of hated Melanie.  He just watched
in fascination as her mind tried to regain some kind of control over her
body.  He hated to admit it to himself, but her distress kind of turned him
on.  She was so fucking helpless, so utterly defeated.  And he hadn't even
really been trying very hard.

   Still, he figured he'd spent a long enough time back in the storeroom,
and they had been plenty loud.  "You are calming down, bitch," he said. 
"The craving is gone.  Your breathing is slowing.  Your arms and legs are
slowing down.  Good little whore, take it easy."

   Melanie stopped thrashing about.  She slowed to a normal rate of breath.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at Clayton.  She reached her hand up
toward him.  He took her by the hand and then pulled her onto the floor at
the foot of the chaise.  He pulled up his pants and then sat on the foot as
he looked down at her.  She stared at him with anxious eyes.  "What now?"
she asked.

   "Now, you're my girlfriend in public, just like you asked.  You're
perpetually horny for me, just not in as extreme a way unless we're alone.
But that desire for me, worship almost, will always be there in your eyes
so everyone can see it."

   "Yes, Clay."

   "And I will help you when the mood strikes me.  You'll get plenty out of
this, Melanie."

   "Thank you."

   "Just remember that you and I are going to be exactly what you asked for
us to be.  We're a partnership based on mutual self-interest.  I don't like
you."

   "I--I kind of like you, Clay.  I hate you, too."

   "You like me for all the wrong reasons, Melanie.  You probably hate me
for the right ones, though.  All this shit about my power is a complete
secret, of course.  All you'll tell your friends is that I finally figured
out that you really liked me, and we got together.  Get dressed."

   Melanie straightened out her clothes.  That didn't really take very
long. Her hair and make-up was another matter, but there was a full-length
dressing mirror in the storeroom.  She managed to end up looking pretty
much the same as she had before.  He walked her out of the storage area and
made her give him a ride home in the Mustang.  He got out of the car and
turned to go without even thanking her.  "You're supposed to be my
boyfriend now," she whispered.  He leaned back in and gave her a kiss.  "I
don't regret anything," she said.

   "I regret that I didn't fuck you up the ass today, but in the condition
you were in, I was afraid it might give you brain damage."

   "Great mean joke in there somewhere," she said and pulled away.

   + + + NOVEMBER, 2000 There did turn out to be benefits to having a
sophomore girlfriend.  Melanie's friends initially thought it was weird
that she would ever dream of going out with a seventh grade boy, but it
didn't take them long to start to "get it." Clay used what he considered to
be his "silent powers." He had toned them down around the other middle
school kids.  They liked him enough as it was.  But with the popular high
school jock and rich kid crowd Melanie was exposing him to Clay needed to
make some sort of a strong positive impression.  After a couple parties
with them, he pretty much had them in his back pocket.  He wasn't
controlling them per se, but he was influencing how they saw him.  Older
kids had always kind of liked him anyway, but in the "he's a cool kid" kind
of way, not in the "I want to hang out with him" kind of way.  For Clay,
that was an easy fix.

   And as Clay's star rose, so too did Melanie's.  She went from popular
girl to queen bee in the matter of about two weeks.  Even the senior girls
began to defer to her.  Clay played the boyfriend role pretty well, too. 
He was getting plenty of fucking from Melanie, and he was getting it in a
way that suited him just fine.  He was an angry adolescent with a rich
bitch high school sex slave he could abuse at his leisure.  As the first
couple weeks with Melanie stretched out into the first couple months with
Melanie, he began to think maybe she had been right about things all along.
Power over people was satisfying enough.  Who needed sappy bullshit like
love?  Love had ended up breaking his heart.  That was something he didn't
need anymore.

   It was around that time that he had his first experience with what he
would later come to call a "Soul Flash." He stepped in front of his mirror
one day, and for just a few seconds, he saw not his exterior, but his
interior.  The left third of his face looked the same as always, but the
other two-thirds looked like Melanie.  He didn't know what it meant at
first, but as he rode silently in the passenger seat of the Mustang on the
way to school, he pieced it together.  In their little game of who was in
control of whom, Melanie was now winning.  With each passing day he was
becoming more and more like her.

   For a minute, he thought about breaking up with her.  But then she
reached over and unzipped his fly.  She began stroking him off as she
drove. His crisis of conscience began to fade.  When she pulled off into a
strip mall parking lot and finished him off with her mouth so that he
didn't get any cum on his pants, the crisis vanished altogether.  He
decided not to change a thing.

   The parking lot was abandoned that early in the morning.  None of the
stores there opened until nine or ten.  But their little session did not go
unmarked.  It was hard to see the figure perched atop the building across
the street.  The person was actually rather small, and she wasn't dressed
in her most recognizable outfit.  Other college girls might go for a little
run before classes, but Dinah Rosen needed more than that.  She needed to
scale walls and leap from building to building in order to challenge her
body.  During her workouts, she wore a rather drab-looking hoody and big
sunglasses.  But the sunglasses didn't obscure her extraordinary vision and
keen hearing.  Even from fifty yards away, and with the convertible's roof
up and windows closed, she could pick out Clay's voice over the traffic. 
"That's right.  Suck my cock, little whore.  Swallow it all like a good
bitch."

   Dinah's vision did get blurred, then.  Tears had begun to form.  Dinah
was the toughest of girls, and when the job called for it, she could even
be emotionally distant.  But tenderness was her true nature, and she had
really rather liked Clayton Teller.  As a little girl, tears had caused her
shame, but she had outgrown that now.  In moments of solitude, she was no
longer afraid to let her emotions run freely.  Somehow it helped her keep
control when she had to be calm, cool Dynamo.

   And seeing Clayton Teller behave like this upset Dinah.  She had
secretly hoped to have him as a partner someday.  But now she saw him as
nothing but a greedy little bastard using his abilities to get some poor
high school girl to be his sex slave.  As crimes went, she wasn't even sure
it was a crime.  This was a whole new area.  She didn't even know if the
girl was in need of her protection.  Maybe she liked it like that.

   But she knew she couldn't just let it keep happening.  Clay was heading
down a road that Dinah couldn't allow him to travel.  It was a waste of a
great talent, and it was dangerous to everyone in Lake City.  If Mindwalker
became what he seemed to be changing into, he could become the one
supervillain against whom the law and Dynamo wouldn't stand a chance.  Not
even a little one.