I wrote the first three chapters of this story about five years ago, after a
friend showed me an mind control story site on the web. The genre intrigued me,
and I was curious to see if I could write that type of story. I adapted a short
story I had just started at the time (a series of stories of first-times that I
refer to as my "Helen Stories"), and modified it to add the MC "plot device,"
resulting in the first chapter. I then wrote two additional chapters within a
few days, and then forgot about it as I started other projects. I stumbled upon
this story in mid-2002, and posted it online in an effort to release some of my
"completed" stories, with a note at the front that the story wasn’t complete
but the chapters should stand alone.
In the year since I posted this story, I have received a lot of positive
feedback from readers about it. Since I was having a writer’s block with
another story that I have in progress, I decided to write another "episode" for
this one (chapter four), which happened to introduce some additional
characters. Having gotten back into the spirit of the story, I quickly came up
with an outline, and now the chapters have direction. The newer chapters have
altered the story from its original "mainstream" MC-style story into something
that more or less fits the style that I have evolved within the genre over the
years.
It was late summer 1974 when I and my friend Jack were coming home from playing
Frisbee in the park.
Jack had recently read a book about the sport and was teaching me some of the
new throws that he was learning. It was slow going, and we mostly ended up
throwing our saucer to the ground. After a few hours, we actually got better at
some of the easier throws.
We needed to be home by 6:30. We picked up our saucer and threw away the empty
bottles of Coke that we had drank during the afternoon.
During the day, I had seen a couple of girls watching us throw the saucer to
each other. Although they were watching us, they didn’t come very close. I had
wondered if Jack had noticed them.
"Did you notice those two chicks giving us the eye a couple of hours ago?" I
asked Jack.
"Yeah. I thought the taller one was cute. I was about to go over and say Hi
when they left."
I smiled to myself. Jack would never get up the courage to talk to a girl. He
was just "talking big" like fifteen year old boys tended to do when we were
together.
"Yeah. I liked the smaller one. Nice set of jugs on her," I said. Actually, the
girl had been far enough away that I couldn’t actually get a good view of her
looks from where I was. But it was part of the roles that the two of us had to
play… we had to appear to be "men of the world" to each other.
"Yeah. She had nice hooters," Jack agreed. "But the tall one looked like she
could suck-start a Harley through the exhaust pipe."
Our conversation continued in much the same intellectual vein. We were cutting
through an empty lot near the corner on the block where I lived when I kicked
something.
"What the fuck?" I said, startled.
Jack looked over to me, giving me a puzzled expression.
My foot had hit something, which had kicked a few feet in front of me. I looked
at the weeds in front of me until I spied what I had almost tripped over.
It was a roll of purple tickets.
I picked up the roll, looking at them. They looked like the kind of tickets
you’d find at a carnival in order to go on one of the rides. Each one was
numbered. They all read "LUCKY TICKETS."
"What’s that?" Jack asked.
"A roll of lucky tickets," I answered.
"Lucky as in how?"
"Beats me," I admitted.
We both looked at them. On the other side of the tickets were your standard
ticket disclaimers.
"Looks like a fresh roll. Look… the numbers start at one!"
The first ticket on the roll had the number "000000000001" on it.
"Cool. I wonder who dropped this here?"
"Dunno. Finders Keepers, though. It’s mine now."
"Whatever," Jack said. His interest in the roll was diminishing.
"Might be good for tickets to a show," I thought.
"Don’t look like theater tickets," Jack said. "And I haven’t heard of no
carnival coming through here anytime soon."
"I mean, we can put on a show and invite people. You know, singing along with
the record player…"
"That’s for kids and dorks," Jack said.
"Yeah," I agreed. I was starting to catch Jack’s non-enthusiasm for the
tickets. "But I think I’ll keep them just in case."
"Whatever," Jack said.
We started off back towards my house. My mom was in the front yard, getting
something from the car. I jogged toward her, leaving Jack behind.
"Hi, Mom. Need a hand?" I asked.
"Oh, hi, Jim," my mother answered. "No thanks. Just needed to get a map from
the car,
I shrugged and turned back towards Jack. I waved good-bye to him and walked
with my mother back into the house.
"Supper is in twenty minutes," Mom said. "Make sure you’re cleaned up."
"Sure, Mom."
I went to my bedroom. On the way, my step-sister Meredith was just leaving the
bathroom.
"Hiya, Jim. How was the park?" she asked.
"Had a great time, Merry. I’m getting better with the Frisbee," I reported.
"Maybe next time, you’ll take me," she said, half pouting.
That wasn’t going to be possible. For some reason, Jack seemed to hate my
younger sister. For a girl, she wasn’t really bad. I’d known her about five
years, since my mother remarried. She was a couple of years my junior, but was
alright as far as I was concerned.
I simply shrugged and smiled at her, and continued toward my room.
"Whatcha got?" Merry asked, looking at my tickets.
"Found a roll of tickets in the lot on the corner," I told her, still walking
away.
"Let me see!" she said, running after me.
"Oh. Sure. Why not?"
She followed me into my room. She ran past me and jumped onto my bed, landing
cross-legged, Indian style.
I laughed as I watched her youthful exuberance. She was only thirteen (fourteen
in just a month, she’d been reminding me!).
"Let me see!" Merry demanded.
I showed her the roll, and it fascinated her. "Oooh. Just like the theater.
Think they’ll work there?"
"Nah," I said. "The ones at the movies have the name of the theater on it.
These just say lucky ticket."
She oohed and ahhed as she looked at the purple roll.