You might call this an interesting coincidence. Or you might not. But I found this website, mcstories.com and while looking through it found myself mentioned in one of the stories. It was about a guy named Joe and how he found and lost in love to his bewitching high school mistress named Tracy. The story was You Will Be Mine by Prom and posted by some character Dou7gx, probably a pseudonym. Anyway, the hero of the story, or at least the protagonist gets some amazing advice from a brilliant young friend. I of course, was he. The brilliant young friend I mean.

Now the author, lazy piece of trash that he is didn’t even bother to change my name. Just left in there as Steve. Now I come off as a bit of a sidekick in this story, and that’s okay as I was certainly tangent to that particular episode of my friend’s life. And we’ve subsequently drifted out of touch with him joining the military and all that. And I suppose by now you’re wondering when I’m going to get to that interesting coincidence. Well now’s as good a time as any.

You see after I’d graduated from high school I had my own brush with mind control, or erotic hypnosis or whatever you’d want to call it. But first I want to fill in and give some context. See we all have different fetishes and they’re a greater or lesser preoccupation of our mind. Me, I’ve always been more interested in straightforward sex. Like in the Wildcards series by George R. Martin, or at least edited by there’s a girl Peregrine. And she’s got wings and she’s gorgeous. That’s enough for me. But Joe, if the girl didn’t have some sort of evil agenda/seduction motif his eyes would glaze over.

So after Joe graduated chess practices became a little more on the routine, but that was okay. I was a senior and #1 board on the team. I spent a lot of time teaching the other kids how to get better, they were younger than me which made them kids in my mind. I was also applying to colleges as an engineering major which kind I wasn’t exactly sure but I was leaning towards aerospace. So I was busy, which kind of explains how I’d failed to notice prom creeping up. But one day at practice Mr. Kern asks me if I’d bought my tickets yet. So I said yeah, me and my family were flying out to visit Harvey Mudd college next weekend. So Mr. Kern cuffed me on the back of the head.

“No, for prom. You’re the only senior on the team so I was hoping you’d set an example that all chess players don’t have to be social outcasts.”

“But Mr K. I am a social outcast. I’m a geek, I have glasses and the girls don’t feel the love.”

He stopped to mull that over. “This will require some consideration.” He intoned.

But this got me to thinking. Joe had ended up going to prom with some psycho girl who pulled some mental bullshit on him and that was fine if you like that kind of thing. But could I find some girl more in line with my ideal? I wasn’t looking for a cheerleader or a popular girl, just a nice one who was pretty and I could talk to? It seemed reasonable to me. It hadn’t happened yet, but it was coming up on prom and stranger things had happened. Hadn’t I just seen “Can’t buy me Love” where the geek gets the girl? So in a fit of blind optimism I asked my parents for money to buy two tickets to the prom. And rather than blowing this money on a telescope which could be useful in someway and something I might actually get some enjoyment out of I actually bought prom tickets with it. Stupid, yes, but on the other hand it was my parents money. They were actually excited that I might go to prom. I didn’t tell them I didn’t have a date as yet. It would have given rise to questions awkward to answer. I just played it mysterious and they let it drop. For now.

It was about this time that a girl, Annette started coming by the chess club meetings. This wasn’t completely unheard of, once every few months a girl would stop by to play some games. By and large they weren’t any good and weren’t interested in studying or practicing. However this girl wasn’t horrible and came back for a second meeting. Now the idea of a girl who just happened to play chess, just starting to come around right when I needed a prom date sounds contrived even to me. Nor did it strike me as less than convenient then. In fact I detected the hand of Kern.

“Mr. K” I said when I confronted him “are you trying to maneuver me into asking Annette to prom?”

“Steve, I am shocked, shocked you’d ask me this? Have I ever tried to manipulate you?”

“Well, you tried calling out of state schools saying they shouldn’t accept me so I’d be around to help you run the club next year. Does that count?”

“That was just being a good coach. They didn’t listen anyway. Besides didn’t I look the other way when you Showgirls’d your way to top board?”

He was referring to the little accident I arranged for the previous Top Board. Our Chess team last year had a few Goodfella’s elements to it.

“Well yeah, you did. But this does seem a little convenient…”

“Don’t worry about. She likes chess and if something happens, something happens. Fuggedaboutit.”

Later on I worked it all out. But at that time I was completely in the dark. But from talking to Annette I found out she’d been in the environmental club, and the drama club and your basic club nerd. Then, as sometimes happened she’d developed. With her new assets she’d suddenly become very popular. And she’d found it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Being popular just meant a lot of boys higher on the social hierarchy were suddenly taking her out and were reluctant to take no for an answer.

“Don’t get me wrong” they’re nice enough, just a little forward. And I wasn’t raped, or even molested. I just didn’t like being grabbed or pawed and unable to have an interesting dialogue about anything other than where they were going to get drunk next. Or stoned. So I stopped going out with them. So I’m looking for a new hobby. Or a return to an old one.”

This made sense to me and I commiserated. I was never popular but in a certain class all the cute girls were very friendly and asked me to tutor them. I was invited over and they were very flirtatious. But all they wanted was for me to do the work for them and it was all tease and no show. So I stopped playing their game. And they stopped talking to me. We were all happier I guess. At least I was when I saw all the red ink on their next test. They were planning on having their dads by their way into college anyway.

I actually started charging for tutoring and made a little side money that way. But only on days when we didn’t have chess practice. It kept me in Sci-fi novels but it wasn’t enough to cover prom tickets or anything extravagant.

But I was talking to Annette. I knew what it was like to be used by the “cool people” so I understood how she felt. I took her under my wing and she actually got better. Soon she was third board. I was reluctant to blow everything by asking her out. And she was very pretty and I was a little intimidated. I think that’s understandable.

But as the deadline got closer, prom was only 2 weeks away and my family was getting more insistent on knowing who I was going with. And anyone I asked would need at least 2 weeks to get ready, buy a dress, find shoes to go with the dress, a purse to go with the shoes, not be able to find a purse, bring back the shoes and dress and start over again. Or so I assumed from the conversation I couldn’t help overhear from the girls in class.

So I tried to ask her out. I really did. But I froze up. I talked about the weather. I even talked about sports. It was embarrassing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. K shrug his shoulders and turn his eyes to the heavens as if to ask me “That’s right, give me a social incompetent for #1 board” which actually didn’t seem to me that unreasonable, if you took chess skill as a function of social incompetency…Ack! Far too much pre-calculus on the brain.

So no, I didn’t ask her.

But the next day of practice she sat opposite me in a scoop neck red peasant blouse. I think that’s what their called anyway, I don’t actually know a lot about girls fashions. I haven’t mentioned that she had a pretty face, she didn’t wear glasses but her eyes looked pretty anyway. She had mousy brown hair which she kept bobbed short. She wasn’t beautiful. But she had a great figure and it was really hard to keep from staring down her shirt.

We started playing a game and she commented that I seemed nervous. I of course was and had been yesterday as well. I’d just about given up, but not completely. I was trying to force myself to ask her to the prom when she suggested I just relax. Now you can see where this is going. But for a second put yourself in the shoes I wore then, barely 17, awash in hormones, nervous about asking a girl out for the first time in your life. Never been kissed, and spending time with a hot 17 year old girl who shares your favourite hobby and is wearing a shirt that basically begs you to look down her blouse. Do you see where I’m going here? Rational thought was just not happening. Not even for a future engineering genius.

Now I don’t know why, but I liked her voice ordinarily. It was sweet. But now it sounded almost musical. And I found myself relaxing like she suggested. But unfortunately that made it harder to not look down her blouse. And that wasn’t the only thing getting harder. If you get my drift.

“Good, you look a lot less nervous. I know you’ve been stressed with having those prom tickets and no one to go with. Mr. Kern told me about your little impulse purchase.”

Mr. K. I knew he’d had a hand in all this. Strangely I had a hard time getting upset at the moment. It was too easy to be distracted by, well by her basically.

She leaned forward to make a move and my eyes followed her chest down and back like a fish on a hook. She may have smiled but I didn’t see it. I pulled my eyes away to look at the pieces. In some states it’s against the law for a woman to distract a man with her breasts during a chess game. That seems a damn stupid law to me. But maybe when there’s money on the line it’s different. I was trying to concentrate on the position but my eyes made their way back to her chest of their own accord. Maybe she was beautiful I found myself thinking.

She started talking some new age nonsense about how much better I’d feel if I let go of conflict and just relaxed. Usually that kind of nonsense annoys me but from her I didn’t really mind. I tried to do what she said and let go of inert turmoil and just relax. And as I relaxed I stopped worrying about her noticing my staring. She didn’t seem to mind anyway. She leaned forward again to make another move. Had I moved? I’d lost track. But I think my head was even pulled forward when she leaned closer. What was going on?

I couldn’t think straight at all, I felt groggy like I wanted to take a nap, my mind all sleepfuzzed. She kept talking but I could barely hear her. Then she lifted my chin with her hand, when did she get out of her chair I wondered, and I stared wordlessly into her eyes. They were crystal blue, bluer than the skies.

“Sleep” she said. And everything went black.

So what happened behind the scenes was that Annette was a friend of Tracy. And Mr. K and Tracy had apparently kept in touch. She used to drop by back before Joe graduated and her and Mr. K had gotten along. So they set me up. Us up I guess because Annette really had been looking for a new hobby. We got along but she was frustrated at my shyness. So Tracy decided to teach her some new skills. And apparently she enjoyed the thought of having a man completely under her power.

I woke up and looked at Annette. She smiled at me. Said I’d fallen asleep while thinking over a move.

I apologized. Then I looked back at her. I’d never realized just how attractive she was. And it wasn’t just the low cut shirt. It was her face, her lips her eyes.

”Annette will you go to prom with me?”

“I’ll thin about it.” She said. Then she smiled. She walked over to my chair and took my chin in hand. I thought she was going to kiss me but she just looked into my eyes and said “Sleep.” And for a moment everything went black.

Then I woke up and our lips were an inch apart and we kissed. For the record I’m still not a fetishist but one day a few weeks ago I was daydreaming about that game and her low cut shirt and well, that’s how I found the EMCSA. And then Joe’s story. Which is really just a prologue to mine if you look at it right.