Pheremone powers are a pain in the ass. I know, I know, what women wouldn’t want the ability to turn any man into mush, obsessed with pleasing her, willing to die for so much as a glance or the lightest feathery touch. Unless, unless, you found out that you couldn’t turn it off.

I sighed heavily as I stared out the glass window as I looked over the scenic New York skyline. I gave the doorman his customary peck on the cheek as I passed, the same for the cheauffur as held open the door to the stretch limo. Why couldn’t I have been born normal. Is that so much to ask? Maybe brown haired with a modest bosom and a penchant for crosswords. I could have read books, starting with ones about a vampire school in the Midwest and eventually started reading classics with men who chase giant phallic symbols… I mean whales with other phallic symbols to throw at them and long really boring chapters about the history of New England coastal towns and actually enjoy them.

That would have been a life I thought to myself as I sipped the room temperature champagne.

“Why isn’t this properly chilled” I demanded. I hate the taste of warm champagne. “It’s like drinking piss. Do you want to drink piss? Would you like to drink my piss Fred?”

“I’d be honored ma’am. May I?”

“No” I said coldly.

His face fell, no that’s not true. It crumbled.

“Fine” I said sighing.

“When?” he asked eagerly.

“Soon” I said and his face glowed. Such a small thing to make a man happy. I was really ridiculously generous of spirit. Why couldn’t I meet a man who appreciated me for that, rather than one who worshipped me for the chemical rush of my bodily fluids and scent. Which eventually turned to addiction. And addiction led with the inevitability of the tides and rising gas prices to slavery.

It hadn’t always been this way. Before I hit puberty I was just another incredibly beautiful teenage popstar working for the tyranny of the mouse, keeping squeaky clean while exuding carefully modulated sex appeal. Then one of the ‘imagineers’ got an idea to increase profits. Did I get a choice? No, because I was a minor and my parents, blinded by the thoughts of yet more millions signed the consent forms. And so with perfect legality, (well questionable legality as stem cell research and genetic mutation wasn’t legal in the U.S. but were state endorsed in Sino Disney) I was held down by large burly medical assistants and given injections of retroviri that made their way through my system.

Afterwards I couldn’t sing worth a damn but it wasn’t like I could before. But if a man, (or a woman if she was at all bicurious) caught a whiff of my scent, he’d find he couldn’t stop thinking of me for days afterwards. And one little kiss, he’d fall in love with me. Mostly knight errantly type love, devoting himself to making me happy, but some got scary possessive. Like my dad.

Do you know that most kidnappings of a minor are by a parent?

I eventually gained greater control, I could tone it down (though never quite stop the effects) or I could ramp it up enough to leave a man in stoned out bliss from one kiss. So stoned he wouldn’t even move or scream even if I castrated him with a gerber pocket knife he gave me for my 12th birthday.

I’m just saying.

My main residence was in the outskirts of Chicago, cold air was better for preventing the careless spread of my scent. Also less insects. For some reason they tended to flock around me. In a different world I might have become Queen Bee the superheroine wielding swarms of killer bees to punish wrongdoing, in this world I just tended to accumulate three or four bees napping contentedly in my hair if I wasn’t careful.

But I’d come to New York for an audition, to play Medea in a classic in Central Park production. A true test of my acting ability, which I needed from time to time, as I could get any part I wanted these days. While the driver weaved through New York traffic I peed carefully into two champagne glasses, a skill I’d acquired over the past few years and offered one glass to the driver and one to my bodyguard of the moment. I swear to god they both breathed over the glass sampling the bouquet for chrisssakes before sipping happily.

I’m not a freak. I don’t get off on giving golden showers. I discovered the addictive properties when I found a certain former imagineer grinning blissfully after cleaning my bathroom with his tongue as I’d carefully instructed him to do. It had been meant as a punishment. He didn’t even feel it when I’d stamped his outstretched hand with my stiletto heel. Clearly I’d need some new punishments for him. So I had him confined to the basement of one of the buildings I own with no access to my scent whatsoever. Luckily that basement had already been soundproofed. The first week of his screaming had been eerily heartrending.

I smiled fondly as I skimmed my pocket Euripides while my bodyguard knealt between my legs to give me my pre audition orgasm. It did wonders to keep me from tensing up.

What I needed was a man. I know, the feminists say “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Well that’s bullshit. We’re wired that way. People need companionship. A relationship between equals. Not a slave crouching between her knees, regardless of how talented and well trained his tongue happened to be.

I felt myself go and it was very, very nice so I very, very lightly brushed my nails down the side of his face and down his neck to the shoulder blade. His eyes rolled back and he howled as a powerful orgasm rocked his body.

Did I have to do that? No but I make that extra effort for the people in my life, even the unimportant ones who’s job was to take a bullet for me. It’s hard being such a giver but we all have our crosses to bear.

I got out of the limo and two new guards flanked me wearing the customary dark suits and dark glasses. It was very important to have a team of security at all times, like I said a few men reacted very very darkly to the power of my scent and using my kiss to render them senseless was not an option in public, or at gunpoint. I’m not exaggerating both had happened. So I had security at all times. And sometimes I even paid for it.

* * *

I breezed past the secretart telling me “You can’t go in there” and walked into the audition room. It was just the director, John Lingstrom, a man in his late twenties and a rising star in the theatre world. Supposedly straight, definitely cute in slacks and an open collared shirt. Fine, he was wearing a beret, but apparently ironically.

“Princess” he said “we’ve been waiting on you. Glad you could make it.”

“My name isn’t Princess…”

“When you spend your life peddling princess chic, guess what, your name is Princess.”

“You know you’re cute when you’re being a dick.”

“And you use cute to cover up a complete inability to act. Or sing. Or be a decent human being.”

“I can act. And you have no idea what kind of human being I am.”

“I’m just making an informed hypothesis. But as to whether you can act, that’s what we’re here to determine. Impress me.”

“I once got a man to crawl over broken glass just to kiss my feet.”

“Impress me with your acting.”

“Don’t you think I’m a little young for this part. Medea is a twice married woman.”

“When girls were often married at 12 years old. And most people only lived to be 30.”

“That’s not true you know.”

“Girls weren’t married off at puberty?”

“No about living to be 30. The average life span was 30 but that’s more because of the high rate of infant mortality. If you lived past 2 you had as much chance of making it to 50 as we do now.”

“Well I’ll be, there’s a brain behind that vacant blond exterior.”

“And I just met a director capable of admitting he’s wrong. I can die now.”

“I’m still waiting to be impressed.”

“Said everyone of your boyfriends after sex.”

“I’m straight.”

“Said every gay director since ever.”

“Are we going to kiss.”

“You couldn’t handle it” I said honestly. I don’t know why I was flirting. The whole reason I was doing this was I wanted to actually act and not just do television shtick. I didn’t want to get by on hotness and pheromone powers. And I liked his wit and snarkiness, I didn’t want him to be adoring and fawning. Yet the temptation to stop tamping down my powers and let my pheromones drift and tease his nose til he was begging to kiss me and make me happy, just thinking about it and I felt my nipples tighten.

The problem was he was a challenge. It was the same impulse that made me wish my powers were stronger so I could take on a metahuman hero like Avalanche, or even a villain like Poison or the Crisis. I didn’t even realize I was biting my lower lip in arousal.

“You can cut the porn star act…”

“Sorry, drifted there a bit. Happens in the midst of a really boring conversation sometimes.”

“Hah, I can tell when a woman is fantasizing about me.”

“You can detect something that’s never happened? Wow that is impressive.”

“Enough foreplay. Give me your best…The audition. Go.”

So I did. I gave the scene my best.

He greeted it with a slow ironic clap. “Very nice. If I was casting a teenage angstfest like Twilight or the Hunger Games. I don’t want an 18 year old pining for a lover that threw her over. “

“Actually you do, if we’re talking about a woman first married at 12.”

“Fine. But a woman kidnapped against her will, plotting revenge, not an angsty blog post.”

So I did it again, touching my inner core of rage, rage against all the men in my life who’d twisted it to their own ends before I had the power to defend myself. I threw all that repressed anger into the part. I lost myself in the rich language of Euripides. I forgot there was someone else in the room til his clapping brought me out and I realized the scene was over. I glared at him til I realized it wasn’t a slow ironic clap but genuine praise.

“Very nice, very very nice. If you can do that for the entire play you not only have the part, you’re going to bring down the house.”

My face flushed, tho more with sexual heat than embarrassment. I’m used to praise. I’m not used to keeping my powers and excitement tamped down. I wanted badly to let myself go moist, feel hot and wet between my legs, discreetly place my hand between my pussy lips, touch my neck, in between my breasts, give him a hug goodbye and know he would instantly crave me, need my attention, worship me. It would be sooooo easy. I was biting my lower lip again, not to look sexy (though you better believe I did) but to hold myself in check, the pain distracting me from my arousal.

“Are you okay?”

“Just tapped into some stuff there, can we call it a day?” (I faked some glistening in my eyes, I am an actress after all)

“Sure. See you tomorrow to start rehearsals?”

“Sure, bright and squirrely.”

He seemed surprised I didn’t do the traditional Hollywood kiss, kiss on the way out. But I was trying so very hard to keep some distance between him so I wouldn’t see his eyes glaze over with lust, put my hand behind his head, guide it to my nipple, lower his tongue working between my legs, …

I couldn’t get out the door fast enough.

Once flanked again by my security, eclipsed by black suited muscle I allowed my fingers to plunge between my legs, finding that sweet spot, stroking it, making myself cum. This time I bit my lip to keep from crying out, keep from screaming my release, as I kept touching, orgasming again as I imagined him powerless, helpless, eyes empty except the need to please me.

My power needed out, needed release even more than my body had.

* * *

A middling NYC eatery on 42nd street I approached the bar.

“Give me a Mandy Moore and make it a double” I said to the bartender.

“What the hell is a Mandy Moore?” he asked.

“It’s grenadine, 7up and a whole lot of Baccardi. Looks innocent but is really slutty as hell.”

The guy smiled and started making the drink.

“Got ID?” he asked bringing over the Mandy Moore.

“Sure” I said confidently. “And a tip” I beckoned him closer with my finger.

He leaned in. I continued beckoning.

He leaned further. “Where’s the ID” he said getting more serious.

I snaked my hand behind his head and planted a very movie star kiss, deep and thorough, and he responded, his tongue touching mine, gently, than roughly.

I had to pull his hair a bit to make him break the kiss.

“You don’t need to see my ID, do you?” I pouted at him.

“Guess not” he agreed, a little bit of drool dripping down his lip.

I wiped it away with my finger, letting it linger on his lips so he could suck the tip, played with his lips then gently pushed him away with my finger. He went, turned on and slightly blissed out. He’d have a good day at work and a very fond memory of a pop star kiss for the rest of his life. No permanent harm done. It didn’t satisfy me or my power at all. I scanned the place for my next victims.