The most annoying thing about having dead parents is the questions. Not the rude questions people ask, though there are plenty (for the record: car wreck, no, I wasn’t in the car, 12 years old, live with my uncle now, and I’m fine, don’t worry about it). I don’t believe in fate or some kind of higher power either, so no questions for them. The questions that really frustrate me are the ones I want to ask my parents.

Were they like me?

Could they also hear the thoughts inside peoples’ heads?

Could they reach out and change those thoughts if they tried hard enough?

Most of all... what should I do with an ability like this? How should I live?

If they were around to answer my questions, maybe I wouldn’t have learned about them by testing them on the people around me, seeing who and what and how much I could change. If I’d had limits, I can imagine growing up to be a different kind of person.

But that’s not what happened.

* * *

“Sorry, Professor Blanc, I hope I’m not too late for the meeting,” I say as I walk into her office.

Professor Blanc looks up with a frown, and I can hear the internal thrum of her annoyance. She’s already called me here because of a problem with my essay, now I’m late. Where do I get off?

Don’t blame her for being defensive. I’m sure she gets a lot of backtalk, being only a few years older than the students she teaches, and notably more attractive than most of the other professors. Even though she’s frowning, and her pale skin and red hair aren’t done any favors by her dim yellowed office, she still looks great.

“Thank you for coming, Oran, please have a seat,” she says coolly.

I sit down in the chair in front of her desk and smile back at her, silently encouraging her to relax and let my lateness slide. After a moment, the crease of her eyebrows eases.

“You mentioned you wanted to talk about my essay?” I ask.

“Yes, well, I imagine you know what my problem is. I’ve left comments on your papers about this issue.”

“I thought I did well on my previous assignments,” I say innocently.

“Your grades were fine, that’s true,” she says with a sigh. “However, your efforts have dropped as the semester’s gone on, and the length is never enough. If I ask for three pages, you give me two and a half. Five gets four. This latest one was supposed to be ten, and you turned in seven!”

She sighs again and runs a hand through her loose bangs. The rest of her long hair is tied in a high ponytail that always has dozens of flyaways.

“I can’t let it slide anymore, even though...”

Even though you’re so attractive, she thinks, and I can’t help but grin. The foundation I’ve laid down in class is working well. Just comments here and there, ramping up over time, you know. Groundwork.

I’m her type.

I’m smooth, I’m charming, I’m the kind of person she might break a few rules for.

The kind who gets her wet.

I push to remind her of all this.

“Please take this seriously,” she says upon seeing my grin, but her cheeks are red now. The sound of her legs shifting under her desk doesn’t escape me.

“I always take you seriously,” I answer, moving forward a little in my chair. I’m average height, fairly androgynous and slim, not the kind of person that's intimidating, but I can make my presence felt with mental pressure.

Her breathing quickens.

“Is that the only reason you called me here?” I ask.

She glances around her dingy office like a cornered rabbit. It’s tucked down a narrow hallway at the back of the building, surrounded by walls that were built when public buildings acting as fallout shelters was a serious concern.

No one ever comes back here, she thinks, sounding a bit dizzy from the pressure I’m putting on her. When I deeply dig in, they tend to grow more and more disoriented. It’s fine. Just like her remote office, her confusion will serve me well.

I called them here to break some rules, I think for her. Get my pronouns right for her, even.

I want them to make up for their lack of effort.

I’ve waited long enough.

They know I need them to fuck me.

That last one makes her gasp, and she puts both hands on top of her desk to steady herself. I get a nice view down her blouse from that. Nothing amazing, but she’s got good handfuls with a smattering of freckles on top. She sits back up after a moment, adjusting her bangs again before she meets my eyes.

“You know, you know what I want to talk about,” she says with only one stutter of uncertainty. She’s mostly accepted the thoughts as her own. Not everybody takes them so easily.

“I’m not following, Professor,” I say. Make her lead.

“The length,” she breathes out, “has been a real problem for you. But I think you could make it up to me with something else.”

I laugh and lean back in my seat, running my hand over my erection, finally acknowledging that I know what she’s talking about. She’s come a long way from her annoyance earlier.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” I ask.

Her face wavers as she looks at the door behind me. There’s a thick, narrow panel of glass running down the middle of it.

Lock it and pull the curtain, I suggest. She’s obeying within a second.

“There we are,” she says, and I hear the lock click. She returns to her seat with confidence, which I’m happy to encourage. The better she feels about her choices now, the less I have to mop up.

“Well, if you’re sure,” I say, but I’m already unzipping and freeing my cock.

It looks as good as you expected.

This is what you’ve been craving.

You need this inside you.

“God, I’m so sure,” she whispers, her eyes hungrily taking me in.

I move to join her behind her desk, where I doubt any students have stood before.

“How should...” she begins.

Bending over the desk is really the only way to do it in an office, I tell her silently. Her mouth closes and she presses herself over her closed laptop, her hands finding purchase among the odds and ends of the tabletop.

“Really the only way to do it in a place like this, don’t you think?” she asks playfully as she wiggles her ass for me. Not bad for a skinny girl, though I do usually go for more curves. I put my hand on her ass cheek and squeeze, which makes her moan. The amount I’ve wound her up, she must be dripping. Time to find out.

Since her hands are braced on the desk, I reach under her and undo her black pants. Always interesting to see what a woman is hiding underneath that outer shell. To my surprise, she doesn’t disappoint. The pair she’s wearing is silky and pink, which broadcasts the wet stain she’s been making for me. I kind of expected something as boring as the work pants.

“I like it raw,” I say both in and out of her head as my cock rubs against the wet spot on her panties. The fabric stretches and creases along the swollen line of her pussy lips.

“I, I like it raw,” she repeats in a daze. “Yeah, raw, it’s so good raw, you’ve got to, please...”

Might have pushed that one too hard, but it usually gets a lot of resistance, so it’s best to be firm. And it means she’s obliging as I pull her panties down and get what I came here for.

She’s wet, warm, and yielding as I take her from behind. She’s no virgin—thoughts of an ex-boyfriend have popped up during class before—but she’s pretty tight. Guess it’s been a while since the ex. She gasps out when I’m all the way inside.

After all the interference, her mind is a bowl of pink mush as I thrust into her. Makes it even easier to reinforce all of this as my cock pushes in and out and she whimpers into her desk.

Have to be quiet.

Feels good to break the rules.

Such a big cock.

Getting fucked like this is incredible.

Need it deeper.

“More,” she whispers, her ass arching up to meet my hips. I resist the urge to slap it. Another time, somewhere more private.

“You’ll have to give me your number,” I say with a laugh as I take her, feel her push back against me greedily, “We can talk about my essays as much as you want.”

She just groans, but softly. She won’t forget my orders that quickly.

You’re going to cum when I do, I assure her as I get closer. She accepts it with a swallowed moan. Her body and mind are too far gone to doubt me. Her pussy quivers, squeezing around me like she’s going to suck me in deeper. All of it gets me that much closer, until I let myself go inside her.

I’m impressed by how quiet she is as she shakes around my pulsing cock.

* * *

As I drive back to my uncle’s house, I get a text from Professor Blanc that she forgot to mention that she was satisfied with our discussion about my grade, and she’ll re-mark my essay. I’d honestly forgotten about it as soon as I left the building, so the reminder draws a laugh out of me.

You might think I earn my whole GPA like this, but most of my teachers would tell you I’m a stellar student without the little tricks. I was only pushing it with her to rile her up, see how she’d react. Honestly, with these powers, things come to me so easily sometimes that I play games to make life more interesting.

That probably sounds spoiled as hell... and I guess it is.

* * *

“Hey, Uncle Jett,” I call as I walk in through our apartment front door. I saw his car in his spot, so I know he’s around.

“Oran, welcome back,” I hear from down the hall. I drop my junk on the bottom shelf of the coat rack and head to the kitchen, the most likely spot to find my uncle at this hour.

As I walk down the hall, I pass by pictures of me and my family on the wall of the hallway. Sentimental stuff. There are some of just my dad and uncle when they were kids. My dad was the older brother by a few years, but my uncle was taller than him even in those old pictures.

My uncle’s a nice enough guy. Hell, he’s practically a saint. A man who would volunteer to take in a parentless preteen even though he’s fresh out of college and just starting his first job deserves some accolades.

Despite all that, I wouldn’t call us close. The main problem: he’s way too different from me. Conscientious, honest, self-sacrificing, into "clean living" and going to the gym like it’s a second job. The kind of thing that gets him plenty of Grindr dates but not a lot of respect from me.

When I walk into the kitchen, he’s pan-frying salmon and roasting some kind of vegetable in the oven on high heat. Knowing him, it’s broccoli, kale, or zucchini, something green.

“High protein, low carb intake as usual tonight, huh,” I comment as I slide behind him to grab one of my sodas out of the fridge.

“I believe the leftover pizza you ordered is still there if you prefer,” he says without turning around. I smirk at his stupidly cut shoulders as I sip my soda. All that muscle and still a total bottom.

“Nah, you know I like salmon. Maybe I’ll make a quesadilla with it or something.”

“That’s fine.”

I raise an eyebrow at his back. His shoulders and thoughts are tense. I can’t read him as clearly as some (family resistance?) but I know him well enough to get the general idea. Something is on his mind.

“Not even going to nag me to eat my vegetables? What’s up?” I ask.

He looks away from the pan but not at me, just to the side. Talk about suspicious.

“You got a date, is that it?”

“Oran...” he starts with a sigh.

“You have been going out a lot lately.”

He flips the salmon without another word, but I know a nerve when I hit it.

“C’mon, what am I going to do, freak out if you bring your boyfriend around? I’ll be nice. When am I not nice?”

He loudly scrapes the salmon out of the pan and puts it on a waiting plate, then takes a deep breath. Whatever he’s got on his mind, the anxiousness is radiating off of him.

“I have gotten serious with someone, yes,” he says after a weirdly long silence.

“Serious?” Interesting. That’s more than I expected. “Hey, good for you.”

“And... he’d like us all to have dinner next week.”

“Okay, and? Is that it? I’ll put on a nice shirt or something if that’s what you’re worried about.” I lean against the fridge and wait.

My uncle finally turns and looks at me. His serious face is borderline, no, actually pleading.

“Oran, I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye, but... please. Promise me you won’t cause any trouble with his daughter. She’s a very sweet girl.”