Bloodlines Ch.01

Garth sat back, letting his eyes wander the room as he quested out, not really understanding how he did, though it felt as if he had always known in a way. Immediately he was assaulted by a barrage of emotions, waves crashing around in different colours, some roiling, others steady. As he tried to organize his thoughts, Garth started trying to single out emotions, the strongest first. Happiness, Excitement, Joy, Curiosity, all of these were prominent, bright emotions that pulsed and permeated the entire sea. The crowd was excited and everyone was feeling it, just letting loose to the beat of the drums and the feeling of freedom, liberally helped by the alcohol and other drugs they were ingesting. Garth smirked at the thought; St. Johnswort was his drug now, it seemed, the emotional rollercoaster as potent a drug as any, not that he would know, having only tried alcohol before. But he could guess.

As he started looking closer at the emotions, filtering out the blaring overtones of Happiness and Excitement, Garth started to notice undercurrents. Imagining a cascading surface; then ducking beneath it to spot all the hidden emotions swirling there. These were heavier somehow, more muted, but at the same time more intense in a strange way. Lust, Desire, Jealousy, Anger, Resentment and a bunch of others he was unable to filter out yet. This proverbial underbelly of the room seemed more potent in a way, almost begging for him to reach out. Garth stopped himself before he did something, remembering his uncle's instruction.

Jeff smiled mischievously at him. "Let's have some fun." All of sudden Garth could feel a thrumming emanating from his uncle. Waves of power radiated outwards from him, infiltrating and mixing with the sea of emotions that seemed to surround all the people dancing and sitting around talking. Garth could not pick out any single signal from what his uncle sent out, just a general sense of something hot and intense. He shifted his focus from his uncle to the sea and then he saw it. Lust and Excitement, along with Desire, Boldness and Courage seemed to swell slightly in the emotional sea. It was not so simple as single emotions, those were just the ones he could readily pick out, there were dozens of others as well, more subtle things, combinations and half-formed feelings, all being manipulated up or down. Garth shifted his focus to normal sight, just watching the crowd.

The movements of the crowd suddenly seemed more sensual than before, the couples dancing were suddenly a lot closer, hands wandering more towards private parts. He saw one woman with a very short skirt bend at the waist, grinding her ass up and down her partner's crotch, essentially giving him a lap dance while standing upright. Even from across the room, Garth could see the prominent bulge in his pants as he grabbed her hips and thrust himself obscenely against her, their groins grinding together as they all but rutted save for their clothes still being on.

Slightly embarrassed, Garth looked away, only to look straight at another woman dancing just a few meters from their table. She was quite tall, with long dark hair in ponytails and a lot of makeup, her skin pale as a contrast to shocking red lips. She wore a black formfitting dress of some glossy material, probably latex. The front was dominated by a slit running from the top of the dress down to her navel where a small gem sparkled in a piercing. The slit created a continuous cleavage, the inside swell of her quite large breasts showing.

As Garth looked on, unable to tear his gaze away, the woman, who looked to be in her mid to late twenties, grabbed her partner's hands from where he was dancing behind her, pulling all four up to cup her own breasts. Her partner started gently massaging them with his palms, squishing them slightly, making the inside swell ooze into the cleavage. She let her own hands drop down to the hem of her dress, tugging it up, slowly revealing more of her thighs, all the while gyrating her hips and pressing back against what had to her boyfriend.

Garth could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, matched by a growing stiffness in his pants as his cock rapidly filled with blood, straining against the fly. He let his gaze wander up her stomach and saw that her boyfriend was now twirling her perky nipples. Mesmerized by the fingers gently kneading and playing with her, Garth suddenly felt her look. He hastily looked up, meeting her eyes. She was looking straight at him, eyes smoldering and lusty. As he watched, she narrowed her eyes at him seductively and slowly licked her lips, smiling at him all the while. Garth found his own smile widening, as she obviously had no qualms about him seeing her this way. Her eyes widened as he put on his best smile, the 'panty-dropping' smile as his aunt had called it, her mouth opening slightly as she did a double take.

What Garth had thought was a smoldering look turned out to be a match compared to a bonfire. Her gyrations became more aggressive, her movements very suggestive indeed. She gave him a wink then caressed herself by slowly gliding her hands from her hips, up her stomach towards her breasts and her boyfriend's hands, still playing with her nipples. She stuck her fingers inside the cleavage and started pulling the fabric aside, more and more of her ample bosom becoming visible. The edge of the opening caught on her nipples; they were so hard the fabric had problems gliding past them. With a sudden pop, the fabric let go, and her breasts were out in the open. Her boyfriend pounced, his fingers grabbing, kneading and pinching them all over. Her head rolled back slightly, pleasure obvious on her face as she leaned into her boyfriend's touch.

As she leaned back, her boyfriend's head popped up as he kissed her neck, and Garth was momentarily stunned to see that it was another woman! He knew that some women were intimate with each other, but he had never actually seen it before. The whole scene was intensely erotic and for a second he was certain he was going to come in his pants. Just as the pressure was becoming unbearable, his uncle broke in from the side. "Enjoying the show?" A knowing grin lit his face up, mirth obvious at Garth's expense. "Remember our bet?" Garth nodded, tearing his eyes away from the couple who were now kissing enthusiastically, dancing closely.

"I am going to enhance some of those girls' emotions, you try and guess which." Garth nodded as he started tapping his power, the sea of emotions washing over him. He found that by squinting slightly, he was able to single out the girls' emotions, at least to a degree; they were still part of the whole sea of emotions, but he identified them as a discrete patch among the others. He could feel his uncle's influence stretching towards them from somewhere to the side. Before he had influenced the whole room, but now he projected a clearly defined wave of power, focused straight at them. Garth focused on it, seeing where it merged with the girls' emotions, seeing how they fed off each other, both pulsing brighter. "Lust." Garth said after a few moments. "You're increasing their Lust." Just as he said it, the woman grabbed her girlfriend's ass, pulling her close in a fierce kiss.

"Very good, one point to you, I'll get the next round." Jeff smiled, obviously pleased to have lost the first round. "Let's ramp it up a bit." Garth focused again, wanting to win round two as well. The wave of influence shot out again, merging with them, the emotions swirling together violently. Garth narrowed his eyes, focusing intensely. Everything swirled and danced, almost like a marbled liquid, mixed, yet separate. Not knowing exactly how, he 'tasted' the emotions, getting a better feel for them.

"Courage? And something else, I can't quite tell what it is, but I get a sense of Excitement, Danger, Fear and Desire mixed together..." Garth trailed off and his mouth dropped open as the woman spun her girlfriend around, back towards Garth and Jeff. She grinned at them and blew a kiss in their direction as she grabbed her girlfriend's dress, pulling it slowly up, exposing her ass to them. A bright pink thong disappeared between her bare globes, a slight sheen of perspiration making them seem shiny.

Jeff cleared his throat and stopped his influence, apparently feeling he had taken it a bit too far. Garth's cock throbbed painfully in his pants, and by pure chance he had not come in them already. He realized he was panting; drawing their Lust and Desire into himself. "I'm impressed, son. I tried to trick you by tweaking two at once, but you saw through it. That second emotion was Exhibitionism, by the way. It's a bit more complicated, made up in parts of several other emotions. Simply put, I increased their proclivity to show off their bodies, and since we already had their attention, we were the chosen recipients of the flashing." His lecturing tone was completely at odds with the subject, it sounded almost clinical, though Garth would not have been surprised to see drool on either of their chins. Perhaps this was his way of covering up his own arousal; Garth could see him shifting in his chair, adjusting his pants subtly.

"Hi Jeff, who's your friend?" A dusky, sensuous voice said, the lights from the ceiling suddenly dimming as two people approached their table. Garth shrank down in his chair, suddenly apprehensive, though her tone did not seem angry, quite the opposite actually. "Alyssa, dear, this is Garth, my nephew. Erica, nice thong, did you wear it for me?" He winked as he said it, Erica looking mortified.

Erica was a little shorter than Alyssa, but still tall for a girl. She wore a dark grey dress with buttons all the way down the front, small pockets all over, almost a military style. The top three buttons were undone, a modest cleavage showing. She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, copper hair and a light dusting of freckles, a small nose and brilliant, white teeth. Her green eyes were a bit guarded, though still open and interested. Garth assumed she was the shyer of the two, which made Jeff's comment about her thong all the more pungent.

"Garth, meet Erica and Alyssa. I guess it was not entirely fair of me to hold back that I knew them, but I figured it would be better to play with someone who knew what we could do in case something went wrong. I was a little unsure if you'd be able to hold back once I really ramped it up." "Wait, he's like you?" Alyssa asked, shock evident on her face. Erica's eyes changed, just subtly, and Garth was not exactly sure what that meant, but he filed it away in his mind. Perhaps he would be able to make sense of it later. "Yes, young Garth here is a freshly minted Neuropath, he turned twenty a few days ago." Alyssa whistled softly, concern and sympathy warring in her face and tone. "Was it painful? I hear the beatings are excruciating for those that survive it." "Wait, people die from it?" Garth was shocked. All of a sudden he felt a chill. "It was bad, really bad, like I got hit by a train. I blacked out almost immediately, came to in the ICU, all black and blue."

"Ouch, sounds bad." Erica's voice was tinged with concern; she leaned down and cupped his chin, a slight shiver running down Garth's spine from her soft, warm skin on his. "But now you're all better, right? You wouldn't be here if you weren't, I mean?" The question was apparent in her tone, and Garth nodded his head, not trusting his voice just then.

"But where are my manners?!" Jeff called out in mock outrage. "Sit! Sit! I will go get us drinks, I owe young Garth here two rounds on account of a bet he just won. What are you drinking, girls?" They both asked for red wine, and Jeff looked pointedly at their pints, an eyebrow arched in question. Garth nodded, the ale was quite good, and with the whisky added, he was just beginning to feel a slight buzz.

Erica sat down next to Garth, Alyssa next to her like four points on a compass, though Garth noted that Alyssa scooted her chair a little towards Jeff's, and Erica did the same towards his. Interesting.

The table grew quiet, almost awkwardly so, as Jeff left them. Garth was unsure what was expected, and the girls seemed reluctant to talk for some reason. After a minute of fidgeting and not meeting eyes, Garth found his nerve and spoke up. "So how do you know Uncle Jeff?" "We met a few years ago at a party at a mutual friend of ours, since then we've sort of stuck together. There's a group of us that hang out both professionally and privately."

Garth waited for her to elaborate, but nothing more came. On a hunch, Garth quested out, trying to read their emotions. The usual jumble was there, with an undercurrent of Lust and Desire, more muted now, but still very much present. In addition there was a new emotion he had not noticed from them before. He tried to focus on it, slowly getting a feel for it. Apprehension? Were they holding something back? Garth realized that even though he and his uncle had bonded very much over the last day, there was still a lot he did not know about him. What kind of group was she talking about? Was it connected to The Compact, or this organization Jeff talked of? And professionally, as well as private? Garth knew his uncle owned a shop somewhere downtown, though his parents had never spoken of it. Could it have something to do with that?

Garth was broken from his musing by the sound of a tray full of glasses hitting the table, breaking his concentration. Jeff had brought another round of the same as last, plus two glasses of red wine and two more shot glasses of some straw-coloured liquid. "What's this?" Alyssa asked, though her grin betrayed her. Jeff handed the two other shot glasses to the girls, pushing the whisky towards Garth. "It's not fair you don't have anything to toast with, and I think young Garth's success requires a toast!" "How so?" Erica asked.

"It turns out my young nephew is quite the natural talent. He was able to pick two distinct manipulations apart after less than an hour of practice. I wasn't able to do that until I'd trained for hours each day for two weeks!" Garth was taken aback. Two weeks? True, he felt as if he had always known what to do in a way, but two weeks!? Regardless, he was still a complete novice compared to his uncle, at least for the time being. "Cheers!" Jeff raised his glass, waiting for the others to follow suit before downing the liquid in a single gulp.

"I was not going to let Garth try influencing anyone today, I thought it would be more than enough for him to just try and single out a given person or emotion. But he has shown me that he is ready to start practicing, a little. If you're willing girls, I'd like to have Garth try to enhance your feelings, it will be a good exercise to try and limit his influence to just us as opposed to the whole room." The girls shared a look, and then nodded, Erica's cheeks flushing faintly. If he had not been looking at her, Garth would never have noticed. "Keep in mind, girls, Garth is new to this, his touch will likely be more forceful than you are used to from me. Let him know exactly how you experience it, it will help him modulate his touch, sugarcoating will only be a disservice to him."

Garth looked at the girls, seeking approval before reaching out with his power. The sea of emotions was becoming familiar to him, odd how quickly that had gone from alien to natural. As he reached out towards their feelings, his uncle's voice broke through the din of the room. "Try to isolate us first, single us out from the rest of the room and feel our emotions. Then, when you're ready, choose an emotion and try enhancing it, gently. It's probably best to try a simple emotion first, we'll get to the compound ones in due time."

He took his time, identifying their patch and making sure he was feeling their emotions properly. Then he singled out a current of emotion, Joy, he was reasonably sure. He pushed his influence outwards, trying to grab hold of and pull the emotion higher. His influence spread out from him in a giant wave, washing through the room. "Whoa, slow down!" His uncle urged. "Try to focus on us, just us." Garth examined the swell of influence, had not his uncle shot forth a wave, concentrated on the girls alone?

He took hold of the swell with imagined hands, squeezing and strangling it, making it into a single wave instead. He was unable to steer it at first, watching in horror as it streaked into the sea of emotions. He thought he heard a female voice whoop somewhere on the dance floor, but he was not sure. Exerting his will, he gained control; aiming it towards the others at the table. "Good, Joy is a safe bet to riot. Try to lessen your touch though, pull back a little on your pressure." Garth imagined squeezing harder, restricting the flow of emotions to half or so. "Better, still on the heavy side, but very good." Garth could feel their emotions responding to his touch, pulsing more strongly as he influenced them.

On a whim, Garth felt for another emotion, seeking out an undercurrent and pulling on it, trying to be even more careful. He heard the girls' sharp intake of breath and Jeff cleared his throat a little. "Ok, I see you found Lust." His voice sounded a little strained. Garth opened his eyes, looking around the table. Both girls were breathing heavily, leaning a little forward, four nipples making obvious dents in their dresses. "Ease up a little and listen to me. You are still quite forceful with your touch, but to be honest I'll admit I'm impressed; you focused on us quite quickly. Neuropathy is all about subtlety. The exception, however, is when influencing a willing partner or partners. As you've no doubt guessed already, this is a potent tool when used in the correct way. Now try to single out just the girls."

Garth closed his eyes to better focus, trying to separate the source of the emotions in their patch. He got a sense of something, but was unable to single out any of them. Dejected, he looked at his uncle and shook his head. "No worries, I did not expect you to be able to yet. It's actually quite advanced and I would not really think it possible for quite some time yet. I'm gonna go over to the bar to chat with the barkeep, that should help you single out the girls. Distance usually helps with keeping people's emotions apart." He got up and moved over to the bar, leaning over it a little to talk to the barkeep.

Garth focused again, quickly identifying the girls' patch, finding it easier to single out their various emotions. There was a subtle difference now that his uncle was gone, though he could not quite identify what. Shrugging it off, he instead got to work on the girls' emotions, enhancing Lust, Excitement and Desire. "Oh my." He heard Alyssa gasp, her voice tight with strain. "That's. Intense." Garth cracked an eye, seeing her bend forward on the table, her chest heaving as she gulped for air.

To his left, Erica was sitting straight as a rod, her muscles taut with strain. Suddenly, her hand shot out and grabbed hold of his thigh; nails digging slightly into his flesh. "Ease up a little," She said through gritted teeth, her nipples rock hard and tenting her dress. Garth felt his cock swell at her touch, a little painful though it was. He imagined squeezing the wave, feeling it ebb a little. Erica let out a breath, her grip loosening. "That's better. Still quite the handful, but better." Garth squeezed even more, earning another sigh of relief from the girls.

He touched a bundle of emotions he could not quite identify, but they seemed similar to Lust, though darker, somehow. "Whoa! Slow down! Stop!" Garth pulled all the way back, not quite knowing what he had done, but both girls were shaking visibly. "That was a little too much." Alyssa said, Erica nodding lethargically.

"You didn't do anything wrong," She said, seeing the concern in Garth's eyes. "It was just a little too much, too soon." Erica got up on unsteady legs, leaning a little forward on the table, making her breasts sway a little inside her dress. "I think I could use a splash of water in the face, care to join me Al?" Both girls got up and made their way towards the restrooms.