I
n his
rearview, Woody saw the motorcycle’s flashing red light. “Cop’s pulling me over,” he said. “Gotta go.” He put away his phone and steered to the side of the road.

A moment later, the cop was at his window. “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” a female voice asked in typical police tones, polite but assertive.

Woody gazed with appreciation at the trim, uniformed figure. “No idea, officer. I wasn’t speeding.”

“You had a phone in your hand. There’s a law against distracted driving.”

“There is?”

“Went into effect this year.”

“But my eyes were on the road.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said crisply. “Can’t be holding a mobile device of any kind. I need to see your license.”

He handed it over. She looked at it and knitted her eyebrows. “This is a Pennsylvania driver’s license, Mr. Goodman.”

“I just moved to Houston.”

“How long ago?”

“Three weeks.”

“You need to get a Texas license within sixty days of moving.” She began to write the ticket.

The cop was a young woman with a pert nose and delicate chin, eyes hidden by her dark glasses. Woody wondered what she looked like without them. For that matter, what would she look like without that motorcycle helmet?

Hmm
, he thought.
Why not?
He closed his eyes and concentrated.

After a moment, the cop stopped writing and frowned. The frown deepened into a scowl. She began to write again, then stopped and held her pen and pad out to Woody. “Would you hold these a moment, sir?”

Woody took them. “Sure, officer. Something the matter?”

She reached up and unstrapped her helmet. “Not really. I just need to get this, uh…” The helmet came off. “To get my helmet off. Sorry about that.”

“No problem.”

The cop’s hair was a lovely chestnut brown that she wore tightly pinned. She held out the helmet. “If you’ll take this and give me back my pen and pad. I’ll finish your ticket.”

He took the helmet. “You have nice hair.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said tonelessly. “Pen and pad, please.”

“In a moment,” he told her. “Aren’t those hairpins uncomfortable?”

“Um, a little.”

“Why don’t you take them out?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on duty, sir.”

“You can do your job with your hair down.” Woody glanced at her name tag. “Isn’t that true, Officer Porter?”

“Yes sir, that’s true.”

“Everything I say to you is true, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“And very reasonable, right?”

“Very reasonable.”

“Take the pins out and let your hair down. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

“Certainly is.” A moment later, a wavy tumble of hair fell to her shoulders. “How’s that, sir?”

“Very nice. Doesn’t that feel better? Why don’t you give it a good shake?”

Officer Porter shook her head from side to side and pushed her gloved hands into her hair to spread it.

“Very good,” said Woody. “And you don’t need to keep those dark glasses on, do you?”

“Not really,” said Officer Porter as she removed her shades. She had pale blue eyes with lush lashes. Without the helmet and glasses, the policewoman looked soft and appealing, though her mouth kept its stern, standard-issue cop frown.

“You have pretty eyes, Officer Porter.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You like talking to me, don’t you?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you married?”

“No, sir.”

“Engaged?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Broke up with him last month, sir.” Her lower lip trembled slightly.

“Does that make you sad?”

“Yes sir. Liked him a lot.”

“Well, a pretty girl like you will have another in no time.”

“Hope so, sir.”

“You don’t sound optimistic.”

“He was my first. Might be a while till I get another.”

“What? Your first boyfriend?”

“Yes sir.”

“Hold old are you, Officer Porter?”

“Twenty-three.”

“You should have had lots of boyfriends by now.” Woody himself was twenty-four. He’d had trouble getting a girlfriend, in fact getting dates at all, until he’d learned Transcranial Influence. Now everything had changed. “Dozens of boyfriends!”

Officer Porter lowered her head. “Afraid not.”

“Why is that?”

“Been told I scare ‘em off. Also there’s the sex thing.”

“What sex thing?”

“Kind of personal, sir.”

“You can tell me. I’m a craneiologist.”

“A what, sir?”

“Big word that means you can tell me anything, however personal. In fact, you want to, don’t you?”

“Now that you mention it, sir, it
would
be good to talk about it.” Officer Porter ran a hand through her lush chestnut hair. “Just feel kind of strange standing here in the street in uniform with my hair down and all.”

A car slowed down as it passed them. Woody frowned. They were drawing attention. “Why don’t you get in the car? That would be better, wouldn’t it?”

Officer Porter nodded gratefully. “Thank you, sir.” A moment later she was inside Woody’s Lexus, sitting next to him. Woody had traded in his old Chevrolet for the car. The sales manager had thrown in five hundred cash. “You’re doing us a favor, taking this thing off our hands,” he’d told Woody. “New models are more trouble than they’re worth.” Transcranial influence had all kinds of uses.

Woody still had Officer Porter’s helmet and ticket pad in his lap. He put them in the back seat. Without the helmet, the bulge in his pants was obvious. “By the way, officer, what’s your first name?”

“Addison, sir. Addie, for short.”

“Pleased to meet you, Addie. And you can call me Dr. Goodman.”

Addie smiled brightly. “Okay, Dr. Goodman!”

“So tell me more about this ‘sex thing.’ Did that have anything to do with the break-up?”

Addie looked at her lap. “Uh-huh.”

“How?”

“I couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what?”

“Well, he liked me to, you know…”

“To what? Suck him?”

Addie colored. “Yes sir.”

“And you didn’t want to?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I enjoyed that, but he also wanted me to, uh…”

“Whisper it in my ear, Addie.”

She leaned over and put her mouth next to Woody’s ear, so close her tongue tickled.
“Swallow.”

“Swallow?”

She nodded, eyes on her lap.

“Swallow what?”

She put her mouth to Woody’s ear again.

“Cum.”

“Swallow his cum.”

She nodded. “

And you didn’t want to.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Addie made a face. “Icky!”

“I see.” Woody’s face grew grave. “This is a pretty serious inhibition you have, Addie.”

“I’m
not
inhibited,” the young policewoman said defensively. “I
like
sex. At least I liked sex with him.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Except for that?”

“Yeah, except for that.”

“Addie, do you want to get married?”

“Well, sure. Of course. Someday.”

“And have a family?”

“Naturally.”

“You know, there will be other men who want you to swallow. This attitude seriously narrows your pool of potential husbands.”

“It’s not an attitude, Dr. Goodman. I just can’t do it.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “I’ve tried and I
can’t
!”

Woody reached over and squeezed her hand warmly. “Yes, you can! I
know
you can. And I can help you.”

She stared at her lap and sadly shook her head. “Nobody can! I’m beyond help.”

Woody put his hand under her chin and gently turned her head. “Addie, look at me.”

Addie gazed into Woody’s eyes, magnified by his thick glasses. It occurred to her that he was much better looking than she’d first thought. He was small and starting to lose his hair and with those heavy-frame glasses, the word that had come into her mind was
nerd
. Now that seemed so wrong. He still might be short and balding, but he was also strong and sweet and very… manly.

“Addie,” Woody said, his eyes boring into hers. “I swear to you, before you get out of this car, you’re going to learn to swallow cum. Not only that, but you’ll like it. In fact,
love
it!”

There was a glint of hope in her pale blue eyes. Her voice trembled. “Really, Dr. Goodman?”

“Absolutely! I’m going to turn you into the kind of woman that can suck off and swallow the cum of every cop in the locker room. Would you like that?”

“Oh yes! Gosh, yes!”

“Now you say the reason you can’t swallow cum is because it’s icky, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What does ‘icky’ mean to you?”

“Well, it tastes yucky. And it’s sticky. And also it’s kind of thick.”

“Hmm. Let me think about this.” Woody stroked his chin as he pondered the problem. “Tell me, Addie, do you like chocolate?”

“Naturally! Who doesn’t?”

“What about melted chocolate?”

Addie smiled fondly. “Loved to lick the spoon for Mom.”

“Fine, now I want you to just relax and close your eyes and think back to that spoon of melted chocolate you loved to lick. Got that in your mind?”

Addie shut her eyes. She was silent for a moment, then her lips turned up in a small smile. “Okay, I got it.”

“Tastes good, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does!” Addie giggled.

“So thick and sticky.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you like that, don’t you?”

“Heck yeah!”

“Thick and sticky and tastes good.”

“Umm,
yeaah
,” she said, lost in childish bliss.

Woody closed his own eyes and was silent for several minutes. He, or rather an avatar of himself, was deep inside Addie’s mind now. Like everyone’s mind, hers had any number of rooms: rooms for memories, for habits, for values. They weren’t really rooms of course, but it helped to visualize them that way. Most were dim because they weren’t in use. At the moment, a room that resembled the kitchen of the house where she grew up was brightly lit and he could see the image of a brown-haired little girl enthusiastically licking a cooking spoon.

He rambled elsewhere through the house. In the last several months he’d investigated the minds of more than a few nubile young women. Addie’s was typical and soon enough he found what he was looking for, a bedroom full of sexual urges and turn-ons with a closet full of fears, kinks, inhibitions and secret desires. The closet was dark but enough light leaked into it from the rooms in use to see what he was doing. Woody had never burglarized an actual house but he imagined brain burglary was not unlike real burglary. For one thing you learned by experience where people kept things. What would have taken him hours a few months past was now quick work. For the next few minutes he busied himself shuttling between the kitchen and the closet, rearranging items.

When he was done, he slipped outside Addie’s mind and opened his eyes to discover her eyes also open – and fixed on the bulge in his pants. When she realized he was watching her, she dropped her gaze in embarrassment, but a moment later she looked up. “Dr. Goodman?”

He smiled. She had cute, girl-next-door smile. Take off that uniform and put her in a polka dot dress and she’d look sweet enough to take to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. “What is it, Addie?”

“Well, I just had the most incredible thought.”

“Did you now? What is it?”

She blushed. It’s… I can’t tell you. At least not until I’ve checked it out for real.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Did you mean it when you said you’d help me learn to swallow cum?”

“Of course I did.”

“Well, I have a big favor to ask.”

“I’ll do it if I can.”

“Oh, I think you’ll be able to all right.” She smiled coyly. “You like me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I mean, in a special way.”

Woody put his hand over his bulging pants and chuckled. “Hard to hide, isn’t it?”