Alex immediately spotted a narrow gap between a bakery and a leatherworker's shop. A dark, shadowed alleyway filled with discarded crates.
He ducked into it, practically falling against the cold brick wall.
"Hide if you want," the Empress mocked. "But you can't hide from your own mind."
Alex slid down the wall until he was crouching in the shadows, hidden from the main street by a stack of old barrels.
The alley smelled of garbage and stale yeast, but Alex barely noticed.
He was breathing in short, shallow gasps.
"Please... stop..." he whimpered, clutching his chest.
"I'm just training you," she replied calmly. "Your body is shedding, preparing for the future. But your mind is still stuck in the past. You need to know what to expect."
"I don't... ahh!"
Alex arched his back, his head slamming gently against the bricks.
The phantom hands were back.
He felt them grabbing his "breasts," squeezing the imaginary mass of soft flesh.
Even though his hands were empty, gripping his own knees, his brain registered the squeeze.
He felt the weight being lifted, molded. He felt thumbs circling his nipples that were the size of silver dollars.
"Look at you," she whispered. "Panting like a dog in an alley. And I haven't even touched your skin."
"It's... it's not real..." Alex sobbed, tears leaking from his eyes.
"The pleasure is real," she corrected and focused her mental energy lower.
The phantom sensation of the "void" between his legs intensified. It throbbed, a deep, internal ache that demanded to be stretched.
At the same time, his physical body reacted.
His erection, trapped in the tight compression shorts, throbbed in sync with the phantom pulse.
The friction of the spandex against the sensitive skin of his cock became excruciatingly good.
"You're confused," the Empress noted, her voice dripping with sadistic delight. "Your body doesn't know if it wants to thrust or be taken."
"I... Nnngh..." Alex bit his lip until it bled.
"Let's make it simpler." Suddenly, the phantom sensation shifted.
He felt a spectral finger… long, cold, and sharp, trace a line from his navel down to his pubic bone.
It bypassed his physical erection entirely, as if it didn't exist.
It pressed against the spot behind his balls. The perineum.
"A true Enchantress..." she whispered. "...takes pleasure from the inside."
The phantom finger pushed.
"AHHH!"
Alex screamed, the sound muffled by his sleeve.
He felt a ghostly intrusion. It felt real.
It felt like something slick and cold was sliding inside him, pushing past a tight ring of muscle that shouldn't have been there.
It was a violation of his anatomy, a mental construct forcing his brain to register penetration where there was none.
But his mind and body... screamed in recognition.
"Yes..." Alex moaned, his eyes rolling back in his head. "Oh god... it's... inside..."
"See?" she purred. "You like being filled. You like feeling full."
She twisted the phantom finger.
A bolt of white-hot pleasure shot up Alex's spine, exploding behind his eyes.
His physical body spasmed. His hips bucked off the dirty cobblestones, grinding against the empty air, trying to impale himself further on the ghost finger.
"Fuck… whats this feeling… It's too intense, More..." The word slipped out before he could stop it. "Please..."
"Already begging for more?" she laughed. "You really are ruined."
She didn't stop. She added a thumb, pressing down on the phantom "clitoris" which mapped perfectly onto the head of his trapped penis.
The dual stimulation, the mental penetration and the physical friction of the spandex… was too much.
"No, please stop it, I can't... I can't hold it!" Alex wailed.
"Then don't." She drove the phantom finger deep, hitting the inner walls with the force of a battering ram.
Alex's body went rigid.
He didn't touch himself. His hands were gripping the brick wall so hard his fingernails chipped.
But he exploded.
For the third time in two days, he cummed violently, helplessly.
The release soaked the inside of the compression shorts, the warm fluid flooding the tight fabric, coating his sensitive skin in a hot, sticky mess.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..." Alex slumped forward, his forehead resting on his knees.
The phantom sensations vanished instantly.
The heavy breasts were gone. The wide hips were gone. The ghostly finger was gone.
"Lesson complete," the Empress spoke, sounding bored again. "For now."
Alex sat there for five minutes, waiting for his heart rate to drop below lethal levels.
He felt hollowed out.
But worse, he felt... sensitive.
The skin all over his body felt prickly, as if the "phantom" had left a residue of hypersensitivity behind.
"I need... I need a change of clothes," Alex croaked.
He couldn't go home like this. He couldn't face Elena or Marcus looking like a flushed, sweaty mess with wet pants.
He stood up on shaky legs.
He adjusted the denim jeans that became visibly wet between his legs, wincing as the rough fabric rubbed against the now-wet spandex.
"Clothes," he muttered. "Fuck, I need new clothes to cover this."
He clutched the hem of his oversized shirt, pulling it down as hard as he could to cover the dark, wet stain on the crotch of his jeans.
He peeked out of the alley. The street was still busy, but no one was looking at him anymore.
The market district of Sector 4 wasn't high-end. It was "Low Sci-Fi", a place where magic and outdated technology were duct-taped together to make life livable.
Above him, a tangled web of power lines buzzed, sagging under the weight of flickering holographic advertisements.
A blue projection of a woman winked glitchily, selling "Mana-Infused Energy Drinks,Now with 20% less radiation!"
He pulled the collar of his shirt up to hide his face and merged into the crowd.
Alex shuffled, trying to keep his stride natural, but it was impossible.
"Just keep walking," he told himself. Don't look anyone in the eye.
He felt like a toddler who had had an accident, except the "accident" was a mind-shattering orgasm forced upon him by a ghost living in his head.
The fantasy world didn't care about his embarrassment. The street was packed.
It wasn't just humans. There were Dwarves, Elves, and more.
To his left, a towering Minotaur with a brass ring in his nose was haggling over the price of a massive, hanging side of cured meat. The butcher, a stout Dwarf with a beard braided into three forks, was shouting back in a guttural language.
"Move it, runt!" a voice growled.
Alex gasped and stumbled sideways as a Green Orc, easily seven feet tall and wearing leather armor studded with iron spikes, shouldered past him.
The Orc was leading a pet on a thick chain, a creature that looked like a cross between a wolf and a lizard, with scales along its spine and a drooling, canine muzzle.
The beast sniffed the air near Alex, growling low in its throat.
Alex froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Shit, It smells me," he thought in panic.
"Down, Ripper," the Orc grunted, yanking the chain. He didn't even look at Alex, dismissing him as just another piece of street clutter.
Alex felt like everyone could smell him. The scent of his cum, felt heavy in the air, mixing with the street smells of frying oil, and exotic spices.
She did this, Alex thought bitterly. She made me lose control in a dirty alley like an animal.
"I didn't make you do anything," the Empress's voice echoed in his head.
It wasn't loud this time; it was like a whisper in the back of a library. "I simply showed you the buttons. You were the one who pressed them."
"Shut up," Alex whispered, dodging a hovering drone that was advertising half-price synthetic noodles. "Just... shut up."