Fan Mail
(c) Copyright 1999 by Wiseguy
For a writer, there is no greater high than positive reader
feedback. When a reader takes time out to tell me how much
he or she liked a of mine and why, it's like a big
friendly hug to me. I don't get them every day, so when
one does come my way I value it and make it a point to
reply with more than just a mechanical thank-you.
One message I received a while ago is a perfect case in
point:
Dear Wiseguy,
I very much enjoyed your "Quarters". The
is much more realistic than most fictional hypnosis
stories, although it is a little bit of a to
have Susan able to participate in the illusion with no
previous experience as a subject.
I learned hypnosis from my therapist a few years ago
and experimented a bit with an ex-boyfriend. Your
story reminded me of some of the games we played.
Sincerely,
Susan
To me, this email was the ultimate in feedback. Not only
had she liked the story, but she had obviously invested the
effort to understand the characters and situation I'd put
together. The fact that she had a valid criticism didn't
bother me; if I couldn't take a little intelligent
criticism, I'd be foolish to keep posting stories.
The timing of this particular message was especially
gratifying because it came just after the posting of
"Quarters" on my Web site and the alt.sex.stories
newsgroup. At the time "Intimate Adventures" was in its
first draft and had a number of serious shortcomings. I
was floundering, knowing where I wanted the to go but
unsure how to get it there. Susan's email pulled me right
out of that quagmire. Not only was the tone friendly and
open, but she had also piqued my curiosity by alluding to
her own real experience. I dropped everything and composed
my reply:
Susan,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me about
"Quarters". It was really good to hear from you, and
I'm glad you liked the story.
It sounds as though you have more hypnosis experience
than I do; if you don't mind, I'd love to hear how
your experiments went.
Regards,
-wg
I was careful to keep it light and easy -- there are a lot
of freaks and weirdoes on the Internet, after all, and I
didn't want Susan to think I was one of them. And yes, I
admit it, I was hoping she would reply with something that
would get my creative juices flowing again. I only had to
wait a few hours to find out.
Hello,
The best trick I did with my ex was to "run into him"
(it was pre-arranged) at a bar and not recognize
him. He appeared to be a total stranger and, of
course, he seduced me as such. It was my idea but it
took a lot of work to make it really happen. By the
time we tried that, he had hypnotized me over a number
of sessions so I was a very experienced subject. I
was also a very willing subject because I loved the
fantasy! And of course I trusted him completely. My
therapist says I am a "somnambulist," the class of
people most capable of entering a trance and
experiencing deep hypnosis.
Please write another with a "Susan"! It was
great!!
Susan
This latest message was very exciting for me because Susan
clearly was someone who understood hypnosis from
experience. The scene she described fascinated me and went
directly to my idea file. I could feel my creative wheels
starting to turn again.
Susan,
That is a cool trick; thank you for sharing it with
me.
I envy you for your ability to go into trance -- I'm
having trouble getting past a hypervigilance problem
and haven't been able to accomplish much of anything
yet.
Regards,
-wg
Up to this point, I hadn't actually met anyone who had been
professionally hypnotized (that I knew of, anyway). I'd
gone to a couple of stage shows and been fascinated, but
had never qualified to be a volunteer. I'd try my hardest
to relax and follow the hypnotist's instructions, but they
just didn't work. I bought books on self-hypnosis,
downloaded spiral image computer programs, even tried
making my own audiotapes using induction speeches I'd
culled from Web sites. Eventually I reached the plateau I
was on when I first heard from Susan -- I was able to place
myself in a light trance and maintain it for a while, but
any attempt at a useful hypnotic suggestion either woke me
up or simply failed to work. A little research in my books
suggested that my problem was hypervigilance, meaning that
my mind was so busy watching to see if I would go into
trance that it was actually keeping me awake. The more I
willed myself to let go, the less successful I was at
actually doing it. As luck would have it, Susan
understood.
Way back at the beginning, as I was entering a trance,
I would start to feel very panicky, as if I could not
let go and the harder I tried the more panicky I
felt. It was like bouncing off a wall or walking into
a door. I think I was trying too hard. Eventually,
one sleepy day, the wall disappeared and I was able to
enter a trance.
You can do it yourself, but it would be a lot faster
if you see a professional. That's what I did and we
got through the wall in the second session.
I read the draft of "Intimate Adventures" on your
site. It sounds like you live in the DC area. Would
you like to meet for lunch or something? We could
talk about it face to face.
Good Luck!
Susan
I found the idea of actually meeting Susan too compelling
to pass up. At that point nobody in my real life knew
about my writing or my yen for hypnosis; other than cyber-
friends like Artie and a few readers, there was nobody I
could really talk to about those things. Susan seemed to
understand what I was going through and was willing to
advise, so I figured why not?
Susan,
Meeting for lunch sounds like a great idea. I work
downtown, but my schedule is pretty flexible. Do you
have a place and time in mind that would be good for
you?
-wg
By not telling her exactly where I live or work, I was
trying to encourage Susan to pick a place where she would
feel comfortable. I was expecting her to name something in
downtown DC or Arlington; her suggestion came as a complete
surprise:
You didn't say where home is, so it's hard to know
where to pick. Are you familiar with Gaithersburg or
Germantown? If so, there is a Bare Bones on Rte 355
in Gaithersburg that would be good for me on just
about any weekday.
Susan
Fate laughs at probabilities -- Susan had chosen a
restaurant less than five miles from my townhouse. I
checked my work calendar, selected a few potential dates on
which I could work from home, and offered Susan her choice.
We ended up agreeing on the following Monday, which gave me
five days to get over the butterflies that took up
residence in my stomach the minute she agreed to the date.
It had been a very long time since I'd shared a meal with
anyone who didn't have a Y chromosome.
Bare Bones is a good place for a friendly lunch. The food
is tasty, the service good, and there is just enough
ambient noise that you can say whatever is on your mind and
feel pretty sure it won't carry beyond your own table.
Our lunch date was for 12:30. Bare Bones doesn't take
reservations, so I made sure I was there at noon in case
they were extra busy. I gave the hostess the name
"Wiseman" and waited about 15 minutes before being seated
at a table for two in the non-smoking section. I took the
seat facing the entrance, ordered an iced tea, and watched
the door as the butterflies went nuts inside me.
At 12:24 a woman came through the doors. She spoke briefly
to the hostess, who pointed in my direction, then started
towards me. The closer she came, the better I could see
her and the luckier I felt. Susan had given me a basic
description -- "medium height, light brown hair, average-
looking" -- that hardly did justice to the person now
approaching. Medium height was right, and her hair was a
nice chestnut brown, but to my eye she was more than just
average. She wore a simple but elegant pantsuit in navy
blue with a satiny white blouse. Her body language
signaled authority and calm as she made her way
deliberately through the milling crowd.
I rose to greet her with my hand outstretched. "Susan?"
She took my hand and shook it firmly. "Mr. Wiseman, I
presume?" she inquired, smiling broadly. Her smile was
soft and friendly and involved her entire face.
"Guilty as charged," I answered, and pulled out her chair.
Susan seized a menu immediately. "I warn you now, I'm
famished."
"No problem," I replied. We hadn't really said anything
about it, but I was already planning to pick up the check
for both of us.
While Susan studied the menu, I made a quick selection and
then turned my attention to studying her. She may not have
been cover-of-Cosmo glamorous, but her friendly face and
sensual voice certainly appealed to me. I had to remind
myself that this was not supposed to be a date.
"So," she began, "what do I call you?"
"Mark," I replied.
"Hi, Mark," she responded with a sweet smile. "What do you
do when you're not posting sexy on the Internet?"
"Tech support for a systems integrator," I answered. "I'm
what they call third tier; when something really weird goes
on that neither the field techs nor the senior techs can
figure out, they call me."
"I'm impressed," she replied. "You must be a genius."
"Not me," I responded. "I'm just good at troubleshooting,
and I'm not afraid to crack a book if I have to. What
about you?"
"I'm not afraid of books either," she joked, "but I never
get time to read them. I'm a project manager at
Fairchild." A very high-tech company -- it was my turn to
be impressed.
The waitress interrupted us to take our lunch orders. Once
we had that taken care of I tried to steer the conversation
toward the purpose of the lunch. "How long have you been
doing hypnosis?"
"About five years," she answered thoughtfully. "I was
having some problems, and my therapist suggested using it
to help me deal with them. She helped me learn to get into
a good, deep trance state with her and also how to do it by
myself. She was right, it helped a lot to be able to look
at myself that way. What about you?"
"I guess I've always been interested," I replied. "About
eighteen months ago I saw a stage hypnotist for the first
time and got bitten by the hypno bug for real."
"Is that when you started writing stories?"
"Not right away, no. At first I just wanted to learn how
to hypnotize myself. I saw myself using it to handle
stress, to get myself to eat better, things like that. The
more I read and tried it, though, the more I got interested
in the sexual side. I was looking up 'erotic hypnosis' in
a search engine one night and that led me more or less
directly to the Erotic Mind Control Archive."
"And you stayed up all night reading stories," she
concluded for me.
"That's what everybody says, isn't it? Well, I didn't stay
up all night, but I did spend several marathon sessions
there over a long weekend."
"Close enough." She had a knowing smile on her face; that
first exposure to Simon's archive seems to be a common
experience that cuts across all boundaries. For a flash I
imagined her sitting in front of a computer reading her
first MC story, her staring eyes reflecting the glow on her
screen, her nipples perking up as she pictured the scenes
in her mind. "But you still haven't answered my question,"
she reminded me, breaking the spell. "Why write?
Thousands of people read stories, but only a relative few
contribute new ones."
I decided to give her the condensed version: "After a
while I noticed that there while there were hundreds of
stories out there, only a few had the romantic touch that
appeals to me as a reader. I used to love creative writing
when I was in school, so I figured I'd write one story,
send it to Simon, and see if it was any good. Apparently
it was; in the first week after it appeared on the archive,
I got about eight very encouraging emails from people
telling me how much they had enjoyed the story." In the
distance I saw our waiter approaching with two platters on
his tray. "So I kept writing."
Susan looked like she had a follow-up question ready, but
we were both fully distracted by the arrival of our food.
I had a delicious half-rack of baby back ribs, fries, cole
slaw and applesauce; Susan had gone with the quarter
chicken and a side salad. We were both hungry, so the
conversation took a back seat to eating for a while.
Eventually we slowed down. Since I had monopolized the
early conversation, I tried to get Susan talking. "Would
you like to share a little of your hypnosis experience?"
She checked her watch. "I'm almost out of time now," she
said, lowering her head in an implied apology. "It took me
two long sessions with my therapist to get through into a
deep trance for the first time. It took a lot more
practice before I was able to enter a trance on my own and
use it effectively. But I learned some things in the
process, and I've used that once or twice to help other
people learn to hypnotize themselves. If you want, I can
try to help you."
The butterflies swarmed back. "You mean, hypnotize me?"
"I could try," she replied. "It's easier if you have
someone else help talk you through it the first few times.
After you get used to being in a trance you learn to do it
yourself more easily."
"And you would be willing to do that with me?" I was
struggling to stay in my seat now -- this was much more than
I'd hoped for.
"I think so," she said. "We can at least try it once, if
you're interested."
If I'd stood up, she'd have seen exactly how interested I
was in being hypnotized by her. "Very interested," I
understated. "When and where would you like to do it?"
"How about at your place? You can show me what you've been
working with so far, and I can tell you some more about my
experiences."
"Great," I replied eagerly. "Any time you like."
Reaching down into her handbag, Susan produced a personal
organizer and consulted it. "My evenings are pretty free
right now," she commented. "We could try tonight if you
want."
"Tonight works. I'll even feed you dinner."
She laughed and patted her flat stomach. "I probably won't
need any after this lunch," she joked. We agreed to meet
at seven; I gave her my address and phone number as well as
directions from Germantown. After a brief negotiation I
covered the check from lunch and she took care of the tip.
I walked her out to her car then dashed home to start an
afternoon of frenzied house cleaning.
Susan arrived right on time. I opened the door quickly and
did a double take: the Susan I'd been expecting, she of
the classy business suit and authoritative manner, was not
there. This Susan was wearing faded jeans and a ribbed
tank top. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail that
gave an almost girlish look to her face.
"This is the non-office me," she explained as I ushered her
inside.
"I take it you live nearby."
"Frederick," she answered with a 'so-so' wave of her hand.
"I have a condo in one of the newer developments. Not as
much room as this, but I don't need much for just me." She
looked past me, her nostrils flaring. "What's that I
smell?"
"Stir fry, spring rolls, Minute Rice."
"He cooks!" she remarked. "I'm impressed."
I shrugged. "He can open a box and follow the directions,
anyway."
"That's my system too," she replied. "I couldn't live
without my freezer and my microwave."
"Would you like to open the wine?"
"Gladly." Susan took the chilled white wine from the
refrigerator and opened it, pouring glasses for both of us.
She stayed in the kitchen with me, sipping her wine while I
tended the stir fry. I learned that she was from Fort
Lauderdale originally and had moved into the DC area three
years ago after losing her job to merger fallout.
"So why Frederick?" I asked.
"I didn't have a job yet when I got here," she explained.
"I was looking to hook up with one of the tech companies on
the 270 corridor, but I couldn't afford anything decent in
Montgomery County. I can now, but I got myself stuck by
buying that condo instead of renting. Still, the commute
to Germantown isn't bad; it's maybe half an hour on a bad
day."
"That's about half the local average," I observed. "You
must be doing something right."
"I am," she answered. "I'm keeping out of downtown. I
don't know how people put up with that place."
"The city itself isn't so bad," I remarked. "It's the
getting in and out that kills you."
By the time I had dinner on the table, I was feeling much
more comfortable. The off-hours Susan was softer than the
professional Susan I'd first met. I said as much over
dinner.
"That's my work persona," she explained. "A project
manager has to be a little pushy or nothing gets done. It
took me a long time to develop that, but now whenever I'm
dressed for work that side of me seems to come out
naturally."
"That reminds me of a I read recently -- 'Lingerie',
by MC Writer. Have you seen that one?"
"I don't think so," she replied. "Aside from the
occasional hypnosis-related piece, I really don't read mind
control stories."
"Any particular reason?" A small lump started to form in
my throat, as if I was holding a lottery ticket and
watching the on TV.
"A lot of them are very dark," she said. "Incest, rape,
humiliation, enslavement ... I don't get off on that sort of
thing. I like where people are enjoying
themselves, having great sex because they want to. Free
will and mind control would seem to be mutually exclusive."
"Not necessarily," I argued. "Read 'Contest Weekend'.
Read 'Synergy'. Heck, read anything written by Artie. It
really is possible to have a about a loving couple
who use MC techniques for their own mutual enjoyment.
Isn't that what you did with the ex-boyfriend in Florida?"
"Yes," she agreed, "but that was different. Most of the
things we did were my idea to begin with. They were like
your story, 'Quarters' -- a neat mind trick that led to
really hot sex."
"Exactly what Artie and I write about," I explained. "Call
it romantic mind control if you want; couples using
hypnosis, or some other technique, to explore their own
fantasies. That's what the I'm working on now is
about, in fact -- a couple who get hypnotized and find
themselves living out some of their favorite sexual
fantasies with each other."
"I know," she replied, smiling into her wine glass. "I
read the draft on your Web site. It needs some work, but I
love the premise."
"Oh," I replied weakly. "Then why am I still explaining
this?"
Susan smiled and chuckled. Reaching over to take my hand
in hers, she said softly, "Because I wanted to see if you
really are the person your writing makes you out to be."
"Do I pass muster?"
"Definitely," she replied, and suddenly my lottery ticket
looked mighty promising. "That sense of romance, of honor
and mutual respect, is what made me want to meet you.
Seeing and hearing that you really feel that way makes me
want to help you."
I sighed with relief at having passed the test. "I'm glad
you feel that way," I replied.
It didn't take long for me to clear up dinner; Susan
helped, and I set aside some leftovers for her to take
home. By 8:30 we were ready to get down to business.
"Before we get started," Susan began, "I need to know what
your intentions are."
Her face looked very serious; something was up here, but
what? "What do you mean?" I asked.
"I want to know why you are so interested in being
hypnotized. What exactly do you expect to gain?"
Choosing my words carefully, I explained as best I could.
"What I really want is the experience itself. I feel like
a bit of a charlatan writing about erotic hypnosis
when I've never been through it myself. I want to know
what a really deep trance feels like. I want to close my
eyes in one place, wake up somewhere else and not remember
how I got there. I want to feel a strong compulsion to do
something out of the ordinary and not be able to resist."
Susan's eyes remained locked onto mine. "Is that it?"
"That's it," I replied. "That's not to say that if I can
learn to put myself under I won't try a few minor
adjustments."
"Like what?"
I shrugged. "Eat better, relax more, and maybe improve my
self-confidence. Nothing radical."
Susan nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry if I put you on the spot,
but I had to be sure you weren't looking for help with some
kind of serious problem. There are very good reasons why
you need a license to practice hypnotherapy, Mark, and
amateurs like us have absolutely no business going there."
"I understand," I said. "The main reason why I haven't
gone to a professional already is that I don't really have
a problem. It's hard to defend spending that kind of time
and money simply to satisfy my curiosity -- it would be like
making a dentist appointment just to ride in the chair."
"I'm getting a really strange visual from that," Susan
joked. We shared a smile; I'd passed the last test. "Why
don't we start with what you're doing now?" she suggested.
"Show me where you normally practice and how."
I led her upstairs to the spare bedroom, which I had turned
into a computer room. Fortunately I'd anticipated showing
her the setup and had made time to pick the place up a bit.
The computer, an HP desktop, was already on so all I had to
do was log in.
"Is this where you sit?" she asked, indicating the office
chair I was in at the moment. The chair has a short back
that comes up just below my shoulder blades, and straight
arms at its sides. It tilts backward a few degrees and
swivels.
"Sure," I replied.
"Where do you rest your head?"
"I don't -- it just kind of balances. It droops a little
sometimes, but not too badly."
"And you use some sort of program?"
The computer was done logging me in, so I opened my 'Hypno'
folder. "Yep. I have a couple of things here that I've
toyed with. All common stuff that I downloaded from one
place or another."
"Flasher?" she queried, reading the title of one icon.
"It flashes brightly at programmed intervals," I explained.
"It's supposed to induce different types of brain wave
patterns depending on how you set it up."
"Does it work?"
"As far as I can tell. I used a program like it in my
first story."
"This one looks promising," she remarked, double-clicking
an icon of a tiny spiral. In a few seconds a swirling,
multilevel pinwheel graphic filled the screen. "Oh yes,"
she said, "I've played with this one myself. It's the one
with the subliminals embedded into the pattern." She was
quiet for a moment, her eyes growing a little distant as
she stared into the screen. Watching her face, I started
to remember what the document file for that program had
said -- it is supposed to be irresistible to women. "It's a
very effective spiral," she continued, her voice slowing.
Then she reached over and hit the Escape key. "But not as
all-powerful as the DOC file claims."
I scooted my chair over a little, partly to give her better
access to the keyboard and partly to conceal my need to
rearrange certain things in the front my pants. She tried
the next icon. "Does this work?" she asked.
"A little," I answered. "The slowly descending sound works
well, and the screen display captures my eye, but as soon
as I start to really relax my vision gets blurry and I
think that screws it up. Either that, or it's just me
wondering about it that screws it up."
"Very possibly," she agreed. Indicating another spiral
icon, she asked, "Is this another pinwheel pattern?"
"Yes. This one doesn't have the subliminals on it, but
it's got adjustable speed and number of stripes. I use
that one a lot." To demonstrate, I double-clicked an icon
that called the program with my favorite settings. The
familiar pattern filled the screen and out of reflex I let
my eyes be drawn into the swirling vortex.
"I might have seen an version of this one," she said.
"It wasn't as smooth as this but the look was similar. How
long do you usually look at it?"
"Until my eyes want to close. Probably about a minute."
"Do they want to close now?"
"Not yet. Soon, though, if I were to stop talking and just
go with it."
"Go ahead," she suggested. I let my arms hang down over
the sides of the chair, took a deep breath, and
concentrated on the center of the swirling spiral. I was
briefly aware of Susan moving behind me, taking the spare
chair to my right, as the pattern shifted before me.
"Breathe deeply," she said softly from behind me. "Let each
breath settle you down a little deeper into the chair."
After a few seconds I felt my eyelids starting to droop,
and I concentrated on relaxing my shoulders and face.
"That's it, just let them close when they want to," she
continued. "Keep relaxing. Pay attention to your face,
your scalp, you neck." There was still tension in my scalp
and face; I willed them to relax, and as I did so my eyes
dropped shut. "Relax your neck and shoulders, let them
droop, as you sink deeper." Her voice was sweet and
seductive; as I felt my neck relaxing I became aware that
my cock was struggling to stand up. I wondered what
suggestions she would give me if the induction worked.
My train of thought derailed when I felt my chin start to
dig into my chest. When practicing by myself, I usually
kept my head upright and just relaxed my neck a little;
having it bent this severely was uncomfortable. I lifted
my head and, as usual, the spell was broken. My eyes
opened and I looked back at Susan. She was shaking her
head slowly.
"I don't know how you expect to relax properly in that
chair," she said. "I'm not sure I could, and I've had a
lot more practice than you have."
"What do you suggest?"
"How about a different setting?" She stood up and headed
out the door. "Is this the bedroom?" she asked as she put
her hand on my bedroom door.
"Yes -- but don' t open that!"
She shot me an amused grin. "Not expecting company?"
"It's a little unkempt," I confessed sheepishly. "I really
didn't think we'd need to go in there, so I sort of skimped
on the cleaning."
She took pity on me and let go of the doorknob. "Okay.
Let's try the couch."
I followed her back down to the living room. The
centerpiece of my living room is a maroon leather sofa with
well-stuffed matching cushions. It wasn't a convertible,
but my has made use of it a few times and praises
its high 'crash factor'. I had to agree as I stretched out
on my back across its length, feeling the cushions
conforming to my body.
"That looks much better," she remarked. "But let's lose
these." She grabbed my left shoe and pulled it off in one
easy motion, then did the same for the right before
settling into the matching padded recliner next to me. "Do
you normally sleep on your back?"
"No, on my side."
"Get on your side, then." I complied, shifting onto my
left side so that my back was up against the back of the
sofa. Susan reached over and tucked a throw pillow from
her chair under my right arm. "Comfy?"
"Surprisingly so."
"Let's start by closing your eyes. Take a deep breath or
two, make sure you're nice and comfortable."
I closed my eyes and wriggled a little further into the
cushions. Through my closed eyelids I sensed a darkening
of the room and snuck a peek: Susan had gotten up and was
turning off most of the lights. Only an incandescent
reading lamp, its shade tilted to minimize the light on me,
provided illumination now. I closed my eyes again and
prepared myself for the next step.
"Okay," Susan began. "We're going to start with a
progressive relaxation. I know you're familiar with the
process, but don't get ahead of me. Just listen and follow
my voice, and try not to think of anything at all. Don't
move around or nod or try to speak, just be still and
quiet.
"Take a deep breath, and let it out. As you exhale,
concentrate on your feet. Feel each toe individually;
notice how they are touching each other. Feel the texture
of your sock over your foot. Now, take another deep
breath, and as you let it out tell your toes to relax."
I did as instructed, breathing in and willing my toes to
rest. My feet, then ankles, then calves and shins
followed, and I started to lose myself in Susan's silky,
sexy voice. She had been well coached, I could tell; her
delivery was smooth and even, like a professional. As my
thighs and hips settled further into the couch, I noticed
that even my cock was behaving itself.
Following Susan's words, I continued spreading relaxation
through my upper body, across my shoulders, down my arms
into my hands and fingers. I was limp and loose as a
discarded puppet, and the welcome buzzing sensation of
light trance was forming in my head.
"Very good, Mark," her voice continued. "Try not to think
of anything in particular; if an idea comes into your mind,
just acknowledge it and let it pass back out again. You
don't need to think right now, you only need to listen and
relax. Feel your neck relaxing now, Mark, becoming loose
and lazy, letting the pillow take the weight of your head
for you. It's so nice to relax your neck, to let go.
Another breath please, and now as you exhale let your face
go slack and rubbery, like a soft Halloween mask. Your jaw
can settle down anywhere it wants to, your tongue can come
forward if it wants to. Let your cheeks melt, and your
eyebrows droop down. Let the muscles around your eyes
rest, rest and sleep, becoming so relaxed they wouldn't
move even if you wanted them to."
The buzzing was getting louder now; it was as loud as I'd
ever felt it before. A small trickle of excitement eased
down my body and my cock began to rise. I willed myself
not to think about it, to give myself to the buzzing, to go
deeper.
"Another deep breath, Mark. Don't anticipate, just relax
and be, listen and obey, breathe and let go. Every breath
takes you deeper and deeper into total relaxation; every
breath takes you deeper and deeper into hypnosis. You
don't have to think about it, you don't have to force it,
just let go and it will happen."
I was deeper than I'd ever been before, I was positive of
that. I was floating, my body limp and useless but
surprisingly light. I noticed my eyelids flickering and
willed them to relax some more.
"That's good, Mark, let every last bit of tension drain out
of your face and your eyes. Your eyelids are very relaxed
now, totally relaxed, so sleepy and drowsy that they won't
open anymore, no matter how much you try. You can try if
you want to, Mark, but you have done such a good job of
relaxing that your eyes will not open. Try now and see how
successful you have been at relaxing."
Tentatively, afraid of breaking the spell, I tried to open
my eyes. They wouldn't budge. Pleased, I tried a little
harder and they still felt heavy, too heavy to lift. With
a growing sense of excitement, I tried a little harder.
"That's enough now, Mark, you can stop trying to open your
eyes. You've seen for yourself that they will not open,
not without help, not until you need them to be open again.
Take another breath and send a wave of relaxation from your
head all the way down through your toes."
I'd come out of it a little bit, I could tell, but I
concentrated on relaxing and felt the wave flow through me.
I drifted back down, enjoying the feeling and the sound of
Susan's voice.
"Now, Mark, it is almost time to wake up. I am going to
count from one to three. When I reach three, you will be
fully awake and alert, feeling refreshed and pleased with
your progress. However, you will not be able to open your
eyes at first. No matter how hard you try to open them,
your eyes will remain closed until I tell you to open them.
Only then will they open, only when I tell you to. You
will find that you can return to this deep level of
relaxation whenever you need to, simply by remembering the
sound of my voice telling you to relax, to let go.
"And now, it is time to wake up. One ... two ... three. Awake
now, alert and refreshed."
I started to lift my head from the pillow. My eyes were
still closed; remembering her suggestion, I tried to open
them.
They opened. Disappointed, I dropped back onto the couch
and sighed.
"It's okay," Susan said, gently rubbing my temple. "You
did well. You'll do better next time. Sooner or later it
will happen."
"Thank you," I replied. "Do you feel up to trying one more
time?"
"Not tonight," she answered. "I have to go. But we can
try again soon."
She jotted her home address and phone number on one of her
business cards for me. We shared a brief hug and I watched
as she drove away.
We both had busy weeks in our professional lives; it was
Friday night before we were able to get together again.
After some haggling over the terms of dinner, we agreed to
meet again at my house. I provided the broiled strip
steaks and baked potatoes; Susan brought a fresh salad and
some delicious sourdough dinner rolls with her.
As often happens when people in similar fields get
together, we ended up talking shop for much of dinner.
Susan's expertise was in global communications -- satellite
systems and all the related gear that goes along with them.
Most of my experience is in landline technologies, but
there was enough overlap in our skill sets that we were
able to connect professionally. At the same time, I felt
as though we were also starting to connect very well
personally.
After dinner we shared the clean-up chores. We were
rinsing off dishes and loading the dishwasher when Susan
asked about my after-hours work.
"How's the new coming? I noticed you didn't post any
updates this week."
"Too busy," I replied. "Plus, I haven't figured out what
to do with it yet."
"What's the matter with it? I think it's nice as it is."
"It started out well. The more I think about it, though,
the more I agree with some of the feedback I've gotten -- as
long as the is right now, it doesn't really feel
complete. There's too much unaccounted-for time, and the
action peaks too early."
"Maybe you should put it aside for a while and do something
else."
"I did that -- that's where 'Quarters' came from. No, I
just need to let it stew."
"Well," she said, closing the dishwasher, "I'm sure you'll
figure it out eventually. Can you empty your mind enough
for some trance practice?"
"You bet," I replied.
Once again I got settled on the leather sofa, this time on
my back but with my head turned to the side so that my
airway would stay clear. Susan dimmed the lights and sat
down in the recliner, just out of sight.
"I'm going to try an awareness induction this time," she
explained. "It's the one my therapist used with me, and it
worked very well for me."
"I'm familiar with it," I said. "I used that one as the
basis for the induction scene in 'Photogenic'."
"It's the same basic idea, yes. Don't try to follow this
one or anticipate it, just listen and concentrate on the
words as they come, okay?"
"Okay."
We both took a deep breath and then Susan started the
induction. "Just make yourself comfortable now," she
began, her voice dropping to a soft, soothing tone. "If
you want to close your eyes, that's a good idea, but if you
don't, that's fine too. Just listen quietly to the sound
of my voice. Of course you'll be aware of all those other
sounds, too: sounds inside the building, sounds from
outside. But these won't disturb you; in fact they are
going to help to relax you, because the only sound you need
to think about is the sound of my voice. And while you're
listening to the sound of my voice, you can just simply
allow yourself to be as lazy as you could ever want to be.
Just allow yourself to be as lazy as you could ever want to
be."
I closed my eyes and listened intently to Susan's voice.
She was speaking very quietly, using just enough volume to
be heard clearly. Every pause between phrases or sentences
was lengthened, exaggerated, adding to the overall sense of
laziness that I was starting to feel.
"Good," she continued. "Now, while you're relaxing there
on the sofa, you can just be aware of your body. Aware of
your hands where they rest; perhaps noticing the angle of
your elbows and maybe sensing the weight of your head
against the side cushion. And, you know, that weight might
seem to just gently increase as you allow yourself to relax
more and more. Just being aware of your ankles and feet
now, resting on the far end, and wondering if they will
start to feel heavy too, as you relax.
"Think about your breathing for a few moments. Notice that
your breathing is becoming slower and steadier as you relax
more and more. Slower and steadier, breathing so steadily
and evenly, just as though you were pretending to be sound
asleep. Breathing so evenly, so steadily, you almost
wouldn't disturb a feather placed right in front of you.
Breathing so easily and slowly, so gently, that you almost
wouldn't disturb even a single strand of a feather placed
right in front of you."
The dim lighting, the comfortable couch, the softness of
Susan's voice, and the slow, steady rhythm of her speech
were all working to put me into a wonderfully relaxed
state. My head was already buzzing as I slipped easily
into a light trance. I also found that while I had read up
on the awareness induction some time ago I didn't really
remember it well, so I wasn't able to anticipate what would
be coming next; I had to listen closely and focus.
"And now as you allow yourself to relax even more, I wonder
if you can perhaps sense the beating of your own heart.
Sensing the beat of your own heart and just seeing whether
you can use the power of your mind to slow that heartbeat
down just a touch. Just see whether you can use the power
of your mind to slow that heartbeat down just a little, so
that you can then feel your whole body slowing down,
becoming lazier and lazier, because you've got absolutely
nothing at all to do except to relax now. Nobody wants
anything, nobody's expecting anything, so you can allow
your whole body to continue to relax and become steadier
and easier until it's just ticking over like a well
maintained machine of some sort or another. Just ticking
over, smoothly, easily, quietly, comfortably, so that you
can become gradually more aware of your whole self. Aware
of your hands and arms, just sensing how they are now;
aware of your legs and feet, too, again just sensing how
relaxed they might be, and wondering if it's possible to
relax them even more -- to be so in touch with yourself that
you can actually get your whole body, perhaps, to relax
even more, yet remaining totally alert."
The buzz in my head was getting stronger, and I found it
hard to keep my mind from wandering as I followed her
instructions.
Susan continued in the same vein, talking about how I might
be noticing my face relaxing, my breathing slowing down,
how comfortable I was in the softness of my leather couch.
All the while I felt myself letting go a little more,
approaching some kind of threshold that I couldn't see but
I knew it had to be there. I willed myself to relax, to
let go, every idiom that came to mind, but I never felt the
sensation of actually crossing the threshold.
Then I realized I'd lost track of Susan; she had finished
the induction speech and was starting a standard staircase
deepener. I refocused on her voice and followed her down
the imaginary staircase, feeling my body remaining limp and
still as I tried to sink downward. I didn't feel much
different at the end of the deepener than I had at the
beginning.
Susan spoke some more: "Now you are in a deep, delicious
state of hypnosis, Mark," she was saying. "This is where
you wanted to be. You will find that you can reach this
wonderful state much more easily in the future, and it will
be easier and easier to do this every time you try. Every
time you go into hypnosis you will relax more completely,
more deeply, and do so more quickly. This is a skill, like
writing, and the more you practice the more satisfied you
will be with the results.
"Now I'm going to help you see how deeply hypnotized you
really are, Mark. You remember the last time we worked
together I told you your eyes would be unable to open, and
you found that I was right -- they would not open, not while
you were still in hypnosis. If you try right now, you will
find that they are even more firmly closed now. You cannot
open your eyes now, the harder you try the more firmly your
eyelids will remain shut. Go ahead and try now, you'll see
that they will not open."
Susan was right; my eyelids wouldn't budge. I tried
tentatively at first, then more seriously, to get them to
open but my lids remained sealed. It was a little
unnerving, and I started to try harder, but Susan stopped
me.
"That's enough, Mark, you can stop trying now. Your eyes
will open when you are ready for them to open, but they do
not need to be open right now. Just relax, let them stay
asleep and continue to listen to my voice. Take a deep
breath now and reward yourself by sending a deep, delicious
wave of relaxation through your body from head to toe."
It did feel good, exhaling slowly, letting myself sink down
some more. I was pleased at how my body had begun
responding to Susan's suggestions. That thought got my
cock responding in its usual way, and I was secretly
grateful for the dim lighting.
"Soon it will be time to wake up," she said. "But before
you do, I want you to do something for both of us. You
have been having trouble working out what to do with your
new with your conscious mind. I want you to let go
of the problem with your conscious mind and hand it over to
your subconscious instead. Your subconscious knows how you
want the to come out, how you want the characters to
feel and act; let your subconscious work on the problems
for you, and it will solve them. Maybe not tonight, but
tomorrow or the next day your subconscious will let you
know what to do. Until then, just let it be."
She made perfect sense. I pictured myself looking in a
mirror, seeing the reflection as my subconscious self. In
my mind, I handed the reflection a stack of papers -- the
story -- and watched it walk away, reading.
"Now I'm going to count to three, Mark. When I reach the
count of three, you will wake up completely, feeling
relaxed and refreshed. One, two, three." My eyes popped
open on "three" and I was awake. "How do you feel?" she
asked.
"Great," I replied, twisting a bit to try and see her. I
tried to adjust my semi-erect cock discreetly to avoid
detection.
"Don't get up yet," she said when she saw me moving.
Instead, she came over by my head and knelt on the floor
beside me. "What do you think -- was that what you were
looking for?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "I was certainly
buzzed and very relaxed physically, and the eye test worked
again, but I still had this feeling like something was
holding me back. You were telling me to go deeper, but I
don't think it was working anymore. I remember everything
you said."
"Not everyone experiences amnesia during trance," she
argued.
"True," I conceded. "It would help to convince me,
though."
"Okay. Next time, we'll try an amnesia suggestion."
It was getting late, so we decided to call it a night. I
got up from the couch slowly, giving my cock plenty of time
to stand down. It didn't matter -- when Susan hugged me at
the door again, it sprang right back up. If she noticed,
she didn't say anything.
The next day started out like any other Saturday -- I slept
in, getting up just in time to catch New Yankee Workshop.
After my weekly Norm fix and a ham and Swiss omelet, I hit
the shower.
There I was, standing under the shower, when it all fell
into place. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with
"Intimate Adventures" and how to go about it. The whole
story line rolled out before me from start to finish; I
could almost watch it on the big screen in my head. Then I
realized I'd been standing there like a dork with the soap
in my hand doing nothing while gallons of water ran down
the drain. I finished my shower quickly, pulled on some
sweats, and hit the keyboard.
I won't bore with you with the details of my inspiration --
if you really want to know, read the story. Suffice to say
that I was deep into it hours later when the phone rang.
"Hello?" I answered, only half paying attention.
"Hi." I recognized Susan's voice and came to a full stop.
"Hey!"
"You sound animated," she observed.
"I'm writing again."
"Did you figure out how to tackle the story?"
"Yep -- it hit me while I was in the shower this morning. I
want to get as much committed to disk as I can before I
start to forget everything."
"Then don't waste time talking to me," she said. "I need
to do some serious housecleaning anyway, and today's as
good a day as any. Why don't you call me tomorrow, or
whenever you come up for air?"
"Definitely."
I stayed up way too late Saturday working on the and
then posting the results on my web site. It was well after
10:00 Sunday morning when I awoke to the ringing of the
phone.
"You sound semi-comatose," Susan's voice said. "Late
night?"
"Early morning," I volunteered.
"I'm sorry. Should I let you sleep?"
"No, this is better," I replied. "If I don't get up now
I'll really throw my body clock out of whack."
"Shall I bring you some breakfast?"
"You're an angel." I got up and unlocked the front door
for her, then hit the shower.
While in the shower I got a strange sense that I was not
alone in the house. I wrote it off to the paranoia of
living alone and knowing that I'd unlocked the door; Susan
couldn't possibly have driven from Frederick to
Gaithersburg that quickly. I dried off and returned to the
bedroom to dress. I was standing in front of my dresser,
underwear in hand, when I heard a quick knock on the
bedroom door.
"Huh?" I grunted, and instinctively turned around to face
the door.
It opened and Susan's head popped in. "Wake up, sleepy—
oops!" She turned away as soon as she got an eyeful,
blushing.
I ducked to one side of the dresser and hid behind my
briefs. "I'm awake now," I remarked. "Give me 30 seconds
to get decent and I'll meet you downstairs, okay?"
"Deal." I caught her stealing a quick peak as she
retreated.
It took me a lot more than 30 seconds to throw on a T-shirt
and jeans, mostly because I needed time for my cock to
settle down. Being caught like that had pushed a button I
never knew I had.
"Sorry about that," Susan said as I came down the stairs.
"I was trying to surprise you with breakfast in bed."
"I was surprised all right," I replied, grinning as I
watched the redness creep back into her cheeks. "What did
you do, call from the parking lot?"
"Close," she answered. "From McDonalds' parking lot."
That's when I looked past her to the dining table and saw
the paper bag and little cardboard tray with coffee cups.
"Are steak and egg bagels okay?"
"A woman after my own heart," I remarked and attacked the
bag. We each devoured a bagel sandwich and a hash brown
patty. I passed on the coffee and poured myself some apple
juice from the refrigerator instead.
After breakfast, I told her about my new ideas on the
story. I brought up some of the new material on my
computer screen and she read it over my shoulder, approving
of the direction I was taking things. Then, at Susan's
suggestion, we went back to the bedroom where she had me
lie down and we tried the awareness induction again.
The induction worked about as well as it had Friday night;
I listened and worked with it, paying close attention to
the condition of my body, my breathing, my pulse; her words
soaked in, slipping just under my conscious awareness
sometimes. As before, we tried the eye catalepsy test and
it worked very well, although I had total memory of the
experience.
"Now, Mark," she continued after the test, "I am going to
give you another suggestion. This suggestion is one that
your conscious mind does not have to remember. You can
forget to remember this next suggestion, because your
conscious mind does not need to remember; your subconscious
will remember everything and will act on my suggestion for
you, while your conscious mind forgets it. Do you
understand?"
"Yes," I replied.
"The suggestion you will not remember is this: when you
resume working on your story, you will find it very easy to
keep writing. The ideas will come to you naturally as you
need them, for as long as you want them to. Your
subconscious will continue to supply you with inspiration
even as your conscious mind concentrates on forming the
words and sentences.
"And now Mark, it is time to wake up. When I count three,
you will be fully awake and feel refreshed and alert, but
you will not remember the suggestion I gave you about your
writing. Only your subconscious will remember that. One,
two, three."
My eyes opened and I was awake.
Susan was watching my face closely. "How much do you
remember?"
"Everything, I think," I replied. "We did the eye test
again, and it worked again. Better, even. Then you told
me I wouldn't have to remember the next suggestion you
made. And then you told me that I'd no problem working on
the rest of the story, that the ideas would keep coming to
me as I needed them. Then you woke me up."
Susan's face fell a little when I recounted the writing
suggestion. "That's about it," she confirmed. "I was
hoping the amnesia suggestion would work, but it obviously
didn't."
"I guess I didn't get deep enough for that," I remarked.
"I'm trying, I swear."
"That's probably part of the problem," she commented.
"Stop trying so hard and just let it happen."
I thought about it. "I'm not sure how to do that," I
finally said.
"And I'm not sure how to teach you to," she answered. "But
if we keep practicing, sooner or later you'll figure it
out."
We worked on it a little more with no breakthrough and then
called it a day. Susan went back home to get ready for the
workweek, and I went back to writing. I got a heck of a
lot of writing done that evening; the almost wrote
itself.
Susan and I talked on the phone daily during the week, but
couldn't get together again until the weekend. I worked on
the "Intimate Adventures" revisions and by the weekend I
had six completed parts and the line was very close
to what would become its final form. A steady flow of
feedback from Susan and several other readers had melded
well with my own ideas, and I was pretty happy with the
result.
I was also pretty happy with the way my relationship with
Susan was developing. With each phone call, it was
becoming clearer that there we both had more invested in
this than a mutual interest in hypnosis; we were becoming
friends. Underneath, of course, I still fantasized about
her leading me to the bedroom for other reasons. The idea
always lurked just in the background of my mind, and I
often awoke from trances with a hard-on. Susan must have
noticed, but she never commented on it.
We had several sessions that weekend with no noticeable
increase in my trance depth. Susan tried a number of
variations on the amnesia suggestion, but none worked; I
simply wasn't getting deep enough for that degree of
control. The more I tried to force myself into a deeper
state, the less successful I was at doing so. I was
starting to get frustrated, which was not going to help
matters.
Fortunately, we had to take a break anyway because Susan
was going back to Fort Lauderdale for about a week to
attend her sister's wedding. While she was gone I used the
time to catch up on my real job -- I have a tendency to let
other things slip while I'm working on a story.
Susan was due back on a Wednesday evening. The arrangement
was that I would pick her up at BWI, we would have dinner
somewhere, and then I would drop her at home to crash.
When my phone rang at work in the early afternoon, I was
surprised to see Susan's home number on the display.
"Hi," I answered. "You're home early."
"Sometimes you get lucky," she replied. "I caught an
earlier flight and shuttled home."
"Do you still want to do dinner, or would you rather just
crash?"
"Actually, I'm in pretty good shape. I was thinking it's
about time I cooked for you for a change."
"You sure?"
"Positive. See you at seven?"
"I'm there."
I knocked on Susan's door promptly at seven, my pet
butterflies doing their usual dance in my stomach. Her
welcoming smile was dazzling, and when she embraced me in
the doorway with a big, tight hug I was surprised to
realize how much I'd missed her.
Maybe she was feeling the same thing, I thought. She was
certainly more animated than usual as she gave me my first
official tour of her condo. The main living area featured
an upholstered sofa and matching recliner in a subdued
floral print. The coffee table and end tables were a
matched set in golden oak with glass inset tops. The
dining table had a thick, round glass top on an oak
pedestal and four simple matching chairs. We passed over
the bedroom -- "You'll see that after dinner," she promised
cryptically -- and ended in the kitchen.
"The place is immaculate," I remarked, looking around
again. "You must have been cleaning all day."
"Just a couple hours," she replied. "Visiting my
always seems to bring out my domestic side. Give me a week
and everything will be in chaos again."
Dinner was also a strong expression of Susan's domestic
side: pot roast, mashed potatoes ("Made from real
potatoes," she announced proudly, "Not flakes from a
box!"), fresh baked rolls, and assorted steamed vegetables.
It was truly delicious, and more than worth the amount of
time it took us to clean up afterwards.
"You didn't have to do all this," she said after I'd helped
put the kitchen back in shape.
"Yes I did," I disagreed, smiling. "If I'd sat down
somewhere I'd probably be asleep right now."
"Feeling a little stuffed?" she teased gently. "Would you
like to take a nap?"
"Is that a proposition?" I countered.
"Follow me and find out," she replied, winking at me as she
turned and left the kitchen.
Naturally I followed her; my cock was already on the rise
even before she led me through the bedroom door. The
chamber inside had a light, pleasant feel to it. The
centerpiece was a queen-size waterbed with a standard
bookcase headboard. An oval mirror in the middle of the
headboard reflected my image back at me.
Susan slipped off her shoes and plopped down onto the bed,
prompting me to do likewise. I rolled in carefully,
expecting a lot of sloshing and shifting, but this was one
very well baffled waterbed; it conformed to my shape and
settled down almost immediately. "Nice mattress," I
commented, impressed.
"It's great for relaxing," she agreed. "When I'm really
stressed, I like to just out across the whole thing
and zone out for a while." She spread her arms out to
illustrate, and I copied her. It did feel nice.
Susan rolled over onto her side facing me. "Want to try
something?"
"Sure."
"Close your eyes." I felt a slight shifting in the bed
after I did; Susan was moving around. My cock grew another
half inch as I imagined what she might be doing. I told
myself to take it easy -- after all, aside from our shoes we
were still fully dressed.
"Now," she continued, "I want you to start counting
backwards from 100. Here's how I want you to do it: with
each number, I want you to take a deep breath in and let it
out slowly, speaking the number as you count. At the same
time, I want you to the number visually somehow.
It doesn't matter how; you can a hundred of
something, a sign with the number on it, an elevator
display, or anything else you want. Just make sure you are
actively visualizing the number somehow. Can you do that?"
"My visual imagination isn't all that great," I hedged. "I
can give it my best shot, though."
"That's fine. I'm going to talk quietly while you are
counting, but I don't want you to pay any attention to what
I say. Just concentrate on your counting and your
visualizing."
"Should I try to relax a little with each count?"
"No," she replied. "It will probably happen anyway, but I
don't want you thinking about relaxation or anything like
that. Just focus on the numbers and the images. You can
start whenever you're ready."
I spent a few seconds trying to come up with an image I
could maintain for my numbers. After a little fumbling, an
image formed in my mind's eye: a large, white "100"
against a mosaic background of pink, yellow, green and red.
It looked vaguely like something I might have seen on
"Sesame Street" as a child. Whatever the source, it was a
strong enough image that I could see it pretty clearly
right then. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as
I counted, "One hundred."
I expected to hear Susan's voice, but everything was still
silent so I continued. The changed to a 99 against
the same background. "Ninety-nine," I said as I exhaled
again. The in my head faded a bit as I noticed how
my body had sunk into the bed a little more; I had to
concentrate to bring it back into focus. Slowly,
deliberately, I continued counting.
Sometime in the low nineties, I became aware of Susan's
voice speaking in a soft tone. What she was saying didn't
make much sense: something about being completely aware,
yet unaware; remembering, but not remembering; sleeping,
but staying awake. Instinctively I tried to make sense out
of it while still focusing on my picture, but it was too
confusing. By the mid eighties I had tuned Susan out in
order to concentrate on my job.
As I approached 70, I found myself losing track of the
numbers. I think I repeated 73, and maybe 72. Then again
in the sixties, I forgot where I was and decided to start
again from 69. Somewhere in the low sixties -- or was it
the high fifties? -- I lost my of the numbers
completely. Instead, I found myself standing on a wide,
gently sloping hill looking down into a green valley. I
was walking down slowly, easily, on a pleasant afternoon
walk. As I strolled down the side of the hill I noticed
that there was a stone wall running across my path. It was
tall and imposing, and ran as far as I could see to either
side. The more I approached the wall, the taller it seemed
to get. I could see that it was made of large, roughly
rectangular blocks like a castle wall. As if to confirm my
observation, battlements appeared at the top of the wall.
I hadn't noticed it before, but now I could make out the
outline of a door in the middle of the wall, right where my
path would lead me. The door grew more distinct and
recognizable as I came closer; it was wood, not stone, but
painted to blend in with the rest of the wall. It had no
knocker, but there was a crest in the center of it
featuring a bust of a man.
Soon I found myself standing in front of the door,
examining the crest. The bust looked familiar somehow --
then I realized, it was a of me. I reasoned that
the castle must belong to me so I simply pushed on the door
with my hand. The door opened effortlessly, allowing me to
enter with no resistance.
Immediately I found myself in a beautiful garden, walking a
stone path between rows of well-tended fruit trees and
shade trees. In the center of the garden I found a hammock
woven from soft white rope, suspended between a pair of
thick oak trees. My feet were tired from walking, so I
climbed into the hammock to relax for a while. I felt
myself swaying lightly in the breeze and closed my eyes...
"... wide awake, feeling great."
My eyes popped open and blinked heavily a few times. After
a second or so they remembered how to focus and Susan's
beaming face came into view. "Well?" she prompted
expectantly.
"Wow," I croaked through a dry mouth.
"Here," she said, and held out a bottle of water. I took a
sip, careful not to spill it on the bedspread.
"That's better."
"Tell me everything."
I told her what I had experienced with the counting, and
how the numbers had eventually given way to that vivid,
dreamlike vision of the wall and the garden.
"That's it?" she asked, grinning.
"That's it," I confirmed. "As soon as I closed my eyes in
the dream, I woke up."
"Look at the clock," she said. I turned my head to see the
alarm clock on her headboard. My jaw dropped when I saw
that it was almost 10:30 in the evening -- I'd been zoned
out on Susan's bed for almost an hour and a half.
"What the --"
"Amnesia, anyone?" The Cheshire had nothing on Susan's
face as she relished my confusion.
I wracked my brain trying to recall something, anything
that had happened after I fell asleep in the hammock. I
came up empty. "What did you do?"
"You're under a posthypnotic suggestion," she said.
"I realize that," I protested. "I mean, how did you get me
under? It was so different this time."
"With a little outside help. While I was in Florida, I
stopped in to visit with my therapist. We talked a
little about what you and I have been doing, and she
suggested the technique we just used as a way to sidestep
your tendency to think too much." She showed me small,
laminated index card. "While your conscious mind was busy
visualizing and counting, I kept repeating the short
confusion induction on this card. After a while, your
attention flagged and your subconscious took over. Once
you had lost track of the count, I knew you were halfway
there. Since you were already in a visual thinking mode, I
tried the same exercise that worked for me to get past the
barrier."
"So the stone wall was your image?"
"No no no," she said. "My image wouldn't have worked for
you. All I did was suggest that you could see the
obstruction ahead of you, and then asked you to describe
it. You provided all the details. And when I told you
that it was your wall, your castle, you had no problem
opening the door and going inside."
"And once I was inside?"
"You just dropped. It was a little spooky to see; I
thought you were relaxed before, but when I told you to
close your eyes and let go in the hammock you really sunk
into the bed. Your hand got cold and you went right into
REM, just like the therapist said you would."
"So what did you do with me once I was in your power?" I
asked half-jokingly.
"Do you really want to know?" The secretive smile was
back.
"Yes."
Still smiling, Susan scooted closer to me. Stretching one
arm across my chest, she put her mouth right up against my
ear and whispered, "Remember." My head buzzed for a
second, and then the information came flooding through my
mind.
I remembered her voice congratulating me on finally
reaching a deep trance state, and letting me know that in
the future the gate to my garden would always be open for
me, allowing me to enter my deepest hypnotic state easily.
I remembered my arms getting lighter and lighter at her
command, floating up from the bed. They became stiff and
rigid and unmovable until she told me otherwise, then they
fell gently back down to the bed unassisted. I remembered
her telling me my entire body would be highly sensitive to
touch, and that every touch would bring me a powerful wave
of pleasure. Soon after that I was overcome by pure
physical joy as I felt her hands running over every part of
my body.
And then I remembered a conversation. Susan had asked me
how I felt about her, and I said I was falling in love with
her. She asked if I wanted to sleep with her, and I said
very much. She had laughed at that, saying that she wanted
it too but my timing was off, we would have to wait a few
days. I remembered her gently cupping a hand over the
circus tent in my pants and asking me how long had it been,
how many women, what were my favorite ways to make love and
why, and I remembered answering in plain, unvarnished
detail. Then I remembered listening as she told me the
same things about herself.
Finally, I remembered her telling me that I would recall
none of these things until she whispered the word
"remember" in my ear.
Susan watched my face as I recalled and assimilated all of
this, her body still up against mine. I could smell her
and feel her and hear her breath, and the closeness of her
had me so hard I thought for sure my pants would rip. Our
mouths met in our first real kiss, and without any
conscious direction I found my hands starting to explore
her body, looking for an opening.
"Soon," she told me, breaking off gently as she rose off
the bed. "It's already late, and you have to get up early
in the morning."
I nodded. "You're right, of course." Slowly, reluctantly,
I climbed out of the bed and put my shoes back on.
We kissed once again at the doorway. "Don't plan anything
for the weekend," she advised in a voice that held great
promise. I watched the door close, then trudged back to my
car for the trip home.
I woke up the next morning to the ringing of my telephone.
It took me about five rings to recognize the sound and find
the phone.
"Hello?" I croaked.
"Rise and shine," Susan said. "Since I kept you up late, I
thought the least I could do is give you a wake-up call."
"You're too kind," I said, looking at the clock: 5:35am.
"Didn't you say you needed to get an early start this
morning?"
My brain finally engaged. This was Thursday -- I had an
eight o'clock meeting that I needed a least an hour to
prepare for. "Jesus, I almost completely forgot. Thanks!"
"My pleasure. Am I still invited to the party?"
"Sure, if you want to come." We were having a farewell
gathering for Robb, a coworker who was heading off to
greener pastures. I had invited Susan because I knew she
would have the day off following her trip, but since the
party was being held downtown I told her I would understand
if she begged off.
"I think I'd like to go," she said. "I don't get downtown
much, and this way it wouldn't be in traffic."
"Cool," I replied. "Do you want me to come get you?"
"That's too much driving. I'll take Metro down, and you
can drive me home."
"That works. I'll meet you me at the station and we'll
walk over to the party together."
Thanks to the pleasant wake-up call, I was in the office by
6:45 and in better spirits than anybody should be at that
ungodly hour. My good mood lasted through the entire
workday. By mid afternoon, when I am sometimes prone to
start talking to myself and begging people to just kill me
quickly, I was still chipper enough that it drew a few
surprised looks from my colleagues.
A guy named Simmons stuck his head into my cube at one
point to ask, "You finally getting some, Mark?" I just
grinned at him and said nothing.
By about 5:15 I was ready to call it a day. Most of the
crew were doing the same; this was Robb's last day and we
were taking him out to Brickskeller's, one of his favorite
haunts, to applaud his wisdom in choosing to take a higher-
paying job with a company in the suburbs. I headed up to
the Brick just in time to grab a legal parking spot nearby,
then walked over to the Dupont Circle Metro station to wait
for Susan.
She emerged from the station at 5:50 looking none the worse
for wear. She was in a long denim skirt with a clingy
wrap-style top that showed off her figure very nicely. The
skirt came to well below her knees but had a high slit on
right side, giving me a nice flash of leg with each step
she took.
"Will I pass muster?" she asked after an embrace and a
quick kiss.
"That was never in question," I replied. "The real
challenge will be keeping some of these from trying to
carry you off themselves."
When we entered the Brick my group saw us immediately. As
we worked our way along the long, polished bar to the end
where our party had staked out its place, I could see their
eyes shifting from Susan to me and back to Susan. The
looked envious, the women approving. I introduced her
simply as "Susan", letting them assume whatever they liked.
Given her nature, I knew it would take them only a few
minutes to welcome her into the group.
By the time we'd all eaten and the second round of beer
bottles was empty, Susan was family. We toasted Robb and
told a series of increasingly ribald stories, and generally
had a great time. When it was time to go and Susan and I
were leaving hand in hand, it occurred to me that I hadn't
had such a good time in months, maybe years.
When we reached my car, Susan asked for the car keys. "I'm
okay," I assured her. "I only had one beer, and that was
early on."
"I know," she said. "I'm just in a driving mood. Trust
me?"
"Sure." There was no traffic to speak of at that hour, but
if Susan wanted to drive I wasn't going to argue about it.
I handed her my keys. "Do you know the route?"
"I think so," she replied with confidence. She was as good
as her word; within minutes we were well on our way out of
the city.
We started out quiet; it's easier to concentrate on the
complexities of the DC streets that way. I found my
thoughts wandering back to my latest writing project,
"Boxing Day". I'd posted a partial draft while Susan was
away, but I wasn't sure if I really liked the way it was
developing. I was venturing outside of my comfort zone,
and I wasn't sure if I'd gone too far. When I'm in that
state with a story, it tends to take up more or less
permanent residence in the back of my mind; any time I'm
not actively thinking about something else, it tends to
creep forward and steal my attention. As I sat there next
to Susan, watching the city blocks flow by, my idle brain
cells brought up the and went to work on it, worrying
at it like a puppy chewing a bone.
I pictured the main characters, Lucy and Dan, and watched
them go through the action as I'd written it so far. A
third character came in, someone with a bit of a hard edge,
and the scene I was concerned about played through in my
mind, the car's dashboard becoming a stage for the action.
For a second I thought I heard Susan say something,
but when I looked over she seemed to be concentrating on
the road. My mind drifted back to Lucy and Dan.
The longer I thought about it, the more vividly I saw the
characters interacting on the stage. I closed my eyes and
the was complete; the dashboard was gone and Lucy's
bedroom took shape. I watched the already-written scene
unfold and heard imagined voices speaking dialog I'd
written a few days before. As the scene continued the
image grew and clarified, becoming almost like a waking
dream. I saw the third character, Denise, finish her piece
and take her leave. Then, like a child playing with dolls,
I began to direct Lucy and Dan in my mind, telling them
what to do next.
I tried several scenes this way, rejecting some ideas,
keeping others. After a while I started to feel tired,
weary from the effort of maintaining the vivid pictures in
my head. I felt myself sinking back into the car seat,
breathing deeply, and slowly closed the curtain on my
little play.
A sharp clapping sound shocked me awake. I was disoriented
for a second; when my head cleared, I saw Susan looking at
me with that knowing smile again.
"What?" I asked.
"Look outside," she answered. I looked out the window and
then realized we were in the parking lot in front of my
house.
"Oh, Jeez! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tune out on you."
"It's okay," she assured me. "I could tell you were deep
in thought. In fact, I took advantage of it."
"Oh?"
"Let's go inside."
I got out of the car, then stopped. "Hey," I observed,
pointing to the car in the next space. "This is yours,
isn't it?"
"That's right," she replied. "I got someone to follow me
here, then drop me at the Shady Grove station. I figured
this way I wouldn't need a ride back to the Metro to pick
up the car."
"You could just stay the night here," I suggested.
That brought another of those knowing smiles. "I didn't
bring my toothbrush," she answered in mock innocence.
"I'll lend you a spare," I promised.
"We'll see," she said, jingling my keys and turning to open
the door.
Once inside, Susan called dibs on the powder room. I was
in no hurry, so I used the facilities upstairs and then sat
down on the living room sofa, a chilled bottle of wine and
two glasses at my hand.
"We won't be needing that tonight," she said, indicating
the wine. "I have a better idea."
"I'm all ears," I replied, setting the things down on the
coffee table.
Susan hitched her skirt up and curled herself up on the
couch next to me, holding her body upright but against
mine, my head at her shoulder level. I stared unashamedly
at the swell of her breasts, longing to put my mouth over a
nipple. One of her arms went around my shoulders as she
pulled my face up to hers for a long, promising kiss.
"Ready?" she asked, rearing up over me a little as she came
up for air.
"Ready for what?" I asked in return, thinking I knew the
answer.
Boy, was I wrong. With a wicked gleam in her eye, she
reached out with an index finger and placed it at the top
of my forehead, right at the hairline. "For this," she
said softly, and I felt the finger start moving in a
straight line down my forehead, over the bridge of my nose,
and on down. As the finger moved, I felt a sudden
dizziness come over me; my wits clouded up, and my body
suddenly felt like I was wearing a lead suit. The further
down her finger moved, the more the feeling deepened. My
eyelids became unbearably heavy and slammed shut as her
finger moved past, and the image of my stone wall came
unbidden back to my mind. This time the door was already
open; I rushed right through it into blackness.
When I came to, Susan was still sitting on the sofa
grinning at me. Something seemed wrong with this picture,
and in a moment I realized what it was: Susan was still on
the couch, but I wasn't -- instead, I was sitting on the
recliner next to it.
"When did I move?" I asked myself out loud.
"About ten minutes ago," she answered. "Don't you
remember?"
"No, I don't," I said truthfully. I also didn't remember
when I'd developed the raging hard-on I was sporting, but I
saw no need to draw attention to it.
"Can you stand up?" she asked.
"Of course I can stand up," I told her, and decided to
prove it by doing so. Deciding is as far as I got; when it
came to translating desire into action, my body ignored me.
I didn't feel heavy, or glued to the seat, or anything like
that -- the muscles just didn't move in the way I was
telling them to.
"Are you sure?" she asked playfully.
"Cute," I remarked. "Are you going to set me free any time
soon?"
"You're free now," she said. "Stand up."
I tried again; this time my body obeyed and I was quickly
standing erect in every sense of the term. "That was a
trigger phrase, wasn't it?" I asked.
She nodded. "You're getting very good at responding to
those. How much do you remember?"
I gave it some thought before answering. "Nothing," I had
to admit. "Not a thing after your finger passed my eyes."
"Excellent!" She rose up from the couch to give me a
congratulatory hug. "Do you know why I did that?"
My own words came back to my mind: I want to close my eyes
in one place, wake up somewhere else and not remember how I
got there. "You were fulfilling one of my wishes," I
replied.
"That's right," she said. "Ready for another?"
I barely had time to say "sure" before I felt her finger on
my forehead. My brain clouded up again; I felt my body
pitching forward, but strong arms caught me and held me
upright as the blackness closed in.
This time when I came to, we were both sitting on the
couch. "'SMF'," I cited, recognizing the forehead
induction. "You've been reading Artie's stories."
"I like that one," she explained. "It's a little bit like
what's happening with us."
I was going to offer some kind of witty comeback, but I was
distracted. In the space of a few seconds I began to feel
unbearably hot and sticky. My body started to sweat, and
my clothing felt increasingly constricting and
uncomfortable. "You didn't!" I protested, knowing full
well that there could be no other explanation for what I
was feeling -- a fierce, irrational desire to take off my
clothes.
"Yes, I did," she admitted sheepishly. "I asked if you had
a specific compulsion you'd like to experience, and that's
what you suggested. Not that I wasn't thinking in that
direction anyway." A little extra color crept into her
cheeks as she added the last part, and her nostrils flared
a little.
"Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy," I complained as the
itchy, scratchy feeling continued to grow everywhere that
clothing covered my body.
I held out as long as possible. In a way, it was an
interesting and instructive experience and not at all what
I expected from a hypnotic compulsion. At no time did I
feel as though I was not in control of myself; my need to
get out of that clothing just kept mounting until it no
longer made sense for me to resist. I grabbed my polo
shirt and undershirt together, pulling them off as one, and
was immediately rewarded by a feeling of relief as my upper
body cooled down and stopped itching. With that positive
reinforcement it was only seconds before my shoes and socks
were also cast off, with my pants falling on top of them.
Susan watched me closely the whole time. From the way her
legs seemed to be clenching under the skirt and the way her
nipples pushed against her blouse I concluded that we were
both getting a charge out of this. I stood before her,
fascinated and horrified and exhilarated all at the same
time, my cock extending forward like the boom on a
sailboat, and decided to see how long I could resist the
pressure to drop my boxers. The answer: about 30 seconds.
As my boxers fell Susan gazed hungrily at my anatomy for a
few moments, then rose from the couch and came over to me.
She took my cock in one hand and hugged me to her with the
other as we kissed. I thought I was going to explode in
her hand.
"You've been very patient with me, Mark," she said softly.
"I want you to know that I'm just as eager as you are, and
tomorrow night will make it all worthwhile. I have a very
special surprise planned for us."
I was too distracted by the hand on my cock to reply right
away. Soon it was too late; feeling her finger on my
forehead again, I took a deep breath and let go.
The next thing I remember is waking up to the squealing of
my alarm clock. I was in my bed, alone. Damn!
As soon as I was fully awake, I felt something stirring in
the back of my mind. Something I needed to do.
The phone. Without thinking, I picked it up and dialed
Susan's number.
"Good morning," she answered.
"Hi," I responded, still not sure why I had called.
"Did you sleep well?"
"I guess so," I responded. "I don't remember going to bed.
I don't even know why I'm calling you. What did you do to
me last night?"
I heard a low, satisfied chuckle from her end of the line.
"I told you to go to bed, go to sleep, and call me when you
woke up. And you did. Are you impressed?"
After thinking a moment, I had to admit I was. To feel the
impact of a hypnotic suggestion immediately after coming
out of trance was one thing; to have one be equally
effective several hours later was quite another. In the
last couple of days I had become quite a skilled hypnotic
subject.
"What's our agenda for tonight?" I asked, remembering her
promise.
"Let's start with dinner," she answered. "I've got a
project team meeting in Silver Spring that may run over, so
let's meet at the Outback about seven thirty. Wait for me
in the bar, I might be late."
"Pack a bag," I advised in my best suggestive tone.
"Already done," she replied in kind. "Not that I'll be
needing much."
I didn't get much work done that day; my mind was too busy
anticipating what the evening -- or with any luck the whole
weekend -- would hold. I ducked out of the office early and
spent some time sprucing up the house, especially the
bedroom. It never hurts.
The Outback is always busy, especially on a Friday night,
so I showed up at 7:15 to put my name down for a nonsmoking
table. Even then, the hostess warned me that the wait
would be 45 minutes or more. I was expecting that and
assured her it was no problem. She issued me a little
plastic box studded with LED's, which I carried with me
into the bar.
Figuring it would be a good two hours or more before I
needed to drive anywhere, I ordered a rum and Coke and sat
back to wait for Susan. My eyes swept across the bar
absently while my mind wandered back to the adventures of
Lucy and Dan, my "Boxing Day" couple.
About ten minutes later a woman entered the bar. The
height and hairstyle were enough like Susan's to grab my
attention, but as she came closer I could see she was a
total stranger. A very interesting total stranger, I
judged, noting the clear eyes, the confident posture, not
to mention a very nice figure, but not my girl.
I was about to dismiss her and go back to my plotting, but
for two things. First of all, the closer she came to where
I was sitting the more I was struck by her physical charms.
She had a beautiful, athletic figure and was showcasing it
in a classic little black cocktail dress with spaghetti
straps and matching heels. She walked with her entire
body, like a dancer, and the dress moved with her in a way
that touched me at a primal level. I found myself staring,
alternating between her hips and her chest, as she worked
her way through the crowd. The second thing that kept my
attention was that she was approaching me. I realized this
just a little bit too late to avoid making an ass out of
myself; my eyes snapped upward from her body to her face,
and I knew that she'd caught me gawking at her like a horny
teenager.
She looked at me in a friendly, inquiring way and held out
her hand. "Tom?"
Out of reflex more than anything else, I took her offered
hand. "No, I'm sorry," I answered.
"Oh." Her face was confused and embarrassed; that made us
even, I supposed. She took a quick look around the bar,
then back at the entrance. The way the muscles in her
throat and shoulders moved when she did it was enchanting.
Then she turned back to me. "Do you mind if I sit here
anyway?"
"Please do."
She gave me a grateful smile as she took the stool next to
me. Like me, she took a position that allowed her to watch
the entrance. She glanced over at me several times, which
was only fair because my own eyes kept wandering over to
her. "Looks like you're waiting for someone too," she
observed, noting the call device next to my glass.
"Yes," I answered, ever the smooth conversationalist. "I'm
Mark, by the way."
"Call me Donna." She extended her hand again, and I was
more than happy to take it.
"Blind date?" I guessed. After all, she had mistaken me
for Tom.
She nodded. "You?"
"Not blind, just a date. She's probably on her way. So is
Tom, if he has any brains at all."
"I hope so. I'm counting on him for my ride home."
With nothing better to do but wait, we made casual
conversation. In due course a second round of drinks
appeared, and we both made jokes about our absent dates.
By 7:50 I noticed that she had stopped watching the door
and seemed content with my company. A sense of conflict
started to grow within me; my hormones were responding to
this in ways that my conscience couldn't sanction. I
started to pray that Susan would show up soon.
A few minutes later, my pager went off. My heart sank when
I read the message on the display: "Very sorry, held up
and can't get free tonight. Call me in the morning, I'll
make it up to you. S"
"Your date?" Donna asked.
I nodded grimly. "Looks like I'm on my own."
"Same here," she replied, looking at her watch.
My head was telling me to get up and leave right then; my
balls were telling me there was no reason to hurry. The
debate was interrupted when the lights on my little
plastic box began twinkling.
Donna looked resignedly at my little toy. "Looks like your
table is ready," she observed.
"Table for one," I deadpanned. "How exciting." I looked
back at Donna with every intention of telling her goodbye,
but my balls took control. "Look," I said, trembling a
little as I spoke. "I don't want to have dinner by myself,
and it's a shame to waste the table I waited for. Why
don't you have dinner with me? If Tom shows up, you can
let him buy you dessert."
Donna consulted her watch one more time. "If Tom shows up,
he can wait around for an hour like I just did. I'd love
to have dinner with you, Mark."
My balls congratulated themselves as we wove our way
through the bar to the hostess' stand, and then to our
table. On the way I got many opportunities to steal covert
glances at Donna's body, and every one confirmed what I
already knew -- this was possibly the sexiest woman I had
ever laid eyes on.
Dinner was delicious. I'd like to tell you in detail what
we ate and what we talked about, but the truth is I don't
really remember a lot of the specifics -- I was preoccupied
by the escalating conflict between my libido and my
conscience. The longer we talked and ate, the more at ease
I felt with Donna and the more I reacted physically to her
presence. I found my thoughts drifting, imagining taking
her back to my house and stripping off that black dress.
After a while, I started to sense that Donna knew at least
some of what I was thinking and feeling. She seemed to
smile more broadly, make eye contact more often and for
longer times. She asked leading questions, encouraging me
to keep running my mouth, and listened as though my inane
ramblings were fascinating to her. Every once in a while
she would touch my hand, or her foot would brush against my
leg under the table, sending a shockwave through my body.
There was no doubt about it: I was being seduced.
That realization woke up my conscience again, and it
started to berate me. I had a lot of emotion invested with
Susan; from what she'd said the night before, I could
probably show up on her doorstep in the morning and spend
the rest of the weekend in her bed. How could I even think
about on her?
I was doing more than thinking about it, of course -- in my
mind, by my code, I was already cheating. From the moment
I'd laid eyes on Donna at least part of my mind had been
fixated on her body. I felt drawn to her in a way that I'd
never experienced before, and that I was totally unprepared
for. I wanted Donna in the worst possible way. I might
hate myself in the morning, I thought, but I really need
this. My conscience retreated to the back of my mind,
sulking, while Donna and I had coffee.
Finally, it was time to go. I stood up slowly, trying to
make my hard-on as unobtrusive as possible, and walked out
with Donna right beside me. "Would you like me to take you
home?" I asked, remembering that she had been counting on
Tom for transportation.
"Sure," she replied, her tone and her look letting me know
that she was interested in more than a car ride. I walked
her to my car and opened the door for her. She flashed me
a generous amount of leg and as she folded herself
into the passenger seat, robbing my higher brain functions
of even more precious oxygen.
Making my away around the car to the driver's side, I slid
in carefully to avoid catching my extended member on the
steering wheel. "Where to?" I asked, trying to be
nonchalant.
"I think I've changed my mind," she said. "I'm not ready
to go home yet. Why don't we go to your place instead?"
There it was, right out in the open. No more rationalizing
that it's only a meal, no more pretending that I didn't
want to jump this woman's bones more than I'd ever wanted
anything. If I gave any answer but no, I would be throwing
away a chance at a solid relationship for what was probably
a one-night stand.
"Okay," I said, and braced myself for a backlash from my
conscience. It never came; I was almost taken aback by how
little guilt I was feeling. Then her hand came to rest on
my thigh and all I could think about was getting her to my
house immediately.
The trip was quick and silent. Donna sat beside me with
her legs crossed, making the most of the high slit in her
dress, and her left hand resting on my lap. She was
watching my face and probably my crotch, but I had to keep
most of my attention on the road. After the longest
fifteen minutes of my life, we pulled into the lot in front
of my house.
I jumped out of the car and went around to open the door
for Donna. She smiled up at me and gave me another
generous eyeful of and thigh as she climbed up out
of the car.
Arm in arm, we walked up to the front door. I fumbled
nervously with my keys for a few seconds, then managed to
open the door. As soon as we were both inside Donna turned
off the light switch and pushed me up against the back of
the door. Her entire body pressed up against mine and our
mouths locked together in a kiss that raised the hair on
the nape of my neck. I could feel the granite of my cock
pressing against her as she ground herself into me. My
arms went around her and headed directly south, pressing
and squeezing her ass. I could feel her hands tugging at
my shirt, pulling up on it, and I let go of her long enough
to peel it off along with my undershirt. I started to
reach around her, feeling for the top of the zipper that I
knew had to be in the back of that dress.
I really shouldn't be doing this, I thought as my hand
found the zipper and started slowly pulling it down. I
should apologize now, get a grip on myself, and call her a
cab. My hand stopped, and was even about to reverse
direction, but then a hand slipped down into the front of
my pants and all thought of stopping went completely out
the window. I eased her zipper down, feeling nothing but
soft skin beneath. I felt my pants open and fall as I
parted the back of the dress, slipping it off her
shoulders. She lowered her arms long enough to let it fall
off, and I dropped down to one knee.
With my head now at her chest level, I opened wide and took
an erect nipple into my mouth, hard and running my
tongue all over the sensitive tip. She drew in a sharp
breath and pulled my head closer, mashing my face into her
breast. I let my hands run up and down her body, catching
slightly on the tiny strings that held her in
place, and adored her. I breathed in deeply, filling my
lungs with her scent while I explored her exquisite body
with my hands.
In an act of pure hunger, I grabbed her around the
torso and stood up, lifting her in place with my mouth
still full of nipple. My shoulder caught the light switch
on the way up, an unintended benefit that made it much
easier to do what I had in mind. Holding her aloft, I
marched into the living room and dropped us both down onto
the couch, using my arms to catch my own weight. Once she
was securely down I ran my hands along the sides of her
body one more time, this time deliberately catching the
panty strings and stripping them off her in one motion.
They were soaking wet.
Donna started to get up; I put a quick stop to that by
spreading her knees apart and burying my face between her
moistened thighs. I kissed her mound, took a deep,
delicious breath full of her and plunged in with my tongue.
Donna gasped and fell back against the leather sofa. A few
minutes of probing and testing were enough for me to locate
some of her favorite spots; I zeroed in on those, licking
and and stroking, listening to her moan and gasp in
response. As the pace and the volume of her appreciative
sounds increased I knew she was close to her climax and
applied myself even more to my work. Her legs squeezed
around my head and her hips began to gyrate; I stayed with
her, adapting to her rhythms.
Just when I thought my head would burst from the pressure,
I felt her body loosen and sink a little deeper into the
sofa. She took several heavy, deep breaths, moaning with
each one, and then suddenly cried out as she gave in to her
first orgasm. I backed off, helping to support her weight
as she continued to writhe loosely, and when I judged that
she was starting to come down I plunged my thumb into her
slit and straight up her canal. The edge of my hand parted
her outer lips and my fingers clamped down on her mound.
She shrieked again as I hooked my thumb inside her, finding
and exploiting a sensitive spot inside her tunnel to send
her into another climax. I kept up the pressure and she
rode my hand for half a minute before she finally stilled.
"Hold on," she gasped as I started to dive into her once
again. "Just let me catch my breath."
"Say when," I told her, running my fingers through her
mound.
"Come up here," she said. "I want to get my hands around
that cock I felt a while ago."
"You will," I teased, "but I'm in no hurry." I wasn't -- I
knew that if she got her hands on my cock again I'd be
blasting away in no time; I wanted to hold that moment off
as long as I could.
"You may not be," she chided, "but I am." I was about to
silence her by diving into her again, but before I could
her index finger reached out and touched my forehead. All
the strength left my body instantly; I felt dizzy and
woozy, and as her finger traced down my forehead I felt
myself slipping away...
"Wake up, Mark!"
My eyes opened and I found myself overwhelmed by the flood
of sensations. I was on my back, in my bed. Donna was on
top of me, rocking back and forth, my cock buried to the
hilt inside of her. There was an exultant gleam in her
eye; she was trying to grin, but her face was melting as
another wave of passion took hold of us both. I felt the
pressure in my groin and I knew that an explosion was
imminent. Still, somehow I managed to form a rough
question: "How did you do that?" I gasped, confused.
Donna reached out and placed a palm over my face.
"Realize," she said, and removed her hand.
Somewhere in my head a gate opened and a flood of
information came through. It was too much to assimilate
immediately, and I just stared at her face in wonder. She
clamped down her muscles around my cock and gave a good
hard squeeze, and any attempt at coherent thought became
impossible. My head jerked back and my eyes rolled up into
my forehead as I came harder than I'd ever come before. My
whole body tensed and released in spasms, bucking under her
like a mechanical bull. If my prong hadn't been lodged
inside her I probably would have thrown her off.
An eternity later, my entire body let go at once and sank
into the bed. My eyes fell shut, and I slowly opened them
again. Looking up, I got the shock of my life.
I saw Susan's face, atop Susan's naked body, gazing down on
me with a look of pure triumph. She, too, was gasping for
breath.
"What the --" I stammered.
"Surprise," she said softly.
In that moment I understood everything. There was no
Donna; the woman I'd perceived as a total stranger, whom I
had been smitten by and seduced by, was Susan herself.
All I could do was shake my head in wonder. "You are
unbelievable," I said.
"You're pretty good yourself," she replied, and yielded as
I pulled her down onto me for a long, languorous kiss.
"Do you know what really scares me?"
It was a good hour later; we had recovered from our initial
frenzied encounter and had spent the time cuddling,
kissing, and just delighting in the feel of our bodies
against each other. I could feel the erotic energy
building and knew that if I kept my mouth shut we'd be
coupling again soon. For good or ill, though, there was
something I had to get off my chest first.
"What?" she asked, her fingers toying with my chest hair.
"There I was, waiting for you, fully expecting you to come
meet me, fully expecting that an incredible weekend was
about to unfold for both of us, " I explained. "And yet, I
was willing to risk throwing all of that away just to get
into the pants of a total stranger for one night. And the
worst thing about it is, I really didn't feel all that
guilty about it."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Why? Because that's not who I'm supposed to be. I've
always prided myself on being one of the last of a dying
breed: loyal, monogamous, honorable guys. Tonight I found
out that all it takes is the right body in the right dress
to turn me into a faithless jerk who only thinks with his
dick. I don't like that one bit. It bothers me a lot, and
it should probably bother you too."
Susan rose up a little, pulling back just enough to make
good, strong eye contact. "Don't think of yourself that
way," she said. "You really are a loyal, monogamous,
honorable guy." I started to argue, but she shushed me.
"Listen," she continued. "You know perfectly well that
hypnosis can't make you do anything that isn't in your
nature. If I'd told you to sleep with someone else, even
in your deepest trance, you never would have done it. The
only reason you let Donna seduce you is because your
subconscious knew all along that you were really with me,
doing something we both wanted to do."
I let that sink in for a few minutes. "Is that how it was
for you, when you did it before?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure. I really don't remember a lot
of that night very well. That's one of the drawbacks to
these hypnosis games -- sometimes the memories get spotty."
"In that case," I suggested, "Let's try it the old-
fashioned way a couple of times."
Her hand reached down and found my cock, which was already
well on its way to full length. "That's the best
proposition I've had all night," she answered, as her hand
began to work magic on my stiffening member.
The pleasure was intense. Susan's palm was rubbing down
hard along the length of my cock while her fingers played
lightly with my balls. For a few moments all I could do
was lie back and enjoy while my body succumbed to the
delicious feelings her touch induced.
"That's right, darling," she whispered to me, "just relax
and enjoy, relax and let go." She thrilled me some more by
dropping light, gentle kisses along my neck. As the
pressure began to build inside me again I reached down with
my own hand and found her again. I snuck my fingers into
her slit and probed carefully.
I knew I'd found her button when she gasped once and her
hand suddenly clamped down hard on my shaft. That hurt,
not enough to bother me but enough to bring me back a
little from the edge; I saw that as a good thing and
pressed my advantage.
Reaching a little deeper into her secret place, I teased
her clitoris with both extended fingers, circling it and
brushing it from every angle in every way I could think of.
Before long Susan was moaning loudly and squeezing my cock
in time with her moans and my finger movements. When we
were ready, I rolled Susan onto her back, knelt between her
legs, and slid into her.
She gave a passionate groan as I buried myself in her and
began to pump in and out. Her legs went straight up
against my chest, tilting her pelvis to increase my
penetration. I put both hands under her, lifting and
supporting, loving the sensation of how deeply we were
coupled. I felt Susan relaxing again and held on, pressing
into her once more as she started to climax. Feeling that,
I let my head fall back and relaxed as much as I could as
my orgasm came crashing through me. Finally we both
collapsed back onto the bed, our energy spent -- at least
for the time being.
It's been three weeks since that incredible night, and I
can honestly say that the relationship is growing better
and stronger each day. I love this with a depth, a
passion, that I've never felt before and will probably
never feel again.
Yes, she still hypnotizes me from time to time. There are
a lot of erotic fantasies I want to explore. She has a few
of her own as well, and she's let me put her into trance
once or twice. Mostly, though, I just love having her with
me and making love with all of our senses and memories
intact.
Susan is across the hall in my bed right now, sleeping
soundly while I write this. Tomorrow I'll post the
finished on my web site and let her discover it on
her own. With any luck, I'll get some very positive reader
feedback.
-wg
9/28/99
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