The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Sunday, Kenny was at the offices of Dr. Christie Black, Therapy and Psychological Counseling, moving file cabinets. He didn’t mind, even if Christie didn’t have a clear idea of where everything was supposed to go. Every time Sharon would smile at him, he’d smile back, thinking that he must be getting better looking as he got older; her smile seemed to say, “I’m shy, but interested.” Even if she didn’t smoke in the office. Dr. Black—Christie was looking at a corner, seemingly deep in thought. “I think those cabinets over there might look better over here,” she said, half to herself. Turning to Kenny, she said, “Yes, that’s it. Could you move those cabinets over there, please? It’ll open up the area here.” Her office was decorated in soft colors, neutral tones, and wood and plants. It was quite bucolic, and Kenny said as much. Christie smiled, “It’s designed to relax my clients. Just a small oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle, where people can come and relax, just let the day-to-day bustle go away, and have their tension flow out of their bodies, and they can relax and tell me all of their troubles, no worry, no tension, no stress and I can help them achieve complete relaxation by helping them to deal with their issues in a relaxed, comfortable manner.”

Christie’s voice was so smooth, so gentle, and so soft that Kenny found himself temporarily inactive, unable to move. He’d relaxed as her clients must have. Shaking himself back into full awareness, he smiled at her. “Yes, Dr. Black, I can see how relaxing it is, and I bet you’re really good at what you do.”

Christie said, “Thank you, it’s flattering of you to say that. The idea is to create a little more open space in the client room, to give the illusion of a more—free—environment. It helps those clients who are claustrophobic to be able to relax, but it will make everybody feel more relaxed and at ease with me and the situation. I make my best progress with comfortable, relaxed people. It helps them open up to me and that’s the best situation possible.” She permitted herself a small internal smile. Judging by the way he tended to go into fugue states at her suggestions, she would be able to take him down completely in a couple more sessions. And then there was the CD, with the music that Kenny was occasionally humming. That music also hid the subliminal suggestions of trust and submission. The suggestions were directed specifically at Kenny. Sharon was so suggestible that she would have fallen into trance if the subliminals hadn’t been so specific. The thought of an entranced Sharon sent a little throb to Christie’s privates. She pushed it aside, and returned to thinking of ways to increase Kenny’s exposure to her and her hypnotic skills for the day. She’d already managed to keep him in the office for an hour and a half. Michelle would be back on Tuesday, and she needed to know Kenny’s true intentions before then. If they were honorable, she would turn him into a toy, and a nice partner for Michelle. If not... there were things she could do that would make him regret misleading her friend for a long while.

Christie ultimately managed to stall him in the office for a three hour dose of the subliminal treatment, and had also engaged him in several conversations about her work, all involving “relaxation and openness.” Kenny was close to dozing off while she and Sharon finished working on relocating the actual files. He was a great subject, almost as good as Sharon...

“Come on, Shar, I need to do this practical, and you’re the only person I can practice on.”

“Christie, I was supposed to go out with Eddie tonight,” Sharon replied from her room. “Can’t we do this tomorrow?”

“I need to spend tomorrow studying for my midterm and doing laundry n’junk like that. You promised,” Christie shot back. “Just ‘cause you get Fridays off in B-school and have a designated day where you can take care of shit like that doesn’t mean it works that way for everybody. It won’t take long. I promise.”

Sharon sighed loud enough for Christie to hear in the living room, but she appeared shortly thereafter, and sat on the sofa next to her roommate. “So what do I have to do?”

Christie followed the suggestibility index instructions to the letter, and found that Sharon was a textbook subject. So textbook that her instructor wouldn’t have approved because Christie’s roommate was no challenge at all. A week later, Eddie called and cancelled a date with Sharon. Christie’s midterm was over, so both girls found themselves with nothing to do on a Saturday night. Christie decided to see if she could hypnotize somebody since that was the next section after suggestibility, despite the professor’s warning about the potential dangers of amateurs and hypnosis. Christie was sitting on the sofa having a cup of coffee when Sharon plopped down next to her, obviously upset about the cancelled date. “Calm down, Sharon. It’s just a guy,” Christie said. “You need to relax.”

“Oh that Eddie makes me so mad sometimes! Sometimes I just wanna swear off guys. You ever feel like that, Christie? You know, just like, I don’t need this aggravation?”

“Yes,” Christie shot back immediately. “But that doesn’t mean that you need to give yourself a heart attack over it. Just relax, take a couple of deep breaths.” Sharon huffed a couple of times. “No, not like that, like this.” Christie drew an exaggerated slow breath, and slowly released it. Sharon gave her a funny look, but after a few seconds of mock peevishness, she echoed Christie. A few more breaths, and Christie resumed talking. “Now, with the next breath I want you to tell yourself to relax the muscles in your feet. Good. Make sure they’re nice and relaxed, so take another breath. You can’t rush relaxation, Sharon, so there’s no hurry. Let go of the tension in your calves and your knees, don’t let it go up, see it going down into the floor, flowing out of you with the next slow, easy breath... Yes, that’s it. Feeling a nice warmth as the muscles in your thighs and hips relax, all the negative tension flowing away into the ground, leaving you feeling nice and warm, and now your stomach relaxes with your next breath and the warmth spreads going further and further up as you continue to breathe deeply.” Christie noted that Sharon’s eyes were almost closed. She began to massage her roommate’s neck gently. “And now I’m helping the tension in your neck flow down through your body, into your legs and your feet and the floor, and you feel the nice warm relaxed feeling where my hands are, and we’re going to take the last of the tension away and let you relax, relax so completely that your eyes may not be able to stay open, that’s all right, it’s OK to let the relaxation close your eyes and drift off into sleep, relax and close your eyes, relax and feel the warmth, relax completely where you’re drifting, only aware of my voice and the pleasant warm feeling through your entire body and mind, let all those thoughts go, and just float in total relaxation, float and close your eyes, hearing only my voice, warm and sleepy close those eyes, and relax into sleep hearing only my soft voice, all your thoughts blank, hearing only my voice so relaxed and... asleep.” Sharon’s neck flopped forward and she pitched onto Christie in a light hypnotic trance. Christie immediately felt something entirely unexpected: she hadn’t felt it ever since Jamie Kilgore made her look into the mirror at the picture of cigarette holder elegance she presented before going to his senior formal. A twinge of sexual heat at the sight of a woman.

Kenny dropped by for dinner as promised that evening; he arrived earlier than expected. On the one hand, dinner had just been ordered, but his early arrival increased his exposure to Christie, and that was something she could turn to her advantage. She offered him a drink as her privates gave a throb. He had no chance at resisting her now. She could go ahead and begin his subjugation—if he was a nice person as far as Michelle was concerned, she reminded herself. Step one was to put him under. The hypnotic music played while Christie and Sharon made small talk with Kenny, making sure to mix in several references to calm and relaxation. Christie had trained Sharon to prepare men (and lesbians) for hypnosis, and the beautiful woman was very skilled at it. Kenny’s attentiveness during Sharon’s two Capri 120’s (and, to a lesser extent, Christie’s Saratoga), left him defenseless.

After dinner, he said something about having to prepare for Monday. Sharon immediately said, “Oh, you can relax for an after-dinner drink or two with us. After all, we are your new neighbors, and it’s not like you have to drive home.” While he was busy looking indecisive, Christie made a discreet hand motion, which triggered a post-hypnotic command for Sharon. She pulled out a Capri and lit it, taking a slow draw. Kenny agreed to stay for a single drink, which Christie was only too happy to retrieve. She handed him another drink, but this one was laced with a tasteless mild hypnotic she’d found useful with her more agitated subjects. He sat next to Sharon.

“Is your job very stressful?” Sharon asked, pausing to french-inhale slowly. Christie could see Kenny fight to hide his reaction, which meant that her own went undetected. He finally answered in the affirmative, struggling to make his mind work faster. “Christie’s really good at handling stress, and she can show you how to do it.”

“I can do that, Kenny,” Christie immediately began, moving next to him. One look into his eyes and she knew that the hypnotic was working very well. He would have fallen asleep without any pushing, but she didn’t want him to go to sleep sleep. “Stress is countered by relaxation, when you relax, you fight stress, stress is weaker than relaxation, that’s something many people don’t know, that it’s easier to relax than to stress out, and with a little bit of attention you can push the stress out by telling yourself to relax , and I can help you relax, by telling you to relax in calm, soft, soothing, relaxing tones, and relaxing becomes natural when you listen to my voice and it just gets easier and easier to relax, because there’s no hurry when you listen to my voice and relax, feel the tension fly away, all your tension leaving because you’re listening to my voice and I’m telling you that your tension is going away and you are relaxing to the sound of my voice and it’s so easy and it feels good, and if you want to look at something you can watch the smoke as it leaves Sharon’s lips, so you don’t have to think you can just watch the smoke and relax, listen to my voice and relax, listen to my voice and watch the smoke and relax, and it’s so easy you don’t have to think, you don’t want to think as you relax and you have no stress any more because you’ve relaxed, and you feel so comfortable that you’re almost asleep as you watch the smoke, and listen to my voice and relax, as you try to watch the smoke as you listen to my soothing relaxing voice, and your eyes are so relaxed they are closing, and when you take a deep breath you will hear only my voice, and relax completely, and listen to me as I tell you to take a deep breath now, and you are so relaxed that you can let your eyes close and see the image of the smoke in the air and you only see the smoke as your eyes are closed and hear only my voice as you glide into a deep, deep relaxation.” Kenny’s mouth hung open, his head was flopped onto one shoulder, and his eyes were closed. Christie pulled out one of her cigarettes and said, “Sharon, light my Saratoga.” Firmly in the grasp of Christie’s post-hypnotic command, the woman slowly walked over to her and lit the cigarette. Christie exhaled her first drag directly into Sharon’s face. “Obey your mistress.” Sharon’s eyes closed. After allowing the thrill of the hypnotic subjugation to subside, Christie sent Sharon into the bedroom to sleep, so that she could be alone with Kenny and complete his induction.

“Kenny, I want you to feel a large helium balloon tied to your left arm. Your left arm is slowly becoming more and more weightless, more and more weightless, until it weighs less than the balloon itself. Your weightless arm helps you relax deeper into sleep, relaxing more, and letting you focus more sharply on my voice.” Kenny’s arm flew towards the ceiling. Christie repeated everything for the right arm, then instructed him, “No matter how hard you try to bring your arms down, the balloons are pulling them up more than you can pull them down. Go ahead, try it. Can you see that you can’t move your arms against the pull of the balloons?” The strain quickly became evident on his face, and she urged him on. After about two minutes of the floating arms, his face was a mask of fatigue and pain. “When I count to three, I’m going to cut the strings and allow you to relax, let all the strain and fatigue go at the sound of my voice counting to three, and you will relax even more at the sound of my voice and I will let you relax completely when I say three, and here we go, Kenny, one... two... three.” His arms dropped onto the sofa with a thump, but his torso flopped between his legs. He was deep. Christie felt a strong tingle. Maybe it was time for a guy as a change of pace. “Kenny, you now know that you are hypnotized, totally relaxed at the sound of my voice, feeling better now, warm and relaxed, totally attentive to my voice, and I can take you there whenever I want because you like being relaxed and focused on my voice, deeply, deeply hypnotized. No stress, no worries, just my voice and relaxing warmth throughout your body and mind. If it helps you relax, watch Sharon smoke with your eyes closed, she can’t see you so you can relax and watch her smoke with the french-inhales and long, slow exhales and it relaxes you even more and as you relax, you can focus more clearly on my voice in this warm, hypnotized state. How do you feel?”

“Warm... relaxed,” Kenny managed to mumble.

“Do you like this feeling?”

“Yes...”

“As you focus on my voice, relaxing more with my every word, and going deeper and deeper into hypnosis, you want to experience this feeling more. My voice relaxes you, and you will tell me everything I want to know because no matter how secret the answer, it is so relaxing when you tell Christie, so relaxing when you tell Christie, that you will only feel warm, and even more relaxed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Christie.”

“Very good. Tell Christie what you think of Michelle. Is she an easy lay?”

“Yes. For me. She likes me as much as I like her.”

“Was she too easy to resist, or was it something else?”

“Something else... So pretty. Such... such...” Kenny seemed to be having trouble with this part.

“Tell Christie and feel relaxed, it feels so much better out than in. Let Christie hear the secret and take away the stress, let Christie hear the secret and take away the stress...” She repeated it softly, intimately, in the most soothing tones she could muster.

“She’s such a sexy smoker. Virginia Slims 120’s... so sexy... the way she... smokes. Holds it... exhales... inhales... so sexy. Love it when she smokes...”

“Is that all about Michelle? Is she fat?”

“No... nice and round... soft. So sexy... so pretty.”

Well, that settled that. Michelle had definitely hooked one. There would be no hypnotically-induced sexual difficulties for Kenny; he had fallen for Michelle in a big way, and Christie could certainly understand his attraction to her. Christie liked Kenny, too, deciding that he was attractive enough for a guy. She’d proceed with her plan A. “I understand, Kenny. Now relax and focus on my voice again. Tell Christie all the things that make a sexy smoker like Michelle?”

“Smoke long cigarettes. 120’s. Use cigarette holders. Elegant. Slow. Makes very sexy.”

“Yes, Kenny, it makes them very sexy, and sexy women arouse you.” He hummed an agreement. “So whenever you hear me say ‘sexy Saratoga’, it is a long cigarette so you will pay attention and focus on my voice. When I blow the smoke directly in your face after you are focused, you will relax and return to this warm, relaxed, comfortable state, where there is only relaxation and my voice. Your muscles will continue to support your body, but your eyes will close, and your mind will be totally relaxed and open as you watch Michelle smoke on the movie in your mind. My voice will be the soundtrack, the only thing you can hear. When I count to ten, you will awaken, feeling refreshed and alert, absolutely no stress, and you will want me to help you de-stress more often. I will give you a CD that you will listen to whenever you are alone for a half-hour. You must listen to the CD at least once a day for a half-hour because it will help me to teach you how to de-stress. This CD is especially made for you, and no one else may listen to it. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand.” Christie awakened him, offering him the CD with a smile; he may have thought it was a friendly smile, but even if he knew the evil motivations behind it, he couldn’t have done anything about it. He was hers now, and she could make him do anything she wanted. She lit a Saratoga as she stood at the door to let him out. “Tell Sharon I said good night, I don’t want to yell. Thanks for the CD, Christie. Ever since my promotion I’ve been feeling the stress a little more.”

Christie turned to the door and whispered, “Sexy Saratoga,” while she undid the lock. Kenny stood, temporarily frozen as she took a draw, and then exhaled in his face. He sighed, his eyes closed, and his neck bowed. Anything she wanted. She woke him up and sent him to his side of their common wall, satisfied that the post-hypnotic trigger was firmly in place. She closed her door and headed for the bedroom where Sharon awaited. Having Kenny in thrall was exciting, and she needed to have the buzz between her legs taken care of now.

Christie’s dreams were filled with visions of gloved holder ladies smoking at her command, and Kenny, collared, leashed and kneeling at her feet while she played sultana of all she surveyed. For once, playing with Sharon hadn’t dulled the throb between her legs. It kept her moderately distracted for the duration of the day. As she sat listening to Mrs. Carver recite her hypnotic regression script, her own mind began to wander. Christie knew that she was going to fuck Kenny at some point, Michelle be damned. She hadn’t had such an attractive, pliant male slave at her disposal since...

Christie wandered through the play party, her cigarette holder in hand. She was pleasantly buzzed, from both the alcohol and the sexual activity. The latter had started with an intense masturbatory session in her bedroom after she looked at herself in the mirror to appraise her look for the evening. The gloves, the long holder with its long, just-lit Saratoga, the “utility belt” with its whip, harness and dildo... She was just too damn sexy for words, and had to play with the gorgeous domme babe right away. It hadn’t stopped there, however. The first scene at the party was hers, and Michelle’s zaftig hypnotic submission had started a flame between her legs, one that Michelle had been made to diminish with her tongue. It had been a temporary fix; Christie just felt extremely horny that night. Ever since she’d discovered the pleasures of Sapphic love, and the unrestrained joy of making it happen through hypnosis of an unsuspecting subject, she’d been virtually insatiable. She walked slowly through the party, mingling with the other dommes and doms, with an occasional acknowledgement of a sub. She’d dismissed Michelle for the remainder of the evening. Her roommate had served her purpose; by now, she’d be home, on her way to bed to smoke and masturbate, unaware that she’d even been with Christie that evening. Christie’s self-satisfied grin vanished as she froze at the sight of a man dressed only from the waist down, indicating his submissive status. Her initial shock at seeing him here gave way to a rush of understanding things that had happened long ago.

She quickly headed in the other direction, hoping that she hadn’t yet been seen, and went in search of a sub who she knew was very into the smoking fetish and usually had special smokes he would give to the dommes. Christie obtained a long, slender cigarillo from him and fit it, unlit, into the holder. Then she went after her prey. He was still talking to the same group of male subs she had seen him with earlier, giving no indication that he had seen her. This was going to be fun. “Light,” she snapped as she approached the group. His jaw dropped at the sound of her voice, but he, along with a couple other members of the group held lighters aflame. She dismissed all but him, and then took the light he had been patiently holding. She took a heavy drag of the cigarillo through the holder, then tilted her head backwards. After a near-infinite pause, Christie exhaled slowly through her nostrils. She fixed his gaze on him. “Hello, Jamie. It’s been a while.” He swallowed visibly, and a bulge began to appear in his shorts. “Yes, I remember very well,” she husked, posing for him. “I still know—” She took another languid draw on the holdered cigar, waited, and exhaled through her nostrils. “—exactly what you like.” The bulge was very visible, but the increasing drama was broken by another female voice.

“What are you doing looking at another woman’s face? Surely you haven’t forgotten my instructions?” When Jamie began to stammer, the woman yelled, “Did I give you permission to speak? Kneel. NOW,” with a Southern accent. Christie couldn’t help but smirk as Jamie knelt instantly, looking at the floor. The woman turned to Christie. “Oh! I see,” she said, obviously taking notice of the holder and cigarillo. She resumed, “I think he found you too attractive to remember his training. But you don’t have to excuse him for that. You can whip him if you want.” Christie saw Jamie flinch, but the woman didn’t. “I’m sorry, I need to introduce myself. My name is Marie Cox—”

“Kilgore,” Christie finished with a smile.

The other woman was surprised. “Excuse me, but have we met?” Her accent was pure upper crust Southern Belle all the way.

“No, but he and I have met. Before you.”

Realization dawned on Marie’s face, along with a smile. “So you’re the smoking girlfriend. I’ve been wondering if we’d ever run into you since we moved back here from Georgia. Did you—ummm—dominate him in college?”

Christie shook her head after taking another draw on the holder. “No. I was too young to know about things like that. All I knew was that he was really generous if I smoked long cigarettes in a holder and exhaled through my nose. Did he tell you about me?” Marie wasn’t showing any signs of apprehension, subtle or otherwise, so Christie was becoming increasingly comfortable with the situation—especially because Jamie wasn’t. He’d broken her little sophomore heart when he had vanished after he graduated, contrary to all his promises. She didn’t want him now, so the pain was just a distant memory belonging to the girl she used to be.

“Eventually,” Marie grinned. She told Christie about finding Jamie’s smoking fetish movies and photos after they’d been married for a year, and how, after confronting him, he admitted that he’d been faithful of body, but not of act. “Instead of paying a whore to smoke for him while he masturbated, I took up the habit. I thought it would help me keep my husband and appearances. I was a non-smoker until I found out,” Marie confessed. “He’d make references to you—at least the way you smoked while I was learning.” She looked down at Jamie, still deferentially kneeling, and sneered, “I’m feeling generous. You can watch us smoke.” Marie removed a long ivory holder from a satin bag and carefully put a brown cigarette from a gold case into it. Christie lit Marie’s cigarette while complimenting her on the holder. She knew Jamie was going crazy. “I found it on EBay. I make him pay me ten dollars to smoke for him, and depending on my mood, ten to one hundred for his sexual gratification from it. I spend it on holders and Nat Sherman’s mostly. That’s what I usually smoke, either MCD’s or Hint of Mint. In a pinch, Mores.” She looked down at Jamie again and smiled, mock-sweetly intoning, “Always brown, right, darling?” Jamie groaned, his bulge threatening to tear through his pants. Christie took another drag and exhaled the way he liked it just to make things a little harder. The brief torment over, Marie resumed, “Anyway, I went on the computer trying to find out more about this smoking fetish thing, and I found all these web sites and female dominants with cigarette holders. I dressed up in latex one night with a cigarette holder, and when he came home from the office, I had him licking everything. Jamie’s extremely oral.” Both women giggled. “And I discovered that the femdom thing did something for me. So, I went from a naïve little rich girl trying to keep her fairytale marriage from going bust in a very public and ugly way to the domme in control 24-7 of the heir to the Kilgore Company.” Marie french-inhaled her next drag, extending her gloved hand with the ivory holder to the side before tilting her head back and letting a slow combination oral/nasal exhale go. Christie felt her own clit pulse in response. Marie was a marvelously sexy smoker, and gorgeous to boot. “Would you want to play with him? For old times’ sake? I gotta tell you, you left a big time imprint on him. I’ve taken advantage of it. It only seems fair that I should—give you a chance at it. You laid all the groundwork. Besides, handing him off to somebody else reminds him of his place.”

“Sure,” Christie said, eagerly thinking of the evil possibilities, “but I’ve got my own thing, now, too. I hypnotize people into submission. Would you mind if—?”

“Go right ahead,” Marie grinned.

Jamie went under with a very quick induction based on holders and smoke. His now-confirmed submissive nature left him defenseless against Christie’s hypnotic skills. She spent a wonderful night with Marie and Jamie, leaving the play party shortly after she’d confirmed that Jamie’s post-hypnotic trigger was firmly established. Even though Marie was “only slightly bi-curious”, Christie’s promise of setting up post-hypnotic triggers for Marie to use on Jamie got the southern belle into Christie’s bed, and promptly left Marie panting, “Make that mostly heterosexual,” after their first experience together. Christie had a lot of fun with Marie; Jamie would fall into trance at the merest suggestion for Christie, while Marie decided she liked using the smoking fetish triggers. It even went so far as Christie bringing Michelle to the Bahamas for a marvelous week at a private resort with Jamie and Marie. That week, Jamie spent so much time on his knees that they didn’t tan. When Marie got pregnant, most of their hedonistic fun went by the wayside, although Christie still attended an occasional social gathering at the Kilgore mansion (also gaining a few clients that way,) and Jamie was still very suggestible.

Now she had her very own Jamie Kilgore. The workday couldn’t pass fast enough. When she and Sharon got home, Kenny wasn’t there. She resolved to wait for him; one of the things about hypnotic subjugation was that she had to reinforce it as much as possible, and that meant that she’d have to put him into trance and get him used to obeying her almost every day for the next few weeks. Nothing major, just little reasonable odds and ends so that he would ultimately associate her requests with something reasonable. From there, it was a short step to condition him to agree to her every request. She heard the noises next door that indicated he’d returned from his workday. After giving him a few minutes to get comfortable in his home, Christie went outside, Saratoga in hand, and knocked on his door. “Oh, hey Christie! How are you today?”

“Just fine, Kenny,” she answered with a smile. “Can I come in? I have a message for you from Michelle,” she lied. He stood to the side to let her in, and as she passed, she said, “Sexy Saratogas.” He stood, looking expectantly at her, and she took a big drag, snap-inhaling, then exhaled forcefully into his face. Kenny’s face went blank and his eyes closed. “When I count to three, you will open your eyes and remain totally relaxed, focused on my voice in your warm, relaxed hypnotic state. No other sound is important.” When his eyes opened, slightly unfocused and glazed, Christie lightly said, “Come with me,” and guided him into his living room, a mirror image of her own in its layout. “Sit down in your favorite comfortable chair, Kenny, relaxing into it, your favorite chair, and focus on my words as your eyes slowly close because you are so relaxed and sleepy, relaxed and sleepy, focused on my voice, relaxed and sleepy...” His eyes drifted shut. “Very good, Kenny, so relaxed, hearing only my voice, seeing Michelle smoke in the movie in your mind.”

“Your voice... soundtrack... only hear your voice,” he whispered.

“That’s right, Kenny, everything I say is important while you watch Michelle smoke. I want you to give me a key to your townhouse, and I will give you one to mine, because neighbors should have a key for emergencies. Do you agree that neighbors should have a key for emergencies?” she coaxed.

“Yes... neighbors should have... keys for emergencies.”

“You will be happy to give me a key, Kenny, and I will use it for emergencies, and this will make you happy because you are happy whenever you relax during the movie and the soundtrack of my voice. Relax now, Kenny. Relax for me, and tell me what you will do.”

“Give you a... key.” Kenny’s vice was thick and slurred a little. “Relax... at the sound... track... your voice.”

“Yes, Kenny, it feels wonderful to relax for Christie.” He made a noise that might have been the word, “wonderful,” but he was so relaxed now in his favorite chair that she couldn’t decipher it. No matter. While he was entranced, she asked him if he’d listened to the CD (he had), and if he’d talked to Michelle (he hadn’t.) After reinforcing his desire to listen to the CD, she woke him up, leaving him with the impression that they’d talked about their respective days at work while also using that conversation to make sure his inner feelings were open to her. “You can tell Christie the truth about anything she asks, because it’s so much better out than in, and each time you tell Christie, you will relax even more and feel warm, and happy, while you chase the stress of holding it in.” After Kenny had regained consciousness, she said, “Well, I can’t stay long. Oh!” she said, making a show of remembering the ostensible reason she came to his townhouse, “Michelle says that she’ll be home too late to do anything tomorrow, but would like to go out to dinner with you on Wednesday. She wanted to know if that would be all right, and wanted to make sure you didn’t make any other plans if it was OK.”

Kenny readily agreed. “Oh, by the way, Christie, I want to know if you’d keep a copy of my key. I think it’s good for neighbors to have each other’s key—in case of emergency.”

Christie smiled, tinged with a bit of evil gloat. “I like that idea. I’ll get you a copy of ours, too.” She stood up to leave. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, Kenny.”