Tendrils in my Mind
Chapter 3
The following Thursday, I get unwelcome news. It seems a water main broke in the apartment over my yoga studio; the entire building is shut down. Glenn, the studio’s owner, tells me everything is a soggy mess and the insurance company will close us down for the foreseeable future. Weeks, maybe.
This is really, really bad news. I have two hundred dollars in my checking account and the credit card bill is outstanding. No studio means no paychecks. Cursing, I quickly check online to see if there are any good auditions posted. I really need a job, I tell the universe. I really need a job.
Nope, there is nothing. Nothing good, anyway. There is an open call for extras for a show filming on Malibu beach. But its unpaid. That means I’d be asked to wear a bikini and get hit on all day. For free? Not remotely worth it. There is also an audition for a “middle-aged mom, the cookie-baking type.” Somehow I don’t think I’d get that role.
I should get off my ass and look for a new yoga job. There are twenty girls like me who teach yoga on every city block in Burbank. Such jobs are rare. I just don’t have the uumph to go look. I hate everything.
Depressed, I grab the potato chips and start binge-streaming in the bedroom. I waste three hours, then snap off the TV. Time for a nap. I’ve literally got nothing better to do.
The front door slams shut, waking me. I blink, collecting my thoughts. What time is it? Must be mid-afternoon.
I hear Chet in the living room, moving about. Sounds like he’s looking for something on the kitchen table, which is covered in our junk. He probably doesn’t realize I’m home; last night I told him I’d be teaching at the studio.
I’m about to call out when Chet speaks. “Fuck, bro,” he says aloud, “I can’t find my charger. Its gotta be here… Hold on.” He starts rummaging.
I hear the filtered voice of Duncan, his best friend. Duncan must be on speakerphone. He says: “Tell me again… she thought she was a stripper? For real?”
Chet laughs. “For real! She totally thought she was a real fucking stripper. Kim is like, ultra-hypnotizable!”
I freeze.
Duncan sounds dumbfounded. “Oh my God, dude. So what did you do?”
“I made her dance for me!” Chet brags. I hear him rummage about on the table. “Once she’s under, Kim does whatever I program her to do. She is literally my slave.”
I feel like I was hit by a truck. I’m not entirely sure what Chet is talking about… but his words feel true somehow. Worse, I don’t like the way his voice sounds when he’s describing me. He is cold, disrespectful, contemptuous. Like I’m a disposable conquest.
“Literally your slave,” Duncan echoes Chet’s words. He sounds impressed.
“You have no idea, bro,” exclaims Chet. “When I first put Kim under, I had to break down her resistance a little. But now I have her programmed with so many trigger words, I can get nudity or a BJ or whatever just by commanding her. I’m, like, really in control of her mind.”
“Huh,” Duncan manages.
Chet shoves a pile of stuff down the table. He says, “Seriously, I just tell her, ‘BJ now,’ and she drops to all fours and sucks me. Its beautiful.”
As he says, “BJ now,” I suddenly feel that I must go to him. I am rising off the bed, reaching for the doorknob, and thinking about sucking Chet’s cock.
What are you doing, Kim?!? My brain screams at me.
I stop cold. The desire to pleasure Chet is still strong, but I have somehow stopped myself.
…Oh my God! I think in horror.
Meanwhile, Chet and Duncan are still talking. “I gotta come over and see this,” Duncan says. “Hey… can you hypnotize my girl?”
Chet laughs. “Yeah, bro, the more the merrier. Can she and me and Kim do a threesome?”
“Gross, dude,” Duncan says.
“That may have to be the price, Dun,” warns Chet. “Natalie is hot. I’ve always wanted to hit that. Don’t worry, I’ll make Kim convince her to try hypnosis. It’ll be fine.”
“Hey,” he says suddenly. “My charger. I think its in the bedroom.” I hear him cross the living room, heading for the bedroom door. I freeze.
“Oh, no no, dude,” Duncan says. “I forgot to tell you; its here.”
Chet grunts, but doesn’t open the bedroom door. “Its at your place??? You ’effing ’tard. Why didn’t you say so? I drove all the way over here.”
Duncan sounds sheepish. “Sorry bro.”
Chet grumbles something. “Forget it,” he says at last. “Listen, I have a better idea.” I hear him move to the hall closet. “You still got your hi-def camera?”
“Yeah,” Duncan replies.
“’Kay,” says Chet. “Bring it tonight, but leave Natalie. I got an idea.”
“What?”
“I’ll put Kim under and convince her that she’s a famous porn star. Then I put on a ski mask or something so you can’t see my face. And then you film us boning.”
I gag.
“Then,” Chet continues, “we’ll post the vids on YouPorn or somewhere. I’m telling you, Kim could make a fortune in porn. We’ll make major swag on her.”
“Aw man,” Duncan protests, “I gotta zoom in as you bang your girlfriend? I don’t need to see your junk in hi-def.”
“Dude, its fine,” says Chet, sounding annoyed. “You always wanted to be in porn; this will be your ski-lift ticket. Hey, I’m stepping out. We gotta change topics. You square with coming over tonight?”
“Can’t be tonight, bro,” Duncan says. “Next Tues at the earliest.”
“Fine, Tues,” Chet agrees. I hear him grab his jacket, and then he is out the front door.
I stand in the bedroom, unable to believe what I have just heard. My brain feels like it is exploding.
Chet… hypnotized me? I think over and over. The thought ricochets around in my head. I feel sick.
I sit on the bed, concentrating. Chet and I have been having a lot of sex recently. And I have been acting weirdly submissive to him.
An advantage of being a yoga teacher is that yoga, while a physical exercise, is also a mental discipline. I don’t really care about the mental and spiritual stuff; I do yoga because it makes my butt look hot and teaching yoga beats waiting tables. But I’ve sat through enough classes to know some of the mental mumbo-jumbo.
I lie back on the bed, and assume a meditation pose. I remember Miss Amber, one of my first yoga instructors before I got certified to teach. Miss Amber was an extreme free spirit and I think she must smoke a lot of weed because maaaaaan, was she spacey. In every pose, she was always talking about our spiritual communions with nature, the universe, and whatnot.
I close my eyes, implement deep breathing, and picture Miss Amber. There she is, as fruity as ever.
“Go deep within yourself,” Miss Amber tells me in her dippy sing-song voice, “feeling the connection and energies between your body and the earth beneath you.”
I sigh inwardly. I am definitely channeling Miss Amber.
“As you breathe,” Miss Amber drones on, “your mind and eternal spirit turns inward. Be aware of all feelings now. Gaia is talking to you, through you, within you.”
And so on. I concentrate, imaging myself back in Miss Amber’s run-down North Hollywood studio. I can almost smell the mildew and sweat of the place.
And suddenly, memories start bobbing up in my head, like ingredients in a soup. A clear image comes to me: I remember the VIP room of Spearmint Rhino! I see myself and Chet; Chet is lounging on deep velvet couches; I am dancing about for him in my g-string. I totally fucking believe that I am a stripper.
Everything comes back to me in a flash. I remember my stripper-conversation with Chet, my dance, the sex. I remember grabbing his money. I remember thinking the bouncer would make sure I got fired for having sex with a customer. Most of all, I remember Chet telling me, “You are my slave.”
And I remember replying, “Yes, Master.”
I remember it all.
Obviously I’m upset. Pissed, feeling violated, enraged, betrayed, you name it. I force myself to calm, breath some more. Miss Amber guides me back to her studio.
Over what must be the next hour, Miss Amber and I delve back into my memories. Soon, I remember it all. I remember everything.
Chet has been very clever. Over the last two weeks, he has hypnotized me at least once a day. Each time, he has put commands and triggers into my subconscious. Like tendrils in my mind, these secret keywords lie dormant until he activates me. I obey them without the slightest notion that I am under his control. I then forget all the depraved stuff he has commanded me to do. I cannot resist when he triggers me.
Only now… My conscious mind knows what happened. Chet’s power over me should be broken.
I hope.
Feeling quite unlike myself, I open my eyes. I stare at the ceiling. I sit up on the bed.
A plan has formed in my mind. I hop off the bed, and begin to root around in the pile of crap next to Chet’s side of the bed. Chet doesn’t really believe in a laundry basket, he just drops his old clothes on the floor when he’s done. So my search is a pretty disgusting exercise.
But I eventually find what I’m looking for: Chet’s copy of “Hypnosis for You and Your Friends.” By I. H. Priestly. I don’t know where Chet got this, but it looks well-worn. Despite my newfound loathing for my slimeball boyfriend, I’m impressed that Chet put so much work into learning.
Over the next three hours, I read.
It turns out that there is a lot of overlap between hypnosis and yoga. Who knew? At the end of every yoga class is a brief meditation, the Shavasana. I’ve never really thought about it much before, and when I teach, I just feed my students the same bullshit touchy-feely Shavasana phrases my instructors once used on me.
But as I read these hypnosis scripts, I immediately understand what is happening to the hypnotized person. Hypnosis is guided meditation, with the hypnotist in control. I can do that. Once a person is deeply hypnotized, as I was, they lose control and the hypnotist owns them. It couldn’t be plainer.
I rehearse one of two of the easier scripts. I think out my plan. I do a little Internet research on my phone.
By the time six-o-clock rolls around, I’m ready.
Chet bangs through the front door and grins when he sees me. My stomach flips, but I force a smile. I am boiling spaghetti, pretending to be the good little housewife. (Spaghetti is all I know how to cook.)
“Hey babe,” Chet says. I now hear the fake affection in his voice. He bounds over and kisses me.
God, he’s hard already. I steel myself for what I know is coming.
“Dinner in ten,” I say, hoping that I sound casual.
“Okay,” he replies. I feel his body press against mine. He wants sex now.
“You know what?” says Chet. He switches off my burner. “Let’s sit for a bit.”
I protest, “But… dinner!”
He takes my hands and I allow myself to be led to the bedroom. “Really, Chet?” I grumble.
He smiles, devilishly. “Sleep!” he barks, and snaps his fingers before my eyes.
I feel an intense desire to surrender. My eyes want to close, my body wants to collapse, and my mind wants to submit. I allow my eyes to close. My knees sag, and Chet catches me and lowers me onto the bed. My consciousness almost slips into sleep.
Almost.
I force myself to stay focused, stay alert, stay in control. The relaxation feels so good in my body, and I want to give up and slip back into hypnosis. Now I understand why this so utterly worked on me before. You know how you feel when your alarm goes off and you’re in a deep sleep? You know you should wake up, but every fiber of your body wants to drift back into sweet sleep. That’s what this feels like. Sort of.
I nearly drift under Chet’s spell. Somehow, my conscious mind asserts itself.
And then, all feelings of submission vanish. I am lying on the bed, totally relaxed, but in control of my own thoughts. I keep my eyes closed. I am awake, alert, ready.
So far, so good. But I have to be careful not to submit to any of Chet’s other trigger commands. He could still get me.
“Now,” I hear Chet’s voice above me, “in a moment, I will count from one to five. On the count of five, you will awaken. You will be so horny, you must fuck me immediately. You cannot wait.” He paused. “Also, you know it turns me on when you are my slave. So you will become my slave and call me ‘Master.’ Do you understand? Nod once for ‘yes’.”
I nod yes.
“Excellent,” Chet murmurs. When he’s using his hypno-voice, Chet sounds soothing and commanding.
He counts from one to five and awakens me. I blink and sit up, and hoping my performance fools him. I’m a professional actress. I can do this.
Chet is watching me carefully. Already his greedy hands are rising up my thighs.
Here we go, I tell myself. Forcing myself to act sexy and submissive, I lean towards him, and in my best bimbo voice say, “Master… I want to fuck you.”
Chet’s smile is like a sunrise. “Good, slave,” he commends. He pulls off his shirt, and then his hands dip beneath my tee-shirt. Soon his fingers are on my breasts.
I push against him, playing the part. This is hard, but I’m a trooper. Now I play my ace card.
“Master?” I breathe.
“Mmmgh?” he grunts.
“Master, is it okay if… I’m bleeding?” I say as coyly as possible.
Chet loses his erection. Its impressive; like a balloon deflating at top speed. “You’re what?” he growls.
Chet has this thing about period sex; he finds it gross. I don’t know why, my previous boyfriends never cared. But I know that Chet is positively sickened about the thought of blood on his penis.
He groans with disgust, and leans away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he snarls.
“I’m sorry, Master,” I say. I hope I look forlorn. “Please, can we still—“
“Aw maaaaaan,” Chet says, more to himself than to me. What a charmer.
“Master,” I say quickly. “Let me please you with my hands.”
He eyes me, intrigued, but suspicious.
“Lie on your stomach, Master,” I instruct. “I’ll massage you first.”
I gently propel him with my hands, and he allows himself to be guided.
Now he is lying on top of the sheets, belly down. I straddle his butt. I squirt too much hand sanitizer into each palm and then begin rubbing his lower back. “Yes, Master,” I coo. “Let your slave soothe you.”
I can tell he is puzzled, but does not sense the danger. So far, so good.
“My poor master,” I pout, massaging him. “Why so tense? You need this. Let me relax you; when you are ready, I will jerk you off.” I lean forward and add in my best sex voice: “I can’t wait to touch your cock, Master.”
He grunts, but does not protest. I continue rubbing. “Relax your back, Master,” I urge him. “Relax….”
I massage and continue telling him to relax, relax, relax. I add deepening techniques from the book. I test his depth of trance as I go, careful to mix in promises of the World’s Greatest Handjob as I do. Chet doesn’t resist in the slightest. He has no idea what is happening to him.
I’ve never hypnotized someone before, so in one sense, I have no idea what I’m doing. But my yoga background is playing off in spades here. I’m now realizing that while in group meditation, I’ve been hypnotized many times before by my yoga instructors and I have probably hypnotized many of my students. Its wild realization.
The difference is, of course, hypnosis-in-yoga is about healing and rejuvenation and affirmation and all that crap. Hypnosis in the bedroom is about control and sex. I’m in control.
Now to see if my crazy scheme will work. I slide off Chet’s ass and lie beside him.
“Now Master,” I tell Chet, still using my submissive sex-voice, “I will count from one to five. When I reach five, you will open your eyes and sit up, and we will talk. But you will be only able to speak dog language. You have forgotten English and can only speak in dog words. It will be totally natural for you. One… two… three… four…”
I pause here and cross my fingers.
“Five!”
Chet blinks. His face comes back to life. He sits up. I watch him closely, hoping this works.
“How do you feel, Master?” I murmur.
“Rrrrrrrouff!” Chet barks.
Relief floods through me. “Oh, good,” I coo.
“Woof!” Chet tells me. “Rrrrrrrarff! Woof woof!” His tongue hangs out of his mouth. He actually pants!
He’s mine. I’ve won. I am gloating inside. No longer playing the slave, I drop the submissive voice.
“Lean back,” I order him. Chet stares at me, confused, but he does as I say.
“Now,” I say, “you will SLEEP!”
Chet’s face goes blank as he falls into trance. He’s out. Time to get to work.
It is 11:15 PM. I am in the bedroom again, packing furiously. My girlfriend Kat is putting me up for the night, but I gotta get over to her place before too much longer; she works the early morning shift.
I am loading up my car and moving out tonight. Obviously Chet and I are done, and I’m disgusted I ever saw anything attractive in that piece of shit. Unfortunately for him, there’s only his name on the lease. When he comes home and finds me moved out, he’s on his own.
Tomorrow I need to get my ass in gear and find a new apartment. I’m not too worried about that; I have lots of friends in the area and someone will let me move in if I plead my case enough. If I’m really desperate, there are a few middle-aged producers who will let me stay at their beach house. As long as their wives don’t know I’m there, that solution could work for a few weeks. It might be nice to live in luxury for a while.
Finding a new yoga job will be harder; but I can do it. I’m a Cali girl.
As I struggle to zip up my enormous suitcase, the Eleven-O-Clock News comes back on. “And now, a disturbing story from North Hollywood,” the anchor says. “A local man was arrested earlier this evening for allegedly masturbating in public on an elementary school playground.”
I stop and look up. On the screen, there’s a grainy video of a handcuffed Chet led to a police car by two officers. His crotch is digi-blurred, because, well, he isn’t wearing any pants.
“LEGALIZE PEDOPHILLIA!!!” Chet bellows at the camera.
Poor Chet. I didn’t hypnotize him to be a pedophile, but I did command him to jerk off on that playground when the kiddies were home in bed. I also ordered him to shout out the most socially unacceptable thing he could think of once the police arrived. Legalize pedophilia??? Chet’s imagination is fertile indeed.
I snap off the TV. A quick Google search has strongly suggested that after his arrest, Chet will have to register as a sex offender in the State of California. That will make it difficult to get another personal trainer job.
Karma’s a bitch.