“Be My Baby”
By Shooter McShoot
CHAPTER 3:
Stanley woke up the next morning thinking that the previous night’s events must have been a dream. Surely he hadn’t hypnotized Emilia and spent the night with her? That couldn’t have happened, right? He thought that way until he felt an arm gently wrap around his chest. He turned to see a sleeping Emilia snuggle up against him and gently brush against his chest with her delicate fingers while kissing his ear without opening her eyes.
“You’re awake already, Master?” She asked him. “I can make you some breakfast if you want.”
Gently turning to face her with a smile and a quick peck on the cheek, he brushed her cheek with his thumb and shook his head. “No, that’s okay, Emilia. Just stay here with me a bit. I thought last night was a dream.”
She smiled back at him and closed her eyes. There was no apprehension or regret for either of them at this point. Stanley sat up and dressed, letting Emilia sleep awhile longer as he went downstairs to sit in her well appointed kitchen. What a lovely house she had, he thought. Much nicer than his. Not long after, she followed him down, wearing a long sleeved men’s dress shirt and nothing else but her underwear. Her legs and feet were bare, but she didn’t seem the least bit chilly as she zipped around the kitchen making coffee.
“Would you like a cup, Master?”
“I would,” he responded genuinely appreciative. “But can you stop calling me Master now? It was really fun last night, but you don’t have to keep it up.”
“No,” she replied firmly. “I am Master’s obedient slave girl.”
Stanley felt that it was vaguely uncomfortable to be called that right now. Oh, he enjoyed it during their bacchanal celebration of his 35th birthday, but her insistence on doing it could have very bad consequences in the outside world.
“Well, okay, what if we just stuck to that when it’s just us in private?”
“Sure, Master,” she came over and kissed his cheek while setting down his cup of coffee. Stanley felt some relief at that. They could go on being Stan and Emilia at Clover and just be Master and Slave outside. Nothing wrong with that. They were two consenting adults... Kinda.
So, that’s how it went for the next few weeks. At Stanley’s instruction, Emilia stopped playing with the app. He didn’t want her sliding into another hypnotic trance at work and someone else discovering what he had. In the meantime, he’d been brushing up on his hypnosis skills so that someday he wouldn’t need the app’s help at all. On the weekends and some evenings, they would visit each other and return to the master/slave dynamic. It wasn’t always about the sex, though, although Stanley thought to himself that it sure was his favorite part. Emilia was an eager lover and her willingness to experiment in the boudior sometimes was difficult for him to keep pace with. Every so often, Stanley got the feeling that Emilia was actually the one in control of the whole thing. Sometimes, they would go out to karaoke together. Emilia had an eclectic taste in music and she had a wonderful voice that could at times be breathy and sensual or soaring and emotional. Why hadn’t she tried to become a pop star? Why was she stuck selling auto parts in Minnesota?
“Stan, do you wanna do a duet song with me, this time? It’ll be fun!”
“Aw, c’mon, Em, you know I can’t sing a lick,” he replied bashfully. Still, she tugged at his arm and eventually managed to drag him up to the little stage. Stanley felt something that may have been panic welling up in the pit of his stomach. He tried to quickly get away, but she held onto him and looked up into his eyes with as much force as she could, willing him to stay.
“You can do this,” she said. “It’ll be alright. We’ll do Be My Baby. That’s the one I sang when we hung out on your birthday.”
Stanley nodded his assent. It seemed like Emilia was set on doing this with him, so he wanted to oblige her. They launched into the Ronettes song. Of course Emilia sounded wonderful, but Stanley knew he was flat. He never had much of an ear for music, but he tried to sound as good as he could and to his surprise, he got into it and had fun as Emilia playfully danced around him. There were only about 20 other people there, anyway, so what difference did it make if he made a fool out of himself? He let himself go truly for the first time and had fun. After the song ended to the polite applause of the rest of the group and they returned to their table to have a drink, Stan’s phone started to vibrate violently on the table. He picked it up and had a look: 8 missed calls. What the hell could that be?
“Hey Em, someone’s been calling me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t recognize the number. Maybe it’s Ross?”
“Why would Ross call you?” She asked earnestly. It was a fair question, Stanley thought, but Ross Erikson was the only other person he really spoke to. He didn’t have the fortitude to really let Emilia know that other than her phone number, the only other ones he had saved in his phone were his mother and father’s. He had told Ross that he’d cover a shift for him next week. Maybe that’s what this was about. Stanley decided to call the number back. Emilia told him she’d order another round for them while he did, so Stanley went outside into the crisp night air to make his call.
“Hello? Ross is that you?”
“Ah, yes, I was hoping to hear from you,” the voice at the other end of the line said. Stanley thought the man on the other end sounded professional, but it most certainly wasn’t Ross.
“I’m just returning this number’s calls to my phone. I’m afraid I really don’t know who this is.”
“Oh, my apologies, Mr. Tallas,” the voice said back sounding quite sincere. “My name is Paul Holt. I’m representing Ohnyp Games’ CEO, Alice Jernigan. Ms. Jernigan wanted me to call you to set up a meeting regarding the activity on your account.” Stanley’s blood ran cold. Why on earth would he be contacted like this? Was he being watched? Paranoia welled up inside of him as he struggled to catch his breath and respond. “Mr. Tallas?”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” Stanley just managed to squeak out his apology. “I just don’t understand, why would you want to see me?”
“Ours is not to reason why,” Holt remarked. “I just make the calls. Needless to say, Ms. Jernigan seems quite interested in you, Mr. Tallas. My suggestion is that you attend this meeting. It could be life changing. Good evening.”
With that, Holt hung up and Stan was left outside wondering whether he should actually go to this meeting or not. Returning to his table inside the karaoke bar, the color drained from his face, Emilia picked up that all was not well and broached the subject.
“Stan? What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m in trouble—We’re in trouble...”
“Why would we be in trouble?” She asked with genuine confusion. Now, Emilia wasn’t oblivious, but in her mind, she was perfectly happy with the arrangement they’d had the last few weeks. She liked exploring hypnosis with him, even if the beginning of the whole thing had seemed odd to her somehow. By this time, she had even mentioned to her best friend, Mindy, that she was hanging out with Stanley. Mindy had questioned why she’d want to hang out with a weird loner like him, but Emilia said that he wasn’t at all like she thought. He was gentle and sensitive and a good mast—Oops, she’d caught herself during that conversation. Her bubbly enthusiasm for this relationship was just so hard to repress, because even though Stan always seemed somewhat reluctant to indulge in it, she actually liked it.
“Well, what if someone thinks I’ve been ra—” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. “When I hypnotized you. It was wrong. I used you!”
“Stan, stop,” she said firmly. “How many times have I told you that I wanted you to do it. What we do privately, that’s no one’s business but ours. We have fun!”
Stanley worried that it was just her post-hypnotic programming kicking in. Sure, she wasn’t hypnotized right now, but he had clearly messed with her head to a pretty serious degree. He rubbed his eyes and tried to calmly drink his beer, but he just couldn’t stop fidgeting around. “The person who called. It was someone who wants to meet with me connected to the app,” Stanley finally told her.
“Oh, but isn’t that a good thing?” She asked. “If they’re the ones that programmed the app to hypnotize people, maybe they know that we connected because of it? It’ll be alright, Stan... Master,” she said master in a low, sexy tone, her playful sapphire eyes meeting his.
That night, in bed, Stanley couldn’t sleep. He watched Emilia as she snored softly next to him. Even the snoring was cute, he thought. He felt truly in love with her, even if he’d come about it dishonestly. When he awoke the next day to an email sent from Holt asking him to meet in the company’s Minneapolis office in three days, he spent much of that time worrying. What did they really want from him? Emilia’s optimism that it couldn’t be anything bad surely was wishful thinking. It was why the night before going in, Stanley decided to take precautions. Sitting Emilia down, he launched into his patter that would always put her under. She seemed to go down deeper each time and it was always obvious whenever she was under. Her deepening trance now featured her eyes rolled back in REM, something that hadn’t happened before when they just seemed to glaze over. Stanley, in his researching, had learned that this was a state of deep hypnosis and that Emilia would be very receptive to what he was imparting to her. He knew that he had to make this one count.
“Emilia, tomorrow, if I’m not back by midnight, you’re going to go to your house, delete the Ohnyp app off of your phone, never having the urge to play it again. You’re going to forget about me and you’re going to go on with your life happily, just as you were before, understand?”
“Yes, master.”
“Good, now on the count of three, I’m going to bring you back out of trance...”
When the time came, Stanley had broken his rule about not seeing Emilia outside of the office on a weekday, spending the night at her place. He kissed her passionately and held on, not wanting to let her go, nor did she want to let him go. Stanley had made her aware of the post-hypnotic suggestion, which she knew that she had to act on if he didn’t come back. She didn’t want to, but it wasn’t up to her.
“Promise you’ll come back, Master,” she said to him, genuinely scared of a life without him.
“I’ll come back... But if I don’t, you’ll be okay, I promise.”
With that, Stanley left to face whatever destiny planned to throw his way. He said what amounted to a silent prayer as he drove. He figured that every little bit would help, and boy did he need it.