Charlotte
Chapter 8
He awoke the next morning with Charlotte still soundly asleep next to him. When he looked at her, he felt as happy as he could ever have imagined feeling; but once he turned away and she was out of his line of sight, something began to prickle at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t right. Something was beginning to intrude upon his happiness and the perfect life he shared with Charlotte. He looked at the time and saw it was only a little after 6; he would now be up the entire day but Charlotte wouldn’t be for another couple of hours. He silently got out of bed, put on a pair of shorts, and began to pace his apartment, ruminating on and trying to figure out what this feeling was and why it now appeared.
He knew he loved her, and that she loved him. That part was unquestionable. She was very clearly enjoying herself and loved all that they were doing together. Hell, if she had her way, she’d never spend a moment outside of trance or apart from him. So he certainly wasn’t taking advantage of her or anything like that. She made it very clear on multiple occasions that he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with her. And yet something wasn’t quite right. After a long stretch, he determined that it was in fact guilt that he was feeling; yet he was certain that he hadn’t done anything in recent weeks to feel guilty about. He hadn’t insulted her in some way; he hadn’t cheated on her, either sexually or hypnotically; he hadn’t even thought any ill notions about her.
He continued to walk and think and turn and walk and think and turn, over and over, until shortly before 8, when Charlotte came up to him, sounding and looking concerned.
“Sir? Is everything alright?”
That snapped him back out of his head and into reality.
“Yes, darling. I’m fine. Just thinking on a problem for my studies my advisor suggested would be good for me. It’s nothing to worry about.” The lie came easily to him in this instance. He didn’t need to worry her yet about how he was feeling. Certainly not until he knew why was feeling it in the first place. He decided to quickly change the subject. “Now that you’re up, what would you like for breakfast?”
“Hmm. Well, you made that loaf of bread a few days ago. How about some French toast using that?”
“Anything for you, my love,” he answered, moving up to her naked form, running his hands down from her shoulders, settling on her buttcheeks, and giving them a nice, hard squeeze. She fell into him and gave him a tender kiss on his neck. He wrapped an arm around her waist, preparing to hold her tightly, and with his other hand snapped and whispered, “Sleep,” into her ear. As always, she went completely limp and lifeless into trance. “When you awaken next, Charlotte, you will have no memory of being put to sleep, but as soon as I start making breakfast, you will be unable to move any muscle. You will be completely frozen. All you can move are your eyelids to blink. You can’t move your eyes, can’t move your mouth to speak. You won’t be able to think. But as soon as you are frozen, you’ll feel me fingering you and the world’s strongest vibrator on your clit. That will stay there until I’m done making breakfast, upon which that will stop and you will be able to move again. You’ll have no cognition of anything while you were frozen. Awaken now, darling.”
“While I could stay in your arms all day, Sir, I am very hungry. Would you please make breakfast?”
He smiled and nodded and turned to the kitchen. He got out the bread, eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg to begin. All the while, Charlotte spoke more of their previous night.
“You were so devilish last night, Sir! I normally have no patience with prickish guys like how you were acting, but I was so drawn to you I couldn’t help but find it all so hot. God, I want to do that again! When do you…”
She cut off the moment he firmly rapped the first egg on the countertop. After he finished cracking it into a bowl, he turned around to look at her. She was, of course, fully frozen in place. Both feet were on the ground, but one was in front of the other in stride. Her mouth was open since she was caught by the suggestion mid-sentence, and, he enjoyed this the most, her right hand was squeezing her right breast, clearly getting turned on remembering their previous night. The rest of his suggestion was evidently working as well, since he could see how wet she was between her legs.
He turned away and continued making breakfast, checking back on her every few minutes and finding absolutely no change in her whatsoever, with the only exception being her growing wetness. Going back to his preparation, he whisked everything together and started to heat up the pan. The cooking was done on auto-pilot from here on, for he went back to the feeling of guilt he felt upon waking this morning. Maybe it wasn’t related to Charlotte at all, but from something else in his life. He hadn’t been as invested in his studies this summer as he likely should have been, but he’d known that for a while and couldn’t think of a reason to feel guilty about it now and not sooner. He hadn’t seen his friends as much either; similarly, that also didn’t seem to fit. He still saw them, and would be seeing them all in a couple days when his undergraduate roommate for all four years, Derek, was coming to town to visit.
“...think you’d like to, Sir?” Charlotte had unfrozen, and, in her perfection, picked up right where she left off, having no knowledge of anything. “You made breakfast suspiciously fast. Does that have anything to do with why I’m desperate for you to fuck me, Sir?” She had moved up to him while saying this, and kissed his cheek.
“You don’t always feel that way?” he coyly asked back. In response, she turned her kisses on his cheek into a bratty lick. “Gross,” he said while wiping his cheek, “and I might have, if you need to know.”
“Well, you better do something about it, Sir, once we finish breakfast. I love you, but a woman needs to eat.”
She went to the fridge and got some berries for her and then the pantry for the maple syrup for him. They sat down on the coach and devoured the French toast. Charlotte finished first—she must have been ravenous—and leaned back.
“Sir, can I please play with myself while you finish your breakfast?”
“Yes, you may, but you’re not allowed to cum.”
“Of course not, Sir. Honestly, at this point, the idea of cumming without your permission or command is abhorrent to me.”
Upon hearing that, he looked at her with lovestruck eyes. It would have been a perfect moment if it wasn’t for that nagging feeling in the back of his mind. But he was able to push it back while he finished eating. By the time his plate was clean, Charlotte’s breath had become a near pant and she had three fingers working inside her with fury.
He got up and put their plates in the sink, and ordered her to the bed. She got up, scrambled over, climbed in, and spread her legs wide for him. He dropped his shorts and joined her. He pushed her legs up so that she was bent acutely at her hips and her ankles were resting against his shoulders. He pushed into her as deeply as she could allow him; they both loved this position for exactly this reason. He fucked her hard and fast. Soon, he was lost in the passion and went harder and faster and deeper, barely paying attention to Charlotte’s begging for him to cum. After what seemed like the blink of an eye and all of eternity, he came inside her, and Charlotte came herself a split second later.
They panted together for several minutes. He slid out of her and laid down beside her.
Charlotte sighed happily, turned to him, and said, “And to think, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t admitted to us that you used to be a stage hypnotist.”
His stomach dropped. That was it. That was why he felt guilty. The entire impetus of their relationship was a lie. Yes, there was some mutual attraction, but nothing would have gone the same way if he hadn’t lied. There was no way to know what would have happened otherwise. But, obviously, none of that mattered.
Endless thoughts flowed through his mind. Should he tell her now? Or maybe later? Or never at all? Did it really change anything? He had still hypnotized her that first night: that was the important thing. That was what they both wanted. He hadn’t hypnotized her into feeling like she loved him. Those feelings, in both of them, were completely genuine.
That decided it then. He did love her, dearly, and so would need to fess up to his lie. The when and how of the matter were now the sixty-four thousand dollar questions. He didn’t know the answers to these yet, beyond that now wasn’t the right time: he was too afraid of what she would say and do. He needed time to thoroughly think this through, weigh all options, plan out how everything would go. A more confident man would just say everything right now and assume the best, but that was not him. The only thing he knew for certain was that he must not use hypnosis as a way out of this; that would guarantee failure. He couldn’t lose her, and so needed to be sure that the way he told her would not lead to that.
Just to say something and not have her happy comment be answered by silence, he offered up a, “Yeah, me too,” before turning away so he could not get distracted by Charlotte while he thought.
The next few days flew by when he wasn’t lost in thought, and slowed to a crawl when he was. He had come to a few determinations. First, as he had already decided, he would tell her. Second, he would do it during the first couple of days after Derek left from his weekend visit so that it wouldn’t go on for too long and she wouldn’t think he was just never going to tell her. Third, he would just sit Charlotte down and tell her that he had lied all those months ago, that he was incredibly sorry he hadn’t come clean sooner, but didn’t think it would need to change anything between them. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was the best that he could come up with.
Eventually, on Friday afternoon, Derek arrived in town. Derek had been his roommate during all four years of undergrad: the first two in the dorms on campus and the second two in an apartment off campus. After graduating, Derek moved out of state for a job he was heavily recruited for.
Thankfully, Derek was going to stay in a hotel a few blocks away from campus, so the man and Charlotte wouldn’t feel cramped in the studio apartment they now shared. About half an hour before they were set to meet Derek at a bar on campus for dinner and some drinks, Charlotte turned with a suspicious look on her face and asked, “Sir, is everything OK? I don’t think you’ve given me any suggestions for while we’re out, because even though you almost always make me forget them, I usually have a sneaking suspicion because of how turned on I am. And I feel normal right now. Are you nervous to see your friend? I know you said that you haven’t seen him in a few years.”
Everything was not OK, in fact. It had nothing to do with his former roommate. He knew he wouldn’t have to confess to Charlotte for another few days because of the timeline he set for himself, but it was still nagging at him, and he couldn’t yet let Charlotte know because he had now convinced himself that if he did earlier than he wanted and intended to, it would all go sour and Charlotte would leave. As such, he compounded his sin and lied again: “A little. It’s been a while, and I wish I made as much money as he has since we graduated. But I will never regret going to grad school instead of following him into the workforce, because then we’d never have met, darling.”
She beamed at him. “I’m glad to hear it, Sir. You’ve seen a little off for the last few days, and I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, thanks. But, uh, to answer your question: no, I haven’t given you any suggestions. I absolutely love playing with you when we’re out, I prefer it to be just us. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable with someone else knowing about this aspect of our life together.”
“OK, good. I agree with you, Sir. Best to keep this between just us.”
“Good girl.” She moaned. “So even though we’re not going to do anything while out, and even though we can easily get you drinks while we’re out, let’s limit ourselves to just two each tonight. I do have some fun plans for when we get back here…”
“Mmm, I love the way you think, Sir! Now, are you ready to go?”
He nodded and led her to the door. After locking up, he took her hand and they began the short walk over to the bar. When they got there, Derek hadn’t arrived yet, but a couple of his friends from his grad school program were there already. They slid into the booth opposite, grabbed a couple of glasses they had already at the table, and poured themselves a beer from the pitcher already there.
“Hey, guys! Thanks for the beer. How have you two been this summer?” he asked.
“Hi! I’ve been great, thanks!” Elaine responded. She was in his year in the program, but was going to specialize in a different area than him. She was attractive enough, but he never had any serious interest in her beyond working together on the classes they took together. Next to her sat her boyfriend, Zeke, who was a couple of years ahead of him and Elaine. They had been together since his and Elaine’s orientation weekend, where Elaine got drunk, tried to seduce Zeke, and failed miserably because she vomited on his pants. Somehow, Zeke had looked past this and they had their first date the next morning at breakfast. “I feel like we’ve barely seen you all summer. But, I really can’t blame you. Zeke and I were like that the first few months that we were together, weren’t we, babe?”
“Ha, yeah, we really were that bad, weren’t we?” Zeke answered before taking a sip of his beer.
“But it’s good to be back here permanently now for the new year,” Elaine continued.
“Weren’t you here all this summer, too?” Charlotte asked. While she had met Elaine and Zeke a few times over the summer, they had actually only been in town for a total of ten days at the most.
“No, it was almost all work and no play,” Zeke answered. “I went to a few conferences and spent a month at the University of Chicago as part of a research program with my advisor. Thankfully, everything that Elaine needed to do over the summer could be done anywhere, so she tagged along with me. It was very nice coming back to the hotel after a long day and having Elaine there to relax and unwind with.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Such a charmer, this guy,” Elaine said sardonically.
“I assume you’re talking about the guy sitting next to you, because it sure as hell isn’t this guy,” a new voice called out. They all turned and looked to Derek, who had just arrived with a pint of beer all his own. He was dressed well, in slacks, a button-up shirt undone at the collar, and a tie pulled loose.
The man stood up and gave Derek a hug. “Hey, man! It’s so good to see you again! How was your flight in and everything?”
“Oh, it was fine. I’m telling you, I will never fly coach again. I can’t go back to that lifestyle. So, are you going to introduce me?”
“Oh! Yeah. Sorry. This is Elaine and Zeke. Elaine is in my same year in the program, and Zeke is a couple years ahead. They’ve been together since Elaine and I started.”
Derek shook both of their hands and they all made pleasantries.
“And this is Charlotte, my girlfriend.”
Derek then turned to Charlotte and looked at her happily. “So this is the famous Charlotte! It’s so great to finally meet you! I’ve heard a lot about you, and I’m very happy that you two have found each other. He really needed someone like you in his life.”
“Really nice to meet you, too, Derek,” Charlotte responded. “Honestly, you could say the same for me. Want to pull up a chair?”
Derek set down his beer and pulled up a chair from a neighboring table and set it at the head of their table before sitting down. They made random talk for a while before each going up to the back counter to order food for themselves for dinner. After placing his order, Derek came back with another large pitcher for the table and they all deservedly cheersed him.
About fifteen minutes later, their food all arrived, and they dove into it with gusto, being as hungry as they were. All throughout, they told stories of various escapades during college, both well- and ill-advised, laughed uproariously at the latter, and talked in general of their lives.
“So what do you do, Derek?” Charlotte eventually asked. “I haven’t really heard a lot of details beyond that you apparently make a lot of money.”
“Yeah, he probably hasn’t said a whole lot on that, has he?” He smiled knowingly at Charlotte. “I work in finance for a large company and am quite comfortable there, yeah. We both majored in math, you know, but he was always more interested in abstract concepts than its actual applications. That, and I think he’s allergic to working. I’m pretty sure he only went on to grad school so he could delay having to find a real job for another five years or so.” Derek laughed at that last part.
“What do you mean? Didn’t he work as an undergrad?” Charlotte asked.
“Ha! No way. Every night he was either doing homework or we were out at some bar or party somewhere. God, those were fun nights. But no, he never worked.”
Charlotte turned to him, and he was afraid to look up and meet her eyes. He knew nothing good would come of it, but he needed to look up. When he finally looked at her, her eyes showed an incredible mixture of anger, confusion, and pure hurt. His heart sank and crashed into a million pieces. The look on her face physically hurt him. He was certain that this was the worst she had ever been hurt in her life, and he was the reason why. It appeared that her eyes were beginning to tear up.
After a look that seemed to last for years, Charlotte blinked and turned back to the table, more or less appearing as she had a mere minute ago. Elaine was telling a story of she and Zeke almost getting stuck in Hungary after a conference finished up because of a lost passport. Normally this was a funny story, but the man couldn’t bring himself to even smile. When the story was done, Charlotte excused herself to the bathroom.
“Everything alright, man?” Derek asked. “She looks a little off.”
“Um, yeah, probably. Maybe her dinner combined with the beer isn’t sitting well in her stomach.”
About five minutes passed, and he was in agony. He was sure she’d never actually climb out of a bathroom window, but began to worry that she had for how long she was gone. She eventually returned to the table and said to them all, “I’m really sorry, everyone, but I’m not feeling that well.” She turned to him. “Can we go back?”
“Yeah, of course, babe. Let me just go up to the bar and pay.”
The entire time spent going up to the register, paying, and returning to the table was possibly the worst he had ever felt. He knew she was upset that he had been caught in the lie. Even when they got back to the apartment and he tried to explain that he was planning on telling her after the weekend was over and Derek left, why would she believe him? He was sure that it would make way more sense that she would just think he was saying that to cover himself because he had been caught, not because he genuinely wanted to be honest. None of this was happening the way he had planned it out; it was terrifying, and he didn’t trust himself enough to just talk and have things work out well.
When he got back to the table, he gave them all a quick, “I’ll see you all later,” and walked out with Charlotte. Her hands were stuck in pockets and remained there for the entirety of the walk back to the apartment. Once, after a minute or so, he started to say something, with, “Charlotte…” before she cut him off with a terse, “Not here.”
Every step made him feel more despondent. He tried to play scenarios through in his mind but only could think of those that ended with Charlotte walking out of his life. They eventually got back, and he opened the door, letting her in. He closed the door behind him and took his time turning the deadbolt, for he couldn’t bring himself to turn around and face the inevitable. After he did and spent about fifteen seconds just staring at the door, he turned around.
“Charlotte…”
“You lied to me.”
“Yeah. I know.” The defeat was clear in his voice. He had no idea what else to say. The script he had laid out was long gone.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Her face wasn’t as stern as he was expecting. It was softer, which just meant that the hurt and betrayal was fronted all the more.
“Yes! Of course I was. I just didn’t know how to at first and then I wanted to wait for the right moment.”
“Have you lied about anything else?”
“No, I haven’t! I promise you I haven’t.”
“Well why should I believe you? You could be lying now about this. Maybe you hadn’t planned on telling me but you just got caught.”
He didn’t know what to say. She’d put him into a beautifully constructed Kafka trap.
“I mean, this is our relationship!” she continued. “We’re together because you said you were a stage hypnotist! And you never were! What kind of relationship can we possibly have if it all started because of a lie?”
It was all too much for him. He started to ramble, grasping at anything he could to try to minimize this. “It’s still a great one! Until tonight, there hasn’t been a single bad instance this entire summer. I’m so sorry I hadn’t told you earlier. I love you more than anything and I never wanted to hurt you. And I can hypnotize you! I’ve done it almost daily since we met. Isn’t that the important thing? Does it really matter if I never got paid to hypnotize random people?”
“Because you still lied to me.” The hurt was obviously alone in the forefront now. “And you know, you’re right. This isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme if things. It’s not like you’ve been going around hypnotizing or sleeping with random women. But you still really hurt me and I’m still really mad at you.”
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”
“I know you are.”
He was starting to feel a little better. Her tone wasn’t as confrontational as it was when they got to the apartment. Now if he could just get her to stay, he was confident that everything would return to normal in a few days.
“But our relationship still feels a little tainted now. I’m going to spend tonight at my dorm. Maybe tomorrow night, too. I just… I just need some time away from you right now.”
This was unbearable to him. If he was a less insecure and more confident man, he would have done the smart thing: say he understood, apologized to her again, let her leave, and let her begin talking again in a couple days when she was ready. And if he had done that, then all would have been well between them. Unfortunately, he wasn’t less insecure or more confident, so all he could think about was how if Charlotte walked out that door, their relationship would end, which he had managed to firmly convince himself of in these past few seconds.
In his moment of panic, he stepped up to Charlotte, snapped his fingers, and commanded her to sleep. She collapsed into his arms and immediately he realized his grievous error. He stood there for a couple seconds trying to figure out what to do next. Nothing seemed like a good idea to him.
Charlotte suddenly jolted awake and stood up straight.
“How dare you!?” she roared at him.
Her eyes burned with fury. Never in his mental preparations had he figured out what to do if he moronically tried using hypnosis on Charlotte in this situation.
“Charlotte… I…” he began stammering out.
“James!”
He froze. She hadn’t used his name since their relationship was purely that of teacher and student.
“I can’t believe you! You were going to hypnotize me to stay, or forgot everything that happened tonight, or be not angry at you, weren’t you? No, don’t you dare say a word! I let you play with my mind all summer because I trusted that you wouldn’t take advantage of me! And here you go trying to force me!” Tears started to flow down her cheeks. “How can I trust you, or that anything I felt for you was real, if you’d try using hypnosis now!?”
He had no answer to that. There wasn’t an answer to that. All he could do was stare blankly and shake his head, fully in disbelief that everything went so wrong so quickly.
“I know we were supposed to meet up with Derek tomorrow for lunch. I’ll stop by here when you’re there to get my things. I’ll leave the key inside.”
She gave him one last look of desperate sadness, allowing him one last opportunity to just say anything to start to repair things. But he didn’t know what he could say. She wiped both of her eyes, but continued to sob as she turned, unlocked the door, strode out, and slammed it shut.
He took a couple steps back and collapsed down onto the couch. With his head buried in his hands, and wept.