EXPERIMENTS
By StageShowMM
“Psychology ExperimentUndergrads wanted (18–22)$5 — 15 min. prelim. screening$25 — 1 hr. follow-up (if selected)”
“Here’s one!” yelped Emily, handing me another tearing from the bulletin board. I scanned the slip quickly—$5 for 15 minutes wasn’t much to write home about, but $25 for whatever the “follow-up” was seemed a lot more alluring.
Since starting college that fall, the two of us had become connoisseurs of the University’s grad student research projects. As a couple freshmen operating on tight scholarships, it was a nice way to make some pocket change without the hassle of keeping to the schedule of a regular job. Besides, it was interesting to get a peek into the research the different departments were conducting: over the last few months, I’d sampled different flavors of French fries, had to press a series of unmarked buttons (some of which delivered a mild shock), and been tasked with sorting pieces of pasta sculpted into various geometrical shapes. It was wild some of the crap you could get paid to do—albeit on a one-time basis. Emily had even started keeping blog about it.
“Holy shit, that’s this afternoon!” she exclaimed, walking back over to me. She was clutching a pile of about four or five different tear-offs, but it appeared this had become our priority.
“Come on, let’s see if we can make it to the Psych building. If we get there too late, we might miss all the slots. What do you think it is?” She smiled that winsome smile of hers. It was the first thing that had caught my eye the day I’d moved into the dorms—this gorgeous brown-haired moppet from across the hall. I had to admit, I kinda had a little thing for her (okay, maybe not so little…), so perhaps there was more to our palling around than (hopefully) met the eye. But as usual, I was sure it was all for naught—I never seemed to stand a chance with girls.
As a scrawny dude, it sometimes struck me that was my lot in life—to be overlooked. At 5′7″ and skinny as a beanpole, I seemed to just disappear in front of girls, fading into the background as their eyes sought out what I presumed most of them thought was a “real man.” I don’t wanna say I have a complex about it, but ever since middle school, it had become increasingly obvious I was overlooked. My long shock of dark hair didn’t help matters. Though I always thought it just kinda fit my style—a bit grunge, a bit emo, usually with a baggy flannel over a metal shirt and tight jeans—after taking my Intro. to Psych course last semester, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t some kind of “distancing mechanism.” I’d really only started getting into it in high school, as I began to cleave off with my male Honors student friends (okay, fellow nerds) and give up on any hope of a romantic life. Was I striving to push people away by masking even more of my appearance? Were those long dark locks just one more shield for me to hide behind?
“Alex, come on,” Emily said, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me along. My heart thrummed at her touch. God how I wanted to take that hand myself one day, pull her in close and give her a kiss. But that wasn’t what guys did anymore. You’d get crucified on Twitter in a heartbeat. Come to think of it, I wasn’t really sure what guys did anymore. I just gave in and followed her lead…
The Psych department was an old stone building stuffed in one corner of the campus. Emily and I were both familiar with it from our class last semester, and it wasn’t much of a challenge getting there, but we still arrived out of breath because of Emily’s rush. Reaching the room listed on the flyer, we found there had been little reason to hurry. Only one other person was seated in the small assemblage of chairs outside, and within a minute or two, she got called in.
Since, whatever these sessions were, they apparently lasted 15 minutes, Emily and I both plunked down and started scrolling our phones, browsing Insta and TikTok (not that I didn’t also busy myself stealing occasional glances at Emily). Before we knew it, the last session ended, as the same girl came waltzing out of the office, and the guy was calling for the next volunteer.
Emily and I looked at each other. “You wanna? I’m right in the middle of this,” she said, gesturing to a makeup tutorial on her phone.
I shrugged. “Sure.” I slipped out of my chair and followed the guy into the exam room.
“Just fill this out for me quick,” he said, passing me a clipboard before extending his hand. “My name’s Tom,” he smiled.
“Alex,” I said, taking it. From my position in my chair, Tom’s already imposing presence was only amplified. With a stout frame; chiseled, stubbled jaw; and tightly trimmed haircut, he looked more like a matinee idol than a grad student. A tight sweater emphasized the firm, toned musculature of his arm as he pumped my hand. This guy was probably twice my weight, and could bench more than that. Yet for some reason, his smile seemed warm and inviting, genuine. For some reason I couldn’t identify, my stomach did a cartwheel as his hand touched mine. I felt totally intimidated by him, by the dynamic, and yet, there was something in his warm demeanor that seemed to welcome me into his presence. The pump in his shake felt familiar from my dad, an ex-marine. It was one of those shakes where it felt like my hand—and by extension the rest of me—was merely along for the ride.
“I’ll go hand one to your friend too so she can get a jump on it. Back in a sec,” he smiled again, slipping out the door.
I exhaled, for some reason happy to be free of his presence, despite the fact there was nothing officious about it—quite the opposite, in fact. In a weird way, there was something almost discomfiting with how comfortable I felt around Tom.
I scanned the sheet on the clipboard, and it didn’t seem too onerous: pretty basic information, just name, address, phone number (for the potential follow-up), and various metrics like height, weight, age, gender perception, etc. At the bottom was some boilerplate familiar from most of these exercises—I acknowledge that my participation is voluntary, potential for minor though unforeseen side-effects, release from liability, yada yada. I scribbled my name underneath.
The door opened just as I set my clipboard on the table beside me. It had only taken a couple minutes, though it occurred to me Tom had been out in the hall that entire length of time—longer than it should take just to hand off a clipboard. Part of me wondered if he had been chatting with Emily, and that same part didn’t really like the thought. With his model-ready looks and megawatt smile, I was sure he was exactly the type of guy to make Emily—hell, any girl—weak in the knees. But I consoled myself with the fact he had to have at least 10 years on us. Hell, he probably had some gorgeous, pretentious art student girlfriend or something. If he was really gonna fool around with an 18-year-old in one of his experiments, then he was an A-grade sleaze, right? And I was sure Emily could recognize that.
“Awesome, thanks,” he said, grabbing the clipboard and moving it to a table on the other side of the room. This was the first moment I noted my surroundings. The room itself was fairly small, with no windows, and the lights were low. There were a few desks and pieces of furniture for work, but they had all been moved to the sides. In front of a whiteboard a screen had been pulled down, and there was one of those old-fashioned overhead projectors sitting beside me. As for myself, I was seated in a reclining chair—upright at the moment—that nevertheless seemed out-of-place. I wondered what the hell was going on. Was he going to show me something and ask my opinion on some photos?
“Before we begin, I need to run you through a few details of the experiment, all right?” I nodded.
“Now, what we’re doing here today, and in future sessions if you qualify, is an assessment of the relation between hypnosis and visual perception. My job today is to try to put people under and see who is and is not a good visualizer. I’m going to run you through a simple ‘induction’—that’s what we call it when we try to hypnotize you—and then afterwards, have you analyze a series of images and report your perceptions. Does that make sense?” I nodded again.
“Awesome. Now a lot of people have misconceptions about hypnosis, think it turns you into a zombie or something, but I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a simple state of focused relaxation, probably already familiar if you’ve ever done a guided meditation or anything. Most people find it very relaxing, but if you have any reservations, you’re welcome at any time to ask me to stop the experiment, and you can take your consent form and leave. That said, I can only give you the $5 if you make it to the end. Got it?”
I nodded once more.
“Awesome,” he said. There was something about the way he kept saying “awesome”—at once so un-scientific but so familiar. It made him seem really warm and approachable—in fact, the entire practiced-casual spiel had—and it gave me this weird sense of cognitive dissonance between the resentment I felt for his looks and the openness he managed to radiate. Goddamnit. When a guy was this kind of genetic miracle, did he really have to be so fucking charming? I wanted to hate the guy, but it seemed increasingly hard with each minute we spent together.
“As a final note, I’m won’t be able to give you any feedback on how you did. You may receive a call in a few days to come in for one or more follow-ups, and each of those will last up to an hour and pay $25 a session. We’re looking for both extremely suggestible volunteers and extremely non-suggestible ones to serve as a control group, so please don’t read anything into your selection or lack thereof. The results will be partly based on performance, and partly randomized. Are you okay with beginning?” he smiled again.
“Uh, sure I guess,” I said, shaking a shock of dark hair out of my field of vision. I guessed if I was going to do this, I needed both eyes at full capacity.
“Awesome,” he smiled. “Just sit back in that chair and try to make yourself as comfortable as possible. If you’d like to recline to better view the screen, you can do so now. I’m going to turn on the projector to give you something focus on,” he said.
I sat back. The chair certainly was puffy—and comfy. After a second’s assessment, I decided I didn’t need to recline. It seemed comfortable enough as it was.
The overhead projector next to me flicked to life. On the screen was a black-and-white line drawing, in an extremely complicated design. The lines wiggled and swirled and made spirals and curly-cues and flowers all over the place. It was certainly intricate. I had expected something simple, like a cliched spiral, but instead I got this weird sketch-art from hell. There was certainly a lot to it.
“All right, Alex, I want you to lie back and relax. You don’t mind if I call you Alex, do you?”
“No…” I said idly, trying to do as he’d instructed. I honestly had never contemplated being hypnotized. Part of me wondered about my positioning, and I squirmed a bit, nervous if I was doing it right.
“That’s awesome, Alex, thank you. Now I want you to just find a single position to sit in, making sure your entire body is as comfortable as possible. I’d recommend putting your arms on the armrests for support. Lean back into the chair fully, and make sure every part of that padding is supporting your frame. I want you to feel completely, 100% supported by the chair, so you can let any awareness of your body simply drift away. What we’re going to focus on now is your mind: I want your mind and your mind alone to focus on the image in front of you. Study it. Move back and forth across the shapes. I want you to follow one of the lines and try to trace where it goes. The entire image is made of very long lines, crossing and zigzagging back and forth, and I assure you—I promise—that each and every one of these lines travels in a pathway, complete and unbroken, from one side of the image to the other. However, I’m sure you’ll find as you begin to study it that the constant crossing and weaving, the proximity of the lines, makes it hard to follow any given path, and it becomes so easy, almost too easy, to skip from one to the other, getting drawn along, lost in the design, moving one way first and then the other, back and forth, up and down, over and over, side to side, until at some point you have no idea any more if you’re still following the original line. And that’s just how I want you to feel as you listen to me, continuing to scrutinize that drawing, as my voice leads you back and forth, up and down, side to side, all the way ‘round, and you can just follow along, or not, skipping from one part of what I’m saying to another, just like that line, and as more and more time goes by, it won’t matter so much how little you’re hearing, you’re just enjoying relaxing, breathing deeply, following my speech and following that line, or not, as you slowly begin to give yourself away to the moment, allowing yourself to drift in a single instant on that line, or a specific thought, losing the thread, and finding it again, and that’s quite all right. You just keep going back and forth, back and forth, trying, trying hard, to follow that line, eyes growing weary with the effort, mind growing weary as you try to keep track of what I’m saying, until at a certain point it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter and you just let go, drawing in a nice, deep breath, still following that line, and even letting your eyes dip for a moment if you want to, because they’re so tired, so tired from following the line, following my voice, following that line, eyes closed, following that line, you can see it, see it right in front of you, back and forth, up and down, just like your chest, breathing deeply now, letting every… single… drop of energy go… down Alex, down… down… down into my voice. Down…”
“And open your eyes…”
I blinked groggily. Fuck. Where was I? Staring forward, I noticed the screen in front of me was different, just full of random words. What was happening? For some reason, I felt like whatever was up there should have been this black-and-white maze thing.
“That’s very good, Alex. Now, staring at the screen in front of you, I simply want you to tell me where you see the word ‘red.’”
I stared impassively at the words. There were four of them, all printed in the color that they stated: RED, YELLOW, GREEN and BLUE. Why did that voice want me to do this? Was this part of the experiment? Somehow, I felt so relaxed. I guess the guy was right—being hypnotized must be like meditating. But wait—was I hypnotized? I felt awake, just out of it. I supposed the experiment hadn’t been a success, or I wasn’t a very good subject, but I assumed I should keep going until he told me to stop. I wanted my $5.
“Top right,” I said quietly. My eyelids seemed to hang so heavy. It was like that first week in the dorms, when my roommate had smoked me out and gotten me stoned out of my mind. But he hadn’t asked me to take an eye exam.
“Very good, switching to the next slide.” I heard a rustling beside me. A new set of words appeared—nine this time. But there was only one RED, in the bottom right corner.
“Bottom corner. Right,” I mumbled, hoping I was doing okay. This entire thing seemed asinine. Who needed a college kid—or hypnosis—to do something so simple?
“Very good. And the next one.” Another rustling. Now there were three columns with about eight or nine rows. YELLOW, GREEN and BLUE were everywhere, but only one RED, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Center, row five,” I muttered sleepily, using the scale along the side to guide me. I was impressed I was able to do this when I felt so sleepy.
“Very good. Now close your eyes again.” I did as he instructed.
“Take a deep breath, and melt back…” he said, snapping his fingers. I felt the air pour out of me, and it was like I was suddenly being subsumed into the chair. And then I didn’t think about anything anymore…
“…and wide awake.” Snap.
I blinked, sitting up groggily again. That handsome grad student was still standing over me.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Good,” I said, stretching a bit. My body felt loose, but somehow also stiff—in that way you do when you’re just waking up from a great nap.
“Thank you for your time today,” he smiled, holding out my $5.
“Wait. Is that it? I’m done?”
“Told you it was relaxing,” he smiled, patting me on the shoulder. “We’ll call you again if we need you for the follow-up.”
I rose to my feet unsteadily, brushing my hair back. I still couldn’t believe it was over. I had just been listing to him talk. Instinctively I reached up and wiped my mouth, which felt wet. Fuck. Had I started drooling?
“Don’t worry, happens to a lot of folks,” Tom smiled, ushering me out the door.
“I don’t think I was very good. They sure wasted their five bucks,” Emily said, snapping the bill before stuffing it in her pocket as we made our way back across campus.
“How could you even tell?” I asked. “That was honestly the stupidest experiment we’ve done.” I was finally feeling more awake, and had spent my extra time in the hall thinking back over things.
“Ugh, it was just obnoxious. I’m awful with stuff like that. Words written in different colors… It’s fucking impossible.”
“What do you mean? It was just like, find the word ‘red,’ and it’s written in red. How hard is that?” I asked.
“Wait, what do you mean? On mine I had to pick out these different words, but they were in all these different colors. Like none of it matched. Green was red and blue was yellow…”
“Seriously? Mine were all the same. It was like the easiest thing ever.”
“Damn, you must’ve been in the control group or something. That sounds boring as hell.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m five bucks richer,” I shrugged. Now that I was feeling more like my old self, the money was burning a hole in my pocket.
“You wanna hit up the comm and grab cheesy fries? All that first-grade reading worked up my appetite.”
“Last one’s buying!” Emily yelled, dashing off in front of me, and I bolted after her, putting the whole incident out of my mind.
I’d almost forgotten about the experiment when I finally received a call-back, almost a week later. It was the same guy on the phone, Tom, and he said I’d been selected for the full round, and asked when I could schedule an appointment.
To be honest, part of me had been hoping he wouldn’t call, just because meeting him had seemed to stir up such a strange set of emotions in me. In the occasional moment when I reflected back on that experiment, I started to get uneasy, not just about how weirdly comfortable Tom had made me—almost outside my normal self—but also how vulnerable getting into that state made me feel. I could remember sitting back in the chair, and Tom talking, and then the part where he told me to open my eyes and pick out certain words on the charts, but there’d also been this sense I’d lost track of time, that it had gone on for longer than it felt like, and who knew what had been going on then? It was like waking up after a night at one of the frats and dreading going online to see who’d tagged you doing embarrassing shit. Being passed out like that, even with a professional, made me feel defenseless.
Yet the moment I heard Tom’s voice, that hesitation melted, and I found myself enthusiastically volunteering for the next part of the experiment. Tom said that was awesome, as they sometimes had trouble with people bowing out on the rebook, and we scheduled an session for the next day. For some reason, when I heard Tom’s voice, soft yet strong, like a firm guiding hand, I felt completely comfortable, and I had to admit, despite my prior reservations, the thought of feeling that relaxed again enticed me. He wasn’t wrong about it feeling like meditation. Maybe I needed to de-stress more with this kind of shit.
By the time I rolled up to the office the following afternoon, however, my critical side had again gotten the better of me, and my stomach was roiling with a nervousness I couldn’t define. The waiting area in the hall was empty this time, and the whole space had this isolated quality that made me uneasy. I hesitated before knocking at the door, though finally shook myself out of it—what the fuck was I so afraid of? It was just a stupid psychology experiment.
Again, Tom greeted me warmly. He ushered me in, offering a slightly thicker clipboard this time. I went through and re-signed everything, which included a lot of the same information as well as a consent to be recorded. As I sat down in the chair, I saw Tom adjusting a camera to the side, to get me in frame.
“Are… are people gonna see this?” I asked nervously.
“Don’t worry. This is only for our future review and analysis. It never leaves this lab,” he smiled. I sighed, feeling some of the nervousness dissipate—though not entirely. I imagine he must have picked up on it.
“Is that all right?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“Awesome,” he smiled, setting the camera rolling. There was a part of me that really didn’t like the idea of anyone watching me in such an exposed condition, but what the hell, I figured it was for science. Like you let a doctor feel your balls while you cough if they need to. It’s embarrassing, but it’s just you and them.
“Very good. Just lie back and relax,” Tom said.
Sliding into the armchair, I felt this strange comfort wash over me. Not just from the soft fabric, but like my entire spirit was suddenly comfortable, like I was right back where I belonged. I remembered being here, remembered how relaxed I felt, and it was easy to slip back into that.
“Very good.” Tom dimmed the lights, and I soon heard the familiar hum of the projector to one side of me, as he switched on the bulb. There was that same drawing again…
Tom led me through that same kind of weird double-speak he had the last time, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I was out like a light in a matter of seconds. Somehow, having been through this process before, it was like I knew just what to do, and it was so easy to go back to that place I’d been. I remember this one instant right before I passed out that my head was kind of tilted to the side at a 45-degree angle, and my eyes were rolling up into my head, and I remember thinking that I didn’t know how I was supposed to relax when my eyelids were fluttering like a hummingbird, and then Tom snapped and my whole body slumped to the side and it was like I was dead to the world.
When I came to again, I had that weird fuzzy feeling like last time, and Tom was sitting in front of me, where a kind of TV tray had been placed over my legs with various items. Picking something up, he handed it to me, saying, “We’d like to offer you this.”
I took the wedge in my hand, examining it. It was a wedge from an orange, or a large tangerine. I plopped the end in my mouth and snapped off a bite, chewing.
“Can you describe the taste to the camera and say what you’re eating?” he asked, motioning. I turned.
“An orange,” I said dully. “Sweet and juicy.”
“Very good. You can finish if you like,” he replied.
I plopped the remainder in my mouth, chewing and feeling the sweet juices wash around my palette.
“And now could you please try this, and tell us what it is?” he said, proffering a spoonful of something.
Again, I took the spoon and put it in my mouth. It was cool, and the flavor was a gentle, dulcet vanilla.
“Vanilla ice cream. Cool and sweet,” I said to the camera, wondering again why I was being tasked with doing something so simple.
“Very good. Are you right-handed or left-handed, Alex?” he asked.
“Right,” I said, mystified.
“Have you noticed you’ve been using your left hand? Can you please remove your right hand from the bucket?”
Bucket?
He gestured to my right, and I finally noticed—how had I missed it??—that my hand had been sitting this entire time in a large bucket of ice water, placed to the other side of the chair. I held it up. Even in the dim light of the room, it looked red. Yet for some reason, the water had been perfectly fine—gentle and warm, like a freshly drawn bath.
“How does your hand feel?” Tom asked. “Please tell the camera.”
“It feels… fine,” I said, scrutinizing it curiously. “Kind of warm. Nice.”
“And you felt perfectly comfortable using your left hand?” he asked.
“Yes…” I said, still staring in wonder at my right.
“Very good. Lie back in the chair now, Alex,” he said, offering me a towel. I used it to dry off my hand.
“That’s good. Now I want you to close your eyes…”
Almost before he said anything, I already felt it happen—body melting back, the entire chair wrapping around me, as I drifted right back into a deep, calm, relaxing, “sleep.”
I heard last semester in that psychology class that while they say hypnotized people are “sleeping,” they’re actually not—it’s not like they’re dreaming or whatever. But I have to call a bit of bullshit, because the second time I went under for that experiment, I started having some weird and vivid dreams.
For some reason, even though I knew I was just lying there, listing to Tom talk, I had this totally vivid experience like Emily was in front of me, sucking my dick. I hadn’t gotten a ton of blowjobs in my life, but I had gotten a few good ones, and this was by far one of the best. Emily’s mouth moved up and down my shaft like a soft pillow, tickling and teasing it in all the right places, and despite my entire body being so relaxed, I quaked a little and moaned as I dreamed my body went through orgasm.
After Tom woke me up, I felt really out of it, even worse than before, and said I didn’t remember a lot of what happened, but he said that was normal. Nevertheless, for some reason, the whole experience left me feeling kind of weak, shaken and afraid, and almost before I realized it after standing, I was asking Tom if it would be all right for me to hold him, just until I calmed down a little. Tom smiled and said that was fine, wrapping his big strong arms around me, and I wrapped mine around him, too. For some reason, his stout torso felt better than a safety blanket in my arms. Holding that big barrel of a chest, feeling the muscles ripple with each deep, strong breath, I knew that nothing could harm me. My head only came up to the top of Tom’s chest, and I rested it beneath the gentle cleft of his pecs, a pendant on a necklace softly grazing my cheek through his sweater. It was a weird feeling, but I almost wanted to cry, not just from how vulnerable I felt, but also from how protected. Tom caressed my silky hair and said it was all right, I was safe with him, and just to take deep breaths.
After about five minutes of this prolonged hug—way, way longer than I’d ever hugged a man in my life—I finally felt safe to pull away, and taking a quaking breath, I shook my head, finally coming out of the fog. Suddenly, it hit me what a strange thing I had done—just asked this complete stranger to hold me—and how it was even weirder that he’d complied. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the video camera in the corner had been turned off.
Quickly grabbing my overshirt (when had I removed it?), I made my excuses and fled, almost forgetting to collect my $25. Glancing at my watch as I left, I noticed the time was a half-hour past five, meaning we’d run over by almost 30 minutes. Even counting the time I’d wasted broing out with my hug, that was at least 25 minutes extra, which must have meant I was a really deep sleeper. Yet it was no matter—the follow-up was over, and I vowed this was the last time I would ever set foot in this office.
I was so embarrassed by the whole incident that, even though I’d mentioned to Emily I was going, I made a point of never bringing it up. When she finally asked a day or two later, I just said it’d been another dumb thing where I had to eat some stuff, and I was sure I had to be one of the control group. How could I tell her how weird things had gotten at the end? How could I tell her I’d had a sex dream about her?
I usually let unknown numbers go to voicemail, but about a week later I had just finished with some other stupid experiment stacking Dixie cups that said it might have a call-back, so for that reason when I got a call around seven in the evening the following Thursday, I picked up.
“Hi, is this Alex?”
A shiver ran through me the second I heard that voice—I didn’t even have to ask who it was, I knew in an instant. Part of me had been dreading hearing it, to be honest. And yet another part…
“Listen, I wanted to offer you one more follow-up for our experiment. I know the last time left you a little shaky, but I’m going to be honest: you’re an excellent subject, and it would do me a huge amount of good to be able to work with you again. If you agree, I’d be happy to pay you $200 for you time.”
My heart skipped a beat. Fuck. I’d been really wanting some AirPods since I was still hauling around a set of basic earphones like a loser, but to be honest, even before the subject of money came up, I’d felt inclined to assent. I still didn’t know why, but despite the reservations I had every time I completed one of these experiments, the second I heard Tom’s voice, it was like my resolve evaporated. Feeling almost outside myself, like I was watching what was happening on TV or something, I found myself murmuring, “Sure… I’d love to.”
“Awesome.” I could almost hear that radiant smile over the phone, and again my heart skipped a beat. There was just something so wonderful about making Tom happy.
“Let me give you the address. I’m afraid we’re going to have to conduct this offsite,” he said, and I grabbed a pen and paper…
The address already seemed weird, but after putting it in Google maps, I realized why: it wasn’t some off-campus university building, but one of the apartments nearby. As I made my way over, I wondered if the department had rented a room here or something to handle overflow work, but that seemed improbable, and the moment I arrived on the doorstep, I had my suspicions confirmed: Unit 4B was labeled simply “T. Wharton.”
That must’ve been Tom’s last name! Despite the fact a more rational part of my mind was screaming at me something was wrong—a grad student shouldn’t be inviting an 18-year-old to his place on a Thursday night for the purposes of “an experiment”—another part of me thrilled at gaining this bit of extra insight into the kindly man from the Psychology department. After all, for some reason, I felt like he knew so much about me, and yet for me he was nothing but a mystery. Something about knowing that extra bit about him made me that much more comfortable, and without even thinking, my finger drifted to the buzzer.
After a second or two, I heard the door buzz, and I quickly pushed my way through, not even bothering with the elevator, just bounding up the steps to the fourth floor. If my issue was not knowing enough about Tom, I guessed I was about to get a lot more acquainted with his personal life.
I’d barely rolled up to Tom’s as the door pulled open, revealing the same handsome man from before. He was dressed more casually this time—just exercise shorts and a school tee stretched taught against his chest. Smiling warmly, he threw open the door: “Awesome! You made it.
“Thanks again for coming by,” he said, ushering me in. The second I stepped inside, I was startled to find myself, almost by instinct, reaching out and wrapping my arms around him. Grinning, Tom reciprocated, and I once again quivered feeling his strong embrace. It seemed weird to think I’d been so jealous of Emily possibly flirting with him a few weeks ago. By now, I totally got it—a guy like Tom just made you feel safe.
Finally breaking our hug, Tom ushered me to the couch in his living room.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No… I’m fine…” I mumbled nervously. Was this it? Was I supposed to get hypnotized here? I looked around. Tom’s living room seemed like such a strange contrast to the lab—no camera or clipboards. Instead, it was a well-decorated apartment, so different from my cluttered dorm, where the aesthetic of my tacked-up posters battled with my roommate’s for supremacy and both our dirty clothes were strewn hither and yon. This was a man’s apartment—a real man’s—with the aesthetics cultivated, a place for everything, and everything in its place.
“Well, I apologize again for having to take things off-campus,” he smiled, sitting down in the chair beside me. I put my arm on the armrest of the couch, looking back at him. Were things really supposed to start just now?
“It’s… I don’t mind,” I whispered, at a loss for words. For some reason, all the stress at the end of the prior session seemed to have left my memory. All I could remember was the tremendous relaxation, how goddamn good it felt, and my stomach was full of butterflies as I waited for him to offer what I wanted—to be hypnotized again.
“If you want some explanation about the project, we were seeking out especially good visualizers to see how far we could push the limits of that ability,” Tom said, reaching over and laying a hand on top of mine.
Okay, this was weird. Hugs were one thing, but it almost felt like he was coming on to me. I pulled my hand back.
“Sorry, man, sorry. Don’t worry about that,” he said, snapping his fingers. It seemed like an odd thing to say—just telling me to ignore something that had made me uncomfortable—but for some reason I knew I could trust Tom, and the issue dissipated from my thinking.
“But what do you mean?” I asked. “All you asked me to do was read some words, and then I think the other time… you gave me food?”
Tom smiled, standing up and pulling his cell phone from his shorts. He flipped through the photos as he passed, plopping down on the couch beside me.
“Here, look,” he smiled. On the display, there was a photo of what looked like the projector screen, except this time it had a sheet of words where the colors were all written in different inks than the word itself—RED in yellow, GREEN in blue, etc.
“That looks like the one my friend described,” I said, staring at it.
“It’s the one I showed you too,” he smiled. I looked at him incredulously.
“You have an incredibly powerful mind, Alex. All it needs is to have its impediments removed, and your mind—I mean your mind, specifically—is capable of doing astonishing things. Close your eyes for me.”
Almost the second he said it, my body instinctively fell back into the couch, eyes closing, drawing a deep breath. I felt Tom’s finger press against the center of my forehead and my entire being seemed to swoon into the fabric. I have no idea how long I sat like that before the sharp snap of his fingers. Looking up, I glanced back at the photo on his phone, which he was still holding out. It was just as I remembered it—BLUE in blue, GREEN in green, RED in red…
“You switched the picture…” I said, shaking my head.
“Nah. This is the only one. See?” he asked, backing out to the gallery.
I stared at the thumbnails—no other bright white ones like that, as far as I could tell. But around it, though difficult to parse because of their size, I thought I could make out photos of myself, passed out in the exam room chair. A few toward the bottom had a pale slash of pink-white across the bottom. No way. Could that be…?
“Do you have pictures of my dick??” I blurted, my cheeks turning red. I was incensed. It was one thing to do a private session at someone’s apartment, for research, but had Tom been taking advantage of me? I couldn’t believe it. He seemed so trustworthy!
“No, goof!” he laughed, tussling my hair. Despite how startled I was, something about that still felt really good. “I told you, you’re an amazing visualizer. I just made you think you were seeing naked photos. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. That was inappropriate.”
“You’re goddamn right,” I muttered, still shocked that a research assistant would demonstrate such poor judgment.
“I see I upset you. You can bring it in again if you need to calm down…” he smiled.
For some reason, even though just a moment ago I’d been afraid the guy had violated me, the memory of how warm and comforting his embrace was sounded irresistible. Almost before I realized it, I found my arms wrapping around him again. Goddamn, the warm, firm bumps of his lats felt so good beneath the sheer fabric of his t-shirt. It was like hugging a rock or a boulder—I knew I’d always feel protected.
“Look, man,” I said, finally pulling away after what seemed like it could have been minutes. “I don’t wanna be rude or anything, but it’s just sometimes, I get this weird vibe from you, and if there’s anything like that going on, I just want you to know I want to keep this strictly professional. I mean, I’m straight,” I babbled. I had no idea where the sudden rush of confidence came from, but everything seemed to come pouring out in an instant—all the inner turmoil and conflict it had seemed impossible for me to articulate in the past few weeks.
“That’s great, man. Awesome. It’s good to see you finally expressing yourself,” Tom smiled, patting me on the shoulder. Its bony knob must have felt like a tennis ball to him—not wide and strong like his.
“You said that girl you like—it’s Emily, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded. How did he know about Emily?
“That’s right, we talked about that. I think we’re making real progress.”
“Progress?”
“Yeah, close your eyes for me. We’re gonna visualize again.”
For some reason, despite all the red flags, my body once again assented, almost outside my control.
“Breathe in deep and relax. I want you to remember that same image of Emily in your mind, just like last time…”
Last time… Suddenly the haze became clearer. I hadn’t been having a sex dream about Emily. He’d asked me who I liked, and I’d told him. It wasn’t a dream at all, but another of his guided visualizations. And we were doing it again.
“That’s right. In your mind, you recall what it was like to be with Emily. It felt so good to be with Emily, didn’t it?”
I nodded. I could remember. Imagining every detail. Her sweet, soft flesh. The gentle feeling of her lips—his lips, apparently—moving up and down my cock.
“I want you to get even closer to Emily now. This time, you’re going to imagine what it would be like to be Emily. Can you do that for me? Imagine yourself as Emily now…”
I breathed in deep, and it was almost like I could feel my breasts swell—breasts that, until this very moment, I’d had no idea I had. The oxygen seemed to vibrate through my entire body, every inch of it—smooth, curved feminine hips; gentle, delicate arms; warm, hungry cunt.
“Very good. And you remember just how sure you were that Emily would want a man like me, don’t you? How deep you felt that confidence in your bones…”
Yes. Emily would want a man like Tom. In all honesty, Emily deserved a man like Tom. She deserved a man who made her feel safe and secure—as safe and secure as I knew Tom made me.
“You want Emily to be with Tom. You can take off Emily’s clothes and let Emily be with Tom, can’t you?”
Yes. Emily should be with Tom. Emily could be with Tom. Emily would be with Tom, if only I would just let her.
I slipped off Emily’s overshirt, then peeled out of her tee and tight black jeans. Finally, I slipped off her baggy underwear and tossed them aside. That same touch—firm but gentle, strong yet yielding—guided her back, so she was lying on the couch. I spread her legs, as I felt the strong hands begin to caress her inner thighs.
“Feel me working her pussy now…” that warm, masculine voice said, and I could feel herself—myself—opening up like a flower, as a warm, wet feeling slowly spread over what I’d previously thought was my asshole, but now realized was her pussy.
“Relax into it… That’s right…” I heard the voice whisper, and my sex—whatever the hell it was—blossomed like a rosebud, allowing one, then two fingers to slip inside in rapid succession. I leaned back and moaned, quivering, as the fingers continued to work the hole, finally pulling out with a wet slap before I felt them replaced by an even larger appendage.
“You’re doing so well… So well… Relax… Do it for Emily…”
Yes… I groaned as I felt the new object slip in, opening me up in a way I’d never felt before. The voice left it in there for a while, throbbing hard and hot, as whoever owned it—Tom, I guess—pressed himself tight against my—Emily’s—body.
There was that hug again. I felt myself wrapped in that warm embrace, those firm, strong arms giving me every ounce of comfort I’d ever wanted or known. I groaned, fireworks going off in my head, and felt Emily’s long, firm cock pulse between our pressed stomachs. The arms wrapped around me, gripping me tighter than I’d ever felt, my entire body tingling with the electricity of flesh against flesh.
I remained in that embrace as slowly, agonizingly—so wonderfully, wonderfully agonizing—the protuberance began to slide in and out, in and out of Emily’s body, caressing it in a way—in places—she had never known before. And all the while, those strong arms held me, and I felt safe and warm, perfectly at peace for the first time in my life, to be myself, to be loved for who I was.
And suddenly, I felt a hot burst within my guts, the warm fire of love pulsing inside me, almost like it had shot through and out my body—though, I realized, that was just my own emission, gushing molten from my cock, Emily’s cock, in perfect timing, forming a hot, sticky mess that united our bodies, pressed together tight in Tom’s embrace…
Over the next few weeks, everyone around campus seemed to notice a change in me. It was nothing about the way I looked, or how I dressed, or the things I said or did. It seemed to be the way I comported myself, the way I walked for the first time in a long time with my head held high.
I didn’t do a thing with my hair—I still liked the way it looked—but I kept it swept back more, behind my ears, no longer wanting to hide. When I looked at my slender body in the mirror, it no longer seemed gaunt, but sexy. I was thin and young and handsome—what the hell did I have to feel sorry for?
Emily seemed to notice the change as well, and a few weeks later asked if I’d like to go to a movie with her. I said I thought I might, but to give me a little time to think about it. I couldn’t believe it as the words fell out of my mouth, as this was something I would have given the world for such a short time ago, but at the moment, it felt more like I was working on me, and that was what matted. I’d learned a way to feel good about myself—in Tom’s arms—that I’d never imagined, and while it still seemed possible I could one day be my own Tom to Emily, for the moment, I was still trying to find the rest of Emily in me.
In the meantime, I’d hash it out with Tom, since I was going to his place tonight—as I had almost every night for the past three weeks. As it turned out, his research project had wrapped up long before—the session where he’d made me eat raw onion and wasabi and savor every bite had been the last—but though his study may have ended, mine was just beginning. I still had plenty of experiments of my own to conduct. And let me tell you, it sure was awesome.