The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

For a writer, there is no greater high than positive reader feedback. When a reader takes time out to tell me how much he or she liked a story of mine and why, it’s like a big friendly hug to me. I don’t get them every day, so when one does come my way I value it and make it a point to reply with more than just a mechanical thank-you.

One message I received a while ago is a perfect case in point:

Dear Wiseguy,

I very much enjoyed your story “Quarters”. The story is much more realistic than most fictional hypnosis stories, although it is a little bit of a stretch to have Susan able to participate in the illusion with no previous experience as a subject.

I learned hypnosis from my therapist a few years ago and experimented a bit with an ex-boyfriend. Your story reminded me of some of the games we played.

Sincerely,

Susan

To me, this email was the ultimate in feedback. Not only had she liked the story, but she had obviously invested the effort to understand the characters and situation I’d put together. The fact that she had a valid criticism didn’t bother me; if I couldn’t take a little intelligent criticism, I’d be foolish to keep posting stories.

The timing of this particular message was especially gratifying because it came just after the posting of “Quarters” on my Web site and the alt.sex.stories newsgroup. At the time “Intimate Adventures” was in its first draft and had a number of serious shortcomings. I was floundering, knowing where I wanted the story to go but unsure how to get it there. Susan’s email pulled me right out of that quagmire. Not only was the tone friendly and open, but she had also piqued my curiosity by alluding to her own real experience. I dropped everything and composed my reply:

Susan,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me about “Quarters”. It was really good to hear from you, and I’m glad you liked the story.

It sounds as though you have more hypnosis experience than I do; if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear how your experiments went.

Regards,

-wg

I was careful to keep it light and easy—there are a lot of freaks and weirdoes on the Internet, after all, and I didn’t want Susan to think I was one of them. And yes, I admit it, I was hoping she would reply with something that would get my creative juices flowing again. I only had to wait a few hours to find out.

Hello,

The best trick I did with my ex was to “run into him” (it was pre-arranged) at a bar and not recognize him. He appeared to be a total stranger and, of course, he seduced me as such. It was my idea but it took a lot of work to make it really happen. By the time we tried that, he had hypnotized me over a number of sessions so I was a very experienced subject. I was also a very willing subject because I loved the fantasy! And of course I trusted him completely. My therapist says I am a “somnambulist,” the class of people most capable of entering a trance and experiencing deep hypnosis.

Please write another story with a “Susan”! It was great!!

Susan

This latest message was very exciting for me because Susan clearly was someone who understood hypnosis from experience. The scene she described fascinated me and went directly to my idea file. I could feel my creative wheels starting to turn again.

Susan,

That is a cool trick; thank you for sharing it with me.

I envy you for your ability to go into trance—I’m having trouble getting past a hypervigilance problem and haven’t been able to accomplish much of anything yet.

Regards,

-wg

Up to this point, I hadn’t actually met anyone who had been professionally hypnotized (that I knew of, anyway). I’d gone to a couple of stage shows and been fascinated, but had never qualified to be a volunteer. I’d try my hardest to relax and follow the hypnotist’s instructions, but they just didn’t work. I bought books on self-hypnosis, downloaded spiral image computer programs, even tried making my own audiotapes using induction speeches I’d culled from Web sites. Eventually I reached the plateau I was on when I first heard from Susan—I was able to place myself in a light trance and maintain it for a while, but any attempt at a useful hypnotic suggestion either woke me up or simply failed to work. A little research in my books suggested that my problem was hypervigilance, meaning that my mind was so busy watching to see if I would go into trance that it was actually keeping me awake. The more I willed myself to let go, the less successful I was at actually doing it. As luck would have it, Susan understood.

Way back at the beginning, as I was entering a trance, I would start to feel very panicky, as if I could not let go and the harder I tried the more panicky I felt. It was like bouncing off a wall or walking into a door. I think I was trying too hard. Eventually, one sleepy day, the wall disappeared and I was able to enter a trance.

You can do it yourself, but it would be a lot faster if you see a professional. That’s what I did and we got through the wall in the second session.

I read the draft of “Intimate Adventures” on your site. It sounds like you live in the DC area. Would you like to meet for lunch or something? We could talk about it face to face.

Good Luck!

Susan

I found the idea of actually meeting Susan too compelling to pass up. At that point nobody in my real life knew about my writing or my yen for hypnosis; other than cyber-friends like Artie and a few readers, there was nobody I could really talk to about those things. Susan seemed to understand what I was going through and was willing to advise, so I figured why not?

Susan,

Meeting for lunch sounds like a great idea. I work downtown, but my schedule is pretty flexible. Do you have a place and time in mind that would be good for you?

-wg

By not telling her exactly where I live or work, I was trying to encourage Susan to pick a place where she would feel comfortable. I was expecting her to name something in downtown DC or Arlington; her suggestion came as a complete surprise:

You didn’t say where home is, so it’s hard to know where to pick. Are you familiar with Gaithersburg or Germantown? If so, there is a Bare Bones on Rte 355 in Gaithersburg that would be good for me on just about any weekday.

Susan

Fate laughs at probabilities—Susan had chosen a restaurant less than five miles from my townhouse. I checked my work calendar, selected a few potential dates on which I could work from home, and offered Susan her choice. We ended up agreeing on the following Monday, which gave me five days to get over the butterflies that took up residence in my stomach the minute she agreed to the date. It had been a very long time since I’d shared a meal with anyone who didn’t have a Y chromosome.

Bare Bones is a good place for a friendly lunch. The food is tasty, the service good, and there is just enough ambient noise that you can say whatever is on your mind and feel pretty sure it won’t carry beyond your own table.

Our lunch date was for 12:30. Bare Bones doesn’t take reservations, so I made sure I was there at noon in case they were extra busy. I gave the hostess the name “Wiseman” and waited about 15 minutes before being seated at a table for two in the non-smoking section. I took the seat facing the entrance, ordered an iced tea, and watched the door as the butterflies went nuts inside me.

At 12:24 a woman came through the doors. She spoke briefly to the hostess, who pointed in my direction, then started towards me. The closer she came, the better I could see her and the luckier I felt. Susan had given me a basic description—“medium height, light brown hair, average-looking”—that hardly did justice to the person now approaching. Medium height was right, and her hair was a nice chestnut brown, but to my eye she was more than just average. She wore a simple but elegant pantsuit in navy blue with a satiny white blouse. Her body language signaled authority and calm as she made her way deliberately through the milling crowd.

I rose to greet her with my hand outstretched. “Susan?”

She took my hand and shook it firmly. “Mr. Wiseman, I presume?” she inquired, smiling broadly. Her smile was soft and friendly and involved her entire face.

“Guilty as charged,” I answered, and pulled out her chair.

Susan seized a menu immediately. “I warn you now, I’m famished.”

“No problem,” I replied. We hadn’t really said anything about it, but I was already planning to pick up the check for both of us.

While Susan studied the menu, I made a quick selection and then turned my attention to studying her. She may not have been cover-of-Cosmo glamorous, but her friendly face and sensual voice certainly appealed to me. I had to remind myself that this was not supposed to be a date.

“So,” she began, “what do I call you?”

“Mark,” I replied.

“Hi, Mark,” she responded with a sweet smile. “What do you do when you’re not posting sexy stories on the Internet?”

“Tech support for a systems integrator,” I answered. “I’m what they call third tier; when something really weird goes on that neither the field techs nor the senior techs can figure out, they call me.”

“I’m impressed,” she replied. “You must be a genius.”

“Not me,” I responded. “I’m just good at troubleshooting, and I’m not afraid to crack a book if I have to. What about you?”

“I’m not afraid of books either,” she joked, “but I never get time to read them. I’m a project manager at Fairchild.” A very high-tech company—it was my turn to be impressed.

The waitress interrupted us to take our lunch orders. Once we had that taken care of I tried to steer the conversation toward the purpose of the lunch. “How long have you been doing hypnosis?”

“About five years,” she answered thoughtfully. “I was having some problems, and my therapist suggested using it to help me deal with them. She helped me learn to get into a good, deep trance state with her and also how to do it by myself. She was right, it helped a lot to be able to look at myself that way. What about you?”

“I guess I’ve always been interested,” I replied. “About eighteen months ago I saw a stage hypnotist for the first time and got bitten by the hypno bug for real.”

“Is that when you started writing stories?”

“Not right away, no. At first I just wanted to learn how to hypnotize myself. I saw myself using it to handle stress, to get myself to eat better, things like that. The more I read and tried it, though, the more I got interested in the sexual side. I was looking up ‘erotic hypnosis’ in a search engine one night and that led me more or less directly to the Erotic Mind Control Story Archive.”

“And you stayed up all night reading stories,” she concluded for me.

“That’s what everybody says, isn’t it? Well, I didn’t stay up all night, but I did spend several marathon sessions there over a long weekend.”

“Close enough.” She had a knowing smile on her face; that first exposure to Simon’s archive seems to be a common experience that cuts across all boundaries. For a flash I imagined her sitting in front of a computer reading her first MC story, her staring eyes reflecting the glow on her screen, her nipples perking up as she pictured the scenes in her mind. “But you still haven’t answered my question,” she reminded me, breaking the spell. “Why write? Thousands of people read stories, but only a relative few contribute new ones.”

I decided to give her the condensed version: “After a while I noticed that there while there were hundreds of stories out there, only a few had the romantic touch that appeals to me as a reader. I used to love creative writing when I was in school, so I figured I’d write one story, send it to Simon, and see if it was any good. Apparently it was; in the first week after it appeared on the archive, I got about eight very encouraging emails from people telling me how much they had enjoyed the story.” In the distance I saw our waiter approaching with two platters on his tray. “So I kept writing.”

Susan looked like she had a follow-up question ready, but we were both fully distracted by the arrival of our food. I had a delicious half-rack of baby back ribs, fries, cole slaw and applesauce; Susan had gone with the quarter chicken and a side salad. We were both hungry, so the conversation took a back seat to eating for a while.

Eventually we slowed down. Since I had monopolized the early conversation, I tried to get Susan talking. “Would you like to share a little of your hypnosis experience?”

She checked her watch. “I’m almost out of time now,” she said, lowering her head in an implied apology. “It took me two long sessions with my therapist to get through into a deep trance for the first time. It took a lot more practice before I was able to enter a trance on my own and use it effectively. But I learned some things in the process, and I’ve used that once or twice to help other people learn to hypnotize themselves. If you want, I can try to help you.”

The butterflies swarmed back. “You mean, hypnotize me?”

“I could try,” she replied. “It’s easier if you have someone else help talk you through it the first few times. After you get used to being in a trance you learn to do it yourself more easily.”

“And you would be willing to do that with me?” I was struggling to stay in my seat now—this was much more than I’d hoped for.

“I think so,” she said. “We can at least try it once, if you’re interested.”

If I’d stood up, she’d have seen exactly how interested I was in being hypnotized by her. “Very interested,” I understated. “When and where would you like to do it?”

“How about at your place? You can show me what you’ve been working with so far, and I can tell you some more about my experiences.”

“Great,” I replied eagerly. “Any time you like.”

Reaching down into her handbag, Susan produced a personal organizer and consulted it. “My evenings are pretty free right now,” she commented. “We could try tonight if you want.”

“Tonight works. I’ll even feed you dinner.”

She laughed and patted her flat stomach. “I probably won’t need any after this lunch,” she joked. We agreed to meet at seven; I gave her my address and phone number as well as directions from Germantown. After a brief negotiation I covered the check from lunch and she took care of the tip. I walked her out to her car then dashed home to start an afternoon of frenzied house cleaning.

Susan arrived right on time. I opened the door quickly and did a double take: the Susan I’d been expecting, she of the classy business suit and authoritative manner, was not there. This Susan was wearing faded jeans and a ribbed tank top. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail that gave an almost girlish look to her face.

“This is the non-office me,” she explained as I ushered her inside.

“I take it you live nearby.”

“Frederick,” she answered with a ‘so-so’ wave of her hand. “I have a condo in one of the newer developments. Not as much room as this, but I don’t need much for just me.” She looked past me, her nostrils flaring. “What’s that I smell?”

“Stir fry, spring rolls, Minute Rice.”

“He cooks!” she remarked. “I’m impressed.”

I shrugged. “He can open a box and follow the directions, anyway.”

“That’s my system too,” she replied. “I couldn’t live without my freezer and my microwave.”

“Would you like to open the wine?”

“Gladly.” Susan took the chilled white wine from the refrigerator and opened it, pouring glasses for both of us. She stayed in the kitchen with me, sipping her wine while I tended the stir fry. I learned that she was from Fort Lauderdale originally and had moved into the DC area three years ago after losing her job to merger fallout.

“So why Frederick?” I asked.

“I didn’t have a job yet when I got here,” she explained. “I was looking to hook up with one of the tech companies on the 270 corridor, but I couldn’t afford anything decent in Montgomery County. I can now, but I got myself stuck by buying that condo instead of renting. Still, the commute to Germantown isn’t bad; it’s maybe half an hour on a bad day.”

“That’s about half the local average,” I observed. “You must be doing something right.”

“I am,” she answered. “I’m keeping out of downtown. I don’t know how people put up with that place.”

“The city itself isn’t so bad,” I remarked. “It’s the getting in and out that kills you.”

By the time I had dinner on the table, I was feeling much more comfortable. The off-hours Susan was softer than the professional Susan I’d first met. I said as much over dinner.

“That’s my work persona,” she explained. “A project manager has to be a little pushy or nothing gets done. It took me a long time to develop that, but now whenever I’m dressed for work that side of me seems to come out naturally.”

“That reminds me of a story I read recently—‘Lingerie’, by MC Writer. Have you seen that one?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Aside from the occasional hypnosis-related piece, I really don’t read mind control stories.”

“Any particular reason?” A small lump started to form in my throat, as if I was holding a lottery ticket and watching the drawing on TV.

“A lot of them are very dark,” she said. “Incest, rape, humiliation, enslavement . I don’t get off on that sort of thing. I like stories where people are enjoying themselves, having great sex because they want to. Free will and mind control would seem to be mutually exclusive.”

“Not necessarily,” I argued. “Read ‘Contest Weekend’. Read ‘Synergy’. Heck, read anything written by Artie. It really is possible to have a story about a loving couple who use MC techniques for their own mutual enjoyment. Isn’t that what you did with the ex-boyfriend in Florida?”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but that was different. Most of the things we did were my idea to begin with. They were like your story, ‘Quarters’—a neat mind trick that led to really hot sex.”

“Exactly what Artie and I write about,” I explained. “Call it romantic mind control if you want; couples using hypnosis, or some other technique, to explore their own fantasies. That’s what the story I’m working on now is about, in fact—a couple who get hypnotized and find themselves living out some of their favorite sexual fantasies with each other.”

“I know,” she replied, smiling into her wine glass. “I read the draft on your Web site. It needs some work, but I love the premise.”

“Oh,” I replied weakly. “Then why am I still explaining this?”

Susan smiled and chuckled. Reaching over to take my hand in hers, she said softly, “Because I wanted to see if you really are the person your writing makes you out to be.”

“Do I pass muster?”

“Definitely,” she replied, and suddenly my lottery ticket looked mighty promising. “That sense of romance, of honor and mutual respect, is what made me want to meet you. Seeing and hearing that you really feel that way makes me want to help you.”

I sighed with relief at having passed the test. “I’m glad you feel that way,” I replied.

It didn’t take long for me to clear up dinner; Susan helped, and I set aside some leftovers for her to take home. By 8:30 we were ready to get down to business.

“Before we get started,” Susan began, “I need to know what your intentions are.”

Her face looked very serious; something was up here, but what? “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I want to know why you are so interested in being hypnotized. What exactly do you expect to gain?”

Choosing my words carefully, I explained as best I could. “What I really want is the experience itself. I feel like a bit of a charlatan writing stories about erotic hypnosis when I’ve never been through it myself. I want to know what a really deep trance feels like. I want to close my eyes in one place, wake up somewhere else and not remember how I got there. I want to feel a strong compulsion to do something out of the ordinary and not be able to resist.”

Susan’s eyes remained locked onto mine. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” I replied. “That’s not to say that if I can learn to put myself under I won’t try a few minor adjustments.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “Eat better, relax more, and maybe improve my self-confidence. Nothing radical.”

Susan nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry if I put you on the spot, but I had to be sure you weren’t looking for help with some kind of serious problem. There are very good reasons why you need a license to practice hypnotherapy, Mark, and amateurs like us have absolutely no business going there.”

“I understand,” I said. “The main reason why I haven’t gone to a professional already is that I don’t really have a problem. It’s hard to defend spending that kind of time and money simply to satisfy my curiosity—it would be like making a dentist appointment just to ride in the chair.”

“I’m getting a really strange visual from that,” Susan joked. We shared a smile; I’d passed the last test. “Why don’t we start with what you’re doing now?” she suggested. “Show me where you normally practice and how.”

I led her upstairs to the spare bedroom, which I had turned into a computer room. Fortunately I’d anticipated showing her the setup and had made time to pick the place up a bit. The computer, an HP desktop, was already on so all I had to do was log in.

“Is this where you sit?” she asked, indicating the office chair I was in at the moment. The chair has a short back that comes up just below my shoulder blades, and straight arms at its sides. It tilts backward a few degrees and swivels.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Where do you rest your head?”

“I don’t—it just kind of balances. It droops a little sometimes, but not too badly.”

“And you use some sort of program?”

The computer was done logging me in, so I opened my ‘Hypno’ folder. “Yep. I have a couple of things here that I’ve toyed with. All common stuff that I downloaded from one place or another.”

“Flasher?” she queried, reading the title of one icon.

“It flashes brightly at programmed intervals,” I explained. “It’s supposed to induce different types of brain wave patterns depending on how you set it up.”

“Does it work?”

“As far as I can tell. I used a program like it in my first story.”

“This one looks promising,” she remarked, double-clicking an icon of a tiny spiral. In a few seconds a swirling, multilevel pinwheel graphic filled the screen. “Oh yes,” she said, “I’ve played with this one myself. It’s the one with the subliminals embedded into the pattern.” She was quiet for a moment, her eyes growing a little distant as she stared into the screen. Watching her face, I started to remember what the document file for that program had said—it is supposed to be irresistible to women. “It’s a very effective spiral,” she continued, her voice slowing. Then she reached over and hit the Escape key. “But not as all-powerful as the DOC file claims.”

I scooted my chair over a little, partly to give her better access to the keyboard and partly to conceal my need to rearrange certain things in the front my pants. She tried the next icon. “Does this work?” she asked.

“A little,” I answered. “The slowly descending sound works well, and the screen display captures my eye, but as soon as I start to really relax my vision gets blurry and I think that screws it up. Either that, or it’s just me wondering about it that screws it up.”

“Very possibly,” she agreed. Indicating another spiral icon, she asked, “Is this another pinwheel pattern?”

“Yes. This one doesn’t have the subliminals on it, but it’s got adjustable speed and number of stripes. I use that one a lot.” To demonstrate, I double-clicked an icon that called the program with my favorite settings. The familiar pattern filled the screen and out of reflex I let my eyes be drawn into the swirling vortex.

“I might have seen an older version of this one,” she said. “It wasn’t as smooth as this but the look was similar. How long do you usually look at it?”

“Until my eyes want to close. Probably about a minute.”

“Do they want to close now?”

“Not yet. Soon, though, if I were to stop talking and just go with it.”

“Go ahead,” she suggested. I let my arms hang down over the sides of the chair, took a deep breath, and concentrated on the center of the swirling spiral. I was briefly aware of Susan moving behind me, taking the spare chair to my right, as the pattern shifted before me. “Breathe deeply,” she said softly from behind me. “Let each breath settle you down a little deeper into the chair.”

After a few seconds I felt my eyelids starting to droop, and I concentrated on relaxing my shoulders and face. “That’s it, just let them close when they want to,” she continued. “Keep relaxing. Pay attention to your face, your scalp, you neck.” There was still tension in my scalp and face; I willed them to relax, and as I did so my eyes dropped shut. “Relax your neck and shoulders, let them droop, as you sink deeper.” Her voice was sweet and seductive; as I felt my neck relaxing I became aware that my cock was struggling to stand up. I wondered what suggestions she would give me if the induction worked.

My train of thought derailed when I felt my chin start to dig into my chest. When practicing by myself, I usually kept my head upright and just relaxed my neck a little; having it bent this severely was uncomfortable. I lifted my head and, as usual, the spell was broken. My eyes opened and I looked back at Susan. She was shaking her head slowly.

“I don’t know how you expect to relax properly in that chair,” she said. “I’m not sure I could, and I’ve had a lot more practice than you have.”

“What do you suggest?”

“How about a different setting?” She stood up and headed out the door. “Is this the bedroom?” she asked as she put her hand on my bedroom door.

“Yes—but don’ t open that!”

She shot me an amused grin. “Not expecting company?”

“It’s a little unkempt,” I confessed sheepishly. “I really didn’t think we’d need to go in there, so I sort of skimped on the cleaning.”

She took pity on me and let go of the doorknob. “Okay. Let’s try the couch.”

I followed her back down to the living room. The centerpiece of my living room is a maroon leather sofa with well-stuffed matching cushions. It wasn’t a convertible, but my brother has made use of it a few times and praises its high ‘crash factor’. I had to agree as I stretched out on my back across its length, feeling the cushions conforming to my body.

“That looks much better,” she remarked. “But let’s lose these.” She grabbed my left shoe and pulled it off in one easy motion, then did the same for the right before settling into the matching padded recliner next to me. “Do you normally sleep on your back?”

“No, on my side.”

“Get on your side, then.” I complied, shifting onto my left side so that my back was up against the back of the sofa. Susan reached over and tucked a throw pillow from her chair under my right arm. “Comfy?”

“Surprisingly so.”

“Let’s start by closing your eyes. Take a deep breath or two, make sure you’re nice and comfortable.”

I closed my eyes and wriggled a little further into the cushions. Through my closed eyelids I sensed a darkening of the room and snuck a peek: Susan had gotten up and was turning off most of the lights. Only an incandescent reading lamp, its shade tilted to minimize the light on me, provided illumination now. I closed my eyes again and prepared myself for the next step.

“Okay,” Susan began. “We’re going to start with a progressive relaxation. I know you’re familiar with the process, but don’t get ahead of me. Just listen and follow my voice, and try not to think of anything at all. Don’t move around or nod or try to speak, just be still and quiet.

“Take a deep breath, and let it out. As you exhale, concentrate on your feet. Feel each toe individually; notice how they are touching each other. Feel the texture of your sock over your foot. Now, take another deep breath, and as you let it out tell your toes to relax.”

I did as instructed, breathing in and willing my toes to rest. My feet, then ankles, then calves and shins followed, and I started to lose myself in Susan’s silky, sexy voice. She had been well coached, I could tell; her delivery was smooth and even, like a professional. As my thighs and hips settled further into the couch, I noticed that even my cock was behaving itself.

Following Susan’s words, I continued spreading relaxation through my upper body, across my shoulders, down my arms into my hands and fingers. I was limp and loose as a discarded puppet, and the welcome buzzing sensation of light trance was forming in my head.

“Very good, Mark,” her voice continued. “Try not to think of anything in particular; if an idea comes into your mind, just acknowledge it and let it pass back out again. You don’t need to think right now, you only need to listen and relax. Feel your neck relaxing now, Mark, becoming loose and lazy, letting the pillow take the weight of your head for you. It’s so nice to relax your neck, to let go. Another breath please, and now as you exhale let your face go slack and rubbery, like a soft Halloween mask. Your jaw can settle down anywhere it wants to, your tongue can come forward if it wants to. Let your cheeks melt, and your eyebrows droop down. Let the muscles around your eyes rest, rest and sleep, becoming so relaxed they wouldn’t move even if you wanted them to.”

The buzzing was getting louder now; it was as loud as I’d ever felt it before. A small trickle of excitement eased down my body and my cock began to rise. I willed myself not to think about it, to give myself to the buzzing, to go deeper.

“Another deep breath, Mark. Don’t anticipate, just relax and be, listen and obey, breathe and let go. Every breath takes you deeper and deeper into total relaxation; every breath takes you deeper and deeper into hypnosis. You don’t have to think about it, you don’t have to force it, just let go and it will happen.”

I was deeper than I’d ever been before, I was positive of that. I was floating, my body limp and useless but surprisingly light. I noticed my eyelids flickering and willed them to relax some more.

“That’s good, Mark, let every last bit of tension drain out of your face and your eyes. Your eyelids are very relaxed now, totally relaxed, so sleepy and drowsy that they won’t open anymore, no matter how much you try. You can try if you want to, Mark, but you have done such a good job of relaxing that your eyes will not open. Try now and see how successful you have been at relaxing.”

Tentatively, afraid of breaking the spell, I tried to open my eyes. They wouldn’t budge. Pleased, I tried a little harder and they still felt heavy, too heavy to lift. With a growing sense of excitement, I tried a little harder.

“That’s enough now, Mark, you can stop trying to open your eyes. You’ve seen for yourself that they will not open, not without help, not until you need them to be open again. Take another breath and send a wave of relaxation from your head all the way down through your toes.”

I’d come out of it a little bit, I could tell, but I concentrated on relaxing and felt the wave flow through me. I drifted back down, enjoying the feeling and the sound of Susan’s voice.

“Now, Mark, it is almost time to wake up. I am going to count from one to three. When I reach three, you will be fully awake and alert, feeling refreshed and pleased with your progress. However, you will not be able to open your eyes at first. No matter how hard you try to open them, your eyes will remain closed until I tell you to open them. Only then will they open, only when I tell you to. You will find that you can return to this deep level of relaxation whenever you need to, simply by remembering the sound of my voice telling you to relax, to let go.

“And now, it is time to wake up. One . two . three. Awake now, alert and refreshed.”

I started to lift my head from the pillow. My eyes were still closed; remembering her suggestion, I tried to open them.

They opened. Disappointed, I dropped back onto the couch and sighed.

“It’s okay,” Susan said, gently rubbing my temple. “You did well. You’ll do better next time. Sooner or later it will happen.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “Do you feel up to trying one more time?”

“Not tonight,” she answered. “I have to go. But we can try again soon.”

She jotted her home address and phone number on one of her business cards for me. We shared a brief hug and I watched as she drove away.

We both had busy weeks in our professional lives; it was Friday night before we were able to get together again. After some haggling over the terms of dinner, we agreed to meet again at my house. I provided the broiled strip steaks and baked potatoes; Susan brought a fresh salad and some delicious sourdough dinner rolls with her.

As often happens when people in similar fields get together, we ended up talking shop for much of dinner. Susan’s expertise was in global communications—satellite systems and all the related gear that goes along with them. Most of my experience is in landline technologies, but there was enough overlap in our skill sets that we were able to connect professionally. At the same time, I felt as though we were also starting to connect very well personally.

After dinner we shared the clean-up chores. We were rinsing off dishes and loading the dishwasher when Susan asked about my after-hours work.

“How’s the new story coming? I noticed you didn’t post any updates this week.”

“Too busy,” I replied. “Plus, I haven’t figured out what to do with it yet.”

“What’s the matter with it? I think it’s nice as it is.”

“It started out well. The more I think about it, though, the more I agree with some of the feedback I’ve gotten—as long as the story is right now, it doesn’t really feel complete. There’s too much unaccounted-for time, and the action peaks too early.”

“Maybe you should put it aside for a while and do something else.”

“I did that—that’s where ‘Quarters’ came from. No, I just need to let it stew.”

“Well,” she said, closing the dishwasher, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. Can you empty your mind enough for some trance practice?”

“You bet,” I replied.

Once again I got settled on the leather sofa, this time on my back but with my head turned to the side so that my airway would stay clear. Susan dimmed the lights and sat down in the recliner, just out of sight.

“I’m going to try an awareness induction this time,” she explained. “It’s the one my therapist used with me, and it worked very well for me.”

“I’m familiar with it,” I said. “I used that one as the basis for the induction scene in ‘Photogenic’.”

“It’s the same basic idea, yes. Don’t try to follow this one or anticipate it, just listen and concentrate on the words as they come, okay?”

“Okay.”

We both took a deep breath and then Susan started the induction. “Just make yourself comfortable now,” she began, her voice dropping to a soft, soothing tone. “If you want to close your eyes, that’s a good idea, but if you don’t, that’s fine too. Just listen quietly to the sound of my voice. Of course you’ll be aware of all those other sounds, too: sounds inside the building, sounds from outside. But these won’t disturb you; in fact they are going to help to relax you, because the only sound you need to think about is the sound of my voice. And while you’re listening to the sound of my voice, you can just simply allow yourself to be as lazy as you could ever want to be. Just allow yourself to be as lazy as you could ever want to be.”

I closed my eyes and listened intently to Susan’s voice. She was speaking very quietly, using just enough volume to be heard clearly. Every pause between phrases or sentences was lengthened, exaggerated, adding to the overall sense of laziness that I was starting to feel.

“Good,” she continued. “Now, while you’re relaxing there on the sofa, you can just be aware of your body. Aware of your hands where they rest; perhaps noticing the angle of your elbows and maybe sensing the weight of your head against the side cushion. And, you know, that weight might seem to just gently increase as you allow yourself to relax more and more. Just being aware of your ankles and feet now, resting on the far end, and wondering if they will start to feel heavy too, as you relax.

“Think about your breathing for a few moments. Notice that your breathing is becoming slower and steadier as you relax more and more. Slower and steadier, breathing so steadily and evenly, just as though you were pretending to be sound asleep. Breathing so evenly, so steadily, you almost wouldn’t disturb a feather placed right in front of you. Breathing so easily and slowly, so gently, that you almost wouldn’t disturb even a single strand of a feather placed right in front of you.”

The dim lighting, the comfortable couch, the softness of Susan’s voice, and the slow, steady rhythm of her speech were all working to put me into a wonderfully relaxed state. My head was already buzzing as I slipped easily into a light trance. I also found that while I had read up on the awareness induction some time ago I didn’t really remember it well, so I wasn’t able to anticipate what would be coming next; I had to listen closely and focus.

“And now as you allow yourself to relax even more, I wonder if you can perhaps sense the beating of your own heart. Sensing the beat of your own heart and just seeing whether you can use the power of your mind to slow that heartbeat down just a touch. Just see whether you can use the power of your mind to slow that heartbeat down just a little, so that you can then feel your whole body slowing down, becoming lazier and lazier, because you’ve got absolutely nothing at all to do except to relax now. Nobody wants anything, nobody’s expecting anything, so you can allow your whole body to continue to relax and become steadier and easier until it’s just ticking over like a well maintained machine of some sort or another. Just ticking over, smoothly, easily, quietly, comfortably, so that you can become gradually more aware of your whole self. Aware of your hands and arms, just sensing how they are now; aware of your legs and feet, too, again just sensing how relaxed they might be, and wondering if it’s possible to relax them even more—to be so in touch with yourself that you can actually get your whole body, perhaps, to relax even more, yet remaining totally alert.”

The buzz in my head was getting stronger, and I found it hard to keep my mind from wandering as I followed her instructions.

Susan continued in the same vein, talking about how I might be noticing my face relaxing, my breathing slowing down, how comfortable I was in the softness of my leather couch. All the while I felt myself letting go a little more, approaching some kind of threshold that I couldn’t see but I knew it had to be there. I willed myself to relax, to let go, every idiom that came to mind, but I never felt the sensation of actually crossing the threshold.

Then I realized I’d lost track of Susan; she had finished the induction speech and was starting a standard staircase deepener. I refocused on her voice and followed her down the imaginary staircase, feeling my body remaining limp and still as I tried to sink downward. I didn’t feel much different at the end of the deepener than I had at the beginning.

Susan spoke some more: “Now you are in a deep, delicious state of hypnosis, Mark,” she was saying. “This is where you wanted to be. You will find that you can reach this wonderful state much more easily in the future, and it will be easier and easier to do this every time you try. Every time you go into hypnosis you will relax more completely, more deeply, and do so more quickly. This is a skill, like writing, and the more you practice the more satisfied you will be with the results.

“Now I’m going to help you see how deeply hypnotized you really are, Mark. You remember the last time we worked together I told you your eyes would be unable to open, and you found that I was right—they would not open, not while you were still in hypnosis. If you try right now, you will find that they are even more firmly closed now. You cannot open your eyes now, the harder you try the more firmly your eyelids will remain shut. Go ahead and try now, you’ll see that they will not open.”

Susan was right; my eyelids wouldn’t budge. I tried tentatively at first, then more seriously, to get them to open but my lids remained sealed. It was a little unnerving, and I started to try harder, but Susan stopped me.

“That’s enough, Mark, you can stop trying now. Your eyes will open when you are ready for them to open, but they do not need to be open right now. Just relax, let them stay asleep and continue to listen to my voice. Take a deep breath now and reward yourself by sending a deep, delicious wave of relaxation through your body from head to toe.”

It did feel good, exhaling slowly, letting myself sink down some more. I was pleased at how my body had begun responding to Susan’s suggestions. That thought got my cock responding in its usual way, and I was secretly grateful for the dim lighting.

“Soon it will be time to wake up,” she said. “But before you do, I want you to do something for both of us. You have been having trouble working out what to do with your new story with your conscious mind. I want you to let go of the problem with your conscious mind and hand it over to your subconscious instead. Your subconscious knows how you want the story to come out, how you want the characters to feel and act; let your subconscious work on the problems for you, and it will solve them. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow or the next day your subconscious will let you know what to do. Until then, just let it be.”

She made perfect sense. I pictured myself looking in a mirror, seeing the reflection as my subconscious self. In my mind, I handed the reflection a stack of papers—the story—and watched it walk away, reading.

“Now I’m going to count to three, Mark. When I reach the count of three, you will wake up completely, feeling relaxed and refreshed. One, two, three.” My eyes popped open on “three” and I was awake. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Great,” I replied, twisting a bit to try and see her. I tried to adjust my semi-erect cock discreetly to avoid detection.

“Don’t get up yet,” she said when she saw me moving. Instead, she came over by my head and knelt on the floor beside me. “What do you think—was that what you were looking for?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I was certainly buzzed and very relaxed physically, and the eye test worked again, but I still had this feeling like something was holding me back. You were telling me to go deeper, but I don’t think it was working anymore. I remember everything you said.”

“Not everyone experiences amnesia during trance,” she argued.

“True,” I conceded. “It would help to convince me, though.”

“Okay. Next time, we’ll try an amnesia suggestion.”

It was getting late, so we decided to call it a night. I got up from the couch slowly, giving my cock plenty of time to stand down. It didn’t matter—when Susan hugged me at the door again, it sprang right back up. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.

The next day started out like any other Saturday—I slept in, getting up just in time to catch New Yankee Workshop. After my weekly Norm fix and a ham and Swiss omelet, I hit the shower.

There I was, standing under the shower, when it all fell into place. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with “Intimate Adventures” and how to go about it. The whole story line rolled out before me from start to finish; I could almost watch it on the big screen in my head. Then I realized I’d been standing there like a dork with the soap in my hand doing nothing while gallons of water ran down the drain. I finished my shower quickly, pulled on some sweats, and hit the keyboard.

I won’t bore with you with the details of my inspiration—if you really want to know, read the story. Suffice to say that I was deep into it hours later when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered, only half paying attention.

“Hi.” I recognized Susan’s voice and came to a full stop.

“Hey!”

“You sound animated,” she observed.

“I’m writing again.”

“Did you figure out how to tackle the story?”

“Yep—it hit me while I was in the shower this morning. I want to get as much committed to disk as I can before I start to forget everything.”

“Then don’t waste time talking to me,” she said. “I need to do some serious housecleaning anyway, and today’s as good a day as any. Why don’t you call me tomorrow, or whenever you come up for air?”

“Definitely.”

I stayed up way too late Saturday working on the story and then posting the results on my web site. It was well after 10:00 Sunday morning when I awoke to the ringing of the phone.

“You sound semi-comatose,” Susan’s voice said. “Late night?”

“Early morning,” I volunteered.

“I’m sorry. Should I let you sleep?”

“No, this is better,” I replied. “If I don’t get up now I’ll really throw my body clock out of whack.”

“Shall I bring you some breakfast?”

“You’re an angel.” I got up and unlocked the front door for her, then hit the shower.

While in the shower I got a strange sense that I was not alone in the house. I wrote it off to the paranoia of living alone and knowing that I’d unlocked the door; Susan couldn’t possibly have driven from Frederick to Gaithersburg that quickly. I dried off and returned to the bedroom to dress. I was standing in front of my dresser, underwear in hand, when I heard a quick knock on the bedroom door.

“Huh?” I grunted, and instinctively turned around to face the door.

It opened and Susan’s head popped in. “Wake up, sleepy-oops!” She turned away as soon as she got an eyeful, blushing.

I ducked to one side of the dresser and hid behind my briefs. “I’m awake now,” I remarked. “Give me 30 seconds to get decent and I’ll meet you downstairs, okay?”

“Deal.” I caught her stealing a quick peak as she retreated.

It took me a lot more than 30 seconds to throw on a T-shirt and jeans, mostly because I needed time for my cock to settle down. Being caught like that had pushed a button I never knew I had.

“Sorry about that,” Susan said as I came down the stairs. “I was trying to surprise you with breakfast in bed.”

“I was surprised all right,” I replied, grinning as I watched the redness creep back into her cheeks. “What did you do, call from the parking lot?”

“Close,” she answered. “From McDonalds’ parking lot.” That’s when I looked past her to the dining table and saw the paper bag and little cardboard tray with coffee cups. “Are steak and egg bagels okay?”

“A woman after my own heart,” I remarked and attacked the bag. We each devoured a bagel sandwich and a hash brown patty. I passed on the coffee and poured myself some apple juice from the refrigerator instead.

After breakfast, I told her about my new ideas on the story. I brought up some of the new material on my computer screen and she read it over my shoulder, approving of the direction I was taking things. Then, at Susan’s suggestion, we went back to the bedroom where she had me lie down and we tried the awareness induction again.

The induction worked about as well as it had Friday night; I listened and worked with it, paying close attention to the condition of my body, my breathing, my pulse; her words soaked in, slipping just under my conscious awareness sometimes. As before, we tried the eye catalepsy test and it worked very well, although I had total memory of the experience.

“Now, Mark,” she continued after the test, “I am going to give you another suggestion. This suggestion is one that your conscious mind does not have to remember. You can forget to remember this next suggestion, because your conscious mind does not need to remember; your subconscious will remember everything and will act on my suggestion for you, while your conscious mind forgets it. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“The suggestion you will not remember is this: when you resume working on your story, you will find it very easy to keep writing. The ideas will come to you naturally as you need them, for as long as you want them to. Your subconscious will continue to supply you with inspiration even as your conscious mind concentrates on forming the words and sentences.

“And now Mark, it is time to wake up. When I count three, you will be fully awake and feel refreshed and alert, but you will not remember the suggestion I gave you about your writing. Only your subconscious will remember that. One, two, three.”

My eyes opened and I was awake.

Susan was watching my face closely. “How much do you remember?”

“Everything, I think,” I replied. “We did the eye test again, and it worked again. Better, even. Then you told me I wouldn’t have to remember the next suggestion you made. And then you told me that I’d no problem working on the rest of the story, that the ideas would keep coming to me as I needed them. Then you woke me up.”

Susan’s face fell a little when I recounted the writing suggestion. “That’s about it,” she confirmed. “I was hoping the amnesia suggestion would work, but it obviously didn’t.”

“I guess I didn’t get deep enough for that,” I remarked. “I’m trying, I swear.”

“That’s probably part of the problem,” she commented. “Stop trying so hard and just let it happen.”

I thought about it. “I’m not sure how to do that,” I finally said.

“And I’m not sure how to teach you to,” she answered. “But if we keep practicing, sooner or later you’ll figure it out.”

We worked on it a little more with no breakthrough and then called it a day. Susan went back home to get ready for the workweek, and I went back to writing. I got a heck of a lot of writing done that evening; the story almost wrote itself.

Susan and I talked on the phone daily during the week, but couldn’t get together again until the weekend. I worked on the “Intimate Adventures” revisions and by the weekend I had six completed parts and the story line was very close to what would become its final form. A steady flow of feedback from Susan and several other readers had melded well with my own ideas, and I was pretty happy with the result.

I was also pretty happy with the way my relationship with Susan was developing. With each phone call, it was becoming clearer that there we both had more invested in this than a mutual interest in hypnosis; we were becoming friends. Underneath, of course, I still fantasized about her leading me to the bedroom for other reasons. The idea always lurked just in the background of my mind, and I often awoke from trances with a hard-on. Susan must have noticed, but she never commented on it.

We had several sessions that weekend with no noticeable increase in my trance depth. Susan tried a number of variations on the amnesia suggestion, but none worked; I simply wasn’t getting deep enough for that degree of control. The more I tried to force myself into a deeper state, the less successful I was at doing so. I was starting to get frustrated, which was not going to help matters.

Fortunately, we had to take a break anyway because Susan was going back to Fort Lauderdale for about a week to attend her sister’s wedding. While she was gone I used the time to catch up on my real job—I have a tendency to let other things slip while I’m working on a story.

Susan was due back on a Wednesday evening. The arrangement was that I would pick her up at BWI, we would have dinner somewhere, and then I would drop her at home to crash. When my phone rang at work in the early afternoon, I was surprised to see Susan’s home number on the display.

“Hi,” I answered. “You’re home early.”

“Sometimes you get lucky,” she replied. “I caught an earlier flight and shuttled home.”

“Do you still want to do dinner, or would you rather just crash?”

“Actually, I’m in pretty good shape. I was thinking it’s about time I cooked for you for a change.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. See you at seven?”

“I’m there.”

I knocked on Susan’s door promptly at seven, my pet butterflies doing their usual dance in my stomach. Her welcoming smile was dazzling, and when she embraced me in the doorway with a big, tight hug I was surprised to realize how much I’d missed her.

Maybe she was feeling the same thing, I thought. She was certainly more animated than usual as she gave me my first official tour of her condo. The main living area featured an upholstered sofa and matching recliner in a subdued floral print. The coffee table and end tables were a matched set in golden oak with glass inset tops. The dining table had a thick, round glass top on an oak pedestal and four simple matching chairs. We passed over the bedroom—“You’ll see that after dinner,” she promised cryptically—and ended in the kitchen.

“The place is immaculate,” I remarked, looking around again. “You must have been cleaning all day.”

“Just a couple hours,” she replied. “Visiting my mom always seems to bring out my domestic side. Give me a week and everything will be in chaos again.”

Dinner was also a strong expression of Susan’s domestic side: pot roast, mashed potatoes (“Made from real potatoes,” she announced proudly, “Not flakes from a box!"), fresh baked rolls, and assorted steamed vegetables. It was truly delicious, and more than worth the amount of time it took us to clean up afterwards.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” she said after I’d helped put the kitchen back in shape.

“Yes I did,” I disagreed, smiling. “If I’d sat down somewhere I’d probably be asleep right now.”

“Feeling a little stuffed?” she teased gently. “Would you like to take a nap?”

“Is that a proposition?” I countered.

“Follow me and find out,” she replied, winking at me as she turned and left the kitchen.

Naturally I followed her; my cock was already on the rise even before she led me through the bedroom door. The chamber inside had a light, pleasant feel to it. The centerpiece was a queen-size waterbed with a standard bookcase headboard. An oval mirror in the middle of the headboard reflected my image back at me.

Susan slipped off her shoes and plopped down onto the bed, prompting me to do likewise. I rolled in carefully, expecting a lot of sloshing and shifting, but this was one very well baffled waterbed; it conformed to my shape and settled down almost immediately. “Nice mattress,” I commented, impressed.

“It’s great for relaxing,” she agreed. “When I’m really stressed, I like to just stretch out across the whole thing and zone out for a while.” She spread her arms out to illustrate, and I copied her. It did feel nice.

Susan rolled over onto her side facing me. “Want to try something?”

“Sure.”

“Close your eyes.” I felt a slight shifting in the bed after I did; Susan was moving around. My cock grew another half inch as I imagined what she might be doing. I told myself to take it easy—after all, aside from our shoes we were still fully dressed.

“Now,” she continued, “I want you to start counting backwards from 100. Here’s how I want you to do it: with each number, I want you to take a deep breath in and let it out slowly, speaking the number as you count. At the same time, I want you to picture the number visually somehow. It doesn’t matter how; you can picture a hundred of something, a sign with the number on it, an elevator display, or anything else you want. Just make sure you are actively visualizing the number somehow. Can you do that?”

“My visual imagination isn’t all that great,” I hedged. “I can give it my best shot, though.”

“That’s fine. I’m going to talk quietly while you are counting, but I don’t want you to pay any attention to what I say. Just concentrate on your counting and your visualizing.”

“Should I try to relax a little with each count?”

“No,” she replied. “It will probably happen anyway, but I don’t want you thinking about relaxation or anything like that. Just focus on the numbers and the images. You can start whenever you’re ready.”

I spent a few seconds trying to come up with an image I could maintain for my numbers. After a little fumbling, an image formed in my mind’s eye: a large, white “100” against a mosaic background of pink, yellow, green and red. It looked vaguely like something I might have seen on “Sesame Street” as a child. Whatever the source, it was a strong enough image that I could see it pretty clearly right then. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I counted, “One hundred.”

I expected to hear Susan’s voice, but everything was still silent so I continued. The picture changed to a 99 against the same background. “Ninety-nine,” I said as I exhaled again. The picture in my head faded a bit as I noticed how my body had sunk into the bed a little more; I had to concentrate to bring it back into focus. Slowly, deliberately, I continued counting.

Sometime in the low nineties, I became aware of Susan’s voice speaking in a soft tone. What she was saying didn’t make much sense: something about being completely aware, yet unaware; remembering, but not remembering; sleeping, but staying awake. Instinctively I tried to make sense out of it while still focusing on my picture, but it was too confusing. By the mid eighties I had tuned Susan out in order to concentrate on my job.

As I approached 70, I found myself losing track of the numbers. I think I repeated 73, and maybe 72. Then again in the sixties, I forgot where I was and decided to start again from 69. Somewhere in the low sixties—or was it the high fifties?—I lost my picture of the numbers completely. Instead, I found myself standing on a wide, gently sloping hill looking down into a green valley. I was walking down slowly, easily, on a pleasant afternoon walk. As I strolled down the side of the hill I noticed that there was a stone wall running across my path. It was tall and imposing, and ran as far as I could see to either side. The more I approached the wall, the taller it seemed to get. I could see that it was made of large, roughly rectangular blocks like a castle wall. As if to confirm my observation, battlements appeared at the top of the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I could make out the outline of a door in the middle of the wall, right where my path would lead me. The door grew more distinct and recognizable as I came closer; it was wood, not stone, but painted to blend in with the rest of the wall. It had no knocker, but there was a crest in the center of it featuring a bust of a man.

Soon I found myself standing in front of the door, examining the crest. The bust looked familiar somehow—then I realized, it was a picture of me. I reasoned that the castle must belong to me so I simply pushed on the door with my hand. The door opened effortlessly, allowing me to enter with no resistance.

Immediately I found myself in a beautiful garden, walking a stone path between rows of well-tended fruit trees and shade trees. In the center of the garden I found a hammock woven from soft white rope, suspended between a pair of thick oak trees. My feet were tired from walking, so I climbed into the hammock to relax for a while. I felt myself swaying lightly in the breeze and closed my eyes.

“. wide awake, feeling great.”

My eyes popped open and blinked heavily a few times. After a second or so they remembered how to focus and Susan’s beaming face came into view. “Well?” she prompted expectantly.

“Wow,” I croaked through a dry mouth.

“Here,” she said, and held out a bottle of water. I took a sip, careful not to spill it on the bedspread.

“That’s better.”

“Tell me everything.”

I told her what I had experienced with the counting, and how the numbers had eventually given way to that vivid, dreamlike vision of the wall and the garden.

“That’s it?” she asked, grinning.

“That’s it,” I confirmed. “As soon as I closed my eyes in the dream, I woke up.”

“Look at the clock,” she said. I turned my head to see the alarm clock on her headboard. My jaw dropped when I saw that it was almost 10:30 in the evening—I’d been zoned out on Susan’s bed for almost an hour and a half.

“What the —”

“Amnesia, anyone?” The Cheshire Cat had nothing on Susan’s face as she relished my confusion.

I wracked my brain trying to recall something, anything that had happened after I fell asleep in the hammock. I came up empty. “What did you do?”

“You’re under a posthypnotic suggestion,” she said.

“I realize that,” I protested. “I mean, how did you get me under? It was so different this time.”

“With a little outside help. While I was in Florida, I stopped in to visit with my old therapist. We talked a little about what you and I have been doing, and she suggested the technique we just used as a way to sidestep your tendency to think too much.” She showed me small, laminated index card. “While your conscious mind was busy visualizing and counting, I kept repeating the short confusion induction on this card. After a while, your attention flagged and your subconscious took over. Once you had lost track of the count, I knew you were halfway there. Since you were already in a visual thinking mode, I tried the same exercise that worked for me to get past the barrier.”

“So the stone wall was your image?”

“No no no,” she said. “My image wouldn’t have worked for you. All I did was suggest that you could see the obstruction ahead of you, and then asked you to describe it. You provided all the details. And when I told you that it was your wall, your castle, you had no problem opening the door and going inside.”

“And once I was inside?”

“You just dropped. It was a little spooky to see; I thought you were relaxed before, but when I told you to close your eyes and let go in the hammock you really sunk into the bed. Your hand got cold and you went right into REM, just like the therapist said you would.”

“So what did you do with me once I was in your power?” I asked half-jokingly.

“Do you really want to know?” The secretive smile was back.

“Yes.”

Still smiling, Susan scooted closer to me. Stretching one arm across my chest, she put her mouth right up against my ear and whispered, “Remember.” My head buzzed for a second, and then the information came flooding through my mind.

I remembered her voice congratulating me on finally reaching a deep trance state, and letting me know that in the future the gate to my garden would always be open for me, allowing me to enter my deepest hypnotic state easily. I remembered my arms getting lighter and lighter at her command, floating up from the bed. They became stiff and rigid and unmovable until she told me otherwise, then they fell gently back down to the bed unassisted. I remembered her telling me my entire body would be highly sensitive to touch, and that every touch would bring me a powerful wave of pleasure. Soon after that I was overcome by pure physical joy as I felt her hands running over every part of my body.

And then I remembered a conversation. Susan had asked me how I felt about her, and I said I was falling in love with her. She asked if I wanted to sleep with her, and I said very much. She had laughed at that, saying that she wanted it too but my timing was off, we would have to wait a few days. I remembered her gently cupping a hand over the circus tent in my pants and asking me how long had it been, how many women, what were my favorite ways to make love and why, and I remembered answering in plain, unvarnished detail. Then I remembered listening as she told me the same things about herself.

Finally, I remembered her telling me that I would recall none of these things until she whispered the word “remember” in my ear.

Susan watched my face as I recalled and assimilated all of this, her body still up against mine. I could smell her and feel her and hear her breath, and the closeness of her had me so hard I thought for sure my pants would rip. Our mouths met in our first real kiss, and without any conscious direction I found my hands starting to explore her body, looking for an opening.

“Soon,” she told me, breaking off gently as she rose off the bed. “It’s already late, and you have to get up early in the morning.”

I nodded. “You’re right, of course.” Slowly, reluctantly, I climbed out of the bed and put my shoes back on.

We kissed once again at the doorway. “Don’t plan anything for the weekend,” she advised in a voice that held great promise. I watched the door close, then trudged back to my car for the trip home.

I woke up the next morning to the ringing of my telephone. It took me about five rings to recognize the sound and find the phone.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Rise and shine,” Susan said. “Since I kept you up late, I thought the least I could do is give you a wake-up call.”

“You’re too kind,” I said, looking at the clock: 5:35am.

“Didn’t you say you needed to get an early start this morning?”

My brain finally engaged. This was Thursday—I had an eight o’clock meeting that I needed a least an hour to prepare for. “Jesus, I almost completely forgot. Thanks!”

“My pleasure. Am I still invited to the party?”

“Sure, if you want to come.” We were having a farewell gathering for Robb, a coworker who was heading off to greener pastures. I had invited Susan because I knew she would have the day off following her trip, but since the party was being held downtown I told her I would understand if she begged off.

“I think I’d like to go,” she said. “I don’t get downtown much, and this way it wouldn’t be in traffic.”

“Cool,” I replied. “Do you want me to come get you?”

“That’s too much driving. I’ll take Metro down, and you can drive me home.”

“That works. I’ll meet you me at the station and we’ll walk over to the party together.”

Thanks to the pleasant wake-up call, I was in the office by 6:45 and in better spirits than anybody should be at that ungodly hour. My good mood lasted through the entire workday. By mid afternoon, when I am sometimes prone to start talking to myself and begging people to just kill me quickly, I was still chipper enough that it drew a few surprised looks from my colleagues.

A guy named Simmons stuck his head into my cube at one point to ask, “You finally getting some, Mark?” I just grinned at him and said nothing.

By about 5:15 I was ready to call it a day. Most of the crew were doing the same; this was Robb’s last day and we were taking him out to Brickskeller’s, one of his favorite haunts, to applaud his wisdom in choosing to take a higher-paying job with a company in the suburbs. I headed up to the Brick just in time to grab a legal parking spot nearby, then walked over to the Dupont Circle Metro station to wait for Susan.

She emerged from the station at 5:50 looking none the worse for wear. She was in a long denim skirt with a clingy wrap-style top that showed off her figure very nicely. The skirt came to well below her knees but had a high slit on right side, giving me a nice flash of leg with each step she took.

“Will I pass muster?” she asked after an embrace and a quick kiss.

“That was never in question,” I replied. “The real challenge will be keeping some of these guys from trying to carry you off themselves.”

When we entered the Brick my group saw us immediately. As we worked our way along the long, polished bar to the end where our party had staked out its place, I could see their eyes shifting from Susan to me and back to Susan. The guys looked envious, the women approving. I introduced her simply as “Susan”, letting them assume whatever they liked. Given her nature, I knew it would take them only a few minutes to welcome her into the group.

By the time we’d all eaten and the second round of beer bottles was empty, Susan was family. We toasted Robb and told a series of increasingly ribald stories, and generally had a great time. When it was time to go and Susan and I were leaving hand in hand, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had such a good time in months, maybe years.

When we reached my car, Susan asked for the car keys. “I’m okay,” I assured her. “I only had one beer, and that was early on.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m just in a driving mood. Trust me?”

“Sure.” There was no traffic to speak of at that hour, but if Susan wanted to drive I wasn’t going to argue about it. I handed her my keys. “Do you know the route?”

“I think so,” she replied with confidence. She was as good as her word; within minutes we were well on our way out of the city.

We started out quiet; it’s easier to concentrate on the complexities of the DC streets that way. I found my thoughts wandering back to my latest writing project, “Boxing Day”. I’d posted a partial draft while Susan was away, but I wasn’t sure if I really liked the way it was developing. I was venturing outside of my comfort zone, and I wasn’t sure if I’d gone too far. When I’m in that state with a story, it tends to take up more or less permanent residence in the back of my mind; any time I’m not actively thinking about something else, it tends to creep forward and steal my attention. As I sat there next to Susan, watching the city blocks flow by, my idle brain cells brought up the story and went to work on it, worrying at it like a puppy chewing a bone.

I pictured the main characters, Lucy and Dan, and watched them go through the action as I’d written it so far. A third character came in, someone with a bit of a hard edge, and the scene I was concerned about played through in my mind, the car’s dashboard becoming a stage for the action. For a split second I thought I heard Susan say something, but when I looked over she seemed to be concentrating on the road. My mind drifted back to Lucy and Dan.

The longer I thought about it, the more vividly I saw the characters interacting on the stage. I closed my eyes and the picture was complete; the dashboard was gone and Lucy’s bedroom took shape. I watched the already-written scene unfold and heard imagined voices speaking dialog I’d written a few days before. As the scene continued the image grew and clarified, becoming almost like a waking dream. I saw the third character, Denise, finish her piece and take her leave. Then, like a child playing with dolls, I began to direct Lucy and Dan in my mind, telling them what to do next.

I tried several scenes this way, rejecting some ideas, keeping others. After a while I started to feel tired, weary from the effort of maintaining the vivid pictures in my head. I felt myself sinking back into the car seat, breathing deeply, and slowly closed the curtain on my little play.

A sharp clapping sound shocked me awake. I was disoriented for a second; when my head cleared, I saw Susan looking at me with that knowing smile again.

“What?” I asked.

“Look outside,” she answered. I looked out the window and then realized we were in the parking lot in front of my house.

“Oh, Jeez! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tune out on you.”

“It’s okay,” she assured me. “I could tell you were deep in thought. In fact, I took advantage of it.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s go inside.”

I got out of the car, then stopped. “Hey,” I observed, pointing to the car in the next space. “This is yours, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” she replied. “I got someone to follow me here, then drop me at the Shady Grove station. I figured this way I wouldn’t need a ride back to the Metro to pick up the car.”

“You could just stay the night here,” I suggested.

That brought another of those knowing smiles. “I didn’t bring my toothbrush,” she answered in mock innocence.

“I’ll lend you a spare,” I promised.

“We’ll see,” she said, jingling my keys and turning to open the door.

Once inside, Susan called dibs on the powder room. I was in no hurry, so I used the facilities upstairs and then sat down on the living room sofa, a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses at my hand.

“We won’t be needing that tonight,” she said, indicating the wine. “I have a better idea.”

“I’m all ears,” I replied, setting the things down on the coffee table.

Susan hitched her skirt up and curled herself up on the couch next to me, holding her body upright but against mine, my head at her shoulder level. I stared unashamedly at the swell of her breasts, longing to put my mouth over a nipple. One of her arms went around my shoulders as she pulled my face up to hers for a long, promising kiss.

“Ready?” she asked, rearing up over me a little as she came up for air.

“Ready for what?” I asked in return, thinking I knew the answer.

Boy, was I wrong. With a wicked gleam in her eye, she reached out with an index finger and placed it at the top of my forehead, right at the hairline. “For this,” she said softly, and I felt the finger start moving in a straight line down my forehead, over the bridge of my nose, and on down. As the finger moved, I felt a sudden dizziness come over me; my wits clouded up, and my body suddenly felt like I was wearing a lead suit. The further down her finger moved, the more the feeling deepened. My eyelids became unbearably heavy and slammed shut as her finger moved past, and the image of my stone wall came unbidden back to my mind. This time the door was already open; I rushed right through it into blackness.

When I came to, Susan was still sitting on the sofa grinning at me. Something seemed wrong with this picture, and in a moment I realized what it was: Susan was still on the couch, but I wasn’t—instead, I was sitting on the recliner next to it.

“When did I move?” I asked myself out loud.

“About ten minutes ago,” she answered. “Don’t you remember?”

“No, I don’t,” I said truthfully. I also didn’t remember when I’d developed the raging hard-on I was sporting, but I saw no need to draw attention to it.

“Can you stand up?” she asked.

“Of course I can stand up,” I told her, and decided to prove it by doing so. Deciding is as far as I got; when it came to translating desire into action, my body ignored me. I didn’t feel heavy, or glued to the seat, or anything like that—the muscles just didn’t move in the way I was telling them to.

“Are you sure?” she asked playfully.

“Cute,” I remarked. “Are you going to set me free any time soon?”

“You’re free now,” she said. “Stand up.”

I tried again; this time my body obeyed and I was quickly standing erect in every sense of the term. “That was a trigger phrase, wasn’t it?” I asked.

She nodded. “You’re getting very good at responding to those. How much do you remember?”

I gave it some thought before answering. “Nothing,” I had to admit. “Not a thing after your finger passed my eyes.”

“Excellent!” She rose up from the couch to give me a congratulatory hug. “Do you know why I did that?”

My own words came back to my mind: I want to close my eyes in one place, wake up somewhere else and not remember how I got there. “You were fulfilling one of my wishes,” I replied.

“That’s right,” she said. “Ready for another?”

I barely had time to say “sure” before I felt her finger on my forehead. My brain clouded up again; I felt my body pitching forward, but strong arms caught me and held me upright as the blackness closed in.

This time when I came to, we were both sitting on the couch. “’SMF’,” I cited, recognizing the forehead induction. “You’ve been reading Artie’s stories.”

“I like that one,” she explained. “It’s a little bit like what’s happening with us.”

I was going to offer some kind of witty comeback, but I was distracted. In the space of a few seconds I began to feel unbearably hot and sticky. My body started to sweat, and my clothing felt increasingly constricting and uncomfortable. “You didn’t!” I protested, knowing full well that there could be no other explanation for what I was feeling—a fierce, irrational desire to take off my clothes.

“Yes, I did,” she admitted sheepishly. “I asked if you had a specific compulsion you’d like to experience, and that’s what you suggested. Not that I wasn’t thinking in that direction anyway.” A little extra color crept into her cheeks as she added the last part, and her nostrils flared a little.

“Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy,” I complained as the itchy, scratchy feeling continued to grow everywhere that clothing covered my body.

I held out as long as possible. In a way, it was an interesting and instructive experience and not at all what I expected from a hypnotic compulsion. At no time did I feel as though I was not in control of myself; my need to get out of that clothing just kept mounting until it no longer made sense for me to resist. I grabbed my polo shirt and undershirt together, pulling them off as one, and was immediately rewarded by a feeling of relief as my upper body cooled down and stopped itching. With that positive reinforcement it was only seconds before my shoes and socks were also cast off, with my pants falling on top of them.

Susan watched me closely the whole time. From the way her legs seemed to be clenching under the skirt and the way her nipples pushed against her blouse I concluded that we were both getting a charge out of this. I stood before her, fascinated and horrified and exhilarated all at the same time, my cock extending forward like the boom on a sailboat, and decided to see how long I could resist the pressure to drop my boxers. The answer: about 30 seconds.

As my boxers fell Susan gazed hungrily at my anatomy for a few moments, then rose from the couch and came over to me. She took my cock in one hand and hugged me to her with the other as we kissed. I thought I was going to explode in her hand.

“You’ve been very patient with me, Mark,” she said softly. “I want you to know that I’m just as eager as you are, and tomorrow night will make it all worthwhile. I have a very special surprise planned for us.”

I was too distracted by the hand on my cock to reply right away. Soon it was too late; feeling her finger on my forehead again, I took a deep breath and let go.

The next thing I remember is waking up to the squealing of my alarm clock. I was in my bed, alone. Damn!

As soon as I was fully awake, I felt something stirring in the back of my mind. Something I needed to do.

The phone. Without thinking, I picked it up and dialed Susan’s number.

“Good morning,” she answered.

“Hi,” I responded, still not sure why I had called.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I guess so,” I responded. “I don’t remember going to bed. I don’t even know why I’m calling you. What did you do to me last night?”

I heard a low, satisfied chuckle from her end of the line. “I told you to go to bed, go to sleep, and call me when you woke up. And you did. Are you impressed?”

After thinking a moment, I had to admit I was. To feel the impact of a hypnotic suggestion immediately after coming out of trance was one thing; to have one be equally effective several hours later was quite another. In the last couple of days I had become quite a skilled hypnotic subject.

“What’s our agenda for tonight?” I asked, remembering her promise.

“Let’s start with dinner,” she answered. “I’ve got a project team meeting in Silver Spring that may run over, so let’s meet at the Outback about seven thirty. Wait for me in the bar, I might be late.”

“Pack a bag,” I advised in my best suggestive tone.

“Already done,” she replied in kind. “Not that I’ll be needing much.”

I didn’t get much work done that day; my mind was too busy anticipating what the evening—or with any luck the whole weekend—would hold. I ducked out of the office early and spent some time sprucing up the house, especially the bedroom. It never hurts.

The Outback is always busy, especially on a Friday night, so I showed up at 7:15 to put my name down for a nonsmoking table. Even then, the hostess warned me that the wait would be 45 minutes or more. I was expecting that and assured her it was no problem. She issued me a little plastic box studded with red LED’s, which I carried with me into the bar.

Figuring it would be a good two hours or more before I needed to drive anywhere, I ordered a rum and Coke and sat back to wait for Susan. My eyes swept across the bar absently while my mind wandered back to the adventures of Lucy and Dan, my “Boxing Day” couple.

About ten minutes later a woman entered the bar. The height and hairstyle were enough like Susan’s to grab my attention, but as she came closer I could see she was a total stranger. A very interesting total stranger, I judged, noting the clear eyes, the confident posture, not to mention a very nice figure, but not my girl.

I was about to dismiss her and go back to my plotting, but for two things. First of all, the closer she came to where I was sitting the more I was struck by her physical charms. She had a beautiful, athletic figure and was showcasing it in a classic little black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and matching heels. She walked with her entire body, like a dancer, and the dress moved with her in a way that touched me at a primal level. I found myself staring, alternating between her hips and her chest, as she worked her way through the crowd. The second thing that kept my attention was that she was approaching me. I realized this just a little bit too late to avoid making an ass out of myself; my eyes snapped upward from her body to her face, and I knew that she’d caught me gawking at her like a horny teenager.

She looked at me in a friendly, inquiring way and held out her hand. “Tom?”

Out of reflex more than anything else, I took her offered hand. “No, I’m sorry,” I answered.

“Oh.” Her face was confused and embarrassed; that made us even, I supposed. She took a quick look around the bar, then back at the entrance. The way the muscles in her throat and shoulders moved when she did it was enchanting. Then she turned back to me. “Do you mind if I sit here anyway?”

“Please do.”

She gave me a grateful smile as she took the stool next to me. Like me, she took a position that allowed her to watch the entrance. She glanced over at me several times, which was only fair because my own eyes kept wandering over to her. “Looks like you’re waiting for someone too,” she observed, noting the call device next to my glass.

“Yes,” I answered, ever the smooth conversationalist. “I’m Mark, by the way.”

“Call me Donna.” She extended her hand again, and I was more than happy to take it.

“Blind date?” I guessed. After all, she had mistaken me for Tom.

She nodded. “You?”

“Not blind, just a date. She’s probably on her way. So is Tom, if he has any brains at all.”

“I hope so. I’m counting on him for my ride home.”

With nothing better to do but wait, we made casual conversation. In due course a second round of drinks appeared, and we both made jokes about our absent dates. By 7:50 I noticed that she had stopped watching the door and seemed content with my company. A sense of conflict started to grow within me; my hormones were responding to this girl in ways that my conscience couldn’t sanction. I started to pray that Susan would show up soon.

A few minutes later, my pager went off. My heart sank when I read the message on the display: “Very sorry, held up and can’t get free tonight. Call me in the morning, I’ll make it up to you. S”

“Your date?” Donna asked.

I nodded grimly. “Looks like I’m on my own.”

“Same here,” she replied, looking at her watch.

My head was telling me to get up and leave right then; my balls were telling me there was no reason to hurry. The debate was interrupted when the red lights on my little plastic box began twinkling.

Donna looked resignedly at my little toy. “Looks like your table is ready,” she observed.

“Table for one,” I deadpanned. “How exciting.” I looked back at Donna with every intention of telling her goodbye, but my balls took control. “Look,” I said, trembling a little as I spoke. “I don’t want to have dinner by myself, and it’s a shame to waste the table I waited for. Why don’t you have dinner with me? If Tom shows up, you can let him buy you dessert.”

Donna consulted her watch one more time. “If Tom shows up, he can wait around for an hour like I just did. I’d love to have dinner with you, Mark.”

My balls congratulated themselves as we wove our way through the bar to the hostess’ stand, and then to our table. On the way I got many opportunities to steal covert glances at Donna’s body, and every one confirmed what I already knew—this was possibly the sexiest woman I had ever laid eyes on.

Dinner was delicious. I’d like to tell you in detail what we ate and what we talked about, but the truth is I don’t really remember a lot of the specifics—I was preoccupied by the escalating conflict between my libido and my conscience. The longer we talked and ate, the more at ease I felt with Donna and the more I reacted physically to her presence. I found my thoughts drifting, imagining taking her back to my house and stripping off that black dress.

After a while, I started to sense that Donna knew at least some of what I was thinking and feeling. She seemed to smile more broadly, make eye contact more often and for longer times. She asked leading questions, encouraging me to keep running my mouth, and listened as though my inane ramblings were fascinating to her. Every once in a while she would touch my hand, or her foot would brush against my leg under the table, sending a shockwave through my body. There was no doubt about it: I was being seduced.

That realization woke up my conscience again, and it started to berate me. I had a lot of emotion invested with Susan; from what she’d said the night before, I could probably show up on her doorstep in the morning and spend the rest of the weekend in her bed. How could I even think about cheating on her?

I was doing more than thinking about it, of course—in my mind, by my code, I was already cheating. From the moment I’d laid eyes on Donna at least part of my mind had been fixated on her body. I felt drawn to her in a way that I’d never experienced before, and that I was totally unprepared for. I wanted Donna in the worst possible way. I might hate myself in the morning, I thought, but I really need this. My conscience retreated to the back of my mind, sulking, while Donna and I had coffee.

Finally, it was time to go. I stood up slowly, trying to make my hard-on as unobtrusive as possible, and walked out with Donna right beside me. “Would you like me to take you home?” I asked, remembering that she had been counting on Tom for transportation.

“Sure,” she replied, her tone and her look letting me know that she was interested in more than a car ride. I walked her to my car and opened the door for her. She flashed me a generous amount of leg and cleavage as she folded herself into the passenger seat, robbing my higher brain functions of even more precious oxygen.

Making my away around the car to the driver’s side, I slid in carefully to avoid catching my extended member on the steering wheel. “Where to?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I’m not ready to go home yet. Why don’t we go to your place instead?”

There it was, right out in the open. No more rationalizing that it’s only a meal, no more pretending that I didn’t want to jump this woman’s bones more than I’d ever wanted anything. If I gave any answer but no, I would be throwing away a chance at a solid relationship for what was probably a one-night stand.

“Okay,” I said, and braced myself for a backlash from my conscience. It never came; I was almost taken aback by how little guilt I was feeling. Then her hand came to rest on my thigh and all I could think about was getting her to my house immediately.

The trip was quick and silent. Donna sat beside me with her legs crossed, making the most of the high slit in her dress, and her left hand resting on my lap. She was watching my face and probably my crotch, but I had to keep most of my attention on the road. After the longest fifteen minutes of my life, we pulled into the lot in front of my house.

I jumped out of the car and went around to open the door for Donna. She smiled up at me and gave me another generous eyeful of cleavage and thigh as she climbed up out of the car.

Arm in arm, we walked up to the front door. I fumbled nervously with my keys for a few seconds, then managed to open the door. As soon as we were both inside Donna turned off the light switch and pushed me up against the back of the door. Her entire body pressed up against mine and our mouths locked together in a kiss that raised the hair on the nape of my neck. I could feel the granite of my cock pressing against her as she ground herself into me. My arms went around her and headed directly south, pressing and squeezing her ass. I could feel her hands tugging at my shirt, pulling up on it, and I let go of her long enough to peel it off along with my undershirt. I started to reach around her, feeling for the top of the zipper that I knew had to be in the back of that dress.

I really shouldn’t be doing this, I thought as my hand found the zipper and started slowly pulling it down. I should apologize now, get a grip on myself, and call her a cab. My hand stopped, and was even about to reverse direction, but then a hand slipped down into the front of my pants and all thought of stopping went completely out the window. I eased her zipper down, feeling nothing but soft skin beneath. I felt my pants open and fall as I parted the back of the dress, slipping it off her shoulders. She lowered her arms long enough to let it fall off, and I dropped down to one knee.

With my head now at her chest level, I opened wide and took an erect nipple into my mouth, sucking hard and running my tongue all over the sensitive tip. She drew in a sharp breath and pulled my head closer, mashing my face into her breast. I let my hands run up and down her body, catching slightly on the tiny strings that held her panties in place, and adored her. I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs with her scent while I explored her exquisite body with my hands.

In an act of pure animal hunger, I grabbed her around the torso and stood up, lifting her in place with my mouth still full of nipple. My shoulder caught the light switch on the way up, an unintended benefit that made it much easier to do what I had in mind. Holding her aloft, I marched into the living room and dropped us both down onto the couch, using my arms to catch my own weight. Once she was securely down I ran my hands along the sides of her body one more time, this time deliberately catching the panty strings and stripping them off her in one motion. They were soaking wet.

Donna started to get up; I put a quick stop to that by spreading her knees apart and burying my face between her moistened thighs. I kissed her mound, took a deep, delicious breath full of her and plunged in with my tongue. Donna gasped and fell back against the leather sofa. A few minutes of probing and testing were enough for me to locate some of her favorite spots; I zeroed in on those, licking and sucking and stroking, listening to her moan and gasp in response. As the pace and the volume of her appreciative sounds increased I knew she was close to her climax and applied myself even more to my work. Her legs squeezed around my head and her hips began to gyrate; I stayed with her, adapting to her rhythms.

Just when I thought my head would burst from the pressure, I felt her body loosen and sink a little deeper into the sofa. She took several heavy, deep breaths, moaning with each one, and then suddenly cried out as she gave in to her first orgasm. I backed off, helping to support her weight as she continued to writhe loosely, and when I judged that she was starting to come down I plunged my thumb into her slit and straight up her canal. The edge of my hand parted her outer lips and my fingers clamped down on her mound. She shrieked again as I hooked my thumb inside her, finding and exploiting a sensitive spot inside her tunnel to send her into another climax. I kept up the pressure and she rode my hand for half a minute before she finally stilled.

“Hold on,” she gasped as I started to dive into her once again. “Just let me catch my breath.”

“Say when,” I told her, running my fingers through her mound.

“Come up here,” she said. “I want to get my hands around that cock I felt a while ago.”

“You will,” I teased, “but I’m in no hurry.” I wasn’t—I knew that if she got her hands on my cock again I’d be blasting away in no time; I wanted to hold that moment off as long as I could.

“You may not be,” she chided, “but I am.” I was about to silence her by diving into her again, but before I could her index finger reached out and touched my forehead. All the strength left my body instantly; I felt dizzy and woozy, and as her finger traced down my forehead I felt myself slipping away.

“Wake up, Mark!”

My eyes opened and I found myself overwhelmed by the flood of sensations. I was on my back, in my bed. Donna was on top of me, rocking back and forth, my cock buried to the hilt inside of her. There was an exultant gleam in her eye; she was trying to grin, but her face was melting as another wave of passion took hold of us both. I felt the pressure in my groin and I knew that an explosion was imminent. Still, somehow I managed to form a rough question: “How did you do that?” I gasped, confused.

Donna reached out and placed a palm over my face. “Realize,” she said, and removed her hand.

Somewhere in my head a gate opened and a flood of information came through. It was too much to assimilate immediately, and I just stared at her face in wonder. She clamped down her muscles around my cock and gave a good hard squeeze, and any attempt at coherent thought became impossible. My head jerked back and my eyes rolled up into my forehead as I came harder than I’d ever come before. My whole body tensed and released in spasms, bucking under her like a mechanical bull. If my prong hadn’t been lodged inside her I probably would have thrown her off.

An eternity later, my entire body let go at once and sank into the bed. My eyes fell shut, and I slowly opened them again. Looking up, I got the shock of my life.

I saw Susan’s face, atop Susan’s naked body, gazing down on me with a look of pure triumph. She, too, was gasping for breath.

“What the —” I stammered.

“Surprise,” she said softly.

In that moment I understood everything. There was no Donna; the woman I’d perceived as a total stranger, whom I had been smitten by and seduced by, was Susan herself.

All I could do was shake my head in wonder. “You are unbelievable,” I said.

“You’re pretty good yourself,” she replied, and yielded as I pulled her down onto me for a long, languorous kiss.

“Do you know what really scares me?”

It was a good hour later; we had recovered from our initial frenzied encounter and had spent the time cuddling, kissing, and just delighting in the feel of our bodies against each other. I could feel the erotic energy building and knew that if I kept my mouth shut we’d be coupling again soon. For good or ill, though, there was something I had to get off my chest first.

“What?” she asked, her fingers toying with my chest hair.

“There I was, waiting for you, fully expecting you to come meet me, fully expecting that an incredible weekend was about to unfold for both of us, " I explained. “And yet, I was willing to risk throwing all of that away just to get into the pants of a total stranger for one night. And the worst thing about it is, I really didn’t feel all that guilty about it.”

“Why does that bother you?”

“Why? Because that’s not who I’m supposed to be. I’ve always prided myself on being one of the last of a dying breed: loyal, monogamous, honorable guys. Tonight I found out that all it takes is the right body in the right dress to turn me into a faithless jerk who only thinks with his dick. I don’t like that one bit. It bothers me a lot, and it should probably bother you too.”

Susan rose up a little, pulling back just enough to make good, strong eye contact. “Don’t think of yourself that way,” she said. “You really are a loyal, monogamous, honorable guy.” I started to argue, but she shushed me. “Listen,” she continued. “You know perfectly well that hypnosis can’t make you do anything that isn’t in your nature. If I’d told you to sleep with someone else, even in your deepest trance, you never would have done it. The only reason you let Donna seduce you is because your subconscious knew all along that you were really with me, doing something we both wanted to do.”

I let that sink in for a few minutes. “Is that how it was for you, when you did it before?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. I really don’t remember a lot of that night very well. That’s one of the drawbacks to these hypnosis games—sometimes the memories get spotty.”

“In that case,” I suggested, “Let’s try it the old-fashioned way a couple of times.”

Her hand reached down and found my cock, which was already well on its way to full length. “That’s the best proposition I’ve had all night,” she answered, as her hand began to work magic on my stiffening member.

The pleasure was intense. Susan’s palm was rubbing down hard along the length of my cock while her fingers played lightly with my balls. For a few moments all I could do was lie back and enjoy while my body succumbed to the delicious feelings her touch induced.

“That’s right, darling,” she whispered to me, “just relax and enjoy, relax and let go.” She thrilled me some more by dropping light, gentle kisses along my neck. As the pressure began to build inside me again I reached down with my own hand and found her again. I snuck my fingers into her slit and probed carefully.

I knew I’d found her button when she gasped once and her hand suddenly clamped down hard on my shaft. That hurt, not enough to bother me but enough to bring me back a little from the edge; I saw that as a good thing and pressed my advantage.

Reaching a little deeper into her secret place, I teased her clitoris with both extended fingers, circling it and brushing it from every angle in every way I could think of. Before long Susan was moaning loudly and squeezing my cock in time with her moans and my finger movements. When we were ready, I rolled Susan onto her back, knelt between her legs, and slid into her.

She gave a passionate groan as I buried myself in her and began to pump in and out. Her legs went straight up against my chest, tilting her pelvis to increase my penetration. I put both hands under her, lifting and supporting, loving the sensation of how deeply we were coupled. I felt Susan relaxing again and held on, pressing into her once more as she started to climax. Feeling that, I let my head fall back and relaxed as much as I could as my orgasm came crashing through me. Finally we both collapsed back onto the bed, our energy spent—at least for the time being.

It’s been three weeks since that incredible night, and I can honestly say that the relationship is growing better and stronger each day. I love this girl with a depth, a passion, that I’ve never felt before and will probably never feel again.

Yes, she still hypnotizes me from time to time. There are a lot of erotic fantasies I want to explore. She has a few of her own as well, and she’s let me put her into trance once or twice. Mostly, though, I just love having her with me and making love with all of our senses and memories intact.

Susan is across the hall in my bed right now, sleeping soundly while I write this. Tomorrow I’ll post the finished story on my web site and let her discover it on her own. With any luck, I’ll get some very positive reader feedback.