The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Hi, Lucky. Is now a good time?”

A pretty face appeared around the edge of my office door. Her hair swung away from her tilted head, exposing her neck and a lovely collarbone.

“Hi, Linda, come on in! Ready for your self-hypnosis lesson?” I waved to one of the chairs in front of my desk.

She stepped fully into the doorway. She was dressed simply, in a light knit top and a skirt. Flat shoes, no pantyhose on her slim, tanned legs. Her posture and graceful curves made her rumored former career as a model believable. Despite my warm greeting, she had an icy reserve, a “can’t touch this” attitude about her that made me surprised that she was here at all.

As she entered the office and sat down, I remembered lunch last week. Ira and I were sitting in the cafeteria. Linda and her friends were at the next table. Ira was grumbling about his cigarette habit and his morning cough. It was time to quit, he said, but just couldn’t seem to let it go. I sympathized, saying that I’d had the same problem when I got out of college.

“How did you quit?” asked Ira.

“Self-hypnosis,” I said. “It’s pretty easy, and it really worked.”

Ira, ever the wise guy, said derisively, “Yeah, right. What do I do, swing a watch in front of my eyes and tell myself I’m getting sleepy?”

I laughed. “No, there’s no mumbo-jumbo to it. Just a simple set of physical and relaxation exercises that I could teach you in half an hour. I’ve taught lots of people. Had some successes with bad habits like smoking.”

Ira gave me an appraising look. “Hmm. I might take you up on that.”

Linda’s friends, meanwhile, had left the table and headed back to work. I realized that she was standing at our table.

“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing. Can this self-hypnosis really help you break bad habits?”

Ira and I regarded her for a long moment, unable to think of a single bad thing about her, much less a bad habit.

“Sure,” I said.“But what kind of habit are you talking about?”

Mutely she held out her hands, fingers extended. The nails were bitten to the quick.

“Yes, I can help you with that. Since hypnosis is such a great tension reliever, it works especially well on nervous habits.”

“Hypnosis?” She looked puzzled. “I thought you said self-hypnosis.”

“It’s all the same thing. All hypnosis is actually self-hypnosis, even though it may not feel like it sometimes.”

“Don’t let him hypnotize you, babe,” Ira leered. “He’ll have you barking like a dog and who knows what else!”

I threw a wadded-up napkin at him and Linda gave him a frosty look that almost cracked his glasses. He mumbled something about having to get back to work, and left. I answered a few more of Linda’s questions, and we arranged that I would teach her self-hypnosis after work the following Friday.

“So you’ve never been hypnotized before?”

“No, I’ve seen some stuff on TV and in the movies, and there was this hypnotist in a bar one time, but I figured it was fake. Even though some of the people who went up there swore it was real.”

“Well, we’re not going to do any of that stage stuff. I’ll show you a couple of suggestibility exercises—they’re like a test of your imagination—and then I’ll show you how to go into the trance state, how to deepen it, how you come out of it, and how to go back into it quickly.”

“Oh, the stage hypnotist did that. Called it a trigger word, I think. That’s what looked so fake. I mean, how can a single word put you back in a trance so quickly?”

“Surprisingly,” I said, “it really works. But don’t think too much about it now. Just keep an open mind, and we’ll take it one step at a time. Let’s start with one of the suggestibility tests. You might have seen the stage hypnotist do something like this to pick the best subjects.”

“Just clasp your hands together like this,” I said, and held up my hands to show her. She imitated me. With a flicker of embarrassment she glanced down at her nails, then looked back at me with her cool gaze.

“Clasp your hands tightly together and concentrate on the sound of my voice. Concentrate on the feeling of your hands being tightly clasped together. Tighter. That’s right. So tight that they’re beginning to feel like they’re locked together.” I watched her hands tremble slightly as she tensed her muscles, as her knuckles whitened from the effort.

“Locked together. Tightly locked together.... You can try to separate them now, but the more you try the more tightly they’ll become locked together. Go ahead, try now.”

She continued to gaze at me as she attempted to separate her hands. The icy look was gone now, replaced with something that I couldn’t quite identify. She looked down in surprise at her hands, still tightly clasped, and tried again. But her subconscious mind was fully engaged in the belief that she couldn’t separate them. She struggled once more, then looked back at me, this time through the gauzy veil of a light trance. Her lips were slightly parted and she was breathing through her mouth from the exertion.

I smiled inwardly at her slightly unfocused, imploring expression, and said, “When I touch your hands, they’ll become completely normal, and you’ll be able to separate them easily.” I reached forward, touched them lightly, saying, “You can separate them now.” She’s going to be a good subject, I thought to myself.

She looked somewhat puzzled as her hands unclasped. “What... how... how did you do that?” She attempted to regain some of her cool composure, but she was out of her element now, trying to encompass what had just happened to her.

“I didn’t do anything,” I smiled. “You did it all, with your imagination and your subconscious mind.”

“Wow, it sure didn’t feel like that,” she said, shaking the stiffness out of her hands. The cool look began to return as she said, “Okay, what else have you got?”

“We’ll do the falling-back test next. Stand over there with your back to me. I’ll place my hands a few inches behind your shoulder blades. That’s it, right here. Okay, now imagine that I’ve got a powerful magnet that’s going to pull you back off balance, but it’s okay because my hands are right here to catch you.”

I caught a whiff of her perfume as I stood close behind her. That, her physical beauty, her proximity, and, of course, the hypnosis behind my closed office door sent the usual pleasure signals to my loins.

No sooner had I put my hands into position than she came back like a felled redwood. “That was great,” I said as I helped her up. I was ready to do the part where I showed her how she could give the suggestion to herself, and the result would be the same, when I looked at her face. She’d gone trance-y again, and I barely heard her whisper, “We could do this at my place, it’s not far....” She stopped herself, shook her head, and mumbled some kind of I-didn’t-mean-it apology, then sat down again. From her body language, it was clear that she didn’t want me to ask any questions about her odd behavior.

Still on her side of the desk, I sat in the chair next to her, wondering what had just happened. The pink was fading from her cheeks and I said, “All right, that’s enough suggestibility tests. You’re doing fine. Now it’s time to close your eyes and relax....”

Minutes later, she was in a deep trance, muscles slack, her head hanging low, her hair masking her face. Her breathing was shallow, rapid, and a little ragged, despite my suggestions that she breathe slowly and deeply as she continued to relax. Puzzled, I asked, “How do you feel right now?”

She slowly raised her head. Her lips were parted, and she licked them once. They seemed fuller, and there was a blush on her cheeks and at her throat. She opened her eyes, and gazed directly into mine, a smoky look of deep trance and burning sexual intensity. She licked her lips again and said. “Can’t you tell?”

I sat there in shocked silence for a moment, trying to absorb the look of frank desire on her face. I’d certainly used hypnosis to stoke the fires before, but beyond the way all guys act around a beautiful young woman, seduction wasn’t part of my game plan today. My mind raced, and my heart—and cock—began to pound as I involuntarily responded to the Linda’s proximity and the fact that she was so obviously in heat. My throat went dry, but something inside me said what the hell. So I asked her, “What wants to happen now?” suspecting strongly that the question would free her subconscious to act on whatever had brought her to this state.

Without taking her eyes off mine, she leaned forward and began to kiss me. Warm, pressing urgent kisses, probing with her tongue, teasing with her teeth. I responded, with the odd thought at the back of my mind that this was not unusual for a hypnoerotic fantasy, but that I somehow didn’t deserve it because I’d done nothing to bring it about. Now she was in my lap, kissing and nibbling my neck. I found myself returning her kisses with equal fervor.

Suddenly she stood up, and pulled me up with her by grabbing onto the belt and waistband of my pants. I glimpsed her face. It was still that amazing mixture of high passion and deep trance. She pulled me to her and ground her hips into mine. I’d never been into dominatrix fantasies, but this wasn’t half bad. Then her hands were at my waist, loosening my belt, opening my pants, pulling them down, and, just as quickly, my underpants. She pushed me down in the chair again, and in a single motion, slipped off and stepped out of her panties. Clothes never come off as easily in real life as they do in the movies, but somehow she made it seem effortless and almost instantaneous.

“Linda,” I gasped, “are you sure you want to do this?” She smothered my question with her mouth, put a knee on either side of my hips, and took me inside her. Just like that. Crazy thoughts went through my mind: Is this consensual sex? Can a man be raped by a woman? She moved on me, rising and falling along my length, then switched to a short, grinding motion. I felt and heard her pubic hair rasping gently against mine as she sought her pleasure. I looked at her as she rocked and swayed over me. Her eyes were closed now, and she appeared totally focused on her impending orgasm. She moved faster and harder, her hair swaying, gripping my shoulders tightly. Good thing she doesn’t have fingernails, I thought absently. Now her breath was coming in short gasps, each exhalation ending in a short, sweet, soprano note. I felt the first shudder hit her, then another, and another. “At last,” I heard her say. “At last! At last! At last!” Then I was lost in her orgasm, caught up in like a leaf in a storm. I was coming, too, swept along by the river rush of her passion.

She collapsed against my chest, eyes closed, still breathing hard, with beads of sweat on her brow. I was still firm inside her and I felt her little post-orgasmic pulsations around me. I wondered what the hell had just happened as I gazed down at her. The ice queen had turned into a raging inferno, and now looked like a sleeping child, her face soft and innocent. I raised her hips gently and slipped out of her. I held her tentatively for a few minutes as I tried to collect my thoughts, afraid to touch her, worried about what would happen next. She was breathing slowly and deeply. Experimentally, I picked up her hand by the wrist, held it a few inches above my chest, and let go. It stayed right where I’d left it.

She was still in hypnosis! In a deep, cataleptic state at that. This is too weird, I thought. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this.

I spoke quietly. “Linda, do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she answered, with the soft, slightly disconnected voice so typical of the trance state.

“Just continue to relax and follow the sound of my voice. I’d like you to stand up now.” She rose slowly and stood with her head lolling slightly. “Hold onto my shoulder so you don’t fall.”

I cleaned up some of the wetness between her legs with tissues from my desk, then picked up her panties. I lifted one leg at the knee and she obediently held it there, like a marionette answering the pull of the string. I slipped the panties on one leg, then pressed it down. I lifted the other and repeated the process, all the while feeling ridiculous but somehow responsible. I smoothed her skirt and sweater as best I could, then had her sit down.

“How do you feel right now?”

“Okay,” she said noncommittally.

I realized that this was far from over, that we’d come dangerously far from a session to forestall fingernail biting, and that I’d have to do something to get things back onto an even keel. She was a fellow employee, although I was a supervisor in another department, and she was in the rank and file. We’d still have to see each other at work on Monday. I figured that a good bit of probing and on-the-spot hypnotherapy was going to be necessary, so I decided to gave her a trigger phrase with which to re-enter hypnosis. I gave the suggestion, reinforced it, then stared at her in wonder. Still in a deep trance, a tranquil, childlike expression on her face, so pretty. What now? I had to awaken her sooner or later. I took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, I’m going to count backwards from five....”

Moments later, her eyes were open and she gave a big, catlike stretch. As she reoriented herself, I watched the peaceful, little-girl look disappear, replaced by her cool, guarded look. But it was softer than before.

“How do you feel?” I asked guardedly.

“Nice,” she said with a smile. “I feel very relaxed and refreshed. What happened? Am I going to stop biting my nails now?”

I realized with a small shock that without my having suggested it, she had total amnesia for our fevered coupling.

She looked at the expression on my face and said, “What...?” Then she began to take stock of herself. She looked down at her bare feet, and I cursed myself for not having thought to put her shoes back on. She then spied them, one under the chair, one in the corner. She surveyed her rumpled clothes, then put her hands on her thighs, as if taking inventory of the feelings that still lingered there. She looked at me, wide-eyed, shocked, and said, “Did I...? Did we...? Oh. Ohmygod....” A furious, betrayed version of the ice queen look came down hard over her features, and she said coldly, “I’ll be going now,” but not before an angry tear escaped and slid down her cheek. She rounded up her shoes and headed for the door.

This is going badly, I thought, very badly. And it’s only going to get worse if I let her leave. I spoke:

“Linda, deeply relaxed.”

She froze with her hand on the doorknob, head down, hair hiding her features. Her arm was trembling slightly. The shoes dropped from her other hand.

I chose my words carefully. “You’re back in hypnosis now, Linda. But you’re not being held here against your will. Some part of you wants to be in this trance state, while some part of you wants to run away. You needed to do something, and you did it. For better or worse, I did it with you. There’s no blame, and there’s no changing what happened. I don’t know why our first session turned out the way it did, and I don’t think you know, either.

“But if you want to find out, we can work together to explore your memories, your subconscious mind, understand it, and perhaps change it. I would like to do that. If that’s what you want, come back and sit down.”

I looked for a long moment at her graceful curves, frozen there at my door. Damn, I thought again, how did this happen? Her head rose slowly and she straightened, shoulders back, hips forward. She half-pirouetted towards me. Her eyes were open, lips parted, and she had that steamy, come-hither look again, layered with trance-y softness.

Oh, shit, I thought, here we go again. I started to say something, not knowing what to say, to head her off before she threw herself at me again. At the same time, though, I was deeply affected by the sexuality she was radiating, and I felt msyelf getting hard again. Part of me thought, this is a good problem to have, while another internal voice chastised me for being so ready to take advantage of her.

But through the sexy pout and the bedroom eyes, I could see another face, a confused, frightened girl. After an eternity, she sashayed to the chair and sat down, one leg provocatively crossed over the other. Her posture was decidedly at odds with her face, where the little girl look was beginning to hold forth. I didn’t know what demons were warring inside her, but I pitied her all the same. Still, we’d never make any progress if she continued to try to seduce me.

I was grasping at straws as I said, “Even though you’re still in a trance, I’m going to rehypnotize you. I want you to use all the concentration, rapport, and focus that comes with the trance you’re in to absorb and become the images that I give you now. We’re going to create a ‘pure’ trance, one that’s free of any preconceptions, emotional content, or other influences. The only thing that’s here is pure, deep relaxation....”

In a few minutes her eyes were closed and her body was relaxed, without a trace of the suggestive pose. I asked a few probing questions about their previous session and got nowhere. It was clear that she was deeply amnesic about whatever was causing the sexual tempest within her and its association with hypnosis. She was aware that we’d had intercourse (I couldn’t bring myself to think of it as making love), but she remembered nothing from the trance. It was as if she had a built-in erase button that wiped out the previous session entirely.

I gave her the suggestions that would enable her to do automatic writing, where her subconscious would respond to questions I asked her by directing answers to a pencil held in her hand and the pad on her lap. Her conscious mind would not be aware of the written answers. I gave her suggestions about answering the questions verbally as honestly as she could and about not feeling embarrassment or discomfort, no matter where the questions might lead.

“Do you have fantasies about being hypnotized?”

“No,” she said in the classic monotone. Her hand wrote N O in block letters.

“Have you had fantasies about being with me?”

“No.” She wrote NO, as well.

Ah, the truth hurts, I thought ruefully.

“Have you ever heard or read stories about sexual hypnosis?”

“No.” The pencil agreed.

“Did you come here needing sexual release for some other reason?”

“No.” NO.

I paused. “Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“No.” YES.

My mouth went dry. “Was it recently?”

Silence. NO.

“Within the last two years?”

Silence. NO.

“Within the last five years?”

NO.

“Ten years?”

YES.

That would have made her a teenager. “Did that experience have something to do with what happened today?”

YES.

“Did it happen more than once?”

YES.

“Many times?”

YES.

I held my breath. “Did you have sex while under hypnosis?”

NO.

“Were you given suggestions that aroused you while in a trance?”

YES.

“Were you taught to associate hypnosis with sex?”

YES.

She waited passively as I collected my thoughts, ransacking my textbook hypnotherapy knowledge, hoping that my wits would help me achieve a breakthrough with her. I didn’t want to hurt her any more, but felt responsible for precipitating her current problem.

“Did anything happen in those trances that hurt you, that would affect your life today?”

NO.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Is there any reason for you to not remember what happened, so we can discuss it?”

CANT.

“You can’t remember? Or you were told not to?”

NOT TO.

“And you believed that wouldn’t be able to remember?”

YES.

Well, what one hypnotist can do, another can undo. “Linda, listen to me carefully: You believed that you wouldn’t be able to remember, just as you believed that you had to obey all the suggestions he gave you. You might have even felt that they were commands that you couldn’t disobey. Is that right?”

“Yes.” YES.

Some of this was percolating up to the conscious level. That was a good sign. “You have a powerful imagination. Remember back to when your hands were locked together. Were they really locked together, or was it because you were imagining what it would be like for them to be locked together?”

“Imagining.” IMAG.

“So some part of your mind still believes that those memories are locked by suggestions given to you years ago. But now you can remember. You can allow those memories to trickle back, or to flood in, as you wish. Can you do that, now, can you unlock the memories?”

NO.

“You can’t go back to them?”

NO.

Time for a different approach, I thought. If the front door is locked, try the back door.

“Okay, I want you to go back in time, to just before the time you were first hypnotized. Remember the clothes you wore; imagine that you’re wearing them now.” I shifted to the present tense. “The music, things you’re doing in school, your friends. You’re there now, but you can talk to me about that time.” I gave her a moment to settle into the scene, then asked, “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.” Her voice sounded younger, girlish.

“What’s going on in your life?”

“I’m going to the Formal with Jared. He’s really cute. Just got my braces off. Doing some modeling.”

I was amazed at this outpouring of information from the chatty teen sitting across from me. “Do you like modeling?”

“It’s okay. The photographer is kind of mean to us. Not mean, but he’s always like, ‘More eMOtion! More SEX APPEAL! Be alLURing, dahmmit!’” She giggled as she imitated an effeminate, affected speech pattern. “Some of the girls say he’s a fruit,” she confided. “Him and his assistant. James and Lance.”

I absorbed this; things were falling into place rapidly. I said, “Now go forward to a time, the first time, that he did something special, something different, something to help you give more emotion, to be sexier.... You’re in the studio.... Who else is there? What kind of shoot is it? What’s happening now?”

“Oh, he’s so mad! There are three of us. Me and Gina and Kris. We’re doing an ad layout. We’re supposed to be really hot for this guy. He’s not here; they’ll add him later, along with a background. We’re in swimsuits and halters and stuff. We’re on a seamless, and we’re supposed to be eyeing this guy all sexy like. Only we keep cracking up. We get into our looks, then one of us will lose it! Lance—can you believe it—Lance is standing in as our eye line! It’s no wonder we can’t keep a straight face!

“James tells the makeup and wardrobe people to take a break. He’s like, ‘Go over to the sofa and make ourselves comfortable.’ We’re kinda nervous, like he’s going to yell at us or fire us or something. He has an idea, he says. He pulls a chair over in front of the sofa and he’s talking to us, real quiet and serious. Says we have a special place inside us where the perfect look lives, that he can take us there, but we have to listen carefully to his words, to see the images inside our minds.

“Close your eyes, he says, relax, relax. It’s like I can hear his voice inside my head, and he’s talking only to me. Very soothing. Very different from before. I’m so relieved that he’s not angry.

“Now he’s telling me stuff and it’s like becoming real. I can see the things he describes, feel the stuff he wants me to feel. His voice kinda fades in and out, but the pictures and feelings are there, real strong. He talks about seeing this really hot guy, about how he turns me on and how I want to turn him on. He’s really, um, graphic, saying stuff like my nipples getting hard and feeling wet and all. At first it sounds gross and I don’t want him to say it, but he talks some more about the special place and how important it is.

“Then it’s happening just like he says. Gina makes this funny sound, kind of a gasp and a moan. I don’t know what it is, but he just says good, good, relax, and then it’s like she’s not there at all again.

“Then he says that this is a special way that I’m feeling, and that it’s really good for a model to feel this way, and to be able to make love to the camera. He says, ‘Now open your eyes and look at me like you’re trying to set me on fire.’ The guy you want to turn on is inside the camera, he says, take all that heat you’re feeling and push it into the lens. Good, good, he says. Use your whole body. See yourself dancing before the camera, seducing it, enticing it. Moving on it. Now close your eyes again. Relax more. Then he says that any time he says ‘deep heat’ I’m going to give him this, that I’m going to feel the same way, set the lens on fire, and stuff. That I can give him any look he asks for, laughter, wistful, but underneath it all, I’ll be giving him this sexy stuff. Smoldering, he says.

“He says that in a minute I’m going to feel really up and ready for the shoot, and that I won’t remember this little talk on the sofa, that I won’t remember any of the times that I feel this special way. But whenever he says ‘deep heat,’ I’ll be right there. Then he’s saying, like, open your eyes, think about how great this shoot is going to be. Kris and Gina kind of reappeared on the sofa, or something. It’s like he was talking to me alone, but they must have been right there. I feel like something special happened, but sitting in front of us is just fruity old James. He goes off to round up the crew. Now it’s kind of like waking up from a dream. At first you remember it, then it fades, and you can’t even tell you had a dream.

“I look at Kris and Gina. Kris makes a gagging sign behind her hand, and we both laugh. But Gina looks zonked or something. She’s staring off into space with her arms crossed over her boobs, kind of squeezing herself. Kris says, ‘Hey, snap out of it, weirdo,’ and Gina finally comes around. As we head back to the set, I glance at the wall clock. It says it’s almost an hour since we took our break. That can’t be right. We just sat down.

“The rest of the shoot goes great. James gets the look he wants from all of us. We can even pretend that Lance is a hot guy without cracking up.”

I silently complimented myself for having regressed her to a time earlier than she had received the postypnotic suggestion to forget, then bringing her forward. “You’ve re-experienced something very important,” I said. “It’s a powerful remembering, something that affected you strongly. It’s a part of you. though, whether you remember it consciously or not. Would you like to keep this memory as you come back to the present time? Is it okay to remember it?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s no further need to keep the other times locked up, is there?”

“No.”

“Good. As you come forward in time, back to the present, you’ll keep all of the memories of sessions with James. You’ll bring them forward with you. As you add your present maturity to the memory of these events, you’ll realize that there’s no need to feel aroused when you go into hypnosis. What happened then has no bearing on the present.”

As I was saying these words to her, I was kicking myself mentally. No need to feel aroused? What, are you nuts?

I gave her a few other suggestions to help her handle the sudden influx of information and insights into her behavior, then brought her out of the trance.

“Ohmygod,” she said. “Ohmygod!” I’ve been hypnotized before! By James! Yuk! Oh, yuk! And he got me hot, so hot all those times... ohmygod, Gina had an orgasm that first time... that’s what that sound was! I was too young to even know.... And some of the things he said later. They’re coming back.... Dance for the camera. Seduce it, move on it. The lens is a hot cock... you want it so badly....”

I watched a thousand thoughts race across her face as she absorbed it all. She was embarrassed, crushed, angry, rueful, in quick succession.

She looked at me. “How can that be? How can somebody have an orgasm just from talking to them?”

“Have you ever had an orgasm during a dream?”

“Well, sure, but....”

“It’s the same thing. Your subconscious mind. Your imagination, stimulating your body. Just like remembering something funny and laughing out loud.”

“But I never came. I mean, yeah, with boyfriends and all, but I never came during the shoots.”

I thought for a moment. “Then he never had the right words or images for you. Remember what you were saying as we, uh, ....”

She smiled ruefully. “When I jumped you? No, the memory is fuzzy. It’s more like somebody told me that I did it than remembering it.”

“You said, ‘At last! At last!’ I think you were fulfilling yourself, compensating for all the times you’d been left high and dry, turned on but never satisfied, during all those photo shoots.”

I watched the metaphorical light bulb come on over her head. “And you were the guy who opened Pandora’s box! Uh, let me rephrase that. As soon as I went into hypnosis, I associated it with being turned on, and it was payback time for those years of frustration,” she said excitedly.

Her face turned bright red and she looked down. She brought her head up slowly. Her look was mortified, stricken. “We’re ‘lovers’ and yet we’re not even friends! I’m so ashamed! I used you. What must you think of me?”

I heard her sarcasm in the lovers word, and made reassuring noises. “Um, I’ve always wanted to get to know you better,” I rolled my eyes without being lascivious, “but this, uh, exceeded my expectations. Maybe we can learn to be friends.”

She pondered my words. “I’m so grateful to you for helping me through this,” she said seriously. Then she smiled. “Even if you got a freebie out of it. And I know you’re a nice guy. You have a heart. You don’t feel good about this either. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past couple of hours. I know people think I’m the Ice Queen. It’s always been a defense against all the come-ons, but maybe it’s also because part of me realized I was so vulnerable.”

This is one smart lady, I thought. Definitely worth getting to know better.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “But is it gone? That link?” Then she smiled, “After all, you still haven’t helped me with my fingernails.” Serious again, she said, “Hypnotize me one more time. I want to know that it’s gone.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” I demurred.

“Please.”

“OK.” I took a deep breath.

“Linda, deeply relaxed.”

Her head dropped to her chest and her hair swung forward. A hand dropped into her lap, slipping off the arm of the chair. Her breathing was slow and even.

“Bring your head up.”

It came up slowly. Her features were blank and small, a perfect mask of repose. I took a moment to admire her classic features.

“Open your eyes.”

The thousand-yard stare.

“Okay, close them again. How do you feel right now?”

“Relaxed. Peaceful.”

“Anything else?”

“Floating.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I gave her a simple posthypnotic suggestion, then brought her out. Once again she stretched, catlike, opened her eyes, and gave me a brilliant smile.

“I wasn’t turned on,” she said triumphantly. “And I remember everything!” Her expression clouded for a moment. “Even that suggestion that I would drop my shoes in your wastebasket when you said, what, something about a pen? What the hell was that about?”

“Just a test to see if you’re just a ‘normal’ hypnotic subject now. No big deal.”

“Hmph. Well I’m not going to do it!” She had rounded up her shoes from over by the door, when I asked with mock innocence, “By the way, have you seen my ballpoint pen?”

She glared at me with amused indignation, looked at the shoes, back at me, then at the wastebasket.

“My pen?”

Now she was staring fixedly at the wastebasket.

“What about my pen?”

She gave the shoes a contemptuous glance. “Darn things have always hurt my feet,” as she tossed them into the basket, looked relieved, and turned back to me. “There! Satisfied?”

I marveled at the way subjects so often crafted stories about why they were carrying out posthypnotic suggestions, even if they were conscious of the suggestion. “How ‘bout if I fetch those for you?”

“Oh, all right, but no more funny business about pens and wastebaskets. Ira was right. Next I’ll be howling at the moon.”

“Scout’s honor. No more tricks. Besides, it was a just-once suggestion, not a ‘you will always,’ and I don’t really need any further proof of the power of your imagination.”

She pondered the statement, realized it was true, and smiled. “You know, I already trust you. And I just might be getting to like you.”

“Does that mean you’ll have dinner with me?”

“Tonight? Are you nuts? We’ve been through hell’s half acre, and there’s nothing—uh, no offense—nothing that I want more than a hot shower. I feel like I need to wash away the remnants of icky James and his sneaky suggestions.” She thought a moment more. I could see the wheels turning.

“Hmm. How about you give me a half hour’s head start, then bring a pizza and a bottle of Chianti to my place?”

She gave me directions and left my office. While my body was busy ordering the pizza and picking out a wine, my mind was busy castigating me for the whole ghastly scene. But who could have known? Then I commended myself for getting to the root of her problem. Then I tortured myself over giving in to her sexual demands. But what red-blooded male wouldn’t...? And like it or not, we now had something in common.

I pulled into her apartment’s parking lot. She despises me by now, I thought. Probably spit in my eye for taking advantage of her. Or had she taken advantage of me? I rang the bell, and all my doubts were dispelled by her brilliant smile. She was genuinely glad to see me. Her damp hair had made dark spots on her big, baggy sweatshirt. Her jeans looked lived-in, and she was barefoot. She wore no makeup; she was beautiful.

We chatted over the pizza and wine, She laughed at my deNiro imitation. I made friends with her cat. She showed me photos from her vacation.We didn’t mention the afternoon’s events at all. Finally, it was time for me to go. We rose from the table, almost shyly. She gave me a hug, holding on just a moment longer than was necessary, and ended it with a chaste kiss on my lips. She linked her arm through mine and walked me towards the door.

Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and said, “Wait. There’s one more posthypnotic suggestion. I’ve got to know if it’s still there.” Her expression was unreadable, almost icy again.

“What do you mean? Which suggestion?”

“You know. The trigger phrase.”

“What? No...”

“Go on. Deep heat. I need to know if it’s still there.”

“Before I do, was there a phrase he used to turn it off?”

She rummaged through her new-found memories. “Lenscap,” she said, with a cool, determined look. “Lenscap.”

“How fitting!” I smiled wryly, then sighed, “OK, here goes.... Deep heat.” I found myself taking a step away from her. To get a better view, I told myself.

Suddenly she was a feral animal, lips pouty and parted, body tensed, shoulders back, pelvis forward. Her eyes were smoky and glittering. The very image of a sexual huntress. She took a step towards me, and another. Like a leopard stalking its prey. I hadn’t seen such a transformation since the movie, “Cat People,” and there were no special effects here.

She kissed me hard and deep. I felt her breasts against my chest, her hips seeking mine. My arms went around her, almost involuntarily.

I gasped for air and cried, “Lenscap! Lenscap!”

Again the transformation, this time in reverse. She brushed the hair out of her eyes, swallowed once, blinked twice, and said, simply, “Wow.”

I looked at her, concerned. “Wow is right. I guess it is still active. But you remembered everything?”

“Yes.”

“So do you want me to remove it?”

She pushed me playfully the few more steps to the door. As she gently shoved me out onto the stoop, she grinned wickedly.

“No way! I have a feeling it’s going to come in handy!”