The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Brooke aimed her gun at the target down the other end of the gun range. She was in her own closed off section, her own lane, wearing her ear protection and holding the gun she’d carefully selected from the gun wall in the front room. It had been two days since the first emergence of that new side of herself, two days since meeting Leslie, since having her life and her mind changed, and being complicit in both of them. She and her husband both had memberships at this gun range; in her regular rotation of routine, Brooke usually made it to this range once or twice, or at most four times in a month.

She’d been here every day since that latest had happened, since she’d betrayed her family and become someone she didn’t know. It had motivated her to be here, every day for three days running now; she was full of so much anger that there could only be alleviation from it by shooting lead into the target— the power, the force propelling the bullet forward, flying too fast to see and then tearing through the paper to mark her aim.

It discharged her anger when she discharged her gun; but there was so much anger that clearing out one part of it meant there was room for more of the anger that was left to come forward for clearing.

She had just fired her sixth bullet— she opened the chamber, and put six new bullets in again before closing it, and cocking it.

She aimed again, and pulled the trigger. She let the reverberations of the discharge in the muscles of her arms, moving up through her body; she kept the gun held tight, with both hands on the handle, but it still came up a bit, with the reverse force of the shot.

The bullet blurred through the air; the loudness of the gun going off was largely muffled by the protection of her ears, the wide overear cover, but it couldn’t do anything to block out the physical wave of energy that accompanied that sound, and which seemed to rattle her.

It gave some physical relief.

The bullet reached the other end of its arc.

This time she’d put one right through the bullseye point.

Brooke had been feeling worse lately, beyond needing to work tension out and vent anger. There was just a general downness about her from all the myriad combined stressors and what Brooke liked to do when she was down was to dress up a little as a treat, to spruce herself, look a little nicer.

Today, she had put on a pale green sleeveless top in a flowy material ideal and breathable for heat and sunshine; she had paired this with a cloth, stretchy skirt in a darker shade of green, more camouflage toned, but even the lighter streaks in it were only shades brighter than the basetone. The skirt still had a zipper in the center of its back. Brooke just liked zippered skirts even when they were more of an aesthetic presence. They could make fabric wrap her tighter, and that was what she was seeking when she wanted to do herself up.

Because she was at the gun range she’d stuck with her trusty white sneakers, because they gave good grip against the floor to her stance. And she had put her blonde locks up into a high bun held up by a clip to lend the formal effect. She looked great, still felt bad.

She lowered the gun— she had five bullets left to shoot through, but the pride of hitting the very center of the paper target, making a neat pinpoint whole there, made her feel justified in slowing down, just for a second. She leaned back out of her section, opening the door which separated off— she looked down the line; all the other doors were opened. No one else was in side right now; there was no one else at the range, except the people who ran front of house, and the attendant on hand in the range itself for safety purposes— she saw him sitting at the end of the hall, past all the open doors, on his stool, looking down at his watch.

He always seemed to be on watch when Brooke was shooting her rounds, but she’d never actually spoken to the man.

She was looking at him now— and something was opening in her mind— that impulse to go along with Leslie, thinking how fun it had been— it was the program, the thing he’d put in her head. She’d felt ambivalent then, and she didn’t like it now.

It had her looking at the way the gun attendant’s uniform was tight to his body, showing muscles— he exercised, evidently, as well as knew his guns.

She wanted him, suddenly. She hadn’t had sex since the time with Leslie two days ago and she craved it with a hunger she’d like to disown. She didn’t want to do it again— she didn’t want to be who Leslie expected her to be; she wanted to be the self that she knew, unchanged.

But the certainty was relentless in her head— it had been fun to have casual sex, to do something frivolous, something that had little or no meaning. She slept with her husband often enough— not this week, not so far, she’d been unable to face it, after what she’d done to him and to their marriage. But it was always good when they did usually. Though it was always about love, always about meaning. It wasn’t the same as just seeking physical enjoyment— and after two days, this the third, she wanted that back again.

“Attendant,” she called down the hall. “Can you help me?”

He’d seen her beckon. He got off his stool, and came down the hall to join her in her lane. He closed the door as soon as he was through it— once she’d seen he was coming, she’d stepped back through the doorway.

“How can I help you, Mrs. Swanson?” As a member of the club, she was known, even if she didn’t know the person who was knowing her— beyond a general acquaintance with them, anyway.

“I see you around here every time when I come,” Brooke said, tracing her fingers right over the man’s sternum. She was watching herself doing it like one behind glass. No, she didn’t want to do this— she didn’t want it to happen, she didn’t like how it felt— yet she seemed locked into some kind of autopilot, carrying out behavior she would never have condoned.

She didn’t want it— hated what it was doing to her, what it would cost— and yet, with no ability to decide, having it all decided for her, with no option— when she resigned herself to it and just paid attention… it just felt… magical. She was some strange thing, imbued with ability to make this guy look at her with surprised but interested eyes— there was lust in his look, and her fingers were trailing the center of his chest more slowly.

“I see you all the time, but I don’t remember your name,” she added after her repetition.

“Stan,” the guy answered.

“Stan,” Brooke repeated— she’d never heard her voice so russet soft, so layered, so husky, but it was, now.

“I do need help— I’ve been shooting my gun to work out the tension, but it’s just not doing the trick.” She petted at his breastbone further— watching herself— split between wishing to fight it— and completely enspelled, yes, even she was caught under the spell she was putting over Stan. She was being such a seductress, such a figure of temptation, but seemed to be seducing herself into being this person as much as she was seducing Stan into letting her have her way.

She didn’t know who she was, but for a second she almost wanted to be like this— replace one identity with another— and then her anger, her rebellion was back into her, though she could take no step to express this outwardly.

“I have all this physical tension inside,” she finished, her voice slipping further into its seductive pitch. “That’s what I need you to help me with, right here— up against the door— I’ll unload my gun first— then you can load me up with something else. Will you help?”

He took the gun out of her other hand, and unloaded it for her— more quickly than she would have done— he was faster at it than her, from practiced execution.

He put the empty gun on the chair where Brooke had left her purse, and slipped the ammunition into the front pocket of his pants. She had never stopped touching his chest, and she felt her lips quirk apart, her breath a little shallow as she waited.

“I can help,” Stan said. “Let’s get that tension out of you.”

Her reaction was relieved— the reaction she watched herself have.

But it wasn’t how she felt inside. She didn’t care how much fun she was about to have, didn’t care what it was going to feel like, didn’t care how positive it might be. She had a husband, she had a family, she had a life, and she didn’t know who this person was, this person she was being, this person who seemed relieved that Stan was interested in helping her out sexually. She didn’t know how that person could fit into the life she’d already made, the life she’d been so happy in— without tearing it apart. She didn’t know how she could cover that person up while she was in her usual place— this was a usual place, and look what she was doing here.

Even just in kissing Stan, there was added novelty. As when Brooke slept with him, kisses with Tyler held such weight of meaning and significance.

It felt like she needed an escape, above all from herself, and the way Stan kissed her was giving it to her. He kissed her in a way that was lascivious, and crude, his tongue moving suggestively with hers, his hands roving over her body as her hands did the same over his.

She felt so desired, so wanted. So lusted after; her husband always wanted her as a person, as the person he knew she was.

But Stan wanted her as a stranger, and he would never know her better than that. She was glad he wouldn’t. If he knew her better, the fun frivolity of this encounter wouldn’t be present. She was the new person her programming told her to be. This exciting, powerful wanted person. Someone desirable, someone able to inspire the kind of craving in a partner she was seeing in Stan. More than someone organizing a household, more than someone who cut the crusts of sandwiches for her youngest, still... Stan kissed her in a way so dirty and so debauched but it never made her feel degraded, it just seemed to lift her up higher every time. And she was so horny now, she had wrapped herself tight around Stan’s body even though they were still standing, hanging off of him, breathing in a fashion heavier and heavier between each kiss. He was mirroring her.

He wanted this too. He wanted her too.

But what was she doing? She was in almost a near fugue state, but she could see herself, she could feel, she could know what was happening. It didn’t seem possible for her to stop it; only for her to see it, to go through the experience.

She knew she hated it. She knew she didn’t want to be acting this way; she loved organizing her household, it was the defining pride of her life. She liked cutting crusts of her son’s sandwiches; to show him care; she liked kissing her husband with meaning, she liked her life, she liked who she was. She liked her routines; but was she ruining them for herself by hooking up here? Could she ever come back here again after doing this? She really had to stop.

She tried, but only went on coiling herself further on Stan’s body and hanging from it. The option had been removed from her; the switch flipped inside her brain, making her act like her new self, and she couldn’t switch it back. It controlled itself automatically and she could exert no influence on it herself.

She couldn’t change her actions, but she could still think as herself.

The problem was, some thoughts were making her uncomfortable. She knew she was against this. She knew it. But there was a part of her that had resigned much too easily. Part of her that couldn’t deny; whether she’d had a choice in it or not, she was enjoying it. She couldn’t not, when it felt the way that it did, blessing her body with these shivers of bliss; it made everything in her body feel chilled inside, that made her shudder, made all of it better. She couldn’t deny... she couldn’t stop... the sensations of the present moment overcame her mind, and she couldn’t split herself in thought away from what she was feeling. She could only go along with it, let it happen, let it be felt, and she cried out with a throwing back of her head. There was no other possible reaction; she was carried along in the rapids of a river.

But it wasn’t enough, just as it was, pushing always closer to Stan’s body. She needed it more completely sexual. She couldn’t just go on being lifted up by this. She needed some measure of satisfaction.

She was the one to push Stan against the shut door; if there had been a window in it, she would have risked a witness; but luckily the door was solid.

She reached behind herself for the zipper on her skirt and pulled it down, fluid in practice, still the one in command and Stan was only helping, following her lead. She didn’t have to be considerate, like with Tyler. She could be unilateral; take what she wanted. She was the one to undo Stan’s belt; and he could have been anyone, one stranger as good as another, but the way he looked at her like he would let her do anything; and he would enjoy it too; she was a little happy it was him with her this time.

The belt of his uniform off, his pants fell to the ground, and she got him out of the slit of his boxers, felt his heft in her hand.

It was easy to move her underwear aside; to put a leg up and lean her knee against the door, push herself right around his tip, only having to go a bit higher up onto the arches of her feet. Then when she felt him shallowly in her, she settled back on her heels, and drove him all the way up in her, loving the stretch, loving it deep, and he held onto her by the shoulders, pressing in harder.

Her mouth had fallen open. She was choking on the sound, soundless for the moment, feeling it all too intensely even to vocalize. Her mouth worked but she couldn’t change that; she was silent even as she gaped. The room was soundproofed for the sake of gunshots, it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d screamed her loudest, blood curdling scream. But still she expressed nothing, instead using her hands to shake him, to show him without sound that she wanted more from him. And he understood the message.

He shook them both as he drove up into her in neverending repetition, and she pinned him harder against the door, making him grunt when he hit it once more.

She swallowed, and when she opened her mouth this time, she let out the filthiest string of desperate moans she’d ever made; they rose in pitch, becoming cries, becoming shrieks. She needed her satisfaction so badly her eyes were watering, she would beg for it, though she was the one who had directed all of this, caused it to happen.

She wouldn’t give up her command; this was her encounter, she ran this. “Make me come, Stan,” she said, feeling the sweat on her face, but though her voice still held the note of wild desperation, she spoke definitively. “Do it now,” she insisted.

He thrusted quicker, taking her clit between his fingers. He only had to tweak it once; her brain was primed to release her orgasm in response to the first input; her program ran her well, already knew her so fully.

She was orgasming. She’d never tasted one so amazing. Her whole body was shaking like she stood on earthquaking ground, but the seismic shift inside of her was pleasure breaking her apart. She finally did scream, and it went on with the pleasure that quaked in her, crumbled her.

Her body was squeezing and squeezing and pumping him as she bounced on him, felt herself springing tighter; the quakes were more intense, and she felt him shooting into her, washing through her channel with his spunk.

That had her coming down; now she felt only the pleasant warming afterbuzz of attaining such heights. But what if she never reached them again? What if they had only been meant for her once, never to return.

She quickly got her skirt back on.

“That was all the help I needed from you, Stan. Do we understand each other? I never want you to help me again. Or to tell anyone that you helped me once, especially when Mr. Swanson comes back to the range.”

Stan smiled a toothy smile. “I understand perfectly. Glad to help you once. It was very memorable. Mr. Swanson is a lucky man.”

He gave a nod of his head, put his workpants back on and threaded in, then fastened his belt. He left the room; Brooke gathered up her things to go, relieved that she was already in her clothes.

Thankfully she was on her birth control. Her sex life with Tyler was routine enough to make it necessary; and they’d agreed a long time ago they wanted no more than three children, and they wanted no pregnancy scares.

Then as she was passing through the front doors she felt guilty. The calamity here wasn’t that she might have gotten pregnant and had narrowly avoided doing so; the calamity was that she had, for the second time, cheated on her husband with a complete stranger; that she had lost control of her body, and it had decided for her. The calamity was that she kept betraying her marriage and she couldn’t seem to stop.

She had been acting out of that other side of herself. She had been fully in that other identity. It had taken over, and carried her through the interaction, so there had not been any internal conflict.

But that side had receded; that other identity slipped away. She was only herself again, but with the memory of what she had done wrong. And now there was nothing in her to guard against it, or protect from it.

She was so absorbed in the task of inwardly wringing her hands that she almost missed the sound of hearing her name; but when she did realize, a little late, that her name had been called, she looked up to see that she actually knew who had called to her.

It was Gabriella, her father’s second wife; further up the street, there was a series of streetfacing storefronts; Gabriella had clearly come from these, because she had multiple shopping bags in each hand, but she looked a little startled at seeing Brooke standing there in front of her on the sidewalk.

Gabriella had no real reason to be surprised at seeing Brooke, but Brooke was always a little surprised every time she saw her. Gabriella had been married to her father for a while now; but still, every time she saw her, she was a little surprised her father had managed to get a woman so beautiful as his second wife; and looking at Gabriella made it easy to believe that her father had cheated with Gabriella, had left her mother for Gabriella instead. She was just such a beauty; this was no different seeing her standing in the street in front of her on this sunny afternoon.

Her brown hair fell in natural waves, bestowing a quality of grace, waving all the way to the point it rested just about and past her shoulders; she had sharp cheekbones almost chiseled enough to cut; a perfectly centered and symmetrical nose that came into a delicate point; each nostril a perfect circle scooped up to the point, somehow also bestowing grace. Her eyebrows were low set, resting close to her eyes themselves in a near-hug, giving her eyes a smoldering quality; the solid light brown color of them added to this impression; her lips were also perfect in shape, her upper lip like the curve of a drawn heart, and her lower lip perfectly rounded.

Gabriella had worn a simple sundress on this day; and she had a pair of gold sunglasses resting atop her head; she was wearing high-heeled gold sandals when Brooke briefly glanced down.

When Brooke failed to speak, Gabriella’s look of surprise at finding her increased. Brooke immediately panicked.

She was irrationally gripped by the idea that Gabriella could see; Gabriella could somehow know that Brooke had cheated; then she could tell everyone in Brooke’s family about it.

Brooke really was her usual self again. Caring about her life, wanting to prevent it from being torn apart as a consequence of her own bad decisions, and bad actions.

But it was irrational, her fear. Gabriella knew that Brooke and Tyler were both members of the gun range. It came up in conversation now and then. So because of that it shouldn’t be so strange to see Brooke coming out of the gun range. She wasn’t doing anything outside of the usual, she had not stepped one foot to the side of a typical month’s routine. It was a cover for her, a hiding in plain sight that could comfort her.

And still if she could have kept that other identity on for longer it would have been easier; if she’d been speaking from power, she might have been more skilled at lying. It would have been easier to watch herself doing what needed to be done, like she’d watched herself with Stan. Now that she had to be responsible again, it was harder; she had never been that good at lying, because she had always been an honest person before this, and that flaw in her personality, if it could be called a flaw, was back in full effect, and that made it so much more difficult to prevent Gabriella from becoming suspicious of her.

Still, she held onto the idea that she had every reason to be here.

She had just gone to the gun range to shoot some rounds for a while like she sometimes did, and nothing else had happened. It was a plausible story; plausible because she had in no way acted out of character, at least in as far as what she’d shown to the public world. She hadn’t been seen coming out of a hotel, or frequenting some strange part of town she never usually set foot into. So she could cling to that story; and hope Gabriella believed it.

“Gabriella,” she acknowledged in return, a little slowly, and a little late. “I just stopped by the range to get some shooting in. I felt a little pent up. The... pressure of an impending life change.”

Gabriella was still looking at her in surprise. Brooke still couldn’t understand why, still feared that somehow Gabriella knew more than she possibly could know. She’d spoken of her medium-term plan to transition back into working. It was all plausible; so why did Gabriella look so suspicious?

She couldn’t maintain the facade of the liar any longer. Her guilty fear of Gabriella’s suspicion was irrepressible. She had to let it be conveyed, at least in part.

“Why are you so surprised to find me here?” She asked, doing her best to tone down the desperation guilt lended to her words.

“You know I come to the gun range; and you know that I’m trying to find a position with a business. Is it really that strange to find me here?”

Gabriella had been mostly speechless for their interaction so far. The direct prompting seemed to have finally reached her.

“I know you come here. I’m not seriously concerned. It’s just that your brother said he saw you come in here, two days ago. And we all know; you say so yourself when we ask; you usually only come here once every two weeks, or once in a month. You don’t come here twice in one week; so I just wondered about that deviation.”

Brooke felt like she’d been caught for a minute. She’d been so busy reassuring herself she’d overlooked the fact that she had actually stepped out of typical pattern; and it seemed like her family had eyes everywhere.

If she had to go on doing this, she had to make sure she only found men like Stan who were in places she always went, places she had a reason to be.

“Just the pressure of the impending life change,” Brooke reaffirmed, with a tight smile. At least they didn’t know she’d been here yesterday too.

“Well,” Gabriella said, in a kind tone. “Just make sure you don’t let it get to you too much. You have your whole family around you ready to support you. Reach out when you need to, yes?”

Kind of Gabriella to say; and it really never seemed as though Gabriella said anything that she didn’t mean to, but still Brooke always felt thrown off-guard when Gabriella was nice to her in ways like these. All of this proved, at the very least, that she had successfully convinced Gabriella nothing else was going on; she didn’t look suspicious anymore, only a little concerned. Brooke had to admit the stakes had been low to begin with; but she’d been so panicked that it had been skewing her assessment of the danger in the situation.

She gave Gabriella an embrace in goodbye, parted ways, and then Brooke drove herself back home.

The week had only been about half over on the day of Brooke’s third trip to the gun range in as many days. For the remaining four, in the journey from Sunday to Saturday, Brooke was careful to be circumspect. They were ahead on groceries, all their other errands. She could keep herself housebound, only leaving for pickup and drop off in mornings and late afternoons. If she went to no routine places, she could not be suddenly compelled into trysting with whatever routine acquaintance she might encounter there.

There’d be no repetition of the Stan situation. There’d be no more trysts at all; nothing could happen to her if she refused to leave the house. The switch in her brain could not be flipped back the other way, if there was nothing new in her surroundings, no sudden appearance of other people. That had been what had happened with Stan; she’d seen him, her program had latched on him and she had literally lost the ability to control herself. She would see nothing: so there’d be no grips for her program inside to adhere to. It was the only solution she could think of for her problem. But for three days, it was effective. She kept herself shut up at home, and slept with no one else.

It gave her an antsy feeling under her skin, even though she knew it was the right thing for her to be doing. She resented the presence of that emotion. She wanted to do what was right, but her body was still craving things she didn’t want it to. She was still taking the right actions anyway, though. That was what she had to count on. That was where she had to focus.

She thought she was almost safe, that what she’d done, what had happened, had only been an aberrance, and her old life would shortly be back on its usual track.

Then the last day of the week came; her husband took himself and the kids for some bonding time: he’d been working late a lot of the nights that week so they’d hardly seen him, and he wanted to make that time back up with them.

It was a casual Sunday around the house so Brooke had left her hair loose and down. She had also worn a soft, flowing buttoned blouse. This one was pastel purple. She had rolled the long sleeves up to her elbows; the material was also very breathable, like many of the clothes in Brooke’s wardrobe. They had to be that way, given the clime she lived in. Any breeze could easily get to her to cool her down.

She’d put on a simple pair of medium-waisted blue jeans to go with the blouse. They were a well-loved pair of Brooke’s; so often worn that they had settled into the ideally comfortable state. It was nice to dress for comfort, to just be casual. She had a simple pair of strapped sandals down by the front door that would match it perfectly if she had to go out. But she wasn’t anticipating needing to. She didn’t want to. Out was dangerous.

Out was a risk; she wouldn’t allow herself to act against her marriage anymore. Maybe it was partly subconscious motivation; she didn’t want to dress up, to look beautiful or sexy. She didn’t want to attract that kind of attention or interest. Casual wear was much better. Safer.

But as soon as Brooke was alone in the house she let out a faint cry. She had felt that switching happen in her head; the program had taken her over, and there was an action she had to execute. She was doing it already, her body taking her out to the second family car, getting her to start driving. She was going, it was her imperative: she was going to Leslie’s house again and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Leslie had furnished the place since last week; he was sitting on his new, fresh and clean living room couch like he had been waiting, expecting to see her show up at some point.

Once she was standing before him, she seemed a little more able to deviate from script. “You can’t change me anymore,” she defied. “You can’t make me—”

“All this out of character behavior is very upsetting for you, isn’t it?” He cut her off with his own words.“You don’t want to be upset by it anymore, it’s very distressing.” He’d lifted that ‘anymore’ right out of what she’d said. Taken what she said, lifted the surface meaning and twisted what was underneath in his own direction. It had already confused her; she was disoriented now.

“You’d rather just drift, instead of being distressed. It felt so good to drift the first time. Drift now.”

A series of hidden switches in her head only he knew how to press; with that direction, he had just pressed another. She remembered what it had felt like to be the one holding power. She’d made Stan bring her to orgasm with an instruction like that one. But she was the one in someone else’s power. She was the one powerless.

She regretted going along with the hypnosis the first time. Now she couldn’t stop repeat occurrences; the first time she’d chosen willingly, but now it was something beyond her ability to choose. Helpless like this, he could make her sleep with him again; she was wishing for it on some level, finding relief.

But he seemed ready to understand that her mind might go to that fear. “Just think of this as a syncing up. I’m not interested in having any further access to your body. I’ve seen what you have to offer. Once was enough, I’ve no interest in a repeat experience.”

Some part of her was offended to be so written off like this. She remembered how Stan had looked at her, and that was who she was now. Someone who inspired that kind of awe and reverence, who held that kind of power and influence over those susceptible, those interested in her. She deserved to be spoken of better than that; recognized for her greatness, all that she could offer a lover if she deigned to bestow her love on them...

But the majority of her response was only relief that, with Leslie, at least, she wouldn’t have to have any more extramarital sex.

It was actually disturbing, even in a trance, to think how much of her had been offended instead of relieved. Was there some kind of slow takeover happening to her, one side of her mind eating the other? That was most upsetting of all; Leslie had been right about that, she didn’t want to think things like that. She’d rather just... drift. She let those concerns go.

“I could find anyone to have sex with; wouldn’t necessarily need to hypnotize them first either, even if they would have been as accepting of it as you were. But there’s something I can only do with you. You remember what I put into your head. It’s why you came back here today. It’s been just one week since you started changing, and here you are. What you have to do for me now is tell me: tell me what this week has been for you. Tell me what’s happened. And you have no choice but to be completely honest. You always want to be honest with me, to avoid leaving anything out. Go.”

Her mouth was open; she was giving her confession.

“After you changed me,” she started, “I was so angry. I fit back into my life the way I should. But I was wrong; I loved my family, I did everything for them like I always do; I would make any sacrifice for them, but now I had to do everything knowing how I was betraying them all, risking our lives together.”

She hesitated. The words had flowed out; but they weren’t right, she had to fix them.

“It wasn’t my fault; none of it, it wasn’t my decision, you decided for me—”

“What happened next?” He pressed on. He had settled further back in his seat, ready to enjoy what he would be hearing.

“I was so angry; and I was so full of tension, I just wanted to get it out of me. I went to the gun range where I’m a member. The first day, the second day, then on the third day I... lost control again, and I called the gun range attendant over. I fucked him too... then I felt so terrible about it all the week after that I refused to leave the house. It was the only way to make sure it wouldn’t happen again with a different stranger. But then I couldn’t stop myself today; as soon as my husband took the kids out of the house, I found myself behind the wheel, on the way over here.”

Leslie looked at her. “Did you ask them to leave?”

Brooke frowned, not understanding. “No, it just worked out that way.”

He went on looking at her. “I want you to think over everything you just said to me. And then I want you to tell me if what you said was really honest. It didn’t sound like it to my ears.”

She thought, she was carried on the gentle waves of hypnosis’ loving pull... it had pulled her to drift before; hadn’t erased who she was or how she could react in a social exchange, sync-up or not. But it had pulled her to drift, and now it pulled her inside to think over the report she’d just given to Leslie. She had to think over how it sounded to her own perception.

When she thought of what she had actually heard herself say, it sounded like someone making excuses for themself. All was what Leslie had done to her; all was what her ulterior side could make her do. Where was she in this? The first time he’d hypnotized her; just as he’d said, to remind her; she had not been bound up by his commands. She had willingly let the binding come onto her: she had wanted the escape.

It had been her choice too, while Stan had been fucking her, to stop resisting and to just enjoy. In the seduction: to love the power. But she couldn’t accept these sides of herself, couldn’t face them. It hadn’t been her fault; it really hadn’t been her fault; that was the thing she kept getting stuck on, and as far as she could reason out, it was true. She’d wanted an escape; for a few minutes. She’d even been willing to submit to hypnosis for it, had enjoyed, not because anyone had made her, but had actually enjoyed fucking Leslie.

But she’d been okay with it, under the understanding it would only happen once, and never again. She’d been okay with it thinking that it wouldn’t intrude into her life. But these weekly meetups to confess... becoming irresistibly compelled to fuck strangers along the way of her typical routes and routines.

So she could almost see the places that were her responsibility; the places where she had actually enjoyed herself... when she thought of what she’d felt, said... It had sounded like a woman conflicted; who for her own reasons wasn’t willing to go along, but who couldn’t stop herself from exhilarating in what happened along the way.

That wasn’t how she’d seen herself before. It wasn’t who she wanted to be. It made her want to drag her hands down over her face. But she’d never known pleasure like what she’d experienced in movement with Stan. Not with her husband, or any other sexual partner. She’d never known power like she’d held and seen reflected back to herself in Stan’s eyes as they looked at her.

These things were special, like doors into a new world she wanted to explore. How could she really say the side of her that felt those things wasn’t really her? But how could she not? It wasn’t her fault, really wasn’t her fault. She was a woman conflicted.

She was released from that inward draw, back to understanding where Leslie was sitting in the room with her.

“I wasn’t completely honest,” she admitted. “When I had sex with the attendant, I felt pleasure unlike anything else I’ve ever known. I became incoherent; I didn’t think that could actually happen to people. And the way I told him what to do and he listened. I felt so powerful. I’ve never felt power like that in my life, not even before I gave up working.”

“Seems like you’ve missed a lot, and then found it here,” Leslie commiserated. Seemingly sympathetic, but concurrently manipulative.

Brooke shook her head fast.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “I have a life! People I love, people who are counting on me, and this will tear all of our lives apart—” she had gotten agitated, she was gesturing widely; he stopped her with one word.

“Relax,” he said. “Let your mind open further. Your family is at no risk. You can stop worrying about them. Everything you do; it’s just for you. You have your own needs. The things you do for yourself don’t have to benefit your family. They never even have to know about them. And I’m not leading you down some twisting path to a trap. This isn’t a long game to blow up your happiness, destroy your marriage and ruin your children’s lives. So you can just let go of that fear.”

Brooke felt her body loosen; her lungs exhaled. It had been the trap that kept her from fully accepting. It had been the thing to keep her wanting to fight. But now it wasn’t binding her any further. She would never have to think about it, her family would be safe. But—

“As long as you cover for what you’re doing,” Leslie amended. “Protect your secrets yourself and you’ll protect your family’s lives and happiness.”

That qualified the sense of abiding security. There was still a risk here; but there was no doomed foregone conclusion and she had feared that almost more than any other possible risk. He’d just unraveled that for her. It had been greatly reduced as a problem; wasn’t occupying all of her worries.

She inhaled. There was more honesty that she had to lay out.

“Then... the problem isn’t with how my external life will be affected.” As if it was her own realization... it was starting to feel like it had been. She was starting to forget where it had come from at all. In hypnosis it was easy for all things to blur together and blend and mix.

“The problem is with me. I just can’t be this person. It’s not who I am. No matter what I feel, no matter what evidence I see, I have to reject it. I can’t accept that this is part of who I am. It isn’t me. It isn’t who I have ever been.”

She was slipping into recursions of speech... repeating what she needed to make true for the sake of her own comfort. Easy to fall into circular patterns in trance... to go around and around.

“Why?” Leslie prompted her, succinctly.

“I see myself one way. The mother. The wife. The daughter. The sister. Those are my identities. It’s not about consequences, not anymore. It’s the simple fact that who ever this seductress is, this power-wielder, she doesn’t fit with those identities. She will always seem like an alien to me, and nothing can ever change that.” Brooke concluded, with insistive force.

Leslie breathed out. “Relax again. More,” he told her; she did it immediately. She was loosened even more, she was wobbly on her legs.

“You want to keep splitting yourself from enjoying it; from accepting that this other woman you’ve described is also you. But it’s stressful; it’s causing you so much inner turmoil, fighting and fighting yourself. Let that go too; when you understand that this behavior and this identity is just more of you, revealing herself in a new environment; then you’ll be in a state of peace.”

It was so simple. And it seemed so true as soon as it came to her on his words. She had thought, herself, that she was a woman in conflict. Now she had that same concept affirmed and reflected back to her by Leslie’s words.

She had been clinging to defenses, and she could see it so clearly now. She’d been in denial before, hadn’t wanted to be challenged.

But she wasn’t anymore. Yes... that seemed more like her... she’d found a new facet of herself she didn’t want to find, another face on her gemstone, but she’d found it all the same. And she could embrace it now. It was her, too. The same as the mother, wife, daughter and sister were her. It wasn’t fair to herself, wasn’t kind, to deny and fight something that was as true about her as everything else.

“I can accept that,” Brooke sighed, and Leslie nodded to himself.

“Then your sync-up is complete. Your program has been reinforced. You’re ready to wake up now.”

She was released from trance. As soon as properly conscious again, everything looked a lot less simple.

“I can’t just... accept all of that just—” she snapped once— “like that.”

“But you can start to. You can come back next week and sync-up again. And during the week, we both know that you’ll be unable to resist your program. When you carry it out, that will help you, too. Everything will help you to settle onto the truth, eventually.”

There was a foregone conclusion after all. This one seemed a little less like a doom. She didn’t quite feel the need to dread it now.

“Goodbye,” was all she wanted to say to him. He was still an ambivalent figure in her eyes.

She thought about it more on the drive home; then sitting alone in her house, waiting for her family to come back there. It might settle in as truth eventually... but just then, she couldn’t be sure if it actually was true, or just what Leslie had put inside of her head.