The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Elle Murphy had been a cat in a previous life—or at least, so she thought on mornings like this one, when she had finished a good yoga workout and lay sprawled on the floor of the living room, savoring the late-spring morning sun coming in through the east window. Like a bather in a perfect hot tub, she was bathing in the sheer joy of lying motionless, of having no need—not thirst or hunger or anything else—to move, or, for the time being, to look at a clock or planner, or to do anything but feel the health and strength of her body.

So she was just a little bit annoyed when she heard her husband’s voice. “Aren’t you a pretty picture?” he said.

Lewis had come into the room without her hearing, and her solitary moment of cathood was shattered.

Or perhaps not entirely.

Louis, as was his habit, had dropped to a prone position on the rug and was rather desperately kissing her right foot and tickling it with his tongue. He and she both loved that feeling.

Usually.

On this occasion, however, Elle had not quite gotten enough of the sheer joy of solitude and was mildly annoyed at her entirely innocent husband for shattering the mood. And underneath the annoyance, though she was only dimly aware of it, was the knowledge that if she didn’t nip his advances in the bud, she might easily end up spreadeagled on the carpet with Louis’s head between her legs. That was actually a pleasant fantasy—he had, over the course of their marriage, become extremely skilled at pleasing her with his tongue. But she had an appointment for lunch, and besides, she was still feeling like a catwoman—sensual like a dozing cat, but also, as cats are wont to be, surprising, self-sufficient, and more than a tad cruel.

That feeling explains what she did next.

There was no need to do it—after years of marriage, she had implanted certain hypnotic triggers so deep in Louis’s mind that he would have complied almost before she finished uttering them. One set of words would send him back to his study with no memory of having seen or spoken to her; a second would turn him into Louise, the dutiful and ever-discreet housemaid who kept their living quarters tidy; a third would transform him in his own mind at least into her ottoman, sprawled out of the floor for her to rest her feet, bare or in heels, on his back, that feeling sending him deeper into trance.

All those were tried and true. But what cat wants the tried and true? That was boring—the kind of thing dogs valued. No, a self-respecting cat likes to think of new ways to torment a mouse, and Louis at this moment was very much Elle’s mouse.

“Lewis Wentworth!” she said sharply. “Go stand over there—right—now!” With one red-tipped nail she pointed to a corner of the study, far from the window but near her collection of hypnosis books and journals.

Louis, a puzzled expression on his face, immediately complied. Once in place, he looked around curiously, as if expecting a welcome party.

“Stop that!” Elle said, rising to her feet with a leap that showed off the muscle tone her exercise regime had given her. “Look at me! Right now! Look into my eyes!” She found herself wishing Louis spoke Italian, because right then she wanted to be Giucas Casella, the Italian hypnotist who trapped his subjects by saying, over and over, “Guardame!” (“Look at me!”) until the right moment, when he would shout “Dormi!” (“Sleep.”) Afterwards the subjects would turn into cats or eat their thumb thinking it was ice cream, etc. Like Elle’s cat persona, Giucas was a little bit mischievous, even sometimes, well, mean, giving embarrassing command (especially to men) but his subjects obeyed him without hesitation. Elle thought there was something to be said for that kind of obedience.

Louis was now doing his best deer-in-the-headlights look, his eyes clearly captured by hers. To test this theory, she swayed just a bit from side to side, and his gaze followed helplessly. She smiled, more to herself than to him. “Louis, stand at attention when I talk to you! Now! ATTENTION!”

At once he straightened out into a rigid vertical line, his eyes still held, his shoulders back, his back and legs ramrod straight.

Elle gave a musical laugh. “You know who you remind me of right now, darling?” she asked. “Do you remember the boy in ‘Mario and the Magician’?” Thomas Mann’s short story, which depicted a stage hypnotist gradually gaining power over his entire audience, was a favorite of hers and of Louis’s. She could see recognition in his eyes, along with just a touch of concern—well, worry—oh, well, yes, fear.

“You remember that boy, don’t you, darling? Mann calls him a ‘feeble, ecstatic youth,’ and he says that when the magician snapped his whip at him he would ‘would fling himself back as though struck by lightning, place his hands rigidly at his sides, and fall into a state of military somnambulism, in which it was plain to any eye that he was open to the most absurd suggestion that might be made to him.’ That’s you right now, Louis. Feeble, ecstatic, open to my suggestions.”

He nodded, clearly having some difficulty speaking. “Good boy,” Elle said. “Now stay there until I tell you to stand at ease.”

With a feline snicker, she left the living room and headed upstairs to confront the urgent question of what to wear to her lunch with Juliet. True, it was “just” lunch at the Mall—but no ordinary mall; RiverStreet was a development right by the big river, and La Pendule was an elegant French eatery with tables looking down on the water. The view was spectacular—but equally important as seeing was, well, being seen. Elle Murphy had a certain reputation to keep up, after all—the famous hypnotist married to the famous writer attracted glances in public, and sometimes new clients. So—what was glam enough, but, well, not too glam, for lunch with a lady who lunches?

She took a quick glance at her watch, however, and realized with a jolt that she didn’t have time for a deep dive into glamville. She had remained a sunny kitten for too long; she had lost track of time, and Jerry, her driver, would be in front of the house in the car in just five minutes. By the time they got to RiverStreet her friend Juliet would be seated and waiting.

As a radio personality, Juliet had a highly developed sense of punctuality.

There was no time for serious fashion consultation. Elle looked at herself in her yoga outfit, a nice shade of pale blue with no runs or holes—it was practically new and she had to admit she looked pretty trim in the matching shirt and pants. It also felt, well, wonderful—perfectly fitted, not tight or loose, just like a chic second skin. That would have to do. But how to dress it up? Quickly she threw on a silk top with an asymmetrical collar and looked in the mirror; the colors went together nicely—a pale green for the outfit, a rich teal for the silk top. She was inspired by the colors, and reached into the shoe closet to find a new pair that she had graciously allowed Louis to buy for her: a pair of powder-blue Fluevog Zewde Mary Janes trimmed in peach and sporting a nice solid 3″ heel. And though the color had inspired her, she realized as she slid them on that the main reason she loved these shoes was not the way they looked but how they gave her height, and authority, but were so solid and comfortable that she felt utterly immovable, almost connected to the center of the earth, like the still point of the turning world, which featured her at its center. . . She felt, again, like a cat, a big cat this time, crouching in the jungle and stalking its unsuspecting prey.

She heard a car horn honk—it was Jerry. She grabbed the Bottegha Veneta clutch she’d allowed Louis to buy for her in Chicago a few months ago* and headed for the door. As she dashed down the stairs, she had a fleeting sense that she had forgotten something, and in the foyer she began to turn around—until she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the front hall table and realized that her hair was—well—out of control, thick and tawny as ever but now absurdly windblown, as if she had just breezed in from a windstorm. That must have been what she had been trying to remember! She’d forgotten to put her hair in order, and now there was no time. She grabbed a comb, made a few ineffectual passes at her hair, and dashed out the door.

It is a fact of human nature that even someone as self-aware as Elle Murphy (who was a trained psychotherapist as well as a hypnodomme) may sometimes fail to understand the self she is presenting to the world. Item by item, Elle’s look on this spring Saturday seemed to have been hastily, almost randomly, thrown together—but a stranger watching her dash gracefully to the car would have seen a woman whose posture, clothing, shoes, and unruly leonine hairstyle all in unison sang to the world that here was someone completely at home in herself, body and mind, someone who was dynamic, sexy, and most importantly not to be meddled with. That kind of confidence is—well—the best word is seductive. A man meeting her in this guise would probably feel a strong urge to throw himself at her feet, even knowing that she would probably just step over him and walk on without even having noticed his submission.

They drove to the Mall in silence. Jerry was, as usual, nearly mute with awe in her presence; that had been true ever since she had saved him from the hypnotic clutches of Milagro Hada, a fictional character who was created by Louis in one of his books but who fell madly in love with her creator and crawled out of a magic mirror to the real world on a mission to assassinate Elle. (It’s a long story.**) Elle not only snapped him out of Milagro’s spell, she first prevented Louis from smashing his head with a chair and then managed to prevent him from being arrested and tried for stealing a gun and trying to shoot her. After that, Jerry decided to give up his job at the Hadleyburg E-Z Mart and come to the Tri-County area to serve Elle in any way she would permit. She, being used to this sort of abrupt masculine surrender, accepted his devotion without any particular surprise. She was allowing him to drive her both ways because she intended to have a glass of wine at lunch. Besides which, being driven was fun.

Coming down out of the East Hills, Elle looked at the river and the city around it. It was home—and, after many years of some confusion, it felt like home, the place where her life should be taking place. Her work was here, her friends, and her true love and obedient hypno-husband, who was not only able but eager not just to provide for her but to give her everything he had and accept back joyfully only what she was pleased to give him. His writing paid for their nice house; but Elle’s hypnotic programming was responsible for the writing. When they met, he’d been a prestigious but rather poor writer of avant-garde adult fiction. As Elle opened his psyche and explored it hypnotically, she realized that his true gift was in stories for young people—stories not so much about the existential despair of daily life as about the ins and outs of what she called a “hypnotic lifestyle.” His “Hypnoteen” Young Adult novels had made them both not exactly wealthy but, coupled with her income from therapy and lecturing, able to live well and travel when they wanted. So Elle felt she deserved his financial submission; but beyond that, Louis found it exquisitely sexy to give her all his money and thank her for his allowance—and Elle did too. It was a pleasant part of their marital bond.

“Mistress,” said Jerry’s voice. “Uh—Doctor Murphy? We’re here.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Elle said. She absentmindedly patted his cheek, then leapt out of the car (thus missing the effect of her fond gesture on the young man, who nearly lost consciousness) and into the cool interior of La Pendule. She at once spotted Juliet across the room, situated at a window table with a view of the river, and dashed across the floor to her table—again failing to notice the hostess pursuing her with a menu.

“Hello, kiddo,” she said, kissing Juliet’s cheek. Without looking around she accepted the hostess’s proffered menu and dropped gracefully into a chair. “Please note for the record that I am not late.”

Juliet elaborately lifted her wrist to look at her watch. “I suppose,” she said with an impish grill, “that we can overlook a question of 30 seconds or so. I have ordered my glass of wine.”

Juliet, an old college friend, was probably the only figure in Elle’s life (except for her mother and Uncle Ray) who felt comfortable chiding her even mildly. She was a striking figure in her own right, with rich cocoa-colored skin and curves upon curves. Today she was dressed in a trim blue suit, with a dark red blouse and a splendid sunburst necklace. Juliet turned heads wherever she went, but most often did not even notice. Her self-image was more or less stuck back in high school, when cruel classmates had taunted her for her figure and she had shyly concealed her verbal gifts and the insight into people that made her a brilliant interviewer for a local radio station.

Elle sat down and had hardly had time to open her mouth when the waiter, a slender young man with a thatch of brown hair, was at her side. “Can I get you something to drink, ma’am?”

No one had called Elle “ma’am” in a long time; she realized what must be going on. “Yes,” she said, handing him the menu. “I’ll have a glass of Pinot Noir and the steak frites. Cook it rare, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking the menu.

“And there’s no need to call me ma’am, dear,” she added. “’Boss’ will do fine.”

“Yes, boss,” he said without a hint of irony, and dashed toward the kitchen to put in her order.

“What in the world just happened?” Juliet asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Elle, that poor kid looked like you had hit him with a poleaxe!”

“Did he?” Elle said negligently. “Bless his heart, he must be feeling pretty good now.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Juliet, a lot of men are born with saddles on their backs and they are happiest when someone rides them.”

At this point they were interrupted by the return of the waiter with their wine. “Here you are, boss,” he said to Elle as he placed her glass reverently in front of her.

“Thank you—what is your name, sugar?”

“Vincent,” he said in a tight voice. By now, to judge by the look on his face, he was probably unaware of where he was or that other people were in the room.

“Vincent, I want you to meet Juliet,” Elle said. “She’s a wonderful friend and you will take good care of her.”

“Yes, boss,” he said without looking away from Elle’s face.

“Vincent, look at Juliet. Where are your manners?”

With some difficulty, he turned to Juliet and extended a hand. “How do you do?” he said rather formally.

“Right, now we need our food, don’t we?” Elle said. “Off you go!”

He departed at once.

“You’ll get VIP treatment every time you come here from now on,” Elle told her friend.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, dear. I offered him a chance to be who he is—someone who wants to serve and obey. I was doing him a favor.”

“By flirting with him? By making him call you ‘boss’?”

“I didn’t make him! Juliet, he loved it. Remember what Hawthorne said: ‘When men seek only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily granted—and so well deserved!’”

Elle’s mission at this lunch was simple: to convince her friend Juliet that her future lay in training as a hypnodomme. Elle had demonstrated to her the extent to which a tame male could be useful—Juliet had been astonished to learn that Louis did all the housekeeping and cooking, and even more astonished to learn that he kissed Elle’s hand in gratitude that she allowed him to serve. Now, Elle thought, it was time to sign her up for intensive training.

Elle wasn’t trying to sell the lessons to Juliet; they would be free. There was a different long-range plan (only half-formed, but coming into focus) that would benefit everyone involved. But first, Juliet needed advanced hypnosis training. The conversation turned to that issue as the meal drew to a close. “Juliet,” Elle said. “You were the star of that training—you’re a natural. The next step is learning to find your own pet man and put him to good use.”

Juliet gave an embarrassed laugh. “I can’t find a man who will call me twice, much less a pet man,” she said. “I am thinking of finding a different dating app.”

Elle leaned forward and said, half-conspiratorially, “Juliet, you are just swiping right on the wrong profiles! I have met some of your dates—they are men who are looking for a woman to admire and serve them. They don’t call back because they know they’ll never be able to dominate you in the long run. You don’t swipe on the profiles of men who would gladly spend their lives serving your every need.”

From her expression, Elle knew she was getting through to her. Now came the objections. “So I am looking for weaklings?” Juliet asked. “That doesn’t sound so wonderful.”

“That’s a misconception,” Elle said. “Think about Louis—is he a weakling?”

“Oh, my, no!” Juliet answered at once—perhaps suspiciously quickly, though Elle had long been aware that her friend, without the slightest desire to do anything untoward about it, found her husband quite attractive.

“Well, then,” Elle said, “Let’s find you a Louis! A man who wants to serve women can be a very strong, able, protective lover and companion. As my Uncle Ray said, ‘a man may be submissive, but he may also be a hero.’”***

“How is your Uncle Ray?”

“He’s great!” Ray, a former mind-controller for U.S. intelligence, had gone into retirement and was married to Elle’s mother, the love of his life. He ran a magic store downtown and cooked amazing meals for her and Louis when he had the time. “He’s taking his mentalism show to State U. to entertain the kids.” Elle allowed the conversation to drift into their gossip about mutual friends without attempting to bring it back to Topic A. She knew enough about sales to know that she shouldn’t push. After a while, Juliet fell silent clearly thinking about something as she ate. The waiter brought them their check. “You paid last time,” Elle said, producing Louis’s credit card. She briefly pondered giving the lovestruck waiter a kiss on the cheek in lieu of a tip, but that (though it might thrill him for the rest of the day) would be using her powers for ill, which she would never do. Or not often. Or not today, anyway. Probably. Not right now anyways.

“Listen,” she said after she signed, “Jerry won’t be here for 45 minutes. I have some shopping to do—want to walk around the mall?”

Juliet looked at her watch. “Sure,” she said. “I have two hours before I have to be back at the studio.

That was how they found themselves in the women’s fashion section of Braid’s, the regional department-store chain, admiring a mannequin wearing an outfit plainly inspired by a woman’s riding habit—tailored tight fawn-colored trousers, and a flared reddish-brown jacket over a frilly white blouse.

“What do you think?” Elle asked her friend.

“All you’d need is a riding crop,” Juliet said lightly.

“Oh, good heavens, I already have several of those,” Elle said. Ignoring Juliet’s surprised look, she summoned a young woman with a store nametag and said she would like to try on the outfit. The girl fave an appraising glance, then brought out a tape measure. “This will look sensational on you,” she said, “but it has to fit well.” She turned to get the outfit out of the stockroom.

While they were waiting, Elle found herself trying to remember what it was that she had forgotten. Hair—no. Purse—no, she had that. Mail a letter, or return something to one of the stores—no. It was out of character for her to forget things—then she had a glimmer—it was almost there, and soon—

“Elle!” Juliet’s voice was a cross between a whisper and a hiss. “Look over there.” Elle, her train of thought derailed, looked at her friend and saw her signaling with her eyes that Elle should disecreetly look behind her. “It’s the waiter effect again!” Juliet said.

Elle turned and saw what she meant: a very distinguished-looking older gentleman—maybe, she thought, a professor or scholar of some kind—seemed to have been brought to a dead halt by the mere sight of Elle. He was making no effort to hide the fact that he was staring—probably, it seemed, because the sight of her had made him forget where he was and what he was doing.

Elle’s predatory instincts were very sharp, and this gentleman could serve a useful educational purpose. The look was one she recognized both from her own practice and from her reading and study. The best description came from an old stage hypnotism manual by “Leonidas” she had read once as a teenager in the public library. The professor caught in Elle’s headlights matched the old book’s description: “He has given up to severe concentration. He feels that all the people around him were lower than he and looking directly at him. He is the subject who can be ‘fetched’ with little effort.”

Elle looked at the gentleman, caught his eye, and gave him her most dazzling smile. Holding his gaze steadily, smiling as if he were her long-lost brother, she walked right up to him and said in a tone audible only to the two of them, “Sir, I need your help! I need a fashion consult on a new outfit I’m considering. You’ll help me, won’t you? Nod your head if you will—oh, wonderful, thank you so much.” Now she lightly touched his face with her fingertips and said, “But first you will need to go down to the coffee bar and bring back three small vanilla lattes, do you understand? Good boy—Off you go!”

The gentleman turned slowly, and with a dazed expression walked, with the odd gliding gait of a man walking through water, toward the exit into the mall. Elle went back to Juliet and said, “What a nice man!”

“What did you do to him, Elle?”

“I?” she fluttered her eyelids modestly. “I didn’t do anything. He volunteered to help us.”

Juliet looked disconcerted, but her attention shifted when the salesclerk returned with the outfits in Elle’s size. She began explaining the material and the cut, but Elle said, “No, I see that, I like it—let’s just see what it will look like on.” Taking the outfit, Elle walked over to the dressing rooms and carefully undressed and donned the riding outfit. The fit was quite nice, on the whole—the breeches especially were snug and flattering, and the frilly blouse created an outfit that looked like a cross between Austin Powers and Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet.”

She came out and presented herself to Juliet and the clerk, who both expressed approval. At that point, the old professor reappeared, wearing a confused expression and carrying a tray of coffee cups in his hand. “Oh, thank you, aren’t you kind?” Elle said. She took the tray and gave coffees to both Juliet and the clerk, then kept one for herself. “Now,” she said after a long sip, “I need your best judgment. Tell me whether I look good in this outfit.” She twirled slowly in front of him. “Look carefully, I am depending on you to see me—do you see the outfit? That’s it, nod. What do you think? Does it look good?”

Silently, his head nodded up and down and his lips formed the soundless word ‘yes.”

“You are so sweet to say so—you’ve been such a help! But now I am worried—” she put her hand on his cheek—“I am afraid you are forgetting that errand you had to do down at the north end of the mall, you remember the one, you were worried you might forget it and you might even go there and forget on the way, you’d better start off now before you forget completely, just—off you go!” And the poor smitten scholar wandered off again with his strange underwater gait and was lost from view.

“I am going to take this,” Elle said. “We need to pin it up a few places, though.” The salesclerk began tugging the sleeves this way and that and making marks. “Your husband was awfully helpful,” she said.

Elle, meanwhile, was looking at a display of belts for one that might go with her new equestrian outfit. “Oh,” she said absent-mindedly, “he’s not my husband.”

“No? Oh! Who is he then?”

“I have no idea. Does this come in brown?”

The clerk was looking at her with a confused but admiring stare. “Yes,” she said. “I can get it for you in back. And if you’d like to wait, we can have these alterations done in less than an hour.”

“Oh, no need to hurry,” Elle said. “I am going to send my real husband by tomorrow and let him pay for it. He enjoys that.”

“All right,” said the clerk. Then she stopped and looked curiously at her customer. “If you don’t mind my asking, what is it that you do?”

“Me?” Elle said. “I’m a therapist and a trainer—I work with women who want to learn to step into their own power.”

“Oh,” said the clerk. “That sounds so interesting! Do you—do you have a card?”

“Certainly, sweetie.” Elle rummaged in her purse and produced a business card with her email and phone. “Just drop me an email and we can set an appointment. I’d like to see you, so we will just say the first two sessions are free.”

The clerk was dumbstruck by her good fortune. “Well, thank—”

“Ok, then,” Elle said briskly. “Juliet, I have to go—Jerry will be waiting.”

They waved goodbye to their new friend and head toward the mall drop off entrance.

“Elle, that guy that bought us lattes,” Juliet said. “Won’t he be mad when he realizes you didn’t pay him back?”

Elle threw her head back and laughed, her untamed mop of tawny hair flying behind her like a defiant flag. “Oh, Juliet,” she said. “Don’t be silly. That gent had the time of his life waiting on us. And besides which, by the time he is halfway across the mall he will have forgotten the whole episode. All he will remember is a really good feeling about himself as a man who is useful to women.”

“Elle,” Juliet said. “You really are a pirate—no, more than that, you are living in the Gangsta Paradise.”

Elle was seized by the giggles at the idea, which had never occurred to her before. “You’re too funny! I never thought of it that way! I just think of myself as playing pirate from time to time. But like the guy in the Coolio song, I ain’t never crossed a man who didn’t deserve it!”

It was Juliet’s turn to crack up. Suddenly, by one of those common impulses that come to old friends with a shared history, the two friends broke into a few hip-hop steps they remembered from parties at State U. Then they stopped, still laughing, as mall shoppers gaped at them in surprise.

Juliet turned serious. “Okay, Elle,” she said.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I am in for the training,” she said. “This was quite a trip to the mall.”

“Wonderful! Let’s start tonight! Shall we say eight?”

“What do you charge?”

“Juliet! How can you even ask me that? This is my gift to you—you’re my oldest friend and it’s fun for me to share what I have learned.”

“Well—that’s really quite a gift! Thanks!”

“Bestie, anything I have is yours for the asking.”

The two women parted with a hug and Elle strode out into the beautiful afternoon. Jerry was parked at the pullout and she jumped into the back seat and pulled on her sunglasses. Apparently he thoughtful expression was also a formidable one, as the slavishly devoted driver and factotum didn’t say a word, just set out for home.

She jumped out of the car at home without a word, not even glancing back (which, had she thought about it, simply cemented the poor boy’s desire to win her attention with greater acts of service) and fumbled for her keys. Rather than search, she thought, she could just ring the doorbell and wait for the door to be opened by—

Louis.

That was the thing she had forgotten: her husband Louis! She had stashed him in the corner of the living room, standing at attention like a Christmas nutcracker and—and told him not to move until she told him to.

She hadn’t told him to move. That had been two and a half hours ago.

Surely not even lovely, suggestible, submissive Louis would still be there, straining every muscle, just because she gave him a single suggestion? Her conscience, which had been clear about sending the susceptible professor for coffee (he’d been walking around the mall seeking domination and he’d found it), now began to bother her. Louis, after all, had quite consciously placed his will under hers—because, he told her, he trusted her completely, he knew her hypnotic domination of him was always intended for his own good and their mutual pleasure.

But two and a half hours at attention? No, she concluded, the command must have gradually led him into ordinary sleep, followed by waking—isn’t that what the hypnosis books said? Or he would have remembered whatever plans he had for the afternoon and woken himself up? Or become uncomfortable and begun to move and come awake that way? Would he be annoyed at her, or would his muscles ache?

She dashed up the steps to the living room.

And there he was, still standing at attention, shoulders back, head erect, eyes closed—and a look of unutterable bliss on his face, like the expression of a man who has just visited heaven.

“Oh, Louis,” she said rather desperately. “At ease, Louis. You can wake now. Open your eyes! Bright and clear!”

Louis’s eyes opened at least halfway, and he looked around with the sleepy benevolence of a man passing from out of a moonless night into a firelit chamber. His mouth worked slightly—it must have been dry after all that time without drinking or even swallowing—but he seemed quite contented with his lot and unsurprised to see his domme-wife.

“Hi, my love,” he said.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Sure! Why wouldn’t I be? That was a nice little nap.”

“Little nap—Louis, you were standing like that for nearly three hours!”

“What?” he said. “You must be mistaken, sweetheart. It was 15 minutes or so at most.”

“Look at your watch, darling boy.”

He raised his wrist and she could see his head jerk back slightly in surprise. He sat there for a moment, and Elle found herself dreading his next words.

But all he said was, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“You really didn’t know?”

“Elle, I wish I were still under, to be honest. It was like—well, it was like leaving my body and mind behind and floating up to paradise. Just pure blankness and total comfort and—well, there was someone else there too.”

“Who?” she said nervously, wondering who had emerged from her husband’s unconscious mind while he was blank and unguarded.

“Well, I kinda think it was—you, Elle. Who else?”

Elle felt a sudden rush of appreciation for his giving the right answer. Without meaning to, she had carried his mind to another place and planted his body in this one, and both had stayed where she put them in comfort and peace until she called him back to life.

She felt a rush of power, strong enough to have an aphrodisiac effect even on a woman as used to dominance as Elle Murphy.

And there he was, her hypno-husband, looking suddenly to her like the most delectable bonbon possible, like a gift to her for her to use as she wished, like, well, on a stick.

“Louis, you must need to go to the bathroom.”

“I suppose I do.”

“Well, go and—and come right back here, do you understand?”

“Yes, dear,” he said, and shambled off toward the powder room with the almost maddening air of calm he had brought back with him from his—was it really a nap, or something…else?

When he came back, she was standing by the fireplace with a distinctly predatory gleam in her eyes. His absence had given her just enough time to think about a few of the uses to which such a suggestible, submissive, and sexy subject could be put, and she planned to put him to some of them.

“Louis,” she said, fixing him with a Giucas Casella look. “You must be hot after standing that long—very very hot . . . .”

Soon enough, he was naked, and she was, as she almost had been earlier that day, spread eagled on the carpet, as relaxed as a rag doll while he was busily working between her legs with his talented tongue.

“Stand at attention,” she thought, was a useful arrow in Cupid’s quiver, like “bedtime!” and “ottoman!” She thought of how faithfully he served her needs, how closely he attended to her moods and wants, how sensually he responded to her sexual demands, how safe she felt around him, how deeply loved—

Her thunderclap orgasm interrupted that train of thought. When she had recovered her wits, she raised her head and said, “Louis! Look at me!” Once his gaze had met hers, she pointed back to the corner of the room where she’d found him like a blissful sentry guarding the gates of heaven. “You know what to do, little man,” she said. “I will call you when I need you.”