The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The scene: I know I’m not the same, even before I’m awake.

I listen to bird songs in an abstract way, and gradually become aware that there is light. When I open my eyes, there are gauzy white window curtains to my right, and a soothing breeze. I know it to be a lovely summer morning, perhaps mid-morning.

I sit up and take in my surroundings. This bedroom I’m in has the textures and colors of something out of a Merchant Ivory movie. My wallet, car keys and phone all lay on a bedside table. On a little folding stand, just like you might find in a hotel room, is the travel bag I left in my car, that had toiletries and a change of clothes.

Is there a message in this ordinary hospitality, that I am free to get dressed and walk out the door if I wish? Can I call 911 for help, or just get in my car and drive home, pretending that last night never happened?

Not that I can everything of last night; that is just as certain as the existence of the breeze moving those curtains. I drank far too much, but that wasn’t my fault when I was triggered to drink too much. I’d been completely under Alessandra’s control on that front, from something as simple as the woman uttering a few odd rhyming words.

So why try to run, when I know in my bones that it’s more like my entire placement in this world has shifted? I can surmise that there is no true escape if there is sophisticated immersion work in me. Even when wearing the best running shoes on earth, there’s no way for any of us to outpace our own shadow.

With so many details of last night being gone, there could even be fresh immersion suggestions lurking in my subconscious mind, in my very cells and synapses. I wonder about that as I look at my phone, and see that I have two new messages. One is audio, a voicemail from Julia. I play it and she tells me not to worry, that Alessandra arranged her ride home. Julia hopes I won’t have a terrible hangover, and she says she’ll be in touch soon.

The other message is a text. It was sent just twenty minutes ago, and it’s from Alessandra. She says she’s out in the Japanese garden, and she hopes I’ll her there. I can get coffee and something to eat down in the kitchen.

I decide on a quick shower, and avail myself of the large bottle of mouthwash that is conveniently available—as far as I know my breath might still reek of the previous night’s exploits. It’s unsettling to think that the full extent of what did or didn’t happen last night is gone. I definitely got tit-fucked by the giant breasts of Ruoya, Rosita Bello’s friend and—if any bit of this is true—Rosita’s business partner.

Did I go down on Alessandra? Did I fuck her, or was I fucked by her? I have no clear memories, although her voice is there in my head, sounding ionate and also very firm. I think I might my right cheek on her legs, my hands gliding up the black stockings… The diamond patterning, very close, and her scent.

Her taste, too? “I should it if I ate her pussy,” I whisper, pulling at a thread of memory.

I try to picture her legs in my head in detail, up close, the texture of the black patterned stockings or even whether the woman has pubic hair… Nothing is solidly there, but it’s also not not there. It’s like trying to a faded dream, feeling haunted but unable to retrieve any reliable images.

My dick is sore, but what does that tell me? Even before the party, Julia fucked me unconscious and sucked me off, and I’m pretty damn certain I got tit-fucked by Ruoya. My dick should be sore, and maybe I should be sore at my dick, for getting me into whatever mess I’m in.

I dress in the fresh clothes that I expected to be wearing this morning at Julia’s place, and walk downstairs. The smell of coffee guides me to the kitchen, which is surprisingly homey. It has an ading breakfast nook that is nearly all windows, and Robin is sitting there at a little round table, completely focused on the screen of a laptop.

I sneak peeks as I pour coffee and sort through a basket filled with scones and muffins. Robin’s shoulder-length red hair looks almost aflame in morning sunlight, and that same light is doing quite a job of telling me just how fit and curvy she is. Big breasts stretch out a plain white t-shirt, while down below her feet are bare. She’s wearing summer shorts, and her legs are sleek and extremely strong, with calf muscles that curve and just pop.

“The Japanese garden?” I say, coffee cup to my lips.

“Take a right after the pathway curves to the left. You can take breakfast with you if you like; there’s a to-go mug on the counter, and paper bags.”

She didn’t look up from her computer for that, nor did her fingers halt in their keyboard activity. I could just get what I want and go outside without another word. I could also be friendly, or make a pest of myself.

“Julia and Grace both got home okay, I take it.”

She stops typing and looks up at me. The eyes behind the big glasses have the clarity of fine diamonds, and all I can think is damn what a gorgeous woman.

“Julia is home, yes; one of Alessandra’s drivers took care of her. Grace is nearby, at a hotel.”

“And they believe I disappeared last night because I had too much to drink?”

“You did have too much too drink. How’s your head?”

“Strangely clear.”

“Lucky you, right?”

Probably hypnotic help, a healing use of the technique that I never once considered. Feeling even more clear with the caffeine’s help, I venture, “Robin, I take it you know pretty much everything that’s really going on? You’re a part of it in some way, whatever all of this is?”

She sits straighter and damn, those tits. “I’d say I know most everything. In James Bond , you might think of me as being something like the Moneypenny character. I’m very clued-in, but sadly desk-bound.”

I nod, thinking that if Moneypenny had looked anything like this woman looks, 007 might have refused to leave on some of his missions, letting parts of the world blow-up.

“Am I mixed up with actual spies?” I ask.

“It really is Alessandra that you need to speak with. There are many things I know only as facts; I don’t have the experience of them.”

“Like? Maybe a breadcrumb or two, before I go out and face the executioner?”

That makes her laugh, and oh fuck is that a lovely thing to see. “No executions today; I would have been notified about scheduling a clean-up. As for a breadcrumb… Okay, the technique. You’re really good with it, as in really good with it. That makes you special, and that’s why you’re here. I’m hopeless in that regard, like most of humanity; the technique, I mean. Alessandra is savant-like with it, too, so… You two need to talk.”

I could end things right there, but decide to say, “You, sitting here in the sun with your laptop… There’s something about this scene that reads like a typical Sunday morning in this house. Any truth to that, that this is in some ways just another summer Sunday?”

She smiles again, but this time there seems to be some craftiness in the expression. “I hope this day doesn’t turn out to be ordinary. But me in shorts after a morning swim… Yes, that’s fairly typical in the summer. And me, having the sense that male eyes are scanning my body and wondering what it would be like to have sex with me… That happens sometimes, too.”

“Shit, sorry.”

“No worries, seriously. Also, it’s a yes that I can’t manage to go more than a couple of hours without returning to the computer. I’m not working right now; I’m gaming. That’s one of my hobbies.”

“Along with…”

“I write some, too. I’m sort of book-ish.”

I sip more coffee and wonder whether Robin games in a connected way with people all over the world. If so, do any of them know what a total knockout she is?

“As for you and Alessandra this morning, and the conversation you’re about to have…” she continues. “On the other side of that, if you feel like you want to talk to somebody, process any of it…”

“You?” I ask, and even I can hear the skepticism in my voice. “You work for her.”

Robin scrunches her mouth. She opens it to say something, closes it, then opens again. “Look, you don’t know me and I get that. You don’t know what or whom to trust, and you also know that I’m a part of all of this. I’m a cog in the machine, if you will. Alessandra is my boss, but she isn’t in me, okay? Nobody is, and I think you know what I mean when I say that.”

I do. Somewhere along the line, almost certainly during the time of my immersion training, Alessandra did get inside of me.

“It’s Sunday, and I’m technically off the clock,” Robin continues. “I volunteered to sit here to point the way to the Japanese garden; it could have worked some other way. So here we are and this is what I want to say to you: On the other side of your conversation with Alessandra, you can seek me out if you wish. Or not; it really—truly—will be up to you. There’s a guest cottage the other way from where you’ll be—it’s past the Italian gardens. I’ll be there all afternoon and evening, doing my own things. Writing, probably. I don’t leave here until early tomorrow morning and I wouldn’t mind the company, but I get it, your disorientation. What Alessandra will tell you is probably the opposite of that, like an orientation meeting, but gaining more clarity won’t necessarily be easy.”

“Yeah, I think I experienced some of that last night.”

A trace of displeasure there behind the lenses of her glasses. Does she not approve of what happened in that room last night? If so, is it the way Alessandra forced me into getting drunk, or Ruoya’s tit-fuck and whatever else?

She looks matter-of-fact again as she says, “See how you feel after the two of you talk, and then decide if you want to speak with me again. You might want to process what you learn, or you might just want to drive away. If it’s the latter, no one will stop you, I promise.”

I stand there with my coffee mug in hand, feeling like I could be someone in a spy or conspiracy movie, having no idea whether I can trust a word that anyone says. Robin is so appealing to look at that of course a part of me loves the idea of seeing her again in a private place…

Another part of me, probably a less cock-oriented part, reminds me that my dick and its love of feminine beauty sure have gotten me into some sort of multi-layered situation. Here’s more beauty, quite extreme, and it’s asking me to “drop by”.

“I guess we’ll see?” I say.

The scene: I find the Japanese garden, and Alessandra. She’s sitting cross-legged in the shade of a small wooden structure, just a handful of paces from a sunken tea house. Her butt is nestled into a round orange and gold pillow, and a similar pillow four feet from her might as well have my name stitched onto it.

I remove my shoes before sitting opposite from her. She has on a gauzy white pullover blouse, probably linen, and shorts the color of putty. I don’t even have to wonder if I need to struggle to keep from staring at her legs every two seconds; of course I’m going to have difficulty with that. Unless I just say fuck-it and don’t even try to struggle.

“I don’t mind,” she begins, either reading my eyes or my thoughts.

I try to gather myself while gazing at the curvature of Alessandra’s thighs as she sits there, appreciating the volumetric bulge of her calf muscles. Jesus, they’re similar to Robin’s in that they’re so big and so round, although her legs are leaner and longer. I sigh, then try to collect myself as I ask, “How do we do this? I tell you the few fragments I feel like I’ve pieced together, and then you—”

“That would be perfect. Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut to begin with, and you speak.”

I nod affirmatively, and launch right in. “I don’t you from Zurich, but at some point during my training you got your hooks into me while I was in the immersion state. We were all placed in the state early on; it was part of our training, to experience immersion hypnosis. While under, I’m sure I told you all about Mira, and how badly I wanted her. I probably told you about her physical attributes and how they just got to me…”

I pause, and Alessandra makes a slight affirmative gesture with her chin. So far so good.

“Who knows, maybe it gave you a few extra chuckles, knowing that you share so many of the same physical traits as Mira. Anyway, I arrived at your doorstep with my inner panther wanting to devour Mira Cassidy’s legs—I’m sure you know all about that panther metaphor—and you decided to juice my need to land her. Hell, I probably even told you that I came pre-equipped with fantasies of somehow using hypnosis to get into bed with Mira, like that was ninety-percent of the reason I was even there.

So you got your hooks in, and it was a foregone conclusion that I would find some way to end up in bed with Mira. I stupidly believed I could choose to follow that path or not… Everything I’ve said up to now feels solid—I have no doubts that I’m on the right track. Things become muddier when I think about someone like Rosita, and especially Dee. Rosita and Ruoya have become buddies, and Ruoya is somehow connected to you, and that’s not a coincidence. Dee came to me through Grace, and that happened before Grace ever became connected to you. The fact that you’re now Grace’s therapist is again no coincidence…

This is where I don’t know what to believe. I’m certain that some connections have been orchestrated, but others seem random. It’s that way with my use of the technique itself—when I had someone hypnotized, especially someone I desired, there were times when I didn’t even have to think of what to say. It was like I had a library of sexy options to tap into—is that you, having filled me up with that library in advance? Other times I felt like I was making my own discoveries, being genuinely creative—fact, or illusion? Meanwhile, beautiful women have shown up; beautiful women have flown off. So what’s random, and what’s been planned?

Most importantly—why? What for? By reading my notebook as I stumbled along, there must have been occasions where you were like an overseer of a rat in a maze. There must have been times of, ‘Oh look, he sure is digging himself a useless hole over here; we’d better nudge him and send him in this other direction.’ And what’s that crap all about, of making me doubt myself during new moons? I see now that I should have doubted myself every fucking day—is that the point, to get your jollies that I couldn’t? And who are you anyway, in a collective sense—the hypnotic Illuminati? The immersion CIA? I mean, what the fuck?”

Alessandra’s demeanor is somewhat calming; it’s the way she listens with no apparent judgment. Any good therapist exudes that quality, but the no-judgment part matters even more when I realize that I’d been openly staring at her knees and calves while speaking, like the woman’s ears are down there.

“That’s all very astute, Michael, which comes as no surprise. Let me speak for a little while now, and you don’t interrupt for a time. Some of your questions will be answered as I go along… Ready?”

I brace myself, trying to be relaxed in my body.

“Yes, it was my voice that entered into you in Zurich. I was brought in for you specifically; more on that in a bit. The overarching ‘we’ that I’m a part of, and that you are now a part of, has no name. You and I can choose to call it anything we wish; I personally like ‘the Hidden Collective’. Robin tends to go with ‘the Underbelly’. As they say, tastes differ.

Even though I’m very much a part of it, I can’t honestly claim to know everything there is to know about it. It is a hierarchy; that much is certain. Whether there is a single person at the very top, or a triumvirate, or even trustees… I won’t tell you, because I’m not completely sure myself. Is this Hidden Collective beneficent, or malevolent in the end? I believe it’s benevolent, though I have no clear-cut proof of that. Call it a gut feeling from all that I do know. It has an underlying purpose that I in a moral sense, and I feel I can trust that. Or—and here I’m in a similar situation to you—maybe that’s just me exercising wishful thinking. On this point, I don’t believe I’ll ever truly know, similar to how some people have real faith in the existence of a loving God or Higher Oneness, even though such a thing can’t be proven. I’ve made my peace with that ambiguity; ultimately, it would be good if the same can happen for you.”

I’m tempted to ask whether I can just be made to believe what they want me to believe, but I hold my tongue.

“Now, on to specifics about you. Like it or not, you were recruited. We knew about you because of your old friend, Sam. He’s close to being a nobody when it comes to anything important; as of this moment, he actually knows less than you do about being a part of anything at all. That’s perfectly fine—his talents are marginal at best, so he can barely cause any trouble, and he did serve as a conduit to you. Sam is just good enough with the technique that it can sometimes give him what he most desires—willing and delighted lovers—and it was a given that he would communicate some of that you. Sam was also useful in letting us know, without knowing he was doing it, that we should consider recruiting you. The two of you dated the same woman at different times in your pasts and… Well, Sam was aware that you possess a certain attribute that has since proven quite useful.”

Is she talking about the fact that I have a big dick? That question is immediately answered by her next words.

“You’re the one who likes to say that ‘anatomy equals destiny’, right? Your anatomy is quite rare; still, if you’d tested poorly at that conference, the last several months of your life would have been completely different. But then you went and tested off the charts; I’m not obligated to tell you this, but you tested even better than I did! Exceedingly few people in this world can do what we can do, Michael; you already know that. We aren’t quite one-in-billions, but it’s in that direction. When you add in that we’re both still young and physically attractive, and in some ways extremely physically blessed in a sexual sense… Well, here we both are.”

I wonder—are her legs her physical blessing? They’re truly excellent, but when I find her assistant’s even more appealing… But then Robin said she was shit with the technique, so maybe that answers that.

“I wasn’t a part of the team that began to observe you pre-Zurich,” Alessandra continues. “Your situation with Mira Cassidy became known; it wasn’t a situation of extracting that information from you when hypnotized. We already knew, and it proved to be the fuel that lured you to Switzerland. But—I think it’s important for you to know this—if Mira had never existed, it’s likely that another scheme would have been devised to achieve the same results. You’re right that some events have been orchestrated, while others are just happenstance. Think of it as master chefs having to make a great meal in a kitchen that has random ingredients; they first learn what’s available, then apply their expertise.

In Zurich, you had a fling with a massage therapist on staff, Ursula. Ursula wasn’t capable of taking you fully into the immersion state, but she got you close enough that I could take over. I thoroughly enjoyed that, by the way, massaging your back and mimicking her accent for a handful of seconds. It was a new challenge, bringing someone into the immersion state that way.

Once you were under, I applied my expertise by ‘juicing’, as you like to call it, your fixation on Mira’s legs specifically, and on those same anatomical traits with other women. Large and well-shaped quads and calves like mine and Mira’s, the overall athletic solidity combined with rare elegance, the feel of hard muscle overlaid with exceptionally sleek and smooth skin… And—forgive me for inserting my own preferences into the mix—I gave you the fetish for beautiful legs in black stockings.

I also gave you an enhanced craving for superb physical fitness and leg-strength, which I mentioned before. Also roundness, wherever that can appear in the female form—the shaping of a woman’s breasts or areolae, the curvature of lips and eyes, the curve of a full calf muscle… That all drives you a bit crazy, doesn’t it?”

Fuck, it did. There had been several times where it was like my dick started venting steam when appreciating the curvature of different physical traits.

“I worked that magic about leg strength and roundness, plus your bigger-is-better breast fixation, partly because of Mira’s physical assets, but also because we knew you’d end up with Julia. Plus, I’ll add, someone very special that I’ll want you to work with in the near future.”

“Wait a minute. From the beginning, you knew that Julia and I would…”

But of course. Julia itted that she never went out on blind dates, and didn’t really know why she was breaking her own rules. Calling me again, as if something in her oddly knew I might be able to satisfy her fetish…

“Julia would never have let me in without you making it so,” I say.

“No, she wouldn’t.”

Everything about the way Julia looks… She might have the strongest legs I’ve ever seen in my life, and then the roundness of her breasts and areolae…

“I stupidly believed I was charming enough for Julia to reach out again, but that was all you.”

“Don’t let your ego feel too crushed. You were charming enough to attract Dee Young all on your own, and you nearly landed Mira. We knew we were taking a chance when it came to the details of Mira’s breasts; we didn’t really know what they looked like, and I made your preference for circular areolae sooo strong. It could have backfired.”

I picture Mira’s proud breasts and her gorgeous areolae and nipples. “It helped.”

“I think you were so smitten with her legs that it might not have mattered. But Dee…”

Had areolae that weren’t circular; they were more oval! I want to smack myself in the head for not realizing how that probably played a role in my being okay with letting her fly away. I also feel some cringe at the depths of my own shallowness… Only those depths weren’t entirely my own; they were much milder preferences that were manipulated.

“Natural fetishes are so easy to manipulate, as you know. Take Julia’s size fetish—it wasn’t so extreme when I first hypnotized her; she was more tolerant of a lover not entirely measuring up, so to speak. But I increased her fetish’s intensity so that by the time you came along, she wasn’t willing to date at all.”

“Like clearing a path for me,” I say. “And then giving her a ‘strange’ intuition that I might be worth pursuing.”

“Give the man a cigar. But of course you were just as easy to manipulate. The large breast fetish was so easy to spot in you—considering the scale of Mira’s assets, and then discovering what the figure was like of your previous girlfriend, Joyce, we had plenty of evidence that you could be made to crave women who are remarkably endowed. All of this was natural to you, clay to be molded, so to speak…”

“That dream of the hidden sculptor,” I can’t help saying, as the meaning of one particular dream becomes crystal clear. “It was you in the shadows of my subconscious mind.”

“Guilty as charged. As I mentioned last night, you’ve had several dreams where you were trying to tell yourself the truth of your situation. How many dreams had an element of moonlight, for instance? There was one where a woman’s breast was somehow the surface of the moon. In another one, just a week or so ago, the different phases of the moon were shown to you through different windows, in a space that was all about having sex. Your subconscious mind has practically been screaming at you for months, trying to get you to see.”

The professional therapist in me, still alive even with all of these revelations, wants to weep at how blind I’ve been. “Oh fuck, in one dream I was blinded by European headlights!”

“That would most likely be me also.”

“My subconscious self knew,” I say, amazed, “but I could never find traction, never find a way to bring the information into my conscious awareness.”

“It’s been important information for everyone involved,” Alessandra responds. “Giving you one interval a month where you actually had a chance to exit the merry-go-round, or even realize that you were on one… That, tied to the rhythms of the moon, was my idea. We needed to know—could a trained and talented therapist, a particularly insightful therapist, manage to break through the shadows and detect the presence of the immersion suggestions bubbling underneath? I’m not the only one who believes that this is definitive proof of the single most important attribute of immersion hypnosis—it can never be perceived, never be found out, not if the one implanting the suggestions is sufficiently skilled.”

“Which you are.”

“Definitely; you’ve proven that. Even so, you came close. During those dark new moon times, you questioned the degree to which you were objectifying women, and how it was that you could have such powerful fetishes without having been aware of them in the past. It ate at you, temporarily. You could see how certain tendencies were out of control, so from the deepest recesses, you tried to inform yourself of the truth, several times. But you could never manage to listen. That’s not psychological ineptitude or moral failure on your part; it’s proof that skilled enough hands can create hypnotic mind-puzzles that simply cannot be solved.”

I breathe in deeply, and slowly let that breath out. “Sounds to me like you’re complimenting yourself.”

“I suppose I am. I’m also a firm believer that your hands are just as skilled as mine. There have been moments on your journey that were especially delightful, because so few are capable of accomplishing what you’ve accomplished. Dee’s ‘nipplegasms’, as you called them; that was extremely fine work. Even more impressive is what you accomplished with Terri Thorngood. On your very first try, just running headfirst into the idea, to be able to succeed as you did at completely stripping away her gag reflex… Michael, I have tried to do that with twelve women, and I only succeeded with one.”

A lightbulb goes off. “Julia?”

“Yes. But don’t speed past my point, that your talents are incredibly rare. You’re deserving of some real praise here!”

How to respond to that, given the circumstances? I go with, “I’m going to expect five-star reviews from all the immersion overlords.”

Rather than laughing, a hint of a frown darkens Alessandra’s beautiful features. But then she continues evenly, “On that, I want to make an important linguistic point right now—there is no such thing as ‘immersion hypnosis’. Perhaps you’ve noticed that when you try to look it up, wishing to be better informed about what it is and what its applications are, what you find are conflicting opinions and far-fetched explanations. All of that is intentional, and much of what you can read has been inserted onto the web for the express purpose of keeping people—especially professional people—in a state of skepticism or outright dismissal.

I loosely use the term ‘immersion hypnotism’ myself; it’s close enough to the truth, and we have to give some kind of name to what we do. But what we accomplish with sound, intonation, the penetration into the recesses of the body by those waves… You know that if someone put a gun to your head and told you to accurately describe in words what you do with your voice, you might as well tell them to pull the trigger. It cannot be described in words, and if named, the name will either be false or meaningless. Thus, ‘immersion hypnosis’. It beats ‘suggestive/languorous/invisible/trained vibrational/influential/body/essence/sounds’.”

I laugh, immediately getting the inside joke, while knowing that almost no one else ever could.

“Now for specific details of your path along the way,” Alessandra goes on. “I juiced your libido to an extreme degree, of course. You’re fully aware that this is possible, but there are levels of application that you have yet to master. Like the Coolidge effect—I assume you know what that is?”

“Even when satiated by a current sexual partner, someone—more often male—is biologically and psychologically aroused by the introduction of a new and willing sexual partner.”

“Indeed, and it is the deeply embedded evolutionary component of this phenomenon that makes it so easy to manipulate. You call yourself ‘polyamorous’, but that’s not even the half of it now. Even if Mira had left Taylor Cassidy months ago, you never would have stood a chance at settling into bed with her. Your Coolidge effect is essentially on steroids now… In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that you have been sexually enhanced. Haven’t you thought of yourself as being like the Six Million Dollar Man before? It’s actually like that, only more cellular, at the level of hormonal balance and dopamine levels, blood-flow and metabolic recovery, etc. Translation—with a little help from your friends, you can now get incredibly horny, and after you’ve had sex your launch-tubes refill at what any doctor would say is a superhuman rate. Also… Well, no. I’ll just say that even more is possible than you yet realize. More to come, so to speak.”

“Great,” I breathe out sarcastically.

“When you returned to the U.S., you were in effect a modified and supercharged missile, with Mira Cassidy programmed into your guidance system, along with anyone else hose physical traits pushed your supercharged buttons. But Mira foremost—I saw to it that everything about her that attracted you, whether it be the way she smelled, or the way she smiled, or the sensuality in her voice when she longed for you, or the tension in her voice when she tried not to long for you… All of that was even more irresistible. It may have been overkill to increase your attraction to her legs, but I took you there, particularly where black stockings were in the mix. I also orchestrated that perfect rightness when you are inside her vagina. You mentioned that several times in your journal, which was the same as giving me a five-star review for services invisibly rendered.”

My scheme of dominoes, beginning with Grace… “Were any of my ideas original, or was I blindly following some script?”

“Original. I decided that for the most part, I would shape nothing of the how’s or when’s of your journey to your target. You’re an inventive thinker and a quick learner, and we could trust that nothing was going to get in your way for long. The pathway you devised was quite brilliant; it could even serve as something of a roap for others in the future.”

“You said that ‘for the most part’ you didn’t shape my trajectory? Say more.”

Alessandra smiles a little crookedly. “Here’s an easy example. Why were you never curious about me? Your best friend tells you she’s seeing a distant therapist, and then you meet one of the sexiest women alive and she’s seeing the same therapist. And did you ever summon the least bit of curiosity about me? Put me into a search engine? Ask any colleagues about me?”

I never did and she knows it. “Way back at the beginning you suppressed those impulses in relation to you. I hardly gave you a thought, and never once wondered why. I suppose the tamping down of curiosity about some particular thing is a simple enough trick, but—”

“Another one. You know for a fact that no form of hypnotism can do half of what you were doing rather routinely. And yet you simply plowed on, barely questioning how it could be that your influence was so great.”

“How does immersion hypnosis—”

She dismisses that question with a wave of the hand. “Here’s another one you may not think is so simple. Tell me, and be completely honest—when was the last time you jerked-off?”

This startles me, and it doesn’t get any better as I think back several weeks, then months. “I… There were times when…”

“Only you never could, could you? Maybe you thought you should, to release some of the pressure. Perhaps there were moments when you were dying to, or about to, only…”

Well goddamn. Without even trying I can recall several times when I wanted to beat-off, but there was always some counter-argument in my head, or some other reason I hesitated or backed down.

“That’s… I can’t believe I never questioned that.”

“We wanted you horny with no easy way of relieving that pressure. Only it never felt like a lack of choice to you when the blockage was beyond your perception. On other green lights or red lights, we could conjecture now that you had free will to experiment with Rosita Bello, or not—with your raging libido and her physical attributes, I would say that breaking the client/therapist boundary with that one was an inevitability. You were completely on-track and learning so quickly…

And then boom, Dee Young. Her appearance was totally unexpected for us, I can assure you. She had all the attributes to excite you, and you were having sex, probably satisfying sex, without any use of immersion hypnosis. There was some discussion that she was attractive and charming enough that she might significantly delay you on your journey towards Mira, and further immersion investigations.”

“But then fate intervened,” I say. “I got to refine my skills even further with her, and then she was pretty much off the board.”

“Not fate. There was an intervention. The opportunity that appeared for her, as if by magic…”

“Oh don’t tell me.”

“It wasn’t my call, if that’s what you’re thinking. Higher up the chain a decision was made, and that resulted in the call to her agent from an important presence in Hollywood. We didn’t know about Dee’s phobia about flying, so imagine our joy when that opened up whole worlds of practice for you.

That’s an important point to make—there is such a thing as luck. Dee, now, is well into a glide path where she can be of great use in orchestrating other necessary events. You might as well know that she has a new lover. Like you he’s a practitioner of the immersion technique, and so her fetish for hypnotic sex lives on. You can trust that we’re treating Dee very well, making sure she’s happy and engaged, both in bed and in her career.”

It was all so easy to see now. Hadn’t I even felt like people were watching when Dee and I had gone to the beach that one time? I’d been ready to ditch Dee to make sure she didn’t divert me from Mira, but maybe they hadn’t known that, or had been afraid that I’d backtrack.

“Here’s a news flash,” Alessandra says with a sly smile. “Dee Young is going to become an international sex-symbol; you can mark that on your calendar. There will be buzz from the moment her television show debuts, the sexy android with the kind of boobs that nerdy teens dream about. But in week nine, when an episode drops titled ‘Programmed Talents’… That will create a viral controversy, about whether the show’s scriptwriters nudged their android character too close to the territory of outright pornography. There’ll be a media storm for Dee to weather, but on the other side she and the show will skyrocket in popularity. Soon afterwards, the over-the-top sexual abilities of her character will be the driver of multiple episodes of the show. There has never been anything like it in space-based science-fiction history, and it’s going to make Dee Young very, very famous.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say. That the life of someone I’d been so close to could be scripted like this, perhaps as precisely as one of the t.v. episodes she’ll appear in.

Alessandra gives us a time-out, asking if I want anything to eat or drink. A few minutes later, a young woman appears with a pitcher of raspberry tea, and ice-filled glasses. The sun is high now, and it isn’t quite hot but getting there. The walking bridge that spans a tranquil pond glows the color of a sliced blood-orange.

She sees me looking. “There is a swimming pool, of course, if you wish to cool down or relax later.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“You could even invite Grace for a swim, for later in the afternoon.”

“Shit, I should call her. Or… No, let’s keep her away from this. She is away from all this Hidden Collective business, right? Please don’t tell me—”

“No promises, but we have no big plans for Grace at this time. She has been a participant—you turned her into a domino, to go with one of your metaphors. You’ve moved her and I’ve moved her, but she’s only been a bit player thus far. She’s extremely attractive… But is she special enough?”

Ouch! If Grace ever heard that, that she’s been judged to not be quite sexy enough by someone…

“Grace doesn’t know even an ounce of all of this,” Alessandra continues, “and she probably wouldn’t believe you if you tried to confide in her. Which, by the way—you may as well know this now—you can’t, as in you literally can’t. Open your mouth to confess all of this to a friend, or the police, or even some conspiracy chatroom on the web… It would be like you trying to jerk-off. Good luck.”

I get it. I’d put it into several women already that they couldn’t say anything about hypnosis, or sex with me, and I’d known that my hold on them was solid.

“What about Robin?” I think to ask. “If I wanted to speak with her about any of this, just to soothe my soul…”

Alessandra looks intrigued. “A gray zone, how clever of you! They do exist, actions where an immersion direction isn’t precise enough or inclusive enough in some way. I’m not certain, but… Yes, you could probably say anything in the world to Robin. She is already clued-in, after all.”

A hit of deep gratitude flares in me—could it be that Robin, sneaky thing, intuited this “gray zone” the way there might be some semi-hidden tool in a video game? I keep my face placid, but it’s actually thrilling to see that Alessandra might not be able to control everything.

“Again, what about Grace?” I ask.

“I’ll have someone call her on your behalf, and tell her it’s best that she heads home. You’re still feeling queasy from your night of alcoholic excess, after all.”

I laugh, and it’s a surprise in a way that I can. Here I am in the middle of learning that I have immersion tendrils running all through my system and my personal history, and that some cabal of unknowable somebodies has continuing plans to game my life, especially my sex life, in unknowable ways.

And yet I don’t feel that as a terrible weight, and I’m not particularly fearful. Maybe that will change as I learn more, but for now the garden is lovely and my tea is cold and delicious, and I’m actually glad that my eyes are finally open to the truth.

I picture Robin’s legs, and the color of her hair in the window sunlight. Interesting, because I don’t believe Alessandra has pulled any particular strings that have me thinking of her gorgeous assistant at this very moment… Well, other than my balls being turbocharged to appreciate a fit, curvy body like hers. I get it—there must be an artificial boost to my appreciation how just big and round Robin’s calves are—despite the librarian vibes, she obviously has plenty of leg strength.

“Back to further revelations?” Alessandra asks, after asg someone to speak with Grace.

“I think I’m ready for more.”

“Okay, then. We knew we had to make with Grace after what happened with Dee. Grace was a total wild card—she and her girlfriend were so determined to set you up with somebody, and that could have created too many distractions. Grace needed to become aware of me, and that was arranged. It didn’t take long before I was able to reorient your friend’s impulses, turning her from a creator of obstacles into a bringer of opportunities.”

“One particular opportunity being Julia.”

“Yes. That’s skipping forward out of sequence, but… I wish I could have been there when you first saw Julia, this woman who punched every one of your elevated buttons in such an extreme way. Julia was a needed step—she brought you here to me, but she also gave you a taste of just how far we can go in enhancing a beautiful woman, much the way we’ve enhanced you.”

“She was a needed step? That sounds so… over.”

“Yes, well. It’s unavoidable, but this is when I have to deliver some news that I’m sure you won’t find pleasant.”

“Julia, over?” I ask, my voice tight like I’ve already been punched in the gut.

“Yes. You won’t be seeing her again, at least not in any romantic sense.

“You can just…” I begin, then stop. Of course she, or they, can. Alessandra is Julia’s therapist and she can shape the woman’s mind every Tuesday at 3pm, or whatever. They’ve given and now they’re taking her away, and but how does Julia feel about that? Just before arriving at the party, she told me that I’d been giving her amazing orgasms, brand-new orgasms where she saw colors. I’m certain she was looking forward to going back to her place where we’d fuck again…

“Oh crap, Julia’s color-filled climaxes…”

“Yes, that’s me, too. You needed to become uniquely special to her, beyond your fulfillment of her size fetish. She’s truly gifted as an artist, quite enamored with color. I felt rather clever, gifting her with what I’ve termed ‘auroral fields’ when she comes.”

All of which now has now been deliberately torpedoed, at least where I’m concerned. “This just sucks,” I say, instantly feeling the loss of my access to that fucking body, and the freak-zone things the woman can do with it. But then the other part of what has been conveyed sinks in, the part about how far beautiful women can be enhanced.

“Seeing colors when she comes with me, and what Julia can do with the muscles in her vagina… That first one doesn’t sound difficult to achieve, but the second… That degree of muscular talent can be implanted into a lover?”

“Yes, and no. The colors during orgasm is a new one for me, and yes, I’d bet anything that you could do the same if you tried. ’Implanting’ is totally wrong when to comes to Julia’s control of her interior anatomy, though; it’s a process, needing time to flower. A skill that complex can’t be acquired overnight, as you’ve managed to do with some of your lovers. And, sorry to say, you have no hope of working with any female clients in this particular way. You don’t have a vagina—how on earth would you go about teaching a woman how to do special tricks with hers? That’s my territory.”

I can feel my shoulders slump. I want more of that. Duh.

“Did you recognize the pattern in Julia’s contractions?”

I’m lost. “You mean the corkscrew—”

A dismissive wave of her hand. “It was much more intricate than that. There is geometry, beautiful artful geometry. And I hope to increase Julia’s abilities there. Perhaps, one day, she’ll even be able to do what I can do.”

“I can’t…” What is there to say? I glance at Alessandra’s putty-colored shorts, and what must lurk there beneath the fabric. Robin’s James Bond reference comes to mind and I wonder—if what Alessandra is saying is true, is it like Alessandra has a license to fucking kill?

ing how Julia’s less talented—apparently—pussy quite literally fucked me unconscious not even twenty-four hours ago, I ask, “Do you know that Julia is making a giant painting of the two of us fucking?”

“Yes, I do. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it will be marvelous. Did you meet the two gentlemen last night from Bernard Gallery in New York? I predict that Julia will have her debut show with them in just over a year, and that her sexually brazen paintings will take the New York City art world by storm. It won’t hurt, of course, that she looks the way she looks, and that her paintings will almost be screaming to the heavens just how amazing her body is. She’ll come out of nowhere, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the richest or most influential men in the world end up willing to do anything, anything, to spend even one romantic night with her.”

I suck in a breath. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Of what this is all about. Dee becoming famous and irresistible, and Julia even more irresistible…”

“No, Michael. Peel down one more layer. That is an example of the means, not the point.”

“The means of accomplishing what?”

“Of having a firm say in how humanity will respond through some extremely challenging times. Listen, I don’t want to go off into some long monologue, but the people who are really running the world, through the manipulation of the systems that run humanity’s interactions with the world, are not going to wake up in time. The planet will undergo a series of environmental events, which combined with runaway—or even rogue—AI development, will almost certainly lead to unimaginable destruction. We, meaning everything alive, are going to need leadership, true leadership, to enact rapid change. The alternative is a quick descent into worldwide savagery, at best. Obviously, that must be avoided at all costs. But how can correct leadership even emerge when money and self-centered power-brokers squash anything and anyone that threatens their current position at the top?

It’s sad to say, but most people are sheep. They think one day ahead when they think anything original at all, so they’ll need to be steered towards right choices. Sometimes these choices are very difficult ones to make—even impossible to make. Yet this is what is needed to eventually bring about positive outcomes, rather than the collapse of civilization as we know it.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that huge swaths of the world’s population will believe in any crazy theory, or rationalize any bankrupt notion, based on psychologically hidden fears or ego-satisfying desires. Conspiracy theories, cultism, ideas of racial purity… Think about it—people will believe in the reality of Bigfoot or some ‘deep state’ at the drop of a hat, but how does it work out when a consortium of respected scientists use undeniable facts to craft their findings on global warming? In a world where far-fetched lies are truth and in-your-face facts are fake, what kind of force—what kind of benign force—exists that can drive a world leader to do the right thing at a crucial moment, even when their screwed-up psyche is telling them to do the opposite?”

I know the answer, intimately. I’d bent attitudes and either fortified or created fetishes and fixations, multiple times already. If some world or industry leader had even a slight leg fetish, and that got amplified a thousand times through immersion hypnosis, and then someone like Mira became a part of their world, and to be with her they needed to take some particular action…

But Alessandra is on a roll, supplying her version of what I’ve been living.

“The worst of it is that the dangers are all accelerating at lightning speed. We need to move just as fast.”

“And moving fast means…”

“Out-of-control lust can make the difference, nothing else. Unstoppable sexual longing that sures all other urges, all other considerations. All of mankind has primal urges, existing beneath the surface whether people want to acknowledge these urges or not. At pivotal moments, whether a powerful figure is an impediment to right action and needs to be taken down, or a visionary leader needs to be lifted up, allowed to become an agent of real change…”

She trails off, but I know there is more to come. Listening to all of this, my heart has begun to beat faster, and to wonder. What she’s saying is audacious, and devious, and… possible?

“Michael, have you ever heard of Margarita Navarro, also known as Margaret of Trent? Early fourteenth century Italy?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“She’s an historical favorite of mine. It’s said that her beauty was so extreme that some people fainted upon seeing her for the first time. That may or may not be an exaggeration, but the point remains.

She was the lover of Fra Dolcino of Navaro, the leader of a heretical New Apostles movement that challenged papal power at the time. These people returned to the writings of Plato and Aristotle, embracing a belief in a benign God of Oneness, not the cheapened version the official Church was using to manipulate and steal from the masses.

The pope, of course, could not tolerate any of this, and his army laid siege to the town that sheltered Margarita. Even when surrounded, the entire town facing starvation, her beauty was so great that the people could not bring themselves to surrender her. The town eventually fell and she was captured, and condemned to be burned at the stake for heresy. And here is where the story gets really interesting—someone was burned in a public display, but a careful reading of history shows that it was not Margarita. One of the papal army’s lieutenants, completely smitten by her physical splendor, risked his own death by whisking her to safety, and secretly making her his bride.

I love this story because it reveals something of what you and I are about now. You think Julia couldn’t completely enthrall certain men in that same way, just by stripping out of her clothes? You think someone wouldn’t do exactly what she says—and I mean anything—once she’s fucked them? They might do anything she says no matter what. If there is still any lingering resistance, she could certainly arrange a meeting with me, for example, where I can start pulling the right strings.

That is what you are a part of now. Desire can conquer all, and our immersion talents, like a beautiful and invisible infection, can eat away at the foundational bricks that hold up the ultimately life-destroying castles of corruption. There will be times—it’s already happening—when a powerful man or woman must be driven to follow the commands of their dick, or their vagina, bying the delusional dictates of what es for their normal intelligence. Risking ridicule, taking the risks that come with standing against the tide of public opinion… And the reverse, of course, of being able to remove some people from their cancerous hold on power.”

“Sex scandals,” I say, thinking of just one obvious means of tipping the needle.

Alessandra smiles. “Perhaps you read about a political figure in Louisiana just recently, and the career-ending incident where he was videoed fucking a bowl of fish roe backstage at a campaign rally? You don’t even need to look far afield, when a lesser example has just touched your own life. Mira’s husband, Taylor… What was it that happened to him?”

“Some Asian woman with huge… Oh fuck, oh fuck! Was that—”

“Ruoya? Don’t play dumb. You know it was.”

I do know, but that doesn’t prevent a shiver of shock from coursing through my system. Taylor and his love of big tits…

“We got a bead on Taylor Cassidy’s weak spots,” Alessandra says, unable to suppress a grin. “With a wife as beautiful as Mira, even when their sex life was rather sad, we knew it would be a challenge to get Taylor to bite from the apple. But when 32L-23-35 became the coordinator of lodging on his African sojourn, well… Mission accomplished.”

Fuuuuck. This is the whole point, isn’t it? Some people will be hypnotized, but with others no one will even need to employ the technique, because they can bait personalized honey-traps that simply can’t… But wait, what was the underlying purpose of exploding Mira’s marriage like that?

“Alessandra, was that for me? Did you want Mira free of Taylor so she could fully be with me?”

“Alas, no. And this is where we need to pivot in this conversation, from what is happening and why, to what your role will be in the larger scheme. Some aspects of your life are going to undergo radical change, Michael. Much like your former receptionist, Carlotta, you’re going to find yourself fabulously wealthy, very soon.”

Carlotta—they somehow made her husband win the lottery. The revelation is in my expression and Alessandra sees it, and gives an affirmative nod.

“A straight-laced receptionist was the last thing you needed in your life, and so she was artfully and very generously removed. We didn’t anticipate Gina Delucca; I was prepared to send someone else your way, but Gina was fine when you were already with Mira, and so hopelessly hooked on abusing the technique.

You can think of Carlotta’s good fortune, which removed her from the playing field, as a kind of carrot. And I’m sure you’re going to be extremely happy with some of the other carrots that will flow your way; they’ll be quite appealing to you. But, as all human beings must experience and come to accept, there will be changes that feel more like sticks. We can say that’s regrettable, but…”

She pauses and something flashes in my brain, like a snippet of memory only as long as a few neighboring brain cells. Alessandra’s legs in the black stockings, close-up, and my tongue there probing… It isn’t quite there, but my cock is rising.

I definitely ate this woman’s pussy last night, I say silently.

Alessandra continues. “Hopefully, you’ll appreciate the carrots that appear to offset the loss of Julia, and Dee and most likely Rosita. And—this one is bound to sting but it can’t be helped—Mira.”

“No!” I gasp, immediately leaping to my feet.

“I’m afraid it will remain a yes,” Alessandra responds evenly, not even a flinch from my outburst.

I want to argue, to pace, to fucking throw a tantrum. The bright sun and green of the trees has gone diffused and liquid because my eyes, dammit, are filling with tears.

“Be a storm if you need,” I hear. “Cry, stomp, rage at the heavens, or at me. Ultimately, however, you will need to surrender on this. You can’t do anything about it, any more than you can reject your change in profession, and your move to New York City.”

“My…” I begin, too stunned to continue.

I look down at Alessandra. I’m standing much closer than I realized, and a tear falls from my cheek, splashing onto her right knee. She calmly wipes it away and gestures for me to sit again.

“When you’re ready, I’d like to tell you a little bit about your next chapter,” she says, her voice extremely gentle. “Where you’ll live in Brooklyn, and have a nearby office where you practice psychic healing and past-life regressions.”