The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I got lucky at that Zurich conference, falling into a brief affair with a lovely member of the ing staff. Her name was Ursula, a blonde and busty Czech babe who was a year older than me. She was a tiger in bed, just the medicine needed for a man filled with frustrated panther energy.

It wasn’t a case of Ursula and I just throwing ourselves at each other. It began with running into her at the facility’s extensive library one evening, and the two of us going out for a drink. That led to a dinner date my fifth night there, which we repeated that two nights later, and that became a sensual night in her nearby cottage apartment.

Ursula had a sensuous mouth and she loved to give vigorous, almost sloppy blow-jobs. Full body massages, too; she did that professionally and treated me to three of those in the comfort of her home. All of this was excellent medicine for my body and soul, and her massages were the best I had ever experienced. It didn’t hurt that two of the massages could be described as “happy”, and with each ejaculation I could feel myself being emptied, ounce by ounce, of any Mira frustrations.

What Ursula and I had was not meant to last. We lived in different countries, and though she never confirmed this outright, I was almost certain that she had a serious relationship with someone in Italy. I never came close to believing that she and I would be more than we were, two sexually needy people ing in the night. We had a total of six nights in bed together, and when we said our good-byes it was not a painful parting.

The training I underwent was intense, starting at seven every morning, even on the weekend days. I can’t go into the particulars, partly because of a strictly enforced confidentiality agreement, but also due to the nature of the technique itself. So much of it is about almost musical changes in the practitioner’s tone of voice, which simply cannot be conveyed in written form. Therefore, what follows is reduced to vague hints as to how I guided my subjects into the special state, with many crucial details only hinted at.

What matters most is that, not even halfway through my training, it became obvious that I really did possess a rare gift when it came to absorbing the nuances of the immersion technique, and applying it. Seeing this, I poured myself into the work like no other attendee, studying with a focus akin to a fever. Group training gave way to more intensive individual guidance, and I just kept learning.

Another thing I need to make clear is something you probably already know, that hypnotic techniques do not work like magic spells. No form of hypnosis can impose completely foreign desires into a subject; there are many likes or dislikes, or basic attitudes or beliefs, that are innate to every individual, and any attempt to reverse or severely undermine these basic building blocks is a fool’s errand.

Not to worry, though, when the human psyche is almost never a solid and unmoving thing, a unity. Most people aren’t as clearly divided as someone like Mira Cassidy, but we’re all filled with contradictions, and I was well trained in spotting them. More importantly, physical and emotional desires, plus the thirst for pleasure, are inside of everyone, and these deeply instinctual desires could be greatly inflated by the technique. The power of immersion hypnosis was real; I knew that from the beginning. What I didn’t know in those early days was just how powerful.

That exploration began pretty quickly after my return flight touched down on a cloudy Sunday morning. I had texts and voicemail messages to catch up with, and there were several from Mira.

I wondered if I should even read or listen to them. I was not about to get sucked into fruitlessly chasing Mira-tail again, although the idea of somehow getting her into the special state had never disappeared. There was no plan, though, and no feeling of being desperate. That was easily explained, as boning Ursula every night for a week had taken the edge off.

I did end up reading through Mira’s texts—they were quite short, and it looked like it took awhile before she even realized I was out of town. I thought about deleting her two voicemails unheard, but found my thumb pressing “play”.

In the first her voice was relaxed, the good side of Mira very much in charge. “I was relieved to hear that you were away on business; I thought you might be refusing to call or text back because… Michael, I know I caused you pain, but I do care about you. At some point we’ll see each other again, as friends. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

It was just as I’d thought; eating her pussy had greatly relaxed any tectonic pressures and I would have gotten nowhere with the woman. Her final message was less clear: “I was just lying here, thinking about you. I hope everything is going well for you. See you sometime when you’re back.”

The words were innocent enough, but I focused on the “just lying here” part, and her somewhat sleepy tone of voice. They had me conjuring Mira naked or nearly naked, lying on her bed with a hand resting between her thighs, her words as a mini-confession—I was just lying. As though some part of her, even if locked away in a prison cell, knew it was a lie that she only wanted to see me as a friend.

I played that last message again, and on second hearing I decided I was just imagining things. I’d gotten the taste of the woman, a significant step further than anyone else she’d ever teased. But big whoop. Bottom line, the woman was never going to put out.

I can’t say that I began to hatch any particular scheme right then and there, about how my new training, perfectly designed to lessen the grip of addictive behaviors, might be turned upside-down to exacerbate Mira’s distinct erotic split. Thoughts like that were lying low, though, crouching in the shadows. It was like some part of me occasionally emitted a low growl, even though my cock was the most relaxed it had been in months.

Grace came over that first night back and prepared a welcome home stir-fry in my kitchen. We caught up over chopping vegetables and drinking too much wine, and I learned that in the time I’d been away, she had moved on from Tina the Screama’ to a new conquest dubbed Luscious Lucinda.

“I’m frightened of this one, Michael. She’s gotten her claws into me and I’m spinning in circles.”

“You? I thought you were impervious.”

“It’s her thighs, fuck! You know I have this special thing about thighs. Hers are so smooth and strong and I just want to rub myself all over them… Fuck, she might just be my downfall. She’s pretty much perfect.”

“Are you in danger of falling in love, Grace?”

“Maybe?” she squeaked, lifting a wooden spatula to make the sign of a cross in the air. “I know I’m in love with her thighs and her itchy you-know.”

I laughed. It was a private joke from a night we’d eaten Japanese and had Hitichino beer for the first time. Grace had forgotten the name of it a couple of days later and so had I, and fumbling through memory what had come out was “itchy you-know”. That had become code between us, a shared term for great pussy.

“And her O-face,” she continued. “I just can’t get enough of her O-face, the way her mouth twists when she comes. Her face and neck turn red and I swear her thighs do too! Scary, scary, I’m hooked!”

“I suppose congratulations are in order?”

“Congratulations? Didn’t you hear? I’m scared shitless! She’s bi, not gay, and I don’t think I could ever share her.”

“I really want to meet this girl sometime.”

“You already have.”

“What? Where?”

“After Miss Torso did her spider dance. Lucinda is one of the other Movement Machine performers. the shorter blonde, second dance before intermission? She had on a shimmering emerald-colored dress at the after-party. ”

“Well fuck a duck! You stuck around after I left and worked your magic!”

“Like I always say, a piece of ass is a piece of cake. And let them eat cake, because I do.”

“She was a powerhouse dancer, as I . With a bit of a southern accent?”

“Early years in Tennessee, poontang with a twang.”

I laughed in spite of myself.

“And maybe you should know that whenever I let her come up for air, Lucinda isn’t above spreading a bit of gossip as to the ins and outs of your married lady-love’s heart. Apparently Mira doesn’t talk to anybody about things directly and keeps insisting that her marriage has never been better, but she’s essentially become a pressure-cooker.”

“That’s not my business.” It was also old news.

“You know there are bad guys who make bombs from pressure cookers, right?”

“Meaning?”

“I read that somewhere and thought you might want to be aware of it, too. Pressure cookers can explode.”

Not likely to ever explode enough in Mira’s case, unless I could make the pressure intolerable, sex with me the only form of release.

“I still worry some about you, with her.”

“Grace, I’ve moved on. Mira is weeks in the past and I’m determined to be over it.”

“I’ll only believe that when I know you’ve found a different scratch-post for sharpening your claws. Did you happen to find some lovely lady therapist in Zurich to share a couch with?”

“As a matter of fact I did. Although it was a bed.”

“You beast! When were you going to tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“So? Her name, nationality, the location of her birthmark?”

“None of that. It was a one-week fling, nothing more. A welcomed interlude, but inconsequential.”

“Inconsequential, when your tube hadn’t been properly interluded in months? Fuck that and pour more wine.”

It was a beautiful early spring evening and we carried our meals onto the backyard deck on bamboo trays. The light was fading, the budding leaves in all the trees turned a warm black against a clear cerulean sky. By vanilla-scented candlelight, I gave Grace a rundown of my time in Zurich, minus any details of the joys of sex with a beautiful partner.

“So you could see the change in brainwaves right in clash? Fuck, class?”

Grace wasn’t even close to being sloshed, but she’d been drinking a good bit faster than me. I took a moment to refill her glass before responding.

“It was amazing. There were only five of us taking the training—”

“Five? From around the world? That’s tiny!”

“More like select. Anyway, we each got the chance to work with volunteer subjects over the two weeks. Right there in the classroom, green as we were, we had a seventy-three percent success rate as a group. The subjects were hooked up to sophisticated monitoring devices and you could see and map the changes in their cerebral functioning, heart-rate, hormone levels… I was very impressed.”

“Hormone levels, eh?”

“There are many kinds, Grace.”

“Yeah, well. I probably have more kinds than most and they’re like rust—they never sleep. Just ask Lucinda.”

She swirled her wine, seeming to be deep in thought, and I prodded her to just go ahead and say whatever it was she was thinking.

“I’ve never understood how hypnotism works. People can’t be led into being something other than themselves, can they?”

“No, of course not. But when you say ‘themselves’… That’s it right there. We, each of us, aren’t one thing. We might wish to picture ourselves that way, as totally unified people, but you aren’t likely to meet anybody like that no matter how long you live.”

“I’m not sure I’m following. Either you’re separating the conscious from the unconscious, which I get, or you’re saying I’m not me at all.”

“You’re you. It’s just that ‘you’ is a community of ‘you’s’ living inside one seemingly cohesive entity known as Grace.”

“You’re talking Jung’s shadow, anima and animus, all that?”

“That and more. Think of how many different aspects of you get to call the shots in different situations; everybody has the experience of that. All you have to do is look at how you behave differently with one friend versus another, then completely differently with your mother, and differently again with the dog.”

“That’s like playing different roles during my day. Certain people or situations call forth particular colors from us, while others don’t.”

“Exactly, only it isn’t always voluntary, or even noticed. We live these colorations all the time, and we’re so used to it that we don’t even question how much the different aspects of ‘me’ end up living somewhat separate lives. If you care to pay close attention, you can see that there are separate goals inside of you, separate likes and dislikes, each one wanting its moment in the sun.”

“So I’m an actress even when I’m not being an actress, just by being myself.”

“Something like that.”

“You might have something there. With you, I become a me that forgives countless sins, and tries not to say, ‘He can’t help it; he has a dick’, all the time.”

“Har-har.”

“But back to being confused… Your new hypno-thingie does what with all these versions of someone? It brings them all together?”

“Not exactly. It can single out a particular set of inclinations inside of you; let’s say a part of your psyche that is acting out when it shouldn’t, or gets anxious when it needn’t, or craves a cigarette when it mustn’t.”

“Cigarettes are a physical addiction.”

“True, but so much of that addiction takes place in the brain. The technique can help strengthen the voice of what we’ll call the strong Grace, which is great. But it can also soothe to some degree the cravings of the addicted Grace. It’s not a magic bullet; nicotine is a very powerful drug. But with fortified willpower and reduced cravings working together… Hypnotism can definitely be a helping hand.”

“You know, the tobacco companies are just going to love you. Maybe I’ll get you a bullet-proof vest for Christmas this year.”

“I’ve already decided I’ll be starting very small, not shouting the technique to the hills”

She drank more, then asked, “How does it work? You wave a watch in front of someone and…”

“Hardly. It’s all accomplished by vocal tonalities, and there’s a strong body-relaxation component. When the technique is effective, it’s essentially bying what we might call ordinary consciousness. A good metaphor would be targeted radiation therapy for fighting cancer—why zap the whole system when it’s only one specific area that needs attention? We’re trying to bend particular behaviors or drives in a desired direction, not kill or remove anything. But you get the idea. By bringing the body into the process as a , it works wonderfully with addictions, anxiety management, terminal shyness, that sort of thing. Also physical sensations, to some extent. Withdrawal pains, migraine headaches… There are pain and pleasure centers uniting body and brain, and I kept wondering… But the reality is that more research is needed there.”

“Sounds great. It also sounds like a pronoun nightmare with all the me’s inside of me and all that. I hope your instructors’ English was up to the task.”

“They did great.”

“So, Michael.”

“Yes?”

“Mira, dummy. I can believe—kind of—that you want to steer clear to avoid any more drama. But I was there the last time you saw the woman. Her outfit might as well have been a new kind of lingerie; she’s an outright cock-tease addict, if you ask me. And I’m supposed to believe she’s foresworn the dangling of those frickin’ legs and tits in front of your face, just because you were unavailable for a few weeks?”

“Believe what you like. I haven’t spoken to her since that final dance event.”

“From what Lucinda was intimating, I predict she’s going to slip that perfect torso into an even tinier dress and try to get you begging.”

“You don’t know that.”

Grace downed more wine before uttering words that were truly prophetic, sort of. “If you ask me, you should tell her to keep every bit of her blue-balling self far, far away. Nicely, if you can, but if she keeps messing with you, just hypnotize the woman and tell the ‘tease Michael’ part of Mira’s brain to fuck around with Taylor instead.”

And there it was, a half-inebriated semi-joke where it was almost like a magician had snapped his or her fingers and conjured the skeleton of a plan. I had my wineglass paused almost at my lips and it didn’t move. For a few seconds it was as if everything around us knew what had just happened—the outdoors air turned warmer on my skin and the twitter of birds sang of it.

“Michael?”

Grace ultimately had it completely backwards, of course, but still… “I don’t know,” I said out loud, looking at the unspoken idea from various angles.

“You don’t know what?”

Keeping these thoughts absolutely private was safest, but voicing them to some degree was already part of the plan I was hatching.

“The technique is especially good for working with addictive behaviors, or certain drives. I know you were kidding a minute ago, but that flirting part of Mira… It’s not exactly an addiction, I guess, but—”

“I might disagree with that.”

As I’d thought she would. “Oh, so now you’re the expert on addictive behaviors and powerful drives?” I was careful not to voice, yet, that what I meant were sexual drives. This was Grace I was talking to; she’d take it there on her own, with or without help.

“Good sir, I speak from recent experience. You, poor soul, have never seen nor tasted what lies between Luscious Lucinda’s well-muscled thighs, nor rubbed any sensitive parts upon that marvelous flesh. I have, and I could easily say that I am addicted to every bit of that. I’d go so far as to say I have a thigh addiction, which is now a Lucinda thigh addiction. And drives? I am the fucking queen of drives, believe me.”

I shrugged, semi-conceding her point. And then: “In the sexual sphere, aren’t addictions really fetishes?”

She nodded. “I stand corrected. I have a Lucinda thigh fetish. Satisfied?”

I smiled. “You’ve got me thinking now. Theoretically, the technique ought to be able to work with fetishes. As you say, they’re closely related to addictive behaviors. As for drives, there is libido, or—”

“It’s called being horny.”

“Right.”

Grace nodded, then went quiet for ten seconds or more. With the seed I’d just planted, there was no way she wouldn’t be turning some very sexy pictures around in her head.

“Lots of people have relationship problems and sexual hang-ups,” she finally said. “If you could a cure for something like that…”

“Being too promiscuous, you mean?”

She laughed sharply. “Or not being promiscuous enough! But whichever way, if you could help with that…Just imagine how many clients you’d get.”

“I’m busy enough as it is. And I’m not so sure what I think of the ‘sexual hang-ups’ or ‘cure’. It all sounds too simplified.”

She surprised me by singing, in the tune of an old religious rhyme: “Sex can be addictive, this I know; ‘cause Lucinda’s thighs tell me so.”

“I’ll that. And, ah, don’t quit your day job.”

“I don’t sing well, do I?”

“It’s a little too… No, sorry.”

“Not the words a girl wants to hear right before auditioning for a part in a musical!”

“Oops.” But wait, more like ka-ching?

“No, I already knew I don’t sing all that well. I’m a triple threat, but in my case that means I can act and dance and make my conquests recite prayers of thanks once I’ve bedded them. But singing… I’m not out of tune; it isn’t that, is it?”

It sure looked to me like I’d just been handed one hell of a golden opportunity. Going with that I said, “You might have gone off-key several times there. I’m no expert, but you sounded flat.”

“Hey, I am nowhere near flat,” she said with a dip of the chin towards her big breasts. Healthy double-D lungs and don’t you forget it. I sure don’t let Lucinda forget them.”

What was there to say?

“But you’re telling me I have a crappy singing voice.”

“I wouldn’t say crappy exactly…”

“Liar.”

“It’s more like your singing voice lacks… I’m not sure what.”

“It lacks being able to do it well enough.”

We had finished our meal, and we were pretty far into our second bottle of wine. I sat in silence, sensing the new doors that were opening with this unexpected shift in subject. If I walked through them while playing my cards just right…

“What are you thinking right now?” Grace asked.

“Nothing important.”

“Again, you’re a liar. I can see where your mind is going—I always could. Right now you’re wondering if your new hypno-technique might help me sing better.”

She was completely right, but she couldn’t know how that was like the very first step of a long trek into a dark forest, with the pay-off of fucking a beautiful princess at the end. A married princess with the most incredible legs in all the land, awaiting the arrival of a knight with a big hard sword.

“Michael? You’re gaping like a fish.”

It was all there, from beginning to end. My thoughts raced back to that breakfast conversation with Sell-out Sam in New York, seeing it now as though it had been the tipping of the first domino, in a long and twisting string of dominoes. When Sam had hinted at what could be accomplished through immersion hypnotism, my mind had immediately conjured vague images of sexual hijinks. Dastardly behavior, but if it was the only way to break through Mira’s defenses…

“Michael?”

“Give me a second, okay?”

It was all there, but only if I dropped the framing of Mira as a chess piece that I needed to mate with, and flipped the metaphor to dominoes.

I could almost see every action and reaction in minute detail, and the ease with which all the pieces might fit—and topple—into place. The moves were complicated and interlocking, and it would take time. But totally worth it, because the last domino to fall would be Mira, right onto my erect cock.

Unable to suppress a triumphant grin, I didn’t hesitate in making the next obvious move. “I’m taking your question seriously, Grace. It would almost certainly work, but your singing voice is not what the immersion technique is for.”

“Morally or practically? And you just said you think it would work.”

“Yes, but…”

She laughed. “But? Where’s the problem?”

“It’s like this. Your vocal cords are what they are; nothing on earth is going to change them. But voices can be trained, improved; everybody knows that. If nervousness is part of your problem, I’m certain I could help you relax more when it’s time to perform, which would no doubt improve things. If I could even get you into the immersion state.” I definitely could, but I didn’t want her to know how assured I was.

“What is it that I’d get immersed in again? The name gives me this picture of a baptism in a river.”

“Nothing so theatrical. You lie comfortably on your back and with my help, you get immersed in the natural rhythms of your own body.”

“That sounds sexy.”

“That’s because you’re very highly sexed, and you know you have a sexy body.”

“Damn straight. I can’t imagine that I could actually be hypnotized, though. My mind is too active, and I’m probably a skeptic. I’d start laughing just when I’m supposed to go deeply quiet.”

“Maybe so. But we got past that with subjects in my training. I’m good at this, or better than good. We scored far better than average as a group with our success rate, and… Well, not bragging here, but my score elevated the rest of the group.”

“And you’re so modest, too.”

“Hey, it’s a heavy burden when you can do modesty better than just about anybody in the world.”

Grace didn’t laugh; she’d become too pensive for that. “We all have our gifts, and too bad a killer singing voice isn’t one of mine. But what you said about relaxing… I think that’s at least half of my problem. I don’t need to become Ella Fitzgerald or Adele; I just need to be able to hold my own. But I do get nervous, and the tensions affect the way my voice projects.”

“That makes sense. The technique could definitely help, but let’s drop it.”

She was not about to drop it, not after hearing me say twice that I could definitely help.

“I have a few days before the audition. Let me think about it before we go ahead with this, okay?”

“I never promised anything, Grace. We were just speaking hypothetically.”

“But you wouldn’t let a damsel in distress remain distressed, would you? You’d help me if I asked.”

“I probably shouldn’t even think about it. You aren’t a client.”

“No, I’m your best fucking friend.”

“You are that.”

“So you will help me if I ask. But let me sleep on it.”

And that’s where we left that particular topic, although I never stopped thinking about it. The train of thought felt creative, perhaps even inspired, and like some inspirations it flowered, bearing the promise of an abundance of fresh fruit.

Or poisonous fruit. Before I knew it and without really trying, I had devised something that resembled a brilliant scheme for getting Mira into my bed, and almost every move would be a betrayal of all I was supposed to hold dear as a licensed therapist.

I found it difficult to believe that I could be so deceitful and controlling at heart. Sure, I had vaguely fantasized about this very thing when I first looked into obtaining my new training, but to use Grace as a pawn...

No, wrong metaphor again. She was my first domino to push, one piece gently toppling into the next. And it was in the plan that making Grace topple would be pleasureful for her. Maybe even very pleasureful.

It was all as clear as could be—if I had any artistic talent, the lines leading to Mira’s pussy could be drawn as a lovely diagram. Each step contained a number of what-ifs; human behavior was never entirely predictable. But once each player was hypnotized, allowing me to shape their behavior…

If Grace never pushed to be hypnotized, then all these ideas went up in smoke. She would ask, though, and that first hypnotic deception would create a pathway that eventually led to Mira Cassidy’s mind and body.

Grace had said her singing audition was only three days away, so I wouldn’t even need to wait very long.

And how long before reaching the jackpot of fucking Mira Cassidy? A while, almost certainly. That seemed unfortunate, but then I thought of spiders in their webs, doing the work of laying out their traps without any way to predict how long it would be before some random insect became ensnared. They did what they had to do and then waited, having faith.

“This is my form of a spider dance,” I spoke to my living room, after Grace left.

And I did have faith.

I had a backlog of appointments to get through the next day, with sessions scheduled through eight at night. I instructed Carlotta that I wouldn’t be taking any personal calls, but to make a note if anyone tried to reach me.

Mira called on my cell and left a message saying she wanted to hear all about my trip, and there was an edge to her voice, a quickening of cadence that made my groin smile. Naughty Mira was not in charge, but she wasn’t dead, either.

I had a general idea of her schedule and I called right back, almost certain she would be in dance rehearsals. I got voicemail and left a message that I was swamped with catch-up work, and would have appointments every day and night, including Wednesdays. I kept my voice even, not distant but not too friendly either, wishing to give nothing away.

On the drive home that night I got another call, and it turned out to be Grace.

“You have to do me with your immersion hypno-dealie! I sang for Lucinda tonight and she couldn’t hide it—I’m not awful, but… I need help!”

Just like that, not even twenty-four hours since first devising the scheme, the first domino wanted to fall. I knew Grace so well, which meant it was time to deliver my lines of faux reluctance.

“Grace, you have other strengths that should get you the role even if others who audition can sing much better.”

“Much better? That’s the same as telling me my voice sucks!”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Where are you? Can you come here or do I go to your house?”

“I’m in my car, heading home. But I never agreed to—”

“Turn the fuck around, do you hear? I’ll make you chocolate mousse once a month for a year if you come here and turn me into a better singer!”

“Hypnotism is not magic, Grace. We talked about that.”

“But you also said it could definitely help! Listen, you can try, right? Have you eaten? Do you need some wine? Be here in fifteen minutes and I’ll stuff your face.”

Because I had to search for parking, it took twenty minutes before I reached Grace’s apartment, the bottom half of a duplex two blocks from the river. She was barefoot in faded jeans and a loose-fitting tee, and she had consumed enough wine in her angst that her movements were already loose. I accepted a small plate of ginger kale and rice and declined her offer of wine, wanting to stay sharp.

I needed to feign a touch more reluctance, and went with, “Interesting, that you believe kale and rice will convince me to go against my better judgment.”

“People in helping professions help people. I need help and you’re going to help me.” She raised a fist and shook it in mock belligerence. “And if you don’t, so help me…”

I kept reminding her that hypnotism could not work miracles, at the same time dropping hints about the technique’s remarkable effectiveness at shaping behaviors and appetites, and perhaps even abilities. I knew my friend would hear my words as shaping sexual behaviors and appetites, but verbally I complained again about her insistence that I do this.

All of that was prequel. The main act began about forty minutes after arriving, when I had Grace lying on her back on her long white couch, a small throw pillow cradling her head.

“This could be pointless anyway,” she said, pulling her shirt down over a briefly exposed navel. “I think your technique might not work on someone like me.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“I’m not too tipsy? I started early and I’ve had two glasses.”

“I don’t think so. That might even help.”

“If you hypnotize me into being straight, I’ll drive a stake through your heart, I swear.”

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“A little. I’ve never even been put under for surgery, so this is all new.”

“Close your eyes and try to relax your entire body,” I began, my voice low and slow.

This was the first time I’d ever engaged with the technique outside of a professional setting, and it felt odd to hear the special vibrational quality in my voice with family photos on the walls, and potted plants everywhere.

As for my voice, I sounded like me; there was no artificiality, no attempt to imitate the theatrical delivery of a stage hypnotist from some B-movie. At the same time, I thought I sounded like me on conviction steroids, no inflection accidental, every pause just the right length.

“I’ll fall asleep after drinking so much,” Grace commented.

“That would be fine,” I soothed, modulating every syllable even in this bit of chit-chat. “Take this seriously, though. You’re the one who needs to sing better and it won’t happen if you don’t participate.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Feel the warmth in your left arm,” I began in earnest, knowing that Grace was left-handed.

“Seriously, to sing better we begin with my arm?”

“Inside the arm, the warmth and life of the hand, back and front. The life gently pulsing inside the fingers and thumb. Every finger warm and relaxed. Even the nerves relaxed. Every molecule relaxed.”

I watched her breathing and repeated the instructions as needed, guiding her deeper into the sensory experience of her body, taking my time. The technique had a beautiful stealth component, as it never overtly addressed the quieting of thought. So much was conveyed by rhythm and repetition, and as I led Grace from the hand and arm, up to her collarbones and the steady rise and fall of her breathing, I could picture the change in brainwaves I’d witnessed in my training.

We moved, slowly, to the heart and the beating of the heart, and deeper into the breath. She was right that she wasn’t the easiest of subjects to work with, going so far as to interject a soft, “Not… working,” at one point. If she could have heard her voice as it sounded just then, drawn out and almost childlike in tone, she would have known otherwise.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “Just follow the smooth voice. Follow its smooth texture, the relaxing tone.”

We continued the interior journey. At what I believed to be the ideal moment, I asked if she was still following the smooth voice. There were movements under the lids of her closed eyes, somewhat similar to the REM state, and she didn’t reply for several seconds. “So smooth,” she let out with a sigh.

“Smooth,” I repeated, knowing she was right where I needed her to be. “Follow the smooth voice.”

Once fully immersed, we would be able to undertake a conversation if I chose that direction, whatever she said coming from her depths, not the protective zone of the ego. No evasions, no concern for what others might think, no attempt to blend truths or falsehoods into complex shades of gray.

“You’re so relaxed when you follow the smooth voice,” I continued. “This smooth relaxation permeates all of you. Your body, your breathing, your very spirit. All is relaxation. All is smoothness, like a pond without a single ripple. Smooth and still and lovely. Completely at peace.”

No question from me, so no response. She was there but gone, as though her conscious mind had been tucked inside a box and placed on a shelf for safekeeping.

The muscles of her face were slack, and I studied her for several breaths. Grace was an extremely attractive woman, great cheekbones and a sumptuous mouth that looked great even from the nosebleed seats, perfect for the stage. She probably knew what her features looked like when animated by a thousand different expressions, but I’d bet anything she’d never seen them relaxed into this kind of calm, all her tensions gone, her thoughts no longer turning.

She had quite the sex-pot figure, and for a handful of seconds I found myself studying the contours of her breasts, and the stress-folds they created on her shirt. I would never stare like this if she were conscious; she would feel it invasive and with good reason. I couldn’t decide whether her breasts were only a tiny bit larger or a tiny bit smaller than Mira’s, another reminder of just how insane Mira’s proportions were for a professional dancer.

I looked away for a few seconds and took a deep breath. Mira wasn’t on the couch, yet, but she was the eventual target. Keeping that in mind, I got down to business.

“Grace, you can be completely smooth like this when it’s time to sing. You can be like the surface of a pond with no ripples when you sing. The anxiety you’ve felt in the past—it was only an ill wind temporarily moving the pond’s surface. That wind has blown into the forest now, gone. That anxiety when it’s time to sing is a thing of your past, not your present. In the present, when it’s time to sing, there isn’t a single ripple. All is smooth as glass, and the sensation in your throat is a reflection of that smoothness. Smooth, strong, untroubled. This is what you are when it’s time to sing.”

Her lips were parted, the muscles around her mouth completely at ease. I asked her what she would be like when it was time to sing, and she repeated the words precisely, all smooth and strong and untroubled. I repeated all of this and knew the suggestions were in her, and I believed they would be reasonably effective. A singing sensation? No. A better version of Grace? You bet.

In any work with a client, this would probably be enough for one session. Direct and simple was best, with the benefit of repeated sessions over a period of time. But there would be no ongoing sessions with Grace; this was my one shot with her and I couldn’t waste the opportunity.

“There is one more thing,” I said. “Different than the smoothness when you sing.”

No response, still open for input.

“Your Luscious Lucinda’s thighs are also smooth. So smooth, so toned. You have to have more of them. You have to have more of your Luscious Lucinda’s thighs. They get you going and you just have to have them.”

Not one twitching muscle on her face, yet her breath came just that little bit quicker. I was also not surprised to see that Grace’s nipples had stiffened.

“When it comes to Luscious Lucinda, more desire, more need, more sex. You have to have sex with Lucinda more often, much more often. You demand it because you need it. You need it! You’ve always been highly sexed, but Lucinda’s thighs make you ache in a new way, so much more than ever before. You’ve found the perfect thighs for you, and to keep them, to guarantee that Lucinda will be yours and no one else’s, you’ll find a way to convince her to meet Michael, to be placed in the immersion state.”

I paused here, and then kept repeating the point before moving on to intimate details that my friend would probably never divulge when conscious and in control.

“Grace, are there things you wish Lucinda would do during sex that she doesn’t do? Any preferences or fetishes you have that the perfect lover would also love?”

It took a few seconds, but Grace whispered, “Suck my toes. More vocal. Talk dirty. More need.”

I grinned at that. More need for her, obviously. And I had no idea how Lucinda would manage to talk dirty with her mouth full of toes, but they’d work it out.

“You must have Lucinda hypnotized by Michael,” I went on. “A hypnotized Lucinda can be shaped into being the lover you need her to be. A hypnotized Lucinda can be made to need sex just as much as you need it. A hypnotized Lucinda can be turned into a sexually voracious Lucinda, addicted to your body, to your lips and breasts and pussy and your toes, just like you feel so addicted to her thighs.”

I let that sink in before repeating it, and repeating again, making certain the point was lodged in there like veins of gold in a deep mine. When I knew the course of action was firmly implanted, I pushed it even more by using one of Grace’s faults against her, telling her that she could never take no for an answer on this. When it came to using Michael’s hypnotic ability for the purpose of gifting herself and Lucinda with a much better sex life, she would not give up until she had succeeded.

She had the smarts to find the arguments or temptations that would convince Lucinda that being hypnotized by Michael was the right thing to do. She also had the unswerving drive to get what she needed from Lucinda sexually, and co-conspiring with Michael was the means of achieving those goals.

When I was done and asked for a response I got it—she would convince me to hypnotize Lucinda and she would convince Lucinda to be placed in the immersion state, all with the ultimate purpose of making Lucinda a more eager and responsive lover. She would do it. She had to do it.

I had never really wondered about the aroma of Grace’s pussy when she was excited, but now I knew all about it. The idea of turning Lucinda into a more perfect lover had tangibly stirred her up, enough that I added in one final set of suggestions.

“When you come back to consciousness, you are going to notice that you’re damp between your legs, excited. You won’t feel embarrassed or alarmed about this—you’ll feel, very deeply, that this is the natural state of your body when you are perfectly relaxed, because you are such a sexual being. It will even make you happy. It’s confirmation that you love sex. It’s confirmation that you are extremely sexually healthy, and a great lover.”

That done, I considered going back to the singing business again. But really, what Grace wanted on that front was already implanted. We’d know how the singing relaxation worked in a day and a half, whereas the exact timing of getting Lucinda on my couch was anybody’s guess.

There was an extremely good chance that would happen—I trusted my talent and I also trusted Grace to prevail when she got hold of an idea. The domino of Grace would topple into Lucinda, and Lucinda worked professionally with Mira.

I led Grace back towards the surface, her conscious mind retrieved from the shelf to take its normal place inside her skull. When she was almost back entirely I asked: “You’re ready to come back now, aren’t you Grace?”

“Yesss…”

“So now you should come back.”

“Come. Back.” A brief pause, licking her lips. “Back isn’t working.”

“No?”

“No, sorry. Although I might have fallen asleep.”

I stood and stretched. “I think I’m going to have a glass of that wine now.”

Grace was quiet for a time, like she needed to reacquaint herself with being herself. “Good,” she said after a handful of seconds, on a tape delay. “I’ll you for a glass and we can… Holy cow, look at the time!”

“You were in the state a good thirty minutes from start to finish.”

“You mean… But I don’t … For real, did you do it?”

“I did it!” I called back from the kitchen. “You’ll have to let me know how well the guidance works out.”

“What did you say during hypnosis? How will I know?”

“Like I said before, I can’t give you a better voice in physical . But I’m confident you won’t be so tense now when you try.”

She placed two fingers on the base of her throat, like she might be able to feel some physiological change. “I believe you, I think. And I don’t know how to thank you.”

She was sitting now and looking down, perhaps at her leaky pussy, perhaps at her toes. A sly smile brightened her face, an excellent sign.

“Nice wine,” I commented.

“It’s really smooth, isn’t it?”

I smiled. “It is.”

“You know, your voice is smooth, too.”

“You think?”

“You put me out over there and I don’t even know how it happened. Something in your voice, some quality.”

She stood and came towards the kitchen in bare feet, and there was some extra sway to her hips. I found her wineglass and topped it off, and when I held it out to her I couldn’t help noticing that her nipples were still tenting her shirt.

“You know, I’m horny,” she said, then sipped her wine.

“Um… Good for you?”

“It’s no secret that I’m highly sexed. Just now I pictured Lucinda’s inner thighs and her itchy you-know, and I… It’s been way too long. Since yesterday.”

“I’m going to have to meet her. For now, I’d better go before steam starts shooting out your ears.”

“Or somewhere else.”

I made a show of looking at my watch. “I really do need to go. Nonstop clients all week just to get caught up. It’s brutal.”

Grace nodded and walked me to her front door and gave me a big hug there. Her hugs were readable expressions, and this one was full of feeling.

“You’re a fabulous friend, Michael. It was a lot to ask, tired as you must be.”

“Even though it wasn’t something I should do, I was happy to do it,” I said, hip-deep in irony but in no mood to beat myself up over it. Like she said, I was tired.

And hopeful, even confident. On the drive home I found myself looking at the trees just finding the lime green of their early leaves, and in the spirit of the season I believed that if you plant a seed and give it the right kind of care and attention, something is bound to grow.

Whether it should or not.