Sexual Immersion Therapy
Chapter Six
The next day, it was one appointment after another without even a break for lunch. I was very selective in introducing the possibility of hypnotism, only mentioning it to clients with clearly identified issues of addiction or other compulsive behaviors. In these instances, I felt good about the edge the technique would give me in helping to correct issues that traditional talk therapy had only marginally been able to affect.
I checked my phone at five and saw that Mira had called during the day, without leaving a message. There was a call from Grace, too, and I carved out a couple of minutes to phone her back. When she came on I had to move the phone away from my ear, because her voice was so loud and ebullient.
“It worked! I can sing, I can sing!”
And she sang, full-throated and on key as far as I could tell, right into the phone. The song was unfamiliar but I thought she sounded wonderful, and I told her so.
“Oh Michael, you’re a genius! I got together with my voice coach and she was flabbergasted at the change! Then two hours with an actor friend to rehearse one of the duets, and he couldn’t believe it either! I know I’m not the best or anything, but with the rest of the package I bring… I’m all relaxed and feel as smooth as sea-glass, and I’m going to nail that audition tomorrow, nail it to the fucking wall!”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am, Grace. I’ve been telling some of my clients about the new technique but I haven’t yet wrapped it into any of the sessions. That makes you my very first… I don’t even know what to call you.”
“I’m your first, how sweet! You were a virgin hypnotist and I deflowered you!”
She sounded like she couldn’t be any happier, and it brought joy into the office to have her beaming through the phone. But when I worked with my next client, a high-powered tax lawyer whose previous cocaine addiction had led to a messy divorce, I found myself distracted, wondering how long it might be before the other part of Grace’s immersion session found expression. Sometimes that metaphor of dominoes came into my head, but I was also playing a game of connect-the-dots, Grace connected to Lucinda, Lucinda connected to Mira, all with the design of connecting Mira to my cock. It was a good game but it would probably be slower than golf, taking who knew how long to get my thing in the hole.
And then my next client, Rosita Bello, came into my office, and by the time she shut the door behind her at the end, it was like the word “moral” had been shortened and subverted into only “oral”.
Because I was tempted, very tempted.
Rosita had also been a substance-ab before our sessions turned things around. In all other aspects she had nothing in common with the lawyer, unless he happened to frequent a certain strip club where Rosita worked. She was twenty-one and a part-time pole and lap dancer, who had come to me for help with her money-eating cocaine habit. She worked four nights a week and made pretty good money from her dancing, no doubt because she was the best-looking woman at the club, with by far the biggest tits.
I’d never seen her dance, men’s clubs not being my style, but I could just imagine the way Rosita used her abundant curves to coax dollars out of her patrons’ wallets. I’d always found her physically fascinating; she was of mixed Hispanic and Italian heritage, and lovely in a way that I’d describe as equal parts cuteness and beauty. Her body was pure hourglass, with bigger than big porn-star breasts above a waist of almost exaggerated trimness, rapidly swelling out to full hips and a very round rear. I was good at not allowing myself to stare inappropriately at female clients, but additional restraint was needed when Rosita wore tight or low-cut blouses to our sessions, or hip-hugging jeans.
We had made excellent strides against her cocaine issues, but her addiction had been an attempt to fill an underlying emptiness, something like a hole in her psyche. There was inner strength in the woman, though, and she’d made really impressive strides. Not without some bumpiness—once she managed to rein in her lust for cocaine, she unconsciously filled the void with a psychologically abusive boyfriend. We were now addressing these two problems simultaneously, making slow and steady progress.
Rosita was one of three clients that I worked with on a greatly reduced scale in of payment. I like money, but from the beginning it had been my philosophy that people with less means deserve a shot at psychological equilibrium, too. And if I’m being honest, which I fully intend in this recounting of my strange journey into immersion-fueled misbehavior, I have to it that Rosita’s astounding figure also played a part in my choice to work with her. I didn’t have designs on her—at the beginning, anyway—but she sure was easy on the eyes.
She was a perfect candidate for the new technique, but that day, with my eyes raking along her curves from top to bottom and than back up to her honkin’ boobs, I really lost my way. There was no single moment when the wrong kind of thinking appeared, no bright flash of perversion. But as Rosita spoke, crossing her legs and straightening her short dark skirt across her lap, I found myself thinking about how easy it had been to slip my influence inside of Grace.
Those tits—what did they look like naked? I could find out by going to her club just like anyone else, or…
I found myself grinding my teeth, not wanting to think like that. It would be a hundred times worse than what I’d done with Grace if I made inappropriate use of the immersion technique with Rosita. She was a client, entrusted to my professional care. I would eventually bring her into the immersion state as part of her therapy, but why even be tempted to mess with her mind and body outside of professional channels?
The two words that teased at my brain were basic—practice, and opportunity. The opportunity in Rosita’s case is termed “transference”, and I had successfully navigated the dynamic numerous times, that period when some female clients begin to project in-love feelings onto me. The therapist/client relationship is complex and extremely intimate by nature; people feel free to speak of many things they might never it to their spouses or parents or their best friends, without fear of judgment or reproach. Because of this intimacy, a certain glow can begin to form around the therapist in a patient’s eyes. It’s a psychological projection and sometimes a necessary dynamic to be harnessed for growth; the problem arises when a client believes in the feeling and wishes to act upon it, confusing professional dedication for love, and acceptance for reciprocated desire. We’re all trained to see this dynamic for what it is, and there is no ambiguous moral ground here—it must never, ever, be exploited.
Rosita had been showing the signs. We’d made good progress in getting her to move past her most recent nowhere relationship, and she had begun to say my name in a different way, sending out clear signals through her eyes and tit-thrusting postures. Even the way she attired herself had shifted—in our early sessions she had worn looser, somewhat conservative clothing, as though to separate as much as possible her nighttime activities from the serious nature of our daytime work together. Now her jeans were tighter, her skirts shorter, her blouses far more revealing. Rosita didn’t love me, but some part of her believed it might, and advertising her abundant cleavage was meant to catch my eye.
It wasn’t a problem, or hadn’t been. In some ways it might even represent the expression of more positive aspects of her psyche, projecting attraction onto me as opposed to some lowlife who could steer her back into the direction of drugs. I hadn’t done anything to encourage Rosita’s signals of interest, but I hadn’t shot them down, either, believing they would have their day and fade.
And then there was the other word, practice. I usually used the term in relation to my being a therapist—I am a licensed therapist with a therapy practice. But this day the word kept tickling at my brain in a different way, the “practice makes perfect” way.
And fuck it, I might as well it that my dick salivated at the possibility of becoming intimate with Rosita’s tits. My last girlfriend, Joyce, had been blessed with great set of double-D’s just like Grace, and I had loved everything about them, especially being tit-fucked. I didn’t know how many cup-sizes separated Joyce’s big pair from the extra-strength whoppers that Rosita had…
I could find out, easy as pie, once Rosita was in the immersion state. I would only need to ask in the right tone of voice, and she would tell me. I might even be able to influence her into showing up for these sessions with additional cleavage on display, and strengthen her desire to flirt with me. Or more.
We stuck with talk therapy that day, no hypnotism, but when Rosita left I could see how tense my hands had become. Worse—far worse—I had a fucking hard-on.
I hadn’t spaced-out with any full-blown fantasies, but the thought had nagged at me that I could practice upon her almost everything I wanted to do with Mira. They were both cock-teases—Rosita by profession, Mira by nature. They were both extremely fit and shapely dancers, even if their styles and venues existed in completely separate worlds.
And if my seedling inside Grace did grow, eventually planting Mira on this very couch... Some practice at the effective use of lust-stoking hypnotism would be beneficial, right? It would be correct, strategically, to test boundaries ahead of time, coming up with the most effective words to plant inside Mira’s ears and body.
I dropped those thoughts as I finished the day with other clients. On the drive home I picked up Tex-Mex and a six-pack of Negra Modelos, eating my meal in bachelor silence at the dining room table, listening to the emptiness of my house. I had some indoor plants to water, but no dog or cat, and currently no girlfriend. I knew I could fill out applications at online dating sites and open up some options, maybe even enter into a real relationship—Grace had counseled this course of action several times. But this night, looking at the relative emptiness of my home gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. It was that it was such a secluded environment, just right for any unfinished Mira business.
I glanced at my watch and wondered what she might be doing right then. A mental picture formed where I envisioned Mira’s tits naked, then I found myself thinking about Rosita’s much larger pair. She could be working her shift already, bringing in the bucks by getting men hard with her sultry looks and massive breasts. My cock pulsed, trying to imagine the kind of outfit she might be wearing.
I had just popped the cap of another beer when the ultimate target of my wait-and-see approach called. I held the phone in my hand and debated whether or not to pick up—do it, don’t do it, do it...
I took a long pull at my beer before swiping to answer. “Hello?”
“Finally!” Mira said, impatience sharpening her voice. “I’m going to have to make an appointment to see you, aren’t I?”
“I’m at home every night,” I replied, keeping my voice calm.
“I can’t do that. Although you don’t know how much a part of me wishes I could.”
She was wrong; I did know, and I was very interested in the way she had phrased her comment.
“I’m sorry, Mira. I would have gotten back to you but I’ve just been so swamped with make-up appointments. The skills I learned are pretty amazing, but I’m really paying the price for that time away.”
“I heard through the grapevine that you trained in hypnosis?”
The grapevine being Grace to Lucinda to Mira. “It’s not really hypnosis as people generally understand that term,” I downplayed the technique, which might be more like super-hypnosis from the looks of things. “But listen, I’m exhausted and headed for bed.”
“I understand. When you can come up for air, we need to get together for coffee or lunch, catch up.”
“I thought your husband frowned upon male friendships,” I said, testing the waters.
“My time with you is none of Taylor’s business.”
The urge was there to chide her on where that kind of thinking had led us before, but I choked the words down. With any luck, the entire landscape might change so much that past experience was irrelevant.
“Maybe I’ll be caught up by next Wednesday,” I suggested. “I might not have time for a leisurely coffee, but I’ll be working alone in the office all afternoon. You could always stop by.”
“I… I don’t know. It’s tempting but—”
“You’re thinking of what happened the last time you were there.” The kiss, and her hand touching my pants.
“Yes. We can’t go there again. Ever.”
“Things are better at home?”
“In a way. Ever since… Maybe we shouldn’t even talk about this.”
Ever since I acted like a release valve by eating out her sweet pussy. “Mira, maybe it’s best for us to stay well apart. We’ve been on the phone for maybe one minute, and we’re already dodging and weaving on what came close to happening, and also what did happen.”
“That’s no reason to pretend we live in different cities. You’ve been away and we can be on fresh ground now. Maybe it’s true that I should never see you alone; I get that. But I’d still like know you.”
“If you drop by, I suppose it comes down to a question of whether you trust yourself. And me.”
“I might trust myself.”
Meaning Good Mira felt dominant; maybe even permanently so. “And you trust me?”
“You said one time that you’d only go as far as I allowed.”
“Right,” I replied, determined to turn those limitations into so much dust. “We’ll see if next Wednesday is even possible, okay? I’ll call and—”
“No, let’s… Things are really busy with the dance company. I’ll call you again sometime.”
“Got it. Call when you’re ready, and we’ll set something up.”
“It’s going to be great seeing you again,” she ended the conversation.
I wasn’t so sure about that. I wanted to misbehave biblically upon the woman from the high arches of her feet to the fine hairs at the top of her head, and that had brought me little but pain so far. I kept thinking of what she’d said before about not having male friends because of her looks, and it seemed to me that she’d been right about that, or Taylor had. It had never been an applicable question for me before, but maybe there were some people out there who were just too good-looking to be friends with.
Because, duh, you just couldn’t stop wanting to fuck them.
Grace did well at her audition the next day and had flowers delivered to my office. The rest of the week was a grueling slog through seemingly endless appointments, and when Friday night came all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for twelve hours. Which I came close to doing.
I ran on Saturday morning, and bought groceries and mowed the lawn. I was catching up with online news in the afternoon when Grace phoned.
“Have you eaten dinner?” she asked.
“It’s only four o’clock.”
“Which means it’s late enough for a glass of wine. Stay put; I’m headed your way. We need to talk.”
About a cockamamie plan to hypnotize her girlfriend, was both my guess and my hope.
She arrived thirty minutes later with an expensive Châteauneuf-du-Pape, one of my favorites and a clear sign that she wanted something from me. When I suggested that we sit out back she shook her head no, hoisting her rear onto a kitchen counter instead, her bare legs kicking rhythmically below.
“Your house is cozy enough, but I don’t know how you stay sane without a woman in your life.”
“I have women in my life.”
“Receptionists and gay girlfriends and married cock-teases don’t count.”
“Then I am in trouble, aren’t I? But you’re delaying. Out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“You’re agitated about something. Let me guess—you didn’t end up getting the part in that play, did you?”
“You think I’d send flowers if I didn’t think they were floored by me? I expect to get a phone call at any minute that makes me extremely happy.”
“Okay, great. But you’re all antsy. You want something.”
“You are correct, sir. You’re using your new hypno-dealie on some of your clients already, right?”
“That’s private office business.”
“Oh, can the Mission Impossible secrecy b.s. Answering that simple question threatens no one’s privacy.”
True enough, plus I very much wanted us to have this conversation. “Just a handful of clients so far.”
“I know you can’t give me juicy details of what you do with whom, but I’d like to know how you choose which clients might benefit from the technique.”
Under normal circumstances I would say nothing. But today: “I can only speak abstractly, no names of course. One client might be something like a new mother. She’s very body-conscious and obsessed over suddenly having weight issues. It’s a natural occurrence and she understands that her freak-out over the pounds is imbalanced, indicating a problem with deeper material. We agreed that it couldn’t hurt to tackle her food cravings from two directions, the sensory hunger she feels and that deeper hunger, the craving for satisfaction that has nothing to do with food. The immersion work is perfect for tackling things like cravings, so we’re adding it to her regular therapy.”
“Tackling cravings,” she repeated back, looking down at her feet. “Like hypnosis byes her thinking and strikes deeper.”
“Much deeper. Sometimes, when the immersion work is going well, it’s almost as though the suggestions take root right at the core. Mileage varies, as they say, but in the right hands the technique can be amazingly effective.”
“And you have the right hands. Skilled hands.”
“It’s more my voice, but yes.”
“And what makes you so confident that things will work out with this hypothetical mother?”
“Maybe she’s begun to exercise every day without fail, which she couldn’t make herself do before.”
“You got her to do something she wouldn’t do before.”
I had to keep myself from breaking out into a wicked grin. Those words told me everything I needed to know about the success of my hidden immersion shenanigans with my friend.
“This is hypothetical, . And hypothetically I strongly reinforced her wish to exercise regularly, under hypnosis.”
“And just like that, she will?”
“ that she already wanted to.”
“So your technique has the capacity to alter people’s behavior, as long as they’re game. That’s a fact, right?”
“In many cases… Yes, that’s a fact.”
“You can make behaviors change.”
“‘Make’ is too strong a word. Maybe ‘change’ is, too. The technique can alleviate or accentuate drives that are already present. You, for instance, were determined to sing better. I managed to tamp down psycho-physical tendencies in the direction of emotional and physical tensions, pretty simple. You sang better because you remained relaxed at the critical moment, right?”
“Right. So, you just said ‘drives’. The technique can affect drives.”
“Right.”
“Like the drive to consume too much food.”
“Right. And other primal drives.”
Grace nodded. “Hypothetically, could the technique affect sex drives?”
I didn’t respond at once. “I really can’t talk about how I’ve used the technique with my clients.” Which implied that I had already done something in the direction she was asking about.
“Let me ask my question like this, then. Would you say that your technique could maybe affect sex drives, like in theory? Or do you know it can affect sex drives, more of a proven fact?”
Again I waited a couple of breaths before answering. “It is a proven fact that the immersion technique is especially suited to affect primal drives, which would include sex drives. They are both physical and psychological, and they run very deep.”
I could see Grace wanting to clap her hands or do a victory lap around my kitchen, but she played it cool.
“Okay then, my enhanced hypothetical. Let’s say that somebody has a lover. Their lover is wonderful, but they don’t think to do certain things in bed. Could your method get them to change?”
“You mean get them to be more adventurous or ionate in bed?”
“Right.”
So dangerous and downright wrong, this conversation, yet I could sense nerve endings tingling all over my body. “If the hoped-for desires already existed to some degree… Trying to suggest something foreign, totally unwanted, simply wouldn’t work.”
“So a gay person—you couldn’t turn them straight.”
I looked at her, surreptitiously absorbing the heft of her boobs. I couldn’t make her straight; I was certain of that. But an experimental dalliance, a one-time walk on the cock-side?
I inhaled and slowly let the breath out. “No, I don’t think that could work.”
Grace let out a little laugh. “You’ll never be employed for conversion therapy, then.”
“I wouldn’t do it anyway.”
“But something smaller, like… Let’s say someone loves sex and they also love chocolate, and pure heaven would be having their lover smear chocolate all over their thighs before having sex.”
“Colorful.”
“The lover’s lover also loves chocolate. They both enjoy sex and chocolate, so nothing about putting them together would be icky for them, right? Under those circumstances, could a little tinkering get this lover to want sex and chocolate mixed together? Like that.”
“Probably so. In that example I could theoretically get them to fill a bathtub with chocolate and bathe in the stuff, demanding their lover lick it all off. But what’s the point?”
“Uh-huh. Wow, that’s very interesting. And speaking of chocolate, it’s my birthday next week.”
“Don’t worry. Carlotta doesn’t let me forget things like that.”
“Don’t buy me anything.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because I want something else from you.”
“Grace, wait. That much chocolate is expensive.”
“You should be overjoyed with my request, then. It won’t cost you anything and it might help you branch into new psychoanalytic territory. It concerns Lucinda.”
“I thought it might. Don’t tell me the romance is over.”
“Hardly, and don’t even speak of such a thing. I’m crazy about her. I mean those thighs! They’re so fucking strong and toned and I’m going a little crazy over her. I keep wanting her, like wanting her, and the sex is great when it happens, only—”
“Only?”
“She can’t keep up with me.”
“A professional dancer can’t keep up?”
“I mean she does in of stamina, but… I’ve been really horny lately. ”
“You’re saying you have different degrees of sex drive.” Thanks to me, at least partially.
“It’s not only that. She’s bi and I keep thinking… I’d go crazy if we didn’t work out. I mean it, I’ve finally found The One and now I’m terrified I won’t be able to keep her!”
“They always say to watch what you wish for.”
“Yeah, well, fuck that. I’m not like you; I don’t just sit back and hope it all works out. I go for what I want. I dig in and don’t let go.”
“Did I just get dissed by my best friend?”
“Sorry. It was meant to be the prelude to a request, not a put-down. I need your help again, okay? I keep coming back to how easy it was to sing after you performed your immersion dealie on me, and there’s this idea that just won’t let go. If you could get Lucinda into a compliant state, you could, you know…”
“Accentuate certain lovemaking drives?”
“Yes!”
“Make her need you the way you need her? That’s what you’re asking?”
“I could even be there to advise you.”
“You mean a little birdie with a pitchfork and the smell of sulphur will start to whisper their wishes into my ear.”
“Exactly.”
“Which I then direct at a certain helpless woman with beautiful thighs.”
“You are so intuitive. I love that about you.”
“Grace, this has to be the craziest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Pfft! Maybe it won’t work, but what’s the harm in trying?”
“Oh, it would work, only…” I shut my mouth and tried to look angry at myself for itting that.
“It would work! So why not—”
“Beyond it being an abuse of my profession?”
“Listen to you, so above it all. I’m only asking you to help two consenting adults enjoy themselves in bed a bit more. My toes would get the attention they deserve and no one gets hurt. And if you could make Lucinda’s tongue as strong and supple as the rest of her body, you might even be able to hear the fruits of your handiwork halfway across the city. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“I don’t do tongues. I do psyches.”
“You’d get at her tongue through her psyche, you idiot. Maybe you could make her scream more, too. I’m in love with Lucinda’s thighs, but I really miss Tina’s screams. Maybe you could—”
“Graft one lover’s strengths onto another? Grace, this is Frankenstein material. It’s not only impractical, it’s… I don’t even know what to call it.” With any luck, domino inevitability.
“I guarantee I can get her on a couch, ready to go,” Grace went on, reaching out and gesturing for me to come closer. She took both of my hands and said more gently, “You’d be giving her more pleasure, and giving me more pleasure. It would be a good deed.”
I hated to think in clichés, but it suited the moment to have the one pop up about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. How much worse when Grace’s intentions had been warped without her knowing it?
“Grace, if the tables were turned and Lucinda had your drives changed without you knowing it…”
“But she would know! I’d inform her ahead of time, promise. I’m very persuasive; you know that. As for me with your question… I wouldn’t know why I had more pleasure but I’d have more pleasure? I’d take that deal.”
Good, because she was already taking it. I needed to keep sounding skeptical, though, so I began, “This is still so crazy. I—”
“A back specialist goes to a party, and someone says to him: ‘You know, my lower back hurts like hell and I can’t even enjoy myself.’ Are you telling me it would be some awful breech of ethics if that doctor took this partygoer into a room and worked on his or her back a little? Doctors alleviate pain!”
“But Lucinda isn’t in pain. You are.”
“Of course she’s in pain! When I want to fuck her and she isn’t in the mood, the tension is like a blast of fucking Chernobyl air! She loves me and isn’t pleasing me enough and when she isn’t pleasing me I make her suffer, don’t you get it?”
The twisted logic was laughable, but I loved hearing it. It was like her mind was making honest, if distorted, efforts to justify the impulses I’d set alight in her psyche and body.
“Grace, tell me in very simple what you want me to do. If I hypnotized Lucinda and it all went exactly as you wanted, in the end you would have…”
“More frequent mind-boggling high-decibel sex with my girlfriend, duh!”
“Okay, I get it. Now, how would we do this?”
“I’ll bring her here tomorrow. Or you come to my place, that might be better. She’ll be willing, I promise. I’ll fucking make it happen, and then it’s all up to you.”
“And when she meets me for the first time, she’ll know what this is about?”
“Yes, my wishes plus hers. Lucinda wants to be a better dancer—she compares herself to some of the other dancers in the troupe, Mira especially, and she knows she has further to go. She can hear what you did for my voice, and I got to talking to her about how you helped me get there. I’ll start there with her, being a batter dancer. Then I’ll sneak in a few words about how you can theoretically make sex better the same way you made my voice better. After that… I mean, who’s going to turn down a better sex life if it’s on offer, right?”
“Manipulating your girlfriend’s sexual preferences is not a proper use of the immersion technique,” I stated what I pretty much believed was the opposite of the truth.
“Think of the possibilities, now and forever if it works. Maybe you really can do things that help Lucinda with her dancing; that’s a lot right there. And if we could juice her sex drive so it’s in better synch with mine—”
“There really is no ‘we’ in this, Grace. If I agree to this, crazy as it is… I do it alone. I really can’t have you kibitzing over my shoulder in a delicate process like this.”
“But—”
“That’s non-negotiable. If we even go there you can tell me the things you’d want me to focus on beforehand, but if I successfully put her under… That’s just me and Lucinda. The technique can’t even work with a crowd present.”
“I’m hardly a crowd.”
“Three is very much a crowd in this case.”
“Fuck, you’re stubborn.”
I remained silent and immovable.
“You don’t know how badly I need this, Michael. And I’ll find some way to repay you, I swear I will. You think I’m a good friend now? I’ll make it my mission in life to find you a hot girlfriend, how’s that?”
I never said yes, but when Grace was ready to leave I asked what time I should expect a call.
“I’ll call as soon I know. Would it help if we got her a little tipsy like I was?”
“It’s not necessary but it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Then think cocktail hour or dinner at my place. If that all works out, you’ll come?”
“I’ll come,” I said. Which, I reflected when alone, was the goal at the end of this whole deception, wasn’t it? To come, inside or all over Mira Cassidy, by whatever means.