The next morning Stephanie and I ate breakfast together in the dining room. The sunlight spilling in through the windows made her hair and skin look perfect. She was wearing a short silk robe I'd bought her years ago over a pair of shorts and a loose camisole. I leered at her cleavage as she dug into her grapefruit. Over the morning's Sports section, of course.
My mind wandered to the events of the night before: the incredible fuck we'd shared on the kitchen island followed by the erotic fantasy her sister had shared with me under hypnosis. I barely felt like the same person I was a week ago--frustrated and desperate. Now all I could think about was how fortunate I was to be in the position to be with this incredibly hot and suddenly horny woman sitting across from me. It was selfish for me to want more, but I hadn't done anything yet, either.
I took a sip from my coffee and leaned over to get a better look down Stephanie's shirt when she turned to me.
"Did you... do something to me when you hypnotized me last week?" she asked.
I almost sprayed my coffee all over her. I folded my paper carefully in front of me and set down my mug. "Why would you say something like that?"
"I don't know. It's weird. Like, I remember dinner last night, and I remember sitting down with Nikki and watching you hypnotize her. Then she started taking off her clothes. Then I remember saying good night to her and going to bed early. But I don't remember closing the door or you coming to bed or anything else. Isn't that weird?"
"Honey," I said, turning the newspaper sideways on the table between us. "Do you remember us drinking three bottles of wine last night? I'm not sure I remember that much. Nicole collected her things and went home as soon as you went to bed. I offered to make her coffee so she'd be safe. Do you remember that?"
She squinted her eyes and looked a little confused. Then she smiled. "It was a lot of wine. But there's something else--since that night, I've been a total slut. I can't believe we did what we did in the kitchen. You put your thumb in my ass! And I liked it! And I'm having these thoughts... That's not me. It never has been."
"What kind of thoughts?" I asked. I rubbed her calf under the table with my toes, caressing up her leg and to her thigh.
She blushed and squirmed away from my touch. "Sexy thoughts. Different stuff. I don't know. Things I haven't thought about since I was a teenager. It's just weird."
"Do you not like it?"
"No! It's awesome. We haven't been like this since we first got together. I'm excited every time I see you. I'm, like, aware of myself in this new way. And the sex has just been incredible--even you're different. It's like you know what I've always wanted. Don't things seem different to you?"
I thought about how I should answer this. Sometimes having the subconscious dragged into the conscious mind undoes all of the work. I didn't want to do that, but I also didn't want any part of Stephanie being unhappy. "They are different, but they're also better. Maybe that 'sexual peak' that people always talk about is arriving for you. You've lost some weight--I've never seen you look better. Maybe you're feeling sexy and acting like it." I reached across the table and held her hand. I ran my fingers across her palm. I pressed on the inside of her wrist. She still looked uncertain, so I pulled her hand up to my lips and kissed the back of it. Nothing sexy about it, just tenderness.
"I love you. You do look beautiful," I said.
"I love you, too. Maybe it's all in my head. It was a lot of wine." She dug back into her grapefruit and I watched her for a little while, the way her hair fell across her face and how her lips twitched when she was thinking hard.
"What haven't you thought about since you were a teenager?" I asked.
The color rose in her cheeks and she crushed the last wedges of her breakfast. "I'm going to shower."
"Do you want me to join you?"
"Yes, but you can't. I'll take advantage of you, and you'll never get to work on time." She wiggled her ass at me and turned the corner up the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard the water running.
That morning when I got to my office I was pleasantly surprised to find an e-mail message from Nicole. I was afraid that my instructions to her to e-mail me a sexy picture when she fantasized about me might be too complicated for her subconscious to process. I was glad I was wrong.
Nicole's a smart woman. The picture didn't reveal her face, just the ends of her hair spilling over her shoulders. She'd posed with her cameraphone on a table. Her thin body was perched on her hands and knees, with one hand buried in a black thong and another cupping one of her small but firm breasts under the cup of a black lace bra. She looked good. The e-mail didn't have any text; it felt like it was done automatically--without thinking. I wouldn't mention it to her, although I spent more time than necessary ogling her perfect skin and tight lines.
Stephanie was right; hypnotizing her (and her sister) had not only changed them, it had changed me. I was definitely more confident now. The taste of getting what I wanted made me want even more. When I walked around my campus, my eyes lingered on the lithe coeds more than was necessary and maybe appropriate. But another thing happened: the coeds seemed to be noticing me, too. A college campus in summer is slow, but it's not vacant. Young women carry their summer school books pressed to their spaghetti-strapped shirts and short shorts. I could feel their eyes linger on me. I even caught a couple of young things turn to check out my ass as they walked by. I hoped they would enroll in my course for the fall.
I found myself mildly disappointed the next day when I came to work and I didn't have a picture from my sister-in-law. I didn't expect one; it had taken some time for Stephanie to work out my instructions. But I'd hoped for something. Nicole clearly had more of an erotic imagination than my wife. Perhaps I shouldn't have instructed her to sleep as soundly as I did.
Instead I puttered around my mostly-vacant building. The engineering and architecture schools were centered in gleaming new glass-and-metal cathedrals, but my own liberal arts department was secluded in a building nearly as old as the campus itself. It wasn't without its charms, though. The grass around the building was cool in the summer, and students picnicked outside during session. The trees were mature and shaded the grounds, and what the brick and ivy exterior lacked in awesomeness it more than made up for in character and class.
Since it was the middle of summer, the great majority of my colleagues had either just left or were about to come back from their own travels. I always tried to make the most of this time, so I was doing my own research and settling on materials for the coming fall. Even the secretaries were out. My hallway lights have a motion detector instead of a switch, and I had started to favor working in twilight.
My phone rang, and I was surprised to see that it was Stephanie.
