Act Appalled

"So you're never going to believe what George did. I mean Neh. Ver. Like, this is a 'not in a million years' type of not believing. No, more like a billion. A trillion. You're going to hear this and be all, like, 'Buh-whaaaa?' Record scratch levels of 'Buh-whaaaaaa?' It's-"

"Okay, Sue. You're overselling it a little. You dragged me all the way downtown to have breakfast with you just to tell me, so tell me."

"Alright, but you're really not going to believe me. Ow! Okay, jeez, Allie! Honestly, I thought that 'hit like a girl' was supposed to mean 'not hard'...okay. So last weekend, George and I were chaperoning that youth group together on the trip to the Cities to see the Winter Carnival? Well, we got the kids back to the hotel and into bed, and then he invited me up for hot chocolate, and...I mean, I thought maybe he might be hinting at something, but this is George, right? He makes Clark Kent look like Marilyn Manson. So I went up and-"

"You're not telling me that you and George-"

"Ssh! You wanted me to tell it, don't interrupt."

*****

George poured hot water into her cup, and she gratefully stirred the gritty powder into the liquid. "I know it's better with milk," he said, apologetically, "but we'll just need to make do with what we have."

"It's fine," she replied, continuing to swirl the spoon around in the cup until the hot cocoa mix dissolved. Once she stopped seeing any big crumbles of powder, she removed the spoon, but she didn't see a coaster anywhere. She carefully licked the metal surface clean, a little bit self-consciously aware of George's eyes on her as she stroked the smooth silvery curve of the spoon with her tongue, before setting it down on the coffee table. She looked back down at the hot chocolate as a sudden wave of shyness washed over her. There was a long, slightly uncomfortable silence.

"Busy day, huh?" George said, his voice seeming a little bit louder as it broke the stillness of the room.

She looked up at him, slightly confused. "Um...I mean, not any more than you'd expect, I...um...why do you ask?" She tried to get her voice back under control, conscious of the slight tremble to her fingers as they held the warm ceramic mug. She didn't know why she was so nervous. She had agreed to this. She knew what it meant to be here with him. Didn't she?

Unable to hold the stare, she looked back down at the hot chocolate, still swirling slightly in the mug. Clouds of foam drifted past her eyes in a lazy spiral.

"Well," said George, seemingly oblivious to her nervous tension, "it's just that you look tired. Your eyes look a little bit heavy, and you keep drooping your head down to stare at the floor, and I thought that you might have had one of those long, exhausting days. You know, the kind where all you really want to do once it's over is zone out and not really think about anything in particular." He chuckled. "Maybe just stare at the cocoa and let your mind wander."

She couldn't help chuckling in return, a little bit of the tension broken with laughter. "You just don't know how exciting my hot chocolate really is," she said, flicking her eyes up at him and giving him a small, flirtatious smile. He was already smiling back at her, a surprising development that sent her right back to staring down at the cocoa. Her mind didn't wander, though. It was on George.

"How do you know I don't?" he said, his voice teasing her just a little. She felt her cheeks redden slightly, but he didn't sound upset. He sounded like he was enjoying this. "This isn't the first time I've had hot chocolate with a beautiful woman."

"I-" She started to speak, but a wave of anxiety cut off her voice. She stared furiously at her hot chocolate, willing herself to stop feeling so nervous about what might or might not happen between them. She was just going to relax and let everything unfold. That was what she wanted, wasn't it?

It seemed to be what George wanted. "Hey," he said, coming over to sit next to her. "Relax. It's okay. We're just two people enjoying each other's company, that's all. You don't have to be nervous about any of it. You can let go of those worries and enjoy this experience together."

He paused for a moment, almost studiously lost in thought. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye, still not ready to openly meet his gaze. After a few seconds, his eyes lit up with an almost theatrical brilliance. "I've got an idea," he said. "I think I know how to help you relax a little."

*****

"So what did he do? I mean, you made it sound like he had some kind of sex dungeon in his hotel room or something, but if it was just cocoa and compliments..."

"Well, I'm not finished yet! God, Allie, you are the interruptingest person ever!"

"Aren't you an English teacher, Sue? Is 'interruptingest' even a word? Is it even in the same category as actual words?"

"Look, I spend all day every day teaching twelve-year olds how to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. On my days off, I am going to bend the goddamn language over and fuck it raw.

"

oshitwasthatBetsyPierson'smom? doyouthinksheheardme?

"

"...just finish the story, okay? So what did George do to you to 'help you relax'? Did he, like, slip roofies into your cocoa? Did you guys do pot while chaperoning a middle school field trip? You totally did. You did pot in the hotel room and made out."

"No! We did not do drugs. He...okay, this is the bit you're not going to believe."

*****

"I want you to simply watch the spinning lights, and let go." He was holding up a child's toy, one of those novelty souvenirs that appealed to tweens and teens despite their fragile construction and general unreliability. There was something faintly absurd about the way he looked so serious while telling her to stare at a cheap kiddy toy, but it only took her a moment to stop noticing. Because she was watching the spinning lights. And she was letting go.

"That's it," he said, as her jaw relaxed a little and hung slack. "You're doing very well. Just let your eyes follow the lights as they merge into endless, pretty swirls of color. You can let your thoughts drift away, let your mind slowly and easily relax into peace and calm as the soothing lights and my soothing voice stroke away all that tension you were feeling. You don't need it, do you?"

"Nnn." She was surprised at how hard it was to make her mouth work properly. She didn't really think this was going to affect her; she was embarrassed to admit that the whole thing just sounded like an excuse for mildly kinky sex as far as she was concerned. But the more she watched and listened, the easier it was to imagine that her mind really was softening and melting under the constantly spinning lights. "Nnno," she said, finally turning the grunt into a word. She felt her anxiety fall away as she spoke.

"That's a good girl," he replied, his eyes shining just past the lights as he watched her eyelids growing hooded with exhaustion. His tone bordered on condescension, but somehow it felt strangely warming to be called a good girl like that. It was like he'd found a connection to some deep part of her that had never outgrown that desire for unconditional praise and acceptance, and she squirmed a little as a warm flush of joy washed through her.

He lifted the spinning toy a little bit higher, and her gaze followed it automatically. Her head didn't move, though. It already felt too heavy to lift up; it was all she could do to keep it from slumping forward onto her chest. Instead, her eyes rolled up in her head in an attempt to keep staring at the bright swirls of color. They had limited success; she could see the lights, but her eyelids kept getting in the way as they trembled with the effort of staying open.

She wondered how she must look, and tried to picture it, but her mind refused to process more than random details. Slumped on the bed with her dark hair hanging down into her face. Only the whites of her brown eyes showing. Her mouth hanging open. Drool gathering on her lips. Her legs akimbo, revealing an expanse of pale thigh beneath her skirt. Her breasts hanging heavy, nipples stiff with arousal. The image was astonishingly erotic.

"There you go," he said, cutting into her wandering thoughts with a firm, commanding voice that her hazy mind instantly locked onto. "You're so relaxed now, so happy and dreamy and drowsy as you follow my voice and let it guide you. The lights keep spinning in your mind's eye, now, and even when you don't see them you can imagine them filling your thoughts and keeping you tightly focused on my words as you let your limp, loose, lazy body ease back onto the soft, warm bed. Easy does it, easy...good girl."

She felt her body lolling backwards, almost floating as she sagged bonelessly onto the mattress. She thought she imagined George's hands holding her, supporting her as she relaxed deeply and let her body go limp, but she wasn't sure how much she could trust her senses anymore. Everything felt so fuzzy and confused, and she knew she could see the spinning lights right through her closed eyes and that had to be impossible. She decided not to worry about it. George had told her she didn't have to worry about anything anymore, and that sounded so nice.

"That's a very good girl," George said, finding that part of her that unthinkingly craved his approval and stroking it with his words. "You're doing so well, you're following all my suggestions now, and that feels so wonderful that you just want to keep right on going. You want to keep listening and relaxing and doing exactly what I say like a good girl, don't you?"

She could feel the pressure in the back of her mind, the momentum of one suggestion pushing another pushing another until it seemed almost impossible to refuse. It all just sounded so reasonable. So right. His chain of reasoning shaded so gradually from relaxation to submission that trying to find something to argue with seemed like grabbing fog. She sighed, and her lips parted to respond.

*****

"Seriously, Allie, he was trying to fucking hypnotize me! Like, actual, 'watch the pretty lights of red and you will do the things I said' hypnotizing!"

"'Coin of gold'."

"Wha?"

"It's a Scooby-Doo...never mind. So he really hypnotized you?"

"More like 'tried to'. I snapped out of it when it started getting all creepy and, y'know...um, bondage-y. Oh, don't give me that look, you know what I mean! Like, he was calling me a 'good girl', and telling me how good it felt to do what he said, and as soon as I realized what he was really getting at, I just kind of nopetopused right back to myself."

"That's awful! Did he try to make any excuses or anything?"

"Well, he said that he thought I was enjoying myself, and he was checking in to make sure I was okay with all of it, and he would never try to do anything I wasn't really comfortable with. And I was like, 'Um, the hypnosis? DUDE!'"

"What did he say to that??

"Oh, that was the best part-get this. He said I wouldn't really do anything I didn't want to do under hypnosis anyway. And I was like, 'You are so right!' And I grabbed my stuff and got right the fuck out of there. Dude is the creepiest fucking perv under the Mister Nice Guy act. All into that fucking...fucked up kinky perv shit."

"Ugh, yeah. Guys like that are the worst. What even makes someone want that kind of weird 'Master and slave' stuff, anyway? Thank you so much for warning me about him, Sue."

"Oh, hey, no bigs. You needed to know before he invited you to his house for drinks or something. I mean, can you imagine if he tried that on you, all that sick 'be a good girl and do what I say' shit? What would you even say to that?"

"I want to say it would be something clever, but...probably just 'fuck off creep', or 'eww, no!', or..."

*****

"Yes Master," Allie whispered, her voice soft and muzzy as she let the words carry her even deeper into trance. She hadn't intended to say 'Master', at least not quite so soon, but the delicious thrill of so many fantasies fulfilled made the word spill from her lips unbidden. Her mouth spread into a dreamy smile as her muscles relaxed even more and more with each passing moment.

There was a note of surprise in George's voice when he responded, but he was quick to praise her surrender. "Good girl!" he said, gently stroking her hair. "So responsive, so obedient. You want to belong to me, don't you, pretty girl?" She could hear the excitement in his words, a note of husky arousal in his tones that told her that he was already rock hard inside his pants. In her mind, Allie was already begging to wrap her lips around his cock, but the same passivity that was turning her on beyond all reason kept her from taking the initiative. She wanted to let Master set the pace. She wanted to be commanded.

It had been the hardest thing in the world, pretending to be horrified by Sue's description of every sexual fantasy Allie had dreamed up since she hit puberty, all unfolding in mangled English right there in the restaurant. Her panties had soaked clean through hearing Sue describe George's slow, hypnotic seduction, listening to every word of it and fighting the urge to blush and whimper with desire. She made the first excuse she could to get away, and then the second excuse she could to head over to George's apartment.

He still had the toy, thankfully. It hadn't broken like so many cheap souvenirs do in their first week, and the batteries were still good. Allie knew he could have hypnotized her without it, but she wanted the fantasy. Every detail of Sue's story, as real as they could make it, right down to the hot chocolate. She didn't know what she would have done if George had said no.

And now, she was lying on his bed and whispering, "Yes Master," yet again. Not thinking, not choosing, just responding to his commands with unthinking acceptance. Being his mindless slave, his deeply aroused and blank toy. Just the way she'd always wanted to. Unconsciously, her legs spread wider, revealing a pair of panties just as damp as they were back at the restaurant. She needed to be touched. She needed to be owned. She needed everything he wanted to give her, and she couldn't wait for it to happen.

"Good girl," he said, resting his hand on her exposed pussy, and Allie let out a soft sigh of arousal as she became exactly what she always wanted to be.

THE END