"Hi Vicky," Zach said glumly.
"So you know me."
"I do."
"Well, Zachary, in case you don't already know, let me tell you a little bit about my day today...
"I was in the student center, reading in one of the lounges while waiting for my husband to show up after he was done grading papers for the afternoon. We were going to have a bite to eat, maybe a pint, and go watch some tv. That would be a typical, or even a pleasant evening for us.
"Instead, I don't know exactly what happened, but I was at home, stark naked, more aroused than I've ever been in my life. And I came to this realization just as Ron was walking up the stairs, angry at being stood up.
"Fortunately, I was in a position to change his mood, which is why I probably don't have an inconvenient bruise right now. You see what I'm saying?"
"Ok, I'm listening," Zach offered, keeping himself totally neutral. Even as she spoke, he tuned in, and found that there was a wild mix of emotions going on inside her, including arousal, curiosity, guilt, anger, fear.
"I don't love Ron, and he doesn't love me. That's not our thing, we're a perfect team, intellectually. We have a career planned. We don't bother with sex anymore, it's just a distraction. We haven't had sex like that... ever. We haven't even had bad sex in a year. So, what I need to know from you, Zachary, is this. What did you do to me?"
"How do you know it was me?"
"Well if I didn't before, I do now. You could hardly look guiltier. But I had flashes of memory. What you looked like. Your name."
"Which is Zach, by the way."
"It wasn't hard to track you down. The University has all kinds of useful student indexes. You can opt out if you are on the run from the mafia, but for most of you, you're in there."
"Well, ok, good to know," Zach said. "But I can't really tell you what happened."
"I would have thought for sure you had roofied me, but it magically wore off the second Ron came home. So I don't think you drugged me."
"No. You could call it hypnosis, I guess."
Vicky nodded as if he was confirming her theory.
"Go on, tell me more," she said.
Zach considered telling the truth, but he had the firm conviction it would not go over well.
"We got talking," he said. "Your book. Ritual prostitution in the ancient temples. We were talking about Crete, how the palace there was actually a temple. I... I saw how it turned you on, Vicky, and I got carried away. I even asked you if you had a boyfriend, and you said no. I didn't imagine you were married. So, I have been trained in hypnosis. My uncle is a stage hypnotist, Vegas, that kind of thing. And I learned it. So we were having this sexy conversation and I suggested something... inappropriate. You turned me down, but I saw that you wanted to. Here's the thing about hypnosis, Vicky, you can't make someone do something they don't want to do, so I just thought I would lower your inhibitions a little, and we would do a little goddess worship back at your place. It was lovely, you were really into it! Then Ron came home, and, I'm not proud of myself, I ran. My clothes are in the hamper there, soaked from climbing down your wet ivy."
"You were right to run, Ron would probably have killed you."
"Why are you with that asshole then? He hits you?"
"Almost never. He's a genius. A very, very brilliant man. He's a linguist, with a completely new analysis of the evolution and significance of the ancient near-east languages. We work together, and we are going to change the world's understanding of Mesopotamia and ancient Israel. It's important work. More important than getting your rocks off with an undergraduate."
"And yet here you are. You came back for more, didn't you?"
He pushed the intention into her even as he said the words, keeping his energy presence very constrained, not getting cocky. Just a quiet confidence that he put into his words and into the action of his will.
He wasn't wrong, either, he could feel her lifting to meet his energy. He was surprised to find that he was responding. He thought for sure he was going to lie down and pass out, but he found himself twitching and pulsing with the thought of her bountiful breasts, and the swollen pink lips welcoming him inside her.
But she denied it.
"No!" she said vehemently. "I came here to understand what happened, and to warn you. I'm not going to press charges because it would ruin everything. But I should, and if you keep this up, someone will. You may or may not be a naïve young man with a talent he's not mature enough to handle, but I'm going to assume that you are, and I'm going to tell you to your face, just once, that if you ever do something like this to a woman again, to me or to anyone else, I will find a way to make sure you..."
Her rant had given Zach the opportunity to really align to her sparking desire. It was intermixed with the righteous anger.
"Stop," he said firmly. He looked her in the eye. "Sit." He gestured to his bed.
She sat.
He wrote a note for Jacob, taped it to the door.
