"Wait," said Lacey. "You can do hypnotism for real?"
Jonathan was surprised. Shy, pretty Lacey rarely spoke up when there were this many people around, and of all the group of his friends who were gathered for lunch on the college lawn, Lacey is the one he least expected to lead the conversation.
"As real as it gets," said Jonathan. "I took it as an optional unit in psych, and we get to practice on volunteers under supervision. But you know it's not like the movies, right? It's not mind control?"
Lacey frowned. "You can't make people just do whatever you want?"
"Well," said Jonathan. "I can get people to do things that they wouldn't normally do. It's more like getting someone drunk - it lowers their inhibitions and reduces their self-critical capacity. You might do things that you wish you hadn't done, but not things that you didn't want to do."
Lacey thought about that. "Do you, like, practice outside of class?"
"Now that I'm finished the unit, I can," he said, "if I'm careful, on a consenting volunteer."
Lacey blushed, and avoided eye contact, as she shyly said, "Do you want to maybe try on me? I kind of want to see what it's like..."
Jonathan smiled. "I think that would be a lot of fun," he said...
***
Lacey turned out to remarkably quick to find her trance. Seated in a comfortable chair in his dorm room, dressed in a pretty, chaste, white dress, she was now staring blankly ahead, eyes unfocused.
"Can you hear me, Lacey?" he asked.
"Yes..." she breathed. Her voice was different to normal - softer and (he thought) sexier.
"Lacey," he began, "you asked me to hypnotise you. Do you remember?"
"Yes..."
"You seemed eager to be hypnotised. Were you eager?"
"Yes..."
He paused, then asked what he wanted to ask. "Why did you want me to hypnotise you, Lacey?"