Encouragement

Ronald pulled into the driveway of a house he'd not seen in month. It could've been years before he ever expected to see it again, resisting attempts to drive through his old neighborhood. The lawn, the shrubs, the entire exterior looked the same, and it was nice to see it was still being maintained by someone. He would've hoped the interior hadn't changed much either, but that would've all been up to the sole owner inside. He guessed the only thing that really changed was her, and was very saddened by the fact that he'd caused the change.

He rang the front doorbell nervously, wondering why he'd been called over. Their last phone conversation was like talking to an entirely different woman; it wasn't the pained, angry, cold ex-wife who acted on what seemed to be pure hatred from the night he'd been caught with Edie. Lydia sounded like an old acquaintance, cordial, warmer, sounding like she was happy to hear his voice. There was still a hint of something negative-sounding in her voice, and he knew it wasn't because of the pain in her hips. For whatever reason he was called over, hoping against any hope he deserved, he hoped it would be the start of reconciliation for the woman he still loved.

That hope felt dashed as a slightly taller half-naked man answered the door.

Ronald and the other man, stood there waiting for the other to respond. Ronald tried to hide his bitter surprise until the other man spoke.

"You're Ronald, right?"

"That's right. Who are you?"

"Lydia's masseuse, part of her physical therapy. She asked me to bring you to her."

"Did she," Ronald muttered under his breath as the taller man let him in, pretending he didn't hear the comment.

"So...how is she?"

"Doing fine for now; she seems to be well on her way to being back to 100%."

"That's good," Ronald responded with a smile. "I'm happy it's finally getting back to that way for her."

Ronald was led back to his old study, fearing what the inside had been converted to.

"And yeah, me being shirtless at the door was intentional. Not mine though," Ronald was told before he opened the door. He strangely appreciated the 'guy-to-guy' comment of understanding.

Inside, almost everything was as he remembered, with tall, full bookshelves, reclining love-seat, and his desk. Most of the bigger furniture was moved toward the walls while Lydia laid flat on her stomach on a long massage table in the center of the room. Lydia's head was turned away, but her auburn hair flipped as she came to face him.

"Hello Ronald," she greeted him in the same friendly manner as her last telephone call. "You're looking well."

"Thanks, Lydia."

Longing eyes easily traveled over the length of her body. She'd always looked good to him, but the last year of their marriage, the beauty of her body was always juxtaposed by the odd shape and positioning as she moved any way she could to avoid any pinch nerve or sharp pain that made her cry out. He tried to be as accommodating as possible with her, but that often meant staying away from her for fear of setting off something bad with just his touch. He didn't take it as rejection, but it was frustrating for him on some level.

Looking at her now, laid out on the table looking care-free and sexy, was a sullen reminder of how big a mistake he made.

"I'll take your starring as a compliment returned to me," she replied calmly.

"Oh...um..yeah, Lydia. You look great."

"Thank you."

"Does it still hurt?"

"Occasionally, a lot better than it was months ago, if you can remember."

"I do remember, unfortunately."

Lydia kept her smile from widening as she caught the possible double-meaning in his words. It got harder for him the longer his gaze kept roaming over her body.

"Well, it's nice to know that after an eleven-year marriage, I can still have an effect on you."

Lydia stretched a little bit against the table, wincing a little

"I'm sorry it couldn't have been a twelve-year marriage Lydia."

"Oh, I know you're sorry Ronald. I do know."

Lydia gasped for a second as she reached toward her hips to grip the hurting muscles out of habit. The masseuse quickly moved to attend to her pain, setting her hand gently aside and using his fingers to push into the flesh in specific motions. Ronald was amazed at how Lydia seemed to respond immediately to his touch.

"Mmmm, thank you Will, that feels a lot better."

"Are you sure you're totally opposed to painkillers or any other drugs until you're back to your old self?"

Ronald winced at the question, as he remembered asking it when she was in worse shape, and got chewed out pretty good a few times. Even though he was a guest, it wouldn't have been surprising to expect Lydia to let Will have it. Ronald couldn't have expected the calm retort and what came after.

"Who needs those when I have you? But speaking of easing supplements, I think you should be enjoying this more," Lydia spoke to Will as she turned her head and raised her hand to snap her fingers at Will.

Ronald hadn't seen someone drop into trance for Lydia since she demonstrated her power on a curious friend of theirs. He witnessed an accelerated yet identical version this time as Will gasped and his eyes quickly lost focus and became vacant. But the small smile that appeared on his face, and was maintained as he refocused his efforts on Lydia's sides was new. Their curious friend was taken down slowly, and gently. Will's profound reaction to his fragile client laying naked sans a towel and flat on her belly seem strikingly influential. He knew Will was probably induced well before this, but he couldn't suppress how it made her seem like all it took for her now was a simple gesture to control others.

"It's scary how good I've gotten since you last saw me trance anyone, isn't it?"

Lydia's words shook Ronald back to focusing on her.

"It's almost too easy to get whoever I want to do whatever I say now."

His ex-wife's expression had a hint of playfulness and seduction to it, and he couldn't tell if she was just hamming it up or was gloating at her improved skill and his precarious position.

"Not to worry though, I took this man quite willingly. And yes, with more than just a finger snap."

That got her ex breathing a little more calmly, but not by much.

"He was curious about my skills, and I told him I could make him feel as good as I do when he works on me. He didn't believe me at first, but still decided to see for himself. He took to it so well, that I suggested he feel added pleasure in trance when he works on me like this."

Her words seemed accurate as he looked quite high and happy to be how he was. Will strangely was mouthing words that sounded barely above a whisper.

"Did you get him to work for free?"

"No, he still gets paid. It's not about the money, it's the satisfaction."

"Not when it was my money," Ronald whispered under his breath.

"That was my satisfaction, Ronald," Lydia said as she looked at him pointedly but still with an even smile, letting him know his comment didn't go unheard. "Besides, you're not exactly in the poorhouse with the way private banking is going, and how much I really could've taken you for in the long-term, money my lawyer recommended I take you for, but didn't."

Ronald stayed silent at that. He had to choose his words carefully from that point, thinking the wrong word could lead to more money issues for him.

"I mean, you made how much last year...?" she reached over with her hand and started tapping her fingernails against the nearby desk, trying to figure out the large calculations in her head. Lydia's long-time habitual method of counting was cute before they got married, got irritating in the first few years, but he eventually tolerated it, even successfully drowned it out most times. After spending years with like-minded money managers who easily made calculations in their heads, he could only chalk the tapping up to professional differences.

He and Lydia's manicurist admired the strength her nails had to endure all the tapping she did. The longer she tapped, the more it gained a simple, patterned rhythm, and the more Will's whispering gained volume, surprising both Ronald and Lydia. Ronald could hear some words and at least one sentence that clearly sounded like "you should feel good Lydia."

She looked up at Will and suppressed a giggle.

"The tapping is how I first induced Will. He seemed so nervous about trying out trance when the time came that I decided to take him more subtly. I asked him to listen carefully, to see if he could hear a rhythm in my tapping. Eventually he found one."

She continued her tapping, and snuggled her head deeper into the cushions, enjoying seeing the confused look on Ronald's face, and hearing the compliant tones of Will while he whispered encouragements to her while pressing against her hips. Her mind drifted back to when Will first succumbed to her, just a few rooms away.

"You shouldn't feel any pain, only pleasure."

"There is only pleasure for Lydia."

It began in the dining room near the entrance, thinking he was there to look at her kitchen and give an estimate for putting in new cabinets. Of any subject she ever had, Will became among the first she took for no other reason than her own inclination. Suppressing the wicked smile she had taken more effort than expected, but the pain helped in convincingly ridding her of a reason to smile. His general concern for her was sweet, but she did play it up that day much more than she actually felt. She told him tapping her fingers on the dining table was supposed to elicit peace and make her feel better. She was right about the effect, indirectly at least.

"Lydia should feel as good as she looks."

"Lydia is stunning, ravishing."

Will heard something akin to a primal drum beat in her tapping, something Lydia was inspired to recreate from several audio hypnosis CDs that provided good background music to consciously distract listeners. There were several means of doing so, but she always gravitated to her nails for that sound. She always garnered attention with the different colors and styles of polish, and she loved the sound they made against various surfaces. Will came to love them too, as that day they were painted a rich red that seemed brighter from the sunlight pouring in the room. He let her quietly rest for some minutes and tap her fingers against the wood table. He thought he'd heard some familiar beat to a favorite song, and listened carefully to recall the song, while her shiny nails caught his eyes.

"Beauty that ravishes my senses."

"Inescapable allure, powerful attraction."

He swore he was looking at some kind of typist or piano-playing movement, as the sequence seemed really specific. Her index and ring finger made the loudest taps, and her pinky was the quietest. The speed remained the same for the duration, and once he thought he recognized the pattern, he could anticipate a loud tap, a medium tap, and a light one from the pinky. Will tried following as he heard, light-medium-loud-medium-light-medium-light-light-loud-loud-loud-medium-loud in a continuous loop. His peripheral vision caught the sight of how at ease Lydia looked, and his subconscious started to believe her tapping could affect him as well, so it made sense to him to let his body recline a little bit to match hers. Resting against the chair's tall back gave him a comfortable view of shiny red nails as their rhythm filled his ears. While following, Will loved the portion the three loud taps made, and his mind eventually gave up mapping out the whole beat in exchange for waiting for those consecutive taps to ring out. He couldn't see Lydia's eyes half-open, observing her captive guest, learning his reaction to the rhythm. Once she knew what he reacted to the best, he heard a combination of loud taps more frequently until they drowned out the light and medium and settled his mind into listlessness.

"Trapped and shaped by your feminine charms."

"Hopelessly receptive to all of you."

The loud tapping didn't stop as she finally started speaking to Will again, telling him how good she felt from listening, how relaxed he looked, and suggested how relaxed he was. His relaxation became tied to not just her tapping but her voice as well. She tapped for another ten minutes, ensuring him that just the sound of her voice would make him feel as good as the taps, and that his mind would still be ringing with that sound while she spoke. As long as her own voice made him feel good, it wasn't totally necessary, but Lydia didn't want to take any chances; Will was also the first subject she wanted to drop to a very deep trance in their first session.

"Following every delicate move Lydia makes."

"Accepting every word like they are my own thoughts."

Will felt lost and blissed out as his eyes closed, exposed to the last bit of red, sun-kissed shining nails before his lids couldn't be bothered to stay open any longer. Elation covered his body the more Lydia spoke. Her words kept up the beat in his head, and every question answered meant a fresh wave of bliss over him. He was asked about his work, his family and life, his experience with women and particularly his fiancée. It pleased him to hear Lydia's voice regarding his answers with approval. Being told that he could trust her with this information and that his trust of her would grow with every answer given only made him more happy to be as honest as possible. The questions about his fiancée grew stranger to him, but it was harder to care about the details and just answer as asked, especially how her voice changed from conversationally compelling to bedroom sultry. Hearing about the kind of man he was, the shameless flirt Edie was, and how he was unaware of Edie's cheating was of great interest to her.

"In awe of your presence."

"Lydia's words melt my thoughts."

Control of his desire was most arousing to him. She knew her questions about Edie might arouse suspicion in her new submissive, so she meant to arouse his senses more so, lacing her relationship questions with affirming questions about how good it felt to listen, to answer honestly, to please Lydia. She used that first meeting to begin to place his subconscious in favor of Lydia, on a deeper level than what Edie reached. There was love there, but she started to undo or overshadow it with hints and promises of primal urges possibly fulfilled from obedience. Conscious mistrust and fading desire of Edie would begin forming from their first session, eventually ending with Will breaking it off; Lydia would subconsciously fill that void over time. Learning that he loved to hear praise and direction from a woman, she sincerely promised to give him more praise and satisfaction than he could stand at any one point. She demonstrated it the first time by programming deeper arousal from one word, and repeating "submit" over and over and over. Will edged on his orgasm for nearly a minute before she calmed him back down to the more sleepy state he began in. Lydia silently left him there as she let her own arousal subside. Taking a subject out of revenge so aggressively, so surreptitiously set her off so deeply, she wouldn't have been surprised if she just had the most clandestine orgasm in history.

"Submitting to Lydia feels right."

"Satisfying Lydia is almost addictive."

Lydia came back to laying on the table, awash in arousal and beatitude. She might've had another stealth orgasm from drifting off to that memory, before she took stock of where she stood now. She was getting a massage from the young stud whose mind and words were filled with acknowledging the pleasure she deserved and power she had, using those sincere, slightly coached words to manipulate her cheating ex. There was a chance those words were affecting her, making her the dominant, uninhibited woman she fantasized about, helping to strengthen his own manipulation. There was no question about orgasming now as she came easily on that table. She could feel the towel beneath her absorbing some of her fluids.

Ronald looked blissed out and happier than any man in the presence of his ex paying hefty alimony would. Lethargic posture, somewhat limp appendages, soaking up influences that left him grinning. He always found that chair relaxing, but it looked like he might slip out of it before long. Even after half a year, her nails worked wonders on opening his subconscious up, while Will's whispers crossed over into his mind, imprinting similar thoughts deep inside him. His thoughts of Lydia became nearly crossed the point of reverence, but she wasn't interested in 'nearly'.

"Stretch your hand out, Ronald," he heard a familiar voice utter.

Like always, he was inclined to do as asked. With his hand stretched out toward Lydia, he was rewarded by that tapping against his skin. A numbing pleasure shot from that hand and through his whole body, and his torso rested against his thighs.

"Sit up and relax yourself Ronald." He moved at a snail's pace to shift is body upward, but finally made it.

"It's been so long since you've been in this state, I was almost worried when you didn't automatically start to fade away. I shouldn't have underestimated myself though; a handful of trances and sometimes months apart, but these little beauties always did the trick," she said as she brought her nails back to her face to kiss, and then wiggle them tauntingly back in his direction.

"This was almost as thrilling as the first time I took you, looking laser focused on your work. You looked so adorable like that, that I wondered if I could subtly break your concentration. You thought I just decided to do a crossword puzzle near you just because, but that tapping was very intentional. You only registered that I was tapping, and then slowly how you lost some of that concentration. Oh how sleepy you seemed to get. Once I knew you were affected, I started tapping and speaking suggestively, and you never knew what hit you in the end. I spend a few hours in that head, just to make sure I had an open channel, and you woke up thinking you only dozed off for a few seconds."

She looked at him pensively.

"I truly wonder if I held back too much. Maybe I should've been more insistent with your mind, installing an extra layer of security to help you stick to your marital vows. I truly loved you once, like no other man before you."

The longer she looked at him, the more the reason for the divorce came with it.

"But then again, I shouldn't have had to. You wouldn't believe what I could've done to you, to many of my patients if I really wanted to, but never did. Somewhere along the line, my love and support wasn't enough for you. On more than one occasion at that."

She kept the venom she wanted to spew in check, to not spoil the mood and interfere with her plan.

"I would've done anything for you. Maybe we would've both naturally drifted apart, but you violated my trust in a way I couldn't forgive. So now, you'll do anything for me, beyond the vow you couldn't abide by. And whether you get to enjoy it or not, is all up to me."

Lydia spoke darkly to him, realizing there were no definite plans for Ronald. When inspiration struck, she would strike him. She couldn't imagine herself being ultimately evil with him when the time came, but it would be fun to explore his perspective of what was evil.

"And maybe not just his either," she spoke to herself.

Using the hand closest to Will, she trailed her nails up his chest, teasing his nipples a bit before lightly scratching his ear, and then squeezing it. Pulling him from that lobe, his half-shut eyes opened more as he saw her beautiful face.

"Help me flip over Will; you get to finish me off with your mouth today."

Her slave brightened as he helped her comfortably shift to lay her back on the table.