I stood outside the doorway, preparing myself to enter. I wasn't... well, I wasn't entirely ready to face him, to tell the truth.
You see, Dr. Matthews was my thesis advisor. I was taking my PhD in advanced psychology, and my work aligned perfectly with his. My acceptance to the program had been nothing but the best news of my life, and the first year I worked with him had been a joy. But... well, things changed over this past week. You see, in all the time we'd been together, I guess he had... I dunno, he thought I was coming on to him or something. Last week, in one of our sessions, he had tried to kiss me. I rebuffed him, and I left his office in a panic.
We hadn't talked since, but we both knew we had to. The thing is- well, it's not like he's a bad guy. He's handsome, he's funny, he's smart, but- well, he's almost twice my age, and he's married! I don't do that sort of thing, I'm not that sort of girl. His voicemail was just a terse "Kate, we need to talk. Today. 3 PM." And so that's how I found myself here, in front of his office, steeling myself to go in. Finally, taking a deep breath, I knocked.
"Come in." he said, his low voice echoing beneath the door. I entered, and the moment he saw me I saw his jaw tighten. Clearly he was as embarrassed as I was.
"Ah, Kate." He said, taking off his glasses. "Please, sit down."
"Thank you." I said cordially, cool but polite. I sat down in the high-back leather chair, unconsciously smoothing my skirt as I did so.
"Look, Kate, I..." he said. He put his hands on his face, rubbing it. "I'll get to the point. I was wrong. You're not to blame here. I was completely, utterly in the wrong for what I did. I should not have assumed you felt the way I did, and I should never, ever have been as forward as I was or initiated any sort of romantic contact between us."
"I..." I said. He held up his hand.
"Please, let me finish." He said. "You don't have to say anything, if you don't want to. And if you'd like to change advisors, I'd understand. However, I want to put this past us, and I'd like to continue working together. Your work really is amazing, and I'm not just saying that. Do you think we can put this incident behind us and get back to work, in a professional setting, and do the amazing work we know we can do?"
"I..." I said. I smiled with relief, the first time this whole week. I was grateful how he had approached it, how sympathetic he was. "Thank you. And yes, I'm ready to get back to work if you are."
"Fantastic!" he said. "I was actually just working on something before you came in that I'd like your opinion on."
"Be happy to lend it. What were you working on?" I said. He swiveled his monitor around so I could see it.
"Well... that's the thing. I'm not sure, exactly." He said. "It's a new type of image-based mind therapy from a colleague of mine at the University of Rotterdam. It's supposed to elicit strong feelings and thoughts in the viewer if it's calibrated to the specific viewer, but I'm not feeling anything. Do you have any experience in this?"
"Dr. Von Helfing's experiments?" I said. I furrowed my brow. "A little. It was promising, but there was something about it being too specialized to have any useful therapeutic purpose. I do remember the basic way the images were supposed to work, however."
"Can you take a look at this one and see if maybe you can retool it a bit?" he said. "I'd love for it to work before I bring it to a departmental meeting."
"Sure, I'd be happy to." I said. The monitor was a little far away, so I stood up and leaned over the desk to get a closer look. I was grateful to see that Dr. Matthews didn't even look down my shirt- he was definitely taking this professionalism really seriously. I put my attention towards the image on the screen. It was your standard Von Helfing mind therapy image, but there was definitely something off about it.
"Hmm, there's definitely something weird about this." I said, furrowing my brow again. It had a very strange property I had never noticed before in a Von Helfing, some kind of shimmering, undulating glow to it. It made it very hard to see what the problem was.
"What is it?" Dr. Matthews said.
"I... hrm, I..." I said. I shook my head. It was like grasping at straws, looking at this image. It seemed to shimmer, blink, warp in and out. I could've sworn that it was somehow growing bigger, escaping the computer screen and taking over my vision. Still, it was very pleasant to look at. You could have put it in an art installation, the way it shimmered and moved, organically spiraling before my very eyes.
"Kate? Are you alright?" he said, looking over at me. I shook my head.
"I... uh... mmhmm..." I said. The image was rapidly all I could see, all I wanted to see. How could anything be so beautiful, so wonderful, so all-encompassing? I had never seen anything like it, not in any museum, not in any painting. Somebody should really tell Von Helfing that he had missed his true calling, that he was an artist and not a scientist.
"You seem a little distracted." He said. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that his eyes were now bolted on my breasts, staring straight down my cleavage. There was a small corner of my mind that knew I should be bothered by this, but the image was too important. It was so complex, so wonderful, I couldn't tear my eyes away from it.
"I... uh... yes..." I said, watching the shapes unfold and coalesce in front of me. It was a happy, peaceful feeling; I felt like I was sinking into a warm, relaxing bath, my thoughts submerged below the surface. It felt like I had been watching the screen forever, it felt like nothing else existed.
"Have you figured out the problem yet, Katie?" Dr. Matthews said. He got up, moving around to my side of the desk. He placed his hand on the small of my back, though I felt the pressure only dimly as I continued to look at the computer screen.
"Nuh... no..." I said, barely managing to get the words out as I shook my head.
"Oh Katie, darling, that's alright. I'll tell you." He said. "That's a real Von Helfing, alright. The problem, however, is that it wasn't calibrated for me, my love. It was calibrated for you."
"Muh...me...?" I said. I struggled to comprehend his words through the thick fog that had come down upon me.
"Yes, my dear." He said. His hand slid down slowly, deliberately, to cup my bottom. "You rebuffed my advances last week, as I imagined you might. But that wouldn't do- I just had to have you. So I spent the rest of the week programming this delightful little image for you."
I tried to reply, but it was so much effort; I couldn't. I realized, dimly through the fog of my brain, that he was hypnotizing me; he was using those beautiful, wonderful shapes to alter my brain, to change my very thoughts and feelings. A small part of me said it was wrong, that I should go, that this wasn't right, that he shouldn't be firmly cupping my bottom, but I didn't care; all I wanted to do was watch the shapes, watch them go around and around.
"You see, you're very beautiful, Katie." He said, rubbing me, almost nonchalantly. "That firm, tight ass, those long, shapely legs... I want them wrapped around me. And that's what this program is designed to do. Turn you into my obedient, hapless little slut. Don't you want that?"