"See you," Josh said.
When he'd left, Ethan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He'd only met Mark a few times. Dave's friend, a couple of years older than them. Quiet guy. Ethan had never really noticed him. But... taller than Josh. About Ethan's size? Heavier. And maybe... he thought it sounded hot to be hypnotized?
Ethan groaned and put his hands over his face. He couldn't just go over and try to hypnotize Mark. But what if... it would work? Could work? His cock voted - yes, let's do it! His mind said - hell no, it's too dangerous.
Later that afternoon, Ethan stood outside Mark's house, his heart pounding. He didn't even know if Mark was home, or if he was alone. This was crazy. He pressed the doorbell button.
"Hi," Mark said as he opened the door. "Uh, Ethan, right? Dave's brother's friend?"
"Yeah," Ethan said, holding out his hand. They shook. "Can I come in?"
"Um, yeah. Sure." Mark looked nonplussed, but smiled and stepped back. Ethan took a deep breath and stepped in.
"Thanks. Okay, I know this is a bit weird, but... the thing is, I, uh, I did a school work on, uh, hypnosis last term, and I, I heard from Josh that you'd been there watching The Spiral Robbery the other day." He paused and tried to make his expression more cheerful, and less nervous. "So I thought... maybe you would like to discuss hypnosis?" Crap, Ethan thought. That was clumsy. Good work, fumbler.
"What?" Mark said, frowning, but smiling. And... he actually took a step backwards, and looked down, not meeting Ethan's gaze.
"Yeah," Ethan pressed on. "It's not often you meet someone who's interested - I asked Josh, and Dave, but they didn't want to talk, but they said you'd seemed interested, and had talked about it after." That was true; Josh had heard Dave and Mark discuss the movie, and Mark had said something about the hypnotist being the coolest guy in the movie.
"I, um, I don't... I actually don't know anything about... hypnosis."
Yes you do, Ethan thought. Mark was looking decidedly nervous now, rather as if someone had just stepped into his house and started to talk about his secret fantasy.
"I mean, it's cool, the way you can be hyp - hypnotize someone into doing... things," Mark said, looking more and more nervous. "But it's not, it's not real, I mean it doesn't work, it's just a movie thing."
"Oh it's real," Ethan said with a smile, feeling suddenly sure of himself.
Ethan got up his phone, while Mark took another step backwards.
"Yeah, it's real," Ethan said. He found the video he wanted on his phone, got it playing, and held up his phone. "It's real," he said, "and all that's needed for someone to be hypnotized is a spiral, like this one." He thrust his phone towards Mark, who stepped back again and held up his hands.
"Ethan," he croaked, looking really nervous now.
"Don't be scared," Ethan said, using the same voice he used on Josh. "It's fine. I won't hurt you. It's okay. It's just a spiral, spinning round and round, so fascinating. It's okay to just look at it, look into it. It's relaxing."
Mark shook his head, but he was looking at the phone.
"Yeah," Ethan said. "It's fine. Just look, looking is okay, it can't hurt you. It's just a nice smooth spiral, spinning around, and it looks so interesting, spinning around and around, it looks like you're being drawn into the spiral, isn't that fascinating?"
"Nngh," Mark whimpered. Yes, he whimpered. Ethan kept his smile friendly, rather than triumphant. Josh had been right. Ethan took a step closer, raising his hand, holding the phone higher. Mark shook his head, but he lifted his head, still looking at the phone.
"The spiral just spins around, and it's so nice to look at it. It's just an image, a pattern on a screen, but it looks like it's a tunnel, almost, and that you're moving into it. That's one of the ways people can get hypnotized, you know, looking at a spiral, slowly moving into it, slowly going into trance as they look at it. Just like in the movies. It works just like in the movies, where people get hypnotized so easily, just from looking into a spiral."
It hadn't been hard to find out which movie they'd watched, and find a clip with the hypnotist. He'd been using a simple black and white spiral, and it hadn't been hard to find one of those either. And now here it was, right in front of Mark, who was clearly struggling with his desire to stare at it and see what happened.
"Simply looking into a spiral is so easy," Ethan said. "So easy, so nice, so relaxing. It's like a tunnel, and as you go deeper into it you become more and more relaxed. It's a nice and relaxing tunnel, where everything that's uncomfortable and feels wrong and is a problem gets left behind. Deeper and deeper into the tunnel, and there's just a nice and relaxing feeling. There's no problems in the tunnel, nothing that's feels bad or wrong. Everything feels good, and relaxing, and it feels so right to be here, in the tunnel, going deeper and deeper. And the spiral is more interesting here in the tunnel, it's so fascinating, so interesting to stare it. Just stare into the spiral, no need to look at anything else."
Mark was trembling slightly, his hands half raised, but he stared up at Ethan's phone, his gaze fixed on the screen. His jaw twitched. Ethan watched the light from the screen playing over his face. This is fantastic, he thought, and realized he had an erection already.
Ethan kept talking, in his calm, low voice, describing how good it felt to go deeper into the spiral, and deeper into trance at the same time. Mark slowly relaxed, going still, his face smoothing out. Ethan felt like he was becoming hypnotized himself, watching Mark.
When Ethan stopped talking, Mark felt calm. He was staring upwards, at Ethan's phone, at the spiral that turned and turned. He'd been surprised when Ethan showed up, and then nervous as he started to talk about hypnosis. And then Ethan had taken out his phone, and Mark had almost panicked. But he couldn't just run away and hide from Dave's little brother's friend, could he, so he'd just watched, and somehow found himself staring into the spiral. It was his most shameful fantasy, that he dreamed of being hypnotized, and so now, when Ethan stepped in and seemed to offer to do just that, his impulse to put a stop to it clashed hard with his impulse to - try it out. And now he was hypnotized, he realized, his mind calm, his gaze locked onto the spiral, and all his fears and worries left behind somewhere at the start of the spiraling tunnel. It felt... good. He enjoyed it.
Ethan talked again, and Mark felt, or heard, himself answering. It was just easy questions, but then Ethan asked him to close his eyes and keep seeing the spiral. Mark could do that, and he opened and closed his eyes, until he saw the spiral all the time, spinning in his mind's eye, keeping him entranced. Then he walked, slowly and carefully walking through the house, to his room. Ethan followed him, and kept talking, and Mark just drifted along, feeling detached and zoned out, but calm and focused at the same time.
They reached Mark's room, and Ethan told him to sit on the bed. He sat down on a chair, and held up his phone again.
"Look at my phone," he said, "look at the spiral there. It's the same spiral that's in your mind, and it keeps drawing you deeper, deeper and deeper into trance, deeper into this wonderful hypnosis. It feels so great to be hypnotized, to be so calm and focused, and just float deeper into the spiral."
Mark was smiling dreamily, and stared intently at Ethan's phone.
"You're hypnotized now," Ethan said. "That means you cannot lie to me. You can only speak the truth. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Mark said, nodding slightly.
"Do you enjoy being hypnotized?"
"Yes!" That enthusiasm sure wasn't fake.
"Have you been hypnotized before?"
"No..."
"Have you wondered what it would be like to be hypnotized?"
"Yesss..."
Ethan kept asking questions, and got a clearer and clearer idea. Mark had always had a secret fascination for hypnosis, rather like Ethan had, but from the other side. He'd always wondered what it would be like to be hypnotized. He'd always been afraid of it though, afraid of what it would mean. He was an ordinary guy, he thought, not very forceful and dominant, but pretty strong-willed. So his secret urge to be hypnotized and made to submit, that was confusing, and embarrassing. He thought a proper man should be independent and in control of himself, but he still thought it was weirdly exciting to imagine himself submitting, doing what he was told, serving. And yes, exciting in the sexual sense, too.
"Three, two, one," Ethan said, and snapped his fingers. "Wake up. You're fully awake, here in the room with me. Hello Mark."
"Um, hello?" Mark said, looking very uncertain.