"Um...hi," John said. Perhaps not the most articulate of beginnings, but John felt like his brain had just dried up. Despite having exchanged dozens of emails and hundreds of instant messages, this was the first time he'd ever spoken with Deanna 'live', and he had to admit, he'd felt a rush of nervousness when the phone rang. Somehow, the thought of voice-to-voice contact felt more...intimate, in a way that made him worry that he was maybe investing too much into just one phone call. He couldn't tell if Deanna felt the same way about him that he did about her, and his instincts for such things weren't good. Better to play it cool. But not too cool, or she'd get the signal that he wasn't interested in her. Just...just...
Just stop freaking out and talk to her,
his hindbrain replied.
"Hi," Deanna said. Her voice was absolutely gorgeous. Soft and breathy, with a tiny sparkle of humor to it like sunlight rippling on a mountain stream.
'Sunlight rippling on a mountain stream'?
his hindbrain kibitzed.
Oh, boy. Crush alert!
"It's good to finally hear your voice," he said, sitting down on the bed. "I mean, when I suggested you call, I wasn't sure..." He trailed off, too nervous to finish the sentence.
"I'm just glad you trust me with your phone number," Deanna said with a grin in her voice. He could picture her smiling as she said it, and something about the mental image gave him a warm surge of happiness.
"You seem like a very trustworthy person," he said lightly. On thinking about it, though, she really did. Deanna just seemed so open; from the moment she sent him that first email, commenting on a story he'd written, he'd felt absolutely certain that he could trust her. He'd never even had the nerve to exchange pictures with a girl online before, and within two weeks, not only had she gotten him to do that, he'd given her his phone number, his real name, and agreed to attend a convention with her in a few months. And all without her even using...he blushed, even though there was nobody else in the room.
"Thank you," she said, just a little bit shyly. "So, we were talking about hypnosis?"
"Um...yeah." John leaned back into his pillow, feeling more than a little shy himself. "I mean, I know it works. I've done it over text, and I've listened to recordings, but I don't think that's really quite the same."
"Have you heard any of my recordings?" Deanna asked.
"No," he said. "I didn't know you'd done any." John hoped he hadn't just stuck his foot into his mouth. It was times like this that he felt like there was still so much he didn't know about Deanna.
"There are a few floating around," she said, "but it's not too surprising that you haven't spotted them. I thought you might have, though. I meet a lot of people who've been trancing for years to my voice before they ever met me." She giggled. "They usually drop pretty quickly."
John squirmed, just a little. It wasn't that Deanna didn't know he had a fetish about hypnosis-she'd be hard-pressed not to, after reading some of the stories he'd written. But there was a big difference between knowing it and wanting to indulge it. John didn't want to press her into anything she wasn't ready to give. So he just settled for saying, "Oh." After a moment, he added, "That must have been fun to see."
"Definitely," Deanna said in a tone that reminded him that she had, after all, met him through reading hypno-fetish porn. "So, did you want to try it? Are you alone right now?"
"Sure," John responded, a little unsteadily. "I'm in my room, I won't be disturbed for a while. How do we, um...start?" Just keep calm, he reminded himself. This was just simple, recreational hypnosis, that was all, an offer from a girl that you're good friends with (and want to be more) for a calming, relaxing trance (and don't think about how aroused you're getting) just for fun (sex is fun, right?)
