Author's note: This is a story about hypnosis, trust and intimacy.
Readers who are familiar with some of my other works should be prepared for a story that doesn't include shape-shifting futuristic sex toys, hyper-empathic artificial intelligence, or robotic bondage chairs. The story also features a lot more intimacy than it does sex.
I enjoy writing fantasy, but I wanted this story to feel real: believable protagonists, and a realistic portrayal of hypnosis - at least, for someone fortunate enough to be a good hypnotic subject.
Writing this story was a useful way for me to explore some real relationship dynamics. The characters in this story are fictional, not real people under pseudonyms, but if they do resemble real people then I am very happy for them, because they're clearly onto a good thing.
***
One, two, three, four...
I moved and she slid past me effortlessly.
She followed my lead, gliding forward, hips rolling, her hand in mine. Cuban heeled sandals slid silently across the wooden floor. A raise of my hand, a transfer of my weight from left to right and my partner span as she travelled.
My lead. Come forward, turn, stop. One of her hips settled deliciously into my hand as I took her movement and redirected. Her arms went up, and her hair went out, trailing behind as she turned the other way. I was her fixed point in space, she was my one-woman orchestra to conduct.
Block. Her hand was on my waist and the dynamic changed instantly. She'd heard something in the music and she was going to interpret it. Her lead now.
My eyes were on hers, but her hips were going right. So were mine. Match her movement. Yes, there it was! Boom, chick, boom, chick.
Five, six, seven, eight...
The end of the phrase and I felt the tension come back to her hand. The lead was mine again.
One two there four...
Time to move again, faster this time. Once again I stepped back and to the side, opening a path. Once again she accelerated, travelled and turned, and I was there alongside, supporting and guiding.
We could both hear it, the change in the music rushing toward us. Not a word spoken, but we were both building to the same moment, nearly upon us. It was up to me to get us there though. Smooth and sure: one hand on her back, the other hand tightened in hers.
Do you hear that? I hear that, I have a plan, do this. I trust you. I have you. Go!
Five, six, seven, eight, drop!
Boom! The phrase ended, the beat dropped, and so did Jess.
A "seducer" they call it. She went back and down, near horizontal, toes pointed, arms out. I caught her, held her, a solid foundation. That dramatic freeze frame moment: fast in, slow out. Then on we went with the rest of the song. My lead, her follow.
This was our dance; our conversation without words.
Three minutes from when the DJ had called out the last song the music ended and we stood there together in the centre of the dance floor. We always shared the last dance, by unspoken agreement. We were more than just dance competition partners, for several months now we had also been lovers
I felt Jess push her head into my shoulder. She was a head shorter than me, and there was something soft and deeply feminine in the way that she let herself melt into me. I loved this, not least because it reminded me of the first moment that I had known for sure that she was attracted to me.
***
"Caught you again."
I jumped, my mind rudely jolted back to the here and now. I looked up into a pair of knowing blue-green eyes.
"You know," Jess said, lowering the book that she had been reading, "I didn't realise when I first met you how much you like to get absorbed in what you're doing."
I had been daydreaming again, about something. I realised that my eyes and my hand had strayed to that spot on Jess's back where it met the waistband of her pyjama bottoms. The geometry of that part of her, tight muscles under silky skin, always distracted me. Sharing an evening on the sofa with my girlfriend was enjoyable, even if we were doing our own thing.
"Things that you're doing," Jess continued, "for example, me."
Her usually rounded lips pulled tight into a wide, predatory smile.
She was right. I had spent years cultivating the self image of a man fully in control, completely on top of my emotions and my actions. Then whenever I was with this beautiful woman I always seemed to let my guard down. I found myself becoming totally absorbed in her; her eyes, her hair, her smile, her body. It seemed to happen a lot, and from time to time she would catch me and give me a knowing look.
This time the smile was more mischievous than usual.
"In fact, you were properly spaced out there for a minute. I'd better not snap my fingers or you'd just drop right here on the sofa.
"Hmmm?" I said. It was strange, I didn't quite follow, yet there was something in what she'd said that plucked at a strand of excitement somewhere inside me.
"Drop into a trance. You know! Like hypnosis."
For effect Jess turned to face me and raised one hand. Her voice seemed to drop an octave as she intoned "And when I snap my fingers you will close your eyes and drop into a deep, deep sleep, feeling really, really calm and relaxed."
Somehow as she spoke I became very aware of just how green Jess's eyes were, how her hair cascaded off her shoulders, how the lamp light in the room reflected from the curve of her moist lips. She snapped the fingers of her raised hand with a sound so sharp it was like a firecracker had just gone off in the room.
Fuck. That was hot. How did she do that?!
"I can't say I'd know." I somehow managed to keep my composure. "I've not been hypnotised."
"Oh."
She slid the bookmark into the novel that she'd been reading and pivoted to face me, drawing her legs up underneath her. It was how she sat when she was in a playful mood and worryingly I was now the recipient of her full attention.
"Well that's our new plans for this evening. How have you never been hypnotised before? It's a lot of fun, you should try it."
"And where are we going to find a hypnotist at 9pm on Thursday evening?"
Stupid Mark, why did you say that, you know that smile too well! You've let her get three moves ahead of you already!
"Hmmm, do you still have that pocket watch in your wardrobe? Or I guess a candle might work well..." Jess made an act of looking around the room. She was visibly enjoying herself. I knew I probably wasn't keeping a lid on my discomfort and I had learned in the past that that was a guaranteed catalyst for this kind of playful teasing.
Did she really know how to hypnotise people? How had that not come up as a topic of conversation before?
"When," I asked, slowly, carefully, "did you learn to be a hypnotist?"
"Oh, ages ago." Jess replied casually. "Back at uni. Emily and Fran found a book on it in the library and we had a go. Turns out it's not that hard, we used to practice on each other."
Okay, somehow my girlfriend was a hypnotist. How did I feel about that? Perhaps turned on, and terrified in equal measure. The thing about her friends hadn't helped: I'd met them and they were hot. Somehow the thought of the three of them taking it in turns to mesmerise each other poked at an arousal button that I didn't know I had. Jess might as well have told me they used to strip to their underwear and have pillow fights.
But being hypnotised myself though. The thought of losing control scared me. Or did it? Perhaps, actually, I liked the idea of losing control and it was that that scared me.
"Mark, are you okay?" Jess stopped her teasing for a moment. "I would love to show you this but you know it's totally okay if you aren't comfortable with it."
I felt conflicted. I thought about the way Jess liked to press herself into my shoulder. It seemed to me that this deeply feminine gesture was so sincere because it was in stark contrast to her usual nature. Usually she came across as fiercely independent, driven, self-reliant, quick witted, challenging. Yet with her head on my shoulder and her hand on my chest without words she told me that to her I was solid, I made her feel safe, I was a fixed point in space for her that she could rely on.
It was the same when we made love. Yes she liked to make a game of it, but ultimately she invited me, drew me in, with her body she urged me to take her. She was small, and she didn't need words to tell me that she loved how my size and strength put her at my mercy. Whenever I took her to bed those big eyes of hers were so wide, open, receptive, in awe.
It was a version of me that she seemed to see a lot more clearly than I did, because confident masculinity was by no means something that came naturally to me, rather it had been the culmination of years of conscious effort. Perhaps on some level I was afraid that it was still all just an act that I was putting on, that my confidence was just a thin veneer. Maybe she would find out just how intimidating I found her at times.
My glass of wine was on the coffee table. As a diversionary manoeuvre to buy myself some time I reached out to pick it up. I'd barely begun the movement when I felt the whisper of Jess's hand on my forearm. A feather touch that stopped it dead.
Block. Her lead now.
"Hey Mark," she said confidentially, "you remember the first time I offered to, you know, take you in my mouth. You'd not had that done before and I told you to trust me."
I did remember. Fun times were had by all that day.
