[Author's note: Harper James has turned to hypnotic scripts as therapy for her anxiety condition. However, they are opening up a new world of possibilities for her and her husband Peter.]
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HYPNOSEX
Harper could tell that her husband was exhausted. But, he'd done something to her mind and she was insatiable. Even now, sitting at her laptop in the hotel room, writing, she could feel the tingle.
The hotel room was back to normal again, no longer the opulent penthouse suite where Germaine Priestly had arranged herself on silken sheets to mate with her paramour. While that was gone, something else had lingered. Peter's attentions had become more ardent, their lovemaking more intense, her orgasms easier and stronger. Not the mind-emptying climax of their first night, but somewhere between that and whatever she chose to define as normal, before.
Harper hadn't mentioned it, but she could see that Peter had worked it out. She'd willingly retained the post-hypnotic trigger he'd placed in her head that intensified sex, magnified the build-up to her orgasm. It was three in the afternoon and she was deep in the middle of a chapter, sitting in her nightdress still, naked underneath and feeling the tingle.
She paused her typing. The protagonist had reached the palace, setting eyes for the first time on the leader of the spice guild, the man she had been sent to entice. The words were flowing better than she'd ever remembered, but she needed to take a break. She'd been writing all day.
Her hand strayed down between her thighs, enticed by the warm, delicious tingling. She forced herself to stop. That had been another consequence of retaining the hypnotic trigger: it had made sex more intense and pleasurable, but it had meant that she would only find climax when Peter did. Playing with her needy pussy now would just result in her aching for sex and jumping Peter as soon as he came back from work. She'd learned that the hard way and, yes, her husband had taken to entering the hotel room with a wary expression.
Instead, she determined to take a shower and actually get dressed. She stood and stripped the nightdress off, sweeping naked towards the bathroom. Harper caught her reflection in the wardrobe mirror and stopped, examining herself. She turned sideways, smoothing her hand down her flat belly. Her modest breasts were the same, the curve of her pert bottom; nothing had changed. Her hair was dark and lustrous, hanging around her shoulders in a tangle that she raked into some semblance of order, but her face showed her disappointment.
There was no glow, no swelling of her breasts or her belly, no sign that the last four days had made any difference. Peter had been breeding her consistently but she couldn't tell if his seed had found its mark inside her. She had to conclude reluctantly that the horniness was due to the hypnosex trigger and not some more profound hormonal change in her body.
Harper skipped the shower and dressed herself in running gear. The story was still going around in her head. She pulled on exercise pants and a running top, tight sky-blue lycra, and resolved to go for a run.
Leaving the hotel was always the easy part. Being on the street was the challenge. She was in a city now, not in her home town where there would usually be a few people on the street. It was mid-afternoon and the city was bustling with people. Running helped. There was something about the forward motion that made the crowds more manageable because it was fleeting contact, and then she'd be out of the danger zone before the anxiety kicked in.
Maybe the hypnosis was working too. Harper had kept up with the relaxation script, slipping into trance to have her husband's voice explain to her that crowds were fun and nothing to be worried about. She loved playing that script, the delicious feeling of her mind opening up like a flower and her husband's reassuring words trickling in. It felt lovely to have him inside her head, caring for her.
She turned the corner, finding a little park, and on a whim, she decided to do laps along its perimeter track. Her body felt good, and she entertained the thought of asking Peter to plant a trigger in her head that would encourage her to run more often. As she circled the park, returning to her entry point, the idea began to take hold.
Harper imagined herself in her tight lycra running outfit passing the same park bench each circuit and the memory of the last circuit evaporating. She wouldn't be aware of how many laps she'd done, only that she needed to complete the lap. Peter would be sitting on the bench, he would look up at her and she would feel a tingle deep down.
"Another lap."
Then, she'd obey, going around and around until Peter finally told her to stop. It would be like he'd put her on autopilot, erasing the tedium of running. But, her tingling intensified as she dwelt on it. Peter could use the trigger to exercise her, trim and tone her body in whatever way he chose. She wouldn't be aware of it, stuck in a hypnotic loop as he put her through her paces. But, she'd gradually see the fruits of her labour in the mirror. She'd feel her husband's hands on her body.
This wasn't helping, she decided. Everything she did ended up with her daydreaming about sex. She picked up her pace and distracted herself by going through her latest chapter in her head.
Sala had reached the spice guild and had entered the Guild Master's office. The antagonist was positioned at his desk, and then what? Who was he, and how was Sala supposed to lure him? Harper conceded that she was stuck. Peter would have ideas. She could always bounce off him when she hit a block.
Then a thought occurred to her that only made the tingling worse. Germaine hiring a paramour had been fun, but what about becoming Sala? Peter had played along eagerly enough with Germaine, but his role had been secondary, one-dimensional. Carrick was a more complicated character. He was wily and quick-witted, traits that Peter possessed. She smiled to herself as she passed the bench again, imagining Peter there, telling her to go around another lap. A thought took hold that made her shiver with anticipation.
She turned for home, retracing her route to the hotel, threading through the start of the rush-hour foot traffic, but she didn't worry about the anxiety. She had something else on her mind.
Peter came in as Harper stepped out of the shower and she felt the buzz immediately, like he was her hypnosex trigger itself. She restrained herself to a quick peck on the lips, clutching the bath robe around herself.
"Good day?" she asked, brightly.
"Boring day," Peter replied, kicking off his shoes. "You?"
"I made progress. It's really coming along."
"You're really into it. I've never seen you like this."
"You've inspired me," Harper beamed. "You're my Muse. I'm enjoying it. I was thinking that when the baby comes, I can still write. It'll keep me sane and maybe I'll make a little pocket money out of publishing. What do you think?"
"Publishing what? Novels?" Peter asked, unbuttoning his work shirt.
"No, I think short stories are better for building up followers. Just a few thousand words a week to give them something new."
Peter shook his head, slipping his shirt off and hanging it up. He unbuttoned his trousers. "You make it sound simple, I couldn't sit down and do that."
"Pete, from what I've read about the first six months with a baby, I have no idea either," Harper conceded.
Her husband came up to her in just his underwear and parted her robe, sliding his arms around her bare waist, pulling her to him.
"What're you doing?" Harper murmured, looking up at him.
"Giving in to the inevitable." He kissed her.
Harper moulded her body against his, clutching his rear with her hands, pressing his crotch against hers in a wanton act of need that would have shocked her a week ago.
She broke off the kiss long enough to ask a question. "Did you do something to me?"
"Like what?"
"A post-hypnotic trigger, something that makes me horny all the time?"
"Do you think I'd do that to you, Harper?"
"I... no, I don't think you would, but...."
"Do you want me to do that to you?" Peter interjected.
"No."
Harper looked into her husband's eyes and felt herself beginning to fall. She let it happen, feeling the delicious encroachment of trance and everything it promised. She'd said no, but she knew that was a lie. There was something deep inside that wanted it to be so, to be helpless to resist an arousal trigger. Maybe that was what was happening: maybe she was hypnotising herself.
Peter broke off and looked away. Her mind whirled, teetering on the edge of going under, but her husband had stopped. She noticed the bulge in his underwear.
"What's up?" she asked, confused.
"I'm shattered, babe. I don't want to deal with Germaine tonight."
"You won't need to," Harper protested. "I wasn't going to suggest it."
"You were going under."
"I... I wasn't."
"Then explain this."
Peter rounded on her, holding out his hand. Harper reciprocated in confusion but instead of shaking it, he tugged her hard towards him, overbalancing her, and everything went black.
Harper blinked. She was sitting on the bed in a dress. Peter had dressed himself too. She looked down at herself, puzzled.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"We're going out to dinner."
