It's that smug little grin of his that gets to me. The instant I see him, smirking that irritating smile he wears whenever he thinks he knows something I don't, I'm instantly ready to fight him. If he were to tell me the sky was blue, I'd point to the one tiny corner of the horizon where the sun was setting just to prove him wrong. It's probably childish, petty, and deeply unfair of me, but I can't help it. Luis brings out the fight in me. Every single time.
Besides, this time he really is wrong. "Looks like I got you again, Lupes," he says, leaning back in his chair and grinning as if his favorite movie is about to start. "You're really getting to be a good hypnotic subject. You're taking the triggers better and better, too. I might have to start finding a whole new set of suggestions to give you at this rate." That stupid smirk of his distends his terra cotta cheeks like he's doing a frog impersonation. I want to smack the smug right off of it.
I don't know where he got the idea that he's hypnotizing me from. I've never been hypnotized, by Luis or by anyone else. Maybe he was reading some kind of, of bullshit pick-up artist training manual and he thinks that any time a woman stops paying attention to him for five seconds she's suddenly susceptible to suggestions? Or maybe it's just some stupid teasing game he thinks will make me interested in him, like I'm his little sister on campus and at some point I'm just naturally going to graduate from tolerating his teasing to finding him irresistible. It doesn't matter, really. He's wrong whatever he's thinking.
And unlike the shy, demure women he's probably used to, I'm not afraid to say so. "Bullshit I was, asshole," I snarl, baring my teeth in a smile that only the terminally inattentive would think was friendly. "I was fucking studying, not hypnotized. Remember studying? That thing we're doing together because we're both scraping by with a D minus in Camfield's History of Science class?"
He chuckles. He actually fucking chuckles. I'm genuinely about ready to throw my textbook at him. "I'm not worried about Camfield," he says, lacing his hands behind his head in confident nonchalance. "I'll just hypnotize her into giving us a good grade. She's even more of a pushover than you are, and she remembers it even less." He gives me a little wink that makes my shoulders hunch up around my ears. "Not that it's really possible for anyone to be a better subject than you are, Lupes. You're always going to be my favorite."
I roll my eyes disdainfully. "If you were really so good at being hypnotized, you wouldn't make me so mad at you, dumbass," I snap, crumpling up a sheet of paper into a ball and throwing it at him. I'm a lousy shot, so it goes wide and joins a small drift of improvised projectiles scattered across the floor, but it's the thought that counts. "Like, wouldn't you make me want to, I don't know, be nice to you or want to hang around you or something?" I can think of a lot of 'or somethings' he might want to do-Luis might have those weird frog cheeks of his, but he's really pretty jacked for an astrophysics major. But I'm not about to bring that up. He'd probably just tell me he made me notice with hypnosis or some shit.
He's always saying crap like that. "Naw, that's part of my plan, Lupes!" he says enthusiastically, not even realizing he's providing me with proof of my argument. "Strong emotional reactions wear you out, you know? It's like you get really pissed off for five minutes, and then the adrenaline rush wears off and you're ready for a nap. I told you that when you woke up, you'd be totally sure you weren't hypnotized, and you'd just get madder and hornier every time I talked about it. It's working, isn't it." He gives me another wink, and honestly fucking clicks his tongue at me. Clicks his fucking tongue.
I damn near lose it at that. "Oh come the fuck on!" I shout, rising to my feet and slapping the table in frustration. "You seriously expect to tell me that when I get pissed off at your bullshit lies about hypnotizing me all the fucking time, it's a sign that the hypnosis is working? What next? You going to tell me that you secretly hypnotized me into kicking you in the balls, too?" I'm not really going to do anything like that-at least, I don't think I am-but at the same time, I can't deny that I'm getting pretty fucking sick of this. Every time I doze off at the beach, it's because he hypnotized me. Every time I come over to hang out with him, it's because I'm following one of his suggestions. Every time I space out in class, it's because he texted me one of the fucking infinite number of post-hypnotic triggers he apparently installed in me over the last three years. It's just... it's fucking exhausting. If he wasn't so cute, I probably would have told him to fuck off a long time ago.
Not that I'm going to mention that at the moment. He's already too damn full of himself. "See, that's what I'm talking about, Lupita!" he says, gesturing to my tense, knotted muscles and aggressive stance. "You know you'd never lose it like this with anyone else. Nobody ever gets under your skin, not even Chad from Electromagnetic Theory when he said women couldn't wrap their head around high-energy physics. It's got to be hypnosis." I'm a little bit bugged by that one-I have to admit, I normally try twice as hard to keep my temper as anyone else in the room. The second you even raise your voice around a white dude, suddenly it's that whole 'fiery Latina' bullshit all over again. But just because Luis can get to me like nobody else doesn't mean he hypnotized me into it.
Not that Luis sees it that way. "Not that you'd notice. That's the best part about this. Your head's so twisted up with all the suggestions, you think that everything you do is your own idea. I can tell you pretty much anything, and you'll walk yourself through all the justifications you need to make it make sense to you. Like tonight, I told you that you were going to end up naked on your hands and knees while I took your tight little pussy from behind, and not only are you going to do it, you're going to believe one hundred percent that it's pure coincidence. Because you're so deeply programmed."
