8. The Blackmailer
There was a small gap in between two books that, from the thin layer of dust coating them, hadn't been touched in months. The kind of books you put on display to show off your expertise. There was just enough space. Without disturbing anything, I slipped a wireless camera between them, and returned to my seat. It was already broadcasting, and nobody was any the wiser.
The door opened, and I intentionally relaxed, careful not to look at what I'd just done. All I needed to do was make it out of here without raising suspicion.
"I'm sorry about the delay," said Dr. Stephanie Thorpe, sitting down in her chair across from me. "Let's get started, shall we?"
"No problem at all," I said lightly.
To give her some credit, Dr. Stephanie Thorpe was decent at her job, never talking down to me or belittling my problems in the way I might have expected for a relatively simple case of social anxiety. But all the same, there was something sinister going on here, beneath the surface. And I was determined to expose it.
I was one of only a handful of people on the entire planet who would know the significance of a podcast called
Let's Talk Men
. So what? It was an unsuccessful podcast with no audience. People made those all the time. But in what turned out to be their last ever episode, Dr. Thorpe had taken it over. She and her fellow guest, Lucy, had contentiously claimed that women had the power to hypnotise men with just a kiss, and then demonstrated on the hosts. Afterwards, the podcast underwent a dramatic overnight rebranding. No longer called
Let's Talk Men
, it was renamed
S.H.E: Seduce, Hypnotise, Enslave
. Styled as a radically different kind of self-help podcast, every episode was essentially a step-by-step, tips-and-tricks guide for women on how to hypnotise men, and what to do with that power once you had it. The men who had previously been the face and the voice of the podcast were apparently now her devoted servants, relegated to editing and audio engineering while Dr. Thorpe and Lucy did the talking.
In little corners of the internet, the conspiracy caught alight. How could it not? Dr. Thorpe wasn't exactly trying to hide what she was doing, and it only took one person, one of the approximately three people who had been a fan of the podcast before, to blow the whistle. The internet loves a good conspiracy, no matter how fringe the subculture. As the theories and rumours circulated, the same question was on everyone's mind: was it legit? Was Dr. Thorpe roleplaying some kind of feminist power fantasy, or did she actually have some secret hypnosis technique that could enslave half the population of the world? I couldn't deny I noticed when some idiot would do anything for a girl, just because she fluttered her eyes at him, or jiggled her cleavage in his direction, or yes, sometimes kissed him too. Was there more to it than that? Was all of that a manifestation of some kind of hypnosis power? I decided I had to know. I would be the one to bring the truth to light.
Turned out, analysing hours and hours of footage from other people's counselling appointments was actually really dull. Fortunately, it didn't take me too long to find something interesting. The client was a lady with long, wavy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and even brighter red lipstick on her large, pouty lips. She introduced herself to Dr. Thorpe as Sapphire, a hooker, and when Dr. Thorpe asked her what she came in for, she stumbled nervously over her words.
"I've heard... is it true that... I'd like to learn how to hypnotise a man. Can you help? I've heard a lot about it from your podcast."
"Yes, you've come to the right place," Dr. Thorpe said, warmly. "Who do you intend to hypnotise?"
"I hope you don't think too badly of me..." her voice trailed off.
"The specific morality of your situation doesn't bother me," replied Dr. Thorpe, "so let us proceed under the assumption that I would support you in all your hypnotic endeavours."
She launched into her story. "I've been, um, a sex worker for the last three years, but business has been slow lately, so I'm barely making enough to get by right now. I've been meeting with this one guy in particular. He keeps coming back regularly enough to keep me afloat, but I'm depending on him for income, and I think he knows it. He's started asking me to make a more permanent commitment to him, personally. I want to keep being independent, but I can't afford to lose him as a revenue stream. I figure if I can hypnotise him, I could keep him off my back. Would that work?"
I was surprised, focusing on each of them in turn, when I realised Dr. Thorpe's sympathetic face had turned to skepticism very quickly. She let the moment linger as Sapphire finished her story, making a note in her clipboard.
"I must ask you now, are you deliberately embellishing your account?" Dr. Thorpe said evenly, holding her patient's gaze.
Chastened, Sapphire nodded.
"I can only help you if you tell me the truth," Dr. Thorpe prompted.
"Oh, alright," the hooker sighed. Her hunched shoulders slumped, her wide, innocent eyes lost their shine, and her voice was suddenly a lot more brash. The transformation was perplexing to watch. "I'm doing fine," she said. "Nothing special, but I'm getting by. And he didn't ask for a commitment. It's just that... I know for a fact that he's loaded, and I feel like I deserve more from him. He's a stingy bastard."
"Thank you for telling me," Dr. Thorpe replied gracefully. "I will still help you of course."
"You will?"
"Did I say anything in my podcast about never using hypnosis for selfish purposes?"
"Well, no..."
"Then I'm sure your rich client will be able to survive a financial setback or two in your interests."
"Well!" Sapphire exclaimed, "I wasn't expecting you to be so, um..."
"... on board?" Dr. Thorpe grinned. "Hypnosis as I teach it is just a form of sexual control, and I doubt there's anything you could do with it that I don't approve of. Sex workers might actually be the people in this world who need it the most."
Sapphire sighed in relief. "Sweet. So, um... I need advice. It's not really my thing to kiss my clients, and it's been a long time since my last serious relationship, so I'm good with whispering in his ear while he's distracted, but a bit fuzzy on the whole kissing thing. I don't usually go past cursory pecks on the cheek."
Then she blushed. "Wait, shit, I just realised how that sounds. I meant, like, could you teach me some techniques-no, that sounds even worse."
Dr. Thorpe held up a hand, smiling. "The unfortunate thing about my discoveries and techniques is that teaching them properly requires a distinct
lack
of professionalism. I'm not taking any offense either way, but would you like me to kiss you?"
Holy shit
, I thought.