S H E Seduce Hypnotise Enslave Ch 12

12.

The One-Night Stand

"Hey, I don't think I've seen you around here before."

I steeled myself, fighting back a familiar response to an unfamiliar setting.

Focus. This is what you planned for! It's fine, it's fine, there's no need to be nervous. This is all just a confidence trick.

I turned my head a little to face the man properly, "First time, actually. I still haven't decided what I want." I allowed my eyes to wander around the rest of the bar before settling back on him. "There's plenty of good options."

He had messy black hair and a slightly unkempt beard to match, but there was some charm to him. I could work with this.

"Well," he tried, "I could maybe, help you find what you like?"

I held his gaze, a lot more firmly than I actually felt, and deliberately flicked my eyes over his shoulder, to a table full of rowdy men across the pub. The table he'd approached me from. The table that was very obviously throwing glances in his direction every five seconds.

"They put you up to this?" I managed, pleased that my voice only cracked the tiniest bit.

"Um, no, uh... shit," he stammered, "they're just kinda... moral support?"

"How nice of them," I said. "Why me?"

"You're all by yourself at a pub," he said, "I dunno, it just seemed like you wanted some company."

"Only if you sit on my other side." The words came out before I could stop them. God, those boys were irritating.

He blinked at me, "What?"

"Nothing," I replied with a smile, then kicked myself. That wasn't smooth at all, it was rude.

He was confused, but he did as I asked, dragging a chair around to my right before sitting down.

"So, what do you, um-" he barely lasted a second before his eyes locked onto the space over my shoulder. "Oh god, they really are staring aren't they?"

"Can you tell them to cool it?" I asked.

I felt the weight of their gazes lift from my shoulders as my prospective partner for the evening leaned to the side and, just outside my peripheral vision, made a rude gesture at them.

"Let me try this again," he said, rolling his shoulders back. "Hello, you seem nice, can I buy you a drink?"

I studied him carefully. He wasn't bad-looking by any means. His messy hair/beard combo actually kinda worked for me, and he was particularly cute when he was off-balance like this.

I contrived to smile slowly, letting him know I wasn't totally sold, but there was some interest here.

"I think I'd like that," I said lightly.

"Great!" he enthused. "I'm Elias."

"Victoria."

**********

(Previously)

"You wanted to talk?" Clarissa said. "Like, a roommate talk?"

"Ya," I managed.

"Okay!" she smiled, bouncing on her toes in that way she did. "I'm all ears!"

I took a deep breath, then let it all out in a rush, but the words didn't follow it. I tried again. Same result.

Clarissa's smile dropped. "Are you okay?"

One more try.

"Iknowyouvebeenhypnotisingtamara," I blurted, and I was committed now. That was fucking terrifying, but saying the first sentence was like ripping off the band-aid. I might as well keep going.

"What?"

"I know you've been hypnotising Tamara," I repeated. "I hear things at night. I see the way she acts around you. You... got her under your spell at some point, didn't you?"

Clarissa held my gaze very carefully. I knew that as the 'Let's Not Freak Victoria Out' look. I'd seen it enough times.

"Okay, yeah I did," she sighed, "but for the record, it was only a little bit my fault. It was just a joke, then it got way out of hand."

I paced the length of the living room. "I guess you understand how that affects the, uh, dynamic of the household?"

There were four of us. Clarissa had hypnotised Rhys to be a better roommate, then given me and Tamara the opportunity to do the same. Which was fine--if things needed to be discussed, the three of us could come to a consensus that Rhys would happily follow. But now, with Tamara under Clarissa's sway, Clarissa, Tamara and Rhys were a voting bloc, with me as the sole dissenter. A recipe for no dissent at all.

Clarissa chewed her lip as she thought about all this. I could almost see the gears turning in her head as she came to the same conclusions I had.

"Yeah," she said eventually, "I guess I do. How would you like us to fix this?"

Damnit. I should have known Clarissa would get straight to the point. The part of this conversation that was really hard to say. I took a deep breath.

"Um," I mumbled, trying not to gaze at my shoes while I talked, "The logical next step is that you hypnotise me as well, so... might as well get it over with."

She blinked. "What? Just like that?"

"Well, you like being in control, don't you?"

"Yeaahhh..."

"So as I see it, I can either go with it, let you be in charge, or I keep my free will and we start butting heads until..." I took a shaky breath, "until you kick me out."

"Awww, sweetie, no!" Clarissa cried, and before I could even breathe she had folded me in her arms, warming me, soothing me. Her lips found my ear.

"I would never never never never never never never,

not ever

, do something like that to you," she breathed. "I promise."

"Th-thanks," I mumbled, and to my embarrassment, I almost felt like melting in relief. Maybe it was the care, the implied compliment in her words. Clarissa was always bubbly and excitable, but never insincere. I couldn't help but believe she meant every single 'never'.

God, I was a mess.

I must have sniffled a bit, because Clarissa pulled back and cooed, "Hey, heyyyy, it's okay, let's sit down."

She fell backwards onto the couch, pulling me with her. I ended up basically cuddling her, sitting partially on her lap as she ran her gentle fingers over my face, making sure there were no tears that needed drying.

"You're right," she said, "I do like being in control, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought... a lot... about having all three of you under my spell. Is that weird?"

"It's not

that

weird," I admitted. The weird part was living in a world where mind control existed, and was a part of all of our lives whether we liked it or not. I couldn't blame Clarissa for entertaining a few fantasies, not when I was already having thoughts of my own, even if I could never act on them.

Or... maybe I could.

"So... knowing that, do you still want me to hypnotise you?" Clarissa said.

No, of course not,

I said. If my fears were unfounded, I could continue to exist in this household without submitting to Clarissa's every whim, and we'd all get along fine.

"...I think we could work something out," was what came out of my mouth instead.

Her eyebrows raised. "Yeah? Like what?"

Shit

. I'd committed myself again. Whyyyyy.

"Could you hypnotise me to be more confident?" I blurted. "Like, it's a huge ego boost to know I can seduce people with just a kiss, and practising on Rhys really helps. But what I really want is to actually go out, find someone to..." I paused as my throat tightened a little around the unfamiliar words, "have casual sex with. You know, a one-night stand, or a-a booty call, or something. But I'm not there yet."

If that sounded lame and pathetic (and oh god, it really did), Clarissa didn't show it. Instead her face split into a wide grin.

"Ohh, you mean like positive affirmation?" she chirped. "Yeah, totally! I'll affirm the fuck out of you!" She swung one of her legs over mine, subtly and gently pinning me underneath her, then booped me playfully on the nose. In spite of myself, I grinned back. God, she was pretty when she smiled. It was infectious.

"So... is that the deal then?" I said. "You help me build up my confidence to put myself out there, and I let you run the house like a dictatorship?"

"Ouch!" Clarissa replied, holding a hand to her heart, but there was laughter in her eyes. "Am I really that bad?"

"It's a benevolent dictatorship," I smiled, though that was a joke my grandparents definitely wouldn't have approved of.

Sorry, nonni

.

"Okay, I probably deserve that," she conceded. "But yeah, it's a deal!"

We shook on it, and her other leg came up to rest on my knee. She was gradually shifting into a more dominant position over me, and God help me, I had no intention of stopping her.

"So, first question," Clarissa said, "I feel kinda embarrassed that I never asked before, but... are you into women?"

So, Clarissa's razor-sharp instincts didn't pick up on

everything

then. I squirmed underneath her as she shifted even closer to me, her eyes roaming over my face searchingly.

"I'm

shy

," I muttered, though I couldn't hold back a tiny smile. "I'm not

blind

."

Clarissa gave that adorable heartwarming grin of hers, and reached out one hand to stroke lightly on the top of my ribcage, just above my breasts. My heart quickened, and I was sure she felt it. Sure that was her intention.

"Thank you for telling me," she whispered. "What about... me, specifically?"

"You're uhh... you're very pretty!" I babbled, before I could stop myself.

She giggled, and actually blushed a little. "I guess you wouldn't be worried about my hypnotising you if you didn't think you'd fall for it, huh?" she nudged me playfully.

"...Possibly," I tilted my head coyly, and we laughed together.

"Well, thanks!" she beamed. "And for the record, I think you're really pretty too." She leaned in, whispering close, "Gorgeous even."

My face was suddenly burning with embarrassment. I tried to wriggle free, but there was no way out from under her legs. No way to avoid her gaze.

"You

are

," she insisted. "You, Victoria, are absolutely amazing, and I think together, we can find the part of you that knows that. What do you say?"

I let myself be persuaded, even if part of me felt like it wouldn't work, that I didn't deserve it. But I nodded.

Mistress Clarissa hypnotised me then, pinning me to the couch and kissing me slowly and gently, until I was sleepy and submissive for her. I was in trance at least once a day after that, and soon I found myself more able to focus, more able to push past my mental blocks and just do things. She would often act as my 2nd conscience, sitting behind me, massaging my temples with her fingers, and whispering persuasively that I was worthy. That I was loved.

Her domination was warm, and safe, and caring. It was hard to complain that my lessons in self-confidence came at the price of worshipping her pussy with my tongue, when she suggested it so sweetly that it felt more like a reward than a price. In trance, sex felt like a natural development of the intimacy we were already sharing. Tamara and I had always been just friends, but at Clarissa's gentle command we kissed, and explored, and licked, and found that we enjoyed it a lot. After a while, we understood each other's bodies, our needs, better than any normal pair of best friends. It was surprisingly easy, and between the four of us we gradually adapted to a new household where kissing and cuddling were common, baseline gestures of affection, and clothes were largely optional.

But though it brought us all closer together in many ways, there was never any pressure to turn it romantic. That would have interfered with my goal: getting out there and hooking up with someone new, someone I didn't have months or years of rapport with.

You know that all this confidence you see in other people is just a trick of the mind. It can be learned. You can learn it too.

And slowly but surely, I did.

**********

(Now)

Elias was really not that bad once he started opening up properly, though learning about the specifics of his degree was... not thrilling.

"...and it's good!" he was saying. "I figure once I get a steady job I can pick up guitar again, do band stuff in my spare time."

I nodded along, smiling politely as I wondered how all single twentysomething men seemed to have a band as a side project. I imagined indulging that side of him only to find out that none of his bandmates were that invested, or finding out that it was actually a really big deal and being forced to attend his pub gigs week after week, and it was so boring-

Stop. No overthinking it.

"So, what about you?" he said.

I'd been prepared for the question, obviously, having practiced with Clarissa. But I was still taken aback by the sudden, heady feeling of wanting to answer. To really bare a part of my soul to another person I didn't know, and see how they liked it.

So I told him. I told him all about how, in early high school, I'd wanted to be a human rights lawyer, a true champion of the people, but even studying ancient history had been too much reading for me to bear. When people assured me that law studies were worse for having more reading and even drier texts, I'd changed tacks, and found my calling in charity work. I started as a volunteer for a beloved charity to raise awareness of breast cancer, particularly in young women. After I finished my degree, which ended up being not that relevant after all, they'd surprised me by offering me a paid position. I wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth, so of course I accepted. Most days it felt like work, but I was grateful for being able to do some good in the world.

"Damn," Elias said when I'd finished, "that's so cool!"

I blinked in surprise.

"You think so?" I said.

"Yeah," he insisted, "I wish I had my shit figured out half as well as you do."

It was a genuine compliment, from someone who wasn't my roommates, and it wasn't about my looks or my body. I felt a warm, pleasant fluttering in my stomach as I realised how badly I'd been craving that. And... he was right, I

did

have my shit figured out pretty well.

Knowing that spurred me on. Was he the perfect guy for me? Probably not, and who could even tell at this stage anyway? But this wasn't about getting it perfect on the first try. This was about proving to myself that I could do it, at least once.

So I opened up to him physically as well, relaxing my shoulders and letting my hand drift casually down his forearm until it was stroking his wrist.

"Thanks," I grinned softly.

Clarissa had warned me that even the best of men could be thick as a brick when it came to picking up on signals, but fortunately, it seemed like Elias was looking out for it, because he slowly turned his hand over until our fingers intertwined.

"Can I ask," he said slowly, "what are you, um, looking for here?"

Sex,

I thought.

I want to prove to myself that I can seduce you and fuck you, no strings attached, and be fine about it afterwards.

But that sounded bad. No, no it didn't, I just... wasn't comfortable saying it like that yet.

So instead I let my fingers lightly stroke his wrist, and said, "My place?"

"Like, just a one-time thing?" he said.

I couldn't quite tell if he was grateful or disappointed, but I nodded, trying not to let myself blush.

I'm not embarrassed. I'm

not

. This is a normal thing that loads of people do all the time.

"Um, yeah!" he said. "I'm down. I should just quickly wash my hands first, but... yeah."

"Good idea," I agreed.

Thank God, he at least cares about hygiene.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror as I let the water run over my hands, cleaning them on automatic. I was really about to do this, just take a guy home and use him for sex, because I could, because I wanted to.

And... it had been easy. That was the kicker. That insurmountable hurdle I'd thought would define my love life for all eternity had ultimately been so,

so

easy to clear. 'Do you want to do this? Yes. Alright, let's fuck.' It was really that simple, and at this point I basically couldn't screw it up unless I wanted to.

But there was no point in getting philosophical about a night of short and disappointing sex. Time to break out my secret weapon.

I looked up and down the corridor that separated the pub from the toilets. Nobody was watching. And if they were-

I don't have to worry about people judging me for my sexuality. Shame is not a feeling I need.

-yes, exactly, thank you Mistress.

I propped one foot on the wall as I leaned back against it, deliberately posing, and when Elias emerged from the bathroom he was caught just slightly off-guard by the sight of me. Good.

"Hey, um, ready to go?" he said.

"Almost," I said.

Before he could ask further, I ran my hand up his arm and down his chest. We locked eyes, and I saw he was taken aback but very turned on by my sudden forwardness. He might have regained his balance, but I quickly closed the gap between us, my lips touching his softly but passionately. His eyes shut, and he exhaled slowly, pleasurably.

Now, improbable as it sounded, I was in my element.

I kept things light, trailing gentle kisses from his lips up his jawbone and around to his cheek, then back to his lips. One on the corner of his mouth, then his other cheek, then again to his lips. This allowed me to whisper into his ear while he soaked in the pleasure.

"Just relax, enjoy this for a minute."

He did as he was told, sagging slightly against the wall, and I knew that he was already putty in my hands. Encouraged, I continued covering his face with kisses while my words sank into his mind.

"You want to come back to my place."

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

"You want to follow my lead."

Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.

"It feels good to let me take charge,"

kiss, kiss,

"to obey me for tonight."

Kiss, kiss.

"When I tell you you're feeling sleepy,"

kisssssssss,

"you'll feel exactly like you do now."

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

"Relaxed and open to my words."

Kiss, kiss.

"Come on now," I coaxed gently, pressing one last kiss to his lips, "come on. We've got places to be."

I wasn't quite sure how hypnotized he was, but his eyelids were fluttering and he didn't seem like he could talk right now, never mind walk.

I looked around. There was still nobody in the corridor. I leaned into Elias's shoulder, breathing in his closeness, before moving my mouth up to his neck. I kissed it lightly, before latching on with my teeth and sucking hard.

That jolted him out of his trance. His eyes flew open, a noise somewhere between a gasp of pleasure and a yelp of surprise escaping him for a split second before he remembered where he was.

I grinned at him, partly out of mischief, and partly out of pride. I would never have done something like that two weeks ago. But now he was marked as mine, at least for tonight.

"I think I'm about ready to leave now," he grinned weakly.

I didn't know how far I trusted my voice not to crack under pressure, so I said nothing. Instead I grabbed his arms and pulled him towards the exit. I expected him to ask what I was doing, but he followed wordlessly, obediently, an unspoken understanding passing between us.

Maybe there was something to this whole pretend-confidence trick after all.

**********

My roommates had agreed, with a little hypnotic persuasion, to turn in early tonight, so the apartment was

quiet and empty

by the time Elias and I got back.

When we weren't sitting down, it turned out that Elias was quite a bit taller than me--I only came up to his shoulder. Often I needed to wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself up just to kiss him. Somehow that only made it hotter when he melted under my affection, so drowning in pleasure he didn't realise he was slowly ceding control to me. I'd already discovered a few places he really enjoyed being kissed, and I could feel his skin tingling with goosebumps.

I trailed my lips up his jawline and around to the corner of his mouth, "Relax, just relax. It feels so good, so warm and soft and comfortable in here."