Sonja had been looking forward to her next hypnotherapy appointment with Dr. Dotz all week, and she had realized the night before that the anticipation was what had seen her through the week on an emotional level. It had been a hard week at work, sure, but it always was. And at no point this week had she found herself hyperventilating in the bathroom from a stress-induced panic attack. Or crying alone in a vacant conference room. Or in her car in the parking garage. She was certainly still awkward in groups or in front of her superiors, but in those situations she had been able to take a deep breath, center her thoughts on Dr. Dotz, and make it through. Sonja wasn't sure exactly what it was that calmed her, either. She had very little memory of most of the prior session. She could remember walking in, chatting with the doctor for awhile, but once they got started on the hypnosis proper, she could only vaguely recall a few words. Specifically "Drop" and "Rise," and something about a pit or a den, but that was it. No pink cloud, no wispy tendril guiding her naked form across the empty cosmos of her subconscious, no rushing elation nor the constant bliss.
Which was ironic, because she had dreamed about that cloud every morning before dawn since the appointment. The experience was lodged too firmly in her subconscious mind though, and with her waking thoughts it was impossible to recall the contents of her dreams. But the dreams were the reason she woke up smiling every morning, and the dreams were the reason her panties were soaked every morning, and the dreams were the reason that the day before her second appointment, she had elected to go out and buy some proper bras again. Nothing too fancy for her, just basic white and black cotton garments, but still altogether different pieces than the collection of form-hiding sports bras she had amassed over the years. She had started wearing them for college sports, and then never changed her habits after that.
Sonja's justification was that she was trying to incite a change within herself, and with her employer's health insurance paying for the hypnotherapy sessions it wasn't like she couldn't afford to splurge a little. When she got home, she tried them on again with different shirts and blouses, ensuring everything would fit properly. She breezed through the process in about twenty minutes, but it had still been more time spent focused on her wardrobe since before she got her job at Van Black and Sons in the last year. After she was done, she thought about all the people who would have taken selfies in every outfit and blasted it over social media. The thought made her roll her eyes.
But that had been last night, and now she was standing at the main entrance of Dr. Dotz's practice, watching her own reflection in the glass. She had one hand on the door, and in the instant between recognizing her own face and swinging the door open, she became suddenly all too aware of the phone in her pocket. It hadn't made a noise or vibrated, but the sight of her reflection had reminded her of her dismissal the night before.
All of that happened in a second, though, and before she could even give it conscious thought, she was inside, being greeted by Dr. Dotz's receptionist, Thomas. Seeing Thomas made it hard for Sonja to remember what she had been thinking about, and she smiled at him shyly, returning his greeting.
"Dr. Dotz will be ready for you in just a few minutes, go ahead and pick a seat out." He gestured to the row of colored chairs, and Sonja's eyes lingered on his hand for a second longer than they should before she turned, instinctively moving to the far right to pick the brown chair - the same spot she picked last week. She stopped short, however, when she realized it was gone. She puzzled at it for a second, tallying the other six: there was green, blue, red, pink, black, and yellow, but the brown chair was indeed missing. She turned her head to ask Thomas about it, but he was now hunched over some paperwork, his brows furrowed. Oh well, she thought to herself, it's not like it matters. Her eyes lingered over them for another moment, and then she chose the blue chair. It felt more rigid than the brown chair had been, but Sonja didn't find it uncomfortable. She found herself straightening her back to match the vertical angle of the chair.
Thomas, of course, was not really working on paperwork, but scribbling notes on Sonja that he would pass to Dr. Dotz before their session and then be added to the doctor's profile on Sonja. He loved moments like these, it made him feel like a secret agent. Maybe he was, he thought as he scribbled down another note. He glanced at Sonja again out of the corner of his eye. Thomas thought she was cute, in that girl next door kind of way. Probably nobody's first pick at the club on Friday night, but then, it didn't sound like this chick had ever even been to one. Thomas jot down a few more scribbles, little more than doodles to make himself look busy, as his thoughts on Sonja continued down a darker, more lascivious hallway of his mind, and then he stood up. He gave Sonja a smile and nod that said "soon, but not yet," and moved down the hallway to Dr. Dotz's office. He tapped twice on the door and entered, clicking the door shut softly behind him.
Dr. Victoria Dotz was sitting behind her large, well-crafted office desk, with her bare feet up and resting on the wood surface, crossing over her ankles. Thomas could see her low-heeled strappy sandals on the floor some distance away from the desk. She watched him as he came in, and indeed looked as if she had been waiting for him. She noticed his eyes struggling to peel away from her feet up on display.
"Is she here?" asked Dr. Dotz. "Are those your observations?"
He hesitated. She arched her foot to point her toes - done up in an exquisite french pedicure from Molly's downtown - at the paper he held in his hand. It got his attention.
"Oh," he mumbled, shaking his head to clear it. "Yes, here." He walked toward where she sat. Victoria noticed how he didn't come to the center and front of the desk, or around the corner to her side, but hovered at the corner of the desk, next to where her feet were resting and now slowly sliding against each other. She held out her hand for the notes, doing it in such a way that it forced him to bend over the desk, directly over her toes. She did not take the notes until she felt his weight lean firmly against the desk, and then she snatched them from his grasp. The move pulled him even more off balance, and the large man might have fallen across the desk had Victoria not - deliberately - raised her finely pampered foot at the last instant, planting her pedicured toes squarely in his chest. She held his eye contact, saying nothing, a playful gleam in her eye as she slowly pushed him back up. But before he could regain his own balance, the doctor's eyes had already dropped down to the sheet of paper in her hand. She read through the notes quickly, her foot still gently pushing Thomas away from her and back onto his own feet.
Thomas felt completely transfixed. On some level, he had no idea what to do with his own body, and on another, he was quite certain he was more than happy exactly where he was. He watched the doctor read his notes, licking his lips nervously. And then he felt her foot begin to move against his chest. First it rocked him gently backward until he regained most of his own balance, and then- he looked down and watched as it slowly, lazily, absently trailed its way down his chest, down his stomach, and down, past his belly button, down, until with a dull thud Victoria's heel hit the desk, and her toes would go no lower. He swallowed, and tried not to gulp.
"Hmmm," said the doctor, her eyes still on his notes, as if she was deeply pondering. He felt her toes tapping idly against his abdomen, and his eyes gazed at their form. His fingers twitched at his sides.
"So she chose the blue chair," she finally said, more rhetorically than anything else. "And you put the brown chair in the back office like I asked, right Thomas?" He snapped his eyes up and saw she was looking directly at him. "Yes ma'am." He said it casually, and Victoria admired him for the effort it must have taken. Though it's not like she hadn't put him through this before. He should be used to it by now.
"You say here that she hesitated at the front door. Tell me more."
"Well, I'm not really sure about that, it was weird. Last week she came in staring at the ground and acting like a mouse. This week I watched her come up through the window and when she got to the front door she just... hesitated, but then came straight through the door. Still mousey though."
Victoria hooked her toe under her receptionist's belt and tugged gently. "Hesitated for what, Thomas? Did she see something? Was she rethinking coming in?"
Thomas swallowed again as he felt her feet pressing against his pelvis. Victoria so loved watching him squirm. "I don't think so. If I had to guess, it looked like she saw her reflection and it startled her. Not scared her, but startled her."
