The Final Countdown

"Really, I'm more hurt than angry," Lyle said.

Ashley couldn't quite suppress a tiny yelp when she heard his voice from just over her shoulder. In fact, she tried very hard not to--she was in a public place, and all she needed to do was scream and security guards would come running. Then it would just be a matter of explaining that he was a former boyfriend who wouldn't leave her alone, and they'd take him outside, at least long enough for her to get onto the bus and get out of here. But something in the back of her head choked the scream off until it was just a tiny little "eep!" noise, not quite the silence that her subconscious wanted, but certainly the sort of thing people did all the time when they were startled. The kind of thing nobody would notice.

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about, Ashley," Lyle continued, walking around the row of uncomfortable plastic seats to sit down right next to her. "We've been dating for five years now, living together for three, and how do you greet me? With a little scream of panic and an attempt to jump out of your chair. It hurts, Ashley. It really does."

Ashley made another attempt to jump out of her chair, but it was as if all her muscles had turned to water. All she could muster up was a tiny twitch of her legs, barely noticeable to anyone but the two of them. "How did you find me?" she asked, looking down at her legs as if willing them to move. She knew that wasn't really what she was doing, and she suspected Lyle did too. She was really just looking anywhere but in his eyes.

"You called me, honey," Lyle said, his voice poisonously sweet. More than sweet, it was soothing. Calming. The same voice she'd fallen in love with, the same voice that had whispered in her ears so softly, so many times...fear gripped Ashley's heart, but at the same time she felt a glassy calm sinking over her whole body. "You told me you were at the bus station, and that I needed to come and get you."

"I...I don't remember doing that," she said quietly. "I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have wanted to do that."

"Part of you did, love," Lyle responded. She knew he was right. She'd known it even as she'd protested. It was the same part of her that was keeping her tone low and soft and quiet, and kept her from screaming or running. The same part of her that made her forget she'd made the call as soon as she hung up. The part of her that Lyle had programmed. "The part of you that loves me."

"It's not that I don't love you, Lyle," she said plaintively. "I just...I think we need a break, that's all. Just a little time apart. Lots of couples do it. It doesn't mean I'll never come back, I just..." She trailed off, knowing that she couldn't make the lie sound convincing. She couldn't get the terror out of her voice.

Lyle took her chin in his hand gently, the gesture of a consoling lover. He tilted her head up and towards him, and even though he used very little pressure, she couldn't pull free as his eyes locked with her own. "Then why couldn't you just tell me?" he asked. "If that was it, then why couldn't you be honest with me and tell me to my face that was what you wanted?"

Ashley blinked. It was a struggle. She could feel her eyes widening, her stare becoming fixed and open. "Because I was afraid," she whispered. "I was afraid you'd..."

"Hurt you?" Lyle's face was nothing but injured sweetness, the hurt of a lover who couldn't even imagine how they'd been accused so wrongly by someone so close to them. "You know I'd never do that, baby. I'd never let anything bad happen to you."

Ashley took a deep breath. She realized that she'd been taking in nothing but deep breaths, holding them and letting them out in a soft, relaxing cadence. "I was afraid you'd hypnotize me," she said in a rush as she exhaled.

Lyle chuckled. "Oh, honey, that's just silly. I've hypnotized you dozens of times. There's no harm in it. It feels good. It feels warm. It feels soothing, and relaxing, and you love to sink into a deep hypnotic trance for me."

Ashley found herself nodding, her head moving up and down as though it wasn't under her control. Her neck muscles felt so light and floaty that just the slightest pressure of his hand on her chin made it bob up and down in agreement. "But...but I'm afraid, Lyle. I'm afraid I'm losing myself." She heard the calm, almost sedated quality to her own voice, and tried to fight it, but Lyle's eyes just seemed to fill her field of vision and it had been so long since she'd fought him that she couldn't remember how.

"But if it feels good, if it makes you feel happy, then why worry?" Ashley tried to think of the reasons, but her head felt empty somehow. "That's why you're not getting up, Ashley. That's why you're not fighting me. You know that deep down, deeper and deeper down, you want this. Your subconscious wants this, deep down, wants to go deep down and stay deep down." She heard the subtle emphasis in his words, and years of rapport made a few simple sentences as hypnotic as any trigger.

Ashley tried to follow his words, tried to keep her eyes open, tried to think. It was all so much effort that she couldn't even begin to try to get away as well. "I...but you...you're doing things, and I'm losing track..." Her thoughts felt muddled and disjointed now. "I don't even know what you're doing to my mind anymore. I wake up and I can't remember things. I wake up less and less now, Lyle. I woke up in a laundromat this morning, and I had these slutty clothes on. I didn't remember putting them on. I didn't even remember buying them." She tried not to shiver with pleasure at the word 'slutty'. She failed.

Lyle sighed. "Was it busy?" Ashley blinked in confusion, but nodded. "Probably someone accidentally used one of your waking triggers. I'll have to take those out."

"No..." sighed Ashley. She couldn't really put any force into the plea. "Please, I don't want...I didn't know what I was doing there, I just...someone was reading a newspaper, and I looked at the date." She clung to the memory, trying to use it to lever herself out of trance. "I couldn't remember anything that had happened for two months, Lyle. It had been two months since you let me out of trance. And a month before that, and...you can't keep doing this, Lyle. Please. If you really cared about me at all, you wouldn't--"

"I do care, Ashley." Lyle's voice didn't change at all. It was still so soft, so soothing, so very hypnotic. "That's why I can't let you go. I love you too much to let you go. And if you wake up again, you'll run away again. So it's time for you to sleep now, honey."

Ashley gave a tiny shake of her head, as much as she could muster. "Please, no..." she whimpered.

"It'll be alright, Ashley," he said. "Just listen to me count back from ten to one. You know what happens when I count back from ten to one, don't you?"

Ashley knew all too well. The knowledge was ingrained deep into the very core of her mind now, deeper than friends or family or faith or career. Ashley couldn't even remember, gazing helplessly into Lyle's eyes, if she still had any of those things. She heard herself say, "Yes," and didn't recall deciding to do so.

"Good girl," Lyle said, the words sending a surge of tight pleasure into her pussy. "Ten, feeling yourself go light and loose and sleepy." Ashley felt her resistance crumble before it even began, her body becoming even weaker and more helpless than before. "Nine, remembering how good trance feels, how good you always feel when you're hypnotized."

"i...i'm begging you..." She heard it in her voice now, the quiet, sleepy tones of trance softening her speech.

"Eight," Lyle said, cutting off her words. She couldn't even remember what she'd been about to say once she heard that number. "Sinking down, so soft and wonderful into that sweet, sleepy dream...seven, relaxing more and more as you gaze into my eyes..."

Someone had to notice. Someone had to see that she was motionless, staring helplessly into his eyes and slumping bonelessly in the uncomfortable plastic chair. There had to be something suspicious, something that would make some good Samaritan come over to see what the problem was. If she could just break eye contact for even a second, she could signal someone for help with a pleading look.

"Six, each number relaxing you ten times as deep as before," Lyle continued. Ashley knew she'd never be able to break eye contact. She couldn't fight him, not after so many years of deep, pleasurable conditioning. Trance felt too good to fight. Ashley felt too good when she sank into trance for Lyle. She mouthed the next number right along with him as he said, "Five, drifting and floating, eyes becoming so heavy and body becoming so heavy..."

She felt that familiar stinging exhaustion in her eyelids now as she struggled to keep them open just a little bit longer. She fought now with everything she had left, knowing that if she let them close, she'd never remember opening them again. Lyle would never let her wake up, she could feel it deep down. This would be the last conversation she'd ever remember, the slow, seductive countdown the last words she'd ever consciously hear. If she didn't fight now, she'd never be able to fight ever again.

"Four," Lyle said, and Ashley felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her. "Deeper and deeper and deeper as you relax, Ashley." Despair followed the wave as she realized that just the effort of fighting was making her more and more exhausted, that staying awake only made her more tired. It was just natural, automatic. Sleep always followed waking, like night followed day. If she was awake now, that made trance inevitable. "Three, feeling so good as the spell of slumber takes you over..."

Ashley realized that she did feel good, that Lyle had programmed her to feel nothing but pleasure when she gave in to his will and sank into deep hypnosis, and that the pleasure helped to sap her will, and that losing her will gave her more pleasure...she almost dropped into trance right there as her body seemed to slide into a never-ending orgasm of hypnotic bliss, but she had to fight, had to--

"Two, and you know that you want this, you want nothing more than to be my good hypnotized obedient girl..." Ashley could barely see now, her eyes little more than slits as they fluttered and danced in a vain attempt to stay open just a little bit longer, anything for one tiny second more of free will before she lost herself forever in obedience, before she became-- "One, ready to become my deeply hypnotized, deeply obedient slave forever as you hear me say..."

Ashley's eyes closed. She couldn't remember what he said next.

THE END