"Would you prefer it if I were taller?" Kevin asked, picking up the stack of plates. They had plenty to get done before Dana's friends came over, and he was doing his best to make their place as hospitable as possible!
Dana looked up from stirring a big batch of her famous spicy tomato soup. To her practised hypnotherapist eye, something was troubling him deeply. With furrowed brow, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the sight of his reflection in the kitchen's window.
She set down the wooden spoon and grabbed him gently from behind in a hug. Resting her chin on his head, she squeezed him against her. "I love you the way you are, sweetie. You are perfect, understand?"
He slid out from the hug, spinning around to face her. Her height didn't help his feeling of inadequacy. "I know, I know. I just think that...maybe I'm not man enough for you sometimes. You know how it is?" He pointed to the new bag of paper towels he'd retrieved from under the sink. On its surface stood a mascot that radiated masculine power: strong, bearded, confident. Just about everything that Kevin wasn't.
"You want to be the paper towel guy?" she asked.
He laughed. "No, no, not him specifically. But, y'know, being a manly man." He mimed flexing his arms, where there wasn't much muscle to speak of. Standing maybe 5'6 and trim, like a runner, he didn't evoke the image of a bodybuilder easily. She hugged him as harder.
"Don't be silly, sweetheart. You're fine just the way you are. If anything, I'd like you even softer. More...feminine, maybe."
Kevin stiffened. "What?"
She tilted his chin up with her finger. "Don't be surprised, silly. You know I'm bi." When his visible mood didn't improve, she waved off the idea. "I'm just saying you'd look cute in a dress, is all."
"Well that's never happening," he grumbled, then stormed off. Dana couldn't think of the right thing to say to get him to stop. She followed him to his office, where he usually retreated when he got flustered.
"Honey?" Dana asked from the threshold off the door.
"It's a Girl's Night In. I'd be cramping your style. Just let me know when it's over." If he wasn't pretending to be loading a video game, she knew Kevin would be pouting.
She rolled her eyes. "I told you, you're more than welcome. My friends already think of you as one of the-" She halted mid-sentence, getting a devilish idea. She pulled her crystal pendant from her cleavage, taking it off her neck and holding it in her hand.
Kevin recognised it immediately. "Oh no you don't. Not right now, Dana, I'm upset."
"How can you be upset when you feel so...Relaxed?" With appropriate emphasis and tone, the word triggered the programming long since established in her boyfriend's mind. He sagged into his chair, outrage sputtering to a halt.
She slid behind him, whispering keywords that unlocked his mind. He tried to fight it, but her control over him had been total for a long time. He loved that, when they were fucking. Right now, when he was angry about himself and his own lack of power, it would have frustrated him something fierce. But with his emotions draining out and replaced with placid relaxation, the resentment he felt looked like a passing roadsign. Something to note, but then immediately forget.
"How are you feeling, Kevin?" Dana asked in her authoritative, hypnotist voice.
"Relaxed...safe..."