Sabrina sat in her office, slowly breathing, taking in what happened before Jon bolted out of the office a half-hour ago. "Calm shock" was the self-diagnosis to her reaction to Jon; she wasn't necessarily happy, while contending with whether she should feel unhappy. The mix of emotions going on in her were unusual. Never in her years of trancing had the tables turned on her like they did with Jon. She believed she'd lost control as soon as she was in his embrace, and yet it was brought on subconsciously rather than intentionally, and it was encouraged by a portion of her suggestions. She'd planned to simply shape his desires to be about pleasing her, from afar, like most others were shaped before. Then it went from taming and training to being attacked by a wild, feral animal. But Jon's animal ferocity was nothing but tender and affectionate. He'd become like a big jungle cat, looming over his trainer Sabrina, licking and nuzzling, showing her he was pleased having her there.
She absently lifted her fingers to her lips again, but set them down on her desk. Part of her hated how vulnerable she felt during that kiss, but part of her adored the kissing itself, which brought her back to hate. She never gauged men before on how well they kissed, except to think that players, playboys, and ladies-men might rate higher than most given their sometimes misguided self-confidence. She could tell Jon was none of those types, and had given her a phenomenal kiss like the ones described in cheap romance novels. But there was an ocean's difference between reading it and being embraced by it. She didn't know how she didn't slap him as soon as their lips came together; it was most women's, or at least her automatic response for men who'd gotten that close without permission, despite getting in his personal space first. She felt like slapping herself for letting herself enjoy it, because that led to her enthusiastic participation and how a warm kiss turned into an overheated one.
"Don't blame yourself, it's not like...he let you get away; you did try," she whispered to herself, leaning back in her chair, taking deliberate, slow breaths.
She closed her eyes, remembering the command she gave him and the kiss that stilled him, grinning a little at the ingenuity.
"Aren't you glad you didn't slap him?" a voice inside her head asked, bringing up an annoying fact.
"Be quiet," she told herself.
"Doesn't matter though. You want him, and you can have him, right?" the voice countered.
It was tempting to raise her hand to bring it swiftly across her own face to silence her conscience. Slapping would've affirmed that she did want him though, on some level. Jon was handsome to her, and smart, sensible, and despite their uneven and rocky interaction, there was some unspoken respect between them. And now she knew that he was a good kisser, could be very passionate with women, and was vulnerable to her skills now. His was a resume filled with strangely useful qualifications. It had been a while since there was one man she'd met that possessed all or that number of good attributes. After spending her early post-college 20's of gorging herself on mostly male hypnotic slaves, she cooled down in the following years, going for more conservative dating. And as much as she could shape a man to her liking pretty easily, she did have to like the core of the man enough to want to try. The ones that came close turned out to be disappointments, and meeting people could be hard when somewhat exotic features like bright red hair and stunning blue eyes meant wading through lots of interested men (some that even made Mark look desirable). She'd found herself shelving most relations for just liking to play with daily puppets.
Sabrina compromised with herself to admitting that Jon was potentially datable and left it at that. More importantly though, her incident with Jon remained unresolved. He'd left in a rush, mind probably still reeling wherever he was. She'd gotten her foot in the door into his mind, but her standing wasn't firm. If his mind put together what really that could make trouble for her. If he went straight to Bevy, she could manage him, but she didn't want to sit and do nothing to let another scenario she couldn't predict happen. She'd already gotten a taste of that.
Sabrina's lips curled from contemplating into wickedness, imagining some intriguing fictional plot where an interrupted seductress had to re-engage her escaped prey and finish him off, and finding Jon that night was her best opportunity. The thought of playing the hypnotic villainess kept her spirits up as she thought about how to go about it. She remembered Jon's office was left unattended, so she left her office to start there.
* * *
Jon woke feeling better than he thought he should have, remembering the morning and everything before the end of his lucid dream, putting off the grief to come. It took his ears a few moments, but he finally picked up a knocking sound from his door. He got up quickly to look through the peephole. He saw red hair, blue eyes, and a strange smile on her face. He clumsily made a noise on his side of the door, and saw Sabrina respond to the sound.
"I can hear you on the other side. May I come in?"
Jon let his head fall to the door with a small thud, and unlocked it.
Sabrina looked at him as she brushed past him and stood near the center of his apartment.
Jon closed the door and looked at her, not knowing what to expect, just expecting it to be bad. Then an random thought made him ask, "How did you know where I lived?"
Sabrina fished out of her pursed and produced his wallet, making Jon check his pants to notice an indent missing from his pocket.
"You shouldn't leave things like this behind. It's not a good idea to leave your office in such disarray, either."
"Look Sabrina, let me just start off with saying sorry f-"
She held a hand up to stop what she guessed would be a long triad of verbal apology in its tracks.
"Jonathan, before you over-extend yourself with amends, let me tell you what you can thank me for. You can thank me for cleaning up your office, shutting down your computer for you, and telling Bevy you had an emergency to handle and that you might not make it back to your office for the rest of the day."
Most of what he planned to apologize for went away in hearing what Sabrina did for him. Coming on to her like he did and his punishment was being cleaned up after by said woman?
"You didn't tell Bevy about...?"
"That would be assuming that I couldn't handle you all by myself."
"Ha-handle me?" Jon questioned. Things seemed really off to him now, with Sabrina's actions, her reactions, and even the way she sat down on his couch with a bit of nonchalance and confidence. As she crossed her legs, he thought about what she might be angling for, sensing blackmail in the near future. He also noticed how nice her legs looked.
"Ok, before we go any further, can I hear from you what happened?"
