As he walked out onto the stage some of the lights came up as he made his entrance, and the audience applauded as he moved to center stage. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen!" he said in a loud showman's voice. "Tonight we will be taking you on an adventure...a journey into the deepest depths of the minds of some of your fellow students in this room tonight! Maybe someone you know..." he said pointing to the third girl that had come in with Lindsey. "Maybe someone you've never met before. Maybe the person that suggested you come here tonight." he pointed directly at Lindsey's friend, the young Italian girl, and was rewarded with her giving a slight gasp of surprise. "Or maybe... just maybe... you won't be watching the show at all. Maybe you won't be seeing your friends falling under the sway of my words. Maybe... Just maybe... it will be you..." He pointed out at the audience and started to move his hand over everyone to point at as many people as he could in a long drawn out wave, while he finished the veiled suggestion. "Maybe it will be you...who ends up entranced... tonight." The finger he was using to point at the audience ended its journey by pointing directly at Lindsey, who subconsciously blushed a bit and giggled. The hypnotist smiled inwardly at the reaction from his intended target. "Why don't we find out?"
With a remarkably energetic jump from where he was to the center of the stage he began his induction. "Everybody sit up straight now, nice and straight nice and strong, let me see just how good that posture is... very good, very good. Now...I want you to hold your arms out directly in front of you. Palms open, spread those fingers wide you can do it...put some energy into it, that's it! Let those hands face one another palm to palm, fingers open and spread wide about an inch apart. Let me see you, let me see you..." He quickly scanned the audience to make sure everyone had the right idea. And quickly looked out at the reading audience to make sure you were following along. I see you! Sit up straight, hands out, fingers wide. Scroll down in the story so you can see it and read it and watch your hands with your peripheral vision. Didn't know there would be a participation portion to this, now did you?
With everyone in the audience in position (as well as those of you playing the home game) the hypnotist started to work his magic. "Now...focus on your right hand, and I want you to imagine...really imagine that your right hand is a powerful, powerful magnet. And that that magnet is reaching out to your left hand, which is solid, highly attractive steel. And just see that magnetic field reaching out... to wrap around the left hand and start to pull them closer and closer together. Feel them starting to get pulled in, little by little. Closer and closer. You may notice your hands tingling a bit, you may notice your fingers and arms shaking just a bit. The more that happens the more they start to pull together. Closer and closer. The closer they get the more you start to feel the magnetic field getting stronger, and stronger. You can see it reaching out and pulling your left hand to your right. You can feel the right hand being dragged closer to the left. Maybe your fingers are already touching. Maybe your palms are already touching. Maybe your fingers have already wrapped around your hand. Locked together in a tight...tight grasp. Maybe you feel it, but not as strong as the person next to you.. Maybe seeing and realizing that their hands are locked together tightly, and deeply, will help you to let your hands lock together. Tighter and tighter. Completely fused now. Maybe it will take a few more minutes, and as you sit here, enjoying this experience. You hands will get closer and closer, tighter and tighter, working their way together. Closer and closer."
The hypnotist looked out at the audience while he created the induction off the top of his head. He couldn't help but smile as he saw Lindsey's hands moving closer and closer together. She started to giggle a bit, but that's ok, laughing only helps you to relax and lets the suggestions work even more deeply in your mind. When he mentioned watching the hands of the person sitting next to you, he noticed Lindsey glance over at her young Italian friend, only to see her hands were clenched tightly together and her face was focused deeply on her hands. Lindsey didn't realize it, but when she saw her friend's hands clasped together, that was the exact moment her fingers curled around and clasped tightly together. Seeing that image is what helped her to sink into the hypnotist's trap.
(And for those of you playing the home game, if your hands are clasped together, or sticking together, or simply feeling a pull together, then this little hypnotic suggestibility test in a story was a success. Thank you for playing along, your hands are free to separate in 3... 2... 1... Separate!)
"Well, well, well, look how suggestible you all are!" The hypnotist said with a smile. "So many young minds already under the sway of my words. Your hands are stuck so tightly...so deeply, that no matter how hard you try to get them free you won't' be able to. You can try to separate them, you can try to pull them apart. Don't be afraid to use your knee, use your friend's shoulder, use your foot if you can get it up there...but try as you may you won't' be able to separate your hands. They are stuck together... and only I can let them go!" The hypnotist let out a playfully devious laugh, much to the amusement of the crowd.
In the audience several of the more deeply suggestible audience members, including Lindsey and her friend, were trying desperately to get their hands apart. The Italian girl was using the shoulder of the man next to her to try and pry it apart, while giving him a flirty smile of course. While Lindsey, ever the police cadet, had managed to get her foot into her hands and was using all of her might to separate her fingers, but they wouldn't budge. Not one bit.
The hypnotist took great pleasure in watching Lindsey's predicament as he walked back and forth on stage. "Those of you who have been unable to separate your hands, you should stop trying...you're already under my spell, already under my power. You fell under my sway long ago but you didn't realize it. What you also didn't realize when you started this, was that there is a stronger magnet up here on stage. And those of you out in the audience, with the strongest grip, with your hands still stuck together, can feel it's pull...some of you can even see it right here... " The hypnotist walked along the stage in front of a row of chairs, pointing to a non-existent magnet hovering in front of them. "And now... each one of you is going to feel those hands being pulled...pulling you forward, up out of your chairs and up on stage in front of one of these chairs. Your hands can't help but pull you up here, the more you resist the stronger and deeper the pull will be, and the more you will find yourself being dragged up on stage... feeling it pulling you more and more, the more you resist."
Lindsey was taken by surprise as her hands nearly jerked her out of her chair and were leading her straight to the stage. She couldn't help but notice how, even though she was being pulled on stage, that 'magnetic pull' was guiding her around other people without bumping into anyone. Funny how that works. Before she could even grasp what was happening to her, she was climbing the stage stairs and ended up right in front of one of the chairs onstage, second to last on the left side. Beside her was Christine, her friend who was still so focused on her hands that Lindsey wasn't sure she even knew she was on stage.
The hypnotist smiled as he looked over his crop of unwitting volunteers, "Isn't it always a thrill to see such smart, confident young men and women, completely unable to resist what someone else tells them to do?" He mused to the audience as he made his way over towards Christine on the far end of the stage.
Lindsey watched the man as he moved past her, "he's even cuter up close" she commented to herself as he made his way to Christine. Her friend didn't even seem to notice what was going on, where she was, or that a man she had never met was standing right in front of her. "Wait a second..." Lindsey thought, "is he checking her out?"
Before she could come to the answer, the hypnotist placed his hand on top of the clenched hands of the young woman in front of him and pushed her hands down with a firm commanding "Sleep!" The young woman's eyes slammed shut and her body seemed to slump all at once. Shoulders falling as her hands were pushed down, and a visible shift in her weight as the muscles that were keeping her standing quickly let go. Her body weight shifted to her left leg as her head fell forward tilting her down towards a fall. Fortunately for her, the hypnotist was in the exact position that he needed to be in order to catch her.
Lindsey watched as her friend's face plastered itself into the hypnotist's chest. Her arms fell limp as he quickly reached up to support her and keep her weight pressed against his body, in order to stop her from falling the rest of the way to the ground. Lindsey shouted in her mind "Lucky bitch!" She watched as the man lowered her friend into the chair that she was standing in front of, leaving her slouched in her chair with her arms hanging limp at her sides.
The young police cadet couldn't help but look over her friend, slumped in the chair and looking like she was completely asleep, completely oblivious to what had happened. "Jen's never going to believe this" she thought to herself. Before Lindsey could finish her own thought she felt a hand gently place itself on top of her own clenched hands. Her head whipped forward to look at her hands just in time to see the hypnotist push her hands down as fast and as hard as he could.
"Sleep!" echoed through the auditorium. Lindsey never heard it. The force of her hands being pushed down caused her body to shake a bit, blanking her mind as her body went limp. Her head bounced back as the weight of her body started to pull her forward, while her head lolled back as her eyes rolled up into her head. A second later she landed with a thud against the chest of the hypnotist. Exactly where she wanted to be, but completely unaware of any of it. The hypnotist smiled secretly as he whispered into her ear. "Hello Lindsey, you and I are going to get to know one another...really well... really soon" He tried not to give too much of a stereotypical villain laugh while he gently copped a feel of the girl's leg as he moved her towards her chair. He was aware of just how much muscle the girl had. Her sister had been more lean, with a muscle tone akin to being more of a cardio fanatic. Lindsey obviously enjoyed a good weight routine...maybe even yoga.
As he brought the young police cadet to a seat on the chair she had been standing in front of, he placed a hand gently on her head, slyly stealing a caress of her cheek before tilting her whole body to lay limply against the shoulder of her young friend Christine. He turned to the audience with a smile "Two down... Eight to go!"
To Be Continued.
