Eric hadn't wanted to stop with his friends to check out the hypnotist performing her act on the sidewalk outside some shops, but he'd been heavily outvoted. He could hardly have given them a reason to keep moving, not without revealing more of his past than he was comfortable with explaining - in the too-public setting of a Las Vegas street, especially - so he nervously joined the woman's small crowd with the rest of his group. He couldn't imagine that they actually cared about the hypnosis stuff, at least. The lady was cute, far-flung from whatever stock cartoon images of a creepy man with a shiny coin they had for the profession, though she did wear a fairly stereotypical black top hat and coat. She was short, pretty skinny, and overall attractive enough to be a minor spectacle when combined with her apparent profession.
As they arrived, she was just finishing up her previous act. Her setup was nothing more than a blackboard sign and a small speaker next to a bench. The sign read, in chalk, "THE MAGNIFICENT MILLIE," and then beneath, in smaller font, "Resist the STREET HYPNOTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE and win CASH prize!" The wire on the speaker ran to a microphone in the hand of one of the two women on the bench. Had the mic not been there, it still would have been obvious which one was Millie, as the other was slumped over in the seat, looking a lot like she'd passed out drinking.
And maybe, Eric thought, she had. Maybe this Millie just pulled drunks off the street and had them play pretend for her. He hoped so. Eric didn't want to be hypnotized. Not here - not with people he knew. All he really had to do was not volunteer, and it wouldn't matter whether she was just a pretender pulling drunks or the best hypnotist in the world. He wouldn't be hypnotized. They'd watch for a few minutes, get bored, then keep walking.
Millie started speaking into the mic, and her voice came through the speakers just loud enough to be audible over the ambient low roar of the street. "Now, miss," she said, "when I count to three and snap my fingers, you're going to wake up and remember nothing of what happened." The apparently-hypnotized woman on the bench didn't so much as twitch a muscle at being addressed. "And," Millie continued, "when I point at someone, you're going to stand up, walk over to them, and give them a nice, long handshake." The members of the crowd who had been there a bit longer gave a cheer at that, much to the confusion of Eric's friends. Eric thought he had a pretty good idea of where this was going, though, and it made his stomach feel suddenly heavy.
"One, two, three!" Millie snapped her fingers, and the woman's body spasmed momentarily before snapping into an upright position. She looked suddenly alert, if bewildered, frantically looking around at the crowd around the bench. Millie shook her shoulder to get her attention, and when she had it, she pointed towards the crowd - and, much to Eric's dismay, right at his friend Brian. Purpose suddenly filled the woman. She stood up and strode towards the stranger in the crowd. She extended her hand, and Brian, shrugging, took it with his own and shook.
A high-speed camera might have caught the change as it swept over her, starting with a slight wobble, a shiver, and a look of confusion, but to the cell phones and eyes pointed at her, it was immediate, and what was happening was very obvious. She was having an orgasm. From the look of shock, she hadn't exactly been planning on exploding with pleasure and complete sexual bliss in front of the people watching, and she didn't necessarily want to continue doing so. But still, she couldn't seem to pull her hand away, and Brian, having caught on, certainly wasn't letting go. "Oh, GOD," the woman gasped as her knees bent. She couldn't stay upright anymore; the unexpected force of the orgasm was wracking her body, twisting it and bending her over, desperate to find the cock it was sure was supposed to be inside her and sit on it. But she was fully clothed, in jeans, even, and there was nothing to sit down onto, and the handshake went on, and on, and on.
"My, oh my!" Millie was speaking into the mic again, her voice drowning out the woman's pleasured moans. "I hope your hand is okay there, Mister... What's your name?"
Brian tore his eyes away from the lady clutching his hand to look at Millie. "I... Uh, I'm Brian." He looked down again at the still-orgasming women, who was now nearly dragging him to the ground with her. "Should I..."
Millie interrupted him. "Miss Angelica, please snap out of it." The mic picked up the pop of her fingers snapping, and Angelica froze. Slowly, she released Brian's hand and straightened herself up, looking towards Millie with both eyebrows raised. She was out of breath. Millie, relaxing on the bench with her legs crossed, raised a hand and waved her fingers, smiling. "Bye-bye, now. I'll be here again tomorrow night, if you want another shot!" The small crowd laughed a little, and Angelica wasted no time in hurrying off away from the scene.
"Oh, dear. Well, she didn't win, but I think she enjoyed herself, anyhow. Mister Brian!" Millie hopped up off the bench and stood up. "Sorry, love, I have to pick on you now that I know your name. Interested in trying my challenge?"
Brian looked from the board to Millie, shaking his hand. "Uhh... How much is the prize?"
Millie smiled back at him. "How much do you think is fair for your time? Is a hundred enough for you?"
"Make it three hundred," Brian demanded, after a moment of thought.
Millie scoffed. "An expensive one! But, well, as I'm sure you know, it's a high risk game." She gestured towards his wrung-out hand. "I'll take you up on that, Brian. But know that, if I win, I'll be getting my stake's worth."
Eric sighed. Eager as he was to get out of the situation, he wasn't about to make a big deal out of it at that point. Plus, he thought, this should be some easy cash for them to throw away at the casino. All Brian had to do was think of baseball or something and just not listen to her, not let her take him deep, deep down into that sweet, slippery state of trance that -
"Fair enough," Brian said, interrupting Eric's train of thought. Millie gestured towards the bench, and he sat down, putting his hands in his lap. Millie reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a large gold coin with a hole in its center. Eric rolled his eyes. He'd been right all along. Maybe that Angelica girl was just one of her associates, acting out an orgasm to draw a crowd for Millie to pick drunks from. If that was the case, she wasn't great at picking them out. They'd been drinking a little earlier, but they certainly weren't drunk. Whatever was going on, though, Eric definitely knew that you didn't hypnotize people with a big stupid coin.
"Alright, then. Let's get started!" Millie unwound a string from the coin, wrapped the string around her finger, and let the coin drop a foot. "Now, for you new faces in the crowd, I'll be turning the mic off for this part. I don't want to put my entire audience under, after all. Not all at once."
That must be the trick, Eric thought. She'd just whisper how she was going to split some of the donations she asked for after the show with anyone who played along. Millie clicked off the mic and set it down on the bench, and her coin began to swing in front of Brian's face. She started talking to him, but her words were inaudible over the constant surrounding noise.
The small, confident smile on Brian's face didn't last long. A sparkle of childlike wonder filled his eyes as the line of his mouth went flat. Really hamming it up, Eric thought. Millie said something, and Brian's mouth drooped open a little. She reached out, took his chin gently between her thumb and forefinger, and easily pulled his mouth open. The pupils of his eyes were tiny and fixed on the coin that swooped left and right across his field of vision. Millie smiled and leaned down, the hand that wasn't swinging the coin sliding behind Brian's neck to caress his shoulder. She whispered something into his ear, waited a moment, then yanked the coin up and pulled Brian's head against her belly. His eyes were closed as his body went limp in her arm.