The one buddy's name was Bartholomew but we didn't dare call him that because he might just unload a swing.
Nope, we called him Brad, to this day I am not completely sure as to why.
Brad ran with a guy named Martin, they were quite a pair.
Martin was maybe 5'7" tall and 150 pounds right after eating, Brad was 6'2" and closer to 250 pounds, so they were like night and day.
My wife Sharon and I lived way out in the sticks, on 10 acres that I used my veteran's loan to buy.
Anyone who has one of those loans knows how those go, you always send the check on a Monday to make sure it gets there on Friday, otherwise they tag on interest for Saturday and Sunday, and if the next Monday is a holiday, you lose ground.
If you are late just a couple of days, the principal goes up, not down.
We call those, "No way in hell to ever pay one off" loans.
That didn't matter, it was cheaper than rent.
Me? My name is Ted, just a guy. I managed a gas station for a boss that never bothered to come around...ever. The pay was lousy, the days were long and by the time I got home I had to spend an hour in the shower to get the stink of gasoline off of me.
I did write all the checks which meant I signed my own paycheck, I would have just given myself a raise but that would be enough to make the boss show up.
Brad and Martin were damn near a fixture around our house, they both had dirt bikes just like me so weekends and evenings they would come out and help me tear up dirt on my little cattle ranch.
OK, so I only had two cows and one bull, but that's cattle.
The bull apparantly had no clue as to what to do with a cow, at least we never saw any calves which I mentioned to the guys one day.
"Hell, why not go out there and demonstrate?" Martin wisecracked.
Brad thought that was funny as hell but then he though everything Martin said was funny.
My Sharon was about five feet tall and around 100 pounds, her behind was tiny to the point of looking a bit off size considering her boobs were "D" cups.
I spotted her on a beach one day wearing a green bikini, conservative as hell by today's standards but I followed her around and pestered her until finally she agreed to a date.
Now only 24 years old, her tits were already heading south. She never bothered with a bra which might have been part of that, I am not sure there either.
I used to call them my "funbags" which was another funny thing since we found this website that used the term, I claimed they stole the idea from me.
That website had some videos, I used to try and play those on our 8G computer. That was click on the video, wait 5 minutes while the little thingie sat there processing, then play four seconds of the video and wait again.
Hell, the four of us sometimes spent an entire evening drinking and doing exactly that, the sample videos were free.
Anyway, one evening we were playing this video and it was about this hypnotist, he was waving this chain with a shiny thing on it, getting a woman to strip right up on the stage.
"Man, this is bullshit!" Martin said, popping another can of beer.
"Oh, I have heard that it really can be done." I answered.
"No way in hell, people can't be hypnotized." He insisted.
"Sure they can." I launched off into a whole bunch of stuff that I had read, although most of it I was making up. Then I made the mistake of adding that I not only knew about it, but could do it.
"Betcha fifty bucks!" Martin popped up with.
Fifty bucks was about two whole day's take home pay.
Martin was always making bets, most of the time we just ignored him.
I could see he was getting drunk, but then so was I or I might not have been shooting off my mouth. Brad of course could drink a whole case of beer and it seemed to have no effect, more places to put the stuff I guess.
"You are on, but how would we prove that?" I asked.
"Go ahead, hypnotize me!" He challenged.
"Yea, sure. You know it is coming so you can resist." I said.
"Kind of what I thought you would say." He said, snickering and getting a laugh from Brad which pissed me off.
+++
It took about an hour more and the video finally finished, the hypnotist got the woman to take off her blouse and her bra, finally she was down to her panties in front of a whole room full of people when the video ended.
All of this was still early on with the internet, they did have web sites that showed everything but we had to pay for those which meant calling some phone number with a credit card and I had heard stories about that kind of stuff.
I happened to glance over at Sharon and her eyes were heavy, she was on beer number three and that was usually enough for bedtime.
On a whim, I began to talk softly to her. Just things about being tired and her eyes were heavy, then she closed them and her head nodded.
"Damn. Was this shit working?" I thought. Both Brad and Martin were sitting there watching me with interest now.
I began to talk about ocean waves coming in and going out and coming in and going out, deliberately letting my voice drone on and on.
Sharon slumped even more.
"There is only you and me here, it's very quiet, Sharon. When I tell you to, stand up." I told her.
The instant I told her to, she stood up, standing there meekly with her eyes closed.
"We are all alone, there is music playing, I want you to dance for me."
Sharon began to move her arms, shake her fanny slightly. She had on a sweater and a mini skirt and the motions she was making caused her oversize breasts to sort of roll around underneath the sweater.
Sharon actually did that for me in our bedroom, often doing a little strip tease which without fail got me upright and rolling.
"Bunch of shit." Martin muttered.
"Shhhh! She is really under!" I told him, although I was thinking she was faking it too.
