"Um...you forgot to hypnotize me," Jennifer said to the man behind the camera. He looked back at her with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes and a smirk on his face that suggested he was enjoying a private joke, but Jennifer suspected Will Rainer ("the 'D' is silent," he always said) looked like that all the time.
"I did?" he said, trying to compose the smirk into an expression of innocence. It didn't really suit him. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," she said, almost breaking out in laughter at the question. "You just took out that crystal pendant, and then you put it away again." She couldn't help grinning at the absurdity of it all. When she had agreed to do this video, she was a little worried about what Will might make her do while she was in trance. The thought that he would forget to hypnotize her hadn't even occurred to Jennifer.
Will stepped out in front of the camera, and stood next to where she sat on the sofa. "And what would you say," he asked, "if I told you that I did hypnotize you, and you were a very good hypnotic subject?"
Jennifer knew exactly what to say to that. "I have never been hypnotized," she said calmly, looking straight into the camera with her soft brown eyes wide open and earnest, as if to convince her future audience of the fact. She didn't need convincing; she knew with total conviction that she hadn't gone into trance. She'd never been more sure of anything in her life.
"Oh. Okay," Will said, his tone nonchalant. Jennifer was a little bit surprised. She almost expected him to put up more of an argument. Or maybe to take the pendant out again and try to hypnotize her for real this time. But instead, he just stood there, looking up at the ceiling like he was putting all his energy into trying to get butter to melt in his mouth.
"Of course," he said after a long pause, "I can think of a way to prove you've been hypnotized." He looked back down at her. "If you're interested."
Jennifer looked back at him with a challenging stare. "Of course I'm interested," she said. "Because I haven't been hypnotized. At all. And I'm happy to prove it."
"Okay," Will said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. "It's very simple. When I hypnotized you--"
"Which you didn't," Jennifer broke in.
"--but assuming I did," Will continued smoothly, "I put in a post-hypnotic suggestion. I suggested that there was a place somewhere on your body that would send you right back into a deep, obedient trance whenever anyone touched it. A small spot, like a little off button for your brain, and the second I touched it you would go under for me all over again."
Jennifer found herself shivering a little as he spoke. He really was very well suited to making these videos, she thought. He had a mellow, husky voice that sounded like it was caressing her brain as he spoke, and she could very easily imagine staring at that pendant and listening to that voice and just letting her mind melt away like a sugar cube dissolving in hot water. She hadn't, of course. She'd never been more sure of anything in her life. But she suddenly wished she had.
"So what are you waiting for?" Jennifer asked, turning slightly to face him. "Go ahead and touch my magic spot and prove me wrong. If I was, which I'm not, so you can't."
Will looked down at her with an expression of mingled sympathy and deep satisfaction, sort of like the one her auto mechanic wore when he explained to her that it wasn't just the brake pads that needed replacing. "Well, I'd like to..." he said. "It's just that, well..."
Jennifer rolled her eyes. "You are so totally bluffing!" she said, helpless to control the giggle in her voice. The whole situation was amusing beyond all reason right now. She stood up and did a slow spin for the camera, showing off her lush curves. "Go on, Will. Touch me wherever you want. Where did you put this 'secret spot', anyway? On my forehead, on my wrist, on my tits? Where?" Not that there actually was a secret spot, because Will hadn't hypnotized her, but she wanted to call this bluff of his.
Will sighed. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. I don't actually know. See, it's your subconscious that accepted the suggestion. So your off button is going to be wherever your deep self decided to put it. The only way I can find it is through trial and error."
Jennifer snickered. "So you're saying you just need to run your hands over my body until I go into a hypnotic trance, then." Not that she minded or anything--she knew walking in here that Will's videos were sexually explicit, and she was okay with that. But she was expecting that he would really hypnotize her, even anticipating it, and she was a little disappointed that he was just going to pretend he did it already.
Will nodded sheepishly, looking up at the ceiling as though unable to meet her skeptical stare. "Um, until we find the spot that sends you back into trance...yeah," he said. "Pretty much. I mean, unless you'd just like to take it as read that I'm telling the truth and that you were already hypnotized--"
"No way," Jennifer said. She wasn't willing to let him get away with that trick. She knew she hadn't been hypnotized. She'd never been more sure of anything in her life. "If this is what it takes to convince you that I've never been hypnotized, then let's just go right ahead. You touch me anywhere you need to."
"Well," he said reluctantly, "if you're sure..." He reached out and took her right hand in his own, pressing the index and middle finger of his left hand together and slowly running them over her palm and fingers. He turned it over and stroked the back of her hand, caressing all the way down to her wrist. "Nothing there," he said, watching her eyes as they remained resolutely open. "Let's try the other."
He repeated the gesture with her left hand, watching her face closely. Jennifer met his stare with her own, determined not to let even the slightest sign that she was being hypnotized show in her expression. She didn't even let herself blink--there was no telling what Will would use to declare victory, here, and she wasn't giving an inch. "How does that feel, by the way?" he asked her.
"It feels nice," she said, a bit reluctantly. "But I'm not hypnotized," she added quickly.
His hand moved to her neck, tracing a line just above her collar all the way from one side to the other, then slowly caressing around her back in a lazy spiral. "I'm not being exact, here," he said. "But I really don't need to be. Your deep self is already thinking about the way I'm touching you, and it's going to be happy to send you deep into an obedient trance the second I get even close to your special trance spot."
Jennifer resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. "I told you," she said, "I haven't been..." She craned her head back a little--Will's fingers were brushing along the curve of her neck, and the delicate way that they caressed her sensitive skin distracted her for just a moment. "Hypnotized," she finished rapidly. "I haven't been hypnotized."
"Of course not," he replied, stroking her jaw and chin. "You're just enjoying this, right?"
"Yes," she said calmly. "I'm just enjoying this. I'm not hypnotized." She felt more focused now, more centered. Whatever Will was doing to try to rattle her, to make her admit to some sort of gap in her memories where he dangled his crystal pendant in front of her eyes and made her thoughts fade away into a warm, soft mist, it wasn't working. She was entirely in control of her own mind. She felt so much more relaxed knowing that.
