The only way I can describe the night of my hypnosis is to compare it to a waking dream. My world is vividly normal except for a nagging sense of incomplete control.
It takes root as I dance, unimpressively, with a stranger in a vaulted basement bar that is the default destination for people who have made no plans on a Saturday night.
I can describe her face, though I have barely looked. She has scraped back her dark hair too tightly away from a short but shiny forehead and a brow that has been plucked and redrawn to give a sense of enduring surprise.
Her small eyes are surrounded by a haze of heavy bronze eyeshadow that even in the dim light of the undercroft seems a poor match for the shocking pinkness of her lips.
I can't much remember the shape of her face but that it is round and the jaw ill-defined.
Instead I am transfixed by her chest, comically so. Or tragically.
I stared at it as she approached, as she flirted with me, as I danced with her easily long enough to suggest that I was flirting back.
I watch it now as if trying to commit it to memory, the lie of the leopard print satin against her skin. I take in the shadow cast by the neckline of her blouse as it bridges her collarbone and the top of her breast. I can see with my eyes closed the shallow inward curve as the line traces the contour over and down into shadow.
The cleavage itself has an allure of inexplicable potency. I have felt embarrassment come and go as I gaze, convinced that a moment's more indulgence is worth any consequence. If this bothers her I cannot tell. I imagine, from her bobbing and shimmying, that she is unconcerned.
I have never done this before, even in my most disinhibited moments. Inhibition now has long gone, missing since my early evening hypnosis.
*****
I had never seen the attraction of stage hypnotists. At worst, I thought, it would be embarrassing to watch, at best pointless. But my friend and his wife knew the performer and I was content to show my support. It was just as well, as even in the small room at the top of the pub there were barely enough people to fill half the seats.
I knew that hypnotists could not force you to do anything you didn't already want to do, so I had no great apprehension when she called me on stage among half a dozen others. I felt no obligation to follow her commands except the awkwardness of ruining her act. I did not feel sleepy when I closed my eyes, nor could I block out everything but her voice.
I did, though, find her tone relaxing. I was happy to play along when she told me to reopen my eyes at the snap of her fingers and watch the rise and fall of her necklace. I did like the way it caught the light as it lay on her chest. I thought it was funny when she gave me permission to stare at her corseted bust, and the bust of any woman I encountered.
The audience thought it was funny too. Every time I looked at a woman's cleavage I got a laugh, as did the women on stage who were told to stare at men's groins. I could see the comedy as our band of audience volunteers performed, amid gales of laughter, a desperately inappropriate nativity play.
Nothing seemed awry afterwards, not until my fourth drink of the evening down in the gloom of the nightclub.
*****
The stranger is dancing close to me now, making what conversation can be made above the music. Her name is Chantelle, she is telling me. She leans in so her mouth is by my ear. Her perfume envelops me.
I tell her my name and pull back to get another look at her chest. She draws me closer again, her hand on my hip. "You can't keep your eyes off me, can you?" she asks. I try to step away but she has both hands on me now, fingertips hooked into my belt loops. I feel her soft belly pressing against mine. I wonder briefly if she can feel my arousal pushing involuntarily towards her.
She slides her plump fingers beneath my shirt to meet at the small of my back. "I'll let you have a closer look if you like," she says.
I oblige her kisses. I feel the crush of her breasts against me. The visual memory of them floods my mind every time I close my eyes. She announces as she playfully gropes me that she is going to take me home.
As she takes my hand and turns to lead me to the exit I feel distaste at the heft of her neck and legs. Her fitted blouse bulges outwards where it meets the top of her leather skirt, the central seam of which has begun to loosen with the strain. I resolve to free my hand from her tight grip but I hesitate when suddenly she turns to face me. I stare again. I know that I would regret forever the lost promise of a closer encounter.
I am so enthralled as we wait in the taxi queue that when our ride arrives I am consumed by the idea of feeling her softness on my cheek. She has other ideas, though, and chats volubly to the driver while fondling me beneath the cover of the broad leather jacket she has laid in my lap.
