The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I led Richard to the door, smiling and saying polite goodbyes. Then I made a beeline for the small kitchen in the back of the office, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and sighed.

I was a little annoyed with myself for having done Richard’s session largely on autopilot. That was my own fault, scheduling two different clients in the same day for smoking cessation. That’s a single 2-1/2 hour session— cheaper for the client that way, but very draining for me. I could still hear myself delivering the spiel: Cast your mind back to your very first cigarette. Your body had a very strong reaction to that first cigarette, didn’t it? You probably coughed and gagged, and felt a little sick to your stomach, did you not? ... blah, blah, blah.

The truth was I needed a vacation. Ellen, the colleague with whom I shared office space and expenses, had been gently nudging me to take some time off for a while. “You need a break,” she’d insisted the last time I’d booked a session for myself with her. “Burnout damages rapport, and you know how important rapport is to our success with clients.”

“I know,” I told her. “I also know that there’s no such thing as paid vacation when you’re self-employed.”

“That’s true; it’s part of the price we pay for the freedom we enjoy. But how would it feel if you could look at a vacation as an investment rather than as an expense? You might want to consider how taking some time off will increase your effectiveness with your clients because you’ll be more refreshed, more energized, when you return. And you’ll be able to let that energy translate into better rapport and more creative solutions. I’m not going to tell you that in the long run you’ll benefit more from the rest than from the money you might make working instead, because I know you’re a smart guy who can weigh these things for yourself.”

“Spoken like a true Ericksonian,” I said, half in jest and half in admiration for the easy, natural way she’d worked the embedded suggestions into the dialog. “Do you ever find yourself using those patterns on your husband?”

Ellen smiled slyly. “I’ll never tell.”

An image formed in my mind: Ellen, her lithe Italian body draped in lacey lingerie, telling me to relax while she slowly undressed; my eyes growing heavy and closing just as her last bits of clothing hit the floor; my cock going stiff and tempered, surrounded by warmth and softness ...

“Jack?”

I snapped back from my favorite daydream to see Ellen standing in the doorway. She grinned, as if she could tell what I’d been thinking of. “Phone call,” she said. “Line three.”

“Thanks.” Fortunately for me, there was a phone on the table; I grabbed the handset and hit the blinking button. “This is Jack.”

“Hey Jack, old buddy. It’s Marv.” The name didn’t register right away, but the voice did. It was a classic salesman’s voice—a little too loud, a little too friendly. My first instinct each time I hear that voice is to run, yet somehow I always seem to find myself listening instead.

“Marv.” I sighed and made very little effort to hide it. The last time I’d listened to Marvin Levy for any length of time I’d let him talk me into investing in some kind of vacation resort place in Puerto Rico. “What’s on your mind?”

“You are, partner,” he replied, taking no notice of my breach of manners.

I decided to nip this in the bud if possible. “I appreciate that, Marv,” I lied, “but I’ve got a client coming in any minute.”

“That’s my Jack,” he countered, unfazed. “Always busy. Always running from one thing to the next. Never taking any time out for yourself. When was the last time you took a vacation, Jack?”

“A while ago. Is there a point to this?”

“Absolutely. The point is, you own two and a half percent of one of the hottest vacation spots going, and you’ve never been there yourself. You need to come check this place out, Jack. One week here and you’ll feel like a new man.”

I was starting to smell another money request. “Your concern for my well-being is touching, Marv, but I’m not looking to invest anything more right now.”

“What the? Oh, shit—no, no, no, Jack, I’m not calling to ask you for more money. No, we’re doing great. Don’t you read the financials we send you every quarter? Hell, we’re doing fan-fucking-tastic. Money is not a problem.”

There was something in his voice, though. Some note of discomfort, of uncertainty. “But there is a problem, right Marv? Something you want me to help you with.”

A nervous chuckle filled my ear. “Nothing gets by you, does it? Okay, I’ll fess up. We do have a little problem. I had this guy booked to do three shows the last week in July. He’s a magician, grand illusion type guy; sort of an R-rated Houdini. Audiences love the guy.”

“And?”

“Well, he’s disappeared. Nobody knows where he is or how to contact him. He’s no-showed his last three gigs. I’ve called every number in my book, and everyone with any kind of talent is already booked for that week.”

“Okay,” I said, still searching for a point. “And what you want from me is ...”

“I was banging my head on the desk, trying to figure out what to do, you know? And then I remembered you were a hypno-guy—”

“Hypnotherapist,” I corrected.

“Right, whatever. And I remembered you used to do a stage show where you’d put people under and get them to do goofy stuff. That was great. You still do that, don’t you?”

“Marv, I haven’t done a stage show in ten years,” I told him. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“But you still put the whammy on people, right? You just do it in a nice, quiet office. Here you’d do it on stage, with a bunch of people watching. What’s the difference?”

“Between entertainment and therapy? It’s huge. That’s why I stopped doing entertainment.”

“Maybe you should try it again. You were good, Jack, you really were. If nothing else, it’s a chance to come check out your investment, have some fun, and maybe put the touch on a couple of ladies while you’re here.”

“Marv ...”

He wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Besides, I could be all wrong. Maybe the magician will show. If he does, then you can sit back and enjoy the week, all on the house. If he doesn’t, then you’re my insurance policy. Either way, you get a week on the island for just the cost of airfare. What do you say, Jack?”

I felt myself weakening. “I say let me think about it. I need some time.”

“Take all the time you need, buddy. Just let me know by the end of the week, okay? Catch you later.” And just like that, the voice was gone.

I sipped my tea and thought about it. The timing was certainly right. There I was, needing a break, and here was an opportunity to take a low-cost vacation in a beautiful place. What would it take, I wondered, to freshen up my old stage act? I hadn’t done it since college, when I’d kept myself in pocket money by doing shows at a local nightclub once a week, hypnotizing coeds and putting them through the usual stunts. “Jack Trancer,” I’d called myself, taking just a few liberties with my real surname. It had been fun, for the most part. So why not go for it?

Three weeks later on a Saturday morning, I found myself sitting in the back of a white SUV watching the Puerto Rican countryside roll by. We drove south and east from the airport for something close to two hours, much of that time running through the mountainous center of the island, before reaching my destination.

High sandstone walls defined the perimeter. Crisply carved into the stone near the gate was the name of the place: UNINHIBITED—An adult vacation community. Uniformed security guards at the gatehouse waved at my driver and let us through without stopping, then closed the wrought iron gate behind us.

I remembered the basic layout from the brochures Marvin Levy had shown me when he convinced me to invest in the place. A high-rise hotel building occupied the middle of the compound, with 50 private bungalows spread out in the area between the hotel and the beach. There were two golf courses—one professional grade, one for beginners—and two sections of private beach. For those preferring a more active vacation, there was a stable with horses and several riding trails, tennis courts, and a well-equipped health club and spa. The place was pricey, geared toward professional singles and childless couples with lots of disposable income, and it showed in the perfect grass and polished buildings.

A pretty young lady in a white business outfit was waiting for me at the main entrance to the hotel. She led me to the front desk, where I signed in and received a gold plastic key card. I was in suite 1201, one of two suites on the penthouse level. My greeter escorted me up, my luggage in the capable hands of a bellhop, and waited while I looked the place over.

The suite was definitely worth the triple-digit rate that non-owners paid for it. The furniture in the sunken living room was white leather and very plush. The television was a flat-panel wall hung model with a stereo, DVD player and VCR discreetly hidden in a cabinet below. The bedroom featured a four-poster king bed with one of those memory foam mattress pads and had more closet space than my entire house back in Chicago. The bath featured a whirlpool tub and a separate shower stall, either of which could comfortably hold three adults with ease. But the most amusing touch for me was the balcony. An entire wall of the suite was glass, with French doors leading onto a wide balcony that overlooked the beach. And on the balcony, mounted to the railing, was a compact telescope.

Curious, I aimed the telescope out to sea and tried to focus on something. It didn’t show much; not powerful enough to get a good view of anything too far from the shore. Then I had a thought—sure enough, the telescope had plenty of power when focused primarily on the people on the beach. A young Asian woman caught my attention as she lay topless on a pink beach towel. She had a dragon tattooed on her breast, with the tail encircling her studded nipple. I swept the telescope across the beach, looking just hard enough to note that the trend in bathing suits seemed to range from minimal to none. Voyeurism, anyone? I thought to myself.

“Mr. Torrance?”

I’d forgotten about my white-suited companion. “I’m sorry ... yes?”

“I realize you’ve just had a long flight, sir, but Mr. Redman did ask me if you could please come to the shop to discuss show setup. There’s not a lot of time to prepare anything you might need.”

Mr. Redman, I recalled from one of Marvin Levy’s calls, was their technical director. If the magician hadn’t shown, they would be very eager to get things set up for my show. “We can go now if you’ll show me the way.”

We paused long enough for her to phone ahead to let them know we were coming. She led me back down to the main level, then into the main dining hall. At first glance it looked like a big restaurant with a stage; a quick look up, however, showed a lot of serious theatrical gear hiding in the rafters.

I followed my guide through a door marked Authorized Personnel Only and into the backstage area. We made a sharp left into a glass-walled office with a cluttered desk and a separate conference table. As we approached the table, a 40-ish man in jeans and a denim shirt stood up and approached us.

“You’re Jack Torrance?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Stu Redman,” he said, extending his hand. “Tech Director.”

“Good to meet you.”

He pointed back at the table, where a young man and woman watched us. “This is my lead sound tech, Rudi,” he said, indicating the woman, “and my lead lighting tech, Todd.” Each acknowledged me with a nod. “As I’m sure you understand, we’re up against it for time here. Whatever you need for your show, we need to know about it now and hope we have most of the pieces already on hand.”

That didn’t sound good. “What about the magician?” I asked. “Have you heard anything on him? I’m just the stand-in, in case he doesn’t show.”

Stu Redman looked at me oddly. “You’ve never seen his act, have you?”

“No. Why?”

“If you had,” he explained, “you’d know there’s no way he could go on tonight unless he had some major real-life tricks up his sleeve. You can’t just give a guy like that a light and a microphone; we usually spend a good month building set pieces and rigging gags for his show before he ever gets here. They told me last month that he isn’t coming and you’re the headliner tonight, Tuesday, and Friday. So whatever you need for tonight, speak now ‘cause I’ve only got about six hours to make it happen.”

I took a brief moment to curse Marvin Levy. Why the hell hadn’t he told me this? Then I took a deep breath, centered myself, and got down to business. “Fortunately, mine is a pretty simple show. All I need is a nondescript background, twelve to eighteen chairs in two rows on the stage, and a short podium or stool and electrical outlet for my main prop.”

Redman opened a closet in the corner and pulled out a large black box. He lifted the lid to reveal a miniature scale model of the dining room. “This is our setup,” he said. “The stage is in thrust configuration right now and there isn’t time to change that, so it’ll have to stay that way for tonight at least. Chairs are no problem. There’s a mock cityscape in place for a backdrop right now, but I’ve got a buttload of simple flats we can set up quickly if you want a different color or texture. Tell me about this prop.”

“Is my equipment case here? I could just show it to you.” Todd grunted and trotted out of the room, returning a minute or so later with the aluminum cube I’d packed my things in.

I unlocked the case and pulled out my favorite stage prop: a black box with an electric motor that quietly spun two 24-inch spiral hypnodiscs. An engineering major had made it for me in exchange for ... well, let’s just say his girlfriend was a frequent test subject.

“This,” I told them, “is what I use to get the volunteers into hypnosis. I need to be able to sit this in front of them, pretty much stage center, and plug it in. Once the induction is over, though, it would be helpful if we could quickly and easily unplug it and take it away.”

The tech director considered the box for a minute, then handed me a small cardboard cube from the model. “Show me where you want it.”

I set the box more or less stage center, in front of the chairs.

He considered the position a moment. “Could it be a little bit further upstage? Say, here?” He slid the block back about half an inch, inside a thin white outline on the black stage floor.

It looked reasonable. “We could. I’d want to move the chairs back a little bit so the people on the ends can see it well, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

He grinned. “Great. There’s an elevator right there that the magician used a lot. If you place your box there, we can lower it right through the stage when you’re done with it.”

“Really? That would be fabulous!” I could already picture the hypnodisc sinking into the floor on cue.

Rudi was rooting in my box, and had my lavaliere in her hand. “Were you going to use this?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed.

“Um ... yes,” I answered, suddenly very unsure of myself. “Is that okay?”

“It’s your show,” she said. “It’s just that we have much better stuff here. UHF instead of VHF: better range, better clarity, less chance of interference.”

I could feel my stock dropping all over the room. “It is a pretty old set,” I confessed. “I’ve been meaning to get something better, I just never got around to it. We can use your gear.”

Rudi seemed relieved. “Cool. We can mic you with a lavaliere, and give you a wireless handheld for the people in the chairs. That be okay?”

“Great.”

Todd was looking at my hypnodisc. I could see the wheels turning in his head. “You know,” he finally said, “a lot of people aren’t going to be able to see this very well. I wonder ...” He exchanged glances with Stu Redman.

“The monitors?” the older man asked.

Todd nodded. “I’m thinking we zoom in on that, put the image on all the monitors, then cut away as it starts to drop. That would be cool.”

They saw me looking confused, and Todd stopped to explain. “A lot of the tables don’t have a really good view of the stage, so we have TV monitors hung from the ceiling.”

Now it made sense. “That sounds like a good idea; it may even help me get more volunteers from the back of the room.”

Todd kept nodding. “We should probably use the monitors for the whole show,” he suggested. “Otherwise to the people in the back it’ll just be a bunch of people sitting there.” To Redman he added, “We’ll need to get Regan; she’ll want to do a run-through.”

Redman turned to me. “Would you be up to doing a quick run-through so we can check the angles and lighting? Doesn’t have to be a whole show, just enough to get a feel for it.”

I froze for a second as the reality set in: I was actually going to have to do a show. You knew it was likely, I reminded myself. Better start getting used to the idea. “Sure,” I said, trying to disguise the dryness in my mouth. “I’ll need a couple of people to sit with me on stage, and a few sprinkled over the house.”

“I’m thinking we’ll invite the late lunch crowd to be our test audience,” Redman suggested. “A couple will probably be willing to sit on stage for test purposes.”

I checked my watch: 12:40. “That works. When do we start?”

Redman motioned to his underlings, who jumped up and left the room. “It’ll take us maybe an hour and a half to find Regan and set things up,” he said. “Where can I find you then?”

“In the restaurant, finishing my lunch,” I told him.

“Done deal.”

The place was packed when I walked back through the door into the main dining room. Even the bar was standing room only. I found the hostess, showed her my room key, and asked about the wait time. “Just a few minutes,” she assured me, and bustled off. I saw a couple get up and leave, and within moments the table was bussed and set for one. The hostess came back to me. “Right this way, sir.”

I looked at my key: sure enough, the letters VIP stood out prominently in the middle of the card. Rank does have its privileges.

Less than a minute after the hostess left me, telling me that Allie would be my server, a young woman in uniform appeared and placed a cold Corona in front of me. “You’re psychic,” I joked—I’d been thinking that a beer might be good for calming the butterflies.

She smiled. “I wish. This is compliments of the two ladies at the bar.” She pointed a discreet finger to guide my eye toward my benefactors. One was cute and blonde, wearing a halter top and skirt, and looking at me unabashedly; her friend had long, curly locks of deep auburn and wore a low-backed sundress, but I couldn’t see much more with her back to me. I lifted the Corona and saluted them. The blonde smiled and lifted her glass.

Not to be outdone, I gestured toward the table and mouthed the words, “Join me?” The blonde’s face lit up even more, and she tugged at her friend’s arm. The redhead resisted at first, then reluctantly followed her friend through the crowd. I watched them weave their way toward me and decided that today was definitely my lucky day. The blonde was getting more cute the closer she came, with short hair bouncing around a round, youthful face, perky breasts jiggling just enough in the halter to make it clear there was nothing underneath it, and a lean tummy peeking out between the top and skirt. Her friend had long curly hair, a sharp, intelligent face, and curves that filled out the cream-colored sundress very nicely. A guy couldn’t ask for two more attractive lunch companions.

The blonde was smiling broadly as she closed the last bit of distance between us. “My savior,” she hailed. “You have no idea.”

I grinned and pulled out a chair for her. “My pleasure. I’m Jack, by the way.”

She took my hand and shook it lightly as she sat down. “I’m Claire,” she told me. “And this is my friend, Monica.”

Monica smiled and took the seat I offered her. “Pleased to meet you, Jack,” she said.

“And not a moment too soon,” Claire piped up. “I think I was about to faint from hunger.”

Monica rolled her eyes and almost chuckled. “We’ve been waiting for a table for a while,” she explained. “But you know that; you must have been waiting, too.”

Pangs of guilt shot through me; had I pulled rank and not realized it? I shrugged. “I wasn’t bothered too much; it gave me a chance to check out the room. And people watching is always interesting.”

Allie reappeared with two more menus and place settings for my companions, then vanished again with their drink orders—banana daiquiri for Claire, iced tea for Monica.

“So where are you from, Jack?” Monica’s deep blue eyes were focused on me.

“Chicago. But I’ve knocked around a few places before that: New York, Pittsburgh, a brief stint in San Francisco. What about you?”

“Indianapolis, by way of Michigan.”

“We’re just a few hours apart. Isn’t that interesting?”

Claire was grinning again. “You and I are practically neighbors, then,” she said. “I was born and raised in South Bend, and I live in Gary now.”

I nodded. “Other side of the lake,” I remarked. “So naturally we had to come two thousand miles from home to run into each other.”

Our three-way chuckle was followed by a pleasant lull as we contemplated the menus and ordered lunch. Monica started the conversation again as Allie walked away. “So what do you do in Chicago, Jack?”

Ah, I thought to myself, the Big Question. A common enough question, really, but in my experience the answer seems to polarize people. Some hear “hypnotherapy” and get spooked, imagining Lord knows what; others get intrigued and want to know all about it. Very few take it in stride. I’ve learned to be low-key about it.

“Hypnotherapy,” I tossed out with practiced nonchalance, and waited for the reaction. Claire nearly jumped out of her seat, eyes gleaming and chest rising with a sharp breath; she was definitely excited. Monica raised her eyebrows just a hair and seemed to cock her head slightly. Make that one slightly intrigued, I judged, and one VERY intrigued. So I elaborated. “I have a small practice on West Roosevelt, near the University.”

“Really?” Monica said. “That must be interesting. Do you treat a lot of students?”

“Enough that I have a special rate for them. I’ve even been known to let two or three share the fee to get help together with stress, study skills, smoking, or whatever.”

“A Samaritan, then.”

I shrugged. “Or a benign pragmatist. If I help a student kick the smoking habit, they’ll save my session fee several times over by not buying cigarettes. And a lot of parents would rather pay for a couple of sessions with me than for Junior to repeat freshman calculus. But if you press me on it, I have to admit I have a soft spot for the academic environment; I still remember what it was like to be a cash-strapped, overstressed underclassman.”

Monica looked at Claire and smiled. “Another thing we all seem to have in common.”

“Oh?”

“Monica is a high school guidance counselor,” Claire explained, sipping her drink, “and I teach third grade.”

“Ah,” I said. “So we can all relate to being cash-strapped and overstressed.”

“It must not be too bad,” Claire remarked after a shared laugh. “We did all manage to afford this place.”

“I’m still not sure how you talked me into this,” Monica said. “If my seniors hear about this place, the razzing will be merciless.”

Claire grinned wickedly. “Just think, if we come back in a few years you might run into one of them at the bar.”

“I would die on the spot,” she declared, laughing.

Lunch was delicious. I had steak fajitas, a luscious baked potato with salsa, and a side salad. Monica had a nice-looking garlic chicken breast with rice and cooked vegetables, and Claire had opted for a burger with salsa and onion rings.

While we ate, I kept an eye on the clock and on the stage area. One of Redman’s techies was on the prowl, setting up chairs on the stage and marking spots on the floor with colored tape. He put a black pedestal in front of the chairs, presumably on top of the elevator Redman had mentioned. Occasionally the tech would stand in one place, talk into an FRS radio, and find himself engulfed in a blaze of light.

Meanwhile, I noted a well-dressed Latino woman moving from table to table, talking to the patrons, occasionally gesturing toward the stage. People either nodded or shook their heads; whichever, she smiled and bowed to them slightly before moving on to the next table. By the time we were finished eating, it was our turn. The woman approached our table from behind Monica and Claire, smiling. She looked to be in her mid forties, with deep brown eyes and cinnamon-colored skin. The gleaming name tag on her white business suit said she was Anita de los Santos, Entertainment Director.

“Good afternoon,” she began. “How was your lunch?”

“Wonderful, thank you,” Monica said. Claire and I nodded in agreement.

“Gracias,” she replied, and gestured toward the stage. “As you can see, we are setting up the stage. In a few minutes, we will be having a technical rehearsal for our featured act tonight. These things are much more effective if we have a small audience to participate; would you mind staying for a bit to assist us?”

“What’s the act?” Claire asked.

“A stage hypnotist,” she replied. ”Señor Trancer.”

Monica smiled at me. “That should be interesting for you, Jack. You can give us your professional opinion on his technique.”

I grinned bashfully. “I could, but I’d hardly be objective; it’s my show.”

Claire swatted me with a napkin. “You fraud!” she objected. “You told us you were a semi-impoverished therapist.”

“I am,” I insisted. “I also do stage shows sometimes. This week I’m filling in for a magician who pulled a long-term disappearing act.”

Anita de los Santos stepped back and held her hands out, palms toward us. “Lo siento, Señor—I have not seen your photo yet. So your friends will stay for the rehearsal then?”

Monica and Claire exchanged looks and nodded. “We’ll stay.”

The entertainment director thanked them graciously and went on to the next table. Two sets of eyes fixed on me, wanting an explanation.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “When I was in college, I was a psych major in a dorm full of business and engineering dweebs. I started doing hypnosis shows at a nightclub off campus to keep myself in beer money; by the end of school I not only had all the beer money I needed, but a good amount tucked away in savings as well.

“Being with all those MBA types, I learned a few things about managing money. When one of them called me a few years later looking for investors for a dot-com startup, I had a modest chunk saved up and decided to kick in most of it. The company took off like a rocket; when it went public, my stock options were worth maybe ten times what I’d originally invested.”

“A familiar story,” Monica noted.

“Right,” I agreed. “And like most of the dot coms, this company was way overvalued. Another thing I’d picked up from all those MBA types was that a company that doesn’t make money doesn’t keep its value. The more red ink I saw on the balance sheets, the more certain I became that it couldn’t possibly last. A few of us started selling, slowly and steadily, just a few months before reality set in. Six months later the company was dead, but those of us who had already sold our stock were in good shape. I’d been practicing hypnotherapy for several years at that point as part of a group practice. I used a good amount of that money to open my own office, become my own boss. The rest I invested in a new business proposal my surviving dot-com partners put together.”

“And that was?”

I waved at the room. “This place. I own two and a half percent of Uninhibited.”

Monica nodded slowly. “I see. So you come down here and perform every so often?”

“No—I haven’t done a stage show since I finished grad school.” I told them about Marvin Levy and the arrangement I’d made with him. “So you see, for me this is a sort of working vacation.”

“A busman’s holiday,” Monica agreed. “You must be feeling pretty confident to walk up on stage for the first time in however long as the main attraction.”

I chuckled. “Truth to tell, I’m scared to death. My show was always 90 percent improvised; I have no idea what I’m going to do on that stage tonight. But I figure if I make sure everyone up there is having fun, then the audience can’t help but be entertained.”

“A healthy attitude.”

“I was hoping you’d say something like that,” I confessed, “because I could really use a few volunteers for the dry run we’re doing.”

Claire lit up. “You want to hypnotize us?”

“For a few minutes, just to run through some of the mechanics of the show.”

Monica had a sly smile on her face. “Do you think buying us lunch gives you the right to play with our minds, Jack?”

I was taken aback for a second. Then Claire broke up laughing. “She’s pulling your leg, Jack. Of course we’ll guinea pig for you.”

At two fifteen there were maybe fifty people left in the room. My hypnodisc was sitting on the pedestal, power cord connected to a black extension cord that disappeared into the hole. Rudi had fitted me with a lavaliere and I had a separate handheld cordless mic in my hand. Lights came up as I took the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I started, “thank you for sticking around. We’re going to do a dry run through the basic mechanics of my show for tonight. I’m going to ask for a few of you to volunteer to come up here on stage with me and be hypnotized, mostly so the tech crew can work out a few things that have to happen during that part of the show. We may do one or two things for demonstration purposes, but that’s really about it.

“Ordinarily, I’d spend about 20 minutes talking about what hypnosis is and isn’t, what may or may not happen up here, and throw in a few jokes designed to get everyone into a good mood. Since we’re trying to do this quickly, though, I’m just going to ask if a few you would please just come on up and trust me.”

Nobody moved. They were all looking around at each other, waiting for someone to be first. I made eye contact with Monica and Claire; on cue, they stood up and approached the stage. That made it okay for others to follow, and soon I had a dozen volunteers to work with.

The lights dimmed as I switched on my hypnodisc then started a fractional relaxation induction using the hypnodisc as a fixation point. A tight spotlight kept the audience side of the disc illuminated. My on stage volunteers watched the disc and responded to my voice, letting their eyes grow heavy and their bodies relax. Ten of them went into a usable trance depth, which isn’t bad at all for a random group. My lunch companions went way down: Claire’s eyes were drooping almost before I said anything about it, and Monica ended up slumped against the guy next to her. A quick look around the room revealed a lot of my audience sitting slumped with their eyes closed as well, even those who didn’t have a good view of the disc. The monitor system had worked well, I guessed.

I turned off the disc. The spotlight vanished, and I heard a very slight hydraulic hum as the disc and pedestal sank into the stage floor. I wondered briefly about the risks of falling into the hole, but I needn’t have— within a few seconds the hum came back and the floor closed up again.

It was time to go to work. I gave my volunteer group more deepening suggestions, watching for signs of further relaxation, making sure they remained safely seated in their chairs. Monica almost fell out of hers until I suggested to her that the chair had a magnetic force to it that held her body upright, allowing her to shift position to stay comfortable but not allowing her to fall out.

I addressed my volunteers. “In a few moments you’re going to hear me count up from one to three. When I count to three you’ll find that your eyes come open and you feel completely awake, but you’ll still be deeply hypnotized and still obeying my every suggestion. You will also notice each time I say the word ‘dark’ that a nasty, obnoxious, really foul odor seems to surround you and that it’s coming from somewhere in the audience. The odor will get worse and worse, and you’ll know that I can do something about it if you just get my attention and ask. The odor will remain until you hear me say the word ‘light’, at which time the odor will instantly vanish and be replaced with a very pleasant, spring-like fragrance that you’ll find very pleasing and enjoyable. One, two, three.”

My volunteers opened their eyes. Most of them had that distant, not-fully-awake look. “So how’s everybody doing?” I asked.

They looked around at each other, smiling, saying variations on, “Great. Fine.”

“Everybody seeing okay? I don’t want to blind anyone, but I also don’t want it to be too dark up here.”

Almost in unison, all but two or three of my dozen volunteers wrinkled up their faces. “Ugh,” said the guy next to Monica. “Something died over here.” Monica nodded enthusiastically, one hand covering her nose and mouth.

“Something’s really rank in here, Jack,” Claire announced. “You can’t do a show up here until they clean whatever that is out.”

Pretending to think, I looked out at the control booth. “Do you think we can get some more air up here? I think the fan control is next to the light switch.”

The chorus of sighs behind me told me the pleasant scent had kicked in. “That’s much better,” one of my volunteers offered.

I turned to Claire. “Does that seem better to you?”

Her head bobbed up and down emphatically. “Much. You need to keep that on for the show.”

“Okay, I think we can do that,” I agreed. “Now I’d like everyone to look up at me please, and ... sleep.” On cue, every head dropped. I looked back out at the back of the house. “Is that enough?”

Redman’s voice came over the speakers. “I think we’ve got the idea. We need to talk about a couple of things, but we’re looking good.”

“Okay, then. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience and on stage, I want to thank you for helping us out this afternoon. For those of you with your eyes closed now, I appreciate your being willing to try this with me and I hope you’ll do so again when we have a real show. In a few moments I’m going to count to three and when I do you’ll open your eyes and be wide awake, completely alert, and no longer hypnotized. You’ll also feel better than you’ve felt in ages: well-rested, energetic, in a really good mood, able to do anything you want to do as well as you want to do it. All other hypnotic suggestions I’ve given you today will be completely canceled and no longer effective, and you’ll remember everything that happened here in as much detail as you want.”

I gave them the three count and watched them come out of it. They stretched, smiled, and looked at each other, then started to get up and leave the stage. I thanked each one as they left, shaking hands with those who would. Monica and Claire lingered while I said my goodbyes to the others.

“Well?” I asked them. “What do you think?”

They exchanged a look before Monica answered. “I think you’re going to have a very successful show, Jack.”

“I feel supercharged,” Claire added, her body almost quivering. “I want to go hike across the whole island and back.”

We all laughed. “If that’s what you want,” I joked. “But make sure you’re back for the show, won’t you? I could use a couple of friendly faces in the crowd.”

“We’ll be there,” Monica promised, clasping my hand momentarily.

I followed Stu Redman back to his conference room for the post mortem. Rudi and Todd were there, along with Anita de los Santos and several other people, all in black work clothes.

“First question,” Redman began, addressing me directly. “How was that for you?”

“Great,” I told him. “The disc dropped down nicely, and I appreciate your closing the hole right away—I have a tendency to pace during the show, and it would be really awkward if I stepped through the stage floor. How did it work out on camera?”

Todd chortled. “Ask Regan,” he said, jerking a thumb at a slim, dark-haired girl in the corner.

The girl blushed and hid her face momentarily. “I was focused in tight on it while you were talking,” she explained, “and then the next thing I knew Todd was poking me in the shoulder, telling me to wake up.”

“I can fix that,” I told her. “See me before the show and we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Looking back to Redman, I continued. “During a real show, I bring the people up and down a lot. I’d like it if the lights could dim as they close their eyes, and come up again as I bring them up. Is that doable?”

Todd answered for him. “Can do, but I’ll need a more obvious cue than people opening their eyes. Do you do that counting thing each time?”

“Yes. I also tend to do an arm motion if that helps, something like this.” I showed him the way I tend to lift my right arm as I bring the people up to waking trance, and drop it as I put them back down.

Todd nodded firmly. “I can follow that.”

Anita cleared her throat for attention. “I couldn’t see the second row of people very well at all.”

Redman agreed. “Me neither. I was thinking we could break out one level of risers for those back chairs, to give the audience an unobstructed view of everyone’s faces. That okay with you, Mr. Torrance?”

“Jack,” I corrected. “And it would be great if there’s time, and if it won’t mess up the acts before me.”

“No problem—tonight it’s two standup comics, then you.”

“Good. One more thing: can we get the serving staff to stay out of the room during the induction? People moving around are a major distraction, and I need as little of that as possible when I’m trying to get people into hypnosis.”

“That we can do,” Anita said.

Redman knocked once on the table. “I think we’re set, then.”

The room cleared. I was about to make my way out as well, when I felt a hand on my elbow. ”Apenas un momento, Señor,” Anita said. “If we could talk briefly, please?”

“Okay.” When everyone else had left the room, I closed the door and faced the woman. “What can I do for you?”

“Your act,” she began. “If you please, would you describe for me what you intend to do?”

Her face was very serious. What this a test of some kind? “My show is almost entirely improvised,” I told her. “Exactly what I do depends on what the mood of the audience is, what the volunteers seem likely to enjoy, and what pops into my head. Why?”

“Humor me, please.”

She seemed determined. “Okay,” I sighed. “The thing I did just now, with the odor, is something I use a lot early on. It helps me to gauge how deeply the volunteers have gone, and who the more creative minds are likely to be. Sometimes I make them forget their names or feel a pinch when I touch my face. The ones that do really well on that will get the more challenging suggestions later; the ones that don’t, I send back to the audience and replace them if I see somebody who’s really zonked sitting in the crowd.”

“And then?”

“And then I move on to more involved scenarios. I’ll set up a scene like a talk show or a support group, sometimes a beauty pageant or game show. The best subjects I’ll assign special quirks to, like a thick accent or an odd physical trait. Everyone is given a character type to assume that fits the scenario. Then I suggest some basic parameters, like motivations or objectives they want to gain in the scene, and I let them use their own creativity to express whatever comes to mind. Sometimes I’ll do something like an AA meeting for down-and-out fairy tale characters, for example— have Snow White and Rapunzel dish the dirt on the dwarves and the ever-traveling prince, maybe. I’ve been known to tell the people that they’re ambassadors from imaginary countries trying to educate Americans on their culture, and then invent really bizarre cultural things for them to try and justify. I wing it, depending on what’s available and what comes top of mind.”

“I see,” she replied, frowning in a way that I found very annoying.

“Is there a problem, Señora?”

“You are getting angry,” she observed. “I don’t want that, Señor. If you please, I am simply trying to understand and to help you. This is not a normal family comedy club, Sr. Torrance. People come to Uninhibited because of our reputation for being ... como se dice ... ‘edgy.’ They want to be titillated, teased, aroused. It is not enough for our patrons that you be funny; your show must also be sexy.”

That didn’t sound good. “What do you have in mind?”

She shrugged, smiling slightly. “That is your decision, Señor, not mine. But you might have some of the more attractive people dance a strip tease, perhaps, or become mui arrecho when you say a certain word.”

I shook my head strongly. “Hypnosis is not mind control,” I told her. “I can’t make people do something in front of an audience that they wouldn’t normally do. And I won’t try to get people to embarrass themselves—it’s not fun for them or for me, and I’ll never get volunteers for the later shows if I abuse the people in the first one.”

“And they will not come to the later shows if you bore them,” she insisted. “Do not underestimate your audience, Señor. This place has an aura, a reputation. People here are anonymous, unknown; free to be wild and crazy and sexy and do things they’d never dream of doing at home. The normal rules do not apply.”

“We’ll see,” I grumbled.

She smiled and left me alone in the conference room.