THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LOUIS AND ELLE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME
One simply cannot be serene on the inside, hypnotherapist Elle Murphy thought, unless one first looks divine on the outside. Accordingly, as she rolled out her yoga mat, she allowed herself to feel both sensual and spiritual pleasure from the look and feel of her new workout clothes: form-fitting deep blue leggings with colorful sunbursts down the legs, the top a lighter compatible blue, strapped and cropped, at once comfortable and just a touch saucy.
Or maybe more than a touch saucy. She was dressed for inner peace, but in a way that might create outer excitement.
She had picked out the outfit in a shopping expedition earlier that day. Ordinarily she would have taken Louis shopping with her. He was (especially when in a light trance) so handy at the mall: he would hold her purse while she tried on garments, he had excellent taste when she needed a fashion consult, he would carry the bags once she had made her purchases, and he was eager to charge anything she wanted to his own personal credit card—all in all, a most satisfactory companion-servant. But today Louis had gone with a few of his friends to the Tri-County Prairie Pups baseball game. After he left, Elle used the time during the early innings to buy an outfit to surprise him with when he returned. After she got back, she had relaxed on the deck with a glass of iced tea and a copy of Robert Rimmer’s classic hypnosis novel, The Zolotov Affair, meanwhile listening with one ear to the radio broadcast of the game.
Elle loved baseball and she enjoyed the Prairie Pups. Louis was having a boys’ trip to the ballpark, though, and she hadn’t wanted to horn in, Instead, she had planned a reception for him after the game. At the top of the 8th inning, with the Pups down by 6, Elle switched off the radio, changed into her new outfit, and took her yoga mat up to the living room. She unrolled it in front of the big picture window that faced west from the East Hills to the downtown riverfront Arts District. She took a deep cleansing breath and then went into the cobra pose.
She had progressed to the dolphin plank, and was feeling a pleasant warmth in her muscles, when she heard Louis’s car pull into the driveway. Smoothly she slid into a headstand, so that when her husband came in the door, he was greeted by the sight of his hypnodomme-wife balancing on her arms, her legs reaching for the ceiling as her cropped top revealed a tantalizing glimpse of her trim abdomen.
The sight stopped him dead. “Hi, Elle,” he said. Then he seemed to lose the power of speech momentarily. “Hi, Elle,” he started again. “Um—hi. Elle.”
Ignoring him, she glided smoothly into a bridge pose, her hands and knees supporting her as she faced the ceiling. After holding the pose, she rose smoothly, and turned toward Louis with a start. “Oh, hi, Louis! I didn’t see you there. How was the baseball?”
The question seemed to disconcert him; he clearly lost his train of thought for a moment and then said, “Oh! The game? It was okay. The Pups lost big time, but it was a nice afternoon and we had fun. Say—how about we go upstairs?”
“Don’t be silly, Louis,” his wife said primly. “I’m still doing my workout.” She seated herself with her legs crossed and took another cleansing breath. “I’d love a drink when I am done.”
“Okay,” he said, though he showed no sign of leaving.
“I listened to the game for a while,” she said. “It sounded pretty fun for minor league baseball.”
He sat up as if he’d just received a mild electric shock. “Game?” he said. “Oh, the game, yes, it wasn’t bad. AA-league players are just kids, really. It really is kind of like watching puppies.”
The image of a young man—say, her husband Louis—playing like a puppy made her smile. She filed it away for later consideration. “Speaking of skills,” she said, moving forward into a high lunge, “I’m going to finish this workout. Why don’t you go run a nice bath? After that we can talk about baseball.”
He stood up suddenly, as if in confusion. “A bath? Of course, Elle, right away.” He hastened out of the room while Elle turned to a side angle pose. In a few minutes he was back. “It’s ready, Elle,” he said. “I put that bath oil you like in it.”
“Bath oil—? Oh, sweety, I am sorry, I didn’t mean run a bath for me, I meant for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, darling. You look all hot and sweaty from the game—can’t you feel it? And those clothes, they look damp and uncomfortable, you probably can’t wait to get them off, they are so heavy and sweaty, aren’t they, I can almost feel it over here…”
Louis looked down at his golf shirt and chinos as if seeing them for the first time. “Damp—yes, they are—sweaty.” He began to peel off his shirt.
“Louis Wentworth,” she said, “don’t you dare take your clothes in front of me here in the living room! You run upstairs and take your bath—go ahead, off you go!”
As he was dashing upstairs, she called after him, “I know you feel kind of grubby—I think you want to stay in until you are really really clean.”
After a few more asanas, she came to rest on her back and breathed a final cleansing breath. Feeling quite at peace, she toweled off and went upstairs to their bedroom.
Louis was still in the bath. She suspected that for some reason he still didn’t feel entirely clean. She stripped off her yoga clothes, then searched her closet for something more suitable for the upcoming occasion.
After a few minutes, she called to her husband. “Louis! You feel clean now! Dry off and come in here so we can talk baseball!”
From the sound of it, Louis literally jumped out of the tub. Wearing a terry robe, he entered the bedroom to find his wife painting her lips red with rouge and a brush. He gasped quietly. She had changed into a vintage 1940s lingerie set he had bought her long ago. This filmy sleepwear— wispy salmon-colored silk camisole and matching step-ins, deep red silk robe, red silk high-heeled mules with flirty bows—figured prominently in his fantasy life. (Louis had, on one occasion, turned the tables on Elle by hypnotically “persuading” her that she was a World War II-era pinup girl.*)
The sight rendered Louis all but speechless. Seemingly spellbound, he moved toward her and touched her face gently. She turned as if nettled. “Louis Wentworth,” she said. “Stop that at once. I am getting ready for a nap. If you behave yourself, I may ask you to join me. You sit down over there.” She pointed a red-nailed forefinger at the lounge chair nearby. “Sit, I said!”
Obediently, he sat, staring at his scantily clad wife like a trained seal staring at a basket of fish. “Now,” she said, “imagine you are my ottoman.”
A change came over his face. He struggled to keep his eyes open—then lost the struggle as they smoothly slid shut. His face went smooth, his expression grew blank, his muscles melted, and he settled slowly down on his back. His breathing deepened; within seconds he was clearly in a trance.
With elaborate care, Elle finished painting her lips, then blotted them carefully with tissue. She put perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. Then she deepened her eye shadow and touched up her lashes with mascara. Playing the role of a film-noir siren had quickened her heartbeat; ever since Louis had lured her into his fantasy world, she’d found 1940s lingerie creeping into her own libidinous daydreams. She was enjoying the leisurely transformation from serene yogi into savage vixen, and she didn’t want Louis to disrupt the process by pawing her before she had enjoyed the moment to the full.
The “ottoman” trigger was one she had developed herself, and frequently passed on to female clients who had begun to use hypnosis to improve their own marriages. In Elle’s view, husbands had their uses; she certainly appreciated her own hypno-mate—handsome, brave, creative, and deliciously submissive. But husbands also have their disadvantages. One is that, being men, they can dress for even a formal occasion in almost no time, at least as compared with a woman who must attend to hair, makeup, gown, hose and shoes; worse, after they are dressed, they may become absurdly fastidious about being on time, and they sometimes even try to hurry their wives, who are simply enjoying a woman’s prerogative of a relaxing, leisurely process of preparing for the evening.
Once the “ottoman” trigger was post-hypnotically put in place, however, the command triggered a very peaceful state, in which the husband watched colorful birds flutter by as his mind went blank and still until he reached a blissful state in which considerations of being “on time” were entirely forgotten; in ottoman, a man knew only that he must wait for his wife to speak his name, and that he would be happy and grateful to wait, no matter how long she chose to keep him as her imaginary footstool.
With Louis, “ottoman” was one of her everyday tools. But as she watched Louis sleep—his eyes darting back and forth as they chased imaginary birds—she was thinking about a new trigger she had installed in a new way the night before.
Inspired by reading she had done in the area of sleep learning, she had stayed awake until Louis’s breath slowed and deepened. When she was certain he was asleep, she began to gently rub his forehead, her forefinger moving in a gentle circle. He stirred slightly, and she soothed him in a whisper: “Shhh, shhh, Louis, you are sleeping so comfortably, my voice and my touch just help you sleep deeper, deeper, just drift and dream and let yourself go, no need to worry what I am saying, my words just go straight into your subconscious, if you understand me now just move this finger while going deeper asleep….”
She touched his right forefinger. It moved upward ever-so-slightly. “Good boy,” she said. “Stay asleep now and follow all my suggestions, Louis, I want you to picture in your mind a baseball, can you see it?”
His finger moved.
“Good, good, sleep, Louis. Now picture two baseballs side by side, can you see them?”
Finger again.
“Good boy, now let go of the baseballs, let them fade and now I want you to picture something else, are you ready?”
Finger.
“Yes, darling, good, now I want you to picture my breasts, let yourself see them.”
His breath quickened slightly.
“Good, see them, and see how yummy they look, how good they smell, now imagine how they feel, how they would taste—” He stirred slightly. “Shhh, shhh, just a beautiful dream, Louis, relax, now I am talking to your subconscious mind, Louis, and your subconscious will follow every suggestion I make, it sinks in and takes hold and you are so open to me, now, Louis, remember the baseball and remember my breasts, and for tomorrow, for tomorrow only, when you go to the ballgame, every time you see a baseball, every time you hear the word “baseball,” you will see, you will smell, you will touch and taste my breasts, and that feeling will grow stronger and stronger as the game goes on, your mind will drift to thinking about my breasts, and when you come home, for tomorrow and tomorrow only, every time I say the word ‘baseball’ that feeling is going to double, each time I say ‘baseball’ you will think of my breasts, you will want to touch my breasts, you will want to taste my breasts, you will want to make love to me, I will be all you can think of, now, shh, Louis, let go and let my suggestions sink in without even thinking as you slide slowly back into sleep, let go, sleep, sleep, sleep….” Louis had awakened the next morning apparently without any memory of his sleep-programming session. Then off to the ballgame he had gone as she prepared a warm and sexy welcome for him when he got home.
She stood up in her lingerie and robe, walked over to her dozing husband, slid the silk tie out of its loops, and threw the tie playfully over his head. “Louis, wake up! Bright and clear! Wide awake!”
His eyes opened to a vision out of his deepest fantasies. “Come to bed, Louis!” the pin-up girl said, tugging him with the silk tie. He was drawn along like a moth to a flame. She threw herself back on the bed and stretched luxuriously, patting the bed beside her. “Come here, big boy.”
He crawled after her, all but drooling. “Louis, I want to hear about the baseball game,” she said.
He groaned.
“I don’t know if you know how much I love baseball too,” she continued. “My parents and Uncle Ray used to take me to base—” He silenced her, covering her mouth with his own, kissing her desperately. He reached up with both hands and ever-so-gently stroked her breasts, touching each nipple delicately, teasing it until it became hard. He slipped her camisole down over her shoulders, breathed on each breast without touching it, then kissed each one in turn. She took his head firmly in her hands and pushed his head down past her belly and then between her legs. “Please me, Louis,” she whispered. “Use your tongue.”
He set to work. She relaxed as he did so, and found herself remembering that, at her suggestion, he had read several books on how to perform oral sex on a woman, and she was thinking that he had learned well when she stopped thinking at all for a minute and arched her back, straining against him and crying out “Oh, God, Louis, yes, YES!” and came as she held his head against her.
She fell back on the bed; but Louis hardly paused. He turned her over and kissed her shoulders and the back of her neck, then covered each of her breasts delicately with a hand and gently stroked them. Then he entered her from behind and they rocked together as she felt herself let go again, screaming, “Louis, don’t stop—LOUIS!” and she came again.
Over her shoulder, she whispered the word “baseball” and he exploded inside her.
Then he fell away, and husband and wife lay side by side looking at the ceiling, momentarily spent. Elle knew, though, that Louis was still drawn to her magnetically and that a long and luxurious evening lay ahead of her, in which she would enjoy the attention, devotion, and assiduous services of her most pleasing, most submissive hypno-husband.
All in all it had been a fine day. A fun shopping trip; a peaceful afternoon reading about vampires and hypnosis; a great yoga workout in a great new outfit.
The sort of day a woman would want to live over and over again.
Then she thought of the outfit she had almost bought that afternoon. Very different from the one she’d bought, but very cunning—a deep pink, in a cotton so light she would look, and feel, almost as if she were wearing nothing at all.
She leaned over and kissed her husband gently.
“Louis,” she whispered. “Isn’t there a home game again tomorrow?”