Hypnosis homework, chapter 3
Her arms stopped their jerky backward motion, and smoothly reached down to remove her shoes. She took off her socks. She stood up, and then reached up to her dark green silk shirt, and slowly began unbuttoning it, one button at a time.
I glanced at Julie and Heather staring slack-jawed at Denise’s performance. I looked back at Denise’s relaxed face and lidded eyes as she slowly slid her shirt down her arms and dropped it to the floor. This time, her bra was a dark green color that complemented her brown hair perfectly.
She reached down to her jeans and unceremoniously unbuttoned and unzipped them. With a bit of struggle against their tightness, she wriggled them down to her ankles and pulled her feet out of them. Finally, she gathered her hair in her hands and held it up against the top of her head. I paused, staring transfixed at her perfect re-creation of last night’s pose. I hadn’t intended it to include taking off her clothes ... not that I minded ...
I didn’t quite know what to do next. I tried waiting out the charged moment, hoping that someone would say something, but my patience didn’t last. “Denise, you can’t move your legs now,” I told her, as I had wanted to the previous night. This time, I hoped, her cooperation showed me that she wouldn’t mind such a suggestion.
Denise twisted from side to side, her legs and arms and eyes perfectly immobile. Softly, she said, “I can’t move them at all, I ... there’s nothing I can do.”
“That’s right, Denise, you can’t move your arms or legs or eyes now until I release you. And why should I? You look so beautiful standing there like that. I could stare at you for hours, though I suppose I’d let you move every so often to keep you from getting too uncomfortable.”
She frowned slightly. Uh-oh. Was I going too far for her? “You’re all watching me, aren’t you,” she said.
Another awkward pause. Perhaps she didn’t mind me looking at her, but didn’t really want her friends watching. I looked at Julie, who was indeed still staring. “Julie, I’d like you to try to open your eyes now.”
“They already ARE open,” she said, closing them. “Er, they were, um, hey! They’re stuck! No, I can resist. I will open them ... now! OK, open now ... 1, 2, 3, open! ... They’re still stuck.” She frowned.
“Hah, I thought you said you could resist, Julie,” Denise teased. “You don’t sound like you want to cooperate.”
“Yeah, Julie.” Heather continued. “You said on the way over that there was no way you’d let him make you do stuff you didn’t want to do.”
“Did you, now, Julie. Very interesting.” I murmured, half to myself. Then, louder, “And, Heather, I wonder what you thought you would let me make YOU do?” She didn’t respond. “And do you remember what I told you in this last trance?” She shook her head. “Heather, eyes close,” I said, firmly.
Heather giggled. “I don’t even feel the slightest urge to close them. Well, now that I think of it, maybe a tiny urge, but it’s really easy to resist. I mean, the things from last trance were so powerful, like when you told me to imagine the balloons.” Her hand twitched. “Wups, even just telling myself to imagine it almost works.” She giggled again. “But this, well, nothing. Why do you think that might be?”
I pretended to think, looking up and wrinkling my face in concentration. Then I looked straight at Heather, and finished my command. “Obey.”
Her eyes instantly slammed shut, and she nodded jerkily. “Whoa.” she said, and shook her head. Astonished? Or disbelieving? Surprised? “That is really, really amazing.”
“What is?” I asked, a nice safe leading question if there ever was one.
“I ... I’m wide awake, I mean I feel perfectly normal, but when you said that one word my eyes just closed. Boom. And now there’s no way I can open them. I mean, for one thing I just know for deep-down certain that they won’t open. And besides that, even if I try anyway, it’s like I can’t remember how to move my eyelids. I can wiggle my eyes around underneath, see? and wiggle my eyebrows around, or whatever. But my eyelids just stay calmly closed. It’s not like they are squished shut, or pulled, or glued or anything like what I felt before with the balloons or the ski boots and stuff. They’re just closed, period.”
I nodded, then realized that nobody could see that, so I murmured affirmatively and turned back to Denise. I touched her cheek, knowing that this time she wouldn’t step back. “Do you feel comfortable now?” I asked her.
Julie said, “No! My eyes are still glued shut and I can’t open them, I keep trying to open them! Give me the signal to open them.”
“I was talking to Denise.” I told her, and she looked suitably embarassed.
Denise nodded gently. “More comfortable.” She nodded, then shook her head.
I thought she might be experimenting to see if she could shake her arms free by moving her head suddenly. So I reached out with my left hand and touched her side. “Denise, do you have to try to fight it? Just cooperate, please?”
She nodded calmly once more, and then stopped. I tentatively reached out and put my other hand behind her neck, massaging gently with my thumb at her hairline. She smiled faintly, and I leaned forward, then stopped, changed my mind, changed it again, thought about kissing her on the cheek, changed my mind, leaned forward, and kissed her briefly, softly, and gently on the lips. Then I changed my mind again, but it was too late. “I’m, uh,” sorry? “er, was that—”
She interrupted me in the best possible way. She smiled and leaned forward. I smiled back. “Denise, you may open your eyes whenever you wish now.”
She opened them and saw me smiling at her. She closed her eyes, leaned forward, and kissed me, then opened her eyes again. I used my hand on her side to help her straighten out; it was awkward for her to regain her balance, being unable to move her legs. “Denise, you can move your legs and arms now,” I told her. I couldn’t belive how well things were going.
She let go of her hair, and it fell beautifully about her shoulders, with a few chaotic wisps draping forward over her breasts. She reached up and stretched, and I couldn’t help staring at the beautiful things that did to the shape of her breasts. She stood on tip-toe as she stretched, which drew my attention next to her calf muscles. She didn’t look uncomfortable, though, so I thought I’d found a decent length of time to have her hold one position. I still felt bad about her shoulders getting sore earlier.
Apparently, the silence had gone on for a while, because Heather asked “What are you two doing?”
“I’m staring at her beautiful body,” I said, which apparently wasn’t such a good idea as Denise immediately turned her back on me. “Denise,” I said, cajolingly. “Denise?” I asked, pleadingly
No response. “Denise,” I said, sternly.
Still nothing. “Please sit down.” I said, politely, as though it wasn’t a command.
Her head jerked to one side. Then she looked straight at me, and said “no.” She started walking toward the chair, laughed, shrugged, and said “yes.” She sat down, and folded her arms sternly in front of her breasts. I shrugged and smiled at her. Her expression was a hard-to-read half-smile, which I thought might mean something like “OK, you win, and I don’t like losing, but maybe I do like you winning.”
We watched each other’s faces for a bit, but then Julie interrupted again. “OK, Joshua. I can’t do it. I give up. Give me the signal now, let me open them.”
I thought I’d wait till she was a bit more polite. I wanted to give Denise what she asked for. I wanted to show Julie that pride goeth before the fall, or, well, nothing so grandiose really, but just that resisting wouldn’t get her anywhere. Perhaps I wanted to pay her back for resisting my Pinocchio suggestion, too. And also, I wanted to learn why she stayed and wanted to try it again, let it happen again, even when she seemed to want to struggle against it all the time.
So I ignored her and turned to Heather. I thought about Denise’s earlier comments, and wondered what Heather had known ahead of time, and what had “sounded interesting” to her ... and should I just tell her to do it? Or should I ask if it was OK first. Maybe I could start slowly and play it by ear.
“Heather. Arms, unbutton one button of that top.” I waited, leaving out the keyword.
“Are you really going to try to make me do that?” she asked.
I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see that, so first I said, “Heather, eyes open, obey.” and they did. Then I continued, “Yes, I’m going to make you do that. Now. Obey.”
She did, as quickly as she could. She tilted her head, thinking, then grinned and reached up to rebutton it, which she did, successfully.
I frowned, annoyed. How should I make her pay for her impertinence? I thought, and then almost laughed out loud at my own impertinence to even think such a thing.
But in any case, what I said was, “Arms, unbutton them all.”
Heather stuffed her hands underneath her, trying to sit on them and hold them down. She looked at me and shook her head, but I picked up some gleam in her eye or perhaps upturn of the corner of her mouth that told me it was OK. I knew I would regret it later if I read her wrong, but I nonetheless said, “Obey.”
Heather gasped in astonishment as her arms suddenly went rigid. Slowly and irreversibly, her hands slid out from under her legs. Finally, they were free, and started rapidly unbuttoning her simple red blouse. As soon as they started, I said “Arms, go completely limp,” just in case I was going to need it.
Finally, she unbuttoned the last button and looked down at the strip of beautifully-tanned skin, and I noticed for the first time that she wasn’t wearing a bra at all. She looked at me, shrugged (incidentally bouncing her breasts nicely), and hesitantly reached up toward the top button.
“Will you cooperate, and stop doing that, or do I have to make you?” I asked her, trying to keep as light a tone as I could.
“Make me,” she said, smiling, as she took hold of her shirt and started pulling it closed.
“Arms, limp, obey.” I said, and they did, dropping down to rest in her lap. Her head followed them, watching them fall, then looked back up at me. “Legs, limp, obey,” I continued, and she nodded. I thought I might walk over to her and emphasize her helplessness by opening her top the rest of the way. But perhaps it was too soon to take that step. Perhaps I needed to understand her a bit better first, and know more about what brought her here, have a conversation with her like I had with Denise.
And, as perhaps I should have expected, my thoughts were once again interrupted by Julie, asking “What about me? Isn’t it time to give the signal now?”
“Well, Julie, I could do that, but I think that you’d better ask a little more nicely.”
“Joshua, please let me open my eyes now.”
“Oh, very good, and tell me how helpless you are.”
“I can’t resist at all, no matter how hard I try, I can’t open my eyes. Please, let me go now.” Denise was smiling hugely; obviously, this was her reason for bringing Julie. Perhaps, I guessed, she felt intimidated by Julie’s beauty. Sure, Denise didn’t have Julie’s green hair and red eyes ... er, reverse that ... but something about the bones of her face, a sort of elfin look ... and the long hair ...
I stopped woolgathering and looked back over to Julie. “OK, Julie, I release your eyes.”
She opened them, blinked a few times, and thanked me. “It’s really time for me to get going,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this for today, I think.”
“Have you,” I said.
She nodded, and moved to get up, but discovered as she sat up that her arms were limply resting in her lap. “Please, please release my arms, I can’t move them at all.”
So I did. This time, though, she caught on immediately. “OK, you got me,” she said, grinning ruefully. “I’m not leaving until you decide it’s time.”
“That’s right, Julie, but if you want to leave that’s OK. I release your legs.”
Denise smiled at me as Julie’s eyes closed and she relaxed back into trance.