The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

So, while I think we can all agree on using your newfound powers for fun and profit, I have to take a firm stance on this. I was cautiously optimistic that we would all be sensible, but it turns out that my caution was warranted, so let me be absolutely clear. Abusing your power through cruelty and gaslighting is evil. It will ruin you, it will ruin your partner, and when the law finally catches up with the times and starts legislating hypnosis, it will ruin all of us as well. You do not want this.

But, to end the show on a more positive note, it has otherwise been a delight to hear from everyone! Many of you already have ideas of your own for hypnotising people, and for what your new relationship dynamic is going to…

“Hey Clarissa!” I said loudly, having snuck all the way from my bedroom to practically beside her as she sat on the couch, without her noticing.

Clarissa whipped around, knocking one earbud out of her ear to reply. “Rhys! Sorry, I’m just catching up on my new favourite podcast.”

“Cool, cool!” I gave her a thumbs up. “I heard you come in and thought I’d say hi.”

“Hiii!” she waved, an over-the-top performance of flailing arms and a wide grin while we were less than two metres away from each other.

“So, it’s my turn to cook tonight,” she continued, “did you get the dishes done from yesterday?”

“Ah,” I facepalmed, “no I didn’t. I’ll get right on it.”

“Please do!” she said.

I excused myself to the kitchen and got into it. Truth be told, I was feeling a little guilty. I was well-positioned to do the dishes at any time of the day, and I still hadn’t managed to get around to it until 6:30 in the evening, at someone else’s prompting.

“What about the laundry?” Clarissa called after me.

Fuck. I forgot my stuff was still on the communal clothes rack. “Uhh…I’ll take it down after dinner?”

“Never mind, I’ll get it now!” she replied. “I need clean socks for tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” I sighed, an uncomfortable pit lingering in my chest as I scrubbed a plate.

While I cleaned, I thought about how the household had changed over the past couple of months.

Originally there were four of us: me, Tamara, Pete, and Victoria.

When I moved in, I wasn’t sure how we’d all get along, but Tamara was the kind of girl that anybody would like. She was pretty, outgoing and made friends as easy as breathing.

She’d been the one to adopt Victoria into our circle; an old friend of hers from primary school, and man, she was so shy and nervous when I first met her. She was still like that a bit, but as I got to know her, I saw more and more of what she could be like when she was out of her shell. Bookishly nerdy and thoughtful, with tiny hints of the fiery and passionate Italians who raised her.

And then there was Pete, another of Tamara’s friends, was the only other guy in the house; a tall bloke, lanky but muscly, who did nothing but play video games in his spare time. Part of me wondered how he stayed so ripped, but then, any desire I had to hit the gym was quickly stifled by the dreaded thought of… well, hitting the gym.

Our little group had been going well for years, until Pete got really serious with his girlfriend, and he told us apologetically that they would need their own place together. We were all stoked for him, of course, and threw him one last pizza party before he left. But a change of roommate meant a change in the dynamics of the apartment. After sifting through a sea of online applicants who ranged from ‘bad’ to ‘very bad’, we found Clarissa.

She was fun and silly, and she had a way of being earnestly straightforward, but she was also busy. Pete was a lot more laid back and ‘yeah, whatever’, while Clarissa was always on a schedule, and that included doing chores. To my dismay, Tamara and Victoria had enthusiastically agreed to her making a roster for us to clean the house by. As the one person out of the four who worked from home, that left me nowhere to hide when it was my turn.

Still, it could be worse. At least she wasn’t holding a grudge about it.

I flopped down on the couch, dishes done, as Clarissa excused herself to the kitchen. The TV was on, but I didn’t much care what I was watching.

“You, uh, did the colander too, right??” Clarissa asked from the other room.

“Yep!” I called back.

“Okay.”

Not much later, the front door opened, then shut again.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Tamara teased, and I realised that I was sprawled sideways on the couch.

I sat up. “Hey Tamara, sorry, I’m just,” I punctuated my statement with a well-timed yawn, “a li’l tired today.”

“Poor baby,” she pouted, “come on, budge up, if you’re not gonna watch anything, I wanna continue my marathon.”

I handed her the remote. “What are you marathoning?”

“Hi Tamara!!” Clarissa interrupted, rushing out to meet us. Tamara stood to let Clarissa hug her, oven mitts and all.

“You’re in a good mood tonight!” Tamara observed.

“I’m making a pasta bake for dinner,” Clarissa said, “care to join me?”

“Oh, uh, sure!” Tamara said, allowing Clarissa to steer her into the kitchen.

I leaned an arm over the back of the couch, “What about your marathon?”

“I’ll, uh, get around to it later!”

Okay. More space for me, then!

I relaxed in front of the TV, while Clarissa and Tamara cooked, Victoria joining them when she arrived home. Nearly an hour later, and dinner was ready. I had to hand it to them, it was a really good, hearty pasta bake, but the effort of making it had taken the wind out of Clarissa’s sails.

“Hwoooff,” she sighed, as we sat down together on the couch with our plates in our laps, “I think I might have to turn in early tonight.”

“You’ve totally earned it,” I said, partly to assuage my guilt from earlier.

As it happened, dinner had knocked all of us out, and everybody was in the mood for bed. I retired to my room, to find that Clarissa had painstakingly folded all the laundry I’d forgotten to take off the rack earlier, placing it carefully on my bed. Aw, Clarissa, you really didn’t need to. They won’t stay like that for 2 seconds once they’re in my drawers.

Tamara knocked on my still-open door. “Hey, you.”

I glanced over, as I began to put away my clothes, “Hey, all good?”

“Uh, it’s my turn to wash the dishes, and… I don’t think I have the energy for it,” she admitted. She gave me her best droopy, sad look, with wide eyes and a pouting bottom lip. “Could you do it? Pleeease?”

I sighed, opening the drawer, “Sorry, I’m as wiped as you are. Maybe if you get up early tomorrow morning…?”

Tamara leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. I felt her eyes lingering on me, like I was being scanned.

“I’ll kiss you for it.”

My eyes widened, and the shirt I’d been holding dropped out of my hands as I turned to face her.

“...What?”

She smirked, “I think you heard me.”

I could feel my face get hot, “I mean, I did, but—

“I’m gonna be blunt,” Tamara interrupted, “I know you like me, and I like a lot of what I see, too, so I think this’ll work for both of us.”

“Uhh…are you asking—”

“Not asking you out, no,” she clarified, “Not looking for a relationship or anything past kissing right now. But, in exchange for you doing my dishes,” her eyes flickered down to my lips, “I’ll kiss you.”

My mouth was suddenly a desert, and I swallowed nervously as I seriously debated pinching myself.

“You’re serious,” I said flatly.

“A hundred percent,” she giggled, moving off the wall and closer to me. “No tricks.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say to that, but any other thoughts flew right out of my head the moment her arms wrapped around my neck.

“So, what do you say?” she murmured softly. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” I said, almost without realising it.

Her face moved in closer, those big brown eyes staring right into me, “Every last dish? You promise?”

I swallowed, “Yeah…I promise.”

“Good boy.”

Tamara pressed her lips against mine, softly and tentatively at first, as we both got used to the idea, the feeling, of kissing each other. She quickly got bolder, pushing me back so that I was lying on my bed with her straddling me as her tongue brushed against mine.

I could swear my eyes rolled up into my head. Tamara was an amazing kisser, wild and passionate, and she would break it off every so often to murmur sweet nothings that I didn’t quite catch. It was intoxicating to hear her voice so low and so close to me. I found myself rueing it only because it was less time her lips spent exploring mine. I almost felt like I could drift off… floating away while I listened to her words…

Sadly, she eventually broke it off for real, pulling back with a satisfied sigh.

“How was that?” she grinned down at me.

I was speechless, and she knew it. “I, uh, um… the best thing ever?” I tried as my brain slowly rebooted.

“Never mind,” she said, looking pointedly at my crotch, “I can tell exactly how it was for you.” She winked at me. “Worth doing a round of dishes for?“

“Yeah, yeah, absolutely!” I blurted.

She leaned forward and gave me one last kiss.

“Then get to it!” she whispered as she stood up.

I found my legs moving by themselves, carrying me to the kitchen like I was on autopilot, as I tried to wrap my head around what the hell just happened.

In my frazzled state, it took over an hour for me to do the whole thing properly. Hardened pasta was a bitch to clean up.

The next morning, I had just woken up, give or take 10 minutes, when Tamara knocked on my door.

“Morning,” I said blearily, trying to smooth down my bed hair, “what’s up?”

“Just wanted to say thanks!” she said. “You did a great job last night.”

“Oh,” I stifled a yawn, “no problem at all. And I really enjoyed kissing you.”

“I know you did,” she smirked, “and I was thinking, maybe we could do it again sometime?”

I tried not to sound too amazed at my good luck, “What, like more kissing in exchange for more chores?”

“Yeah, exactly!” she grinned, running one finger down my chest. “What do you say?”

I tried not to sound too eager as I replied, “I mean, how often are we talking?”

She gave a sly smile. “Whenever I’m too tired to do it myself. Don’t get greedy on me.”

I held up my hands, “Sorry, I’m not making it weird am I?”

“Nah,” she brushed it off, stepping right up to me and kissing me softly.

“We’re just good friends,” she murmured between kisses, “who happen to enjoy kissing each other. There’s nothing weird about that, right? It’s just a bit of fun.”

She pulled back, and I had to shake my head to clear it.

“Right, yeah,” I mumbled.

“Good!” she beamed, turning to leave. “I have to get to work now. See you later!”

My gaze locked onto her ass as it bounced away. It was true, there wasn’t anything weird about this. We were all adults. Tamara and I were friends, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find each other attractive, so there was nothing strange about kissing her. It was just a bit of fun.

From then on, if Tamara ever felt too tired to complete a chore on her own, she would offer to kiss me, and we would spend a long time together in my bedroom before I helped her with whatever she needed to do. Sometimes she would stick around for just long enough to show me how to do things properly, and it turned out that housework was a lot more involved than I’d previously thought. That was fine, though, because whenever I did things in the new, improved way Tamara taught me, she kissed me again afterwards.

It became the new normal for us, so normal that I almost forgot other people might find it weird or unusual.

A couple of weeks later, I was doing Tamara’s dishes again, well past midnight. I didn’t mind, I’d grown used to it. Tonight, however, Clarissa stumbled into the kitchen, half-asleep, carrying a bottle of water.

“Oh, Rhys,” she yawned, “what are you doing up at this hour?”

“Just, uh, finishing up the dishes,” I fumbled.

She squinted. “I thought it was Tamara’s turn tonight?”

“Uh, yeah, but she was tired, so I’m filling in.”

“That’s nice!” she said, still yawning. “How did Tamara swing that with you?”

I hadn’t really examined the arrangement with Tamara too closely, so I wasn’t at all prepared for detail-oriented Clarissa to do it instead. “I just… felt like I owed her a favour.”

“Right…” she mused. I stood aside at the sink so she could fill her bottle.

“Are you seeing her?” she asked.

I was thrown by the question. “What?! No!”

“Oh,” she said a little distractedly, “it’s just that I saw you and her making out on your bed the other night, cause you left the door wiiiide open. I figured you two were like, together.”

How could I even answer that question? ‘Um, yes, haha, you got us, we’re together’—and then pretend to be together while wacky sitcom hijinks ensued around us? Nah. Could I just be honest? Could I deny everything?

“Actually,” I mumbled, hoping I wasn’t ruining everything by choosing to tell the truth, “that was part of the agreement. To do her chores, I mean.”

Clarissa’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Ooooh, so it’s like, she gives you a little motivation, like a pre-reward, and then you do her a favour. I get that!”

“It’s… yeah, that’s exactly what it is,” I conceded.

“So you’re not actually together?”

“No,” I said firmly, ”it’s just a bit of fun.”

“Makes sense,” she said lightly.

She rinsed her hands under the tap, and I wondered if she was judging me. And if Tamara would be mad at me cause I’d spilled our secret.

“What if I needed help with my chores?” Clarissa asked suddenly. “Would you like me to kiss you like Tamara does?“

If her original question about me and Tamara had caught me off-guard, this left me gawping like a fish. “W-what?”

“I’m not jealous of her or anything!” she said quickly. “I just think it’s a really neat arrangement. If you like trading kisses for chores, I’d be down for that.”

The more I thought about it, the more this conversation was Clarissa in a nutshell. Brutally efficient. We’d got from point A to point B so fast I could barely follow. Yes, I probably would have guessed she was jealous of Tamara if she hadn’t told me otherwise, especially if I said no. Would Tamara be jealous of Clarissa if I agreed? Would Clarissa get upset if I paused to check with Tamara first? Why did this whole thing feel like she knew I’d say yes?

… Because I would say yes, I realised, sighing inwardly.

“Sorry,” I blurted, “I’m not hesitating because I don’t think you’re sexy—well, you are sexy, I mean, and I’m just… worrying over nothing, maybe. Tamara won’t mind I think, if I did kiss you, and this… is not coming out quite how it sounded in my head.”

Clarissa stifled a laugh on her pyjama sleeve. “So you think I’m sexy then?”

I nodded, not trusting my mouth with words.

“Wellllll, on my to-do list…,” she pondered slowly, curling a finger around her chin, “I need to go get some important documents printed tomorrow.” She started trailing her hands over my arms. “But the nearest place with a printer opens after I have to get to work, and it’ll be a pain to go in the evening.” She leaned forward, her chest pressing into me. “Could you do it for me? Would you do it for a kiss?”

She was too much to resist.

“Sure,” I croaked. What the hell. It probably wouldn’t wreck things with Tamara, and, well, Clarissa had so much going on… she might need a lot of help in the future.

“Amazing!” she said, brightly.

There was no hesitancy like there had been with Tamara. Clarissa pushed me gently against the sink and kissed me, passionately. Her lips were smaller than Tamara’s, but where Tamara was more hot and heavy, Clarissa’s kisses were soft and sweet. She murmured something appreciatively, but to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t know how long we stayed that way, as she pressed her lips to mine over, and over, and over. My entire world shrank down to the feeling of her kisses, and the sound of her voice as she encouraged me, guided me…

With one last gentle smooch, she stepped back.

“Don’t forget!” she whispered, poking me in the chest, before turning and heading back to bed.

“I won’t!” I said, and I meant it too.

I woke up the next morning to discover a note under my door, wrapped around an SD card.

Just the files in the folder named To Print, please.

Thank you!!!!!

xxx

Ah, Clarissa. Who else would use five exclamation marks on a handwritten note and actually mean it?

“Well, look at you up so early,” Tamara teased as I headed for the door, eager to get Clarissa’s printing out of the way as soon as possible. Partly so I could get on with my day, and partly because I didn’t want to disappoint her by leaving it too late.

Seeing Tamara stopped me in my tracks, though. Ah, shit. I wasn’t awake enough for this conversation, but… best to have it as soon as possible.

“Hey, um, you should know something,” I said, “Clarissa, she knows about the arrangement we have, you know, where you kiss me and I help out with your chores.”

Tamara looked interested, but not that upset. “Does she?”

“Yeah,” I said bashfully, “she saw us kissing, and uh, it seems like she wants in on it.”

“Ah,” Tamara said, “guess that was my fault for leaving the door open. When you say she ‘wants in’...”

“She, uh, likes the idea of doing the same thing,” I mumbled. “Actually… she kissed me last night, and I’m going to print something for her right now.”

“Oh, really?” Her tone was accusatory, but I could tell from the way her lips were curling up at the corners that she was enjoying winding me up.

“It just sort of happened!” I said defensively. “I figured, if we’re just good friends, and Clarissa and I are also good friends… would it be fine if, I mean, you and Clarissa—”

“You’d like both of us to kiss you?” Tamara’s grin was pure evil.

“I mean, if that’s cool with you, I don’t want it to seem like… I still want to… you’re both really fun to kiss,” I stammered. “God, this isn’t coming out right—”

As I was digging myself a hole, Tamara kissed me to shut me up.

“Oh, relax, will you?” she smiled. “I’m not mad.” She kissed me again. “It’s perfectly fine.”

I took a deep breath, and relaxed. It was perfectly fine. “I… thanks. That’s a relief to hear.“

“Good!” she replied. “...but while we’re on the subject, who’s the better kisser?”

I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly. I wasn’t falling for that one. “You are both excellent kissers in your own right, and I can’t reasonably say one of you is better. You have different styles.”

Tamara wasn’t done needling me though. “Different how?”

I decided to needle right back. “I can’t describe it in words, you’ll just have to kiss her yourself and find out.”

She attempted to look indignant. “Just how many things does she need help with?!”

I laughed at the absurdity of that response. As if the only reason Tamara could think of to kiss someone was in exchange for doing their chores.

“Hopefully a lot,” I replied, half-seriously.

“Yeah, you would say that!” she smirked. “Just remember that I’ll need help, too.”

“Of course!” I grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of forgetting!”

“Then I’ll let you get on with your errands,” she kissed me fondly, “but I might want your help with the vacuuming tonight.”

I headed to the library, elated by the fact that Tamara was cool with Clarissa, and Clarissa was cool with Tamara, and I was cool with both of them. Maybe this would be normal for the whole apartment. Maybe we could all kiss each other in exchange for certain favours. Maybe-

Maybe I needed to stop thinking about that before I accidentally walked into traffic.

Either way, this whole situation couldn’t have worked out better so far if I’d planned it.

Well, this was interesting. I’d been all ready to sit down with Rhys and watch TV until my brain melted, but Clarissa had called me into the kitchen, and she had a look in her eye that said ‘I’m not going to bite, but we need to talk.’

So I followed. The kitchen was… not the cleanest I’d ever seen. Clarissa had carved out her workspace among a mess of cooking utensils that she needed, and dishes she didn’t need in and around the sink that were still drying from earlier.

“I feel like I’m not asking too much,” Clarissa murmured quietly, “so like, tell me if my standards are too high or whatever, but I asked Rhys to do the dishes yesterday so I could prepare dinner for today. He did them half an hour ago, and a lot of them are still dirty cause he didn’t scrub them right. Look at the colander.”

I looked. It still had strings of hardened mozzarella on it.

“And it’s that kind of thing that gets me, cause I was reeeally hoping not to do that while making pasta—”

“I’ll get it,” I sighed, picking up the colander. “Do you want me to talk to Rhys? I know, I’ve done that already, but it’s hard to get through to him. He means well, he just doesn’t think about what he’s doing.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering,” Clarissa said carefully, “what if we could make him think about it?”

Over the next 15 minutes, as I scrubbed the dirty dishes, Clarissa told me all about this podcast she’d been listening to, which claimed men would do whatever women said if we kissed them. To be honest, it kinda rang true. It was tempting to say ‘don’t be stupid, of course women don’t have magic hypnotic kissing powers’, but if you phrased it as ‘would Rhys do the dishes properly if you kissed him while you asked’, the answer was probably ‘yes’. Who was I to say you couldn’t take it further than that?

Victoria got home, and Clarissa shot her a quick text to get her into the kitchen without alerting Rhys. There we filled her in on our plan. I would approach Rhys, and see if I could persuade him to do the dishes tonight in exchange for me kissing him. While he was distracted, I’d test out the subliminal command thingy Clarissa was talking about—if it worked, his whole attitude towards doing the dishes would change over time.

“What about other chores?” Clarissa mused.

“If it works for dishes, then surely I can kiss him to do those better, too,” I replied.

“So that would make him doing your chores a regular thing, then.”

“Yeah, when you put it that way, it sounds like I’m getting most of the benefit here,” I admitted, reminding Clarissa with a shrug that this was her idea.

“What if we all did it?” Victoria chimed in suddenly.

We turned to stare at her.

“You mean, like,” I struggled to wrap my head around it, “we all kiss him, so he helps all of us?”

Clarissa nodded thoughtfully. “That could work. Assuming we can introduce him to the idea in a way that seems natural—but we might need to make sure no sets of chores overlap—I’ll need to make another chart…”

We settled on a new plan. I would be the pilot study, as Clarissa called it, the first test to see if Rhys really would do the dishes properly when persuaded by kisses. If we were absolutely sure it worked, Clarissa and then Victoria would join in. We would get a better roommate, Rhys would get kissed by three different women, and the pressure would finally be off all of us to pick up the slack when he didn’t.

Everyone would get what they wanted.

That was something I told myself to ease my worry that we were brainwashing him against his will, whatever Dr. Stephanie on the podcast said. But in fact, I was amazed at how effective it was. Fuck, if I’d known it was that easy to get him to do dishes, and do them well, I would have made this arrangement into a house rule as soon as we’d moved in.

He agreed, straight up, to do my chores if I kissed him, and once I started murmuring little things while he was distracted, like, “You enjoy kissing me, you want to do more dishes in the future, listen when I teach you,” it was amazing to see the subtle commands influencing his behaviour in real time. Before long, he was cleaning the house like he’d never cleaned before, and he even seemed happy about it! Once that was normal for him, it was Clarissa’s turn.

It was adorable, really, seeing Rhys stammer and fumble his way through explaining that Clarissa kissed him, and why. By the sounds of it, her part of the plan had worked perfectly. After he’d returned from the printing shop, and finished his own work for the day, I ‘persuaded’ him to do the vacuuming, then I snuck off to talk to Clarissa in her room.

“It worked!” she giggled. “He was exactly as pliable as you said, much more than I thought he’d be.”

“Right??” I said. “I was like, there’s no way he just goes along with this. But here we are!”

“He must want to kiss us really bad, subconsciously,” she mused.

We listened to the piercing whine of the vacuum cleaner as Rhys methodically ran it over the living room carpet.

“Amazing what you can get a guy to do when he’s thinking with his dick,” I said, off-handedly.

Clarissa snorted, “I guess now is a bad time to tell you that it works on women too?”

My head snapped around, indignant at having been blindsided like this. “What? How?!”

She shrugged, “Basically the same way. If it’s okay for me to ask, are you into women?”

That was a hell of a question to drop on me out of nowhere.

“Uh, well, I haven’t really thought about it much,” I stammered. “I mean, I did joke about kissing a woman with Rhys earlier, but it was mostly just a joke.”

Clarissa shrugged, “Well, I don’t think it’ll work if you aren’t a least a little bi, but if you’d like to know how it feels to be hypnotised, I could try.”

I thought about it, actually thought about it. I’d been a friend to many in the LGBT community—I was one of the few people who knew about Victoria’s attraction to women—but it had never really occurred to me that any of their ideas or labels might apply to me as well. Maybe it was just that Victoria didn’t talk about it much, and I hadn’t really been raised in an environment that tolerated it.

Now there was Clarissa, who was assertive, and gorgeous, and judging purely by what she was saying, extremely bisexual. So, taking a step back, what did ‘gorgeous’ mean to me? Was it the picture-taking, awe-inspiring kind you got from going to see a waterfall, or was it the heart-fluttering, turn-your-legs-to-jelly kind you got from seeing someone you really fancied?

Had I ever bothered to figure out the difference before?

“I… I don’t even know if I’ll like being hypnotised!” I protested, though my heart wasn’t quite in it.

“You will! Trust me,” Clarissa smiled, and she was so sincere, so earnest, that I almost believed her right then and there.

“Have you ever been hypnotised before?”

“Uh…not exactly. But, from the podcast, I get the general gist of how it’s supposed to feel.”

Ah. So I was going to be a guinea pig then.

Still, I relented, “Fine, I’ll try it. On one condition.”

“Sure, whatever you like!” Clarissa beamed.

“We let Victoria get with Rhys first,” I said, “so he’s out of the way.”

“Deal!”

Clarissa intertwined her fingers with mine, and squeezed. Friendlier than a handshake, and just as binding.

“Why do I get the feeling this is going to backfire horribly?” I winced.

“It’s foolproof, Victoria, I promise,” Clarissa said, sitting on the floor in front of me with a comforting hand on my knee.

“You’ll be fine,” Tamara reassured me, one arm around my shoulders. “Great, even.”

I sighed. This had technically been my idea. But imagining us all hypnotising Rhys was very different from imagining me hypnotising Rhys.

“Look, if you don’t want to, we won’t make you,” Clarissa soothed, “I just feel like you’d be missing out.”

“No no!” I said, “I do want to, I just… don’t want to screw it up for both of you.”

“You won’t!” Clarissa’s other hand came up to clasp mine.

“And if you need us to back you up, we’ll be hiding out in Clarissa’s room,” Tamara said. Clarissa winked at her.

I wondered why they weren’t just going to their own rooms. It wasn’t like I was planning to bring Rhys back to the bedroom Tamara and I shared—they weren’t expecting me to get that hot and heavy with him already, were they?? God, maybe I should have worn something sexier-

I shook myself. One thing at a time. Let’s focus on getting him to kiss me, first.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m overthinking again,” I gave a watery smile, before squaring my shoulders and rising to my feet from the couch. They stood with me, and… Aaaaaaaaaaaa. I’m doing this!

“I’m doing this,” I repeated out loud, much weaker than it sounded in my head.

“That’s the spirit!” Clarissa beamed, but both their hands were resting gently on my shoulders. I felt like I’d fall over without either one of them. Story of my life.

“You need a little push?” Tamara guessed.

“God, you know me so well,” I sighed.

I closed my eyes, and felt her hands move around to the middle of my back. Clarissa joined her a second later.

“How does this—?” she wondered.

“Gently,” Tamara whispered, and I felt a warm, encouraging pressure against my spine.

“Just take a step,” she said, and I did.

They pushed again, and I walked forward another step.

The third, I took on my own, and opened my eyes as I continued putting one foot in front of the other.

But physically going to do the thing didn’t drown out the noise in my head, telling me I’d get it wrong. I’d bump his teeth with mine when I kissed him, snapping him out of it. I’d accidentally reveal the whole scheme and make him too suspicious to kiss any of us again. I-

-was already outside Rhys’s door. Fuck, I hated it when pushing me into things actually worked.

I curled my fingers into a fist, and without pausing to think about the consequences, I knocked.

“One sec!” his muffled voice called, and I felt the urge to tug at my clothes. Whyyy did I suddenly care how many wrinkles my blouse had, or if my jeans were pulled up too far?

I felt Tamara and Clarissa’s eyes on me, and as I turned, I saw them peeking around the corner of the hall, both with their thumbs up.

I waved a hand frantically at them to get out of sight. If Rhys saw them-

Clarissa took Tamara’s hand, and giggling together, they scampered across to Clarissa’s bedroom just as Rhys’s door swung open.

“Victoria,” he said surprised, “What’s up?”

Shit, he already suspected something. My face was far too red, my shoulders were too stiff-

I took a deep but subtle breath to steady myself. It’s okay. Keep calm. Stop thinking like that. Deep breaths. Tamara and Clarissa have already laid the groundwork for me. I can do this. I can.

“Hhhey so, I’m having trouble cleaning the bathroom,” I began, “are you free to come?—help me, I mean. Come help me.” Wow, what a great start.

“Yeah, sure!” he replied.

...See? It worked fine. We’re fine.

With Rhys none the wiser, I led him into the bathroom. Then I just had to-

“What do you need help with?” he asked.

I froze. What’s my next move again? Oh god, he’s going to get suspicious if I don’t say something. Say something, Victoria!

Another inhale, then let it out in a rush.

“I know Tamara and Clarissa have been kissing you to get you to help them with their chores and I wanted to do the same thing so will you please help me clean the bathroom if I kiss you??”

Rhys looked baffled as he tried to process my words. “Oh shit, uh, yeah. We’ve been doing that. I didn’t mean to keep it from you or anything, it just seemed like a weird thing to bring up out of nowhere.”

“Wait, you’re not mad or upset that I found out?” I said. This wasn’t in the script, was it?

He shrugged sheepishly, “I guess I haven’t exactly been subtle about it, and neither have they.”

Fair point. Damnit Rhys, stop being so reasonable! Actually don’t. You’re making the plan work perfectly, somehow.

“So… so you’d be okay with kissing me then?” I said. “And helping me?”

He smiled. “Of course!”

“You’re not just saying that?”

A frown creased his brow. “No, why would I lie about it?”

“No reason, it’s just…” I looked away. “Never mind.”

But after living with me for so long, Rhys could tell when I was having a crisis of self-confidence.

“Victoria,” he said, gently turning my head to look me right in the eyes, “I would really like to kiss you, if you want me to, and I’ll clean the entire bathroom for you if that’s what it takes.”

“Um… good! I’d like that,” I said dumbly. This was so much easier than I thought. “H-how should I start?“

He grinned at me cheekily. “I assume you have kissed someone before?“

“I have!” I said indignantly. “A few times! Just not as a friendly favour thing! I mean, I guess we just—”

I stepped right up close to him.

“—start by doing something—”

I grabbed him by the shirt.

“—a bit like this?”

And then I was kissing him. Really, actually kissing him. My lips drank him in hungrily, my tongue rasping over his, eager to make the most of it while it lasted. Slow down. Gotta remember to be seductive about it. My lips softened up, my tongue retreated just a little.

“You like kissing me?” I murmured in the brief second we came up for air, before I dived back in. No wait, that won’t work. It has to be firm, like a command.

“You like kissing me,” I tried again, the next time I could form words.

Clarissa had guided me on the sort of commands I should give him. I hoped he wouldn’t find it too weird that I was murmuring against his lips so much.

“You want to help me.”

“You love doing favours for me.”

“You love doing chores.”

“Remember to clean all the taps.”

“Focus on what you need to do.”

I repeated everything five times, just to make sure it would sink in, assuming the whole suggestibility thing worked. Then I continued a bit longer, because kissing a guy who wasn’t a jerk was… well, it was a really nice change.

Eventually, we stopped, gasping for air as the passion of the moment caught up with us.

“Whew,” Rhys said, a note of admiration in his voice.

“Yeahh…” I agreed.

He sounded a bit dazed as he murmured, “Was that supposed to be a down payment for the next year, or something?”

I felt myself curling inwards, “Was it too much?”

“No, not at all!” he insisted. “I’ll clean the bathroom so good you’ll be able to eat off the floor!... But don’t eat off the floor.”

I laughed nervously. “And you’re really okay with that?”

“Yeah!” he replied. ”I love doing favours for you.”

Oh. My. God. It was actually real. Rhys had just repeated one of my suggestions back to me, and he seemingly had no idea he’d even done it.

“Well,” I said, making a beeline for the door as my face flushed red, “I’ll leave you to it, then! Maybe we could do this some other time!”

“Yeah, for sure!” Rhys quipped as I left, my head swirling with all this new information.

Rhys had repeated my command. You could argue that he was easier to hypnotise because he’d already had Tamara and Clarissa to soften him up. But that command, about doing favours for me, that was mine. It had to be.

I had influenced somebody to do what I wanted, and now he was doing it.

I had the power to hypnotise people, with just my kisses.

I, Victoria, could do that.

Holy shit.

I wandered through the apartment in a daze, processing this development and what it could mean for me. I barely even paid attention as I passed Clarissa’s room, and I heard distinctly sensual moans and the smack of joining lips that could only be my other two roommates. I quickly decided to ignore it. My brain was already full to bursting, and whatever that was, it was their business. I headed for my room and collapsed onto my bed, dreaming of the future.