The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

We’re indoors now. After the second Decan, a large number of men decided that jumping in the pool was the best way to “cover their shame”, and after that Summers shut it down. The open-air patio is still open, though, and the sun is just setting. The place is really crowded, but for once there’s a relatively even gender mix. The girls were all here for the second Decan, and stayed around. A lot of men left right afterward, but some just had a shower and came right back. Others stayed home, though — either embarrassed, or just having had their fun for the night.

The girl-band Hot Date is up on stage, belting out Do It To You. I wish I could watch — their lead singer is drop-dead gorgeous, and reminds me faintly of Livia if you ignore the hair. But the lyrics take on a slightly different meaning after what just happened: “You don’t need your mom’s permission, you’re thinkin’ ’bout a rendezvous, I see that I arouse your suspicion, and you’re wondering if it’s gonna to come true... I wanna do it, I wanna do it to you...”

I’m backstage with Jeri. She seems optimistic. Livia’s around, but she’s letting me handle Jeri. I’m our staff pickup artist, after all. Yep, that’s a no-shit formal job title. I’ve got about ten minutes.

“I’ve been wondering what you guys have planned for me,” she says.

“I’ve always thought anticipation is a key element of eroticism,” I throw back cryptically.

“We’re calling it ‘eroticism’ now? That’s pretty academic and stuffy-sounding.”

“Well, what do you want to call it?”

“I... I have no idea. Feeling groovy, I guess. Hot stuff. Being foxy. Wow, I don’t know. What a weird question.”

“You look great.”

Jeri’s actually wearing a really classy blue prom-dress kind of deal. Mimi got it for her from our wardrobe. We would have given her a green one if we got the infodump a day earlier, but that’s life. Not a big deal — it won’t stay on long.

“Thanks. I was expecting something a bit racier, though.”

“There will be some costume changes later, but don’t worry about that now.”

“Okay,” Jeri says.

“Listen. After last night, there’s one thing I want to get right — your name. You told me Jeri, but the DJ said you were Cherry. Is that a mistake or a stage name?”

She looks dumbstruck. The name thing is obviously as important to her as we had figured. “Um, Cherry is... a name I use when I’m going to do something racy. Jeri is my legal name.”

I nod. “Let me confide something in you. I’m...”

I tell her my actual legal name — it’s Marcelo Ambrose Knight by the time I write this, but it isn’t yet as I live it. I’m not putting it here, because, well, we covered my family back in Chapter One, remember?

“...but I use the name Marcelo Ambrose Knight. First it was a fake name, so no one would tie being a pickup artist to my ‘real’ life. It took me a long time to accept that Marcelo Ambrose Knight was actually my real name, and the legal one was the fake.”

Jeri nods. “I can relate to that... kinda.”

Time for self-deprecation to ease tension. “Of course, the transition might have been easier if I chose a real name that wasn’t utterly fucking ridiculous. You know — ‘MAK-ing on women’. You have my permission to groan.”

Jeri laughs in spite of herself. “Ridiculous things can still be sexy, though.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.”

“Cherry isn’t a stage name, though. It’s... uh, it’s actually my birth name. I stopped using it in junior high, because of... you know, the jokes. I like it, though. My Mum gave it to me.”

“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t realize that. I was going to suggest using it tonight, but for the naughty connotations. I didn’t realize you grew up with it.”

“I’m okay with it,” she says. “I’ve had to suffer all the bullshit and pain the naughty connotations bring. I feel I deserve the fun bits too. And my Mum was a very extroverted lady. I think she knew about the connotations, and gave me the name because... because things that are erotic, or lewd, are also beautiful and precious. At least, to her.”

“And to you?”

“Yeah,” she says. “To me too.”

“What bullshit?” I ask.

“I’m sure you can guess,” she says. “Back in high school, they would always call me ‘sweet cherry pie’. You know, like the song. It was embarrassing.”

I nod. “Good embarrassing or bad embarrassing?”

“Bad embarrassing!” she says sharply, then considers. “Well... maybe a little bit of the other, too. I... I couldn’t master it in school. Mum said you take sex, you make it yours, like riding a bull. But I got thrown off, and broke bones, and nothing healed right. She could ride, mind you, and she gave me confidence. But Mum... uh, couldn’t be around me any more, and when she wasn’t around I couldn’t deal with the name myself. My dad suggested I change it to something respectable, so I did.”

“This sounds a bit raw. I was going to ask you about using ‘Cherry’ in the show tonight, but —”

“I’d like that. I want to be ‘Cherry’ tonight.”

“If you’re good with this, we’ll introduce you as Jeri, but make use of the other name in the show. It’s a bit weird to explain, but it ties in with the routine Livia’s worked out.”

She nods. “Ok.”

“Besides,” I joke, “Take this from personal experience — ‘sweet cherry pie’ not the worst thing people get called in high school, and it’s definitely one of the easier titles for a confident girl to own later in life.”

She chuckles ruefully. “It’s not the worst thing I got called in high school, Marcelo. I... oh, God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. They used to call me ‘The Girl With The Sticky Panties’. I, uh... I swing both ways. My mum taught me not to be ashamed. I might have got caught, uh... doing something that would suggest that to other people.”

In the background, I see Livia’s body language shift. Everything just clicks. Tension leaves my body. I just know, now, that Livia will have no problem empathizing with Jeri. The third Decan is going to be grand.

Jeri sees the look on my face.

“If you want to use that,” she says nervously, “make really sure it’s the good kind this time, because I’ve had too much of the other. But I trust you.”

Mimi pops her head in the door. “Kay, folks, twenty seconds to showtime!”

Talk about just in the nick of time!

I grab Mimi and dart out the door to whisper to her. “Mimi!”

“Yeah?”

“Emergency last minute script change. You’re going to the grocery store for some props. Livia has a long induction to do, so you’ve got half an hour.”

“Really?” she asks, annoyed and irate.

“I know you, Mimi. When you hear what I want, you’ll be plenty enthusiastic...”

The crowd is mellow. The sun is down. The lighting is dim. If it wasn’t for all the swimwear this could be one of the adult live comedy clubs that have become our staple venues. The binge drinking frat boys had their fun in the second Decan and are home sleeping it off. The crowd is... well, I’d be lying if I said they were classy; we’ll never have a truly classy crowd. But they’re at least the more subtle, refined grade of hedonists. There’s an erotic energy in the air, the scent of anticipation, and it’s coming from the women more than the men.

There are a lot of girls tonight — professional and amateur, beautiful and plain, collegiate and thirty-something, scantily-clad and more fully dressed (by Lauderdale standards, at least: sundresses and sandals instead of bikinis). There are definitely some interested guys, mind you — both mellow ones who’ve changed their pants and just want to be entertained, and newcomers from places like the Candy Store or the Button who heard the rumors about what they missed out on and are wondering what’s going to happen next. There are players here, male and female — decadents and sybarites, but fewer outright oafs.

The back of the stage is dim, to aid induction. The front is brightly lit. There are two spartan, high-visibility white chairs and a low, white IKEA table just inside the shadowed area. The chairs face each other from opposite sides of the table. We’ve also rolled the guillotine apparatus we had on top of the three-box chamber from the first Decan out and re-cranked the paper rolls so the “blade” is up again. We’re not going to do anything with it, mind you — it’s just going to sit there unacknowledged in the background the whole time, being symbolic.

Livia and I stride out with Jeri between us. “Ladies and... more ladies, and gentlemen, and pleasingly rough-looking men... I’m glad you’ve all decided to stick around for our third Decan after the second got so unexpectedly, er... sticky. Well, this bit is a little more personal, and intimate, than the last two, but — fair warning for the weak of heart here — it’s still going to be getting pretty hot in here.

“I want to introduce all of you to our gorgeous guest of the evening, Jeri! She is a very brave young girl on her first Spring Break, and she’s agreed to be the guinea pig for an experimental hypnosis program that Marcelo and I have devised. I’ve promised her the routine is not just a sordid excuse to get her stripped and flaunt her nubile young body before a crowd, and I’m going to do my best to make it more than that.”

The crowd laughs. It’s a nice laugh — anticipatory and naughty, without being bullying. They’re, at least partly, laughing with Jeri rather than at her. There are probably several women that want to be her. I scan the crowd and don’t see any of the hostile faces from DanceSpace, or get any sense of that viciously jealous vibe. A bunch of the girls that wanted the Emily treatment but never got it are still here, staring up at me wistfully — though Emily herself split, I think.

Livia’s patter continues. “This is gonna be therapeutic, folks. We’re providing an important psychiatric service to this fine young lady. Okay, possum, go say hi to the crowd!”

Livia smacks Jeri on the ass, signaling her to walk forward. She does so, out to the edge of the stage, shaking hands with guests. A few get a bit touchy, but nothing too bad.

“Folks, you might notice a theme in our act today. It’s actually really important, so please pay attention. This show is about the respectable lady. In the first Decan, we corralled a whole bevy of luscious lasses up on stage to give us all a show. And I need to say, it was glorious, and erotic, and I enjoyed it. And those are, in reality, respectable girls. I mean it. We’re all here, in this room. Words are just strings of Latin characters. They don’t have inherent meaning. Every one of us gets to decide what they mean. We don’t have to accept the meanings that our school principal or Mary Whitehouse gave us.”

I did say the crowd was mellower, but I’m still not sure how well Sapir-Whorf is going to play to the Spring Break audience. But I obviously let Livia keep talking and don’t undercut her. “Every person in this room gets a vote on what any given word means. The word ‘gay’ used to mean lively, but now we have a more... rewarding use for it. Miss Kensington believed that the word ‘respectable’ meant a girl that keeps her legs shut and her top on... but we got a bunch of brave girls up on stage to vote with their bodies, and I feel certain we expanded her horizons pretty dramatically!”

That actually gets a big cheer, from both genders in equal measure.

“Really, thanks to all you brave souls, we could even say she had quite a... lively time.”

There’s a lusty chuckle from the audience as they remember the girl-on-girl show fondly. Livia’s pun has to be improvised, too, being based on what I pulled with Gloria and Lucy.

“And, you know, brave is the right word, because getting naked does take a lot of courage. So, I respect the girls who got their kit off. That makes them, by basic etymology, respectable. Because they are able to be respected. See how easy that is?”

There might be one or two nerds in the crowd who know what the word ‘etymology’ means, but everybody else just kind of goes with it. Still, Livia’s spiel gets on our tapes and PPVs, and I’m sure more home viewers actually get her meaning.

“So, I wanna get a big cheer from the guys in the crowd. Show the brave girls that you respect them!”

Livia actually gets a huge, frat-like “Hell yeah!” back from the males. I’m not sure how much is them playing along in the hopes of more titty — or just hoping doing so will get them laid — but I think there’s also some real sincerity among the voices as well. And... the rafters vibrate. Impressive shout.

We had talked about bringing up Cathy Delapointe by name (and by picture... yes, those pictures) here, but decided against it until she actually graduates and delivers her valedictory address — and has more freedom to choose her peer group. Then she’ll become our model of the ideal, perfectly respectable, class valedictorian.

“And then,” Livia continues, “we had those... those stuck-up women from NCSS on, the elite models who think refusing to strip off makes them more desirable than the kind of girls here today. Well, we definitely showed them how much we respect them, didn’t we?”

That gets a big, vindictive cheer from the crowd — and it’s led by the girls, though the guys definitely join in when they figure out it’s ‘safe’. I remind myself that we’re trashing the NCSS corporate image, here, more than the actual models outside their personas.

“And now, it all comes down to this. We have a very special girl here tonight. You might recognize Jeri from the wet t-shirt contest right here at Summers on Sunday. She had a case of the nerves, though, and ran off stage. It’s not her fault, though — she was raised to be the wrong kind of respectable. And, honestly, ladies, we can all relate, right?”

Now, Livia goes from suggestive, playful patter to really, dissonantly solemn with this bit, with no wink-wink, nudge-nudge naughtiness at all. You don’t usually see Livia being truly sincere and serious — but for this one moment, I think you might be. Rehearsed, of course — but also sincere. She stares at the crowd, scanning through it almost inquisitorially. And I can see resonance in many of the girls’ faces — and a surprising number of the boys’, too.

“We’ve all got that voice in our heads, telling us that we ought to be ashamed, that we shouldn’t be doing this, that we’re unclean, that we’re going to make a scandal and become a disgrace. It tells us to hate ourselves, to submit, to remake ourselves into what a wholesome society expects us to be.

“It’s like we all have one of those NCSS models implanted in our heads, whispering quietly at us 24/7. And, for girls like Jeri, that voice is in control. That, my dear friends, that is a tragedy. A source of unending sorrow. This voice is an intruder. It’s like demonic possession. It’s not who we really are, but its words come out of our own mouths. It is an atrocity. It is a disease.”

Livia’s demeanor performs an almost nauseating quick-change, going from solemn, philosophical and oddly relatable to hyperactive, sunshine-spewing used-car salesman with a thousand-watt shit-eating grin. I think she just bitch-slapped our audience with tonal whiplash. “Well, folks, I am Lascivious Livia, the one and only respectable magician to earn that adjective, and I am here tonight to demonstrate our miracle cure for this disease! My friends, get ready to see some real magic! And yes, ladies and gentlemen, I mean that in the no-shit literal miracle-working sense! This is no illusion! This! Is! Real! You will believe that Jeri can overcome her inner Jerry Falwell and have a great time, and you will believe you can overcome yours as well!”

The crowd slowly starts clapping. Our ringers need to start it. Even they seem a bit confused, but the enthusiasm and cheer grows and spreads. The degree to which Livia is controlling the mood with raw charisma is somewhat breathtaking. This bit can come off as hokey and weird when you watch the videos, and is one of the primary bits responsible for the “Livia’s on cocaine” rumors. No, she’s not — O Suspicious Readers, I’m not bullshitting you, this is the lady’s natural personality. I could not make shit like this up if I tried. And, being here in person, this night... yeah, she really sells this shit. The crowd is perplexed, but it all works.

Once the applause dies down, Livia’s psychotic energy is semi-muted, and she’s calm and composed while still being the undeniable master of the room. “Folks, we’re going to do a real hypnotic induction here, and I’m going to put our lovely volunteer deeper than I’ve put any volunteer before. So, I’m going to need peace, calm and good behavior from the audience — but also support. Everyone here knows what’s respectable and what isn’t. We’re all going to help Jeri learn to be more... properly respectable, and we’re going to have some fun in doing so. But also... support her. Have some fun with her, but also help lift her up when we’re finished.”

Thanks, Livia. I was wrong to have doubted you.

“Now, Jeri, get your sweet ass over here and sit down opposite me. Firstly, the oath. Hold up your right hand — yeah, like a citizenship oath — and say these words along with me: I’m a volunteer for the Sexy Scandal Spectacular. I’m game for a giggle. I may lose my dignity and my modesty, but I’m going to have a great time, and leave with a story to tell — and with my head held high.”

Jeri repeats the oath verbatim. Livia unclasps the amethyst jewel around her neck, getting it briefly tangled with the silver Clubhouse key. I doubt she’s showing that off — maybe she’s actually nervous. That would be oddly reassuring to me — her attitude is warmer than half an hour back, when she said Jeri was a ‘toy’. It’s not untrue, I mean — I’m about to get into describing us playing with her in great detail — but there’s empathy there, as well.

We put the headphones on Jeri. The induction is long. It’s not sexy — well, it’s Livia in a tight tux whispering things in an unnaturally intense voice, so of course it’s sexy, but Livia isn’t saying anything naughty or suggestive. It’s the most tonally serious, dominant hypnosis I’ve seen her do. It goes on for half an hour. O Impressionable Reader, do you recall what she did to me back in the Taurus Escalation? That was done in a few minutes. She gets Jeri warmed up for half an hour.

There’s an extended relaxation metaphor here, where Jeri is a perfectly-formed moonstone dropped in a saltbed, and a hard, calcified coating of soapstone forms over her body, and Livia’s voice is the river water washing away that obsequious brittle detritus, restoring her natural radiance — just focus on the voice. Relax. Relax. Feel your mind unwind. You know the deal — and it goes on for half an hour. There’s a lot of numeric recursion as well — Jeri is assured she’s now ten times deeper than she was before at least five or six times, and nods like she really believes this. Mimi gets back near the end, signals me from offstage and sets a large brown bag in an alcove at the back of the stage.

During the induction, Livia sometimes mutes her mike to the audience. I go up on stage and do some patter. We play Marilyn Martin’s Sorcerer to distract the crowd and establish mood — an appropriate and moody piece, given what Livia’s doing. Finally we get done the induction; Jeri’s in trance — really, really deeply so — and it’s time for the hypnotic programming bit.

“When I hand you this microphone,” Livia commands, “I want you to be completely honest with both yourself and the audience, and tell us your real name — your first name only, please, but the real one that identifies who you truly are.”

Livia hands the microphone over. “Cherry.”

Well, you heard the lady — so that’s who she is (outside dialogue, at least) in my memoir from this point on as well as on stage.

“That’s right,” Livia says. “Your name is Cherry. Cherry is a real person, a human being with free will granted by God and a vision of her own life. But that name has caused you certain practical problems, and that necessitated a change. So, in pursuit of a vision of respectability, you changed your name to adapt to society. What is the name that people normally call you, Cherry?”

“Jeri,” she answers.

“Right,” Livia says. “Cherry, you tried to enter a wet t-shirt contest recently. You, the real person, chose to. But... Jeri told you that you weren’t allowed to do that, didn’t she? Jeri told you to be ashamed.”

“Yes,” Cherry replies robotically. “She said it would make my d—”

Livia cuts her off. “We don’t need to know why. In fact, don’t tell us anything about your personal life when in trance, unless it’s necessary to answer a direct question I ask you.”

Cherry nods mechanically.

“Sleep,” Livia commands, and Cherry’s head drops and her body slumps.

Livia takes the microphone and goes up to the front of the stage, addressing the audience. Her tone is now light and playful. “Folks, I know that our first attempt to cut some girls in half today got a bit, er... messy. Well, I’m asking all of you for a big leap of faith, because we’re gonna try it again. It’s going to be a bit more metaphorical this time, and hopefully a bit less messy... but I can’t actually guarantee that. This bit’s almost like an exorcism, and, well, you’ve all seen the movie, right? Screwing with people’s psyches can get messy, after all... but we’re hoping to set the mood firmly for ‘sexy’ rather than ‘scary’. Oh, and we’re also hoping the magic trick will, you know, actually work this time. So let’s all take a deep breath and cross our fingers, okay?”

The crowd is unsure what to think. We want to imprint this show specifically on people’s minds rather than just being fluffy erotic entertainment, and I think the tonal whiplash is probably doing that. I wouldn’t know — Livia’s the one with a psych degree, after all. It’s a ballsy move, though, joking about the trick we comedically failed at the start of a really difficult thing we desperately want to succeed at.

I can see the point, though — the triple box routine scared the hell out of the audience, then suddenly turned both comical and sexy once we delivered the punchline. Livia’s using that to deliver a subtle suggestion to the audience here. Sure, ladies, we might be hinting at some subject matter you find primal and scary, here... but don’t worry; by the end of the evening it will all be light-hearted giggles and fun sexy times again.

Livia walks back over to me.

“Let me show you something,” she says to Cherry. “Watch very carefully and focus on what I’m saying.”

She reaches into a bag and sets a sequence of objects on the white table. It’s one of those Matryoshka dolls, with the layers all separate. Livia took it to a fairly skilled painter with a detailed commission, though, back when we were planning out this routine in Virginia Beach. We have a live camera pointed at the dolls, and our overhead projector pushing out the image on the back wall so the crowd can see what Livia does with the intricate props in detail.

The tiniest doll is a naked hula dancer, grinning from ear to ear with childlike glee as she lifts her top and the grass skirt slides town to her ankles. Then a sexy dancing bikini lady. Then a deniably flirty girl in the stereotypical little black dress. Then a beautiful but vaguely sad prom queen in a chaste prom dress. Then a business lady in overly prim shirt and pants-suit. Then an older woman, looking browbeaten and downcast, in a niqab. The final doll is a green-faced hag swathed in black rags and a stereotypical witch’s pointed hat and equally pointed nose. Her skin looked parched, dry and cracked — and her eyes are harrowing to look upon: lifeless, banal and robotic. It’s the Wicked Witch of the West, from L Frank Baum’s Oz novels — but the face is right out of Stepford rather than cackling with glee.

“This is you, Cherry,” Livia says, picking up the tiniest, naked, laughing doll. “Now, let’s add some strict childhood lessons about decency and your bikini areas.”

She picks up the two halves on the table from the bikini dancer and puts them around the smallest doll. “Now, let’s add some cruel jibes from jealous girls in junior high.”

The little black dress layer gets added. “And some very stern lectures about how decent women ought to behave.”

We’re at the prom queen. “And that revelation you have at some point in high school that — contrary to the message of the week on every sitcom ever — conforming to societal expectations really does help you get ahead.”

The business lady devours the prom queen as Livia continues, “people call you ‘Sweet Cherry Pie’ and ‘the girl with the sticky panties’, and it hurts.”

Now the business lady goes inside the niqab woman. “Maybe there was a friend that supported you, but once you graduate you can’t see her any more, and it’s hard without her, and people warn you that you’d better shape up.”

And finally the wicked witch over it all. “Something tragic happens. Someone who was sanctimonious and judgmental gets lionized, and suddenly everyone you know is demanding you conform to his ideals, live up to the standard he set. It’s oppressive, and under all these layers you feel like you can’t breathe, you can’t get out, you might not even really be you any more.”

This is actually intense. I look out at the crowd, seeing how people are reacting. This is uncomfortably resonant to many of the girls here. I’m not reading Auras, but obviously no one’s super turned-on at the moment. But they are fascinated. There are a few guys bored and whispering to friends, but most people are tense, empathetic and uncertain. Even most of the men seem interested and disconcerted. Men suffer from social constraints as well, even if it’s in different ways than women.

Livia turns the completely assembled doll to face Cherry directly. “Listen to me, Cherry. You’re trapped in a lifeless shell. Layer upon layer of indoctrinating experiences, to make you into someone else’s idea of what’s presentable. You are suffocating. This thing, this finished doll, she isn’t a person. She’s a construct, a spewer of rote platitudes, a finite state machine. She just figures out what society wants her to say or do, and parrots it back. And she’s the voice in your head, and she’s been mean to you. And sometimes she takes charge of you, and you feel that you can’t do anything about it.

“We’re going to call this voice Jeri. She’s not you, and you aren’t her. I’ve cut you in half, Cherry. I’m the alchemist, separating the gold from the dross. You need to realize that you are Cherry and she is Jeri, two different people in one body — and only one of these people has a soul, a true identity, free will or a right to even exist. Remember this: Cherry is the one with dreams, vision and a sense of self. Jeri is the one with the obligations, anxieties and the weight of others’ expectations on her shoulders. Do you understand me?”

Cherry is very still. Finally she nods. “Yes. I understand.”

Livia continues. “Good. Now I need to tell you — I can’t just make Jeri go away. It’s not possible to just delete impulses or aspects of a psyche with hypnotism like that. And I wouldn’t want to do that to you anyway. You can’t run around naked and ignore societal conventions everywhere. Flaunting societal conventions and doing very naughty things in pursuit of your own pleasure is both immensely fun and morally justified, but you have to flaunt conventions tactically, or society will fucking crush you. So, as unpleasant as it may be, you need to be Jeri — most of the time. Or at least some of the time, if you arrange your life better. You need to be Jeri when it’s smart to be Jeri, when not being her will get you arrested, beaten up or fired. Right?”

“Yes.”

“But you have every right to join in a wet t-shirt contest. Jeri was way out of line stopping you, and I suspect she said some fairly nasty things in doing so, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’re not going to let that stand. We need to reconfigure the social dynamic between you and her. Put bluntly, we need to show this bitch who’s boss. You are a real person. You own your body and your life, you make the choices. She forgot that, so you and I... we’re going to knock her down a peg or two, teach her a lesson. Tell me, Cherry, have you ever watched a teen sex comedy?”

This puzzles Jeri. It’s a misstep, I think, for Livia to assume she will just ‘get’ this. Different cultural spheres and all. But Jeri finally nods. “I... think so?”

“Well, this is how it normally goes in those movies — and how it’s going to go tonight. There’s a stuck-up, sanctimonious girl who bullies and denigrates others. They pay her back with a humiliating but sexy prank. So, that’s what we’re going to do here tonight — just in a really extended, fetishistic fashion. Are you up for that, Cherry?”

People in trance don’t usually show any facial expression, but I could swear there was the faint shadow of a truly wicked smile at the corner of Cherry’s mouth. “Yes.”

“Great. Here are the rules. First of all, Cherry, you’re in charge. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, even if you feel that me or Marcelo — or the audience — want you to. But you’re in charge from the back seat. We’re going to be putting Jeri in the driver’s seat, in conscious control of your body. But you can change things. You can trip her up in ways that will arouse me, the audience and you yourself.

“Think of it like a game, to find the most naughty possible Freudian slips. You can move her hands, her limbs. If we get her to dance, you can make it sexier than she wants. You can insinuate words or phrases into her mind that she might say without realizing how naughty they sound until it’s too late. You can sabotage her in all kinds of subtle ways that will serve to underscore the reminder that Cherry is the one in charge and Jeri doesn’t get a say about that. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Together we can give Jeri a memorably awful, but undeniably erotic, night. You, Cherry, you are aware we’ve had this conversation and you can constantly dream up new and terrible things to do, and signal us in subtle ways. You’re also not subject to any of the suggestions I’m about to give Jeri — you’re in on the joke, and can in fact just cancel any suggestion you don’t like. Jeri, however, will be utterly oblivious. She doesn’t even think you exist, and she’s going to go to somewhat silly extremes to rationalize anything lewd you make her do as being all innocent — and that’s fine. We can just let it all pile up.”

There’s chuckles from the audience. I get the feeling boys and girls alike are moving out of the uncomfortable and perplexed space and into really anticipating what’s coming up.

Livia mutes the audience channel on the mike, so only Cherry can hear what she’s whispering. Even I get left out, though I get most of the content from Livia later — except the first bit, which she doesn’t care to share because of our earlier clash, and I’ll only hear from Mimi months later.

“One important thing for both Cherry and Jeri. If you have traumas, or grief, or guilt in your life — that’s all gone for tonight; you can’t even think about or remember them, and they’ll be muted and dim for the rest of Spring Break. Cherry, you’re here to cut loose and have some wild fun. Jeri, you need to salvage your precious reputation — but you can’t remember why that’s so important to you. And don’t say your last name, or anything else that might have long-term social consequences for you or your friends. Understood?”

“Yes-Yes.”

Two answers at once — she really did split them.

“Good. Cherry, one other thing. Did you ever read the L. Frank Baum Oz novels as a child, or see the movie adaptation?”

“I... think so.”

“You know how they kill off the Wicked Witch at the end?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“Well, that’s your trigger. If it happens, Jeri is knocked out for the rest of the night, Cherry has her body and mind to herself and Jeri isn’t going to come back until you consciously bring her back to the surface — at least, to whatever extent my hypnosis can do that. But it’s not droplets or a glass or licking or anything that isn’t water. You need a bucket full. And try and save that until we’ve all had a chance to play with Jeri a bit. You know — for pacing.”

“I understand.”

“Next thing. We might get you pretty worked-up tonight, but you are not allowed to have an actual orgasm until you hear me say the word ‘permission’, excluding this time. You can try all you want, but your body just won’t do it, because I am in charge here and your body obeys me. I am the master of your body. I can make it do things you’ve never been able to, do you understand me? I control it. If you do finally get to have an orgasm, however, it’s going to go on and on. You’re just not going to stop. There will be a visible timer we start, and your orgasm is going to last a full ten minutes, and it’s just going to get more and more intense the longer it goes on. But neither of you remember or anticipate that. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Acknowledge that I am the master of your body. Tell me I am capable of making it do that.”

“You are the master of my body. You can make it do that.”

“Good girl. Now, let’s talk about maraschino cherries. If you should happen to see someone put their lips on a cherry, you’re going to feel exactly like their lips are on your clit. When a tongue touches a cherry, you’re going to feel like it’s on your clit. When someone chews a cherry, they’re flicking your clit, not biting it. When they swallow, you feel oddly warm and moist. But you never feel any pain through this sympathetic link, even if cherries are bitten or fall on the floor and get crushed. Do you understand?”

“My body will obey.”

Nice phrasing there, Cherry.

“And the final thing. I have here an envelope. You see this? The white envelope with the gold detailing. In this envelope there’s a card, and that card has a word written on it. That word is a trigger word. As long as you don’t know what that word is, it has no effect on you. As soon as you hear the word, however, you are going to feel — and believe — you were just slammed hard by the absolute best cock you’ve ever had. It’s not going to feel like any of the awkward boys you might have had for real. It’s going to feel like you’ve always imagined it ought to feel, if the guy were hard and long and perfect and everything you desire, and he moved it just the way you want. One thrust, every time you hear the word — the louder, the better — and it’s just going to keep happening every time afterward that you hear it again. Will you comply?”

“My body will comply.”

The audience is whispering and speculating. Livia turns the mike back on — the secret bit is over. “Okay, Cherry. I need you to fade into the background now. Jeri, you’re up. Am I talking to Jeri now?”

“Yes.”

Her tone is still robotic, but it’s perhaps a touch smugger and more self-righteous.

“You’ve come to Summers tonight to prove that things people have said about you aren’t true. You don’t think of our show as being lewd. It’s more like a sometimes raunchy panel show. You entered a wet t-shirt contest, but you want to prove that’s not the kind of girl you really are. You’re not averse to people thinking you’re sexy, and you can even let bits of Cherry’s interests shine out — but the important thing is not to let things go any further than they’ve already gone, or do anything scandalous. You feel you can’t just get huffy and leave — you agreed to be on this show, even though it’s often naughty, and you feel that as a strong obligation.

“Also, just tonight, you’re very credible. It’s not hard to trick you into things. You’re very modest, and you don’t want to show off your body or admit to getting any sexual pleasure from odd sources. But whenever I or Marcelo start a sentence with the words ‘Honestly, Jeri’, you’re going to absolutely and unquestioningly believe that statement. Similarly, if I say ‘Jeri, dear’, you’re both going to be bound by whatever comes after — but Jeri will be blissfully unaware of that while Cherry will understand it fully. Also, Cherry, you can censor what Jeri hears from the audience. If you think things would be more fun if she can’t hear them say something, she just won’t.

“When I snap my fingers, the trance will end and Jeri will be fully conscious and in control, and remember nothing about hypnotism. Cherry will be fully conscious as well, in the back seat, and remember everything. Three, two, one...”

Livia snaps her fingers. Cherry blinks, assuming the Jeri persona.

“Jeri, welcome to the Sexy Scandal Spectacular! It’s so great to have you here!”

Cherry blushes and beams. “Thanks, Miss Livia, Mister Knight. I... I don’t usually visit places like this, but I’ve been having a lot of fun on Spring Break so far, so I figure an interview couldn’t hurt. And thanks for this dress — it’s totally me!”

Good, good. I’m glad the Jeri persona is manifesting as a normal “good girl” on Spring Break. Livia and I were worried the subject of this routine would result in a “fuddy-duddy” Bible thumper caricature or a cross between Steve Urkel and Mary Whitehouse. If that happened, we’d have to decide between letting her embrace that (and the routine being a lot less sexy) or a trance-intervention (that might make ‘Jeri’ sexier to humiliate, but also less like Cherry’s inner prude-voice and thus less therapeutic to humiliate). But, we get lucky and don’t have to choose.

“I’m so glad you like it,” I say. “Please be careful with it, though. Honestly, Jeri, if you spill anything on it you’ll need to change right away, to avoid it staining. And we have some other clothes here, but I’m afraid nothing quite as classy.”

Jeri nods in understanding and meets my gaze. I see Cherry inside her, with mischief flashing in her eyes. I’m going to enjoy this evening. Even in the chaste prom dress, Cherry does look fabulous — it’s just tight enough to highlight her C-cups, and she’s got a slender build and a dancer’s hips. I let myself overtly leer at her a bit.

“Mister Knight,” Jeri says. “I’m... really not comfortable with the way you’re looking at me.”

“Sorry,” I reply. “It’s just, you’re very beautiful, and I believe beauty should be appreciated.”

“That’s fine,” she says. “I just want you to know I’m not that kind of girl.”

There’s an enormous booing from the audience, and lots of thumbs-down gestures, but it’s cheerful rather than angry. It feels a bit like the audience participation bits at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“I’ll make sure to keep my eyes on your face from now on.”

Ever obedient, I raise my gaze to meet hers and give her a solid slice of Eyefucking. She blushes furiously but doesn’t say anything — and doesn’t look away nearly as quickly as she could, either.

“So,” Livia says, “I understand you’re quite the accomplished dancer.”

Jeri shrugs. “A bit. It was a hobby of mine when I was younger. I haven’t done it for a while now.”

“Rather more than a hobby, Jeri,” I say. “I danced with you last night, remember? You were really good, and very sexy. You could go pro.”

“Wow,” Livia says. “Would you like to give us a little demo? We’d all love to see you dance.”

Jeri looks suspicious. “You just want to get me doing all kind of dirty dancing on stage.”

“Well, duh,” I reply. “I mean, we are the Sexy Scandal Spectacular. You took the oath. What were you expecting?”

Livia is more conciliatory. “You don’t have to dance dirty, just dance... with your heart. Dance passionate but classy.”

Jeri blushes. “It... always seems to go weird places.”

Livia smiles. “Dancing is a perfectly wholesome social activity —”

“Dancing in insalubrious!” Jeri snaps.

Livia giggles, mocking Jeri. “Are you seriously saying you can’t avoid getting all nasty when you dance? That’s pretty hot, but it says more about you than it does about dancing.”

“That’s absolutely untrue!”

“Okay,” I smirk back. “Prove it.”

“Fine! You’re on!” Jeri says, then pauses. “Just give me a moment first. I’m nervous.”

“You might need some liquid courage,” Livia says. “Mimi, could you bring us three glasses of wine? I think the Cabernet Sauvignon would fit well here.”

Ah, how clever — the wine with a faint taste of cherry. But Jeri seems to like this — I’m pretty sure she likes anything regal and aristocratic.

Now, you’ll recall Mimi’s stock costume — the V-neck purple and hot pink shiny latex onesie with the hearts over her tits, from her bimbo transformation — and you no doubt also recall that Mimi’s got some damn fine G-cups. So, she walks over with a wine tray and three glasses of red wine. She’s thankfully ditched the high heels, so I don’t need to worry about her breaking her neck. First, she walks up behind Jeri and hands her a glass. Jeri raises it daintily to her lips and takes a sip. “It’s a nice vintage.”

Mimi walks over to stand on the fourth side of the table, with her back facing the audience and her front directly facing Mimi. “Marcelo, Livia... I’ll just leave these on the table for you two.”

Mimi leans over deeply. She gives the audience a great ass shot, but that’s not the point. The three people seated at the table are treated to one of the most bodacious jumbo-titty tight-latex downblouse views ever. Needless to say, red wine ends up spilling all over Jeri’s pristine blue prom dress.

Here’s the thing. In the moment my gaze is firmly transfixed by Mimi’s amazing chest. I don’t even see Jeri spill her wine. But I reviewed the commercial tapes and our raw footage before writing this. I think you’ve all figured out by now that we’ve set up a recurring gag here — throughout the night, Cherry is going to spill things on Jeri’s clothing again and again, and we’re going to use this to keep stuffing her (them?) into more and more humiliating costumes. And the point is supposed to be that Cherry engineers it all. And she does... every time after this. The very first time, I’m not sure if Cherry is being naughty — or if both halves of her bisected psyche are equally distracted by the cavernous cleavage.

Regardless, Livia stays on script. “Jeri, you’ve spilled wine on your dress. You need to go change. We don’t have anything quite that nice, but we do have some other... er, clothes... you can wear.”

Livia picks up a black Bloomingdale’s clothes-box and hands it to Cherry, who scurries off to the change room and shuts the door. As soon as the door clicks shut, Livia and I begin some lecherous patter to entertain the audience. We expect changing to take about ten minutes, but it’s not three minutes later that the change room door pops upon. It’s Jeri; she’s naked from the waist up, but has her chest pressed to the door so we can’t see much. Then Jeri realizes what Cherry is showing off and pulls the door back so it’s only open an inch. “What should I do with the prom dress?”

“Just put it in the sink, soak it and then drop it in the hamper,” Livia tosses back.

Ten minutes later, Jeri comes out. She’s not showing excessive amounts of skin — but she sure looks ridiculous, and yet pretty sexy. We’ve given her a very tacky disco-girl getup. She’s wearing a tight latex sleeveless bodysuit with a psychedelic rainbow pattern. It’s got a deep neckline emphasizing her cleavage, and the tight material highlights her slender build, round hips and long legs. The leggings flare out at the knees into twin frilly foot-skirts, which almost conceal the platform shoes underneath. She could have made the whole ensemble less humiliating by leaving the wrist-bangles, rainbow headband and hippie-chick tinted spectacles with asymmetric red and blue lenses in the box — but either she didn’t think of it, or Cherry whispered something to her to get her to wear them.

The audience laughs genuinely, and there’s more than a few raucous wolf-whistles from the boys.

She gives Livia and I the “really?” look. I just smirk at her: yeah, babe, really.

Livia grins. “Get down here, Disco Delicious! You’ve promised to show us your moves!”

She walks back to the table, but Livia maneuvers her out to the front of the stage. “Can you at least give me something sensual but classy to dance to? Maybe some older slow-Blues?”

Mimi gives a cheerful thumbs-up from the control panel. She seeks through her song lists. Finally, the first few distinctive instrumental notes of Salt n’ Pepa’s Push It Good blare out — but we don’t get far with that at first.

Jeri swings around. “Really?! Fucking really?!”

Now, I’m pretty sure everyone else present — including Cherry — wants Jeri to dance to that song in that outfit. I suspect Mimi chose it because it’s one of those rare songs that’s impossible to dance to without getting a little bit rude. And I think Livia would drop an ‘Honestly Jeri’ just to see it — even though we want to be careful about overusing those. But Mimi’s quick thinking pulls it all together.

“It’s a wonderful, romantic song,” Mimi says in maximum bimbo mode. “I had my first kiss to this song!”

It’s such a ridiculous thing to say — no one has their first kiss to that song — but Mimi sells it. And I’ve told you before about her puppy dog aura, how no one wants to disappoint her or make her sad. Well, that works here.

“Play the damn song,” Jeri seethes.

Mimi does so, restarting from the beginning — and Jeri starts to dance. Now, I’ve had the theory that when Jeri dances, Cherry steps into the driver’s seat before this. I’m not sure that even Livia’s hypnosis could change that. There’s just a... a thing with Cherry and music. It’s like Livia and magic, or me and pickup. It’s sexy, but it’s not just about sex; it goes beyond that. It’s a kind of artistry. She really is a dancer, too, a great one, and it shines here. Even the humiliating outfit becomes less cheesy and more genuinely erotic — and perhaps even genuinely stylish.

Cherry knows the song. She can do the complex hand motions from the iconic music video. I can’t — I can dance, but those are hard. I imagine her at home, younger, watching the video, wanting to be in it, practicing. She could leave it there, or just throw in a faint hip-jive — but she doesn’t. She does all the suggestive grinding, the rapid hip-thrusts, the air fucking — it’s lewder than could get on MVTV. And she’s really athletic and coordinated, actually jumping up to the beat. She’s not supported up top, either, and that’s pretty damn fine to watch.

There was a bra with the prom dress she could have kept, but she didn’t. I like to imagine that Cherry mentally told Jeri the bra would be visible beneath the dress, and that would be so humiliating... and thus talked her into going commando. Her hard nipples are quite obvious though the tight, thin latex. There’s a faint sheen of sweat on her skin, she’s getting so pumped, and when you combine that and the sweeping neckline and those lovely all-natural boobies that still move naturally in time with the sharp moves of Push It — yeah, that’s some pretty righteous tease erotica.

I need to be honest here. To humiliate Jeri we came up with the best slutty disco hippie chick costume we could. Now, here’s Cherry, out-slutting the costume with her dancing. I suppose it’s because the costume implies a kind of passive slutty girl, but Cherry just has all of this raw, hungry sexuality, all overt and aggressive, when she dances. She... she wants it, so very, very much. Well, obviously — she is the one girl I picked out of hundreds as the next Cathy, after all.

I can actually imagine how that came to be. Her Mum wasn’t trashy, or a whore, or a worthless woman — but she was uninhibited and wildly charismatic, and probably told her daughter things about sex, and attracting men, and having fun at clubs, that other parents wouldn’t tell their daughters at a young age. And she probably sold it as fun, not dirty or hateful — but I think she was also a good parent, and stressed to her young daughter not to do anything early, or it would all turn very sour and scary emotionally. So Cherry waited, and kept her legs shut, and lived in anticipation of the days when she’d be a real woman, and get to join her role model in the crazy psychedelic wonderland of disco dancing, sexy scandals, energy dust and illicit hookups.

And then Mum went to prison, and Pops “straightened” Jeri. Told her that the wonderland was all just sin and death under a glittery cover, the snake of Eden — just look what it did to Mum, after all. And she rebelled, I’m sure, and had lovers — but it was always tainted by neuroses and guilt: awkward, and unsatisfying on a level beyond just the lack of the female orgasm. She wants the glamour, the joyful dirtiness, the scandal and spectacle. We are dangling that in front of her — so yeah, no shit, she’s horny as all fuck and her moves are the moves of a rapidly-overheating temple harlot.

I wish Mimi had made one of her extended remixes of the song, to make the dance last longer — but it was a somewhat spontaneous choice, dating at the earliest to me talking about Cherry dancing last night, so there was no time for that. The song winds down, the dancing stops and Jeri blushes.

“Jeri!” Livia shouts enthusiastically. “That was amazing! So cheeky!”

Now, at this point any normal girl would crack, embrace the mood and have some fun. But Jeri isn’t even a girl, I remind myself, let alone a normal one — she’s a persona, a construct of hypnosis made purely of prudishness, fear of scorn and adoration of societal conventions. Needless to say, she’s having none of it. “You did something! With your creepy hypnosis! This isn’t who I am!”

It’s funny how girls always say that, when they’re actually trying to deny who they really are in order to adhere to conventions. The crowd gets that, and gives the line a big “booo!” worthy of Rocky Horror.

Her voice is hoarse from all the jumping and power-dancing, though. Livia hands her a wine glass. She mindlessly tosses it over her face, with exactly the same body language an athlete might use with a water bottle after a really tough workout. The crowd, loving this, goes berserk with cheers, “fuck yeah!” shouts, cat-calls and wolf whistles. The guys are obviously enthusiastic for the next outfit, but the girls are absolutely ballistic. Jeri blinks, looks down at the glass in her hand and slowly realizes what she just did. She looks at the crowd. She turns around, meeting my glance, then Livia’s. She doesn’t argue — she just looks crestfallen and says quietly, “I’ll go change.”

Livia hands her the second Bloomingdale’s box with a wide grin, and she sulks off to the changing room and shuts the door. Now, you might recall that during the NCSS routine I was wondering if the changing rooms were soundproof enough for the girls to hear the audience induction or not. I don’t get a decisive answer right now, but I do get a clue — Jeri’s “Oh, fuck you!” is only a faintly audible whisper, but the tone told me she’s shouting at the top of her lungs.

I walk over and knock. “You’ll need to open the door if you want to talk,” I shout.

The door inches open a crack. Jeri’s covering her bare breasts with an arm protectively. She’s furious.

“I am not wearing this,” she hisses.

“Oh,” I say glibly. “That’s okay. In fact, I’m honestly pleased to hear that.”

“Thank God,” Jeri says, her voice flooded with relief.

“It’s not a problem at all,” I assure her playfully. “After all, this is the Sexy Scandal Spectacular. We’re always enthusiastic to get some new full-frontal from our volunteers.”

The door slams. Over the next few minutes, we hear clattering and stumbling. It sounds mighty angry. Finally the door cracks open... then slams shut again. But we wait her out, and after a few minutes a very sexy, very angry, very flushed bunny girl steps out. It’s the full Debonair Café bunny waitress get-up — glossy heels, sheer stockings, green satin bustier, prize ribbon nametag with the name “Jeri”, bow-tie choker, tuxedo-cuff armlets and the clip-on fuzzy rabbit ears. I can only imagine how Cherry convinced her to put those on. Livia beckons her over, and she tries to walk with her head held high. It’s going to be a challenge for her, staying in that top. The uniform is designed to accentuate the bust, much like a push-up bra, and she looks like a D-cup girl in it despite her actual size.

“Look on the bright side,” I tell her as she gets back to the table. “At least it’s a classy kind of sexy. And hey — unlike all the other girls, you didn’t have to strip down for a photographer to get to wear that.”

Livia looks her over with a lingering, lecherous stare. “Nice tail,” she quips, squeezing the furry white bulb fixed to her rear.

“Watch it,” Jeri says in a ‘playful’ tone devoid of playfulness. “If you keep that up, there are going to be... rumors about your sexuality.”

We’re going there, now, I guess. Livia just laughs. “I wonder who’s starting those? I’ve only sucked off four or five girls here in Lauderdale, and they all seemed to understand the idea of discretion.”

Jeri just has no idea how to respond to that. She’s a construct made of respectability cliches, after all. The finite state machine crashes trying to find a contextual response to a woman that just says... that, so she doesn’t reply at all.

“Anyway,” Livia continues cordially, “rumors about sexuality. I believe you had asked for an opportunity to refute some of those, about yourself.”

“Yes,” Jeri says eagerly, seizing on to the topic like a life raft. “Yes!”

“I understand some girls had a nickname for you in high school.”

“Yeah,” Jeri says. “Some jealous, hateful girls started this rumor that I had been seen watching the energetic cheerleaders practicing on the athletic field, and that they thought that I was, uh, that I was... enjoying myself doing so. Inappropriately, I mean. I think what we can really take away from that is that it’s those girls with the dirty minds, not me — they saw things they wanted to see! But everyone started calling me ‘The Girl With The Sticky Panties’ — that, and then the boys came up with ‘Sweet Cherry Pie’, years before the famous song. It was terrible! You can’t imagine what that was like to live through! Nobody can ever understand that! Damn them, damn all of them to the fires of hell everlasting! And damn those... those tempting, nubile cheerleaders with their firm bodies and tight uniforms!”

Now, despite Cherry adding some adjectives, and probably guiding the last sentence a bit, Jeri delivers this monologue in a deadly serious tone. It’s overwrought, and borders on the histrionic — more like something out of a Mexican telenovela than a real woman putting voice to her real traumas. But these are real traumas — not, maybe, on the level that the tragedies that befell Cherry’s parents are, but I’m sure this still hurt. And I doubt the crowd is going to take what Jeri is saying at all seriously.

The spiel was melodramatic to begin with, but even as Jeri rants and tears start to run down her face, Cherry’s hand is starting to rub and massage the crotch of that green satin teddy. By the time Jeri gets to the final line with its blatant Freudian slips, there’s real lust in her voice along with hysteric angst. And the audience is laughing and chortling in amazement — but there’s also an undertone of sympathy.

Was this uncomfortable to watch? Yeah. Was it hot? Yeah. But it’s also Livia’s hypnosis and Cherry herself, working together to turn real angst and trauma into something that no one — including the bearer — could possibly take seriously. A parody of angst. Is that real healing? Folks, let me be honest with you — I was not initially confident in Livia’s view of this routine. I thought it might be really erotic, and I even wondered if it would make us as popular as Livia claimed it could.

But when a dude buys a Sexy Doctor costume from Spirit Halloween and does a naughty doctor-and-patient game with his girlfriend, it’s just outside the established context for him to seriously ask himself if he can... treat her, heal her, as anything but an innuendo. And that’s the frame of mind I was in right up until I see that, and I can no longer deny the... the dreadful awesome reality of it.

This is not just a naughty game with a volunteer from the audience playing along for a giggle. Jeri is sobbing in anguish even as Cherry rubs her clit, aroused by Jeri’s torment. We... we cut a goddamn girl in half, and both halves are sitting there on stage, still alive, acting wholly independently of each other, like the twitching halves of a salamander bisected by a razor blade. Or perhaps more like a salamander and its tail — one half with a mind and a soul, and the other still twitching along mindlessly on cultural cliches and other autonomic nervous responses.

I told Cherry we could improve her confidence, and I meant it, but what I visualized then and this — it’s like comparing therapeutic massage to open-heart surgery. Are we healers, then? Really? Or monsters toying with a girl’s mind? I... as I write this, I still have no goddamn idea. Things will turn out well for Cherry in the end, but that doesn’t make what we are doing here responsible or ethical. Make up your own mind — I’m just telling you what goes down.

I lose my breath from that introspection and stagger, finding my way back to the chair. Not a soul notices me, their eyes universally fixed on the growing hints of moisture in the crotch of a green satin teddy.