Socially Engineered

“Fuck.”

There were two kinds of people that went to professional conferences, the ones that lived for them, and the ones that suffered through them. It might not have been a strict binary but it was at minimum the two poles of professional existence.

Chris Redford, being a sane and well adjusted human being, was of the latter.

Plenty of his peers used conferences and conventions as an excuse to be young again… or to act like college kids on spring break… but 12-16 hours of meetings for days on end was torture enough without a hangover or any more sleep deprivation. He wasn’t here for the culture of his industry or a good time, he was here to work.

“Fucking afterparties.” 

He thought he was far enough away from the exit to not bother, be bothered by, or seen by anyone, but he was wrong.

“I know how you feel,” the woman’s voice almost made him jump but he kept his startle under control and turned around.

She was tall, or tallish, about his height in heels, and wore a black dress, a black soft leather jacket, and in the parking lot lighting her long, wavy hair was dark. Her jacket was short and the neckline of her dress was low. She was curvy, and older… about his age, but he didn’t know for certain since she clearly took care of herself. He could tell her coat, her dress, her shoes, and her bag were all designer items, brands his ex-wife would know, ones whose names he’d recognize.

As she took a pack of cigarettes out of her bag she smiled at him, “Have you ever had fun at any of these things?”

She lit a match and he saw her eyes more clearly in that moment, they were gray or green or a very pale blue, and her makeup was subtle.

There was no way of knowing who she was, since she wasn’t wearing her conference lanyard like she was on a school field trip the way plenty of people inside the theater were. This was an off-site event, a cover band concert. He’d been ducking social events with his co-workers and industry peers for the first few nights and chose this one since it would probably be too loud to hear them drunkenly recount everything he’d been in the room for.

It was easy being cynical, and the rest of the job was hard so he stuck with cynicism.

“I don’t know,” he smiled at her, which was easy enough to do, cynical or not, “I think I have… just not lately.”

She took a drag and exhaled with the ease and cadence of a lifelong smoker. “Yeah, me too, I think. The last few I’ve tried to talk myself into it, but, you know…” she shrugged and held her cigarette near her red lips. Do you think we’re 25 feet away from the doors?”

“Uh,” Chris looked back towards the entrance, “close enough.”

“Good,” she took another drag and exhaled smoke like it was a sigh, “the last thing I want is to get yelled at for trying to relax and have a quiet moment.”

It was cool outside, not cold but cool and pleasant, especially compared to the heat and the noise of the party inside.

“I’m sorry,” she reached into her bag, pulled her pack back out and held it out to him, “did you want one?”

She had a warm voice and always made deliberate eye contact; he assumed she was in sales. “No…” he’d been standing there quietly watching her smoke, “I uh, I quit.”

“Really,” her eyes lit up “me too!”

He laughed, “I don’t want to be that guy, but you know you’re smoking right now, right?”

“Yes,” she took another drag and blew smoke out in a long stream, like blowing a kiss, “but I’m not smoking all the time. How’d you quit.”

He laughed again, “It always gets a laugh, but I tried hypnosis, and it actually worked.”

“Really?” She moved her hand as she talked, he’d noticed that, just like he noticed the very deliberate way she smoked. The glowing tip moved here and there, and now he watched as she started to move it back to her lips, then stopped. “I tried hypnosis, but you got me, I didn’t really quit, so I guess it didn’t work for me… unless you count smoking less… like a lot less as quitting.”

“I think that’s your call, really,” he held out his right hand, “Chris.”

“Oh, it’s Whitney actually, but Chris is a good guess, I look like a Christina, I think.” She took his hand and made eye contact, “it’s nice to meet you.”

He felt something electric in her touch and something deeply personal and powerful in that moment of eye contact. She was a… chest forward woman, but her eyes were magnetic and he had manners. “Are you sure you don’t want one, you look really stressed.”

She let go of his hand when she finished talking, and he found himself watching and waiting for that cigarette to move back to her lips. There was something in the way she held it, the way she tapped it to ash, the way it seemed alive in her hand like a dance partner.

“I think everyone here is really stressed.” He was trying to think if he’d seen her on the conference floor, or seen her other places, and he felt like he’d remember her… but you didn’t see everyone, especially when you were mostly behind closed doors.

“They are,” she brushed her free hand through her hair and sighed. “Everyone at these things is always incredibly activated. It’s stress, it’s excitement, it’s anxiety, it’s having your game face on and sleeping in a strange bed. No one here can disengage, it’s kind of why you shouldn’t really sign anything here, and why you should get other people to sign what you put in front of their faces.”

“Yeah…” the cigarette moved in her hand, then slowly came closer and closer to her lips and she waited for him to talk, “Yeah, I know. Business development, how about you?”

“Performance and development management." She took another drag and exhaled slowly. “And I already know I have nothing I can teach you, so don’t ask.”

She said it with a smile and it felt good. “I don’t know, I think we all need to keep learning, or let ourselves be open to new things, especially now. But… but what do you really do? Are you a coach?”

“I mean,” she shrugged, “essentially, and yes, I always get brought to these because I’m pretty and I can talk to people. They haven’t traded me out for the younger model yet either, so it’s good for my ego. But what I really do is help people focus and relax into success mostly. There’s a lot of visualization and analysis, a lot of internal and external best practices process development, but really…” 

She slowly took another drag and made very deliberate eye contact with him as she did, and he felt a strange sort of relief watching her take that last long drag from her cigarette, then exhaled another slow kiss of smoke. Chris followed as  the butt fell from her fingers down to the concrete before she stepped on it and ground it down.

“I just do my best to help people focus and relax. I do what I can to get people out of their heads and out of their own way, and help them find a path forward into themselves where they can be relaxed in the moment. And you understand that.”

She was reaching into her bag for another cigarette, and he thought about what she was saying as she lit another smoke, “You don’t mind, do you? It’s… it’s nice talking to you, better than the same old same old, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded as she smiled and brought the cigarette up to her lips. “Yeah, this is nice.”

“It’s what we all need in our lives, these little moments of connection where we’re not looking at other things, where we can focus on the present. People talk a lot about mindfulness now, but that’s become a marketing term, or a thought leadership phrase…” 

She didn’t quite manage to take a puff and the fact she didn’t, the fact it was so close… to seeing her lips curl around it. There was something frustrating about waiting for it, and he found himself hanging on her every word as he watched and waited.

“It’s a trend now, a cliche, if someone starts talking to you about mindfulness, it’s natural to start zoning out, because they’re probably repeating something they think they’re supposed to say. We all do it, we all fall into these patterns of behavior and we stop thinking and just do what’s presumed, or ascribed. We stop thinking and we just react. We stop thinking and we sort of lose our focus on what we want, and we do what we’ve been told to do, and when we stop thinking and go on autopilot, we don’t really realize it, we just stop thinking and that’s it, we just…”

The entire time she was talking it seemed like she was going to stop at any moment and take a drag, and he didn’t know why he was so anxious to see it happen, but the relief of watching those soft red lips close around her cigarette as she inhaled was deeply relieving, and as she said, “Stop thinking” as she exhaled a moment later, Chris just kind of… stopped thinking for a second.

“And then we nod our heads and agree with what people say,” she smiled and kept eye contact with him, “we just nod our heads up and down,” she was nodding, “over and over again and again, and we nod and nod and do what we’re told, not thinking, losing focus, losing track of what we wanted to say, really losing track of our own voices, our own words, and we go along to get along don’t we Chris?”

He nodded in response to her question, seeing her nod while watching the slight movements of the cigarette, following its motion, moving closer to her mouth then further away, closer, then away, in and out, “And you don’t need to smoke to relax, but you are noticing how that you’re getting a kind of second hand relaxation being out here with me, aren’t you?”

She nodded again, and he nodded with her, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders as she took another drag, feeling his tension settling slowly as she brought her cigarette to her lips then feeling it wash away with the exhale of smoke.

“We all need moments where we can stop thinking,” the cherry glowed and his eyes felt soft and suddenly heavy, and it was nice. “Of course our brains never fully turn off, awake or asleep we’re always working on something… solving something, and that’s a benefit of human existence, as long as it’s pointed in the right direction, don’t you agree?”

Somehow everything that followed after ‘stop thinking’ seemed distant, and it was strange because he felt focused in on her, listening and hanging on her every word, but it was like her words were passing through a filter now. Still, he was held wrapt by the almost predictable movements of her cigarette and the slowness and the softness of her lips closing around it, breathing in… inhaling… then exhaling and feeling the tension of the day and the night and the ragged edges of the world all drifting away.

“The secret is effective problem solving, and sometimes pure focus is the best way to solve the problem of over-thinking… isolating your attention… your sources of stimulation, internally and externally, and having moments of directed passivity.” She took another drag and he stood there, quiet, captivated and transfixed, and any time it seemed like the filter was thinning she would take another drag, and it would pull him back into that peaceful state of calm.

“We can stop thinking… or over-thinking… when we just focus, and give ourselves space to relax into that feeling. We can give ourselves over to the passive and peaceful attention of simply existing in the moment… and it’s so much different than the endless assault of compromise, of losing our goals and going along… of losing control of our own voices and our own desires… Because when we focus on what we want… focused only on what we really want… to find peace and calm… deep relaxing quiet… we can stop thinking… stop thinking, and just feel what we need to feel now… feeling so calm and so open now, Chris.” 

As she finished she took an exceptionally long drag, and his breath mirrored hers again, his exhale causing his whole body to deflate as the tension drained out of him in an audible sigh of calming release.

“How do you feel, Chris?"

She was closer to him now, in his personal space and she took his hand in her free hand, eyes bright in the dark, a soft, welcoming smile on her lips.

“I feel calm and open.” He didn’t really know where that answer came from, then he watched her cigarette fall down to the concrete, then get ground down into trash. As that happened he felt a strange familiarity move through him.

“Are you hypnotizing me?” He blinked and felt distant, but the distance was familiar, and she laughed.

“No,” she held up her very dead phone, “I’m asking you what hotel you’re at, or if you could order me a ride?”

Her smile was broad and he felt her watching him closely and might have even fluttered her eyelashes at him. “And no, I don’t have a charging cable either. I just genuinely forgot to charge it, but you’ll help a new friend, won’t you?”

Chris absolutely couldn’t think of a reason not to, “Sure, um…”

“Unless,” she’d let go of his hand at some point and took it again, “you’d like to get out of here, together. I mean, if that’s what you really want to do right now.”

He couldn’t think of anything else he wanted more, and as they talked and waited for the car back to the hotel, which was not the same one she was staying at, it felt like the genuinely started to get to know each other. It wasn’t a long wait or a long conversation but it just felt like they came from the same place and knew the same kinds of people. He didn't have to say much either, she was a wonderful conversationalist, and when he did speak she was fantastically attentive. She filled up the air around him and then they were outside the front entrance to the hotel.

“Would you mind if we… I kind of want another smoke, is that okay?” She already had the pack in her hand and there was something alluring, something tugging at him, begging him to say yes.

“Of course, yeah, I think there’s a… uh, my room has patio access if that’s not…” The hotel was not one linked to the conference and it was not particularly close to the main venue, and so it was quieter, which made the extra travel time worth it.

“Stop thinking and relax Chris,” he felt a sudden simplicity move through his body, through his brain like an actual physical wave of calm. “That would be wonderful. Take me to your room, if that’s what you really want right now.”

“It is.” It had been a long time since he’d done something like this, but he wasn’t thinking of the last time, or thinking much at all, he was just caught up in the moment. 

They went to his room, and once they wer inside she reached out and touched his face, “Before we go out there, can I ask you something?”

Green.

In the room he could see that she had green eyes and dark brown hair.

“Yes… yes, of course.”

Green eyes that held him.

“Doesn’t it feel good to just focus on what you want now, Chris? I mean, isn’t it so much easier to let your mind be quiet and focus on the things that give you pleasure and purpose, that speak to your desires and those little needs that always spark up inside… needs that dim, and fade, and fall away into the darkness, smothered by other people’s voice… things you let go of and start to forget, all of it falling, sinking, fading away… down into the dark… like heavy eyelids starting to flutter as the rest of you follows, just nodding along… losing yourself in what they want, losing your own voice in agreement with what I want… just sinking… down… focused on what you want… to sink, and let go… wanting to do something you’ve never been able to do before… wanting to stop thinking… stop thinking and… surrender.”

At first he followed her question, recognizing that she’d asked him something, something that tied into their earlier conversations, but as she kept speaking he lost himself in her eyes and in the sound of her voice, and then she was stroking his face and looking deep into his eyes, her eyes becoming all he could see.

“Look into my eyes and surrender to the moment, let yourself want to surrender… crave it and welcome it into yourself. We all surrender to so many things we are powerless in front of… we lose ourselves in powerlessness and feel helpless in doing what we have no choice in, but when you choose it… when you want it… surrender is liberating, it lets you become one with me… my voice becoming one with your mind… my will becoming your will, your will becoming my voice… You want what I want, you want to surrender to me and stop thinking.”

He felt her fingers in his hair as she leaned in close and started to whisper in his ear, “Just let everything else fade away now, Chris. Just be present with me now, and listen to the way I say your name, Chris. It feels good to hear it, it brings us closer, and any time you hear me say it, you just feel closer to me, don’t you, Chris? Don’t you feel so much closer to me now, Chris? And don’t you want to be even closer… so close you could lose yourself in me… so close you wouldn’t know where I end and you begin… as close as my will becoming your will… as close as my voice becoming your thoughts… don’t you want to surrender to me… to lose yourself so deep inside me now… Chris? Stop thinking and answer me.”

He moaned as she slid her hand between his legs and started rubbing him over his pants. His mind was quiet and he’d heard everything she said, but the details were a fog of words, floating away like smoke.

“Don’t you want to be deep inside me Chris?” She whispered in his ear and gave his hardening cock a firm but gentle squeeze. “You need to stop thinking and sink deep inside me now, Chris.”

He sighed out a short groan and she started rubbing him more vigorously as she waited for his reply.

It took a moment but he managed to find his voice, “I don’t… I don’t usually do this.”

His answer was divorced from her questions and from everything she’d been saying, dirty talk, forceful, kinky dirty talk… that’s what he consciously registered.

“I know you don’t,” he voice was so low and so soft and her hand felt so good. She pressed her palm flat against him and he started rubbing against it on instinct. “That’s why you need to stop thinking, Chris. Let yourself finally stop thinking, relax, and let yourself go. I’ll let you go as deep inside me as you can… as you want… as you need… and you need to get deep inside me now, Chris.”

God, he needed to get deep inside her, and he moved to take her coat off and she gently put her hand around his neck, “I’ll take that as a yes… you just take off your clothes, and let me take off mine. Show me you can do this, and I’ll give you what you need.”

His button down was off, and his pants were around his ankles when he said, half in a horny daze with his cock bulging against his briefs, “Is your phone really dead?”

Her jacket was off, her shoes were off, and in answer to his question she unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor, revealing matching periwinkle blue bra and panties that were slim, elegant, and devastatingly flattering. She was fit but not overly so, and curvaceous, and when she said, “Does it matter,” his cock twitched as his heart skipped a beat.

“Uh… um…” she swayed over to him, her body moving with a dancer’s grace, and she put her finger to his lips.

“Cleary, you’re not very good at letting yourself stop thinking, so to put your questions aside…”

She was looking deep into his eyes, folding his focus, holding his world, and he felt distant, almost like he was having an out of body experience, or what he imagined those felt like, “Yes, it’s completely dead, and I need to charge it. And I don’t do this kind of thing either, but I wanted to meet someone tonight, and we’re both lucky I met you…”

She caressed his face, then traced her finger down his chest, and finally pulled the band of his briefs down, causing his cock to spring out, then without a world she knelt down and took him in her mouth for a long, slow suck.

Gently she held his cock as her lips slid up and down, up and down, up and down, all while keeping eye contact with him, then she stopped, but didn’t get up. “That’s all you get until you show me you can obey me, Chris.”

Suddenly he knew what she looked like… “I’m sorry, are you.. A, uh…”

Her hand was on his cock, stroking slowly, “I’m not an escort, no… and I don’t want your money, or anything else… all I want…” she started talking to his cock “is for you to just relax, let go, and show me you can do what I tell you to, because I like taking control… and deep down inside, you want me to take control…”

She was stroking him slowly and smoothly, “You just want to focus right here, looking deep into my eyes while you let the rest of the world fade away… slipping away into the pleasure…” she slid his cock into her mouth again smoothly and effortlessly, then went back to stroking, using the fresh slickness to help… “only the pleasure now… just let the pleasure turn everything off and stop thinking.”

He stood there, suddenly more dazed and more distant, and he watched as she went from talking to his cock to slowly sucking it again. This time she worked on him for more than a gentle caress of her mouth, using one hand and her lips to ease him close to the edge.

“Focus on the pleasure, focus on me, and just give in to the sound of my voice now, Chris. I can take you deeper inside… I can take you deeper inside me…” she hadn’t broken eye contact with him, and he hadn’t broken it with her either, not until his eyes just seemed to close on their own, lulled shut by the pleasure and the smoothness of her lips and touch. 

“I just need you to finish obeying me now,” he was aware of her standing up, “open your eyes, look deep into my eyes, and follow the sound of my voice, Chris. Follow it closer and closer to me… let yourself feel so close that my voice becomes your thoughts again, let my will become your will again, and do what I tell you to.”

His eyes were open, they’d opened at some point and he was lost in her eyes.

“Take off your clothes, and when you do, say I hear and obey.”

“I hear and obey.” 

He was naked.

“Come here, stand behind me, and unclasp my bra.”

He did as he was told, and it was easy and effortless to just respond. His hands were on her back when she said, “Stop, walk back in front of me, and do it again, but do it right this time.”

He froze up, “I uh…”

She didn’t look at him, she just said very softly, “When you do what you’re told, say I hear and obey. I need you to say that so we have clear communication. It shows me that you are staying present and not thinking.”

He walked back in front of her, found himself looking down at her very nice, pushed up breasts, and saying, “I hear and obey” as he walked around her again and this time she rolled her shoulders back slightly to make it easier on him.

“Good, now stay behind me and pull down my panties, slowly.”

“I hear and obey.” As his hands slid down her hips and her thighs, feeling her soft skin and the smooth fabric of her panties he felt himself melting.

“Now take my hand, walk me to the bed, and kneel.”

He did as he was told and said what he was supposed to say. It was easy, but it wasn’t as effortless. A part of him had to engage with everything, and it felt good but it was also odd. He knew he was doing it because clearly it was what she liked, but…

“If I let you fuck me, will you turn your brain off?”

“I hear and obey.” The words were easy that time. He thought he was going to just say yes, but instead it was I hear and obey.

He climbed on top of her and she guided him in. She was wet and gasped a little as he slid into her. She moaned as he started to thrust, steadily and evenly.

“Deeper…” she said the word like she’d say harder, “you can go deeper fo me… go deeper and stop thinking. I want to see your eyes go dim and your brian turn off. Go deeper now.”

He thrust further into her and she moaned in satisfaction, “You want to go deeper, you need to go deeper, go deeper and stop thinking… do it now.”

His thrusts were smooth and steady, he was in his paces and every push was deep into her. He looked into her eyes as she said “Go deeper and stop thinking. Go deeper for me, go deeper into me and let my voice becomes your thoughts.”

He’d been on the edge of a dream, a floating, pleasurable and disoriented feeling of compulsive movements, just fucking the hot stranger he’d met less than an hour ago, but something flipped even as he kept fucking her… or because his brain turned on to make sure he was still fucking her the right way.

“You’re,” he couldn’t really stop the motion even as he looked down on her, down into her green eyes, her wavey brown hair spread on the pillow, her shapely body smooth and soft in the room’s dim light. “You’re… you’ve been hypnotizing me…”

“No I’m not. I don’t think hypnosis works, so why would I be hypnotizing you… and why are you thinking about hypnosis when I told you to go deeper and stop thinking.”

Her voice was breathy and every few words had a moan attached to them, and then he was saying, “I hear and obey” and everything inside him went quiet.

“Good boy,” she wrapped a leg around him. “Fuck me deeper, fuck yourself deeper inside me… deeper and closer now Chris. You’re so close, and so deep… all you have to do is let go and come inside my will… all you have to do is cum inside my words… come closer… to me Chris. You want to be so close you don’t exist, you want to be so close you disappear inside… cum inside me… cum deeper… cum down… all the way down… deeper down… now Chris… cum now Chris.”

I hear and obey escaped his lips as he came.

“Don’t stop… keep going… deeper… keep going, say it until you’re empty, Chris.”

His body moved at her command and his voice repeated those words until he was gasping, whispering, and collapsing down on top of her.

She held him close and stroked his head, whispering in his ear.

He started to stir suddenly, overwhelmed by heat and touch and closeness, but as he started to stir and move and push away, she pulled him in hard, pulled his hair suddenly and said, “Stop thinking.”

Finally, desperately, he did simply stop thinking.

“Listen to me very carefully Chris, you’ve gone so deep inside me, so deep, but next time you’ll go even deeper, do you understand? Yes, you do, because my words are your thoughts, my voice is your voice, my will is your will. You’re inside me, and I’m even deeper inside you now. So deep inside that you will never get me out of your mind. I will always be there, spreading under the surface, taking root in the deepest corners of your mind, and you’ll come back to me whenever I call you, just so you can go even deeper for me. But I can’t keep you here forever, as much as I want to. It’s time to be you, and you’ll go back into yourself and be yourself any time you hear me and only me say, be who I’ve made you. Now Chris, it’s time to be who I’ve made you.”

He was thirsty and hot, and spent, and he felt wonderful.

It had been a long time since he’d had a hook up, and never one like this or with a woman like her. She looked over at him and tousled her hair, “Do you know what I could go for right now?”

He looked at her then stared up at the ceiling, spent as an empty bucket, “A gallon of Gatorade?”

“Oh, my favorite flavor is blue, but no… I could really go for that smoke.” She laughed, “but a nice cool blue does sound good.”

He was thinking about her in the parking lot standing under the lights, the cigarette coming up to her lips…

“But that means we’ll have to get dressed.” He honestly didn’t know if he could get himself to move, and she laughed.

“Yes, but then you can watch me undress again…” she nudged him, “if you want to. Do you want to see me get undressed again?”

“Yeah,” he looked over at her and smiled, looking deep into her eyes.

“And do you want me to suck your cock again?”

“Uh huh.” He nodded.

“And do you want to fuck me again… tonight?”

“Yes,” her eyes were becoming his whole world and her voice was so soft, “yes I do.”

“Then put on your clothes, help me get dressed, come outside with me for a smoke, and then…” She ran a finger down her chest, her ample chest, and smiled wider.

“I hear and obey.” He was out of bed, gathering up both of their clothes

“Oh, I like that, that’s fun. You should say things like that to me more often.”

Now she was spread out naked on the bed, waiting for him, and he was very confused. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“I mean,” she put a hand between her legs and rubbed a little, “now that you’ve said it, you’re damn right I want you to say it. But between asking me if I was hypnotizing you and day dreaming about me making you say stuff like that, I wonder what other kinky stuff you’ve got in there… Help me with my dress, I don’t need anything else.”

He offered her his hand, “I hear and obey.”

“Fuck, I do like hearing you say that, say it again.” He was kneeling and she was sliding into her dress as he held it for her. “Say it again.”

He did, and it was as easy as breathing. “I really… I think you fucked my brains out.”

“Probably,” she turned. “Stop thinking and zip me up.”

“I hear and about.”

“So, it’s like I was saying…” he was staring at her as she brought the cigarette close to her lips then moved it away so she could finish her thought. “When people struggle with their own personal goals and get overwhelmed with what’s imposed on them… when they stop feeling like they’re doing what they want to… what they need to so they can be happy… they either give up… be it quitting or performance deterioration… or they give in and just go with the flow. My job… my goal… what I work to do is help people see what they want and strive for it… so they’re not just constantly giving up and giving in… just going along… getting along… and it feels like the longer you just nod your head an go with it, the less you’re you…”

Finally she was inhaling… and then slowly exhaling, and what she was saying started drifting away in with the smoke as she looked deep into his eyes, then took another drag.

“When we’re done out here, you’ll let me charge my phone off your laptop, won’t you?”

He couldn’t think of why that would be a problem.

“Yeah… yes, of course.”

“And,” in the dark the tip of her cigarette glowed and he felt like he was floating, “you know I didn’t do anything weird to you, right? I got a little bossy, but you liked it, and you wanted me to tell you to stop thinking, because you really need that in your life more, so you can be happy, right?”

“I… I need to stop thinking.” With her free hand she was playing with the neck line of her dress.

“If you say it again, I’ll flash you a tit out here.” Her eyes were sparkling, and she took another slow inhale.

“I need to stop thinking.

And exhaled as he said those words.

Everything was so calm and quiet.

“You know I didn’t hypnotize you, right? You’ve been hypnotized before, so you know that wasn’t what I was doing, I was just getting you to where you need to be to fuck me. Tell me I didn’t hypnotize you.”

“I hear and obey, you did not hypnotize me.” Of course she didn’t, he’d been hypnotized before, and she didn’t really think hypnosis worked, so why would she?

“And you only say that because you think it’s hot, right?” Again, another drag and another plunge into peaceful calm… like plunging down into floating up and away.

“I say it because I think it’s hot, and because you said you like it.”

“That’s right,” she ground the butt down in the ash tray on top of the garbage can outside, then took another one from her pack and lit it.

He watched the flame come to life and light the tip, and slowly, so slowly he watched her lift it to her lips, closing around it and sucking smoothly in, “I do like it,” the words escaped with the smoke, “so you’ll keep saying it every time you do what you’re told, especially when you stop thinking.”

The world dimmed and his mind turned off.

“Good, now let’s go plug my phone in while you’re totally blank, and then, let’s get you fucking me again before you come back around. But first, just watch me finish this cigarette and tell me why you love watching me smoke.”

“I hear and about. I like the way you hold them. I like waiting for your lips to touch them. I like the smell, it reminds me…”

Chris Redford would never know what happened when he let Whitney plug her phone into his work laptop, and would never know how compromised the machine became, but what she accessed from his device was nothing compared to the shortcut she put inside his mind. By morning he would only have the memory she replaced their night with… until she visited him again and activated him.

Most targets didn’t respond the way he did, but she also didn’t fuck her targets, not in the way or in the intensity she fucked him. This one had been special, and he would prove to be especially valuable for her for just as long as she wanted to play with him.

Which, given how well he responded to suggestion, would be a very long time.