Creeps

Chapter Six

At the close of their session, after washing her hands in the utility sink that served as Martin’s kitchen and bathroom as one, Stacey at last had her wits about her enough to pursue a larger question. “How much longer do you think you can keep having her jilling it in your office during sessions before she wigs out?”

Her concern, however, was unnecessary. “I’m already on it. I haven’t had the chance yet, but I have some thoughts on how to address it next time out. If it goes right, my hope is to continue the behavior with some adjustments in rationale. If it doesn’t, we extinguish it for the time being but move forward making her romanticize it, miss it, fixate on how much better it is than yada yada.”

“Good. Sometimes, I almost forget you aren’t just some guy who paid a blonde beta to unbutton her top for tips.”

“Wait until I tell you about what I managed with this smoking hot brunette last spring.”

She faced his mirror, nonchalantly touching up her makeup. “Speaking of brunettes, how, um, goes getting her into me  instead of just you? Not that I’m rushing things – I know, never rush a genius.” Her reflection smiled patronizingly.

“I’ll be honest: not great. It’s tricky navigating it, what with the personal issues between you two, but my hope is that once I have her libido under control, I can start redirecting it toward women more broadly, and eventually yourself specifically.” His preferred route still would be to resolve their enmity and approach things more directly, but neither had given him anything to work with on that score.

“And you think that will do the trick?”

“Always hard to say. When you’re working with the human mind, you never know what a button will do until you push it, so we’ll poke and prod and see what activates and what doesn’t.”

“Well OK then.” She pivoted to face him with deep red lips. “Look forward to hearing your next offer. Makes  it as good as this one.”

Kira parted her legs and slipped a hand down her gym shorts before Martin even left his office this time, the chant in full swing. He departed, giving her the privacy she needed. (Stacey’s camera notwithstanding. She had dropped it off over the weekend, stressing its superior recording capabilities.) He played Candy Crush in the waiting room long enough for her to get off at least once, gauging by the established precedent, then let himself back in.

From Kira’s outfit, she was either on her way from or to the gym. The latter, he decided. No boyfriend in tow  today, so she likely intended to jog back to campus and work out, like she had last time while he was priming Stacey. At least, she’d do so once she put the outfit back on. Her tank top was lifted over her bra, the same gray sports bra he’d seen during the phantom weigh-in. Her little green gym shorts had made it halfway down her hips, panties with them, but it left more than enough room for her hand to get in and do what it needed to do. The girl’s fascination with own tits was in full swing as well, a meaty handful pressed into hungry fingers.

Martin buckled down and waited for her to finish coming, the trigger that seemed to reset her to a calm state. From his own intensive studies of those videos Stacey so coveted, Kira looked to have gotten off three separate times during both sessions, each time settling back in until the implications of her chanting as filtered through the comedic mindset of Michael Scott built her back into a barely controlled frenzy of lust. Martin didn’t mind waiting. Even if they ran late, his hunch was that she wouldn’t mind.

Something told him she liked coming here.

With a lurch like half a sit-up, then two more, she whimpered out her orgasm with one hefty tit squeezed tight in her hand and fell still. Her right still rested in her pussy, the left still softly fondling the bounty inside her bra, underboob spilling out haphazardly. Someday – he hoped someday soon – he wouldn’t need to settle for glimpses and partials. In the meantime, it tided  him over.

“Kira,” he said softly, putting an end to her murmured attempt to keep her mantra going in pursuit of her next come.

“Mmmm.”

“We’re doing such good work, Kira. I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

“Mmm. Thanks.”

“How about you? How do you feel about our time together ?” He emphasized the words, and was rewarded by her picking up on their presence in the words she’d been frigging into her brain.

“Relaxing. Enjoyable. Mmmm.”

“That’s good. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“So enjoyable.”

“Since I’ve been giving you your privacy,” he said, switching off the camera and tucking it into a desk drawer, “I’ve been worried you might not be making as much progress. Tell me, how do you feel about what you’ve been doing while I’ve been out of the office?”

“Good. Love coming here.” She giggled in a manner that she must have felt was sly.

“That’s great. But now I want to ask you a sensitive question, Kira. If you don’t want to answer, tell me so and  that will be fine. Understand?”

“Mm. Sensitive question. Don’t have to answer.”

“Very good. Now remember, coming here feels…?”

“Natural. Rewarding. Good.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Mmm. Yes. Trust Professor Manning.”

“And when we’re together, you feel…”

“Relaxing. Enjoyable.” Wrinkle.  “ Relaxed  and enjoy it? Enjoy myself.” Satisfied with her rephrasing, she fell silent.

“I want you to tell me what you do when I leave the office. Remember, I’m not in here while you’re doing it, so I don’t know. But I’d like it if you trusted me enough to share – though I’ll understand if you’re doing anything bad, or unnatural.”

“No!” she whimpered, face scrunching like a rabbit with the sniffles, and at least as cute. “No, so good. Natural. Trust you.”

“Then do you think you could tell me?”

Wrinkle wrinkle.  Her head shook side to side. “Nmm. Embarrassing.”

“How can something be embarrassing if it’s natural, and good?”

She shook her head. “You’ll think less of me. Don’t want you to be mad.”

“And if I promise I won’t get mad?”

Wrinkle.  “Can’t promise that. Done things… you’d freak out if you knew.”

“Well, can I ask if it’s embarrassing like the time you woke up during the weigh-in?”

“Oh! Mm. Yes. Like that. And we both got embarrassed. Can’t happen again.”

“I didn’t think less of you for that, though, did I? I didn’t freak out or get mad.”

“Hmm. Guess not. But embarrassed . Almost ruined things.”

“That’s right. You were mad, I remember. And even more embarrassed.”

At last, Kira withdrew her finger from her pussy to scratch an itch on her nose. It glistened in the light creeping in through the blinds. “Mm. Mad because  I was embarrassed.”

“Yeah. But it worked out all right, didn’t it? Now things are going so well, aren’t they?”

“Mmm. Like coming here.”

“I like having you come here.” He paused for her mischievous giggle. “And honestly? Seeing you that day, like that?”

“In my undies.”

“Right, in your… yeah. I was embarrassed, but I also sort of liked it. Did you sort of like it?” She had told him as much at the time, that it had held something of a hot-for-teacher vibe for her.

“Mmmm.”

“That’s right. Say it: you like Professor Manning seeing you in your, ah, undies.”

“Mmmm. I liked Professor Manning seeing me in my undies.”

“Ten more times.”

Ten more she went, though he noted that she did retain the past tense. Beyond that, although the horny little minx’s subconscious was going along with it rather well, he had little doubt that her conscious mind might well go ballistic if she came to realize how much she had shown off today. He had but to walk to the end of the couch to see her dripping, gaping pussy on display (which he did). Especially since the story he was selling her while awake was that she was working through her Stacey problems, not assisting him in brainwashing her to come like crazy in his office. She probably walked out of here confused at how her Stacey issues segued into random masturbation every session.

His counseling resumed once she’d finished her ten. “So if you like having me see you in your… your underwear,” he amended, having reached his threshold on her chosen term. Using the subject’s chosen vocabulary was a wise strategy for any hypnotist worth their salt, but he was doing all this to someone who was turning nineteen next week. Even Martin Manning had his squick  point. “And I liked seeing you in your underwear, and since our time together is so relaxing and enjoyable, and you love coming here… Do you think we would like it if we shared another experience like that?”

The hand cupping her tit gave it a firm squeeze. “Mmmm. Probably.”

Martin sat back, folding his arms across his chest in smug anticipation of her submission. “So… now would you like to tell me what you did in here  this evening?”

How he had lucked into meeting a girl like Kira Reeves, he would never understand. The perfect patient. Trained for trances but a clean slate for commands. The ideal intersection of youthful whims and adult urges. Trusting, unanalytical, biddable, eager to please authority figures, and as libidinous as Bear Lake was cold. No, she wasn’t Stacey, but there were days like these when Stacey wasn’t Kira. He had never dreamed a woman like Stacey Reeves would approach him for help becoming his fuck buddy. Now that she had, he still didn’t know which Reeves girl’s entry into his life was more surreal, more serendipitous.

So long as there was no unforeseen interruption in the next few moments – a phone ringing, an unexpected visitor knocking at the door, a sneeze that snapped her awake…

Martin winced expectantly.

All remained quiet and still.

Really?

Still.

Huh.

“I was playing with myself. Coming. I’ve been doing it for weeks. I love coming here. It feels so natural, so rewarding, so good.” Kira smiled, her free hand sinking back into her snatch in relief.

Martin frowned at the door, puzzled, wondering how his fortune could have improved so substantially overnight. Really? No surprise arrival of a boyfriend he hadn’t known was waiting in the parking lot? Kira was falling in line far, far too easily. It made sense logically, but intuitively, it flew in the face of his entire lived experience. Surely something  would come along to ruin this. Right? The girl was still exposing far too much; a sudden chill could alert her to her exposed cunt. A bug could land on her bare butt. No chill, though. No bug .

Unforeseen external threats still seemed the most probable. No Naomi peeping at the minuscule gaps in the window blinds in some desperate scheme to punish him for his infidelity? A new walk-in patient banging on the office door when no receptionist greeted them? Not a bird flying into the window to frighten her alert?

Not one single nightmare scenario invoked at the capricious whims of a vengeful overlord dictating his misery from afar for some twisted amusement? Seriously?

Sometimes, it seemed, good things simply happened, no matter how bad of a person you were.

Marveling at the mercy from the powers that be, Martin returned his focus to his patient. “I’m glad you told me. I want you to know that I don’t think any less of you, and I’m not mad, and I’m not embarrassed. I asked you to tell me, and you followed my instructions.”

“Mmm. Yeah. Nothing can stop me from doing what I want.”

“Exactly right. Now when you wake up, you may still feel a little uneasy about it. I want our time together to be relaxing and enjoyable, so for now, why don’t you put your clothes back on like normal.”

“Mm. OK.”

Kira started awkwardly tugging things back into place, no mean trick considering she remained lying down. “And when you wake up, you won’t remember telling me about your masturbating. You’ll remember that you had a good time, and that you can trust me, no matter what. OK?”

“Mmm. I trust Professor Manning.”

“Atta girl. Now I’m going to count up from five…”

That was it, all it took. The following session, with only a little more guided nudging, the girl was ready to masturbate right in front of him, like she had weeks earlier before she’d internalized the potential for embarrassment. Kira was notably more taciturn about it, keeping her clothes on and as in place to the extent possible. It was almost sexier that way, seeing how weak her objections were, how easily they were being overridden.

He updated Stacey afterwards, during her own session. To the elder Reeves’ relief, he demanded no more of her for access to the latest Kira porn than he had the first time.

“A few more minutes,” she whispered when he pointed out that their time was up. “Almost. She can wait.”

“I thought you weren’t going to masturbate, this time,” he teased.

“Well I won’t masturbate faster if you shut up and let me watch.” He could feel her leg twitching against his under the blanket. She hadn’t complained when he joined her.

They went over by ten  minutes and change . He waited until she was on her way to the door before he spoke up. “Next time we do this, the price goes up.”

She tugged her jeans into their proper place, checked her belt. “Still not going to tell me what you’re trying to pull?”

“I told you what I’m trying to pull. Just not how.”

“I’m not a business major, but my understanding is that you raise the price when you refine the product. You got something special coming?”

Martin smiled on one side of his mouth, a supply & demand curve as rebuttal. “See you next week.”

In their discussion section that Thursday, Kira and her partners had their group presentation. It was neither interesting nor profound, which made sense considering his assignment had been both tedious and uninspired. No one’s expectations were upset. What was most of note, however, was Kira’s choice of attire, and he might have given her an A even if she weren’t who she was on that merit alone.

A simple green dress, plain cotton. It went from her knees all the way up to her neck, a useless nod to modesty as the fit of it was to be a sheath for her body, hugging every curve. The fact that he could see the outline of her bra so clearly from the far end of the classroom meant that the absence of panty lines must connotate a thong. Or commando, he supposed. She’d done up her hair, sported a pair of high heels perfectly matched to the shade of the dress, and donned a pair of huge gold hoop earrings shining from beneath her waves of hair.

What really fascinated him, however, was the zipper. A shining golden zipper straight up the back. It matched the earrings. If it had been real gold, it might have matched the value of what it fought so strenuously to conceal. Martin had been intrigued when she came into the classroom in that get-up. When she turned to gesture to one of her powerpoint slides for the first time, she revealed what should have been obvious. This dress, crushed onto her body like a green plaster cast scraped to its thinnest sustainable level, was held on with a single, simple, golden zipper, its integrity practically unfathomable to seal in so much so tightly.

The invention of the zipper in 1893 was invented as a fastener for shoes, to accelerate the more common lacing method and reduce the necessity of individually fitting footwear as the two sets of interlocking teeth helped mold the shoe leather to the wearer’s foot. Early models saw little use, but it inspired other inventors to improve upon the initial patent. However, it was not for several decades that the zipper would see common use in clothing, as the emerging technology took time to earn the trust of the modest American Christian consumer fearful of exposing themselves due to a fault in the zipper’s structure. Martin Manning knew all this because of an equally uninspired essay assignment on fashion of the Roaring 20’s while reading (or rather, assigned to be reading) The Great Gatsby  when he was in high school. It was exactly the sort of pointless esotericism that appealed to him, even if the assignment itself had been pure boredom.

Martin loved and hated that essay as he loved and hated Kira’s zipper.

“So, how did I do?” Kira asked as she flounced into the Manning Mental Health Clinic later that afternoon. He had watched her hop out of the car in the parking lot, and so had been afforded time to let out a sigh of relief that she had not changed after class before risking doing so inadvertently to her face. Better still, the car had immediately left. No boyfriend in the waiting room this week to heighten his anxiety. Just Kira, hopping and flouncing in that dress, with its zipper.

“You did great!” he assured her. “Solid points, good research, presentation looked good.”

“Looked good, did I?” she asked, beaming.

“Buh,” Martin said. Buh.

“I’m teasing! Oh my gosh, your face is so red. It’s OK, Professor Manning. I won’t embarrass you by asking you to say it. I know I look extra cute today.” Her playful punch to his shoulder reminded him faintly of the less playful versions he had received in the past from her big sister.

“Sorry. Yes, you do. I’m surprised you’re still dressed up. The presentation was… six hours ago now? Figured you’d go home and put on something more comfortable.”

“Pff. When you look this cute, you don’t change out of it until you gotta. Besides, I’m going out tonight with some friends to celebrate, so… may as well, right?”

“Oh, sure. Though, on a Thursday? You have classes tomorrow, don’t you?”

“We’re not drinking,” she protested with a laugh and roll of  her eyes. “I’m not, anyway. Some friends and I are going dancing at Vapor. It’s this eighteen and over dance club. Do you know it? There’s a bar, but you can still go in if you’re not twenty-one, so we go there sometimes. The music is fricking awesome, and the dancing is pretty good. Minor awesomeness on occasion. But, um, yeah, it’s my birthday actually, so…”

“Oh geez, happy birthday! Nineteen, is it?”

“Yep. Riding out my last year of hashtag barely legal teen,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Kidding. Sorry. When I know I look this good, sometimes I start thinking I’m funny.”

“You’re at least a little funny.”

She flashed a smile. “Thanks,” she replied in that way hot girls had where it was pronounced more like thinks   on account  of receiving so many compliments that the word began to sound funny.

“So yeah. Well then. Kira, since it’s your birthday – I feel bad I scheduled your project for today, much less making you sit here and process life stuff. You should be out having fun!” This may be the most dishonest suggestion Martin had yet uttered in her presence. He wanted nothing more than for her to be here, with him, in that dress, held on by that zipper, on this of all days. Only that wasn’t the thing he was supposed to say.

“Oh shut up,  Mr. Manning! You know I love coming here. I always feel so  relaxed afterwards. And this is a high priority for me! We’re doing so well with my goals, I don’t want to backslide. So you just sit your butt down and hypnotize me already, OK?” With both hands, she shoved him softly toward his chair, though lightheaded as her request had made him, he stumbled back and actually fell into it.

“Oh crap are you OK?! I was only playing! Stupid Kira, shoving your fricking professor!”

“I’m fine – you’re OK. Caught me off-balance is all.”

She grimaced apologetically, but accepted his pardon and settled onto the couch. He’d never complained about her sneakers on the fabric, but the fancy green high heels she’d bought to go with this outfit were nevertheless discarded at the side, her bare toes wiggling happily in their newly rediscovered freedom. “So are we doing more, um, solo work today? The Stacey stuff? Because I think it’s–”

“Not today, actually. Today, I want to see if any of your work has helped. So we’ll dive in, see what’s been rattled loose, and then get you good and zen for your big night. Sound  good?”

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

Kira went under in no time, effortlessly enough that he spent a few more minutes making sure she was fully tranced.

“Kira?”

“Mm.”

“You look cute today.” There, he’d said it.

“Mmmm. Thanks.” Or thinks , he supposed.

“Do you remember what we talked about last week?”

“Mm. What I do  when you leave the room, you mean?”

“That’s right. And you decided it was safe to tell me, didn’t you.”

“Mm. Safe. You were nice. Felt good.”

That feeling, that some karmic shoe was about to drop, reasserted itself. His affairs simply could not proceed this smoothly without making him nervous. “Good. I felt glad you told me, too. Would you mind telling me again, what you do?”

“Play with myself.” She wriggled her hips into the sofa, bare thighs rubbing together under her dress.

“That’s right. Would it be all right if I asked you some questions about that? It’s all right to say no, but remember how good it felt to trust me.”

Wrinkle.  “Trust Professor Manning.”

“So can I ask some questions?”

Wrinkle wrinkle.  “Ask. Might not answer.”

“That’s fair. So first, I wanted to ask you why you think you started doing that.”

Wrinkle.  “At first, it was just a funny thought. You said to say , ‘I like coming here’ and I was like ‘that’s what she said.’ But then I did say it. So… I was she, I guess. And I kept saying it, like you said, and so much of it made me think of that dumb joke, and then I kept thinking about it, and my mind sorta… wandered?”

“Minds will do that if you’re not careful.”

Kira nodded seriously, earrings twisting side to side against the cushion. “And it kinda got lost in what it was supposed to mean, and then I was like, I am  kinda horny,” wrinkle , “and you said since I was following my therapist’s instructions, nothing could stop me…”

Martin also nodded seriously. It was about what he’d guessed. Assumptions could be dangerous. After all, for all he knew, Dr. Rivers had been an even bigger creep than him and he’d finally brought her back into some old habit, or a dozen other unanticipated, unanticipatable possibilities. That he'd read her right was a good sign. The better he understood a patient’s mind, the better he could find the stress points and go to work on them. Three sessions in with Sherri and he’d gotten nothing but a headstart on this month’s rent. Martin didn’t get  her, or at least didn’t want to spend his free time contemplating the headspace of a person clinically depressed. Ten minutes with Kira, though, and he was already making strides.

“That makes sense.”

“It… it does? So confused.”

“Sure. Coming here is only natural, right?”

“Right.” Wrinkle.  “But that’s what’s confusing.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. But look at it this way. It feels good, right?”

“Mmm. Good.”

“And you like it, right?”

“Mmmm. Love it.High priority.”

“Kira, do you believe I want you to be happy?”

“Hmm.” Her lips pursed in drowsy thought, but she soon nodded. “Yeah. You’re nice.”

“That’s right. Say it, and like before, you know it’s true. Professor Manning likes me, and wants me to be happy.”

“Mm. Professor Manning likes me. Wants  me to be happy.” Lord, but he wanted to stab his dick through that thin smile of hers. For now, it was time to move her into the next phase. Sexually, she was actually a bit ahead of where he wanted her, a point where subconscious urges threatened her conscious values. To restore equilibrium, he needed her to be ready to eat suggestions right out of his hand.

“Ten more times, now.”

No resistance. When she finished, he added another. Then another. Then another. Some of them came from his own notes; others he entered or edited there while she recited them.

“Professor Manning gives good suggestions. I am happier when I follow them.”

“My life is better because of Professor Manning.”

“I can tell Professor Manning anything.”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about with Professor Manning.”

“I like playing with myself in front of Professor Manning.” That one took some coaching, but the ammunition she had provided him about her thought process brought her down fast.

“I want Professor Manning to think I look cute.” After all, she wanted boys to think she looked cute, and what was he if not a boy?

“Professor Manning is nice.” That last one might have been the most daring bluff of all, but the girl seemed to set a large stock by a man’s apparent niceness. May as well nurture her delusion.

Then he spent some time weaving the whole thing together. Kira lay there, squirming a little but otherwise quiescent, as she mumbled her way into this new mantra. Martin considered if it was worth moving her to full out-of-session recitations like he’d done with Stacey, but once more decided against it. For one, she was progressing well without them. For two, the strategy had worked on Stacey because some part of her wanted him to succeed, and knew the stakes. Sending Kira home chanting I like playing with myself in front of Professor Manning , when her conscious mind was still grappling with the fact that she was doing so at all, was far too big a risk. Let her chant his suggestions here, and give her time to let the subconscious marinate them. Kira wasn’t Stacey, and Stacey’s solutions were not all correct for Kira’s problems.

This girl was always a test of Martin’s willpower in a way Stacey never was. Last year had mostly been a test of cunning, seeking clever ways to abuse the few openings she gave him. The cum-in-the-hair incident aside, his willpower had been a skydiver waiting for a parachute, nothing to do until suddenly, even the unthinkable was safe. Kira, on the other hand, was sexually uninhibited – and not a lesbian – in a way that constantly tormented those creative centers he’d built with Stacey. Every nudge was a risk, but Kira’s comfort with risky behavior inflamed his risky inclinations. But no, today, he’d already made good progress, and only and idiot would–

Kira suddenly rolled to the side to scratch some itch on her butt with the grace of a woman wholly oblivious to her audience. And then he saw the zipper.

“So, how do you feel, Kira?” What? Why would he even

“Good. Relaxed. Lil’ horny.”

“Are you disappointed you didn’t get to play with yourself today?” No, don’t do this, you’re going to

Wrinkle.  “Mm. Gotten used to it, I guess. Expected it. No sex in like a week.”

A whole week , he thought irritably, but her loveliness soothed his malcontent with the reminder that his dry spell would end with her. The bitter moment spurred him on against his better judgment yet again, though. “Would you like to? I won’t be embarrassed.”

Her knees began to bend, thighs easing apart. “Mmmm.”

“But since it’s your birthday, maybe you’d like something special. I think you deserve something special on your birthday, don’t you?” Special? Are you insane? She’s barely handling it in her trance, and now you want to

“Mmmm. Special.” Her fingernails – freshly manicured, he noticed at last – teased at the exposed skin on her knee, inching her skirt up her thighs, but only that inch.

“Would you like to play with yourself with  me while you’re awake?”

Oh well. The words were out now. Nothing to do but ride it out and see if he could manage the hottest fucking thing he could imagine. The Reeves sisters, taking turns masturbating for him in his office, waiting outside while their sibling ravaged herself for his amusement.

Martin wanted to keep his rebukes coming, but his lust conquered his fear and mounted fear’s skull on his throbbing dick. Damn that zipper!

As for Kira, her fingers froze. Wrinkle. Wrinkle.  A slow breath. Wrinkle.  “Dunno. Might be too embarrassing. Trance is safe. Awake… scary.”

That was a good response. Considering, not panicked. “Why embarrassing, Kira?”

“You’d see me.”

“But you know I wouldn’t think less of you or be upset.”

Wrinkle.  “Yeah.”

“And you love coming here.”

“ Love  coming here. Mmmm.”

“And I love having you come here. Say it.”

“You love having me come here. Mmm. You’re nice.”

“And coming here is natural. Relaxing. Good.”

“Coming here is natural. Coming here is relaxing. Coming here is gooood.” Another inch on the skirt.

“And think about the other times we dealt with embarrassment. The weigh-in, in your underwear? When you told me about you playing yourself behind closed doors? Both times, what happened afterwards?”

Wrinkle. Wrinkle.  He was glad the tell for Stacey’s discomfort had been less adorable, or he might never have pulled back in time. So far, though, Kira’s one hard boundary had  been her sister. Everything else with her was fluid.

“It got better,” she admitted at last. Fluidly. “Didn’t feel weird about it any more.”

“And wouldn’t that be nice? To not  have to worry about feeling good when you come here?”

“Mmmm. Hate worrying. Love coming here. Been worrying way too much.”

He refused to let her worries put him off his game. “So do you think it might be OK to try it while you’re awake? As a birthday present from me, to you?”

“ Mmmaybe …?” She tried. Another inch on the skirt, another scrunch of that pretty round face.

“Say it: I want to play with myself with  Professor Manning for my birthday. It’s my present, and I deserve it.”

The number of face wrinkles that followed were too numerous for him to count. Yet on she went, all the while him tensing more and more, paralyzed by what he might have set off. Then another wrinkle. His heart threatened to stop altogether. Like a string of cheese stretching and stretching, except on one end of this cheese was tied his  entire hopes for his life, and if it broke he might well lose them forever.

“I want to play with myself with  Professor Manning for my birthday. It’s my present, and I deserve it,” she muttered so suddenly the blood roaring in his ears almost kept him from hearing it.

“Again.”

“I want to play with myself with  Professor Manning for my birthday. It’s my present, and I deserve it.”

“Again.”

“Mmmm. I want to play with myself with  Professor Manning for my birthday. It’s my present, and I deserve it.”

For fifteen more minutes, he had her repeat it. The dress that had impelled this whole moronic power grab was now ironically the only thing keeping her from caving to the desire here and now; it was too long and too tight for her to get at her pussy. Not without undoing that zipper, which he wasn’t sure she could manage in a trance standing up, much less lying down on the thing.

“All right, Kira. Now I’m going to count up from five, like the other times, and with every number you’re going to be more and more awake. You don’t have to trouble yourself remembering what you did while you were in this trance. The part of you that needs to know, will know. The rest of you will simply feel relaxed, and happy, and not remember.”

“Mm.”

That was rote  by now. This time, however, he added one small detail. “There is one small thing I want you to remember, though. To know even when you’re awake. Can you do that for me?”

Wrinkle wrinkle. “Mm?” It was confusing for her; he’d never interrupted the routine for this before.

“I want you to remember: Professor Manning has a present for you, and you deserve it. Understand?”

“Mmm. Professor Manning. Present. Deserve it.”

It was as circumspect as he could make it. Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn’t. But it was a lesser risk than giving her the full knowledge of what that present was. It was the greatest concession he could offer to his own subconscious, which was presently frothing at the mouth for his reckless, selfish behavior.

“All right. Five. You’re aware you can wake up. There’s a world beyond this room, and soon, you can go there. When you do, what will you remember about today?”

“Professor Manning. Birthday present. Deserve it.”

Four numbers later, he cleared his throat, and Kira Reeves’ warm brown eyes opened. She stretched, back arching, feet arching, fists balling and releasing, and slowly eased herself upright. “Wow. I do not know how you do it, Professor Manning, but you do it. Just wow.”

He smiled, pausing an extra moment to see if she would go on. She didn’t. “I’m glad. It looks like you’ve been doing well with your solo work, so I think we’re ready for the next step next time we meet.”

“Really? That’s great! I was worried I’d, um, been… distracted. By… other stuff.” Her cheeks flushed. Halloween was mere weeks away, but her red cheeks and green dress had jumped the gun by two whole seasons.

“Oh? Anything you want to talk about?”

“Um, well…” Her eyes darted around nervously. “See, sometimes… Like, I really like coming here, you should know, and…”

Say  it , he thought at her , as if his powers extended to the supernatural.

“I, um, I didn’t really know what I was doing, I don’t think, but I…”

SAY IT , his mind commanded her.

“I started, um…” She swept her hair back out of her face. “Oh gosh, this is super embarrassing to say, but… I started–”

HONK HONK! his mind roared.

Wait, no, that did not come from his head. That noise came from the parking lot. Unlike the commands from his head, the command from that vehicle produced instantaneous results. Kira sprung to her feet, looking to the clock. “Oh crud! That’s my ride – I told them I’d be out at two sharp. Crap! Well… to be continued,” she said, wincing in apology, but with her relief evident beneath it.

“Quite all right,” he muttered, escorting her to the waiting room. “Happy birthday, Kira. You have fun with your friends tonight. You deserve  it.” Too blatant?

“Oh! Yeah, I will.” She paused at the door, turning to face him for a moment. “You know, actually, can I–”

HONK HONK!

She shot a glare out the door. “Right. Um, I will! Have fun, I mean. But not too much, I know, I know. See you next week, Professor Manning!” Kira waved goodbye as she hurried to the car, fast as her heels would allow her.

Ah well. Perhaps in a way, that had continued, not ended, his lucky streak. It was high time he take  heed of his own advice and slow  the hell down with her. Quick and easy was all fun and good in the pornos when you wanted twenty minutes of jack-off material, but when it came to the real world, slow and steady was the way.

When it came to slow, Sherri was unparalleled.

“Are you sure this is best practices ? Every time you tell me to stop thinking it makes me more paranoid.”

Martin sighed. “I’m still sure it’s the best way.” Like the last ten times she’d said as much.

Three hours later, memories of that zipper stubbornly infesting his fantasies even as he told himself over and over he ought to be glad it hadn’t exploded in his face, it had come to once more waste some time with Sherri Nelson, buzzkill of buzzkills. It was unjust of him to resent her, he knew; not only was she paying him like he was a seasoned veteran of his field, but he was also very adjacent to the cause of her misery. Still, Sherri was frustrating where his other patients were gratifying, and combative where the Reeves were so accommodating.

“If you say so.” Far from the first time he’d heard that, too, even that day.

“I said you’d probably feel more relaxed lying down, too, and that closing your eyes was an important first step in trust building, and that you might have to expand your comfort zone.”

“My comfort zone is comfortable the way it is. Trust has to be earned,” she retorted in that high, thin voice.

Martin’s head fell back against his chair. “Are you sure you want this, Sherri? Honest question. Because everything about the way you’re approaching it tells me you don’t. You don’t take my suggestions, you can’t relax, and – forgive me if I am misreading you – you seem to resent any critical feedback I give you.”

“I want it. I told you, I’m miserable, all the time. Can’t you understand why that’s hard for me? Wanting to be happy doesn’t mean it’s easy to hand the controls to my brain over to someone I only know as the man who turned my very lesbian girlfriend bi.”

“And I told you, it doesn’t work that way. Stacey wanted what I did for her, so she made concessions to get it. I doubt there’s a woman or man alive who woke up one morning wanting to ‘hand their brain controls’ to someone else.”

“You don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, I suppose.”

Fair, but nevertheless annoying. “I’m only saying, we can keep doing this, me trying to suppress your conscious mind to free your subconscious, you questioning everything I do and trying to rewrite the hypnotism playbook. We could do it all year, and it’s never going to help you if you don’t at least try .”

“Why are you in such a rush? It took a year with Stacey. You’re being paid, aren’t you? Do I have to offer to sleep with you like Stacey to get you to help me? Which I am not and will not, by the way,” she added, hastily. Even for a lesbian.

“I don’t do business like that,” he said, contradicting what had heretofore been the entirety of the Manning Mental Wellness Clinic business plan. “But I don’t want to waste both of our time, either. The way it’s going, I’m not sure I could ever  get you into a real trance, much less help you act on these feelings you have. I want that for you, but you have to ask yourself what you’re willing to do to get it. Maybe this isn’t for you.”

Sherri attempted eye contact, but it lasted only moments before she was once again studying the floor. The nature of her resistance was the subject of some consternation for him. To hear her speak, one would think her   the  very definition of self-possession. Poised, articulate, wits always about her, even when he was actively trying to dull them with his craft. She was regal. Unless you counted  the quality of her voice, high and whisper-soft as it was, and really, along with every other thing about her, shrinking and evasive and embarrassed and self-pitying by turns, often in tandem. To look at her, great beauty or no, one would think she was fragility itself. Which was the truth?

“What did Stacey do?”

Martin leaned forward. “Come again?”

“Stacey. I know giving up control is really hard for her. I would have said impossible, before you. How did she do it?”

“I really  shouldn’t talk about other patients,” he started, but she somehow cut him off.

“She’s not ‘other patients.’ She was my girlfriend, and you hypnotized her to forget about me. So let’s not pretend I don’t have any right to pry, like she’s some random name on one of your file folders. I’m not asking about her business. I’m asking how you took someone like Stacey, someone we both know in our own way, and what you said or did to get her to do what you keep asking me to do.”

It was no simple thing she was asking of him. Patient confidentiality was its own solid principle, but moreover, the nature of his relationship with Stacey was a secret he would take to the grave. Any tidbits he shared could open doors that needed to remain closed. Yes, their work together had broken this poor girl’s heart, but guilt was no match for this level of self-interest. He wouldn’t trade Kira for Sherri’s mental well-being, much less Stacey.

Sherri looked up at him, a single tear snaking down a pale cheek, a sinuous line of anguish that mirrored the wave of her crimson hair almost eerily.

He sighed. God, this woman was one irritating stain on what remained of his conscience post-Stacey Reeves. “All right. But I’ll warn you: you’re not going to like it.”

A while later, Sherri looked over the piece of paper one more time in the doorway of his office. “You’re serious about this? This isn’t some weird prank?”

“I told you you wouldn’t like it.”

“No, but really. Stacey did this? You’re not making this up?”

“Do I strike you as the kind of person who doesn’t take the particulars of hypnosis seriously?”

She glanced up. Unbeknownst to Martin, she was assessing the bushiness of his eyebrows, the hallmark of the collegiate hypnotist. “No, you do,” she said, but shook her head. “Look, I’ll… try. Ten times a day, you said?”

“At minimum. The more you do it, the better it works. It took Stacey months before she’d recited her mantra enough that she could slip into a trance with me. Think of it like changing a diaper. Seems creepy at first, but once you get used to it, you start to forget it ever made you gag. You’ll never grow to like it, but one day it’s just a thing you do before you wash your hands.”

“That’s a gross way of putting it. But I take your meaning.”

“I hope you do. We’ll talk more next week, all right? And you have my number, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

He shrugged. “In case you need it. I hope you don’t, but I’ll answer any time, day or night.”

“All right.” That was her farewell. No goodbye, no have a nice weekend. All right  was all she had left in the tank for the man who had tanked  her relationship with a beautiful woman and responded by inviting her to co-opt herself into her own brainwashing.

As Martin watched the DAT logo on the butt of her leggings shimmy side to side as she crossed the parking lot, he couldn’t blame her.

Are you up?

It was 11:30 at night. Martin sat up in bed (meaning his futon, since he’d sold his bed for a tidy chunk of the rental fee for the moving van that had transported his things, other than his bed, last summer). He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, glanced around in confusion. Who could be texting him at this hour? Surely Sherri hadn’t actually run into a mantra-based emergency. But when he saw Kira’s number attached to the text, he gave his eyes a second, deeper rub, and replied.

I am now. What’s going on? Are you all right?

His feet hit the cold floor, trying to imagine what calamity she might have encountered that would drive her to text him at such an hour. Or had Stacey had some kind of meltdown in front of her and Kira was reaching out to their only adult mutual acquaintance for guidance? Something class-related? But they didn’t meet tomorrow. No, this had emergency  written all over it.

Lol I’m great! was worried vapor wouldn’t be fun on a Thursday but it was actually kinda cooler

He blinked. Perhaps he had over-rubbed his eyes.

You get to know the other people here  better when there’s lies of them, you know? lol

*lies

*less ugh sorry

Over or under. One of the two. Martin Manning had not maneuvered himself into a position where the girl felt comfortable awakening her therapist, her professor, for prattle  like this when he had to get ready to teach class in six hours. For once, he might have to actually employ a little discipline on

Anyway it’s almost midnight and you still haven’t given me my birthday present!!!

You  still want it?  His eyes suddenly felt just fine, sleep requirements forgotten.

Is it ok? I don’t wanna be a brat lol

For my favorite student, np , he wrote, wondering how this exchange would play out if his malfeasances ever came to trial. Can you meet me at my office?

Yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaayayay !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omw

Martin took a quick whore’s bath at his utility sink, threw on an outfit, and climbed down the ladder into his office downstairs. Since he’d stopped sleeping here once it got cold out, it had become a little spooky, coming down here at night. Like it was someone else’s business, and he were  a burglar, prowling. The disused seat at the receptionist’s desk served as his perch while he waited monitoring the dark lot, and the seconds ticked by like days.

At last, one of those pairs of headlights drifting by at intervals failed to drift by. Kira hopped out of the backseat. He hurried to the door, well aware that the unlit parking lot outside his office was the stuff of horror movies. Martin somehow (and by “somehow,” he meant “zipper”) forgot to be paranoid at being seen by whatever friend had dropped her off. He remembered that he ought to have attempted at least some caution only when he caught sight of a woman easily twice his own age, clearly a rideshare operator. No one who would  get nosy about this teenage girl stopping by her shrink’s office at midnight. In that dress, the woman might well think he’d ordered himself some companionship.

“Mr. Manning!” she called out, and from the way she stumbled toward him, the innebriation he had anticipated from her texts was confirmed. “Hey!”

“Kira,” he replied coolly, offering an arm to steady her. She took it, clutching fiercely. “You look like you had a good time.”

She winced. “Oh come on, don’t be maaad ! It mah  birfday!” She cackled with laughter as he escorted her into the building.

“I’m not mad. Are you all right, though? How much did you have to drink?”

“I dunno. There was this one guy, he bought me, like, two drinks. And then this other boy, kinda cute in a Billy Bob kinda way, he bought me one, and we daaaanced , but my friends said he was getting handsy, so then this third guy, or fourth guy… Well OK, so there were three more guys, and like… I don’t know. Ten? Twelve? Basically that many. But I did it like a motha flippin’ champ  yo! Woooooooo!”

Her barbaric coed yawp echoed uncomfortably loudly around the confinements of his office. “Dang, it’s spooky in here at night, Mr. Manning! Were you working this late?” She gasped. “Do you do eleven o’clock appointments? That would be so haaaawt !” She trilled the final word several octaves higher.

“Why don’t you have a seat, hon, before you fall down. OK?” She let him usher her to the sofa, but didn’t release his arm in time to keep from pulling him down next to her.

“You are so nice, Mr. Manning. Marrrrrrrrtin,” she purred. “It’s so weird to think of you as ‘Martin.’ Is that OK? Is it, that, OK, me calling you Mr. or Professor?”

“It’s fine.” This close, he could almost taste the alcohol on her breath. Whiteclaw, unless he missed his guess. The beverage of choice for her tribe.

“So… is it still technically my birthday? Am I too late for my present?”

Martin glanced at the clock. He’d been watching the time closely while waiting, but her state upon arrival had activated paternal instincts he hadn’t known he’d had, and he’d forgotten all about it. “For a few more minutes, yeah.”

She beamed. Then burped molten acid in his face. Then resumed beaming. “Sorry, that was gross. But puh-leeeeeease ?” She held out her hands expectantly, batting her eyelashes. Paternal instincts or no, deadly gas cloud or no, he empathized with those guys buying her booze all night. She was adorable personified .

“I told you what it was earlier. Do you remember?”

She shook her head, leaving her hands out.

Martin had been in college for six years, and was still working at one in this, his seventh. While he had never been exactly a partier, he was no foreigner to drunken college students. He had witnessed time and again how someone behaved  when they would wake up with no memory of the night before, and that was how Kira was behaving now. Right now, he’d done nothing so terribly wrong. He could end this before it became a catastrophe.

Whoever had made this dress had made damn sure people noticed that zipper, though. Like a bow on one of her conventional birthday gifts, daring him to start unwrapping.

“You know I know about what you’ve been doing during our sessions, don’t you Kira?”

Her jaw dropped, and already reddened cheeks went even darker. “That’s right! Oh my gosh. Yeah, whoa. Oh man, I never, I forgot I, that you, oh whoa. You must think I’m some total thot!”

“Some… what?”

Evidently, what the girl heard was an affirmative reply of somewhat , as she pivoted in an awkward gambit to curl up in a ball on the sofa, burying her head under what was in fact Sherri’s pillow, still there from the afternoon. “Oh my god, I am! Oh gawd oh gawd oh gawd…” she muttered.

Martin was quick to console her, however, rubbing her back softly, shushing. “No no no, you’re fine, Kira. You’re fine. I just didn’t know what… you said you’re a thought?”

She nodded under the pillow.

“Well… you’re not,” he said, unsure what she wasn’t. “You’re a beautiful, sweet, intelligent, hard-working young woman, and there isn’t one thing you’ve done since coming to Lakeview that you should be ashamed of.”

After a moment, Kira peeked out from under her pillow. It had taken only seconds for her to work up tears. Now black and purple makeup was all over her cheeks in messy splotches. “I played with myself ,” she moaned piteously, “in my therapist’s office!  While I was supposed to be thinking about that fucking troll Stacey, oh my god!” Fresh sobs echoed into the pillow stuffing as she retreated.

“Kira, you got carried away with yourself, OK? We talked about it, and you said your mind wandered. You were in a trance, and you let your subconscious take charge. You enjoy coming here, it relaxes you, you were  unobserved, and you let your urges take over. I don’t care, Kira. It’s natural.”

“To get off, thinking about your gay freak sister?!” she wailed.

“No! What? No, Kira, Stacey had nothing to do with it. You told me that you enjoy coming here, to  my office. That you trusted me, and let yourself get excited over how good it makes you feel. It’s nothing to do with your sister. Understand? It’s you and me. That’s it.”

She peeked out, a snot bubble forming and unforming . “Seriously?”

“Seriously. I got the answer straight from your  brain.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“You trust me, don’t you?”

She sniffled, ending the snot distraction, then slowly sat back up with some help from him. She erected herself at an odd angle, leaning against the side of the sofa, her legs draped over his lap.

“Yeah. I trust you. Oh my gawd, that’s a relief. I’ve been freaking.   out.  for weeks! Like I couldn’t even touch myself – except in here, I guess – because all I could think was I was getting off to that  time when Stacey and I…” Her whole face puckered. “When she…”

Martin waited, but instead, she shook her head. “So, um, anyway, you said you had a present for me? Or… something?”

One of the features contributing to the Manning Mental Wellness Clinic’s soothing banality was a poster, framed and with a clear plastic cover, depicting a waterfall, and featuring the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken.” The opening line was printed in large cursive letters to give anyone glancing at it the thrill of remembering they had once read a poem. The background photo had neither roads nor woods, though he had reflected while hanging it that perhaps its creator had decided to take the path less traveled by.

(Apt to the poem’s point, such creative liberties – blunders, as they called them – had soon caused the poster company’s art intern to be dismissed from employment. She spent the next three months backpacking through Europe before settling on work as a street artist in Amsterdam, which lasted almost six weeks before desperation impelled  her to seek work within the city’s notorious Red Light District. Ironically, the path on which she had employed less esoteric inspiration in her poster art selection would have led to the exact same place, and two months earlier.)

As for Martin Manning, there were two paths before him in this  moment. So, as Frost suggested, he looked down one to where it bent in the undergrowth.

“I wanted to tell you that it’s all right for you to play with yourself here.” He said it as confidently as he could. “This is a safe place, no embarrassment. You can be whoever or whatever you want here. I like having you come here, and I want you to like coming here.”

She snickered. “ That’s so  what  she said.” After a giggle, her eyes widened. “Wait. Are you… are you serious? You don’t care that I’m being a little freak in your office?”

“I think you can be as freaky as you want in here. No judgments. There’s a lot going on in that great big heart of yours, and I want to help you figure it out the best I can. And that means letting you be yourself.” Some Hallmark movie dialogue if he’d ever heard it. Was that laying it on too thick? No, not at her level of drunkenness.

“Wow,” was all she said.

As his anxiousness mounted, he motioned for her to go on. “Use your words, Kira. What are you thinking?”

“I mean… my therapist just invited me to play with myself in his office, while he watches. That’s, yeah, so… many things.”

“What things?”

“I mean, it’s… hot, yeah,” she said, her voice more grudging than the impish grin on her face. “And kinda creepy, not gonna lie. But also weirdly touching? That you’d even help me with my weird sex stuff?” She sniffled. “And also, even weirdlier , like…”

“Like what?”

Kira shook her head. Hair long since thrown into disarray from a night of partying flew back and forth. “Like… I deserve  it? Like I want it, and I deserve it. Did… did you do that? Make me feel like I want to do this?”

“I can’t make people want to do things,” he lied. “You wanted to lose weight, so with my help you did. You wanted to better  your living situation, so with my help, you did. If this is something you want to do – or well, shit, have been doing for weeks – then that’s you. If anything, at most I helped you see what you wanted.”

It never ceased to amaze him how willing people were to believe that ridiculous cockamamie line. One of the things he respected most about Stacey was that she’d never been willing to swallow that bullshit. Their relationship was predicated on their mutual desire to use hypnosis to make someone do things they would never, ever do. It was why he, and every other hypnotist he’d ever met, got into it in the first place. Stacey had sought him out as someone who could break the human mind into what she wanted it to be. They shared a dream, if little else. Stacey’s sister, though…

Kira stood up. His hands grasped her hips, and though he meant it for balance, there was no telling whether she stopped because she thought he was stopping her or if she’d never been intending to walk away from him at all. She stood there with her back to him, the lingering scent of her alcohol-infused breath fusing with her sweat from the dance floor, slathered over the nearly blinding fragrance of all the product she’d sprayed to keep her hair as tame as it was, and finally, beneath it all, a sneaky little something that his face’s proximity to her pussy couldn’t quite fail to miss.

“You really mean it?” she asked softly.

“I mean it.”

He didn’t dare move his hands, not so much as a twitch of his thumb, while she considered. It felt like hours passed, but it really was minutes, a long time to sit in silence wondering how a girl was going to react. Martin began to regret not offering to put her in a trance. There, she would already be halfway to her second orgasm, not fighting an internal war against her own shame and the deeply ingrained mistrust all women are taught to deploy against older men. Justifiably in his case, he was forced to concede. Maybe he could still–

“Be a gentleman and unzip me?”

A gentleman would have refused. The girl was drunk, was a student, was a patient, was the sister of a patient, was the victim of an elaborate mind control scheme to deprive her of her own free will. All things a gentleman would oppose. Even a man who merely thought himself a gentleman would have at least asked her if she was sure.

Martin Manning used his grasp on her hips to help himself to his feet, swept her hair in front of her shoulders, and seized that golden zipper.

With his teeth.

The slider rested at the base of her  neck, which lolled onto his shoulder as she felt his sultry breath trail down her increasingly bared back. He took his time about it, inching down her spine. Her bra strap was a speed bump for his nose, but from there, it was all smooth, lightly tanned skin until he at last reached her underwear. It was a thong, like he’d imagined during class. Burgundy like the bra strap. It disappeared down the crack of her shapely ass. Still he went down, fighting not to lose his grip – on the zipper, on reality  – as she gasped at the presence of a man’s mouth on her bottom. Then he was past it, past the tiny triangular thigh gap, and down the thighs. And at last, right above her knees, his journey came to an end as the runner cleared its final tooth and the two sides of the divide slipped apart. He released it, then sat back on the sofa.

In the span of two heartbeats, that green dress fell off of Kira Reeves’ body. Its zipper’s reign of tyranny had come to an end. She stood before him in matching bra and panties. This was some elegant, sexy underwear. The kind a woman only wore to be seen and appreciated.

When she put them on that morning, whom did she hope would be seeing and appreciating them? Whom had she donned them for? Did she hope someone else would be taking them off? Surely not Martin la Mesmer Manning. Surely.

In any case, the dress was all he had been invited to remove, and given her reluctance, he dared not remove more. She twisted, addressing him over her shoulder. “Aren’t you going to tell me I look cute?”

The twist cost Kira her balance, but he caught her once more by the hips, now bare. It planted her ass right in his face. “You’re very cute. Now why don’t you take a seat before you hurt yourself, huh?”

“I’ll have you know I danced like this allllllll night, Master Minning ,” she slurred. She demonstrated, cocking her hips side to side, shuffling her feet with more grace than she had a right to. If she still had her heels on, those moves might have killed her, but barefoot she was a sight to behold. This girl deserved her free drinks.

The two bare ass cheeks clapping in his face didn’t hurt.

Satisfied that she was steadier moving than trying to stand still, Martin relinquished his grip but remained ready to come to her aid at the first sign of peril. His permissiveness gave him his first sight of the front of her. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in a bra, but never a bra like this. Never with those plump titties bouncing to some unheard melody, then echoing the bounces as a harmony of jiggles. She threw her head back and danced the dance of drunken college girls the world over. No choreography, no restraint, just pleasing flesh and the resolve to show it off.

After a few minutes, a few minutes etched indelibly into Martin’s memory, his patient/student/project suddenly whirled and threw herself down butt-first onto the couch, eyes sparkling giddily. Her posture was pure immodesty. One foot on the floor, the other propped up next to her butt on the couch cushion. Thighs wide. The material on her underwear was some diaphanous thing, a deep red on the straps and cross pieces, with lacey patterns across her pubes and her nipples, but everywhere else it was so thin that the skin visible behind it turned the ensemble a rosy pink.

“Last chance to back out,” she said, biting down on her lower lip, the thin gap in her front teeth commanding his attention in spite of so many richer targets. She was made for kissing.

“I told you, you don’t embarrass me. If you want to, go on.”

“And you’re just gonna… watch?”

“Do you want me to do more?”

Her eyes bulged. “Oh gosh no! I mean, oh man, I already feel so…”

“Thought?” he prompted.

“Huh?” She threw her head back and laughed. “Holy fricking cow, Professor Manning. It’s thot . That. Ho. Over. There. It means a slut. A skank. An attention-hungry whore.”

“Oh. Guess I’m a little behind the curve. Anyway, you’re not a thot. Maybe a little attention-hungry, but the way you looked in that dress, you deserved some attention.”

Another lip nibble. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

“And what about how I look out of the dress?”

“I mean, you already had my full attention, but you haven’t lost it.”

One hand went flat against her belly, creeping down until her fingertips grazed the hem of her thong. There it paused. “Um, Professor Manning? This might be weird, but can you turn on the white noise machine?”

He blinked. “The waves?”

“Yeah. It’s… I dunno. Kind of a trigger for me now.” She giggled. “Oh my gosh, could you imagine if I’m taking stuff I hear when I’m in a trance and it’s blending with all my hornies and turning me into some kind of public masturbator nympho?”

Martin allowed a chuckle as he switched the device on. “Subliminal messages in the white noise machine – not a bad idea.” It actually wasn’t, though the science on such, even with hypnosis undergirding it, was theoretical at best. Only an idiot would consider that route, Martin had decided after researching the possibility last year when trying to crack Stacey.

The waves crashed and broke and washed out to sea, and Kira’s hand rode the tide down into her skimpy little panties. There it played for some time before she made her first sound above breathing, a protracted “ Mmmm …” but with so many more m’s he wanted to kick himself for ever feeling satisfied to hear so few when she was tranced.

“You really never watched me before?” Her eyes were closed. Martin was no longer a face to her but a voice in the darkness, the way she loved him best.

“Really never.”

She found a breast, searched for a nipple. The thin fabric looked to be accommodating. “Never even peeked?”

“No peeking.”

“Not even stumbled in because you were bored and oops, caught your thot touching herself?”

“I promised you privacy. Don’t you trust me?”

“Mmmm… I trust Professor Manning.” Her thighs spread wider. Wider. “Is that something I say? It feels so… right.”

“Trust is an important part of a relationship between a counselor and a patient.”

“God, why does dorky stuff like that sound so hawt  right now.” She sat up for a moment, planting her butt atop the extra padding of the pillow. With grace that would be impressive had she been stone sober, the hand fondling her tits found its way behind her and unclasped the bra. She pulled it off her shoulders and dropped it on the floor. Kira Reeves’ bare boobs. He remembered the first time he’d seen her sister’s. Stacey would lose her mind when she heard about this. Then she’d lose her temper when he told her he hadn’t arranged to record it.

“Is this OK?” she asked, massaging the tender skin.

“It’s all OK. It’s natural.”

“And rewarding,” she murmured, her back suddenly arching as she transitioned to the clit. “Goooood… good fucking gawwwd…”

He smiled to himself. “ I do work  wonders, don’t I. ”

“With my body, you do. This never  felt even close to this good in the stupid dorm shower when stupid Emma was still crowding me out of our room. Always, unff, some bitch in the next stall, or banging on the door yelling at you to , mmmmmf, hurry,” she grumbled, fingers aggressively sinking into handles and holes.

“But here, there’s total privacy.”

“Mmmm,” she agreed, obliviously.

He let her play for a while, and while the dialogue was fun, the uninterrupted matinee playing out before him was beyond spectacular. Before long she decided she was too upright, so she scooched her butt down, the pillow rolling along beneath her hips, a few inches closer to where Martin was seated. Her foot bumped into his hip, though, telling her she might be getting too close. Then her pussy told her it wanted her to be more still horizontal, still less vertical, so she scooched again. He patted her foot reassuringly as it was now trapped firmly between her thigh and his. The next scooch was achieved by hooking it over his far hip and dragging herself further down, the accompanying leg bent over his lap. Propped up by that pillow, her pussy was practically aimed at his gaze like it was posing for pictures. She didn’t slow. When Martin adjusted his hands to go over rather than remain trapped under the leg, she just moaned softly at his gentle touch and let it happen. That was all he did, though. Kira finally flattened herself out altogether, her pussy so close to him that her knuckles were brushing his leg.

“Stupid friggin’ stupid thong in the stupid way,” she grunted, probing hard as Martin studied the way her tits clapped together when she played them right.

“You can take them off, Kira.”

He thought her eyes fluttered open, but as big as her eyelashes were with all that makeup, from his angle, it was hard to say. “But… then I’d be naked.”

“I suppose you would.”

“But that’s, um, really  slutty. You’re my teacher. And my therapist . Girls who get naked for their therapist probly  wind up needing more therapists.”

“It’s up to you. If you want to, then you should. Have I made you feel uncomfortable so far?”

“Well, no…”

“Has it felt good so far?”

“I mean, yes, so  yes, but…”

“So then I tell you what. We’ll act like you’re in a trance. Something we do sometimes is a little exercise I call Truth-Saying. I say something you know is true, and you repeat it so you can believe it.”

“Um, that went so far over my head right now?”

“Shh. Listen, Kira, and repeat after me. I can take my panties off in front of Professor Manning if I want to.”

He waited, but she didn’t make him wait long. “I can take my undies off in front of Professor Manning if I want to.”

Once more with the undies. “Again.”

“I can take my undies off in front of Professor Manning if I want to.” She craned her neck up, eyes definitely open. “Oh my god, I’m imagining what my subconscious would say, or whatever, if you started talking about my underwear!”

Boldly, he delivered a reprimand in the form of a firm, but not too firm, pinch on her exposed ass. “ Again , Kira.”

“Oh! Oh my god, you…” Her head sunk back to the cushion. “I want to take my undies off in front of Professor Manning.”

Not what he’d said, but he was not about to reprimand that mistake. “Again.”

“Oh fuck, this is actually… This is so freaking spooky hot…” A sharp intake of breath accompanied Kira’s hard twist on her nipple. “I want to take my undies off in front of Professor Manning.”

“There you go. Now…” He leaned over until their  gazes met. “Take off your thong, Kira.”

The girl’s legs flew into the air, side by side, and that thong was ripped out of its nesting grounds and tossed away into the corner of his office. He was familiar with the sight of her pussy by now, but it never grew old. The girl maintained it well, no doubt on account of the speed with which she went through boyfriends. It was a good deal dimmer in here by lamplight than it was by day, but even so her slit glistened with the intensity of her arousal, that greedy pink hole where her fingers came and went so eagerly.

“Tell me to do more stuff,” she moaned pleadingly.

Jaw going slack, he blurted out the first command that came to mind. There wasn’t an inch of her that wanted for hotness, but those tits were a wonder of the world. “Pull on your nipple.”

“Can… Can you use my name? Like, pull on your nipple, Kira?”

“Pull on your nipple, Kira.”

“Oh fuck ,” she groaned as she jerked the poor flesh upwards. Lucky for her she had two broad pink nipples, not some tiny pencil erasers like her sister’s. It spread the weight a little, he hoped, reduced  the strain.

“Pull on the other one, Kira.”

“Mmmm, god, love coming here,” she murmured as she obeyed.

“Kira, I want you to throw your leg over the back of the couch. Spread your legs as wide as you can.”

That one turned out to be a bit of a mistake. She was drunk as hell, and not exactly an acrobat sober. Kira wound up thumping him in the face with her ankle in the attempt. He assured her he was fine as firmly as possible, then helped her get her leg where commanded.

“Tell me you feel good right now, Kira.”

The incident was forgotten. “Mmmmm, god yes, feel so goddamn motherfucking cocksucking goddamn good !” she shouted.

“Tell me what the best birthday present anyone ever gave you is – and don’t disappoint me, Kira.”

“The best…? Oh! Oh fuck yes, it’s this, it’s so  this, so fucking this!”

“What’s ‘this,’ Kira? Tell me what I gave you.”

“You let me be a little pussy-frigging tit-squeezing fucking thot!”

“That’s not all I’m giving you, though.”

Kira panted . Kira moaned. Kira pulled her own hair until her fingers trailed down to her tits and went back where they felt most at home, fondling and groping herself as she stormed through the best masturbation of her young life. “What… what else?” She giggled breathlessly. “I c-can’t take… much more…”

Martin patted her thigh. “I’m letting you come.”

“ MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST ON FUCKING GOD MOUNTAIN FUCKING FUCK ME FUUUUUUUUUCK! ”

Kira came.

Her eyes didn’t reopen after she at last fell still; painfully loud snoring ensued. Knowing he had overstepped his bounds by leagues with no idea no idea how to navigate the intricacies of this very non-hypnotic sexual encounter, Martin’s best hope was for a blackout, the waking equivalent of trance-induced amnesia. That wouldn’t do much good if she woke up in his office, though, so he had little choice but to call another driver out to ferry her back to campus. This time, the driver was a man around his own age, so there could be no trusting the barely conscious girl to his custody. So Martin half-carried her in a dress it had  taken him half an hour to stuff her body back into, her bra and panties tucked into her purse. Her feet were protected by his flip-flops, a regrettably unhygienic necessity to traverse the glass-strewn parking lot for a girl far too gone to attempt maneuvering in her heels.

It was after 2 AM Friday morning by the time the pair was dropped off at Prendergast Hall. There was hardly a light on in the building, so again, no trustworthy by-standers to escort her to her room. With her key card, Martin made it in just fine aside from startling a young woman carrying a laundry basket down toward the basement. On his way out, he was accosted by a pair of RAs who demanded to know who he was and why they’d heard some creep was carrying a drunken, disheveled young woman into their residence hall. He couldn’t give ID, given his employment situation, so he made up a tale about bringing her home from a house party as a favor to the host. Hedging his anonymity by claiming he didn’t want to show ID in case someone else had done something to her and how such a tragedy could come back unjustly upon him, Martin offered a compromise of giving them his phone number and letting them see that it was legit. That would be plenty for the police to track him down if there was cause, he argued. The two didn’t like it, but Martin had spent no small amount of time building up an honest and empathetic demeanor, and the two settled for huffily escorting him out of the building and watching him walk away with disapproving glowers . Two blocks down, he finally glanced back, and they were still staring him down.

A cascade of side effects followed. The first, and most obvious, was that Kira remembered, confirmed by an Friday afternoon text saying they needed to talk. It turned out to be a good talk, however. She had enjoyed the experience, what she remembered of it, and asked if they could do it again, sober. Right then and there. Many of his assumptions about her nature bore out. Her kinks included hypnosis, niceness, and men in positions of authority over her. She stayed the night, and by 10 PM Saturday, she asked if he could put her in a trance and make her feel less embarrassed to ask him to fuck her.

After she went home Sunday bowlegged and beaming, it was time to do right by Stacey and inform her of what had happened. Martin tried to soften the blow, to explain that it was easy to get straight girls to fuck men, but he’d keep trying for her, the mission wasn’t forgotten, merely out of order. She shrieked a FUCK YOU! so shrill it rattled the windows of his office, then hung up on him.

Sherri moved up her session, citing her anxiety over the mantra approach. Martin humored her, in too good of a mood over the quickie he and Kira had had in his seldom used and always cramped campus office that morning after lecture. Sherri retrieved her pillow from its space in the cabinet, a sign he took as progress since normally she refused to lie down and he had to set it out himself as a formality. He was still explaining the benefits of autohypnosis when she happened to flip it over, discovering the mess of Kira’s makeup staining the backside. Then she squinted, then sniffed, then squinted closer, and finally demanded to know if those were a woman’s cum stains on her pillow. His insistence that he had accidentally let another patient cry on it and the rest of her allegation was pure nonsense was met with Sherri’s insistence that she had been the only lesbian at her high school and knew very well what a cum-stained pillow looked and smelled like. In a rage and filled with automatic assumptions for which he had no counter-narrative, she dialed up Stacey then and there, sobbing scarcely intelligible accusations and pleas. She stormed out of his office, a tornado in miniature, though not before promising to sue him for professional misconduct.

The following day, his department head Dr. Knox stopped by Martin’s mandated office hours, encumbered by the heavy task of telling his former student that someone had made allegations against him of an inappropriate relationship with a student. Worse, when  the student in question had been contacted, she had confirmed them, cheerfully explaining that she routinely masturbated for him in his office, assuring campus police that it was natural and nothing to be embarrassed about. That by Dr. Knox intruded upon the two of them fucking once more in his assigned office was all that was needed. Martin was terminated immediately, and only Kira’s refusal to comply with their investigation kept the university from taking him to court.

Stacey never called him again, not even when he offered more fresh Kira porn. Naomi stopped by his office once, but only to spray paint the word CREEP  in huge black letters on the wall on her way home from another night shift. His landlord, notified by Sherri or Stacey or those douchebag RAs or Dr. Knox or the campus police or any number of other people who’d discovered any of Martin’s many colossal fuckups, refused to paint over it. The last of his Sherri money went to a fresh coat of paint so that he might be able to attract new patients. Kira swore she was trying to talk some of her friends into giving hypnotherapy a try, but the rumors had spread, and nobody wanted to meet with a disgraced ex-adjunct professor turned hypnotist who’d “somehow” managed to convince one of the hottest freshman on campus to fuck him. And recruit for him.

Kira dumped him a few weeks later, another boyfriend chugged and disposed of. The novelty had been fun, but now it was hurting her socially, and besides, he was so grouchy and depressed all the time that it was hard to relax. Plus he couldn’t visit her at her dorm because of the sex offender investigation by the university, and also his attic was so cold in the winter. The Manning Mental Wellness Clinic shut down four months to the day after it had seen its first patient, though the Maning  name lived on in the marquis for some months afterward. On his way out of town, he saw someone had returned with spray paint to graffiti LA MESMER  on the freshly repainted wall.

Penniless, Martin moved back in with his parents. His father seemed at least a tiny bit impressed by the portion of the highly censored version of the story in which he slept with a cute freshman. His mother could never quite make herself look at her son without suspicion of what that creepy habit of his, the one she’d worked all through middle and high school to make him discontinue, had to do with her son’s downfall. She still loved him. Mothers had to love their sons, even when they were pretty sure their son was some sort of degenerate or pervert. Both, even. But it was not the unqualified love she doled out to his sisters, who soon regarded him in the same way, perhaps even more unfavorably.

It would pass. After some years, it would pass. Probably. He hoped. If not, he could always end it himself.

Oh and some years later Kira and Stacey had a huge fight during one of their rare interactions, at their parents’ home for Christmas, and Stacey leaked the nudes Martin had sent her as retaliation for Kira’s undying enmity. Kira attempted suicide, but was discovered by her four-year-old daughter who screamed for Daddy. She lived, recovering her mental wellness after years of therapy. (Not hypnotherapy.) Stacey disappeared, perhaps for similar causes , or perhaps to find out what gutter Martin Manning had slithered into, to go there and exact her revenge.

So anyway, that was one path.

At least, it was the best Martin could see of what lay down that path. It might err on the pessimistic end of the spectrum, somewhat, but it was easy to see how way led on to way.

Kira had said something, right before that poster had caught Martin’s eye. What had it been? Oh yes.

“Yeah. I trust you. Oh my gawd, that’s a relief. I’ve been freaking out for weeks! Like I couldn’t even touch myself – except here, I guess – because all I could think was I was getting off to that  time when Stacey and I… When she… So, um, anyway, you said you had a present for me? Or… something?”

He glanced down the other path. And then he took a step down it, and as soon as he did all doubt was gone as to whether he should ever come back.

“Kira, it’s time to tell me what happened between you and Stacey.”