When Nikki goes to a hypnotist€s act with two of her best friends, she ends up getting more than just a show. She gets a whole new outlook on life€¦ one that her husband can€t help but share too, in the end. [Warning: this 13400-word short story contains vivid depictions of brainwashing and triggered sex from a helpless subject€s perspective.]
Excerpt: The sound of snapping fingers jolted me to awareness. I felt dazed, like I€d woken from a nap€¦ one where I€d been dreaming about something very good. My eyes and mouth were bone dry, and it felt like every drop of moisture I€d lost there had ended up right between my legs. My stiff nipples rubbed against my blouse, every breath making it feel like someone was rubbing them. My cheeks burned as I rose to consciousness. Then I opened my eyes, and saw that I was on stage, and my blush deepened furiously. An audience of dozens of people were watching me. I struggled to remember what had happened. The last thing I€d known, I had gone out with my friends Jenny and Carol to see a hypnosis act for our girl€s night out. It had been Jenny€s birthday wish, of course. Jenny had been eccentric for as long as I€d known her. Every birthday was an exercise in crazy. When she was seven, she€d made her favorite Barbie into a punk rocker with food coloring. Last year, it had been horse riding lessons, and the year before that, a trip to Ecuador for reasons that still eluded me. This year, she just happened to want a stranger inside her head, and I€d come along on a lark. I just didn€t understand how I€d ended up on stage too. The last thing I remembered was sitting down to watch the show. Right now, the stage hypnotist had his back to us, facing the crowd, and I realized I didn€t even remember what he looked like. For a brief moment, I considered making my escape: there was a fire exit beyond the stage, and my purse was on the ground beside me. All I had to do was get up and make a dash for it. The only trouble was that my whole body felt leaden. Exhausted. I couldn€t budge a whole finger, much less stand and move. The hypnotist asked the audience, €œNow that we have our volunteers, you€d like to hear from them, wouldn€t you?€ The audience cheered, but I hardly heard them. It felt as though they were very far away. All that mattered was his voice: it was magic, sending little thrills up and down my spine. The notion of fleeing evaporated like the morning dew, and I stared at him with renewed appreciation.