I wasn’t surprised when Mira called less than an hour after running from my house.

“You have to be at the dance tonight,” she said. “I’m in the afterglow and it’s incredible! I’ve never felt anything like this with Taylor, never! What you did… I’m still shaking all over! You have to be a part of this. Be at that dance.”

She was right, I did have to be a part of it. Seeing each other illicitly as we had, we didn’t get the chance to lie next to each other, smelling the smells and reading the signals passed between our two bodies. And there was the husband to consider and how she behaved around him, and how her afterglow affected the way she would feel towards me, and any number of other clues to gather. I needed to see for myself how Mira had been affected, so that I could gauge what to do or not do next.

Despite having found my head between the firmest thighs I’d ever seen, I found myself brooding in my living room that afternoon. I kept bringing my hands to my face and inhaling deep breaths of Mira’s scent, getting as strong a hit of her pussy as I could. It t was like someone getting their first dose of a drug and needing more, and it started to scare me how badly I wanted to get more of her. Maybe I should have fought against my ferocious desires and my hopes of getting my claws into her. Instead, I feared the reverse, that it might not work out. My sticky webbing, though effective to this point, was too fragile, my methods too tenuous. As well as I was reading her and playing her, she could slip through my fingers at any moment, perhaps before I got to explore the stocking-clad fantasies that kept bubbling to the surface.

I did some reading and went through my mail as I waited for the evening to come, and found myself returning again and again to the catalog for an upcoming professional conference. It was a two-weeklong series of workshops in Switzerland, for the purposes of extending and refining the use of certain therapeutic techniques. Some sounded far too New Age — Finding The Unconscious Light, for example, or Sensory Depravation And The Inner Eye — but others called out to me, with my situation with Mira in mind.

Immersion Hypnosis: The Body’s Connection To the Subconscious, was especially intriguing. I read the workshop description and my mind wandered, and my dick swelled. Hypnosis, though not actually discredited, had been considered rather old-school where I was trained. I knew various relaxation techniques, which mostly focused on tone of voice, but actual hypnotism was an entirely different thing. I’d read of the immersion technique and other new methods in recent trade magazines, and knew that hypnosis, in revamped forms, was making something of a comeback. The immersion technique, though quite new, had an impressive success rate in multiple studies. As described in the workshop outline, the method employed ancient yoga-like body-relaxation techniques to create something between a meditative and sleep state, in which the patient was particularly suggestible.

The possibilities swam in my mind. It was silly, but I kept reading the words “Immersion Hypnosis” as “Insertion Hypnosis”, which told me exactly where I was. Two weeks away from my practice at this time was nearly impossible, but Mira’s words echoed in my brain, and I couldn’t ignore the excitement they caused. I’m a great follower. I take the instructions and my entire body comes alive. I take instruction really well.

It might be pure fantasy to believe that she was especially susceptible to suggestion that way. She’d been talking about dancing, and absorbing the instructions of a choreographer or dance instructor, not hypnosis. Still, immersion hypnosis was especially effective with female clients, because they tended to be better attuned to their bodies by nature. And wouldn’t a dancer, whose body was the very material of her art form, be particularly in touch?

I went online and couldn’t help seeing a satisfying “rightness” about it all as I read any material I could find on the immersion technique. It was like leading a subject on a guided tour through their own body, easing the conscious mind of its grip on the psyche. It sounded perfect for taking what I already had to use with Mira, the whole self-dubbed “following” dynamic, and extending it further. I looked at the cost of the conference, and checked airfare. It would be quite expensive, almost half a car, which was just too much. But what if it actually worked, I thought, drawing my fingers back to my nose, and breathing in. Yes, what if it actually worked.

Mira looked heavenly that night, her eyes extra bright, her cheeks aglow. She was dressed in form-revealing black leotards with only a little slip of a skirt tacked over them, her body covered yet nearly every inch of her amazing shape on display. By the time I arrived, the first swing dance was already swinging. Grace came up to me and stood by my side, two sets of eyes locked on Mira’s agile, fluent body as she danced with Taylor. Not only was she in complete command of the dance steps, she also exuded a vitality that seemed to reach out to touch every corner of the room.

“Either Miss Torso is on a new vitamin regimen, or…” Grace mused. “She’s practically in her spider suit again, fucking the whole room as she moves. Just look at the bouncing tits!”

I looked, and lusted, and studied. The change in Mira’s demeanor and energy level was dramatic, and I thought I understood why. She was a vital, healthy, physical girl, but how much energy did it require to keep pressing down on the lid that kept her bad side from boiling over? The afterglow she’d spoken of seemed to include a rush of fresh oomph, probably because the friction between her warring parts had been temporarily eased.

I could tell the instant when she first spotted me, because her cheeks went red and she missed a couple of steps, almost stumbling. Grace caught it all, and leaned into me.

“Something tells me that Miss Torso got banged recently by someone in a helping profession. Did you film it like I asked?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I deflected.

“Michael, this is Grace you’re talking to. You can’t lie to me, so you might as well come clean.”

It was true that Grace could not be easily bullshitted, at least not by me. In a way, this had been the cause of our mutual decision that I should no longer be her therapist. She was too intuitive, and we came to a place where she could anticipate all of my probing questions, and see through every technique I employed to dig into her psyche. It didn’t happen all at once, but she essentially became therapy-proof right there on my leather couch, which fascinated me. I ended up admiring her uniqueness, and once the therapist/patient dynamic dissolved, we quickly became great friends.

“I haven’t banged her, Grace. I kid you not.”

She turned from me and watched Mira until the end of that dance. “You did something to her,” she said under her breath, putting on a straight face as Mira and Taylor made their way over to us.

Everything became smiles and small talk in the brief time before the next dance. Mira gave out few overt signals that her high-beam demeanor had anything to do with me; even so her eyes shone with our secret when she looked at me and asked for the next dance.

“Sorry, he’s mine on this one,” Grace interceded. “This might be the last time I ever see this man on a dance floor, and I’m not about to miss out.”

“I never knew you had an intact protective streak lying underneath,” I chuckled, as we began to dance.

“There’s a lot you never figured out about me,” Grace countered. “Like how much I really do care about you. I don’t want to regret introducing you to Mira, Michael. I’d feel horrible if things turned out badly, so be careful.”

I was careful, making sure that I didn’t follow Mira with my eyes, and showing no outward signs of the morning’s secret tongue-fest when we did finally dance together. Mira said nothing, just gazed into my eyes as the dance required, moving her body like the dynamo she was. And then, suddenly, she sighed one time, her entire body quaking as though experiencing an aftershock.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Never better,” she replied. “It’s… it’s all like a miracle.”

I stuck around my protector during the break, trying to decipher the signals. Something seemed off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Sticking with the plan, I slipped away from Grace for a moment when Taylor left the hall for a restroom break.

“I have something for you,” I said to Mira under my breath, pressing a key to my house into her palm. “Perhaps you’d like to slip this into your handbag.”

Her eyes flashed quickly and her cheeks reddened, but she quickly recovered. “I can’t, Michael. I know I said I wanted it… Oh God, I just can’t.”

I hid the depths of my disappointment, and Mira looked genuinely conflicted, in that “I really do hate disappointing you” kind of way. She squeezed my hand and I read the message: I really do care about you and want more, and I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me. But I just can’t do this. I eventually retreated, and danced with Grace again as the second half of the night began. It seemed that every step of our feet lowered the prohibitive cost of those workshops in Zurich.

“Your body is tense,” Grace commented, and she studied me, looking for answers. “What did Miss Torso say to upset you?”

“It wasn’t that bad, Grace. Although I think you’re right about needing to be careful. Maybe I should get away for a while, to give Mira a time-out before any fireworks actually happen. Would that ease your fears?”

She smiled, almost beaming at me, but then a scowl blew through the smile, sending it away. “You’re up to something again.”

“Am not.”

“Are so, you sneak.”

“I’ve been thinking about attending a professional conference in Zurich, and something tells me that it might be just the thing right now. You don’t approve?”

“I don’t know. It sounds wonderful… How long would you be gone?”

“Two weeks.”

“Is this just an extension of your absence-makes-them-stew strategy? If so, you’re overplaying it.”

“Absolutely not, Grace. This is different.”

“Then why can’t I smile? Something is wrong.”

“How wrong can things go when I’m thousands of miles away? You should learn to trust me sometimes.”

“Yes, I should. I wonder why I can’t.”

I left the dance a bit early that night, and made all of the online arrangements as soon as I got home. I’d have some explaining to do to my receptionist, Carlotta, who would have the displeasure of rescheduling dozens of appointments. She’d get over it, though, and I could even give her some unscheduled paid vacation time. It would be a time-out for everyone, we’d all be winners.

I wanted be a winner, but it would only happen if I learned more effective Mira-controlling tricks through the workshops. I thought I understood what was going on with her now, and it included a bit of a miscalculation on my part. I’d been banking on her bad side holding the keys to her repressed sexual energy —which was still true — but I’d also believed in the slippery slope, that bringing a fantasy to life would cause her bad side to become more dominant. Instead, the expression of Mira’s naughty nature had released enough energy that she could fight for equilibrium and succeed, at least temporarily, to resist other urges. The equilibrium needle was now tilted towards the good Mira, and might remain that way until enough friction built up inside to trip her again.

It was exactly like an interior earthquake, including the tremor I’d seen passing through her when we danced. Her good and naughty sides were like two tectonic plates grinding at each other, the tension between them slowly building. Eventually the pressure was too great and she slipped, as had happened in this very chair, giving me that opening. Now she felt more relaxed, both physically and emotionally. The tension inside needed to build again, and who knew how long that might take.

A fucking detour. The path to Mira’s pussy and repressed sex fantasies was not a straight line, as I’d hoped. I would have to navigate a detour, with hopes that it was a journey worth taking. Inner tension was key, I now understood. Perversely, and completely antithetical to my training, I would need to learn new techniques to foster interior conflict, rather than interior healing. I remembered that Grace had just called what I do a “helping profession”. It was, and I had always treated it that way. But right now, I just wanted to help myself, to more of Mira.

I could write in detail about the conference, and what Zurich was like, and the particulars of the workshop design and training, but none of that is why you are here. The training I underwent was quite intense, and I poured myself into it like no other attendee, studying with a focus akin to a fever. I gained in two weeks a grasp of new techniques that might normally take many months to master.

The other thing I need to say is something you already know, that hypnotic techniques do not work like magic spells. Hypnosis cannot impose completely foreign desires into a subject, no matter what kinds of crazy exaggerations you see in movies or on TV. What I learned would be virtually worthless without additional insights into Mira’s inner makeup, because I could only heighten or slightly redirect what already existed.

Which, in her case, suited my goals completely. Intense desires were already there, pushing at her from within. Stir the cauldron of those repressed fantasies and Presto-change-o! — a semi-virtuous, supremely sexy woman with her inner fuckbeast charging straight at me. Or so I hoped.

I was tired when my return flight touched down on a Sunday morning, and I was glad to have a full day to recuperate before confronting my backlog of patients. There were four calls from Mira on my caller I.D. — not as many as I’d hoped for, but she’d left a message just two days before my return, that she had been worried about me, apparently enough that she called my office and had been relieved to hear that I was away on business.

“I was afraid that it might have been about me,” she spoke on the machine, her voice shaking. “I’d like to see you again, maybe another coffee date. There aren’t any more dances so… Don’t be a stranger, Michael. I… I need to… I’d really like to see you again.”

I noted the word “need”. The tension was back — not to the breaking point, perhaps not even close. But it was there and still directed at me, and that might be enough.

Grace came over that night and prepared a welcome home dinner in my kitchen, and we caught up over a bit too much wine. In the time I’d been away, she had moved on from Tina the Screama’ to a new conquest dubbed Luscious Lucinda.

“I’m frightened of this one, Michael.”

“You?” I asked, not believing my ears.

“I’m in too deep already. And her thighs, my God! You know I have this special thing about thighs, and Lucinda’s are super-hot, to the point that I might have found my Holy Grail. She’s almost… perfect.”

“Are you falling in love, Grace?”

“Maybe,” she squeaked, making the sign of a cross with her fingers. “I know I’m in love with her thighs. If it spreads to the rest of her…”

“Congratulations.”

“Congratulations? I’m scared shitless! She’s bi, not gay, and I don’t think I could share her.”

“I really want to meet this girl. What does she look like?”

“You’ve already met her.”

“What? Where? When?”

“After your Miss Torso did her spider dance. Lucinda is one of the other Movement Machine performers. Remember the little blonde with her hair pulled up in a bun?”

“Well fuck a duck! You stuck around after I left that night and worked your magic!”

“Like I always say, piece of cake.”

“She was sexy as hell, as I remember.”

“And she knows a few of the ins and outs of your married lady-love’s heart. Mira has been pining for somebody, did you know that? She doesn’t talk to anybody about it and keeps insisting that her marriage has never been better, but she’s essentially a pressure-cooker with great legs. I thought you might want to know that.”

“Are you still worried about me?”

“I don’t know. Tell me all about Zurich and I’ll see. Did you find some lovely lady therapist to share a couch with?”

I gave her a rundown of my time there, focusing on my training, which had been nearly the whole thing.

“So you could see the change in brainwaves right there in the class?”

“It was amazing,” I replied. “There were only eight of us taking the workshop…”

“Eight? That’s tiny!”

“More like select. Anyway, we each got the chance to work with five volunteers over the two weeks. Right there in the classroom, green as we were, we had a seventy-three percent success rate. The subjects were hooked up to sophisticated monitoring devices and you could both see and map the changes in their cerebral functioning. I was very impressed.”

“I see armies of cum-sucking, bikini-clad zombie babes wandering the streets of our fair city.”

“In a perfect world. In this one, the suggestive power of the techniques is rather limited.”

“Oh well… Did you at least get out to see the city? I hear that Zurich is really something.”

“Barely. I was so excited, Grace! I learned so much… Maybe you should make an appointment with me for next week. I might even be able to crack your hard shell now.”

“No go. What I’m feeling right now… If what I’ve got for Luscious Lucinda is a mental disease, I sure don’t want any cure.”

“You’re afraid that I really could get inside of you now, aren’t you?”

“Are you challenging me, Michael?”

“No, I was…”

“It sure sounded like a challenge. Bring on your newfangled body/hypno technique, I can take it.”

“Grace, I wasn’t…”

But in fact I was, and she had consumed just enough wine to be a tad belligerent. The more I told her I didn’t want to do it, the more she insisted, and before you know it I had her lying on her back on my couch.

“If you turn me straight I’ll drive a stake through your heart,” she joked.

“Close your eyes and relax your entire body,” I began, my voice low and slow.

“I’ll fall asleep after drinking so much,” she replied, resistant and obstructive.

“That would be fine,” I soothed. “Take this seriously, though. You can’t say you won unless you really participate.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Feel the warmth in your left arm,” I began. “Inside the arm, the interior of the left arm. Feel the warmth and life inside each finger, and the hand, back and front. Feel the warmth and life in the left arm,” I repeated, leading her from her fingertips to her collarbone. We moved, slowly, to the right arm and then the heart, and the beating of the heart, and then the breathing. I worked my voice as I’d learned and by the time I had her working her legs, I knew I almost had her.

“This… not working,” she said, her voice a little fragmented and dreamy.

“That’s okay. Tell me what Luscious Lucinda’s thighs are like,” I suggested, entering with something she might be happy to tell me anyway, and which happened to coincide with the part of the body her focus was on. She didn’t reply for almost thirty seconds, which I knew was just right.

“So toned,” she sighed.

“Toned,” I repeated.

“Toned and smooth.”

“My voice is toned and smooth,” I said. “Follow the toned and smooth voice.”

“Mmnnhhh… Follow…” she sighed.

“Yes. Just follow.” I really hadn’t planned to do any of this, but with the connection she had mentioned from her new lover back to Mira, it was worth the attempt. “Are you following the voice, Grace?”

“Following…”

“You love to kiss Luscious Lucinda’s thighs, don’t you?”

“Yesss…”

“Will you kiss Luscious Lucinda’s toned and smooth thighs tonight?”

“Yesss…”

“Kiss those thighs for a solid hour tonight,” I suggested.

“Mmmmmnnn… So solid…”

“A solid hour of kisses.”

“Mmmmmnnn…”

“I want you to de me a favor,” I soothed. “A favor for the smooth and toned voice.”

“Favor…”

“Tell your Luscious Lucinda to suggest something to Miss Torso. Miss Torso should go ahead and make love to the man she’s pining for. Have Luscious Lucinda tell her that.”

“Luscious… torso…”

“You’re ready to come back now, aren’t you Grace?”

“Yesss…”

“So now you should come back.”

“Come… back…” A brief pause, and then, “This back isn’t working.”

“So you were right. It won’t work on somebody like you. You win.”

“It was relaxing, though.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“I might have fallen asleep.”

“You started to snore.”

“Oops. Discouraged?”

“No. I thought the wine might help, but… If it doesn’t work on a tough nut like you, that doesn’t mean it can’t help others. I have faith in the training.”

“I should have made a bet with you.”

“You should have.”

We cleaned up the dishes together, and I could see a telling anticipation in her movements.

“You’re moving in fast-motion, Grace. You’re going straight from here to somebody’s luscious thighs, aren’t you?”

“Guilty. It’s my sixth night in a row. I need my fix.”

“Give those toned and smooth thighs an extra kiss from me,” I said.

“Hell, I’ll give her an hour’s worth of extra kisses from you,” she replied, and then her forehead wrinkled.

“What’s the matter?”

“I was just thinking… You should get to do the same thing with miss you-know-who. If she’s sitting somewhere pining for you, she might as well just go ahead and fuck you.”

“I’m surprised you said that.”

Grace’s brow wrinkled more. “Yeah, I’m a little surprised, too.”

It was overtime at the office all that next week, even seeing clients all day Wednesday. Mira called on Tuesday night seeking out a Wednesday coffee date, which I had to decline.

“Damn, I’m going to have to make an appointment to see you, aren’t I?” she joked, a trace of impatience in her voice.

“I’m at home every night,” I replied, keeping my voice calm.

“You don’t know how much a part of me wants to…” she began, and of course she was wrong. I did know, and I was very interested in the way she had phrased her comment. She was somewhat aware of the split, even if she didn’t really understand it or know its depths.

“I thought your husband frowned upon male friendship,” I said.

“He doesn’t need to know.”

“Maybe next Wednesday, then,” I suggested. “I might not have time for a leisurely coffee, but I’ll be working alone in the office all afternoon. You could always stop by.”

“I… I don’t know. It’s tempting but…”

“You’re thinking of what happened the last time you were there.”

“Yes. I… We can’t go there again, Michael.”

“Things are better at home?”

“In a way. Ever since you… Maybe we shouldn’t even talk about this.”

“That’s entirely up to you, Mira. You’re in control here.”

“I’ve been… more amorous, with Taylor. It isn’t like it felt with you, but… I can’t do that again, Michael. Maybe I shouldn’t even see you, it’s…”

“I’d never touch you, Mira. Not even a pinkie. I promise.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I’m completely serious. If you drop by, I suppose it comes down to a question of whether you trust yourself.”

“I… might trust myself.”

“Then come. I promise I won’t touch.”

“Okay,” she whispered, before ringing off.

You can imagine how slowly the clock moved for me the next week. Mira called my home twice without leaving messages, and I made a point of not answering. If she wanted to cancel, I didn’t want to hear it. If she was beginning to crack, I didn’t want to inadvertently glue anything together.

I was nervous when the afternoon finally came, although I hid it well. Everything depended on Mira agreeing to undergo the new method, and then I’d have to see whether it even worked with her.

She was dressed down when she arrived, in jeans and a simple white sweatshirt. Her jeans hugged her hips and ass like nobody’s business; even so, she had chosen to cover her legs and de-emphasize her splendid breasts, either helping me to see her as something other than a sex object, or making a deliberate effort not to be flirty.

And she brought coffee, which I declined. “It’s been so insane since I returned,” I said. “Don’t get the impression that I do this all the time, but I think I’m going to have a glass of wine instead.”

“You keep a bottle around?”

“Carlotta is a wine buff and sometimes brings me something special to try. She left a Pinot Noir yesterday that she’s been raving about.”

Mira stared at the coffee cup in her hand, then set it on the floor. “I’ll have some wine, too. One glass can’t hurt.”

Although the coffee might have helped her, so round one went to me. We settled in and I kept it simple. Grace came up in conversation, and Mira asked if I knew that my friend was seeing one of the Movement Machine’s dancers.

“She told me about it,” I replied. “Grace seemed smitten, which isn’t like her.”

“Lucinda is a beautiful girl,“ Mira said. “I wasn’t sure whether she liked women, although I suspected. Grace though — I didn’t even suspect that Grace was gay.”

“She can be very subtle, or completely unsubtle, depending on how she feels about things.”

“It’s funny, because I’ve been confiding in Lucinda, about… various things. Not in detail, but…”

“Are you talking about what happened between us?”

“Yes. I… I just needed to confide in somebody. I didn’t say too much. She has no idea who I’m talking about.”

“She was a good listener?”

“Yes. She has her opinions, though.”

I couldn’t help wondering whether Lucinda’s opinions had been at least partly shaped by Grace, whose outlook might have been tweaked by me. But I didn’t push.

“Would you like more wine?” I asked.

“You’re trying to get me drunk, hoping that I’ll do wicked things?”

I laughed. “I made a promise, Mira. And I’ll keep it. Not even a finger.”

“Okay,” she said, accepting a refill. “Now tell me all about Switzerland. I want to know everything!”

I told her plenty, but only certain things presented in a certain way, having rehearsed this part of our interaction for a solid week.

“Wow!” she exclaimed, having heard what I wanted her to hear. “That mind/body connection is integral to a dancer’s life, and all sorts of athletics, too. You could probably branch out into sports psychology — I remember reading about some therapist somewhere working with professional baseball players, helping them to see the ball better and react quicker, all through tapping into the body’s intelligence. The effects were measurable in their batting averages.”

“I was going to ask whether you might be able to put in a word for me with your dancing friends.”

“I’d be happy to, but… I wouldn’t even know what to tell them.”

“It would probably help if I worked with one of the dancers first. Then there would be the experience to report, not just the concepts.”

She sipped her wine, and I could see the wheels turning. “You’d have to do a number of sessions with somebody?”

“Ideally. But first I’d need to see whether the technique even worked, because not everybody is a suitable subject. It works with many, but others are immune for some reason. They just experience relaxation or fall asleep.”

“You know what you’re doing with this?”

“Totally. I tried with Grace the other night…”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, she fell asleep.”

“Maybe I could…” she began, but then she stopped

“No, you don’t have to. Thanks for thinking of it, though. I might see if Lucinda is interested. Grace could put in a word for me…”

“What would I have to do? Just to let you see if it works with me?”

“That’s easy. Just lie down on the therapist’s couch and relax.”

“And you’d… bring my mind and body together?”

“Yes. Supposedly it feels incredible. If it works, that is.”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t… You promise you won’t take advantage of me?”

“No, I’d turn you into a zombie lover from the underworld,” I joked. “Come on, Mira. I’ve already said that I won’t touch. But really, you don’t have to…”

“But it might help.”

“Well… Yes.”

“I’d like to help. Let’s try.”

“You really want to?”

“I want to. We’ll just try and see.”

I didn’t pretend-refuse, as I had with Grace. Instead I let Mira arrange herself on the couch, and I took a seat in the nearby chair, and we began.

She was so fucking gorgeous lying there, like sleeping beauty in contemporary clothes. Even if it had amounted to nothing I would have gotten hard watching her breasts rise and fall as she breathed. But it was working, working like a charm. I could tell by the time we got to her heartbeat that she was a natural, the focus she brought to her body every day paying dividends right there on my couch.

“Tell me where the focus is right now,” I said.

“Right thigh…”

“Move the focus higher. Follow this voice to your upper thigh, and the life inside the upper thigh. Follow this voice to where your thighs meet. Feel the heat and the life where your thighs meet.”

She was silent for a good bit, but then I heard a soft, “Oooooooo…”

“Tell me what you feel there.”

“Heat.”

“And?”

“Pressure.”

“And?”

“It… aches.”

“What does it ache for, Mira?”

“Mmmmmmnnnn…” she replied, as though that explained it all.

“You have fantasies about that, don’t you?”

“Yesss…”

“Sometimes you want to follow your fantasies.”

“Oh yes.”

“Does Michael appear in your fantasies?”

“Yesss…”

“Michael has fantasies, too, and part of you wants to help Michael.”

“Yesss…”

“Michael’s fantasies involve you, and stockings, and strip-tease, and discovering your secret desires.”

“Mmmmmnnnn…”

“What did you feel when Michael kissed your legs, and between your legs?”

“Mmmohhhh!”

Her rear began to wiggle a little bit, and even through the fairly heavy cotton of her shirt, her nipples were obviously hard. “What else?” I gulped.

“G…guilty.”

“What else?”

“Amazed. Relaxed. Satisfied.”

“You had the best orgasm of your life when Michael kissed between your legs.”

“Oh God yesss…”

“That’s why you felt so satisfied.”

“Yesss…”

“You shouldn’t feel so satisfied, Mira.”

“Shouldn’t feel… Shouldn’t?”

“Your fantasies are still unexplored, aren’t they?”

“Y…Yes.”

“Michael’s fantasies are unexplored, and you wish to help Michael.”

“Yes.”

“Michael’s penis is part of your fantasies.”

“Yes.”

“Michael’s penis scares you, but it also excites you.”

“Uh! Yes!”

“Michael’s penis is essential to fulfilling your fantasies, but your excitement still remains trapped inside. The fantasies push at you, because they’re trapped inside.”

“Uh…”

“Part of you wants Michael’s fantasies to come to life. Part of you wants your fantasies to come to life, the excitement inside pushing its way outside.”

“Yes.”

“Follow this voice, Mira. Are you following this voice?”

“Following…”

“You have excitement that needs to move to the outside. You need to follow your fantasies from your mind out into your body, and out into life. You need to follow your secret desires, and help Michael with his desires, and make it all happen on the outside.”

“Follow…”

“It’s good to feel sexual satisfaction, but only temporarily. You have so much tension between your legs, so many needs…”

“Yes!”

“And aching.”

“Ohhh… yesss…”

“Such intense aching.”

“Gahhh…”

“What should you do when you have tensions between your legs, and your fantasies need to move outside?”

“I… I…”

Her hands, which had been lying peacefully by her side, began to trek to the button and zipper of her jeans. As much as I wanted to see it and as hard as I was, I didn’t need her waking up masturbating in front of me.

“You should wait, Mira.”

“W…wait?”

“Let the tensions build inside, and between your legs.”

“Ohhh!” she groaned.

“Michael can temporarily relieve your tensions. Michael can give you the best orgasms of your life.”

“Follow… Michael.”

“Yes, you will follow Michael. Michael will give you the key to his house, where you can temporarily relieve your tensions.”

“Mmmmnnnn…”

"But the tensions will return."

"Uhhh..."

"What do you need to relieve the tensions, Mira?"

"M...Michael's penis."

“Now, follow this voice, Mira. Follow it towards a brief period of relaxation, and calm. Follow this voice back towards this office, and the light in the office.”

“Follow…”

“You’re ready to come back now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Come back then, Mira.”

It took perhaps a minute, but her head tilted in my direction, and several expressions seemed to be fighting for dominance in her beautiful features. “I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

“Like a baby,” I answered. “I was going to shake you awake but you seemed to be dreaming. Plus I promised not to touch.”

She slowly sat up. Her nipples were still obviously hard, but I pretended not to notice.

“I was dreaming. I’m a mind/body dud for you,” she said.

“Hardly a dud. Maybe your mind and body are already too well connected. I’ll see if Grace can convince Lucinda to try.”

“What time is it?” Mira asked, before glancing at her watch. “Damn, it’s later than I thought. I should follow… I mean, I should really be going.”

“It was wonderful seeing you again, Mira. I’m so glad we did this.”

“It isn’t… too painful, seeing me this way? I know you hoped for more. I gave you reasons to hope.”

“I can still dream,” I said, playing everything cool.

She stopped at the door as she was leaving, beginning to look uncomfortable. “It’s… harder seeing you than I thought it would be.”

“Well…”

“I’m still so confused.”

“Let me know if I can help in any way. Friends help each other.”

“Yes, they do.” She bit her lip and her posture seemed to change, some slight shift that emphasized her hips in her tight jeans.

“When can I see you again?” she whispered.

“Whenever you want.”

“It might need to be… soon.”

“That would be nice.”

“I might…” she began, and I thought I saw a tremor roll through her body. “I’d better go.”

I stared at her perfect ass as she walked outside, and considered whacking off in the office bathroom as soon as she was gone. I decided against it. Maybe soon meant soon, and I wanted to be aching for her.

She had already tried to call me twice by the time I got home. I ate simply, and sat near the phone, waiting and thinking. There were so many other things I could have said while leading her psyche where I wanted it to go. I could have had her tell me her fantasies, or tried to give her specific instructions about specific garments I’d like to see her in. Rightly or wrongly, I’d been cautious, targeting the fault-lines I knew about rather than bending her towards anything that might be too foreign.

Her voice was shallow when she called next, and her first words told me what I wanted to know.

“I’m not a bad person,” she said. “I’m not a cheater.”

“Why do you say that?” I probed.

“Because… Oh God, Michael, it was too hard! I should never have come by, it… I thought I could resist these feelings, but I can’t! I need to see you. I really need to see you.”

“Maybe next Wednesday we could…”

“Wednesday? I… I can’t wait until Wednesday!”

“Why? You’ve waited for weeks. Tell me what you want, Mira.”

“Oh God! I’m out of control!”

“No, you’re in complete control. Just tell me what you want and I’ll…”

“I… have to go. I have errands and… Oh God, this is so hard!”

She rang off and my dick felt like it could drill holes through concrete. I’d spent a lot of money learning those immersion techniques, and it was looking like I’d invested wisely.

I worked at my computer late into the night, and kept looking up at the slightest sound, hoping that I’d see her there, her eyes almost crazy with desire. I drank a bit of cognac, and eventually locked up for the night, and went to bed.

The phone rang at three-thirty in the morning.

“Tell me that you’ll keep everything secret,” she whispered. “You can’t tell anybody — not Grace, your secretary, your mother…”

“You know you can trust me that way,” I assured her.

“I’m… coming apart, Michael. I can’t stop… touching myself, and imagining that it’s you.”

“We can do or not do whatever you want, Mira. It’s all up to you.”

“I… I need to go.”

“Sweet dreams,” I said.

“They aren’t sweet, Michael. They’re… so hot…”

And she rang off.

My dick kept swelling in my pants as I worked with my clients the next day. I concentrated on their needs, but Mira was always there in the back of my mind. I still couldn’t control the timing of things, but I had her, as though I’d hooked an invisible collar around her neck, with its equally invisible leash held by my cock.

No calls from her that evening, and I went to bed with my dick throbbing.

Again, in the middle of the night, the phone rang.

“I have to see you again,” she whimpered. “Soon! Oh God it has to be soon!”

“Where are you? Can he hear you?”

“No, he’s sound asleep and I’m down in the basement. I’m… Oh God I want you…”

“I thought we weren’t going in this direction, Mira. I thought you’d decided…”

“Fuck what I decided! I’m… I’m about to burst wide open! I need… I need…”

“What do you need? Tell me.”

“I need your cock, Michael! I need it inside of me! I need… Oh God, I have fantasies and they’re… It feels like they’re leaking out of my pores!”

“Tell me one of your fantasies. A simple one.”

“Control!”

“Control? What do you mean?”

“I want… You keep saying that I’m in control, but I want to be made to do things that I wouldn’t do.”

“Things like…”

“Swallowing. I don’t do that, I’ve never done that.”

Well, well. Nobody had to tell me when an opening had just become an opening. “If you ever put this cock in your mouth, you’re going to have to swallow, Mira. I insist.”

“No! I can’t!”

“You have to.”

“No! I just can’t!”

“You have to.”

“Ohhhhh…”

“Tell me what it will be like with my cock in your mouth.”

“I… I’m not real good at it. But I’ll learn. I’ll follow your orders. I’ll feel your orders… slipping inside of me…”

“You’ll suck my cock the way I tell you to. You’ll follow every instruction, and learn to perform it well.”

“Uhhh! Uhhh!” I heard, and I thought I might be able to hear the sounds of her wetness, too, her fingers working with a furor she wouldn’t have recognized before today.

“You can’t come until you swear to follow my orders, Mira. Swear it.”

“I’ll… I’ll follow your orders! I’ll follow you anywhere, I swear it!”

“You’ll pick up the key to my house tomorrow morning. I’ll leave it under the mat.”

“Yes!”

“And you’ll suck my cock the first real chance you get. But no slip-ups, no silly risks, do you understand?”

“Yes!”

“Dress sexy for me.”

“But… I don’t know what you like.”

“Yes you do. Surprise me. I love surprises. Now put the phone down near your pussy. Dream of sucking my cock while you play with yourself. I want to hear you come while dreaming of sucking my cock, and swallowing.”

There were a few moments of relative silence, but then I could hear wet action, surprisingly loud. And moaning, and then her little childlike cries, not so different from the ones my tongue had coaxed out of her several weeks before. It was nearly impossible to resist, but I didn’t even stroke myself. I just listened, and felt a wave of satisfaction that was nearly orgasmic in itself when she came, every grunt and breath there for me to hear.

There were minutes of near silence after that, and then a rustling, and the phone being handled.

“I love you,” she purred into my ear, just before she hung up.