Early Incomplte Draft: I Can Help You if You let Me

I Can Help You If You Let Me

A Smuthunter Story

“So what brings you to my office Mr. Anders?”

Joseph Anders sat forward on the leather couch with his elbows on his knees. He felt more than a little anxious being there, not because he was against mental health, or even against the somewhat woo woo idea of hypnotherapy, but because of how he’d gotten there. After his breakup with his fiancé, one of his buddies recommended this woman to him, but it felt more like being set up on a blind date than any kind of actual professional; referral.

“Well, my friend Kyle mentioned that you’d helped him a lot and… well, he also said he told you about me, so, I don’t know, I mean, I don’t know what he told you, but I was engaged, now I’m not, and now things just haven’t been going all that great for me.”

Joseph, who usually went by his last name as a holdover from his younger days, even though he was only barely 30 and wasn’t even close to being old, kind of wished this had been a blind date and not a professional meeting. This woman, Ms. Kumi Sato, would have been enough to make any man forget about an ex.

She had deep, dark brown eyes, soft facial features including high, round cheeks, a narrow nose, and a radiant smile that came naturally to her. Her, long straight hair was also a soft, vibrant, light brown, and matched her warm, softly dark complexion. She wore her hair down her back, and tucked behind her ears tha had multiple piercings in both lobes, and in the cartilage of her left her.

Her modest makeup accentuated her eyes, and her smile, and her white mock-turtleneck and gray blazer minimized what Anders, as anyone would have, saw to be a truly tremendous pair of breasts. They were huge, they were porn star tits on her small frame, and there was something more than a little risqué about her long, leather skirt that he’d seen when she greeted him. The skirt also matched her black, pointed toe, leather boots.

There was something forceful about her, some energy that was beyond confidence, some kind of dominance that radiated off of her, one that was enhanced by her congenial, friendly, and warm presentation and likely, nature. Her smile was too warm, and there was something else intangible about her, just like her aura of dominance, that made her seem genuinely warm and welcoming. Maybe it was professional training, but whatever it was, it was intensely disarming and welcoming.

Ms. Kumi Sato seemed like she could control any room she walked into, and that especially true of her own office.

“I’m always happy when clients refer new customers to me, and since I believe so strongly in my work, but I know how intoxicating, for lack of a better word, the feeling of doing this work can be for some people, I do not charge for first sessions from referrals. It’s not like I’m a movie or a show a friend recommends, after all. And I don’t want anyone to think there’s anything dishonest going on, especially given how some people tend to think about hypnosis and how it works.”

She smiled, and her frankness and the modesty of her office also made her more welcoming, and compelling. The couch was nice, and there was a recliner in the room as well, plus her desk and a few file cabinets and some art on the walls he didn’t really register. Her place was in an office park at the end of a section next to a vacant unit, and even through the blinds were closed it still got some natural light.

“Kyle became a sort of true believer after a few sessions with me, and I say that because for some people hypnosis really does unlock a part of themselves they haven’t been in touch with, or don’t have a strong relationship with. It’s invigorating for those people, but their experiences can set unrealistic expectations for both results, and for emotional impact, so what I try and lead with is this, I can help you if you let me. And ultimately letting me help you, is you giving yourself permission to be helped, and to engage with what I do. So, you might even say it’s a question of helping me help you.”

As she said the line from an almost thirty year old movie, she smiled and made the frantic arm gestures to go along with the “help me help you” quote, and they both had a little laugh.

“I know it’s silly, but that is one way to think about hypnosis. It is a mode of abdicating authority to the hypnotist, which allows the power of suggestions to facilitate and program the subconscious mind, with those suggestions being things that the patient, we aren’t supposed to say subject anymore but I do prefer subject for my own reasons, already wants on some level. So in that mode hypnosis simply allows and reinforces a core desire. The other mode, and this can be helpful to understand too, because you may find yourself agreeing with one more than the other, is that the power of suggestion is strong and deeply affecting, and that your agreement to participate in trance allows and engages external force and authority through suggestion to make change.”

She folded her hands on her desk and he noticed her natural black painted fingernails, “In short, some people think suggestion is a structure, and others think suggestion is a force. The structure lets you mediate your conversation with your self, and the force moves that conversation in a direct and meaningful way. Either way, it’s two ways of talking about the same thing. And I know it’s interesting to think about which one may feel more applicable to you, but the subconscious mind, the part of the self that is bot governed by conscious or analytical, critical thought is the part of you that reacts to this, not what you may be thinking, or not thinking sounds more like you, or, in this moment, maybe not like you at all.”

She didn’t have any rings or bracelets on her hands or wrists, and reached out to brush at a small gold hoop earing before she continued. “I want you to understand the tools and processes we can use, so I can help you if you let me, and you can only make an informed choice about letting me help you it you understand on a conscious level what we are doing, because the conscious mind can get in the way of the subconscious mind’s ability to be open, after all the conscious mind is the critical filter that processes everything you see, or hear, and even what you think about what you think about the things you think about, so hypnosis, regardless of the mode you think might be most affecting, is most effective in helping the conscious mind detach and…”

She clapped her hands together over her head like a genie granting a wish and shouted, “Sleep.”

Anders had fallen into the complicated and circular logic of her explanation, caught up in both her authority and her disarming charm, but the more she talked and the more some of her phrases seemed to fall back on themselves and start over, the more overloaded his brain was becoming from the information that he could mostly follow.

Then, as she paused mid sentence, he felt a his own brain pause, and the sudden, loud clap and her raised voice, combined with the actual word she said, made his brain wholly short out. Anders felt his eyes close, and his body slump forward even more.

Kumi’s voice was softer as she started to speak again, but no less warm, and no less confident, “Mr. Anders, I want you to take a nice deep breath in, and as you breathe out I want you to open your eyes, open your eyes and look deep into my eyes. And as you do, I want you to notice how easy it is to be open and honest with me. By going into trance just now you’ve shown me you are receptive to my help, and you can show yourself you are receptive to me by noticing how easy it can be to follow the suggestion that it just feels natural and good to be open and honest. When you agree with this suggestion, you will take that deep breath and open your eyes in 3, 2, 1.”

While she spoke, as his eyes were shut and his thoughts felt distant, the words he heard started to fit together into an organized line of reasoning, like a puzzle taking shape, but one of the pieces didn’t seem to fit. He took a deep breath, and as she said “one” Anders opened his eyes.

“Pretty neat, huh?” She smiled wide at him, ‘How do you feel?”

“That was really surprising, but… which one is it?”

Kumi’s smile changed and the left corner of her mouth went up in curious interest, “Which what?”

Anders felt a calming heaviness in the front of his mind, and a soft, abstract distance away from all of himself, like he was only at ninety percent. “You said I can, and then I will, and you said when I agree, but then you also said it would happen when you counted, so it’s not really a choice right? You were making me think it was my idea and you just, you just hypnotized me out of the blue without saying it was going to happen or…”

“Yes, and if you didn’t want it to happen you wouldn’t have gone into trance,” her brown eyes were soft and welcoming, and even though they were deep and dark, they were bright and sparkling. “Well, that’s not entirely true, some things happen in a kind of statistically assumption that makes it essentially uniform, but when it doesn’t ‘work’, the subject, see it’s automatic for me to think in terms of subject and hypnotist, not hypnotist and patient, well, the subject or patient, closes their eyes for a second, but then they bounce back wide awake instantly and reflexively, because the human mind is very good at protecting itself and its own interests. So, for you to go under and then stay under for as log as you did, even as short as it was, that was an act of willing compliance on your part.”

It was funny, as she spoke this time her voice was clear and smooth, and she gestured with her hands, but Anders found himself staring directly into her eyes and only her eyes, even as her hands seemed to move around more and more at his periphery. He realized that she’d told him to look into her eyes too, and when he realized that was what was happening, that he’d started to do what she’d said, he felt himself slowly blinking, as her hand motions were making his focused eyes heavier and heavier.

“The suggestion I gave you, to be open and honest with me, a suggestion that most people feel is already an implied and inherent suggestion when going to any kind of mental health professional like myself, is really just an affirmation, which ties back to what I was saying earlier about the modes of effect that hypnosis has. And now, knowing that you can be hypnotized, and are willing to be hypnotized, and that you can accept my suggestions, and have accepted the suggestions I gave you, and knowing that I suggested that you look deep into my eyes, knowing that we both know that that’s the sort of thing a hypnotist says when they are hypnotizing you into a deep sleep, and knowing that as your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier as you stare deeper and deeper into my hypnotizing eyes, which we both know are very hypnotic, and what’s your favorite color?”

She’d started talking with her hands moving them along as she explained things, but the longer she talked, the more her hands started to take on a patterned waving motion moving back and forth in front of her eyes until one hand dropped, and the other hand kept waving until she asked him what his favorite color was.

He listened to her talking, explaining, following the logic again as he stayed staring into her eyes even as his own eyelids were getting heavier, and it was harder and harder to focus as her hand kept moving, but when she asked him his favorite color his brain paused and then had to some to life to answer it, but before he could say green she snapped her fingers in front of his face and said “Sleep” very forcefully again.

He felt himself sag forward again, his eyes closed down, his chin dropping and his shoulder slumping. And again she started to speak with the same warm and confident tone he’d used the last time he closed his eyes, and it felt like her voice was wrapping around him and washing over him.

“You’re doing so well, and you’re taking to this so naturally. I know that my approach of showing you, or demonstrating hypnosis through this tricks is unorthodox, but as a practiced and experienced hypnotist I’ve learned that this approach is the most effective. Now, if you want me to help you, I want you to tell me what your favorite color is. And if you want to wake up from trance now, or at any point in the future, just say the words out loud I want to wake up, remembering that you are still feeling open and honest, completely open and honest now, so open and so honest that the truth just happens on its own, without having to consciously think or decide. . Now, what’s your choice?”

“I want to wake up.” The words came to him before he could get the word green out. He’d thought of green. He’d wanted to say green. He was ready to say it and to go on with whatever she had in mind, but when he opened his eyes he was glad he’d said what he’d said.

She’d taken off her blazer in the short time his eyes were closed and she’d walked around to the front of her desk. Her white mock-turtleneck was sleeveless and while her learn, well defined arms were a nice sight, they couldn’t compete with how her top fit her body, and how much more pronounced it made her huge breasts.

“You’re out of trance now, but you may still be feeling the lingering effects of the suggestions I gave you, so tell me why you wanted to wake up.” Her voice was so smooth, and strong, and so demanding, plus she’d confirmed something he’d wondered as well about the suggestions she’d given him.

“I want you to hypnotize me again.” That had been a surprise, and it had come out of some part of himself he couldn’t have guessed at, while being an answer that felt very true.

“Oh,” it made Kumi smile at him and even laugh a little, “I was going to do that anyway, but that’s good to know. But now I really want to know what your favorite color is. So, stand up, move over to the chair, and we’ll see about hypnotizing you again.”

Anders stood up, moving with a surprising sort of compulsory ease, and as he stood and walked over to the recliner that Kumi had also walked over to, he noticed again that he was a head taller than her, even with her boots on.

He sat down, and she smiled, “Pull the foot rest up and lean back just enough so you can still stare straight ahead when I stand here. And what’s your favorite color?”

As he leaned back, ‘straight ahead’ turned into ‘eye level with her chest, and to take his mind off her breasts he finally answered her question, “I think it’s a tie between green and gold.”

He looked up as he answered, self conscious about his line of sight, and she nodded. “Hmmm… I think, green…” she bit her lower lip and squinted, “No, based on what you said, gold. You’d like the gold option more.”

She smiled as she said that, and her eye slit up, then she walked over to her desk, opened a drawer and started rooting around, “Perfect, here we go, I never get to use this with clients, for obvious reasons.”

She closed the drawer and walked back over to stand in front of him with something clasped in her hands. “If a client says black, I start this portion by having them close their eyes. If they say white, I have them picture a cloud, and if they say a few other colors I have pendulums with colored stones. They’re meditation pieces, but this…”

She held up her hand and dropped a gold pocket watch dangling from a chain. “No one ever says gold. I have a silver one too. But I use this visual element, either as eye fixation,” the pocket watch started to swing back and forth just above his eye level, and just above her breasts, “or for guided meditation. Favorite colors ground people and relax them. Now, just watch the watch as it swings back and forth.”

Anders’s chin tilted up ever so slightly, “Just let your chin drop back down, that’s it, and follow the watch back and forth with your eyes. Focus on the gold of the watch, and