7 comments/ 51580 views/ 2 favorites Hypnotist By: magmaman (I never wrote a mind control story before, so I thought what the heck? Why not?} +++ How did I end up there? I was happy as a clam in butter sauce before, how could I not be? Now things had gone basically all to shit. The cops did mercifully take off the handcuffs before the door slammed shut with a very final sounding "clang." +++ Kirsten had said yes when I asked her to marry me, actually a surprise. I knew that I loved her by then but even though we necked and petted, she just would not go all the way. I was sort of willing to wait, she was stunning, beautiful. Her body was so slender and sleek, she never seemed to even notice that most men turned into stammering idiots around her. Include me in that mix, I wanted her desperately. Hell, some women turned into stammering idiots around her. So while I did accept the wait, I also tried. Lord did I try. Nothing I attempted worked, I could play with her and pet her, but the slightest sign of trying to unfasten any clothing, or reach underneath anything she wore was met with an instant "NO!" I even asked her once, long after we had tried everything a person could imagine from just plain fun to downright kinky, why she insisted on waiting to have sex. I asked because once we did it that first night she wanted to do it all the time. There were no inhibitions at all after that. We had just finished an amazing session, I had walked in the door and set down my lunch pail from my job building homes at the company the bank and I owned. She came in and said, "Hi, Honey!" and began to more or less molest me. That was the day I asked her why she had chosen to wait. She had one hand between her legs making squishing sounds and had her lips gently teasing my left nipple at the time. Her other hand was between my legs, tickling my testicles with her fingertips. She did that a lot in the aftermath of our lovemaking. That sounds like a rather awkward position but when you realize she worked out and also did gymnastics, Kirsten could scratch herself behind the ear with her big toes. Both at once. I would tease her that I was going to grab our cheap camera and get some photos when she did that, both of us giggling hilariously but she wouldn't let me. Her answer to my question was simple. "Mom told me to wait, she said I had to be pure on my wedding night. She told me that to the right man it was more precious than Gold." For Kirsten, it actually was that simple. To her, I was the right man. The other thing I noticed is she never seemed to understand much, having a chat about anything at all ended up without fail in a series of questions. If I asked her to balance the checkbook, she would look at me blank and there was a good chance I would find it later, sitting on something, teetering. That's an exaggeration of course, but if she did try to make it come out even she just could not. Decimal points? She wasn't sure what they were for. $0.51 was a dollar and $0.49 wasn't. What she did do was write everything down carefully in her perfect little handwriting. Her notations looked like she had typed them out. When she did any math at all, everything came out to round numbers. Unless she was cooking. Cook? My God, could she cook! Her Mother wrote down the recipes, without fail Kirsten got out the little book, followed every step, right down to the fraction of a teaspoon for seasoning, timing it to the second. She had a little tool that she used measuring. Interestingly, her Mother's handwritten recipes all looked to be typed out, also. I remember her Dad making a wisecrack one day about Kirsten being probably from the mailman after she made one of her strange comments about something. I defended her by telling him the mailman sure did a damn fine job. He just grinned at me. I noticed her Mother laughed out loud at that one. When we got a computer, I set up an email address for her. One day she mentioned that nobody ever emailed her, so I went in to check because I started getting ads in mine within 5 minutes of signing up my own. We were on dial up, she had never dialed in. I tried to explain that, she got down and looked underneath the desk. "The wires are all hooked up? Why won't it just work?" She asked. "It's like the stove, you have to turn it on first even though it's always hooked up." I told her. "Oh." Was all she said, but from the blank look she got on her face I knew she still didn't get it. I gave up on that. When I opened her email box (with the password 1234) she had a few hundred spam emails. I was in the process of deleting them when she asked me to stop. "Why?" "You aren't supposed to open other people's mail!" Kirsten told me. "It's spam!" I told her. She looked at me like I was making a joke, she knew what spam was. She sometimes chopped that up and mixed it with Mayo and sweet pickle relish to make sandwiches. Yes, her Mother had that written down for her, too. Kirsten could make spam taste good. There were lots of things like that, but you get the picture. I just assumed that upstairs Kirsten was not blessed, little did I know the truth of all of that, though. She was a natural beauty on the outside, yet appeared to be a bit less smart than a box of rocks on the inside. Some people would not be able to stand that, I was deliriously happy with her. She completely doted on me, every single waking minute of every single day. If I said I liked Ham, or anything at all, that was for dinner the next day, without fail. If I said I liked a certain outfit, she had it on when I got home. Our house? Perfect, she got down on her hands and knees and looked for any dirt, I am serious. I came home one afternoon to find her sitting cross legged on the floor underneath our antique kitchen table, carefully washing the legs of it. She was using a pink toothbrush, she knew I wouldn't touch it so she always grabbed those out of the package for house cleaning tools. Kirsten even washed and shined my work boots, which got me no end of kidding at work when I showed up with those. "Jeee..sus, boss! Yer blindin' us here!" My crew teased me, all of them covering their eyes. I did ask her to not do that so for three whole days she didn't. But then she forgot and did it again. I just hid them from her, that worked well. As wonderful and happy as everything was in our lives meant that minor little things like polished work boots was no big deal. +++ Now here I sat, in a jail cell. The trouble all came when Ken and Marsha moved into the house next door. At first, everything was just fine. Marsha was a short, slightly chubby and overly bubbly little brunette, the complete opposite of Kirsten in every respect. So they fit together like a hand and a glove, became as close to inseparable as it is possible to be while still living in different houses. Ken was a showman, he had some silly act and he really did quite well with it. He was also good looking and well dressed, just part of his act that ran over into his personal life. Everything had to be just so, even in a pullover shirt and shorts he looked well dressed. You didn't want to play cards for money with the guy, he could make things appear and then vanish right before our eyes. One day he was talking to me, then he grinned at me and handed me my wristwatch. That was a surprise, I had no idea how he did that and said so, then he handed me my wallet. How he got my wallet out of my hip pocket while standing in front of me is beyond me. I assumed he had probably done that earlier, but for the life of me I could not bring the moment to mind. It was fun to watch at parties, though. Normally he was on the road, doing his thing, then he would be back for a few days and then gone again. Kirsten surprised me one evening after Marsha had dropped her off from a joint shopping trip by asking what an "Opened up" marriage meant. "Opened up?" I asked, it took me a moment to understand. "Yes, she says that Ken is sometimes gone for a long time so he has girl friends because they are opened up." "OH! An..open relationship? I didn't know they were that way, I never even thought about it." I told her. "She says he has sex with other woman sometimes, I think that's what she means. Isn't that wrong?" Her comment was so innocent it was almost funny. "I guess it's a lifestyle thing, I never really understood that but if they are happy, that's all that matters." "Yes, I suppose so. But they are married and married people can't do that." "I don't think it's a matter of can't, I think it's a matter of not supposed to." I told her. "Could you ever do anything like that? I mean, if we were opened up?" "No, I don't think so, I am pretty happy with just you and me." I answered. "I guess it would be like not being married then. Did you ever do sex with anyone before we started going out?" Caught by surprise with that one, my mind flashed back to a very drunken beach party and a 3 minute session on a blanket with some girl that was there. It was something I had forgotten about and for the life of me I couldn't remember her name. "Well. I....." Was as far as I got. "Oh." She got an odd little smirk on her face, then she went into the kitchen. Later, after one of Kirsten's amazing dinners, I was curious. "Does Marsha..you know..have boyfriends..lovers? I mean while Ken is gone?" "She didn't really say, except I guess that Ken told her it was all right. She told me it's because he wants to have sex every single night, and sometimes he is gone for weeks at a time doing his show." I blinked at that. "Every night?" "Yes. Do you want to do it every night? That seems like a lot to me." She asked. "No, not really. We have a good sex life. What about you, do you want to make love every night?" "Only if you want to, honey." She told me. After that, I kept an eye on Marsha when she was around, but I never saw anything that would give me a reason to suspect. I saw no men arriving or leaving at odd times, in fact, I never even saw Marsha leave except on weekends for shopping trips, and most of the time Kirsten was with her. I knew damn good and well there was nothing going on when Kirsten was with her, for one thing I could set my watch by my wife. For another, if anything did happen differently Kirsten would just tell me about it, or ask one of her odd questions. But I couldn't imagine Marsha even mentioning that to Kirsten unless she was feeling her out or something. I even thought of speaking with Marsha about it, but how does a person do that? I knew I would be completely uncomfortable discussing someone's sex life with them, friends or not. It was best to just let that be. The parties continued, that never even came up again. There were several other couples that were around from time to time, but everything was perfectly innocent. As far as I could tell, anyway. Sure, I saw dancing and even a few hands drifting around from time to time but I had seen things like that all the time at parties. One thing I did notice is that Ken was always full of tricks, he did things like unhook a woman's bra without them knowing about it, he used his hands constantly to touch arms, things like that. I had figured it all was just part of his act, he distracted people with one hand while doing something with the other. More than one woman would find herself with her halter top unfastened, it was always good for a roar from everyone when they finally noticed. Rings somehow were slipped off of fingers, necklaces came unhooked and appeared in his hand. He never touched Kirsten, though, not one time that I ever saw and I kept an eye on him after what she had told me. One evening I came home to find Kirsten all excited. She told me that Marsha had mentioned Ken was booked into a club downtown and she wanted to go see his act. She even had free tickets, hell, we could afford that. I told her fine, she clapped her hands together and ran off to get ready. Four hours early. I guess I was used to things like that. Kirsten had been out shopping a couple of days earlier, Marsha helped her pick out an outfit. It was a pale Orange color, nearly peach I guess. Off the shoulder on one side, with a single strap on the other. The upper portion was waistless, about even to the top of her pubic hair it flared out in ruffles. She showed it to me, holding it up. It was completely unlike anything Kirsten would ever pick for herself, or even wear. I told her it was beautiful, and asked her to try it on for me. "Wow!" I said when she walked out. It really was made for her, the only bad part was she had on her white bra underneath it. Of course that meant the strap on one side showed, so did the strap around the back since it was cut low, almost to her hip line in the rear. "You can't wear that with that bra." I told her. "But you said I should always wear one." She answered. I guess I had told her that, I really didn't like the idea of other men looking at her nipples much. "I meant when you have on a blouse or T-shirt, this is an evening gown, you can't wear it with the bra sticking out like that." "Oh. OK." She got the funny little smirk on her face again, then giggled. She took off the bra, folded it carefully, went and put it away in the drawer and came back out. The effect was amazing, she stood there waiting for my reaction and all I could do was try to catch a breath. It wasn't transparent really, what it was was form hugging. Even her navel showed clear as a bell. I liked it but I wasn't too sure I wanted her to be out in public like that because the material made her nipples look pronounced. It also showed her belly and the material stretched, so it made the upper portion of the "V" between her legs obvious. She was covered, and actually only looked sexy as hell, so I finally decided it would be OK. I even went over and lifted the hem, taking a peek. That got another giggle out of Kirsten and then a smokey look. I let the hem drop, if this kept up there was no way in hell we were going to make it to any show. She had on a matching thong, and I could see she wasn't used to it because she kept reaching back and tugging at the rear of it. The gown wasn't ridiculous like some I had seen so I thought it would be all right. The thong was perfectly parallel at the top of the frilly fringe, and since the color matched it didn't show. Where the material stretched across her lower abdomen below her navel, it gave a peekaboo effect. Combined with being blessed with a mild sway back and nice round fanny, the look in that dress was spectacular. Kirsten put on a short soft jacket she had, it was a light brown and that looked nice, and it covered up what her gown made obvious, so I was unconcerned when we walked into the club. Our seats were great, right up close to the stage. Marsha arrived and sat on the other side of me. The lights came on, there was music and several extremely scantily clad women prancing around. The outfits were surprising, I didn't think they were really intended to be worn on a raised stage with floor lights down low in the front. They were tiny and covered with something that sparkled in the light, even the tops of the outfits were tiny. Two of the dancers were bare breasted, wearing just tiny little pasties that also sparkled in the lights. I realized that the dancer's outfits were fairly thick, so instead of staying in place when they moved, they slipped back and forth just a little. It was all enough to make a person think they saw something but never quite sure of it. They all had on fishnet type stockings so that helped cover them a little bit. Ken's show was sexy as hell. As the dancers did their bawdy routines, I knew I was getting glimpses of way more than was supposed to show, but then they all had to be shaved so it was hard to tell. I guess I have to admit that I found it rather exciting if the reaction I was feeling was any indication. "His dancers look very naughty!" Kirsten whispered to me. Marsha overheard that, she just giggled. Then Ken came out and did some of his tricks. There were clouds of smoke, and flashing lights, all designed to distract the audience from what he was doing, of course. I was concentrating, trying to catch him as first he did some tricks with cards, next he had birds appearing in his hands. But it was impossible to see how he did any of it, he was far too good at it. Right on cue as he did one of his little tricks the dancers would be doing cartwheels off to the side. That made it very hard to watch Ken to try and see what he was really doing, my eyes would always be drawn to them when they did that. At one point he was twirling what looked like a big wire cage with lights on it, that appeared to be tough to do all by itself, then he set it down on the stage. He turned to the audience, there was a flash and huge cloud of smoke, suddenly a different woman in a long black evening gown was standing inside the cage. It was one hell of a show, I thought. I could see why he was always booked solid. Next he called for "volunteers", several hands went up. This part was a joke, I was sure, because of course all of the so called "volunteers" would be in on the act. I was floored when he looked over at us and asked Kirsten to come up, along with several others. She bashfully didn't want to but I was now curious as hell, I encouraged her. She got up reluctantly, her face bright red and went up there. There were two other women and three men, Ken was talking to them and doing something with his hands, they all appeared to be sleepy, then he said something in the ear of each one as he went down the line. The man on the end held up his arms and shouted out that he was the "King of the World" then he began to do jumping jacks. The crowd was laughing, the next man starting flapping his arms and crowing, the last one was on his hands and knees barking. When he got to the women the first one shook her upper body back and forth, she was best described as admirably endowed although matronly, I couldn't help but snicker at that one. The other woman began to try and stand on her tiptoes like a ballerina, she couldn't quite do it but she sure did make an effort. Kirsten just stood there. Soon the crowd was roaring at all of the antics, Ken waved his arm and snapped his fingers and everyone on the stage stopped. He stepped up to each one and whispered something. One by one they filed off down the steps, looking red faced. Except for Kirsten. She still just stood there, looking confused. Ken had said nothing to her. I saw Ken seem to hesitate, then with a big grin he stepped up to her, whispered in her ear. She reached up and slid her jacket off, one of the dancers twirled by and took it. Kirsten began to do what appeared to be a rather violent gogo type dance. I was shocked, the lights flooding the stage made her breasts appear almost naked, the matching thong she had on was coming into view in glimpses. I started to come out of my seat, but Marsha who was sitting next to me reached out with a hand. She put it on my leg. "He is just having fun, Danny. Ken always picks the prettiest woman in the place for this part." I sat back down, Kirsten by then had stopped and was just standing there. Ken walked up behind her, and whispered in her ear again. He spoke to her quite a bit longer than he had the others. A dancer spun by and gracefully handed Kirsten her jacket, which she slipped back on. She suddenly looked embarrassed, then she walked down off the stage to thunderous applause. "That was different." I told her the moment she sat down. "He couldn't hypnotize me, he said some people just can't be and he thanked me." Hypnotist "You were dancing the gogo up there." "No, I wasn't. All I did was stand there?" She looked at me strangely. I decided to just let it go, no harm done at all. That night, I again asked her to tell me what Ken had said. "He just thanked me and told me I couldn't be hypnotized. Only really dumb people can be, I guess." I had to think about that one for a minute. Oh, well. Later, the four of us went out for a late meal, we were chatting about his act. I asked how a few of the things he did were managed, and got no real answers at all. When I mentioned that the cage part of the act was really beautiful, Kirsten looked over at me. Her hand came up to the jacket she had on, she pulled it off. Ken said something to her I didn't quite catch, she stopped. "Feeling warm?" He asked her. "Yes, I am feeling warm." Was all she said. He took the jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. "Pretty outfit." He said to me. "I guess Marsha helped her pick it out, she has nice taste." "I wish I could wear clothes like that." Marsha smiled at me. A look passed back and forth between them, then the conversation went back to normal. +++ "Come over here." I told her, patting the bed. We had barely walked in the door at home. Kirsten had removed her jacket and just hung it up carefully. "You are so beautiful!" I added. Her dress really was sexy as I had ever seen her. She looked at me, reached up and unhooked the gown at her shoulder. It dropped to the floor. Then she hooked her thumbs in the matching bottoms, slid them down and off. She walked over and slid on top of me, began to kiss my neck. Doing that wasn't too much different but I glanced over at the gown and thong lying on the floor. I had never seen her not carefully put everything away as she got undressed before. Still, I wasn't going to complain much. We had a wonderful session of lovemaking, I always enjoyed the way she used her powerful legs to press up to meet me. She was extremely excited, it had been quite an evening. Later, she slipped off the bed, went over and picked up the clothing and carefully put it away before coming to bed again. That Sunday we went to a backyard cookout at Ken and Marsha's. I mentioned to Ken again about how we liked the show, and how Kirsten had really gotten into her dancing. Normally she is slightly shy and reserved in public, it was amazing how he had transformed her with a few simple words. "It's pretty easy, first I let them slip into a mild trance and then just plant the suggestions. Nearly everyone will respond, not always but most of the time. A few aren't really under, I can always tell, but they do the funny stuff anyway since they feel they are part of the act." "Was Kirsten really under?" I asked him. "Oh, yea! She went down "bang" just like that. She is a great subject." "It isn't dangerous, is it?" I asked him. "Oh, no, not really. I can't make anyone do anything they don't want to do, or anything they would not do anyway, although I can trick them sometimes." "How is that?" "Well, if someone is doing something that would really embarrass them, I tell them they are all alone with no one around to see." "I never really believed in hypnosis." I told him. "Oh, it's real and works, all right. My Dad was a hypnotist, he taught me. Once way back in college I hypnotized a teacher and got her to take off her panties right in front of the class, that was a gas. I just suggested that she was in the bathroom all by herself. I got her stopped before she could take a dump in the chair." He broke out laughing like something like that was hilarious. I let that slide, went back to mixing with people. At one point I looked over and Ken was talking to Kirsten, she seemed to be hanging on every word. I saw Marsha talking to a tall older man that was at the party by himself, that conversation was animated, I noticed several times she reached out and touched his arm, her head tipped back in laughter at something he had said. When the man reached out and put his palm on her waist and she didn't protest, that really wasn't a surprise. "Open marriage," She had told my wife. It popped into my head that later they just might be pairing off, then I looked again for Kirsten. She had wandered over and was talking to two other ladies so I relaxed. Deep down inside I had one of those uncomfortable feelings, one of those things that tell a person something isn't quite right but you can't put your finger on it? That evening as Kirsten and I readied for bed, I asked what she and Ken had been talking about. "Oh, he was explaining how he got people to do silly things on stage. He said it was all just an act, supposed to be funny." "Oh, that is all?" "Yes, except his bookings are down a little, he asked me if I was interested in being part of his act. Just when he is in town, or close by." "Part of his act? Doing what?" "He said he sometimes has people in the audience that he calls on, they are part of the show." Well, I had already figured that part out. "What would he want you to do?" I asked her. "He said that since he can't hypnotize me, I won't fall under the spell. He needs people that know what to do." She sat down on the edge of the bed, all she had on was her bra. I couldn't stop myself from helping her out of it. "He said that? I wonder why? I am pretty sure he actually did hypnotize you." "No, he didn't." She said simply. Then she reached over and ran her hand down my chest and I forgot about that for a few minutes. Later, as we lay cuddled up, I told her I didn't really want her to be part of Ken's act. I was thinking of the way she had looked up on that stage, while that really hadn't been too bad, I just didn't like the idea. "I won't, honey. I have enough to keep me busy taking care of you." She had her tongue in my navel so I forgot all about that again. Two days later I got home and Kirsten wasn't there. In a half dozen years together it was the very first time. For a moment I panicked, then just as I was reaching for the phone to call her Mother to see if she was over there, the front door opened and she rushed in. "I'm sorry, honey. I lost track of the time!" She began to turn on the stove burners and drag out some pots and pans. "Where were you?" I asked. "I was over at Ken and Marsha's.", she said, pulling things out of the fridge. "Forget cooking, let's go out to eat." I told her. "Oh. OK. That sounds neat, what should I wear?" "Oh, just something simple, I was thinking we could go to Carl's Steakhouse, maybe have the Shrimp and a T-bone?" "OK. I will hurry." Kirsten was back in 60 seconds, wearing nice slacks and a blouse. "How do I look?" She asked, reaching for her purse. "You look beautiful!" I told her. Kirsten stopped and looked at me, she set down her purse, pulled the blouse off. Reaching back, she unfastened the bra, then undid her slacks, pulled them and her panties off in one motion. She walked over to me, stark naked, slid into my arms. I stood there in complete shock. "Kirsten! I said. "What, honey?" "What in the hell are you doing, we were going out to dinner?" "You said you wanted to make love?" She answered, looking up at me with a smile. "No, I didn't. I just said you looked beautiful?" I told her. She dropped to her knees and began to fumble at my belt. "Kirsten! Stop!" I lifted her by her shoulders, looking at her I realized her eyes looked odd. "What, honey?" She said again. "Get dressed." "OK." She walked over and began to tug on her clothes. One quick phone call and I had her loaded up in the car. Minutes later we pulled up in front of my friend Doctor Harburg's house. We had rebuilt his garage and saved him a solid 5 grand, he appreciated that and told me if I ever needed a favor, to just give him a ring. I unloaded Kirsten, Doctor Harburg took us into one of his back bedrooms he had converted to a home office. He was getting along in years and preparing to retire, but wanted the home office to keep his skills up, since he had several local clients. I explained what had happened, he got a puzzled look on his face. Then he went over and shined a light in her eyes. She sat there demurely, her hands in her lap. "I don't see anything at all wrong with her." "Tell her she is beautiful." I said. "What? She is beautiful, but..." He came to a stop. Kirsten already had her blouse and bra off, and was in the process of pulling her slacks down. Doctor Harburg stood there in surprise. Kirsten walked over to me and slipped into my arms. "See what I mean?" "Yes, I do. It's some kind of spell or something. I have never seen anything like it in my life." He reached out and touched her shoulder, she looked at him. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh!" She said suddenly, her arms coming up to cover her breasts. "This is Doctor Harburg, relax honey, it's all right." I told her. He had already reached for a gown, handed it to her. She tugged it on quickly. "You didn't tell me anyone was here, honey!" She complained. We got her sat down on the edge of the table he kept in his spare room, I told her to just sit there and not do anything. She appeared to be completely confused. Then Doctor Harburg checked her over, she sat there meekly as he did it. He even checked her vagina when I asked him if she had been raped. He found nothing at all really, but explained that if someone had used a condom then there would be no evidence. He did mention that she did look mildly inflamed down there but that could simply be from a state of arousal. "What is your opinion?" I asked, a sick feeling pouring over me. "She very likely has recently had normal intercourse." He told me. I went into detail about what I thought had happened, explaining my asshole neighbor was a hypnotist and it appeared he had her under some kind of control. "I am going to prescribe some pretty strong medicine, it's going to make her sleep for awhile, OK? Then if she isn't normal in the morning, take her to the hospital and call me." "OK." He went into another room came back with a glass of water and two pills. He had Kirsten take them. "I think you should call the police." He said. "And tell them what? That we THINK she was maybe raped?" I answered, getting her to her feet. By the time I got her home, she was out so I carried her in to bed. I sat up the rest of the night, checking on her every few minutes. She woke up around eleven the next morning. "Hi, Honey! Wow did I sleep." She sat up, still appearing groggy. "You look beautiful this morning.", I told her. "Thank you, Honey. Do you want some breakfast?" "No, I am fine." I was really relieved when she didn't just start taking off her clothes again. "What did you do yesterday?" I asked her. "I trimmed the Rose bushes out in the yard, why?" "I was curious. Did you see anyone?" "Just..Ken? He came out and talked to me, then you came home and...?" She suddenly looked completely confused. I felt my face flush, rage poured over me. At that point I was reasonably sure that Ken had done something. Downstairs, I called her mother. She asked a lot of questions but I sidestepped them, just told her we had some serious trouble so she came right over. "Whatever you do, don't let Kirsten out of your sight." I told her Mother. "What's going on, Danny? What's wrong?" "I will explain it all later." I told her. Then I went out the front door and walked over to Ken and Marsha's. She looked a little frightened when she saw me, probably from the expression on my face. "Where is Ken?" I asked her. "He is out on the deck, why?" "He hynotized Kirsten, apparently molested her. Probably raped her." "Oh, God! Not again, I told him it was only a matter of time...." "He does shit like this?" "Just once, a long time ago. It was all supposed to be just a joke but..." She looked really upset. "You weren't here yesterday?" "No, I was down getting my spa treatment all afternoon." That was all I needed to know. I pushed by her, headed for the deck. On the way I spotted an old Lava lamp sitting on a counter, I picked it up. Ken was just getting up out of the deck chair when I pegged him right upside the head with the Lava lamp. I was trying to break it over his head. Those things are pretty tough, it didn't break. His head was pretty tough, it didn't break, either. But he did go down flat. Looking up at me advancing on him he started screaming that he hadn't hurt her. I heard Marsha screeching in the background as I drop kicked him in the balls. The shorts he had on didn't offer much protection. Then I was on top of him. Ken was a pretty big and fit looking guy, but so was I. He never had a chance. I don't know what would have happened, but Marsha managed to tackle me and get me stopped. That was probably a good thing. I was back at the house sitting in a chair talking to Kirsten's Mother when the police pounded on the door. They actually pointed guns at me, I gave up quietly. I did start to try and explain but Cops don't normally listen to any of that. "Tell it to the Judge!" One extremely burly Cop growled. There was no point in resisting, anyway. I saw the ambulance next door loading Ken as they dragged me out, throwing me into the rear of a squad car without much fanfare. He wasn't moving any that I could see. +++ So that is how I ended up there, my life pretty much fucked up. The lawyer managed to get my bail reduced to $50,000, but that might as well have been a million. I had everything we owned tied up in material and equipment. We did try for being released without bail but some prosecutor, a kid that looked to be about 14 went into a half hour long tirade about "home invasion" and "aggregious" injuries and how I was a "threat to the community" so the sour faced old bastard just left me locked up. I knew we had lost that round when after explaining to the Judge what was little more than a suspicion that my wife had been hypnotized and raped just brought a raised eyebrow and a disbelieving look. +++ It was nearly four weeks later when the guard I had told the story to and became friends with came over and unlocked the cell door. Jack Mercer, my lawyer was right behind him. "You are being released." The guard grinned at me. +++ I had seen Kirsten every day, she was staying with her Mother who wouldn't let her out of her sight. But I had seen my lawyer even more. Kirsten had actually seen to it that my crew went ahead with working on the last contract, it was almost finished. She even paid the bills, banked the checks. I laughed when I looked at one check, the bill was $1106.55 so she wrote it for $1107.00. Hell, she even did the payroll checks, everything in round numbers. Just one check had been short by about a quarter, when the worker mentioned that, she simply handed him a dollar bill. She even wrote down and accounted for the dollar. Then she had written up a bid and got a contact on another one? That one surprised the hell out of me. Kirsten? Running a job site? Doing bids on construction work? I quickly ran the numbers, worried at first. She had nailed it. When Stan, my framer called asking about a delivery, I listened in amazement as he told me "That wife of yours is smart as a whip!" Later I found out she had dug out my older bids, studied them, then looked at the new job. All she did was transfer the figures, the material costs, and the hours from one to the other, written out in her perfect handwriting. Just like she did when she cooked dinner. Everything was so perfectly neat that it impressed the homeowner and she got the job. For a moment I thought maybe it had something to do with the way Kirsten looked, but the homeowner turned out to be a 64 year old little old lady. I asked her much later on how she had managed to do all of that. "I just asked a lot of questions, and read everything." She said. "Didn't anyone say anything, when you asked dumb...err..I mean, questions?" "My Mom told me there are no dumb questions, only people too dumb to ask." She gave me a little smile. The difference between dumb and smart is that smart people do ask questions, I guess. ++++ "The charges have been dropped." My lawyer told me. "How did that happen?" "It seems your neighbor didn't want to face the rape charges...or the two million dollar civil suit." He grinned. "How were you going to get rape charges to stick, there wasn't any evidence?" "We weren't, but a trial would mean publicity." "Still, why would he? I hear I hurt him pretty badly." "Probably something to do with around half of his bookings being canceled. And you hurt him a bit more than pretty badly, it seems they ended up removing one of his testicles." "How did that happen? I mean, him losing bookings?" I asked as we walked out into the sunshine. "Why, I guess I just don't know." He grinned at me, I could see every one of his teeth. One thing about my Jack Mercer, he had a well deserved reputation for being just plain mean. He had also dug into Ken's past and found an old case where he was charged with rape after hypnotizing a 21 year old female. Jack explained that it might not have been allowed as evidence in court since he beat the charge, but mention of it in phone calls to possible bookings appeared to have an effect. I could again see almost every single one of his teeth when he grinned at me. I saw the for sale sign stuck out in front of the house next door as Jack dropped me off. We shook hands, I told him that we would have the crew over at his house to build the new addition he wanted there in the next few weeks. I stood there and watched as he drove away, thinking I wished we could afford a nice new Mercedes just like that one. It would be a couple of years, though. Kirsten was sitting on the couch, her Mother was in the chair. She had her hands folded meekly in her lap. Her Mother got up, patted me on the shoulder, then she kissed me on the cheek and left without a word. "I'm sorry, Honey. I was stupid, I really did think it was you. I trusted that man, and he...are you mad at me?" Kirsten looked like she was about to cry. That was the very first mention she made of anything that had happened, of course with guards and others around she wouldn't discuss it at the jail. "No. We are all right. I love you. Do you...remember any of it?" "Yes, I do now..I think. I thought you were there and I..then something was wrong and I didn't know what. I remember Ken telling me I would forget everything, and I did for awhile." I didn't answer for a moment. "You said something was wrong? What was that?" "While he was...It was way too..small? Then I thought you were using one of our..toys." A tear trickled down her cheek. I stifled the sudden flash of anger I felt pour over me again. "Do we...you.. need to talk about it? It really upsets me." She told me. "There is nothing to even talk about. I love you, that is enough." That brought a welcome smile to her lips. "You really are beautiful, honey." I added, waiting to see what she would do. "Thank you. I love you too." First she hesitated for a moment, an odd twitch in her eyes, then she got up and hugged me. Thank God. I hugged her right back, it felt good to have her in my arms again. "Want some dinner?" She asked. "Sounds good, Babe." I sat down in my own living room for the first time in weeks. Everything was neat as a pin, but then it always was. I grabbed the remote, clicked on the news. "Are steaks and some Cole Slaw all right, honey?" Kirsten called out from the kitchen. "Sure!" I leaned back in my chair, glanced into the kitchen. The first thing I saw was a blouse on the floor. Hypnotist Then I looked up at her. Kirsten was naked, standing there stirring a bowl. Oh man. This was going to take awhile, I thought.