The smart ones in the Indigo movement realized they had the power to get away with just about anything, as our parents and guardians and supporters had high expectations of us and few desires about ‛restraining’ our growth. We were supposed to be superior beings, they believed, so how could inferior beings like them know what was best for us? That led to a lot of tantrums, public and private, actions and statements that provoked a lot of unflattering press coverage and several investigations, and even some immature and plainly illegal behavior.

The smarter ones, including me, understood that even we couldn’t push things too far. The only power we really had was over our parents and supporters and the general Movement itself, not the outside world that was always watching and waiting for us to screw up. That was why us smarter ones worked to maintain our power and status: having ‛divine’ and ‛ascended’ gifts made our words prophetic and even absolute to our followers, and we used them relentlessly. And when that didn’t work, by then we had other means at our disposal. Money, for one: money always has power, and we controlled a great deal of it, all in trust accounts we manipulated through our complacent parents and guardians, money generated from the books that we had ghost-written and the extravagant appearances we carefully scripted and staged and the seminars where we spouted warmed-over New Age platitudes, philosophies and pablum and the retreats where we pulled off carefully rehearsed phony miracles and healings.

And I participated as much as the rest. It was so much fun.

With the end of Phil’s performance came more questions, but those were eventually interrupted when Becky returned to the room with bowls of chips and pretzels. I took advantage of the interruption to excuse myself and go down the hall toward the bathroom. I found Erik there, just emerging: I stopped him by stepping in front of him, and then took advantage of his momentary confusion to reach up and gently stroke his temples.

“Erik,” I said, coyly smiling my most charming smile, “would you … look into my eyes?”

It wasn’t spoken as a command, just a soft request in my most playful tone of voice that could have been easily ignored. But for all that he had just experienced, anything hypnosis-related was impossible to ignore and equally as impossible to resist. Just as the trance he was rapidly slipping deeply into.

“That’s right, that’s right, just keep looking deeper and deeper into my eyes.”

I had to know why he was such a good collateral hypnotic subject, and why then and not before. Something was playing out in the back of his mind, something that approached a hypnosis-related fetish, and while I could sift through his memories to find out, it would be easier to just ask him.

“You liked being hypnotized, didn’t you Erik?”

“Yes, Crystal.”

“What was going through your mind when I hypnotized Phil?”

The words spilled softly from his lips: “I was thinking about my cousin and I always fantasized about her and I masturbated looking at her graduation picture when I was in high school and she’s a hypnotist and she sent me this recording last month to help me with exam anxiety and I started listening to it and I got so hard hearing her voice I had to pull my cock out and it was so hard and I listened to her tell me to get sleepy and I got harder and harder and when she told me to sleep I came and I came and I came and I listen to the recording almost every night and I masturbate to her voice and I want her to hypnotize me …”

“Enough, hush,” I said, touching his lips, “just relax and go deeper for me, Erik.”

It was easy to understand the attraction: he was practically blasting my mind with images of his cousin. She had dark brown hair in a cute pageboy cut and big dark eyes and a broad cheerful smile and a really cute face. Her figure had to be from his imagination: no woman had breasts like that, nor legs so long. Her voice in his memory was honey and silk merged with a definite feeling of cousin-ly care for him, which made the induction and the attraction all the more seductive. I could see now why my induction affected him so, and it would only take a few suggestions to expand on that. But I had one more question for him, one very important question.

“Why weren’t you hypnotized when I hypnotized Brad?” If he was so primed about female hypnotists, why didn’t he react then?

“I was sitting behind you and couldn’t see your eyes hypnotizing eyes but I could see the crystal swing back and forth and I started following it and listening to you and …”

“Hush,” I said, putting my finger to his lips. So he wasn’t affected because he couldn’t see the first induction but could the second induction. That explained a few things. I had briefly considered that I was losing my edge. I was willing to bet that he still was in a light trance during the first induction, though, and wasn’t aware of it.

Now, to make a few suggestions, and this fascination with his hypnotist cousin provided just the starting point I would need.

“Erik, you know how thinking about your sexy cousin arouses you.” He nodded his head in response.

“That’s because your sexy cousin is a hypnotist.

“You fantasize about your sexy cousin hypnotizing you. Your sexy female hypnotist cousin.

“Your sexy female hypnotist cousin is erotic. Your sexy female hypnotist cousin is arousing. Your sexy female hypnotist cousin arouses you.

“Sexy female hypnotists are erotic. Sexy female hypnotists are arousing. Sexy female hypnotists arouse you.” I could see his thought patterns starting to expand and crystallize around those concepts.

“All sexy female hypnotists are erotic. All sexy female hypnotists are arousing. All sexy female hypnotists arouse you.”

In his state, his mind was flooded with fantasies of his cousin hypnotizing him now mixed with the images of my hypnotic eyes. To stir into the mix, I dredged up images of other female hypnotists from deep in his memory, from the sultry villainesses in the horror movies he loved to the statuesque stage hypnotist who performed on campus last year. I also added a few suggestions that the next time he listened to the recording and masturbated, he would think of other female hypnotists as well as his cousin: for some reason he would find strange but somehow pleasantly acceptable, those images would include images of me.

But enough with this, we both had to return to the party. And speaking of the party, I suddenly thought of something amusing to do for the next round of entertainment.

“Erik, when I snap my fingers, you will awaken. You will forget that I just hypnotized you. You will go back to your chair and sit down and act totally normally.

“However, every time I say the word ‛hypnosis’, you will remove one article of clothing.

“You will be totally unaware of what you are doing, totally unaware of any reaction from anyone else in the room. Everything will seem perfectly normal to you.

“Nod your head when you have totally accepted these instructions.”

He slowly nodded, and it was easy to read that he did indeed totally accept my instructions. I stepped aside and snapped my fingers. He awoke quickly and was startled to see me there, but I hurriedly said “Excuse me” and stepped beside him into the bathroom, where I waited for the sound of his footsteps to fade before emerging.

I was so looking forward to this.

When I returned to the living, seeing Erik seated I asked if anyone had any questions about hypnosis, and Erik responded by taking off one shoe: all eyes were on me at this time so no one noticed then. Paula responded with a question about habit control, something this regretful, habitual chain-smoker would have a natural curiosity about. I turned the question into a long explanation of how hypnosis could be used in this situation, taking care to say ‛hypnosis’ several times. Erik, true to my irresistible suggestions, mindlessly removed a piece of clothing at every mention. By the time he was working on his shirt, the others had noticed and were watching him more than me. I kept speaking, watching him covertly, until only a few articles of clothing remained. That’s when I was going to have the most fun with him.

“Erik,” I asked casually, watching him carefully place his undershirt on the chair next to him, leaving only his boxer shorts, “what are you doing?”

“Huh?” he replied, looking back at me, a puzzled look in his eyes.

“I don’t normally have quite this effect on men,” I said, walking over and running my hand down his chest, “but if you’re that eager I’m sure something can be arranged.”

The rest of the audience started laughing but he remained oblivious and even more confused about his predicament. For maximum effect, that would have to change.

“Erik,” I said commandingly, “remember!” as I snapped my fingers before his eyes.

That got his attention and his eyes flew wide and he grabbed his clothes in a bundle and rushed to the hallway.

He was halfway there, dropping clothes across the floor as he ran, when I said “Erik, sleep!” and snapped my fingers and he stopped short, letting the clothes fall as his arms went limp. I stepped through the line of strewn clothing to stand next to him.

“Erik here is deeply hypnotized,” I said, passing my hand before his vacant and unresponsive gaze. “You see, he was hypnotized by watching me hypnotize Phil, and I re-hypnotized him back in the hallway to give us a little striptease show here: every time I said the word ‛hypnosis’ he took off a piece of clothing, all the while totally oblivious to his actions.”

I left out any explanation of how only a fraction of the population had such an extreme reaction. I could tell that everyone here now had the impression that this was normal: once their minds integrated that information, they would all start reacting in much the same way.

“Erik,” I said, “you may now get dressed, then you will return to your seat and awaken.”

He complied, collecting his clothes haphazardly until he was fully dressed and seated. Then he opened his eyes and shook his head at the memories and with a good-humored laugh said “Okay, okay, you got me: I guess its only fair, everyone else had their turn, so I can’t complain when it was mine.”

What I read from him, though, was that he felt disappointed that I wasn’t going to hypnotize him directly, in front of his friends. Not only a budding hypnosis-fetishist, but somewhat of a closet exhibitionist as well: that could wait, no need to be hasty tonight.