Unbroken Induction

"Yes dear."

Bernard took a pan of water and all the potatoes and started his chore. Each peeled potato dropped with a splash into the pan as the next was taken up.

The commentary from the TV in the lounge indicated that United had scored against Wanderers, but Bernard continued his work with a level of concentration that was normally only given to Play-Station games.

Mary watched and shook her head in amazement as she watched the last potato hit the water and her husband stood. He headed back to the front room and came to rest on the couch with a beer in his hand.

"Darling, turn over the TV, the 'Sound Of Music' is on ITV, could you change the channel for me?"

Now she was really pushing it!

For a moment there was silence from the lounge and then:

"Oh, I must stop these doubts, all these worries

If I don't I just know I'll turn back

I must dream of the things I am seeking

I am seeking the courage I lack..."

Mary heard the words of her namesake singing and relaxed. Something was going on, of that there was no doubt, something was going on...

"It's OK, darling, watch the football if you want," she shouted to Bernard.

The song played to the end and then there was a change as the football came back on, the brief pause being the most potent signal of all that something had happened.

But, she was damned if she knew what!

*****

Saturday was not the night for sex!

Friday night was the night that Bernard lay on her, if she was lucky.

Mary sent Bernard to bed early and sat at her computer. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as if unable to decide what letters they should strike. In the end she decided that she had no idea how to even begin a search for help with Bernard. What does one call total obedience? Is it a medical condition, a mental problem, an advantage or is it just a joke that he was playing on her?

That was the problem...

What if it was all some grotesque jape that he was playing on her just to see what she would do? On the one hand she longed for him to stay like this; on the other was he just waiting for her to demand something outrageous?

Maybe he was waiting for some sort of sexual command?

Then he would laugh at her and snigger about how he had fooled her. About how her sexual demands were perverted or just plain egotistical.

And she would die a little inside because she had revealed her needs and he had just laughed at them.

That was something that Mary just could not face, something that was so much worse than all the whingeing and pathetic lazy behaviour that he had shown in the last years. All that, she could live with! Humiliation and shame, that would be too much!

So she thought about it and then decided to follow her usual course of a midnight moment of indulgence and she started to surf with a deviant query in the search engine.

Tonight her mood was for film. Moving, flickering images of women who rode their men and men who performed at a woman's behest. Her search became intense as she flicked through a site that promised reams of films sorted by taste and size, popularity and date. It was not enough to have the search terms in your own head. The site provided a list of words in alphabetical order that filled the screen with its presence.

A was for ass.

B was for bondage.

C was creampie.

D was for dildo.

... and so it went.

Mary gazed at the menu and chose her sexual meal carefully. Her favourite piece of film. Viewed a dozen times and eagerly lapped up.

She watched the woman in latex and tights who slid over a fettered man at the orders of a strict looking Madame. There was no understanding the words, it was all in German, at least it sounded like it! The language of command! But, as the Madame ripped the tights from her trainee's plump ass and showed her how to slide over the man's lips to get a massive orgasm, Mary came with little shivers and grunts of lust. Backwards between ass and slit as she moved at the behest of her Madame. The film ended like most, a sudden cut to an advert for a contact site and the sound stopped in mid-word just as the strict woman seemed about to mount the man's rigid prick as she undid her costume.

Once again Mary watched the film. Now she was having the same starter and main course, but the images were so very addictive. The heels on either side of his head as she sat on him, the plump trainee who was helped by a woman in tight latex that could have been old enough to be her mother. The way the camera caught the moment when the male victim was forced to satisfy the woman who was perched on his face. His helplessness as his face and mouth were plundered for all that exquisite pleasure.

It was all about control and satisfaction. Female gratification no matter what the man wanted.

The heady mix that she was becoming addicted to.

Safety Curtain Raised.

-------------------------

Evelyn hated Bernard, of that there was no doubt. No doubt at all! Every word that she had for him was, at least, dripping with sarcasm. It was a constant conflict of wills in which Mary wore the blue helmet of the UN peace keeper trying to make sure that Bernard and Evelyn, kept away from each other's throats. That was always the way that it was when Mary brought the two people who she was closest to, together.

So often it took all the enjoyment out of those visits, that role of peacekeeper. It was not just Bernard, Mary had to admit that Evelyn had an acerbic tongue and a way of provoking the man who had taken Mary from her. Of that there was no doubt, friends together in everything, twins of the spirit whom Bernard had parted.

So Evelyn arrived with the usual acid humour to find that Bernard was working in the front garden, pulling the weeds from those endless rose beds and clipping the high hedge that sheltered the house in its embrace.

She said her sarcastic 'Hello' as she passed and entered the house and strolled into the kitchen to find her best friend sweating over the duck and all the other items that were on the menu.

"Hi, Mary," said Julie as she embraced Mary. "How did you manage to get lazy-boots into the garden to do some work?"

"Don't start, Evie," said Mary using her pet name from twenty years ago," he's been as good as gold the last two days and I don't want it disturbed..."

"What the hell does that mean? Good as gold?"

"It means that he done everything that I've asked him to do without a murmur. He even switched off the football and drank lemonade instead of beer!"

Julie made a sign of dramatically wiping her brow and tilting her head back.

"What triggered off this sainthood then?"

"Ever since we went to see that Michael Bowswill road-show, you know the hypnotist who mixes a sort of shite bonhomie with a fake act that purports to cure people of their hang ups and so on..."

"So what happened, I thought that you told me that you both walked out halfway through?"

"Yep, that's right, one minute we were on the stage and the next minute we were driving home, or at least I was. That pretty much all that I remember really..."

Mary flipped the oven open and checked on the duck.

"You don't suppose that dick-brain there was hypnotised do you?" said Julie.

"I suppose that's possible, but for some reason I just seem to have had a different reaction," said Mary. "Maybe it's a woman's thing, or maybe it is because I hate that fucking twat of a hypnotist and his puerile jokes so much?"

Mary turned back to the cooking as Evelyn went back into the back garden and called out to Bernard: "Come in immediately, Bernard."

Bernard turned and nodded and then, wiping his hands, he came back into the house expectantly.

"Go upstairs and get changed, Bernard," said Mary as she turned from the oven.

He headed up the stairs with a friendly, "Just a moment," and disappeared from view.

"Sit down there, Mary and tell me all about Friday night. I want to know everything so miss no details out at all."

"It's just a haze," said Mary. "I remember Bernard parking the car, it was hell to find a place. I remember mentally wandering in a daze when that hypnotist started the show and then... and then I remember us leaving the theatre and driving home. Bernard seemed almost ill and not his usual self and then, well that's it really I suppose."

"But you were on the stage?" asked Evelyn. "I mean actually on it, not just a spectator?"

"I think so, in fact I'm sure so..."

"So I think that Michael Boswell hypnotised you both and something happened!"

Mary turned back to making the meal and tried to remember the details of that night, but she came no closer to making the ends meet the middle.

The meal was eaten in silence. Bernard was polite and quiet and Evelyn just enjoyed the strange atmosphere at the table. Mary quiet and reflective and Bernard passing the salt, pouring the wine, carving the bird, clearing the dishes and then washing up afterwards. All of it without either a murmur of protest or a single ironic comment.

Writing The Script.

Mary looked at Bernard lying in bed asleep. He seemed so peaceful, at rest and totally relaxed. So often he tossed and turned in bed and kept her awake. She stood there with a steaming mug in her hand and dared herself to carry out her little plan.

In her head she had an idea, to find out just how far she could go with him. She sensed that the obedience that seemed so secure was in fact just a thin sheet of ice over his former self. Mary knew that she had to walk carefully, creep across the ice without breaking it and let it become his nature. In her head she imagined herself creeping step by step towards getting the husband that she really wanted. The question was, how to proceed?

So she had resisted her Internet sex site roaming and instead read page after page about hypnosis, suggestion and how it worked. He seemed to be in a suggestive mode, the part that was known as induction. The state that allowed access to his impulsive mind. If she could just hold him there she might be able to cast him deeper under its spell.

The problem was other people! So far he had only been in contact with Mary and Evelyn, but when he went to work to run his business he would suddenly be exposed to all those other people who might break him from the spell of hypnosis.

Mary tapped him on the shoulder and woke him gently.

"My dear Bernard, you look like you're coming down with a spot of influenza," she said in a gentle voice. "Here have a drop of this, it will make you feel better."

Bernard reached out and took the mug and looked at it.

"It's a cold remedy, a bit of Scotch, lemon and hot water with honey," she said as she waited to see what the reaction would be.

"Am I running a temperature," he asked plaintively. "I think that I've got a bad cold."

He sipped at the mug and smiled at her.

"I'm not sure that you should got to work," she said. "In fact; do not go to work, call in and take a couple of weeks off. I'm sure that they can cope at the moment without you and you really have to get better before you go in."

Bernard looked at Mary, then the mug and finally seemed to make up his mind.

"You are right," he said slowly. "They can manage without me at the moment."

"Here's the phone," she said as she produced the handset from the lounge. "Call Jack and tell him that you need a two week rest, especially since you feel so tired."

Bernard took it from her and dialled the number as Mary left the room with the ghost of a smile on her face.

*****

"So what do I do next?" asked Mary. "I have managed to keep him in bed with the flu and I tried the coin, like I saw on the Internet film of Michael Boswell, but I have no idea if I am doing the right thing."

Mary could hear Evelyn make a small sound at the other end of the phone as if she was thinking. Finally she answered, "I think that you have to keep layering suggestions while you try to get back to that inductive state."

"That's what I'm doing," said Mary, "but I have no idea if it's working!"

"Is he drowsy?"

"Not just drowsy, I thought that getting him a little tipsy would help as well, so I keep topping up his cold cures with rum and scotch to keep him there."

"Do you want me to come round?"

"I was sort of hoping you would," said Mary. "I need some help, I think. I need to get on the Internet again and look up some more things and it would be such a help if you came over to help me!"

"I'll be right there," said Evelyn. "It's sort of fun really and I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Listen I've got to go now, I have to keep talking to him and trying."

"Half an hour," replied Evelyn as she put down the phone.

Mary went back upstairs to see how Bernard was doing to find him fast asleep. Her hand went to his brow to feel his temperature. There was no doubt that he was running a high temperature. Was that all the alcohol or was he actually getting the flu symptoms because of her suggestions?

She picked up the coin that she had been using as a focus for her amateur hypnotism and played with it between her fingers. As she did so she wondered if it was right to involve Evelyn in this. Somehow she still saw an Evelyn that had declared her love twenty years before and not the grown up woman of forty who now occasionally came round for a social visit. Now she was older and not so sweet, but still, she was a best friend...

Bernard woke and watched the coin in his wife's fingers. It moved slowly and took all his attention. He did not notice Evelyn in the background holding her hand over her mouth as she watched Mary make another attempt to lure her husband back to the place that he had been on that night in the theatre.

"Bernard," she said in a soft voice, "you want to help me. You really want to help me to be happy. You are feeling unburdened, free and complete."

The coin moved slowly and drew his eyes with it as it circled his face. Mary smiled and blew a small kiss to him as she spoke.

"It is all so easy. I will help you to be comfortable. I will help you be content and secure. What do you feel?"

Bernard smiled at his wife and seemed to relax. His eyes half closed and his shoulders dropped. His head rested into the pillow.

"I need you," he murmured. "I feel so tired."

"I know that you need me, darling," said Mary as the coin drew his eyes. "You need me to help you. You need me to order your life. You need to follow me and please me. I will help you by telling you what to do."

He looked from the coin into her eyes and smiled.

"I need you," he said in a faint voice. "I need you..."

His voice drifted, but he was not asleep, he was just staring into her eyes and smiling.

"Who is going to look after you, darling?" she said.

"You are," he replied. "Please!"

"Of course I am," replied Mary. "You will follow my directions and then everything will be perfect... Just hear my voice in your sleep!"

Bernard seemed satisfied and his head drooped to the side and he fell asleep with a small yawn.

When he did so, Evelyn passed Mary her music player. Mary fiddled with the iPod for a moment and then slotted it into the small speaker that she had placed by the bed.

Mary's voice drifted from the speaker. A single sentence that repeated again and again, making a background whisper that would infiltrate his sleep and fill his mind as he rested.

"Follow all my wishes and you will be content. Follow my wishes and you will be content. Follow my wishes..."

The two women left the room and went down to the lounge.

"It seemed so much better that time," said Evelyn. "I don't think he even noticed that I was there at all."

"I suppose that I'll just have to keep it going, but when do I stop and start testing the effects?"

Evelyn started to laugh and sat back in her arm chair.

"Why do you worry so much?" she said as she smiled at Mary. "The last couple of days he has already been under the spell, this is all just icing on the cake. In fact I'm not sure that what we are doing has much effect."

"So what does that mean?"

"I think that it's quite simple really," said Evelyn in a serious voice. "I suggest that you do not risk ordering him to do things that you know will cause him conflict. I think that you have to slowly turn him, move him in your direction bit by bit. After all he did occasionally wash the dishes and mow the lawn. Just work on it by one step at a time and see how it goes. By all means try what we did today as often as you like, but I think that for some reason that we'll never understand, his mind slipped a gear a few nights ago and he is as ready as he'll ever be!"

Mary looked doubtful and reached for a cigarette.

"When did you start smoking?" asked Evelyn.

"I always have," replied Mary as she lit the cigarette.

"Oh, right," said Evelyn. "Of course you have."

As she drew from the cigarette, Mary felt suddenly sure of herself. She had Bernard in her grip, she felt a small stirring of sexual thrill and watched the tip glow as she pulled a breath through it.

"What about us?" asked Evelyn. "I mean, I sort of get the feeling..."

"I'm not sure that I can live in the past," said Mary. "What I want from Bernard, what I want from life is just to be selfish. I want to satisfy myself for a change. I want to do the things that I want to do and not all the stuff that others expect and want from me."

"So what do you want from me?" asked Evelyn. "How do I fit into the life of the new Mary?"

It seemed that Mary missed the slight ironic touch in the question.

"I haven't decided yet, but I will"

"I still love you, Mary," said Evelyn. "Despite all the years and a few other people between, you are still what I want."

Mary stubbed out the cigarette and reached over to her friend and former lover.

"Truth or dare?"

"Truth, always the truth!" replied Evelyn.

"Then look at this," said Mary as she led her friend to the computer. "This is the truth and the reason that I haven't decided what happens with us."

A minute later a mute Evelyn watched Mary's favorite film.

*****

The screen showed a naked man laid on a steel topped table.

His ankles and wrists were fastened with straps so that he lay with hands by his side. For a minute the camera simply roved over his body and explored his rigid cock with a tight steel ring at its base. It followed the contours of his body and inspected the straps that bound him. After the inspection a sound was heard. The clicking of high heels on a bare ceramic floor as two women entered the room through the steel door. One woman was older, perhaps fifty five. She had severe features that were made even stronger by dark lipstick and long lashes. Her body was enclosed in a tight shiny dress that covered her from neck to ankles allowing only occasional glimpses of her stiletto heeled boots. In her hand was a wicked looking cane that had been dyed red. The second woman was perhaps twenty. Plump and large breasted with a round pretty face that was heavily coloured with pink lipstick and lighter shades of reds and lilac. She wore a short skirt that flared over her hips to show that she was wearing tights, no panties and very high heeled black patent pumps that were locked to her ankles by straps that carried small padlocks. Flared over her waist was a corset, also in shiny black, that finished just short of her large soft breasts. The older woman led the younger to the table and spoke in a language that Evelyn could not understand.

"It's a German film," said Mary.

Evelyn looked at Mary and saw that she was almost entranced by the film. Her eyes followed every movement and nuance as it flickered on the screen.

"Where did you find it?" asked Evelyn.

"I found a short part of it on the Internet weeks ago and wanted to see the rest, so I paid and downloaded it in high definition," answered Mary.