An Experiment

Until two weeks ago, Carrie happened to be one of those unfortunate girls who find it really, really hard to have an orgasm. Frigidity, doctors called it. Sex was always disappointing for her. Worse than disappointing, it was ghastly.

Even by herself, she didn't have much luck. Like she could never get into the right spirit for it, no matter how she went about the act, however she might try to stimulate herself both physically and mentally, it just only made her feel foolish and she would have to quit.

Some of it was shyness, as you might guess. Tension was also a problem. She was high-strung, jumpy, skittish. An all-round inability to relax, not even alone. Been like that all her life. Did the tension come out of her shyness, or did it flow the other direction? Maybe it didn't matter, but she spent ages trying to figure it out. In the forlorn hope of analyze the problem away.

She was too easily embarrassed. That, most likely, was the main issue—the root of all the rest. The fundamental flaw in her personality. She was too easily embarrassed, and the reason for that was because she was too proud. Too concerned with her dignity and everybody respecting her properly. Her parents had drilled that into her. They were to blame. Her upbringing had made her overly sensitive to being laughed at. She didn't handle teasing well at all. Nobody likes it, of course, but she would completely flip out. Emotional meltdowns. This tendency when she was little had often caused lots of nasty playground fights and other troubles at school.

Since she knew she had this weakness—this short fuse—she did her best never to put herself in a position where teasing might occur. Of course it's not actually possible to do that, and live a life. Even if you hide under your bed every day, people would tease you about that itself, wouldn't they?

Life is not good for dignity. Life, for the most part, is not a dignified business.

Facing any potentially awkward or ridiculous situation—and sex almost always is, on the surface level; it's unavoidable—it made her temperamental, and then, usually accusatory. Even just talking or thinking about things like that. As a defensive mechanism, she would go on the offensive—and get snappy. It almost wouldn't matter what anybody did or said to her—anything could set her off. If you smiled at her, she could take it wrong. But if you didn't smile, she'd take that just as bad. Felt like the whole world was out to get her, when she got like that.

She knew it was crazy, but she couldn't help it, no matter how hard she tried. Couldn't do anything about it. And it really made her hate herself. She got a little suicidal, for a while.

And then of all things she decided to try hypnosis.

Ridiculous idea. But she had an uncle who said it helped him quit smoking, and she knew a hypnotist personally—the stepmom of a good friend. The woman was different than you'd expect. She wasn't flaky about it. Carrie and her had some good talks about all the bullshit versions of hypnosis you see on TV—dredging up repressed memories of past lives and UFO abductions and devil worship. All that scary stuff that hypnotists supposedly uncover from people's subconscious ... the woman said all that shit was a scam. Absolutely all of it. Shady hypnotists feed those stories to their patients with leading questions. Some of them don't realize what they were doing—most do. They're assholes and they do it deliberately, creating the problems that poor dumb suckers are paying them to find.

Perhaps that same con could be put to good use. Carrie's thought was why not try to have the hypnotist plant some suggestions in her subconscious to "loosen her up"? To reprogram her mind to make sex easier and better for her ... If a hypnotist could help remove or control her uncle's desire to smoke, couldn't her sexual desires theoretically be affected the same way? Except she needed the reverse treatment. She needed her sexual urges and physical responsiveness to be heightened and improved, instead of erased or suppressed.

The woman was skeptical this could work. In her opinion, all real world hypnotism was good for was as an aid to relaxation and meditation. "It's just a series of concentration techniques. Helps temporarily calm anxiety and that clears your thinking. Which in turns I believe unfetters an individual's imagination and creativity ... Hence, all these vivid emotional fantasies people unfortunately confuse for 'uncovered memories'."

She went on that it was doubtful hypnotism really helped Carrie's uncle all that much. At least in the way he believed. At best, it may have helped him help himself. The good ol' placebo effect. He convinced himself he had his craving hypnotized away, so he stopped feeling it. His own conviction had done it, not whatever the hypnotist did or said to him.

"But he got what he wanted. Doesn't make a difference if he was tricked or tricked himself—the trick worked!"

So in the end the woman had agreed to have a go at it. "If you think it might be beneficial, we may as well try." But she had refused payment for the session. "Wouldn't feel proper. This is not what I normally do."

Unlike in the movies and so on, Carrie retained a complete memory of the entire twenty minute session, and of the suggestions that the doctor had attempted to implant into her subconscious. Probably that meant they weren't really subconscious suggestions, since she remained fully conscious of them ...

The doctor had tried to make the suggestions very specific. It wasn't enough just to say "From now on, you will enjoy sex like you never have before." More was needed, she felt. Carrie had provided two of the basic strategies—but then the doctor embellished the instructions considerably, and added a third idea.

"We are now going to implant a series of brand new behaviors into your personality. We can do this, as we discussed, because your consciousness has been rendered into an extremely passive and suggestible state ... the state of hypnotism. This is going to work just like it does in the movies and on TV, because you want it to work and because you believe it will work. I cannot truly take control of your mind this way. No one could. But the strength of your own desire will make these changes—I am only serving as your instrument to accomplish those changes. I am not reprogramming you, but I am enabling you to reprogram yourself ...

"Therefore, from now on, whenever you take your clothes off, you are going to experience extreme sensations of excitement and sexual arousal. And all your body's senses will become heightened. The nerves of your skin, most of all, but also all your other senses. Your sight, your hearing, your vision ... All of these will instantly seem two or three times as strong as normal. Everything you physically experience will become much more vivid and powerful—almost excessively so. This affect will persist as long as you remain unclothed. Your senses will return to their normal levels as soon as you get dressed again. But there will be no other way for you to control the affect. From this time forward, for you individually, it is a simple fact of nature, an involuntary reflex. Regardless of the setting or other circumstances—this will happen to you whenever and wherever you take your clothes off. Even if you're experiencing other emotions that might normally inhibit or spoil one's capacity for sexual excitement—sorrow, anger, fear, embarrassment—in your case, those other sensations and mental states will not be able to block or adversely affect this particular reaction. Now, nod if you understand."

Carrie had nodded on the couch, as instructed.

"Next, whenever you experience sexual arousal, this will include not just an urge for your own physical gratification, but an equally intense desire to cause sexual gratification in anyone else you find attractive. Just like your new arousal-reaction to nakedness, this is a desire you will have no control over. You'll just always feel it, in your heart and in your guts. Anyone you find beautiful and exciting, you will feel a mighty compulsion to give them great physical pleasure. For your own sake as much as theirs. For you will feel as much sexual pleasure in the act of giving sexual pleasure as you do in receiving it, from a partner. You will no longer find it disgusting and humiliating to touch or even to look at men's penises, like you said you have always felt up until now. After this session, cocks will look beautiful and exciting to you, so long as they are attached to men you find beautiful and exciting. And just so we've covered all possibilities, let's also say that this same need-to-please will apply to other women, should you find yourself attracted to any. If not, you won't. But if a female ever happens to catch your eye and takes your fancy, you will feel this mighty need-to-please the same as for any man that turns you on. Now, once more, nod if you understand."

Again, Carrie had.

"One more thing. This is a bit more ambitious. We're going to establish a new network of mental links, through your body. The physical wiring for these links already exists—your nervous system. But we're going to slightly change the way those wires are used. We're going to enhance the connectivity. We're also going to change the network protocol, so to speak. Since you're in a state of hypnosis, this is easy to do. All I need to do is tell you how the nerves of your body will respond to sexual stimulation, after this session. And they will. So, here we go ... All physical contact, as we've already established, will feel much, much stronger. But also, from now on, whenever you become sexually aroused, then whenever someone or something touches you, or you yourself touch another person or object or surface, that contact will register not just at the particular point on your body where it occurs—be that your fingertip or your foot or even your earlobe or the end of your nose—but also and at the same time you will feel the contact within the interior surface of your vagina and your entire clitoris. As if you are being touched and stimulated all three places at the same time. Actual contact within your vagina or upon your clitoris will trigger a different response—the sensations will diffuse throughout your entire body, from head to toe, for as long as the contact persists. This is not something you have to think about or make any kind of internal effort, to experience. It will just happen. It is just the way your body works, from now on, because I have said so. Once again, nod if you understand. Good. Now I think it's time to end our session."

3.

She put the procedure to its first test an hour later that afternoon at Target, of all places. She'd gone there for some new workout clothes ... Well, she thought that was why she went. That was what she told herself when she drove over there.

Grabs four or five things, takes them to the fitting rooms. The place had recently remodeled—now the fitting room is unisex. Seems like all the stores do them like this now. She wonders why this has changed. Of course when she was little and they all had two sides, it was always kind of pointless because of moms with their sons. Either they had to take their boy in the girls' side, or go with them in the boys' side. The moms never cared, but either way it was embarrassing for the boys. And no doubt it also happened now and again with fathers and daughters, that same silly dilemma.

Now it's just one corridor for everybody. But they make the rooms more like real rooms, with real walls. Not so much like rickety bathroom stalls, like they used to be. The doors still don't completely fill the doorways—spaces at the top and at the bottom. But less space than they used to leave.

They can't make the rooms too private, for all the obvious reasons. People would come in and do all sorts of sick shit—and some freaks still do anyway, probably, from time to time. But it would happen more often. All kinds of messed-up people would be screwing around doing bad things in these places, every single day, if the doors filled the doorways. Crazy smelly bums and junkies and perverts.

A guy comes up to the counter for a number tag, same time as she does. He's trying on a bunch of jeans. Got a ponytail and he's too tall for her taste, but he's still fine and he gives her the eye. And she would have been sad if he hadn't. He wasn't bad about it, either. It was just a look—but not just a look. It was the eye. And she noticed him notice the workout clothes in her hands. He wasn't gonna get to see what she looked like in them—but you could tell he would have liked to. You could tell he would be wondering about it, while he tried on those different jeans. Just from the tight set of his mouth, you could tell. Half a smile and half a frown.

She was curious if he'd take the room right next to or across from the one she picked, but then he didn't. He went all the way to the end of the corridor, the last door. Putting some distance between them—she wondered how deliberate that was. Did he notice her notice him checking her over? He could have done. So marching all the way down there might have been his way of saying "Look this shows I'm decent and I'm not gonna pester you even if I was just imagining you in those tight stretchy gym clothes so don't worry I'm not a sicko." Or it could also mean: "I don't wanna any dumb girl making me think about her right now. I just wanna get myself new pants."

Might just as easily not meant anything at all.

She couldn't stop wondering about it, as she was undressing. And wondering if he was still wondering about her. And wondering what his legs looked like, when he took his pants off, and his underwear, and underneath them.

She looked at herself in the mirror and realized she'd taken off much more than she needed to, just to try on the workout clothes. She'd taken off absolutely everything. Hadn't really thought about it—it just happened. She stood there stark naked in the fitting room looking at herself and then realized she was more turned on right that moment than she had ever been in her life. Just as the hypnotist had programmed her to become, whenever she got naked. The expression on her face in the mirror was really something. She looked stunned, like she'd just been slapped for no reason. Or maybe even struck by lightning. It was a pretty comedic look, like you'd see on a cartoon character that just walked off a cliff ... It was also a little terrifying, or maybe more than a little.

Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she couldn't stand still. Her bare feet were too fidgety; she kept hopping and scuffing around. Kind of like she had to pee really bad—and partly she did, all the sudden, yeah. But mostly she was doing that just 'cause the carpet felt really good under her feet, when she shuffled and scuffed against it. It tickled—but it was good nice tickle. And she wasn't only feeling that tickle with her feet and with her toes. Just as she'd been programmed, she felt it in her crotch. Felt it really strong up inside there. God. Golly. Oh golly God!

It was too hot in the room, like the AC wasn't working, but if anybody saw her nipples, they'd think she must be freezing. She looked at their reflection ... Couldn't believe how big they'd become, and how dark, and how far they were sticking out. Like spikes. What would it feel like to press her real nipples against their reflections in/on the mirror? She didn't dare try it. They were aching too much—a good ache, but dangerous, too.

She looked pretty damn good, overall, didn't she? Yeah, mostly. Recently people kept telling her she looked like Christina Ricci, since she turned skinny again. They always added that bit—like they had to make sure they weren't telling her she was too chunky. Not that Christina Ricci had ever really been fat before ... but for a while she hadn't been rail-thin like she was when she was still just a kid in crap like the Caspar movie or The Addams Family. Then she must have starved herself for that Black Snake thing, and so far after that she had stayed rail-thin again in everything she did since. Also seemed like she was getting naked in every single movie she did anymore, showing her shit off. Probably she had some image issues she was working through, and they'd find her dead on her face someday, pumped full of dope.

Nice to get compared to a movie star, anyhow. Did she really look like her? Maybe just the face, the cheekbones—maybe more. She had a good tiny waist, compared to her not-so-tiny bosom and her hips—a real Barbie Doll hourglass waist. Kind of waist other women would kill for. It wouldn't stay like that forever, but she had it now. Her bush could sure use a trim—or maybe she'd shave the whole thing off. She'd never tried that before.

Her pussy looked different—like the lips had got bigger. Like they were hanging down more than they used to. Could that happen? Could those things grow or stretch? Did they swell up when you got turned on? Or had they always looked like that and she just never took notice? Wasn't like she spent a great deal of time examining her own snatch. But did most other girls? Actually they might, come to think of it. She had just always been too prudish before—but no longer. That was all changed, thanks to the hypnotism. It seemed to have worked! It was like she was a whole new girl, with a whole new body.

That guy in the other fitting room would never know it, poor bastard, but he could have come over into this room and done anything he wanted to with her, just about. She really wished he would—wished she could think of a way to signal him. But she couldn't come up with a good way that would work. And that was a good thing, too. They'd end up making too much noise in here and get busted.

She considered running over into his cubicle. But again, she didn't dare. Really thought hard about it. But no. All that would happen was she'd get in trouble. Too many other people around. Moms and kids. Plus even if she could get over in there to the guy without people noticing and screaming, he'd probably just have a heart attack, when she burst in. Anyway, he'd have locked his door. Wasn't like she could knock and wait. What would she say? And if she just smashed right through, they couldn't close it afterward.

She could have tried diving or crawling under the door ... What would that feel like, in the state she was? But God, he wouldn't take it the right way. No chance. He'd just be freaked out, whatever method she used. It wouldn't make a difference.

Finally, she put her regular clothes back on—it was tough to do, but once she had, the craziness quickly faded. Not completely but most of it. And then she left the store, fast as she could.

Had only been in there two or three minutes, just standing there staring at herself ... Well, no—not just standing. Prancing around in front of that mirror like she had ants all over her, shaking her tits at herself. She never got around to actually trying on any of the workout things. Hadn't even got as far as pulling them off their hangars. Just couldn't focus on her original mission, not with that guy in the other room to keep thinking about ... Anyway, she didn't really need that stuff. Not desperately.

Yeah, the whole thing had only been an excuse to test her treatment. Time to face up to that fact.