Keep Your Eyes Open

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A detective investigates an unscrupulous therapist.
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JukeboxEMCSA
JukeboxEMCSA
3,750 Followers

"No, no, I understand what you're saying, Doctor Ling. I just find it a little bit hard to believe that hypnosis can really do all the things you're saying it can." That was a lie, but technically speaking the courts had ruled that police were allowed to lie to suspects in order to get a confession. And whether she wrote it down in her case file or not, Detective Erica Chou thought of Michael Ling as a suspect. She didn't know exactly what she was going to charge him yet, but she'd figure it out once she tricked him into admitting to what he'd done to Annie Ginsburg.

Annie was sitting in a holding cell right now, and it seemed unlikely that her improbable claim that she simply didn't remember trying to drug and kidnap teenage girls off of the UC Hastings campus would hold up in court. She was probably looking at twenty years to life if Erica couldn't find something that would explain why a forty year old pharmaceutical executive with no criminal record illicitly manufactured rohypnol and tried to slip it to female college students at a networking event. And right now, Erica's only lead was a perfectly innocuous-sounding phone call that Annie made from prison to her hypnotherapist.

Who was sitting across from her, smiling blandly at her from the other side of his desk behind a pair of chunky academic glasses and a goatee that made him look a little bit like a cartoon shrink. "Many people have formed incorrect beliefs about hypnosis over the years, Detective," he said politely-so politely that Erica was almost certain that she'd touched a nerve. "For most, it's an irrational fear of putting oneself under the control of a hypnotist, but there are also some who have underestimated the degree of influence hypnosis can have on a sufficiently... well-trained mind."

Erica tried to arrange her features into a skeptical expression, but inside, she was practically pumping her fist in excitement. Doctor Ling clearly had an ego, not just about his own skills but his profession in general. All she needed to do was keep him talking, keep expressing doubt and disdain that anyone could hypnotize someone into committing a crime, and he would walk himself right over the line into a recorded confession. It was always the same with controlling, arrogant men like Ling. They could never stand being challenged by a woman.

Erica pushed a little further. "But I thought that you couldn't make someone do anything with hypnosis against their will," she said, quirking a skeptical eyebrow. "Are you saying that Annie had secret criminal tendencies or something? Like, she'd always wanted to get into the sex trafficking business, deep down, and... uhh, this hypnotist just gave her permission to do it?" Erica forced herself to calm down, just a little-she was still conducting the interview under the pretext that she was asking Doctor Ling for his expert advice, and she couldn't afford to slip up and accuse him directly. He probably knew that she suspected him, but the longer she could present this as an abstract discussion, the more he would give away.

If he noticed her hesitation, though, he didn't show it. "No, not at all," he replied affably, leaning forward a little as he began to warm up to the topic. "The belief that you can't be hypnotized against your will is one of those common misconceptions I spoke about earlier. Whoever this hypnotist was, they didn't have to encourage any kind of latent interest in kidnapping young women. They simply had to disengage Annie's conscious mind from the reality of her actions, and reward her unconscious for following instructions. Most of what we think of as 'morality' is a construct of the waking self."

That fit pretty well with the phone call Annie made just after her arrest. She sounded genuinely confused about the footage they showed her of the loading dock cameras-not indignant, just lost and bewildered. There was an almost broken quality to her voice, as though she was pleading with Michael to tell her something that would reconcile the evidence of her senses with her memories of a bland, pleasant luncheon... and even though he repeated innocuous, calming phrases, Erica could tell from the way Annie responded that Michael gave her exactly what she needed.

But of course, she couldn't say that. "I'm sorry, Doc," she said, leaning back in her chair as if to disengage from the conversation. "I just don't buy it. Some part of her had to know she was renting the warehouse space and the van, some part of her had to know she was manufacturing the roofies. You can't just, just erase a person's moral center like that with a snap of your fingers and a pocket watch. It's crazy."

Doctor Ling's smile hardened just a little. "Please. We don't like that word in our profession."

Erica allowed her expression to become a tiny bit contrite. "Sorry, doc." She knew that giving him a little bit of respect and letting him think that he was the one in charge would keep him talking. She couldn't afford to let him shut down now, not when he was finally opening up.

Sure enough, his expression became warm and affable again as he took a pocket watch out of his desk drawer. "It's not a problem," he said cheerfully, letting the burnished metal disc hang down from his fingers on its chain. "Oh, don't be surprised," he chuckled, seeing Erica's bemused reaction. "You'd be amazed how many of my clients want 'the real thing'."

He began to swing it lazily from side to side as he went on, giving it just the slightest amount of momentum with his wrist. "And no, you almost certainly couldn't use this to reshape someone's entire mind and personality in just one session. Hypnosis has its limits, I'm not about to argue otherwise. But it also has more power than most people realize, and that power only grows stronger with time. The longer Annie spent under the influence of this hypnotist, the easier it would have been to control her." It was as good as a confession, but Doctor Ling apparently didn't realize it.

Erica frowned, drawing herself up a little in her chair as if she suddenly felt uncomfortable with the line of conversation. (Doctor Ling wasn't the only person who studied body language.) "But, I mean... surely she would have noticed something, right? Even if, um." She paused, biting back the 'you' that was already on the tip of her tongue. "Even if this guy was leading her step by step over the line from 'watch the watch' to 'kidnap an eighteen year old law student', there would have to be a point where she rebelled."

"There very probably was," Doctor Ling agreed, accidentally sending the watch in a wide arc as he shrugged nonchalantly. "But another misconception-indeed, one of the most dangerous misconceptions for the layperson-is the idea that the hypnotist has no methods for overcoming active resistance. If you think you're immune to hypnosis simply because you're on your guard, Detective Chou, you've made a very real mistake."

It didn't exactly take a lot of thespian skill for Erica to burst out laughing at his comment. "Me?" she said after recovering her composure, secretly reveling in the momentary flash of anger that he no doubt thought she'd missed. "Nah, Doc, you're barking up the wrong tree if you think you can get me to go under. Your pocket watch doesn't do anything to me at all." She shook her head dismissively, leveling a confident stare directly into his deep brown eyes.

She was surprised to more than a little anger swelling up behind her words-clearly, he'd taken out the watch thinking that he was going to somehow hypnotize her into forgetting about her investigation and traipsing along on her merry way. Erica made a mental note to look into the activities of Doctor Ling's other clients-if he'd done this with Annie, maybe he'd done it with other people who hadn't gotten caught. In the meanwhile, all she had to do was keep him talking, and get all of his hypnosis attempts on tape.

"It's not necessarily the pocket watch that does it, Miss Chou," Doctor Ling said, his voice suddenly stern and authoritarian. "A good hypnotist has any number of ways to induce a deep trance in his subject. You might decide to look away from the pocket watch; that's a normal reaction to a potent symbol of hypnotic power, and it's not surprising that you immediately associated it with an irresistible hypnotic focus. But it doesn't really matter where you look. No matter what your eyes come to rest on, they still come to rest sooner or later."

Stung, Erica flicked her gaze away from Doctor Ling's eyes, looking over first at his diploma, then at a spot on the wall. But Doctor Ling only smiled, as if he was indulging the antics of a sleepy toddler in the last few minutes before they slumped into unconsciousness. "It's fine if you want to keep your eyes moving, Erica," he said, his voice strong and confident. "That only tires them out quicker, makes them burn with exhaustion and ache with the desire to close, but if you're worried that you might slip away into a deep hypnotic trance if you keep staring at any one object for too long, then by all means. Stare up, stare down, stare left, stare right. It makes no difference to me."

Erica's dark brown eyes flitted from side to side involuntarily, the words prompting her to glance in every direction for just a moment before she once again fixed her gaze on Doctor Ling's eyes. "That's a nice trick for the rubes, Doc," she said, a tiny hint of a snarl creeping into her voice. "But it's not going to work on me. I'm going to look at whatever I want to, and I'm not going into any kind of 'hypnotic trance'. Okay?"

Doctor Ling smirked mirthlessly. "Are you really asking for permission to stay awake, Detective? Because if hypnosis really worked the way you think it does, you wouldn't have to. You wouldn't feel your eyelids getting heavier and heavier as you gaze into my bottomless, dark eyes, and you wouldn't feel a slow wave of exhaustion wash through your body, keeping you pinned to your chair. That deep, dreamy lethargy creeping over you, Detective, making you want to close those sleepy eyes and rest for a moment? That's hypnosis. And it's real."

On any other day, Erica would have simply jumped up and given him a good solid right hook. He was practically giving away his involvement in Annie's crimes with his sudden, suspicious 'master hypnotist' act, and all Erica wanted to do was cuff him and drag him down to the station. But... but she didn't have any hard proof, not yet. She didn't have anything that would convince a jury, especially not of a story as unbelievable as this. She needed to be patient, calm, let him make that one slip that would convict him. It was the only way to get Annie out of jail.

So she simply glowered at Doctor Ling, holding his gaze and growling, "Bullshit," as if she was convincing herself as much as him. If he wanted a staring contest, she could give it to him. She'd faced down tougher perps than him before.

Then he blinked, and Erica's eyelids fluttered sympathetically in response. "If it's bullshit, then surely you can keep your eyes open for me," he replied calmly, his smile a smooth, implacable mask. "After all, if it's nothing more than a trick, you won't have any trouble at all keeping those heavy, drowsy eyes open. Even though my voice keeps reminding you how good it's going to feel to relax and sleep for me, how much better you're going to feel once you give in to that wave of deep, dreamy exhaustion creeping up your legs and binding your helpless body to your chair... you can resist. Can't you." His voice left no doubt as to his opinion on the matter.

Erica felt a wave of giddiness pass through her as Doctor Ling looked down at his swinging watch, forcing her to concentrate consciously on keeping her eyes from following his gaze. "And you can resist my watch, too. You might notice it swaying in and out of the edges of your field of vision, distracting you with the way that it goes back and forth... back, and forth... but of course, you won't give in to that distraction. You won't let it pull your eyes, your tired, heavy eyes to it like a magnet, until you're staring at it without even remembering how it happened. That's not going to happen to a strong-willed, smart girl like you. Not unless hypnosis is more powerful than you think."

Erica's eyes were watering now, forcing her to blink for just a moment to keep them from drying out. She'd somehow hoped that he wouldn't notice, but he picked up on the fluttering motion instantly, his voice filled with teasing insinuation as he said, "And those drowsy eyes are so heavy now that they just have to close, even if it's only for a moment." Somehow, he timed it perfectly to the lowering of her eyelids, adding, "And when they open, they droop so much deeper, they want to close so much more. But you have to keep them open, Erica. You have to keep them open so I won't hypnotize you."

Erica opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't really know what she wanted to say anymore. Was she pretending to disbelieve him, prolonging her resistance to lull him into a false sense of security that she could use to get a confession? Did she really disbelieve him? Of course she did, she was too strong-willed to fall for any of this, this circus act bullshit... but... but if it was all bullshit, then Annie... no. Erica remembered all too well the utter bewilderment on the older woman's face as she watched the security camera footage. He... he could really do it. He could hypnotize someone against their will.

Erica slowly realized she'd made a very real mistake, but the knowledge seemed to be separated from her volition by a wall of impenetrable, glassy calm that kept it from sinking in. She could picture herself getting up, knocking the watch out of his hand, even just sprinting out of the room and slamming the door... but the idea of connecting her abstract daydreams to concrete action felt too much like effort. It was all she could to to keep her heavy, drooping eyelids open now in the face of the endless undertow of Doctor Ling's soft, soothing voice.

"But the harder you struggle, Erica," Doctor Ling continued remorselessly, "the more exhausted you become. The more energy you expend keeping those blank, glassy eyes open, the harder it is to keep from closing them just for a moment. The more you struggle against the pull of the mesmerizing watch as it swings, back and forth... and back... and forth... the more your tired mind simply wants to give up and let your gaze follow the slow, captivating motion. You can already feel how sleepy, how drowsy, how exhausted it's making you, can't you, Erica?"

Erica blinked slowly, her eyelids opening only with great difficulty. They felt like they were gummed together, the way they sometimes did when Erica was first waking up in the morning and her bed felt so soft and warm and cozy that all she wanted to do was curl up in her nest of covers and fall into a deep sleep. A deep sleep. A deep sleep sounded so good right now, so perfect and wonderful and... Erica nodded, her head drooping forward on her shoulders as she struggled to hold it upright.

"Good girl," Doctor Ling purred smoothly, his words slipping into Erica's groggy mind like a thief and stealing away her thoughts, one by one. "You already know you're so tired, Erica. You know that your will is draining away, bit by bit, sapped by the exhausting struggle to keep those tired eyes open. You know that the moment they close, you'll sink into a deep, passive hypnotic trance and accept all my commands. You know that staring makes you sleepy, and moving your heavy eyes makes you even more sleepy. So you know that I'm hypnotizing you, don't you?"

Erica nodded again. She realized dully that she was staring at the watch, following the slow swaying motion back and forth as it dangled from Doctor Ling's fingertips. She tried to remember how that had happened, but staring at it... staring made her sleepy. And moving her heavy eyes in sync with the swinging motion made her even more sleepy. She tried to nod a third time, but her head felt too heavy to lift and it was all she could do to keep her fluttering eyelids from slipping shut.

"You're being hypnotized against your will, Erica." Doctor Ling's voice was firm, unshakable in its authority. "That means your will is weaker than mine, doesn't it?" He held the watch higher and higher, and Erica's eyes rolled back in her head as she struggled to follow it. She had to keep watching the watch, she knew. She had to keep watching it, or... or... her mind crumbled into confusion, unable to remember anymore which thoughts were hers and which ones Doctor Ling had seeded into her groggy brain. She mumbled something vaguely affirmative, her body now too limp to think of lifting her head ever again.

"Good girl. That's a good, good girl." Doctor Ling's praise stroked Erica's thoughts into silence. "Your will is weaker than mine, and you must obey. Close your eyes for me now, feel all that resistance emptying out of your drowsy, passive mind, and sink into my control. Good girl." Erica's drooping, fluttering eyelids finally sank shut once and for all. She didn't remember what happened after that.

* * * * *

Erica waited until she was back in her car to check her purse, somehow feeling like Doctor Ling's eyes were still on her the entire way back to the parking garage. It was absurd, of course; she'd left him back in his office, still fully convinced that he'd led the police on a wild goose chase after some Swedish hypnotist who did consulting over Skype. He didn't know that Erica had the goods on him, right here in the little mini-recorder nestled snugly at the bottom of her handbag. Everything she needed to prove that he was the mastermind behind Annie Ginsburg's kidnapping attempt, along with dozens of others.

Or was it? Suddenly, Erica felt a sliver of doubt creeping into the back of her brain as she stared at the slim black recording device. Ling was a slippery son of a bitch, and the story she was going to go back to her captain with sounded pretty unbelievable on the face of it. Could she really prove he was behind it all, based on just one conversation? The more she thought about it, the less certain she became.

Erica decided to keep Michael Ling's name out of her case file for a while. Just until she could listen to the recording in the privacy of her own home, and make sure that she remembered it correctly. She wouldn't mention a word of this to her superiors, wouldn't even whisper it in the official investigation until she was absolutely certain that she could prove her case. It would be kind of hard on Annie, of course, but Erica somehow knew that she'd understand.

Until then, Erica felt like she needed to hang onto this recording for herself. She could listen to it tonight, run a nice hot bath and go through it as many times as she needed to get everything perfectly straight. Until she could recite the damn thing in her sleep, if she had to. Erica was seized with a sudden, irrational conviction that somewhere in the... two hours? No, that couldn't be right. She must have accidentally turned it on too early, or maybe it jostled around in her purse and started recording while she was still on her way over. She didn't care. She'd listen to the whole thing. Somewhere in there, Erica knew she'd find exactly what she needed.

In fact, she asked herself, why was she waiting? The parking garage was nice and secluded, and she wasn't expected back at HQ for the rest of the day. She could listen to it right here, in the privacy of her car. Just to make sure she remembered it all the way she was supposed to. Erica's eyes glazed over, her subconscious mind already editing the mental slip away from her conscious awareness, and her fingers drifted down between her legs as she reached over and helplessly pressed 'Play'.

THE END

JukeboxEMCSA
JukeboxEMCSA
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