The Seduction of Penny Ramirez Ch. 01

The woman stiffened. She removed her arms from around the mature lady, dabbed her eyes with a crumpled tissue she was holding in her hand, took a deep breath and turned toward the couch. Not knowing what else to do, Penny rose and accepted the outstretched hand. "Hello, I'm Emily Baxter. Please forgive my silly ramblings. I .... Oh! You're new here. Are you the new deputy? Penny ... um ... Rodriquez?"

"Ramirez."

"Yes, of course. I'm so sorry. I should have known that. I'm partially responsible for you being here." She smiled as Penny's eyes widened. "I'm on the County Board of Directors," the woman continued. "I approved the budget increase that Joe was asking for to bring in a new deputy." She sighed. "I can't imagine what it's like working in the same office as Joe." She smiled and winked. "The most eligible bachelor in East Texas. Gives me goose bumps. Not that I really care, of course. I'm happily married." Her smiled waivered a little as she glanced at Madam Dormir for concurrence. "Very happily. But a woman can always dream a little." She shook Penny's hand again, pulling slightly, so that she could whisper confidentially into her ear. "You are just going to LOVE Madam Dormir. EVERYBODY loves her. She's ... well, she's just the most amazing woman I've ever met, that's all." She released Penny's hand and stepped back. "It's SO nice to meet you. Please say hi to Joe for me."

And she was gone. Penny blinked after her. "Wow," she said under her breath.

"Yes," the older lady replied. "Wow." She went to the shop's door, locked it, and turned the sign so that the "Open" now faced inward. "And now, Penny, if you'll please follow me, we'll get on with it." She walked back through the curtain. Penny stared after her for a moment and obeyed.

The back room was a cozy living room with a mahogany table in its center, a couch and loveseat at one end and a small kitchen setup at the other. Madam Dormir motioned with a hand toward a comfortable, padded, straight-back chair placed strategically in front of a crystal ball on the table, and then she went to the stove. "I've just received a package of tea from India ... a special blend that I've heard about. I've brewed a pot that we can share."

Penny hesitated and then sat in the indicated chair. "No, thank you."

The woman said nothing for a long minute as she rattled dishes, then she set a steaming cup in front of her. "Please, I insist. I need to know your opinion. Just a sip."

Penny stared at it for long moment, then finally sighed and tried it while Madam Dormir settled into the chair opposite her. "It's ... um ... different. I usually drink Lipton. What kind of incense is this?"

"I've heard that the tea seems to change flavors as you drink it. Try another sip and let me know. That's it, my dear. Now, try another. The incense is from South America. I buy it special. It's supposed to be soothing. What do you think?"

"It's sort of ... strong," Penny replied. She sipped from her cup again. "But the tea tastes a little better, I guess."

"You'll get used to the incense, too. Now, you have a message for me from Joe."

Penny's thinking was a little fuzzy for some reason. The incense was cloying, and she wanted to tell Madam Dormir to please put it out, but she didn't want to offend. She tried to think. A message? "Oh. Oh, yes. Sheriff Rogers wants to see you in his office tomorrow morning at ... um ... nine-thirty."

"Excellent. I'll be there. Here, give me your empty cup and I'll refill it."

Penny was confused. She hadn't realized she'd drunk it all. The cup rattled in its saucer as she handed it to the woman. She tried to think of something to say, and fixated on the crystal ball in front of her. "The woman you saw before me ... um ...."

"Emily."

"Emily. Did she want you to read her fortune?"

Madame Dormir set the cup down in front of her and smiled broadly. "No. Actually, I don't do much fortune telling. Not that I can't. But usually, people come to me because they have problems. I solve problems, you see."

Penny took a sip of tea, found it too hot, and set the cup back down. "What kind of problem did Emily have?"

The woman took her seat again. "She's struggling with assertiveness."

Penny couldn't contain a little gasp. "And you can help with that?" She thought that her question seemed too straightforward, too desperate. "I mean, she seemed awfully grateful, so I assume that you did." She tried to calm herself, but couldn't seem to keep from forging ahead. "How do you help someone with something like that?"

Madam Dormir leaned forward for emphasis and Penny couldn't help but lean forward, too. "I use deep hypnosis," was the response.

Penny blinked. "You ... You're a licensed hypnotherapist?"

The lady gave her a wry smile. "No. It's just something I picked up over the years. I'm very good at it, actually." She sat back again. "I use it to help people."

Penny found that she was holding her breath for some reason. She gulped, refilled her lungs, thought for a few seconds (which was difficult, for some reason), and finally said: "Can you use it to help ME with that?"

Madam Dormir steepled her fingers and fixed Penny with a look that was somewhere between genuine concern and genuine affection. "Why do you want to be more aggressive, Penny?"

She answered immediately ... she couldn't seem to help herself. "I want to be successful at something." For some reason, a tear leaked from the corner of her left eye. "I want to be successful at ANYTHING! You just can't BE successful without being assertive! No one will pay attention to you! No one pays attention to ME! And it's because I'm so damned ...." She fumbled for the right word.

"Submissive?"

"Yes! That's what I am!" She became more animated, using her hands. "And when I TRY to be more assertive .... Oh, Madam Dormir, it was just awful!" She was crying now. "It's been a HORRIBLE day!"

"Tell me about it, dear."

"I tried to be early to work this morning ... but I had to walk, and I was late! And I didn't have anything to wear, even though I could have bought the right uniform in Fort Worth, but ... but a new uniform was going to be a hundred and thirty dollars, and I only had a hundred left on my credit card, and a bus ticket was going to be forty-five, and they pay us at the academy, but only a hundred a week, and I knew I was going to have to get a motel room, and so ...."

"Yes, dear, I get the picture."

"And then he asked me to get him a cup of coffee, but I was like: 'I'm not a coffee girl.' But as soon as I said it, I realized that he'd asked really nice, and I sounded like a bitch! And so, of course, he got ME something, which made me feel about an inch tall! And then this afternoon, he called me into his office and he presented me with my shield and gun. But the gun was so big that it wouldn't even BEGIN to fit in my purse. I had this little black leather purse, see? And I looked at the gun, and I looked at my purse, and ... and ... and, he laughed at me, and pulled out this big cloth purse that he'd bought at the consignment shop next door, so that now, I could carry my ...."

Penny reached out toward her teacup as she talked, but with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, Madam Dormir leaned forward and snatched it up. Startled, Penny stopped and stared. "I think you've had enough of this, dear." The woman took the cup to the sink.

"But you were right, Madam Dormir, the tea really DOES taste better, the more you drink."

"Thank you, dear. I'll make note of that." She continued under her breath: "Along with the fact that body weight and size affects dosage."

Penny blinked and frowned. "You think I'm small. You think I'm too small to be in law enforcement. You think I'm too small to fire a gun."

"You're petit, my dear. There's no such thing as a person who's 'too small.' You're as big as you think you are. Please, you were telling me about your pretty new gun."

"It's a brand new Smith and Wesson nine millimeter. I fired it at the academy, and I was awful! I had to take retraining twice just to qualify. I mean, all I had to do was just hit the target, you know? I kept reeling that target in and looking at it, and I can't begin to tell you how many times there was never a mark on the stupid thing!" She paused, suddenly concerned. "You won't tell Sheriff Rogers I said that, will you?" She watched as Madame Dormir came around to her side of the table. "Oh!" Penny continued. "No wonder the incense smelled so strong. It was right behind my seat. I didn't even see it there. You don't have to put it out, Madam Dormir. You were right, I hardly notice it at all now."

"That's alright ... it was almost used up, anyway." The woman returned and held out her hand to Penny. "Let's go sit together on the couch. Let me help you up."

Penny staggered a little when they were halfway to the sofa. "Woo! I guess I'm a little dizzy. I skipped lunch because I had such a big breakfast. Sheriff Rogers bought me breakfast." She frowned, thinking. "Did I tell you that already?"

They settled onto the couch, their shoulders touching. "No. But now, tell me about yourself, dear. How long were you a waitress? What made you decide to go to the police academy?"

Penny gasped. "How do you KNOW about that? You couldn't possibly ... Did Sheriff Rogers talk to you today? No ... he couldn't have, or he wouldn't have given me a message for you. But you ...." She paused and took a breath. "I'm sorry ... of course, I'll tell you." She breathed deeply again, frowning. "My mother ... she ... she sort of lost it when I was fourteen. She stopped working for some reason. She was fired, I'm sure. She just sat at home and watched TV. And drank. I realized that I'd have to do something when I saw unopened envelopes with 'Final Notice' stamped on them. I found the job at the diner, and I begged for an advance, and then I went to the rental agency and paid in cash. I found out a lot of legal stuff. For example, I discovered that if you're paying SOMETHING, then they can't throw you out. They weren't very happy about it, of course, but I put in a lot of overtime, and over the years, I paid it all off, little by little. Food, electricity, TV. I'd go to the various places and pay in cash. I arranged for the liquor store that was two blocks away to deliver a pint of vodka every day. No more, no less. She wouldn't start drinking until five o'clock. By the time I got off work, she'd be passed out, and I'd put her to bed.

"It went on that way for six years. When I graduated from high school, I was able to work days, too, and that's when I could finally pay off all of our debts. I wanted to put enough aside to finally start taking night classes. My grades were never good enough to get into a good college, but there was an extension of SMU in the city where I could take night classes. I don't know why it never occurred to me that things with Mom might get worse, but a couple months ago, I discovered that she was selling herself to men while I wasn't there. I mean, who would WANT her? She always smelled like rancid booze, and she wasn't very pretty anymore. But one day, some guy she had over took her to the hospital. Alcohol overdose and delirium tremens. Turns out, the men she was ... um ... seeing were bringing her a lot more to drink. The doctors didn't think she was going to make it, for awhile. That's when a social worker explained that we were eligible for aid through the Texas Department of Health Services. As it turned out, I could have gotten all sorts of aid from the very beginning, but I never knew about it! We got her admitted in a program for detox and treatment.

"And that's when I found out about the opportunity at the academy. What a revelation! I hadn't been qualified before because of my height and weight, but there'd been some sort of court case, and suddenly, I was eligible." She sighed and started crying again. "I was a terrible officer candidate. I finished number 47 in my class of 52! I couldn't shoot worth beans, and they kept retesting me on the physical fitness stuff until I passed. I wouldn't drop out, even though they kept telling me that I could ... suggesting that I should."

"You did well academically," Madam Dormir suggested.

"How do you KNOW this stuff?" Penny sobbed. "How do you know so much about me?" She clutched the woman's arm, pleading. "I was too small. I could pass the run, and the sit-ups and pull-ups. But I had to do the obstacle course over and over and over, every day until I finally qualified. And the hand-to-hand combat, and the shooting range ... over and over and over."

"You are very suggestible, my dear. You've answered every question I've asked, and you drank the tea, even when you didn't want to. And in the academy, you did everything they asked you to do. You did everything except quit. You never quit."

She had never felt this way. She was horribly confused and she seemed helplessly out of control. "Please, Madam Dormir," she wailed. "Please help me! Hypnotize me! Change me! If only I was more assertive ... if only I could stand up to people, and ...."

The woman leaned into her, smoothed her hair, kissed her forehead. "No, my dear. I can't ... I won't do that."

Penny hadn't cried like this since she was a little girl. "Bu ... bu ... but, w ... why not? You ... you helped ... helped .... You hypnotized HER! You ma ... made HER mo ... more assertive!"

The elder woman folded Penny in her arms and rocked her gently. "Emily was assertive to begin with, dear. She lost her ability to be that way because of a domineering husband and two demanding children. I was only helping her regain the ability to be who she SHOULD be."

"Bu ... But, w ... why ...?"

"Because you already ARE who you're supposed to be." Madam Dormir gently pushed Penny back, held her by her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes to emphasize her point. "Penny, you are a very important person. Our town ... our whole community ... there's something catastrophic coming ... something that's going to tear us apart. Only YOU can help me stop it. That's why I chose you to come here."

Penny blinked. She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs that seemed to cloud her judgment, and she used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. "What? What did you just say?"

The smile never left the Madam's lips. "Never underestimate the power of women, my dear. The County Board consists of five members, two of whom are women clients of mine. The wives of the male members are also clients. Men think that they run this world, but you only have to dig a little deeper to find the real power."

"But why? Why me? Why would anyone want ME for ANYTHING? I've never excelled at anything I've ever tried!"

"You are the best person for the job that needs to be done. You are the ONLY one who can do it. I need you, Penny. Won't you help me? Please?"

The girl blinked and gazed imploringly into the woman's eyes. She was desperately trying to solve some riddle, but her muddled mind couldn't seem to fathom the question. Finally, she sighed. "Yes, Madam Dormir, of course I'll help you. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go to sleep, dear."

"What?"

"I need you to go to sleep for me. All that crying has left you very sleepy. Very ... very ... sleepy. Very ... sleepy. It's been ... such a long day. Such a very long day. You must be very tired. Very tired. And ... sleepy."

Penny blinked again, but this time, her eyes were almost impossible to open. Her shoulders slumped in utter exhaustion. "Oh ... oh, gosh," she groaned. "How ... how are you doing this to me?"

"You are very, very suggestible, Penny. That's one of the reasons I chose you. It's in your evaluations ... in your psychological profile. Well, not the word 'suggestible,' of course, but if you read between the lines, it's easy to see. 'Difficulty in concentrating on more than one thing at a time.' 'Reluctant to accept leadership roles.' 'Responds well to orders.' 'Lacks assertiveness.' And now, it's all coming together, isn't it, dear? You are so very, very tired ... simply because I suggest it. So tired. So sleepy." The woman reached behind her own neck and fiddled with the clasp of a necklace, then she held a deep green emerald so it dangled only inches in front of Penny's eyes. "And here's something for you to concentrate on while you get sleepy, dear. Watch the gem ... and get sleepy for me."

"You ... you're hypnotizing me."

"Well, yes, dear, of course I am."

"I ... I thought ... I thought you weren't ... weren't going to ...." Penny frowned as she lost her train of thought. The gem was an achingly deep shade of green, and it seemed to sparkle from within as it refracted the light from the other side of the room.

"I'm not going to make you more assertive, dear. But I DO want to help you understand your natural submissive nature. I want to help you accept it ... to accept who you are ... to accept your place in life. Have you ever been hypnotized before?"

It took her a long moment to answer. "No."

"You're going to love it, Penny. You're going to love it more than anything that's ever happened to you. It's going to feel SO good. So very, very good." She paused while the corners of Penny's lips curved ever so slightly upward. "There are three phases in what's about to happen to you. The first phase is the induction. That's what's we're doing now. And it feels so good, doesn't it, dear?"

"Um ... yesss."

"And when you finally surrender and fall asleep, we will begin the deepening phase. That will be confusing to you." Penny's brow furrowed slightly with worry. "But if you follow my voice, you will go deeper and deeper. Eventually, you will stop worrying, and simply follow my voice. Follow it always. And you'll go SO deep." She paused again. Penny was having trouble holding her head upright. "And finally, we will move into the suggestion phase."

Penny's head bobbed into vertical alignment, but it took her a long second to find the strength to open her eyes again. "You ... you're trying to control me."

"Only if we can go deep enough, dear. If you can follow me deep enough, then you will have achieved your goal, and allow me to control you. I will try to help you get that deep. If you quit, we won't be able to accomplish that level, and you won't be able to help me. But if you don't quit ... if you never quit, then you'll win, Penny. I can control you then. You can save us then. You can do what I brought you here for, and everything will be okay then."

"I'll try," Penny mumbled. "I'll try as hard as I can. But please ... please, can I go to sleep now? Please?"

"It's going to feel SO good, Penny."

"Please?"

"Surrender for me now, Penny. Sleep. Sleep now."

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When Penny awakened, the green gem was still dangling in front of her eyes. Her mouth was dry, and she licked her lips and swallowed. "Was I ...? Did I ...? Um ...."

"You're still hypnotized, Penny." Madam's voice was in her ear, but she couldn't seem to take her eyes off the emerald and look at her.

"I am?"

"Yes, dear. And you're still sleepy. Very ... sleepy."

Her eyelids, which were fine a second ago, suddenly seemed to weigh a ton. She struggled to keep them open. Why was she fighting it? She wanted to sleep again. Why was it that she was trying so hard to watch the gem? "Please," she moaned.

"You'll go deeper this time, dear. Surrender for me now. Surrender and sleep."

It was hard to define ... hard to fathom. The utter bliss of letting sleep overcome her was so sweet, and yet so short-lived. She was awake again, staring at the emerald. She felt Madam's lips next to her ear. "You're doing so well, Penny. You're going so deep for me. And deeper and deeper, each time. Sleepy, now. Ssso ssssleepy." The sibilant "s" seemed to penetrate right through her ear, and once inside her head, the sound sought out her brain, and it wrapped around and around it, like a soft, warm blanket. She tried to beg. Her lips came together to form the first letter of "Please," but she couldn't seem to find voice without permission. "Sssurender. Sssleep." And with a euphoric moan, she was gone again.