My eyes drifted open to the first rays of sunlight creeping across the bed. I yawned and stretched out an arm to pull Wally to my chest. Instead, I felt something warm and round. It was, it was . . . a shoulder, a man’s shoulder. It all came back to me. Caleb! Caleb was in my bed. No, I was in Caleb’s bed. I had sex! With Caleb! In real life! He stirred slightly and I shot my hand back, but after a moment he turned towards me and mumbled, “Good morning.”

“Oh gosh, did I wake you up? I’m sorry. I forgot where I was for a second, and I thought you were a stuffed animal to cuddle. I didn’t mean to wake you up. Feel free to go back to sleep or do whatever you need to do,” I stammered. 

“Shhh.” He stretched out an arm and pulled me against his chest. “It’s early.” 

“Sorry I woke you up,” I whispered, as I nestled against his chest. 

“It’s fine. I wanted to get up before you anyway.”

“You did? That might be tricky. I get up with the sun. It’s like the sun's up, I’m up. You know? Once my brain gets going, it doesn’t really stop going.” 

“I’m getting that impression.” 

“Why did you want to get up before me?” I asked. 

“Wanted to get us coffee.” 

“You were going to get up before me, and get coffee! Caleb, that’s so sweet.”

“Well, I didn’t get up in time to do it,” he said, voice starting to sound more normal. 

“It’s still sweet.”

He groaned and stretched. “I can just go get it for us now.”

“Ok! I mean, only if you want to. I’ll come too,” I said.

“Yep, here I go, getting up,” he said, still holding me to his chest and not moving at all. “Any second now.” Still no movement. 

I giggled and nuzzled against him. It took a little doing to find a position where his chest hair didn’t tickle my face, but eventually I landed on a comfortable spot. We stayed that way for a while, not saying a word. I just listened to the slow rhythm of his breath under my ear. 

Eventually a low gurgling from my stomach broke the peaceful silence of the morning. 

“Guess we should get you something to eat, huh.” 

“Oh, only if you want to. I mean I’m fine to just stay like this,” I said, my stomach immediately contradicting me with another grumble. 

“No, we should get up.”. His body shifted and I grudgingly sat. Caleb rolled out of the bed. I couldn’t help but stare as he got dressed. My eyes followed his ass as he walked to the dresser and pulled on a pair of boxers. His arms flexed, pulling a shirt over his head and I felt hypnotized all over again. I followed the lines of modest muscle that ran up his back and stomach, before they disappeared under a T-shirt for some band called “Ripe.”

With the free show over, I got out of the bed myself. “Oh, darn, I didn’t bring a change of clothes,” I said to myself as much as to Caleb. 

“You can just rewear the ones from yesterday,” Caleb said, glancing at the trail of discarded garments that still marked the path to the living room. 

“But they’ll be all wrinkly. I can’t go out in those. What if people know they’re from last night and judge me?” 

“I don’t think anyone would notice something like that.”

“How can you be so sure? You never know what people could be thinking. They can be so harsh and intimidating to talk to.”

He held up two fingers. “Two reasons. One, nobody is actually paying attention to each other. They’re just watching videos on their phones. You could probably go out in a clown suit and half the people wouldn’t notice.”

“But the other half would take pictures of my clown suit and post them online and then the people on their phones would see them and laugh at me too!” I said, imagination running wild. 

“Second reason. You’re drop dead gorgeous and anyone who looks at you will be too distracted to notice some wrinkly clothes.”

My cheeks flushed and my train of thought derailed completely. “I’m . . . I’m not that pretty.”

“Mmm, afraid I have to disagree,” he said with a smile. Then he took my chin in his hand and tilted my head back, bringing our lips together and washing away my worries. “Now, as much as I’m enjoying the view, you should really get dressed.”

“Yes, Sir,” I sighed. 

“Careful, Annie. If you keep talking like that, we won’t make it to breakfast.”

I retrieved my panties and pulled them up my legs. “Is that a promise?” 

“More like a warning to myself,” he said with a chuckle. 

I crouched down to retrieve my skirt and noticed a smattering of plastic debris strewn across the floor beside it. That’s right. The little Shogun guy had fallen down. It had a pair of wings that resembled the nose of a plane and they had snapped off. “Oh man, your little guy broke,” I said, gently picking it up. 

Caleb kneeled beside me and started examining it. “Let’s not call it ‘my little guy’.” 

“Fine, it’s the Airplane Shogun.” 

“It’s a Master Grade Wing Gundam, actually,” Caleb said, experimentally prodding the wing towards its socket. 

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Hmm, looks like I’ll need glue to fix this, maybe even a new part. The connector snapped when it hit the ground. We can worry about it later.” He gently set the little guy back to standing on its shelf. 

I thought it looked kind of sad without its wings. Then an idea came to me in a flash. “Hold on. I’ve got just the thing,” I said, going for my bag.

“You’ve got two one-hundredth-scale ball joints in your bag?” 

“No, even better.” I pulled the unfinished beanie out into the light. It was supposed to be a gift for Caleb, but I hadn’t made it far enough to close it. So it just remained a fuzzy rectangle of yarn. I took the corners and tucked them into the open sockets for the little guy’s wings. It took a little shimmying and wedging but the fabric fit eventually. “There. This was gonna be a hat for you, but maybe it could be a cape instead.” I stood it up on the shelf and leaned back to examine my handiwork. 

The fluffy fabric cascaded down the back of the shiny, plastic armor. The size worked out surprisingly well, stopping just before the robot’s red shoes. It looked properly regal if I did say so myself. “What do you think?” I asked, turning to Caleb.

He studied it for a moment. The silence ate away at me, my confidence rapidly dwindling. Maybe he didn’t like it. Robots didn’t have capes. Maybe it looked too girly. I should have known to just leave his thing alone. I started to reach towards it to take the yarn off.   

“It looks perfect to me,” he said with a smile. Then he pulled me into a hug. 

“Really?”

“I mean, it probably wouldn’t survive the heat of atmospheric reentry,” he said with a laugh. “But for terrestrial deployment, it’s perfect.”

“Well, we’ll just try not to send him to space any time soon then.” 

“I think he’s right where he belongs.” 

—

The bright sun stung my eyes as we left the house. Caleb locked the door and I continued pulling at last night’s top, trying to stretch the wrinkles out and failing. Then Caleb laced his fingers through mine and we started to walk towards Maple Street. 

I looked up at him and couldn’t help but smile. Here we were, just walking to coffee like any other couple. I had dreamed about this for so long, and now that it was here, It all just felt so natural, so easy. 

“What’s that big grin for?” Caleb asked.

I hadn’t even realized how much I was smiling. “Oh, nothing, just happy.” 

“Good. I’m glad,” he said, giving my hand a little squeeze. “I’m happy too.” 

“I just imagined this day for so long, and I never thought it would actually happen.” 

“You had? How long?” 

“Like three years. Ever since your band played at that homecoming concert. I just thought you looked so confident up there,” I said casually. Only then did I realize that normal people didn’t take years to act on their feelings. “Shoot. I probably shouldn’t have told you that. I hope you don’t think I’m creepy or weird.” Just stop talking. “I promise I’m not some kind of stalker or something.” Why can’t I shut up? “It just took me a long time to work up the nerve to ask you out. That’s all,” I finally managed to get my foot all the way into my mouth.

Caleb only laughed. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. I just wish I had known sooner. I would have asked you out.” 

“YOU WOULD HAVE?” I gasped. 

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t really know you till Psych class, but I had seen you around and thought you were cute.”

“You thought I was cute?” 

“Of course. I may have a . . .” he said and then paused. “A slight thing for redheads.”

I leaned up against him as we walked. “Boy, I wish I knew that years ago.”

“I hope the real Caleb lives up to your imagination. I doubt you ever imagined me with a hypnosis kink for one thing.” 

I looked around, and saw no one was walking near us. “Well, I’d have to know a hypnosis kink was a thing first.”

“I guess that’s true,” he said with a hint of nervousness.

“But I don’t mind it,” I said, casually issuing the understatement of the century. “Without it, I probably would have been crazy nervous last night and made everything awkward.” 

“Pssh, you wouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. You’re a bombshell.”

Me, a bombshell? Maybe a ticking time bomb of anxiety. No one had ever described me like that before. “I’d have plenty to be nervous about. That was only my second time, and my first time, like, barely even counts.” 

“How so?”

Just play it cool, Annie. Don’t overshare like you always do. “Well, it was less than a minute for one thing. My mother didn’t exactly approve of me doing things like that before marriage.” And there go the floodgates. “But she let a boy take me to the movies once. We snuck out before the show was over, because I said my mom would look up the movie and be watching the time. So he drove us to a corner of the parking lot and I should probably stop talking,” I finished meekly. 

“You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like that,” he said, giving my side a playful shove. 

My shoulders tensed. “And we tried to have sex in the backseat. I wasn’t even that into him. I just wanted to know what it was like, and I didn’t really get to find out. He had just . . . um . . . gone in . . . when a security guard tapped on the window and told us we couldn’t do that here. Thank god, he just made us leave and didn’t call my parents. I’d probably still be grounded.”

Caleb stopped walking and pulled me into a hug. “Man, I’m sorry that happened. If it’s any consolation, I would never have guessed it was basically your first time. You seemed like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“That’s all the hypnosis,” I said, biting my lip. “It keeps my thoughts from spiraling. If you told me to do a striptease without it, it would not have been pretty.”

“I’m sure it would have still been hot.” He leaned back to look into my eyes. “Tell me more about that. What does trance feel like for you?” 

“It just feels so calming.” I let out a dreamy sigh as the blissful feeling crept back from my memories. “I’m always worried I’ll say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing or screw up somehow. But when I’m under, everything is just so . . . easy. Like, I couldn’t think about anything besides stripping for you. It felt . . . freeing.”

His lips curved into a mischievous smirk. “You may be the first person to describe being hypnotized to strip as ‘freeing.’ But I’m glad you felt that way. It was SO hot.” 

“It really WAS freeing though. It was like I didn’t have to think at all, I just had to obey.”

The kiss caught me off guard. His lips claimed mine with an eager hunger. Caleb pulled back just enough to whisper, “say that again.” 

“I just had to obey,” I said instantly. 

Another kiss. 

“I had to obey,” I said automatically, when he broke the kiss. 

And again. 

“I had to . . .” I started to say, but Caleb silenced me with a finger over my lips. 

“We have to stop or I’m going to take you right here on the sidewalk.” 

“Yes, sir,” I teased. We walked on in silence for a moment after that, passing under the dappled shadows of the oak trees beside the road. But I couldn’t stop thinking about hypnosis. “Could we talk about hypnosis a bit more, about how it works? I promise not to get you too worked up. I know you told me on our first date, but I was so caught off guard, it kind of went over my head.” 

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“How do you make me feel so calm and focused? My therapist has been trying to do that for years and hasn’t made half as much progress.” 

His eyes lit up. “To put you in a trance, I basically lull your conscious mind into a state of deep relaxation. It’s sort of in between being awake and asleep.” More excitement filled his voice as he went on. “Then I can suggest ideas directly to your subconscious. Once your deep self accepts something, it just feels natural and easy for your conscious mind to act on it. You won’t get distracting thoughts popping up from your subconscious, because it’s totally focused on the suggestion. Does that make sense?” 

I did my best to follow along. “I think I get it, but it still feels kinda wild. You can just say a few words to me and suddenly I’m half asleep, mindlessly following your suggestions.”

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t get me worked up,” he teased. Then he got a devilish grin. “But it’s not so much about the words as about the relaxation. We could do a little demonstration this morning, if you’re interested.”

I took another look around. We had almost reached Maple Street, where restaurants and shops would bring unwelcome spectators. I knew I should say no. We were in the open after all, but trance felt so good. “Ok, maybe we could try something, but I don’t want to do anything weird in public,” I said sheepishly. 

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve already thought of the perfect suggestion. You won’t be able to act on it, until we get home,” he said, turning me to face him and putting a hand on my shoulder. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. 

“SLEEP!” came the sudden answer as Caleb yanked hard on my arm and pulled me towards him. 

The world spun for a moment, my mind struggling to catch its bearings, but ultimately I did the only thing I could think of, I obeyed. I slept. 

Some part of me knew I was slumped against Caleb, my head resting on his chest, his arms holding me up, my nipples hardening at the feeling of trance. But that knowledge seemed distant and irrelevant, like the names of the stars in the sky. 

I was floating in a dream, sleeping, listening, obeying. That was all that mattered. I just needed to listen to Caleb’s words and accept them, though not think about them or hear them. That made sense, even though it didn’t make sense. I could listen and not hear. I could remember and forget. I knew I could because Caleb told me I could and I obeyed him.

I knew he was whispering to me, slipping ideas deep into my mind, but I trusted him, so I didn’t give the words any thought. I simply listened without hearing. I remembered while forgetting that I remembered.

“Yes, sir. I understand,” my own voice mumbled. That was good. I understood, though I didn’t know what I understood. Then that feeling of vertigo returned and my eyes opened. I picked my head up off Caleb’s chest, dimly recognizing the patch of drool I left on his shirt. “I don’t remember what you suggested,” I said, slurring a bit. 

“Good, that means it’s working.” 

We started walking again and I gradually regained my bearings. I felt completely fine, unsettlingly fine even. No compulsions to rip my clothes off. No hallucinations. “Everything seems normal,” I said accusatorily. 

“Why wouldn’t it be normal?”

“You know why. We both know you did something.” 

“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” he said with a shrug. 

I kept pondering as we turned onto Maple Street. Most of the bystanders showed clear signs of a hangover. We passed a flock of sorority girls with oversized sunglasses and various shades of sweat pants. 

Once we reached Undercurrent Cafe the crowd looked a little more awake. Caleb opened the glass door and held it for me. I started to step through, but paused with my foot in the air over the threshold. 

“Something wrong?” Caleb asked, still smirking. 

“What if something happens when I step inside?”

“Hmm that would be interesting. You’ll just have to try it and see.” 

My head spun with possibilities. Maybe he would do the smell trick with the scent of the coffee. Maybe I would feel like a different person once I walked in. I held my breath, like I was about to drive through a tunnel, and then stepped through. 

Nothing happened. 

The large windows cast rectangles of light into the dim interior. The inviting aroma of freshly ground coffee filled the space. Scattered students on laptops already occupied most of the tables despite the early hour. 

The disturbing normalcy continued all the way through placing our orders. I got my usual hot vanilla latte with oat milk and Caleb got black coffee. We both ordered breakfast sandwiches.

The food came out first and I practically inhaled mine. By the time they served our drinks, I was starting to think that he didn’t do anything after all. Or maybe he did something that would kick in when we got home. 

Then I took the first sip. 

The drink normally tasted sugary, but today it seemed to flood my senses with a honeyed sweetness that coated my tongue. “It’s the coffee!” 

“Oh, is it?” He said, failing completely at acting innocent. 

“It is. It’s the best I’ve ever had.” 

“It’s not the only thing,” he said with a wink.

I gasped. “Hey now. That’s true, but you didn’t exactly have much competition.” I took another sip. Had he always been this handsome? I mean sure he looked good, but today he looked goood. I reached out for his hand, but couldn’t quite bring our fingers together. I pressed harder, but my palm just met an invisible wall of force. “I can’t touch you.”

“Well, you said you didn’t want to do anything embarrassing in public,” he answered coyly. “So I made sure you couldn’t touch me until we got home.” 

“That’s not fair,” I said, testing the strength of the wall again.

“Guess we better get walking then,” Caleb said as he led us back towards the door. 

I followed behind him, eyes practically glued to his ass as we walked. The drink was doing something to me, making me want him even more than usual, but I couldn’t put it down. I took a gulp of the warm liquid and the effects only intensified. 

I barely noticed that we were back outside. The rhythm of Caleb’s legs had practically hypnotized me on its own. Another sip. Even through his jeans I could make out the outline of his legs. I imagined running my tongue up them, leaving a trail of kisses up to his manhood. I wanted so desperately to reach out and stroke him, but my body wouldn’t oblige. I gave a whimper of protest. 

“Everything alright back there?” 

God, he looked gorgeous. Had his teeth gotten brighter? His hair looked perfect, wavy with a hint of mess. I just wanted to run my fingers through it and pull him close to me and . . . “Yep, everything’s great. Let’s just hurry back to your place, please,” I squeaked.

“You’ve got it.” 

The latte had cooled enough for me to drink it faster, which in hindsight may not have been the best idea, but I couldn’t help myself. I finished it before we even made it back. My head spun afterwards. I could barely think about anything besides Caleb’s body. I kept picturing him naked walking beside me, already hard for me, which I suspected he was from the looks he gave me. I imagined his cock bobbing up and down, reaching out towards me. My eyes scanned our surroundings. I recognized some of those trees. We had almost arrived. I started walking faster, pulling ahead of Caleb. He hustled to catch up, laughing the whole way. Jerk. 

When his house came into view, I broke into a run, or as much of a run as I could manage in my skirt. Caleb in his stupid jeans outpaced me and beat me to the door. I fidgeted with my empty coffee cup while I waited for him to unlock it. But finally, blessedly, the door swung open and Caleb entered. 

The second I crossed the threshold, I tackled him. The forcefield had disintegrated and left him defenseless to my onslaught of eager hands and hungry kisses. 

Caleb cackled like a child, while I pulled his shirt over his head. See ya, Ripe. His chest looked absolutely magnificent this morning. I ran my hands over his pecs as I made my way towards his belt. 

“See, I didn’t need to talk to you at all. I just did an instant induction and it was just as effective,” he bragged. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said, tugging the belt from its loops. 

“And the suggestion lasted the whole time, every sip of coffee affecting you more and more and . . . Oh” 

He finally stopped talking as I unbuttoned his pants and took his length in my hands. “Explain later. Fuck now.” 

“O-O-Ok,” he gasped, trying to maintain focus through my stroking. 

I shimmied down his legs and pulled his pants and boxers along with me, leaving his beautiful body spread out before me on the floor. While I was already up, I discarded my top and skirt. Gone was the playful teasing of last night. This time, I stripped with feverish abandon. Then I was back on top of him, pinning him to the ground and kissing and kissing. 

Caleb struggled up to sitting so he could undo my bra. I flung it aside as soon as the clasp came loose. 

I rocked my hips against him, feeling him twitch. I never saw a more beautiful sight than his smile underneath me on the floor. I knew in the back of my mind that he had used hypnosis to build my arousal, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. I could barely think through the haze filling my mind, but I knew I had to get rid of these panties. I did my best to pull them down without getting off Caleb. 

The scent of my desire flooded the room, as I took Caleb’s shaft in my hand and lined him up to my entrance.

“Condom. Condom. Condom,” Caleb said through strained breaths. 

I had completely forgotten, but I scrambled over to my bag and pulled one out. In another heartbeat, I had it on him and held him in my hand again. I slowly slid him inside. In that moment all the longing that had been building inside me was tinder and Caleb was a lit match. 

Everything went up in flames. 

I screamed as the orgasm ripped through me. It all happened so fast, like every step home had been a teasing caress, driving me towards the edge, till it took almost nothing to put me over. The roaring inferno of desire died down to a steady ember of bliss. Of course, Caleb wasn’t done. 

He gripped my hips and pulled me down onto him as he thrusted upwards. We settled into a natural rhythm.

“Now tell me again, what you had to do last night,” Caleb ordered. 

“I had to obey,” I answered, automatically.

Caleb didn’t last long after that. He collapsed in a shuddering, grunting mess underneath me. His usual composure dissolved into a moan of pure joy. I loved watching his control slip in those moments. 

I fell forward onto his chest, both of us taking long, heaving breaths. “Ok . . . Now . . . You can explain.”