It's that smug little grin of his that gets to me. The instant I see him, smirking that irritating smile he wears whenever he thinks he knows something I don't, I'm instantly ready to fight him. If he were to tell me the sky was blue, I'd point to the one tiny corner of the horizon where the sun was setting just to prove him wrong. It's probably childish, petty, and deeply unfair of me, but I can't help it. Luis brings out the fight in me. Every single time.

Besides, this time he really is wrong. "Looks like I got you again, Lupes," he says, leaning back in his chair and grinning as if his favorite movie is about to start. "You're really getting to be a good hypnotic subject. You're taking the triggers better and better, too. I might have to start finding a whole new set of suggestions to give you at this rate." That stupid smirk of his distends his terra cotta cheeks like he's doing a frog impersonation. I want to smack the smug right off of it.

I don't know where he got the idea that he's hypnotizing me from. I've never been hypnotized, by Luis or by anyone else. Maybe he was reading some kind of, of bullshit pick-up artist training manual and he thinks that any time a woman stops paying attention to him for five seconds she's suddenly susceptible to suggestions? Or maybe it's just some stupid teasing game he thinks will make me interested in him, like I'm his little sister on campus and at some point I'm just naturally going to graduate from tolerating his teasing to finding him irresistible. It doesn't matter, really. He's wrong whatever he's thinking.

And unlike the shy, demure women he's probably used to, I'm not afraid to say so. "Bullshit I was, asshole," I snarl, baring my teeth in a smile that only the terminally inattentive would think was friendly. "I was fucking studying, not hypnotized. Remember studying? That thing we're doing together because we're both scraping by with a D minus in Camfield's History of Science class?"

He chuckles. He actually fucking chuckles. I'm genuinely about ready to throw my textbook at him. "I'm not worried about Camfield," he says, lacing his hands behind his head in confident nonchalance. "I'll just hypnotize her into giving us a good grade. She's even more of a pushover than you are, and she remembers it even less." He gives me a little wink that makes my shoulders hunch up around my ears. "Not that it's really possible for anyone to be a better subject than you are, Lupes. You're always going to be my favorite."

I roll my eyes disdainfully. "If you were really so good at being hypnotized, you wouldn't make me so mad at you, dumbass," I snap, crumpling up a sheet of paper into a ball and throwing it at him. I'm a lousy shot, so it goes wide and joins a small drift of improvised projectiles scattered across the floor, but it's the thought that counts. "Like, wouldn't you make me want to, I don't know, be nice to you or want to hang around you or something?" I can think of a lot of 'or somethings' he might want to do--Luis might have those weird frog cheeks of his, but he's really pretty jacked for an astrophysics major. But I'm not about to bring that up. He'd probably just tell me he made me notice with hypnosis or some shit.

He's always saying crap like that. "Naw, that's part of my plan, Lupes!" he says enthusiastically, not even realizing he's providing me with proof of my argument. "Strong emotional reactions wear you out, you know? It's like you get really pissed off for five minutes, and then the adrenaline rush wears off and you're ready for a nap. I told you that when you woke up, you'd be totally sure you weren't hypnotized, and you'd just get madder and hornier every time I talked about it. It's working, isn't it." He gives me another wink, and honestly fucking clicks his tongue at me. Clicks his fucking tongue.

I damn near lose it at that. "Oh come the fuck on!" I shout, rising to my feet and slapping the table in frustration. "You seriously expect to tell me that when I get pissed off at your bullshit lies about hypnotizing me all the fucking time, it's a sign that the hypnosis is working? What next? You going to tell me that you secretly hypnotized me into kicking you in the balls, too?" I'm not really going to do anything like that--at least, I don't think I am--but at the same time, I can't deny that I'm getting pretty fucking sick of this. Every time I doze off at the beach, it's because he hypnotized me. Every time I come over to hang out with him, it's because I'm following one of his suggestions. Every time I space out in class, it's because he texted me one of the fucking infinite number of post-hypnotic triggers he apparently installed in me over the last three years. It's just... it's fucking exhausting. If he wasn't so cute, I probably would have told him to fuck off a long time ago.

Not that I'm going to mention that at the moment. He's already too damn full of himself. "See, that's what I'm talking about, Lupita!" he says, gesturing to my tense, knotted muscles and aggressive stance. "You know you'd never lose it like this with anyone else. Nobody ever gets under your skin, not even Chad from Electromagnetic Theory when he said women couldn't wrap their head around high-energy physics. It's got to be hypnosis." I'm a little bit bugged by that one--I have to admit, I normally try twice as hard to keep my temper as anyone else in the room. The second you even raise your voice around a white dude, suddenly it's that whole 'fiery Latina' bullshit all over again. But just because Luis can get to me like nobody else doesn't mean he hypnotized me into it.

Not that Luis sees it that way. "Not that you'd notice. That's the best part about this. Your head's so twisted up with all the suggestions, you think that everything you do is your own idea. I can tell you pretty much anything, and you'll walk yourself through all the justifications you need to make it make sense to you. Like tonight, I told you that you were going to end up naked on your hands and knees while I took your tight little pussy from behind, and not only are you going to do it, you're going to believe one hundred percent that it's pure coincidence. Because you're so deeply programmed."

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I snarl, stomping over to stand directly in front of him. He's got a fucking erection, the arrogant motherfucker. Like he's already sure that somewhere along the line, my absolute fucking fury with him is just going to melt into arousal like something out of a cheap telenovela and I'm going to get down on my knees and slobber all over his fucking crotch. "Look, do I look like I'm getting hornier every second? Do I look like I'm getting turned on by your bullshit? Or does it look like I'm just getting more and more pissed the fuck off, Luis?"

He stretches pompously in his chair, spreading his legs out as if to draw more attention to the bulge in his jeans. Like I could just ignore it. God, did he roll up some socks or something and shove them in there? This has to be part of his weird bullshit fetish for getting me mad at him, right? "I gotta say, you're looking at least a little bit horny to me," he says, casting a skeptical eye over my light brown skin, my black t-shirt, my skinny jeans. "You're breathing harder than normal, and you've got that goose-pimple thing going on that you get when you start thinking about sex. I know," he says, before I can jump in, "you don't think I've ever seen you turned on before. Trust me, Lupes, your memory is whatever I want it to be."

My--oh my fucking god. "Are you fucking delusional or something, is that it? Is there anything that is going to get through to you? Or am I always just following a secret suggestion that's so secret I don't even remember it any more than I remember all the other times you supposedly hypnotized me into having sex with you? Like, is there any way to convince you that I would know if I was programmed or brainwashed or controlled or whatever? Any way at all? Or are you just going to claim that you made me think that, too?"

He leers at me, and I can actually see his cock twitch inside his pants as he stares at my tits. Okay, so maybe it's not all socks in there. "Well, I'd sure have an easier time believing you weren't turned on by all this if your nipples weren't rubbing a hole in your t-shirt, Lupita. Did you forget to wear a bra to your study session again? Or are you just so horny right now that you're popping up clean through two layers of fabric?" God. Fucking. Damn. Seriously, Luis? I don't care how big your fucking dick is, I am not standing for that bullshit.

"My nipples are not hard," I snap, reaching down without even looking and squeezing my breasts together to give him a better view. It's not like they're easy to miss--I've been dealing with guys talking to my chest since puberty--but I want to make sure he sees exactly why he's wrong. "See? I've literally got my hands around them right now, and they're. They're, they're fine." I suddenly decide that maybe covering them with my palms might be a good idea. Just in case Luis doesn't realize how cold his basement apartment is and thinks he's got some kind of a point or something.

Judging by the way he looks at me, I'm not being convincing. "Sure seems like you're hiding the evidence," he says with his trademark smirk, adjusting himself as if it's getting too crowded inside his pants all of a sudden. "Is that it? Or can you just not keep your hands away from your breasts any longer, Lupes?" I suddenly realize how bad it looks, standing in front of him breathing hard and pawing my tits while I stare directly at his crotch. He's probably getting a lot of mixed signals right now. I better do something about it.

"Look, it's just--it's cold down here, okay?" I mumble, pulling my hands away from my breasts and leaning forward in a vain effort to hide my stiff, protruding nips. God, why did I wear such a tight t-shirt tonight? Why didn't I put on a bra before I left the house? I can feel my embarrassment undercutting my anger, confusing me and making me feel like I have to justify myself to the little shit who keeps staring at my tits and rubbing his dick through his jeans. Holy shit, there's a little wet spot there now. I should really stop looking soon.

"No, it's not," he replies, grinning from ear to ear as if he's enjoying my discomfort. "And even if it was, believe me, I know the difference between 'Lupita's cold' nipples and 'Lupita's horny' nipples. And those are definitely horny nipples. You can tell by the way the little pebbles on the skin stand up. It's a dead giveaway. You're getting turned on."

I can't fucking believe it. "You can't even fucking see my areolae through this shirt, asshole! And even if you could, there's not a special kind of horny way my nipples stand up!" I've had it up to here with this bullshit. I'm done fucking arguing with his vague, unprovable nonsense about hypnosis and amnesia suggestions and secret brain weasels that make me think I'm making my own decisions when I'm really just following his instructions. I'm going to prove him wrong once and for all. I'm going to finally show him that I'm acting of my own free will.

I reach down and grab the waistband of my shirt, yanking it up and over my head in a single swift motion. "See?" I shout, spitting a strand of long black hair out of my mouth from where it got tangled up in the collar. "These are perfectly normal, erect nipples, Luis! There's nothing about this that shows that I'm getting turned on, there's nothing unusual about it, it's just my regular, ordinary breasts! I'm not hypnotized, I'm not programmed, and I'm not following some secret compulsion in my unconscious! I am just taking my shirt off and showing you my tits to show you that I'm... cold." I blink heavily for a moment there, my angry certainty wobbling a little in the face of the obvious weirdness of the situation, but I can trace every step in my chain of logic. It all makes perfect sense if I just think about it.

"I dunno," he says, a mockingly doubtful expression spreading across his face. "I think I'd really need to check that pebbling to find out for sure." He lifts his hands, opening them up wide in an unspoken demand. They're really large hands. There's something they say about guys with large hands, isn't there? I can't remember at the moment. It doesn't seem important, not when I still can't convince Luis of the truth. I know what I'm going to have to do, and it's probably best just to get it over with.

"Fine," I say with a sigh, leaning forward so that he can squeeze and pinch my stiff nipples. He's... he's really good with his fingers, I have to admit. My head swims a little when he tugs on the sensitive flesh, his palms cupping my tits and bouncing them lightly in his hands like he's in a grocery store checking out the produce. But I'm not--I'm not getting turned on or anything. This is just a demonstration, just a way of proving that I'm not letting my head get twisted around into following a post-hypnotic suggestion. If it just maybe happens to feel good, kind of a little maybe sort of, that's not my fault, is it?

But of course Luis disagrees. "Oh dang, Lupes," he says, lightly twisting my hard nipples back and forth until I choke back a gasp of pleasure. "This is really doing a number on you, isn't it? Like, you're fucking creaming your panties when I do this to you, aren't you?" He chuckles, flicking the stiff nubs with his thumbs back and forth until I can't stop myself from squirming just a little. "I can fucking smell how wet you are now. It's not going to be long before you're on all fours for me, is it?"

I roll my eyes again, insisting to myself that it's irritation with his unshakeable line of bullshit and not because he keeps finding new ways to play with my tingling breasts. "I, I'm not wet at all," I husk out, trying to keep the tiny subvocal moans out of my voice. "None of this is, is doing anything to me. I'm not, not following any suggestions, I'm not a wet, compliant good girl for you, I'm not giving in to my programming and obeying you. I... this is all normal. This is just what I wanted to do all night long." I don't exactly remember thinking that when I left the house, but the more I concentrate on the way he's touching me, the more the memory solidifies into place. Of course I came over to get my nipples played with. Of course I always planned to show him my tits. It wasn't a post-hypnotic command at all.

He grins at me wickedly, his thumbs strumming my stiff nips like he's playing a guitar. "Prove it," he says. "If you're really not soaking your panties right now, just take off your clothes and show me your underwear. If I'm wrong, then I'll admit you were never hypnotized and you can put everything back on and we'll go back to studying, just like nothing ever happened. But if I'm right, well... I think you're going to find yourself sinking down onto your knees and lifting that pretty ass of yours as high as it will go for my cock. Don't you?"

I find myself hesitating just a little. I know it's a pretty big risk. He's been playing with my tits for, for... a while? I can't remember how long, it's not like I timed him with a fucking stopwatch or something. It's been feeling pretty fucking fantastic, even if I can't admit that out loud. I might be a little bit more wet down there than I think I am. And I know that he told me that the post-hypnotic suggestions would make me strip naked for him. Really, taking off my clothing is probably the single least effective way to prove him wrong.

But at the same time... I can't let him think he's won. I can't let him think I'm really hypnotized, not when I know I'm clear-headed and fully in control of my own thoughts and actions. I have to do exactly what he told me so that I can prove I'm not following his instructions. With that firm, irrefutable logic backing up my resolve, I shimmy out of my pants and panties in one smooth, almost practiced gesture that I refuse to think too hard about at all.

Luis looks down as I step out of my clothes. I look down right along with him. "I... um..." I mumble, staring at the damp patch right over the crotch of my panties. "I, no, that can't be right...." I need to get a closer look, just to make sure it's not something else. Maybe I spilled something earlier and I didn't notice. Maybe I pulled on a dirty pair this morning and that was there already. I crouch down, trying to get a whiff. Trying to see if it's really fresh, if it really smells like my musk. It's difficult to balance, so I get down on my hands and knees.

I don't really notice Luis getting up, walking around behind me and unbuckling his trousers. I'm too busy getting really close to the wet spot, examining it in detail, letting my hips rise into the air while I try to figure out some way it doesn't prove me wrong. Because I know I'm right. I know I wasn't hypnotized. I know Luis isn't controlling my mind and making me believe that everything I do is my own idea when it's really his smooth, inexorable programming twisting my thoughts into obedience. I have to prove him wrong. I know I can prove him wrong if I just get a moment to think.

Then Luis slides into my soaking cunt, and I run out of time.

THE END