Gloria blinked. It was a long, slow, heavy blink, the pause between the instant when her jade eyes slammed shut and the moment when they finally and reluctantly opened again seeming to stretch out into a small eternity. When she finally did manage to unstick her eyelids from one another and pry them apart, her stare was glassy and unfocused; it took her another second or two to pull her gaze away from whatever she was seeing inside her own mind and back onto the ring on her finger. Her facial muscles looked ever so slightly slack, her lips parted in a vacant, expressionless yawp of confusion as she wiped a trickle of drool away from the corner of her mouth. Even though she was fighting the exhaustion that affected her, it was a battle she was clearly and obviously losing.

Best of all, she clearly had no idea what was affecting her. Tyler could see it on her face, etched with crystal clarity into the befuddled look in her eyes as she struggled to shake off the unexpected drowsiness that had gripped her and pay attention to his fascinating little lecture about the virtues of her new engagement ring. She no doubt wondered why her coffee wasn't doing its normal job this particular morning, perhaps blaming her unaccountable lethargy on an all-night study session or the dull sociology textbook that she'd been staring at for hours before he arranged their chance encounter. She had no idea. Tyler's cock throbbed inside his boxers at the thought.

He didn't so much as smile, though. Instead, he arranged his features into a carefully composed expression of sympathy and said, "I'm sorry, I'm probably boring you. If you need to get back to your studies, I can....?" He let the sentence trail off, instead gesturing with one hand to the door of the nearly empty coffee shop. It took Gloria a couple of moments before she was able to pull her gaze away from her ring long enough to follow the gesture, and her stare quickly returned to the sparkling diamond set into its center. She didn't seem to be fully processing just how deeply his words and the calm, soothing sound of his voice was affecting her.

Instead, she shook her head slightly and forced herself to meet his deep brown eyes. "No, no, it's fine," she said wearily, a lifetime of social conditioning pressuring her to reassure him in the face of his apology... and, by extension, to stay exactly where she was for fear of inadvertently offending him. "Honestly, I don't think I'd get much out of my textbook anyway right now. A study break is probably the best thing for me at the moment, what with my brain being so, um...." Gloria hesitated, her pale pink lips parting once more as she struggled to find a way to describe her thoughtless, distracted state that sounded endearingly self-deprecating instead of overly critical. Twenty minutes ago, the vocabulary would have come to her easily, but that was before Tyler insinuated an onslaught of hypnotic patter into his explanation of what to look for in a diamond. Now, she had to work overtime to find a single word.

Tyler didn't intend to give her a chance, though. "Tired," he cut in smoothly, once again asserting control of the conversation. "You're feeling a little tired, and you need to give your mind a bit of a rest. It's perfectly natural to feel tired, especially when you've been working so hard," he added reassuringly. He was careful to interject only when Gloria paused to gather her thoughts; the last thing he wanted to do was frustrate her, or give her the feeling that he was monopolizing the discussion. He wasn't concerned about giving her too many chances to speak--by now, her brain was so sluggish and lethargic that Tyler could practically drive a truck through her distracted silences.

He pressed his advantage. "You've probably been staring at that book so long that the words have just turned to squiggles in front of those tired, aching eyes," he murmured softly, pitching his voice in a low, soothing hypnotic cadence that Gloria responded to instinctively. "It's good to take a break every now and again when you get exhausted and groggy like that, just rest and relax for a little while before you fall asleep in your seat." The young woman's eyelids fluttered again, her glassy stare wavering back and forth between the diamond on her engagement ring and the page behind it as her conscious mind tried to decide exactly what she was supposed to be looking at. Tyler's cock twitched as he drank in the beautiful sight.

"You can always come back to the book in a little while," he continued, keeping his voice quiet and gentle. He wasn't worried about someone overhearing--Gloria had chosen her quiet, secluded corner of the cafe well, and Tyler knew from long experience that the staff knew better than to interrupt an intimate-looking conversation. But the soft, calm tones helped to lull his subject deeper into relaxation. "There's no hurry. The room is warm, the chair is soft and comfortable, and you've got the whole day in front of you. You can take your time, let go of the stress of studying and focus on something peaceful and happy for a bit."

Gloria smiled, her heavy-lidded eyes once again locking onto the ring in front of her. Tyler had noticed her gazing at it admiringly several times before he decided to use it as his opening to engage her in conversation, and his informal appraisal of its value had only raised her estimation of its beauty. Primed as she was to concentrate on the sparkling stone, he didn't need to do much prompting at all to return her thoughts to the rainbow-hued facets that caught the light so hypnotically and captured her attention so completely. She gazed down at the diamond in mesmerized fascination, drowsiness lending her face a soft, vulnerable expression. Tyler shifted in his chair, his boxers uncomfortably tight all of a sudden.

But his arousal didn't distract him from his task. Quite the opposite, really; the more turned on he got by the subtle signals of hypnotic surrender Gloria gave off, the more he wanted to take her deeper into trance. "That's it," he cooed, watching her chest rise and fall in slow, languid breaths. "It's so nice to focus on the ring, to watch those pretty sparkles of light and color and let all those other thoughts drift away for a while into peace and pleasure. It feels so good to let them go, doesn't it?" Gloria nodded absently; he'd gotten her very used to agreeing with him by this point in the conversation, to the point where it was now an instinctual reaction to any question he asked.

And best of all, she didn't respond in words. That told Tyler all he needed to know about her current state of mind; she no longer felt capable of mustering up the effort to speak, not when it was easier to simply let her head bob up and down in vacant, compliant acceptance. She was already in a light trance, now. All he needed to do was deepen it. "That's it," he said, a phrase that allowed her hypnotized subconscious to fill in the implications itself with whatever Gloria needed to sink deeper into relaxation. "Everything else can wait a little while longer. The diamond is so nice, so soothing to those tired, heavy eyes that nothing else matters anymore."

Gloria's jaw hung slack, her head drooping forward on her shoulders as she leaned in ever so slightly to gaze more closely at the ring. Her eyelids were open no more than halfway now, and her eyes rolled back in her head until the pupils were only intermittently visible. Tyler could tell that she was no longer questioning her exhaustion; his careful use of disassociative language, combined with an excuse for her drowsiness that appealed to her conscious mind, had allowed her to accept the dreamy blankness stealing over her mind. "That's it," he said again, finally letting himself smile at the sight of her thoughtless nod of agreement.

"Even my words aren't really important," Tyler continued, recognizing that Gloria was on the verge of giving up her struggle with consciousness. "They can just fade into the background, drifting past while those heavy, sleepy eyes focus on the beautiful gem and all the joy and happiness it implies. That happiness is always right there, centered on the stone that sparkles and shines so brightly and clearly in your mind. Even when those tired eyelids close, even when it's so hard to keep them open that they just have to close down and stay shut, it's still so easy to see the beauty of the diamond with just your imagination. Isn't that right, Gloria?"

Gloria nodded again, her head swaying drunkenly on her shoulders as it drooped even further forward. There was no way she could really be seeing the diamond now; only the whites of her eyes showed beneath her fluttering eyelids, and only really a sliver even of those. She had only a notional flirtation with consciousness, a pretense that fooled no one but herself that she was still awake and capable of thought. All he needed to do was give her permission to drop, and she would slump into blissful oblivion under his control.

But the greatest pleasure was in the taking, not the having. "That's it," he purred again, an instruction she now fully interpreted as an offer to relax deeper. "Not really thinking, not really listening, just letting my words drift through that sleepy, hazy brain while the gem occupies your complete focus. Only the pretty sparkles matter now, Gloria. The sparkles have filled up every corner of that foggy mind of yours and everything I say goes right into the back of your head and settles in nice and deep in your subconscious." Gloria's chin rested on her chest now, a trickle of drool dripping from her pale pink lips. She didn't wipe it away as she had earlier. She no longer noticed anything but the diamond in the center of her thoughts.

Tyler's fingers moved to tease his cock through his trousers, an unconscious motion that he didn't even register. His attention was completely consumed by Gloria's final surrender, and the surging pulses of arousal between his legs seemed only natural given the transcendent vulnerability of her slumping form. "Time to let those heavy eyes close, pretty girl," he husked out, deliberately omitting her identity from his instructions now. He didn't want her to think of herself as a person, not anymore. "Time to rest and sleep for me. Deep sleep now. Deep sleep now. Deep sleep... now." Gloria's arm went limp on the table. Her shoulders relaxed. Her eyelids finally gave up their struggle and sank shut. It was only then that Tyler realized just how hard he truly was.

He consciously forced himself to take his hand away from his penis, instead reaching into his pocket for his phone. "That's it, pretty girl," he purred, his voice now a growl of sensual lust that he no longer even bothered to hide. "Deeper for me, letting all those thoughts go, letting all that strength go, letting all those memories fade away into the bliss and beauty of the diamond now. Nothing inside except peace and pleasure and happiness for me, now, nothing but my will filling up the space between all those lovely sparkles while your sleepy mind goes down and down and down into trance. It feels so good to relax and obey, doesn't it?" Another nod, barely even visible to anyone not watching with Tyler's rapt and devoted attention.

He took a picture of her, then another, then a few seconds of video as the streamer of drool trickled onto her chest and soaked into her sweatshirt. "That's it," he said again, by now confident that Gloria went deeper every time she heard the words. "You know exactly how deep you need to go to be perfectly blank, completely obedient to my will, and it feels so good and so easy to sink deeper that you want to go all the way down until you find yourself completely unable to resist my voice and my will. It feels better and better the more you relax into my control, doesn't it, pretty girl?" Another nod. No pause, no hesitation, simply a vacant acceptance now. The skin of Tyler's thigh was soaked with precum.

"And because it feels so good, and because you want to obey me, you're going to return to this state whenever you hear me say, 'Deep trance now'. You won't remember that you can do that--you won't remember anything about our conversation at all, in fact. You're just going to remember that you spent the morning studying and that nothing interesting happened to you at all. But whenever you hear me say those words, 'Deep trance now', you're going to drop right back down into a trance so deep and complete that you can't possibly resist my control. Isn't that right, pretty girl?" Gloria nodded. Her lips quirked in a tiny, vacant smile of pure ecstasy.

"Good girl," he cooed softly to her. He opened up the Contacts tab in his phone, typing in 'Gloria' in the name field before handing it to her. "Now in a moment, you're going to open up those pretty eyes, still staying just as deep and relaxed and helpless to resist as you are right now. You're going to enter your name and address and phone number on the screen in front of you, and when you're sure that it's right, those heavy eyelids will close right back down and you'll drop even deeper for me. Do you understand, pet?" She nodded. It was the only response she was capable of now.

He watched as her eyelids slowly, reluctantly fluttered open to reveal a blank, unfocused stare. Her hands moved with a puppet's graceless sway as she entered in the information as instructed, pressing backspace several times to correct typos borne of her loose and uncoordinated muscles. Eventually, she sighed in utter bliss and let her eyes slam shut once more. Smiling, Tyler collected his phone and saved the new contact card. "Good girl," he whispered, shivering in excitement and anticipation.

"I'm going to snap my fingers now," he said, rising to his feet and grabbing his jacket from the seat behind him to conceal the bulge in his trousers. "And when I do, you're going to count in your head from one to ten, coming back a little bit more with each number until you're wide awake with no conscious memory of me or this conversation. You'll just feel refreshed, happy, and ready to focus on your studies for the rest of the day. Do you understand, pet?" A final nod made that bulge twitch a little harder. Tyler couldn't wait to get home.

"Good girl. Obey." Tyler snapped his fingers, then turned and walked away swiftly. He waved casually to the barista on his way out the door, waiting until he was halfway down the block before he finally took out his phone and glanced at the new addition to his collection. 'Gloria' joined dozens of other women in his contacts, hundreds of other photos in his album, her phone number a memento of the brief and intimate time they'd shared. He never called any of them, of course; what would be the point, when the most wonderful pleasure of all was that first unknowing descent into the depths of his hypnotic power? But knowing that he could was all it took to make his cock stiffen in arousal.

Tyler's apartment was only a few blocks away, and it only took a couple of minutes before he could get his clothes off and release the pent-up excitement of his encounter. His eyes were locked onto his phone, staring at the image of Gloria's slack, expressionless face, but his mind saw only the memory of the pure and perfect control he held over her as he stroked his aching cock. It was a simple pleasure, to be sure... but it was all Tyler needed to make himself cum.

THE END