"My friends all say you have a crush on me," Zora said, sliding into the seat opposite Samuel with an easy grace that left him absolutely speechless. "They all told me I should come and talk to you because you're way too shy to make the first move, but you're actually just my type and I should really take the time to get to know you because I'd probably be pretty happy I did." She favored him with a wide, cheerful grin, her teeth gleaming in bright contrast to her ebony skin. "Do you think that sounds like a compliment, Sam? Because between you and me, I'm not so sure."

Sam felt like he was being tested, and it was a test he felt almost certain to fail. "Well, I, uh, I mean I'm sure your friends have your best interests at heart," he babbled, blushing fiercely under her incredibly direct and forthright stare. It was the same stare he'd seen during class presentations in the communications course they shared together freshman year, the same stare he saw when he went to the women's track and field meets and tried to pretend he knew something about the sport so it wouldn't seem quite so obvious that he was just there to watch her run--it was a challenging stare, but at the same time it radiated so much charisma Sam thought he might melt just looking at her. There was no way he was going to keep his cool under a stare like that.

She let him squirm for a long moment before letting out a snort of laughter. "Sorry, I'm being a total bitch," she chuckled disarmingly, reaching out to give him a pat on the wrist with a cool, slightly dry hand. "My friends actually spent the last two years trying to set me up with every jock on campus, kept telling me we had so much in common and I'd really like them once I just loosened up a little and got to know them. That didn't work out so well, so now they keep trying to set me up with the exact opposite type. Some guys don't handle it especially well, finding out they're not exactly considered an 'alpha'."

Samuel shook his head nervously. "That's not really a thing," he blurted out, before the social part of his brain could fully engage and remind him that not everyone was interested in random bits of pop psychology trivia. "The, uh, the initial studies on pack dynamics were conducted on wolves in captivity, where family units couldn't break off and establish themselves in different territories and the animals had to establish a more complex hierarchy. In the wild--"

He broke off, suddenly remembering the psychology class they'd taken together back when his interest had first deepened into his current embarrassing crush. "But, um, you already knew all that," he finished awkwardly, looking down at the single pathetic tea candle in the cheap glass holder that passed for decoration at their table. He couldn't imagine how Zora was managing to put up with all this.

She seemed to find it endearing, though. "Sure did," she said, a tone of gentle ribbing entering her voice that was surprisingly playful and even a little bit affectionate. "But I'd rather hear that than listen to you tell me how you're too much of an alpha to care whether guys think you're an alpha or some bullshit like that." He almost relaxed at that, but her next sentence made him tense up all over again. "You didn't answer my question, though. My friends all think you're shy and nerdy, a real pushover. Do you think it's a compliment?"

Samuel stared at the candle so hard he could see the afterimage it left behind every time he blinked. "I, um... I mean, I guess I never really thought of myself like that?" he answered, trying hard to keep an awkward squeak of embarrassment out of his voice. "I just thought I was, uhh... accommodating. Helpful. Nice--but not 'nice guy' nice," he added hastily. "Just, you know, pleasant and friendly and fun to have around." There was another word for him, one he kept tip-toeing up to in the privacy of his own head, but he'd need to get to know Zora a whole lot better to be able to say it to her even in private, much less in the middle of a fairly crowded restaurant.

"Submissive, you mean?" Zora asked, and Samuel was incredibly grateful his order hadn't gotten there yet because if he was drinking anything he probably would have done a spit-take straight out of a screwball comedy. As it was, he sucked in his breath so sharply that a little bit of saliva went down his windpipe and he wound up coughing hard for a few seconds to clear it. Thankfully his face was already beet red, so Zora wouldn't be able to tell whether it was embarrassment or just lack of oxygen making him look like that.

She was still staring at him expectantly when he recovered his breath, leaving the space between them mercilessly silent until he finally responded in a wordless nod. The thought of meeting her gaze after all that felt almost impossible, so he just kept watching the fluttering flame of the tea candle and waiting for her to say something. Or just walk away. He honestly thought that was just as likely, if not moreso.

"I kind of thought so," she said at last, giving his wrist a little squeeze. "I remember seeing you in class that day Kaufman had me do the trance demo with Kelly. You were dropping right along with her the whole time, and you didn't even know it. You got a kind of distant look on your face, and I just kind of knew you wanted to be told what to do. I thought you might come up to me after class, but I guess that was still a little too much for a shy boy like you, huh?" Samuel nodded again, his mind retreating back into the memory. He'd liked Zora before that day, admired her, even wanted to befriend her. But hearing her voice dip into that husky contralto, hearing the sultry purr enter her mesmerizing tones....

"It's okay," Zora cooed, some of that same dulcet lilt returning as she began to gently stroke his wrist and the back of his hand. "You can be a shy, quiet boy for me again. It's not a bad thing, it just means you're very happy to listen and relax and let yourself take direction for a while. You can even keep staring at that candle if you like, just watch the flame flicker and dance while you drift back into the peaceful thought of what it felt like to be swept up in trance right along with Kelly." She was hypnotizing him again, Samuel realized. She was hypnotizing him all over again and it was really going to work, it was working already in fact, and he couldn't stop it because he didn't want it to stop.

Just thinking about it made his whole body pound with arousal, a warm heady pulse that settled between his thighs and made his dick hard almost before he even realized it. He was going to have a very awkward time of it if he stood up, but that didn't seem to matter because the moment he heard Zora murmur, "Right back down for me, babe, deep on down just like it happened to you only yesterday," all the strength went out of his muscles and he felt himself slump into his seat in what Kaufman would no doubt have called a cataleptic state.

"It's okay to just let go," Zora purred, her voice taking on a seductive undertone that aroused Samuel almost beyond reason. "It's okay to focus on the candle and my words, letting your own thoughts drift away, feeling so warm and calm and happy as you surrender to this feeling of peace and pleasure that you've craved for so long." That felt like an understatement, it had been almost three full semesters since that particular demonstration, but somehow the interval between then and now seemed to fall away in an instant as Samuel's mind simply collapsed into tranquil complacency. He loved this feeling. And Zora sounded like she loved giving it to him.

She lifted his hand a few fractions of an inch off the table and let it fall, intoning, "Deeper," as she did so, and Samuel's breath went out in a whoosh as he felt himself lurch into ever more blank and thoughtless ecstasy. She must have been practicing this whole time, he realized, honing her skills until hypnosis became almost effortless for her, and the notion that she was doing it just hoping for someone like him to come along made him feel like his clothes were about two sizes too tight. He blinked, and it took him almost a full second to lever his glassy eyes back open again.

His blush was fading now, all his emotions melting into subdued euphoria as the trance deepened further, and even when the waitress brought his food and Zora asked, "Can we get a to-go box? My friend here's a little worn out from studying, I think I need to get him to bed," Samuel couldn't find it in him to be genuinely embarrassed by the implications of her statement. He only wanted to go along with the flow now, drift down the lazy river of blissful relaxation Zora offered and let her steer his journey wherever she wanted it to go. He didn't need to think for himself anymore and he loved that so much.

Even when they arrived at her small, tastefully-decorated efficiency apartment and she pushed him backwards onto the bed in a dead faint, the only thing Samuel managed to dredge up out of the sea of fog that his mind had become was that he didn't have to keep struggling to hold his eyes open any longer. He let them close gratefully, and they didn't so much as flutter at the whisper of soft cloth that described Zora's hasty removal of her jeans and t-shirt to expose her lithe, athletic body.

He did manage to open them just a tiny bit when she began to pull down his pants, but she only favored him with another one of those gleaming smiles and asked, "Does my good boy want to go deeper now?", and the question alone liquefied his will and left him limp and supine on the mattress in anticipation of her caresses. All except one particular part of him, which jutted up very straight and proud and tall, but that was entirely out of Samuel's control now. He couldn't imagine anything more erotic than this. It was a solid year of fantasies and then some, all coming true right there on Zora's faintly perfumed sheets.

She rolled a condom down his shaft, her stroking fingers turning the act into something sensual and seductive and overwhelmingly hot, and then she settled down onto Samuel's cock with a grunt of arousal that told him everything he needed to know about her interest in him. "That's a good boy," she murmured hoarsely, and the sound of her honeyed voice in his ears sent his hips bucking up and down in a helpless, urgent rhythm of lust.

Time lost meaning for Samuel while they fucked; Kaufman described that to them back in psych class as another side effect of trance, but to Samuel it felt like a profound and almost sacred connection to the eternal. He felt like he was sinking into her forever, losing himself in her and desiring nothing more than to be so wonderfully lost, and when he finally came it was one of the strongest and longest orgasms he'd ever experienced in his life. He could hear himself babbling in helpless gratitude, unable to resist the urge to thank Zora for the life-changing experience he'd just undergone.

They spent the night together, her touch and her voice teasing another two climaxes out of him... and in the morning, when they were both sated enough to talk properly, their relationship actually began.

THE END