Octavia looked up from her news article on the laptop screen when Syd entered. He was tall with longish dark hair and his arms and chest were covered colourful tattoos. He wore a black tank top and slacks as if he came straight from the gym. He looked around the room for a second before he came towards Octavia to give her a hug.

"Looking good. Nice place you have here." 

Octavia shut her laptop and smoothed her sky blue dress down before she accepted the hug. "Your message made me so happy. It's good to see you again, Syd. It's been such a long time." 

As they stood there and hugged, Syd softly stroked her hair. "I missed you too."

For a moment, she dug her claws into his shoulders, remembering all the things Syd loved. "How can I hurt you today, my dear?" She asked with her lips brushing his ear. 

"Nothing too physical. I know where to get my fix. But you do something no one else can." He let go of her and looked down at his sneakers as he put his hands in his pockets. "I don't even know if I can still do it, Octavia. It's been years since anyone tranced me."

"It's like riding a bicycle." She patted him on the shoulder. "But I'll gladly take it easy on you."

He looked at her with puppy eyes. "Slow and easy sounds perfect. Remind me what it feels like."

Clapping her hands with excitement, she said: "Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable."

Syd kicked off his old sneakers and sat on the edge of the bed. His brown eyes were full of anticipation as he looked up at her standing before him.

"People say that being hypnotised is a very distinctive feeling." She said in her typical, melodious hypnotist voice. "I'm sure that as we go along, you'll have some kind of moment of recognition. Like deja-vu, something will just feel so familiar and right. I'm sure of it. Just give me your hand."

With a goofy smile, he extended his hand.

She took it and gently weighed it in her hand as she continued to speak softly. "I know it's not easy to just let me hold your hand and carry the weight, but if you really make an effort to relax your hand and your arm, I think you'll find a familiar feeling. That weight, that heaviness as you let your hand go slack, can you feel that?" She gently wiggled his limp hand. 

He nodded ever so slightly, never breaking eye-contact. His smile turned more dreamy as he relaxed.

"And I'm sure that if you just stare at me and relax your arm and focus on your breathing, you can feel that heaviness in your chest with every breath out. Just take a moment to focus on that heavy feeling. I wonder where else in your body that heavy, lazy feeling will manifest. In your shoulders? Or in your head?"

The elaborate cherry blossom tree tattoo emphasised the way his chest and shoulders heaved with every breath. His head swayed on his neck and his eyelids started to droop as he continued to stare up at her.

She smiled as she continued: "And I wonder if the sound of my voice reminds you of the fun we had together back in the day. I wonder if any of this, the heaviness in your body, the hypnotic sound of my voice, the way it's getting hard to focus your eyes, feels familiar to you. Drifting off into trance is something that comes so easy and natural to you, my dear. And you can just enjoy how good it feels to drop. Right now."

As she let go of his hand and it dropped down, he slumped and fell backwards onto the bed like a dead weight. Pleased, she made her way around the bed and sat down beside his head so he could hear her as she spoke softly.

"And I wonder if lying here, so heavy and lazy and relaxed, makes you feel dreamy. I wonder if you're starting to dream. A fantasy, maybe just a vague image of something hot that you'd like to tell me about. Something I remind you of. Something I could do to you. Or perhaps it's just a hot dream." She caressed his face as she watched him relax. "As this fantasy, this dream starts to crystallise in your mind, your lips just start to move. The words to describe the image just start to come out of your mouth all by themselves. You just thoughtlessly start telling me about it."

With his eyes still closed, and his face looking relaxed and dreamy, his lips started to move. "I remember…" He whispered. "You used to play tricks on me… You made me forget things… Believe things that made no sense… You used my weaknesses against me… Playing me… Like a fiddle… I loved it when you fucked with my head…"

Octavia clutched her chest, a reaction to the warm feeling of butterflies fluttering inside. Those were fond memories. It gave her an idea. "Thank you, my dear. Hush now." She shushed him as she caressed his jaw. "You're just dreaming. And it's always so easy to forget dreams, isn't it? In this vague floaty state, memories are just so hard to hold onto. You know that feeling, don't you? When you wake up, that feeling that you were dreaming, but you can't remember what."

She watched his eyelids flutter without opening. The faintest of frowns forming on his forehead, a signal of the confusion setting in as his mind dutifully followed her words.

"For our scene today, you'll find that every time you wake up from trance, you've forgotten it like a dream." She smiled wickedly as she continued to weave her magic spell. "And deep inside there's this insecurity, isn't there? This fear that you've somehow done everything wrong. Like you fell asleep instead of following my commands. And every time that feeling just compounds as it happens again and you can't seem to do it right and you don't remember what you should have been doing. Oh my sweet Syd… Just let that sink in."

The fluttering subsided and his lips parted to let out a sigh. 

She patted him on the shoulder and got up from the bed to return to where she was standing before. Her voice was a little more upbeat as she said: "And you're starting to drift up to the surface now. Back to the room, back to me and our futile attempts to hypnotise you. There you go."

His eyes opened with heavy blinking and the frown deepened across his brow. With a start, he propped himself up on one elbow and gave her a worried look. "I'm sorry. I must have…" He massaged his temples as his eyes trailed off to the floor for a moment and then he quickly sat up. "Well, that's awkward…"

She stepped forward to embrace him and pressed his face against her body. "Oh Syd. It's alright. We'll just try again. You're fine. We'll think of something else."

"Maybe I'm just too sleep-deprived. Maybe I just can't do it anymore…" He didn't take the time to enjoy the hug. There was a tension in his arms as he touched her. "It can't be you. You're amazing." 

The reassurance in his voice told Octavia so much; he was trying to make her feel better. This is how Syd was around a partner when small things went wrong, he blamed himself, not her. This was a cruel trick she was playing on him.

She stepped back out of his embrace, inviting him to get up from the bed. "We'll just give it another go. I'm sure you won't fall asleep standing up."

He gave her a wry smile as he stood next to her, looking more like a gangly, insecure teenager than the tall, confident man who had walked into the room. "You'd be surprised where I've fallen asleep…" 

"Oh Syd…" She hungrily pressed her body against him, aroused by his vulnerability. Her voice was low and seductive. "You know hypnosis is as satisfying to me as sex, I'll be happy do it again and again and again."

He kissed her and his hands roamed over the back of her dress, forgetting his failure for a moment and just basking in the comfortable intimacy between them. "I've missed you…" He whispered.

"Likewise." She rested her forehead against his for a second, gathering her courage. Then she buried her hand in his hair and suddenly tugged his head back. "Drop for me. Sink away into a deep trance."

He moaned in surprise as his hands fell limp to his sides. His eyes rolled up into his head as she pulled it back by his hair and his eyelids started fluttering again.

She held him close as she whispered to him: "Isn't it amazing? This heavy feeling of emptiness? Isn't it amazing how quickly I can command you? How quickly you obey my words? And how easily you forget these moments? I'll give these memories back to you later, but right now… Nothing…"

He held his breath, suspended in trance by her fist in his hair. The white of his eyes and the blank expression on his face made Octavia's heart beat faster.

Taking a deep breath, she suddenly let go of his hair. "And you're back. Still not hypnotised. What are we doing wrong? Why doesn't it work?" She grinned wickedly as she observed him.

Syd's brow furrowed as he blinked heavily. "I uh… You're…" He stuttered, his hands absent-mindedly caressing her arms, looking for support. "That didn't work, did it?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, pretending to examine him. "You're not feeling the slightest bit trancy." It was not a question and she was pleased with his reaction.

He shook his head and lowered his eyes dejectedly. "Maybe I just can't do this…" He let go of her and tried to back away, mumbling: "Maybe I'm just stupid." That was a deep-rooted fear of Syd's, that he was just a dumb jock and Octavia was out of his league.

"Shh, look at me." She seized him by the chin and caught him in her hypnotic stare. "Look me in the eye, Syd."

He froze in place, his big brown eyes growing wider under her gaze.

"That's right, my dear." She cooed. "Look deep into my eyes. You feel it don't you? My power overtaking you? Making you weak in the knees, heavy in the head. Can you feel that?"

The expression drained from his face and his mouth fell open, letting out a confused grunt.

She tried to prolong this moment as long as she could, staring him down as his shoulders started to sag and his legs turned to rubber, but eventually his eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the floor. She took a moment to let the surge of arousal she felt subside before she crouched down beside him. 

He lay face down on the floor, one leg stretched out, the other folded up. There was no reaction when Octavia touched his hand, as if he was unconscious.

"Wake up, Syd." She tickled the back of his hand and laughed. "What are you doing on the floor? What happened?"

He lifted his head only an inch from the floor, blinking heavily. With a wordless grunt he tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head before turned his bleary eyes towards her. "I dunno… I just…"

Octavia sat down on the floor, her hand on her chest in an attempt to calm her excitement, but she couldn't seem to wipe that grin off her face. The more she kept doing this, the easier and quicker it would get, and the more confused Syd would become. She sighed happily at the prospect. 

He sat next to her and massaged his forehead. "I fucked up again, didn't I?"

"Not at all, my dear." She gently patted him on the arm. "Can't you see how pleased I am?"

He shook his head as he pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. "Don't coddle me like I'm one of your subby boys." 

"Syd…" She reached out to touch his face, but he still looked away. "Have you seen my smug grin?"

"I know I fucked up." He grumbled with his eyes downcast. "Again."

She sat next to him, mirroring his position, their shoulders gently touching. "Do you remember what we used to do, my dear?" She said in a dreamy tone as she stared off into the distance. "How I used to play with your head, making you forget things, confusing you?"

He closed his eyes and a smile formed on his lips. "I used to love that shit…"

"You still do." She leaned towards him, bumping her shoulder against his.

"Huh…" He frowned, staring at the floor, trying to think. "What do you mean?"

In her quick, distinctive hypnotist voice, she said: "In this moment of confusion, the memories are clear, aren't they? Of how I used to play with you like a puppet on strings. How I've manipulated you in the past. And just like that, you can remember everything I've done to you today. Just take a moment to process the memories as they come back." 

His eyes grew wide as he took a long breath. "Wait what…?" As it dawned on him what she had been doing to him, his breathing quickened and his face flushed. Awestruck, he said in a low voice: "You are amazing, Ma'am."

"You did all the hard work." She embraced him and rested her hand on the back of his head. "Now kiss me, you fool."