Fixation and Volition

“Please. Stop,” she whispered.

She repeated, a little slower, a little quieter, a little flatter, her will fading. “Please.. Stop...”

Eyes glassy, unfocused, each breath swelled her breasts out of the dark corset, her face flushed with arousal.

“Sto…“ the final resistance vanished. Enthralled, head tilted just to one side, she stared in blank adoration.

Tracing a finger along her jaw, the vampire leaned close.

“So much better,” the vampire said, his accent heavy and lyrical.

Her eyes fluttered, descending further into thrall. While her will tumbled like a spiraling autumn leaf, her arousal deepened. A tiny “oh” of pleasure escaped her sensual lips.

I sipped my water, fresh ice cubes cracking in the glass.

The only light came from the television, a shifting flicker that played over Carlie’s face. Her head tilted just to one side, she had drawn her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. Eyes wide, mouth partially open, she hadn’t moved while Ursula had descended from ferocious defiance to passive adoration.

Carlie chose the movie—her turn. I’d not been excited about another vampire movie, but Ursula’s beauty held my attention.

When I slid onto the couch, Carlie unwound and curled against me, head on my shoulder. During the rest of the final half hour, her only movement was a gentle petting of my arm.

Ursula escaped the vampire’s curse, and when she drove the stake into his heart, he stared into Ursula’s eyes. They exchanged a final look. Ursula’s defiance softened, and the movie ended on a final image of her, a flicker of doubt as to whether she was in the dead vampire’s thrall.

Beside me, Carlie shivered.

“What’d you think?” she asked.

I held my first reaction, knowing this was one of Carlie’s favorites. “Ursula is hot.”

“My god, yes,” Carlie said. “When I can afford the corset, she’s going to be my Halloween costume.”

“I’d chip in,” I said.

She gave my shoulder a playful slap. “I’d get to wear it, not have you tear it off as soon as I got into it.”

The credits rolled on, and the streaming service started counting down to another movie. Cancelling the countdown, I set the remote aside. Her face contemplative, Carlie watched the freeze frame of Ursula and her self-doubt.

“I have to proctor a final tomorrow,” I said and sighed. “And grade the exams.”

Carlie squeezed my arm. “Ok.”

She let me go, and I untangled myself from her and slid off the couch. She kept watching the credits.

“You coming?”

She nodded but didn’t move. I touched her shoulder.

“I’m coming,” she said. “Go ahead.”

I’d finished brushing my teeth when she drifted into the bedroom. While I slid under the covers, she shuffled into the bathroom, and a faucet started. One of Carlie’s tricks was to delay so the bed would be warm when she got in.

Drifting, I closed my eyes.

“Jeff,” I heard, a whisper.

“Mhmmm.”

Warm, Carlie had gotten into bed. I slid an arm over her.

“Jeff,” she whispered again. “Don’t make fun, ok?”

“Mhmmm.”

“First time was to that scene,” she said.

“Hmmm?”

Sleep was close. First time, sure.

“First time I masturbated,” Carlie said.

I was awake. When I opened my eyes, Carlie lay inches away, her eyes glistening.

“My parents let me stay up late. It was so hot. I rewound it twice. I couldn’t stand it. I hid under a blanket, and my hand slid down. I recited it with Ursula. Please, stop.”

She exhaled a languid breath.

I put a hand around her and pulled her close. “The vampire was good-looking.”

She shifted, her voice becoming low and small. “She tried and tried. Couldn’t resist.”

I petted her back.

“Watched it a dozen times,” she said. “I dressed like one of Dracula’s brides that Halloween.”

“I’ll be Jonathan Harker next Halloween,” I said and raised an eyebrow.

I drifted. She said something I didn’t hear, then she kissed me. I came back and kissed her.

“Could you do it?”

I shook my head. “Jonathan Harker?”

“No, mesmerize someone.”

Her hands were moving over me, and she pushed me onto my back, climbing on top and straddling me. As she traced a hand over my shorts, my body responded.

“Could you?” she asked, her fingernails teasing.

“Hypnosis?”

“Mhmmm,” she said, pulling down my waistband.

“It’s,” I gasped, and she guided me inside her. She grunted and shuddered.

I tried to speak, but her breath caught and froze into orgasm. She put a hand on my chest and began to ride. Another orgasm followed, interrupting her rhythm. I matched her movements, and she rolled into a third orgasm a moment later.

“Oh god, yeah.” She hissed.

Two more orgasms later, my body clenched. My hips thrust and froze. Carlie gasped, and the tension of the pleasure held us. I clenched my eyelids. She rolled off and pressed against me, her hand playing at my groin.

“It would be so hot,” she said.

Her press against me was insistent, and as she played at my groin, she nuzzled against my neck.

“Like the vampire, could you hypnotize me?” she asked.

Being a post-grad in psych didn’t mean I knew anything. I remembered a passing mention of Erickson, but that was rapport techniques.

“Are you sure? I don’t know that much about it.”

“It’s a fantasy. I know.”

She was trembling, still turned on. Even after several orgasms, Carlie squirmed like she’d been teased and couldn’t quite reach orgasm.

“Everything ok?” I asked.

“It’s embarrassing. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

I pulled her close. “No, it’s hot. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You won’t,” she said into my chest, shaking her head.

Trembling with desire, Carlie wanted it so much. Opening the lid on a secret this deep had thrown her off balance. Even if I failed, I wanted her to feel safe. I had to try.

“Lie on your back.”

She drew a shaking breath and lay back.

Difficult to recall the linguistics of rapport when a naked girl is trembling with desire next to you. I told my brain to think: elicitation, pacing, leading, and sensory.

“Carlie, can you tell me what Ursula may have felt when her eyes met the vampire’s?”

Her chin trembled. “Scared, turned-on.”

“Of course, how would she know? What would she feel to tell her she was scared, turned on?”

Taking a breath, her hands moved over her torso. “The corset would be tight. When she took a breath, her breasts would shift.”

“Breasts shifting,”

She nodded.

“And she might be light-headed from the shallow breaths,” I said.

“Mhmmm. Shallow breaths, a little dizzy.”

The trembling began to subside.

“Yes, dizzy. Shallow breaths,” I said. “Breasts shifting, dizzy, I wonder what Ursula first noticed about his eyes.”

“In the book, she talks about them. Blue, like old ice.”

“Old ice.”

“Yes, changing in the candlelight.”

“Blue, old ice, and changing with flecks of candlelight.”

“Yes.”

“How would they change. Color, depth?”

“No,” she sighed. “Like they swirled. Ice blue swirls.”

“Ice blue swirls. Light-headed.”

She made a soft breaking sound. “Yes, dizzy. Oh god.”

Her hips had begun to move.

“Tight corset, shifting breasts. Ice blue, swirling eyes.”

She whispered, and I leaned closer.

“Say again, please?” I asked.

“Don’t hurt me. Please.”

“Scared?”

“Yes. Can’t resist.”

“Resist blue eyes, shallow breaths. Fangs touch the flesh at your throat,” I said.

She grunted, hips freezing. “God. Please. Can’t resist.”

I kissed her neck. She gasped.

“Please. Can’t resist,” Carlie said, her voice hoarse and desperate.

Her hips began to move again, involuntary and animal, and I noticed her arousal had infected me.

Her voice had become small, aroused, and desperate. “Can’t resist.”

“Can’t resist, Ursula,” I said.

A shudder ran through her. “Please.”

I tried to remember what the vampire had said, wondering if it would touch her, but her arms moved and pulled me on top. Her legs twined around me hard, urging me into her. I began to thrust. During her final surrender, the vampire whispered something, and it broke her will.

Racing through the scene, I tried to remember. Yes, he’d put his mouth to her ear.

“Forever mine,” I said.

She froze, back arched, mouth open in a choked scream. Thrusting until she relaxed and sank into the bed, I moved to roll beside her, but she pulled me on top, holding me while my weight pressed her into the mattress.

“Can’t resist,” she whispered.

I kissed her, but she did not respond. Still and quiet, she lay beneath me, her even breathing caressing my neck. I held her tight until I drifted away.

***

Carlie was still asleep when I woke the next morning. Showering and dressing, I peeked to see if she stirred, but she hadn’t moved when I kissed her cheek and left. I walked to campus, wishing I’d spoken to her.

On automatic pilot, I handed out exams to the freshmen who looked as bleary-eyed as I felt.

Thinking of Carlie, I started the timer. When it buzzed two hours later, the movements of her body and the quiet surrender of her voice still held my thoughts.

Students stood before me, holding completed exams. Their faces looked like they’d been trying to get my attention. I smiled, apologized, and gathered the exams.

Needing someplace quiet, I could have chosen a dozen places, but I headed to the archive on the top floor of the psych building. It was quiet, but it was also something else.

Psychology pre-Freud had fallen under the shadow of occultism and pseudoscience, and I’d scoffed at the ideas like animal magnetism and occult ideas of will, just like I’d been trained to. My training did not stop the titles from intruding on my thoughts.

Carlie’s helpless desires weren’t covered by the literature. I imagined her looking into my eyes, her breasts swelling out of a dark corset, while her will flowed into me as dark tendrils.

I’d graded ten of the papers, my eyes going to the shelves after each, before I gave in and traced my fingers over the leather editions. I paused at Fixation et Volition and opened it. French. Putting it back, the next book was the English translation, Fixation and Volition, 2nd edition. 1825. I began to read, skimming the foreword which raged against the rising trend of ‘stale empiricism’.

Subjugation may occur by the application of will or the surrendering of will. In practice, it is a combination with ever-quickening steps. Control begets more control. Surrender gifts more of the self. This spiral deepens until the exchange is irrevocable. The thrall comes to forgo the possibility of refusal while the master reaches total authority, both held by unbreakable desire and need for the other.

I chilled. In a hallway several levels down, a door slammed, and faint steps echoed. I waited until they stopped before continuing. While listening, I told myself to put the book away, but in the silence, I bent to the pages.

The skylight windows had turned deep blue when I looked up. I cursed. I still had a dozen exams to grade. Shoving the book into my backpack, I forced myself to finish.

Dr. Schmitt had gone home. I used my key to his office and laid the graded papers on his office chair.

The apartment lights were dark when I got home. Carlie was late too. I could read until she arrived.

I turned the lock and pushed the door open.

The television was on. The movie played. With a dreamy stare, Ursula stared into the vampire’s eyes as he traced a finger along her jaw.

“Forever mine,” he said.

“Forever yours,” Carlie droned.

She sat on the couch, a blanket over her lap, transfixed, while a hand moved beneath. I pushed the door closed.

She jumped, looked to the door, then saw me. Her face turned crimson.

I started to laugh. “Finals go ok?”

Uncomprehending, she stared, then her eyes searched, and she put a hand over her mouth. She started to laugh, the blush deepening.

“Yes.”

I nodded to the TV. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

Unsure of what to do, she looked between me and the television as she decided. She rose and kissed me.

“Just couldn’t stop thinking about last night.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Me neither.”

“Really?”

I unzipped the bag and pulled out the book, presenting it to her. She took it, a finger tracing over the title, before looking up at me.

“You read it?”

“Some of it,” I said. “The journals say it’s pseudoscience.”

“What do you think?”

“Not sure. Maybe you can’t resist,” I offered.

She didn’t move, her hand frozen on the letters.

“Carlie?”

I bent, trying to catch her eyes, but they stared into space.

“Carlie, look at me.”

She lifted her eyes. Glassy and unfocused, they stared into mine.

“Are you ok?”

“Can’t resist,” she droned.

I closed my hand on the book and tugged. It slipped free, and Carlie's arms fell to her sides. Her gaze held on me. Fixation and volition, I thought.

Holding a hand before her eyes, I snapped. “Carlie.”

She blinked. Disoriented, she looked past me to the kitchen as though she’d never seen it. Then she looked at me and the book.

“I lost my train of thought,” she said.

“You ok?”

“You were telling me about your finals,” I suggested.

“Yeah, physics was ok. Worried about calculus.”

“And came home and wanted to rewatch the movie.”

She turned around and noticed the screen. There was a moment of recognition, followed by renewed embarrassment.

“Yeah,” she looked away. “Got a little distracted.”

“Like you can’t resist.”

Her expression flattened to blank, eyes staring into space.

“Carlie,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

A small nod.

“And you can’t resist.”

Her shoulders slumped, and her mouth fell open. Her eyes made a slow blink as though keeping them open became a strain.

“And when you hear those words. Can’t resist,” I said. “You follow my words.”

“Follow… words..”

“Fixed on my words. My words. Your volition.”

“Words..”

Lifting my hand before her dropping eyes, I snapped. “Carlie.”

Blinking, she swallowed and looked at me. “What was I saying?”

She’d do anything. Can’t resist had become real, irresistible. A leash was around her throat, and I felt her holding it out for me to take. I wanted to say it again, and I remembered the book. The path becomes irrevocable. The ache in my pants told me to speak, but this was Carlie. I took her hand.

“Yes,” I said. “We need to talk.”

Her eyes cleared. Looking at the book, she put a hand on mine and kissed me.

She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “It’s ok. I can’t resist.”

Her eyes became unfocused, and her features went blank.