Moment of Weakness

Joan looked up at the clock. It seemed to have stopped at 3:28, but that was probably just her imagination. Her watch also said 3:28. Mind you, she'd been pretty sure for a while that her watch had stopped too. Maybe both of them had stopped.

Time seemed to have been doing funny things to Joan all day. At some points, it had been going by unpleasantly quickly, sneaking past her when she wasn't paying attention. Now, when she was just getting to the moment she'd been dreading for the last week, it had apparently decided to stop completely. She fidgeted in her chair, examined her reflection in the window for a moment and tucked a few stray strands of long black hair back into her ponytail, looked down at the small sheaf of papers, pushed her glasses up on her nose, and looked at the clock again. Still 3:28. It must have stopped. She stared at it more intently, trying to determine if it was moving. It didn't have a second hand, so she had to watch the minute hand very closely...

When the intercom buzzed, Joan let out a tiny yelp of surprise before she realized what the sound actually was. She pressed the button. "Yes, Amy?" she asked, trying to compose herself.

"Doctor Eisen? It's Lori Hilton, here for her 3:30 appointment."

Joan nodded. Lifetime bad habit, but one she never could break. "Go ahead and send her in," she said. She looked down again at the papers on her desk. Her hand ached with the desire to press the buzzer again, to tell her secretary to send Lori away. She just wanted to hide in her office for the rest of the day and then go see if she couldn't find a bottle of liquor, a dark corner, and quite possibly a time machine. But she knew that the right thing to do was to see Lori and make amends.

Lori walked into the office, her curly blonde hair freshly permed, looking as always like she'd just stepped out of the pages of 'Maxim'. "What's up, doc?" she said with her usual dazzling smile. Same corny joke, but she told it every week. Joan usually laughed as much from the familiarity as any humor value. Today, she didn't even crack a smile. She could barely bring herself to look at Lori.

She opened her mouth to speak, and had to spend a few moments swallowing before she got any words out. Finally, she managed a few words. "Lori, I..."

Lori sat down in the chair across from Joan's desk, the one Joan would usually sit in as Lori took her position on the couch. Not today, though. Not ever again. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Stunned amazement almost shocked Joan out of her misery. 'What's wrong?' Did she honestly not understand? Did she not remember somehow, had she blocked it out of her memory due to trauma or shame or...or...had Joan imagined the whole thing, perhaps? She dearly wished she had, but...no. It was real. Joan had to deal with it, even if Lori apparently couldn't. She stood up and took the papers from her desk, walking around to hand them directly to Lori.

"Here," she said. "These are some recommendations for other hypnotherapists you can see, as well as contact information for the American Medical Association and the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. If you want to bring up an ethics charge against me, I understand completely. I won't fight it. What I did last week was...it was wrong, it was unethical, it was unprofessional, I should never have...have..." She trailed off, not sure how to put the enormity of her shame into words.

Lori seemed confused for a moment, but then understanding dawned on her. "Doctor Eisen...Joan..." she said. "You don't have anything to feel bad about! I'm not upset with you. I enjoyed it."

"That's exactly the problem," Joan said.

*****

"Now, Lori," Joan said, "I want you to watch the metronome, and as you do, I want you to remember all those sensations that you've felt so many times before. It's very easy to drift into trance, and you're going to find it happening just as easily and naturally as always." She watched Lori's eyes as they followed the swaying pendulum. Already, they were half-closed, and a wide, dreamy smile spread across Lori's face as she relaxed into the couch cushions.

Lori was an excellent hypnotic subject, as always. That was half the problem. Some clients took weeks, even months of sessions before they could achieve a state of trance at all, but Lori would sink under for just about anything. Metronomes, pendants, watches, penlights...it didn't matter what Joan used as the focus. She could probably just snap her fingers the second Lori walked into the room, and the girl would go into a trance right then and there. Joan tried very hard not to think about that. It only exacerbated things.

Lori let out a little whimpery sigh as her eyes closed. Joan stilled the metronome, trying not to think about the way that sigh sounded. She looked over again at the piece of paper on her desk, the one she'd been planning to give Lori before canceling this week's session. The one she'd decided (again) to give her at the end of the session instead. Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, "Lori, I want you to relax and let yourself go deeper now. Just count down from ten to one, and let each number take you further into trance. If you lose track of where you were, or forget a number, that's alright. That's a sign that you're going very deep. Just relax and count for me now."

"ten," Lori said, in that soft, purring voice. She wasn't making any progress at all, Joan could tell just from her tone as she continued to count. "nine...eight...ssseven..." Lori slurred her words a little as her lips became too relaxed to enunciate clearly. "seven...six...three..."

Joan waited for a moment for more numbers, but it was pretty clear that Lori was too deep to remember how to count. She really had never seen a hypnotic subject as good as Lori. It wasn't just natural susceptibility, of course. She'd had plenty of practice. "Lori," Joan said, "we're going to talk about your week now. You're very deep, very relaxed, and you know I'm not going to judge you. I'm just going to listen, as you tell me openly and honestly about what's been going on the last week. Let's start with your last session. What happened after you left here?"

"i went into the restroom and masturbated," Lori said. She didn't even look ashamed. Hell, she looked thrilled. "i went into one of the stalls, and i pulled down my panties and i pulled up my skirt and i remembered how you'd hypnotized me, and how good it felt, and i just rubbed my clitty until i came all over my hand..."

"Alright, Lori," Joan said. Part of her wanted to interrupt sooner, but she didn't want to make Lori feel ashamed of sex. "Tell me about the rest of your week." She just wished she could get the poor girl to disassociate sex from hypnosis. Joan looked down at her notebook, at the conclusions she'd come to over a month ago. 'Patient shows no sign of improvement, or even of wanting to improve. Her hypnofetishism seems not to have abated at all in the six months she's been in my care.' Joan tried to push the words to the back of her mind as Lori began to speak.

"it was a nice week," Lori said in a half-sigh. Joan knew what that meant. 'Patient shows no signs of wanting to improve.'

"Lori," Joan said, trying to keep reproval out of her voice, "did you let anyone hypnotize you this week?"

"uh-huh," Lori said blissfully. Joan had learned by now to make sure to hypnotize her before asking her any of these questions. Lori might lie when she was awake, but her subconscious mind had been too deeply conditioned by too many successive hypnotists to be able to lie to Joan when she was in trance. "a boy was texting me when i was at my computer. we were talking about hypnosis, and he told me he could tell that i was a very good subject. he told me i would keep reading his words as they scrolled up the screen, and my eyes would just follow and i would go deeper..."

She was going deeper just remembering it, Joan knew. Lori had no hypnotic defenses at all. She'd go into trance for anyone. She wanted to go into trance for anyone. She got off on going into trance for anyone, and despite the fact that she'd come to Joan specifically to get help with that exact problem, seven months had gone by and she was still trancing for random strangers over the Internet.

"and he had me put on the headphones, and connect to him in voice chat..." So why did Joan keep doing this? Why didn't she just hand over that list of other hypnotherapists to Lori and admit the obvious, that she wasn't doing anything worthwhile to help the girl? (Assuming she wanted to be helped at all, which Joan had begun to doubt.) Joan looked down at the next sentence, the one she hadn't wanted to read. 'My sessions haven't done anything to separate hypnosis and sex in her eyes. Instead, she's begun associating me with the sexual pleasure she gets from hypnosis.'

"he just kept talking to me, telling me to sink deeper, and it felt so good that i had to obey..." She hadn't ended the sessions because Lori was attracted to her. No. That was a lie. She hadn't ended the sessions because she was attracted to Lori. Every time she thought about breaking off their therapeutic relationship, every time she made the resolution to send Lori somewhere else to get her help, or to get her fix, or whatever it was she was getting out of this...she remembered those soft, dreamy tones, the way Lori looked so sweetly helpless on the couch, all the intimate, erotic fantasies the girl confessed in trance, and she put it off another week. She hadn't ended it because she wanted to keep trancing Lori. And knowing it was wrong hadn't made it any easier to stop.

"...and he told me to turn on the webcam, and i did, and it felt so niiiice...it felt like his voice was caressing my mind, and i wanted to be naked for him so much..." Joan glanced over at Lori, embarrassed to have been woolgathering during a session. But what she saw embarrassed her even more. Lori wasn't just remembering the hypnosis, she was reliving it. Her hands had unbuttoned her blouse of their own volition, and she squirmed on the couch obscenely, causing her dress to bunch up around her hips.

Lori hadn't even bothered wearing panties today.

*****

"Don't you see, Lori? I took advantage of you. You were in a very vulnerable emotional state, and I...I..." Joan still had trouble finishing the sentence. She still couldn't believe she'd done it. Five years of professional practice with both men and women, and now this...she only wished she had the courage to report herself. She deserved to have her licence stripped, she deserved disgrace and humiliation and ruination. But Lori just looked at her with that bright, beaming smile. That made it so much worse.

Lori put her hand on Joan's shoulder. Joan tried not to flinch from the contact. "Joan," she said, "you really don't have anything to be ashamed of. I hadn't wanted to say anything, but...well, I've been attracted to you for quite some time now." Joan knew that very well; while under hypnosis, Lori had told Joan all about her bisexual urges, and about the fantasies of Joan hypnotizing her and...and...suddenly, Lori seemed very near. Joan ached to take a step back, but she seemed to have forgotten how to make her legs work.

"That's just it, Lori," she said instead. "Don't you see? You're attracted to me because I'm hypnotizing you every week. That's exactly what you came to me to cure! When I took advantage of you, in my...my moment of weakness...I set your therapy back by months, perhaps years! I betrayed your trust in me, Lori. There's no way we can continue in our professional relationship, not now that I've cemented your association between my hypnotizing you and sex. Every session from now on would be counter-productive, and that's assuming that..." That it wouldn't happen again. Because Joan couldn't guarantee anymore that it wouldn't. Even now, remembering Lori's blank-eyed stare, the way she sank into trance so easily, Joan felt a rush of arousal between her legs.

Lori looked downcast. "You're sure? You don't think you can...can help me anymore?"

"I'm sure." Joan tried to keep her voice firm. "I'm sorry. There's a list of therapists in there. I've highlighted some of the ones that I think might be of particular help to you." Like Jim Brewer, who's been in a committed relationship with another man for six years now.

Lori nodded. "Alright, then," she said. Instead of turning to leave, though, she stepped in closer to Joan. Too close. Close enough to smell her perfume, to feel the heat of her body. "Then if we're not patient and doctor anymore...it's alright for us to see each other now. Socially, I mean."

Joan fought with her libido to try to make herself back away. It ended in a stalemate. She couldn't move a muscle. "No!" she said. "Joan, our therapist/client relationship doesn't end just because I'm referring you. These sessions have been very...intense..." Joan noticed another scent, a musky smell that made her mouth water. She really needed to end this, get Lori out of the room before she did something stupid again. "We can't, we...we just can't. Please."

"Please?" Lori put her other hand on Joan's arm. It looked almost like they were dancing, except that Joan's arms were stiff at her sides and she didn't dare move them because she didn't trust where they would go if she tried. "You don't have to say please to me, you know that."

It took so much effort to keep from moving now. Joan felt like Lori had a gravitational pull, like she was fighting to keep from being drawn to her body and the way it felt and smelled and tasted... "I...Lori, please, we should..."

Lori's smile had turned seductive, now. Her hands ran down Lori's arms, slipped onto her hips. "You never have to say please to me, Joan. You know that. You can just...put me under. You know it's easy. I know it's easy. Put me under, tell me to stop, and you know I will. I'll do anything you tell me to when I'm in trance, Joan." She was so close now that Joan could feel Lori's breath on her lips. "Anything."

"I...can't, I shouldn't..." Because Joan felt her own wetness soaking through her panties. She knew that if she put Lori under, if she saw that dreamy, glassy look in Lori's eyes, she wouldn't tell her to stop. She'd tell her to do a lot of things, but stopping wasn't one of them.

"I understand," Lori said. Her right hand slid down Joan's hip to her thigh, then back up again, skimming up and down the length of Joan's oh-so-sensible business suit. "We'll just keep playing, then, and all you need to do to make me stop..." Her left hand slipped into the waistband of Joan's skirt. "...is hypnotize me."

Joan arched her back as she felt Lori's fingers slide into her damp panties. "Lori, please..."

"Please? Please stop?" Lori's hand rubbed against the slick wetness of Joan's cunt. Her knees felt weak, and she wasn't even sure what she'd meant by 'please' anymore. "Please keep going?" She felt Lori's finger inside of her, slipping in so easily, lubricated by Joan's juices. "Please go into a deep, obedient trance?"

Joan panted, her hips bucking against that relentless hand, that perfect motion. She had stopped caring about her professional ethics at some point, stopped caring about how wrong it was or about how bad she would feel tomorrow or about anything except the orgasm that she could feel building as Lori touched her. "I, oh, I...Lori, please, just, unnnh...don't stop, please, more, ohgod, oh, fuck..." She couldn't help herself now, she needed it so bad, she pressed her body against Lori's, feeling the weight of those full, heavy breasts against her own, crashing into the other girl as her resistance failed completely. "Please!" she whimpered.

Lori just kept sliding her finger in and out, slowing down as the other girl's gasps turned to whimpers, speeding up as her breathing slowed. "I don't know," she said. "I kind of like you like this. All turned on, and needy. I might just keep you like this for hours." Joan moaned. "I might keep you like this forever. I might never let you cum at all, Joan. Not as long as it's up to me."

Joan knew what Lori meant. She knew what Lori wanted, and she was too weak not to give it to her anymore. She looked into Lori's eyes as Lori kept fingering her, and brought her hand up to eye level.

She snapped her fingers. And Lori went into a trance right then and there.

*****

She was right there, right there with her pussy exposed and glistening and shaved and Joan remembered her mentioning that one of her old boyfriends had conditioned her to want to shave her pussy every single day. Joan had fingered herself for what seemed like hours that night, imagining Lori shaving her pussy with an empty, vacant stare on her face. That was when she'd made the list. But she hadn't given it to Lori. And now she was right there.

She hadn't stopped, either. She was unhooking her bra now, and any second she'd have her breasts exposed to Joan's stare and Joan knew she should say something about it, but her voice just seemed to have dried up in her throat.

But Lori's hadn't. She just kept talking. "and when he had me all naked and obedient, he told me to rub and fondle my breasts," and she matched the action to the words. Joan felt like she couldn't look away. She should, she needed to, this was a total violation of her ethics as a therapist and it probably qualified as rape in a court of law, but...Lori's nipples were so hard right now.

Alright. That was enough. She had to stop this. She really had to stop this. She really, really had to stop this right now. Joan stood up and reached over to pull Lori's hands away from her breasts. "Lori," she said, "I want you to stop remembering that now."

"yes, ma'am," Lori said breathily. Joan touched Lori's hands. Lori took them in her own and pressed them against her tits.

They felt so soft under her fingers. She could feel the nipples pressing into her palms as Lori arched her back up into Joan's touch. She hadn't come out of trance, not even a little. Joan was fondling her tits and all it was doing was sending her deeper. Lori let out a soft, breathy moan and slid one hand between her legs. Her skirt was little more than a belt now.

Joan wanted to pull her hands away, but that skin felt so smooth under her fingers. Just a few moments more, she promised herself. It wouldn't do any harm, Lori was so deep already that she'd probably write this off as a fantasy she'd had while in trance. Joan knew that Lori fantasized about her. She'd told her that last week. In detail. Joan hadn't sent her away then either. She'd just waited until Lori had left and then pulled up her skirt and finger-fucked herself until she'd climaxed, right there in the office.

Joan looked over at the list. She knew she'd never be able to give it to her now, not now that she'd actually touched these beautiful breasts. She hated herself for it, and knew she'd hate herself worse once Lori had woken up and realized how Joan had betrayed her trust, but that was for later. Right now, she needed to keep touching. She needed more than that. "Lori," she husked out, "t-take my skirt off." The tremor she heard in her own voice aroused her even more.

"yes, ma'am." It was the same response as before, and Joan shuddered to realize that no matter what she told Lori to do, no matter how depraved or lewd the request, Lori would reply with 'yes, ma'am.' Lori left a stain of her own juices on the skirt as she pulled it down to pool on the ground.

"Panties now." Joan growled out the words in a haze of need, barely even coherent.

"yes, ma'am." Oh, fuck, did that sound sexy as Lori peeled the panties away from Joan's flesh, moisture making them cling to her body for an instant before they joined the other clothes on the floor.

"Lie back, Lori," Joan said. Her cunt absolutely ached with need, worse this time than the last session, worse every time. How had she lasted this long before giving in to it?