I told the priest, “Don’t count on any second coming. God got his ass kicked the last time he came down here slumming”

I proceeded through a series of standard deepening exercises, taking him further and further down into himself while narrowing his attention in on me. I moved through Form C of the Stanford Scale with him, skipping over taste hallucination and anosmia just for practicality’s sake. Feeling confident, I induced anesthesia of the eyes, and peeled back one of his long lashed eyelids only to see that his eyes were rolled all the way back. Yep, he was about as deep as I could get him.

“Ash, I’m going to ask you some questions. You’ll find it easy to answer me in a normal volume. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Jacob.”

“Very good, Ash. You’re doing great. My first question is, do you know what’s happened?”

“Yes Jacob. I’ve managed to hypnotize myself.”

Even if I wasn’t watching his face it would have been impossible to miss the angelic smile that spread across his otherwise slack and passive face. “That doesn’t seem to bother you that much. Did you want to be hypnotized Ash?”

“I’ve always fantasized about it, but only with the right person.” A slight blush suffused his peaches and cream cheeks.

I think we’re getting somewhere. “And who is the right person, Ash?”

“You.” With that he let out a huge beatific sigh of contentment.

“Can you elaborate on that, Ash?”

“Yes, Jacob.”

The subconscious is nothing if not literal. “Ash, would you please elaborate?”

“I feel safe with you, Jacob. You’ve always protected me. I love you and I know you care for me in your own way. So it’s only right that you have power over me.”

I could follow his reasoning. Sort of. I was also pleasantly surprised by his insight into my own lack of emotional availability. “What did you hope to accomplish with this trance, if you had succeeded in hypnotizing me?”

“To make sure you never left me. To push you to move our relationship into a more physical level. To control you to make you control me.” Well that held promise.

Something occurred to me. “You always call me by my full name, is there a reason for that?”

“I want you to call me by mine. It makes me feel more like me.” There was something there. Just the beginning of the spark of an idea.

“Very well, Ashley.” I should dig deeper on this point. “What do you mean by more like you?”

“Since I was little I’ve been pretty sure that something was wrong with me. I didn’t like the things other boys did. I wanted to be like my mom while every other boy I knew wanted to be like their dad. When we went school shopping I’d get my pants and shirts all while looking at the skirts and dresses. I could never express it properly. You know what my family is like. My dad voted for Trump three times. My mom is on the Scripture Study committee with their church. Telling them that I was pretty sure I was a girl would have been a surefire way to either an involuntary Bible camp stay or a feet first trip into a wood chipper. It’s not like they didn’t know. For fuck’s sake, they gave me a girl’s name.”

He… or I guess she took a long deep breath and continued. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious. Do you know when you rescued me from Stu that he was going after me because I made a pass at him? I took a week to screw up my courage to ask him out to the movies. He freaked out and started calling me a fag and a sissy. A part of me thought he was right. I liked… I like boys. But I’m not gay. I’d have to be a man to be gay. I could be a sissy, I suppose, and deep inside I’ve always fought with myself about it. It’s always been there, at the back of my mind. Something I could never really admit to myself, let alone the people in my life. If I could have told myself, I probably could have told you, though. I trust you with everything.”

That was a lot to take in, but looking back it was patently obvious. I’m usually pretty well aware of other people’s emotional turmoil because it fascinates me. I guess I never noticed it with Ash… Ashley, because she did feel safe around me. She wasn’t ashamed of wearing bright colors or pastels, wasn’t worried that I’d freak out about the fact that her side of the room looked like Lisa Frank had vomited rainbows and unicorns all over it.

“Ashley, when you fantasize about me being in control, what do I do to you?”

“You take me deep into my own mind and I find the real me. You make me tell you about her. You start setting me on the path to becoming her. You lock up my little useless clitty. You make me wear makeup and tight yoga pants and skirts and dresses. You make me paint my nails and get my hair styled in ways that you find attractive. You make me take hormones. You… you use me. And I don’t fight it because I love every minute of you making me your girl, reprogramming me into your perfect fucktoy.”

I was starting to get hard. Like really hard. This wasn’t exactly my fantasy, but they definitely shared some DNA. I could easily see myself in the role of Ashley’s ‘Daddy’. But I had to cover my ass. “Ashley, in a couple of moments I’m going to wake you. When I do, you’ll remember that you succeeded in hypnotizing me, and implanting all the programming in me to make your fantasies come true over the next couple of days. You will have no memory of dropping into trance yourself. When the time comes that I decide to hypnotize you and truly begin your training, you will find it very easy to go into trance for me. Easier even than you would expect, given your trust in me and your hopes and fantasies about what I will do to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Jacob.”

“Good girl.” You could have lit up the whole campus with her smile. “Now, I’m going to count backwards from ten to one, and with each number you will become more and more awake. When I reach one and snap my fingers, you will wake up fully. You will find yourself where you are now, in my arms, and remember that that was at your command Now, what will you remember when you wake up? Tell me in your own words.”

“I’ll remember that I tranced you. I’ll remember that I programmed you to dominate me and turn me into a girl or a sissy. I mind fucked you into mind fucking me.”

“Good girl,” and again, that thousand gigawatt smile. I took a deep breath. “And now ten… starting to come back. Nine… breathing speeding up to become normal. Eight.. feeling so good that you’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Seven… turned on by what you’ve done. Six… looking forward to the new you you will become. Five… happy to just be with me. Four… safe in my arms. Three… safe to be yourself with me. Two… almost awake. And one.”

And I snapped my fingers.

(Title lyrics. “Tomorrow Wendy”, Concrete Blonde)