Feeling Freed

The Friday morning light through the bedroom curtains was the color of weak tea. I woke to an empty bed and the distant sound of running water.

Rita's pillow still held the shape of her head. Her scent - coconut and something floral - clung to the sheets. I lay there a moment, letting the quiet settle around me, thinking about the week we'd just had. Tuesday's kitchen. Wednesday's garter-set. The way she'd looked standing in our bedroom doorway, black lace against her skin, her eyes bright with something I hadn't seen in years.

The water shut off. A few minutes later the bathroom door opened and Rita emerged in a towel, her hair wrapped in another. Droplets still clung to her shoulders.

"You're awake." She smiled. Not the tight, guarded smile I'd grown accustomed to. This one reached her eyes. "You can advice me, what to wear today."

She let the towel drop. She stood there, unselfconscious, her slender body still damp from the shower. Her green eyes watched me watching her. The long hair she'd unpinned fell past her shoulders in wet ropes. She crossed to the dresser.

"I'm different. I feel different. I spent thirty minutes in the shower just ... touching myself. It just came over me ... just like I was 15 again ..."

I watched her body as she chose a skirt and a matching blouse.

All I could do was confirming her choice: "Uhumm ... great ..."

"Maybe I'll change before we go to Alex ... not sure yet."

---

The office complex where I worked as a construction foreman was fifteen minutes from the house. Normally I spent the drive mentally reviewing the day's tasks - framing schedules, concrete deliveries, the endless dance of subcontractors and inspectors.

This morning I spent it replaying the previous thirty minutes.

Rita's mouth on me under the covers. The way she'd crawled up my body afterward, her skin sliding against mine, and said, "I want to ride you again." The sound she made when she came - a high, keening cry she'd never made before, not in seven years of marriage.

I pulled into the parking lot and sat there, hands on the wheel, breathing.

Alex's suggestions, I thought. They're working. They're really working.

A knock on my window made me jump. Marcus - one of my crew leads, a lanky twenty-three-year-old with a goofy grin and the perpetual scent of cheap beer on his breath even at seven in the morning. He'd been with us six months. Good enough worker. Not much of a thinker.

"Boss? You okay? Been sitting here for like five minutes."

"Fine." I opened the door. "Just thinking. What've we got today?"

He rattled off the schedule while we walked toward the site. Concrete pour at nine. Framing inspection at eleven. The electricians were behind, as usual. I listened with half an ear, the other half still in my bedroom, still feeling Rita's nails raking down my back.

---

The day dragged. By three o'clock I'd checked my phone a dozen times, hoping for a text, a photo, anything. Rita had never been one for sexting - before this week, the idea would have been absurd. But the woman who'd dropped her towel in front of me this morning didn't feel like the same woman who'd spent three years avoiding my touch.

At 3:47 my phone buzzed.

Can't stop thinking about you, feeling you ... See you at Alex's.

I typed back: Yes ma'am.

Her reply was immediate: Don't call me ma'am. Yet. ;)

The winking face emoji. Rita had never used an emoji, as far as I knew. I laughed out loud, drawing a strange look from Marcus as he walked past with a stack of blueprints.

"Something funny, boss?"

"Life, Marcus. Life's funny."

---

Channel Street at five-thirty was bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. I spotted Rita from half a block away. Her back was to me - she was studying something in a shop window, her head tilted, one hand resting on her hip.

She'd worn the new dress. The one we'd bought Saturday. It hugged her in ways her old clothes never had.

When she heard my footsteps she turned. Her whole face lit up.

"Hi." She closed the distance between us and kissed me - not a peck, not the quick-brush-close-mouthed ritual we'd performed for years. This was a kiss that involved tongues and teeth and her hand cupping the back of my neck.

A passing businessman glanced at us. Rita noticed. And instead of pulling away, blushing, apologizing for taking up space - she smiled.

"Let's go in," she said. "I want to tell Alex the good news."

---

His office smelled the same. Old books. Mint tea. The Persian rug slightly frayed at the edges.

Alex rose from his desk when we entered. The salt-and-pepper beard. The warm eyes. He shook my hand and gestured us to the same leather chairs we'd occupied a week ago.

"You both look ... different," he said. "Radiant, actually. Both of you."

Rita leaned forward. "Something happened, Alex. I don't know exactly what, but something shifted. This week has been ... " she paused, searching for the word. "transformative."

"Tell me."

She did. Not everything - not the explicit details - but enough. The car. The kitchen. The shopping trip. How she'd found herself wanting things she hadn't wanted in years. How she'd started touching herself. How she'd initiated sex several times in a single week after three years of initiating nothing at all.

Alex listened without interrupting. His pen hovered over his notepad but never touched the paper.

"And you think this has nothing to do with the hypnosis?" he asked, when she'd finished.

"I don't see how it could." Rita shrugged. "I didn't feel hypnotized or anything like trance. I felt dizzy for maybe a minute after, and then I felt completely normal. I think ... I really believe hearing myself say things out loud last week - about Jeff, about my mother, about everything - I think that's what did it. Talking made it real. And once it was real, I could change it."

Alex glanced at me. His expression was unreadable.

"That's entirely possible," he said. "Sometimes the hypnosis works indirectly. The trance state loosens things, and the conscious mind does the rest." He set down his pen. "Rita, would you be willing to try another session? See if we can reinforce what's already happening?"

"I'd love to." She was already standing. "But I doubt it's gonna work better than last week ... probably wasted effort again."

Alex looked at me: "Sean, would you please wait outside again?" He gave a small nod. "about twenty minutes I guess ... I'll call you."

---

The waiting room hadn't changed. The same too-soft chair. This time I switched on the coffee machine and received a coffee with a relatively loud commotion ... I didn't read this time. I sat with my elbows on my knees and stared at the wall and wondered what Rita was experiencing under Alex's hypnosis this time.

More of the same? Or something new?

When the door opened, Rita emerged looking exactly as she had last time. Relaxed. A little dazed. A small smile playing at her lips.

"As I told him ... nothing ... I felt nothing - not even a bit! Your turn now," she said. "He wants to talk to you ... I'll wait here."

I squeezed her hand and went back into the office. Alex was standing by the window, looking down at Channel Street. When the door clicked shut, he turned.

"Sit down, Sean."

I sat.

"The hypnosis is working," he said. "More than working. I used thew trigger. She went in trance immediately, even deeper this time. The suggestions I implanted last week have taken hold more firmly than I anticipated."

"Did you implant anything new this time?"

"Just refinements. I strengthened the four original suggestions and added a modification to the fourth ..." He returned to his chair. "She should begin to explore her own desires more actively. Think about what she wants - not just sexually, but emotionally, romantically - and communicate those wants to you without shame or hesitation."

I nodded. "That sounds ... good."

"It is good. But Sean." His voice dropped. "The speed at which she's changing. It's faster than I expected. She's not just responding to the suggestions, she's amplifying them. Her conscious mind is building on the framework I've provided. It's remarkable, but it also means you need to be careful."

"Careful how?"

"She's in a vulnerable state. Not fragile - I don't mean fragile. But open. Receptive. The changes are happening fast, and she doesn't fully understand why. She attributes everything to the talking therapy, which is partially true, but if she ever learned about the suggestions ... "

"She might feel manipulated."

"Exactly." Alex leaned back. "I'm not saying you should tell her. I'm saying you should be gentle. Let her lead. Don't push her faster than she wants to go. And the trigger - it's still in effect - use it only if absolutely necessary."

"I haven't used it. I even forgot about it ..."

"Good. Keep it that way." He stood. "Be here same time on Friday in two weeks. I'm on a conference next week"

"I see ... OK, then we'll be seeing you in two weeks - same time."

---

Rita was waiting outside, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, the posture different somehow - more relaxed, more open. Her green eyes tracked me as I approached.

"So? What did he say?"

"He thinks we're doing great. Making progress. He wants to see us again two weeks from now."

"I like him." She pushed off the wall and threaded her arm through mine. "I like this. I like how I feel. It's like someone turned a light on in a room I didn't know was dark."

We walked toward the car. A street musician was playing something slow and bluesy on his saxophone. Rita paused to drop a five-dollar bill in his case.

"Let's go somewhere," she said.

"Where?"

"Anywhere. The beach. The cliffs. Somewhere we can watch the sunset and you can put your hands on me and nobody will see."

The cliffs were a twenty-minute drive south of town - a stretch of coastline where the land dropped abruptly into the Pacific. By the time we arrived, the sun was a fat orange disk hovering just above the horizon. We parked at the overlook and walked to the wooden railing at the cliff's edge.

Rita stood in front of me, her back pressed against my chest, my arms around her waist.

"I keep thinking about all the time we lost. Three years, Sean. Three years I kept you at arm's length because I was afraid." she said.

"Afraid of what?"

"Of being left again. Of wanting too much. Of not being enough." She turned in my arms. "Jeff made me feel like it was all about him, what he expected. Like I should be grateful for whatever crumbs he gave me. And after he left, I just ... shut that part of myself down. It was easier than feeling the rejection."

I kissed her cheek. "You're not too much. You've never been too much."

"I'm starting to believe that." Her hands slid up my chest. "I'm starting to believe a lot of things."

The sunset painted her face in shades of gold and rose. Her hair, loose around her shoulders, moved in the breeze off the ocean. She looked younger. Or maybe just happier.

"Sean." Her voice dropped. "I want you to make love to me right here. Against the railing. Now!"

My throat tightened. "Rita, people drive by here. Someone could see."

"I know." Her eyes glittered. "I don't care."

She turned back around, facing the ocean, and pressed her hips against me. Her dress, the new one, the one that ended above her knees, rode up as she arched her back.

"Yes, do it ..." she said. "Before the sun goes all the way down."

I looked around. The overlook was empty. The nearest car was a distant speck a quarter-mile down the coast highway. Still, my heart hammered as I undid my belt, as I pushed my jeans down, as I lifted her dress and found she wasn't wearing any underwear and how wet she already was ... she'd planned this, she must have planned this.

I breathed the word against her ear. "You seem to be prepared ..."

"Because I want you." She gasped as I pushed inside. "I always want you. I just forgot how to say it."

The railing was cold against my knuckles. Rita gripped it with both hands, her head thrown back, her mouth open. The wind carried her sounds away over the water. I moved inside her with the rhythm of the waves breaking against the cliffs below us.

"Harder," she said. "Please, Sean. Do me ... harder ... Gimme something to remember!"

My hands dug into the soft flesh of her hips. The sun was sinking, the sky deepening, the first stars pricking through the purple of twilight. Her pussy clenched around me and I felt her orgasm building - the way her breathing changed, the way her body tightened, the high, keening sound that rose from her throat.

"There. There. Don't stop ... yeaaaahhh ..." She broke apart. Her whole body shuddered and she collapsed forward against the railing, and I followed her over the edge, emptying inside her with a groan that felt like it had been building for years.

We stood there afterward, panting, tangled, the wind cooling the sweat on our skin. She lifted her skirt revealing her freshly fuckt pussy ... cum running down the inside of her legs. She did nothing to stop it ... she seemed to love that feeling ...

"I love you," she said. "I don't think I've said it enough. I love you, Sean."

"I love you too."

The last sliver of sun vanished below the horizon. The ocean turned from gold to silver to slate. We straightened our clothes and walked back to the car, her fingers laced through mine, and I thought about what Alex had said - about her being vulnerable, open, a mind rebuilding itself from the inside out.

But looking at her now, in the passenger seat, her face still flushed and her smile still soft and her hand still resting on my thigh, she didn't seem fragile at all. She seemed like the woman I'd married. Only more.