First Time Trance
By Limewah
Story for RMED
Carmine stood in front of his mirror, with a powerful, confident, perhaps-too-wide stance. As he looked at his reflection, he contorted his face into a sly grin. Eyebrows inwards, mouth closed, lips curled just enough to be noticeable.
He'd seen variations of that grin many times on many different faces. It would usually be followed by something hypnotically fascinating. Spiralling eyes, a dangling pendulum, a swirling sigil from a mind-control spell, sometimes even a weird little device. More variations on a different theme from there - the theme of placid mindlessness, a comfortable, calming fog descending over him like a nice blanket. Whether his body went slack or stiff, that quiet comfort was always a crucial part of his trance.
It was a wonderful feeling. One of his favourite states of mind, really. It was easy to let himself float in them and just...exist, no cares, no desires, just bliss.
But in those states of sleepy calm, there were the odd errant thoughts arising now and again.
Particularly when he saw the smile or the eye-glimmer of his hypnotist, just before he dropped, and just after he woke.
They're clearly enjoying this...
What would it be like for me to be the one in control?
As amazing as it was to go under all the time...he didn't want to just be a hard sub. Not out of a sense of boredom and fatigue, more of a desire to see what it was like to make someone eat out of the palm of his massive, crimson-fuzzed hand.
Obviously, he didn't have the money for a hypno gadget, or the training to make his eyes go all swirly. He had to start somewhere, and where better to begin than the basics?
``Hey~'' he said to his reflection, trying to mimic a recent encounter with a street hypnotist in a park. ``Can I have a few minutes of your time?''
He felt the little crystal in his clenched paw- an amethyst carved into a teardrop shape and nestled in a little gold plated harness.
``I'm just wondering if you could have a look at something for me, and tell me what you see in it.''
Carmine couldn't remember anything else the hypnotist said after that. But he could probably wing it.
And besides, this was just practicing technique. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to put himself under.
The pendulum was attached to a chain wrapped around his index finger. He lifted it up, as high as was comfortable for him... which would be far higher than most people, considering his size.
He'd noticed a trick some hypnotists used. Once they were at the right height, they'd lift their entrancing focus above his eyeline. Just enough to make him look up a little, enough to tucker his eyes out and make his eyelids half-cover them.
When that happened, he was gone.
``Just keep your eyes on the pendulum for me. It's easy enough to do. Just like that.''
Holding the pendant up high was easy enough to do for a big guy like him, but it was still good to practice his arm strength.
``See how gently it moves, and see how your eyes naturally follow.''
The natural momentum from the lift was enough to make the pendant swing quickly to and fro. He could keep his paw in place and let the shiny thing do all the work from there.
``Just like that,'' he said softly, looking straight ahead. ``You're doing such a good job.''
He imagined staring into his hypnotee's eyes, visualizing them following the pendant back and forth in its dangling arc.
The pendant was quite nice, too. He'd picked it up from a farmer's market just the other day. It caught the light well - the light from his bedroom window bounced off the mirror, rebounded off the pendant, and back again.
More and more, Carmine's eyes were drawn to it. He tried to keep his focus, keep his eyes squared dead ahead, following the imagined arc of the sleepy hypnotee's eyes. Left and right. Back and forth.
Left... right...
As the pendulum swept across his vision, his eyes kept twitching a little higher to follow.
Its arc was shrinking, too, moving from a swing to more of a dangle, until finally it was tracing a tiny circle in the air.
Back... Forth...
Carmine's eyes were crossed upwards.
``You feel...that...?'' he murmured. ``Just f...focus, and you'll keep... feeling it...''
He continued to speak. But the words didn't feel planned - he wasn't thinking about what to say next. They came to him, plucked from somewhere inside that pretty pendant.
``It takes so much effort to keep those sleepy eyes open, but you've been doing such a good job, and it's going to feel so good when you close them... so on the count of three, I'm going to snap my fingers and you're going to sleep, nice and deep for me.''
His free hand lifted up, middle claw and thumb-claw tensed against each other.
``One... two... three... Sleep.''
He snapped his fingers, and his mind fell through the floor.
His arms fell to his sides. He was faintly aware of the pendant tapping against his toes as it fell to the floor. He slumped forward, the way he had done before, and his nose squished against the glass. His soft grunting breaths fogged up the mirror. He floated in that simple, quiet pleasure for a time.
Maybe a few seconds.
Or a few minutes.
But however long that moment lasted, it passed, and the words came back to him again.
``And just... waking up in your own time, coming right back... up?''
Carmine was back upright again, feeling as though he'd just woken up from a dream, half-cut in a hypnopompic post-trance daze. He shook his head, chuffing and rubbing his cheeks to ground himself.
``What... happened?'' he asked himself, looking down at the dropped pendant. As he picked it up and cradled it in his paw, the realisation settled over him.
``Ah, dangit... I hypnotised myself!'' he sighed. But before the feeling of defeat could settle over him, an adage from another tist, half-remembered, slipped into his ear. He couldn't remember who said it. If it was said into his ear, or in front of his face. If it was a feminine or masculine voice.
But it was exactly what he needed to hear.
``Something to remember, Carmine... a lot of the time, hypnosis is self-hypnosis.''
``Hypnosis is self hypnosis...'' he nodded.
The memory split his mouth into a wide, excited smile.
``That means...''
He pumped his fist with a satisfied hiss.
``Yesss, I did it! I'm a hypnotist!''
He tried not to whoop too loud - but he felt like celebrating.
He looked at himself in the mirror, at his big silly grin, and at the pendant now lazily dangling from his fingers again. He'd already wound it around his fingers like it was second nature.
...Maybe a little more practice wouldn't hurt, before he sprung it on a friend or two.
And, even if he didn't manage to drop friends, at least he knew he had a hypnotist on tap, right at home!
