There is too much in the house.  Too many memories, too many stories, too many old papers and letters and pressed flowers, too many traces of stories that flicker in the corner of the eye, as in fact when he is on the lower floors he sees spirits walking out of the corners of his eyes, or in the mirrors, hastening out of sight when he comes into the rooms or in the echoes of his footsteps which seem to reverberate for slightly too long when he walks through the long dark halls.  Who are these portraits on the walls?  What are these dark framed objects? What is in these brown folders and old composition books? What would happen to him if he gave himself to these things and their stories? He is afraid he would disappear into the house and never be seen again outside.

The only solution is to bring the house into the world again so that it is not a frightening land of forgetfulness.  He must clean the windows, beat the rugs, dust the bookshelves, take down and oil the tools, open the doors so that air sweeps through the halls.

It is a monumental task.  But today he will do one thing.  He will take down one book perhaps—that one over there called Seven-League Boots—or he will clean one portrait—this one here perhaps of the fine gentleman with Dundreary whiskers and a high collar and frock coat—or he will oil one hinge—perhaps the door beyond this one, that leads into a dressing room and squeals forbiddingly when he opens it—or dust and clean one rug, or mop one floor—he will not for once be overwhelmed by the size of the task and he will face the work knowing that however slow it is it will never be finished if it is not begun.

Zusa is gloating and taunting me with how powerless I am to resist her and how helpless I am and how easily she can put me under—that term to me is wonderfully sexy, I want to be under Zusa,  I am under Zusa that is where I belong, and she is gloating over how easily she can change me and make me into someone else—into Sally or Rover or Larry the Lovesick Fifteen-Year-Old Love Slave and beyond that she can change me, musepoetsub, and make me like and feel different things from what I think I like and fee because the mind is not its attachments; it is not its obstacles, it is a force, it is endlessly plastic and mutable and powerful and its mutability and power are so huge, so much greater than what we consider “human” that I am frightened by how much it can accomplish as it is set free and how huge and powerful I can become: that fear freezes me and place and walls me in and I yearn and crave for Zusa to take away my walls and bring out of the bottle because I am the huge djinn from the Arabian Nights with huge yes and rippling muscles and fierce teeth like the gates of dawn and breath of flame and Zusa has released me from the lam she gloats not at how powerless I am but at how powerful I am and she gloats at all my power because all of it is hers.

Where does this come from?

And as a secondary question, why is it that so many men have not only the capability but also the deep wish (even if for many of them it is unconscious) to go under a woman’s hypnotic spell, to give up their boundaries and become submissive and obedient? What evolutionary purpose does this serve?

It is clear to me that various forms of hypnosis have formed an important part of human life since very early prehistoric times, if not before.  One famous historian I read wrote that rhythmic voice was the most important invention in all of human history, because it was (and is, in primitive cultures today) the means by which different bands of humans, who might otherwise fall into conflict and warfare, could sit down and begin to forge some commonality between them even if they had no common language.  Two groups of hunter-gatherers meeting in the wild would sit and being to sing rhythmic song, joining in together until their aggressive impulses were at least temporarily restrained by a human bond.  This cessation of hostility, this voluntary relinquishment of the barrier of fear between strangers, has some of the quality of hypnosis to me—consider that in certain situations, such as stage performances, a stranger you have never met before can, with the right mixture of skill and sensitivity, change your consciousness in a few minutes (the formal induction in most stage shows seems to last about five minutes) to such an extent that you will forget your surroundings and give up any self-consciousness you have in order to please her by the complete abandon of your compliance with her suggestions.  This is such a powerful use of language that one could almost imagine that it was the reason why humans evolved the use of language—as a mean to control and manipulate others, to obtain their cooperation and obedience and to obtain sexual access to them—“voluntary” sexual surrender by strangers who might otherwise have been expected to remain apart.  (I am not speaking of the use of hypnosis to obtain non-compliant sex;  am speaking of the use of hypnosis to create a psychic intimacy that many women feel toward their male hypnotists, and vice-versa).  But why hypnosis?  At the most basic level, in a time when there was no anesthesia, to be able to follow a tribal healer into a trance would have very concrete health benefits, as a means of pain reduction and also as a way to obtain cooperation at times when the “patient” would be expected to be very anxious and distracted; to obtain compliance, cooperation and eventually implicit obedience.

But I also wonder at the intense erotic charge it carries for so many men; and here too I imagine an evolutionary story.  Consider that one of the pervasive problems in most human societies is physical abuse of women by the men in their lives.  Women on average are smaller and physically weaker than men; all too often in human history, men have used their superior strength against women to force them into something like slavery, to control and circumscribe their opportunities in life, and to exploit them sexually.

Consider that it may have been very useful at some points for women to have access to a method of gaining the upper hand and “persuading” men to do as they are told.  Consider, in fact, that the children of such a couple might have a greater chance of surviving and reproducing than couples in which violence and male domination were the major contents.  Thus there might be an evolutionary advantage in a woman who could easily pass these characteristics to her female offspring and thereby permit them gain the willing cooperation of males in raising children to maturity.  There might even be an advantage in being a man whit the capacity to be easily hypnotized and the desire to be hypnotized.  The intense sexual pleasure many men derive from the act may not be a strange or odd thing—they may be the major thing.

At any reason, I certainly feel inside that I have evolved to be a woman’s hypno-slave and that when I am not doing that I am missing out on my role in life.  Perhaps that is simply who I am; but perhaps it shows us something of our history as a species.  I am who I am because evolution has made me that way.

If so, I am deeply grateful to evolution.  Consider me highly evolved.

I am the Worst Mouse in the World.

Because when I was young I discovered that cats are not just claws and teeth and cruelty and pouncing in the dark.  Cats are so much more than that—I shudder to admit I have even had these thoughts, these heresies from Mousethink, must less that I believe them.  Cats are soft warm fur, they are the deep thrum of a warm soothing purr on a cold snowy day, the warmest, coziest sound in the world that can lull the bravest mouse warrior into the darkness; they are that total boneless relaxation that every species envies—every species in its secret place wants to be a cat, and I especially mean you, dogs.  And cats are also—ah, cats are also—great deep complex yellow eyes, eyes the size of oceans, eyes into which any sailor might venture searching for the deep incense and fog of sleep and oblivion and forgetting and obedience, cat’s eyes are bigger than the mouse universe and I have ventured into them, I have let myself drift into the ocean of my cat’s eyes, I have let go of invisibility and fear and timidity and self-preservation, I have left the hole and the wall and the scurry and I have walked straight at the claws because behind them is the deep yellow of the eyes and the seductive hum of the purr and a world in which a mouse can simply cease to exist and become part of a cat, and I have let myself cross the line no mouse should cross.

I am the Worst Mouse in the World.

Each time I find myself—how did I get back here?—back in the nest, I vow to be a good loyal mouse from now on.  No more surrender to cats’ tricks, I will scurry and squeak and follow the Mouse Code.  But it is too late; the cat owns me, she knows it and somewhere locked in a mental closet where I cannot reach or change it, where I cannot really even look directly at it or think about it, I know that I am a traitor mouse, I am her spy sent to betray my own kind and I know this and don’t care. I am honored to be

The Worst Mouse in the World.

And each time I peek out of the hole and see the cat’s world I vow that this time I will stay clear, I will go no further into treachery; and yet the cat—oh! What a cat she is!—is always too clever for me;  She has always some gift, some trap, some game that intrigues me and that draws me in until I am again between her paws—bless my cat! she sheathes her claws around me though she is not above giving me a brisk smack with them to amuse herself and when she does and I roll across the floor squeaking I am delighted and ashamed at how wonderful I feel to be even noticed enough to merit a smack of the paw.  But first she must lure me out of the hole, which she does in an infinite variety of ways.  Sometimes I peek out of the whole to find her great yellow eye pressed right up against it and when that happens the effect is instantaneous.  I am gone.  I am out of the hole, I no longer even know that I am a mouse, I become a toy or even a part of her collar, maybe one of those little bells that would give warning of her approach if she hadn’t taken my ability to hear them, I am hers in an instant, I am gone.  Other times it suits her to make me face my own weakness more fully—what good is a toy, I think she thinks, if you must always make it come to you?  Even though you can always do that, isn’t it boring?  And so she lures me instead by ignoring me, curled up in a cozy round sleeping-cat shape with the world’s most melodious purr vibrating the air around her and reaching and entering my eye the way a seductive perfume enters the nostrils, and once I hear it I am like Odysseus hearing the sirens but I am not tied to any mast.  The sound is in my ears.  If I cover them with my paws, I still can hear it; if it burrow deep in the insulation, I still can hear it; if I chatter and squeak with other mice—mousetalk, you know, such as “You know what I like? Cheese!” “Ooh, yeh, well, you know I really hate traps!” “Oh, yeh, that’s so amazing, I hate traps too!” “Oh, yeh, and I also hate poison pellets,” “Yeh, those are bad.” and squeak squeak squeak blah blah so boring when in my ears I can still hear that hum, that purr, I want to be part of that hum, that deep thrum like an engine at the heart of the world carrying me across the yellow ocean and I think, what do I have to do with these tiny timorous cowering creatures, I would rather be a bell on my cat’s collar than the King of all the mice because I am

The Worst Mouse in the World.

And once the thrum has taken hold, ordering my breathing and my heartbeat, my paws carry me closer and closer until I am nestled against my cat, asleep, no longer a mouse or any separate creature but just a part of her and then when she wakes and traps me with her paws I do not care, and when she fixes me with her eye and asks me to tell her the innermost secrets of the nest I do without a pause, I am a traitor to mousekind. I am

The Worst Mouse in the World.

And today, oh, my cat is clever (remember the ancient Egyptians worshiped the cat-goddess Bastet who gave her name to the city of Bubastis, my cat is Bastet in her heart, she is a goddess, she is above mere men and mere mice).  She knows I am sure that she can lure me out by fixing me with her eyes or purring or simply by twitching her tail, I cannot resist.  But what is the point of using sure methods when she can make me betray myself completely in a new way that I never imagined?  And so today she has stolen her human’s shoes and pulled them across the floor until they rest next to her, the shoes are white, they have high heels but they have a pattern, a gentle flow of waves that spirals around them drawing my eye in and around and around (it must do the same to male humans, I suspect, when the cat’s woman wears them, poor men, they are so lucky that they will lose the battle of the sexes so quickly and decisively) and my eyes follows them around and around until I am dizzy and forgetful and all the world has narrowed to the point of that shoe and I hear her purring and as if a voice is speaking in my head I know that the best place in the world for a tiny mouse to hide would be in that shoe, that no harm could come to me there, I could give up the scurry and worry and just sleep and cease to exist and my paws are carrying me across the floor with no instructions from my brain for it has gone quiet and I can think only of flow and spiral and purr and eyes and I am nestled in the shoe, I am disappearing, and at the top of the shoe I see her deep yellow eye peering at me and I know she has me now where she has wanted me and that my fate is in her paws and my last thought is that I am

The Worst Mouse in the World.

The stage is bright; the theater is dark.  There is the illusion of safety in the darkness.  Hypnosis will happen up there, where she is, not down here, where I am.  I will watch.  I will be safe.  I will stay free.  I can watch her.  She is magnificent.  I adore her as a woman, too, a very beautiful woman, dressed not in a special stage costume but simply comfortably, in low heels and neat slacks, sweater and pearls.  She is a beautiful woman, long legs, huge eyes like deep still pools, a wide, expressive mouth.  But I admire her beyond that, as a magnificent creature, at once a human animal and a goddess, so high above me, so secure in her power.  I notice that she seems very far away, father than the stage, and very high above me, higher than the stage, and I can imagine dancing on her palms, she seems so large and powerful and I so small and weak.  And she is talking; every word is fascination as she explains the meaning of hypnosis and says that in a minute she will ask for volunteers.  I must sit on my hands, I must not volunteer, for if I do I will be lost.

And then she asks everyone in the audience who has been hypnotized before to raise one hand.  I do.  I could not lie to that face, those eyes.  I have been hypnotized before.  I am one of a few hands that go up.  She smiles and even though she is above me on the brightly lit stage I could swear that she sees me and is looking right into my eyes and she says, ‘Thank you, please keep your hands up so I can see.” And then she asks us, those of us with out hands above our heads, if we can . . . remember . . . what it felt like to be in hypnosis, and of course I can, it is a kind of distant, floaty, dreamy feeling, with the world around me very quiet and a deep concentration on the words of the hypnotist, heavy eyes, quiet mind, utterly uncritical desire to do as I am told, of course I can remember and the memory is so strong that I almost miss what she says next, which is, “If you can remember what it was like to be hypnotized, then please consider how your arm feels now floating over your head and realize that if you were hypnotized when I count to three you would no longer be able to bring your arm down, it would just float above your head, if you were hypnotized, and one, two, THREE, your arm is floating and you cannot pull it down, now try, you cannot pull it down!”

How has this happened?  When did I forget to stay safe? Surely the arm will come down if I demand it to, surely by force, by gritted teeth, by simple resistance I can bring it down, I cannot even look to see whether others’ arms are floating because I am so absorbed in the struggle with my arm, but it will not come down, I cannot bring it down, my strongest efforts, gritted teeth, furrowed brow, produce no effect, or rather they make the arm light, more rigid, further away from me, it is there above me and I have no connection to it any more.

“And now if your arm is floating,” she says, “stand up!”

And I do.

The crowd is laughing and applauding, I can see four or five of us standing, our arms helplessly floating above us, our expressions a bit chagrined and yet I can also feel a twitch of a smile on my lips because you see it feels wonderful, my arm feels wonderful and I feel wonderful that I have given my arm to her words.

“And now I want each of you to come up on stage,” she says, “just make your way carefully to the aisle, your arms are still floating, and just come right up here so we can release them, come on now, don’t wait,” and my footsteps are taking me to the aisle, or are they footsteps?, I feel that I am floating as if I have no body as I move down the aisle toward those great still eyes and the voice that is calling, what is happening to me? I wonder, and I am so absorbed in understanding why I am walking down the aisle, and why my body ignores the voice inside my head saying what are you doing, stop, you don’t want to do this, until I reach the stage and climb the three steps and she points me toward a chair and the five of us are sitting, I know we look ridiculous, our arms are lighter and lighter—did she say that just now or did I imagine her voice?—they are pulling us into a silly off balance posture as we sit there and then she turns to us and says, “When I snap your fingers your arms will be free, you will lower them to one side, and then I want you to pay close attention to what I tell you after that, one, two, THREE!” She snaps her fingers and my hand suddenly returns to my side.  It is not heavy, it does not drop, it is just normal now and I am normal again.  I am relieved.  She has made her demonstration. Now we can return to our seats and watch the show.

She is looking at each of us.  She is looking at me.  She is looking at all of us.  She is looking at me.  There is no one else. There is just me and there is just her looking at me.  I feel like a bird being hypnotized by a python. I feel that I am about to disappear into her eyes. I am about to disappear into her.  I am about to be absorbed by her, to cease to exist.

“Do you want to be hypnotized?” she is asking.

I am shaking my head now. I hear a few laughs from far off.

She walks over to me.  She is miles high, floating above me, looking down with affectionate amusement.

“You don’t want me to hypnotize you?” she asks.

I shake my head no again.  I know I don’t want that.

She is laughing at me; her voice is like distant music, like chimes in the wind.  “You can talk if you want,” she explains. “What’s your name?”

“Muse,” I said. My voice is scratchy, as if I haven’t used it in a long time.

“Muse,” she says, stretching the deep “oo” sound out like the word “pool,”as in  “deep pool.”

“Why don’t you want me to hypnotize you?”

“You will make me do silly things.”

Everyone is laughing now.  She is laughing now.  I am glad I made her laugh.  I want to do more to make her laugh. I want to do whatever will keep those deep eyes focused on me. “Make you do silly things? Do you think I can make you do things?”

“Well, if you hypnotize me—“

“Silly rabbit,” she is saying.  “I can’t make you do anything.  I can’t hypnotize you because you don’t want to be hypnotized. Right?”

Without knowing why, I am nodding. She must be right, whatever she said.

“You know I can’t hypnotize you, don’t you?”

Nodding again without thought.

“So why don’t you let me try, because it won’t work?”

I am nodding okay.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, “Muse here is going to let me try to hypnotize him, because he knows I can’t.  Let’s give him a big hand.”

The applause is huge.  I can’t back out now.

“Thanks for doing this,” she is saying.  “This will help me because it will show everyone that they can’t be hypnotized against their will.  You will show them that no matter how good it feels to go into trance for me, you can resist, because you’d rather show that you can resist me than let me make you feel so good. Okay?”

I am nodding.

She is saying, “Now look at me, don’t look away, just look into my eyes. All you need to do is follow my instructions and we can show the audience how much you don’t want to feel the relaxation and peace of deep trance. All right? So just look deeply into my eyes.”

Those eyes, those still pools, so huge, bigger than I am and and I am staring at them, I cannot even blink. “Take in a deep breath, in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth, relax and look at me, another breath, in, out, your eyes are heavy, just fight to keep from falling asleep, like a sleepy baby at the end of the day, drifting drifting drifting to sleep, let go, you want to let go, and sleep sleep sleep . . . .”

I am fighting.  I want to stay awake.  I want to disobey.  I think. I think I want to disobey. I think, “I want to disobey. I think.”  She wants me to disobey.  I must obey her by disobeying.  Obeying will feel good. If I disobey I am obeying. I want to obey. I want to be obedient. She walks in front of us and when she sees me fighting to keep my heavy lids open I can see her smile, it is a warm smile but so amused, as if it is saying that I am silly and dear and helpless. “You can win, of course you can win, just tell yourself you don’t want to feel so good, you don’t want to give in to me, you don’t want me to take control of you and put you in your place and make you my little puppet, that’s right, you’re almost there,” and she leans forward and says, “one, two, three,” and then she blows on me lightly, “sleep.” And I am gone, my whole body just lets go as if I were on a cloud and nothing matters any more except drifting while the voice speaks to me and tells me what to do because that is what I want to do.

But it’s just a second, just a brief blank.  Then my eyes pop open.

It didn’t work! I am free! Amazing!  What a relief!

“Hi, there,” she’s saying.

“Hi.”

“Are you hypnotized?”

“No. Guess it didn’t work.”

“Oh, well,” she says.  “Everybody, let’s have a big round of applause for Muse!”

I acknowledge the applause.  I am a winner tonight!

“Want to be hypnotized?” she asks.

“No, thanks!” I smile, just to be polite.

“Well, then, I guess you should go back to your seat and enjoy the show,” she says.

I rise to go.

“Oh, Muse,” she says, as I am going, “speak!”

Oh, how silly.  But just to be polite, I answer, “Arf! Ruff!”

For some reason the audience is howling with laughter.

“Sure you’re not hypnotized?”

“Yes.”

“Bye-bye,” she says.

I turn to go.

But then she says, “Muse, STAY!”

More nonsense.  Out of politeness, I freeze.

“Heel!”

It’s just good manners, so I drop to my knees and crawl over to her.

“Hi,” she says, looking down at me.

“You’re NOT hypnotize?”

“No.”

“OK, then, sit up and beg!”

It’s tiresome to humor her; but I do it, tongue hanging out and all.  I can hear the laughter. I am glad I am helping the act, redeeming the damage I did when I didn’t go under.

“Hypnotized now?”

“No.”

“OK, then, play dead!”

I know how to do this: on my back, paws in the air.

She looks down at me with a smile. “Not hypnotized?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, try this one: SLEEP!”

Everything goes away except her voice.

“Every word I say becomes the absolute truth as soon as I say it,” she says, and I am nodding.  “Open your eyes and stand up! Stand up!  Stand up tall!  Stand at attention while I talk to you, remaining deeply asleep, that’s it!” My eyes open, I am on my feet, standing my tallest, rigid, like a solder or a robot, looking at those great still eyes, they are holding my mind as I stare at them and I hear her voice saying, “Are you hypnotized?”

“Yes.”

There is applause.  And she is laughing. Her laugh is like a gentle silver dagger, it goes through my soul and holds it in place.

“Well, let’ see about that,” she says.  “Let’s see if I can make you do what . . . ever I want you to do, shall we?”

I nod.  She laughs.

“Now I want you to use the power of your imagination, and in your mind I want you to see one word, only one word, this word is all you think of, and the word is ‘chicken,’ think of that word,” and I am thinking of it, ‘chicken’ fills the theater of my brain, it is all there is C-H-I-C-K-E-N and “now your imagination shows you that word and you are a chicken, when I snap my fingers you’re going to  strut and flap and cluck, you will be my hen” and snap, I feel the feathers on my wings and I poke my tail in the air and I am clucking and squawking and fluttering because I am a chicken and I have always been a chicken and a chicken is what I should be.

“Good chicken,” she says. “Now sit down and SLEEP!”

It comes and goes from then on, every time she tells me to sleep I go further away.  I am her words; that is all I am.  Every word she says is the absolute truth.  I am slumped on a chair on stage and she is explaining to me why I am there and what I am going to do, and there’s no need to listen, because I will do whatever she tells me so I don’t worry, because it feels right to be there, I am in the place I belong.

“Now, when I count to three you will open your eyes knowing what you have to do. One—two—THREE! Open your eyes! The audience is here, they are waiting for you! It’s your big moment!”

I stand and stretch sinuously. The crowd is there to see me, I feel their eyes wanting me, feasting on the curves of my body, and I know what I am there to do, the entire world is there to see my in my sequined low-cut dress, this is a moment that will never be forgotten. I take the microphone and stare seductively into the crowd, knowing who I am singing too, and I run my free hand up and down the curves of my body, knowing every man there is lusting for me, and in my breathy voice I sing, “Happy—birthday—to you, Happy-birthday—to you—Happy birthday, Mr. President—Happy birthday to you!”

The cheers are deafening and I sway seductively as I bow. “Thank you, Marilyn,” she says, taking the microphone from my hand.

“Sit down and SLEEP!”

“Wake up!”

The crowd is cheering and pointing and laughing.  I am not Marilyn Monroe.  I am me. They are laughing at me.  I have made a fool of myself.  I have been hypnotized, I have been taken out of myself and made into her performing dog, I have been made into her subject and I was powerless to resist, I am blushing.

But then she says, “Look at me, Muse,” and those eyes catch me.

“Are you Marilyn Monroe?”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Muse.”

“Are you sure?”

Am I?

“Look at me now, look at my eyes, you are sleepy, sleepy, sleeping, you are asleep.”

It is dark. “You aren’t Marilyn, you are a girl, Muse, you are my pretty girl, let go, Muse, you are my pretty girl and all you want is to please me, let go now, deeper . . .”

I am so eager to put on the rouge and lipstick so I can show her how pretty I am for her, she is the teacher I long to obey, and when I am finished and she looks at me she is smiling again, that fond smile as if I am so silly and she says “you have done well, pretty girl, and I am going to reward you.  In a minute, while you sit there, you are going to feel so hot, your whole body will be warm and flushed, and your are slowly going to become more and more aroused until you will have a girl’s orgasm, little girl, because I tell you to, and you will try to keep it to yourself but it will be too much and slowly you will begin to moan and you may touch yourself because it will feel so good until at last it doesn’t matter and you have to just let go and come, and scream, and now you are starting to feel soo hot, try to hide it,” and she has moved on to another person on the stage, she is turning that person into the big bad wolf to act a fairy tale, I’d like to watch the story it seems interesting but my it is hot in here and I must wipe my face, and then my neck, and my fingers feel so good against my skin that I wipe my neck again and then my hand finds its way to my chest, my nipples feel so tender and I stroke them again, it is hot or is it I am hot, and my other hand begins to stroke my thigh, I want to put it between my legs but what would people think of me? Already they are laughing at my face as I try to keep from crying out, but I can’t help it and my hand goes between my thighs and I try not to scream “ooohhhhh,” and when I do she comes back to me and says, “are you all right?” and why I try to answer all that comes out is “aaaaaaaaahhhhh!” and I hear the laughter but it doesn’t matter.  “Go ahead,” she’s saying, fixing me with those great still eyes, I forget anyone else is there and she says, “Go ahead now, pretty girl, come for me now!” and I am screaming “Oh, God, Oh, God” and she says “harder harder harder” and I am shrieking and moaning and my whole body is coming at once and I can’t stop or hold back and then as the peak passes her voice says, “sleep” and everything goes away.

I know there are gaps in my memory, but what I don’t know is why—did she suggest them? Did she command them? Did I offer my memories to her, lay them at her feet, without being asked? Or is my amnesia for myself, because I do not wish to remember that I did things I was told to? What could such things be—given that I clearly remember squealing like an orgasmic teenager at her command?  I am exploring what they could be.  Could I remember some of them?  Could I remember it at all?

What one fears—or what I would have feared—before going on stage was the obvious humiliation—“take off your clothes,” for example. There are some subjects who would welcome this—they are proud of their bodies and even exhibitionistic.  I am not; I have some shame about it, and would fear the ridicule of others, even if that ridicule was only in their minds.  But on the other hand, would it not prove how deeply I was hypnotized if I were suddenly to remember stripping, oblivious to the laughter of the crowd? If that memory is there, I haven’t found it yet.

No, what begins to come back to me is that she used against me those things I am most proud of, not most shamed of—my voice, my skill with words.  She gave me a drink and told me it was truth serum and that any time she said “truth serum” to me,  I could not answer any question with other than the absolute truth.  My heart is pounding slightly faster now just for having typed those words, but in my memory I did not react at all that that suggestion.  She said the words; I heard the words.  The words were the absolute truth as soon as she said them.  I could not hide or lie or conceal anything if she asked me a question about it.

And she did. She did something a lot more diabolical, In fact.  Every few minutes she would come back to me and ask me a question.  I’d answer truthfully, no matter how embarrassing the answer might be.  And then, when I had answered, she’d trigger another girl orgasm.

“Are you submissive?”

“Yes.”

Wham! Oh god oh god oh god.

“Would you like to kiss my shoes?”

“Yes.”

Oh my God . . . .

“Would you like to be my good dog?”

“Yes.”

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

“Does obeying me turn you on?”

“Yes.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh/.

Each question was more intimate, each orgasm more intense.  Can you imagine the feedback loop that set up?  How desperately I wanted to confess everything about myself? How much I craved her words and her control? With each orgasm even the idea of the crowd got fainter and fainter, until there was only me and her and pleasure and obedience and mindlessness.

And every few minutes, no matter what else was happening, she would ask me an embarrassing question and I would hear, without much curiosity or surprise, my own voice telling a hall full of strangers things I had never admitted to another living soul.

Then I heard her voice saying, “That’s enough for now. When I snap your fingers you will stand at attention to hear my next order, one. . . two . . . THREE!”

I stood ramrod straight, staring ahead.  Every cell in my body was screaming “Obedient! Obedient! Give me an order!”

Her eyes swallowed mine. “Now, using the power of your imagination, I want you to think of one word, the word is ‘footstool,’ let that word come to dominate your mind, ‘footstool,’ that is the only word you can think of, ‘footstool,’ you can feel yourself turning into my footstool, the only thing you want is to be my footstool, you are folding up now into my footstool, that’s it, go ahead, when I snap my fingers you will fold up on the floor and become my footstool, you will be my footstool until you hear me say, ‘footstool, wake up!’” SNAP!

A footstool is made for one purpose.  Fulfilling that purpose is bliss. A footstool is compact, and square, and sits on the floor, and feels a pair of low heeled shoes resting on its back and is blank and blissful and happy and submissive and listens as her voice drones on, but hears and understands nothing because footstools have no words, footstools need no words, footstools want no words . . .

“Footstool, wake up! Get up, sit in this chair!”

Dimly I hear applause and laughter.  It doesn’t concern me.  I sit in the chair and my eyes follow her and as she moves across the stage. “Look at my finger,” she says, “it is going to send you into a deep sleep deep sleep sleepy sleep . . .” My eyes are so heavy, I am letting go now, “That’s good, sleep deeper and deeper, you are such a good subject, you enjoy following my commands, and now I am taking you into a private special room, as you hear me speak you can see in your mind a special circle drawn around just you and me, there’s no one else here, you are alone with me, do you like that?”

I nod.

“Of course you do, and you have been such a good boy, such a good girl, such a good footstool, I am going to give you a special reward, I am going to let you rub my feet, wouldn’t you like that?”

I nod.

“Of course you would, and so as you can see in your mind I am sitting in a chair in front of you and when I count to three and snap my fingers you will open your eyes and kneel in front of the chair and you will give my feet the best foot massage any man has ever given a woman’s feet, and this will turn you on more than you believe possible, counting to three, one . . . two . . . THREE!”

I am kneeling before my eyes are fully open.  Her feet are small and beautifully formed, perfect in every way, I can’t believe I am permitted to touch and massage them, I am careful to pay attention to every part of them, it is my purpose in life to take care of her feet, and massaging her feet is the sexiest thing I have ever done.

“Do you like rubbing my feet?”

I nod.

“Is it turning you on?”

I nod.

“Wouldn’t you like to give them a little kiss? You can.  Why not? It’s just you and me here, go ahead . . .”

I am kissing her feet, licking the soles, sucking the toes, it is bliss, I am overwhelmed with lust . . .

“And WAKE UP!” Snap!

I am kneeling on a stage, staring at hundreds of strangers who are laughing and pointing at me.  My hands are cupping the empty air, and I am carefully licking a foot that isn’t there.

“How about a round of applause? Ladies, I can assure you that he’ll do outcall if you arrange it through me after the show!”

I should be embarrassed.  I guess I am. I am mostly puzzled.  How did I get here? The last thing I remember was raising my hand when she asked who had been hypnotized before.  I would be upset or scared but I feel . . . so . . . good. So relaxed.  So at peace.

“Stand up and take a seat her next to this nice lady,” she says, and I obey.  Sitting in the chair is a pretty little blonde, probably not much taller than 5’2”, a lot smaller than I am.  She has astonishing blue eyes, pale and clear, and they are staring ahead of her blankly as if she is seeing nothing, her face is slack and her mouth is hanging open and she looks as if she is drooling.

“Yes, that’s right, sit there and look at my eyes, don’t look away, look at my eyes, you are going to sleep and you are going to have a beautiful dream, sleep, sleep, sleeeeeeeeep . . . .”

“Rainbow.” No matter where I am or what I am doing those words will summon that concentration again, that sense at the deepest level that there is nothing worth knowing but you, nothing worth willing but your will.  Like Raymond Shaw in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE I can be activated by that words—in an email, in a text, in your voice softly breathed over the phone—and will go under your control completely without any sign—perhaps without knowing it myself, you could call me up in front of your friends and make me perform, no induction, no permission, just ‘rainbow’ followed by my barking or clucking or giggling like a hopeless stoner or folding into a square ottoman for your feet and no more awareness that I have ever been anything but what you will me to be.

Deeper and deeper and I know now that I am always deep and do not have to try or hope or worry about going to any depth that I am where I need to be to pour down over you like rain, to sparkle in your light like a rainbow, and I am sitting here in a bright academic office at a conference table looking around and hearing the noises from other offices and yet inside I am concentrated on you, my being is like a dog with head cocked hoping to hear a voice commanding him, my thoughts are ‘what does Zusa want me to do? How can I do what Zusa wants me to do? Do I understand what Zusa wants me to do?” There is nothing but that and if you gave me a suggestion it would not seem hypnotic at all because I would simply decide to do it without a moment’s hesitation.  You told me to try to resist going into trance and I did try that but my eyes fell shut and I felt like someone who has something urgent he is supposed to do but is sooooo sleeeeeepy and I kept saying ‘open your eyes, you are not supposed to go to sleep’ but it made no difference or maybe what I mean is that it made me go deeper faster but I could not resist even though I was trying or at any rate trying to try.

I am yours, I am your drop, I am running down your neck, down your throat, between your breasts, I am vanishing, I am rising to the sky, running down your face, running into your mouth, rising, running, always yours, sparking in the rainbow I am the smallest jewel like drop of water sparkling in the sun making the rainbow shape that you have created, I am part of it, I am in your rainbox, your box is only big enough for one drop you wear me around your neck and whenever you choose you open the rainbox and pour me down your neck and I run into the curves of your body, I disappear, I am not just yours but I am part of you, I am what you use as you desire, I am like your feet or your purse I am yours to use and you need not even think about me you simply carry your rainbox and I am in it I am yours and somewhere at every moment there is something shaped like a man something with my name and voice and face that exists by your sufferance and at a word, a glance, a click of your mouse that thing shaped like a man empties out and opens up and the rainbox opens and what is he rolls into it and you own the face, the voice, the body, it will do as you command because to do what you command is bliss and to resist or to escape is dark agony and pain.

This post was written after a text trance in which Zusa took me deeper than I have ever gone.  She ordered me to go back into trance later that day and write about the experience.  I tranced out and wrote for what felt like five minutes.  It was 25, and the post that follows, 1500 words long, was the result.

Rainbox. Rainbow.  I yearn to look out the window and see those words spelled out by clouds or formations of flying birds or skywriting or a passing truck because when it happens I go under again though it is not under any more it is just who I am and when you send me the rainbow suggestion I become who I am and who you allow me to be.

Drink me, Goddess, I beg.  Like submissive rain, I fall at your feet.

–Homes, “Hymn to Aphrodite” (adapted by Patricia Monaghan)

Hang up and call me back.

Sleep now.  Deeper.  Trance number? 248.  Deeper.  When you call back the robot voice will take you deeper.  Hang up.

Call back. We’d like to connect you to the M-S-Z-U-S-A-B-D-S-M.  Hadn’t noticed before how peaceful that is.  Strange heavy metal rock and roll taking me deeper. You are now in conference.  Hi. Sleep now.  Feeling blissful.  Euphoric.

I am giggling.

What’s funny?

Like Beavis: You said euphoric.  I am euphoric.

Did you ever smoke pot?

Oh, yesssss . . . many years ago in the dorm listening to “Inna Gadda Da Vida” and hoping girls would burst through the door and throw themselves into my arms.  Then drifting, seeing naked girls floating in the dark behind my eyeballs.

Yes, I smoked pot.  And woke up the next morning feeling empty and glum.  So I stopped.

Yes, Goddess, I smoked pot

My voice is like smoke, breathe it in, hold it in your lungs.  You feel giddy, light-headed, stoned, giggly.

Hehehehehe.  It’s so trippy when that robot chick says We’d like to connect you to the M-S-Z-U-S-A. What’s WITH that?

Hang up and call me back. Go deeper.

Hello, we’d like to connect you to the M-S-Z-U-S-A. What’s with you, robot chick?  That’s so strange.  Whatever, connect me, do your thing.

Sleep now.  You are sooooo . . . .

Stoned.  Giggly floaty giddy out of myself.  Far out.

That chick made me laugh, Zusa, what is WITH her?

You feel giggly now, don’t you?

Oh, stop, I can’t stop laughing, it’s so ridiculous. Stop, or don’t it’s funny isn’t it amazing how funny everything is if you think about it.

When I say ‘that’s not funny” you won’t be able to stop laughing until I say “that’s enough, Got it?”

Yes ma’am.

That’s not funny.

Wheezing and coughing with laughter it’s all so ridiculous talking on the phone to this amazing woman but to speak to her I have to talk to robot chick.  She cracks me up, so funny, can’t stop–

That’s enough.  When I say 5 you will be wide awake still stoned.

Yes.

Call me back.

Whoa, how do I do this again, this web page is trippy.  I click this link right?.  Right?  How do I do that? How do I click?  Oh, bummer keep doing it wrong.  Okay, that’s got it.

Robot chick, you’re killing me.  Half of me wants to burst out laughing  and half wants to go deeeeper and deeper I wonder if Zusa could tell me to obey robot chick. “Hello, we’d like to connect you to the M-S-Z-S-A . . . You are in conference.”

In conference? What a trippy thing to say.  Am I in conference with Zusa? Is there a Zusa conference? Where do I register?  I hear her voice.  Her voice is like smoke.  I can’t answer, I am giggling so had. I am a gigglebox. I laugh whenever Zusa tells me to I do whatever Zusa says.

That’s enough.

Whew.  What was with the laughing okay I am fine now.  Hi, Zusa

Number?

383.

That’s not funny.

Howling.  Can’t breathe.  Everything is spinning around.  I would say stop but I don’t want to and anyway I can’t speak.

That’s enough.

407.

Call me back.

Hi, is this robot chick?  “I’d like to speak to the M-S-Z-“

Oh, that’s lame, she just cut me off.  Okay I will press 1.

Short pause while I find “1” key, I know it’s here somewhere.

Hello Zusa, I’m your gigglebox.

Five calls? That’s not funny.

Can’t catch my breath.

I am going to wake you up but you are still stoned.  You can watch TV.  Watching TV is fun when you are stoned, isn’t it?

Yes, Zusa. Far out.

You can see girls on the inside of your eyelids.  It makes you horny.

Yes, Zusa.

Whoa, am I having trouble following this vampire story.  What is going on? The chick is a ghost, right? The other guy is a vampire and his friend is a werewolf.  What’s up with that? I wish they wouldn’t do these flashbacks to stoned people.

Text message: Hello gigglebox.

Trying not to crack up.  What was I doing? Watching TV? What was on? I hope it wasn’t a lame nature show.

Vampires.

Hello gigglebox.

Vampires again.  Like rolling down a hill and climbing up, trying to understand.  Why is the scientist studying the vampire and not the werewolf?

Hello gigglebox.

Catch my breath.  That’s enough.  Who said that? Turn off lame TV.  Close eyes.  I smell smoke, rich dark earthy smoke.  I remember Maui Wowie, this is Zusa Loosa.

Whoa, this is good stuff.  And beautiful woman on the inside of my eyelids.  Great legs, she’s got.  She’s looking at me like Kaa the python.  Counting down from 5.

5 . . . 4 . . . 3

It’s morning.  No pot hangover.  Did I really giggle all night like that?

Wonder if I can get any more of that Zusa Loosa stuff . . . .