HypnoBride (closed to AndreaSubbie)

[MasterOfUrMind]

Taylor smiled as the limo pulled up in front of Laugh Off comedy club. As her friend Amanda's maid of honour, she had been responsible for planning the hen party, but Taylor hadn't told her exactly what the night would entail. Laugh Off had been a favorite haunt of Amanda's circle of friends ever since they were old enough to drink. Unlike most other comedy venues, it was set up more like a dinner theater. Tables were arraigned in concentric arcs on several levels around the stage, with the ones further from the stage higher than the ones in front of them so that everyone had a clear view of the stage. But tonight was going to be different than other times they had been to Laugh Off.

When the chauffeur came around to open the door, everyone let the bride-to-be exit the limo first, followed by Taylor and Nicole and Sara, her other bridesmaids. Several of Amanda's other friends were with them, but it wasn't a large group. To be honest, Amanda had alienated many of her friends from senior school because of her outspoken views on morality, especially sexual morality. Many of her former friends had not lived up to Amanda's high standards.

Taylor herself was hardly the snow white virgin that Amanda seemed to feel all brides-to-be should aspire to. In point of fact, Taylor was a lesbian, something that she was sure that Amanda would find morally objectionable if she knew, but Taylor had carefully concealed that part of her life from Amanda. Some of Taylor's other friends wondered why she bothered to remain friends with Amanda, but the truth was that she'd had a huge crush on Amanda for nearly as long as she could remember. Of course she had never acted on it, and figured she never would, but she couldn't seem to stopping torturing herself by staying friends with Amanda.

Once inside, Taylor gave the hostess Amanda's name and she led them to a reserved table right next to the stage. There was a bit of a lag in the conversation as everyone opened menus and considered what to order. When the waitress came by to get their drink order, Taylor pulled her aside for a moment and gave her two £20 notes. “One of these is yours and the other is for the bartender if you'll make sure the bride-to-be's drinks are stronger than usual.” When the waitress looked at her strangely, Taylor hasten to explain, “It may not look like it, but she is really nervous and we want to make sure she has a really good time.” The last was a bit of a lie, but it seemed to assuage any suspicions the waitress might have had about Taylor's motives.

The waitress smiled and said, “I think we can help with that.” as she took the two notes and headed off towards the bar to order their first round of drinks. By the time the food arrived Nicole and Sara, working in tandem, had managed to encourage Amanda into finish off two of the extra strong drinks and a third round was ordered to go with the food. By the time dinner was over and the show started, they were all pretty well lubricated.

The warm-up act was a local comedian who was very funny, but told a lot of off-colour jokes, not at all the sort of comedy that they would normally have gone to with Amanda along. But that was just to get everyone in the right frame of mind for the main act, who was introduced directly after. “Give a big Laugh Off welcome to our special guest, the mesmerizing Michael Masterson, master of hypnosis!” The man who walked out on the stage in response to cheers and applause was obviously well known to most of the audience. He was handsome, with a trim body that suggested that he kept himself active. His scruffy beard seemed, in an odd way, to accentuate his features, rather than detract from them. It was his eyes though that instantly drew the attention of the whole room.

 

[AndreaSubbie]

Amanda was laughing and joking along with her friends when the main act was announced, and she did a loud, "Ooooh!" clapping her hands and smiling at the other girls before looking back at the stage.

She didn't usually drink a lot, and those she'd had tonight had seemed so innocuous that Amanda thought she was just caught up in the party atmosphere. Of course it was no secret that they were a bridal hen night group. It seemed that Taylor had said something to someone, because the drinks kept coming with confetti on the trays, and at some point someone had tied to her chair a helium balloon with 'Bride' printed on it. There was even a pretty silver plastic 'Bride' tiara on the table that so far she had resisted wearing.

It was fun, and even the rather crude, suggestive comedian had actually seemed witty, although Amanda found herself frowning and blushing at more than a few of his lines.

The Limo had been Taylor's idea too. What an amazing friend she was. They'd known each other for ever, and Taylor had always been there when needed, especially for hugs. In the car Amanda had just had tonic water, which Nicole and Sara insisted on pouring while Taylor had Amanda looking out the window at passers-by who were staring at their posh car.

They'd picked her up from her flat, after she'd spent most of the afternoon getting ready. They would dress up and go somewhere posh for drinks, food and a show. Taylor had hinted that it would be a special night, a bit different from what she was used to, and certainly not the tasteless slutty pub crawl that some of her friends seemed to like so much.

All through school she'd stood against the trend of showing too much skin, or letting boys grope her, sometimes being quite harsh about other girls' behaviour. Her boyfriends hadn't lasted very long once they worked out that she wouldn't let them get anywhere physically. But that was ok, because she had her fantasies and romantic dreams. In the last few years her fantasies had become a lot more graphic with the help of the internet, where she devoured stories and pictures that might help prepare her for her wedding night.

It was just research. A bride wanted to make her husband adore her, and want only her, so she had to be good in the bedroom. And you don't get good at something without studying, do you? So she studied. A lot. Every day, mostly, and part of her studies included her fingers exercising down below.

So that afternoon Amanda had run herself a nice hot bath and soaked for a while before shaving her legs and under her arms, and trimming that dark bikini line. Every time she did that she let her fingers linger, grazing through the soft hairs and fluttering lower to tease the lips that were untouched by any other hand. Mmm, it always felt so good, and she closed her eyes and indulged in another of her fantasies, though being in the bath she was denied the pictures that usually informed the images parading through her head ... hunky men, well endowed, at attention just for her, adoring her, urging her to reveal herself more .. take off just one more layer, and another, and another ... until she was naked, and they were emptying themselves over her, anointing her with the fluid expression of their worship ...

The water between her legs was almost frothing with the speed of her hand as she reached the climax of her day-dream.

Sighing deeply, she rinsed herself and climbed out of the tub, drying herself in a luxurious soft towel.

Back in her bedroom, she put on her black undies, perhaps a little more exciting than her friends would expect of her, and admired herself in the mirror. What a shame no-one would see how pretty she looked, and she sighed wistfully.

After doing her hair and makeup, she slipped into her ever-so-proper cocktail dress and heels, and she was ready. It was only a few minutes before Taylor was at the door urging her to hurry down to the car ... the car which turned out to be a limmo!

And the Restaurant or [url="http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/GeGryTW3bzSLkNyZkv1YgA/l.jpg]theatre[/url], or whatever it was, had impressed her the moment she saw it.

So here they were, ready for the next part of their fantastic night out. Amanda was quite excited, wondering what the act was about. Wondering if some poor soul from the audience was going to be made a fool of. They usually picked girls in tiny dresses when it was on tv, and there were plenty of those in tonight. Well, it would serve them right for dressing so slutty; and Amanda caught herself anticipating enjoying their embarrassed humiliation as she watched the man in question stride onto the stage.

And then she looked into his eyes ...

 

[MasterOfUrMind]

Michael walked out onto the stage and started his show as he'd done hundreds of times before. The first part of the act was designed to help determine which audience members were most likely to respond to his style of stage hypnotism. The beginning of the show was fairly pedestrian, illustrating to the audience what could be done with hypnosis, making people forget things such as numbers or letters of the alphabet, altering their perceptions to believe they were becoming more and more drunk, or implanting suggestions such as squawking like a chicken whenever he snapped his fingers.

"How many fingers do you have?" he asked one of the first volunteers after awakening her from her trance.

“Ten.” said the rather cute blond, without hesitation.

“Excellent, now I want you to count from one to ten and hold out each finger as you count them.”

The blond started to count extending one finger for each number, “One, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!” At the end, she was only holding out nine fingers, because he had commanded her to forget the number four.

“Hmmm... you seem to have a finger left over, maybe you should try again more slowly.” Michael replied with a grin.

The look of confusion on the woman's face was priceless! But she took the suggestion and tried again. “One... two... three... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten.” She still had only nine fingers extended. She only got more confused and this time she tried again without prompting. When her third try was no better than the first, she seemed distressed for just a moment and then her face lit up. “I guess I have eleven fingers.” She was so happy to have figured it out, and for a moment she looked just like a stereotypical “dumb blond”. The audience roared with laughter and even Michael had to chuckle. In a show like his, some things couldn't be scripted, and there were good nights and occasionally some bad ones. If this one was a sign of what was coming, tonight might be one of the good ones. He put her back into trance and removed his previous command, then woke her and dismissed her back to her seat as he called up the next volunteer.

Most people don't really understand hypnosis. It was claimed by “reputable” hypnotists that you couldn't force someone to do something with hypnosis that they wouldn't normally do, but that was only a partial truth that hypnotherapists told their clients to calm any fears they might have about being hypnotized. The truth was more complex. The subconscious mind controlled a person's frame of reference and instincts. Between the conscious and subconscious mind existed the Critical Factor, a gatekeeper which passes judgement on thoughts entering the subconscious. In simple terms, the Critical Factor weeded out those thoughts, ideas and potential courses of action that were contrary to a person's view of the world. If, for instance, you knew in that all Tories are idiots, while your conscious mind might entertain evidence to the contrary, your Critical Factor would prevent that evidence from reaching the subconscious because it doesn't fit your worldview therefore, your worldview would not change, despite the evidence. Likewise, if you believe it wrong to be naked in public, or have sex with anyone other than your husband or wife, your Critical Factor reject these as potential actions.

However, in a trance state, the Critical Factor was bypassed and the subconscious could be made to accept new ideas or beliefs directly. For example, a person could be told that they were alone. Now when awoken from the trance their subconscious would work against them, because it believed the suggestion given in trance and the subject's Critical Factor would ignore any input that indicated to the contrary. So now it could be suggested for them to do things that they would only normally do when they were alone. It was also possible to implant post-hypnotic commands, commands that would be obeyed even after the trance state was ended. More interestingly, these commands could be linked to specific triggers, words or other sounds often worked best, but visual and touch queues could be used us well. Even taste and smell triggers could be used, but they were not usually useful in stage hypnosis.

All his initial hypnotic inductions during the first part of the show were done into the microphone. In this way he gradually put the more susceptible members of the audience into a light trance. He used a lot of sensory language in his inductions, telling the subjects how good it felt to be so relaxed and just listen to the sound of his voice, and how they were wrapped in a warm cocoon where they were perfectly safe to listen and accept his commands. By the time the first part of his act was over, those in the audience that would make up his second set of volunteers were well and truly primed. If Michael was lucky, he would get one or two that would not even have considered volunteering when they first walked in tonight. “So, who wants to come... and submit to the pleasures of hypnosis?”

 

[AndreaSubbie]

Amanda was in a bit of a daze. She was perfectly aware of where she was, what she was doing, why she was there, but she felt drawn to the hypnotist in a funny sort of way.

Of course, there was no way that she would ever go up on stage, and certainly not volunteer, not with everyone watching.

Like the rest of the audience she had laughed at the poor girl who couldn’t count to ten, enjoying seeing her make a fool of herself, and had looked at the other girls in her group, sharing that laugh with them.

The more the act progressed, though, the more she seemed to identify with the volunteers. It had occurred to her that they might be planted by the Hypnotist and not real strangers to him at all; but now she wasn’t so sure.

Partway through the first half one of the girls in her group had placed the silver plastic ‘Bride’ tiara on Amanda’s head, and it sparkled brightly every time the spotlights swept the audience, making her conspicuous among the otherwise anonymous throng.

Maybe it was because of the tiara, maybe it was the look of total absorption on her face, maybe it was the way all the other girls in her group were looking at her when he asked for a volunteer, but one of the spotlights sweeping the floor hesitated as it passed over their table, and then focused on her.

Amanda was in the spotlight.