Chapter 1: Introduction

It started out innocently enough.

Dad had left us about three years ago and Mom had her hands full dealing with me. Mom's younger sister, Aunt Tammy, moved in with us with the excuse of helping to defray the cost of the house payments. I believe the real reason she moved in with us was to help Mom keep her sanity.

She was one of the only benefits to Dad leaving. Aunt Tammy was a hot ticket. She had lived with us once before, when I was a little kid and before she had gotten married. Her marriage didn't last long though she did not seem to mind. She had many boyfriends but none steady. She liked being foot loose.

Even though Dad's alimony paid for most of our bills, Mom decided to go back to work. I think she couldn't handle the quiet times at the house. She called the law office she used to work at when she had first met Dad. The owner remembered her fondly and back to work she went.

That left only one loose end, me. With summer coming she needed to find something to keep me occupied. What about more school? One of her coworkers told her how a lot of community colleges offered courses to the public in the summer. She had had her kid enrolled in about four courses. It sounded good to Mom; I wish she had asked me.

At least she let me pick the courses. Believe me, they weren't any Math, History, or English courses. I had enough of the standard courses in regular school.

Over the next few summers I took several computer and photography courses as well as a few shop classes. The classes did come in handy. I had taken apart and upgraded our home computer, shot photos for Grandma Jennings's 50th birthday party, and managed to fix the dent in the car that had resulted from one of my Driver's Ed experiences. From a liability for Mom, I became quite handy.

I also took a few psychology classes, just enough to be dangerous. The psych classes did help me understand some of my own anger and rejection from the divorce as well as Mom's depression.

The divorce had been hard on Mom. She is a beautiful lady but, after the divorce, she started letting her looks go. She gained a good 50 pounds and dressed like an old frumpy woman. Her weight only seemed to add to her depression.

One of my psychology classes got into hypnosis. What teenage boy wouldn't want to learn more about hypnosis? I was sure one. I ate it all up and did some research on my own. Getting someone to let me practice on was my only drawback.

So when Mom grumbled to me about her weight problem, I thought I had a way to help both of us out. I'd get to practice on her, and then there would be a world of women open to me. She would get to lose some weight if everything went right.

"Mom..." I started hesitantly. "One of my psych classes had a section on using hypnosis to break deep-seated habits. They had some fairly good results." I hoped I wasn't blushing with guilt.

"I am not sure I am comfortable with that?" Mom replied. "What if you make me increase your allowance or something?" she joked.

"You can't make people do things they would object to. If it makes you more relaxed about it, have Aunt Tammy sit in," I offered looking across the table at my aunt.

"Come on Sofia, loosen up," chimed in Tammy. "You need to relax a little."

"OK," Mom caved in to the both of us.

Friday, that week, we began the hypnosis sessions. Tammy had brought out three glasses of wine to help with the relaxation.

"Tammy," Mom frowned, realizing she had brought one glass out for me.

"Loosen up, Sis," she told Mom. "It's not like we are getting him sloshed. You need to loosen the rains on Jeffrey or you will drive him away."

Bad choice of words. Mom was still feeling like she had driven Dad away and it scared her to think she might lose me.

"Let's relax a little first," I encouraged. "We can talk about old times."

The ladies reminisced about watching me grow up. They managed to filter Dad out of all the stories, concentrating on times the three of us had shared.

At one point, with laughter in her eyes, Tammy asked, "Remember Jumping Jeffrey and his two sidekicks Super Sofia and Terrific Tammy?"

I had forgotten all about that. Mom and Aunt Tammy used to play super heroes with me when I was a little boy. Mom had even made us costumes.

It seemed to help Mom reminisce, that and the second glass of wine. I stopped her with half a glass left.

"It is good to relax, but I still need you to be able to concentrate," I explained. "Now take a few deep breaths. As you let air out slowly, think of it as if all your tension is leaving with it."

I used a shiny pendant I borrowed from Aunt Tammy and had her watch it as I did a classic induction. I had her focus on the pendant, telling her to relax and that her eyelids were getting heavy. Then I counted backward from 50, 'eyelids are getting heavier'. Finally, with a snap of my fingers, she was under.

Then I proceeded to deepen the trance. "You are at the tenth floor approaching an elevator. You enter the elevator and push the down button. At each floor, you will release tensions and fears, become more relaxed and go deeper and deeper into the trance. You will realize you have reached the next floor when I make the sound 'ding'. The door will open and the fear or tension named will exit. You will say the floor you are on. By speaking the floor number, you acknowledge and agree to what has been said. You approach the 9th floor, any remaining tension leaves. Ding."

"Nine," I heard two voices speak. Startled, I glanced over at Aunt Tammy. Her eyes were closed and a peaceful look was on her face. I had forgotten she was even in there. She must have gone under with Mom. I debated on awakening her, but decide to let it go for now.

"You proceed to the 8th floor, all your worries and cares of the day leave. Ding."

"Eight," replied first Tammy and then Mom.

"Still, you go deeper. You approach the 7th floor; all your financial concerns leave. You are more and more relaxed, hearing only my voice. Concentrate on my voice. Ding."

"Seven," spoke Aunt Tammy and then Mom. Their voices became softer with each floor.

"You are nearing the 6th floor. All concerns about your future leave. All concerns of other people's future leaves. Now you can hear my voice but it is as if it is your own thoughts. Listen and obey. It feels so good to be able to cast aside your cares and worries. The deeper you go the better it feels. Your fears of hypnosis get out. As the door opens, fear leaves. Ding."

"Six."

"Down you go leaving behind all your old baggage. All your doubts and disbeliefs form up as baggage before you. As the elevator prepares to stop, you approach the door. As the door opens, push baggage of doubt out the door. Now, push the baggage of disbelief out the door. Ding."

"Five."

"The elevator slows as it approaches the 4th floor. All your past hurts and past failures must leave. The door opens and hurt steps out. Ding."

"Four." A peaceful look came over Mom's face. Both women seemed to have lost five years.

"You are approaching the 3rd floor, your willpower to resist leaves. You are open to the commands you hear. There is no more resistance, as the door opens your will leaves. Ding."

"Three," came out as barely as whisper.

"Deeper and deeper you go. The deeper you get, the less you can resist. All your preconceived ideas and judgment approach the door. All your ideas of right and wrong approach the door. As the door opens, judgment leaves, preconceived ideas leave and your ideas of right and wrong leave. Ding."

"Two."

"Your muscles relax, yet you remain seated. You can picture a guard next to you. He is the guard of your subconscious. As you elevator stops and the doors open, the guard exits. Ding."

"One."

"However, the elevator keeps going. Without the guard, we enter your subconscious, the deepest part of your mind, and still we descend. Deeper and deeper we go. Finally, we feel it slow down and halt, as it can go no deeper. As the door opens, we step into your subconscious on floor Zero and you completely surrender. Ding."

"Zero," I see Mom's mouth move even if I don't hear a sound.

"When you hear Jeffrey say 'Count Down to Zero', you will begin a slow count to ten, repeating this same journey to reach floor Zero. Each time you find the elevator, it makes it deeper as you surrender your will."

That was a lot farther than I thought I could have gone. I needed to be careful. I wasn't sure I could make them forget. So far I could have explained it all away as my need to set a foundation for Mom to believe and lose weight.

"You love the feeling of being here. It is so comfortable and relaxing. It feels so secure. You want to come back here periodically, like once a week. It is better than alcohol. It is better than sex. It is so refreshing."

"If during one of these sessions, I tell you something or something happens that your conscious is not comfortable with, you will not remember it upon awakening. Sometimes, I may need to tell your subconscious something that your conscious self should not know. If I use the trigger 'black ops' while you are under your subconscious will remember it but your conscious won't, unless I tell you otherwise. The phrase 'white ops' will bring you to a state you will remember upon awakening. No matter how much you remember or do not remember, your time under hypnosis will always be relaxing and refreshing."

"Black ops," I tried out her trigger. "This week, you will wear something purple every day. White Ops," I ended the test. This would give me something to check on but, if she remembered, it would be a harmless item.

Having succeeded in hypnotizing her, I started giving Mom instructions for losing weight.

My first instruction was to have her envision eating spinach, something she detested. Whenever she ate sweets, she would envision eating spinach. This worked for about a week. Then, she started learning to love eating spinach. At least it was good for her.

Every day that week except Wednesday, Mom wore something obviously purple. On Wednesday, I was confused because she wasn't wearing purple.

"Are you sure you want to go to work dressed like that," I had asked her.

"Of course I do," she answered with a quizzical look on her face. "Is there something wrong with this outfit?"

"Nothing is wrong with it Mom. I just thought you might want a scarf." I thought this would give her a chance to add something purple.

"Not with this blouse. But thank you for looking out for me," she half-joked.

I thought the suggestion had worn off until the next day. I was throwing my dirty clothes in the laundry when I noticed some purple lace. Digging through the hamper, I found some purple lace panties and bra.

Of course, I realized, I never said it had to be visible.

An unexpected bonus was that Aunt Tammy also wore something purple that week. After that, I made sure to be specific on who I was giving the commands to.

My next trial at helping Mom lose weight was to have her watch an episode on liposuction. Then, I had her imagining she was eating the fat sucked out from other people's bodies when she ate sweets. This worked; only it worked to good. She lost her appetite completely. This was a scary time as it took a week of hypnosis to get her to start eating again. She didn't let me hypnotize her for a whole month after that.

But she was growing hooked on hypnosis. Both she and Aunt Tammy loved how it felt. Since Tammy did not realize she was being hypnotized, she only knew that she felt good when Mom did. I think she was the one to convince Mom to allow me to hypnotize her again. After getting assurance from me that I wouldn't try that method again, she let me put her under again.

I upped the hypnosis sessions to once a day for the next week, getting her to trust me and forget the mistake I had made. While I rebuilt her trust, I learned a little more about Mom and Tammy. I thought if I could find some way to help her overcome her depression it might be easier for her to lose weight.

It was clear that, when Dad left, she got depressed and gained all that weight. Now that she was getting over Dad, she was depressed because of her weight. This depressed her more and she gained even more weight. She did not want to find another man until after I moved out of the house, but she did want to feel attractive.

On top of this depression was her recent fear that she would lose me like she lost Dad. She agreed with Aunt Tammy that she needed to loosen up, but she did not know how. She envied her sister's ability to wear more brazen clothes even as she criticized her for it.

Meanwhile, Tammy was envious of her sister having a son. She wished she had a child she could have a relationship with.

Before I started working on Mom's weight again, I decided to do a little research on the subject.

Mom was an auburn red-haired, green-eyed, 5'-9" woman with what I would call a medium frame. If I had gone by her large chest, "DD" I found out under hypnosis, I would have called her large frame but she assured me her doctor had said she had a medium frame. By the charts I found, a healthy weight for that frame and height is around 139 to 153lb. I actually don't think women look good as skin and bones, so I thought a weight of 148lb would be good for Mom. I calculated that she should be eating around 1940 calories. One site recommended decreasing this by 500 calories until you reach your correct weight.

Chapter 2 »