Chapter 2: The Gentleman Blackmailer

CASE FILES - PERSONAL NOTES - PATIENT 104 - DAY 7

HERRINGWICK

I am with Mindy Rockland, and this is our second session. You are deeply hypnotized, isn’t that so, Mindy?

MINDY

Yes, doctor.

HERRINGWICK

Tell me what you remember about our first session, please.

MINDY

During our first session, Donny and I came to you for marriage counseling. You split us up, and Donny went with your nurse, while I came in here with you. I think that Donny didn’t mind that at all. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her breasts. He likes big breasts. All men do. Well ... almost all men. One man seems to like mine. But ... I’m getting ahead of myself. You wanted to know about our first session. I came in here with you. You showed me a bunch of spinning designs on your computer. I kept picking the ones I liked best, but I fell asleep. I slept for the whole counseling period. And ... that happened to me this time, too. Donny didn’t come with me today ... I came to you alone. But you showed me my pattern, and I fell asleep.

HERRINGWICK

How does that make you feel?

MINDY

I feel wonderful. I am open and honest and submissive and obedient, just like I’ve always wanted to be.

HERRINGWICK

Coming to see me that first time was your idea. Tell me again, please. What is the problem between you and Donny?

MINDY

It wasn’t really my idea to see you ... it was Harry’s. He’s right, though. There IS something wrong. Donny can’t possibly give me what I need, but I’ve never been able to tell him that. I don’t think I could ever explain it so that he’d understand. I need a man that will take charge of me ... that will make me do the things that ... men need. But Donny isn’t that guy. When I got pregnant, Donny only wanted to marry me because he thought it was the right thing to do, you know? And then, when I miscarried, he only wanted to marry me because he STILL thought it was the right thing to do. He’s been a really great guy ... but he’s never been the guy I needed. He’s weak, and I need somebody who’s strong. I know I could never change him. And I don’t want to change Donny. He deserves to be the guy he’s always been. So many girls would love a man like him. Just not me.

HERRINGWICK

Thank you for explaining that. Now, I want you to tell me about Harry Chumbley. Tell me about how you met him, what you thought of him, and how your thoughts about him have changed. Tell me what he’s done to you, and how you feel about it. Tell me everything, please.

MINDY

I met Harry about two months ago. We’re in an apartment complex off of Chalkstone Avenue, and he lives in a big house south of us. I was cutting across the park, and he came up to me and started talking. He seemed sort of pushy, but he started telling me to do things right off the bat, you know? He’d say: “Stop walking so fast. Sit down here, and let’s talk for awhile.” And I did. I don’t know why. No, that’s not true ... I do know why. It’s because that ... deep down inside ... I like doing what a man tells me to. I think it took him awhile to figure that out ... but he did. He started telling me to do things ... look at a picture on his phone; read something from an article he was interested in; that sort of thing. And then, he told me to give him my address and number. Once, I got up to leave, and he told me to sit back down. He made it an order. And, of course, I did. The whole thing made me sort of hot. I finally started kind of begging him to let me go ... and after he’d gotten my number, he told me to meet him there the next day. He said that if I didn’t, he’d start calling me at home.

The next day, he started asking about Donny. I never even thought of lying to him. I told him the truth ... not really volunteering anything, but not keeping anything back if he asked. He told me to meet him the next day, too, but I had an appointment, and I told him so. He seemed reluctant, but he agreed to let our next meeting slide for another day. I think he was trying to show me that he could be kind, as well as demanding. On our third meeting, after we’d talked for awhile, he told me to give him my phone, and he copied down all of my contacts. He said that he wanted to meet me there, in the park, on Sunday ... but I told him that Donny was off that day, and I couldn’t get away. He said that he’d call Donny and discuss it himself, and he started dialing his work number from my phone. I panicked, and told him okay ... that I’d think of some excuse and meet him, and he stopped the call. And so ... I started lying to Donny for the first time.

After a week of meeting him in the park, he started insisting that we walk. He’d take me to restaurants for lunch. When it rained one day, he told me to get closer to him to keep dry under his umbrella, and I held his arm. He said he liked that, and he began insisting that I do it whenever we walked anywhere, whether it was raining or not. We met four times that week, but it was on different days from the previous week’s encounters. I protested twice. Once, he started to call Donny, and I stopped him. Once, he almost called my mother’s number. I never refused him after that. Once, while we were walking ... I guess it was during the third week ... he pulled me close to him, stuck his hand out in front of us, and took a “selfie” picture with his phone. His arm was around my waist, and our heads were touching. I didn’t even realize what he’d done until it was over. That afternoon, he texted it to me. The picture makes us look like lovers. Thank God Donny was still at work. The text ordered me not to delete it. I still have it on my phone.

He started asking me more and more about myself ... and about the ... way I am. I can’t describe it. It was like a secret I’d kept all my life ... and suddenly, there was somebody to tell it to. No ... that’s not accurate; there was somebody I HAD to tell it to. In the restaurant, I moved closer to him, so nobody would hear; and I’m sure if anybody looked at us, they thought we were ... um ... intimate. I talked and talked, my voice low and my face close to his. I told him about when I was as a young teenager ... about how I couldn’t wait for Mom to go out and leave me alone in the house ... about how I would think of ways to tie myself up, just so I could feel what it was like to be helpless. I told him about how I’d fantasize that I was at the mercy of an intruder. I told him about how I had ordered a set of handcuffs through the internet, and how I was so nervous until they’d arrived that I threw up once ... about how I’d relive the feelings in my bed at night and masturbate. I told him about the close calls I had sometimes ... hearing mom drive up to the house, and how I would frantically get myself free from my self-induced bondage before she could catch me. He kissed me after that lunch ... after he’d ordered me to meet him the next time or he’d send the selfie to my mom ... after I’d agreed. And I knew then. I knew that he was going to force me to cheat on my husband.

From the very beginning, I knew that I wasn’t happy with Donny. Poor Donny. He knew, too; but he never really knew why. He kept telling me that we’d get better ... that we’d develop the kind of love that we wanted to feel for each other ... that we just needed to have patience. I don’t know why Tuesdays became the night Donny and I always made love. It just did, somehow. He needed sex, of course, and more than just once a week. So did I, really. Everyone needs to feel that release ... that intimacy. And I never refused him, but we still only did it on Tuesdays, because ... well ... he never insisted that we do it more often. And ... I think that he enjoyed it. I mean, he always came inside me. I almost came once. I mean, I got sort of excited about it once. Actually, I started imagining what it would be like if it was Harry between my legs, pumping away like that; and I started feeling myself letting go, and it began feeling good. But ... he came inside me before it got too far, and the moment was over. I’ve never cum with Donny.

Two weeks ago, Harry and I were walking down Academy Avenue. I was holding his arm, the way he likes me to, and I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were, but as we passed an Army Surplus store, he stopped and looked in a window. He pointed to a pair of police handcuffs, and he took a one hundred dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to and told me to go in and buy it. I started to protest, but he turned away from me, telling me to meet him in the café next door. So ... I did. The man behind the counter sneered at me; and then, while he was ringing up my purchase, he asked me who they were meant for. I stammered, and couldn’t answer, until he asked pointedly if they were intended for me. He gave me my change, but he wouldn’t give me the bag containing my purchase until I answered ... so I just blushed furiously and nodded. I mean, Harry hadn’t actually told me that he intended to use them on me, but what else could he have had in mind?

When I got next door, he had already ordered hot tea and a salad for me. That was happening more and more often, by the way ... him ordering for me without asking, I mean. Anyway, I gave the package to him ... and the change that had been left over from the hundred dollars. He asked me to describe my feelings when I’d made the purchase, and I told him about the man behind the counter. For the thousandth time, I told myself that I shouldn’t be doing this ... I shouldn’t tell him, or talk to him or be with him at all. Why why why had I started seeing him? Why was I letting this happen to me? But ... of course, I did just what he’d asked. I told him how embarrassed I’d been ... how embarrassed I was telling him these things ... and I just ate my lunch and drank my tea, like this was perfectly normal. I even leaned toward him intimately, so no one else would hear my most personal feelings.

When we were done, we continued our walk, and I was puzzled when he turned and walked me down an alley between two stores. When we got to the end of it, it branched, left and right, and we strolled down a litter-strewn alley between store backs. He stopped, and I didn’t even think of protesting as he dug the handcuffs out of the bag and snapped one end on my right wrist. Slowly, he positioned both of my arms behind me, and he snapped the other cuff on my left wrist, then he turned me in the direction we had been walking, and he led me that way, as if nothing had particularly changed. I stumbled once, and he had to grab me, one of his hands going to my breasts to steady me. It was the first time he had ever touched my breasts, and it made me shiver uncontrollably for a moment; but he acted as if nothing had happened, and we went on.

He stopped next to a trash can. Sitting on a boxful of reeking garbage next to the can was a mirror that had been shattered, and he positioned me facing it. He stood behind me and put his arms around my body, so that my arms were trapped between us, the palms of my hands pressing into his crotch, and I could feel his aroused hardness. He was undoing the buttons to my blouse, one at a time, starting with the second one from the top, which was the uppermost one that was fastened. I tried to hold very still, afraid that if I moved my hands at all, he would think that I was playing with his cock. Soon, all the buttons were undone, and he pulled the shirttail up from my skirt and pulled the blouse off of my shoulders as he stepped back away from me, sliding it down until it became tangled at my wrists. Then, to my mortification, he unlatched my bra and pulled the straps outward and down, as well, so that it was caught at my waist. I watched the mirror, my image scattered wildly a dozen times in the broken surface, while he let go of me and took his phone out of his pocket, tapping at the screen a few times. I whimpered just once as he stood beside me, his arm around my waist, drawing me close to him; and I heard the camera function of the phone click once, twice; and he shifted me to the side, so that the reflected image danced wildly as the phone clicked again ... and again and again.

And then ... he put the phone back in his pocket and started straightening out my clothes again. “Your nipples are extremely erect,” he told me.

“Yes,” I mumbled idiotically, and said no more. Why hadn’t he touched them, if he liked them so much? He had never caressed my bare arms or my sides or my shoulders, and he seemed slightly awkward as he undid my skirt’s waistband so that he could tuck my now-buttoned blouse back in. He held me at arm’s length and examined me critically, before turning me forward again and resuming our walk, clutching my arm tenderly but firmly so that I wouldn’t lose my balance again. I tried to remember the feel of his hand on my waist as he stood beside me while taking those pictures.

He paused one last time before we exited the alleyway near the sidewalk, and he turned me away from him so that he could use the little key for the handcuffs. Then, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, he took out his phone and stood beside me while we both looked at the pictures. He flipped back and forth between the dozen digital images before settling on the one he deemed most appropriate for his purposes, and he texted me a copy. In the photo, there seemed to be a dozen women, exactly like me, their arms bound behind their backs, standing submissively next to their captors, whose arms snaked around naked bodies, reiterating over and over and over exactly who was in charge and who was not. There were bare breasts everywhere ... breasts identical to mine ... ready to be touched ... to be stroked and pinched and sucked ... the nipples hard and stiff and yearning.

“We will meet again in the park on Tuesday. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I replied meekly.

“You will not wear a bra. Or panties. We will go to my house, and we will have sex. If you do not do exactly what I tell you, I will send this picture to your husband and your mother.”

“Please don’t.”

“As long as you comply with my orders, you have nothing to worry about. I promise to delete all of the pictures I just took, just as long as you do as I say.”

“I will.”

“Of course, you will. Also, on Monday, you have a marriage counseling session with a Doctor Herringwick. Here’s the address. Let your husband know tonight when you see him. Answer the doctor’s questions honestly. Hold nothing back.”

I was absolutely flabbergasted, but I took the card he handed me. “Everything? What if he asks about us? What if he... ?”

Harry grasped me by the shoulders. “You will do as I have ordered. I don’t care if you don’t understand ... just so long as you obey me. Do I make myself understood?”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered. It was the first time I had ever called him that. I don’t know why I said it. It just seemed natural.

“And now,” he continued, “I am going to kiss you. You will put your arms around my neck. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

And ... he did. And I did. And for three days after that, I felt his kiss on my lips. I felt it while I was here, that first session. But ... instead of asking me about other men, you told me to watch your spinning patterns, and I fell asleep for the whole session. And so, we never had the chance to talk about him ... or if we did, I can’t remember it.

And then ... it was Tuesday. Harry hadn’t told me what to wear ... he had only told me what NOT to wear. I chose a slinky black dress that hit just about level with my knees. The texture was designed to resemble satin, and it mostly hid my stiff nipples underneath, though I was dismayed to find that it did little to hide the fact that I was braless just from the way I bounced when I walked. I didn’t realize that, however, until it was time to go meet him, and I knew I didn’t have time to change. He didn’t like me to take my purse with me when I met him, and I hid my apartment key under a planter that held an artificial bush at the end of the hallway next to our door. On the way to the park, I caught sight of my reflection in the darkened window of a storefront. Sure enough, you could see my breasts jiggle with every step I took, and I almost tripped as I tried to alter my gait to make it less noticeable. Finally, I hugged myself with my arms below my chest, and I continued to march that way toward my rendezvous with fate.