Chapter 4: Back to School

For the rest of our Spring Break, Brenda and I met at the mall with our bikes and from there would go riding to various locations around town. Often we'd meet up with friends and hang out, for a bit. Other times, we'd find some place we could be together on our own and get into some really heavy petting and making out. Our friends, when we hung out with them, did razz us a bit about how close we suddenly were, but not badly. We never did go all the way over break, but we weren't in a rush. The pleasure we were giving each other was plenty enough!

The first day back to school was, in many ways the same as always, with one big exception. Brenda made a point of walking between classes with me when possible and holding my hand. You could get away with holding hands, but not hugging and kissing in school. That was fine by me. In school I wanted to be focused on learning, not on girls. Even Brenda, as much as she excited me.

At lunch, we sat together. Now, that may seem redundant, considering we often sat together at lunch with all our other friends, but it wasn't. We sat together, joined at the hip; we were making an "official" declaration of our being together as boyfriend and girlfriend. I learned later that Brenda got quite the grilling from many of the other girls. They were all wondering why the sudden change in her attitude towards me. I also learned that she had beaten about three others in getting to me and working to be my girlfriend. Wow, I was a wanted man! Who'd of thunk it? These were the girl friends that liked me and trusted me but had made it clear they didn't see me as boyfriend material earlier this year. What a change. Speaking of changes...

I took it to heart when it was made clear to me, by Brenda, that I was doing something right with my hypnosis program for self improvement. With that in mind I started looking into other ways to improve myself. I started to researching things like body language, speech patterns, blinking, eye contact, and anything else that came up as I searched for things that people queued off of when it came to those around them, those they trusted, and so much more.

Did you know that how often you blink affects how people view your level of honesty? Watch politicians when they are giving speeches. They train to not blink often, especially in front of cameras. It's that important. How you sit, stand, and walk affect how people view you. For example, and this has nothing to do with physical height, if you walk around slump shouldered and head bowed, you come across as a target, weak, an easy mark. If you walk with your shoulders back, head high, and as if your head is attached to a string holding it up, you come across as confident, strong, sure of yourself. That's actually one of those things that leaders have a tendency to do. Real leaders, not people who want to simply lead for power purposes.

Then there is eye contact. You don't want to stare at someone; especially in their eyes. It becomes creepy. Instead, you want to maintain a comfortable amount of eye contact. This is maintained by looking the person in the eye when you're making an important point, but then breaking that contact to look somewhere else for a moment. It needs to be natural, or seam natural, but it makes a difference. Also, not looking someone in the eyes, and actually avoiding them gives off the impression that you're either not interested, you're afraid, or weak. I can go on and on about these things, but those are some of the things I've learned in my research.

The purpose of this research was to create a new hypnosis file to listen to for self improvement. This one ended up being an hour long and I included background sounds of a trickling stream, singing bowls, and a soft didgeridoo. The hypnotic suggestions focused on my posture, blink rate, flow of speech, and eye contact. There were some other things, but those were the primary ones. I figured it would take weeks if not months for it to have a noticeable affect on me. I was wrong. It took less than one week before Brenda told me she saw me changing before her eyes.

"James, I don't know what you're doing, exactly, but you're changing again. It's nothing bad, but it's very noticeable. Have you seen how people get out of your way when you walk? They just part like the Red Sea around you and then close in behind you. You're not all that tall, but you walk like you own the place; a giant strolling the halls. It's almost like there's power rolling off you when you walk. And, when you're talking to any of us, your friends, you just pull us in! We become mesmerized by you. We seem to hang on your words; we just know you're going to tell us something that's going to be really important to us. Is this more of your hypnosis?"

"I hadn't really noticed," I told her as I walked with her to our bikes after school. We were going to go to her house to "study" before I headed home. We do actually study and get our homework done before we fool around. "But, yes. I did some research and made a new audio file I listen to nightly. It has to do with posture, speech, eye contact, blinking and a few other things. I figured it would take much longer for it to be noticeable."

"Oh, it's being noticed. All the girls notice it and I've been having to remind them that you're mine. The guys say they see it, too. Upperclassmen have noticed it and whispers about you have been going around. Nothing bad, but you've definitely gotten attention from every corner of the school."

"Well, it doesn't seem like a bad thing."

"It's not. But, I thought I'd tell you."

"Thanks, Geliebten," I said to her as I pulled her close and kissed her. We got a few cat calls over that, but no teachers were around to take notice and that was a good thing.

We retrieved our bikes and rode to her house, just a mile away. Once inside, we broke out our books and she did her homework, and I did mine. Yes, I started doing my homework. I'd decided I needed to get better grades, even if it meant homework. This got me to thinking. I decided to do a file for making homework less of a chore and more of a responsibility that needed to be attended to, daily. That got me to thinking about making them for exercise, eating right, and love of learning. After we'd finished our homework I brought the subject up with her about it and she told me that it sounded like a good idea and that many friends might be interested, as well as others. I would have loved to have been able to sell them, but I didn't want to get into legal troubles, so had to do research in that area. That research lead me to offering them to friends for donations, and each file was accompanied by a note (they were on CDs) stating that they were "For entertainment purposes only. Use at own risk."

We made out but didn't get too far gone. We did dry fuck, with her on top of me, and had a really good time. I knew I'd have to beat off when I got home to relieve the pressure and I was sure she'd go get herself off before bed. We just couldn't press our luck and do anything more. We did not want to lose the ability to spend time together at her house.

Our school days were much the same, day in and day out. Classes, lunch, homework, making out. All of our friends got copies of my CDs. They all gave me anywhere from five to ten dollars for them, after Brenda spread the word. Only a couple of them tried them at first, but the changes in their study habits and such was noticeable enough within two weeks that all my friends soon wanted them. Each CD had all those files on them, so no one had to say why they wanted them, just that they wanted the CD. I got over $100 for my CDs and put it aside for later use.

I never did give anyone a copy of the files I used for myself. No one asked, either. I'm not sure if that was good or bad. I could make more money off of those, I was sure. I was also sure that I needed to be sure that what I created couldn't be abused. I didn't care if they were shared; it was the idea of possible abuse that gave me concern. I thought it over and realized that what I'd created wasn't able to be abused. It was all positively worded, promoted good habits and positive attitudes. I had nothing to worry about on that front. Unfortunately, it was on another front that things came to a head. Bullies will always exist. Why they targeted me suddenly I didn't know.

It was two weeks before the end of the school year. I was walking through the hall when a couple of jocks blocked my way and wouldn't let me pass. I was reasonable, but wouldn't back down and that ended up with them shoving me around. I'm not a big guy at 67 inches tall; I'm not scrawny either. I bike, hike, kayak, rock climb, and even went to the CYA for boxing. I would never be into any of those sports as a professional, but they helped me with strength, speed, endurance, and self defense. My mother had told me, last Summer, that I was a lot like my father in many ways that she saw. It was in the way I stood up for what I believed was right, or for others, when they were being picked on or wronged. It was visible in the way I'd lean against the wall or door. She told me that she hoped it would not include his rage. He never touched her in a bad way, but she'd seen him get into it with some big burly guys a few times. My father always walked away; that's as much as my mother told me about that.

So, here I was, trying to just get on with my day and these two idiots, who were barely able to stay on the Football team because of their grades, came along looking to start something with me. Brandon was six foot and one inch tall; he was a Junior and played Tackle, while Jerome was five foot nine and a half inches tall and played outside LB (Linebacker). These were some big boys. They did not just stand taller than I did, but outweighed me by close to 200 lbs combined. I would have probably just have let them have their fun, pushing me around, until the bell and let it go with that. Sadly, Brenda showed up and said something to them about leaving me alone. That is when things escalated.