Chapter 2

“Way up there in the bad part of Cow Town,
Somebody done treated you real mean.
I’m here to take care of you, you wouldn’t be scared
If you’d seen half the things that I’ve seen.”
-Cornell Hurd Band, “I Don’t Care What It Is That You Did When You Lived In Ft. Worth”

“I’m very sorry about that, Susan,” Troy said as he refilled my coffee cup and took his seat at the table. “I promise you I’m not angry and you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just that we need to go somewhere and talk before anything else can happen.”

I HAD jumped a little when he did that, and maybe for half a second, I was Sue again, now I was just wishing he’d make it up to Susan right here on the table. But if it was that important to him, I could wait. “Ok. Go somewhere?” I asked as I sipped my coffee. It wasn’t anything fancy, something out of a can with hazelnut creamer. The kind of coffee my parents would’ve had when they were alive; more about the comfort than where it came from and how it was picked.

Troy nodded and sipped as well. “There’s a reason we both wanted you to stay after Claire left. It’s nothing against anyone. I sensed something special about you from the beginning, Susan, and I was right. It’s something we need to talk about, and depending on how that talk goes, everyone should benefit, however, this isn’t the right place. We need to have this talk somewhere else.”

Well, in less than 24 hours, he’d made me see how strong Susan could be and given me the fuck of my life over and over, it only made sense to keep going along with things. We finished the coffee and got ready to go. Troy wore the same clothes he had on yesterday so I wouldn’t feel like I was “walk of shaming” my way out, and we got in his car and left. I had the same thought I’d had on the way here of touching myself and giving Troy and anyone else who might be looking a show. I kept the thought down, though. Wherever we were going was clearly important to him. Susan could keep control, no matter how boring it sounded.

We arrived at a big park, too late for the serious jogging crowd, but one of the old men playing boccie nudged his friend as I got out of the car. Troy bought us ice cream from a vendor’s wagon, then found us a bench by the duck pond. I sat next to him, wishing I’d worn a much shorter skirt so I could give passersby a glimpse of my panties, or take them off and give them something to tell their friends later. DAMN, why were so many people looking so sexy today? It was like I’d just noticed them now. Then I remembered that on the rare occasions that Chad brought me someplace public, he usually had his arm around my waist and I was looking down most of the time. Showing any interest in another person would have gotten Sue hit when we got home, so it was best to avoid looking at anyone.

Troy took a deep breath. I’d seen him embarrassed a couple of times now, but now it seemed he was concerned about something. I realized now that it was the same look he gave me back in the computer lab when he’d heard how my phone got shut off. I put thoughts of setting my purse over his lap and giving him a hand job aside and gave him my full attention.

“Ok, Susan. You know Julie and I have been friends forever. We share a lot of interests. Not all of them, but one that we both developed early on was an interest in hypnosis and mind control. It became a mutual obsession, you might say. For years, we’ve called each other Master and Mistress the way other people might say Darling or Sweetie. And so we researched it together until we found a way to do it.”

I gave my ice cream a lick as Susan took this in. I remembered seeing movies where people got hypnotized, and I could see where they’d be interested in that. Seeing it through the Sex-Colored Glasses that I seemed to be seeing everything in now, I could understand. Being compelled to be someone’s mindless sex slave ... it was like bondage, but more intimate. Binding someone’s body was easy, Chad did it to me; sometimes whether I wanted him to or not. Having my mind or soul bound, helpless to resist or even want to resist, though ... that sounded hot. It sounded like ... how I felt last night after Troy won the game...

“Two children with that kind of power,” he continued. “Well, I’m often grateful that we never really hurt anyone. We’ve only met one other person who could do what we can do. But I’ll tell you about her another time. My point is that when you’ve been inside a lot of people’s heads like Julie and I have, you start to notice things about people when you meet them. Tics, habits, speech patterns, little signs most people wouldn’t pick up. And when we met, I saw enough to tell me that you weren’t a very happy person.”

“Well, you and Julie and Claire sure changed that last night,” I replied, and gave the ice cream a long, slow lick as I looked him in the eye. “Susan had fun. And she wants to keep having fun.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’d both hoped for, and however things go, I hope you’ll keep that. God, that sounded like a break-up speech. I’m not trying to do that at all. Like Julie said, you’re welcome any time. She sensed the same thing I did, and we discussed it while you and Claire were in the shower this morning.

“You see, Susan, we’ve had friends who’ve been in situations like yours before; someone at home making their lives difficult. I’m going to go out on a limb here: Chad is your first boyfriend, right?”

“Well, he WAS Sue’s,” I said, patting his thigh. “Susan’s getting out of there as soon as I can!”

“Ah, see, that’s one of those signs I’ve been talking about. You’ve been talking about yourself in the third person. You’ve probably been thinking about yourself that way too, haven’t you?”