Chapter 24

Mary was right, she was a lot better Tuesday morning! Good thing I had to go to work, or she would have worn me down. I packed a small overnight bag, a shirt and an extra set of underwear. It was a wonder that I was only five minutes late at the office.

Henny checked Alice's work in preparation of my trip, and declared everything perfect. When Alice left the room for a short moment, Henny smiled at me. "Well, did you have a nice evening, yesterday?"

"Well, fair, I'd say. Did you have to wear her out completely?"

"I wore her out? I seem to remember that she wore me out!"

"All right, all right, so you two wore each other out. I have no complaints about this morning, though."

Alice returned, which stopped our conversation. Around ten I took off for the airport and left the office in two very competent pair of hands. The flight was as uneventful as most flights, and at three I was calling for a taxi outside the airport in Milano. The traffic was very heavy, and the ride lasted almost three quarters of an hour. The driver stopped in front of a typical Italian, medium sized factory. On the outside it looked very run down, as if it had not seen paint since world war two, but as soon as you got inside the building, it was very nice, everything quite modern and well maintained. At the reception a pretty woman in her thirties came to meet me.

"Hello, you must be Mr. Hansen."

"Yes, that's me."

"I'm Vera Ougd. Welcome. Our sales manager is waiting for you in his office. I'm supposed to be there too, to act as a translator." I immediately labelled her as a likely 'target'. Very pretty, very Mediterranean, with a lovely smile.

The negotiations were pretty easy. He showed me a couple of the valves in question and told their story. They had been ordered by a French company, which stopped payments two weeks ago, and would most likely be declared broke. The specifications were up to our standards, but he started out demanding 1 euro per valve. (A little over 1 dollar). I could have them produced in Sweden at that price.

There was a bit of bickering about price, quantity and quality, but suddenly dad was in my head. "His absolute low will be 52 cents. Lower than that he'll lose money."

I noticed that he had an espresso machine in his office.

"Mr. Capello. I see you have an espresso machine. I think we should benefit from a little break and a nice cup of coffee."

Vera interrupted. "Of course. Sorry I was so impolite. I'll make us some coffee right away." While the machine was humming Mr. Capello pointed out the view towards Milano centre from his windows, and I transferred an image of himself in a relaxed state plus the figure 52, into his mind. When Vera called us to the small table in the office, for our coffee, I 'ordered' her to take care of me after the negotiations were over, and that she should accept my invitation to have dinner with me.

When we started again, we quickly settled on a price of 54 cents, which was way below ordinary value. An excellent deal for me, and he still had a little skin on his nose.

We shook hands, and I turned to Vera. "Ms. Ougd. I've never been to Milano. I should be most honoured, if you would join me for dinner. I hope you know a few really good restaurants."

"But, thank you, Mr. Hansen. Yes, I know a few. What kind of food would you like? Italian, French, Middle East?"

"I'd prefer high end Italian. Of course, if you prefer anything else, we'll have that."

"No, no. I love Italian food, too. Wait a second, I'll make a phone call to make sure we shall have a table."

She returned from the phone and said: "Sure, a table for two at 8:30"

"That's fine. I shall even have time to go and see the cathedral."

"Sure. I'll drop you off at the cathedral. It's right on my way home. I'll have to change out of these office clothes, and then we can meet at a café around 6:30. Would that be OK?"

"Splendid."

The drive into Milan was a little bit too exciting. The traffic was heavy, and Vera's style was very Italian, i.e. fast, reckless and dangerous. Before she dropped me off, she pointed out a café on a corner, and said: "I'll be there at 6:30." I just managed to transfer my wish of sexy underwear, and then she was gone.

Fortunately my hotel was just around the corner. There was plenty of time for me to check in, make sure the bar was open till midnight, return to the piazza and visit the cathedral. It was every bit as impressive, beautiful, and awe-inspiring as I had expected from the pictures, and then some. Shortly before 6:30 I sat down at one of the tables in front of the bar. Compared to Copenhagen it was a warm, lovely spring evening. At 6:35 I saw her coming, and for a short moment I regretted my promise to dad. She looked awesome! A red dress clinging to her voluptuous body, hips swaying as she walked towards me.

"Hi," she said as I got up from my chair to welcome her. "I guessed you'd like to sit outside for a while, so I brought my coat."

Over the next hour and a half we had a lot of fun. She was a bright, educated person, and her sense of humour was very well developed. While we consumed a couple of glasses of white wine and a cup of espresso, we covered a lot of subjects, and I planted the first couple of images in her mind. At eight o'clock the evening was getting cooler, so we got up and started towards the restaurant, she had chosen. It turned out to be a lovely room, and about as different from your typical tourist-Italian-restaurant as could be. High oak panelling, almost black from age, comfortable chairs, and not one Chianti bottle or picture of peasant girls.

I left it to Vera to chose the menu and place the order with the waiter. Meanwhile I took a very direct approach at mind control, considering there was no time to let the more subtle hints do the trick. I ordered her to follow me back to the hotel for a drink in the bar, and that she should become very horny while we had a nightcap. Last I ordered her to follow me, when I invited her to my room. The rest I left to dad. While we waited for the food, Vera made a small trip to the bathroom. I called dad.

"Hi, son. What a gorgeous woman."

"Sure, I'm kind of regretting my promise. Have you followed me?"

"Yes, all afternoon."

"Do you know what I've ordered her to do, when we have finished dinner?"

"Yes, I got that, too."

"Are you sure you can find your way back to the hotel?"

"Yes, no problem."

"Do you want to take over now? Then you can also have the food."

"That would be lovely. I'm not as good at English as you are, but she's not, either, and I don't think she'll notice."

"OK. When she returns I'll go to the bathroom, and we can change. You must promise, though, that you are on the alert, if I suddenly panic and want to return. It is a long time, you know."

"Sure, I'll very much pay attention, son."

When Vera returned I went to the bathroom. In the stall I brought out the crystal ball. Slowly I transformed it into the proper, soft bubble and placed it in the image of myself that I had formed. As I imagined how I left my body through my backside, I felt dad take over from the front. When we had finished the process and I was floating in the corner of the stall, we had used only two minutes. I followed him when he returned to the table and picked up on the conversation. For a short while I 'sat down' in a free chair beside them, to follow their conversation. It seemed that Vera had not noticed a thing.