Chapter 15: Ain't Life a Bitch?

Version: $Revision: 1492 $ $Date: 2007-12-06 22:12:59 -0500 (Thu, 06 Dec 2007) $

(Jim)

On Tuesday evening, when I came home from work, I found Shirley sitting on the floor next to the recliner. Her knees were in front of her, and she was naked, as usual when she was in the house.

Actually, the word naked wasn't completely true. On her neck was a studded leather dog collar.

"What's this?" I asked, amused.

"Remember that movie, Bondage Bitches?"

I thought for a moment. "The one last weekend?"

"Yes. I was trying to think what it's like to be one."

I laughed at the joke. "I think walking around on your knees all the time will get tiring. Think about rug burns."

Shirley gave a sigh at my attempt at humor. "I was kind of embarrassed going into the pet store to buy this, you know. It was as if the guy behind the counter knew that I bought it for me."

"Why would you purchase that collar, anyway?"

"I was thinking about the movie. I was wondering what it would be like to be a slave..." Shirley paused, and then added, "Your slave."

I shook my head in horror. "What?"

"You could hypnotize me to do things... like the restaurant trick you did on Friday... but this time, for real. Make me a real slave."

Horrified didn't begin to describe my reaction. "Fuck... NO!"

I think the vehemence in my voice surprised Shirley. With a tiny voice, she asked, "What's wrong, Jim?"

"What's wrong? Everything is wrong! You're my girl friend. I don't want a fucking slave!"

Shirley didn't answer. Instead, I saw tears in her eyes.

I led Shirley to the sofa and we sat down. As we did so, the tears started to fall down her face.

It was definitely time for a heart to heart talk.

"Shirley? I need to tell you something, and it's very important. Can I talk to you right now?"

Shirley sniffed, but didn't wipe her eyes. "What?"

My body tensed. I wasn't really prepared to say what I was about to say to Shirley. Some part of me knew that I'd have to have this talk eventually, but I guess I had just been putting it off.

There is no time like the present, though. I didn't want Shirley to go off the deep end, and it looked like she was already on the diving board.

I took a few deep breaths to settle myself down and to get my thoughts together.

"Shirley, do you know why I like you?"

Shirley was about to answer, but then her forehead crinkled. There was a long pause, and she finally said in that tiny, unsure voice of hers, "No."

"Do you remember that day in the break room during the snow storm? It was just the two of us. We were co-workers. We knew each other, but never really spoke together until that day."

Next to me, Shirley nodded.

"I knew a little bit about you before we started talking. I know the type of person you tried to be at work, all business and demanding. You seemed to have a distrust of men. Despite that, I thought you were cute, but your attitude always said, 'Stay Away!' and I did up until that day."

Shirley looked at me, and after a few moments, she said, "I remember."

"I've always known you to be smart, and I always trusted your instincts on stuff at work. I admired your ability to find a consensus when working with a bunch of people. It's what I try to do, I think. Anyway, when we were talking that day, I noticed something about you that I never saw before. I saw that you were cute, but you also had doubts about yourself. In addition, I saw that you were lonely."

Wendy gave me a look. "I was lonely?"

I put my finger to Shirley's lips. "Let me finish. When you came over, I noticed you were a bit less apprehensive than you normally were at the office. You joked a bit, and I saw that there was something special about you."

Shirley nodded, waiting for me to continue.

"Let me make a confession right now. I crossed over a line I shouldn't with you. While you were under, I asked a few questions to get your real feelings about hypnosis, and the questions moved on to me getting your real feelings about me. I betrayed your trust, but I wanted to know what I could do with you. My sole interest at the time was helping you with your goal to lose weight."

"You didn't betray--"

"Let me finish, please?" I waited until Shirley nodded before continuing. "I discovered that you thought I was a nice guy, but I wasn't your type. I figured that I could live with that, since I was only interested in trying to help you. I wasn't looking for a steady girlfriend... not at that time, anyway."

Shirley was quiet, but I noticed that her tears had dried up.

"I also put in a back door... if anything I did were to make you angry at me, before you did anything rash, you'd say 'That does it!' and would return immediately into a trance."

"I don't remember that."

"You never said it," I explained. "Apparently, you didn't have any real problems with my instructions. In fact, I've never turned off that order, and you've never once entered that 'fail-safe' mode. I got worried when Wendy and I took you to that supermarket."

"I was angry... but I was also sorry for what I said to you. Wendy was angry with me, which surprised me..."

"That's water under the bridge," I assured Shirley, interrupting her. "Anyway, I pushed you a little. For your exercise sessions, I made you get naked, and the exercises that I chose were mostly to expose you a bit... make you embarrassed."

Shirley sighed. "Well, I was embarrassed."

I smiled. "I know. But you took it. What that said to me was that you were serious about losing weight, and you were willing to put up with the hypnotic commands. I admired that in you."

"So, what are you trying to say?"

"I need to finish this, Shirley. As I said, I admired your determination, and when you realized that there was going to be some embarrassment, instead of getting resentful, you seemed even more determined to go through with this. You had a great sense of humor about it, and I think that's what endeared you to me. You were smart, you knew what you wanted, you were determined to get it, and you had a sense of humor. I've never seen such a combination in a woman, and you intrigued me."

"I don't intrigue you anymore?" Shirley asked.

"Don't misunderstand me!" I said, trying to reassure my girl friend. "You still intrigue me. I'm just telling you what was going through my mind. I still feel a bit guilty about teasing you like I did. Anyway, we started to get closer--and it happened very quickly."

"I remember."

I smiled. "I realized that you felt that you were getting closer to me, too. That's when I asked myself where I intended this relationship would go."

Shirley tensed, waiting again for me to lower the boom.

"Shirley, have you ever known me to do something unless I was pretty sure what I was doing?"

"Huh?" Shirley asked, confused. "Um, no."

"Well, I was never sure about hypnotizing you in the first place, but aside from that, I usually try to think things through. There was one part of me that didn't want a relationship with you because you were a coworker--if we ever broke up, it could result in an unpleasant office environment. I once had to make a big decision on something like that a couple of years ago, and I didn't like doing it. Anyway, I didn't want an office relationship. However, there was another part of me that always wanted to have a real girl friend. You were close to the ideal for me--more so than any other person I've ever met."

I paused, sensing that Shirley wanted to say something, but she just looked at me, waiting.

Finally, I said, "I made my decision, and I decided to go for it. It took me some time, and it took some prompting from Wendy as well as you, but I finally made my decision. And, although I have thought about my decision a couple of times since, I know it was the right one."

Shirley was waiting, but couldn't help but say, "And... ?"

"Until you mentioned that you wanted me to hypnotize you to be a slave, I thought we were heading in the right direction."

Shirley was startled. "What do you mean?"

"If I hypnotize you to be my slave, then we are no longer equals. That makes you much less attractive to me. I don't want a slave, I want an equal. I want my smart, witty, and sexy Shirley. Not a stupid, mindless, sex slave! I know you have issues, but..."

"Issues?" Shirley asked. Her eyes narrowed.

Shit! I didn't mean for that to come out.

I sighed and met Shirley's steely glance. I decided to continue. "Yes. You have issues. So do I, and so does everybody else. You're not exceptional in that. Me, I have difficulty getting close to people, and before I do, I need to intellectualize it. It's difficult to try to intellectualize love, but I still find myself trying, and that must be frustrating to you. You have your own issues, and I wasn't trying to point them out to you, but just wanted to mention that I realize that you do have them. What I meant to say after that was that if the idea of acting like a slave turns you on, that's not a problem. If you want to BE a slave, that's very different, and that's where I need to draw the line."

Shirley's look softened, but she was still a bit suspicious. "O-KAY..." she said, drawing out the expression.

"If I hypnotize you to become a slave, I am afraid that you really will become one. More than anything else, I would really hate for that to happen!"

I waited. I finally said my piece.

There was a few minutes of silence. Shirley had a lot to think about, I know. The fact that she thought before saying something indicated a lot to me.

Finally, with a sigh, Shirley said, "I think I see what you're trying to say. You love me as an equal, but if I wanted to be treated like a slave, then we aren't equals."

Nodding, I said, "Uh, huh."

"Role playing is different, though. Like Friday morning. That sort of thing."

I continued to nod, figuring that Shirley was starting to understand on her own.

"I see."

Shirley continued to sit there in silence, thinking about what I told her.

"Let me think on this a bit."

I gave Shirley a weak smile. "All right."

Shirley made a Mexican lasagna for dinner that night, and due to our long talk, it needed to be reheated for a few moments before we could eat it. She made it with fried tortillas as the pasta, with taco meat, chilies, and other Mexican seasonings with lots of cheese and rice.

The meal was terrific, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Shirley finally found some diet sodas that I actually liked. Tonight, she surprised me with Coke Zero, which tasted surprisingly like the non-diet version.

"That soda is great!" I said.

"It was on sale. I tried it earlier, but I think I like the Diet Coke version better. I think it's because I've been drinking it for so long."

"Well, you won't have any trouble getting me to drink diet soda if it tastes like that."

After dinner, I took the plates and rinsed them off before putting them in the dishwasher. I let the oven pan soak in the sink for a while to loosen the food.

As I was doing my chores, Shirley came up to me from behind and hugged me. I could feel her boobs pressing into my back.

"Jim, I think I realize what you said before. You actually told me a lot. I'm sorry if I offended you."

I turned to my wonderful girl friend. "You didn't offend me, but you did have me worried. I've been feeling guilty since this weekend about all the hypnotizing that I've been doing, and I have been thinking a lot about what I've done with you... and Wendy."

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"I know hypnosis, but I'm not a licensed therapist. Despite what I think about the quack you saw for hypnotherapy, at least he had a license. I don't, and I shouldn't have done it with you girls. I'm a fucking amateur and here I am, playing with your minds! I've been taking advantage of you."

"No you haven't!" Shirley said quite forcefully.

"Yes I have," I said, contradicting her. "I used hypnosis to try to help you despite the fact that I have no training whatsoever in hypnotherapy. I could have done something wrong... I could have done some real damage!"

"You could also have driven into a tree. You can't worry about what might have been!"

"I'm worried about what could still happen! What if that 'slave' thinking you were doing was some result of what I did?"

Shirley shook her head. "It wasn't!"

"How do you know?"

Shirley shook her head. "I know. Jim, please be assured, I fucking know exactly what I'm saying here. I know when I'm doing something you told me to do, and when I bought that collar today, there was no memory of your voice asking me to do so."

"But..."

"But nothing, Jim. I saw that movie and got the idea from that. That's all it was, plain and simple."

Shirley looked serious. After a moment, I said, "If you say so."

"No, Jim," Shirley said. There was fire in her eyes. "I want you to know this. I saw that movie and got the idea. You didn't tell me to do anything of the sort. You didn't even seem to like the movie. It was me, and just me."

I paused for a long moment and looked in the eyes of my girl friend. For a moment, I thought of saying Shirley's trigger phrase to find out the truth, but I knew I didn't dare do that--probably not anymore. I was already feeling guilty about the hypnosis, and I would not do it any more unless she specifically asked me to do so, and then she would have to be a willing part of it.

Finally, I said, "You're right, Shirley. It was your idea, but I have to admit, this scares me a bit."

(Shirley)

Jim's reaction to the dog collar was not one that I expected. Instead of some playful ordering around, he got nervous that he might have inadvertently made me do that. He explained his thoughts and motivations from the time we met in the break room, and he revealed a lot of things that I didn't realize up until then.