Chapter 23: Public Places

Mindy sat in the restaurant feeling nervous and excited. The more she had thought about what would transpire this evening, the more her body responded. So much of this week had been consumed with her feelings for Sandy, and her feeling that she had ruined their friendship, that her memories of last Friday night were tinged with sadness and despair.

But they were also filled with passion and lust, and now that Mindy was about to encounter Mistress Catherine again, these were the feelings that were coming to the fore.

She had put on her best cocktail dress and arrived promptly at 7:30. The hostess had seated her at Mistress Catherine's table, and now she had only to wait for her Mistress to arrive. She was seated in a booth in the back of the restaurant. The booth seat in which Mindy now sat ran against the wall long enough to seat two comfortably, then it curved away from the wall, allowing for another person to sit at a right angle to the other two.

The other side of the table was open, and could accommodate a few chairs, but right now there were no chairs to be found. As Mindy sat waiting for Mistress Catherine, she realized that this lack of chairs meant that they would be seated in the booth together – sitting fairly close together. She also noticed that there were three place settings. Who would be joining them? Would it Eve? Would it be someone she had never met? Or would it maybe be Sandy? This thought caused Mindy's nipples to grow hard, and she suddenly became very frightened that other people in the dimly lit restaurant could see them poking through her dress, even though she had a bra covering them underneath the thin outer fabric. She also began to rub her thighs together without even realizing she was doing it, but this didn't worry her as much since the table cloth reached all the way to the floor, thus hiding her actions from the other patrons.

Mindy was doing her best to keep an eye on the door so that she could see when Mistress Catherine arrived, but it was proving difficult as a partition that separated the front door from the dining room was blocking her vision. She could just make out the top of the door and the occasional head of a tall man or woman who entered.

Each time she saw the door open, her heart went into her throat – would it be Mistress Catherine? Was tonight's experience about to begin?

Mindy really had no idea what to expect. She couldn't possibly be hypnotized in such a public place, nor could she get lost in the lust that had consumed her the previous week. Still, she assumed that Mistress Catherine had something in store beyond idle dinner chatter, and this mystery evoked a lust of its own.

Mindy could feel the wetness in her sex as these thoughts continually aroused her body.

Suddenly, her eyes were drawn once again to the door as it opened. This time, though, her heart did more than just go into her throat, for she could see that the person who entered was a tall woman with dark hair – it was Mistress Catherine.

With her heart pounding in her chest, Mindy stared at the door, noting that Mistress Catherine was waiting as the valet continued to hold the door for someone else – someone that Mindy couldn't see due to the partition.

A few moments later, Mistress Catherine came around the partition, following the hostess who was walking towards the table where Mindy sat. Mindy's heart was already pounding, but the anticipation over who was with Mistress Catherine was almost more than she could bear.

Moments after Mistress Catherine had come into full view, her companion entered Mindy's sight as well. All of her hopes and fears coalesced into one heart stopping moment as Mindy saw that it was Sandy, looking absolutely gorgeous in an elegant black cocktail dress and a simple black choker. Sandy followed slowly behind Mistress Catherine as the tall woman made her way towards the table.

The hostess arrived first, and turned to Mistress Catherine.

"Will this do, Dr. Chambers?"

"Yes, Samantha, this will do nicely."

With that, Mistress Catherine turned and took Sandy's hand, helping her into the booth before she sat down herself. Sandy was now sitting between Mindy and Mistress Catherine, causing Mindy to practically swoon with both excitement and dread.

"Your waiter will be with you in a moment," the waiter informed them before leaving the table.

Mindy barely heard these words, though, as the blood rushing in her ears seemed to block out all other sounds. Not sure what to say or do, Mindy simply stared down at the place-setting in front of her. After so many days of wondering what would happen with Sandy, her friend was now sitting right next to her. One way or another, Mindy assumed, she would find out what Sandy thought about their sexual encounter the other night.

But Sandy didn't seem to be saying anything to Mindy – she wasn't even acknowledging Mindy's presence. With a feeling of imposing doom, Mindy built up her courage and turned to look at her friend. That was when the realization struck her: Sandy was hypnotized! There was no mistaking those glassy eyes; the vacant look; the sluggish movements. Sandy was clearly in a deep trance.

And just as it had on Friday night, that look on Sandy's beautiful face went straight to Mindy's sex. In fact, this was having an even greater impact on her than it had before because she was witnessing the depth of Sandy's trance so closely. She had watched Sandy succumb to hypnosis the first time from a reasonable distance, and, later that evening, had seen her in the throes of hypnotic passion, but now she felt her whole body respond as she realized that she was mere inches away from Sandy while Sandy was simply lost in a deep state of hypnosis.

Mindy continued to stare at her entranced friend as Mistress Catherine finally broke the silence at the table.

"I assume you've realized Sandy's state."

"Yes," Mindy answered, "she's hypnotized, right?"

"Oh, yes. Very deeply."

Mindy finally tore her eyes away from Sandy's blank face to glance around the restaurant.

"And you are able to have her hypnotized in here, with all these people? What if they find out?"

Mistress Catherine gave out a short laugh.

"First, I doubt the other guests are paying that close attention to what is going on in a dark booth in the back of the restaurant. And besides, how would they know? You didn't know that she was hypnotized when you saw her enter, did you?"

"Well, no, but..." Mindy trailed off, not sure what to say.

"If anyone was watching her closely – which is entirely possible, she is quite striking after all – they might think she looks a little zoned out, a bit spacey. But hypnosis is probably the last thing on their minds. And besides, even if they did realize that she was hypnotized, what would they do? What would be so bad about that?"

"I don't know. I just..." Once again, Mindy was at a loss for words.

"Are you afraid that I'll hypnotize you?"

"Could you ... in here?"

"You, like Sandy, are a very good subject. Either one of you could be hypnotized almost anywhere. Would it frighten you to be hypnotized here?"

"Yes ... no ... well, I ... it just seems like something that ... I don't know..." Mindy's whole being was in complete turmoil. Her body was responding to Mistress Catherine's words – her heart was pounding, her nipples were now clearly jutting out through the fabric of her dress, and she was starting to worry that her sex was leaking outside of her panties. At the same time, though, her mind was racing – she had been so certain that meeting Mistress Catherine in this restaurant would mean that she wouldn't be hypnotized – at least not unless they went somewhere else. And that would give her a chance to say no. But now, she didn't know what to think.

"You can relax, Mindy," Mistress assured her. "I have no intentions of using hypnosis to embarrass you in this public place. I called you here because I suspected that you were torn about what happened last Friday night, and I wanted to speak with you about it."

Mindy felt her nerves settle just a bit. At that moment a waiter arrived. He first lit a small votive candle in the middle of the table, then began to take their drink order. Mindy insisted that she just wanted water – she certainly was too frightened to drink alcohol around Mistress Catherine. Mistress, too, just ordered water. Mindy then braced herself as she was sure that Sandy would be unable to answer and would create an awkward situation with the waiter. But when it was Sandy's turn, she turned to the waiter and, with a smile, said "Just water for me as well please."

The waiter left the table and Mindy was astonished to see the brightness and energy that Sandy had just demonstrated simply vanish. Her eyes became glassy again, and her stare became vacant, the soft candle light seeming to make her look even more helpless than before.

"You like seeing her like this, don't you?" Mistress asked.

"Y-yes. I ... how did she answer like that?"

"Well, I knew that we'd be coming here, so I programmed her to be able to speak to the waiter in a reasonable way."

"That's just ... so ... my god." Words continued to escape Mindy's mind.

"A quiet restaurant like this is really quite easy. I have brought many hypnotized women to far more complicated situations than this one."

"But, with all these people around ... and she's just..." Mindy continued to struggle to wrap her mind around the idea of being so helplessly entranced in such a public place. She also struggled to keep her body under control – her arousal was increasing rapidly and she didn't want to make a spectacle of herself.

"So tell me," Mistress Catherine continued, "how does it feel to be so close to Sandy again?"

"It's ... it's great. Can she hear us?"

"In a sense. But she will have no conscious memories of what you say unless I instruct her to. She's quite deep, so I can decide how much of any of this she remembers."

"Well, I ... my god, she just looks so ... gone!"

"And you like that, don't you?"

Mindy couldn't deny it. "Yes. She's just so beautiful like this. So helpless."

"Tell me, Mindy, did you enjoy feeling that helpless on Friday?"