Chapter 4

NOVEMBER 21st, 2011

I consider myself to have a scientific mind. I don't know if that's something a person is born with, or whether he or she endeavors to acquire it as life goes on. At any rate, I tend to look with suspicion upon urban legends, old wives tales, and general suppositions; and when someone starts a conversation on socioeconomics with the statement: "Well, it's a known fact that... ," I can't help but physically cringe.

And so, keeping that little predilection in mind, let me try to dispel some of the common conceptions about identical twins. Yes, they tend to be emotionally close, but then, so do other siblings who are generally near in age. And yes, they sometimes form little bonds ... unique mini-languages, for example ... but then, so do other intimate childhood friends. It's not that our mother (may she rest in peace) didn't try. She gave us rhyming names and dressed us in identical cutesy little outfits. But from very early on, it became pretty evident that Tod and I were identical in appearances only. He loved crowds and I loathed them to the point of nervous illness. He was extroverted, I introverted. He was the jock, I the nerd. In high school, we'd even started having outward differences, for while the PE requirements had kept me in physical shape, Tod had gained twenty pounds on me ... all of it pure muscle. He was in baseball, football and, at least for a couple years, basketball. He finally goaded me into trying out for the track team, but the only thing I actually placed in was the two-mile, and that only when the other teams couldn't come up with the required number of participants and all I had to do was finish.

I did, of course, join most of the academic clubs, while Tod never even considered them. But, as friends, we tended to feed off of each other's attributes. I got him past critical exams on lots of occasions. I mean, he may have been a jock, but he was a remarkably intelligent one, and there didn't seem to be a subject made that he couldn't get at least a "C" in through an all-night cram-session and the right tutor (i.e., me). On the flip-side, he often got me dates ... almost always with some discarded love interest. I was more than satisfied to settle for his cast-offs, which was clearly much more than I was capable of attracting on my own. I never actually got to go "all the way" with these girls, but it gained me a LITTLE experience with the opposite sex in high school, anyway.

We went our own ways to college, me with a scholarship to Berkley, then on to grad work at the UCLA Nuclear Engineering School, while Tod got a baseball scholarship to USC. He won two MVP's while there, and was picked up right out of college by the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Dodger's AAA farm team. That first season, he caught a cleat in a slide, resulting in a horrific collision at second base and a fractured right knee that had no chance of ever healing sufficiently to allow him to play again. We make quite a pair, huh? A ball player who can't play ball and a nuclear scientist who can't get near anything radioactive.

That fateful evening, not quite a month after my having "enslaved" Elaine, found him sitting in that same living room on that same couch with an Amstel Light in his hand and shaking his head in disbelief, while I nursed my beer and sat across from him in the overstuffed chair.

"Bro," he urged, holding up his hand and silencing me, "you're jumping all over the spectrum here! Slow down! I appreciate you trying to hand me a little slice of nirvana, but you're not making a whole lot of sense! Let's start at the beginning. What are these "tests" that you've flunked?"

I leaned back and took another swig of beer before explaining. "They're called 'Tumor Marker Tests, ' and there are several types of them. They're blood tests. One was a PSA, the standard test for prostate problems ... and it can be high for a lot of reasons, not just cancer. The other is called an AFP ... I'm not going to get into technical names for these ... and it tests for liver cancer and a couple other things. It doesn't mean anything dire at this point. They'll retest again in a month, since both are notorious for false positives. And we're still a long way from determining anything, anyway ... there would be biopsies, scans and other tests first."

"But you think maybe the bone marrow transplants didn't work?" he asked, concerned. He had a right to be. He'd gone to a lot of time, pain and effort to do that for me.

"Quite the opposite," I said. "We know that they DID work. All the Total Blood Count tests show that they did. But that's just for my immune system. Healthy blood doesn't necessarily prevent cancers."

"Well, why are you so hot to trot with this little sex scheme of yours now?" he asked. "Seems to me like you've got a long way before you have to go to this extreme. You can do it yourself."

"That's the problem. I can't. My sperm count is in the toilet. It's only about two thousand."

"Two thousand WHAT?" he asked.

"Two thousand sperm per milliliter."

"Two THOUSAND?" he asked incredulously. "Dude, all it takes is ONE!"

I barked a laugh and shook my head. "You sound like Elaine. She's made that her battle cry." I tried to explain it to him in simple terms. "Tod, the sperm count of a sexually healthy thirty-year-old male can be as high as two hundred MILLION. It's considered abnormally low if it's under twenty million." I leaned forward for emphasis. "Look, suppose there's a cruise ship sitting off the coast of Santa Catalina Island. Now, suppose you take a speedboat and launch it from Long Beach, but you leave without a compass and in pea-soup fog that lasts for the whole twenty-six miles. What do you think your chances are of hitting it? Realistically, they're not actually zero ... but they're just about as close as you can get to it. If you launch two boats, you've doubled your chances, but..."

"But two times zero is still zero," he muttered, nodding.

"The average ejaculate is three to five milliliters," I went on. "There's a REASON that there are a quarter billion of those little buggers wriggling around in there. If both participants are healthy and TRYING to get pregnant, it takes them three months, on average, to achieve their goal. My chances are one fifty-thousandth of that. That comes to roughly twenty-five hundred years."

"I am NOT going to go in for this for the next three months!" he groused. "No way!"

I laughed. "Just leave it to the old scientist, my friend. There are ways to dramatically improve the odds. In fact, if you follow my suggestions, there's a really good chance we'll only have to do it once."

He sighed. "Okay, let's shift gears. You've turned your pretty little Elaine into some hypnotic sex slave zombie, according to what you've just told me. Why the hell don't you just force her into insemination?"

"She's still Elaine," I insisted emphatically. "She hasn't really changed ... I've just given her the chance to do what she really wants to do. And what she WANTS to do is be sexually submissive. So ... now, she is. But you still can't make a hypnotic subject do something she doesn't want to do. And she simply refuses to believe what I've just told you. She still continues to cling to that 'It only takes one' ideology. I can't convince her, even under the deepest trance, to go in for the procedure. She wants to wait."

"So why don't you? It doesn't sound like things are imminent at this point. Have a little fun with her and wait until things get dire?"

I sighed. "I'm feeling mortal, Tod. Elaine wants something very much ... something that I can't give her, even though she clings to the idea that I can. Now, my cancer tests are starting to go sour ... and I want to have the chance to get to know the little munchkin myself."

Such talk was making him irritable. "Well, if you can't convince her to inseminate, what makes you think she's going to go for THIS?" he bellowed.

"Trust me, she'll do it. Insemination is medical ... it isn't really sexual. This is. Through hypnosis, I can convince her to do ANYTHING sexual."

He sighed and looked down at his now-empty beer bottle. "Bro," he said sadly, "I've never told you this before, but I've sort of got a thing for Elaine. I mean, I've never tried anything, so help me God! But ... but ... Dude, I think you're just about the luckiest guy in the world to have scored a girl like her."

"More's the better," I said, nodding. I rose as I heard Elaine's key in the front door. I thought of one other thing. "Say, you're not ... um ... involved with anyone, are you?"

He was frowning, and for a moment, I thought he hadn't heard me. "What?" he asked absently. Then: "Uh ... no. No, there's no one right now."

I nodded and turned as Elaine came into the room. "Hi, Lover!" she squealed, and ran toward me, throwing her arms around my neck. Then she suddenly stopped and backed away from me. "Oh! Tod! I didn't know you were coming over tonight! How are you? You're looking great!" Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were full of disappointment. I knew the reason, but I'd neglected to tell Tod THAT little detail. She went to him, and they engaged in a little hug-and-mutual-kiss-on-the-cheek that was their standard greeting.

"Tod came over for a couple beers," I told her. "We were just about to have another. Would you like something?"

"Um ... no. No, thank you." The disappointment turned into something more. She was hurt, as if I'd forgotten some important romantic event ... which, in her mind, was exactly the case.

"Pet," I told her gently, "please don't be sad. I was just about to show Tod what we do. I want to show him."

"Um ... do?" she asked uncertainly.

I pulled the little green velvet bag from my pocket and drew the mouth of it open. She gasped when she saw it, then issued a frantic "Rod!" while she took a half step back away from me. She cast a nervous glance toward my brother, who had retreated backwards himself and lower his bulk onto the couch again, watching us uncertainly. "Rod," she continued in a high-pitched whisper, "Tod is here!"

"Well ... obviously," I told her, smiling. "Just as I said. We're going to show Tod what we do." Slowly, slowly, I started lifting the thin chain, holding its end between thumb and forefinger.

She moved no further away from me, but remained frozen to the spot, staring intently with a mixture of dread and fascination as the chain grew longer. "Rod," she urged, still in a voice that was barely audible, "this is ... private ... intimate ... I ... Oh, Rod, I don't understand. What are you going to do to me?"

"What does the gem ALWAYS do to you, Pet?" I asked.

The chain had finally, finally reached its end and the hourglass shaped, multi-faceted little object came into view. She gasped loudly, but her hands, which had been raised in front of her in an uncertain gesture, slowly fell to her sides and her shoulders slumped slightly though perceptively. "It makes me sleep," she said, her voice low, but no longer a whisper. "It takes my thoughts away and makes me sleep." She never looked at Tod. Her eyes were locked on the fake crystal.

"Very good," I said mildly. "And now, tell Tod WHY it does that."

"It does that because I ... I like it ... because I want it to."

"Excellent." I advanced toward her, lifting the thing as I did so, and now the trinket was positioned (as I knew from experience) at the ideal level; just above the horizontal plane of her vision, so that her eyes would rapidly grow tired and heavy. They immediately fluttered, but remained captured by thing. "And now tell Tod what you want me to do next."

She hesitated. "I ... I want you to take away my thoughts and make me sleep. But..."

"But what, Pet?"

"But, Tod is here. I get ... I mean, I feel ... um ... sexy when I do this," she answered, blushing. Her eyes blinked slowly. She was beginning to drowse, her thoughts becoming more dreamlike.

"You mean you feel horny?" I asked her.

She blushed even more. "Um ... yes."

"Very well, Pet. We've talked enough. It's time. Just let the crystal spin ... and watch it. That's it ... very good. What is the crystal doing to you?"

"It's taking away my thoughts," she droned. She was starting to slur her words.

"Just let them go, Pet. And now, let yourself become sleepy." Her eyes closed and struggled to open again, while her head nodded forward, wobbly. "You're doing exceptionally well. I'll count to three, and then I'll let you sleep." I paused for only a moment. "One, Two, Three," I said firmly, authoritatively. At the same time, I lowered the gem and stepped into her, capturing her in my spare arm. Even after a month of this, I still wasn't absolutely positive how she would react while in a standing position. I'd dropped her once, and while no real harm had been done, I didn't want a repeat performance of that little episode, especially with Tod looking on. This time, however, she kept her weight balanced on her legs, though she settled herself into my embrace and rested her head on my shoulder. "Very good, Pet," I continued. "Now, tell me when you are very deep."

She did not respond immediately, and I waited patiently for a long minute. I stole a peek at Tod in the interim, but he was just sitting, watching her closely. He shifted in his seat once, as if his pants were too tight.

Finally, Elaine sighed heavily, opened her eyes, lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me ... then at Tod. She smiled broadly. "I'm there, Master. I'm very deep, and the tight-ass slut is fast asleep." She blushed for some reason, and she lowered her head slightly, but her eyes never left Tod, so that now she was looking at him under slightly hooded lids, making her smile appear more than a bit sinister. "Hi, Tod," she cooed.

I laughed at my brother's unsettled expression. "Tod, I'd like you to meet Elaine's subconscious," I told him. "She's much more ... uh ... compulsive than 'Conscious Elaine, ' who is sleeping right now."

"Compulsive," she echoed, not taking her eyes from Tod. "Yes, I'd really like to be ... compulsive right now."

"She's also much less logical than her sleeping counterpart, aren't you, Pet? In fact, there's practically no logic here at all, is there?"

She finally turned her head and looked at me. "Desire isn't a logical frame of mind, Master. Want, need, longing, craving..." she looked back at Tod, " ... lust. Those aren't the building blocks of logic, are they? Those are the things I am made from, not her. But you boys don't mind, do you?" Her smile broadened. "I dreamed about you once," she told Tod. She snapped her head around and looked at me again, her thick brown hair flying. "She never told you about THAT, did she, Master? She didn't have the guts. She was so ashamed!"

I was just a tad intrigued, and perhaps more than just a tad jealous. Still, I had to admit, this was the realm of scientific discovery. This was the way my life had always been. You make a plan based on observations, only to find, once that plan has been set into motion, that there were other important variables which had NOT yet been observed. Tod evidently "had a thing" for my wife, and now, as it turned out, Elaine felt ... well, I still wasn't sure WHAT Elaine felt. "Tell me about your dream, Pet," I ordered. "It was, after all, YOUR dream, wasn't it?"

She laughed. "Well, of course. ALL of her dreams are my doing. This dream was almost a year ago. In that dream, we went to some party somewhere ... and YOU were there," she told Tod. "You took me upstairs to an empty bedroom, and you started kissing me and taking my clothes off." She sighed heavily. "And Miss Prissy-Ass tried to wake up ... but she couldn't ... and so she started, like, 'No, Tod, we can't. We shouldn't. We just can't!' And I was like: 'Oh God! His hands feel so strong on my breasts! And his kisses are making me cream!' and finally, we were naked, and you threw me down on the bed. And, by that time, she was so turned on that she wasn't protesting anymore ... and I spread my legs really wide, and you shoved into me ... and ... and we woke up. We woke up cumming.

"And YOU were beside her!" she said, turning back to me at last. "And she was cumming and cumming, and she couldn't stop. So she got up and ran into the bathroom. You didn't even wake up. And it really, really scared her. She felt SO guilty. That's just like her, the silly cunt! Feeling guilty for a dream she had no control over! What an idiot!"

I cleared my throat. "Perhaps I should explain that this half of Elaine is prone toward excessive speech," I said to Tod.

She laughed. "If you'd like me to stop talking, Master, I can think of other things I'd MUCH rather be doing. Aren't you forgetting what we were going to DO tonight? We've been thinking about it all day, she and I. My panties are absolutely soaked!"

"Shut up, Elaine," I ordered.

"Yes, Master," she replied simply. The smile dropped off her countenance and she stared silently straight ahead ... which unfortunately, was directly at my twin brother. He was looking very unsettled.

"Okay," I told Tod, though I couldn't really make eye contact after of all that. "Enough of this crap. Remember that this side of Elaine is completely illogical. It IS a part of her, but not the most important part. It was necessary for me to bring this side of her to the fore because she WANTS to give into her feelings. And recently, she HAS been giving into them. And, I'm certain that she'll give into them tonight, as well." I took a breath. "We're almost ready. I'll give her some deep suggestions, and we'll get on with this." Tod still hadn't so much as grunted.

I put a hand on Elaine's shoulder and turned her toward me, then raised the crystal until it was directly in front of her. Her eyes locked onto it, and she sighed deeply. It was almost a moan. "I am going to take you deeper, Pet," I told her. "Tell me your deepest need. After all the talk about sex, what is it you need to do more than anything else?"

"I need to obey you, Master," she said earnestly.

"What is obedience?" I asked.

"Obedience is pleasure," she replied from rote. "Obedience is a necessity. Obedience is everything."

"I command you to stare into the crystal and go deeper, Pet. I want you to believe. I want you to believe absolutely, completely, utterly ... that you WILL obey me. You will obey without comment or hesitation. You will obey now and when you wake up. For the rest of the night, you will obey. Every single time. After you awaken, you may question my orders ... but that will not alter the fact that you WILL obey them. Always. Do you understand, Pet?"

"Oh, yes, Master."

"Take off your clothes, Pet."

She shivered. Her hands went to the buttons of her blouse. "Oh, Master ... this is ... delicious."

No one spoke further until she was nude. I took away the pendant, but her gaze remained fixed forward as she worked on the task of shedding her garments. Somehow, without looking, she knew right where the chair was, and she draped each article across the back of it. When her task was finally done, she lowered her hands to her sides and waited patiently. Tod made a small noise, deep in his throat, somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He was impatient ... not with the pace of events, but with himself, and I got the impression that he had expected his own reactions to be more self-possessed. Elaine, for her part, was obviously turned on. Her nipples were easily twice as thick as they usually were (though Tod, of course, didn't know that, this being the first time he had ever seen her bare breasts), and they were pointing almost accusingly at him. The light from the lamp reflected off a thin sheen of moisture on her inner thighs.

I moved to my wife and stood behind her, then grasped her shoulders and pulled her back into me. She offered no resistance, and when she canted her head back toward me, I placed my lips next to her left ear, speaking low, but not in a whisper. I wanted Tod to hear my instructions.

"My words are your thoughts," I told her firmly.

"Yes..." She shivered as my breath blew lightly across her ear.

"My words are true, and your thoughts confirm them."

"Yes."

"You are confused, Pet," I told her.

"I am?"

"Yes. Your thoughts have been confused all evening. They will be for the rest of the evening. Luckily, my suggestions will guide you. Why did you take off your clothes?"

"I ... I thought ... Didn't you want me to?"

"I believe that you were so horny tonight on the way home, that you took them off right away ... just as soon as you came inside ... because you wanted so badly to make love to me. You took them off before you noticed that Tod was here. You were naked before you noticed that he was in the room."

"I ... I thought..."

"You are very confused, Pet."

She swayed slightly, frowning. A blush spread across her upper chest and face. "Oh, my gosh! She is going to be SO embarrassed! She is really going to freak!"

"No, you won't," I told her calmly. "The damage has already been done. Tod has already seen you. There is nothing you can do now. You will just stand here, with your hands at your sides. You might be embarrassed ... but now, the only thing you are going to do is wait and see what I SUGGEST that you do. Why is that, Pet?"

"Because ... because I'm really confused tonight. You'll know what's best. I'll just obey you."

"That's very good, Pet. That's exactly what you're going to do." I paused. Her breathing had gotten a little ragged. "And we must consider what all of this is doing to Tod." I gave her a moment to consider this. "What do you think is happening to Tod right now, Pet?"

"He's getting turned on, of course. I mean, I'm standing here in front of him, bare-ass naked! You KNOW that he is going to want me!"

"That's only natural, of course," I told her matter-of-factly. "And whose fault is THAT?"

She nibbled the corner of her lower lip. "It's mine. I'm the one that's naked. It's not HIS fault. He's just acting naturally."

"Exactly. You are making him VERY uncomfortable. And you are VERY confused, aren't you? I mean, what can you do to relieve his discomfort?"

"I ... I don't know. I'm very confused."

"Yes. And so, when I suggest something that you can do to relieve his discomfort, you will accept that suggestion, won't you? You will treat my suggestions as if they are orders, won't you? You will do that, because Tod is very, very uncomfortable, and because YOU are the reason for that terrible discomfort, aren't you, Pet?"

She whimpered. "I ... I'm so sorry, Tod. I..."

"And when I wake you up from your trance, you won't remember going to sleep or what we said or did ... you'll just know that everything we've discussed is true. And you'll accept the fact that you're very confused this evening. And you won't try to run or cover yourself, because Tod has already seen you; and it wouldn't do any good, anyway; so you'll just stand here with your hands at your sides, and you'll hope that I will make a suggestion that can make things better. And you'll hope that I will suggest how you can ease Tod's discomfort, because it's your fault, after all. And you'll be very embarrassed, I'm sure. What happens to you when you get embarrassed, Pet?"

She swallowed hard. "I get aroused. I get really, really aroused."

"Wake up, Pet!" And I snapped my fingers loudly, just behind her head.

She swayed slightly, left, then right. She made a small, uncertain, noise, then spun around and looked at me, her expression somewhere between utter panic and abject guilt. She reached out for my hand, but stopped herself, lowered her arm back to her side, and turned slowly back toward my brother.

"Tod," she faltered. "Tod ... I'm SO sorry. I ... I don't know what got into me. You see ... Rod and I have been trying for so long to have a baby. And I've been timing myself ... my cycle, I mean ... and I've even been taking my temperature four times a day, so that I can determine the exact moment of ... of ovulation. And we KNEW it was going to be ... to be sometime today. And ... and it's happening now. Right now. So I rushed home, and I ... I didn't know you were here. And I started getting ready to have ... to have ... um ... sex with Rod. And ... and..." She shuddered for a moment, almost as if she'd had a small orgasm. A tiny squeak escaped her. She cleared her throat and heaved a large sigh. "Tod ... I know that I'm the reason for your ... uh ... I mean, you must have a big ... uh ... I mean, I've made you really uncomfortable, and I wish there was something I could ... uh..."

While all this was being said, I'd moved up a step, so that I was standing beside her. Now, she turned to me frantically, desperately. "Elaine, what's gotten into you?" I asked softly.

"I ... I'm very ... confused tonight," she told me softly.

"Perhaps if I took away your choices, you wouldn't make the wrong ones," I told her.

She blinked up at me. "What?"

"Give me your right hand, Pet," I ordered.

Immediately, she held her right arm out to me, then blinked in consternation. 'What ... what are you going to do?"

I held her right hand in my left one, then I began tracing a line around her wrist with the thumb and forefinger of my other hand. Her eyes widened, and she gasped audibly. "Rod ... you ... uh ... shouldn't be doing that here ... uh ... now. Tod is watching!"

I barked a laugh. "Yes, you're right. Tod doesn't understand. Why don't you explain it to him? Tell him what we're doing. Don't you think you owe him that?"

For a moment, she looked like she was going to cry, but she swallowed nervously and took a deep breath to steady herself. I took her left wrist without resistance and laid it across her right one, then continued to trace around and around the pair of them. She looked uncertainly back at my brother.

"Tod, Rod is tying me up with an invisible string. There isn't REALLY an invisible string, of course ... and I'm sure that all of this sounds incredibly ... um ... strange ... and ... uh ... I guess it is. But you see, the string is real for me because ... um ... because I WANT it to be real ... because ... um ... Well, the truth of it is, I LIKE being tied up, and so he hypnotized me, and I want it so much, that it IS real ... at least to me." She looked at him imploringly. "Does that make sense?"

Tod just stared at her, and she began flexing her hands nervously in front of her. I broke the perceived tension. "Pet, could you please go get Tod and me another beer?"

She backed away from him, shuffling her feet as she went, then turned abruptly and fled into the kitchen. I took the opportunity for a little last-minute fine tuning of my plan. "When she comes back, just sit there and relax," I told him. "It's libel to get a little strange."

He looked at me aghast. "Gosh, Bro, 'ya think?"

I didn't have a comeback for that comment, and before I could come up with any other instructions for completing my nefarious scheme, Elaine was back, trying desperately to keep the two bottles from sloshing and spilling in her crossed hands. She gave me the bottle that was most in danger of dribbling, then approached my brother, still seated in the middle of the couch. He just sat there for a long half-minute, looking her up and down while she held the bottle out to him and blushing crimson. Finally, he sighed and reached out and took it.

"Elaine, are you okay?" he asked quietly.

She swallowed and took a breath. "Actually, I'm ... uh ... very thirsty," she stammered.

He grinned and handed the bottle back to her. She smiled wanly and took a deep gulp of the beer, then another, and another. She sighed with some small show of relief, started to hand the beer to him again, then quickly took two more gulps before giving it back. Tod laughed and set the near-empty bottle on the small table beside the couch, then he sat back and continued scrutinizing my wife's naked body. Elaine made a small noise, deep in her throat, but remained standing with erect posture, her crossed hands not quite able to cover her pubic region. At first, I thought her eyes were lowered submissively downward, but slowly, I began to realize that she was staring at his crotch.

I coughed gently but neither of them seemed to notice. Finally, I said: "Pet, what do you intend to do about Tod?"

She didn't look at me. "Do?"

"He's very uncomfortable, and it IS your fault. You should do something for him."

She took a shuddering breath. "I ... I'm ... uh ... really sorry, Tod. I know you must find it hard ... um ... I mean..." She swallowed again. "I mean ... Rod's right. I should do something to ... um ... ease your ... your..." Her words stalled, and she glanced up pleadingly into his eyes before allowing them to wander back down to the bulge in his jeans. In a move that shocked everybody, she was suddenly on her knees between his legs. Instinctively, as a man will always do when something is travelling toward his lap, he moved his knees together, but this only succeeded in trapping her body between them. Her hands were groping at this belt buckle, which was one of those big western-style things. "I'll ... uh ... I'll just touch you, Tod," she muttered in ragged, breathless speech. "I'll touch you and relieve your ... um ... your stress ... that I made you ... um..."