Fifth Time's the Charm

"Hi, Jan."

"Oh, Alex! Just a sec... Okay, so I see you've signed up to bring a dessert-y thing to the company picnic. How many family members will be coming, too?"

"None. I don't have any family."

Jan blinked. "Girlfriends are okay, too."

"None of those, either."

"Okayyyyy..." Jan's look must have implied mental gears shifting.

"I'm not gay, either," Alex said with a little chuckle.

"I didn't think I could be that far wrong about you, but... If not that, well, it makes you not having a wife and a brood of kids inexplicable."

Alex's eyes took on a faraway look. Jan picked up on that look; it wasn't the first time she'd seen him self-trance. "I've been close to married...four times."

"What stopped you?" Jan asked.

"Each time, when nearly there, each girl found someone who excited them more. Very nearly there...the last time." Alex suddenly emerged from his reverie. His face clearly indicated he'd said more than he'd intended. But something seemed to still be necessary to close the conversation. "Dating is a bad luck road for me. I've stopped walking it." He brightened and added, "I'm looking forward to the picnic, though. I'm in the volleyball tournament." Alex turned to go. "Later, then. I'll get my timesheet filled in by the end of the day."

He didn't know it, but Jan's eyes followed Alex all the way down the hall. She was the administrative assistant for the engineers in the R&D department, of which Alex was the most talented, though not yet the most senior. She knew him to be kind and thoughtful, too. Not just around the office − she'd seen him at company sponsored volunteer work. He was also just about her age. All these facts, on top of the new revelations, put Alex in a whole new light for her.

The way he'd said, "I've stopped walking it," that was problematic, though. Jan was very empathetic, and believed he really meant it. But she had a notion of how to proceed. Each night for the next several days, she researched and rehearsed her plan.

Some days later at the picnic, Jan waved Alex over to her table, a table she'd deliberately chosen away from the rest of the people at the gathering. Privacy was what she wanted.

"Hey, Alex. Better to be a little bit away from the noise, eh?"

"This whole shindig is mostly your doing, right? Renting the venue, arranging the barbecue, and all the rest. You've got mad organizing skills."

"No...just average. I have mad skills in only one field of endeavor." A bit of a grin flickered at the corner of her mouth.

"And what is that?" Alex wanted to know.

"I'll show you, but not here." She sipped her Diet Coke. "I was thinking about what you said the other day. My 'road' was better than yours, but I've had my share of bad luck. I was married just once, but it was good. He was a loving man, and we had a son together. Then they were both killed in a big pileup during a freezing rain storm three years ago."

"That's terrible! Worse than my troubles, for sure."

"I'm not sure about that. At least I still have good memories...and hope."

"I wish there was something I could do."

"Well, actually there is, now that you mention it," Jan said casually.

"What's that?" Jan noticed there was a bit of tension around Alex's eyes as he said that.

"I'm trying to get wi-fi in my house, and the darn thing's just not working. I could trade you a proper home-cooked meal," she entreated.

The tension vanished. "Sure, I can do that. Tomorrow's Saturday; is that a good day?"

"Let me write down my address."

"So cooking is your mad skill?" Alex wondered.

"No, that's not it," Jan said with a little smile.

The next day, Jan ushered Alex into her bedroom. "The cable comes in on the far side of the dresser, and I'm pretty sure it goes to the modem," she said. She gestured vaguely at her bed, and Alex sat down on the edge of it without thinking about it. "Then the salesman said I needed a wireless router." She picked up the thing from the dresser.

"He was right about that," Alex confirmed.

Jan began to offer the router to Alex, but then pulled it back slightly out of reach. His hand remained extended to take it. "Look at this part right here..." While his eyes were on the ports on the back panel, she reached out with her right hand to his. It started like a handshake, but then transformed into an Ericksonian-style instant induction. She drew her hand away with a gentle touch by the thumb, a lingering drawing away of the little finger, and a faint brushing of the Alex's hand with the middle finger. She gently shifted to a touch with her little finger, then her middle, then again with her thumb. Finally, she gave the lightest of touches to the undersurface of his hand so it barely suggested an upward push. This was followed by a similar utterly slight downward touch. She broke off the contact; the whole thing was performed smoothly and precisely, over the course of two or three seconds. His hand floated in space, cataleptic.

Quickly, but without seeming to rush, she brought her free hand before his eyes and made a downsweeping motion with her fingertip, just as she said, "Sleep!" Her voice was not loud, but carried an intonation of insistent command. Alex's head dropped, and his eyes closed.

Alex never remembered that first hour of his first deep trance. Jan kept him under a comforting cloud of hypnotic amnesia during that time. She started with conventional deepening techniques, and then asked some personal questions. She elicited more about the experiences that turned him away from family life. She'd seen the pain in him, and was not surprised to learn that he'd caught his fourth fiancée in bed with a groomsman the day before the wedding. Then she performed a few experiments to assess his hypnotizability. His capacity was excellent, just as her husband's had been, just as the way she'd seen Alex drop into self-trances had led her to hope. She smiled to herself, wider and wider as Alex murmured his answers. She became more sanguine that she was on the right path.

Jan carefully laid a few triggers in place that would be helpful later, benign ones that his subconscious would not find threatening. Then she launched into the part that was new to her, the part she'd rehearsed all week: an age regression. With gentle metaphor and references to historical events she guided Alex's mind back to his first term at college. Then she lifted the amnesia. This part, she needed him to remember later.

"Tell me about the campus, Alex."

"It's beautiful. The trees and the ivy are still green, but a few of the big maples are blushing red and orange at the top. The residence halls smell like fresh paint."

"Do you know anyone on campus?"

"No."

"Are you hoping to meet a girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"Are you a bit nervous, just out of high school and still a virgin?"

"A bit."

"You're going into the registrar's office," Jan suggested, guiding Alex's trance more actively. "You have paperwork that needs to be straightened out. The secretary is pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. She's young, too − just your age. The nameplate on the desk says, 'Janine.' She takes care of your scheduling problem. The smiles she gives you as she works are warm and inviting. You're pretty sure she likes you − that if you asked her out she'd say yes. Do you trust yourself enough to suggest a date?"

There was a pause, and Jan felt a moment of trepidation. But then Alex whispered, "Yes."

"Ask her then."

"Would you like to go to the Film Festival on Friday night?"

"She says, 'yes.' How do you feel about that, Alex?"

"I'm happy. Excited."

"Now Friday has come and you're at the movies with Janine. You get the feeling she'd like you to put your arm around her. Do you trust that you understand her intent?"

"Yes."

"Do you put your arm around her?"

"Yes."

"She sighs happily and leans against you. Do you decide to ask her out again?"

"Yes."

"You have another good date. When you take her home, her lips part slightly. They tremble in the dim light. What will you do?"

"I will kiss her."

"She responds to your kiss. Her lips are warm. When you part, her eyes sparkle in the moonlight, somehow seeming bold and shy at the same time. A few days pass, and now it's the end of September. Tell me about the campus."

"The birches are starting to turn. The maples are fully in flame. The cafeteria has a big dispenser of apple cider at every meal. All us freshman are sweating our first big term paper on The Illiad."

"You're on another date with Janine. You're cheering for the women's varsity soccer team. Janine's roommate is a midfielder. The two of you are wrapped in a blanket to ward off the autumn chill as you sit on the grassy edge of the field. What color is the blanket, Alex?"

"It's plaid. Mostly red with stripes of black and yellow."

"Under the blanket, where the rest of the world can't see, Janine takes your hand." For the first time, Jan added a tactile component to go alongside her voice, physically holding Alex's hand. "She seems to want to move it somewhere. Alex, do you trust her to place it where she wants?"

"Yes."

"Janine places your hand on her breast." In the real world, Jan moved Alex's hand to her living breast. "She wants you to give her pleasure." Alex's hand began to move, both in reality and in his internal fantasy. Soon Jan gave a little shiver and a soft moan. Clearly Alex's four fiancées had taught him well before foolishly abandoning him. His touch was not rough, but it wasn't tentative, either. To Jan it was perfect, and would still have been even if this wasn't the first time since her widowing that any hand but her own had been there. She'd missed it so much. One tear of happiness glistened at the corner of her eye. She encouraged him with her words, describing the way Janine was cuddling her back against his chest, the way Janine was murmuring, "Feels so good! So good!"

When the moment was right, Jan applied a subtle downward pressure on Alex's hand. "Alex, Janine seems to be guiding you downwards. You think she's ready for you to touch her intimately. Do you want to do this?"

"Yes."

Jan guided his hand down between her thighs. She got him started the right way, using her own finger to guide his: with medium pressure, just above the head of her pearl, using a stroke aligned with her slit. Then she let him do what he would. Jan needed to keep him engaged with her words. It became harder and harder to keep her thoughts in the third person: to say, "You're about to make Janine come!" when all she wanted was to yell, "You're making me come!"

The moment came! Jan's body shook like and aspen leaf in a wind. She bit her lip to not cry out. She needed the trance to go on just a little longer; she mustn't shock Alex out of it now! Summoning all her will power, she said in her hypnotist's voice, "Janine's climax rolls over her. She kisses you gratefully." She gently disengaged Alex's hand. "The soccer game has ended, and the home team has won. Janine tells you that her roommate won't be home for hours. She tells you that the team always parties hard after a victory. Will you let Janine take you to her room?"

"Yes."

Jan began shifting her body around. "Now you're at the door to her dorm room," Jan intoned. "She gives you that bold-but-shy look you've seen before. 'I started taking the Pill,' she says as she opens the door. Will you go inside with her?"

"Yes."

"Now you're laying on her bed, looking up at her in the dim light. The scent of her arousal fills the room. Your cock is throbbingly stiff." Jan smiled to see that was certainly true in the reality she could see with her eyes. "A bit of her wetness drips down onto your penis. You feel the drip sliding along the surface. She wants you, Alex. Will you let her be your first?"

"Yes!"

"Things will be different, you know. When a woman envelops you in her most secret place, you can't help but open your heart some. You wake an ancient magic when you place yourself between a woman's thighs. You might soon love her − love her more than anyone else in your life. Are you still ready to be inside her?"

"Yes."

"It's happening now," Jan said, and it did happen − in both the physical and psychological spheres. Jan lowered her self slowly onto Alex's cock and enjoyed the once known and long missed sensation of joining. She used her hypnotic guidance and trained Kegel squeezes to move him quickly and deliberately to maximum climax. And it was big − perhaps the most she'd ever evoked. She could physically feel how full she was, and cum was oozing out of her all around the base of his shaft.

While Alex still trembled in the grip of it, Jan leaned forwards and lowered her voice. There was one more trigger to place. "The next day you buy a gift for Janine to commemorate what's happened between you. It's a necklace with a charm in the form of a circular lozenge of art glass, with orange and yellow spiraling around a transparent center. When you see that charm, you must be with Janine, for there are no others like it in the world. Even if you've been somewhere else in the meantime, when you see that charm, you're with Janine. It will be fall quarter, freshman year, one day later than the last time you two were together before."

There was a slight murmur in the back of Alex's throat, acknowledgement, perhaps. Janine had to be sure. "Alex, what gift did you give Janine?"

"A necklace with a charm...glass...orange and yellow spirals."

"Since you gave it to Janine, if you see it, who must be with you?"

"Janine."

"And when must it be?

"Fall quarter, freshman year."

Satisfied, Jan disengaged and lay down on her side, facing Alex. She performed the next to the last stage by bringing Alex's mind back to the present day. She clarified that he would remember Janine and how he surrendered his virginity to her back in freshman year. Finally, she ended the session. "Five...four...three...two...one. Wide awake!"

Alex opened his eyes. He blinked twice and shivered in place. Over the course of a few seconds he took in his naked state, then Jan's naked state. His voice was a little wild when he croaked out, "What did you do?!"

Jan's voice, in contrast, was completely matter-of-fact and unruffled. "I seduced you with the help of my mad hypnosis skills."

"Why did you do that?!" Jan's calm example hadn't noticeably rubbed off on Alex yet.

"I want to marry you. This is my opening bid."

"Marry me?!"

"You're excellent husband material. I had an excellent husband, so I know what to look for."

"Did you have to do...this?!"

"Yes, I did. I felt your sincerity when you said, 'I don't walk that road.' I only had one viable option: to take you to a time before you ever set foot on that road, before you'd ever been hurt, and coax you to take the first step onto a different path."

"But...husband?!"

"For years you wanted to be a husband and to have a wife. The feelings you spoke to me grew stronger every time I guided you to regress to a year before one of your bad experiences. When we finally reached a time before your first short-sighted fiancée, those feelings were again present in full force. The result you can see for yourself." She smiled gently, understandingly, as she gestured towards her vulva. Alex's gaze followed her gesture, and he saw his cum silently and copiously dripping out of her.

As if needing to change the subject before being overwhelmed, Alex asked. "How did you learn to do this?"

"My first job was as a secretary at a university. And my name really is Janine − I know most people assume it's short for Janet. A perk that staff possessed but seldom used was the right to audit classes. On a lark, I audited 'Basic Therapeutic Hypnosis' from the Psych department. It turned out I was a natural. Three weeks into the class and I was better at inductions than professors with years of experience. I audited every class they had on the subject, and read every book in the library."

"The Psych department started paying me to moonlight as their hypnotist for experiments. The fellow who became my husband was one of the many students I entranced so he could earn a stipend as a test subject."

"Did you tamper with him to make him propose?" Alex asked with suspicion in his voice.

"Heavens no!" Jan ridiculed the idea with a laugh and a dismissive wave of her hand. "He asked because I proved I'd be the best wife in the world."

"What made you the best?" Alex asked, still a little frightened but fascinated in spite of himself.

"My mad hypnosis skills, of course. But used to reward and not coerce. My Daniel spent at least a little part of every day of our marriage in a trance, and he loved it that way. As 'vanilla' as our sex life ever got was with him in hypnotic hyperesthesia so that his cock was twice as sensitive a normal man's."

Jan's eyes softened in reverie. "But our fantasy life...that was exceptional. He invented about half the things we did, and I came up with the rest."

"One of his favorites was for him to become the one human, and the favorite, in the harem of sex slaves serving Dejah Thoris, princess of Helium. She of the copper-colored skin and raven black hair, clad only in jewelry. One of my favorites was to suggest he was a dashing pirate, with me as his captive, the Governor's beautiful, virginal daughter. Of course, it was a point of honor with 'Captain Bones' to seduce his prisoners into surrendering their maidenhead of their own free will."

She laughed mischievously. "I remember this one St. Patrick's Day when he became a lusty leprechaun and I became a red-haired colleen. I wanted to get my hands on his pot of gold, and he wanted to get his hands on my honey pot. Our battle of wits was epic! And though I didn't get any gold, he did give me a..." She made air quotes with her free hand. "...pearl necklace."

Jan looked Alex in the eye, serious again. "It never occurred to Daniel to want any other woman because I could be any other woman. That's what I'm offering you...along with a happy, comfortable home...and children if you want them. For myself, I once was a cherished wife, and I'm ready to be one again."

Alex's face betrayed a whirlwind of emotions. Troubled, yes...a little frightened, yes...but Jan could see that he was tempted, too. "I can't say 'yes,' ...not yet, anyway," he said in a voice like a sigh.

Her smile was reassuring. "Of course you can't, darling. It would be extraordinary if I'd banished all your demons in one session. But if you let me support you, I'll help you walk that different path step by step until you can barely remember the crossroads where you began it."

"Can you really do that?"

"Simplicity itself." Jan kept her face serene, although inside her emotions were churning. Her empathy told her that the make-or-break moment had come. The silence endured, but she knew better than to break it.

"Help me take a step," Alex whispered at last.

Internally, Jan exulted. The crisis was past, her skill would see her through the rest of the way. Externally, she reached over her shoulder and pulled her necklace around to the front. The charm was a circular lozenge of art glass, with orange and yellow spiraling around a transparent center. She let it lie upon her breast.

Alex gaze lingered upon it. "Janine!" he said after a few seconds.

"It's only been a day, sweetheart, but I missed you every second of it," Janine cooed.

He snuggled closer to her. "Let me hold you darling." They put their arms around each other.

"You can hold me forever," Janine promised.

"I love you," he murmured in her ear.