Pain Management

(c) 2012 by Cactus Juggler

*

Monday morning staff meetings were seldom entertaining but I had a bone to pick, so I was pretty energetic that day.

"Look, we can't have some nurse doing this on the side. With all the money we poured into starting up the pain management center, with the new building, the advertising, everything, we're going to let a nurse do her own little amateur hypnosis thing?" I said.

Dr. Collins was offended, I could tell. Not that I cared, I didn't think too much of his unit. The series of general practitioner office groups he ran that were scattered throughout the county, he wouldn't have even been a political player at the hospital, but he was also a long time friend and golf-buddy of the chief, so I had to take some care.

Being one of the few female senior medical staff members had its disadvantages sometimes. For one, I'd be damned if I was ever going to pretend to like golf just to ingratiate myself with the old boys club.

"Dr. Sullivan, Nurse Kemp has done some amazing things. We've had patients with back pain that was fixed by multiple surgeries stop using prescription pain-killers after working with her," he said to me.

"Right, I'm sure. Actual medicine versus some twenty-something nurse telling you you're getting very sleepy now. I saw her with a girl so young that she could have been a teenager on Friday, and the girl's chart said she was suffering from fibromyalgia. At least that's fake pain, so some fake medicine is probably the right answer," I rolled my eyes, and I could see that most of the doctors in the room were behind me on that one.

It was the general consensus that certain problems were not really medical in nature. fibromyalgia sufferers, or anyone who claimed to be allergic to more than one thing were pretty much automatically classified as psych cases by most of us.

"Come now, Nancy, don't you list hypnosis as one of your precious pain management clinic's available options?"

"Sure, but we don't recommend it, and we bring in an outside therapist who is a certified expert when we someone ask for it."

I would have pushed the argument farther, but the chief gave me a look and changed the subject, so I dropped it for the time being and just enjoyed the nasty looks Collins tossed at me through the rest of the meeting.

**********

I stopped in to the cafeteria on the first floor to grab some lunch to take back to my office. I passed by a table with two young women and I got a few paces past the table before I realized that it was the famous nurse Leanna Kemp, with a familiar looking younger woman.

When I turned around, I recognized the girl, who was maybe twenty. The woman seemed engrossed with whatever the nurse had to say, leaning just a bit too close to her. Kemp looked all of a half-dozen years older, and both of them pretty, young women. Prettier and younger than myself, to be honest, which didn't help my reaction.

"Nurse Kemp?"

She smiled and got up to take my offered hand.

"Doctor Sullivan," I told her. "I run the pain management clinic? I understand you also run a pain-management practice of some type."

She looked a bit flustered by my approach, it was obvious she was already hip to the fact that we weren't likely to become friends any time soon.

"I, well, I do some hypnosis . . ."

"Isn't it true that multiple studies have found hypnosis no more effective than placebo when used for pain management though?"

"I-I don't know. I've helped some people," she began to explain.

"What sort of training have you had?"

"Training?"

"I mean, what are your medical credentials to be performing this non-effective therapy in a clinical setting?"

She was noticeably embarrassed, her cheeks looked pinker than they had when I'd walked up. I let the question hang in the air for only a moment before continuing.

"You know, take me for example. I went to one of the finest medical schools in the country, I've worked in some of the finest hospitals in the country, and of course I'm also board-certified in several specialties. I'm sure before you started waving pocket-watches in front of patients you had some training, right?"

Both she and her companion were upset; this pleased me enough that I smiled at her before I strode away, without looking back.

**********

Working late in my office, after the clinic had closed, I was surprised to see young nurse Kemp in my doorway. She wasn't in scrubs, and she looked even prettier in street clothes.

"Can I help you?"

"Doctor Sullivan, I'm here to ask you to stop talking about me. I understand you've been telling people that I'm some sort of danger to the hospital."

"Don't you think you are? Are you bright enough to understand the sort of liability this place is exposed to by your little amateur hour voodoo medicine practice?"

"It's not voodoo medicine. I've helped a lot of people."

She kept her eyes on mine, she looked much more composed than she had in the cafeteria. I was preparing to shred her some more for the fun of it, when she made the most ridiculous suggestion.

"I came here to make a wager with you. Let me show you that what I do isn't bullshit. Give me a chance to hypnotize you, and if I can't, I'll stop doing hypnosis here."

It was so absurd that I wasn't sure where to start. She had to be crazy if she thought I'd let her try to hypnotize me. Crazier still if she thought she could succeed.

"Are you kidding me? I have an IQ over one-forty, and I not only meditate but I do tai-chi and yoga as well; I probably have the strongest mind in the whole hospital. You could try for ten hours and you couldn't hypnotize me, it's a waste of time."

"All the same, I'm willing to give it a shot, and I'll stand by my side of the wager. If you'll sit for ten minutes, relaxing in a chair while looking into my eyes, and I can't prove the power of hypnosis to you, I'll give it up at the hospital entirely. That is, unless you think your strong mind can be dominated by a lowly nurse, then I'd understand if you were too chicken to give it a shot."

Smirking, I stood up. As if she could dominate me at anything. Ten minutes of babble was a small price to pay to put her in her place.

"Where would you like me to sit?"

A minute later we were sitting facing each other in the two chairs for visitors in front of my desk.

"It's six-oh-five now, you have until six-fifteen. What would you like me to do?"

"Nothing really. Just relax and listen to my voice. Please look into my eyes, just focus on them while we talk. I want you to keep your focus on my eyes and just relax to the sound of my voice," she said.

I had to stifle a laugh. The whole idea of sitting through this for ten minutes was ridiculous, but it would be the easiest way to get rid of her all around.

At least the nurse did have a gentle, soothing voice. Soon the girl would be telling me to feel my eyes getting heavy, I hoped I could keep myself from laughing when she did.

"I want you to think about meditation, or yoga. There is a point when you're meditating that you become so calm, your mind so still, that you experience the total freedom of letting go. Think about that point, that enlightened feeling of peaceful stillness when you actually transcend your body, losing all awareness of it."

Give her credit, she did actually seem to know something about meditation. Her voice was like the gentle murmur of a slow moving creek, it really was quite soothing.

"As you look into my eyes I want you to remember how that felt, how your mind was so focused on one thing that you were able to lose focus of everything and just let go. Feel that feeling now as you concentrate on my blue eyes."

With a voice as pleasant as hers, she should consider getting into radio or something. Could ten minutes feel like ten hours? Time seemed to slow down as I listened to the calm, steady flow of her words. Well, at least I did feel more relaxed than I had before she'd arrived.

"I've been told my eyes are like the color of the water around a warm, far away island. Just relax and remember that feeling of perfect calm as you look into the calm blue pools of my eyes. Focus on my pretty blue eyes and let yourself sink into them as you remember that feeling of focusing until the world melts away."

She continued to prattle on about letting go of my body, then of my thoughts, and at some point I just stopped hearing what she was saying.

**********

I blinked and found myself looking at the nurse again. She was smiling and her perky happiness put me immediately on edge. I glanced up at the clock to see if the ten minutes was up, so that I could end the whole silly waste of time.

It was seven-ten. Light was fading at the window, and the office was silent. I opened my mouth to speak, but as the reality of the situation set in I was too confused to know where to start.

My face grew hot with embarrassment as I thought about the missing hour. Then I noticed that my wrists were tied to the arms of the chair with thick rope. More rope wrapped around my ankles, tying them to the legs of the chair.

"What . . . why am I tied up?" I said.

Leanna smiled a little wider. "Oh dear. I think you've been hypnotized--by a nurse."

"Untie these ropes."

"Not just yet. I'm not sure yet that you respect the power of hypnosis. I don't want to leave this office until I'm sure you'll understand just how powerful the link between mind and body can be. Besides, you were a total bitch to me earlier, and I think you deserve just a little bit of your own medicine. I think it would help your attitude if you were made to feel humiliated and helpless by a co-worker."

Miss poor little nurse had her feelings hurt by being talked down to? Not my problem. Whatever this woman thought she was doing, she was going to accomplish nothing but getting herself fired.

"If you don't let me go, how do I put this bluntly. I will destroy you."

"I don't think so, this is too much fun. I have to admit, it turns me on a little to see big bad doctor Nancy Sullivan put in her place. Hypnotizing other women always gets me hot, but this is even more delicious because you've been so obnoxious. If you're so much better than me, why are you the one tied to her chair?"

Then the curvy younger woman reached up under her skirt, and wiggled herself out of her panties, and for the first time I felt something I wasn't accustomed to: fear.

"I don't know what you think you're playing at. Do you have any idea of what kind of trouble you're in?" I said as the nurse produced her white cotton panties from under her skirt and stepped closer to me.

"I'm willing to wager," Leanna said, stepping behind me with the panties in hand, "that you won't tell anyone about this for two reasons. First, you'd have to admit you were wrong about hypnosis, how else could you explain getting into this position?"

Trying to look back over my shoulder, I began to struggle as the woman stretched the panties out between her hands and then down over my face. I twisted and tilted, but the ropes kept me trapped and she soon had the panties positioned so the patch of cloth was stretched over my nose and mouth.

"And second, I can't believe you'd admit to anyone that a lowly nurse made you sniff her panties."

I took my first breath through the panties covering her nose and nearly gagged at the strong scent. It wasn't that it smelled bad, it was that it smelled so recognizably female. There was no denying that the underwear that had just been on this woman's body were right there in my face.

My face warmed as the humiliating helplessness of my degrading position sunk in. I was trapped there, unable to do anything but sniff her dirty panties until she returned because she was right--I couldn't possibly let anyone else see what she'd done to me.

"You are going to be fired regardless of what you do, but if you'd like to avoid facing criminal charges as well, I'll give you one minute to untie me," I said.

Leanna laughed and waved a finger disapprovingly at her. "Be nice now, or I might not come back and untie you before someone finds you like this. Just think, you're not just getting to experience hypnosis today, but also a bit of aromatherapy as well," she said, with a superior giggle.

"You little bitch, untie me this instant!"

The nurse made a tsk-tsk sound before turning and closing the door behind her as she left the office. I was apoplectic, my rage-fueled struggles were useless against the solid strength of the ropes holding me, though.

Every breath I took filled me with the distracting reminder of my shameful weakness. Somehow that little bitch had gotten the better of me, and now there was nothing I could do but sit there and stew, my nose filled with the scent of her worn underwear.

I thought about yelling, but the idea of having anyone find me there like that was more horrifying than the alternative: sitting there and waiting for her to return.

The minutes stretched on and on, and to my distress I felt a stirring in my center. The blood was pumping down south--I was getting turned on. I don't know if it was the helplessness, or the humiliation of the situation, or what. I knew it couldn't be the nasty smell of another woman's body that had my pussy getting wetter by the minute, though.

I was ashamed by the sensation regardless of the reason though. I tried to ignore it, and after a while sitting there alone in my dark office, I drifted off to sleep.

At some point that night, I awoke to find myself even more turned on than ever. It was frustrating to be so horny, but to have no way to touch myself. I mean, when I woke up, I was at the edge of climax already. Realizing that I was tied up with nurse Kemp's panties on my head somehow just made it hotter.

Disgusted and ashamed even as I did it, I clenched my thighs together and wiggled in the chair, chasing the heat. Somehow I managed enough pressure to work myself over that edge, into a mind-melting orgasm of ridiculous strength.

After the pleasure faded, the humiliation was all that was left, and thankfully I soon fell asleep again.

**********

I awoke to the sound of someone outside my office door. I was still sitting in my chair, and the door was opening. It was Jenny, my assistant.

It was beyond embarrassing to have her find me like this, but at least this was a manageable situation. Jenny feared me enough that I'd be able to intimidate her into keeping anyone else from finding out.

She stepped inside and was obviously surprised to see me there at all. Then her eyes took in the full scene and a look of confusion came over her.

"Dr. Sullivan? Uh, what are you doing? What is that mask for? And why do you have strings tied around your hands and feet?" she asked.

Mask? Strings? I looked down and realized that where ropes had secured me before, now there was just a single short piece of white string tied in a bow around each of my limbs. The bows were large and loose--I reached the ends and untied my hands in a moment as I tried to process what I saw.

When I reached up to my face and felt for the panties, I found instead a standard surgical mask covering her nose and mouth. The realization that there had never been any rope or panties, that I'd sat there all night for nothing because the nurse had played a trick on my mind, that realization somehow felt more humiliating than when I'd thought I was getting turned on from sniffing the woman's underwear.

The way she'd been able to mess with my head filled me with shame. How could I be so weak that she could have warped my perception of reality to the point that I thought strings were ropes? They'd felt so heavy, so unyielding when I'd pulled at them. Worse still, I'd imagined the smell of another woman's dirty panties, and came while sitting there like that. It was humbling to realize just how powerfully she'd manipulated my thoughts.

"Dr. Sullivan?"

Remembering Jenny, I tried to appear in control as I addressed the girl.

"Sorry, sweetie. I was so deep in my meditation that it took me a moment to get back here. This is a technique I learned in China, the ceremony helps focus and clear the mind."

It was obvious that Jenny didn't understand why her boss needed strings or a mask to clear her mind, but she didn't seem to discount the explanation either, as she started into asking for clarification about a task she'd been assigned the day before.

Once Jenny left, I lay back in my chair, the big leather one behind my desk, and sighed. I needed to go shower and get dressed, it was lucky I had a change of clothes there in the office. Then, when I was settled, I could figure out what to do about nurse Kemp.

**********

I wasn't able to come to a decision that day. She was right, I was too ashamed of what she'd done to even consider telling anyone. It would be simple enough to just continue my existing campaign to get rid of her, but she deserved far worse for the vile, degrading display she'd inflicted on me.

A back ache, no doubt from sitting in the same position for too long the night before, kept me from really being able to concentrate. When a light headache piled on in the afternoon, I decided to deal with the nurse the next day.

That night I slept only fitfully, my various aches keeping me from really resting. When I awoke in the early hours of the morning, remembering a dream of being tied up and forced to sniff a lowly nurse's panties, I was disgusted. I was also aroused though, and my fingers were in my panties before I realized what I was doing.

I stopped myself and managed to fall back asleep, but ninety minutes later I woke up to find myself hot and bothered again, and though I couldn't remember I was horrified by the idea that I'd dreamt of her again.

She hadn't just assaulted me, she'd scarred me with her abuse.

**********

The next day found my backache had somehow spread to my knees and shoulders. I hurt everywhere, albeit not so badly that I was worried. I still chalked it up to my night in the uncomfortable chair.

I didn't manage to find the time to plan for Leanna Kemp's fate that day either, but once again I was surprised to find her at my office door in the early evening. She made no effort to apologize, in fact she seemed quite pleased with herself.

"You have to admit to the power of hypnosis now; none of that was real, but it all felt real to you. You felt the ropes yourself, remember?"

"Are you insane? Do you really not think that you're in trouble? I can't believe you have the nerve to even face me after what you did," I told her.

"I was wondering, actually, if you'd like to try another bet. Sort of, double or nothing."

"Double or nothing?"

"That's right. To show you just how powerful hypnosis is, I'm willing to put what I'm doing on the line again. I'll put you in a similar situation as last night, so you're restrained, but not really, but this time you'll know I'm going to do it."

On hearing 'similar situation', I felt dueling rushes of heat and shame. I was both aroused and humiliated by just the young nurse's mention of my previous "situation". It was crazy though, there would be no way strings would hold me if Kemp tried her little parlor trick again.

"If you can get free, I'll give up doing hypnosis at the hospital, per our original bet. If you can't, you'll quit using your current hypnotist for-hire and add me to your staff, complete with my own office to do sessions in. I'll do what I'm doing now, but instead of having to go to patient's rooms, I'll have a quiet place to work. And I'll be working for you. What do you say?"

It was mad, but the heat below my belt was too tantalizing to resist at least enjoying the idea for a moment longer.

"Alright. What do you need me to do?"

Leanna stepped closer, leaning in over the desk with a smile. "Nothing at all, really. Just fall into my eyes and sleep now," she said, and I felt myself pulled forward into those calm blue pools, inexorably but pleasantly drawn into their soothing depths.