Who Can Resist?

Eric hadn't wanted to stop with his friends to check out the hypnotist performing her act on the sidewalk outside some shops, but he'd been heavily outvoted. He could hardly have given them a reason to keep moving, not without revealing more of his past than he was comfortable with explaining - in the too-public setting of a Las Vegas street, especially - so he nervously joined the woman's small crowd with the rest of his group. He couldn't imagine that they actually cared about the hypnosis stuff, at least. The lady was cute, far-flung from whatever stock cartoon images of a creepy man with a shiny coin they had for the profession, though she did wear a fairly stereotypical black top hat and coat. She was short, pretty skinny, and overall attractive enough to be a minor spectacle when combined with her apparent profession.

As they arrived, she was just finishing up her previous act. Her setup was nothing more than a blackboard sign and a small speaker next to a bench. The sign read, in chalk, "THE MAGNIFICENT MILLIE," and then beneath, in smaller font, "Resist the STREET HYPNOTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE and win CASH prize!" The wire on the speaker ran to a microphone in the hand of one of the two women on the bench. Had the mic not been there, it still would have been obvious which one was Millie, as the other was slumped over in the seat, looking a lot like she'd passed out drinking.

And maybe, Eric thought, she had. Maybe this Millie just pulled drunks off the street and had them play pretend for her. He hoped so. Eric didn't want to be hypnotized. Not here - not with people he knew. All he really had to do was not volunteer, and it wouldn't matter whether she was just a pretender pulling drunks or the best hypnotist in the world. He wouldn't be hypnotized. They'd watch for a few minutes, get bored, then keep walking.

Millie started speaking into the mic, and her voice came through the speakers just loud enough to be audible over the ambient low roar of the street. "Now, miss," she said, "when I count to three and snap my fingers, you're going to wake up and remember nothing of what happened." The apparently-hypnotized woman on the bench didn't so much as twitch a muscle at being addressed. "And," Millie continued, "when I point at someone, you're going to stand up, walk over to them, and give them a nice, long handshake." The members of the crowd who had been there a bit longer gave a cheer at that, much to the confusion of Eric's friends. Eric thought he had a pretty good idea of where this was going, though, and it made his stomach feel suddenly heavy.

"One, two, three!" Millie snapped her fingers, and the woman's body spasmed momentarily before snapping into an upright position. She looked suddenly alert, if bewildered, frantically looking around at the crowd around the bench. Millie shook her shoulder to get her attention, and when she had it, she pointed towards the crowd - and, much to Eric's dismay, right at his friend Brian. Purpose suddenly filled the woman. She stood up and strode towards the stranger in the crowd. She extended her hand, and Brian, shrugging, took it with his own and shook.

A high-speed camera might have caught the change as it swept over her, starting with a slight wobble, a shiver, and a look of confusion, but to the cell phones and eyes pointed at her, it was immediate, and what was happening was very obvious. She was having an orgasm. From the look of shock, she hadn't exactly been planning on exploding with pleasure and complete sexual bliss in front of the people watching, and she didn't necessarily want to continue doing so. But still, she couldn't seem to pull her hand away, and Brian, having caught on, certainly wasn't letting go. "Oh, GOD," the woman gasped as her knees bent. She couldn't stay upright anymore; the unexpected force of the orgasm was wracking her body, twisting it and bending her over, desperate to find the cock it was sure was supposed to be inside her and sit on it. But she was fully clothed, in jeans, even, and there was nothing to sit down onto, and the handshake went on, and on, and on.

"My, oh my!" Millie was speaking into the mic again, her voice drowning out the woman's pleasured moans. "I hope your hand is okay there, Mister... What's your name?"

Brian tore his eyes away from the lady clutching his hand to look at Millie. "I... Uh, I'm Brian." He looked down again at the still-orgasming women, who was now nearly dragging him to the ground with her. "Should I..."

Millie interrupted him. "Miss Angelica, please snap out of it." The mic picked up the pop of her fingers snapping, and Angelica froze. Slowly, she released Brian's hand and straightened herself up, looking towards Millie with both eyebrows raised. She was out of breath. Millie, relaxing on the bench with her legs crossed, raised a hand and waved her fingers, smiling. "Bye-bye, now. I'll be here again tomorrow night, if you want another shot!" The small crowd laughed a little, and Angelica wasted no time in hurrying off away from the scene.

"Oh, dear. Well, she didn't win, but I think she enjoyed herself, anyhow. Mister Brian!" Millie hopped up off the bench and stood up. "Sorry, love, I have to pick on you now that I know your name. Interested in trying my challenge?"

Brian looked from the board to Millie, shaking his hand. "Uhh... How much is the prize?"

Millie smiled back at him. "How much do you think is fair for your time? Is a hundred enough for you?"

"Make it three hundred," Brian demanded, after a moment of thought.

Millie scoffed. "An expensive one! But, well, as I'm sure you know, it's a high risk game." She gestured towards his wrung-out hand. "I'll take you up on that, Brian. But know that, if I win, I'll be getting my stake's worth."

Eric sighed. Eager as he was to get out of the situation, he wasn't about to make a big deal out of it at that point. Plus, he thought, this should be some easy cash for them to throw away at the casino. All Brian had to do was think of baseball or something and just not listen to her, not let her take him deep, deep down into that sweet, slippery state of trance that -

"Fair enough," Brian said, interrupting Eric's train of thought. Millie gestured towards the bench, and he sat down, putting his hands in his lap. Millie reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a large gold coin with a hole in its center. Eric rolled his eyes. He'd been right all along. Maybe that Angelica girl was just one of her associates, acting out an orgasm to draw a crowd for Millie to pick drunks from. If that was the case, she wasn't great at picking them out. They'd been drinking a little earlier, but they certainly weren't drunk. Whatever was going on, though, Eric definitely knew that you didn't hypnotize people with a big stupid coin.

"Alright, then. Let's get started!" Millie unwound a string from the coin, wrapped the string around her finger, and let the coin drop a foot. "Now, for you new faces in the crowd, I'll be turning the mic off for this part. I don't want to put my entire audience under, after all. Not all at once."

That must be the trick, Eric thought. She'd just whisper how she was going to split some of the donations she asked for after the show with anyone who played along. Millie clicked off the mic and set it down on the bench, and her coin began to swing in front of Brian's face. She started talking to him, but her words were inaudible over the constant surrounding noise.

The small, confident smile on Brian's face didn't last long. A sparkle of childlike wonder filled his eyes as the line of his mouth went flat. Really hamming it up, Eric thought. Millie said something, and Brian's mouth drooped open a little. She reached out, took his chin gently between her thumb and forefinger, and easily pulled his mouth open. The pupils of his eyes were tiny and fixed on the coin that swooped left and right across his field of vision. Millie smiled and leaned down, the hand that wasn't swinging the coin sliding behind Brian's neck to caress his shoulder. She whispered something into his ear, waited a moment, then yanked the coin up and pulled Brian's head against her belly. His eyes were closed as his body went limp in her arm.

Millie straightened him back up against the bench, turned to the crowd, and bowed to a light smattering of applause. She picked up the mic and sat down on the bench beside Brian. She leaned in to whisper something more to him, and the mic picked up only the end of it. "Floating, drifting, dreaming..." She eyed the crowd and winked, then took Brian's shoulder and started to gently sway his body left and right in the seat. Chin against his chest, his head rolled loosely side to side as she pushed and pulled on him. She then gave his shoulder a slightly harder pull, and his head wound up crashing down against her chest. It stayed there, and she stroked his hair with her fingers. That got some whistles and cheers from the crowd.

"I don't think he's winning," Millie whispered into the mic, pointing at his head. Eric sighed, wondering how long they were gonna have to hang around and watch Brian stick his head in some lady's breasts before he got his cut. "He's not out here alone tonight, is he? Raise your hands if you're with him, please." Scott and Tom both raised their hands, and Eric reluctantly raised his. For better or worse, it looked like they were all dragged into this.

"Excellent! Now, Mister Brian, I have a favor to ask of you. Don't worry, sleepyhead, you don't have to wake up. You'll just have to get your face out of my tits." The crowd giggled, and Eric noticed that some more cell phones were out and pointed at Brian and Millie. "Brian, when I snap my fingers, you're going to stand up, eyes wide open, still deep deep asleep, and just instantly go as stiff and rigid as a board, poseable as a mannequin." She pushed him off of her, then gave him a count - "Three, two, one," and she snapped her fingers.

Brian hopped to his feet and stood straight up, arms pressed down at his sides. At this angle, his erection was quite obvious, and that got a few good laughs out of the audience. More interesting to Eric than the hard-on was the look in Brian's eyes. Brian would've made a damn fine actor. Millie stood up. "Walk with me, dear." She pried his hand from his thigh and guided him to the space between her sign and the bench. She pulled his hand up and left it sticking straight out in front of him at chest height, then pulled the other arm up and out into the same position. With Brian in position, she took her hat off, turned it upside down, and put its brim in his hands. She closed his thumbs on top of it, then, curiously, leaned down behind him and poked at the backs of his knees a little bit, bending them just slightly.

"Perfect!" Millie returned to her bench. "I suppose it's a good time to note that I'm accepting donations," she teased. The small crowd laughed, and some even walked over to stuff a few dollars into the hat Brian was holding. She must've given him a pretty good deal, Eric thought.

"You three," Millie said, looking right at Eric and his friends. "Think you can do better than your friend? Double or nothing on the line for the next one to step up; six hundred to resist!"

Scott laughed. "Hell yeah!" Millie smiled at him and stood up, and Scott hopped onto the bench, shooting one more look at Brian and giggling. Scott was definitely the least sober of the four of them. Eric rubbed his nose with his thumb and forefinger. This was gonna be a longer night than he'd thought.

"And what's your name, love?" Millie held the mic down for Scott to speak into.

"It's Scott, ma'am. Got another hat you're gonna make me hold?" He giggled.

"No, no; we'll find something for you to do, though. That or you'll get your cash, I suppose. Now, sit still and watch this, dear." Millie sat her mic down and again began to swing her coin. Scott glanced at it, then looked back to Brian, giggling. Millie said something that got his attention back on the coin. Smiling, he folded his hands in his lap and sat up straight in the seat, pantomiming something like a good, attentive student.

His attention didn't waver from the coin, that time. Again, Millie spoke to him, and his smile faded away. She spoke some more, and his brow softened. He wasn't giggling anymore, and he had that distant-yet-fixated look in his eye that Brian had gotten right before...

Millie put her hand on top of Scott's head and unceremoniously tilted his chin down to his chest. She didn't appear to meet any resistance in doing so. She didn't even bother sitting down beside him, this time. She just leaned down and whispered into his ear for a little while before going back to the mic.

"I suppose he didn't want that six hundred too badly! Scott, dear, you're gonna join your friend for a little while, okay?" She got no response. "Nod your head, Scott." He did as she asked - not too enthusiastically, though. Didn't want to break the act, Eric assumed. Millie took him through the whole "mannequin" routine she'd done for Brian. Scott was left posed on one knee beside Brian, both his palms upturned and outstretched, gesturing towards the hat.

Eric took another look at Brian. He was still standing exactly as he'd been left, and Eric was growing concerned. Even for three hundred dollars, he wasn't sure that Brain could have pulled off such an impressive impression of a statue entirely on his own. But if she was hypnotizing them, she was doing so impossibly quickly. He wasn't sure what she was saying, but the way their expressions went to blankness so soon after they started watching... It was incongruous with his experience, to say the least.

"Nine hundred!" With Scott in position, Millie returned to her bench. By then, other people in the crowd were raising their hands and clamoring to take the challenge, but Millie waved them away. "The offer stands only for these two." She pointed to Eric and Tom. "I don't plan on letting my new assistants go until one of them proves that they're strong enough to resist, and I wouldn't want to split up their little group." She beckoned Tom forward with a finger. "Come on. Nine hundred to watch a coin for a minute. Surely, it's easy money, right?"

Given the evidence in front of them, Tom didn't seem so sure of himself as Brian or Scott had. "What do you mean you're not gonna let them go? Isn't that, like, kidnapping?"

Millie laughed. "They lost a bet! Look, I'm letting them off easy. You saw what I could do with a handshake, hm? I could send them running off to find a change of pants, instead. What's your name, dear?"

Tom wrung his hands together. "It's, uh, it's Tom."

"Tom, how much money do you think could convince you to keep your wits about yourself for a little while?"

Tom glanced towards the two who had been left in charge of the hat. "Two thousand."

"Two thousand!" The crowd oooh'd at that. "Well, we all have to take risks, sometimes, don't we? Come, sit." She patted the seat on the bench beside herself. Tom took one last nervous glance at their two friends, then joined her.

Millie seemed to opt for a more casual approach with Tom. She didn't even stand up; she just wound the string around her finger a few more times, wrapped her other arm around Tom's shoulder, and then put the coin in front of his face. Holding him close, she dangled the coin and spoke to him, right in his ear. His nervousness faded fast from his face, and soon he was just staring at the coin without an apparent care in the world, looking positively breathtaken.

This time, Millie didn't shut his eyes. Instead, she took his hand and guided it up, and handed the coin's string over to him. He took it, and she left him swinging the coin in front of his own eyes. Tom's focus on the coin didn't seem to suffer a bit for it. Millie took the mic back, and let go of Tom. "And that leaves us with one, I believe."

Eric sighed. This was basically his worst fear in the situation. He knew he could be hypnotized and made to do all sorts of stuff he didn't want his friends seeing. A past relationship had taught him that well enough. Worse yet, he knew that he couldn't say no. What he should do, he was well aware, was go shake and slap his friends until they snapped out of it, then get away from this woman as fast as possible. But her hypnotic technique, if it was the real deal, was apparently incredibly powerful. The temptation of feeling a trance so impossibly irresistible, of his brain dripping out of his ears as she whispered into them... And his friends were already there; they'd hardly know what it looked like if he played along with her game too.

"And what's your name, dear?"

Eric's stomach felt like it was full of butterflies. "I'm Eric."

"Well, Eric, I'm sure you know the drill, by now. Are bragging rights with your friends enough, or do you need me to wave some cash in your face to try your mind, too?"

Eric swallowed his fear down. "Same deal as Tom? Two thousand?"

Millie made a show of rolling her eyes, but she smirked. "Two thousand." She stood up. "Come on, sit next to your friend. He's gonna keep doing the coin-swinging, if that's alright with you."

Eric sat, making an effort not to stare at Tom or the coin he was dumbly watching. Millie noticed. "Don't be afraid of the coin, dear. Look at how much they enjoyed it!"

Eric closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "How are you doing this? This isn't how hypnosis works."

Millie cocked her head at him. "It's not? That's news to me." She took Tom by the shoulders and rotated him on the bench until he was swinging the coin between himself and Eric. "Why don't you look at the coin, and see for yourself?"

Eric relented. He opened his eyes and turned to face the coin. He saw Tom's face behind it, blank and drooling, eyes wide open and pupils small, but he couldn't focus on it for more than a second. Every time the coin swung between them, it drew Eric's eyes along with it like a magnet. Suddenly, he just didn't want to look away.

"That's right, dear." Millie had turned the mic off and walked behind the bench to speak to him. "Just keep your eyes on the coin."

Her voice wrapped around Eric's head like feathers, and he felt himself momentarily slip. He rose back up out of it to reality, though, looking past the coin, trying hard not to focus on it. There was some trick with the coin. There had to be; he wasn't this susceptible. He could resist; he just had to not focus on the thing swinging down from Tom's hand. He looked into Tom's eyes, instead, and they stared back, unseeing and blank.

"I saw you go under for a second," Millie said quietly into his ear. She giggled. "Don't worry; I won't tell anyone. Just stay awake from now on if you want to win. But it felt nice; remember how nice it felt?"

Eric grimaced. "H-how? It's just a... Just a coin. It can't..."

"That's right; it's just a coin. You don't need to be afraid of it. It can only make you feel wonderful. And if you don't focus on it, you'll have to focus on my voice, instead, and I'm just gonna tell you how heavy your arms and legs are starting to feel, how nice and warm and full and fuzzy your eyes are getting, and all of that's going to make it hard to stay awake when you're already having to try so hard not to go back under, isn't it?" Eric started to nod in agreement, and only barely stopped himself. No matter how much he looked past it, the coin was still swinging left and right and back again, calling out to his eyes with every pass. Pretty, shiny, sparkly. Left and right and left and right and...

"Left and right, left and right, back and forth..." Eric realized that he hadn't even been thinking those thoughts; they'd been Millie's words flowing straight from his ear to his brain. He steeled himself again. He could still resist, he just had to... Had to... Eric couldn't think of what he had to do. He had to stay awake, if he wanted to win, but he didn't want to stay awake because the coin was drawing his eyes towards it now as...