I know within three minutes of meeting her that I’ll fuck her. You can say that’s confidence, but I’m just intuitive. I see the ways her eyes widen and her cheeks hint at a blush when I tell her what I do for a living.
“Stage hypnotist,” I say and then order, not letting her dwell on the job unless she wants to. She doesn’t write down my order.
“Are you going to write that down?” I ask.
“Ham and cheese on rye and a IPA? I think I’ve got it,” she says tapping her head.
I make eye contact, “I wouldn’t want you to forget what I said, for the order to get stuck in your head or dribble out your ears. You forget so much it would be a shame if you forget.”
She smirks, “I’m fine.”
Three minutes later she returns from the kitchen with a sheepish look on her face, “So I’ve forgotten what you wanted.”
“You should have written it down,” I say.
“I should have written it down. So what was it?” I order it again and this time she writes it down and leaves.
A few minutes later she comes back and kneels down next to the booth so that she’s at my height while I’m seated. She smiles, “So just to say because I did forget, the sandwich is going to be on the house. Not the beer though.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I say, “thank you.”
She nods and I can tell she wants to say something else. I remain silent regarding her without looking too interested.
“So you’re performing around here?” she asks.
I shake my head, “Just a stop on the road. I need to find a place to stay, I’ve been driving all day.”
“The motel across the street is supposed to be good,” she says helpfully.
Nodding I glance at it out the window. Turning back to her I smile, “Thank you again. It’s too bad I’m not performing, I’d give you a ticket or two to the show.”
“Could you maybe show me a trick or something?” she asks.
I paused thinking about it, “Well it’s not like magic, I can’t make you pick a card or pull a rabbit out of my hat. I could hypnotize you, but you might not remember it.”
“Oh,” she says as she thought about it. Standing she smiled, “I’ll go get your beer.”
A few minutes later she returned with my beer and sandwich. She sat down across from me, setting the bill down.
“Joining me?” I ask.
“My shift’s almost over, you’re my last table. I figured you could use some company,” she says.
“Never turn down a pretty girl, that’s my motto,” I say. Adding, “I figured out a trick I could show you. It’s called the heaviest spoon.”
“Oh?”
I pick a spoon up off the table and hold it out to her, “Hold this in your hand.”
She does.
“Now close your eyes.”
She does.
“Hold out your hand, straight out and keep your eyes closed. Take a deep breath and picture the spoon in your hand. Picture it, beginning to grow heavy. Heavy. It seems magic, but in your hand the spoon is starting to weigh ten pounds, twenty pounds. More and more with each breath you take, in and out. Just relax, imagine the spoon so heavy, heavy.”
Her arm began to fall, moving towards the table.
“Open your eyes Heather,” I say having gotten her name off her name tag. She blinked at surprise at the fact that her arm was nearly on the table. Then it hit the table.
“Try to lift it,” I say.
“Okay,” she says and tries, even with two hands she can’t budge the spoon or move the hand that holds it. She finally grins at me, “That is so cool.”
I easily lift the spoon from her hand and hold it up in front of her. I move it back and forth and hey eyes follow it. “Perhaps it’s a magic spoon, a spoon that makes you so heavy, that just touching makes you heavy so heavy that you fall that you can’t lift your arm that anyplace it touches just grows heavy and goes to sleep,” I say and then tap her in the center of her forehead with the spoon and say, “Sleep.”
I catch her head in my hands as she falls forward limply. Lowering it to the table I pay my bill in cash and move to whisper into her ear. It wasn’t hard for me to see that she wanted this, that from the moment she found out what I did she wanted to follow me across the street to the motel.
Hypnosis just provided her with an excuse, a release and a small vacation from her cares and worries.
Yum!