Foreign Exchange Student Hypno 4: Raji to the Rescue
by Eigh
I was right of course. About the sudden crash down of reality onto my hypno-fantasy world I had created with Sun Yin. School started up again and my teachers all seemed to be loading me down with work; Sun’s schedule also seemed to be increasingly filled as he joined the water polo team at his school. So, once my parents got home from their cruise, I was back to hypnotizing Sun, like once a week – if I was lucky.
Truth of the matter is, I was bored… and feeling like I needed to hypnotize someone else. I don’t know why but I just felt like I had to. So, when my pal Billy and I were home one afternoon in late February (we had half a day school or something that day), I couldn’t help myself but to bring up the subject with him.
-“Hey Billy! Have you ever been hypnotized?” I asked the question in such a “left field” manner, I honestly think the last thing he had been talking about was some videogame, so no segue skills whatsoever to report on.
My red-haired buddy stopped in his tracks, (we were en route to the kitchen for some refreshments) looked at me oddly before asking,
-“Where the hell did that come from?”
-“I’m serious Billy! Have you ever been hypnotized?!” I asked more assertively this time.
-“No! I haven’t.” He paused for a second before his next query, “WHY?!”
-“I’ve been practicing on Sun Yin… he’s an amazing subject! You should see some of the things I’ve got him to do!” I boasted, hoping my tone and the way I left off the last sentence would get Billy’s attention. It worked.
-“Why?! What did you make him do?” Billy asked, intensely curious, even leaning in closer to me to hear my answer, as if it was some big secret, and besides, he knew we were home alone.
-“I’ll put it to you this way – the last week of my parent’s cruise – Sun Yin was my freakin’ slave! I had him do everything for me here – dude, the guy cleaned my ears for me!” I boasted.
-“Ew! That’s gross!” He looked at me intently now, as if to ascertain for himself, whether what I was telling him was for real or contrived.
-“With a Q-tip!” I reassured him. (And his tongue, I thought to myself and chuckled, inwardly). Somehow the idea of hypnotizing Billy wasn’t as exciting as taking down an older guy – with Billy, I just knew it would be too easy.
-“Anyway Troy! I’d never let you hypnotize me!” Billy remarked in such a strong way, it actually hurt my feelings. We’d been friends since grade freaking two… what? He didn’t trust me?
-“Why not man?” was all I said though.
-“Look what you did to Sun Yin. If what you’re telling me is true, you turned the poor guy into your slave?! You think I’m going to let you do that to me, ha, never!”
We continued on into the kitchen, but I was already reaching for my “special watch” which I had strategically placed in my jeans pocket that morning, knowing that Billy and I would be coming back to my house after school.
I let him walk ahead of me so he couldn’t see me retrieve it. As we walked into the kitchen though, I held the watch above my head upward intent on catching his gaze if for even a second, when he turned to look at me.
-“Dude! You’re not gonna hypnotize me I said, no, hypn—hyp…no…tiii….” He couldn’t even finish the word, much less the sentence. I knew that watch had some kind of power, but here was evidence of just how strong. Billy was nowhere near a hypnotic state just yet, but his attention and focus were drawn to that singular object, now I had to do my voice over…
-“Watch the watch sway Billy, it grabs your attention, takes your will away… makes you so relaxed… loosens you up…makes you want to sleep, sleep deep but always listening to the sound of my voice…”
I watched intently for signs of the change – it did come about rather quickly – his breathing slowed, his muscle tension, all but relinquished to the airborne space around him – he was ‘caught’… now I just had to deepen him some.
I continued on with my standard deepening exercises with Billy. It’s funny, but even as I was hypnotizing him, I had no idea what I wanted to do with him – I knew I could never take advantage of him in any way… so what was I going to do with him once I had him completely hypnotized?
I don’t think anything actually. The last thing I remember about hypnotizing Billy was Billy reaching stair number “333” in his hypnotic deepening and then, the next thing I knew, Billy and I are downstairs in my basement, in one of the spare bedrooms. We’re standing side-by-side, a voice is telling us to sleep and I hear Billy being asked a series of weird questions… not by me mind you.
-“Billy…Billy…can you hear me Billy?” The voice itself sounded like a dream.
-“Yes…” I heard Billy’s own dreamy voice respond.
-“Do you have any older brothers Billy?”
-“Yes…” Ok, so Billy wasn’t much of a conversationalist even when he wasn’t under some kind of spell.
-“What are their names and do they live with you?”
-“Only one – his name is Daryl…”
-“How old is Daryl?”
-“Eighteen”
-“You are going to hypnotize Daryl.”
There was a reflective silence that seemed to come from that suggestion.
-“How?” Billy finally asked the mysterious yet somehow familiar voice.
-“Troy – give me the watch!”
-“Yes Master!” I firmly replied, handing the watch that was in my hand over obligingly and without question.
-“You will use this very special watch Billy to hypnotize your brother. In fact Billy, you are going to become the world’s best hypnotist – and after you’ve hypnotized your brother and brought him over here, you will want to hypnotize more guys… more guys…”
-“Even though I wasn’t being addressed, I heard all this… it was like a dream, but I heard it – and I could tell Billy, standing right next to me, was hearing it, because it was his monotonous voice that was responding.
-…”Hypnotize other guys…”
I guess Billy and I played around with hypnosis a lot that afternoon, I hypnotized him, he hypnotized me… I think he even hypnotized me into allowing him to borrow Jacques’ watch so that he could hypnotize his older brother Daryl. Man, I think the hypno-afternoon was just what I needed to ‘perk up again’. And I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Billy’s brother Daryl is basically Tom Welling, with strawberry blonde shoulder-length hair. In fact, if young Clarke Kent had a twin cast on Smallville, Daryl could have been it. The prospect of seeing him hypnotized got me hard just thinking about it.
Sun Yin had to leave a few days after that and I only got to put him under once more before we said our goodbyes. Something about missing home and wanting to be closer to his family… Gosh it was like we were scaring them off or something!
That last time, I hypnotized him in the basement. I can’t figure out why I’ve been spending more and more time down there, but it is isolated from the rest of the house more ore less and my parents rarely come down there, so maybe that’s why I had gravitated to that location.
So yeah, I hypnotized Sun Yin down there, I remember him stripping out of his clothes, I remember tipping his frozen-solid body on its side, I remember taking my own clothes off and then the rest is all a blur. I know something happened, I’m just not sure what…It was like… in some way, I was going into a trance too each time I hypnotized him and damned if I can remember exactly what we did that very last time.
Once Sun Yin left I immediately fell into a depression. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to emotionally need having an older big brother type around, even if it wasn’t all the time. I thought my parents had noticed this when they sat me down to tell me about another exchange student who was coming to stay with us mid-semester.
Nah! It turns out my parents were thinking about Easter break and how they wanted to do another cruise, this time of the Mediterranean. Of course, they didn’t want me along, and they didn’t want to leave me home alone. So Foreign Student Exchange Office here they came!
This time we were getting someone from India, which was great, because honestly, I always loved Indian men, their coloring, their eyes, but I had never met one. I know, I know, how isolated does that make me sound? But where I was living there were literally no people of Indian decent, so you can’t blame me for having been somewhat naive.
-“From India?! I whined. “What’s in India?” I tried to sound disinterested.
My dad grinned from ear to ear – whenever he was going to “teach” me something, he got that look on his face – that look that said, ‘I’m going to teach you something!’ Shoot me! Shoot me now, is all I remember thinking to myself.
-“Only the world’s second largest population base with the fastest growing per capita GDP of any former 3rd world nation.” My dad quickly added, “And some of my clients are from Delhi. Having Raji here will be really swell if we entertain any of them!”
-“Sounds good. When does he get here?” I asked.
-“Day after tomorrow Troy, so you’ll prepare Umi’s old room.” Mom directed.
-“Cool.” I said trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Inside however I was doing a jig – Raji… even the name sounded… so foreign… it reminded me of well, it reminded me of Umi. I couldn’t wait to meet my new housemate, friend and potential hypnoslave, Raji.
Friday was the night Raji would be arriving and I was immensely prepped for his arrival. And I mean prepped! I was in charge of organizing Umi’s old room, so organize it, I did.
On the shelves, were three books I had bought at a used book store in town – all three were on the power of hypnosis. Then I placed my stack of comics in the closet of Umi’s room, paying close attention to the comics I left on the top of the stack – the first ten comics or so had stories involving hypnosis themes.
Wait! I’m not done yet! I put a black and purple spiral as a screensaver on the old desktop in there and password protected the entire system with the word, “hypnotize”. Now to get into the computer, Raji would have to ask me for the password. I changed the home page on that internet account so that when Raji signed on to the net, his browser would open up at www.hypnotize.com/ . I left a pad of doodling paper in his top desk drawer – on the pad, were dozens and dozens of spirals I had drawn, some overlapping, all different sizes. I even went to the trouble of bringing several candles up to the room; I brought in a bunch of “relaxing sounds” cd’s – the room was a hypno-themed room, if ever there was one. I’m telling you… I prepared for this one!
So imagine my utter chagrin when the phone rings at 6:30 pm and it’s Billy on the other end, in effect, interrupting my whole itinerary for the evening, with what I figured was probably nonsense.
-“Troy, listen to me… I’m here with Daryl…” He began sounding really excited.
-“Yeah… and?” I was just a little annoyed with his poor sense of timing, but I was willing to hear him out, in capsule anyway.
-“Just listen to this!” Billy took the phone away from his mouth and I could hear him in the distance bark out the command, “Speak!”
Then loudly into the telephone, this robotic monotone:
-“I am Billy’s hypnotized slave. I am Billy’s hypnotized slave. I am Billy’s hypnotized slave… I am….”
-“That’s enough!” Billy grabbed the phone back from Daryl and spoke directly to me now.
-“Troy! My parents are out for the evening. We’ve got the place to ourselves! Come over and we’ll have some fun turning my cocky jock brother into our play thing!”
Now how could I say no to an offer like that? The way I figured it, I’d have plenty of opportunities to get to know Raji, but the chance to play with Billy’s older brother Daryl was far too enticing.
-“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” I banged down the receiver so fast, it actually jumped off its base, forcing me to turn back to fix it of course. I scrolled a brief note to my folks that I went over to Billy’s, put on my jacket and left. Truth be told, I didn’t walk to Billy’s house, I ran…
**
-“So Raji, it’s great that you speak English so well!” Dad shook the young man’s hand firmly.
-“I learned from my oldest sister. She studied at Oxford and then came back to our town to live. She taught my whole family how to speak your language.”
-“Why don’t you get unpacked and I’ll prepare you something to eat, huh? You must be tired from your flight? I’ll bring you up a sandwich or something…”
-“That’s very kind of you Mr. Gross. Very kind indeed. Thank you.”
-“Your room is right upstairs, first room on the left.”
-“Thank you sir!” Raji smiled politely before pulling himself up the stairs, lagging his gray duffel bag behind him.
First door on the left – Raji opened the first door on the left and began to assess his space. It was very lived in… for good reason… it was my room! Dad had told Raji that my room was his room! So imagine my surprise when I got home at 9:30 to find Raji asleep in my bed! All I got to see (and briefly at that) were three of his bare toes peeking through the blanket. Yes I was tempted. But I closed the door and went to bedroom number 2. I had to sleep in the bedroom Umi was using because my folks didn’t want me to wake him. Jetlag is a bitch my dad reminded me. Ha! Like I’d forget all the times he came home from business trips overseas acting like Mr. Hyde on a mushroom trip!!
My evening with Billy and Daryl went well I think… I don’t remember much except that once I got over to Billy’s house he kept trying to hypnotize me. He probably did the fucker and that’s why I couldn’t remember much about it. I know I felt sexually sated when I left there, and I did get to spend some time up close and personal with Daryl’s large, pink feet. I remembered that. But aside from those bits and pieces of memory… NOTHING!
I slept amazingly well that night, even though I was in a strange bed. I couldn’t wait to wake up the next morning and meet my new buddy… The irony of all my preparations was not lost on me – I was the one sleeping in the hypno-themed room that night, and I wondered to myself, having just been hypnotized by Billy, if that wasn’t in some way, strangely appropriate?
**
When I finally roused myself from slumber-land at 9am and realized I had missed my first period class, I freaked. My first inclination was to rush about trying to get out the door as quickly as possible. Once I realized that all if not most of my clothes were in my bedroom and I wasn’t, I resigned to take another day off school. What the hell? It was Friday anyway and my parents had obviously forgotten to wake me, so why not? I was going to enjoy spending some time getting to know Raji.
The door to my bedroom was still closed. Damn! So, I descended the stairs en route to the kitchen for a pop-tart or something. At the base landing I was able to hear some noises coming from the basement – shuffling sounds… maybe my folks were still home? I approached the stairwell to the basement and went down slowly not sure who I’d find there.
There, in the main room stood my dad and I’m guessing Raji… they were… they were naked - their penises were towering out in front of them and the heads were touching! Both my dad and Raji had that same blank look in their eyes that I had come to know as “hypnosis”. But who could have hypnotized both dad and Raji? I certainly didn’t! I couldn’t figure it out…
I approached the seemingly single statue of Raji and my dad, not sure what to make of it. I mean, I wasn’t in any way attracted to my dad, but somehow seeing him like this… in such an obviously vulnerable state, got my woodie’s full commanding attention. I tried not to stare at his enormous cock but in the end, it won out over my will power or lack thereof.
I was about to begin masturbating right then and there when I heard another grunting noise from one of the bedrooms. I abandoned my hypno-statue to investigate. It was coming from the larger of the bedrooms. I stormed through the door like a man on a mission – part of me wishes I hadn’t.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!!!
There, lying on the queen-sized bed was Umi, Hans and Sun Yin… looking more like department store dummies than real people. The three young men were lying side-by-side, with one of Umi’s huge legs wrapped around Hans’ and one of Sun Yin’s legs also wrapped around Hans.
-“Troy!!” A voice from beside me reacted to my sudden presence, nervously too by how it sounded.
-“Troy, you are in a trance.”
-“I am in a trance.” I responded blankly, little or practically no awareness of anything but the sound of my somnambulistic voice.
-“You saw nothing here…”
-“I saw nothing here…”
-“You will forget that you saw Umi, Hans and Sun Yin here. They all went home. They are not here. And you will also forget that you saw me! Jacques went home… You will forget…”
-“I will forget…”
**
Man, this Raji character has been so scarce it’s starting to freak me out a little you know? I mean, he is supposedly living here, in this house, with us… where was he all the time? It was almost two weeks since he’d moved in and I think I’d seen him three times in total. Even though Umi or Sun Yin weren’t always around the house, by any means, they were definitely home more than this new guy. And to make matters worse, the few times I did see him, we weren’t alone and he didn’t ask me a thing about all the hypno- paraphernalia I had left around his room.
Billy proved to be a good distraction during those few weeks when Raji seemed to be playing the part of the invisible man. I’d call him every day just to say hi, touch base, hoping he’d invite me over again to “play” with Daryl. I finally got my wish and this time, unlike the last, I remembered the whole thing!
I showed up at Billy’s house, at 6:30 pm sharp. His folks had just left to some stupid club they belonged to and that left Billy in the house with Daryl alone. Billy answered the door in a pair of shorts and t-shirt.
-“Aren’t you cold?” I asked him as I blew in past him into the warmed house.
-“Nah! My parents keep the heat up so high you could die!” And before I even had a chance to take off my jacket I could see what Billy meant. The house was like a sauna!
I kicked off my Nikes and was about to head into the den when Billy stopped me.
-“Troy? Any reason why you’re not wearing any socks? It’s still cool out there you know!”
I looked down at my bare feet and was entirely amazed. I mean, I knew I had made it so that Umi and Sun Yin had to walk around barefoot all the time, but who had made it so that I had to be barefoot all the time?!
-“Ran out of clean clothes – it’s laundry day tomorrow!” I lied, trying to cover up the embarrassment of having Billy staring at my bare feet. I felt like such an idiot! How could I have forgotten to put on socks? Deep down though, I knew I hadn’t forgotten.
We sat down on the over-stuffed couch and Billy immediately began,
-“K, do you want me to call him down?” He asked me, a look of intense anticipation washing over his pubescent freckled face.
-“Whatya mean?” I asked.
Billy reached over and picked up the phone. He dialed a number. There was a brief pause and then Billy spoke into the receiver.
-“Slave Daryl, come downstairs now!” And he hung up the phone almost as abruptly as he had picked it up.
-“I don’t understand… I thought your brother was here?” I asked confused.
-“He is. He’s upstairs in his room, studying!”
No longer. Not eight seconds after Billy announced his brother’s whereabouts to me, was he standing at the entryway of the den, at stiff military-like attention. He was staring at one of the walls, but seemed to be staring directly through it. My dick twitched immediately. Holy cow! We had a veritable model here standing before us, waiting for our commands, I almost blew a load right then and there!
-“Dude, this is awesome! He’s totally under your spell!” I remarked excitedly, as I repositioned myself, adjusting my bulging crotch, and waving my free hand in the direction of his stoned face. No reaction, just the way I like it!
-“Troy, no need to hide it – I’m hard as a rock too!” Billy announced, pointing to his crotch region.
-“What can we do to him?” I asked, hoping Billy’s answer would be…
-“Anything we want. He’s my slave. He does what I tell him to!”
I moved from the couch, fondling my cock the entire time. I approached the frozen hypnotized stud that was Daryl, the cocky, nervy asshole that used to call Billy and I “little tits”. I so wanted to do something to him – to put him in his place, to make him grovel at my feet… YEAH!
-“Yo, Billy, why don’t we get Daryl to worship our feet?” I asked my red-haired buddy.
-“Why not?” Billy said expectantly. “I’ve got him to do just about everything else!”
Billy sat back down briefly and peeled off his tight fitting white sweat socks. I had seen Billy barefoot before but it was as if I was seeing his feet for the very first time. I was held spellbound by the paleness of his feet and toes – they were nearly pure white and not so much long as they were wide.
-“Uh… Billy… where’s that watch I lent you? I think I’d like it back!” I started, not sure where I was going with the request.
-“It’s upstairs in my room. I’ll get it!” Billy jumped off the couch and sprang upstairs, giving me enough time to grab his discarded socks and take a couple of extra-strong sniffs. All the while, I nudged my dick back and forth, staring at Daryl in all his statuesque glory.
-“Here ya go Troy! Thanks a bunch!” Billy handed me the watch and it was like a whole set of pre-programmed commands took over my brain. I immediately extended the watch over Billy’s line of sight and began inducing my pal back into a state of hypnosis. I wanted both brothers under and it was in fact happening.
-“Just keep your eyes on the shiny watch Billy… and relax… let go… feel yourself going deeper and deeper into my power… so completely at peace… deeper… watch it sway back and forth… your eyes… your eyes cannot look away… they are locked on the watch… swinging…relaxing… so relaxing…”
Billy’s body swayed some from left to right as he continued to focus on the swinging watch. Once, he even “swayed” into his brother, who was standing ever-still right beside him. Daryl gave no sign that he had even noticed.
-“Deeper Billy! Go deeper! Deeper into my power… feel your mind turning off, your will slipping away as you relax deeper and deeper into a state of hypnosis.”
My young red-haired friend was gone! In his place stood a sleepy automaton, one who was going to be fulfilling my hypnotic fantasies… with the help of his older brother of course.
Billy’s eyes were closed now. His head, planted firmly on his chest, his rocking motions somewhat subsided, he was in a deep trance, of that I was certain. And from the looks of Big Brother Daryl, Billy had done a good job getting him pretty deep as well.
-“Daryl, I want you to lie down on the couch, put your feet up on the arm-rest! Move!”
Daryl stood ever still. He didn’t budge an inch! What the fuck kind of trance was he in? Then it dawned on me what the issue was.
-“Billy, you will transfer control of your brother Daryl over to me… Tell him he must obey me now just as he obeys you!”
Billy reanimated, but only slightly. In the sleepiest of voices, Billy mumbled to his brother, “Daryl, you will listen and obey Troy just like he’s me!” As Billy went back to sleep, Daryl suddenly came to,
-‘obey Troy…’ he mumbled under his breath, still standing at rock solid attention.
In less time than it takes to say “yes master”, I had cum in my pants. Just the thought of Billy transferring his control of his older brother to me was enough to get me to lose control. Thankfully, with both brothers in trance, neither noticed my brief masturbatory climax. I collected myself quickly, deciding to leave the spunk in my pants as I played with the very hypnotized Daryl.
-“Now, Daryl, I want you to lie down on the couch and put your feet up on the arm-rest! Do it!” I almost shouted the last part of the command. It was unnecessary but I wanted to establish my authority over this 18-year old hunk.
He moved like a sleepwalker, ever so slowly toward the couch. Just watching Daryl move under hypnosis was a kin to an orgasm. He moved like one of those old movies that were being played back in slow-motion or something? My dick twitched again. When he put his hunky bare feet up on the arm-rest as directed, I almost fainted! What a pair of manly dawgs! Honestly, I think Daryl would have won a foot-beauty contest if there was such a thing and if he had entered that is…
Daryl was a big guy to be sure – well over six feet tall, muscled, and in good physical shape. Like his brother he had a very creamy-white complexion, the type that most often accompanies people with red hair. Whereas Billy’s face was peppered with freckles, Daryl had only two or three on his clear, creamy face. But still, to look at them side by side, there was no question that these two were brothers. They shared many of the same facial features and physical nuances. They were also both remarkably good trance subjects.
But it wasn’t his face I was interested in now.
I unzipped my jeans and lowered my boxers to my knees. My creamy discharge of moments earlier was obviously still present in my pants – in fact, it was all over my penis, my lower stomach, and some had began oozing down my right thigh. Examining myself, I quickly decided I needed to clean up. So, I used what was readily available – Daryl’s bare left foot.
Within seconds, his left foot was nearly covered in my semen. All the while, I was getting hard – AGAIN! I could feel it coming and so I switched feet, letting go of Daryl’s shiny wet left foot and picking up his virgin-right.
-“Daryl! You will repeat the phrase, I am hypnotized over and over and over. Each time you say it, you’ll know you are under my power and you must obey me, in whatever I tell you…”
Like a robot, Daryl began reciting, “I am hypnotized. I am hypnotized. I am hypnotized…”
By the tenth “I am hypnotized” I had released a second round of sperm that now coated the central part of his right sole. I used his bare toes to wrench out my ball-sack of any extra fluids and was about to smear it all in to his foot when I got another idea.
-“Billy, sit down in this chair over here and put your feet up on the same armrest your brother has!”
I moved one of the armchairs quickly so that Billy could put his bare feet directly up against his brothers’, which he did. The difference in size, not only in length but width as well, was stark and I wondered what sizes the brother’s wore.
-“Daryl what size are you feet?” I asked nonchalantly.
-“14”. Was all he answered back.
-“Billy same question to you!”
-“9.”
-“Billy, put the soles of your bare feet right up against Daryl’s I want to compare them!”
Without saying a word, Billy positioned himself on the chair to comply with my request. He was practically falling off the chair actually, so I pushed it a little from behind. Within moments, both brothers were lying sole-to-sole, Billy’s feet absorbing some of the semen left behind on Daryl’s. I nearly came a third time!
I played with them and their feet for another hour, licking, biting, massaging, manipulating their toes into various positions – I even interlocked the two brothers’ toes, something I had never done before. That took time and effort, but when I was done and stood back there were twenty toes lined up together, one of billy’s, then one of Daryl’s, then one of Billy’s, then one of Daryl’s. It was such a hot picture, I wish I had thought to bring my dad’s camera! Oh well, I took many, many mental pictures before 9pm.
Since Billy’s parents were coming home at 9:30 I gave myself a half an hour to “clean up”. I ordered Billy to go into his room and go to sleep. I then had Daryl write a brief note to his folks saying that he had gone our for a study break with some of his friends. I got Daryl’s shoes on his feet (yes I did it myself thanks) and we headed out the door back to my place.
I had never spent any one-on-one time with Billy’s older brother and it was weird, walking back to my place with him in tow… he said nothing of course, throughout the entire ten-minute walk, and to be honest, neither did I. Deep down, I had no idea why I had chosen to bring Daryl back to my house. It was almost 9:30 and surely my parents would be home. How would I explain why Daryl and I were hanging out? I had time to think about it thankfully, and I finally decided if my parents asked I’d tell them we were planning a surprise birthday bash for Billy’s 13th birthday, which was, coming up next month.
When we got back to my house – it was deserted. Well, not deserted, but neither my mom’s car or my dad’s car was in the driveway and I knew what that meant. No one was home. That also meant I could have a little more fun with Daryl before they did return. I thought about introducing Daryl to Raji, even telling Raji that I hypnotized Daryl, as a possible way of getting him interested in the subject. Despite my best efforts, Raji had not brought up the subject of hypnosis once, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d have to bring it up. Aggressively if need be.
We entered my place, took off our jackets, kicked off our shoes – we were both still barefoot… but rather than making a beeline to my bedroom, which was my plan the entire time, I was compelled toward the basement and I instructed my friend’s hypnotized brother to follow me, which if course, he did.
-“You are in a trance!” I heard the words spoken just as I was about to enter into the main basement area.
-“I am in a trance.” I repeated. And I stopped in my tracks. Daryl too.
-“Come! Come to me! Come to me the two of you… come!”
On total autopilot, I walked into the basement main room.
-“Who have we here?” A deep resonating voice asked me.
-“Daryl, master. He is Billy’s brother.”
-“Ah Daryl, I’ve heard a lot about you… you are, how do you Americans say it…? Hot-to-trot, are you not?”
There was no response from that statue that was Daryl, he just stood there, finally allowing his right hand to be tugged toward the inner rooms of the basement.
Then, I was alone. Standing there, like a stick, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything. Actually, that’s not 100% accurate. I was thinking some – what was happening to Daryl? Where did he go? Who was controlling him, if not Billy or myself? Even though these thoughts were forming curiosities in my brain, I was unable to do much else except ‘wonder’ as I continued to stare straight ahead at the path where Daryl had just disappeared from my view.
I don’t know how long I stood there like that. An hour, maybe two? I was jostled out of my trance somewhat by intense shaking, so intense, it felt like an earthquake was rumbling directly under our house.
-“Troy! Wake up! What the hell is the matter with you? Troy?!”
-“Wha?” Was all I could say as I came to, but not really. Everything looked and felt like a dream. And there was this strange guy standing next to me, holding me by the shoulders, piercingly looking into my eyes with what looked like concern.
-“Troy, what is the matter with you?” The accented voice asked me.
-“I…I…” I couldn’t form words. I was that out of it!
-“Troy, let’s get you upstairs, come on!” And I could feel my back and upper body frame being pushed in the direction of the stairwell. I didn’t fight it, I had no strength to fight.
I don’t even remember walking up the stairs with whoever that was, but I did, because I soon found myself sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of cold water at my side and a very concerned Indian face looking on at me, as if I had just fainted or something.
-“I’m ok.” I mumbled, still in quite the fog.
-“You were in some kind of a trance I think.” The older boy suggested.
When I heard him say the word “trance”, something clicked in my brain,
-“I am in a trance.”
The next thing I knew, the entire contents of that glass of water were dripping down my face, the result of Raji’s on-spot decision to “wake me” from my trance.
-“Troy! Something is very wrong! Can you hear me Troy?” Raji persisted.
-“Yeah, I hear you, I’m ok, I’m ok…” I tried to sound casually reassuring, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred, but it was an effort. I still wasn’t even sure what room I was in, much less what was going on, but I was regaining some lucidity thanks to the cold-water splash.
-“You weren’t ok! You were hypnotized!” Raji announced just as my dad walked into the kitchen, fresh from a 16 hour work day.
-“Hypnotized? Troy, you were hypnotized?” My dad asked curiously as he reached for the orange juice in the fridge.
Raji approached my dad as I continued to sit at the table, still somewhat out of it.
-“Mr. Gross, I came downstairs and I saw your son standing at attention, frozen, he wasn’t moving! His eyes were wide open but it was like he wasn’t there. I brought him upstairs and I even had to throw water all over him to wake him from the spell.”
-“The spell? Raji, I don’t know about your country, but here in America, people don’t fall under spells. Troy was probably just pulling your leg! Right squirt?” Dad turned to ask me.
-“Right dad!” I answered back on cue.
-“Seriously Mr. Gross, I think something is wrong. Troy wasn’t faking it – he was truly in a trance of some kind.” Raji persisted.
My dad, true to form, took three huge sips of OJ before replying, almost jokingly.
-“The next time you find Troy like that, call me! I have some chores around the house I’d like him to do for me! Ha! That ought to determine if the kid is in some kind of trance or not, huh Troy? Well, g’night boys! Don’t stay up too late!”
And dad was out of the room once again. I could tell Raji was not satisfied with my dad’s elementary assessment of things. Raji knew what he saw. And he was determined to convince me of it.
-“Troy, listen to me! Has anyone tried to hypnotize you lately?” He leaned in over me, almost as if to say that this would be a private discussion.
-“I…I… dunno, I was hypnotized about a year or year and a half ago…” I rubbed my eyes and stretched as tall as I could – shit, my body was in pain. Why was that?!
-“Who? Who hypnotized you?” Raji asked, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
-“His name was Jacques – he was the first foreign exchange student my parents took in, from France I think.”
-“Where is this Jacques now?” Raji pressed on.
-“He left. Back to France I suppose. I dunno.” I answered back, somewhat unsure of my response but not letting on, at least, I don’t think my tone conveyed uncertainty.
Raji walked behind me for a brief second and put his hand on my shoulder.
-“Troy, something is wrong here and we’re going to find out what it is – first thing in the morning. Tomorrow is Saturday, so we’ll have some time to hopefully figure out what’s wrong with you… You were hypnotized, or in some kind of trance… now the only question is, how did you get that way? Who hypnotized you?”
As Raji spoke, I kept seeing images in my mind’s eye – me, swinging a watch in front of Sun Yin’s eyes, in front of Hans’ eyes, hypnotizing Billy and his older brother Daryl, and of course, doing the same to Umi. I even had a brief memory glimpse of my dad, sitting on the couch in the den, naked, repeating those phrases that Jacques made him repeat.
I knew hypnosis was like a major theme of the Gross household these last few, but in my mind, I always knew it was me who was the hypnotist, I was the one who was controlling the action so to speak. But according to Raji’s assertive protestations, it was me he found in a trance, not anyone else.
What could that mean? I wondered to myself as I headed upstairs to my bedroom, Raji following closely behind.
I fell asleep wondering the same thoughts… what was going on? Why was so much of my life now revolving around hypnotism? Me hypnotizing other guys and now, according to Raji, me being hypnotized myself! While I didn’t remember that part, I knew there was something of a mystery destined to be unraveled and I was feeling a little bit of trepidation at the prospect of unraveling this weird hypno-web of which I seemed such an integral part…
To be continued?