I open my eyes. There's a man lying across from me on the bed. I have no idea who he is.
He's looking at me, with a slightly smug expression, like I've been making goofy sounds in my sleep.
But I don't feel sleepy. Or hungover either. I'm wide awake; I notice that my body feels electric.
I'm naked, lying on top of the sheets. Huh - he’s naked too. About half a metre away. He has a nice body, definitely some muscles there, but it doesn’t ring a bell. And... now I'm checking out his dick. It’s sort of unfolding on its own. I feel my cheeks get hot and look away.
"Hi!" he says, and smiles. Nice beard, nice eyes...still nothin’.
"Hi...have we met?" I hear myself say.
"Pleased to meet you!" he says, smiling wider and extending his hand. Are we really doing this? "I'm Ben." A nice solid grip in the handshake. I'm so aware of his skin sliding on mine, and the warmth of his hand.
Now there's a silence. He's still looking at me.
He says, "Do you often find yourself naked in a hotel room with a stranger?"
It’s a hotel room. Stripey couch and everything. I peek at the window - the light around the edges of the blinds suggests noon. I’m in Italy, I remember that.
He's tracing a finger along my arm.
“Not really...I think...need..."
And it’s hit me, all at once, like when a rollercoaster hits the first downslope. I close the distance between us and press my naked body along his. Suddenly it's perfectly clear what my body is telling me: FUCK. NOW.
And I'm kissing him, and I don’t recognize the taste.
But this feels right. This is absolutely what I should be doing right now. My only concern is getting as much of my skin touching his as possible. And eating his face.
He unlocks from my lips. Well, I guess I needed to breathe eventually.
“I’ll bet you’ve never done something like this in your life, have you. You’re careful. You like to get to know someone first, and see if there’s a connection.”
“That’s right.” Is he making fun of me? The firmness I tried to put in my voice was probably undermined by the grinding I was doing on his thigh.
“So you never knew what it felt like to feel that flash of lust, and then just go for it. To do something very dangerous. To smell the new smell, to feel a new cock inside you. To let a strange man just have you.”
“Uhh.” Fuck. I can barely hear him over the heat. I’m riding his leg faster.
He looks away.
“I’ll bet you have even more rules about who you let hypnotize you. You’d never agree to trance with a total stranger.”
That stops me. “Ok, that’s really a different thing, I mean there’s trust involved, I...”
He wraps a chunk of my hair around his fist, and controls my head so that I’m looking right in his face. All of a sudden his eyes are the only thing I can see. It’s like the room lights were on a dimmer, that also made his eyes brighter, and bigger than the ceiling. He’s probably saying something, but I know I’m gone.
And a second later there’s a snap and I’m back. I’m actually frustrated - tranceus interruptus. He’s grinning and looking even more smug, across from me on the bed. “I knew it. You’re kind of trance slut, aren’t you? You opened your legs and your mind to a complete stranger, didn’t you? Who knows what trouble your lust and sluttiness is going to get you into?”
I’d like to construct an indignant comeback, but his fingers are doing incredible things between my legs, and that goes so nicely with the post-trance fuzziness. I’m pawing at his chest, and I hear myself gasp as my hand finds his erection.
A thought finally bubbles up through the murk. “All this... is a post-hypnotic suggestion thing, right?”
He laughs out loud, although there’s a satisfying little hitch in his laugh as my finger circles around the head of his cock.
“Took you long enough to figure out. You know prosopagnosia? That brain issue where you can’t recognize people’s faces? That’s what I did to you, except more so. And temporarily. We came here together, we are lovers, and we’ve been playing hypnosis games like this for over a year. Does that bring it back now?”
“...Not really. But I’m guessing that’s your fault too.” Somehow while delivering this speech he’s managed to maneuvre me onto my back with my legs over his shoulders. Normally I need more of a warmup, but my body is telling me, I’m warm enough.
“Yep!” He reaches down with confident touch, not quite in the style of any lover my brain will let me recall, and gets me ready. “At any time, I could snap my fingers and say ‘recognize’, and I’ll be back to good old me. But this is more exciting right now, isn’t it?”
“Of course,” he continues as he slides into me, “It’s also possible that I’m a hypnotist who just stepped out of the front door of my hotel, saw a girl on Via Tadino - UH - with an ass that made me horny as fuck, used my little street - HUNH - hypnosis pickup routine on her, and her natural curiosity and trance-sluttiness got her up here so I could - AH - rewrite her thoughts.”
He slows down, agonizingly, and he’s watching me.
But all I’m doing is grinding my hips around, desperate to get more of him, faster. He holds my hands down to stop me wriggling.
“You don’t give a shit right now, do you.”
“Please. Just keep going. Please.” And the strange man, above me and inside me, does.
