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He should have offered her an out. Maybe if he hadn’t been dressed in costume he would have. But frankly, the Roma King persona sometimes lowered his inhibitions. So he didn’t give her a way out. Instead, he met her eye, daring her to go for it.
She did. Stiffening her spine, she lifted her chin and forced a tight smile. “Fine.”
“Good girl,” he mouthed, then turned to the others in the group. “You’re all willing to participate in this experiment?”
They nodded, even Allie. But before Damon could continue with one of his standard routines, such as having the group perform a Beatles song or act like characters from a popular movie, Allie’s frizzy-haired friend spoke up. “Do you take requests?”
Allie’s eyes widened.
“I mean…can you hypnotize us all into thinking about—revealing—what we truly want? Our secret wishes and desires?”
The married couple each shrugged, apparently having no problem with the idea. Allie obviously did. “Forget it.”
Damon quickly realized what the friend was up to. Hadn’t Allie said something about not knowing what she wanted? Or, at least, she hadn’t had the courage to own up to what she wanted.
“You’re saying you want to explore your own hopes and dreams?” he asked, his voice low and even, already gaining the trust of his test subjects with his soothing tone.
“Beats hopping around like a frog,” the male volunteer said.
The audience murmured their approval. With one last glare at her friend, Allie said, “All right. Go ahead.”
“It won’t work if you hold yourself back. You have to let yourself go, open up to me,” Damon said, moving close to her.
Her eyes closed, as if she were striving for some control. But when she opened them again to meet his stare, he saw calm acceptance and realized she was ready. For…whatever.
He began, and this time, he had no doubt. Allie wasn’t playing any games. He recognized the slowness of her breathing, the slight easing of the muscles in her body. He’d seen enough people genuinely hypnotized to know that she, and the rest of tonight’s volunteers, were in a very susceptible state.
Some thought hypnosis could be used to force people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. It couldn’t, of course, which was why it seldom worked to get people to quit smoking or lose weight. That only succeeded if it was what the person genuinely wanted; not because they were looking for a quick fix.
But it could be very successful on willing subjects who were truly ready to meet a goal, sometimes releasing inhibitions, capturing lost memories or allowing one the freedom to do something they secretly wanted to do anyway. Though he hadn’t thought of this particular shtick before, he had to admit, Allie’s friend’s idea had been a good one. Who didn’t have secret dreams and desires that a little coaxing might help them reveal?
The blonde, whose name, he discovered, was Tessa, was the first up. She soon had the audience clapping when she talked about how badly she wanted to win the lottery.
“So what else would you do, other than telling your boss he needs to get laid by someone other than Angie the Blow-Up doll?” Grinning, he held the microphone toward her.
“I’d pay to get my nose smaller and my boobs bigger. I’d go live with Jake Gyllenhaal and the entire male cast of Sons of Anarchy on some desert island that had 24-hour delivery of pizza and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. And condoms.”
He snapped his fingers. She fell silent and lowered her head, not hearing the audience’s roars of laughter.
The older couple was up next. While Tessa and Allie remained motionless, deep inside their minds in self-imposed isolation, he asked the pair what it was that they wanted.
The husband answered first. “I want my wife to stop eating Doritos and watching game shows while I’m out working my ass off all day.” The women in the audience began to grumble.
The wife didn’t respond to her husband, only to Damon, who put the question to her next. “I want my husband to stop thinking of me as a fat, useless housewife and treat me as romantically as we did when we got married.” Her voice still soft, vulnerable, she added, “And I want to stop feeling like he’s right.”
For a woman her age, Damon thought she looked great, especially in comparison to her potbellied husband. Her spouse had obviously done a number on her self-confidence.
“When you wake up,” he said to the husband, “you’ll be overcome with passion for your wife. From now on, no other woman will look as good to you. Every time you see her, you’re going to see the beautiful girl you married.”
Damon faced the wife and took her hand. “From now on, you will not only see the passion in your husband’s eyes…you’ll believe you’re worthy of it. Because you are.”
Soon it was Allie’s turn. He led her to a stool on the stage and helped her onto it. “You’re good at hiding what you want.”
“Yes,” she mumbled, not opening her eyes.
“But you do know what it is. You just need to admit it.”
Under the spotlights, her hair glimmered, and her smooth, creamy face appeared even more beautiful. Vulnerable. She shifted a little, arching her back, dropping one shoulder so that one strap of the low-cut sundress she wore slipped off her shoulder.
