Deep Undercover: Endgame A-11
I tell everyone that I learned hypnosis the old-fashioned way, by taking night classes at LACCD. The truth is that I learned it the old-old fashioned way, by buttering up a stage hypnotist by the name of Eddie Fisher and convincing him to teach me all of his best techniques. You can’t earn a degree from Torchy’s Cabaret, sure, but you can learn things they’d never teach you in class.
Like how to use hypnosis to mess with someone’s head.
I’ve got Cassie under as deep as I can get her. This is the point, Eddie emphasized, where your subjects either give your suggestions a polite hug or embrace them like a lover. “The ones to watch for are the unicorns, Paul. They go deep and they stay deep. They’re the people where it’s been a week since the show and they’re still droppin’ their pants when they hear the word ‘mayonnaise.’ You tell ’em they’re the Queen of England and they’ll start calling themselves Elizabeth. No lie.”
I wave a hand in front of Cassie’s glazed eyes and pull it down, bringing her eyelids and head crashing down with it. A little sigh slips between her parted lips.
Queen Elizabeth, Cassie DuBois, tomato, tomahto.
“When I tap your knee, you’ll that your name is actually Tara Stevens, and you will become Tara Stevens. You’ll know that I’ve hypnotized you and that you are still in a deep hypnotic trance, but it won’t concern you, because your mind and body belong to Avery Berman. Do you understand?”
Another sigh. “Yessss… ’stand.”
“Cassie, when I tap your knee, you will sleep. You will sink back down under Tara and sleep. You’ll have no memory of this evening, or speaking to me, or knowing that I exist, unless you are fully awake and speaking directly to me. When you sink back down under Tara, you will nothing. It’ll be a complete blank.”
“Blank?”
“Yes, Cassie. You won’t anything, no matter how hard you try, unless you’re fully awake and speaking directly to me.”
“I won’t… anything. Ffforget.”
The suggestion is probably worth less than a hill of beans, but putting it in Cassie’s head makes me feel better. Anything to slow Avery’s plan, even if Cassie eventually cracks the way Tara did. Time is nobody’s friend in this fight, so the more the delays fall on Avery’s side of the ledger, the better.
“Good, Cassie. Very good. You’re a very good hypnotic subject. And now it’s time to sleep.”
It takes me a few seconds to work up the courage to tap her knee.
The transformation is immediate. Tara pulls her legs back until her calves are touching the upholstery, feet planted firmly on the floor. She uses both armrests, like a monarch. Only her head betrays her current state. It’s still dangling between her shoulders, tilted to her left, her eyes closed and mouth half-open. It’s not her first time in this chair or in this position. I call it the ‘broken robot,’ and tonight, that’s more accurate than I want it to be.
“You are Tara Stevens. You’re back down in your very deep, very powerful, irresistible hypnotic trance. Your mind is open and blank. All of your thoughts and worries now safely tucked away, leaving just your very open, very sleepy, very hypnotized mind. Tell me what you are, in a single word, Tara. What are you?”
“Hypnotized.” Her voice is soft and sleepy, but also clipped. You can tell she’s fighting herself, and losing. That’s good news. I want her to lose.
“You now that you’re as deep in trance as you’ve ever been. You’re at the very bottom of a very long and tall set of stairs, at the very bottom, in a deep state of trance. You’re a very good hypnotic subject and you’ve gone so very deep. Deeply hypnotized. What are you?”
“I’m deeply hypnotized.” Unlike Cassie, there’s no sleepy pauses or mumbled acceptances with Tara.
“And now that you’re in that deep state of trance, you’ll find that you can discuss anything and everything with me, freely and openly and truthfully, without any worries or regrets.”
There’s a long pause. I’m pretty sure that she’s running down the list of things Avery’s programmed her to do and not do, checking to see if discuss anything and everything with Paul is on the no-no list. It’s not, and she responds with a curt “’kay.”
“You can discuss anything with me.”
“I can discuss anything with you.”
Good, because we have a lot to discuss.
My partner’s not the only person in this apartment with more than one voice in her head. While Cass and I were arguing about whether to warn Megan about Tara and Avery’s plans for her, my own inner voice was running over the facts and coming up with some very interesting theories. Theories that, if true, I couldn’t share with Cassie. Things I couldn’t risk her knowing, lest Avery dig them out of her hypnotized mind.
Things that started with Avery Berman himself.
The reality is that Avery could have—and should have—killed Tara the same day he outed her as a mole. It’s exactly the reason he keeps gorillas like Frank DiMaria on his payroll. Leave her in a trance, hustle her into a car for a one-way trip out to the desert, problem solved. Any of his other girls could have stepped up to bat in her place whenever Lieutenant Rogers had some new intel to share, and Rogers himself would have his memories of Cassie wiped cleaner than the counters at Big Bagel.
And in the meantime, while I was sitting here wondering why Tara hadn’t checked in with me, Frank and his goon squad would have been on their way to kick down my door with guns drawn. Two problems taken care of in an afternoon, with enough time left in the day for Avery to squeeze in a quick orgy.
But he didn’t go that route, and I’ve been in the business long enough to know why. Arrogant bastards like him get bored with simply winning. They have money and power—winning’s a given. They need to rub your face in it, and that’s the difference between shooting your enemy in the gut and hypnotizing your enemy’s partner into doing it for you. Right before she gallops home to suck your dick.
Which is why I’m also betting that Cassie’s half-wrong. Megan is the next target on his list, but there’s no way in hell he intends to kill her. She’s smart and sexy and fills out a bikini better than most. That alone is enough to catch his attention. But Tara knows that she’s a hypnotist, so now Avery knows she’s a hypnotist. How can he up a hot, sexy girl who’s also an easy hypnotic subject and an expert hypnotist in her own right? Dead Megan earns Avery no points, but brainwashedMegan gains him an ally who can hypnotize twice as many people in half the time—the perfect opportunity if, as I suspect, he’s planning to speed up his plans.
“You’re doing so well, Tara. Open and truthful. Who would you say you love, more than anyone in the world, at this very moment?”
A wicked smile. “My Massssster.” Her right hand cups her left breast and squeezes. A soft moan follows. I’ve suddenly got a tremendous urge to treat Avery Berman to some unorthodox dental surgery. But that can wait. Right now, I need him to be his usual handsome and prick-ish self, and for Tara to worship the Italian marble floors he walks on.
“He’s the most wonderful man in the world, isn’t he? Your Master.”
“Mmmmm….”
“Your wonderful Master, Avery Berman.”
You can see her eyes moving rapidly beneath those sleepy lids. “Ssssooo wonderful… better than anyone. Better than you.”
I’m going to kill you slowly, you bastard.They’re going to have to write some new laws just to cover all of the horrible things I’m planning for him.
“And what are you to him, Tara?”
“I belong to him. He owns me. Body and soul. I’ll do anything for him. Anything he asks. I’m his slave. I’m his perfect slavegirl.”
There are times when a person under hypnosis, even as deep as Tara is, acts as predictably as someone who is wide awake. Ask a buddy of yours to talk about something or someone they love and they’ll happily gush about it for an hour. In Tara’s new world, there is only room for one man, one lover, one ‘hobby,’ and that’s Dickhead McGee. She’ll go on all night if I let her. It’s only when I tell her to stop worshipping Avery that the fireworks start.
I have no intention of telling her to stop.
“You love him more than anything,” I agree. “You’d do anything to keep him.”
“Mmmm, anything…” Tara licks those luscious lips of hers and slips an index finger between them. A second later that same finger is between a different set of lips. Her other hand switches from left breast to right. Another squeeze, another moan. “Massssster…”
Perfect. I’ve got her hot, horny, hypnotized, and more than a little distracted. “You won’t let anyone get between you and your wonderful Master, will you?”
“No… never… no one could ever… fuck, I need… Master… his touch, oh God, his cock…”
That last word makes me want to vomit, especially as I have to follow that up by saying “Yes, his big, powerful cock. You need it.” Fucking vomit. “You need it so much that you’ll never allow anyone to take your place as his number one girl. No one. Especially not Megan.”
“Mmmm… I… Megan?” Her hands stop moving. They don’t go anywhere—she’s just hit the pause button on both. People under hypnosis typically don’t know what to do when you throw a curveball at them, and Tara, despite being a pro at it by now, is caught flat-footed. Or finger deep, I guess.
“Yes, Megan. Think of Megan for me right now, Tara. You can picture her in your sleepy, hypnotized mind. You know what she’s like, don’t you?”
A frown. Yeah, she does.
“She’s…”
“She likes to be in charge, Tara. She wants to replace you. She wants me to replace you. To be my partner. To be closer to me.”
I don’t know if Cassie’s gut is correct, that Tara has some feelings for me, or at least can see how I feel about her. But I do know that she’s the jealous type. Cassie was close to the target, but not quite on it. Tara’s weakness isn’t me, or Megan, or Avery. Tara’s weakness is herself.
“She always… she wants to…” Tara’s hands leave her naughty bits and come to an uneasy rest in her lap. She’s frowning even more now. I risk breaking this trance if I keep pushing, but pushing is exactly what I need to do. Push those buttons, Paul. Push push push.
“You the Halloween party at Mezcal last year.”
“Yes. I .”
“You her Playboy Bunny outfit. You how much she flirted with me.”
Tara opens her eyes. She’s looking right through me, through the wall behind me, and all the way across town and time to that glitzy new t in WeHo, where Past Megan is showing off some very impressive curves in a very shiny and tiny one-piece. I her spending hours trying to make the bunny ears look right. No one at the party noticed them, because no one at the party was looking up that high.
“She wants you,” she grumbles, as much as a person in trance can grumble. She’s certainly no longer interested in getting off.
“She wants to fuck me, Tara?”
“She wants to fuck you, yeah. She thinks she’s better than me. She thinks she’s hotter than me. Smarter than me.”
“I think you’re right, Tara. You’ve very perceptive. Master would be proud of you. Megan wants to replace you.” Press press press.
“She does? She does.”
“But Tara… you’re Master’s favorite, and you won’t let Megan replace you.”
“No… I won’t… I won’t… she won’t… Master is mine. Master is MINE. I love my Master. Master loves me!”
“You’re his perfect slavegirl.”
It’s like I’m just another one of Avery’s brainwashed bimbos, gossiping with my fellow minions and dishing dirt on the competition. I’ve got that jealousy ball rolling but good. She sits upright in the chair, eyes still wide open. She raises her arms like she’s about to get in the ring for a ten-round bout with Megan. “I’m his perfect slavegirl!”
“That’s absolutely right, Tara. In fact, the more you think about my words, the more sense they make. You’re going to make sure that she never takes your place as your Master’s favorite, won’t you?”
“No one loves him more than me.”
“No one. But , Tara. If Megan knows that you know about her, she’ll try to outwit you. She’ll tell lies to your Master about you. But you already know how you can avoid that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Fingers crossed. “And how can you hide your knowledge from her?”
“You can… you hypnotize me. Make me forget. Just like Master makes me sleep and forget. Until it’s time.”
“That’s right, Tara. I hypnotized you and made you think you were someone else. I can make it so that you’re always two steps ahead of Megan. Would you like that?”
She shakes her head. “Mmmassster…Master should… Master owns my mind and body and soul. Master should…”
“I’m not going to fight your Master, Tara. You belong to him. I want to help him. Do you understand? I’m suggesting this because it’s what your Master would want for you.”
The next second lasts for a thousand years. You can see the battle play out behind her eyes, even as empty and blank as they are. Her face scrunches. Then it all collapses, and she smooths out into a much deeper trance, exactly the way Avery’s programmed her to do. The perfect slavegirl. Ready to do anything for her Master.
It’s like what they tell you about quicksand when you’re a kid. Fight it, and you just sink deeper. Relax and act like you don’t care that you’re in quicksand, and you can roll out of it.
“Yes.” A smile plays across her face. “Please help me. Please help Master.”
“I’m going to help you and your wonderful Master. It’s very easy, because you already know what to do, Tara, and you know how.”
“Yes.”
“Then go even deeper now. Close your eyes and sleep for me.”
Her eyes roll back in her head, and her body goes so limp that it nearly spills out of the chair and onto the floor.
Well, shit. “Listen carefully. Here’s what you can do to help your Master.”