“...and that thing people say about being able to leave if your professor is 15 minutes late? Nicole, I’m telling you it is not true. I learned that the hard way.” Adam paused to look down at his burger in a mocked expression of shame. I had only been half-listening to the story, but at least knew that I needed to jump in at this point to make it look like I was paying attention.

“Really? What happened?” I asked, keeping it simple and trying to muster as much enthusiasm as I could. Adam looked back up at me with a wait-till-you-find-out smile, then continued. I, on the other hand, went back to focusing on something much more interesting about him. It wasn’t his chiseled jaw, his arms, or any of his other manly qualities. It wasn’t his charisma, or the constant signal of genuinely-good-guy he tried to broadcast. It certainly wasn’t his storytelling abilities.

No, what made Adam particularly interesting to me, and what made it hard to focus on anything else, was the fact that I had hypnotized him freshman year, and had just remembered that I never got around to deprogramming him.

I wrestled with this realization throughout the rest of our catch-up in the dining hall. I hadn’t eaten here in two years–it was on the other side of campus, and really was intended to just be for freshmen. But an afternoon tutoring session in a nearby dorm had run late, and I didn’t want to cross campus on an empty stomach. I figured I would just sit in the corner and scarf down a grilled cheese–in and out in five minutes. It was quite a surprise, then, when Adam slammed his tray down across from me, plopped into the empty seat, and a five minute snack turned into an hour of feigning engagement while trying to remember his trigger phrases.

For the life of me, I could not recall. After two years’ worth of 18-credit semesters, freshman year was mostly a blur. I did remember planning to remove his conditioning right after our presentation, but a chemistry mishap two floors above caused an evacuation during our wrap-up. Once outside, Adam had checked his watch, saw it was 4:16pm, said, “Close enough,” and walked off. The term ended, way led to way, and I had all but forgotten about the whole thing until this evening.

Well, it didn’t really matter anyway. The conditioning had surely worn off by now–it had just been a superficial demonstration. As I went back through it all in my mind, however, I remembered one thing in particular that nagged at me. I suspected, with begrudging appreciation, that Adam hadn’t actually been truly hypnotized at all, and had just been faking it to get our group a better grade. We got a decent enough final score, but the more important thing to me now was whether I had followed the program correctly or not. I realized I was being offered a chance to find out.

It was too tempting to pass up, I had to at least try. During a lull in the conversation, I saw an opportunity. “Hey, do you remember that project we did in Psych 104?” I asked. Adam took a bite of his burger and looked up at the ceiling, thinking.

“Hmm…the one about the superego?” he asked, food still in his mouth.

“No, the one where we tried to demonstrate Dr. Mattice’s hypnotism program.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, and swallowed. “The one that got cut short by the explosion upstairs.”

“That’s the one.”

“Some of my best work,” he smiled. “The whole class thought I was totally under your spell.”

So he was faking it after all, I realized with a frown. Seeing my expression, however, his demeanor changed. He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially.

“That’s just what I told the guys. Between you and me, I think it might have actually worked.” He winked, and I was left wondering which of these two Adams to believe. Either way, I didn’t like the idea of him telling his friends he’d pulled one over on me. Now it wasn’t just my curiosity that was piqued, a little bit of my pride was at stake as well. I pressed on.

“I remember we came up with some weird trigger phrases for that one,” I said, fishing.

“Yeah, I think one was Rosemary’s Babel,” he said with a small chuckle. That was indeed one of them, but not what I was looking for. I decided to cut to the chase.

“What was the one that put you under again?” I asked, attempting something like casual intrigue.

“I think it was root tomato sunrise, or something,” he responded, a tad sheepishly.

“No, that wasn’t it, but that's definitely close,” I said, and realized he might be sensing something was amiss. But it didn’t matter–I had just remembered the actual phrase. “Oh, it was–rutabaga surprise!”

Adam’s head slumped forward.

I resisted the urge to celebrate. Was he still just messing with me, or had the conditioning stuck around after all? Thankfully, Dr. Mattice’s method had a failsafe built in to check whether a subject was genuinely under. During initial programming, which I had attempted on Adam in preparation for the presentation, a long series of random words is read to the subject. If the subject’s consciousness is in control, they have little chance of being able to confidently repeat it back in the correct order. However, if the hypnotist had succeeded in putting them under, the subject’s subconsciousness would be able to fully repeat the list almost as quickly as it had been read to them.

At the time, I hadn’t been able to fully double check Adam’s state–we had had a lot to cover in a short demonstration. But, while I didn’t remember the words, a truly hypnotized Adam with intact conditioning would, in theory, still be able to repeat them without any issue. I stared down at him, slumped over his plate, and waited for any sign that this was just a prank.

“Adam?” I finally broke the silence, then looked around. We’d been noticed by a couple people, but just in passing. “Subject Adam?” I asked, this time using the proper Mattice terminology.

“Alert, Driver,” he responded flatly, still slumped over. At the very least, he still remembered the correct response and the proper term for the hypnotist.

“Subject Adam: repeat Conditioning Check…uh…Alpha Two.”

“Affirmative, Driver. Conditioning Check Alpha Two: Missive, Marmalade, Engine, Escape, Smile, Sectional, Mulligan, Medical, Elope, Enemy, Rescue, Rationale…” he fired the words off in quick succession. I let him continue for another moment before deciding it was enough. If he wasn’t actually hypnotized, he was acting the part so well that I no longer minded playing the fool. At least it would mean he really did pay attention to my project notes.

“Enough, Subject Adam,” I interjected. He stopped mid-word and became silent again. Both my pride and my curiosity were satisfied, and I figured I should probably get the deprogramming over with while we were still together. Thankfully, the library where I originally checked out Dr. Mattice’s book was also on this side of campus, and I didn’t think it would take too long to review and execute the conditioning removal process in one of the study rooms.

I was just about to wake him back up when a thought struck me. Here I was with a seemingly-hypnotized subject, and I was just going to walk him over to the library and get rid of it all right away? This was a chance to have a little bit of fun. Plus, he basically told his friends that my hypnosis was a sham–didn’t he deserve some innocent payback in that regard?

Making a mental promise that I would still remove the conditioning later that evening, I gave myself permission to indulge a little in the meantime. If he was faking, he would give up the ruse soon enough anyway. If he wasn’t faking, I would need to seriously consider diving deeper into the Mattice Method as a senior thesis.

“Subject Adam: assume Alert Position One, trance sustained,” I said–it was all coming back to me now. Adam lifted his head and looked into my eyes, his expression blank but attentive. I tried to think of a good way to begin, and decided to start small to test how candid he would be while under. “Subject Adam: Describe your Driver.” I was curious to see where he would go with this.

“Driver Nicole: woman. 20 years old. Caramel hair. Roughly 34C breast size. Attractive freckles. Sits on a rather curvaceous--”

“Enough, Subject Adam,” I said with a touch of red in my cheeks. I was surprised he was knowledgeable enough to specify the shade of my hair, but completely unsurprised–and a little annoyed–that he also knew my exact bust size. Still, it was good to learn that his sense of decorum was apparently muted in this state–that may come in handy.

I looked down at my watch and saw it was later than I thought. The library would be closing in half an hour. I needed to hurry this along, so I jumped to the next trial–suggestibility. I wanted to see what I could get him to do, but since time was of the essence, I would have to settle for a general directive that I could test out on the way to the library.

“Subject Adam: lock suggestibility on, in and out of trance.”

“Affirmative, Driver.”

“Turn awareness of suggestibility…” I hesitated. Did I want him to realize he was susceptible to my suggestions? “Off,” I said, finally deciding. I could always turn it on, depending on how things went.

“Affirmative, Driver.”

The stilted terminology of the program was getting a little old, so I thought of one last directive to spice things up a little. “Subject Adam: Always address Driver by title, even out of trance. When addressing Driver, replace the word affirmative with yes, and replace the title Driver with…Mistress.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Despite the monotone of his voice, or maybe because of it, I got a little rush hearing him say that.

“What is my name, Subject Adam?”

“Mistress.”

“Very good. Subject Adam: awake.”

Life returned to his face, and he shook his head from side to side a few times. “Whew, just got a little dozy there. Must be a food coma.”

“I think you’re working too hard. You should take a longer study break,” I said concernedly, starting with an innocent enough suggestion.

“Well, I've already taken a long enough one as it is..." He trailed off, gears turning. "But you’re right," he finally continued. "I don’t need to jump right back into textbooks.”

“I was just about to head to the library. You should walk with me. It’ll be good to get some fresh air.”

“Mistress, that sounds like a great idea.” He smiled, and I returned it with one of my own. The nonchalant way he said my new title left my mind reeling with possibilities.

“Why don’t you lead the way?”