mesmerize (restarted thread, closed for Pipper)

[patrick1]

Patrick never focused on individuals in his lectures. It would be too distracting.

For if he did, he would think about that individual, perhaps, and lose his train of thought.

But more: he needed to think of the students, some dozens of them today scattered up facing him in the big austere hall, as a mass, both more and less than individuals, a jumble of faces and t-shirts and pens and paper and electronic devices. He spoke to the row before the back, to no-one in particular, to everyone in general. It always worked fine.

Except that today -

They were laughing. He liked to make them laugh. He was showing a couple of old Peanuts cartoons – THE DOCTOR IS IN – to build up to his section about the influence of role, status, perceived power even in what seemed so medical a thing as the prescription and taking of pills.

She had green eyes. Third row, centre.

He didn't stumble. He had made his one mistake, years ago now, in the scenario that involved an eager bright female student and the flattered older professor: he wasn't going to make it again. 'Quite remarkably,' he concentrated on his words, this was new stuff interpolated into an old lecture, new research findings, 'it seems that in the trials of Prozac and Seroxat and all their cousins and siblings in the serotonin uptake family, the effect of the drugs was only a little greater than the placebo effect. How overwhelmingly important to us it is, to believe that we have something wrong with us, and that a sympathetic person in authority is looking out for us...'

It wasn't his best lecture. Perhaps he'd delivered it too many times: the trope about how charismatic figures from Mesmer, with his magnetisme animale, to Freud with his hypnosis and his seductive psychotherapy, were perhaps only harnessing the power of the placebo...

Still, there was the usual crowd of questioners afterwards. A thesis proffered for comment. Email addresses exchanged.

The young woman with green eyes – she was a brunette, she had a shy smile – hovered on the edge of the group but didn't come forward to say anything. Perhaps it was his fault: hadn't she had her hand tentatively raised at one point, hadn't he in his turn felt a momentary shyness and passed her over?

Finally Miriam from the faculty was at his shoulder saying, 'Anything I can do for you Pat?'

And he began to say, 'Yeh you can tell me who...'

But she wasn't there any more. The young woman with green eyes. She'd melted away. And in any event what the hell was he doing asking Miriam about her? Some people just do that to you. 'Who what?' asked Miriam.

'No matter,' he said, 'no matter,' and resolved to break his usual daytime habits and get out of here and just for once sit in a quiet bar and have a dry martini. Drink a toast maybe to imaginary women with green eyes.

 

[pipper]

Wendy Bingham took in the Professor’s lecture. In fact she soaked it in. Hanging onto every word he said, while jotting down every example he gave. Though she had already learned most of what he spoke about, through online searches, and books, Wendy was always eager to learn something new.

When he mentioned Mesmer, her heart melted. Freud was very good, but Mesmer was supreme in her eyes, though some of her fellow students would disagree. Oh, how she wanted to learn more of Mesmer’s techniques.

After the lecture was over, Wendy along with some other students went down to ask Professor Patrick questions, but the trouble with Wendy was that she was shy. Always has been, for some unknown reason. Many a time she had nervously raised her hand to ask a question, only to quickly lower it, as she had done today.

But she wanted to ask the professor so many questions, but she didn’t want to look foolish in front of others, so Wendy just stood there, listening to the answers, and then locking them into her memory, so that she would enter them into her laptop, along with her notes, once she went home.

Even when others exchanged emails with Pat, as he liked to be called, she decided not to do it. Yet another open door, she had closed on herself.

Seeing that there was no point in staying, she silently slipped away to the library, hoping to find some new books on Mesmer, but she was in for a disappointment. Wendy knew that her only chance to get more information on Mesmer was through Pat.

Running back to the hall where he had spoken, she saw him enter the hallway, along with Miriam. ‘Oh damn! He’s leaving.’

Wendy blushed. Swearing wasn’t one of her habits, so the fact it had escaped her mouth, was a complete surprise to her, as well as anyone else who heard it.

As Miriam shook the professor’s hand to say goodbye, Wendy looked on in horror. Another lost opportunity. Or was it?

Plucking up courage, she followed him, at a discrete distance, hoping to catch him when he reached his car. But he kept on walking into the high street.

Wendy decided to close the gap between them, and as she did so, he stopped outside a bar, and then entered.

This is not what Wendy wanted. Going in would require getting an alcoholic drink.

‘Well, I’m not standing out here for ever, looking like an idiot,’ she softly muttered. Spotting no dress code notice, Wendy assumed her loose sweater and jeans would be acceptable attire.

On entering, she looked around for Pat. Then she spotted him, at the bar, with a drink in his hand. Though he was on in years, he did look quite handsome. Noticing a vacant bar stool beside him, Wendy quickly claimed it, so quick in fact that it emitted a loud scrape from its legs, as it moved which resulted in her getting a strange look from the bartender.

There was no going back now, shyness be damned. ‘Excuse me for meeting you like this, Professor, but I want to thank you for the lecture. Though it's rude of me to bring the subject up at this moment in time, I was wondering if you can assist me on how to get more information on Mesmer.’

 

[patrick1]

The man behind the bartender looked old to Pat. The kind who had given up that first phase of dyeing his grey streaks and was letting them run riot through his dark brown hair, whose smiling eyes were showing the lines of past laughter, whose smile itself had a melancholy tinge...

Behind the barman was a mirror. He was looking at himself.

Cheers.

The talk had gone well. He smiled at the man behind the barman, regardless of whether it made more lines on his face.

'Same again,' he said, even though the first one was going to make him light-headed any moment now. No classes to go back to this afternoon, what the hell.

The scrape of a bar stool. Green eyes! From the audience! Looking pert and pretty: what the hell? '...Professor, but I want to thank you...' - she must have followed him here. He looked around. Just a couple of newspaper-readers dotted around, and a woman at the end of the counter who looked like a permanent fixture. 'Though it's rude of me….assist me on how to get more information on Mesmer.’

'Rude? Not at all. I'll be glad to help.' Training his own green eyes on hers. She wasn't as innocent as she was acting, was she? Was she? 'Let me buy you a drink.' He gestured to the bartender to give her whatever she wanted. 'I once played Mesmer in a one man play, you know. So I should warn you, I can bore the world about Mesmer given half a chance...'
_________

 

[pipper]

‘…I can bore the world about Mesmer given half a chance...'

‘With all due respect Professor, if your play was just as informative as your lecture, I doubt very much that you're boring. You must have studied Mesmer for some considerable time,’ Wendy said, before she ordered a coke, again raising the bartender’s eyebrows. ‘Actually, I’m planning to write both a thesis and a fictional book about a woman who falls under the spell of Mesmer.’

Damn! Why did she have to mention that last bit? Stupid! Stupid!

Too late to retract that statement, Wendy took a napkin from the bar’s counter, and wrote down her email address on it, and then slid it across to Pat, but then again, her own self-induced shyness took over. ’I’m sorry, but this has been a mistake for me to see you here. After all, this is your private time. I should have given you this after the lecture. I’ll leave it up to you if you still want to help me.'

With that, and without looking at him again, Wendy got off the stool, and quickly exited the bar, without taking a sip of her drink.

Once outside, the fresh air hit Wendy. ‘What was I thinking?’ Sighing, she dearly wanted to go back into the bar, and and least finish the drink, Pat had paid for. Taking a deep breath Wendy walked back into the bar, and was thankful to see that the bar stool beside Pat was still vacant.

Sitting down, quietly this time, Wendy picked up her drink, and noticed that the napkin her email was on, was nowhere to be seen. Had he thrown it away, after her rude departure, without even thanking him for the drink?

'I just want to thank you for the drink, and your lecture, and ask for your forgiveness for my unwarranted departure.'

 

[patrick1]

Sober up. He had just tucked the napkin with her email address into his inside pocket, and said to himself he probably wouldn't see her innocent face again, and then there she was, beside him, asking for his...

'Honestly, Wendy,' don't touch her hand, pale and unringed, resting on the bar counter, just look at her levelly and say, 'There's really no call for forgiveness, for there's nothing to forgive. Now...'

He raised his hand before she could speak again.

Don't do this, Patrick, it may end in...

In what? In foolishness? - So be it, said the martini reaching his brain.

There was a pale spot on her neck that for some reason caught his attention.

Her eyes, look at her eyes.

'Here's something. I used to play Mesmer not merely in a drama but also with other people – it's years since I did it so forgive me, in turn, if - well, three glasses of water, please barman! Wendy, I can see,' lowering his voice so as not to embarrass the young woman, her eyes were, as one might say, mesmerizing him, 'you are a little shy, let's go to a cubicle, and I will show you something a little mesmeric, using just these three glasses of water, and your own concentration, something that might help you relax. I promise nothing bad will happen. The worst that will happen is, you will decide to ask for a vodka in your coke and tell me something about yourself. Do you want to try?'

 

[pipper]

I’m getting in too deep, too soon, Wendy thought, as she listened to his voice. Was she shy? Of course! But the idea of him trying something a little mesmeric – no, it was hypnosis - on her was a bit too much.

Getting her to ask for vodka to be added to her coke drink, and telling him something about herself – well, that was not on the cards. After all, if he could do that, what else could he do to her?

‘I’m sorry, Professor, but I do need to go.’ Think of an excuse.

‘I’m meeting my parents for dinner.’

Don’t look at his eyes, she thought. Turning away, she lifted the glass, and drank her coke.

But she felt that she had to say something. ‘That thing about the story, I mentioned. It was only something I had planned, but I have now decided against it, as it would be insulting to the memory of Mesmer. Thank you again, for your kind hospitality, Professor.’

With that, she left the bar, not daring to look back. Would that had been the last time, she would ever see, or hear from, him?