Guinea-pig (standard:Psychological fiction, 1233 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Jun 05 2014	Views/Reads: 2698/1762	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
More than a simple cure, how far can this experiment go?

In his expensive, light grey suit, unshined shoes, I watch him in his
deep sleep, in my cream coloured  armchair. I say my armchair, it was 
partly because of him that I have it. 

You see, I am sat opposite him, in another, similar armchair in front of
a burning log fire. He has been like this for almost an hour. 

His name is Russell Brooks, and for the past five years he has worked
within the financial district of the capital. He's been a banker, a 
chartered accountant,  an audit manager, the type of person who gets up 
the ladder by any means necessary. If getting his way meant stabbing 
you in the back or stealing from you, then he would not hesitate. 

This is how he worked. Everybody knew it, but he was operating within
the law. He did steal. He did lie. He knew how to work the system in 
his favour and he exploited it to its potential. Nobody really liked 
him, but he didn't care. Profit and excess are everything to people 
like that. Once they have money, and a taste of luxury, then they would 
do literally anything to keep it. 

He used to live in Newcastle, with his wife and two boys. Yet, one day
he simply walked out on them, heading for the streets of London where 
the streets were made of bank notes and the buildings were of the 
finest diamonds and crystals. 

One day with his other half, window shopping, they were looking in the
window of a jewellers when he suddenly turned tail, walked back to his 
car, leaving his wife standing by the window by the bracelets, as he 
drove away, all the way to London. 

You see, I was there also, watching him. I hoped he would do that, and
in my car, I followed him all the way. In fact, I kept my eye on him 
for a while, even when his wife tracked him down, and he denied all 
knowledge of her. 'I don't know you', he would say, and I know he meant 
it. 

For a while he was a heavy smoker, and in trying to quit had tried
willpower, had tried nicotine patches, but then he saw an advert in the 
back of a local free newspaper. An ad placed by me. He decided to try 
hypnosis to cure him of smoking, and I was advertising myself. Not just 
for smoking, but for anything that hypnosis can do, and believe me, it 
can do a lot. 

The thing was though, I cured his smoking habit in a heartbeat. I knew I
could, that was easy, but I wanted to try something else. Could I turn 
this man into a success, something he could never have been? Before 
coming to me, he was of no significance whatsoever. One of those people 
that got their heads down, made no fuss of anything, quite a shy person 
who worked in the financial department of a supermarket. A bland 
individual, a face in the crowd, remembered by a few, for only a short 
while. 

Could I turn this meek person, this timid man into a confident success
in the nation's capital? 

The answer is yes, I could. I think I succeeded very well indeed. I got
him to wire me some of his finances. He wasn't aware of what he was 
doing, or why, I had made sure of that, but everytime he was paid, 10% 
would come to me, and I did very well from him. I got this house, and 
most of what it contained thanks to his greed. Now though, the 
experiment was over. 

When he had come to see me to be cured of his smoking, I had put him
into a deep sleep, a trance. Aside from telling him to hate the very 
sight of cigarettes, I completely changed his personality. Could he be 
someone totally different? I planted times and dates into his psyche, 
so that when he was looking in the jewellers window, that was when the 
time occured for him to leave for London. That was when the old him 
changed into the new him. 

He secured an interview for a banking company, and as with all job
interviews the key is in getting them to like you. Body language, 
personality, make them like your presence so they want to be in it 
again. Then, they would methaphorically throw your cv over their 
shoulder. 'When can you start?'. 


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