How to win men and control them.

| 17 Feb 2015 | 01:33

    Love Trances: How to Hypnotize Men to Love You and Do Your Bidding By Craig Rovinsky 1st Books Library, 192 pages, $16.50 Screw the part of the equation where I trick-I mean hypnotize-men into loving me. I just wanted a bunch of boys to do my bidding. I envisioned an army of slackjawed, hollow-eyed hotties, anxiously awaiting my next command:

    "Arthur, my calves are sore; please rub them."

    "Alex, my bathroom floor is covered in filth-please scrub."

    "Antonio, it's been three hours since my last orgasm-please manipulate my clitoris with your tongue immediately."

    Note that I always said "please." I would be a benevolent dictator.

    When I mentioned the title of this vanity-press-published book to a particularly uptight friend, she harumphed that she'd never try to manipulate anyone into loving her. Luckily I didn't have to look far for the author's answer to that: "Is it manipulation? Is it unscrupulous? If someone tries to get me to do something that will ultimately make me a happier person, that's being thoughtful." See.

    I anxiously tore into the tome, delighted to note that the curiously large type, combined with dozens of blank pages entitled "HypnoJournal" (intended for us neophytes to use for jotting notes), meant there wasn't really much for me to read at all. Cackling with glee, I learned that "Men are practically helpless against the techniques you will learn." Visions of Benicio Del Toro scrubbing my toilet ran through my head. I studied each chapter carefully and decided to take my newfound hypno-prowess out for a spin. Off to the bar I went.

    Jon, a friend of a friend, was my first target. As instructed, I looked into his eye that was farthest from me. As I stared across his face and into his right eyeball, Jon looked a little alarmed, so I quit it. The author suggests that you ask your prey to relay their happiest childhood memory. Jon is a sports fan and immediately started telling me some long involved story about little league. I confess I kind of zoned out until he said the best part was when he hit "a dinger." I recalled that I was supposed to remember a trance word and give him a squeeze when he said it.

    "Why'd you pinch me?" he yelped.

    I repeated the word "dinger" back to him applying a lighter version of the pinch this time. Jon looked like he thought I might be dangerous or retarded, so I backed off. I suggested he might want to clean my bathroom floor, but he didn't seem all that interested. I knew he had a girlfriend so I felt a little guilty working any more mojo on him.

    Hottie Greg was my next victim. He'd seen the magic I'd been (not) working on Jon and wanted me to try and hypnotize him. He stared right back when I did the one-eye stare, which made me blush and look away because he was so cute. Some hypnotist I was. His wild gesticulations made it difficult to pin him down long enough to pinch him when he told me his happy memory, so I wound up grabbing at his index finger and, well, kind of jerking it off. Greg told me I had beautiful eyes and asked if he could see me again, but I think he was just humoring me. My bathroom floor is still filthy.