Dang. This is good, sensuous without being explicit. Totally rocks.

Thanks. I was wondering if I could still make a story that would stand on its own merits without a whole lot of smut. It would appear that I can!

Hey, you finally posted it! I am wishing you luck in the contest!
Oh, and you forgot something...

Producer credit for my proofreader? <_<
Heh, I know what you mean, but I think this one is going to be on the shelf for awhile though, until the contest is over at least. I'm getting past my block now and I'd like to work on my novel some more. I would like to work on this one again someday, and that's the great thing about stories I suppose. No expiration date! It'll be there when I get back to it.

I WAS talking about my credit...

Figured it was one of the two.

First off let me congratulate you on a story very well written. The way you put the setting of the story into motion revealed how much effort you put into not just writing this up, but also into thinking it up. I found it a very interesting story to read even though this is normally not something on my reading shelf.

I sincerely hope that this story goes a long way in the competition, as this written work of art deserves it!

Well thank you so much! I do try to put a lot of thought into my stories and it's always a boon to see that pay off.

Very Inspirational and comfortable, Thanks !

That's the kind of feel I was going for. Good to hear!

Very well done.

Interesting, engaging, and calming without being too sexual or sensual. Great work and great quality. :D

Excellent! I'm so glad to hear that you liked it.

Loved it. I'd certainly be tempted to just let go and let her keep me. ;)

Oh, she could have you if she wanted. ^_^

Feel free to contact me if you'd like to write up something for one of my characters, though I'm not really in a position for commissions right now. =^-^=

Hm, work has been real busy lately. I haven't been able to really sit down and write for months. I'll keep it in mind though, if I do find the time.

I commented on this over on SoFurry, but I was extraordinarily terse; so I wanted to leave a note here as well. I love this piece; it's so well executed and so...gripping, not just in the entirely classical sense but also not *quite* erotically, either. It's a fantastic exploration of the space between those two that I personally just don't think people spend quite enough time exploring, and I just love it.

Well it's so good to hear that you just can't say enough about this one. Originally I'd meant for this story to have a whole bunch of sexy times in it. I'd like to take credit as a brilliant writer for what ended up happening, but taking all that out was a strictly practical consideration. I couldn't write out a full sex scene the way I'd like it and keep it under the contest's word-count limit. I actually worried about it a fair bit. When you write erotica, you don't put a sex scene in the middle of a vacuum. At least, you shouldn't. You shape the rest of the story around it; make the dialogue smoother, the actions more suggestive, the descriptions sexier. I thought that having all that without the implied payoff would be disastrous. In the end I'm really glad I've forged ahead with it, because I've gotten a half-dozen responses that mirror yours. 'This is amazing! How is it so sexy without any sex?'
Intentionally or not, I pulled off something very difficult that you don't see too many writers doing. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but maybe I should skim the sex scenes out of my work more often!

I'll admit, having the payoff does make it sweeter, but one of the things I like about *all* your work is that you do actually build a complete story, not just sketch together a couple of neat excuses to bump uglies and let the characters have at it. The long-form approach has exactly the accentuative effect you describe, and Unwind is a tour de force of your ability to do that and do it well - to do it exclusively, even; to write porn which contains no porn, or as some would call it, to write! :P

Without getting too deeply into my philosophy on the fandom, in my experience, furry creative work is far, FAR more willing than other groups' to admit that there is any explorable space at all between where we must all pretend to be blushing, pure-minded virginal eunuchs, and where we film homemade hardcore porn. We live in one end or the other of this bizarre dichotomy, otherwise, and ne'er the twain shall meet. For me, whether there's payoff or not, I love it when an author's willing to dawdle in that space between and play around there; and whether you tackle it as you did here or as you did in An Ordinary Week, perpetually weaving in and out of it and taking the trouble to actually write characters, your treatment of it is one of the things I really love about your work. I think the division between has-porn and hasn't-got-porn is more or less abritrary, and you do an excellent job blurring the line.

Hah! You'll give me a swelled head before long. Soon I'll be claiming to have intentionally done these things. I do really like having a compelling story, that's for sure. I think if you're more involved in the story, you'll be more involved in the fun parts, and that's its own reward. I love having big levels of detail. Stephen King said "Every story wants to be a novel, and every novel wants to be 1,000 pages long." And I certainly experience that any time I put pen to paper.

I've never had someone react quite like this, but I think it's a good indication I should keep doing what I'm doing, and I'd love to! I guess you could say I've got a hard-on for character development.

That really hit home. Good job. :3 This, I think, is the first story I've read in a really long time that compels me to say "Thanks for the read."

Well, I'd say "Thanks for reading" to that. I've not much of a following, and I've been truly blown away by the popularity of this one.

Now that was an interesting read. Sensual, but clean. A rather interesting and subtle form of hypnosis too. Still, it must feel good to be relaxed both physically and mentally. I was rather amused by Amanda's frustrations too.

Toying with Amanda was a lot of fun. That part did take a lot of thought and I'm glad you appreciated it. Everything else just flowed out, but I really had to sit down and think for awhile about how I wanted to bring it to a close. I've seen a lot of great stories fumble the ending, and I didn't want that to happen here. Thanks for the feedback!

That was certainly an enjoyable read. Very sensual without any overt sex. Kind of makes me want to see where it leads, what develops in the newly-established relationship between the two jackals.

Heh! That's what everyone says. I was really worried about how the decision to avoid any true XXX content would affect this one's popularity, but about half the comments are people that are just mystified by what I was able to accomplish here without resorting to overt sexy times. "What? How is this so sexy without having any sex in it?"

As for what happens next, unless I get it into my head to write a sequel, that'll be up to you. And it's quite likely to stay that way. I really like how this one ended and I worry about failing to do it justice with a part II.

It's hard to overstate how good this story is. It should have gotten first place, in my opinion. X3

Why thank you! Your opinion is a valuable one to me. You were one of the writers that got me interested in hypnosis in the first place.
I also thought pretty highly of this one, and so did many readers.  Darkwitt actually gave a number of very good reasons for why I placed where I did, and I agree with his assertions for the most part. Everyone agrees that the induction was absolutely fantastic. Many have said it's the best, most realistic hypnotic induction in the contest, or that they've ever read. That made me feel good, but the story did have a lot of weaknesses outside that. I sort of pinned all my hopes on the induction and it led to some really anemic plot development, which is all the more glaring coming off such a great induction. I learned a great deal from his comments, and I'll certainly seek him out again if I have another major hypnosis piece done in the near future.

This story was absolutely amazing. I tend to pride myself on being a harsh critic, and...I can't find any nits to pick! I'm absolutely stunned. I am also very, very pleased!

Thank you. I've been truly overwhelmed by the success of this one. You're not the first person to be left speechless by my work and I'll do my best to make sure you're not the last.

I feel relaxed just for having read this story! XD Damn, you're good! Any plans to do more clean hypnosis stories? I kinda like them. =3

I may. I was astonished at the reaction to this one. I never would've thought that a clean story could get this kind of acclaim. I only wrote it because the idea was so clear in my mind, and Zsisron's contest prompted me to get that idea written down. Now that I see there is such demand and fervor for stories like this, I very well may try my hand at another. Not particularly soon though, sorry. There are a lot of half-finished things in my queue that I'd take a crack at before I'd try to start something new, and I start college this week, so I'm sure my schedule will tighten up both swiftly and dramatically in the coming few weeks.

No pressure! I know how real life can take up your time. Just be sure and take a couple hours out of the week and you should do fine. =3

Wow! Just wow! I finnaly got a chance to read this story word for word and I must say that you are a pro a this! The emotion of the charicters is great the setting pristine. I have never seen a story that has been this well written on the Internet I'd like to thank you for posting this. It's nice to have a hypnosis story that is not only good for the fact that is not nothing but a complete yiff big as well as the fact that the characters are represented amazingly and I had an actual connection with both jackals. I would love you to do a sequel of this story with the same type of writing I understand but it is a very challenging thing to come up with these stories on a wim. the reason I like this story so much is that it seems that the female jackal is actually trying to help him. I simply cannot get over how well written this is.none the less if we had more people like mistress in this world there would be a lot less violence. Now you may think I'm going to deep into this and this comment is already extremely long so I will end it here. All i have to say is thank you mistress. The most beautiful name I have ever heard. Good night mistress I hope to see you again soon.

PS please keep your stories clean like this. we have enough yiff and fetish story's on this sight already. What you did here is very special . you told a story of help not a story of harm. thank you.

I learned early on that all you had to do was write about sex and you'll get all the fame and publicity you could ever ask for. Many have proven it time and time again. That's why I was so blown away by the success of this one. Not in spite of its lacking explicit content, but because of it. That's the biggest thing that everyone has loved about it. I had no idea that there was such an enthusiastic demand for something like that. I do hope to someday capture the magic that I had here once again, and it's people like you that push me towards that. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story, and thank you so much for taking the time to say so.

I must say, this is quite wonderfully written and a very enjoyable read. I stumbled upon the artwork for this story and, wanting to understand the context of the scene, found myself reading it. It was an experience, to say the least and I'm certain I found myself rather enchanted by that lovely jackal lady. Can't say as I'd mind spending a bit of quality time with a woman like that. I found her very intriguing and may even decide to draw her at some point, with your permission of course.

Concerning the nature of the story itself, it seems to be a unique concept. Hypnosis has never really been my cup o' tea, but the way you've presented it here lends it an air of subtle mystique with a healthy dose of allure and sensuality. Initially I had no idea it was happening and managed to catch myself performing (or at least attempting) a few of those techniques. Even after I had finished reading I found myself acutely aware of my own breathing for some time. I dare say that's quite the literary feat.

I usually avoid commenting on submissions posted more than a few ago, but I enjoyed this enough that I just had say something. Hell, I could probably say more, but I'll leave it this.

Wow! It's wonderful to hear that you came across my story and found it so compelling. I'm quite flattered that you were sufficiently enamored by the mysterious jackal woman here that you wish to draw her. Should you find the time and drive to forge ahead with that, then by all means do so! I'd love to see your interpretation of her, and as you've demonstrated, nothing drums up publicity quite like getting art made of a story.

The way that I envision and write hypnosis is rather different from the way most people define it. To me, it's a much more subtle act with the subject being mostly complicit rather than coerced, even if they aren't entirely aware of it. A lot of people have been having trouble trying to classify this story and to be honest, I rather pride myself on how difficult it is to pigeon-hole into one category or another. There's a very strong air of suggestion to this one, and yet it's tough to pin down very many concrete things that are unquestionably hypnosis. It's also intimate and sensual, but never goes flat-out into red-border territory. Still, most everyone who has said they have no idea what this story is or how to classify it have said that they very much enjoyed it, so I think that unconventional style was of great benefit to the story overall.

A lot of the techniques and advice that Mistress was employing in the story are based on real meditative focusing and acupressure techniques. I like to think that I did my homework on this one, so it's very gratifying to hear about how that aspect struck a chord with you. A number of people have mentioned that they tried out some of the relaxation techniques that were described, some on purpose and unconsciously. I never would've imagined that I could make a character persuasive enough to get the reader to fall in step with her smooth and methodical technique. Many said that they found the story very soothing and cathartic. One reader even told me that he fell asleep while reading. I was so happy to have been in the very unique position of that being a compliment!

You needn't concern yourself with the imprudence of digging through the back of my archives. I don't see a whole lot of traffic around here, so any response I can get is quite precious to me, no matter how old the story that it concerns is.

I'll get started on a sketch some time this week and see what I can come up with. I think I've got a pretty good idea of where I'd want to go with it. I'll keep you abreast of the progress.

The idea of coercion, control, and manipulation simply for the sake of dominance is responsible for my initial aversion to the theme of hypnosis. Which, as you say, tends to be the predominant perception. The presentation here is quite different, being a cooperative and altruistic affair and is far more believable as a result. Suspension of disbelief is key to writing successful fantasy and you've hit the nail on the head with this one. There are no magic tricks or swinging pendulums and the fact that, having re-read some of this and still being unable pinpoint exactly when it happened, speaks volumes.

I'd say you did your homework, which is something else I enjoyed, having some familiarity with her techniques and the topics she addressed. Particularly in realms of meditation and the idea that "The body follows where the mind leads." I'd been doing some research on these two topics over the past couple of months in an effort to, well, unwind. So, in a sense, I can relate to both characters.

Given that myself and so many other readers seem to have fallen in line with her suggestion, I'd count this story as a resounding success.

I found your story through the accompanying art on FA - well written prose, great buildup and immersion with the actual trance.
I must confess that I wish there was some actual sexy action, but it sates my thirst well enough, great stuff!

Oh, thank you so much! First-person is a chore to write, but I do think it adds greatly to the sense of immersion in the story. I'm glad that aspect came through for you.

And if you're still left wanting, I most certainly have explored the more explicit side of hypnosis on more than one occasion. Try out that "NEXT" button up top if you'd like to see the results. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Holy crap. This took me almost an hour to read.i

Heh, yeah. I tend to be pretty detailed. I've tried to not be, but it never really works. I've come to accept it as part of my style. Honestly a lot of people really like this kind of writing, so I can't very well call it a curse, it's just an exchange. A little more draw on the time of the writer and reader in exchange for a deeper experience, one I'm very happy to hear that you enjoyed!

This story is now old enough to have its own Discord account

Hmmmmmmmm kinda hate that fact, but also it means that even some of my older stories are bangers so that's nice.