Relax your arms, your elbows, your hands. Feel the tension trickle down into each finger, then relax and imagine the tension draining out through each fingertip.

What she did was put him in a trance, hypnotic induction, and guide the experience. He wasn't going back in time. None of it was real. What was most important is he wanted this to hap­pen.

The Mommy, she just gave the play-by-play story. The blow-by-blow description. The color commentary. Imagine listening to a baseball game over the radio. Imagine how real it can seem. Now imagine it from inside a heavy theta-level trance, a deep trance where you hear and smell. You taste and feel. Imagine Cleopatra rolling out of her carpet, naked and perfect and every­thing you've always wanted.

Imagine Salome. Imagine Marilyn Monroe. If you could go back to any period in history and get with any woman, women who would do everything you could imagine. Incredible women. Famous women.

The theater of the mind. The bordello of the subconscious.

That's how it started.

Sure, what she did was hypnosis, but it wasn't real past-life re­gression. It was more a kind of guided meditation. She'd tell Mr. Jones to focus on the tension in his chest and let it recede. Let it flow down to his waist, his hips, his legs. Imagine water spiraling down a drain. Relax each part of your body, and let the tension flow down to your knees, your shins, your feet.

Imagine smoke drifting away. Let it diffuse. Watch it vanish. Disappear. Dissolve.

In her appointment book, next to his name it said Marilyn Monroe, the same as most guys here for their first time. She could live on just doing Marilyn. She could live on just doing Princess Diana.

To Mr. Jones, she said, imagine you're looking up at a blue sky, and imagine a tiny airplane skywriting the letter Z. Then let the wind erase the letter. Then imagine the plane writing the let­ter Y. Let the wind erase it. Then the letter X. Erase it. Then the letter W.

Let the wind erase it.

All she really did was set the stage. She just introduced men to their ideal. She set them up on a date with their subconscious be­cause nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beau­tiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

Here you'd have the sex you'd only dreamt about. She'd set the stage and make the introductions. The rest of the session, she'd watch the clock and maybe read a book or do a crossword puzzle.

Here you'd never be disappointed.

Buried deep in his trance, a guy would lie there and twitch and hump, a dog chasing rabbits in a dream. Every few guys, she'd get a screamer or a moaner or a groaner. You have to wonder what the people in the room next door would think. Guys in the waiting room heard the fuss, and it would drive them wild.

After the session, a guy would be soaked with sweat, his shirt wet and sticking to him, his pants stained. Some could pour the sweat out of their shoes. They could shake it out of their hair. The couch in her office was Scotchgarded, but it never really got a chance to really dry out. Now it's sealed inside a clear plastic slipcover, more to keep the years of mess inside it than to protect it from the outside world.

So guys each had to bring a towel, in their briefcases, in paper bags, in their gym bags with a clean change of clothes. In be­tween clients, she'd spray around air fresheners. She'd open the windows.

To Mr. Jones, she'd say, make all the tension in your body col­lect in your toes, then drain out. All the tension. Imagine your whole body slack. Relaxed. Collapsed. Relaxed. Heavy. Relaxed. Empty. Relaxed.

Breathe with your stomach instead of your chest. In, and then out.

In, and then out.

Breathing in.

And then out. Smooth and even.

Your legs are tired and heavy. Your arms are tired and heavy.

At first, what the stupid little boy remembers is the Mommy did house cleansings, not any kind of vacuuming and dusting, but spiritual cleaning, exorcisms. The hardest part was getting the people at the Yellow Pages to run her ad under the heading "Ex­orcist." You go and burn sage. Say the Lord's Prayer and walk around. Maybe beat a clay drum. Declare the house clean. Clients will pay for just doing that.

Cold spots, bad smells, eerie feelings—most people don't need an exorcist. They need a new furnace or a plumber or an in­terior decorator. The point is, it's not important what you think. What's important is that they're sure they have a problem. Most of those jobs come through realtors. In this city, we have a real es­tate disclosure law, and people will admit to the dumbest faults, not just asbestos and buried oil tanks, but ghosts and poltergeists. Everybody wants more excitement from their life than they'll ever get. Buyers on the verge of closing, they'll need a little reassurance about the house. The realtor calls, and you put on a little show, burn some sage, and everybody wins.

They get what they want, plus a good story to tell. An experi­ence.

Then came Feng Shui, the kid remembers, and the clients wanted an exorcism and they wanted her to tell them where to put the sofa. Clients would ask where did the bed need to go to avoid being in the path of cutting chi from the corner of the dresser. Where should they hang mirrors to bounce the flow of chi back upstairs or away from open doors. It turned into that kind of job. This is what you do with a graduate degree in En­glish.

Just her resume was proof of reincarnation.

With Mr. Jones, she'd run through the alphabet backwards. She'd tell him, you are standing in a grassy meadow, but now the clouds will descend, coming lower and lower, settling over you until they're all around you in a dense fog. A dense, bright fog.

Imagine standing in a bright, cool fog. The future is to your right side. The past to your left. The fog is cool and wet on your face.

Turn to your left and start walking.

Imagine, she'd tell Mr. Jones, a shape just ahead of you in the fog. Keep walking. Feel the fog start to lift. Feel the sun bright and warm on your shoulders.

The shape is closer. With every step, the shape is more and more clear.

Here, in your mind, you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be. You're not go­ing to catch any disease. Or crab lice. Or break any law. Or settle for any less than the best of everything you can imagine.

You can do anything you can imagine.

She'd tell each client, breathe in. Then out.

You can have anyone. Anywhere.

In. Then out.

From Feng Shui, she went to channeling. Ancient gods, en­lightened warriors, dead pets, she'd faked them. Channeling led to hypnosis and past-life regression. Regressing people led her here, to nine clients every day at two hundred bucks per. To guys in the waiting room all day. To wives calling and yelling at the lit­tle boy:

"I know he's there. I don't know what he claims, but he's mar­ried."

To wives sitting in cars outside, calling on car phones to say:

"Don't think I don't know what's going on up there. I've fol­lowed him."

It's not as if the Mommy started with the idea of summoning up the most powerful women in history to give hand jobs, blow jobs, half-and-half, and round-the-world.