General Disclaimers: While it features no ‘on-screen’ sexual activity, this hypnofetish story does contain examples of fictional characters doing illegal, immoral and/or impossible things to other fictional characters. If you are under the age of consent in your community, are disturbed by such concepts, or want graphic sex in your online pornography, then for goshsakes stop reading now!

Permission is granted to re-post for free to any electronic medium, as long as no fee whatsoever is charged to view it, and this disclaimer and e-mail address (hypnovoyer@hotmail.com) are not removed. It would also be nice if you told me you were posting it.

Copyright Voyer, 2014.

Specific Disclaimers: A short piece that I bashed out.

Dedicated to Aeon Flux.

Cleo jammed her feet into the fuzzy pink slippers and pulled the well-worn bathrobe tighter around her curves. Yawning and tousling her dark mop of hair, she shuffled her way down the hall. She blinked as she passed into the kitchen, with the bright morning light streaming in through the wide windows.

Xanthe was already there, already fully dressed, her hair pulled back into its usual painful-looking blonde ponytail. She was making coffee.

Cleo sighed, dragged out a chair, plopped down at the table, rested her head on her elbows.

“Good morning.” Xanthe spoke without turning.

“Morning.”

Xanthe finally finished her ministrations with the two large white cups, one with a red 23, the other with a blue 42, brought them and set the 42 down in front of Cleo. As she bent over, the large amulet she always wore on a chain around her neck swung down and splashed gold flashes around the room. Seeing Cleo staring at it, Xanthe silently slipped it out of sight down inside her top, then turned back to the counter. Cleo shifted her attention to the cup, curling her dark hands around it and enjoying the warmth for a moment before taking a sip.

She pulled a face. At least it was strong.

“Is something the matter?”

Cleo flinched and looked up. Xanthe had returned, now carrying a plate’s worth of toast.

“Um-”

“Did you not sleep well?” She set the toast down.

“Well, actually... I guess.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “I just had this really weird dream.”

“About what?”

“I dunno. I was in.. it was this room. Shaped like a tube or something, I guess. Only there was no ceiling. Or at least, I couldn’t see one. The walls, they were all shiny, and reached up outta sight, up past the lights. Or the lighted part, I couldn’t see any actual lights. And there was no door. No seams even, just that shiny metal, or whatever. But it was all.. wrong somehow.”

“In what manner?”

“I dunno. It..” Cleo waved her hand. “It was all off. It was like.. the gravity was wrong. Yeah. It was like the whole setup had been twisted around, upside down, pulling the gravity outta whack, and I knew it was upside down, but I was still stuck to the floor. Or ceiling, or whatever. It was just something I felt in the pit of my stomach.”

“And what were you doing?”

“Well.. I was.. I dunno. Sorta crouching in the middle of the floor. Down on my knees. I only had on this gray strip-thing, wrapped around my boobs, and another one around, ya know, down below. Like a bathing suit, but.. not really. More like something you might get in a really kinky hospital. So I was down on my bare knees, on the floor.. the surface under me, which.. felt like.. didn’t feel like metal, that’s for sure, though like I say, it looked like it. It was.. warm, and sorta.. I don’t wanna say soft, that’s not right. Rubbery. Yeah. Had some give to it, but you wouldn’t want to punch it, or anything.”

“I see. Have some toast.”

“Huh? Oh. Thanks.” Cleo took a slice, chewed, swallowed. Tasted better than the coffee, at least.

She took another swig and bleched her tongue.

“Anyway. I kneeling on the floor, in the circle, and my arms were all, I dunno, numb. Not prickly-numb, just all fuzzy. They were floating there, like the gravity only worked on the rest of me. I couldn’t move them, except maybe twitch them a little. I’m sorta guessing here, cuz I couldn’t actually see them. I was staring straight ahead, and..” She trailed off.

“Circle?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The circle. There was this circle marked on the floor ‘round me, or.. a ring. Ring would be a better word. I was kneeling half-naked, three-quarters naked inside this glowing ring, and.. like I said, I couldn’t really look around, but I guess the bars.. I didn’t mention the bars, either did I? These bars were all around me, glowing. Not.. straight, like in a prison cell or something, but.. sorta like.. a spider web. Yeah. Random and everything, but sorta artistic, too. Again, I’m not sure what they were made of. Maybe.. nah. They glowed too, like.. they were really thin, and glowed really bright, almost like a light bulb filament. Remember those? Remember..”

“Yes?”

“I just remembered. Weird. There was also something wrong with the air. I.. I couldn’t actually breathe. I was kneeling there in the ring, with those bars all grown up around me, my hands floating, and I couldn’t breathe. Maybe there was no air at all. Or it had been replaced with something. So it wouldn’t leak out of the downside-up tube. Something thick and gooey, pushing up against my mouth and nose and eyes. Pushing into.. The smell and the taste was.. the best thing ever. And I couldn’t breathe. But.. since this was just a dream.. I didn’t die or anything. I just couldn’t breathe. At all. I wasn’t allowed to breathe. I wasn’t allowed to do anything, except kneel there and stare.” Cleo fell silent. Xanthe waited, then finally spoke.

“What did you stare at, Cleo?”

“Huh? Oh. I dunno. The bars, I guess. They moved. Some of them, the ones I was staring at. They formed patterns.. spinning around and around..” Cleo’s head bobbed from side to side.. “They were so beautiful.. they went down and down... they took me with them, took me down and down...”

“Deeper into the dream.”

“Yes. Yes. And the air.. the not-air.. it was inside me, inside my ears, inside my mouth, all the way back under my tongue. Throbbing. Pulsing. And..”

“It spoke to you, didn’t it, Cleo?”

“Yes!” Cleo smiled radiantly. “Yes, it did. It.. its voice was deep inside my head. That’s what I was staring at all along, and hearing, and feeling, was the voice, the words of the voice, the truth of the voice.”

“And what truth was that, Cleo?”

“That it was the truth! That everything that voice said, everything that it would ever say until the end of time, was the truth! That I would come out here, and tell you all this, and drink your weird-tasting coffee, drink every last drop, and repeat it word-for-word, repeat the truth, and then when I was done, I w-”

Cleo’s head flopped forward, and thunked against the table. Her hands slid off and dangled limply.

Xanthe smiled, and moving with smooth and graceful efficiency, gathered up the empty coffee cups and the empty plate, washed them thoroughly in the sink, and stashed them away. She came back to the table, and for a moment she stroked Cleo’s hair. Then..

“Wake up, Cleo.”

Cleo jerked instantly upright, yawning and blinking.

“Oh. Hey, Xanthe.”

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a log! How about you?”

“Quite well, thank you. And now it’s time we started our day.”

Cleo looked at her watch. “Oh, hey, you’re right! Crap, I gotta a whole bunch of stuff I gotta go do, right now!” She hopped to her feet. “See you later!”

“I’ll be here.”

Cleo left the room. Xanthe drifted over to the nearest window, even as her hand dug the amulet out from inside her tunic, and flipped it open. She stared out into the light, and slid the amulet’s glowing contents all the back under her tongue.

Her Master’s voice spoke deep inside her head.

-Report-

-cleounit02 processing nearly complete.-

-Confirmed. Proceed. Forget.-

Xanthe blinked and looked around the kitchen.

She wondered why she was standing there.

She had numerous things she had to go do, right now.