General Disclaimers: While it features no ‘on-screen’ sexual activity or explicit adult situations, 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 hot wet thrusting sex in your on-line pornography, then for goshsakes stop reading now!
Permission granted to re-post for free to any electronic medium, as long as no one's being 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, 2005.
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Mary woke up. She pulled her arm out from under the covers and tapped off the alarm just as it started to buzz. Then she looked at the ring and smiled as the green light danced in her eyes. Outside the curtains, the day was overcast, but that didn’t matter. The light not only was still there, but was more beautiful than ever.
She stared at it.
Yesterday morning, she remembered, she had felt totally charged and energized. Today, it was.. different. Even better. She was again totally refreshed, but also... calm. Totally calm and peaceful and relaxed.
She had never felt this good in her entire life.
She slid out of bed, and then did a few slow stretches, humming absently to herself. As she finished up and smoothed out her nightie, she noted her dream journal lying where she’d tossed it before. She tidied up the side table, arranged the Kleenex box and the clock radio and all the rest a bit more neatly, but she didn’t bother to pick up the journal.
She didn’t have any dreams.
As she was making the bed, there was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Yes?”
The door cracked, and Lita stuck her head through the gap.
“Morning! You decent?” She sounded bright and chipper.
Mary smiled at her.
“Good morning, Lita.”
“Look, Mary, sorry to barge in, and this is sorta embarrassing, but I’m not decent. Did.. I leave my clothes in here for some reason?”
“Oh, yes. Your clothes.” For a moment, a thought tried to nag at Mary, but she brushed it away. Everything was fine. She lifted a finger and pointed. “They’re over there on the dresser. Come on in.”
Lita rolled her eyes in humorous self-disgust, and bounced into the room as if she had springs attached to her feet. The athletic Latina was holding her cellphone; it happened to be almost the exact same dark red color as her underwear.
“I was really zonked last night. I barely remember what happened; good thing I didn’t try and drive home, eh? But boy, did I sleep!” She broke into some stretches of her own, a lot more vigorous than Mary’s; Lita was really limber, which wasn’t a surprise considering what she did for a living. When she stopped, she flipped her hair out of her face. “Woo! And on your couch, no less.” She blinked. “Oh. Hey. No offense. It’s a nice couch.”
“Yes. Of course. Anna helped me pick it out. Can I offer you some breakfast?”
“No thanks, I really..” Lita’s tightly-muscled stomach growled loudly, and she flushed a little. “OK. Just some toast or something? But then, I really got to get moving. Go home and get cleaned up. And make up that meeting with Louie today.” She waved the cellphone. “I had to use your phone again; couldn’t get any signal at all on this piece of basura for some reason. Hope that was OK.”
“No problem. This whole block always has awful cellphone coverage for some reason.”
Lita eyed her for a moment, then her smile flickered on again, in her mouth and in her eyes.
“Thanks. Anyway. I called him and kissed his big hairy ass about last night, and finally he said we could meet before-.” She broke off and looked at her watch. (A big chunky waterproof thing that really didn’t go with the rest of her look.) “Hey, good thing we’re getting such an early start, eh?”
“Yes. I’ll let you get dressed.”
“Hm? Oh. Right. Thanks.” Lita started doing more stretches.
Mary made it as far as the door, then, because it somehow seemed important:
“Lita? You have any dreams last night?”
“Dreams?” Still stretching. “Oh, you’re thinking of that stupid ‘dream journal’ crap of Teresa’s, aren’t you? Um..” She stared alternately at the ceiling and the floor as she flexed. “Actually, yeah. I do remember. Something about me and Hector.. my brother.. you’ve met him, haven’t you?”
“Yes. At that party at Stinksop’s down on the harbor. He was there with that woman with the pink hair.”
“Right. Heh. I’d forgotten about her. You know, she’s working for a senator now, or some crazy-ass thing like that. Anyway.. what were we talking about?”
“Your dream.”
“Right. Right. Hector and me were out in a boat together, a rowboat or one of those little ones, you know? And then this big ugly fish showed up, and it started... singing, or something..” She paused for a moment. “I can’t remember anything else.”
Mary nodded.
“Thanks. I was just curious.”
Humming again, Mary padded into the living room, closing the bedroom door behind her. As it had yesterday morning, some music sounded nice. But as she flipped through her CD collection, suddenly everything seemed too..
She glanced in the direction of the bedroom.
Fast. Perky. Upbeat. Lita may have been hyper-charged, but Mary needed something more calm.
Peaceful.
Then on the bottom shelf she came across a CD she’d gotten for Christmas from her clueless cousin Pat a couple of years back. Some sort of woodwind group called the Rule Ensemble. At the time, she’d thought it sounded like a bunch of zombies stumbling around with violins, and had never even removed the shrink-wrap, but now.. she went into the kitchen, and put some bread in the toaster for Lita. Then she produced a knife from the utility drawer and sliced her way through the usual six layers of CD packaging. Returning to the stereo, she pulled out the disc, let the machine slurp it down, and pushed play. Yes. Soft strings.
Perfect.
Mary was folding up the blanket from the sofa when Lita emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed and trying to push her hair into some kind of order. She wasn’t having much luck, and gave up with a shrug.
“Aw, screw it. I feel too good to worry about it. When I get home.” She looked at the watch again. “I think I just have time..”
“Your toast is ready.” Mary stacked the pillow on the folded blanket.
“Oh! Thanks!” Lita bounced over to the counter and took one of the slices.
“The butter and jelly are there-”
“Oh no, thanks. That stuff is awful. Goes straight to the hips.” The guest cheerfully crunched away, and for a moment the sight sent ripples through Mary’s.. great green lake of calmness. Eating bone-dry toast...
Then the ripples were gone, and everything was smooth again.
Lita waved her piece of toast in the direction of the stereo and shifted her mouthful to one cheek.
“What’s with the elevator music?”
“I just felt like a change of pace.”
“Huh.” Lita chewed and listened and finally shrugged. “Not bad, I guess, if you like that sort of thing. At least Teresa will be happy that you’re broadening your musical horizons.”
“Yes.” That was a good idea, actually. She would have to swing by Tuneworld and see what Teresa could suggest.
But that was later.
Today...
Lita finished the toast, and glugged down the glass of orange juice which Mary offered her.
“Thanks again! Look, I really gotta run. Talk to you later, OK?”
“All right.”
Mary rinsed out the juice glass and Lita slipped into her now-dry coat.
A thought had been forming, and it finally entered all the way into Mary’s head.
Unlike the first one, she didn’t brush it away.
“Lita.”
“Yeah?” The other woman turned back, her hair swirling in a messy but impressive cloud.
“Come back over tonight.” The thought stretched itself out. “I’m going to have Rebecca over. Because she was curious about the rings. I thought our resident rockhound could explain to her about them.”
“Rings?” Lita went blank, then slowly lifted her hand and looked at the stone glowing there on her finger. It wasn’t nearly as big or impressive or beautiful as Mary’s, but the setting was nice enough. “Oh. Right. The ring.” She stared and smiled as she moved her hand back and forth. “It’s so beautiful. And I didn’t thank you for giving it to me.” A frown crept across her face and she glanced over at Mary, her dark eyes clouded. “You did give it to me.. right?”
Mary floated her own ring, and flashed its light into those eyes.
“Of course I did.”
“Oh.. yes.. of course..”
“So will you come?”
“Mary... I’d really like to.. but I need to-”
Lita was still holding her ring up in the air, and Mary touched the two gems together.
There was a flash of brighter light.
Both women twitched, and Lita smiled widely.
“OK! I’ll come right after work! I’d come sooner, but it’s important that I go to work!”
Mary dropped her hand back to her side.
“Yes. Pack a bag when you get home. This morning I mean. And tonight, stay overnight again.”
“OK.” Lita spoke absently, staring at her ring again. It was very nice to watch this, but finally Mary spoke.
“Lita? You need to get going?”
Lita shook herself. Mary smiled. When she was a kid, Mary’s family had owned a big black shag-pile of a dog named Buster, and the Lita’s movement brought back memories of Buster spraying water from his coat after a swim in the lake..
“Oh! Right. Right. Go home. Pack a bag. See you tonight.” Lita slung her purse over her shoulder and left.
Mary realized that her stomach was now complaining as well, so she made more toast, and was careful to smear the results from edge to edge with lots of butter and grape jelly.
After eating, she finished her other morning chores. As Lita had said, they had gotten an early start, and even after packing up a real lunch for herself for a change, she had some time to kill.
So she did a little light cleaning and dusting.
And then she sat in her chair and stared at the light in the gem until it was time to leave.
Mary’s feet dragged reluctantly inside her pumps as they carried her and her purse and her lunch down to the parking lot. She remembered yesterday, how quickly the glow had faded when she left the building.
And yes, it happened again.
But not instantly, and not as much as before. It faded gradually as she drove off to work, and never disappeared completely. She relaxed a little, and put the Rule Ensemble CD into the car’s stereo. It sounded as good as before, but still..
Definitely go visit Tuneworld. Soon. Tomorrow.
For the most part, work was easy. She just sat her desk and smiled at Mr. Brown whenever he started in on her, and after a while, he was nervously avoiding her. It was really quite wonderful. She wished the light had come into her life years ago.
At lunchtime in the employee breakroom, she lurked at the small table in the corner under the scraggly potted palm, listening to all the other employees talk and joke around and bitch. Harry was yukking it up with his buddies Spencer and Justin; she wondered again if he had sent her the ring, but he didn’t seem to be paying her any special attention. She thought about it as she ate, and realized that she only had a mild curiosity now about who sent it.
Shouldn’t that be worrying?
She was still thinking about that when everyone else finished eating, and trooped back to work. Mary took advantage of the private moment; she fished her own cellphone out of her purse and tapped the familiar code into the auto-dialler.
Breeple Breeple, and pass through the Caller ID, and..
“Hey Mary.”
“Hello, Rebecca.”
“What’s up?”
“Do you remember that ring I showed you yesterday at lunch?”
Mary studied the ring as she spoke. Was it her imagination, or was it glowing again? Glowing like it did in the apartment? Was that possible? She forced herself to listen.
“Oh. Yes. What about it? It break already?”
“No.” Anger, that she swallowed and kept out of her voice. Anger, and more anger that Rebecca had pierced the calmness and made her angry, and.... “I had Lita look at it. She’s a sort of rockhound, remember? And she learned some very interesting things.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Actually..” Float the ring, back and forth, wiping the anger away. Mostly. “She’s going to be stopping by my place this evening. Why don’t you come by after work, and find out firsthand?” She looked at the big ugly clock on pointedly prominent display on the wall of the breakroom and added up a few numbers. “You’re about to start your shift over at Flint’s, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I was just heading out the door when you called.”
“So come by my place when you’re finished.”
“It’ll be kinda of late. Are you sure that you want to..”
“Yes. It will be no problem at all. Even better, in fact.”
A pause.
“OK. Fine. I’ll swing by for a moment. Mary..?”
“Yes?”
“Are you feeling all right? You sound strange.”
“I’m fine, Rebecca. I’ll see you tonight.”
She disconnected, and forced herself to chew down the last pieces of sandwich and salad and apple. Drink the last swallow of pop, stuff everything into the big garbage can next to the coffee pot.
She noted that if the light really had been glowing, it had now stopped.
But she felt calm and peaceful again, and that was all that mattered.
Mostly calm and peaceful.
The rest of the afternoon crawled by without incident, but then, mercifully, Brown left an hour early, and she followed him out the door, along with two or three other employees...
She went straight home again, but not this time because of rain.
She pulled into the parking lot of the apartment, and sat there for a long time in her car.
She would have broken down into tears of relief, if she could have.
Because yes, as soon as she came into the lot the good feelings came back, wrapping back around her like a thick soothing green blanket.
No more anger. Back down into the calmness and the peace.
Which is of course why she couldn’t cry. She smiled a little at the thought.
While she was sitting there, savoring it, Krish drove into the lot, and backed into his slot in his usual anal-retentive way. Mary watched him. He got out of the car, then picked up a large plastic bag full of.. well, if the thing sticking out the top was any indication, computer equipment. Or something. He only saw her when he turned around after locking his door, and he was so startled he almost dropped the sack. He looked as if he was about to say something, but then gave a sort of bow and hurried away.
Mary shook her head.
What a strange little man.
She followed him into the building, but saw no further sign of him as collected her mail and went up to her apartment.
She changed into some more slop-around clothes, and did a few more housekeeping chores. Vacuuming. Hauling a load of dirty clothes down to the apartment’s communal laundry room. And she was calm and peaceful, even while being forced to talk with the nosy blond woman, Eva Brannigan, who lived down on the second floor.
But not sleepy...
Until..
She was folding up her last pair of socks in her bedroom when the intercom buzzed again.
“Yes?”
“Hey, Mary.”
It was Lita.
Mary yawned before she could answer.
“Come on up.”
Lita appeared again at the door, this time carrying, as planned, her overnight bag.
“Glad you made it.”
“Funny you should say that, actually.” Lita yawned herself and blinked.
“Oh?”
“There were times today at the gym, when I was this close..” She held up two fingers, a quarter-inch apart “..from calling you and just calling the whole thing off. But now that I’m here, I...” She stared at her ring. “The stone really doesn’t look as good in full daylight, don’t it?”
“Yes.” Mary looked at her own. “I’ve noticed that.”
“Anyway. As soon as came over here, I realized that I was glad I came. So glad. Is Rebecca coming?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Oh, good!”
They both smiled. Mary than forced her face to look thoughtful, which was hard. Now that Lita was here, she wanted to just bubble and float and...
“You know, about the stones..”
“Yes?”
“You were going to say something yesterday, when.. when..” Mary stifled another enormous yawn. “I’m sorry. Suddenly, I’m just bushed.”
“Me, too.”
“Guess we need to stay awake.. until Rebecca arrives. She said it would be late.”
“Right.”
Mary groped for inspiration.
“Well, we could.. you know... get ready for bed.”
“Uh. Yeah! OK!”
Lita used the bathroom to change, while Mary slipped into her nightie. Putting it on was like dropping down into a whole new layer of.. green tranquillity.
Why green? A corner of her mind wondered. It’s colored blue..
She yawned.
It didn’t matter.
The bed beckoned invitingly.
The soft warm bed...
She turned away. She had to Stay Awake until Rebecca arrived. She marched back out to the living room. She started to head for the stereo to crank up some music, but the only thing that sounded good was, again, the Rule Ensemble. And it wasn’t loud.
And she’d left it down in the car.
So she turned on the TV instead. She started flipping channels; the news was no good; unless they were covering that Asian volcano story, that’d just put her out even faster. She came to one of the public access channels, and was saved; there was some footage of a group of mud-splattered weirdoes howling and beating on some logs in some forest somewhere. It went on and on. Perfect.
She eased herself onto the edge of the chair, definitely not leaning back.
Lita finally came out, wearing her orange nightie and brushing out her hair.
And yawning.
“Man! I almost didn’t make it past your bed.”
“I know the feeling.”
“But we have to stay awake until Rebecca arrives.”
“I know.”
Lita sat on the sofa, and turned her attention to the Weirdoes.
“Hey. I think I know one of those guys.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Hard to tell with the mud, but I think so. Karl something. Progman? Perryman? The tall one on the right. Works down at that GreaseNLube a couple of blocks from the gym.”
“The one by that creepy old antiques shop?”
“Yeah. It’s the sort of thing he’d do.”
“You have very strange friends.”
“You’re my friend.”
“I should..” yawn.. “..know then.”
They fell silent.
The TV screen seemed to be slowing shrinking away from Mary, going down into a tiny white dot, and even the sounds were fading and Mary’s eyes were closing themselves again and the blackness was coming and she-
Something snapped, a very sharp thing, and Mary jerked herself back to attention.
Lita was looking around and blinking as well.
“What the hell was that? An earthquake?”
“I dunno.”
The earthquake, or whatever it was, had done one good thing; Mary was awake again. Tired, still, but not spiraling down into blackness.
The TV was now showing a taping of the latest city council meeting, so she turned it off.
“How about we play some cards, instead?”
“Yeah. OK. So I can beat you again.”
“Big talker.”
They were into their third tie-breaking game of cribbage when the intercom finally buzzed for attention.
Mary yawned, and went to answer it.
“Rebecca? That you?”
“Yes.”
“C’mon up.”
Mary waited by the door, while Lita cleaned up the cards and the cribbage board and then joined her.
Rebecca arrived. She was wearing a new long leather coat which looked very snazzy, but the effect was spoiled by the large silly ribbon that she wore, as always, in her (very) blonde hair. She stood in the doorway and eyed the two of them.
“What the hell’s this?”
“We just...” Mary stopped. It was like she’d been running on auto-pilot for hours and hours, and now suddenly found herself coming in for a crash-landing at some totally unknown airport.
So she looked at her ring.
Looking her ring always made things better. Made everything better.
She smiled.
“On the phone. You sounded like you were in a hurry. So we wanted to make this quick. Right, Lita?”
“Uh. Right. Yes!” Lita covered up a yawn.
“Rrright.” Rebecca placed her hands on her hips. “OK, Mary. Cut the crap. You were acting strange on the phone, and now-” She gestured towards Mary and Lita’s clothes. “It’s not the weekend, so why are you to all in slumber party mode? What’s really going on? This is one of Clover’s stupid practical jokes, isn’t it?”
“No. Clover doesn’t have anything to do with this.” yet “I just wanted you to see the ring. See the light.”
Mary floated her hand.
Rebecca snorted.
“Mary, I saw that damn hunk of junk at lunch. It’s glass, and if Lita’s going to try and tell me...”
The light flashed in Rebecca’s eyes.
“me...”
Deep in her eyes.
“It’s not glass, Rebecca.” At some far-off level, Mary was angry again, and when Lita spoke, Mary could tell the Latina woman was as well.
“That’s right.” Behind Rebecca, Lita shut and locked the door, and floated her own ring up towards the newcomer, who was still staring at Mary’s gem. She (Lita) hesitated for a moment, then her ring began to move in semi-aimless patterns behind Rebecca’s head, as if searching for-
the right spot, and Mary felt the click inside her head, even stronger than before. All three women twitched. The words came easy to Mary now.
“But there’s plenty of time for that later. Now.. now it’s time to sleep.”
“Mary.. I don’t..” Rebecca’s hands had dropped to her sides, and her voice had gone soft and low.
“Come.”
“Look.. I’m sorry.. you were right... it’s not...”
“Shh. You’ve had a long day at the bar, I can tell. You’re tired.” Mary and Lita yawned, pulling Rebecca’s mouth open as well. “We’re all tired. It’s time to sleep.”
“I need to..”
“Sleep.”
“Sleep...”
They gently stripped off her purse and coat and shoes, and set them all aside, and led her to the waiting sofa.
When they were done, Mary found that she could barely keep her eyes open, barely stay upright. It was a hundred times worse than before, now.
“Time for bed for us, too.”
“Yes.. I’ll just get another blanket and find a spot on the floor..”
“No. No. Come to bed with me.”
“Um.. Mary.. I like you and all, but I’m not-”
“Shh.” Mary floated her ring. “It’s time to sleep.”
She led Lita to the bed, turning out the living room lights as she did so.
She stretched Lita out, and turned off the bedroom lights as well.
She lay down, and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
miss hobhouse Opened her eyes.
the Voice of the Professor Spoke inside her mind.
“i Hear and i Obey.”
she Sat up. lita was next to her on the bed. miss hobhouse Adjusted her body so that she was Kneeling on the sheets.
she Light Floated, until it Touched lita’s forehead.
miss gomez’s eyes Opened, and she Spoke.
“i Hear and i Obey.”
they Got up, and Padded into the living room.
miss hobhouse Stilled rebecca’s mind, while miss gomez Unlocked the front door.
they Waited.
the Professor Entered.
the Light Entered.
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