Talking In Your Sleep 1

Alicia dragged her feet up the stairs, carrying a load of books in both arms while repeatedly blowing a stray strand of blonde hair out of her eyes and trying to remember what life had been like a week ago. "Go to Harvard," she muttered. "Meet interesting people! Form valuable social connections! Discuss exciting ideas with other brilliant minds!" Eleven o'clock on a Friday night, and what was she doing? Getting back from the library.

Of course, even at Harvard, most students weren't trying for a double major in philosophy and PoliSci. She'd known it wouldn't be easy when she signed up for it, but the first week of classes had been kicking her ass all up and down campus. Classes all day, study all night--she barely had time to do more than dump her books in her dorm room between sessions at the library or the computer labs. Still, at least she had it better than her dorm-mate Holly.

Holly's class load wasn't quite as bad as Alicia's--she was "just" a med student, working to become a psychiatrist--but Holly's parents couldn't help her out the way Alicia's parents could. Which meant that every spare moment Holly wasn't in class, she was also working a part-time night job to make a little cash. The two of them had barely even bumped into each other this week, and what little conversation they did have centered on just how hard it was to find any time to have a conversation. "When do you even sleep?" Alicia had asked.

"Between classes," Holly had replied. "And hopefully not during them."

But tonight was Friday, and that would give Alicia the full weekend to catch up on her classwork and get ready for next week's fresh hell. She opened the door carefully, unsure of whether--yep, Holly was home. In bed and out like a light, poor thing. Alicia closed the door even more carefully and tip-toed over to her own bed. She didn't want to get on Holly's bad side by disrupting the first peaceful night's sleep the girl had probably gotten all week long. After all, they were going to be rooming together for quite a while, and they'd need to be able to get along, even if they didn't spend much time in the same room. Alicia wasn't too worried, though. Holly seemed like a nice girl, very sweet and--

"hnnnyessmistreffff," Holly said, rolling over in her sleep. Her dark hair spilled across the pillows as her mumbles subsided.

Alicia froze. What the hell was that? Did she just wake Holly up? She looked over at the other girl, trying to tell in the near-total darkness whether she was awake or not. She didn't look awake.

The words came out almost as a cross between a snore and a recitation. "snmmmusssobeaaah..."

Oh, God. That was just perfect. Alicia finished pulling her clothes off and wriggled under the covers. Holly talked in her sleep. Her first night of uninterrupted, no-alarm-in-the-morning sleep in six grueling days, and Holly was going to wreck it. She got ready to throw a pillow at her room-mate in hopes of snapping her out of it, but Holly's next utterance drove the thought out of her mind as shock replaced irritation.

"I must sink deeper for you, Mistress," Holly said in distinct, but still sleepy tones.

Alicia looked over at Holly. There wasn't much light in the room, but a streetlamp outside the dorm shone in just enough that she could see Holly's face. Holly wasn't awake, there was no question of that. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her face had the placid innocence that always seemed to come over adults when they slept. But those words...

"The deeper I sink, the better it feels, Mistress," Holly said. Her eyes didn't open. "The pleasure overcomes my resistance. Every time I find resistance, I feel pleasure when I overcome it."

Alicia's shock was melting into severe embarrassment. The tone in Holly's voice, it wasn't just drowsy and muzzy, it was...Alicia felt the heat on her cheeks as she blushed in the dim light. She hadn't even known Holly a week, and it wasn't exactly what you'd call quality time. She didn't want to pass judgment on the other girl, but--

"Every word sends me deeper, makes me more obedient," Holly said, slowly and dreamily. Well, it would be dreamy. She was dreaming, wasn't she? "I feel good sinking deeper, so I must..." She shifted slightly in her sleep. Alicia suddenly felt like she should leave the room, but Holly didn't wake. Instead, she sighed out, "So I must feel good obeying you, Mistress."

Okay. This had gone far enough. Alicia got to her feet, and crept over to Holly's bed. She reached out a hand, but uncertainty kept her from shaking Holly awake just yet. What would she say to her? 'You were having some weird kinky lesbian S&M dream'? This was a total recipe for social awkwardness, and Alicia had never even thought of having to deal with anything like it.

"Obedience feels so good, Mistress," Holly husked out sleepily. This close, Alicia could see that her skin was slightly damp with sweat, as though she was exerting herself. Or as if...Alicia tried to ignore the musky smell coming up from the other girl's bed, but just then Holly twisted around again in her sleep, pulling the sheets tightly enough around herself so that Alicia could see the outline of Holly's nipples under the sheets.

"I sink deeper and deeper with every word and every breath, now," Holly half-moaned out, and Alicia could tell that her hands were moving under the bedclothes. Alicia was practically paralyzed with embarrassment now. If she woke Holly, she'd be waking her right in the middle of masturbating, and there's no way that they could avoid that conversation, and she didn't know how to...

Holly arched her back just a little. "Sinking deeper feels so good, obedience feels so good, must listen to Mistress' words, must obey Mistress...ohh...can't stop, can't fight, must sink into the pleasure and obey..." Alicia felt curiously detached from the situation now, as if she was an observer in her own body. It was so strange; Holly sounded almost awake, but no waking person would just lie there and frig herself off like that with another person in the room, not unless...did Holly

want

Alicia to see her like this?

Holly sounded like she was definitely enjoying it, though. Even though she still had the slow, deep breathing of a sleeper, every exhalation was a moan, every inhalation a gasp. "And the pleasure is a gift from Mistress, a reward for obedience, and I want to earn more pleasure so I must obey...resistance is a path away from pleasure, so I must take the path away from resistance."

Alicia's breaths started to match Holly's rhythms, and her pussy tingled as Holly's motions caused the sheet to slide away further, exposing her left breast to the night air. With a start, Alicia realized that somewhere along the line, her body had started taking a voyeuristic pleasure in all this despite her mind's stunned surprise. She shook her head a little, clearing her thoughts, and decided to end this before it got even weirder.

Alicia put her hand on Holly's shoulder and shook it lightly. "And I...I musss... mussobeahuh?" Holly's eyes fluttered open, glazed with sleep. "Huawhat?" Alicia pretended she didn't notice Holly's hand slipping quickly up from around her waist to rest nearer to her side. "...Lisha?" She raised her head from the pillow a little. "Whazzit?"

"Sorry, but..." Alicia hoped that the backlighting concealed her blush. "You were having a bad dream, um...talking in your sleep. I...just..." She trailed off, uncertain how to end the sentence.

Holly's eyes opened fully, and Alicia could see just how exhausted the other girl really was. She thought she'd had it bad all week, but Holly's bloodshot eyes, complete with dark shadows under them, made it clear that she'd been getting by on almost no sleep at all. "I was fine," she groaned out in misery. "I wasn't having a bad dream, I wasn't dreaming at all." She flopped back down onto the pillow. "I was having the first good night's sleep I'd had all week."

Alicia almost wanted to leave it at that. If Holly didn't want to admit she was having a hot dream anymore than Alicia wanted to admit that she'd watched Holly have a hot dream, why not just let it lie? But she couldn't quite stop herself from establishing a bit of an alibi. "Sorry, it's just that I came in and you were...muttering something, I couldn't make it out." She tried not to make the last few words sound forced.

Holly just glared at her, obviously furious. "I do not talk in my sleep," she growled out.

Alicia stiffened slightly in irritation. It was one thing to pretend you weren't masturbating in front of your roommate, that was a polite social fiction, but to try to pretend the whole thing didn't happen? "Yes, you do," she said. "I heard you."

"I do not!" Holly rolled over in a huff. "Next time, just...just let me sleep, alright?" She sounded simultaneously plaintive and pissed off.

"What, do you think I just woke you for fun?" Alicia replied sarcastically. Holly didn't respond. After a moment or two, Alicia shrugged irritably and got back into her own bed. Despite her mood, the exhaustion of a full day of classes and study quickly overtook her, and she nodded off.

Even as she felt herself sink into sleep, she thought she could hear Holly begin again. "I must sink..." she heard, shortly before her brain finally switched off for the night.

*****

Whatever Holly said after that, it didn't seem to affect Alicia's ability to sleep too badly...which was as much a testament to her exhaustion as anything else. By the time Alicia finally opened her eyes, it was almost noon.

She rolled over to see Holly just stirring out of sleep as well. Before Alicia could say anything, Holly said, "I'm sorry about last night."

Alicia squinched her eyes together, the temporary blankness of sleep still crowding out a few of the details. "Last..." Then it all came back to her. "Oh. Right. Forget it."

"No, really!" Holly said, hopping out of bed. "I was really, really rude, and I'm very sorry. It's just...oh, this first week has been just terrible. I don't think I've strung together more than four hours of sleep a day, and it's all just been catnaps, and most of my teachers have just been, 'Suck it up, honey, this is Harvard, not daycare', and I've been studying at work and last night was the first night off I've had since I got here and..." She frowned contritely. "When you woke me up, I just went off on you because you were there, and I'm really sorry."

Alicia rolled out of bed as well. "No, really, it's all right. I've been pretty fried myself, double major, and when I got in and you were mumbling, I just let it get to me when I shouldn't have."

Holly said again, "I do not talk in my sleep!" But this time, Alicia could hear the humor in her voice that had been absent last night.

"You totally do," she said, suddenly grinning. "I mean, what makes you so sure you don't? It's not like you'd know, you're asleep when it happens."

Holly was grinning too, now. "Oh, come on!" she said. "Someone would have mentioned it to me. My parents, or..." She blushed a little. "Someone."

Alicia snorted in mock derision. "Maybe 'someone' is just a very sound sleeper." Alicia thought about asking who 'someone' was, but she didn't want to make it sound like it was a big deal that Holly was a lesbian. Because it totally wasn't. Alicia had gone to a big school, and there were enough gay girls there that she'd gotten over any homophobia well before hitting campus. She was secure enough in her sexuality not to worry about her new roomie hitting on her.

Holly's eyes widened just a little in recognition, and her shoulders slumped in dejection. "Oh, god, I do talk in my sleep, don't I?" Alicia nodded. "Oh, I'm a terrible roomie. You're going to need earplugs just to sleep in the same room with me."

"It's not a problem during the week," Alicia pointed out. "You're never there when I'm sleeping. You'd be amazed at how little noise you make when you're not in the room."

Holly giggled. "Alright," she said. "But I need to buy you lunch to make up for it. Come on, last one to the bathroom has to wait for the other one to finish showering!"

A half-hour or so later, and they were both cleaned up, dressed, and heading out to a little Chinese place where Holly had been grabbing meals on the way to work to compare notes on the first week's brutality.

"And so Doland walks in on the first day of class and hands out a sheet of paper, says to get ready for a test!" Alicia said. "Seriously, before even telling us his name! And it wasn't a general knowledge thing, either. He's all, 'I posted the first week's reading on the class website, and I expect that most of you have kept up with the technology of the 21st century well enough to know how to surf the web.' You could practically hear half the class shitting bricks."

"Yikes," Holly said. "How did you do?"

"Nine out of ten," Alicia said, trying not to sound smug, or at least trying to sound like she wasn't trying to sound smug. "I missed a question on Plato's influences."

Holly gave her a high-five. "Hooray for Well Prepared Girl!"

"What about you?" Alicia asked. "You mentioned that most of your teachers were filled with tough love..."

"All except Ms Lassiter," Holly said. "She's my Psych 101 teacher, and if I didn't have her class daily, I think I'd have gone nuts by now. You should really take Psych, Alicia. I know it's not in your major, but everyone should know a little basic psychology, especially if they're going into politics."

Alicia grimaced. "I'll add it to my schedule as soon as I can. How does 2025 sound?"

Holly laughed. "Alright, I see your point. But if you do take it? Lassiter over Cartland. I've heard fucking horror stories about his section. Seriously, I heard he literally reduced a girl to tears last year..."

From there, the conversation turned to horror stories about future professors, and then to general college plans, and they wound up spending almost two hours sitting and chatting before Alicia sheepishly admitted she needed to get back to the dorm and do some studying. Holly admitted to a chunk of unfinished reading as well, and as the two returned to campus, Alicia decided she'd gotten very lucky in her choice of roommate.

Several hours of eye-straining reading later, and Alicia decided to crawl into bed a little early. "Crashing already?" Holly asked.

"Yeah," Alicia said. "I figured if I was asleep before you started your nightly conversation, it might not bother me."

Holly cast her eyes downward in apparent shame. "At least you won't have to put up with it tomorrow, I work a double on Sundays." She giggled. "Hey, maybe I should wear a gag to sleep," she said jokingly.

Suddenly, Alicia found herself thinking back to the exact substance of Holly's sleep-talk, something she'd been very careful not to bring up at all during their conversations back at the restaurant. She hoped she didn't sound too nervous as she said, "Nah, I should be fine." She forced a smile. "Way I feel right now, I could probably sleep through a brass band in the hallway."

She meant it, too. But obviously, her ears disagreed, because sometime in the middle of the night, Alicia surfaced just the tiniest bit out of sleep to hear, "Yes, Mistress. I will picture the spiral in my mind's eye..."

Alicia winced a little, even though she was nowhere near awake enough to open her eyes. It really, really, really wasn't that Holly being gay bothered her. It was just...'Mistress'?

"I draw the spiral in my mind, and the spiral draws me into its depths. The spiral turns, and I sink into it."

Alicia knew she'd lived kind of a sheltered life. Trying to be a straight-A student on top of keeping up with swim team and choir and debate club and everything else that looked good on a Harvard application didn't leave much time for dating. But even so, she hadn't lived a life so sheltered that she didn't have at least a vague idea of the kinds of things Holly must be into to have a dream like that every night.

"The spiral is so beautiful, perfect and total. It is inside my mind's eye. Wherever I look, the spiral will be there. I cannot look away. I must sink deeper and obey, Mistress."

Alicia tried not to be judgmental about it all. It wasn't like she was saving herself for marriage, or anything. But all that...whips and chains, and 'Yes Mistress', and spankings and...Alicia's limited knowledge of S&M ran out about there, but as she drowsily listened to Holly's sleepy voice, she felt like she was finding out more than she really wanted to know.

"And the deeper I sink, the better I feel, and the better I feel, the deeper I sink. Mistress holds my sleepy mind, and I cannot resist. I do not want to resist. Resistance is a path away from pleasure, so I must take the path away from resistance."

But Holly did sound like she enjoyed it, Alicia thought muzzily. She could hear it, in the stillness of the dorm when Holly went silent. The squishing, slapping sound of fingers pumping into Holly's cunny. Between that and the tone of sleepy pleasure in Holly's voice, it sounded like whoever 'Mistress' was, she made Holly very happy.

"Going deeper opens my mind, opening my mind gives me more pleasure still. Being open and receptive to commands feels so good, so hot, so sexy, and it just makes me want to open my mind even more and allow Mistress to program my sleepy, obedient mind..."

Alicia thought briefly about trying to wake Holly up again, but that just seemed like too much effort. She really wasn't very awake at all, she realized. Just sort of skating on the edges of sleep. She half-remembered a high school science course, something about how the first stage of sleep felt like being awake, how you'd even think you were awake, but you were still asleep. And you'd be lying there, thinking you were just really really relaxed, right up until you dozed off completely.

"And I f-feel so good now, pleasure locking in the commands...pleasure takes me deeper...more I obey more pleasure I feel, ohhhh...perfect obedience is p-p-perfect pleasurrre...must cum, must cum and lock in the pleasure and the obedience and the commands and oh, oh oh..."

Alicia shivered a little as she fell asleep again.

*****

When she woke up, Holly was just getting ready to go to work. They had little time for anything more than a wave and a nod, and then Holly was gone, leaving Alicia alone with her thoughts.

Which started off with Plato's 'Republic', but quickly diverged into Holly's...unusual habits. Two nights in a row, she'd been fingering herself like crazy with her roommate right there in the room, for God knew how long. Even now, Alicia could still smell the scent of sex all over the place. She tried to tell herself she was just worried about the effect it might have on her studies, but she knew better than to lie to herself. She was a little weirded out.

And that wasn't wrong, she decided. It wasn't Holly's fault she sleep-masturbated, but it also wasn't Alicia's fault for wanting to hit the Too Much Information button when the list of things you found out about your roomie during the first week included 'Into Kinky Sex' along with 'Loves Smooth Jazz' and 'Hates the Color Pink'. Alicia frowned, turning her attention back to her reading and pushing the idea to the back of her head. It wasn't as if she'd have to worry about it for a few days, at least.

But between studying, classes, and an even more punishing schedule of homework, that second week passed quicker than Alicia could have imagined, and despite trying to wrap up her studies early to beat Holly to the dorm, she found herself once again trudging up the stairs late Friday night after another heavy study session to get into their room well after Holly had gone to bed.

"The spiral takes away my will, Mistress," Holly was saying in her sleep. "It makes me sleepy, and heavy, and dizzy, and I love feeling sleepy...and heavy...and dizzy..."