Under Her Spell

All characters are over the age of 18. The characters and events present are created from my own overactive imagination and any resemblance to anyone is accidental.

***

Click

The powerful "crack" sound of her fingers slipping past each other reverberated around the kitchen.

I realised Jessica was smirking.

"What...what is happening?" I asked.

"This is fascinating. I can't believe it. I've never had a trance persist for so long." She peered at me and moved her head from side to side as if she would see something she couldn't already see.

"You've hypnotised me? When?"

She laughed. "When? Three days ago. Don't tell me you've forgotten. It's impressive that the suggestion has remained. Did we get interrupted I wonder?"

Click

I grasped at myself and fought back a moan.

"To be honest," she continued, "At this stage I'm not sure whether it is hypnosis or just trained behaviour. Is it truly just the trigger still working on you? Or is your mind now expecting a reward regardless, like Pavlov's dog, drooling at just the ring of the dinner bell?"

"How...?" I croaked out.

Click

She giggled and continued her teasing and gloating as I clutched my chest, feeling it beating hard.

"Are you wet? Are you aroused?"

She clicked her fingers again. I cried out in response, with excitement and frustration.

"Listen, I'll make you a deal. If you can survive until we get home without cumming in those cute knickers in front of everyone, I'll undo the suggestion and bring you out of the trance properly. Would you like that pet?" Her words rolled over my mind.

"Or maybe," she pondered, "you are so far gone you wouldn't object to being mine forever?"

My mind was foggy as her breath licked my ears but somehow, I managed a nod. For a moment however, I was confused. I wasn't entirely sure as to which option I had agreed to.

Click

***

To Jessica's credit, she was gifted at hypnosis. That's my excuse for what happened. I'm not entirely sure if there is any way you can have a natural aptitude for something like hypnosis, but Jessica certainly had a devastating combination of traits that she had worked to develop. Firstly, her demeaner was the epitome of "cool, calm and collected" and anyone could notice that after spending just a few moments with her. From time to time she will get stressed, just like anyone else. Being her flatmate, I have certainly witnessed her flip out if the dishwasher isn't done "properly". However, even her anger, agitation and annoyance have a calm, accepting tinge to them. She was a relaxed person and that atmosphere spread to others. Many times she had easily calmed me down from my daily stresses from work or relationships, and that was before she ever attempted to put me in a trance.

Her voice helped with her calm demeaner. Soft and light most of the time, her voice could take a on a heavy weight when she used deeper tones and those were brilliant for starting the process of putting someone under hypnosis. The softness of her voice was also matched in the softness of her appearance. Her slim but smooth frame and unblemished skin sometimes made you feel as though you had caught the ear of a supportive goddess or angel, rather than any normal friend.

Despite her softness and despite her calm, the confidence she expressed was, as they say, key. Her confidence is the part of her I might dare say edged into the intimidating. There was an expectation of success, the inevitability of it. On a less kind individual you may have called it a haughty or arrogant attitude, yet on Jessica, it was so attractive. It drew people to her and, when she told you to do something, you couldn't help but feel willing to do it. If it was so expected for you to do it, why ever should you resist? It would be improper to refuse such a fullness of confidence, correct? She could do all of this, even before she had started sending you deep into a compliant, pliant, and malleable state.

Some might say I am being overly complimentary to her, but I know I'm just making excuses for myself. I'm just trying to explain that while doing what she wanted, falling under her spell, was something that I could have attempted to resist, she made it very hard to ever want to. And thus, we come, naturally, to the inciting incident.

"So what? You want me to become your guinea pig?" I asked.

"Would you prefer to be a lab rat? I think guinea pigs are far cuter but I'm sure I could accommodate your wishes." Jessica replied with an impish smile as she lounged at the foot of my bed.

"Gee thanks." I said with false gratitude. It wasn't that I was particularly upset about helping Jessica but still, it was an odd request.

"I just want to test a few routines on you, make sure they are working and see if there are any things I need to work on. I can't change it after I post it so I must make sure it is perfect before I publish it."

"I'm sure you will do amazingly."

She smiled gratefully, she managed to simultaneously project both a dire need for my help and complete confidence in her own abilities. She had told me previously that she recorded hypnosis videos on the internet for people to watch. It had been a slight surprise at the time, but far from the strangest admission I'd heard from a friend.

It was only a hobby of hers now, but she had told me of her time at university entertaining people with her skills and developing them. In many ways it reminded me of the career stories of those who attempted stand-up comedy during their student years. Going to clubs, performing, being awful at the start but gradually improving, and then eventually giving it up for safer, more lucrative jobs rather than attempting to be one of the few that made it big. Jessica was continuing a passion of hers in her own way while maintaining her steady office job. It was admirable.

"Come on, Adena aren't you just a little curious as to what it feels like? To have certain parts of your mind affected by a simple performance and words?"

My eyes flicking to her had given me away. I was interested and the warmth spreading across my cheeks and neck confirmed that for her.

She knew that when she had first told me about her experience with hypnosis, my mind had instantly gone to sexual places. She had quickly clarified for me that, although that was the portrayal in the media, alongside clucking like a chicken, hypnosis had far more usage and activity in calming people and helping to tackle trauma. The same science used in hypnosis was used in therapy after all. It was all just about making connections or breaking them.

She had done her research and could talk ad nauseum about it, especially at parties. And discussing it at parties would always lead to either invitations of a performance or a performance itself. She always sat with a smug smile when people asked her to perform, sat and waited, silently. It was only when they were either begging or making accusations that she couldn't do it that she would bring out whatever object she had kept on her for hypnosis that day. She was able to manipulate people even before any watches started swinging back and forth.

I had never been a recipient myself, but it was quite an experience to watch someone else lose their sense of balance or attempt to stifle giggles at the utterance a randomly chosen word. She was very good at what she did. That was what worried me.

She hadn't responded after I had started blushing. We were both aware of the warmth on my face and she knew she simply had to wait. Sit and wait patiently, like she always did.

I sighed, "What would it involve?"

Her face beamed and her eyes fluttered closed. Success!

I rolled my eyes and sat up by my pillow, pulling my knees up to my chest. Jessica continued to lounge on her side with the duvet underneath her. I knew she was imagining the next steps she was going to take.

"Well..."

***

Entering Jessica's room was more or less like entering most young women's rooms, the ones who tidied up that was. Our apartment wasn't particularly large but Jessica, our other flatmate Megan, and I all managed to make do. Jessica's room had the most floor space out of the three of us but our rooms had been assigned by lot so there was no bitterness about that. I didn't need much space anyway.

Light flooded into Jessica's room through large bay windows that opened out onto the road and were currently framed with the ruffles of deep red curtains. In front of the windows sat Jessica's large desk with her laptop and papers neatly arranged. Even the few papers and books that were out of place were neatly turned to face Jessica's chair. It was clear to even a casual observer that any "mess" in Jessica's room was simply to aid the efficiency of her productivity.

A purple and white striped duvet cover laid over her bed, folded halfway to expose the pinker bedsheets to the air and light. The faint sent of flowery perfume wafted from around the room and mixed with recently sprayed air freshener.

I sat upon Jessica's bed and looked at the other side of her room where her large bookshelf was fixed to the wall above a blue, wooden chest of drawers. The bookshelf was a focus of the room no doubt.

Upon the bottom shelves were books, as one might expect. Some in the corners were indeed books of psychology research kept over from her university days but others were fiction books for personal enjoyment. These books however, had remained stationary and unmoved for a long time. The books on the middle shelves however were not arranged by height, neatly and orderly, like their compatriots below. Unlike those static books below and indeed unlike the rest of her room, these shelves were chaotic.

The books were different sizes and heights, all jumbled together, and there were gaps in the shelf causing them to lean against one another at odd angles, hinting at the frequency with which books were removed from the shelf and reorganised. Post-it notes peeked out from the tops of many and some, uncharacteristically for someone of Jessica's neatness, even sat with their covers against the wall and their white pages facing outwards, the books almost unable to contain the vast amounts of Post-it notes jutting out proudly from them.

The titles on the covers of all these books gave away their contents, and explained the favouritism they experienced. From "Hypnotic Suggestions and Prop Usage" to "The Art of the Trance" these books were clear in their usage. There were books on sciences I had never heard of before and words like "neurolinguistic programming" bombarded me with their near incomprehensibleness. There was even a new looking book that seemed to discuss the use of yoga poses in hypnosis and made a mental note to ask about it later.

I was briefly aware of my own double standards. Titles like, "My Voice Will Control You" and "Transforming their Minds" would have sent alarm bells ringing if I had been entering any date's house and seen a similar collection, but to see the books that Jessica used in her skilful shows was like seeing the art teaching books your favourite painter had poured over. I could imagine the many hours and days that Jessica had taken to build and hone her techniques and it made me all the more impressed with her dedication. Hypnosis was a skill, not magic, trips to Jessica's room always reminded me of that.

In the shelves above the books the items became far less uniform. A wonderful silver jewellery stand in the shape of a tree held many different pendants and shining objects above its dish base. A novice would imagine these were simply necklaces but many had no large loop of string or chain customary on jewellery. Many only possessed a single thread and small loop at the top that allowed it to hang on the tree. These were not pieces of a young woman's jewellery collection but the tools of a hypnotist. Swung back and forth as a focal point for the subject's mind and gaze they blocked out visual distractions, or so Jessica had told me when I had inquired as to their actual usage.

Elsewhere were many grey objects, some pulsing with light from hidden LEDs. A rough grey cube always caught my attention. Colours rolled across its uneven surface and emerged from the electrical light inside through cervices and fissures. There were smooth spheres of various sizes that glowed and faded with different colours while they sat in their cradles and what looked like scaled up versions of glow sticks that laid across the length of their shelves. Finally, upon the uppermost shelf sat perhaps the most extreme, and dare I say intriguing item. A long, black riding crop.

Jessica had told me before that it was not used physically to hit anyone during shows and was simply part of an outfit for a certain routine she had once done. Still, its prominent position, on display but out of reach, indicated to me that Jessica enjoyed possessing and presenting it. I wondered to myself if privately, whether when not performing for a crowd, she had used it. Had she enacted out the role that the riding crop and her unstoppable confidence seemed destined for? I had never dared ask to have that curiosity satisfied.

I had of course seen her bookshelf before on previous visits to her room but it never failed to astound and intimidate me. Jessica was typically unphased by any interest I had in her collection and busied herself around her room, shuffling shoes into their correct positions and clearing some wires away. In moments, the spacious area in the centre of her room was clear. The soft carpet inviting me in down.

Jessica unfurled a thick mat and unrolled it on the floor. It lay neatly and provided a small cushion for my head and lower back. Jessica straightened up and smoothed out the short green dress she was wearing. Black and white thigh-high socks ran up her legs and between them and the hem of her dress a tantalising flash of skin could be seen. Staring at the socks, I wondered if their repeating, layered pattern was also a part of her attempt to hypnotise me.

I suddenly felt underdressed in my casual blue tank top and grey shorts, wishing I had worn something flashier. She looked around upon the shelf and grabbed a headset. She pushed a button on it and I could see the screen turn on, holding it in one hand she used her other hand to broadcast a video from her phone to the headset.

"In the video I post the viewers will see the same visuals I'm going to show you now, I will just edit my audio over the top", she explained to me "and I encourage them to use a headset if they can, to make sure they focus on the words I am saying. You can pick up cardboard VR phone cases these days and it really helps me create the right atmosphere."

"So, I'm getting the same experience as your viewers?"

"Hmmm, yes," She said pausing, as if the answer was actually not a 'yes' at all.

"The only difference is that I will be saying the words directly to you rather than you listening to a recording of me. Which admittedly might skew the effectiveness a bit."

I looked at her blankly. She sat down next to me to explain, fiddling with the headset as she talked.

"People tend to respond better to a physical voice in the room rather than a recording as they are aware of the location of the speaker. Additionally, a hypnotist will be more effective as... well a trained hypnotist will be able to alter their timings and pacing when witnessing their subject. They can adjust their routine based on little things like breathing, facial movements, swallowing of saliva and shifting their body. Their responses can guide the hypnotist and, to be honest I'll likely do this with you instinctively. Because of that, this might be a bit more intense. But probably only slightly."

"Oh." I said quietly, gulping audibly without meaning to and shifting my hips.

Jessica grinned at me from across the bed, no doubt imagining what she would have done if I was in a trance right then and had made those same responses. Her explanation done, she stood and gestured to the floor and the mat upon it.

"Time to lay down. Make yourself comfortable."

I slipped off the bed and onto the floor, affording myself a quick glance up at her before I slid onto the mat. She grinned the entire time and held the VR headset in front of her as though she couldn't wait to put it on me.

"So remember, this is just a simple relaxation hypnosis. I'm going to start by talking about calming things and make you focus on my voice. This will be the groundwork. Gradually your breathing with slow and your tension will fade and then we will switch to the clicks."

I lay back on the mat and slid my head on top of the upper pillow and my lower back resting against the lower pillow.

"For each click you'll go deeper and deeper into a trance. This will only last about twenty minutes and then I will slowly bring you out of the trance state, removing the power of the clicks and making you more aware of your surroundings. Then a simple countdown to bring you out of it fully. How does that sound?"

My brain couldn't entirely follow all the instructions but I nodded and murmured my agreement. Just a hands-free massage Adena. Nothing strange about it.

Jessica knelt next to me and slipped the Virtual Reality headset over my head and suddenly all light was blocked out. The strap was comfortable against the back of my head and soft foam prevented it from rubbing against my nose or the sides of my head.

"Can you see?" Her voice floated to me. She had shifted tone now; I was certain of it. It was light, but somehow heavy. Playful, in a way that you could sink into. She was like quicksand and without my eyes to see her, her voice let me sink down to my waist.

"No. I can't see." It was a slight struggled to respond. My mouth and head felt heavy, my eyes could not discern whether they were open or not.

Suddenly light grew in front of me. Dim whites and purples began to emerge with black between them. They swirled and then spread out until they formed a series of rings. These rings were not complete and in the corners the lines that made them up flowed out of the screen. The spiral swirled in front of me and I knew it would never end.

"The pattern should have started now. Can you tell me that you see it?"

"I see it." I replied.

"Good. What are the colours you see?"

"I see purple, and white, and black."

"Good. What are the colours doing? Are they spinning? Are they swirling?"

"They're swirling."

"Good. Very good. Keep your focus upon them Adena. Keep your eyes focused on them. For now."

Her use of my name sent shivers down my spine. I couldn't quite locate her but her voice sounded like it was around me, close, whispering in my ears.

"Now that your eyes are busy, I need your ears, and your mind, to focus on me. Focus on my voice. I'm going to tell you how to relax. Would you like that?"

It was rhetorical. I knew I didn't need to answer but I murmured and smiled anyway. My smile made me face lose its tension. The nervousness began to fade away.

"Good. Now let's start with those cheeks. Let them go, let them relax, a neutral smile. Good. Now those shoulders. Roll them back for me, there we go, and now release."

For the next few minutes, she unfurled and calmed every part of my body. My shoulders dropped to the mat. My back followed and my limbs lay limp against the floor. Soon I was putty. Content, and ready to listen. Listen, and go deeper.

"Okay, very good Adena. Now, each time you hear me click my fingers, you're going to do all that again. You're going to unwind and sink deeper into my voice, into this calm. Now-"

Click

***

I didn't feel a noticeable difference straight away but before I knew what was happening, the hypnosis started to have an effect. My body was flat against the carpet and she clicked occasionally while she talked, each click and each word made me feel as though I was sinking right through the floor. Thoughts of my stresses and my problems flickered across my mind but they came and went quickly, I had no time to focus on any of them.