"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?"
