It took Holly about thirty minutes to install the update to the headset and prepare them for the update that was meant to correct whatever Drontech had done to her.
Determined to stay awake this time, she sat on a kitchen stool so that if she drifted off, she'd fall off the chair. A little excessive, but it should do the job of keeping her awake. Perched atop her stool, she donned the headset and pressed the buttons on either side to trigger the program cycle.
Just like previous times, the headset beeped once to signal it had started the cycle, then silence. If it weren't for the pods on each side of her head getting warm, she would have thought it wasn't working. The first fifteen minutes passed uneventfully with Holly marking off the time on her wall clock. The second fifteen was starting to prove more difficult for Holly to stay awake. It was like the headset was totally relaxing her. She could feel her head beginning to droop and she kept jerking awake. Half an hour had passed she thought to herself and only fifteen minutes left.
Holly jerked awake realising she must have dozed again, but it was such a sudden movement that the headset was thrown from her head and slid underneath the sideboard. She scrambled down to grab the headset. Somehow it had slid around one of the rear legs and it took her what felt like at least a minute but was likely only five to ten seconds to retrieve it. She yanked it over her head pulling the ear pods into place.
A wave of doubt passed through her. What if the headset could detect that it had been removed? Would it continue the cycle to completion.
Just before the forty-five minute mark, the headset played three beep sounds signifying the cycle was complete. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.
It was early afternoon by this stage and Holly wouldn't know if the headset had worked until that night. Filled with an abundance of nervous energy, Holly decided to do some yoga, it had always helped centre her in the past. Changing into her yoga gear and placing her mat in the living room, she found a narrated class podcast and set it running.
An hour later, covered in a light sheen of sweat, but overall in a better frame of mind, Holly headed for the shower.
The rest of her day included some menial housework, watching tv, cooking dinner and watching more tv.
It felt like Holly had checked the clock every minute between nine pm and ten pm, but finally the time was almost there. The second hand swept round and it was ten pm at last. And nothing. No need to touch herself, no increased sensitivity on her body, nothing out of the ordinary. Holly released a breath she hadn't realised she was holding and felt the wave of relief flood through her body. Was that it, had they finally sorted whatever the problem was, she thought to herself.
A wave of tiredness swept over her as she sat on the sofa. Maybe the stress of it all was tiring her out and now that it was fixed, her body was able to relax and she could catch up on sleep.
Despite being a Saturday and not long after ten, she decided to head to bed and recover.
Once in bed, she had a fleeting thought, since she was in bed and wasn't late, did she want to play with herself. It almost made her laugh out loud that she'd even considered it before pushing those thoughts aside and closing her eyes to try and drift off to sleep.
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Waking the next morning, Holly felt refreshed and optimistic and lay in bed contemplating what to do for the day. Her pondering was interrupted by a text message from a friend asking if she wanted to join them window shopping in the city. With no better offers, she accepted. Window shopping meant wandering round the shops, trying on clothes they had no intention of buying, chatting with her friend and at most buying a coffee and a snack.
Once up and dressed and ready, she made a coffee in her travel mug and grabbed a couple pineapple sticks from the fridge before heading towards the tube station.
Her friend was waiting near the exit barrier at Camden Tube Station. The shops in the area were all independents and market stalls rather than large chain stores. You could spend hours wandering around the various stalls, even on a Sunday.
Holly had known Lisa since they met at university and both had stayed in the city when they graduated rather than returning to their hometowns. Lisa had moved in with her boyfriend otherwise Holly and she would likely have ended up sharing a house or something.
Lisa was the same age as Holly, twenty-six. But physically she was very different. Lisa was a tad under six feet tall, stick thin and very petite in all areas. She had joked that all her growth had gone into her height rather than her 'boobs and bum' as she would phrase it.
Holly easily spotted the lanky Lisa as she left the station and headed over.
The initial small talk was very predictable but eventually they realised they were kind of in the way with the constant passage of people coming from the station.
"Do you have any shops you want to visit in particular or shall we just go wandering?" Lisa asked.
"Let's just wander around and see if anything takes our fancy." Holly replied and the girls headed off down Camden High Street.
They headed into the newly developed Camden Market area now full of small stalls that sold an assortment of clothes, housewares and tourist junk. The high street itself had shops with giant sculptures over the doors. One of her favourites was a shoe shop that sold boots for goths and rock music fans. The boots they sold looked almost unwearable, either huge platforms, high heels made from metal. They were covered in decorations like spikes, chains, metal plates, flames and the like. They looked amazing but were really expensive.
They carried on down the canal shopping area and finally ending up in the main hub, Camden Stables. The shops here were quite narrow, some only three metres wide and packed in together but went back ten to fifteen metres.
Lisa knew a shop she wanted to visit that had a skirt she liked so she dragged them both straight past several stalls to get there. Finally arriving, Lisa dug through a rack of sale items till she found the skirt she was looking for. It was pale blue, would have ended a few inches above her knees and had oval cut outs up both sides, meaning anything worn under them would be visible, including underwear unless it had a very narrow waistband.
Lisa held the skirt over her jeans and asked Holly, "What do you think?"
Holly turned round to check out the skirt. The skirt was a really similar colour to the scrub style tops she wore for work. Out of nowhere, she suddenly felt a wave of disgust at the skirt. It didn't make sense, just something wasn't right about it.
"I'm not sure, it looks like it would be cold and you'd have to be really careful what you wore underneath it. I know it's on sale but I'd pass on it," Holly replied, doing her best to politely turn her friend away from getting the skirt.
Lisa looked disappointed, like she had hoped Holly would like it and that would help convince her to buy it. "Oh, okay. I thought it might be cute."
