Restroom

"Look at this shit," Craig told Mike and Yancey as they made their way to the restroom.

All three looked at the sign, having nearly the same thought, somehow all cognizant enough to get its meaning despite how high their blood-alcohol levels seemed.

"Men to the left because women are always right."

"How...pro..." Mike snickered, trying to act more tipsy than he already was. "...stitue? Progre...ssive?"

Craig didn't hold back his laughter as he tried to remain upright, holding onto Yancey who chuckled at his friend's word snafu.

Someone had suggested they all go to the ladies room like a group of women. The sensation was there for one of them, but it was a leisurely trip there as they stopped to comment amongst themselves every little silly thing they noticed in the club they stumbled into looking to change up their Thursday bar-hopping routine. It was done condescendingly as they were aware this was more of a ladies club, catering to ladies and men of all kinds surprisingly, but wore its bias with pride.

"Is that sign right?" Yancey asked, trying to solve the conundrum of remembering if every men's room he's ever been to was actually on the left. He tried recalling an architect in the family he knew that often worked on bathrooms like this, and one of the boring, yet then relevant facts might've confirmed such a standard layout.

"Nah, man, it's just you're supposed to go r-"

"The sign is actually right, sirs."

From behind them, their waitress for the night, Marilyn, happily regarded the trio.

"The men's room really is to the left."

"Shh," Mike tried to be subtle about leading his friend in the wrong direction. He tried using hand signals and winks to let her know what he was up to, but they nor the flirtatious winks he'd been giving her all night were even in the same state as subtle.

Marilyn shook her head at his juvenile display, something she had to get used to no matter where she waitressed. But her current place of employment was much more friendly toward its women patrons, and she found herself not willing to extend her career-experience anywhere else.

"Because women are always right," Marilyn's smile returned, speaking as if she was finishing an incomplete statement. "You guys shouldn't play tricks on your friend like that."

"Trick?" Mike asked as intoxication let the thought slip away from Yancey's friend's heads.

"You guys look really sloshed. Too much to drink before you got here?"

"Indeed milady," Craig spoke. "The three musk...ke...woah..of us spread our bounty with pride." He held onto his friends shoulders as a dizzy spell almost brought him down.

"Well, maybe some time in the restroom will help you clear your head."

"Hope so.." Yancey shook his head, trying to keep his vision fastened on the men's room entrance.

"Trust me. Women are always right," she pointed out. "Or so I've heard," her voice laughing as if playing along with the ridiculous of it, with a hint of believing it. "And women love it when you call them milady. Chivalry is alive and well in a place like this."

"Of course milady," Mike tried presenting himself as a gentleman, before having to be pulled back up from tumbling to the floor.

"Mike, is it?" Marilyn queried.

"That's right honey. I mean, 'milady'" he added with another bow and stuffy accent.

"Quite a nice...amount of mousse you're using. Makes you want to call me 'milady' and nothing else."

"I'm not wearing that much mousse," he lied.

"Oh, sorry. I meant..." Marilyn had to stop and think for a second. Mike was the stereotypical pretty-boy of the group, and measured so much of himself around the genetic luck he was blessed with. It wasn't uncommon to receive praise for is whole look from interested women, or certain neutral parts of him from women feigning not being interested sometimes. It was a little annoying, but moreso cute to see the waitress in-front of them search for the right complementary word she wanted to use.

"Oh! Right, dummy" she tried to whisper verbally kicking herself, but it was still audible enough to make all three men chuckle. "Nice hair is what I meant. Sorry for being a little scatterbrained. Careful, it may be catching."

A light bulb went off in Mike's head, almost chiding himself for not realizing what she was trying to say. "Of course she meant the hair," he told himself. Complimenting his hair to him was just a wrung below complimenting his face, which translated to "want to fuck?" in his mind. He would've levied his way to sweet-talking Marilyn, except thoughts that could've levied such talk actually did scatter in his head. Words he wanted to use evaded him, and he looked as confused as Marilyn had.

She smiled at him. "I'm sorry. Guess it really was catching. No need to pull your hair out over it or anything, you'll remember it, just like your time on stage too."

Some of the words he wanted to use came up, but were pushed aside as memories of actually being on-stage came back to him. "Must be that sloshed if I forgot that." The end came up to him first, and he remembered coming up from what felt like an absent daydream. He adjusted his hair out of habit, and believed the clapping and jeers from the ladies in the audience were directed at his coveted follicle crown.

Standing nearby was the show-woman, a hypnotist or something. Called herself Berta, a memorable name just for how simple it was, with no exaggerated moniker before it. It was also a name he'd only seen or heard of heavy, unattractive women bearing it, and she was closer to stick-figure skinny, with a beauty worthy of a pity-fuck if he was in the mood. Her outfit didn't do her any favors in that department, dressed very casually in blue-jean jacket, a blouse underneath, and tight jeans covered by black knee-high boots. Waving to the crowd as if she was the one receiving praise showed confidence, which was enough of a turn-on though. She had a way of moving, subtly, lacking any veneer suggestive of her appearance being just a show. She barely looked like she was moving at all from Mike's vantage point, but her the swinging silver watch moving back and forth suggested otherwise. Settling on the watch itself unlocked more, stranger memories to recall. Vaguely remembering Craig was also on-stage next to him. They both started out as trying not to laugh at what Berta was proposing to them on stage, crazy ideas for them to put their minds toward, that made the audience freely laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, Craig seemed less humored by it, which surprised Mike. He wasn't upset by what he was hearing. Craig's friend swore he seemed more content than anything.

Berta eventually caught his attention moving past his seated self, bringing out the silver watch for the first time, but intently looking at someone else. Weirdly insulting, yet not, was how she talked to the person about a watch swinging and how he would just lock his attention on it, only the watch swung in-front of Mike. The blow to his ego of not being the center of a woman's attention softened as he reasoned she was taunting him with talking about something he couldn't see, something Mike could as she spoke of "loving how the watch just moves before you with the grace of a dancer. Seamless, calculated motions, made for you to follow, unable to measure how good it feels to watch the watch. The muscle control needed to draw your attention is as uncomplicated as the flick of my wrist. The smallest motion creates an arc of a dance that is small and almost rapid, or wide and slow, and you follow regardless of where it leads you."

Mike's wondering of how the other man could possibly envision the watch when it was in his face faded with every change in the arc Berta described. In his mind's eye, he imagined what Berta's watch-swinging hand would look like as it controlled the watch's movement. Her wrist barely moving synced with the muscles of his neck adapting to the watch's arc. The faded reflection of himself on the silver surface matched how his awake self felt. Confusion fused with fascination, waiting for Berta to make sense of it all.

"It doesn't matter if the watch is visible to you. It doesn't matter if it's invisible to you. It exists. It swings. It is something you follow, like my words. You can't see them, can't tell me what color they are or the font they might take, but you know they're there, you know they have your attention, and you like what you're hearing so far."

She had such a casual, matter-of-fact way of speaking, in a consistent low tone that borderline droned on, but every syllable spoken had something nice-sounding to it that made the words she spoke still relevant, at least to some part of him.

"And it's perfectly okay if you find your mind wandering a little while I have your attention. Sometimes people will wander to recent things they've heard. Like hearing about what my words might look like or feel like if tangible. Maybe your imagination has some ideas, conjuring a soft, silvery substance, wisping like a stream of smoke around you, pleasing to the skin upon contact..."

Mike had to shake himself back to reality, something past his eyes focusing on a silver swinging watch shifted to his eyes that saw Marilyn happily covering her hand, holding back an laugh lacking context. He found he'd been out of it for a minute, though it felt like it was longer, just in time to notice everyone was walking away from him. Craig being the first to head into the bathroom, dragging his friends in with him, hearing genuine laughter as they headed in.

The three stepped into a turquoise-colored, heavily-patterned room. The structure was standard for the average men's room, but it looked to them like the club owner let their decorator go ham and over-decorate, even on the walls of the stalls and everywhere except the mirrors. They were surprised the patterns didn't overwhelm their eyes as they came in, especially Craig as he was an interior designer himself. Despite a sense of overkill, there was still something professionally commendable about it. Even in a liquored haze, he could appreciate the aesthetic composite, like fine art. The lighting was perfectly low and spaced out well, as to not shine and exacerbate how many patterns there were. The patterns themselves were a wavy combination of lighter and darker shades of turquoise, blending into something cohesive. The more he paid attention to it, the more it looked clean and distinct enough to be drawn on the wall instead of wallpapered.

Mike and Yancey felt the same in a way they couldn't describe, noticing familiar patters as they used the facilities. Unfocused eyes got lost searching for whatever shapes their minds could decipher. Yancey had it the easiest as he was able to sit down in his stall while his older brother and friend had to keep themselves awake and upright at the urinals. After relieving himself, being enclosed in wall-to-wall patterns overtook Yancey. His subconscious felt like he was trapped inside a box-shaped puzzle, and had to discover its secret before he could escape. Escape of any kind seemed like a novel concept as parts of his body loved how still he could stay and just enjoy the bliss of the puzzle. One pattern bleeding into another, over and over, ever on the verge of solving the puzzle. Unconsciously, his eyes unfocused as they felt like they were catching onto something, only to be interrupted by a loud sound.

"Don't fall asleep in there, Nancy-boy," his brother pounded on the door.

"Yeah, still need a ride h-hey, wash those hands first."

"Don't keep us waiting sis'."

Yancey heard the faucets run, and the sound of water splashing on someone's face, followed by nothing but the interrupted flow of the water for several minutes. No footsteps, no creaking door swinging open or closing; just that faucet running for a few minutes. It soon turned into white noise as his eyes refocused on the pattern, and unfocused to clearly see another dimension amongst the patterns, like words trapped between fancy shapes, words encouraging feelings already prevailing his sleepy self.

"Feels good," he thought he saw.

"Let go," easy to do as there was nothing to grab onto except the words, once he found them.

"Listening feels good." It admittedly did for someone who was more follower than leader all of his life.

"Obeying feels good." If obedience meant listening, Yancey had no problem with that.

"Women's words feels good." He wasn't gender-specific with whom to listen and obey, but now a female voice narrated his new thoughts.

"Women's logic feels good." Women were pretty logical, and they seemed to make so much sense to him all of a sudden.

"Women's will feels good." The idea of a willful woman suddenly gave him a nice buzz, all over his body.

"Let go to what feels good." Everything else was slippery and couldn't be grasped if he wanted, while the words spoken to his mind grabbed him.

"Listen to what feels good." The circular logic began to make him smile.

"Obey what feels good." Unblinking eyes and nodding heads agreed.

"Feels good." The voice in his head gained clearer distinction, more than obviously female, very familiar to his own head.

"Feels good." Beyond the patterns, he saw a pair of red lips mouthing the words, a compelling visual to the audible aphrodisiac. More features came into view until the patterns and stall completely went away and there was just the woman he was nearly face to face with. Looking down at him, she grinning as she spoke. Some of what she said escaped him, but it felt like he understood enough of what she wanted. Passing thoughts of a swinging silver watch came and went with consistency, inspired by her words, and had his eyes been closed, it could've been all that was on his mind. But his eyes were open, taking in all the features of the persuasive creature looming over him.

She had a pixish hair cut to compliment the shape of her face, a few freckles strewn about her face, and very little lines on her face to suggest being barely above 20, yet carrying herself and sounding like a confident middle-aged woman with years of natural seduction. Something about her looks belied the kind of voice she could produce, but then he never thought a voice could do to him what hers was. Berta's words seemed cursory, the kind you hear from a friend who happened to be a girl, on the verge of sounding like a girlfriend with something sensual on her mind. The only thing pulling his attention away from her was the disbelief of such attention. Mike was the primary recipient of such forward femininity, and Yancey usually attracted shy-yet-assertive-enough-to-engage-him kind of of women. But unlike either of those types, Berta's attention seemed affectionate, eying Yancey up and down approvingly, matching his shy reactions with endearing looks.

"And it's perfectly okay if you find your mind wandering a little while I have your attention. Sometimes people will wander based on recent things they've heard. Like hearing about what my voice might look like or feel like if tangible could make your imagination conjure a soft, silvery substance, wisping like smoke around you, pleasing to the skin upon contact, the more you hear it, the more you feel surrounded, the more you can't help but breath it in, inhale it, make it a part of you. So like yet unlike cigarette smoke, how it calms you down, with slight addictive quality to it, yet it's completely healthy for you. You can inhale my voice and breath out anything you don't want, negative thoughts, tension, even the busy parts of your mind if you want. You can let that leave all your thoughts behind while you're filled with mine."

Yancey's breathing deepened along with his smile, and in turn, Berta's. He felt ticklish beneath his clothing from something he couldn't describe filling the gap inside his shirt and pants. Whatever it was, it had his permission to cover as much of him as it could.

"And while you're filled with my thoughts, I wonder how it would feel to you I described my voice in another way. What my voice does to you, how it makes you feel, it all can be taken a step further transforming from smoky wisps to flowing water. More than just surrounding you, you can dive deep into it, sink easily into it, and as another healthy and safe distinction, drown in my words."

The last time he could imagine drowning of any kind was Craig tossing his 8-year-old self in the public pool, out of torment, preventing him from wanting to learn swimming until his mid-teens, miles away from Craig. Berta's shining down interest and reassurance on him still prevented bringing the bad memory back to interrupt things. From the comfort of her words, drowning was already submerging himself, carelessly floating along, inexplicably able to breathe normally and deeply as he wanted. He could've drifted away somewhere in the vast ocean of mindlessness, but seeing Berta's face kept him anchored.

"That happens to be tonight's theme you know - water. There are so many ways to describe my voice and what it does to you. Some ways work better than others, but water works well with everyone's brains, probably because it's such a big part of everyone's lives. Doctors recommend multiple glasses of water a day, probably as much as they recommend their patients get as much rest and relaxation as possible. Listening to me, having my voice inside your head, is practically doctor-recommended. And it's not like you could ignore what I say to you. Water can break concrete, stone, metal, or whatever your mental defenses are made of, if it wanted to. But at the same time it's soft, serene, and rejuvenating."

The more the hypnotist talked, the more Yancey was convinced every breath was expelling something bad or unnecessary, and every intake was just more of Berta, and more of Berta cleansed and nourished his mind. A soft touch across his cheek trailing to the back of his neck produced a significant reaction despite how dulled his senses were of any other stimulus but the sight and sound of Berta.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

The freckled hypnotist's visage brightened even more as the subject she had her sights on nodded profusely without any direct prompting, seemingly needy of what she was doing to him. The hand stroking Yancey moved to his hair, entangling fingers and ruffling it. She gave him five pats on the head, causing sounds of disappointment amongst women in the crowd nearby. Berta turned her head back and shrugged her shoulders as if to respond to the noises made. The next time Berta looked at Yancey, her lips moved yet produced no sound. Something in Yancey's head clued him into it being a personal message just for him, making it even more important to respond accordingly to it.

"Come see me later."

* * *

Yancey started blinking his eyes, his consciousness rose to the surface, taking him away from the memory of being on stage and back to the stall he'd sat in for however long he sat. The slight strain of getting up meant he was there longer than he should've been. He waited for the sink to produce hot water like he preferred, but once he it came, his hands got stuck under the running tap, the hand soap he used already washed away. His eyes closed, prompting flashes of Berta and her words on-stage again, persuading blood to travel southward from his head. A soft whisper of "come see me later" prematurely woke him from another daydream. He shook himself awake to dry his hands and finally exited the restroom. The directional sign outside caught his eye again before he could look for his party. The repeated messaging made him chuckle, but not in the mocking way Mike or Craig saw it. On his own it would've been just anecdotally clever, but now he chuckled because of something made it feel good to read just a few more times.

"Hey handsome. Doing some studying?"