It was a beautiful night in the city. It had just rained moments ago and you could still smell it in the warm summer air as it evaporated off the pavement. Ben was doing his best to drown out the pleasing odor as he suffused his lungs with more carcinogenic smoke. He sat on his fire escape, legs dangling, as he looked out on the city around him.
Inside, his girlfriend and her sister were making dinner. Both were attractive with their reddish-brown hair and beautiful figures... but he had to admit, his girlfriend's sister was the more attractive. Sarah was not any slouch, in fact, he considered himself lucky to be with her, but Kelli was just that "little bit more"... little bit better figure, little bit more flirtatious, little bit better eyes, etc. However, Ben always made it a point to try and focus his attention on Sarah when Kelli was around. He knew that Sarah always had felt a little insecure against her sister's natural charms and that she had lost a few boyfriends to her when they were teens. Ben didn't want to make Sarah feel any worse on that topic.
He took another puff off his cigarette. He had been forced outside, no smoking allowed around Kelli. He didn't really mind, it gave him an excuse to avoid the flirtatious sister. He sometimes wondered how innocent those flirtations actually were. She had stolen boyfriends from Sarah before, after all.
He looked down at the burning ember in his hand. He wanted to quit smoking. He hated the idea of his will being sapped by such a thing as a little stick of rolled paper & dried leaves. However, this night, it was that will-sapping herb that saved him from a far stronger method of will-suppression.
The sisters had closed the window behind him, so the smell of tobacco wouldn't waft back into the apartment. Ben pondered idle thoughts as his mind lazily buzzed from the nicotine and the glass of wine next to him.
He dimly heard a knock on the apartment's door. Sarah went to open it. Ben started to get up to go inside, but in a fateful decision, opted to finish his cigarette first.
He watched through the closed window as she opened the door. From outside the apartment, a puff of sparkly dust sprayed into her face. She stumbled a couple steps back from the door.
Inside stepped a middle-aged man, well-groomed and dressed in slacks and sport coat. Ben could hear the man fairly well considering that it was through a window and the noise of street traffic surrounded him.
"You will not run, you will not attempt to harm me, or raise any kind of alarm. Is there anyone else home?" the man asked the question casually, but with the air of having said the phrase by rote.
Sarah looked strange. He body was alternating between incredibly stiff, almost frozen and then swooning with her knees wobbling. It would look like she was about to collapse, then she'd straighten again into that almost frozen stance before repeating the swooning state.
"My sister... my sister is here," Sarah replied haltingly, "and my boyfriend is... he is... he's out".
It was all very strange and it wasn't just Sarah's posture. It was almost like she had been trying to not speak, trying to hold her words back but unable.
"When is your boyfriend due back?" the man asked calmly.
Sarah closed her mouth tightly, but even Ben could hear her start to whine through her closed lips.
She whispered something, but Ben couldn't hear what.
"Ah, well, 'in a few minutes' will be enough time. When he comes through that door, immediately spray this into his face." The man started to hand Sarah a tiny aerosol can, then paused.
"Of course, you won't, under any circumstances, spray me with it." He then finished handing Sarah the can.
Kelli walked into the room carrying a plate full of baked lasagna. She glanced at the stranger, looked questioning at her sister, and then approached the man.
"Um, hi!" she said brightly extending her hand.
The man nonchalantly reached into his pocket, pulled out an identical spray can, then unloaded it directly into Kelli's face. Kelli reacted just as her sister had a moment earlier. Sarah was now standing calmly, docilely... no evidence of the stiff or swooning postures from earlier. She looked, well, almost bored.
Ben didn't know what was going on. He had listened and watched up till now, but what he had seen wasn't making any sense to him.
He crouched outside the window, watching stunned as the insane drama continued to play out. Who was this guy? He wasn't anyone he had ever met before. What did that strange spray do? He had been about to go in, but some strange preternatural sense told him to stay put and play it cautious. With the outside darkness, they wouldn't be able to see him from inside the brightly lit room.
The man grabbed a hold of one of the dining room chairs and wedged it under the front door knob of the apartment.
"There, that will keep your boyfriend out until we're ready to receive him," the man said pleasantly. "Now, I know your name is Sarah, but what is your sister's name?"
Kelli started to give that halting speech that Sarah had used earlier, but Sarah now just replied in a monotone voice,
"kelli."
Kelli slowly regained her posture and also took on a bored, detached pose similar to Sarah's.
"Ah," said the man, "Kelli. Very nice. Well Kelli, I met and briefly spoke to your sister earlier today on the sidewalk and her beauty made quite an impression on me. I decided then and there to make her mine. I didn't know that she had a sister even more beautiful." The man gave a beaming smile.
"Kelli," he continued, "are you involved with anyone? Boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse? Do you have any children?"
Kelli replied in a dead monotone,
"i have a boyfriend. i don't have any children."
"Do you love your boyfriend, Kelli?"
"Ye... Ye... I do," replied Kelli, showing slight signs of struggle in her voice.
"Kelli, you don't love your boyfriend any longer. You don't feel anything for him."
"No," said Kelli, her voice finally emitting some emotion. "You can't." Her body started tensing again, not moving, but muscles visibly tightening over her body.
"Oh, but I can," assured the man. He walked up to Kelli. "Kelli, think about your boyfriend. You don't feel anything for him now. Nothing."
Kelli tried to shake her head, but it was almost as if her body was fighting her, she managed a few short terse shakes, but each one was smaller than the last.
"No. No. I do care for him. i ca... i ca... i...." Her body resumed the relaxed pose again. "i don't feel anything for him. nothing." Again, her voice was devoid of inflection, of emotion.
As Kelli struggled, Ben watched as Sarah also had tried to fight whatever was controlling her... but just like her sister, it came to nothing. After a moment, Sarah's body relaxed again as well.
"Good girl Kelli." The man leaned against the back of the couch. "Now Kelli, I want you to think about how it feels to be deeply in love, far more than anything you might have felt for your sorry ex-boyfriend. Think about how wonderful it feels. How you would do anything for that person and how much you would love doing it. I want you to imagine unconditional love. Absolute love."
Ben could tell that Kelli knew what was going to happen next. She was shaking her head, her body now violently tensing then going slack, almost like she was going into a seizure while standing up. He tried to come up with a plan of attack, of some idea on how to save the girls. A part of him worried that this could be all some elaborate practical joke, but it was just too weird. Ben was treating this as if it were total and complete reality.
Kelli continued to fight.
"NO! No! No! No!" she repeated. "I'm not going to! I'm not going to think about that! Not about how it feels to be deeply in love... NO! Not think about far more deeply... how wonderful it feels. i would do anything for that person and i would love doing it." Her voice gradually lost it's anger, it's fight. You could hear the conflict drain away until it returned to its empty monotone.
"Kelli," the man said gently, "you deeply love me. You love me absolutely and unconditionally. You love me so much, you worship the ground I walk on."
Tears rolled down Kelli's cheeks. Ben expected to see a repeat of her earlier struggles, but they were greatly subdued now. She sank to her knees, her head bowed.
"No. I don't want to. I don't love you. You're making me feel that way. You can't do this! Please stop this. I don't know how you're doing this, but I want you to stop. Please stop!" She looked up at him, her mascara running down her face as her tears fell harder.
"Please!" she begged her eyes searching his face for some compassion, some sign of mercy. She reached up towards him, pleading.
Ben watched speechless as Kelli's outstretched arm changed from pleading for mercy to something else. It was evident thru her face, her body, and even that outstretched arm. Her eyes widened, her anguished face easing into a look of wonderment. Ben watched as Kelli fell hopelessly in love with this stranger in a matter of seconds.
