Irina's stocking fetish came to her late in life.
She was a girl, and from a young age girls put on tights and, later, pantyhose as a matter of course. They were clothes. Not an object of fascination, sexual or otherwise. Mundane.
For her mother it had been a little different, the way she told it: when she'd been a young lady, hosiery had been a distinct part of dressing properly. It still hadn't been erotic for her, either, though; it was something you wore without wondering whether you needed to or not: the decisions you made were on which hose to wear based on your outfit and on what quality the event required. However, unlike in Irina's generation, you were aware of them constantly while they were on because you didn't want to ruin them with an errant snag. She'd used to laugh when her mother told her those stories.
Now she was constantly checking to see if her seams were straight.
She was in her mid-thirties before she thought of stockings as anything other than accessories, at best. That was three years after Paula married Karl, and it was all
her
fault.
Paula and Irina had met in college and, though in very different majors, they'd otherwise had a great deal in common. Both of them took their studies seriously, took drinking seriously, and took men seriously... in approximately that order. Usually. Sometimes this got them into trouble, but in watching one another's backs they generally found their way out of it again in due course.
Now they lived in suburbia and spent most of their time working their 9-to-5 jobs (or 8-to-6, more likely, these days). Neither of them had kids, but Paula had as her responsibility the care and feeding of a husband and took it seriously enough. More seriously, it seemed, than Irina would have imagined.
They met frequently for coffee or, as this occasion would have it, for cocktails. Two drinks in and conversation flowed freely; three drinks in and things were bound to get positively salacious. Halfway through their third that day, in a conversation focused on the kinks of lovers past and present, Paula revealed her plans to her friend.
"Karl doesn't care much about whether I give him head or not, as long as I'm wearing stockings."
"Yeah, you've told me that before. I don't buy it. Every guy likes a blow job."
Paula laughed out loud. "Oh, I didn't say he doesn't like me sucking him off. I'm just pointing out his true love is me in vintage lingerie and nylons."
"Never got that."
"Yeah, neither do I, totally. I kinda wish I did."
"I doubt it. You don't want to get too deep into a guy's brain. It's scary in there."
"Probably true. But..." She looked thoughtful. "I'm long past feeling challenged or uncomfortable with girdles and gloves and garters — I've been wearing that stuff on and off since way before the wedding. But what if I could kick it up a notch?"
"Not sure where you're going with this, girl."
"A few days ago, I'm washing the big old bag-o'-stockings I accumulate every couple of weeks or so, giggling at Karl's reaction to this pair or that... and I start in to thinking: what if I enjoyed wearing this stuff as much as he enjoys seeing me in it?"
"Fat chance."
"Right. But, 'what if,' you know?"
"The mind boggles."
"Hush. So I started looking into it. It's amazing what Google turns up."
"Wait, looking into what? How to wear vintage lingerie, and like it?"
"Sort of. I already wear the stuff. I was more looking into... behavior modification. How to get excited by your partner's kinks as much as they do."
"That sounds... extreme."
"Maybe." She could tell Paula was nearing the limits of her comfort level with this conversation. Irina was uncomfortable with it, too, truth be told, but morbid fascination kept her engaged as her friend continued. "Honestly, is it any different than gradually getting used to it, over many years?"
"I think 'getting used to' and 'enjoying' are in different categories, Paula."
"True. But, hell, I've already decided I'm going to wear that stuff for him... seems like if I get a kick out of it, too... so much the better."
Hmmm. "Just what are we talking about, here, girlfriend? Pavlov's dogs? You going to reward yourself with crème brulee every time you put on a girdle from the 1950s? Or is it something more... ahem..."
Sexual?
"No, it's not that. It's... I found a website that offers to do this through hypnotism."
"You're kidding."
"No." Paula looked embarrassed. "It's... I haven't decided to do it yet. But they have testimonials."
"I'll bet. 'I loved the hypnosis,'" Irina chanted in a zombie voice. "'I will do it again and again and again.'"
"Shut up!"
"Seriously, Paula. I don't believe any of that crap's for real. You're gonna waste your hard earned cash on that?"
"I dunno. It seems like it's worth a try."
"But why? This is all pretty sick to me, Paula. I mean, why can't Karl love you for who you are?"
"He does! It's not like that, I swear, Rina. This is something I want to do for him. For us. Not something he's
ever
asked for."
"Okay," Irina replied, conciliatory. "I believe you. 'I, Paula, of my own free will, pledge to become my husband's stocking slut.'"
"Funny. And kind of creepy, when you put it that way. But funny."
"It's creepy even when I don't put it that way." Her friend pouted at her over the remains of the coffee-and-Bailey's, and she felt bad for being so snide. "But I'm your friend. I don't judge."
Much
.
"Thank you. If I do this..."
"Yeah?"
Don't.
"If I do this... will you be my safety?"
"Your
what
?"
"My safety. You watch while it's going on and make sure nothing... weird happens?"
"Honey, I don't feel comfortable with this idea at all, let alone going with you to some appointment somewhere."
"No, I don't have to go anywhere. It's all done online. I don't know if it's done live, or by a computer program, or what. I just... I want you to sit in the room while it's happening. To make sure... I don't know. That I don't start clucking like a chicken or something."
"Not sure I'd want to prevent that. Could be damn funny."
"Humpf. Bitch."
"Hey, if the cast-iron fits..."
"Come on. I don't think I could even
tell
anyone else about this, let alone trust them to be there. Please..."
She'd heard that tone before. "Is this gonna be like the time you made me go on a double date with that guy so you could screw his friend?"
"No! Yes. Maybe? That didn't turn out so bad."
"It did for me."
"You married him!"
"My point exactly."
"Rina..."
"Fine. I'll be your Safety Girl. But no promises on the clucking."
"I'd expect nothing less."
* * *
"So how does this go?" Irina inquired at her friend's breakfast table that Saturday. She'd figured this stocking/hypno-thing was all drunk talk, but Paula had called her Friday night and set an actual date since Karl would be on a golf outing most of the day.
"I'm... not sure, exactly. When I made the payment I just got an email with a web link and some guidelines."
"Guidelines?"
"Wear comfortable clothes. Use headphones. Operation of heavy machinery not recommended while in trance."
"Don't hypno and drive?"
"That sort of thing." Paula bit her lip, pondering.
"What's up?"
"Oh, just thinking about this. How weird it will be."
"Yeah. Hon, you know how I feel about this. No man is worth this crap." Sure as hell her own ex-husband hadn't been.
"Oh, Karl is."
"If he loves you, he'll love you as you are."
"Of course. He does. But why not make it better? For us both? What's the harm?"
You're about to pay someone to play around in your head and you're wondering what's the harm?
She shook her head and sighed. There was no point in going into this again. "I'm your friend. I support you."
Even if you're a fucking whackjob.
"Okay. Let's do this."
They adjourned to the office. It was in the basement, with blackout curtains over the small windows to reduce glare. Irina had only been down here a handful of times, and she gave Paula props for the ambiance. Hard wood furnishings, dark blue carpeting, and a lounge chair across from the desk for guests. Irina dropped into said chair and pulled a novel up on her phone while Paula dimmed the lights then went directly to the laptop and jiggled the mouse to wake it up. She clicked around for a couple of minutes, typed a handful of strokes, then turned the screen a bit toward Irina. "Here, you want to watch what's going on, too?"
She snorted. "Fuck that, babe. You may not mind giving it up to some internet basement kid with delusions of grandeur, but I'm not going there. I'm watching you, not the screen."
Paula giggled. "Fair enough." She moved the monitor back, then pulled on and plugged in a pair of headphones that looked positively ancient.
"Nice throwback to the 90s," Irina quipped.
"What?"
To the noise-canceled Paula she mouthed,
Never mind
, receiving a nod and a thumbs up in reply. And then it began.
Irina wasn't sure what to expect, in all honesty. Her exposure to hypnotism was entirely born of television and an obviously (to her) faked stage act she'd seen in her freshman year of college. So while she was nominally paging through her book she spent the first several minutes watching her friend closely. At first, Paula looked like she was reading something on-screen, her eyes scanning back and forth. The glow from the LCD was mostly dim with a hint of green. The green intensified slowly, or maybe Irina's eyes were adjusting to the dimness, but soon enough the color plateaued in brightness and there were vague ripples of motion in the light reflected off her friend's face and the wall behind her.
Paula, for her part, seemed engrossed in whatever was on the monitor. When the green light took over, her eyes didn't seem to be reading anymore, just staring intently at one point on the screen. Soon enough, she leaned forward in her chair, let go of the mouse, and rested her arms to the side.
Somewhat bored, Irina continued with her book, and she was startled enough perhaps fifteen minutes into the session to gasp and hiss out a
Jesus!
when she heard Paula's voice.
"What was that, sweetie?" Irina started, then realized that her friend hadn't been talking to her.
Or to anyone, really. Her eyes were glossy... glassy, wide open but unseeing. It was disconcerting, but her words were perhaps more so.
"Yes," Paula drawled, to some unheard query. "I am going deeper, now."
Irina felt a chill go up her spine at this, frankly, spooky behavior, but restrained herself from smacking Paula to snap her out of it and make it all stop. Instead she continued to watch and listen.
