Be All That You Seem Ch. 02

Jane found the small office without much difficulty. It was in a modern looking development rather in a small side road. Each floor seemed to hold a different company. The lobby was unguarded and Jane was able to go to the lift and she found 'Petra Northgate' on the list next to it as being on the third floor. Jane was soon at her office, one of the almost identical doors in a corridor of six. The office inside was small with a tiny reception room unstaffed by any secretary. Petra was there seemingly waiting for Jane when she entered.

"Jane Portland?"

"Yes, that's me." Jane responded a little nervously.

"I'm Petra Northgate, come in."

Petra had to be in her late fifties. Her dark hair, laced with grey, was bound up in a bun and pulled back starkly from her face. She had a broad face of features that must have once been strong but through age were beginning to lose their definition. Her eyes still seemed to twinkle and gave the impression of an enduring interest in life. Petra's room was like a thousand other medical offices with bland paintings on the wall and a number of certificates. The only distinctive thing was the leather clad reclining chair in the corner.

"Take a seat, Jane." Petra gestured to the normal office chair in front of her desk.

Jane took the seat and sat silently, assuming Petra would take the lead; she did.

"So you said on the telephone that you have been suffering some hallucinations." Petra outlined, consulting notes on her desk as she did. "You were recommended to see me by Kym Abel?"

"Yes. I've also been for blood tests, and it's not anything medical, you know, being drugged or brain tumour or anything."

"That's good, I was going to ask that."

"Do you know Kym, Kym Abel?"

"Yes, we've done some work together in the past. I've seen her at work with other clients. She always likes to take jobs in companies, you're with Redline Finance?"

"No, Morcar Publishing. She's just come there as a counsellor."

"Right, sounds typical of Kym. As I was saying, she likes to see counselling on the frontline, she says it helps contextualise her writing on the subject. And Kym was unable to help you?"

"Well, she said that the hallucinations, they are of me, but in an extreme style: short hair, piercings, so on; she said it stemmed from me not facing up to my sexuality. Apparently I am seeing myself as I would imagine a typical lesbian to look like and she feels that is my mind telling me I am in fact a lesbian."

"And I'm assuming that that's not how you see yourself."

"No, of course not, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I think her diagnosis is wrong. I think it's more serious and that my personality is splitting."

"Okay, okay. Well, that is pretty serious, but I will tell you for every one woman that has a split personality you'll have a hundred who have issues around their sexuality. Kym doesn't panic, she looks at the probables and works through them."

"So you think the same?" Jane jibed.

"No, I didn't say that. I have the utmost respect for Kym and her methods, but we focus on different things and thus will adopt different approaches. While Kym will work on you looking into what is facing you, I go in and look for myself. You know what hypnosis is about? Forget all the popular coverage, it is about unlocking the mind which often has so many parts hidden behind thick walls and locked doors. I simply open up those elements, safely, and then see what we can do to address what is in there. It might be things from your past, it might be things you have forgotten, it may be things you are simply denying. The bottom line is that something is upsetting you and we are searching for the cause. The kind of treatments Kym and I provide are not medicines to kill off the bad thoughts, they are about you tackling them for yourself. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"Good. You may need a number of sessions to handle this. Ultimately you may find, and, I only say 'may find' that there is an issue of your personality and, remember, that can be as much chemical as psychological. However, it is best practice to eliminate every simpler explanation before we tackle the big ones."

"Yes, I understand that. However, these visions scare me and I want to get them out of my head as soon as possible."

"I understand that too. Well, I don't think we need to delay. If you'll move over to the other chair and sit back and close your eyes, try to let any thoughts go out of your mind."

Jane did what Petra asked and sat back in the chair. She tried breathing slowly and to empty her mind of the thoughts that were there. She wondered rather impatiently why Petra had not started yet. Then she heard gentle, smooth music in the background.

"That's it Jane, breathe slowly and deeply, let the oxygen really get into your lungs, into your brain, feel your head glowing with a pink shade, that's it, nice and relaxed."

Jane certainly could feel the tensions ebbing from her. The light behind her eyelids now seemed red but soft.

"Now, Jane, I am going to start counting back from twenty. Concentrate on each number as I say it. Let the number come into your head. By the time I reach 'one' you will be in a trance."

Petra said nothing else for the moment. "You are feeling so heavy, your limbs, your hips, your shoulders, they are all sinking deeper into the chair. That's it, let them go. Open yourself to the numbers."

Jane wanted to mumble some response, but the words would not come. Instead she heard Petra's voice somewhere behind her.

"Twenty...nineteen...eighteen... seventeen..." There was a pause between each number which seemed to get longer and longer. "Sixteen... Fifteen... Fourteen... Thirteen... Twelve... Eleven."

Then Jane felt herself falling into the hypnosis. She was slightly alarmed that it had taken her, realising that like a lot of people, she guessed, she had assumed she was immune to the effects. Now a new vision came to her. She guessed this was what Petra had told her that she would see: some element of her past or a representation of how her psyche was working.

Jane knew she was in the hypnosis as she found herself in a living room of what looked like a flat. Though she knew it was not real, it looked, felt and even smelt as if she was in a real place. It was a nice place, not her style but still smartly appointed and with new furnishings. The white walls held stark black & white photos that looked like artistic shots of parts of women's bodies. Jane looked away, a little worried that this was all too quickly coming back to the lesbian theme. As the woman walked into the room with the two cups of coffee in her hand, Jane mentally squirmed, wishing she could wake herself and get out of this scenario. That did not seem to be happening. Jane told herself that this did not necessarily have to go the way she was concerned it might.

Aside from Rachel she did not have many female friends these days and maybe this vision was suggesting that she simply had to extend her social circle. In addition, no matter what the set-up she had to believe that nothing would happen without her consent. The woman did not look insane, in fact she was very attractive, with long black hair running as a plait currently resting over right shoulder. She wore a mid-blue top of some shiny material, possibly silk. It was almost sleeveless but her shoulders were capped in a style Jane found she liked. She wore ink-blue jeans and a belt that was black leather with widely spaced studs of a copper shade.

So, okay, she might be a lesbian, but then again she might be just a fashionable woman, maybe a new colleague or a neighbour. This flat, with admittedly different décor, was not that different from Jane's own. The woman handed Jane one of the cups rather than put it on the table and her fingers did seem to linger a little longer than necessary. Jane wanted to snatch them away but found she left them there. Jane had no idea what the rules of being in a hypnosis scene were. How much control did she have? How much of it came from parts of her mind, that if Kym and Petra were right, she had little knowledge of? Jane wanted to say that this was probably a mistake and that she hoped that she did not offend the woman but it was clear that she should not be here.

"Thank you." Came from Jane's lips instead.

"No worries, Jay."

Jay? Not that name again. 'No! I'm Jane.' Jane wanted to shout.

Jane tried to move away from the woman but found instead she was appraising her face. She was beautiful, though in a distinct way. Her features were large with a broad mouth that smiled easily. Her nose was broad but came to a tip a shape which echoed a strong, though shapely, pointed chin. Her eyebrows too seemed to be dominant and left her eyes appearing small in contrast, but Jane saw that they glittered almost like a girl's; signalling a mix of shared secrets and the excitement of possibilities.

Jane forced herself to sip her coffee and tried to look around the room at something, anything. She remembered that she would probably catch site of those arty photographs and anyway, whatever was controlling this scene was not going to give her that kind of control. Jane reconciled herself to the fact that she was going to be shown something and she had to simply sit there and watch whatever it was. She just wished everything was more dream-like, this was far too realistic, she could even feel the heat and the taste of the coffee on her tongue. Then she realised there were other sensations too: a quickening of her heartbeat and an excited feel in her stomach. She cursed Petra for putting her on this rollercoaster. She recognised that she could be in something far more scary that this scenario: there was no monster busily biting at her limbs, but with all the stuff she had heard about lesbians she was heartily tired of it.

Now, other thoughts began forcing their way into Jane's head. It was as if that part of her brain which had created this context, was now irritated at the forefront of her personality for whining about it all. Not only did she get a strong feeling that she should relax and go with the flow of what was happening, she also began to get signals that she should feel differently about this woman, who was called Naomi, by the way. Naomi was a very hot woman and Jay needed to remember that she had done really well to land her, and didn't her lips look as if they would taste so good? And wasn't her body great and how good would it feel to lock her mouth onto one of Naomi's nipples? Jane quivered with the conflicting emotions, just hoping that somewhere Petra would see that and let her out of here. Then the part of Jane which she was beginning to allow to call itself Jay, said she was being foolish and she should not try to get away from what was going to be oh-so-excellent.

"I had a good evening, Jay, thanks." Naomi spoke, putting down her coffee.

Jane tried to ensure she clung to her cup, but she mirrored Naomi's gesture. "Yes, it was excellent, Naomi, I love that club. And ..."

"Yes?"

Jane tried to choke off the next words that she sensed Jay sending out, but she was unable to stop them. "And I really enjoyed dancing with you. You're, you're..."

Jay was clearly feeding Jane's voice words it knew that Naomi wanted to hear. Jane tried to just run rubbish through her mind, any words or phrases that she could think of at random but that simply seemed to yield yet more control to Jay.

"You're beautiful."

Well, normally that would not have been too bad, Jane thought. You could tell a woman she looked beautiful and it not mean anything, but here where they were sitting face-to-face almost breathing in step with each other, it had so many other connotations. Jane just wished Jay was as unco-ordinated with women, as she, Jane, was with men. Not that that often made much difference, if men got the green light then you could speak utter gibberish from then on and they would still want you. Maybe the same went for lesbians, Jane did not know and was unlikely to find out, as Jay was busily doing a reasonable come-on, a little hackneyed maybe, but clearly sufficient for this context.

"Thank you. I really love the way you look."

Jane wondered how Naomi could really say that given the half-lidded state of her eyes and the breadth of her smile. Then Naomi's hand crept on to Jane's thigh. Not too close into the target zone to be a threat, but certainly signalling her intention to move that way. Jane wanted to shrink back, but instead her hand reached out to gently brush a strand of Naomi's hair away from her eyes. God, her skin was soft, and warm, and so good. Jane found it difficult to fight the wave of lust that ran through her. Jane had to admit that that was a nice buzz, something she would not try to kick out of her system; a sensation she had not felt in such a long time.

Beneath her clothes, she felt her nipples becoming erect and below she knew that her lips were broadening, opening. She felt her body was betraying her, opening up its doors for this woman when it should be presenting a cold and ironically soft, rather than hard, exterior. Cold and soft, cold and soft, Jane tried chanting that mantra, but the soft was a traitor too as it reminded her of the attention Jay wanted to give to Naomi's skin and lips. Cold and unresponsive, cold and unresponsive, Jane tried.

Jane tried glancing down at herself to take the focus away from Naomi, hoping she would be saved by the bell of Petra reawakening her. Of course, it hardly helped, because it showed her that she was in the kind of outfit she had been seeing in the mirrored image. She wore a black teeshirt with some design on it. For a moment she worried it would say something like 'No-one knows I'm a lesbian', a slogan she had seen once on a teeshirt when first in London and walking through Camden market. The memory of that had jammed itself back into her head in recent days. This teeshirt, however, showed a pink triangle pattern with some complex design and Jane felt bewildered why she should be in such a cutesy designed top, but then imagined that if she knew what the symbol meant it would probably be shouting loud Jay's sexuality. At least there was nothing like 'I like pussies' on it with a design of two cats; even Jane felt that would have being going too far. The trousers of course were black leather and very sleek, just how she, how Jay, liked them. Resting around her waist was the obligatory studded belt which Jane was beginning to feel she could take as a leitmotif of her hallucinations, of which this, was one and at a new level.

"I think I need to lose this teeshirt."

God, why had she said that? Jane cursed herself. This was a minefield. She had to keep her thoughts to herself. Could she not push out a yawn? At least that would be rude and indicate that she was bored, but, no, she, Jane, herself, whoever that identity was in this chaos, even she was giving out innuendo. Jane looked up abruptly at Naomi to see her response and it was one of her broad smiles with more twinkling from the eyes. Her fingers slid into the 'v' of her top and presumably buffed over her breasts, clearly suggesting to Jane that her fingers might like to follow suit. Then there was a flash of movement and Jane hoped that this was the end of the hypnosis, but instead it was Naomi shedding the lovely silk top to expose breasts held in a black silk bra below. It was not lacy, but to Jane it looked sexy and she wondered what it would be like to wear. Now Jay was in overdrive, admiring the body of the woman opposite her and signalling loudly that she wanted to dive in and press skin-to-skin with all of this woman.

"I thought you were losing that teeshirt." Naomi prompted.

Jane had no intention of stripping for this woman. Like every woman, she had experienced changing in communal facilities in a shop or at a pool with semi-naked women all around her, but this would be something entirely different.

"I think I need some help; I'm a little hot and sticky after the club."

Jane cursed Jay: she was far too much the flirt and these lines belonged in some kind of male fantasy porn movie, not real life interaction with a woman. Then again, Jane reflected, was she not taking all of this too much as if it was real? She had to remind herself that all of this was a construct; it all sprang from her mind nowhere else. She had never tried to initiate a sexual encounter, she left that to the men, but perhaps if she had done, she might have found herself coming up with such lame lines. Of course, Naomi was no woman she had met and was probably created by her mind from a mish-mash of celebrities she had seen or was she some representation of Petra as she may have looked when was younger?

Jane knew her mind had no way of knowing what 'appropriate' lesbian seduction dialogue consisted of, so she was clearly relying on the kind of smutty lines she had heard women use in sexual situations in movies. Jane was half-surprised that the moment Naomi had turned to her, her clothes had not simply fallen off into a neat pile beside her and the two of them had not teleported into the bedroom. Then, of course, with such a clear invite from Jay, Jane found that Naomi was beginning to lift the teeshirt up at both sides. Jane seemed powerless to stop this, or of course, due to Jay's influence, was more than relishing the fact of being undressed because it meant sex. Jane knew all too clearly that two half-dressed women sitting face-to-face was a world away from even two assumed lesbians just drinking coffee.

Jane hated the inevitability of all of this and just wished she could have taken more control over the situation. Partly she was angry as she sensed now that it was Petra who had fed in a lot of what was happening. It seemed that for some reason, she, like Kym before her, all of these women were keen to make Jane recognise the lesbian hidden inside her.

Jane found her hand reaching out tentatively for Naomi's body. She ran her fingers down her side to her waist. Naomi's gaze was fixed on Jane and she was breathing gently. Jane found her scent pleasant, there was something so arousing about the aroma of a woman, that men could not even approach. Naomi released her bra and Jane found herself staring at naked breasts in a way she had never done with anyone else except herself in the mirror. Naomi shifted in closer and took Jane's hand in her own. Or rather Jay's hand as Jane tried to think of it. She was unwilling to participate no matter how good this felt. If she was going to have another personality she was going to write all the blame off to it. Naomi lifted Jay's hand to her breast and Jay responded cupping it and toying with the nipple. Then Jay plunged in with her mouth, not bothering to kiss, just hungry to have the other nipple resting on her tongue, which, in a matter of seconds, it was. Naomi seemed to give a shudder and as Jay pulled away she saw a grin across her face signalling delight.

Rather roughly, Naomi grasped Jay behind her head and pulled her face towards her own. Jay quivered at the sensation of being taken this way and loved it. Jane tried to stop all sensual input but found herself overloaded with the feeling of Naomi's silky lips, the taste, God, not just the smell but the actual taste of a woman, the thoughts of how good this was, arousal in her sex. A siren voice spoke to Jane that she should yield, this was good; this was the best she had felt in ages. This part of said: no-one was here to witness, it was not real, but it felt oh-so-real and so excellent. Jane felt she would betray herself if she yielded to the sensation and that somehow she would have signalled her defeat to this lesbianism which seemed so intent in recruiting her or, even more than that, trying to prove that she had always been like this.