Hang on to Your IQ

Trinh nearly snapped a heel sprinting up the escalator from the subway station, but she didn't let it stop her. She limped and stumbled past the turnstile and out into the warm spring air, then began to run the three blocks to her apartment as fast as her unsteady feet would carry her. Her feet almost skidded out from under her again as she rounded the first corner, causing her handbag to swing in a wide, potentially lethal arc, but thankfully foot traffic was beginning to thin out and she didn't wind up making anyone an inadvertent casualty of her uncoordinated stagger.

Normally she would have stopped and changed shoes on her way out of the office, but the meeting at the remote location overran by twenty minutes and Trinh had to take the calculated risk that it would take her less time to run three blocks in modest heels than it would to stop back at her office building, go up twenty floors in an elevator that she privately suspected hadn't been serviced since the Truman administration, change into her sneakers, and head back down and catch the next train. Her ankles protested that she'd made the wrong choice, but when she burst into the lobby of her apartment building and checked her watch, she saw that it was still seven minutes to seven. Plenty of time.

Or at least enough. Trinh unlocked her door and yeeted her shoes halfway across the living room with two swift kicks, then stepped through and closed it behind her with a sigh of released frustration. She quickly turned the deadbolt and slid the chain home, then shimmied off her skirt with a single angry yank that took her panties with it. Of course the meetings had to run long today. Today of all fucking days. She darted to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then headed into the bedroom.

Not that she couldn't have joined the call a little late. Nobody would have minded-hell, probably nobody would have even noticed, depending on how late Trinh actually was in signing into the group voice chat. But that wasn't the point. Trinh looked forward to her Thursday nights the way normal people looked forward to Fridays, and the last three hours had been an absolute agony of impatience for her. She couldn't pay attention to anything her co-workers said. She couldn't sit still. All she could do was fidget and roll her eyes and glance back and forth between her watch and the clock on the wall, waiting for this moment to arrive. Trinh spread the towel on her computer chair and sat down, her tawny brown thighs vividly contrasting with the bright yellow terry cloth.

She slid open her desk drawer and pulled out a pair of wireless headphones, fumbling with one to get them over her ears while her other hand brought up the chat program and signed in. She just managed to get logged on with the window maximized in time to hear Suzie say to the others, "-got a good one this week. Like, hang on to your IQ, Elena, because this shit is going to leave you fucking drooling in your chair, okay?" Trinh's eyes closed as the sensation of familiarity washed over her, and her lips spread in an involuntary and unnoticed smile.

She opened them a few moments later when the chorus of, "Hey Trinh!", "Hi Trinh!", "Good to see you, Trinh!" and other comments flooded through her headphones. Reflexively, she checked to make sure her webcam wasn't on-she always left her blouse buttoned up until she was sure that she wasn't about to flash the entire room, not that she'd learned that the hard way or anything. (She hadn't. That was Missy.) Once she was sure that she was in the clear, Trinh let her fingers drift up and begin to slowly undo her buttons one by one, exposing the clasp of her bra. She barely remembered to mute herself before letting out a reflexive groan of relief as she finally unhooked it and tossed it aside.

"Okay," Suzie said, breaking into the muddle of random chatter, "It's seven o'clock here, so let's go ahead and get going before Brogan falls asleep in her chair. This week was my turn, and I made a file that runs about twenty minutes. It uses binaural sounds and a lot of rapid motion, but I stayed away from stroboscopic effects this time. It's kind of deceptively smooth, I think. Y'all are going to go down in no time." With that, the monitor suddenly went dark... then brighter than ever, as swirl after swirl of bright pink ribbon began to unspool toward the center of the screen.

Trinh tapped a key to unmute herself, marveling at how quiet and calm her voice already sounded as she muttered, "Nice flutter effect," into her microphone. The ostensible purpose of the group was to polish their computer graphics skills after all, and even if they had... drifted... just a little away from that goal, Trinh always tried to give feedback for as long as she could before-oh. Oh wow. A purple ribbon spun into view just behind the pink one, chasing it around and around in a rapidly unfurling spiral that captured Trinh's gaze and drew it deeper and deeper to the center of the screen.

"That looks so... wow..." Trinh heard someone else, probably Elena, murmur as a yellow ribbon unrolled into the gap between pink and purple. Her voice sounded loose and muzzy, almost drugged with fascination in Trinh's ears, and Trinh felt her mind float just that little bit faster into the spinning, swirling spirals of color and light at the sound of it. It always started like that. One of them would begin to drift off a little into rapt, mazy enchantment, and everyone else just sort of took it as permission to let go. To relax. To stop thinking and simply watch.

The ribbons unwound deeper and deeper into the darkness at the center of the screen, tugging Trinh's gaze deeper and deeper along with them. She heard a few scattered "ohhhh" sounds, but already the women in the room were beginning to settle into slow, measured breathing in time to the throbbing pulses of bass rhythm that came in through the headphones around the voices in chat. Trinh had a moment of quiet envy-she was still just beginning to experiment with sound editing, and most of her visuals were silent. Then the spooling threads of light began to give way to darkness again, and Trinh's envy vanished into mesmerized fascination once more.

The darkness wound around and around, engulfing first pink, then purple, then yellow in turn, almost as if the ribbon had run out and the ends of it were fluttering softly into the abyss at the center of the screen, and Trinh gave in willingly to the illusion. A tiny part of her noticed the little details that added verisimilitude to the effect, but they'd all long ago stopped pretending that they were only doing this to show off their animation chops. The public chats where they'd showed a few moments of hypnotic spirals and swirling patterns and unfolding rotations of tessellated tiles had given way to private rooms where they could show each other longer, more fascinating videos, and the Thursday night video sessions had become more and more focused on finding the most effective ways to shut off each other's conscious minds.

They'd given up pretending they didn't enjoy it. Trinh had a lot more fun once they'd abandoned that particular illusion.

There was a moment of complete darkness, just long enough to tease Trinh's confused brain into wondering what would happen next, and then the void at the center of the screen spewed out a tunnel of rainbows that shot straight out in a burst of glorious color. It felt as though she was diving into the tunnel, pulled along into the pulsing tube of light toward an infinitely receding point of darkness, and Trinh leaned forward in her chair involuntarily to catch up. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment, then spilled out in a sleepy sigh of total enraptured amazement.

Every week, it felt like her mind sank quicker and more easily into dazed, hypnotic fascination. The anticipation, the expectation of trance combined with the reactions of the other women to still her thoughts more and more effortlessly each time, until the patterns on the screen numbed her brain into smooth, placid bliss within only moments. Or maybe they were all getting better at making these. Maybe session after session of staring into the swirling lights helped them understand what worked best to switch off their minds and melt their bodies into the most perfectly mesmerized, empty... drowsy... dreamy... the beams of light slowly twisted into a vortex of color, and Trinh sank helplessly into it.

It seemed like only moments before the illusion of spinning rotation became complete, leaving Trinh pleasantly dizzy as her head slowly lolled to one side in an effort to keep up with the twisting, whirling vortex of light. She heard soft sighs and sleepy whimpers mingling with the pulsing binaural beats, the other women responding just as easily and effortlessly to Suzie's mesmerizing patterns as Trinh had. Even Suzie's voice could be heard in with the others, not speaking in words but murmuring the occasional quiet, "mmmm," as the spiral she designed enthralled her right along with everyone else. There was something so wonderful, so communal about drifting into a group trance. It felt so safe, so familiar and comfortable. Trinh's stare became fixed and glassy as she let the others carry her even deeper into relaxation.

The vortex began to flatten, seeming to become shallower and shallower even as it sped up faster and faster until Trinh found herself gazing at a whirling disc of spinning color. It went round and round, almost too fast for her eyes to follow, until she gave up the struggle to focus and simply let the screen become a blur of light in front of her. Somehow, that made it even better. There was something so wonderful about the way the patterns numbed her mind, emptied her thoughts, made her so placid and peaceful and relaxed that she just had to... to... Trinh felt her fingers gently beginning to rub and stroke her tingling pussy, and she sighed in soft, sleepy bliss and let it happen.

Trinh wasn't sure exactly who it was that started masturbating first during the group chats. It wasn't like anyone said, "I'm getting really turned on and I need to play with myself," or something. It just sort of happened. One minute everyone was staring at one of Leona's videos, just kind of losing themselves in a pair of overlaid patterns of intertwining red and green dots as they rotated around two focal points at eye level, and the next they all heard a small, soft whimper of arousal. And once it was out there, once they could hear those tiny little subvocal moans of uncontrollable desire, it was really hard to keep pretending they weren't feeling exactly the same thing. Just like the trances, only so much better.

Trinh heard herself moan in drowsy bliss as she sank two fingers into her slick pussy, and the echoes in her ears made her shudder in helpless arousal. Something about the way that they responded to each other's hypnotic pleasure made it so much more powerful, each gasp and whimper reinforcing the delicious sensation of blank, mindless ecstasy that coursed through Trinh's body with every thrust. It felt like they were programming each other, like every Thursday ratcheted the association between the group chat and the gushing release that soaked the towel on Trinh's chair that much closer together until she couldn't think of masturbation without remembering the patterns on the screen.

She sometimes fantasized about a stranger finding them like this, logging into the chat room once they were all staring in rapt fascination and unable to pull their fingers away from their dripping cunts. They were all so open, so blank, so eager to sink into the swirling pattern that was beginning to extend up and out of the spinning disc on the screen like a tendril winding its way into Trinh's brain and pulsing color straight into her empty head. Anyone could tell her anything when she was like this, she was certain, and she'd soak it up like a thirsty sponge. The only reason she hadn't been turned into an obedient plaything for the other women in the chat was that they were every bit as vacant and thoughtless as she was.

But if someone else found them like this... Trinh's hand went to her desk drawer automatically, pulling out her favorite toy and sliding it into her cunt without resistance. They'd all be putty in a stranger's hands. Trinh imagined a voice speaking to them, echoing calm and confident and utterly irresistible in the emptiness of her head. She imagined being reshaped, her malleable willpower formed and molded like clay, speaking in unison with all the other good girls as they recited their new, perfect thoughts and came hard for their new owner. She twisted the dial at the base of the toy all the way up, making it thrum with power against her clit.

The tendril became a tentacle, writhing sinuously against the backdrop of swirling colors and pulsing hungrily as it quested forward endlessly toward the screen. Trinh's fingers reached up to play with her dark brown nipples, her thighs squeezing around the vibrator as she sank deeper and deeper into her fantasy of being programmed. She could almost imagine the voice, coaxing her foggy mind further and further down into empty obedience until she betrayed herself with pleasure. Until she wanted to be programmed. Until she convinced herself that it was the most wonderful thing in the world to be reshaped into a horny, compliant fucktoy for her Owner.

Trinh let out a gasp that was almost a word, her mind so lost in the fantasy that the hypnotic mantras she imagined became real to her. She wanted to vocalize her new, perfect thoughts, wanted to chant them into her microphone and hear all the other good girls surrender right along with her. It felt so powerful, so hot, so sensual. Trinh's cunt tingled fiercely in orgasmic bliss as she heard the voice in her head telling her to brainwash them all. Telling them all to brainwash each other. Telling them to surrender to the Owner and make each other even more obedient.

Trinh's fingers tightened around her nipples, pinching them until the pleasure bordered on pain as the tentacle suddenly inverted itself into a new vortex of rainbow bliss that swallowed her mind whole. She pictured the voice in her head, the perfect voice of her perfect hypnotist saying, "Deeper into perfect obedience, my pets. Locking away all your thoughts, all your understanding with pleasure until your surrender seems like nothing more than a blissful daydream, a sensual fantasy that makes you wet and blank and happy. No need to think about it, no need to worry about it, just cum for me and remember only the delicious sensation of pure and mindless ecstasy."

And then she was falling, falling faster and faster and deeper and deeper into a bottomless tunnel of light and pleasure that erased even her awareness of awareness. Everything simply became sensation, from the buzzing throb of her vibrator to the trickle of drool that dripped onto her tits to the hot, pinching pleasure against her nipples to the twisting, twirling ribbons of light that numbed her brain until she mindlessly accepted the voice that had to be her imagination. The voice she wished was anything but.

Trinh lost track of the number of climaxes she experienced. She lost track of time. She lost track of Trinh. The only thing left to her was sheer, unadulterated bliss, without even a hint of consciousness to separate her from it. She couldn't stop cumming, she couldn't stop staring, she couldn't stop nodding and moaning and whimpering in sweet, helpless ecstasy. If she spoke, she didn't remember it. If anyone else responded, she didn't remember that either. The lights and the colors simply silenced her thoughts, emptied her head, blanked her out just like Suzie promised. And it was absolutely perfect.

Until finally, the video ended. Trinh woke to find herself blinking her heavy, burning eyes over and over, closing her drool-soaked lips and rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth to try to get some saliva going again. She carefully removed the vibrator, shuddering as her sensitive pussy squeezed one last time around the buzzing, thrumming toy before she turned it off. "Ummm... uhhhhh... nice one, Suzie," she managed to mumble out, her bleary thoughts slow to return after their long rest.

"yeah, nice," Elena agreed sleepily. "Wow," Missy mumbled, her voice soft and sated. "Fuck me," Brogan murmured, her Irish accent hushed with astonishment. The voices came one after another, melding into a torrent of approval. Trinh didn't recognize any of them as the hypnotist of her fantasies. She quickly let the thought fade away into an enjoyable impossibility.

"Thanks," Suzie said, sounding more than a little bit dazed herself. "Um, so that's my thing for tonight. Trinh, you have next week, right?" Trinh nodded automatically, remembering only after her head bobbed up and down for several peaceful and contented seconds that she didn't have her webcam on. (Which, judging by the state of her drool-soaked tits and the sopping wet towel under her legs, was probably a good thing. But still.)

"Um, I... yeah, I yeah," Trinh muttered, her mind already flitting ahead to her own half-finished animations. She decided to spend the weekend doing some research into binaural sound-that really made the images hammer her brain a lot harder, and Trinh had wanted to add that into her next work as quickly as possible. She wanted to create something even more powerful than Suzie's video, even more hypnotic and mesmerizing. Something that would make them all even more open and suggestible. Maybe even something with words incorporated into the visuals, flickering into view subliminally once the girls were blank and obedient? Her pussy was twitching just thinking about it.

Trinh signed off. She opened her files. And with one hand on her mouse and the other lightly rubbing her aroused, sensitive labia... she got to work.

THE END