Talking in Your Sleep

Alicia groaned, but Holly didn't stir for even an instant from her weird dreams. God, couldn't this chick she was dating do something to satisfy Holly's urges before she turned in for the night? Probably a long-distance relationship or something, because Alicia couldn't imagine where Holly made the time to see a girlfriend given her schedule. They probably texted each other with kinky messages during class or something.

"My limbs are going limp, my eyes are getting heavy, my body is relaxing, and that feels soooo good..."

Alicia stripped down, trying to decide whether to wake Holly or not. On the one hand, she had no idea how she was going to sleep through Holly's...Holly's whatever-the-fuck-it-was. On the other hand...she thought back to last week, and the exhausted, frazzled look in Holly's eyes when she woke her up. She liked Holly. Despite the weird fetishes and the sleep-talking and all of it, the girl was sweet. She wasn't doing it on purpose or anything.

"And the path to relaxation leads to Mistress, and that path is obedience. The more I relax, the more I obey. The more I relax, the more I obey. The more I relax, the more I obey."

Alicia sighed, sitting down on the edge of her bed and trying very hard not to look at Holly's body as she writhed ever so slightly under her covers. Unbidden, the memory of last week continued in her head, the way that she watched Holly's fingers pumping under the sheets, the way Holly's voice had sounded as she chanted, the way that Alicia had almost felt like she couldn't look away...

"The path of obedience is the perfect path. The path of obedience leads to pleasure. The path of obedience leads to Mistress. Mistress is pleasure. Everything about Mistress makes me feel so good, opening myself to Mistress opens me to pleasure."

Alicia tore her gaze away from Holly and leaned back against her pillows. She stared at the wall, trying to decide how to handle this. There was no way in hell she'd be able to sleep with all this going on, but she couldn't just wake Holly up every Friday night, not if they were going to be able to live with each other...

"And the pleasure makes me so sleepy, and the spiral makes me so sleepy, and everything makes me sleepy and weak and ready to be programmed by Mistress, all my resistance melting away as I sink down, deeper into sleep, so relaxed and open, a vessel to be filled by Mistress' will..."

*****

"Did you really go to sleep like that?"

Alicia blinked. She hadn't remembered going to sleep at all. One moment she was lying there, trying to figure out how to deal with Holly, and the next... "Oh, my neck," she moaned. She sat up a little, stretching out the kinks. "I think I need Tylenol."

"You weren't even under the covers," Holly said, hanging up her towel and starting to get dressed. "You must have been bushed."

"I..." Alicia swung her legs off the bed, feeling her body protest. "I really didn't think I was going to get to sleep at all," she said. "You were talking in your sleep again last night."

Holly grimaced. "Sorry," she said. "Honestly, I don't remember having any nightmares or anything last night!"

"They weren't..." Alicia realized she was blushing, and that Holly was looking at her funny, and she decided to clear the air a bit. "Look, Holly," she said, trying not to sound too patronizing. "I know you're gay, and I don't mind, really. But--"

Holly gave her a look. It wasn't an angry look, thankfully; it was really more of a, 'Yeahbuhwha?' type of look. "I'm not gay," she said.

Alicia rolled her eyes. "Holly, you don't need to pretend. I'm not freaked out, I'm not going to ask for a different roomie, but--"

Holly was actually laughing now. "I'm not pretending!" she said. "I've got a boyfriend, back home in Kansas! See?" She reached over to her bedside table and pulled her wallet out of her purse. Flipping it open, she pointed to a picture of a studious-looking young man with glasses. "Well, he's not in Kansas now. I just can't think of home without thinking of Steve." She looked at the photo with a dreamy expression on her face. "We've been dating practically since puberty. He's in California right now, though, went to CalTech--I wish we could have gotten closer schools, but CalTech and Harvard? Too good to pass up. We'll cope, though. We email, we call, we're planning a visit for Thanksgiving, and we text each other all the time. In fact..."

She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and tapped furiously away at it. "He's online now." After a moment, her phone beeped, and she tossed it to Alicia.

The screen read, 'Roomie thinks im gay'. Below that, her boyfriend had responded with, 'If U R, UR vry bad at it.'

Alicia felt like her whole body had turned beet red in embarrassment. She just looked at the phone for a long moment, not because she was having trouble figuring out what the message meant, but because looking down at the phone meant she didn't have to look up at Holly.

"Shower first," Holly said, clearly pleased by being the one to wrong-foot Alicia this time, "then Chinese, and you can explain to me why you thought I was a lesbian."

Alicia tried to drag the shower out as long as she possibly could, but she knew she had to face the music. And at least when she explained herself, she wouldn't be the only one blushing.

Holly seemed more amused than embarrassed, though. "So I'm saying something about this 'Mistress'," she said, "and...some sort of S&M thing?"

Alicia nodded. "Really weird-sounding, too. Very...intense. I don't quite know how to describe it."

"And you're sure you didn't dream any of it?"

"Three nights," Alicia said. "One night, I could pass off as a weird dream, but every night we've slept in the same room, I've heard you talking. Really distinctly, too. You break off into muttering sometimes, but for the most part, you're pretty clear."

Holly's eyes actually gleamed. "God, this is so fascinating, I wonder what I'm saying!" She caught sight of the look in Alicia's eye. "Sorry, psychiatrist in training. I just keep wanting to take this to Ms Lassiter, see what she'd make of it all."

"Your Psych 101 teacher?" Alicia asked.

"And savior," Holly said. "She's been helping me out with some techniques for maximizing sleep, some tricks for studying and concentration that have saved my life on a few of these tests...God, I wonder what she'd think about this."

Alicia shrugged. "Too bad there's no way to ask her. Unless you want to invite her to spend a night in our dorm room, listening to you mas...um, listening to you. In your sleep." She was uncomfortably aware of Holly's eyes on her.

Suddenly, Holly snapped her fingers, and Alicia breathed an internal sigh of relief. "Got it!" she said. "I've got a voice-activated microphone on my computer, for chat. There's a program that can record, and I can just leave it running overnight, and see what I said in the morning!" She sighed. "Well, not tomorrow morning...another double shift. But I should have some time Monday after classes."

"Alright," Alicia said. "Just don't blame me if you find yourself suspecting that you might be a lesbian."

That night, Alicia found herself actually worrying as she got ready for bed. What if Holly picked tonight to stop doing it? Alicia would look pretty silly if all the voice-activated microphone picked up was snores. She crawled under the covers, picturing Holly mocking her, picturing herself trying to stammer out explanations...she lay there for what felt like hours worrying, and it was almost a relief when she heard Holly's sleepy voice begin to drone, "Yes, Mistress..."

Relieved, she drifted off to sleep with the words, "I will picture the spiral in my mind's eye, and let it take me deeper," echoing in her ears.

*****

But when she woke up, Holly had already left for work. She went over their class schedule in her mind. Holly said she'd be listening to it Monday after classes, but Alicia would be in class Monday until after Holly left for work. Tuesday, they always seemed to miss each other, Wednesday, she'd probably stop by the room between Civics 101 and Intro to Political Theory, but Holly might be asleep...it'd probably be Thursday before they could have even a brief conversation about it. Alicia sighed. Was it being nosy to want to hear a pysch student psychoanalyze her own sex dreams?

That night, Alicia found herself unable to sleep. Somehow, the room seemed a little too quiet without anyone else in it. She shook her head in disbelief. Had she actually started missing Holly's weird little monologues?

If she had, Alicia suddenly realized, there was an easy way to fix that. She got up and crossed the room to Holly's computer, grabbing her own mp3 player along the way. It was the work of moments to transfer the sound file Holly had created to her player, and the work of seconds to slip her headphones on before turning the light back out and resting her head against the pillows. She felt a little weird, but sure enough, the soothing sounds of Holly's relaxed, quiet voice saying, "I will picture the spiral in my mind's eye..." helped her fall asleep quickly and easily.

Even the Monday morning alarm, something she normally dreaded, didn't seem so bad when she could still hear Holly underneath it, whispering how nice it was to be relaxed and open. Alicia practically leapt out of bed, and went to classes with a spring in her step and a sparkle in her eye.

Which was kind of scary, really. Not that she was a prude, or anything, but once she got to thinking about it, it did seem kind of creepy that her new favorite way to get to sleep was to listen to a recording of her roommate's subconscious sex fantasies. They seemed so...she thought back to the restaurant. 'Intense', she'd said at the time. But that didn't even really describe it. 'All-consuming', perhaps. Holly seemed to just want to give herself completely to this Mistress, whoever she represented. Like she didn't care about anything but the pleasure she got from sex with this fantasy woman. Alicia shuddered at the thought, resolving to delete the recording from her mp3 player when she got home.

But that was before a full day of classes followed by a full night of studying eroded both the spring and the sparkle. By the time Alicia got back to the dorm room, she just wanted to conk out hard and stay asleep all night, and somehow the idea of deleting the file didn't seem nearly as attractive as listening to it. She slipped on her headphones and was asleep in moments.

Tuesday passed much the same way, except that Alicia's Tuesday classes were easy enough that she could devote most of her attention to worrying about Holly. The more she thought about that recording, the more worried she got. Holly's voice and that tone of mindless devotion in it just sent shivers up Alicia's spine. Maybe it was her imagination, but she was starting to think that maybe it wasn't Holly's imagination. What if Holly really was hiding something? From her boyfriend, from Alicia...she frowned, doodling a spiral into her notebook. Nobody masturbated that much over 'just a fantasy'.

That night, she listened to the file again, a bit more carefully, trying to find some sort of clue as to who the Mistress might be. But study and school had once again taken their toll on her energy levels, and Alicia nodded off before even ten minutes had passed.

By Wednesday, Alicia was aching to talk to Holly about the situation. She raced back to the dorm after Civics, hoping to just catch her for a brief moment, but when she burst into the room, Holly was laid out on the bed, sound asleep.

"...my mind is empty, a vessel into which Mistress pours her devotion. My body is empty, a vessel waiting to be filled with pleasure. My soul was empty, but then Mistress filled it with the joy of obedience..."

Alicia sighed and sat on the bed, not wanting to wake her friend. She just looked so helpless, though. Her dreams, monologues, whatever they were, they seemed to be getting more and more intense, more and more...complete? Consuming? Alicia didn't know. It was like Holly was being...not altered, she was still the same person when she was awake, but...programmed, perhaps. Changes under the surface, behind the scenes, making her...

"...ready for Mistress' will to fill me completely, and that will feel so good, because Mistress' love is pure bliss, Mistress' devotion is holy. Mistress completes me, and my submission completes Mistress. And so I must obey. I can do nothing but obey. I cannot resist. Resistance is a path away from pleasure, so I must take the path away from resistance..."

Alicia watched her friend writhe on the bed, wishing there was something she could do to help. After a while, she looked down at her watch and let out a tiny yelp. She'd managed to spend twenty-five minutes worrying about Holly, and that left a scant five minutes to get to class. Running like hell, she just managed to make it on time.

By the time Thursday finally rolled around, Alicia was almost ready to skip classes just to get a chance to talk to Holly. She shot out of her last class and sprinted across campus to get back to the dorm before Holly left for work. "Well?" she asked, without preamble.

"Well what?" Holly said, her face a picture of confusion. "Oh, and hi."

"Hi," Alicia said impatiently, giving a little wave. "Well, the recording! Did you listen to it, what did you think of it, what's going on in your head?"

Holly blinked once or twice, each blink seeming to take forever. "Oh, that," she said. "Ms Lassiter thinks it's nothing to worry about. Just some silly dreams. I already deleted it from my hard drive."

Alicia shivered. Holly had seemed perfectly normal when she'd said it, and probably a casual observer wouldn't have noticed anything wrong. Maybe even a close friend wouldn't have noticed anything wrong. But Alicia had been listening to that recording for four straight days now, and had been hearing Holly sleeptalk on three nights before that. And something in her voice just now had sounded exactly like the way she sounded when she was talking in her sleep.

"Oh!" Holly said. "Gotta run, work!" And with that, she was out the door.

Alicia waved, but her mind wasn't on goodbyes. She was wondering exactly what kind of psychology Ms Lassiter specialized in.

And on Friday night, when Alicia got back to the dorm, the worries only increased. Not because Holly was asleep again, muttering, "I crave the feel of women's bodies, I crave the taste of women's pussy, sex with women is blissful, the soft curves of a woman's flesh feels so hot, so good, so sexy..." Although that didn't help.

No, what worried Alicia was that even in the shadows of the dorm, she could see that Holly was wearing a choker around her neck. She stripped down and got into bed, wondering exactly where Holly got the choker. Did Ms Lassiter give it to her? Did she tell her to wear it to bed every night, as she slept and dreamed of...

"...sex with Mistress, must give myself to her sexually in every way, feels so good, mindless and open and sexy and dreamy, Mistress' good slutpet, Mistress' sextoy, want to fuck Mistress, want to be fucked by Mistress, oh fuck yes..." Holly rolled over on the bed, and Alicia shivered as she saw the design on the choker's clasp. A spiral...

And Holly just kept talking, kept gasping out, "Pleasure is Mistress' gift for obedience, sex with Mistress is pure pleasure, sex with Mistress is pure obedience, I obey and pleasure Mistress and my obedience becomes pleasure in my own mind, must obey, must become a mindless fucktoy for Mistress..." And she was pumping away, fingers in her cunt and Alicia could hear it and smell it but all she seemed to be able to see was that spiral design, and there was just something so sexy about it all that Alicia had to slide her fingers down to her own pussy and play with it just a little...

"The collar is my chain, it binds me to obedience, I wear the collar and it locks my mind to Mistress' will, locks my body to Mistress' control. Even when I am not wearing the collar, I am wearing the collar, but I always want to wear it because it feels so good around my throat..." And then a little became a lot, and Alicia tried to tell herself that she wasn't into girls, that she wasn't into anything kinky, but something about the way Holly lay there, eyes closed and expression empty and mindless and blissed out and vacant, finger-fucking herself as she dreamed about her Mistress, it was getting Alicia so turned on that she couldn't stop herself from diddling her clit and reaching her other hand up to pinch her nipples so hard it almost hurt, but the edge of pain was just the most intense pleasure of all...

"...need to cum for Mistress, need to cum because cumming is perfect pleasure and perfect pleasure is perfect obedience and cumming locks in all my programming and i, i, ohhhhh..." Holly shuddered, and Alicia shuddered right along with her. Time just seemed to slow down as her orgasm hit, as the sweet, dreamy pleasure overwhelmed her and Alicia didn't even remember when her eyes closed down and she fell asleep.

*****

Alicia woke up with her hand still snuggled in the warm nest between her thighs, and for a long, dreamy moment all she wanted to do was start sliding it in and out of her pussy again and let that pleasure take her over once more...but then she remembered Holly, her eyes opened all the way, and she looked to see if her friend was awake yet.

She was, but only barely. Holly's eyes seemed to be just about as open as Alicia's had been a moment ago. "Hi," she said sleepily. "Chinese food?"

"In a moment," Alicia said, getting out of bed. "First, I wanted to talk to you. About Ms Lassiter."

Holly smiled blissfully. "Oh, she's wonderful," she said, a sigh in her voice. "Honestly, Alicia, I don't know what I'd do without her. Every day, she seems to have some sort of good advice for me, or good ideas..."

Alicia's voice was wary. "Like what?" she asked.

Holly's eyes fluttered just a tiny bit as her smile widened. "Oh, you know," she said. "Just stuff about school and life." Alicia caught it again, that hint of dream-talk in her voice. "She's just really nice. She's really good at talking to you, you know?"

Alicia took a deep breath. "Holly...I'm worried that Ms Lassiter might be...doing something to you."

Holly frowned. "Like what?"

"Well...you said she was a psych teacher, right?" Alicia saw the look on Holly's face and decided to tread very carefully.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, I was thinking...she gave you that choker, right? With the spiral design?"

"Yeah, so what?" Holly crossed her arms defensively. "It was just a present, she's been happy with my schoolwork. It's not anything important."

"Okay," Alicia said. "Then take it off."

Holly's hand started to move up to the choker, but even as it did, her eyes seemed to unfocus, just a little, and her mouth moved silently. "I don't feel like it right now," she said. "Besides, you were saying something about Ms Lassiter doing something to me, not about what I'm wearing."

Alicia gestured impatiently. "Spiral design, psych teacher, strange behavior...come on, Holly, you've got to see it." Seeing that Holly most emphatically did no such thing, she sighed. "I think she's hypnotized you."

Holly rolled her eyes. "No way," she said. "Absolutely not. She'd never do anything like that. I trust Ms. Lassiter implicitly. She has only my best interests at heart."

"There you go again!" Alicia said, sitting down next to Holly. "Don't you hear what your own voice sounds like when you say things like that?"

"No," Holly said angrily, "I don't! And I don't like these accusations you're making against my favorite teacher! She's just been helpful, that's all. She hasn't done anything to my mind."