What Was I Thinking?

I realize the mistake I made as soon as I walk inside. Miss Sharice's house is warm, almost uncomfortably so, and there's a thick smell of incense hanging like a haze in every room. It feels like just breathing in here is probably illegal in seventeen states. I hesitate as I cross the threshold, the feeling of righteous fury that gripped me dwindling down into a quiet dread in the span of less than a second... but before I can turn, Miss Sharice says, "Please, Lien, come on in," and closes the door behind me. And I know there's no turning back now.

She takes my arm companionably, her dark brown fingers sliding across the cool white cotton of my blouse and guiding me deeper into the house before I can get my bearings. "I'm guessing you're here about Hoa," she says, and I can't detect any trace of hesitation in her voice at all. She's not frightened of me, she's not worried that I'm going to go to the cops or tell Hoa's parents or blast her on social media. She sounds calm, confident, collected as she gently tugs me along and says, "Come on. Let's go see her."

And me? My legs feel like jelly. I'm shaking, I keep wanting to glance back at the door behind me to make sure it's still there but I feel like if I do, Miss Sharice is going to know that I'm nervous. She... she seems like the sort of woman who can use that against you. She seems like someone who can use anything against you. I suddenly feel like my eyes are made of glass, and she can look right inside and see every single secret and vulnerability. Why did I come here? Why did I think I could do this by myself?

"I know she's been acting a little strange lately," Miss Sharice says, carrying on my half of the conversation along with her own. "I'm sure you know what it's like for some girls, though, their first time away from home. They get a little independence, they experience a little bit of life outside the world they're used to, and sometimes they try to run before they can walk." She chuckles, revealing a wide smile of sparkling white teeth behind the slash of bright red lipstick. "Believe me, I've known plenty of girls like Hoa in my time."

I absolutely do. It's a small college, and it only took about two weeks for us to hear about the big white mansion just on the edge of campus with the faded sign out front that said 'Rooms for Rent'. Everyone told us not to rent a room from Miss Sharice, that if you went into her back parlor you'd come back a kinky sex-crazed lesbian if you ever came out at all. And we giggled in that stupid way that freshman girls giggle when they hear about sex or kink or anything that reminds us we're navigating the world of grown-ups now... but Hoa laughed maybe a little too long and a little too hard.

Or maybe that was just my imagination, embellishing the memory so I'd have something I could hang my suspicions on. Maybe she didn't do anything suspicious at all. Maybe she just bumped into Miss Sharice somewhere in town, waiting in line at the coffee shop or something, and Miss Sharice struck up a casual, friendly conversation during that long, tedious wait. And by the time Hoa got her coffee, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to share it with her new friend. And from there...

I've thought about this a lot over the last three weeks. Maybe too much.

I suddenly realize, as Miss Sharice says, "I'm sure she'll settle down, now that she's found herself," that I've lost track of the path we've taken through the rambling old house. It's such a big place, with half-staircases and winding hallways and rooms that look like they've forgotten what they were for, and just a momentary distraction was all it took to throw my sense of direction off completely. I could search this house for hours and not find the way out. Other people... other people could search this house for hours and never find me.

"I told my friend Ximena where I was going," I suddenly blurt out. It sounds stupid, even to me, and I'm not even a little bit surprised when Miss Sharice lets out a loud, braying laugh and pats my arm with her free hand.

"Well, darling, I'm not going to hurt you!" she says, her voice thick and cloying with mock reassurance. "We're just going to go see your friend Hoa, and then the three of us are going to have a little talk together about how best to put you at your ease. She's talked a lot about you, you know. She knows you've been worrying about her, dating an older woman and all." Miss Sharice gives me a look that's almost theatrically quizzical. "She never told you she was interested in girls, did she?"

The question presses into me like an accusation, and I can see the trap inside any answer I give. If I say 'yes', I'm admitting that it's perfectly normal for Hoa to disappear every afternoon as soon as our last class lets out to go down to the mansion at the end of the street and spend all night with Miss Sharice. If I say 'no', I'm admitting that Miss Sharice knows my best friend since childhood better than I do.

I decide to go on the offensive, instead. "She, she's not," I insist, uncomfortably aware of how querulous I sound. "You. You've done something to her. Gotten inside her head, twisted her all up until she doesn't... until she..." I trail off into silence, unable to sustain the outrage in the face of Miss Sharice's amused disdain. How did I ever think this would work? Did I really expect to come in here and just, just blast Miss Sharice with the force of my eighteen-year old righteousness until she admitted she hypnotized my friend? I don't even have any proof, outside of a Google search that dug up an old hypnotherapy certification from 2004. I just sound like a raging homophobe who can't handle her friend being gay.

And Miss Sharice pounces right into the gap I leave for her. "You've been listening to those future little old ladies on campus, haven't you?" she says, laughter shading every word. "I swear, they gossip worse than church biddies twice their age. Telling every girl in town that all I need to do is talk to you for five minutes and I'll have your legs spread wider than a four-lane highway." She chuckles, patting my arm again with a confident familiarity that I can't seem to dissuade.

We take another turn, passing through a beaded curtain into a room that feels almost as though it's underwater. The curtains are drawn, and the fabric filters the afternoon sun into a soft blue light that sparkles off of every agate and every geode and every sparkly crystal and polished stone. There's tons of them, they're everywhere I look covering every shelf and table, and it feels like I've stepped into some sort of enchanted grotto straight out of a fairy tale. "Welcome to my parlor, as they say," Miss Sharice says, guiding me over to the great big couch against the far wall.

She sits me down, and then settles in right next to me. I can feel her body heat through her thin silken robe, even warmer than the stifling, sultry atmosphere of the room around me. I'm only wearing a light cotton blouse, but it's already starting to stick to my skin and my bra feels like it's soaked up a gallon of sweat. "Hoa will be along any moment," she says, the lie coming easily to her lips. I don't know where Hoa is, but I'm certain Miss Sharice wants some alone time with me right now.

I try to tell myself that it doesn't really mean anything, that even if Miss Sharice could get me alone in her back room that doesn't mean that she can actually hypnotize me into becoming some sort of submissive lesbian sex slave... but then I think about Hoa, coming back to the dorm five minutes before curfew with a vacant smile on her face and the thick and heady scent of pussy coming off of her in clouds. I think about the way she gives vague, confused answers whenever I ask her where she was and what she was doing. I remember her absolute certainty when she said I must have been mistaken when I thought I saw her going into Miss Sharice's mansion.

"While we wait," Miss Sharice says, "would you like to look at my crystal collection? I'm very proud of it." And I know I should never have come here. Why did I do it? What was I fucking thinking?

I should have gone to the police. "This one's a favorite of mine. See how it catches the light so perfectly?" I know they wouldn't have believed me-Hoa's not the first young woman to leave home and suddenly turn into a raging lesbian during her freshman year of college-but maybe I would have found someone who listened. "It's like that gleam, that beautiful rainbow sparkle draws your eyes into its hidden depths." Maybe someone already had suspicions about Miss Sharice, and if I'd only said something, they could have at least warned me. "Like there's a whole world inside that crystal, pulling your gaze deeper and deeper."

I, I should have said something to Hoa's parents. "It's just an illusion, of course. Just a trick of the light. But doesn't it seem like you can always keep looking deeper into the crystal?" They... I don't know what they would have done, Ximena said that the last girl who dated Miss Sharice dropped out of school and moved into the mansion when her parents got involved. "Your eyes just keep following that pretty blue light down, and down, and down, and it almost seems like there's no end to it at all." But at least someone would know.

"You can always sink deeper into the crystal, Lien. Deeper and deeper until it feels like you're inside of it, like your body doesn't seem to matter because you're floating in that pretty rainbow sparkle and letting the fascinating gleam tug you further and further down." I could have. I could have said something, on. On my blog? Or something? I don't know. "The deeper you go, the easier it is to leave your thoughts behind one by one and lose yourself in the crystal's depths." Telling the world I thought my best friend was being turned gay by a sinister lesbian would probably just make me sound like an asshole.

"Just letting everything else go now but the sound of my voice, your thoughts floating away one by one until all that's left inside the crystal's endless, infinite depths is my words. Guiding you deeper and deeper. It feels so good to sink deeper and deeper for me, doesn't it, pretty girl?" I could have... left Hoa... behind? "That's right. Just nod that pretty head for me. You're being such a good girl, now, listening so well. All your thoughts are outside the crystal, and all you need to do is stay deep inside and relax." No. I couldn't. I had to come after her. I didn't really have any choice at all.

"And I'm going to direct your attention to the warmth of the room, now, and you're going to notice just how hot and sticky those clothes feel on your body." I. I don't think I should. "You're going to realize just how uncomfortable you are wearing them, and how good it's going to feel when you take them off for me." I don't think, I should... "All those waves of sultry, sweltering heat, washing over you until you just have to reach down and undo those buttons and take those clothes off for me now." I don't think. I...

"That's it, pretty girl. Don't you feel so much better now?" I do. I thought I would feel scared or helpless, like Miss Sharice's hypnosis was going to pin my thoughts down and force me to obey, but... oh god, the crystal is so pretty, and I feel so happy and relaxed and comfortable like this. "That's it, good girl, the bra and panties too. So much nicer to take all those clothes off and feel that warm air caress your naked body as you sink deeper and deeper still."

I wonder absently if this is what it was like for Hoa, if she felt Miss Sharice's fingers slip down between her legs and find her clit and tease away her resistance until her eyes fluttered shut and it got too hard to think... "Good girl. Still seeing nothing in your mind but the crystal, nothing but my words and the endless, captivating rainbows." But as soon as I think it, I realize it is too hard to think. Every time a thought passes through my mind, it's easier and easier to let it go and harder and harder to find anything but pleasure to replace it.

"Ohhh, such a good, obedient girl!" My legs spread farther and farther apart, giving her easier and easier access to my cunt and oh god it is fucking soaked. "That's it, emptying out that deep, sleepy mind and letting me fill it back up again. It's so good to let me fill you up, isn't it, pretty slave?" I raise my hips as she adds a third finger, moaning in helpless agreement. I've never been filled like this, and it is so... very... good.

"That's my pretty little slut," Miss Sharice murmurs, shifting my body around so she can fuck my pussy with one hand and feed her nipple into my mouth with the other. I don't even think about what I'm supposed to do, I simply suckle on her breast with the instinctive need of a mindless infant, and having my mouth filled somehow makes me infinitely more passive and compliant. I can't speak. I can't think. All I can do is surrender.

"Deeper and deeper, good girl. All the pleasure so strong now, all the pleasure coming from obedience." Her fingers thrust faster, sliding in and out of my slick and dripping cunt and pushing me closer and closer to orgasm. "The more you obey, good girl, the better you feel. And the better you feel, the less you think. And the less you think... the more you obey. Isn't that right, slave?" All I can do is nod. And even then, I can feel her hand steering my head into blank, compliant acceptance.

"That's right. Filled with my words, filled with my pleasure, filled with my touch. You're not thinking at all anymore, just accepting. Just listening and obeying." I moan around her nipple, suckling so hard in the throes of my arousal that I leave marks. I can't care. I can't think of anything but cumming now, and it's so close. So strong. So overwhelming. "Cum for me, slave," Miss Sharice says, and I do.

She sinks her fingers all the way into me, and I clench around them with utter, lust-driven abandon. I scream a muffled scream into the flesh of her tits, my hips arching up and up and up as the white-hot pleasure drives every last thought out of my brain and leaves me an obedient, malleable slave for Miss Sharice to mold. I don't care about resisting anymore, I don't care that I'm letting her win, I don't care that she's reshaping my mind into her lesbian fucktoy and I'm never going to be free of her control. I don't care about anything but pleasure, and Miss Sharice pours it into me until I'm overflowing with it.

And when I finally sag back onto the couch cushions, exhausted from an orgasm that skipped into a second and a third like a stone thrown across the surface of a pond, I feel a warm, wet tongue slipping in around Miss Sharice's fingers. Taking me right back into helpless, vacant bliss. I hear a soft sigh of contentment, a sigh I recognize in the same way that you know when your best friend walks into the room just from the sound of their breathing, but I don't open my eyes. I'm too deep for that. I just wriggle my hips a little bit closer to Hoa's mouth, inviting her to taste me further.

Miss Sharice takes her breast out of my mouth and begins to stroke my hair. "Now, pretty girl," she says, her words a coaxing invitation to endless fathoms of pleasure, "I'd like you to tell me about your lovely friend Miss Ximena." And blankly, helplessly, my voice already a deeply hypnotized monotone... I do.

THE END