Zenith

"The sun is rising here." The text woke Huhana out of a light doze that she instantly pretended had never happened; she was a professional astronomer, after all, and professional astronomers never had any trouble staying up all the way through the dawn. Concentrating carefully on the minute details of the night sky was her life's work and she loved it... and if she very occasionally happened to rest her eyes for an extremely brief period when she was alone in the observatory, that was just her way of gathering her thoughts. She was wide awake, extremely alert, and fully conscious. Whatever Enrique might think.

She texted him back immediately, just to prove it. "Already down on this end, mate," she sent quickly, her light brown thumbs moving carefully over the screen to make sure she didn't make any mistakes. She already knew from long experience that Enrique would pounce on every last typo or auto-correct blunder as evidence that she was getting drowsy, the same way he treated any lengthy delays in her replies as proof that she was too sleepy to keep her tired eyes open. She'd considered simply blocking him; from literally halfway around the world, there wasn't much he could do to stop her. But she didn't want him thinking he'd gotten into her head or anything, not when he was already too smug for his own bloody good.

Sure enough, the very next text was already starting in on his usual bullshit. "Of course it is. Your sun has already sunk below the horizon, and it keeps going down. Deeper and deeper down. While my sun is rising higher and higher." It was always the same with him, every night. As soon as Huhana responded to his first text, Enrique spent the rest of the night on this... this amateur hypnotist kick of his, going on and on about the rising and setting sun until Huhana's eyes glazed over. (From boredom, she rapidly added. Not from... anything else.) Didn't he have anything better to do?

As soon as she thought it, she texted it. "Don't you have anything better to do in Cordoba than pester the night owls in Hamilton?" she asked, adding a cheeky little ":P" emoji at the end. It was almost enough to make Huhana wish she'd never joined that silly Antipodes Forum, even though at the time it had seemed like a perfect idea. She spent all her nights sitting up next to a telescope and all her days face-down in a nest of pillows and blankets, and Hamilton was one of the very few cities in the world that had a major metropolitan center on the exact opposite side of the globe. Making online friends in Spain seemed like the perfect solution to her social isolation.

But Enrique definitely wanted to take things past friendship, and he didn't seem to care what kind of opinion Huhana had on the matter. "Not if you have nothing better to do than answer, pretty girl," he responded, adding his own ";)" emoji in return. "Stuck down alone with the computers again?" Huhana had already tried to explain to Enrique on any number of occasions that nobody really looked through eyepieces anymore, not even the observing astronomers who flew in to New Zealand to use the equipment she rigorously calibrated and maintained, but it didn't really seem to sink in. Enrique's understanding of astronomy seemed to go just far enough to understand that they were on opposite sides of the planet and no further.

She thought about explaining it to him again, simply to pass the time and divert the conversation away from his constant attempts to lull her into a hypnotic trance, but even just thinking about the effort it took to push back against his constant attitude of arrogant superiority exhausted her. She didn't have anything to prove to him; she had already risen to a top position in a field that was hostile to women and none too friendly to Maoris either. She didn't need to spend her whole night correcting some trust fund baby who thought he was the second coming of Svengali. "Just me and my servers," she sent back, hoping he'd recognize her perfunctory answer for the hint she intended it to be.

Instead, he took it as an opening. "Sounds very boring," he replied, his words popping up in short little text bubbles that flowed up her screen with each sentence. "You're probably having trouble staying awake. It's already dark there, and the sun keeps sinking down to its nadir..." Huhana let out a mildly exasperated sigh. He'd managed to pick up exactly two astronomy terms, and he used both of them wrong. "And you're surrounded by the sleepy server hum. It makes it hard to stay awake, doesn't it, pretty girl?"

Huhana gritted her teeth and texted back a perfunctory, "Sometimes." She hated admitting it, especially when it would only make him even more convinced that his stupid hypnosis routine was having an effect on her... but at the same time, if she lied about it, she'd be admitting to herself that his stupid hypnosis routine was having an effect on her, wouldn't she? Better to answer honestly, so that when she told him she was still wide awake and not at all sleepy, he would know she meant it.

That didn't mean it didn't gall her just a little when she saw him text, "Of course. Sometimes it's very hard to stay awake, when the sun sinks so far below the horizon, deeper than most people can imagine. But you're a very smart girl, aren't you? You can imagine it sinking down... and down... and all the way down until it's right below your feet. Pulling on your thoughts like a solar tide. Weighing on them until it's hard to resist that sleepy tug on your mind." Okay. Three terms. And he almost had that one a little bit right.

Huhana started to type, but her thumbs didn't get any further than "yes but" before she paused to collect her thoughts again. She certainly was smart enough to picture the earth's rotation carrying her around to solar midnight, just like she was smart enough to picture Enrique in Cordoba experiencing solar dawn at almost the same time. But if she said 'yes', he'd just use that as an opening to send her more and more of his endless, droning descriptions of sinking and falling and late-night drowsiness, and Huhana was having enough trouble staying awake as it was.

(Not that she ever slept on the job. She was just... gathering a few extra thoughts tonight, that was all.)

But if she didn't respond soon, Enrique would think that he was having an effect on her. He'd start to believe that this... this nonsense really worked, that it made her mind groggy and blank and vulnerable when she stared at her screen and watched his words trickle into her brain. He was already at it again, typing out, "And if the sun is sinking so low there, and it's making you so tired... so sleepy. So drowsy and open. Then it only makes sense that my will gets stronger as the sun rises here. Your thoughts, your mind, your will is pulled to mine by the solar tide, pretty girl."

Huhana felt an increasing pressure to answer, a growing need to respond before Enrique began to think that she'd dozed off in her chair or something. Her thumbs fumbled across the screen, hitting the send button with only "yes but" showing in the display window, and she experienced a sinking sensation in her stomach as she realized how spare and bewildered her text looked with nothing to accompany it. Huhana couldn't help feeling like she'd just scored an own goal in a football match.

Sure enough, Enrique texted back, "But you can still resist? For a little while. The sun is not yet at its zenith here." And unless the city of Cordoba had moved south of the Tropic of Cancer, it never would be, but Huhana knew better than to try to correct him on that. He'd just spend hours arguing her around in circles until the effort made her head hurt, and Huhana had enough problems trying to convince him that he wasn't hypnotizing her. "It will be soon, though. The clock on your screen can tell you that."

Huhana's eyes flickered up to the time display at the top of her phone's screen, comparing it to a number she already knew by heart. "1:15", it read, and her head seemed to lurch and spin as she recognized that solar midnight was less than thirty minutes away. She had a sudden urge to put her phone away, stop looking at it and toss it in her desk drawer and lock it up until at least 3 AM. She could tell Enrique that her battery died. He wouldn't know she was lying.

But she would. And tomorrow, he'd come back that much more arrogant, that much more convinced that his words and the mental picture they painted had the power to send Huhana into some kind of deep hypnotic trance. Her thoughts sinking down through the floor to float all the way through the center of the earth, until he gathered them up and molded them to his every whim... Huhana's eyes refocused on her screen. The clock read "1:17", and she realized she'd lost over a full minute woolgathering. Suddenly, Enrique's attempts at hypnosis didn't seem quite so absurd.

"I should probably go," she texted, not even caring that the sudden change of topic made her sound defensive. Let Enrique think he was getting under her skin if he wanted, let him think he was making her feel drowsy and compliant and submissive as his words scrolled up the screen and into her head and described a slow, drifting submission to a power as inexorable as the turning of the earth... Huhana rubbed her eyes, trying hard to scrub Enrique's descriptions out of her head before her every train of thought wound up derailing into somnambulent contemplation of his mesmerizing imagery.

It wasn't working, though, and Enrique knew it. "You should," he texted, following it up almost immediately with, "But you won't. The sun is already too high in the sky here. Your resistance is sinking to its lowest ebb, all the way down to its nadir, and you can already feel your thoughts pulled into alignment with my powerful will. The more you stare at the screen, the more your mind sinking down, deeper and deeper, until the earth's rotation delivers you back into my control once again. Isn't that right, sweet girl?"

Huhana stared at her phone in utter, unblinking bewilderment. 'Back'? What did he...? He couldn't possibly mean... 'back'? Of course Enrique tried this every night, he was ludicrously persistent and she hated backing down from a challenge, but... but he never... and she never... so how could it be 'back'? Huhana shook her head slowly in numb, astonished denial, trying to will the words away with the force of her gaze alone. It had to be some kind of attempt at gaslighting her, a trick to make her think she was more susceptible to his hypnosis than she really was. She would show him. "ive neevr ben hynpotied," she texted rapidly, her thumbs fumbling over themselves in her haste to get the words out.

"And you're not being hypnotized now," Enrique replied smoothly, his texts scrolling up and off the top of the screen as though they were flowing straight into Huhana's brain. "The power of the sun is delivering your mind to me, that's all. I don't need to hypnotize you, because your will naturally drains down... and down... and all the way down through the center of the earth until it submits to my control. Just like every other night. The earth rotates every night, doesn't it?"

It felt like a trap. It was a trap, and Huhana knew it. But it seemed like all her other options were closing off, one by one, under the force of Enrique's calm, confident insistences. Until all she could do was type a small, helpless "yes" and press her send button, punctuation and capitalization nothing more than an afterthought in her determination to gainsay his unshakeable certainty.

But he sounded more certain than ever. "Good girl," he replied, his words seeming to stroke her hair with invisible fingers of praise. "And every night, the sun goes all the way down for you. Some nights earlier, some nights later, but midnight always arrives. Doesn't it?" Huhana's eyes flickered up at the time display at the top of the screen, uncomfortably aware that her personal midnight was getting perilously close. It was already 1:24, less than five short minutes before the sun reached its farthest point from her little corner of the world. And less than five minutes before it reached the closest point to Enrique.

But just because he was right, that didn't mean he was right. He was cheating, asking all the wrong questions in an effort to build up all those little blocks of fact until she couldn't see over the top to the lack of truth behind them. Huhana knew it, she could feel it boiling away with impotent certainty in her head as she stared at Enrique's texts patiently waiting for her response, but... somehow the explanation got all tangled up in her foggy brain and the words didn't seem to want to come out and all she wound up typing in return was another weak-looking "yes". Looking at it, Huhana felt small and exhausted and confused in a way that seemed all too terrifyingly familiar.

The wave of slow, drifting warmth that flowed over her thoughts when he texted back, "Good girl," seemed every bit as familiar. Huhana knew she should hate being condescended to like that, especially by a man who knew nothing about her chosen profession and who spent all his days hanging out by the pool and texting pretty women, but the power of Enrique's praise and validation had an undeniable hold on her. It made her whole body tingle, and her head swim with drowsy joy as she stared at her phone and let his words flow into her sleepy brain.

"And you know that you get more and more tired as midnight approaches," he continued remorselessly. "It's only natural. Your eyes get heavier and heavier, your body becomes more and more relaxed as your mind prepares to sleep. Sleep deep in my will, pretty girl. Sleep deep in my power. You're very sleepy right now, aren't you, good girl? It's almost midnight and you're very, very sleepy for me."

Huhana couldn't muster up an argument anymore. She could barely keep her eyes open. She managed to type out a careless "ys" before slumping back into her chair, staring vacantly at the phone and waiting for the next response to arrive. She knew that none of this should work, that it all seemed utterly absurd and impossible, but the knowledge seemed distant and abstract compared to the concrete weight of exhaustion on her mind. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the clock tick over to 1:27. Only a minute to go before solar midnight.

And as Huhana's personal midnight finally arrived, Enrique's reply closed the trap around her sluggish mind. "Then sleep, pretty girl," he sent, the words seeming to fill Huhana's entire field of vision as her body shook once, briefly, before sagging all the way down into the cushions of her chair. "Rest that drowsy mind of yours in my will, sleeping with your eyes open and watching the screen. It feels so good to sleep for me, doesn't it, pretty pet?"

Huhana didn't need to think about that. Her right hand texted out a simple "y", her left hand already slipping down into the waistband of her skirt and wriggling its way into her panties to tease her slick pussy. She was already so wet, like her body had been waiting patiently for ages for her silly, sleepy brain to catch up with what it already knew. Sleeping for Enrique felt so good. So hot. So sexy. She wanted to sink into trance for him every single night like this.

"That's a good girl," Enrique replied, and the wave of warm, sleepy joy felt even stronger now that her cunt was finally able to join in. Her fingers stroked up and down the slick cleft between her labia, building the tingling heat into feverish arousal as she watched Enrique's words flowing onto the screen. "You've been caught, your mind and your will captured by the sun, and you know you can't escape until I release you. Isn't that right, my obedient pet?"

Huhana texted back another "y", the motion every bit as automatic and unthinking as her blank, blissful agreement with his words. She could feel Enrique's unbreakable control wrapping around her thoughts like a gossamer web, imprisoning them in a cocoon of helpless pleasure that made obedience the only possible choice. Of course she wanted to finger her soaking pussy and keep staring at the screen. Of course she wanted to nod in vacant, ecstatic compliance to his words. Of course she wanted to fuck herself deeper into mindless trance at Enrique's command. Of course. Of course. Of course.

"That's my good girl," Enrique replied, his words caressing Huhana's empty mind as sweetly as her fingers rubbed and stroked her throbbing clit. "That's my sleepy girl. It feels to good to realize just how helpless you are to resist. It feels so hot, so sexy to remember all over again just how powerful the pleasure of surrender really is. Don't you just love it when the veil finally falls away and you understand how deeply controlled you really are?"

Huhana moaned out a subvocal grunt, a helpless whimper that sounded like, "uh, uh huh, uh huh," before it finally sank into her dazed and foggy mind that she needed to respond in text. She tapped out a "q", her fingers trembling as her other hand sank deep into her cunt and began to furiously churn the sopping mess between her thighs into a froth of arousal. A few seconds later, she followed it with a "y", barely even caring whether her second attempt was right or not. Enrique would know what she meant. Enrique would know why her hands were shaking too badly to say it properly.

Sure enough, he responded with, "Good girl!" The exclamation point felt just like a tongue flicking away at Huhana's clit, and her eyes crossed for a moment as the pleasure made her head swim with pure, obedient joy. "You understand perfectly. That moment of surrender feels so good that you want to experience it all over again for the first time, every time. You want to forget what happens when I control you, so that you can relive the perfect pleasure of surrender to my will. Don't you, good girl?"

Huhana could barely see the screen now-her eyes were perhaps a quarter-open, the heady mix of trance and sexual pleasure drugging her mind into an obedient stupor. But she nonetheless managed to focus long enough to answer with another "y" before the constant waves of arousal sank her thoughts into dreamy bliss once more. She could feel the shape of her approaching orgasm, the sheer overwhelming size of it, and she knew that only Enrique's control over her held it at bay. That alone was enough to keep her attention returning to her phone, desperate to see the final command that would unleash the massive climax she eagerly anticipated.

Enrique didn't disappoint. "That's right, my drowsy good girl," he replied, his words like a silken caress in her foggy brain. "And every time, you go deeper into my control. Every time you surrender, the pull of the solar tide becomes that much stronger. That much more irresistible. You can't fight my will, and you only try so you can experience that perfect pleasure that comes with failure. Cum for me now, pretty pet, and empty all the resistance out of your sleepy mind."

Huhana squeezed the phone tightly, not caring what she texted or whether she managed to hit enter or if she accidentally managed to delete the entire app. Her whole consciousness narrowed down to the burst of white-hot, culminating ecstasy that wracked her entire body, flashing out from her clit in a tingling pulse of pure euphoric bliss to wash over every inch of her sensitive skin. She could feel the silken threads of Enrique's control tightening around her, binding her inexorably to his will, but she didn't care. Not if it meant she could feel this good. She would do whatever he commanded, forget whatever he wanted her to forget if she could only cum like this again.

When her eyes finally managed to refocus, Huhana saw that she'd somehow sent a message of "jaf;u h2094f ...h9ufbqg[[[[[bu" to Enrique. She couldn't bring herself to care, though. It only showed him how powerful the effect of his words on her blank, sleepy mind really was, and Huhana found that she wanted to let him know exactly how good it felt to sink into his power and obey. She slowly, shakily typed out, "thhank u Master" and sent it along after her earlier text.