Lockdown
The caller’s number wasn’t one Alan recognised, but it was from a mobile rather than a part of the country where he didn’t know anyone, so there was slightly more chance of its being a friend whose contact details he didn’t yet have, rather than some stranger wanting to talk about the unsecured debts he didn’t have or the accident that wasn’t his fault (mainly because it had never happened in the first place). He decided to risk it, and picked up.
“Alan? It’s Janice.”
Yes, a friend. More or less. Janice was part of a circle of friends, and while they’d never got beyond chatting at parties, he liked her based on what he knew of her. And the fact that she’d made the effort to get in touch during the Coronavirus shambles automatically took her up a couple of notches in his estimation.
“Great to hear from you. How’ve you been doing?”
“Well, actually, right now I’m on my way home from a big shop, and I’m going to be passing your place in a couple of minutes, so I was wondering if I could pop in for a quick catch-up and a cuppa.”
Alan looked around in mild alarm. He hadn’t gone full slob over the preceding months, but he had let his standards slip, and a couple of minutes wasn’t much time for straightening the place up. But the chance for some human interaction that wasn’t just ‘not using the self-service checkout at the supermarket’ outweighed the risk of untidiness-related embarrassment, so he agreed, and concentrated on getting the worst of the mess out of sight once he’d put the kettle on.
The doorbell chimed and he opened the front door to find Janice on the doorstep, surrounded by bulging carrier bags.
“You weren’t kidding when you said it was a big shop.”
Janice shrugged. “I figured I’d better lay in some supplies while I still can. It looks like there’s another lockdown coming, and who knows what necessities will get labelled non-essential this time round?”
“Yeah, I heard about the scandal with the… sanitary products.”
“Forget tampons, I’m talking hair dye. You don’t think this degree of mousiness is natural, do you?” She swung her head around like a model in a shampoo ad, and Alan laughed.
Not much later Janice and her bags were inside, and she and Alan were seated in the hurriedly smartened-up lounge with their drinks.
“Would you like a hand with your shopping the rest of the way?” asked Alan.
Janice pondered for a moment. There would be some advantages to having Alan accompany her back to her flat, but it would mean abandoning the plan she’d already worked out, and she wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get back on track if she started changing things now. Still, his offer could be used to create an opening for the next stage of the plan. “You gonna carry everything in the bags under your eyes?”
Alan winced. “Do I look that bad? I’ve not been sleeping so well lately, with the stress and all.”
She hummed sympathetically. “Harriet, my flatmate, gets insomnia at times. Not so much since I taught her this relaxation technique I picked up at work, though. Maybe you should give it a go too.”
“Maybe…” He caught himself. “No offence intended, but is this for real? I’ve heard about some of your pranks.”
“Your lack of trust wounds me.” Though Janice had to admit that it was not entirely unjustified, even if what she had in mind was rather more than just a practical joke.
“Sorry. But, given your reputation, I had to ask.”
“I promise, what I’m suggesting is intended to help you, not to lead to your embarrassment or humiliation.” Which was true enough though far from being the whole story.
“Okay.” He remained slightly wary. “What do I do?”
“Find something to focus on, preferably slightly above your eyeline. Maybe that empty picture hook on the wall there.”
He shifted to face it straight on. “Now what?”
“Take a deep breath in… And hold it. And when you breathe out, close your eyes. Now exhale.”
He did as directed.
“Then open your eyes when you breathe in again. Another deep breath, that’s right. Get into a rhythm, and keep doing that with your eyes—out and shut, in and open.”
Janice watched as Alan continued to follow her instructions, observing with some satisfaction the way his shoulders slumped as relaxation began to steal over him.
“You might find that it starts to become more of an effort to open your eyes each time you breathe in. That’s perfectly normal, nothing to worry about. Just keep trying for as long as you can, and when you reach the stage where your eyelids are just too heavy to raise any more, you can just leave them closed and carry on with the breathing.”
Her suggestion accentuated the effects of his eye fatigue, and before long he was blinking on each inhalation, his eyelids fluttering as he struggled to lift them. Janice continued to encourage him to give in to the weariness she was inducing, and at last came the moment when he drew breath and his eyelids stayed down.
“That’s it, completely relaxed now. Just continuing to breathe slowly and regularly, and sinking further into relaxation with every breath.”
Janice continued to deepen Alan’s trance for several minutes, and then decided it was time to risk checking how responsive he was to her suggestions.
“Now there’s a helium balloon attached to your right wrist, and it’s lifting up, floating up, and that lift is so strong, so powerful, that it’s pulling up your wrist. Can you feel it tugging at your wrist, raising it up into the air, Alan?”
He made an inarticulate grunt, but actions were speaking where words failed, as his right arm was bending at the wrist, the wrist coming up, his hand dangling down, his forearm moving from lying flat on the arm of the chair, rising until it was practically vertical.
“That’s it,” she told him excitedly. “The balloon’s still going up, higher and higher.”
Alan’s elbow came away from the chair, and he continued to raise his arm, straightening it more and more.
Before this could become uncomfortable for him, Janice said, “And now I’m letting the helium out, and it’s starting to sink back down, bringing your arm back down…”
His arm lowered, his elbow coming to rest on a different part of the chair’s arm. There wasn’t room for him to lay his forearm flat again, so Janice invented a gust of wind that blew the descending balloon sideways a little, and Alan’s hand flopped down into his lap.
Now that she knew his mind was ready to accept anything she told him (within reason), it was time to get down to business.
“In a little while I’m going to clap my hands,” she told him (she’d never been any good at clicking her fingers), “and when I do, you’ll return to wakefulness, feeling relaxed and refreshed and much better than you were before I showed you my relaxation technique. You will have no conscious recollection of anything that happened while you were in trance, but the suggestions I am about to give you will remain in your mind, and they will take effect at the appropriate time.
“Firstly, any time you hear me, and only me, saying the words, ‘Suspicious Alan’, you will immediately return to this state: relaxed, contented, and completely receptive to whatever I say to you. Nod your head to show that you understand and accept this.”
Alan’s head moved down and back up twice. So far, so good: now for the tricky bit.
“After I wake you, we will talk for a few minutes, and then we’ll watch the Prime Minister’s announcement about the new lockdown. And you will understand from what he says that, as I’m here with you right now, I am not allowed to go back to my home, and must stay here and live with you until restrictions are eased again.”
Janice knew from past conversations just how cynical Alan was about politicians in general, and the current government in particular, so getting him to believe that they’d come up with such a preposterous and poorly thought-out directive shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Still, she’d never tried altering someone’s perceptions in this way before, and couldn’t be certain that it would work. Then again, taking risks was part of the fun of hypnotically dominating people.
“And three, two, one!” She brought her hands together with force.
Alan’s eyes flew open. He blinked a few times, taking stock of the situation. “Wow! I do feel a lot better. Sorry I doubted you before.”
She shrugged. “No biggie. Like you said, I do have form as a prankster. Ever hear about the ‘death metal lift music’ incident?”
They talked for a little while, and Janice discreetly steered the conversation towards the subject of politics. Alan took the bait and, glancing at the clock, commented, “Oh, it’s about time for our ‘illustrious’ Prime Minister to address the nation. Mind if I put it on to see how long it takes him to say something stupid this time?”
“Go ahead. My money’s on five sentences, tops.”
He turned the television set on, and they watched. More precisely, Alan watched the broadcast, and Janice watched him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if she’d be able to spot the precise moment her suggestion kicked in. While she couldn’t pinpoint it quite that exactly, the incredulous and alarmed expression on his face by the end of the speech left her in little doubt that it had worked.
Thumbing the remote to turn the TV off, Alan turned to face Janice. “I am so sorry.”
She hadn’t been expecting that reaction. “What?”
“If I hadn’t needed your relaxation thing, you’d have been home by now. As it is, you’re stuck here for at least a month because that idiot thinks… No, that’s half the problem: he doesn’t think.”
Janice shrugged. “What’s done is done. It could be worse—I reckon I’ve got most of what I’m likely to need for the duration in my shopping.”
“What about your flatmate? Will she be okay on her own? Is there some loophole with her you could use to justify breaking the rules to get back?”
Feigning disappointment, Janice shook her head. “Can’t spin it that way. She’s perfectly capable of getting by on her own.” A thought occurred to her: a loose end she ought to tie up. “Still, I’d better let her know where I’ll be spending this lockdown, so she doesn’t start worrying when I don’t get back from the shops today.”
She took out her mobile phone and made a call. “Hi, babe! You all right?”
Harriet’s response confirmed that the trigger was working, so she wouldn’t see anything wrong with what Janice told her.
“Bad news, I’m afraid. I was at a friend’s when Boris unveiled the new lockdown, so I’m going to have to stay here for the next few weeks. You’ll be fine without me. Right? Just keep the place clean and tidy, don’t forget to water the plants every now and then, and look after yourself, okay? Hey, take advantage of the opportunity to get through a few of those box sets I don’t like. And don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Love ya, bye!”
She returned her attention to Alan, and was a little concerned to see that he had buried his face in his hands. “What’s the problem?”
He looked guiltily at her. “When you called and asked if it was okay to pop in… the house was in a bit of a state, and there wasn’t time for a proper tidy, so I just chucked all the mess into the spare room, where the guest bed is. It’ll take ages to get everything straightened out.”
This was perfect. Janice had worked out a few ideas for the next stage of her plan, but an opportunity like this was too good to pass up.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure your bed is big enough for the both of us.”
Alan’s jaw dropped.
“Hey, we’re in this together, so we might as well. I’m single, you’re single, I like you, and I know you find me attractive. Don’t think I haven’t noticed what an effort it is for you to keep your eyes on my face at parties when I wear anything with a low neckline.”
His face reddened, and she laughed.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. In my book you get points for at least trying to be polite. But right now it’s just you and me in social isolation, so sod etiquette, and let’s have a bit of fun.”
“But aren’t there rules against people from separate households getting… you know, intimate?”
“It doesn’t matter. From now until this lockdown is over, this is our household. You and me. Nothing illegal about it. It’d practically be a crime not to.”
Something about her eagerness put him on his guard. He took a step back. “Hold on a minute…”
Janice tensed. Was she going to have to drop him back into trance? Her choice of trigger phrase suddenly seemed all too ironic.
“Did you know about this?” he asked accusingly.
“What?”
“Like a government leak or something. You found out about this crazy new rule they were bringing in, and made sure you were here when it went into effect so you could spend the new lockdown cosying up to me.”
She thought quickly. Better to have him believe that than risk him discovering the truth. As long as he remained convinced that she had to stay here, she was sure she could win him round, even if it meant sleeping in the guest bed for a few days. Just living in close quarters with her would remind him of how long it was since he’d last been with a woman. Sure, she could just send him back into hypnosis again and try to patch things up that way, but she preferred not to mess with people’s minds too much.
“Would that be so bad?” she asked. “If I’d spotted a potential loophole and exploited it, without doing anything actually illegal?” She hadn’t checked, but the odds against there being a specific law forbidding hypnotising people into misinterpreting Prime Ministerial broadcasts seemed pretty good to her.
“You must have been lonely,” she continued. “I know I was, and I had Harriet with me. So when I saw where things were headed, I figured I’d do what I could to make sure I’d be with someone more… companionable this time round.”
He was thawing, she could tell. She hung her head a little. “I’m sorry I forced your hand like this, but it just seemed like one of those situations where it’s better to seek forgiveness than permission.”
Keeping her head down, she raised her eyes to meet his. “Will you forgive me? Please?”
He sighed. “I suppose what’s done is done. And getting cross when I’ve got to spend the month with you anyway now would only make things unpleasant for both of us. But no more deceptions, okay?”
Choosing to interpret ‘no more’ as meaning ‘none in addition to the ongoing one’, she nodded. “Hug?”
He took her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder and, safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t see her face, grinned triumphantly. The second lockdown was going to be a lot more enjoyable than the first one.