“Talking In Your Sleep”
Alicia dragged her feet up the stairs, carrying a load of books in both arms while repeatedly blowing a stray strand of blonde hair out of her eyes and trying to remember what life had been like a week ago. “Go to Harvard,” she muttered. “Meet interesting people! Form valuable social connections! Discuss exciting ideas with other brilliant minds!” Eleven o’clock on a Friday night, and what was she doing? Getting back from the library.
Of course, even at Harvard, most students weren’t trying for a double major in philosophy and PoliSci. She’d known it wouldn’t be easy when she signed up for it, but the first week of classes had been kicking her ass all up and down campus. Classes all day, study all night—she barely had time to do more than dump her books in her dorm room between sessions at the library or the computer labs. Still, at least she had it better than her dorm-mate Holly.
Holly’s class load wasn’t quite as bad as Alicia’s—she was “just” a med student, working to become a psychiatrist—but Holly’s parents couldn’t help her out the way Alicia’s parents could. Which meant that every spare moment Holly wasn’t in class, she was also working a part-time night job to make a little cash. The two of them had barely even bumped into each other this week, and what little conversation they did have centered on just how hard it was to find any time to have a conversation. “When do you even sleep?” Alicia had asked.
“Between classes,” Holly had replied. “And hopefully not during them.”
But tonight was Friday, and that would give Alicia the full weekend to catch up on her classwork and get ready for next week’s fresh hell. She opened the door carefully, unsure of whether—yep, Holly was home. In bed and out like a light, poor thing. Alicia closed the door even more carefully and tip-toed over to her own bed. She didn’t want to get on Holly’s bad side by disrupting the first peaceful night’s sleep the girl had probably gotten all week long. After all, they were going to be rooming together for quite a while, and they’d need to be able to get along, even if they didn’t spend much time in the same room. Alicia wasn’t too worried, though. Holly seemed like a nice girl, very sweet and—
“hnnnyessmistreffff,” Holly said, rolling over in her sleep. Her dark hair spilled across the pillows as her mumbles subsided.
Alicia froze. What the hell was that? Did she just wake Holly up? She looked over at the other girl, trying to tell in the near-total darkness whether she was awake or not. She didn’t look awake.
The words came out almost as a cross between a snore and a recitation. “snmmmusssobeaaah...”
Oh, God. That was just perfect. Alicia finished pulling her clothes off and wriggled under the covers. Holly talked in her sleep. Her first night of uninterrupted, no-alarm-in-the-morning sleep in six grueling days, and Holly was going to wreck it. She got ready to throw a pillow at her room-mate in hopes of snapping her out of it, but Holly’s next utterance drove the thought out of her mind as shock replaced irritation.
“I must sink deeper for you, Mistress,” Holly said in distinct, but still sleepy tones.
Alicia looked over at Holly. There wasn’t much light in the room, but a streetlamp outside the dorm shone in just enough that she could see Holly’s face. Holly wasn’t awake, there was no question of that. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her face had the placid innocence that always seemed to come over adults when they slept. But those words...
“The deeper I sink, the better it feels, Mistress,” Holly said. Her eyes didn’t open. “The pleasure overcomes my resistance. Every time I find resistance, I feel pleasure when I overcome it.”
Alicia’s shock was melting into severe embarrassment. The tone in Holly’s voice, it wasn’t just drowsy and muzzy, it was...Alicia felt the heat on her cheeks as she blushed in the dim light. She hadn’t even known Holly a week, and it wasn’t exactly what you’d call quality time. She didn’t want to pass judgment on the other girl, but—
“Every word sends me deeper, makes me more obedient,” Holly said, slowly and dreamily. Well, it would be dreamy. She was dreaming, wasn’t she? “I feel good sinking deeper, so I must...” She shifted slightly in her sleep. Alicia suddenly felt like she should leave the room, but Holly didn’t wake. Instead, she sighed out, “So I must feel good obeying you, Mistress.”
Okay. This had gone far enough. Alicia got to her feet, and crept over to Holly’s bed. She reached out a hand, but uncertainty kept her from shaking Holly awake just yet. What would she say to her? ‘You were having some weird kinky lesbian S&M dream’? This was a total recipe for social awkwardness, and Alicia had never even thought of having to deal with anything like it.
“Obedience feels so good, Mistress,” Holly husked out sleepily. This close, Alicia could see that her skin was slightly damp with sweat, as though she was exerting herself. Or as if...Alicia tried to ignore the musky smell coming up from the other girl’s bed, but just then Holly twisted around again in her sleep, pulling the sheets tightly enough around herself so that Alicia could see the outline of Holly’s nipples under the sheets.
“I sink deeper and deeper with every word and every breath, now,” Holly half-moaned out, and Alicia could tell that her hands were moving under the bedclothes. Alicia was practically paralyzed with embarrassment now. If she woke Holly, she’d be waking her right in the middle of masturbating, and there’s no way that they could avoid that conversation, and she didn’t know how to...
Holly arched her back just a little. “Sinking deeper feels so good, obedience feels so good, must listen to Mistress’ words, must obey Mistress...ohh...can’t stop, can’t fight, must sink into the pleasure and obey...” Alicia felt curiously detached from the situation now, as if she was an observer in her own body. It was so strange; Holly sounded almost awake, but no waking person would just lie there and frig herself off like that with another person in the room, not unless...did Holly want Alicia to see her like this?
Holly sounded like she was definitely enjoying it, though. Even though she still had the slow, deep breathing of a sleeper, every exhalation was a moan, every inhalation a gasp. “And the pleasure is a gift from Mistress, a reward for obedience, and I want to earn more pleasure so I must obey...resistance is a path away from pleasure, so I must take the path away from resistance.”
Alicia’s breaths started to match Holly’s rhythms, and her pussy tingled as Holly’s motions caused the sheet to slide away further, exposing her left breast to the night air. With a start, Alicia realized that somewhere along the line, her body had started taking a voyeuristic pleasure in all this despite her mind’s stunned surprise. She shook her head a little, clearing her thoughts, and decided to end this before it got even weirder.
Alicia put her hand on Holly’s shoulder and shook it lightly. “And I...I musss... mussobeahuh?” Holly’s eyes fluttered open, glazed with sleep. “Huawhat?” Alicia pretended she didn’t notice Holly’s hand slipping quickly up from around her waist to rest nearer to her side. “...Lisha?” She raised her head from the pillow a little. “Whazzit?”
“Sorry, but...” Alicia hoped that the backlighting concealed her blush. “You were having a bad dream, um...talking in your sleep. I...just...” She trailed off, uncertain how to end the sentence.
Holly’s eyes opened fully, and Alicia could see just how exhausted the other girl really was. She thought she’d had it bad all week, but Holly’s bloodshot eyes, complete with dark shadows under them, made it clear that she’d been getting by on almost no sleep at all. “I was fine,” she groaned out in misery. “I wasn’t having a bad dream, I wasn’t dreaming at all.” She flopped back down onto the pillow. “I was having the first good night’s sleep I’d had all week.”
Alicia almost wanted to leave it at that. If Holly didn’t want to admit she was having a hot dream anymore than Alicia wanted to admit that she’d watched Holly have a hot dream, why not just let it lie? But she couldn’t quite stop herself from establishing a bit of an alibi. “Sorry, it’s just that I came in and you were...muttering something, I couldn’t make it out.” She tried not to make the last few words sound forced.
Holly just glared at her, obviously furious. “I do not talk in my sleep,” she growled out.
Alicia stiffened slightly in irritation. It was one thing to pretend you weren’t masturbating in front of your roommate, that was a polite social fiction, but to try to pretend the whole thing didn’t happen? “Yes, you do,” she said. “I heard you.”
“I do not!” Holly rolled over in a huff. “Next time, just...just let me sleep, alright?” She sounded simultaneously plaintive and pissed off.
“What, do you think I just woke you for fun?” Alicia replied sarcastically. Holly didn’t respond. After a moment or two, Alicia shrugged irritably and got back into her own bed. Despite her mood, the exhaustion of a full day of classes and study quickly overtook her, and she nodded off.
Even as she felt herself sink into sleep, she thought she could hear Holly begin again. “I must sink...” she heard, shortly before her brain finally switched off for the night.
Whatever Holly said after that, it didn’t seem to affect Alicia’s ability to sleep too badly...which was as much a testament to her exhaustion as anything else. By the time Alicia finally opened her eyes, it was almost noon.
She rolled over to see Holly just stirring out of sleep as well. Before Alicia could say anything, Holly said, “I’m sorry about last night.”
Alicia squinched her eyes together, the temporary blankness of sleep still crowding out a few of the details. “Last...” Then it all came back to her. “Oh. Right. Forget it.”
“No, really!” Holly said, hopping out of bed. “I was really, really rude, and I’m very sorry. It’s just...oh, this first week has been just terrible. I don’t think I’ve strung together more than four hours of sleep a day, and it’s all just been catnaps, and most of my teachers have just been, ‘Suck it up, honey, this is Harvard, not daycare’, and I’ve been studying at work and last night was the first night off I’ve had since I got here and...” She frowned contritely. “When you woke me up, I just went off on you because you were there, and I’m really sorry.”
Alicia rolled out of bed as well. “No, really, it’s all right. I’ve been pretty fried myself, double major, and when I got in and you were mumbling, I just let it get to me when I shouldn’t have.”
Holly said again, “I do not talk in my sleep!” But this time, Alicia could hear the humor in her voice that had been absent last night.
“You totally do,” she said, suddenly grinning. “I mean, what makes you so sure you don’t? It’s not like you’d know, you’re asleep when it happens.”
Holly was grinning too, now. “Oh, come on!” she said. “Someone would have mentioned it to me. My parents, or...” She blushed a little. “Someone.”
Alicia snorted in mock derision. “Maybe ‘someone’ is just a very sound sleeper.” Alicia thought about asking who ‘someone’ was, but she didn’t want to make it sound like it was a big deal that Holly was a lesbian. Because it totally wasn’t. Alicia had gone to a big school, and there were enough gay girls there that she’d gotten over any homophobia well before hitting campus. She was secure enough in her sexuality not to worry about her new roomie hitting on her.
Holly’s eyes widened just a little in recognition, and her shoulders slumped in dejection. “Oh, god, I do talk in my sleep, don’t I?” Alicia nodded. “Oh, I’m a terrible roomie. You’re going to need earplugs just to sleep in the same room with me.”
“It’s not a problem during the week,” Alicia pointed out. “You’re never there when I’m sleeping. You’d be amazed at how little noise you make when you’re not in the room.”
Holly giggled. “Alright,” she said. “But I need to buy you lunch to make up for it. Come on, last one to the bathroom has to wait for the other one to finish showering!”
A half-hour or so later, and they were both cleaned up, dressed, and heading out to a little Chinese place where Holly had been grabbing meals on the way to work to compare notes on the first week’s brutality.
“And so Doland walks in on the first day of class and hands out a sheet of paper, says to get ready for a test!” Alicia said. “Seriously, before even telling us his name! And it wasn’t a general knowledge thing, either. He’s all, ‘I posted the first week’s reading on the class website, and I expect that most of you have kept up with the technology of the 21st century well enough to know how to surf the web.’ You could practically hear half the class shitting bricks.”
“Yikes,” Holly said. “How did you do?”
“Nine out of ten,” Alicia said, trying not to sound smug, or at least trying to sound like she wasn’t trying to sound smug. “I missed a question on Plato’s influences.”
Holly gave her a high-five. “Hooray for Well Prepared Girl!”
“What about you?” Alicia asked. “You mentioned that most of your teachers were filled with tough love...”
“All except Ms Lassiter,” Holly said. “She’s my Psych 101 teacher, and if I didn’t have her class daily, I think I’d have gone nuts by now. You should really take Psych, Alicia. I know it’s not in your major, but everyone should know a little basic psychology, especially if they’re going into politics.”
Alicia grimaced. “I’ll add it to my schedule as soon as I can. How does 2025 sound?”
Holly laughed. “Alright, I see your point. But if you do take it? Lassiter over Cartland. I’ve heard fucking horror stories about his section. Seriously, I heard he literally reduced a girl to tears last year...”
From there, the conversation turned to horror stories about future professors, and then to general college plans, and they wound up spending almost two hours sitting and chatting before Alicia sheepishly admitted she needed to get back to the dorm and do some studying. Holly admitted to a chunk of unfinished reading as well, and as the two returned to campus, Alicia decided she’d gotten very lucky in her choice of roommate.
Several hours of eye-straining reading later, and Alicia decided to crawl into bed a little early. “Crashing already?” Holly asked.
“Yeah,” Alicia said. “I figured if I was asleep before you started your nightly conversation, it might not bother me.”
Holly cast her eyes downward in apparent shame. “At least you won’t have to put up with it tomorrow, I work a double on Sundays.” She giggled. “Hey, maybe I should wear a gag to sleep,” she said jokingly.
Suddenly, Alicia found herself thinking back to the exact substance of Holly’s sleep-talk, something she’d been very careful not to bring up at all during their conversations back at the restaurant. She hoped she didn’t sound too nervous as she said, “Nah, I should be fine.” She forced a smile. “Way I feel right now, I could probably sleep through a brass band in the hallway.”
She meant it, too. But obviously, her ears disagreed, because sometime in the middle of the night, Alicia surfaced just the tiniest bit out of sleep to hear, “Yes, Mistress. I will picture the spiral in my mind’s eye...”
Alicia winced a little, even though she was nowhere near awake enough to open her eyes. It really, really, really wasn’t that Holly being gay bothered her. It was just...’Mistress’?
“I draw the spiral in my mind, and the spiral draws me into its depths. The spiral turns, and I sink into it.”
Alicia knew she’d lived kind of a sheltered life. Trying to be a straight-A student on top of keeping up with swim team and choir and debate club and everything else that looked good on a Harvard application didn’t leave much time for dating. But even so, she hadn’t lived a life so sheltered that she didn’t have at least a vague idea of the kinds of things Holly must be into to have a dream like that every night.
“The spiral is so beautiful, perfect and total. It is inside my mind’s eye. Wherever I look, the spiral will be there. I cannot look away. I must sink deeper and obey, Mistress.”
Alicia tried not to be judgmental about it all. It wasn’t like she was saving herself for marriage, or anything. But all that...whips and chains, and ‘Yes Mistress’, and spankings and...Alicia’s limited knowledge of S&M ran out about there, but as she drowsily listened to Holly’s sleepy voice, she felt like she was finding out more than she really wanted to know.
“And the deeper I sink, the better I feel, and the better I feel, the deeper I sink. Mistress holds my sleepy mind, and I cannot resist. I do not want to resist. Resistance is a path away from pleasure, so I must take the path away from resistance.”
But Holly did sound like she enjoyed it, Alicia thought muzzily. She could hear it, in the stillness of the dorm when Holly went silent. The squishing, slapping sound of fingers pumping into Holly’s cunny. Between that and the tone of sleepy pleasure in Holly’s voice, it sounded like whoever ‘Mistress’ was, she made Holly very happy.
“Going deeper opens my mind, opening my mind gives me more pleasure still. Being open and receptive to commands feels so good, so hot, so sexy, and it just makes me want to open my mind even more and allow Mistress to program my sleepy, obedient mind...”
Alicia thought briefly about trying to wake Holly up again, but that just seemed like too much effort. She really wasn’t very awake at all, she realized. Just sort of skating on the edges of sleep. She half-remembered a high school science course, something about how the first stage of sleep felt like being awake, how you’d even think you were awake, but you were still asleep. And you’d be lying there, thinking you were just really really relaxed, right up until you dozed off completely.
“And I f-feel so good now, pleasure locking in the commands...pleasure takes me deeper...more I obey more pleasure I feel, ohhhh...perfect obedience is p-p-perfect pleasurrre...must cum, must cum and lock in the pleasure and the obedience and the commands and oh, oh oh...”
Alicia shivered a little as she fell asleep again.
When she woke up, Holly was just getting ready to go to work. They had little time for anything more than a wave and a nod, and then Holly was gone, leaving Alicia alone with her thoughts.
Which started off with Plato’s ‘Republic’, but quickly diverged into Holly’s...unusual habits. Two nights in a row, she’d been fingering herself like crazy with her roommate right there in the room, for God knew how long. Even now, Alicia could still smell the scent of sex all over the place. She tried to tell herself she was just worried about the effect it might have on her studies, but she knew better than to lie to herself. She was a little weirded out.
And that wasn’t wrong, she decided. It wasn’t Holly’s fault she sleep-masturbated, but it also wasn’t Alicia’s fault for wanting to hit the Too Much Information button when the list of things you found out about your roomie during the first week included ‘Into Kinky Sex’ along with ‘Loves Smooth Jazz’ and ‘Hates the Color Pink’. Alicia frowned, turning her attention back to her reading and pushing the idea to the back of her head. It wasn’t as if she’d have to worry about it for a few days, at least.
But between studying, classes, and an even more punishing schedule of homework, that second week passed quicker than Alicia could have imagined, and despite trying to wrap up her studies early to beat Holly to the dorm, she found herself once again trudging up the stairs late Friday night after another heavy study session to get into their room well after Holly had gone to bed.
“The spiral takes away my will, Mistress,” Holly was saying in her sleep. “It makes me sleepy, and heavy, and dizzy, and I love feeling sleepy...and heavy...and dizzy...”
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.”
“Is that what Steve thinks?” Alicia said, gesturing to the cell phone on the bedside table. Come on, Steve must have noticed, they talk on the phone as well as text each other, he must have said something...
Holly shrugged dismissively. “I broke up with Steve on Wednesday. Really, I just don’t have time to try to keep up a relationship with a guy on the other side of the country, not with everything else going on in my life right now.”
Warning bells went off in Alicia’s mind. Big, loud, klaxon-type ones, the kind they used for red alerts on Star Trek. “How did he take it?” she asked cautiously.
“Typical guy, you know?” Holly replied. “Told me he loved me, asked me to think it over, told me he’d wait for me for as long as it took...” She snorted. “Men. A line for every occasion.”
Holly wanted to scream in frustration. “A week ago, you were telling me you’ve been dating him since you were kids, and now you’re saying that was just a line? And you don’t see anything unusual about that?”
“No, I don’t!” Holly said, getting out of bed and grabbing her clothes. “And if this is how you’re going to be, I think I’ll get lunch on my own, thanks very much!”
Alicia grabbed her wrist. “No, wait!” she said. “I’m sorry, Holly, I didn’t mean for us to fight.” She was suddenly almost in tears at the thought that she might have really ruined her friendship with Holly forever. Even though they’d only known each other a few weeks, she felt like she’d never been closer to another girl.
“I just...I worry about you so much, I...I just want...” And then suddenly, without even realizing she was going to do it until it happened, she pulled Holly back onto the bed and kissed her passionately.
Part of her was still a little in shock, trying to figure out exactly what impulse possessed her to lock lips with Holly when she was still nude and Holly hadn’t put on her clothes yet. The other part of her was slipping her tongue into Holly’s mouth, sliding it against Holly’s tongue and feeling the way that it stirred hot tinglings in her pussy. She felt Holly’s warm body against her own, and something about it just seemed to cause her brain to melt away just a little and let her body take charge.
Her body seemed to know exactly what to do, just how to pleasure a woman as she slid her hands up and down Holly’s body and the two of them fell back onto the bed together. Holly seemed to know exactly how to please Alicia, too, her hands quickly finding all the sensitive spots that made Alicia moan into Holly’s mouth, and her legs just seemed to spread apart all on their own to let Holly get at her pussy.
She didn’t ever want to break that kiss...but Holly did, because it was the only way that Holly could shift position to lick Alicia’s cunt. Alicia was momentarily distracted by the sheer pleasure of it all, and her vision seemed to blur for a moment with bliss. When it cleared, Holly’s pussy was in front of her, practically dripping with moisture, and Alicia wrapped her hands around Holly’s perfect ass and dragged Holly’s body down to her face.
The moment her tongue slid across Holly’s pussy, it felt like they were locked together in a loop of endless sensation. Her pleasure drove Holly to new heights of frenzied licking, Holly’s tongue made Alicia want to do nothing but reciprocate the pleasure her lover was giving her. Something just felt so right about this, about pleasing another woman, about making a woman cum with her tongue, her fingers, about the whole situation...she seemed to hear the echoes of voices in the back of her mind, but they didn’t matter, they’d be there when she needed to remember them, right now all that counted was the pleasure, right now all that mattered was cumming and making Holly cum, as many times as they could stand it...
Which turned out to be a lot. And when they finally stopped, panting with exhaustion, they went out for Chinese food. Then they took it back to their dorm and fucked some more.
“I’m sorry,” Alicia said again, much later as they snuggled together in Holly’s bed. “I didn’t realize it, but I guess I was just being a little overprotective because of the feelings I was starting to have for you. Maybe even a little jealous. I won’t say a word against Ms Lassiter again, I promise.” And she meant it. She wasn’t going to bring Ms Lassiter up to Holly again. She was going to talk to Ms Lassiter herself.
Holly nuzzled her cheek sleepily. “It’s okay,” she said. Her eyes were half-open, beginning to sink down into slumber. Alicia found her eyes closing the same way. “I’m just glad you understand how I feel.”
“I do,” Alicia said muzzily. “I really, really...do...”
That night, Holly’s sleeping hands found a different place to touch. And without even being aware of it, so did Alicia’s.
Of course, planning to confront a sinister professor with designs on her new girlfriend’s body didn’t mean Alicia could let her own studies suffer. She spent what little free time she had that week finding out where Ms Lassiter lived, but the key word there was ‘little’. Classes just kept ramping up their difficulty, and even though she somehow seemed able to focus better than ever on her classwork now, it was all Alicia could do some days to make it through the day, do her required reading, and crash while listening to Holly’s voice. It felt a little sappy, listening to a recording of her girlfriend to get to sleep every night when the bed next to hers was empty, but Alicia thought it was kind of sweet, too. To think, she’d been wondering why she enjoyed listening to that recording so much, not even realizing it was because she was falling in love with the girl who made it.
By the time Friday rolled around, though, recordings just weren’t enough. Alicia cut short her studying just a little bit early, feeling guilty but deciding that school could wait for one night. She wanted to jump Holly’s bones, and she wanted to do it right then and there.
“...must obey, cannot resist...mind so open, blank, and empty...makes me so horny...” Damn. She was already asleep. Alicia fought desperately with her conscience. Holly needed sleep, she knew that, but she was just so fucking hot right now, and hearing Holly’s dreamy, sexy voice was only making her hotter. She gritted her teeth in a fury of indecision, torn between the right choice and the choice her tingling pussy was telling her would feel oh so good...
“...so good to fuck, so good to let my pussy control me and become a lesbian fucktoy, can’t resist the pleasure of sex, resistance is a path away from pleasure so I must take the path away from resistance...”
That settled it. Alicia pulled her clothes off in a frenzy and put her hand on Holly’s shoulder, shaking it gently. “Holly,” she said. “Holly...”
Holly’s eyes flew open, but it was clear that she hadn’t woken up even a little. She just stared ahead, sightless, her mind just as empty as it had been moments before, and somehow that made her look even sexier to Alicia. It was like she couldn’t awaken her, like Holly was somehow trapped in this mindless, sexy state, and that just made Alicia so hot that she just had to stare into Holly’s eyes the whole time she was climbing under the covers with her lover, the whole time she was shifting position so that her thigh rubbed against Holly’s cunt and Holly’s thigh rubbed against hers.
“...nnnnhhh, yes, Mistress, fuck yesss...” The sensation just seemed to deepen Holly’s trance now, her eyes unfocused and glassy as they gazed into Alicia’s. “Sinking deeper, pleasure feels so good, soooo good...” And it did feel good, Alicia couldn’t do anything now but rub and grind and shiver and feel her titties pressing against Holly’s and her cunny dripping all over Holly’s thigh and Holly’s pussy warm and wet against her body and it felt so good, it felt sooo good...
“must obey, must cum, cumming locks the pleasure in, cumming locks the commands in...” Alicia seemed to hear a second voice in the room, chanting right along with Holly, and she wondered briefly who it was, but the pleasure drove the thought right out of her head. The pleasure drove all the thoughts right out of her head, leaving her blank and empty and cumming so hard now...
Alicia didn’t remember falling asleep. The whole night seemed to take on a dream-like quality, and the fucking slipped into a dream of fucking so imperceptibly that she was never quite sure when it happened. Not that it mattered. Even in the dream, she was still fucking Holly.
And when she woke up, she was still curled up against Holly’s warm, soft body, still gently rocking against her in a haze of quiet, dreamy bliss...and then she woke up all the way, and remembered what she had to do. She disentangled herself from Holly’s still half-asleep form, kissed her on the forehead, and slipped out.
Ms Lassiter’s place wasn’t hard to find. It was just off campus, a quiet little house within easy walking distance of her office. Alicia knocked on the door, grateful for her habit of sleeping in on Saturdays. It meant Ms Lassiter would be awake.
The door opened. For just a second, Alicia was at a loss for words. She’d somehow expected a dour, arch, sinister woman with raven-black hair and high, arching eyebrows, like Maleficent in ‘Sleeping Beauty’. But instead, a short, smiling woman with short strawberry-blonde hair and ash-gray eyes answered the door. “Hello,” she said softly. “What can I do for you?”
“Um...Ms Lassiter?” Alicia asked, momentarily off-balance.
“Yes, I’m Ms Lassiter.” She adjusted her robe slightly. Nice to know that students weren’t the only ones who slept in on weekends.
“I’m Alicia Weissman,” she said. “I’m a friend of one of your students, Holly Suskind. I wanted to talk to you about her.” She tried to inject just a little knowing menace into her voice. Not so much that Ms Lassiter would panic, but enough that she’d let her in.
Instead, her smile widened. “Oh, of course!” she said. “I thought I might see you. Holly’s told me so much about you these last few weeks, I feel like I know you already. Come in, come in!” She led Alicia through into the living room, gesturing to an overstuffed chair. “Take a seat, please.” She sat down herself, and Alicia was slightly embarrassed to notice a bit of leg from the way her robe didn’t quite cover her body properly.
“Ms Lassiter,” she said, tearing her gaze away from the other woman’s leg and up to her face, “I think you know what I’m here about. I’m worried about Holly. I’m worried you might be having an...” She paused. “Let’s just call it an unhealthy influence on her.”
“Unhealthy?” Ms Lassiter didn’t seem offended at all. If anything, she seemed amused. “Oh, I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m actually quite fond of Holly.”
“Yes,” Alicia said coldly, “that’s actually what I’m talking about. She seems very...taken with you. She says you’ve been helping her sleep, and study, and giving her advice...” Oh, fuck it. “Ms Lassiter, have you been hypnotizing Holly?”
“Well, yes!” Ms Lassiter said. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes, it’s a problem!” Alicia said. “You’ve been...I don’t know, brainwashing her! Altering her personality against her will!”
Ms Lassiter looked offended, but something about her tone made it sound more like a joke. “Oh, it’s not against her will at all, my dear! She simply doesn’t want to resist, that’s all. Resistance is just a path away from pleasure.”
“So I must take the path away from resistance,” Alicia replied automatically. She blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “Don’t know why I said that.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Ms Lassiter seemed genuinely confused. “I thought it would have been obvious, dear. Ever since Holly showed me that recording she made, I’ve been expecting you to come visiting sooner or later. She does have a very pretty voice, doesn’t she?”
Alicia nodded, her thoughts drifting back to the recording. ‘I will picture the spiral in my mind’s eye,’ she heard, echoing in her head, ‘and let it take me deeper...’
She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until she noticed Ms Lassiter nodding, a delighted smile on her face. “Oh, so you kept a copy!” she said. “Oh, well, that is wonderful. I thought you might have just listened to her while she slept, but...oh, goodness, dear, you probably don’t know what to think about all this!”
Alicia blinked, trying to clear away the sudden fog in her head. “I...I know exactly what to think,” she said. “You, you’ve done something to Holly. To her mind. Made her...” Made her a lesbian fucktoy, and that’s so fucking hot, so hot to be a slutpet and want nothing but sex, blank and empty and willing and open and obedient, perfectly obedient because perfect obedience is perfect pleasure... “Made her fall in love with you.”
“Oh, more than that, dear,” Ms Lassiter said. She stood up, seeming to tower over Alicia despite her lack of height. “I’m her Mistress. The one she speaks about every night, when her conscious mind sleeps and her subconscious chants all those mantras I put into her deep, dreamy, hypnotized mind. The one you hear about all night long, hour after hour after hour, when your dreamy, hazy brain floats on the edge of sleep and soaks up every word of those mantras, for so very long now, when you’re so receptive...and open...and blank...and vulnerable...I am Mistress, Alicia. Do you understand?”
Alicia didn’t seem to understand anything anymore. She came here to rescue Holly from this woman’s control, but she felt like she couldn’t even control herself anymore. Everything just seemed to be all hazy and swirling and she felt like she was slipping into a trance too, like she was sinking deeper for Mistress and the deeper she sank, the better she felt as she pictured the spiral in her mind’s eye and everything went away...
Alicia’s eyes slipped shut. “Yes, Mistress,” she said.
“Oh, I’m so glad you understand!” Mistress said brightly. “I thought you might, when Holly told me about you. You sounded like such a sweet girl, and you and Holly seemed so happy to find each other...and I thought you might be happy to find me too. Are you happy, Alicia?”
She had no thought, now, save for the knowledge that Mistress wanted her to say yes, wanted her to think yes, wanted her to believe yes. “Yes,” she husked out, hearing the same dreamy tones she’d heard in Holly’s voice.
“Good girl,” Mistress said. “Here. I have a present for you.” Alicia felt fabric pressing against her throat, and she shivered in delight as she heard the tiny click of a clasp. “I went out this week and picked up another one,” she said, “and I thought you might want to wear it for me. What do you think, dear?”
“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...” Alicia moaned out the words, her subconscious supplying them with perfect precision to a conscious mind that had already become completely blank and empty for Mistress.
“Very, very good.” Mistress took Alicia’s head in her hands and pulled it forward. Alicia could smell Mistress’ cunt, already slick with juices. “Now, Mistress wants you to pleasure her.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Alicia moaned out, the words already muffled by flesh as she began to lick. She heard footsteps behind her, and even though she couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t pull her face away from Mistress’ perfect pussy, she knew who must be joining them, and her heart leapt with bliss when she heard Holly’s voice beginning to chant the same mantras that Alicia now knew would echo in her own mind forever.
“...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 relaxed, and sank into a waking dream of bliss.