Her Own Path
Chapter 6
Sophia began to wake, bleary eyed and groggy from her nap. She hadn’t meant to doze off, but she must’ve been more tired than she thought. It took her a moment to see what was swinging above her head. A clear crystal pendant. Kind of like the one she’d tried to use on the shopkeeper, although the shape was different. She watched it for a moment as it swung. It was kind of nice to watch, to follow as it made its lazy arc. Then she heard the voice. She was still too tired to make them out. The softly spoken words were just a nice background hum. That was… nice, Sophia decided. Maybe it would be fine to watch and listen a little more.
Then Sophia realized what was happening. Skye was trying to hypnotize her! She sat up with a start, surprising her roommate and causing her to drop the pendant. “Oh, Sophia! Uh… have a good nap?” Skye asked her, feigning innocence.
Sophia couldn’t help but smile at the attempt. “It was a good try, Skye. But you’ll have to be better than that if you want to get me.”
Skye tries to keep her expression coy, but she soon breaks into a small laugh. “Yeah, okay. I just figured you’d be vulnerable when you were just waking up.”
Sophia bobs her head back and forth considering this. “You’re not wrong about that. But the best way to truly take advantage of it is to try overloading your subject. They won’t be able to process it all at once and they’ll be extremely susceptible to suggestions in that moment. But it was a good idea.” Sophia says encouragingly.
Skye nods. “I see. Well, thanks for the advice. I’ll get you soon.”
Sophia grins. “I don’t doubt it.” It had been a few days since she’d first hypnotized Skye and she hadn’t sent her any texts with new subjects. Not a huge issue, but she hoped to get one soon. She checked her phone out of habit, but it was dead. Sophia had been pretty tired when she got back to her room so charging it had just slipped her mind. Shrugging, she plugged her phone in, then turned back to Skye and smirks. “But I believe some turnabout is fair game.”
Skye giggled at this like she had a private joke, but Sophia didn’t see what was so funny. “Oh, I guess so.”
Seeing that Skye wasn’t going to explain, Sophia just reached up and started petting her. It never got old. Seeing the light fade from Skye’s eyes at each pet made her mind fade, her thoughts just drifting away with each stroke. It gave her a rush of power and dominance every time she dropped Skye like this. “That’s right, such a good pet for me. Dropping deeper, dropping faster for me every time. It’s so easy to fall down for me. Down into trance, down into submission, down into obedience, down into my control. Such a good pet for me now.” The mindless expression, the glazed look in her eyes, it was all so perfect. She wanted to take a picture of it, but her phone was still charging. Oh well, there will always be next time. But what to do with her now? Nothing permanent of course, but there was still plenty of fun to be had. “Now, Skye. My good little pet. You’re such a good pet for me now. In fact, when you wake up, you’ll find that you can only move around like a cat. You can still talk and think for yourself like normal, but you’ll find yourself moving around like an adorable little cat. You’ll keep doing this until I say ‘Pet time over’. When I say that, you’ll be able to move normally.” She makes Skye nod with her petting as she lets out a soft, happy moan. “That’s a good pet. Forgetting your programming, but ing being hypnotized now. Coming up for me.” Sohpia pulls her hand back and snaps her fingers.
Skye shakes her head a little as her mind returns to her. Then she looks at Sophia with a smile. “So what did you do with me this time?”
“Oh, I think it’ll be fairly obvious.” Sophia sits on the edge of her bed, grinning to herself. “Why don’t you take a walk around the room?”
Skye gives her a look before starting to move forward. As she does, she falls down to her hands and knees and begins crawling. Sophia laughs at the sight as Skye blushes. She keeps crawling despite her embarrassment. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Well, petting you down into trance already makes you look like a pet for me.” Sophia says through her giggles. “So why not complete the look?”
Skye rolls her eyes but keeps crawling nonetheless. “Well, I suppose it’s only fair. Just don’t drag it out for too long.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sophia reassures her. Then she pats the bed next to her. “Why don’t you come up here for a bit.”
It’s not a command, and Skye can tell she hasn’t been programmed to obey this time. But she decided to go along with it anyway. She crawls to the edge of Sophia’s bed. It takes her a moment to figure out how to pull herself up on the bed, but she manages to figure it out. Then Skye settles her weight onto her knees and puts her hands out in front of her on the bed. Then she rubs her body up against Sophia. “I hope you enjoy your pet, then.” She purrs.
“Mmmm, I enjoy you very much.” Sophia runs her hands over Skye’s body, careful not to go over her head. “You do make quite the adorable little pet.”
“Well, you make it so easy,” Skye replies, still rubbing her body adoringly against Sophia.
Skye’s reaction and subservience surprised Sophia. She hadn’t expected her to play into the submissive role so much. Especially not before Skye had managed to hypnotize her. Not that she was complaining, but it just seemed like an odd shift in behavior. “You seem awfully comfortable with this whole thing, especially right after failing to get me.”
Skye shrugs as best she can as she moves behind Sophia and starts brushing against her other side. “It’s not so bad. I trust you. And I’m the one who challenged you, so it’s only fair.” A smile formed on Skye’s face, and it looked like she wanted to say more, but she decided against it, or she’s holding back laughter, but Sophia doesn’t see what’s so funny.
“Well, as long as you’re comfortable with it.” Sophia leans over to check her phone again. It’s charged enough to turn on, and she sees that she has a message from Skye. Maybe she’d been able to get someone while Sophia had been asleep last night. She wanted to see who the lucky subject was. Opening her phone to her messages with Skye, she saw… herself? It was a picture of her lying down in her bed with a blank, mindless expression. Her name was right there in the message, along with a trigger phrase. She just stared at the image for a few moments.
Skye had noticed that Sophia had stopped moving and speaking. “Sophia, are you good?”
Sophia turns around at the question, still stunned by the message. “You hypnotized me?”
A look of genuine shock formed on Skye’s face as she wondered how Sophia could have figured that out. “Sleepy Sophia!” She blurted out the trigger before Sophia could do anything else.
Sleepy Sophia. That phrase stuck in her mind as her thoughts quickly quieted and faded away. Her mouth hung open as whatever she was about to say next died on her lips. As Sophia’s mind emptied, memory returned to her. The pendant swinging above her face as she woke from her nap. Her brief resistance before Skye’s calm, soft words had soothed her mind away into blissful relaxation. Skye had exploited that moment she was waking up perfectly. Her words had slipped right into Sophia’s thoughts with barely a ripple, preventing her from waking up any more and dragging her down into trance, open to Skye’s programming. She was helplessly focused on the pendant as it swung back and forth, back and forth, easily accepting her roommate’s conditioning as it pulled her down deeper. The pendant pulled her mind in, such a familiar feeling as her mind faded away now. Skye telling her that she’d forget the trance and wake up easily resisting her attempt. She could hear Skye’s voice in her head now, pulling her ever deeper into trance.
Sophia’s mind continued to spiral down into trance as the trigger and memory of her conditioning worked together to pull her down into mindless bliss. She barely had time to struggle, or even think about what was happening. Any attempt to do so simply falls away from her mind. Every failed attempt to think only drops her deeper. The memory of Skye’s conditioning only gets stronger in her mind. It felt so good, so right to let herself fall, down into Skye’s control. She couldn’t possibly resist it. She doesn’t want to resist it. She just wants to follow, to fall, to obey.
Skye looked on in satisfaction as Sophia obediently dropped into trance for her. “Well, first thing’s first. Release me from having to move around like this.”
“Pet time over.” Sophia obediently drones out in a blank tone.
Skye feels the restrictions on her movement lift and she shakes out her limbs a little Then she looks up at Sophia. “Well, now that that’s taken care of, how did you know I hypnotized you? Did you ?”
Sophia shakes her head slightly. “I programmed you to send me a picture of anyone you hypnotized and to forget about it. I saw you sent me a picture of myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” The secret programming was a bit of a shock, but it didn’t worry Skye too much.
“I gave it to you before our agreement. It didn’t count.” Even entranced, Skye swore she could hear a bit of a mischievous tone in Sophia’s voice.
Well, that at least made sense. “Is there any other programming I don’t know about?” At Sophia’s shake of her head, Skye sighs in relief. Well, that had certainly been a turn she wasn’t expecting. She had hoped to get a little more out of Sophia’s amnesia, but there was more they could do than just that. “Well, as you so justly put, some turnabout is fair game. So, when you wake up this time, you’ll how I hypnotized you this time. Coming up for me again, ing everything.”
“Woah. That was a lot.” Sophia says in her surprise as she comes out of trance and then she gives Skye a look. “That was good. Really good.”
Skye blushes a bit at the praise. “You really think so?”
“Yeah, I had no idea. And I really had no chance of resisting.” Sophia thought about the feeling of being controlled like that. It was… weird. She’d put people into trance more times than she could count, but she’d never experienced being hypnotized before. She was aware, but she felt detached from herself. Like she was just a enger in her own body. She trusted Skye enough to not do anything too bad with her, but what if someone else got her? It wasn’t something she wanted to think about. To be entirely at someone else’s mercy. She had often wondered what the people she hypnotized felt. Now she knew at least to some extent. But if she was going to submit again, she wanted it to be on her . Sophia holds her arms around herself involuntarily.
Seeing that Sophia had withdrawn again, Skye reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you good?”
Sophia flinched as Skye’s hand landed on her and took her out of her introspection. “Yeah, that was just the first time I’d been hypnotized. It gave me some new things to think about.” She gave Skye a weak smile.
“Well as long as you’re okay. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
“Thanks. It means a lot.”
Skye can tell that Sophia has a lot to think about now, so she just gives her a nod and goes to her desk to get some work done.
Sophia smiles as Skye lets her be, and then lays back on her bed again. That had certainly been an enlightening experience. Her first experience of being hypnotized hadn’t been negative by any means, but something about the feeling of the loss of control just didn’t sit right with her. She much preferred being on the other side of the pendant. She needed to figure out more effective ways to hypnotize people. And maybe find a better way to defend herself. She sighed—yet another aspect of hypnosis her mother neglected to teach her. Her mother probably assumed that they would never be in a position where they could be hypnotized. True enough as long as they stayed in their home.