Hypnosis Sleepover

I was glad for the weekend.

It’s not that I dislike school, per se. It’s just that… I find school easy. And things that I find easy, I find boring. I didn’t see the point in drilling verb conjugations or taking the slope of thirty lines. Once I’d done any of those once, I could do it again.

There were two people who made school manageable: Tracy and Samantha. We were pretty much inseparable, both inside and outside of school. During the day, we’d communicate in elaborate sighs and eye-rolls. At night, we’d rush through our homework, then stay up late playing video games and writing fanfiction.

This weekend, Tracy’s parents were gone. So of course, Sam and I were spending the weekend at her place.

The annoying thing was that our parents weren’t that in to us doing sleepovers. It’s because I’m a guy. We didn’t have this problem when we were younger, but ever since puberty, us all sleeping in the same room has made them antsy. It wasn’t until last year, when Tracy pointed out to her parents that if they thought there was any problem with this, they must think she was into threesomes. We’d all copied her argument, with varying degrees of success.

Anyway, we were allowed to have this sleepover, which was great. Tracy said she had something she wanted to show us. I figured it was probably a new story. Tracy is a way better writer than Sam or I; her stuff can make you fall over laughing or burst into tears.

So Sam and I were definitely excited when we pulled into Tracy’s driveway. We continued our argument about Tracy’s mysterious thing as we walked up the long drive. Tracy’s house is magnificent old Victorian on a huge lot. The only downside to that house is the long walk between the end of the driveway and the front door. It really sucks in winter.

“I bet you it’s a sequel to Infinite Summer.” This was my latest theory.

“Betcha it isn’t! The ending to that was too tidy to allow a sequel.” Which was the Sam way of saying: ‘your theory is stupid.’

“Okay, if you’re so smart, what’s it gonna be?”

I’m an ass when people don’t like my theories.

“Maybe it isn’t even one of her stories. Maybe she found a cool movie? Maybe she found really good fic buried on an ancient LiveJournal.”

Those were classic Sam suggestions. She never thought inside the box. Sometimes this was good. And sometimes…

“Or,” (Sam continued) “maybe she learned to pogo stick?”

I ended the argument (such as it was) by knocking on Tracy’s door.

Tracy opened the door, beaming at us. Then her face fell.

“You’re not the pizza! I was all excited!”

“Love you too Trace!” Sam breezed past her, then turned around and gave her a hug. I followed behind and took my hug in turn.

(You want to know which one of them I have a crush on, don’t you? Everyone assumes I have a crush on one of them, as if I can’t be friends with someone without wanting to get into their pants. It’s so annoying. Luckily, as long as people keep asking me which one of them I have a crush, I can keep blowing them off with a “you’re wrong about that”.

Do they know I have crushes on them? If you find out, please let me know.)

“So, what is it Trace? What’s you’re big news.”

Sam is the excited one. I’m over in the corner with my hands in my pockets, wondering if pizza is actually coming or not.

“Pizza first, other things can wait!”

Score.

* * *

Pizza successfully consumed, it was time for the big reveal. I was just as eager as Sam, I just had a better handle on insouciance. That or I was shy and didn’t talk much in groups. I’ll let you decide what the truth is.

Tracy ushered us into chairs.

“We need to be sitting down for this? Isn’t that a bit cocky.” (See: insouciance.)

“Yes, you need to be sitting down! Because I’m going to hypnotize you!”

“You can do that?”

Sam was a bit breathless. She was never going to learn how to play it cool at this rate.

“I’ve been learning online. My mom let me practice on her. Once I got it working on her, my dad let me try it on him. That went much more smoothly. I’ve made them do some funny stuff. Do you want to see?”

“So, you’re going to make us do funny stuff?”

If yes, I’d know not to volunteer.

“Haven’t you ever seen a hypnotism show on Youtube? That’s the who point of it!”

I was pretty sure that wasn’t the whole point, but I let Tracy’s point stand.

“That sounds like it could be fun…” Sam trailed off for a second, but her perkiness was indomitable. “I’ll try it out!”

Whew. It wouldn’t be me!

“Okay. I want you to relax in your chair.”

Sam made a show of shifting around and getting comfortable.

“Now, I want you to imagine that your body is getting heavier and heavier. Almost like there are weights attached to it at every point. Every time I say a number, the weight pressing you down becomes that many times heavier.”

Sam nodded her consent.

“One, two, three…”

Sam slouched into her chair. Tracy’s voice was deeper than it normally was and more resonant too. I almost felt like there was a weight pressing down on me.

“four, five, six…”

I definitely felt a weight on me as well. That was odd. I wanted to tell Tracy about it, but she was saying something else.

“As the weight increases, I want you to think about getting sleepier and sleepier. Seven, eight, nine…”

My head drooped. I could see Sam’s doing the same out of the corner of my eye.

“Ten, eleven, twelve…”

I really wanted to say something, but I was so tired. It would take too much effort, I decided. I just wanted to relax and keep listening to Tracy’s voice.

“Now, when I snap my fingers, you’re going to feel awake and the weight is going to disappear. But I want you to remember how good my voice sounds and continue to do anything I say.”

Tracy walked over to Sam, grabbed her arm and let it drop. It was completely limp. She then repeated the process with me.

I could see her better when she was right in front of me. She was definitely smirking.

“Got you too, eh? Well, now we don’t have to catch you.”

Tracy walked back to where she’d started.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”

I was almost asleep. And then she snapped.

Immediately, the weight was gone and I felt wide-awake.

“Remain seated and don’t say anything.”

I wanted to get out of my seat and shake Tracy and ask her what she was doing. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak either. I was hyperventilating, but I couldn’t disobey Tracy’s command. I was helpless. Why had she hypnotized me as well? What was going on? I tried to tell myself to relax, that this was all some prank, but I couldn’t quite pull it off.

Tracy walked around Sam’s chair a few times.