A
Ms Fletcher turned, and jumped at the sight of the teenage boy standing behind her.
“Jack! You scared the life out of me.”
“Sorry, Ms Fletcher. I just remembered you said that if anyone had questions about the assignment, they should stay after class and talk to you.”
Ms Fletcher looked at the teenage boy skeptically. Jack had been in her class for several months now, and he’d never shown any interest in preparing for assignments before. Most of the time, he seemed more interested in trying to peer down her top.
He passed her class, but barely…and recently, his grades had started to slip. Perhaps that had inspired this sudden curiosity.
“What’s your question, Jack?”
The young man smiled, and pulled a strange, glittering jewel from his pocket. Ms Fletcher glanced at it, then looked back at her student’s odd leer.
He wasn’t saying anything, just staring confidently at her. She went to speak, but before she could decide on exactly what she wanted to say, the jewel attracted her attention again.
It was dangling from a string, turning very slightly in the light, glittering as it did. Such an odd mix of colors—it looked like the ornament was primarily blue…no, green. Or wait, was it purple?
Orange?
Ms Fletcher continued to stare at the jewel as Jack began to speak.
“You like my jewel?”
Unable to assemble a sentence in response, Ms Fletcher just nodded, her mouth gaping as she stared, fascinated at the shimmering jewel. It had so many colors…so many sides, at strange angles. Corner after corner, crevice upon crevice…
“You like my jewel.”
Again, Ms Fletcher nodded. She couldn’t deny its beauty, its entrancing nature. She’d never been so fascinated by something so small. It must be priceless…but no, that didn’t make sense. How could her student have it if it were so valuable?
“Say it.”
“I…”
Something was wrong. Ms Fletcher tried to look away, tried to stop herself from staring, slackjawed, but she couldn’t. The jewel had her in its grip—she was defenseless, unable to do anything but admire its majesty as it shone and spun and sparkled so perfectly.
It was divine.
“I…”
Ms Fletcher tried to stop her mouth from obeying Jack’s command, but she couldn’t. The more she fought against the impulse to agree, the heavier her muscles felt. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t resist.
She had completely lost control of her body.
“I like your jewel.”
As soon as she said it, Ms Fletcher felt a wave of relief rushing over her body. She didn’t have to fight any more; she had obeyed, and now she was free again. She was free to do whatever she wanted.
And all she wanted was to continue staring at the jewel.
The longer she examined it, the more treasures she found. Each of the tiny surfaces was reflecting light from the room, reflecting light from each other. It was an endless fractal: surfaces reflecting surfaces reflecting surfaces. It was like Alice’s rabbit-hole, a bottomless pit that she felt she could explore for the rest of her life.
“Smile,” Jack said, and before she could even think to resist, the corners of Ms Fraser’s lips curled up, and a look of pure bliss appeared on her face.
Why shouldn’t she smile? Why shouldn’t she admit that she liked the jewel? After all, she was happy, and the jewel was unquestioningly the cause of the surge of positive emotions coursing through her bodies.
On one hand, she knew that Jack was doing something to her, that she shouldn’t be obeying his commands, that she shouldn’t be standing in her classroom, alone with a student, mindlessly gaping at the tiny, shimmering gem.
But on the other hand, she didn’t care. She couldn’t care. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring, and she didn’t want to know. It was irrelevant; everything was irrelevant.
Everything except the precious, tiny, sparkling stone in Jack’s hand.
The pair continued to stand there for an eternity, until Ms Fletcher’s cheeks began to ache from smiling, and she could feel her legs growing weary of holding her up, her eyes drying, afraid to blink, afraid of breaking the spell that the tiny ornament had cast over her, the joy that it had brought.
Finally, when Jack was content that Ms Fletcher was defenseless, he began to speak.
“Ms Fletcher,” he started, and suddenly the teacher was brought back to the room. She didn’t know where she’d been before—drifting, floating in an endless glittery paradise. She’d been in another world, a world inside the jewel; a world where the jewel was everything she’d ever wanted or needed.
She wanted to go back, but she’d been summoned.
“As I count backwards from four, you’re going to relax. As I say each number, I’m going to describe a different part of you that will relax, until you’re relaxed from head to toe. When I get to one, you’ll be the most relaxed you’ve ever been—the very thought of tension or stress will be foreign to you, and all you’ll be able to think about is how relaxed you are.”
Again, Ms Fletcher knew something was wrong, but she knew that there was no way she’d be able to resist. She was too far gone—the jewel had taken her, swallowed her up, and every word that Jack said went straight into the depths of her brain.
She knew that she would obey. Already, she was imagining how relaxed she was going to be. A few seconds ago, the teacher would have predicted that there was nothing in the world that could distract her from the glorious sight that was the glittering stone dangling from Jack’s hand, but now she realized how wrong she’d been.
Relaxing was on the forefront of her mind now. It was all that she could think about, and he hadn’t even begun to count.
“Four,” Jack said, and Ms Fletcher felt every muscle in her body lose its tension. It was so sudden and powerful that she almost fell over, but she knew that she wouldn’t.
Jack hadn’t commanded her to fall over, and so she would remain upright until he finished his instructions.
“Your arms and legs are relaxed—it feels like a masseuse is working on every part of them simultaneously. Soften your knees, let your arms fall limply to your sides. You feel like a rag doll, don’t you?”
Ms Fletcher managed to nod; a struggle, with how lethargic she suddenly felt. Her arms and legs had disappeared, replaced with sacks of cloth. Sacks that never felt stress, or had to flex. Sacks of soft cotton…no, softer than that.
Clouds. Her arms and legs were clouds, hanging limply, swaying, somehow—impossibly—supporting her weight.
They’d never felt better. She had never felt better.
“Three,” Jack said, and Ms Fletcher almost passed out. She’d thought she had felt relaxed a few seconds ago, but this was a whole new level of relaxation that she didn’t know could exist. It was as thought she’d just stretched, had a team of masseurs work on her for five hours, and ended it with a bubble bath and a bottle of wine.
There were elements of feeling drunk, but without the giddiness, the consciousness. She simply felt free, in every part of her body, in every way.
“Your hands and feet are heavy weights, pulling your body down.”
Ms Fletcher had no idea how the sensation of being pulled down could feel so good, but it did. More than good, it felt amazing. The knowledge that gravity was taking care of her, that she no longer had to make anything resembling a choice…where she’d felt free before, now she felt controlled, guided. Taken care of.
“Two,” Jack said, and Ms Fletcher suddenly realized how foolish she’d been. She’d been relaxed earlier, sure, but only as relaxed as a human could be.
Now, she transcended humanity.
A massage? A bubble bath? Those were terms used by those who couldn’t even begin to understand how totally stress-free her existence had suddenly become.
The closest comparison she could make was the moment after an orgasm, the moment when one’s aching need to cum was taken away, replaced with a sense of total satisfaction, a knowledge that—at least for now—that need was filled, and didn’t need to be considered.
Every bone, every fibre, every electrical impulse in Ms Fletcher’s body felt like that. Their needs weren’t just filled, they were taken away. She didn’t have to worry about anything—she would never, ever have to worry again.
Her existence was one of perfect bliss.
“Your torso is like a big helium balloon, lifting you up, even as your arms and legs hang limply, and your hands and feet drag you down.”
Ms Fletcher felt sorry for her former self, for everyone she’d ever met. She felt sorry for the human race, just because they didn’t get to feel what she felt. There was no such thing as a concern or a worry in her existence—there was no such thing as stress. There was just the jewel and Jack’s voice.
Everything is solved, she thought. Everything is perfect.
“One,” Jack said, and Ms Fletcher stopped thinking entirely.
“Your mind is mine now,” Jack said, but she didn’t take it in consciously—there was no need to. She didn’t have thoughts any more—she was above even them.
“And as I said,” Jack continued, as the dazed woman in front of him smiled blankly. “I want to talk about the assignment. I believe an A would be appropriate no matter what I turn in, don’t you?”