A Brief Moment on the Couch

“Emma!” called a voice across a small apartment.

The girl reading a book on the couch looked up from the novel, glancing towards the bedroom where her girlfriend, June, had just called her name. “Yeah?” Emma replied.

June appeared in the bedroom doorway, leaning against it. “Whatcha doing?” she asked.

“Just reading.” Emma glanced back at June suspiciously as she answered. She noted June’s black hair being up in a ponytail, abnormal behavior for her.

Taking a step from the doorway, June asked, “So, nothing too important then? Not doing stuff for work or anything?”

Emma was sure June was up to something now. “Nope, not too important. Why?”

June walked to the couch where Emma had been reading and sat beside her. “Oh, no reason,” June shrugged, not managing to convince Emma. “Is the book good?”

“Yeah, I’m enjoying it pretty well so far,” Emma nodded. She took a breath to tell June about the book, but June interrupted.

“Cool, well maybe you can tell me about it in a bit, but first,” she began, then dropping her voice a pitch, speaking slowly and methodically, “could you look into my eyes for a second?”

Ah, that’s what was up. Emma reacted immediately to the change in her girlfriend’s voice. It was a familiar one at this point, indicative of June’s intention to put her into trance. Emma felt a fuzzy feeling begin to creep from the back of her head, beginning to drop into trance as an automatic response. Drowsily she turned to face June, locking her brown eyes with her girlfriend’s blue ones. As she did so, June reached out and cupped Emma’s face in her right hand, caressing her cheek with her thumb.

“There you go,” June said to Emma, whose eyes struggled to stay open as she got a second dose of June’s voice. “Just focusing on my eyes and starting to fall into a nice, deep sleep.”

The fuzziness from the back of Emma’s brain had engulfed her at this point, her head heavy with trance. June’s soft voice, almost a whisper, echoed through her cranium, subsuming her thoughts. Emma’s limbs lay loose at her side; at this point the only thing holding her up was June, gently holding Emma’s head in her hands as she sent Emma’s mind careening into the depths. Emma sighed. She could stare into June’s eyes forever.

June chuckled, a lovely sound that sent arcs of bliss and satisfaction down Emma’s spine. She felt one of June’s hands move from holding her head up to being held in front of her face, obscuring June’s eyes. Emma’s focus was wrenched to her girlfriend’s hand, a spark of interest flashing across her glassy eyes.

“When I snap my fingers and say ‘sleep,’ you’re going to close your eyes and fall into a deep trance, sinking into a nice fuzzy void for a bit, and then I’m going to bring you back up. Alright?”

Emma nodded as well as she could with June’s other hand holding her chin in place.

“Good.” June smiled.

She brushed a lock of brown hair from Emma’s face, sighing, “God, your trance face is fucking adorable.”

It was Emma’s turn to smile, a dreamy grin spreading across her face. Then a snap rung in her ear and the word “sleep” echoed into her head. Her eyes snapped shut. She was falling, endlessly falling into a vast space filled only with relaxation, focus, trance. Emma let out a small moan as a relaxed bliss washed over her again and again, just dropping further into the nothingness. A fizzy emptiness filled her head, a merciful silence rarely awarded to her that she savored every moment of. It felt like an eternity, and still it came to an end too soon. Emma heard June, clear as day, counting her up from her trance.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and wake up,” June said, punctuating the wake up command with another snap. Emma’s eyes fluttered open and she took a deep breath. She made eye contact with June and giggled. June responded simply by embracing Emma, cuddling up to her on the couch.

“Have fun?” June asked.

Emma, rubbing the remnants of trance from her eyes, giggled again. “Haha, yeah, I enjoyed that. A lot.”

“Good! Now, why don’t you tell me what your book’s about?”