A/N: This one is a bit different from me. I hope you like it - feedback is as always begged for and appreciated. No beta on this one so forgive the usual gumpf! There will be a bigger A/N at the end to explain ;)
Disclaimer: If only!
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She thinks there are only three left. The rest have been rejected and returned to where they came from. However, she has been selected and so remains.
There must only be two others, if the deep breathing to her side is reliable evidence.
She shut her eyes when he told her to. His voice, deep and steady said her to trust him. She believed him then, does now and knows she will do anything he says.
This is her fault, she is cognisant of that. There were people earlier; they nudged and pushed her. She should have listened to her better judgement, but only she took the steps that led her here, where it is hot and dry.
She feels first the hard wood of the chair he gave her to sit upon and then the pulse in her thumbs . He moves behind her, towards the others and she feels a draft crossing the nape of her neck. She cannot decipher the words, but knows he is relaying instructions to the others.
She waits for her turn.
It will come next.
She feels as if there are 1000 eyes on her, watching and waiting to see what she will do. But if someone told her the world had ended and it was only her, him and the others, she would believe them.
A muffling blanket of warmth lies around her, though no fabric touches her skin. Superfluous noise is blocked out, her attention is fully on her body, her breathing, and him. Every sense is primed to attention, awaiting the next instruction. Ready to wait or ready to act. Ready to do whatever he says.
Because that is why she exists. That is why she is here.
And now, his soft footsteps approach from behind and she feels the warmth of his body close in. She expects the touch that comes; his hot palm on her bare shoulder sharpens her focus to a burning point. Only his voice and her ear are real.
His instructions are understood.
Once she resisted his instruction, fought against it and did not follow where he led.
But this time, she will comply.
Without question and without questioning him, she will comply.
She breathes in and out, in and out. The air moves round her body, which has apparently been hollow for an age, filling her elbows and her toes.
He removes his hand from her body and she nods, signalling her promise to obey.
She waits but prepares for action, standing and opening her eyes. She is blinded again by the bright, white light that although she had dismissed it had been bleeding through her eyelids all along.
She places her hands on her hips and pushes her chin boldy forward.
She raises one foot of the floor, takes a deep breath and waits for his nod.
And then she complies.
"Bwaack, squawwk, cluck cluck cluckity cluck!"
The audience screams with laughter. Her eyes adjusts to the light. She finds them in row after row, sees people she knows she came here with in that alternative life she barely remembers, let alone acknowledge.
Those people are rocking and crying, pointing and holding their sides.
"Cluck, cluck." She moves round the stage quickly, avoiding one of the others who is a dog this time, cocking his hind leg against that tree that she knows is really a chair. But it is a tree.
The other one is cantering through the aisles in the auditorium; She is a horse.
The people are laughing and shouting, and so she clucks louder and struts harder. She wants to laugh with them, but the idea is absurd. Chickens don't laugh.
And then, as quickly as it started, it is over. They sit in their chairs and he tells her to sleep, so she does. He whispers to her that she will wake, be refreshed, remember everything and have enjoyed it all.
And she does.
As she leaves the stage, and staggers giddily towards her friends who are rushing to meet her, he whispers one more time in her ear. She doesn't hear what he says, but the lingering trust makes her accept it and move quickly towards the bar.
She wades through the questions, revelling in the attention, loving that she made people laugh. The embarrassment she knows she should feel, doesn't come.
Someone puts a drink in her hand and claps her on the shoulder. Something tickles the emerging scientific side of her brain. Is she enjoying this still because he told her she did? Would she usually be this free about having made such a fool of herself in front of friends and strangers? Another drink is passed along the bar and she forgets the niggle, deciding instead to remember the attention and the laughter which she finally can share.
And so it isn't until the next morning, staggering through a splitting hangover into the hotel restaurant, when her friend asks what morning beverage she would like, that she remembers the last moments of her experience and realises what he must have whispered to her as she descended from the stage.
"Coffee?"
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A/N2!: Ahhh see,hands up who thought it was going to be a random angsty fic! I watched Death in the Saddle the other day and was reminded how Cam said she had been hypnotised in Vegas. Well a few years ago now I took part in a "comedy" hypnotist act and did some very random things in front of friends and strangers...very odd! It has always been hard to explain what it felt like but I think I've got a lot of the key emotions over here! I seem to always grin wildly when describing the experience and do wonder if that is some left over deliberate advertisment in me so the hypnotist gets more gigs!
Reviews make my head fly off (and help me get better at this writing lark - not having my head connected sometimes helps!)