Morning. It came so quickly that she could hardly believe she had been asleep. The room was flooded with bright, sunshiny light. Skylights above the recessed ceiling, perhaps? She heard the sounds of Manhattan outside...truck and car horns, traffic noises. She sat up in bed, wondering what time it was and what to say to confront Fletcher.
He appeared a few moments later, stepping in quickly and closing the door behind him. He carried a tray of food and spoke before she could say a word. "Breakfast, Lisa. Enjoy it, because we've got a big day ahead of us." He set the tray on the bed and was gone in a flash.
She lifted the lid. The smell of hotcakes flooded her senses. She realized that she was ravenous and started eating with abandon. Trapped in a strange man's strange room, she still felt hunger, and pancakes and maple syrup were just one more oddity. There was also fresh squeezed juice, though as she finished it she noticed a slightly odd note in its flavor.
As the sugar in the food hit her, so did the quick-acting stimulant in the orange juice. Fletcher watched her from a bank of monitors in a nearby room. She was suddenly running on a metabolism full of sugar and stimulants. She paced the room. She stretched - he liked watching that - and did a few minutes of yoga until the cold floor was too much for her. The stimulant was exceptionally quick acting and also of exceptionally short effect. Within an hour she was feeling exhausted. The sugar buzz faded and she wanted to cry.
How could this happen when she'd clearly had a full night of sleep? Where was Fletcher?
The lights were dimming again. Strange...there were no more street sounds to be heard. She wandered into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. When she emerged, the room was almost dark. 'What the hell?' she thought. 'It's morning...'
But in a few minutes, the room was pitch dark and she felt her way back to the bed. Fletcher watched this on the low-light cameras that studded the room. In a few minutes she was asleep again. He stretched and felt his own exhaustion. It had been less than three hours since they made love. The first interruption and the sugar-laden meal had been a first act in a process that would run for almost three days.
At any rate, he could sleep now, but Lisa would be interrupted again in about 30 minutes by lights, music, and the temperature in the room rocketing to around 90 degrees. Then it would plunge to 60 degrees. One time the lights would flash, another simply brighten. The sounds would range from music to gunshots to fingernails on a blackboard. The interruptions would be random, varied, and all were designed to break her sleep cycle completely.
Fletcher felt relaxed and confident. She had been magnificent in bed and he felt a growing affection for her as he watched the timer on the room's computer counting down to the next shock to her system.
He walked to his room and slept for six hours.
It really was morning when he entered her room the next time. She was sitting up in bed, disheveled and bleary-eyed. Her hair was a mess. She was sitting in the chair with the blankets around her.
"Fuck you," she said immediately. "This is a sick fucking game and I want to go home."
"Lisa, tell me you want to leave and you can. But listen to me first. I know you. I understand who you are and what drives you and what will make you happy. I'm offering you a chance to experiment with what makes you happy. You have my commitment to never hurt you in any way. Just stay, and see how you feel at the end of the first week."
"Who's going to write my column?"
"You're on paid leave. Your publisher is a friend of mine and we have a deal."
"Does he know what kind of sick shit this is?"
"He does not, and nor will anyone you don't choose to inform. This is our private arrangement, Lisa."
She was tired, miserable, and confused. He was on the one hand charming, pleasant, and intelligent. In her college experiments with mild bdsm she had never seen anyone so dominant, but without a single element of cruelty or pain. She asked him directly, "Is this about torture? Is that what you want to do to me?"
He smiled. "Not physically, of course. I wouldn't harm a hair on your lovely head. But there is a more exquisite and nuanced way to change behaviors and you've just taken the first step in it."
She sighed. "I feel like shit, Fletcher." In that one moment he knew he had her.
He laughed, "Well, Lisa...let's fix that." He produced clean underwear, a soft black t-shirt, and a pair of khakis for her. Exactly her size, she noticed.
"Come on," he laughed, "Let's get you feeling better."
His Rover nudged through Manhattan's lighter than usual Labor Day traffic towards their first destination. She nodded off a few times in the car, but he was quick to notice and awaken her.
They pulled to a stop in front of Bliss. She looked at him quizzically.
"Bliss? You keep me awake all night and now you take me to Bliss?"
He grinned at her. "You don't think that brainwashing is just about negative reinforcement, do you?"
Inside, she saw that Fletcher's usual planning was in play. She was whisked into a massage, where she immediately and deeply fell asleep. But it lasted for only 30 minutes, and she was soon jolted back to reality.
The same happened during her facial...just as she fell asleep, it was time to move to the next step. She was profoundly relaxed and feeling physically better with each passing minute. The nagging lack of sleep was slightly confounding but she liked what Fletcher was doing to her. If this was his idea of positive reinforcement, bring it on.
The waxing was harder to sleep through, but she fell asleep again while the Bliss girls cut and highlighted her hair. He had scheduled a foot massage, which again sent her into a dreamy state of near-sleep. She was buffed and polished to near-perfection when she left. She caught a look at herself in a mirror as she walked out to meet Fletcher. Her dark honey-colored eyes looked tired, but she was glowing and felt physically great. Fletcher whisked her off for lunch at a Tribeca restaurant Alan had raged over and they talked more about his plans for her in the coming days.
"Lisa, we're going to put you into a mental place where you become more receptive to certain training and behavioral modification methods. The sleep deprivation is only starting to affect you. It will take several more days of that before you're really where you can begin to submit more completely."
She pondered her salad. A few days ago this conversation would have left her laughing or running, but now it was strangely and deeply moving. She now simply asked quietly, "Fletcher, have you done this before? This isn't like a normal pr skill, is it?"
He smiled. "Lisa, there is a long practice of these things in every culture and throughout history. The academic research is all there, but I think I've put a lot of it together for the first time."
"Aside from the sleep deprivation and pedicures...what else are you going to do to me? And what kind of submission are you after...I already slept with you."
He stretched and grinned. "Let me give you a preview...hmmm...where to start. In the coming days you'll experience the impact of drugs, hypnosis, operant conditioning...and a few other surprises."
"Well, I have one on you there, Fletcher," she said, feeling empowered. "I can't be hypnotized. People have tried. Doesn't work."
That smile again. "People have tried, but you haven't. When the time comes, you'll want to be hypnotized and it will happen. You'll be amazed at the sensation of surrender and comfort that will just sweep over you when you fall deeply asleep for me."
"And as for what kind of submission..." he let the thought dangle for a moment, considering his coffee.
He looked into her golden eyes and said, "Lisa, when this is done, you will feel so whole, so happy, and so complete that you'll never be able to imagine such a feeling without me. Then, your submission will be complete. You'll want to do things for me because they make you feel wonderful. You'll never feel a sexual limit in your life with me."
She blushed furiously, feeling wet and aroused like never before.
What he said next made her almost faint.
"Well, if this all goes as I plan it, you'll want to marry me by the time we finish."