"And I'm sorry, it's called a what now?" Kendra asked, hoping she hadn't already asked that once already and simply failed to hear the answer in her rapt, captivated fascination with the unique crystal spinning and swaying at the end of the silver chain. She'd never seen anything like it, a perfect blue garnet octahedron suspended in the center of a glittering diamond, and she felt like she could tumble unblinking into its depths forever. She'd already had to consciously force herself to close her mouth once, wiping away a little trickle of saliva from the corner of her lips as the impulse to study every gleaming facet of the gem distracted her from everything including her own body.

But if Paula was annoyed by her woolgathering, the young white woman didn't show it. "A xenomorph," she repeated, her tone just a tiny bit obnoxiously smug in a way that might have made Kendra bristle if not for the mediating influence of her own amazement with her temporary roommate's prize possession. "And no, it's not named after the monsters in the 'Alien' movies. Xenomorphs are created when one crystal forms inside an occlusion in another, and takes on the shape of its surroundings instead of its own typical crystallization pattern. You see how it's got eight sides?" Kendra nodded, staring at each of them as they rotated past with an expression of naked awe on her face. Her jaw had already gone slack again, but it felt like she could either pay attention to Paula's explanation or her own mouth but not both.

"Well, a garnet normally forms in a dodecahedron, but this one crystallized naturally inside the diamond, and diamonds are octahedral. So it took on the shape of its parent, and over millions and millions of years it grew and grew inside a tiny little occlusion--just the smallest gap, barely visible to the naked eye--until it was taken out of the earth and found its way to my family. Isn't that just fascinating?" Kendra nodded again, not quite managing to notice that the motion became more and more automatic and instinctual every time Paula asked her a question. She wasn't saying anything Kendra found the need to challenge, after all, and she had her mind on other things.

"Just about any crystal can form a xenomorph," Paula went on, holding the gem a bit closer so that Kendra could focus on it more easily despite her thick glasses. She was used to squinting, even with her heavy prescription, but somehow this looked even more beautiful when she let the tiny muscles of her eyes relax and allowed the glittering facets to drift into a parade of beautiful rainbows. "But to find one precious stone inside another is such a unique and amazing find that I just have to show it off. I'm sure you're okay with that, aren't you?"

Kendra nodded again, another tiny bead of saliva gathering at the corner of her mouth. Geology wasn't her strong suit--she was studying astrophysics, the primary reason she was attending the conference in the first place--but that didn't mean she wasn't interested in just about any scientific topic placed in front of her. And to see such a rare and precious specimen, it was... it was absolutely mesmerizing, she thought, not even noticing that she hadn't blinked in almost a solid minute now and the word that popped into her head to describe her fascination was becoming less and less of a metaphor with every passing moment.

"And not that smart girls like us believe in the properties of crystals," Paula chuckled warmly, "but I will admit I find that this stone helps me with relaxation and focus. When I look into the gem, and the gem within the gem, it feels... well, powerful, somehow. Like it takes me outside myself, so I'm just floating there inside the garnet inside the diamond and feeling all my stress and worry just fade away. You can feel that right now, can't you, Kendra?" The nod didn't require any thought at all anymore, it was just the natural response to any pause in the flow of the conversation, but Kendra honestly did feel like she was outside her own body. The trickle of drool down her warm brown chin didn't seem to matter anymore, nor did her seeming inability to blink. She wasn't quite there, so she didn't have to worry.

Paula reached out with her free hand, resting it on Kendra's wrist, and though the reserved young woman might ordinarily have pulled back from such an overtly familiar gesture she found instead that it relaxed her even further. She'd been a little worried, rooming with someone so obviously wealthy and privileged, but Paula had done such a good job of making her feel welcome that this caress only lowered Kendra's defenses. "It feels nice to relax and focus on the gem, doesn't it, Kendra?" she asked, and Kendra discovered as she nodded again that the shift in position had left the spinning crystal just a tiny bit above eye level. She had to look up at it now, especially when her head bobbed forward in amiable agreement.

"And it's okay if you need to close those heavy eyes for a moment or two," Paula purred, her fingers lightly stroking Kendra's arm in slow, soothing motions that gradually pushed up the sleeve of her loose and  baggy turtleneck. "I know how smoothly and effortlessly relaxation can shade into deep drowsiness, and it's so hard not to just let those fluttering eyelids slip shut. But the gem's going to be right here waiting for you, so you can just give me a long, slow, lazy blink to give your eyes a chance to rest and when you open them they'll focus right back on the stone, won't they?"

Kendra heard herself make a tiny chuffing grunt of surprise as she began to nod and found to her amazement that her head simply drooped forward and wouldn't rise again for a long moment--a moment punctuated by exactly the kind of sleepy blink Paula described. She didn't think she'd be so weary on only the first night of the conference, but she must have underestimated how tired she was because her whole body suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and just looking at the swaying stone again felt like it took a titanic effort. She only managed it because the rare and precious crystal fascinated her so very much.

"There we go, that's it," Paula cooed, her warm praise accompanied by an equally warm touch that now caressed Kendra's arm all the way up to the elbow. "You're even more relaxed, even more at peace after that blink, aren't you?" Kendra's nod was automatic, as was the wobbling droop forward and the next slow, sleepy flutter of her eyelids. "That's right. Happy and relaxed inside the gem, and sinking ten times deeper into that pleasant sensation every time those eyes slip shut. It's so nice to listen and agree with me, isn't it, pretty girl?"

That almost snapped Kendra out of her hazy fugue state. She'd never been able to think of herself as pretty, not with her broad thighs and chubby cheeks and thick chunky glasses and curvy belly and big, pendulous breasts that she had to hide under baggy clothing... but there was something so achingly sincere about Paula's tone that it made Kendra let go of a tension she didn't even realize she was holding. Paula was caressing her right now, her fingers stroking Kendra's warm brown skin, and she didn't seem to be upset about what she was finding under the turtleneck. She seemed to like it. And something primal inside Kendra liked being liked.

She nodded again, and this time the added release of tension left her head slumped forward and her eyelids gummed shut. "It's okay, sweetie," Paula purred, guiding her into a supine position on the bed they'd been sitting on. "The gem is still right there inside that sleepy head, spinning and sparkling away, and it's even easier to see with your eyes shut because you can keep staring at it now matter how relaxed and drowsy you become. You're so sleepy right now, aren't you, honey?" Kendra's head barely moved now. But her answer was still visible to someone looking for it.

"That's right, feeling so sleepy, feeling so good all over," Paula cooed, her hands now moving to brush at the hem of Kendra's turtleneck and slowly maneuver it up to expose her broad brown belly. "The better you feel, the drowsier you get, and the drowsier you get, the better you feel, and it's even beginning to turn you on a little, isn't it, sweetie?" Kendra sucked in a sharp breath, not stirred from her lazy reverie by the pressure of Paula's fingers against her pubic mound but definitely overwhelmed by the sudden sensation. She'd always assumed she wasn't interested in sex because she wasn't interested in boys, but Paula's caresses were changing that hypothesis very quickly.

She found herself squirming out of her clothing almost before she knew it, every touch making her feel better and all the pleasure deepening her trance that much more, until soon she was naked on the mattress with her legs spread and her cunt splayed wide by two of her own outstretched fingers. It didn't seem quite real, as if she was still hovering somewhere outside her own body while Paula's smooth and sexy voice lulled her hands into compliance, but the pleasure was real and it got stronger and stronger the deeper she dropped. It felt like only moments before her clit was twitching and pulsing in a silent plea to be touched.

And Paula was happy to give it what it wanted. "That's a good girl," she murmured, skating her finger over the tip of it until Kendra's breath came in soft, keening gasps. "All that's left in that empty head is the special gem, capturing every last thought and leaving my little darling so blank and helpless and obedient, isn't that right?" Kendra's muscle control wasn't really up to nodding, not with every muscle tensed up in orgasmic bliss, but it didn't really matter anymore. Inside her mind, she was agreeing with every word Paula said, now and always, and she couldn't imagine anything sweeter. She wanted to spend the rest of the night, the conference, her entire life cumming for this beautiful woman and she couldn't imagine disagreeing with her anymore.

Kendra heard herself let out an explosive grunt of ecstasy as something longer and thicker than fingers filled her cunt, something that jutted out incongruously from Paula's waist as the other woman crawled between Kendra's spread thighs, but she was too busy feeling now to think and the silicone shaft felt so inexpressibly wonderful that her eyes rolled back in her head behind her closed eyelids making it impossible to even try opening them to see what was happening. She only knew that when she bucked her hips up into Paula's thrusts it felt even better and made her cum even harder.

It felt like they fucked forever, and for an astrophysicist well on her way to her PhD Kendra had an embarrassingly difficult time counting the number of orgasms Paula gave her. But eventually the other woman pulled out, and Kendra's wrung out body finally went limp as the overwhelming pleasure subsided into a blissful, vacant trance. "That's a good girl," Paula cooed again, brushing strands of Kendra's lank and sweat-soaked hair out of her face as they lay side by side together. "Sinking deeper now, even more drowsy and dreamy and relaxed and ready to listen. You want to listen, don't you, honey?"

Kendra didn't even remember her own response--she was so tired by then, so mentally and physically exhausted, that pushing her even a little bit deeper into trance sent her into a state almost indistinguishable from sleep. But she was still aware on some level, still listening, and the part of her that remained focused on Paula's voice was happy to soak up every last suggestion while she slowly melted the rest of the way into a drowsy fog of overjoyed obedience and let her thoughts take on the shape of the voice surrounding her.

THE END