My alarm woke me, I thought. But no, it was Tia's.

Tia, wrapped around me, naked, big spoon against my back. I was in my underwear, and wearing nothing else but a familiar silver pendant around my neck. A charm with a snake eating its own tail, an ouroboros, which could be used to hypnotize my beautiful partner and that she could use to hypnotize me right back. The morning sun was slipping past the dark curtain in our bedroom, and combined with the alarm bleeping on Tia's phone, it said that a certain partner of mine was going to be late for work if she didn't get moving.

I gently disentangled myself and shook my lover lightly.

"Tia? It's time to go in to the office, hon."

Tia mumbled something incoherent.

I tried again. "Your alarm's going off. Time to get up."

Her eyes opened a little. "Yeah, so?"

I smiled, petting her soft hair. "Can't have you getting fired. Someone's got to pay for my paint."

She giggled a bit. "Five more minutes?"

"Sun's already up. Alarm's going off."

She muttered something. It was coherent, unlike before, but I didn't really understand it, because it did... something to me, and a moment later, I was waking up, spooned again, as the alarm on Tia's phone cut through what had been silence again.

Great, I sighed. I enjoyed the position, I enjoyed her messing with my mind, but the fact was that she had work.

I got out of her arms again, and this time stood up beside the bed. "Tia?" I said, a little more forcefully.

"Yeah, Pel?" she said. I could hear the shit-eating grin on her face.

"Seriously, girl, you have an office to get to."

"Yeah, yeah." She sighed, starting to pull herself up into a sitting position. "I'll get there."

The sun peeking around the edge of the curtain and the still-sounding alarm told me that we had to get things moving. An idea started to form in my head. "Look, if you're not going to take this seriously..."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. You gotta get to work. This calls for a little bit of urgency."

"What do you mean?" Tia sounded curious, and looked it, too, as I grabbed my panties with both hands.

"This." I slipped my underwear off, and watched even in the dim light as her eyes fixed on the pendant around my neck, the ornament between my breasts. If either of us were naked except for the charm, the other one would be in deep trance the instant she saw it, and Tia was very quickly sinking. "Now, sweetie, turn off your alarm."

She nodded slowly and moved as if through molasses, clumsily grabbing the phone from the bedside table and shutting off the noise.

"Good girl," I said. "Now, you need to get to work. Staying nice and deep in trance for me, it's time for a shower. Let's get over to the bathroom."

"Yes," she whispered.

I loved that whisper. There was a certain whisper she had when she was so, so deep. It was glorious.

I led her in slow steps to the bathroom, and turned on the shower. I set it to where she liked it best and helped her into it. "Get yourself properly clean, Tia. Fresh and ready for the day."

I resisted joining her. It was very tempting, but we were on a time limit. I hated having to be the responsible one, but every so often, desperate measures were called for. Her slow, clumsy motions eventually convinced me, though—if I didn't wash her hair, it just wasn't going to get done, not in a reasonable amount of time. I got in, a little shocked at the heat, even as I was expecting it, and grabbed her shampoo.

I pulled her against my breasts—which she clearly enjoyed, given the hum of pleasure I got—strictly to get better access to the back of her head, of course, as I lathered her up vigorously. We had a schedule to keep. I then stood her in the shower spray and let the water rinse her clean. I was forced to use my hands to rub the soap off her chest and back and legs, since she wasn't really aware enough to deal with that. Finally, with Tia squeaky clean, I turned off the water and helped her out of the shower, wrapping her up in a towel. I was dripping a bit, but there was nothing to be done about it, we had a schedule to keep.

I sent her to the bedroom to get dressed as I towelled off and did my best to dry the floor. I then scampered to the bedroom to check on Tia's progress.

She wasn't there.

I heard her moving downstairs, and quickly went to follow.

I hadn't thought that she would have enough time to get dressed before I finished cleaning up, and I had been right. As I stepped down to the kitchen, I saw her bare back leaving the room towards the front of the house. Somehow, she'd managed to get dressed from the waist down and then just headed for the door.

"Hey, Tia!" I called, rushing after her.

She had one runner on when she looked up at me. Her dazed eyes caught mine, then dropped back to the ouroboros on my chest.

"Good girl, good. Deep breaths, that's right," I said, trying to take a couple myself. Rushing left me mildly out of breath. "Slow and easy, stand up."

She did. Standing up straight, blank-eyed, tilted to the right since she only had one shoe on.

"Good. Now, Tia, freeze right there until I get back," I said.

I knew she would.

I left her there and headed upstairs, back to the bedroom. I was hurrying. We had a schedule to keep. I grabbed a bra and a shirt from her dresser and scurried back down to the door. As I expected, Tia was still right where she had been. Unconsciously, following my own hypnotic programming, I put the ouroboros charm around her neck, before making the conscious decision to put her bra on her.

I admitted to myself that it was a shame to cover up those lovely, perky breasts.

I pulled her shirt over her still-damp hair, giving her a kiss on the cheek as I did. Her eyes cleared, and a more aware smile started to cross her face.

"Pel, sweetie?"

"Yeah?" I asked, still trying to catch my breath a bit.

"Why do I only have one shoe on?"

I giggled. "Uh, because you can be silly in trance?"

She smirked at me. "Did you check the calendar?"

The words rung in my ears. Did you check the calendar? We have a schedule to keep... I turned, butt-naked, and walked back into the kitchen. The digital clock on the stove read '11:14,' which was impossible, it would mean that before even leaving the house Tia was nearly three hours late to the office. And then I saw the calendar.

More importantly, I saw the first day on the calendar that wasn't crossed off. Monday, sure, but the number in was in red. Weekdays were normally in black. But that day's date was written in red, like it was on the Sunday.

It was a holiday.

We have a schedule to keep...

Words started to click together in my head, not making a lot of sense, but there was still only one explanation.

"Tia?"

No response.

I turned back to confront my partner. Crossing the threshold into the living room, I first saw a pile of clothes, with the shirt I'd picked out for her on top. My eyes darted to the left and there was a beautiful athletic Black body, nude but for a bra, unstrapped and held up by a pair of perfect hands. I saw the silver chain, knew what was on the end of it even as it was concealed by the last bit of clothing Tia had on. And then I saw the grin.

"It's a holiday, isn't it?" I asked.

She nodded.

She dropped the bra.

And my eyes locked on to the ouroboros between my lover's breasts, and everything, everything in me relaxed.

"It's a holiday," Tia said, and I heard her through a deep, deep fog. She stepped closer. "And we have the whole day to enjoy it."

I nodded, only half-aware that I was doing so. We had a schedule to keep.