"Randi, this isn't going to work," Trisha groaned as Randi continued pulling up a video titled 'Hypnosis Trance for Pretty Sapphic Girls'. "Hypnosis isn't real."
    "Come on, Trish, just give it a try," Randi smirked as she finally found the video -- the 'video' was a pink and purple spiral. Instead of using their computer, Randi hooked up her streaming equipment and put it on the big TV for them. "If you don't like it, we can stop. And if you end up liking it? We can be dumb and stupid and slutty together."
    "Randi, I'm straight," Trisha urges. "I like boys. Men. Guys. Dudes. I'm not into girls." Sometimes she wished she was, considering how stupid her last breakup was. If she had to date a girl, it would definitely be her hypnokinky friend -- but that was in an alternate reality, with a different Trisha.
    Randi continued to ignore Trisha's protests. Finally the spiral was up on the screen, paused, and Randi flashed a smile at Trisha. "You agreed to the dare. You can't back out now. That's not how truth or dare works, Trish."
    Trisha sighed. Randi was right -- she never ever backed out from a dare. But this? This was stupid. It wasn't going to work. If it had been something Trisha was scared of -- killing the bugs in her apartment, for instance -- she would have cared a bit more. This seemed like a waste of her time. She had homework she could be doing. "Fine. But you're getting me a pizza after."
    "Deal." Randi turned on the video, and the spiral began moving. It started slowly, then picked up in speed. Alternating, it slowed and sped up. Trisha was already feeling disoriented, leaning back on her couch for more support.
     The woman voicing the file started out with a series of content warnings -- mostly the fact it had no awakener (Trisha didn’t even know what that meant) and that it was to increase lesbian feelings (yeah right, Trisha thought as she rolled her eyes, like that’ll ever happen). She started off by encouraging the viewers to relax. Randi slid into a relaxed pose much more easily than Trisha. Trisha’s hands were gripped onto the sofa, as if she were tethering herself to the real world, trying not to drop into trance. No. She wasn’t going to actually get hypnotized after she spent fifteen minutes talking Randi out of it, right? But she felt relaxed, looking at the spiral, falling into how bright the screen was. It was like she was falling into the TV, into this lady’s voice.
     “I want you to find that relaxed place. Maybe it’s a location. Maybe it’s a piece of furniture. Maybe it’s… a person.” Why did Trisha’s eyes dart over to Randi, who’s eyes were half-open and glossy? “And I want you to just sink into them. That’s it. Slowly, deeper, falling under my voice, falling victim to your own feelings…”
     Her own feelings… Trisha shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to… she wasn’t going to drop. She was straight.
      “You don’t have to lie to yourself about being straight.” Trisha almost choked as the woman said those exact words. “You can be as free and lesbian as you want. You don’t have to pretend.”
      Pretend… no… she wasn’t pretending. She was… straight. Was she? Or was she just repressing her feelings? Trisha clutched the sofa harder. She wasn’t gay. She wasn’t gay.
      “Feel yourself dropping into that safe place in three, two…”
      Trisha let out one last “I’m straight,” defensively, not even noticing she spoke, before the file said one and dropped her into a deep trance. She wasn’t straight. If she were, the file wouldn’t speak to her.
      When she came to, it felt like hours later, and her and Randi shared the bed together. Naked. Trisha’s face flushed, trying to put the pieces together, and still somehow trying to convince herself she was straight. None of this was real.
      No. She was lying to herself all this time. Or maybe, just maybe, hypnosis was real after all.