I’m staring down at the table in the corner of my dorm room, struggling to understand what I’m looking at. Right now, one thought is foremost in my mind - who the hell would give me a pacifier?!

It’s nothing unusual to look at, by pacifier standards (at least I don’t think so, I’m no expert) - it’s blue plastic, translucent, its surface kinda sparkly as if it’s laced with tiny glitter. Its handle is transparent, as is the nipple. (Do you call it a ‘nipple’? It’s supposed to be a substitute for a real nipple, right? So that would make sense...) Yeah, it’s a pretty ordinary little dummy. I just can’t figure out what the fuck it’s doing here.

I just walked in after class and found a little gift bag sitting on the table, all red and shiny like a Christmas present. The label read: ‘To Lindsay, from your Secret Santa’. Which is strange on a few levels. First of all, it’s late January. Second, I can’t think of a single group I’m part of - friends, family, college classmates, colleagues at the coffee shop where I work on the weekends - who did Secret Santa last Christmas.

So some rando decided to be my Secret Santa? This has gotta be some kind of prank. But how so? I mean, why send me a dummy? What’s the gag? Or - hey, is that the gag? Because a pacifier could act as a literal gag, stopping me from talking...?

I dunno, I’m grasping at straws here, gazing dumbstruck at the little plastic object. This makes absolutely no sense. If you look at it as a serious gift, it’s definitely gone to the wrong person. I don’t have a baby to give it to. I don’t have any plans for children - I’m not sure I want any. I never even had a dummy myself. My older brother had one. He was a little bit of a late developer, so my parents decided not to give me a pacifier, thinking that somehow had an effect on his educational progress. (Yes, they’re part of the ‘vaccines cause autism’ crowd, among other things. One of the many reasons my perfectly lovely, if slightly dim, brother and I have as little contact with them as possible.)

I shake my head and laugh lightly, completely mystified. This is so weird. Maybe I should just forget about it, dump this thing in the trash and move on with my day. But it’s just - it’s driving me nuts. Who sent it? Why? What the heck was going through their head? Did they do it just to get this reaction outta me - to send me into a tailspin, make me go crazy trying to answer the simple question of ‘what the fuck’? If so, weird prank. They’re not even around to see the reaction.

Are they? I look up, glancing around the room for a few seconds, before returning my attention to the pacifier. No-one around. My roommate Beth is out - she was in Psych class with me, but went to meet her boyfriend after. I wonder for a moment if she left this here for me to find, but it doesn’t seem likely. Pranks aren’t really her thing - she finds them too mean-spirited. Could it be the work of her boyfriend, Freddie? Maybe - he seems more the type (by which I mean he’s kind of a douche) - but this doesn’t feel like his style either. He’s more the ‘jumpscare and then point and laugh’ prankster, I think. Not this peculiar, madness-inducing behaviour. Still, I can’t think who else could be responsible.

I pick up the pacifier almost without thinking about it, turning it over and over in my hand absent-mindedly. I raise it closer and narrow my eyes, studying it, trying to spot anything unusual about it, any clues at all that might help solve the mystery. Nothing. It really does just look like an ordinary dummy.

God, this is so stupid. I really ought to just throw it out and have done with it...

Wait, what? I’m bringing it towards my mouth!

I stop myself as soon as I realise what I’m doing, laughing incredulously. What am I doing?! God, I must be tired from my class, my brain’s misbehaving. Hey, look, a pacifier. I must put it in my mouth. After all, I’m baby.

I pull my arm away from my face, my hand still holding the dummy in my sightline so I can keep looking at it. I vaguely realise I’ve been staring at it for a while now, as if I can understand what it’s doing here if I just gaze at it for long enough. I’m smiling, giggles bubbling up inside me, unable to get over how fucking bizarre this is...

I keep on gazing at the dummy, transfixed. My mind has gone very quiet all of a sudden. That’s very unusual. Normally my head’s buzzing with a thousand thoughts, firing off in so many directions at once, to the point where it makes life a little difficult. I’m quite easily distracted, always forgetting things, losing stuff, trying to multitask only to lose track of where I am with one thing after I’ve been working on another. It’s quite infuriating, if I’m honest. And I struggle to get to sleep at night, to shut my brain off.

Now, though, I feel kinda nice and... blank. All my attention’s on this unexpected, inexplicable gift, and I’m not really thinking about anything else.

Hey, maybe that’s what it’s for. After all, pacifiers seem to help babies calm down and get to sleep. I think they’re sometimes called ‘soothers’, which seems apt. Maybe someone sent it to me to help me silence my overactive brain and get some peace.

If that’s the reason, it’s already working really well. It’s not even in my mouth yet -

Oh, hold on. I put it in my mouth a few seconds ago.

Ohhhh, that’s nice. Kinda tastes like lemon... Mm, that’s sweet.

I give it an experimental suck, and I’m rewarded by a slightly stronger taste. My smile spreads behind the blue mouth shield. My hand, the hand that held the pacifier up to my face, has dropped down to my side. My arms are both dangling limply, my shoulders and spine slumping.

I hardly notice. The longer I stand there with the juvenile object lodged between my lips, the less aware I am of my body. The more I suck on the tasty nipple, the less I think. My eyes are barely even open any more.

I’m sitting on the floor now. Can’t remember when I sat down. Don’t really care. The hard edge of the table leg against my back doesn’t bother me. I barely feel it.

What I do feel is blank-minded bliss, happiness, euphoria... and, not gonna lie, growing arousal.

I dunno why I’m getting horny, but I am. Probably just ties in with how good I feel, I guess. Sitting here on the floor with my legs splayed out, sucking on a pacifier as it conceals my dopey little smile, I feel fucking great. Better than I’ve felt in a really long time.

I’m lazily touching myself through my pants. My fingers soon sneak down the front of my panties, pretty much of their own accord. I haven’t cum in weeks - a combination of being single, and being too busy and stressed with college to attend to my own needs.

But right now, it’s like all that exists in the world is pleasure and the pacifier. I don’t need to worry. I don’t need to rush. I can just sit here in the corner and unhurriedly rub myself, slurping the lemon-flavoured nipple, totally relaxed.

Even as my arousal builds and builds until I approach the edge, it doesn’t work me up into a frenzy or anything - it just feeds back into the relaxation, making me feel even more drifty and distant. Even when I cum, my body twitching and jerking, I’m still a million miles away, detached and disconnected in the best way.

Ever so slowly, I start to ‘wake up’ from this strange stupor, the gears in my brain starting to turn again. I blink like a sleepy owl, looking around my room aimlessly. I haven’t got a fucking clue how long I’ve been sitting here. Beth might be back any time now, and see me sprawled in the corner, back against the table leg, with my hands down my pants, a wet patch on my crotch, and a dummy in my mouth.

The thought of being caught like this rouses me a little faster - I don’t really want my roommate to find me in such a compromising state. But even the thought of that crushing embarrassment doesn’t really spoil my tranquil mood. Oh my God, I really can not remember the last time I felt this good. Maybe I never have!

I should take the pacifier out of my mouth and get changed, though.

Any second now.

OK, c’mon Linz, take it out...

There we go. God, that was hard! I really didn’t want to take it out... And now, holding it out in front of my face, the temptation to put it back in is very strong.

No, not today. But I’m not throwing it out. I wanna know where the hell this thing came from, and I can’t do that if I get rid of it. Whoever sent it to me, I want to find them and hear their explanation. This isn’t some weird prank, it’s something else - something much stranger, beyond my comprehension. But I want to comprehend. I want to understand what just happened to me, and I’m determined to find out.

And hey, if I get some spare time here and there... I guess I could pop the pacifier back in my mouth again for a little while, and have some Me Time.

After all, it was a gift, right? Be rude not to make use of it...