Irina’s stocking fetish came to her late in life.

She was a girl, and from a young age girls put on tights and, later, pantyhose as a matter of course. They were clothes. Not an object of fascination, sexual or otherwise. Mundane.

For her mother it had been a little different, the way she told it: when she’d been a young lady, hosiery had been a distinct part of dressing properly. It still hadn’t been erotic for her, either, though; it was something you wore without wondering whether you needed to or not: the decisions you made were on which hose to wear based on your outfit and on what quality the event required. However, unlike in Irina’s generation, you were aware of them constantly while they were on because you didn’t want to ruin them with an errant snag. She’d used to laugh when her mother told her those stories.

Now she was constantly checking to see if her seams were straight.

She was in her mid-thirties before she thought of stockings as anything other than accessories, at best. That was three years after Paula married Karl, and it was all her fault.

Paula and Irina had met in college and, though in very different majors, they’d otherwise had a great deal in common. Both of them took their studies seriously, took drinking seriously, and took men seriously... in approximately that order. Usually. Sometimes this got them into trouble, but in watching one another’s backs they generally found their way out of it again in due course.

Now they lived in suburbia and spent most of their time working their 9-to-5 jobs (or 8-to-6, more likely, these days). Neither of them had kids, but Paula had as her responsibility the care and feeding of a husband and took it seriously enough. More seriously, it seemed, than Irina would have imagined.

They met frequently for coffee or, as this occasion would have it, for cocktails. Two drinks in and conversation flowed freely; three drinks in and things were bound to get positively salacious. Halfway through their third that day, in a conversation focused on the kinks of lovers past and present, Paula revealed her plans to her friend.

“Karl doesn’t care much about whether I give him head or not, as long as I’m wearing stockings.”

“Yeah, you’ve told me that before. I don’t buy it. Every guy likes a blow job.”

Paula laughed out loud. “Oh, I didn’t say he doesn’t like me sucking him off. I’m just pointing out his true love is me in vintage lingerie and nylons.”

“Never got that.”

“Yeah, neither do I, totally. I kinda wish I did.”

“I doubt it. You don’t want to get too deep into a guy’s brain. It’s scary in there.”

“Probably true. But...” She looked thoughtful. “I’m long past feeling challenged or uncomfortable with girdles and gloves and garters — I’ve been wearing that stuff on and off since way before the wedding. But what if I could kick it up a notch?”

“Not sure where you’re going with this, girl.”

“A few days ago, I’m washing the big old bag-o’-stockings I accumulate every couple of weeks or so, giggling at Karl’s reaction to this pair or that... and I start in to thinking: what if I enjoyed wearing this stuff as much as he enjoys seeing me in it?”

“Fat chance.”

“Right. But, ‘what if,’ you know?”

“The mind boggles.”

“Hush. So I started looking into it. It’s amazing what Google turns up.”

“Wait, looking into what? How to wear vintage lingerie, and like it?”

“Sort of. I already wear the stuff. I was more looking into... behavior modification. How to get excited by your partner’s kinks as much as they do.”

“That sounds… extreme.”

“Maybe.” She could tell Paula was nearing the limits of her comfort level with this conversation. Irina was uncomfortable with it, too, truth be told, but morbid fascination kept her engaged as her friend continued. “Honestly, is it any different than gradually getting used to it, over many years?”

“I think ‘getting used to’ and ‘enjoying’ are in different categories, Paula.”

“True. But, hell, I’ve already decided I’m going to wear that stuff for him… seems like if I get a kick out of it, too… so much the better.”

Hmmm. “Just what are we talking about, here, girlfriend? Pavlov’s dogs? You going to reward yourself with crème brulee every time you put on a girdle from the 1950s? Or is it something more… ahem...” Sexual?

“No, it’s not that. It’s… I found a website that offers to do this through hypnotism.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” Paula looked embarrassed. “It’s… I haven’t decided to do it yet. But they have testimonials.”

“I’ll bet. ‘I loved the hypnosis,’” Irina chanted in a zombie voice. “‘I will do it again and again and again.’”

“Shut up!”

“Seriously, Paula. I don’t believe any of that crap’s for real. You’re gonna waste your hard earned cash on that?”

“I dunno. It seems like it’s worth a try.”

“But why? This is all pretty sick to me, Paula. I mean, why can’t Karl love you for who you are?”

“He does! It’s not like that, I swear, Rina. This is something I want to do for him. For us. Not something he’s ever asked for.”

“Okay,” Irina replied, conciliatory. “I believe you. ‘I, Paula, of my own free will, pledge to become my husband’s stocking slut.’”

“Funny. And kind of creepy, when you put it that way. But funny.”

“It’s creepy even when I don’t put it that way.” Her friend pouted at her over the remains of the coffee-and-Bailey’s, and she felt bad for being so snide. “But I’m your friend. I don’t judge.” Much.

“Thank you. If I do this…”

“Yeah?” Don’t.

“If I do this… will you be my safety?”

“Your what?”

“My safety. You watch while it’s going on and make sure nothing… weird happens?”

“Honey, I don’t feel comfortable with this idea at all, let alone going with you to some appointment somewhere.”

“No, I don’t have to go anywhere. It’s all done online. I don’t know if it’s done live, or by a computer program, or what. I just… I want you to sit in the room while it’s happening. To make sure… I don’t know. That I don’t start clucking like a chicken or something.”

“Not sure I’d want to prevent that. Could be damn funny.”

“Humpf. Bitch.”

“Hey, if the cast-iron fits…”

“Come on. I don’t think I could even tell anyone else about this, let alone trust them to be there. Please…”

She’d heard that tone before. “Is this gonna be like the time you made me go on a double date with that guy so you could screw his friend?”

“No! Yes. Maybe? That didn’t turn out so bad.”

“It did for me.”

“You married him!”

“My point exactly.”

“Rina…”

“Fine. I’ll be your Safety Girl. But no promises on the clucking.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

* * *

“So how does this go?” Irina inquired at her friend’s breakfast table that Saturday. She’d figured this stocking/hypno-thing was all drunk talk, but Paula had called her Friday night and set an actual date since Karl would be on a golf outing most of the day.

“I’m... not sure, exactly. When I made the payment I just got an email with a web link and some guidelines.”

“Guidelines?”

“Wear comfortable clothes. Use headphones. Operation of heavy machinery not recommended while in trance.”

“Don’t hypno and drive?”

“That sort of thing.” Paula bit her lip, pondering.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, just thinking about this. How weird it will be.”

“Yeah. Hon, you know how I feel about this. No man is worth this crap.” Sure as hell her own ex-husband hadn’t been.

“Oh, Karl is.”

“If he loves you, he’ll love you as you are.”

“Of course. He does. But why not make it better? For us both? What’s the harm?”

You’re about to pay someone to play around in your head and you’re wondering what’s the harm? She shook her head and sighed. There was no point in going into this again. “I’m your friend. I support you.” Even if you’re a fucking whackjob.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

They adjourned to the office. It was in the basement, with blackout curtains over the small windows to reduce glare. Irina had only been down here a handful of times, and she gave Paula props for the ambiance. Hard wood furnishings, dark blue carpeting, and a lounge chair across from the desk for guests. Irina dropped into said chair and pulled a novel up on her phone while Paula dimmed the lights then went directly to the laptop and jiggled the mouse to wake it up. She clicked around for a couple of minutes, typed a handful of strokes, then turned the screen a bit toward Irina. “Here, you want to watch what’s going on, too?”

She snorted. “Fuck that, babe. You may not mind giving it up to some internet basement kid with delusions of grandeur, but I’m not going there. I’m watching you, not the screen.”

Paula giggled. “Fair enough.” She moved the monitor back, then pulled on and plugged in a pair of headphones that looked positively ancient.

“Nice throwback to the 90s,” Irina quipped.

“What?”

To the noise-canceled Paula she mouthed, Never mind, receiving a nod and a thumbs up in reply. And then it began.

Irina wasn’t sure what to expect, in all honesty. Her exposure to hypnotism was entirely born of television and an obviously (to her) faked stage act she’d seen in her freshman year of college. So while she was nominally paging through her book she spent the first several minutes watching her friend closely. At first, Paula looked like she was reading something on-screen, her eyes scanning back and forth. The glow from the LCD was mostly dim with a hint of green. The green intensified slowly, or maybe Irina’s eyes were adjusting to the dimness, but soon enough the color plateaued in brightness and there were vague ripples of motion in the light reflected off her friend’s face and the wall behind her.

Paula, for her part, seemed engrossed in whatever was on the monitor. When the green light took over, her eyes didn’t seem to be reading anymore, just staring intently at one point on the screen. Soon enough, she leaned forward in her chair, let go of the mouse, and rested her arms to the side.

Somewhat bored, Irina continued with her book, and she was startled enough perhaps fifteen minutes into the session to gasp and hiss out a Jesus! when she heard Paula’s voice.

“What was that, sweetie?” Irina started, then realized that her friend hadn’t been talking to her.

Or to anyone, really. Her eyes were glossy... glassy, wide open but unseeing. It was disconcerting, but her words were perhaps more so.

“Yes,” Paula drawled, to some unheard query. “I am going deeper, now.”

Irina felt a chill go up her spine at this, frankly, spooky behavior, but restrained herself from smacking Paula to snap her out of it and make it all stop. Instead she continued to watch and listen.

“The spiral brings me deeper down into sleep,” the other woman went on. “It opens my mind to new possibilities. To new thoughts and new feelings. I am going deeper now.”

There was a count, now, from one to ten, and beyond. Irina watched, fascinated, as her friend’s eyes half-lidded but never actually closed. Her voice grew calmer and quieter as she continued, slowing to a crawl as she neared her numerical destination.

“One hundred. I am deeply hypnotized now, and ready for suggestions.” Paula’s lips parted slightly as she paused for a moment, but then she began repeating her new guidance in zombie-like tones.

“I am sexy.”

“I am sexual.”

“I like being sensual.”

“The way I dress adds to my sensuality.”

“When I dress my legs in stockings, I feel sensual, sexual, and sexy.”

“I love the feel of hosiery on my legs. It arouses me for my legs to be covered in nylons.”

“Wearing stockings makes me feel confident, powerful, and beautiful.”

“I want to wear nylons more often. I love the feelings I get from wearing them.”

“It excites me even more to wear hosiery while making love.”

“I want to wear stockings.”

“I need to wear stockings.”

It went on from there, ad infinitum as far as Irina was concerned. It seemed repetition was central to the technique, as there wasn’t much variation on the themes. It had to have been ten minutes or more before Paula stopped babbling about her hosiery and was silent for a moment before continuing.

“I understand.”

“I will be able to come to this deep level easier each time I am hypnotized.”

“I will wake up soon. One hundred...”

… and on up to one, she proceeded, before her eyes snapped fully open once more. Paula blinked and leaned back from the monitor, fiddling with the mouse for a second and then turning to her friend with a long stretch.

“Wow. That was interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to describe. At first it was just like paying attention to a good book, getting immersed in it, you know? And then I just lost track of where I was, like the book had fallen away and I was still reading it, or someone was reading it to me, and I honestly don’t remember what I read, I’m just thirty pages further. Does that make any sense?”

“Fuck no.”

“Thanks. Did I... do anything weird?”

“No more so than usual, I guess.”

“Come on, Rina!”

She shrugged. “You stared at the screen and started repeating stuff about a spiral, sleep, and then there was a bunch of stuff about stockings and how much you like them. You repeated that stuff a lot, then some stuff about how easy this was and it would be easier next time, and then you counted for a while and woke up. That’s all she wrote.”

Paula was fascinated. “That is so freaking cool. I don’t remember any of that. Well, okay, the spiral at the beginning. But after that... Wow.” She dimpled.

“Do you feel any different?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t think... hmmm... maybe?”

“How?”

“I guess I just... I don’t know... I feel like it would be sexy to get dolled up and stocking-y right now.”

“How is this different from usual? Also, that’s totally not a word.”

“Stocking-y? It is now.”

“Nevertheless.”

“Different? Maybe. I usually think of getting dressed up in the context of how much Karl’s going to like me in what I’m wearing, and maybe sometimes what he’ll do to me because of it... but now it’s a little more... how I’ll feel wearing it. What it’ll look like in the mirror. What the fabric will feel like against my skin. Sensual.”

Yeah, that was the word. “Well, sounds like it’s working.”

Paula brightened. “Yeah, I guess it does, doesn’t it?” She turned to her friend. “Thanks, hon. I really appreciate you looking out for me in this.”

“Sure. What else are best friends for than to... Wingardium leviosa!”

“Huh?”

“Damn. You were supposed to bark like a dog from that. I don’t think it’s working after all.”

“Huh? Oh. Bite me!”

“Your bark is much worse than my bite.”

“Omigod. Please leave now.”

They staggered back up the stairs, arm in arm, laughing all the way.

* * *

It was several days before Irina saw her friend again, meeting for lunch at a Vietnamese place halfway between their respective employers. While slurping down the pho, both women exchanged complaints about obnoxious coworkers, asshole managers, and evil customers (as was customary) before moving their conversation to the personal.

“So, did that guy from Accounting call you back?” Paula inquired. “You said the date went okay.”

“Nah. I think he’s screwing Sandi now.”

“See-Through-Blouse-Sandi?”

“The very same.”

“Slut.”

“Hey, her face isn’t that cute. She’s gotta emphasize what she’s got.”

“You’re defending her?”

“I’m just pointing out her probable wardrobe motivations. Besides, Allen wasn’t that much fun anyway. Spent like half the time discussing his fantasy football league and trying to get me to join.”

“Ouch.”

“Right? Way to sweep a gal off her feet. She’s welcome to him.”

“You’ll find someone.”

“Ih. It’s summertime. Too hot to share a bed right now anyway.”

“That’s why you send him home when you’re through with him. Usually.”

“Ugh. God save me from the clingy ones!” She sipped at the remains of her iced tea and signed the check, taking her Visa back from the tray. “Speaking of ‘cling’, how are your stockings coming along?”

Paula smiled prettily, a tiny blush animating her cheeks. “Fine. It’s been fun! Like, more-than-usual fun! Karl’s noticed I’m wearing them more often, and one time, even when he wasn’t around...”

“What?”

“I dressed up by myself. For myself. And... you know...”

“I most assuredly do not.”

“Never mind.”

Irina tittered. “Babe, if you’re having extra fun, even in your alone time, more power to you. I spend time with Battery-Operated Boyfriend quite a bit myself.”

“Yes, well, I haven’t used anything battery-operated in years. Not since Karl moved out here. I was just, you know... touching.”

“Too much information, P. Way too much.”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought up B.O.B. A-ny-ways...” she enunciated. “I have another session online this weekend. Can you come over again?”

“Again?”

“It’s supposed to reinforce stuff if I do it more often.”

Sigh. “Yeah, okay. It’s not like I have any plans.” She stood up and slung her purse over her shoulder.

“Meow! You don’t have to,” Paula replied, getting up as well. She was wearing a knee-length dress. With hosiery, Irina noticed. Stockings were a safe bet. “I just feel... safer if you’re there.”

“Yeah, I get it. Don’t worry, sweetie. I won’t let you down.”

“Thanks.”

And she hadn’t. Irina made sure she was at the house Sunday afternoon as scheduled. Karl was at a sports bar with one of his buddies watching a college game of some flavor or other, so after the ladies shared a pair of mimosas and fifteen minutes of gossip at the kitchen counter, they adjourned to the basement again.

Without many preliminaries, Paula moved over to her side of the desk. Irina couldn’t help but notice that even though the other woman was wearing only a housecoat for clothes right now, the legs peeking out from beneath it were a little too matte and smooth to be completely natural. Irina wondered if she was wearing them in anticipation of her computer thingy today or if she’d just started wearing hose around the house on random weekends.

This time it went smoother for Irina. She barely even looked up from her book when Paula started speaking out loud, as she had been expecting it, and the subsequent countdown and one-way conversation about going deeper into trance was no surprise. When she reached, “I am entranced and open to suggestion,” Irina stopped ignoring the monotone chant and looked up in mild curiosity at what was to come next.

It started with repetition of what Paula had said during the last entrancement about being sexy and the sensuality of stockings, but then took a switch into a less general path.

“I will always move my legs in ways designed to entice.”

“Women in stockings are so seductive and sexy. They always get what they want.”

“Even just the act of putting on my nylons arouses me.”

More of the same followed, and Irina went back to her book during the repetition phase, but she arched an eyebrow when her friend paused for a moment.

“Yes. I understand.” The room was darkened considerably, but Irina could see Paula fidgeting a bit. “I will. I am, now.”

“My best orgasms happen when I’m wearing nylon stockings.” Well, that was less subtle than usual, wasn’t it? “My best orgasms happen when I’m wearing nylon stockings.”

It was then she noticed that Paula’s hands had disappeared below the desktop. Nuh-uh, she thought. She isn’t...

It became clear, however, that Paula indeed was. Her breath was quickening, a light sheen of sweat glowed green on her forehead, and the movement of her shoulders made it very clear what she was doing as she recited her latest epiphany. “My best orgasms happen... unnnngh... when I’m wearing nylon stockings.”

“My best orgasms happen when I’m wearing—” There was probably more that last time, but it was less coherent through the lip-biting moans Paula emitted for a moment. Embarrassingly, Irina felt her nipples stiffen as she watched and comprehended what was going on. It’s like she’s being... what’s the word? Conditioned?... to associate wearing stockings with sexual pleasure. Which made sense, given the goal, she supposed, but for some reason she hadn’t expected it to be so... blatant. Or arousing to observe.

After a moment’s quiet, Paula responded to her unseen questioner again. “Yes. I did. Really hard. Yes. I will.” Paula’s hands returned to view again, but instead of going to the mouse they went to her mouth as she began to slowly and sensuously lick each finger clean.

That is so not right, Irina thought, flushed. Maybe I should stop this... but the situation already seemed to be headed to conclusion anyway (or, post-conclusion, really, if you were dirty-minded, as Irina couldn’t help but be right now). Paula had completed her... preening... and was already counting back to one now, licking her lips. When she hit the final number her eyes seemed to clear as she became aware of what was going on around her once more.

Paula sat, quietly contemplative, for a moment, then sighed and looked to her friend. “Well, I feel fantastic.”

“I’ll bet.” She was about to say more, but Paula interrupted her.

“It’s like... there’s a tickle in the back of my head. Not annoying, but persistent... but it’s keeping me aware, every second, of what I’m wearing on my legs, of how they feel...”

“Isn’t that distracting?”

“Only in a delightful way. I can’t wait for Karl to get home.”

Ahem. Okay, then. She was inclined to tell Paula then about what she’d done, but for some reason she held back. Getting crazy-turned on by her hose was entirely the point, wasn’t it? Perhaps saving her friend the embarrassment of details would be best. She could see that Paula was still turning the future evening’s events over in her mind and decided to take that as a sign. “Well, I guess that’s my cue.” She gathered her phone and purse and stood up. “Have fun with the hubby, P.”

Realizing her distraction and its probable rudeness, Paula stood and crossed to give her friend a hug. “Sorry, Rina. I didn’t mean to get all hot-and-bothered with you here.” You don’t know the half of it. “We can go watch a movie or something... Karl won’t be home for hours.”

“Nah, I think I’ll catch up on binge-watching some Netflix. And I know we don’t agree on that stuff.”

“Ugh... historical soap operas!”

“They’re ‘historical dramas’, you fucking Philistine. And they’re very good.”

“Whatever. I’ll take vampire and werewolf shows over that.”

“I know, but no one ever accused you of having good taste.”

“Karl has,” she smirked.

Well, you should know the truth of that for yourself, now. If only you’d been awake for it. Irina laughed much louder than the dirty joke warranted because she had context that made it way funnier. “Okay. Too much information. I’m going.”

“Prude.”

“Riiiiiight.” The dampness between her own thighs at witnessing what had happened today was proof Irina was no such thing. But that was not something to share.

* * *

The friends typically saw each other once or twice a week, as work and other matters conspired to interfere, but on each such happy occasion over the next month and a half, Irina couldn’t help noting that Paula was wearing nylons. And the type of hose was not in any way mysterious, as errant blasts of wind, shorter skirts, and even casual crossing of the legs were prone to reveal the lines of demarcation between the delicate fabric and the upper thighs, along with suspender straps of various sorts and sizes. At times it seemed to Irina that her friend was going out of her way to flaunt her new wardrobe choice — it was suspiciously common for Paula to smooth out a wrinkle above her hemline just as someone was approaching. Once while they were getting into Paula’s car on the way back to work from lunch, Paula seemed to take an extra-long time easing her legs back into the driver’s seat before closing the door.

“You’re gonna cause a car accident, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Come on, Paula. Don’t kid a kidder. I saw you teasing that driver lurking after our parking space.”

“What? I wasn’t—”

“Ha. You’re just lucky he had his brakes on. Otherwise that old lady with the walker would be dead right now.”

Paula frowned. “Really?”

“Possibly not. But he probably would have scraped up that BMW somehow.”

Her friend looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t know.” A pause. “I guess I did, a little, but I wasn’t thinking about it. It just... happened.”

“It’s been ‘just happening’ for weeks now, babe.” She looked at the other woman, starting to let incredulity creep into her voice. “You really hadn’t noticed.”

“No. Possibly. I mean, I feel sexier, and I’m... I guess... moving my body to enhance that— ”

I will always move my legs in ways designed to entice...

“—but I didn’t think it was anything anyone else would see.”

“Seriously?”

“I... No. I was getting a charge out of it, but I thought I was the only one.”

“Um... you know, Paula, if this hypno-stuff is making you do things that’re freaking you out, maybe it’s time to stop.”

“It’s not freaking me out. It’s really...” she exhaled. “It’s actually a little bit hot, if I’m honest about it. I just don’t want to come across as a slut or something.”

Too late. “Well, no more than usual.”

“Thanks a lot. I’m serious.”

“So am I. Not about the slut thing. You’re just extra flirty. But I worry about you doing stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable. Is it really worth it?”

“Yes!” She looked a little surprised at her own vehemence and tamped it down a little, still smiling. “It’s been... fun, Rina. Sort of like playing with a new toy.”

“The vibrate-y kind or just the ones that look like big cocks?”

“Stop!” she laughed. “I meant like a kid— oh, never mind. Whatever I say you’re gonna make it pervy.”

“Um... you realize the subject matter is already pervy?”

“Shit. Yeah. Okay. Maybe you’re right.”

“Say that again. I didn’t quite hear.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“That’s better. Again!”

“Shut up! I’m not... too bad, am I?”

“I’ve seen you worse at frat parties in college.”

“That’s damning with faint praise.”

“Call ’em as I see ’em.”

“Humpf. Well, I’ve got another session scheduled on Wednesday while Karl is out drinking beer with his work buddies.”

“Is that a good idea, given what we’ve been talking about this whole time?”

“I dunno. Maybe. Are you free?”

Again? “Why don’t you have Karl look after you while you’re doing this crap?”

“I don’t want him to know. He’s reaping the benefits. Does he have to know it’s not entirely... natural?”

“That sounds like a healthy relationship.”

“It is! But he’s got this weird kink about things being genuine, and if he thought I was faking this in some way...”

“Which you are.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Rina. Oh, so wrong.” She licked her lips. “It feels very, very real.”

Irina unwillingly recalled the last time she’d seen her friend do that with her lips. “If you say so.”

“Please... could you... um... stay with me again while I...?”

Lick your own come off your hands? “Sure, honey. As long as you realize I think you’re nuts.”

“I do, and it’s why I trust you to be there. In case anything goes weird.”

“Weirder.”

She ignored that. “I really appreciate it, Rina. I’m... a little messed up now, and feel a lot more comfortable with you here.”

“Hey, I get it. No sweat.”

Irina was truly conflicted about this situation, though. How much was she providing security and reassurance about her friend’s decisions...and at what point did it cross over into enabling her crazy behavior? If she backed out, wouldn’t Paula continue anyway, just without a safety net?

Ultimately, for her decision, it did come down to: where’s the harm? Notwithstanding the potential automotive incidents, there didn’t seem to be any actual problematic consequences with the path Paula was following.

So far.

* * *

Karl was out on a business trip to the Bay Area the next time.

They went into Paula’s office Sunday afternoon. This time there was very little

foreplay

prelude. Irina sat in her customary lounge chair and her hostess slid behind the desk rapidly and eagerly. A handful of keystrokes and a click of the mouse and Irina saw the light reflected in her friend’s eyes go emerald once more.

Paula’s descent was getting more rapid as time went on. The first time it had been nearly half an hour before her lids had collapsed shut; last week it had taken minutes. Whatever suggestions this website was making had clearly accelerated matters—by Irina’s watch, the process had been active for barely over two minutes before she heard the mesmerized “I am entranced and open to suggestion” chant coming from those lacquered burgundy lips. With a mechanical point and click, the words started again and soon enough it was sexuality, sensuality, hosiery... the French Revolutionary motto of stocking hypnosluts, it seemed.

It began with phrases that were self-affirming and near-innocent:

“My garter-belts make me feel elegant and beautiful.”

“I need to examine and touch my legs frequently to make sure my seams are straight in the back.”

“Fine stockings are a gift. And I want to thank the person who gives them to me in the sexiest possible way.”

“When I get stockings, when I hold them in my hands, I need to feel them on my legs.”

“Long, sexy nylon gloves are like stockings for my arms.”

“I want to dress my body in corsets and girdles and waist cinchers and waspies... anything which is tight and holds my stockings up.”

...and what the fuck even was a “waspie”, anyway?

Soon enough, however, the banter had devolved into straight-up perversion and lust...

“The sensation of nylon coating my skin makes me wet and ready and want to come.”

“I will always wear my panties over the top of my garters for easier access to my pussy.”

“The sound of my hosiery as my legs slide across each other makes my nipples hard with excitement.”

“It’s so easy for me to orgasm whenever I feel stockings on my legs.”

“Even the smell and taste of nylon stockings gets me hot.”

When Paula put her legs on the desk and started stroking herself from ankle to knee Irina started to feel uncomfortable. It was perhaps a bit over the top when she hiked up her skirt and started rubbing her panties while reiterating the details of her arousal to no one in particular. And all the time her eyes, staring at the screen, glazed but aware... Irina very much wanted to take a short video of this with her phone—to show Paula what she was doing under the influence of this software—but she got the idea that making her friend watch this could be even more humiliating to her than the act itself. Paula responded with “I will” to some new instruction, and Irina saw her open one of the drawers of the desk and pull something filmy forth. It wasn’t until she started stretching them past her elbow that Irina could tell they were some kind of transparent nylon opera-length gloves. Stockings for my arms.

“I get excited whenever I pull nylons up my calves, knees, thighs. I breathe heavier with each garter strap I fasten.”

And Paula was breathing heavy now, responsive to whatever she was being told. Irina shuddered as she saw her friend’s now-gloved hands slip inside her panties once more.

“Just thinking of feeling my legs in stockings... adjusting my seams... sliding my hose-covered foot into a high-heeled shoe... gets me arou—sed.” Her breath hitched in the midst of the last word, as if thinking it made it come deliciously true before she even got to say it. It might not have been entirely the words, however; from the not-exactly hidden movements under her skirt, both of Paula’s hands looked to be busily trying hard to make their owner come to orgasm. One was circling more and more rapidly as this trance session went on; the other stayed more-or-less in place but pressed down from time to time as Paula’s hips thrust in response.

It was fascinating, Irina couldn’t help but admit. The other woman’s delight in her own body was intense in itself, but the way the hosiery outlined and defined the flexing flesh and muscle beneath, covered Paula’s body while leaving parts of her uncovered, but only the parts she wanted someone to use...

Paula wasn’t privy to her friend’s opinion on the matter, or apparently to anything which wasn’t either coating her arms and legs, in her panties, or on the screen. She continued to masturbate at a sustained pace while repeating self-fulfilling prophecies about her own obsession with nylon stockings. Irina didn’t need to hear Paula telling... whoever... that she’d come, or how many times, or how hard... she had been in the room for each exquisite instance.

It was intoxicating. Irina could definitely see the draw to this fetish of Karl’s. The things thin wisps of fabric did to her friend’s form while she lost herself in a mess of pleasure and fluid-slicked nylon... Irina didn’t know when she’d gone from aroused by the show to fuck-all horny and in need of a wet, slippery pussy-satiating finger job of her own, but she couldn’t deny that was where she was at, now. Unfortunately, if she read the signs right, that was currently an impossibility to execute discreetly, since Paula was sitting normally again, working her way back up from her trance one numeral at a time. Fuck.

“Huh.”

Irina found that her response came out in a strangled-sounding croak. “Yeah?”

“Do you remember... did I have these gloves on when I started?”

“Uh... nope.”

“I... I put them on while I was... under?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. That’s... weird.”

“It was. To watch.”

“Eesh. It’s too bizarre for you, isn’t it? I can tell.”

“Been bizarre the whole time, sweetie. I told you that at the start,” she replied. “But you’re my best friend. I’ll make sacrifices.” Like postponing masturbating about your antics, for instance.

“Rina, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably do even more pervy shit. I keep you in line.” It was hard to imagine how much more “out-of-line” her friend could get, though. Or how she could go through that whole thing and not suspect what she had been doing while under. Did some suggestion Irina was not privy to instruct her to not notice how much of a sopping mess her panties were, or the post-orgasmic aches in her nether regions?

“Ha. Probably.” Paula headed for the closet in the back of the office, nonchalantly peeling off her gloves as she walked as if she’d already forgotten the oddity of how they’d manifested themselves. She flipped the light switch with her left hand while opening the closet door with her right.

Within, Irina caught a glimpse of numerous unidentifiable items on hangers, as well as a large mesh sack hanging from a hook on the inside of the door. After depositing the opera gloves within said container, her friend hiked up her sundress and reached around underneath to unclasp her garters... eight in all. The hose loosened a bit down her thigh, and she slid them off her calves and ankles almost tenderly, holding each up to the light for examination before depositing them in the same place the gloves had gone. “Dammit,” she muttered. “Ran one. Must have snagged it on something.”

Maybe your fingernails while you were pawing at yourself earlier, Irina did not say.

“I tell you, I go through more nylons now that I’m wearing them all the time... I need to be more careful. Especially with the fully-fashioned ones.”

“The what?”

“Fully-fashioned stockings. They’re old school vintage types with the seams, you know. No spandex, just pure flat nylon thread. They look and feel divine, but they’re expensive as hell.” Were Paula’s eyes crossing a bit in imagined rapture? “For special occasions only, unfortunately.”

“Didn’t know there were such differences.”

“Oh, yes. These,” she indicated the one she held in her hand, “are great for everyday wear, or for sleeping in.” Sleeping in?! “But these are to FFs like a boxed wine is to... some kind of really good stuff... I don’t actually know shit about wines.”

“Your use of analogy is so classy and profound, P.”

“I try.” She tossed the offending article into a small basket on the floor that was, if anything, more full of hosiery than the dirty laundry bag its twin had gone to, then shut the closet once more. “I don’t have any fresh ones down here, either.”

“Fresh ones?”

“I can’t very well wear the same hose to the mall as I wore to bed last night, can I?”

“Perish the thought!” Maybe if you didn’t sleep in them, for fuck’s sake.

“Oh, stop. I’m just trying to be ladylike.”

“No one is fooled, P.” A lady in the sitting room, but a whore in the hypno-computer office in the basement.

“Oh, stop it, you bitch! Let’s go upstairs so I can get ready.”

“I’ll be up in a minute. I’ve got like two pages to go on this chapter.”

“Okay. Hit the light as you come up.”

As Irina heard Paula’s footfalls at the top of the stairs, she used all the stealth she could muster to creep across the room and unlatch the closet door. She emitted a low whistle at the sight of twenty to thirty separate bits of lingerie, not a single one of which was without suspender straps. There were garter belts, long and short; open-bottomed girdles, waist length and full-body; corsets with hooks and corsets with laces... black and beige and peach and white stretchy lace as well as black and red and cinnamon and burgundy satin... innocent and practical mingled with trashy and slutty, obeying neither rhyme nor reason. She ran her hands over and inside one of the sleazier numbers... something she could vaguely recall as either a “merrywidow” or a “basque” or something similar from her younger days perusing Victoria’s Secret catalogs, when she’d had a man she’d wanted to bother to impress. Was one of these a waspie? she wondered. The material felt soft and smooth, and she held it to her cheek for a moment as she imagined...

“Hey, bookworm, you almost done down there?”

“Yeah, just closing it up. Be up in a sec.” Irina’s face was hot as she hurriedly put everything back in order, flipped off the light, and climbed the stairs.

She knew she wasn’t going to make it for long on this shopping expedition. She needed release, lots of release, and a quick and urgent stroke-off in the ladies’ room was not going to cover it tonight. Even ignoring how distractingly damp her panties were already, she knew seeing Paula trying on clothes in changing rooms, remembering the events of this evening while seeing her in underwear like the stuff from the closet with her “fresh” pair of stockings, was going to make matters worse.

She was already manufacturing excuses to bail early.

* * *

Irina was on fire, but she thought she could at least make it home from Paula’s house. Instead, she noticed the gas tank was near empty and realized that plan was not in the cards. Instead, she pulled into the back parking lot of a closed grocery store, eased her seat back, and went to town on herself.

Her fingers danced up her thighs to their juncture, and her moisture flowed free. God, she hadn’t felt this horny in months, and the fact that she’d been masturbating every day over the past few weeks didn’t seem to take the edge off at all. Her clit urgently demanded attention, but she teased herself by ignoring it and fingering her hole. Her double-fingered plunges felt divine, and as her palm repeatedly returned to her center she twisted it slightly to apply just the right pressure to the miniature nub of flesh that was slowly becoming the center of her whole being.

All the while, she couldn’t stop thinking about Paula... the way she looked while staring at the screen and reciting the poetry of garters and stockings and pussy... Paula’s hands clawing at her hosiery, outside, inside... the moans as she toyed with her panties and introduced the raw scent within them to the room. And to Irina, who had inhaled deeply and tried hard to keep not-strictly-heterosexual thoughts away. Or to a minimum, anyway. Perhaps enjoying this a little would be okay. When Irina finally lost the will to keep her fingers under control and they tweaked her clitoris, she cried aloud with the release, then relaxed into a puddle on the leather of the driver’s seat.

She knew that something was very wrong with this whole situation—that using hypnotism to instill someone else’s fetishes into yourself was a seriously co-dependent-ass way to preserve a relationship at best. She knew she needed to stop Paula from doing this. She knew that it was totally messed up to be bringing herself to orgasm after orgasm while thinking about how her best friend looked when she was becoming some kind of lust-driven fucktoy for anyone who brought her a pair of fucking nylons.

And she knew that next time she was going to take video with her phone. Not for Paula to watch, she thought, as shame overwhelmed her and her nipples stiffened again. For me.

* * *

Irina was late for the next session, and didn’t bother to knock; she’d been given a key by Paula within weeks of the home’s purchase and was at least theoretically welcome to invade at any time. Karl would still be on the trip for another three days, and while there was a part of Irina that had half-expected what she would discover, it was still a shock and a twisted little jolt to her libido to find Paula the way she did.

She was in the basement office, of course, and despite knowing Irina would be arriving any time in the next couple hours was already quite oblivious to the world outside her head, outside of the screen. The straps of her peach, satiny girdle were off her shoulders, allowing her tits to push free and expose most of their nipples to view as she leaned way back in her chair. Paula’s legs were propped up on the desk, sensuously gliding against one another with a nylonic sizzle that Irina’s clit couldn’t help but acknowledge.

One gloved hand was trapped firmly within the embrace of Paula’s thighs, the two middle fingers now pistoning in and out, now separating, pussy-slicked, to massage and twist the flesh on both sides of her clitoris. Irina wasn’t certain how long her friend had been at it, but her inner thighs were smeared messily with the shiny evidence of her copious fuckjuice, and the darkness of the fabric under her ass implied that the open bottom of the girdle was soaked through with more of the same. Her other hand was plunged to the wrist into the top of her stocking, desperate and rabid, exploring the feel of the flesh there, or the tightness of the sheer hose against fingers and palm... it was hard to be certain which, but it was clear from the rhythms of Paula’s masturbation that her points of greatest arousal were directly correlated with what she was doing and feeling with those nylon-limned digits. She was constantly murmuring something, too, but Irina couldn’t string together a real sentence with what words she could hear (though “stockings”, “pussy”, “fuck”, and “wet” all played unsurprisingly prominent roles). The trance software’s narrative had grown much more explicit in days past or Paula was on filthy-minded autopilot; either way, her filters were pretty much gone.

Confirmed, Irina thought as she heard her best friend moan, “My cunt, my fucking cunt...” The C-word was not and had never been a normal part of their vocabulary, even when alcohol was a factor, though both ladies were aware enough of each other to know that in the bedroom such social rules became detrimental or at the very least irrelevant. Didn’t expect her to be talking dirty to me, though. Or around me, anyway.

As Paula edged toward orgasm (and Irina had seen this sort of thing often enough recently to be embarrassingly aware of the signs), her eyes, fixed on the screen, slid shut with apparent finality. This didn’t diminish her urgency in any way; perhaps it just helped to focus it. In any case, one final, spasmodic twitch of her masturbating hand seemed to tense every muscle in her body simultaneously. Though it couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, it seemed to Irina like a slow-motion eternity to watch as her friend’s expression shifted from excitement and thrill to a beautiful agony... then her frozen-in-place body twisted and wrapped itself around her fingers, thrusting and curling without conscious purpose or even volition. Irina hadn’t noticed the brief silence of the past moment until it was shattered by the open-mouthed wordless cry, followed with panting and grunting like an animal thing.

It was by far the most arousing event Irina had ever witnessed, and her underwear was drenched beneath her loose summer skirt. She knew that not all of the pervasive sexual musk in the room belonged to her hypnotized best friend, and it was only through the utmost exercise of willpower that she was not herself masturbating to a suitably strong orgasm herself at this instant.

Willpower, certainly. As well as the fact that she was holding the camera on her phone as steady as she could, to capture every dripping moment.

Paula slowly came down from whatever higher plane she’d been inhabiting, and her eyes opened, refocusing on whatever was left on-screen. Irina dropped her phone into her purse as her friend began what Irina had come to think of as her awakening routine: slow, steady change to normal breathing, posture returning to a comfortable sitting position, countdown from 100 to 1... and sucking her fuckfingers clean of the mess she’d just indulged in. Whoever came up with that part of the entrancement is a sick motherfucker, she thought, but the humid heat in her own panties belied her attempted moralism on that fine point of mesmerist etiquette.

“Wow. That was so... intense. I feel...” Paula trailed off, words unsaid. No amount of denial could let her ignore the aroma of sex pervading the room, or her sweat, or the dampness of her apparel.

“Yeah, I’m sure you do.”

“Omigod, what did I...?”

“I... uh... think you had a good time. Maybe several.”

Paula put her head in her hands. “Arrrrrrghh! No! You weren’t supposed to have to see that!”

A little late to worry about that, dearie. “Yeah, well... no worse than all the times I caught you watching porn on your laptop in our dorm room.”

“That was one time. One!”

“One time I mentioned. There were others.”

“Liar!”

“Okay, Miss ‘Well-Hung-Aces-of-Spades’. And Miss ‘D.P.-Shenanigans.’”

Paula had been about to respond but her mouth snapped shut at this and she flushed. “Ulp. Oh, God, you must have thought I was such a whore!”

“You never got paid for it that I knew of.”

“That’s not... you know what I mean.”

“Babe, just because you never caught me didn’t mean I wasn’t just as bad. I was just better at hiding it than you were.” Good old Catholic-schoolgirl methods.

“Well... still. I’m sorry. That’s been happening a lot lately after my sessions. I didn’t think about during.” Really? How the fuck could you not know? It’s been going on since, like, the second time. “I really should have guessed that some time you’d... Do you hate me? You don’t have to do this for me ever again.”

“Yeah, thanks. It was a little...” excruciatingly arousing “... hard to handle.”

“I’m so... God, let me get changed and I’ll take you out and buy you dinner.”

“No, P, I’m kinda tired and I’m gonna head home now.”

“Omigod, you are mad, aren’t you?!”

No, ultra-fucking-horny. Again. “Kiddo, I promise you, I am not angry at you. I’m just not in the mood for dinner tonight. I will totally take a rain check if your guilt insists on it.”

“It does.”

“C’mon, walk me out, then.” If you can without sloshing. Jesus, you’re a swampy mess. “Slut.”

“Hey!”

* * *

It was broad daylight this time, and the prospect of getting caught behind the grocery store did not intrigue her, so Irina thought she must be the most dangerous woman on the roads this afternoon. When she got home she threw her keys on the table, made sure the blinds were closed, then hooked her phone into her TV set and proceeded to invade her friend’s privacy to an immoral extent while unceremoniously stripping off her clothes.

Is it really a violation if I’ve already seen it with permission? she rationalized. It’s not like I’m publishing it on the ’net or something. All philosophical thoughts left her as the scene of this afternoon’s debauchery came onscreen.

It was just as exciting the second time through as it had been live, with the notable improvement of being able to touch herself anywhere and everywhere while taking it all in on the replay. Normally she put a towel under herself if she had a “self-loving” session anywhere outside of bed, but all that was forgotten now; she was sopping and fragrant and too over-the-top to worry about messiness. She often had to tease herself with soft caresses for half an hour to get this lust-crazed, slowly increasing in intensity before she was this stimulated. But now it seemed like every nerve ending from her nipples to her ass was dancing to the beat of Paula’s filthy but delicious mind-fucking session. Irina edged herself close to orgasm without going over once... twice... then, guiltily but excitedly, she opened her handbag and withdrew her prize.

Before leaving, on pretext of grabbing her “forgotten” purse, Irina had filched one of the slinky bits from Paula’s “used and abused” pile in the closet. She removed it now, draping it across her breasts in order to feel the light silken fabric across her nipples. When she pinched them through the nylon the tingles from her pussy intensified almost unbearably in rhythm with her slow but quickening clitoral circles.

Video-Paula was bucking into her hands, now, and Irina stared at the muscles in her best friend’s calves flexing and toes curling beneath their slick transparent coverings. Irina couldn’t help but join her in this intense masturbatory rhythm, and while she continued to finger her own slit she slowly moved the pilfered stocking over her nose and mouth. She inhaled the smell of nylon thread and sweat and also

(My fucking cunt! the video cried

and yes, yes! Paula’s fucking cunt, I can smell it on the stocking)

inhaled her stocking-slut best friend’s sexual desperation and musk and oh, oh God, she was coming, so hard, and again... and so many times after that...

Sated after long, delightful moments of this, her breathing slowed, eventually, and she knew that with the ebbing fire in her loins would return the guilt and shame of what she was thinking, what she had been doing.

Irina hastily searched the web on her phone and clicked a purchase before she could change her mind.

* * *

It was two days and an Amazon Prime delivery later when Paula next invited Irina over for coffee. Two days of surfing stocking porn and “letting her fingers do the walking” while she waited and... maybe, once or twice, watching the phone camera footage of her best friend’s entranced masturbation again. Perhaps it was more like three or four times. Five tops. The borrowed wisp of hose had gained several more runs in it from rough usage Irina didn’t like to think about or acknowledge in her non-aroused moments. She had planned to return it surreptitiously next time she saw Paula, but she felt like that was almost as messed up as stealing it in the first place, given the things she’d done with it by now.

Karl was there when she arrived, cat-who-ate-the-canary grin plastered all over his face. “Morning, Rina!” He was wearing his hiking boots, t-shirt, and shorts whose fly he’d apparently forgotten to zip. Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he dumped the last of the milk from his breakfast cereal into the sink and then walked toward the door, stopping only to kiss Paula deeply on the way out... and to cop a feel at the hem of her housedress, scritching lightly with his nails on the white-tinged hosiery beneath. He rolled his eyes and shuddered, perhaps in mock-climax, then smiled. With a tip of the hat to Irina, he emitted a cheery, “See you ladies at dinner!” before exiting through the garage door.

They moved to the living room sofas. Small talk presented itself, but it wasn’t long before Irina let an awkward silence lapse, and Paula cleared her throat to fill it.

“What’s up, lady? You seem thrown off, somehow.”

I’ve been using you as porn and can’t decide whether to feel guilty or merely demented. “It’s nothing. Has everything been going okay?” She inclined her head toward the door Karl had retreated through.

“Never better.” She crossed her legs and placed her hand near her knees. Was she even aware she was stroking them in that particular, sensual way? Was it conscious or subconscious? Would I even notice if I were unaware of your recent mindfucking activities? “You have no idea how horny I get now from even the thought of wearing stockings... let alone actually putting them on.”

Possibly some idea. “Wow. Paula, do you maybe... ever wonder if maybe this... thing you’re doing... is maybe a little out of control?”

“If you say ‘maybe’ again I’m going to shoot you.”

“Ha. Fine. I’m just saying... you seem a little obsessed.”

“Best obsession ever! Karl’s happy, I’m happy... I’m enjoying sex more than before, and even getting dressed in the morning has become like foreplay for me. What’s to dislike?”

“You don’t feel like it’s changing you?”

“Well of course it’s changed me. That was the point. But is it a good change, like quitting smoking, or a bad change, like voting Republican? Definitely the former.” Her friend looked at her more closely. “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

Hot and bothering, maybe. “No. I mean, yes, at first, but I figured, ‘Hey, doesn’t seem to be too harmful.’ Lately, though...”

“Um hmmm?” There she went, doing that stroking again, this time her calves. Pointing her toes and dangling her bedroom slipper off her foot. Irina lost her train of thought. “Hello?”

“Never mind. I just remembered—” This was the awkward moment she’d half-planned over the past several days and never quite decided whether to actually proceed with or not. “—I’ve... got a present for you,” Irina responded, breathlessly. “I found them online and figured you’d appreciate them, knowing your new... proclivities. And your birthday’s in, like, six weeks or so, right?”

Paula’s eyes widened as she opened the gift bag, withdrawing the contents, and Irina didn’t think she imagined seeing her nostrils flare. “Oh my God, you shouldn’t have!”

I know, thought Irina. This could well be definitive proof that I’m even more fucked up than you are.

It was too late to stop things, now, of course. Paula was grinning and staring at the envelope, her hand already fumbling with the seal. “Fully-fashioned, 15 denier, 60 gauge... these must have been expensive...” The packet came open, and Paula ran it under her nose and breathed in deeply.

“They were pricey,” Irina admitted as her friend’s cheeks blushed a bit in excitement, whether from the aroma of the nylon or in anticipation of what came next. “But that’s what you pick for gifts... something you know they’ll appreciate but won’t buy for themselves.”

“Mmmmmm...” Paula replied, nominally listening but questionably hearing as she unwrapped the tissue from the stiff card on which the hosiery was wound. She took part of one stocking between her thumb and fingers and stroked it in a circular motion for a moment, then rubbed it against her cheek. Irina was uncertain why this display was causing her own nipples to stiffen, but Paula’s breathing was definitely getting heavier.

“This is... this is so lovely, darling. I’m...” Paula was looking up at her, again, now. “Should I try them on right now?”

Oh, God, don’t, she thought, even as her pussy moistened desperately. Stop it, she instructed her offending libido, but the response back was insolent, disobedient... and lubricant.

“Nah, you don’t have to. Save them for alone time. I mean, alone with Karl.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Paula replied. Her voice grew husky. “You should at least get to see me in them. To thank you.”

“I—” she continued to object, defying the counterattacking voices from her nether regions, but the other woman took matters out of her hands by sliding her dress up and unclasping all six of the garter clips with practiced fingers. The nylons she was already wearing loosened and drooped slightly, and Paula was careful in removing them the rest of the way. It wasn’t until they were both off and draped over the arm of the couch that she glanced away from them to her friend, perhaps a little shyly, but with hooded eyes. With a happy sigh, she turned to the new treat of fine hosiery.

I want to thank the person who gives them to me in the sexiest way possible. And, oh God, was she fulfilling that brainwashed pledge. Paula took the first stocking in hand, holding it up to the light and gazing for an instant at its sheerness before rolling it up with both hands to reach the end. Bending her knee to bring her pointed foot into view, she slid the hose past her toes and rounded the heel, checking that her foot was aligned with the darker reinforcements and that the seam was on track. Satisfied, she slowly and deliberately unfurled the nylon to heel-length, then to mid-calf. With a look on her face that mimicked the one Irina had many times recently seen focused thoughtlessly into the green light of a computer monitor, Paula extended her leg at a diagonal upward through the ring of silken fabric, pausing every few inches to obsess over whether the line up the back was straight. Irina’s eyes almost crossed in the eroticism of the moment, and she squeezed her thighs together in a way that strummed her clitoris without (she hoped) being obvious. She had noticed the ceiling fan was on, but it didn’t seem to be cooling her off very much.

When the welt unfolded into view, Paula held her leg in place, straight and pointed at shoulder height, as she examined it from several angles. When her work had passed quality inspection, she smiled and lowered it to the floor. The light blue of her dress and whatever undergarments she wore beneath it failed to hide the stiffness of her nipples, and the blush which reached from her ears down her neck was telling. She spent an instant pulling slack here, smoothing wrinkles there before attaching the first silvery garter clasp to the front. The second, on the side, followed soon enough, but for the third she needed to stand up. There was no rational reason she needed to turn her rear end to her best friend while she hitched up her skirt to access the back fastener and mate it with the top of the hosiery... but she nonetheless did so. Irina could see sheer, tight black panties over the top of the straps

always... over the top

and the crack of Paula’s ass was clearly visible, framed by the low-slung satin of the garter belt. Paula strained to look over her shoulder, down over her round behind, to verify everything was in order, and winked at Irina, who felt that her gulp must have been way too obvious.

“Well,” Irina gasped. “That was...” disturbingly, maddeningly exciting? “... impressive.”

“And that was just the first one. Rina, dear, I think I’ll need help with the second.”

“Wh—what?”

“You heard me.” She dangled the second stocking in front of the other woman. “Take it and help me out. Pretty please?” Her tone was that of a seven year-old, but the look on her face was worldly, knowing, and near-predatory.

Irina shook her head at that look; no one should guess her thoughts on this, let alone take advantage of them. This was not right. She didn’t want this, not really, not... it was all just weird, even if a little sexy, and...

“You know you want to,” Paula purred.

And she did, she honest-to-God did. Why else had she bought those damned stockings? And fucked herself silly to mental scenes at least superficially resembling this one, even if the face of her friend had been mercifully blurred out by her internal censors? This was insane and wrong and dreadfully hot.

She fell to her knees and removed the stocking from her best friend’s hand. “All right,” she breathed.

The vantage was different, now, but certainly no less arousing for all that. She felt the luxurious fabric between her fingers as she started it up Paula’s foot and leg. She’d not bothered to bunch it first, so it was askew and jumbled, and the other woman giggled at the sight of her inexpert attempt. Irina didn’t retract the hose, she just made do, fitting the end of the nylon to the toes and shifting them into place. These weren’t like pantyhose, she could feel. The filmy material was softer, less stretchy, and sewn to fit the foot that wore it; she adjusted the heel treatment and smoothed the wrinkles upward to where the nylon was starting to tighten around the ankle. The seams were hopelessly wrecked from her earlier carelessness, so she spent the next moment sliding the overlapping parts around to correct for that. Calf and knee felt extremely warm through the silken mist, and when Irina looked up at her face she saw that Paula’s eyes, half-closed, had rolled up beneath their lids, her jaw slackening with relaxed abandon. Irina wanted to join her, there; she wasn’t consciously applying pressure to her own pussy any more with her upper legs, but it was evident that her subconscious was doing a decent job of quasi-masturbating her regardless.

The whole of the stocking was more orderly, now, and she moved it up Paula’s thigh, stretching the now-darker section toward the first dangling strap. She discovered that this necessitated removing some of the wrinkles that had accumulated on her journey, and Irina used both hands, starting at the ankle and continuing all the way up Paula’s leg, to smooth out the offenses, eliciting a sigh of pleasure from the other woman’s lips. Then the first strap was clamped into place, pulling the top of the stocking into a taut, rounded chevron that for some reason made her want to nibble it. Reaching her hand up Paula’s dress to attach the second gave her pause, but she diligently moved the skirt out of the way to do so. For the third... She cleared her throat.

Paula’s eyes fell open again, glazed with emotion. She saw the problem, licked her lips rapidly and probably unconsciously, then slowly but surely raised her leg up from the sofa to expose the third strap dangling from her backside. And placed her foot on Irina’s shoulder. For balance, surely.

Irina leaned in to assist her hands’ shift from slippery, silken stocking to heated thigh, pinching the back of the welt in the last metal clasp, and as she did so she inhaled the strong upskirt aroma of turned-on girl. The reasons for this did not escape her, as her own libido was on overdrive, but she still felt bizarrely torn between considering herself a voyeur or an active participant despite her obvious... activity.

Paula refused to let this self-deception maintain its foothold. “Rina,” she asked, “will you... straighten my seams?” A note of urgency entered her voice, and her ankle moved to stroke Irina’s cheek with its texture. “Please?”

Rina’s assent was wordless. She held the ankle with a pair of fingers from each hand, feeling the seam between them, following it up to the cup at the back of the knee. There the sewn line became visible from her angle, and she could see that it was slightly off kilter as she switched to her thumbs. The sound as her manicured nails lightly scraped the nylon wrought goosebumps up her back and across her chest—as did the sensation of her palms on lightly coated flesh, if she was being honest with herself—and when she reached the circular finishing loop at the top, she fondled it a bit... repeatedly circling it lightly but insistently with a fingertip. Paula’s gasp indicated she got the message from that, loud and clear, and she closed her eyes, whispering, “Yes.”

Irina, already past the mental point of no-return, slid her hands to the uncovered upper thigh... and beyond. The lace underwear concealed little, from this angle and distance, and exuded a moist air that felt like summer. In stroking there she found this dampness and its accompanying bouquet turning to slippery wetness and thick musk, and the toes on her shoulder curled in reaction. Irina was caught up in the crazed arousal of the moment and started kissing and licking her way up the stocking to its end. Another leg joined its fellow, on the opposite side of her neck, and her fingers moved aside the thin lace before her as her face sank into thighs, into cunt, into lust-driven, hungry oblivion.

She moaned into her best friend as the scent and taste enveloped her, and as the stocking-clad legs tightened around her head, muffling what she could hear of Paula’s extremely vocal but nonverbal reaction. She had no need for clarity in the latter, though: she could tell by the reactive thrusts to her mouth and by the fingers coiled in her hair precisely what she was doing to the other woman, and how well it was appreciated. This was new to her, and different... but not so different she couldn’t divine her way through intuition. Every woman had her own need for variation, she expected, but the near-universality of rhythmic strokes and small circles around the clit from her personal experience on the other end of the mouth served her well.

Not that the target of her oral ministrations seemed inclined to be picky, at this point. In her state of heightened sensual awareness, under the influence of the mind-altering suggestions she’d been pouring into her own head for weeks, Paula was likely a hair trigger away from bliss just from having this luxury hosiery on at all, let alone the further stimulation of being eaten out by the allegedly-straight best friend who had gifted it to her. Irina herself, not subject to the hypnotic commands, was already in the throes of orgasm without even touching her pussy, from the sheer eroticism of the situation and some barely-voluntary thigh squeezing. She shrieked her climax into the other woman’s cunt, and though less audible through wet flesh than it might have been, Paula’s reaction to the muted sounds implied that the mere thought of her friend getting off just from licking her was enough to push her, too, over the edge... How many times she could not judge, but Irina kept up the tender kisses, slurps, and intimate cunnilingual massage for moments more, until the hands on the back of her head slackened and the nylon-slick heels on her back relaxed their tension and slid to the floor.

“C’mere,” came the lazy call from above, and Irina made her way through a couple layers of disarrayed skirt to surface, face a glistening mess from the nose down. Paula was not deterred, though, and she pulled the other woman up by her shoulders to sit, nose-to-nose, in her lap. Her eyes were wide, fascinated, and possibly in shock, but she nuzzled Irina and tentatively offered a kiss. “Wow.”

Irina was, for her part, embarrassed—at her own impulsive, wanton behavior as well as by the knowledge that she smelled like a whorehouse. But she was still immensely aroused, and returned the kiss eagerly, despite her misgivings. She broke off a bit, looking in the other woman’s eyes, searchingly. Paula returned the curious gaze, then tried to respond to the unasked questions she apparently found there. “That was... intense. I don’t know what came over... What you did to me... I know it was me, I made you, but I...”

Irina shook her head. “You didn’t make me. I knew what I was doing the whole time. Well, most of the time. I... enjoyed it.”

Paula laughed at that. “You enjoyed it? I came so hard I thought I was going to die!”

“I... wanted that. I don’t know why. I really don’t. But I’ve been watching you for weeks and your stocking fetish... it really got to me. You should see what you’re like when you’re hypnotized. I... um... was going to show you the video.”

Paula arched an eyebrow at her, but her lips quirked in bemusement rather than offense. “I’ll have to take you up on that sometime.” She sighed, finally relaxed, and held Irina’s pretty, flushed cheek to her bosom; Irina, however, was anything but relaxed, and her friend could tell. “What’s up, honey? You’re fidgety.”

“I’m okay. I just need... to relieve some tension, is all. I’ll go to the ladies room for a minute. Be right ba—”

She held Irina firmly in her lap. “Wait, I thought you...”

“Um, just the once. It’s okay, I’ll—”

“Oh.” Paula looked conflicted, but resolute. “Sweetie, stay. Let me see what I can do for you. I don’t know if I’m ready to... do what you did to me. But we can do other stuff, if you want.”

“Other stuff?”

“The old bump-and-grind?”

Irina dimpled. “My God, are we virgins back in high school, now?”

“Hey, I was a lesbian virgin until a couple minutes ago.”

“Still are, when it comes to the fun stuff.”

“Really? That good, huh?”

“Let’s just say I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it.”

“Well, I’ll... try it sometime. I promise. Just, for now...”

“I’ll wear stockings...” came a singsong reply.

Paula’s eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. Women in stockings are so seductive and sexy. They always get what they want. “Grrr...” She kissed the woman in her lap deeply, and her right hand swatted aimlessly at the sofa arm, where the hosiery she’d removed still lurked. When she finally had it in her grasp, she pushed it into Irina’s hand and broke away from a lip-lock that seemed to be—impossibly—getting her riled up again.

“You get started,” she panted. “I’ll fetch you something to hold them up.”

“Hurry back,” came the hoarse reply, and Irina chuckled as her friend stumbled off toward the bedroom, the light summer dress sticking to her awkwardly in damp patches. Though Irina was not in a rush, the other woman was gone long enough on the errand that the left stocking was past her knee and thighward-bound by the time Paula returned, accompanied by a black and red lace hip-hugging suspender belt.

“This is a little loose on me, but I think it will fit you just...” Seeing her friend with one leg already limned in nylon made her trail off. “Uh... here.”

Irina smiled at the other woman’s obvious distraction, and put the belt around her waist; it was a decent fit, though her hips were so wide that she had to put the hooks in the furthest-out eye loops to keep comfortable. It didn’t exactly match her other underwear, but she doubted she was being graded on the highest fashion criteria right now. Paula watched her raptly as she hooked the nylon to the suspenders. She was awkward at it, not having much practice, but the fumbling merely appeared to tantalize her observer so she didn’t rush. In fact, she took a much longer time on the second stocking, just to tease, but with another emitted growl Paula got down on her knees, knocked Irina’s hands aside, and took care of the matter herself with practiced hands.

When she finished, she rocked back on her heels, taking in the view of her handiwork, and Irina could see her flushed again, biting her lip. Their hands gravitated together, and once fingers entangled the ladies were pulled together by mutual, unspoken agreement.

Paula straddled Irina on the couch, entwining their legs together with a hiss of nylon friction, felt as much as heard, and sending chills up both their spines. Paula had taken the time to remove her panties when she’d fetched the lingerie for Irina, and Irina herself... hadn’t actually worn any to begin with, the other had discovered while applying hosiery to upper thigh. She gave a coo of delight as their respective sexes kissed with warm, wet fervor. The friction was gentle, at first, with their scissored legs taking up much of the action, but soon enough Paula recognized Irina’s gasping reactions every time her cunt was touched, even slightly, in their sliding motions, and felt how the other woman’s hips desperately bucked upward toward her own. This, along with her own parallel sensations, made her aggressively grind down on her new lover; the glide of smooth expanses of thigh was replaced by slick folds which provided extra-stimulating ripples for clitorises to respond to. Both women had already come to orgasm in their earlier play, but Paula more strongly and extravagantly, and it seemed to give her some libidinal distance that allowed her to focus on bringing off Irina. Surely the way she circled Irina’s clit with her own nether lips caused the woman on the bottom to sigh and, soon enough, pant. The tightness of their interlocked thighs continued to build the tension in Irina’s loins, and just before it crashed over her she grabbed her best friend’s ass and waist for leverage and thrust upward at her, hard and repeatedly. This final motion released a hot wave of bliss which poured from the crown of her head all the way down to her stockinged toes and the multiple aftershocks came just as Paula wrapped her nyloned calves around Irina’s in delighted involuntary convulsions of her own.

They sank into the couch cushions in a melted mass of overheated girlflesh and waited for their breathing to slow to normal levels. Paula pillowed the side of her face on Irina’s breasts and closed her eyes, seeming ready to drift off, but the latter’s mild motion beneath her caused their legs to rub together, and Paula was too heavily hypno-conditioned to have a chance at ignoring that sensation in favor of something as paltry as sleep. Her eyes fluttered open, and she lifted up on her forearms, peeking not-very-surreptitiously over her shoulder at the intermingled limbs and their oh-so-exciting coatings. Paula’s eyes, staring down at this, looked as hypnotized as Irina had ever seen them. Irina unexpectedly felt her partner moving downward on her body, perhaps to get a closer look at the way the tops of her stockings hit her thighs, and then gasped in surprise when she felt Paula’s mouth... there.

“Paula, baby...” she panted. “I appreciate it, I do, but I can’t— I can’t come again. I just had like a zillion orgasms. You don’t have to—”

“Hush, Irina. I want to feel your stockings on my cheeks. I want to taste you. I want you to fuck my mouth. If you orgasm, that’s just a bonus for me. Now just lie back and open your legs.”

She did. And then Paula did... that.

And it turned out that a zillion-and-one was not entirely out of reach after all.

* * *

So now here she was, a month later. She’d googled enough hypno-porn stories in the last few weeks to suspect she should be wondering whether somehow she’d accidentally been affected by being present during Paula’s frequent trips to the shadowy, silken side of her mind but, realistically, she didn’t think so. She definitely had a serious stocking fetish going herself, as evinced by the most recent sessions with her best friend, but it seemed to Irina that she’d come by it “honestly”—that it was not born of some internet guy with a pocket watch but instead from the sheer eroticism of watching her best friend exhibit more and more seductive and sensuous behaviors around her new choice of legwear. And while Irina did encase her legs in those same tight, filmy morsels of nylon whenever possible, she wore them for the mind-warping, panty-soaking reaction it obtained from Paula, not out of any personal satisfaction from the feel of the nylons herself. Ergo, she concluded, I’m not affected.

Though, admittedly, vintage-style “foundation garments” were getting to be an obsession with her. Go figure. She even knew what a waspie was, now.

That said, it was after her third climax tonight from her old-friend-and-new-lover’s tongue that she wondered how it would feel to be like Paula was about the stockings, the shapewear. To be an utter slave to the texture of diaphanous fabric on her legs and hands, to get off on the sensations and the thoughts of what she was wearing. To look at herself in the mirror and be as excited as she was now when she looked at Paula, legs wrapped in silken, tinted hosiery and rapt with wanton need. She wondered, darkly, if she should start watching the trance website, too.

And because Irina had always prided herself on being a very introspective person, in the afterglow of rubbing and licking herself and her girlfriend into sexual exhaustion she spent a moment of self-analysis. Thinking back on the events of tonight, she was forced to concede that the disturbing thoughts about joining her friend in mesmerized stocking lust hadn’t really occurred after, or even during, her orgasm.

No, she admitted to herself with a secret, very wrong thrill.

Those thoughts had, in fact, caused it.