for Hypnofan

Denise Cromwell had been called many names through the centuries, and most of them had washed away from memory along with the faces of the ones who spoke them. “Enchantress” had once been fashionable and a favorite of hers until the world’s tongue turned against those of her ilk, and “witch” became the more frequent accusation. 

When she passed mirrors, something she didn’t do that often, Denise saw a woman in her mid-twenties. Her skin was as pale and unblemished as new wax, her hair as dark as a coal mine at midnight, and her lips were bright red. But all that glamour was a curtain. Behind it, she was at least two centuries old, and each decade had left a secret on her bones.

After the cholera years in Manhattan, after the fire in Salem, after what Denise only ever called “the Paris episode,” she had learned to move often enough that the trail of odd disappearances and unsolved seductions could neither smolder nor burst into pyre. The early twenty-first century, with its blinding speeds and bottomless appetites, suited her to a T. In this new neighborhood, a suburban cul-de-sac curated for the most demanding and always dissatisfied, Denise found herself almost invisible, just another single woman with expensive shoes, living her best life.

Her home was a two-story, newly built thing with an open floor plan and an unfinished basement, which was all the better for her purposes. The ritual demanded a sanctum, a place where the earth was as close as possible, and the only witnesses were the living and the soon-to-be less-than-alive. Denise spent her days sealing the windows with salt, painting runes behind drywall, and, when neighbors came to offer casseroles or gossip, she would shape reality around her with the same ease that other people shaped small talk. They saw what she wanted them to see, and they loved everything about it.

Her magic was old, predatory, and personalized. She did not ride broomsticks or cackle or cast spells in Latin. Her power came from the body: the softness of skin, a certain glance, the press of large breasts beneath a silk blouse. It was physical, feral, chemical. She knew how to draw out need from the most indifferent man, or unravel the hard-wired logic of a woman’s skepticism in less than a minute.

On a wet Tuesday evening, Denise stood at her window and watched Linda, the woman from across the street, fighting with her husband again and pounding the steering wheel as she parked her Honda in the driveway.

Linda stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut. Her blonde hair was disheveled, green eyes glinting with anger as she stormed toward her house.

Linda’s husband appeared in the doorway, his arms crossed as he leaned against the frame. He said something to Linda, but Denise was too far away to hear the words. Linda’s response was a sharp retort, her voice carrying across the street before disappearing inside the house. Denise sensed the tension between them, the magnetic pull of their anger and frustration. They were a recent couple, not even a year in their new relationship, but were already going through the motions of people who couldn’t wait to be single again. Denise liked that. It made her plans so much easier.

Denise turned away from the window, her mind already churning with thoughts of Linda. She had always been drawn to the newcomers, the ones who still had a spark of life in them. They were fresh meat, so to speak, and Denise couldn’t resist the allure.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing her thoughts on the woman across the street. She could feel Linda’s anger, her frustration, her sadness. And she knew that she could use it to her advantage.

With a flick of her wrist, Denise began to weave her spell. She whispered incantations under her breath, her voice low and hypnotic. The arcane magic flowed through her, filling the room with an otherworldly energy.

And then, she felt it – a connection, a link between her and Linda. Denise smiled, her eyes snapping open. It was time to begin.

Denise stepped outside and headed over to her neighbor’s house. The young wife answered the door in an oversized college sweatshirt, her face blotched with mascara and anger. Denise said nothing at first, only offering a full, slow smile, and allowing Linda to size her up and what she was wearing.

Denise was wearing a deep V-neck, emerald green blouse that clung to her, highlighting her ample assets. The fabric had a subtle sheen, catching the dim porch light and making her skin seem to glow. Linda couldn’t help but follow the path of the shimmering material down to where it tucked into a pair of tailored, black slacks. A delicate gold chain disappeared into the cleavage-baring top, drawing Linda’s gaze even further.

Denise’s long, dark hair tumbled over her shoulders in loose waves, framing her face and making her bright red lips look even more inviting. Her eyes, a captivating shade of hazel, sparkled with a mysterious energy that Linda found both fascinating and unnerving.

The enchantress stood at the door with an air of confidence and grace, like a predator among prey. She was aware of the effect she had on Linda, and she reveled in it. The tension between them was palpable, and Denise had the upper hand.

“Denise?” Linda muttered, her eyes still fixed on the other woman’s cleavage. “I’m sorry, but now is not a good time.”

“No, my dear, it’s the perfect time,” Denise purred. “I noticed you were having a bit of a disagreement with your husband. I hope everything is alright.”

“Oh, yes… It was nothing, but thank you for checking in. Good night,” Linda bit her lip and moved to close the door.

Denise’s hand shot out, stopping Linda from closing the door. “Oh, I insist,” Denise murmured, her voice as smooth as silk. Linda’s gaze was still fixated on Denise’s cleavage, her mind hazy and unfocused. The enchantress took advantage of the other woman’s distraction, using it to further weave her spell.

The magic burrowed deeper into Linda, making her feel heavy and languid. It was as if a warm, comforting fog was rolling through her mind, clouding her thoughts and leaving her suggestible and pliable. Denise watched with satisfaction as Linda’s eyes grew glassy, her body swaying from side to side.

“Come now, there’s no need to be shy,” Denise cooed, stepping closer to Linda and placing a hand on her shoulder. The young wife didn’t resist as Denise pulled her out of the comfort of her home and declared, “You want to come with me now.”

“Y-yes, I do.”

Linda’s husband - Nicholas - emerged from the living room, drawn by the persistent sound of voices at the front door. He was a tall man with a softening jawline and the distracted air of someone who was now recognizing how little control he possessed over his life. He wore a T-shirt from a half-forgotten tech startup and gym shorts. He held a fresh can of IPA in his right hand.

He surveyed Denise and his wife through watery, sleep-deprived eyes and muttered, “What’s going on here?”

Denise took in Nicholas with the cool appraisal of a butcher inspecting a side of beef. She smiled, revealing more teeth than necessary, and in that instant, Nicholas’ stomach dropped. “Nicholas, darling,” Denise said, “I need you to stay right where you are. I’ll deal with you in a moment.”

Nicholas burped and tried to summon some indignation to her words, but Denise’s attention alone worked like a vice. The words jammed up at the back of his throat and refused to come out. A strange prickling sensation ran from his scalp to his heels, followed by an airy numbness that left him standing frozen mid-step. The can fell from his hand and rolled under the couch, foaming out the last of its contents like a miniature chemical spill. 

Linda herself didn’t even turn to look. She was transfixed by Denise, her gaze trailing up and down the other woman’s silhouette as if she was reading an erotic poem in braille.

Denise kept hold of Linda’s wrist, gentle but unyielding. “Come, my dear. Let’s give your husband a moment to himself,” she murmured, guiding Linda across the threshold and onto the damp concrete of the porch. The rain had stopped, but left the world shining, cars and streetlights reflected in little black lakes on the pavement. Denise walked Linda across the front lawn, never glancing back at Nicholas, who stood inside his own house like a department store mannequin, lips parted in a silent O of confusion.

When they reached Denise’s house, Linda expected to be ushered inside with some neighborly pretext: tea, perhaps, or a shoulder to cry on. Instead, Denise opened the door and pulled her in, the motion so seamless that Linda’s feet almost didn’t touch the ground.

The interior of Denise’s home was unlike any Linda had seen: minimalist and spotless, every surface matte and inviting. Linda’s thoughts drifted. She realized that she no longer cared to remember what she and Nicholas were even fighting about. Her anger had been replaced by something softer, deeper, and much more dangerous. “I—” she began, but Denise silenced her with a finger pressed to her lips.

“There’s nothing you need to say, Linda,” Denise whispered. “You just need to obey.” The witch led the entranced woman down the hallway, past the kitchen, and into a black door at the end of it.

They descended a flight of unfinished wooden stairs to the basement, the air growing cooler and heavier as they moved. Linda blinked, expecting a dank, concrete cell. Instead, the space glowed with warm, golden light. Several people lounged on an old sectional sofa, all of them in varying states of undress, their eyes glazed with the same serenity that was now blooming in her chest. No one spoke. No one needed to. Denise deposited Linda among them, then kneeled to brush a strand of hair from her cheek, as tenderly as a mother tucking in a child.

Linda recognized some people in the basement: the barista from the coffee shop down the block, Greg, a bored insurance claims adjuster, and Mrs. Reynolds’ daughter, Jill, whose ears had so many piercings it was a miracle the flesh around them hadn’t fallen off yet. She didn’t make a sound when Denise removed her sweatshirt, exposing the fresh bruises underneath. 

“That son of a bitch!” Denise mumbled. “Don’t worry, Linda. I’ll teach him a lesson for you.”

She had almost all the thralls she needed for the night’s ritual. Nicholas would be the last piece of the puzzle, but first…

Denise locked the basement door behind her, leaving her captives drifting in their altered states of mind. It was as if everyone in the basement had merged into a single consciousness, dreaming of her.  

The house across the street was lit up like a theater set. Denise saw Nicholas through the window, lips parted, eyes filmed over by the lingering residue of her magic. 

The witch strolled across the rainy yard with a confidence that bordered on euphoria. The blood moon above, swollen and streaked with clouds, cast her shadow over the sidewalk like she was the only real person left in the world.

Inside, Nicholas had not moved from his last pose. His head was cocked slightly. Denise stepped right up to him, close enough that her green blouse brushed against his arm. The smell of IPA and stale fear radiated off him in waves.

“Nick,” Denise said. “You’ll want to sit down for this.”

Her words rebooted his nervous system. Nicholas stumbled backward, tripped on the raised lip of the foyer rug, and landed on the entryway bench with a meaty thud. His hands groped for stability, but Denise was already hovering over him, her hair falling like a velvet curtain around his line of sight.

“Hey,” he said, in the voice of a man who used to be confident, “you can’t just… What are you doing in my house?”

Denise stared at his pupils and saw the struggle in his conscious mind. He was trying to remember what had happened, what Linda’s parting words had been, whether he’d wanted to stop her, or chase after her, or even if he’d cared. He looked at Denise’s blouse, at the too-perfect V of her cleavage, and forgot to be angry. The muscles in his jaw grew loose.

“You’re going to answer a few questions for me,” she declared. “And you’re going to tell the truth, even if you’ve forgotten what the truth is.”

He nodded, lost, and Denise let her hand rest on his thigh. The heat of her palm seemed to burn right through the synthetic mesh of his shorts.

“Let’s start easy,” Denise said, her voice all honey. “How long have you been hitting Linda?”

The question slipped past his defenses and detonated behind his eyes. He looked away, blinking, and then he mumbled, “Just a couple times. Not like… all the time.”

A lesser witch might have gone for the jugular here, but Denise smiled. She stroked his thigh, her nails grazing the sensitive skin, and let the pause stretch until it was unbearable.

“Don’t lie to me, Nick,” she growled. “Or I’ll make sure you always remember every blow.”

He started to shake his head, then stopped. The truth, or something like it, surfaced on his tongue: “She just knows how to push my buttons. She never listens. She never…” He shuddered, the words trailing off into a whimper.

Denise’s hand crept upward, pressing into the crease where thigh met groin. She could feel the heat building in him, the old, reptilian need that had gotten him through college and into Linda’s bed and now made him a perfect marionette for her ritual.

“You’d like to hit me, wouldn’t you?” Denise asked.

He swallowed. The answer was yes, but the words wouldn’t form.

“Go ahead,” she whispered, and in the same motion withdrew her hand and slapped him hard across the face. The sound echoed in the empty house.

Nicholas flinched, surprise and arousal warring for dominance in his nervous system. He looked up at her, bewildered, and Denise cocked her head, as if waiting for him to do it back.

Instead, he buckled. His shoulders sagged. Tears ran down his face, but he didn’t wipe them away. In that instant, Denise saw the little boy in him, the one who had grown up learning to swing first and ask questions later, and she almost pitied him. Almost.

She grabbed his chin, turned his head until their eyes met, and said, “You’re going to apologize to Linda tonight. But first, I need you to come with me.”

He nodded, not even bothering to resist.

She led him by the wrist. The rain had started again, fine needles on their faces. The air was filled with adrenaline as they crossed the street. Before he knew it, they were inside her house.

Down the hall, down the stairs. Nicholas only hesitated when the basement door swung open, and the raw animal noise hit him: breathing, low moans, the flesh-on-flesh percussion of people lost to their own bodies. The sight made him reel. Linda and the others were splayed across the furniture, their faces luminous with sweat and trance.

Denise tightened her grip on Nicholas’s wrist. She maneuvered him down the stairs in two steps and pinned his back to the drywall. “You’re going to stand right here,” she said, “and watch what happens when you lose control.”

He couldn’t look away. Denise, suffused with moonlight, was already shedding her blouse, her bare skin radiating a heat that drew every eye in the room. She beckoned Linda forward, and the young wife came as if on puppet strings, moving with a grace she’d never shown in life. Denise wrapped Linda in a slow, hungry kiss, one hand threading through the girl’s hair, the other sliding down her bruised side. When Linda moaned, the energy in the room spiked; the others responded in kind, their hands reaching for each other, then for Denise, then for Linda.

Nicholas stood rooted in the doorway, breathing hard, his mind a battlefield of horror and fascination and, above all, jealousy. Denise’s magic kept him nailed to the wall.

Denise broke from Linda and fixed her gaze on Nicholas. “This is what you wanted, right?” she purred. “An obedient woman who always knows how to listen.” She crossed the room in four strides and closed her hand around Nicholas’s throat, just enough to remind him who was in control now.

She brought her knee up into his groin. Nicholas doubled over, the pain collapsing him onto the basement steps. Denise released him and let him slither the rest of the way down, coming to rest at Linda’s bare feet.

The room became silent except for the wet, gasping breaths of the assembled bodies. Denise crouched beside Nicholas, stroked his cheek, then tipped his chin so he was looking straight into Linda’s blank eyes.

“Apologize,” Denise ordered.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and as he said the words, Denise’s will wrapped around him and squeezed whatever thoughts of independence he still had in him. His eyes became as vacant as everyone else’s, the last puppet she needed.

Denise stood over them, arms open, the high priestess of this new order. Her thralls gathered around, undulating toward her warmth, and she accepted their offerings of flesh and spirit with bottomless hunger. The ritual had begun. Denise fed on their longing and regret, their pain and their pleasure, drawing it into herself until her skin shone like copper.

The thralls gasped, arched, dug nails into her shoulders, and whimpered her name, but none recalled these things even as they happened. Denise moved from body to body, orchestrating the crescendo and collecting each ounce of power they had to offer. Their energy increased her powers, making it possible for her to carry on living a few more years without the fear of decay.

The blood moon outside flashed and flickered, and the world above the house seemed to stutter. Streetlights dimmed. Dogs, three streets over, began to howl and would not stop. Denise’s head buzzed, her tongue went numb, and for a moment she tasted the flavor of infinity on the backs of her teeth. 

The ritual’s fever broke at 3:43. When the last of the thralls collapsed on the futon, the barista’s hair tangled in Linda’s toes, Denise alone remained standing, her face slick with sweat.

For long minutes, she just listened to their breathing, the thick and choking kind that came after the most punishing orgasms or the most traumatic panic attacks. She tip-toed between them, cleaned the stains from their thighs and faces, and murmured a second set of words over each as a benediction. By the time the first birds began to shriek from the phone wires, Denise was dressed, the candles were snuffed, and the basement windows had been cracked to let out the miasma of her work.

She left the thralls there to sleep it off. They would wake in a few hours, sore and shy, and shuffle home with either blank amnesia or a curated highlight reel that Denise herself would edit overnight. She would remember it all, of course. She always did.

In the weeks that followed, the neighborhood returned to its routines. The barista made latte art for lawyers and nurses, and greeted Denise with a little bob of the head whenever she came in for her afternoon espresso. The claims adjuster bought a new bicycle and started running every morning, passing Denise at the bus stop and waving with a sheepish eagerness that bordered on devotion. The pierced girl enrolled in community college and stopped wearing black lipstick. 

And Linda… well, Linda returned to her husband. For a while, her bruises faded, and her smile came more easily, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would find herself standing at a window, staring out at the house across the street, not quite remembering how she got there. Nicholas never hit her again. He didn’t have the energy.

Denise observed all of this with the satisfaction of a gardener watching her seedlings muscle through the topsoil. She had marked them all, in subtle and invisible ways, a magic tattoo inscribed in their brains. Now that she had fed on them, they would come if she called, at any hour, for whatever she required. Most would never even know why.

She called Nicholas the most, to bring him to heel and remind him that he had no power over her or any other woman. All the bewitched man could do was kneel, kiss her feet, and accept that this was all that he deserved.

And through it all, Denise’s magic persisted, throbbing under the surface of the world. She had become, once again, what she had always been: a beautiful woman with a secret, living forever in the margins of other people’s lives, always hungry for the next century and the next ritual. Whatever life had in store for her, it was sure to be fun.