The laughter around the table died away, and Karin decided to take her chance. She’d have to head off to the theatre before too long for work, so she couldn’t afford to just wait for the perfect opening the way the others could.

Mostly, Karin didn’t mind that her job ran at antisocial hours, but the way it kept her from drinking as her friends got properly started on the late New York afternoon was sometimes frustrating.

“Speaking of phones,” she said, on the basis that if you implied strongly enough that something was a sensible topic shift, allistics tended to go with it rather than find it odd, “does anyone have any good new podcasts? I’m kind of done with the last one…”

Which meant, of course, that it had fallen out of hyperfocus, and she’d fail to get around to it for several months, then burn through the episodes that had built up when it was next her obsession.

Podcasts were always a pretty good bet for a conversation topic, too; everyone had something they were interested in, and it meant even the people who thought Karin mostly sitting quietly meant she wasn’t enjoying herself noticed her asking questions and stopped worrying. Having to worry about that sort of thing was exhausting some days.

“I’ve been loving NYC: Murdertown,” Julia said. Julia wore only pinks and pastels, kept her hair a short bob, dabbed at her lips with a napkin after every course and every drink. She was devoted to her husband and her three children. Nobody at the table was surprised she enjoyed grisly true-crime tales. Anyone else might have been, including her husband. “Since Yasmin joined the hosting team, they’ve just really clicked.”

Karin nodded agreement. Murdertown was on her current subscriptions, but it’d be another two to three months at least before she wanted to listen again.

“You’re not super into celebrity gossip, right?” Minnie’s eyes glinted with excitement to talk about her topic; Karin knew Minnie remembered she wasn’t, but she clearly had something she needed to gush over. Karin gave her a small smile and a shake of the head, quiet permission to enthuse.

Karin believed more people should be enthusiastic more of the time, and honestly Minnie listening to celebrity gossip was a big surprise. She really wanted to know what was going on there.

“So, there’s this new one called Bubble Tea,” Minnie said. “Lizzie Winter and Rowan Oldworth. I know Lizzie from her YouTube stuff, and she and Rowan had some sort of really brief feud but they’re the best of friends now. Bubble Tea is, like, half gossip, half comedy? It’s some sort of character piece, because neither of them talk like this normally, but it’s like… it’s like airhead bimbos getting seriously into news about big-name actresses and hip-hop stars and all that kind of thing.” She grinned. “It’s just plain funny, and it turns out if the people reporting on that stuff don’t take it too seriously it’s kind of entertaining to listen to. Totally recommend it for a change, but I know it’s not going to be useful for you.”

Karin nodded.

Osana shook her head. “I’m such a basic bitch,” she began, then paused for the obligatory chorus of disagreement. She smiled. “Thank you, but I am,” she said again. “For the same reason I’m slow to answer here often. My English is great, so long as we’re talking business or formal or as strangers. But my… my…” She gestured.

“Slang,” Minnie put in. Minnie was always the first to know what Osana wanted to say. Minnie had stayed with Osana’s family in Madrid, five years ago, during her year abroad; she’d helped Osana find an apartment when her friend wanted to move to America.

“Slang. Yes. Thank you. My slang is not so good.” Karin thought Osana’s grasp of slang was much better than she thought; on the other hand, someone’s confidence with language could help or get in the way too. “I have to stick to podcasts in Spanish, or English ones which are less… ah… cosy?” A shrug. “I am enjoying 100 Best Books. Finally I see the appeal of Charlotte Bronte.”

Karin made a note of the title on her phone. Could be interesting.

Liv’s lips had pursed at the criticism of a Bronte Sister, but she didn’t actually say anything on the topic; Karin wondered fleetingly whether Liv secretly didn’t like her much either, or if she was just passing it up rather than be rude to Osana. Liv was the one known lesbian in the group, and she’d once tried to seduce Minnie; Sara was convinced that Liv was interested in Osana, and maintained when neither of them could hear that she thought the two would date eventually.

What Liv did say, in the end, was “Actually, I’m really glad you asked this, Karin. I’ve just discovered a treasure trove.” She glanced around the group, meeting everyone’s eyes one at a time, in that way she did when she was shifting into storyteller mode. She would always make sure she had everyone’s attention. “It’s about three years old and it’s good from the start. That’s the one issue; you really have to start from the first episode.”

Liv enjoyed another significant pause. “My boss put me on to it.” Everyone in the group knew Liv’s boss was to be considered the paramount tastemaker in New York City, at least while Liv was present. “And it’s fiction.”

Now the rest of the group actually were looking at Liv with surprise. Her boss didn’t ‘do’ fiction; there was too much business to be done to waste time that way. “It’s called It Comes at a Price. It’s a really slow-build psychological thriller. It’s told through the internal monologues of three women and one man in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1950s. There’s a suggestion they might have made a deal with a crossroads devil, but I haven’t got far enough to know if that’s a thing or if one of the women just thinks it is.”

That definitely sounded promising, and Karin made a note. Sara smiled. “I’m on Bubble Tea too,” she admitted. “But I might try that, Liv. There’s really no jumping-on point?”

“I don’t think so. It’s all about how they think, you see, and how that changes. You have to listen from the start.”

*

She wore big chunky headphones on the subway, ones which had noise cancelling as well as great audio. It was the best way to get through her daily commute, which - especially on the way back home, around midnight or later - was easily the worst part of her job.

Karin worked as a theatre tech, something she’d started messing with as a freshman in college and fallen into by accident as a career. It wasn’t a bad job; some days she was stuck with a lot of internal meetings and discussion, others were mostly team activity, and there were some nights she’d barely speak to anyone else, especially when they were hired for corporate hospitality and the backstage operations were similar.

They had a three-night block of hospitality up ahead, which was a lot of why Karin had asked for podcast recommendations in the first place. There was a pretty good chance that over the next four nights, she’d have thirty hours of solitude or commute (and the noise cancelling made her commute surprisingly close to solitude, if she kept her eyes straight ahead and on the floor). That was a long time to go without something going on in the background to keep her brain going in the right direction.

She was actually more interested in Osana’s selection - she never had time to read, and it sounded like something that might help her feel like she had the luxury, at least - but there was a good chance everyone would be talking about Liv’s selection, so on the subway she pulled the first episode of It Comes at a Price up on her phone and began to listen.

This was definitely no amateur production. The four main voices were all seasoned actors - Karin was actually fairly sure she recognised one of them, a New Yorker who’d been in front of an audience while Karin was working backstage in more than one production; she rarely kept track of the cast’s careers when they moved on to another production, and was surprised to realise that Lola Ryan was doing podcasts now; of course, it’d be an easy way to earn some extra money that could probably be fitted around rehearsals and performances on stage.

Other voice cast seemed less experienced in that kind of enthusiasm-over-other-aspects way, but it sounded like that was intentional; outside of the core quartet, everyone they ran into was exaggeratedly content with their place in life. Everyone was happy in a way that seemed almost aggressive. Karin was quite enjoying the claustrophobic way the main cast reacted to that; it felt like a reasonable response to a place like that.

She’d finished her commute and was in her workplace, shifting heavy equipment backstage, on the third episode when it finally clicked into place for her; is this what the world might look like constantly if you were unhappy?

Karin couldn’t say she was unhappy, but there were days when she felt unfulfilled; especially common when she wasn’t supporting a concert or a play, when the work she did helped executives pat themselves on the back rather than helping to create a sense of joy and wonder in an audience. Sometimes, when she knew a show was good, Karin would contrive to be working near the foyer at the end of the show, so she could soak in the excitement and enthusiasm of the audience as they filtered out.

If she was unhappy, too? If she were questioning the value she brought to the world, as the three women were? It might well seem to her that everyone who was happy with their lot in life was overly, exaggeratedly happy. Nobody’s that happy.

People were, of course. That was something that always stood out when she met up with her friends; all of them were, at minimum, content with their lot in life, and there were times when any one of them was the happiest of the group.

Usually, of course, it was Liv or Minnie. The way Liv was wired, success in her career, whether advancements or just positive things, brought her happiness on its own. She went home at night and worked on things that would benefit her in the office, and while the group (Karin included) would have mocked a lot of others for that behaviour, Liv so obviously was doing it because she loved it, not to score points, that it was impossible not to accept it in her.

Minnie, on the other hand, led a charmed life. She skated by, somehow avoiding tragedies, lucking into what she needed most of the time - or so most people would tell you. Karin was close enough to her to know how much work she put in to a graceful, happy life.

When any two of the four main characters came together, though, Karin found herself slowing in her work to listen. Something about the language they used and the way they used it was fascinating. When you just listened to any one of them, their internal monologues felt heartbreakingly honest; when they came together, the way they talked brought into focus everything they kept from themselves.

These four were desperately unhappy, and struggling so hard to find an alternative. And then, in the fifth episode, there was the incident Liv had hinted at; Lola, in the character of Hyacinth, encountered a stranger. The ambient background music, often nonexistent, was present there; rather than the gentle piano that pervaded the rest of the piece, it came from a synthesiser.

Monitoring the theatre’s internal speaker systems, Karin was listening exclusively to her headphones, and she thought the synthesiser might have started out with human inputs; there was a quality to the music that she’d encountered before when people used voices, heavily modified, as a form of sonic art. If they had been vocals to begin with, Karin couldn’t tell what they’d said. All there was was a soundscape at once sinister and appealing.

That mirrored the character; Karin didn’t recognise the voice, was almost certain this man had never been on the stage, at least in New York (and Lola’s presence meant it had to be local, she told herself) but he had an assured confidence to his line reads that, while it was part of his character, Karin would bet bled over from real life. Something about that amused, easy tone was genuine in a way performances could never match.

Hyacinth and this new figure came to an agreement, the terms vague, the goals unclear, his motivations for his offer kept to himself. The tone of the music changed; it was suddenly clear now that voices were used, because Hyacinth’s exhausted, uncertain, unhappy “Yes,” became part of the score, distorted but still audible, sibilance making the point clear.

“Yes… yes… yes… yes… yes…”

This was the character Liv had referred to as a crossroads devil, Karin thought. And why? What had Karin missed to make that so clear?

Long after her shift had ended, even after getting home in the early hours of the next morning and setting her headphones aside to recharge, Karin could still hear that soundscape echoing through her head, Hyacinth’s agreement sounding as much like giving in as acceptance. There were other words below, other voices, but Karin couldn’t make them out, and she drifted off to sleep still replaying that memory and trying to make out those sounds.

“Yes… yes… yes… yes… yes…”

*

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: KarinOnRegardless

Morning! I hope everyone’s had a good start to their day. I’m just getting properly woken up here. I just wanted to say thank you to Liv for her podcast recommendation; I was listening to it all the way through my shift and home. It’s really good, especially now the Voice has come in. I did mean to give 100 Best Books a go too, but, well, I got sucked into It Comes At a Price.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: MsWorthington

I’m so glad! It’s absolutely wonderful, and yes, the Voice makes it. Hyacinth is an odd choice for his first discussion - oh, but I mustn’t say more or I’ll spoil it! But Karin, we must have a drink soon and discuss.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: Destiel4Real

Wow, Liv, have we finally found something outside work that stirs your soul?

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: MsWorthington

Minnie, you know I don’t dignify that sort of talk.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: KarinOnRegardless

Thank you, Liv. I’d like that. My head’s full of fantasies.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: Destiel4Real

Fantasies?

And don’t worry, Liv. Just amused to see you so keen on something there’s no profit in.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: KarinOnRegardless

Theories. I don’t know why I typed fantasies.

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: MsWorthington

There are types of profit beyond the monetary.

And to tie it all back together, fantasies seems appropriate to me. I found the characters quickly came to life in my mind. I feel as if I can hear their opinions whenever I face a decision.

*

Karin was still in bed when she kicked the discussion off. After the brief exchange, her phone went back on the bedside table. A broad smile on her face, she stretched luxuriously, enjoying the sensation of warm fabric moving against bare skin.

She rolled over onto her belly, face down in the pillows, and then lifted her rear up with her knees, parting her thighs. One hand came up to run just under her nipples, thumb and forefinger finding a nipple as she did; the other snaked down across her belly and between her thighs.

She could still hear the amused, arrogant tones of the Voice in her head, and while she’d thought of it as sinister last night, in the warm light of the morning it seemed much more appetising…

It was Minnie’s fault, she decided firmly, ignoring how wet she’d already been. Minnie picking up on her typo was what had pushed it over the line from something that amused her to something she was now, against her better judgement, fantasising about. That wasn’t Karin’s fault.

Karin closed her eyes. She started to rock against the mattress, back and forth, as if it wasn’t her hand but a stranger; no, not a stranger, the Voice was no stranger. It was easy to imagine, somehow, that she had exchanged something, some nebulous thing or idea, something abstract, for this moment of pleasure. If she met someone with a silken voice like that, it would be easy to give things up for pleasure.

Thumb and forefinger tugged at her nipple and she bit her lip against the moan that wanted to escape. Her fingers weren’t doing it; reluctantly, her hand, slick with her own juices, crept out from under the covers and fumbled open the drawer in her bedside table. Trembling fingers found a thick glass dildo, smooth and cool to the touch, with just the perfect weight to it for Karin’s grip.

This quickly vanished back under the covers where it slid easily into her dripping wet pussy. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she seemed in her strange dream to hear the Voice ask, oh so teasing, “Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes… Yes… yes… yesss…”

*

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: OSAlcaraz

I have tried this podcast now too also. I thought I would listen to one episode. I have listened to three. I do not always understand the internal monologues, but the performances are wonderful and the voices make me feel like I do. Do I meet this Voice soon?

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: KarinOnRegardless

You meet the Voice real soon - and you’ll be glad you did, I think! I’m just getting myself a late breakfast listening to the next episode. I certainly didn’t expect to be so keen to keep going; I’ll probably have done the first three months by the time I’m done with work today!

TO: Ladies Who Live Groupchat

FROM: MsWorthington

I’m so glad! It’s absolutely wonderful. I can understand why they seem so excited to strike a bargain. I think I would have been too. Osana, you’re invited to those drinks with me and Karin!

*

Hyacinth’s voice had changed. In conversation with the others she now sounded as cheerful, as perky, as optimistic as the incidental voices. In her own internal monologues, though, she just sounded… normal.

It wasn’t until her deal with the Voice changed the way she sounded that Karin realised how deep a weight, how heavy a burden, Hyacinth had struggled under. Now her bargain was done, she clearly no longer had that issue. It was… unnerving, but it was also delightful somehow. And where the impossibly perky cheer of those around the main four had sounded like bad acting, Lola was a good enough performer that Hyacinth sounded perfectly normal.

The thing that kept nagging at Karin’s brain was…

It didn’t feel like a horror, or a thriller, however Liv had described it. Psychological it certainly was, and - having listened now through almost a full day of pottering around doing chores at home and of work - the Voice had made a very different offer to Margaret, when they had met, and it seemed to Karin that what Margaret had accepted would be worse for her in the long term than she would have been without it; still, she could see why Margaret would want it.

And characters in fiction often made decisions that the audience could tell were not the best, even if the character could not.

This wasn’t a horror, even if there was a suspicion that the characters who encountered the Voice were changed for their worse. Hyacinth met with the Voice regularly now, and the tone of their meetings had changed repeatedly over time; Hyacinth had at one time thought herself the Voice’s equal. His amusement, cocky if not arrogant, had not changed, but her behaviour around him had shifted; she was quieter now, requiring prompting to speak, and whenever given the opportunity, she rushed to agree with the Voice.

Karin didn’t think it was coincidence that the Voice often asked her for opinions on things she’d discussed with others, nor that her opinion would change to match his whenever he did.

In the episode she was listening to on the subway ride home, Hyacinth had given one of these changed opinions in conversation with Nicholas, and he’d actually noticed and called her out.

Hyacinth was giving a spirited defence of this opinion; not even one the Voice had given her. It was as if, once she’d agreed with the Voice, her whole thought process had changed to support her new opinions.

It occurred to Karin that agreeing with the Voice, even in conversation like that, might be considered another bargain with him, another deal. Mostly, though, she marvelled at how well Lola played the role; at how smoothly she transitioned, and how in her hesitations and her lacks of hesitation you could track the change in who and what she was.

…

And what she was? Where had that thought come from?

Karin shivered slightly as she tried to feel out the instinctive conclusion she’d made that had led her to that idea.

Somehow, she’d seen the changes to Hyacinth as doing more than changing her mind. They’d also changed the way Karin thought about Hyacinth, who now didn’t feel like a person so much as…

…well…

…an object. Property. Something that could be changed and amended without guilt.

When had that happened?

Whatever the case, she was sure the credit was to Lola’s performance. It occurred to her as she got in the door that she had Lola’s old phone number around somewhere…

Still, that was probably a bad idea. Especially at gone two a.m.

She listened to one last episode - Margaret sounding out Deborah on things she wanted, something Karin and Margaret knew was a request (or a requirement) from the Voice, even if Deborah was unaware, having rebuffed the Voice on his first appearance - and went to sleep.

It didn’t surprise her on that second night that once the lights went out, the Voice echoed around her mind. She actually welcomed it; it was hard to think of anything more fulfilling, in that moment, than to drift off to sleep surrounded by and wrapped up in the Voice.