Bystander
“Are you ready for the midterm tomorrow?” Fran asked, shifting in her chair. She, Maggie and Melanie had been lucky to get a table at all in the university commons—the whole area was packed, more chairs to tables than could really fit, surfaces overflowing with open textbooks and book bags, and crumbs from cheap vending machine snacks. The whole campus was feeling the crunch, and Fran and her friends were no different. Their table looked identical to the all the other tables in the commons, except the three of them had long ago stopped looking down at their texts.
Melanie rubbed at her temples. “I think so... I just can’t read the material anymore. I feel like I’m going crazy. My brain can’t retain anything any more, it’s too crammed full. Yesterday I tried to make instant soup and for 5 seconds there, I literally forgot how to boil water.”
Maggie laid a hand on Melanie’s hand. “You need to find a way to destress. Have you heard of that new pop-up service the university is offering? They brought in some organization called “Blissful Day,” and they set them up in their own office suite and everything, over in the Humanities building. I haven’t gone yet myself, but I’ve got an appointment later this afternoon. Apparently their counsellors are really good. Veronica went last week and her recommendation was glowing.”
Fran snorted. “The last time I saw Veronica, she was literally ripping her hair out, and she hadn’t slept in 3 days.”
Maggie shrugged. “Not anymore. She looked better than ever—the bags under her eyes were gone, and she was really calm. If they can have that much of an effect on her, I want that for me.”
“Let me know how it goes,” Melanie encouraged. “If something can get this feeling of impending doom to go away, I’ll be first in line for it.”
Maggie smiled. “Will do.”
The day went on. The three friends split up, and Fran went back to her dorm room. Hours passed, in which she “studied” by staring blankly at her textbook pages. They may as well have been written in gibberish for all she retained. After a while, she stopped moving her eyes and trying to read, just zoned out and stared despondently at the word ‘The’ at the top corner of the page.
Finally at around 9 pm, she decided she needed a little motivation. She called Melanie, but when Melanie answered the phone, she growled into it in something that was barely speech, so Fran reconsidered and called Maggie instead.
“Hey, Mags,” she said.
“Hi,” Maggie said. Her tone of voice was... different. Kind of... dreamy. Soft-spoken, and slurred around the edges.
“What are you doing?” Fran asked, brightly, not worrying too much about her tone for right then.
“I’m... studying...” Maggie said, her voice halting.
“Can I come over and join you? I don’t think I can do it on my own anymore.”
“Yes... come...”
“I’ll come,” Fran said, feeling a bit weirded out by Maggie’s stunted speech. “But just to let you know, Mags, you sound like you’re really stoned. I don’t care if you are—hell, if you have a joint to spare, I’ll get high with you.”
“Not high... just focused,” Maggie slurred.
“Well, I’ll see you in 10 minutes, then,” Fran said.
Maggie didn’t bother to even say goodbye before she hung up the phone.
“What the hell are you doing, Maggie?” Was the only thing Fran could think to say when she got to Maggie’s dorm room and saw what her friend was doing.
She was sitting at her desk, naked, watching some kind of weird abstract art video with shifting and rippling colours, and she was touching herself. That much was clear from the jerking erratic movements of her arm, even with Maggie’s back to her.
“I’m... studying... oh...” Maggie moaned.
To protect her friend’s dignity, Fran quickly shut the door behind her. She was in shock at the sight. For all she knew, Maggie had a secret sex life, where she masturbated all the time, but Maggie had never seemed like the type. And Fran had definitely never pegged Maggie for an exhibitionist. She’d practically invited Fran to come and see this!
“I thought you were studying for the test tomorrow,” Fran tried, approaching Maggie’s chair hesitantly.
“This is more important... I need... to find... bliss...”
The colors on the screen in front of Maggie swirled, and pulsed, shifted and breathed. Fran reached Maggie’s chair and looked down at the desk in front of her.
There was a folder there—yellow, and unassuming. Fran picked it up, and opened it.
Inside, there was a handwritten note: Thank you for taking the first step to Inner Peace with Blissful Day! In order to facilitate your progress before your next appointment, please watch the enclosed Guided Meditation! See you again soon!
Sure enough, behind the note there was a CD sleeve, now empty. Just below that, there was a little appointment card. Cheery yellow lettering announced that Maggie’s next appointment was in a week, at 4 pm.
Fran closed the folder, and looked back at Maggie. She definitely looked high. Her eyes were unfocused, her jaw was slack, and there was a glazed over look to her.
And she was masturbating, but it didn’t look like it was going to get her anywhere fast. Her right hand was between her thighs, and Fran could hear her friend’s pussy responding to the stimulus—there was a lot more smacking and slurping coming from down there than Fran wanted to know about. But she wasn’t holding a steady rhythm. She kept switching her rhythm, changing the motion. It didn’t take a genius to see she was never going to get off like that, if she didn’t maintain a consistent pattern.
It didn’t look like Maggie was too worried about that, though. Besides looking completely stoned, she also looked calm, and at peace. No worries, or stress at all. It was freaky.
Fran grabbed Maggie by the arms and gave her a shake. “Wake up, Mags. This is weird.”
Maggie only grunted in response, a particular distinct slurping sound telling Fran that she had likely just penetrated herself. Fran’s stomach turned at the thought, but she couldn’t leave her friend like this.
“Come on, Maggie, wake up. You’re freaking me out.”
“This unit... will return to regular consciousness... when the conditioning cycle is complete.”
Fran stared at Maggie incredulously. Unit? Conditioning cycle? What the hell did that mean?
“Maggie, come on,” she said, an edge to her voice. “You’re really scaring me!”
No response.
With a sigh, Fran let go of her friend. She moved to the mouse, and jerked it around a few times. The play bar for the video came up at the bottom of the screen—20 minutes remaining. Fran looked from Maggie, to the screen. She moused over to the pause button, and clicked.
Nothing happened.
She clicked again.
Nothing. It wouldn’t pause.
Reluctantly, she stepped back. If there were only 20 minutes left... she could leave her for now. It didn’t seem like there was anything she could do about it. She’d just have to convince Maggie not to watch it again—or go to her appointment next week.
Not liking this plan much at all, but having to accept it as her only option, she crossed Maggie’s room to the door, and with a twist of regret in her stomach, stepped out into the hallway and closed the door on her friend.
“It was really great,” Maggie was telling Melanie, as the two of them and Fran stepped out of their midterm. “The counsellor was super nice, and she took me through a guided meditation. All my stress just... disappeared. And she gave me a guided meditation to watch at home, too. I’ve watched it like 5 times since yesterday. It really blisses me out. Very zen. I can’t even remember what it feels like to be stressed.”
Melanie was watching her with obvious admiration. “You look really good, too. Your skin’s like, glowing, or something. Not like the rest of us zombies.”
“Thanks,” Maggie chirped, smiling brightly in response. “You should totally book yourself a session if you think it will help you! I could take you to the office right now, before our next midterm—”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Fran said quietly.
Both girls turned to look at her in surprise.
“Why’s that, Fran?” Maggie asked, her eyes innocent and wide.
Fran hadn’t yet brought up the strange incident from the night before, because she hadn’t been sure how. “Hello, dear childhood friend Maggie, I caught you masturbating last night and acting weird, and it really freaked me out!” It wasn’t exactly a straightforward conversation. Or one she could have without looking like she was crazy. She was mentally kicking herself for not getting a witness last night to back her up.
“I just think there’s something weird about Blissful Day,” Fran mumbled. “They give me a creepy feeling.”
“Creepy feeling or not, if their methods work, who cares?” Melanie asked, as the three of them continued down the hall. “I’ve been like a ball of stress and tension for weeks, and nothing has worked for me—not exercise, not tea, not medication, not pot, nothing. I’ll try anything, and it looks like Maggie’s getting good results.”
Fran sighed. She had to put her cards on the table if she wanted to protect her friends.
“It’s not a guided meditation... it’s some kind of weird... video. With pulsing colors, and no sound. It makes you get all spacey and zoned out...”
Maggie’s brow furrowed. “How would you know? You’ve never been to see them, you didn’t get one.”
“I came to see you last night, and that’s what you were watching,” Fran answered. “And you were... touching yourself.”
Maggie’s cheeks burned red. “Not true,” She said. “It’s just a plain old guided meditation. I think I’d remember if it was some kind of weird color visual. And I definitely think I’d remember... touching myself. Or seeing you. The stress must be getting to you, sweetie. Are you sure you didn’t just fall asleep at your desk and dream that?”
Fran’s eyes widened and disbelief. How could Maggie lie to her face like this? Unless... she really didn’t remember. But how could that be possible?
“No, this really happened. I shook you and yelled at you to get you to wake up, but you wouldn’t respond. I even tried to pause the video but the pause function didn’t work.”
Maggie gave her a condescending smile. “Oh, honey. You sound like you need an appointment at Blissful Day yourself. I can take you both right now.”
“No,” Fran insisted. “Look—Melanie, can I talk to you alone for a second?”
Melanie looked between Fran and Maggie, but stepped away to follow Fran.
“Mel, you can’t go to one of these appointments. There’s something really wrong here—I saw her last night. She was completely out of it, watching this freaky video, and nothing I did could get her to wake up. If you go, they’ll do... whatever it is they do, to you too. Promise me you won’t book one.”
Melanie stared at Fran. “Okay... but you know this all sounds kind of crazy, right? You’ve been as stressed these last few weeks as the rest of it. Maggie does seem a teensy bit more plausible than you, here.”
Fran nodded. “I get that. But please just trust me on this—and we need to talk Maggie out of going back before it gets worse; and we should confiscate her guided meditation. We have to act now, before it’s too late,” Fran pressed.
“Whoa, hold on there, paranoia girl. I’ll agree not to book a session, but that doesn’t mean I’m jumping on the conspiracy train with you,” Melanie said, with a frown. “Doing that stuff would be seriously disrespectful to Maggie’s autonomy, and you don’t have a lot of evidence on your side. Find another partner in crime for that, but I’m not down for it.”
Fran sighed. “Fair enough. But you will promise me not to go yourself?”
Melanie nodded. “I promise.”
Mid-term week ended, and life went on. Classes resumed as normal—but she and Melanie were seeing less and less of Maggie. Well, conscious Maggie. Fran frequently stopped by her room to check on her and try to wake her up, but nothing worked. And she could never convince anybody to come with her and back her story up, not even Melanie. Maggie was spending almost all her time watching that weird video, and masturbating to it.
The few times Fran could catch Maggie when she was her normal self, Maggie didn’t really want to talk to her. Fran had tried too hard to talk her out of going back to Blissful Day, and her friend hadn’t really forgiven her for it. It was frustrating being so helpless to stop her.
As the weeks of the semester rolled on, the times she saw Maggie out and around campus left her more and more concerned. She was changing—Maggie had always been a little heavy set, but she was losing it all from her waist, taking on an hourglass figure; Fran suspected this had something to do with the bottle of supplements she’d seen on her desk the last time she’d checked on her. “Eezy Bliss,” they were called.
She was dressing differently, too. Gone were the loose sweatpants and baggy sweaters. They were traded in for tight fitting pants and skirts, and shirts that plunged lower than the dress code strictly allowed. Maggie turned heads when she walked through a room, now. There was nothing wrong with this, on the face of it, except Fran suspected strongly that this wasn’t Maggie’s own choice. The video, and her sessions, whatever they entailed, were changing her against her will.
“I’d like to report an ethics violation,” Fran said. It was the only other thing she could think to do; go to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Office, and report Blissful Day.
“I can help you there,” said the admin with a smile. “Give me the details.”
“That new pop-up... Blissful Day. They’re doing something to people to change them against their will. They give them this freaky video to watch, and get them to start taking supplements. I really think your office should look into them, because I think they’re taking people’s free will away... changing them for... making them... There’s just something really...”
Fran’s heart sank. There, next to the admin’s bottle of water, was a little white bottle of Eezy Bliss.
“I’ll take this report down and file this,” the admin assured her. “But we probably won’t get to it... for a while. You can check back in a month or two...”
Fran swallowed. “Yeah. Thanks anyway.”
Fran opened the door to Maggie’s dorm, and for a moment her heart lifted. Maggie wasn’t sitting at her computer for once.
But then her eyes went to the bed—and instead of watching the screen, Maggie was having sex with a boy Fran had never seen before.
“Programming is... almost... complete...” Maggie panted. “This pleasure unit is ready to serve... this pleasure unit... lives to serve.”
Fran stared. The boy sped up, thrusting into her faster and faster.
“What the hell?” Fran swore. The boy didn’t look to her.
She crossed the floor, grabbed the guy by the shoulders to try and pull her off her friend.
“Hey, come on,” The guy said, shoving back against Fran. “She came on to me. Every knows she’s the floor slut—wait your turn like everyone else!”
“My turn?” Fran said, but the boy ignored her.
She couldn’t watch this. Her stomach was rolling like she was going to vomit. She stepped back into the hallway, holding her mouth, trying to keep the bile down.
She stayed there, and waited. After about 2 minutes, the boy exited, fully dressed, and walked down the hallway without noticing her.
Fran stayed, just long enough to see a strange girl open the door and step into Maggie’s room.
A few seconds listening at the door told her all she needed to know.
“Melanie, you have to believe me,” Fran pressed. “She’s sleeping with strangers—she leaves her door unlocked all the time, and people just go in there and fuck her! It’s not healthy, and it’s not Maggie! We have to go to the police... Blissful Day’s already gotten to Campus Security, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Office, and the Dean’s office. I’ve reported them to every university body I could think of, and everyone I spoke to was either going to Blissful Day themselves, or had a friend who has going. Everyone thinks they’re great, but they’re up to something really shady!”
Melanie watched Fran with concern, but didn’t speak. Fran continued pacing the floor of her friend’s dorm room, continuing her rant.
“Veronica has completely disappeared—she’s dropped out and no one knows where she went. Other girls have, too. And lots of girls are becoming just like Maggie. We need to get the police involved—they’re the only ones who can stop this. But I need you to back me up.”
“I’d love to, Fran,” Melanie said. “But I just haven’t seen... I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence for this. You still sound like a tin-hat conspiracy theorist.”
“I’m not crazy,” Fran snapped. “I just need someone... I need someone to believe in me, to help me with this! They’re changing Maggie for good—if we don’t act soon, our friend will be lost forever!”
Melanie shrugged. “Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe she’s happier like this, as a brainless bimbo sex slave. Maybe that’s all a slut like her is good for.”
“What?” Fran said in disbelief. “How can you talk about her like that? She was one of your closest friends!” Fran reconsidered, and the sinking feeling in her gut increased.
“You’ve started going to see them, haven’t you?” Fran asked quietly.
“I really did mean to keep my promise,” Melanie said. “Maggie kept trying to pressure me to go, and that was weird, so I didn’t want to. But a couple of their girls came in the night, and they took me to their office. I couldn’t fight them off. But I was wrong to stay away for so long. I found true bliss there, Fran, and you can too. I can show you. Just sit down and watch the video with me... you’ll feel so much better after.”
“No,” Fran spat. Her anger barely masked the chill in her blood. She was the only one left, it felt like. She didn’t wait to see what Melanie would do next. She was up and running, out of the dorm room.
There was only one thing left to try.
“I want to talk to your head counsellor, right now.” Fran announced to the clean and prim waiting room. “I’ve got the police station number dialled on my phone, and if you don’t let me talk to them, I will immediately call them, and report this office for breaking the law.” She snapped.
The receptionist stared at her in confusion. “You’ll need an appointment—you can’t just—
“It’s alright, Samantha,” A female voice spoke. Fran’s eyes moved from the receptionist to the source of it. It was an older woman, dressed in light pastel colors. She looked unassuming, but her voice was rich and she held herself with an air of confidence.
“I’ll see Fran without an appointment.”
“Good,” Fran snapped. She followed the woman into her office.
The woman shut the door behind her. “I was wondering when you would finally come to see me. You’ve been causing me quite a lot of trouble, you know. I wasn’t planning on spreading so aggressively in my first semester here. But I had to head off your little reports... I needed more people on my side than I thought.”
“I’ll cause you more trouble still, unless you reverse whatever you’ve done, and leave,” Fran snapped.
The woman regarded her. “Why don’t you take a seat, Fran?”
Fran brandished her phone. “I’ll call. I swear I will.”
“I believe you,” she said. “But why don’t we just sit and have a chat, first?”
Reluctantly, Fran sank onto the low couch across from the armchair the counsellor had positioned herself in.
“Why does it bother you so much, to see women getting in touch with their sexuality?”
Fran stared in disbelief. “You’re changing them against their will—you’re turning them into little more than prostitutes. It really seems like you’re turning them into actual prostitutes—Veronica’s out there pleasuring someone for money right now, isn’t she?”
“You are a clever one,” the counsellor said, her voice almost impressed. “Some of them I use for income in that way, yes. But sex slaves are a valuable commodity—I can often find a buyer who wants a fully programmed and prepared slave long-term.”
“People aren’t cattle,” Fran snapped. “You can’t just... just sell them... Especially people who are in university, trying to make something better for themselves.”
The counsellor snorted. “Please. Every one of the subjects I’ve taken on wasn’t going to make it here. It’s a self-selecting group.” Fran struggled to keep her eyes from crossing. The woman had a strange speech pattern... oddly lilting. It felt like she was being rocked back and forth. “The students who are too stressed to succeed, who are losing their grip from the pressure—they were never going to make it through their degrees. I guarantee, everyone who has come to see me here was on track to drop out within a year or less. I’m rehabilitating them. Instead of useless college drop-outs, they can produce something for society, they can give back—give pleasure. I think that’s a brighter future for them than they had to look forward to.”
Fran opened her mouth to protest again, but the woman cut her off. “Look in the mirror, Fran. You’re just like them, just like Melanie, and just like Maggie. You aren’t cut out for it here, either. The pressure has been getting to you too. You know, deep down, you’ll be a dropout within the next year. Then what? You work minimum wage jobs to pay back loans for a degree you never even got? That’s your bright future? That’s what all your intellect and free will gets you?”
Fran frowned. There was something... wrong... something was wrong with what this woman was saying, she knew there was, but she couldn’t figure out quite what it was.
“I need... I need to go,” Fran said. She was feeling off.
“You can stay sitting in that chair, just like that. Put your phone down on the coffee table, that’s a good girl.”
With a dim sense of unease, Fran obeyed, setting her phone on the coffee table.
“Don’t you think it’s time to give in, Fran? You know it, and I know it. It’s inevitable. You are going to become a brainless slut, just like all your friends. It can happen now, or it can happen later. But if it happens later, that means you have to go on worrying and stressing about everything. Wouldn’t it just be easier to let go of all that stress? To just be happy?”
“Happy...” Fran echoed, weakly. She was feeling dizzy, like the whole room was spinning around her. She needed... she needed...
“You want to give in,” The woman spoke.
“I want...”
“To give in,” she pressed.
“I want... to... give... in...” Fran breathed.
“Very good,” the counsellor said. “Just come on over here, Fran. This video will make it all so much clearer to you.”
Like a sleepwalker Fran rose, and came around to the other side of the woman’s desk. Dimly, she registered the feeling of sinking into the chair, the image of a black screen in front of her.
It didn’t stay black for long. Within in seconds, it was sparking to life, consumed with color, rippling, breathing color. And after a few seconds of watching, she couldn’t remember what she’d been so worried about... why she’d fought so hard.
This was where she belonged, and always would.
As the video played before her, a soft smile spread across her face.