Window Whispers
It was going to start soon. The thought involuntarily made her smile. Helga had been smiling a lot since moving into this new neighbourhood. While letting her eyes follow the rooflines that expanded below her balcony the young woman absentmindedly rubbed her arms to suppress the cold. Spring was almost over, but just because most days reached all time highs of summer heat now it didn’t stop the morning air from feeling chilly on her body. Of course, the fact that she put down her soft blanket instead of keeping it wrapped around her might have something to do with it. If at least she would have worn anything other than her favourite pink bra it actually would have been exactly the perfect temperature. Already the sunlight began to warm up the valleys of concrete around her. Not much longer and it would get too hot to laze around outside. Just right now the last chilly breezes kept hardening her nipples until the rosy buds rubbed against the fabric of her bra if she moved too much. Just like they did every morning.
The light revealed a damp shimmer on her bronze skin. She’d been cutting it close today, just barely getting out of the shower in time. Even her long dark hair clung to her, still not yet fully dried. Certainly it made the morning feel a little colder, but at the same time each further ray of light tickled twice as much in exchange. So she couldn’t deny it was well worth it. Not to mention… her smile grew a little wider as she allowed the thought to trickle out. Some things were left best unsaid. And if she thought it, she decided, that would have been as good as saying it. And yet… her eyes wandered along the rows of balconies to either direction, each one the spitting image of her own. Equally cramped, equally barren, equally separated with nothing but a few iron bars that barely could be called a fence. If her neighbours had come out as well, there would have been virtually nothing preventing them from mingling.
But of course no one ever did. Not at this time of day when all smart people still enjoyed the last hour of sleep before the alarm and the other half only just dropped into bed to try getting some shut-eye. It was one of two reasons why Helga loved to sneak out into the open in nothing but a bra and a hastily picked pair of grey sweatpants. At this hour it felt like this entire jungle of noise and concrete was her personal playground, a box garden just for her pleasure. There was a chance that even if she’d stepped out onto the balcony in the same dress around noon no prying eyes would have spotted her, but she never took chances with it. Work wouldn’t even let her, for one. And the rest of the day lacked just one special incentive.
No other time of day and no other place was so perfect for exposing herself like this. The dozens of dark windows meant that she was free to imagine all the eyes she wanted to watch her bare forms from behind the cover. But only one window mattered to her. Of course if anyone had truly looked on from afar, it was certain they would not have realized. Helga had come to practice a lot and so her fingers meticulously folded the discarded blanket or corrected the placement of her foldable chair. Some days she might be cleaning the railing and others, just like today, her hands might seek the warmth of a coffee mug as she let her eyes wander any which way. Except for one.
Only twice had Helga looked that way. Once right after moving into this flat two months ago. And once after her first week of staying here. While a sip of hot cocoa warmed up her insides she closed her eyes, reminiscing about both of those times. Had it only been that short? It felt so infinitely longer. Without noticing her breath became calmer. Deeper. Memories flooded through her head. When had it begun that she counted days only by the number of mornings that were spent on the balcony like this? Maybe it had been around the time two days before the second look towards that window. That time when she had furiously decided that enough was enough. That she wouldn’t put up with the constant coming and going of female guests in the room next door. Or the suspicious monotone droning that so often preceded lusty moans until late at night. It might have seemed impatient and petty to already complain about it within the first week, but then again, she felt the need to prove a point. And well, if she got a good look through his window, at least it would help confront that neighbor with evidence. Or so she felt.
Before she had looked through the window. To this day whenever she recalled that moment an electrifying tingle ran through her spine that had nothing to do with the refreshing breeze. She had understood at first glance that what she heard each night was not at all like the debauched orgies she believed would happen. Even now the women’s expressions were burned into her mind and it filled her with glowing anticipation and pride when the muscles in her face slackened, giving her the same placid look of compliance that had been on theirs. No point in even trying to forget the way three tall, attractive ladies had stood at attention, vacantly forming all the same words in unison. Or the hand that only entered the small frame behind the glass for the duration of a finger snap. Helga never made out what they said that day, but the sight alone had fuelled a well spring of wet dreams, one more twisted and yet more appealing than the next.
Absentmindedly she leaned against the partition to the neighboring balcony. By now it required no vision anymore to recognize the trusty routine. The brisk clacking of a window being left ajar. The faint rustling of socks on carpet. The creaking of a worn-out desk chair being pulled back and readjusted. In her head she saw the hand that had sent many strong-willed women into dazed surrender wipe some crimpled notes off a cluttered table to make room for a keyboard. Some mornings, when even the never sleeping concert of car engines had almost faded entirely, there was the clicking and clacking of keys being hit as programs were started up. She loved the irony of these hands so easily wrapping whoever they wished around their finger but struggling to get a decent piece of tech for daily use. Or was the person they belonged to simply a nostalgic fan of the noise? Another sip of hot cocoa flowed down her throat as a satisfied hum from past the glass caught her attention. Almost. It was almost time.
Helga didn’t pay attention to the way her shoulders sagged or the way her chest slowly rose and fell. Her body simply took the burden of thinking about these things off her by now, a practiced and deeply engrained response to a language only a very deeply hidden part of her brain understood. The way her head wobbled a bit was noticeable, in the way that one might notice the rocking motion of a train or the comforting sway of a hammock. The muscles that held it up began to soften ever so gradually as the sounds from the half opened window spoke of preparations being finished.
In the beginning Helga had wondered if somewhere in the black squares along the surrounding walls there was a woman just as curious as her. Someone who would observe her swaying silhouette as she only managed to remain upright because of the impression that scene had left in her mind. But already each new thought felt heavier and heavier. And so her brain did the obvious thing by letting those thoughts roll down into her breasts. Because this way it would be her tits that grew heavier, shifting her center of balance until her full, heaving tits kept her standing. A slack, drowsy, docile doll on display that could wait forever if need be. Even now a smile played around her lips while she thought how that imagined curious woman would react to the sight. Before that thought too started tumbling down, pulling her awareness away from the world around her and down into her tits that rose and fell in a calming rhythm. Dropping. Waiting.
What little consciousness remained was directed at the space behind her. Just like it had been every morning for the past months. Realizing that she knew the voice that spoke from there had been a shock at first. But chances were she would never have arrived here if she knew how to leave well enough alone. It had been a matter of hours before she dug up not just the one excerpt of a clip that the whispered words made her think of, but rather entire channels full of files and videos.
Was there any point nowadays in asking how many of them she’d looped on repeat, just to be sure it was the same voice in each and every one?
Far more than the contents, what brought her back time and time again was that memory. You didn’t forget a sight like that easily and Helga’s fingers made sure to force it back to the front of her mind each night again when the sounds from next door kept her awake. Of course she had made sure to read the content warnings under every single post. It was an open secret that some of the recordings that had played in her room—purely for research, of course—wove a deviously subtle connection between pleasure and the memories of those very commands. By giving in to the urge of teasing herself silly to the image of docile, devoted playthings at a mysterious strangers’ mercy Helga knew she was reinforcing those very suggestions. Until it didn’t matter anymore if they held any power originally because her well trained muscles automatically complied with the order anyway.
At the beginning of last week she finally admitted that this only excited her even more.
Which of course played perfectly into the pattern of manipulative temptation that her ears so readily absorbed. There was a certain naughty joy in finding out how much of it she could get away with. Obviously standing half naked in plain sight for all who were awake at this hour was her own decision. But had she been cleverly seduced into making it so as to create more openings the mind melting words could take advantage of? How would she feel about it if it had been that same voice that ramped up her old exhibitionist streak to make her show off? If the reason she could never stop letting down her defenses and imagining hungry eyes observing her was an intricate subconscious surrender to her programming? The thought got her trembling with arousal like hardly anything else. No better way to prime her for the way those soft whispers covered up her thoughts. In some way this was her favourite part. Nothing could compete with the way all the many wants and wishes and random realizations ebbed away at the same pace at which that by now so familiar voice floated through her brain. Often it wasn’t even possible to make out every word but that wasn’t a big deal to her. She always knew where to find them if need be after all. The simple reassurance of his voice so close by mattered far more.
And yet the emptier that head became the more attentive a deep part of her self felt. A part that needed neither speech nor will. This part of her brain didn’t think because that would only have inhibited the ease with which it obeyed. It was the small things that gave away that she was not at all mindless, simply vacant and in a wonderful way free of thought. It showed in the way her dazed muscles never once allowed the warm cup in her hand to dip down or tilt. Or the way her back corrected her pose whenever she slouched. It were the little gestures of an obedient thrall following the rules she was given and nothing could have made Helga happier. In these magical hours before the hustle and bustle of the city drowned out the mumbling sounds from behind the glass a thrall was all that Helga was. In waking moments she had often laughed about the irony of moving to a whole new place as an escape of droning on and on only to listen to a voice that asked her to obey. But if she was honest with herself there was no way she ever could have voluntarily refused this bliss. With each new noise she heard her body warmed up more and more. Perhaps it was the sun rising higher on it’s arch far over the daily struggles, casting her in the most dazzling golden light. Or perhaps it was the fact that she secretly listened in when a person she had never met recorded captivating hypnotic patter that charmed so many willing listeners out of their pants around the globe.
Although Helga doubted even hypnosis could make her decide on an answer to that question.
Which admittedly might be just because by that point her lips would already be preoccupied with different sorts of confessions. Last night she had caught herself joining in the chorus of drowsy voices that had chanted something on the other side of the wall. Softly, under her breath, but that only had added an even riskier feeling of monotone compliance to them. She didn’t know if her mouth used the same words that the nameless mesmerized visitors in the room next door repeated but it could not be far from it.
Faintly she realized her lips were moving, husking the words she longed to say night after night even here and now. So close to the open window and the owner of that voice behind her. Some mornings her thoughts didn’t simply fade into nothing but instead turned into daydreams. Fantasies of hearing the usual long pause when buttons were pressed and the recording concluded. Followed by the shuffling of feet on the ground and the rattling of a balcony door.
In her dreams Helga’s mind grew dazed and fuzzy until nothing mattered besides listening and enjoying the morning air on her skin as that familiar, all-encompassing voice wrapped around her brain, louder, closer, even more alluring than before. She could even open her eyes without rising from her trance, a perfectly brainwashed thrall wishing to serve. Her dream-self had no self anymore, no will other than to obey that voice as from behind a hand moved into her field of vision. Fingers poised to snap as the sound dropped her infinitely deeper. She loved that it was only a dream, a fantasy contained to the safety of her balcony. Because it meant that she could admit how intensely arousing it was to hear her own voice devoid of any awareness, promising to condition herself every day and deepen her obedience.
Her body always anticipated the dreams where that hand didn’t stop, but snapped again. And again. Each snap breaking down yet another layer of her mind until her arms put down the mug of cocoa and unclasped her bra, fondling herself in time with the gentle commands in her ears. Helga wished to be as deeply hypnotized as her dream-self was. Solely focused on how her body served to please the owner of that voice.
After the first few dreams she had sometimes found it regrettable that how even in her lewdest imagination the owner of that hand never allowed his fingers to actually inspect her body directly. Really, if she already dreamed of being brainwashed and trained as a sexual plaything, was a girl truly asking for too much by wanting to be properly used? But over time it had grown on her how meticulous both those fingers and that voice formed her new purpose instead. Whoever it was had infinitely more patience than she did. It made her acutely aware of how in the end, the speed at which she sank down the rabbit hole of mesmerized submission was born out of her own darkest desires. No doubt the voice and the nightly noises nurtured this yearning and helped it grow, but the one that couldn’t wait to take step after step was all her.
And so over time regret turned into grateful acceptance as her dream-self demonstrated how far she had come along while the fingers tenderly snapped her mind one thought at a time or played with her long, silky hair.
By the time Helga opened her eyes again the sun would always be shining on the daily streams of metal boxes and busy people rushing to their offices. None of them would even consider casting their eyes up here to see the attractive young woman that enjoyed her special hour of immodesty. With a beaming grin she stretched to shake the drowsiness out of her muscles, absentmindedly giggling over the way her ponytail tickled her shoulders when she turned her head. Somehow she never remembered putting her hair up. But there was something about the simple hairdo that she liked, she decided. Just to be thorough she turned every which way, posing as much as warming up her joints. One had to take full advantage of the last few minutes before the blinds would be opened on the windows all around—much as the thrill of maybe being a minute too late dyed her face a bright cherry red. Of course, if anyone had indeed looked on they may have spotted how she deliberately showed off every which way except for one before collecting her blanket and the empty mug. But naturally nobody looked and so silence returned to the row of identical balconies and two blushing faces behind the privacy of their windows.
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