The Motif

Chapter 15

That night, the dreams returned, but this time they were different. They were not the still flashes of images she had experienced before, but a continuous narrative, seen from a specific point of view – on some level, her subconscious recognized it was Chrissie's point of view that she was experiencing.

Chrissie had started coming to see Kyrie to help her get over the betrayal of her bad breakup. They had made an almost instant connection – though it was purely platonic. Chrissie had made a comment about how nice his handwriting was, which led to a discussion about her work as a calligrapher.

"I can usually tell a lot about a person, just by looking at their handwriting," she had told him. "It says a lot about a person. Most men, for example, have terrible handwriting. Yours is very nice, though."

Kyrie blushed and thanked her. For the first time in two years, she felt like she had found someone she could open up and say anything to, and it was liberating.

Not long after their sessions started, Kyrie mentioned he was working on a new musical therapy experiment, and he wanted to know if she would be interested in participating.

"I've been working," Kyrie went on to explain, "on seeing just how deep the influence of music can play on our psychology and emotions. I want to see if it is possible to deliberately change and direct a person's feelings with a specific piece of music. For you, we would try and see if we can direct your feelings away from the betrayal of your ex-boyfriend.

"For the experiment, I want to place you under hypnosis, and play you a piece of music I have composed specifically with this intent. Once I release you from the hypnotic spell, you will return to normal, as if nothing had happened, but hopefully your mind and heart will be a little more open to moving on afterwards."

Chrissie eagerly agreed, and the experiment commenced. The only thing Chrissie ever recalled after being awakened from her hypnotic state was a vague recollection of a beautiful, but haunting, music box melody and the distant voice of Kyrie speaking to her through the fog of hypnosis.

Although Kyrie had insisted that the hypnotic spell would end, and she would return to normal as soon as she awoke, Chrissie never felt normal afterward. She felt changed in a way she could not quite explain, but it was a good change. A welcomed change. She hadn't felt this free since before she'd walked in on her boyfriend and her best friend together in her own bed.

But there was a side effect. The tune began running through Chrissie's head, long after each session had ended. She didn't tell Kyrie about this, because she feared he would put a stop to the experiment, and she needed this feeling of freedom that the hypnosis had brought her.

But it soon began to fill her heart, as well as her mind, and she began to associate it with the only other thing she ever was aware of in her hypnotic state: Kyrie's voice. Her infatuation with the music soon turned into an infatuation with Kyrie, himself. She knew it was wrong, not only because he was twenty or so years her senior, but because he was her therapist. But as time went on, and the melody continued to consume her spirit, her infatuation grew.

She didn't dare tell him now, for she was certain he would call an end to their sessions, and thereby take away the two things she needed more than anything: the music and his voice.

Then everything went terribly, terribly wrong.

She was in the midst of one of her hypnotic sessions, when Kyrie abruptly snapped her out of the hypnosis, shouting her name with an intense sharpness that snapped her out of her oblivion. She was somewhat surprised to find that in her hypnotic state, her hand had slid beneath the hem of her skirt, and as her senses returned she recognized the tingling sensation of arousal. She looked across Kyrie's office, to find him staring at her, his mouth open in shock, his countenance pale.