Mandelbrot Story

“Ah shit, I forgot my fake driver’s license.” I yanked my wallet out of my jeans and thumbed through it, confirming my suspicions. Groans came from everyone in the car.

“Lame ass!” Phillip called from the back seat, “Where is it?”

“It’s in my room, on my desk. I just remembered. Damn it!”

“Well, hurry up, dipshit! The club cards everyone.” Geoff, the driver yelled, “Move your ass.”

I was lucky to remember when I did, since we were just about to pull out of the campus parking lot. An hour later and I’d be sitting in the car all night outside of the nightclub. I swore under my breath as I sprinted over to my dorm; it was a bit of a coup that I’d managed to get invited to go out with this pack of frat boys. Phillip was on the swim team and had invited me to come along with them. His friend had hooked me up with a really top-notch fake ID.

And I was already blowing it.

I entered the side entrance of the dorm and tore down the hallway. I was about to burst into my room when I suddenly remembered that Seth might be asleep; he’d told me that he wasn’t feeling well and was just going to rest tonight. I opened the door as quietly as I could, but instead of silence in the room, I heard Seth’s voice.

“Look deeply into the spiraling pattern. Notice wherever you look your body follows, down… forever down. Deeper into the void. How do you feel?”

“I’m… I’m floating! I… I can’t feel my body,” answered a second voice—a voice I recognized all too well as Taylor’s!

Something weird was going on. I didn’t have to look into the room to realize what was happening: Seth was showing Taylor our Mandelbrot program with the visor. Suddenly I felt my stomach clench. What was I feeling? Jealousy? It was something like that. I closed the door, trying to be completely silent about it. Seth knew I was going to be out all night with the guys. He lied about feeling ill. But what the hell was Taylor doing there?

I had told Seth about our night together. I was still trying to understand Taylor’s screwed up psyche, given how almost impossible it had been to actually seduce him. I believed that deep inside Taylor had needed to have someone fuck him, but he was so freaked out about it that the next day he completely avoided me. I ran into him in the dining hall the next day, and he would barely say a word to me. But I told Seth all that in confidence. What was he doing with Taylor over, and what the hell were they doing with the visor?

I got an idea and bolted down the hall to the dorm lounge. There was a little side room—barely more than a cubbyhole—where there was a pair of old computers. It was supposed to be a “study” room of sorts, but the computers were these old beat-up PCs and nobody ever used them.

As I flipped the power on one of them, pulled out my cell phone and dialed Phillip’s number. A couple rings and an annoyed voice answer, “Where the fuck are you?”

“Phil, something’s come up. I can’t come. I’m really sorry. Listen, I’ll make it up to you guys. Next time we go out I’ll buy everyone two rounds of drinks.”

“You’d better hope there’s a next time, dipshit. Okay, we’re off.”

I put my phone back in my pocket and sat down to the computer. It was just finishing booting up Linux. Thank God nobody on campus used Windows or I’d be unable to pull this off. I pulled up a terminal window and logged into the computer that was sitting on my desk in my dorm room.

studyPC> ssh [email protected] -L 8877:127.0.0.1:8877

It took about a minute to access the microphone on my computer and route it over the network pipe to this old PC in the study room. I pulled out my MP3 player from my jacket and borrowed its headphones, plugging them into the computer and voila! I was spying on Seth and Taylor. My computer’s microphone (it was attached to a webcam) was pretty good quality, and the computer was right next to my bed where Taylor was most likely laying, so I could hear them really well.

Taylor was speaking: “Yes, yes it was incredible. It hurt—at first it hurt a lot—but then it was just incredible, like he was breaking through this barrier in my soul, this wall that I’ve erected to keep everyone out. There was nothing I could do, no place left to hide…”

Oh wow, this conversation was deep!

Then Seth asked, “You’re saying it was something you needed, right? You needed Zach to do this to you because you were too scared to ask for it yourself?”

I heard a strange sound. It sounded like maybe Taylor was getting choked up.

“Shhh. Relax. I want you to feel the tension wash away from you.” Seth was saying, “Focus on the swirling patterns. The void is drawing your fear out of you. You are feeling a warm sensation all over your body. You are in Zach’s arms; he’s holding your weightless body effortlessly. This fear has no power over you. It’s abstract—something you can hold in your hands and examine dispassionately. Feel the calmness. You feel safe here, don’t you?”

Taylor’s voice was distant, “I feel safe here in Zachary’s arms.”

I sat stunned, slumped in the chair in this dark little study room, listening to what was going on. My brain was having a hard time grasping what was going on even though it was pretty fucking obvious: Taylor was in a hypnotic trance, and it had something to do with those visors and my Mandelbrot program!

I felt a little detached as I listened to Seth probing Taylor’s psyche. Taylor was terrified about sexuality and intimacy. He wasn’t sure if he was gay or straight, but he wasn’t comfortable enough about it and afraid of what other people would think if they found out.

Then I listened as Seth started rewriting Taylor’s memory, effectively rewiring the programming in his head.

“Taylor, the events you described to me were actually different from what really happened. That’s okay, and there’s nothing to worry about, but I’m going to tell you what really happened. Zach didn’t seduce you that night; you seduced him. You aren’t afraid of concepts like gay or straight—to you these concepts are narrow and childish. You have a strong, natural sexuality—a very potent, very virile sexuality. You love to connect with all sorts of people.

“When you first met Zach you felt this great connection with him. He turned you on, made you feel sensual like never before. After knowing him a couple weeks you decided that one day you would seduce him. You were patient, waiting for the right moment, and when he made the swim team you decided you were going to have him that night.

“I want you to remember how he was nervous and you had to play it really cool and get him a little drunk before you made your move. You were gentle but dominant when you got him to fuck you, when you took his virginity. It made you feel extremely powerful, didn’t it.”

“Yes, it did! It was wonderful!” Taylor answered.

“In fact, if the opportunity presents itself again, with Zach or any other guy on the swim team, you may do the same thing. You’re not worried about what people think of you. You know they’ll just be awed by your masculinity—a masculinity you love to share.”

I didn’t hear much more of their session. I was too busy wondering what was happening every time Seth had me wearing that visor. I was thinking over my dramatic transformation over this entire semester. On one hand, I was such a stronger person, both physically and sexually. I loved my new self-confidence. But I also felt incredibly vulnerable.

I wondered what I should do. Should I confront Seth with this discovery? No, I wanted more information before doing that. I needed to be more prepared. I pulled up another terminal window, logged into second shell session on my computer and started writing a new computer program. I listened to Seth implanting Taylor with a new love of body-exhibition; Taylor was going to love walking around in his Speedo whenever possible. He would revel in the thought that people were looking at his body and coveting it.

Meanwhile I was putting together a simple script. It would poll Seth’s computer every two minutes, and whenever it noticed that the Mandelbrot program was running, it would start recording sound through my webcam’s microphone. I would be able to eavesdrop on every one of Seth’s future hypnosis sessions. I added an additional feature so my computer would send my cell phone an SMS message whenever this started happening.

Of course, that meant that I would have to knowingly submit to one of these sessions. The idea of relinquishing control of my mind to Seth scared me a little, but there was also a certain exhilaration. As I finished up my script, saved it and logged out of my computer (I would listen to a recording of the remainder of their session later) I couldn’t help but notice I was starting to get an erection.

Later that night I swung by Taylor’s dorm room. Before knocking I noticed some quiet music coming from inside. It had that certain aimless melody that sounded suspiciously like the background music of a porn movie. I couldn’t help but grin; Seth was really priming this guy! I knocked on the door, and after a few seconds the music disappeared. Taylor yelled suspiciously, “Who is it?”

“Yo, It’s Zach,” I yelled, “You got a second?”

Another twenty seconds or so and the door opened. Zach was shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweats. “Oh hey man, what’s up?”

I felt evil. I knew he had been programmed to seduce me next time he had the opportunity. I acted coy, “Hey, I know I was acting a little weird after the other night. It just took me a little while to process what had happened. But I want you to know I’m cool.”

Taylor just stood there scrutinizing me. I could see his mind spinning, trying to figure out what to do. I also noticed a huge bulge in his sweats which he made no effort to hide.

I egged him on. I looked down at my feet like I was feeling really shy, then I stole a quick glance up at him and immediately looked away.

“Um, cool. No problem. Do you want to… come in?”

“Yeah, sure. You still got that second bottle of champagne?”