I can’t stop thinking about the tent, the fortune teller, and the overwhelming euphoria of surrendering my body to the spirit world. Not really, of course: none of it’s real. It’s only make-believe. But the thrill is very real.

Just the memory makes me itch. Am I addicted? Is this an addiction? It must be. From my cubicle, I look at the clock. I don’t know why: Even when the work day ends, I’m only going home. It’s not Friday. It’s not time to return. Not time for her to speak the words and put me under. I have to wait, but the waiting is excruciating.

I turn back to my emails. Drivel. Nonsense, all of it. A life I wish I could leave behind. A life I wish I could surrender to someone else. I shiver at the thought. Someone else could take my hands and raise them over the keys, someone else’s fingers could type out pedestrian banalities in response to pedestrian complaints. But then, someone else wouldn’t do that. Not with these fingers. Not with this body.

What would they do? What could I do with this life, this face and this body, if I could only slough off my own timidity? When it happens, I feel like there is so much life inside me! Like I could do anything and it would be a joy! I want my body to leap out of my chair, tear my blouse and stand on my desk, breasts exposed to my dull-eyed coworkers and declare that I’m leaving and never coming back.

But I can’t. Because I’m me, and that wouldn’t be a “me” thing to do. So instead, I type in front of a screen, and think about Friday and how it feels to pretend that someone - someone with a greater appreciation for being alive than myself - has control of my body.

I can’t believe how insistent the cravings have become, or how quickly they took hold. Surely something this addictive could make a fortune and take over the world if the practice were more widespread, but in my own mind I am glad that it is not. She can only see me once a week, and I could not bear the thought of seeing her less because of other clients competing for her time.

It was only by chance that I met her: A full tent some ways distant from the lights of a traveling carnival. Was she even a part of the troupe, or did she simply follow them for the business? I saw no-one else nearby at the time, having escaped from the light and sound to ease a sudden migraine. A sit down somewhere dark and quiet seemed just the thing.

It was everything you would have expected from such a place: The smell of incense, an elderly figure with a veiled face and a crystal ball. It wasn’t so long ago, but I can scarcely recall any other details. Did she seem to be expecting me? Surely that was part of the act. Had she known my name? I must have given it at some point. Had I asked her to read my fortune? It didn’t hurt to pass the time while I waited for the headache to abate.

And it did abate, much faster than it might have under ordinary circumstances. No doubt taking shelter from noise and glare had been a wise decision, and a cool drink with the scent of lavender could not have hurt matters. I played along as the woman spoke, giving her enough material to weave a plausible future for me while waiting for the sales pitch.

I wasn’t being cynical, it’s simply how things went in the business. The fortune was just a downpayment on some warding charm and a ritual to banish bad humours. Balance the chakras of whatever they did. But it didn’t happen this time. She wasn’t interested in selling me protection from spirits. She wanted me to let one into my body.

Not in actuality - on this she was very clear. She was no true medium: Just a performer plying her trade by the light of the moon and the ferris wheel. She did not truck with spirits and wouldn’t know how even if she wanted to. But she could place a suggestion on her audience that a spirit was present, and she assured me the experience was like nothing else.

I’m pulled back to the present by a question. I look at the questioner with annoyance and ask them to repeat it. It’s not a stupid question, but it’s not my question to answer, so I direct them to the correct department and grimace at the screen that I had been blissfully ignoring for who knows how long. I look at the clock: Not long enough.

Sales make the numbers go up. Expenses make the numbers go down. Products and product accessories go in and out. Throw them in a box and shake’em all about. I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind.

When did it get this bad? I loved my job. No, I tolerated my job. I tolerated my life. I woke up, ate, drove, worked, ate, worked, drove, ate and slept, because that’s the life I had been taught to expect: The same life everyone else gets. Sure, there were exceptions, but I wasn’t exceptional. But I didn’t hate it until I experienced something better.

She told me to lay down, and I did.
She told me to close my eyes, and I did.
She told me to take a deep breath, and I did.
She told me to let it out slowly, and I did.

She told me to do it again, but this time she would count down as I breathed out, and to imagine myself slowly sinking into a warm darkness, like sinking into a bathtub of chocolate, and I did.

As she counted down, I could actually feel the shadows rolling in on me, swallowing my body and submerging me. I wasn’t scared - It was only roleplay - but it was surprisingly exciting. Like when you were a kid pretending that ghosts were real and one was hiding under the edge of every door, so you had to dance around the shadows or they would grab you by the leg.

But I wasn’t dancing this time. I was inviting one in. Pretending to, of course.

As I sank and the countdown continued, I felt an electric sensation run from my toes up my legs, my body, my face and left my hair standing on end, as though I had been struck by a cool breeze that pierced through leather and fabric on my naked skin. Whether it was my own imagination, some contraption to add to the illusion or both, I could barely twitch under the immense weight rolling over me.

I don’t remember hearing her count all the way down to zero, but I remember opening my eyes. I wasn’t in any real danger - how could I be? - but the sudden burst of light and colour after such an intense period of concentrated darkness felt like seeing for the first time. I took a deep breath through parted lips, feeling air rush into my deprived lungs and cooling the saliva on my tongue. I looked down at myself and remembered.

I had let a spirit into my body.

Should I have felt different? I couldn’t tell at the time, but I knew I felt good. Not in any specific way, just good to be. To exist. I raised my hands in front of my face - the same hands I had wandered into the tent with, yet somehow mesmerising in my new state of wakefulness.

I licked my lips, looked down at my body and pressed my hands against myself, as though expecting them to pass through, from my hips to my chest to my face. A sudden fountain of happiness welled up inside of me, and I broke out into a smile so wide it hurt my cheeks.

That momentary discomfort must have been enough to shatter the illusion, because I suddenly felt the euphoria leave me and sank back onto the chair. A wave of embarrassment overcame me as I remember that I was not alone but was, in fact, the customer of the tent’s owner. She didn’t move; if anything she seemed to have drooped and I worried that I had intruded on too much of her time.

A quick glance at my watch told me it had been bare minutes since I had first lain down, but the suffocating sense of awkward displacement led me to fumble a handful of cash onto her table, babble some incoherent jumble of apology and excuse and hurry out of the tent back to the dancing carnival lights. She said nothing, but it felt as though I was being watched as I walked anxiously away.

Another question pulls me back to the present. Someone has made a joke about my enthusiasm for work. I wonder what they’re talking about when I see that it is more than ten minutes past the close of business. I mumble something about needing to tie up loose ends. My screen shows that despite my wandering mind, I have been able to complete the day’s tasks without committing any catastrophic mistakes.

The drive home is dull, though I slow down as I pass the now-abandoned fairground as I have done so every night since the first. It was with real surprise that I had first realised her tent had remained, long after the carnival had broken camp and moved to the next part of the city.

Most recently it has been with a steadily building dread that I would pass this way; dread that I would look and find that she, too, had finally packed up and left. The relief upon seeing that distant smudge of faded purple had become a daily embrocation for my psyche, and I had twice needed to pull over in bad weather to confirm on foot that her tent remained.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow after work, I would visit her again and indulge in the craving she had awakened in me.

For the rest of the drive, my thoughts turn from anxiety to expectation; Reliving the steady escalation of the experience. The carnival had departed less than a week after my first encounter, and it was with no small amount of concern for her wellbeing that I inspected the tent the following Friday, especially given her apparent frailty only a week before.

But she was well and greeted me as such, inviting me for another session at no charge, as I had hastily overpaid during my first visit. I was uneasy at first, remembering how quickly I had forgotten last time that I was not alone, but she reassured me that this was part of the experience: That under the belief that my body had surrendered itself to another spirit, it was only natural that it would want to explore.

Somewhat mollified, but resolving nevertheless to exercise a greater degree of self-control, I accepted the offer..

She told me to lay down, and I did.
She told me to close my eyes, and I did.
She told me to take a deep breath, and I did.

As the breath left my lungs and her voice counted down, I felt the darkness once more roll across my body. This time, the electric sensation came sooner, sending a shiver along my entire length and I felt like I did not even wait for the counting to cease before opening my eyes and sitting up.

Still wanting to indulge in the roleplay, but not wanting to be caught awkwardly fondling myself again, I swung my legs around and planted my feet firmly on the floor of the tent. It was odd, but much like the last time, ordinarily mundane sensations such as the pressure of my shoes against my flesh were magnified to my mind, such that I momentarily lost myself again.

Shaking myself with a sudden sense of urgency, I stood up and reached for the roof of the tent with intertwined fingers. It felt amazing to stretch like this, to feel every individual tendon and muscle awakening to its purpose after hours, days, years of neglect in front of a computer screen.

I stretched my arms, my shoulders, my core, my legs, feeling every part of myself sing with the joy of rediscovery. Feeling unaccountably weightless, I took off my shoes and began to bounce around on the balls of my feet, hopping and prancing about, making my hair billow around my face and my breasts bounce while my bra struggled to hold them in place.

The weight of them tugging against my chest ignited something else inside me, and I felt the stirrings of arousal creeping into my flesh. Tentatively, as though afraid I would somehow scare the feeling away, I wrapped my arms around my torso and gently squeezed my breasts against myself and was rewarded by a lightning thrill of excitement.

Reality came back into focus without warning, and the horrified realisation that I had once again allowed the experience to overtake me made me cringe with embarrassment. Surely this time there would be some kind of reprimand, or at least a snide comment? But she had nothing to say, once again seeming exhausted from her side of the performance.

She waved my apologies away with one hand, leaving me to scurry in shame out of the tent, fuming at myself for once again losing control. Worse, my embarrassment had done nothing to quell the growing hunger that had awakened in me, and I spent several sleepless hours in bed before giving in.

I blink, and I’m in my own driveway, the engine of my car idling patiently. I turn off the ignition and let myself into my apartment. The memory of my second time has made me restless, and thoughts of dinner are forgotten as I step into a hot shower, lather up my breasts and slide one hand between my legs.


It had felt strange at the time, but none of my usual indulgences were enough to bring me to climax. Instead, I felt my memories drawn once again to the moments after opening my eyes in her tent, and the self-created belief that I had allowed a spirit into my body. I pictured another mind, soaking into my flesh like water into a sponge, opening my eyes and dancing with glee at the sensation of life. I imagined it savouring every individual sensation it could garner from my body like a choice morsel, toying with my body until it lost patience and brought me to a shuddering orgasm.

I relive that first night in the shower, and several other nights besides. I returned to the tent each Friday, at first hesitatingly, then hungrily, then helplessly. Drawn to the promise of an experience longer and even more exquisite than the last, letting my body be piloted by the illusion of another soul.

By the fifth week, I had begun to strip in the tent, exposing my naked flesh and exploring it with delighted fingertips. Not long after that, I began to pleasure myself openly, laying back with my legs spread, fingers digging ravenously into my flesh.

She never said anything judgemental. She never said anything at all. She just folded in on herself more and more as each session grew longer and longer, apparently content to exhaust herself for my enjoyment and the fee that I paid her, though I could not for the life of me recall how much she charged.

Last week, after several hours of flaunting and preening, I had brought myself to orgasm while watching my reflection in the mirror, standing fully naked and grinning with perverse glee. Weeks of self exploration under the pretense of being possessed had aroused a narcissistic streak in me, but I could no longer bring myself to feel ashamed when it felt so liberating to be in love with myself, if only for a short while.

For six days of the week, I was a drab, unremarkable nobody in a sea of nobodies, but every Friday night, I could love myself in a way impossible for anyone sober or sane, and the echoes of that pleasure sustained me in the times between.

I finish myself off in the shower, watching my body twitch and moan in the mirror. It’s a good performance, but it’s not the same. However hard I try, I am unable to lose myself utterly in the moment and let my body - or whatever part of me it is - take control.

But tomorrow is Friday.

I look at my clock. Today is Friday.

I collapse in bed. I fall asleep. I wake up to the screech of my alarm. I feel horrible. I can’t see her like this. I can’t ruin the experience by turning up haggard and unfocused. I call in sick at work and go back to sleep.

I wake up in a panic, struck by the notion that I had somehow slept through the entire day, but I see that it is barely past lunch and I have several hours before I finish work.

But I’m not at work. I called in sick.

I leap out of bed, shower, brush my teeth and get dressed. Today I have all day. Today I can visit, fresh from a lie-in rather than ragged from work.

I look at myself in the mirror. Dull, but it will have to do. No matter how hard I tried at home, what I wore or how I acted, it was always missing something. The look of hunger I see in my eyes when I go to her. When the spirit takes me, I look stunning, even in my lustreless work clothes. The other me is going to love this.

My heart is racing as I step into the car and drive to the empty fairground. The tent is there, waiting. She is there, waiting. She doesn’t seem surprised that I’m early; just waves me to lay down.

She tells me to close my eyes, and I do..
She tells me to take a deep breath, and I do.
The spirit takes me.

I open my eyes, and from the predatory grin that spreads across my face, I already know that I look amazing. Without a moment’s hesitation, I am in front of the mirror and I am in love with myself.

The spirit wearing my body turns her face this way and that, making faces and giggling to herself. She turns, twirls, stretches and poses. It’s been less than five minutes and we are soaking wet.

Six minutes and the outfit is off and we are making out passionately, trapped on either side of the glass, in love with our reflection.

When she smiles, I smile.
When she laughs, I laugh.
When she climaxes, I climax.

As we shudder into what I assume is the first of many, I feel an odd sensation: Very similar to when I sink into darkness after closing my eyes, except this time it feels as though the darkness is sinking into me. My expression in the mirror changes to one of expectancy as I feel it filling me up, bubbling from the soles of my feet up my calves into my thighs, past my throbbing sex and womb into my stomach and chest, pouring over the lip of my shoulders into my fingers, rising up my next and filling my head.

For the first time since I visited the tent, for the first time in my entire life, I feel whole. Like some kind of spirit really has entered my body and filled in all of the gaps that my soul alone could not fill. I feel full. I feel complete. I feel amazing, and I don’t want it to stop.

I turn to look at the body slumped over in the chair. She must be asleep. That’s fine, I’ll thank her when I see her again. If I come back. I’m not sure. My body moves on its own. And that’s okay.

It already feels like I’ve spent an eternity in the tent’s stuffy atmosphere, and the sunny afternoon breeze is like a release from captivity. I pause briefly to drink in the sky before heading smartly to my car and driving home. Maybe I’ll redecorate. Maybe I’ll quit my job. I’m not sure. My body moves on its own. And that’s okay.

After getting home, my body undresses itself and admires our reflection in the mirror. Once again, I am compelled to explore my body with my own hands, but this time with the joy of doing so in my own home and the knowledge that it will never end. Every part of my body feels new and exciting as I watch my reflection squeeze her breasts, suck on her fingers and hold herself open before filling herself up to the knuckles. Is it just me, or is it the compulsion to act as though I’m possessed? I’m not sure. My body moves on its own. And that’s okay.

After all, it’s only make-believe.