Trick of the Mind - 10 by Maeryn Lamonte Melanie Ezell's big closet ultimate writer's challenge — Written From The Heart Thanks to Wren Erendae Phoenix for editing/proofing. As I sat down in my reserved seat, I thought back over the past few weeks. Pretty much all I had that seemed worthwhile were the happy memories of that day shopping with Alice, the evening after and the coral dress folded neatly at the bottom of my bag.

Back at university I slipped a note in Jennifer’s pigeon hole to tell her I was back. I didn’t want to call her with my troubles and ruin the last few days of her break. My own hall of residence was almost empty with just a couple of third years back early to focus on their revision for finals. Dave had texted me to tell me he was away playing rugby until the Sunday so he wouldn’t see me much before we were back to the grind.

In my absence, the caretakers had been in my room and fixed both the lock and the dent in the wall, so I took a bit of time putting together a poster for the front door saying, “Don’t kick! Door has been fixed.” and sticking it where everyone could see. I wasn’t sure if Dave would stop long enough to read it, but I could hope.

Those last few days were a lonely and depressing. I spent most of them with a nose in a book, reading ahead for the lectures to come. I tried to ignore the way I was dressed with some days being more successful than other. Once I dressed to find myself wearing the French maid’s outfit I’d seen in an advert for an upcoming play. A short black dress with lace collar and apron, some very frilly knickers and petticoats, dark seamed stockings and high heels. Even the cap was perched on my head. It was impossible to ignore the tickle of the lace or the delicious feeling of the stockings and suspenders, and I found myself becoming aroused without wishing it. In exasperation, I took off my male clothes and put on the coral dress. Later that afternoon I found myself about to walk out of the room still wearing the dress for real, and it hit home how much this was becoming a habitual part of my life.

Jen came back on the Friday and came round almost immediately to find me in a dark mood.

“Why the long face, as the farmer said to his horse?”

It was a lousy joke, but Jen’s fondness for Beano humour had lifted my mood in the past. This time it bounced.

“Now I know something’s wrong,” she said. “Talk to me Richard.”

So I did, all about the holidays and the way my parents had been, how feeling like I was dressed as a girl in that environment had made things seem a hundred times worse. I told her about the way I’d been feeling since I’d come back, and what had happened the day with the French maid’s outfit.

“I’m sick of this Jen. I need it to stop.” I broke down then and she held me for a long while. Eventually she pushed me back upright and looked in my face.

“OK then, we’ll find a way of making this stop.”

She seemed so determined; I looked at her with a growing sense of hope.

“First order of business, we find that git of a hypnotist who started this and get him to take the trance off you.”

Later that evening Jen and I headed down to the union where Jen asked to speak to person who made all the bookings for entertainment. I was wearing a very clingy Lycra mini dress with a hem line that I was sure was indecent. Every time I thought no-one was looking I pulled the hem down until Jen told me to stop it if I didn’t want to risk pulling my jeans down in public.

The bookings manager invited us into his office, and I sat with my legs clamped together, afraid of showing off my underwear, and let Jen do the talking. He didn’t so much as look at me, and ten minutes later we walked out of his office armed with two bits of knowledge.

Firstly the manager had decided not to book Mr Mysterio for the union in the future. This it seemed was more to do with the way he took such pleasure in embarrassing his audience — especially students — than his failed finalé with me. Second was the location of where he was currently working in a rather seedy pub on the far side of the city.

We gave our thanks and headed for the bus stop.

An hour later we were outside the pub which was closed. Undaunted, Jen went round the back and knocked on the door. The publican opened the door a crack and stated the obvious.

“We're closed.”

“Yes,” said Jen, “I’m sorry to disturb you but we’re trying to get in touch with a hypnotist by the name of Mr Mysterio. I understand he does a show here?”

“Yes he’ll be on at eight. If you come back then we’ll be open and you can buy some drinks.”

With that he shut the door and we were left to wander round the grubby streets for a couple of hours. We did find a café nearby and worked our way through more bad coffee than either of us care to think about, waiting for opening time.

As soon as the pub was open, we went back and upset the owner further by ordering a couple of orange juices. I think it may have been the first time anyone had ordered anything with vitamins and it took him a while to find a price for the two small bottles. I hunted for a date stamp on the bottle — it was in date, but not by much.

We found a quiet table and nursed our drinks for as long as we dared, evading the owner’s occasional glares, until it looked like he was going to come over and say something. I switched to coke and Jen asked for lemonade. The publican called me the last of the big spenders as I paid for the drinks.

Jen sipped the top off her drink and poured the remains of her OJ into it. We sat and waited.

Eight o’clock finally arrived and, with fewer than a dozen people in the bar, including ourselves and the publican, Mr Mysterio made his appearance.

The show was a shortened, downmarket version of the one he had done at the university. He was a little more circumspect about how much he embarrassed his volunteers, being very much aware that these were the sorts of people who might wait for him after closing time in order to show him how much they appreciated being shown up in front of their friends. Being limited in how nasty he could be severely affected the show. Jen and I stayed hidden in the shadows until his miserable efforts were done then, as he ducked off the makeshift stage to the smallest smattering of applause, Jen and I took our chance and ran after him. The publican called after us, but didn’t feel safe leaving his bar untended in the presence of his regulars, so we managed to escape.

We found Mysterio’s changing room and knocked on the door. An angry voice asked us what we wanted.

He turned to us as we entered. He looked at Jen first and when nothing clicked he let his gaze slide over me. Almost at once I could see the glimmer of recognition in his eye. It was followed by a sardonic grin as he realised what this visit must be about.

“I remember you,” he said looking at me. “You’re that little turd who ruined my act at the university. You realise because of you I didn’t get invited back and instead have to scrape a living in dives like this.”

“You’re wrong,” Jen said. “The reason you weren’t asked back is because you’re a little too nasty with your practical jokes. The bookings manager was in the audience that night and he felt you went way too far with the way you embarrassed the people who came up on stage. If your finalé was what decided the guy against you, it wasn’t that it failed so much as the way you went all out to destroy my boyfriend's reputation with your little stunt.”

Mysterio continued to look at me.

“What’s the matter pissant? Need a girl to fight for you? Thing is I don’t think I did fail did I? Sissy little girly-boy that you are, I gave you just what you wanted and you were bright enough to figure it out. I wonder just what you think you’re wearing now. It must be pretty revealing from the way you’re standing.

“Well this is justice indeed. You screw my life up and it looks like I’ve just about managed to do the same for you. Hah, maybe this hasn’t been such waste of a day after all. Thanks for stopping by and have a nice life. Oh sorry you can’t can you, because you’re going to spend the rest of it thinking you’re dressed like a girl.”

He turned back to his mirror and carried on removing his makeup. Time to put up or shut up.

“Listen mister, I didn’t come to pick a fight with you. I’m sorry your gig at the university didn’t work out, but what my friend here says is true. We talked to the booking manager at the union earlier today and he explained why he didn’t want you back. He said you were just too unpleasant with the things you got people to do when they were in a trance. If you think about it, if things had gone as you’d planned when I was there, my reputation would have been shot. I’d have had the nightmare of thinking I was dressed as a girl in front of all my mates and afterwards they’d have had the admission from my own lips that I like to dress up as a girl. What could you have given me that would have made up for that?”

He kept his back to me, but he wasn’t wiping his makeup off anymore. I took a deep breath and went for it.

“You’re right, you did put me under, I do have a thing about dressing up as a girl, and I am terrified of people finding out. When I figured out what you’d done to me I wasn’t thinking about what it would do to your reputation. Actually to be honest I was more than a bit annoyed with you for the way you’d embarrassed some of my mates, and for the way you were trying to ruin my life. I figured that the suggestion you’d put in me would fade away after a day or two at the most, and in the meantime, since I wasn’t really wearing a dress I figured I could fulfil a dream I’d had for a long time, and I did. The thing is, it’s not stopping and I’m losing control now.

“You have to take some responsibility for losing your chance at the university. If you’ll change your approach, be a bit kinder with your act, I’d be prepared to have a word with the manager to see if he’d give you a second chance. He may listen to me as I’m probably the person who was most messed up by your act. The thing is I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t even want to be in your show. I certainly didn’t ask for my deepest darkest secret to be shared with the entire student body, or for you to try and make my worst nightmare come true so who’s the more wronged here?”

Mysterio's shoulders slumped as the rage leaked out of him, leaving behind a sad, grubby little man. Something of the string of disappointments and failures that had brought him to this point showed through the shiny elbows and frayed cuffs of his costume and I realised that pretty much all that was holding him together was his anger and his bitterness. It seemed almost cruel to undermine that. I turned to Jen.

“Come on, let's go.”

I took her arm and reached for the door.

“Wait.”

I might have gone on, but Jen stopped. For her sake so did I.

“Would you tell me one thing? How did you figure out that it wasn't real?”

Somehow I felt I owed him for stripping away his defences. I told him about the clock and Dave's pint giving me the time frame, then of the dress being such a good fit and so unusual in its design. He half turned towards us and nodded with begrudging respect.

“I'll give you this kid, you're bright. You put me to shame too. If anyone who's been on my stage has a reason to be mad at me, it's you, yet here you are being reasonable. It's no wonder you have friends who stand by you.”

I swallowed, hardly daring to hope.

“So will you fix this?”

“I'm sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

“What!” screamed Jenny, all fury and unreason. “All that and you’re not even going to try?”

I reached out a hand to calm her. Mysterio was backing away from her.

“Listen miss, I really am sorry this time, but there literally is nothing I can do. The trance I put your boyfriend under went deep. Since he was an unwilling subject it was the only way I could be sure of putting him under. The problem with that kind of trance is that the suggestion goes deep as well. If it’s removed early then there’s no harm done, but I did this to you, what three months ago?”

I nodded.

“It’s been in you long enough to become part of you. It’s all tangled up in who you are now. If I tried to take it out I could cause a more severe trauma. You don’t believe me, look it up.”

He took out a pen and wrote the name of a book and its author.

“You probably have a copy in your university library, but there really is nothing more I can do for you.”

“So I’m stuck like this? For good?”

“Or for bad, I’m afraid so. Sometimes these things fade over time. Sometimes if you fight them hard enough you may be able to break the trance. It rarely happens though. My advice would be to find a way to live with it. I know it’s not much but you’re smart. If anyone can figure it out, I imagine it’ll be you.”

Jen and I stood there shocked, but this was as complete a dead end as we were likely to find.

Mysterio finished cleaning his makeup off then he turned to us again.

“Look kids, I’m sorry. I have to get changed and get home. Have a read of that book and see if you find anything out. Beyond that I really can’t help you, and now you have to leave.”

He ushered us out and closed the door behind us. Nothing has ever felt so final as the sound of that door shutting home. We wandered back out into the main lounge, where the publican pointed to the main door, telling us to clear off and not to come back.

We headed towards the centre of town until we found a bus that would take us back to the campus. We climbed on board in silence and found a seat near the back. I was too stunned to speak, or even to think. I felt trapped - lost and without hope. The threat of tears pricked the backs of my eyes as I felt Jen's hand come to rest on my back.

“We’re not licked yet,” she said. “We'll think of something.”

I don’t think she even managed to convince herself.