Chapter 2: Psychic Eruption
The lavender scent in Dr. Sharma’s office usually felt calming. Today, it just smelled like something trying too hard to mask the scent of anxiety. Evelyn sat on the edge of the worn leather couch, her fingers tracing a smooth spot worn by decades of other people’s nervous hands. The diplomas on the wall seemed less like credentials and more like judgments.
“So,” Dr. Sharma began, her voice its usual careful neutral. “Last week, you described a… charged interaction with your coworker. A lot of subtext. And a phone call that clarified his relationship status. How has that sat with you?”
Evelyn let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. “Oh, you know. Like a lead balloon filled with shame and sexual frustration. The usual.”
“Define ‘the usual’ for this week, Evelyn.”
“The usual is that I’m now having dreams that would make a HBO producer blush. And I…” She stopped, her nails pressing into the soft leather. She hadn’t planned to say this part. “And I think it’s… leaking.”
Dr. Sharma’s pen paused over her notebook. “Leaking?”
“Not me. Him. N.” The words sounded insane. She pushed on. “In the dream, he’s… monstrous. Bigger than life. And when I woke up, I was convinced, for a second, that I’d heard something. Like a… a physical strain.” She looked at her therapist, searching for the dismissive smirk. It wasn’t there. Only patient, quiet attention. “Then, yesterday, we were working together. Just us. And everything we said had this… ridiculous double meaning. It was absurd. Juvenile.”
“You mentioned previously he had a girlfriend. Were you flirting?”
“No! That’s the thing. We were talking about spreadsheet architecture. Foundation. Input. Output.” She buried her face in her hands. “It sounds deranged. But the air was so thick I could barely breathe. And I…” She peeked through her fingers. “I looked. At his pants.”
Dr. Sharma didn’t flinch. “And?”
“And there was a… a pronounced difference. From when we started talking. A very noticeable… outline.” The clinical words felt foolish. “It wasn’t like that before. I’m sure of it. It was like my stupid, overheating brain was… broadcasting. And his body was picking up the signal.”
“Evelyn, the mind is powerful. When we’re intensely focused on someone, we can interpret neutral cues as confirmation of our own desires. It’s called confirmation bias.”
“I know what confirmation bias is,” Evelyn said, a touch of her normal sharpness returning. “This wasn’t a cue. It was a billboard. And it happened while I was literally thinking about… about the robustness of data fields.” She slumped back. “I ran away. Like a teenager.”
Dr. Sharma set her pen down. “These fantasies, and now this perceived physical reaction… they’re escalating. They’re consuming mental real estate you can’t afford to give. You’re burnt out. Your brain is seeking a potent distraction, and it’s latched onto this man with both hands.”
“I know.” Evelyn’s voice was small. “But what if it’s not just in my head?” The question hung in the lavender-scented air, dangerous and quiet.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know. A psychosexual feedback loop? A hormonal telepathy? Something fundamentally broken in my wiring that’s now breaking reality around me?” She was only half-joking.
Dr. Sharma studied her. “Let’s try a small exercise. Right now, in this room, where you are safe and he is nowhere near, think about him. Specifically. Intently. Observe what happens in your body, in your emotions. Not his. Yours.”
Evelyn closed her eyes. She felt resistant, silly. Then she let the image surface. N in the stairwell, the way his sleeves were rolled up. The vein on his hand. The low timbre of his voice saying “robust.” She imagined that hand, big and warm, gripping her waist. She imagined his face, that focused intensity, shifting into something hungry, possessive. She thought of the weight of him, the sheer physicality. Her own breath hitched. Heat pooled low in her stomach.
She opened her eyes. “Okay. Flushed. Accelerated heart rate. Arousal. Standard operating procedure for a fantasy.”
Dr. Sharma gave a small, professional nod. But her eyes flickered to the tablet on the small table beside her chair. It was face down, but a soft ping sounded from it, a notification. She ignored it.
“Good. You’re observing your own physiological response. That’s the anchor. The only reality you can control is your—”
The tablet pinged again, twice in quick succession. A slight frown crossed Dr. Sharma’s face. “Excuse me,” she murmured, turning the device over. It was a security alert system for her building. She tapped the screen.
Evelyn watched her therapist’s face. The calm, placid mask didn’t exactly slip. It froze. Dr. Sharma’s eyes widened a fraction. Her lips parted slightly.
“What is it?” Evelyn asked, a knot forming in her gut.
Dr. Sharma didn’t answer immediately. She stared at the tablet, then slowly, deliberately, turned it around to face Evelyn.
It showed a grainy black-and-white feed from a hallway camera. The time stamp was live, just two minutes ago. The corridor outside the building’s accounting office. And there, walking swiftly past the camera, one hand tugging at the front of his trousers in clear, furtive adjustment, was N. His face was flushed, his expression one of pained concentration. He vanished from the frame, heading towards the men’s room.
The timestamp glowed: 2:47 PM.
Evelyn had closed her eyes and begun her fantasy at exactly 2:45.
The sterile office air turned to glass. Evelyn couldn’t breathe. She stared at the frozen image on the tablet, then at Dr. Sharma’s utterly still face.
“That’s… the security feed from your building?” Evelyn managed, her voice thin.
“Yes.” Dr. Sharma’s voice was tight, all professional neutrality gone, replaced by a razor-sharp focus. “The accounting firm on the third floor uses our shared security system. That is their hallway.”
“He’s adjusting himself,” Evelyn whispered, the observation detached, clinical.
“He is.”
“I was just… thinking. Very specifically.”
“You were.”
Silence stretched, thick and heavy. The flickering desk lamp cast a jumping shadow across Dr. Sharma’s shocked face. Evelyn watched as her therapist, a woman who had guided her through panic attacks and dating disasters with unflappable poise, slowly placed the tablet back on the table, face down. She picked up her pen, looked at it as if she’d never seen it before, and set it back down.
“Evelyn,” Dr. Sharma said finally, her tone completely changed. It was low, urgent, stripped of therapy-speak. “What is happening?”
“I don’t know.” The truth was terrifying. “I really don’t know.”
Dr. Sharma leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “This is a coincidence. It has to be. A bizarre, incredibly specific coincidence.” She was trying to convince herself.
“Is it?” Evelyn heard the challenge in her own voice. “What are the odds? Me, sitting here, conjuring him at his most… physically affected. And him, at that exact moment, on another floor of this building, manifesting it?”
“You cannot control another person’s physiology with your thoughts.” Dr. Sharma stated it like a fundamental law of the universe.
“Can’t I?” Evelyn looked at her own hands, feeling a wild, frightening power humming just under her skin. The lead balloon of shame was gone, replaced by something darker, more exhilarating. “What if I’ve just been… thinking too small? What if the connection isn’t psychological, but something else? Something direct.”
“Evelyn, I need you to listen to me.” Dr. Sharma’s voice was firm now, a command. “This is a dangerous path. You are in a vulnerable state. You are attributing causal power to random events. This is how paranoia begins.”
“Paranoia would be me thinking he’s following me. This is… the opposite.” Evelyn stood up, unable to sit still. The worn leather couch seemed to exhale behind her. “He has a girlfriend. He’s polite, professional. And yet, when I think a certain way, his body… reacts. Against his will, maybe. That’s not my fantasy anymore. That’s something happening to him. You saw it.”
Dr. Sharma stood as well, a rare breach of protocol. “I saw a man on a security feed. That is all I can corroborate. Everything else is narrative. Your narrative.” She took a breath, visibly composing herself. “I am strongly recommending you take a step back. Immediately. Use your remaining personal days. Remove yourself from the environment that is feeding this obsession.”
“And if I’m not the one feeding it?” The question hung between them, electric and unanswerable.
“Then distance is even more critical.” Dr. Sharma walked to the window, looking out at the grey afternoon. “Evelyn, I am your therapist, not a paranormal investigator. My concern is your mental wellbeing. What you are describing, and what I… witnessed… is deeply destabilizing. For you. You need to regain a sense of control.”
“What if I don’t want control?” The words were out before Evelyn could stop them, a raw, honest confession. “What if I’m tired of being in control? Of analyzing every date, every text, every slight? What if I just want the… the effect? The consequence?”
Dr. Sharma turned, her expression grave. “Then you are venturing into a space I cannot follow you. And you may cause harm. To him, and certainly to yourself.”
The session ended shortly after, the usual comfortable rhythm shattered. Evelyn walked out into the cool evening, Dr. Sharma’s warnings echoing in her head alongside the image of N on that grainy screen, furtive and strained.
She stood on the sidewalk, the city moving around her. She pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering over the company directory. His extension was right there. She could call. She could say something mundane, about the automotive client specs. She could listen to his voice. She could think, very hard, about his hands.
A shiver ran through her, part terror, part thrill.
She put the phone away, unanswered. The control was still hers. For now.
But the curiosity was a live wire, sparking in the damp grey air. What would happen if she stopped fighting it? If she leaned into the current, just to see how bright it could burn? The thought was a door cracking open in a dark room, and she was no longer sure if she wanted to close it, or step through.
The thought was a door cracking open in a dark room, and she was no longer sure if she wanted to close it, or step through.
She didn’t go home. The city’s evening damp seeped through her blazer as she walked, aimless at first, then with a grim purpose. Her heels clicked a rapid, staccato rhythm on the pavement. Dr. Sharma’s voice was a fading echo, drowned out by the louder, pulsing hum in her own veins. What if I don’t want control? The question had teeth. It chewed through the last of her caution. She needed to see. Alone. Somewhere with a lock.
She pushed into the brassy glow of a hotel bar two blocks from her office, beelining past the cocktail crowd with a mumbled “Restroom.” The women’s bathroom was empty, all cold marble and aggressive lighting. She locked the main door behind her. The silence was immediate, a vacuum sealing her in.
Her reflection in the vast mirror looked strangely ordinary. Sharp bob, intelligent eyes, a mouth usually pressed into a wry line. She looked like someone who filed expenses on time. Not someone who might be bending reality. She leaned against the sink, the porcelain cool through her silk shirt. Her fingers went to the first button. Then the next.
The silk parted. She watched her own hands, the motions deliberate, not frantic. Erotic, but curiously clinical. She exposed the lace edge of her bra, the swell of her cleavage. She met her own gaze in the mirror. “Bigger,” she whispered, the word flat against the marble.
Nothing.
She breathed in, closing her eyes. She didn’t just think the word. She conjured the sensation, the weight, the full, heavy pull against the lace. The image of her own body, remade. Not for him. For her. To see if she could. “Bigger.”
A warmth blossomed under her skin, a deep, cellular sigh. She opened her eyes. The lace was tighter. The visible curve had swollen, just perceptibly, the skin flushed. A laugh, thin and disbelieving, escaped her lips. “Bigger,” she said, louder.
The expansion wasn’t violent. It was a slow, inexorable bloom, flesh responding to a silent command. The lace strained. A seam dug in. She watched, utterly detached, as her body obeyed the voice in her head. The power was a pure, electric current up her spine. It wasn’t arousal. It was supremacy.
“Bigger.”
The final button gave way with a soft ping against the tile. Her bra was now comically small, an afterthought. She filled her own vision, a voluptuous stranger with her own focused, burning eyes. The reality of it, the sheer physical proof, crashed into her. It was real. She was doing this. A giddy, terrifying joy erupted from her chest.
She laughed. It started as a hiccup, then spiraled into a full, unhinged sound that bounced off the walls, manic and triumphant. She gripped the sink edge, her knuckles white, her head thrown back as the laughter shook her. She had spent a lifetime being clever, being careful, parsing subtext and managing expectations. This was none of that. This was direct. This was cause, and she was the fucking effect.
The laughter died into sharp, panting breaths. She looked down, past the overwhelming new landscape of her own chest, down the flat plane of her stomach, to the junction of her thighs. The fabric of her trousers was taut. A different, familiar heat gathered there, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. She knew, with absolute certainty, what this power was for. She knew what she was going to do to him. It wasn’t a fantasy anymore. It was a plan.
A sharp rap on the door made her jump. “Occupied!” someone called, irritation clear.
Evelyn’s head snapped up. The woman in the mirror was flushed, wild-eyed, half-undone and vibrating with potential. She quickly, clumsily, fumbled her shirt closed, her new proportions making it impossible to button. She held it together with one clenched fist. She took one last, long look at herself, at the undeniable evidence. The door rattled again.
She yanked it open, brushing past a startled woman in a sequined dress without a word. She strode through the bar, her shirt clutched shut, her face set. The city outside was just a backdrop now, a stage. She needed to find N. Not tomorrow. Now. And she knew exactly where he’d be, finishing up his late Thursday. The office would be quiet. Almost empty.
She hailed a cab, her mind wonderfully, terrifyingly silent. All the overthinking had burned away. There was only the pulse, the plan, and the profound, swelling ache to test her newfound power on its intended subject.
The cab ride was a blur of streetlights and her own ragged reflection in the window, her shirt straining against the new fullness beneath. She fumbled with a safety pin from her bag, jabbing it through the fabric to keep herself decent. The metal bite against her skin felt appropriate, an anchor in this surging tide of unreality.
She paid the driver and stood before her office building, its familiar glass façade now looking like the mouth of a cave. The lobby was deserted except for Marco, the night security guard, who glanced up from his phone. “Back for more, Ms. Reed? Burning the midnight oil?”
“Left my laptop charger,” she lied, her voice thankfully steady. The lie tasted thin.
“Mr. Chen from accounting is still up there too. Long week, huh?” Marco said, buzzing her in.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. N was here. The plan, half-formed and pulsing with need, solidified. She wouldn’t speak. She would just… be near. And think. The elevator ride was a silent ascent into tension, the mirrored walls showing her flushed cheeks and bright, wild eyes.
The office floor was a tomb of shadows and the low hum of servers. Strip lights were off, leaving only the emergency exits casting a greenish gloom. She heard the soft clack of a keyboard from the accounting department’s open-plan area. Her own desk was in the opposite direction, in Marketing. She set her bag down at her station, the normalcy of her ergonomic chair and sticky-note littered monitor a stark contrast to the turmoil inside her.
She stood in the dark, listening. The typing stopped. A chair rolled back. Footsteps approached the kitchenette, which was directly in her line of sight down the central aisle. Her breath caught.
N walked into the dim light. He looked tired, his tie loosened, sleeves rolled up past his forearms. He filled a glass with water from the cooler, his back to her. She let her gaze travel over him, the width of his shoulders, the taut line of his back. In her mind, she didn’t just see him. She felt him. The imagined weight of his hands. The heat of his skin.
She focused on the memory of the security feed, that furtive adjustment. She pushed the thought, silent and direct, through the cool, still air between them. You feel me here. You can’t ignore this.
He stiffened. The water overflowed the glass, splashing on his hand. He muttered something, shook his wrist, and turned slowly, as if pulled against his will. His eyes found her in the shadows. For a long moment, neither spoke.
“Evelyn?” His voice was rough, unused. “What are you doing here?”
“Forgot my charger,” she said, the lie automatic. She took a step forward, into a pool of light from a printer’s standby LED. She saw his eyes drop, just for a heartbeat, to where her pinned blouse pulled tight. His gaze snapped back to her face, confused.
“At nine-thirty on a Thursday?” He took a sip of water, his throat working.
“Guess I’m dedicated.” She took another step. The air tightened. She could smell his aftershave, clean and faintly citrus, over the stale coffee scent. “You?”
“Quarter-end close. It’s a nightmare.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure exhaustion. Then his eyes flickered down again, this time lingering. A faint, puzzled frown appeared between his brows. “You look… different.”
“Do I?” She tilted her head, letting the new weight of her chest shift subtly. A hot thread of satisfaction laced through her when she saw his jaw tighten.
He shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “Yeah. Did you do something with your hair?”
“No.” She was close enough now to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the faint stubble along his jaw. She could see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat. Her own power sang in her veins, a heady, dangerous melody. She let a single, clear image form in her mind: her hand on that stubbled jaw, pulling his mouth to hers.
His breath hitched. He looked down, ostensibly at his glass, but his posture was rigid. She saw the fabric of his trousers tighten, the evidence unmistakable even in the low light. It was happening again, faster, more visceral. He was reacting not to her words, but to her silent, focused will.
“I should get back to it,” he said, his voice tighter now.
“Sure,” she replied, not moving. She pushed the thought further, imagining the feel of him, hard and eager against her. The rough groan he might make. Her own body responded, a deep, throbbing ache forming between her legs, so intense it was almost painful.
N made a small, choked sound. He turned abruptly, setting his glass down with a sharp click. “Goodnight, Evelyn,” he said, the words clipped. He walked away, back toward his desk, but his stride was stiff, unnatural. He was fighting it.
She followed him.
Her footsteps were silent on the carpet. He didn’t look back, but his shoulders were set with a new awareness. He knew she was there. He felt her presence like a physical pressure. He stopped at the threshold of the accounting department, his hand on the doorframe, knuckles white.
“What do you want?” he asked, not turning around. The question was low, stripped of all pretense.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully, stopping a few feet behind him. The honest answer seemed to hang in the air, more intimate than any flirtation. She watched the muscles in his back tense through his shirt. “I just knew I had to come back.”
He turned then. His face was a mask of conflicted strain—confusion, anger, and a raw, undeniable hunger. His gaze locked onto hers, and in that moment, she saw he understood. He didn’t know how, but he knew the feverish heat in his blood, the painful throb between his legs, it was coming from her.
“This is wrong,” he breathed, but he didn’t move away.
“Probably,” she whispered. She took the final step, closing the distance. She could feel the heat radiating from him. She lifted a hand, slowly, and placed her palm flat on his chest, over his heart. It hammered against her touch.
She thought one word, with all her fierce, terrifying concentration: Mine.
A shudder ripped through him. His control shattered. His hands came up, gripping her hips, fingers digging in as he pulled her against him. The hard line of his arousal pressed into her stomach, a shocking, thrilling confirmation. His head dipped, his breath hot against her ear.