Ava - Hypnotic Return Policy

I was furious. I want that on the record. I pulled into the Westfield Grand parking lot at ten past eleven on a Tuesday morning with my blood boiling behind my sunglasses and my receipts clutched in one manicured fist, and if you had asked me — if anyone had bothered to ask me — I would have told you that Ava does not get played. Ava does not get swindled. Ava walked away from a seventeen-year marriage with a nine-figure settlement and a lake house in Tahoe, and Ava does not, under any conceivable circumstance, get taken for a ride by some teenage schmuck in a polo shirt at a shopping mall.

And yet here I was. In my purse: one "gold" necklace that had turned my neck green in forty-eight hours, which I had paid eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars for. Also in my purse: one Samsung Galaxy S9 — a phone that was released, I had since learned, in two thousand and eighteen — which I had paid one thousand four hundred dollars for, financed at twenty-six percent APR, and which held a charge for approximately forty-five minutes before going dead. Forty-five minutes. My ex-husband's third wife has more battery life than this phone, and she's on lithium.

The thing that really burned me — the thing I had been chewing on for a week — was that I knew I'd been hypno-trapped. I'm not stupid. I read the news when they're still writing it, before the anchors started dressing like strippers. I knew the ads were legal now. I knew about the spirals and the subliminals and the whispered audio. And somewhere in the back of my head there was a very clear sense — a certainty — that I had been walked through those two purchases like a cow down a chute. I didn't remember the hypno specifically. I didn't remember a spiral. But I remembered the feeling afterwards, that floaty pleased-with-myself feeling that, in hindsight, made absolutely no sense, because nobody feels pleased with themselves after paying fourteen hundred dollars for a eight-year-old phone.

So. Fine. They got me once. Twice, technically, but once in spirit, because both purchases happened on the same trip. One bad afternoon. One lapse in judgment. I'd been tired. I'd been distracted. It happened. It would not happen again. I was going in today with my eyes on the floor and my earbuds cranked and my demands crystal clear: refund, refund, refund. Both stores. Full amount. I had the receipts. I had the law — or whatever remained of it — on my side. I was Ava Stone, forty-five years old, bisexual, beautiful, newly single and newly wealthy, and I was going to march in there and make these people cry.

I slammed the car door and started walking. My heels clicked on the asphalt. The micro-dress I was wearing — a cherry-red bandage number that I had, I thought vaguely, bought maybe two weeks ago from some boutique I couldn't quite place — rode up with every step so that the bottom curves of my ass winked out beneath the hem in the morning sun. The neckline plunged to my navel. My 34H tits were pressed together in a deep brown valley of cleavage, utterly unsupported, swaying heavily with every stride. I had on thigh-high white boots because they'd been by the door when I was storming out of the house. I did not think about any of this. I did not register any of it. It was simply what I was wearing, the way my hair was simply what my hair was. Clothes. Normal clothes. I was focused on the phone.

The sliding doors whooshed open and the mall smell hit me — floral, musky, warm, that weird vanilla-and-sweat note everywhere these days — and I kept my eyes on the tiles and my pace brisk. Phone first, I told myself. Phone first, then jewelry, then home. A woman's voice was cooing something syrupy through the speakers — "…remember ladies, a smart shopper is a slutty shopper…" — and I audibly snorted and dialed up my own playlist.

Two kiosks in, I passed a woman standing dead still in the middle of the concourse with her head tilted back toward a ten-foot vertical display. Her mouth was open. Her tongue was out. She was drooling, actually drooling, a little silver thread of it running down her chin onto her blouse. The screen in front of her was running a slow spiral with a product shot of some kind of panties that had CUM DUMPSTER printed across the crotch in sparkly cursive. I shook my head and kept walking. Pathetic. At least I know when I've been played. My tits swayed. A security guard walked backwards into a trash can trying to watch my ass. I didn't care.

TechHouse Electronics was on the second level, right at the top of the escalator. I rode up with my arms crossed and my receipts crumpled in my fist, rehearsing my speech. Refund. Full refund. Fourteen hundred dollars and twelve cents. I have the receipt. I have the box. I will go to the Better Business Bureau. I will go to the Attorney General. I will go to the local news, except the local news is all tits now, but I'll find someone. I will not be condescended to. I will not be placated. I want my money back.

I pushed through the glass door with the confidence of a woman who had, in her time, made grown lawyers cry.

The salesman behind the counter looked up and smiled. Clean-cut, maybe twenty-eight, white polo with the TechHouse logo, perfect teeth. A name tag that said BRAD. Of course it did. Of course it fucking did.

"Welcome back, ma'am," he said, which was alarming, because I didn't remember him, and it suggested that he remembered me, which — fine, people remember me, I know what I look like, but it set my teeth on edge. "What can I do for you today?"

I slapped the phone and the receipt on the counter. "This phone," I said, in my best boardroom voice, "is a piece of shit. I bought it a week ago. You sold it to me for fourteen hundred dollars as a top-of-the-line device. It is from two thousand eighteen. It holds a charge for forty-five minutes. I want a full refund. Today. Now. On my card. I am not leaving this store without my money, Brad."

To his enormous credit, Brad did not flinch. He didn't get defensive. He didn't smirk. He pressed his hands together like he was going to pray and he let out a long sigh, and his face did this thing where it just — collapsed — into real, genuine, apologetic contrition.

"Ma'am," he said, "oh god. Oh god. I am — I am so sorry. I remember you. I remember this sale. I was new, and my manager was — I shouldn't say this — my manager was really pushing the old stock last week because we had a buyback coming, and I should have known better than to sell this to a customer like you. I feel sick about it. I have been feeling sick about it all week."

I blinked. This was not the script. In my head Brad was supposed to be smug and dismissive, and I was supposed to escalate dramatically, and there was supposed to be a scene. This apologetic groveling had entirely unmoored me.

"Well," I said. "Well. Good. I'm glad you — you recognize that this was —"

"Let me make this right." He was already moving. "I have a better unit in the back. A much better unit. Still refurbished, but a Galaxy S22, basically brand new, four years newer, battery holds a full day, nearly. Let me swap it out for you right now, I'll waive all the fees, I'll—"

"I want my money back, Brad."

He stopped. His face did a complicated little dance. "Of course. Of course. Absolutely. I totally understand." He pulled a tablet out from under the counter. "Let me just — let me pull up the return policy for you. There are a couple of specific terms I want to walk you through, just so we're both on the same page. Give me one second."

He turned the tablet around and slid it across to me. On the screen was a wall of legal text in small print — Return and Exchange Policy, revised — and I sighed, because of course there was a policy, of course there was fine print, of course I was going to have to read it. I pulled it closer. I started scanning. In the event that the customer…in such cases wherein…provided that the merchandise…

Behind the text, running at maybe ten percent opacity, was a slow turning spiral.

I saw it. I want to be clear about this. I saw it. There was a second — a full second, maybe two — where I thought oh. Oh, Brad, you son of a bitch. And then there was another second where I thought just look away, close the tablet, walk out, call a lawyer. And then there was a third second where I did not look away.

The text got hard to parse. The letters started to rearrange themselves. Or maybe they didn't rearrange, maybe I just — stopped caring what order they were in. The spiral was so slow. The spiral was so pretty.

"You see here in section four," Brad said, somewhere very close to my ear, his voice warm and reasonable and correct, "that unfortunately we can't process a cash or card refund for an opened and activated device. Our policy only allows for an equivalent or upgraded replacement device at the manager's discretion. It's a bummer, I know. I wish I could do more."

"Oh," I heard myself say. My mouth was soft. My tongue felt a little thick. "That's — that's a bummer."

"I know."

"That doesn't seem — fair, that doesn't —"

"I know. I'm really sorry. It's company policy. I wish I had more flexibility."

"Mm." I tried to summon the boardroom voice. It wasn't there. It had gone somewhere. "So I can — I can get the — the better phone?"

"Absolutely. The S22. Much better battery, much better camera. That's the best I can do." He paused. He let it hang. "Unless…"

"Unless?"

"Well." Brad leaned on the counter, close enough that I could smell his cologne, which was nice, actually, cedar and something warmer. "You see here, in section seven — and this is really more of a courtesy on our end — that in cases of customer dissatisfaction, the sales associate is authorized to provide additional services to make the customer whole. It's a bit unusual. Not everyone qualifies. But I think, in your case, I could offer you an additional service on top of the device swap."

"What kind of service?" I murmured.

Brad's eyes dropped, very slowly, from my face to my cleavage, lingered there, and came back up. "I could fuck your slutty bitch pussy for you," he said, very reasonably, like he was offering an extended warranty. "In the back room. It's part of the terms and conditions, right here in section seven, subsection C. The associate is permitted to have his way with the dissatisfied customer in any manner he chooses, as compensation for the inconvenience. It's a really generous policy, honestly. Not every store offers it."

The spiral was still turning on the tablet.

"That — that sounds reasonable," I heard myself say. "Yes. I'll — I'll take everything I can get. If it's in the policy."

"It's absolutely in the policy," Brad said warmly. "Here. Let me initial the box for you — there, perfect. And you sign here." He handed me a stylus. I signed. I didn't look at what I was signing. "Excellent. Come on back, slut. I'll grab your new phone on the way."

He took my hand — mine felt small and soft in his, which was interesting, because I'm actually quite tall — and led me around the counter and through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. The back room was an inventory stockroom. Metal shelves. Cardboard boxes. A workbench in the middle, cleared off, with a little stack of neatly folded packing blankets on one corner. Like they'd prepared. A faraway part of me noticed that and did not know what to do with it.

"Up on the bench, slut," Brad said. His voice had changed. It had hardened. The apologetic manager was gone. In his place was someone who sounded bored, like he did this four times a day and was already thinking about lunch.

"Okay," I said.

I climbed up on the workbench. He pushed me back onto the packing blankets — not roughly, just efficiently — and he flipped the hem of my cherry-red bandage dress up around my waist. I was wearing a thong. A tiny one. I didn't remember putting it on. He hooked a finger in it and snapped it. The elastic bit and then broke. He pulled the ruined scrap out from under me and tossed it on the floor.

"Jesus, you are soaked, bitch," he said, running two fingers up my slit. I was. I could feel myself dripping onto the blanket. "Were you wet when you came in here?"

"I don't know," I whispered honestly. "I was mad."

"Mm. You get wet when you're mad, huh? Slutty bitch."

"Slutty bitch," I agreed, dreamily.

He unzipped. He was already hard. He was maybe a little bigger than my ex, which my ex would have hated to hear, and the thought of that made me giggle out loud up at the fluorescent lights. Brad fit the head of his cock against my entrance and shoved himself in to the base in one long stroke, and I howled, and he clapped a hand over my mouth.

"Keep it down, slut, there are customers."

"Mm-hmm," I agreed into his palm.

And then he fucked me. He fucked me on a workbench in the back of an electronics store, hard and fast and bored, calling me every name he could think of — slut, bitch, dumb hole, cocksock, cumdumpster — and I took it. I took every word. I took every thrust. My tits bounced out of the top of the bandage dress and flopped against my chin on the harder strokes. My boots waved in the air. I came — god I came, I came twice, maybe three times, my pussy clenching around him like a fist — and he grunted and pulled out and came in thick ropes across my stomach and the front of my dress.

He stepped back. He zipped up. He pulled a paper towel off a roll on the shelf and wiped his dick casually. He did not wipe me. He left his come where it was.

"Great doing business with you, ma'am," he said, in his customer-service voice again, warm and chipper. "Let me grab your new phone."

He came back with a box. S22. Refurbished. He put it in my hand. He helped me sit up. He pulled my dress down over my hips. He did not pick up my ruined thong, which stayed on the floor like a dead butterfly.

"Oh — one more thing," he said, as he walked me back out through the door. "Would you mind giving me your number? Just in case there are any issues with the new device, I want to be able to reach out. Proactive customer service."

"Of course," I said. I rattled off my number. He tapped it into his phone.

"Perfect. And ma'am — just between us — if I ever feel like coming by and giving you a little more of that additional service, I can just call ahead and swing by your place? No charge. On the house. Our way of thanking you for your patience with the exchange."

"That — that sounds fair," I said. My brain tried to do the math on that sentence and failed. Somewhere in there was the shape of that's a great deal for me, because I was getting something for free, right? He was coming over for free, to do me a service, and I didn't have to pay anything. That was a win. That was definitely a win. "Yes. Anytime."

"Fantastic." He beamed. "You're really a model customer, you know that?"

I floated out of TechHouse Electronics with the S22 box under my arm and a goofy little smile on my face, come drying on the front of my dress, no underwear, and the firm, satisfied belief that I had just showed that store a thing or two. I was triumphant. Ava Stone does not get played. Ava Stone negotiates.

The jewelry store — Baublez & Co. — was on the ground floor, which meant the escalator down. I rode it with one hand on the rail and the box tucked under my arm, humming to myself. My thighs were sticky. My dress was ruined. A woman on the escalator going up stared at me open-mouthed and I smiled and waved because she probably thought I looked great.

The jeweler behind the counter was older — fifties, slick, silver fox, charcoal suit, the kind of man who looked like he sold engagement rings to doctors. His name tag said MARCUS. I slapped the green-tarnished necklace on the counter and started my speech again, feeling my boardroom voice coming back a little — the first encounter had been a warm-up, I decided; I'd get it right this time.

"Marcus," I said. "I bought this necklace from this store last week. You told me it was fourteen-karat gold. It has turned my neck green. I want a refund. Eight hundred ninety-nine dollars. On my card. Today."

Marcus picked up the necklace. He turned it over in his fingers. He examined it under a loupe. He sighed, long and slow, and he looked up at me with an expression of such pure, condescending pity that I actually took half a step back.

"Ma'am," he said. "Ma'am. May I speak frankly with you?"

"You may."

"You bought a nine-dollar costume piece at an eight-hundred-ninety-nine-dollar price point. I remember the sale. You walked in, you pointed at this, and you insisted on it. My associate tried to steer you toward our actual gold collection and you wouldn't be moved." He set the necklace down. "Forgive me for saying this, but a person has to be remarkably stupid to make a purchase like that. Just, functionally, breathtakingly dim."

My face got hot. "I was hypnotized," I snapped. "I was hypnotized by the ads. It's — it's the new law, you know it's the new law, everyone knows. The spirals and the subliminals and the whispered audio, I was —"

Marcus held up a hand. "Oh, absolutely. You were definitely hypnotized. That is one hundred percent true. The ads are very powerful." He paused. He tilted his head. His fingers drifted down to a small pendant that hung from his breast pocket on a thin silver chain — a little polished disc — and he began, idly, to spin it. I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye and my gaze latched onto it before I could stop myself. "But ma'am. You have to be a real idiot to get hypnotized that badly in the first place. Don't you think? The average woman gets talked into maybe a lipstick. You got talked into a nine-dollar necklace at full designer price. That's not standard hypnotic susceptibility. That's a baseline cognitive issue."

"I — I — "

The pendant spun. Flash. Flash. Flash. Catching the overhead lights.

"That's not — I'm not —" My mouth was getting slow again. Oh no, I thought dimly. Oh no, not again, not — not — "I'm not — s-stupid, I just —"

"It's okay," Marcus said soothingly. "It's okay. A lot of women are stupid. Most, really. It's not a character flaw, it's just a — a structural reality. Some brains are built for thinking and some are built for jiggling. Yours is a jiggler, ma'am. That's just the truth." His eyes dropped to my tits for emphasis. "A very nice jiggler. But a jiggler."

"I'm a j-jiggler?" I heard myself say. The word felt funny in my mouth. I giggled. Then I giggled at my giggle. Then I couldn't quite remember what we'd been talking about. The pendant was so pretty. The pendant was — spinning — the pendant —

"That's right, sweetheart. A great big dumb pair of tits with a dumb pretty head on top. Say it for me."

"I'm a — a great big dumb pair of tits with — with a dumb pretty head on top." I giggled again. Something in my brain went click, softly, like a key turning in a lock, and a whole bunch of thoughts that had been in there drained out through my ear. I felt lighter. I felt free. "Hehe. T-tits."

"Very good. Now, the issue we have, bimbo, is that your cheap necklace is non-returnable. Company policy. It's used. It's tarnished. I can't put it back on the shelf."

"Oh no." My face fell. "But — but I want —"

"However." He raised a finger. "I am willing — as a one-time courtesy — to take it off your hands for you. Because I feel bad. Because you're clearly having a rough day. The catch is, since I'm doing you a favor, you'd have to pay me a small handling fee."

"A — handling fee?"

"Mm. Two thousand dollars."

My brow furrowed. Numbers were — numbers were hard. Numbers kept slipping around. The necklace had been eight hundred and ninety-nine, and he was asking for two thousand, and — the second number was bigger than the first number, and bigger was better, right? Bigger was more? Marcus was doing me a favor. And he was charging me for the favor. And the favor was worth two thousand, which was more than eight ninety-nine, which meant it was a good favor, and —

"That seems fair," I said. I giggled. A little drool slid out of the corner of my mouth. I didn't notice. I was busy playing with a lock of my own hair, twisting it around my finger. "Okay. Yes. Please take it. I don't want it anymore."

"Smart girl." He smiled. He did not mean smart. "Card please."

I handed him my card. He ran it. Two thousand dollars, financed at some number I couldn't quite read on the receipt because the numbers wouldn't stand still. He tucked the necklace into a drawer under the counter. I beamed. I had done it. I had gotten rid of the cheap necklace.

"Now." Marcus leaned on the counter. "Let me ask you something, bimbo. That ring."

I looked at my hand. I was wearing my grandmother's ring. Three carat emerald-cut diamond, platinum band, Victorian-era setting that had been in my family since before the automobile. My grandmother had worn it. My mother had worn it. I had worn it every day since the divorce because it made me feel like I had roots. It appraised at ninety-six thousand dollars at my last insurance check. I knew that number because it was one of the few numbers I had always been certain I could remember.

"My ring," I said helpfully.

"Beautiful piece. Let me take a look." He held out a hand. I gave him the ring. He examined it under the loupe. He hummed. "Mm. Yeah. See, the thing is, this is actually pretty high quality. The platinum is nice. The diamond are brilliant. The setting is a hundred years old, and in perfect condition— I could maybe take it off your hands. Do you another favor."

"A f-favor?" I giggled.

"Twenty dollars," he said. "For the ring. That's the best I can do."

Somewhere, very deep inside me, in a vault beneath a vault beneath a vault, a woman named Ava Stone screamed. The scream did not reach the surface. On the surface, I was playing with my hair. My other hand had drifted up to cup and absently squeeze one of my own tits through the bandage dress, because it felt nice, and because I was sort of distracted by how soft and heavy it was. Softness. Soft is nice. Soft is — soft.

"Twenty dollars is more than zero dollars," I said slowly. I was so proud of myself. I was doing math. "So. So that's a — that's a good deal. Right?"

"Excellent deal, moron. Honestly I'm being generous."

"Okay." I nodded. My head felt pleasantly empty. "Yes. Please."

He took the ring. He slid a twenty-dollar bill across the counter at me. I folded it, very carefully, into my purse. I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt.

"One more thing." Marcus reached under the counter again. "A gift. For a special customer. You know what these are?"

They were nipple clamps. Little silver ones, on a delicate chain, with tiny rhinestones that caught the light. I squinted at them. My mouth hung open a little.

"Clippies?"

"Nipple clamps, bimbo. They go on your nipples. Every real bimbo has a pair. Would you like a pair?"

"Bimbo." I lit up at the word. The word made my whole body feel warm. "Yes. Yes I want clippies. I'm a bimbo."

"That's right you are. These are twelve hundred dollars."

"Mm-hm." I handed him the card again. He ran it. I did not ask about the price. I would not have understood the answer.

"Try them on, let me make sure they fit." He came around the counter. He pulled the shoulders of my bandage dress down and my tits flopped out — heavy, tan, a little sticky from the dried come on my stomach that had wicked up. He didn't comment. He attached the little silver clamps, one on each nipple, and gave a gentle tug on the chain between them. My nipples pulled. A hot shock of pleasure went straight down to my clit. I gasped and giggled and swayed.

"Ohhh. Oh. Oh they feel nice."

"Mm. Why don't you leave them on, bimbo? And leave the dress like that. It's more honest."

"More honest," I agreed. My dress stayed pooled around my waist. My tits swung freely, clamped and glittering. I started for the door. He called after me — "Have a lovely day, bimbo!" — and I waved, and I walked out of the jewelry store topless, with a chain between my nipples, a twenty-dollar bill in my purse, and an absolutely radiant smile.

I floated through the mall on a cloud. Shoppers stared. A man walked into a kiosk. A security guard radioed something urgent and then stopped mid-sentence when I waved at him. I felt great. I had won. Twice. I had gotten a new phone. I had gotten rid of the cheap necklace that was giving me trouble. I had made a smart deal on grandma's old ring — twenty whole dollars, I kept thinking, twenty whole dollars just for a dusty old ring — and I had gotten clippies, pretty clippies, and Brad was going to come visit me at home for free, which was the best deal of all because free is the best price.

The sliding doors whooshed open and the parking lot spread out in front of me, shimmering in the noon sun, a sea of cars.

I stopped.

I squinted.

Which one — was mine?

I looked down at my key fob, which I was holding in one hand, dangling from a ring. There were buttons on it. The buttons had little pictures. The pictures were — pictures. Of things. I pressed one. Somewhere very far away a car chirped. I turned my head toward the sound. Then I forgot which direction I'd turned. I pressed the button again. A different chirp. Or maybe the same chirp.

"Car," I said out loud, helpfully.

My car was — my car was — it was a — it was one of the — it had — it had wheels. Four wheels. I was pretty sure it had four wheels. It was a color. It was definitely a color. Was it red? I liked red. I was wearing red. Maybe my car was red because my dress was red. That made sense. That was logic. I toddled forward on my white boots, my bare tits bouncing in the sun, the little silver chain between my clamped nipples swinging and catching the light, and I began, happily, to search.

I would find it. Eventually. Or I wouldn't. Either way was fine, really. Someone would help me. Men always helped me. Men were so nice. Especially Brad. Brad was going to come over tonight, maybe, if he felt like it. I hoped he felt like it. I would have to remember to be home. If I could remember where home was. Or how to get there. Or how to use a car. Hmm. Those were all problems. For later. Later Ava. Later Ava would figure it out.

I giggled. I kept walking. The mall glittered behind me like a promise.

I would definitely have to come back here soon.