Commercial Break 3 - Experimental Treatment (Part 1)

“Pixianna?”

Pixie licked her dry lips, her body sluggish as a weak mewling purr of confusion escaped her tired throat. She felt exhausted and wide awake at the same time, like she had been asleep for a thousand years and awake only moments ago…

Someone was knocking on her door.

Ugh.

The radiator made a strange gurgling sound.

Pixie mewled groggily, behind her back she tugged at her blanket and begrudgingly opened her eyes. It felt so early. In the dim light she could just make out the familiar shapes of the furniture in her bedroom, her dresser and wardrobe, her desk and lamp and her little reading chair piled with folded but worn clothing that wasn’t quite dirty enough to be laundry yet… Why did seeing her own room make her feel so… relieved?

“Pixianna, are you awake?”

Pixie found herself staring at a looming white rectangle beside her. It took several drawn out seconds for her perplexed mind to process that she was looking up at the side of her own bedside table.

Huh…? Wait…

Pixie blinked, then blinked again, an ice cold bolt of panic rushing up from her stomach as the recognition of where she was and where she’d just been hit her all at once.

I’m home.

Pixie yelped. The reason everything in the room looked off was because she was kneeling on the floor where her bed should have been... it was just… gone.

She threw off the blanket that was wrapped around her kneeling body in panic, blushing as a burning humiliation and horror spread across her cheeks. She was in her normal pyjamas at least, her familiar tired t-shirt and cotton shorts and panties, but she had woken up kneeling on something soft, like a raised cushion or mat tucked in to the very corner of the room like something between an ottoman and a pet bed, with pillows and soft toys scattered in the corner all around her.

“Pixianna!”

Mum?!

The knocking on the door stopped and, before she could protest, flew open, flooding the little box-room with light from the hall.

“M-m-mum!” Pixie stammered in panic, squinting, half in shock and half in relief. It was only when she glanced down at herself and realised she was still kneeling with her tits thrust so obscenely forwards that Pixie shrunk back, her cheeks rapidly reddening. “I… I can… explain!”

“I’m sorry – I know, you’re not a child and you don’t need me to baby you but, your appointment with Dr Shaw is in an hour. Will you be ready for me to take you before I go to work?”

Pixie whimpered, glancing down at her ‘bed’ and then back up at her Mum, the pained reality dawning on her that she didn’t see anything wrong with her bed being missing… of her kneeling on the floor to sleep…

“My… appointment…?” Pixie stammered, half in genuine questioning and half just trying to buy herself some precious seconds to think.

“Yes sweetie… same as every month…” A familiar frown of disapproval settled on her mother’s face. It was a stern look that Pixie was more than familiar with from both her parents – Pixie loved them deeply, but she had grown up in a household governed by their stern prudishness. Being back home, even at her age, she still felt governed by it. “Don’t tell me you forgot… You know how important these appointments with Dr Shaw are, especially after what happened in Greece…”

Pixie shifted awkwardly on her knees; her bare thighs rubbing together as she anxiously eased her weight from side to side. Of course – of course the show would do that – make her sit through some humiliating medical exam just to really rub her new ‘condition’ in her blushing face...

Dr Shaw was her family GP, and had been since before she could remember. The fact that her apparent ‘appointment’ was with the matronly and familiar older woman at least gave Pixie some level of comfort, even if her mind was already racing with all the demeaning possibilities she was likely to have to sit through…

“Pixianna are you listening to me?”

Wait… ‘Pixianna’?!

“Huh?” Pixie’s cheeks burnt brighter, and she found herself staring at her mother’s mouth in horror for several agonising seconds, as though willing reality to change what she’d just heard. Just like when Jack had called her Pixie for the first time, hearing this faux-elongated version of her ‘name’ from her own mother made her head hurt.

Of course she calls me that. If I’m ‘Pixie’ to my friends, I must be ‘Pixianna’ at home…

“I… y-y-yes…” Pixie stammered awkwardly, still trying to get over the competing sense she had of both being wide awake and also having just woken up from deep sleep. “… sorry…”

“… just get ready…” Her mother’s tone shifted to sympathetic warning, even as she turned and left, still speaking as she walked away and leaving the door open, “… I need to leave before 8…”

Beside her the radiator made another gurgling sound and Pixie’s eyes snapped to the cool light peeking through the curtains, only now realising that if the heating was on that meant it wasn’t the summer anymore… how much more of her life had they skipped?!

Pixie leapt up and threw open the shades, gasping in horror as she stared out at the autumnal scene before her. There was a crisp frost on the ground and the pond was layered in ice. The woodland behind the house was bathed in a kaleidoscope of orange and brown… Oh my god!

With trembling hands Pixie snatched at her phone, whimpering in muted horror when she checked the date – November 18th

“Noo…” She whimpered pitifully, cheeks burning as she realised she had lost months this time. She’d been in Greece in the height of summer… it made her dizzy even trying to think about what could’ve happened since then…

Pixie hugged her phone to her chest as she started pacing the room, her bare feet digging into her familiar rug, her mind working frantically. What could she do? What should she do? She was home; in her eyes that was at least a small mercy. She wasn’t being molested here… she didn’t have to offer her mouth to anyone here unless she knelt down in front of her father- DON’T THINK ABOUT IT!

She felt queasy, her stomach turning over and she shook her head rapidly as though it would shake the thought away.

Remembering the specifics of the latest change was hard; Pixie tried, but the horror and embarrassment of it had muted everything Jack had said after the change was announced into a roaring tide of nothing that had drowned her.

Everyone thinks I have ‘Succubus Syndrome’…

She cringed, biting her lower lip as she prayed very hard that didn’t mean her parents knew the details of what she was feeling. How could she hope to look them in the eyes if they had guests over and she started to feel…? DON’T THINK ABOUT IT!

Pixie let out a helpless mewl, mortified, as she heard her mother running the tap in the kitchen downstairs. Everything was so… normal... Pixie stared at her ‘bed’ in despair… except it wasn’t.

“What now…?” Pixie whispered to herself, bouncing on her toes in anxious thought.

What happens if I just refuse to go along with this? If I stay here… skip the appointment… what then? Do they just keep me here until I do go? Would they **** me to go?

Worse, the girl bit her lip and glanced up at the ceiling, suddenly painfully aware that she was being watched… she needed to keep the audience happy. She needed them to like her. They were the ones voting… If she refused… if she bored them… what would happen then? If she called a vote she would need to persuade them to let her go so… wasn’t it better to try to convince them that she was at least being a good girl… wasn't it better to try and smile and play along...?

Pixie blushed in deeper shame, digging her heels into the rug in defeated frustration, “Ugh… fine…!”