Eat dinner.

Chloe walked to the far side of the table and put her food down. She slowly pulled out the chair and sat in it. After staring at her food for a beat, she began to eat. I also dipped my fork into the stir-fry and started eating.

"This is really good." I said after a couple of bites. "Did you make the sauce from scratch?"

She looked up from her plate. "No. I used a, um, a premade sauce."

"What kind of sauce?" I knew it was hoisin but I wanted to see if she could articulate it.

She narrowed her eyes. "Um..." She thought for a long second. "Hoisin." She finally said. "I used hoisin sauce. I'm glad you like it."

"Chloe," I said between bites, "tell me how you feel right now."

"Good." She murmured immediately. "Slow, but good. When I'm not talking to you, I'm just eating. And enjoying it. It's peaceful." She took another slow bite and looked pointedly at me. "Do you like it?"

I thought about the word she used. Peaceful. I'd never thought of this as peaceful at all. I always thought it was kind of like a lobotomy. "I'm starting to. I'm glad to hear you like it. You know, Chloe, I've never been able to get much insight into this thing. I'm glad you're around to help me." She blushed after a second and smiled. "Me too."

After a minute, she spoke again. "I wanna try something." I was surprised and leaned in close, asking her about it. She stammered for a second, then spoke again. "Come over here and tell me something weird."

That was odd. I asked her for more details. What did she mean by weird? "I mean something wrong. Something not true. Come put your hand on my skin and tell me, uh, that you're tall. Or I'm a man. Or the sky is orange. Tell me something wrong."

I saw where she was going and didn't like it, but I agreed to test it. "Make sure to put down your fork and swallow everything in your mouth." When she confirmed she had done as I asked, I moved around the table to her side. As expected, her eyes went glassy and her hands fell to her sides. I put a hand on her shoulder and spoke. "Chloe?"

"...Yeah."

"Chloe, I want you to listen to me very carefully." I paused, trying to think of what to say. "Chloe, we are eating lasagna. You made lasagna and that's what we're eating. It's very good lasagna and we're both enjoying it."

"Ok."

I stepped away and went back to my place. "Alright, I tried it. What now?"

She stared at me dully. "Can you move away? It's hard to think."

I dutifully crossed the room, watching the light enter her eyes again. When I had moved sufficiently far away, she stared at the plate in front of her. "...what the fuck?" She whispered under her breath.

"What's up?" I asked, my curiosity now piqued. She stared at the plate for another minute.

"I don't know. I don't know what I'm looking at. This," she said almost pleadingly, "is lasagna. It's just lasagna. My brain knows that I made stir-fry and that two minutes ago it was stir-fry. It looks like stir-fry and it tastes like stir-fry. I remember thinking that it was stir-fry and I know it seems like stir-fry to you. But I can't deny the truth. It's lasagna." Her words came faster now. "I know I only think that because you made me. I know that objectively you probably think I sound crazy. I know I should think this is stir-fry and that there's no rational reason to think it's lasagna. Still, it is lasagna. It has to be lasagna. If it's not lasagna, then-" she furrowed her brow suddenly like she was in pain, "-no, it's lasagna. It doesn't make sense for it to be anything else."

I was slightly disturbed by what I was hearing. "So everything about it seems like stir-fry?"

She nodded. "I think it's stir-fry, but I know it's lasagna if that makes sense. I can't not think it's lasagna. It's like my mind is **** into a belief against my will." She looked at her plate. "Dan, do you have any idea how powerful this is?"

I did, and it was worrying me. "So was it stir-fry until just now? Or has it always been lasagna?"

She frowned. "I don't know. It's just lasagna. I guess I made stir-fry, but the stuff on this plate is definitely lasagna. It's like one of those optical illusions - the impossible trident or whatever. You know there's three rods at one end and two columns at the other. You can't pinpoint where it changes but you know the ends are different."

This was starting to give me a headache. "So can I undo it? Can I make it be stir-fry again?"

"I mean, I would assume so. I can't really conceive of that but I know you can do it. The idea of looking at that and it not being lasagna is something I can't understand but we can try it if you want."

I nodded and started to move toward her, but she told me stop. "I have to admit, this is turning me on again." She bit her lip and shifted slightly. "Can you do something else while you're in there? I don't care what, just something more interesting. Maybe something sexual. I love feeling you bend my mind like this."

I had my misgivings and told her so. She pleaded with me. "Remember, you can always undo whatever you change. I just want to feel it again. I want to feel myself changing and warping like warm putty. Please, just do something. Anything."

Reluctantly, I approached her. Her smile faded and her eyes slowly went glassy again as I brought my hand to her face.