Homecoming

What happens when a man goes to a bar and gets hypnotized? He agrees to be married to a stranger and falls into an unexpected trap...

I am starting to feel like I was drugged, or maybe hypnotized. There could be no other way I could be so groggy. I am also feeling a strange kind of stiffness in my body, which I attribute to the drugs (or hypnosis). I slowly open my eyes (my pounding head does not let me open my eyes more than a slit) and look around the unfamiliar territory. I am in someone’s bedroom �" mostly a lady’s. I must have gotten lucky last night. It’s a shame I cannot remember the details. Maybe when she comes back, something might come back to me. In the meanwhile, I think back on the moments of last night. It all started with a question and then, a challenge.

“Would you be willing to play a game of pool with me?”

This is a question you cannot say no to when it comes from a gorgeous woman clad in a red figure hugging dress. So I could not hold back my reply “And who, may I ask, is playing with me?” She gave a flirtatious smile, looked deep into my eyes for a while, turned around and hooked her fingers in a ‘follow me’ gesture. As I said before �" a gorgeous girl in a sexy attire �" there was no chance I would not have followed.

However, instead of taking me to the pool table where a lot of people were already playing, she took a turn towards a private ballroom. She passed right through the security and gestured me to do the same. I did so with a slight hesitance �" the bouncers were hefty man and I did not want to pick up a fight.

 “We play here”, she pointed to a pool table where some people were already playing. Indicating that I join her, she went ahead to play. Now, pool is a game I excel in. I have placed bets with (and won) tons of money playing this very game in all kinds of situations. So there was no chance I would lose here. All the more reason to impress the girl, I was hoping to get lucky tonight by showing my prowess in the game.

We played quite a number of games (all of which I won). The more we played, the more I started losing focus of my surroundings. But somehow, in spite of all that, I kept winning. The more I was winning, the more she started flirting with me. That should have been my first clue. But I was intoxicated �" both with booze and with the company.

The problem started after that. A couple of hours later (or was it days? My sense of time and surrounding was long gone then) I found that I was the only player in the pool. She looked at me with those intense eyes (I am sure those were the object of hypnotism now) and said, “I challenge you to one last game. If you win, you are free to ask anything of me. If I win, you will have to marry me.” Any man in their right minds would run away on that word. But intoxicated me went right on with the plan. And that is the last thing I remember.

And now I am here in this gorgeous room. But why am I still not able to move my body? The door opens and a woman steps in wearing a negligee. Looking at her face, a strong chill goes down my spine. My already drugged mind starts spinning again and even though I am lying down, I still feel dizzy. My breathing falters and I feel like I am having a heart attack.

Walking towards me is my long dead ex-wife. I had murdered her. The case had been long closed and I was never convicted. She was supposed to be nice and properly dead. But here she was, living and breathing, standing before me sipping a cup of coffee. Her smile was cruel and dangerous when she said, “Good Morning sweetheart, now it is your turn.”