The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  Hearing these words, Sheila sat up straight, shoulders back and chest out.

  “You were not afraid this time, and you won’t be afraid the next time, Sheila. You know that spiders are harmless. Now, when I count to three, you will be fully awake, you will feel refreshed, you will feel proud of what you have done, and most importantly, you will know that spiders are harmless.”

  When Jeffrey counted to three, Sheila awoke, feeling great. She felt immensely proud of herself, just like Jeffrey said. She looked at him and smiled. He smiled back.

  “How do you feel?” He asked.

  “Great actually,” she said. “I really feel great.”

  Her smile then broadened.

  “Do you know how long you were under?” He asked.

  “It felt like ten minutes.”

  Jeffrey smiled at her again.

  “Actually, it was an hour,” he said. “And you did great.”

  Sheila was amazed, it hadn't felt so long. She got up from the couch and thanked Jeffrey.

  “Remember,” he said, “if you need to see me again just call me, I never charge if I need to see a patient because the initial treatment didn’t work.”

  Sheila left the office feeling great, sure that the hypnotism worked. Her fear had surely been cured.

  ***

  Sheila couldn‘t put the hypnotism to the test for the next two weeks, but the opportunity eventually presented itself. The same spider had returned to the bathtub. She knew it was the same spider; it had the same grotesquely fat body and long disgusting legs. But this time she was not afraid and felt confident in dealing with the uninvited guest. She walked towards the bath, sure the spider couldn't hurt her, and reached out with her hand to pick it up. She was amazed at how confident she felt and made a mental note to send a thank you card to Jeffrey. She bent over and moved her hand closer to the spider.

  As soon as she picked it up, her confidence left her and the fear returned. The spider ran up her bare naked arm, all of its legs scurrying along her flesh, and Sheila screamed. As she felt the spider on her flesh she did something embarrassing that she had not done since her childhood, she wet herself. She shook her arm, the spider fell back into the bathtub, and she ran from the room. Noticing the warm urine that had soaked her jeans, she burst into tears. She was devastated and humiliated.

  She went into her bedroom and removed her soiled jeans. She wanted to take a shower, not just to clean herself but to wash away the feeling of the spider on her. But the spider was in the bath, and she was too terrified to go back there. Instead she sobbed in her room until her husband came home from work.

  The next morning she called Jeffrey and arranged to see him again.

  ***

  When she arrived at his office on Friday she was less hopeful than she had been on her previous visit. She was sure that nothing could cure her terrible phobia of spiders, but she thought that she may as well give Jeffrey Doyle another chance. Although, she was doing this with the promise of a refund in her thoughts, rather than any genuine hope of being helped.

  She parked outside the house, and again as she walked up the pebble stone driveway towards his office he opened the door to great her. Although this time the smile that impressed Sheila so much was gone and he had a more serious and sympathetic look on his face.

  “Hi Sheila,” he said, “I’m sorry that you had such a terrible experience with that spider, but I promise you that today this more radical treatment I have planned will have a greater affect. Please come in.”

  She followed him into the office and sat down on the couch.

  “Okay, so are you ready to try a second time?” He asked.

  “Sure, we can try again,” she replied, unenthusiastically. “But I hope you’re still promising the refund.”

  “Of course, but I really think that this time we will be successful. This is a deep and more radical treatment that I only rarely use for situations such as yours, where the patient's fear is very deep and not easily cured. I know now that a simple hypnotism isn’t enough for you, but I really feel that we will make progress today.”

  Jeffrey then produced that smile, and Sheila found herself warming to him again.

  “Just relax Sheila, you’re in good hands,” he added.

  “Ok, I’m ready when you are,” she said.

  Jeffrey repeated the same steps as the last time. He told her to imagine the bucket at her feet, to let her stress and anxiety leave her body and fall down into this bucket. As he counted down from ten, his soothing voice coaxed her into a deep trance. It didn’t take long before she was hypnotized, and Jeffrey was satisfied that she was under his control. For Sheila, she simply felt as if she was asleep, but she could hear Jeffrey’s voice, and she felt compelled to follow any instructions he gave.

  This time Jeffrey wasn’t going to talk her through any imaginary situation. After all, this was his more radical treatment. He had something else planned for Sheila. He told her to stand up and then led her into his house, through the hallway and down into the basement. Under the trance, Sheila obeyed every command.

  The basement was a dark and damp room, lit by the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The walls were covered in padding, as if to make the room soundproof and it was completely bare of furniture except for a wooden table in the middle of the room. On top of the table there was a long clear plastic rectangular box, big enough to contain a person. This is where Jeffrey would work, and with Sheila completely under his control, he began.

  ***

  When Jeffrey counted to three Sheila awoke. She felt a little disorientated. She didn’t remember anything from the hypnotism. She felt as if she had simply been sleeping. Then she noticed something else, she was lying down, but the ceiling seemed different, and the room seemed darker. Her vision was also a little blurry, and then she realized that there was a plastic panel just inches from her face which was blurring her vision. As she looked around and tried to move she realized that she was trapped inside something, some kind of plastic box. To her horror she also noticed that she was completely naked. She started to scream. Then she noticed Jeffrey standing just a few feet away, quietly staring at her. Her clothes were lying on the floor beside him.

  Jeffrey again produced that big smile, only this time it didn’t seem so charming.

  “You’re probably confused,” he said, with that big grin still on his face. “Well, welcome to my more radical treatment.”

  To Sheila’s horror, he then laughed.

  “Let me out!” She screamed at him, but he just continued to laugh. After taking a moment to compose himself, he spoke again.

  “Okay, let me explain how you got here. I put you into a trance, told you to come down here, to take off your clothes, and to lie in this large plastic box… oh, by the way, try not to associate it with a coffin, some people have done that and believe me, it freaked them out.”

  He burst out laughing again. Sheila looked at him, beginning to believe that he was insane, and she began to cry.

  “Please let me go.” She begged, her voice a whimper.

  “Let you go?” Jeffrey asked, suddenly looking puzzled, “but we haven’t even started yet.”

  The smile then quickly returned to his face.

  “Ok, let me explain what we’re going to do. You see, I am a strong believer in facing your fear. Obviously you tried to do that, and when you were scared you ran away. So my more radical treatment involves putting you in a situation where you have to face your fear, but are unable to run away, hence this plastic box that I built. With me so far?”

  Sheila couldn’t believe what was going on. He was explaining things as if this was a normal every day situation. The anger began to build back up in her and she started kicking and punching the walls of the plastic container, screaming at the top of her voice.

  “Let me out you psycho!” Followed by cries for help, “Help! Help! Please, somebody!”

  Jeffrey stood silently staring at her, with an amused look on his
face. When she finally stopped screaming he continued, treating her hysterics as a minor interruption. “Right, so stage one was putting you in a situation where you are unable to run away, that stage has been completed. Stage two is facing you with your fear, which we will get to in a minute. I just need to get something from the house. By the way, this room is soundproof, so scream all you want, but nobody will hear you.”

  He turned to walk up the stairs to his house, then paused and turned towards her with the grin back on his face.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, before chuckling at his own joke as he continued up the stairs.

  Sheila could only lie in her small plastic prison, unable to even sit up. She took a closer look around the box and noticed that air holes had been made. She wouldn’t suffocate, but she could also be kept trapped inside the coffin-like contraption for a very long time. She also noticed that the lid was padlocked. There was also a small window just above her stomach, which could be slid open, but only from outside.

  As she lay there naked, tears streaming down her cheeks, she remembered something that Jeffrey had said. Locking her up was only stage one, to keep her from running away. Stage two was facing her fear, and the phobia in question was spiders. She began to moan and tremble as she wondered what the Hypnotist was going to do next.

  As if on cue, the door to the basement opened, and Jeffrey appeared at the top of the stairs. As he walked down she noticed that he was carrying a plastic container which was about twice the size of a shoebox. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he walked towards Sheila, the container under his right arm. At this point she began to beg.

  “Please let me out. I’ll do anything. If it’s about money I don’t want the refund, I’ll even pay double, just let me go please.”

  Jeffrey ignored her pleas.

  “It’s time for stage two,” he said.

  He slid open the small window of Sheila’s plastic prison. He took the small container that he had carried down the stairs, removed the lid, and tipped the contents through the window onto Sheila.

  She almost fainted when she saw what the Hypnotist had poured onto her, but the fear was too intense and wouldn’t let her have the release of unconsciousness. It was spiders, dozens of spiders. She could feel their legs scurrying over her naked body. They ran down her legs, up her arms, over her stomach and her breasts. When she felt their little legs scuttling all over her flesh she wet herself, the warm urine running along the bottom of the plastic prison. Any spiders on the bottom of the coffin like box crawled over her body to avoid the warm yellow liquid.

  Sheila was almost paralyzed with fear, but she lost control when the spiders reached her head. She could feel them in her hair, at her ears, and touching her cheek. She began to scream, a high pitched desperate scream. She screamed as a spider crawled over her face, and as her mouth was wide open in a desperate shriek, a spider crawled into her mouth. She vomited, spitting out both the grotesquely long legged spider and the mornings still undigested cereal. She turned her face to the side to spit it out and could feel the horrible warm vomit run down her cheek and into her hair.

  The spiders continued to crawl all over her. But she didn’t scream any more. She didn’t dare to open her mouth again, and she kept her eyes tightly shut to avoid seeing the hideous insects that covered her naked body. Instead she lay there trembling and moaning, while tears silently ran down each cheek.

  “Here’s the plan Sheila,” Jeffrey said, reminding Sheila that he was there, watching. “I am going to leave you here until you become calm, until you realize that these spiders won’t hurt you, and until you realize that you are not afraid of them anymore. It’s a rather ingenious idea, in my opinion. I've used this kind of tactic before for other fears. I remember one woman who lay in that very plastic case with several rats. I cured her. Fear of spiders is a new one for me though, and I began collecting them right after our phone call the other day. I get a lot in the garden here, you see, and it really didn’t take very long to collect a nice amount of them for you. So just lie back with your new friends, eventually you will learn not to fear them.”

  When he had finished talking he began to walk up the stairs. At the top he turned to her.

  “I’ll be back to check on you in an hour. In the meantime, have fun with your new eight legged friends.”

  ***

  The time passed slowly and Sheila experienced many intense emotions. She was afraid, angry, and also felt desperately sorry for herself. At some stages one feeling would dominate the others and she would scream to be released, and then she would lie still, sobbing silently and asking the question; why me? to herself again and again.

  After an hour had passed, Jeffrey returned. As he walked down the stairs to the basement, Sheila noticed him, and immediately began to bang the walls of her plastic coffin, screaming to be freed. She made the same desperate pleas as before, but this time not only offering money. She also offered any kind of sexual services he would like her to perform in exchange for her freedom.

  Jeffrey simply looked at her, the sympathetic expression from earlier in the day had returned to his face. “Begging won't work, Sheila. All you need to do is relax and become comfortable with these spiders, and when I am satisfied that you have achieved this, you will be set free.”

  He then smiled at her, as if to offer encouragement.

  “Please let me go,” Sheila muttered.

  “Maybe later,” Jeffrey replied, “but for now I think you need at least another hour of treatment.”

  The anger bubbled in Sheila again, and she screamed at Jeffrey, shouting both obscenities and threats.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you! Who do you think you are?! When I get out of here I am going to cut your fucking balls off!”

  As she shouted at Jeffrey, he simply chuckled and walked up the stairs, leaving the basement, and leaving Sheila alone with the spiders for another hour.

  ***

  The seconds ticked by, and each hour Jeffrey came down to the basement to check on Sheila’s progress. Each time she reacted differently, from begging again, to threatening him and then offering him money to be released. But as the time went by, she became less afraid of the spiders. She was more obsessed with Jeffrey and his behavior, becoming used to the feel of spiders on her naked skin. When a spider moved she no longer shuddered, and even the feel of a spider crawling over her face had no impact on her. They became unimportant, and she only thought about her entrapment in the basement.

  On Jeffrey’s final visit to the basement he noticed this change in Sheila. He watched her as the spiders crawled over her, and he noticed that it didn’t bother her.

  “Have you gotten used to the spiders, Sheila?” He asked.

  “Fuck the spiders,” she responded, “I just want to get out of this damned plastic coffin.”

  Jeffrey looked closely at her, watching her eyes. He noticed that she had an intense hatred in her eyes, but it wasn’t for the spiders, it was a burning hatred for him. He smiled.

  “I think it’s time to let you out, Sheila,” he said, a broad grin on his face.

  Sheila let out a sigh of relief. She was relieved to be getting out of the box and to be able to put some clothes on to cover her nakedness. She wasn’t so bothered about the spiders anymore but she was still convinced that Jeffrey was a psycho, and that she was going straight from his awful damp basement to the police. She just hoped that she wouldn’t have nightmares about this day for the rest of her life.

  “Just one more thing before I let you out,” Jeffrey said, while standing beside the plastic coffin, the key to the padlock in his hand.

  Sheila looked at him, afraid of what was going to happen now. She wanted to get out so badly.

  “Itsy bitsy spider,” he said.

  It was a phrase that he had programmed into Sheila that day, and hearing it, she fell back into a hypnotic state.

  Jeffrey opened the padlock and told Sheila to get out. Under his control, she followed his commands. He directed
her to wash her body in a bucket of soapy water that he had set down on the floor of the basement. He instructed her to get dressed, and led her up the stairs, through his house, and back into his office. When there, he told her to sit down on the couch.

  “Okay, Sheila,” he began. “You have done well today. You were so brave in the box and you cured your fear of spiders. You should be very proud of yourself.”

  “Yes, very proud,” Sheila muttered.

  “Good, and although you remember everything that happened in the basement, you will never tell anybody, you will just tell anyone who asks that hypnotic treatment cured you. It will be our secret, Sheila.”

  “Yes, our secret” she mumbled.

  “Good, Sheila, when I count to three you will not be angry, you will be appreciative of my help. You will only want to thank me for what I have done.”

  “Yes.”

  “One, you are beginning to wake up… two, you are no longer asleep and you want to open your eyes fully… three, you are fully awake now Sheila.”

  Sheila awoke, and when she saw Jeffrey she wanted to kiss him.

  “I feel so great,” she said, smiling broadly.

  She remembered everything that happened, but she was no longer angry, she was appreciative of Jeffrey’s work. When she remembered some of the things she said to him, the threats she made and the language she directed his way, she blushed.

  “Oh my god,” she said, “some of the things I said to you, I’m so sorry…”

  Jeffrey put his hand up to stop her.

  “It’s perfectly alright,” he said. “The main thing is that you got over your fear.”

  Sheila spent the next few minutes thanking him again and again until she left his office. She knew it was an unorthodox treatment, but would never tell a soul just how unorthodox it was. In her mind she owed everything to Jeffrey.

  As she put her car in gear and began to drive away from the office, she remembered how her daughter had also been so afraid of the spider in the bath. She knew that the only person that could help her was Jeffrey. She decided to call him again tomorrow. If Jeffrey could cure her, he could also cure her daughter. Sheila smiled at this thought, and as she drove home the smile never left her face.