Despite an apparent detour into the woods (he'd have to figure out what that meant later), Jon was the first one home. His dad worked in the city and had a long commute. His mom had to circle around to the elementary school to pick up his brother Mikey before coming home. And his younger sister Zoe had gone straight from school to visit her friend Athena, who'd been out sick that day.
So for the moment, Jon had the house to himself. Which would have been nice if he hadn't recently been linked to an enchanted talisman.
But unfortunately for Jon, he had been so linked only ten minutes before. And unfortunately for Jon, the link had been established hastily, and by a magic user with little finesse.
"Put these on, Jon, and make certain that you are always wearing them," was the command he'd been given. To Sarah, it had been a simple trance command, to be relegated to suggestion in the moment that the trance was finished. But to the new talisman she had created, it was a directive to be ensured for perpetuity. And how can he always wear those panties, if he only had one pair of them?
So the moment that Jon stepped foot into his house, the enchanted panties drew upon the latent energy of The Stone that was still bound to it, funneled that energy into its host, and Jon found himself, for the second time that afternoon, entranced.
He closed the front door behind him and walked upstairs to the bathroom that he shared with his siblings. He removed his clothes, and put on a bathrobe. He picked up Sarah's panties from off the floor, and began fishing through the laundry basket for any pair of underpants he could find. His own, his sister's, his brother's. Every pair in the hamper ended up bundled in his arms. These be brought to the laundry room and dropped into the washing machine. Then he entered his parents' room and the master bathroom, and repeated the process with their laundry basket. These, too, he dropped into the washing machine. Then he entered every bedroom in turn, opened a dresser drawer in each, and removed every pair of underwear that remained in the house. Everything went into the washing machine. A capful of detergent, and the machine was on. Filling with water. Mixing the fabrics.
Mixing the magic.
Jon's body moved to the living room and turned on the TV. This box of moving pictures was an advanced-enough technology that shifting from the talisman-induced trance to the electronically-induced trance was nearly indistinguishable, and Jon sat there until the timer on the washer went off. Then he shifted seamlessly back to the magical trance to move the laundry into the dryer.
But while the garments that he had put into the washing machine were mostly a mix of blacks, whites, and nude tones, while their cuts were all boxer, brief, or full-cut panty, the garments that he removed were a lot more colorful. And used a lot less fabric. They came in different sizes, but all were decidedly reflective of the style of Sarah McMillan.
Jon closed the dryer door and turned the machine on before shifting back to his television trance, and when the dryer cycle was over, he dutifully folded every pair of panties and placed them in a drawer in a bedroom, according to their size. Then he returned to the sofa.
By the time Jon became fully aware once again, it seemed to him that he had just lost track of time watching TV. He had no recollection of anything he'd done since he got home. But one thing was for certain: he no longer had any option in the house other than to wear Sarah's talisman. He had made certain that he would always be wearing some version of them.
