Anita tried to make the best of her circumstances. She really did.

She had more than enough food and toiletries to last the four week hard lockdown. Government cheques meant that her immediate bills were taken care of. She could do anything. She did everything. And in less than ten days she was completely burned out.

Waking up with “French for Idiots” plastered to her face, Anita threw it onto the pile of discarded books in disgust. Her everything was still sore from jumping into every type of workout routine at once, and she had given up on several attempts to write, draw or paint over the past week and a half.

Logging onto her socials, she found that her friends were having mixed results with their own endeavours. Everyone had advice to give of course, if only because it was an opportunity to pretend their own lives weren’t falling apart, and Anita was inclined to take the vast majority of it with a pound of salt.

Something obvious someone suggested - so obvious that she had forgotten to try it at all - was meditation. That was perfect, wasn’t it? It was doing something by doing nothing. If she could get meditating down, she’d be set for the rest of lockdown as long as she remembered to eat.

The soundtrack recommendations that came with the suggestion she bookmarked for later, choosing instead to focus on the basics for her first attempt.

Setting an alarm for two hours in case she fell asleep, Anita settled into a comfortable sitting position on some cushions.

Eyes closed.

Breathe deeply.

Concentrate on your sensations.

Be mindful of your body.

Be mindful of your thoughts.

Be mindful of your breathing.

The alarm went off.

Anita snapped back to alertness with a sudden shock, her body shuddering to life as she felt her sense of self spreading back into her flesh.

She looked at her phone in disbelief. She’d really done it! First time, no problems! She was a meditating pro!

Unless she’d just fallen asleep? Anita frowned at that thought, but she didn’t feel sluggish like she did after a nap. Instead she felt invigorated! Her muscles felt taught and pumped as if she’d just started a cardio workout and her nipples…

Anita stopped suddenly, looking at the tiny dents in her shirt. Her nipples were rock-hard. Experimentally, she reached under and brushed a hand against one breast and shivered.

Her whole body felt electric! Was this what meditation felt like for everyone? It should be a lot more popular if that was the case - maybe she’d discovered some new kind of awakening?

A quick search online yielded disappointing results, which was to say that arousal during and following meditation was not unheard of. Anita made a point of not searching for instances of blacking out for two hours while meditating because deep down she knew that the most common response would be that she had likely nodded off.

Feeling invincible nonetheless, Anita threw herself back into her earlier discarded projects, though she made little progress on any of them before nightfall forced her into bed.

***

Anita woke up the next morning in an expectant mood. She had read that meditating before breakfast was ideal, but didn’t want to go another two hours without eating.

After hastily downing a bowl of cereal, Anita made herself comfortable, set the alarm and tried to reach that state of mind she had been able to attain so effortlessly.

Eyes closed.

Breathe deeply.

Concentrate on your sensations.

Be mindful of your body.

Be mindful of your thoughts.

Be mindful of your breathing.

Anita opened her eyes.

Her alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but that was fine. Better than fine, as she seemed to have awoken from her meditation while still maintaining a sense of blissful serenity. She watched herself reach out for her phone, disabling the alarm before sitting up and examining herself closely.

This was weird. She felt as though she were in a dreamlike state, unable to focus enough to will her body to act, but watching it act regardless. On a whim, she wondered if she could wave at herself and after a delay saw her vision settle on her hand, which did indeed wave slowly after a pause. That was cool.

Not wanting to break her state of concentration, or whatever it was she was experiencing, Anita was happy to observe as her body tested every muscle, flexed every joint and ran a finger over every exposed bit of skin. She felt her arousal returning, but her hands focused on running themselves up and down her arms, her skin breaking out in goosebumps from the sensation.

Eventually, her body gave in and began to caress her nipples through the soft fabric of her bed-shirt. Again, a shiver ran through her and she was dimly aware of a little moan that escaped her lips.

She distantly wondered what she would look like if someone had walked in on her like this: High on her own psyche and feeling herself up.

She felt her breath catch as her chest arched back, the tingle of excitement running down her spine and between her legs. Anita perversely pictured herself stroking her thighs, but instead her body stood itself up and walked into the kitchen, still stroking her nipples.

Anita was too befuddled to protest, watching herself pouring another bowl of cereal with one hand, her other hand busy against her chest. Her body managed to pour the milk one-handed as well, opening Anita’s lips as it guided a heaped spoonful into her mouth.

Anita felt a rush of pleasure that caused her to briefly black out: A richness of sensation that she had never felt before. It was as if she were truly experiencing the sensation of taste for the first time, feeling every cool droplet of milk as it slid down her throat, every coarse flake of wheat as it crunched between her teeth and every tiny piece of preserved fruit as it burst in a flash of sweetness.

Bite after bite, Anita was lost in the flood of having her senses reduced to her lips, teeth, tonsils and tongue. Even the finger diligently swirling around her nipple became a distant tickle by comparison.

Anita finally came halfway back to herself enough to see a now empty bowl being left in the sink as her body made its way to the full length mirror in her bedroom. With just as little control of herself as before, Anita could do nothing but watch as her body slowly stripped down until she was completely naked.

Both hands returned to duty, this time against her naked chest, and Anita could feel the squeeze as both palms closed on her breasts. The pressure sent a rush of blood down to her pussy. Anita watched as one hand slowly meandered down her stomach, brushing the beach fuzz above her snatch and began delicately stroking up and down her inner thighs.

Anita saw herself in the mirror, staring directly into her own eyes with an intensity that was mesmerising. She saw her expression of wonder slowly change to a mischievous, almost mocking joy, before her eyelids shut themselves. In darkness, there was nothing to focus on but the sensation of fingers probing her rapidly moistening pussy lips.

This was something else. This was wild. Again, Anita wondered if she had made some kind of revolutionary discovery like tantric arousal, or awakening the id or something. Whatever was in control wasn’t her conscious mind, but it certainly knew how to please her.

Anita remained in darkness while she felt her body fondle and sway, and was almost shocked awake when her eyes opened inches away from the mirror in front of her.

Her body seemed to sense this, smiling back at her before planting a loving kiss on the mirror. For the first time, Anita felt a little unnerved at the expression her body wore as it stared back into her, a feeling that worsened as her body seemed to detect her fear, its knowing smirk widening into a predatory grin.

She watched herself step back from the mirror, planting herself on the floor and opening her legs, her pussy slick and glistening in the morning light. Never once breaking eye contact, her body began to slowly trace and massager her outer lips, her right hand lowering and raising itself with two fingers parting and closing, her left hand tight on one breast.

Anita hadn’t masturbated since the start of lockdown - hadn’t done it since several weeks beforehand - and had resolved to use any pent up energy to achieve something productive. Now all that energy seemed to have literally taken control of her, forcing her to bite her own lip and whimper as it pinched a nipple just a little too hard, and then finally, finally, finally began to penetrate her with two fingers.

It was like being made love to for the first time - as though she had never felt the touch of another before now, never even her own. She felt herself opening up to the intrusion, felt her body’s own instincts tighten and massage against her fingertips. The penetration was exquisitely slow and agonisingly shallow, but her body was operating on a rhythm all of its own devising and through every second the alien expression of intense, almost sadistic enjoyment never left her face.

Anita felt the rising tide of climax building, and without control of her body was powerless to slow down her pace to draw it out. Instead, her mirrored self suddenly thrust both fingers deep inside, causing her to spasm violently around the wriggling invasion. Anita’s vision was wrenched away from the mirror as her body lost composure, clamping its legs together and collapsing on one side.

Anita’s eyes rolled back into flashes of multicoloured darkness, and though the flashes eventually faded, the darkness remained.

Anita’s eyes were closed.

She could feel that she was sitting comfortably upright on some cushions. She could feel the cotton of her pyjamas against her skin. She was not sweaty, or detached, or light-headed.

Anita opened her eyes.

She looked around herself. Nothing seemed out of place. The sun was definitely higher. She picked up her phone. It had been four hours.

Anita crept into the kitchen. There was no open cereal container on the counter, no additional dirty bowl or spoon in the sink. She went to the mirror, though whatever she was expecting to find there, nothing appeared out of place.

Anita slowly made her way back to her computer, trying to be mindful of every part of her body as she walked. Nothing felt strange, but the memory of watching her body act of its own accord - and of that knowing smirk - unsettled her.

Was it an out of body experience? Not really - if anything it was the opposite.

Did anyone else’s body act on its own while meditating? The internet said yes, but described simple shifts in weight and involuntary twitches - nothing like what Anita had experienced.

An hour of anxious searching and the best explanation the internet had to offer was that Anita had experienced a kind of lucid dream while in her meditative trance.

Anita took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

A lucid dream. Sure. That made sense. When she came back to herself, she was still dressed, she wasn’t a slimy mess downstairs and there was no sign that her body had actually done the other things she had seen it do. It was just a dream.

A hell of a dream.

Anita took the time to rub her hands up and down her arms. With an explanation for that morning’s weirdness, she was suddenly aware of how fresh and alive her body felt. She got up from her computer and tried bouncing around on her toes a few times, feeling incredibly light and elastic as she did so. An unsettling tingle along the back of her brain still left her feeling slightly uneasy, but she dismissed it as residual nerves and instead cleared the living room for another round of yoga followed by pilates followed by tae bo.

Halfway to sundown, she was too wrung out and exhausted to feel anxious about anything.

It was as she was getting ready for bed that night that the friend who had suggested meditation sent in a wellness check.

Anita responded with enthusiasm and more than a bit of pride, explaining her two and four our trances respectively, though leaving out part of the dream where she was stripped down and assaulted by herself.

The friend was sceptical and even slightly alarmed at the length of Anita’s second trance, but Anita waved it away because of how fantastic she felt after waking up. 

Eventually her friend’s insistence that meditative trances weren’t supposed to work like that got on Anita’s nerves, so she ended the chat with a promise to let her know how things went tomorrow before closing the chat.

It was definitely out of the ordinary, Anita had to admit. By all accounts, meditation was something only meant to last a couple of minutes and took practice over several attempts for any real benefits to manifest, but that probably just went to show what a natural she was at it. All concerns aside, she couldn’t argue with the results. Even now, sore and tired as she was, she felt alive in a way that made her want to sprint to the other end of the country and back.

If a couple hours of lost time and some horny dreams were the price of surviving lockdown with her sanity intact, it was worth it.

***

The next morning, Anita made ready for what was becoming her regular meditation session. She had initially had second thoughts, but the thought of giving up out of fear after such unique results made her decide to commit at least once more.

With her cushions in place, Anita sat down and closed her eyes.

Breathe deeply.

Concentrate on your sensations.

Be mindful of your body.

Be mindful of your thoughts.

Anita opened her eyes.

She didn’t feel detached or woozy. She didn’t feel like she was waking up from a nap. She checked her phone: It hadn’t even been sixty seconds.

Nevertheless, Anita suddenly felt energised and compelled to stand up, so she did.

She felt compelled to stretch, so raised both hands above her head, arching her back as she did so, and it felt great!

Methodically, one muscle at a time, Anita began to work out the stiffness she had picked up by going overboard the day before.

She gently rolled her head from side to side, bringing it down so that her chin touched her chest, then back and round to the side again.

She pulled her shoulders up, rolling them back, and down, and forward, and then back up.

She brought her arms up behind her head again, gently pushing down with one hand against the opposite elbow, then twisted herself from side to side from the waist up.

Bending down to touch her toes, she felt her hamstrings go taut, the tension shifting as she made minor adjustments in her posture.

She raised each knee into the air, marvelling at her unaccustomed balance as she rotated each foot at the ankle.

She raised her hands up in front of her, meshing her fingers and flexing them together until she felt her joints pop.

Sitting down, Anita stretched her legs out to either side and pressed herself forward, once again feeling the tension along her inner thighs. She had done this as part of several different routines in the past two weeks, but only now was she struck by the pleasing shape of her own legs; the firm tone and contours from hip to ankle.

Without consciously thinking about it, Anita worked every individual knot of discomfort out of her body and finished feeling loose and relaxed, if slightly sweaty.

Well, she may not have meditated, but she certainly felt a lot better.

Checking the time on her phone quickly, Anita threw off her clothes and stepped into the shower.

Washing away the grime after a workout felt good on any day, but for some reason Anita found herself acutely aware of each droplet striking her naked skin; of each rivulet of water running down her face, neck, breasts and legs before flowing down the drain.

Hypnotised by the sensation, Anita spent several minutes gently turning different parts of herself towards the jets of water before realising that she hadn’t even begun to wash yet.

Focusing on that proved itself to be a challenge, as Anita found herself captivated by the viscosity of the body wash in her hands and the texture of the sponge and she began to run it along her body. Over and over she caught herself washing the same patch of naked skin, lost in the heightened sensations.

It was with a mild trepidation that she brought the sponge to her breasts, and the slippery coarseness against one nipple made her gasp. Gritting her teeth, she ran the full length across her breast in a single movement and had to stifle a moan as her knees went weak. As though caught in a behavioural loop, Anita brushed her nipple again and again, pressing herself against the shower wall for support as electric sparks ran up her chest, around her neck and across the back of her brain.

It wasn’t until over an hour later that a weak-kneed and sodden Anita turned off the water and stumbled out of the shower. Surfing on a swell of arousal, even drying was a kind of torture. The fluffy texture of the towel billowing against her skin ran tiny fireworks through her mind, and she abandoned any attempt to secure it around her chest.

Instead, she found herself standing once again in front of her full length bedroom mirror.

She was at once reminded of the scene she had witnessed in her dream: Of that alien smile her face had worn as it used her body to debase itself.

On impulse, Anita tried to smile that way. The uncertain flicker of expression made her stop immediately, but it drew attention to her face. Stepping close to the mirror, she pressed her nose against the glass and inspected herself carefully.

It was definitely her face: As familiar and ordinary as any other time she had seen it, yet from this extremely close angle it felt more intimate, as though she were staring into the eyes of a lover.

She traced the shape of her temple, the contours of her ears, the line of her jaw to the point of her chin and back up the other side.

She ran her gaze along her forehead, then each eyebrow, her lashes, the green of her irises and the dark pools within. She had started into herself like this in her dream, but without the ability to control it.

Her gaze ran down the line of her nose and down to her lips. She tried smiling again - not the alien smile of the dream, but the ordinary smile she wore when she felt like smiling.

She winked. She licked her lips. She pressed herself forward, closed her eyes and gave her reflection a kiss.

The cold glass against her lips shocked her enough to pull back in surprise. What was she doing? Had she really just done that?

But looking back at her own face, at her expression of befuddle embarrassment, she couldn’t help but find herself really cute - like someone caught… well, kissing a mirror.

Her gaze lowered itself from her face, down past her neck and shoulders to her breasts. She’d never thought of them as perfect before, but now hanging there on her and in front of her, she couldn’t imagine being happy with them any other way. She hefted them in both hands, opening her palms flat to jiggle them in an asymmetric pattern, the vibrations sending tingles up her spine.

These were hers, just as her lips were hers, and her hips were hers.

Anita’s gaze lowered with her hands, coming to rest between her legs. She had watched her body penetrate itself before; watched helplessly as an alien force controlled her in her dream.

Anita’s heartbeat pounded loud and louder in her head as she slowly reached towards her pussy lips.

Anita opened her eyes.

She was still naked, still standing in front of the mirror, still millimetres away from stroking herself with one hand, but now with a look of shock on her face.

She snatched her hand back in embarrassment, the sense of guilt no longer a source of perverse arousal.

Had she really just done that? What was she thinking? She knew what she was thinking, but what was she THINKING?

Anita hurriedly dressed herself, checking her phone to find that it was fully six hours since she had initially sat down to meditate, which meant that she had spent no small amount of that feeling herself up in the shower, then playing with herself in her room. Was she really that pent up?

Lunch was slapdash and tasteless as she worried. Maybe she shouldn’t have given up on meditating that morning after all. But she’d felt so immediately restless that she would need to have forced herself to remain sitting for even another second.

The rest of the day passed as a blur, with any attempt at productivity distracted by the memory of the look she had given herself in the mirror and the sensation of hot, soapy water.