All characters in this story are over the age of 18.
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Kristy laughed along with the rest of the crowd packed into the sloping grassy knoll, which was located in front of the stage at the annual state fair with attendees spread out on blankets and chairs.
Up on stage, a hypnotist was going through his hilarious routine with eight volunteers who were now being made to take part in all sorts of ridiculous shenanigans.
Kristy had convinced her boyfriend Eric and his best friend Dominic to go up on stage and take part and they willingly agreed to do so thanks to the mostly drunken morning they'd spent walking around the huge fairgrounds enjoying the yearly tradition of ridiculous double-fried foods and games as rigged as Wall street and shaky, metallic rides where the real thrill was the slightly suspect ride-operator and even the gigantic farm animal bragging-rights arena.
The hypnotist had been ripped straight out of central casting—a portly middle-aged man who'd probably seen better days in bigger venues—but his act was a surefire one that he'd performed a thousand times before on cruise ships and at colleges and everywhere else in between. He soon had his willing victims making weird animals sounds and performing sexy dances and saying strange things that they'd never typically say. There were goofy monologues and sexual innuendo galore. The crowd was pleasantly amused.
When the hypnotist had gotten to Eric and Dom, they'd been made to fall asleep just like the others, and whenever they heard the word 'Foxtrot', they would do whatever they were told to do. The only way they'd snap out of this silly, submissive hypnosis was when the hypnotist then said the phrase "Cassiopeia."
The audience was in stitches. The purple coated showman had his guinea pigs putting out a make believe fire. An elderly gentleman would bark occasionally and there were two high school girls who were perpetually fighting off an invisible hornet's nest.
Eric and Dom were made to fall in love and Eric even got down on one knee to propose which had the entire crowd in a riot of laughter. Here were these two manly, red-blooded boys blushing and getting engaged on stage like long-time lovers finally taking the next step.
The hypnotist pushed the bit to the very edge of appropriateness and it was just when they looked like they might go in for a passionate kiss that he stopped them and had them return to normal. He cycled back around with the other volunteers and had just entranced the boys again with another 'Foxtrot' when it was again their turn—he was about to put them through another hilarious round of embarrassing antics when...
...the giant speaker hanging directly above downstage center un-lodged from its' rusted screws and fell directly onto the head of the hypnotist.
Women in the audience screamed. People gasped. Children cried. It was so sudden. So gruesome.
Most immediately presumed him to be dead, but as a nearby stationed team of paramedics rushed onto the stage they discovered a pulse and realized that the speakers had thankfully not fallen directly onto the top of his head, but rather grazed violently just off to the side.
They treated the man and then helped him onto a gurney as they rushed him off to a waiting ambulance. A fair spokesperson came onstage and apologized for the incident and announced that they would be handing out refunds even as people streamed towards the exits to leave the festivities.
Kristy jumped into her boyfriend's arms when she finally got to him through the mayhem of people exiting the stage. The speakers had narrowly missed both he and Dom and her heart was beating quadruple time as she hugged them both tightly. Fairground officials and paramedics checked everyone out that was on stage and made sure that they were all unharmed and that no random debris had hit anyone in anyway. A counselor arrived in case anyone felt like talking and as soon as they were allowed to leave Kristy, Eric, and Dom escaped back outside the stage area and headed off to the car.
Two hours later and the three were sitting around the dining room table two six packs of beer in. They'd grabbed them on the way home along with some ramen and quickly chowed their way through a stress-relieving dinner as they got tipsy and talked about the crazy events that had transpired.
"I heard it before I saw it...it was like, this loud, metallic creaking sound and then it seemed to like...whoosh right past our heads on the way down." Dom explained as he sipped on his beer.
"I'm just glad you're both okay," Kristy soothed as she brought her hand over and rubbed both of their hands on the table. She loved her boyfriend and was also very close with his best friend. It really had been such a close call.
They all decided to throw on their bathing suits and head out back to the jacuzzi. Kristy and Eric were housesitting for her parents who were vacationing out in Yosemite for the summer. They were on college break and Dom had tagged along for the mostly free room and board which was better than tooling around the shitty off-campus bars for weeks straight. The advantages of Kristy's offer included her parents well-endowed house with all the amenities that their university village apartment lacked, including the giant in-ground pool and jacuzzi and even an in-house sauna that could fit up to four people. Her parents had done well for themselves and Kristy was also happy to come home to play with all of the adult toys her parents had collected over the years. Such was the luxury of being an only child.
Kristy and Eric changed in her room while Dom changed in the bathroom. She realized as she unpacked her bag that she'd only brought her sexier yellow one piece. It dipped low on the sides and back and showed her ample side boob and the thong was small through her ass crack.
"Is this okay babe?" She asked her boyfriend as he threw on his trunks.
