The Fortunesitter

I didn't even believe in that kind of stuff. But I was falling apart, and desperate people try strange things. I had lost track of how long it had been since the breakup. Or maybe it hadn't been that long. Time didn't feel real anymore, just the same thoughts looping endlessly in my head. Work was worse: every morning I sat in front of the screen hoping some task would pull me in, save me. But it didn't. Nothing did.

I don't know where I first heard about her. Someone mentioned her at a party, I think. "The face reader." They said it like it was a normal thing. But no one really explained what she did. They just said she was intense. And that afterwards, everything changed. "Afterwards, he started over. He was just different."

So I booked a session.

It took three weeks to get in. The confirmation email was brief: "Thursday, 5:45PM. Do not eat heavy food before your reading. Do not apply anything to your face--no sunscreen, no makeup, no creams or serums. Your skin must be clean." That was all.

Her place was in a quiet neighborhood, one of those old buildings where the light doesn't reach the windows properly. I rang the bell. She opened the door slowly, not smiling, just nodding. She already knew who I was.

"You're here for a face reading?"

"Yes," I said.

"Come in."

The room was dim. Quiet. Nothing mystic in the traditional sense. Just a rack of pants. Only three candles and a burning incense. And... textured pants. Dozens of them. Some draped, some twisted awkwardly on hangers. Others tossed carelessly across the floor, like someone had tried to organize them once and gave up halfway. It was cluttered and chaotic. Pants layered over pants, textures clashing. There was no system I could detect. Corduroy, denim, velvet, twill. Brown. Indigo. Grey. Maroon. And more.

I stared. I wasn't sure if I was in the right place.

She gestured to a cushion in the middle of the room. "Lie down. On your back. Put your head there."

I hesitated. "Why?"

"Don't ask questions. Trust me."

I lay down. The cushion was dense, angled slightly.

She walked over to the rack and ran her hand slowly along the pants. I watched her fingers, mesmerized. She paused on a pair: brown, rough-looking. She pulled them from the hanger and held them up to the light. Her expression didn't change.

"You're a tough one," she said. "This is going to go deep. It'll be rough. But you can take it."

She disappeared behind a curtain.

I lay there, still staring at the rack. I didn't know what was about to happen. I didn't know why the pants mattered.

A strange tension crept into my legs. For a moment, I thought about getting up. Just standing and leaving. Apologizing, making up an excuse, walking out the door and pretending this never happened.

My ex used to say I never followed through on anything. That I flinched the moment something asked more of me. That I always had one foot out the door. The thought made my throat tighten. I shifted slightly on the cushion. But I stayed.

I stayed.

When she returned, she didn't speak. She walked silently around me, then sat down on my chest.

I froze.

Her full weight settled on me. No warning. No ritual. She was warm. Heavy. My breath caught.

"Breathe deeply," she said.

I tried. Her thighs were tight against my ribs. She moved her hands across my face, tracing it like she was memorizing it blindfolded. Her thumb brushed my brow, her fingertips followed the edges of my jaw. Her breath was calm.

"I'm syncing," she whispered.

Then: "Turn your face to the left."

I did.

She shifted forward. Her body slid across my collarbone, then landed fully on the side of my face.

I wasn't prepared. The fabric caught me off guard, pressing into my skin with a sharp, dry friction I wasn't ready for. Her weight followed in the next breath, sudden and full, landing hard onto the side of my face. There was a moment of stunned stillness where I didn't understand what was happening. Then the pressure built, radiating from my cheekbone into the rest of my skull. I could feel every ridge, every seam of the pants she had chosen, those brown ones. They weren't just touching my face. They were claiming it. That's when something clicked. That's when I realized what this was. What she was doing.

"Ten minutes," she said.

I couldn't move. My face was being crushed. My cheekbone was throbbing. I wanted to shift, but she didn't lift.

She must have felt I was trying to move: "Shhh. You're okay. Trust me, I do this with several people every day."

It didn't feel like I was okay. But I stayed still.

Eventually she moved back to my chest. Her fingers traced the marks. She pressed into the skin where the seam had left a dent.

"Other side."

I hesitated.

She was still, waiting. I glanced up at her. Her gaze met mine, disappointed, almost impatient. She tilted her head slightly as if to say, "Well?"

I swallowed. My neck felt stiff. My cheek still burned from the last sit.

"Go on," she said quietly. Not unkind, but firm.

I turned.

Same pressure. Same weight. Now on the other cheek. I could feel the fabric imprinting into me. I started sweating. I clenched my teeth without realizing it.

She sat there. Quiet. Focused. Her breathing slowed.

It went on for a short while. Somehow, it felt quicker than the first time. It was less shocking, but no less intense. My face adjusted, slightly. Or maybe my mind did.

Then she moved.

"You're doing well," she said. "But the next part is harder."

She stood up. Took a step back. Her eyes scanned my face. Slowly, deliberately. Her fingers followed, brushing across each cheek with clinical care. She pressed into the places where the fabric had bitten deepest, watching how the skin resisted or yielded. There was a subtle nod, like she was reading the bruises the way others might read tea leaves.

She lingered for a moment longer, then moved deliberately. She got up. Her feet came to rest on either side of my head, toes angled slightly inward, framing me like a bracket. From my position, I could see nothing but the curve of her knees and the underside of the brown fabric she had chosen. The air shifted. My body tensed without meaning to. Her silence stretched, full of knowing. Then she sat, settled her weight again, down onto me.

Directly on my face.

No air.

Her thighs sealed everything. I panicked. My arms tensed. I couldn't breathe.

"Stop resisting. Relax your face muscles. Focus on my breathing."

She shifted slightly. Just enough space to let in a trace of air. My eyes burned. Her weight pressed down again.

It wasn't like before. It pressed straight down, dense and focused. I could feel every shift in her body, every thread in the fabric. The pressure was stronger, but so was something else: an awareness, almost. As if she was no longer just using my face, but listening to it.

Somewhere in the stillness, a memory surfaced. Uninvited. Me, standing in front of the bathroom mirror one morning last winter, staring at my own face, not recognizing it. I looked tired. I remember thinking, "I don't know this version of me." And yet, I had gone on pretending.

Then another one slipped in. A quiet moment from years before, sitting in the back of a bus late at night, forehead against the window, watching my own reflection flicker. I had felt the same then, a little outside myself. Wondering what was missing. Wondering if anyone else ever felt like that. But I never asked. I just went home, slept badly, and moved on.

Then she lifted herself moved to the side, hovering just above my face. The weight was gone, and suddenly the memories slipped away too. Her knees bent, her weight shifting carefully to her heels. She studied me closely, head tilted, scanning the damage. Her eyes flicked across my features: forehead, cheeks, nose. Reading something in the heat, the marks, the swelling, the redness. Her breath was steady above me. I could feel the air move as she adjusted, always close but not touching. For a second, I thought she might say something. But she didn't. Just hovered, observing.

"Hmm."

I reached to rub my eyes. She grabbed my wrist.

"Don't." Her voice was firmer this time. "You'll ruin it. I need to see it raw."

She turned around.

Sat again. Facing my feet.

My nose was buried deeper this time. It was wedged right in the thick seam between her cheeks, where the fabric folded. The pressure wasn't just downward now, it wrapped from both sides, enveloping me. I could feel the dense texture of the pants grinding against the bridge of my nose with every breath I managed to pull. It was dark. Still. I couldn't see anything, but I felt everything. The heat, the weight, the closeness. It was claustrophobic.

"Breathe with me," she whispered.

She started chanting softly. A quiet, strange rhythm, in an alien tongue. Something ancient and tender, but impossible to follow. Then, without warning, she leaned slightly to one side and lifted herself just a little. The pressure disappeared for a second. I could feel the air on my face--cold and sharp. It was a shock after so much weight.

I opened my eyes.

She hovered.

Then she dropped.

Hard. Her weight slammed down without mercy, pressing me back into the cushion.

Again: lift, hover, drop.

Each time, more forceful, more deliberate. Like she was hammering something loose inside my skull. I could feel my thoughts scattering with every impact.

I braced myself again, expecting another drop. My breath hitched. Muscles tensed. I was already flinching.

But it didn't come.

She just stayed there, hovering. Not rising, not falling. Just held herself above me, silent, suspended, as if the threat of the drop was the real weight all along. My whole body waited, uncertain whether to relax or prepare for more. That uncertainty filled the room like a second presence.

Finally, she shifted back onto my chest, slowly, almost with care. Her hands rested lightly on my shoulders. She leaned in, her eyes scanning my face with a different kind of attention now. Not clinical. Not analytical. Something gentler. Her gaze was softer, but it still held weight. As if she had gotten what she needed. As if she had seen something true.

She lit another candle without saying a word. The flame caught instantly, adding a soft glow to the room. Then she crouched beside me and offered her hand. I hesitated, then let her help me up. I sat up slowly, the cushion still warm behind my head. My neck ached. She adjusted the pillow behind me, guiding my back into a straight, upright posture.

"Now we begin."

She told me things. About the breakup. About how I had stayed too long. About work. About how I was disappearing from my own life.

She told me what to do.

Where to go: the city she named like it had always been waiting for me. A place I'd never considered, but that somehow already felt familiar when I looked it up.

Who to call: an old friend I hadn't spoken to in years, the one I lost after I pulled away from everything. She said he would pick up. He did.

What to quit: not just work, but the invisible structure around it. The patterns I repeated every day without even noticing--the constant checking, the rushing, the need to be productive. The way I arranged my mornings like a performance. The screens I stared into like mirrors, hoping they'd reflect something back. The lists, the goals, the energy drinks. The constant effort to improve, to track, to explain myself to myself. She told me to stop filling time with effort. To stop narrating everything. To stop trying to control the shape of my thoughts. Let them soften. Let them drift. Let something quieter return, once the noise inside had emptied out. She even told me to stop eating dried mangoes--specifically dried mangoes. She didn't explain why. Just said, "They fog things for you." And that was it.

And when: specific. A date, an hour. As if it were an appointment already scheduled. As if the change wouldn't begin until I stepped into that exact moment.

I didn't believe her. But I was too tired to resist. So I did it.

Everything.

Things started changing. Like something had been pushed loose inside me. Something realigned.

I left with her imprint still on my cheeks. The pattern of her pants stayed there for hours. A tight vertical seam had split the center of my face, running down between my brows and stopping just above my lips. Both cheeks were slightly red, slightly swollen. The texture, coarse, almost grainy, was still faintly visible. I took a selfie. I had to. Not for anyone else, just to remember.

It's been seven months. I quit my job. Moved cities. Started writing again. Reached out to people I had cut off. And I haven't touched dried mangoes since.

And now I'm writing this.

Because I don't want to forget what it felt like to have her on my face, reading my sould and seeing solutions. I still don't understand how it worked. How she could know so much, how she could see so clearly, just by sitting on my face and studying what it did to me. The pressure. The shape. The color. The reaction. The silence. I wanted to ask her, but she had told me not to.

Because even if it sounds insane, it was real.

I'm still not sure how much I'm allowed to share. I hope I'm not revealing too much of her method by telling this story.

She sat on my face.

And whatever part of me walked out of that room--it wasn't the same one who walked in. I didn't understand it. I still don't. But something had shifted.