Melanie tramped into the room ready to rebuff whoever she saw within, but what she did see stopped her in her tracks.

“Ah, finally, a brave seeker of divine love come to study at my tail.”

Outside the room advertisements had spoke of it as a love goddess’ palace, a place for those bereft of love to find all they could ever want. Melanie had scoffed at it, but he friends dared her to go inside. She’d expected someone flowing with billowing dresses and incense and whatnot. She could certainly smell something sweet, at any rate, but there was nothing but one figure who looked more like she belonged at a rave, and her long lamia tail coiled throughout the room. At least her outfit was covered in gaudy hearts.

Melanie rallied. This goth punk wasn’t going to let a hot body throw her off-balance.

“First of all, I don’t believe you’re a love goddess,” Melanie said. “I’m only here because my friends dared me to.”

“Then you’re quite daring,” the lamia said, her words rolling through her pink lips. “No one who sees me will deny my divinity for long.” She introduced herself as Jb.

“Oh yeah?” Melanie leaned against the wall. “What is it you actually do here?”

“Typically I just begin with something to hold your attention.” Jb let drop from her hand a heart pendulum, which she swayed before Melanie. “Of course, my body tends to hold their attention as well.” She ran a hand over her breast, bulging under her tight top.

Melanie laughed.

“You mean you just try to hypnotize people who come in here? That’s ridiculous.” She watched the heart sway back and forth and followed it up Jb’s body as she lifted it to eye level. “Hypnosis isn’t real.”

“The pendulum is just the start,” Jb said, “but one you’re so willing to follow along with.”

“Well—” Melanie noticed she was following the pendulum, but—well, maybe Jb would bean her with it if she looked away. She had to be careful.

“It lets me draw your attention up to my eyes,” Jb said. She flipped the pendulum back into her hand as her eyes pulsed with hearts, a soft pink sweet as cake and a deep red like a heart’s blood.

Melanie stared, eyes wide.

“You have some sort of animated contact lenses?” Melanie asked. They really were pretty, in a way that held her attention.

“I am a love goddess,” Jb said. “My eyes can show you divine love, draw you into divine love. Now that I’ve got you looking into my eyes, it’s time to draw you closer.”

Melanie felt scales slither behind her. Jb’s tail curled up behind her and pushed her forward.

“Oh, it’s . . . it’s like a role play thing, I see.” Melanie’s head suddenly felt distant. It must’ve been that sweet scent permeating the room, she couldn’t breathe properly in there. She should just leave now.

“And your role, my sweet dear, is to come closer and submit to your hypnotic love goddess.”

“I would, uh.” Melanie stepped forward as Jb’s tail pressed around her. She stepped over the thick waves of coils over the floor, but she slid over one and slipped to her knees against the coils. “I’ll, okay.” Something about leaving, but she wanted to see where this was going. She couldn’t hold onto the thought of leaving anyway.

“Maybe you thought about trying to escape,” Jb said, curling her tail around Melanie’s chest as she squeezed a heftier coil over her legs and against her butt, “but now you’re just going to fall before me and surrender to my divine pleasure.”

“I—I am?” Melanie mumbled. Her thoughts fell away from her at some point. Jb’s words supplanted them. “I guess I am.”

“I am a love goddess,” Jb said, stroking a hand under Melanie’s chin as her mouth fell open, “and I’m hypnotizing you with my divine love to worship me as my slave. There’s nothing you can do about it, but there’s nothing you want to do about it, is there?”

“Nuh,” Melanie sighed. “Nothin’ todo . . .”

Jb nodded, and Melanie nodded with her, as she wrapped up her shoulders, the rest of her coils spinning endlessly around her.

“My divine love is squeezing your mind to nothing . . .”

“Squeezing my’ind . . .”

“You’re falling so easily, following my eyes so obediently, you’ve taken so well to my hypnotic control. Now that I’ve got you under my spell, there’s nothing you can do but fall deeper and worship me.”

“Worship love goddess,” Melanie sighed. Jb giggled and squeezed her face.

“Good girl, my little pet.”

Melanie moaned and grinned as Jb squeezed her into coils. Those magical words, good girl, and Melanie was Jb’s. Bliss, pleasure, divine love flooded her mind as Jb’s hypnotic spell took control, a divine clamp on Melanie’s mind flooding every fiber of her being with infinite love and pleasure.