Amber stepped off the plane and picked up her carry-on from the jetway, thanking the flight attendants with a cheerful calm belied by her trembling pink fingers. The handle of the small rolling suitcase slipped in her sweaty grip, and she tried to refocus on her mantras in order to calm the butterflies in her stomach. It didn't work. The mantras only reminded her of what she was excited and nervous and thrilled and terrified about, all at the same time and in no particular order. She needed Derek's soothing presence, his soft and gentle voice to remind her that there was nothing to worry about. That she was loved and wanted and everything was going to be okay.

Thankfully, Derek was waiting for her down in baggage claim. She tugged the suitcase onto its wheels and started walking, balancing precariously in her six-inch heels. She'd practiced in her apartment, of course, spending hours walking back and forth across the hardwood floors while training her ass to accommodate her princess plug. But the airport had carpeting, and people crossing in front of her and behind her, and in just a few short minutes Derek was going to see her in her pretty pink dress and her pretty pink shoes and her pretty pink lipstick and what was he going to think if she couldn't even walk straight for him?

He was going to think she was a good girl, Amber reminded herself. He was going to think he was a good girl because he always thought she was a good girl, because she tried hard and she wanted to belong to him. That was what was important. That was what mattered. She wanted to be his, she wanted to be open and receptive to his programming and on the days when her body didn't always measure up to her fantasies, he sent her pictures of cuddling cats and reminded her that he had chosen her out of all the women in the world to submit to him. That helped a lot, even when the mantras didn't.

And after a few awkward moments, walking became easier too. Amber's steps became a little more graceful, and she even imagined a few men directing admiring glances in her direction. Not that she really understood why, even now; she felt like she filled out the hot pink dress in all the wrong places, and even with her hair dyed a rich, lustrous honey blonde, she didn't think she looked like the woman she wanted to be when she looked in the mirror. She wished--

And then she felt Derek's commands, tugging at her brain like a leash, reminding her that only one person was allowed to have an opinion about her body and it was her Master. He was the one who leaned forward in his chair every time she masturbated for him over the webcam, he was the one who praised every one of the pictures she sent him when she asked for his approval for the next day's outfits at night. He loved her body, from the tip of her head all the way down to her toes, and she wasn't allowed to question his judgment on the matter.

Amber struggled for a moment, uncomfortable with accepting a positive self-image even though she knew that the source was unimpeachable. But she could never resist Derek's control for long. Her cunt wouldn't let her. She could feel it, pulsing with pleasure in between her legs and eroding her determination and softening her mind until her thoughts slowly, inexorably gave way to Derek's thoughts. The correct thoughts. Master's thoughts were always correct thoughts, she remembered, and her eyes went glassy and distant as her understanding stirred yet more pleasure in her slick, messy pussy.

She was always wet for Derek these days. Her last few weeks in her old apartment had been an almost constant haze of arousal, anticipation and obedience making her drip down her thighs so badly she had to stop cleaning every few hours to wipe herself clean with a wet washcloth. His suggestions simply felt so powerful, so deeply embedded into her brainwashed and compliant mind that everything she did to prepare herself for today was its own form of kink. Selling her bed and her furniture, giving her outfits to the thrift stores, deciding which books she would keep for Master to read to her... it was all just one reminder after another of the ways her existence was being stripped down to pure, perfect slavery.

And now that day was here. After years of training, months of negotiations, weeks of divesting herself of anything that wouldn't fit into a single small carryon, days of planning and hours of sitting with her thighs squeezed together hoping she wasn't going to leave a wet spot on the seat, Amber was about to surrender completely at last. She almost couldn't believe it. It felt like it was all happening to someone else. Amber wasn't a stranger to being disassociated from her own body, but this didn't feel like the hypnotic conditioning that Derek used to make her feel like a puppet on a string. This was more like watching the most realistic pornographic video she could possibly imagine, a fantasy brought to life in every vivid detail. But it was real. It was really really real.

Amber couldn't remember how long she'd fantasized about a moment like this. From the time she first found the kinky, perverted side of the Internet, she'd always been drawn to stories about brainwashing and kidnapping and women sold into mindless slavery to a confident, commanding Master. It horrified her at first--how could it not? She was a college freshman, planning her career in accounting and taking her first steps toward independence, and here she was masturbating furiously to pictures of women in stocks getting fucked from behind by strangers. It was enough to seriously mess with her head at first.

But years went by. Freshman year became junior year became grad school, and the stories that once repelled and intrigued Amber slowly became her only refuge from a world she'd grown to loathe. She'd gradually begun to realize just how much of her decision to strive for an MBA had been the result of familial expectations and a desperate need to please the authority figures in her life, not out of any passion for business or accounting. Increasingly, she felt trapped by her choices, unable to simply cut her losses and admit that she'd wasted years of her life but unwilling to continue hurtling headlong into a future she couldn't imagine for herself. Her only out was the hot, sticky pleasure of reading those beautiful, sexy stories and daydreaming about someone simply taking all her choices away forever.

And then she met Derek.

She didn't think that sending him fan mail would actually lead to anything; she just felt like after a certain point, she owed him the courtesy of mentioning that she read every story he wrote and wished she could be one of the mindless, obedient slaves he described so perfectly. She didn't expect a response, but he told her later that something in the way she sounded so longing made him want to at least let her know that it wasn't impossible if she really, really wanted it as much as she said she did. And so he told her. Not in a flirty, skeezy, 'I could make that happen' sort of way. Just in a bracingly honest email that talked about hypnokink--what it was and where she could find it.

Within a week, they were emailing each other daily. Within a month, they were sending each other texts whenever they got the chance. And by the time a year had gone by, Derek was calling her every night and hypnotizing her with his smooth, sensual voice, programming her with pleasure and fulfilling her kinky fantasies of being controlled and brainwashed and conditioned to obey. He was careful not to push her limits, but the more they played together, the more Amber found that she didn't have nearly as many as she initially thought. She confessed to him one evening after a session that the boundaries she had laid out in their first negotiations had been as much to keep him from getting scared away as anything.

"What is it that you really want, then?" he asked, his voice alive with fascination.

"To be owned. Completely. All my decisions taken away, all my thoughts replaced with programming, just to be emptied and never have to worry about anything ever again. To be totally obedient. To be a mindless fucktoy. To be yours."

She remembered that long, terrifying pause like it was only yesterday. Then she remembered his slow, hesitant response. "I could do that," he said. "If you really want me to."

She did. Oh, she had her hesitations; there were days when she looked at a book and wondered if she could really bring herself to empty out her brain until the pages were filled with nothing but meaningless squiggles. There were times when she wondered if the pressure of academia hadn't just made her finally snap, finding the most self-destructive way possible to flame out of grad school and flip the middle finger to an absent mother and a father who never saw her as anything but a receptacle for his own hopes and dreams.

But then there were the nights. Nights of long, slow, sensuous pleasure, her mind drugged into obedience and made small and cozy by Derek's programming. Evenings of wearing his collar, teasing herself with a dildo exactly the same size and shape as his cock to train her body to accept his penis. Long, slow, lazy afternoons of edging herself to recordings of his voice, brainwashing her into dreamy acceptance and dripping, aching need before she called him and begged him to fuck her thoughts into oblivion for him. And slowly, the fantasy became more and more real. And slowly, Amber came to realize she didn't want it to be a fantasy any longer.

And now she was minutes--seconds, even--away from making it a reality. She passed through the security checkpoint, her pace quickening as she approached the baggage claim area. Intellectually, she knew that this wasn't a point of no return; Derek had made it clear that no matter how mindless she got, there would always be safewords in her fuzzy, mazy little brain if she needed to stop. She had her degree, and he would be happy to help her find a job here in Akron and a place to stay if she ever wanted her independence again. But deep down, Amber knew there was no going back. Because once she got a taste of the true slavery she'd been craving so long, she would never want to think again.

And then she saw him, squinting up at the electronic display marked 'ARRIVALS' with his big dorky glasses perched on his broad nose. She felt a surge of joy that had absolutely nothing to do with her programming at the sight of his long black hair, bound elegantly back in cornrows that exposed his ebony scalp. She wanted to run up to him and tangle her fingers into it, hold him close and feel his warmth, sob in relief and thank him for everything he'd ever done and said and all the ways he supported her and trusted her to know what she truly wanted, deep down, forever and ever.

But somehow that didn't feel quite right. Instead, she walked over, her eyes firmly aimed down at the ground, and said, "I'm here, Master. I'm yours now. Forever." Her voice was meek and soft, almost girlish, and she couldn't help squirming in anticipation. She could feel her thighs rubbing together, sliding back and forth without resistance as her bare pussy leaked freely down her legs. She could feel the conditioning inside her head, softening her thoughts and making her mind smaller and simpler with every passing moment. It was everything she dreamed of.

Derek smiled. "Good girl," he said, glancing down at her carry-on. "Take it out, please." His voice was calm, smooth, perfectly polite, but there was no mistaking the command in those soothing tones. Derek never needed to raise his voice to her, not when his hypnotic skills had gradually eroded even the concept of resistance from Amber's hazy, compliant mind. She couldn't imagine saying no to him. Soon, she knew, she wouldn't even know what the word meant anymore.

Even so, there was a moment's hesitation as she knelt down to reach into her suitcase for her collar. It felt shocking somehow, transgressive in a way that Amber wasn't quite used to. When he told her that she would wear it always, she somehow thought that meant once they got home and she took off her clothes and became his full-time compliant housepet. She didn't think he meant right here in the airport, in front of hundreds of passing strangers. She hadn't expected to walk out of the building in broad daylight wearing a bright pink leather band with the word 'FUCKTOY' on it in bright, sequined letters.

But Derek thought it was a good idea. And Master's thoughts were always correct thoughts. Amber reached in with shaking hands, goosebumps running all the way up her pale pink arms to her shoulders, and took out the collar. "Don't worry," he said, taking it from her trembling fingers and helping her back to her feet. "You're never going to see any of these people again. I'm the only one that matters, and I want to see you marked as mine. Doesn't that sound wonderful?" Amber nodded, still unable to meet his gaze. She could only stare helplessly as he placed it around her neck and locked it shut with a click.

The whimper of arousal Amber let out wasn't just excitement. She could feel the suggestions locking into her brain, the feel of the leather around her neck anchoring her mind to so many of Master's post-hypnotic commands that simply wearing it made her mind foggy and weak and vulnerable. Her thoughts felt sluggish inside her head, struggling to form and unable to properly connect together. Her eyes glazed over, and her lips parted in vacant, muzzy confusion as she found herself sinking into a light trance without even needing to be told. She was always such a good girl when she wore her collar for Master. And that was... ohhhhhhhhh. That was forever now. Amber smiled drowsily, clinging to that one thought in a sea of puzzled, hazy distraction.

Master took her bag with one hand and led her down to the parking garage with the other, and Amber's mind throbbed with delight everywhere her skin touched his. She'd visited before, but it was never like this--he always took time to let her settle in and familiarize herself with her surroundings before he played with her brain or her body. But this time was forever. This time she was owned and helpless, and he wanted her to understand that right away. Amber sighed happily as the dawning realization that she was finally living her daydream of being taken away from everything she knew swept over her mind and her body. Owned. She was owned by Master. She snuck an adoring glance at him, unable to believe her luck.

He put her in the car and buckled her seat belt for her, then pulled up her skirt to reveal her shaven cunt. "Edge for me pet," he said, placing her hand in her lap, and Amber's fingers moved instinctively to churn the sticky mess between her legs into a froth of arousal. Clear, slick fluids clung to her skin wherever she touched, and Amber's only difficulty was holding herself back from climax--if he hadn't given her leave to fuck herself senseless last night before she went to sleep on the floor of her empty apartment, she wasn't sure if even her conditioning would have been enough to stop her from cumming. Cumming for Master. She had a Master now and he decided when she came. Amber's head swam with heady joy at the notion.

She still couldn't bring herself to look at him as they drove through the city, out to the house he shared with his other partners just outside of Kent. Amber was looking forward to serving them as well, although the arrangement they'd negotiated had left no doubt who was in charge of Amber's mind and body and who they needed to ask for permission to play with the simple-minded, horny fuckdoll she could feel herself becoming. Still, she knew there would be wonderful nights of submission to come. She was a toy. Open for use, exactly as she wanted to be. If not for the towel Master had thoughtfully placed on the seat, she probably would have ruined his upholstery just picturing it.

And then they were home, Master taking her bag down the stairs into the bedroom where he'd prepared a perfect little cage to sleep in at the foot of his bed. The bedding looked thick and soft and luxurious, and it was all Amber could do not to curl up inside and sleep away the long, exhausting day of travel. But she knew that there was one last thing they had to do. One last decision she had to make for herself, the only one she would ever have to make again. She slipped her dress off and knelt at Master's feet, awaiting the moment he'd promised her so long ago.

"Are you ready for an end to freedom, pretty girl?" he asked, looking down at her even as she looked down at his feet. "Are you ready to go so deep you never wake again? To gain a wonderful eternity lost in my gaze?" Amber's breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she feared he'd mistake her excitement for hesitation. She didn't doubt her desires at all anymore. She only needed him too badly to speak.

But she finally forced the words out. "Yes, Master," Amber sighed, thinking of the fairy tales she'd read as a child. They'd all ended with the prince waking the princess from her enchanted slumber with a kiss, to go off and live Happily Ever After. She'd somehow thought that was a place, like Galveston or Houston or Corpus Christi. People went to Happy Everafter when they got everything they ever wanted and they didn't need to worry ever again, and they lived there feeling warm and content and wonderful forever.

She was right. Happy Everafter was a place. It was at the foot of Master's bed. It was on her knees, naked and lost in Master's trance. It was in Master's eyes... and as he gently cupped Amber's chin and drew her head up to stare into the bottomless depths of his gaze, Amber knew she never wanted to leave.

THE END