In and out. That's my mantra, the phrase I keep repeating in my head as I open the passenger door and the icy wind smacks into my flushed cheeks like it's trying to slap me awake. I'm not going to get distracted, I'm not going to get drawn into a conversation he can manipulate, and I'm sure as hell not going to look at anything he shows me. I'm going to go in, I'm going to grab the bag I so carefully pretended I didn't know why I was packing, and I'm going to walk right the fuck down those stairs and disappear. "Keep the car running, babe," I say, slapping the hood as I slide out of my seat with muscles that practically vibrate with adrenaline. "I'll be right back."

I trot up to the front door of the apartment building, letting myself in with my keys and keeping my mind squarely on the maroon duffel bag with black straps sitting right next to my bedroom door. It's got a few changes of clothing, some sentimental items I couldn't bear to leave behind, a thumb drive that backs up my entire laptop and everything I've written or drawn for the past five years, and all the cash I've been squirreling away all this time. It's not much, but the important thing is that it's easy to grab and easy to carry and I won't have to spend any time packing when I go inside. He won't have a chance to stop me. Hell, maybe he won't even have a chance to talk to me.

There's a thought that comforts me as I race up the stairs, too overcharged with flight-or-fight to stick myself in a tiny metal box that trundles slowly from one floor to the next. Maybe he won't even be there. Maybe I'll walk in, find the apartment empty, grab my bag and disappear from his life without so much as a chance for him to change... to change my mind, I finish, wincing internally at that particular choice of phrase. Once I'm gone, I can block his number, ignore his emails, erase my social media presence and drive off with Mary into the sunset. The cash will help with that, at least until I can find a new job and start putting my life back together.

It's a warm, sweet, wonderful fantasy of confrontation-free escape from a relationship that clings to me like cloyingly sweet molasses, and it evaporates in an instant as I turn the key in the lock and hear Craig call out to me, "Annie-babe? Is that you?" Simply hearing his voice tugs something in my brain to attention, and it's all I can do to keep my go bag firmly fixed in my mind instead of going trotting into the living room to gaze with shining adoration into his deep brown eyes. He's got his hooks into me so deep now. It's so hard to get my head together.

And this is why I have to go. It's not as simple as just breaking up with him; I've tried that, and within a week or two he finds me and talks to me and persuades me to give him one last chance as my will crumbles into mesmerized fascination in the depths of his hypnotic eyes. I can't rely on my friends to help me--all of my friends are his friends now, too, and whenever I talk to them about the hold Craig has on my mind they get this weird glassy stare and tell me I'm being too hard on a guy who really loves me. I can't set boundaries, because every time I try to talk to him about how controlling he is and how much influence he has over me I wind up masturbating and begging him for more. If it wasn't for Mary making the nine-hour drive to come and pick me up I don't know if I'd ever get away.

But I can't tell him that. I can't let him draw me into another conversation because to give him attention is to give him power and Craig thrives on manipulating our social interactions into another excuse to hypnotize me. So I just say, "Yep, babe, it's me, just forgot my badge," and head straight for my room to grab my emergency bag and get right the fuck out. It'll be eight hours before he thinks to call my job and finds out I didn't show up for my shift. By then we'll be well out of the state. If I can just--

"No you didn't, silly," he chuckles, the condescension in his voice hitting me like a hit off my vape pen and making my thoughts swim with giggly, simpering befuddlement. "I put it around your neck before you left, remember?" There's a palpable surge of liquid heat between my legs at the way he patronizes me, a sense of vacant arousal as I second-guess myself and my programming makes me enjoy second-guessing myself. God, Craig made it so sexy to be dumb and ditzy and dependent on him. I hate how much I love that.

But I'm already rounding the corner into the short hallway that leads to my bedroom, the dangerous turn through the corner of the living room behind me now without catching a glimpse of his mesmerizing eyes. "Ohh, uhhh, that's weird," I lie, my voice sounding too bright and too cheerful in my own ears as I try to pass off my incompetently chosen excuse as just more of my usual airheaded forgetfulness. It might even work; Craig's the one who made me so absent-minded, after all. He has to at least suspect that I'm capable of losing something I was wearing after all these months of brainwashing. "I didn't have it when I got to work. I wonder if I--"

Shit. The bag's not there.

I open the door and look down at the spot where it's supposed to be, momentarily dumbfounded by its absence until I spot it next to my bed discarded and inside out. For a second I wonder if Craig knew I found a friend online who spotted all the red flags in our relationship, if he somehow divined my plans and stole the cash and unpacked everything... but then I get the tiniest flash of a memory I'd forgotten until just moments ago. I did this. Deep down I knew I was going to cut and run and the part of me that already cares about pleasing my Master more than anything convinced me to zone out while watching TV last night and meticulously undo all my own preparations. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Of course I spring into action, desperately trying to find everything I put away and shove it back into the bag, but I stopped talking mid-sentence and Craig has to know something's up now. "Babe?" he asks, his voice stroking my mind with soft, soothing caresses that make it hard to hold onto my sense of urgency. "Did you maybe drop it on the bus somehow? I know you can be a bit of a bumble-brain when I'm not around to help you out, that's why you were talking about giving up on that job, remember?" He was talking about it. I was listening. Our conversations keep getting more and more one-sided, that's why I need to get the fuck out.

Thank god Mary believes me about all this. I try to focus on her, to push Craig's voice out of my head and concentrate on getting my shit together--literally and figuratively--as I try to figure out where my brainwashed subconscious put everything I took out of my bag. But I can hear the springs of the worn-out old couch creaking, and Craig's voice is already getting closer when he says, "In fact, babe, maybe this is kind of a sign, you know? Maybe what you really want to do is just take the night off and get high and listen to some files. I made you a brand new one, I just know you'll like it...."

I wonder what the new one is going to do. Maybe make me give up on my job entirely, maybe convince me that I don't even need my own bedroom anymore when I wind up spending so many nights curled up under Craig's covers with my face nuzzled up to his cock and balls anyway. Maybe this is the file that convinces me to become a cam girl to pay my share of the rent, maybe this is the one that makes me so dumb I need to hand over every penny I make to him because I'm too stupid to balance my own checkbook anymore, maybe I should stop fucking think of all the things his brainwashing can do to me because they're all making me too horny and distracted to pack the fucking bag. I spin around frantically, the task of grabbing some clothes, cash, and a few knick-knacks suddenly too daunting for my confused and muzzy mind.

Fuck it. I have to go. I should have listened to Mary back at the diner when she told me that I only forgot the bag in the first place to give myself an excuse to come back. I should have let her drive me away, gotten me out while I could still go, but I was so convinced I knew the difference between my own drives and the suggestions Craig put in my brain that I thought I'd realize it if I was trapping myself in his control. I was... god, I was such an idiot. I turn and start for the door, but come to a dead stop when I see Craig standing in the hallway with a look of polite concern on his pale features. "What's wrong, babe? You look worried. Maybe you need to relax and watch one of my special videos?"

In and out, I try to remind myself, but that's a better description of what's happening to my stupefied brain as I struggle to look anywhere but at Craig's beautiful brown eyes. My head is swimming in and out of trance, in and out of that blissful fog of obedience that makes it so nice to simply collapse into meek and dreamy dependence on my Master, and I understand too late that Craig's real power over me isn't hypnosis after all. It's the way life becomes so much easier when I can stop thinking and drift into the warm, pleasant embrace of his total control. I never have to worry about anything when I'm his mindless slave, and the seductive promise of that blissful simplicity is so compelling that he doesn't have to capture me. I'll walk right into his cage every time.

"It's okay, sweetie," Craig says, taking me by the wrist and leading my unresisting body over to the living room couch. "You can just relax and switch off that silly little brain now, Master can do the rest." He changes the input on the television, and suddenly the screen is filled with captivating spirals that my eyes lock onto automatically. He doesn't sit me down on the couch, though; he bends my cataleptic body forward so I'm resting my weight on the back and my rear end is sticking up and out in a pose I know all too well. If my pussy was wet before, it's a sopping mess now.

I try to remind myself of Mary, down there in the car with the engine running and the wipers slapping away those few flecks of snow and her face set in a perpetual expression of concern... but I already know what's going to happen there. Mary isn't going to simply give up and drive off without me, not when she's worked so hard and expended so much time and energy to save me from the evil hypnotist who has me trapped in a toxic relationship. She's going to come up here to confront Craig, and she's going to find me like this. Eyes open but unseeing, pants down around my knees, cunt winking lewdly at her from the doorway as I leak my mind down my thighs. And my Master's going to explain everything to her until she understands why it's all okay.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's just weak, helpless little girls like me who mouth along with the whispers hidden in the soft music, maybe she'll be strong where I can't be and she'll drag me out of here and she'll dare Craig to call the cops on her. Maybe she'll take care of me while I'm meek and submissive, and she'll realize that what I really need isn't a Master to control and dominate me but a Mistress who can help me make those decisions I'm simply too deferential and obedient to make for myself. I realize I'm drifting into another fantasy of being owned, but the pulse in my clit is so strong now that I don't care. I never wanted to think for myself. That was always Mary's goal, not mine.

Craig pushes his cock into me from behind, and whatever meaning I originally attached to 'in and out' is replaced by his hard, driving thrusts as he fucks me back into compliance. I feel drool trickling down my chin as my jaw slackens into vacant ecstasy, the very notion of his stiff prick fucking out my will triggering an orgasm so massive I can barely fit it into my head. This is what I really wanted, this is what made me unpack my bag and trick myself into returning and pretend that I was capable of resistance when deep down I knew I would be Master's plaything the moment I heard his voice. Nothing makes me wetter than struggling and failing, reminding myself that I'm ultimately nothing more than a horny brainwashed slut who needs an owner. This is the pure pleasure I craved.

I cum again, the impulse now entirely beyond my control. Mary fades from my mind, then the bag, then my job and any thoughts of a life not completely centered on pleasing my Master. And then even that fades, and I'm nothing more than a blissed out vessel for him to use. If someone knocks on the door, I don't hear it... and I certainly have no idea what happens next.

THE END