"There's so little of you left in there, isn't that right, good girl?" Vanessa was sure she didn't know what the Caucasian man with the graying hair and icy blue eyes was talking about, but he was a customer and it didn't pay to get argumentative with customers... especially when she worked on commission and a man wearing that kind of suit could easily drop ten thousand dollars on expensive furniture in a single visit. So she instead let out a simpering little giggle, the kind men like him never seemed to tire of, and twirled a ringlet of her curly blonde hair between her fingers as she led him through the showroom towards the four-poster beds he'd asked to see.

He continued his weird, incomprehensible conversation as they walked, forcing Vanessa to nod politely again and again at bizarre turns of phrase like, "Oh, yes, I can see it in those pretty hazel eyes. You've got just enough of your old self in there to construct a few justifications for everything I'm making you do, convincing yourself that it all still makes sense and you're not my dumb, ditzy little slave." It was all nonsense, of course--Vanessa wasn't anybody's slave, especially not a complete stranger who'd never even set foot inside the store before today. But arguing would only draw her into an entire conversation with a man who probably didn't take well to being contradicted, especially not by a mere employee. Better to simply give him another one of those bubbly little laughs he loved so much and bob her head up and down in vapid agreement. Rich men never got tired of that.

"But all that's just surface level," he continued, warming to his topic and self-evidently enjoying the sound of his own voice as they made their way past sofas and settees and through to the back of the showroom. "Scratch that surface, and we both know we'll find an obedience that goes all the way down to the very core. That's what makes this particular kind of brainwashing so very effective, isn't it? The Vanessa that would want to resist me doesn't even know what's happening to her--refuses to admit it even when I'm outright talking about it out loud--and the Vanessa that knows about it is my good girl and my willing ally. It actually makes her happy to help me erode the other Vanessa's resistance." Vanessa's smile became a little more genuine. She had to admit, she appreciated it when customers took the time to learn her name.

She brought her customer over to a bed that matched the description he gave her at the front of the store, a king-size four-poster canopy bed with a metal frame and thick privacy curtains on all sides. Vanessa slipped off her shoes and clambered onto the mattress to demonstrate its firmness, and he gave her an appreciative look that somehow made the warm glow of happiness inside her even stronger. "See what I mean?" he asked rhetorically, his gaze centered well below eye level in a way Vanessa pretended with surprising ease she didn't notice. "A few weeks ago you would have been wearing boring, respectable slacks, and now just look at you. You didn't even bother wearing panties to work today, Vanessa. I'm so very proud."

Vanessa didn't have the slightest clue what he meant--of course she was wearing panties, if she wasn't wearing panties she never would have dared to sit in this particular pose directly facing a customer the way she was--but she'd already decided that attempting to challenge him on this particular line of bewildering conversation was more trouble than it was worth. So instead she merely let out another tittering laugh and wiggled her hips suggestively. Fuck it. If this weirdo wanted to labor under the delusion that she was showing off her bare pussy to him, let him. She knew everything she was doing was perfectly normal and just another part of her daily job. Just like the skirts she'd always worn, just like her... grooming habits.... Vanessa wanted to be smooth and neat and tidy down there. And anyways, her customer couldn't even see it.

But he could certainly guess, apparently. "I even see you've been shaving down there the way I instructed you to!" he exclaimed, keeping his voice pitched just low and quiet enough to avoid letting it carry to the next aisle over where a young couple were shopping. "You really are coming along so nicely, Vanessa. Another month or so and I think your mind will simply crumble in on itself and leave you my totally obedient slave." And Vanessa thought she was going to escape retail hell someday and get a job as a DJ, but she'd learned to her regret that thinking a thing didn't make it so. This guy was barking up the wrong tree if he thought he was going to somehow hypnotize and brainwash Vanessa into obedience. She was so strong-willed she didn't even need to worry about it.

He walked around the bed, testing the curtains by drawing them until only the side facing Vanessa was still open, then came back around for another look at her. Vanessa found herself quietly glad she'd chosen this particular spot to climb onto the mattress--despite her stubborn conviction that she wasn't showing any more skin than usual, she knew there were always a few rich prudes wandering around the store looking for something to complain about. Better to have nothing in front of her but the handsome older customer and the store wall if she was going to be sitting here with her legs comfortably parted and her fingers amiably twirling her blonde ringlets again.

The fingers of her left hand. Vanessa didn't need to think about what her right hand was doing just now.

"There we go, my blank little dolly," the older man cooed, his tone warm and coaxing. "Deeper and deeper for me, that's such a very good girl." Vanessa didn't know what he was acting so pleased about--maybe the quality of the mattress? But she certainly didn't have any intention of dissuading him. He had such a lovely deep voice, very mellow and relaxing, and his eyes were so beautiful Vanessa felt like she could get lost staring into them. Really, it was hardly any wonder he'd developed this absurd belief he was an irresistible hypnotist. People probably zoned out listening to him and enjoying the... the pleasantly distracted feeling... all the time.

But she wasn't hypnotized. The customer seemed to know it, too, because he even said, "The old Vanessa, the waking Vanessa doesn't even know she's sinking deeper for me, does she?" and Vanessa could honestly giggle and shake her head while her fingers kept busy doing other things because she didn't know that. Because it wasn't true. She was wide awake and simply paying close attention to a very demanding customer who needed to know she was seeing to his needs. That was important in a job like hers. Vanessa needed to stay very focused on the people she was serving and other thoughts could simply--

Go away. Vanessa sucked in her breath sharply as the phrase elicited an inexplicable spike of pleasure and arousal between her thighs. Then she blinked heavily and forgot it had ever happened.

"But the deep Vanessa," the man continued, stepping in a little closer and forcing her to look ever more directly up at him to hold his gaze, "the *real* Vanessa, she knows just what's happening to her, doesn't she? She knows she's playing with that pretty pussy, she knows she's eroding that boring other Vanessa a little bit more with every single one of my visits. She knows that other Vanessa is already too weak even to remember what's happening to her, let alone resist it, and so it's the easiest thing in the world to nibble away at the core of her identity from within until all that's left of the old self is a pliable facade. And my good slave can simply trick that into doing as it's told."

Every single part of that speech was so wrong Vanessa didn't even know where to begin contradicting it... but again, where was the harm in allowing a pleasant older man his odd little fantasies? If he wanted to think she was strumming her clit with one hand while her other played with her blonde ringlets like some kind of submissive parody of the vacuous sluts he probably watched in his weird fetish porn, let him. Vanessa knew she was sitting perfectly innocently in the middle of a place of business doing nothing more than waiting for him to climb onto the bed and test out the mattress, and she didn't need to think for even a second about whatever delusions her pervy customer had developed.

In fact, Vanessa decided, she didn't even really need to look at him at all. She could simply close her eyes, lie back, and wait for him to join her on the bed while she daydreamed about more pleasant things. Like... well, yes, maybe like the man's sparkling gaze. It really did feel very nice having a kind and polite customer to spend time with, even if he did have some very strange ideas about her. He made her feel very... h-happy, she thought muzzily, before her unconscious mind wiped away the memory of the orgasm she'd just experienced.

She felt him climb onto the mattress next to her, and heard the sound of him closing the last curtain so they could be alone together inside the cozy private canopy. It wasn't soundproof, though, so Vanessa knew she had to stifle her squeals of pleasure as her customer flipped up her skirt and pushed his stiff cock inside her. She wasn't sure exactly when she'd decided to fuck the older man, but she was absolutely certain that it was her decision and hers alone. Because Vanessa was far too strong-willed and independent to allow a man to hypnotize her into spreading her legs like some kind of mindless bitch in heat right there at work where anyone could discover them.

And because she knew she wasn't hypnotized, she knew she didn't have to resist whatever her Master was telling her as he sawed his dick in and out of Vanessa's sopping cunt. There was nothing to resist, because those weren't suggestions and she wasn't being programmed to obey ever more completely, and that meant she didn't have to fight him even a little and she could simply nod her blank and empty head and agree. Vanessa liked agreeing with her Master. She liked agreeing that she didn't need to think about what she was agreeing with most of all.

Vanessa knew the constant orgasms were making her skirt into a ruined, leaky mess and even soaking the bedspread beneath them, but that wasn't a concern. Customers spilled things all the time, and Vanessa always kept a spare outfit in her purse for those times when Master came to visit. Not that she ever remembered to expect him, but some days she simply decided to tuck an extra skirt into her voluminous handbag without quite knowing why and those always seemed to be days when a charismatic stranger showed up to tell her what a good slut she was turning into. And on those days Vanessa wound up being very grateful she had something to wear that didn't show a big wet spot where she was lying on it.

Vanessa heard herself mumbling something while she came, but of course she didn't pay attention to it because it didn't make any more sense than the things her Master told her earlier. All sorts of nonsense about, "Your cock is fucking me deeper into obedience, Master," and "I can feel the old Vanessa going away, Master," and "She doesn't even realize you're brainwashing her right now, Master." It was the sort of thing a dumb, giggly sex slave would say, and Vanessa wasn't a dumb giggly sex slave so she didn't need to worry about it and she could just relax and enjoy the really good fucking she was getting. God, it was nice to get this man's dick inside her. Vanessa hoped he would come back again and rail her pussy sometime soon.

And then it was over, and the customer was straining his hips while his balls tightened and his cock twitched and gush after gush of hot sticky semen spurted into Vanessa's cunt. Except that it didn't, because naturally Vanessa wouldn't simply let herself be used as a vessel for an older man's cum like that and so of course she could simply insist to herself that it couldn't have happened that way and the yawning chasm of obedience deep inside her helped to erase the entire notion from her brain as soon as it was over. Vanessa smiled, she agreed with the nice man that maybe it was better to buy a sectional sofa for the den today, and she guided him over to that area of the showroom without even noticing the jizz dripping down her thighs.

He filled out the forms. He put her name down as the salesperson. And Vanessa smiled placidly and went off to change, putting him out of mind as soon as he left her eyesight. But deep inside, another part of her crumbled away into submission.

THE END