It took Cynthia almost three whole years to work up the nerve to tell someone what she was trying to do with The Game, and that was three years after she graduated with a double major in psychology and computer sciences. That meant a full six years after started her first fumbling, feeble efforts at coding the project while simultaneously working her way through grad school. By then she had her first girlfriend, and although Maya knew she was nerdy and geeky and maybe a little bit kinky in a shy kind of way she didn't know the half of it until Cynthia finally showed her the alpha version and sheepishly admitted just what The Game was supposed to do.

"So, um, you know that one episode of TNG where Riker brings back that video game from the pleasure planet and everyone gets addicted to it?" she asked, blushing furiously and staring at the virtual reality helmet in her hands as if her whole life depended on not meeting Maya's gaze. "Well, I watched that a lot as a teenager, like a *lot* a lot, and the part that always drew me back was when Wesley found out that Robin Lefler had been taken over too. And I, like, had these daydreams about Robin forcing that weird little headset onto me and making me play, and, um... like, crushing on Ashley Judd was kind of how I figured out I liked girls, and, um...." She trailed off into the world's biggest awkward silence. Thank god it was broken by Maya's hand on her thigh.

"And I mean, like, I was always into computers," Cynthia went on, the comforting touch giving her the nerve to speak again, "but starting in high school I started getting really interested in hypnosis, finding out what it could really do and what was, y'know, just movie bullshit." A part of her couldn't believe she was really admitting to all this, even though she and Maya had gotten pretty serious over the last couple years and they'd already talked about some stuff Cynthia had never imagined sharing with a romantic partner. Maya knew Cynthia was submissive, she knew that particular itch went deep... but she had no idea that her chubby, shy girlfriend wanted to melt like butter under the influence of a charismatic hypnotist.

"But I guess it all hit critical mass when I read that book, um, 'The Tetris Effect'." The part of Cynthia that still felt some reticence about opening up so completely about the fetish that had become her hobby that had become her all-consuming passion couldn't quite utter the book's subtitle, 'The Game That Hypnotized the World'. But it was very much on her mind. "They, um, they talked about how the guy who made the game, Alexey Pajitnov, knew what a hit he had when he couldn't stop playing the unfinished version long enough to put in stuff like the music and the scoring because it was just so addictive to keep clearing the blocks. And it, uh, it made me think of that TNG episode. Like, a lot."

The heat prickling at Cynthia's cheeks was practically unbearable now, and she wasn't sure what was making it harder to talk--the way Maya hadn't said anything yet in response to her lengthy monologue, or the way her hand kept creeping further up Cynthia's inner thigh. "And that, um, that got me interested in what they call 'flow states', where you get so super immersed in a task that you don't really think about anything but what you're doing and time kind of, um, s-switches off? And, like, I was really struck by the similarity to hypnosis, and how it's this state of relaxation and focus and dissociation. It, uhh, it kind of got me thinking that maybe they were just two names for the same thing."

The silence in the room whenever she wasn't speaking, an electric hush broken only by their almost precisely synchronized breathing, left Cynthia wishing she'd maybe talked about this earlier. But better late than never. "And it was really kind of cool, because the more I got into video game design the more I found out that they really did think a lot about inducing that flow state when they were creating new games, making it so that it always felt so easy and automatic to play another round and another level and get that next little hit of dopamine that you wouldn't even think about how much time you were spending on it. You'd just want to keep going. Like you were... y'know. Addicted."

The plastic of the virtual reality helmet felt warm under Cynthia's fingers, and she knew her palms were sweaty with mingled anxiety and lust. "And so, um, yeah, I guess I thought that, uh, yeah, I could... um... I could really make The Game from TNG. Not, like, the actual gameplay, because that was one of the things that always took me out of the episode--it never looked like a real game on the show, the kind of thing you'd actually get sucked into playing. But something that induced such an intense flow state that you wouldn't think about anything else while you were playing, something that really did get you addicted to it. A game that, like, really hypnotized and controlled you."

Cynthia's gaze flicked up to Maya's face for an nth of a second before descending again, terrified of what she might see. "Not in a creepy way," she added quickly, forestalling any efforts on her girlfriend's part to ask just what the hell was wrong with her. "Like, I don't want to go around and trick people into playing it so I can turn them into my brainwashed slaves or anything. That's, like, that would be so not cool. No, I guess, um, I guess deep down I was always kind of hoping for someone to, um, use it on... me?"

There it was. It was finally out in the open, with no way to take it back now, and the next five minutes would probably determine whether Cynthia still had a girlfriend when all this was over because this was a pretty big thing to reveal about yourself even if she'd kind of tip-toed up to the edge of it enough times over the last two years that it probably didn't come as the world's biggest surprise. Maya no doubt noticed how easy it was to lull Cynthia into going with the flow during sex, and the way she kind of got so turned on at times she was practically non-verbal, but this... this was a lot. This was a whole hell of a lot. Maya was probably going to need some time to adjust.

Or she was going to gently tug the virtual reality helmet out of Cynthia's unresisting hands, asking her, "So how far along are you?" in a slightly hoarse tone that suggested potent, barely suppressed lust. She wriggled a little closer to Cynthia, the heat of their thighs pressing against one another almost unbearably erotic.

Cynthia's throat felt like it was closing up, and she practically had to force her next words out. "Um, remember when you had to go out of town a couple of weeks back for that work thing?" she asked, her voice deceptively light. "I, uh, I tried out version 0.9 while you were gone, and I literally wound up playing until the batteries ran dry. When I came out of it, I needed to pee so bad my back teeth were practically floating." She chuckled at the memory, but her laughter dried up as Maya took the helmet and settled it slowly, relentlessly onto her head.

"So when I turn this thing on," she murmured, arousal making her voice sultry and seductive, "you won't be able to stop yourself from playing? You'll just get sucked right into this flow state and you won't be able to think about anything I do to you?" Her hands, no longer occupied holding the helmet, returned to Cynthia's body and the submissive woman sucked in a tiny gasp of arousal at the way the visor acted like an improvised blindfold forcing Cynthia to rely on her sense of touch to determine exactly what her lover was doing to her. Fortunately Cynthia had a very good imagination... and a very sensitive sense of touch.

"It's, um, it's more than that," Cynthia whimpered in reply, uncertain of whether it was scrupulous honesty or long-simmering lust that prompted her answer. "The, the state of hypnosis it induces is... I don't know for sure how strong it is, I only tested it with some recordings I made for myself, but I know it was really hard to think about what I was hearing. Like, even when I really tried as hard as I could, I kept getting sucked into what I was doing and I couldn't stay focused on it for long. After a while I forgot I was even listening to anything."

Maya's fingers teased their way up to the entrance to Cynthia's cunt, pausing tantalizingly close to her slick and messy pussy lips. "Did you put suggestions inside your own head?" she asked, her caresses implying a reward for honesty in Cynthia's response. "What did you make yourself do, hmm?" Cynthia felt herself balanced on a razor's edge between embarrassment and arousal, squirming in mortified lust at the sure and certain awareness that she absolutely was not going to be able to stop herself from admitting the perverted things she'd made herself do and turned on beyond belief at the comforting knowledge that was getting well and truly horny listening to it all.

"O-oral fixation," she whimpered, as Maya's fingers pressed down hard over her clit and began to rub. "Just until I went to bed that night, I didn't want to do anything permanent without knowing whether it would really work, but I, um...." Cynthia's blush felt like a permanent fixture now, spreading all the way from her hairline down to her ample cleavage. "I spent the rest of the day sucking on the toy from your strap-on harness." She wriggled and writhed under Maya's touch, the pregnant weight of the visor against her face promising deeper and more overwhelming pleasures to come.

"And you really couldn't stop yourself?" Maya asked, her free hand caressing its way up Cynthia's hot, prickling cheeks to rest on the power switch for the helmet. Cynthia knew with the intimate experience of the game's creator that it would load automatically as soon as Maya turned it on. Less than a minute after that, and she would be lost in insensate fascination with the perfect flow of her own irresistible program. After that it wouldn't just be a fetish anymore, or even a kink or even an obsession. She'd be truly helpless. Maya could do anything she wanted, rewrite Cynthia's entire personality, and Cynthia wouldn't be able to fight it.

God, that sounded so fucking hot. "I didn't even want to try," she heard herself whimper. "It felt so natural I didn't even question it." It felt dangerous to admit something like that, even to a woman she trusted more than anything, but it was too late to worry about that now--probably years too late, if Cynthia was being totally honest with herself. Those teenage fantasies of being hypnotized by Ashley Judd all came flooding back to her, and they'd never been stronger than in this moment. She realized that Maya even looked kind of like Robin Lefler.

"That's what made you really wet, isn't it?" Maya asked, her voice now a husky growl of pure lust. "Knowing that if it was someone else's suggestions, someone putting those ideas in your head without you even knowing what they were, you wouldn't even know what you weren't fighting. You wouldn't know where your mind ended and the suggestions began, and that's what made you so slick and horny for me when I got home, wasn't it?" Oh fuck. She remembered. She remembered the urgency of their sex that night, almost surprising in its intensity as welcome as it was, and now she knew that Cynthia practically jumped her bones because she was turned on thinking of being brainwashed and subjugated and--

She didn't get a chance to answer the question. She didn't even get a chance to finish her thought. The helmet switched on, and Cynthia found herself caught up in the flow of the game she'd created before she could even remember what it did to her, and the last coherent flicker of a notion inside her head was that it felt even better with someone teasing her pussy while she played. Then her mind disappeared into the patterns of shape and color, and she forgot everything else.

THE END