Well, I promised there would be more stories to tell, so here’s the first!

One evening a few weeks after the end of the ‘main story’ (as it shall henceforth be known), I was getting ready for a night out with my friends. As I got dressed in a black long-sleeved top and pale blue jeans, I noticed this weird low rumbling sound - it was almost like someone was speaking very, very quietly, every ten or fifteen seconds or so. Frowning, I went out and looked around the apartment, but there was no-one else home. Richard was at work and wouldn’t be back until I was gone, and I hadn’t left the TV on.

Trying to put it out of my mind, I went back to the bedroom and took a seat in front of my makeup desk. As I applied a light layer to my face, the low voice became - not louder, but clearer, somehow. I thought I could make out the words...

“Can’t resist, must obey... Can’t resist, must obey... Can’t resist, must obey...”

I narrowed my eyes. I knew that phrase - it was one of the assortment of mantras Richard had pushed into my malleable brain over the past year. But I wasn’t saying it now - was I? I was sure I was in control of myself right now. Then again, I’d been wrong about that before!

This is what happens when you spend months on end getting your brain tied in knots - you reach a point where you genuinely have no clue what’s real any more. And when that happens... well, someone else might just fall apart. But I’m too stubborn for that. So I just cling to whatever melting iceberg of reality I have - whether it’s true or false - and keep going as before. If the ice melts, it melts (as, I’m sure, will I).

I continued gently going over my face with the makeup brush, as the mantra continued to hum in my ears: “Can’t resist, must obey... Can’t resist, must obey... Can’t resist, must obey...”

I started to apply eyeliner. As I did so, I became increasingly aware that there was something awry. The words were getting clearer and clearer. “Can’t resist, must obey... Can’t resist, must obey...” It sounded so much like my own voice. As I finished doing my eyeliner, I heard the mantra again - and finally saw where it was coming from.

My own mouth.

My look of consternation was reflected back at me in the mirror. “What the fuck?” I mumbled.

“Can’t resist, must obey,” I answered myself, quietly and breathily.

I blinked with surprise. Now I could see myself clearly at last. And though I was wearing the clothes I thought I’d been wearing, around my neck was a different story. My favourite gold necklace was not there as I’d believed - instead, there was my collar.

My shoulders slumped. I glared at my reflection. “Oh, for God’s sake!”

Danielle smiled back at me naughtily, seeming gleeful now that I’d finally realised what was going on. “Can’t resist, must obey,” she said jubilantly.

I remembered putting on the collar now, and I remembered why. I’d been talking on the phone with Richard earlier on, and he’d told me he’d be back late but not too late, and he wanted me ready for him. (Oh, yeah - I didn’t have plans with friends. I guess that was a suggestion he’d given me... this morning? Last night? Fuck knows.) Then he’d said, “It’s good girl time, Alyssa,” and I’d hung up the call and trotted off blankly and obediently to put on the collar. Once I’d done that, the scenario he’d set up in my mind at some predetermined earlier time took effect - I was convinced that I was going on a night out, that I needed to get ready, that I was wearing a thin golden necklace around my neck instead of a chunky black collar.

Danielle, it seemed, had been given her own instructions by her Master. She was more talkative than usual, able to speak without being spoken to, or without me noticing at first. But her vocabulary had rather shrunk.

I sighed. “Dude, why? Why are you only saying those words?”

“Can’t resist, must obey,” she replied, with a light giggle.

“OK, that’s getting annoying fast!” I lied. It actually sounded pretty damn good - it sent an erotic thrill through me, like most of the phrases my boyfriend selected for me to say - but I wasn’t in a hurry to admit that.

“Can’t resist, must obey!”

“Stop!” I demanded, waving an indignant finger at my reflection. I decided to emphasise the point as much as possible, to try to head her off before she spoke again. “Stop saying that. Stop it. Stop, stop, stop. Stop.”

“Can’t resist. Must obey.” The cheeky bitch had the nerve to wink at me.

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “What do you expect to happen here? What do you want from me? What does he want from me - because I just know it’s his idea?!”

“Can’t resist. Must obey!” That time, the way she said it was almost... encouraging? She widened her (my) eyes a little, as if trying to prompt me.

I would’ve raised my eyebrows, but she kind of already had. “What, you want me to join in? Say that mantra as well? So we just keep repeating it to each other over and over again?”

Danielle beamed and nodded enthusiastically. “Can’t resist! Must obey!” Which, I guess, translated to ‘yes’.

“Uh uh,” I said, grinning at the nerve of my slave persona. I still wasn’t sure if this whole repeating thing was Danielle’s idea or Richard’s, but either way, I was determined to be obstinate. “Not gonna happen, sister. He might be able to get me saying stuff against my will, but you won’t. You have no power over me. You’re just the weak little bitch in the back of my head. You can’t control me.”

“Can’t resist, must obey,” Danielle said with a smirk, a sly glint in her (my) eyes.

I shook my head defiantly, ignoring the smug expression on my own face, ignoring how great that damn mantra sounded coming out of my mouth. Looking away from the mirror at last, I started gathering up my makeup kit and tidying it away, struggling to suppress a smile. “Give it up!” I said.

“Can’t resist, must obey,” Danielle teased me, while continuing to diligently tidy up my makeup things.

“Stop,” I laughed, blushing furiously. Oh no, I was starting to get horny. Just being forced to repeat four words - four quite erotic words - over and over, with no control over it, was turning me on. Why was I so fucking easy?

My laugh was seamlessly continued by Danielle, as she said once again, “Can’t resist, must obey!”

It was getting harder and harder to concentrate amidst the growing fog of embarrassment and arousal. Finally looking back at my reflection, I raised my hands as if in self-defence. “Just... just don’t, c-come on... Gimme a break, Danielle, for fuck’s sake!”

“Can’t resist,” she said in a low, sultry, predatorial tone - like a shark smelling blood in the water, she could tell I was weakening. “Must obey.”

She was right. I couldn’t keep secrets from someone sharing my brain. I whimpered, covering half my face with one hand. “Noooo...”

“Can’t resist. Must obey.”

“I- I- I-” I gave up. “Can’t resist,” I sighed. “Must obey.”

A triumphant smile spread across Danielle’s face, and she nodded eagerly, as if we were sharing a special secret known only to the two of us. “Can’t resist. Must obey!”

I smiled back at her helplessly, defeated by my own submissive side both metaphorically and literally. “Can’t resist, must obey.”

“Can’t resist, must obey!” She gazed back at me out of the mirror - or was she gazing into it, and was I the one staring back?

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

The phrase reverberated through my mind. It had already worked me up quite a bit, but my lust sat at the same level, simmering at a medium heat. Now, though, hearing the phrase echoing throughout my mind and out of my mouth was making me feel dazed and spacey...

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

My eyelids started to droop. I was struggling to keep looking at my reflection, who was struggling to keep looking back at me...

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

I let out a yawn between repetitions, my head lolling forwards, my whole body slumping.

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

I could no longer tell whose turn it was to speak - me, or Danielle. It didn’t matter. We both kept saying it, one after the other, in the same sleepy, submissive tone. Blurring together until we couldn’t figure out which of us was which.

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

“Can’t resist, must obey...”

“Can’t... resist... must obeyyy...”

My eyes were almost completely shut now, my arms folded on the surface of the desk, my forehead lowering to rest on my long black sleeves.

“Can’... ruhss... musss... oh...”

I dimly, distantly, heard a key turn in the front door of our apartment, as I finally, gratefully, slipped into a deep, deep sleep.