A typical day of bullying in the Yorke-Johnson household. We’d got onto the topic of hypnosis (which, yes, happens a lot), and I was being all bratty and claiming I could resist. Naturally, Richard immediately yeeted me into trance, and then brought me back out again with a smug look on his face.

It was then that he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. (Well, I could’ve, but that’d be no fun.)

“If you can manage to resist for three whole seconds, I’ll give you a reward,” he told me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What kind of reward?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

“You have no idea, have you?”

He laughed. “Nah, I haven’t thought that far ahead! I’ll come up with something...”

“You won’t have to,” I said with a shrug, not bothering to hide my exasperated feelings of defeat. “I’m not gonna make it to three seconds!”

“Oh, come on, give it a go,” he encouraged, though his mocking smile showed he knew full well how badly I was going to fail at this.

Sighing, I scooted forwards on the couch, sitting up straight. “OK, then, ready when you are!”

“Sleep,” he said promptly.

My eyes immediately rolled back, and I toppled sideways like a falling tree, slumping across the armrest.

“Three, two, one, awake.”

My eyes flickered open. Blinking hard, I sat up slowly, trying to shake the fuzziness out of my head.

“Were you even trying?” he teased.

I squirmed and blushed. “Yeeesss,” I grumbled. “I braced myself and everything! I told you I can’t resist, must obey...” I groaned. That damn mantra was still stuck in my brain from when Danielle had used it to lull me to sleep the other day. It’d just slip out from time to time - I wasn’t even sure if Richard had given me that as a suggestion, or if I’d just tricked my own brain into doing it.

“OK, I’ll give you another try. This time, we’ll make it two seconds. Little bit easier.”

I smirked. “Yeah, sure, easier.”

I sat up straight again, palms flat on my thighs, jaw set determinedly. As if I stood any chance at all.

“Sleep.”

My head jerked for an instant as I fought to stay awake, but then I slumped forwards bonelessly, head plummeting towards my knees.

“Three, two, one, awake. Better, Alyssa, much better!”

Grumbling, I slowly, sleepily sat up straight again. “Was it?” I mumbled.

“Well... no, not much better. But you managed to fight for, like, a quarter of a second. That’s not nothing!”

I glared at him through half-closed eyes. “Yeah, but now I’m more fractionated than ever, I’ve got no fight in me!”

“OK, well, try one more time - and this time, you just have to stay awake for one second. Just one. You can do it, AJ, I believe in you!”

“Shut up,” I laughed weakly.

“How about this for motivation,” he said mischievously. “If you stay awake for longer than a second, you get that reward - but if you don’t, I turn you into my slave, and you wake up in a strange, submissive position...”

I gulped. My loins stirred. “Well, we wouldn’t want that...” I said, with a heaping of irony.

I sat up straight and tall once more, like a stone statue, staring out into space. I was determined that this time I was going to make it. Just one second, AJ. Just one. You can do this. You can resi-

“Sleep.”

Immediately a crushing wave of sleepiness hit me, but I battled it with all my resolve. “Nnuh,” I groaned, as my eyes rolled, my jaw dropped, and my arms flailed. All I could think, all I could cling onto, was the idea of staying awake. But it was so hard... It’d be so easy to just let go, to slip under the wave, to sink to the bottom of the Spiral Seas...

And, inevitably, I did.

I woke up some time later to find I was still on the couch, but now my head was resting on Richard’s jeans-clad lap, and he was stroking my hair, sending tingles through me. Also, I was topless, and he was playing with my boobs with his other hand. (More tingles.) And the coup de grâce - I couldn’t speak. My ability to use words had been bound. All I could do was lie there, helpless in my Master’s grasp, writhing and whimpering wordlessly.

“Full disclosure, you made it past a second,” he said, grinning down at me. “So, well done you. This is actually your reward. You were going to end up like this either way, love...”

So, our usual wager, then!