“Kill me, kill me, kill me,” Victoria groaned, burying her face in her palms. “That’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened in my entire life...”

“It wasn’t... that bad,” Samantha said awkwardly.

Victoria emerged from her hands long enough to give her girlfriend a look of total scepticism.

“Alright,” Samantha conceded. “It was pretty bad.”

They’d just returned home from Samantha’s grandmother’s birthday party at her parents’ house. Most of her rather extensive family had been there, making for a very crowded house in which Victoria was the only ‘outsider’ - though, to their credit, none of the family treated her like one.

The couple kept the intimate details of their relationship absolutely secret, just between the two of them - none of Samantha’s relatives were aware of the hypno-kinky domme-sub dynamic they privately had, which was just as it should be. The only outside clue was their style of dress - though neither of them really adhered to traditional gender roles, they liked the idea of using masculine attire to reinforce Samantha’s position as the dominant, and feminine clothes to show Victoria as the submissive. Samantha had put on a black suit with a waistcoat, while Victoria wore a navy blue dress that accentuated her figure subtly enough so as not to draw any disdain, but noticeably enough to excite Samantha. (The dress had been Samantha’s choice, in fact - Victoria had wanted to wear something slightly less glamorous, but with the new restrictions recently imposed on her, she didn’t really have a say in the matter. Not that she was too upset - she did look hot, after all...)

It was about three hours into the party - by which time at least two drinks had been consumed by everyone in attendance (except the children) - when Victoria’s moment of mortification came to pass. She had been standing with Samantha, her parents and her grandmother, as they listened to a cousin telling a funny story about a friend of hers. Victoria had feigned interest until it was clear that the woman was too lost in her own narrative to pay much attention to the people she was telling it to, and she let her mind wander in the usual direction - towards her girlfriend.

She found herself gazing at Samantha, admiring her in her sharp suit, recalling some of their recent sordid misadventures, imagining what they might do when they got home and stripped off each other’s smart clothes... As they often did, her mental images heavily involved her submitting to her partner - or rather, her Mistress - and being dominated by her. Her lustful daydreaming might have caused her to start to drift into the mindset of her slave girl alter-ego, Vicky - which could have been the reason for what happened next.

“... And spaghetti came out of his nose!” the cousin cackled, reaching the end of her fairly underwhelming anecdote. “I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even speak!”

“Ruff, ruff!”

Seconds later, realising what she’d just done, Victoria clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with shock. Around the room, heads had turned to stare at her in astonishment - apart from Samantha, whose own expression was as startled and horrified as her girlfriend’s, her mouth agape. There was a deafening silence.

“I... I had a f-frog in my throat?” Victoria said weakly.

***

“I’m so sorry!” Samantha said now, her face a picture of contrition. “I really thought I’d got rid of the trigger once we were done yesterday!”

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Victoria sighed, her words muffled by the hands that were back over her face. “I just had a brain-glitch. I heard ‘speak’, and I barked like a happy little puppy. Just like last night. And now I’m moving to Australia, never to be seen again. It was nice knowing you.”

Chuckling, Samantha put her arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders. “Come on, it was embarrassing at the time, but I think you styled it out...”

Victoria gave her another look of disbelief. “I ran upstairs as quickly as I could in this dress, and I hid in your old bedroom for the rest of the party.”

“Yeah, but... you did it with style...”

Victoria groaned again and let herself sink sideways into Samantha’s lap, burying her face in her thighs.

“No-one mentioned it, all night!” Samantha told her. “They probably assumed you had some kind of tic, and thought it’d be tactless to bring it up. They’ll either forget all about it, or just never mention it again...”

“Wish I could believe that. Now, any time I see your parents, I’ll always be thinking, I barked in front of them. I’ll always be wondering if they’re thinking about it too...”

Samantha chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe this is a sign that we should... pause for a little while? The hypnosis, I mean.”

Victoria abruptly sat up straight, looking anguished. “What? Why?”

“Well, that ‘brain-glitch’ could be a sign that you’re... overexerting yourself? I mean, the brain is a muscle, right? It can get worn out. And we’ve been doing a lot of hypnosis. A lot of triggers and suggestions... Maybe it’s just getting a little too much?”

“No, no,” Victoria said frantically, “I’m fine, honestly. I feel fine. This was just a one-off - I don’t wanna stop doing hypnosis because of one embarrassing moment!”

Samantha arched an eyebrow. “A moment so embarrassing that seconds ago, you were considering fleeing the country...”

“I’d move to Australia before I’d ever give up hypnosis,” Victoria said firmly.

Samantha turned to face her properly, swivelling on the couch cushion. “Babe, listen - I know how much you love it. I love it too. But our kink cannot come before your mental health - ever. I’m not comfortable doing any more hypnosis until I’m sure you’re OK.”

Victoria opened her mouth to argue or plead, but she could hear the steel in Samantha’s voice - and see the concern in her eyes. Her shoulders slumped.

“Fine,” she sighed. “We can take a break. A short one. Like, a week.”

Samantha considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “OK. One week, and then we’ll reassess. If you’ve had no more brain-glitches in that time... maybe we can carry on like before.” Her expression softened. “We can still do domme-sub stuff in the meantime, you know - just without any trances or triggers.”

“Oh, thank God for that.” Victoria exhaled loudly. “I was scared I’d have to be on the same level as you for a week!”

Samantha gave her that sadistic grin that always drove her wild, and then suddenly her hand darted up and seized her by the throat, gripping her firmly. Victoria hiccupped with surprise and fear, instantly feeling powerless in her girlfriend’s grasp, all the tension of the past few hours quickly leaving her body.

“Oh, you could never be on my level, pet,” Samantha taunted. “You’re my weak and helpless slave girl, after all. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Vicky whimpered, delighted to know that, hypnosis or no hypnosis, she was still very much under her lover’s control.