The water was no longer boiling hot, but it was still luxuriously warm, leaving Vicky in no hurry to get out of the bath just yet. She groaned with pleasure as the warmth permeated her skin, seeming to reach all the way down into her bones.

God, she’d really needed this. It had been an arduous evening of servitude, and as much as she had loved every second of pleasing, obeying, and being hit by her Mistress, Vicky had been very sore and tired by the night’s end. Sinking into the hot bath had been the perfect way to recover from the sensational torment.

Even as the water soothed her many aches and pains, it also stirred the memories of what caused them, bringing a rapturous smile to her face. The carpet burn on her knees, from when she had been kneeling in front of the couch eating her Mistress out. Her sore butthole, from when Mistress had fucked her with their favourite strap-on, the formidable black beast. The growing bruises on her upper arm, thighs, back and butt cheeks, from the blows Mistress had administered with her riding crop. Closing her eyes and sinking deeper into the water, she revelled in the memories. Mistress had promised to push her to her limits tonight, and she had certainly delivered on that promise.

(Vicky dimly recalled herself, as Victoria, asking Samantha to put her through her paces earlier that evening. “Punish me,” she had said. “Be cruel. Be brutal. Don’t let up until you want to, however much I beg or plead - unless I safeword, obviously.” But the memory came from Victoria, not Vicky, so she dismissed it straight away. An instant later, it was forgotten once again.)

Her eyes drifted open and were greeted by the mounds of bubbles in front of her, which were much smaller than they had been when she’d got in. As she watched, she saw more and more of the tiny bubbles burst. A larger one drifted up from the water’s surface and popped in mid-air, making her giggle. She liked watching the bubbles pop! It made her brain feel like it was popping too, her thoughts bursting and dissolving into nothing inside her head, leaving her even more dumb and vacant than she was before.

A hand gently squeezed her breast, rubbing her nipple with one fingertip. Another hand reached between her legs, teasing her slit.

Neither hand was her own.

“I hope you had fun tonight, pet,” Mistress’ voice whispered in her ear.

“Mmrgh,” Vicky gurgled delightedly. “I diiid, Mistress... I always dooo...” It was hard to know anything with her head so empty and her domme’s hands touching her so softly, but she did know that she’d loved being used and abused by her Mistress, and that she’d loved all the other times too.

Samantha was sitting in the bath behind Vicky, her legs wrapped around her waist, knees up at an angle so that Vicky’s arms could rest on them. The slave girl was especially grateful to her Mistress for playing with her, since right now her own arms felt limp and useless, incapable of movement. Was that because of how hard she’d been working all evening, or was it a hypnotic suggestion? She didn’t know, or care that much.

Vicky’s mouth hung open delightedly as she felt slender fingers slowly slip inside her warm, pulsing cunt. All the while, Mistress continued to grope her C-cup boobs. “Good girl,” she said with a light giggle. “I had fun too, of course. I always have fun playing with you, my perfect slave...”

Vicky moaned happily, the praise from her Mistress making her feel almost as good as her agile hands. Her hips bucked and jolted, sloshing water up the sides of the bath. She looked up to her left and saw Samantha gazing down at her from behind, mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Vicky,” she said, with a familiar sly smile that always sent a thrill through the submissive, “are you strong?”

A wave of blankness washed through Vicky’s already-nearly-empty brain, and she welcomed it, her giddy smile spreading and her eyes rolling back as she felt compelled to answer. “My body is strong, but my mind is weak,” she sighed, feeling the truth of those words deep within her. “My body is strong, but my mind is weak.” Though she could bench-press her Mistress, she was completely helpless if Samantha said just a few well-chosen words. “My body is strong, but my mind is weak.” Her powerful muscles meant nothing, because her Mistress could make her will crumble in an instant. And she loved her for it with all her heart.

“Weak, yes,” Samantha nodded eagerly, her face brushing against the side of Vicky’s head as she did so. Her fingers sped up inside Vicky’s pussy, making her cry out softly. “Remember that other mantra you said earlier? The one that started with ‘weak’? You liked that one a lot, I seem to recall - as did I...”

If anything, Vicky’s Cheshire-Cat smile grew even wider as she was reminded of what her Mistress had made her say earlier, while she had slapped her face and struck her body with the crop. The words drifted back to her lips easily. “Weak and dumb and helpless,” she whispered. “Weak and dumb and helpless. Weak and dumb and helpless...” She gasped, both from the speed with which Mistress was masturbating her, and from the memory of being slapped across the face, so vivid that it was as if it was happening again.

“Yes, you are,” Samantha growled, pinching her nipples, accelerating her thrusting even further. “You’re weak, and dumb, and helpless...”

“Weak and dumb and helpless,” Vicky whimpered in agreement, her voice’s volume rising as her Mistress brought her closer and closer to climax. “Weak and dumb and helpless!”

“And for the last time tonight,” Mistress said calmly and clearly, “cum for me, slave girl.”

The huge build-up of arousal detonated, and Vicky let out a high-pitched moan of ecstasy and slumped back against Samantha’s pillowy breasts, nestling her head beneath her chin. Her eyelids drooped, but her smile remained undiminished, enjoying the afterglow and the thought of her juices mingling with the bathwater. Mistress raised her wet fingers to Vicky’s mouth and slipped them inside, and she automatically began to lick and suck them, cleaning herself off her lover’s hand.

“You seem tired now, sweetie,” Samantha remarked. “Hardly surprising - it’s been such a long day, and you’ve been such a good girl.”

Vicky sighed joyously at the compliment.

“Are you a sleepy slave girl, Vicky?”

“Mrm,” she murmured, “ve’y seepy save gull...”

“Then I think it’s time for you to sleep.”

The last of Vicky’s thoughts popped like bubbles, and she slipped contentedly into the dark depths of her mind.

***

As she blinked awake, the first thing Victoria felt was the warmth. It was all-encompassing, cosy and comforting. So nice...

She gradually became more aware of her surroundings. Faint sunlight flickered through the curtains. She was lying in bed, wrapped up snugly in her fluffy purple dressing gown, with the duvet lying over the top of her. It took her a moment to realise that it wasn’t just soft material engulfing her - Samantha was spooning her, her arms coiled around Victoria’s torso.

She lay there for a minute - perhaps two - with no recollection of how she got there or what she’d done the previous evening. Finally, her hypnosis-addled mind cranked into action, allowing the memories to flow back in like water from a tap. As she remembered more and more of last night, she rolled over to face her girlfriend.

With a small, adorable grunt, Samantha woke up, obviously disturbed from slumber by the movement. She smiled sleepily. “Hey, cutie... Did you have fun last night?”

The memories still at the forefront of her mind, Victoria opened her mouth to reply, but quickly closed it again. Her lip trembled. Her eyes started to tear up.

Samantha’s eyes widened with alarm. “Oh, no, hey, sweetie - what’s wrong? I thought you were OK with everything, I - I’m really sorry! What did I do?”

“No, no, no, you didn’t,” Victoria spluttered, choking back a sob. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I... I just had a moment... I remembered everything we did last night, and how perfect it was, and I got overwhelmed all of a sudden...” She sniffed, blinking the tears away. “See, I never had anyone to look after me. I always had to take care of everyone - my Mom, my brother... I was the one they depended on, and I never had anyone I could depend on. You, you know that, of course...”

Samantha nodded, still looking worried.

“But, but now... I have you. And I know I can count on you, and trust you... you make me feel safe, and loved, and cared for...” She gave a sudden hiccupping laugh. “Which is a funny thing to say about someone who spent most of yesterday hitting me! But it’s true. Feeling you take care of me, even while you were abusing me and making me serve you... Lying in that bath with you - so fucking intimate... Going to bed in trance, feeling you snuggled up next to me... All that just brought it home, how much you look after me.”

Samantha gave her a small smile, her own eyes starting to water now too. “Well, you look after me too...”

“I know, I know - but I’ve never had anyone to look after me before. Much less someone I love so completely and totally, who knows everything about me - good, bad and ugly - and still loves me back just as much.” She disentangled her arm from the duvet’s tight embrace and wiped her damp face. “I just... I sometimes remember how lucky I am, and it hits me like a hammer blow.”

Samantha was openly crying now. “Aw, Victoria,” she whispered. “You had me so freaked out for a minute there, you jerk!”

They both laughed out loud. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Victoria giggled, wrapping her arms around her partner and drawing her into a cosy embrace.

“I do, y’know,” Samantha mumbled, her voice slightly muffled by Victoria’s blonde mane. “Love you. Completely, totally...”

“I know.” With an utterly contented smile, Victoria rested her face against her girlfriend’s, luxuriating in the feeling of their skin touching, their tears mixing and soaking into the pillow.

They lay there in comfortable silence for a minute or two. Then Victoria felt a grip around her wrist, guiding her hand further down the bed, into the folds of Samantha’s own matching dressing gown, down to her crotch.

She chuckled. “So I guess you want me to return the favour from the bath, huh?”

Shifting her head back so they could see each other’s faces clearly, Samantha grinned. “What d’you think, slave girl?”

“I think I’d better start pleasing my Mistress!”

The warm, cosy bed soon got much hotter.