“The rules are very simple.”

Alyssa, Hailee, Selena, Sabby and Jelly Doll stood in a line in the garden, facing towards their doms. The four men were clustered close together, Milo standing in front of the others.

“Drop each other, until there’s only one of you left,” he told them. “Be the last sub standing. We’ve given you suggestions to make everyone easy to drop - if you catch ’em, that is. Hailee, come help me demonstrate.”

His fucktoy stepped forwards, standing next to him and letting him wrap an arm around its waist. “All you’ve gotta do is cover their eyes,” he explained as he did exactly that, putting his hand over Hailee’s eyes. It instantly slumped, entranced while still upright, held steady by his embrace. “You’ve all been given the trigger to drop if your vision is obstructed. If you can’t see, you can’t resist - you can’t stay awake.” The girls exchanged nervous, excited glances.

“The usual tactics won’t work,” Phil elaborated, as Milo quietly woke Hailee and sent it back to stand with the others. “You’ve all been made temporarily immune to the ways that drop you the easiest. You won’t just drop if someone yells ‘sleep’, otherwise someone could win in the first two seconds.”

“Jelly won’t freeze on command,” Richard continued, “and Alyssa won’t fall for eye fixation. Danielle’s mind is bound, so you can’t get AJ through her, either.”

“And you can’t deactivate Selena verbally, or with a finger snap,” Andrew added.

“Hailee won’t drop if you slap it in the face, and you won’t get Sabby by reminding her how much she enjoys being a dumb, easily led sex kitten.” Phil smirked as his switchy pet pouted at him. “The only way is to ‘blind’ each other.”

“Now, obviously, with you all chasing each other round the house, things could get crazy, and we want to avoid anyone getting hurt,” Richard told the girls.

“Except me, you can hurt me,” Hailee interrupted with a snicker.

Suppressing a smile, Richard continued, “That’s why we’re going to be wandering around, keeping an eye on things. We’re not taking part in the game, so you don’t have to worry about us dropping you - we’re just the referees. If we see something we consider ‘illegal contact’ - like, say, Alyssa rugby-tackles Selena to the ground -”

“Wait a minute, why am I the bad guy?” his girlfriend blurted.

“- like, say, Selena rugby-tackles Alyssa to the ground and covers her eyes,” Richard amended seamlessly (which didn’t seem to appease AJ all that much), “then I could call a foul and put Selena on a time penalty. When that happens, she’ll freeze in place for ten seconds, during which time she is effectively out of the game. AJ can then run away, or she can plan an ambush - whatever she wants - but she can’t act against Selena until she unfreezes.”

“What would prevent User:Alyssa from immediately obstructing this unit’s ocular feed once its movement is restored?” Selena asked.

“Excellent question - there’ll be a forcefield around you. No-one can get close enough to someone frozen on a timeout to be able to drop them. And there’s a clear distinction there, between the people who’ve been caught and the ones on a time penalty - if you’re dropped, you’ll be standing up but your eyes will be shut and your limbs all loose, whereas if you’re on timeout, you’ll be frozen in a rigid pose with your eyes open. So if you’re running round the house and you find someone not moving, you can tell whether they’ve been dropped or timed-out.”

There was a pause as the girls digested this information. “Jelly Doll thinks it understands,” the living mannequin mused, grinning at its Master.

“Here’s the fun part,” Milo grinned. “Once you’ve dropped someone, you can wake them up again, to help you. You can take advantage of them being in a trance to give them the compulsion to help you win. The two of you can work together to take down everybody else, and then your sidekick can just let you drop them again and claim the victory...”

“It’ll increase your chances, there’s no doubt about it,” Richard remarked. “But, there’s a catch. Anyone awake can win this - including someone hypnotised to help someone else. So, say Sabby’s got Jelly Doll to help her, and it’s just the two of them and Hailee left. Hailee pulls off a perfect ambush on Sabby, drops her, and then Jelly drops Hailee. Jelly’s now the last sub standing - so it wins. It doesn’t matter that it’s no longer trying to win, that it’s trying to help Sabby. So if you make one of your victims into your sidekick, there’s always a risk that they might end up winning.”

“Well then, what’s the point?” Sabby shrugged. “I’m just gonna leave whoever I get. Why risk it?”

“Well of course, you can just leave them as they are,” Phil said with a wicked smile. “But then you run the risk of someone else making use of them...”

“Ohhhh, you guys are just evil,” AJ laughed.

Hailee giggled. “This is gonna be fucking mental. You guys, do whatever you want to me, but please don’t break my house. Just saying.”

As the others tittered, the men exchanged nods. “Think that’s all you need to know,” Richard declared. “The six of you should disperse, find spots to start from. You’ll notice we’ve put some extra items around the house that you can use to drop someone, rather than just your hands - there might even be a bonus prize for whoever uses the best, or silliest, item. In a minute, I’ll shout for you to start...”

“Wait, six of us?” Jelly frowned. “It thought you said Dani’s sleeping through this. Who’s number six...?”

“That would be me,” Milo revealed, crossing the garden to join the submissives.

Sabrina gave an over-dramatic gasp. “Surprise twist!”

“I know, right?” he sniggered. “Phil tranced me earlier and put the suggestion in. Thought it’d up the stakes a little, maybe make the game last longer with more players...”

“Well, we’re in trouble now,” Alyssa sighed. “It’s his house!”

“Wait, it’s mine too,” Hailee pointed out. “You didn’t think you were in trouble from me?”

AJ and Sabby shared a smirk, then chorused, “Nope!”

As the six contestants trooped inside to find their starting positions, Richard turned to his fellow ‘referees’. “How d’you reckon this’ll go?”

“I think Sabby’s gonna win,” Andrew said. “She seems... competitive.”

“Oh, she’s feral in a game,” Phil chuckled. “But like they were saying, it’s Milo and Hailee’s house. They’ve got an advantage. Wouldn’t count out any of your girls, though,” he added, gesturing to each of them.

“I genuinely can’t call it,” Richard reflected. “All I’m expecting is utter carnage.” He stepped into the living room, inhaled deeply, and then boomed, “On your marks! Get set... Fuck ’em up!”

***

As her Master called out, Alyssa ducked down in the space between the back wall and the kitchen island. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before she heard someone else’s soles slapping down on the smooth kitchen floor, getting closer and closer. She quietly crouch-tiptoed along the side of the island, her knees against her chest. She glanced back over her shoulder to check whether the other person was near - and saw Sabrina creeping towards her on all fours.

They both froze for a moment, caught off-guard by the eye contact. Then AJ hurled herself bodily towards the end of the island, starting to launch herself upright - only for a hand to grab her ankle, overbalancing her. She landed with a thud on the linoleum, and within moments the switch was scrambling on top of her.

“Oww! Hey! No!” she squealed, squirming and struggling as the diminutive blonde pinned her down, a predatory grin on her face. “F-foul! Illegal move! Illeg-ah-uhhh.” She trailed off as Sabby’s hand clamped down over her eyes, and the warm waters of the Spiral Seas sucked her down.

“Yeah, that was kinda rough, Sab,” came an Irish-accented voice from nearby. “This is supposed to be like a game of tig, not rugby.”

“I know, I know,” Sabby said apologetically. “I got caught up in the moment, I should get a penalty.”

“Good girl. AJ, one, two, three - awake.”

Blinking back into consciousness, AJ looked up at her opponent, who stood over her smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, honey. Kitten played too rough!”

“Heh, it’s alright,” she laughed, rubbing her arm as Sabby helped her to her feet. “Nice of you to concede...”

“Well, kitten also plays fair.”

“Alright, Sabby, your time penalty starts now,” Phil announced. His pet girl instantly froze in place, only increasing her resemblance to a giant-sized Polly Pocket. “AJ, your move.”

“So long, suckers,” she sniggered, racing out of the room.

***

Hailee had automatically made a beeline for its bedroom, thinking it could just hide in its toybox. However, as it darted into the room, two things occurred to it. Firstly, its box, and its room in general, were an extraordinarily obvious hiding place - anyone would expect it to go there. Secondly, if it got into the dark box, which was dark inside, it wouldn’t be able to fucking see in the dark, and it’d drop into trance immediately. Like a total dummy.

Cursing itself for almost taking itself out of the game in the first ten seconds, it turned to leave the room again - only to hear Richard’s shout. With no time to find a better hiding place, it did the only thing that came to mind, and ducked behind the ajar door of its room. Hopefully that’d conceal it for at least a few seconds - long enough to launch a successful ambush on someone, hopefully.

Moments later, it heard footsteps nearby, as someone stepped into the room. It tensed up, waiting for the door to be inevitably swung aside, getting ready to spring forwards and pounce on the intruder...

***

Jelly Doll had gone for the downstairs bathroom, and was amused to notice a sign stuck on the open door - a piece of paper with ‘VACANT’ written on it in big black writing, held on with a single piece of sticky tape. That hadn’t been there earlier - it must be one of the ‘creative dropping’ items their hypnotists had hidden around the house.

Lingering no longer than it took to chuckle silently, it slipped into the shower and pulled the curtain just far enough to hide itself from view. It reasoned that drawing the curtain completely would make it obvious that someone was hiding inside. Besides, it only needed to hide long enough for someone to get close...

It was surprised to find another object in the shower cubicle - clearly another of the items intended for them to drop each other in daft ways. Not one to miss a chance to be silly if one was presented to it, Jelly picked up the object and held it at the ready.

It heard footsteps in the doorway, saw someone passing by, and reacted on impulse, quickly lifting the item and dropping it onto the head of the person with their back turned to it, whom, it was realising a fraction of a second too late, was a man and therefore probably not a contestant. “Aagh! Referee! Not a player, referee!” Andrew spluttered from under the bright green plastic bucket.

“Sorry, sorry!” it stammered, lifting the item off his head again. “It should’ve been more careful!”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, that was great,” he laughed. “Shame I wasn’t one of the other players. No penalty - but you probably ought to ditch this hiding place now...”

It grimaced. “Yeah, it’s kinda been compromised by all the noise...”

“Sorry I ruined your plan, Jelly.”

“No, it’s OK.” It stepped out of the shower, still clutching the bucket. “D’you know if anyone else is out yet?”

“Haven’t heard.”

“Couldn’t tell it where anyone’s hiding, or what they’re planning, could you?” it asked cheekily.

He grinned. “Sorry. My purpose is not to interfere, only to watch.”

“Can’t blame a toy for trying,” it grinned.

It stepped out of the room, only to hear the sound of rapid footsteps coming from the direction of the kitchen. It instinctively went still, the bucket held out before its chest, hoping to fool whoever was approaching into thinking it was on a timeout. Moments later Alyssa appeared, approaching it tentatively. Glancing around for a moment, her eyes narrowed as she stepped towards her static girlfriend, easing the bucket out of her hands.

“Nice try, babe,” she chuckled, moving in close so it couldn’t get away from her. “But there’s no-one nearby you could’ve fouled against. Plus, no forcefield.”

“Worth a shot,” the toy grumbled under its breath, as its partner slipped the bucket over its head.

***

Turning in a circle in his bedroom, Milo stopped and smirked at the sight of the door, just ajar enough to hide someone behind it. Creeping closer, braced to defend himself from whoever lurked behind (if anyone), he seized the handle and quickly swung it aside...

... to find his beloved partner and fucktoy, Hailee, standing at attention with its posture relaxed and its eyes shut.

He let out a little laugh of surprise. “Aw, poor toy. Guess someone got you already! Whoever it was, they can’t have had much time if they just left you here. Now then, Hailee, in a moment I’m going to wake you, and you’re going to hel-”

He was still mid-sentence when Hailee’s eyes snapped open, and its hand came flying up towards his face. He didn’t have time to react, to defend himself from the palm it planted over his eyes.

As he dropped into deep, delightful darkness, he heard his lover laughing quietly. “Sorry, babe. You were right, I already got got. Selena left me here on purpose, with a trigger to come up when someone tries to put me under their control - and drop them, and put them under hers instead. Welcome to Team Tech Support!”

***

The robot girl marched downstairs, grinning triumphantly to herself. Even knowing what a sophisticated machine she was, and how advanced her CPU was, Selena was still astonished at her own quick wits. Leaving the fucktoy behind as a booby trap to drop someone else was, all modesty aside, a stroke of genius. She had to give Hailee credit for playing its part, though - it’d acted so quickly, taking Milo down. She’d had her doubts that it could catch someone out like that, given how easily she’d subdued it in the first place.

Having listened from the en suite, she’d left Hailee to condition Milo and set off to hunt down the others, undaunted by the prospect of dealing with them alone. Taking down two of her five opponents had given her a surge of confidence, and she was sure she could deal with the remaining three without issue. As she’d emerged from her hosts’ bedroom onto the landing, she’d heard Alyssa’s voice from below, and had peered down the stairs in time to see Jelly follow its girlfriend into the living room, one of them having presumably fallen under the other’s control. She then set off down the stairs at a calm, measured pace, not wanting to alert them to her pursuit by running.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Richard exited the living room, his demeanour totally nonchalant. She arched an inquisitive eyebrow at him, but he grinned and shook his head at her, giving nothing away. She smiled back. She had no doubt he’d sell out both his girlfriends in a second, just for fun, but he was a referee, so obviously he wasn’t going to give her any useful information.

She entered the living room to find no sign of the couple - but the French windows were still wide open, as was the door to the kitchen. They could’ve gone in either direction - perhaps both, if they’d had the forethought to split up. She chose to check the kitchen, which seemed the logical choice AJ and Jelly would make as there were more places to hide and more escape routes. The fembot began to stride towards the door on the other end of the room...

... and suddenly Sabby sprang up from behind the couch and hurled something at her - something flimsy and black and soft-looking. Selena just had enough time to let out a gasp of surprise, and to process the visual data and identify the approaching object, before the pair of jet-black women’s briefs landed on her face with a soft smack, wrapping around her eyes and the top of her head. “Personality deactivated,” S3 announced through the underwear, immediately closing Program:Selena down in response to its ocular lenses being covered. Although they were concealed, it still shut its eyes to signify its defeat.

It heard Sabby giggle as she ran up to it. “Direct hit!” she said proudly. “Well done me. Don’t worry by the way, I’m pretty sure those are clean.”

“Affirmative,” S3 agreed. The underwear, which felt and smelled freshly-laundered at any rate, belonged to Hailee, who’d only worn its sexiest panties since its guests had been there - when it had bothered to put on underwear at all.

“Alrighty, let’s just...” It felt Sabby adjust the soft material covering its face, shifting them further up. “Open your eyes.”

“Confirmed.” It found its vision no longer blocked - not fully, anyway. The waistband was on the top of its head, the main portion of the panties draped over its forehead - but the crotch still dangled down between its eyes and down its nose, leaving a shadow on the edge of its visual feed.

“Can you see alright with those still on you?”

“Affirmative. However if their position changes, this unit may need to remove them.”

“Gotcha. Til then, you’ve got a pretty mask!” The blonde cackled, clapping her hands together. “OK, S3, you’re gonna help me win, understand?”

“Confirmed. In the interest of ensuring your victory, User:Sabrina, you should be made aware that this unit has already implanted User:Hailee and User:Milo with hypnotic suggestions to help it win the game.”

“Whoa, fast work.” Sabby blew a little impressed raspberry. “So does that mean they’ll help me now?”

“Negative. If they discover you have gained control of this unit, they will attempt to put you in a trance in order to restore its autonomy. They will not respond to orders from this unit not to do so, as their compulsion to ensure this unit wins overrides their compulsion to obey its commands.”

She grimaced. “That could be a problem...”

“Not necessarily, User:Sabrina.”

***

Having tiptoed downstairs in time to hear the sexbot they served being enslaved by Sabby, Hailee and Milo exchanged perturbed looks and crept along the corridor, the voices of S3 and its current User becoming indistinct as they did so. As they approached the two doors at the corridor’s end, Milo gestured to the one on the right-side wall, which led back into the living room again, and mouthed, “Circle round,” to Hailee, before he ducked through the other door at the far end, into the kitchen.

Hailee lurked in the living room doorway, peering as discreetly as it could around the side. As Sabby and S3 stepped through the door nearest them, exiting the living room and emerging at the other end of the corridor (by the front door, the door to the downstairs bathroom, and the bottom of the stairs), at the exact same moment, Hailee snuck into the living room at its other side, by the French windows leading out to the garden. Like figures on a weather clock, it thought wryly, I go one way, they go the other. It’d never actually seen a weather clock before, but the Sherlock line from over a decade ago seemed apt at that moment.

Sabrina prowled along the corridor like a lioness, heading back towards the kitchen with her android assistant not far behind. S3 was incapable of alarm, but it did stop in its tracks as the woman it currently obeyed stepped through the door ahead and someone dropped an empty cardboard box over her head. It heard her make a decidedly un-lioness-like squeak, and then her shoulders slumped and she stood listlessly at attention. Milo stepped into view, hesitating at the sight of the automaton, which prepared itself to try to subdue him and compel him to serve the slumbering Sabby.

Having circled round and snuck up behind S3 just as its partner had planned, Hailee quickly reached around its head and yanked the briefs back over its eyes, slightly smushing them into its face in the scuffle. Letting out a relieved breath, it stepped back and allowed its own underwear to fall from the face of its android Mistress, dropping to the floor. But to its shock, S3’s eyes remained wide open and alert. Before it could react, the robot had seized it by the shoulders and shoved it against the wall of the corridor, pinning it in place with its body weight.

“Wha- but you’re supposed to drop!” Hailee stammered, struggling vainly against the artificial woman’s ironclad grip.

“Negative. This unit’s instructions are to deactivate Program:Selena when its visual feed is obstructed. As User:Sabrina did not reactivate Program:Selena, covering this unit’s ocular sensors has no effect.”

“Oh - but that’s cheati-nngh...” Hailee’s voice trailed off as its eyes were covered by S3’s palm.

S3 glanced to its left to see Sabby was now conscious again, the box no longer over her head. Milo had evidently compelled her to ensure the robot won the game - which ran in direct conflict with its own instructions to help her win. Leaving Hailee leaning against the wall, S3 turned to face its opponent/Mistress, who approached it warily.

Milo stepped back, observing the standoff with the box he’d found in the kitchen clutched in his right hand, a bemused smile spreading across his face. This ridiculous game had put these two in a position where they had to defeat one another in order to make sure each other won! He was too caught up in the comic irony to keep watch behind him for other competitors, which soon proved to be his undoing. The last thing he saw before he was swept back down into sleep was green plastic.

S3 saw Jelly drag a mesmerised Milo back into the kitchen and out of sight, but it had to prioritise the confrontation with Sabby. “S3, stand down,” she told it urgently. “We’re on the same team, remember? We both want the same thing...”

“Negative. You wish for this unit to win the game. This unit has been instructed to ensure you win.”

“Yeah, by me! And I take that back! I don’t wanna win any more, I wanna make sure you win...”

Keeping her defences up, ready to repel any attempt to drop her, Sabby thought furiously. It seemed she couldn’t countermand the commands she gave S3 before she’d been hypnotised by Milo. And she now had the same problem as Hailee - she couldn’t switch off Selena and reassert control, because Selena still hadn’t been switched back on. Her own ploy - hers and S3’s - had backfired on her...

Her eyes widened as she had a sudden thought. It can’t be that simple, can it...?

“S3, activate Selena!” she shouted.

“Confirmed.” S3 had no reason not to do as Sabby asked, for one very simple reason - Program:Selena was just as determined to ensure Sabby’s victory as her true robot self. Also, Sabby had been banking on her being disoriented when she came back online, but she was alert enough to dodge out of the way as the blonde swiped desperately at her ocular lenses. “Hailee, wake up and help me help Sabby!” she shrieked, grabbing the switch’s wrist.

“No!” Sabrina squealed, fighting back frantically.

Coming to her senses, Hailee quickly assessed the situation and ran towards the struggling girls, helping Selena pin Sabby against the staircase railing. Moments later, Sabby had been entranced and given back her free will. Taking a deep breath as her servants roused her, she grinned at them. “Thanks, girlies,” she giggled. “Sorry I put up such a fight.”

“No need to apologise,” Hailee snickered. “You were being controlled.”

“Mm. Speaking of, where’d Milo go?”

“This unit saw User:Jelly_Doll drop him into trance and take him into the kitchen,” Selena told her. “It is likely he is now controlled either by it or User:Alyssa, as it saw them together earlier.”

“So we’ve gone from three teams of two, to two teams of three,” Hailee mused. “The stakes are getting higher by the second...”

“Very true,” came a voice from nearby. “And the ideas are getting more ingenious.” The girls turned to see Andrew approaching them, having watched the entire chaotic skirmish from the bathroom doorway. “I will say though, keeping Selena offline so she can’t be dropped doesn’t seem very sporting. That’d basically mean Sabrina can’t lose, because she’d always have S3 working for her...”

“I get that,” Sabby shrugged. “In my defence, it was S3’s idea! Plus, it totally backfired on me...”

“Yeah, it was a good idea, don’t get me wrong! And I’m not gonna penalise you, because we never said anything about it beforehand - because we didn’t think of it.” Andrew chuckled. “Just, it’s not allowed from now on, alright?”

“Affirmative.” Selena smiled fondly at her boyfriend. Sabby and Hailee nodded their agreement too.

“OK, let’s go get the others,” Sabrina said firmly. “They’ve had time to hide themselves away anywhere they like or set up ambushes, so we’ve gotta be careful...”

“Jelly took Milo into the kitchen,” Hailee reminded her, “so they’re probably hiding in there or in the garden. Maybe we should split up, approach from different directions...?”

“Good idea,” Sabby nodded. “You go back through the living room; Selena, check out the kitchen with me. Meet in the garden.”

“Right.” Hailee swept past Andrew and scurried towards the front of the house, taking a sharp left turn back into the living room.

Stooping down and scooping up the discarded briefs, Sabrina handed them back to the robot with a wicked grin. “Stick these back on your face. Be careful not to cover your eyes!”

“Confirmed,” Selena smirked, letting out a faint flustered titter as she complied. She seemed rather more embarrassed by her ersatz mask now that her human emotions were back online!

Though she was pumped up with adrenaline from the corridor scuffle, and her mind was racing after all the players’ ever-changing allegiances (including her own), Sabrina still made her way into the kitchen more cautiously than before, ready to defend herself against any more surprise box attacks. Sneaking towards the nearest kitchen island, she gestured for her robot servant to circle around the other side. Their pincer movement proved pointless, as there was no-one hiding behind the island - or the other one, when they repeated the same strategy there.

However, as they stepped out into the garden, Sabby immediately spotted a figure with a mass of auburn hair crouched behind a sun lounger. Before they could get closer, Alyssa sprang out of hiding and charged back into the living room, with a shout of, “Ohhh shiiiit!”

“After her!” Sabby shrieked, sprinting after her, with Selena right behind. They entered the room in time to see AJ narrowly dodge a lunging Hailee and dart out of the opposite door. Selena quickly ducked back through the nearest doorway to the corridor, cutting off AJ’s escape route to the kitchen, but she ran up the stairs instead. Waving away Hailee’s babbled apologies, Sabby pelted after her prey, her minions following hurriedly.

Alyssa was faster than she’d anticipated, but Sabrina managed to keep sight of her as she streaked across the landing and into the spare bedroom. The short blonde switch smiled - unlike Milo and Hailee’s room, which had its en suite bathroom with its own door, there was no other exit from the second bedroom. AJ was trapped.

Sabrina, Hailee and Selena sped into the spare room, not giving their target the chance to realise her mistake and slip back out again. To their surprise, AJ was not alone in there - Milo and Jelly Doll stood just ahead of her, each of them on either side of her, like her bodyguards. Jelly handed a piece of paper to its girlfriend, who grinned triumphantly.

Sabby let out a sigh of realisation. “Ohhh, this was meant to be a trap, huh?” She laughed. “Nice try. Would’ve worked better if we didn’t have an even split.”

Alyssa gave her a mock-quizzical look. “Yeeeah, babe, it’s not as even as you might think.”

“Personality deactivated.”

Her eyes widening, Sabrina spun round to see the underwear-mask she’d insisted on making the android wear had been tugged back over her eyes. Hailee smiled sheepishly as it stepped away from the subdued sexbot. “Sorry, Sab. Jelly got me in the living room.”

“Oh shit,” Sabby said primly.

Well, that was it - she’d been outmanoeuvred. There was no escape with Hailee and the static S3 blocking the doorway. Accepting she’d been beaten, she offered only a token struggle as the fucktoy grabbed her by the upper arms and restrained her, while Jelly and Milo moved in close to make sure she couldn’t get away. Surrounded on all sides, she grinned impotently as her opponent approached her, holding up the piece of paper. “Good game,” she chuckled.

“Thanks, gorgeous,” Alyssa replied, and then stuck the ‘VACANT’ sign to Sabby’s forehead, the switch slouching in Hailee’s grip as the paper covered her eyes.

Stepping backwards to admire her fallen foe, AJ took a moment to celebrate her victory. “Yes,” she shouted, punching the air and clapping her hands together. “Let’s fucking go!” Jelly laughed fondly.

“I take it we have a winner?” came a voice from outside. Peering over S3’s shoulder, AJ saw her boyfriend out in the corridor, the other two referees either side of him.

“Few too many awake people in there for that to be the case,” Phil pointed out.

“Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting something,” AJ nodded. “OK - everybody do da flop.” Chortling, her band of helpers obligingly dropped themselves, Jelly and Milo putting a hand over their faces, while Hailee simply closed its eyes, its chin thudding down into its chest within moments. AJ raised both her arms in the air in triumph, each hand making peace signs. “Last sub standing, fuckers!!”

“Well done, AJ,” Richard grinned. “Very impressive.”

“What’s my prize?”

“Well, we were gonna give the winner control of all the other contestants for an hour, to do with as you wish...”

“Ooooh, yes!” she cackled, her mind already racing with diabolical ideas.

“But, we kinda thought this was gonna take a lot longer than it did,” Phil continued. “I mean, that whole thing took about ten minutes!”

“Yeah, we blocked out a full hour for the game, as well as the hour for the winner’s reward,” Andrew added, laughing.

“True,” AJ sniggered. “That did go really fast.”

“Which is why we’re playing again,” her Master told her with a smirk. “And again and again, until we get bored.” Before she had time to do more than pout at him, he said, “Alright, everybody waking on the count of three and finding new starting positions... One, two, three.”

***

Six games, a full hour, and many more ridiculous ploys, plans, drops and deceptions later, the exhausted group congregated in the back garden once more, feeling that they had finally got their money’s worth out of the activity. Hailee was the only player not to have won a single game. Sabrina, Milo and Jelly had one triumph apiece - and Jelly had scored its triumph entirely by accident while compelled to help Sabby, who fell victim to the very danger Richard had forewarned them about. Alyssa and Selena had each won two games, including AJ’s initial victory. Any suggestion of a final tiebreaker game was vetoed - they were all just too tired at this point. “How are we gonna decide, then?” Sabby wondered.

“Well, I did say at the beginning that we might reward silly drops,” Richard reminded them all, “so how about we use that to choose the overall winner...?”

“Ohhh, this unit prioritised efficiency over absurdity when dropping the other competitors,” Selena said ruefully. “It predicts User:Alyssa may therefore have performed better...”

“Yeah, at one point I did see AJ grab Hailee and smush its face into Selena’s boobs,” Andrew grinned. “That’s one of the funnier drops I’ve seen today.”

“Well, I’m happy to go with that one if you guys are,” Richard said, and received nods from his fellow referees. He stepped towards his girlfriend, who jumped to her feet and let him grab her wrist and raise her hand high in the air. “Then I hereby declare AJ the winner of Hide and Seek and Chase and Drop!”

As the others chortled and cheered, AJ bowed to them. “Thank you, thank you!” She exhaled heavily. “Hooo... I might need a breather before I get to dominate you all, though. Beating you guys took a lot of effort!”

“Let’s save your reward time for tomorrow, then,” Hailee suggested. “Give us all time to get our energy back.” It arched a mischievous eyebrow. “And give you time to think of lots of ways to really fuck with us...”

As the other defeated competitors squirmed, blushed, and nudged the fucktoy for riling up their soon-to-be-temporary-Mistress, AJ responded with her best Mr. Burns impression, grinning evilly and tenting her fingers. “Excellent!”