My mistake, the thing that doomed me from the beginning, was coming home tired. It had been a long day at the craft store as Mary Roussin, diligent but uninteresting craft store employee, and then the very moment the store closed I got a message on my radiowatch from my colleagues on the River City Defenders, asking for my help. If something big was going down, some fight with space aliens or Commander Havok or whatever, I’d probably have seen it in passing in the minds of customers, so they likely needed superheroine Vigilant’s psychic powers for something less destructive and probably less urgent. I put the mask on anyways—I trusted them to call me only when it mattered, and they trusted me to always come when needed. I’d never failed the people of River City yet.

It was the usual grind, as it turned out: teammate Thunderstrike, the Defenders’ heavy hitter and absolute psychic weak point, had run into snake-themed supervillain Lamia, looked into her eyes, fallen head-over-heels in lust, and started doing her sinister bidding. The rest of the team were tracking her down; I got to spend forty-five minutes carefully unpicking her handiwork from Thunderstrike’s brain. It wasn’t hard, and was easier by the fact that I’d done just this for him four more times in the last six months, but after a while you just want someone to sit him down and remind him that being a superhero means at least making an effort to not have your will subverted at every opportunity. Someone other than me, I mean. I keep telling him and he keeps not listening.

So that was most of my day; hardly the worst day I’d ever had, but long, and tiring, and I was fully ready to just flop down on the couch and watch mindless tv for three hours. So I didn’t even look around as I came in the door and dropped my bag on the mat and kicked my shoes off. A voice from the living room said something I didn’t quite catch, so now—too late—I took a look. Instead of the usually placid calm of my girlfriend, Arianne, in the living room was a big ball of angry cut with eager expectation.

“Arianne?” I said, anyways, and then, maybe because I was tired and not thinking straight, walked towards the living room to investigate. Arianne swam into vision in front of me and before I even had time to wonder at how I had missed her, she was physically in front of me too. She snapped something around my neck. “What—?” I started, confused.

“You’ll see,” said the voice of the unknown angry one, hidden somewhere in the room, and Arianne flipped the lights on. Instead of clothes she was wearing a network of leather straps and steel rings, binding and erotically highlighting her hard, well-muscled torso. A converging set of straps anchored to a wide, padded front over her crotch suggested something thick and firm being held into her pussy there. At the other end of her body, a similar convergence of straps hooked into a chunky, thick metal collar locked tight around her throat. My hand flew involuntarily to my own neck and touched cold metal. She was blank-faced and ball-gagged, but I could see her luxuriating in the feel of the harness, the collar, the gag, the red silicone rubber dildoes in each orifice. Just as I took the whole sight in, Arianne stepped to the side, and I had a clear view across the room to the couch.

A woman sat there, legs crossed, idly tapping the end of a riding crop against her knee. Her legs were encased in black vinyl thigh-boots, with thick, tall heels and metal buckles up the sides. A black leather corset wrapped her hips and belly, cinched her waist with a row of straps and gleaming buckles, held up her full breasts. Her nipples stood hard just above the froth of black velvet lining the bust. Her arms were in elbow-length black vinyl gloves, a black leather choker was on her neck, and her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. On her face was a look of hungry anticipation nearly as intense as the look I could see her giving me inside.

Her name, I knew, was Dominique Stuart. Mistress of All. The Conquering Darkness. She Who Must Be Obeyed. A bunch of other nicknames mostly around the same theme. About a week and a half ago I had stopped her from robbing a museum, beat her, put her in jail. And now she was sitting in my living room. Staring at me like a shark.

“Um,” I said.

“Not expecting me so soon?” she asked, her voice sweet and mocking. “It turns out it’s very hard to keep me any place I don’t want to be. Those weaklings at the prison were easy to break. A few days around me and they begged to let me escape. So easy.” She shook her head. “But you, my dear. You fought me. You thought you could beat me. And that just. Won’t. Do.” She punctuated her words by slapping the end of her crop into the glossy palm of her hand. “When I am done you will beg to be forgiven for ever resisting the all-devouring control of your mistress.” She was already rolling the scene through her mind’s eye, anticipating and savouring the moment of my surrender.

I wasn’t going to stand for it. “Yeah, right,” I said, and started to walk towards her. Dominique made a negligent gesture and Arianne grabbed me from behind. Her powerful arms barely even tensed as she overcame my efforts to get free. Her breath, right in my ear, was soft and steady. Inside her skull she was gasping and writhing at the opportunity to obey Dominique. “And I’m going to free Arianne too.”

“But she is free,” said Dominique. Her face was smirking and so was her mind, lying obviously without concern, just for the amusement of toying with me. “She’s only doing what she wants to do. If I permitted her to speak, I’m sure she’d tell you what she wants to do most.”

I could see what Arianne wanted to do most. “Obey you, mistress,” she was panting, right behind me. “Obey you serve you love you worship you obey you be used by you use my meatpuppet body take me fuck me hit me hurt me use me just make me obey you—” I tore myself away from gazing at her eager, squirming mind.

It was a good thing Dominique wasn’t psychic. Arianne’s speech—and the things she was still whispering to herself, inside her own mind, right next to me—were turning me on. I didn’t want to lose and become like her! Just—her mind was so uninhibitedly aroused, ecstatic to be allowed to speak and ecstatic to be told to stop speaking, all bound up tightly inside a body silently unmoving, perfectly hiding the furnace of joyous arousal inside, it—it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, right there behind me. And Dominique didn’t need to be psychic. One of my hands had snuck around to the front of my pants and was just idly pressing against the front of my pelvis. Just casually, not even rubbing, just pressing. I stopped and moved it away but Dominique had already seen.

“You know what you want, too, don’t you,” she said, the smirk on her face unchanged while disappointment at how easy I was going to be and eagerness to finish breaking me chased each other around in her mind. “It can be yours. Just accept that I am the rightful owner of your mind and your body and you can join your sister-slave in worshiping me.” Arianne sang with joy inside herself at the prospect.

“No,” I said, more firmly than I felt. Dominique had a little spark of cruel joy at the prospect of me fighting as I lost to her.

“Why do you resist what you know is true?” she asked. Good question. “You’ll have to be taught better.” The hand not holding the crop reached behind her and came up with a tiny smooth metal thing, like a steel keyfob with a single button on it. Behind me, without moving, Arianne squirmed in greater delight at the sight of it, the thought of what it could command her collar to do to her. Dominique held it up dramatically, in order to draw out the anticipation in me.

I anticipated.

She pressed the button.

Oh, God, the collar, every inch of my body was thrumming, a thousand mouths licking and nibbling and sucking, my clit was on fire, my cunt and my ass and my mouth filled with fingers and tongues, the collar, it was taking me over with pleasure, I needed to obey Dominique and keep the pleasure coming—

Dominique released the button. My legs had slipped out from under me; I was being supported solely by Arianne’s unflinching arms. Arianne began dragging me towards the bedroom. I could see in her blissfully obeying mind that Dominique had given her the order while I was too distracted to notice. In front of me, as Arianne carried my unresisting form down the hallway, I could see Dominique stand and walk after us. She was so hot. So dominant. So powerful. I, I, I needed to fight back. Some way of getting the collar off. God, I didn’t want to get the collar off. I wanted to let it mind-fuck me into the same total spreadeagled subservience as Arianne.

Arianne sat me down on the edge of the bed and then tried to push me over. I resisted, and actually managed to get back to my feet. Dominique was standing in the bedroom door. “Where do you think you’re going?” Predatory glee at watching the fish that doesn’t know it’s already caught struggling on the line. “Are you coming over to lick your mistress’ boots?”

Yes. No! “No, I…” I had no idea what I was doing.

“Get back on the bed,” said Dominique. She whacked the side of my breast almost playfully with the riding crop. I got back on the bed. “There will be plenty of time for that later.” I lay down and Arianne handcuffed me to the headboard. Then, when it was too late, I came to my senses and started futilely struggling again.

Dominique and Arianne didn’t even notice. Dominique had one foot up on the bed and Arianne was nuzzling the glossy black toe, sliding her ballgag against its surface. “Yes,” said Dominique, glorying in her control. “You get to lick your mistress’ boots. You are an obedient little cuntslave.” Arianne glowed at the praise, while her body kept unhesitatingly rubbing, across foot and the ankle, up the calf. “That’s enough,” said Dominique, and hit Arianne across the face with her riding crop. Even as Arianne’s body sat stiffly back up on the bed, I could see her wrapping herself in the pain, revelling in it as a reminder of her mistress’ attention.

Dominique turned back to me. I was tugging at the cuffs ineffectually, and half-heartedly, taken as my attention was by watching Arianne’s exuberant joy in her servitude. “You see what you could be doing? What you will be made to do?” Oh, yes, I saw. I saw, frankly, a whole hell of a lot better than Dominique did. I wanted it so bad.

But I couldn’t just give in. I had to fight, had to escape, had to stop her, for reasons that were getting more unclear with every passing moment. “Nooooo,” I mumbled, and my tone of voice was somewhere between actual resistance and flirtatious teasing.

Dominique smirked again. This was what she wanted, to watch my will crumble inch by inch. “Arianne!” Arianne’s body moved instantly to perfect attention, even as she squirmed unsatisfiably at her mistress’ voice. “Take her clothes off.”

Arianne picked up a pair of scissors that were for some reason sitting on the nightstand, and ran the cool metal blade down my cheek. “Tease her torment her show my sister-slave the joy that pours from every every one of my mistress’ orders the pleasure that is obeying them the bliss of being rewarded for obeying…” she sang, while her face watched the scissors with placid concentration. I couldn’t stifle a moan. She sliced my shirt to ribbons, every stroke the back of one blade pressing into my flesh just hard enough to stimulate without harming me. Then she moved down to my ankles, yoinked my socks off without pretense, and slipped one blade of the scissors into my pant leg.

Beside me, Dominique leaned down close to my ear. “You already love this, don’t you.” I realized I was still moaning as Arianne slowly worked her way up the inside of my thigh.

“Please, stop,” I said, knowing even as I said it I was just trying to give her an excuse to keep going. She knew it too.

“You love it,” she whispered, very close, and then licked the inside of my ear. It was bliss, complete bliss, being touched by my mistress, pleasure flowed out from my ear across my head, frying my brain, consuming my mind, flowed down my naked torso, to my legs where the cold steel of the scissors was still slicing and pressing, a whole different realm of pleasure, sparking like lighting to my cunt, my cunt, my cunt, my cunt, my cunt…

Mistress Dominique stood back up. Some part of me was justifying that she had just turned the collar on to coincide with her touch, but that was irrelevant next to the ecstasy her body could give me. “Please, please, please,” I begged, completely incoherent and beyond caring.

“Don’t whine,” said Mistress Dominique, her voice contemptuous and her mind revelling in my collapse. I shut up. “That’s better,” she said, and I squirmed a little inside at the touch of her praise. I kept my body still, though. I needed to be like Arianne, my body calmly obeying Mistress Dominique’s every command however tormented and orgasmic my mind was.

Arianne was still tormented and orgasmic. She had finished slicing my pants and panties apart, pulled the ragged scraps of clothing out from under my ass and back, and then, unwilling to try the scissors against my underwire, cut the straps and unhooked the front clasp on my bra the old-fashioned way. She tossed it casually over her shoulder and then knelt on the bed between my spread legs.

“Good work, Arianne,” said Mistress Dominique. Arianne, as ever, didn’t move a muscle as joy ravaged her. I wanted that. I needed that. But I couldn’t beg for it the way I wanted. Mistress Dominique had told me to be silent, and obeying that command was so much better than merely getting what I wanted. The torment was exquisite. I screamed and shook while my body breathed slowly and deeply, trying to show Mistress Dominique I could be as good a slave as Arianne.

“Now,” said Mistress Dominique, drawing the word out to tease me even more. “Do you want to be my slave?”

“Yes,” I said. I was proud of my even cadence. “I need to be owned by you.”

“Are you ready to be my slave?” Mistress Dominique asked. I could see in her that I wasn’t, but she wanted me to say ‘yes’ so she could punish me and explain what would happen next.

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t disappoint her.

“You’re wrong,” she said sweetly, and hit me across the face with the crop. It was as good as it had been for Arianne. Arianna watched from the foot of the bed, unmoving, to an outside observer almost uninterested; but I could see her diving into the memories of her own punishment by Mistress Dominique.

“You think you’re a slave, ready to serve me because you want desperately to serve,” said Mistress Dominique. Yes. Yes. Yes. “But there is so much deeper you have to go. What you want is meaningless. You will be ready when you serve me only because I want it.” Oh God yes. “When you are nothing but a puppet for my will, pretending to be free as you go about your business, pretending perfectly because I want a perfect spy, betraying your friends to me, subverting their wills just as yours has been subverted, coming over and over inside the prison of your own mind, coming without end—that is the servitude that awaits you.”

Oh fuck yes oh fuck yes oh fuck yes. I needed it so bad. It was hard to keep my body calm no matter that Mistress Dominique commanded it, but I knew soon it would be the easiest thing in the world, simply because she had commanded it. Oh fuuuuck yes.

“Do you like that?” asked Mistress Dominique, sure in the knowledge I was caught.

“Yes, mistress,” I agreed. I was proud that my voice still did not quaver.

“Good,” said Mistress Dominique, smugly. “Now here is what will happen. Arianne will fuck you.” Arianne carefully took her gag off and licked the leather slowly, showing off the mindless sex toy aspect I would soon share. “You will not come. To prove your devotion you will constrain your body completely, whatever your sister-slave does to you.” Arianne flicked her tongue over the ball of her gag and began making stroking motions with one hand. “When I am satisfied you are giving yourself to me body and soul, then I will permit you to come. You will blow your own mind out. Your resistance, your will, every part of you that is not absolutely devoted to me, will be fucked out of your body in a moment of perfect obedient orgasm. And an eternity of perfect obedient orgasm.”

I couldn’t quite help myself. I gasped. Mistress Dominique smiled. “Arianne, begin.”

Arianne lay down between my legs. She spread my folds gently and nuzzled my clit. I was so desperately keyed up that I had to start fighting it almost immediately. To distract myself I concentrated on staring as intently as I could at Arianne, which only helped a little, because in addition to the rolling joy of obeying Mistress Dominique and the regular enjoyment of getting to eat someone out, she was picking through memories of previous, unenslaved, sex with me to make sure she hit all my buttons right. She was good at it. Her lips touched my lips just right and her tongue stroked my clit just right and her fingers pumped in and out of my pussy just right.

I had long since given up on silencing myself the way I wanted to for Mistress Dominique and was clinging, desperately, to not coming until she told me. I was speaking, saying something, babbling something. I don’t know what. “Please, take me, control me, own me”? Maybe. “I’m going to come I’m going to come I’m so close I’m so close”? Perhaps. “Unnnnngnaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhrrrrrrraaaaaaauuuuuuughhhhhhh”? That seems likely. I don’t know.

Mistress Dominique was watching, and I was watching her, could see her decide to let me come before I came anyways, to ensure I felt could only come with her permission. I approved. I wanted to come when she told me, hated my body for betraying me this way. She raised one finger. “Come for me,” she said, and touched my forehead.

Maryslave kneels in the centre of the living room. Her sister-slave Arianneslave kneels beside her. Each of them wears an identical steel collar. The harnesses they wear are identical in form but perfectly fitted to each body, showing off Arianneslave’s tight muscles and long limbs and Maryslave’s soft curves and full figure. Arianneslave’s pussy and ass are tightly filled and her mouth is gagged; Maryslave’s arms are held behind her back by a latex armbinder and her eyes are blindfolded. She can still see the others in the room, of course, but she has to be a little more careful moving to avoid the physical bodyparts she can’t track anymore.

The Mistress lounges on the couch in much the same way She had before She took Maryslave, back when Maryslave imagined she had a different name. Maryslave doesn’t bother to think about that. All she thinks is the pure, overwhelming bliss of obeying the Mistress.

“Now, Mary,” says the Mistress, and Maryslave buzzes with joy at the Mistress’ attention. “Tell me what you will do tomorrow.”

“I will go to HQ,” says Maryslave. “I will pretend to be Vigilant. I will do so perfectly.”

“Show me,” demands the Mistress.

Maryslave’s stance changes imperceptibly. Her shoulders loosen and she rolls her head a little. “Sure. Like this?” She is still writhing with bliss at obeying the Mistress’ instructions. Only her body’s presentation has changed. “OK, well, I’ll go in, and make small talk, and once the shift changes I’ll be on watch alone with Thunderstrike. So once we’re alone together I’ll have no problem collaring him for you, Dee. Little bit of zapping, little bit of psychic prodding, and he’ll be a totally brainwashed slave for you in no time.” Maryslave wants to betray her friends so badly. Pretending to be Vigilant while underneath remaining the same slavishly obedient puppet of the Mistress, creating new sibling-slaves to share Her glorious servitude, it is so hot. It is the best, most erotic imaginable way to obey the Mistress (except of course for any other way the Mistress might choose to have her obey).

“Stop pretending to be Vigilant,” commands the Mistress. Maryslave returns to the rigid pose that Arianneslave is still in beside her. “All good, except for the disrespectful method of address.” Maryslave was imitating perfectly the behaviour she had engaged in before she learned she was a slave, as demanded, but she makes no attempt to protest. The Mistress is right in all things. The thought buzzes orgiastically through her. “Arianne, punish her.”

Arianneslave rises to one knee, turning as she does so, and takes hold of Maryslave’s elbow. Then she backhands Maryslave across the face hard enough that Maryslave would have been knocked helplessly on her side if not for Arianneslave’s steadying grasp. Both of them return to their kneeling pose within moments. Maryslave can see Arianneslave’s joy at carrying out the Mistress’ commands, and feel her own joy at knowing that even the slightest divergence will be corrected. The stinging in her cheek reverberates through her body and she revels in it. “Thank you, Mistress.”

The Mistress waves Her hand dismissively. Maryslave becomes silent again. “You’ll do nicely, I think.” Maryslave rides another wave of bliss. “Now, I think it’s time to put you two to your real purpose.” Maryslave’s real purpose is obedience. Arianneslave’s real purpose is obedience. But they both know what the Mistress means and gasp in silent, unmoving anticipation at the prospect.

The Mistress stands, walks over towards the two. Neither moves a muscle as they scream in eagerness to pleasure the Mistress. “Lick,” She commands, pointing downwards. Maryslave falls forward on her face to begin licking the Mistress’ boots. Behind her, Arianneslave grabs Maryslave’s pinned arms to help hold her up, keeping her weight off the Mistress’ feet. Maryslave knows servicing the Mistress is the greatest joy, but she takes a moment to also watch Arianneslave’s unselfish pleasure in assisting her sister-slave. Together they are capable of plumbing greater depths of servitude and helpless submission than they would be apart. Maryslave squirms in pleasure at the thought, though her tongue’s slow advance across the Mistress’ foot doesn’t hesitate in the slightest.

As Maryslave reaches the ankle, Arianneslave begins to pull harder on Maryslave’s arms, raising the angle of her body and enabling her to continue her slow submissive progress up the Mistress’ black vinyled legs. Her shoulders protest a little at the treatment but it is irrelevant next to the pleasure she is writhing around in, and the pleasure she can see the Mistress is feeling at Her slaves’ exaggeratedly erotic submission, and the even greater pleasure Maryslave feels seeing the Mistress’ pleasure.

By the time she has reached the top of the Mistress’ boot and begun licking the inside of the Mistress’ thigh—bliss! unutterable, orgasmic bliss at the ability to suck and lick and nibble the Mistress’ bare flesh!—Arianneslave has pulled Maryslave back fully upright and her head is in reach of the Mistress’ pussy. Its scent, so close and so deliciously superior, drives Maryslave wild. She does not speed up, though. Even as she screams in ecstatic anticipation to beg to be allowed to touch the Mistress’ pussy, her body silently continues pleasuring the Mistress’ leg.

“Stop,” says the Mistress, just as the first soft hair brushes Maryslave’s cheek. Both stop moving instantly, while they writhe about in servile ecstasy. “Dirty, eager whores, aren’t you,” She says, and both revel in the description without moving. “I think I had better get this straightened out. Arianne, release her.” Maryslave wobbles for a moment and then balances herself, kneeling directly in front of the Mistress. “One hand on Mary’s clit.” Maryslave does not move as Arianneslave reaches around her waist, underneath the crotch of her harness, and spreads her lips with her index and ring fingers, slides her middle finger right onto Maryslave’s sensitive, swollen nub. The physical pleasure her body is finally feeling is nothing to the ecstasy of servitude she has been feeling forever—since the Mistress revealed to her that she was a slave, earlier this evening, which of course is the same thing as forever—and she easily keeps her body still. “Other hand, touch yourself.” Arianneslave’s pussy is filled, of course, but she places her palm on the leather front the dildo is mounted on, hooks her fingers under the bottom to grip it, prepares to begin pumping it back and forth. Maryslave can see her easily fight down the same physical urge to gasp that Maryslave overcame moments before. “Now, continue.”

Maryslave works her way up the last little distance of the Mistress’ thigh and begins to taste the sweet, delicious arousal beading the Mistress’ soft curls. The Mistress reaches down with one hand to magnanimously spread Her lips for Maryslave’s eager tongue, while the other grabs Maryslave’s hair at the back of her head and pulls it with cruel force right up to Her clit. Both hands are equally wonderful to Maryslave. She begins licking and sucking and flicking and teasing and probing and stroking, and watches the Mistress closely to make sure every single motion is the perfect, best imaginable way to please Her.

“God, yes,” breathes the Mistress. “Start going, Arianne.” Arianneslave begins rubbing the one finger slowly across Maryslave’s clit, in a motion that might merely be teasing if Maryslave wasn’t already keyed up beyond normal imagination, so that each stroke is a mind-numbing assault that leaves her screaming even more than she already was (while her mouth, unaffected, kisses the Mistress’ clit and then sucks on it, flicking the tongue over the end, continues…) Behind her, Arianneslave is pumping the dildo in and out of her own pussy, and she is screaming with the sensation too, just like Maryslave is. The Mistress is panting now, Her hand clenching and unclenching spasmodically at the back of Maryslave’s head, while below Her even the iron self-control of Her slaves is finally beginning to break down as their breathing starts to become ragged and shallow. “Oh, fuck, yes,” pants the Mistress, “you can come when I do, fuck, fuck oh God, fuck, I’m coming, I’m coming, oh Gawwwwwwddddd—”

Arianneslave recovers from the postcoital tangle of exhausted limbs on the floor first. Maryslave watches, a little confused, as Arianneslave stretches and flexes in ways that a slave shouldn’t, and then her body stretches too and stands up, pops the gag from her mouth. “Hey, how’dja know where Vigilant lives?” asks Arianneslave, cheerfully.

The Mistress knows all and does what she pleases, thinks Maryslave, furious at her sister-slave’s grotesque disobedience, but the question slices through her enslaved postorgasmic languor like a knife. How did she know where I live, she suddenly- I suddenly wondered, the question slashing through my mindless obedience to the Mistr- to Mistress Dominique, even as it answered itself in great blooming flashbacks of memory I had somehow forgotten. Across from me, I could see Mistr- see Dominique’s mind unfolding like a puzzle box, the same memories (through her eyes) flaring back into existence.

My first meeting at the museum with small-time villain The Diabolical Domme (and her friend/lover/henchwoman/slave, Arianne). The fight, ending in the first time she enslaved me, and I realized for the first time what I really wanted in my life. My escape (dragged kicking and screaming from her mental and physical embrace, more like). The way my teammates successfully deprogrammed me, returned me to my old life, left me freely uncompelled to obey Dominique; and the way I decided, on my own, that I wanted to again. My help getting Dominique released in exchange for her going straight, without telling anyone the other things she could do to me, too. The quiet, vanilla dating, movies and dinners for just the three of us, keeping a low profile and waiting just long enough for everyone to have forgotten about that reformed petty villain I’d once fought. The happy, sexy, mindlessly obedient weekend that we finally moved in together and I was finally safe to cast off all my masks and once again be the slave she had shown me I was, so long before. The scenario we’d built since, replaying that first meeting but better, everything tailored to each of our exact desires (and no kind, decent, thoroughly-unwanted Starlight to come and “rescue” me at the end). And then, every so often, when all three of us were horny at the same time enough to not just go make out in a pair while the third read a book, Arianne would speak words that I’d programmed into us and would never be able to consciously remember again, and everything inside us glided shut like well-oiled doors until Dominique was the angry, revenge-driven supervillain who needed to enslave me and I was the innocent, unsuspecting superhero who didn’t know—yet—just how badly she needed to be enslaved, and she could again feel the pleasure of breaking me and I could again feel the pleasure of being broken. Like we had agreed to do tonight.

“Oh,” I whimpered, at the same moment as Dee did.

Arianne giggled. “Honestly it’s the remembering that’s the best part. You just sitting there staring into space like ‘oh, right, I went straight and have been living with you both for years’.”

“You say that every time, love,” said Dee, affectionately, standing up and then helping me to my feet.

“Well, it’s true. And you’re lucky it is, otherwise I might be tempted to forget to break you out sometime.”

“Yeah, no, please don’t do that,” said Dee, as she unhooked my armbinder. “I’m past the whole ‘being punched in the face for fun and profit’ phase of my life now.”

“It’d be fine,” I said, breezily. “I’d go in to HQ in the morning, humiliate myself trying to enslave someone with a useless lump of metal—” My slightly numb, slightly bloodless fingers fumbled the catch at the back of my neck undone; spun the entirely decorative, solidly unelectronic prop collar in my hands “—and either everyone shamefacedly pretends it never happened or I change my name and move to Argentina.”

“Maybe she’d tell you to do it with your powers, no fake sex toys at all,” suggested Arianne. “There’d be nothing to trip you up then.” I could see the absolute certainty of my response in her and Dee.

“God yes,” I said, feeling hot again at the thought. “I’d enslave anyone for Dee. I’d enslave everyone for Dee. I’d shackle every one of the Defenders to her will and love every moment of it.”

“Then I guess River City has lucked out again, because I already have all the lovers I can keep track of,” said Dee, and I could see, underneath the joke, the truth of her love for me and Arianne pouring out of her like a flame.

It was always hard for me to see myself; it took concentration and effort and was confusing in exactly the same way that your own voice sounds wrong in a recording. But if I had bothered, I knew what I would have seen, because it was the same thing I could see in Arianne. The pure joy of a slave, alone with her sister-slave and her mistress, finally able to be herself. I knew it because I felt it too. It was as great a joy as I could ever imagine feeling.

But I still didn’t show all of it as we walked together back to the bedroom.