Ava and Rachel started talking in turns, explaining how they had Mistress Susan and how long it had taken for them to succumb to her hypnotic control (hint: not much!). At first, Meredith was locked in, curious about their history and shared experiences, but Mistress Susan had another idea in mind.

The hypnodomme’s fingers traced an almost imperceptible pattern on the tablecloth, a touch so gentle it seemed to leave no mark. The motion was a caress, a spiral, a cryptic glyph written in the fabric, and the longer she watched, the more she suspected there was meaning encoded in every twist and flick. Meredith had always been attentive to detail - she prided herself on it - but the focused subtlety of Susan’s gesture seemed to demand a different kind of attention. It was both an invitation and a dare.

Across the table, Ava’s brow furrowed, her fork poised above the half-eaten terrine like a baton before the downbeat. Rachel’s features, usually so mobile and expressive, had gone curiously slack, her hand frozen midair with the stem of her water glass balanced so delicately that Meredith worried it might tip. The soft clatter and low conversation of the dining area floated in the background, a haze of inconsequence. The only thing that mattered was the four of them at their table by the window, the city’s smear of lights and traffic receding into a void beyond the glass.

“Listen carefully,” Mistress Susan murmured. Not loudly, not with the theatrical hush of someone seeking attention, but with the steady assurance of a metronome. The words hung there, suspended between them, and Meredith felt them pulse through her like a low-frequency vibration. Rachel’s lips parted, then closed again; her pulse leapt visibly at the base of her neck.

Their eyes locked onto Mistress Susan. It happened as if choreographed, a magnetic snap. Their pupils dilated and their breathing synchronized. Meredith felt a tingle at the base of her own spine, a rising fizz of anticipation. Susan’s fingers danced anew, movements slower now, deeper, as though she were stirring something viscous just beneath the table’s surface.

“Sink for me,” she said. The word was almost inaudible, but it rippled through the group with the force of a whip crack. Not a suggestion. A command, gentle and implacable. Ava’s chest rose and fell; her body, held so tensely a moment before, appeared to deflate, shoulders dropping, chin tilting forward until her gaze was level with Susan’s hands.

They were utterly transfixed. Meredith watched as the women became as pliant and attentive as children listening to a bedtime story. She couldn’t hide her awe or her desire to follow suit.

The noise at the surrounding tables continued obliviously. However, to Meredith, every clink of glass and knife felt like an intrusion, a reminder of the world’s mundane persistence, and she wouldn’t have that. She allowed her limbs to sink in slow motion, her heart beating in time with the others’, and her awareness folding toward the center of the table.

No words were spoken, yet an entire conversation was unraveling in the silence. Susan’s gaze flickered between Ava and Rachel, then to Meredith, holding her long enough to make her melt from the inside out. God, how was she so irresistible?

Ava was the first to speak. Her voice was whisper-thin, almost a ghost, but it broke the spell just enough for the others to follow her down. “What… what do you want, Mistress?” There was no fear in it, only curiosity, as if Ava were waking from a dream and unsure whether to cling to it or let it slip away.

Mistress Susan smiled, and the smile was not kind or cruel, but beautifully precise. “I want you to listen. Not with your ears, but with your mind. I want you to feel what it’s like to be completely present, completely unguarded. Can you do that?”

Ava’s nod was automatic. Rachel’s eyes flicked sideways. She let her shoulders fall and opened her palms in a gesture of acceptance.

“Good,” Susan said. “Now, when I speak, you will listen. Not only to the words, but to the spaces between them. You will let yourself drift into those spaces and rest there.”

Ava let out a whimper, barely audible, and Rachel’s breath came in ragged, shallow bursts.

Meredith’s skin tingled; she wondered whether anyone else in the room had noticed the transformation at their table, but when she glanced around, she saw nothing but conference attendees having fun in their private groups. They were invisible to the world itself.

Mistress Susan’s fingers stopped moving. “You are very quiet,” she remarked, and the corners of her lips turned up almost imperceptibly. “I like that. Go deeper now.” Ava and Rachel said nothing. Their eyes were glazed, following their Mistress’s commands. 

Susan leaned in, her elbows on the table, and with a single glance, she reanimated her audience. “You’re ready to listen,” she said. “So I’ll tell you something true.”

Ava swallowed audibly. Rachel’s jaw twitched, as if readying itself for words that might never come.

“I know what you want,” Susan said, her voice soft but unwavering. “I know what each of you is afraid to ask for, and I know how to give it to you. Do you trust me to do that right now?”

Ava nodded. Rachel echoed the gesture, lips trembling but determined. Meredith felt her own head incline, unbidden, a half-degree of submission that Susan caught and logged with a glimmer of satisfaction.

“Excellent,” Susan said, and her attention seemed to enfold all three of them at once, a thermal current drawing them closer. “Now,” she continued, “I want you to keep listening. But this time, let your body answer before your mind does. Let go of the explanations. Let go of the need to be clever. Just… feel.”

The instruction hovered, and Meredith sensed a shift not just in Ava and Rachel, but in herself. A loosening of boundaries, a blurring of the membrane between desire and discipline, between the will to resist and the wish to be overtaken. She sat perfectly still, afraid that even the faintest movement would break the spell or draw Mistress Susan’s focus too directly upon her. A part of her wanted nothing more than to be seen, to be chosen. Another part, equally strong, recoiled from the prospect, content to observe now rather than play the game. Only one of those parts would have its wish come true.