If the truth were told, Wayne had started to think he might never see Chantal in cosplay until the moment she walked back into his living room that night. The suggestions to craft a costume had been secreted inside her weeks earlier, along with the determination to give him a ‘surprise’.

He’d even tried her with a Sailor Scout as well, in case something complex about Jun’s headgear or belt buckle had presented her with a challenge she felt she couldn’t overcome, and had therefore stopped. But still, it had taken a long time afterward for Chantal actually to dress up the way he wanted and show him; long enough he hadn’t even considered it an option when she mentioned a surprise. Of course, having forgotten about the tote bag she’d brought in and discarded had also probably made him more likely to dismiss the idea.

Wayne was finding it easier and easier to take being wrong about things the further his work with Chantal progressed.

After seeing her to the door that night he settled back on the sofa, fiddling with his phone, and toggled the remote to put his big screen over to another feed. Then he narrowcasted the video he’d recorded of his evening onto the big screen, and watched his dream come true again from another angle.

He’d sited the camera just above the kitchen door, because when he compelled Chantal to catwalk, that was the other end of her route; this meant he’d get both crucial angles. Now, though, he had footage of a dream moment come true.

It was delightful to watch, although mostly he could see her cape and her helmet. What he could see was less a part of why he enjoyed it than what it represented.

All the same, though, he ordered another camera, so that next time he’d be able to get another angle, one where he could see her face - that empty, passive, endlessly obedient expression, as unchanging as a doll’s.

The following day he started drafting out plans for upcoming videos for her week at home.

*

“I am ready to be programmed. I love to be brainwashed.

“I love my nightly brainwashing. It is good for me.

“I am a doll. Only my Master matters.

“My body is a toy. I am a toy.

“My body is a toy. I am a toy.

“My body is a toy. I am my Master’s toy.

“I must keep my Master’s toy in perfect condition.

“My Master can always be happier. I must make my Master happy.

“It pleases my Master when I do things for him. I will do things for my Master.

“Domestic dolls fuck, suck, clean, and cook. I want to be a domestic doll.

“Domestic dolls fuck, suck, clean, and cook. I want to be a domestic doll.

“Domestic dolls fuck, suck, clean, and cook. I want to be a domestic doll for my Master.

“Fuck, suck, clean, and cook. I smile as I fuck, suck, clean, and cook.”

*

Having carefully cleaned it, Chantal put the Jun the Swan costume away carefully in her wardrobe. She wondered again what the stain could have been, and again dismissed it. Probably something had spilled into the bag while she was in transit, she told herself. It had been that sort of evening; she’d spent most of the second movie very aware of an odd, salty taste on her lips, and it certainly hadn’t come from the wine Wayne bought.

She hadn’t drunk anything else on the visit. Actually, now she thought about it, she hadn’t indulged in any of the wine, either. There’d only been one glass put out, which was Wayne’s, and she hadn’t asked for one of her own.

The idea that she should have done made her uneasy in a way that wasn’t entirely clear to her. She had the sense that it wouldn’t have been right to do so. Not that that explained anything.

She drifted back through into the kitchen to cook, and by the time she’d passed through the doorway that whole chain of speculations had evaporated from her mind without trace. Her attention was entirely on dinner, where she was going to be cooking a pasta dish she knew Wayne had loved in college (and, if she was any kind of expert on his habits, still would). It wasn’t quite her kind of thing, but she had woken up that morning with a desire to master some new dishes, ones that weren’t in her repertoire.

All the ones that came to mind were meals she knew for a fact that Wayne liked, which was probably, she decided, the reason she’d thought of them. He was on her mind more than most at the moment.

That morning, she’d got up, showered, and run her errands - gym, shopping for ingredients for these new meals, pick up the costume from the dry cleaners. Now lunch was calling her, and she was eager to answer.

Following a recipe she’d hastily Googled, Chantal cooked the dish, served herself a portion in a bowl, and tried it. Pretty tasty, she decided. Whether it was the way Wayne would enjoy it or not, of course, she didn’t know.

As she loaded the dishwasher she found herself idly entertaining the idea of inviting him over to try it. Given that he’d never come round just for dinner before, she quickly dismissed it again.

She walked through into the living room with the vague idea of passing her afternoon watching something on Netflix, her phone in hand. She hadn’t yet reached her favourite chair when she found herself thinking I don’t need to do anything for a while -

The shadows in the room had changed, and the background sounds were different, too. Chantal was standing in the same pose she’d found herself in at Wayne’s a couple of nights earlier, albeit at least she’d been fully dressed this time.

Her eyes flicked to her living room window, wondering who might have gone past and seen her standing perfectly still in there. Would her neighbour have been out walking his dogs yet?

Her phone was on the floor by her side. She must have dropped it and hadn’t noticed. As she knelt down to pick it up she felt the heat of a blush across her cheeks.

Fugue moments like that only happened at Wayne’s, she told herself. They didn’t invade her home.

…did they? This one seemed like it had been -

The clock on her phone told her it was nearly 6pm, coming up on the end of rush hour. Chantal straightened up fully, turned, and walked briskly upstairs to her bedroom, thinking hard the whole time, her mind on her own questions rather than her actions.

She’d lost the best part of five hours, and it was no consolation, really, to reflect that if she’d just been binging her queue she wouldn’t remember much more of that time.

Chantal stripped down nude, then opened the one drawer she almost never used. She called it her ‘date drawer’ but the lingerie within was reserved for beaus who’d made it through the first handful of dates without pressing their luck too hard. The ones where she felt comfortable going to bed with them, and was confident they weren’t after her just for her looks or her career.

The drawer was mostly filled with product she’d been given as part of her payment for modelling gigs or had foisted on her by her old agent, whose advances she’d tolerated to be able to keep working until she’d realised she no longer needed him. It was usually opened a dozen or so times a year, though not evenly spaced; it hadn’t been opened at all in five months or so. Not since she’d lightheartedly reminded Wayne of the post-hypnotic trance trigger he’d once implanted.

Of course, if someone had pointed that out to Chantal she would have expressed confusion that you’d even think about the two facts in connection.

She had selected a pastel purple thong and lace bra set that had never failed to get great reactions when she’d used it in the past and she now donned it with the same lack of thought she usually gave to her comfortable if unaesthetic panties and bralette. Closing the date drawer, she found a pair of leggings and tight Lycra tank top, both in a darker purple, and wriggled into them.

Then she sat down at her dressing table and busied herself with her makeup. She didn’t usually do much with it - her untouched face didn’t turn nearly as many heads, and when she wasn’t working, that was the vibe she preferred - but nonetheless, this time she took her time to properly accentuate her own beauty.

Finally, she secured her hair into a ponytail and headed downstairs, her phone abandoned on the bed. She gathered up the remainder of the ingredients she’d bought for her test lunch and left the house.

She was halfway through the drive to Wayne’s apartment before it occurred to her to wonder what she was doing, and for that matter, why she was doing it.

Even the route was more familiar from Ubers back and forth; she’d never really wanted to drive there because she’d have drunk too much to drive back. Although, now she came to think about it, for the last three or four visits (so the last month and a half or so), she’d driven there and back, and not been drinking wine in between.

None of this made sense. Compounding the strangeness was the fact she was, at most, only barely thinking about any of it. Her thought process seemed to divert itself whenever she got as far as questioning what had happened, without allowing herself any further insight.

She parked up, collected the food from the car, and walked over to his apartment building. She let herself in - there was a key on her keyring; Chantal used it as if she’d known it was there, although she hadn’t, and she didn’t question it or even question why she didn’t - and then headed up to his floor.

Wayne met her at the door -

*

It was a treat to see Chantal in the kind of sportswear she frequently modelled but in real life, Wayne thought. It didn’t matter that he’d seen her completely naked, seeing her dressed as she had been for the photographs and calendars he’d seen so much of, that his mind hadn’t been able to keep from dwelling on - there was something special about it.

His doll had a fantastic body, even if her preference was to hide it. But that was just it - dolls didn’t have preferences.

She took his breath away when he answered the door, even with a look of puzzlement on her face. But then she stepped over the threshold, habit as much as anything driving her forwards, and he saw the puzzlement wipe itself away alongside every other trace of thought or personality, the expression suddenly placid and blank.

Long before they’d resurrected their one-time hypnotic game, Chantal had remarked to Wayne that she thought she had a real advantage in her career. He’d assumed she meant her long legs, or the delicious ripe roundness of her ass, or the contours of her lips, or even the pertness of her tits.

Instead she’d said, by way of explanation, “If you’ve got resting bitch face you need to spend the shoot on high alert for that. Same with resting bimbo face, although less so, but you don’t want to look like a dumbass in case you can’t get a smart shoot again. But I just look like I’m low-key enjoying myself if I’m not paying attention.”

Wayne would never have thought of that, but her words came back to him as he watched her expression settle into the trance space she found within the doll state. “I have arrived to prepare dinner, Master,” she monotoned, and he grinned.

He’d known it was coming, of course. He couldn’t imagine this would have met more resistance than the cosplay suggestions seemed to have, and if she’d suck his cock or let him bend her over the sofa so he could fuck her while he trawled YouTube, there was no sense of outrage to fuel a resistance.

So he’d had no doubt that she’d follow her programming and arrive to cook for him. It was still nice to have it confirmed, nice to run his hand over the lycra covering her chest and feel the flimsy bra and the heat of her breast beneath, knowing what was coming.

He was looking forward to discovering how good a cook she was - she said she was pretty good, but in Wayne’s experience most people who didn’t just hate being in the kitchen did, and that didn’t mean all of them were right - but there were things he had to do first. “Bra and panties,” he said, turning and walking back out of the hallway.

Her voice followed him, an emotionless monotone with perhaps a hint of urgency. “Yes, Master.” By the time she joined him in the living room she wore only her lingerie, carried the bag in which, presumably, the ingredients for his dinner had been brought.

As useful as that bag was, it slightly spoiled the visual. In future he’d arrange for her to have the groceries delivered here for her to take care of once she arrived.

All the same he was grinning. “New doll time,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she answered. He gestured to the coffee table, where he’d laid it out.

“This outfit is accompanied by lingerie,” he said. “The items you are wearing are acceptable.”

“Yes, Master,” she said as she moved forward. “Thank you, Master.”

He’d found a very short black skirt with white lace trim and white leather belt in her size, so he’d ordered that. It was accompanied by wide-mesh fishnet tights, the gaps in the net wide enough that he was confident he could fit his cock through when she provided him with enough temptation. Above the hips, she had a button-up black top that clung to her curves but didn’t extend far below them, with puffy silk shoulders, and a white lace confection on a hairband. There were no shoes; he quite liked the idea of keeping her barefoot, or barefoot aside from the tights.

“These accessories are for Maid Doll,” he told her, once she had put on the new clothes.

“These accessories are for Maid Doll, Master,” she answered.

“Maid Doll fucks, sucks, cleans and cooks.”

“Maid Doll fucks, sucks, cleans and cooks, Master.”

“Maid Doll serves food to her Master once it is ready.”

“Maid Doll serves food to you once it is ready, Master.”

“Maid Doll cleans up afterwards.”

“Maid Doll cleans up afterwards, Master.”

“Maid Doll keeps her Master happy.”

“Maid Doll keeps you happy, Master.”

“Maid Doll has high standards.”

“Maid Doll has high standards, Master.”

“Maid Doll keeps her Master’s home clean and friendly.”

“Maid Doll keeps your home clean and friendly, Master.”

Wayne snapped his fingers. Chantal closed her eyes and opened them, immediately, just one blink. Colour and vivacity flooded back into her face. “Good evening, Master,” she said, smiling warmly at him. “Are you happy?”

He reached out and rested a hand on the warm, soft bare skin of her cleavage. Chantal’s eyes flickered downward to see what he was doing, then up to see his response, but she never stopped smiling, and it never stopped looking completely genuine. After a moment he cupped one breast and squeezed, his eyes on hers, and her smile was just as warm as before.

“Oh, yes,” he grinned. “You couldn’t tell?”

“I will learn to, Master,” she assured him, bobbing at the knees and waist in something like a curtsey. “I want to know how to anticipate all your needs. In time I’m sure I will.” She looked around herself as if seeing the apartment for the first time. “Your kitchen is in there?” she asked, pointing.

Wayne nodded. “I will get myself set up, then,” Chantal told him. “Please do not trouble yourself to explain where things are. I will determine that for myself while you enjoy your home.” There might have been a fractional pause before ‘enjoy’ while she chose her words, but also there might not have been; any difference from the steady cadence of her words was almost imperceptible, but then the cadence was so steady that imperfections registered as doubt.

The tone was as flat as the syllables were steady, but the voice itself was cheerful in ways her entranced drone could never be. Still, it was definitely the speech of a doll, not of a human. And all the sexier for that.

Wayne settled back in on the sofa and turned his TV on. After sitting there deliberating for a while, he booted up the PS5 for the first time in weeks.

Free time which wasn’t all going into his dollmaking project… it felt like he hadn’t had any in a long time. Even movie night had been lost to the project. Not that it wasn’t a valuable project, but it was good to realise he was far enough along now to reap the rewards.

The sound of bustle and activity filtered through from the kitchen; pans settling onto hobs, cupboards being opened and closed, running water. He didn’t figure he’d be missing too much that she’d want, if anything at all, and he’d always kept the place tidy enough if not spotless, but he did think she might find the way things were organised a little frustrating, if only because they weren’t really organised at all.

Playing with his doll was the best. It was only a shame it had taken him so long to start.

In due time, Chantal walked back into the living room, still smiling. A small patch of white flour adhered to one cheek adorably. She was carrying a tray he’d entirely forgotten he had, on which rested a bowl of pasta, a fork, and one of his wine glasses filled with white wine.

She stopped by the sofa, holding her bounty near him, and waited while he found a good place to hit pause.

Wayne looked up at her and Chantal bent forward at the waist to set the tray down on the coffee table in front of him. “I hope it will be to your liking, Master,” she said as she continued to hold that position.

Wayne reached out and ran a hand up her thigh, slipping it under her skirt and tracing the curve of her ass, before brushing it over her hip and up to grope both breasts in turn, his controller in his other hand. Chantal didn’t move, didn’t shy away from his touch, didn’t so much as twitch. Nor did her eyes register anything or her smile so much as wobble.

She was a doll, so everything about her remained unchanging unless he chose to play with it.

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy it,” he said, finally, letting go of her.

Chantal straightened back up. “I will leave you to it,” she said, and there was a moment’s hesitation before she completed the statement by adding “Master.” Wayne realised only belatedly that she had been waiting to see if he’d say anything.

Then she turned and walked back into the kitchen, back straight, hands resting just below and behind her hips as they had been when she fell into doll pose the previous night. Wayne watched her go, taking a sip from his freshly delivered glass of wine, and turned back to pick up the bowl and try the dinner she’d made him once he heard the sounds of activity in the kitchen.

She was cleaning up. If he’d thought about it with a little more application, he realised, he could have predicted that.

Trying his first forkful he smiled. It was delicious; not quite as good as the cheap Italian place tucked away just across the road from his campus’ main parking lot, but he suspected she’d get better.

This was going to go well, he thought.

“Chantal?” he called.

“Yes, Master?” she asked, reappearing in the doorway of the kitchen hurriedly. Her outfit remained unchanged, though she was now also holding a dishcloth in one hand.

Wayne had only spoken to test how she’d react. “Nothing,” he said.

“Very good, Master,” she said, and turned back away.

The way she was phrasing things wasn’t Chantal at all, he thought, and almost immediately afterwards it clicked; the accent wasn’t there but the sort of sentiments she was voicing would have been at home in the mouths of Downton Abbey characters. Chantal must have drawn that world in through the word ‘maid’, he thought.

He resolved to test her with a much wider variety of doll outfits, as well as the cosplays, and see what new things would emerge from each.

For the time being he enjoyed the meal that had been made for him, drank his wine, and thought about possibilities for the future. When he finished the bowl and set it down, he unpaused his game, and mere moments later, Chantal appeared in the doorway again.

She walked forward smoothly, still smiling, and gathered up the tray and bowl. “Will there be anything else, Master?” she asked.

Wayne, who had already decided how he’d tackle just this situation if it arose, grinned and began to unbuckle his belt. “Well,” he said, “since you mention it…”

The light in Chantal’s eyes went out, leaving a glassy stare above her doll smile. “Yes, Master,” she said simply, sinking to her knees. She set tray and bowl on the floor either side of herself, staying stationary for a moment longer afterwards, and then leaned forward, raising both hands, taking even the need to undo his own belt from him so he could better relax into it.

When he carried on playing as her head pistoned up and down on his shaft beneath him, her eyes still gazed up at him glassily, not minding in the least that he was doing two things he enjoyed instead of focusing on just one. If it would make him happy, he knew, it was alright with her.

*

Chantal drove over for the next movie night with a smile on her lips. She hadn’t remembered a single movie they’d watched for weeks. It didn’t matter. She felt lighter after each one, as if some part of her that weighed her down had been done away with.

And in any case, if she wasn’t going over there she knew exactly how she’d spend the evening, because it had been the same any time she wasn’t at the gym, on a shoot, sleeping, or at Wayne’s to make his dinner for the past week; she would have been standing in her living room, hands at her side, and time would pass without her noticing until it was time for her to do one of the other things again.

If she wasn’t going to remember what she did, it was probably better that happen when someone else was around.

Fleetingly Chantal wondered if she should be concerned about those moments of absence, but the thought flitted through her mind without connecting with anything and was gone, forgotten, as it had been every time she’d driven over to cook for him that week.

As she walked through the door she was struck by how neat and tidy Wayne’s apartment was. He’d clearly been -

*

Wayne stepped back and let Chantal into his apartment again. Another different pair of leggings, this time paired with a matching sports bra being worn as her only top. It was fair to say this was an outfit you’d have to have paid her if you wanted her to wear it in the past.

She stepped over the threshold and stopped moving. It wouldn’t have been fair to say that she froze; it was more like seeing someone hit pause on a video of her walking, except that Wayne could reach out and touch her.

“I’m ready to be programmed, Master,” she monotoned.

He closed the door behind her, wondering idly what one of his neighbours would think if they’d overhead that sentence. Nothing they’d be willing to confront him over, he guessed. It just said kink, not brainwashing, unless you knew. “Go and get set up,” he directed.

“Yes, Master.” It wasn’t quite as if the video of her motion had been unpaused, if only because the way she walked had completely changed; the slight rounding of her shoulders was gone, her back was immaculately straight, her stride longer. Her walk was efficient rather than graceful.

He enjoyed watching her walk more like this.

He followed her through. He’d spent the morning moving furniture around, so the room had changed, but he had no doubt Chantal would still be able to set herself up; he knew she was still taking in her app training at home every night, and he’d given very precise instructions the night before.

The sofa had been pushed back against the back wall and his old armchair occupied half of the space in front of the coffee table where it had been. Beside it was a spare quilt, folded into a small square and laid on the ground.

Chantal made her way directly over to this, then stripped off her sports bra, and wriggled free of her leggings, pulling them off over her footwear until she wore only her socks and sneakers.

Lying on the table was a pleated short skirt in bright yellow with dark blue trim, which she fastened into place around her hips, and above that another yellow top, with a big block letter C in dark blue over the chest. The top itself had been modified with a deep slash down the front; the loose fabric gave Chantal a little modesty, but if she were to move quickly, everything would certainly be on display.

Lastly she drew her hair up into two bunches, one of which was fastened with a yellow scrunchie, the other with a dark blue one.

Then she knelt down on the quilt, placing herself so that her feet and buttocks would be a few inches forwards of Wayne as he sat in the chair, and she reached behind herself, clasping her wrist in the small of her back.

Wayne smiled as he walked back into the room. The big screen was already on; he’d been idly rewatching the 1990s X-Men cartoon that afternoon, and in fact had been kicking around the idea of putting Chantal onto a Rogue cosplay after she had the Sailor Mercury one ready.

He was going to watch a little more this evening, too.

Lying on the coffee table, having previously been covered by the cheerleader outfit (for Cheer Slut Doll, which he’d introduced her to during his meal a couple of nights earlier) were his other recent purchases. He picked up the VR headset and settled it into place around her head. “Do you see white?”

“Yes, Master.”

He picked up the headphones and put them in place, too, then set playback to begin and settled back into his chair, stroking her hair as he watched his own cartoon.

Moments later, Chantal began to speak. “I am ready to be programmed, Master.

“I am a doll. Dolls obey their Master.

“I obey you, Master.

“I am a doll. Dolls are the property of their Master.

“I am your property, Master.

“I am a doll. Dolls cannot own property.

“I cannot own property, Master.

“I am a doll. All the property the world thinks belongs to a doll is owned by their Master.

“All the property the world thinks belongs to me is owned by you, Master.

“I am a doll. Dolls never need to have thoughts of their own…”