“That… I won’t lie,” Liv said slowly, “that scares me.”

Susan laughed shortly. “Perhaps that puts me one up on you, then?”

“Well,” Liv said, “one of us is definitely doing better than the other.

“I didn’t even realise the podcast was having an effect on me until yesterday.”

Susan sat forward at her desk. “What changed?” she asked, suddenly much more interested.

“I shared the podcast with some of my friends. When we came to discuss it, we… discovered that one of us didn’t have quite the same experience as the others. She couldn’t keep up with some of the words used.

“So we asked her, and, well, we didn’t remember the words coming up, except we sort of did…”

Susan nodded. “You couldn’t talk much about what happened in episodes after the first few months, either, could you?”

“No. It’s like… I know I’ve been listening to this wonderful, layered drama, with tight plotting and beautiful characterisation, but after the early parts, the ones that got me hooked, I can’t actually call to mind any specifics.” Liv shifted slightly. “But the only reason I know that is that I tried to have a conversation about it and I couldn’t.”

“Like you’ve been drawn into an illusion, without ever knowing it was an illusion,” Susan said. “Except there’s a path to follow, and you’ve been following it for so long you’re not sure there’s any way out but the path itself.”

“How long have you known?” Liv’s voice was barely above a whisper. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Didn’t want to face the reality when the illusion still felt so very real.

“I didn’t,” Susan said. “Not until this conversation started. Or… or maybe I’ve known for weeks. One or the other. Or both.”

Liv looked at Susan for a long moment, wondering how to take that. Susan shrugged.

“This isn’t something I can explain,” she told Liv. “Really. It’s not. I don’t know what happened or why I feel like this or why I think the way I think. But I’m aware…” She fell silent, considering her words. “I’m aware that I don’t think the way I used to,” she said. “Put another way, I’m aware I’m changing. I’m just not altogether sure what those changes are or how they manifest. Actually - what was it that gave me away?”

“You’ve changed how you dress.”

Susan looked down at herself. Stood. Turned around like she was showing off. “What do you mean? I need you to be specific here.”

Liv considered a few more polite ways to put it before eventually going with “Honestly, right now, you look sluttier than I’ve ever seen you.”

She watched her boss blink in confusion, several times, before eventually saying “See, this is what I mean. I wouldn’t have guessed I was sluttier in a million years.” Her voice slipped into a rhythmic, rehearsed-sounding cadence as she continued, “I feel like my mouth’s always watering for cock, tit, or pussy, and always has been.” Another blink, and the rehearsed impression was gone. “Isn’t that true?”

“…Not at all,” Liv said feebly. “At least, if it is you’ve done a much better job hiding it before today.”

“Huh,” Susan said thoughtfully, looking off into the distance. “Never in a million years would I have said the change was that I’d become a docile slut in need of an owner.”

To say the least, Liv wasn’t at all sure how to answer that. Especially as her boss’ speech had slipped into that strange, recorded-soundbite style again.

“Uhhh…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Docile was one of the words my friend noted, as a matter of fact.”

Susan flushed. “Okay… so you think that I’ve been changed to think I’m a docile slut?”

“I think…” Liv squirmed in her chair, grinding her thighs together, suddenly very conscious of those words, and of how good they felt in her head, how right they felt, how lovely a fit they were and how marvellous everything would be if every one of her thoughts felt that good and fitted that well into her mind. “I think… um… I think you’ve been changed to think you’re a docile slut like I am.”

Susan frowned. “You’re hardly docile. And you’re not a slut.”

Liv was firmly offended by that. She was absolutely a docile slut. She had an owner, even; she just didn’t know who owned her. She was really looking forward to finding out; it had the potential to be very, very satisfying.

Still, Susan was obviously unsettled and uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be fair to take it out on her. She swallowed down her offence and said “Well if it comes to that, why are you so sure you don’t have an owner?”

“I’m not.” Susan blinked a few times, and Liv could see her thinking about the idea, finding a way to make it work for her. “What I said was, I need an owner. And my owner, whoever they are… they’re not making use of their property.” She bit her lip and trailed off.

There was a glint in her eye, full of mischief, and Liv felt a tingle down her spine. “Property?” she squeaked.

“See, this is what I mean. You’re not a docile slut or you’d know having an owner makes you property.”

*

Headphones on, podcast playing, Karin was sweeping the stage at work, and was having a wonderful time. She was so glad she’d shopped before work; the tight black hotpants over dark, sheer tights and high heels seemed to make her almost dance as she moved, and she was conscious only of the Voice and the way the toy her pants almost but not quite fully concealed felt within her pussy.

Dancing made it feel so good; it would also show off her body, if her Master was watching it. She’d learned from Lola just how much Master loved to watch people perform for him, show off their bodies for him, give into their programmed desires for him.

“Sometimes,” Lola had said, “the best use your pussy can be for him is when you’re helplessly ploughing yourself, three fingers deep, and he watches and smirks and occasionally you hear these, these hungry noises from him, and you know your agreement with him is worth everything.”

Karin had quailed at that a little. She wasn’t the person who got up and performed, she wanted to point out; she was quite literally a backstage person. Unfortunately she really couldn’t argue with Lola’s retort, which was, simply, that if her Master wanted her to perform, who was Karin to question that?

The answer, of course, was that her Master owned her, that she was his property, and that she would serve him without question. She’d thanked Lola for pointing out how she should really consider the question.

Hence the new attitude, the new look, the performative, sexualised approach to her own motion and appearance she was training herself into. Master was away, but he would be back in town soon, and Lola felt confident Karin would be summoned not long afterward. She only had so long to get herself ready, and in Karin’s mind there were two aspects to that.

She had to prepare herself to be used by someone with a greater sex drive than her own - it wasn’t her choice, after all - and so she had added the toy to her outfit. She also had to be used to presenting herself, to performing, to showing her body off.

The people she worked with were not her Master. They didn’t deserve the show in the way that he did. On the other hand, she needed the practice, and Master had not explicitly forbidden her from showing off to anyone else.

If her co-workers got the wrong idea, or even if they started to gossip and speculate, that wasn’t any kind of concern for Karin. Karin only had two concerns; measuring up to what Lola had accidentally, while gossipping, made clear were high standards her Master required of his attendants, and Osana.

She was fairly confident that Liv would become her Master’s in time, if she hadn’t already; if Karin hadn’t known Lola to call her, after all, she wouldn’t have moved ahead of her friend in the descent into acceptance. She’d probably be catching up - Karin was sure she was more devoted to the podcast than Liv, and would consume more episodes in a waking day - but Liv had the lead by some way.

Osana, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling the Voice’s full effect every time she listened. It seemed to Karin very possible that the addictive qualities of the podcast might keep her listening, but without Osana ever binding herself to her Master by agreement. And if that were so, then eventually Osana might understand everything that was happening.

Karin couldn’t understand why, but she understood dimly that people not bound to her Master might consider what her Master did to be wrong. These people were, of course, fools; Master was always right, and in any dispute between Karin and Master, he always would be. In any dispute he might have with others, too, even if they couldn’t understand.

But just because Master was a visionary who had come to understand the value of binding women to agreements that made them his property, that made them his eager, docile sluts, didn’t mean the world was ready for his understanding.

Osana was a vulnerability, and Karin’s mind, when she could think through the pleasure of her submission, her ownership, and her toy, kept turning back to finding a solution.

*

Karin was right in at least some of her speculation; Osana was listening to the podcast more and more, drawn back to it over and over. Yet still, five or six times an episode, something would be said - usually by the Voice - that she couldn’t understand from context, and each time it was a jolt far more severe than she usually experienced.

It wasn’t like just being unable to understand one sentence; Lord knew, Osana could nod and smile and by two sentences later she’d have a clear enough sense of what was happening, even if there was a word she still didn’t feel confident she understood.

No, when the Voice said ‘susceptible’ it felt like she’d been jolted out of a sound sleep and a wonderful dream. A complete shift from unaware to aware, from blissful to ill at ease.

Of course, if there was much more podcast to listen to, Osana found herself back ‘asleep’, listening to the voices and the rhythms and to about half of what they said. It was the other half that didn’t sit right.

Osana was pretty sure she shouldn’t be listening to it. She’d told herself firmly, several times, that she wasn’t going to listen to it anymore, was going to fight back against the strange hold it had on her.

She was worried now that she’d begun to dream about it. She’d wake up for real, in the morning, smiling in that way she did when the Voice was echoing through her.

But when she told herself she was not going to listen anymore, her determination would last for a while, but two or three hours later - four at the outside - she would find herself opening the next episode on her phone. A reflex, a piece of muscle memory, that she had developed in under two weeks and that did not want to go away.

Frustrating, she thought, that there were so few people in her life she could discuss this with that were not already listening - and she couldn’t involve those who were already listening.

*

Liv and Susan had forgotten their jobs entirely in the ongoing argument regarding their status as docile slut, property, or otherwise.

“…if you’re right,” Susan said at last, “and I wasn’t always a docile slut-”

“Which you weren’t.”

“-which I’m entertaining just for a moment, even though it’s not true,” her boss returned coolly, “then it follows that this is somehow to do with the podcast.”

“Right.” Liv nodded eagerly. That was what she’d been saying, wasn’t it? It was surprisingly hard to remember. The more they talked about the people they really were, the people they had to keep hidden from their co-workers, the people that until just now they had kept hidden from one another.

Liv had forgotten entirely that she had entered Susan’s office to confess her fears. She’d forgotten her fears. It was so nice to speak to someone else who had embraced the same dark desires as openly and as thoroughly as Liv had; who was as eager to put them into practice as she was.

Liv was always amazed that the world saw her as so sexless. She’d had very few partners, true, but she was owned property that had not yet been claimed; it wouldn’t exactly be respectful of her to push her desires beyond the small privileges her owner graciously extended, would it?

Liv had even forgotten that Susan’s more revealing attitude to work attire today was new. A mind trained to forget anything that contradicted her worldview which could easily and conveniently be overlooked, and to invent explanations she could easily accept in all other circumstances was more than capable of reducing and reinventing itself into - well, into a docile slut, into property, into a needy mess just waiting to be claimed so she could be the slave to another’s desires.

What was perhaps unexpected about this was that the catalyst was a chance to interact with someone else on the same path. Even after the video call where she had performed for her silent, watching owner, she hadn’t changed as much as she had in just the morning and the lunch hour of her day today. But she couldn’t see that; she could only see that this phenomenon very definitely had happened to her boss.

“So… do you think it’s the performers, or the brains?” Susan asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… there isn’t a writer credited on the podcast,” Susan said. “But clearly someone’s writing it. Someone’s making it all happen. And they might be our owner, just as easily as it being a performer.”

“Maybe,” Liv said. She was, privately, none too happy with the idea that she might be owned by someone whose voice wasn’t as delicious as the Voice. But she also wanted to be owned by a great mind, because why else would an intelligent woman become a docile slut, if she weren’t placed under the control of someone who knew better? “I don’t know. All I really know is I want my owner to take me. As soon as possible.”

“God, ain’t that the truth,” Liv muttered. It really did seem unfair that this hadn’t already happened. Both of them were, so far as she could see, thoroughly deserving. Both would, of course, be led by their owner without complaint, and would show him just how eager a pair of sluts could be if given the chance. “If I could speed up him-”

“Or her.”

That was something Liv hadn’t considered. She’d had a sense that her takeover was in some way masculine, but as soon as Susan registered her objection, Liv realised she hadn’t any actual evidence to that effect.

“That would be fine by me,” she said with a smile. “I just want them to claim me. Take me. Let me be their slut.”

Susan tilted her head, looking thoughtfully at Liv. “I have an idea, but HR would hate us for it.”

“So?”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Susan rose from behind her desk in one fluid motion, knowing smile in place. “Be a dear and lock my door.”

Liv was already blushing as she turned to do so.

By the time she turned back around, Susan was already topless, her smile even wider. She was propping her phone up against her open laptop, checking where it would show.

“Just for the sake of argument,” she said, “Let’s assume our owner has reviewed us individually and hasn’t been moved yet to collect either of us.”

“Right.”

Susan extended one slender arm, crooked a finger to beckon Liv in, and to her total surprise Liv followed directions. “Do you think he could possibly withstand the performance two of his most devoted sluts could put on together?”

Liv grinned, shedding her own jacket and turning to her blouse. “I’d guess not…”

*

Osana was listening again when her phone chimed with a text message. She picked it up, tapped a button, read the alert on the lock screen: Your Pizza has been prepared and is out for delivery.

She didn’t remember ordering a pizza, but she’d been listening to the podcast for a long time, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to her at that moment that she might have done so and forgotten. When she was really listening closely, eating sort of fell by the wayside. Perhaps she’d just tried to counter that?

When the doorbell rang, she started out of the stupor in which she listened, rose, and went to answer her door, expecting a pizza.

What actually met her at the door was her friend Karin and another woman; tall, slim, piercing grey eyes with hair a mass of curly brown ringlets. Osana had only a few moments to recognise this and wonder what was happening before Karin stepped forward, clamping one hand around Osana’s arm, covering her mouth with another, and then just kept walking forwards, forcing Osana backward.

Her friend did more heavy lifting at work than any of the rest of them, but her body always looked soft. Only now did Osana really appreciate how much muscle there was beneath that flesh; Karin could move her around, it turned out, like she was nothing. The other woman entered behind her, closing and locking Osana’s front door.

A rising tide of fear built up in Osana.

“I promise you’ll thank us soon,” Karin murmured in her ear. She was shifting her position, keeping her grip on Osana’s arm but moving behind her, an arm across her shoulders, over her throat, holding her close.

The other woman was in front of her, and when she spoke she spoke with the voice of one of the podcast characters. On the verge of a scream, Osana was shocked into silence. “Poor Osana,” she said. “So close and yet so far. Have you wondered what’s happening?” Her voice was a purr, those incredible clear eyes locked on Osana’s, and Osana’s in turn seemed drawn to them, pulled there by some strange magnetic attraction. “Have you wondered what you’ve been listening to?”

She couldn’t move her head much under Karin’s restraint, but she found her head bobbing gently up and down in a nod all the same. She should be struggling more than she was, she should be ordering these people from her house, she should be doing all manner of things. But despite the adrenaline in her system, her mind refused to take the last step needed for that to happen and act. The self-preservation instinct, the drive to act, just seemed to have short-circuited partway along the line.

“Are you wondering why we’re behaving the way we are?” the woman continued. “Wondering why your friend doesn’t seem like your friend?”

Osana couldn’t look away. Couldn’t close her eyes. Her mouth opened to answer, but closed again with a noise that was half-sigh, half-moan.

“Are you wondering why you’re not fighting this?”

Osana’s struggles seemed to strop entirely, and she wasn’t sure why. Karin stopped restraining her arm; the hand freed up by this instead disappeared under Osana’s tee, fingers trailing up her belly toward her bra. She bit her lip for a moment, but her lips parted again with another soft mewl of exhalation, her eyes still locked on the other woman.

Karin’s hand found her breast and Osana went from making noises she could tell herself weren’t moans to a needy, whimpering moan that just went on and on, almost softly enough to ignore.

“No,” the woman said. “You’re not wondering anything. You’re not thinking at all.”

Osana…

Osana listened.

If anything else was happening in her head, she was unaware of it.

Karin’s touch was suddenly just wonderful. There was no conflict to her feelings, as there had been just moments ago. Fear itself seemed to dissipate now she was incapable of understanding where it should come from. There were fingers on her nipples, captivating eyes in her field of vision (indeed, Osana could see precious little else), and a soothing voice in her ear, and behind it all, from her phone speakers, she could still hear the Voice talking. Her eyelids fluttered.

“You’re just serving. You don’t know why. You only know you must serve.”

God, this woman’s voice was almost as good as the Voice. It helped that this woman was doing nothing but saying the truth…

“You know the deal,” she continued. “You may not be sure of some words, but you know the deal. Don’t you?”

Osana tried to answer but she could only moan. Karin put her foot at the back of Osana’s knee and gently drove her down to a kneeling position, took one hand from around her neck and took a handful of her hair instead, pulling Osana’s head back to continue to meet the other woman’s eyes. She felt in that moment so completely, so perfectly controlled.

She tried to answer again, and it came out as a sibilant prayer. “Yessss…”

“Does my Master have a deal?”

It would involve surrender, and service. It would involve pleasure, and submission, and it would involve duty, and it would involve all those words she didn’t understand.

“Yessss,” she agreed, without even knowing why.

Karin and Lola exchanged smiles. The security risk was gone. Karin released Osana’s hair and watched her fall forward, on all fours now rather than simply kneeling, face to face with Lola’s shoes.

She began to kiss them, lick them, whimpering, moaning, a ball of eager need that could not be satisfied…