Miss Li was seated cross-legged on the dojo’s matting, her jaw slack, her eyes on Lewis’ finger, her mind having just slipped down into trance. The rest of the students were not long gone; Lewis had taken long enough to shower and changed, while Miss Li, devotedly following her training, had settled down cross-legged to wait.

Lewis enjoyed the expression on her face, but he knew she could be looking even better. He reached forward and undid her belt, then drew it out from around her waist and set it by, close to hand, where it could be most useful. His fingers deftly drew her gi open, and he grinned when he saw the weighted clamps were in place as always for her lessons; how could she execute a truly perfect throw without their weight adjustments, after all?

Her programming was all settling in so well now.

“No power,” he prompted.

“No power,” Miss Li echoed. “No control. No choice.” She was silent for a moment, during which Lewis, watching the weighted clamps, saw them both rise as she drew in breath to continue. “No power. No control. No choice.”

“Your mantra echoes through you,” he said, speaking over her continuing repetitions. “While you recite it, it is the only thing in your head other than my words. You have no power, so you have no control. And therefore you have no choice.”

“-power. No control. No choice. Yes, Master Lewis.” A pause. “No power. No control. No choice.”

He flicked the side of one clamp; the rhythm and cadence of her mantra did not change, though one ‘no’ was substantially higher pitched than the rest of her monotone.

“You love to be hypnotised, don’t you?”

It was an actual question, and that superceded her recitation. She stopped her mantra to intone “Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You want to spend more of your time hypnotised.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

He had so many new rules, new desires, all locked off from her conscious self. He had trained other behaviours into her until she considered them completely normal. It was easier to experiment, still, when she was hypnotised; he had allowed her to persuade herself how futile it was to resist hypnotic suggestion. The steps he went to, each time she was under, to demonstrate who had the power all flowed into her mantra to render her powerless against his suggestions.

“I am going to give you a new trigger,” he said. “It will ensure you spend more time hypnotised. You will bury all details of this trigger and its effects from your conscious self.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

One day, he thought, when he was absolutely certain he’d trained her range of reaction to be so small and predictable that it would be completely safe, he was going to tell her hypnotised self to reveal everything it had hidden to her conscious mind. He’d take pleasure in watching her sense of herself crumble, watch her learn what kind of slut she’d become.

But that wouldn’t be for a long time. As well as everything he dreamed up because he wanted to see her perform it, he had so many other ideas for experiments in hypnosis, and no other subject with whom he had carte blanche to try whatever he wanted.

“After each lesson I give you here that follows a lesson you give the class,” he told her, “I will eventually take out my cock and hold it in front of you, and you will find you fixate on it; that it has the same hypnotic fascination and effect on you as my moving finger, except that it also arouses you deeply.” He paused. “This is in addition to the arousal you feel simply for being hypnotised.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“When I touch the tip of my cock to your forehead, this new trigger I have mentioned will activate. I will state a day, a time, and a location. Your subconscious will arrange for you to be at that place, at that time, on that day. You will not allow your conscious self to know the real reason you are there. Your conscious self will be surprised to encounter me there. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” That slack-jawed mouth, settled usually into a casual, floppy o, had begun instead to be a dreamy, drooling smile once he’d mentioned his cock against her forehead. He made a mental note to step up his use of physical contact as aphrodisiac in his other suggestions.

“What a good student you can be, when you remember it’s your duty.” He smirked. “Of course, we have more to do here before I give you that trigger for the first time.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Put your hands on the mat, behind you.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” She reached behind her and placed her hands flat on the mat, palms down.

Miss Li always made a big song-and-dance to the class of how important it was, not just to stretch and warm up before class, but to structure your exercises so that you retained peak flexibility. Once Lewis had dreamed this idea up the night before, speculating on what to have her do next, it was all too obvious that the next step should be to test her own flexibility.

“Remaining in this position, raise your left leg so that your calf is behind your head and your knee above your shoulder.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” Still gazing emptily ahead, she did so with a maximum of fluid motion and a minimum of awkward repositioning. He took a moment to guide her ponytail out from under her leg, keeping it easily available.

“Now repeat that action with your right leg.

“Yes, Master Lewis.” She obeyed without question. Lewis again rescued her ponytail, laying it over her crossed ankles. Then, taking up her belt, he looped her hair and the belt around both calves and tied the belt and hair together, tight enough to prevent her from parting her calves, loose enough to not rip her scalp unless she had to.

“Our exercise tonight is not how many times you can cum in a timed burst,” he told her. “Instead, you will please me by showing how long you can prevent yourself from cumming.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” Was there a hint of sorrow to that monotone? No matter.

He went in search of her gym bag. Just as he’d instructed, she’d put a sizable wand inside the bag, and had doubtless then forgotten its existence.

He plugged it in, rested the wand against the spread crotch of her pants, and turned it on.

Her mouth went from the slack o of a deep hypnotic trance to the broad, open O of a woman silently overwhelmed by pleasure while deep in hypnotic trance. Lewis took out his phone and began to record…

*

At the end of every private lesson, Lewis would take out his cock and watch for her eyes, tracking the tip of his cock, to roll back in her head; this took less and less time with each repetition. He would then instruct her on their upcoming rendezvous and would walk away, leaving Miss Li seated, prone, or kneeling, eyes rolled back, unseeing and unthinking, until ten or fifteen minutes had passed and her mind allowed her back up from trance.

Meet someone once a week in different places and they will grow accustomed to your presence in their life; if the meeting places seem unlikely, they may become nervous around you, wondering how you always know. They will stop being surprised. But if they are acting under a hypnotic compulsion to forget an assigned meeting place, to construct their own reason to be there at that time in their subconscious, and to wait there until they meet you, you can just as easily instruct them to be surprised by your presence.

It will, in fact, just add up to another test of what you can do - and another proof of just how deeply under your control they’ve sunk.

Almost every meeting finished up back at the dojo (after all, Miss Li was always more than willing to be hypnotised again, and it was a private space), and almost every meeting ended with him taking a video of Miss Li.

He was surprised, three or four weeks into the process, to happen upon her dressed much more smartly than she usually was when wandering into whatever public rendezvous would end with her helplessly following his suggestions. The pantsuit she’d chosen hugged her hips and accentuated her ass and her breasts; the blouse beneath was buttoned so low as to show off her cleavage more than Miss Li seemed to like.

(He had learned over the last few weeks that, when left to her own devices, she dressed down or even dowdily; she seemed to prefer to blend into the crowd. He’d made a note to change that at some point, but up until that day he’d had no particular plans on when.)

She was even wearing makeup.

Still, that didn’t change anything; he picked an intercept course through the few people also browsing old vinyl in the early evening and approached her from the side.

“Miss Li?” he asked. She jumped, turned to face him, and put her hand over her heart.

“Lewis,” she said. “Good heavens, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I could say the same about you,” he said. She had an odd attitude to him tonight; just as conditionedly fond as ever, but she was still regarding him with uncertainty. His eye contact was mostly with her cleavage, but he was pretty sure the work he’d already done on her should override that. “You’re looking very fancy for someone out record shopping.”

She blushed. Lewis always found himself hard when she blushed; it usually meant he was pushing her beyond a new limit. Couldn’t be that in this instance, of course. “I’m honestly not sure coming here was a good idea,” she confessed, and Lewis was again glad he’d spend the time indoctrinating her into total honesty with him. “I’ve only got about half an hour before a date.” A shrug. “I just figured I could kill a bit of time and find something fun first, but…”

Somehow, the idea she might be planning something special with her partner hadn’t occurred to him. The few times he’d witnessed calls between them, there had been nothing but tension.

Of course, that tension had usually been caused by his overriding her will…

This would be an interesting experiment. “Would you like to be hypnotised?” he asked.

Her lips parted. Her eyes lost some of their focus. “I - I - uhh…”

Lewis frowned. That she was hesitating at all was, he thought, a worrying sign. This lover of hers needed to be solved, especially if her connection to him could become a source of inner strength like this.

“Miss Li,” he said again, “would you like to be hypnotised?”

“I… always…” Her voice had become dreamy and absent, sing-song. “I always want to be hypnotised by you.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I… have a date…”

“But you want to be hypnotised.”

“I… yess…”

“Call your date and tell him you can’t make it,” he said. “You have my permission.”

“I…” Her eyelids fluttered. Lewis waited impatiently for the trigger to take hold. “I can’t,” she said eventually. “I love… he’s important to me.”

This, of course, was not at all what Lewis wanted to hear. Although it was interesting to hear her walk the word ‘love’ back. She was biting her lip, blushing. She didn’t know why she was being so honest with Lewis, clearly; had no idea how many suggestions waited in her head. He had drilled into her how important it was she was always honest with him. Not only could she not lie, she couldn’t hold anything back.

“Who’s more important?” Lewis asked. “Him or me?”

Her blush got deeper, and she looked fully away, not willing to meet his eye at all. “You,” she said quietly. “But I promised him.”

And a promise to him was that strong? Right, Lewis thought. That needs to change. Which just made it all the more important that she drop into a blissful trance for him that night.

He raised a finger in front of her face. Watched her eyes gravitate toward it, settle on it, with a delicious inevitability.

“Please don’t,” she said quietly. “I promised…” Her voice trailed off as he started to stroke the air, just in front of her face, and he knew she’d be feeling his touch on the bridge of her nose, a gentle caress drawing her down, down, ever further down.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

Her lips parted to answer, but she said nothing. She couldn’t; couldn’t choose between wanting to assert herself for her boyfriend and wanting to drop deep. Time, Lewis thought, to tip that balance.

“You always want to be hypnotised by me.” He kept his voice soft, but there was little chance of anyone who might recognise him showing up here; he didn’t need to worry about any scandal following him home.

“I always want to be hypnotised by you.”

He moved his finger closer to her. Watched her unfocusing eyes begin to cross. “Always means always.”

“Always… means… always…”

And that was it; for whatever reason, that was when he put his fingers on the key to this stumbling block. Something in the way she said it told him what other word she needed to accept.

His finger was so close now to the bridge of her nose that her eyes had ceased tracking it; they’d rolled back to the point only the thinnest sliver of iris was visible, and her eyelids fluttered constantly without closing. “You’re always ready to be hypnotised by me.”

Miss Li’s luscious lips parted wider, but she didn’t speak. Lewis wondered if he’d somehow finally pushed her two far for several seconds; then,

“I’m… always… ready to be hypnotised by you.” The last few words came out in a rush, as if once past the final hesitation everything that had held her back was gone at once. As if there was no more sense holding out.

“So are you ready to be hypnotised by me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and her lips moved without sound a few more times, such that Lewis thought she might have mumbled Yes, Master Lewis, so quietly her conscious mind didn’t have to hear it.

She’d caved, so he pushed a little further, just to make sure. “You’ll miss your date while you’re hypnotised.”

“Yes,” she said again, a quiet, small voice rather than her usual tranced monotone.

He turned. “Follow me,” he said. Her head down, she walked behind him, lengthening her stride so her feet rested only where his had already fallen.

*

All the way to the dojo, in the cab ride, Lewis was silent, and therefore so was Miss Li. He couldn’t imagine what their driver must have made of their behaviour, but it wasn’t as if he cared in any case.

What he’d done hadn’t weakened her connection to her boyfriend. It had just created an exception. He couldn’t keep on dreaming up exceptions; far more important to break that connection. He spent the ride going over the hooks he’d already planted in his hypnotised puppet, considering different options for his approach.

He became aware, just a couple of streets from their destination, that a restless Miss Li had pulled her phone out of her bag and was in the process of unlocking it. Perhaps he was jumping to conclusions, but he didn’t think he could risk her sending a message to her partner.

He reached out his hand in front of her, one finger extended, and started to tick his finger back and forth.

In moments her eyes were locked to his finger, her jaw slackening, and with his free hand he plucked the phone from her unresisting grasp. “Forget about your phone until we part,” he instructed.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she answered quietly. He closed his hand into a fist, hiding the finger, and withdrew it as she blinked her way back to awareness.

He left her phone in his hand, but Miss Li’s eyes flicked over it without recognition and she turned back to the window, staring thoughtfully out. Lewis left her to it; whatever she was thinking, he didn’t expect it would change what was happening. He thought he had a pretty good plan.

*

The moment the front door to the building closed behind them, he stepped out in front of her, holding a hand before her face with one finger raised. “Concentrate,” he told her. “See your way down… deep, deep down.” Lewis’ voice was huskier than he’d expected, his own anticipation heightened by the realisation he had work as well as play to do. Somehow that was almost as exciting as the control he already held over her.

Her drop was almost instantaneous. Just as she’d succumbed in moments in the car. So the point her resistance had been founded on was the fact she would otherwise be out on a date; now that was out of the question, she was as willing as ever.

He stepped very close to her. Strange to have her under before him without the aroma of sweat in the air. Her chosen perfume was clean, crisp, floral; it was a completely different side of her to the two he was used to.

Lewis was already rock hard and he wasn’t even sure where he was going to take her yet. He’d just been intending, before the meeting itself, to work on her need to cum for him, but -

He stopped short. That was it; the idea he’d been looking for, crystallising for him immediately before he needed to start putting it into play.

He grinned.

“Do you remember the training exercises I have given you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Do you remember the exercises about cumming?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Name them.”

“I must cum six times in ten minutes without leaving my knees or using toys. I must cum for as long as possible using a single toy. I must show how long I can prevent myself from cumming.”

“Where do you cum harder and louder than anywhere else?”

“Here, Master Lewis.”

“Very good. Have you thought about the common themes of your exercises?”

“No, Master Lewis.” He had expected nothing less.

He undid the button on her suit jacket and slid it back from her shoulders, stepping behind her to draw it down and off her arms. She made no move either to stop or help, but he was delighted to find that the blouse was just very slightly transparent; he ran his hands over her shoulders, the muscles of her arms, the soft swell of her breasts. You’re mine, she thought. You just don’t know it yet.

“Your exercises are designed to do two things. To make you better at cumming, and to teach you how not to cum.”

He let that hang in the air, neither expecting nor receiving any resistance to that.

“Do you know why you cum harder and louder here than anywhere else?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

Which was not the answer he’d expected. “Tell me.”

“Because you are here to make me, Master Lewis.”

He hadn’t seen that coming at all, but he was pretty sure he liked it. “Correct,” he said, just to reinforce the idea for her while he was figuring out what to do about it. “In fact, if I’m present, you will cum just as hard and as loudly wherever you are. You will also cum with more pleasure than if I am not. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“But when your boyfriend is present, you will never cum.”

“I… never?”

He almost expected to see her stir from trance after that reaction, but she didn’t, didn’t seem to think she had the agency to. “You will never cum in your boyfriend’s presence,” he said again. “You have no choice.”

“I have no choice,” she echoed. “I will never cum in my boyfriend’s presence.”

“You won’t even be able to fake it,” he told her. “You have no control.”

“I have no control. I won’t even be able to fake it.”

“You will resent him for this. You have no power.” He undid the buttons of her blouse, pulled it open, drew the tails out from where they were tucked into her skirt. He watched the first hanging drip of drool reach down past her chin toward the upper slopes of her tits.

“I have no power. I will resent him for this.”

He grinned. “No power. No control. No choice.”

“No power. I will resent him. No control. I won’t fake it for him. No choice. I will never cum for him.”

Lewis stepped behind her again and, abruptly, grabbed her by her tits. Squeezed. “But you will cum hard for me. You have no choice.”

“I have no choice. I will cum hard for you.”

“You will cum loud for me. You have no control.”

“I have no control. I will cum loud for you.”

“You love to cum for me. You have no power.”

“I have no power. I love to cum for you.”

Her mantra, as so often, became a way to bind her new programming to her.

“Even without knowing consciously how well you cum for me, you will start to prefer me to him,” he emphasised. “Before long, the only thing holding you back from dumping him will be that you haven’t asked my opinion yet.”

“I prefer you to him,” she responded. “The only thing holding me back from dumping him will be that I haven’t asked your opinion, Master Lewis.”

He released her tits, and she slowly sagged at ankle and knee, a gradual collapse onto her knees.

It was interesting to watch the new behaviour that emerged, the more thoroughly new behaviour patterns overruled the old. Miss Li was starting to form new opinions and new attitudes, all of them arising from her own internal logic trying to stay consistent with her rules.

They were talking about her cumming. He almost always had her cum while kneeling. The rest, it seemed, was only logical.

Lewis stepped in front of her, raised her chin, and smiled. “I’ve rewarded you before by giving your tits the gift of cum,” he said. “But we’re on to a new phase,” a phase I’d never seen coming, though maybe I should have, “and it’s time for new exercises, with more important rewards.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” From time to time, there was an edge to her monotone, barely there, just enough to remind him this was no flesh robot, but instead a living woman whose brain was being extensively changed, washed clean and sculpted into a newer, better form. This time, he definitely heard excitement.

He unzipped his pants, lowered them to his knees. Dropped his boxers, too, letting her eyes settle on his cock, something she was used to now as part of their lessons. He heard her sigh in surrender, saw her shoulders slump, knew the simple sight of his cock had been enough to drop her deeper.

All was as it should be.

“Your new exercises are not about your own cumming. You understand who to cum for and who not to now - don’t you?”

“YesMasterLewis.” It was all one word, all one breathy word, her hypnotised attention transfixed on his cock, her whole being, conscious and subconscious, primed for what came next.

“Now you have to prove you can please me,” he said. “Without leaving your knees, come take my cock in your mouth.” And he took two steps backward, out of her reach, for they were still in the building’s foyer, not in the main dojo room.

She leaned forward so she could crawl on hands and knees, her eyes locked onto his thick, hard cock, and she crawled eagerly, but every time she was almost in reach he would step backward briskly, leading her through the double doors and into the room she now most associated with an empty, obedient headspace.

He suppressed a laugh when one of the double doors, slowly swinging back closed, caught her thigh a resounding thwack, but he had no worries it might shock her out of trance. Not his mesmerised martial artist - and, he realised, now he’d driven a wedge into her mind that would split her off from her partner in time, he did think of her now as his.

He wondered if she did.

He let her catch him only when the doors had fully closed behind her, let her lunge forward, mouth open, and sink herself down his cock until her chin slapped against his balls. She subsided, still on her knees, hands off the mat, not sure where to put them, not sure what to do with anything, and she looked up at him pleadingly.

“Your new training is in cocksucking,” he said. “It’s just as important as all the other training we’ve done. If you can’t suck cock, you’re not a proper martial artist. Understand?”

“Yfff!” She nodded around his shaft, somehow, her tongue excitedly flicking along its underside. Was it his imagination or did her excitement extend as far as her ass wiggling above her knees?

“For your first few lessons, I won’t give restrictions. I have to get a sense of how good you actually are first. So… over the next hour, you’re going to show me how good you are at sucking my cock, and your reward will be the privilege of swallowing my cum.”

Her phone was buzzing in his pocket. It was on vibrate, but it was loud enough that she had to be aware of it. And yet she didn’t seem to be. She’d forgotten it. Just as she’d been told to.

“You can begin,” he said, and as her hands eagerly rose to cup and caress his balls, his eyes widened. Today had showed him there was more, so much more, to Miss Li than he’d imagined.

And she was good; she was so much better than he’d expected. His own stereotypes, maybe, about serious people and martial artists and the assumption they didn’t really have fun, they just stayed concentrated on what they did.

He wanted to ask her about it, but he wanted to ask her conscious self, not the little brain currently active. And besides, who would want to interrupt such an eager, worshipful mouth?

*

Three weeks went by, and Hua Li’s frustrations were only growing, both because she never seemed to feel satisfied and because she couldn’t understand why.

Looked at as objectively as she could, nothing had really changed in the first week or so after their missed date. Sure, there’d been that one blazing argument, in which she’d felt deeply resentful but also curiously unable to defend herself in any way. After that, they’d made up, and in fact she’d done her best to make it up to him; she’d put on the tight, sparkly spandex leggings he liked, worn the lacy top that left nothing to the imagination.

She’d welcomed him into her home, dropped to her knees in the hallway, and blown him there and then. Made a big deal of swallowing his cum. And later, the two of them had gone to bed, where his cock had…

…had…

It was probably unfair to say his cock had failed, but in a way it had. Whatever he was doing wrong, she couldn’t cum. Sex with him was like edging, all of a sudden; but she didn’t want to be edging, she wanted to cum, and he couldn’t make her. Even afterwards, when he was still basking in the afterglow and she’d tiptoed into the bathroom, she found she couldn’t take care of herself. Over the next week, extended if reluctant testing had confirmed that she couldn’t cum if he was in the house.

His presence didn’t switch off her sex drive, but arguably, she thought, that would have been better. She wouldn’t be craving something that he somehow couldn’t give her anymore; that she couldn’t even give herself while he was around.

The more she thought about it, the more she was glad she’d agreed to go along with Lewis to be hypnotised rather than have their date. She found herself sometimes thinking of Lewis as the other man in her life; sure, he was officially just a student, but they had a connection, she felt. She’d known it since she let him start hypnotising her.

There was no logical reason that she’d started comparing the two so often, but she did. That morning, she lay in bed resenting the sullen atmosphere in the house. She’d refused to get up, refused to see her boyfriend off; she was, in fact, just waiting to hear…

There. She listened to him start his car, heard it rev - more angrily than usual, it seemed to her - and listened as he drove away.

She bit her lip. Staring up at the ceiling, she sneaked a hand out to the bedside table, easing open a drawer she had never let him look inside. He wouldn’t understand why a girl with a lover still had toys; would find it an insult.

The rabbit came to hand first and she drew it back under the covers. Closed her eyes. Cast around for a fantasy to enjoy as she pleasured herself.

- Lewis standing over her kneeling form, his cock out, his hand stroking it, her hands folded neatly behind her back, her thighs parted, a practice dummy lying on the floor between her legs as she ground against it, awaiting his cum to spatter over her bare tits-

Her eyes opened wide. Where had THAT come from?

There was so much wrong with it as a fantasy. For one thing, comparing Lewis to her boyfriend didn’t mean she thought of Lewis as a replacement; they’d come into her life in very different ways, they had very different roles in her life. Lewis was a little chubbier than she preferred, and he wasn’t exactly punctual at the best of times - which wasn’t much of a problem to some people, but Hua knew just how annoying she’d find it, not just in dates, but in home life. Her current man wasn’t live-in yet, but someone who wasn’t on time…

Her theory was that someone who was always late to you either didn’t care about you or got off on power plays over you, and that wasn’t anything she wanted in her life.

Which was another issue with that fantasy; it was her as a vessel to get someone else off. That wasn’t who she was. That wasn’t what brought her pleasure.

On top of all that, it was so… detailed. Usually there was a vagueness to a lot of her fantasies, an uncertainty that was filled by imagination. This had been so detailed and so clear throughout that she could almost believe it was a memory, not a fantasy, except that nothing like that had happened, or would happen.

And yet the idea had filled her the moment the tip of her toy slipped inside her. Even as she listed reasons it wasn’t her fantasy to herself, she was awkwardly aware of her hips jerking around the vibrator, the fantasy still playing around the edge of her mind…

She set her jaw firmly. No. This wasn’t going to happen. It was a betrayal of Lewis to bring him into her fantasies, especially fantasies she was only indulging because her stupid boyfriend couldn’t fuck her right.

However horny she was, she would let Lewis be an innocent. She riffled through a mental rolodex. Boy band star? Teenage crush? One of those superhero actors? Yes, that would do. The cheekbones, the body, the charisma…

Tony was standing with her in her dojo, facing her against the combat matting. She struck a pose. He struck one of his own, and beckoned her in with his fingers. She charged, and he hip checked her; she rolled with it, landing on her feet, and caught his arm, going for a throw. Her nipple clamps worked perfectly, keeping her balance flawless. He hit the mat on his back and she sprawled across him, going in for a kiss; he kissed back, and one of his fingers found her forehead, stroking down between her eyes. She felt herself suddenly aroused, and Lewis reached into her gi and stroked the underside of her tit with his free hand. “Aren’t you just what I was looking for?” Lewis purred in her ear as her hands itched for permission to-

When had Tony become Lewis again?

She didn’t want to fuck Lewis.

She knew she didn’t want to fuck Lewis.

Lewis was just someone she’d compared to her boyfriend, and she found she had a curious certainty that orgasm around him would feel better.

That didn’t stop him being otherwise unattractive to her, in personal behaviour and more.

Sometimes, though, the body wanted what the body wanted.

Maybe…

She turned the rabbit up. Moaned.

It was easy to imagine Lewis giving her guidance. Suggesting better ways to act. To be. And that…

Hua Li had no idea why the idea of someone taking charge had burst so quickly into her fantasies. It made sense, though, that if she had to imagine someone taking charge it would be Lewis. Lewis was always right.

At the completion of that thought, the pleasure coursing through her broke through her resistance. She came screaming, collapsing back on the bedclothes covered in sweat, and lay there panting shallowly as she tried to restore order.

Maybe, just maybe someone could make her enjoy power plays. She just had no idea who.

*

Lewis had stayed late at work as appointment after appointment had overrun, and it was a Friday. As combinations go that was easily one of his most hated.

He’d been planning to cook dinner that evening. He planned to cook dinner most Friday nights, now that he spent less time going out and more time making plans for Miss Li. His hit rate for actually following through was a little under fifty percent, and much lower when his work day had been frustrating; Lewis’ self-discipline was not what his friends would probably have wanted it to be, which probably explained a lot about how he’d ended up in the situation with Miss Li that he had.

He decided on pizza. And not good pizza, either; the kind of pizza he’d devoured by the slice while still in college and on a student budget, where much of the flavour came from the grease that exuded out of every bite.

Lewis knew this was far from an ideal diet, and he avoided it most of the time; but there was a certain kind of mood where a combination of irritation at the world, a desire to treat yourself, and nostalgia overrides common sense.

His old favourite pizza joint was long since out of business. There were a few others like it, most of them in the seedier parts of town. Lewis knew he’d stand out there, but didn’t give it much thought. He’d been taking martial arts lessons now for well over a year, after all, and if he hadn’t been a model student for - honestly, in different ways, for most of that time - he still felt like he had enough about him that there wouldn’t be a problem.

He discovered as he was cutting across the local park - which had long since ceased being a safe place to walk if you weren’t already planning on doing something illegal - that his figure wasn’t as intimidating as he’d thought, becoming aware of the threat when a figure pushed itself up from a leaning position against a lamppost ahead to stand in his way. Lewis stopped, cautious now, sizing up his opponent.

There was a clink from behind him, the protracted ringing sound of a glass bottle rolling some distance, and Lewis suddenly realised the man in front of him might not be his only problem.

That took it from a fight he was, now it was facing him, suddenly unsure about to a fight that he didn’t think ht was cowardly to believe he couldn’t win. Taking on two people at once, when either of them might be armed, was a risky business.

The sensible thing to do, if his system hadn’t been flooding him with adrenaline, would have been to try and negotiate his way out for money. What he actually did was probably the second smartest thing, which was to break into a run from a standing start, heading away from the path.

If he’d been a little bit faster, they might not even have bothered giving chase. As it was, he had a few moments’ shocked inaction to build up a lead, and he had all the motivation in the world to keep going.

They didn’t catch him until after he’d pelted past the park gates. Truth be told, he’d actually thought if he got through the gates he’d be safe, but it wasn’t to be.

When he realised he was about to be caught he turned and swung. The first assailant crashed into his fist, going at the kind of speed that meant it was pain for both of them. The second figure, on the other hand, hit him just above the waist in a football tackle. Lewis’ feet actually left the floor and he had to twist to avoid cracking the back of his head off the road.

Not that this helped much; he got a hand up in time to block the first punch, but he was finding now that his muscle memory wasn’t drilled enough to be able to counter out of a takedown. He knew what he was supposed to do; the problem was he needed to have started doing it moments after he hit the ground at the latest, and instead his opponent was now secure.

Plus the other attacker, having staggered around in a circle, was now coming back toward them, at least if the high-volume swearing was anything to go by. It almost drowned out the guy on top of him, although he’d caught something about ‘big mistake’.

There was another voice he could hear, too, someone yelling “Hey!” but it wasn’t like he had the freedom to find out what was going on. He just about saw, behind his attacker, the other guy’s head snap backward after an impact, and then the guy jerked forward again, and Lewis couldn’t see him at all but there was a solid thwack, like someone dropped a giant steak on a huge pan.

The guy raining punches down on Lewis faltered when he heard that and turned his head. Lewis tried to scramble free - that didn’t work, and he caught a nasty blow just above the ear for it - but then there was a sharp cry, not of fear or of pain, a woman’s voice shouting in time with a strike. Lewis found out how effective that strike had been when the pressure pinning him down abruptly let up; his vision blurry and his ears ringing from the last impact, he was only roughly aware of his attacker rising and being sent flying with a throw that was the next best thing to textbook.

His heart was hammering away in his chest. Whoever this was, it would have gone so much worse without them, and now it seemed like he was safe he couldn’t stop thinking about that.

They walked over, holding out a hand. “Are you OK?” they were asking, and as his senses cleared he realised in shock that he knew her voice. “That looked like a nasty situation. You’re lucky I came a - wait.”

Lewis squinted up at Miss Li and accepted her hand, letting her help him to his feet. He didn’t want to wince, but the pain as she helped him upright was visible; he’d landed on his shoulder and it was protesting against use.

“Lewis?” she asked disbelievingly.