A large part of Lewis’ weekend had been spent on the sofa, watching whatever Netflix offered next in his queue, allowing his body the time it needed to stop aching. He was, admittedly, able to distract himself well with the collection of photos and videos he’d taken of Miss Li; when he sauntered into work on Monday he was so cheerful that the receptionists actually remarked on it in the coffee room, where the various therapists never went and where all manner of gossip took place.

The week itself passed without much to comment on; Miss Li did congratulate him on paying more attention and putting in more effort on his form, and he retaliated, in their post-lesson training session, by adding new requirements to her day-to-day fitness regimen. Mostly, however, he spent his time in planning for the future. What else could he do with Miss Li? More importantly, what did he want to do with Miss Li, either to test his own theories or simply for his own enjoyment?

*

The rubber dildos arrived at Miss Li’s address on Thursday. Three of them, all identical; thick, veiny, eight inches tall, and equipped not just with lovingly-sculpted balls but with suction cups; the caption on the box guaranteed they’d stay stuck to a surface “no matter how wet things get”.

She didn’t remember buying them, and was staring at the boxes trying to work out what could possibly explain this when, at the back of her mind, things shifted slightly. Her existing thoughts blurred out of focus, and a chain of events, a sequence of actions she must carry out, clicked into total clarity. The instructions were the only thing she could think about, the only thing she wanted to think about. They were the only thing she could do and the only thing she wanted to do. It was a sudden epiphany, a mental breakthrough, and as so often happened when she experienced something like that, the thoughts seemed to be in Lewis’ voice.

Her eyes were glassy as she picked up the first box and walked into the kitchen. By the time the box was open, her mind was almost completely empty, only the instructions in Lewis’ voice present, and she felt as satisfied and dreamily happy as she often did when he offered to hypnotise her.

She sat down on her favourite chair, judging carefully where her thighs rested, where her buttocks sat most comfortably, and then reached down between her legs, placing three fingers exactly where something should be placed to enter her most easily. There she stuck the dildo to her chair. Instantly her empty head felt all the better, as if marking something off her instructions reduced a pressure and an urgency there.

Her thighs squeezed together, grinding against each other, a pleasure in obedience that she did not realise was obedience.

The box fell from fingers no longer interested in holding it, and Miss Li walked back into the hallway where the other two dildos waited. The world around her seemed sharper, clearer, as if she were focusing harder; again, it reminded her of the sensation of being hypnotised while kneeling before Lewis, except there, she focused on his words and his voice (although, it was impossible for her to notice, she very rarely actually knew what his voice had told her or what his words had been). Here her excess of attention seemed to be on everything else.

She was upstairs before she knew it, both boxes in her hands. She went into her bedroom first, where two nights before, after returning from her hypnosis training with Lewis, she had spent an hour moving her wardrobe three feet to one side, so that the full-length mirror on its front lined up directly with the mirror at her makeup table.

Standing in front of her wardrobe she stripped down, hands moving slowly, until she was naked except for the white slash of her Blank Belt knotted loosely across her flat belly, holding nothing to her except her precious hypnotic susceptibility. She picked one box back up, opened it, and tipped her head back, opening her mouth. Mindlessly, she slid the dildo inside, her gag reflex bound from activation by direct suggestion, her tongue worshipping the toy as it slid in and out until it was well lubricated.

Every time it thrust into her mouth, she felt it pound her pussy too; her moans of pleasure were each muffled by the dildo, choking on her own thrusts. She worked her body with the dildo until she could feel her thighs wet, at which point she withdrew the dildo with a flourish, spread her legs wider, and drove it as deep inside her pussy as she could take.

This done she straightened her legs, locked her knees, bent forward and backed up, shuffling with an awkwardness the opposite of her usual grace, until the suction cup on the dildo was firmly affixed to the wardrobe mirror. She lifted her eyes and saw herself, impaled on a rubber cock and bent over, reflected in the mirror at her makeup table.

Everything was as it should be. She half-walked, half-slumped forward, coming off the dildo with a wet pop that seemed to echo through her near-empty head.

Miss Li only barely understood why she was now smiling. She was two thirds of the way through the instructions she heard in Master Lewis’ voice, her mind was humming in happy harmony, her body moved without needing her mind; everything was exactly as the suggestion she followed wanted.

She enjoyed the slick sensation of wet thigh against wet thigh as she strode with purpose back to the other box, and then into the bathroom. Again she tore the cardstock apart, found the dildo, and repeated the process she’d used in applying it to the mirror, this time bending only halfway as the shower cabinet was a little more confining. All the same, all three dildos were now mounted somewhere they could be easily accessed whenever it was time for her new exercise regimen.

Miss Li ran a shower, only removing her blank belt reluctantly as she stepped inside. In that warm, steamy cabinet, she turned away from the dildo, spread her legs, and thrust herself back onto its waiting length. Standing with feet locked in place, she worked her hips as she washed, riding that welcoming cock substitute, washing her body clean as she sated its needs, cumming twice before she finished up, her head clearing slowly from the trigger-state she had been in as she washed.

She was fully back to her senses for her second orgasm, which her mind now accepted as a natural part of the shower. Why wouldn’t she continue her daily exercises in the shower? That was why the dildos were there; her improved workout needed the fitness tools to take it to the next level.

She finished washing herself clean and stepped out. A towel went around her torso, another around her hair, and as if it were perfectly normal and natural, the blank belt was tied over the towel covering her body.

Miss Li wandered back into her bedroom and only bypassed the dildo waiting in her wardrobe because she’d just done one set. Instead she blow dried her hair, towelled herself dry, and dressed in a baggy T-shirt, her blank belt, and a pair of knee-high socks. There was no point wearing panties when she’d want to be on her workout dildo sitting in the kitchen, and she hadn’t really worn bras since Lewis had showed her how important nipple clamps were for her martial arts.

She didn’t think her boyfriend would like to see her new workout cocks, but that was just another irritating thing about him; and besides, at least her workout cocks could make her cum.

*

Everything had been going his way for a couple of weeks now, Lewis thought. He even seemed to be having more success at work; he probably should sit down with his notes to work out if he was doing better with his influx of new confidence, or whether it just felt like a better hit rate when your mood was better.

It was latish on a Thursday, and he had one appointment left before heading home. He made himself a coffee before buzzing reception on the intercom. “Is my new client here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send her in.”

He hadn’t done more than skim their initial notes, and had pulled those up on his screen just so he wouldn’t greet them by the wrong name. “Good afternoon, Ms… Li?”

The last word came out of him in a strange kind of strangled yelp. He stared up from his desk at the powerful, if blushing, figure of his martial arts tutor and unsuspecting plaything-in-training.

For her part, she didn’t seem at all surprised. “Hello,” she said, smiling nervously. Then the door closed behind her, the two of them now alone, and she blinked twice in quick succession. “Hello, Master Lewis,” she said instead, and did not appear aware she’d changed her greeting.

“You’re my new client?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” She had advanced into the room but hadn’t taken a seat, standing by the side of the chair. Lewis saw a flicker of something across her expression and realised: She can’t take a chair in my presence anymore.

It hadn’t been a rule he’d intended to program into her, but it was something that had become a commonplace, that her open, accepting subconscious, determined to earn those more advanced belts in hypnotic submission, had taken and incorporated into her subconscious to the point, he saw, that now they were alone and there was no question of maintaining a normal behaviour for onlookers, she couldn’t sit.

Well, not on a chair.

The realisation restored a confidence that had been slipping from within his fingers. He extended a hand, pointing one finger down at the carpet beside the chair. Miss Li had chosen, for whatever reason, a skirt suit for this appointment, perhaps hoping to set a professional tone given they knew each other from outside Lewis’ profession. This was not exactly suitable for sitting on the floor.

The way her ankles and knees folded under herself as she knelt was as graceful and fluid as ever. Her thighs were together, her hands were lightly and demurely clasped in the hollow of her lap. Her shoulders rounded in, her head bowed. But the lower part of her torso, he could see, was perfectly erect. If there had been any uninterested party present with whom he could bet, Lewis would have bet good money that the spot where she went from upright to a gentle slump was the point where a white cotton belt was loosely tied below her jacket and blouse; that her blank belt was literally holding all of her torso below it upright.

He smiled slowly. “Perhaps you should tell me what’s on your mind.”

Miss Li blinked three or four times in quick succession as if puzzled, then nodded to herself. “I keep feeling like I must have told you all about it,” she said. “You know how much I value your opinion, Master Lewis.”

She had, of course, told him much more than she knew consciously. From time to time she made a remark like this that suggested there had been some level of information bleedthrough; every time it happened, he ended up reviewing it mentally several times to be sure that particular slippage couldn’t be a problem.

So far they’d all been, if anything, to his benefit, as she developed a familiarity and acceptance of certain goals along the way, without really knowing why.

“You’d better take me through it.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” She took a deep breath and launched into the story of her worsening relationship.

It was fascinating. It was like listening to someone try to describe a whole scene when they’d only been given half the pieces of the jigsaw depicting it, and when you had taken the original picture. Lewis found himself idly thinking that this would be one of the easiest cases he’d ever worked on, if he actually wanted to help her repair her relationship. He knew so much more than he usually did - he literally knew more than his patient.

He shouldn’t be treating her as a patient. The moment she came through the door he should have ushered her back out citing professional ethics. It was too late for that, but in any case, as soon as he recovered he’d known what he was going to do.

He got up and walked around the desk, leaning back against it directly in front of where she knelt. “Well,” he said, “your partner and you have been through a lot. I think I see a path for you both, though.”

“Yes, Master Lewis?”

“Yes. Have I ever explained my practice here?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“But you know it involves hypnosis.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Miss Li, I’m going to hypnotise you.”

She blinked in startlement, and after a second he realised why. Even as desperate as she was, some part of her was less keen to be hypnotised. The formula he usually used was intended to help guide her into it hadn’t been used.

He doubted very much that she’d stop him, but still, why make it difficult when he didn’t have to?

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

She blinked again, but this was slower, and felt like the centre of a ripple that passed over her whole face, leaving behind it an emptier, slacker expression than had been there before. “Yes, Master Lewis,” she said, and her voice was low and soft, and her words lost energy and individuality with each syllable until it was a drone, “I would like to be hypnotised.”

“Very good,” he said, and he smiled. “The purpose of hypnosis in therapy is to help you to come to the right decision for you.” He let that sink in for a moment. “It is hugely helped if you trust the wisdom and insight of the person hypnotising you. Do you?”

“You know I do, Master Lewis.”

“Then I imagine it will be fairly simple for us to reach a turning point.” He raised his finger and let her eyes settle on it, then brought it in closer, beginning to stroke the air between her eyes. Her eyes crossed and her vision swam, and then moments later, as her lips parted, her eyes rolled backward into her head. Lewis smiled.

“You’re not just frustrated with your boyfriend,” he said. “You’re angry with him. Aren’t you?”

There was a long pause. “Yes, Master Lewis.” She’d taken it, but she hadn’t necessarily internalised it the way he’d hoped. “What’s wrong?”

“I love him.” And there it was; Lewis had assumed it was all about the sex, that whoever this person was, he couldn’t have touched Miss Li’s heart. Miss Li seemed always so in control of her own thinking (his influence excepted, obviously) that the concept she might have fallen hard hadn’t been one he could take seriously.

Miss Li found way after way to surprise him, and she didn’t even know she was doing it.

Still. He could solve this. “And does he love you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“But he can’t satisfy you.”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“How has he taken your new fitness regimen?” This wasn’t something she’d consciously told him about, but that hardly mattered when she was this deep. “Your fitness aids?”

“They make him angry, Master Lewis.”

“So he’s angry with you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“But you don’t want to be angry with him?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“You don’t want to be angry with him because you love him.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“But he seems to find it easy to be angry with you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“So he doesn’t love you.”

There was a pause.

“If he loved you, he wouldn’t be angry with you, would he?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“So he doesn’t love you, does he?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

If anyone in the clinic overheard even his half of this conversation, Lewis wouldn’t be a therapist any longer. It was the far side of unethical, and it was a chain of logic he often had to talk people out of. If he’d been planning to claim Miss Li fairly, he would have avoided this logic like the plague. But he was brainwashing her, and she wouldn’t do anything that might provoke anger, because she’d be programmed not to.

So long as she remained his from that time on, this logic would only help, not hinder. The fact he’d abandoned ethics meant that this extra lapse could only help.

“Say it.”

“He doesn’t love me, Master Lewis.”

“Again.”

“He doesn’t love me, Master Lewis.”

“Do you want to love someone who doesn’t love you?”

There was another minor hesitation, but it was one he expected. This was not a question people could answer for themselves until they were faced with it. It’s all very well making plans for a moment like that, all very well thinking you know how you’ll react. That doesn’t mean in the slightest that you do know how you’ll respond.

“No, Master Lewis.”

“That’s right.” He considered his next step. “You want to give up your love for him.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You can do that through hypnosis. Did you know that?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“But you know that hypnosis can, for example, treat addiction?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“And what is addiction but still wanting something that’s bad for you? Isn’t that just like love for someone who will never love you back?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“So if I can banish addiction, I can banish your love.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

He was about to tell her he had already done so and invite her to notice how different she suddenly felt when an alternative idea struck him. Lewis spent a few moments mulling it over, drumming his fingers against the edge of the desk, while Miss Li continued to stare up at him, unblinking, unthinking.

“Listen closely, Miss Li,” he said. “You understand I can help?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You understand that you want my help?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You want to be able to reject your boyfriend.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Then I have a thought process for you. A logical, natural chain of decisions you will feel has arisen completely naturally within your mind…”

*

Miss Li opened her eyes with a start. She’d… could she have dozed off just as her session with Master Lewis was getting started? She didn’t think so. Master Lewis was so wise that she always wanted to learn from him, and unlike one of her old students, his voice wasn’t dull enough that you lost track of a sentence midway through.

No, she must just have had a moment where a thought crossed her mind and she was briefly distracted. She’d had several of those lately, and for no good reason they always seemed to feel like she was waking up.

Lewis was sat behind his desk looking expectantly at her and her head swam for a moment. She’d been sure he’d come out to stand in front of his desk, was sure he’d hypnotised her. Clearly not, though.

God, she’d lost track completely. She felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment and looked down, and as she did, Lewis said something.

She almost didn’t catch it. “Excuse me?”

“I think you know what needs to happen, don’t you?” he said again.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was the smallest it had been; she felt small, too. It was only the second time since childhood she’d felt small and insecure and vulnerable.

Lewis had helped her with the other, too. It was no wonder she trusted him.

She cleared her throat. “The problem is… I can’t do it alone, Master Lewis.”

He seemed to be smiling, but that made no sense; Miss Li decided to disbelieve the evidence of her eyes rather than doubt Master Lewis. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I…” She swallowed. Why was she so nervous about this?

“I need you to hypnotise me into not loving him anymore, Master Lewis.”

“Oh.” His voice sounded amused, but she knew he was a good therapist. She knew that couldn’t be right. He wouldn’t find this funny. This was an important, serious decision. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

She supposed she could understand that. It was probably against the rules for a good therapist. But she needed it.

Miss Li felt something shift inside her head, an abrupt change like someone had flipped a switch. She rose, feeling like a puppet in her own body, moving with a purpose her conscious mind had not been let in on. Everything was dreamlike, now, almost floating along, and the more she moved, the less she thought.

She was a passenger in her body who believed she was still driving, who would believe the actions she took were her own idea afterwards. “I know you’re not supposed to,” she said. “But I need this.” She made her way around the desk, hips swaying, fingertips brushing at its surface. “And I know we have a connection outside this office. I’m your teacher, after all.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That if I go outside the bounds of this professional connection, you can too.” She dropped to her knees beside his chair with an urgency that startled herself. “I need this, Master Lewis,” she continued, and the word ‘Master’ and the time taken to say it neatly dropped themselves out of her conscious awareness before they could puzzle or embarrass her. “What do you need?”

Lewis was definitely smiling now, but that made sense. She knew how many of her students crushed on her.

“It looks like you’ve already made up your mind on that score,” Lewis said, and Miss Li smiled, leaning forward and unbuckling his belt. His cock was already hard; she saw the shape of it through his boxers and eagerly tugged them down. As he sprang free-

Her eyes focused onto his cock to the exclusion of all else. There was a roaring in her ears. A dizzying sense of vertigo as she dropped down, down, down.

Master Lewis had to prompt her to begin sucking. It was an out-of-body experience that was still so deeply, strangely sensual, and the shape of his cock was so somehow familiar in her mouth that it felt as if her lips were meant for nothing else. One of her hands had firmly fastened to the base of his shaft, her little finger teasing his balls to the accompaniment of delighted grunts and urgent catching of breath;l her other found its way to her chest, pawing at her own bra through her suit before trailing down her belly (and lingering for a while when it brushed against her blank belt - all very strange, as this had nothing to do with hypnosis, she hadn’t even been hypnotised yet) to fumble her belt open and slip inside her pants.

She was already wet. (She was always wet around Master Lewis, a stray thought reminded her; like many of her most accurate and important thoughts, it often sounded more like Master Lewis than herself.) Every movement of her fingers brought her closer, but nowhere near as much as the slightest shift in Master Lewis that brought him pleasure. The nearer he came to cumming the more pleasure seemed to pound her, her entire nervous system dancing on the very edge of bliss.

He was so much better to suck than her boyfriend. Blowing him was its own reward. And everything - his shape, his scent, his taste when it filled her mouth and she gorged herself on his cum as she choked it down - absolutely everything felt so familiar, which could really only mean it felt right. Her mind exploded with pleasure, her cries silenced only by what was filling her throat.

Master Lewis gently pushed her back off his cock to rest on her heels, and he took a tissue from the box on his desk, handed it to her, and then another which he used to wipe himself clean. The moment his cock was hidden from sight and not in her mouth -

Miss Li blinked several times, the whole emotional, needy euphoria of the last few minutes shivering down her spine. It had felt like his cock had captivated her, enthralled her, made of her little more than a puppet. This was, of course, impossible; it was simply that she had enjoyed herself so much, enjoyed the contrast to her unloving, cruel boyfriend, who lacked both the desire and the talent to make her cum.

She had only done it because she’d been desperate. Now she found herself with a powerful desire to do it again.

She was lost in thoughts of how his cock might make her feel if he bent her over the desk to use it when Master Lewis spoke again. He had to repeat himself to make himself heard.

“Well, I feel it would be rude if I didn’t help you now, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“And you’ve just been very kind indeed.”

She flushed. She hadn’t realised that, even sat on her haunches with her thighs together, they could spasm closer in urgent squirmy need if given the right provocation. And this was, indisputably, the right provocation.

*

It was such a delight that Master Lewis had finally got around to hypnotising her. She always wanted to be hypnotised by him. And this was for more important reasons than ever before.

Miss Li wasn’t really aware of anything else. Master Lewis was talking, and she was answering, echoing his words back to him, but she had no idea what those words actually were. All the same, she felt every word; felt it like a stone dropping into a pond, word following word until a solid foundation emerged from the still waters of her sleeping mind for Master Lewis to build on.

Miss Li was just unaware of what any of those words actually said.

“I am done with my boyfriend. I want him gone from my life. I don’t care if I hurt his feelings.

“Even memories of my boyfriend are tainted. I cannot remember him satisfying me. I never loved him.

“My boyfriend never cared about me. If he had, he would have taken control.

“My boyfriend made me hate him because he wouldn’t dominate me.

“My boyfriend isn’t smart enough. My boyfriend isn’t hot enough. My boyfriend isn’t better than me.

“I will dump my boyfriend before I leave the parking lot outside. I will not listen to his arguments. He’s not smart enough for a good argument.

“My boyfriend went about our relationship all wrong. I need someone to take control. I need someone to dominate me. I need someone I know is better than me.

“I want someone smart and in control. Someone I know is better than me.

“I want to be taken care of. To be taken control of.

“I am done with my boyfriend. I want him gone from my life. I don’t care if I hurt his feelings. Even memories of my boyfriend are tainted. I cannot remember him satisfying me…”

There was half an hour left of her appointment, and she repeated Lewis’s suggestions for the full duration.

*

“Oh, no. He’s already been very helpful.” Miss Li gave the receptionist a starry smile before walking out of the clinic doors and heading toward her car, walking with a spring in her step. Sitting in the drivers’ seat, she looked at herself in the rear view mirror and was pleased to see she was still smiling. As daunting a task as she had in front of her, she knew Lewis had given her the tools she needed, or perhaps removed the block that had prevented her from taking action.

She wasn’t sure which. She didn’t really know how hypnosis worked, just how it made her feel. She was very glad she’d worn her blank belt to the appointment; she was sure that had helped her go deeper, and she felt like it had also made her more confident in her interactions. And that it still was, wonderfully, making it easier for her to follow Lewis’ advice.

It acted like people always claimed safety blankets did, but those had never made sense to Miss Li.

She was, she realised with a start, just woolgathering; this wasn’t getting done what had to be done. She pulled out her phone and put a call through to her boyfriend, reflecting on how rarely she used his actual number. Last time she had they’d had a short argument and the fallout had lasted for days… and come to think of it, Lewis had been standing close by her then.

She waited to hear his voice and the moment she did, she started speaking. “Let’s just admit it,” she said. “We’re over. We don’t deserve any more chances. You certainly don’t.” She waited for a few moments, heard a bewildered sputtering, and rode over it. “You know as well as I do that as a couple we’re falling apart. Nothing’s working. And I don’t want to cling onto you just for sentiment.”

She hung up the phone before he could answer and immediately blocked his number. A brief trip into her social media had her listed as single again.

She felt somehow much better suddenly; not just the relief of something painful that had needed doing now being done, it was like she’d done something to impress someone. It felt like those early college days, where her training, as well as being about learning a talent, had also been a way to show off to people whose approval she couldn’t buy any other way.

It didn’t make sense - there was nobody external, as far as all this was concerned, who she’d be seeking the approval of. Nobody except her and her ex had any investment in whether their relationship died or thrived.

She started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, heading for home. It had been the right think to do. If he’d ever cared about her, he would have taken control of her. He’d gone about their relationship all wrong.

By the time she’d finished driving home, the stress of wanting to break up and the nervousness about visiting Lewis in his professional capacity were both gone. Her ex was starting to slide out of her mind; if she’d been paying attention, it’s possible she would have been aware that memories were blinking away, one by one, but there was no reason as she saw it to think about the old times. It would be a year or more before she had any reason to wonder why she’d forgotten so much of her time with him.

Arriving at home she stripped in the hallway, as she always had and always would; one of her old black gis hung in the hallway and she shrugged it on, tying her blank belt just above her hips. The lower corners of the jacket just about protected her modesty, while still making the shape of her legs and her ass perfectly cleat if there had been any observers. She needed no other clothes in the house, although she did slip into a pair of low heels that had the effect of emphasising the curves of her buttocks and making them easier to examine.

She couldn’t recall how this custom had started; it was simply something she had always done, stretching back into the past. Miss Li did not stop to question how her habit could possibly stretch back so far when the blank belt had been given to her mere months ago.

There was the sound of tyres on the gravel of her drive, and a car door slamming audibly; Miss Li coolly slid the bolt home, so that even if an interloper had keys they couldn’t intrude. She had been expecting something of the kind; had realised it was possible on the drive home. In many ways, changing into her relaxed outfit before a potential confrontation had been unwise, but Miss Li was a creature of habit. Habits that had cultivated her, had seeded her mind and taken root, and which she did not, could not, and in any case would not break.

Not unless she found that someone who would take control.

The doorhandle rattled but refused to turn and she heard a key in the lock. Very tiresome.

Miss Li turned to face the door and waited for him to finish unlocking it. The door swung in but only for about two inches, the chain rattling for a moment before blocking any further movement.

She gave it a beat of extra silence for her visitor to realise the chain was there and not be leaning into the door, and then she lifted her foot and kicked it back shut.

If he’d been able to see inside the hallway he’d have had a magnificent view beneath her gi, but that was, all the same, denied to him. Good, she thought, and then wondered if perhaps she should be embarrassed that she’d so nearly showed off her pussy. But no. She’d ceased feeling embarrassed about her body on display. She wasn’t sure of the when, how, or why; it felt like over the past few months she’d been shown off enough that she’d simply grown indifferent to the thoughts of anyone who didn’t matter. She hadn’t, of course; it was just the way her brain chose to explain that she was comfortable with it all now.

He wasn’t stupid enough to try the door again. His face appeared in the thin vertical window beside the doorway; his eyes bugged out as he saw her standing there, wearing only her gi and her blank belt, standing in that defensive stance she now felt more comfortable than anything else. She stood there, frowning, internally calm, meeting his eyes, watching and waiting.

She knew somehow that she would wait as long as it took for him to regret coming, to understand there was no turning back. That her patience, strengthened through years of teaching, was going to be stronger than usual, supported by something else. It might be an aspect of Lewis’ hypnosis, she thought. Perhaps he’d given her more determination to see her will respected.

It was so good of Lewis to -

Huh.

To control her for her own good.

Lewis was controlling her, she realised. That was what hypnosis was, wasn’t it? He had controlled her to make her dump her boyfriend, he was now controlling her to ensure her boyfriend stayed dumped.

What wonderful kindness of the man. True, she’d gone down on her knees and sucked his cock to persuade him to be on her side, but this was more than just being on her side. Lewis was being thorough. He was making sure that her own weaknesses not undermine her. Using his smarts to outwit her own flaws, controlling her to override those same flaws.

She was aware of her ex throwing up his hands furiously and stomping back to his car, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking about the fact she was under control; that just in trying to help her, Lewis had come closer to being a good partner than her ex ever had. He’d taken control, showing he was her better.

She watched her ex’s car reverse out of the drive and roar away, vaguely aware he was yelling something as he did, and then she opened the front door and collected his key from the lock. That had, she reflected, been the other benefit of making it clear how unwanted he was immediately.

The front door was closed and locked; the alarm was armed, and Miss Li went upstairs, still pondering the question of Lewis.

Could he control her? Undoubtedly - he had done so, to free her from her current predicament. That wasn’t in question. Was he smarter than her - yes. She seemed almost to hear his words saying so, echoing through her head, and if he was smarter than her, who would she be to doubt his words?

It wasn’t necessarily that he was an attractive man, but he certainly fulfilled all the qualities she want4ed in a man, qualities that had been deeply important to her for as long as she could remember, though she wasn’t sure why she’d never evaluated romantic partners by them before now.

Lewis was smart, he was always in control, he could control her. And beyond that, she told herself as she backed up onto the wardrobe-mounted dildo in her bedroom for her nightly exercises, there was his cock.

She had only seen it once, only sucked it once, only tasted his cum once. But her mouth, as she enveloped it, had shaped to his cock as if they were meant to be together; had found the perfect place for her lips to rest without experimentation, with the instinct of familiarity; her motions and actions had aroused him and her quickly and without a single misstep; she had swallowed his cum down as if accustomed to - no; addicted to - the flavour. Everything had carried that cosy, welcoming quality born of long familiarity.

Since there wasn’t any of that kind of familiarity, the only thing that made any sense would be if this was some kind of sign.

She thought about this all the way through her workout, three gruelling sets of two orgasms by doggy-style self-fucking against the wardrobe. Thought about it as she stared into her own blank, listless eyes reflected in her makeup table mirror. Thought about it as her thighs ran slick, as her drool ran from lips to chin and then swinging slowly to the ground, rocking as her body rocked, swaying so regularly that its own glistening length in the mirror could have hypnotised her again.

Miss Li did not consciously have the knowledge to recognise it but as she finished her third set, just before she slowly slid from her perch on the dildo to her knees, she was back in a hypnotic state, and the traps Lewis had left in her conditioning earlier had all been sprung.

She believed she was still thinking for herself, still acting of her own volition, and that her opinions and desires were her own. Stumbling back to her feet, she looked around for her phone before remembering she’d discarded it downstairs as she undressed, before her ex even pulled up to her door.

Miss Li had no idea how much Lewis, among others of her students, admired the grace with which she typically moved. It didn’t occur to her, therefore, to be embarrassed at how clumsily she was moving now, her knees wobbly, her own lust unbalancing her. She steadied herself against the wall of her hallway, and she opened her Whatsapp, finding Lewis’ details on her phone. (She had known they were there. She did not remember ever adding them, and there was no message history.)

The stray thought crossed her mind: was she absolutely certain she wanted to do this? But this was not a thought that sounded like Lewis, it was a thought that sounded like her, and she would always trust the thoughts that sounded like Lewis above her own. She could hear, in her head, Lewis telling her to do so, telling her he knew better; since he knew better and she knew that, it did not occur to her to question his decisions.

She read and re-read the message she wanted to send him several times, although every single time she failed to notice the first word in the message. She was nervous about doing this, about making a first move, but she could hear his voice in her head, reassuring her that this was a good idea, and she knew she could trust his voice.

She took a deep breath and sent the message.

Master Lewis,

Would you like to hypnotise me?