Lina French 6/14/21

This is a filtered post. Please don’t share it - if you’re on here, I trust you with this post, and if you’re not, I don’t.

My head’s in a bad place. Work is busier than ever and I’m spending more and more time having to deal with it. For the last year, I’ve been lucky to spend less than 12 hours in the office and I think I’ve been averaging 14. But that’s not the only time I’m thinking about work. I had to put out a fire in the kitchen yesterday because in the time it should take to make a grilled cheese I got so distracted thinking about stuff that wasn’t getting done I went to fetch my laptop and do it.

Grilled charcoal isn’t good, you guys, but cleaning scorch marks off the back wall of your kitchen is worse.

So work isn’t good, but my relationship’s kind of rocky right now too. Brian was a perfect boyfriend for the first few months of overwork - and yes, this all started when Crys left the company, and I still don’t know enough to have an opinion on the rumours about her, but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m overworked because there aren’t enough of us doing the job, and it doesn’t look like we’re getting a break soon, because there’s a hiring freeze. And while Brian was great for months, now what happens is that I have my 14 hours at work and I have an hour working at home and I have two hours arguing with Brian and an hour cooking and eating and getting ready for bed or work and that’s 18 hours so if I spend them all sleeping I don’t get to sleep for long enough.

There’s no room in there to unwind, either. That’s maybe supposed to happen at the weekend? Except work and food shopping and laundry all take up more of that than you want.

I’m not asking for sympathy or a solution. Not really. But I feel like I’ve got to type this all out and someone has to read it just so it’s doing more than echoing round my head.

…I kind of hate this.

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Top Comment

Sherry Lowe

I just want to give you a hug!

No help, I know, but I don’t have a solution, like you say. It just sucks to see you upset. I know you don’t have much time but if you ever think you’ll have a few hours away from work and from home, let me know - I’ll make sure I’m free and we’ll get stinking drunk and set the world to rights.

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Lina French 7/3/21

It’s gotten worse. Still a filtered post - DO NOT SHARE.

Brian moved out yesterday. We’re not officially split up but I can’t see any way we won’t be. It’s not like I have the time or energy to chase after him, and even if I did, I don’t think it would matter. I feel like we’ve changed. He definitely changed, but I don’t think he’s the only one.

And I don’t like who I think I’ve become.

…Shit.

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Top Comment

Sherry Lowe

Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I still don’t know if anything I can say can help, but I promise if you give me the chance I’ll try.

You are strong, you are beautiful, and you deserve so much better. Pick a time that’s good for you this week; I’ll be there and drinks will be on me.

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Lina French loved this

Lina French 7/16/21

It just doesn’t stop. It doesn’t let up for a fucking moment. I just want to cry but I’m so tightly wound up in myself I can’t even do that.

I got given my two weeks notice today. All that extra work I put in isn’t going to turn into a bonus or a raise or even more help. And the worst thing is, I know they’re making more trouble for themselves. Without what I was doing for them, the company’s going to go bust soon - and I can’t even be smug about that.

It’s just sad.

Fuck everything.

17 people sent love

*

On the Friday afternoon that Lina received the third bit of bad news, Sherry was dancing to an oldies playlist in the kitchen and feeling on top of the world. She’d completely meant her offers to her old college friend, but she’d been feeling easily distracted and the lack of follow-up from Lina had completely passed her by.

Life was pretty sweet, after all, and dancing to Destiny’s Child was a natural way to show it.

This had started just with a little boogie while she was emptying the dishwasher, but as she had nothing specific to do, and as it made her feel sexy, and as her Master had programmed her to enjoy feeling sexy more than almost anything else - oh, yes, that’s probably worth mentioning; Sherry has a Master, someone who met her and, while the two of them were dating, went from hypnotising her to brainwashing and conditioning her, altering and affecting her behaviour over time, until more than half of her instinctual reactions weren’t actually instinctual but were instead his programming - as we were saying, as all that was the case, continuing to dance once the task was finished seemed only fair.

Master was out of the house at work, but to Sherry if anything that made feeling sexy more important, as she had only had a few instructions to act on and enjoy herself that way. Accordingly she was sporting her current favourite lingerie; a red lace set with blue highlights, which she’d accessorised with a knee-high pair of striped red and blue socks. The mirror to one side of the sink (Master so liked to use Sherry’s own hypnotised gaze to bring her deeper) kept giving her tantalising glances of how she looked, and they were so fetching against her tan skin and dark hair. It was perfect.

It was almost the complete opposite of the day that Lina was having and which led to her silent scream on social media.

After a little time dancing, her phone chimed on the counter and she stopped dancing to step across. One of her alarms; she’d need to start working on preparing their dinner for the evening shortly, in order to be ready and available for him when he arrived.

She picked up the phone and silenced the alarm.

She had some notifications.

Sherry had been heavily reprogrammed - and had willingly participated in further reprogramming after her initial conversion - but she was still very much a person, and would have hotly defended her Master against any accusations she wasn’t if that was ever likely to happen.

(Which it wasn’t. Their friends had so little idea that Sherry often wondered if she’d be able to get away with calling him Master in front of some of them. It was as if people didn’t pay attention.)

So as she crossed over to her cupboards, she opened her phone and checked her feed, and she read Lina’s message.

She stopped dead, standing near the middle of the kitchen, and reread the message a few times.

Suddenly, even with the music playing, looking as good as she did, Sherry was sad.

Sherry hadn’t been sad since her conversion.

*

She was waiting in the front room when Master’s car pulled up. The curtains were wide open and Sherry was stood in her usual provocative pose; she had held something close to it but easy to sustain for about ten minutes, waiting for him to arrive, when she could straighten into place, her hair cascading over one shoulder, hip cocked with hand above it, back arched proudly out.

She held her pose until he’d killed the engine and looked up, met her eyes, and smiled to see her so well on display. She gave him a quick little wave as he got his bags ready, then scurried to the hallway and dropped to her knees on the welcome mat, just far enough in that he could open the door and step past it without walking into her.

Her head bowed so as not to meet his eyes this time, she smiled, feeling that familiar fizz of happiness at his return as the door opened.

She watched his feet as he stepped inside, dumped the satchel he carried to work by the side of the door, and shut it behind him. “Evening, beautiful,” he said, his voice chipper.

Sherry stayed silent, not deeming that to be a prompt to speak, but she preened slightly. He’d told her before he liked to watch her muscles flex under smooth, soft skin when she did that, and she’d gone out of her way to find good reasons ever since.

He stepped past her, and as he did he brushed her hair with the palm of his hand. She pressed in against his touch, loving the contact with her programmer, her Master. His breath caught in excitement, as it sometimes did, and he made his way into the house. “Come on,” he called. She turned and rose to follow, smiling contentedly even as her worry for Lina stayed in place underneath.

Master was shrugging off his jacket, which he hung on one of the chairs in the dining room. Knowing her duty at this point, Sherry moved forward. One hand rested on his shoulder, the other ran finger-light over his chest, before she moved to stand in front of him. Gaze still lowered, standing almost close enough for their bodies to touch one another, she loosened and removed his tie and began unbuttoning her Master’s shirt, her mood lifting higher and higher with every new inch of the skin she was programmed to worship she revealed.

“Damn, it’s good to be home,” he told her. “Did you have a good day?”

One of the things Sherry loved about her Master was that even after turning her mind into pliable, sculptable clay which he could twist however he wanted, he always took the time to check she was still happy with her lot in life. She’d had no say in her initial conversion, but once she was already his he’d used her feedback carefully to tie her ever tighter to him.

She nodded, her eyes on his chest, as she slipped the shirt from his body. She glanced up and smiled. “Yes, Master,” she said. “And it’s about to get better.”

Master grinned - she would always lose herself in that grin, she hoped - and chuckled. His next words were rote, but they were important to them both. “And why is that?”

“Because I can serve you all weekend, Master.”

He laughed, and she smiled and blushed a little. He put his hand under her chin, tilting her head up to his, and as she stretched up to meet him, their bodies came together, the warmth of skin against skin, softness yielding to a reassuring heat, and her lips met his.

For the time they kissed, nothing else ever mattered. His arm slipped around to nestle a hand in the small of her back, hand splayed open to better control her body position in the kiss. Her thigh lifted, sliding up the outside of his dress trousers with the barely audible whisper of skin on fabric, and her leg wrapped around him, holding him close in turn.

She was his, and that was enough to feel an ownership, an investment, in him, too. She was proud to belong to her Master. What higher calling could there be?

*

The preamble to dinner was wonderful, and dinner was excellent - Sherry was a fantastic cook by now, and her cooking was perfectly aligned to Master’s tastes, which she had been programmed to share - and afterward, as the weekend started, Master and Sherry settled on the sofa. She snuggled up to the T-shirt he’d slipped on between fun, sweaty preamble and dinner, rested her head on his chest, and closed her eyes, listening to his heartbeat as he paged through options on Netflix to find something he wanted to enjoy as they both relaxed before heading to bed for a long, joyous night and lie-in.

It was another evening in paradise. Sherry napped for a little, making a noise a little like a contented purr occasionally as he would run his hands over her possessively, using her obedient body to entertain himself as his shows spooled by.

She was told, once, to bring him a drink. Her body obediently rose, walked over to the drinks cupboard, and fixed him a glass just how he liked it. She walked back, settled to her knees, and offered the glass in cupped palms; when he accepted it she resumed her place curled up against him. At no point in any of this did she awaken.

It was getting pretty late when her phone buzzed again. Sherry opened one eye lazily and reached out, snagging it from the arm of the sofa, and swiped it into activity.

Her feed had decided that as she’d been replying to Lina every time, she must want an instant alert. Which Sherry didn’t object to, but she did wonder how this was supposed to be the algorithm’s job to decide.

What Master didn’t decide for her, she wanted to decide for herself.

*

Lina French 7/16/21

I know this is going to sound like absolutely nothing compared to everything else, but I just tripped in the supermarket and I managed to snap my credit card.

I held it together OK until I was out of the store, but I couldn’t drive off straight away. When I sat down in the car I lost it. I’ve just got home after ten whole minutes crying in the Sainsbury’s car park.

I pulled it together long enough to get home. I’m sending this post literally just in the hallway from my front door. Once the door was shut I just ran out of momentum. I sort of slid down the wall until I was sitting.

I’m going to send this, then I’m going to force myself back on my feet. I’m hoping a shower and a takeout will sort things out.

And this weekend? Work can fuck off. If they expect a minute more than my contracted hours in the last two weeks I’m going to either laugh in their face or burst out crying, and I really, really hope I’m going to laugh in their face.

This isn’t a scream for help. At least, I hope not. I want it to be the bottom of the barrel before something better happens. Right now, I just have no idea what that would even be.

Fuck my life. Fuck this week. Fuck today.

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*

Sherry read it through carefully several times. Her heart was aching for Lina. It was all so tragic. So wrong.

Lina was Sherry’s friend! She shouldn’t be that unhappy. Nobody should. Sherry was pretty sure she’d never been so down and sounded so defeated, even at her very lowest point.

Which had been…

…It had been not long before Master conditioned her. And she’d never had a bad day since.

“Master?” she asked thoughtfully. “Do I have the right to ask a favour?”

His tone was surprised. This was entirely new territory for them both. “Of course,” he said. “Do you… need something?”

“No, Master.”

“Do you want something, then?”

“I think this probably counts. But… I wanted to know if you might want another slave.”

Master paused the show on Netflix and shifted position slightly. She moved from resting on his chest, a little regretfully, and looked up, meeting his gaze. His eyes darted across her face, doing his best to read her thoughts.

There was a silence between them for nearly a minute.

Master broke it by forcing a chuckle. “Did you have someone in mind?” he asked, and it seemed like he wanted to make a joke out of it.

“Yes, Master.”

His body language shifted; for a moment, he froze, and Sherry knew that hadn’t been the answer he’d expected. Then he sat up properly. She lifted herself from him to accommodate that; finding herself sitting back on her knees on the sofa, she realised how silly that was. She eased herself from kneeling on the sofa to instead kneel on the rug before him.

The rug was rough against her knees, but Sherry was used to that. She’d come to associate that roughness with good things.

“It’s not that you’re overworked?”

She blinked, her eyes wide open. “Anything I do for you is a pleasure, Master.” These were words which had been programmed into her; they came more naturally and more quickly than words of her own for the same sentiment would have.

He smiled. His tone as he said “That’s not exactly what I asked,” was gentle. But Sherry shook her head.

“No, Master. I have lots of time to relax and enjoy myself. I have a kind Master.”

“So…” He sat for a moment, quiet, contemplating. “I think you’d better start from the beginning,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

Sherry started to tell Master about Lina’s bad month. Once she started it turned out to be quite difficult for her to stop. She went from the problems to Brian, and how he’d been, and to the issues at the company which had started Lina down this path. She told Master all the things that had made Lina a friend, and made sure he remembered the times they’d met after Sherry’s first programming - many fewer than with her other friends, just because of how very busy Lina had become.

Master sat and listened, and listened, and listened. When she finally petered out, he said “Stay there,” and rose and left the room. Sherry remained kneeling, heart pounding, unsure if her appeal had reached him, her eyes on the door. He returned a couple of minutes later with a small tray, one she usually used to fetch treats for him when he ordered it.

On the tray was a small teacup and saucer with tea in it, and a plate of biscuits.

“The tea is for you,” Master said. “The biscuits are to share.”

Sherry took the saucer from the tray, holding it carefully, and nodded. Master rested the tray on the sofa and sat down next to it.

“So,” he said. “Just to summarise, and to make sure I’ve got this straight… she’s in a bad place, and you want her to be happy, just like you are.”

“Yes, Master,” Sherry agreed. It was always good to be reminded that he understood - even though, she reminder herself, she should expect that; after all, he’d made her who and how she was.

“And in asking how to make someone happy, what you thought was ‘get her brainwashed?’”

Sherry nodded. Drank some of her tea. That seemed like a good thing, considering how long she’d talked. She hadn’t realised, but it must have been more than an hour; the hot liquid soothed her throat.

“Nothing else works half so well, Master,” she explained. “Nothing else lasts, no matter what. I’ve been watching this happen to Lina and… at the end of it all, while I’m sad for her, I’m still happy.”

He sat silent for a little while. “The old you would never have felt happy with any of this,” he said, and Sherry nodded.

“I know, Master. You’ll have to trick her like you tricked me.” She looked up at him and smiled warmly, confident in his ability to turn her friend into another blissful, brainwashed slave.

Master chuckled, and she was confident he’d decided to grant her that favour. Then he raised an issue she’d expected him to bring up much earlier. “Show me a photo.”

Sherry had had a little time to think about this. It had been part of the sales pitch she’d idly drafted that afternoon, as she prepared dinner. So she knew exactly the image she wanted to show. Opening her phone back up, she called up her album and paged back the best part of three years. Lina and Sherry had been part of a hen night maybe fifteen women strong. Most of the pictures were group shots, most were blurry messes, and almost all of them depicted a drunken, riotous, euphoric mess of a night.

But there were a few, from earlier in the evening, where they’d wanted to make a point of capturing how good they looked. They’d taken singles shots, group shots, pairs, and more. And her tan skin and long, dark hair had played off beautifully against Lina’s pale white skin and strawberry blonde curls, kept cropped no lower than chin level. The two of them stood side by side, each with an arm around the other’s waist, each with the other hand on their own outer hip. Where Sherry was tall and fairly slim, Lina was short and curvy. The two made for a fantastic study in contrasts.

And Sherry was confident that, whatever else, her Master would appreciate having a choice between the two of them when he wanted his pleasure. Maybe he’d want the two of them together? Sherry was curious at most, but for Master she was confident she could perform if needed. She had no idea if Lina was bi or purely straight, but if she could be willing to pleasure a woman while Master watched, so he could enjoy it, she was sure that once Lina had been converted, she would be too.

She offered her phone across, and Master smiled. “I remember this,” he said. “This was, what, a few months before I decided to put my plans into action?”

Sherry nodded happily. “We barely knew each other yet.”

He’d been introduced to her by a mutual friend, one of the others in the party. They’d started dating, and she was pretty sure they’d both regarded it as a bit of light fun. She’d never asked why he’d decided to do what he did; hadn’t seen it coming, and didn’t regret that at all. Hopefully Lina wouldn’t see it coming either.

“With the friends you see less often, I can’t always put names to faces,” he murmured. His eyes were still on the picture; Sherry knew she’d shown the right one.

“Alright,” he said. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

*

Sherry started the process of making her friend into someone who could be happier by appearing at her door at half past nine that Saturday morning with two tall coffees in insulated carry-cups made with fresh-ground beans - just like the ones she served Master - and cream.

Lina was rubbing her eyes blearily as Sherry slipped in past her, handing her one of them. “You and I are going for a treat day,” she informed her. “Shopping, lunch, then a spa afternoon. On me. Do you want to grab a shower and get ready?”

All Lina could come out with initially was “…What?”

“A treat day. You’ve deserved one for a while, and now you have the free time. So I decided I’d arrange one for you, then I invited myself along.” Sherry flashed her most winning smile.

“I - sure - how are you -” Lina shut her eyes and her lips tightened as she sorted through all her questions to ask the most important first.

“Is Master paying for this?” she asked. She didn’t say Master, of course; she used his real name. But Sherry’s mind always filtered that into Master when she encountered it, and while his real name might leave her lips while there were other people in earshot, her mind wasn’t involved in that happening. To her he was always - and exclusively - Master. Which, of course, was exactly as it should be, thank you so very much for asking.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I told him a friend was having a bad time, and I promised I’d make it up to him later.”

Lina looked bemusedly at Sherry. “Are you two still in the honeymoon period, somehow?”

“Oh, no,” Sherry returned. “But we work pretty hard on communication.”

Lina looked a little envious.

“He always knows how I feel,” Sherry continued.

Yes, Master. Anything you want, Master - your slave is yours to command.

“And he listens?” Lina asked. It was hard not to hear the bitterness in her voice, but that didn’t worry Sherry too much. When you talk and you have a drink in your hand, you tend to take a sip every so often. So now, she already had a little of the serum Sherry had mixed into the coffee inside her. Hopefully she’d get the rest inside her before too long.

“He listens,” Sherry said. “When I told him you were having trouble last night, he said, yes, of course I’ve got to see what I can do to help.” She smiled warmly. “And he wants to help too. We’re really good at telling each other what we want.”

I want to please you, Master. Your pleasure is mine.

“I mean, I know I’ve met him, but I doubt he’d remember me…”

Sherry giggled. “I don’t think he did. But we’re friends… even if we haven’t seen each other in forever. Like, you and I both know that’s us being too busy. Not just you, either - it feels like I’ve had a lot more to do, even without a job.” She paused. Bit her lip. Wondered if she’d said the wrong thing - but Lina just rolled her eyes and smiled.

“So are we doing this?” Sherry pressed. Lina took another pull at the dosed coffee. “Sure,” she said. “Let me grab that shower.”

She handed Sherry back her coffee, turned to head back to the bathroom, and then stopped. Appearing to make a decision, she turned back and collected the coffee cup once again, then disappeared.

Sherry smiled to herself and went into the kitchen where she took a seat and texted Master with her progress so far.

*

“So,” she said, when Lina was safely in the passenger seat of her car, as she pulled out of the cul-de-sac where her friend lived, “what are we shopping for? A little bit of luxury? Or something to look great for interviews?”

“Oh, I can’t let you pay for all that,” Lina demurred.

“That’s OK,” Sherry said. “The spa’s on me. And Master’s making lunch now.” Although, once again, the word Master wasn’t the one that left her lips. It was just the one she heard in her own head. Lina heard his real name.

“I feel like I should brace myself…”

Sherry had actually got up early that morning to prepare most of it, so that it’d only need ten or fifteen minutes’ work when they drove in. She’d even clearly marked out the batter for Lina’s crepes, where another big dose of the serum was currently resting, being absorbed ever more fully into the mix. “He’s pretty good, honestly.” As the car idled at a junction, she reached out and ran her fingertips lightly along Lina’s forearm, glancing across to watch her reactions.

Lina’s eyelids fluttered for a moment. Her teeth grazed against her upper lip. She looked for all the world like she was trying to keep from making a noise.

It looked like the first dose of the serum was sinking in pretty much right on time. Sherry met Lina’s eyes and she smiled, the kind, gentle, unsuspicious smile of a woman who had never been brainwashed.

It was a smile Master had taken some time to program her into, and it certainly didn’t reveal that she’d noticed the arousal beginning to build.

A top-up of the serum over lunch and Lina would be just ripe. In the meantime…

“You know,” Lina said abruptly. “Maybe something that’s going to help me win the rebound?”

Traffic had resumed and Sherry’s eyes were, as they should be, on the road ahead by that point. There was much less risk that Lina would see anything that might make her wonder. So she let herself smile a bit, let her lip curl into a grin on the side of her face furthest from Lina. She hadn’t been at all sure how Lina might phrase that, but as the serum set in, she was expecting early indicators of that first big spike to the libido. It was always likely it would manifest in a desire for new sexy outfits.

In fact, that’s one reason Master had suggested shopping before she came over.

“I know a place we could go for that,” she said with a smile.