Sometimes he felt he was too impatient, pushing her too far. At other times she seemed like a perfect subject, responding quickly and easily to his suggestions, never coming out of trance or even seeming likely to when she had a problem with one.

The mechanisms he’d put in place, painstakingly woven into the way her mind went about its business, were all designed to build or repair trust where it was hardest for her to find it, where she’d be best off resisting it. Lewis had laid a careful foundation, and if he sometimes wondered whether he should feel bad about it - certainly this was a breach of professional ethics; even setting aside the other things that could go wrong if an old colleague realised what was happening, he’d definitely lose his job.

He didn’t want to stop. It’s impossible for humans to develop a skill and not wonder, at least idly from time to time, how it could be misused. One of his regular patients, an electrician, had told him idly once how, standing in the queue at his bank, he’d started thinking about how to rob the place. He’d had no actual criminal impulse; it had almost been an intellectual puzzle. Say I was going to do this thing, how would I do it?

Lewis had wondered, from time to time, what approach he might take if he decided to adjust someone through hypnosis. What would you say to someone? What were the roadblocks you’d have to coax them past? In a general sort of a way, what buttons would you push to do that?

Miss Li was big on discipline, and while she was used now to providing it, she had earned her authority through training. That training had seen her be under someone else’s authority, answerable to their discipline. So she could fall in line to that, if she had a good cause. She loved to improve herself, and hypnosis was widely known to be able to help with that. And through twisting and re-structuring her ability to trust, both himself and her own judgement, she would let him decide what counted as improvement.

He was still having to be cautious. Many of the rules he had in place now weren’t even for her; they were rules for his own conduct. He wasn’t planning to do anything outside the dojo any time in the near future. At least until her boyfriend was no longer in place. He wasn’t going to trigger her to want trance over social media or via email. Too much risk it would come up at the wrong time. Make people ask questions.

And Lewis didn’t want questions.

All of which he was thinking about while he sipped a latte from a paper cup and watched Miss Li maintain a defensive stance, body as stiff and unmoving as a mannequin, far longer than she’d ever hold it in training or during a class. Not that Miss Li knew that; her mind was quite literally on other things. And to her perceptions, she was moving; more precisely she was sinking, dropping herself ever deeper in trance. She had been taught that her stillness would cause her to sink better, and that the deeper she became, the better her hypnotic trance would feel.

The combination was so effective that Lewis sometimes dived out for a cup of coffee while she was making her mind more pliable. Easy enough to come back later and take advantage of the work she’d done for them both.

“And that should be deep enough, now,” he said softly. Miss Li’s glassy eyes blinked once, very slowly, and she broke her defensive stance. Her feet came together, then she bent forward at the ankles and back at the knees, and settled stiff-backed into a kneeling position, hands clasped behind her feet, that was very deferential but did not look in any way comfortable. Not that you could tell that from the serenely empty expression on her face.

“Don’t you feel so, so good like this?”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she agreed, and while her voice was monotone there was a breathy excitement to it.

“Doesn’t it feel even better to be deeper?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Do your own thoughts feel ever less important the deeper we come?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Do your rules feel even more important the deeper we come?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

Again and again he took her through these questions. Repetition and drilling were so much a part of her life in any case.

“Tomorrow, as we spar, you’ll find your upper body movements are slow and awkward,” he told her. “You’ll notice that your shoulders are meeting resistance. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. An expression of discomfort crossed her face, but only fleetingly; smoothed over again as the rules already in place helped her find her peace with it.

“You’re going to dwell on the issue,” he told her. “You won’t be entirely sure what it is. And you’ll file it away to ask my advice on.” Lewis grinned. “You know how much you rely on my advice, don’t you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she said brightly. He was starting to push the trust in him that he’d built for her while she was conscious, as well as entranced, and it was working well.

“Very good,” he smiled. “You’ll want to check up on it before I hypnotise you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You’ll give me whatever authority I need to make the changes that bring you back up to the skill level you expect.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

He smiled. “Now. Have you been remembering the time you spend tranced?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Do you remember specifics?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“You just know how good it feels to be in trance.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Have you noticed how dull and drab your time at home seems in comparison?”

A hesitation. It was an idea that hadn’t occurred to her at all. “No, Master Lewis.” Her voice was tentative. But he wasn’t angry. He was just doing his work.

“Tonight you will. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

And she would come more and more to want to be around the dojo, and especially to be around him. She would effectively create more and more opportunities to be offered time under hypnosis.

Yes, that was all very satisfactory. And in the meantime…

*

“Um.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Lewis almost couldn’t help smirking. Seeing Miss Li embarrassed was seeing her so far from her norm, so utterly defenceless, that it was almost as much of a turn-on as when he’d first parted her gi and seen her body in better detail. “Before you hypnotise me…”

“Before?” Lewis let a little of the amusement he felt sound out. “You want to delay that?”

“No,” she blurted, and he saw her clamp her mouth shut and swallow. She was showing more of her need than she was comfortable with, he realised; telling him the truth instinctively even while conscious, because while hypnotised she could do nothing else. The habits of her hypnotised self were bleeding through.

That was… interesting… and he was definitely going to have to pay attention to that, just in case.

“So why delay it?” He made as if to raise his finger, but he didn’t; there was a very good chance that if he did, she’d focus and start to drop, and this whole gambit would be wasted. That was the last thing he wanted.

“I’m. Uh. I’m…” She trailed off, though she’d managed to lift her head to meet his eyes. It was hard to see against her complexion but she was blushing. “I’m having… trouble. And I’m not sure why.”

“Go on.” Lewis adopted a concerned expression, though he was confident he knew the entire discussion to come.

“It’s just…” She took a deep breath. “I can’t do my throws right lately, it seems like.”

Lewis nodded. “Yes, I was thinking that tonight…”

The blush was suddenly a lot more obvious.

“I think I know why, though,” Lewis said quietly. “Would you mind if I tested?”

“Please!”

He held up his finger and watched her zero in on it automatically. He barely twitched it once and saw her eyelids droop, then open back wide - so he swept his hand downward and saw her head drop with them.

She didn’t stand as upright as usual this time; her shoulders sagged along with her head, but she didn’t flop as others occasionally did. Body control, he thought again; but this time, with her shoulders feeling constrained, they weren’t as under control. Which was, frankly, perfect.

“You had so much trouble moving your arms tonight, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“It was a problem, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“The problem is that your bra restrains your muscles,” he said. “Your bra limits your movement. Your bra is frustrating you. It makes you a worse judoka. It makes you a worse teacher.” He smirked. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You will wake, remembering that we tested and confirmed the issue. You will not wonder about the details of how. And you will take off your bra, and your difficulty will be gone on the next throw,” he continued. “And you will know you must never wear a bra to your lessons again. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she said, and again, there was a lightness to the monotone that said she was less concerned than she had been.

Lewis smiled and snapped his fingers. This throw would be painful, no doubt; she would want to prove to herself she was back at full capacity. She’d put real effort into it.

But it would also be the most worthwhile throw of his life, as he helped her past an important roadblock.

She was already undoing the belt around her gi. So great was her trust that it didn’t even occur to her to want him to turn his back.

Later, though, she was sure to wonder about that. He looked forward to seeing if she’d dare to raise it in conversation.

*

Miss Li was still not going easy on Lewis when class was in session, but she certainly wasn’t as dismissive of his efforts as she had been. He relaxed a little in class, and the result was that the other students started paying him a little more attention and a little more respect.

At least, that was what he thought until one day when, having gotten to the training hall a little ahead of time for once, one of his fellow students asked “How much more are you paying for your extra tuition?”

Lewis opened his mouth to answer and then realised he not only didn’t know the answer but wasn’t completely sure he understood the question. “Excuse me?”

“Miss Li’s giving you extra lessons, right?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to deny it, but then Lewis stopped and thought it through. His lingering after lessons had clearly been noticed, and he definitely didn’t want anyone asking awkward questions. So he shrugged, and nodded. “Right. But it’s all come out of that bet. I’m not sure she’s offering them wider.”

The other student shrugged at that. “Shame,” she said. “But I guess I can’t complain.”

They seemed perfectly friendly as the two went into the lesson together. Lewis performed badly all lesson, distracted by wondering how best to handle this. He’d honestly forgotten that the rest of the class might notice something.

With his timing off, Miss Li was very critical. Lewis would have admitted that he deserved the first rebuke, but they continued on through the lesson, and that he objected to. He was having the same issue he’d already been told off for. It was only reasonable to give him a little time to get his head back in the game first.

By the time, as the lesson ended, he passed near Miss Li and softly murmured “Do you want me to hypnotise you?” he was a little frustrated, and had some good ideas to help him work that out with her.

All the same, the slightly glassy cast to her expression as she monotonously answered “Yes, I want you to hypnotise me,” did count as a positive for the day…

*

Lewis could barely wait long enough for the last of the other students to be out of the main room before he stepped up behind Miss Li, snaking his arm around in front of her so her gaze would immediately lock to his finger. By now she would focus in on a single finger reflexively, almost instinctively; he’d achieved another throw on her in public by briefly extending one finger beyond the others before they closed. Miss Li had been halfway into trance when he took her arm and pivoted. Her reactions had been slow and foggy, and only the slap of her back against the mats woke her from her halfway-trance.

In an environment of peace and quiet, where she was already primed to drop deeply and easily when he began his induction, she was putty in his hands. He stroked his finger downwards in air just once, and heard the quiet, accepting sigh she always made as her mind yielded.

For all his frustrations it was time for something to anchor her down. “You’re doing very well,” he said softly, so close behind her his voice would still echo through her mind. “Such a good girl, Miss Li. So responsive. So prompt. Dropping deep before you even realise. Before you could raise an objection, if you even had one to raise.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Mm-hmm…” Miss Li responded from her daze. Then, “Yes, Master Lewis,” as the properly disciplined part of her mind caught up.

“Very good,” he said soothingly. “How deep are you?”

“Blue, Master Lewis,” she answered, her voice flat and emotionless. Lewis had decided to use the belt system to gauge her depth of trance. It seemed like a better way to link hypnosis into their shared understanding of discipline, and it taught Miss Li, subconsciously, that sinking deep was something to aspire to.

“I think we need you deeper.”

There was a moment of quiet while she processed his words. “Yes, Master Lewis,” she said again. She undid the belt around her gi and set it aside,letting the thick fabric of her jacket fall open. The sports bra she had worn the first time Lewis did this was no longer visible; under strict discipline it was something she had had to set aside.

Miss Li planted her feet as if she was about to spar, her hands raised in defence. As Lewis stepped out from behind her and moved around for a better view she moved smoothly into another stance, her rear leg coming forward until she stood upright, thighs together, feet squarely planted on the floor. Her hands moved away from smooth blocking position to cup her breasts. She pinched her nipples between thumb and forefinger, a slight gasp of something that might have been pleasure, pain, or a mix of the two escaping her lips. She tugged, and the gasp became a moan.

There was no longer any question that her actions gave her pain, but also no question that they fuelled her with pleasure. Lewis had taught Miss Li that duty was the junction between pain and pleasure, the way that pain became pleasure. She therefore understood duty to be vital, satisfying, and something that motivated itself.

Still behaving as she had been taught, her body moving without her mind’s involvement, Miss Li released her nipples only to start stroking her breasts. Her hands moved in unison, and the slow lazy curve of her motion resolved, as Lewis watched, into two simultaneous spirals, her fingers using her sensitive chest as the instrument it played to take her mind deeper.

“Your body obeys,” Lewis prompted.

“My body obeys,” Miss Li echoed without further nudging. “My body enslaves my mind. My mind learns to obey.

“My body takes me deep. My mind makes me obedient. My body catches me up in trance. My mind loves to be entranced.

“Master Lewis gives commands, and my body obeys.” She paused for a moment before her mantra resumed. “My body enslaves my mind. My mind learns to obey. My body takes me deep. My mind makes me obedient. My body catches me up in trance. My mind loves to be entranced.”

Lewis smirked. “I’m going to get a shower,” he said. “You’re going to keep that up. You’re going to take yourself as deep as you can.”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” Miss Li acknowledged. “My body obeys…”

*

Lewis told himself to take his time in the shower, to be sure that Miss Li would be as deep as she could take herself when he returned, but patience had never been his strong suit, and the gratification he’d received from his hypnotised tutor had hardly encouraged him to develop better patience.

He was back out, dried, and dressed inside about ten minutes. It was still, evidently, long enough; Miss Li’s expression had gone from absent to slack, her jaw hanging open, her eyes beyond unfocused and now fully vacant.

She still mindlessly, mechanically repeated her mantra over and over, but her slack, vacant jawline wasn’t great for understandability. The words came out as ragged, needy gasps.

Dressed comfortably for the street, Lewis strutted up to Miss Li, whose exposed skin still showed traces of sweating from the workout.

“And how deep are you?” he asked again, smirking.

“Black, Master Lewis.” The response was immediate, and was much clearer than her mantra. Just as important, she was a lot deeper. Lewis grinned.

“That’s good. Now, as you know, I am your hypnotist. I get to teach you lessons. To train you.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“It is important that the student respects the teacher. Yes?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

He knew he could count on her subconscious now not to turn that back on him during the judo class. She was always his student now. Sometimes she just didn’t remember it.

“You failed to respect me earlier.”

A little hesitation before she agreed, but “Yes, Master Lewis,” came quickly enough. Lewis saw instantly that she didn’t remember disrespecting him, had not yet been taught to think of the way she’d spoken to him as disrespectful.

But that was fine, because that was why she was back in trance. “You regret this error.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“You will cooperate as we correct your error.”

No hesitation this time. Simple recognition of the rules of discipline between teacher and student. “Yes, Master Lewis.”

It was amazing now much emotion he could sometimes read into her monotones. Her eyes were empty, her face as guileless and unreadable as if she were sleeping, and there was nothing obvious in her voice. Yet when she was hypnotised, it was like she was an open book. Her defences were down, and that left her easy to follow.

Lewis knew that the idea he’d put forth seemed completely natural to her. Perhaps she had already come to the same conclusion on her own, following the rules he had already set into her mind.

“Good,” he said simply. “Now listen…”

*

Miss Li’s eyes rolled back in her head briefly and her eyelids fluttered as she woke. It took a few moments for her vision to clear; the glassy, absent stare remained for some time after she was triggered back to wakefulness.

To Miss Li’s mind, Lewis knew, she would consider anything she thought, said, or did to be her own idea. But in spite of that, her actions didn’t come from her own mind. Didn’t affirm her own beliefs. Didn’t have anything to do with her, except that Lewis had placed them in her while she’d been in trance and disguised them as her own.

She paid no mind to the fact her jacket was open. That happened, sometimes, in one on one tuition. Lewis had made sure it was quite clear in her head that things like this happened but were not worth thinking about.

She turned to face Lewis fully. Brought her heels together and stood up straight. Folded her arms behind her back, one hand clasping the other wrist. Bowed her head deferentially, avoiding eye contact. Lewis knew exactly why she did that; she couldn’t help it. But she thought that was her growing respect for a true master of hypnosis.

“You spoke without thinking earlier,” he chided her. Blushing, nervous, she nodded. “Do you know my solution?”

“Yes,” Miss Li said slowly. He could see the puzzlement on her face; she knew it, but she had no idea why.

Lewis held up his hand. Her eyes instantly locked onto his fingers, so she was staring in exactly the right direction when he snapped his fingers.

The reaction was immediate, her body jumping into action without once consulting her brain. Her hands dropped to her waistband, where she loosened her pants, slipped them over her hips, and let them fall. Stepping out of them she slipped off her panties too, which she held in one hand, balling the fabric up.

The fabric was wet from her self-deepening, but it had already been damp from her exertions. The sweat between those thick muscular thighs would have found a place to live there.

Miss Li raised her head and looked Lewis straight in the eye, her own eyes wide with startlement, as she opened her mouth and pushed her sodden panties in. She bit down on the fabric, holding it in place.

Lewis had recaptured her belt, which he wrapped around as a gag, holding the panties in, and tied off beneath her long dark hair.

“This is the discipline for speaking without thinking,” he told her, and after her gesture of submission, he had to lift her chin to make eye contact. It was still important that she saw the seriousness - and the triumph - in his eyes when he told her so. “Do you understand?”

She nodded, just a little, chin bobbing gently against his hand. He released her, and she stooped and picked up her pants, pulling them back into place. Lewis grinned. “And you feel better for accepting my discipline without question?”

Miss Li nodded, but Lewis barely noticed that. He wasn’t watching her face; his eyes were on her hips, which bucked slightly as she squirmed.

“You’ve lost your speech privileges in private lessons,” he continued. “You will discipline yourself each time, so you will not accidentally speak, until I tell you otherwise.”

Miss Li nodded, and Lewis felt himself even harder than before. She wasn’t even in trance, but she’d accepted his words without question. He had that authority now.

“We’ll continue,” he said, “with a little exercise.” He took a few steps back, so he could more easily take all of her in at a glance, and set down on the mats. “Thirty starjumps,” he went on. “Three sets of ten. No more than thirty seconds between sets. Begin.”

The light of intelligence in her eyes went out almost entirely as she sprang into action. Her eyes were still wide, perhaps because the gag had her jaws open so far.

Her gi flapped open and closed with every jump. She was showing off her body - she had no chance not to - and Lewis watched, and enjoyed, and wondered what he should push her to do next…

*

To his surprise, Lewis was starting to notice changes in his own behaviour. Not many, and not big - but he was arriving on time or ahead of time for things now, and he knew that had started with arriving ahead of time for lessons at the dojo every time. Strange how once it started happening in one aspect of his life, it crept into the others…

He wasn’t the first of the class to arrive that night, but he was among the earliest. Not only that but he’d managed to fit in stopping for food between his final appointment and the class; almost certainly still fatter and sweeter than Miss Li would have approved of if she had the option, but hey, he was getting longer and longer workouts these days. It was going to happen.

Certainly he was there before Miss Li actually arrived. “Good afternoon, Lewis,” she said with a smile as she passed him. Whenever there were other people who might be in earshot, she was polite, but didn’t show her true deference. It wasn’t nearly as good as the submissive student mode she fell into so easily in private, but after the months of disinterest beforehand, he found it oddly titillating.

“Good afternoon, Miss Li,” he returned politely. Lowering his voice, he added “Would you like to be hypnotised later?”

Her expression shifted rapidly through three or four different stages. The glassy-eyed vacancy was one of them, but to his slight irritation, it wasn’t the dominant one, nor was it the last of them. Instead she arrived at a look of regret. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t. My partner is expecting me for a meal immediately after class.”

“You can cancel that,” he said. He saw wary caution flicker in her eyes. Before she could reply, he cut across her. “You have my permission.”

The trigger cut across her concerns and her thoughts as abruptly and effectively as if he’d turned the lights out. Her expression, whatever it had been, smoothed out. “Yes,” she agreed. She stopped in her tracks, fumbling in her purse for her phone. She dialled looking directly at Lewis, and for the first time he saw in those almost empty eyes a desperate desire to please.

“Hey, babe,” she said, and it was like she had somehow had the contrast dialled down on her voice; there was emotion and feeling in there in a way there wasn’t when she was hypnotised, but it was muted somehow, subdued, a fraction of its proper self. “Yeah, I’ve got class. I’m about to go get ready.” She started to smile a little more brightly, her free hand straying up to her neck, where it snared some of her long dark hair, fingers curling themselves into the strands.

“Well yeah, I’ve got to change…” Lewis was enjoying the glimpse into another side of this woman, a side much more in tune with her own sexuality. “So yeah,” she continued, smiling to herself, eyes alight, “I guess I will be naked pretty soon, if not for that long…” She listened to his response, then laughed. There was still that strange impression that maybe she was only half in the conversation, the other half of herself lost to his hypnotic trance. It made it somehow even hotter to see her doing his will.

“Yeah, I like that too,” she agreed. “But that’s not why I’m calling.” She waited for a moment, listening, and her expression shifted, cautious suddenly. Lewis could tell from her face alone that her boyfriend hadn’t taken the redirect well. He had to imagine the guy was insecure, if only because his girlfriend could probably kick his ass if she wanted - another thing that really pushed Lewis’ buttons, knowing that power and that skill was under his control - and that usually meant jealous too.

Jealous meant paranoid most times, which definitely didn’t help the guy here. Lewis was expecting an argument and he was having to try not to smirk.

He was perhaps not trying as hard as he should have.

“I’m going to have to stay late tonight,” Miss Li told him, and even with her reactions and emotions subdued, Lewis could see her wince at the reply.It had probably been delivered at high volume. “I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m sorry, OK? We’ll have to do dinner another night.”

Lewis didn’t expect that to go down well, and it clearly didn’t. “We can still meet up,” she assured him. “Just… later. That’s all… No, I’m not going to tell you what I’m doing. You should trust me.”

Lewis met the eye of one of the other students who’d been waiting idly nearby. He was pretty sure the other guy hadn’t been paying attention at the off. He probably hadn’t heard how Lewis had started this; had only started to follow it when Miss Li’s reactions made it clear that drama was setting in.

“Just trust me, OK?” Miss Li asked. The other student, still looking at Lewis, jerked his head toward the changing rooms. A clear message: Let’s not make this worse by listening to it all.

Lewis could afford to be generous here; he was still going to be calling the shots after class, was still going to get to hypnotise her again. He’d be pushing his luck plenty later, so for the time being he nodded back to the other student and the two of them moved away.

*

Miss Li barely made it through the public portion of the class without dropping. This was, Lewis thought smugly, arguably her own fault; sure, she didn’t know quite how intensely vulnerable she’d become to a finger gesture, but she’d chosen to focus that day’s lesson on defences and disarms against an opponent with a weapon.

As such, she was frequently coming face to face with moving fingers as weapon after weapon was stripped from hand after hand. Lewis was the only one watching her face, keeping track of her eyes as they glazed, as the lids fluttered. He saw her expression flicker in and out of vacancy over and over as the lesson practically became a trigger of its own, fractionating her through her own work.

Nobody else, he was pretty sure, saw any of that. But he could tell from the puzzled glances and the way they faltered not long after her half-drop hesitations and stumbles that they sensed something unusual, something out of the ordinary.

Something wrong. They could see that Miss Li wasn’t herself.

Not that they realised that yet. If Lewis played it just right, he was confident that they never really would. Instead, he predicted that they might think she was ill or something, except for the witnesses to her earlier phone argument. Who’d be completely aware of their surroundings in a state like that, after all?

Lewis himself wasn’t exactly doing well in class; honestly he was probably doing about as well as he could while he was so distracted. For something that had started as an impulse, brainwashing Miss Li had become the most important project in his world.

He was spending far more time thinking about what to do with her next than he spent preparing for any three of his paying clients, and indeed occasionally he found his thoughts drifting from professional preparation to what he’d seen of her body; the way she stood with her head bowed while showing her deference. The way she held herself while her fingers teased her into higher arousal and deeper trance. The glazed abstraction in her eyes and expression when there was simply nothing of Miss Li’s mind behind them.

Lewis had it bad and he knew it. It wasn’t love, of course, as he frequently told himself. He wanted to own her. To use and abuse her. To possess her. That wasn’t love. It was another kind of drive entirely - and one that seemed guaranteed to be much more fun. He kept reminding himself of this. Had to keep it in perspective. Clients whose problems ran to the kinky side had talked in his office about how easy it was to interpret the quick and easy emotional intensity of kink play as love. Lewis was determined not to make the same mistake.

As he found himself disarmed time and time again, as his back began to complain after being thrown for the fifteenth time, as he failed to absorb any of Miss Li’s lessons through her weakened teaching and his urgent arousal - Lewis comforted himself throughout with the reminder that these lessons were by far the less important part of his evening.

Miss Li obeyed pretty much any command he gave her. The next step was to make that easy and simple for her. To cut out hesitations. To make submission natural.

*

After the lesson was over, Lewis hung around while the others left as usual. Miss Li saw to it that each of the others left, talking to several of the more concerned students. Without moving fingers to pull her down in the middle of her train of thought, she was good at setting their minds at ease. By the time she’d had a third conversation or so, she’d more or less restored her air of authority, Lewis thought.

Well, for his fellow students at least. He’d never be able to take her seriously as an authority again. Not while still holding on to her puppet strings. And he had no intention of releasing them - none whatsoever.

The big double doors closed behind the last of the students and Miss Li turned back around. Lewis could see her body language shift the moment he was back in her line of sight; her back straightened, her shoulders drooped, and something seemed to happen somewhere between hips and knee that gave her the impression of becoming smaller without actually being any less shorter.

She’d closed submissively in on herself, and with it came a sigh, barely audible at the distance between them, drawn out. An “Ohhhh” of… what? It hadn’t been quite audible enough to interpret. Surrender, certainly.

If just the sight of him when they were in private could suck her authority and assertiveness out of her like that…

Lewis decided to try an alternative approach to his induction this time. He smiled and held out a hand, keeping his fingers together to avoid her dropping too quickly. He gestured her over to him, and she came with sluggish, uncertain steps.

“Hi,” she said, and her voice was soft, quiet, and somehow fuzzy, all in that one syllable which drawled out of all proportion, as if her mind were only running at half the speed it should be and she simply couldn’t say one syllable in two syllables’ time.

“Good evening, Miss Li,” Lewis smiled. “Are you ready to be hypnotised?”

“Yes,” she said, but slowly, uncertainly. Her argument was clearly still on her mind.

“You’re not sure why you’re here, are you?” Lewis asked. Better to have a clear idea what he needed to fix before he tried to fix it, even if asking caused her to push back a little.

“No.”

“Where do you think you should be?”

“With my partner.”

Lewis was, when he considered himself bound by his professional ethics, a good therapist. Part of that was paying close attention to the word choice people used when they expressed ideas. Often using one word in place of another was how the trickiest problems hid themselves, not from him, but from his patients.

He realised here he’d made the same mistake with himself. There was a second version of that question, wasn’t there?

“Where would you prefer to be?”

“Here,” Miss Li said, and even through the clear brain fog she was feeling just being around Lewis in private, her surprise at that was clear to both of them.

“That makes sense,” Lewis reassured her. “That’s OK.”

“It is?”

“Well, yes. You want to be here because you want to be hypnotised, right?”

“Yes,” she said. She was a little less downcast now; there were even hints at the corners of her lips that she might smile soon if kept on a positive train of thought.

“That’s good,” he said. “So you only think you should be with your partner out of habit.”

Uncertainty showed in her eyes. “Uh-”

“But I have better news for you,” Lewis pressed on. Plant the idea, breeze on as if it was settled, trust to the brain fog and her perception of his authority to anchor it into her own thoughts before too long. “Would you like to know?”

The doubt in her expression vanished in a heartbeat. “Yes please!”

Time to prod her a little. “Yes what?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” The answer came easily; it was close to rote. He just needed to complete that transition.

“Here’s your good news; you’re already hypnotised.”

She blinked twice in rapid succession. “I…” Her eyes unfocused and the fledgling smile spread dreamily, dopily, across her face. The tone of her voice changed completely, the conflict and uncertainty gone from it. “…am?”

Lewis grinned. “You’re always hypnotised around me,” he said. “It’s just that when you’re in public, you’re under suggestion to act as if you aren’t. Because you wouldn’t want anyone to know our secret.”

Miss Li’s eyes rolled back in her head, a soft whimper escaped her lips.

“You understand,” Lewis said firmly. “Correct?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” Her voice was quiet, as it often was while she was deep. It looked like he’d not only triggered her but he’d plunged her into the depths of trance; she was at least as sluggish in her responses as she had been the last time he’d done heavy work.

“How deep are you?”

“Blue, Master Lewis.”

He grinned. If what had been black before was blue now, she was opening up even more than he’d realised.

“Excellent,” he said. “Now, then…”

*

Miss Li, her panties firmly in her mouth, stripped to the waist, had just finished her starjumps. Breathing heavily through her nose, she turned to face Lewis again, body ramrod straight, heels together, head bowed, and folded her hands behind her.

She waited mindlessly, obediently. Lewis, sat cheerfully on the mat watching her, smirked and picked up his phone.

Her eyes were downcast, but he suspected she could make out his movement from her peripheral vision. So he was going to kill some time before she got her next instruction. Let it properly sink in to her mind how little control she had. How little power. How little choice.

He scrolled through TikTok for a while. Even if she couldn’t see, she could hear. She knew his attention wasn’t even on her. And still she waited. Still she didn’t move. Didn’t complain.

Lewis gave it ten minutes; more accurately, when he caught himself exiting TikTok to check his email, he put the phone down. He’d been paying attention to his plaything the whole time; the moment his mind actually wandered from his goal, it was time to stop. And it was time to tie everything together for her.

Helplessness was all very well. But helplessness was also something a subject might try to fight. To overcome. Enough of their mind had to be brought over from fighting or it might all break down in the end.

“Come closer,” he instructed.

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

She took two paces toward him before he said “Stop.”

She halted. Resumed her straight-line posture.

“On your knees,” he told her. Miss Li bent at the ankles and knees, sinking down into a submissive kneeling position in one fluid motion. “Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

“Now come closer,” he said. “Crawl.”

He saw her eyes widen, startled, and there was another beat of hesitation. But her thighs rose off her ankles and her waist bent, her hands coming down to the mat. Her head remained lowered, not meeting his eyes.

She crawled, slowly, toward him. Lewis wondered if the slowness was uncertainty, nervousness, or if she were somehow trying to emphasise her submission. To make her movement a little more sensual. A little more titillating.

He’d like to think so. It would mean the work of breaking down her interest in fighting his control was already begun.

“Stop,” he said when she was perhaps two feet from him. She stopped. Hesitated for a moment. Then she brought her trailing leg forward level with the other, sat back down on her haunches, and straightened her back. For a brief moment her eyes met his, a silent message in them, before she lowered her head and he could no longer see her eyes or her panty-filled mouth.

Strange, Lewis thought, how well she could communicate for someone who couldn’t speak or meet his eye.

“Spread your thighs,” he instructed.

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.” Those powerful, muscular legs parted.

“Pull down your pants.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

She rose fractionally off her haunches. Her thumbs hooked into her waist and smoothly drew down her plants until they gathered around her knees, and she then settled back onto her heels. Her hands came to rest on her bare, pale thighs, a glistening, dripping prize showing between.

“Now, then,” he said. “Take your first two fingers and slide them into your pussy.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.” Her right hand slid toward her waiting wetness so fast it almost seemed to fall off her thigh. Within moments she was inside herself and her hand had stilled once more. She waited.

“Look at me.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.” Her head rose. Mouth still sealed by her own sweaty, wet panties, beads of drool beginning to form on her lips.

“Fuck yourself,” Lewis instructed curtly. “Not until you cum; unless I say you can stop. And as you do, forget your partner. Think only about obeying me and pleasing you.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

“Fucking yourself like this, on your knees before me, for me to enjoy, is a new exercise drill,” he said. “You will assume this is part of your exercises every time we work on your hypnosis in private.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

“You will cum longer and harder here than anywhere else.”

“Yff, Mffr Lssh.”

Her fingers were already working away, a hint of desperation to her motions. The sticky wet sounds of her obedience filled the room.

Lewis reached forward and caught a fold in the fabric of her panties. He tugged them out of her mouth. “Let me hear you,” he commanded.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she blurted, each word coming on its own breath, her body frantic with his commands and her own pleasure.

She came, over and over, as Lewis watched and stroked his own cock in her full view. She came mindlessly, helplessly, obediently, and she saw the satisfaction and the pleasure it gave him as she did.

She obeyed.