It was the first time Lewis had fucked Lex.

(She had no idea, but to her it was always the first time Lewis had fucked Lex.)

She was in his bedroom. It wasn’t entirely clear to her why she was in his bedroom, who had initiated things, how she had got here…

He had peeled off panties that were already soaking wet, as if they’d been at it for some time, and she’d kissed him, conscious that she was…

…she was, she realised, eager to impress him. Which seemed natural to her at the dojo, where he was Miss Li’s favourite student and her tutor, a contradiction in terms he mind kept distracting itself from wondering about. But it wasn’t so natural in the bedroom, especially in his bedroom.

Lex was pretty sure she was out of his league. And yet it was him calling the shots, him giving her orders, her obeying them.

He had her on his bed on all fours, not facing the head or the bottom of the bed but the wardrobe to one side of his room. The wardrobe door was wide open; she could see herself clearly on the mirror on the inside door, and as Lewis stepped up behind him, Lex found herself studying her own expression, trying to understand what she saw there.

She didn’t look quite herself.

He had his hands on her hips now, looking down at her with that smirk of his, the one she’d hated on instinct when she met him, and yet now all she wanted was for him to keep smirking like that, just so long as he was fucking her too, was railing her senseless.

She didn’t want to make love. Didn’t want to be in control. She wanted to be fucked.

Lex shivered as she came face to face with the realisation that she’d be perfectly happy for this man to just use her for his own pleasure, not caring whether she got anything out of it or not. That wasn’t like her, she told herself. Not like her at all.

As he pulled her hips back onto his cock to begin, she thought she caught a glint of something like glee in her mirror-self’s eyes, and she couldn’t entirely understand where it came from.

She humped back against him, gripping the sheets for purchase, bracing herself on her knees, responding to his passion and urgency with her own, but her eyes never closed, never left those of her reflection, even as the rest of her vision swam.

Lex’s scalp tingled and every part of her body was flooding her mind with pleasure. Staring into her own eyes she watched as they emptied out; she stared into vacancy, saw herself as an empty vessel, an object for fucking, stripped of personality, of intelligence, of awareness.

It was as if a warm, comforting blanket enveloped her. Still humping back against him, her pace, rhythm, and the smooth milking action of her pussy settling into a rhythm which, like that of an object in use, did not vary, the comforting feeling surrounding her seemed like a blessing from a higher power.

And as she heard Lewis mutter “God, you’re wasted as a bitch when you could be like this all the time,” that was a benediction; she found herself clinging to it as praise. Her eyes crossed, and she no longer saw that strangely empty mirror-self; instead she felt herself an empty vessel, needing to be filled; with cock, with praise, with purpose.

Lex humped back against him, mindlessly, staring into the glassy eyes of an unthinking fuckmachine who would be wasted as a bitch, as he fucked her, took his use of her.

The door to the bedroom opened and Miss Li walked in, fully dressed, her back ramrod straight, her legs not bending at the knees, a large tray in her hands, and her feet moving in a slow, steady, swinging rhythm such that each footstep ended with the heel of the foot directly in front of the toe of the other foot. Lex came suddenly as she caught sight of her, clenching along his cock, still humping against him as hard as she could, and she had no idea what it was about that moment that made her cum.

If she’d had any spare awareness for thought, Lex would probably have wondered why Miss Li hadn’t reacted to the fact of entering a room with two people fucking, but she lacked that awareness and she did not wonder.

Miss Li walked right up to the foot of the bed, then stood still, holding the tray. Funny, Lex found herself noting. Her eyes aren’t glassy.

That was important. She understood it was important but she didn’t know how, nor why.

“Put the… tray… down,” Lewis gasped, in between thrusts.

Miss Li complied, and Lex could see that she had made three hasty bowls of pasta with a cheap tinned sauce and some cheese. It had evidently been a block and she hadn’t been able to find a cheesegrater, so she’d diced it very finely and scattered it across. She’d clearly worked very hard to turn student dorm level ingredients into something better.

“Pick mine up,” Lewis instructed, and Miss Li lifted the fullest of the bowls in her hands, holding it gingerly. It seemed like it must be hot, but Lex was paying less and less attention to that; something about fucking Lewis in front of Miss Li was hotter than ever, being naked in front of her, being helpless, being fucked. Then Lewis continued, “Put it on her back, and Lex,” he growled, “do not spill my dinner.”

Lex saw her eyes widen in the reflection, saw the response she was having to his casual use of her as a table even while he was fucking her, and only her determination to obey and not to spill his dinner stopped her from speeding up, bouncing harder, bucking wildly, fucking him to her own exhaustion to show how horny she suddenly was.

Lewis seemed in total control of her and of Miss Li, and she couldn’t even object. She obeyed. She had to obey.

That wasn’t who she was, but it felt more natural than who she was.

The bowl was placed on her lower back and she found herself wrapping her feet around the back of his legs, using only her knees and her ankles, bracing against the bed, to keep pounding herself against him without the risk of spilling the bowl, her back held ramrod straight just as Miss Li’s had been as she walked and just as she was always criticised at the dojo for failing to achieve.

*

Lewis slept in the warm embrace of both women, resting his head on Lex’s bosom, Miss Li draping herself across him, taking the role of a sheet but in a much more affectionate-eager-to-please mode.

Inside Miss Li’s head was a clock, ticking away, keeping almost perfect time to the clock outside. In one hour, she might gain five seconds; in another, she might lose three, but the time was still six a.m. when her eyes opened.

Master Lewis was still sleeping soundly, and Miss Li did not intend to let him for much longer. One by one she moved her hands and feet and planted them on the mattress for leverage, lifting herself from him - their bare bodies having clung together for some time - and crawled down the bed until she found herself eye to eye with his cock.

At this point, Miss Li almost slipped straight back into vacant, open-mouthed, drooling trance, but Master Lewis had given her specific instruction and so she had to obey, which allowed her to begin kissing his cocktip, slowly, lovingly, until he started to twitch and harden, at which point she took him inside her mouth and began to suck.

Simultaneously, her left hand left its mooring on the mattress and found Lex’s thigh, soft, supple, and warm beneath her hand.

This was what Master Lewis had wanted her to do. Miss Li had no idea, really, whether she was in trance or out; it barely mattered any longer, so far as she could see, as her will belonged to him. She could not imagine there was anything that would make her fight against his control now.

He had made her so much better by his hold on her.

Her nails began to trace an oval on Lex’s inner thigh, looping around in slow, tender, teasing arcs that slid further and further up her thigh in every repetition, gaining in speed as her worship of her Master’s cock gained in intensity.

A series of eager squeaking moans escaped her mouth, with a contralto accompaniment of deep sighs and eager gasps from Lex, her thighs parting, as Miss Li’s fingers found her slick pussy and stepped inside.

It was the first time Miss Li had fucked Lex, and it was the result of a decision neither of them had made or been involved in. Lewis, swimming up to delighted wakefulness to Miss Li’s tender encouragements, turned his head slightly and flicked a tongue out across one of Lex’s nipples, provoking a gasp followed by a lazy moan.

Lex did not believe she had technically slept that night, instead being kept in her trance and simply told not to think and to rest. While in fact she had dozed off and slept for some time, her mind was confused enough about the issue that when she emerged from slumber, she emerged into a trance state rather than a fully aware consciousness.

He kissed Lex’s tit again then, as Miss Li brought him to full readiness, he took her nipple between his teeth, biting down only gently. The moan Lex gave echoed for them both as his bounty filled Miss Li’s mouth.

The dilligent, disciplined Miss Li took Lewis’s load into her mouth, running her tongue around him to gather as much as she could before lifting free of his cock and crawling back up the bed.

“Open your mouth, Lex,” Master Lewis said softly, and his blonde junior student had to obey. Miss Li, pre-programmed, kissed her, her mouth opening to fill Lex with Master Lewis’ seed.

Miss Li, with her higher rank and her more dependable discipline, had the privilege of sucking Master Lewis cock; Lex had the duty of disposing of his cum, just as the night before she had had the duty of the washing-up after dinner, just as she had had to sweep the dojo for them both beforehand.

Miss Li, in her conscious awareness, found herself wondering how she had come to kiss a woman for the first time in her life; on the other hand, the moment their lips had met, she had felt Master Lewis’ cock attempting to stiffen again against her thigh, and that was surely all the reward she could ask for.

*

“No power,” Miss Li was saying, that morning, “no control. No choice. No power, no control, no choice. I love to be hypnotised. I have no power. I have no control. I have no choice.

“No power, no control, no choice. No power, no control, no choice. I am hypnotised to have no power. I am hypnotised to have no control. I am hypnotised to have no choice.”

Lex was watching her, fascinated, studying the way her breathing changed over the recital, the fluttering of her eyelashes, the way Miss Li looked when she was hypnotised.

It was, she thought, perhaps contagious. She could feel herself sinking. But she couldn’t stop it.

“No power, no control, no choice. No power, no control, no choice. I accept Master Lewis’ choices. I accept Master Lewis’ control. I accept Master Lewis’ power over me. I have no power. I have no control. I have no choice.

“I have no power, no control, no choice. I am an obedient Blank Belt. Miss Li obeys Master Lewis. Miss Li has no power, no control, no choice. No power, no control, no choice.”

Miss Li’s words had become less certain as she continued, her voice grown fainter. A thin cord of drool was working its way down from her lower lip, swaying with every syllable, and Lex’s eyes had strayed to it, then locked onto it. It made her think of Lewis’s finger - Master Lewis, as Miss Li was referring to him - but she wasn’t at all sure why.

The three of them were in a diner, in the studenty side of town; it was almost empty on any given morning, and the booth they’d chosen was comfortably out of earshot of anywhere else. Breakfast had already been served, at Lex’s expense, and their coffee had been topped up before Lewis asked Miss Li if she’d like to be hypnotised.

To Lex, who still felt oddly like a third wheel in spite of having fucked one of them and been finger-fucked and kissed by the other within the past eight hours, it was another thing she didn’t understand. She had squirmed at the question and bitten her lip at Miss Li’s agreement, which had been somehow both vacant and excited.

Now, though, she felt almost as if she were hypnotised herself. She was perfectly still, as if it could not occur to her to move.

Something like that had happened before, hadn’t it? The very first time she met Lewis, something like that had happened. He had been holding up his finger…

Lex’s thought vanished in a sudden dizzying moment, as if she had felt vertigo while completely stationary. She felt somehow like she’d dropped while sitting, like in some strange way control had passed away from her.

Not that that made any sense.

Master Lewis drew a line in the air with his finger and Miss Li fell silent. Lex’s scalp tingled deliciously. She remained perfectly still.

“Lex,” Master Lewis said, “let’s see how well you do, shall we?”

She had no idea what the answer to that question was, and despite the caffeine, despite the orgasmic wakeup, despite having eaten some of her breakfast before Miss Li got carried away, she didn’t seem to be thinking quickly at all. Lex wasn’t sure why that would be.

“I can only be the best,” she said, “if I always do it right. I can only be the best if I always do it right. I can only be the best if I always do it right.

“Master Lewis knows what’s right,” she continued, wondering how she knew this, wondering why the thoughts she was repeating almost seemed to be in Miss Li’s voice in her memory. “Master Lewis knows what’s right. Master Lewis knows what’s right. I need to be guided by Master Lewis. I need to be guided by Master Lewis. I need to be guided by Master Lewis. I am your eager student. I am your eager student.”

Her lips were dry but it didn’t affect her speaking; she spoke in a steady cadence, as if these were things she’d been drilled on rather than the thoughts spontaneously occurring to her that they clearly were.

Master Lewis was smirking in a way that made her wish he would decide to fuck her again. That would be fine. It would be fine if he did it here in the diner, in front of the waitress.

“I can only be the best by learning from the best. I can only be the best by learning from the best. I must work hard to live up to your standards. My whole focus is on learning and earning my progress,” With every new sentence, there was less emotion to her voice. Less personality.

Less self.

“I work harder for you than anyone else.

“Nothing else matters.

“I’m so close to being the best.

“Total dedication is needed.

“I devote myself to you.”

She sat still and glassy-eyed, believing herself an independent, free-thinking woman but not thinking at all.

Across the table from her, Master Lewis smiled to himself. He took another bite of his breakfast then reached out, stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Magnificent,” he said. “I didn’t hear a heartbeat of hesitation there. Very good.”

Lex knew she was smiling now.

“Did you pay any attention to what you were just saying?” he asked.

“No, Master Lewis,” she answered easily. She didn’t need to pay attention when Master Lewis was around, or not to ideas, not to thoughts. Master Lewis was always right, which meant she could just follow his lead and it would work out fine.

She only need to pay attention to the physical, to tasks and targets. The things she simply needed to to to be the best, and the things she needed to dedicate herself to doing better, each in sequence.

“But you stand by all of it?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” This, too, was unquestionable. She was better around him, better around Miss Li. So any decisions she came to, even the ones she didn’t think through, around them were better than anything else.

Lex was so glad Miss Li had duped her into that first meditation session. These two were making her into a better version of herself.

She felt Master Lewis’ hand on a knee under the table. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she sat lower in her chair, scooting her ass further forward on the cushion so he had more of her thigh available to him. ‘Available to him’ was important, somehow, in a way that she wasn’t.

“You’re going to return to my home tonight,” he told her. “We’ll meditate. You’ll become better. Miss Li will join us after her classes are complete.”

“I’m going to return to your home tonight, Master Lewis,” Lex found herself agreeing.

“Very good,” Lewis said, and then paused. “Do you cook?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

He smiled. “Then when you leave work, before you return to my home, you will go shopping. You’ll buy ingredients for… let’s say you’ll buy ingredients for a week of good eating for three.”

“When I leave work, before I return to your home, I will go shopping, Master Lewis. I will buy ingredients for a week of good eating for three.” She accepted this with the same submissive acquiescence as if he’d demanded she drop to her knees, crawl under the table, and suck his cock.

*

People at the office were still calling her Alex, and it still sounded indefinably wrong, but she still felt constrained from correcting them for some elusive reason.

Lex felt constrained in her job; it paid too well to leave, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do and for the past three years she’d had a sense that it was turning her into someone she didn’t want to be.

Usually getting into work in the morning was an effort. She could feel the strain on herself just from doing it. That morning, though, she was all smiles; she was cheerful; the dread of arriving at work had been replaced with a positive attitude to work her way through it.

Was the problem not with work, she wondered? Was it that she hadn’t been getting - well, she’d had plenty of sex in the three years she’d worked here, so it wasn’t that she hadn’t been getting sex, but perhaps what she’d needed was to get fucked.

The most frustrating of meetings, as the people sat around her debating the ramifications of actions the company was about to take, seemed to just fly by, while she remembered someone resting a plate of pasta on her back while fucking her from behind, a slight smile on her face.

Karla, who had been sat next to her during the meeting, pinged her on Slack afterwards with a simple question:

Karla Davies: Are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?

Lex blinked at the words on her monitor, realising for the first time that the reason for her improved mood might be obvious to others as well.

Alex Boucher: Guilty?

Karla Davies: I thought so! Just tell me it’s none of the men from here.

Alex Boucher: Oh God no. They’re not even in my class.

Not, she thought, that she was in Lewis’ class, or even Miss Li’s. She needed to earn a better belt before she could make that claim.

Karla Davies: You’re not wrong haha! I guess I wouldn’t know them then.

Lex didn’t think that needed answering, and besides there was plenty for her to be getting on with. Not only was it important she hit her targets if she wanted to still be getting her salary in a month, but she was feeling a lot more motivated to do things right since Lewis and Miss Li had brought her closer to them through meditation.

She didn’t actually notice Karla’s follow-up message for another few moments.

Karla Davies: I don’t think I know Alex either!

Alex Boucher: How do you mean?

Karla Davies: Nothing bad. I’d just never have guessed you for someone willing to do the walk of game, Alex.

Alex sat quietly for a while, staring at those messages. Something about them was uncomfortable for her and once she finally realised what it had been she was embarrassed it had taken her so long to see.

Alex Boucher: Yeah, well, lately I feel like I’ve improved. And some of that is that Alex just isn’t who I am.

Lex Boucher: It’s weird how much better it feels to see my proper name on here.

Karla Davies: I don’t think I understand. But I’m sure you do, and it’s definitely working for you, Lex.

She was breathing easier seeing Karla pick up the cue and use her real name. She couldn’t understand how it was that everyone at work thought of her as Alex. She’d let them think that way for three years, and it didn’t make sense.

*

Breakfast had overrun. Lewis wasn’t far enough lost to his own ego to blame this on one of his companions; this was on him. He’d still thought he had time to reach his clinic before the working day began, but as it turned out, not so much; he walked in the front door fifteen minutes late.

Dana was on reception that morning, and as he pushed open the door and walked in, he could see her eyes were alight with something like glee. He read the signs all too easily; Dana was something of a troublemaker, and had feuded with a number of the staff at the clinic before now over telling tales - but she still had her job, and she had it in no small part because the tales she told were always ones she could back up.

Unfortunately, this would also be the second time Lewis had been notably late - thankfully still having a few minutes before his first appointment of the day, but only because he hadn’t filled his earliest slot - in just a few moments, and if management heard about it, they would not be pleased.

He gave her a small smile of his own, and her glee coalesced into a smirk; that confirmed his worst fears. Lewis hesitated for a moment, knowing what he would have to do but still not sure; is this actually a good idea?

It wasn’t, he decided; all the same, even though it wasn’t a good idea, he didn’t have a better one. Leaving it be was just as likely to cause him problems as it going wrong.

And in fairness, if Lex had been as little of a problem as she had, he might not have as much to fear in it going wrong as he’d thought…

He passed through the door beside Dana’s window, into the corridor where his clinic office among others could be found; also in that corridor was the door to Dana’s reception area, and rather than pass on he pushed her door open and stepped inside, letting the door swing gently closed behind him.

“Good morning, Dana,” he said.

“Is it, Lewis?” She was still grinning. “I can’t imagine you really think so. Not under the circumstances. Of course, I was up bright and early, because I know what’s expected of me on a workday.”

Nothing for it, then, but to get straight to it, he thought. He perched on the edge of her desk, hearing her sniff of affront, and lifted up one finger.

“Before you report this, as I agree you should, I’d like it if I could plead my case,” he said. “And besides, if I don’t plead, you don’t get to enjoy me doing that, do you? So I think really it benefits both of us if I do, doesn’t it?”

Dana frowned at him or, more accurately, frowned at his wagging finger. “Do you think this attitude is going to help you, young man?”

Lewis would have been astonished if Dana was more than five years older than him. They might be the same age. But ‘young man’ was a phrase she used to keep authority.

He couldn’t help but smile at the idea of Dana keeping authority at this point.

“Do you ever think,” he began, “about when you were a child? The possibilities the world seemed to have before we knew the rules?” He began to scratch at the air with his raised finger.

“When you were a kid,” he continued, “did you ever play the game where you try to make someone feel like you’re scratching their nose without actually touching them?”

Dana was already frowning at him, but the skin at the top of her nose twitched and wrinkled slightly at that.

“And I see you can already feel that,” Lewis said. “Just because I’ve put the idea back into your head. A little tingle, just between your eyebrows.” He smiled. It wasn’t too early to start priming her, he decided; she was too much the nosey type not to want to know where he was going with this.

“You know, that shows you’re very suggestible. All the most intelligent people are,” he continued smoothly, wanting to make sure she didn’t take offence. “And it’s a good thing. Now, that tingling sensation, it’s growing stronger.” Dana’s nose wrinkled again.

The last times he’d used this induction, he’d planned it all out. This time it just came smoothly, with him already knowing what he wanted. “In fact, it’s not just getting stronger… it’s spreading. It’s a tingly, fuzzy wave, soaking forward through you, from the front of your head to the back.”

He waited a few beats, now the word soaking was in her mind, to let it absorb the idea. She should be receptive to things growing stronger that way now.

“Every stroke sends another wave washing against you. Every wave washes further in. And just like at the beach, in the end, everything’s touched by the water.” Lewis was practically purring now.

“In the end, that tingly, fuzzy sensation will seep through your whole head.”

He started to stroke now more deliberately, in longer lines, expecting Dana to interpret that as bigger, stronger waves. “And the fuzzier things are, the trickier it is to make thoughts happen. But that’s OK, because there’s no reason to.

“The simple, inescapable fact of the matter is, you’re not thinking, Dana, and you didn’t even notice. Couldn’t notice. Noticing would need you to think. You actually have to take my word for it that you’re not thinking, but you take my word for it. You trust me implicitly.” Again he waited for a moment to give his words more impact. “Say you trust me implicitly.”

“I trust you implicitly.”

“That’s right. Very good. And whatever else people say about you, Dana,” because he felt comfortable now in how deep she was already sinking, “you always tell the truth. So hearing yourself say that, you know it’s true.”

He pressed on before what little thought remained could object, enjoying the high he got from control, enjoying the way her expression had slackened, seeing potential in her now he no longer had to think of her as a possible enemy. “Open your mouth, Dana.”

She did so, her jaw falling slack. “Very good,” he continued. “Now, I’m going to put something in your mouth, and when I do, you will find yourself dropping completely away into a helpless, receptive, suggestible trance. If you understand, nod your head.”

She nodded, just barely, and he put his two fingers into her mouth, which reflexively closed around them. “Now, Dana, you’re not going to tell anyone about my late arrival until we’ve had a chance to talk.

“You know we didn’t have a chance to talk just now. After all, I can’t have just walked into your room and hypnotised you. That doesn’t make any sense.

“So our first chance to talk will be my lunch break. You’ll come into my office on my lunch break to talk. That’s your plan, isn’t it?” He moved his hand up and down, making her nod, but she was already mumbling a choked acceptance around his fingers.

“But Dana, there’s a part of all this that I want you to hide from yourself. I want you to hide from yourself just how much you want to be hypnotised again. You may not have realised you do before, but you’re not thinking now, you don’t need to think; you’re not questioning now, you don’t need to question; you’re not doubting now, you don’t need to doubt; and you’re not scared now, you don’t need to fear. You can just exist and enjoy. And that’s better, isn’t it?”

Again, she choked out a muffled agreement.

“You’re not going to let yourself know about that. After all, I clearly didn’t hypnotise you. But if my fingers find their way back into your mouth, you’re going to find it so easy to sink back down into this better state of mind, aren’t you?”

“Yff.”

“Very good. I’m going to take my fingers from your mouth now, but you won’t wake up until the door has closed behind me. I’ll see you at lunch, Dana.”

Lewis withdrew his fingers from her mouth and walked to his office, his fingers tingling, his whole body suffused with excitement.

The experiments with Lex had made him confident he could push his hypnotic subjects further than was commonly accepted, could establish control more easily, with only a very basic understanding of what made them tick. Without that, he might never have dared to make this test.

But he knew now that he could succeed from such a simple start. And if he could crack Dana, then she could be the gateway into a much cushier work life.

He sat at his desk and buzzed the intercom. “Dana, has my first client arrived?”

“Just now, Lewis,” she answered. “Right on time.” She couldn’t resist making that a little dig; consciously she still thought she was in control of the situation.

“Send him through,” Lewis said.