The next video teaser saw Madame X walking along a sidewalk in a deserted, industrial area of town, being filmed from the road. She wore her mask, her gi, and her tight leggings, but was barefoot, and she paced with her chest pushed out and her hands clasped behind her back. A shrewd observer might have noticed that this kind of filming could abort easily, the performer jumping into the car, should anyone else appear. Despite the fact her white leather mask covered her eyes, she seemed to walk confidently, as if she knew exactly what she would see ahead.

The caption read:

MADAME X REQUIRES INSPIRATION.

As the clip ended, Madame X had come to a halt. Her blind attention was on a bench which faced into a dilapidated empty lot; more accurately, her head was tilted toward the silhouette of a blonde woman who sat on the bench, head bowed, her back to the camera, her body mostly obscured by a baggy dark red hoodie.

The caption read:

MADEMOISELLE X

COMING SOON?

*

Dana managed to hold off from being alone with Master Lewis for the entirety of Tuesday, although it felt like she should find some excuse to slip in and see him the whole time - and truthfully, if he’d had any cancellations, or even if his 11:30 appointment hadn’t eaten into his lunch hour, she would probably have caved just due to the prolonged opportunity.

It wasn’t just her craving for the one thing that really satisfied when it filled her mouth, either. The dream she’d had as she dropped off to sleep the night before remained fixed in her mind, not fading as her dreams usually did over time. Every time she thought about it, she felt a shiver of excitement and arousal run up her spine, connecting her pussy to her brain for a moment with a delicious jolt for the duration of which any clear thinking was impossible.

It was so unlike other dreams she could remember, so vivid, and she wasn’t at all sure what she thought.

She didn’t understand how certain details had formed in her mind, and so she wanted to discuss it with Master Lewis - wanted to get a second opinion, was hoping in fact that he might remember having made one offhand comment or another which her subconscious had retained without her remembering it.

All the same, rushing into his office at the first opportunity the day before had been noticed by the other staff, and while they might be tolerant of her spending time with the man they thought she’d set out to seduce, they’d be far less tolerant of it if she put more strain on their own workday - and they’d judge her, too, for fawning over him so often. So she had exercised herself not to reveal how deeply needy she felt; she had put in the effort.

On Tuesday night, she was again asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and the dream repeated itself, in as much detail as before. This time, reliving it, she noticed more the emptiness in Miss Li’s eyes throughout, but she also noticed the other woman’s shudder as Dana’s own orgasm bubbled up through her.

Was Miss Li hypnotised too, then? It would explain so much. Dana would be delighted to learn that was true, if only because it suggested Master Lewis’ appetites would remain strong enough to hypnotise both of them regularly. Dana knew that without Master Lewis, the chance to live a hypnotised life was not hers, and she couldn’t imagine anything better.

But then, there was no way for her to know that. It would only be a guess, if a guess with the strange insight of the sleeping that once was labelled as prophecy.

Going into the office on the Wednesday morning, Dana’s mind was in turmoil, her whole self anxious and uneasy. The first thing she did when she’d booted up her computer was check the staff schedules.

Lewis had a mid-morning slot empty. Dana, who had known even before dreaming the same dream again that she wouldn’t be able to hold out another night, was quietly delighted.

She didn’t even bother with a pretext, but simply knocked once on his door and then slipped in, closing the door behind her. “I’m very sorry if I’m interrupting,” she said. With the door closed she turned back to take in the whole office, and once she’d seen that he was the only other inhabitant of the office, the slight hesitation holding back the next word vanished. “Master Lewis,” she finished the thought.

“I have to write up some notes, but that can wait a little while,” Lewis said with a half-smile. “What’s on your mind?”

She had walked up to the front of the desk, where she remained standing just to one side of the patient’s chair. It didn’t seem right to seat herself without Master Lewis’ direction. Not when they were alone in his office; in the staffroom among colleagues, some part of her was sure she’d feel differently, although she couldn’t say why.

“I have… a confession,” Dana said. “To you.”

“You do?” He sat back in his chair, relaxing with a light smile. “Oh, where are my manners?” He pointed down. “Do kneel, please.”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” Dana said, sinking to her knees. She was on them, her hands resting on her thighs for want of a better place to put them, before she’d had a chance to think about it, though she had the vaguest idea in the back of her mind that her thighs should be parted, something her skirt would not allow for.

He nodded his approval of her posture, in any case. “Right,” he said. “Do go on.”

“Uh -” Now it was time to talk about it she felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She looked down and away, and once she was no longer meeting her eyes it was easier to admit. “I’ve been dreaming. Of you. And of Miss Li.” Her cheeks burned hot.

“Oh, yes? What kind of dream?”

She hesitated. Could she say this? It seemed indecorous. It was bad enough hearing him say ‘fuck’ when they were negotiating a transaction for hypnosis. “You and she wanted to… to assess me,” she said. “My flexibility, I think. And my strength… how well I could use it, uh, under pressure.”

She waited. Master Lewis was smiling sunnily back at her, making no comment. As if he was waiting for her to expand on what she’d said.

“You, uh…” She swallowed. “You undressed me. And groped me.” Master Lewis still did not comment. “And you had me bend down, with rules about how I was supposed to bend. Until I could touch the floor. And Miss Li was copying me.”

“And how did you feel, in this dream?” Master Lewis asked. “About being exposed not just to me but to another instructor?”

The question brought her thoughts hiccupping to a stop, not because she’d felt uncomfortable but because she hadn’t noticed that feeling comfortable was surprising. And yes, of course, it was - typically she found it awkward enough to bare her body to Master Lewis. His own cavalier attitude to showing her his cock was starting to help with that, of course, but these habits had been ingrained over a lifetime.

Dana’s experience was that most men who were interested in her body were the type who shouldn’t be shown it, in case they took advantage. Her experience with women who were interested in her body, so far as she knew, was zero - but she was prepared to believe that women’s admiration might be more circumspect.

“I… uhm.” She considered. “I wasn’t upset.”

“No,” Master Lewis said, with a grin. “You were horny, weren’t you?”

“Master Lewis!” she exclaimed, shocked.

“Well,” Lewis said. “When I put my cock in you, you were definitely wet. Do you deny it?”

Her eyes briefly went glassy. “I can deny Master Lewis nothing,” she answered, her voice steady and flat, neither confident nor uncertain, stating a fact on which everyone was agreed.

“Not quite what I meant,” he said with amusement, “but I thank you.”

“How did you know you put your cock in me?” she asked quietly.

Master Lewis smiled. “I have been wondering for a while if you’re more eager for me to fuck you than you make out,” he said. “I know you love having me in your mouth -”

“I love having Master Lewis in my mouth.” Again the slightly abstracted gaze, again the steady flat tone. She blinked as the conversation continued smoothly, ignoring her own interjection.

“Good girl,” Master Lewis said. Dana preened, but did not consciously register the words he had used. “And I know you love it when I have you hypnotised-”

“I want nothing more than to live a hypnotised life.”

“Good girl.” Dana realised she was aroused and happy in a way she hadn’t been at the start of this conversation, but she was at a loss as to why. “If you’re dreaming about me fucking you, though, you must love having me in more places than your mouth.”

She couldn’t look at him. The heat on her cheeks was as high as it had ever been. If someone had fried an egg there, it wouldn’t have felt in any way surprising.

She tried to answer him, but all that came out was a squeak.

Leaning over the desk, Master Lewis took her chin in his hand and lifted her to meet his gaze. With his other hand, he held up two fingers, close together. Dana’s gaze went to them with idle curiosity, but her focus snapped to them with hypnotic dedication.

He was swinging his fingertips from side to side, slowly, at the wrist, for all the world as if he had a metronome for a hand. Dana felt herself drain away, replaced by buoyant, happy blankness.

Oh for a hypnotised life.

“Very good,” Master Lewis said. “Now, tell me four specific details about your dream.”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she answered unhesitatingly. “Miss Li seemed submissive to you throughout, and even hypnotised. You told me to oblige you. You kept eye contact while you undid my belt, after I turned my head to face you. Miss Li’s body mirrored whatever mine did, starting before I realised.”

“That’s very good indeed,” he assured her. “And what did you enjoy the most?”

“I felt so helpless when you started fucking me, because I couldn’t even move to better support myself,” she said. “I could only work to please you, and push myself to stay where you wanted me. And that was more of a turn-on than anything else. It was almost as good as if I’d been hypnotised.”

Master Lewis growled in the back of his throat, an unmistakable sign of excitement on a level she hadn’t been at all ready for.

*

In her white leggings, crisp white gi, and the white hood that revealed only the tip of her nose down to her jawline, her lips stained crimson beneath, Madame X was crouched behind a row of metal gym lockers. In one hand she held a wad of white fabric; in the other, an open plastic bottle in a black material. The label was unreadable due to where she was holding it.

She pressed the wad to the top of the open bottle and, holding them together, inverted it for a moment; when she turned them back right-side-up and set the bottle down, the darker patch of fabric was testament to the liquid that had seeped into it.

In spite of her mask hiding her eyes, Madame X seemed to peer out around the gym locker and what she saw evidently pleased her. She moved quickly, running in a crouch at first and straightening up as she covered distance.

The blonde who had been seen in the previous teaser was seen again, also from the back; Madame X was hidden from her view by her open locker door. She had on a pair of tight blue jeans and a sports bra, but was holding a deep red hoodie large enough to be a baggy fit on her, as if she was changing for whatever athletic event (presumably) took place here.

Madame X reached around from behind her with both arms, cinching in an unbreakable hold in which she was also able to clamp the fabric to the other woman’s face.

The blonde struggled, but her struggles swiftly diminished and she slumped down in Madame X’s arms.

When her struggle had completely ceased, Madame X lifted her up, slung over one shoulder, and marched out of shot.

The blonde’s face had not been shown at any point, being hidden behind white fabric or Miss Li’s shoulder when she wasn’t facing away from the camera.

The caption read:

WHETHER PLEASING HERSELF OR PUNISHING OTHERS

After a few moments it flipped to the next part of the message:

MADAME X WILL ACT AS YOUR HAND

*

“You will remember nothing of this trance,” Lewis said, and placed his hand flat on the table. There were no longer fingers to lock onto, and he saw her eyelids flutter several time as her gaze cleared.

“You know,” he told her, “I did wonder at the time if you’d pick up on Miss Li’s state of mind.”

He watched Dana blink a couple of times. She would be trying to process why he’d shifted the way he was talking, what he was saying. “Pardon me, Master Lewis?” she asked tentatively.

“How did she seem, to you?” he asked. “In this,” and he put as much amusement into his tone as he could, “dream of yours.”

Dana furrowed her brow. She’d picked up the implication, but she didn’t know yet what he meant. “Uh…” He watched her fumble for an answer. “She seemed like, well…”

“Be specific,” Lewis said firmly. “You won’t be criticised for an honest answer.”

“Thank you, Master Lewis,” Dana said, and Lewis made a mental note to come back to that reaction. There was real gratitude in her tone for that - as if she’d needed people to say that (and mean it) many times over before now. “I thought you were in charge of her. Honestly I thought maybe you’d hypnotised her?”

Lewis nodded approvingly. “Well observed, Dana. Why weren’t you sure? Did it feel like wishful thinking?” Doctor Forrest loved the paired questions technique, and was always encouraging him to use it more often. The second question primed the answer to the first, to hopefully lead their thoughts in the right direction. To Forrest, this was a useful addition to cognitive behavioural therapy, a way of helping people reframe how they felt about something.

Here and now, to Lewis, it was a way to steer Dana’s suggestible mind. “I think so,” Dana said thoughtfully. “But I have no idea what your relationship with Miss Li really is.”

“Yes, you do,” Lewis told her, smiling. “You’ve seen it.”

Dana sat for a moment. “I don’t understand, Master Lewis.”

“No? Well, perhaps not.” He wanted to be sure he had all the groundwork in place before he took his next step. It would probably have been safe to do so now - Dana’s suggestibility seemed to be even stronger than he’d thought - but he was enjoying himself, so why not draw it out, especially if it reinforced things? “You were very obliging, though.”

She looked away from him again, shyer now than she was surprised. A great mix, given his goals. “Thank you, Master Lewis,” she said.

“You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” he continued. “Being asked to oblige me?”

“I… yes, Master Lewis.”

“Look at me, Dana,” he said.

She took a couple of seconds to obey, but it didn’t seem like she was trying to avoid doing so; more, Lewis felt, she was psyching herself up to do so. That was a very positive sign, as he considered it. “Tell me you enjoyed it,” he told her.

“Yes, Master Lewis. I really enjoyed it.”

“What did you enjoy?”

“I enjoyed being asked to oblige you.”

“And did you enjoy obliging me?”

He watched her eyes widen. Saw her tongue run out over suddenly dry lips. Even saw her neck flex as she swallowed. It was completely clear to Lewis how much impact admitting this would have on one of the two members of his harem who didn’t yet know that they were. “Yes, Master Lewis.”

“I thought so.” He smiled and released her jaw from his grip. “Stand up, Dana.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” She scrambled hurriedly to her feet, her eyes alight with excitement. He wondered how much of that was expectation over what he might do, and how much of it was the thrill of a chance to obey.

“That’s very obliging of you,” he told her.

Again he watched the brief glassiness in her eyes as she answered “I will oblige you obediently,” and grinned. The point where they were so primed that fragments of their training surfaced more easily than their own independent thoughts, that was always a delight for him.

He emerged from behind his desk and walked to stand by her side. As he’d expected, she turned her face to watch him. “And now we’re standing together the way we did when I undid your belt,” he said. His hand instead came to rest against the swell of her crotch; he watched her eyes widen, saw her lips part in excitement.

“How,” she said, then swallowed and tried again, “How do you know that?”

As if in answer, he rolled his thumb, grinding the heel of his palm against her. The whimper that escaped her was exhilarating. “Can’t you guess?” he asked. It was teasing her, of course, but the more their dalliance developed, the more he was enjoying these little chances. Receptionists always acted like they had power over the clinic as a whole; it was petty to get so annoyed with it, he knew, but his burgeoning collection was built on his own pettiness. As such he had no problem with that.

“I… uh…”

“I had her mirroring you from the start,” he said. “I don’t think you noticed to begin with, did you?”

She squirmed against his hand, grinding herself back against him. He didn’t think it was completely intentional, or even that she was fully conscious of it. Her eyes were wide; as she gazed up at him the impression of her being so adrift was searingly hot. “How do you - wait.” And she blushed crimson.

Lewis grinned. “Go on,” he said.

“That wasn’t a dream, was it?” she asked, her voice small and weak. “It happened.”

In actual fact, it hadn’t - though it had certainly given him some ideas for the future. He had instructed her to sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and dream of himself and Miss Li. He had then implanted a compulsion for her to tell him about the dream in private.

He’d left the specifics of the dream to her own mind, trusting both that there would be elements in the finished product he could use, and that this would lead to a dream which touched more closely her specific desires, giving him extra information for her further programming.

It had been late the following night, lying half-asleep with his head pillowed on Lex’s bare breasts, when this additional wrinkle had occurred to him.

“Of course,” he said. “You both responded excellently to hypnotic suggestion, so I decided to take it further.” He grinned. “You were instructed to bury it in your memory, as a matter of fact. It seems we must have been very close to your most secret desires, and some part of you couldn’t stop yourself from keeping the memory, making you think it was a dream.”

Dana was nodding by now, seeming almost relieved. “I did really enjoy it,” she admitted.

“I know,” he said. “You felt so helpless, didn’t you?”

She nodded, whimpering softly.

He reached down and unbuckled his belt. Naturally, her eyes tracked to the sound, and as the tip of his cock emerged he watched them glaze over, dropping down into helpless submissive trance.

“Your mouth wants to make itself useful, Dana,” he told her.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she admitted, and obliged him obediently.

*

When she took the job, Shauna thought with only mild annoyance, she’d known that it would eat up some of her spare time, but she’d expected that time to be spent mostly in teaching.

As she pulled into her usual parking space for the dojo, a couple of blocks away, she wondered what today’s summons would turn out to involve, since a class certainly hadn’t been scheduled.

When Miss Li had called her the night before, Shauna had been on the verge of refusing - it wasn’t part of her agreed timetable, it didn’t seem to be for a class, and she had prior plans for the day with her nephew - but the words never quite passed her lips. I can’t refuse Miss Li, she’d caught herself thinking, and then she’d agreed.

Now, shouldering her kitbag (just in case there was a class she hadn’t been told about) and walking to the dojo, she wondered why. Miss Li was a great teacher and a wonderful woman, and Shauna would admit she’d be a better woman if she was more like her, but that didn’t give her the right to make any demand she wanted of Shauna; nor had Miss Li saved her life.

She didn’t even owe her any favours. In fact, if there were many more of these surprise summons, as far as Shauna was concerned it would be the other way round. So it was a little odd how automatic her agreement had been.

She stepped inside the dojo and rather than stop by the changing room, went directly to the main room, and she started talking as she hit the door. She’d become attached to this tactic over time; it allowed her to control the first few moments of any situation where frustration or emotion might run high, including her own.

As she pushed open the inner door to the main room, she was saying “Alright, I’m here. I don’t know what exactly we’re doing, but I’m-”

What she saw brought her up to an immediate halt. She’d know Miss Li’s figure in gi and leggings anywhere, she’d seen her more than often enough for that (albeit the shift to leggings from loose pants was relatively recent, just a handful of months ago), so she was absolutely sure of the identity of one of the masked figures, but the white leather hood with the covered eyes was new, and her lips were a brighter red than Shauna had ever seen on her before.

Standing next to her was another woman, also wearing a crisp white gi and tight white leggings. She wore a nearly identical hood except that an opening had been made at the top of the hood and her long blonde hair had been drawn through it, then tight red bands had been applied for two inches of it so that it rose up directly before cascading down in loose curls. Both women were barefoot.

If one was Miss Li, deducing that the other must be Lex was not a complicated step but Shauna had been thrown for such a loop by what she saw that her head didn’t reach that conclusion at once. She was too busy goggling at them both.

Their attention had been elsewhere, but as she watched their heads turned to face her. Perhaps they placed her by sound - either way, the sight of two eyeless, empty faces, their lips a bright, glossy red, turning to face her was enough like something out of a horror story that her hindbrain cut through her bewilderment to pass judgement: Run.

Before she could do so, though, the blonde lifted one hand, a single finger raised above it. Against the whiteness of her gi, it stood out clearly. Shauna’s eyes flicked to it, then recognised it, and then she stared.

As she stared, she felt her heart steady, felt herself grow calm and peaceful. The need to flee was gone, and in its place was peace. She felt too peaceful to think.

She was still standing in that spot, staring at that finger, nearly five minutes later when the door behind her opened again.

Lewis walked past her, moving at a brisk pace. He was carrying a bulky sports bag in one hand, and with the other he was rolling a wheeled office chair in front of him, one presumably borrowed from another room in the building. He stepped between Shauna and Lex - now that the adrenaline and panic were gone, Shauna had been able to make that conclusion for herself, even thinking as slowly as she had been - and Shauna’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, her vision swimming.

By the time it cleared he was no longer obscuring the raised finger, and so Shauna stilled again, the expression on her face halfway between sleep and confusion after a brief moment of wondering what was happening.

Lewis had handed over the bag to Miss Li, and Miss Li was busying herself with it. She placed it on the chair and wheeled it over to a small table that sat in one corner of the room, and in so doing she passed out of Shauna’s line of sight.

“Shauna,” Lewis said, “come here.”

“Yes.” She turned slightly to face him, keeping her head angled so that she could also still see Lex’s raised finger, and walked across to him. Only as she came to a stop did she reach a point where she couldn’t see Lex’s finger.

For some reason, she didn’t rise fully out of trance, as the part of her that was aware of what was happening had expected.

“Do you know why you did that?”

“Because I am hypnotised.”

“That’s right. You obey Miss Li, and Miss Li obeys me.”

“Yes.”

“I am Miss Li’s Master.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

Shauna thought about it, which took longer than it otherwise would have done.

“It means Miss Li obeys you,” she said at last.

“But you also obey me.”

“Yes.”

“Which means?”

Shauna was still hovering on the edge of trance, and was discovering that she didn’t actually want to think. The part of her which had been most accepting of what Miss Li and Lex were doing supplied an alternative, an answer that didn’t need thought. It had been put there to act as a substitute. “I am hypnotised to have no control.”

She had not admitted it to herself - dared not - but every time she spoke part of her mantra aloud, she felt a little more excited. Was that her doing, or had Miss Li or Lex decided it for her and made it so?

Did it matter?

Lewis was looking at her closely. “That’ll do for now,” he sighed, after a moment. Shauna felt an irrational pang. It shouldn’t matter to her that he clearly felt let down, and yet for some reason it really did. “Are you comfortable on a computer, Shauna?”

“Yes.” She spent enough of her week dealing with the shitty little laptop her boss had budgeted for, trying to make it do the things she needed it to without being so slow. Usually even contemplating that made her angry and frustrated, but the headspace Miss Li and Lex had created for her was one where peace dominated and Shauna submitted.

“That’s very good. Miss Li has a laptop at her workstation. Come with me.” He turned and started walking, and she followed obediently, hypnotised to have no power, no control, and no choice.

“Sit.” He indicated the chair.

“Yes.” She sat. In front of her, Miss Li had already opened up the laptop and connected up several cables, before bustling away elsewhere, presumably on some other task for her ‘Master’ Lewis. A program had been loaded onto the screen, one she vaguely recognised. They were planning to stream something.

Even thinking slowly, it was immediately obvious now why Lex and Miss Li were dressed in the pseudo-fetish versions of the normal dojo getup.

Shauna hoped she wasn’t going to be instructed to take part. As she’d already reminded Lewis, she was hypnotised to have no choice.

“When we go live, you will read aloud to me any chat messages that stand out. We’re looking for technical complaints about focus or buffering, but we’re also looking for any message with a request for action which is accompanied by payment or which comes from an account name in red. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Shauna acknowledged, the part of her mind that enjoyed what Miss Li had done to her breaking the complex instruction down into a flow process which she could easily follow without too much thought.

“Very good,” he said, and she felt herself squirm in pleasure for a moment. That was so much better than his reluctant acceptance of an answer earlier. His praise was better. Miss Li earned his praise. Miss Li was better. Shauna wanted to be better…

None of those were thoughts, but they were useful and pleasing substitutes for them.

“I will tell you things to type. You will simply allow your fingers to do so, without thinking about it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very good. You’re going to be highly useful today, Shauna.”

Why did it feel so good to hear that? To anticipate being that? “Yes,” she answered, in case a response was expected.

The camera feed window on the software sprang into life, presumably as a result of something Miss Li had done. Lex was in the field of vision, slightly off to one side, paying out a coil of rope the same deep bright red as their lipstick.

Shauna watched the screen as Miss Li entered shot, taking the rope from Lex, and began to tie her with a briskness that Shauna knew bespoke either long practice or hypnotic indoctrination. She wasn’t sure which was more likely.

Lex was trussed into a kneeling position, her thighs and calves bound together by rope that then looped from groin to shoulders, down again, and back up to the shoulders, to eventually tie her arms together in front of her, binding them at the elbow and wrist.

“All set?” Lewis called.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” they answered in unison. Miss Li reached down and took hold of Lex’s topknot where it was bound.

Lewis leaned across Shauna and cued in their countdown to live, then started the stream. “You will begin in five,” he instructed.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” they chorused. “Three. Two. One.”

The first excited message appeared in Shauna’s chat, and she knew the stream was live. Her disguised friends were exposed to the eyed of the Internet.