It’s always awkward even talking about this, because nobody has a good reason to believe me. That’s actually why I’ve invited these two along; I’d really like it if you knew I was telling the truth. It’s…

Well, it’s just hard knowing nobody believes you if you’re lying. And I’m not.

What?

Yes, this does have to do with why your friend’s been behaving really weirdly.

Yes, I promise it’ll make sense in the end.

So. This started years ago, really, when my best mate’s dad let us look at his weirder books. He’s a wizard. No, seriously. And no, it doesn’t pay well. He’s a signwriter by trade. His son and I, well, we’ve had a few opportunities to learn magic. And not always in the ‘being taught’ way. Sometimes it’s a lot more in the ‘nobody realised which book we were looking at’ kind of a way.

But I guess this also started a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if you had deadlines that Friday too?

We’d had to get our essays in and there was kind of a mad rush. Our seminar tutor, she’s a stickler. Some of the folks in the course reckoned she had it out for them, or just that she’s a huge bitch, but honestly I don’t think that’s how it was; she’s strict to make us learn, I think. The problem is that it leads to basically the same issue.

Anyway. An email went out to the seminar group saying we all needed to see her. Something to do with improper referencing in the essays. Not by all of us, but enough of us she was worried we might all have the wrong end of the stick, or so she said. She said it was nothing to worry about.

Well, like, in my head I believed that. But what your gut believes is a little harder to control. If all of us are getting seen, one at a time, that’s scary. Right? That’s not just me?

To make matters worse, I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure, and we were all in a group chat. So obviously we start talking about it. Obviously. You know how when everyone’s stressed about different things and they all talk about it, everyone ends up less panicky? Turns out if you’re all stressed about the same thing, it works in reverse. We all had the jitters and they got worse over the week.

I woke up I think two nights before the appointments were due, like, three am, something like that, and I was just lying there, staring into space, and I got this idea.

I don’t want you to make the wrong assumptions. It wasn’t like I thought of this and went “Oh right, everything’s fine, I’ve got a solution.” That’s not how that works. I dismissed the idea. I mean, what I did is pretty much wrong, yeah? But I’m not ashamed of it. It was the thing I had to do, or it felt like it.

It took a couple of hours for me to talk myself into it, and I still nearly didn’t on the day. But I’ll tell you this - once I’d talked myself into it, I slept like a baby.

Laura - that’s my seminar tutor - she’d sent out her Calendly. We were supposed to each book ourselves ten minutes with her to discuss it. And because I’d spent a while worrying about everything, there were only a few slots left, and I could see who was in the other slots. Most important was to pick a slot where someone was right after me; that way if I just couldn’t do it on the day, there was a definite cap on how long the meeting would go, and its awkwardness would be over on time.

Don’t know what it’s like in the womens’ halls. The beds in our halls of residence aren’t great. That isn’t just that they’re stupidly cheap and not all that sturdy; they’re also some of the narrowest single beds I’d ever seen.

What they do have was two big drawers underneath; you had to pull them out to get at anything, because they had hinged lids. They were probably supposed to be used for clothes, but there isn’t much room in the communal kitchens either. Most of us use them to store dry food. Oh, you do have the same? Cool. I mean, it was always likely. Just wasn’t sure.

Anyway, I have plenty of other stuff I want to keep private, so I only use one of those for food, and the other one just kinda looks like it if you view it from the top down. It’s basically full of old jars. All kinds of stuff that my friend and I used to make as kids, then different stuff we made in our teens as we ‘borrowed’ different books.

I’ll let you in on a proper secret here, just while I’m at it.

I don’t really think I deserve to be here, at this university. I scraped through on clearing. And I’m not calling myself dumb, but I don’t do well in formal study. Nick a book with my friend that’s got weird magical recipes in it, I’m motivated to learn, I’ll put in the effort and it’ll all come up right. But anything I’m not super interested in bounces right off. Had no problem studying Macbeth for exams. Jane Austen I just couldn’t care about. And so I only just got in.

You can imagine I was really worried about this seminar, right?

But you might not realise I’d been worried plenty before. Just getting through A-Levels and getting here. And I’d had a… well, a thing I’d done, that had kind of pushed the rules in my direction a bit. I was basically going to do it again. Only this time I wanted to do more.

So. Where all of this rambling comes together is, there was a particular jamjar that was full of some really powerful stuff. Mostly full, anyway. I’d used it like five or six times, and it didn’t take more than you’d dig out of the jar with one finger each time.

It went into the back pocket of my backpack, and in the back pocket of my jeans I put a cheap latex glove. There are boxes of them at the fast food place I work for, so I swiped a couple leading up to this plan. What’s in that jamjar isn’t something I want on my skin under any circumstances.

Look, I’m getting to why, OK? And yes, that’s going to cover why your friend is acting weird. But it’s just…

Admitting all this doesn’t necessarily make me feel all that good, you know? I feel like if I’m not careful I come off like an asshole.

Anyway. Now I was prepared, I headed down to the English department and I went along to keep my appointment.

I still don’t really know why I did it. At home, living with my parents, I think I would’ve convinced myself there was no way in hell I was getting away with it. Here on campus, I didn’t feel like the same rules applied.

I knocked on the door of my seminar tutor’s room. Actually, you know what?

Since you’re sat right here, Laura, you tell her the next bit.

Laura

Yes, Master.

Oh, please don’t look so surprised. We know you’ve had a couple of conversations with Rosie, and we know what Rosie said in those conversations, because she told us. Of course she did. Hearing me use that word might be unsettling, but it shouldn’t really be a shock.

When Master knocked on my door - and yes, I know he has another name, but I have to concentrate really hard to remember it. I’m only going to bother doing that when I’m in public and keeping his secret - I thought nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Honestly I just wanted to put a scare into them all, because the amount they were discussing their assignments, their essays used a lot of the same phrases. They were going to get in serious trouble for plagiarism if they weren’t careful.

I said, “Hi. Come on in, have a seat.”

He came in and he shut the door behind him but one thing he sure as anything didn’t do was take a seat. Instead he came up to my desk real fast - between the speed he was suddenly walking and this real fixated look in his eye, I thought he might be dangerous. I was actually scared when he brought one hand up and clamped it over my face, across my mouth. He was pushing me down into my chair, restraining me, but he was silencing me at the same time. And then his other hand came out from behind his back. I could see it was covered in blue, and I could see something orange and sticky across the fingertips. And then I got real scared. Like, way more than I had been.

I just wasn’t in a position to scream. I tried, and what came out was kinda weak and very muffled.

The fingertips on his gloved hand brushed against my forehead, and whatever the sticky stuff on them was felt cold, but seemed to burn and ache in a shape he’d traced on my forehead.

I don’t understand magic at all. Honestly, I don’t think Master understands it as well as he wants everyone to think he does. I only know how I felt. I’ve said it burned, and it did, but it was an ache more than pain, and it was a dull ache at that. It pushed down into my head, through my forehead, and it burned and it ached and where it had passed it wasn’t burning or aching, it was cool and quiet and peaceful and… not numb, but just…

Mmmm.

He let go of my jaw so he could get hold of me by the hair with the hand that wasn’t covered in goo, and I didn’t realise I had the chance to make a noise again until he was talking. By that stage he was kind of rolling my head around on my neck, in circles, and that seemed to affect the spell; it poured into all the corners of my mind, burning away things I didn’t need, and Master was saying “Just relax. Just… relax…” And I could hear him get more excited, that eagerness only men your age have, the ones with no real experience, as he said “and as you relax, feel your nipples harden because you’re aroused, so very aroused…” and I was, and I was too drunk on the spell, too temporarily dumb from the spell, to realise I was aroused because he told me I was, I remember wondering how he knew, as ridiculous as that is, and my nipples were so hard I couldn’t believe it, and even though I should have been thinking about getting him away from me I just wanted to grope my own tits, but he was still talking and he said “but you can’t do anything about it because you’ve just lost all strength in your limbs,” and my feet weren’t planted on the floor any more and my legs kinda splayed out and my arms just dropped, fell to my sides, and I whacked the back of my hand on the side of my chair but that moment of ‘ow’ didn’t register.

“And as your nipples slowly develop an absolute rock hardness, your pussy begins to grow wet,” Master said, “and you’re still relaxing, just sinking deeper and deeper,” and I definitely was and I could feel everything letting go, not like I was losing my grip on things but like things were losing their grip on me, and nothing seemed to matter except I was so turned on and so horny that that really mattered.

Oh, don’t blush; there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m under an enchantment. This is just who and what I am now.

But Master was still talking. “And I’ll tell you now, you’re sinking into my control, you’re allowing yourself to become my slave but you just want to relax, you’d rather be my slave than have to think, and you’re more and more relaxed but at the same time you’re more and more aroused, and your will is flowing slowly away from your mind…” I knew everything he said was true and I felt so helpless but also it confused me so much.

“Your will can no longer control your body because it’s been replaced, in your mind, by my will. As my slave, your will is nothing compared to mine, and as you sink ever deeper you can feel your will dripping down, down, down, your will is collecting in your pussy and you’re hotter and hotter, your whole body full of sexual energy, but you can’t do anything about it, and despite feeling so horny you can’t help but relax further, you feel your head just slip under the waters of my control and you’re happy to be there, nothing but my slave… moan if you’re my slave…”

My mouth wouldn’t respond to my wishes, so the sound I made seemed so strange to me, but it was a moan and I knew it. I didn’t know how this had happened, I barely knew anything I was so spelldumb at the time, but I was Master’s alave, and of course you can tell I still am.

Master let go of my head then but it kept rolling around, the motion of his hands feeling like an order to continue. By now the burning was gone and the ache was gone and all that was left, aside from my arousal, was the sheer bliss of being so deep. I didn’t see the room around me. I didn’t hear the hum of my office fan. I felt only my arousal and I heard only Master.

“And in a second,” Master told me, “I’m going to snap my fingers and you’re going to cum, and as you cum, your will is going to spill out with it. You will be left utterly subservient to me. Nothing else will matter.”

Master snapped his fingers.

Master

I’ll take the story from here, Laura.

Laura

Yes, Master.

Master

The second time she moaned, it was a proper moan, and was followed by more, deep, breathy moans and gasps rising to a cry of delight. Her body and mind were back in sync now that both of them were mine. I was grinning. I couldn’t help myself. I’d only ever used this stuff to correct grades or get out of trouble before. I still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure it could take permanent effect. But oh boy was I gonna put that to the test.

“Look at me, Laura,” I said. She mentioned she couldn’t see just now, and I hadn’t known that, but it makes total sense. I could see her gaze refocus before her head stopped rolling and she turned to meet my eyes. “I am your Master,” I told her. I’ll admit that I maybe did think about all this ahead of time, and I’ll admit it maybe wasn’t just thinking about it; I was…

Stop looking at me like that, OK? I’ve got no idea what turns you on but I’m gonna bet some of it won’t make sense to me. Being her Master is hot. Right, Laura?

Laura

Yes, Master.

Master

“You are my Master,” she parrotted. You’re probably thinking about some movie you’ve seen or some cartoon with hypnosis, and this isn’t quite the same. The spell doesn’t make someone suggestible. Not exactly, anyway. It makes them very focused on the happiness of whoever cast the spell, and that means that if we tell them something about how we want them to be, they’ll believe it’s true. I wanted Laura to tell me she was obedient, horny, and needy, and to mean it, so she did.

“You are my slave,” I told her. Which wasn’t the first time I’d told her, but I wanted a specific reaction.

“I am your slave, Master,” she said, and I couldn’t help but grin. That was what I’d imagined when I was thinking about it before all this started. It’s what I was keen to hear; the exact phrasing I’d wanted. It was fair to say I wasn’t stressed out about my essay any more - or anything else.

We’d taken maybe five minutes of the appointment I’d made with Laura. That left about five minutes, which is enough to do some fun things but it’s not enough time to cover them up again after you’ve done them. I took out a pack of wipes and cleaned up her forehead; the unguent didn’t need to be there anymore. Nor did the sigil.

No idea if I pronounced unguent correctly, by the way. Sigil, though, that I definitely got right.

I told Laura what I wanted of her.

“Yes, Master,” she agreed.

Laura, you tell our friend what she needs to know.

Laura

Yes, Master.

“Good,” he said. “Now, take your trousers off and set your panties aside.” He hadn’t told me to stand up, and I was still spelldumb, though my brain was starting to bobble back toward the surface. It didn’t occur to me to stand up before I followed his instruction, and that made it all much more complicated. Eventually I achieved what I was told to, and he took my panties from my hand. I did not see what he did with them. I was too busy putting my trousers back on before my next appointment arrived.

My thighs were still slick with my own juices, but that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have time to notice before she fell into Master’s trap.

My next visitor was your friend Rosie. I invited her in, immediately turned around, started walking back to my desk. The door to my office shut loudly behind her as Master, who had been waiting, stepped out and grabbed her from behind.

I didn’t see exactly how this all began; I had been told to go back to my desk, and I did. I stepped behind my desk and turned, and then I ran out of things Master had asked of me, so I stood still and my eyes took in what was in front of me.

Master had his free hand over Rosie’s mouth. Standing behind her and struggling against her, he drew his gloved hand to her forehead and inscribed the sigil.

At that point I think you still would have recognised your friend’s behaviour. But as I stood, and as I saw, Rosie began to change. I could understand why. I had changed in the same way. I remembered, almost seemed to re-experience, that unstoppable burning ache, then the yearning, and then the certainty Master provided to me.

“Stop fighting,” Master said. “Stop fighting… focus instead on how horny you are, on how much you need this… so very aroused, so very needy.” Rosie had been trying to stamp on Master’s feet, to kick him in the shins with her heels, to catch him in the sides with her elbows, to grab and pull his hair, and sometimes she had been successful, and I had wanted to interfere on Master’s behalf, but I had no orders and so I could not act.

You are looking at me with pity, and I wish you would not. I do not need to be pitied. I feel happier now than I have done since before I graduated. I was, I think, as carefree then as you were yesterday, before you spoke to Rosie, but life with a career that takes up much of my time has robbed me of a lot of my contentment. Freedom has not been as good for me as obedience.

As I said, Rosie had been doing her best to fight Master, but his words had shown her how aroused she was, and she had stopped her struggles so she could paw at her own top, that hoodie she wore often to seminars. It did not seem to be as satisfying as she needed it to be. If it was anything like mine, nothing could be. “You want to touch yourself, to make yourself cum, but you can’t. Your arms are limp,” Master said, and I saw her hands, one by one, fall away, hanging limply by her sides. “Your feet are rooted to the spot.” And after one last stamp, her feet wouldn’t move, though her knees and her hips twitched - but more to grind her thighs together than to escape.

“And as your pussy drip, drip, drips wetter and wetter, you find yourself helpless to do anything about it, helpless to act, helpless even to think for yourself.” Master’s voice was throaty, excited, triumphant, and as I stood and saw and heard I felt my own pussy drip, drip, drip, my juices running down my leg. I am not like Master; this is not something that arouses me. But I was aroused nonetheless, either to please Master or as a result of the spell. Or both, I suppose.

Master let go of Rosie, and her legs stayed upright even as her body seemed to want to flop. He made his way around to see her from the front, his hands on her tits as he kept her upright. I watched him move her head in the same graceful swirl that had quickened the spread of the spell through my mind. “You want so much to cum,” he told her. “But when you cum isn’t your choice. It’s mine. Everything is my choice. You’re sinking into my control, you’re allowing yourself to become my slave but you just want to relax, you’d rather be my slave than have to think, and you’re more and more relaxed but at the same time you’re more and more aroused, and your will is flowing slowly away from your mind…” I knew exactly how Rosie felt, because I had felt the same way when he had said these words to me. But they made much more sense this time. I was no longer unsure. I knew. I accepted. I obeyed.

“Your will can no longer control your body because it’s been replaced, in your mind, by my will. As my slave, your will is nothing compared to mine, and as you sink ever deeper you can feel your will dripping down, down, down, your will is collecting in your pussy and you’re hotter and hotter, your whole body full of sexual energy, but you can’t do anything about it, and despite feeling so horny you can’t help but relax further, you feel your head just slip under the waters of my control and you’re happy to be there, nothing but my slave… moan if you’re my slave…”

Master noted that my statement ‘I am your slave, Master’ was one that aroused him deeply. I think it is clear that a new slave moaning to accept her place does the same thing. Please do not look so embarassed. Master is right; you will have kinks of your own, and there is nothing wrong with them.

Rosie moaned, in any case. You will not be glad to hear this, but you should be. In that moment she had found her purpose. Her destiny. Do you have a destiny? A purpose? Or will that lack always leave you unsatisfied?

Master’s voice became quiet, his head close to Rosie’s. From her reactions, though, I could know that he was saying to her because it had been said to me. I watched expressions cross her face; need, fear, emptiness, arousal, orgasm, and acceptance.

How she remained standing when he snapped his fingers and compelled her to cum I still do not understand. Perhaps Master made it a requirement.

“Look at me, Rosie,” he said. He likes to command us to make eye contact. I do not know what he gets from it, but that does not matter. It is his prerogative as Master.

Her eyes, always open, now had focus again. She turned her head to meet his eyes, and her eyes saw only him.

“I am your Master,” he said.

“You are my Master,” she echoed.

“You are my slave.”

“I am your slave, Master.”

I remembered how I had felt when this happened to me, how delicious it was. In that moment I was jealous of her.

I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry, Rosie. But it is true nonetheless.

“Take those leggings off,” he ordered her.

“Yes, Master.” I saw her lift the waistband of her hoodie, slip her hands into her leggings, and, wriggling, draw them down. She obviously had abandoned her belief that her feet were rooted as she drew her leggings over her trainers, the fabric straining over the rubber soles before being discarded. Masterr reached down and cupped her between her thighs. Even from a distance I could see him grind his palm against her mound, his fingers doubtless teasing her needy slit through her sopping panties.

“Give me your panties,” he ordered.

“Yes, Master.” She had to peel them off. They were even stickier than mine had been when Master confiscated them.

Master turned away from her and walked behind the desk, close to where I stood. He sat in what was usually my chair, just barely in my peripheral vision, but I could not turn my head without an order.

He held up Rosie’s panties and produced mine with what I think h thought was a dramatic flourish.

I’m sorry, Master, but it fell flat.

“The cum you’ve left in these,” he said, “represents your will. Since you don’t have it, you’ve both accepted me as your controller. But that’s not purely because I possess your cum-stained panties, it’s simply because I had the power to force my will upon you. Nevertheless, you can never regain your will unless you don the panties you wore when I took control of you. And, Rosie, you’ll die before you’ll let Laura have these back without my express order.” He handed Rosie my will, and I watched her take it. “Not that you can persuade your body to attempt to wear them, Laura. Is that clear, both of you?”

“Yes, Master,” we said. We spoke simultaneously, with the same tone and the same lack of inflection that you have just heard.

“Good,” he said. “Because that means when I give Laura these, Rosie, you both understand what that means, correct?” He handed me Rosie’s will.

“Yes, Master,” we said.

Master

I think you can imagine what happened from there, of course. Judging by your expression you don’t want to hear Laura tell you, and it probably wouldn’t sound any better coming from Rosie. But that’s why your friend is acting weird; that’s what was going on with her; and that’s why you demanded answers.

And of course I told you you wouldn’t believe it, so I’d get Rosie to come in and tell you with me. That may have been a lie.

Rosie, silence her.

Rosie

Yes, Master.

Master

Laura, sit on her legs. Hold her arms.

Laura

Yes, Master.

Master

It probably sounded safer having your friend and a teacher here, didn’t it?

Hold still. Don’t struggle.

Just relax. Just… relax…