I had just called Mimi and told her to dress nice then come fetch me from my brother’s office that evening when Lily cleared her throat.

Even this amount of willingness to assert herself, rather than just acquiescing to my every whim, was unusual for her. Like I said before, Delilah will make her opinion clear and if she thinks I’m stupid for having a different one she’ll find a way to tell me that too, but Lily is about as different from her as two sides of the same person can be.

I looked up at her. I think she saw my surprise more than anything else - I’d formed a pretty clear opinion of her already, and this kind of thing wasn’t part of it - and she blurted out “I have something you need to know, Master.”

Now, you know, we wouldn’t have been talking about anything to do with all this if I didn’t already have sense of whether I could trust you or not. But we also wouldn’t be talking about this if I didn’t think you were smart.

You probably already realised that his software company was built on his control techniques. It’s kind of important, though, that you realise that he wasn’t selling them. You couldn’t buy his software, not even if you knew about it, not even if you had a billion dollar budget.

And you especially couldn’t if you worked for a government. He had tests. We keep those tests going, by the way. I’m not interested in supporting a dictator or selling out a democracy.

What he was selling was the operation of them. That way he kept control of who got affected, who by, and what the likely outcomes were.

Anyway, I figured his control stuff was probably software. I hadn’t put together the rest of it, not until Lily laid it all out for me. I like practical things; I took over the farm for a reason. Marcus was much more interested in abstract structures, and it wasn’t until after he was gone that I realised ‘abstract structures’ included businesses as well as software, and included social hierarchies too.

Success is something you wish for your loved ones, but unless you understand it, unless you can see it taking shape, it’s not something you understand. I knew Marcus had become wealthy. I had some sense, from meeting with CeCe, of how wealthy he was.

Lily told me that the majority of his money had been reinvested in the business - that what I knew about was the tip of an iceberg. That reinvestment was designed to make more iceberg.

I see the furrow on your brow there. I’m not going to insist on the metaphor. They all break down eventually, and like I said, I do practical things much more.

I had plenty of questions when Mimi pulled up outside, so I sent DeeDee to tell her to come in and get comfortable. Honestly that was the first real lesson I had that I had to be careful with the way I worded things, because my whole idea had been to take some extra time to focus on what Lily had to tell me.

I probably could have ignored Miriam whatever she’d done if I needed to focus on an important conversation. I didn’t yet know that if I gave Mimi reason to think she was due a special occasion - say, by telling her to dress up nice and fancy and come collect me - she was going to get excited, and determined, and have a whole bunch of ideas she wanted to put into action.

So I was focusing on Lily. When Mimi walked into the room I looked up just because there was someone new in the room, and I nodded, I probably smiled, and then I looked back at Lily and went on paying attention to her.

I know Mimi well enough now to know the message she read from that was somewhere between ‘impress me’ and ‘can you measure up to a challenge’?

Lily was just starting in on laundering the revenue when Mimi slid expertly onto my lap, her back to my chest, one thigh either side of my crossed legs. She’d chosen a dress to be seen out on town in; it was made of some shimmering green fabric, was juuuuust opaque enough that you couldn’t actually describe it as transparent, it was cut not quite low enough to be indecent, and it was slit up the thigh, such that I was suddenly very aware of her thick, warm, soft thigh against my leg.

She shifted her weight, very slightly, her hands down and braced against my hips, and her buttocks ground against my crotch.

I’ve no idea whether Marcus would have been able to focus through that. Maybe. Or maybe he’d have told her off, taken back control. I’ve learned since that CeCe actually prefers kneeling beside my chair to being seated herself, and really at some point I should find out what Mimi likes in that line.

You might think it’s rude that I haven’t already found out, over the course of a year. I can’t exactly deny that but I do have to say there’s been plenty for me to find out and plenty of people to pay attention to; I’m going just as fast as I can while still giving them all their due.

Anyway, whether my brother could have controlled her in that moment, I couldn’t. She could feel me getting hard, I’m sure of it, and while I tried to take in what Lily was saying it wasn’t working; any time Mimi thought I might be focused away from her she’d roll her hips, grinding over my cock, and that sort of thing tends to distract one somewhat.

It occurred to me that while I needed to know what Lily had to say, I didn’t need to know right then. So I interrupted her, and I told her I’d be dropping by again the following day, and she should prepare a presentation.

Lily gave Mimi a sideways look and then, looking back at me from under lowered lashes, a broad smirk on her face, she asked me if she had permission to “take measures to keep your attention, Master?”

As focused as I was on the body straddling mine I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t crack that code. I said sure, and then I told Mimi to lead me to the car, and I made my exit for the night.

Through all this, as silly as it might sound, I was learning about myself. Mostly I was learning to cope with the level of sexual appetite around me; Pat and I hadn’t exactly given ourselves short shrift but I think we’d just kind of… well, once a day, except for about a week a month, we just felt was the standard amount, and we didn’t really deviate from that.

Marcus clearly hadn’t seen any reason to stick to society’s ideas, and I was finding that I responded to invitations much more than I’d realised I would back home, when the invitations were usually more of a mutual assumption.

It’s not that Pat and I didn’t enjoy making love, or that we saw it as a duty we had to deal with - no, it was always a pleasure. But it didn’t always feel like…

I’m explaining this badly. You probably don’t much want to hear it, either.

I was realising that Pat and I had always seen the idea of twice or more a day as being, perhaps, slutty; perhaps a little sex-obsessed. The sort of thing you got Judged for.

Well, Mimi wasn’t going to judge me. CeCe couldn’t, and while Lily would absolutely judge me, I knew I didn’t need to worry about that; the worst that would happen is some laughter, and maybe some mockery, and if I couldn’t take mockery from someone I controlled completely, I probably needed to look more carefully at my ego.

We had dinner in town, somewhere Mimi chose when I told her to take me somewhere I’d like. Honestly it was a bit too fancy for me; fantastic food but I’d rather have mashed potatoes than a potato puree, sooner my dessert have a chocolate sauce than a chocolate tuile. Still, I enjoyed it - very good, and the company was amazing. Mimi sparkled where Miriam disappeared into a grey background. And I’ll admit to really enjoying the obvious jealousy of a lot of the other diners.

Then we headed back to my brother’s home, and it was a long time before I allowed Mimi to sleep. The dress…

I wasn’t good at controlling myself. Really, that’s what it boiled down to. For all that I kept Mimi busy satisfying me for a long, long time, afterwards when we were both exhausted sleep came easily to her, while I lay in bed and thought about Pat.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t already been unfaithful to her; I’d had a couple of days of it. No, it was the slow realisation that this wasn’t a vacation.

I always knew what my job was going to be, always knew I wanted to go back and work the family farm. When I took over I already had a sense of the place’s rhythm.

I knew how it changed with the seasons, I knew what needed doing, the only things I wasn’t sure of were how to jailbreak the chip on the new chapter that stopped us from doing basic repairs on it ourselves.

So I never really experienced that sense of ‘this isn’t for real’ in the workplace that some of my friends have told me about over beer. If I understand it right, the idea is that the first weeks, even the first months, in a new job feel like the start of something new and they carry with them a sense of unreality; it’s hard to believe, at first, that what you’re doing in your new job is something you’ll be doing for years.

I may not understand it, but that’s definitely how I felt about my first weeks in Marcus’ home. It was a break from my usual duties, even if it was the imposition of a new one. It was something else that needed doing, and then I had the secret of Marcus’ notebook and suddenly there was much more to it - but this felt like a vacation.

It was easy, as a succession of beautiful women who called me Master attempted to show me how much better the man with their codeword made their life and how grateful they were, to think of this as a break from reality.

I think, really, that’s why I hadn’t protested when Mimi first showed me the true extent of what she’d do for me. It’s why I was prepared to push CeCe’s buttons on the same day, and why afterwards I’d been perfectly happy to have Lily and DeeDee both fawning over me for the afternoon. I might have tried matching a couple more codes to other employees if it hadn’t been for fear I’d be exhausted - a fear Mimi had taught me I needn’t have.

But even if I hadn’t heard everything Lily had to tell me, it was clear that these women needed a Master, and that Marcus had intended the Master be someone they could trust. That wasn’t something I could walk away from in good conscience. It just also wasn’t something I could see myself justifying to Pat.

And long term or not, the point where I was going to have to explain at least some of this to Pat was coming up fast.

*

I didn’t switch Miriam back into Mimi first thing that morning. I’m still not really sure why, but on the other hand unlike some of the little mysteries we’ve talked about so far, it’s not one I’ve given much thought to. Honestly, at this point I pay less attention to my behaviour than I do to theirs; I can more easily optimise theirs.

Miriam always gets up early, and this is a farmer saying it; she was waiting for me to rouse, silent, and stayed in bed long enough to see I wasn’t going to switch her immediately, then she headed off to shower and see about breakfast.

Her own breakfast, not breakfast for both of us. Miriam is very clear on the distinction between herself and Mimi, especially when I comes to obedience; it’s actually kind of funny because she still gives me every opportunity to switch her across. If she thinks I might - say, because she didn’t fix breakfast for both of us - she’ll loiter.

I hadn’t realised that yet and I wasn’t properly awake anyway so while the machine made my coffee I just started talking with her.

“Is this weird for you?” was what I wanted to know, and sure, it’s not a super clear question but I knew the answer had a good chance of being weird too.

Miriam shrugged. “It’s been normal now for years,” she said. “The first few months were weird, not because I wasn’t able to accept what was going on - the problem was that I completely accepted what was going on, and I knew it should feel strange. Not as Mimi but, like…”

Her eyes weren’t on me; she was looking up at the light, her hands curled up in half-formed gestures, as she tried to find the words for what she wanted to say. It was the first time I’d seen Miriam in the face while her expression was fully animated and engaged, and I could see the difference.

I knew then I’d always be able to tell which self was uppermost so long as I could see their faces, at least once I’d had some practice. Later on I’d find that body language was enough; if I see their silhouette in the doorway I know who’s coming into the room.

“The first time Mimi opened her eyes, she was sharing my body,” was how Miriam put it eventually. “I didn’t have the same practice.”

“But you didn’t think it was weird?”

“I’m not sure if it was didn’t or couldn’t,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure that Marcus didn’t just find Mimi and bring her out, I think he did some things to help me - and the others - with it all too. I mean, Mimi and I aren’t opposites but we’d probably never have become friends by choice.”

“You don’t like her?”

“Oh, I love her,” Miriam said, so fast it almost seemed defensive. “Just, like… if we were in different bodies I’d hope we’d have got to know each other. I think we’d have become close in the end if we did. But we’d only ever have started talking at something like a baby shower, if we found ourselves sat in the same corner needing a break. That kind of thing.”

I took her word for it. With her saying Marcus had affected Miriam as well as Mimi, I suspected she couldn’t lie to me. Leave things out, maybe. Slant what she was saying. But if I asked her a yes or no question, point blank, I could be absolutely sure of the answer.

“Celandine told me some of your story…” I said cautiously. I was expecting, I think, that Miriam would shrink away internally, the way she’d been when I first met her, if reminded of the bad old days. I was very wrong.

Miriam smiled broadly. “Good,” she said.

“Good?”

“I’m glad you know your brother was a good man.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know Marcus didn’t do this to benefit himself,” she answered. “He could have done a lot of different things to help me. But he found my true self and brought it out so I could recover.”

I still wasn’t entirely sure of that, but asking her if she really believed it would either be a waste of time or counterproductive, so I didn’t. “Why do you think it is,” I asked instead, “that for you and Celandine and - do you all know each other?” She nodded. “So why do you think it is that none of you reached your true self naturally?”

“I don’t think many people do,” she said. There was no hesitation but it didn’t have the speed of a rehearsed answer - or a programmed one. I could tell just from the way she started that this was something she’d been thinking about. “I think my true self-“

“Who is kind of hypersexual,” I couldn’t help but interrupt, and Miriam grinned.

“Right. That I don’t have a clear explanation for but so much about everyone’s sexuality has conflicting research about it, so.” She flapped a hand dismissively.

“Am I asexual because of my upbringing, or my genetics, or a mix? I don’t know, and I’ll be honest, I haven’t bothered to look at what the general consensus says these days. It doesn’t matter to me. Especially since it’s - you don’t necessarily realise you’re asexual to start with. I just assumed my sex drive was super low. Everything on TV assumes everyone has a sex drive, so I figured I did until I was confronted with the alternative.

“But my true self loves to fuck, it turns out. That’s what Marcus’ software proved. Although I love it the most when I’m told to fuck, so maybe what I really love is that I have no power. I don’t really worry about that side of it.

“What were we talking about? Oh yeah, how we all missed our true selves. So I think, really, that you’ve probably missed yours, too. I think everyone does.

“I think your true self is the person you’d be if you’d ignored all outside influences. Or maybe just all outside influences that get in the way of being the best version of you.” She shrugged. “So really, to me, it’s no surprised we weren’t there. I don’t think anyone could get there without Marcus’ breakthrough.”

I was quiet for a while, long enough that Miriam had finished her breakfast and was washing it up, while I turned over all of that in my head. I found the idea that these womens’ true selves were exactly what a kinky mind control software designer would want them to be really hard to believe.

Finding out that Miriam had actually thought about this enough to come up with an explanation I couldn’t immediately dismiss was a bit of a challenge to that, but I still didn’t believe it.

In the end I just said, “You’ve thought about this.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed. “A lot.”

“What are you doing with your day?”

“I need to go shopping. We’ve used up a lot of the pantry; if you’re going to be here a while longer I need to stock up.”

I know I made a face. “I’m not sure how long,” I said. “Let’s assume a few days though.”

“Sure.” She put her plate into the rack to finish drying and turned to look at me.

“I need a lift into the office,” I told her.

Miriam shrugged. “So?”

Like I say, I hadn’t yet learned how important it is to Miriam that I recognise her independence and only give Mimi commands. “Me, me, it’s all about me,” I said. “Get dressed. You’re giving me a lift into the office.”

“Yes, Master,” Mimi grinned, then hurried to obey.

*

In the car, I remembered I’d wanted to talk to Mimi too. Something about the way she carried herself made it easy for me to forget conversation in favour of watching her move.

“Do you know what I asked Miriam?”

“Yes, Master.” I really didn’t understand the link between the two selves; sometimes they seemed to know everything, other times not so much. Lily assures me the answer is in the code, but she hasn’t given me a clear explanation yet and I’m not going to learn code just so I can unpick that.

“What are your thoughts?”

“What about, Master?”

“About… what was done to you?”

“I’m grateful, Master, of course. And I’m happy. Didn’t I show you that last night?” There was an edge of something in her voice when she asked, and I suddenly realised this was an area where she was startlingly vulnerable.

“Oh, you absolutely did,” I hastened to reassure her. “I just… this is all new to me.”

“Yes, Master.”

I didn’t know what to say after that. We sat in silence, which could have felt awkward, but didn’t. It felt much more like I was sitting alone, like the other person in the car with me somehow didn’t count.

I’ve thought about it over and over, and I’m sure that came from the way Mimi was carrying herself. She’d stopped presenting herself as a person so that I didn’t need to worry about what I was doing to a person. Some subtle shift in the way she held herself and Mimi was an obedient object of desire.

I had too much to think about and was too distracted to think.

*

When I got into the office, Delilah was nowhere to be found, and asking the staff didn’t help. Everyone told me they hadn’t seen her that morning and I believed every single one of them, even when they weren’t under control.

I lingered for a while near - well, she wasn’t DeeDee at that moment, so let’s use the right name - near Dian’s desk. I was so tempted to override her immediately as a way to kill time…

But I didn’t know when Delilah would get in, and there were things I needed to know, and if she arrived soon and found me ignoring her again…

Look, I recognise I have the control to make her accept it. But it would still be very rude, and whatever tricks Mimi can play, my slaves are still people. They deserve respect; the jobs they do for me aren’t easy ones.

In the end I walked into my office - what had been my brother’s office - and walked around the desk to my chair and sat down. I figured I could try and get to the bottom of some more things before we talked.

I logged onto the desktop and there was a popup window in the middle of the screen which said SAY DELILAH’S TRIGGER PHRASE.

I wasn’t at all sure what was going on. I’d forgotten - I’d pretty much had driven from my mind, Mimi had been so enthusiastic - that Delilah had asked for permission to keep my attention. So I sat there for a few seconds and I’m sure if anyone had seen me I was probably an absolute picture, gawping at the screen.

“And lilies are still lilies,” I said, and clicked the OK underneath.

The popup box disappeared just as I felt a hand come to rest on my thigh, heard “pulled by smutty hands,” from below the desk.

I didn’t ask how long Delilah had been waiting for me to get there, nor how long it had taken her to set it up. I heard the zip on my pants opened, but the screen of my brother’s desktop was coming to life at the same time, and Lily smiled at me out of a video she’d obviously prerecorded.

In the video she was seated at my desk, in the same chair I occupied at that very moment, and she was topless, her hands roaming over her breasts, soft mewls and gasps escaping her lips as she played. I wondered how long she’d been going before she started recording.

Her lips kissed the tip of my cock as her recording pinched and tugged at both nipples on screen, and certainly she had my full attention.

“Good morning, Master,” her recording said, and in reality she swallowed my erection whole, slipping over it in one practiced move. Her true self, it transpired, had no gag reflex. “I hope this is a pleasant surprise?” And there was a flush to her cheeks as she continued, “If, of course, I’ve surprised you at all,” which brought a startled laugh out of me.

“So I wanted to tell you more about how this all works. You see, Master, we’re not allowed to make final decisions on clients ourselves…”

I closed my eyes. Between what I was hearing and what I was experiencing, there was already more than enough input to focus on.

And over the course of her blowjob, listening to her words, I had an epiphany. Maybe it was just the release, the lifting and the euphoria that touched me as I filled her eager, gulping mouth. Either way, I knew exactly how I was going to solve my problems, just so long as it was possible.