“So…” Britney asked, her tone quiet, her voice amused, once the film was over, “do we wake her?”

The others followed her look down to see Stephanie still sat back against the armchair, head back against the armrest, eyes closed, mouth lightly parted. To three women who had no reason to recognise a light hypnotic trance, it looked perfectly reasonable, perfectly natural.

Deborah grinned silently. Shirley burbled a laugh, somehow not waking Steph - which surprised Shirley, but then, she had no idea Steph had been directed not to notice any sound but Britney’s voice, and not to be woken by it until she was told to.

Christina chuckled. “Aww, she’s so cute!” she exclaimed. “I want to prank her so bad… but we can’t wake her.”

Bless Christina’s conscience, Britney felt. Any other group, and this would have escalated into pranks, she would have had to wake Steph, and the atmosphere would have been completely lost. But when Christina said that, as simply and straightforwardly as she did, the matter was settled.

The remaining four went back into the kitchen. Christina worked her magic with a quiet, lo-fi Spotify playlist that kept the mood chill and the friends chattered for another two hours before wine and good, rich food took their toll. One by one, Britney’s friends made their excuses and left, and Britney promised Deborah she’d get Steph comfortable for the night.

Then, with the door closed behind the last of them, she turned back toward the living room and got to work.

*

Stephanie opened her eyes. She was standing, feet two and a half feet apart, legs locked straight, bent at the waist, holding a wet dishcloth and a mostly dry plate. Her rear was higher than her head, and she was looking into a cupboard full of crockery, a lot of which she recognised from the dinner they’d had before the movie.

…what had happened in the meantime?

She put the last plate on the stack where it was meant to go and glanced ‘down’ between her legs, seeing that the jeans she’d been in were gone - as were the trainers; instead, her multicoloured socks poked out of a pair of ankle-high pink boots with three inch heels. No wonder her ass was higher than her head. Her legs were bare except for her panties, which, she now noticed, were wet - but only the squirm her body wanted to perform, but couldn’t, told her that was excitement; there was more wetness across her bare, flat stomach, along with a few stray bubbles that showed the water came from washing up. Her stomach was bare? That wasn’t right, she’d been wearing a comfortable top - but no, it was gone, though her bra remained in place.

Stephanie felt a sudden embarrassment. This was practical, comfortable underwear, white cotton just starting to turn grey through washing and time. It wasn’t meant to be on display. It wasn’t meant to be what she showed to the world. If she’d been planning for anyone to see her underwear, it would have been less comfortable, less supportive, and much more decorative.

She closed the cupboard door and found she could straighten up again, now everything was packed away. Her legs remained locked in place, and so she had to lead with her shoulders and kind of swivel with her hips. There was a fluidity of movement to it that felt like what she’d envied the one time Shirley had successfully dragged her along to pole dancing class, when she hadn’t found it. Why did she have it now?

And why did she feel so lightheaded?

Standing straight as she was she could see it was still dark outside. A streetlight somewhere outside was shining bright now, the pristine white of the modern models, and the garden visible from the kitchen window was stark shadows against the light. It had been dark by the time dinner reached the table, but it was clearly a late night now. 

She shifted position instinctively, finding only as she did so that now she was upright, her legs had unlocked. Hearing the clack of the heels against the kitchen tile brought to mind another question she wasn’t sure how she’d overlooked; where did she get those heels from? They completely fitted her aesthetic, but they weren’t hers. 

She looked down at her near-naked self again, trying once more to figure out what all this meant. Finally, taking a deep breath, she turned around. Britney was sat at the kitchen table, but she’d changed her own outfit; gone was the casual denim and hoodie she’d used for moving. Instead she was dressed up like Steph had never seen her, a sleeveless black catsuit emphasising the sleek lines and soft curves of her body, a pair of black Doc Martens with purple flames at the end of her limbs. Her long blonde hair had been not just gathered back into a ponytail but scraped back into a long braid, which she’d then slipped over her shoulder to be on display. Black lipstick was also a new arrival.

…Just how long had Steph not been aware, exactly?

“Very good,” Britney said, cutting across a silence caused by Steph’s desperate scramble to find something that sounded liked it was remotely the right thing to say. “Did you enjoy your work?”

She was clearly looking for a specific answer. Steph tried to review what she’d done, but all she had to go on was guesswork. There was no member there at all. Any time she tried to recall anything, she found instead this strange feeling of gratitude and trust. But that didn’t stop her stomach churning with unease; being grateful and trusting when there was no context to it was suspicious enough that it felt wrong, and her body didn’t know how to deal with having two opposite feelings at once.

“I don’t know?”

Britney nodded, smiling, and Steph smiled in turn; it felt like she’d given the right answer, by which she meant the one that made Britney happy. And that was strange, too; sure, Britney was her friend - though this theatre here made Steph wonder if she’d been reading some signals very wrongly, and maybe ignoring others. Was she caught up in some kind of sex game?

Some kind of sex game that involved washing the dishes? With no memory?

And - despite the wetness between her legs showing she’d enjoyed, well, if not the work, something - she wasn’t sure anything outright sexual had happened.

“But you certainly didn’t hate it. I can see that from here,” Britney said. 

“No,” Steph agreed. “That’s true. What’s going on?”

“Well, I asked you if you were interested in helping me out and feeling good. And I even offered to pay you.”

“You did?” Steph asked, but even as the words left her mouth, she dimly remembered something. Britney’s voice, seeming to come from inside her head. Less than an hour. Simple work. And thirty bucks’ pay. “Thirty bucks?”

Britney nodded.

“That’s a lot more than I’d expect for doing your washing up.” Steph paused. “Even putting on a show, too.” She flushed slightly. 

“Well, it’s what you’re getting,” Britney informed her. That was how it felt; a simple truth of the universe. This was not in question, because Britney said so. Steph felt something in the back of her head shift. She had a sudden mental picture of a cat rolling over and presenting its belly in surrender.

Was she surrendering to Britney?

The blonde smiled. “And now it’s time to give you your money,” she told her. “Come here.”

Steph obliged. She was less steady on the heels again now, which reminded her. “Are these yours?”

“Oh. Yes. But we’re the same size, and you needed heels, and didn’t have any.”

The next few steps weren’t a bit easier, they were much easier. The only difference was being told she needed heels. What was her head doing to her?

Steph clacked the rest of the way over to the table, and Britney pointed at a spot just in front of her chair. She’d brought a small mat of rolled bamboo out and set it down just in front of her; somehow, Steph hadn’t noticed until this moment.

She looked down at the mat in puzzlement for a moment, but then something clicked in the back of her head. Gingerly she settled to one knee on the bamboo, then down again, onto her knees, thighs open a little. 

She clasped her hands in her lap, but that felt wrong, too. After a few moments of fidgeting, she tried them behind her - and once they were clasped behind the small of her back, ensuring her back was arched, she felt much better.

What was happening?

Britney picked up a ten-dollar bill and leaned forward in her chair. She hooked a finger into the left cup of Steph’s bra and folded the bill in under it. Steph was sure she should be objecting to this, but she wasn’t, and she didn’t quite know why, nor why she felt like she was still squirming deliciously.

Britney repeated the process with a second bill and Steph’s right cup. Then she sat back for a moment, picked up the third and final bill, and held it up for Steph to see. She flicked it with her other hand, getting that satisfying snap sound.

“So where,” Britney asked, “do I put this, hmm?”

Steph’s lips parted. “I… don’t know what’s happening,” she said. 

“I’m about to make you an offer,” Britney said. “But you’re going to need to show me you’re all in first.”

“Okay…”

Britney stood from her chair. She moved over Stephanie, towering over the kneeling woman, and slid one boot-clad foot between her thighs, coming to rest just under Steph’s sopping panties. A strange, hungry growl escaped Steph’s lips. Was she really enjoying being treated like this? Was Britney inside her head somehow?

She had another mental image of Britney watching over her, grinning - just like the grin she wore now, having heard Steph’s little growl - and pulling strings, making her dance like a puppet. That shouldn’t be so evocative. It shouldn’t feel so right.

Britney folded the final bill and held it out to Steph. She took it. Looked at it for a few moments. And then, as if it was perfectly natural, she tucked it into her wet panties. Britney reached down and stroked her hair, which felt like… a reward?

“We need to talk,” Britney said. “Or, I guess, I need to talk, and you need to listen.”

Wide-eyed but eager despite herself, Stephanie nodded.

*

Stephanie opened her eyes. 

Okay. She was on a garden path in a garden she didn’t recognise, walking back toward her car, which was parked at the kerb. Her rear door was open, but the rest of the car wasn’t. Britney had put her on some sort of driving job, then, maybe a taxi, maybe a delivery. Her hair had been swept back; reaching up, she found it had been pinned in place with a pencil. So, she’d been marking things off, which meant she’d gone to do someone’s shopping for them and delivered it.

This… really wasn’t bad. She was beginning to understand why Britney had been so eager to explain the idea.

But the outfit…

It was haunting Steph’s dreams. Britney had been pretty open about being bi - it was one of the reasons why their closest inner circle was quite small, as they’d closed ranks against anyone who dismissed that as a phase, or nonexistent - but Stephanie had never really had any cause to question her sexuality.

But all week, now, after being given that first reason to wonder, it had been on her mind.

It wasn’t just what Britney had worn, although that was a lot of it - part of it was what she’d been wearing, and how it had felt to be seen in it. Part of it was the sensation of kneeling on the bamboo matting. And… the part she had the most difficulty thinking back to, as it was so shamefully embarrassing how good it had felt…

She’d spent the entire discussion, the negotiation, kneeling on Britney’s boot. Felt the leather and the laces through her panties. Pressed into that boot every time she moved or shifted the weight. And it had been a dream. A bliss that shouldn’t have been. A shameful secret, except it wasn’t even secret. She was absolutely certain Britney knew exactly what she’d done to her.

She shook her head forcefully. If there was one time she couldn’t be thinking about this, it would be while she was trying to drive.

*

“Why me?” Stephanie asked. She was sat across the metal table from Britney in a coffee shop, enjoying some time together during Britney’s Thursday morning when she had time to herself.

Britney took her time stirring the sugar into her drink before she answered. Stephanie was sure she was considering answers, rejecting them, finding one Steph would accept. But somehow that was alright. It shouldn’t be, but it was.

“You’re someone else who hated her job,” Britney said eventually. “So that was one thing. But… I thought I saw someone who’d… enjoy the mystery.” And she smiled. 

Steph had been doing one service per day for just over a week at this point now. They’d taken between twenty minutes and all evening, and she’d been paid around a thousand dollars.

It was very hard not to be tempted.

“You mean, not knowing what I’m doing?”

Britney shrugged. “I think that’s nice,” she said. “But not just for the mystery. I like that if it’s a terrible job, the closest it comes to getting to me is that I might be sore or tired afterward. You took my advice and you have a shower right afterwards, every time, right?”

Steph nodded nervously. Something about all this still seemed… wrong.

But she could never quite put an argument together that felt complete. Any thoughts of criticism she had just… didn’t finish themselves.

“And we’re careful to make sure you always have safety. So for me, at worst it’s like a Hooters. Maybe sex is part of what we sell, maybe you’re having to look a certain way as well as do the service. But the toll that would take on you, that just doesn’t get to happen.”

Steph nodded again. From that perspective, it made sense.

“I just don’t know if I’m comfortable,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m not, but… it seems like this is all out of my control.”

Britney smiled. “It is, Stephanie. And it’s out of mine, too.”

Stephanie felt a shiver run down her spine. That should sound bad. She knew that should sound bad. So why didn’t it?

*

Stephanie opened her eyes.

Okay. This one was different. She was in the living room of the flat she shared with her sister, at least until one of them found something better. She was unscrewing a small digital camera from the top of a compact tripod. 

She was wearing a lacy negligee she certainly didn’t own (although the pale green was a lovely contrast against her skin, she noted, and given she’d worn it, she wouldn’t be giving it back unless she was told to) and a matching thong beneath, which *might* be hers, or might have come with the negligee. None of this equipment was hers, and she was now systematically packing it away.

It had been a photo shoot, then, and one she wouldn’t have accepted at all if she’d been offered it. But somehow, waking up with it done felt not like a violation but instead like a privilege.

A privilege she’d eventually receive payment for. 

It was hard to imagine why she’d want to fight this. But Britney obviously kept expecting her to, kept probing her, testing her.

This photoshoot had almost certainly been one of those.

She unclipped the camera from her laptop, where images had obviously been transferring, and then gathered everything up and took it into her room. Her sister was at work and would be for - she checked the clock - another two hours, but why take the risk?

The images were uploading to a secured cloud folder she was sure Britney or Taylor already had access to. Her hand swept the cursor across to open an image, but she stopped herself.

What would she find out that she couldn’t actually guess?

Assume for a moment that she’d moved the shoot from softcore to hardcore at some point. Assume someone would by buying those photos, looking over them, masturbating to her body. She should be outraged, especially as she didn’t really have a say in it. But… she wasn’t. Her time had been paid for. Britney had decided she would be useful for this purpose, and had paid for it. The fact there was no discussion, no asking permission… Steph didn’t care.

She kept thinking back to her time squirming on Britney’s boot.

Soon she was going to have to make a decision. Would she go full time? Would she abandon the dream and return to her old job?

Stephanie liked thinking of that decision as being in the future, because it hid the very real possibility that the decision might already have been made above her head.

She couldn’t think about that idea for long. It was too wrong, and simultaneously, it was too exciting.

Eventually, she opened the images anyway, scrolled through them. She felt a strange detachment from the woman in them; she knew intellectually it was her, but that seemed so ridiculous she almost couldn’t take it seriously. It wasn’t just that she smouldered with a genuine intensity Steph wasn’t sure she’d ever achieved - she was also, very clearly, deeply aroused, highly excited.

She thought back to seeing Britney in her catsuit, the complete change in aesthetic and intensity. Was that the same change? Was this… expected, somehow? 

Was this what she might be signing up for?

She stood up and turned to face the full-length mirror on her wardrobe. She was still in the same outfit, the same subtle makeup. She tried to reproduce that same intensity.

Nowhere near.

She imagined that instead of the mirror, she was looking at Britney. Suddenly, the arousal, the desire, was all there.

What was happening to her? Shouldn’t she be stopping it?

*

“I feel like…” Stephanie paused, looking for the rest of the sentence. “I feel like what we’re doing isn’t wrong.”

Britney nodded. “I agree,” she said. “It’s fine. Go with that.”

“But I don’t think it’s right,” Steph continued. It felt almost impossible to continue; easy before, but Britney had given her opinion, and something in Stephanie made it feel right and natural to accept Britney’s opinion, simply because it came from Britney. It wouldn’t need examining, or questioning; Britney must be right. 

In spite of that, with an effort, Stephanie persevered. “Like, I’ve been taught to respect my own opinion. To make my own decisions. And I - I don’t - I’m not a sex worker. But that’s what I’m doing.”

It was strange, having these conversations in public, but Britney would only meet with her when not at Taylor’s beck and call, and when she had her own time, she explained, Taylor liked to have Britney out of the house, so they could both have peace. This week, they’d chosen a fast food joint; Britney had recently had it suggested to her by Miss Taylor that she might want to fill her curves out a little further, so extra fatty foods were now being consumed along with the continuing fitness regimen.

“You feel like you’re following someone else’s opinion,” Britney said. There was a cadence to it that didn’t seem like the question Steph had expected; it felt more like a statement of fact.

“Yes,” Steph agreed.

“You feel like someone’s making decisions for you,” Britney went on, in the same tone and rhythm.

“Yes,” Steph agreed.

“You feel like you’re being turned into a sex worker,” she carried on inexorably, her words pure statements of objective fact.

“Yes,” Steph agreed.

“You feel like you lost control three weeks ago,” was the next statement. They were beyond objections Steph had raised, now, but they still had that ring of truth.

“Yes,” Steph agreed. Her eyelids fluttered.

“You actually enjoy that,” Britney continued. “Not just a bit of it. All of it.”

“Yes,” Steph agreed. It was all true, after all. All of it. You just had to listen to Britney to know. Stephanie’s voice was quieter now, soft and slow and quiet. Her eyes were half-closed, and her hands, one of which had been holding some fries, drifted downward.

“You don’t have a problem with it,” Britney pressed. 

Steph took a breath, opened her mouth to answer, and Britney cut over her. “Do you?”

“No,” Steph admitted. Her hands came back to rest, one on the table, one in her lap. Fingers opened and the fries spilled back onto the tray, forgotten.

“So it’s just that you think you should have a problem?”

“Yes,” Steph admitted. Her eyes were almost closed, her head bobbing gently.

“You trust me, don’t you, Stephanie?”

“Yes,” she allowed, her voice almost inaudible.

“Then let go,” Britney told her. “You’re doing so well, Steph. You’re almost ready. Don’t you want to be ready?”

“I do…” Stephanie’s head was slowly starting to lean forwards. 

“Let go, Steph. Join me. I serve Miss Taylor. You serve Miss Taylor.”

“I… serve…”

“It’s so much better when you accept it, Steph.”

“I serve… Miss Taylor.” The last word was a muddle of slurring and murmuring as her head flopped forward, lolling down in front of her.

Britney smiled and helped herself to a handful of Steph’s fries. “Good girl,” she said. “Sit back upright, now, and open your eyes. We have work to be doing.”

Stephanie straightened up listlessly, eyes open but dully glassy. Britney took a drink from her Coke and began to speak.

*

Britney opened her eyes. She was, to her surprise, in her bed, despite feeling not the gradual upward drift of waking but the sudden, abrupt jolt of a service ending.

The room was dark, and she felt a presence move beside her, going from lying beside her to sitting upright. Without being able to see, Britney was still able to place the presence from the sound of her movement and the scent still heavy on her body.

“Mistress?” she asked.

Miss Taylor paused and did not stand yet. “Yes?”

“You don’t have to make this a service. I would always be happy to please you.”

“I know,” Miss Taylor said quietly. “But it’s much more fun as a service.”

“May I… remember this service?”

Miss Taylor sat motionless for a few moments, considering.

“Maybe that can be a reward for later,” she said. “Another part of our deal, as it grows.”

Britney considered this slowly. She felt a little disappointed, but Miss Taylor’s pleasure came first. And as her Mistress rose and got ready to leave the room, it occurred to her that Miss Taylor might enjoy keeping her pleasure secret. She kept so much else to herself.

Before Miss Taylor could reach the door, just to extend this time with her, Britney spoke again. “I think she’s ready, Mistress.”

Miss Taylor stopped at the doorway. Stood there for a while, silent. Britney looked at her back, trying to pick up how she felt from her posture.

“Come with me,” she said in the end, before opening the door and sweeping out from a darkened room to the brightly lit hallway.

Britney hurried to follow as she’d been directed, still naked and sweaty.

*

They sat around the kitchen table. Miss Taylor reached out and tapped the coaster nearest her chair with her ring finger, just once, and Britney scurried to the Keurig to make her a coffee. Which neatly settled the question of what time of day it was; morning so early it wasn’t yet light, not late night.

Miss Taylor wasn’t much more dressed than Britney, but a battered old Iron Maiden T-shirt - the last remaining evidence of a long-ago boyfriend - seemed to Britney to convey a strange authority.

“Tell me,” Miss Taylor said quietly, and Britney began at the beginning.

*

Stephanie and Britney opened their eyes.

It always seemed like every sense returned at once with sight; they both became aware simultaneously of the feel of the bamboo kneeling mats under their bare knees and shins, their hands palm-down resting lightly on their thighs, their heads bowed, the warmth of the other’s thigh and shoulder resting against their own.

Having now both had some experience, they had become adept in catching up on their situation and assessing their surroundings quickly, starting with their own position and dress. Both rapidly became aware of the underbust corsets correcting their posture and ensuring their breathing stayed steady and regular. The tension on their scalp told them both that their hair had been not pulled back into a ponytail but scraped back, and the eye of the tension storm said the ponytail wasn’t at the base of the head but rather up toward the top for a high ponytail. The breeze across the back of their neck and their shoulders told them they were bare above the corset and that they were somewhere with an opened window.

It wasn’t until their eyes travelled quickly down to assess their own bodies, before they looked up, that they saw their thong panties; Britney’s a vibrant red, Stephanie’s a soft green, both to match their (equally new) corsets.

With all that known, their heads lifted almost simultaneously.

Britney had seen Miss Taylor’s room before - when decorating it - but it was completely new to Stephanie.

It wasn’t the room she’d expected from someone she was slowly coming to consider her Mistress. It wasn’t dark, shadowy, or lit primarily in blues and reds to play with shadow. There was no wall full of sex toys and impact implements proudly on display. It was mostly white cream walls; one was taken up with the wide bay window and with bookshelves on either side, another was hidden, half by bookshelves, half by white wardrobe. A third had the computer desk, the doorway, and a tasteful art print above the desk.

The bed wasn’t visible from where Steph knelt, meaning it had to be behind her - which meant this was far roomier than most bedrooms Steph had seen, as it had room for two kneeling items of service property, a good two or three feet of space, and only then did they reach Miss Taylor’s expensive leather boots, her long tan legs, and her expensive, lavish, and honestly probably overpriced gamer chair - all of this before a desk someone could comfortably be bent over without doing too much rearranging of the computer already on it, so long as you didn’t mind their chest keysmashing nonsense into your IM window while you took them.

Stephanie had met Taylor a few times before Britney entered her employment. She’d not really registered much of an impression, and when Britney had first put her under, the idea of connection to Taylor had seemed… more than a little suspicious, but largely because Deborah had been prone to muttering about Taylor’s effect on Britney up to that point.

But now, as Steph looked on Miss Taylor, all that had changed. Though she didn’t remember listening to any of it, the passion that had filled Britney’s voice as she indoctrinated Stephanie with the gospel of Miss Taylor now rang true throughout her head. 

She didn’t see a younger woman in front of her, not even just another woman. Stephanie saw an entrancing, enthralling presence. Everything that had seemed mundane before now seemed suffused with dark and striking beauty.

Steph felt herself suddenly, needily, horny. Her mouth was abruptly dry. Her lips parted in desire. But she did not lean forward; she had not been told to, and in any case, she would have to fight against her corset to do so.

“What are you?” Miss Taylor asked her formally.

“I am property,” Steph heard her voice answer. “I exist to be used in service.”

Miss Taylor smiled, and a thrill rushed through Stephanie’s body, a joyous, light-headed sensation she found herself grasping desperately to find a name for. She eventually settled on one; devotion.

Miss Taylor’s attention turned to Britney. The world instantly seemed a little less bright, but no less warm, no less reassuring, no less comfortable.

“You’ve done very well,” Miss Taylor told her. “The first requirement of our contract is complete.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” Britney answered, and her obedient drone was disrupted by the euphoric tremolo from Miss Taylor’s praise, and from her ever-clearer ownership.

Miss Taylor uncrossed her legs and rose from her chair, walking out of the room. Unprompted, but knowing instinctively what they had to do, her conquests leaned forward, crawling to follow her on hands and knees in single file.

Stephanie felt Britney’s excited breath against her hindquarters and was flooded with that same strange thrill once again.

She was looking forward to officially giving notice at work, just as soon as Miss Taylor relieved her of their current service.