Late at night, or possibly early in the morning, Miss Li found that she was awake.

This was not as clear-cut as to say ‘Miss Li woke up’, because there had been, for her, times when she had carried out tasks without waking, times when she had found herself in the middle of one task or another without having any idea how that had happened, and these had all involved a point where she became aware she was awake, or learned afterwards that she had been awake.

Her eyes were open, the space between the covers was warm, and she was awake. She might have just got back into bed after doing something; she might only just have gone to bed; she might just have woken up.

She became aware that Master Lewis was sleeping next to her, and this made her wonder whether this might be why she was awake; she couldn’t think of any rules she’d been set regarding being awake when he was asleep, but Miss Li did recognise now that she wouldn’t always know all of the rules that applied to her.

She thought that was a good thing, under the circumstances.

She turned her head. The red digits of the alarm clock glowed in the darkness. 4:23AM.

Miss Li’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell asleep a moment later.

*

Miss Li found she was awake again. This time, the digits of the alarm clock read 5:43AM.

She didn’t know why she didn’t immediately fall back to sleep this time, what difference an hour and twenty minutes made. But she could not now sleep; was now as awake as she had been deeply gone not long before.

In her own house, in her own bed, she would have got up early. Perhaps had a quick drink of water before trying for a last little nap before the morning; perhaps written sleep off in favour of an early workout or a jog, or some other productive use of her time.

She didn’t want to do that. It might not be what Master Lewis intended for her.

She rolled onto her back, staring up into the darkness. There was, just about, a ceiling visible by the shadows cast against it from curtains and light fixtures. It wasn’t, or so she believed, a particularly attractive one.

It also didn’t occupy her thoughts.

Instead she found herself reviewing the many lascivious glances she’d been chronicling in the days before. Not just those from Master Lewis, but even from the others, the unworthy, the purposeless.

Master Lewis seemed certain there was something about them which should move her. Master Lewis was always right.

But she didn’t understand what about their attention would have an effect.

Her lips parted lazily to allow two of her fingers in. Liquid-smooth, they slid inside her, her tongue welcoming them, her lips wet around them. When they emerged from her mouth, they were already satisfyingly wet.

Her hand disappeared beneath the sheets and she parted her thighs, knees spread, ankles and hips braced against the mattress.

Visions of Dennis’ quiet, almost suppressed adoration dancing through her mind, she wondered why she’d just licked her fingertips even as they slid inside her.

She thought about how much Dennis wanted her, how obvious it was made by his need to hide it, how aroused she made him.

Her fingers found their rhythm. A soft sound escaped her, stroking, caressing, exploring herself in a way she rarely found the need to do; with Master Lewis, her body got more use than her libido would ever have demanded on its own, and before him it had been some years before she didn’t have a partner with a greater sex drive than her own.

Whenever she wanted to scratch the itch, it was easy to do; wasn’t as if she didn’t indulge her partners either. She’d never really felt the need for more. Knew other women did. Knew most women did. But that didn’t change what she felt, or how she chose to act on it or not act on it.

And yet Dennis’ eyes, Dennis’ unworthy eyes, remembered trying to burn a hole in the fabric of her leggings along her thigh, stayed with her and fuelled her.

She remembered, too, Blossom; that strange, heady mix of excitement and hero-worship the younger woman held in her eyes whenever she saw Miss Li.

That, too, was fuel. It didn’t matter that they were unworthy; didn’t matter that she didn’t want to imagine them doing anything.

Their admiration, their desire, was enough.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Master Lewis was still asleep; the rumble of his breathing might have been described as snoring by anyone else. She didn’t want to disturb him.

She squirmed around her fingers, remembering every pair of eyes that had been on her that day. Most important was Master Lewis, of course; still, the others mattered. Their desire was fuel.

Despite chewing on her lip she found herself making a noise again, shaking with excitement and arousal. Her free hand found a nipple and suddenly was far from free, was instead desperately focused on her own pleasure.

She squealed, hips bucking around her fingers, and in a desperate attempt to stop herself from waking Master Lewis she rolled onto her face, knees braced against the mattress, ass in the air, hands still frantic on her body.

She wanted so much to cum, but cumming was tantalisingly out of reach; it seemed like every time she was on the brink she suddenly wasn’t anymore.

She buried her face into the pillow to muffle herself.

“Miss Li, freeze,” Master Lewis said, and everything locked into place. Her need, her lust, everything was still there, but nothing about her moved except for the shallowest and least obtrusive of breaths.

Miss Li, as she had to, obeyed, because Master Lewis commanded.

He rolled from his back onto his elbow and swept the covers back, revealing her bare body in her lust-fuelled, needy posture, and he chuckled. She couldn’t so much as turn her eyes to look at him, but she knew he was lying there, propped up, admiring and enjoying her body.

She imagined him stroking his own cock, just lightly, just enough to get a buzz, while watching her so obediently frozen, and she found she was even more aroused and excited than she’d realised.

“Fuck yes,” he said quietly. He reached out and took the arm that threaded down between her thighs to bury her fingers in her pussy, and with the lightest of pressure at the waist he plucked her hand out from her sex, then brought her arm back around and up.

Taking the back of her head by a handful of hair he lifted it from its position buried in the pillow, then rotated her hand, wet and sticky with her juices, until she stared directly at the curved fingers that dripped with her own arousal, forming drop by drop a small pool in the palm of her hand.

Then he rose from his reclining position and moved around behind her. “Are you hot?” he asked her.

“I am hot, Master Lewis,” she answered in glassy-toned monotonous rote. “I am sexy.”

“Very good,” he said. “And how does that make you feel?”

“It makes me feel worthy, Master Lewis.” This was a more complicated question, but her voice didn’t rise above a drone. Holding her position rigidly, she felt her mind softening again.

“And what do you want?”

“I want to be wanted, Master Lewis,” she answered. Almost a monotone, but her voice cracked on ‘wanted’. “I want everyone to want what you have.”

He leaned forward so she could feel the warmth of him against her back, put his mouth near her ear. “Is that right?” he asked.

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she answered, and there was more moan to her voice than drone. She knew his cock had to be so close to being in her, it was so hard to think; it felt like she should be mindless, should be hypnotised, but Master Lewis hadn’t even bothered.

He hadn’t needed to; she’d responded so easily, so obediently, so helplessly to the one word.

He might have set this up somehow, programmed her with the steps that led to it. She’d never know.

She didn’t care that she’d never know. She didn’t need to know. She didn’t even need a mind of her own, she had Master Lewis.

His hands were on her hips, and his cock was inside her, as the alarm clock blinked over to 5:55AM. She hadn’t been prompted to speak, and she was frozen, so the most reaction she could make was the startled exhalation that always shuddered through her when he thrust inside her.

He started to fuck her. He was setting his rhythm with his thrusts well before he spoke again and said simply “Miss Li, unfreeze.”

“Yes, Mffthhh,” she answered; as soon as her body could move again those tempting, wet fingers were thrusting themselves into her open mouth, just as she shifted over to humping back against him, fucking him needily, mind in a pleasingly helpless pink fog just barely above the point where she’d be lost in trance.

She was so lucky to be hypnotised. She was so lucky to be conditioned. Other women just didn’t know what they were missing.

Master Lewis, it occurred to her, might want to enjoy this again. Reaching out one-handed to the bedside table, she fumbled the lamp on, going for the lowest setting, and then picked up her phone.

Her thumb found the flip-out stand on the back of her phone case and placed it down on the table, angled toward her shoulders and down her body to where Master Lewis’ balls were repeatedly slapping against her wet, needy pussy.

She thumbed open the camera app and checked that neither of their faces could be seen.

As soon as she was sure of that she toggled across to video mode and hit Record. Her hand crept back to the bed, where she used it to prop her chest up above the mattress, so her bare tits could be seen bouncing with every thrust she made backward, grinding herself down on Master Lewis’ cock.

It felt so good. Showing off her body was hot. Showing off what only Master Lewis deserved to the unworthy was so good.

She truly hadn’t realised how good.

*

Miss Li stood where none of the class could see her face, and she closed her eyes, and she counted to ten.

Why was it that Alexandra infuriated her so much? What about that confidence-that-wasn’t-really-even-arrogance and that intensely dismissive better-than-the-experts demeanour actually got to her?

There was no denying, after all, that she did; that almost every lesson Alexandra was part of brought at least one moment of oh-for-fuck’s-sake-why-am-I-dealing-with-this with it.

And there was, too, no denying that after decades of devoting her body to her martial arts, to learning, to study, and to teaching, that many stupid attitudes were little more than water off a duck’s back.

She’d seen too much for much at all to rattle her, and usually, especially if someone’s poor behaviour were familiar, it wasn’t hard for her to shrug it off.

And yet Alexandra’s attitude, as well as offputting, was intensely familiar; still, all the same she couldn’t just dismiss the woman. Instead she found herself facing her down every lesson. Suppressing her own irritation, or finding ways to bleed it off in directions that didn’t look like she was losing her temper.

She turned back and put on a warmer smile. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s try it a different way today, Alexandra.”

She stepped to one side, putting the two of them in a different line to any of the other watching students. “I’ll make you a quick bet,” she said. “And that bet is this: you can’t throw me with that technique.

“You could absolutely throw me if you were actually following the steps we’ve laid out, but as we’ve discussed, you’re not.

“If you think your way really is better, this should be a simple way to solve it. Agreed?”

Alexandra lifted her head, her chin thrust forward. Miss Li might have made the challenge, but the other woman was acting like it had all been her idea. “What do I get when I win?”

Miss Li hadn’t expected this to immediately become a challenge. Did she want to break down? She asked herself and immediately regretted that she was doubting enough even to hesitate.

“We both have something on the line, in a bet,” she said. “We both have a forfeit. You win, and you get to impose the forfeit. I win, and I do.”

She was struck as the words spilled out of her just how close they were to the challenge she’d once offered Master Lewis the chance to make. Before she saw what potential he had. Long before she realised that asking him to hypnotise her would be a solution to any problem she had.

Alexandra appeared to be seriously considering it. “What would my forfeit be?”

“You wouldn’t tell me yours,” Miss Li countered, using the words Lewis had offered. “Do we have a deal?”

After a long moment’s silence, Alexandra nodded. At least she hadn’t been confident enough to say anything aloud, Miss Li thought.

The two of them separated from the rest of the class, who were watching enthusiastically.

Miss Li vaguely recalled that she’d dismissed the class when she’d challenged Master Lewis, and that had worked out well; all the same, some part of her mind was crying out that she shouldn’t let forfeit challenges happen in public.

Not having Master Lewis to hand to advise, she chose to follow her instincts.

Facing one another, they bowed, and Miss Li stood. She took up the loosest guard stance she possibly could; it was important not just that she be fair but that Alexandra knew Miss Li had been fair. She waited for Alexandra to make her approach.

The approach, when it came, was as idiosyncratic as her approach to the throw. She’d learned something, taken the trouble to memorise it as a technique; the problem was that it didn’t actually work if your opponent knew what they were doing.

Miss Li was sure Alexandra thought it was fine, of course - otherwise she’d hardly have worked to learn it. But she didn’t have the experience she’d need to know why the throw was taught the way it was.

Miss Li often thought that one reason she and Master Lewis worked so well together as because, like the many masters of judo over the years, Miss Li could rely on the fact his decisions, his judgements, would be right. Master Lewis was always right, and Miss Li put that down to experience.

She let Alexandra think the throw had worked to the very last moment, to the instant where it was be sent flying or counter.

And then she steadied herself on her leading foot, shifting her weight to that leg, and that alone meant that Alexandra’s launch faltered. Then Miss Li swept the other leg backward, taking Alexandra’s legs out from under her.

The student ended up flat on her back, and Miss Li ended up in position atop her, her weight on one knee and one foot, her arms free.

She waited just a moment, just long enough that it was clear to Alexandra how thorough her error had been, and then she rose and bowed to the class, who began to applaud, falteringly and unsure, wanting to salute their teacher, not wanting to cross their fellow student.

Miss Li helped Alexandra back to her feet and bowed to her in turn; after a moment, her student bowed back.

“I will suspend my forfeit for the time being,” she said, and she meant it to sound light and generous, and she hoped that it did.

In actuality her mind was already working furiously, jumping to conclusions, and she wanted to check her logic with Master Lewis before she jumped any further toward them.

As soon as the class had ended she sent him a text.

Master Lewis,

Your humble student has a problem on which she wishes your insight. May I ask your advice?

*

Miss Li was finding it difficult to articulate the problem now she was face to face with Master Lewis. Her head was bowed, she seemed incapable of meeting his eyes, and whenever she tried to start a new sentence, it broke off along the way.

After perhaps five fruitless minutes of struggling for words, Master Lewis spoke. “Miss Li, would you like me to hypnotise you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis, of course,” was her immediate response. “I always want to be hypnotised by you. I always need to be hypnotised by you.”

The number of rules in her mantras had grown steadily over time until she had more rules than thoughts in her head, but the slow addition of new rules had meant each one was firmly embedded. None of them were forgotten.

She looked up and Master Lewis was already holding up his finger, starting it on a slow trail from left to right. Miss Li felt control vanish from her eyes, which immediately focused on his finger tip, began helplessly, automatically, to follow it.

This lack of control - almost a lack of awareness - spread from her eyes through suddenly-still lips and head to envelop her entirely, mind and body, in the warm embrace of docile helplessness.

Miss Li had no reason to ever resist slipping into trance around Master Lewis, and what resistance might once have existed had by this stage been fully and entirely eroded. Master Lewis all but owned her; if he wanted her in trance, that was his right. And besides, Miss Li always wanted and needed to be hypnotised by him.

“Miss Li,” Master Lewis said softly, “does a part of you know why you are so angry with this woman?”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” she answered peacefully.

“Are you unable to tell me when awake because it presents you with a contradiction?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“I thought as much,” he said. “You’re reacting to her the way you used to react to me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“But now, of course, as far as you’re concerned, I’m perfect.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Well, we’ll have to just solve this problem without your conscious mind.”

“Yes, Master Lewis.” Miss Li could feel a weight vanish from her shoulders.

“So, then, what do you want as an end goal?”

*

“I want her to serve you as I do, Master Lewis. I want her to understand how important it is to surrender authority to someone who is right.”

It was fair to say Lewis hadn’t seen that answer coming.

“I need to think about this.”

“Yes, Master Lewis,” Miss Li answered. Lewis stood up and walked out of her living room, headed up the stairs.

Miss Li sat, empty-headed, mindless, and unmoving, until he returned, by which time a thin strand of saliva connected her lower lip to her cleavage. Time enough to drink a beer, staring out of a window, turning ideas over in his mind. Not time enough for Miss Li to decide to wake rather than stay as deep as she thought he wanted.

Lewis smiled to himself. He walked behind her on the sofa. Reached down and slipped his hand inside her half-open blouse, found a bare breast. He was toying with her nipple, she sitting blank and motionless, as he spoke again. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

“Yes, Master Lewis?”

*

Your forfeit is an extra private class this Saturday afternoon, 1pm. Don’t eat a heavy lunch.

Miss Li

Alexandra had had three days to stew on the text message between getting it early Wednesday morning and the weekend itself.

What was a private class going to be? Did she even want to show up to it? One thing their little bet had taught her was that Miss Li did, indeed, have the edge on her that Alexandra privately hadn’t imagined she could do. If this turned into sparring - particularly aggressive sparring - there wouldn’t be much she could do about it.

She didn’t really expect that, but that was the problem; she didn’t know what to expect, not at all.

The line about the heavy lunch was particularly worrying. Was this actually just going to be a high-intensity workout? That didn’t sound like fun…

She even considered ignoring it entirely. What exactly could Miss Li do about it? So far as she could see, absolutely nothing.

But Alexandra would know that she’d backed down.

She wasn’t happy about it, but she went.

*

It was weird seeing the dojo almost empty. She changed in an otherwise empty locker room, in silence, and went through into the main room, which had enough room to handle fifteen sparring pairs at once with enough room that everyone could move freely; there were two other people there only, Miss Li and someone she guessed must be another student, a tallish guy whose gi didn’t quite disguise the fact his belly was running to pudge.

There were going to be three of them there, then; Alexandra relaxed a little at that, figuring the odds of any unpleasant drama had just dropped sharply.

The two had been stood close, obviously in some kind of conversation, and the atmosphere in the room changed completely when they noticed her. Miss Li moved away from him. “Good to see you, Alexandra.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, and nodded at the other. “Who’s this?”

“Call me Lewis,” he said before Miss Li could answer. “Your tutor asked me to sit in on this as she wants to try a different approach I have a bit of familiarity with.”

Miss Li nodded and then seated herself on the mat, cross-legged. With a little less grace, Lewis did the same thing.

She had no idea what was going on and she didn’t like that, but she followed suit anyway. She definitely did so better than this Lewis; privately she thought she showed more grace than Miss Li.

“So what is this?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” Miss Li said. “You’re one of my students, Alexandra. I want to see you develop the way you want to develop.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you were confident enough in your skills and the opportunity came up, you’d like to compete. You want to be great, but you also want people to know you’re great.”

She left it hanging in the air like a question and Alexandra was almost uncomfortable with it. She glanced to the man, but he had an astonishingly good poker face in place. She couldn’t read him.

“I guess,” she said. “I want to know what I’m doing.” It was hard to admit it, but Miss Li had read her better; she really liked the idea that her class knew she was better than them.

Miss Li nodded. “Then that’s what I want for you, too. This class has to try to be everything to everyone, but I do still want to see my students happy. And at the moment, there are a lot of techniques you need to unlearn before we can achieve that.”

Her cheeks were burning. This was awful.

“But,” the man said, “that’s kind of a crappy place to be in. So what we want to do here is some meditation work; we want to help you take a shortcut past that.”

Which made no fucking sense. She couldn’t imagine that meditation even worked, for a start. “And that’s what we’re doing here?”

“Absolutely.” Miss Li smiled, and Alexandra sighed. Her teacher must not have liked that, because she said “Look at it this way, there are people out there who consider this one of the most effective parts of preparation. I’m sure you can master it, right?”

She bridled, but she nodded. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “So,” she said. “What happens now?”

“The thing about meditation,” Lewis said, “is that you can’t force it. You have to open yourself to it, let it happen. The other thing about meditation is that we all do it, at least a little, every day.”

She opened one eye to peer at him and realised the other two had their eyes open. Lewis was holding up a single finger; Miss Li was looking at it, and there was something in her expression that Alexandra just couldn’t read.

It was like there wasn’t anything beneath that expression. As if she’d fallen away completely.

“Is she OK?” Bruce Lee had said something about it, hadn’t he? The highest art is no art; the highest form is no form. Looking at Miss Li, it was like her sense of self had just gone away. Was the highest self no self?

Lewis half-smiled. “Look at her,” he said, “and you tell me. Miss Li, would you look at Alexandra for me? No need to disturb yourself by speaking.”

The instructor’s head turned slowly, and as their eyes met Alexandra seemed to feel the impact of a sudden weight around her, as if Miss Li’s empty gaze had a pull like gravity. “What am I looking for, exactly?” she asked.

“You tell me,” Lewis said again. “Look into her eyes and try to see what she sees. Imagine how she feels.” There was something strange about his voice, about how he was speaking. His words were coming slowly, they were low and soft, and there was almost something treacly about his voice.

“Her eyes are very different, aren’t they?” he asked. “You can probably imagine it starting there. A tingling, fuzzy sensation. And that tingling sensation, it’s growing stronger. Not just stronger… it’s spreading. It’s a tingly, fuzzy wave, soaking forward through you, from the front of your head to the back.

“In the end, that tingly, fuzzy sensation will seep through your whole head.” It was strange how accurate his words seemed to be; the more he was talking, the more what she was feeling matched the way he described.

“And the fuzzier things are, the trickier it is to make thoughts happen. But that’s OK, because there’s no reason to. In meditation, you clear your mind. In hypnosis, your mind is cleared for you.

“You’re not thinking, Lex, and you didn’t even notice. Couldn’t notice. Noticing would need you to think. You actually have to take my word for it that you’re not thinking.”

Lex didn’t think. Didn’t ask herself why she was being called Lex, nor why she was responding to it.

“It’s OK, though. It feels good to be in trance. And not thinking is fine when you can just take someone’s word for what you want to know.” He smiled gently. “That’s true, you know. Just nod your head.”

Lex did, but her eyes never left Miss Li’s. But it had felt true when he said it, and it had felt truer still when he said it was true, and it felt truest of all as she nodded and agreed, accepting.

“Lex,” Lewis said softly, “we have to ask some questions now, and you can only become better if you answer with total honesty. Do you understand?”

She nodded her head.

“You will find that it is possible to answer honestly in this state without waking or disturbing yourself,” he continued, “but only so long as you answer without pausing to consider. You will answer honestly and without hesitation. You want to answer honestly and without hesitation. Do you understand?”

Lex nodded again.

“One more thing, Lex,” he said, sounding patient as he did. “This state is not a state for embarrassment or worry. It will not occur to you that you should be embarrassed, upset, or worried if you answer something that you are not comfortable with. And on emerging from this state, you will not recall any of our conversations. Yes?”

Lex nodded.

“Very good,” Lewis said. “Well done, Miss Li.”

“Thank you, Master Lewis,” the other woman said, her tone strangely flat.

“Lex,” he continued, “do you think you have achieved as deep a state of trance as Miss Li?”

“No,” she said quietly, and it didn’t embarrass her to be only second best.

The way she felt was peaceful, calm, and somehow contented. Her need to achieve was, not gone, but suspended. It didn’t matter.

She hadn’t felt so peaceful in some time.

“But you want to. You want to catch up with Miss Li in every way.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Miss Li, do you believe Lex can achieve a blank belt?”

“I do, Master Lewis.”

“She’ll have to dedicate time and focus to it, though, won’t she, Miss Li?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Very good. Lex, you want to achieve the blank belt. You have never heard of it before, but there is nothing you want more. It is another achievement you can be proud of; it is something held by almost nobody; it is a way you can be marked out as special in the eyes of those who understand.” He took a breath. “Do you understand?”

“I think so,” she said, and after a moment, she added, “Master Lewis.” She wasn’t sure where he’d gained this title from, but given Miss Li’s commitment to it, Lex was determined not to be left behind.

“You really want the belt, Lex,” he said. “You really want to be Miss Lex. When you get home tonight, you’re going to realise you were entirely right to try meditation, and that you see a path to perfection through it.

“You’ll keep thinking about this floaty, fuzzy strangeness. And you’ll realise, just as you’re drifting off to sleep, that you want it. You crave it.

“You’ll ask Miss Li, in private, at your next lesson, how you can have more. And it will feel strangely natural to be guided by her in this. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Master Lewis.”

“Do you know why it will feel so natural?”

“No, Master Lewis.”

“Because you want to be the very best, to become Miss Lex. And to learn to be the very best, you must follow the directions of those who are right. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master Lewis.”

“Very good.”