Francesca’s eyes were glazed, and she sat almost perfectly still with her cellphone held to her ear. Her thighs were spread apart, her toes turned out, and the pants of her pantsuit were down around her ankles, a hole ripped into her panties. The hand not holding her cell phone was placed in the small of her back, and the muscular glamazon who had groped her in the restaurant was knelt between her thighs, her eager tongue buried in her pussy.

On the other end of the telephone call, there was nothing in Francesca's voice to indicate any of this, but Annie felt there was something strange about the call nonetheless, felt an eagerness and excitement in her agent that she had not encountered many times before.

In the hotel suite where Francesca sat, facing her, Dr Candace Kraft was bent forwards over the sofa, her soft tits bouncing free as Dr Bimbeau took her from behind, his eyes intent on Francesca, clearly gaining genuine pleasure and excitement from how easily she obeyed.

“I'll be honest, Francesca,” Annie was saying, “I don't know if I really want to do a magazine that isn't going to be read here in the US, not when I don't have something new to promote over there. Anyone who's gonna watch the show is watching the show and I don't have a film to sell but I'm not going to be doing business with people I don’t know over there, so how do I benefit from this?”

Her conscious mind would have told her that this was simply Annie being reluctant, that persistence would wear her down, but that this would have to be handled gently to keep her client happy. Francesca did not make that analysis consciously. Instead her subconscious continued to talk, propelled forwards by the requirements her new master had given her, none of the stimulation she was feeling emerging in her voice.

“Sweetie, I'm not going to lie to you and say there's going to be any immediate benefit. I'm thinking long term here. If you go in-depth, and I know you've been avoiding it so far, It's going got a lot more buzz to start with but it's also going to stick around. If you go on Youtube these days, you can see that people are still rewatching good interviews that are a decade or more old. They share them around, from time to time these older interviews go viral again and it's just an opportunity to build a bigger reputation. I know you hate interviews and I promise you I wouldn't be asking you do a follow up if I didn't think there was a real benefit to you in this. It might take a little bit of time to become clear but I truly believe you're going to see one, OK?”

She heard the sigh clearly over the phone line. Annie had a lack of ego that stood out in the acting world. She might be proud of the work she had done, but she was never driven by the thought that she might achieve greater fame as a result of her work. She seemed to regard fame rather as an occupational hazard. She was only the only client Francesca had for whom this was true, but she was the only client Francesca had who both did not care for fame and who felt secure in her career.

“Are the jobs going to dry up if I don't do this?”

“Annie, we both know that they won't, but I think we might be able to get you some more interesting work in your time off from the show.” Francesca did not consciously decide to play her next card; her entranced mind was simply moving down a list of possible strategies and selecting the next appropriate one whenever one failed. “I asked them about certain people who might be subscribers and one of them is David Arnault.” One of the very few Europeans on these short list of directors Annabelle Franklin had no connection to and also wanted to work with.

“Oh.” The voice was low and quiet this time. “Do we know for sure that he reads it?”

“I can't ask them that! But now you know what's on the table, do you really feel like you'd be wasting your time to give them a try? I can't imagine it will be more than an hour or two, plus the magazine photoshoot.”

“So we're talking at least four hours then.” Four hours of digging down into her personality for new revelations. Four hours of self censoring to avoid giving out any revelations that might hurt. Four hours of being put into whatever costumes the director thought would suit the interview or had been paid to shoe on into the magazine. Francesca completely understood why Annie didn't enjoy press interviews. She had more difficulty understanding why many of her clients loved them.

“For print that’s just the bare minimum. But I can tell you that they're talking about six to eight pages, it's not just gonna be a quote to begin the article, a quote to finish the article and then they'll make up the rest in their hotel room after you've gone.” Which was so commonly the case for interviews. There were times when Francesca didn't understand why certain repeat offenders didn't sell their interviews on the fact it would only take 15 minutes.

Annie had fallen silent again.

“Isn't four hours of your time a reasonable investment to get onto David Arnault's radar?” Francesca cajoled. She was aware that the woman that Dr Bimbeau was fucking was looking at her curiously, was obviously paying attention to what she was saying and how she was working with Annabelle, despite the fact her mind could be expected to be on something completely different. She was only aware of this dimly - her eyes simply would not focus - but it had set what little was left of her mind to wondering, and the sense she had of power dynamics made her question who was really in control here.

“When you put it like that...” Annie sighed audibly. “I guess I sound ungrateful, huh?”

“Not exactly.” Francesca would certainly have been gentler in her language if she had full control of her own mind, but it wasn’t quite far enough from her usual language to be unbelievable. “I know you have other priorities to many clients. And even if I don’t always show it, I do understand that. And I respect it, too.”

“You just think I’m wrong.”

“Well… in this particular case, yes. I’m afraid I do. And under those circumstances, I have to advocate for what I think is best.”

She wasn’t usually this smooth a talker, she reflected, when there wasn’t anyone eating out her pussy. Maybe she should have that happen more often.

Although, of course, she didn’t get to make that choice anyway.

That was for her Master.

She heard Annabelle sigh again, but it was different to the last time, and Francesca smiled because she knew that for a concession.

*

They took her phone with her when they left. Francesca sat quietly on the armchair where she had betrayed her client, where she had been eaten out and worshipped by the glamazon who had pinned her down, her eyes unfocused, vaguely aware that there was another woman present in the suite still, not even clear on which of the two it was. Thoughts did not occur to her, but time still passed; she let it. She was, she was learning, getting good at simply letting things happen to her.

And yet they had taken her phone…

After nearly a half hour of near silence Francesca became aware, slowly. With that awareness came, even more slowly, the return of coherent thought.

It was the redhead who remained. The one Master had been fucking. A little older than the glamazon, a little softer, with broader curves. Impossible, Francesca thought, not to stare at her chest, at the way that tight-fitting blouse made her tits more on show than if she’d been bare-breasted. And if it were impossible for a worldly Hollywood agent not to stare, she thought, this was something else again.

A thought that was also a question arose, and it left her lips without her considering whether or not it should be asked. “Who’s your plastic surgeon?” Her voice came out slow and sleepy, breathy and happy, as if she was just awakening from a dream.

The other woman looked at her with an almost unreadable expression. “I beg your pardon?” she asked.

Scottish, Francesca thought. Not Ewan McGregor Scottish, aristocratic Scottish. Her consonants were sharp enough to cut glass, but they arrived swaddled in a soft, welcoming burr that oozed sexuality. Or perhaps Francesca just thought that because everything since the other two had sandwiched her at Spago’s had been deeply, intensely sexualised.

There were cults, she thought, that were supposed to work like this. She was fairly sure she should feel guilty for persuading Annie to take a meeting with them. But she had been told to do so, and she had obeyed, and obedience was pleasure, and indeed the feelings of bliss that had flooded her when she had ended the call and reported what had happened had made even the constant attention of Rikki, the warrior woman who was also a startlingly submissive lover, feel like just foreplay.

That bliss still echoed through her mind, softening and shaping the thoughts she had now. “I’ve never seen a body quite like yours,” she told the redhead. “Who was your surgeon?”

“Oh.” She laughed. “In the sense you mean, I didn’t have one,” she said. “But myself and the Master shaped my body all the same.”

Francesca tried to find a polite way to say you don’t get tits that big and that perky just on diet and exercise, but the Scotswoman continued. “It’s a new thing,” she said. “Our own invention. You’ll go through it soon.”

“I will?” She found she had feelings about that, but that she did not know what those feelings were, was perhaps not permitted to know.

“Oh yes. The Master takes the view that it’s foolish to shape someone’s mind and not shape their body into the bargain.”

Francesca shivered at that, biting her lip. It sounded so delectable when it was said like that…

“Just the Master?” Francesca asked. She had a vague sense that this woman was his second, that it was important to serve them both. She was used to situations where multiple people had to be happy; that was half of what negotiations were. Making people think a compromise was the thing they wanted.

“Doctor Bimbeau is always right,” the redhead told her, and there was a hollow emptiness to her tone, a vacancy, that made Francesca squirm deliciously to hear.

She nodded, taking it for a literal answer, not yet understanding how mantras could settle into a mind and take hold. She had that joyous discovery still to make for herself.

The redhead spoke before Francesca’s slowly-stirring mind could compose another question. “What do you think about this actress?”

“Miss Franklin?”

“Yes.” The redhead nodded. “She seems pretty enough. I know the Master has use for her mind. But who is she, as a person?”

“She’s a darling,” Francesca said. “Wilful, sure - you saw the trouble I had fulfilling the Master’s orders just now,” and she shuddered in an echo of her earlier bliss, her eyes rolling back into her head, just from the words she spoke, “but if she likes you then she’ll always have time for you and nothing will be too much. I think sometimes she can tell whether or not people need help, just being in the same room as them.”

“Is that why you said we needed to call her, rather than you go meet her and bring her here?”

Francesca nodded. “I thought she would notice that - well -“ she blushed, “-that I’ve changed. But she hasn’t met the Master before, or Miss Muscles.”

An expression that Francesca couldn’t read crossed the redhead’s face at that. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “I suppose not.

“Does she have much of a sex life? We couldn’t find any rumours but usually that just means whoever they’re seeing isn’t newsworthy.”

Francesca realised that she had reached the point where she was thinking properly once again. Not for herself - she had a Master now - but her thoughts seemed to come at the correct speed and her attention could be directed as she wished it to be. “I don’t know for sure,” she answered, “but my guess is not. I know she doesn’t live with anyone but I’ve seen some very successful lotharios take a run at her and end up contentedly just friends. Honestly I wish I knew how she did it.” She paused. “Well, I did. That’s not something I should try to control now, is it?”

“No,” the other woman told her. “It is not.”

Francesca just nodded.

“Do you think there’s anything strange about that?” the redhead asked.

“About?”

“About her mysterious lack of sex life.”

“I’ve never really thought about it that way,” she said truthfully. “I never have to worry about managing her through a sex scandal or trying to suppress the risk of leaked nudes or whatever. It’s a big plus for me. I’ve not stopped to ask why.” She hesitated. “Should I have? Have I failed in some way, just by not asking?”

“No.” The tone was reassuring but hasty. “Nothing like that. Just… have you noticed anything unusual about Annabelle Franklin?”

Francesca considered. “Uh… Not really. Well. I feel like everyone likes her… like, I can’t think of her having any enemies?” She looked hopefully at the other woman, sure these questions were leading to something and worried that she couldn’t tell what.

“Has anyone ever tried to be her enemy?”

Francesca blinked in confusion. “I… don’t understand,” she admitted at last. “I’m very sorry.”

The redhead sighed. She raised one hand to her lips and Francesca recognised the habitual reflex of someone who bit their nails when nervous - yet her nails were well-decorated, well-shaped, and long and, indeed, the redhead’s fingertips stopped a full inch short of her teeth, as if somehow forcibly stopped.

“Is something wrong?” Francesca asked.

“I hope not.”

*

It wasn’t ideal, having the interview on the afternoon of the same day she learned about it. Annie had taken a while first to sit alone, in the room in her house that was furthest from the road and from her neighbours, which she used often when she felt a deep-seated need for peace.

Sitting down in the comfortable, worn-out armchair she’d moved in there long ago, she had sat down and closed her eyes. What she did there was half-ritual; it was not quite meditation and it was not quite napping.

She always emerged from it feeling rested and comfortable.

She did only a basic, quick job with her makeup, good enough not to be completely embarrassed if the paparazzi saw her, and dressed casually with the same goal. Magazine photoshoots meant supplied makeup and wardrobe done for you, and the more time she spent now, the more time they’d take changing it.

Annie got in the car Francesca had arranged and then she was off. She felt ready, just about, but knew she had an unpleasant experience ahead.

The car took her up into the hills, not near the high-ticket homes owned by the biggest stars but into an area full of ornate, luxurious pre-war homes that were now rented out regularly to TV productions and other media opportunities. She recognised the one her driver pulled into, had been there before but not for a few years.

The woman who came out to meet her wasn’t what Annie expected, and it took her a few moments to get a clear read on why.

She wore loose cream-coloured slacks and a white vest that buttoned up but which strained under the size of her breasts. Her bare arms were muscular and powerful, with tattoos on both shoulders; on her left was something military-looking, a badge of some kind with a dagger behind it. On her right shoulder she wore what looked like a picture of herself in the style of WWII plane ‘bombshell’ art, wearing a white bikini with red polka-dots, and a swirling pink-and-purple background. Around her neck she wore an expensive camera which rested on her chest, using her breasts as a shelf.

All of which made her a fascinating study in contrasts, but Hollywood was full of people whose career paths made no sense unless you took the time to see their decisions from the inside.

What finally dawned on Annie as the odd thing about this woman was that she couldn’t read her.

Annie had always had a pretty good sense of how the people around her felt about things. It had been invaluable in her acting career, and it had, she felt confident, saved her significant embarrassment with a number of potential partners, had even led to her refusing one driver and waiting for another in the past - she had learned to trust her instincts on this entirely.

The photographer was smiling to her, asking questions, seemed perfectly friendly, but whatever sense Annie had for how people felt was picking up nothing.

That had never happened before.

She allowed the photographer nonetheless to lead her through into the room where the interview was scheduled to happen and where a craft service table had already been laid out, and was conscious immediately that she could read the man in the room. He radiated desire to a point that unsettled Annie, although after she’d politely exchanged greetings with him and taken a chair, she noticed the way he and the photographer looked at each other…

Ah, she thought. Perhaps it’s not that he wants me, perhaps they just want each other.

Because now, with both of them in the same room, she was getting a reading on the photographer too; arousal and sexual excitement seemed to roll off her.

A European magazine, she reminded herself. “Pardon my asking,” she said, “but what kind of audience does your magazine have?”

She was well aware - had been specifically warned in the past - that in some European countries the level of sexual frankness and titillation in some general-sale magazines was up there with American publications that had to skirt pornography legislation. Giving up secrets of her sex life that way was bad enough, but she found herself worrying about the outfits that might have been lined up.

She should have thought about that ahead of time, she chided herself. Should have checked with Francesca.

Although usually Francesca already had the answers to these questions, she thought, and provided them before Annie even had to ask. Strange that she hadn’t this time.

“Not as wide as we’d like.” The man said smoothly. “But that’s what happens when you stick to your niche. We have a very specific focus, and what comes of this interview will really matter to our subscribers - because the people who will read it are all passionate.”

It wasn’t an answer, and she could tell he wasn’t being entirely truthful, but he had clearly assumed that her concern was about how wide their reach was. In actual fact, as Francesca had known, there was one specific reader she was doing this for; David Arnault.

Anyone else in the business might be a happy bonus; just about anyone else beyond that…

Opening up in long-form interviews, to Annie, was like showing herself to that audience naked, and she was not comfortable with either option. Better to pretend they not happen.

“I just… I’ve got a reputation here that plays well for a family TV show,” she said. It was a phrasing she’d used a few times before; suggesting that her presentation was calculated, rather than saying she had a family-friendly reputation because she preferred to avoid the raunchiest options she’d been offered, seemed to encourage journalists to support it, where they’d often otherwise spend considerable energy trying to prove she was…

…was what? Slutty? Depraved? As bad as everyone else?

Annie had too clear an understanding of how her co-workers felt to pass judgement on the ladies’ men, the manhunters, the serial divorcees, or on those who turned to chemical consolations. She felt keenly their loves, their desires, their needs, their despairs, and with that understanding it was impossible for her to look poorly on them.

Yet she felt judgemental about those same attributes in herself. Annie wasn’t sure if that was hypocrisy or was instead about her not seeing herself the way she saw others.

In any case, the man was nodding. “I understand,” he says. “You don’t want anything we do here to embarrass you.”

“Right.”

He had cut straight past the pretence it was for her image, and she found that reassuring.

He held up his hands. “Personally, I completely agree. Embarrassment is not what we’re here for. If you want anything off-limits, it can be.” He paused. “Can I invite you to sit down?” And he gestured to one of two chairs set close together, either side of a table, beside a pair of double-doors to a balcony that looked out, ultimately, over the blue ocean.

She sat and looked at him as he took a dictaphone out and rested it on the table. “I should say before we start,” he said, “we appreciate you making time for us. Your agent, uh…”

He was clearly trying to decide how to put it, and she laughed. “She made it sound difficult?”

“She made it clear you don’t enjoy these,” he said. “I had some thoughts on how we could take your mind off the worst of it.”

“I don’t think you can,” she said with a smile. “Sorry.”

She watched his eyes shift and felt him decide to shift tack. It felt like a bad sign; when things derailed before they started, there often wasn’t anything worth rescuing afterwards.

Annie gave in to her superstition and pushed. As a child, she’d believed that she could actually affect how people felt when she pushed; by her teens she’d come to accept that this was something only superhumans could do, and she knew she was no superhuman. She still tried, from time to time, to reach out mentally and will someone to do something.

It was amazing how often, when she did this, it seemed to work; and it was important that if she was going to do this interview, it should be a good one. So she pushed for him to have resolve, for his confidence to strengthen, for him to want to see her at her best, and hoped this would keep the interview on its original course.

She could see his eyelids flutter for a moment. Annie was never convinced she’d really seen these things; it was easy, she felt, to believe that she was seeing something, because that sold her on the lie that when she pushed, it mattered. It was really just her way of wishing on a star, of hoping.

“Alright,” he said. “Shall we talk a bit before I start recording? Get comfortable?”

“Let’s.”

He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. “I know you’ve historically kept active with working projects as much as possible. I read an interview last year with a British actor who said their work was also their hobby. Is that true for you or do you just believe in taking opportunities?”

She had to think about that one. “I’m definitely happiest performing,” she said. “I’ve tried to put my finger on just why that is before, a few times. I haven’t ever come up with an answer I’m happy with.”

He nodded. “Well, that takes care of the obvious next question,” he smiled. “I’ve heard people say they enjoy the freedom to not be themselves, but I’ve always been a little puzzled by that. Is it really freedom when you’re just stepping into being a specific other person?”

“True freedom in that model being improv?” she asked lightly. “I don’t know. I feel like the expectations on me when I’m performing are different from the expectations on me when I’m not.”

It was easier to say these things without being on the record, even though she knew some version of them would doubtless appear in the final interview.

“And what about the expectations on you now?”

She looked at him sharply. It was uncomfortably like he knew her better than he should, as if he’d been given a clearer picture of her than Francesca would ever have offered him.

This was going to be a perceptive interview, she realised. She had to make sure it was a flattering one. She pushed for them to like her, to take to her well, and when his smile seemed to shift somehow, to be more open, she wondered as she only did once or twice a year if perhaps she did have some ability to influence others.

“I don’t like interviews,” she said.

“Then let’s see if we can make it something else,” he returned. “A game, sort of.”

“What kind of game?”

“Word association. We can always come back to something important later, and you can clarify your thoughts.”

She had the sense that he’d been waiting for an opportunity to do something. Had leaped for this chance. It was a strange thing to have planned. “Well…”

"Contentment,” he said, and since the game was already started she didn’t continue to query it but instead did her best to play along.

“Performance.”

She glanced off to the side, wondering what the photographer might be up to; she had taken a seat quite near the door back into the house proper and was sitting there, her camera still resting on that warm, living shelf, its lens cap in place, her hands nowhere near it. No covert photography, but as Annie’s eyes met hers, she realised that the woman was once again completely unreadable. Annie had no idea of what she wanted; in fact, as she turned her attention back to her interviewer, she realised that the woman was only unreadable because there was nothing there to read; the woman wanted nothing.

Annie had no idea how someone, no matter how happy with their lot in life, could have no desires.

“Watchers.”

Music began to play from a corner of the room; she glanced back to the photographer, who smiled. It was soft and gentle and relaxed, some kind of chill jazz, and she found she wasn’t upset by it. “Fans.”

He took a moment to consider, visibly. “Feedback.”

“Response.”

“Prompt.”

“Script,” she said, finding herself mirroring his smile. It seemed he was enjoying himself; it felt as if they were synchronising; she was sure that her push had worked, and gave another, gently, to have fun.

“Follow,” he returned.

“Direction.”

“Obey.”

She blinked. That wasn’t the path she would have taken. And yet there were directors like that, often ones with a very specific vision, where an actor was a doll that was required simply to look appropriate (or just look pretty) and parrot lines. Annie had followed direction from many of those in her career.

Something had changed in the room; the texture of the atmosphere was different. Expectant. Like Annie often found it on sets. “Please,” she answered.

“Reward.”

She smiled. “Achievement.”

The music, she had decided, was lovely. The interviewers were lovely too. She was in such a good mood, and she didn’t really care how that had happened.

“Goals.”

“Desire,” she said, and her breath caught. It had perhaps not been quite the right word; now it was a stirring of something inside her. No; it was a reflection of what was around her. Had she pushed them into this, when she had willed them to like her?

She had been pushing harder here than she had in years. Perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps it was the thought of working with David Arnault. Either way, she realised with surprise that it was coming back to her, that the desire of the others in the room was seeping into her.

She drew in a deep breath, feeling shaky, and it didn’t help. If anything, her head was spinning even more with arousal.

“Sex,” he said, and rather than speak, she rose from her chair, pushing without thinking about it, and her hands were on the shirt above his chest and his lips were on her neck and she was straddling him and the sound of ripping fabric echoed through the room…