The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I was standing aboard a boat on the high seas. Sometimes it was a proud sailing ship, sometimes it was a ferry, sometimes it wasn’t much more than a kayak. It skipped over the waves adventurously.

“Hey, we should not steer towards that?” I said, pointing up at the huge black clouds that were quickly gathering in the sky.

“Ah well,” sighed the Captain as he stood next to me, his pipe in his mouth, “s’too late now. We’re headin’ into a storm, but we’ll be fine.”

I wanted to scream “No! We won’t be fine!! And if you were actually in the cabin, helming the ship like you should be, we could be avoiding it!” I think I did scream, but he wasn’t listening.

The sky turned red around me.

“Ah, that explains it,” the Captain said thoughtfully, “we’ve found the River Styx.”

Lightning flashed around us. The storm tossed the steamboat out of the sea, and into the River Styx. We drifted through a desolate hellscape.

“Faaarrrk,” I groaned, “I didn’t bring a coin to pay Charon.”

“Guess you’ll have to get off here then,” the Captain shrugged.

The kayak, now steady with the calmer flow of the river, came to a riverbank. I quickly hopped off onto an empty patch of white sand, then just as the Galleon sailed away, and it was too high up for me to jump back on, I realised I’d left my jacket behind. Well, shit. That was my favourite one, and I’d have liked to carry it into the afterlife.

“Do you think Cerberus has a Lost and Found?” I said to nobody in particular.

“It’s not important,” said a familiar voice.

Stephanie was sitting naked on a nearby rock. I approached, grateful for the company.

“It’s pretty gnarly in here,” I said. “Why did I die?”

“Because you didn’t get it,” Stephanie replied.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Stephanie leaned forward, speaking rapidly as she slowly faded out of existence, “Where’s the text? Where’s the text? Where’s the text? Where’s the text? Where’s the text? Where’s the text? Where—”

“Whzzz zuh text?” I mumbled blearily as I shook myself back to awareness. Fuck. I fell asleep. Hold on. Fuck. Okay. This wasn’t good.

My head spun. I was rapidly approaching full panic mode. Stephanie had gone out to visit various aspiring hypnotists in person, and she had asked me to keep vigilant for her, on the off-chance that something happened. And apparently something had. I’d stayed up all night, waiting for her to check in after her last visit of the day, and I’d fallen asleep before she could. That was an ominous sign.

I reached out instinctively for my phone. 1 new message, and it was from Stephanie.

I began to panic even harder. That wasn’t the text. Where was the text??

Using muscle memory I didn’t know I had, I flicked through my phone until I got to-

Oh, that was clever. It was a chat with Stephanie, but not her regular number. She kept a goddamn burner phone, just for me? And I never noticed it until it was time for me to notice it.

I realised that I was acting under the influence of a post-hypnotic suggestion, and my memories finally slotted into place. I opened the chat already knowing what I’d find.

I am acting of my own free will.

Still not hypnotised.

My mind is my own.

I am safe and my free will is intact.

I am not hypnotised.

I scrolled up, to confirm. Every night, at around 10pm, just before I usually went to bed, Stephanie had been sending these to me. I would read it, and then I would to forget.

A memory of Stephanie revealing her secrets under hypnosis surfaced in my brain.

A few other safeguards… I gave you the uncanny ability not to lose your phone.

I had to marvel at her. I was Stephanie’s safeguard, and she had made me practically infallible. I couldn’t lose my phone, so I could always receive her messages. ‘Send a secret message to your emergency from your burner phone’ was not a command most hypnotists would ever think of, never mind with slight variations in timing and wording, so it was nearly impossible to fake. And she couldn’t let me hypnotise her into doing it, that would defeat the whole point, so she’d been consciously ing to do this every night, for months. The dedication! And every night, I could be subconsciously soothed to sleep knowing that Stephanie was safe.

But now. Now I was waking up from maybe the craziest dream I’d ever had. Now my subconscious was screaming at me that something was wrong. Now… I had an empty space where the text from yesterday should have been.

Okay. So. Stephanie had been hypnotised then. By this, what was her name again? Clarissa. A longtime fan of S.H.E., Clarissa had got in a few weeks ago to say she’d hypnotised all her housemates to do chores. I figured that would be the end of her ambitions, cause she didn’t strike me as a world domination type. But if her ambitions were greater, and Stephanie had somehow fallen under her spell… it was my job to rescue her, and frankly, I didn’t need to be conditioned into that.

I opened the unread message from Stephanie’s normal phone.

Hi Lucy! If you’re free, would you like to come over and discuss the future of the podcast? We might have a new merchandising deal.

Nice try, Clarissa. That was almost something Stephanie would actually say. Shame I was already wise to it. Even better, it meant I knew where Stephanie would be without resorting to phone tracking. But it confirmed what I already suspected: having hypnotised Stephanie, Clarissa was gunning for the rest of her harem, starting with me.

Wrong choice, bitch.

I didn’t bother replying; no need to let them know when I’d be showing up. But if I was going to show up, I might as well be prompt, in case Clarissa got bored of waiting and decided to take Stephanie somewhere I didn’t know so well.

It was a short hop across the city to get from my ‘I’m still roleplaying a starving uni student,’ apartment to Stephanie’s much swankier one. She must’ve hypnotised someone in order to get it, right? We’re all on the same page about that?

I parked in the guest spot that I’d come to think of as my own, and took the lift up. I kind of wished it would take longer, so I could think some more about what I was walking into. I needed to free Stephanie from Clarissa’s control, but how? It wasn’t as if I could make some kind of moral argument—everything Clarissa was doing was something I’d done myself, and I’d played a part in teaching her how to do it. As far as I should care, what Clarissa did next was between her and her slave. But… but what? What was my angle here?

Meanwhile, Clarissa would want to get me under her thrall as well. Could she do it? She’d managed to get Stephanie after Stephanie had promised me to keep her guard up all day. Would I fare any better? Could you seduce someone if they knew you had sinister motives?

At the very least, I could count on Stephanie to resist her programming if Clarissa was actively hostile to me. Guess we were both taking the diplomatic approach.

Aaand fuck, Stephanie’s door was right in front of me. I’d already run out of time to think. Okay. Deep breaths. Negotiate Stephanie’s freedom without giving away my own. Piece of cake.

I opened the door cautiously, to find that Stephanie and her mysterious seductress, Clarissa, had converted the living room couch into some kind of makeshift massage table. Clarissa was all but naked, with dark red hair streaking wetly down her back, and a towel covering her ass, fresh out of the shower. Stephanie was kneeling over her, massaging her back, kis and down her spine with complete devotion. I was unprepared for just how much the sight filled me with anger, which I quickly had to tamp down. Calm and composed was the aim of the game here.

As she heard the front door open, Clarissa sat up, and I got a good look at her for the first time. A very good look. She wasn’t shy about strangers, then.

“Hiiii!” she grinned, waving at me. “You must be Lucy!”

“Yep, that’s me,” I said, as casually as I could. I shut the door behind me, but left it unlocked.

“This must be a bit of a shock for you!” she said. “But as you can see, your Mistress Stephanie is now my hypnotised slave!”

I’d known that well in advance, obviously, but I was caught off-guard anyway. I’d been prepared to look upon the face of evil when I came into Stephanie’s apartment, and the face of evil simply didn’t look like a petite, beaming redhead who said ‘hi’ with multiple ‘i’s and waved at you with her whole arm. Where was the evil laughter? The whips and chains?

“I noticed,” I said, stepping further into the apartment. “I’d appreciate it if you released her.”

Clarissa blinked, “Okaaaayy, you’re not surprised at all, fair play. I don’t really feel like releasing her, though. I mean can you blame me? She’s got all this knowledge of hypnosis, and she gives a hell of a massage.” She winked. “Veeery eager to please.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” Stephanie mumbled, as she curled up in Clarissa’s lap like a cat. Her voice was as blank and submissive as I’d ever heard it.

She was winding me up a bit, I knew that. But something about this was disrupting my composure. I felt like I could grind my teeth down to a fine powder if I wasn’t careful.

I’d waited too long to speak, and Clarissa continued, “Actually, what I really feel like doing is hypnotising Stephanie’s harem so that everyone’s under my control. I get the Mistress, I get the slaves as well. Seems fair, right?”

I snorted. At least she was up-front about it. “Buy me a drink, first.”

Clarissa bit her lip, and I suddenly realised that I was talking to someone who was a big fan of the podcast—maybe the actual biggest, going off this evidence—and I’d just offered to let her buy me a drink.

“I could and I would,” she husked, “but I think I’ll let Stephanie break the ice between us.” She glanced down at Stephanie. “Slave, give her the trigger.”

Stephanie raised her head off Clarissa’s lap, looked right at me through glassy eyes, and sighed, “Lovely Lucy.”

I’d been expecting this, from the moment I’d walked through the door. My body instinctively tensed, a slight shiver down my spine… but that was it.

I held Clarissa’s gaze. “Her triggers don’t work when she’s hypnotised,” I retorted. “Nice try, though!”

I found it incredibly satisfying to see Clarissa so visibly taken aback, “Oh, shit, really? Woowww, okay, there goes that idea.”

“What can I say?” I smirked. “Stephanie plans for everything.”

“Y’know what, I should’ve expected that,” Clarissa conceded. “Alright, guess we’ll have to get to know each other the old-fashioned way.”

I looked her up and down. There was still not a stitch on her. “How old-fashioned are we talking?”

She grinned, “That was the original plan, but for now, take a seat. Let’s talk this out.”

She allowed Stephanie to crawl around behind her, leaving enough space on the couch for me to sit, and she patted it expectantly. This was obviously not ideal, but since I wasn’t exactly in a position to set the , I obeyed.

“Sooo,” Clarissa leaned forward, eyeing me curiously, “obviously you know what I want. Not like I kept it a big secret or anything. What do you want?“

Stephanie continued her slow, sensual, loving massage from earlier, kissing all around Clarissa’s shoulder and neck, her eyes on me the whole time. Even a hypnotised Stephanie loved to show off for an audience. I knew that smoky, seductive stare well. ‘You know you want to in’. It was making it very difficult to concentrate.

“I want,” I inhaled sharply, “for you to release Stephanie from your control. Give her back her free will.”

“Y’know,” Clarissa mused, “I don’t reeeeally wanna do that if I don’t have to. I’m having fun. She’s having fun. And honestly I can’t think of many things better to do with hypnosis than putting a hypnosis expert under my control. I didn’t plan for it, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, right?”

That threw me. “You didn’t plan for it?” I said incredulously. “You’re not telling me you hypnotised her by accident?”

She gave me a sheepish grin, “I kiiind of am, yeah. To be fair, it was like a 4-on-1 situation.”

“Ahh.” That made me feel a little better, though it raised the even bigger question of how you could accidentally hypnotise someone 4-on-1.

“I mean,” Clarissa argued, “the way I see it is, ganging up or not I hypnotised her fair and square. You’d have done the same as me, I’m pretty sure.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it,” I countered.

“Well, what would make you happy?” Clarissa said, and she sounded absolutely sincere. Which was annoying, cause I desperately wanted her not to be for some reason.

“I just… want her back,” I decided. “The real Stephanie.”

“Well, I think I’m the only one here who’s not some kind of psychologist,” she replied, “but my first impression here is that you’re jealous.”

I stared hard at Clarissa.

Clarissa looked back at me, as innocent and wide-eyed as a hypno-domme could be.

“I just… don’t like the idea of her being hypnotised and under someone else’s control,” I grumbled.

“Cause you’re the only person to have hypnotised her until now?”

“That’s right,” I couldn’t deny a swell of pride in my chest as I said it.

“And she’s the only person to have hypnotised you, so far?”

“Yep.”

“That’s really sweet!” Clarissa trilled, and once again, it sounded like she really meant it.

“What’s your point?”

“I’m not sure,” she laughed. “I feel like I’m hashing out some kind of custody arrangement. Okay, you want Stephanie back, are we talking like, I get weekends? Or do we alternate weeks?”

“She’s not a—!” I got out, before reining my temper in again. I wouldn’t get anywhere with that line of argument.

Stephanie was completely draped over Clarissa by this point, stroking her arms, pressing kisses to her shoulders and neck, and anywhere she could reach. If there was a tease in there, it definitely wasn’t just for Clarissa.

“Okay, fine,” I muttered, looking away. “I’m… not used to seeing her all submissive like this.”

That wasn’t entirely true, because… well… hang on, was it true? I loved seeing Stephanie submissive, but that wasn’t quite the same as being used to it. Submissive Stephanie was for special occasions—blood moons, or equinoxes, or something. Stephanie being in charge felt… natural. So natural that I’d devoted a lot of my own free will over the past year to helping her dominate as many people as she needed to fulfill her dreams. To see that all be taken under Clarissa’s thumb, so easily and so matter-of-factly, it felt… wrong.

“Ahhh,” Clarissa said knowingly, “so you prefer it when she’s in charge?”

“Yeah, I guess…” I got out grudgingly. And fuck you for summarising my thoughts while I’m still trying to process them.

“Wellll,” Clarissa said, “to be totally honest with you, I like seeing dominant Stephanie too. Maybe we can work something out.”

I felt an uneasy fluttering in my gut. “Like what?” I asked warily.

She leaned back and whispered something into Stephanie’s ear. Stephanie turned to gaze at me, the smoky look in her eyes suddenly alive with heat. She clambered off Clarissa, and straddled my lap as smoothly as if none of this was happening. Like we were just lovers with all the time in the world to spend together.

“Hello, Lucy,” she purred, in a voice that she knew turned my limbs to jelly.

Oh, fuck. No no no no no. Not this. Give me anything else. Give me a pit of fire. Give me spikes of doom. I could fight the Devil. I could fight Freud. I could fight every homophobic politician that ever existed.

But I couldn’t bring myself to fight Stephanie. She kissed me, pinning me to the couch as she unbuttoned my shirt. I was topless before I knew it. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t really her, that she was just being controlled to do this. It didn’t matter. Hypnotised or not, she knew me too well, and her caresses, her teasing licks, the smell of her hair, the weight of her body on top of mine… it all felt so familiar, so comforting. I was already melting.

“I’m not gonna fall for—” I tried to get out, but Stephanie placed her finger over my mouth.

“Shhhhh,” she said firmly, and pressed her lips to mine again, effectively quieting me.

Fuck! Why did Stephanie have to be so good at pushing my buttons?? I moaned into her mouth as her tongue found mine, one hand holding my chin in place while the other trailed down my body.

“See?” I could hear the grin in Clarissa’s voice. “She can still top, if you want her to.”

I wanted to say “It’s not her!", but I didn’t really believe it. This was her, this was exactly how she seduced me every other time. It had worked then, and it was working now.

“Tell her more about your research,” Clarissa prompted. “Tell her what you told me.”

Stephanie pulled back, and stroked her hands down my face, locking my eyes onto hers.

“Hypnosis is hard to resist, Lucy,” she spoke softly. “I can’t fight this. I don’t want to fight this. It feels so wonderful to submit. I once said free will was an illusion, and I was right. We can so easily be reduced to animals, craving one another’s touch above all else.” She leaned in closer, until her lips rested against my ear.

“And I know you’re feeling that right now,” she purred, and I swear my whole body vibrated with her words. “With me, and with Clarissa.”

Clarissa took that as her cue to run a hand gently through my hair, as Stephanie buried my head in her breasts. To my dismay, I found Clarissa’s touch nearly as nice as Stephanie’s.

“And you know I’m going to be just fine,” Stephanie murmured. “Mistress is going to allow me to keep going as I have been, studying hypnosis. She wouldn’t let it fall by the wayside.”

It ached to hear the devotion in her voice. “And you just… trust her on that?” I pleaded, hoping that some kind of reason could penetrate the spell Clarissa had woven over her. “You have a job to do!”

“Ohhh, you don’t know, cause you weren’t there,” Clarissa said. “But keeping people focused and on-task is like, my whole thing!”

Stephanie’s fingers slid my panties down, and started small, teasing circles around my clit. Fuck, Stephanie, I’m trying to help you here! Why’ve you gotta make it so—mmmmmhhh—difficult?!

“All I’m asking,” Clarissa continued, “is that I retain my control over her, and the rest of the time, she’ll be the normal dominant Stephanie we all know and love. You won’t even notice the difference. I’m talking a couple of times every month at most, and maaaybe if I need a special favour from a hypnotist in the future.”

I couldn’t fight off two sets of hands, and Clarissa’s fingers slipped down from my hair and found the back of my neck, stroking it soothingly. She was very good. If I knew it was happening, I could keep it from affecting me. Maybe.

“We could formalise it,” Stephanie whispered, “if you’ll let me hypnotise you now.”

I tried to form words, thoughts, as Stephanie kissed me softly, over and over. My eyes slipped shut.

“Thennn,” I slurred, “Clarissa’ll control me as well…”

“Submission to Mistress Clarissa is fun,” Stephanie soothed. “It’s even a little bit freeing.”

That kind of argument was impossible to engage with. Especially when she was kissing me and rubbing tiny circles around my clit, all while… mmmmngh, while Clarissa was making my head feel fuzzy.

“Fun…’sn’t worth your free will,” I managed, my eyes still closed. I wasn’t hypnotised. Not yet.

“But it is,” Stephanie insisted, pressing her lips against mine to stop me refuting her. “We can show you. I can show you. Just relax, let go for me, and we can submit together.”

Together. It would be so, so easy to say yes. Stephanie took advantage of my hesitation to kiss me again, her tongue coaxing mine into a response, urging me to surrender.

And as she pulled back, she drew the truth out from my lips.

“I…I’m sorry.”

The fingers stopped. The soft, warm bodies around me drew back a little.

I opened my eyes. Clarissa was looking at me quizzically.

“Sorry?” she asked. “What for?”

But while the other woman was staring, my full focus was on Stephanie.

“I made a promise,” I whispered softly, “and that is sacred to me. I’m sorry. Submission to you, submission to Clarissa, being happy under the control of both of you, it sounds so, so tempting… but I made a promise. So I—” I was suddenly having trouble keeping my voice steady, “I have to choose, between breaking my promise to you, that I would keep you safe, and… and staying with you when you ask me to, following you wherever you go. I want to say yes. I would love nothing more than to say yes. And even though I know you’re mind-controlled right now, I feel like I’m betraying you no matter which one I choose.”

I took a deep, shuddering breath, “But if I let my feelings control my actions right now, if I fall for this…” I shook my head. “I can’t. I have to be stronger than that, for you. And if you’re truly loving being Clarissa’s slave, then fine. I can’t stop you. But I can’t you either, and I won’t stop fighting for you, even if… even if that means fighting against you.”

I turned to Clarissa, my gaze watery but firm, “Your offer is tempting, but my answer is still no.”

I saw some of the fun leak out of Clarissa. Her shoulders slumped, and her eyes lost a bit of that mischievous glimmer.

“You really care about her, don’t you?” she said softly.

“Put. Her back. To normal,” I demanded, and maybe my tone wasn’t the diplomatic one I would’ve wanted, but I could settle for ‘not putting up with any more of your shit.’ I was a bit too honest just then, and I felt raw from it, like I’d sandpapered myself on purpose. I hadn’t realised how true a lot of it was until I’d said it out loud.

Clarissa sighed. “Okay, okay. I can tell when I’m outvoted. Slave, come back over here. Sorry,” she turned to me quickly, “she won’t respond to anything right now unless I call her ‘Slave’ first.”

I inclined my head. It figured. Stephanie curled up once again on Clarissa’s lap.

“Now Slave,” she whispered, loud enough for me to hear, “you can respond to things normally again. I don’t need to call you Slave beforehand, alright?”

“Yessss Mistressss…” Stephanie murmured.

“In fact,” Clarissa went on, “you’re not really my slave at all. I’m releasing you from my control, and with that, you can feel all my programming leaving you. You will no longer fall into a trance when I say ‘Time To Sle—’”

“Ah ah!” I interrupted, holding up a warning finger. She looked at me, puzzled.

“Make it more general. No use telling her she won’t fall into a trance at the words ‘time to sleep’ if her actual trigger was ‘deep trance now’ or something.” That was exactly the kind of trick Stephanie would want me to look out for.

“Ooooh, yeah, good shout,” Clarissa itted. “Okay Stephanie, can you hear me? Good, so you the triggers I gave you? You can feel them fading away, they no longer apply to you…”

It took a long time, at least 10 minutes, for me to be satisfied that Stephanie’s mind was completely free of Clarissa’s control.

“Alright,” Clarissa said finally, “if you’re happy, then all I have to do is wake her up.”

“Hey, um… thanks,” I replied grudgingly.

“I’m not one to get in the way of a good thing,” she replied simply.

Before I could ask her what that meant, she turned her attention back to Stephanie.

“Feel yourself drifting back to full consciousness now,” she soothed, “waking up, coming completely out of trance, as I snap my fingers in 3, 2, 1…”

She snapped her fingers.

Stephanie woke up very slowly, blinking and yawning. She looked down, and saw that she was naked. One hand came up and rubbed her temple, trying to jog her memory. She took stock of her surroundings, her gaze drifting over Clarissa, then landing on me.

She immediately came over and engulfed me in a warm, tight hug. I felt her murmur, “Thank you,” into my hair as I embraced her.

“You good?” I asked, relief washing over me like a summer breeze. The raw, sandpaper-y feeling was already fading.

“Yes, perfectly fine,” Stephanie reassured me.

Then her gaze turned back to Clarissa.

“What in the fuck did you hit me with?” she asked, an unmistakable note of wonder in her voice.

“Ahhh,” Clarissa stammered, “some kind of group induction, I think.”

“You think?” Stephanie said flatly.

“What do you ?”

Stephanie rubbed her temples again. “We were having dinner, I was relaxing on your couch, then… nothing.”

“Wellll, if you , I offered to let my slaves pamper you a little,” Clarissa narrated. “I told them to ‘make you feel good’, those exact words. How they did that was up to them. And Tamara hasn’t been with many women before, so I guess her frame of reference for ‘making you feel good’ was me stroking the back of her neck when I was hypnotising her. I don’t think she realised what it would do. You were already halfway under by the time I noticed.”

“Come on,” I protested, “you can’t expect me to believe it was that much of an accident—”

Stephanie pinched the bridge of her nose, “No, actually, that sounds about right for Clarissa.”

“Yeeaahh, I’ll cop that,” Clarissa replied, but she shifted uncomfortably, perhaps regretting for the first time her decision to get naked in someone else’s apartment. “Hey, can I ask, what happens to me now?”

Stephanie’s eyes scanned the room. She stood up, and grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter. She unlocked it, handing it to Clarissa.

“Your number,” she said, and there was a sharp note in her voice. This wasn’t a request.

“O…kay” Clarissa replied uncertainly, entering her number with slightly nervous fingers.

When she handed the phone back, Stephanie beamed, “Good! I will be in touch soon.”

Clarissa blinked, “Be in touch? What?”

Stephanie composed a quick text to Clarissa’s phone as she replied. “I am in need of talented hypnotists, and if there was ever a qualification for that, you’ve certainly earned it.”

“You’re… recruiting me?” Clarissa said, suddenly awestruck. Her phone buzzed.

“Yes! For the study,” Stephanie confirmed. “You didn’t think I was going to kiss all those test subjects by myself, did you? Think of how sore my lips would get after only a hundred!”

“But I—” Clarissa’s gaze flicked back to me, “I’m not making her say this, I swear!”

“Don’t worry, this is actually extremely on-brand for her,” I stood up and kissed Stephanie on the cheek, making her crack a smile for the first time since waking up. “Always thinking about her research first.”

“Well… well I’d be honoured!” Clarissa gushed. “The opportunity to contribute, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing!... To be honest, I thought you were just going to hypnotise me and turn me into your slave, you know, turnabout is fair play and all that.”

“It is very tempting,” Stephanie purred, and I noticed Clarissa’s nervous shifting suddenly had a little more anticipation in it than dread, “but no. I’ll need as many clear-headed hypnotists as I can get.“

“So… you’re not mad at me?” Clarissa said hopefully.

“Well,” Stephanie folded her arms, “what happened to all my appointments for today?”

“Oh! Ummmm, yeah,” Clarissa stammered, “as far as your work is concerned, you’re taking a sick day. I wanted a full day to establish control over you…” her eyes avoided me, “and Lucy and the rest of your slaves… sorryyyy.”

Stephanie pinched the bridge of her nose again, “Well, all in all this is far from the worst thing you could have done, but… did you really have to?”

“In my defence, you needed a day off!” Clarissa held up her hands. “You were spark out on my sofa, ? I was putting on my best domme voice, sure, but let’s be real here, you were fucking exhausted.”

“I have a lot of responsibilities,” Stephanie replied a little defensively, “and I take them all very seriously. I was never expecting this career to be easy.”

Clarissa stared at her with that surprisingly perceptive gaze. “How can you resist the urge to delegate everything when you can hypnotise people and make them love to serve you?” she wondered. “God knows I can’t.”

“I hate to say it,” I cut in, “but she has a point. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately. You have a full time job, you host a podcast, and you’re trying to do a postdoc, and all of the subterfuge spy shit you need for that. It’s a recipe for burnout.”

“... Point taken,” Stephanie itted. “When you put it that way, I suppose something like this was bound to happen eventually.”

“Did you set yourself up for it?” Clarissa wondered, hand on her chin.

Stephanie thought for a moment. “...Not intentionally, no,” she decided, “but I will it, now that it’s happened, it’s a weight off my mind. We all know that I’m fallible now, I can be hypnotised just like anybody else. So, I can abdicate the proverbial throne, get off the pedestal.”

“Is there a throne?” I asked.

“There is,” Clarissa answered quietly.

“...Oh.” I felt a surge of emotion I couldn’t quite place.

“I never wanted the throne,” Stephanie affirmed. “I’m a scientist, first and foremost. The more everyone understands that we’re in a sexually charged free-for-all, the closer we’ll get to the truth. In some respects you’ve done me a favour. I might even thank you, ironically, but… we’ll call it even for disrupting my job.”

Something inside Clarissa visibly relaxed. “So, we’re good then?”

“We’re good, I think,” Stephanie looked at me for confirmation. I shrugged. Sure, why not. Everything had turned out fine.

Clarissa and I exhaled with relief together, then laughed as we caught each other doing it.

“Seriously though,” Clarissa said, “have a holiday for God’s sake.”

“I will,” Stephanie promised.

“I’ll hold you to it,” I grinned.

“Now can I pleeease put some clothes on?” Clarissa asked.

“Oh, if you must,” Stephanie sighed dramatically, making no effort to hide her disappointment.

“Damn, whose idea was it for everyone to get naked in the first place?” I wondered aloud.

“Yeahhh, my mistake,” Clarissa grimaced good-naturedly.

Stephanie looked at her thoughtfully, and her eyes lingered for a while. Clarissa was ittedly cute as hell, even if she’d just hypnotised Stephanie. Maybe especially because of that.

“If I were a fan of my podcast,” Stephanie mused, “and I got the opportunity to meet the hosts, not to mention the fact that we’re all naked right now… I would feel a bit let down if I had to leave without at least a kiss. That is one of the core elements of the show, after all.“

Clarissa slapped her thigh. “Damn, you are good.”

“From both hosts?” I asked innocently, resting a hand on my chin and batting my eyelashes.

Clarissa blushed, “Um, well, if you’re okay with it, yeah—”

“Come here,” Stephanie purred.

Clarissa didn’t need much persuading, and as soon as Stephanie stepped towards her, the confident, seductive glint I knew so well in her eye, the star-struck fan was at the wheel again. She practically swooned as Stephanie dipped her, like she was leading a dance, and they kissed with an intensity that really begged for a nice sunset, or a beach with nothing but horizon, to frame it against.

When their lips finally, and very wetly, parted, Clarissa’s eyelids were fluttering, and she simply allowed Stephanie to manoeuvre her back upright.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, “I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”

“High praise indeed,” Stephanie purred. “I should leave my victims conscious enough to give me compliments more often.”

“Funnily enough,” I said, “I actually do have some merchandising ideas for the podcast now.”

Clarissa blinked, shaking herself out of her stupor, “What, like a t-shirt that says ‘I’ve been kissed by Dr. Stephanie’?”

“Yeah,” I said, “then underneath in smaller font you could have ‘...and now I must obey’ or something.”

“Perfect, love it, I’ll take five of them, please,” Clarissa laughed. Clearing her throat, she added, “…May I kiss you as well?”

“Don’t try anything funny,” I wagged my finger at her.

She smiled, palms up, “Won’t even touch your neck, promise.”

“Hands below the waist at all times,” I insisted.

She grinned, allowing me to take her hands and place them on my ass.

“You’re not totally forgiven,” I murmured as I stepped close to her, “but since we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the future, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.”

Clarissa nodded slowly, “Can we say we just… started off on the wrong foot?”

“Sure.”

“What does the right foot look like?”

“This…”

I decided not to make it a competition for Best Kisser, and just go with what I knew best. It felt very different to kissing Stephanie, Clarissa was gentler and maybe a bit more hesitant, but still fun. She squeaked playfully as I grabbed her butt, and gave me an exploratory squeeze in return.

“Mmm, that was nice,” she murmured as we pulled back. “Do you kiss a lot of girls?” She poked her tongue out at me.

“Actually,” I stopped, taking a moment to think about it, “you’re only the second.”

Weirdly, it was like Clarissa had been expecting that answer, and she patted me on the shoulder as she stepped back.

“Now I really should get dressed,” she said.

“We should all get dressed,” Stephanie said. “I have one more idea before you leave.”

And so, bizarrely, our first ever confrontation with another Hypno-Mistress ended up being our first ever fan meet-and-greet. Clarissa took selfies on her phone as Stephanie and I kissed her cheeks in unison. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted her expression to be. Affectionate? Surprised? Hypnotised? We took one of each, just to be thorough.

“Print those out on good photo paper, and I’ll sign them for you if I ever have another fan meet,” Stephanie winked.

“Are all our fan meet-ups going to be like this?” I wondered.

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it,” Stephanie smiled. “It was very interesting to meet you, Clarissa. I’ll be in touch!”

“Byeeee!” Clarissa waved, with both arms, from barely outside the threshold.

“It was like,” Stephanie struggled to explain, “making a new friend at an event.”

I held Stephanie close, being the big spoon for the first time in a long time. “I’m not sure I follow you on that one.”

“Something you go to all the time, and you’re used to it. Like…” she hesitated.

“The Easter Show?” I tried.

“Yes! Exactly,” she said. “You go to the Easter Show every year, you always go with the same friend, or group of friends, and you enjoy yourselves.”

“Mmmhmm…”

“Then imagine,” she continued, “you turn up one year, and your usual friend isn’t there, but someone latches onto you. They insist that you’ll have a good time with them, but their tastes are different. Maybe they take you on the big rollercoaster you always avoided because it was scary. Maybe instead of the fairy floss they take you to the fudge stalls or the artisanal honey. You experience the whole thing in new ways you weren’t prepared for.”

“Sounds like a recipe for anxiety,” I said.

“Hmmm, that’s not quite what I mean,” she replied. “It’s about … not being certain what comes next. The thrill of the unknown.”

“Okay, I think I understand,” I said.

She tilted her head, to look at me a bit more. “Of course, a lot of this is me rationalising my feelings retroactively. In the moment, my thoughts were more along the lines of ‘Yes Mistress, I will eat your pussy Mistress.’”

I snorted into her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me how scared you were of hypnosis?” I asked.

“I’m sorry for keeping that from you,” Stephanie sighed, “but now I think I understand the limits better. It’s useful, versatile, but still very much tied to sex. We shouldn’t expect any hypnotised murderers in the future, for example.”

“Right,” I said, “if you can’t be seduced into it, you probably can’t be hypnotised into it.”

“That’s my current theory,” she confirmed, “though it’s still extremely powerful.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Still, I’m sorry I almost didn’t rescue you.”

“You did very well,” Stephanie soothed me, laying her hand on mine, “I’m sorry I made it so difficult for you.”

“The terrible thing is, I kinda want you to make it difficult for me again,” I itted. “There’s, uh… a lot to unpack there. Did you hear any of what I said?”

“I heard it in my subconscious,” Stephanie said, rubbing her lips together in thought. “My memory from the trance is hazy, but it’s there, somewhere in the back of my head… I don’t exactly what you said, but whenever I try to think about it, I feel warm and comforted.”

I held her very close, kissing anywhere I could, trying to convey my feelings when words just didn’t seem to cut it.

“Lucy…” she moaned.

“Yessss?” I purred.

“Was I… was I really your first kiss with a woman?”

Huh?

I thought back to anything we’d talked about that could possibly connect to- Oh, right! I’d mentioned off-hand that Clarissa was the second woman I’d ever kissed, so, by extension…

“Um, yeah, you were,” I said.

“Oh.”

“Is that… a problem?”

“I suppose… I never really asked you about it.” I got the impression that Stephanie was mentally hitting herself repeatedly in the head. “You were immediately on board with the idea of seducing a man together… I just assumed...”

“Well, yeah, I was down to try it!” I shrugged. “But if that’s your question, then no, I never actually got the chance to kiss another girl, until I kissed you. And… yeah, that’s how I knew for sure I was bi.“

“Oh,” Stephanie shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what? It was great!” I said emphatically.

“I was too focused on my own needs,” she onished herself. “If I’d known that it was your first… well, I would have at least tried to make it a little bit special for you.”

“It was special for me!” I insisted. “Don’t worry about it!“

“Are you sure?” she asked, hesitantly.

“I’m sure” I said. “Wouldn’t change a thing about it. Not even the part where I was like ‘We can’t know for sure unless we’ve done at least 50 replicates. I mean, 100 replicates.’”

“Oh. Good,” Stephanie relaxed back into my embrace. “Speaking of obvious questions I’ve been neglecting to ask, have you been building yourself any kind of harem? Other slaves, that kind of thing?”

“Erm, not particularly,” I said, “I mean not as dedicated sex slaves, no, but I’ve hypnotised my manager at work, and a real pushover in payroll who couldn’t stop staring at my ass.”

“Oh?” Stephanie nudged me playfully. “Are you due for a generous pay rise next year?”

“That’s on my radar,” I grinned, “but for now I’m preparing them to approve generous amounts of annual leave, and schedule my working days so that I get podcast days off. Oh, and I can call in sick basically whenever.”

“Very good,” Stephanie nodded, “are you planning to go on holiday somewhere?”

“What? No, I’m saving it all up so I can spend it on the study.”

Stephanie sighed loudly. A weary but affectionate sigh.

“What did I do to deserve you, Lucy?” she murmured, turning around to kiss me softly on the lips.

“I think you hypnotised me and made me into your sex slave,” I grinned, kissing her back.

She didn’t quite meet my eyes as she snuggled up to me, but I could tell she was blushing, just the tiniest bit.

“Speaking of which,” I said, “if it would help you feel more in control of yourself, would you like to put me under? Do a little Mistressing?”

“Actually, I’m still feeling a little… hmmm,” Stephanie let herself go limp in my arms. “You can do me instead, if you want to.”

I was instantly nervous. “Are you sure? I was actually going to suggest removing your triggers if you didn’t want to—”

“No, keep them,” Stephanie insisted. “I want you to have them.”

“You’re not just saying that to prove a point, are you?” I said.

“I’m not afraid of you, Lucy,” she squeezed my hand insistently. “I know you’ll take good care of me, no matter what.”

Yes, I thought. Yes I will.

“Well then, since I’m in charge of making you take the day off,” I murmured, “I think it’s time for Sleepy Stephanie to fall into a nice, deep sleep.”

Stephanie murmured with pleasure as she slipped into a trance. I snuggled up behind her and fell asleep to the soft, steady rhythm of her breathing.