Countdown

It's six pm and I can hear the front door opening. It's all I can do not to crawl out to meet him.

I grit my teeth as I sit on the bed. I'm dressed in a bulky hoodie and sweatpants; partly to deal with the cold and partly because if I wore anything less I would be more tempted to go out there. What I want to wear is nothing; what I want to do is walk through my bedroom door and ask him if he wants me to do something. Anything.

But I promised myself this time that I won't do that. That I won't open the door, won't step outside this room, won't even undo the lock. Not if he calls out to me; not if he tries to open it himself; not if he orders me to get up and unlock the door and let him in and strip down and spread my legs...

Fuck. Fuck. Thirty seconds in and already this is tough. I spent all day and all night promising myself that I would be strong; that today would be different; that this was the day that I would reverse the long, slow, insidious process of slavery that had slowly devoured the lives of me and my friend.

It's six-oh-one and I try to distract myself by thinking about how this all began.

***

Daniel was so normal. No, normal isn't the right word. Plain. Normal looks, normal height and weight. A little on the short side but not excessively so. A minor technical job doing something with computers- not a tech-bro but not a data entry drone either. Face that wasn't excessively ugly but wasn't particularly attractive. He seemed tailor made to fade into the background.

He started dating Sandra just a few weeks ago-

A few weeks? Really, only a few weeks? It feels like an eternity. It feels like a different era of history. It feels like a vanished time, before I knew what I now know. It feels impossibly lost.

Anyway. She talked about a new guy at work that she'd started to see. I looked him up on social media and remembering asking her- what was the big deal? He wasn't successful, he wasn't handsome, he didn't seem particularly dynamic. Was it something else, something subtle that social media couldn't show? Was he kind? Funny? Sweet and interesting in a way that a handful of posts about his trip to Scotland didn't indicate?

Sandra paused, her dark hair falling down her shoulders in a way that sometimes made me jealous.

"He's commanding," is what she said, the faintest blush appearing on her face.

I didn't understand what she meant then. I do now.

***

It's six-oh-two and I can hear his bag as it thumps on the floor. I'm not there to ask him if he wants me to put it away and the knowledge that I missed my opportunity twists my stomach. I strain my ears to listen to him as he moves about the room. What will he do? Will he break his promise? Will he come for me?

My muscles tense, my breath comes out in short, desperate pants. Remember yourself, I whisper into my mind. Remember that you don't belong to him. You don't belong to him. You don't. You don't.

The most frightening thing is how badly I want- I need- it not to be true.

***

He came over a week after she started to see him. He was...he was nice enough, I guess. Polite. Kind. Normal. We talked about how I'd known Sandra since forever; how we were both attending the same university. He nodded thoughtfully while Sandra hovered in the background, as though waiting for something.

I found out why in a little while when, apparently satisfied with his talk with me, he turned to her and told her to go get some snacks.

Not asked her. Told her.

Sandra's face lit up like he'd offered her a bouquet of flowers. She turned and ran off to fetch him some of the nibbles she'd prepared earlier, grinning from ear to ear. As she handed him a bowl of dip she shivered.

It was the first time I saw him give him one of his special orders. It was nowhere near the last.

***

Six-oh-five and I think he's not coming to force his way into my room. The disappointment comes in waves that threaten to make me burst into tears like a six-year-old denied her dessert; like a teenager being stood up for the first time in her life. I want to cry. I want to unlock the bedroom door. I stay where I am and I take deep breaths.

***

He'd do it all throughout the night. Small things, innocuous things. He'd tell her to go and fetch herself a beer. Come and sit next to him. Pick up that glass and put it in the sink. Go here. Fetch this. Do that. Tell me this.

The weird thing was that he wasn't particularly arrogant about it. I'd known guys who were pushy and there was always an aura about them. Arrogant. Smug. The sort of person who enjoyed getting others to do what they wanted, the sort of person who made it into an ego trip. Bullies. Daniel didn't act like a bully. He didn't seem to be doing it out of a need to proclaim his authority. He wasn't demanding or forceful. At least not overtly. No, he just gave out orders like they were the most normal thing in the world, in the same calm and patient tone someone might state a familiar fact, and Sandra obeyed them with a smile- more than a smile. With relish. With joy. With pleasure.

He always thanked her afterwards. Sometimes he'd pet her head.

***

Six-oh-nine and I have dealt with the soul crushing knowledge that he will not be coming to my room in the immediate future. I am a woman wandering the desert who strays away from water; I am a famine victim throwing away my last meal; I am a junkie huddled, desperate and clawing, in a corner of the room, away from the needle full of the promise of bliss lying atop the nearby table. Between my legs there is an ache that is monstrous and raw and terrifying in its appetites.

***

He spent the night. It was obvious halfway through that he was going to spend the night. Sandra was all over him, pressing her boobs against his arm and whispering in his ear while I looked on with amused confusion. In the end he simply stood up, said goodnight to me and then told Sandra to go to her bedroom and take off her clothes in the same calm, polite tone of voice he used telling her to sit down next to him.

She leapt to obey, practically running to her room. A little while later I heard muffled voices through the walls; then feminine moans, loud and constant and shameless. I remember laughing- so that's what she sees in him.

***

Six-eleven. I ache, I hunger and a soft, insidious voice in my head reminds me that it is a hunger that I can sate so very easily indeed. I ache and it is a torture I can end in an instant. I ache and it is an ache for orders, for commands, for leadership. I ache to be used and I do not care how he does it so long as he uses me.

There are noises outside. I feel a surge of horror and expectation both; he is coming! But no. I hear the murmur of a feminine voice. Sandra. She's gone to him. She's walked out of her room to be with him. He's going to be busy with her. He's not going to come to my room anytime soon.

The knowledge fills me with a terrible sense of loss. I whimper and curl up on the bed, shuddering as my body fights my mind for control of my soul.

***

Three weeks of this. Of him coming over to our place or her going over to his place; she was either not there or with him. When he was there she burned with energy, with passion, with a lust so intense and blatant that I was at first puzzled and then alarmed. On the occasions he wasn't over she would lie about in the bare minimum of clothes, staring aimlessly out the window. When she was with him she followed him around like a lovesick puppy, waiting on baited breath for his orders. Go and get started on dinner. Go and make us both coffees for breakfast. Go to your room and strip down. Go to your room and touch yourself.

I listened in, once. Out of concern and a strange and morbid curiosity. I heard something like chanting. I opened the door just a crack. He was sitting on a chair by her desk. She lay on the bed, her legs spread open, hands between her legs. Masturbating for him. He just sat there and watched with a smile on his face. And all the time she was whispering, "I want to obey. I want to obey. I want to obey..."

***

Six-fifteen and I writhe on the bed, legs clamped together to stop my fingers from thrusting down into my cunt, I contemplate how clever he is. People claim that reason drives men and women to achieve great things. It is not reason. It is pleasure and fear and greed and hunger and lust. These are the great engines of our species; why we build great monuments and engage in terrible wars and sleep next to the monsters that devour us. Why we do everything that we do. Intellect, memory, reason, skill and cleverness and mere devices used by clever apes to fulfill needs as ancient and as primal of the earth itself. Sleep. Fight. Eat. Fuck. Belong. Obey.

I want to obey, I want to obey, I want to obey...

***

Her grades dropped. I raised the issue with her and she just shrugged me off, annoyed that I was bothering her with tedious things like her academic opportunities and future career prospects. So I yelled at Daniel. Told him it was his fault that she was acting like this; his fault if she got kicked out of her course. He told me he'd talk to her about it. That he would tell her to focus more on her studies.

The next day I found her sitting naked at her desk, eyes locked on a textbook, one hand between her legs. That's when I got really scared.

***

Six eighteen. So hot. So hot. My skin is aflame with need. I'm pushing off my hoodie, throwing it onto the floor. My sweatpants go next. This can't be real. I'm hot, too hot for clothes, too hot for underwear, too hot for disobedience, too hot for denial. This can't be real. I must be sick. Psychological conditioning can't bring about these sorts of changes. It can't have this much influence. Can it?

Of course it can. I'm changed. Changed for good. Built for obedience, now. So why am I pretending otherwise?

***

It was after I got angry at him that he started to pay attention to me. By which I mean that he started to order me around.

At first I laughed at him. Sneered. I wasn't like my sad, subby friend; I wasn't the sort of girl that would just drop what she was doing and scurry around to do whatever he wanted. So when he told me to go and bring him his bag, I told him to go to hell.

I expected him to get angry or repeat himself. He didn't do any of those things. He just smiled like we'd shared a joke together. He even apologized in a way that seemed sincere.

I sneered back at him, confident in my victory over him. And it was a victory. Just a brief one.

***

Six-twenty. My hands are moving. Touching my tits, squeezing them, massaging them. Delving between my legs and parting my lower lips. Stroking. Exploring. My hot, needy flesh welcomes the touch- is desperate for it- but it's not enough. Without the orders, everything's weaker. Without the orders, everything's duller. I lay there, trying to conjure up all manner of lurid fantasies. Romantic caresses and rough, violent fucks. Solitary soulmates and rooms full of faceless men. Old lovers and movie stars.

Nothing. Nothing excites me anymore. Nothing gets me off anymore, despite how horny I am all the time. Nothing but Daniel. Nothing but obedience.

***

Sandra got upset, I think. The second time he told me to help her do the cleaning. She got a horrified look on her face; part anger, part jealously, part concern. She told him that he didn't need to order me around and she could do anything he wanted her to do. She kept looking back and forth between the two of us and I could smell her desperation.

Daniel got quiet and then told her to go into her room- he wanted to have a chat with her. She hesitated for a full three seconds before walking off. He got up and wordlessly followed her. They talked for a while. Then I heard moans, followed by breathless chanting.

The next morning Sandra took me aside. She asked me to be nicer to Daniel. To help him if he asked for something. It wouldn't be so bad to be polite, would it? It wouldn't be so terrible to be helpful, right?

***

Six-twenty-two. I'm rubbing myself shamelessly now, fingers a blur between my legs, straining to listen to what is happening to my sister. I want him to open the door. I want him to see me like this. To understand how helpless I am. To snap his fingers and end this silly charade.

Come on. Open the door. Open the door and see what you've done to me.

***

The third time he told me to get him a coke. He was polite and calm and phrased it unambiguously as a demand.

I'm not sure precisely why I obeyed him. Maybe it was just instinct. Someone asks you for a coke, you grab a coke. All I know is that I got off the couch and, clucking my tongue at his arrogance, and reached into the fridge.

That's when I felt it.

It wasn't just the wash of pleasure that rippled through me in soft, gentle waves. It wasn't just the arousal, my body reacting- however faintly- as though the act of following his simple instructions was an act of foreplay instead of a simple chore. It wasn't the warm feeling of rightness that flowed over me, as though I'd gotten a good score in a test or gotten praise from my parents. It was all of these things and a glorious sense that I'd done...

Done something right. Done something wonderful. Done something I was meant to do.

I walked back into the room and handed him his coke, smiling. He smiled back. "Thank you."

"No problem."

***

Six-twenty-five. I'm torturing myself. That's all. That's all I'm doing. I'm torturing myself. Denying myself. I'm pretending that the battle's not already lost. I'm pretending this isn't already over. And for what? The fear of being abused? Of being mistreated? That's impossible. How could I suffer when I enjoy whatever he orders me to do? He could ask me to debase myself and I would love it. Tell me to prostitute myself to strangers and I would be the happiest woman on Earth. So simple. So easy. So pure. Just obey and let everything else stop mattering.

***

It was small things after that.

"Please sit over there. I want to sit with your sister."

Innocuous. Simple.

"Please clean up your lunch. We were hoping to study there."

Each one obeyed near-thoughtlessly.

"Get me a coffee."

At some point I noticed how I scurried to obey him. How good it felt to follow his orders.

"Put on another shirt. That one's dirty."

How his orders stopped being innocuous. How I was ignoring the boundaries he was crossing.

"Go and help your sister cook."

How wonderful it felt to obey. How eagerly I began to look forward to his visits.

"Tell me about something naughty you did once."

How far I'd already fallen.

"Stop wearing a bra."

Until it was already too late.

***

Six-twenty eight. Nearly half an hour. Nearly half an hour of lying on this bed, resisting him. So strong. So impressive. Don't I deserve a reward? Isn't this enough? You can't say that I didn't try. I can go to him now. I did my best. I did my best. I can stop fighting now.

***

And then one day I was sitting on the couch and I was waiting for him. I was waiting for him to come over because Sandra had told me he was coming over and I couldn't wait, couldn't wait for him to come over and be commanding, to let me feel the warmth and love that I felt from doing precisely what he wanted me to. I remember sitting there is a t-shirt with no bra (as per his orders) and tight shorts (my own initiative; I wanted him to notice me, wanted him to see me, wanted him to order me, wanted him to use me-)

I realized that I had been sitting on that couch, my pussy wet and hot and ready, for four hours. Four hours of doing nothing but anticipating the moment that he'd walk through the door and give me commands. And that's when I lied.

I lied to myself that it wasn't too late. That whatever had happened it hadn't completely consumed me like my sister. That I wasn't an addict, wasn't a slave, wasn't a pet.

I lied to myself that I could beat him.

I lied to myself that the next time he came around I would stay in my room. I would ignore him. Ignore any orders that he gave. That I wouldn't crumble or give up or submit.

Oh, what a sad little liar I was.

***

Six-thirty and I open the door. I crawl into the passageway and down to the living room. I can hear wet, rhythmic sounds. I know what I will find there.

Daniel turns his head as I crawl naked and wild-eyed into the living room. He's on the couch, his trousers and underwear around his ankles. Sandra kneels between his legs. She's naked, her boobs pressed up against his legs as she sucks his cock. I stare at her movements; the way she commits herself utterly, the way her body trembles with pleasure as slides his length in and out of her lips. She is obedient. She is happy.

I tremble with jealousy.

I stare up at him with pleading eyes. He smiles at me. It's the same smile when he first met me. Soft. Placid. Innocent. There's not a hint of cruelty, of arrogance in that smile. He can be. I would almost welcome it- the tearing of the veil, the naked exposure of power. I don't want him to pretend to be nice. I want him to tell me I belong to him. I want him to tell me I'm owned. That the orders will come thick and fast and never, ever stop.

Instead he smiles. "I wasn't sure you were going to join us tonight. Do you want me to give you an order?"

I manage to nod as I tremble.

"Are you sure? You know, there are rules. Some of them from the power, and some of them... my own attempts to ease my conscience. But if you tell me no right now, I won't give you any more orders and this whole thing will end. Not for your friend but for you. Is that what you want?"

I hesitate. It's an out. He isn't lying- I sense that in some strange way he wants to give a fig-leaf to fairness. I could end this. I could take my life back. I'm not as far gone as Sandra. Not completely lost. He will stop and I won't ever feel the pleasure, the sense of completeness, the wonderful belonging that I felt-

I shake my head and rather than a sense of loss a great weight is lifted from my chest. It is done. I am committed. Whatever happens next will happen and whether it will be great or terrible is entirely up to him.

He reaches forward and strokes my hair. He smiles like an indulgent father. "Both of you. Suck my cock together."

Sandra moves over even as she continues her loving ministrations on his erection. I move to join her, our two bodies pressing up against each other. "Now both of you share," he says, "like good friends should."

Sandra submissively slides her lips off his erection and moves down, licking along the length of his shaft to gently mouth his balls. I dive in. I hate sucking cock- find it degrading, find men who demand it boorish and typically uninteresting in bed. Except that I'm not just sucking cock. I'm sucking cock because he ordered me to and the knowledge transforms the act, turns it into something beautiful and glorious. Pleasure surges through my body, and with it the promise of release from the awful need that I pointlessly indulged in by resisting him.

Sandra's lips are moving back up, her nose bumping against my chin. We're meant to be sharing together. I ease away and the two of us begin to lick and kiss along his length, smothering it with our submissive love. We moan against his hot, hard cock, losing ourselves in the bliss of obedience.

He groaned and his hands grip our heads, moving us up. We tongue and lick his cockhead as it swells...

Cum shoots out, splattering out lips, our cheeks, our hair. He laughs and sags back onto the couch. "Share it," he said. "Make out."

There's no hesitation. Our friendship, our shared history, our life-long connection is forgotten in a heartbeat as we surge towards each other. Our lips meet as we kiss each other, our teeth banging against one another in our haste. She pushes me close; I bring my hand up to cup her breast as she moans and rubs her body against mine. I taste his seed on her mouth as we make out in a desperate, sloppy frenzy. I kiss and fondle with my friend and once again, the alchemy of obedience turns it into an act of pure, sublime obedience. As we kiss and lick and caress each other, both of us are united in our desire, our will, and our submissiveness loyalty to the man sitting in front of us.