The Questions

The sun was almost touching the horizon when the supplicant arrived for her latest attempt. She climbed over the wrought-iron fence that separated the estate from the outside world, finding handholds and footholds with practiced ease before hopping over the spikes and down onto the ground. She could still remember the week she spent waiting outside the gates, spending night after night camped out expectantly before she realized that no one would come to let her in. If a supplicant wanted a place within the halls of obedience, they had to show determination as well as devotion.

The supplicant scurried across the grounds of the estate, the grass tickling her bare feet as she ran. The air felt cool against her naked flesh, but anticipation kept her body warm enough to ward off the evening chill. She had more important things on her mind than the weather-if she didn't make it to the front door before the sun set, she would need to wait an entire week for her next attempt. The supplicant had no intention of waiting, not when she was already all the way to the fifth chamber. She put on a burst of speed, outracing the turning of the earth to make it to the steps in time.

Nobody knew for certain how many chambers there were between the halls of obedience and the outside world; the supplicant knew from her research that there were at least six, but there might be many many more. After a certain point, the information that she found online simply dried up; either the supplicants who got past the fifth chamber stopped talking about what they found, or they made their way into the halls of obedience and nothing else mattered to them anymore. She hoped she would find out tonight. She raced up the steps and knelt in front of the doorway just as the lower edge of the sun brushed against the horizon.

She waited like that, eyes down, for what seemed like forever before the door finally opened. A tiny knot of tension unwound in her stomach as she rose to her feet and entered the first chamber-every time she arrived for the tests, a little part of the supplicant wondered if she would be allowed back in. She didn't know what she would do if they found some flaw in her devotion that sent her back to waiting on her knees, all night every night, until she proved herself worthy to attempt entrance once more.

No. She knew. She would wait on her knees. All night, every night. Until she proved herself worthy to attempt entrance once more. The supplicant had come too far now to go back to the life she left behind. Even the submission she experienced as a supplicant, training with a Master back in town who shepherded women through the trials and helped them discover their gift of surrender... it paled next to her dreams of the halls of obedience. Within these walls, she would be taught how to shed her free will forever. To become the purest instrument of compliance, dedicated to subservience and emptied of thought. The supplicant was already wet just thinking about it.

Or maybe it was the first chamber that did it. The supplicant stepped over to the pillow in the center of the room and knelt down on it before lighting the single candle that was the only source of illumination apart from the dying sunlight. The second her trembling fingers touched the match to the wick, the doors slid shut. The supplicant didn't look behind her to see who closed them. Instead, she stared at the flickering flame, centering her mind on it and allowing all other thoughts to recede into the distance.

She didn't know how long she watched the candle. Time lost all meaning in the silent darkness; it could have been a minute or an hour for all she knew. The supplicant felt like she fell into a meditative trance faster and faster with every attempt, her mind settling into a state of perfect contemplation as she watched the flame sway gently from side to side with every slow, lazy breath. Nothing existed for her now but the candle. Nothing existed now but endless, infinite patience. She could wait as long as she needed to for the first question.

When it came, the voice in the darkness didn't even startle her out of her calm, hypnotic state. "What is your name?" it asked. The supplicant could never identify the voice; it was carefully neutral, a soft murmur in the silence that held no emotion save expectation. She wondered sometimes if it was one of the teachers who spoke, or if someday she would apply this test to the next person who sought to become a perfect slave within the walls of the estate.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except answering correctly. The supplicant paused just long enough to make sure she had given the questioner a chance to speak-she had lost an entire week once through impatience, back near the beginning when she still believed that she had enough natural submission in her to pass the tests with ease-and said, "I am only a supplicant. Where I seek to go, I will need no name."

There were other answers that worked just as well-it was easy to find information about the first chamber online, from those who had given up on their quest and those who were still seeking entrance-but the supplicant loved the form of that one the most. It felt the truest to her; every time she said it, she could feel a little bit more of her identity slipping away. It had been so long now since she'd heard her name that she genuinely had difficulty remembering it on those rare occasions that she tried.

She loved that.

The candle flickered rapidly as the questioner walked past her, their red robes even darker in the dim light of the single flame that illuminated the room. They went over to the door on the opposite side of the wall from where she entered, opening it and stepping aside. "You may proceed," they said, their voice still devoid of emotion. They only had two answers. They always sounded the same whichever one they gave. The supplicant got back up and went into the second chamber.

There was no pillow in the second chamber, only a cushioned mat next to an artificial waterfall on the left-hand wall. This room was illuminated by soft blue lighting that brightened and dimmed at random, making the waterfall seem to glow and sparkle in patterns that drew the eye. The supplicant knelt down on the mat and allowed her eyes to wander, losing herself in the dance of gleaming rainbows created with every splash and ripple. Again, she waited. Again, time melted away as her mind descended back into the blissful silence of trance.

This, too, was a part of the test. Every time she entered a new chamber, the supplicant had to learn all over again how to present herself to the questioner. Her attempt could end for kneeling in the wrong position, for facing in the wrong direction, or simply for an impatient fidget at the wrong moment. Each chamber helped her to still her mind into perfect submission, training her more in a single night than her Master in town could in a month. She sometimes wondered if she would even need to be told she was ready to enter the halls of obedience, or if her mind would simply become so perfectly trained that she would stop thinking entirely when she entered the final chamber.

She didn't wonder that now, of course. She didn't wonder anything right now. Her mind was locked into the perfect, smooth certainty of trance, the waterfall becoming a blur in front of her eyes as her gaze lost focus and she retreated deeper into hypnosis. The supplicant's breathing smoothed into a slow, steady rhythm, her body swaying back and forth ever so slightly with each breath as her muscles relaxed into a lazy calm. It seemed like only an instant before the questioner asked, "What do you seek?"

She heard herself respond as if from a great distance. "I seek to become obedient," she said loosely, her voice sounding dazed and sleepy in her own ears. In many ways, it was the simplest of the questions, and the supplicant was always a little bit amazed when she read someone online asking how to answer it. This wasn't about sex to her, even if she did expect to be used for sexual pleasure on a regular basis. It wasn't even about dominance and submission, not exactly. The supplicant wanted surrender in its purest form, without decisions, without thought, without will. Forever.

The halls of obedience were the only place that offered her what she needed. Did she know what she came here seeking? She knew it before she ever even learned that this place existed. "You may proceed," the questioner said, and the supplicant imagined just the tiniest hint of approval in their voice. She sleepwalked through the next set of doors, her mind still drifting in the trance she had crafted for herself.

The next room held only a small mirror on the far door, resting exactly at the level of the supplicant's eyes when she knelt on the thick carpet. She stared at her own face, watching it go blank and expressionless as she locked gazes with her own reflection and let her mind empty out. Her fingers slowly crept between her thighs, stroking gently up and down her labia with methodical purpose. A tiny sliver of memory crept into her mind, bringing her back for a moment to her first time in the third chamber. She had been so certain that masturbation would end her journey, but she still couldn't help herself-the prospect of being made utterly obedient had turned her on so much that she couldn't resist playing with her soaking cunt.

The one time she had resisted, they'd failed her. The supplicant learned her lesson well that night; pleasure was just one more means of controlling her, and she wanted so badly to succumb to that control in all its possible forms. She teased herself nightly after that for her Master... but in her mind, she was always back in this room. She stared unblinking into the mirror, the memory fading seamlessly into the present until she was no longer sure that anything in between was even real.

The carpet beneath her was damp by the time the questioner spoke. "What is your purpose?" they asked, their voice so smooth and calm that the supplicant felt like it was just another form of induction. Each question was a command, after all, and each command made her feel more and more blissfully aroused and compliant. The questions guided her mind into submission, completing the process that each hypnotic focus began. All she needed to do now was follow. All she wanted to do now was follow.

"Whatever purpose I am given," she sighed softly, feeling the truth of it fill the emptiness in her mind. She didn't need to answer the question; she only needed to be honest with herself and admit that she needed guidance. She needed control as deeply as a plant needed sunlight; her whole life, she had yearned for it, reaching for the comfort of submission to authority without even realizing it. The halls of obedience were the best place for a girl like her. There was nothing here but the comfort of loving command, and nothing for her to do but sink into it. She sighed again, the pure pleasure of submission washing over her with every caress of her slick cunt.

The questioner slid the door to one side. The supplicant's face, her very self, seemed to vanish in front of her, and she sagged forward in dazed exhaustion as her thoughts lurched deeper into the yawning abyss of trance. "You may proceed," they said, and the supplicant crawled forward into the fourth chamber. She had forgotten how to rise. She didn't want to ever remember again.

As she crawled, the supplicant descended a ramp into warm water. She felt it lapping first against her forearms, then her elbows, and then gently tickling her nipples as she continued to crawl deeper and deeper. She was forced to rise back into a kneeling position, knee-walking along the base of the pool until the water reached up to her chin and her breasts formed a buoyant shelf in front of her. That was when she remembered the next focus. Her head drooped slightly, forcing her to breathe through her nose as her lips dipped down just enough to kiss the ripples in front of her.

It wasn't just pleasure that controlled her. It was her own sexuality. The supplicant felt a shudder of sexual heat pass through her body as she realized all over again that she had spent her entire life programmed to be seen through a lens of desire-her pussy was made for fucking, her tits were made to captivate and arouse, her mouth was made to kiss and lick and suck and please. She only needed to see herself to know it. The supplicant's fingers reached down to tease her pussy once more, the motion making her breasts bob hypnotically up and down in the water.

She didn't know how long she stared at herself, floating further away into hypnotic bliss, before she heard the questioner speak to her from outside the pool. "What are your gifts?" they asked, the words seeming to echo inside the supplicant's empty mind. She couldn't remember anymore what she'd said the last time, and she understood why nobody talked about the deeper chambers of the test-after a certain point, it was impossible to cheat by memorizing the correct answers. The test took away your thoughts. It stole your memory. You could only proceed by becoming the slave you wanted to be.

"My gift is obedience," she heard herself say. Her voice was high and breathy with arousal. "Any other gifts I need can be taught to me." It felt so good to repeat the words without thinking about them, better even than the finger swirling against the supplicant's clit. Her mind felt so blissfully empty now, but she knew that she could go even deeper into obedience. At least two chambers deeper. She could almost picture it in her mind, the wonderful moment when she entered the halls and her thoughts simply... stopped.

There was a long pause after her response, but the supplicant remained perfectly calm. She knew that the water was draining out of the pool, allowing her to crawl the rest of the way to the door without having to worry about swimming. When only a few puddles remained on the ceramic tile, the questioner gave her the answer she expected. "You may proceed," they said, and she obediently set herself in motion once more.

The fifth chamber was warm, almost uncomfortably so-within moments, the supplicant was dry, and within minutes, she was sweating. Although that may have been as much from the exertion as the heat; the room was completely bare except for a fake phallus in the very center of the room, and the supplicant crawled directly to it and began to rise and lower her kneeling body directly onto the silicone shaft. This was the room she had dreamed about every night for a month, the room that had stymied her every effort to advance-sometimes she didn't crawl to the dildo eagerly enough, sometimes she fucked it too roughly. She'd only managed to hear the question once.

But tonight, she felt perfectly in tune with the desires of the questioner. She rolled her hips in a perfect, mechanical rhythm that sent her deeper into an erotic reverie without once allowing her release. Her eyes went glassy and unfocused as the room became a blur, her jaw going slack as her mind settled into a deep trance. She could fuck like this forever, she knew. No matter how many cocks she needed to service, she would be able to keep pleasing them, keep arousing herself, keep sinking into the bliss of obedience and never ever stop. She was a good girl. She wanted to be a good girl. Her breath escaped in a long, slow, shuddery breath as the motion took her to the very edge of release and held her there.

When the questioner asked, "Who do you serve?", the supplicant almost missed it. She was caught up in the throes of desire, aching for climax, and her conscious mind had tuned out everything except for the constant motion of the cock in her dripping cunt. But unlike last time, her unconscious mind refused to let her arousal take precedence over her compliance. It tugged at her thoughts, the command more insistent than any pleasure could be. She sought obedience, not pleasure. She wanted-she needed to obey.

And so, her voice slurred by arousal into a drugged murmur, she managed to gasp out, "Whoever I am instructed to serve." She didn't know if it was the right answer or not-nobody ever posted on any D/s forum she'd ever seen about the fifth chamber, and the supplicant understood now why that was. How could you even think with your mind fucked this deeply into submission? How could you possibly recall a trance so deep that your thoughts simply dripped out of your cunt into a puddle on the floor? No, the only way to pass this test was to know the truth of obedience. The supplicant hoped that her devotion had guided her to that truth.

It had. "You may proceed," the questioner responded, opening the door to the sixth chamber. Their voice teased just a hint of temptation-the supplicant understood instinctively that nobody would stop her from fucking herself senseless on the fake cock between her legs, giving in to her cravings and cumming until she slumped into exhaustion. But they would close the door. She would fail her test again. She would have to wait for another night, dream and ache and long for perfect obedience for another week.

It was no contest, really. She dragged herself off of the dildo and crawled forward to the sixth chamber.

The sixth room was completely empty. Bare white walls, bare white floor, pure white light streaming down from the ceiling and leaving shadows so sharp you could cut yourself on them. The supplicant had no idea what to do, no idea how to proceed. She crawled to the only thing in the room apart from her-the questioner. Unable to meet their gaze, she sank down until her forehead touched the floor and stretched her arms out in supplication. The cold room dried the sweat from her body, leeched the heat from her breasts where they pressed against the ceramic tiles. Shivering, shaking, her cunt still tingling with pleasure, the supplicant waited. At any moment, she expected to hear the questioner say the words she dreaded. 'Another night, then.'

Instead, they said, "What will you surrender?" It was so unexpected even to hear the question that the supplicant almost couldn't parse the words. She'd surrendered so much already, hadn't she? She'd given up her job, left behind her family and friends to chase down her dream of perfect obedience. She'd submitted her body to a stranger in order to learn how to be a more compliant slave, she'd spent night after night sacrificing sleep to prove her devotion. Hadn't she already shown them what she would surrender? What more did they want from her now?

And then she understood. They wanted to hear it from her. They wanted to know that she knew what she was giving up, from her own lips so that when they took her to that place where there was no going back they would know that she would embrace it willingly. They wanted her to say it for herself. "Everything," she whispered, the single word reverberating off the floor with perfect acoustical splendor.

She waited. She prayed. And finally, she heard something she had never heard before. "Good girl," the questioner said. "Our good girl, at last." They reached down and helped her to her feet. She didn't need to kneel anymore, not with her body. Her mind would kneel forever for them now. They kissed her forehead and closed her eyes, and they guided her at last into the halls of obedience.

THE END