Over the past few months, a number of things had changed at the dojo that were not in either Lewis’ nor Miss Li’s power to control, and the most notable of these was attendance.

At the time of Lewis’ now infamous bet with Miss Li - something which every attendee had now heard of, in spite of attending different classes with no overlap in personnel; all the same, news travels fast when it can be retold with a certain glee, and to a subset of the dojo’s attendees, the humbling of a tutor would always induce that certain glee.

Some four or five men and women at around the same skill level had in fact adjusted their weekly schedules in order to migrate into that class, so they could witness the fallout (also spoken of, though less often and with less certainty), but a casual observer wouldn’t have noticed their addition, hidden as it was by a dozen or more who had gradually either changed their class or left the dojo entirely in the weeks following that initial incident.

Shauna often wondered what had happened to the class she’d already joined after she rescheduled. Not enough, of course, to stop back in; the class had become a frustration, which had astonished her at the time.

She was, she knew, quite gifted in the ways that made for a good martial artist; she was strong, quick, and had a good sense of balance and good body control. She had quickly become one of Miss Li’s favourite students, she would freely acknowledge.

And she’d certainly also concede that she’d really enjoyed being top of the class; had loved it when Miss Li called on her to help demonstrate whatever move or technique was under discussion.

Shauna would, also, acknowledge up front that she’d taken real pride in that experience, that it had become one of the things she loved about coming to the dojo each week for her class. For all that she had natural advantages, she’d worked hard to master the skills needed, and if she liked to show off that she’d succeeded, she certainly didn’t see anything wrong with that.

She had stuck it out for a few weeks in increasing bafflement as she watched Miss Li warm to a man who, from what Shauna could see, had only ever made an impact by throwing her, which he’d done (admittedly with good form) only by cheating.

He certainly hadn’t seemed to improve in any other way over those weeks, but all the same he got more attention, even seeming to get respect from Miss Li, and Shauna had no idea how he was suddenly flavour of the month.

She’d eventually rescheduled to another class, not willing to abandon the dojo but not willing to see Miss Li fawn over Lewis any more.

She’d been very surprised to find herself immediately Miss Li’s favourite again, called on for demos once more, singled out for praise occasionally. It made a mockery of how Miss Li had seemed to change after Lewis threw her, and it also made no sense whatsoever, frustratingly.

But as the weeks had gone by, Miss Li’s vivacity and energy had started to slump again, even though Lewis wasn’t in that class, and the various members of the class had started talking about how her heart no longer seemed to be in it.

Shauna didn’t like the fact that she found herself agreeing with the wider class, but… well, not liking a fact doesn’t change a fact.

For the last month she’d been wondering whether it was time to find another dojo. The question was starting to distract her during the working day.

*

He was determined to stay in his office all the way through his lunch break if he had to, just to be sure he was there when Dana came in - which he was sure she would, but he did wonder how long it might take for her innate resistance to cave.

He didn’t worry about that with Miss Li anymore, and he was starting to feel careless about it with Lex, too. It seemed certain to him now that pleasure conditioning was an extremely effective way to break down future resistance, and the way he had both of them primed, just taking his pleasure of them was enough to do that.

He would need to secure his hold over Dana, too, which he expected to be no hardship. True, if he’d had his free choice of everyone in the clinic, he’d have gone for Dr Forrest first. But he’d also have held off a lot longer, possibly even forever, because at the clinic, odd behaviour would stand out more. Just as importantly it would stand out to people in a position to do something about it.

Miss Li was the operator and sole trainer in the dojo. In theory, even losing the physical location didn’t have to stop it; she could find another location and work twelve hours Saturday and nine hours from lunch three other days, and the dojo wouldn’t have changed in any functional way.

But there was nobody at the clinic where if someone noticed something out of sorts, they wouldn’t raise comment, and where someone else couldn’t intervene. Management was a partnership, one that until he saw how much Madame X could make him Lewis had been hoping to join.

Needless to say he had more profitable plans evolving now. There were plenty of other letters of the alphabet to go down, after all.

Lex was curvier than Miss Li, fuller-figured, and taller. He planned to have her enrol in a gym so a punishing routine could remove the slight softness from her belly so he could launch a second career for her, too. A second revenue stream would just be a smart idea.

He had reached the above point in his thought process, three or four minutes into the lunch hour, when the door opened and Dana walked in sheepishly.

“Dana,” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise.” He was, he knew, okay at bluffing, but he wasn’t great at outright lying. He thought there was a pretty good chance she’d pick up on him not being too surprised.

On the other hand, she had no good reason to suspect him of what he’d actually done. Not so long as she’d accepted the suggestion to forget. And if she hadn’t, it wasn’t going to make any difference.

She walked across the room, her body language a study in contrast with the confident, knowing smile on her lips, her steps timid, uncertain.

She knew, consciously, that she was here effectively to apply pressure - he couldn’t imagine that she’d use the word blackmail - but unconsciously she had to have some idea what was coming, and no idea what the end game might be.

She took the chair on the other side of his desk; one of the chairs that was an option for his clients. Lewis found himself suddenly more confident, simply because of that choice; he knew how often he’d made that chair a symbol that he had authority over the person in it.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” she said, trying the smile again, and he had to give it to her; she was still oozing smugness. Consciously she no doubt thought she had control of the moment.

He decided it was already time to clue her in on that. Standing up, his hands in his pockets, he said “Of course not,” and he walked around his desk confidently, perching himself on his desk directly in front of her on one hip.

Lewis tried not to smirk too wide. He didn’t want her to realise how this was going to go until he had a good opening. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, we should discuss your tardiness,” Dana said.

Looking down on her from his perch and relishing the little extra authority it gave him, he shook his head. “That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s not?”

Another shake of his head. “I asked you what was on your mind,” he said, taking one hand from his pockets and idly examining his fingernails.

“That’s what’s on my mind,” she returned tartly.

“Is it?” He looked up from his fingertips abruptly, catching her gaze with an electric jolt. “Not your oral fixation?”

Dana’s jaw dropped open in outrage. She stared at him, sputtering, finding the words to deny it.

There was no benefit to Lewis in letting her find the words, so instead he held up two fingers exactly the way he’d held them while she’d taken them in her mouth to start the day. Her stare was broken, her eyes flicking immediately to this new attraction.

He could see the confusion dawn in her eyes, and he knew exactly what was causing it; she didn’t think she did have an oral fixation, found someone she was on as poor terms with as Lewis suggesting she did highly objectionable.

Yet all the same, she saw his fingers held like that and her mind associated them with sucking. A complete contrast to her memory and her belief, a temptation and a desire she couldn’t explain.

A crack in her mental armour Lewis proposed to prise wide open. “We were talking, Dana,” he said, his voice that confident, silky purr he did not even realise was his greatest asset, “about your oral fixation. Or in plain terms, your need to suck anything that reminds you, in any way, of an erection.”

His hand danced nearer to her head, then back away as she opened her lips and leaned toward it. “Didn’t you even realise how much you love to suck?”

Her tongue flickered out over dry lips. She opened her mouth to deny his claims.

Lewis thrust his two fingers into her mouth before she could speak. Her eyes crossed in startlement then rolled back, eyelids fluttering over a gaze that had in any case already vanished from sight.

“Ve-ry goooood,” Lewis served. “Let go, now. Let yourself go. Let yourself drop deep. Very good. That’s very good, Dana, and you feel wonderful for dropping like that, don’t you?” He used his fingers as leverage, making her nod sluggishly. He knew very well how powerful agreeing with something could be, even if you hadn’t been in control of agreeing to it.

There was a soft moan from around his fingers, and Lewis smiled. “You can suck now,” he said gently, almost coaxingly. “Like you wanted to. Up and down. Go on, show me your technique.”

Dana wordlessly, hungrily, complied, her head pistoning up and down eagerly, and if she wasn’t quite as eager as Miss Li or Lex, well, that was hardly her fault. She was starting some way behind either of them, after all.

“Very good. You haven’t told anyone about your oral fixation, of course,” which seemed a perfectly safe thing for him to say, given he’d only just cultivated it in her, “so it must be something you want to keep secret. Correct?”

Her lips parted from his fingers for just a moment, the pop of sound audible, long enough for her to say “Yes,” in answer. Then her mouth was back around him again, warm, promising, offering, begging…

“Very good,” he said again. “Just enjoy what you’re doing. And rest assured I’ll keep your secret, just as much as you’re going to keep mine, aren’t you?” Not wanting to risk her pushing back on that he jiggled her head in a nod again. “That’s right,” he soothed.

“But of course your secret is more important, more embarrassing, than mine, isn’t it?” he continued, purring now. “You’ve got to keep it secret. I don’t think your boyfriend even knows, does he?”

“Mn-hhh.”

“There must be some reason you’ve only let me see your secret, Dana,” he purred. “And I think we both know what it is, really.

“It’s my cock you want to suck right now, isn’t it?”

And he nodded her head again, watching a widening of her still-crossed eyes, her gaze so glassy he doubted she was seeing anything in any case.

“So when I wake you up, you’re going to know what to do with your lunch break, aren’t you?”

“Mm-hm.” There was enough difference in the two muffled utterances for him to recognise this one was assent.

“And of course, if I’m feeding you, it’s only right that you’ll feed me,” he went on. “Did you bring lunch today?”

“Mm-hm.”

“What is it?”

Again, her lips parted company with his fingers with a satisfyingly wet pop. “Pasta salad,” she said, “with home-made pesto.”

“Well,” he said, “that can be mine, and you can gobble down my cum instead, can’t you?”

Her mouth had already fastened around his fingers again. He felt a slight tension in her body at this prod, but she still answered “Mm-hm,” and that was fine, he decided. He could work with that kind of reluctance.

*

“Shauna,” Miss Li said, in the middle of one circuit inspecting everyone’s katas, “would you be able to stay behind for two or three minutes after class?”

“Uh.” She blinked. There was nothing in Miss Li’s tone to suggest to Shauna that this was a bad thing, far from it; she seemed bright and positive. Just a few weeks ago, Shauna wouldn’t have hesitated, she’d have said yes immediately.

Today she wasn’t so sure, not while she was still thinking about leaving the dojo.

But she did still feel that she owed Miss Li something. She used her teachings often; they were part of her own determination in life, and that hadn’t changed just because of the strange events of the past couple of months.

“Sure,” she said, and put it out of her mind for the rest of the lesson; not hard to do - it was never hard when they were learning new techniques; she always found herself going into what she thought of as a strangely zen state as she started to internalise those movements, and one of the things she loved about the dojo was that when she was in that state, whatever frustrations might have built up over the week didn’t matter anymore.

Any speculations, any worries, any questions, those went away until that part of the lesson was done.

After the lesson she dawdled in the room, taking her time, drinking from her water bottle, as the rest of the class drifted off to change. It was easy enough to linger; in fact the problem, such as it was, lay in the fact she wasn’t the only one lingering.

So she waited while Stacey sought encouragement from Miss Li on her stance and asked her a question about keeping her breathing steady, and she waited while Eugene told Miss Li, very apologetically, that he was having to leave the dojo over financial issues.

Eugene, Shauna thought to herself, wasn’t on the groupchat where her messages had come from. He might be on another, or it might be genuinely a financial thing; not everyone thinking of leaving the dojo would be doing it because of Miss Li’s odd behaviour.

All the same, knowing he’d left for any reason and seeing the expression on Miss Li’s face made her feel a lot less comfortable about leaving herself. Maybe, she told herself, she could just give the place another month before she made a decision of her own.

“I wondered,” Miss Li said when they finally had privacy, “whether you’re typically busy on a Saturday afternoon around 2pm?”

What a weird question. “I am, but… that’s not a time I’d choose to move my class to,” she said. “Besides, as the student, that really should be my choice, right?”

"It would, yes,” Miss Li said. “I wasn’t asking you to be a student.

“I’m looking to launch something special. A womens’ self-defence class. And I’d very much like to have some other instructors, but instructors who’ve already been through my course.” She looked at Shauna with total sincerity."You’re the second person I’ve asked, and I’d like it to be the three of us,” she continued. “So long as you’re interested.”

“I…” Shauna sighed. Not long ago she’d have jumped at the chance. No hesitation, no consideration required.

But today? When she was already considering leaving the dojo behind?

“Maybe,” she conceded eventually. “I’d have to talk to people… discuss things. And think about it.”

“Okay,” Miss Li said, and the hurt was audible in her voice, enough so that Shauna winced at it. All the same, she wasn’t willing to just agree outright.

They parted awkwardly, and Shauna spent the evening feeling the surprising weight of guilt.

*

Lex had finished up at the office and left for home, or at least she’d thought that she had. Now she wasn’t so sure; home wasn’t where she’d ended up. Instead she was in a gym quite close to her workplace, not the one that was just a street away from her usual way home but one she’d have to go out of her way for.

It didn’t occur to her that it was on a direct line between her office and Lewis’s house. She wasn’t used to thinking about Lewis’s house.

And in any case she was too confused that she was even in a gym. She didn’t like working out. She’d gone to the dojo at first because she figured it would be a way to keep fit and maybe even work off the few pounds she felt too heavy by without having to do the whole gym thing.

So it made no sense to her that she had signed up for this gym, that she was currently making an appointment to visit at lunchtime the next day for a first meeting with her personal trainer.

Lex had caught herself doing things that made no sense to her a few times recently, she reflected as she left the gym, her fitter future arranged. Most of the others seemed to connect to Lewis somehow.

Walking back to her car, she realised she was smiling quite fondly as she thought of him, although she couldn’t say why.

She opened the car door and sat down and didn’t put the key in the ignition, didn’t strap herself in, didn’t put her car in gear, didn’t drive away.

She simply sat there for a few moments, still smiling, and if there had been anyone watching her through the windscreen they would have seen the smile grow wider and dreamier; they would have seen her eyes slowly unfocus and cross as they rolled up.

But our hypothetical observer would have had to walk right up to the drivers’ side door, or to have already been in one of the passenger seats, to see that after her eyes had rolled back in her head, her hand had stirred on her lap, had found her belt buckle and unhooked it one-handed.

They would have noticed her shuffle down to sit lower in the drivers’ seat, her thighs parting, as she found the zipper to her business pants and opened it, then crept inside her panties to finger herself.

Lex found she was already wet, the same way she always felt excited when Lewis or Miss Li were giving instruction at the dojo; aroused but unknowing that she even was, right up until something made it blindingly clear that she had been for some time.

She was fairly sure - as much as she could be, but her brain seemed to be willing to hide things from her these days, for some reason - that she hadn’t been this turned on at work. It certainly didn’t seem likely.

For that reason, she almost had to assume that she’d got this turned on just going to a gym, signing up for membership, arranging her first session.

She couldn’t say why, of course. Couldn’t explain it. Didn’t understand it. But she knew, all the same, that it was true.

Her breathing steadied past a certain point despite her growing attraction, coming in deep, loosely-held inhalations with long, disjointed, staccato exhalations. Lex was aware of all this.

Our hypothetical observer, had they been seated directly inside the car, would have known a little more; they would have been able to tell Lex, afterward, that those disjointed exhalations had in fact been words, blurted out to the rhythm of her own heat, barely more audible than whispers.

Such an observer might have had to strain to make them out clearly, especially at one point where an ambulance sailed past a nearby crossing, lights flashing and sirens blaring, provoking no response in Lex whatsoever, not changing the pace of her docile masturbation one iota.

“I can only… be the best… if I always… do it right. I can… only be the… best if… I always do… it right. I… can only… be the best… if I al… ways do it… right.

“Master Lewis… knows what’s right. Master Lewis… knows what’s right. Mastelewis… knows wassright… I need… to be… guided by Mastelewis… I need… to be… guiuhbuh Mastelewis… I… needa be… guiuhbuh Mastelewis…” Here her voice caught for a moment; here, her pace changed, her inhalations became deeper, her words more clearly formed for a moment as she progressed to the next thought, to the next tie that bound her to Master Lewis.

“I am… your… eager student. I am… youreeguh… stoodun. I… am… yuh ree uh… stoo’un…”

Lex saw nothing, heard nothing. She felt only the eager need of her cunt, the desperate service of her fingers.

She scented her slick juices, thought she also smelled Master Lewis’ sweat dripping onto her bare skin as he fucked her from on top, leaning over her possessively the way he did, groping her tits or taking a handful of her hair to make her look up at him. Her lips and her tongue were sure they tasted his cum.

“I… can… only… be… best… by… learnin… fro the… best… Can only… be best… belurnen… frobesss… Kin… onlibee… bess… belurnun… frobess…” she managed.

She was so close, she realised, and had been so close since her senses had begun to report Lewis’ phantom presence. “Musswer… kardter… li… vupter… stanerds. Musswer… carder… livuh… pter… stanner…”

Her free hand had migrated until it was gripping the hockey stick curved handle that arose from her car door’s armrest. Her feet weren’t just planted on the car’s footmat; they were firmly braced to give her fingers better leverage. “Maho… fuck… zon lurnin en urnin map rogiss… Maho… fuckiss… onlurn… inen… urnin… mah… pro… giss…”

Her car reeked of her own programmed arousal.

“Ah wanna… buh… blank belt.” The words were so sacred that even in that state Lex could not help but say them correctly. She didn’t know where they came from, didn’t know her lips shaping them were doing so to say them aloud, knew only that blank belts were tied in somehow to her getting to cum. Belts were important, she thought. Blank belts were important.

“Ah… wannabe… blank belt.”

She was so close now, her body shifting and her hips bucking around her fingers, every part of her self in motion, every part in herself working in harmony to make her cum.

The thought floated through her mind, a blank belt is the tie that binds me to Master Lewis, and she came on the same heartbeat, losing her conscious awareness of her insight as she cried out her worship and her pleasure in one confused, needy, delighted cry that was, had she but known it, also a tribute.

She sat there languidly for some while longer, attracting puzzled glances from the post-work gym crowd now finishing their workouts and walking out through the parking lot toward cars of their own, and she licked her fingers clean, pretending to herself that it was a cock she was cleaning and also pretending that she didn’t know exactly whose cock she was picturing.

Then she found where her car keys had dropped when her priorities had changed and she put the key in the ignition and she strapped herself in and she put the car in gear and she drove away.

She had been driving for three blocks before she realised her belt was undone and her butt was half-out of her pants.

*

Lewis was spending his evening learning more about making money online. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult, if you were doing anything sexual (or, as in his case, compelling people to do something sexual), and just setting up an arrangement so that he could get at any money he was going to be paid turned out to be fairly complicated, at least if he didn’t want to be manually processing payments and granting livestream access himself.

That he absolutely didn’t want to do; even if he made Lex do it so he could focus on the stream itself, payments would be slowed down heavily. It didn’t take a genius to realise that if payments came in more slowly, the stream would peter out earlier, and less money would be made.

Admittedly, Miss Li might be pleased to be allowed to cum again a little more quickly, but while Lewis was by now heavily invested in pleasure conditioning as the way to keep his two conquests in line, he didn’t see that as a particular priority.

…Two conquests?

His mind wandered away from financial solutions. Dana had probably been a mistake, he thought. But would it be more of a mistake now to neglect her hypnotic hold, and risk it fading, or to push her hold, and risk her pushing back?

He was almost sure that Lex would have been the type to push back, even if Miss Li hadn’t been. And if he was right, then he’d never had anything to fear and the most sensible thing he could do would be to make sure he had Dana properly hooked.

Of course, that was probably going to involve more inductions at work, and even if he had her attend him in his office regularly, people would likely talk about that.

Lewis sat quietly for a long while, mulling the question over, before his frown lifted, his brows rising into a smile. “For a clever man, Lewis,” he said aloud to the empty room, “you can be a fool sometimes.”

He was still compartmentalising the clinic and the dojo in his head. Still ignoring one when thinking about the other. But he didn’t have to.

Miss Li and Lex were already tasked with the creation of the new womens class. Dana signing up for it wouldn’t excite much comment, though perhaps, he thought, there might be the odd catty one-liner about her fitness - but nobody would actually question it, and that was all he needed to get her away from the office regularly and in a place where he could influence her.