“Of course you can leave,” she said. “You’re not a prisoner or anything.” She laughed at the absurdity of the idea. “All you have to do is count the stripes, and then you can go.”
I almost didn’t believe her–I’d seen what she did to the others, the way they waited in the bedroom with blank and helpless stares–but what did I have to lose? The door was locked and she had the only key. I knew force wasn’t an option, not with all those brainwashed slaves. I had to at least try. “One,” I started. “Two, three…”
She crossed and uncrossed her legs. My eyes crossed right along with them and I lost track of my place. “Of course,” she said, “I never said I would make it easy for you.” I could hear the smug superiority in her voice, and I just knew she was smirking at me, but I couldn’t look at her face without losing count.
“One,” I muttered. “Two, three, four, five…” She rubbed her legs against each other, making the stripes seem to flicker and dance like a strobe. I struggled to keep my focus. “Six, s-seven…”
“That’s right,” she said. “Just keep staring at my pretty pretty legs and count for me. Nothing else matters, does it?”
“No,” I whispered. She slid her legs one over the other again, the silk stockings making such a delicious sound as they rubbed together that I lost count again. “One, two, three…”
“You’re doing wonderfully,” she said, in defiance of all the available evidence. “Keep staring, keep counting, keep focusing all your thoughts on my sexy legs and the pattern of black on white, white on black.”
“Seven, eight, nine…” I muttered, trying to shut out her voice. I could do this, I knew it.
“Counting from top to bottom, white stripes and black. Which ones are you counting?” she asked. “Or are you counting both like you should be?”
I suddenly wasn’t sure. White or black, black or white? I did the only thing I could. I started over. “One, two, three…”
“That’s right,” she said, a tiny giggle in her voice. “Counting top to bottom, all the way down for me.”
“Five, six, seven…” My eyes were starting to water with the strain of holding them open, but I had to stay focused. I had to stare and count.
“It’s getting easier now, isn’t it?” she asked. This time I knew better than to answer. I just kept counting. “It’s like each stripe is a step on a staircase, leading you deeper into my control. And the more you count, the deeper you go.”
“E…leven…” I muttered. My brain suddenly felt sluggish as I tried to reason out my dilemma. If I didn’t count, I’d never escape her power. But if I did count, I’d go deeper into her power. I had to, had to count but not count, had to… “Twelve,” I said, my mouth working all on its own.
“There you go, pet!” she said in dulcet tones, like she was praising a pet that had mastered a difficult trick. “Stare and count and go deeper! Doesn’t that make so much sense?”
I nodded, but I didn’t lose count. “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…”
“Good pet,” she purred, reaching out to stroke my hair. “Lost in my pretty legs, lost in the black and white and black and white…thinking of nothing but my legs and the numbers now.”
“Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…” My eyes had gone completely unfocused ages ago. The stockings were just a blur in front of my glassy stare. But I kept counting.
“Thirty, thirty-one, thir–” She put a finger to my lips.
“You can count silently now, pet,” she said as she spread her legs. “I have a better use for that mouth.”
Mmmmmmmmmmm
Ladyandthetrance 