[The Good Guy] Master. . .

You only have to wait a second for Maisie to answer your question. It’s not like she has a choice.

“I chose you because I needed something safe, someone harmless.” Maisie says through her sobs.

The way she said it cut through your hurt at finding out how she really thought about you. You saw her fear. You saw how your power to do anything to her made her feel. You thought about how quickly the power dynamic had switched between the two of you. You looked at yourself, towering over her as she was **** to kneel before you. You hate what you just learned, you hate that she saw you as “something safe” and not as a person who loved her, a person who deserved to be loved back. But you are starting to understand why she would see you like that. To see why she would spend all the time she has spent with you over the years. She knew about her curse, she knew what was waiting for her. You can’t blame her for befriending you so she’d have something safe to fall back on. Your flash of anger fades, even as the hurt remains.

“I’m not that safe.” You say as you sit down on the couch.

Maisie stayed on the floor, kneeling where your command **** her to be. When she looks up at you she looks weak, broken. You’ve never seen her like this before. Maisie had always been in control, getting what she wanted with charm and her natural good looks. You’d spent your lifetime convinced you were lucky to be in her circle, to be the guy she trusted, even if she didn’t look at you the way you looked at her.

“You still think you can control me?” You ask, the bitterness ripe in your voice.

“That wasn’t all of it.” She replies.

“What?”

“I didn’t just view you as harmless, I trusted you. I still trust you. You are also a good person. Even now, you’re hurt and angry at me but you haven’t taken it out on me. You haven’t done anything you can’t undo.” You understand her point. You can think of a hundred ways to hurt or humiliate her, but you can’t bring yourself to do any of them. That isn’t what you want. You don’t want to hurt or **** her.

You chuckle to yourself. She was smart to choose you. Even now, knowing what you know, you still care about her. All you really want is for her to care about you too. To be honest, it’s kind of sad that she ended up settling for you. Did she really not have anyone else that she trusted?

“What about the other guys, Maisie? You dated a ton of guys. You could have told any one of them.” You ask her.

“I was looking for someone I could trust, I kept looking, but. . .” She shakes her head after she speaks. Apparently, she didn’t find anyone else.

“You didn’t find anyone you could trust with this curse, not one of them?”

“No, just you.”

You can’t believe it, she dated some assholes of course, but several of them were really good guys. Thinking through quickly you can think of three guys that seem like solid candidates. You hated them at the time specifically because they were attractive, smart and they treated her well, but Maisie ended up dumping them all.

“What about Matthew?” You ask. He had seemed really nice, she had dated him a long time too.

“He was nice, wasn’t he.” She says. “He really liked me too. But when he drank he’d brag to his friends about me, say things like, “Look how hot Maisie is, I bet you all want to fuck my girlfriend.” You chuckle as she does a pretty good impression of his somewhat dopey voice. “I asked him to stop drinking and he did, for a while. When he got drunk and told me I should strip for his friends I broke up with him.”

“Damn.” You never saw that side of him.

“Yeah, like I could have just told him off, he would have apologized and made it up to me. But with the curse? Fucking his friends would have just been the start. And I don’t think he was the kind of guy to handle that well once he started either, you know?”

You hadn’t thought about that possibility. Hadn’t thought about guys regretting commands they couldn’t take back. Or worse, blaming Maisie for something they made her do.

“Do you remember Steve?” She asks after a moment of silence.

“Yeah.” Steve was several years older than you, and he was a really nice guy. He was good looking too. She dated him for 6 months, almost as long as Matthew. Everyone at school thought they were going to end up married.

“He was the closest, but he would get his feelings hurt easily. And when he did, he’d say stuff he didn’t mean. He’d apologize for it later, but in the moment, he would get upset and say stuff. God, he was almost perfect, but I couldn’t trust him.” Her voice falls as she finishes. “Not with this.”

You could see the problem. It wouldn’t take much to cause a serious issue. Just a thoughtless command in a moment of anger could change Maisie’s entire life, destroy a relationship forever.

“Shit, Maisie.” You say. You had always thought she was just overly picky. But she had to be. She wasn’t just looking for a boyfriend; she was looking for a way to survive this awful curse.

After a few more moments of silence, Maisie speaks. “Umm, can I get up now?” She asks timidly.

“Oh, shit, sorry Maisie.” You say, realizing she’s still stuck kneeling on the floor because of your command. “Maisie you can get up.”

As she stretches out and starts to get to her feet you add, “Maisie you are free of any command I’ve given you.” You didn’t think there were any other commands still active, but you also weren’t sure what all counted as a command. You wanted her to stay, you wanted a lot from her, you just didn’t want to be controlling her right now.

“Thanks.” She says as she sits on the couch. She looks at you; your eyes meet. “Really, I mean it. Thank you.”

“You are thanking me? I just yelled at you and **** you to kneel on the floor for like, ten minutes.”

“You could have done a lot worse.” She says, looking at you differently than she’d ever looked at you before. Like she really sees you. It doesn’t erase the hurt though.

“I thought that’s why you chose me, because I wouldn’t do worse things.” You say with even more animosity than you intend.

“I still wasn’t sure.” She says softly. “I mean, in my family there are plenty of examples of men that one of us thought they could trust.”

“How bad?” You ask.

“Oh it gets bad.” She says. “Whored out, changed completely, body and mind totally rewritten. Convinced they loved being hurt. Told that they wanted to be treated like garbage. My great Aunt was turned into a pig, a literal pig, mind and body. He’d turn her back, have her remember everything she had experienced as a pig, make her fuck him then turn her back.”

“Damn, that’s sick. What happened to her?”

“One of their neighbors figured out what was going on and killed him. Took control of her for himself.”

“Did he treat her well?” You ask.

“Like a personal sex ****. Which, sadly, is about as good as any of us get.” Maisie answers as she pulls her legs up tight to her chest, hugging them close.

“It has to go well for some of you, right? Not everyone turns out bad, does it?” You ask.

“There are worse ones and better ones, but none of us have ever had it very good. That’s kind of the whole point of the curse. The men you trust, even the good ones, once they have complete power over you they will eventually stop seeing you as a person. You end up just a thing for them to play with.”

“Are you afraid I’ll turn out like that? You ask her.

Maisie moves closer to you, takes hold of your arm, leans her head on your shoulder. “No. I mean, kind of? I think you are a better guy than they were, but the way you looked at me in the car, it scared me.”

“Yeah.” You can’t deny you thought about things you could do to her, and those thoughts were still there. You could interrupt this conversation by telling her to get naked and suck your dick at anytime. “I can’t help but think about what I could do with the curse Maisie, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”

“I know. And to be honest, I know some of it is going to happen. I’ve had years to get used to the idea of it. I just - I don’t know, I don’t want to stop being me and become something else.” Maisie starts to cry again as she says it.

“I’m not going to turn you into a pig Maisie.”

She laughs and wipes the tears away from her eyes. “I believe you. But to tell you the truth, I half expected to look like Lola bunny by now.”

You laugh at that, and some of the tension between you fades. Maisie lays back against the arm of the couch, puts her legs on your lap. You sit there silently for a while, the way you have sat for years, but this time there’s no TV show playing, no light conversation. You sit silently in the heaviness of the situation.

You think about Maisie’s parents. Her mom always seemed happy, and her dad seemed really nice. Yet if all the women have the curse, that means her dad is her mom’s master.

“Your mom and dad seem happy.” You say, not knowing what to expect for an answer.

“Oh they are.” Maisie says. “Whenever something happens that makes her sad, he tells her to be happy. If he does something that angers her, he tells her to not be angry about it.”

She sighs. “He doesn’t treat her poorly, he just makes her happy by commanding her to be happy. I don’t want to live like that. I’m actually more okay with you ordering me around physically. I don’t want you to take away my feelings or memories, I don’t want you to change who I am inside.”

Fuck. That’s crazy. You had thought about the physical stuff, ordering her to fuck you or walk around naked. Her Lola Bunny comment had put a ton of ideas in your head too. But you hadn’t even thought about changing her thoughts or feelings. How easy would it be to just tell an angry Maisie to stop being angry? And once you do that, why would you worry about making her happy? You could do what you want and if she didn’t like it, you could command her to like it.

“Is there no way to break the curse?” You ask.

“****. That’s the only way out. And the curse can’t cause your ****. If you order me to die I won’t, and if you order me to not breath or jump off a cliff it won’t let us. My Aunt tried to kill herself, but she couldn’t. The damn thing wants us to live as slaves and it doesn’t let us out easily.” She answers.

“What about the witch? You said a witch cursed your family, is there a way to appease her?” You ask.

“She’s been dead a long time.” Maisie answers. “Killed by one of their sons. He thought it would break the curse. The witch’s last words were that the curse would never end.”

“And it passes down to your daughters?”

“Every one of us, on our eighteenth birthday.”

“You’d think they’d just not have kids.” You think out loud.

“The curse takes care of that. Over time the masters and women start desiring children. It’s very rare for one of us to not have a daughter.”

“Masters?” You ask, surprised.

“Oh god, don’t look at me like that.” Maisie responds. “It’s just a title we call the men who have control.”

“Damn, so I am your Master?” You ask with a chuckle.

“It’s not funny.” She says.

“No, I guess not.” You answer. But hearing that word, that title, it makes you realize that this curse didn’t just change Maisie’s life, it would forever shape yours as well. As long as you were both alive you would be the person who had complete power over her. You look over at her, sitting tucked up on your couch, her head on her knees. She’d always been so confident, so free, living her life to the fullest. This Maisie was different. You used to follow her around, do anything she wanted just to be near her. Now? Now she could only leave this room, hell, she could only leave the couch if you let her.

You could make her wear whatever slutty clothes you want, or you could make her walk around naked. Turn her into a slut or whore her out for money. You could go the opposite route and make her wear conservative clothes and never talk to men, keep her as your secret sex ****. You could even turn her ugly or into an animal if you wanted. She looks up, tries her best to smile at you. A weak show of affection for you, for her master.

Seeing her smile like that makes you realize something. This isn’t what you want. You don’t want this kind of power over her. You always wanted to prove yourself to her. Show her that you were worth her attention, worth her affection. that you were someone worth loving. Now? Now you were someone she had to deal with, had to obey. You haven’t even abused your power and yet your relationship has become twisted into you being something she has good reason to fear. Even if you haven’t done anything but be good to her, she still has reasons to fear you, because you can hurt her, hurt her badly, and at any moment.

“Are you okay?” She asks you.

“I don’t think I am.” You answer. “I know you needed someone you trust, Maisie, but I don’t like this. I don’t like how it is changing us, I don’t like how you look at me now.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t like it either.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” You say, and lay back.

“I mean, I’m 18.” She says, sitting up, swinging her legs beside her. There’s so much I wanted to do, so many places I want to see. But this?” she gestures to your apartment around her. “This is my life now.” She sits back again, pulls her legs up to her chin and sighs.

“Wait, Maisie, what do you mean?” You ask. “You can still do things. I mean, we’ve done things together our whole lives. You’ve dragged me all over the place. Seriously, how many summer camps did we go to together?”

“Yeah, but you did that stuff so you could be around me, you don’t have to now. I’m with you anyway you want. You’ve seen what you can do.” Maisie stood up and started pacing, her voice growing more agitated the more she said. “You don’t need to take me places for me to be with you, you don’t need to take me on a nice date to fuck me. You don’t have to dress nice or even shower.” She turned to face you, “Don’t you understand? You don’t have to do that stuff anymore. I can’t say no to you.”