assemble my council

I honestly couldn't remember the last time I had guests over at my place, actual guests that sat down to stay for awhile to just hang out, but it seemed fitting I host given what I was asking of them, besides my apartment was still mostly cleaned, it was the perfect time to do it, just in case I started slipping again.

Zoe and Claudia were the easiest to get on board. Even without ordering them, which was honestly a relief, even if I couldn't shake the feeling their agreeability was still somewhat influenced by my position of power it was good to have them over. Marcus was slightly more annoyed at being invited over, though I wasn't sure if that was just him busting my chops or if he was serious, regardless a bribe of pizza and some good beer was more than enough to get him to use his brain some.

Along with Veronica and Cassandra, they were to be my advisors on how I was going to make my move on the entire world... honestly wasn't looking great, but it had been nearly a week since I had that tense call with my father and Cassandra, somewhat predictably, wasn't much help on her on. She was great at poking holes in anything I came up with sure, but that was only half of what I needed.

Zoe was probably my best hope, and Claudia... I still didn't know enough to be certain, but the couple times I vented to her after an infuriatingly circular argument with Cassandra she was the exact kind of support I'd have liked... even if she seemed to get a little too into the idea of me taking complete control over everyone. She'd at least help balance out my step-sister's negativity some.

Marcus was probably the least ideal for this, though he'd surprised me before... many times actually, between Zoe taming him and some of his insights and perspectives around the game table. Maybe I just had another chip on my shoulder with him.... Regardless though, he was on the top of a very short list of people I didn't own that I could also invite over for a less mind controlled perspective on things.

"Have you really gotten nowhere after all this time thinking?" Marcus scoffed as he took a big greasy bite of pizza.

"Less than nowhere it feels like."

"Have you tried, I don't know, setting up an ebay for women or something?"

"Just selling off my property feels... gross." I shook my head vehemently.

"So rent them?"

I cringed hard and shook my head some more, that was honestly my first idea but it felt so wrong I immediately stowed it.

"C'mon! Sex work is real work! You think it's easy just because women have a hole? They've gotta look good, market to clients, vet creeps, take care of their health–"

"Yeah but I don't want to feel like a sleazy pimp." I immediately cut Zoe off, I knew we'd be way off track if I let her go any further and honestly I wasn't going to let her even try to talk me into this one, "Besides how would I possibly scale that up? I couldn't possible background check every possible man right?"

"I mean... do you have to even?" Zoe cocked her head to the side.

"Do you want to be sold to some random serial killer in the middle of one of those countries currently being bombed?"

Zoe grimaced,

"I wouldn't want to be sold at all."

"I thought sex work was valid?" Cassandra sneered from under the folded out poker table I'd bought for the occasion.

I was pretty sure Zoe couldn't see Cassandra's snooty expression from the other side of the table, not without pushing out her chair some, so maybe that's why she didn't seem all that offended when she replied,

"For anyone that chooses that line of work. It's horrible to be **** into that. Well... was horrible." Zoe took a quick glance at me before she took on a thoughtful expression and shrugged as if she was just now considering that being ordered to do something awful by me somehow made it less awful.

I knew that was just the mind controlled acceptance talking, but it still felt kinda good to know she'd do even the worst possible things for me.

"That's the other half of the problem though." I cleared my throat and refocused on the subject at hand, "If I'm going to be doing something this big I don't just want to return to the status quo with me reaping all the rewards. I wanna at least feel like I improved things even slightly just because I was in charge."

"A dictator is still a dictator." Cassandra scoffed.

I patted her head, a little bit rougher than I needed too. She hadn't improved at all in the last near-week I'd had her, but I'd taken to making her kneel by my feet like a loyal dog lately. I even got her a pet bed for her knees like right now. I wasn't thrilled at having something negative to say about everything but, insights like that were ultimately important as I'd learned over the course of a few dozen arguments with her.

"I guess... they say absolute power corrupts, so I'm a little nervous about becoming some central figure."

"Absolutely." Zoe chirped.

"Thanks." I nodded back.

"No, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Is the whole line. Well, the second half, but it flows off the tongue way better if you use the whole snippet."

"There's also the other problems Cassandra was... quite helpful to point out. If I just started funneling all the world's money towards me by making people pay for sex, I can't stop rich people from just hoarding women. I could tank the worlds economy just taking everything for my self like that. Worst of all I'm sure I'd be assassinated by someone if I did something that big to shake up the world."

"Hmmm, yeah I don't imagine billionaires would love having a trillionaire suddenly bossing them around." Marcus nodded sagely, taking a deep chug from a beer bottle.

"Well... yeah let's go with that." I decided that arguing about the minutiae wasn't really that important either.

"Okay wait wait wait, we should be writing these things down then! I didn't think this would be this complicated." Zoe said while pushing out from the table.

"You didn't think it would? Aren't you supposed to be the smart one out of us three?"

"She just thought you were dumb bro." Marcus scoffed.

"No, I just didn't think too much about it...." Zoe quickly denied, but I saw her fighting back a giddy smirk before she turned around to start searching for some pen and paper, "You've mentioned your idea I just never gave it that much thought."

Cassandra meanwhile started laughing... a little too hard I felt but I had to give her this one, even Claudia let out a giggle, I was clearly outnumbered.

Zoe was naked as per my house rules but she still had an instinct to cover herself up in such a large group... or maybe it was Marcus' presence since he wasn't within my domain? I wasn't sure, not that it mattered either way. She seemed to routinely remind herself she was fighting a pointless battle trying to cover what little she could manage with just her hands, it also helped that she needed both hands to dig around through some shelves and drawers I had. A few minutes of searching later though she let out a frustrated groan,

"Do you seriously have no paper? A notepad? Anything?"

"Um..." At the question I started to rack my brain and consider where I would've last put something to write on and... I came up blank, "I think... I actually just write notes on my phone or computer if I'm at it." I sheepishly muttered.

"Seriously dude? Then why the hell am I wasting my time looking around here?"

"I didn't really think about it."

"See!" Zoe laughed triumphantly, jabbing a finger in my direction and jiggling her tits with the aggressive motion.

Mid-way through her attention was drawn to a stack of mail tossed onto a coffee table and she bent over to root through the pile. Eventually she found something, a shiny junk-flyer I still hadn't thrown out yet, with a mercifully white back.

"Hopefully this is good enough, but man I can't believe you live like this. Do you own anything besides your computer?"

"Wha– my furniture?" I meekly defended.

"Didn't your dad buy you... like all of it?"

"It was his idea, but I picked everything out." Veronica finally chirped up proudly. She still refused to look Marcus in the eye, and her cheeks were red, but all in all she didn't seem as embarrassed being naked as I thought she would. She was putting on a brave front at least.

"Can we get back on topic now." My ears were starting to get red now too though.

"Dude... seriously?" Marcus gave me an over-the-topic, over produced glare over another slice of pizza he started feeding into his mouth.

I got that he was joking but still,

"C'mon man! I literally called you here to make a change to all that!"

To my pleasant surprise Zoe also piped in,

"He's right Marcus, that was pretty rude."

"Whuh?" Marcus recoiled through a mouthful of food and looked around the table.

Veronica didn't say anything but I did notice she finally looked his direction and made eye contact with him, Claudia didn't say a word either, she actually seemed a little awkward by the sudden tone shift, she wasn't smiling at least.

"He's right though!" Cassandra chirped from the floor.

"Alright... alright, I'll admit when I'm an asshole. My bad for calling you lazy while we're literally helping you start a business." Marcus put his hands up in surrender after swallowing his bite.

"Uh... thanks...." I gave a nervous chuckle. I really wasn't expecting an apology or anyone to be on my side, so it was a little awkward, but I couldn't deny it felt nice.

Zoe thankfully was quick to put things back on track,

"Okay so the first rule of this business should be what? You don't want to be a pimp or a dictator so...."

"No monopolies?" Marcus chimed.

"But... I kind of am a monopoly, right? I own every woman right?"

"It's not like you'll be able to manage every woman in the whole world though, you're gonna have to franchise or something. Give out management positions at least, right? I mean maybe it'll depend on exactly what you do, but I don't think a mass e-mail is gonna cut it." Claudia finally nodded in agreement.

"And that also feeds into that whole economic collapse problem, it would be smart to have branches in whatever country you're selling, or whatever – profiting! – off of their women." Zoe immediately went about scribbling.

"Okay, but aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here? I don't even know what I'm going to do yet!"

"But we're outlining what you don't want to do. It's gonna help inform out decision. So what else?"

"He wants to improve the world." Veronica spoke up for me garnering a bit of surprise from me.

No one else seemed to notice or care however,

"Hmm... I suppose... in a board sense that could be something.... I'll write that down but it should probably be a bit more focused as we move forward."

"How about you start by fixing the porn problem." Marcus interjected.

"That's not what we're–" Zoe stopped dead before her head snapped up and she shot, Marcus an accusatory glare, "What porn problem?"

"There's nothing new being created." Marcus shifted uncomfortably, "No one is allowed to fuck anymore, so there's also nothing new for them to watch."

"What's that matter to you?" Zoe snorted.

"Hey! Lots! What happened to sex work is real work? Which by the way I didn't get on your case about how much you knew about the logistics of that industry!"

Zoe recoiled, stunned, jaw dropped,

"I – that... that's completely diff–"

She was drowned out by Claudia cackling from across the table next to me,

"Hahah! He got you good! Who's busting who's balls now?"

Veronica was covering her mouth and very obviously giggling behind her hand, while Cassandra, even though she was out of line of site for the other half of the table, was biting her lip in a vain attempt to not smile.

It was now Zoe's turn to raise her arms in surrender and gracefully accept defeat.

Once everyone calmed down however Claudia wiped her eye and continued,

"Besides all the same sex stuff still being made, you don't control men, although women on women still seems like a gray area, I've seen a lot of girls talk about going on hiatus for their own comfort."

Everyone at the table gave Claudia a blank stare, even Cassandra, at how casually she mentioned that, but thankfully no one seemed to care enough to comment.

"So there is still new stuff then?" Zoe asked.

"Not nearly enough." Claudia shook her head with an amused scoff.

"Fucking tell me about it." Marcus grumbled is face gone from joking to serious for once.

Zoe shot him another glare, but softened immediately when he didn't react, clearly he wasn't joking about this. Upon noticing her look however he grimaced and shrugged,

"Some dudes are really upset about things right now. I mean, hell, those three days of you teasing me were pleasant." Marcus gave Zoe a smile before shooting me a dirty look, "But it's like that's cranked to eleven for some of these guys. No fucking emotional regulation on any of them, I fucking swear."

"Did something happen?" Zoe asked now going more serious herself.

"No not especially. Been thinking about changing gyms lately, don't think that would really help though, might have to just go less. It's like a full fifty percent of them are roided out now-a-days. I've seen like one dude clearly on something in the last ten years I've been going to my current place, but it's like every single time I'm in now there's at least one dude trying to pick a fight over every little thing. Someone's dropping their weights too loud, they're 'crowding' the walk way when doing lunges, or they just gave someone a dirty look. Had to walk away from a few guys because I thought they'd start swinging because my sets were taking too long for their liking."

Zoe looked worried now and squeezed her boyfriends arm. Cassandra of course killed the mood by snorting,

"Are all men fucking animals or something?"

"No, I don't think I've seen anything like that during my day to day." Claudia quickly defended my sex.

"Does that mean it's just a gym thing?" Veronica helpfully asked.

"Mmm, that would make sense." Zoe rubbed her chin and furrowed her brow, "I haven't really noticed anyone acting all that differently lately, although now that you've mentioned it maybe I'll need to pay closer attention at work. Pretty sure exercising affects the hormones and if they're not letting off steam anywhere than it must just be building up? I dunno, my sister is the science geek." Zoe sighed shaking her head.

"Okay... I guess this is actually kind of important then, for public health and safety?" I sighed, running my fingers through my hair.

"For men's safety at least." Cassandra gave me a cocky smirk as if to rub it in.

She had made this point before, just because I owned all women and apparently that was normal, didn't mean I still couldn't piss other guys off enough to be a problem. I still didn't like how much she seemed to enjoy the thought of me getting hurt though.

"What happens if you get caught in the crossfire?" Claudia leaned forward to look around me at the girl, "Like Oliver's taking you somewhere, some guy thinks he's going too slow and he decides to run you off the road? Or maybe you're just walking by when said driver spins out and plows through a sidewalk? Accidents still happen even if no one is going to willingly break Oliver's things you know... and then there's collateral damage. I don't know for sure, but I get the feeling people won't care if women get hurt as long as they're not the main target."

Cassandra's eyes went wide and she stared at Claudia for a moment, her mouth working wordlessly as she tried to find a response, her smugness completely gone.

"That was so fucking hot." I turned from Cassandra's stunned face to give Claudia a beaming smile, pulling her in for a kiss as I did.

"In that line of thinking, I think sex definitely needs to start happening more too." Marcus added, "Not for me obviously, I'm crushing it every night."

"It?"

"You babe. You're my 'it'."

"Jesus Christ."

"I know some dudes just can't whack it, they act like it's gay to touch themselves or something." Marcus flinched and looked at Claudia, "Um, no offense."

"Hahaha! I don't care man. I'm bisexual just to be clear, but I can still tell when people are joking."

Marcus gave a relieved nod at that, while Claudia continued,

"But I've seen guys like that too, some girls even once I started exploring my, uh... wilder side." Claudia looked nervously around the table before making meaningful eye contact with me, "Some people genuinely do need the physical stimulus, they aren't just being douchebags about it."

"I'm willing to bet most of them are." Veronica shook her head in disappointment, "But I imagine those are the most likely to be picking fights when they don't get their way."

Everyone at the table fell silent, even the girls, who were property, were starting to consider that maybe being owned finally affected them... not directly apparently, but it still seemed to come as a shock.

"Right. So porn and sex. I think those are basically the main industries I can really affect with own women anyways so we should probably focus on that right now."

"What about **** labour?" Marcus chirped, "You ever think of calling up a few thousand women and getting them to haul some stone blocks for you out behind your place?"

"One thing at a time. This is already starting to feel like more than I can manage." I frowned shaking my head.

"Right so you don't want a monopoly on sex,"

"It wouldn't be safe for me to have a monopoly." I corrected firmly.

Zoe rolled her eyes and continued,

"And you want to make the world better than it was before? Those are both pretty broad ideas though, maybe it would help to focus them down some more?"

"Well like we already said, he's gonna have to start franchising out around the world, some sort've sex management company to even hope of getting any reasonable amount of fucking going on."

"Right... so we kinda got off track before, where did you stand on the whole restarting porn studios thing?"

I took a moment to think, and frankly, my brain was starting to overheat from this entire conversation, but one thought rang clearly,

"Wasn't that industry pretty bad before?"

"Well every industry has their dark corners." Zoe grimaced, clearly she didn't like to admit it, but it was an irrefutable fact, "No matter what you do I think unfortunately it's never going to be perfect, if we're being practical here...."

"Amateur stuff is way better though." Claudia interrupted, "I mean, both content quality and working conditions. Even small studios are better than these big names that get out of hand. Oooh! Content variety too, honestly if you can't mass produce stuff on the scale it was before, just having more variety would probably hold people over better than nothing, right?"

"Yeah... that sounds... good?" I gave Cassandra a questioning look, I already liked it but she was my designated bitcher.

"I'm sure there's something stupid about it if you like it...." Cassandra huffed and crossed her arms.

I'd found that when I could actually use her complaining constructively she seemed to enjoy it far less. That was as good as an approval as far as I was concerned though.

"So you want to do something with amateur porn stars? What about sex?"

I sighed, I felt lighter having even the hint of an idea, but there was still an endless sea to work through. Why couldn't this just be endless no strings attached fucking?

Well... I guess that wouldn't be quite as satisfying...,

"I think we'll just focus on the porn problem for now. I think there's probably already a lot of logistical problems with trying to get this moving. Starting this whole operation is probably going to be the hardest part"

We spent the rest of the evening, a lot longer than I imagined when I first called everyone over, thinking up ideas for how to manage small studios,amateur couples and independent cam-girls, the nuisances each one might require, and most importantly the logistics behind even reaching out with orders like that. The longer we talked, and possibly the more I drank, the more I got into the idea and I started slipping in ways I could twist the ideas to just be a little more selfish, without hopefully ruining the entire thing.

I was most surprised by just how into it everybody else was getting. This started as a selfish request but they were starting to treat it like a group puzzle.