Chapter 14

- Oliver

Sonia's apartment was exactly what I should have expected and nothing like anywhere I'd ever lived. It occupied the top floor of a converted brownstone near the university, and every square inch of it radiated the quiet confidence of someone who had curated their life with the same precision they brought to their arguments. The living room was all clean Scandinavian lines: a low grey sofa with wooden legs, a single reading chair in oxblood leather positioned under a floor lamp. The walls were white, broken up by a few framed prints that I recognized as tasteful without being able to name a single artist. A tall bookshelf dominated the far wall, floor to ceiling, packed tight. I drifted toward it out of habit. Philosophy, mostly. Kant, Heidegger, Sartre, names I'd seen on the spines of books I'd never opened. But there were surprises too. A battered copy of Dune. A few Le Guinns. Science fiction, huh? Maybe one thing I could actually talk to her about without feeling completely out of my depth.

Her kitchen was small but immaculate. A single wine glass sat upside down on a drying rack next to the sink. One glass. One rack. Everything in its place, nothing extra. The countertops were bare except for a French press and a small wooden bowl holding two lemons. It felt like a showroom kitchen.

I turned back to the living room.

Sonia stood in the center of it, naked, bathed in the warm glow of the floor lamp. Her clothes were folded neatly on the leather chair, the burgundy sweater on top, her jeans beneath, her underwear tucked discreetly between them. She'd done that herself before the command had fully taken hold, her last act of agency executed with the same methodical precision as everything else in her life. I don't know what she expected to happen next, but I'd tried to act fast and unpredictably.

Now she was a statue. Her arms hung at her sides, her fingers relaxed, her weight distributed evenly on both bare feet. Her blonde hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, brushing the tops of her breasts. Her blue eyes were open, fixed on the middle distance, seeing everything and responding to nothing. Her chest rose and fell with slow, even breaths. Her face was completely blank, no tension, no anticipation, no hint of the sharp intelligence I knew was trapped behind those eyes.

She really was stunning. The kind of beautiful that was hard to look at directly, like staring at the sun. The lamplight turned her fair skin golden, highlighting the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, the shadow between her breasts. Her body was generous in a way that her clothes had only hinted at.

I circled her slowly, my sneakers quiet on her hardwood floor. I trailed my fingertips across her shoulder blade as I passed behind her, feeling the warmth of her skin, the slight bump of a freckle. No reaction. Not a twitch, not a shiver, not a hitch in her breathing. I came around to her front and cupped her left breast, feeling its weight settle into my palm, my thumb brushing across her nipple. Nothing. Her face remained perfectly still, her eyes staring through me.

I wondered what it was like in there. Whether she was screaming behind that blank expression, or begging for me to be bolder. With how little I knew of Sonia, I expected she was probably cataloging the experience with academic detachment, filing it away for later analysis, composing footnotes in her head about the phenomenology of involuntary stillness. But I was pretty sure she was also going crazy. She'd told me herself: the loss of control was what she craved, the forced helplessness, the gap between wanting to respond and being unable to. Right now that gap was absolute. Her mind was fully conscious, fully aware of every touch, every breath, and her body gave her nothing, not even the automatic summarization it provided her earlier. No way to lean into my hand, no way to pull away, no way to moan or sigh or even let me now what was going on behind those blue eyes.

My hand slid down from her breast, across the flat plane of her stomach, and lower. My fingers found the warm cleft between her thighs and pressed gently inward. She was soaked. It coated my fingers instantly, warm and slippery, her body's one honest answer in a conversation her mouth wasn't allowed to participate in.

I knelt in front of her, my hands on her hips, and pressed my mouth against her. She tasted clean and sharp, that particular salt-sweet that was different for every woman. I worked my tongue against her slowly, finding the spots that made sense, building a rhythm. Above me, Sonia stood like a mannequin in a department store window. No sound. No movement. Her hands hung motionless at her sides while I licked and sucked and pressed my tongue flat against her clit. I imagined her behind those blank eyes, every nerve in her body lit up like a switchboard, pleasure flooding in with nowhere to go, no hands to grab my hair, no hips to grind against my face, no voice to tell me harder or softer or right there. Just sensation, raw and inescapable, filling her up with no release valve.

I pulled back after a few minutes, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I stood and faced her again, reaching up to cup both breasts this time, kneading them gently, running my thumbs in slow circles around her nipples. I leaned in close, my lips brushing the shell of her ear, and felt the faintest warmth of her breath against my neck.

"You know what got me," I murmured, "the first time I saw you at the munch? You scared me. You looked at me like I was a particularly interesting specimen under a microscope. And I thought, that woman could rip me apart with a few well-chosen sentences."

I squeezed her breasts, slowly, feeling the soft flesh yield between my fingers.

"You're the smartest person I've met. You're more composed than anyone I know. I'm pretty sure you could out-argue a room full of tenured professors and make them thank you for it." I kissed the spot just below her ear, letting my lips linger. "So I'm curious. What would it look like if all of that was gone? If you were someone completely different? Not Sonia Lindqvist, professor of philosophy, sharpest mind in the room." I pulled back just enough to look at her face, still frozen, still blank, still giving me nothing. "What would the opposite of you even be?"

Silence. The floor lamp hummed faintly. A car passed on the street below, headlights sweeping briefly across the ceiling.

I chuckled. "Tell me what kind of woman would be the opposite of you."

Her lips moved. The rest of her stayed perfectly still, her eyes fixed, her body rigid, only her mouth coming to life, shaping words in a voice that was flat and measured, stripped of all the warmth and dry humor I'd come to associate with her.

"Insecure. Desperate for approval. The kind of woman who laughs too loudly at jokes she doesn't understand because she's terrified of silence." To my surprise, she continued, the words pouring out with the detached precision of a recorded message. "She wouldn't read. She wouldn't think abstractly. She'd fill every quiet moment with noise because being alone with her own thoughts would frighten her, since there wouldn't be much there to begin with. She'd agree with everyone, change her opinions to match whoever she was talking to, because having her own convictions would require a foundation she doesn't have." A pause, just long enough for a breath. I thought about telling her to stop, be she continued before I could. Her brain seemed to be really committed to the task I had given her. "She'd be sweet. Genuinely sweet, not performatively. Kind in a way that costs her nothing because she's never had to fight for anything that mattered. She'd care more about being liked than being right. She'd cry easily and forgive faster. She'd think sex was something that happened to her rather than something she pursued." Another breath. "She would be, in every meaningful sense, a pushover." She opened her mouth one last time, but then closed it. She'd run out of steam.

"Be exactly what you just described," I said. "Feel it. Think it. Believe it. That's who you are."

Nothing happened. She stood there, frozen, her mouth closed again, her eyes still fixed on that invisible point in the middle distance. Right. She couldn't move. The previous command was still running. I was layering instructions on top of each other like a bad coder stacking functions without clearing the previous ones.

"You can move again. Use your body however you want."

The change didn't hit like a switch being flipped. It was more like watching ice melt. The rigidity left her shoulders first, then her arms, her fingers twitching, her weight shifting from one foot to the other. She blinked. Her eyes came back into focus, and the first thing they did was drop to the floor.

"Oh," she said softly. "Oh, um." She looked down at herself, at her naked body standing in the middle of her own living room, and her hands flew up to cover her breasts. Her cheeks flushed a deep, visible pink that spread down her neck and across her chest. "I'm… sorry, I'm just. This is a lot."

The voice was wrong. No, not wrong, different. The crisp, declarative sentences were gone. In their place was something softer, higher in pitch. She hunched her shoulders slightly, making herself smaller, her blonde hair falling forward like a curtain she was trying to hide behind.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah! Yeah, no, I'm fine, totally fine." She laughed, a nervous, breathy sound that went on a beat too long. "It's just, you know, I was standing there and you were… doing things, and I couldn't move or say anything, and it was…" She trailed off, her eyes darting to mine and then away again, like looking at me directly cost her something. "It was really intense? Like, my body was just… there, and I could feel everything, everything you did, but I couldn't react at all, and that was… honestly kind of terrifying?" She paused, chewing her lower lip. "But also really, um. Really hot? At least it felt hot back then. Now it... Sorry... Is that weird to say? That's probably weird to say. Sorry."

I stared at her. An hour ago, this woman had dissected the nature of ethical reality while I struggled to form sentences. Now she was apologizing for finding her own arousal weird.

"It's not weird," I said.

"Okay, good." She exhaled with visible relief. "Because the old me, I think she would have… I mean, I remember how she felt about it, and she was very…" She made a vague gesture with one hand, still covering her chest with the other. "Into it. Very serious about it? Like she was taking notes. Which is so me, so her, right? But I just feel scared now. Does that make sense?"

Of course it made sense. I'd turn her into the opposite of herself. It also made something dark and warm unfurl in my chest, something I hadn't felt this freely since… maybe ever. There was no guilt here. No second-guessing. Sonia had walked into this with her eyes open, had practically demanded I do this to her, and even before I reshaped her into someone fundamentally different, she wasn't fighting it. She wasn't even considering fighting it. I'd watched Claudia contemplate my commands before accepting them, that brief flicker behind her eyes where her free will weighed the instruction against her own desires. I'd seen it in Zoe, in Renee, in every woman I'd used my power on since I'd "freed" women. That microsecond of evaluation.

Sonia didn't do that. She just obeyed. All in, no hesitation, no internal negotiation. The commands landed and she absorbed them like water into sand.

I stepped closer. She flinched, not in fear exactly, but in that way someone does when they're not sure if they're allowed to be where they are. Her eyes dropped to my chest, unable to hold mine.

"Move your hands away," I said.

She did, immediately, her arms falling to her sides. Her breasts were exposed again, her nipples hard from the cool air, and the flush on her skin deepened. She stood there with her fists clenched at her sides, her shoulders curled inward, waiting.

"You're embarrassed," I observed.

"No, I'm... Maybe a little? Yeah." She swallowed. "I know it doesn't make sense, because you were just… down there, and I was standing here the whole time, so you've already seen everything, but it feels different now? You're looking at me."

"I am looking at you."

I circled her again, slowly, the way I had before, but this time she tracked me with nervous glances over her shoulder, her body tensing as I passed behind her. I ran my fingers down her spine and she shivered, a full-body tremor that the previous Sonia would have suppressed through sheer force of will. This one couldn't suppress anything. She was an exposed nerve in the shape of a woman.

"You know what I think?" I said, stopping behind her, my mouth close to her ear. "I think the woman who was standing here five minutes ago would be horrified by you."

Her breath caught. "Probably. She was pretty… she had very high standards."

"She'd think you were pathetic."

"Would she?" It came out as barely a whisper, and I could hear the quiver in it. Not anger. Not defiance. Just quiet, aching agreement.

"Yes." I let my hands settle on her hips, thumbs pressing into the soft curve of her waist.

I brought both hands to her waist, pulling her back against me so she could feel how hard I was through my jeans. She gasped, her hands coming up instinctively before dropping again, unsure where to put themselves, unsure if she was allowed to touch me back. I cupped her breasts from behind, squeezing harder than I had before, and she made a soft, helpless sound.

"She described you as a pushover," I murmured into her neck. "Are you?"

"I don't…" She squirmed against me, not pulling away but not leaning in either, trapped in that particular limbo of wanting something and being too unsure to reach for it. "I don't want to be one, I think."

"You think?" I rolled one of her nipples between my fingers, pinching just enough to make her gasp. "Are you a pushover or not?"

"I'm a pushover. If that's what you want me to be." The words tumbled out, desperate and eager, her back arching slightly into my touch.

"It's not about what I want you to be. It's what you are."

"Right. Yes. That's what I am." She moaned, though she couldn't help but turn her head to the side, searching in my eyes for a sign that it was the right answer. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, her head turning back to the floor.

There it was. The apology reflex. The old Sonia had never apologized for anything in her life, I was fairly certain of that after a single conversation. This version of her apologized for existing. And the sick, honest truth was that it turned me on in a way I hadn't expected. Not the submission itself, I'd had that with Claudia, with others. It was the contrast. Knowing who she really was underneath, how sharp and formidable, and seeing all of it replaced with this trembling, eager-to-please version who couldn't hold eye contact. I was holding a loaded weapon that had been disarmed, and the power of that was intoxicating.

I spun her around to face me. She stumbled slightly, catching herself on my forearms, and looked up at me with those blue eyes that still held all of Sonia's intelligence but none of her armor.

"What do you want?" I asked her.

"I want…" She searched my face desperately, trying to read what I wanted to hear. "What do you want?"

"That's not an answer. That's a deflection."

Her lower lip trembled. "I want you to like me," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word. "Do you like me? Didn't you prefer how I used to be? I can try being more like my old me." She shook her head. "Sorry, you wouldn't have made me like this if you didn't prefer it."

"Actually, right now I think I'd prefer to focus on your pussy and less on your new dazzling ability of introspection."

"Oh, um, yes, of course. That's... I should have realized." She reached down, her hand trembling, attempting to unzip her pants that weren't there, then jerking her hand back up. "I'm not wearing anything. Sorry, I'm being dumb."

I undid my belt, watching her watch my hands. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her eyes darting from my face to my crotch and back again.

"Should I... Should I do something?" she asked. "To help?"

"Yes. Get on all fours on the couch."

She scrambled toward the sofa like I'd given her a lifesaving instruction. She climbed onto the grey cushions, positioning herself on her hands and knees, her back to me, her face turned toward the armrest. Her thighs were spread slightly, and I could see how wet she still was, her labia glistening in the lamplight. It seemed that her change of personality had not altered her state of arousal. If that version of her was just as much into mind control as the other, she probably was in a feedback loop of lust and shame right now, knowing she wasn't herself and finding that it made her hotter, which only embarrassed her more. What a beautiful cycle.

I stepped up behind her and ran my hand along her spine. She arched into the touch like a cat, her head dropping between her shoulders, her hair spilling forward onto the cushion.

"Is this okay?" she asked, glancing back at me. "Am I doing it right? I can move if you want me to—"

"Shut up."

She shut up. Her mouth closed with an audible click and she faced forward again, her fingers gripping the edge of the cushion. I took my time undressing, pulling my shirt over my head and stepping out of my jeans, letting her wait. I could see the tension in her thighs, the way her hips shifted slightly from side to side, involuntary, her body seeking friction that wasn't there.

I pressed my cock against her entrance without pushing in. Just held it there, the head nudging between her slick folds. She whimpered, a small, strangled sound that the old Sonia would have bitten clean in half before it ever reached her lips.

"What do you want?" I asked again.

"You," she whispered to the armrest. "Please."

"Please what?"

"Please fuck me." The words came out rushed and breathless, like she was confessing something shameful. "I'm sorry, is that too forward? I don't know what I'm supposed to—"

I pushed inside her in one slow, steady stroke. She cried out, her back arching sharply, her fingers clawing at the cushion. She was impossibly wet, her pussy clenching around me as I bottomed out, hot and tight and slippery. I stayed there for a moment, buried to the hilt, feeling her pulse around my cock.

"Oh god," she breathed. "Oh god, oh god, that's…" She trailed off into a moan that she immediately tried to muffle by pressing her face into the sofa cushion.

"Don't hide," I said, grabbing a fistful of her hair and pulling her head back. "I want to hear you."

"I'm sorry, I just—" Another moan cut her off as I pulled back and thrust into her again, harder this time. Her whole body rocked forward, her breasts swaying beneath her. "I'm not usually this—oh—this loud, I don't want to bother the—"

"Your neighbors don't care."

"Right, because you're my—ah—" She gasped as I set a rhythm, each stroke driving deep into her, the wet sound of our bodies meeting filling the quiet apartment. "My Owner. You're my Owner and you can do whatever—oh fuck—whatever you want with me."

I tightened my grip on her hair, watching the way her back curved, the muscles in her shoulders tensing with each thrust. With my free hand I reached around and found her clit, circling it with two fingers. She bucked against me, a sob tearing out of her throat.

"Do you think you deserve to cum?" I asked, because I was learning that this version of Sonia would agonize over any question I posed like it was a final exam she hadn't studied for.

"I don't—I don't know," she stammered, her hips grinding back against me despite herself. "Do I? I want to be good for you. I'll do whatever you say. If you don't want me to, I won't, I promise, I can hold it—"

"Can you?"

"No," she admitted in a tiny, miserable voice. "I don't think I can. I'm sorry."

I fucked her harder, my fingers working her clit in fast, tight circles. Her arms gave out and she collapsed onto her elbows, her face pressed sideways against the cushion, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut. She was making sounds she'd probably never made in her life, high, desperate whines punctuated by gasping apologies, a running commentary of pleasure and shame tangled together.

"I'm close," she whimpered. "I'm really close, is that okay? Can I please—I need to—please tell me it's okay—"

"Cum."

She came apart like something structural had failed. Her whole body seized, her pussy clamping down around me so hard it almost hurt, her mouth open in a silent scream that lasted three seconds before collapsing into a shuddering, sobbing moan. Her thighs shook. Her fingers tore at the cushion fabric. She kept saying "thank you" between gasps, over and over, like I'd given her a gift she didn't deserve.

The sight of it, this brilliant, formidable woman reduced to a trembling wreck thanking me for permission to orgasm on her own couch, pushed me over the edge. I buried myself deep and came inside her with a groan, my hand still fisted in her hair, my hips pressed flush against her ass. She whimpered at the feeling, her internal muscles fluttering around me through the aftershocks.

We stayed like that for a long moment. My breathing slowly returned to normal. Her trembling subsided into occasional shivers. I pulled out of her gently and she made a small, involuntary sound of loss, her hips tilting back toward me before she caught herself.

"Go back to normal," I said. "Be yourself again. Fully."

The change was faster this time. Her posture shifted first, the hunched shoulders squaring, her spine straightening. She pushed herself up from the cushion and sat back on her heels, her hair falling in a messy curtain around her face. She pushed it back with both hands, and when she turned to look at me, the eyes were different. Sharp. Focused. The blue irises carried that familiar weight of assessment, cataloging me and the situation with the precision of someone reviewing field notes.

"Huh," she said.

She swung her legs off the couch and sat on the edge, naked and dripping and completely unbothered by either fact. She pressed her palms together between her knees and stared at the floor, but not in the way the other version of her had stared at the floor. This was directed inward, deliberate, a woman reviewing her own source code.

"That was something," she said after a moment. She looked up at me, one eyebrow raised. "I could feel myself being someone else. Not acting like someone else. Being her. Every instinct, every impulse, was genuine. When I apologized, I meant it. When I asked for permission, I needed it." She shook her head slowly. "The arousal was the same, but the experience of it was completely different. She was ashamed of wanting it. I never am."

"You're doing it again," I said, pulling my boxers back on.

"Doing what?"

"The thing where you have an experience normal people would just enjoy and you immediately start performing an autopsy on it."

She paused. Then she laughed, a real laugh, warm and unguarded, her head tipping back. "Fair enough." She stretched her arms above her head, rolling her neck. "It's funny, I could say the opposite about you."

"About me?"

"An hour ago you were at a wine bar telling me how guilty you feel about your power and how scared you are of opening your relationship." She looked at me sideways, that knowing curve returning to her lips. "And then you spent the last thirty minutes turning me into a simpering pushover and fucking me from behind while I begged for permission to cum on my own sofa." She tilted her head. "That's quite the character arc for one evening."

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. She had a point. I sat down on the opposite end of the couch, leaving a cushion of space between us, and leaned back.

"Maybe you're a good influence," I offered.

"Maybe I gave you permission to stop overthinking it," she countered. "Which is ironic, since you own me." She tucked her legs under herself and regarded me with that look, the microscope look. "You enjoyed yourself. Don't ruin it by feeling bad about it later."

"I'm not going to feel bad about it."

"Promise?"

"I don't make promises to my toys," I said, and the words came out so naturally that they surprised us both.

Sonia grinned. "There he is."

We sat there for a while in comfortable silence, the floor lamp humming, the sounds of the street filtering in through the windows. She didn't reach for her clothes and I didn't reach for mine. It felt easy, which was the last thing I'd expected.

"Well," Sonia said finally, stretching again, her breasts lifting with the motion. "That was fun. We should do it again sometime."

I leaned forward, ready to stand, to gather my things, to go back to my life where I had a game to finish and a relationship to navigate. But something made me pause.

"I don't think I'm done with you yet," I said.

Her eyebrows went up. "Oh?"

"Can I spend the night?"

She considered it, her head tilting, and I could almost see her calculating the variables. "I'd rather you didn't," she said at last. "Not tonight, anyway. It's been a lot, and I think I'd like to process it alone."

"Be desperate for me to stay the night."

I stared at her face, looking for what would have been the first moment of resistance, the brief internal struggle, checking her desires against the command. It didn't come. She truly was giving herself to me without any reservation. She had no interest in the lifeline. Her expression just... changed. Her eyes widened slightly, her lips parting, a flush creeping up her neck that had nothing to do with the exertion of our recent activities.

"Wait," she said, her voice suddenly urgent. "No, please, don't go. Stay. I want you to stay the night." She moved across the couch, closing the space between us, her hands reaching for mine. "I know I said I wanted to be alone. I know you just made me say that, and I'm saying it again, but I need you to stay. Please."

I smirked, drinking in the sight of her pleading so earnestly, her whole demeanor transformed. "Nah, I'm good."

She froze, her hands gripping mine. "What? You can't do this! You can't just make me feel this way and then leave!" Panic was rising in her voice. "I need you here. I'll do anything you want. Anything, and I mean that, just please stay."

I chuckled. "Relax. I'm staying."

The relief that washed over her face was almost comical. Her shoulders sagged, she released my hands and pressed her palms to her face, her whole body deflating with it. But there was still something off, a lingering tension behind her eyes. The command would likely keep her on edge all night, unable to rest until she was certain I wouldn't change my mind. I could feel it in the silence between us. She was running scenarios in her head, trying to find the right combination of words and actions to ensure I'd be there when she woke up.

"Now I'm wondering if I should keep you on your toes or if I should be a merciful owner and adjust my command," I said, musing to myself.

"Anything you prefer," she said slowly, clearly walking on eggshells, unsure what the right answer was.

"Stop being desperate for me to stay the night, just be happy that I am."

She exhaled again, slower this time, the last of the tension leaving her body. Her hands dropped from her face, and she gave me a small, wry smile. "Thank you. I was starting to sound like a pushover again."

"Different buttons for similar results."

She nodded, thoughtful. Then she looked down at herself, still naked, still marked by what we'd done. "I'm genuinely happy you're staying, obviously. But I'm also slightly worried about what you plan on doing with me for the rest of the evening."

"You should be." I leaned back against the couch, getting comfortable. She definitely wasn't.

Hey there! This was chapter 14 of 4 Billion Toys 2. I'll be posting chapters here regularly, but if you want early access to the next chapters, feel free to support me on Patreon!

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