Seeking Succor

Sophia was still sat in her car looking at Liam's message. 'How can the boy think I'm going along with this?' She wondered.

For the first time since the original encounter, she couldn't feel a tug on her mind from the collar. She was free, at least until Liam decided to message her again. Realising this, she turned her phone off and sat back in her seat. She ran her fingers along the collar around her neck, contemplating what she could do.

The witch!

Sophia poked her head through the doorway of the shop and looked around. The place looked identical to how it was when she was last here a day ago. She took one step before a cheerful voice behind her made her jump.

"Hello there!"

"Fuck! Vi-?" Sophia expected Vivi to be behind her, but was taken aback to see a blonde woman instead.

"Vivi?" The woman rolled her chin backwards, clearly offended. "You confuse me with her?"

"Hey, no, I mean, I was just expecting Vivi. Do you work for her?"

"DO I WORK FOR HER?!"

Sophia squinted, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong, and why the woman wasn't answering her questions. "Does she work for you?"

"My name is Didi and this is my shop. It's also Vivi's shop. It's confusing; it doesn't matter. How can I help you?"

Sophia pointed at the collar.

"Oh darling, you're wearing the **** Collar. Are you looking to buy another? How peculiar.."

"No, no. The opposite, actually. I want to return it. It's all gone wrong. I'm living a nightmare." Sophia started to tear up.

Didi stroked her arm to soothe her. "What do you mean it's gone wrong? It looks to me like it's functioning perfectly."

Sophia explained how she'd intended to play with it with Noah, and how the misunderstanding had happened with his brother.

Didi frowned, thoughtfully. "It's strange: the way the magic normally works is that things magically sort themselves out for the wearer. I've never heard of something like this putting the wearer in situations she didn't enjoy."

"Well," Sophia paused to think about how turned on she'd been recently, but chose not to say anything about it. "Can you take it off for me?"

"I'm afraid not. It would be no fun if you could just pop it off, my darling. The only way to remove it is to have your owner do it!"

Sophia welled up again.

Didi didn't really know what to do. "Would it cheer you up if I said you can have anything from this store for free?"

Sophia glanced at the orb on its shelf, since her last encounter, for a second before correcting herself. "M-mm." She shook her head 'no.'