I sat in my recliner chair with my hands over my face. There had been an internal tug of war going on inside me. Part of me wanted Mara for myself. I couldn't allow that to happen though. The slave ring would at the very least have me expelled. Then they'd probably kill me out of fear that I would expose them. They already knew about Mara, in fact, they were the ones who had pointed her out to me. They were expecting her to be trained and ready in just a couple weeks. In a couple days I would get a phone call from my contact, and he would lay out exactly how I was supposed to train her. I figured I'd wait until then, then decide what to do. In the meantime, I decided to give her a break from training. Instead, I'd observe how well she performed as a slave with the training she already had.

I let her sleep for a few hours, then went in to wake her up. A slight shake was all it took. She got out of bed and followed me out of the room. Since I wasn't going to train her anymore today, I had to kill time somehow. I got an idea.

"What do you do for fun?" I asked.

"Usually I either watch TV or I go to the arcade and play air hockey."

"Air hockey?" I knew what it was, but I couldn't picture her playing it.

"Yeah. Back when I was in the orphanage, we had a rec room with an air hockey table. One of the older kids taught me how to play, and I've been hooked ever since. When I have some free time and don't feel like watching TV, that's what I do."

I figured why the hell not? It would be fun at the very least. I hadn't been out doing something (besides my job) in quite awhile.

"Okay. Let's do it." I said.

I had her dress in normal clothing and we left the house. I was taking her to an arcade that she normally frequented. This was risky and violated countless rules, the main one being that slaves were to be completely isolated from their former lives. It was against my better judgement to do this, but I told myself to relax and have some fun. Part of me wanted to see what would happen. How would she react to seeing something from her not too distant past? Would she make a break for it? I'd soon find out.

We arrived and went inside. I ran a few bills through the change machine. We started up a game of air hockey. I still couldn't picture her being any good at this... 3 minutes later, I ate those words. She was already up to 8 points. The game would end as soon as one player scored 15 points. Five minutes later, she won.

"Holy shit..." I said.

"Hey, you did pretty good for a first time. Let's play again!"

It wasn't exactly my first time playing air hockey, but it might as well have been. I hadn't played it in years. It was coming back to me though. We started up another game. The puck glided back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... She won again, but it took longer, and I had more points this time.

Out of the 8 or 9 games we played, I won two of them. I had to admit it was fun, even if I did lose most of the games. She seemed to be having the time of her life. We were getting ready to leave when another guy walked in. He reconigized Mara.

"Hey Mara! What's up girl? Whose your friend there?"

I froze up. My blood ran cold. She could tell this guy everything! Everything I had done to her! I couldn't do anything to prevent it without giving myself away! My heart sped up.

"This is my boyfriend. We were playing some air hockey. Wanna play me?" she said to him.

"Oh hell no! When I get beat 5 times in a row, it's time to quit! Say, I went by your place this morning but you wern't there. What's up?" he asked her.

"I've been spending the day with my boyfriend." she said.

The man gave me a curious look. My heart was still pounding. "Hey, how long have you guys been together?" he asked me.

"3 weeks." I lied.

"Yeah. 3 weeks. It'll be 4 pretty soon." she said.

"Ah. Well then, nice to meet you." he said to me.

I never felt more relieved in my life then when I left that arcade. We got into my car and I just about hauled ass out of the parking lot.

"Are you okay Master?" she asked.

I was okay, but I was also curious. She lied to that guy. She had a perfect opportunity to escape my grasp, but she chose not to take it. I had a hard time believing that the subliminals I had exposed her to worked that well.

"You lied to that guy. Why? I'm not mad or anything. I'm actually happy you lied, but why did you?" I asked.

"Well, I thought you wouldn't be too happy if I told him that I was your sex slave. Also, I didn't want to freak him out."

"You did very well Mara."

She smiled and put her arm around me. I felt relieved. Man I had taken one hell of a gamble, kinda like the guy who bets the deed to his house on an untested racehorse. It had paid off though.

I was getting pretty hungry, it was close to dinnertime now. I asked Mara if she was hungry.

"Yeah. I'm starving!" she replied.

I realized that she hadn't eaten any food since last night, and all she had last night was a salad.. She hadn't complained about being hungry though.

"Why didn't you tell me you were hungry?" I asked.

"I didn't want to bother you with it. I don't need food right now, but I really want some."

We pulled into a nearby restaurant, the same one we had eaten at last night. She didn't order a salad this time. This time she ordered a huge steak and started wolfing it down the moment it was set on the table.

"Whoa there. Eat normally!" I said.

Her face reddened. "I'm sorry Master"

"It's all right. Look, whenever you get hungry, let me know. You don't need to wait until you're famished to ask for food." I said.

She nodded and smiled. We resumed eating. After dinner we left the restaurant. I had fun doing these things with her. It was bizarre. When I first started following her, I had planned on having a lot of fun with her, but not like this. My paranoia started surfacing. Things wern't right here. I was supposed to be training her to become a slave, not taking her to arcades and restaurants! I had all these feelings for her now, feelings I wasn't supposed to have. I began to wonder if Mara had been manipulating me in some way. Was she an agent planted by a rival slave ring? Did she have an ulterior motive? I was going to find out!

"We're going back to the house. There's something we need to do." I said.

I led Mara down to the basement. She looked at me with curiousity as I readied another one of my special chairs. The device bolted to the top of this chair was a very advanced lie detector. It didn't work like a polygraph machine did. When a person lies, certain areas of the brain light up with neural activity. This device scanned the brain for that activity. No matter how good one was at lying, they couldn't fool this device. I sat Mara in the chair, strapped her in, and seated the helmet over her head. I activated it and sat down behind a computer monitor.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Marline Jenson." she replied.

The graph on the computer monitor indicated that she was being truthful.

"Are you an agent planted by a rival slave ring?"

She gave me a curious look. "No." she replied.

Again, she was telling the truth.

"Are you leading me into some sort of trap?"

"No! What's going on here?" she asked.

"All you need to do is truthfully answer the questions I'm asking."

"Okay. I don't know why I have to be in this chair, but you're the master." she replied.

The computer graphs indicated that she was calm, a bit curious, and above all, being honest. My paranoia started to subside, but I had a few more questions I wanted to ask.

"How do you feel about being turned into an obediant sex slave?" I asked.

"At first, when I realized that I had an unbreakable compulsion to obey you, I was a bit frightened. Actually, part of me is still afraid of what you're going to do with me. I've heard on the news these horror stories about girls being shipped off to third world countries and being treated as sex toys. Part of me is afraid of that happening to me..."

"And what about the other part of you?" I asked.

"That part... likes what's going on. That part of me liked being tied to the bed. That part of me wants more..."

"You like being a slave then?" I asked.

'I like being your slave. I'll obey anybody you want me to obey, I have no choice. But I like obeying you. You're a nice person."

I felt a twinge of guilt. I had kidnapped, drugged, and at least partly brainwashed this woman, and here she was telling me I was a nice person. I thought of a slave girl I had brainwashed awhile back. Her master kept her in a cage and frequently used a shock collar and a cattle prod on her, yet she was still madly in love with him. It was a testiment to how badly I had screwed her mind up... Mara sat there looking at me with those innocent eyes. That just made the guilt worse. What had I done?

"Mara. I've brainwashed you, you know that. You think I'm a nice guy because of the programming I crammed into your brain!" I said.

"I think you're a nice guy because you took me out to eat, and took me to my favorite place, and you stuck it out through 9 games of air hockey when most everybody else I know won't even try to play me at it anymore because they hate to lose! "

I undid the straps holding her to the chair. "I had fun with you today, I admit it." I said.

"I had fun too... and not just playing air hockey..." She grinned. "I think I kinda like this whole obedience thing. It's kinky."

She started taking her clothing off. "Being down here, wanting to obey... needing to obey... it does strange things to a girl..." she said.

"Finish removing your clothing, then lie down on the table over there." I pointed to a table with restraints on it.

"Yes Master!" she said.