Rehab
Chapter 1
It was early morning, and Titus woke up in his bed and groaned, feeling groggy and disoriented as he bitterly opened an eye to see the time. His alarm wasn’t set to go off for another few hours, and the sun had yet to rise to shine through his window and disturb him… and he hadn’t gone to bed early and woken up because he’d gotten enough sleep… no he definitely needed more sleep... but something had woken him regardless.
He knew without looking what the culprit was… or rather who it was. He could feel her under the covers with him. Her naked body instinctively cuddling up close to him, bare breasts pressed against his back. He considered it lucky that he was the type who wore pajamas to bed instead of just underwear or sleeping nude like some people did… the amount of trouble he’d get in if he was naked in bed with this woman wasn’t something he even wanted to think about, especially not when he was this damn tired.
“This is the third time this week,” Titus muttered as he extracted himself from the woman’s grip and got out of bed “gods give me strength…”
Deciding he needed to be more fully awake before addressing this situation, Titus left the bedroom and went into the attached bathroom, flipping on the lights and turning on the faucet to splash some water onto his face. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he dried his face off and sighed, the bags under his eyes were worse than ever now. He’d been getting woken up like this too often… he was a healthy man in his late 20s, average build, no health conditions to speak of… but you wouldn’t know that looking at his face right now. He was practically dead on his feet, pale skinned and with dark shadows under his eyes. His brown hair was messy and unevenly cut, thanks to a mishap with the woman in his bed a week ago, and his morning stubble wasn’t helping the look either.
Titus liked to think of himself as a decently attractive man normally, he was physically fit, on the taller side, and he kept himself clean and well-dressed under normal circumstances… but the last few months had been brutal… he hadn’t been able to leave the house to get a proper workout, and had been forced to subsist on food delivery and frozen dinners for about a month and a half before he’d managed to get the woman to a point where she’d let him cook real food… the sleep deprivation and the recent incident with the haircut had taken their toll as well… he looked awful…
With a sigh he did his best to tidy himself up at least a little, telling himself it was just part of the job, and when the job was done he could take a vacation and recover. A vacation sounded really nice, somewhere quiet, where he could sleep undisturbed, eat well, and start feeling like himself again. Once he was done, he returned to the bedroom and stood at the side of his bed, arms crossed.
“Ariana” Titus said, loudly and sternly, looking down at the woman. Under different circumstances, he’d have loved to wake up in the same bed as a woman like this. She was a kitsune, with brilliant long red hair and a soft furry tail, and a gorgeous body that was in peak physical shape. From what Titus knew, she was relatively young by kitsune standards, only having the one tail, her record had said she was the equivalent of a human in her mid 20s in terms of her kind’s life cycle. But regardless of how physically attractive she was, he couldn’t really appreciate it given her mental state.
Ariana didn’t respond to him, still sound asleep, so he tried again. “Ariana, wake up” Titus said… nothing. He tried a third time, this time physically putting his hand on her shoulder and shaking her slightly, but she didn’t do much more than before, the shaking only eliciting a slight shift in position. With a defeated sigh of resignation, Titus rubbed his temples and braced himself to say the things he knew he needed to if he wanted to get her out of his bed anytime soon. “Wake up slave” he said, trying to sound as commanding as possible.
Ariana’s eyes shot open instantly, her ocean blue eyes fixating on Titus as she smiled and sat up in bed “yes master” she responded mechanically, staring at him. Her eyes were locked onto him, but there was no recognition or thought behind them, she was physically awake, but mentally she might as well have still been asleep.
“What are we going to do with you?” Titus sighed, holding his face in his hands as he knew she wasn’t capable of answering him any more than he was. He was at his wits end with this one.
Titus was a hypnosis rehabilitation therapist… in a world full of both science and magic, there were plenty of cases where things went wrong and people ended up with some sort of memory loss, mental impairment, or in cases like Ariana, complete brainwashing and loss of independence. His job was to use both scientific and magical hypnosis to help treat these sorts of conditions. He did other forms of therapy as well, but primarily his job involved taking care of those whose minds had been unnaturally altered by magic or hypnosis so that they could return to normal lives. Most times this was a minor affair like most kinds of therapy, see the patient once or twice a week, have an hour or two session with them, send them on their way.
But Ariana was one of the extreme cases, she didn’t have any known relatives to take care of her, and she was completely incapable of caring for herself. Not long ago she’d been recovered in a police raid on a major slave trafficking ring, she’d been captive there for a long time. Investigations into her identity couldn’t pin down exactly how long, as nobody had ever officially reported her missing, but the best guess was four or five years. During which time she’d been passed off from owner to owner dozens of times, each one applying yet another layer of their own personal brainwashing and conditioning to the poor woman…
While the police’s on-staff therapists were able to deprogram her to an extent, removing most of her trigger phrases and freeing her from her most recent owner, they had a lot of victims to treat, and they lacked the time or experience to undo the damage to her mind and restore her free will and personality. So her case had been outsourced to him, and since she had no caretakers and couldn’t live alone, that meant she had to live with him until she was at least able to fulfill her own basic needs without supervision.
This wasn’t the first client Titus had needed to do this sort of thing with, but she’d been living with him like this for 4 months now, twice as long as his prior record for such an arrangement. He’d been working on her case almost exclusively, only leaving to do basic errands like grocery shopping, or to provide sessions to some long-term patients who he couldn’t refer to other practitioners. Yet despite how much time and effort he’d put in, the results had been lackluster at best… he’d broken some of the conditioned behaviors that made taking care of her difficult, but taking care of herself was still far beyond her grasp. Every time it looked like there was about to be a breakthrough, she either relapsed, or she performed the task so poorly she was actually better off not doing it herself…
Still, he wasn’t giving up on her… kitsunes lived incredibly long lives, and she had a lot of time left in hers, he couldn’t just leave her like this for the rest of her days… so he’d keep trying until he got through to her, he just hoped that happened before she drove him insane.
“Slave, why are you not in your own room?” Titus asked patiently, he knew the answer, but if he was going to condition her out of it she needed to have it directly overruled, or it wouldn’t register.
“Slaves must sleep with master, slaves must be naked and ready to service master at any time of night if master is aroused” Ariana replied automatically
“Incorrect, you must sleep in your own bed, we’ve discussed this slave” Titus said… god he hated calling her that, but it was the only thing she responded to. He made a point of calling her by her actual name every day, hoping that eventually it might click for her… but so far they’d made no headway on that point.
“Sorry master, Slave will punish herself for her disobedience” Ariana said, making Titus rush to grab her hands before she could move
“No! I mean, that will not be necessary this time slave, just do not forget this new rule again” Titus said hurriedly, Ariana’s punishment programming was… unpleasant to watch. He had to constantly be careful not to trigger it, or to quickly intervene when it came up. There was a cold rage in his chest when he thought about the bastard who must’ve come up with it… sure he was rotting in jail now, but that didn’t make Titus feel any better about such an evil person having been out there causing so much suffering for who knows how long.
Titus shook his head, clearing his thoughts, “get up and return to your bed, and sleep until your alarm goes off” he ordered. Ariana nodded and did as she was told without delay, forcing Titus to awkwardly avert his eyes as she nakedly walked out of the room.
Once she was gone, he sighed and sat on the edge of his bed, holding his head in his hands. For a moment he doubted himself, maybe this was too much for him, maybe it was a lost cause. So much effort and the only accomplishment of note so far was deprogramming her so that she’d allow him to cook food without insisting she do it for him because as a slave it was her duty. He’d learned immediately that letting her cook in her current state was dangerous, as the programming that actually told her how to cook and operate in a kitchen safely wasn’t there, so she was a hazard to herself and those around her when she tried to do so.
He’d had minor victories here and there, teaching her how to perform certain basic tasks like showering, putting on clothes, and going to the bathroom… but she would do none of those without being ordered to do so. It was a step up from him having to command her through each motion of each task, but that was a low bar to clear.
But if he couldn’t help her, nobody could, she had no family, no money to pay for a private practitioner, he was working this case on behalf of the police, so it was on their dime, not hers, and he technically hadn’t been given a time limit for her treatment. But if he failed to help her, it was unlikely she could just get sent to another therapist. So he got to his feet and pushed down his doubts and fears, he had no choice but to succeed, so he would do so, if none of his current skills worked, he’d just learn new ones. With renewed determination, he left the bedroom and went to the kitchen to brew himself some coffee, he had a long day’s work ahead of him.
A few hours later, the actual time Titus had intended to wake up came to pass. It was still relatively early in the morning, but he was getting in the habit of starting early in the day so that the times when Ariana woke him early impacted him a bit less, and it also ensured he woke up before she did and was around to take care of her.
Titus had set the table in the kitchen for two, and made a breakfast of eggs and toast, having it ready to eat when Ariana’s alarm went off and she reported to him for her morning orders… unfortunately she hadn’t thought to put on clothes again after stripping down last night, giving him a bit of a shock.
“Gah! Ah, right, I never told you to put clothes back on, that one’s on me” Titus said as he waved his hand over the stove, a sensor detecting the motion and turning the stove off for him as he went and escorted Ariana back to her room, then laid out three potential outfits in front of her on her bed.
“Alright Slave, choose the one you like most, then put it on” Titus instructed. This was a pretty simple exercise to try and instill independent wants and desires in her, she wouldn’t choose to get dressed on her own, but over the months he had gotten her to at least be capable of selecting from a limited range of choices so long as it pertained to a command she had to follow. Tiny victories here and there, that was the way of things with this job.
He was adding another layer of the test this week though, up until now, while she would indeed choose an outfit, it was done at random, she was indeed choosing, but not based on personal tastes or desires. By instructing her to choose the one she liked, Titus helped to overcome that.
After some hesitation, Ariana chose a red t-shirt and jeans from the assorted options. Titus checked his notes as she put on the articles of clothing. This was promising so far, he only had a few days of data to go with, but she did seem to be consistently choosing the color red and jeans when presented with those options. Time would tell if this was actually the result of her preferences or just a statistical fluke, but he was hopeful.
With that out of the way, Titus instructed her to go through her morning routine, which was a set of commands he’d bundled together to handle the various morning tasks like going to the bathroom, putting on deodorant, brushing her hair, and other self-care activities in that vein. It was here he’d noted another promising sign, since he had never set up an official order for these activities, she was free to do them in whichever order she wished. He made a point of rearranging objects in her bathroom to make certain orders more or less convenient each day, and she did indeed change the order of tasks performed accordingly. It was another subtle sign that there was some level of independent thought going on in her mind, since she could decide on her own to change the order to suit her each day.
Bringing Ariana back to the kitchen, Titus had her sit to eat, and then sat down himself. Glancing over to the TV, he turned it on with a device on his wrist, changing channels to the news while he ate. He didn’t personally care about the early morning news segments, but occasionally something would be said that would prompt some kind of response from Ariana, so he had incorporated this into the routine.
“—meteoric rise of the idol group ‘Feywild’ has been met with increasing controversy due to the inclusion of a succubus among its members” the newscaster said as the TV turned on, picking up mid-sentence. “Critics claim that the succubus is using glamor magic to force people to like the group’s songs, and have called for her removal from the group.”
“Stupid…” Titus muttered “succubi can’t do large scale stuff like that, their magic only works on one or two people at a time, really powerful ones can affect small groups, but an entire concert venue? Just leave the poor girl alone and let her sing… damn bigots think every succubus is some evil schemer trying to undermine society”
Ariana looked at the screen as well as the footage changed to a shot of the group performing on stage. There was a mix of races in the group, an elf, the succubus, a fairy, and even a Kitsune with similar fur color to Ariana herself. The Kitsune was the lead singer for the piece being showcased by the news, and Ariana seemed particularly fascinated by her. This caught Titus’s attention, immediately jumping on the opportunity to use something that had caught her interest as a means to get through her conditioning.
“What is it Slave? Do you like her singing? She looks a lot like you huh?” Titus prompted.
“Like… me… singing…” Ariana mused aloud, nodding slowly in agreement, her voice seemed off to Titus though. There was something more there, he could keep digging.
“Yes, she looks like you, and she sings to make people happy, do you like to sing?” Titus asked.
Ariana was quiet, staring at the screen with an odd intensity, she didn’t reply right away, but after a moment of listening to the song, she opened her mouth slightly. A few moments more, and she began to sing a few notes of the music herself. Her voice was strained, like she was forcing herself through some sort of mental block to do so, but she was singing for the first time since Titus had met her.
“Go ahead, you can do it” Titus encouraged, sitting on the edge of his seat in anticipation, was this going to be a breakthrough? Perhaps singing had been a hobby of hers before her enslavement and this was triggering the repressed memory?
Ariana’s voice grew slightly louder and more stable, singing a few more lines, but then the news broadcast cut away from the group and went back to talking about the controversy, blabbering on about things Titus couldn’t care less about. He watched in dismay as Ariana’s odd sense of focus and interest faded and her singing stopped, and she returned to eating in silence.
With a sigh, he returned to eating as well, this was a good sign though, even if it had been temporary, there had been a spark of something there. He hadn’t seen her act that way unprompted at all these past months, and she had been seeming to struggle with doing so, that could mean she had been pushing back against her conditioning. That was an amazing sign, it proved that there was hope for her, and that he was getting somewhere. He’d make a point of exposing her to more music in the future, possibly more from that group… what was their name…? Feywild? He didn’t much care for pop music and the like, but if their music could help Ariana…
“Like… singing…” Ariana suddenly said, shocking Titus out of his thoughts, “Master like Slave’s singing?”
Titus mulled over his response, if he said no, it would definitely stop her from doing it again, but if he said yes, she might end up only doing it in the future because she was trying to please him. Either way wasn’t ideal… so better to try and dodge the question, or at least not give a definitive answer.
“I think singing is a very nice activity” Titus said, choosing his words carefully “and if you want to sing again in the future, you may do so whenever you wish.”
Ariana frowned, looking at Titus with more focus now “but does Master like Slave’s singing?” she insisted.
That was a problem, she wasn’t letting him dodge the question after all… but why? She never behaved like this normally, hell she rarely even asked him questions… yet she was oddly insistent he answer this one. There wasn’t an easy way out of this, so ultimately, Titus decided honesty was the best policy
“Yes, I think you have a lovely singing voice Slave” he conceded. This seemed to please Ariana, as she smiled and began eating again. She didn’t respond to his words, but the smile on her face didn’t go away. Titus relaxed a bit at this reaction, it seemed he’d dodged a bullet, if she’d started singing right then and there it would be clear this development was wasted, and her interest in singing would just be relegated to a task to please her master within her thoughts. She hadn’t though, instead just returning to her prior task, it was possible that this might still have the same result, but he was optimistic that it might just be the breakthrough he needed.
Then the news station cut to a commercial break for some magical cleaning tool that used heat to melt away dirt and grime off of plates and silverware. Titus didn’t pay it any mind until he heard a particular line
“burn away the messy food remnants on your plate with…” the commercial continued, but the phrasing set off alarm bells in Titus’s head as he saw Ariana glance to the TV, then the remnants of egg and toast crumbs on her plate as she raised a hand. He realized immediately what was about to happen and his eyes widened
“Ariana NO!” he exclaimed as a small fireball appeared in her hand, desperately trying to interrupt her before she could follow through, but he realized too late that in his panic he’d defaulted back to her real name, but she only responded to ‘slave!’ By the time he caught this mistake, the fireball had left her hand. He could only watch and brace himself for the inevitable.
BOOM