"...I mean..." He frowns slightly. "...it feels to me like there's more to talk about than that? I'm not—like, yeah, I tortured her to get her here and that was fucked up and unjustified, but—the version of her without the slave feelings is okay with having the slave feelings and the version of her with all her memories is okay with where I took the version without them, I don't—from where I am now it doesn't seem like I'd be doing her a favour if I dumped her? And if you think differently I want to know why, because—it's obviously possible for me to be fucking up without realizing it, I've done that to her already, I don't wanna do it more."

"She's okay with feeling like this towards you? You asked her without mind controlling her at all? And you're sure it was sincere?" Dani feels rather incredulous about this. But he has no reason to lie, so he's likely telling her the truth. She scribbles down some notes. "I suppose if she's okay with it it's difficult to argue that you're doing this to her against her will. It does seem like the sort of thing to check in with her about on occasion, though, unless you've done that too and haven't mentioned it yet either. I'm not so sure that letting her go free, even if she finds it unfortunate in the short term would be a long-term bad thing, as opposed to her being your sex slave for the rest of her life. I don't think what you've been doing to her, whether she's ok with it or not, is something that's good for her as a person. Even if you've decided to treat her more nicely, it's still under the auspices of serving you and making you happy. None of it is really for her."

He frowns a little more, but it's a thoughtful frown much more than an unhappy one.

"That's... yeah, that's... kind of a good way to put it, actually, the thing I was doing wrong before. I was—when I looked at what she thought of the way I treated her I saw 'really turned on by me doing whatever I want to her' and felt like, okay, I can just do whatever I want to her and she'll like it, that's convenient, right? But it's not, it's—she still needs things, actually, even if she thinks it's hot when I don't care, even if she—really seems to feel like it's bad for me to care about her, like there's something wrong with me for wanting her to be okay—doesn't matter, I still have a responsibility. I still—like, yeah, she's mine, and I can do whatever I want with her, and she thinks I should just ignore her and toy with her and treat her like she's nothing, but she gets upset and fucked up when I do that, and I don't... want that? I want her to be okay, I want her to be..." Ugh, words. "...she keeps expecting me to dump her, she keeps expecting to find out that I don't give a shit about her and never have, and that's not true and I want her to know it's not true, I want her to... have good reasons to feel like I'm not gonna abandon her. I want... to hold her and watch her fall asleep and see her feeling happy and cuddly and not confused about why I'm doing that. I just don't actually think that making her stop being mine is gonna help."

Dani clicks her pen, a lot. What he's saying makes a kind of sense, but it shouldn't. He's keeping a girl, against her will (mostly?) to use for his own amusement. She might seem to want and enjoy it, might seem to somehow prefer the world in which he treats her poorly, however he wants to, but that didn't make it right. Even the growth that he seems to be implying he's trying to give her, that, that doesn't make it ok. It should be her growth, her own choices and ideas. Not Sean's.

"But that's what you want," she tries, feeling unsure. "Even if all of that is true, you're still constraining the way she changes by your own desires and perspectives. She should be able to do what she wants without having it be filtered through your own personal ideas of how you think she should be. Without a mind towards changing her for your own gain. Keeping her and using her and making it feel normal means that she's not free to change in ways she would have if she could do so on her own."

"I'm... okay, yeah, she was really annoying before and she's a whole lot less annoying now, but... I don't think I'm changing her for my own gain? I... I really just want her to be okay. And to, like, not be a vicious asshole to anybody else I care about. And not try to trick other people into being my slaves by lying to them about what I'm like. I'm—I don't—I don't see how me wanting that ends up being bad for her, but if it does, I want to know that, I want to understand it. Because—even if I do still decide to keep her, it matters whether she's better or worse off being kept. It's—I dunno. I don't know how to say it. Not sure I even know how to think it. But it feels really important."

"I'm not sure how to explain it either," Dani says. "You're using her, with what you're doing, you're exploiting her, you can tell whatever pretty stories you want about how it's better for her this way and how it makes her more okay, and believe them yourself all you want. But that doesn't make it okay. You're exploiting and using another person, keeping them as a sex slave, and no matter how much you argue, that sort of thing is just wrong. Keeping someone as a slave like this, controlling their mind, making them think differently, it's incredibly wrong. You're not just making them do what you want, you're changing their fundamental nature as a person." She clicks her pen a couple more times. "I'm not sure we're going to get much of anywhere with this."

"—I mean, I agree with you that changing someone's nature like that is—bad, one of the worst things you can do to somebody, maybe worse than killing them, if it's something they don't want changed. I wouldn't do that to anyone I wasn't also willing to murder. But if they're okay with it that's different. Isn't it? Like—if she really is worse off like this, if it'd be better for her if she didn't belong to me, then..."

(He looks conflicted for a moment.)

"...then I think I'll want to let her go, someday. I don't like... the idea of keeping someone forever and having them be—just not okay, not able to be okay, for as long as I have them. But—I don't know if that's true or not. And from where I'm standing it looks like the best thing I can do for her is... keep her, and try to be good to her. And—I'd probably still keep her even if it wasn't the best thing, but I'd want to know that, it's—it feels really really important to me to—know whether I'm helping someone or hurting them, to have that be something I decide on purpose instead of thinking I'm doing one thing and ending up with the other. Especially if they're mine. I'm—"

(Another pause, this one spent struggling with words.)

"...if I'm hurting someone who's mine, if I'm making them less okay, I want that to be on purpose because I decided it was worth it, and I want to be—keeping an eye on that, waiting for it to stop being worth it so I can stop."

"That's the point, then," Dani says, trying to seize on the opportunity. "If you don't want to be hurting someone by accident, then you need to stop owning them. Owning someone like this is, is harm by its very nature, it changes them and traps them and, and keeps them from being anything but yours. Especially if sex and abuse is involved. If you care about her so much, I don't know what could be keeping an eye on that wouldn't make that obvious that you're doing her harm. Keeping her owned like this is harmful." 

...he nods, slowly.

"I still don't think you're right," he says, "but—I'll think about it, and I'll pay attention, and maybe I'll bring back her memories and her real feelings and talk to her about it sometime. But—I don't really wanna do that soon, cause she is absolutely gonna judge me for caring and I just don't wanna deal with that right now. Not when I'm still trying to figure out how caring about people even works."

Dani sighs, and clicks her pen a couple times in frustration. This was something, at least. Probably the best she was going manage, for now. Maybe he'd understand better with more experience. But at the very least he was promising to do something, eventually. She might as well finish, for now -- perhaps Karen would be able to properly explain things better, later. Dani considered asking him if she could manage to talk to Karen, ever -- likely a good plan, at some point, but now was probably not the best time. 

"Alright," she says, finally. "So where were we? Oh yes. Did it work on Valerie as well? And please do make sure whatever tracker you have on me is off, unless you need it, thank you, inexact or no." She pauses. "We should probably figure out another time to do some more, well, cooperating, unless there was anything further you wanted to go over?"  

"Yeah, I've got one on Valerie and I'm keeping the one on you turned off for now," he confirms. "And... can't think of anything else, which doesn't mean there isn't anything else but does mean it can probably wait, I guess."

"It probably can." Dani takes a breath, and gives him small smile. "This was... informative." She tells him. "And helpful. Thank you for stopping by and clarifying some things. Hopefully, once the laptop finally shows up, I should be able to do a little bit more research and find us some leads, so we have more to go on." At least, she hoped so. She still had no idea who she'd been. It was really rather frustrating. But hopefully she'd be able to do better soon. 

He smiles back, just a little.

"Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure when the laptop's gonna show up exactly but it should be sometime this week."

Dani nods. "I'll be glad when it does. I know you feel responsible, but nonetheless, thank you again for getting me everything I've asked for, or at least the material things. It really is appreciated. I'm not sure how I would be able to eat or live or accomplish much, otherwise." 

He smiles a little more. "Yeah. You're welcome. Let me know if you need anything else?"

Dani smiles back. "I will." 

"And I'll tell you if I hear about your laptop being on the way, and if you figure anything else out or want to talk about something, you can text me or - telepathy me."

"Yeah, I'll do that." It would be a sensible way to test the telepathy a bit more, when she had the excuse.

"Okay. Well. See you later, then, I guess."

He gets up, a little hesitantly, and heads for the door.

She gets up to politely see him out, and then goes back and sits down with her notes to reread them and think.

The conclusions she comes to are more or less similar to what she managed to come to earlier. Somehow, his experiences with others have been improving him, or at least helping him, even from an unusual direction, to treat people properly. To use his magic responsibly, or at least without just using it for whatever base desires he wants to fulfill. At least for now, most everyone would be safe from him, and as long as he and Karen continued to talk, Dani expects that things will only get better. She's glad that someone else has actually managed to help get through to him at least some of why what he's been doing is so wrong, even if not entirely. Dani resolves to do a little bit more research on Karen -- she gets the idea that she might want to approach her, but that would be a bad idea. Sean would likely find out, and he does, she admits, have good reason to keep his secrets safe. Especially given that there are at least some others out there who can do... things. Still, it would probably be prudent to talk to Sean at a later date about setting up some way to meet her and coordinate, if that's possible. Regardless, she should still make sure this Karen will be a good influence, and is everything she appears. She expects so, but there's not reason not to be extra safe.

In any case, with Sean being more safe for the world at large, minus a few, well, deficiencies when it comes to Valerie, his sex slave (Dani gives a small sigh in memory of the conversation. She seemed so close!), she could probably put her plans to make sure he would be safe on the backburner. For now. Getting free and getting others free from him was still a high priority, the man was still a monster no matter how he was learning to act, but it seemed more important to find out who she was, and find the person who did... what they did to her, and stop them. The two likely led to each other. With any luck maybe she could figure out more details about her old self to find herself, and find the culprit to stop them. The reverse would also likely work, though that was a slightly more terrifying prospect, and Dani had no leads on that whatsoever besides where she was found. Which would still likely be nothing but a red herring if whoever had done... things to her had any sense. Regardless, she still feels better after that conversation, and while she'd try to find ways to take him down or free herself or both in the back of her mind, it was freeing to have a more clearer goal. Even if she wasn't yet sure how to accomplish it.

Okay. And now... back to Valerie.

He does a lot of thinking, on the drive over to her place, about what Dani said. It's strange. Hard to wrap his head around. Some parts make perfect sense, and some make no sense at all, but there's obviously a way it all fits together in Dani's head—and he could just look, couldn't he, he could just will himself to know, and then he'd understand, right? Or at least understand better than he does? But—no. No. That's not—no. He's not doing that. No.

He wishes he could trust her. He really, really wishes that. He can't, of course, will maybe never be able to, because she's so clearly not willing to be open with him about anything, not willing to work with him except in the narrowest of ways—and it makes sense, it's reasonable for her to feel that way, but it's so frustrating, too—

But she did tell him about her concerns regarding Valerie, even though she clearly didn't expect it to go much of anywhere. That's good. That's a start.

Is it true, though? And how does he tell? What kind of attention can he pay that he isn't already? Maybe he should be reading Valerie's mind more often, watching to try to see how she works, figure out how belonging to him affects her. It does make her much less annoying, but... this caring about people thing seems to be affecting how he thinks of her too, or maybe it's just his sense of responsibility finally waking up a little. He doesn't like the idea of forcing her to be something she's not in a way that's bad for her.

So far, though, it kind of seems like it might be better for her than the alternative.

He's not sure he quite managed to articulate what he meant, about wanting Valerie to not be so confused every time he snuggles her. He wants... he wants... he can't even get it straight in his own head, really. But—he feels like what he wants for Valerie is not all that different, in some respects, from what he wants for the people he genuinely likes and cares about. He feels like he wants—to be good for her, to make her happy, to give her the things she wants and needs and have her relationship with him be a place of growth and joy and pleasure and contentment. He just also happens to want for that to happen while she calls him Master and obeys his every command, and she wants that too. And he's pretty sure it wouldn't even be possible to have a relationship with her if she weren't like this.

It's true that he has... kind of a conflict of interest here, though. She is, in fact, totally infuriating without the changes his magic made to her personality—or was it even the magic? Not all of it, he doesn't think; some of it seems to be more of a side effect, the natural result of being forced to confront the fact that some people want things very different from the things that she wants. But still, he's got selfish reasons to want to keep her fully enslaved. It's possible that he's deceiving himself about it, that it feels like he's doing this for her when actually it's for his own convenience. And he fucking hates that idea. He's disgusted with himself at the thought. Dammit, if he's going to twist her mind to his own ends, he should fucking well own it, not pretend it's for her own good.

But how does he find out? How does he examine his motivations and tell what the balance is between generosity, responsibility, and selfishness?

He has no idea and he's not even sure where to start looking. Figuring out how to do right by her, as confusing as it is, still seems much easier than figuring out whether he wants to.

He reaches her apartment. She's not there; the location sense tells him that without him even having to read her mind for it. He goes up intending to wait for her in bed and surprise her when she comes back, but instead finds himself curling up and falling asleep.

Meanwhile, Valerie is participating in rush. She hadn't really intended to, but even with charming the silly little heads of the sorority with beauty and her hotness and her charm (and her money), well. They still seem to have some requirements that she can't manage to convince her way out of. Valerie was a little bit annoyed at having to do such a pointless ritual when the outcome should be obvious to anyone who looks at her, but. Well, she's been having an oddly good time, talking to all these other silly girls and wrapping them around her finger. It's given her plenty of opportunities to build up her power base in the sorority, what with all the newcomers looking up to her already. Who knows, maybe she'll be president soon enough. And that would be so fucking hot, and give her plenty of opportunities for fun. 

And it also was giving her plenty of opportunities to find a cute girl who would love to submit to Sean, to fulfill his challenge to her. More difficult than she'd thought, perhaps, but it wasn't like she was a weak willed little sniveling coward just like most other people. She was devoted to Sean, she wanted to please him, and she really wanted to watch him dominate someone else. To take them the way he'd taken her, to watch from the outside, touching herself (if he allowed her too, nnf) as he held her down and made her his, and thanked Valerie for being such a good servant. Valerie pressed her legs together surreptitiously together under the table and suppressed a soft moan at the thought. Fuck. She couldn't fucking wait. 

But there had been more setbacks than she'd expected. She'd been able to tell, easily enough, from carefully talking and leading these silly sheep around with her words whether they were into both boys as well as girls (the second was obvious, of course, she could tell that just by seeing how they looked at her). And it didn't take much more questioning to pry into their tiny minds to see if they wanted to be dominated by those better and stronger and more important than they were. Most weren't, the fools, or at least weren't ready to face such truths. But one, or two... they craved to be put in their rightful place in the natural order, submitting and kneeling and bowing at the feet of those stronger and better than them. They didn't want to admit it, but Valerie could tell, in how they responded to her sharp words, her seductive touches. It was a delight knowing that she'd found someone. 

The first girl Valerie had almost told straight out, and she had not been pleased. She now shrunk back from Valerie in fear which was always a delightful thing to see. The weak and lowly commoners should be afraid of her. But it wasn't what she was going for, and now she had no way to convince the annoying bitch that her rightful place was at her feet. And Sean's. Mostly Sean's, but hers as well. If Sean would let her. 

But this second girl (Lizzie?) was very cute, and almost a better catch. Soft and small and very cute. Not as attractive as Valerie, of course, but if you liked small blondes with downcast eyes she supposed she had something going for her. But unlike with the other girl, Valerie was being much more careful with Lisa. It might take several days, or an interminable week. Or more. But Valerie was going to lay groundwork after groundwork to help that weak girl come out of her shell, and make him be Sean's. It got her wet just thinking about it. Fuck. 

There was an afterparty, after the rush events, and as much as Valerie wanted to stay and wrap the peasants around her fingers more, establishing her rightful place as their queen, well. Sean had promised her that he would see her tonight. And she was devoted to him. She belonged to him. And who was she to put her own desires before his. Though, if she was being honest, she'd still rather watch him control her and be so domineering at her and take her so she could feel his power and revel in just how strong he was. Besides, she was a shoe-in, by now, and she was enjoying the air of mystery she'd accidentally been cultivating. And so she swanned off, with a sly burning glance at Liana, to head back to her apartment to see Sean. She really hoped he was there already, so he could fuck her. Take her. She moaned, and pressed her fingers into her clit as she drove, probably faster than she should, but, well. It's not like she hadn't charmed a traffic cop before. 

When she finally arrived Valerie was overjoyed to see him there in her room... and then disheartened to see him asleep. On her bed. Well, his bed (fuck) but still. Valerie pouted. It was his prerogative, of course, to tell her one thing and do something else. Even if Valerie had been looking forward to seeing him tonight, especially since he said he was going to be there. And well he was there. But asleep. Valerie stared at him, not at all mournfully, content in her fate as being beneath him, and considered her options. And she certainly didn't want him to wake up from his comfortable-looking rest either. And even if she did she would never be bad enough to wake up someone who controlled her. No matter how high her station was, Sean's station was higher. 

She could try to wake him, he probably did intend to be awake, to see her tonight, but Valerie couldn't bring herself to violate the natural order like that. She could stay up, and wait for him -- it was early yet, and he would probably wake up before the night was over. It might wreck her for classes tomorrow, but, well, it's not like she needed to go to those. She had other boys drooling at her heels to do that. Or, she could sleep in the other room, on the couch, or at his feet on the floor. She was better than the floor, of course, she was better even than the couch, but Sean took priority over her. She really wanted him to wake up. She looked back and forth, hoping he would get up soon, wanting his attention, wanting him to take her and hold her and fuck her and use her.. and... and. She wasn't sure what to do. 

He wakes up to the feeling of Valerie wanting his attention, and yawns a little, and opens his eyes, and smiles when he sees her fidgeting by the bed.

"Mmm. C'mere," he says sleepily, reaching out an arm ready to wrap around her and pull her in.

Valerie breathes a sigh of relief when she sees him, and the smiles softly and bites her lip, before walking over to him. She starts to act sultry as she walks, wanting to be used, but quickly realized from, well, how he's lying and his sleepy tone that he's not in the mood for that sort of thing. (Yet, hopefully.) And even though she wants to feel his control over her, well, his control is about giving him what he wants. Which right now is to hold her. And well, she does like being held. For some reason. She walks over to his arm, and lets it wrap comfortably around her, letting him pull her into bed comfortably with him, giving a small contented sigh as he does so. 

He tucks his arm around her waist and holds her close and kisses her, softly and sleepily. "Mmmmmmmmm. Hi." Kiss. "Mine."