Crap. "Um. Anything that might affect me? Or our relationship, if we have one? Those seem the most important, probably." 

"Things that might affect our relationship... well, good news on at least one front, my mom is very supportive of me abdicating to Kallisto—she's my sister, did I mention her?—so you won't have to worry about her being mad if you decide to go through with owning me. Um, we have our own calendar of holidays that doesn't have a whole lot to do with any you would've heard of, so if you start dating me seriously I'll be inviting you to family events at seemingly random times, unless you decide you don't want to meet them. Or if you make me your vassal and command me to cut off all contact with my family and move across the country with you or something like that," she says, way too cheerfully.

"...I feel like your mother might be mad at me if I, um, own you for other reasons, not just family inheritance related ones. Why are you so okay with um, stuff like this, though. Um. If you don't mind me asking. Regardless I'm not going to make you cut off contact with your family though, not unless it's something you'd actually want me to do and it's good for you? And also maybe I'd want to make really sure of it first." That is just, way more power than he wants to have. (For certain definitions of want. The thought of it is... appealing.) 

"I did tell you," she reminds him, "that I considered very carefully whether I would like to be this crazy. That includes thinking through the possible consequences. Making me cut off my family and run away with you is honestly pretty tame as those go. And what else would Mom be mad about? I'm not planning to let her think for a second you coerced me into it, if that's what you're worried about."

"...even if she's not worried that I coerced you into it" and whatever Rosy is sure about, he sure isn't, but they can get to that later "I feel like she might have a problem with someone being able to control her daughter and um, do whatever he, um, wants with her." John blushes a little. "If you know what I mean." She knows what he means, he can tell. 

"Right, but she's not going to blame you for that, she's going to know perfectly well that this harebrained scheme was all mine and all you did was agree to it." She is grinning the grin of someone who is finding it so, so difficult not to tease him with details of what owning her might entail.

"...even if that's true," and he has trouble believing that she won't be blaming him at all, "she still... loves you and wants you to be free of mind control? Right? Wouldn't she take, um, magical action to free you from my vile clutches? So to speak?" 

"No, why would she? If she did I'd just go right back. Anyway, your clutches are hardly vile. Hypothetically speaking."

Possibly there's something she's missing here. (Or he is?) "Possibly your mother is different from most mothers," he says, "but I feel like most mothers would stop at nothing, including logic, to keep their daughters especially free of, well, mind control. Being enslaved to someone else's will. That sort of thing." He's going to get turned on if he keeps thinking about this and doesn't really want to be at the moment... "Even if it is consensual I feel like that's not a nuance that mothers are prone to believe or understand, especially since I could make you do anything I want? I actually have no idea what the mechanisms of this ritual are, now that I think about it." 

"...what kind of mothers have you met?"

"...the normal kind?" 

"You know what, that's fair. Well, Ishtar Blake is anything but normal. The ritual of vassalage isn't in our library out of pure academic interest; Blakes have used it, when the circumstances called for it. And, not that people don't do this all the time, but it'd be just a little hypocritical of us to be willing to use it on others but call it vile slavery when we use it on ourselves, you know? Also the ritual genuinely doesn't work without the consent of the vassal. It... can admittedly be a little coerced... like, you can give someone the choice between vassalage and death, and if they choose vassalage it'll take... but fundamentally they do have to be choosing it, with their own will. And my mother is not a hypocrite, and also she's met me."

"...I can totally imagine a rich entitled family like yours -- no offense -- being hypocritical about something like that," he says. "I... suppose I can believe that your mother might not be like that, but it's stretching the bounds of credibility a bit. If I walk into your house and be like 'hi, nice to meet you, I mind controlled your daughter, she said it was okay,' I have trouble imagining a warm welcome in response to that. Even if the ritual is consensual -- which, good to know, by the way." 

"You could absolutely walk into the house and say that and she would laugh and ask you about your favourite foods or something. But it's fair that you don't want to take my word for it. Maybe I can invite you over for dinner and then tell Mom I want you to own me and you can see what she says."

"...possibly let's start smaller than telling her that. Much smaller. I don't want her to kill me, and given that apparently magic is real, she totally could. Honestly, without magic she could probably kill me and get away with it anyways, she's rich and practically in charge of the town. Possibly we could just... not tell her. Also wouldn't this, um, require, um, your mom to know what you're into?" He shudders a little at that. 

"Technically just wanting you to own me doesn't necessarily mean anything about what I'm into. I could just be doing it symbolically because I think it's romantic. And in fact I do think it's romantic! So there's absolutely no need to speculate about what other reasons I might have for wanting to be bound to your service. Or about what you and I might get up to once you have me at your mercy." She's blushing but she's also grinning; she can't help it, teasing him with her desires is just so much fun.

"I feel like the implications are really obvious!" he half-shouts, embarrassed and blushing himself. "But possibly that's just from my perspective, I guess? It seems a little sudden to do something like that just for romance. I guess it seems a little sudden to do something like that regardless at the start of any relationship, but I guess your mother just knows you're like that?" It's... rather guessable that she's just like that. 

"My mother has known me all my life and is deeply, keenly aware that I am like that."

"...I can see how she would figure that out." 

"I'm really not subtle about how me I am. You've surely noticed."

"...I think I might have, yes." He remembers the note, and all of the her that it was. "Okay. I still feel like your mother would probably want to kill me anyways because mothers are like that, but I am willing to maybe tentatively test the waters in some non-deadly-to-me fashion. We should try that, at some point, if I do want to date you and also we can figure out how exactly to do that." 

"I think that sounds like a great idea! She really definitely isn't going to kill you, though. Even if you did somehow mind-control me without my express repeated invitation and she was mad at you about it, she would not jump straight to murder. And it is at this point kind of impossible for you to do that since I keep nearly begging you to mind-control me."

"...you do do that," he says, blushing a little again. "So how exactly does this operate, anyways? We do some sort of ritual, and then... how does the, um, mind control operate? What happens to you? And me?" This is purely intellectual interest (mostly) and not anything else (lies), not anything else at all.  

She steers a little closer to him on the sidewalk and lowers her voice. So they won't be overheard. Also to tease him some more.

"I swear my loyalty to you, and the ritual binds it in place. After that—well, it all depends on you. I can argue with you, if you let me; I can do things you asked me not to, or not do things you asked me to, if you let me; I can have a perfectly normal relationship of equals with you, if you let me. But I can't betray you, I can't harm you without your clear consent, I can't disobey your orders in a context where it's clear you mean them to be obeyed. And 'can't betray you' is very broad; I am, essentially, bound to be truly and genuinely loyal to the person you are and not the person I imagine you to be, bound to never deceive myself about what you want or what would be good for you, bound to never interpret your orders antagonistically—that's not the same thing as never looking for loopholes but it's not far off. I have to serve your true and genuine will to the extent I can tell what it is. The spell doesn't affect you directly; all the big magic is on me, you're just, so to speak, holding the leash."

She steers closer still.

"But, say, if you wanted to make me your sex slave? I'd have no choice. If you wanted to make me your slave and not even let me have sex with you? No choice. Make me look up spells for you so you could mind-control me in even more interesting ways? As long as it's what you want, I'd be bound to give it to you."

The initial descriptions are enough to... get him interested, despite his best efforts in resisting that impulse. (It's also really reassuring that she'll have the ability to argue and do things other than commanded, as long as he lets her (and he plans to let her)). But then she steers closer to him, practically whispering in his ear (or at least it feels like that), and says... the things she says, and any ability to hold back goes out the window. 

"Ex..excuse me, I need a moment," he says. stopping his bike and standing there for a moment, doing his best to not look anywhere near the feeling of hardness between his thighs. He takes several deep breaths and tries to calm down. (This does not entirely work.) "That's... really enticing," he manages after a while. "Es...especially that last, um, bit, about making you look up more and more powerful mind control. That said I um, I'm not going to do that to you, I will probably be more like the first thing you said. Letting you argue and stuff." Even if parts of him (very hard parts of him, ugh) desire otherwise.