A million thoughts floated like ghosts around the edge of Ashley's mind, but whenever she tired to grasp them, they slipped away as if they'd never even existed. That was how it had been for her ever since the fateful confrontation between Alex - or Lexi, as she now was - and Winter. It had been days, all without a single moment of clear thinking. The ironclad control Winter had exerted over her when she'd turned her into a puppet to use against Lexi had faded, but it had been replaced by a never-ending fugue. Ashley was finding it hard to fight through the constant, dull pleasure smothering her mind, and it was becoming difficult to convince herself to keep trying. Was there any point in fighting? Their plan to defeat Winter had failed utterly, both of them had proven unable to resist, and they were slipping deeper into Winter's control with every passing moment. It was so tempting to simply surrender. Then, instead of straining herself to hold onto the last few embers of her free will, she could simply enjoy all the pleasurable sensations Winter and Lexi had shown her, from the outrageous and hedonistic to the small and simple - like the feeling of Lexi's gentle fingers combing through her hair.
"That's looking, like, really good," Lexi murmured to her, and gently lowered Ashley's head into the basin of water in front of her to wash out the bleach she'd carefully brushed through her hair earlier. Ashley didn't resist. Resistance was too hard.
The two of them were in the luxury, penthouse suite of a hotel. To Ashley's surprise, the previous day Winter had told them that she'd booked rooms for them at a nearby five-star hotel. It had quickly become clear, though, that it was far from a generous act. Upon arriving, she'd learned that Winter had booked her in for a long series of beauty treatments at the hotel spa, all of which were aimed at facilitating her transformation into a helpless, hyper-feminine bimbo. She'd had a manicure, a pedicure, a long session at the gym with a personal trainer, a tanning session, and more skincare treatments than she could count. Now, late in the evening, Lexi was bleaching her hair to the platinum blonde she knew she'd probably be sporting for a long time. She was surprised that Winter had decided to make her transformation into a bimbo so swift and painless, but not as surprised as she was at the fact that she'd appointed Lexi to oversee it.
After their defeat at Winter's place, Lexi had succumbed even harder than Ashley had. Ashley could tell there was no longer any fight at all left in her friend, and Lexi had embraced her role as Winter's muscular bimbo pet with total enthusiasm. Ashley couldn't blame her for it; Lexi had been struggling for so long, and Ashley could imagine how nice it must have felt to give in once and for all. Unfortunately for her, Lexi's acceptance of her new role in life seemed to involve enthusiasm for her task of making a bimbo out of Ashley. Lexi hadn't left her side for more than a minute, and had carefully made sure Ashley made no attempt to escape or resist. Filled with newfound confidence, she'd been devastatingly effective at keeping Ashley compliant - and distracted by pleasure, when necessary. Ashley blushed faintly at the memory of all the things Lexi had done to her.
"OK, all done!" Lexi announced in a sing-song voice. "Like, what do you think?"
Lexi lifted Ashley's head out of the basin, and span her chair so she could see herself in the mirror. Ashley's jaw dropped. There was no trace of brown left in her hair, only pure blonde, so light it almost looked white. Ashley hardly recognised herself. She'd been having that feeling more and more lately, as Winter and Lexi had started to change her appearance, but this was perhaps the most profound shift of all. Her hair was so bright and its color was so obviously artificial that it made her look like a model or an actress, rather than a punk. In fact, there was really no trace of anything punk left in the way she looked. She was dressed in a fluffy, white, flowing bathrobe, her fingernails and toenails were pristine and painted pink, and she'd been made to remove all her piercings. Her hair, though still wet, was now wavy and voluminous thanks to the products she'd been told to use, and Lexi had even styled her hair in a way that partially covered up her side shave, which had grown out long enough to be fuzzy and soft. Everything about her looked soft. Seeing herself that way prompted a complex mix of feelings - foremost of which, she reluctantly acknowledged, was arousal. Thanks to Winter's hypnotic tricks, she couldn't help feel irrepressibly horny at everything, especially her own transformation.
"I... it's..." Ashley mewled weakly. "It's, like, totally, um..." She stopped herself when she realized she was devolving into stereotypical bimbo speak. It was happening to her more and more with each passing day. Another one of Winter's 'gifts'.
"What's the matter?" Lexi asked, her disarming valley girl accent belying her mischievous intent. "Don't you like it?"
Ashley did like it. That was the worst part. She liked being blonde, and Lexi knew she liked it, and they both knew that the former nerd was going to coax that admission from her lips one way or another. But as futile as it was, she couldn't bring herself to give it up so easily.
"I... I... um..." she stuttered. Her mind still ensconced in pleasurable fog, she didn't have the willpower to truly make a protest.
"I said," Lexi pressed, raising her fingertips to the pendant around her neck, a crooked smile on her face. "Like, don't you like it?"
"I... I... Yes! I d-do!" The moment Lexi started to caress her pendant, Ashley's mind went blank and she loudly moaned the truth. A moment later, when Lexi let her hand fall back to her side, Ashley blushed furiously and glowered at her in the mirror. Lexi just giggled. Ashley knew that unfortunately, in her current, pampered state, her attempts at fierce expressions made her look more like a petulant puppy than an angry punk.
"That's better!" Lexi announced brightly. "Silly bimbo." The word made Ashley shiver, as Lexi dropped into a sultry, teasing tone. "Don't you know it's, like, way better to just be honest?"
Ashley looked down. She was so weak. Lexi's voice alone was enough to have her whole body flushed with arousal, and what Lexi had done to the pendant had left her feeling obedient and compliant. "Yes."
"Good girl." As much as she tried to stop herself, Ashley couldn't help squirming in her seat at the praise. Once she had managed to recover some composure, she shot another glare at the mirror, at the pendant around Lexi's neck.
It was just a normal pendant - a large, pink, crystalline heart on a silver chain. There was no reason it should have any power over her. Ashley had tried to tell herself that so many times, but somehow the pendant never became any less effective. It was a better method of control than a leash or a set of shackles could ever be. The night before sending them the hotel, Winter had hypnotized Ashley very, very deeply. In that incredibly deep trance, she'd made Ashley experience something unbelievable: her soul (something Ashley had never even believed in) being drawn out of her body and imprisoned in the pink crystal that Lexi now wore. That was the biggest reason she couldn't resist, or run away. She felt drawn to Lexi like a moth to a flame, and she felt a deep craving to stay by her side. Moreover, the slightest touch against the pendant felt like it was going right through her, or happening all over her body at once. Caressing it, as Lexi had just done, made her whole body tingle and resound with gentle pleasure, making her go limp and massaging away any defiant or unpleasant thoughts. And Ashley knew from experience that Lexi could do much, much more with it than that.
"Why are you still, like, pretending to fight?" Lexi sounded genuinely curious for once, rather than teasing. Still, she started twirling a few fingers through the freshly-bleached locks of Ashley's hair. It felt so good it started to make Ashley feel light-headed. "You know it's totally pointless, right?"
"I guess," Ashley admitted quietly.
"Then why, Ashley?"
Ashley twitched slightly at being called that name. "That's not my name! My name's Ash... Ash... Ashley." She sighed.
"Because..." Ashley searched herself for the answer. It was hard, with her mind so foggy. "I've, like... I've got to."
"No you don't, silly." Lexi giggled. "What do you mean?"
Ashley went quiet. She couldn't explain it.
