Pushing Yourself
By Kallie




	You wake up. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. But you’re not at home, in your bed. You’re on your feet, in the gym. It’s deserted and dark outside, and you don’t need to check your phone to know that it’s after midnight. Your local gym is open 24/7, and it’s most often late at night that you find yourself drawn there. ‘Drawn there’ is the only appropriate phrase. Going to the gym isn’t really a choice for you anymore. It’s a need that settles over you almost every day, when you have the free time to fulfill it. You find yourself slipping into trance, drawn to exercise by a siren’s call buried deep in your own mind. You love it. Of course you do. Your Mistress is the one who put it there.

	How long have you been exercising? You look at yourself in the full-length mirror in front of you, mounted to the wall of the gym. Your toned, hardened, muscular body is flushed and heaving with sweat, the muscles you’ve worked so hard to build showing signs of strain. You must have been here for hours. That thought excites you and, despite all the strength in your body, your knees go momentarily weak as arousal hits you. Exercise is obedience. Exercise is submission. Exercise is worship. The mantra your mistress taught you echoes through your head, reinforced by the binaural beats pounding in your ears from your phone. You listen to them whenever you work out. That’s something else your Mistress made sure of. They leave you susceptible, and in that susceptible state, merely thinking of your mantra sends you slipping a little deeper into trance. You look into your own eyes in the mirror, and the sight of how blank and vacant you are has you plummeting deeper still. For you, trance is no longer a simple, binary matter of awake or asleep. Your Mistress has you far too deeply brainwashed for that. Her spider’s web of hypnotic triggers and associations keeps you deliciously and pleasurably ensnared at all times, guiding your actions, pulling at your emotions, taking you deep into trance whenever the moment’s right. At this point, are you ever truly awake? Ever truly not hypnotized? You hope not. Your Mistress’s control helps you function so much better. You’ve been working out in the gym for hours, only barely aware of what you were doing, following the training routine programmed into you with your mind awash in simple, blissful, trancey pleasure. Why would you ever want to be free of that?

	A sudden, nagging instinct reminds you that you’ve taken enough of a break. Your breath has returned to you, and it’s time to get back to work. You could call it a night, but you can sense that despite your fatigue, you can push yourself a little further. That’s what really counts: pushing yourself. When you’re aching and sweating and your head is full of intoxicating endorphins, and the temptation to stop is almost overwhelming but you make yourself choose to keep pushing anyway - that’s when the ecstasy of obedience hits the hardest. When you know you’re being the best submissive you can be. That reward outweighs fatigue every time. As long as it’s safe, at least. One of the things your Mistress impressed on you very deeply is that you’re never to hurt yourself for her sake, and that’s the rule you obey the strictest of all. But beyond that, you love to push yourself further and further, deeper and deeper, harder and harder.

	With that in mind, you set your whole body underneath the heavy barbell resting on the rack next to you. Any kind of exercise can be worship, can be submission, but tonight, right now, it’s this. Slowly and carefully, you begin to lift it out of the rack, allowing its weight to rest across the whole width of your shoulders. The weight of it feels draining, after so long already spent expending your energy, but it feels familiar too. You turn to face the mirror again. The sight of yourself, ready to workout, brings another faint flickering of arousal, but as strong as before. You need to focus. The proper form and position comes as naturally to you as breathing, after so much practice, but you still devote all of your attention to making sure that you’re perfect. Nothing less than perfection is good enough. Once your form is correct, right down to the millimeter, you start squatting.

	Your legs bend, the heavy weight on your shoulders bearing down on you. You resist it, using the strength in your legs to maintain your form as you slowly sink into a perfect squat, keeping your back straight and sticking your ass out behind you. As you squat, you feel all the coiled tension in your powerful legs begin to build, and as it does, your tired, overworked muscles begin to ache with the strain. The dull, warm, burning pain spreads out through your thighs and across your hips, making you shiver and moan softly with the strain as you fight against your pain and fatigue. The moan isn’t all pain though. In a way it is, perhaps, but the pain feels good, and that’s the real reason you find yourself moaning. The pain of pushing yourself is as familiar as a lover’s caress, and more than anything else, it reminds you of submission. Your pain is the perfect sacrifice for your Mistress. The perfect tribute. You never feel like a better and more obedient submissive than when you’re suffering for the sake of making yourself more perfect for her. And the obedience feels so good. So blissful. There’s nothing quite like it. Nothing as intense and as visceral. Exercising like you are now, it’s like every higher function of your mind simply shuts down, leaving you a raw and mindless thing, almost more like a machine than a person. All you feel is pain and heat and exertion and the sweat on your skin and the sensation of your heart pounding and your lungs screaming. There’s a purity to it, and after all the hypnotic conditioning you’ve been through, it’s exactly the same purity you find in submission.

	After a long moment that stretches into an eternity of effort and struggle, you push yourself even harder, straining every sinew to straighten your legs and raise yourself back into the position you started in. That’s one. One squat. That realization prompts a small burst of happiness in your chest, your programmed reward for completing the task at hand. But at the same time, you know that this is just the beginning of your set. There’s so much more to be done, and no time to wait or relax. So, you begin again. Your body protests even louder, but with the ease of long practice. After that, it’s easy to slip into a rhythm. You become one with the pain and exertion of it, slipping into a state of concentration that’s almost like trance, but is something else entirely. Everything harmonizes. It’s the closest you come to a true religious experience. Your breathing wants to become ragged, but with the discipline your Mistress taught you, you master it, forcing yourself to take only long, deep, rejuvenating breaths that remind you so very much of the way she hypnotizes you. Your heart rate seems to sync up with your breathing, and you use those natural rhythms to set the pace of your exercise. It all comes together, along with the binaural beats pulsing in each ear, like different voices in a choir, and suddenly your workout becomes almost effortless. You’re still aware of the exertion but it feels distant, irrelevant, compared to the purposeful, obedient service of your exercise. Each squat, each rep is like a prayer, and the rhythm of it all takes you deeper and deeper with each one.

	Then, suddenly, something changes in the air. You sense it, before it becomes something you can put your finger on. The hairs on the back of your neck all stand up, sending a cold, welcome chill down your spine, and a fresh wave of submissiveness washes over you. It excites you. There’s only one thing in the whole world that makes you feel that way. Your Mistress’s presence. You smell it. You smell her. Her perfumed, feminine aroma somehow cuts across the thick musk hanging about the gym with ease, and it’s instantly intoxicating. She’s here. You can hear her footsteps now, coming up behind you, but you don’t look round. To do so would be improper. That’s your rule, not hers. But it feels right, and you know that when she drops in on you unexpectedly like this, at the gym, she likes to find you enraptured by the exercise that forms your worship to her. So, you keep working out, and completely your set as she approaches you, taking her time to enjoy the sight of your body.

	“Good,” she murmurs once she notices that you’ve finished your set, approval in her voice. Your bosom swells with pride, and as warm as your cheeks already feel, you find them burning even hotter as you blush. You can’t help it. Her praise is everything to you. As nourishing as any food or drink. You’re a submissive. Service and obedience is your purpose. What could be better than knowing you’re fulfilling your purpose so well?

	“Thank you, Mistress,” you reply reverently, taking out your earbuds. The binaural beats fade to a distant echo, but in the presence of your Mistress, you’re no less spacey and trancey. Under the circumstances, you can’t keep your voice sounding breathy and exhausted. When your Mistress speaks again, the smile on her face is even more evident in her voice.

	“How long have you been here?”

	You reflect for a brief moment. “I-I’m not sure, Mistress,” you answer truthfully. You could guess, if you felt like it, but it really would just be a guess.

	“Good,” she repeats. Her voice is getting closer and closer, and her presence is more and more intoxicating. With her around, you have to fight to get even a single clear thought - or at least you would, if you ever wanted to fight. “My big, strong pet doesn’t need to know anything like that, do you? Or anything at all, in fact. You just need to mindlessly keep working on that body for me.”

	“Yes, Mistress.” This time your voice comes out as a whimper. Your body is for her. It’s hers. In that moment, that idea feels so clear and vivid and hot. You know she’s brainwashed you with it before, and the echo of all those long, deeply pleasurable brainwashing sessions comes roaring back, filling you with submission and compulsion.

	“And clearly, you’ve been doing a very, very good job with that.” Once again her praise inflames you, but only for a moment, because then you’re stunned by the sight of her as she waltzes into your field of view. She looks the way she always does, but you’re still stunned by the sight of her. Your Mistress. You can’t imagine a more beautiful or radiant person. The mere sight of her body, and all the thoughts it conjures, sends you spiraling into fresh depths of submission.

	The two of you are a striking contrast, as many had often remarked. You’re easily a head taller than her, and where your body shows all the signs of many long hours spent honing and training it, hers shows signs of nothing but all the luxury and indulgence that befitted a goddess like her. Most would have been surprised to learn that you were the submissive in the relationship, and she the dominant. They had so much to learn. Conflating size and power with dominance was the kind of brash, foolish mistake that you had made with her at first, but many sessions of blissful hypnosis and ecstatic punishment had soon set you right. Now, you understand that your size and strength is simply a tribute to her. She is your Mistress and she owns you, and owning something so strong and so perfectly-sculpted only enhanced her greatness and majesty. That was part of why you always needed to push yourself so hard. Your body is hers. It’s for her sake.

	“Thank you, Mistress,” you say once more. It’s hard to think and speak when you’re this deep under her influence, but you know the consequences should you fail to follow proper protocol.

	Your Mistress nods and, without hesitation, reaches out a hand to touch you. She places her hand on your abs, exposed by the short crop top you’re wearing. You shiver at the contact. Her skin is so cool and soothing, compared to how hot and sweaty you feel. Her coolness seems to spread across your skin, providing blissful respite from the exertion you’ve been putting yourself through. But that’s not all. Having her touching you is arousing as well as soothing, of course. With her so close, you can’t help but think of how incredibly soft and good her body feels, and of all the wicked ways she’s used it to torment you. More than either of those, though, her touch is hypnotic. Your Mistress makes hypnosis into an art. She’s hypnotized you in more ways than you ever could have dreamed of before meeting her, using all kinds of tricks and each one of your senses - including touch. The way she’s caressing your muscular body now has you shivering and half-moaning, in part because it’s so easy to imagine her slightly altering the pattern her fingertips are tracing, forming a spiral on your skin that quickly sucks your mind into it, turning you into a hollow, mindless, hypnotized husk, ready for her to bend to her will. The idea sounds so good you’re almost drunk off of it. You’re ready to beg for it, a plea on your lips, despite knowing the impudence of it would risk punishment. But before your willpower utterly collapses, she takes her hand away, and the hypnotic effect of her presence diminishes just enough for you to maintain control of yourself.

	“You look so good like this,” your Mistress purrs. The lust in her voice is utterly naked and undisguised. The way she’s looking at you is hungry, and it sends tingles all along your spine. She’s not looking at you like a person right now. She’s looking at you like you’re just an object. An object to be possessed and used and refined and taken pleasure in. You love it when she looks at you that way. “So strong, yet so vulnerable. And so devoted. So perfect.”

	“Thank you, Mistress,” you whisper. Your head is empty, and your body boiling over with lust. Combined with how much aching pain and tension you’re carrying around in your muscles, it’s almost unbearable.

	“You’re welcome,” she replied, grinning. Then, abruptly, she turns, and starts walking away. “Finish your set quickly,” she calls back. “You’ve been working out a long time. Warm down thoroughly. You mustn’t hurt yourself.”

	“Yes, Mistress.” Her concern is as touching as ever, but you’d be lying if you tried to pretend you weren’t a little disappointed to see her leaving so soon. It feels like an anticlimax.

	“And then,” she adds belatedly, as if it’s an afterthought, although you’re sure isn’t. “Come for your shower quickly. I’ll be waiting for you in the changing rooms.”

	At that, you grin. Just from the tone of her voice, you can tell exactly what she wants from you. Pushing yourself isn’t the only way to worship her.

	“Yes, Mistress,” you reply. “I love you.”

	“I love you too,” she says, and you turn your attention back to finishing your workout, already shivering with anticipation at the night of pleasure to come.


















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Special thanks to these wonderful patrons, who helped to make this possible:
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