Luce stood silently as I thought. Her now clean hand was still picked up to her face as she stared blankly at it. It would probably get sore if she was just left like that for too long, but there wasn’t much I could do about that right now.

Okay, back on track, so how do I build a bridge between "oops there's cum on your hand" and "you want to be my sexy maid"?

Let's see… so she was anxious about getting undressed and was definitely freaked out by finding semen on her hand. Given that, she should be both super defensive and have sex at the forefront of her mind, right?

The first thing I changed with Corruption was making her undress around me for the sake of "motivation", so it would probably be easier to build on that. Hmm… 

Well, first things first: the simplest solution would be to go the same route as Mile and just convince her to listen to what I say in general. 

I turned towards Luce to give it a shot.

"You realize that the best way to do your job as a maid is to obey me."

A headache immediately assaulted me before the air even had a chance to shift. I got hurt and the skill showed zero signs of even activating. In other words, moving Luce down the Mile route wasn't just a failure, It was probably impossible. 

"Okay, so that's resistance to me specifically, right?" I asked Fig, just to be sure. 

"Yep! She's still kind of freaked out by you right now, so it'll be hard to make her obey you directly."

"... right."

"You know, this would've been so much easier if you'd just used me as soon as she walked through the door!"

“I was going to, I just got… distracted.”

“Thinking with the wrong head again, huh?”

I chose to ignore her statement, as well as the fact that "using" her was what caused this problem in the first place. 

Okay, focus, so second things second: she's currently freaked out by the combination of me watching her while she was mostly naked and getting my semen on her hand. Can I use that?

Wait! She saw the jizz on her hands, but it's gone now. She'll wake up to find her hand completely clean, so the only explanation will be her own imagination! Meaning I can blame the disgust and even just the idea that she had cum on her hand entirely on her!

…wow, saying it to myself sounds pretty bad, huh?

Fig, for her part, was circling Luce while chuckling to herself like a creepy old man. Yeah, no. I'm definitely the bad guy here, huh?

I thought carefully for a few moments before arriving at what I wanted for my second attempt. Combining the… reframing? of what just happened with the first time I used Corruption on her, I got something like:

"Okay, Luce. You shouldn't be ashamed of trying to motivate me or doing what maids are expected to, but you absolutely won't accept anything that doesn't fall within the boundaries of what you can imagine yourself doing."

The air shifted suddenly and began to violently revolve around Luce. A moment later, I felt energy quickly surge towards her, showing the effort it took to make a change like this. I'd tried to frame it as unrelated to what just happened and something relatively reasonable at first glance, but apparently it still just barely made it past her defenses.

After a moment, the air settled down as the effects of Corruption seemed to reach their end. The feeling of energy in the air lessened as it all rushed into Luce before finally disappearing. She blinked a couple of times before seeming to be jolted back to reality as she remembered what she was doing.

Her eyes shot back to her hand as she began yelling at me half angry and half confused. 

"Is-is this your fucking- eh?"

Luce stopped mid sentence as she looked at her hand blankly. Her confusion was understandable, but no matter how closely she looked she wouldn't be able to find any trace of the offending substance thanks to Fig's help.

Confused, she looked from her hand to the previously stained cushions, then over to my blanket, and finally back to me. She wore an expression of pure confusion the entire time.

"I… I mean…" She tried to say something, but couldn't seem to figure out what. Seeing an opportunity, I jumped in.

"What’s wrong? What were you all freaked out about?"

"No! I mean… it just looked like… uh… Well never mind!"

She crossed her arms as she turned her bright red face away from me.

"Anyway! I need to get back to work, you know? This house won't clean itself, and you definitely won't do it!"

Well, that's true, but more importantly:

"Geez, I was just asking! It just seemed like something horrible had happened, but I guess you just imagined it."

I spoke with slightly exaggerated concern and caused Luce to freeze up at my words. 

"J-just shut up!"

Luce quickly returned to the entryway, picked up her bag of cleaning supplies, then stormed off into the kitchen with a bright red face. She seemed to completely forget her prior embarrassment at letting me check out her ass as she completely turned away from me and left me behind.

Okay, so let's test how well this works.

I followed behind Luce and sat at the kitchen table as she made her way to the counter and began moving leftover dishes into the sink. I continued to watch her, my eyes moving between her expression and her beautiful body as she started to clean the kitchen.

After several minutes her face had returned to its usual shade, and she looked over to me with an annoyed expression on her face.

"Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Not until I start work on Monday."

"Okay, but why are you just sitting there while I'm working?"

"Um… I'm motivating myself to do well at work on Monday."

"..."

"..."

"...whatever, do what you want… as long as you don't do anything creepy."

No no no, staring at a woman in her underwear while she does chores is generally considered creepy, isn't it? Looks like Corruption is having a better effect than expected. Since I set her boundaries below what she could imagine, and she had just "imagined" handling my semen, something like letting me watch her clean in her underwear was basically nothing in comparison.

With that settled, I decided to continue watching her for a while as she proceeded to clear off the counters, watching closely as she stretched herself over the various surfaces in the kitchen. 

After a few minutes of moving dishes and trash, she reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, a small rag, and a bottle of disinfectant. The gloves made me think of a few fun ideas, but for now I could only watch as she proceeded to wipe down the counters. Sometimes she would move her body in broad strokes and push herself into the counter as she tried to reach the far corners, causing her breasts to deform against the surface as she moved. Sometimes she would have to diligently scrub a particular spot, causing her to lean her body weight over the spot as she shook back and forth and caused everything to jiggle in place.

Finally, she finished the counter and moved on to the dishes. Unlike the counter, she mostly stayed in one spot: standing in front of the sink with her butt faced towards me. Fortunately, the view of her backside was enough for now. The movement as she leaned her weight to either side while moving dishes around, the slight sway of her hips as she adjusted herself, the pushing of her cheeks as she took a step to either side while moving things from the counter or to the drying rack, all of them were more than fulfilling to watch. And that's without mentioning things like watching her exposed back or the occasional sideboob as she turned either way, or even just the immoral feeling of watching her do something sexy like wash dishes in her underwear as if it were totally normal.

As I continued to watch, she finished the dishes, dried off the counters, and moved on to the next room. I stayed in my seat at the table as she made her way past me and into the living room, where the process began itself anew. 

Wait! Idea time!

I pulled out my phone and opened the camera as Luce made her way to the table and began clearing off the small amount of trash. I waited for a moment before she made her way to the couch I didn't sleep on, the one directly in the line of sight of my camera. She carefully moved my blanket from where she had thrown it, apparently still worried about what might be on it, and bent over to adjust the cushions.

It was the same butt I'd been staring at for the previous half hour, but the impression was completely different as it pressed against her underwear while she bent over. Her position allowed just a bit of pale white skin to poke out of the top of her waistband. 

There was no need to think as I quickly snapped a picture, causing my phone to make a loud *click* sound as I did.

Crap. That was supposed to be muted.

Luce obviously heard the sound since she stood up and turned to face me. Her expression wasn't embarrassed or furious as one might expect, instead just looking kind of annoyed, luckily for me.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Er… taking a picture?"

"Well don't!"

I was about to agree and apologize when Fig quickly flew in front of me.

"Ooh! Ooh! Conor! You can just tell her it's for motivation!"

I… would that work? Well, worth a try.

"It's for motivation?"

Luce looked confused for a second before shaking her head and frowning back at me.

"If you need motivation, I'm right here! I don't need a creepy guy like you keeping my picture on his phone!"

Okay, rude, but I think I can see where this conversation is going. 

"Sure, but the whole point of you being undressed like that is to motivate me, right?"

"Obviously! But there's a difference between us being alone at your house and you saving a picture on your phone!"

I mean, I'd think the former would be more concerning, no? Well, that's beside the point.

"I mean, having pictures of you showing skin is the best way to motivate myself on days you aren't here, right?"

Luce froze a little as she tried to think of a response. She probably subconsciously felt that a guy she disliked taking pictures of her in her underwear was bad, but between her desire to motivate me by undressing and the lack of embarrassment she now felt towards doing so, she couldn't seem to come up with a reason to say no.

"I… I guess that's true, but still! Maybe you forgot since you just stay shut in all day, but most girls find it creepy if you just take pictures of them without saying anything!"

"Okay, sorry Luce."

"Ohm!"

"I'm starting work on Monday! Doesn't that invalidate the 'but I actually have a job' thing anyway?"

"Eh? Um… that doesn't matter until Monday!"

Okay, this is going off script.

"Okay, look, name thing aside-"

"Hmph!"

"... Name thing aside, I won't take any more pictures of you if you don't want me to, but I still don't see how that's worse than seeing you undressed here. It would definitely motivate me over the weekend."

It was an idiotic statement that would be easy to see through and shut down if Luce were thinking straight, but obviously she wasn't. She frowned a little as she seemed to think for a moment before her face brightened up and replaced her frown with a smug grin.

"You don't have to worry about that. I've got a plan already, so just drop it for now!"

Seemingly satisfied at whatever she had come up with, Luce turned around once again and began fixing the couch before immediately turning back to me.

"And no more pictures!"

"Yeah yeah, I got it…"

With that, the rest of the afternoon was set. I alternated between watching her and discretely playing Demoness Conquest on my phone as she finished cleaning up downstairs. I didn't use my phone's camera again, but the camera in my mind was able to collect quite a few wonderful shots.

After putting on a wonderful show while vacuuming, Luce put away the last of her supplies and began redressing herself. At the same time, my five PM alarm went off, letting me know that the show was well and truly over.

Well, just as well. Even something like this was starting to lose its appeal after watching for almost four hours. Not that I didn't still want to see her, mind you, I just wanted more already, and every shake and jiggle just drove that feeling home even more.

Well, Monday isn't that far away, right?

After she finished getting dressed, Luce quickly left without saying anything, instead just sporting her usual condescending look as she rushed out the door.

I was a bit confused honestly. She shouldn't have any resistance to being seen in her underwear by me, and she shouldn't feel embarrassed by it either, so why did she seem to be in such a rush?

Well, whatever. 

With Luce gone I was comfortable shamelessly flopping down on my couch again as I waited out the last thirty minutes or so before Mile and them got back. Season was still apparently a no go, Noitte could be influenced easily, and Mile probably wasn't much more resistant than Noitte. So what would be the best option here…