Introduction

 

The Owner's Manual for all USC (United Cybernetic Systems, Inc.) ePlant controllers starts with the following warning:

 

*** W A R N I N G ***

To reduce the risk of product damage:

• Do not stimulate the neural mesh host for long periods at high settings.

• Do not replace the power supply or attempt to repair this unit by yourself.

• Do not modify. (Pairing of this controller and its neural mesh implant occurs during surgery. This pairing cannot be reversed or reprogrammed.)

 

Which, of course, no one ever reads.

 

Chapter 1

 

Arabesque ... that's what he called it.

Could anyone who did such things be sane? Sane people did not inflict pain for no reason. Sane people did not smile in the face of another's suffering. Sane people did not spend their days dreaming of bondage positions and unrelenting submission.

He had to be mad.

Or .... maybe insanity was too simple an explanation. Madness implied illness, an involuntary condition in which the brain malfunctioned. Howard's brain wasn't off; his mind was working perfectly. Jack the Ripper was mad; Charles Manson was mad; Mohamed Atta was mad; Howard Forester was just evil. This was the only answer. Only evil could inspire such terrible cruelty, could spark such diabolic genius.

"Please, Howard. It's too much."

He formed a contemplative tepee with his hands and smiled. Her suffering was his goal; why would he stop now when her real agony was still to come?

She felt a sudden spike in her bicep. The pain radiated out in concentric circles throughout her body. It was a rogue pain; the Arabesque caused a constant gnawing, but every few seconds there was a random spike, a rogue pain. These kept her terrified, fully awake and aware, just the way he liked.

She extended her leg to take on more weight. This shifted the center of the pain to her thigh. She could feel the pain flowing through her body to her limb like hot lava. There was no way to avoid the burn, she could only move it from place to place.

This was the most pernicious part of his demonic bondage. By shifting her weight, it was she (not him) who chose the location of the pain; it was she (not him) who decided how long she would endure it. The trick eventually achieved the deception he wanted; she would start blaming herself for her suffering and, in her mind, their roles shifted: she became the torturer and he the savior.

Perhaps in her case, this was appropriate...

This was all consensual. She had agreed to this madness. No one had coerced her to sign her VolServ contract; no one had influenced her to add thrall provisions, to get the neural mesh implanted. Everyone had been surprisingly forthright in disclosing the potential risks, the suffering, and the possible damage. It didn't matter, after a lifetime of poverty, the dollar signs in her eyes blinded her to the reality of becoming a thrall.

Maybe Howard and his evil mind were her righteous punishment, maybe this was payback for her greed and arrogance.

She shifted her weight to the ropes at her front and rear and once again the lava moved, spurting into her chest and straining joints. She could hear a raspy sound coming from Howard's throat. It frightened her as it always did. He didn't masturbate or pant as he watched her suffer; he didn't twist like some demented pervert; he just sat there staring, for hours.

He called this position "Arabesque" which, he patiently explained, is a posture in which a dancer stands on one leg with the other leg extended behind her body. In his variation, her arms pointed in opposite directions from her legs. He added the leather manacles, the ropes, and the raised stage of course to keep with the bondage motif.

She had the choice of hanging by her arm, supporting her weight on one leg, or distributing it in some way to a combination of limbs. For the first hour or two, her muscles would fight gravity, but inevitably they would weaken forcing her to shift the burn from once part of her body to another.

He liked Arabesque, he said, "because it was simple: a naked girl with her bound limbs pointed in four different and opposite direction." Over time, he discovered that by alternating between her "left/right upper arm/leg" and her "right/left lower leg/arm," he could corkscrew her torso enough to get the skin over her naked tits, waist, and hips as tight as a drumhead. This made her writhing visually exciting ... intense.

"When you started with a long, sexy, pole-dancer's body like yours, Kim," he told her once, "...the image is irresistibly erotic, almost esoteric."

She did not know what "esoteric" meant, but she got the idea. She was his art, his creation: a living masterpiece, an homage to female beauty, complete with horrific pain and radiating sexual arousal.

Madness...!

The door to the room opened and she heard heels tapping on the hardwood floor. She couldn't turn her head enough to see, but it could only be Charlotte, the Devil's spawn. She enjoyed visiting to taunt him and his "model."

"Do you know you have been holed up in here for 24 hours, Father?" she asked in a grating tone. "I don't know why you go to such trouble, why you take so much time with this bitch," she added, annoyed. "Just use the ePlant on her and get it over with; that's why you wanted one with a neural mesh wasn't it?"

Howard straighten his body and cleared his throat as Kim watched. He didn't like anyone disturbing him when he was "positioning" his thrall not even his daughter. He had begun to think of himself as an artist and his torture as ... a creative process.

"The ePlant is too fast, too intense," he said defensively. "I cannot get the subtle changes of feelings I want. This is performance art. I can photograph it, watch it, enjoy it for hours. I can't do that with the ePlant."

"Performance art...," Charlotte snickered. "Is that what you call it now? I call it masturbation: the mental masturbation of a sadistic, middle-aged man rich enough to own his own real-life Barbie doll. I stopped playing with dolls when I was five, Father. When are you going to stop?"

Another spike of pain forced Kim to shift her weight and hang again from her arm. She fought back the mist clouding her vision; she wanted to hear what they were saying.

"Is this what you learned in Paris?" he asked, pushing back. "How to insult your father; how to talk about masturbation?"

"No," she said easily, "but I did read the nearly-incoherent ramblings of the Marquis de Sade and the head-chopper Robespierre... They remind me of you, Father. The French have a wonderful way of making everything about sex, like you."

Charlotte laughed meanly then stepped up on the raised platform and placed her open hand over Kim's face.

"I must give you one thing, she is a beauty," she said, slipping her thumb into Kim's mouth.

Kim began to suck frantically on her digit. Sometimes she could distract Howard from his pain by inducing him to fuck her. The sound of her mouth sucking Charlotte's cock-like thumb might give him the idea...

"I wouldn't mind playing with this bitch myself for a while. This would be a great time to use a whip on her ... she is tight, everywhere, I can feel it. The whip would..."

Charlotte was working herself up. Kim had seen it before.

 

"Why don't you go back to your room and take a nap, Father? You are not looking that well these days."

Charlotte ran her free hand over Kim's taut nipples and pressed out tits.

"Tomorrow," Howard promised, settling back into his chair. "Tonight, I just want to sip my wine and relax ... alone!"

Kim could feel Charlotte's frustration and anger through her hand. Charlotte was a bomb waiting to go off. Her father had spoiled the girl, who was beautiful in her own right, beyond redemption. She was also well on her way to becoming a recluse like him.

WHAP...!

The unexpected slap on her ass cheek caused Kim to lift her support leg, upsetting the delicate equilibrium she had achieved. The sudden pull on her limbs sent waves of pain into her brain.

"You know, Father, if you don't like to use the ePlant, you should try using more impact pain in your bondage." She spanked Kim again, hard, to emphasize her point.

Kim screamed and raised her support leg again; the three ropes suspending her limbs were suddenly pulling at her, trisecting her. Charlotte's sudden pique could dislocate shoulders.

"STOP IT...!" Howard yelled, jerking himself clumsily to his feet; he had been complaining of muscle pain all week.

"I am warning you, Charlotte. Don't take out your frustrations on me."

He was angry and breathing hard, too hard for a man his age. Charlotte turned towards him her fists clenched. They fought all the time. Charlotte was frustrated, consumed by her lack of purpose, tied to him by her obsession to have evidence of her wealth immediately at hand.

"Maybe you should go back to France and find something to do. Perhaps, become a full-time libertine like your hero, De Sade."

Charlotte spanked Kim viciously once more then walked heavily to the edge of the platform and stepped off.

"Tomorrow...! You promise...?"

She had not forgotten his commitment even in her rage.

"Yes, tomorrow she's yours for the day. Just leave me alone now."

Howard was breathing heavily, and his face had turned an unhealthy pallor.

Charlotte turned towards Kim and smiled. Tomorrow would be another day of pain, her eyes promised. In many ways Kim considered her worse than her father. She enjoyed the intensity of the ePlant. She believed she could mold her behavior, her personality with the device.

"I will see you tomorrow, Kim," she said meanly then walked out and closed the door.

Howard returned to his chair and sat down heavily. In a few minutes, things were back to "normal." Kim balanced her pain wondering how she was going to survive the Foresters.

 

Chapter 2

Strangers on a Plane

 

Ethan made his way to an empty corner of the Traveler's Club and settled into a plush wing chair, one of many in the lounge. It was located behind a long planter full of wide palm fronds. This was perfect, he thought. He preferred the seclusion of a tucked-away corner. It allowed him the privacy he needed to catch up on work.

For him, privacy was the big advantage of the Traveler's Club.

The firm paid the club's absurdly high annual fee, but they got their investment back in spades with his increased productivity. It was a good investment. It was hard to get anything in the passenger terminal mixed in with the riffraff of traveling public.

He smiled at the elitist thought; the prejudices of the firm's blueblood lawyers were rubbing off on him. He really didn't think he was better than other people but being around people who did was having its effect. It was just part of the game, he reassured himself, something he did to fit in at the firm. The over-privileged snobs he worked with were never going to stop pointing out the differences between them and "ordinary" people.

Whatever...

He did enjoy being alone, away from other people, all people. He was only 33, but the older he got, the more he seemed to enjoy it. This was especially true in places where there were crowds like airports. They were a hassle even in the best of times, and he spent more time in airplanes and airport terminals than he spent at home.

It was ironic, he had a beautiful apartment on Beason Hill but no time to enjoy it. It would be funny if it wasn't true. He was beginning to look like a tragic figure, like Sisyphus forever rolling his bolder uphill. He had even stopped joking about his workload with the other associates.

The momentary depression passed, and he turned back to his attaché for the papers and laptop paraphernalia he needed to work. No sense obsessing over it, he thought. This was just the way things were; there was nothing he could do about it. It would get better when he made partner.

A commotion at the front desk distracted him and he looked up, but he couldn't see over or through the faux palms. Probably some aggressive New Yorker demanding a privilege he didn't deserve. Fucking New York...! He hated everything about the city: it was too loud and too crowded; New Yorkers were far too rude and aggressive, basically assholes, and there were far too many of them to stomach for more than a day or two. He much preferred Boston's refined environs and temperate attitudes.

He particularly despised JFK airport. Not that it was any worse than any other part of the city, it was just the idea that the airport incarcerated you for the time you waited for your plane. He didn't like being locked inside the terminal with thousands of New Yorkers. Boston might have its fair share of a-holes who were as obnoxious as New Yorkers, but they were generally better mannered. This counted for a lot in his book.

"Your attention please, Cross Continent Airline has delayed Flight 2041 to Seattle for 90 minutes due to heat conditions in Dallas. We will advise Traveler's Club passengers when further information is available on this CCA flight."

"Fuck...!" he muttered under his breath; 2041 was his flight.

He didn't swear much, and he especially disliked the "fuck" epithet, but this was different, justified. The heat wave in the Midwest had been wreaking havoc with travelers all over the country all summer.

"Global fucking warming!" he whispered, shaking his head. Annoyed, he pulled his laptop from his old-fashioned bag and began to author a report for the file of the meeting he had just attended. He was always writing reports "for the file," he thought miserably, reports that no one would ever read. What a monumental waste of fucking time.

The partner he worked for, Jackson Frommer, had sent him to New York to attend a probate hearing regarding the estate of the late Walter P. Manning. The beneficiary's lawyers had droned on for hours about schedules, apportionment terms, convertibility, interest rates, and that always-fascinating subject, his attorney's fees, which he wanted adjusted for inflation.

A New York jerk...

He stopped and stared hopelessly at the far wall. What was wrong with him today? Was he already burning out? People thought lawyering was exciting work, full of drama like in the movies; they were dead wrong. Most legal work was about mind-numbing details related to arcane subjects that no one cared about except other lawyers, and even they avoided most of it, passing it off to junior associates like him. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, no one would ever see or hear about the things they discussed in low-level meetings. Even the things they fought over so vehemently were, well, transitory: important only for the moment then forgotten in some ancient repository of documents.

He took a deep breath, shook off his ennui, and began to type. What good did it do to complain? SAMI, the pre-Revolutionary War law firm of Saltonstall, Adams, Mathews, and Isaacson, paid him very well, significantly more than his college friends who had opted for more interesting occupations.

Mr. Frommer was a full partner, one of 50 in a firm of 2,000 lawyers worldwide. He wasn't a named partner of course -- Messrs. Saltonstall, Adams, Mathews, and Isaacson had died more than 300 years ago - but he was influential. If anyone could get him a partnership if was Mr. Frommer. He had just told him again last week that his chance of making partner next year (and making partner-money) were "excellent!"

Excellent...!

Excellent was this year's adjective; Mr. Frommer used it for everything nowadays. Last year, it had been "wonderful," and the year before, it was "great."

What do I do when he starts repeating himself, Ethan wondered?

Fuck...!