Surprise (19 page)

Why would any woman, even a former exotic performer, want to keep her breasts that insanely large her entire life? Of course, she might want them like that during the years when she was taking care of her business on stage and in front of the camera. It is absolutely necessary to be as eye-catching as possible for the significant minority of the public who immerse themselves in twisted sexual fantasy. But why maintain that much extra baggage after committing her life to a supposedly modest religion and then marrying a public figure? Wouldn't you want the peace and quiet? Wouldn't you want to be able to go to sleep at night and not have to worry about two massive globes threatening to crush your rib cage? Wouldn't you want to be able to be in public life without having to worry about all of the extra trashy gossip in all the society tattles and the politico-blogs?

J.W. flashes that obnoxiously perky smile, with her synthetically enhanced lips, and says that she wouldn't dream of altering the form that she had when Tom first met her. She's always telling that syrupy sweet story of how the multiple breast augmentations and other body enhancements, performed when she was between eighteen and twenty, are a part of what shaped and strengthened her personality. She tells how she's been lucky enough to find just the right exercise regimen that keeps her breasts from causing her any back pain.

BULL SHIT!

Every centimeter of the woman's back and neck is constantly screaming, sending intense pain signals straight up to her head. Only the brain can't lock onto any of those messages because the nanoids are still inside her body and they block it all out. Just like they force her to have that super perky “I'll do anything for my loving husband” persona. Just like they suppress her gag reflex when she falls to her knees and starts working her oral magic in his pants.

That's the marvelously delightful part of it for J. Thompson Wells. A sadistic bastard like him gets to select exactly what Jaclin does and does not feel. He just sits back, flips a switch, and controls someone else's life as casually as the average person changes the channel on the vid screen.

The nanoids block every bit of the back pain that tries to make contact with Jaclin's mind. The excruciating discomfort is there every moment of the day, but her consciousness isn't permitted to acknowledge it. And what's even more twisted, the girl hasn't been allowed to experience a single orgasm since the day the damn nano-drones were injected into her body. Sexual pleasure is reserved only for the senator. She does all the work and he gets all the fun.

But Tom does allow Jaclin to experience a few sensations here and there. He makes sure that every bit of agony from the floggings, and the needle play, and the electrical torture flows right to her brain and then resonates through her entire body like a fire alarm sounding at full blast. Tom Wells finds intense delight in observing the tormented look on Jaclin's face as this happens. And as he's watching one of his girlfriends abuse his lovely wife, the senator sits there and sips his cognac and simply smiles as the helpless Jaclin screams and moans.

And then this arrogant bastard has the nerve to step out into the public eye and pretend that nothing in the universe could ever be more important to him than his wife and his family. He smiles for the news cameras and he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close to him and whispers something in her ear. Usually telling her what's going to be done to her once he gets her alone again. Knowing that she can only stand there and behave like he's the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to her.

JACKASS!!!

The truth of the matter is that Tom Wells went bimbo shopping. He paid off half a dozen people and he had them divert a girl in his direction. He had her programmed. He had her nose and chin reshaped and her lips sculpted and her breasts made the size of overgrown cantaloupes. And while all that was happening, he had a small team of media experts create an intricately woven trail of information that was designed to give the public a reason to believe that Jaclin had always existed, and that the two of them just happened to be lucky enough to find each other.

And I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to say that the girl who was morphed into what is now Jaclin didn't deserve the personality restructuring. That little shit did some serious law breaking between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two. What got Brianna arrested was knocking off a market and shooting up the place. The girl could have gotten away with just the money, but she was feeling really bitchy that evening so she offed the clerk and the cashier…just for the hell of it.

Brianna deserved to be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but that means allowing the nanoids to complete the job and then pulling them right back out of the body. It's absolutely wrong to leave them in there so the girl can be regularly reprogrammed with any new instructions a black market customer like Tom Wells wants carried out.

When the nanoids don't get pulled out…when a nine stage reprogramming process is deliberately interrupted at step seven…when the social ideal of Attribute Re-Matrixing is completely bypassed…it's a fate worse than death. It's day after day of existing in complete and total slavery.

When you see Jaclin Wells smiling for the camera, you're not looking at a properly rewritten personality. No dismantling of the original persona. No creation of a new one. Every single action, movement and mannerism is simply a case of all the little nano-drones working together to keep the host body in line with their programmed instructions. Each and every day, these little mechanical tyrants completely bypass an already existing personality as they make the physical form do as it's told and dress as it's told.

Brianna.

The girl who knocked off the market.

She's still in here.

She still has thoughts.

She still has feelings.

And I scream and scream. But no one can ever hear me.

 

 

 

 

Happy-fucking-thirtieth, Sharon!

Now to walk through the front door, plaster a look of bewilderment on my face and pretend I never suspected a thing. Why call them surprise parties when they're so bloody predictable?

Bob could be such a blockhead sometimes. After seven years, he should know how much I hate this shit. Sit through five hours of mindless chit-chat and ego trips? And on my birthday of all days…

Get out the damn keys, shove them in the door, turn on the fucking lights and…

Surprise!

Six close friends, all naked and ready to feast on the birthday girl.

 

 

 

 

flash fiction

 

 

 

 

“Maybe it's a mid-life crisis?”

Tam's suggestion wasn't without substance. Something inside Caroline had changed. Or maybe nothing had changed and that was the problem. Could she have been suppressing these desires for years, concealing them in order to maintain the perfect marriage, or at least the perfect image of a marriage? Tam was her closest friend, and she could trust her with such intimate grievances. But this was more than a grievance. Caroline was bored, depressingly so, and she couldn't live that way for the rest of her life. She was considering divorce, but had no real reason for such radical action.

“Maybe I've just flipped,” she muttered into her coffee cup. “Why would I want to leave Lawrence? He's a fantastic husband. Really…
fantastic
. But…”

“But not exciting.” Tam finished Caroline's sentence for her as she so often did.

“No, not exciting. Very safe. When I was younger—ah,” Caroline smiled sadly at the memory. Now almost forty she felt that her younger self had never even existed. “When I was younger I had a lover who spanked me. It was his
thing
. And mine too, I suppose. I enjoyed it. Then I had another who liked sex in public places. I enjoyed that as well. It was dangerous and risky. It was…”

“Exciting!” Tam concluded. “Then you fell in love. Lawrence is as you say, fantastic, but from what you've told me he likes to feel secure. He has a very defined comfort zone. Sex in public places and slapping your ass are forms of love that are never going to venture into that zone. It's a dead zone. You're never going to feel content with your sex life with Lawrence.”

“So I should leave?”

Tam sipped her coffee. “I don't know, Caroline,” she admitted. “It's not my place to say.”

 

Lawrence fretted. He often fretted because he was a worrier and that's what worriers did, but today he had a real problem on his mind. Caroline had gone out for lunch with her friend Tam. That was never a good thing. It meant something was troubling Caroline, something she couldn't talk to him about. He hated being left in the dark when it came to his wife's issues. He wanted to be able to help her with anything, but if she didn't tell him….

Really, she didn't need to. Something was different. She didn't seem to want him to cuddle her or kiss her, or even touch her anymore. Last night in bed she had refused sex and claimed a headache. She'd never done that before, but from reading the odd article in the various women's magazines left scattered around the house, he knew this was a bad sign. Women who blamed headaches for not wanting sex were lying. Caroline hadn't had a headache. She just hadn't wanted his affection.

So what was wrong? Lawrence wracked his brain. Had Caroline gone off sex altogether? He doubted this. She had always been a liberated woman with a flirtatious aura about her. And besides, losing interest in sex wouldn't be something she'd hide from him. She'd just tell him straight. “Lawrence,” she'd say bluntly, “I'm really not in the mood for sex. Play with yourself for tonight, would you dear?” Lawrence would be embarrassed by this candor, but that's what he loved about her. She wouldn't skirt around the subject. No. It was something else. But what?

Opening up a search engine on his computer, he surfed the web for possible solutions. A number of past forum posts, presumably made by men in a similar position to Lawrence, indicated a potential lack of
spice
in their relationship. Lawrence pondered this. His relationship with Caroline had never really had spice. He would stroke her, kiss her tenderly, make love to her. He thought that's what women wanted. A gentle, romantic sexual experience. Scrolling down the message board he discovered, in fact, that what many women wanted was domination. Lawrence had never been very dominating. Did Caroline want to be whipped brutally? He could never do that. Or tied up and verbally abused? It just wasn't in his nature.

Wandering into the kitchen to escape the accusing glare of the computer screen which seemed to mock his unadventurous attitude, he hunted through the cupboards for a suitable snack to divert his attention. Caroline had purchased the ingredients for a cake: flour, sugar, almonds, ginger root…. Ginger root. Somewhere on the forum he'd been perusing he'd seen a post….

Ignoring his appetite, he returned to his computer and scrutinized the screen. This, he thought more enthusiastically now,
might
just be achievable.

 

Caroline returned home to a tidy house. Unusually tidy. Not that the home she shared with Lawrence was often unkempt, but he did have a habit of procrastinating when he'd promised her he'd take care of the chores. Somehow, the cleanliness of her home dulled her mood even further. The atmosphere was sterile. She felt as if she was walking on eggshells though there had been no arguments. Her conversation with Tam had convinced her she needed to talk to Lawrence. She wasn't happy and telling her husband this, while awkward and upsetting, was imperative.

On hearing Caroline's return, Lawrence put away the duster he had been polishing the surfaces with. He had spent the majority of the afternoon cleaning. He wasn't sure why. He'd needed some activity to distract him from his nerves, which were somersaulting in his stomach now that his wife was home. With a deep breath he strode into the hall to greet her.

“Now then,” he addressed her with a firmness that startled Caroline. “You've been gone longer than I expected. I want you to take off your clothes, please, and go up to the bedroom. I have a surprise for you.”

Caroline's eyes were wide, her brows raised. Who
was
this man? In all their seventeen years of marriage, Lawrence had never spoken with such authority. And what was all this business about taking off her clothes…? It was only late afternoon for goodness sake!

“What…?” Caroline began, but Lawrence didn't want to hear it. He moved closer to her and placed an index finger over her lips. Speaking softly, with his mouth edging ever closer to hers, he instructed her to do as she was told. In his head, he wanted desperately to go in for the kiss, to lock mouths with the woman he loved so deeply, but instead he brushed passed her and disappeared into the kitchen. Caroline ascended the stairs to the sounds of a knife blade colliding with the chopping board. What Lawrence was up to, she had no idea.

Five minutes later, with one hand behind his back, Lawrence appeared in the bedroom. He studied his beautiful wife, her creamy skin, her small breasts. She was perched on the edge of the mattress, clearly bemused and intrigued. He joined her there to finally satisfy his desire to kiss her. Slowly, tenderly, he moved his lips down to peck at her neck, his own arousal soaring. But it was too soon. He had plans.

Backing away, he told Caroline—quietly, but with a force that was usually lacking—to kneel on the bed.

“I want your ass in the air,” he commanded, “and your legs apart. As wide as you can get them.”

Caroline complied. How could this change have come about? Did he have a sixth sense? What was he going to do to her? Questions flooded her head.