IV
He awoke to numbness. Numbness. No pain, no feeling. Nothingness it was a black void. There was nothing he could relate to. For a long moment he was not even sure that he was still on the same plane that he had been on a short while ago. X wanted to get a sense of time. How long had he been gone? Surely, by now someone would notice that he was missing. By now his absence must have been felt. Regardless that he was scheduled to be at several parties before Friday and his weekend had been booked solid. Someone had notice; he kept thinking to himself, someone knows that I am gone.
The blackness began to recede, but not the numbness; he still felt nothing, a wholly frightening thought. He began to have visions, blurry, flashing, moving things in the distance, but other than that nothing. Numb, blank, a body without feeling, unresponsive. It would have made his skin prickly if he could feel his skin. He commanded his arms to move, he commanded his legs to move. He commanded his head to move. He searched in a nonexistent mouth for a tongue. He looked with eyes that could not focus for something to see. But there was nothing.
Then, as if an explosion was filling the void, sound, sound rushed in and overwhelmed him. He could hear with vivid clarity, almost as if hearing was the focus of all his senses. He heard and he heard. The sounds filling him up, overwhelming X as he lay upon a surface he could not feel.
"It's not perfect. He is hearing. But otherwise, it seems to be effective." He heard a masculine voice say.
"Good, leave me with the antidote. Continue to work on it. I want this perfected before the end of the week." That was Tech. He could recognize her with a sickening familiarity. The conversation made no sense. The voice was surely not that of Lila, but he could not think of anyone that had made his acquaintance during his time with Tech who would accurately fit the voice that he was hearing. He grasped at straws of memory to find a face to match the voice, but there was nothing there that conjured and image. No face to attach to the sounds, no comprehension to attach to the words.
He felt a tickle, somewhere in the void that was his body. Suddenly it was a great surge of sensation, moving up his legs, over his chest, his arms his neck his head, everything was alive with warmth and a prick and a buzz, chaotic and pleasurable. He was waking once again into the conscious world. His eyes focused, and they focused on the smiling face of Tech.
"Welcome, welcome, my precious X. And how are we this fine and sunny morning?" X looked around, his tongue was alive again, and the gag was still in place. He could move though, his hands, arms, legs and feet were finally free. He swung his hand to slap Tech, but was suddenly numb with pain. He almost lost consciousness again, but was able to maintain his grip this time.
"Now, now, don't do anything unnecessarily foolish, really." Tech held up a small black box. "This, my love, is your leash. We begin your training today, and as such we must begin with your leash. We cannot just have you running about as if you were free. You see, my dear, freedom is a prize that one acquires with maturity. You have experienced so much freedom so much pleasure. Look out that window. Don't you see it out there? Do you see the light falling on the grass, the birds flying about, free, all free? They live and work for their pleasure, thinking about nothing but themselves, happy taking care of their own selfish wants.
Much like you, my X. They were much like you. Taking on petty cares and desires with no understanding of what freedom really is. How you loved to spoil yourself and the world be damned, but you shall learn to love what you can earn rather than what you can get. I shall teach you to understand the absolute freedom of your servitude. You will be so beautiful." As Tech finished she ran a finger down X's chest.
"Well, my, but don't we have a lot of things to do today. First, we must explain your leash, before I forget. I must try not to meander so much about things you simply cannot understand with your unformed mind.
You see this box, here. This is the leash. There is a wireless connection between this and the iron maiden. The maiden, you see, is far more delicate instrument than you first imagined, and it will serve as both your guide and maker into your new world. The leash controls the maiden and I control the leash. When you tried to hit me your body was filled with pain. That was from the leash. Let me explain to you in detail how all of this works.
The maiden, which encases your penis, is very special. It does not just hold it or clamp it. It is now an actual part of your anatomy and your being. It is a part of you. While you were unconscious my assistants and I worked to rebuild certain parts of that muscle to work within the maiden. At the same time the delicate wiring was laced outwards from you penis and into the sub dermis of your skin, so that now, your entire body has a small, nearly invisible micro skeleton that I can control at the touch of a button. This process took us almost three months, but the result is not only magnificent but also highly effective. With my leash, a remote control really, I can control almost every function of your body. Is that not absolutely superb? It does take time, though, I don't have complete control of you yet, but as the month's progress I shall be able to control more and more of you until you are like a robot responding to my whims. This however is only temporary until you have learned to serve without such coercion."
X stared at Tech blankly. Three months. He had been gone three months. It seemed that he heard little else that she had said. Three months he had been gone and no one had come to rescue him. Was he that unpopular among the upper echelon, surely, not him? Why had no one come, why was no one looking? Three months, already? He could think of little else.
Tech laughed again. "So easily you are unfocused and loose track. You've not heard a word I said, really, a shame, I think. Let us go." Tech stood in front of X and took his hand. X pulled away, and Tech pushed the button. Again he was overcome with pain. Tech waited patiently until X was responsive than took his hand again. X followed this time without encouragement, if only to see where it was that he might be going. They walked for awhile down a long and winding corridor. X was hopefully lost after several turns and a walk down some stairs. He was cold as he moved through the empty space, although it was designed to present warmth, X could feel nothing but cold. The hall was carpeted in bright red with an oriental pattern running through all of the thick lushness that fell underneath his feet. The walls were a warm cream on one side and open windows on the other, making the entire walk either warm orange or a mellow pink as the light came in through the windows. There were not pictures on the walls, but doors, so many doors that X eventually lost count of them all and stopped trying to guess what could be behind them.
They moved out of the walk into a large hall and Tech continued to walk towards a door set a ways off across the now tiled floor. The floor made X feel even colder after the walk through the carpeted halls. The door they were walking towards was small compared to the hall and the doors X had seen. Everything about it was under toned in contrast to everything else in the house.
Tech opened the door and pushed X into it. As he entered he found that within was the most massive and luxurious bathroom he had ever seen. There was a chaise lounge set in the center of it. In one corner there was set into a shower space, completely open to the room with no doors, obviously this room was designed not only be functional but ornate and luscious with smooth comfort. Tech walked X to the lounge and instructed him to stand there before her.
X continued his examination of the room. Aside from the nicely placed showering corner, on the other side of the room in yet another corner seemed to be a small indoor garden that was enjoying the morning sunlight pouring through a greenhouse wall. A whirlpool was set near the garden and rather close to that looked to be a well stocked bar. Towards the entrance to the room there where a few comfortable chairs and a floor to ceiling bookcase filled with various books. The middle, shelves, however, held not books but an odd array of various looking tools, none of which X could think of a use for, but again, his mind began to wonder upon their destined use.
