Allison awoke with a start and looked around in disbelief at the stark room. Aside from the cot where she now lay, the only piece of furnishing was a doctor's examination table, complete with the stirrups familiar to all women. In the corner, she noticed a toilet and small basin. She remembered little of how she came to be here. Casting back in her memory, she remembered only leaving her home to meet with friends at the local coffee shop. Obviously, she had never made it. She was naked and had a foul taste in her mouth. Drugged, then, she surmised, but why, and by whom?
"Monitoring systems indict activity," a male voice filled the room. "You will now make the necessary ablutions and present yourself on the table provided."
Clutching the blanket to her, Allison looked around frantically, trying to discern the source of the voice, but saw no one.
"Who are you?" she spoke into the empty room. No response.
"Where am I?" she asked to no avail.
"You will now make the necessary ablutions and present yourself on the table provided." the voice repeated.
"Who are you?" Allison demanded of the voice, still clutching her blanket and looking about the room.
"I am The Guardian," the voice responded at length. "You will now make the necessary ablutions and present yourself on the table provided."
The Guardian? What was that supposed to mean?
"Where am I?" she tried the question again with no response except the same rote instructions repeated. Allison felt the panic rise in her throat.
"Where are my clothes?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from quavering.
There was a long pause before the Guardian responded to that query, as if it was consulting with someone, but at length the disembodied voice again floated into the room. "Clothing is forbidden to your station. Your will comply with your instructions now...or compliance will be forced upon you."
A threat? Allison thought. No, not from a machine, for surely the Guardian was simply a monitoring device, albeit a sophisticated one. The Guardian was just informing, not threatening, but the implication was enough to get her moving, her mind whirling with plots and plans of how to make good her escape. Anyway, she thought wryly, her bladder was the true, unsubtle threat that she was responding to.
As she padded over to answer the call, she carefully studied the room. No windows, a single door which she assumed would be locked, the ominous-looking exam table and small toilet area. That was it. Or was it? There was an odd tickling of an idea, something she had noticed, yet had not. It took her a few moments to pin it down. There was nothing in the room that could be picked up, nothing loose, nothing that could be used as a weapon. Allison glanced back to her place of waking. What she had mistaken for a blanket had proven to be an envelope of sorts, like an elaborate sleeping bag. It was all one piece and that was bolted firmly into the wall. No weapon at all, then. And naked, she reminded herself, as if she needed reminding. Despair and his buddies, Hopelessness and Vulnerability jeered at her from the alleyway in her mind. She gave them the finger. She would figure a way out of here, you just wait.
But when she raised her eyes to the polished metal square that served as a mirror above the basin, they rushed her.
"My hair!" she cried, unconsciously lifting her hand to where the long chestnut locks has been. "My hair," she said again, this time in a whisper.
It was gone. Not cut or cropped, but sheared, like a sheep, with only a fine dusting of deep brown left behind. Totally overwhelmed, she crumpled into a sobbing heap of confusion and fear. At length, when her crying had reduced itself to hiccuping spasms, her helplessness and frustration gave way to anger, quickly replaced by rage. She let it come. It was all she had left.
"What is this place?" she shouted.
No reply.
"Why am I here??"
Silence.
"What is happening to me?" she screamed. Then, in the softest of whispers, as despair crowded against her on all sides, "Please. I just need to know what's going on."
"You are instructed to continue with the necessary ablutions and present yourself on the table provided." The voice made her want to howl with frustration. Just as she felt the scream rising in the back of her throat, the Guardian continued, "All will be explained at that time."
A trade, then! She could live with that. She would "make the necessary ablutions" and in exchange, she would receive the information. She felt as if her sanity hinged on finding out just what the hell was going on with her.
Now that she was complying, the Guardian was full of instructions. The water for bathing, she was informed, was kept at 105 degrees, but could be adjusted to her personal preference. The Guardian would note that preference and her bath would be at that exact temperature ever afterward. Toilet articles were dispensed from the spigots protruding from the wall. Body soap to the left of the shower head, shampoo at the right. A curious square of material was dispensed from above the small basin and Allison was at a loss as to its purpose until the Guardian instructed her in its use. Looking at the swatch doubtfully, she brought it to her nose and sniffed. It certainly smelled like toothpaste.
Shrugging, Allison carefully wrapped the swatch around her finger, wet it, and poked it into her mouth. Instantly, her mouth was flooded with the taste of mint and, as she used her finger to scrub vigorously at her teeth, the little square disintegrated into a loose paste and then dissolved into nothing.
Satisfied that this had gone well, she stepped to the shower. The water was indeed the perfect temperature for bathing, she noted, as she went about dispensing soap into her palm. Washed and rinsed, she stepped out of the comforting warmth of the spray. The water cut off immediately and she stood dripping.
"Umm, Guardian?" she said into the air. "How do I dry off?"
"Please step to the center of the bathing area," came the response.
A small light, like a soft spotlight, illuminated the designated area and she obediently stepped into its circle. At once she felt warm air moving all around her, drying her skin. It was scented lightly with lavender, her favorite. Under ordinary circumstances this would have delighted her, all the gadgets, the lavender, even the obviously artificial intelligence that was the Guardian. But these were not ordinary circumstances and Allison's brain did little more than register each sensation or piece of data.
One thing that did register was the enormous amount of money that must be tied up in this place. The cost of developing something like the Guardian alone was more money than she could imagine. Whoever was running this place must be loaded, she concluded, and they had certainly spared no expense. With no little amount of trepidation, she walked to the table.
"You will present yourself on the table in the customary fashion," the Guardian instructed.
Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, Allison thought as she eyed the stirrups. The table itself seemed to be manufactured like all others of its ilk, not that Allison had had much opportunity to be schooled in their usage. A closer, more thorough scrutiny revealed leather straps and metal rings she was sure had been absent on other models she had seen. Their purpose was all too obvious. Her terror folded in on itself, doubled, trebled, and she found herself involuntarily backing away from the monstrosity, shaking her head, her eyes never leaving the large metal rings that were so obviously meant to hold her legs up and open. Manacles. She forced her mind around the word. They, whoever they were, they meant to shackle her to that thing!
"You will present yourself in the customary fashion," the Guardian repeated.
Allison had backed up as far away as the small quarters would allow her, back against the wall. "No," she whispered, shaking her head, her young face a mask of fear. "No."
"Refusal is not an option," the voice replied in its same instructional tone. "You will comply."
"NO!" louder this time, her body shaking with fear. "I can't let you do that."
"Forced compliance is deliberately unpleasant," the Guardian warned without emotion. "It is not a logical option."
"And I tell you I can't get on that thing!" she screamed. "I can't let you tie me to that thing." Her voice broke into a sob at the last word.
Instantly, she heard an audible click and two clear walls emerged from the ceiling to effectively cut off the bathing area. At the same time, her little cot was swallowed up into the wall. Now there was nothing but that awful, terrible table. The floor beneath her bare feet grew warm, then hot, then burning. The partition to the bath was steaming within seconds. She was awarded a long, painful blister on the outside of her left foot before she could make the few strides to the only place left available to her. She had indeed been forced to comply.
"You will present yourself in the customary fashion," the Guardian repeated once more.
And though she had to force each muscle to obey, though her mind shouted warning after protest after plea, she complied with the Guardian's instruction, knowing there was no alternative. Knowing now, beyond all doubt that her compliance would be enforced, and that forced compliance was, indeed, unpleasant. Even now her foot throbbed in rhythm wit her heartbeat. Resolutely, summoning the last remnants of her will, she placed her knees in the stirrups. When her wrists were cradled in the lower portions of the manacles the mechanism was activated. In fascinated horror she watched as the top pieces moved to complete the circles and she was bound helpless to the table.
It seemed to Allison that she lay there, muscles tensed, nerves raw, for quite some time before the woman arrived, carrying a Styrofoam cup with a straw protruding from the top. She took no notice of Allison's circumstances, as if she saw nothing amiss at the sight of a pretty young woman bound against her will to a table and spread wide. She put the straw to Allison's lips.
"Drink," she commanded.
"What is it?" The cup's lid obscured any clue Allison might have gotten as to its contents. The woman gave her such a look that Allison did not have to be told a second time. She drank the cup empty and its bearer disappeared almost as quickly. It wasn't until the drug had taken its full effect that the next visitor arrived.
As she entered, the room was filled with her presence, or so it seemed to Allison. She moved with the commanding grace of one used to being in control. The floor-length gown billowed around her tall, slim figure as she moved purposefully to the table. She smiled down at the girl, but its wasn't a comfort. The woman's eyes glittered with avarice as the crawled over Allison's nude form.
"Nice," the woman commented. Placing a hand on the inside of the young girl's thigh, she stroked upward, not quite touching Allison's private parts, up over the abdomen to her breast. She gave the nipple a flick of her well-manicured nail. "Very nice, indeed."
