Virtual Slavery: Prologue

Prologue

The image of a naked woman fills the notebook computer screen.

She is on her knees, seen from behind and to her right side. Her asshole and dilated shaven sex are clearly visible. The upturned soles of her feet. The side of one white breast flattened against a burgundy bedspread. Her face, but for one startlingly blue eye which seems to be staring not at the bedspread an inch away but inward, is hidden by outstretched arms and a sweep of black hair. The arms extend to wrists bound together by three wraps of white rope, the end of which disappears off screen. The woman's hands are clenched into ambiguous fists.

Winston studies the screen. In the original photograph his come can be seen in her cunt, but he is not certain it has scanned. It doesn't really matter. The woman has obviously just been fucked and is positioned to be penetrated again, though this time by eyes and minds and imaginations.

The prepared Email list contains nine entries, anonymous code names or numbers he has made contact with at various sites on the Internet. His hand moves over the keyboard. For a moment he hesitates before clicking SEND. He has not done this before. Are there unforeseen, unforeseeable consequences?

As his finger descends, he tries to imagine flesh turned into 0's and 1's being transmitted and almost simultaneously reassembled at nine other computers to be viewed, savored, fantasized, masturbated over. Though probably not immediately. And where and by whom? His gut tightens. His cock is hard.

Staring at the screen he is about to unzip his pants and masturbate when the telephone rings. He lets the answering machine record the too familiar voice of his wife's personal assistant.

"This is Christopher, Mr. Plath. Mrs. Plath asked me to let you know that her meeting is running late. She apologizes and expects to be home by 8:30 or 9:00 at the latest."

He erases the message and stands, a tall broad shouldered man, still trim though his weathered face and graying hair and moustache put him somewhere in middle age. Placing the eyeglasses he has only recently needed for close work on the rosewood desk, he walks across the room to the liquor cabinet and pours a couple of fingers of Laphroaig, the most richly flavored single malt Scotch. It is not quite 6:00 p.m. If she had come home by 7:00 he would have waited for her.

Crystal glass pleasingly smooth and heavy in his hand, he stands by the sliding glass doors to the balcony. The apartment is on the highest floor of one of the few tall buildings on the Cambridge side of the Charles and on this cold clear November night he has a spectacular view across the river toward the gold dome of the capital and the Boston skyline, including the building which houses her office.

He takes a sip of scotch. He is glad he made the decision to send the picture before the telephone call. That would have been petty. But he smiles at the thought that while she is sitting in a meeting room, talking to some CEO or CFO or whatever initials are currently in vogue, or in discussion with her partners, or directing her staff, buttoned up, no nonsense, all business, somewhere in the world nine men--or women--will be viewing her quite differently.

To Be Continued…