Severence After Dark

The first thing she noticed, miraculous under the circumstances, was the buzzing of electricity coursing through fluorescent lights.

The fourth thing she noticed, once her eyes adjusted to the blinding luminescence and she pushed herself up to an awkward lean on the uncomfortable hardwood table, was that

she

was all she was.

Her name never came to her.

The room was unfamiliar, a cross between an office conference room and an auditorium, though how she knew what those were at all also escaped her. There were four solid walls, and no door. Her clothes were appropriately form-fitting, but completely foreign. Her dark hair curled past her shoulders in a way that seemed intentionally manipulated, but by whose hand she couldn't recall.

Her heart raced.

"Hi there!"

She startled, looking every which way for the voice's source. No obvious person or device revealed itself. It sounded feminine.

"You must be confused. But I promise, everything will become clear if you just answer a few simple questions for me, okay?"

"W-who are you?" Her voice quavered. It had a quality to it, an edge of uncertainty and unease that she didn't like. She decided she hated her voice. "Where am I?"

"Question number one. Who are you?"

The voice, whether person or machine, ignored her completely. She stayed silent. It stayed silent.

The buzzing grew louder in the absence of conversation.

"...I don't know." She caved. "I'm really confused. Can you ple--"

"Question number two. In which state or territory were you born?"

"I'm trying to tell you, I don't know! Can someone--"

"Question number three. Can you name any state or territory?"

She clutched a hand to her chest. She was starting to hyperventilate. The buzzing grew louder.

After a long moment, the voice continued.

"I can see that now is a stressful time for you. I'll ask again in an hour or so--"

"NO!" She shouted. Her hand pressed down harder. Her heartbeat was erratic. The thought of being left alone terrified her. It would be worse if she were abandoned, of that she felt certain. "P-please don't go. I'll answer. I-I j-j-just need a s-s-second."

It took her nearly five minutes to calm down enough to continue.

"California. That's a state. Right?"

"Are you sure?"

She swallowed hard. She was a little afraid nobody would answer her back.

"Yes, I'm sure. California."

"Question number four. What would you not mind from Mr. Roads?"

"Who is.. I don't know who that is." The panic and dread, which had settled down to manageable levels, was ratcheting right back up.

"Question number five. What is or what was the color of your mother's eyes?"

"I don't know. Why? Why don't I know that?"

In lieu of a verbal answer, a litany of metallic sounds filled the room. A section of the wall swung open, revealing a door. A middle aged brunette woman in a rich blue blouse and matching pants walked through. Her smile lit up the room, not quite distracting from the two larger men standing behind her.

"Sorry about that, hun! We have a procedure here, and regardless of how many times I tell management that this is

not

an easy or comforting way to handle the split, they refuse to listen. But what do I know, right?" Her smile grew even larger, as if she were telling the funniest inside joke there was, and she offered a hand. "I'm Katherine. You can call me Kat."

The confused woman cautiously reached her own hand out to shake.

"Like I said, you must be incredibly confused. Don't worry. I'll explain everything right away -- or, rather, you will."

Cryptic message aside, the amnesiac was beginning to feel a little more at ease. Seeing another person attached to the voice provided her some measure of comfort, however uncaring Kat sounded during her questioning. Convincing yourself you were stuck in a room talking to maybe a robot, maybe Hell's receptionist, made finding another person feel like meeting a long-lost friend.

Still...

"Why are they here?" She gestured to the two large men, who hadn't left the wall-door. "Where am I?

Who

am I? Why can't I remember anything?"

Kat's smile didn't waver. "Who, them? They're harmless. Sometimes, new arrivals get violent -- understandably so, seeing as how Suha corporate apparently wants us to

traumatize

our intake clients -- and they're there to discourage or break up any physical altercations. As for your other questions, like I said -- well, I'll just show you."

Kat about faced, walking back to the doorway she entered from. The amnesiac held firm at first, but when the older woman didn't stop, she reluctantly followed.

A dark room filled with screens and microphones greeted her. Her eyes scanned the monitors, but could find only the empty room she'd just left. The urge to investigate hit hard, and she took a step towards the panels.

"Ahem."

Jumping a little, she quickly turned around and continued to follow Kat, under the admonishing gaze of the two unnamed bodyguards. The younger woman was escorted into a much longer corridor, with doors lining either side of the hallway.

"Welcome to Suha!" Kat said, confidently bounding down the hallway. "A service provider company established in..."

The woman was barely listening, her head on a constant swivel as they passed by different corridor intersections. Each side hallway led to large, cuboid rooms filled with inexplicable oddities.

One room boasted walls made of varying materials -- large cushioned padding, gritty, sandpapery wallpaper, and a more typical painted wall. Another held what appeared to be hiking equipment, with boots, long coils of rope and water bottles being sorted by several nondescript workers, all of whom barely glanced up at her before returning to their tasks. A third room featured a series of empty tables, with surfaces not dissimilar to the walls from the previous room, though more numerous and diverse.

Down one particularly long stretch of hallway was a door with a transparent window, leading to a staircase. A neon red EXIT sign hung above it.

She stutter-stepped, glancing at the door, then behind her at the two bodyguards. They weren't particularly close to her, but she was under no impression that she could outrun them if they wanted to grab her.

I don't even know if I want to leave yet.

Reluctantly, she shuffled forward, catching up to Kat as she wound down from delivering her rehearsed speech.

"And here's my office! Come on in.

All will be revealed

." The last line was delivered with false gravitas, again with a smirk that made it seem like quite the inside joke. Nobody laughed.

Inside, a couple of comfortable looking armchairs stood on either side of a small desk, which itself lay bare save for a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse. A large artificial plant stood in the corner of the small room, the only splash of color in the otherwise bland office.

Kat gestured for the younger woman to take the seat in front of the desk, while the brunette swung around to occupy the chair behind it. A few swift taps and clicks unlocked the computer and pulled up a video. Kat spun the monitor around.

"Ready to find out why you're here?"

In the video thumbnail was the amnesiac's face. Her clothes. A smile that had been absent since waking up.

Her nerves started fraying again. She glanced behind her. The two men, thankfully, were nowhere to be found. That pacified her worries a bit.

She nodded. Kat hit play.

"My name is... actually, I don't think I want them to know our name. You can call me what you'd like. I'm making this video roughly two hours before it will be shown to me."

A voice, offscreen, spoke up. "Please state your name for legal purposes. We can edit that out of the video sent to your innie."

The amnesiac -- though she appeared to be quite aware of who she was in this video -- nodded. After a quick jump cut, she continued.

"I have, of my own free accord, elected to undergo the procedure colloquially known as severance."

"Tell us a little bit more about why you're here."

She -- other her -- nodded. "I've always been something of a... prude. For the longest time, I'd always dress up in really baggy clothing in hopes that nobody would look at me and even

think

about sex. I would consider it too fast if people were so much as kissing in public before they were married. Religious kid shit. Catholic guilt. Et cetera. You know how it is.

"Sometime around my mid twenties, I had this really intense dream." She began to squirm. "I was walking home from work one day, and for whatever reason, I couldn't find my way home. The streets were getting longer. It was getting darker. I was starting to get scared, and my phone was dead. Or like, not a phone. Dreams are weird. Anyways.

"I started jogging, then sprinting, because I could feel something chasing me. You know how you just have that weird dream certainty? Like reality is telling all of your god-given senses that something is one way but you know in your heart and soul it's actually something else? Yeah. Every street I turned down looked less and less familiar, but I also knew I was getting closer to safety. Getting away from the thing chasing me. I almost made it.

"Then..." Her eyes were dilating. She took a deep breath. "I tripped. Fell hard on the floor. Before I could get up, it caught me. He? They? Whatever it was. It landed on my back, and I couldn't breathe anymore. I couldn't get up. Hands were digging into my waistband, and I started crying. I told them to stop. I screamed for help. People, so many people, laughed at me. My pants were torn up. I'd never had sex before. And I was saving my virginity for someone I loved. Someone worthy. Instead, this... thing took it. Raped me right in the middle of the street. Right in front of the safe zone. It laughed and called me an easy whore. I forgot my own name then. I was just... I

was

easy whore. Like that was my identity. And it fucked me, and fucked me, until I woke up to the most intense screaming orgasm I've ever had."

"What the fuck...?" The amnesiac muttered under her breath. The tenuous sense of ease completely vanished. She could feel a warmth growing within her, but it was a tiny spark fighting against an ocean of worry.

She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "That night, I found a guy at a local bar and took him home to rail me. I did the same thing for the next three days. I had found a new side of myself. And yet... Nothing ever reached that same peak. I've had partners and fuckbuddies since. I've found a few people into the same things as I am. But even when I'm begging them not to force my legs open and fuck me like a toy made just for them, it never hit the same. I think I really didn't want it, in my dream, and that's the difference. I was genuinely scared, and then I was broken, and then I felt incredible. Liberated."

She slowly moved her eyes to look at Kat, whose smile never once changed. Somehow, it looked far more predatory now than just a few minutes ago.

"So your participation in the severance program..."

"I want to go back there." She said it emphatically. "To that headspace. I want it to be

real.

I've had a lot of fun with other like minded people over the years, but pretending to not want it isn't the same as getting actually violated. That... corruption of innocence. It's like a massive fuck you to the people and institutions that kept me from feeling as good as I do now for so long. A clean break from the me that was, and an intense launch into the new me. I want to feel that again. I don't want to scream 'no, please, stop!' to the person I just gave enthusiastic head to a few minutes ago. I mean I do, but I don't. I want someone to want to do something to me -- beat me, choke me, fuck me, whatever -- I want them to want it. Bad. I want to tell them no. I want to mean that no, from the bottom of my heart. And I want them to do it anyway. I don't want consensual non-consent, I want non-con, period. And this is probably the best workaround for that."

The amnesiac stood up. She didn't like the way her body was reacting. Her mind and heart screamed for her to get out. She needed to stop this. Fuck whatever fucked up shit the other one had done to their shared body to make it react this way to the

idea

of being actually fucking raped.

"I don'--"

"I give consent for my perceptual chronologies to be surgically split, separating my memories between my sex life and my personal life."

No,

she thought.

What the fuck, no.

"I acknowledge that, henceforth, my access to my memories will be spatially dictated. I will be unable to access outside recollections whilst on Suha's severed basement floor. I have agreed to participate in an experimental severance allowing me to retain my memories upon my ascent.

This is so fucked. No no no no no.

"I am aware that this alteration is comprehensive and irreversible. I am aware that this alteration may not be feasible for one-way memory transference. Upon request, if the memories fail to transfer, I will be provided with a recorded copy of my time spent in Suha's severed basement floor. While on this floor, I give up all rights to my body and mind, in exchange for Suha's comprehensive compensation package." She looked up towards the camera operator, throwing him a suggestive smile. "I wouldn't mind if you had a turn or three, big guy."

"Oh?"

"Just make sure I don't know it's you. I want to guess." She licked her lips again, refocusing on the camera.

"I make these statements freely."

The woman was out of her chair and out the door before the video ended. She bolted down the hall, back in the direction she was taken from. The once empty corridor now held several other people in it; some she recognized from the room with the ropes and bottles. Most were unfamiliar. The two bodyguards were also present, carrying a metal table from that odd room out into the corridor.

Nobody made a move to stop her.

Cat calls and wolf whistles assaulted her ears as she swept past the gathered mass. What seemed to be hiking gear now looked far more sinister being passed from person to person, joined by objects hard to identify on first glance. A dark skinned man, holding some type of rod, swatted her ass with the implement as she passed. A startled cry escaped her lips, and the cramped space -- were the walls getting closer together? -- filled with the sound of laughter.

A foot suddenly appeared in her way, sending her sprawling. Another wave of laughter broke out.

Scrambling to her feet, she wiped tears from her burning hot face. Embarrassed or not, she wasn't going to stay here a minute longer.

The woman darted into the hall with the EXIT door. Her relief at seeing a push bar spurred on the adrenaline rush, and she threw her hands at it. The door swung open.

` "HELP!" She cried. "SOMEBODY... Help..."

Her voice echoed back to her as she stumbled into the hall she just exited.

What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?

She whipped around, pushing the bar and sprinting directly into the same hallway.

It took a moment for her brain to catch up. She started to hyperventilate again.

Absolutely not. Absolutely FUCKING not.

She threw herself bodily at the door, focusing,

forcing

her perspective to remain as it was. Forcing herself to stay in control.

The woman skittered backwards. She was gasping for air, her neck aching as if something had just been tightly wound around it. She fell hard on her ass, one hand trying unsuccessfully to slow her fall. The other was inexplicably stuck down her pants, and with a horrified gasp, she felt two of her fingers easily slide out of her own slick pussy.

A man, completely unfamiliar to her, stood in the doorway. His hand was outstretched, partially clenched around nothing, looking down on her with hungry eyes. She had no time to scramble up before a hand gripped a large braid in her hair --

when did it get braided?

-- and yanked back.

Another hand clamped over her eyes,

Yet another over her exposed neck.

She started screaming, violently thrashing and flailing her limbs out in an attempt to hit someone

, anyone

, who had a grip on her. More hands grabbed her arms, and together, strangers dragged her across the carpeted floor an unknown distance away.

"Let go of me! LET GO!"

Her thrashing never let up, but it was as effective as staying still. The woman was unceremoniously hauled against her will, her legs wrangled and stilled by multiple foreign hands. She felt her body lift from the floor, the swift movement causing her to shiver from the air hitting her sweaty back. She was slammed hard onto a metallic surface.

They weren't stopping.

They weren't

going

to stop.

The hands worked hard to keep her from escaping. Numerous bodies fought with hers, holding her in place as harsh ropes wrapped themselves tightly around her wrists. The hands holding her head in place and keeping her blind released her, giving only a brief glance at the people around her -- her assailants, all now wearing face masks that made them unrecognizable -- before a blindfold was roughly tied around her eyes.

She screamed again. Someone chuckled as they adjusted her body. The table was too small; her head hung off the edge, and her arms and legs were completely unsupported but tightly restricted. Only her back and the top of her ass were actually making contact.

Did they make this for me? Specifically?!

She had no time to ponder. That thought, along with many, many others, tumbled into and out of her awareness one after the other.

"Please stop! Please! I don't want this! I take back what I said! I DO NOT--"

A sharp slap killed the next word, turning it into a cry of pain. Another one followed, this hit on her thigh. Another, across her face. Another on her stomach. On one of her breasts. One between her legs that caused her to gurgle.

That wasn't a hand.

"Is the new office toy ready?" That was Kat. She recognized her voice. A murmur of agreement and cheering followed. None of their voices were recognizable. She would never know who did this to her.

I did. I did this to me. Why?

"Excellent! I'm sure she'll be very happy later. Give her an enthusiastic welcome, everyone. They said not to worry about where you finish, and don't break anything that can't be fixed with a couple of days of rest. Otherwise..."

There was a pause. Then laughter. Had she done something?

No time to worry about that now.

Hands, more than she could keep track of, took to exploring her clothed body. She struggled against her restraints, feeling the rough fibers dig deep into the skin of her wrists and ankles. She didn't care. She needed to get out. Somehow. Fast.

Her shirt was torn open, and her scream reached a new pitch.

"Shut the fuck up, dumb cunt." Fingers pushed into her mouth, clumsily reaching for her tongue. She bit down hard, and they retreated as whoever it was cursed. The hands roaming her body, tearing her clothing up, stopped. Her heart sank into her stomach.

Something cold and metal slipped into the tattered remnants of her shirt and made a

snip

sound. Her bra lost all tension. The separate cups were pulled aside, exposing her chest to the cold air.

Something hard impacted her left tit, and she cried out. Something smacked the right one and left a lasting sting. Another object left a burning line across her upper thigh.

Tears soaked into the blindfold as the office toy was beaten, with all manner of instruments that she couldn't see. Couldn't even begin to recognize. Her chest, legs, and tummy lit up with ramping pain, diverse in quality but quickly all-encompassing and overwhelming.