Bankrupt
Chapter 1
I never thought my life would end over a homecoming date. Funny how the course of a life can turn on one moment, one tiny decision, so small you’ll never know it until your future has changed forever. Maybe that’s the whole point. If you saw them coming, you might have actually done things differently. I know I would have.
At the time, I thought it nothing more than a chance encounter with an annoying admirer.
“Hello Amanda. Guess who I’m asking to homecoming this year?”
Victor Moralles. Tall, darkly handsome in a way that veered a bit too close to pretty, but definitely good looking. Cute enough to catch my interest, or at least he would have been if he hadn’t been one of the most stuck up, egotistical brats I’d met . The self-appointed king of the school. Or rather, its wannabe CEO, a position he claimed as his natural right.
We were all fairly well off. You had to be, if you wanted to afford a good school ever since the mid-century education collapse gutted most public colleges (and many private ones). But even here, some families were better off than others, and his was at the top of the heap. He took that to mean that he deserved whatever he wanted, and sometimes, whoever he wanted.
Bringing him back down to Earth had become something of a guilty pleasure. Disturbing as his attentions could be (I had a boyfriend, after all. Not that it stopped Victor), there was a perverse joy to be had in crushing his pretensions. Even if I wished he’d leave me alone, it was fun putting him back in his place.
“Your mother?” I asked him, not bothering to look up.
“No,” he said. I smiled to myself, hearing the newfound strain in his voice. “I’m looking at her right now?”
“You’re looking at your mother?” I said, trying to keep a straight face as I made a show of surveying the lounge.
“Does she know that you’re over here bothering me, instead of saying hello like a good son?”
The downside of looking up was that I noticed how he leered at me. Staring down the front of my nice new dress, a green and blue designer outfit I’d bought that very day on an afternoon trip out to Paris. The hypersonic had just gotten in an hour or so ago, and I couldn’t wait to show all my friends. But something in the way he stared made the whole thing feel tawdry.
Look, I know I have a large chest, I’ve always believed that “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”, and aside from the occasional creep it’s worked pretty well. But the way he looked at me, like I was some cheap merchandise on the clearance rack in one of his daddy’s stores, that bothered me. I felt an urge to cover myself, but ignored it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“And here I thought you were some kind of scholar,” he joked, “but I’ll spell it out for you in tiny words. It’s you. I’m asking you out to the dance with me.”
I did laugh that time. No matter how much he tried to play it off, I could see I’d gotten to him.
“After you’ve already asked your mother? My, how disappointed she’ll be that you’ve stood her up.”
His face darkened, but I was on a roll.
“You know, Amanda, most girls never get an opportunity like this.”
“We should all be so lucky.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I do. I’m telling you off, aren’t I?”
“One last chance,” he told me, “That’s more than I usually give. Think carefully before you answer, it’s not too late to say yes.”
“Since you like small words so much, here’s one for you: No! Nope, non, nyet, nein! Was that small enough for you? Here it is again. No. Even if I wasn’t already going out with someone, and you were the only boy in a school full of girls, and a date was mandatory, I’d still have the same answer for you. No”
“Funny,” he said, his voice dripping with malice. “Nobody ever told me you were stupid.”
“Someone must have, if you thought I’d say yes.”
He turned and fled the room, and I wasn’t the only one laughing behind his back as he retreated. Chuckling to myself, I called my best friend Emily and told her to swing by my room to see the new outfit, though I decided to add a really cute shoulder scarf I’d bough a couple months back.
At the time, I counted the day as a win. Sure, he’d probably come up with some petty revenge later—he was a spiteful little bastard, after all—but I’d handle that when it came.
After all, what could he really do to me?
The announcement came midway through my French exam, several weeks after my encounter with Victor, and interrupted right as my instructor was grilling me on the finer points of Proust.
“Amanda Doyle, please report to the head office immediately.”
I paused, stumbling over my answer as I suddenly fished for words. It was more difficult than I’d like. I was competent enough at the language, but certainly no natural Parisian.
Had that really just happened? They knew full well I was in the middle of an oral exam. They never interrupted those. I remember a kid who lost two grandparents and a sibling in a hypersonic crash last year, and they still made him take a full three day course of examinations before informing him.
Professor Engles was every bit as shocked as I.
“That can’t be right,” she said. “There must have been a scheduling error. Stay right there, and do not attempt to access any outside materials. As far as I’m concerned, this examination is still in progress.“
She left the room briefly for her adjacent office, and I stood there like an idiot trying to come up with a colorful way to work flower metaphors into my answer—the professor was always a sucker for those. What in the world could it be? Professor Engles was probably right, some sort of weird mixup was the most likely answer. Certainly, I knew she’d get to the bottom of it. That woman had as hard a teacher as I’d ever had, but just as ruthless when fighting on behalf of her students. I was sure that any minute now she would return to tell me that it was all a mistake, and the examination would continue as planned.
That wasn’t what happened.
Her face was ashen when she returned. I’d seen more cheerful expressions at a wake.
“I’m afraid we will have to interrupt this examination,” she told me. “If possible, we will try to reschedule for a later date.”
“If possible? But, what about my class, my grade. What is going on?”
“I’m sorry, Ms Doyle, I really am, but I don’t know. You will have to go to the office if you wish to find out.”
A lie, at least a partial one. There’s no way she’d let them cut one of her exams short, not unless she was satisfied it was essential. Maybe she didn’t know the full story, but that look she gave me...
“Please,” I asked, “my parents, my family, are they—”
“I can’t say. Just do as they instructed. I’m sure that everything will turn out perfectly well.”
“And Amanda,” she caught my wrist just as I was walking out the door, “Good luck.”
As it happened, I didn’t have to wait for the office, or for the chancellor. As I passed a study nook on the way over, every head in the room turned to stare.
“What?” I asked in response to all the wide eyed stares, getting mighty sick of the way they looked at me. Like some kind of exotic animal in a zoo, ignorant of the placard on display for all the world to see.
Finally, someone worked up some courage, even if just to point me towards a viewscreen. A newsfeed was playing the 24 hour TNN livestream, right in the middle of some financial scandal. The stock ticker on the bottom flashed by, even as the talking heads blathered on.
“What does that—” I started
“Just keep looking,” someone interrupted me.
I kept my eyes on the screen, not understanding until the screen rolled back to the headline:
“Conglomerated Industries Faces Scrutiny After CFO Indicted For Fraud”
“Chief Financial Officer Armande Doyle was taken into custody today after an anonymous tip revealed serious financial malfeasance. Following a full confession under truth-inquest, the suspect has been indicted of several class I felonies. The CEO insists that the errors were the isolated work of a single unscrupulous individual, and assures investors that—”
“D-Daddy?”
Impossible, I watched in disbelief as everything crumbled around me. It made no sense? Daddy wouldn’t do something like that—he couldn’t. But the newsfeed said he’d confessed.
My boyfriend Adam was there. He’d been there all along, watching with the others. I turned away, ashamed to let him see me like this. Ignoring my resistance, he enfolded me in his warm, comforting arms. Despite everything, I almost felt safe.
“Whatever happens,” he whispered in my ear, “I love you. Always remember that.”
I nodded, unable to speak. In a perfect world, I could have just stood there in his arms forever, and damn the consequences. But this isn’t a perfect world, is it, and sooner or later I was going to have to face it. Stepping from his embrace, I gave him one last kiss for good luck and left for the office. Ready, I believed, to face whatever fate had in store for me.
The mood was somber as I finally entered. Like walking those final steps to the execution block back in the days before they’d replaced death row with government slave chips.
The chancellor was waiting for me in his office. Stark, intimidating, I stood in front of his desk and had no trouble imagining him as a judge waiting to pass sentence upon me. Like the one who had condemned Daddy. We sat there a moment, neither of us speaking, a tension filling the room that neither of us were willing to cut. The clock ticked, an old fashioned mechanical one that sat on a shelf along the far wall. Antique or replica, I couldn’t tell. I waited, listening to it count off the endless parade of seconds.
Tick, Tock. Tick, Tock.
He steepled his fingers together before running a hand through his thinning grey hair. Opened his mouth to speak, and closed it without saying anything. For some reason, it called to mind Daddy’s face back when I was seven and he was about to take our sick dog to the vet for the last time. Finally, she spoke.
“Ms. Doyle, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“I saw,” I said. Barely more than a whisper. “On the screen outside.”
He nodded.
“Then you understand what we have to do? With his confession, the bulk of your family’s assets are forfeit. I’m afraid your student account is in arrears, effective immediately.”
Arrears? Suddenly, I understood. It was over, I was about to be expelled for nonpayment. Everything I had worked for, gone in one sudden swoop. What would I do now? I could try my luck in the lottery for a public university, hoping that maybe someone would honor its degree. Or perhaps I might hope to find work as someone’s assistant, with half a degree from a real school. But all that I’d worked for, any chance of a serious, meaningful career, it had just flown away.
“I’m very sorry about this,” he said gently, “You have been an exemplary student, and if there was some alternate source of funding... but as things stand, I’m afraid that our hands are tied.”
Someone from a better family might hold out hope of an uncle, or a grandparent, or a cousin. But we had none. It had taken three generations to work our way up to this, and without daddy, there was no one else who could cover the fee. Even if I was able to get a job and somehow scrape by, my assets belonged to my family until I turned twenty five. They’d be just as subject to forfeiture as the rest.
“There is, however, another alternative.”
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he pushed a tablet forward. Scanning the page, I recoiled from it at once. A bill of enslavement! He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“I know it’s a shock, but I urge you to consider our school’s conservatorship program. You would continue to live here, attending classes until your graduation. You would have certain rights, in terms of meaningful employment once you’ve graduated. In fact, most graduates are able to buy themselves back within ten years.”
I’d heard of it, everyone had. There were always a few in every year. The “lucky” handful of lower class students who’d navigated the necessary prep schools without getting saddled with an indenture along the way. Sold, by their own hands, in hopes of jumping ahead and forging a better life for themselves. The lowest of the low, and now he was suggesting I join them?
“But—I can’t, I mean I—”
“I strongly encourage you to think it over. I know it’s painful to imagine, but think, Ms Doyle, on what exactly awaits you. What do you think will happen once you leave here? What will your family’s creditors do?”
“They—Oh!”
If father defaulted, an event that seemed more and more likely by the minute, then the entire family would be liable. If we couldn’t make the payments—and I didn’t see how we possibly could—then any of us might be at risk of repossession.
“We cannot force you to accept this, but as things stand, I think it’s your best option. I wish things were otherwise, but the law ties our hands. Take some time to think it over, but I need an answer before you leave the room. We’ve already received inquiries about your family’s finances, and yourself in particular. This school has certain prerogatives, but if someone lodges a claim before us, we may run out of options.”
Vultures, already circling around the fallen carcass of my family. Again, I wondered what my father could have possibly been thinking. Surely this wasn’t real. At any moment they would come in and tell me it was a mistake, a setup. But he’d testified under a truth inciter. It was real. Somehow, for some reason, he had thrown it all away, and taken us down with him. I wanted to hate him, but all I could feel was sorrow and terror for whatever fate awaited him.
I looked at the contract again, read it over. Just the press of my thumb against the reader, and that would be all it took. No longer would I be a person, an independent being with her own rights and dreams. Instead I would be property, a possession.
But if that was what fate had in store for me either way...
“Wh-who might. I mean, who would —”
—buy me. I couldn’t make myself say the words, but he understood. His face softened and he tried to be comforting, but what comfort was there for me now?
“We do not allow corporate purchasers, but beyond that,” he held out his hands helplessly, shrugging his shoulders. “It could be just about anyone. There is a certain cachet in owning an up and coming student, and with a young, attractive lady... well, that also inspires a certain amount of interest.”
I shuddered, stomach heaving and grateful that I had not yet eaten. The chancellor would no longer meet my eyes.
“However, most potential buyers are discouraged by our policies. That you live here fulltime, and continue to engage in your studies. Very few are willing to pay so much for someone they can only get during breaks and visits. In all likelihood, you will find yourself under the... care of a classmate.”
Again, I cringed at the thought. The idea of my friends, my classmates seeing me so vulnerable and lowly was intolerable. Never mind having one of them hold the strings in that relationship. Even a wretched anonymity seemed preferable to a more comfortable fall in public. Better to be chained to an assembly line, or a helpdesk.
Or a brothel. What chance would I have of escaping that?
Would it be so bad, if everyone saw? To see their smug faces, so long as I could finish school, have a chance at my career? What other choice did I have?
Reaching my hand out took effort, an intense force of will. Everything in me screamed not to do it, to find some other way, but there was none. With an act of savage finality I pressed my thumb down against the reader. It chirped, and just like that, I had given myself away.
Sorrowfully, but with no hesitation, the chancellor pulled a small white injector from his desk. It was short, nondescript. Maybe the length of a finger, maybe a bit less.
“One press, straight against the inner elbow. You’ll be out for several days while they install the chip. They’ll explain everything then.”
I took it, cradling it gently like some rabid animal that had not yet decided to bite me. Dangerous, I didn’t want to provoke it, but that wasn’t a choice that belonged to me anymore.
“Will—will it hurt?”
“They tell me it’s completely painless”
This thing was dangerous. One little press, and it would take everything from me. No, I’d already done that, hadn’t I. Daddy had when he decided to cheat the system. All that was left was to finish what I had already started. With a deep breath, I pressed the end up against my skin. There was a sharp hiss, but I felt nothing.
Then I remembered nothing.
Did it hurt? I couldn’t tell you. There was a vague sense of time passing. Blurred shapes surrounding me, a pressure in my head. I laughed, I cried, I smelled fresh cut grass, and then salty ocean spray. Someone asked me something, and I replied, but I remember neither question nor the answer. They tell me that the process is mostly automated, with very little human intervention, and I believe them. What was real and what was a dream, I wasn’t really sure.
When I woke once more, I was back in the school. In the infirmary this time. There was no pain, exactly, but I felt sore and tired. I sat up slowly, and the nurse came over. Tentatively, unwilling to face the truth, my hand reached back to feel my skull. Intact, no scars, scabs, or even any bruising. For a brief moment, I held out hope that something had gone wrong, or right, and I had been saved before they implanted the chip. But no, I was wearing a thin hospital gown instead of my school clothes, and my aching throat was dry and raw from days without a drink of water.
“That’s ok,” said the nurse, “take a moment to collect yourself. You’ve been out for nearly four and a half days. Can you stand?”
“I think so,” I told her, doing my best to rise, but it was my thoughts that carried my attention. Was I different, changed? What did it mean for me to be chipped, was I still myself? Nothing felt out of place, there was no sign that I was under the influence of anything but my own self. Had the process failed after all? Was I somehow free of the chip’s control? Or was its hold so subtle that I’d never even notice.
Now that was a terrifying thought. How would I even tell? Was I cursed to spend the rest of my life second guessing every thought and decision I made?
“Everything seems to be in order,” the nurse said after giving me a cursory inspection. “There’s a shower in the other room, for you to freshen up and change before you go meet him.”
“So soon?”
It had loomed large in my thoughts since yesterday—no, almost a week ago—in the chancellor’s office. Always there, in some terrible, unspeakable future. But now that it was almost here, I found that I wasn’t ready. The nurse’s formerly sympathetic face hardened.
“Your time isn’t your own anymore, young lady. It’s best you get that through your head as soon as possible.”
She sighed, the iron draining from her bearing.
“It really is the easiest way,” she said, trying to console me. “You don’t want to fight it, the best you can hope for is to face it with dignity.”
Dignity. A funny word, now. I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant now, but the thought had some appeal. After all, we weren’t a school of sadists. Yes, I had lost my status, my social position, and I was doomed to spend the rest of my academic life trapped in servitude. But maybe, just maybe, I could work with it. Find a way to preserve some semblance of grace and poise until I was finally free. Maybe, just maybe, I could find some comfortable accommodation with my new... owner. I still hated that word, but I could work with it if he could. Maybe, if I played this right, it wouldn’t be quite so bad as I feared.
The shower felt nice, like washing away a second skin of accumulated dirt and oil that had built up while I was unconscious. In deference to the instructions, I wore the shower cap as I cleaned everything else. A small intrusion, but otherwise it was a moment of welcome normalcy in an otherwise utterly abnormal week. For the first time, I began to regain my confidence, wondering if maybe this wasn’t the end of the world after all.
It wasn’t until I was nearly done showering that I noticed the other changes. I was nearly finished soaping my legs when I realized what I hadn’t done. So far, I’d soaped, and applied some scented body lotion, but I hadn’t shaved. There should have been four days of growth scratching up my hand as I lathered my skin. Instead, I found it smooth as the day I was born. As if I’d just finished shaving. No, more than that. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of razor burn or stubble. A quick glance between my legs revealed it just as bare as my legs. In fact, there wasn’t even the slightest trace of hair or stubble anywhere south of my eyebrows. When had this happened? The hospital? Somehow, I didn’t think it was standard procedure.
I left the shower and found an outfit waiting for me. My new blue dress. Cute, but a hell of a thing to wear for my first day of this whole mess. In one moment, all of my fond associations were left in the dust. No longer was this the cute dress I’d bought in a Paris boutique, or that Emily and I had gushed over. Instead, it was the dress I’d wear for my first meeting. For my first day of this whole nonsense.
Then there was the underwear. A set I’d most certainly never worn with this dress. Tight, lacy, and nearly transparent. I’d worn them under my pants whenever I secretly wanted to feel sexy, but they were supposed to be a secret, damn it. Certainly, I’d never worn them anywhere they might be seen. And here they were, sitting with the outfit I was supposed to wear on the first night of my—my... enslavement. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A sudden, forced confrontation regarding the nature of my enslavement. The things that might be expected of me.
You knew what you were getting into, I told myself, though it did little to mollify me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I told myself. Lots of girls love to do it, maybe I’ll enjoy it.
Yeah, they enjoy it all right, but usually with a partner of their choosing. I’d only had one last choice, and I’d made it. The rest was out of my hands.
With one last sympathetic goodbye, the nurse delivered a room assignment into my hands. An assignment, and no name. A secret? I didn’t understand, but at least it was for a dorm, and not some rich old man who wanted to bang a college girl.
The directions took me to the nicer wing of the school, into the swanky, upscale living quarters where the rest of us couldn’t enter without an express invitation. The palm reader got me past the door. I guess I belonged there now, in the same sense his luggage did. Because I was a belonging myself.
Room 308. My mystery destination, my future. No where near Adam, who lived on the second floor. A curse or a blessing? I wasn’t sure. I sought it out, and as I reached the third floor I began to wonder. I’d come straight here, no dawdling, no fuss. Did I just want to get this over with, or was something more sinister at work? As always, my thoughts and feelings were suspect. Yes, I felt horror at my situation, and that was most assuredly all me. But what about this curiosity? Was it a natural urge in the face of a mysterious and uncertain future, or were my thoughts no longer my own?
Not for the first time, I cursed myself for not reading more about implants. I knew the basics, that it was in my head, attached to my brain, and that it somehow enforced compliance with my new owner (a term I still wasn’t used to). How it worked beyond that, I had absolutely no idea.
The rooms were spaced apart, each a luxurious three room suite, but eventually I reached the end of the hall. There it was, room 308. Most of the rooms had name placards, but this was empty. Another prank? It was beginning to wear thin, but the mystery was about to end. I put my hand on the door, and the reader recognized my print. At this point, I was so sick of all that secrecy that just about anything seemed better than not knowing.
The door opened, and I realized that it could get worse.
“No,” I said, recoiling from the door. Anything but this.
There sat Victor, wearing nothing but a royal blue bathrobe, holding a glass of wine in his hand as he reclined in his easy chair.
He motioned me into the room, and any doubts about the chip’s function rapidly vanished. Even as I tried to step back, a sensation swept over me. Floating, detached, like an out of body experience where I was trapped two steps from myself. Before I even understood what was happening, I found myself in the room, listening to the door shut behind me.
“What’s the matter, Amanda,” he said, “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“No, this isn’t—you can’t!”
“Shhhhh....” he said, and that was that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t talk. I could, or at least it felt like I could. At any moment I could open my mouth and speak, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.
He smiled, and that smile chilled whatever last vestiges of hope I’d held.
“So maybe you aren’t happy to see me, but I’m very happy to see you. So happy, in fact, that I’d like to see all of you. Show me.“
My hands moved without any conscious thought. It wasn’t the chip moving them, though, it was me. A reflex, like reaching to catch a falling object. He had spoken, and obedience was the natural response.
No!
I forced my hands back to my sides, and in seconds that detached feeling returned. This time I was ready, and even though it felt like I was controlling my body from across a distant tunnel, I still controlled it. For all the good it did me.
I held myself there, refusing to give in even one little bit. It couldn’t make me, and it didn’t, but it could certainly influence how I felt about it. Like an oily, dripping pustulous film covering my skin. A growing sickness, a creeping itch that I knew exactly how to scratch. My brain understood what was expected of me, and it was WRONG of me to prevent it. W-R-O-N-G, capital letters and all. I could stall it as long as I liked, but deep down I understood that nothing would be all right until I complied.
My hands moved again, bit by bit. There was no particular moment I decided to give in. I wanted to resist, I meant to resist, but disobedience was so very unpleasant, and it seemed a simple thing to raise my hands back up. So much nicer when I let them untie the dress straps, and when my pretty blue dress finally hit the floor, I was overwhelmed by a sudden surge of relief.
See!, something in me seemed to cry Isn’t everything so much nicer when you do what you’re told?
The trouble was, it was true. In that first moment I felt so good, so free, that I forgot I was standing there in just my underwear. Even as I realized what I had done, the horror was accompanied by a simultaneous understanding that all was exactly as it should be.
Except, I wasn’t done yet, was I. Even in the face of my relief, there was still a sense of incompleteness. All was better, now that I had removed my dress, but all wasn’t quite well yet. Not until I finished obeying his command.
Obey or resist. The choice loomed stark before me. Could I bear another round of that? Was it worth it, when I knew I would just give in anyway? And yet, the thought of exposing myself to him was more loathsome than I could bear.
With a wave of his hand, he delayed my struggle, motioning in a circle for me to turn. I gladly obeyed, anything to put off that decision for another moment. It was disturbing how good it felt to follow his command.
“Very nice,” he said approvingly, and I made an even more horrific discovery.
His opinion mattered. It mattered a lot. It was terrifying. Just a few days ago, he’d been nothing more than a creep with an overinflated ego. He was still that, but now he was a creep whose approval I desperately craved. Even though I knew better, I immediately flushed at his crude compliment. Smiling, giddy, there were butterflies fluttering about my stomach. I couldn’t help myself. I desperately, urgently wanted him to like me.
“Excellent. Now, the rest.”
I could have fought it, maybe I should have, but I didn’t. My hands reached behind, and slowly started to unhook my bra. What could I do? I’d already learned the consequences of resistance. All it would accomplish was a load of unpleasantness, followed by inevitable surrender. Why not cut to the chase, and spare myself the pain?
My chip agreed. Wasn’t everything so much nicer when I obeyed?
“Nice tits,” he said with a leer as my bra joined the dress in a pile on the floor.
Oh what the hell! Even that one felt good.
My panties hit the floor soon after, and I stood to face him. Dueling impulses waged war within me. Here I was, in front of this loathsome maniac, the perverted little shit who got off peeping on helpless girls who wanted nothing to do with him. I hated him, I wanted to kill him. Or to cover myself from the shame of it all and run crying from the room. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was how it was supposed to be. I knew I should be raging, or covering myself, but I didn’t. No matter what my head told me, it just didn’t feel right to hide my body from him.
The bastard just grinned at me. Tossing his head back, he took another sip of his wine.
Damn him, what the hell did he want from me? Why wouldn’t he just say something already?
Another pause, a long, lingering silence filled with nothing but his frank regard. Fuming helplessly, I just stood there.
Then he spoke.
“Down,” he said, and I sank to my knees. Only remembering when I was on the floor that I was supposed to be fighting this perverted jackass. The words were soft, almost casual. There was no sternness, no sharp commanding presence that demanded compliance by its very cadence. If anything, there was an amused glint, a chuckling joke I wasn’t quite in on, and yet it still held more force than a drill instructor screaming next to my ear.
I thought about getting up, but somehow that seemed worse than staying here on my knees. I knew that was the chip talking, but could do nothing about it.
“All fours,” he said, “Crawl. Crawl to me, hands and knees, all the way across the room.”
I fell to the ground, breasts swinging pendulously as I dropped forward without any support. He chuckled, damn him. He was enjoying this.
This time, I managed to fight it for all of about five seconds. Again, that terrible, sickening wrongness, and again I crumbled. Each awkward step was another defeat, another reminder of the power he had over me. Of how pointless it was to resist, and how wrong I was to even try.
In close, he loomed over me. A god, a titan. All a lowly mortal like me could hope for was to lift my gaze up towards his dazzling heights. How much was from the chip, and how much the inherent inequality of our positions. Certainly none of it came from any virtue he possessed. I knew it, but I didn’t feel it.
“Up,” he said, lifting his hand slightly.
“Sit,” he commanded again. “Stay. Good girl.”
If only I could kill with a glare, that bastard would be an oozing puddle on the floor. Instead, I obeyed.
“I. Hate. You.”
I said it through clenched teeth, immediately regretting my words, but I sure as hell stood by them. That jackass only smiled.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, patting my head. Fucking hell, why did that feel so good? I really did hate that little shit.
“Do you know what we’re doing right now,” he said to me.
“Proving just what a little shit you are?”
Oh god, had those words really come out of my mouth? You can’t say things like that to him, you just can’t! No, that was the chip talking. Stay strong, you meant exactly what you said, and he deserved every bit of it. And more. But it sure didn’t feel like he deserved it. In the pit of my gut, it felt like I was the naughty one.
“We’re training, that’s what we’re doing. It’s nothing but simple reinforcement, just like any animal. You have to learn how to be a good little girl. How to act, how to behave. Your owner’s likes and dislikes. And do you know what I dislike? I hate it when somebody tells me no.“
I flinched back from the venom in his voice, immediately guilty. Wait, that wasn’t right. I had nothing to be ashamed of. There was nothing in the world wrong about turning him down for a date when I already had a boyfriend. He was the one who should have apologized, not me.
“But that’s ok,” he said, suddenly smiling. “You’re never going to refuse me again, isn’t that right?”
“Y-yes,” I admitted.
“What was that? I believe the correct response was ‘Yes, sir’. Get it right.”
“Yes, sir,” I spat through clenched teeth, but the words didn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth. Quite the contrary. It was perfectly alright to say that. It was true, wasn’t it? I wasn’t going to fight anymore. I was going to be a good girl.
Stop that!
I shook my head frantically, hair splaying across my face, but it accomplished little besides amusing Victor.
“Oh, this is too great. You and I are going to have such fun together. Speaking of which, it’s time for you to turn around. On all fours again, if you please.”
No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t!
Somehow, I found myself on the ground again, my rear lifted enticingly in the air. He never even had to tell me, but he’d sent me down on all fours, and from his tone I understood exactly why. From that first moment of understanding, I knew just how I had to present myself. It wasn’t just the letter of his command I was compelled to follow. I knew what he wanted alright, and in knowing came the desire to fulfill.
“Please,” I begged, the last traces of my pride vanishing. I’d told myself I wouldn’t beg, and the chip reminded me that begging was another form of disobedience, but I continued anyway.
“Please, you can’t. I’m a—I mean, I’ve never—”
I trailed off, afraid to finish, even now ashamed to admit my inexperience. My chip congratulated me on stopping. There was no place for complaints in compliance, unless that was what my owner desired.
“Oh, how precious. My little pet slut is a virgin, is she? Let’s fix that, shall we?”
I heard his robe rustle, and looked back, but a sharp command sent my head forward once more. Trembling, I cursed myself for not being strong enough. The door was right there? Just a few steps, and I’d be out the entrance. Why didn’t I get up? Why didn’t I run?
I could. It would be so easy, too, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t be right.
The waiting was the hardest. Anticipation, listening to him move behind without being able to see what was happening. I yelped, startled as he slapped my ass. In the back of my mind, I realized that this was the first direct contact between us, and what a way to start. Yet even then, moving never really occurred to me.
Just when the sting began to fade, I felt his hands on me again. Touching, groping, caressing. He felt me up, taking my body in, possessing it all, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. This was his right, and all I could do was let him use me as he pleased. It wasn’t right. I was a person, damn it, not a possession.
His hands withdrew, and just for a brief moment hope flared that he might have reconsidered. Then I felt it, pressing against my opening.
“No, wait! I—Ooof!”
In one quick thrust, he plunged into me, driving the words from my mouth. This wasn’t the first time I’d had something in me—that privilege went to the vibrator I’d affectionately nicknamed “the purple monster”—but his entrance was sudden, hard, and I wasn’t at all prepared for it.
My stomach heaved at his touch, at the very idea of someone so vile, so awful being anywhere near me, never mind inside of me. Clutching my hips, he began pumping in and out of me. No feeling, no tenderness, just using me as a convenient target for his own gratification. This wasn’t right, when had everything gone so horribly out of control. It was Adam I was supposed to be with. My first time was supposed to be different. Tender, romantic, the touch of my love’s hand as he slowly slid inside of me, an act of passionate intimacy, not this carnal debauchery. How I cursed my hesitancy, so scared, always waiting for the moment to just a little more perfect. What a fool I had been.
And yet, that familiar duality raged within me. Adam’s touch had never set my skin afire the way Victor’s clawing possession did. Our shared intimacies never even coming close to the raw, physical need I now felt. I gasped, moaning as Victor plunged deep within me. He didn’t miss my reaction.
“You like that, don’t you slut,” he slowed briefly to massage my breast, and despite everything I whined with need.
“Yes,” I admitted, “Oh god, yes!”
“That’s a good girl,” he said, and I shuddered in carnal bliss.
My face hit the floor, ass in the air as I pushed back against him. I still loathed the bastard, despised him, but I needed him too. What in the hell was wrong with me?
“You filthy tramp,” he said, “I want to hear you say it. Tell me what a little slut you are.”
“What? I—No! I won’t—”
“Beg, bitch. Tell me how much you want to cum, how much you love having my dick inside you.”
Never! I’d never do it. Never demean myself like—
“Please!” I cried, unable to help myself. “Oh fuck, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
“You love having your pussy stuffed, don’t you slut.”
“Yes! Oh fuck, yes! I’ve never been so turned on in my life.”
“Not even by your loser boyfriend.”
“No!” I screamed, tears flowing from my face as I admitted the truth. No matter how much I’d loved Adam, I’d never felt this kind of raw desire for him, not even once. I hated Victor, but I loved getting fucked by him.
“That’s right, bitch, take it all in. Tell me how much you love it.”
“I need it! Fuck me, please, fuck me. I need you inside me so bad!”
He paused, withdrawing cruelly from me. I cried out, pressing back against him and finding no purchase. There was only need now, just desperate, animal lust.
“Cum for me, Amanda,” and then he drove all the way in.
I came, spasming hard as my vision whited out around me. Nothing else mattered. In that one brief moment, there was only him, and me, and that glorious cock filling me up. I’d never felt anything like that, certainly not from Adam. Somehow, I knew that this feeling came only from Victor, and nothing else could truly satisfy me ever again.
Sensation threatening to overwhelm me, but somehow I held myself up. No matter what I felt, I wasn’t done yet, not until he was satisfied. It was all too much, every fiber of my body was on fire with overwhelming bliss. From the electric tingles from each strand of his soft carpeting as they rubbed against my face, to the aching fullness I felt every time he thrust his cock into me. I loved it, every terrible second of it.
“It’s almost a shame,” he said between grunts, “that I can’t override the school’s contraceptives. It might be amusing to see you grow big with a brat in your belly. Oh well, something to revisit after graduation.”
I gasped, almost surprised that anything could still shock me. Now, more than ever, I realized just how much my life had fled beyond my control. Even this, the most personal and intimate of decisions, was now his to make. It was hopeless, he had won. I might as well bow down and accept his rule.
No! I couldn’t let myself think that. No matter what the law said, or my chip, nor even what my traitor body was telling me (Oh, it felt so good!). I would not lie down and surrender. I was a person, damn it, not some possession. I would fight, and somehow, some way, I would win. Then he would suffer.
Groaning insensibly beyond words, he gripped me harder, clenching up as he unloaded himself deep within me. I came again, and only then was I allowed to collapse bonelessly onto the rug. Gasping, twitching in the afterglow, I tried to come to grips with what I’d just experienced.
“Marvelous,” he said, “That was even better than I expected.”
“What, what the hell did you do to me, you sick fuck?”
“I added in a couple elective features. Let me tell you, they were worth every cent.”
His hand slid across my breast, and I mewled helplessly, eagerly leaning into his touch.
“I—I hate you,” I somehow managed.
“But you want me, don’t you,” he said, hand cupping my breast as his fingers pinched my nipple. I tried not to cry out, but like so many things this evening, it was a losing battle.
“Yes,” I admitted, my head hung low.
“And that’s what makes it so hot. Now come over here and clean me up.”
He gestured between his legs, and just like that his cock was in my mouth. As I had never done for Adam. It was hot, sticky, and already I could feel it swelling again. He patted my head and told me I was a good girl.
I believed him.
“We are going to have so much fun together,” he told me.
Much as I hated it, I believed that too.