The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I.

“You did what?” Bourbon Sputtered completely incredulous. “I took the blue stone,” Edge repeated with less confidence and considerably less certainty and smugness. “What possible difference could it possibly make?” He somehow already knew it did make a difference, he just didn’t know how. And he knew that this time it might be a matter of life and death. The one time he should have.... ah crap. He held the crystal up helplessly like a little kid with a broken toy he wanted an adult to fix. Bourbon shook his head and sighed. “So what now?” Edge managed.

“Shhhh.... I gotta think.”

The sound of someone, several people, on the stairs outside the cell was echoing down the stone hallway. The musty dank dark dungeon cell and the corridor beyond were something out of a Hollywood B from his childhood. And a bad movie set at that. His imagination was really leaving gaps in the details and filling with whatever it had lying around.

“We don’t have much time, and this time they’re going to do more than look you over.” Edge became well.... edgy. He hadn’t enjoyed the endless hours of questioning he had already been through. They had insinuated that the next time they weren’t going to limit themselves to talking and this was Bourbons impression as well. And besides, something in Bourbon’s tone was disturbing, something meant to be taken seriously. Like maybe he knew something. “What are they going to do?”

“Simple answer?” Edge nodded. “Awful things. They’re slavers.”

“Slavers?” Edge was all attention now.

“Of a type you couldn’t imagine.” Edge considered the irony in this statement. He had what might be an imaginary cat, incredible improbable adventures that might be completely fictitious, the sole product of his imagination, and he might not be able to imagine? “I have an awful active imagination, try me....” “We don’t have time. There’s thing we have to do. And do now, before they get here.” ”

“Then make time,” Edge growled irritably.

“We don’t have.... " “Then give me the Readers Digest short version”. Bourbon considered. His ears alert to the approaching danger. The unshakable cat of stone was clearly effected, maybe even concerned. “So?”

“OK. In short they’re inter-dimensional slavers. Kind of like the white slavers for the ultra rich sheiks and in the orient where you come from. They specialize in uh... sex slaves.” Nothing new here. “They take raw materials they get on one world and sell it on another, after they make uh...alterations.” The tone to the word alterations really set Edge’s hair to standing on end. “What alterations”, was the obvious question, “mind or body?” that was all Edge needed to hear. “Listen carefully we only have about thirty seconds.”

II.

Edge turned the crystal in his hand. “What am I supposed to do with it?” Edge inquired as he shifted the large bauble to make the slim light of the cell window reflect through it.

“Stick it up your ass!” The cat replied without hesitation or the slightest emotion.

“I got something you can shove up your....” Edge snapped back , pissed at the useless sarcastic catty comment at a time like this.

“No, seriously,” the cat called back, as he put his back to the crack in the heavy door. “We don’t have time to debate this. I’m telling you what to do with it. Stick it, NOW!.”

Not surprisingly, Edge hesitated. “You’re kidding right?” Edge watched the cats every reaction. Suddenly he realized that the cat might actually be deadly serious. Edge considered how large this rock was. “I don’t think so. I’m sure we can find some other place to hide it if....”

“No, no, no! We’re not hiding it,” the cat came back hurriedly. “We’re completely out of time and you need it’s special powers.”

“And these powers can’t be gotten any other....”

“Hey you cant blame me”, Bourbon shot back, “I told you to take the purple crystal. You’re the one who took the blue rock. And besides, there isn’t time to explain any of this. The guards will be here in a second and then you’re really going to be fucked! So, pucker up and push!” Edge hesitated; grimaced, grunted, thought some awful thoughts, pondered all the events and bad choices that had brought him to this sad moment of decision, and the rock disappeared into a very unhappy dark hole.

The door of the cell burst open a second later. He barely had his pants back up when three large intimidating guards, who looked most like hospital orderlies, immediately began manhandling him into a subdued face down position, and began working him into a straight-jacket like rig that extended up to a face piece and down to just above the knees. A ball gag was built into the face piece.

It had lots of straps and shiny buckles.

His muffled protest didn’t last long. If he hadn’t been already partially shackled, he would have put up a much better fight. The guards were clearly experienced at handling and subduing very unwilling prisoners. The whole struggle lasted only a few seconds, and consisted of a couple squirms and a quiver. They had him trussed up and back on his feet already. They were extremely efficient. Edge looked around. Bourbon was nowhere to be seen. The cat had abandoned him again.

III.

The upper level of the complex was nothing like the Spookieland dungeon underneath. The upper levels were clearly built over an older series of lower levels and foundation. The facility above was sterile and hospital-like. This disturbed Edge. It was extremely modern and featureless. White corridors, plain unmarked doors, sterile white floors. Even the light from the ceiling was diffused through white translucent panels that fit seamlessly into the equally white featureless ceiling. Absolutely no markings or windows anywhere. Even hospitals had some markings or room numbers. These corridors were as featureless as a blank sheet of white paper. Not a noise came from any door they passed or any corridor or at any intersecting corridor they passed. Either the rooms were soundproofed or this was one very large, very empty building. Even their foot steps were silenced by the deep white carpeting. (Which hardly was a standard hospital feature, Edge thought to himself. Very impractical.). Edge began to think of this complex more and more as one of those rat mazes as they continued down corridor after corridor, turn after endless featureless maze-like turn.

The guards never once said anything or hesitated for even a moment to get their bearings. They never even looked at each other, or made any other sign of being anything but all business. There was something almost mechanical and inhumanly precise about them, like they were going through a series of preprogrammed commands like a machine or a robot might. Or a rat in a familiar maze. They just didn’t move like they had a shred of personality or individuality. That was the thing that Edge was becoming more uncomfortably unaware of the longer he was in their charge. They continued to look forward towards their invisible unseen destination/ objective.

It was then that they stopped in front of a larger, but equally featureless, set of double doors with no visible latches, handles, or knobs. They joined almost seamlessly along some sort of hospital like seal. It ran all the way around the top, bottom and both sides. It was like a refrigeration seal, or a medical facility’s contamination seal. Edge was taking in all the little details now to try and gather as much information as he possibly could, in case he got a chance to do something to change his situation. At some point the “little” things might become very important. Edge’s instincts were trying to tell him something. Whatever it was, he just wasn’t getting it. But it continued to nag at him anyway.

One of the guards stepped away from the other two and touched the wall at a very specific point about chest high. Some kind of light scanned down the hand, up, and down again to verify. Wherever he was they had very impressive security. Something behind the door clicked, and something else slid aside inside the door. It immediately parted slightly inward with a negative air pressure hiss. His second guess about the doors had been right.

The high tech lab inside was completely amazing and well beyond anything he had ever seen even in a sci-fi movie. Dozens of technicians in lab coats were very busy making the “modifications and alterations” Bourbon had told him about. Edges blood ran suddenly cold.

IV.

Saying that these people dealt in sex slaves hadn’t even began to prepare Edge for what was beyond that doorway. The humanity could barely be separated from the machinery they were connected to, and in many cases implanted with. The first table nearest the door had a beautiful well endowed woman on it. Or roughly half of what was left of one. About half her naked body had a silver painted hue to it. Other parts were enclosed with shiny chrome-like metal. None of the better parts were covered.

She was one toaster he wouldn’t mind sticking his fork in.

Edge suddenly shuddered as he looked from her beautiful face to the heavy steel machinery (devices?) burrowed into her skull in half a dozen places. Several tubes carried fluids in and out of her head. None of them were red like blood. Her blank glazed over expression told Edge more than he wanted to know. The technician was happily humming to himself while drilling a new hole in her skull for an additional hookup. The smell of friction burned flesh and bone didn’t seem to phase the technician, who was working as casually, and emotionlessly, as if he were working on a home woodworking project. A few tables nearby were similarly adorned with semi human hardware. The (lab?) as a whole was something out of the German Expressionist Period. A strange cross of technology and new age alchemy. A few things here and there were vaguely recognizable as some sort of futuristic machinery, but mostly the lab was for lack of a better description, crystal based. With glass fiber-optic wiring between crystals and large crystal chambers that were everywhere, light seemed to radiate. Dozens of people in various states of dehumanization, and every metal color, were being moved in and out of the crystals in a series of incomprehensible processes. “Bring the new one to table three,” one of the technicians told one of Edges attendants. They moved him (very involuntarily) toward one of the tables. His superhuman struggle against them had zero effect. Most of his struggle was absorbed by the straight jacket rig. But feeling the strength of the hands that clamped down on him when he resisted (what little he could), told him that being unrestrained wouldn’t have made any difference. Any one of his “attendants” could have benched him single handed. He was willing to bet they had been in this room before as something other than attendants. Good help was so hard to rebuild....

The lab tech clamped some sort of device over Edges lower arm. It bit into him in a dozen places with metal teeth and probes that only stopped when they struck bone. He felt every bit of it, but the arm refused to respond to his survival instincts. His nervous system was very unfortunately still alive in the arm. The whole arm felt like it had been injected with liquid fire, and was being melted from the inside like a piece of sculpted wax. Somehow the metal device on his arm was magnetically attached to the tabletop.

Edge felt like an animal in a trap, and would have given anything to be able to reach that arm and gnaw it off to escape the indescribable agony. Eventually, unconsciousness solved the problem, and supplied an escape of sorts.

When he woke from his most recent blissful slumber, Edge was immediately painfully aware that his situation hadn’t changed very much. The technician was temporarily missing but everything else remained about the same. The device on his arm was still there, now wired apparently to something under the table. He guessed it was transmitting data needed for his “alteration”. Edge shuddered again. The straight jacket was gone, but he was still strapped down adequately.

The Woman next to him was getting the finishing touches. Speakers on either side of her head were playing what appeared to be a looped message. She was mumbling along. Her brain (or what was left of it) was sucking up the redundant commands like a sponge. The commands flowed into her drained brain as easily as the fluids in the tubes sticking out of her head.

“You will serve your master.

Your only function is to please in every way.

You will obey every command.

You are a robot slut.” Yawn.... It went on in that vein for about a dozen phrases more, then repeated. Pretty tired cliché’d stuff. What was it with mad scientist meglo-maniacs? Was there some sort of handbook where all this stuff was written down? Was there some sort of outline or syllabus they were required to follow? Was there a course? Mad Mind Controllers 101? Taught by Master IMA Mastabator PHDMC? Pretty sad. Bordering on pathetic. But at least they were predictable....

“You will become a dog every time you hear the word MASTER. (What?) A big drooling stupid dog with LOTS and lots of fleas. You will be a licker. (What the....?) A trash pickin, leg humping, rug wetting, horny hound dog in heat. Only the phrase: Gazuntite mein heir, will bring you back to your old robot self. These commands cannot be over ridden. Repeat cannot EVER be over ridden. Do you understand?” She nodded in agreement, totally anxious to please.... BOURBON!!!

I.

Bourbon smiled that impossible smile again. Edge could hear it. “Wait’ll that unit goes to it’s “master” , Bourbon chuckled. Edge moved his head around. All the technicians seemed absent from what he could tell from his very difficult viewpoint. “Break time,” Bourbon inserted, anticipating the unvoiced question. Ah....

“Again we don’t have much time. So I’ll just give ya the important bits. Don’t worry...” Edge made a “are you blind stupid or just nuts” look at the general direction the cats voice was coming from. Bourbon must have been on the floor. Something was going on down there. Switches being flipped. Humming. One disturbing “Ooops” followed by a string of curses. “Black or red...hmmmm... have to guess”.

“Guess?!” Edge called out too loud for the intended whisper. “Guess? Guess at what!” “Shhhh!” (Softer) “Guess at what?” “Got it covered....” came the reply. (Softly, muttered...) I uhhhh.... think.”

“Don’t screw with the machine. Cut me loose!” Edge demanded. “And who’s hands am I supposed to use to undo the buckles?", came the reply from below. “Or am I supposed to chew through the leather straps with my powerful mouse killing jaws with one mighty....” “Ya, OK I get it. So what’s the plan?” Bourbon paused. “Well, I run away and they put you through the treatment. When you get shipped out I’ll pick you up and we go back on our way.” Edge was immediately horrified. “Good plan. Except for the part where you abandon me again, I get my brain sucked out and replaced with a simpler program, and I become merchandise. Loved the rest!” The sarcasm wasn’t wasted on Bourbon this time.

“OK. So it doesn’t sound like much of a plan, but once it starts to unfold you’ll see how awesome a plan it really is. Trust me.” The words of doom had been spoken. Trust me? Oh man.

“I might like to point out that I won’t be much use to the multiverse as a brainless sex toy.”

“You might be surprised,” Bourbon interjected. But that isn’t the plan. Remember you have the blue crystal. (Pause) You still have it don’t you? They didn’t do a full body cavity search did they/”

Edge wasn’t sure. “I’ve been unconscious but....". Edge moved his ass around as best he could. It was enflamed and sore and definitely still had a foreign object rammed into it as far as he could tell. “Ya, I got it but...” “Crap. Breaks over, gotta go. See ya soon.” Edge heard Bourbon running away across the floor. “And remember... PLAY ALONG!” Bourbon was gone, and Edge was still at the mercy of these brain sucking fiends.

Then another weird thought struck Edge. If Bourbon couldn’t undo the straps, then how the hell was he messing with the machinery? He didn’t have any hands.

II.

When the technician returned and checked the readings he grew wildly excited, and began showing a long thin readout to every technician who he could make look at it. “Can you believe this, can you believe these readings?” was all he could keep repeating. That, and something about a “bonus”. Edge was so pleased that he had made someone’s day. The day now wasn’t a total loss now that this brain frying labbie was so pleased with Edge as a specimen. He felt about as honored as a frog in a dissection lab.

After conferring with an obviously older tech. , his technician returned with two of the three zombie goons that had accompanied him into his current predicament. Or at least he thought they were the same two. All the security “people” looked very similar. Again he was helpless to prevent the manhandling that followed. The face piece was reinstalled and reinserted, very tightly this time as well.

From what he could gather, his technician had discovered something exceptional in his readings that made him unsuitable for this particular treatment. Edge wondered what treatment he going to get instead since he’d been so lucky. Edge wondered why he was always so darned lucky. With luck like his, they were going to completely remove his brain and replace it with a German shepherd’s.

From what he could gather, he was being sent to be handled by Section C.

And that was another funny thing, everyone here seemed to be speaking perfectly colloquial english....

Apparently, Section C was the large cluster of crystal chambers towards the rear of the lab facility. Typical buerocracy, Edge told himself, didn’t even give different scientific departments their own cubicles, no less real walls or departments. Some things were surprisingly consistent across the multiverse.

As he was dragged (he wasn’t going to walk willingly if they were going to drag him anyway), he saw the largest crystals orange yellow facets fold outward, to reveal the current occupant. The woman inside was physically perfect. No artificial enhancements were immediately apparent. She sat quietly, naked. The technician from Section C ordered her out of the chamber. She sidled up to the technician without a verbal command and began showing absolutely sincere (super slutty, completely in overdrive) affection. No one needed to flip her switch, apparently she was fully automatic. There was no one else that existed for her. She was no zombified machine, she had been made into the perfect attentive loving loyal sex starved creature. She was as altered as the machine girl had been, but all the adjustments had been to her mind. She was just more responsive and less mechanical. The illusion of true feelings was so complete Edge was beginning to feel jealous of the technician getting pawed by this ravishing yet will-less creature. Back in high school he would have given a billion dollars for a machine like that to use on a cheerleader or twelve. But now he was a man, and had seen more than his share of mind control, robot girls, living mannequins, live dollies, and super horny sex slaves, the idea of a programmed companion (however impressive and realistic) wouldn’t sustain him for long. Nice diversion for a night or two but.... having gone up against his share of mad geniuses out to enslave the world or just the neighbor next door , the idea had lost some of its luster.

Years ago he had read a short story somewhere, he couldn’t quite remember where, about a man who got his perfect programmed girl only to find out the thrill wore out when he’d done it all, and found that all she was was a program. No love, feelings, no thrill, no unpredictability, no real comfort or support, just empty platitudes, perfect house cleaning, and mindless sex. What had that story been....All My Silver Sins? Sins of Silver? He couldn’t quite remember. It could be applied to all the things Edge had seen for real. But then again, Edge thought, (looking her over) as she pawed the technicians crotch, rubbing her obviously wet ready hot pussy all over the length of his leg with all consuming and arousing enthusiasm.

Edge wasn’t getting rubbed, but he was getting the message. But then again.... it might fill a little.... time.... between .... “live” women, and do some light housework besides, he told himself. God knew his place really could use it.

But Edge had bigger problems, like the disturbing fact that he was next in line for “attitude adjustment”. Who’s leg would he end up humping when he was done being treated? Or would some woman master use him for a tit fuck toy? Or would he just be a servant, chauffeur, or dishwasher and part time plaything? He’d rip the nuts off these bastards if he could just get one crummy hand free. Just one. The image of face bones collapsing with a satisfying crunch as he pummeled these bastards was very satisfying but very likely the last such images he would conjure ever again. They tossed him effortlessly inside, and the crystal closed behind him. The light show began immediately.

III.

Edge’s brain was shredded almost instantly. A myriad of light and color shot through his helpless mind. Idea’s, concepts, thoughts not his own flooded into his consciousness and began to alter it. It was impossible to think clearly. Except in colors. Edge couldn’t tell which thoughts were actually his, which colors (thoughts?) were his and which had been more recently placed there. So many thoughts he couldn’t separate them into (data files?) memories. A flood of information, the currents of which were dragging him deeper into the whirling maelstrom of commands (memories?). Eventually, he was completely lost inside his own mind. A strangers mind. A stranger on a neuron sea with no road signs or guiding stars, and endless pathways, on the open sea of who he had been and would be. At that moment Edges (mind?) was like the corridors of the complex. A complex. Somewhere. A big empty complex. A place he had been.... sometime. Blank, sterile, without form or detail, full of doors, beyond which lay locked away secrets of which he had no knowledge. But it was somehow peaceful and for the first time in a long time.... relaxing. So totally simple; so vanilla in a world of 205 different complicated flavors and decision making about toppings.

Edge melted slowly, deliciously, into the emptiness, like ice cream with a warm protective hot fudge blanketing it. There were no cats in sight anywhere. All he needed was a banana and a good shot of whipped cream. Ahhhhhhhh.... melting into a pool of himself. Whoever that was....

I.

Suddenly Edge felt like someone had jammed a white hot anvil up his ass, and was backtracking through his digestive system like an earth moving machine run amok. His guts were being strip mined. He wanted to be a nice banana split again, a sex slave to the bunny people, a vicious raping pillaging warrior (what?), anyone but Edge.

The blue crystal popped out of his ass with a disgusting painful wet sound. Edge lay there shivering, trying to gather himself, focus on what was going on around him. He would never look at a chicken egg the same way again. He was wet, it was raining, the earth had a musty wild untamed forest smell. The earth beneath him was gravel and mud. Painful, messy, and cold. Bourbon was very unhappy to be so thoroughly wet. This was barely any satisfaction, but it was something. The restrictive leather and chainmail outfit he was wearing was difficult to get into an upright position in, in the slippery rain, but finally Edge managed it. Bourbon was sheltering under an overhanging limb of a tree which offered very little actual shelter.

“So Mikey, come here often?” The rain had definitely taken some of the arrogance out of Bourbons overall tone. His sarcasm was washed away in the sea of pain Edge was still experiencing, and into the cold rain pooling at their collective six feet.

Edge and Bourbon made their way to a small cave (more a crevasse really) deep in the woods that Bourbon had led them unerringly to by some unexplainable means through the darkness and driving rain. Now they were sitting in the small alcove and its limited cover just barely out of the rain. A thousand questions ran through Edges mind as he shivered in the darkness, in his chainmail, leather, plastic, padded, bondage outfit.

Bourbon was frantically trying to lick himself dry, with very limited success. He took no notice at all of Edge. In fact he had been ominously quiet throughout their little stroll in the rain. Edge was kind of thankful that Bourbon hadn’t been his usual chatty self. Edge had used the time to regain his senses, become reacquainted so to speak with Edge. How long HAD he been “gone”. He knew from his outfit that housecleaning hadn’t been his primary function in the masters home....

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come around”, Bourbon stated simply. “You were pretty far gone.” Edge went intentionally silent now. He was trying to recall what had happened after he had his ice cream episode. Nothing at all came to him. “It appears that the crystal worked,” Bourbon continued. Edge’s hands went immediately to his ass, but he stopped himself when he recalled it had come out some time before. He felt around himself, but realized quickly the outfit wasn’t designed with pockets as a priority. “Damn”. I lost the rock.” “It served it’s purpose,” Bourbon countered coolly. “You’re here now because of it. Keeping it was never a priority.”

“For you maybe,” Edge grumbled. “That was my...uh... proof.” Bourbon raised an eyebrow (or something roughly equivalent that gave this indication). “Of what...?”

“Nothing,” Edge quickly countered in an angry tone. “I ... uh...just wanted a little souvenir is all. Maybe a little reward. Something to show for all the god damned crap I’ve been through.”

“Hmmmm....” was all Bourbon said in response.

They sat there for many hours waiting for the rain to finally stop. It did so just before the sun began to rise over the horizon. Edge had gotten a couple fitful hours of uncomfortable sleep. He was stiff and cold, but quite ready to head out, so they could find somewhere more pleasant to spend the next night. Bourbon just groomed patiently. Again he was seemingly just waiting. “Maybe back to the bunny city,” Edge thought out loud before the memory (at Bourbon’s prompting) of what had happened there came painfully back to him. The battle, before the slaver conversion complex. The slavers had been more than a match for the hapless, peace loving, bunny folk, and nearly twice their size.

Edge and Bourbon had rushed back to help, but the slavers were way too numerous, and armed with nets and poles with a taser-like device on the end. Actually the voltage made the device more like a cattle prod than a taser. Edge observed the effect up close and personal. It took three of them to bring him down, and not before he did some considerable damage with his fists and a pole device he took away from one of the slavers, who made the mistake of coming straight at him alone. For a moment he was an Edge from before.... for one short moment. Edge shivered again, but not from the cold.

When the sun rose over the horizon, it became clear the universe wasn’t done conspiring against him quite yet. It was not red like it had been on the bunny world, or yellow, like back home. Edge summed up all his emotions in one completely disgusted syllable.... “Shit!”

II.

Bourbon chatted pretty much non stop all that morning. Filling in all the details of everything that Edge had lived through but none-the-less completely missed. The Bunny people being taken into slavery, the trip to the slavers world, the bunny people being loaded onto a transport ship to be sent to a special facility where they would be “trained” to serve, Edges being chucked into a dungeon when they couldn’t break him the old fashioned way, his sarcastic sense of humor and how it had only made them madder and more determined, but was still (from Bourbons perspective) entertaining, frustrating, and full of bravery and bravado, the cell, which brought him up to the episode with the crystal and his subsequent temporary conversion.

Apparently the stone had served as a temporary repository of Edges consciousness and protected a “Copy” of it from conversion and “alteration” to the slavers mental matrix. Apparently it had trouble re-asserting and re-writing itself over the newer improved slaver brain Edge had received. Something in Edge had liked who he had become, and resisted. Edge looked at the heavy slaver leather chainmail harnessing and bulletproof kevlar. It wasn’t the outfit of a slave after all, but a slaver! They had made him into one of them! Or at least partially. Not enough to resist the crystal inside his body, but enough to slow it. Bourbon explained about how the reprogramming of the scanner in the lab had been too successful, and how Bourbon had had to change his plan, sneak onto the slaver ship, follow Edge on his bloody spree. Edge paid little attention to this part of Bourbon’s story.

Instead he cursed that he had lost his slaver weapons in the melee of his confused and muddled escape, especially the high tech riot style shield he had been issued on Ompkor for the put down of the slave revolt, with built in electrified taser mesh for driving crowds back, and general herding. This tech would have really been a handy thing to have out here in the wilds of a hostile planet, with his captors quite likely still very actively looking for him. But Bourbon seemed content to trot along at a casual pace, seemingly knowing where he was going and unconcerned with pursuit, as he continued to fill the missing pieces in for an Edge who was just happy to be Edge again.

Edge was particularly pleased , and content to know that he hadn’t just lost his pole weapon. Apparently he had broken it in half on the back of a slavers skull, after splitting his riot helmet in half to reach the soft gray matter beneath. Like a walnut under a nutcracker he had opened him up completely. The remaining jagged half of the staff /pole (probably no longer a functional device anyway) found its’ way into the soft guts of another slaver, who’s leather, chainmail and kevlar (strange combination) body armor had parted enough for him to drive through. The look on the dirty, bearded, degenerate, slavers face came back to Edge. It had been one of complete surprise, then horror. Edge had grinned back at him and winked. “That’s for the bunny people, and that poor girl on the table!” The slaver would have growled angrily in defiance but he was already very dead. The shaft drove all the way through , and was stuck in the armor protecting the slavers back. It pulled out of Edge’s hand as the body fell backward, away from him. The blood on the shaft made it impossible for Edge to retain a grip. That part he remembered without any of Bourbon’s prompting. And Bourbon was telling the story in a much more generalized way anyhow. Sans gore. Edge listened with some satisfaction, first vowing to free the bunny people, and then go back and find that lab complex, and burn it to the fucking ground. He particularly wanted to give his lab tech. a “very special bonus” he wasn’t expecting, but was so sure he had coming. Yes, Edge told himself, he definitely had it coming!

When asked, Bourbon was rather vague about the lost month Edge had spent as a slaver. Edge didn’t press very hard. It wouldn’t take much to adjust his natural aggressive rage, and make him into something he would barely want to recognize. The animal within was never very far from the surface in a man like Edge, and he knew it. Just below the surface, barely buried. Had been brought out pretty easily by choice of profession and life, and the way the universe had molded and shaped him had contributed to its’ ever pent up frustration. But that was all before. He knew what he was capable of, and if these people had tapped into his inner demon then he hated them even more, for letting it out of the mental cage, the one he had built so carefully and thoroughly around it. Even if only briefly. Better mad than....

Bourbon had kept talking right through Edges daydream and inner monologue with himself, never even noticing that he had lost his audience. “And that brings us up to....” Edge shook his head, grunted vague acknowledgment and tuned the outer world back in. Bourbon never missed a beat or knew he was gone.

I.

“So what you’re saying is that I could have just put the stone in my mouth?” Edge was enraged.

“Well technically.... I suppose.... it might have worked but....", Edge tried to throttle Bourbon. He would have killed for a slaver stun stick right now.

“But we can’t really be sure, since it had never been used that way, and we didn’t have the time to experiment.” Bourbon barely avoided Edges very enthusiastic effort to squeeze all the juice out of him. “I would have been happy to take that chance!”

“Maybe you were, but I wasn’t. If it had failed, then you’d be a sex toy on some far off world for the rest of your life.” Edge grabbed with a little less enthusiasm as he weighed this new information. He wasn’t actually getting even close to Bourbon anyway. And not all the new owners of male toys are uh...female. That idea stopped Edge cold. Not that it would have mattered to you. (Mumbled) The way you are... The message was both obvious and disturbing. But the hair on Edge’s neck was standing up again. He had a horrible feeling that somehow Bourbon meant something more than the obvious if he had heard the second part of that statement correctly. Edge didn’t want to know, but had a terrible feeling it was something he had to know, or Bourbon wouldn’t have said it to set up the necessity to ask. Edge shifted uncomfortably, as much to check his equipment as it shifted to the left, as to physically wince at the idea his package might have suffered some strange alteration. It moved as it always had, and he sighed a very audible sound of relief. Bourbon had to mean something else. Thank god he had misunderstood! Bourbon just shook his head. He had taken a perch on a tree limb, well out of reach. The hair stood back up and that queasy stomach feeling returned.

Bourbon waited for the most enthusiastic efforts to dislodge him to end before beginning again.

“The bunny people as you call them, they’re xenoherms, (pause for effect) which means in very general terms, they have the equipment to go with any other adequately evolved species any...uh... either way. They’re well.... very adaptive. They evolve or unevolve based on who, or what, comes along when their prospective queens are ovulating, about every fifty or sixty years. They watch for certain...uh... signs, performance, other behavior. (Long pause to seek a gentle way to phrase it) Basically any adequate creature will do.... Basically, buddy boy, you made the dark horse candidate for the job the clear winner. A completely unpredictable outcome, I must say! So tell me, (Bourbon was beginning to enjoy this) was she really that good or were you just being nice, for the historical record?” Edge blustered. Adequate? Faking it? Both comments bruised his male ego. And he wasn’t going to give Bourbon any additional material to taunt and torture him with later. That would be a secret he’d take to his grave. He wasn’t the kind to screw and tell. And besides, he wasn’t going to debate his innermost workings with a sarcastic possible figment of his imagination. He opted for a more sarcastic approach himself. “So was I a step up or down?”

Bourbon considered carefully. (Or perhaps the pause was just a calculated to fray Edges nerves and bait the hook for a punch-line) “Hmmmmm....”

“Well?”

“Neither actually. You would be more a step.... sideways”.

Edge studied Bourbon while formulating an equally sarcastic response. Bourbon seemed serious. But then again that might also be a subtle cat grin, or gas. Edge decided to be offended anyway. " If any ADEQUATE creature would do then why didn’t they pick you?” Edge countered.

Bourbon just grinned more broadly, completely nonplused. One look and he knew he’d given Bourbon his setup line. “They tried me,” he said matter of factually, “but I was too highly evolved.” Edge tried to absorb this. Clearly the cat was kidding. This was both the setup and punch-line all in a nifty little one liner. “Right!” He was yanking Edge’s.... Wasn’t he?.... Had to.... Bourbon remained straight faced. Not a particularly difficult task for a cat.

“A cat more highly.... ridiculous!” Edge muttered. But Bourbon stood by what he had said. With a face like that, Bourbon would be good at poker. Very good. Edge considered. Bourbon wasn’t exactly a cat was he? Not in the conventional back home sense or definition. But still.... Edge had a lot more to say on this, and questions about his traveling companion but Bourbon, having said his piece, went back to the more important matter of cleaning himself. The discussion was at an end.

But Edge was pretty upset, and wasn’t willing to let it drop so easily. He kept after Bourbon as they walked along the trail, badgering the cat with an endless verbal barrage. Finally, Bourbon added one last comment before falling silent again. “Hey. You got lucky,” Bourbon interjected. “At one time they were octopoidal slime oozing purple blobs.” Bourbon stopped to give Edge an extremely serious look, (the poker face again) then continued down the path as if nothing had been said. Edge stood there for a moment, just watching the cat go. This idea, and the seriousness with which it had been offered, made Edge shudder. It definitely gave him enough to think about that not only his forward momentum, but his inquiries ceased entirely. He got a mental picture that he didn’t like, but one he couldn’t quite stop thinking about. Bourbon just focused on the road ahead.

“There’s a bit more to it, I’m afraid....” Bourbon called back eventually.

Edge could hardly wait. What could top octopoidal blobs? What could possibly be worse?

“Genetically speaking...” This did sound worse, and only two words into it. Bourbon went on. “Genetic exchange.... material swap.... equal.... evolution....” Edge was loosing his ability, and more importantly willingness, to continue following this.

“What do you mean.... “equal, or was it fair exchange of genetic material, or was it swap? Like I was inseminated on a genetic level or something?” More thought. “Oh Christ! I’m not going to get bunny VD or anything like that am I?” Edge was becoming really excited. Bordering on frantic. Freaked out was perhaps better. The possibilities kept coming the more he thought about it. He had a novels worth. " So I’m going to get shorter and fuckin green?” he finally managed.

“No, I don’t think so...” Bourbon answered slowly, as if uncertain but trying to sound more sure than he really was.

Bourbon considered.

“More likely your going to become...uh...adaptable. That’s the standard side effect.” Edge looked confused. This wasn’t what he expected.

Bourbon tried again on a different tack. “Let me put this another way then. Well sailor, your uhhhh.... docking clamp (gesture at privates), will....uhhh....adapt.... to fit ANYones’ submarine.”

It took a few seconds for this to sink in. And then a lot of seconds for him to think about it. Then years (minutes in real time) for him to get angry, reject it, think about it, deny it, and finally to make some incoherent syllables that expressed the thousand thoughts racing through his mind too fast to form a complete thought or sentence. When he formed a thought it was a simple one: kill the messenger! The cat had sensibly moved a little further out of reach in anticipation.

“Look at it this way” the cat called down from the relative safety of the third set of branches, “Just because you have this special ability doesn’t mean you have to...uhhh... use it.” Edge seemed unimpressed. “On the plus side, your perfect “clamp” is just that, in every situation. With females of any uh species you might be interested in uh... (Bourbon was trying desperately to phrase this favorably, while staying out of reach, which Edge was angling for),well, damn it, every girl, woman, female is going to find you a perfect fit, give a perfect performance, satisfaction for you AND your partner 100% guaranteed! Edge stopped dead in place while he weighed this new way of looking at things. “So I’m....”

“A cross between John Holmes, Superman, and Peter Cottontail,” Bourbon finished cheerfully. “You are every woman’s dream guy. Back home you’re going to be a god!” Bourbon was clearly going over the top to try and soften the blow. “Think of it, One size truly does fit all.... in your case anyway.”

Edge sat down at the base of the tree to try and weigh the pro’s and cons of this situation. After a long think he finally said: “I don’t feel any different.”

“And the hardware won’t change unless an adjustment is required.” Edge kind of uncomfortably shifted his hips to check things out without actually looking once again, and making the embarrassing gesture of looking in his pants like some sort of self absorbed peeping tom, or little kid who had discovered himself for the first time. Everything “felt” OK.

Bourbon shifted the topic.

“And besides; once your new owners or uh.... slaver (associates?) found out your little uh....secret, you would have been reprogrammed and sold for real big bucks as a specialty item. It would have been back to the lab.” Edge didn’t like that idea at all. “There’s one hell of a demand for high quality xenohermaphrodites (this was the first time Bourbon used the full term for Edge’s condition) on any number of worlds.” Edge didn’t like this idea any better. But the idea of being a MAN among men (very little letters) wasn’t completely without some appeal. He just wouldn’t consider the other ramifications.

Bourbon took on a more tragic tone. “That’s why the bunny people were taken. Their special abilities make them most prized among the races the slavers favor with their attentions (dark sigh). I had hoped....” Bourbon trailed off. “There just wasn’t time for your genes to do them any good. Your.... aggressiveness, might have given them a fighting chance.” Edge nodded grimly. “Then again it might have made them into useless drunks,” Bourbon added, trying to lighten the darkening mood. Edge just grumbled in a non committal manner. Clearly he was still angry, and thinking, and had missed the intended good humored goading sarcasm completely. “Maybe I should have sold you myself.” Still no reaction. “You’d have been in real demand, being the full sized working model xeno. Big bucks. Keep me in top shelf canned tuna.... hell lobster, for years.” Edge continued to not respond. “AC-DC, all plugs and voltages accepted. Chances are you’d have ended up in a high priced alien sex house or someone private sex collection as a prized piece. Whoever he, she, or IT might have been. Not that it would have mattered to you mentally or physically. You would have loved it! You would have been fixed to love it.”

Edge shuddered again, shaken lose from his self absorbed thought processes by the disturbing images these last ideas conjured up. The idea of being used like an object, at the thought of his “adaptive” plumbing, the he, she, or IT (whatever “IT” was) comment, and the idea he had been pondering, that that was exactly how the bunny people he had actually come to like, had ended up. The terrible fate they were suffering even as he had these thoughts. “In a pigs ass,” Edge spit angrily.

“That would for all practical purposes actually work,” Bourbon suggested, having misconstrued Edge’s actual intended meaning. Edge pounded his fist. “It aint gonna happen.”

“Of course not Mikey, of course not, I know you don’t go that way, animals aint your thing,” Bourbon continued, uncertain he and Edge were talking about the same thing. For the record, they weren’t. Bourbon did not realize how much things had changed now that he had completely lost Edge’s dangerously derailed train of thought. And the effects it might have on coming events.

Bourbon tried several times to engage Edge casually in one topic of conversation or another as they trekked along. But Edge simply remained grim and silent, keeping counsel with his thoughts, as they walked along the thin winding trail towards a changed and changing fate.

Now it was personal.

And as Edge’s thoughts and plans wound and shifted like the trail, so did their eventual fates wind and shift in ways Edge, and even the seemingly prophetic (at times) Bourbon could not imagine.

Edge was no longer an unwilling participant, an onlooker, someone not actually driving but along for the ride. Now he was pissed!

They continued on silently, but with growing determination and tension, for some time. Then at a small river ford just off the main trail they stopped briefly, to rest and take some water and a few berries Bourbon had deemed safe. It was here that Edge’s mind came back to the present and a disturbing question formed.

“And you became aware of all this.... when exactly?", Edge asked Bourbon suddenly, a very nasty suspicion taking an ugly form (One that was cat shaped).

“That’s s not important,” Bourbon deflected very quickly, strolling casually out of reach. “This gives you an....edge. One you’re going to need when the REAL trouble starts.”

That “real” was real ominous.

“Real trouble?” Edge repeated incredulously. What had they been through the last five or six weeks if not real trouble?

Edge’s thoughts wandered back to the corner store where all this had begun. He wished he had managed to buy some aspirin. For a moment, Edge even longed for the lab, the straight jacket, and that brief moment of ice cream peace. But his determination to kick some slaver ass quickly returned, and they set out down the trail fate had laid before them with renewed vigor, into unknown adventure and adversity.