Author's Note: Story 2: in which subGrrl's reality coefficients are adjusted for nefarious purposes.

I would like to thank my "patrons'" who follow me over on Deviant Art at ilovelaysan.deviantart.com, Ms, Harrison, Mr. Mrhungry, Mr. Vader, and Mr. GospodinP. They make it fun and keep me interested in writing the story.

Laysan would like to suggest the following music to go along with Story 2: Explode.

I hope that you enjoy this part of the tale. Please comment if you have a moment. Tell me what you like, what you hate, why, how you are doing, whatever...

Thank you for your time and attention!


Chapter 1:

I awoke in the early, dark hours of the morning, curled in a tight ball in the small cage that had been my home for the past two months. My body had gotten used to the small confines of my world. I didn't mind that it was easier to scratch my knee with my teeth than with my fingernails. I took comfort in the cold, steel of the walls of my cage.

As I brushed the sleep from my brain, my body was abuzz with the slow, simple rhythms of sleep. The sting of the lash on my flanks had long since faded from the night before. So, too, had the tremors of my self inflicted orgasm - forgotten, like a scent dispersed into the darkness.

I remembered a dream I'd had of Laysan. Bars had separated us. I'm not sure which of us was locked and which was free. It didn't matter. We both leant forward and our lips touched briefly and barely like two interacting breezes blowing from different directions. Our eyes locked in the only form of communication we needed. Love poured from her and filled my heart. I could only hope to reciprocate. Laysan. My love.

Is this what I am to be? Is this my lot? A schizophrenic bondagette locked away - protected from the world. What of my dreams? What of my plans? Are they all forgotten? Are they all best forgotten?

As the dim light of morning arose, Lisianski came forth, but not to talk to me. She talked with other unknown voices that did not feel the need to direct their inquieries to me. Nor did they make attempts to be sensitive to my feelings or being.

"She's obviously not the one, Lisianski," a voice said. "Her story, Mirror, was good. It did well. People liked it. But, there is no sign that she is the one we are looking for. We are going to need to terminate."

Terminate? I lay, holding my breath, praying for a morsel of information as to my fate.

"No!" Lisianski's voice shot back. "You may be right. She's not the one. But, I don't want to terminate. I still see hope in her."

"What is your thinking?" the voice responded calmly.

"Progenitress. She is a progenitress."

"A what?" a third voice asked.

"A progenitress," Lisianski explained. "It comes from the word 'progenitor' which means ancestor or, in this case, founder. Basically, it means that I believe that she might conjure the one that we are looking for. She might create the one as a character in a story for example. Or perhaps the one will come to her in a dream."

A chill rippled up my backbone and I closed my eyes tightly. Laysan... Tears began to plop softly on the vinyl padding of the bottom of my cage.

"Do you have any evidence?" the voice asked.

"No. But, the evidence may be there," Lisianski responded.

"That's too much data to go through quickly," the voice responded. "I'll give you a little time to probe her in a traditional manner, but then we'll need to use more extreme tactics."

"Ok," Lisianski responded. "Hopefully, it won't come to that..."

I drifted sleepily through the early morning hours until Lisianski woke me up and bade me to get ready for work quickly. As I showered, she began to ask questions.

"Do you remember your dreams, subGrrl?" she asked.

"All the time," I answered as I rinsed conditioner from my hair.

"Do you know the people in your dreams?"

"Sometimes..."

"Do you ever have a dream of a specific person who you do not know in waking life? She would be quite unique, I believe..." Lisianski continued.

"No," I lied.

There was a naked pause as I rinsed soap from my legs. I thought I heard a clucking sound.

"She's lying," some unknown voice said.

"Hey! Who are those other voices, Lisianski?" I asked becoming angry.

"Some of my colleagues," Lisianski replied. "Don't worry about them."

"Don't worry about them? I hear random voices in my head and I'm not supposed to be worried?" I asked. "Who the hell are they? It's my head! I have every right to know who these voices belong to."

"Well..." Lisianski said. "Um... Ok... There's Alba, Paty, Ceylon, McNear, Corwin, Gardner, um... Teal, Sandalwood, 2'Ahlay, KaMoi..."

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait! Who the fuck are all these people? Tell them to get the fuck out of my head!" I screamed.

"Hey! Don't get mad at me, subGrrl!" Lisianski responded. "It's not my fault that your brain chemistry is particularly receptive to the formation of subsentience..."

"Subsentience? What?"

"Look, subGrrl," Lisianski comforted me, "I'm point on this mission. I'm the point for all communication. Don't fret yourself. Just keep working hard. Try to tell the truth."


Chapter 2:

At work that morning NemesisGirl flipped through a few ideas for stories that I had suggested for her.

"Hmmm... This is incredible, subGrrl! Even today, 33 states in the US consider spousal rape to be a lesser crime than general rape."

"Yes Mistress!" I responded excitedly, "Indeed, until the 1980's, when a woman agreed to marry, she was effectively giving her partner her consent to take her sexually whether she wanted it or not - for the rest of her married life." I did not like calling NemesisGirl 'Mistress', but I was quite happy that she found my article suggestions interesting.

"Very good, my little pet." She looked up from the notes smiling and examined me for a second until I felt a little embarrassed and began to fidget. "I see that you wore the skirt and the turtleneck sweater as I asked you to, Sweet."

"Yes, Mistress," I frowned and looked down at the floor. The sweater was kind of ugly in a Freddy Krueger sort of way, but it effectively hid the locked collar that NemesisGirl made me wear.

"Reach under your chair," NemesisGirl commanded softly.

Confused, I slowly felt underneath my office chair. A thin chain seemed to be looped around the swivel pole that supported my seat. I pulled on it and found about a meter of chain locked to the chair.

"Lock that to your collar," NemesisGirl commanded as she handed me a small padlock.

I looked at her like she was crazy. "But..."

"Do it!" she commanded.

I took the padlock from her and pulled down on the neck of my sweater.

"Unless you want everybody to see that you are locked to your chair, subGrrl, I'd suggest that you pull the chain up underneath your clothes."

I stared at her for a moment. Certainly, she was kidding. She frowned and swiveled back to her computer and began typing.

"You spend half the day hiding in the bathroom, talking to yourself, subGrrl. From now on, you will need to ask my permission to get up from your chair. You can talk to yourself all you want right here in our cube." She turned back toward me with a very serious look on her face. "Now, lock the chain to your collar."

I glanced briefly out the entrance of our cubicle to see if anyone was nearby. Slowly, I began to feed the chain underneath my skirt. I felt the links fiddle beneath my waist band as I pulled the chain higher. With my hands underneath my sweater I lifted the chain - cold metal sliding across my stomach - all the way to my neck.

"Lock the chain to your collar," NemesisGirl said again. She was not even watching. She had turned around and was browsing through her email.

I fed the padlock through the last link of the chain and the loop on my locked collar. I squeezed the padlock until it clicked.

"Good pet," NemesisGirl said.

She had measured the chain well. Sitting as I was the chain was hidden underneath my clothes. It did not hang down at all below my chair either. I would probably be able to stand, but if I began to walk, my chair would dutifully follow closely behind me.

I turned to my desk, flush, perhaps perspiring just a little. I lifted my hand to my neck to feel the padlock beneath the neck of my sweater and stared somewhat blankly at my computer screen. My stomach felt as though filled with a mob of meerkats, standing and staring and squating and foraging.

At this point, I would like to ensure the reader that I knew precisely what was happening. After all my tale is a particularly naive allegory. Our names are chosen to splatter the reader with a messy cliche upon which to base their first impressions. I am subGrrl, for example, primarily because I am submissive... particularly so. By definition, I, as a submissive, prefer to be in situations where I give control away to someone else. Many people are submissive. Many people choose to be submissive in particular situations, but are not at other times - they switch. I, unfortunately, am the single-toned variety - ever submissive, ever content to give away control.

But, what does submissive really mean? What does it imply? I think that the answers to those questions run much deeper than a shallow tale such as this. Regardless, a chain and a lock and its application upon me are determinedly in step with my nature.

So, needless to say, I knew what I was doing when I squeezed that lock shut. I could have refused - even if it had lost me my job, even if it had resulted in a particular load of embarrassment shovelled upon me. If I had not (at some level, at least) wanted to close the lock and play along with NemesisGirl I could have stood and walked away. Also, I knew the strange rippling thrill that I'd feel as soon as the lock reported its state, unrelentingly secured and unopenable to the tool-less. I knew... maybe not to the exact extent where my breath seemed to have slipped away and my hands trembled uncontrollably, but still... I knew that it could happen. Would happen... Likely.

Being submissive is about trust. I did not trust NemesisGirl necessarily. But, I do believe that my story ideation efforts have been helping her career. Indeed, she has had the most bylines in the paper of any other journalist since she has pressed me into her service. I trusted that she would not treat me in a way to jeopardize her continued success.

So, in summary, to suggest that either of us did not gain something from the clicking of the lock would be a complete lie.

And I try to never lie.

I CHOSE to close the lock.

It wasn't that difficult to DECIDE to close the lock.

...Particularly with Lisianski screaming at me in my head about the unpleasant repercussions if I did not.


Chapter 3:

The day went by without too much trauma. I had to ask NemesisGirl permission to go to the bathroom, but she never attempted to prevent me from doing so, although I was shocked when she unlocked the chain at its attachment to the chair, forcing me to stagger off to the loo with the links banging around my thighs.

After several months of living in a cage, I had taken on a particular set of habits that resulted in me using the bathroom much more during the day at work than at night. It's just the type of thing that happens when you are faced with sleeping draped over a used bedpan. Additionally, I often went to the privacy of a stall simply to convene with Lisianski. Talking to her in public makes people, including myself, a little uncomfortable. Needless to say, NemesisGirl was becoming a bit exasperated by the end of the day.

"Alright, subGrrl! There needs to be some form of payment for my having to take time out of my day to lock and unlock you," she said, finally.

"Just leave me unlocked," I suggested.

"Ha ha! No! When you return from the bathroom, I expect you to give me your panties."

"You want my what?!"

"Panties! Just drop them in my purse over there when you get back," she said.

Well... I did as she said.

The only other moment of concern occurred when BossWoman stopped by to check on an article NemesisGirl was working on (that I had suggested, thank you). At the time, I was clicking away on an obituary for an expired taxidermist and his dream of being buried with the stuffings of all his past cats. (Luckily, his current nest of three cats still had each other. Hopefully they wouldn't miss the replicas of their forebears. Anyways... BossWoman stopped by.)

"Hello, subGrrl! How are you today?" her voice sang.

I turned, squinting into the light she emitted naturally like a halo. I was about to say something when I felt the chain slide subtly across my stomach as I twisted and my voice caught, still, unborn. I began to sweat at the thought of her discovering my leashed state. I almost jumped when she lay her lithe hand upon my shoulder - her touch, like a defibrillator shocking my heart up into flight mode.

"You are doing such a great job, as always," she said.

I smiled feebly and she turned to talk with NemesisGirl who had been watching the interaction with a smug little smile pinching her lips.

I turned back to my desk and pretended to write about the necessary coffin modifications to hold all the dead cats while BossWoman's aura pushed up against my back and forced parts of my anatomy to vibrate here and there and blood to surge distractingly.

At the end of the day, I expected NemesisGirl to return my panties. Instead she simply unlocked the chain underneath the chair leaving my leash dangling.

"See you tomorrow, subGrrl," she said and quickly walked away.


Chapter 4:

The evening air on the cool Spring day quickly seeped into the links of the chain as they rattled against my unprotected underside. I sat down with a bit of a clatter at the bus stop and was shocked to see a few links hanging down further than my skirt. I quickly shielded them with my purse and spent my time fidgeting, trying to pull a few links over the waist band of my skirt, and wondering if they had been visible dangling down as I had walked around.

When the bus arrived, I found that, as usual, my seat was empty and waiting for me, the crazy woman on the 6:15. Lisianski started laughing as we navigated the rush hour traffic.

"You seem to be gaining hardware," she said.

"Fuck off!" I whispered.

Even when you spend most of your time in a cage it is necessary to run various errands. So, it was several hours later that I finally made it home, stripped to my collar and leash, and began to slither backwards into my cocoon. I immediately noticed the new features that my cage had acquired during the day.

"What is this, Mistress?" I asked.

"I'll explain in detail in a moment, subGrrl. But first," Lisianski replied, "I was wondering if you happened to have remembered any strangely powerful, recurring entities from your dreams."

"Entities?" I inquired.

"Yes. Entities. Characters. Spirits. People not from your waking life."

I answered negatively.

A reader of this story may wonder why, thinking that as these bdsm erotic tales generally seem to go, noncooperativety generally lands the protagonist in progressively more dire straits. Indeed, it would seem, that is precisely what was about to occur to me. At the time, however, I did not realize that I was a character in a story. I thought my prevarication would hold and the topic would be forgotten.

Additionally, a reader might wonder why I was resistant to reveal Laysan in the first place. Well, having a voice, or voices residing in one's head is a particular invasion of one's privacy. Lisianski seemed to see what I saw. She heard what I heard. But, she never seemed to be able to hear my thoughts. My thoughts were the only bit of privacy that I still retained. I only ever saw Laysan in my dreams. She was mine. All mine. Only mine. I loved her! If I had told Lisianski, I believed that she would probably have sullied Laysan just as she had the rest of my life.

"Ok, subGrrl, if you say so," Lisianski sighed as I closed the cage door with a clatter and squeezed the combination lock shut.

It seemed that my feeding tube now ended in a rather bulbous rubber attachment.

"You'll find that in order to suck your protein shake, you will need to insert that ball into your mouth," Lisianski explained.

I pushed the bulb past my teeth and closed my mouth around it. When I sucked I felt a delicious stream of chocolatey fluid pour into the back of my mouth. "Mmm!" I was very hungry.

"You need to buckle those two straps behind your neck to keep the bulb in your mouth."

"Oh ay," I mumbled around the tube as I pulled the straps underneath my hair and fixed the buckle tightly. I wasn't certain how this bulb would simply fall from my mouth based on the work required to get it in, but whatever...

"Also," Lisianski continued, "knowing how well you like locks and links, you will find two shiney new wrist shackles to wear while you are in the cage."

I examined them skeptically. A short Y of chain connected the cuffs to the center bar on the cage door.

"Don't worry!" Lisianski stated quickly. "They won't prevent you from using the tablet to read your assignments."

I wrapped the cuffs around my wrists until they locked into place. They were tight, but comfortable - a perfect fit.

"The key to the cuffs is around the side of the cage. You won't be able to reach it until the door is open. Now, please, get to work!"

This night, I was fortunate to read a particularly interesting story. The heroine, a little f, was described in rich, complex technicolor. She was enticed, not degraded. She was loved, not abused. I felt a longing deep within as she navigated her travails with dignity and finesse. I felt a comradery, a similarity... I felt for a brief moment that I was not so completely alone in the world. Were a big F like the one in the story, to find me, to take me, to control me, I would be so complete.

I hummed so happily as I meandered through the story. Casually sucking up my dinner. At the end, I gave a heartfelt and thoughtful review detailing the specific points that most enamored me with the text.

It was late and dark by the time I was finished. My dinner was gone. I was ready to receive my nightly twenty and dream sweet dreams of Laysan. I reached to undo the buckle and remove the bulb from my mouth, but when I did the chain holding my cuffs snapped tight before my fingers made it half way to their destination.

"Mmm!?"

I tried to shuffle forward further and press my face against the bars, but nothing I did allowed me to sufficiently grasp and manipulate the buckle and I grunted loudly and angrily at Lisianski at the realization that I would not be able to remove the gag, for that is what this bulb was, until my hands were free in the morning.

I slumped to my side cursing Lisianski behind my gag.

"Your lashings, subGrrl. Let's go. It's late."

"Uh ooo!" I cursed again, but pressed myself back against the window and the invasive rear bar. I heard a swish and felt a pelt of fire stripe itself across my flanks causing my muscles to tense as I screamed into the gag.

Shots of searing pain repeatedly flashed through me until a splash of adrenaline soaked my nerves and oozed from within me. Afterwards, I collapsed in tears, shaking, as the fiery pain eased leaving a dull throb of unrepentant longing. It was this longing that over the past two months I had conditioned myself to relieve through auto-ministrations. But, once again, as I reached to settle the longing, the forgotten chains that held my hands at the front of the cage snapped taut.

"Mmm!!"

I banged around in the cage trying to reposition myself in some way. Tears began to rain in earnest and I let forth a long drawn-out gutteral, angry, muffled scream as I realized my longing would be left to find its own way on this night.

"Good night, subGrrl," Lisianski said.

I did not go to sleep easily rattling around in my cage attempting to grind myself against my heel or the cold metal edge of the bedpan. Much later in the wee hours of the morning as I lay motionless and angry, blanketed in frustration, I heard the unknown voice begin to talk with Lisianski.

"No luck? Is she lying?"

"Nope. No luck. But it doesn't matter now whether she is lying or not. We have only one option," Lisianski said.

"You're going to adjust her reality coefficients?" the voice asked.

"We've got to," Lisianski sighed.

"Won't that result in dangerous hallucinations?"

"Maybe..."

My eyes popped open and stared into the darkness of my small, steel home.

"But, the only way to see inside her dreams is to make her see dream material when she is awake."

"Ok," the other voice said. "I'll begin to make the Etheryords."


Chapter 5:

That night I dreamt of Laysan.

"Can you understand me?" I asked her desperately.

She shook her head affirmatively.

"You need to run and hide! They are after you! You can't let them find you!"

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. I don't think she had the slightest clue what I was talking about.

"They want to steal you from me. They want to hurt you. I love you so much, Laysan. I'm so afraid of what they will do to you!"

She just shook her head and poked at the sundrenched container of the dream in which we stood causing the scenery to ripple as she did.

"No! I don't think that the dream will protect you! They're probably even somewhere nearby now," I said frantically scanning through the trees and unicorns.

She wrapped her arms and chains around me and pulled me close so that our cheeks touched and her unruly mane tickled the end of my nose. She held me so tightly, that I felt her heart beat in her breast.

"I can't lose you Laysan," I cried. "You're all that I have."

She stroked my hair and kissed my chin as the dream slowly faded away.

Since I take the same bus to work and back every day, I see the same crowd of regulars clocking their way through their lives. Some think I'm scary, I think. Some think I'm funny. Some just smirk. They all give me a wide berth. I sit in the same seat every day. It's always there waiting for me. Everyone knows it is mine. No one dares sit in either my chair or the one next to it. Occasionally, a new rider will mistakenly sit there, though less and less lately. I think other riders are warning the uninitiated. I imagine them saying, "That's the crazy lady's seat" before the bus arrives at my stop. Even the driver looks at me oddly.

So, I was surprised to see a tall, thin woman huddled in a long black raincoat, hiding underneath a slick hat, sitting in my window seat. I cautiously sat beside her gently patting myself to ensure that NemesisGirl's leash was sufficiently hidden beneath my clothes.

I was staring at the designs of water stains on my leather purse when I got the odd sensation that someone was staring at me. I often feel that people are staring at me, particularly on my bus ride, but this was something more. It was like a mysterious pin prick on my neck that wouldn't resolve itself - a misfiring nerve ending perhaps.

I slithered my hand up to my neck, trying to stay as small as possible and brushed the sensation away. No sooner had I returned my hand to my lap, when I felt the pin prick ignite again. The tall woman next to me shifted. She was looking at me. I knew she was. I brushed my neck again and scooted further towards the outside of the seat until one butt cheek was halfway hanging off.

A slithering whisper suddenly cut down the aisle of the bus assaulting my ears. "subGrrl!"

Wracked with fear and a growing sense of vertigo I twisted to look at the tall, raincoated intruder. As I did she slowly turned her face towards me and I screamed and staggered up from my seat. Her face!

Well... she had a face, indeed, perfectly contoured, but upon it there were no features. She had no eyes. Her perfect thin nose had no nostrils. And where her mouth should have been there was nothing but smooth skin.

"subGrrl!!!" she whispered, the sound, loud and emanating from her very being - knifing into my head. I screamed again, staggering backwards as I did until I fell into a man's lap who had been sitting across the aisle.

He pushed me away screaming, "Crazy, fucking bitch!" and I fell into the aisle of the bus, the contents of my purse pouring across the floor. I looked up in fear certain that the faceless woman was about to pounce on top of me, but she was gone. My window seat was empty.

"Are you having an episode back there, Loony Girl?" the bus driver yelled from his seat.

I realized that the bus had stopped. Everyone was looking at me crouched and shaking on the floor. I feebly shook my head no.

"Do you need to get off the bus?" he asked.

I looked up to the seat where faceless woman had been, then back at the bus driver. "No. I'm fine..."

"Ok, then..."

I started crawling around on my hands and knees gathering items that had tumbled from my purse. Over the deafening silence I heard the scraping of metal across the floor. Before I even looked, I knew that my leash was hanging out from my skirt in plain view. I glanced up to see all the patrons staring at me. I quickly scraped the rest of my purse together and climbed into my seat, adjusting my clothes to hide the chain.

"Looks like someone forgot to lock Loony's tether to the anchor..." some older woman said.

I pressed my face and head to the window, doing my best to disappear, wiping tears as they silently fell down my face.


Chapter 6:

When I arrived at the office, NemesisGirl was already there. She turned and handed me a padlock.

"Morning... Why are your knees so dirty? You are a mess!"

I looked down and started rubbing at the dirt that I must have acquired from the floor of the bus.

"I've decided that from now on you will always be barefoot at the office. So, after you are done locking your leash the chair, give me your shoes."

I scowled, but said nothing and dutifully doffed my sensible flats and placed them on NemesisGirl's desk. She shoved them into a filing cabinet drawer which she closed and locked.

It was strange to walk around the office (when I could) barefoot. Everyone else wore shoes. Some stared, but only Ms. Morality, the HR bitch, said anything.

"Put your shoes on, subGrrl," she spit at me as I made a trip towards the bathroom. "You are violating company policy."

"Ok," I said and padded my way back to my cube.

"Ms. Morality is upset that I'm not wearing shoes," I told NemesisGirl. "And I really have to pee..."

"Go ahead and go then. Don't worry about Ms. M. I'll sort it out," NemesisGirl said and she escorted me to the bathroom. NemesisGirl must have more clout than I expected if she can trump Ms. Morality.

"How is your day going?" Lisianski asked as I sat on the toilet.

"Hmmpf!" I croaked.

"Bad?"

"Bad?!? What was that thing on the bus? Was that waking dream material? I heard you talking in the night about 'adjusting my reality coefficients'... Was that just a dream?"

"It seemed more like a nightmare to me," Lisianski chuckled.

"Yeah? Fuck you too!"

"Come on, subGrrl! It could have been worse."

That afternoon, NemesisGirl got up from her desk and as she left the cube said, "Don't forget the team meeting in the conference room!"

"What? Wait! Come back!" I shouted as I jumped up and jerked my chair along behind me briefly.

"Come on! Don't be late!" she said as she walked around the corner.

I dragged my chair over to the entrance of our cubicle and looked around for other people. I couldn't walk around with the chair dragging behind me on the chain. Finally, I sat down and, still shoeless, and began scooting myself, casters squeaking, down the hall to the conference room.

Everyone had already gathered by the time I rolled in. I pulled one of the conference room chairs away from the table and slid into its place. I glanced up to see Ms. Morality sneering at me, her face twisted with hate. Still, she said nothing. I shot NemesisGirl an eat-shit look.

"I guess subGrrl prefers her own chair," NemesisGirl giggled.

My face burned with embarrassment. I couldn't even look at BossWoman afraid that I would spontaneously combust.

I suffered the meeting in my typical silence and afterwards scooted back to the cube.

"That was cruel," I said to NemesisGirl.

"That was fun," she replied, giggling, "And don't forget to call me Mistress, my pet."


Chapter 7:

From that day on, I spent my days shoeless and chained and I spent my nights smoldering, gagged and handcuffed. My hallucinations began to increase in frequency.

Two days later when I was sitting, writing an obituary, a small animated cartoon popped up in the lower righthand side of my screen. At first I thought it was that annoying paper clip that used to pop up all the time when using MS Office products, but when I looked at it, I realized that instead of a paper clip, it was a chastity belt. The chastity belt, though, had simple round eyes with fuzzy brows that hovered in the air over the faceplate. Blocky white gloves and thick white boots enabled the chastity belt to dance around and gesticulate with impunity. I began clicking around it trying to make it go away.

"Hi, subGrrl," it said in a rich, masculine voice. "How are you today?"

I looked over towards NemesisGirl out of the corner of my eye. She was absorbed in something. I decided that the voice had not come from my speakers. I continued dragging my mouse around trying to select and cut the image off my screen. The cartoon jumped around non-plussed.

"You know how these stories go, don't you, subGrrl? You've read so many of them recently, after all..." the chastity belt said. "As the story goes along, the heroine finds herself trapped in ever more restrictive bondage. By the end, something permanent is applied and the poor girl is left to eternally wallow in her unfulfilled desires. It's a very effective and natural plot progression. It matches life so well after all."

I saved the document that I was working on and tried to shut down the application. Still the chastity belt was there.

"So, let's see... At first there was just a cage. Now, you're gagged, handcuffed, chained... You know where your story is headed, don't you, subGrrl? I bet that Lisianski is checking your measurements right now and purchasing a chastity belt for you to stew in - a big, bulky heavy one..."

I decided that I would try to reboot my machine.

"I have a suggestion for you. Beat her to the punch! Take me!"

"Fucking machine!" I mumbled under my breath. NemesisGirl looked over at me. "This operating system takes forever to reboot!" I explained. She smirked and turned back to her work.

"The way I see it," the animated chastity belt continued, "if you wait for Lisianski, that would be kind of like being set up for an arranged marriage. That's where I come in. I'm here to woo you. I'm here to make you fall in love with me."

Then the chastity belt began to sing. "Crazy. I'm crazy for feeling so lonely..."

The operating system seemed to have shut down, but the chastity belt was still there, singing. I twisted the screen around and reached for the power cable.

"Wait!" the chastity belt screamed. "Look at me! I'm small and compact. No one will ever know that I'm with you. You'll still be able to wear that bikini on the beaches in the south of France! That's because I won't actually be locked on you - more like, installed. I don't have a bulky locking mechanism. I mate for life. They'll bury us together."

"Fuck that!" I whispered and yanked the power cord from the monitor.

When I turned the monitor back around, I emitted a short scream. The chastity belt had stepped out of the screen and was now standing on my desk in technicolor 3D.

"Hey!" the chastity belt said waving a fat gloved hand. "I see you're naked now."

"What?! Eeee!"

I jumped back from the desk rolling in my chair. Sure enough I was stark naked. Well, almost. The collar was still locked around my neck and my chain leash snaked down between my breasts, across my lap, between my legs, and around the edge of the seat. I covered my nudity as best as I could with my hands.

"You're beautiful, subGrrl! Here! Let Old Steely place an eternal kiss upon your nether lips. I promise to love and tease you for the rest of your life." He puckered his lips.

"I'm going to beat that squiggley mouth right off your faceplate!" I grabbed the keyboard and raised it to attack the chastity belt.

"subGrrl!!!"

I froze and turned to NemesisGirl who was staring at me with a wrinkled brow and well-turned frown. Using only my eyes, I scanned around the cubicle to see if "Old Steely" was still around (he wasn't), if I had clothes on or not (I did).

"Heh heh! Computer problems..." I smiled as I slowly, cautiously settled back into my chair.

"Ok! Well! You're talking to yourself again. It's very distracting! And loud!" NemesisGirl complained as she turned back to her desk. "We'll need to fix that, I think... Tomorrow..."


Chapter 8:

That night I had an amazing dream with Laysan.

When I awoke to the dream world, I found that I was naked except for the chain and collar that NemesisGirl made me wear. I was in a steam filled room. At least, I assumed it was a room. I felt a tiled floor under my bare feet, but the soft glow of the white steam concealed any other features that may have existed. My leash actually disappeared into the steam somewhere over my head.

I watched the slack slip out of the leash and felt it tug against my collar, so I began to walk to see where it would lead me. I began to descend a ramp. My feet splashed loudly into a thick liquid which grew deeper with every step I was forced to take.

As I continued the level of the warm liquid rose above my knees to where I could see it through the steam. It was the color of butterscotch and smelled as sweet. I saw a shadow ahead which resolved itself into the beautiful form of my lovely Laysan. She reached out and pulled herself into my arms, her cheek pressed against mine, her foot snaking around the back of my legs somewhere under the waist deep pool.

She stepped back and looked into my eyes with her beautiful smile sitting serenely upon her face. She gently kissed two fingertips on her right hand and gently pressed them to my heart which suddenly filled with a love more thick than even the liquid which filled our bath.

"I love you, too," I whispered.

A tub filled with neatly folded cloths and containers of soaps and lotions floated out of the steam. As she stared into my eyes, Laysan cupped some of the sweet liquid in her hand and poured it against my belly and I realized that she was going to bathe me.

She pulled me close to her again, hugging me tightly. Her nose just below mine, her large, friendly eyes staring into my own. She nodded her head slightly and then began to pull me down. I let my knees bend and we slipped under the luxurious surface of the candied broth. The liquid felt so thick and smooth and it tugged at my hair. We remained underneath for what seemed to be forever, but I was never scared of running out of breath. Eventually, Laysan pushed up and we rose together back out of the pool. The sweet butterscotch ran thickly from Laysan's long tresses and dripped from link to link of her ever present chains decorated her slim arms from collar to cuff.

She wrapped her chains and her arms around me and looked over my shoulder as she pulled a container from the floating tub. I heard a cork pop, then she rose up higher and poured some of the contents onto the crown of my head. I heard the container rattle back into the tub and she began working the syrup, smelling of fennel and sweet grass, into my scalp. Always, she held me particularly close so that our lips would brush against each other if we were to lean just a little. Bubbles tumbled from my head and slickened the surfaces between where our skin met, across our chests, between our breasts and over the swell of our bellies. I tried my best to rub against her as she worked. Oh! Such a silky feeling!

After she squeezed and wrung the bubbles into the extent of my hair, she tapped me twice on my shoulder and held her hand out to the side, cupped as though she were carrying a delicate song. She pulled at my arm until I understood that I should hold my hand in the same manner. She reached around me and retrieved the container, pouring a healthy dollop into my open hand. She looked into my eyes, then flashed them up twice. I took the shampoo and wiped it across the top of her head. She tapped my arm quickly and held up the container, so I cupped my hand again and gave me more to wash with. Indeed Laysan's hair is thick and long flowing down her back and past the swell of her beautiful rear.

I did for her as she had done for me massaging her scalp, slowly descending, our foreheads pressed together. After I was done she pulled us under again and when we surfaced we twisted and wrung each others hair until the suds had fallen softly away.

Next Laysan pulled out a bubble filled loofah and began to scrub my arms from shoulder to tip. Throughout her ministrations she held me close, her thighs wrapped around mine, perhaps - a hand sliding luxuriously across the soft flesh of my cheek, perhaps.

She scrubbed my torso relentlessly and it was painful, but delicious. Perhaps, it was pain, indeed, that she was scraping away. She scrubbed at my breasts and my nipples and underneath until I squeaked and moaned, across my belly, stabbing at my navel and down the swell of my pubis as I fought off giggles and squirms. She twisted me around, and pushed my soaking hair over my shoulder and using two hands, now, pushed and scraped at my back. My leash pulled at my collar and helped me keep balance and when even that failed, Laysan wrapped a leg around mine to keep me upright.

Finally, she resoaped the loofah and handed it to me. She pressed a finger into my chest and then pointed at herself. So, I began to scrub her down, exactly as she had done me. As I washed her, I examined her chains. They were beautifully smooth and lighter than they appeared. When I pulled her hair away from her neck I realized that a word was engraved in her metal collar is marvelously scripted letters. "FOREVER" it said. I certainly could find no keyhole or slot or seam, and so, decided that these were always part of her now.

As I began to scrub her back a noticed a viscious scar that I had never seen before. It had always been covered by her beautiful hair. The scar ran from her right shoulder to her left hip - a line of mottled skin that rose and disolved along its path like a stitch in a hem. However instead of silk, this thread was as thick as a heavy cable.

I briefly rubbed my finger across the scar on her shoulder until she looked back at me, frowning slightly. I lightly kissed the tips of my fingers and pressed them back to the scar. When Laysan smiled at my gesture, tears began to pour from my eyes and I sobbed for the pain that Laysan must have endured to acquire such a badge.

As I scrubbed her back, Laysan pushed back equally hard against me like a cat, her back arched. I was trembling against her beauty.


Chapter 9:

The level of the pool had dropped as we had washed each other. The warm, sweet, liquid tickled me mid-thigh as Laysan reclaimed the loofah and began to scrub my back end. Once again she assumed no restriction nor restraint and ground the rough surface of the sponge with power, precision, and depth leaving me yipping and hopping from time to time and toe to toe.

She turned me to face her and scrubbed my pubis as well. She placed the loofah back into the tub and knelt in the butterscotch before me, pulling me towards her until her cheek pressed softly against my sex. I began to tremble with lust and hope and anticipation. After a moment, she looked up into my eyes. When she saw that I was focused, she tapped each of my arms and then brought her hands together over her head with her fingers entwined in a double fist. Then she tapped my stomach twice. Apparently, she wanted me to hold my hands together. I folded my hands together as she had and held them at my abdomen. Once I was done, she grabbed one of my wrists in each hand and pushed my arms around behind me and let them go. When she brought her own hands back into my view, she clasped them again with fingers interlaced. I realized what she wanted and made the double fist behind my back.

Laysan smiled at me for a moment, then began to cup liquid from the pool and pour it gently over my sex. I gasped and my knees buckled slightly when she began to pull at my labia, rinsing as she did. I closed my eyes and arched my back, stealing breaths when I could amongst the rhythm of arousal that began to drum within me. Oh, please! Just a little more finger in the right places! I could not stand the arousal much more and my right hand moved around my body to help. I felt a stinging slap on my forearm and Laysan pushed my arms around behind me again. I reclasped my hands and began to weep. I'm so weak!

Laysan patted my sex twice to comfort me, but then resumed her detailed cleansing, pushing me as she did towards a overpowering need. My pelvis bounced and lurched of its own accord seeking to follow where Laysan's delicate fingers had been. I tried to present myself, to arrange myself for maximum contact. Indeed I wanted Laysan on me. I wanted her all over me. But, she continued washing and softly coaxing my sex. For a second I feared that Lisianski had already corrupted Laysan and she would merely tease me to insanity. I realized, though, that Laysan's teasing was a tool to allow me to express my desire as completely and as fully as I could.

I opened my eyes. The steam around us flashed with colors, rich and intense. I felt the tickle of the colors flow from within me, their wavelengths buzzing from my open pores - snapping and popping as Laysan's soapy fingers slid across my flesh. Breathe!

Finally, she began to finger my clitoris, coaxing and rinsing it. My left leg gave out and I started to collapse moaning and splashing. I had lost muscle control. Laysan caught me as I trembled and wept in her arms. She lay me back so that I floated on the surface of the pool and slowly scooped water over my head as I helplessely breathed the words "thank you" over and over.

When I had reclaimed control, Laysan helped me back to my feet and wiped my sex with a smooth, soft cloth. Then she continued bathing me - down my legs, pulling feet and bending knees until she was finished. I was in such a daze that I remained standing, stone still, until I realized that she had stood, pulled my hands apart and pressed the loofah into my palm. It was now my turn to do her.

I copied her pattern once again. She obviously had two purposes in this exercise. She wanted to clean me, but also, she was teaching me how to clean someone else - how to serve.

When I had knelt and began to rinse her sex, she clasped her hands behind her back as she had taught me. As I manipulated the folds of her sex, I wondered if I would be able to have the same effect on her that she did for me. I wanted more than anything in the world to provide her with ultimate pleasure, but I wasn't sure that I would be capable. After washing a bit, in fact, I was certain that I was failing as she had reacted minimally.

When I looked up into her face, though, I saw that her eyes were closed and her lips had parted slightly to allow larger breaths. I pressed my cheek to the inside of her thigh. I could feel a tremor deep within her. I stopped worrying about my actions and used the tremor to lead me as I went along. As the tremor within her grew I began to smell the fragrance of her arousal.

I have provided pleasure to women in my life, dear reader. Sometimes it was a purposeful thing where I thought of myself and my preferences and applied them to my lover in a calculated escalation of contact and caress - a purposeful placement of fingers, a planned thrust and curling of knuckles. This, my friends was nothing so noetic, nothing so purposive. I was driven solely by arousal. Laysan's thrill swept into my soul and drove me in the steam and sweet pool. Heaven must be such a place.

Soon, I was assaulted by a whip of wet hair. Laysan had begun to bend forward and was about to collapse, so I stood and caught her in my arms. I held her body close, feeling her heart pound next to mine, until she could stand on her own again.

We stood together as close as possible squeezing our bodies together, breasts and bellies and thighs. She kissed me and I met her lips with a degree of ferocity. I pushed my tongue between her lips and felt along her teeth. There was something foreign on the surface of some teeth - something textured.

I stepped back and pushed a finger between her lips, tentatively at first until I understood that she did not mind. To each side of her mouth I found wires - some kind of orthodontia, perhaps. I think that her mouth is wired shut. Regardless, there seemed to be no passage past the impenetrable wall of her teeth.

Laysan brought her hand to my mouth as well and slipped two fingers inside. I opened my mouth and watched as she smiled, strangely amused as she pinched and tussled my tongue. After a moment, I closed my lips around her fingers and sucked on them until she pulled them away.


Chapter 10:

Laysan pointed at my eyes. She pointed at herself and then my lips, finally waving the fingers of her hand away from my mouth.

"You want me to watch you and tell you what I see?" I asked.

She smiled and nodded her head.

She pointed at herself. "You..." I said.

She cupped her hands over her heart and then pointed at me.

"You love me?" She nodded. "I love you, too. Very, very much," I responded.

She cupped her hands over her heart again. "Love...?"

Next she began to use signals that I was familiar with only because I have played charades before long, long ago.

"Small word..." I said watching her fingers. "Love is..."

Laysan shook her head, no.

"Sounds like..." Laysan mimed lifting something off her head. "Small word that sounds like hat.... At! 'Love at...'"

Laysan stood up straight and tall and waved her hand down her lean stomach. "Belly?" I asked. Then she drew and arc away from her body from under her breasts to the bottom of her abdomen and expanded her cheeks like she was holding her breath. "Belly? Full?" She nodded, smiling. "'Love at full...'"

Laysan held a forearm parallel to the floor. She used two fingers to dance along its length. "Walking?" She shook her head and pointed to her temples. "Head? No. You're trying to describe a concept."

She held her arm parallel again, but this time moved her fingers briskly along its length. "Walking and running?... Hmmm... Fast and slow? Ok. Sounds like..."

Laysan made a fist with her right hand and struck it down against her chest right over her heart. I jumped slightly, strangely alarmed. "Sounds like 'stab'?"

From the point where Laysan's imaginary knife had punctured her flesh, she began to trace a slow, meandering line down her torso with the tip of her finger. "Blood? Sounds like 'blood'? No... bleed! Sounds like 'bleed'. Hmmm..." I thought for a second. "Slow and fast. Sounds like 'bleed'... Speed! Yes! 'Love at full speed!'"

I was so excited. Communicating with Laysan was fun! But we really needed to learn sign language if we were going to get anywhere.

"Love at full speed! Oh... there's more? Small word. 'Is'. 'Love at full speed is...'"

Laysan then pressed her palm lightly on my shoulder. "Love at full speed is a shoulder? Love at full speed is a shoulder to lean upon?" Laysan shook her head, no.

She raised her hand high above her head and brought it down on my shoulder with a loud clapping sound. "Owww! That hurt like hell! Fuck!" My shoulder was stinging badly and quickly turned a tomato shade of red. "That's not how you play charades. 'Love at full speed is hurt?'" Laysan coaxed me to continue on that line of thought. "Love at full speed is pain?"

Laysan was jumping up and down, splashing in the pool, smiling and pointing at me as I rubbed my shoulder.

"Love at full speed is pain? Heh heh... Ok. Nice, but... I don't understand why you are telling me this," I admitted.

Laysan stepped up and gave me a firm kiss on the lips, then stepped back, her hand lingering on my left breast over my heart, her fingers pressing firmly against my skin just below my shoulder.

"Mmmm," I responded and opened my eyes. She was looking at me strangely. Perhaps she was cringing as though something unpleasant was about to happen.

I became nervous and confused suddenly and in that second Laysan dug her fingers into my skin. Not just my skin though. She dug them into my chest and I screamed and began to convulse in pain. She pulled her hand down and as she did I heard an odd shattering sound like breaking ceramic. I then felt a coldness whistle into my chest. My heart felt as though it was going to explode. My knees buckled and I began to collapse.

I couldn't scream anymore. I couldn't control my muscles. Laysan had caught me and held me, her face serious and concerned.

The cold blew out towards my extremities which had begun to twitch uncontrollably. My vision dimmed from the pain, so I tried to focus on Laysan's face. Why?

I think I was having a seizure of some sort. It's too much, Laysan. You've made me feel too much! I can't live with feelings. It hurts too bad!

I tried to continue to focus on Laysan but my head rolled back and my eyes stared off into the steam which darkened and closed in all around me until I was gone.


Chapter 11:

When I arrived at work, after chaining my leash to the chair and giving NemesisGirl my shoes and a pair of panties (I was going to have to pay them to her sometime during the day anyways, so I had stopped wearing them at all. I just carried them in my purse and handed them over first thing in the morning), NemesisGirl gave me an orange spongy ball.

"Hold that in your mouth please," she said.

I took the ball and squeezed it between my teeth. It was not too difficult to keep my jaw closed around it, but it seemed to fill my mouth quite effectively. It also resumed its natural size quite quickly, so even when I opened my mouth, it quickly filled in the extra space. To speak, I would have to pull the saliva soaked thing back through my teeth.

NemesisGirl knelt in front of me and seemed to examine my mouth for a moment. "Say something," she said finally.

I raised my hand to remove the ball, but NemesisGirl quickly shook her head and said, "Nuh-uh!" She obviously wanted me to try to speak with the ball in my mouth.

I had opened my mouth and uttered a tiny muffled sound, but quickly closed my mouth as I felt drool leak out my lips. Embarrassed, I raised my hand to wipe it away, but before I could NemesisGirl had placed her finger on my lips. She had never touched me before in any way. When she did, it felt electric. I froze outwardly in order to camouflage the palpitations that I suddenly felt inside. I felt the desire to kiss her finger. I believe that my lips even twitched and began to purse, but I stopped them short.

NemesisGirl scooped the drop of drool away with her finger. Then she leaned forward and gently kissed my lips, airy and silky, early spring leaves, mint. After a second of shock, I pulled away. NemesisGirl frowned, but seemed to search my face for a moment. She must have found what she was looking for, perhaps it was my confusion. She quickly smiled with a satisfied hum, stood and turned back to her desk.

"That should keep you quiet, I think," she said leaving me hanging with a firm grip on my tethering chair.

NemesisGirl bade me to keep the ball in my mouth almost all the time while I was in the office. And I did. So rarely had I ever spoken to my coworkers before, that no one seemed to notice when my silence was suddenly a required state. Even Lisianski seemed to play along as she rarely required my interaction until we were riding away from the office on the evening bus.

Two days later, I was spun suddenly in my chair and hauled down the hall, barefoot, tethered, and gagged. NemesisGirl was driving me this day and she merely said, "Time for the weekly team meeting."

I "mmmpfd!" in alarm and reached for my mouth, but NemesisGirl growled softly, "Leave it!"

Oddly enough, Lisianski said the same two words at precisely the same time in a voice a mere two full steps lower.

Others were already waiting when we arrived at the conference room, Ms. Morality wearing a vile visage. NemesisGirl slid me up to the table and then went to sit directly across from me.

BossWoman informed us that the Machete Man was the suspected murderer of a thirteenth victim in the region. All the victims had been middle class women. The only fact that has related the murders together, is the mode in which the victims had been dispatched - a large bladed implement applied forcefully and repeatedly to the abdomen in a hacking fashion.

And speaking of fashion... as a segue... Some fashion companies were beginning to release lines of clothing featuring embedded strips of steel and carbon fiber. These garments were being marketed as Machete Man proof. BossWoman began to show us some images of the various offerings.

"Ooo, sexy!" Worker Bee, an indentured journalist, said. It seemed that most featured particularly tight corsets. One even looked, for all intents, like a full length latex body suit. Few of the garments left much to the imagination.

"We want," BossWoman explained, "to write an article about these garments and I am looking for angles. How should we approach the subject? Of course, three of the manufacturers are advertisers, so keep that in mind... subGrrl, what angle would you suggest?"

This form of questioning was a new tactic. My eyes bulged for a second. I felt blood drain from my face. I slowly shrugged my shoulders and used the gesture to slink lower into my chair as I tried to make the ball in my mouth suddenly dissolve.

"Come on, subGrrl! I know that you have an opinion. Share it with us please!" BossWoman said, her eyes a-twinkle, her smile - brilliant. I shrank a little lower. I was going to disappoint her with my silence. My heart was aching. Maybe NemesisGirl was going to make up an excuse for me! I looked across the table at her.

"Yeah, subGrrl, you have all kinds of great ideas, but you always keep them to yourself," NemesisGirl smiled.

Fuck! The bitch was trying to get me fired. I shot her an evil look, to which she merely continued watching with an amused interest.

I sank even lower and placed a hand over my mouth. As discreetly as possible with the entire table staring at me, I opened my mouth and ripped the sopping ball from behind my teeth. After shoving the ball into my lap, I wiped a line of drool off my cheek with my sleeve in a particularly uncivilized manner.

"Great balls!" Ms. Morality exclaimed. "She's got so much gum in her mouth, she can't even talk."

"I think..." I said clearing my throat a little. "I think it is kind of evil that those corporations are profiting off the acts of a deranged and violent human being."

I looked around at the faces in the room all staring at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Well, NemesisGirl was still smirking and BossWoman was still a-glow, but otherwise... "Besides these outfits look like they would be kind of uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. They were probably designed by men..."

I looked around the room again searching for the crickets and dropping pins. "That was a joke..."

"If you could curb your feminist rantings every once in a while, subGrrl, you might actually be able to get a man," Ms. Morality scoffed.

I looked at her somewhat confused. "Get a man? I live in an apartment thusly remediating the need to hire landscapers of any sort," I said as innocently as possible.

"Oh! Well, I assumed that is why you have started wearing skirts to work every day..." Ms Morality sniped clueless as ever. "I bought the carbon fiber burka just last week," she continued with a proud, snooty smile.

"Interesting angle, subGrrl. I like that," BossWoman smiled and she moved to the next person at the table.

I looked up at NemesisGirl who, when she caught my glance began to tap her lips with a forefinger, apparently indicating that she expected for me to reinsert the ball immediately.

I pretended like I was yawning and shoved the ball back into my mouth.


Chapter 12:

Feminist rantings? Ha! Ms. Morality's insult backfired. I have always thought of myself as a feminist. It felt particularly good that other's associated me with feminism as well. I rode on a particular high for the rest of the day.

I may have even been humming as I began my night's reading assignment, crouched naked, cuffed and gagged, in my small cage.

As fate would have it though, the story was about a female law student with a brilliant future who is brainwashed somehow to disregard the promise of her future in order to be a man's sex toy. I was disgusted! The feminist in me was furious. But as I continued reading and the woman assumed more and more submissive tendencies, I began to feel a stirring of arousal.

It was the realization of that stirring that sent me on a downward spiral into depression.

After all, how can I be a feminist? A feminist is supposed to hold her power and say, "Hey world, here I am! I can do anything!" I, on the other hand, am a complete submissive, eagerly seeking ways to give up my power to others. I'm like the poster child for anti-feminism. If someone wanted to prove by example that a woman needs someone to take care of her. I'd be the first person pointed to. Look at the shambles of my life on my own. I live in a sad, barren apartment only slightly bigger than my cage. I can't even drive. Half my bills are paid late due to incompetent accounting practices. I only feel like I thrive when I feel like someone else controls me. I'm sick. I'm depressed.

After my nightly lashings, I filled my cage with the muffled sound of murmering sobs and tears far into the night.

Eventually I slept and dreamt of Laysan. We smiled at each other. She pointed at herself, then gently lay her hand on her breast over her heart. Next she pointed at me, smiling.

"I love you, too!" I wanted to say, but I realized that I had that damn ball in my mouth and I couldn't talk. I quickly replayed the same series of gestures that she had. She had the most amazing smile on her face. My heart was melting.

Laysan grabbed my hand and placed it on her nude, shaven crotch. Her skin was hot and buzzing like a compressor on high one room away. I was suddenly suited with a corset of arousal that squeezed the breath from my chest in a muffled grunt. My body began to throb with need and anticipation. Laysan beckoned for me to follow her and began to walk away. I tried to stand from the chair I was in, but realized that I was chained to it. I tried to push myself along in the chair, but this one didn't have wheels and didn't budge a bit.

"Wait!" I wanted to scream, but couldn't. Laysan looked back at me seemingly confused as to why I wasn't following. I struggled with the chains that held me fast and Mmmpfd! into my gag. Laysan frowned shrugged her shoulders and resumed walking away.

"Wait! Laysan! I need you! Help me!!!"


Chapter 13:

When I awoke I was angry and hot. The arousal that I gained in my dream had not subsided at all. I was so filled with lust, I almost felt more animal and less human. Lisianski alway kept me on a tight schedule in the morning, but this time I knew that I could easily push myself over the edge in a minute or two. I'd just have to run faster to catch the bus.

Since I am gagged so often now, it seems that Lisianski had developed a habit of talking to herself. Indeed, sometimes she even sang to herself. This morning she was humming a nameless, tuneless tune.

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo."

I was rinsing the soap from my hair remembering Laysan's smile.

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo-ooo," Lisianski continued.

Now was the time to make my move. Relief would soon be mine.

"subGrrl is taking down the shower head."

The shower head is connected to a flexible hose.

"subGrrl is pointing it at her legs a-spread," Lisianski sang in the same annoying, monotonous voice.

I ignored her and concentrated on the sensation of water flowing over my sex. I spread my lips a little seeking the best stimulation.

"But, subGrrl's susceptible to my suggestings," Lisianski droned on.

Ohh! I closed my eyes and arched my back.

"Her shower head now sprays out straight pins."

"Yeeoooww!!" I threw the shower head away from me as the shower stall filled with the sound of thousands of tiny slivers of metal ringing off the tile. I brushed my sex, dislodging a collection of pins that had been impaled into my skin by the force of the flow from the shower head and tumbled out of the stall pulling down half the shower curtain. I collected myself off the floor of the bathroom, my crotch still on fire, and looked into the shower. There were no pins at all... just water...

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo. Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo-ooo," Lisianski continued to sing unphased. "You better hurry or you'll miss your bus."


Chapter 14:

That very evening, as I rode the bus home, I sat looking out the window, trying to discern which elements of the world were tangible and which had been supplied only for me. Suddenly, I saw her! Out on the sidewalk! Naked and in chains!

"Laysan!" I screamed and immediately slapped my hand over my mouth, craning my neck to see her again... but she was gone. I looked around the bus. Everyone was looking at me with a mild sense of fear and excitement.

"An old highschool friend..." I lied as an excuse, pointing out the window.

"Laysan? Who's Laysan?" Lisianski asked.

Oh, shit! I had never said her name aloud before. What had I done?


Chapter 15:

I arrived at my apartment and was bending to stick the key into the lock, when the door flung open. The tall woman from the bus was standing before me and I slowly, fearfully turned my gaze up to her featureless face. Before I could even react, she grabbed the collar of my sweater in a firm grip that included NemesisGirl's collar and leash hidden underneath and roughly yanked me through the door. I was so frightened I could barely manage a muffled "Urp!" before I found myself tumbling across the floor of my apartment, coming to rest at the feet of another faceless woman.

"Carol! subGrrl's home!" my new abuser called out as she slammed my apartment door.

"Oh! Thanks for sending her in, Alice," Carol responded. She stood up from the couch where she sat and hoisted me to my feet with an unnatural strength.

"This is just a dream," I told myself. "Wake up!"

"How was your day, subGrrl?" Carol asked. Her words were clear and strong as they burst from her mouthless face.

I stared in fear at her for a second. "What...?"

"Oh, who cares how you day was!" Carol slapped me hard on my face and I collapsed to the ground again in pain - my head lying in a fresh spot of saliva and perhaps blood.

Carol grabbed my collar again. "Stay on you feet, subGrrl! Give us a kiss!" She yanked my head up to her face and viciously pressed my lips to the space where her mouth should have been, bruising them, no doubt. I don't believe that I had sufficiently gained my balance before she threw me on the ground again.

Stunned I started to try and get up. Dreams should not be able to do this, should they? I was hurt and in pain.

"Entertain me while we wait for the others," Carol said as she dragged me off the ground again.

Carol sat on the couch and forced me to my knees before her. She raised her skirt and shoved my face down between her thighs. Not only was she pantyless, but also featureless here as well. There was no labia, no clitoral hood, no pubic hair. There was only a flat expanse.

"Come on, subGrrl! Lick!" Carol smashed my face roughly against her crotch, painfully squashing my nose.

I was searching for any way to avoid getting thrashed around again, so I immediately began to stroke where her labia should have been with my tongue. Her skin felt natural. It gave and resisted as skin should. But the taste was plastic. An image of my childhood dolls flashed into my head.

"Mmmm! That's nice!" I heard Carol moan. I continued to lick as furiously as I could.

After a minute, muffled by cloth and thigh flesh, I heard my door bell ring.

"The rest of the girls are here, Carol!" Alice cried with jubilation.

Carol had either forgotten that I was between her legs or she didn't care. She stood and began walking, bending me over painfully backwards until my bent legs could pop out from underneath me.

"Cindy! Your hair looks divine!" Carol called out as I started to roll over in order to see how many more of the bitches were arriving.

There were five of them now. Each at least a foot taller than me, thin and featureless. Only their hair and skin tone and voices differentiated them from one another.

"Get off the floor, subGrrl!" Carol said as she once again pulled me from the ground.

"Ow! Please..." I tried to say, but one of the new arrivals immediately swung out her arm and smacked me back down to the ground.

"Good god! Does she always prattle on so?" my latest abuser asked.

I lay in a heap hoping this nightmare would end soon. Unfortunately, it wouldn't.

"Shall we commence?" someone asked.


Chapter 16:

"Well," Carol said. "Let's install subGrrl in her cage. Then I think that Alice has made us a spot of tea!"

I was pulled from the floor by my sweater. Four of the monsters, the Doll Monsters, were around me. They began grabbing handfuls of clothing. Puffs of thread began exploding around me and the apartment was filled with ripping sounds. In seconds, I was naked, but for my collar and leash. They threw my naked, bruised body up onto the table and rattled me feet first into my cage, slamming the door and applying the padlock.

For a moment I thought that I was finally safe from the abuse, but apparently the physical boundaries presented by cold steel do not matter to ethereal monster dolls. Hands yanked my hair back and my feeding gag was applied and buckled. My hands were locked into their restraining cuffs. Additionally, I felt a belt wrap around my waist and pull me backwards until my butt slammed unceremoniously out the rear window with curved bar painfully crammed into most sensitive locations.

A hand slapped my ass painfully.

"Oh! She's such a cute little doll, isn't she? Can you hand me that yard stick over there, Jan."

"Sure," Jan said. "My turn is next though."

I heard the swish and I tensed, but it did not help alleviate the pain and I cried out into my gag. The monsters were giggling.

The stick smacked me again and again. Whoever was wielding the stick decided to see how fast each stroke could be applied. It was like my skin was being held to an open flame.

I heard a snap of splintering wood and the strokes stopped, as well as the giggling.

"Oh, Marcia! You broke the stick," Jan pouted.

"Tea's ready!" Alice called as she exited the kitchen area with a steaming pot.

They suspended their abuse of my flesh, but, still, I fought for my life through sugar tears and swollen sinuses. I moaned into my gag and spewed snot until it hung thick and viscous across the bars of the cage door. And when I settled and found that they, the Doll Monsters, had settled too, I listened to them talk about me as though I were sentenced to die. Their tense was past.

"Poor subGrrl," Cindy moaned. "She was overflowing with so much promise. It just shows how debilitating various special conditions may be."

"Ah, but she was quite an entertainment throughout her life," Carol responded. "I remember, she must have been in the first or second grade... They made her sit on the wall at recess for an entire week. The girls were chasing the boys, trying to kiss any that they caught. subGrrl did not understand the rules though, and the teachers grew angry when they found her chasing and kissing the girls instead."

The monsters howled in laughter as I too remembered the recess wall and how I sat sadly not fully understanding what I had done wrong. I felt that there must be something wrong with me. Something unnatural.

"Remember that seventh grade pool party she attended?" Jan giggled. My face went further white and my cheek sunk in my cage until it grazed the bottom pad between my manacled wrists. "She had left her house wearing a one piece swim suit, but it concealed from her parents a bikini beneath. She felt so bold at the party, finally attired as the coolest girls were. But, then she dived into the water and surfaced topless. Her loving classmates threw her missing top far out of the pool and refused to retrieve it."

"Oh, yes!" Marcia laughed. "And that's when she became saddled with that nickname! Flatty-cakes! Ha ha!"

"But nothing has matched, nor been as precious as her multiyear crush on her college roommate," Jan screamed with glee. "What was her name? Heartless?"

Tears sprung afresh from my eyes and fell more thickly than any physical abuse could have spurred. I moaned and willed my ears to go deaf.

"She and Heartless were drinking at a bar... excessively... subGrrl suddenly confessed her love for Heartless and to her surprise and sheer happiness, Heartless admitted that she was bi-curious. subGrrl was so giddy after a tender kiss there in public that she even confessed her thrill for bondage."

"Oh, yes!" Cindy continued the story excitedly. "But like a fly to cat-ripped mouse flesh, came a boy attracted by their drunken, erotic kiss. Before, they knew it they were escorting him to their house for a three way tryst. Unfortunately, subGrrl had consumed too much and passed out in the car on the way home. Leaving subGrrl in the car, Heartless and the boy upturned subGrrl's room to find her bondage stash which included many secret, intimate, and embarrassing things, but particularly, several pairs of handcuffs. They returned to the car, tightened the seatbelt over subGrrl's unconscious body and secured her hands to the headrest and her ankles under the seat. They left her there all night, forgotten as they went inside and fucked like rats."

My skin had dissolved and every beat of my heart thrust a small wave of blood from an open, hot wound, out the door of the cage and across the table until it finally pooled around the sugar bowl.

"Heartless and the boy eventually became engaged, didn't they? I guess there is a certain justice that subGrrl had peed an overfull bladder of alcohol into the bucket seat in which she was secured," Carol mused. "Poor, poor, subGrrl!"

The monsters laughed on.


Chapter 17:

A sound disturbed the tea party. It was not particularly loud, but its frequency was disturbingly low and rumbled the foundations of the apartment. The Doll Monsters all stopped laughing and looked around for a second.

"Sounds like the Etheryords have been released..." Carol said. "Let's hook this bitch up."

The monsters all jumped to action, tossing the contents of their cups and then the ceramics themselves about the apartment. They began to rip the clothes from their bodies disrespecting the utility of traditional fasteners like buttons or zippers. Even their hair turned out to be wigs so easily doffed leaving hairless, featureless plasticine-looking humanoids.

I lost track of which was whom as they began to scurry around my apartment. The sound of ripping clothes continued though they were all now naked and I wondered what it's source was until I saw a seam split randomly across the carpeting in the living room area out my cage door.

One of the creatures stood in front of my cage reaching up high outside of my view. Nippleless breasts flexed with muscle as the monster pulled something from the ceiling - a chain. The TV cracked, exploded, and crumbled behind her. I closed my eyes to hide from the horror.

The tearing sound developed more bass and I heard the sound of bricks falling onto concrete foundation. My apartment was collapsing around me. I could smell dust and ionized metal.

I kept my eyes tightly shut until I felt my cage lurch and began to swing. The chain that the monster had in her hands must have been attached by a pulley to my cage. I swung off the table and was lowered without sentiment to the floor.

A hail of popping explosions rippled around me. Holes were appearing in the walls of my apartment, but through them I did not see a gentle, crisp Spring evening. Instead, darkness seemed to shine in through the holes sucking the life from the world.

A large crack snapped its was across the floor right by my head. With a flash and a brutal rumble I watched the world fall away from me as I desperately screamed hoarsely into my gag.

As the last of my apartment roof collapsed to the side I found my cage perched on the lip of an endless chasm in a barren, dark-rocked mountainous horrorscape. The skies were black though streaked with electricity. Shadows of angry clouds swirled in the heavens and roared as they set down to torment me.

A dark shape swept through the rain some distance away. It was a creature of some sort, leathery-winged. It looked like a vulture of some sort with an ugly featherless head. But, these vultures were big! Taller perhaps than even the Doll Monsters. As I watched more and more began to circle through the wind and rain screeching unnatural, horrific sounds from their crooked beaks.

"Etheryords!" I heard one of the Doll Monsters exclaim.

A loud clang sounded on the top of my cage, shaking the entire structure, causing my face to bounce painfully off the floor. An explosion deafened me briefly from behind followed by a scraping metal ringing sound. I saw a line of chain shoot out from near me across the chasm, arching through the sky, disappearing into the gloom.

I heard a doll monster scream over the dirge of sound, "subGrrl's going over the edge!"

Meanwhile, my eyes were riveted to the line of shot chain which Gravity had grasped and now jealously pulled down. As I watched the chain fall, I tried my best to split in half and slide out the back window, alas, to no avail. In an instant the chain reached its limit and my cage was yanked out into the chasm.

I would have screamed had my stomach and lungs not been left behind as I descended head down into oblivion. By the time I could unclench the muscles of my stomach I began to feel myself pressed to the floor. The chain had caught and I, the pendulum weight, began to swing back upright. The force was so great that my face was smashed to the cage bottom. I thought my poor tortured back would snap. The belt that held me tight against the rear window tore at the flesh of my hips.

As the cage leveled, it began to scoop a tunnel through the pouring rain. I was instantly drenched by freezing water and sputtering for air. And each moment the onslaught became worse as the view out the front end of the cage changed from darkness below to tumoultuous skies above.

I felt a moment of weightlessness at the top of the swing and then began the journey back the other way. Now, however, my prominently displayed posterior led the procession through rain and pummeling hail and water poured back out the front end of the cage.

The amplitude of my pendulation quickly dampened, thankfully. I gasped for air and tried to rearrange my frozen, cramped muscles. I realized that I was being lowered further into the darkness as I passed into the lips of a narrow gorge. The walls were dark and eroding thick black mud. Boulders tumbled past my cage.

Suddenly, I saw light off to my left, but I was stymied by the scene it revealed. Carved into the cliff wall was an exact replica of the interior of the bus that I take to work each day. The inside was filled with concerned passengers craning, frantically to look out the windows and see what was going on. I saw the seat that I normally sit in, "Looney's Seat". It was empty.

As the cage descended further, I saw, to my right a replica of the conference room at work where we have team meetings. All my coworkers were present. I saw my seat at the table, a coiled chain locked to a collar sitting neatly in the chair.

The walls of the cliffs became even tighter as I continued to descend. A sourceless beam of light illuminated a small, rickety dining room table with a tiny cage, my cage, set upon it. Shadow prevented me from seeing inside the cage, but I knew someone was there. I could hear grunting and moaning and a ringing sound of tiny bells or chain from within. Indeed, the table was creaking and rocking as the inhabitant screamed and writhed with lust. There was no satisfaction in these cries though. They were cries of frustration - lust unaddressed, exposed and festering.

A hand slipped out of the darkness between bars of the cage's door. I could see that it was my hand. I could see that a heavy manacle was locked tightly below the swell of my hand. The hand grasped desperately at the hasp where the padlock should have been. Instead there was only a solid steel seamless ring sealing the cage closed. Entrapping the inhabitant forever. I heard a sad howling, gagged wail escape the cage and shortly realized that I was making an identical sound.

My descent continued.


Chapter 18:

My eye detected a movement along the left side, unlike that of cascading dark gray mud. When I looked, I saw my lover. Laysan! I wanted to scream, but only a muffled grunt escaped my gag. Hide!!

She saw my cage. Her eyes were wild with fear and confusion like an scared puppy in a loud storm. Hide!

I heard a howling sound far above us, and as my body covered itself in gooseflesh, the howl was joined by a healthy chorus of others. Please hide, Laysan! She had obviously heard the sound as well. She was looking up, eyes wide. Her knees began to bend. Don't just stand there, Laysan! Move! I pulled at the chains that held my wrists and banged my head against the bars of my cage door. Hide!

That's when I noticed that Laysan's arms were also encircled in heavy cuffs. Thick linked chains extended from each cuff on each side of her, descending slightly before arcing up to places above her head where the chain was embedded into the rocky walls of the cliff. She could not move from where she stood.

A sickening sound of flapping, leathery wings joined the howls of the flying beasts. Distinct shadows began to pass over Laysan as she crouched. "No!" I screamed into my gag, pulling at the bars of my door.

The hellish beasts began to land on the cliff wall around Laysan. She stood boldly as they grew near to her and began to swing her arms. Her chains flipped out and heavy links fell upon bald heads and cragged beaks. Still the Etheryords kept swooping in. One even held a Doll Monster on its back, whooping and coraling.

How could she have any hope with the onslaught of demons as they clawed their way across the cliff wall towards her, biting and scratching and shrieking as the scampered.

Soon she was swamped and my heart blackened. She was looking towards me in my last glimpse of her with such a look of pleading and fear and confusion in her eyes. And still, the Etheryord's advance was relentless. Rocks tumbled around the swarm and Laysan's chains were torn from their anchors.

My descent continued until I could no longer see where she had been, but around me a constant rain of rocks and mud and links of chain fell from the activity above.

I collapsed to the floor of my cage too spent to weep any more. Too spent to move or even close my eyes.

I passed through a gap not much bigger than my cage and into a dark subterranean chamber. Sounds of wind and howling and falling rain and rocks died away.

The only sense that I had that my descent continued came from the vibrations I felt in the cage, but with a hard lurch and and heavy clunk far, far above me, even that sensation stopped.

In here, in my darkness, the silence began to grow and the black began to eat me. I hung somewhere, bloodied and scraped and bruised. A moan from my throat fell away from the cage into the inky thickness around, never to be heard again.

I lay there chewing on my gag, trying to curse. Laysan! They have gotten her! Laysan, my love!

I howled into the emptiness.