Author's Note: The story codes may imply a more graphic level of story violence than is actually delivered--but the theme is decidedly dark.


I can't believe this is happening, Sara Johnson thought to herself. How did I ever let myself get trapped with a husband like this? He'd seemed like such a catch at the time.

Sara's arms were bound tightly behind her back, in a Japanese style chest harness; she was lying on a musty mattress, still damp from her own urine. He'd left her bound for what seemed like days; then punished her when he found she hadn't held her water, by looping a rope around her waist and tying it off with a slip knot. As he'd pulled the rope tight she'd felt her organs sloshing around inside her as they adjusted to the new shape of her body. It was an odd feeling, not too unlike mud being squished through her toes. He'd tied the end of the waist-rope to the mass of knots behind her back, tugging to make it as tight as he possibly could. Even with her back arched the rough fibers of the rope tore at the tender flesh between her legs.

Next he'd bent each of her legs at the knees, wrapping more rope around her ankles and thighs. Except for the rope, and a gag-which was held in place by a leather head-harness-she was naked. Ugly welts striped her breast, stomach and legs. They would fade rapidly as they healed. "It's lucky you have such pale skin," he'd told her on more than one occasion. "It marks so nicely. If you were darker the scars would be more visible."

And she always thought, I'd be darker if you ever let me go outside.

It had been months since she'd seen the light of day; years since she'd actually felt the sun's rays on her skin. She'd been dark enough when she'd met him. She'd loved the feel of the sun's warm rays, lying out for at least a few minutes almost every day. She hated looking so sickly pale; and missed the smell of the grass and the feel of her favorite sunning towel crushing the newly cut blades beneath her.

I can't believe I married such a monster... he isn't a man. Calling him a man is too good for him. And yet, she thought, I would call him an angel and promise to bless his name throughout all eternity, if he would just end this torment and let me die.

Her muscles ached, cramping as she shivered in the cool air. She could hear the soft hum of the air conditioning. He opened the vent to this small room on purpose, knowing the small space would quickly become to cold for comfort, for someone not wearing any clothes. He liked to keep the room cool so he wouldn't get too hot when he worked on her. Even with the coolness, his recent beating had left her covered in the sheen of perspiration. It made the welts he'd raised sting, but that had quickly dried when she no longer had a reason to wiggle and squirm.

Her arms felt like dead weights. But she was used to it. Sometimes they ached so much when he punished her for long periods, like this, that she wondered if she would ever be able to use them effectively again. I've definitely lost strength, she thought. She was convinced her muscles had atrophied from the hours of disuse and lack of freely flowing blood. It used to bother her when she had difficulty with bottles and jars that should have been easy to open, but not anymore. She hardly noticed the strange pains that sometimes flared up, even when she wasn't tied. As if her body were remembering everything that had been done to it, even as she herself tried to forget.

Footsteps.

He was coming. She could hear his distinctive shuffle as he approached the bedroom door.

The key rattled and the knob turned. She felt the rush of warm air, tainted with the distinctive smell of his cigarettes; heard the flip of a switch, and closed her eyes a moment before light flooded the room. Squirming on her bed, she turned towards him despite the discomfort the ropes caused when she moved. Maybe it was the sudden light and not her own fear, but tears were already falling as he approached the bed and loomed over her.

"You gonna cry, already?" he asked. "Maybe I should give you something to cry about."

Rough fingers took hold of her breast and squeezed, digging nails into her skin; pulling as if he were trying to rip a chunk of raw hamburger from the rest of the pack without removing the plastic first. She screamed into her gag, trying to arch her back in an effort to relieve some of the pressure, but the crotch-rope didn't give her much leeway.

Please, not the breasts, she thought. Her breasts, although not that large, were quite sensitive. That, of course, made them one of his favorite targets. And now they were more tender than normal and still swollen from the clamps he'd used earlier that day-or had it been longer? Locked here in this basement room, time tended to loose its meaning.

For once, he seemed to hear her and let go, but he didn't leave.

He never left that easily. Instead he picked her up and set her down again, with her legs under her. Then he pushed her, forcing her to lay back, her body held in an awkward arch because of the tension on the rope between her legs.

She knew what was coming next.

He loved to humiliate her this way, slowly climbing onto the bed. She could feel the bed sinking as it took his weight; hear the squeak of the springs as he crept up along her body, brushing his nakedness against her: the hairs on his leg, his flaccid prick, the scrape of his toenails against her hips as he sat on her chest, catching his balance and pressing her down so that the rope burned between her legs and she wondered if she was bleeding. He spread his knees a little and rocked his hips forward; forcing his balls to bump against her chin, her nose.

Can ya smell that," he asked as he reached around and grabbed one of her nipples, twisting and pinching until she cried out with the pain of it.

She hated the musty smell of him; but this humiliating little ritual always came first.

Sliding his fingers into the strands of her thick hair and balling his hands into fists, he pulled her head forward grinding her face into his crotch and rubbing her nose along the crack of his ass. He always did this just before taking his shower, to make sure that his odors were at their most rank.

Finally, he sat back on her chest again and began to remove the gag. When he was done with her, it would go back on, without giving her the chance to wash the horrible taste of him from her mouth. She felt the strap loosen and instinctively clamped down with her teeth, trying to keep him from removing it, but she still remembered the first and only time she'd tried to resist. He'd used both fists to simultaneously punch both her jaw muscles. Her mouth had ached for more than a week; and he'd ripped the gag out anyway. So when he began to pull, she forced herself to relax as much as she could. The gag had been in her mouth for so long that her jaw ached; she should have been happy to have it out, but she knew it wouldn't last long.

As if to prove her right, she felt the cold metal on her lips, and reluctantly opened for it.

She wasn't sure what she'd do if he forced himself inside her mouth without something to keep it open, but he was smart enough not to find out. For a long time, he'd used to us an "O" ring gag; but then he brought home one of those dentist's springs, from the office where he worked. Working with it a bit, he'd tweaked the spring strength and welded on a few additional pieces of metal so that no matter how wide she held her mouth, the pieces dug into her tender palate. She thoroughly hated the spring gag, so of course, it quickly become one of his favorite toys.

"Open up," he said, holding it out now.

It was pointless to hesitate. Hesitation only gave him an excuse to punish her more. And yet she'd never willingly been able to accept the spring gag without making him prove yet again that he would used any means necessary to get what he wanted. He looked down at her and calmly took a deep puff on his cigarette, until the embers glowed brightly. "I'm waiting," he said as he laid the cigarette down on her chest and rolled it up across part of her breast with his fingers.

She gasped, panting with the pain until he picked the cigarette back up and sucked the ember back to life as he examined his handiwork.

"That's a pretty shade of pink," he said, taking the cigarette in his fingers once again.

"All right, all right, all right!" She said, squeezing her eyes shut, and opening her mouth as wide as she could.

Instead of burning her again, as she'd half feared, he held the springs of the gag together, and slid the metal past her teeth. She groaned as the metal dug into the roof of her mouth.

"That's good," he said, twining his fingers into her hair again.

Sara tried to take a deep breath like she always did, just before he entered, but something made her cough. Perhaps it was a larger than normal speck of dust, or a piece of lint that had clung to his body and chosen this moment to fall off. Not paying any attention to her spasms, he shoved his cock into her opened mouth, causing her to choke all the more.

"Oh yeah," he said as her tongue balled up in the gag reflex and pressed against him.

He pressed deeper inside her, ramming his pelvic bone against her teeth; pressing her nose against his belly as she bucked beneath him, so that when she ran out of air and tried to take a breath all her air passages were firmly covered. He pulled almost all the way out, but when she tried to draw a breath, her throat seemed to draw closed on her allowing only a wheezing trickle of air to make its way into her lungs. Then he was thrusting inside her mouth again, blocking all the passageways.

Sara felt the blackness creeping over her mind; and her last thought before she died was, what did I ever do to deserve a death like this?

Sara didn't believe in an afterlife. After all, what kind of god would allow a person to endure the kind of life she'd had? Certainly no god she was willing to believe in-so she was more than a little surprised when she opened her eyes and found herself strapped down to a chair in a sterile white room.

"Well now," came a male voice from somewhere behind the chair. "That wasn't too bad for your fourth term."

"My fourth term?" Her voice sounded strained and funny in her ears; and she couldn't seem to make sense of the words.

A man wearing a white frock stepped into view. He looked like a doctor, or perhaps a lab technician of some sort.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten your first three terms already, Mr. Johnson," he said, shining a small penlight into one of Sara's eyes.

Mr. Johnson?

She blinked, trying to puzzle out the strange words and figure out what was going on...

...And then the memories did come flooding back: like waking from a long dream and suddenly realizing she was not who she thought she was. Part of the mind still clung to the identity that was Sara, but the deeper part of the mind that had lain dormant knew now that it wasn't even female. Sara had merely been the name of the identity they had given him inside their virtual world. It sounded familiar but he couldn't remember why. His thoughts and memories were still a bit fuzzy.

"I see it's coming back to you," the man in the white frock said as he moved the pen light to the other eye. "Your memories will tend to become progressively harder to regain after each term, but this early in the series you shouldn't be having any real problems yet. We can't continue with the next session, of course, until you do remember who you really are.

"Any dizziness? Disorientation?"

He glared at the doctor. He didn't like being placed into the mind of such a pathetically, spineless creature as that Sara character had been.

Apparently the doctor decided he wasn't going to get an answer so he supplied one himself, "No?" he said, moving on to the next eye: shining the light around as he leaned close, as if trying to look inside the soul. "I'm afraid your next term won't be as mild as this one was," the doctor went on. "Military war prisoner under intense and extended interrogation. It was cultivated from an actual experience, if that sort of thing interests you, with a few extra details thrown in by the designers for just the right effect."

His anger was becoming increasingly cold. He didn't like being restrained, or having this know-it-all-fuck talk to him like that. "No one treats me this way," he thought. "One of these days you'll learn that."

Without making any sudden movements, he tried to test the restraints. He couldn't feel his arms. He didn't feel the resistance of straps holding him back. His arms and legs must be paralyzed with some kind of numbing anesthesia. So for now he'd have to accept that he was helpless. But there would come a time. He'd get his chance. Until then, he could wait.

"So what happens next?" he asked.

"After I've given you your post-inspection physical?" the doctor asked with mild amusement.

So glad I can keep you entertained, he thought.

"Part of what makes the overall process so effective is giving the subject enough time between each virtual sentence to assimilate what they've experienced-as well as recall who they really are and why they're in the predicament they're currently in. Therefore, you'll remain here until your next scheduled reentry, which should be noon about three or four days from now, depending on such things as your emotional response."

"You plan to keep me here, in this room?"

"Not only in this room, but in this chair. Once I've finished my examination, you'll receive no further visitors and there will be no distractions. The lights will be dimmed, and there will be no sound."

"You've got to be kidding," he exploded.

"Oh, believe me... I never kid when it comes to discussing the process."

"I'll starve if I don't eat!"

"Trust me, we won't let you starve."

"Yeah? What if I need to take a shit?"

"Like eating, that won't be necessary," the doctor said. "We have the ability, or course, to run the simulations at a very fast speed. But it's been our observation that subjects tend not to remember the events they've experienced as well when we do that. It's like a memory that happened long ago. Such memories do not have the desired levels of emotional attachment, so they're not as effective; not nearly as powerful as if the term is played out at the speed of real life... or even slower. Given the necessity of keeping you in this chair for long periods, then, you must realize that your plumbing has already been rewired. That's why you will not be receiving food from a visitor, and why you will not be leaving the chair to relieve yourself. That is, in fact, an impossibility at the moment. We could of course return you immediately to another scenario, but we've found that some of the most effective rehabilitative associations occur during these moments of repose, for the waiting provides you with plenty of time to truly regret what you've done and to wonder what will happen during your next term. Such intense anticipation can sometimes be more profitable than the events that occur during your actual sentence. But we like to mix things up a bit: a short intense experience here; a long and painful one there. Your next term, for example, will take just over seven months to complete."

"Seven months?"

"Feeling a bit helpless?" the doctor asked cheerfully. "It's not very pleasant is it? But then I expect it wasn't very pleasant for your wife either."

"For my wife?"

Once again more memories came flooding back.

Sara had been his wife. Now he could remember the pleasure he had taken from beating her; and he remembered the anger he'd felt when she'd died beneath him, robbing him of his future pleasures. Only now those memories were mingled with the memories of her pain and fear. Had they used her actual memories to feed back to him, or had they been simulated from the memories they'd raped from his own mind during the trial?

Whatever happened to the old constitution and not forcing a man to testify against himself?

"Well then," said the doctor. "I see you're well on your way to remembering, so I suppose I'll leave you to your own thoughts now."