Author's Note: I write for nothing more than your comments, good or bad. I hope that you all find this a compelling tale.

Updated (2013/04/16): Heartless is interred in a hard shell forced to see, hear, and feel everything that her doppelganger experiences as she returns to her Mistress.

Updated (2013/05/22): This is the conclusion of this story. Thanks to Ms. Harrison for proofing my writing. Thanks to Absolutist for letting me steal bondage devices from his stories. Laysan suggests that a good song to listen to after reading this is this by The Thermals.

Thanks for reading.


Part 1

I must have known something was amiss even before I woke up. I don't even remember sitting up, but I can sense that she is there staring at me. Sure enough, when I turn I see her sitting on the other side of the sound proof glass wall. Her eyes are dead and her face expressionless. Immediately, I hate her.

I am surprised that my reaction is so strong and so singular. After all, I haven't seen another human being in almost two years. I would have thought that I would welcome companionship (if you could call it that). Instead, I only feel a sense of invasion. This woman is cutting in on my own solitariness. Her presence is not just sullying my view. It feels like an attack on my psyche.

I stare back at her. I want to taunt her with lewd gestures, but for some reason I am afraid that would give away whatever power I might hold. Instead, I return her expressionless glare, daring her to move first by focusing directly on her eyes.

Obviously, she is just like me - an inmate participating in the same experimental rehabilitation program. She has big brown eyes, high cheek bones and full lips. Her head, of course, is bald. We are allowed no hair during the course of our confinement. And she is as naked as I - her curves would have been attractive perhaps in a different circumstance. For now, though, to me, she is ugly. We could have been twins, I suppose.

I simply hate her.

After a moment, I let my eyes wander over to the large countdown displayed over her cell door. Six days and some hours. The cunt will be freed exactly one day before me.

I stand up from my bed and walk over to my sink where I look at my face in a mirror. In the reflection I can see her still sitting and staring into my cell.

I can't believe that after two years my jailers would put another person into the adjoining cell. Maybe this is to prepare me for the real world again. After all, there was some point in my incarceration, long ago, when I was desperate for another human to be placed in that cell. I had imagined that if there was someone there we would have developed some form of sign language or entertained one another somehow. But now, with this scag... I have no desire to interact with her.

My cell is very plain. Everything is a dull white color, the floor, the sink, the padding on the shelf that I use as a bed. There are no hard corners anywhere - all surfaces are a little flexible. I suppose they don't want me to bang my head on something strong enough to kill myself. They need not worry about me though. I have no desire to die. There are too many things waiting for me outside this rotting hole. That's the reason why I volunteered for this program - to get back into the world as fast as possible where my beloved Mistress is waiting for me.

There are two doors in my cell on opposite walls. The door underneath the orange flickering lights of my countdown clock has not been opened since I was locked inside so long ago. The second door opens occasionally by some automated system and gives me access to a shower and my "conditioning" room - at least that is my name for it.

I lower my head toward the sink until I trip a sensor. A stream of water arcs from a spigot and I drink. When I straighten up, I notice that the intruder has moved. She is now laying on her shelf, her hands folded behind her head, staring at the ceiling. I almost envy her. I know every inconsistency of that ceiling. I even know how many black dots there are up in the panelling. I count them often to see if the number ever changes. It doesn't. This intruder now has an entirely new ceiling to explore. I almost wish that they had moved me into her adjoining cell.

The light next to the food nozzle is not illuminated. I'm not hungry, but eating is doing something. And at the moment, I feel a great need to do... something. Anything to take my mind off the intrusive cunt.

"Cunt!" I say loudly. I know that there is no way she can hear me. No sounds enter or escape these cells. "That's my name for you! Cunt!"

Generally, when I become as restless as I currently feel, there is one thing that I can do that never really seems to grow old. Masturbate.

Indeed over the course of two years, I have made sure that I masturbated in every single square foot of my cell. I have divided the room into coordinates based on the length of my foot. Every time I masturbate, I move to a new coordinate and sit or stand or lie and frig myself off. After I have achieved an orgasm, I rate it, and over time I have developed a ranked list of locations and orientations where I'm most likely to have a more satisfactory orgasm. But now... Cunt is watching.

I am not under any illusion that my previous indulgences were not viewed. I'm certain that there are cameras all over this cell watching my every naked gyration. I'm certain that behind every camera there is some security employee jacking off watching my display. But still, with Cunt in the adjoining cell, I feel repressed. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of watching me.

Eventually, I return to my shelf and lie staring at my countdown clock. Seven fucking days, fourteen fucking hours, thirty-two fucking minutes and twenty-six god-forsaken, fucking seconds.

It is not too long after lying down that I hear a soft tone and the sound of a door opening. Thank god! I quickly stand up and walk through the second door of my cell that leads to the shower and the "conditioning" room.

No one ever told me what to do. I haven't heard another voice since my internment. I have not seen any written word either. You just learn the routines over time. There are no penalties if you don't do something correctly (if there even IS a correct way of doing things). You just learn.

Early on, when the door would open, I wouldn't go through. I thought I was rebelling somehow. My jailers though didn't seem to care. The open door would simply sit there, taunting me. Over time, I slowly gave up my rebelliousness since it seemed like a fairly useless attitude. Now, I jump at the chance to visit the second room. Once I have done whatever it is that my jailers want me to do and return to my cell, the door closes again until the next time.

Of course, I've counted all the dots on the ceiling and masturbated over the entire surface of that room as well.

I am particularly happy for the chance to go in there today. It provides me an escape from Cunt. There is no sound proof glass wall in this room. It is completely private.

I start from a corner and use my feet to pace out to one of my favorite places in the room near the foot of the conditioning shell and lie down on the floor with a sigh. I flex all my muscles and relax them. Then I begin to tickle myself until goose bumps appear like schools of fish swirling about my skin. I pinch my nipple and feel its firmness under the palm of my hand. I am no longer in prison, but free, and the sun is shining on me as I lay on a bed of soft moss by a cool pool. The air is full of the scent of honeysuckle. I slide my hand between my legs and softly stroke the lips of my sex with each finger in turn. I group my fingers together and jiggle my clit clockwise and then counter clockwise. I systematically begin to push my fingers into me until I feel lubrication. I begin to dream of my Mistress. She walks down from the trees and slowly lets her dress drop off her shoulders into the dirt. She kneels down next to me. I begin to dream of making love.

I am breathing heavily and I can feel the approach of an orgasm. I lift my legs off the floor and roll them over me, doubling myself up, letting my knees rest on the cold floor on each side of my head. My cunt is like a cauldron twitching above my head. I look up between my breasts at my hairless vagina. I watch my body shake and the muscles of my sex clench, gaping for my fingers as they lightly pull at my clit. I reach around my hip with my right arm and begin to tease fingers into my vagina from behind, occasionally tickling my anus with a thumb.

Mistress' face appears over my sex. She is sucking on something. A crystal dildo slides out of her mouth and she begins to push it in and out of me. Oh, fuck me, Mistress!! A flock of birds are interrupted somewhere in the forest nearby and their rush to take flight becomes deafening and leaves, soft and green, fall to the forest floor around my quivering thighs.

There is a tube in this room. When you stand in it the tube slides up around you and a series of jets begin to spray you with water and soap. Actually, there must be something more. This, certainly, is the mechanism that has rendered me hairless for these two years. I (and Cunt as well I suppose) don't even have eyelashes. I assume my hair will grow out again after I am free.

After a thorough washing (which is actually quite invigorating), jets of air are applied and by the time the tube slides down again I am perfectly dry.

After my shower there is a tone by the conditioning shell and the top surface pops up a couple of inches.

Initially, I was terrified of the conditioning shell. You have to lay inside the shell with arms and legs positioned in isolating cavities. Devices are shoved in various orifices - mouth, sex, and ass - to maintain all bodily inputs and outputs. The top of the shell then presses down on you and seals in place leaving you immobile and blind.

I thought that this was the device that they were going to use to rehabilitate (er... brainwash) me. But, ha ha! the joke is on them. I am guilty of murder and even after two years of lying in the shell, I still feel no remorse. In fact, I'm certain that I would do it again if my Mistress asked me. I would have no qualms at all. So, maybe their equipment is simply broken and no one has realized it.

Actually, a session in the shell is quite pleasant. Your body becomes numb, your brain detaches. It's like an out-of-body experience. I often have vivid and intense dreams about flying and exploring. Truth be told, it feels more free than even the real world outside of my cell.

Sometimes a session in the shell will last a couple of hours, sometimes days. I hope that this one will last a long time - anything to avoid Cunt's company.

I climb inside the shell (with all orifices appropriately filled) and as the top is lowering I notice a new addition to the inside of the shell. Circular rubber tubes begin to press into the flesh around my eyes. I stare into the blackness of the tubes as the familiar clicks sound around the shell locking me in.

I relax and might have drifted off for a while. Time is meaningless in the shell. Who knows how long I have been laying here, numb? Suddenly, though, I begin to feel a tickle across my torso. I can feel goose bumps crop up on my flesh and swirl around. I jerk suddenly when I feel something tweak my nipple. I feel a hand rest upon my breast. It must be my own hand because I can feel a hard nipple pressing into my palm. Maybe part of the shell has popped open and I am masturbating myself reflexively. I smile and settle back. This is a new sensation. I am starved for new sensations.

Suddenly, there is a flicker in front of my eyes. Slowly the flickering settles and I realize that I am looking into my empty cell. My view is focused on my countdown clock - the seconds falling off like water leaking from a faucet. My view changes suddenly. I am looking through the sound proof glass wall at Cunt's countdown clock. There is another shift of perspective. I am watching Cunt standing in the middle of her cell. Her right hand is cupping her left breast. I feel a light touch slide down my abdomen and press against my sex.

Oh, my god! I am somehow feeling the things that Cunt is feeling! She is touching herself, but somehow I am feeling her sensations. If I concentrate on my arms or legs, I can sense that they are still captured in the cavities of the shell, mostly numb and immobile. However, at the same time I can feel myself touching myself. Or, apparently, to be more accurate, I can feel Cunt touching herself.

Her touch is light. She grazes across the lips of her sex. And I feel it! My arousal blossoms quickly. After two years of being the sole dictator of my physical intimacies, suddenly, I am being manipulated by someone else. Rationally, I feel a bit of struggle within me to give up control so easily like this, but my rationality is quickly eclipsed by the sensation.

Cunt is good! No doubt she has spent her time in prison practicing as much as I have. She takes her time rallying her arousal. I can see her face. Her eyes are closed and her mouth slips open a bit. She is losing herself in the sensations, and as I watch and feel her caresses I find that I am quickly swept up and carried along as well.

I feel my knees start to buckle a little. Except, not my knees. Cunt's knees. With her fingers still buried within the folds of her sex, she staggers to the sink. She lifts her leg over the spigot and triggers the water to arc through the air. I begin to laugh silently in my shell as I feel the stream land on my clit. Such a creative little slut, this cunt!

I watch as she shifts her hips up towards her hand. I feel the pressure of teasing fingers increase across my sex, slipping through the folds of my labia. She arches her back a bit and shifts her hips around seeking the best placement for the stream of water. I feel the thrill of arousal spark along my own spine. I am a doll, a marionette. I'm watching myself masturbating and loving every touch.

Her stomach muscles flex and the rhythm of her manipulations increase. I feel the tension build through my own torso. Her head falls back and her mouth opens more, a distressed look upon her face. She's about to go over the edge. I'm about to go over the edge. Oh, god!

With a great thrust of her hips she leans further back and shifts around under the involuntary flexing of muscles as an orgasm takes her. Her face is red, her eyes tightly closed. She has gone before me. I feel her response, although it is stunted.

"Don't stop, Cunt! Use your fingers a little more! Get back into the stream of water!"

I'm not quite there. Please! A little more.

Cunt has turned off the water and has staggered across the cell, still dripping wet, and collapsed onto her bed shelf. She is laying still as the unrequited arousal I feel slowly, painfully settles. My sense of love for my companion quickly reverts to pure hatred.

I know it's unfair for me to hate her so much. I assume that she doesn't even know that I can feel her feelings. Still. Two years of isolation will generate a large cavity of hatred. So, it's okay that I hate her. It doesn't hurt anyone, if I hate her. And I do! I hate her! How could she leave me hanging like this?

The image of Cunt flickers off. After a bit of time, the shell clicks and pops open. I disconnect myself and climb out. I'm torn by a desire to find a spot in privacy and masturbate and a desire to go back into my cell if just to intrude upon Cunt's post orgasmic bliss.

Indeed, I walk quickly through the open door which slides closed quietly behind me. Cunt is lying on her shelf. Her chest is rising and falling slowly and deeply. Asleep!

I sit on my shelf and watch her sleep for a while. I began to wonder how I could feel her touch. It must have been the shell that transmitted the feelings to me. Certainly, she cannot feel things that I do... unless, of course, she also has a shell... maybe.

I begin to touch myself. I'm determined to finish the job that she has left incomplete. But, as I do, I keep my eyes on Cunt, looking to see if any sign of my arousal flashes across her face. It does not take long before I am able to force out an orgasm. It's not the best. I kept checking up on Cunt, but she sleeps peacefully through the whole thing. I hate her!

I am doing my fifth rep of pushups when I hear the tone and the sound of a door sliding open. I am happy that they are going to allow me another shower. I'll be out of this cage in two days, after all. I wouldn't want to stink too bad for my glorious re-entry into the real world. I wouldn't want to stink too bad for my Mistress.

I stand and walk quickly towards the door. Cunt has sat up and is staring at me. There is an excellent chance that I will never see her again. Her door will open in less than twenty four hours. I stop and stare into her eyes. I couldn't help myself. And what does it matter anyway? I raise my hand with my middle finger prominently displayed and shake it at her.

"Fuck you, Cunt!" I scream and walk triumphantly through the door. Good riddance.

Once I am in the privacy of my conditioning room, I quickly masturbate twice, take a shower, and then masturbate once more before climbing into the shell. A session in the shell would pass the remaining time quickly. Soon I will be free!

With a practiced ease I grab the inserts that take care of my waste, lubricate them appropriately and slide them into place with a joyful little grunt. I climb up into the shell and slide each leg down the padded tubes that hold them so tightly. I lie backwards and push my arms into their tubes at my sides. I reach within them and grasp the handles deep inside. As I lay my head back I can already feel the pads along my arms and legs swelling, grasping me in a tight, secure grip. With a soft hissing sound the top of the shell lowers towards me. I open my mouth to accept the gag, letting its bulbous end slip past my teeth. The inner surface of the shell cups my jaw and pushes it closed around the gag.

The recently added tubes press around my eyes. I wonder if I will get the thrill of watching Cunt masturbate again. Cups squeeze around my ears. I am held firmly and comfortably and soon I let myself drift off.

I awake suddenly. I am staring at the countdown clock in Cunt's cell. In a few minutes the door will open and she will be free.

I admit that I am a little disappointed that I did not get to experience another of Cunt's orgasms. Oh, well. But, my body is comfortably numb. If anything, the shell feels a little tighter than ever before.

My throat is a little sore too. I try to swallow, but something obviously has been forced down it. It is probably a feeding tube. They have done it to me before during a particularly long session in the shell. I suppose that I will become hungry, if they leave me locked inside for the next twenty-four hours. Er... twenty-four hours and forty-nine seconds.

The final seconds on Cunt's countdown clock fall away and I hear her outside door open. This is my first view outside these cells in the past two years (minus one day). I see a long hall, brightly illuminated with irritating, fluorescent light. I see Cunt walk up to the door. She pauses for a second, turns to look back into the cell for a moment and then walks on out into the hall.

I am so excited. I can feel my heart pounding somewhere deep inside me. This will be me soon!

My view changes to another camera, I assume somewhere further down the hall. I am up near the roof looking down on a green line painted on the floor with an arrow pointing in the direction that my camera is angled. Shortly, bald Cunt, still naked, comes ambling down the hall, occasionally, letting her fingers brush along the walls as she makes her way. She seems pensive, or confused. I suppose that would be natural. I kind of feel the same way even though I am just an observer.

I feel a short, sharp shock suddenly which scares me intensely for half a second. Luckily the sensation fades quickly. It takes me a moment to recover enough before I realize that I feel some kind of pressure on the bottoms of my feet - cold, lacquered, concrete. Holy shit! I am feeling what Cunt is feeling. I can feel the floor under her bare feet as she makes her way down the hall.

I feel the smooth surface of the walls on my fingertips when she reaches out to touch them. I feel the cool air swishing across my skin. I never would have noticed such a thing without the contrast from which my sensation has just transitioned, tightly pressed and numb within my shell. If I concentrate hard, I can still feel the pads along my body, but the sensation is just a shadow compared the feeling of cool air swishing past me as Cunt slowly makes her way down the hall.

After she moves out of the field of my camera, there is another shift of perspective. I see a wall with a shuttered window. The green line painted on the floor comes to an end with a big circle enclosing two painted footprints directly in front of the window. I can still feel the sensation of Cunt's plodding feet taking her down the hall and soon she moves into my field of view again.

She makes her way up to the window and plants her feet on the painted foot prints, then stands motionless like a stupid lamb, waiting for something to happen.

My view begins to zoom in on her until the back of her shiny, bald head fills the frame of my camera. The camera paused for a second, and then the scene pops briefly. I find myself staring at the shuttered window.

I feel a chill ripple through my tightly squeezed body. This cannot be! My perspective slides slightly to the left and then back forward again. I am looking through Cunt's eyes!

There is a scraping sound that makes me jump. I think it made Cunt jump too. The window in front of us slides up and a woman in white scrubs, a surgical hat, and mask is waiting for us. She pushes a clipboard towards us.

"Fill out the form," the woman says unenthusiastically.

Cunt stares at the woman for an embarrassingly long moment. In my mind I am starting to yell, "Get on with it!" Finally she steps forward and picks up a ball point pen chained to the clipboard.

She focuses (I focus, as well, of course) down at the piece of paper on the clipboard. Cunt grasps the pen between her fingers. She raises the pen to the first box printed with the label, "Name".

Cunt writes, "Mary Anne Heartless".

"Wha-! Wait! No! No! That's not right! Stop!"

I try to scream, but I can make no noise. I feel my throat clench against the tube embedded within it. I try to flail my arms and legs but only feel the shadow sense of the tubes holding them tightly. Otherwise, I feel cool air flowing around them and a pen between my fingers scribbling my identifying details on a fucking form.

"I am Mary Anne Heartless!" I try to scream. "She's an impostor! Get me out of here!"

My heart is pounding again. I want to shut my eyes. I want the feelings to go away. "I am lying in the shell." I tell myself. "I am lying in the shell."

Cunt scribbles out my signature and slides the clipboard across the desk. The woman pushes a cardboard box back towards us. Cunt opens the box and begins pulling out belongings. My belongings! My clothes! My ID's!

"No! Nooo!"

I am struggling and screaming inside my mind. There has to be some kind of mistake!

No! Those fuckers!

I know that there is no mistake. This whole experimental prison program is a sham. They knew that they were unable to brainwash me! So now... So now they are sending out an impostor in my place. They aren't going to let me go. They are going to keep me locked in this fucking cell! Locked in this fucking shell!

Let me out!

I am certain that I am going to die. My heart is beating so hard that I think that my chest will explode.

I have less than twenty-four hours. Maybe they will let me out!

Help! Let me go, you fuckers!

My impostor carries my belongings to a private room and pulls on my clothes. I can see everything that she sees. I can feel everything that she feels. I can hear everything that she hears.

"A car is waiting for you, Ms. Heartless, when you are ready," a voice says over a loudspeaker. My impostor stands up and looks into a mirror.

Holy shit! She looks just like me. How did I not notice before?

Maybe when her hair grows back in it will be the wrong color. Maybe someone will realize that she is not me when they ask about some past detail. Someone will come and look for me. Someone will!

My impostor steps out through an exterior door into the sunlight. I am thankful that she shades her eyes. I haven't seen the sun in years.

A long, black limousine is parked at the curb. Schultz is leaning against the rear fender of the car with a smug look on her face. I fucking hate Schultz! And she hates me too. Maybe she will recognize that the woman before her is not me and dispatch her quickly. Then they will have to get me... Wait! Maybe Schultz should not dispatch my impostor, because then everyone will think that I am dead and they will never have a reason to release me from this prison.

Shit! I am so confused!

Schultz opens the rear door of the limousine.

"Heartless. Nice 'doo," she says with a mocking wave of her hand directing me into the car.

"Schultz! Scag!" I thought.

"Schultz," my impostor said calmly as she slips into the seat and puts her seat belt on.

Neither Schultz nor my impostor say a word as the limousine navigates the city streets.

I can feel the plush seats press against my legs and ass and my back. I can feel the seat belt across my chest. I can feel every bump and turn that the limousine makes. But I know that I am still sealed inside the shell back at the prison.

After a while, my impostor reaches into a refrigerator and pulls out a cold bottle of spring water. She twists off the top and begins to drink. I feel the plastic bottle against my lips. I feel the cold liquid slide across my tongue. My neck twitches as though I am swallowing. After she has consumed the entire bottle, though, I do not feel any more full than I had before.

My impostor looks out the window of the car and I see familiar roads. We are heading towards my Mistress' mansion. I begin to feel particularly nervous. On one hand, I am excited by the possibility of seeing my love, my life, my Mistress. Oh! How I have dreamt of her for the past two years. I love her so much! I killed for her! And I would do it again if she asked! And, I know that she loved me. Would she still?

On the other hand, what if my impostor is an assassin. What if she goes berserk and kills my Mistress? How cruel that would be to feel the broken bones of my beloved Mistress' neck transmitted to me through my impostor's hands. I now believe that my jailors would take pleasure in that torture. For, already I am experiencing the most heinous of evils.

My Mistress is wise though. She has not attained her powerful position without careful planning and constant vigilance. She will know what to do. I have no idea what she should do. I don't know what I want her to do. She will know though. I hope.

Schultz parks the car and opens the back door for my impostor. "Get out!"

She leads my impostor through the front doors of the mansion, under the crystal chandeliers in the foyer, past the row of marble columns to a small door. We travel through a maze of corridors deep into the mansion. It all looks the same. I still remember every turn. We come to a blank wooden wall and stop. Schultz looks over at my impostor without saying a word. She is watching every move my impostor makes.

I knew that there was an elevator hidden behind the paneling. The controls are on the back side of a vase on a stand by the wall.

After an uncomfortable moment, my impostor asks, "Are we going down?"

"Of course," Schultz growls.

My impostor reaches for the vase and presses a button and the paneling slides back. A moment later the elevator door behind the paneling also opens and we walk inside.

"Basement three," Schultz says. My impostor presses the button, the door closes, and I feel us quickly descend.

When the door opens, the scene before us is unfamiliar. My Mistress has installed a huge aquarium of some kind - several stories tall. Light from somewhere far above filters through the water and paints the room in which we stand in dancing shades of blue.

At first it is the schools of brightly colored tropical fish that catches my impostor's eye.

But, there is something in the background. Moving. Something alien.

"Focus, Cunt! Look deeper!" I scream in my mind.

Slowly, my impostor begins to shift her focus toward the movement. There is a long sleek tale with a wide fluke which flashes a rainbow of colors as it slowly flicks back and forth. My impostor follows the tail higher and I see the scales slowly transition to sleek flesh. Human flesh. Indeed, the top half of the animal is a human female. Her arms cut back and forth through the water. Her long brunette hair fans out behind her. She is looking at us. At least I think she is. A heavy collar is locked around her neck and large links of chain trail away from her past her large, exposed breasts and off into the gloom of the aquarium.

"Do you like my new pet?" a voice behind my impostor says.

Mistress!

"Mistress!" my impostor says and spins around and drops to the floor. I feel the cool leather of my Mistress' boots press lightly on my lips.

"Heartless. My love! I have missed you so these past two years."

Oh! Her voice is as beautiful as ever! My heart begins to swell with the pent up love that I have suppressed for so long. "Look up at her, you dumb cunt!" I scream in my mind.

My impostor finally does look up from her kneeling position. My Mistress' raven dark hair is much longer than when I had last seen it. Her white skin glows like the moon. Her dark red lips make my stomach flutter with excitement.

"You're bald. Will your hair grow out again?" my Mistress asks.

"I'm sorry that I am so ugly, Mistress. I hope that my hair will return."

"I don't know, Heartless. You're not exactly ugly. You have punkish, alien appeal. It's a little imposing. Maybe you should keep it," Mistress comments.

"Whatever you desire, Mistress," my impostor says and returns to her boot-kissing. How did they teach my impostor all these details of protocol?

"Stand up, Heartless," my Mistress commands. My double stands and looks up into my Mistress' eyes. I feel my own heart beating faster. Mistress cups my chin and returns my impostor's stare, looking directly into my eyes. We all stand like this for long seconds before she twists my impostor away from her. Soft lips press down on the top of my head. I feel the cool leather cloaking my Mistress' arms wrap around my waist from behind. After a brief hug, one hand rises and cups a breast while the second slides down between my legs. My muscles clench briefly, an electric sensation. I'm not sure if this feeling came from my impostor or whether it originated within my own being. Arousal swells through my flesh.

"You remember Harper, don't you?" Mistress whispers into my ear.

The mermaid has tilted down toward us and is drifting closer. "This is Harper?" my impostor asks.

Oh, my god! It is Harper. I study the shape of her face as the lights flash across her skin. Harper had once been a rival who had caused some difficulties for my Mistress in the past.

"I have become friends with a brilliant eugenics geneticist," Mistress explains. "She is pushing the boundaries of her field. She's winning international awards for her work. Then again, no one knows how well she has been able to test her theories on some willing participants. Like Harper, here. Her experiments would probably not rate highly with the ethicists, I suppose."

"She's beautiful," my impostor whispers.

"Yeah... She can actually breathe underwater."

"What is the chain for?" my impostor asks.

"Oh, that keeps her at least ten feet below the water's surface. She will never feel a cool breeze play across her skin ever again. She'll never hear sounds unfiltered by the press of water in her ears or speak words that can be understood. The chain is not really necessary. It's just a reminder of who put her in this fishbowl. The weight will always tell her that she is mine." Lips press lightly against my brow.

My Mistress' releases me from her hug. Suddenly, I feel empty and naked and cold. Incomplete.

"So, lover, what did they do to you in this experimental rehabilitation program that you were in?"

My impostor shakes her head and slowly turns back to face Mistress.

"I don't know for sure," my impostor says with a hint of fear in her voice.

I can see Schulz standing off to the side with a sour look on her face. She's fidgeting.

"Well, what DO you know?" my Mistress asks. "Did they fuck with your brain?"

My impostor looks down at the ground. "I... I can't k-" My stomach muscles clench suddenly. A muscular pain shoots up from my abdomen to my neck.

"What's wrong, Heartless?" my Mistress asks.

My impostor looks up briefly. Mistress glances over to Schulz, who has stepped a little closer to me - her hands balled into fists.

"I'm sorry, Mistress. I can't ki.." Breath whistles out my impostor's mouth and my knees crash to the floor. We are hunching over in pain. My impostor starts to wretch.

Please don't throw up!

I remind myself that I am lying in a shell miles away with tubes winding their way into my stomach. Who knows what would happen if I were to throw up?

"I... can't... kill...," my impostor wretches heavily, "anymore..."

Well, that's the difference between my impostor and me. I would kill her in a second. And then I'd kill Schulz just for pleasure.

"I'm so sorry..." my impostor whispers.

"Hmmm" Mistress grunts. "What else?"

"Please, Mistress, I love you so much. Please! Take me back!"

I feel tears come to my eyes. I mean, Cunt is crying, but I am crying too. If my Mistress sends Cunt away, that would be pretty much like sending me away. I would never see her again. Please don't send us away!

"Well..." my Mistress says, thinking for a moment. "Come on, my love, get off of the floor. You don't need to kill people for my love..."

My impostor stands up slowly, shaking. "Oh... thank you, Mistress!"

"But... Can I trust you?" Mistress continues.

No! Don't trust her! But...

"Yes!" my impostor cries. "You can trust me I promise. I'll do anything to prove it to you."

I would do anything, too.

"Unfortunately, lover, I have business on the other side of the world tomorrow. I need to leave for now. Until I return, I'll need to keep you... under wraps. Then we will see how willing you are to serve me again."

"Under wraps..." Schultz is laughing. "After two years in prison, it should be no problem for her."

"Yes. Chain her in the dungeon, Schulz," my Mistress states.

My impostor turns to look at Schulz, but even before she has even raised her eyes, it feels like a board is smashing into my face. It was Schulz's fat hand and my impostor is thrown painfully against the wall of the aquarium where she slides to the floor in a heap.

"Schulz, you are a dead woman!" I scream in my mind. My face stings from the blow.

My impostor continues to lay in a heap against the aquarium. She slowly looks up to see Harper treading water just on the other side of the thick glass, her hand pressed to the inner side of the container, her graceful tail flicking slowly and rhythmically, her eyes, haunting and wild, staring back at my impostor.

Schulz grabs my impostor by the neck of my shirt and yanks her upwards. The shirt rips and my impostor falls back against the aquarium glass.

"Now, now, Schultzy," Mistress says calmly and a bit dispassionately. "I don't want you to hurt Heartless."

Schulz grabs my impostor's arm and yanks her up onto her feet. My legs feel wobbly.

"Yes, Mistress." Her strong hand is wrapped painfully around my impostor's upper arm.

Mistress slides her fingers lightly over my impostor's face where I can still feel the heat of Schulz's blow. Her eyes narrow, searching my impostor's eyes for something. I want to scream that I am behind those eyes. Maybe she could see that she is dealing with an impostor. Maybe she would come and save me from this evil government prison.

Mistress turns and walks away. I watch her long black dress ripple and dance around her boots as she leaves the room.

Schulz pulls my impostor through corridors to a hallway lined with heavy steel doors. She opens one of the doors and throws my impostor onto the cold, cement floor.

"Take off everything!" she commands and begins slowly circling my impostor and a frame of bars holding up a cot of sorts in the middle of the small room.

"Hit the bitch!" I scream in my head, But I have to watch helplessly as my pants, shoes, and underclothes fall off one-by-one into a pile. Finally, naked, my impostor slowly stands up.

The cot is nothing more than a steel frame molded to assume the vague shape of a human - wider where one's back would rest, tapered towards the feet. The surface of the cot is nothing more than strips of heavy canvas, like a cargo net, criss-crossing and secured to the edges of the frame. It is about waist high. Through the gaps I can see rings and staples welded into the floor.

"On your back!" Schulz barks.

My impostor climbs onto the cot. I can feel the canvas press against her back as she lies back.

The door opens and four mansion security personal file into the small room rolling a cart with a large spool of shiny, medium gauge chain and various other shackles and cuffs. My impostor's wrists are pulled down to the sides of the cot's frame. Cold, steel cuffs wrap them tightly and the click and crunch of metal fastenings locking ring against the dark stone walls.

Schulz gives a sharp tug on the end of the chain wound about the spool. Links of metal begin to pour from the spinning holder into a pile on the floor.

"Careful, girls!" Schulz smirks. "Heartless is a cold blooded killer! We will need a lot of chain to keep the world safe from her deviant thirst for blood."

Two of the security guards are threading a chain up though an opening in the canvas straps beside my impostor's cheek. The chain becomes taut and Schulz snatches it away. She twists the chain across my impostor's mouth, her maw open. I feel the cold links pull painfully at each side of her mouth. Her teeth are pushed apart. I feel the metal press against my tongue.

Schulz threads the chain back down through the canvas on the opposite side of my impostor's face. Soon it is tight and Schulz yanks it a couple of times forcing my impostor to let out a pained "Gah!" when the canvas pressing against the back of her head refuses to yield anymore. Her drool begin to drip down my cheeks.

Meanwhile, something cold is being clipped around my impostor's big toes holding them tightly together. Then, as one, they are pulled forward until her toes are horizontal to the cot. I can feel the strain on my ankles and when the guards step away I know that they have been locked in this position.

My impostor is firmly restrained and stretched now, but Schulz is not satisfied. Soon a guard is feeding the long medium-gauge chain up from underneath the cot while Schulz hauls it through with grand jerks letting the links fall heavily across my poor intruder's body.

Eventually, she is satisfied that she has enough chain and leans over looking into our eyes.

"I bet you missed Mistress these past two years," she teases. "After all, you were her favorite. We all knew it. The two of you would emerge naked from her bedroom. I remember seeing your skin flushed and glistening with saliva and cum; that stupid fucking smug look on your face."

The guard begins feeding chain up to Schulz on the other side of my impostor's neck.

She continues. "You don't think that she waited for you, do you, Heartless?" Her voice is taunting and evil over the ringing of links sliding past my impostor's ear.

"No," Schulz whispers, her eyes hovering inches above mine. Above my impostor's.

"I'll fucking kill you!" I scream in my mind, but my impostor remains quiet pulling uselessly at her wrist shackles.

"No, Heartless. I have been fucking her," Schulz laughs.

I feel my muscles tensing. Maybe they were my impostor's muscles. I'm not sure, but I can feel the pressure of the surfaces of the shell that are compressed around my body.

I know I hate Schulz more than any who had come before and I begin to fantasize painful ways to end her. I feel my stomach lurch suddenly. I hear my impostor choke a little.

"What is that Heartless? Do you want to kill me?"

My impostor lurches again and an awful belching sound echoes in my head. I feel a strange sense of sympathy suddenly for this other me, this intruder, this double. We have a common goal. I pray that somehow she could break the chains and snap Schulz's neck.

Schulz pulls back laughing. She takes the two ends of the long chain that is now wrapped behind my impostor's neck. She pulls them diagonally across my chest, between my impostor's breasts and begins to feed the free ends back through the cargo net pulling them tightly until they press into the flesh, compressing my and Cunt's sternum.

Schulz steps away and allows the guards to continue wrapping my impostor in the chain, crossing back and forth over her naked body, pulling the chain tightly until it creases her flesh, looping the ends through the holes between the canvas straps and then continuing on down her stomach and abdomen, welding her body to the cot.

Schulz, meanwhile kneels close to my impostor's ear. "She's really quite the megalomaniac, you know."

My view flits back and forth across the ceiling, occasionally glancing at Schulz; drool bubbles out of Cunt's mouth and drips into my ears.

"Everyone wants a piece of Mistress these days. They want her to be on their side, maybe, or they want to kill her. I think that the stress is getting to her. She's acting a little wacky, sometimes."

This is the worst hell I could ever imagine having to listen to this foul slattern whisper her false confessions into my ear.

"She makes ridiculous rules now. For example, she has decreed that no one in the organization could ever refer to another woman as 'Bitch'. Not even in a joking way. 'No woman is a dog' she says." Schulz laughs quietly. "I have whipped several offenders of that rule."

The guards pull both free ends of the chain around my hip bones and between my legs - the cold links sliding against the lips of my sex. I mean, my impostor's sex.

"Well," Schulz continues, "if you can't kill anymore, then you aren't so heartless anymore, I guess."

"Oh, I will kill you, Schulz," I scream in my head.

"If you aren't heartless, Heartless," Schulz continues, "then I guess that you are just like a little harmless puppy, aren't you?"

Schulz scrapes a finger up my impostor's cheek scooping a small string of drool. She flicks it back into my impostor's mouth.

"Yuck! I think that you would make a wonderful puppy."

The guards are now pulling the chains, criss-crossing across my impostor's legs squeezing them tightly together.

"Mistress will never trust you again. I'll make sure of that," Schulz laughs as she stands up over my impostor. "You will become one of her pets, eventually, and I, for one, will hope that she turns you into a puppy." She pauses for a moment, then grasps one of my impostor's nipples and squeezes and pulls at it causing both, my impostor and me, to howl in pain, garbled and silently, respectively.

"Something to think about..." Schulz laughs as she starts to walk away. "See you in a couple of weeks, Bitch!" And she is gone.

The guards finish wrapping my impostor in the web of chains all the way down to her ankles. They gather up their bondage supplies and keys and my personal items, and then they leave the room. I hear the door slam shut and locks engage. The lights dim.

My impostor moans and drools. A cramp begins to form in one of our feet.

Only my impostor's fingers move, gripping the air uselessly, as we lie together mummified in this small dungeon room... as I lie many miles away, locked in my prison cell, mummified again. My chest begins to heave suddenly. I think I am laughing. Hysterically.


Part 2 (added: 2013/04/16)

I am naked. I am wandering through a maze of corridors in my Mistress' mansion. I see her down at the far end of a hall. She beckons me to catch up. I start to run.

The corridors twist and turn seemingly randomly. I'm not certain where I am, but I think that I am following my Mistress.

I stumble into the room with the large aquarium. Harper the mermaid is swimming near the glass wall. She opens her mouth and emits a sound similar to a dolphin. Her eyes are black.

My Mistress calls me from across the room and then slips through a door. I run to catch up, but when I pass through the door I run into Schultz. She has a gun and she is starting to point it at me.

I am Heartless. I am a trained killer. Schultz is no match for my reflexes. She is far too muscled, big-boned, to be a match for my speed. The gun gets knocked out of her hand and crashes across the room. My hands are wrapped around her neck before she realizes that she is in trouble.

I push my thumbs deeply into the base of her neck and pull out to the sides like I'm shucking the husks off an ear of corn. I feel her sinews and muscles snapping and her bones cracking in my hands. Her head pops off and rolls across the floor. I throw her body to the side and grab her head by the hair raising it up to sneer one last time into her dying eyes.

Oh, shit! It's not Schultz! It's my Mistress! What have I done?

"I'll never trust you again," her head says to me.

Okay... I'm dreaming...

I need to wake up. My heart is pounding. I'm lying on my back. I'm staring at the ceiling of my cell. I can't move. I feel a weight press down on me and I'm starting to have trouble breathing.

Move, Heartless! It's the hag. She's lying on top of my chest. She's suffocating me. No. Sleep paralysis. Concentrate on moving a finger, an arm.

I struggle to move with no results.

Where am I? What did I do yesterday? I'm in prison. I'm in my shell...

Fuck! It's that same dream again!

I'm not exactly sure how long my imposter has been locked in the dungeon in my Mistress' mansion. Maybe it has been two or three weeks? Her hair is growing back. It's my color. She has my callick. There is nothing to identify her as someone other than me.

They did not leave her wrapped in chains for too long. In fact, when she awoke after that first night, she had been released from the chains' cold grasp. However, when she awoke, there was a steel collar wrapped tightly around her neck. A chain hung from an o-ring on the front of the collar securing her to the ceiling high above. The chain prevented her from even reaching the door out of the small room. On the other hand, she had access to a sink and toilet.

Nothing ever happens in the cell. She is fed food that looks pretty good. I experience the things she sees, hears, and feels, but I cannot smell or taste. I can only imagine whatever pleasure she receives from eating as the food passes across the surface of her tongue or as her lips press and linger in the concavity of a spoon.

The food they give her must make her fall asleep. They always enter her cell when she is unconscious. I have heard someone moving around, clearing plates, restocking soap and wash cloths. My imposter sleeps with her eyes closed though. I never see the people who visit.

Even in my shell, I still have to sleep. More often than not, I wake up in terror until I can remind myself that I am in a government prison, stored in a shell that is monitoring my health, keeping me alive.

I thought that being locked in the government cell for two years was bad. This is by far worse. I have no say in how I will pass the long hours. My impostor seems to have the same coping mechanisms that I have, but that is no help. She stares at the ceiling for long periods of time. I believe that she is counting the black marks in the tile. She even said a number once that was about seven less than what I had counted. I screamed at her for a long time in my head. The fucking cunt can't even count. On the other hand, three days later, I got the same number that she had gotten.

I'm losing my edge. I'm only an observer.

My impostor masturbates like it's going out of style. At first I was excited when she started to slide her fingers across herself. This fucking shell, though! I don't think that I feel the things that my impostor feels with the same intensity. She always gets off before I have a chance to make it to an orgasm. And as her body twitches and relaxes in euphoria, I am screaming at her, lying teased but thoroughly unfulfilled.

I still hate her.

My impostor is washing her face when the locks on the door start to ring with the sound of tumblers aligning and keys sliding. The door opens and two figures enter. They are obviously female, taller than me. They are wearing tight fitting black spandex and heelless shoes, very sensible. Their heads are covered by well fitted hoods that are tight around the eyes and forehead, but drape around the neck and mouth. They look a bit like executioners. My reflexes spark. I make a plan to kill them quickly if I must. I prepare to jump if I have a chance. My impostor stands impassively.

Two more dressed the same follow sharing the burden of a heavy canvas bag, which they set down with an ominous thud on the floor after they enter the room. A fifth then enters bearing a long sword with a mirrored finish that flashes the overhead light into my eyes.

The five stare at my impostor, and we at them for a long moment. The two who had brought the bag each pull out long, black bullwhips and let their lengths uncoil across the floor. My impostor glances down at the knotted ends, but otherwise, does not move.

"Is it Halloween?" she asks. "I thought it was the spring time, but I've been so well stored, I suppose anything is possible."

The first two who arrived move up to my impostor. One places a gloved hand on her cheek while the second kneels at my impostor's side and places her hands gently on her hip bones. The hand I feel on my impostor's cheek slides down until it is cupping her chin and the thumb slowly passes across her lips. Down below the guard has slid one hand to cup my impostor's naked sex. The other hand slides around and down between my impostor's buttocks, a lone finger begins to press invasively.

"We request," the upper guard speaks firmly into my impostor's ear, "that you keep your fucking mouth shut in our presence."

I notice the two bullwhips flick a little about the floor. The message is fairly clear. I'm cursing them in my head, but, luckily, my impostor displays a greater degree of restraint than me.

The upper guard unlocks my neck chain while the second guard slowly slides her hand down the inside of my thigh until it rests on the back of my knee.

"Kneel," the talkative guard commands as she loops a finger through the o-ring on the collar. Before my impostor begins to move, both guards work quickly and forcefully to ensure that her command is followed. The sensation of my knees slapping painfully against the cold floor and my impostor's grunt make my blood pressure begin to rise.

A chain is pulled from the bag and locked to my impostor's collar's o-ring. One of the guards yanks on the chain and a large metal ball slides out of the bag. It sounds heavy as it slowly rolls toward my imposter.

"Come with us," the spokeswoman commands and the first two guards walk back out the door, leaving the remaining three who watch me closely.

My impostor attempts to stand, but the chain connecting her neck to the ball is shorter than the length of my body, and it snaps tautly when her back is still bent. She looks briefly at the sword and the pair of bullwhips dancing across the surface of the floor. Then she bends and picks the ball up. I can feel its weight in my hands. I can feel my arms shaking and my legs muscles growing tight. The ball is very heavy.

My impostor shuffles out of the cell and follows the first two guards down the corridor. The remaining three fall in closely behind.

We travel down a series of corridors and down some stairs. I can feel my arms start to shake violently. I'm not sure that my impostor will be able to carry the ball much longer. I pray that she doesn't drop it on our foot. I wonder what would happen to me inside my shell if she were to crush the bones in her toes.

She does pretty well. We are not weaklings. We have done exercises throughout the term of our imprisonment. We are walking along a dimly lit corridor in which the jingle of chains echo as we make our way. I realize that we are walking next to a large cage of some sort. I see movement inside the cage in the corner of my eye. My impostor startles a bit and drops the ball pulling her by her neck to her knees. Luckily, our toes remain intact.

The guards stop and wait patiently and silently. My impostor glances at the guards briefly and then looks to see the source of movement within the cage. A strange looking woman has moved up to the bars. The sides of her head are bald, but the hair down the middle is long and black. At first I think that she is wearing a shirt with wide dangling sleeves, but her breasts are uncovered.

My impostor falls back away from the cage a bit. I realize that she has suddenly also determined that the sleeves are not made of fabric, but rather are loose skin. This animal raises her arms and the skin stretches out like bat wings. A single sharp claw terminates each wing and they clack as they wrap around the bars. The woman sticks her head between the bars and opens a mouth filled with glistening pointed teeth. A forked tongue slips out of the woman's mouth followed by a guttural hissing sound.

My impostor glances again at the guards, and then gathers the ball back into her arms and slowly staggers back to her feet. The monster follows along inside the cage as we make our way down the corridor, scraping her claws along the bars as she moves.

Finally we make it to a room lit only by four large candles. There is a massive bed against one wall. A guard unlocks the ball and chain from the front of my impostor's collar, but then quickly reattaches it behind. They work together to throw the ball onto the bed and then push my impostor up as well. She is too tired to resist in any way. My arms and legs even feel wobbly even though I know that they have lifted nothing, trapped as they are in their confining tubes.

The guards pull my imposter across the bed until her head is centered near the headboard. The ball is arranged underneath the bed somehow, so that she is unable to raise herself up at all. Her arms are pulled towards the corners near the headboard and wrapped in forearm length, padded cuffs. Long cuffs are also wrapped around her ankles and lower calves. I see a guard lift a remote from a fireplace mantel across the room. She presses a button and the four restraints pull on my impostors limbs until she is spread evenly into a strict 'X'. I can feel the tightness in her chest as she struggles to breathe.

The five guards leave the room.

After I have been lying here for a half hour or more, my Mistress enters. My heart begins to beat with expectation as I see her and I can feel arousal radiate in a series of sparkles from my crotch. I feel my face smiling.

"My Mistress," my impostor whispers.

Mistress lets the silk robe she is wearing fall off her shoulders, revealing her firm breasts, the taut musculature of her abdomen, her well-trimmed crotch. She is now wearing only long silk gloves and silk stockings. She presses a button on the remote and my impostors legs begin to loosen until they are no longer burdened and then a little more.

Without saying a word, my Mistress crawls onto the bed on her knees and slides her arms under my thighs, I mean my impostor's thighs, lifting them from the bed and rolling my sex upwards as she lowers her mouth and begins to press her tongue along the length of my labia.

My impostor's eyes roll up towards the ceiling and I hear a moan slip from within her. Oh my god and her seven dwarves! The sensation is heavenly, divine. Even in my shell miles away, I can feel the shadow of my encasement pressing down against my heaving chest and the tightness of the tubes jammed in my throat as I struggle to get my breath.

Mistress continues to manipulate us. I can feel my impostor begin to jerk and twitch uncontrollably.

But Mistress stops before either I or my impostor go over the edge. She steps back off the bed and retightens the restraints pulling on my impostor's legs. Then she climbs up once again, letting a silky hand slide up my abdomen, briefly cupping a breast, teasing forth a nipple, and then arriving at my face just as her lips press against mine. Her lips open and our tongues twist together for a moment before she rises and allows me a breath.

"We never realize how well linked tastes and smells are to our memories," she says. "I have missed you so."

I feel a pang of sadness, for taste and smell are senses that I am denied. I am not with my Mistress. I am locked in a shell in a government prison, being tortured as she plays with my impostor possibly at the risk of her own doom. I'm starting to cry. They are tears of frustration, I think.

"I have dreamt of this moment for over two years, Mistress," my impostor whispers. Yes. Over two years.

"Your hair is growing back," Mistress says as she slides a smooth glove over my crotch. "I think that I will keep this off, though," she says with a playful tug at the short lengths there.

"As you wish, Mistress," my impostor whispers. "But, I will need a razor."

"Ah ah ah!" Mistress says waving a finger in my face. "I'll have the guards take it off when you are asleep. Don't worry! They won't cut you in any way. If there are any nicks, the guard knows she will become a Soft Inside."

I have no idea what my Mistress is talking about but by this time neither I nor my impostor, I suppose, care. She has slid a finger between my moist lips and begins to tease us from the inside.

"The corps of guards are all terribly afraid of you still," Mistress says. "Your legacy has held up quite well over the course of your absence. Perhaps you are even a living legend amongst them now."

"Hmmm," my impostor grunts dreamily.

"Have I changed?" Mistress asks.

"Yes," my impostor breathes. "You're bigger now."

"I don't understand," Mistress says, her fingers suddenly growing still.

"I mean," my imposter grunts. "Your presence is bigger now."

"Oh," Mistress giggles as her teasing resumes. "I guess that I have to be. Success brings riches, but it also brings expectations and challengers. I have to be on my toes at all times now. It's not as easy as it was when we were younger."

My impostor looks up to see Mistress' face. A thin skein of sadness hangs upon her for a moment. I feel a pang in my heart. I can see that her success has had its toll. Mistress does not let the sadness air for too long though.

"Remember how we would lay in bed together for long afternoons, sipping wine and reading erotica to each other," Mistress says with a smile, her fingers picking up the rhythm.

My impostor gasps out a quiet "Mm-hmm."

"What was the name of our favorite author?" Mistress asks.

"Um..." my impostor pauses.

Oh! This is it! This is the type of thing that there is no way that my impostor would know. How could she know about Glass? Mistress is going to get her!

"Olivia Glass," my impostor whispers suddenly between raspy breaths.

"Of course! That's her name," Mistress smiles. "You've always had the best memory."

"And you, too. You remembered Glass," my impostor breathes. "You are just testing me, aren't you?"

Mistress' smile widens. "Oh, Heartless! I love you so much." I feel moist fingers lie gently upon my cheek as Mistress kisses and nips my lips. My chest rises and I hear a gasp of ecstasy. Easy, Cunt! I'm not quite there yet!

"I want to trust you so badly, my love," Mistress admits. "And, I do! I do trust you, but... How do I know that they have not planted something inside you that will attack me? Something that is not you. I mean... Should I trust you?"

My impostor is pulling against her restraints, gasping for air. I can feel her stomach muscles fluttering. "No," she says in a raspy voice.

"Hm. Did you get a chance to see Laurel? Er... a.k.a. Batgirl."

"Uh... uh-huh," my impostor breathes. "Laurel?"

"Yeah, Laurel." Mistress is casually pushing two fingers into my impostor's sex. "I don't know if you ever ran into her. She caused me a bit of trouble about 18 months ago." Mistress giggles a little. "She's mine now, though. The good Doctor says that Laurel can even fly with those wings."

My imposter grunts.

"Well," Mistress continues. "More like, she could glide kind of like a flying squirrel. Laurel has been too afraid to actually try yet."

Mistress pulls her fingers from within me. She peels the silk glove off her right arm, then leans across my impostor's restrained body to dip her hand in a china bowl on the bedside table.

"By the way, don't ever stick an arm in her cage," Mistress warns as she begins to rub a handful of cool lubrication over my impostor's sex. "I'm pretty sure she would rip it off with her teeth. She's got anger issues."

"Maybe she doesn't like being a bat," my impostor whispers, causing my Mistress to giggle.

"Perhaps you are right. But, we never really get to choose our circumstances, do we? Whether we are smart or have access to resources which will make us strong. We are at the whim of the goddesses."

"And, in this case," my impostor grunts as Mistress slowly shoves three slick fingers into her sex. "You are the goddess."

"Yes, my love." Mistress begins to kiss my impostor passionately. A silken foot slides along the inside of my leg. Her hand pushes and pulls on my sex. She flexes her fingers to rub inside of me. A tortured moan rasps from my impostor's lips, but it is quickly tamped down by Mistress' mouth and tongue and covered by moans of her own.

"Sing for me, my love."

A tune pops into my head. A second later, I hear my impostor begin to sing between kisses.

"She's my fave. Undressing in the sun."

Mistress giggles again.

"Return to sea. Bye. Forgetting everyone."

I can feel fluids gushing from my sex as Mistress continues her assault. My impostor screams and begins to laugh.

"Eleven high. Ride a wave. Ohhh!"

Mistress squeezes her fingers together to make her hand as narrow as possible and shoves it into me. Pain and pleasure race for dominance inside my head. I scream as her knuckles slip between my lips and then I feel my sex gripping Mistress narrow wrist so tightly I imagine I can feel her heart beat. My impostor is screaming and pulling at the cuffs stretching her taut. The bed is shaking. I can feel Mistress hand inside me, twisting slowly back and forth and I am moving towards the crest over which my impostor has already fallen.

My impostor screams in pain and ecstasy again as Mistress pulls her hand out.

I am screaming in my head, "Don't stop! Don't stop! Not yet!" But Mistress cannot hear me above the rattle of chains and my impostor's thrashing.

"My lovely surfer. My Heartless. My true love has returned," Mistress whispers as she places her warm moist hand on my impostor's abdomen and kisses her softly on her cheek.

"No..." I whimper in my head as I slowly slide back from the brink. As I sink, I become overwhelmed by how much danger my Mistress is in.

The guards transport my impostor to the bed with chains two or three times each week. My Mistress makes love to my impostor and even though I can feel every kiss and caress, I also become filled with jealousy that I am not there to experience our time together completely.

For I have not been a romantic fool these past two years. My wait, my sacrifice has been worthwhile. Mistress is as beautiful as I remember. At times, I even step aside from the conversation that Mistress is having with my impostor and watch the arch of her eyebrows as Mistress laughs and the smooth dips and curves of her arms and her back. Or I feel the way that her hair slides across my skin and the warmth of her breath in my ear. I drown in the music of Mistress' voice as she reads "Tipping the Velvet" by Sarah Waters.

My impostor is staring at the ceiling lying stretched and motionless. My Mistress' arm is draped lazily over her chest. I am crying in my shell miles away once again slipping back from climax, unfulfilled.

"I love you, Heartless. I always have," Mistress whispers. "I always will."

I love you, too, Mistress. I love you, too!

"Do you love me, Heartless?" Mistress asks.

"Yes..." my impostor whispers half asleep.

"We shall see," Mistress responds. "We shall see."

The guards lead my impostor through the maze of subterranean corridors underneath Mistress' mansion, but this time our journey terminates in a different room. The steel ball chained to my impostor's collar is released and the guards work together to chain her wrists into shackles hanging from the darkness above. A third shackle is wrapped around her right ankle. I hear the sound of an electric motor and the chains begin to retract pulling my impostor in various strategic directions so that when the engine is cut, she is balancing on the toes of her left foot, her right is pulled to the side and her arms are stretched tautly, high towards the ceiling.

I follow her line of sight as she calmly begins to take in all aspects of her surroundings. I would be doing the same thing, were I not imprisoned miles away in a shell.

The guards leave us balancing. My impostor begins to relax a little and stares ahead of her at a tapestry depicting a naked woman standing erect, her arms held wide. A white sphere of thread radiates from around the woman's head - a halo. Various other naked women, supplicants, are kneeling, heads bowed in reverence.

An electric motor kicks on again and the tapestry begins to rise revealing a barren cinder block wall on the other side.

"Heartless."

My impostor turns her head to the left slowly to see Schulz standing next to her.

"Schulz," she says.

I begin to envision positions where Schulz's legs or head should be located in order to launch the most effective attack. Even restrained as I am, I believe that I could take her down with my free leg. If I do it right, a second move would break her neck.

"Mistress has asked for my help today. She wants me to hurt you." Schulz turns to watch the bottom edge of the tapestry rise up towards the ceiling. "Wouldn't want to get blood on the artwork."

A bullwhip uncoils on the floor next to Schulz.

My impostor sighs and turns her eyes back towards the cinder block wall.

Schulz grabs a handful of my impostor's hair and yanks her head towards her. "Good to see you have hair again, Heartless. You almost look human."

Now is when I would attack.

I'm stunned when suddenly my impostor's left leg rises off the ground and begins to swing in for an attack. A pain rips up from my abdomen and I hear a loud belching sound followed by coughing.

Schulz is still on her feet but she is holding her thigh. "Ow! Fuck!"

My impostor is struggling to steady herself back onto the toes of her left foot. I can feel her diaphragm contracting and squeezing as she grunts and gags. It's the fucking conditioning! My impostor's attack should have required knee surgery to fix, but, instead, thanks to the sudden abdominal pain, would result in no more than a bruise. I felt proud and sorry for my impostor. Today is going to be a bad day.

Schulz has regained her composure and she is starting to laugh. "Still sickened by violence, Heartless. You must really hate me."

Oh, my poor impostor, you almost had her!

Schulz kicks my impostor's left foot out from underneath her and I can feel the strain on my other three limbs as my impostor flails around to regain her balance yet again.

"Now," Schulz continues. "What was I saying? Oh, yes! I'm going to hurt you a little for Mistress today."

Schulz cracks the whip out across the room for effect.

"And after I'm done hurting you a little for her, I'm going to hurt you a lot, but it will be all for my own enjoyment."

Schulz backs away wielding the whip so that it begins to dance about the room.

Oh, shit! My impostor turns away from Schulz as she moves away and pulls her shoulders close to her ears to protect her head as much as possible.

A whip makes a particularly effective cracking sound when the free tip exceeds the speed of sound. The speed of sound is 768 mph (1236 kph). Schulz demonstrates a series of expertly swung strokes which fill the room with loud explosions of crackling air. The crack after the third is blunted when it encounters the flesh of my impostor's back.

I hear my impostor's cry of pain as a sensation of unbearable heat brands itself across my back. I feel my gyrations in my shell challenging the surfaces that confine me. I, myself, try to yell only to feel the choke of tubes jammed down my throat.

Oh, holy shit! That hurt! And the air is already alive with the sound of another incoming.

Fuck!

A stroke of the whip causes flashes of light in my eyes. My ears are filled with my impostor's screams and chains pulled taut. The cinderblock wall dances in my view coated with a splattering of spit. I feel my impostor's left toes frantically flailing for the floor to achieve some form of control.

The cinder wall is blurry, now. My tears, maybe. Maybe my impostor's. She is unconscious, the lucky cunt. Her head snaps erratically after each impact. I did not pass out though. I'm not sure whether to be thankful that I don't feel things as intensely as she. After she passed out the beating continued on and I was left to feel each peel across my back. Certainly, my impostor is bleeding. I wonder if I am. It feels like it.

I feel my head jerk back by my hair. Schulz is breathless with exertion staring into my impostor's unfocused eyes.

"Had enough, you fucking bitch?" she yells.

She lets go. I hear the electric motor engage and feel myself crumble in slow motion onto the cold, hard floor.

This has been the worst. Even at times when Mistress has visited and I see her looks of concern I am uncertain whether my vision of her is real or not. My impostor has not moved much for who knows how long. She is rarely conscious. She is not me. She is not me.

She is not me... I have recovered well enough. I do not feel pain. But guards and attendants apply compresses to my impostor's back and I can feel her muscles flinch and I hear her moans. She is not me.

My sleep is erratic. Sometimes I awaken to darkness because my impostor is asleep. Or I awaken and she is awake but unmoving and I am freaking out. And sometimes I am certain that I am awaking in hell or whatever with my hands gripped around necks, breaking them. Maybe Schulz's neck. Maybe Mistress' neck. Or my impostor's or my own. A neck is a neck. It's feel is defined by its physical nature, not the emotional attachment that one might have to it. The way they resist a tight squeeze. The way they crush.

My impostor is shaking. She must have a fever.

Mistress is cursing Schulz under her breath and talks about making her a Soft Inside.

I'm soft inside. I'm rotting away inside my impostor.

My normal contingent of guards arrive and apply their heavy steel ball to my impostor's collar.

Things started getting better once she was able to eat again. She started to exercise, pushups and situps, and even though I am still held immobile miles away in a hard, tight shell. I FEEL like I am moving and active again. My impostor even masturbated a couple of times which made me cry and laugh silently as she pushed herself over the edge and I languished in need.

My stomach... and I mean MY stomach becomes ill when I realize that the guards have brought me to the room with the shackles hanging from the ceiling and the wall which the tapestry is supposed to cover is exposed. The heavy steel ball is unlocked from my collar, but reattached to my ankle. I could run, but not easily.

Mistress walks into the room. There is another woman with her dressed smartly in black spandex. She looks at my impostor and smiles.

"Elif!" I think.

"Elif!" my impostor exclaims. Elif steps in close and kisses my impostor gently on the cheek. We have never been friends, but we have always respected each other's work. I almost feel a sense of regret that we never spent much time together. I've always liked Elif.

The door opens again and Schulz walks in. She is smirking. I am cursing in my head loudly. My impostor settles her body and tightens her jaw and a fist.

"I'm happy to see that you are on your feet again, Heartless," Schulz says. "I did not think that a little lashing would take you down for such a long time." Schulz then turns to Mistress. "She is unbroken, just as I promised, Mistress."

"She is," Mistress states. "Your promise has been good, on that front." Mistress drops something at my impostor's feet. When my impostor looks down, I see it is a bullwhip. "There is, however, an issue with one of my rules being broken." Mistress presses a button on a remote and a monitor flickers to life across the room.

I notice that Schulz's smirk has disappeared.

On the screen, I see my impostor hanging from her chains. Her back is horribly striped and streaked with blood. Schulz walks into the frame and grabs my impostor by the hair and screams, "Had enough, you fucking bitch!?"

"What are my rules about that word, Schulz?" Mistress states slowly.

Schulz defends her actions. "I was taunting her. Suggesting that you would turn her into a pet dog, in which case, it would be an accurate description..."

"Is Heartless a dog, Schulz?" Mistress asks.

"No, but..."

"Is she a dog!?" Mistress screams.

"No..." Schulz says. Her face is lowered but her eyes are glancing amongst the three of us menacingly.

"What is the punishment for using the word 'Bitch', Schulz?" Mistress asks.

After a pause, Schulz exhales a bit. "Ten lashes..."

"No exceptions!" Mistress screams. "Take off your fucking clothes and get in the chains, Schulz."

Schulz's nostrils are flaring. She seems to evaluate her situation for a moment before she slowly begins to pull her clothes off - glancing at each of us repeatedly.

"Heartless," Mistress says. "It's your right to apply the lashes."

Oh, yes! I am cursing the fact that I am in this shell, in this prison, many miles away. Regardless, I will savor every sound and langor in the feel of the whip responding to my impostor's grip.

I wonder how much damage I could do to Schulz with ten lashes. I wonder if my impostor could do the same.

Schulz has locked her right ankle in its shackle. She reaches up and wraps the cuffs around her wrists as well. The electric motor turns on and she is pulled to a point. She is big-boned. Her body is firm and voluptuous. The muscles of her left leg are smooth and well curved. The light of the room reflects beautifully off her skin as she balances. Her breath has become ragged and she is trying her best to look over her shoulder at my impostor.

"Proceed," Mistress says.

My impostor bends over and picks up the bullwhip. She flicks it out across the floor to get a sense of its length and then begins to move to a position for optimal utilization, dragging the steel ball attached to her ankle across the floor with a heavy, industrial, ragged grind.

My impostor looks up to target Schulz.

"Come on, you fuck!" Schulz screams. "Get it over with!"

My impostor raises her arm. I hear her own breath beginning to whistle. As for myself, I must be holding my breath. The whip rises into the air, and I feel a strange lurch. I hear a gagging sound and the whip settles to the floor again.

Fuck! Feel your anger, Cunt! Whip Schulz!

The whip goes back into the air and circles once above my impostor's head.

That's it! I could kill Schulz.

But, then... there is another lurch and the whip falls to the ground again. I feel the contraction of my abdominal muscles again and my impostor is retching dry heaves.

Schulz is starting to laugh a hysterical, relieved kind of laugh as my impostor falls to her knees and stares at the floor, burping and grasping her stomach.

"I'm sorry, Mistress," my impostor whispers. "I am broken."

Mistress walks over to my impostor. I feel her hand rubbing my impostor's hair in a soothing manner.

"It's okay, Heartless," she whispers.

"Okay, great! Can I get down now?" Schulz asks.

Mistress helps my impostor back to her feet. "Come over here, Heartless," she beckons.

My impostor drags the heavy steel ball to the side of the room where Mistress has indicated.

"Hello?" Schulz calls out.

Mistress stares into my impostor's eyes. After a moment a small smile seems to flicker across her lips. "You tried, my love." She leans in and I feel my Mistress' lips slide across mine. Across my impostor's lips and across mine. Far away.

"Sorry, Schulz. No exceptions!" Mistress states. "Elif! Apply the strokes."

"Wha-! No!" Schulz screams.

I see Elif walk to the bullwhip and pick it up, but by the time she is flicking it around the room my attention has returned, in full, to my Mistress who is pulling her shirt over her head. She tosses it to the side and begins to press her breasts into mine. She is so warm and soft. I feel her lips on my lips and her tongue pushes into my mouth.

The sound of the whip cracking makes my impostor jump slightly. Schulz's screams only seem to intensify Mistress' carnal attack. My impostor seems to realize that, for the first time since her return, her hands are free to roam across Mistress' body. Suddenly, they are sliding around her hips, feeling the curves and dimples of her lower back. My impostor is crying and I feel wet hair stick to her cheeks as she kisses my Mistress. Her hands slide up cupping Mistress' breast, passionately kneading the skin of her back.

Meanwhile, the sound of the whip and Schulz's screams continue to wrap the three of us, my Mistress, my impostor, and I, and my impostor's hands rise up to my Mistress neck. I can feel the soft skin of the base of her neck under my impostor's thumbs. She's my Goddess, but still, for me she is so vulnerable...

Oh, shit! No! Get away, Mistress!!

My impostor's hands are wrapped around her throat. Mistress has stopped her carnal manipulations. Her eyes are growing cold suddenly. Her smile is quickly turning to a frown. I feel my hands wrapped gently around her neck. Pausing there...

But then the second is over and my impostor's hands have released Mistress' neck and are now cradling her head and her lips, my lips, are devouring my Mistress' lips. I have lost the passion of the moment. My heart is racing with fear, still certain that Mistress is in mortal danger.

"Done," Elif says from far off.

"Leave," Mistress responds between moans. My impostor's hands are now pulling down on Mistress' tight, yoga spandex pants while still chewing and nipping on her lips and tongue. The pants are now around her knees.

Mistress screams and her body is pulled away from mine - from my impostor's. She tumbles down to the floor.

Schulz is dripping in sweat. Her fist is already about to crack into my jaw before I have the presence to react. And that is too late. I feel myself tumble across the floor. My eyes are out of focus.

"Get up, Cunt!" I scream in my mind. "Come on, Heartless! Get off the floor! She has Mistress!"

My vantage does not change at all. My impostor is unconscious, but I am not. I hear chains rattling and Mistress and Schulz screaming at one another. I hear the electric motor whirring.

I can't see what is going on. "Wake up, Heartless!"

I hear the whip crack and I hear a scream. I am so desperate with fear.

Suddenly, my impostor is awake. She stands and turns to see Mistress hanging from the chains. A bloody red gash is already opened across her back. Schulz is looking pretty ragged as well, naked and bleeding, but it does not deter her from wielding the whip high up in the air, preparing for another stroke.

My impostor leaps at Schulz. Her hands are trained on her neck, but my impostor's ankle is still restrained by the steel ball, so the attack falls short. Instead my hands are tangled in Schulz's hair, pulling at her ears. I feel my abdomen clench and my impostor starts to gag.

"Get off me," Schulz screams and jabs her elbow into my impostor's gut.

The contractions have become so strong that my impostor's unburdened foot lifts off the ground involuntarily, but she refuses to release the tentative grasp she has on Schulz's head.

My impostor repositions her hands. I feel her thumb slip over the curve of Schulz's cheek and into the gelatinous mass of her left eye.

Blood begins to spill out across my impostor's hands and Schulz is screaming. Vomit is spraying out of my impostor's mouth and she collapses to the floor.

Suddenly, Elif and other guards are jumping on my impostor. Schulz's face is covered in blood and she is screaming and flailing as a number of guards hold her down.

The door opens to my impostor's dungeon cell and guards file in. My Mistress also walks in. Her eyes have bags under them. She is wearing a robe and walking tenderly. My impostor stands and Mistress pulls her into her arms.

"It's you, Heartless! It IS you! You tried to save me even though you physically couldn't!"

"Of course, Mistress," my impostor says. "I love you! I don't care about anything else." And that is the truth. I DO love Mistress so much. There is not much in life to tie yourself to, and that is a sad thought. But I love Mistress and I can tie myself to that and it will always sustain me.

After holding me for a while, Mistress steps back. "I have to go away for a bit. Elif and I have this thing we have to do in Eatonton. It's a simple thing... a simple job. But when I return, I'll get you out of this dungeon and maybe we can find out how you can be with me more."

My impostor smiles and nods her head vigorously. "I would love to be with you as much as you will have me!" she exclaims.

Mistress and the guards leave and my impostor is pumping her fist in the air in victory as she sits on her cot - the chain from her collar, rattling and shaking along its entire length up to the ceiling of the cell.

"Yes!" I think, wishing I could pump my fist too. I can't wait for Mistress' return...

Wait a second...

I am not my impostor! She is a spy! This is the worst thing that can happen! NO!


Part 3 (added: 2013/05/22)

I'm still locked in the dungeon. No. Not me. My impostor is locked in the dungeon. I'm sealed inside a shell many miles away in some prison cell, forced to see, hear, and feel everything that the other me experiences. We've been here for weeks. It's been weeks since Mistress said she would come back soon. She and Elif had to do an easy job in Eatonton. Then she'd get me out of this dungeon where my impostor sits around day in, day out naked with a collar and a chain with 238 solid, heavy metal links rising up to a sturdy staple in the ceiling. She has started talking to someone that she imagines is in the room with her. At least, I can't see whoever it is or hear the other side of the conversation. My impostor is hallucinating badly. It happens to everyone in such isolating situations. It's strange because sometimes there are visitors to our dungeon and my impostor won't say a word to them. Then again, they are talking to me, not her. So, I guess, whatever.

Something must have gone wrong in Eatonton. The government people knew about Eatonton, because Mistress told my impostor and they are monitoring everything that I hear through her. Maybe Mistress is in jail or dead. It's been too long.

It's dark. I can't see anything. I guess my impostor is asleep. I wish that I could move, but I know that I am in a shell. My arms and legs are gripped tightly in tubes. Padding presses all around me, holding me in a tight hug, so I don't explode all over the place. Tubes are shoved inside me, fucking every orifice, eternally. I wish I could move.

I feel something cool and scaly slide across my leg. It makes me flinch and I try to bat it away with my arm. I can't feel my arm though. I roll over to my left and flex my torso. I twist up and around. I feel another scaly thing along my back and I jerk suddenly. Where are my arms? They are everywhere! Every time I move I feel a new scaly thing slither up against me, stealing my warmth. I try to stand up and run, but I can't find my legs. They feel like they are fused together. Something heavy drops around my neck. It slithers across my shoulders. Help! Someone help me!

A light comes on. Snakes! Everywhere! I want to push them away, but I don't have arms. I jump, but I don't jump, I uncoil. I don't have legs. Help!

This has to be a dream! Calm down, Heartless! You are in a shell in a prison in your impostor's head. Wake up! I am not one of Mistress' pets. This is a dream. Wake up!

My impostor has been lying staring at the ceiling. I haven't been paying attention. Not until now. The ceiling is different. We are in a different room. Wait! Maybe I'm not seeing what my impostor is seeing, but rather I have awoken from the shell and I can't move because I've been mummified for so long.

I hear a noise behind me. An upside down face appears wearing a surgical mask. All I can see are large, cold, featureless, black eyes staring back at me. A small flashlight shines in my eye for a second. Ouch! I feel a sharp pinch on my cheek.

"She's out," the masked face says. "Shall we begin with the operations?"

A second masked face moves into my view. Another set of alien eyes.

I feel my heart start to beat heavily. They are not looking at me. They are looking at my impostor. She is not me. She is not me.

"Let's start with her arms," the second face says and moves away.

What's going on? Get me out of here! Please!

The second face moves into view again. She raises something that looks like a hacksaw. I feel a cord being tied tightly up in my armpit and over my shoulder. Oh, shit!

"Right tourniquet is in place," upside down face says.

"Start the suction," second face replies. I feel my arm pulled out to the side. No!

The hack saw lowers down to my arm. I feel the blade start to slide across my skin. Cutting.

No! I'm awake! I can feel! Don't do this!

I hear the blade begin to rattle against the husk of my bone. A stream of blood sprays across the face mask of the doctor. I'm screaming loudly in my head, but all I hear is the steady rasping of the saw. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Guards enter the room. I'm feeling fairly clear headed at the moment. I think that they are really there. This is not another nightmare. My impostor seems clear-headed too. She kneels, passively, as they chain the heavy steel ball to her collar. They drape a long heavy robe over her shoulders. This is the first clothing she has touched since she arrived. Her arms are fed through long, loose sleeves. The robe opens in the front. There are no fastenings so it doesn't really cover anything when she stands with the steel ball held tightly in our trembling arms.

My impostor is escorted through the corridors underneath my Mistress' mansion to a large subterranean, dimly-lit room. Thirty or more spandex clad women are sitting quietly on a set of wooden benches rising up like bleachers.

My impostor is taken to a large chair in front of all the guards. She sits and drops the steel ball on the ground at her feet. She straightens up and pulls the robe more tightly around her.

The bleachers and her chair are facing out into the opening of the room. There is a wooden podium standing next to a pit. Some sort of machinery is set next to the pit as well. Most notably there is a wide tube snaking down into the darkness of the pit.

I hear a door open. My impostor turns to see Mistress walking in. She is wearing black robes with a black lace veil covering her face. My impostor gasps in relief. I feel tears of joy in my eyes. She is still alive! But...

Mistress walks to the podium and pulls the veil up over her face.

"Eatonton should have been an easy job," Mistress says looking out among the members of her guard. "But as you all know, it went badly wrong."

I get a sick, guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"That would happen, I suppose, when there is a spy in our midst."

My impostor sits still gazing plaintively at our Mistress. How could she be so cool? Maybe she doesn't even know that she is the spy.

"I'm sad to say," Mistress continues turning her eyes down toward the floor. "That today we must commit the guilty party to become a Soft Inside." I see Mistress' eyes rise from their gaze at the floor and stare directly at my impostor.

I'm struggling inside my shell, flexing against the mummification. Mistress has figured out that my impostor is a spy! This will be the end of my impostor! That's good!

But, that's not good. My Mistress thinks that my impostor is me.

Mistress raises her face towards the assembly and raises her voice. "Bring in the traitor!"

What? I'm not the spy?

Schulz walks in. She has a black patch over her left eye. She is holding a chain attached to the collar of a second woman, who is stumbling along constrained by a tight, black, latex hobble skirt and ballet toed boots.

They move to the edge of the pit where Schulz forces the woman to turn and face the assemblage.

The woman is dressed entirely in black, heavy rubber. Her arms are apparently wrapped around her torso and held tightly in place as though she were strapped into a straitjacket. Her head is covered in a thick hood. Canisters, like a gas mask, are positioned on the hood at her nose and mouth. Coils of long, black hoses hang down from the canisters. Two wide ovals of clear latex cover her eyes which are darting frantically, fearfully, seeking empathy, underneath the lenses.

"Elif!" Mistress says loudly. My impostor gasps. I gasp. "You are sentenced to become a Soft Inside for your act of treason, for endangering the lives of the members of our organization, for endangering the ideals that we live by, for endangering the very dreams of millions whose freedom and livelihood depend upon the services that we provide and the cause for which we fight!"

Elif is shaking her head back and forth. I think that I can hear a murmuring sound coming from her.

"Personally," Mistress continues, "I am disgusted that you would do what you have done. You were part of my inner circle! Perhaps, I have been too trusting!"

Schulz begins to uncoil the tubes attached to Elif's heavy, rubber suit and fake them out across the floor.

"Elif," Mistress continues, "I strip you of your name! From now on you will only be number 8. And like the seven before you who are scattered around this very room, you will spend the rest of your life in this pit... and it will be a long, long life. The organization will keep you warm and fed, clean and healthy. The machines will stimulate you - some would say - mercilessly. And the concrete will hold you in its uncaring, unrelenting, dark grasp forever more. You may jump in the pit now."

I definitely hear Elif's scream now, muffled somewhere deep inside. She seems to have no intention of simply leaping into the pit. Suddenly, I realize that Elif is looking directly at me and pleading. My impostor is tense. She frowns, but otherwise remains motionless.

MY stomach feels upset. I can't believe that Elif could be a spy!

"Fucking coward!" Mistress says and makes a motion towards Schulz with her hand.

Schulz hits Elif sharply in the sternum with the palm of her hand, knocking her backwards into the pit. As she falls, Schulz grabs the lower hem of Elif's hobble dress and pulls upward so that Elif enters the pit and a pool of wet cement head first.

Schulz grabs a pole off the ground and begins to push Elif further into the cement until only her boots are sticking up. Schulz then turns on the machine and more cement begins to fill in the rest of the pit. Three other guards begin pulling the tubes that will keep Elif alive and attaching them to outlets on a stand embedded next to the slowly filling pit. The stand has a large red number 8 emblazoned on its side.

Elif's sentence has been carried out.

It's been two days, I think, since Elif had been thrown into the cement pit. With nothing better to do, I found that my imagining of her experience ate at my mind. She would have struggled to get out of the thick, gritty substance as its weight pressed in against her - sliding softly into folds and crevices, loving her curves with sandpaper fingers, gripping her with enthusiasm, and hardening to hold her in an eternal grasp. Thanks to Schulz's manipulations, she was probably never even able to reorient her head-down position. By now, certainly, she could no longer move. Her world was darkness and a deathly silent, jealous lover's grasp.

No one had explained what Mistress meant by "merciless stimulation". Perhaps "stimulation" meant was pain, but I know that is not Mistress style. She would prescribe pleasure, and perhaps that is even more maddening.

I know a bit about isolation. I know which practices and mental exercises may be used to magic thin strands of hope into existence. I know how to grasp the strands and for how long before shifting to others - a dangerous dance where a misstep will condemn one to a certain form of insanity. For Elif, now, there are no handholds, no textures around which to wrap a finger in order to keep from slipping away. There are no ceilings on which to count dots. There are no coordinates measured by foot size and waiting for gentle sexual fantasies. Elif will suffer in despair and ecstasy and she will slowly disappear even as she lives on and on, each orgasm, like a heartbeat in an empty world.

Mistress is smart and her justice is predictable. Elif knew the dangers of her offensive actions and Mistress was smart to find her treason. I am stunned that Elif would have betrayed Mistress. I should feel no remorse for her destiny. But, by witnessing her demise, I see that I am not far removed from a similar fate. Indeed, for all I know, my shell has been buried in cement as well and I will never again be free.

The five guards and I are on an elevator. As the car moves, I feel the press of the heavy steel ball my impostor carries in her arms. We are going up. The elevator opens. We walk through a room to a steel door, and then down a dark narrow passageway. After a right hand turn, I see light on the other side of a grated, metal door. Cold, piercing clangs ring down the corridor as a guard turns keys and pull the bars of the door. We step out from the stone pyramid mausoleum housing the elevator and into the outside world. I feel a breeze and the warmth of sun on my impostor's skin. I whimper. Or I would if I could.

Mistress is standing in the shade of trees. She is wearing a long white robe, opened a the front. She is unconcerned that the breeze blows the robe away from her exposing her breasts, her naked sex. The guards lead my impostor to her side. I can feel my impostor's arms shaking under the weight of the steel ball. She collapses onto her knees, letting the ball land in the soft dirt with a thud. My impostor runs her fingers through cool, damp grass. She balls her hands into fists and pulls the grass from the ground, bringing it to her nose, inhaling deeply.

I can not smell.

Mistress turns silently and steps in front of my impostor. Her hands are running through her long hair, pulling her head close until I feel the soft flesh of her abdomen press against my forehead. My impostor closes her eyes. I feel her chest rising and falling, deeply, slowly.

"I'm still stunned by Elif's betrayal. I'm sorry I haven't retrieved you from the dungeon sooner," Mistress says. "It's just... I almost got killed in Eatonton."

My impostor slips her hands around Mistress' ankles and slides them slowly up the backs of her legs. I lose myself in the feel of her skin and the feel of her muscles as they sculpt her shape.

"I feel like things are a little out of control at the moment. I feel that there are too many loose ends. I'm afraid of..." Mistress seems to be lost for a second.

"Shhh..." my impostor whispers so quietly that Mistress probably feels the soothing sound in the crease where her leg meets her body more than she hears it.

My impostor looks up into Mistress' sad eyes. "I understand. You don't trust me."

Mistress remains motionless for a few seconds before she begins shaking her head. "No, I don't. I'm sorry."

My impostor runs her hands gently up and down the back side of Mistress' thighs.

Mistress steps away. "Look at these trees. Can you see her?"

My impostor looks up and stares into the copse of birch surrounding the mausoleum. After a second of searching, I do see her. A woman. Her skin is gray. Her legs emerge from the dirt like knobby trunks of trees, before smoothing into the form of human flesh. A bit of bark is peeling from her abdomen, her breasts are full and tipped in dark, woody knots. Her arms rise above her transforming again into limbs of a tree, her fingers - no more that long thin twigs ending in leaves. She does not move unless the wind blows her. No. Her eyes are open and she is watching us.

"Did you know Henrietta?" Mistress asks. "She's really low maintenance now, as long as there is no drought."

I watch the tree as she watches us. I watch her mouth to see if it moves. I wonder what she is thinking. Is she mad? How does the breeze feel to her.

Mistress turns back to my impostor and sits in the grass beside her. "Would you be mad at me if I told you that I need to kill you?" she asks.

I feel my impostor slump a little, but otherwise she seems calm and relaxed. I feel her lips form words and hear them trickle from my mouth. "If that is what you wish."

"Damn it, Heartless!" Mistress cries. "Why!? Why do you love me? You are a fucking fool!"

"It's very simple," my impostor says. And she is right. It is very simple and I know exactly what my impostor is about to say. "When I was young, I wanted to live an extraordinary life. I wanted to make a difference in the world. I didn't know how to do it though. Then I realized that making a difference, requires resources of one sort or another. I also realized that I do not have the characteristics to obtain the resources. So, I attached myself to someone who could get the resources. I committed myself, heart and soul, to that person. My life has been extraordinary, and it is because of you, Mistress. Casting me out, sending me away, would be the same or worse than killing me. And now, you cannot trust me, and so, you must send me away."

Mistress pulls my head until it rests on her shoulder. I feel her tears drip down onto my shoulder and roll down my skin, leaving a cool streak when the breeze slips across.

"But," my impostor continues, "you cannot send me away."

"No!" Mistress agrees. "I can't."

"I love you, Mistress," my impostor whispers. I feel her body begin to tremble. "I need to be with you! I won't survive without you! Turn me..." My impostor chokes back a sob.

"Don't cry, Cunt!" I scream in my head, but my view is already cloudy with tears. I'm uncertain whose they are, hers or mine. "Just say it!"

"Turn me," my impostor whispers even more quietly than before. "Turn me into one of your pets. Something safe and beautiful. Something you will love forever."

"It's the only way," Mistress whispers hugging my impostor tightly. "But..."

Oh, god, I know. But it's the only way.

My Mistress continued, "I'll have to take your eyes, so that you can't see my plans."

My impostor closes her eyes and I feel tears roll down her face. She nods her head.

"And I'll need to take your voice, so you can't tell of the things that you know."

"Yes," my impostor whispers.

"And your ears... I'll need them too. So, you will never hear my plans again," Mistress sobs. "But, your skin will be yours. And I promise that I will press my love into you for the rest of our lives."

"As you wish, my Mistress," my impostor cries.

Mistress stands and my impostor slumps forward until her head rests on the soft bed of grass. I can feel her body shaking with sobs.

"The Good Doctor will be here in a week."

And then Mistress walks away.

I awaken. My impostor must be drugged. I feel her chest rise and fall slowly and deeply. She has not slept so well these past few days. And now, I can hear the snipping sound of scissors close by and the tickle of loose hair falling away. A warm, wet cloth is rubbed through the short hair that is left. A cream of some sort is massaged across my impostor's scalp. Next, I feel the scrape of a razor. My impostor sleeps as her hair is removed.

I am sad. I wish I had one last glimpse of my beautiful locks. They were the only thing with which I could measure time in any sense.

I feel cold, slick lotions poured onto my impostor's head. After a few minutes they begin to burn. I can feel myself tremble in my shell. It is not too painful, but it is an annoying sensation that makes me feel tense even though my impostor is comfortably numb in her slumber.

My impostor's sex had been shaved regularly, so little time is spent preparing that area before the cold/hot lotion is applied.

I think of my dreams where my impostor's limbs are cut off as she is anesthetized. I am going to suffer badly and very soon. I try to prepare myself to welcome the pain and wish for it to be as intense as possible, for I know, if my eyes and ears are taken, I will become numb and lost. My sanity will not survive.

If my impostor's senses are taken away, I pray that my jailers will set me free. I tell myself that these things are happening to her and not me. I will remain whole. I am not she.

But, I am she after all. And once she is gone, there will be no more need for me. My jailers could simply turn off my life support and let me quietly fade into the cold and dark.

I flinch in my shell and scream silently into the tubes fucking my throat. I feel an intense pain in the flesh of my labia. What are they doing to my impostor? She remains unconscious though. I begin to worry that her transformation into one of my Mistress' pets has already begun.

I feel another stab of pain and then another. The assault upon my impostor's sex proceeds methodically and rapidly down one side and then up the other. Only I suffer each violation. Burning salves and dabbing towels are pressed against my impostor's privates until some moment of my tormentor's satisfaction. Something cool and slippery is poured between the folds shortly before something with a slick, unforgiving surface is slipped into my sex. I mean, my impostor's sex. After all, my sex has been filled with foreign objects for months now.

My labia is stretched. Something lances through the holes that have been made. I believe that it is smooth but it feels as though it is barbed with thorns - the way that it rubs against my fresh wounds. Whatever it is, it is threaded from one side to the other. I feel and uncomfortable pinch and hear a popping sound. The process is repeated again and again.

My sex feels numb and hot and heavy. It is cleaned and coated with lotions. Then I hear a click and a silent whirring sensation starts somewhere inside my impostor. I feel the buzzing and whirring jiggle the newly added weight of the rods pierced through her lips. The sensation is present, but only just. I am uncertain of its purpose.

I hear my assailants pack their tools of torture and leave. My impostor shifts and snores quietly, enjoying the bliss of oblivion.

My impostor is shaking uncontrollably. I can feel tears running down her face. Mistress quietly strokes her thumb along the cool trail where the tear had rolled. This is the end.

The last thing that my impostor said to Mistress was simple and fitting. "I will always love you," she said. I am proud of her. She has been bold. Now my impostor is silenced with some device shoved and locked tightly into her mouth.

Two days after she awoke from her shaving and piercing the guards came for her and hefted the heavy steel ball into her arms for the final time. She walked smoothly and proudly through the labyrinth of subterranean corridors and into the operating theater where she was locked wrist and ankle to a chair bolted to the floor.

Her collar was removed. A series of heavy semicircular half rings were placed around her neck and squeezed together until a series of clicks sounded out. When Mistress and the Good Doctor stepped away, the metal remained, tight and seamless. I knew that this new collar would not ever be removed. Would never be able to be removed.

It would not be removed from my impostor, that is. I am not she.

A plate with strategically arranged grills is bolted over my impostor's sex. Rivets hold the plate in place. The plate holds the insert inside my impostor and I continuously feel the slight whirring and jiggling. It is ever present.

Now, I am looking upon my Mistress. She has pulled a chair up in front of me. She sits in the chair. Something cold and unyielding cups the back side of my impostor's bald head. It has been attached to the permanent collar around her neck. I can feel it pass behind her ears and over the crown of her head.

"I read about this device on the web," Mistress explains. "I had one designed and built. It is called a USD. It is simple and does all the things that I need to do to you. It makes you disappear. It takes away your eyes and ears and your voice. It takes away your beautiful face, and that makes me sad."

Mistress sighs. "I decided that I wanted to keep the rest of you as a human woman. My human woman. Forever."

She holds up a bowl shaped object. My impostor jerks and shakes a little suddenly. I think that she is realizing that this would become her new face for the rest of her life.

I am not she. I am not she.

The inner surface seems contoured to press tightly against her face with padding and connections and machinery. I can only focus on the outer surface, though. It is smooth and featureless. From now on, my impostor's head will be nothing more than a cold metal sphere.

Mistress leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. She places a finger on the spot cooled by her kiss. I could hear the air rushing through my impostor's nose. Her head rocks back and forth as she begins to hyperventilate. Her hands are gripped tightly around the arms of the chair.

"I'm sorry, Heartless. I... I will never love again as I have loved you," Mistress sits back. Her eyes are red with tears. My impostor shuts her eyes.

"Open them back up!" I yell in my head. I want to see Mistress one last time. "Please!!"

"I imagine that the isolation will be taxing, my love. Just remember our song."

My impostor's entire body is shaking uncontrollably now. When she finally opens her eyes again, they are so clouded by tears, I can not see properly.

"She's my fave," Mistress begins to sing. "Undressing in the sun. Return to sea. Bye! Forgetting everyone. Eleven high. Ride a wave!"

Mistress leans forward. "Good-bye, my love."

I see the front half of the device rise up to my face until its dark interior occludes any other visual input. I hear the murmurs of buried screams deep inside my impostor's throat. I feel the contours of the interior press firmly and comfortably against her face. I hear the clicks sound out from far away as locks engage, sealing my impostor's head away forever.

I am lying in a bed. Or rather, my impostor is lying in a bed. I suppose we are the same now, isolated, deprived of senses. I feel the soft cloth of the mattress. I feel the constant, distracting buzz that is too gently rattling my impostor's sex. I have no idea how long we have been here. I have no sense of time. It feels like weeks. It might have been days. I've decided not to count trips to the bathroom.

There is nothing to do, but exist.

I wonder if my impostor and I have the same nightmares.

I awake after what must have been a very, very long time. The ceiling above me is very blurry, yet it is also definitely not one of the limited few I have experienced in my last few years. At first I begin to wonder where my impostor is. Then, suddenly I try to sit up, myself.

I feel my entire body tremble. I'm weak. Still, I feel my head begin to lift off the pillow on which it lies. My perspective shifts. It shifts because I, myself, have commanded it to shift. I am wearing a leather collar of some sort and very quickly I encounter the greatest extent that it lets me move with a short, sharp jerk that sends me back down onto my pillow.

I am me! I am no longer in my shell! I try to say something, but my throat is dry and sore and my voice is naught but a harsh whisper.

A face appears over me. She is unfamiliar to me. I have never seen her before - her sprawling, brown hair. I know that even though her image is nothing but a blob of colors.

"Welcome back to the real world, Heartless," the brown-haired woman says.

"Where...?" I try to talk, but am unable to do more than cough and hack up phlegm.

"Oh, have no fear, Heartless. You are still in prison," she says with a hint of satisfaction in her voice. "In fact, I believe that your sentence has been lengthened significantly, out of necessity, of course." I think that she is smiling.

I spend a moment try to clear my throat. "What is going on? What happened?"

"Well," Brown Hair states as she walks away from my bed back to a desk where she has been working. "It would seem that your Mistress, the love of your life, didn't really give a flying fuck about you. Kinda sad, isn't it?"

"Whatever. Fuck you," I rasp back. I try to pull my hands to my eyes but they are chained to the rails of the bed I am in. They have no range of motion at all.

"Right... Whatever... Ha! She said that she would keep you forever... but it only took two weeks to change her mind."

"What do you mean?" I am squinting my eyes trying to get tears into them to clear my vision.

"Well, she ditched you pretty fast. Or, I should say she ditched your clone. She shoved her in a small cage and welded the door closed. Then she sent her to an underground sex club with feeding instructions. Apparently, the effort to break the cage open was more work than the owners of the club wanted to do. As far as we can tell, they simply displayed her inside her cage as a curiosity for their customer's twisted enjoyment."

As the woman speaks, I am trying to clear my throat. I am looking around the room. I am trying to figure out more about my surroundings. There is a desk. Lots of medical equipment. There is another bed.

"We were afraid that with the helmet on the clone's head, you would quickly lose whatever... er... clarity you might still have, so we put you into a coma for a while and pulled you out of the receiver."

"Receiver?" I ask. I am pretty sure there is a body lying in the second bed.

"Yes. The hard shell that you have been stored in for the past 5 months. I doubt that your clone will have any sense of clarity. Sensory deprivation is a harsh sentence."

"Is that her?" I ask pointing in the direction of the bed with my finger.

"Yeah," the woman is typing something on the computer. "We took her back. We made her. She's government property... then again, I guess that you are too."

I stare at the woman in the bed - the perfect replica of me. I can not make out facial features.

"Is she still wearing the helmet?" I ask.

"Yep... Do you know how to take it off?"

"No."

"We didn't want one of our clones out in the real world. We'll recycle her."

"Recycle?"

"Sure. She's no use to us now." The woman stops and turns to face me. "You, on the other hand... we'll need to run some tests to see what kinds of effects your experience has had on you mentally and physically... Of course, you no longer exist so, after the tests are done, who knows what they will do with you... Not my problem..."

"Splendid."

"I must say, though, you should feel proud. Our experiment with cloning and spying has worked marvelously and we are getting a humongous expansion of our budget. These are exciting times." The woman laughs smugly. "You have helped so much."

We sit in silence for a moment. I hear the woman begin to click the keys of a keyboard.

"There is something on the front of the helmet. Some word, maybe?" I ask straining my eyes as best as I can.

"Yeah... It says, 'Sing'."

"Sing?" I ask.

"Sing." she says.

I start laughing. My voice chokes and I hack up a bit of phlegm. "Sing!" I state a little more loudly, laughing all the while.

The woman starts laughing too. "Yeah... Sing... The clone won't be doing that any time soon though. Ha! Your Mistress is one cold bitch."

I continue to laugh more loudly. "Sing!" Hysteria washes over me and my laughter slowly subsides.

"You should have chosen your friends better," the woman suggests then turns back to her computer.

"She's my fave. Undressing in the sun," I sing. I try to clear my throat. I want my voice to be strong and steady. "Return to sea. Bye. Forgetting everyone. Eleven high."

"Nice tune," the woman says.

"Ride a wave..."

I settle back in my bed to await my fate.

Fifteen minutes pass as I marvel in the sensation of the smells of the room. I've missed smells. I look forward to tasting some food.

The door opens.

"Oh, good," the woman says. "You can take the prisoner to her cell."

A guard walks over to my bed and releases a brake of some sort. Then she starts to wheel me towards the door. The bed stops and I hear keys rattling in the locks around my wrist.

"Uh..." the woman says suddenly looking up. "You are not supposed to release her. She is a trained killer... even in her weakened state."

The guard ignores the woman and continues to work on my cuffs.

The woman stands and begins to walk towards us. Then she stops and reconsiders her position. "Who the hell..." The woman turns and starts to reach for an emergency alarm button, but as she turns, she comes face to face with...

Well... with me!

My clone has arisen from the bed and is no longer wearing the helmet. She has a shadow of new hair growing on her head. She skin is red and blotchy. But, she has my face.

"Hi!" my clone says, blocking the woman's access to the emergency button.

The woman looked at my clone and then back me and the guard.

"Hi, Elif! Hi, me!" my clone says with a smile.

"You... You can't kill me!" the woman yells. "You still have the conditioning." She starts to push my clone out of the way.

"Oh! But I want you alive." And my clone punches the woman solidly on the side of her face and we all watch as the woman crumbles to the floor.

"...Mistress was suspicious of your 'experimental prison term' from the beginning," Elif explains as the van carries four of us back to the mansion. We are joined by the heavily sedated brown-haired woman from the prison. And my clone, my impostor.

"It took a while, certainly longer than we wanted, to get our spies into the prison, but we knew all along what was going on. We knew that you were locked in the shell. And we knew that the shell was the means by which all of her," Elif says, pointing at my clone, "activities were being monitored. Most everything that the two of you have experienced for the past half year has been a grand act."

"No doubt!" I exclaim. "I thought that you were buried in cement."

"I was. For about ten minutes. They pulled me back out the moment that she [my clone] was whisked away. Scariest fucking thing that I've ever done. Fucking Schulz..."

"And you... uh... Heartless," I say. "How did you survive all that time with the USD on your head without going crazy?"

My clone smiles. "I just about DID go crazy. But Mistress' spies knew when you had been placed into the coma. As soon as you and I were no longer linked, a video console inside the helmet came to life. She has been in constant communication with me for weeks. She explained everything to me. She was in video contact with me when you woke up. My fingers were crossed. The only way for the helmet to be removed was for our voice to sing the song that you sang. I know I certainly would have gotten the hint to 'sing'. I just hoped that you would to. I didn't believe that I was a clone for a while. Even now, I'm finding it difficult to come to terms with, but I cannot deny that I am not quite you. It seems that I have difficulty remembering things about our shared past without being tethered to you."

"Yes!" Elif took over. "And, our new friend here will tell us all about the nature of the tether that you two shared... After she is properly integrated into the organization, of course."

I knew Mistress would take care of us. She is so brilliant. I feel giddy. I feel more happy than I have ever been.

I look over at my clone. I am kind of cute, I guess. Even with a bald head. She sees me staring at her and leans towards me and lightly presses my cheek with a kiss. As she starts to straighten up, I hook my arm around her neck and pull her back towards me and I feel what it feels like when my soft lips kiss lips. I slide my hand up her thigh.

I don't think that this can be considered masturbation, can it? We've entered some kind of gray area here, I believe.

Certainly.