Captured Souls (11 page)

We often fall asleep on the couch, limbs tangled with each other, our lust exhausted at last.

At some point, I always manage to pry myself away and return to my own room.

The balance is working very well.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Specimen 3 arrives.

Specimen 2

Specimen 2 was running on the elliptical, his breath panting out in spurts, his face frozen in tense concentration as he stared at the runners on the big-screen TV in front of him, TV announcer yelling excitedly about the race. Somehow I didn’t believe his eyes were seeing the runners at all.

He didn’t notice me watching him at first, but when he did, he muted the TV. As he slowed down his pace, he reached for his towel and wiped his sweat-drenched face.

“What is it?” he asked. He seemed vaguely annoyed by my presence.

“I think it’s time you went outside,” I said.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes. You can take your bike out for two hours. You must return here within two hours. If you don’t, then I will push this charm on my bracelet and you will blow up.”

He stared at my charm bracelet, eyeing the golden dancing bear dangling down from dozens of other charms.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said as he hopped off the elliptical. “You wouldn’t blow me up.”

“Why not? It’s the only way to keep you from telling.”

“Huh.”

“Not the only way. One of many ways. See this one?” I fingered a tiny brass monkey holding a tin cup. I squeezed it slightly. Specimen 2’s eyes grew large and he grabbed his balls.

“What the hell?”

“That’s low. You don’t want to feel high. One wrong word from your lips and your balls are toast. Literally.”

“How?” He shoved his hands down the front of his gym shorts and felt around his genitals. For a brief moment, I worried that he had found something but there was nothing.

“I don’t feel anything,” he admitted. “Well, except for the pain you just inflicted on me.”

“There’s nothing to feel and nothing to worry about. Go on your bike ride and return within two hours and you won’t have to worry about a thing.”

He returned in one hour and forty-five minutes. He had followed instructions. More details are in the other journal, such as his vital signs. He was loaded down with more spy gear than a James Bond character. There was no room for any slippage. One word, gesture, eye contact or anything else could spell ruin for me.

He cycled along city streets until he got to High Park, where he spent most of the time weaving along the trails. He didn’t stop anywhere, except to briefly rest at one point. He didn’t speak with anyone at all.

He passed the test and so he was allowed out every day for two hours.

Journal

I’m the first to admit that I’m not as diligent at checking the surveillance footage as I could be. There is so much of it and I’d need to be three people to watch all that potential evidence, let alone earn a living and conduct my experiments.

I do watch them live, catching glimpses of them throughout the day, spot-checking what they’re discussing from time to time, but as time goes on, I get back to real-life focus.

My observations at this point seem to be that Specimen 1 has toned down his key searches and other prying behaviors considerably. Likely since his deadline is nearly here he needs to focus on completing that final round of edits. Once that book is completed, he has to dive immediately into the next one, plus deal with the press I’ve set up for him.

Specimen 2 never was curious. Once the drugs left Specimen 2’s system, any memory of his previous life seemed to have gone along with it. He never really talked about his past nor seemed to want to see family or friends. He never spoke about his job. It was like he woke up at my house, newly born,
tabula rasa
, and all he knows is his athletic events. I wonder if in my desire to not screw up, like I did with Specimen 1, I overcompensated in some area—memory, curiosity?

Specimen 1 may be playing me if he noticed the boost in his booze. The compound should be tasteless but he has a refined palate. I scan the tapes when possible but I know I’m missing events I should really know about. But what can I do? I have no assistant to watch twenty-four hours a day tapes that may or may not prove there’s something I need to know.

Specimen 3

The day had come at last when she arrived on my doorstep, bright California sunshine on a dark, wintery, stormy day. The weather had suddenly turned two days before. As typical in this unstable climate, one day Specimen 2 was out riding his bike in the sunshine, and then the next day the temperature dropped fifteen degrees and a sudden hail storm hit. The wind and sleet made leaving the house a nightmare for anyone. It seemed odd to me that she somehow showed up on this day, when I was certain that the airport had been shut down for hours.

“Come in quickly,” I. She wore a toque, a hooded parka and heavy boots. I found it odd that a California girl would come equipped with a parka and boots. There is some more background checking to be done with her. I was so enamored of her and so preoccupied with the boys that something has escaped me from her files.

She stomped her feet on the outdoor mat before coming into the house. She quickly removed her coat and boots, and I whisked them off to dry in the parlor bathroom, hanging them on one of the hooks I’d installed over the heater. It was a great coat-warming spot. I used it all the time for myself. When I returned, she was fluffing her hair and staring around the hallway. She wore a jersey-knit minidress and black stockings. Chunky turquoise jewelry she wore around her neck and wrists spoke to me more of Ontario aboriginal art than anything Santa Fe. Her countenance seemed off-kilter, something in her vibration that wasn’t quite correct.

“How was your flight?” I asked her as I led her through to the kitchen. My kitchen was a stainless-steel wonderment and could be used to prepare food for one or for fifty. When I first purchased the home, it had been set up as a party kitchen, with two ovens and all kinds of features, such as two fridges plus a wine cooler and a beer tap. I was going to have them all removed but as I got deeper into my experiments, I realized how convenient having choices could be, especially when I was entertaining.

I poured water into the kettle and plugged it in.

“I… Okay.” She smiled. “I could really use an espresso. Do you have that?”

“Of course,” I said as I pulled out my small one-cup espresso maker. I quickly ground a fresh batch of beans and in a few minutes she was sipping her espresso and still not telling me about how she magically appeared on my doorstep.

“The weather’s not usually this bad this early in the season,” I told her.

“Sure it is. It’s downright schizophrenic.”

“I suppose it is. Shall we go to the living room?”

She placed her cup on the kitchen counter.

“We haven’t even said hello to each other properly yet,” she said with a pout. With a start, I remembered that I’d better get focused on the reason she was here and worry about the details later.

I hugged her, holding her tightly.

“I’m so excited you could make it. We’re going to have so much fun.”

She kissed me warmly on the mouth and then a glow of excitement flushed her cheeks.

“This kitchen is so huge. You must have some amazing kitchen parties.”

“Yes, I most certainly do.” I backed her against a counter and kissed her again. She hugged me close, her hands cupping my ass through my jeans.

She was much shorter without the tall heels that she had worn, but her shapely legs more than made up for it.

She broke the kiss.

“Don’t forget the money,” she said, suddenly businesslike.

“Of course,” I said. I left her and went upstairs to my office where I pulled two thousand dollars out of my filing cabinet. I shoved it into an envelope.

I returned to the kitchen where I thrust it into her hands.

“There will be much more, don’t you worry,” I promised her. She peeked inside the envelope and giggled at the hundred-dollar bills.

We kissed hungrily, eager for real-life consummation that we’d never had. I pushed her towards the living room and onto the couch.

My hands cupped her breasts and I kissed them, eager to touch and taste her. It wasn’t hard to liberate her of her minidress and me from my jeans.

“Sit there,” I instructed her and she sat on one of my plush velvet chairs. Her beauty filled the room, her soft, supple flesh, her flashing green eyes, her lovely soft smells enticing me to madness. I spread her legs and pressed my face into her soft, perfumed pussy. My tongue explored her, gently at first, and then my licks grew more urgent as my excitement grew. I slid my fingers into her, sucking on her clit while fucking her with my hand. My beauty squirmed and wriggled under my touch.

“Ooo, that’s so wonderful.” She sighed. “More…”

Under her guidance, my tongue danced and my fingers stroked her until she was shivering and quivering towards climax. I pushed her G-spot and as she came, she flooded me with her slick, sweet juices. I eagerly caught her ejaculate, licking harder and faster, bringing her to orgasm after orgasm.

Finally, I pulled away from her with a grin. She laughed and stroked my hair.

“You were magnificent.” She moaned. “I think I’m going to enjoy my time here.”

Specimen 3

Specimen 3 is fussy. I realize it takes great energy to be a goddess, but her constant demands for beauty products and fancy clothes is new to me. I comply by taking her on shopping trips. She’s a princess, true and true.

She tastes so delicious, and she likes to taste me too.

After she had been with me for a week, I set about programming her. She is light and easy and seemed to be ready to integrate after about six days.

Journal

I introduced Specimen 3 to the men. At first, they kept looking at me as if this was some sort of test they were going to fail. They both knew by now not to say or do anything to alarm Specimen 3.

We sat in the dining hall. Specimen 1 lifted his glass.

“Welcome to our family,” Specimen 1 said.

“Thank you,” Specimen 3 said, warily looking at Specimens 1 and 2. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

After dinner, we all went to Specimen 1’s room to watch TV and spent the night rolling around with each other. The men took turns fucking her at my insistence. She enjoyed every inch of their large, enthusiastic cocks, begging for more.

We must have spent hours fucking and sucking each other. Everyone got along magnificently. I was very pleased with the combination of beauty, brains and brawn.

Specimen 1

We had what I thought was a whirlwind afternoon. There was a press conference held at the university where reporters of all kinds came to interview Scott Gravenhurst about his newest book. The place was crawling with reporters, Specimen 1 constantly posing for cameras from the minute we arrived at the campus until we hailed a taxi just to escape from them.

There had been a question-and-answer period and about four hours where several different reporters in various mediums interviewed him.

There was so much fuss about this budding young star and the world was holding its breath in anticipation of the novel he had delivered. This was a straight-to-print literary genre book, one of the rare combinations that either sailed high above every other one or sank like a rock in the quicksand of elitism.

Specimen 1 was in his glory, charisma kicked into high gear as he performed with the charm and vitality that had originally attracted me. He occasionally glanced over to me, always a look of panic until he found me and his gazed locked with mine. Then he would seemingly relax and fall back into the rhythm of promoting.

Once we were home behind closed doors, things changed. I had thought that we could have a nice late-night drink to celebrate the parties and interviews, but instead he grew sullen.

“I don’t want to speak with you right now,” he said as he turned his back to me. He began to unbutton his shirt. “I wish you would leave, please. I need some time to myself.”

I turned and left him. As I twisted the double-keyed locks, and fastened the bolt to his section of the basement, I mused on how frustrated he must be to not be able to go out carousing with his writer friends and perhaps scooping up a budding young writer he could show the ropes to. Instead, he was here, trapped in a woman’s fantasy, a pawn to be played with so her quest for ultimate knowledge, ultimate pleasure, ultimate happiness would be satiated.

Journal

It has been three months since Specimen 3 has been added to the family. She was even easier to program than Specimen 2. I believe it’s related to the complications of the speed of rerouting existing patterns into new ones. Everyone can have his own theory about the length of time it takes to form or unform a habit, lifestyle, religious ideology and so on. Each brain is so much the same and yet so completely different in the slightest of nuances. Why is it that drinking two bottles of beer can affect each person’s perception in so many different ways? Some people might be drunk, some sober, some may have an allergic reaction or just fall asleep. The same with the serum and electromagnetic combinations.