Captured Souls (14 page)

I crawled from man to man to woman to man and every combination there was. My specimens were well within my sight at all times, there was only one door and I always was certain that, no matter how crazy the position or how many men were shoving their cocks into me at once, I was between the door and my specimens.

My libido kept me craving more and more. I was insatiable, riding wave after wave of orgasm, greedily climbing on cock after cock, even pushing the other women away. I realized much of the groaning and grunting was coming from me.

It was in that moment, another moment of exquisite orgasm, that I understood that I was becoming lost inside my own experience. I was being reduced to my primal nature instead of being the observant doctor.

It was a tricky tightrope, for the end result of the experiment really did only benefit me. The essence of the specimens would live on forever, but despite the illusion of love I was feeling for my specimens, it was but an illusion. A chemical reaction to sex and closeness and habit. Nothing more and nothing less.

Journal

I purposely left the three of them alone for the first time since I caught them. Upon my return I reviewed the recordings and everyone did as they should. Specimen 1 drank whiskey and wrote and surfed the Net. Specimen 2 went for long bike rides and runs and from the bugs I have in both his shorts and his bike, I know where he goes, where he stops, I can hear conversations. He has seen no one of interest in his wanderings. His discipline applies to the rules I’ve set for him, as well as his own goals. Specimen 3 stayed in her room, watching TV and pampering herself. They didn’t even seem to communicate at all in my absence.

Journal

For one week, I punished Specimen 3 with her sewn-up chastity.
 

On the eighth day, I brought her a glass of wine. She wore a knee-length ruby-red satin T-shirt dress and she had braided tiny, long, multicolored strips of ribbon into her hair as she lounged on the couch, feet hanging over the side, her pretty toes painted red. Her eyes glimmered with sorrow, combined with a catlike expression of serenity. It was the cat part that always kept me on guard, knowing that despite my superior identifiable intelligence, the cat was secretive, calculating, cunning and cold. She could strike at me with one deft claw for no reason at all.

One hand held the crystal goblet of red wine, my other hand firmly grasped the braided handle of the flogger.

“What do you want from me now, Doctor?” she asked, gingerly sitting up.

“I want you to enjoy this glass of wine,” I said as I handed it to her. She took it, eyeing it suspiciously. “What new torture do you have for me?”

I laughed as I sat down beside her.

“I have no tortures for you. All of these actions have been the result of your betrayal. How do I know you won’t betray me again?”

“I’ve learned my lesson, Doctor, believe me,” she said with an attitude.

“Stand up,” I commanded as I jumped to my feet.

“Why? I just got this glass of wine.”

“You may not drink it yet. Put it down,” I ordered.

She glared at me with all of the hate in the world. Her hate didn’t bother me. She should hate me, it was healthy and it was normal.

Specimen 3 put the wineglass down on the coffee table and stepped out into the wider area of the living room.

“Pull up your nightgown.” She pulled it up so that I could see the result of my handiwork. Some of the threads had frayed, there were spots were the flesh had torn and bled and scabbed, other spots with the beginning ooze of infection.

“Still intact, I see,” I said, studying the thread. She nodded.

“Yes, Doctor. I’m never going to break your rules again. I promise. Never.”

“Next time will be worse.”

She didn’t say anything as she dropped her nightie and turned away.

“Go to the dresser,” I said. She walked over to the dresser. “Bend over and hike up your skirt.”

She bent over and I flogged her several times. She was silent, though she stared at me the whole time with hatred narrowing her eyes.

“Line your bed with the plastic, please,” I said, pointing to a stack of plastic sheets I’d brought into her room earlier that day.

“Oh, not again. What are you going to do to me this time?” she half sobbed. “I’m so tired. I want to go home.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. Where was beauty? Where was her fragile innocence? Had I killed my creature in my quest for control? Had I plucked the wings from the fairy queen?

This was not beauty. Strong, confident, self-aggrandizing beauty.

I held up my wrist, looking at the dangling charms. I fondled one of a cherub and clicked his wings several times. She jerked a bit as the electrodes readjusted. She stood taller, a grin graced her lips, even her skin seemed to glow.

She undulated in front of me, stretching and swaying, her silky gown clinging to her nipples.

“Mmm, Doctor, are you going to play with me?” she asked in the soft voice that had first lured me to her.

I touched her face and brushed her lip with my finger.

“The game has but begun,” I said. “There is more.”

I snapped the flogger in the air and nodded towards the larger area of her suite where she did her workouts and yoga. There were floor-to-ceiling mirrors on nearly every wall, so the beauty could see herself quite well in her gym.

I pressed a button in one of the wall panels and a set of shackles dropped from little doors in the ceiling. They were bolted to steel beams that ran the length of the basement ceiling. I had installed when I built the suites. These were same type beams that I used for hoisting and shackling in the men’s apartments.

Once she was shackled at the wrists and ankles, standing in the gym, chained to the ceiling and walls, I flogged her again. This time when I beat her, she’d catcall me, feisty and spitting, angry that I punished her for doing something that she’d done a million times in front of me—so what’s the difference?

What
is
the difference? Some people would speculate and, quite rightly, that there’s no difference in sharing in front or behind someone’s back. If consent is given, is it a blanket consent? Where is the line?

Others say there’s a time and place. There’s a game and there’s reality. There’s permission and there’s lying.

My rage flew beneath the flogging and her taunting turned to quiet grunts of pain. At last, I had finished, and she was streaked with whip marks from shoulders to calves on all sides. If I were a cannibal, I’d consider her halfway to tenderized.

She had tears in her eyes as I approached her. I decided that I didn’t want to hear her weeping so I retrieved her ball gag from the drawer.

“No, don’t put that on me. I’ll stop, I will,” she begged. I quietly and patiently got her head locked into the device, despite her strong-willed actions attempting to dodge me.

I had to go to my lab to retrieve my tiny scissors, tweezers, wet wipes and some little bags. When I returned to her, she was nearly limp, her head tilted down.

It didn’t matter to me. The less squirming, the better for this part. I kneeled down before her and began the tedious task of snipping the threads that had tied her shut. Carefully, I pulled at the threads with the tweezers, coaxing them out. As the blood flowed, I wiped it away with the wet wipes.

She moaned, awake again with the agony of my pinching and pulling, the sting of antiseptic, the ache of her arms in the air while this was going on.

At last the task was done. I wiped down the area one last time. It wasn’t pretty in the normal sense, but the pattern that the scars would ultimately form was unique.

I took my garbage and my tools back to the lab and made several notes in the other journal.

When I returned, she was still dripping blood in spots and had lapsed back into a semidream state.

I unshackled her hands first and dropped her gently to the floor. I unshackled her feet and rubbed her extremities to be certain the blood was flowing properly again. I removed the ball gag, wiping the drool from her face.

As I lifted her into my arms, she woke a bit and stared up at me.

“I love you, Doctor,” she whispered and fell back into unconsciousness. I lay her on the plastic sheets and stared at her for several moments. Beautiful creature once more, naked, crisscrossed with rising welts, blood seeping from the holes in her labia. She had the face of an angel.

Journal

The three of them were watching TV innocently, as they used to do before things got out of hand. I entered the room.

“We should do something, all four of us,” I announced. Specimen 3 yawned and filed her nails.

“Not today, I hope. I’m tired.”

“Tired from what? All you do is lie around and primp,” Specimen 1 chided. “Hell, at least the two of us work for a living, as limited as we are.”

“Oh right, Mr. Best-Selling Novelist, how I must offend you with my ignorant presence,” she said.

“Well, really, what do you do? You’ve not even had a modeling gig since you landed here,” Specimen 1 sneered.

“Getting fat anyways,” Specimen 2 taunted. “Why don’t you put away that chocolate for once?”

“Hey, guys, stop it. I wanted to take us all out.” I stood before them, staring at them with hope. However, the way they looked back at me, with varying degrees of disdain and laziness, my enthusiasm waned. The idea of getting ready to go out, keeping track of three people—all of it suddenly exhausted me. I turned away from them and ignored any more comments.

I left the room and the basement. Instead, I went to my own bedroom, grabbed a bottle of red wine and my pot box and watched a pile of movies:
Gone with the Wind
,
Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
and
Planet of the Apes
.

I didn’t even check the monitors once.

Journal

It was during a lecture that I was giving at the university that it dawned on me.
 

I didn’t have to live like this. As much as I’d created this new situation that was causing me enormous stress and agitation, instead of the pleasure and harmony I’d envisioned, I could uncreate it. How silly we can be when we’re too close to our own lives.

I’d aborted many experiments over the years. One more or one less wasn’t going to make a difference.

I’m not ending this experiment—I’m going to enhance it, strengthen it, define what qualities are truly vital for living in that suspended moment of great and distinct pleasure.

Journal

As with any experiment, good or bad, there has to be a time for the observations to draw to a close. The next phase of the experiment would have to begin.

Specimen 3’s beauty was wearing thin with her narcissistic demands. Her lure of the boys to spite me was downright blatant at times. She was particularly enamored of Specimen 2 with his endless stamina and would selfishly work him harder than anyone, since she knew that she could.

I certainly had no issues with Specimen 1 and his pleasuring skills. I just enjoyed having both of them, at my leisure, in the sequence I desired, not having to wait for Specimen 3 to stop hoarding Specimen 2, especially when she knew he was mine.

Specimen 3 had healed quickly after her ordeal and she seemed to enjoy herself as much as she ever had.

As Specimen 1 was licking my clit, I looked over at her hands and knees on the bed, Specimen 2 pounding her from behind. She leaned down towards me and kissed me.

The brush of her lips against mine didn’t thrill me anymore, the glowing light in her green eyes was vacant and sinister, her long, manicured claws were ready to scratch at any given moment. She looked back at Specimen 2 and oohed at him. I glared at her until Specimen 1 turned my face towards his and kissed me.

“At least pretend you care that I’m fucking you,” he said. “I’d rather be watching TV myself.”

I clutched his ass with my fingers, pulling him deep inside of me while kissing him, our tongues dancing as new enthusiasm overwhelmed both of us. As Specimen 1 took me to ecstasy, I looked over at Specimen 3 squeaking with every thrust made into her by Specimen 2.

The goddess was falling from her pedestal, my pedestal, bit by bit, crack by crack, until she would be nothing but shattered dust.

Specimen 3

I sit in my office, trying to write some notes but my glance keeps going back to Specimen 3 on the monitor. Her days are endlessly tedious. I can’t stand to watch them; I don’t know how she can stand to live them.

I stare at the surveillance cameras. She’s been picking at her face for over an hour. I don’t know what she sees there or what she’s picking at. Over and over. Then she starts with the creams and lotions. Playing with hairstyles. Trying on outfits and matching the shoes to them. It makes me want to scream. But that’s what a beauty does, it would seem. I have actually kept logs of how many times she changes her outfits and other such nonsense, in case it comes in handy another time when I write a paper on the princesses and their behavior.