Captured Souls (4 page)

My nerves continued to be frazzled from preparing him for surgery and some of the cuts were a bit deeper than I’d intended. The process had been sped up, which hadn’t been factored in. There had been no time to develop full concentration as he had taken me by surprise. He wasn’t due to leave for two more days, so something must have happened. Something happened to alert or alarm him.

I can’t take any chances. Couldn’t take any chances. Won’t take any chances. I had him here and who knew if I could entice him of his own free will to return again.

It had to be now or never.

My adrenaline was high as I wiped the blood from Specimen 1. A bowl of warm water and a soft dabbing cloth were all that were necessary. I carefully inspected each site for possibility of tear or infection. It was evident that once he was healed from the little cuts, no one, including him, would believe that there were implants in every site.

I washed him head to toe in a second sponge bath. This one contained antiseptics and numbing gels. He was so still throughout the process that others might have thought him dead. His chest barely rose, a gentle snort emitting from his nose every so often to show that he still indeed lived. His manhood remained impressive, even in repose. I inspected my work along his genitalia and was satisfied that he wouldn’t feel the implants, no matter how much he might play with himself.

I used several rolls of paper towels attempting to get rid of blood and water and any other dripping, seeping liquids.

He is sleeping on the bed while I sit in a chair across from him, documenting my clinical observations in one journal while recording my random thoughts in another.

After I cleaned his wounds yet again, it was clear that his scars would be no bigger than freckles and they were placed discreetly when possible. I didn’t want to mar such a beautiful man with more mutilation than absolutely necessary. Although he could always get more lovely tattoos.

I stripped the plastic from the bed, rolling his body first one way and then another, careful not to spill more blood than necessary. It was grueling, careful work, trying not to break open his wounds nor wake him though he was chained hand and foot to the bed with sticky sheets of plastic clinging to him.

It was during times such as these that I’m grateful for air-conditioning, but I was still sweating despite the refreshing coolness. I even stopped at one point and dragged two fans in from the gym upstairs.

Once the room was restored back to a bedroom from an operating room, I breathed a sigh of relief. The bright lights were gone, surgery equipment returned to the lab, fans returned to the gym, Specimen 1 sleeping in his handcuffs as if it were just another night at the fetish club.

The future looked bright indeed.

Specimen 1

I was going to let him stay awake today. He was calm and peaceful and seemed very happy to see me. He had no concept of time or days and didn’t seem worried that a week had passed. At least those were my hopeful observations as I approached him. I hoped that the dosage wasn’t too high and making him stupid. I couldn’t bear a stupid writer.

“Oh, you’re awake,” I smiled as I approached him. He blinked at me several times and tried to speak. His voice was crackly. His sad eyes watched me with confusion.

“You’re just thirsty, darling,” I said to him. I poured him a cup of water. As he tried to reach for it, he realized he was cuffed.

“What the fuck?” he yelled as sudden strength flooded him and he struggled against his shackles.

“It’s okay. You had a bad trip, that’s all,” I soothed as I opened a nightstand drawer.

“You’ve kidnapped me, that’s what you’ve done.” He was flailing wildly, chains clanking as he fought the restraints.

“Scott, relax, we were playing bondage games and you passed out,” I said as I approached him, holding a syringe behind my back.

“Why the hell would I pass out?” His yanking at the shackles was distracting, which worked in my favor.

“Because you’ve been taking some really good drugs, my beautiful writer.” I leaned over to lick his ear. As he reacted to my obvious seduction, I plunged the needle into his arm and pumped the serum into him.

“Fucking bitch,” he screamed, flailing around anew, but only for about six seconds before he passed out once more.

The effects of the drugs would finally wear off and he’d be back to his brilliant, calculating lothario self once more.

He hopefully would not remember the week of restraint and therefore I would hopefully not have to answer for it. The calculations indicate that his memory patterns won’t include waking and sleeping cycles that occur during this week.

I pushed a few buttons on the various devices, recorded my findings in the other journal, did a memory dump from the computers to an external hard drive I keep in one of my safes. The batteries in the security camera were also replaced.

I would have to wait another day to begin the reconditioning when he wasn’t so angry.

In glancing at his cell phone the previous week, there were no apparent texts or photos of over women. However, once I connected his cell phone to my computer, a specific program could extract all of his data, even everything he had ever erased.

I’d had this program for cell phone extraction created for me by a previous specimen, before the serum consumed him and he died of a heart attack. It was tragic but I’ve always appreciated this program he created just for me to hack into cell phones. A lovely gift. I don’t often get much back from my specimens in the way of gifts. So he remains dear to my heart, Specimen 5 from Experiment 691.

There is indeed a girl in Specimen 1’s hometown. I sent a few texts her way through my program and that problem should be solved. He’ll never know that she contacted him or that he told her he doesn’t want to see her anymore, that he’s going to Europe for six months to be a writer in residence. She did try to plead with him not to go, even called him, and I used my voice-modulator software to emulate his voice and told her myself, as Scott, that she was to never call again.

Specimen 1 can have no distractions. He has books to write and a family to build.

Specimen 1

Four days slipped by as he straddled the worlds, healing and learning. The next time he woke in my presence, he was docile.

“Dr. Miriam, I presume,” he joked half-heartedly. I locked the bedroom door behind me though I had no fear of his escape. This house, the rooms, were a cell within a cell within a cell. There was no escape for any man, woman or child if I chose it to be that way. Grant money is a wonderful thing.

“How do you feel?” I asked him.

“Stiff. Do I have to stay in here forever? I don’t remember my safe word anymore,” he said.

“I’ll let you out, my dear,” I said as I unlocked the shackles. He sat up with a groan, rubbing his wrists and ankles.

“I need the bathroom,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

He slowly pulled himself from the bed and steadied himself to walk. I helped him along, inspecting his wounds visually for signs of infection or tearing. Most of them were invisible at this point. Young flesh healed nicely, thanks to the daily vitamin injections and holistic lotions I rubbed on him.

I let him navigate the bathroom on his own. There was no need to fear his escape from there, it didn’t go anywhere. And there was nothing he could use as a weapon against me upon his return. Besides, he was naked, so there was no place to hide anything at all.

When he returned from the bathroom, he was fully aroused, his eyes glassy and full of lust.

“How about it, Doctor?” he asked as he pushed me back on the bed. Before I could speak, his hands were clasping mine against the sheets. He kneed my legs apart, staring into my eyes as he filled me up with a couple of weeks of wet dreams.

When he was finished, he crawled back into bed and slept for another two days. I still had to shackle him; there was no reason to trust him just yet. The need for a ball gag was apparent as well, even though this room, each floor and the entire house has layers of soundproofing materials. Nosy neighbors have already thwarted too much of my past.

Journal

The pattern continued in a predictable two-day cycle over the course of two more weeks. Specimen 1 would wake up, desire one vigorous round of intercourse and then drop back to sleep for another three days. More detailed notes regarding his vital signs and other particulars during this period can be found in the formal journals and logs.

Quite simply, I decided to adjust the serum formulas. The buzzing of the electrodes invaded the silence of the night or at least added a layer over the hum of machines and the furnace. The daily regime of programming the implants could be tedious and any way to add fun to the task is always embraced. In the darkness, the faint glow of the electrodes is almost discernible when I wear custom infrared magnifying glasses that I designed myself a few years ago. Deciphering the data would be easier upon later review if it was more accurate.

As much as I enjoyed the easy convenience of Specimen 1’s behavior while he slept for days, that pattern of sleep and sex wasn’t quite the arrangement I had in mind when I first proceeded with this experiment. It wasn’t healthy for an intelligent man like him to be reduced to sleeping and fornicating. He needed to stretch his mind further than two instinctual places. He needed to interact in his dark world of literature—dance with words, wrestle with concepts, create creatures who performed his own bidding.

As master of his own universe, he will fit nicely into the world I’m creating. The family starts with him.

He woke and saw me standing in the doorway, watching him. I grinned and approached him. He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a puppy-dog-eyes stare.

“Would you like me to remove your ball gag?” I asked him. He nodded. I hovered for a moment, enjoying his look of expectation, fully expecting it to turn to spewing rage the minute the ball came out.

I wiped the spittle from his chin while he worked his jaw.

“Better?” I asked.

“Much. Thank you, love,” he said.

“Are you tired of the shackles?”

“You bet. I promise to behave if you let me loose.”

“You will behave. Of that I’ve no doubt.” I produced the keys to the handcuffs and leg cuffs, and proceeded to set him free. Much as other times, the first thing he did was head for the bathroom. This time, I heard the shower. I crossed my fingers and hoped against hope that he was finally closer to himself by now. It was a good time to test how well I placed the implants and if they had been embedded deep enough into his body. Now that he is in the process of being reprogrammed, the voltage is much higher. Getting them wet might create a short or a boost, and could cause a stroke, shock or death.

He emerged from the shower, happy and horny. The implants were safe. He lay me back on the bed and had his way with me. This time, when we were finished, his curiosity was piqued.

“Why am I here?” he asked as he held me in his arms.

“I can help you. Not only will you be renowned in the egghead circles but I have connections to blow your mass-market career wide open.”

“And what do I do in return?”

“Just write your books. Consider me a patron of the arts. Why should the government care where parts of grants go if it’s to encourage an art form? I’ll take care of you. At least let me try.”

“Maybe I should follow your advice for a while,” he said. “I’m not getting anything done the way we’re going right now.”

I gave him a journal to write in by pen, as I do with this one. I also gave him a laptop with no current Internet connection just yet. He could use it while he was shackled in bed, I’d keep the chains loose enough to type.

That day, I allowed him to sit at the huge oak desk I had built especially for him in his very own office. There were hundreds of books in the glass-windowed mahogany cases that stretched to the ceiling. His office was everything I’d cobbled together about what a writer might enjoy. His own book covers framed in intricately carved mahogany, along with framed pictures and news articles I’d blown up from webzines.

He was a bit groggy as he sat in the plus-sized leather executive chair. He looked around the room.

“This is lovely.”

“If anything is missing, let me know. I’ll get it for you.”

“I’ll let you know.”

He opened up the laptop and began to write. The steady tapping of his keys excited me and I left him alone. From my office on the second floor, I had a dashboard of over 150 cameras that were monitoring the house. There were three large master monitors on which I could watch something in particular while I was working.

I observed him typing and stopping. He got up and walked around the room, looking at the books, opening up one or two and smiling as he read brief passages before replacing them. He went over to the bar. It was already stocked for him. Everything was watered down to a specific level so that he wouldn’t overdose with the serums.
 

All the calculations are recorded in the other books.