Nano (6 page)

I awoke feeling like every muscle in my body had been ripped apart.  It was the feeling I used to get when I'd pushed a workout too far.  The sad part was that I wouldn't gain any muscle mass for the effort.  I sat up, groaning.

I was sore, and I stank.  I got up and stumbled into the bathroom. I peed, then, deciding on a bath instead of a shower, ran water and minced painfully out to the kitchenette, doffing the wrinkled dress and shoes along the way.

Whoever designed my kitchenette clearly didn't have a petite girl in mind.  There were no shelves under the tiny countertop, and the shelves above the sink were well out of reach.  If I'd made myself just four inches taller, I reprimanded myself for the hundredth time as I used a milk crate to reach for the coffee tin.  I made a pot and stuffed the tin in the fridge - screw the shelves if I can't reach them.

Back in the bathroom, I sipped coffee and sat gingerly, my bare ass perched on the toilet seat, watching the water rise.  I poured some bubble bath stuff in and let the foam fill the tub.

What a mess I'd made.  Or rather, what a mess John had mad of me.  I hadn't forgotten that his scheming, his nano-mods, had persuaded me to do this to myself.  The problem, in my mind, was that to the man I had been, his actions would have incited murderous impulses, while to the woman - to the girl - I now was, they only inspired fear and a vague awe at his power.  That and a sense of excited, humming arousal.  I confessed to myself: I was attracted to the man.

Don't dwell on it.

I slipped into the tub gratefully, coffee mug still in hand.  I cradled it in both hands and sipped.

I had to admit to myself that everything John had done to me so far had invariably pushed me to the edge of sexual arousal.  The man had a knack for knowing exactly what to do to me, and when.

So here was a dilemma.  I had a choice: try to escape - to my masculinity, to my old life, out of John's clutches, free; or remain in this body, as it was, and so remain under John's power.

The attraction of my old life was obvious: it was mine.  I had friends, family, money, power, a profession.  Currently I had none of these, unless you counted a guy who liked to beat you a friend.

On the other hand...I tried hard to remember the last time I had been kept on the brink of orgasm as long as I had the night before, working my way through an impossibly humiliating set of positions, with John's occasional cruel or caressing touch keeping me on the edge.  I didn't think I had.  Ever.  The closest thing was copping a feel with a date when I was fourteen.  Sex after that had been...reliable.  This was four hours of unbearable excitement.

Besides, I was younger.  Much younger.  This body had the strength and resilience of youth, with none of the aches and pains.  Unless you counted whipmarks.

But on the other hand:  I had much more in common with people of my generation than I did with the young know-nothings surrounding me in class.  Who could I really talk to here?

Then again, did I really know more than them?  My educational level was now in keeping with my physical age.  I doubted I could hold up my end of a conversation with a forty-year old any better than another kid my age, and would come across as naive as the rest.

My biggest blind spot was culture.  I knew nothing of contemporary fashion, music, slang - none of it.

I ended up feeling even more confused than ever.  The tennis match going on in my brain was dizzying and deeply unsatisfying.  Compounding the problem was the fact that I knew I couldn't go to work today - for Mr. Dentz.  Another day lost for Plan A.  Reluctantly I sat up and reached for my cellphone, sitting on the sink countertop.

I knew he wouldn't fire me - I was useless anyway, and it was obvious he hired me purely as an office decoration.  So I went ahead and called in sick.  I dropped the phone over the rim of the tub and sank down into the water, letting the hot suds wash over my face.

God dammit!  What the hell had happened to my life?  And what was I going to do?

Three days passed before I could sit down without wincing.  The welts on my breasts had faded to faint purplish bruises, and now only stung if I unwisely prodded them.

Those three days were the first time I'd really given myself to reflect on my dilemma since John had come into the picture.  I skipped work, skipped school, and only left the house to get groceries.

I don't think I was depressed, exactly - just overwhelmed.  The more I thought about the problem, the more indecisive I became.  And indecisiveness was not something I was used to.  I was sure my new submissive nature figured in there somewhere.  Like it or not, I was literally a different person.  Anne-Marie, I was discovering, was a nail biter, angst-ridden and had a hard time choosing between different courses of action.  Which made me easily dominated.  Part of me was quite happy to let others decide what was best for me.

Lengthy contemplation of my dilemma invariably regressed into masturbation.  The main problem was that my dilemma fit perfectly the kind of fantasies my new bio-emotional makeup responded strongly to.  In the face of an overbearing, dominating force, my instinctive reaction was no longer to fight back, but to submit.  And the idea of a man having as much control over me as John did made me unspeakably horny.

So I masturbated almost hourly.  I'd get worked up trying to figure a way out of my mess, and wouldn't get anywhere because I'd end up on my bed fingering my clit, dreaming of blindfolds and whips and a cock in my mouth.  The place began to smell downright funky with my feminine odor.  I was vaguely embarassed, but couldn't help myself.

Some small part of my obsession with it was the novel physical differences between a girl's orgasm and a man's.  As a man, coming felt like it looked - like my very soul was streaming out of my cock.  Being female, that feeling was trapped inside me, and seemed to ricochet throughout my body, until my whole being was suffused with this wierd trapped energy, which then, almost through osmosis, seeped away through my skin.  That doesn't really capture the feeling, but I guess it's about as close as I can come.   Another startling discovery was the fact that every time I came, I also burst into tears.  It wasn't despair, or anything bad like that - it was just - emotional.

I finally grew sick of my hermit-like reclusiveness, and went back to school.

I hadn't missed much.

I also went back to work, although my stratagem there was pretty cloudy.  I couldn't think clearly enough to see a workable plan for returning my masculinity.  But I worked anyway.  I realized after a few days of this that I was really going because I liked the way Mr. Dentz condescended to me.  I was more or less invisible to him unless he wanted to ogle me, in which case he would call me into his office and have me lean over his desk to give him papers to sign.  He would gaze down my shirt at his leisure while I obediently held papers out for him.

I tried to reason out why I liked this dynamic so much - my serving a man who was once a colleague and competitor.  I think part of it was the fact that I was no longer in competition with him.  He was my superior in fact and in his own worldview.  He didn't seem to notice that the more he bossed me around, the happier I was.  I did.  And noted it ruefully.  I was instinctively putting myself in situations in which I was subservient to men, and they all seemed to think it natural.

Even in school.  I ended up taking a side job as a maid to one of my professors after I noted aloud the mess in his apartment during a party he threw for my art history class.

"Why don't you clean it up?" he said, laughing.

"Okay," I answered.  "What will you pay me?"

So I ended up with a once a week gig cleaning up after him.  He was home the first time I showed up for work, and I secretly loved the fact that while I was scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees, he was sitting at the kitchen table tapping away on his laptop.  It would have been even better if I had been naked, instead of jeans and a tanktop, but you can't have everything.

Which is all by way of saying I was a horny, submissive little slut, and hadn't gotten a page from the man I'd really been obsessing about for two weeks now.  I was finding outlets.  My intellectual side had a hard time coping with the kind of behavior I was exhibiting, but my libido had no problem with it.

I was a girl.  I was submissive.  It was natural that I would put myself in servile positions.  The problem was not how I was behaving, but how to get myself into a body and frame of mind that didn't feel compelled to lick the boots of every guy that walked by.  Until then, do what comes naturally.  Submit.

I didn't get a page for another two weeks.  The initial fear I'd had in the first days after my last encounter with John - apprehension that the pager would go off - had long been replaced by frustration and anticipation.  It was as if the brutal beatings he'd given me were irrelevant - or that if I had to withstand them in order to be in his presence, feel his authority, then so be it.

When I finally recieved the page I'd been longing for, I hurried to the appointed meeting place - the men's public restroom of the New York Public Library opposite Bryant Park.  I was about halfway there when I realized the irony of the choice.  Our rendevous was to be in a place where I was no longer allowed.

I ascended the marble staircase to the third floor in a state of agitation and anticipation.  I hesitated in front of the men's room door - up until a few weeks ago it would have been natural to just walk in, but by now I was so used to heading for the women's room that it was instinctive.

Now the door seemed imposing, mysterious and forbidden.

I glanced around, to make sure that no one was watching, then pushed open the door and slipped inside.

It was a large restroom, with a marble sink and a row of tall, old-fashioned urinals along one wall.  A man in a janitor's outfit was mopping.  I didn't think much of his cleaning job - the place was filthy.

He looked up at me, nodded.  He walked over to me, reached behind me and locked the door.

"I was told to take your belongings, ma'am, including your clothes."  He smiled sheepishly.  He was an old guy, probably lived in Queens.  I reflected that he'd have seemed small to me when I was still a man; now I had to crane my neck to look up at him.

After an awkward moment, I shrugged in defeat, stripped naked and handed him my clothes, along with my purse and shoes.  I stood barefoot on the freshly mopped tile, covering my crotch and breasts with my hands, as he stuffed my belongings in a garbage bag tied to the side of his wheeled cart.

"I was told to tell you to present yourself in the center, over there," he said, pointing to the floor.  "I'll be going now."  He unlocked the door, rolled his cart out, and locked it behind him.

I walked across the damp tile to the center of the restroom on shaky legs.  I knelt and leaned forward into the position I'd been taught.  I looked out sideways, my cheek against the tile, across the expanse of black and white checked tile to the urinals.  Funny now to think that I'd make a big mess trying to use them now.  Even pissing for me was now a distinctively feminine procedure.

John was clever, sending me here.  In the past couple of weeks I'd gotten used to being a girl, at least by most measures.  I'd grown accustomed to the constant and casual scrutiny of men. The sexual undertones of every conversation I had with the stronger sex had at first frustrated me, since I knew that whatever I said wouldn't be taken seriously - to most, if not all men, I was pretty first and the quality of my mind came a distant second.  By now, however, I realized that if that was a man's natural response to a sweet, deferential girl like me, then I too had a natural response - probably unlike most women's - and such interactions left me feeling even more like my life was a fantasy fulfilled.  Let other women feel indignant at such treatment.  I thrived on it.  Knowing what men wanted to do to me made me feel safe somehow - a submissive woman feels most vulnerable when she isn't being put in her place.

But.

Here, in this room, I was reminded that my masculinity had been taken from me.  In the aggressive, dog-eat-dog world that I had once inhabited, I was no longer a participant.  I was now a toy for the competitors to play with.

In this room, I felt completely powerless, cowed by the enormity of what John had done to me, had made me do to myself.

This was a place for men.  A woman didn't belong here.  I was here only by the command of my master, and by his indulgence.  He was letting me see once more, briefly, into the world I had once belonged to.

Well, I thought, I did still belong to that world - but as a servant.  Here on my knees, my face on the floor, was the only place proper for me.

I heard the door unlock, and the bootsteps against tile.  The door shut and locked again.

"At ease, Anne-Marie."  It was John's voice, Master's voice.  I rolled back onto my haunches, then stood, one knee bent sideways, hands at my sides, my cheek turned to the right.  I heard his bootsteps approach, and shuddered.  His presence always had that effect on me.

He circled me, using his hands to make slight corrections in my posture - minor ones, really, but which had the effect of making the position slightly more uncomfortable.

"You've adjusted well, Anne-Marie," he finally said.  He was now standing directly in front of me, although because my head was turned I could only see him in my peripheral vision.  He towered over me, standing inches from my naked body, not touching me.  I could feel his body heat, smell his distinctly male odor.  Something about the way he smelled always made me feel weak, made me feel as if I were in the presence of some kind of god.  "You train well, are obedient and eager, and judging from my surveillance reports, you've fully acclimated to the sex and life I've consigned you to.  I note that you haven't attempted anything objectionable as Mr. Dentz's secretary, and according to my projections you've passed the point where you'll have the courage to do so.  In fact, as of last week the computer analysis showed you to be effectively neutralized as a threat.  You are no longer dangerous to me."

He ran his fingers lightly over my nipples, which stiffened under his touch.

"I believe it's therefore safe to tell you that the nano-modification you self-administered was not exactly what you programmed.  I made slight changes.  I found nothing objectionable in the physical and emotional programming you made - you did quite well there, exactly what I expected.  The duration, however, was unsatisfactory.  It was unacceptable to me for you to have your previous identity returned to you, even after a year, because I have other plans for Sam Smith.  The DNA caps, I'm afraid, are encoded to my private encryption key.  And I have no intention of unlocking them.  You are Anne-Marie for the rest of your life."

I gasped, and turned to look at him in amazement.  He roughly pushed my face to one side again.

"Sam Smith will be returning today.  Only you will not be him.  I've found a substitute instead, a man who will look exactly like you once did, and will have all of your personality traits and memories.  All your memories except those concerning a job you once did for me.   This man now believes himself to be Sam Smith.

"You will cease working at the lab.  Remember that Sam knows nothing of you, of who you once were.

"Do you understand everything I've told you, Anne-Marie?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"Do you have any questions, slave?"

"Yes, Master.  Why - why go to all this trouble?  You could have simply erased my memories, as you've done with my double - I mean, with Mr. Smith."

He chuckled.  "Because you made me a manipulative bastard.  It's in my nature to create complicated methods of humiliation and torture.  This is much more fun, don't you think?  For most men of power, control is simply a method, a means to an end.  For me, it's an art form.  And you are one of my artworks.  I am shaping you, making you what you are.  My power over you, for me, is a form of expression.  I take pleasure in seeing you devolve further and further from the man you once were into a girl designed down to the last detail, physically and emotionally sculpted specifically to please me.  I think you once understood what that was like, when you were a man - the satisfaction of knowing that the sole purpose of the creature before you is to give you pleasure, and that you made her that way.  You even felt that way with Natalie, didn't you? Now stand at attention, slut."

I quickly spread my feet apart and put my hands behind me, at the small of my back, and lowered my head.

"Good.  As you can see, this new bit of information doesn't change a thing.  You'll still obey me, won't you, you silly little cunt?  You see, if I told you everything at the beginning, you might have resisted, perhaps run away.  But the nano has had almost a month to fine-tune your pheremonal receptors to my specific scent.  My presence alone conditions you, sparks the submissive urges your body and mind find naturally seek.

"Now you need me.  You think about me every day.  You wait impatiently for the pager to go off, so that you can once again find yourself naked in my presence.  Is that not so?"

"Y-yes, Master," I whispered.  That was certainly true - over the past month I'd found myself obsessing more and more about these encounters, reliving the things he'd done to me and fantasizing about what he would do to me next.  I hadn't thought it to be a result of conditioning, however, and it surprised me.

"Tell me, slut, do you recall what it felt like to enslave Natalie? Do you remember the pleasure you felt?"

I thought about it.  The mind of Sam Smith was still alive in me, but his motivations, his desires were hard for me to focus on.  My memory was completely intact.  I could remember transforming Natalie, training her, delivering her to her new Master.  But I had no sense of what I, Sam Smith, was feeling then.  If anything, I seemed to visualize the memories from Natalie's point of view.  I remembered restraining Natalie in the cargo van, but when I tried to visualize, to piece together the sequence and logic of events, it was my elbows being strapped together behind me, my neck collar being padlocked to the ring in the floor of the van.  I felt pleasure, but it was a slave girl's pleasure of submission, not of a master's control.

"Yes, Master," I said quietly.  "But not the way I know it happened.  In my memories I'm - I'm Natalie."

"Yes.  Well, some of that may be residual memories from your nano-conditioning.  Natalie's memories were subliminally implanted in your mind to induce you to follow her path.  It was why you continued to be obsessed with her so long after the job was done.  But now that you are more or less in her position, those memories more properly fit the girl you are now, so they're slowly replacing those other, incompatible memories.  The same thing will happen with other memories.  You probably don't even remember what it was like to have a cock, do you?"

"No, Master," I admitted.

"Again, such memories are incompatible with who you are now.  You'll keep the facts straight, but your memories will shift gender wherever possible, and it will be very hard for you to make sense of those memories where your masculinity is central to the memory - such as sex, for instance.  In your memories of your sexual encounters, you will find yourself visualizing the moment from the viewpoint of the woman you were with."

Reflecting, I found this to be true.  Even going back to my first love, Jenny, if I tried to visualize the first time we had sex, in the tableau I was Jenny, heavy breasted, brunette Jenny, and Sam slid his cock into me.

Weird.  This was all really, really weird.

John now rolled over what turned out to be a medium-sized black suitcase.  He laid it flat at my feet, bent down and unzipped the lid.  He threw it back.

"Get in," he commanded.

I was flustered by this.  "How?" I asked, confused.

He slapped me.  "'How, Master?' is the proper phrase, cunt.  Step into it and kneel."

My cheek stinging, I obeyed, and knelt inside the suitcase.

He bent me forward and rolled me onto my side.  My body was now inside the suitcase, but my head was leaning against one wall.  My arms were tucked in between my knees and my breasts.  He pushed my head into the remaining space an closed the lid.  He zipped it up.  I heard a padlock snap.

It was a snug, uncomfortable fit, but there wasn't any way out even if I wanted to resist.  I leaned against one side as John uprighted the case, tilted it back on its wheels, and rolled me out of the bathroom.