Chains in Mind Read online

  “Yes indeed, but a nice guy, unless Ms. Watson needs him to be tough - and there are quite a few more handling her business interests.”

  Harry turned round and grabbed two bowls and spoons, and a big steel cooking pot, that were sitting on a rough dresser behind him. He doled out two helpings from the pot: it turned out to be cold porridge. James hadn’t had anything since breakfast: he ate gratefully.

  “More?” Harry said, when he’d finished. “It’s not rationed.”

  James helped himself to another bowlful. “How about Ms. Denton?” he asked. “Has she got lots more slaves?”

  “No. She’s so young, she’s really only just started.” Harry was probably about twenty-five: five years older than his mistress. “There’s only me and George - you saw him this afternoon, working as a pony-boy.”

  James wanted to know more about the whole situation - how was this happening? and who was doing it? - but, still really in a state of shock, he couldn’t immediately think of the right questions: he had already been told how it was done, and he had seen the ladies doing it, so what else was there? If he had had time to collect his wits, he would have wanted to find out how long Harry had been here, and how he was taken by Ms. Denton, and how he felt now, and all kinds of things, but there was no time: Harry had finished eating and stood up.

  “I have to wait at table,” he said. “And they want you there, too. This way.”

  They climbed two flights of the bare wooden stairs. A small and very low door led off from the landing, and they had to duck to get under a lintel that could not have been much over five feet high. James found himself in a delightful ladies’ dining room, directly above the kitchen, but smaller. The servants’ door through which they had come was concealed on this side, blending into the wall panelling. Windows on his left gave fine views over the grounds to the rear of the house.

  It was still full daylight outside, and the sun had come round so far that a thin sliver of sunshine was falling on the wall next to the main entrance to the room, opposite the door that they had used. Despite this, the room was lit by a number of matching wall lights, about seven feet up. Each one was a double, with twin lamps, shielded by pretty etched glass shades, branching out from a single curlicued brass wall plate. Although elegant, they did seem grossly over-engineered, with bolts and metal parts far more solid than required to support two lamps. The reason immediately became evident, as Harry produced two separate shackles from a chest of drawers, selected the fitting in the middle of the long wall opposite the window, and secured the chain ends through small loops below each lamp, leaving the cuffs dangling at the end of their six-inch chains.

  “Your mistress wants you on display,” he told James. “So come here.”

  If Mistress wanted it, then there was no question. James put himself in position, standing with his back to the wall, and his hands up. Harry clicked the manacles shut round his wrists, and put the key on a hook just over James’s head, well out of reach of his hands to either side.

  “The ladies didn’t say, particularly, but I would assume you’re on silence,” Harry told him. From that point on, he totally ignored James. He came in and out of the room a number of times, setting the table, and James could hear him running up and down the back stairs.

  James stood and worried. He was compelled to serve Ms. Watson, of course he was - that was central to his life - but he didn’t know what that might entail, and he was afraid. How trivial his worries of the morning seemed now. Eventually, Harry checked the time by the French enamelled clock on the sideboard, and went out by the main door to the room. James heard him running down the main staircase. Soon female voices could be heard, getting closer, and the ladies entered.

  James was taken aback by their splendour. They were both wearing silk evening gowns. Ms. Denton had lost the pony-tail, and had silver combs, inlaid with green emeralds, holding her hair back on each side; the green matched her dress, which had a halter neck and was cut very low at the back. The hem just allowed glimpses, as she moved, of strappy black sandals on her feet, with two- or three-inch heels. His mistress, Ms. Watson, was wearing a close-fitting black dress that went right up to the neck, but with no sleeves, in a Chinese style. Asymmetrically, an oriental dragon, embroidered in red and gold and white and china blue, chased round from her left leg and hip towards her back. Her hair was still piled up, but it was different somehow, with deliberately loose strands framing her face, and two sticks making an ‘X’ - wasn’t that a Japanese fashion? - stuck through the knot behind her head. Pendant earrings completed the picture.

  Behind them came Harry, and Hubert, the bodyguard. The ladies made their way to each end of the dining table, where each had their chair held for them, and were seated, by their own slave: Harry for Ms. Denton, and Hubert for Ms. Watson. As James stood shackled, facing the table, that put Ms. Denton on his left, and his mistress on his right.

  Dinner was served, the boys giving service in silence, like particularly attentive and subservient waiters. The ladies chatted inconsequentially, from time to time casually looking James up and down. He was careful not to challenge their gaze, lowering his eyes when they looked at him. They were clearly good friends, Ms. Watson taking on the role of an older sister, but not trying to push her authority over the younger woman.

  The sideboard with the clock was opposite, between the windows, so James could see that it was a few minutes to eight when the ladies finished dessert, a lime sorbet. They had not overeaten, which was just as well if they did this every day, but Thomas the cook was clearly working to professional standards, and the food had been beautifully presented.

  Ms. Watson noticed the time.

  “We need to get James started,” she said. He came more alert, flexing his fingers to get some circulation back into his manacled hands, unsure what was about to happen: Ms. Denton had used the word ‘imprinting’ but he didn’t know what that might involve. As the ladies made to rise, their slaves leapt to hold their chairs. Ms. Watson came over to him. As she reached up to take the key from above his head, her arm almost touching his face, he could smell her perfume: he was dizzy with the pleasure of being near her. He was surprised to discover that he was looking down slightly at her: because of her bearing and status he had unconsciously thought of her as being tall, but in fact she was about five foot seven, or five ten in her shoes.

  When she had freed him, she turned away.

  “Follow me,” she ordered, without looking round. All five of them - the two ladies and the three boys - descended the grand staircase to the entrance hall. Ms. Watson unlocked a small door under the stairs, and they went on down a steep flight to the cellar, which, James thought, had to be on the same level as the servants’ rooms, but at the front of the house, where ground level was higher. The undisturbed dust and airless atmosphere, however, gave the impression that there was no way through between the two. The place was dusty and grimy, and the ladies took care not to dirty their dresses, holding them away from the walls as they picked their way down the dark corridor. After a few yards, they came to a strong-looking door with an electronic combination lock. It looked out of place in the cellar, and obviously had been fitted relatively recently. Ms. Watson tapped some buttons, and the door buzzed and opened. She switched the lights on.

  The inside was a complete contrast to the grubby passageway: it was somewhat reminiscent of a dentist’s surgery: the room was dominated by an adjustable chair, with large devices on cantilevered swing arms that could be brought to bear. But a dentist’s chair didn’t have restraints built in, and those devices weren’t lights or dental X-rays. James wondered whether this was going to hurt. A lot. His devotion meant that he would do whatever his mistress demanded, but it didn’t make him like it: it didn’t stop him descending into a funk through fear.

  Against one wall, there was a glass cabinet containing at least a dozen cases just like the one that had held
the syringe, earlier in the day.

  “Get in the chair, James.”

  He obeyed his mistress, trembling. She noticed his distress.

  “Oh, no need to worry,” she said, almost kindly, “this doesn’t hurt a bit. Now, some ladies don’t feel that it’s necessary for a boy to understand what’s going on, and strictly speaking it isn’t, but I like to give him some idea.” She paused. “Do you know what you were injected with this afternoon?”

  “Ms. Denton said they were nano-devices that would alter my brain cells.”

  “That’s more or less right. Actually they adjust circuits of connections between brain cells, to make a pattern that corresponds to total devotion to your mistress. Unlike a natural pattern of the same kind, it can’t be altered by thinking it over, or persuasion, or anything of that nature: it’s there for life.

  “But the nano-machines need to know who owns you, who you need to be imprinted on, which is why we’re here.” She gestured at one of the smaller machines that could be brought to bear on the chair. “This is just a video screen that displays five images a second, for as long as necessary, of people in various poses, in various lighting, from various angles. Some of them are images of me, but most of them aren’t. The computer knows which is which, and teaches the nano-machines to build a neural recognition network, piggybacked on your own sensory processing and interpretation, that responds to me, and only me. Just make sure you’re looking at the screen. You don’t need to concentrate: it’s not ‘you’ that’s being taught to recognise me; it’s a tiny neural network built using a few of your brain cells.” She laughed. “Actually, you may well find afterwards, that if you glimpse someone, the best way to work out whether it’s me is to see whether you feel compelled to obey her.”

  James nodded slowly. He hadn’t really followed the details, but he thought he understood the general idea.

  “And then this box,” - she gestured at the biggest, scariest-looking, device - “does much the same for scent, only that’s a bit more difficult to arrange. We have quite a library of small pieces of used underclothing: from under the arm, from the feet, and between the legs. They have to be kept refrigerated, and then given a jet of steam through them to activate them when required. Again, some of them are me; most of them aren’t. Just breathe once per second or so, and let the computer work it out. Then, there’s some headphones for voice, which is the easiest of the three.”

  Ms. Watson and Ms. Denton together clamped his arms and legs in place, and then strapped his head inside a helmet that was itself rigidly clamped to the chair: the only way he could have avoided the video screen would have been to shut his eyes. The helmet wasn’t just a restraint: apparently it was also used for communicating with the nano-machines in his head, by magnetic pulses. A breathing mask, like that for a jet-fighter pilot, was strapped on his face, and headphones put over his ears.

  “I think we’re ready,” Ms. Watson said. “James, remember to take a sniff every second or so, but a small one: don’t pant, or you’ll hyperventilate.” He would have nodded, but strapped into the helmet, he couldn’t. He blinked at her. She pressed a button on the console.

  Immediately, images began flicking onto the video screen, almost too fast for him to register. At the same time, a multitude of voices, one after the other, began speaking in his ears: mostly, he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Belatedly he remembered to start sniffing, as his mistress had ordered.

  The screen blocked his vision, but he had a feeling that they had all left the room, and that he was alone. The surfeit of sensations quickly became very wearing. He tried to relax, not to worry about recognising the images, or listening to the voices, since he had been told it didn’t matter. He concentrated on his breathing: one small sniff a second. The odours were quite faint: no worse than one would experience simply by standing in a typical locker room at a gym. He remembered reading somewhere that scents could affect your mood even when they were too weak to notice.

  It went on and on. When he thought he had had enough, it made no difference: more and yet more images, voices, assaulted him. When he thought he couldn’t stand any more, it made no difference: it was never-ending. He began to feel nauseous, and clamped down on it savagely: he didn’t know what would happen if he vomited into his mask, and no one was there to help him breathe. He was dazed, and still it went on, and on, and on.

  When everything suddenly went quiet and still, he couldn’t for a moment work out what had happened. He blinked rapidly and the screen seemed to reel in front of him. Ms. Watson swung it away, and unstrapped his mask.

  “That took two hours,” she remarked, “that’s about average. And now you’re identity-locked to me by image, voice, and scent.” She held a small medicine cup full of yellow liquid to his lips. “Hold this in your mouth until I tell you to swallow.”

  He sucked it up. Although he had never tasted it before, he knew at once what it was: urine. He thought it would be very sharp and acid, but it wasn’t at all; it was sour, though, and musky. Automatically, his face puckered in disgust, but he did as he was told. Ms. Watson tapped a few keys on the console.

  “Okay, swallow now.”

  In or out, at least it wasn’t in his mouth any more. He shuddered, involuntarily.

  “That’s an optional extra, but I do like to have it in my slaves,” she told him. “You know how a heavy smoker craves a cigarette the day after he quits? Well, you will always crave my pee that way, and it won’t fade away, no matter how rarely I indulge you.” She smiled smugly. “It’s a bit of a burden for you, of course, but I think a male looks so cute when he looks up at me with imploring eyes, and I know that’s what he wants.”

  There was no one else in the room, and Ms. Watson freed him from the chair herself. Apart from still feeling a bit sick and dizzy, James didn’t feel much different: he still worshipped the woman in front of him, and would do anything she wanted.

  This artificial addiction sounded pretty bad, though: he had never smoked, so he didn’t know quite what she meant. He moved his tongue round his mouth, where the taste still lingered: it still tasted just the same, just as horrible, but gradually he began to understand: he needed more, he wanted more: it was like a raging thirst, that only she could slake. He knew, without doubting, that no one else’s would do. He looked at her, and she saw it in his eyes, and smirked.

  “Only when I’m especially pleased with you, boy,” she told him. She closed down the equipment, and ushered him out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She talked as they made their way back up to the ground floor.

  “I’ve also improved you in one or two other ways - more absolute and ‘hard-wired’ than relying on your general obedience,” she told him. “For example, if I tell you to be silent, then you’ll find that your vocal chords just won’t work: you’ll be mute. That’s different from if I tell you not to talk: then you can grunt and moan, but you just can’t form words. And, of course, you can’t come without my permission: you can get stiff and excited just as normal, but you just can’t climax and ejaculate, no matter how badly you want to, unless I say you may.”

  “I want to be whatever you want me to be, mistress,” he told her.

  She looked at him and smiled, idly ruffling his hair. “Of course you do,” she said. “Now, go with Hubert.”

  The big man was waiting for them in the entrance hall. He bowed his head to his mistress, took James by the arm and led him away.

  Chapter Four

  “So, I guess you’ll be the new favourite for a while.” Hubert sounded more resigned than angry or spiteful. He grimaced as he looked at James, but he didn’t seem unreasonable: after all, what really mattered was that their goddess should have anything she wanted.

  He took James back to the shower room near the back door and told him to shower again: what with one thing and another, James had been sweating since the afternoon.
He didn’t offer James any fresh clothes, telling him to stay naked. The water was still cold, but it cleared his head, and he felt much better, despite the humiliation of being nude, by the time he followed Hubert through another green baize door onto the main first floor corridor.

  Hubert led the way to a grand bedroom, which he entered without knocking. A number of table lamps, including a bedside lamp, illuminated the unoccupied room with a soft and cosy glow. There was a great four-poster bed, but the room was so large that the bed hardly dominated. There were numerous items of furniture: some straightforward, like a dressing table, which was French-polished and garlanded with gold ormolu, some unfamiliar.

  Hubert stopped in front of a finely painted wooden rocking horse. It was a very unusual example: the top, all along the back of the horse and the first part of the neck, had been cut away, and the inside carved out in smooth curves, a little like a decorative candle that had burnt down in the middle, leaving an outer wall of wax standing. At the tail end, there was a little hinged lid, which when closed would give the full height and shape of the rump, but it was lying open, revealing two deep holes: the back legs appeared to be hollow. Between these holes, a cable, like a thick bicycle cable, ran from the base of the tail forwards to where the saddle would have been if there was one. The cable ended in a curiously-shaped object: first there was a part shaped like a large plum, then it became as thin as a pencil for about an inch, before swelling to the thickness of a sausage for another three inches.

  “You guessed it,” Hubert said, looking at James’s face, “that’s a butt plug; but it has some unusual features.” He demonstrated that any pull or sideways movement on the long silky tail at the back of the horse pulled on the cable wire inside its sheath, and that made the plug contract, just as pulling a bicycle brake lever made the brakes squeeze together: the plum and the sausage came together, squeezing the pencil section. Also, any pull or sideways movement on the plug, such as would be produced if the subject didn’t stay still, did the same thing, and made the tail swish in a lifelike way.