Destiny Taken (Destiny Lost Book 1)

by Giulia Napoli

  In every aspect of my existence, from how I look, to what I can do, to how I think, I’m controlled.

  **********

  Is the human spirit irrepressible? I used to think so. The Control Institution, though, was such a morose place that I’d begun to wonder if humor and joie de vivre had somehow been banned from it. There was no denying that the environment they’d created, both within the place and within our own bodies, seemed designed to drive the enjoyment out of everything. The future was beginning to look all sepia and uninteresting to me, almost as though I’d been trapped in some Arabic version of Dorothy’s Kansas of the 1930s. At least the dust-bowl Kansans had the occasional tornado to break up the monotony.

  Several matrons, in a sporadic moment of sharing and matron-prisoner camaraderie, had told me that prisoners usually reached the peak of their personal foreboding and dissatisfaction sometime in the first three to six months. There I was at that time.

  I’d been at the prison for a little over 14 weeks. I remember it because I’d just reached my top-of-target weight range of 75 kilos or about 165 pounds, and had been dropped to a maintenance level of two feedings per day only a couple days before. I was not allowed to gain any more. They’d plumped me up by 55 pounds from when I’d arrived, and I thought I was delightfully chubby now. In my few moments of clarity, I didn’t like it – If it weren’t for the controller, I was sure that I would passionately hate it – but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. The controller forced me to appreciate my attainment of the goal that had been set for me, with no consideration for what I wanted.

  Fortunately, when I was nearing my highest level of despair and tedium, Tuba, a new matron, showed up. Her presence within the Institution turned out to be just the diversion I needed to keep myself, and most of the other, nearby inmates, out of the ever-worsening doldrums.

  Tuba looked nothing like the big oom-pah horn that is her English namesake. She was slightly younger than I, with glistening dark hair and eyes, a petite figure, and a totally vain, arrogant, unforgiving, unpleasant disposition. I found it almost impossible to be on the same continent as she, let alone in the same building, even if she wasn’t guarding me or my triple at that moment. The other matrons, unanimously older, crotchetier, unattractive, and almost as bored as the inmates, hated her for her youth, beauty, and self-centered temperament.

  To make it even worse for her acceptance at the Control Institution, she was, as I’d come to expect, the daughter of a Kingdom of Salat, break-away government official. These people must have invented the term nepotism, based on familial relationships.

  It was crystal clear, during her first two weeks at the Control Institution, that the other matrons set out to get rid of her by making her life altogether unpleasant as they considered her to be.

  Tuba had four groups of nine as part of her monitoring responsibility. One of those groups was mine, so I saw her most every day or evening. I tried to avoid her whenever possible. In addition to her caustic personality and condescending treatment of inmates, I hated her because this society had chosen to let her retain her beauty, while it had demolished mine. I had been every bit as lovely as she. Now, because of her society, I’d been turned into a virtually sexless, hairless, mute, Rubenesque automaton, under the control of their purchased, China-developed technology.

  The first plot against Tuba that I witnessed centered around the inveterate, hardened homophobia which was rampant among the matrons and male guards. If a matron would ever be caught in flagrante delicto of the prohibition against lesbian acts, it would not only cost her job and career; she would end up here like Erij.

  Another lesbian prisoner, not Erij but imprisoned in the same situation, had been offered a list of on-going favors by the matrons if she would be able to seduce Tuba, such that Tuba could be caught in a compromising position with the inmate. She agreed. That was unbelievable to me for two reasons: the fact that the woman believed the matrons would actually deliver the agreed-upon benefits, and the woman trusting that her own sentence wouldn’t be extended if Tuba and she were found guilty.

  Apparently, based on the gossip passed on by the matrons, the only denizens of the Control Institution who weren’t mute, the inmate got close to trapping Tuba.

  But she wasn’t able to close the deal. There was apparently video of her and Tuba, hand-in-hand, walking down a corridor toward a small block of empty rooms. About half-way down the hall, Tuba had a sudden, stabbing pain in her lower, right abdomen. I was told that the video showed her suddenly gripping her lower torso, near her right groin, and collapsing to the corridor floor.

  She’d had a sudden, opportune attack of appendicitis.

  I’d say that Allah was watching over her, but I believe the deity has better things to do. I buy God’s interference even less now than when I was a child. God, Yahweh, Allah, the Noosphere, Krishna – if the BIG GUY were prone get involved, surely he would have taken pity on me. I can tell you plenty that he’s allowed to be done TO ME!

  Because we’re in the middle of nowhere, they treated Tuba at the prison’s clinic. She was laid up for a week, then had a week off before she returned to duty. By then the matrons, determined to put Tuba in her place had hatched a new plan, apparently inspired by Tuba’s time in the infirmary.

  Following their failure to trap Tuba in a lesbian relationship, the older, more senior matrons decided on another approach to destroy the career and/or the normal life of the errant, young prison matron. By then, with Tuba back, I’d been able to observe directly how cruel she could be to some of my fellow inmates. She not only treated every one of us with disdain, but she was quick to use her controller anytime she didn’t like the expression on some prisoner’s face. I saw prisoners collapsing onto hard, rough concrete floors and splitting their heads open because Tuba decided it would be funny to shut off body control all of a sudden, when someone was merely walking along.

  Another day I saw Tuba blind an inmate who was rushing down the stairs. She stumbled from the shock of suddenly being unable to see anything and fell the rest of the way, breaking her arm and getting a concussion. She was lucky she didn’t break her neck. Tuba claimed the inmate had wrinkled up her nose at Tuba.

  According to the matrons, the warden was at a loss of what to do, since Tuba was an appointment from a ranking government official. At some point though, when Tuba continued out of control, one matron convinced the warden to let her handle the situation. The warden approved the plan and would look the other way.

  A couple weeks after the poor woman had been blinded and fallen down the stairs, a matron came to me and asked if I knew how to use a video camera. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and nodded my head. I was no expert, but I’d certainly used a number of still and video cameras as an archeologist, so I was confident I could do what they asked.

  We prisoners would do most anything to break up the boredom, if it wasn’t too dangerous.

  I was called to a meeting with the warden, the prison nurse, Tuba, two other matrons and one other convict, a well-meaning but mentally slow eighteen-year-old named Inbar.

  One of the matrons had sold the warden on the idea of making a video of the induction process for new inmates entering the Control Institution. The video was to be used as a training aid for new guards and matrons, as publicity for the Control Institution within the government, and shared with other prisons. All of us present would be involved in the production.

  They wanted to show the entire process, from arrival to delivery of the prisoner to her triple. They wanted a young, attractive star, and that was to be Tuba. I could tell by her expression that Tuba was both proud of being the star, and somewhat concerned about what she’d have to do. The warden assured her that she “…would be able to handle the stresses of production and the demands of an actress who would become famous within the government and throughout the prison system.”

  The warden totally played Tuba who bought into the role, hook, line and sinker. One of the two matrons wo
uld oversee the production. The other would play the role of the induction matron, with Inbar being her assistant. The two matrons would set everything up, and we’d begin the project in two days.

  I didn’t know what was coming, and I probably wouldn’t have guessed what they’d planned to do to Tuba in a million years. I was certain, however, that I was going to have a front-row seat to whatever they were going to do to the sadistic but hapless Tuba.

  Over the next two days, I familiarized myself with the equipment, experimented with lighting in the infirmary and outside, and did some trial shoots. For the first time in months, I found myself actually getting into something interesting.

  We started on the third day. I shot several takes of prisoner Tuba arriving at the prison. By the time we were done with that segment, I’d already earned Tuba’s ire – I suppose just for existing, and maybe for making a few suggestions via gestures and pantomime along with demands about how I could best film her, and what she could do to make the shots better. She took to calling me fatty, since I was the plumpest one there. I would have taken offense at that, but I decided not to react; I strongly suspected that Tuba would get hers before this was over.

  By afternoon, we’d moved inside and the fun began. The matron playing the part of the induction official fake-slapped Tuba around a little. Tuba actually did a presentable job of looking shocked and hurt. That look turned to anger when the induction matron removed the polish from her long nails and trimmed all of them maximally short while I hovered over them with the camera. Tuba was pissed and said things to the effect that she didn’t sign up for this to be disfigured.

  At that point, I expected what was coming. I couldn’t tell if Tuba did or not. Surely, I remember thinking, she must know what comes next. It didn’t really seem so. Maybe she was expecting it to come later, because she was really surprised when her mouth was locked open by the mouthpiece of the armature. I suppose she’d never observed an actual induction before, so she was as surprised as she could be. That made the video that much better, because she was reacting like a real incoming prisoner would.

  The arm holding her head in place was locked and I realized that Tuba was at the mercy of the production crew, and the matrons’ and warden’s plan specifically.

  Inbar unfastened the clip holding Tuba’s long hair in the back. A moment later, Inbar stepped up to Tuba’s side, positioned the clippers right at her forehead, and held them there while I moved around Tuba to record. The directing matron told Tuba to look scared. That actually seemed to make Tuba relax; it appeared to her right then that this was all going to be faked or glossed over.

  Not so. I was positioned to capture Tuba’s face. Inbar was told to flip on the clippers. There was a snap and a buzz and a look of sheer panic on Tuba’s face. At a nod from the director, Inbar pushed the clippers into Tuba’s dark, thick hair which was no match for the vibrating blades. Inbar plowed a strip down the center of Tuba’s head. Dark hair fell like stalks before a corn combine harvester. Tuba went completely crazy with panic; her body tensed and jerked as she tried hopelessly to free herself.

  That was not only impossible, but far too late. In a couple minutes, Tuba’s thick, black hair was history. I recorded away during the entire exercise. When Inbar finally switched off the clippers, I could see Tuba’s body slump in exhaustion and resignation, tears streaming down her face. It would have been a performance worthy of an Academy Award, if it had been a performance. But it was no mere portrayal. It was the very real reaction of any woman, be she sweetheart or bitch, to having her head forcibly shaved. It was particularly poignant to Tuba because she had probably never thought that any such thing was going to be done to her.

  Tuba was still locked into place. The director was praising the distraught young woman for the excellence of her acting, in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to get Tuba to calm down and listen. Finally, she managed to tell Tuba they were about to fake the controller insertion. I would film Inbar preparing the insertion gun, loading the controller probe, and positioning it where the occipital bone meets the neck.

  Tuba was told that, before firing it, the controller probe would be removed and replaced with a shortened fake probe that, when fired, would only leave a small impression, matching what the probe insertion point looked like, for me to record as part of the video.

  I started filming Inbar loading a very real control probe into the gun and holding it in position against Tuba’s now very bald scalp. After I had the video I needed, I stopped, nodded, and stepped back. Inbar stepped away to get the counterfeit probe and load it into the gun. As she went to remove the real probe, I saw the matron director shake her head, “no,” and motion for Inbar to move back to Tuba. My eyes must have gotten the size saucers as I realized what they were about to do.

  Inbar seemed confused at first, then apparently decided the matrons knew what they wanted. Her pleasant, simple mind forgot about her intention to switch to the inert, fake control probe.

  The director spoke up, “Tuba, we’re about done with today’s production work. We’ll film the controller firing, and then release you to rest. When the gun fires, you’ll probably feel a hard jolt, but you won’t be harmed as such. If you want, you can sleep here tonight, rather than return to your apartment in the matrons’ complex.”

  The matrons’ complex was about a kilometer from the Control Institution.

  “Alright, let’s wrap this up. Inbar, are you ready?”

  Inbar nodded and positioned the very-much-loaded controller insertion gun against Tuba’s head. With me recording, Inbar fired the gun and the controller was shot into Tuba’s brain, just as it had been shot into mine months ago. I could hardly believe what they’d done, even though I’d witnessed it with my own eyes!

  Tuba passed out before she could scream with the shock and pain. I doubt she even realized that she’d been injected with a real controller. The matron who had been acting as the induction officer stepped up to Tuba and injected something into the vein of her right arm.

  “That’ll keep her until morning,” she said. Then the two matrons, Inbar and I unfastened Tuba, carried her to a hospital bed, and strapped her in. A matron would return later to sleep in an adjoining room, in case Tuba awakened before we returned in the morning.

  Tuba had a headache all of the next day, but we were able to complete the video project, which consisted of the controller test examples that occurred post-controller-insert, and the delivery of a naked Tuba to her triple rooms. Tuba wasn’t very happy with walking through the prison naked, for everyone to see, but the director convinced her that there was nothing amiss in showing the inmates what a truly beautiful body looked like.

  Everything in the video of the controller test was done by Tuba acting. Her clandestine controller wasn’t used or revealed. No one ever told Tuba, nor did she seem to suspect, that a controller was worming through her brain, even as we recorded her acting. The director praised Tuba, and even asked the warden to join us for the final scenes, to encourage the foolish, young woman. The warden was there for the last hour or so.

  For me, the experience had been déjà vu, which I would have preferred not to remember.

  For the next two weeks, the entire episode seemed to be over. The matrons weren’t allowed to wear hats or wigs, so Tuba had to perform her matron duties without hair. She did pencil on eyebrows, but they didn’t look anything like her original ones that had been waxed off, and were now reappearing as a few hairs here and there. For the most part, the inmates ignored her. She mostly left us alone too, save for a couple cruelty examples, directed at innocent, unsuspecting prisoners. Obviously, the hairless Tuba was just as acerbic as the fully coiffed one.

  It was during the third week that we began to notice some things different about Tuba. The first change was the absence of the quarter-inch, black fuzz that had begun to cover her head. She still had penciled-on brows, but they were just a simple, very thin arc. The little bit of eyebrow regrowth was gone, apparently waxed off again or p
lucked out. I overheard another matron ask her what had happened to her buzz cut. Tuba looked confused, then reached into the blouse she wore under her matron’s jacket and began to massage her left breast! She was silent for an uncomfortable length of time, as though she were trying to figure out the answer to a very complex question.

  She finally said, “The bristles really bothered me? I didn’t like how they felt?” She ended both sentences with a questioning inflection.

  The other matron looked at her with a what the fuck look on her face. “How are you going to grow it out again, if you can’t stand the bristle phase?”

  “It’ll just grow until I need to cut it?” Tuba said, making no sense at all. Then she walked away, her fingers noticeably playing with her nipple under her blouse.

  A few days later, Tuba was there for a check on our group area which I had just cleaned. I saw right away that her head was still cleanly shaved. She also had the thin, arc of drawn-on brows, and there was no evidence of brow regrowth. This time, her hand was down inside her skirt. There was no way that she wasn’t fingering her pussy while she inspected the area. She didn’t even seem to realize it. At least twice, she pulled her hand out, absently smelled her fingers, licked them off, and put them right back in her skirt. I had real trouble not bursting out laughing right then! I tried as best I could to pretend that what she was doing was the most normal thing. Obviously, the other matrons and possibly the warden were messing with her, using the controller she didn’t know she had.

  Every time I saw Tuba for the next couple weeks, her head was freshly, cleanly shaven, she was browless save for the thin lines drawn on, and she was playing with herself – either breasts or pussy, and one time both at once. I heard a guard ask Tuba if she were having any luck growing her hair back out. She responded that she’d let it grow as soon as it got past the whiskery stage. When the guard asked how that would happen if she kept shaving it, all she said was she didn’t like it when it wasn’t smooth. Her brain was stuck in a quandary, and she couldn’t figure it out. They had bound her mind in a Catch 22 – she couldn’t have hair until it grew out, and she couldn’t let it grow out until it passed the bristle stage and was considered hair again.