Nano
Copyright © 2016 by Melody Mounier
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by Melody Mounier
[email protected]
Cover design by Melody Mounier
Photo credit: Freestocks.org, licensed under cc0 license.
Preface
This story was typed with one hand.
Whether or not you read it with one hand depends on whether you find the same stuff exciting as me. There's gender reassignment involved, as well as non-consensual or semi-consensual sexual practices, behavior modification, brainwashing, mind control, BDSM, etc. There's even Marines in there somewhere, but don't worry, they just stand around and look mean. You get the picture. Read on if you like that. It'll be quite boring if you don't like any of the above, since this is not literature, but wank fiction.
Comments, like "This story sucks", or "Um, you ended a paragraph in mid-sentence", or quite possibly, "Thank you", can be sent to [email protected].
Thanks for reading.
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Chapter 1
I'd been riding the cunt pretty hard, these past two days, I thought to myself as I tightened the leather straps that pulled her elbows together behind her. She grunted but said nothing as I pushed her down, her face against the floor of the van. I clipped her collar to the retaining ring set in the floor, patted her ass and climbed out of the van.
I'd ridden her hard, but it was worth the work. My client would be happy. Two days ago she'd had a brutish, nasty, philandering millionaire of a husband. Now that bastard would suffer a complete reversal of fortune. My client was now, for all intents and purposes, John Maynard the third, esquire, etcetera, while her husband was now the pretty young wife the idiot was stupid enough to ignore.
The girl in the van who days earlier had been John was now Natalie Maynard. She had a complete set of her wife's memories laid over her own memories of life as a man. But I'd modified her sexual and emotional makeup to fit much more closely the kind of woman she'd wanted to marry in the first place - a submissive, emotionally fragile fuckpet.
Though she was the most radical nano-modification I'd ever done, she had the simple unaugmented good looks of a very pretty natural. That was rare and striking; most people these days opted to improve their looks to the point where nearly everyone with any money had the bland beauty of movie stars. Modelling the modification to exactly match a natural beauty like Natalie made the job more fun. She even had crooked teeth and a mole on her left breast. The imperfections made her look even more striking, in my opinion.
I climbed into the cab of the van. I fingered the closed-circuit monitor switch, and checked on my cargo. Natalie was squirming a little, but knew not to shift her position substantially. I chuckled. The little cunt didn't know very much about what was happening to her. She'd figured out she'd been made her wife's twin, but not yet why.
I'd had to use nano-induced sadistic impulses to do this job, since abduction, rape and torture aren't usually my cup of tea. It turned out to be kind of fun - for a while. I shook out a pill from a bottle and downed it, washing it down with a squirt from a water bottle. I let the new nanobots do their work for awhile, dismantling the psychopathic urges that fuelled the training I'd given the girl. It took maybe a half hour. I felt a little sick to my stomach, but otherwise okay.
I didn't let myself reflect too deeply on the things I'd done to the girl in back. She got what she deserved, I told myself. Everything I'd done to her she'd done to other women, once. I took another gulp of water to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.
I'd been doing nano long enough that I no longer had what other people called feelings. You do nano long enough, emotions don't seem real anymore, and after awhile they become irrelevant. People tend to use behavioral nano sparingly, to improve themselves - to become more honest, or to have a higher sex drive, or acquire more confidence. It was expensive stuff, and tricky. It took an artist to craft the little 'bots software.
Certain jobs require extensive use of the stuff. Soldiers and prostitutes practically ate it for breakfast, actors depended on the stuff, and of course there were abusers lying in prisons or asylums or on the street. That last problem was rare - it was hundred times as expensive as coke. Sane, sober people took it maybe two or three times in their life, and generally for the right reasons.
I guess I was an actor of sorts. I was the rapist, or the doctor, or the father figure. Anything to get the client. It had taken its toll.
Body-mod nano was safer, though I'd never touched the stuff. I kind of liked being ugly. It made me stand out. Maybe I was just old-fashioned.
I flipped open my cell and rang the client.
"Mr. Maynard's office," the brisk voice of a female secretary announced.
"This is Sam Smith," I said, "I believe he's expecting a call from me."
"Yes, he is. I'll put you through." I endured Musak for a few minutes.
"Hi Sam," John's voice answered.
"Hi, John. How's the new name and life suit you?"
"Oh, I can't complain. My husband's memories are pretty ugly. It took some getting used to the behavioral nano, too. But now it seems pretty natural, being a bastard. It has its advantages, you know."
"I take it you took the other treatment I recommended as well?"
"Yep. Kinda had to, you know. The old me didn't much like the prospect of treating my spouse like a piece of trash, no matter how bad he was to me. Now it seems a pretty natural thing to do. She certainly deserves it. And it's giving me...ideas."
Hmmn. "Well, you can always reverse the effect if you tire of being a sadistic prick. Which is more than she can expect. I capped her DNA so no further physical changes can be made - I deleted the encryption code. You can use whatever behavioral nano you like. She's ready now. I don't think she's happy, exactly, with what you've done to her, but she'll obey, and enjoy it despite herself."
He laughed. "You bringing her by now?"
"Yeah. She's packed and ready for delivery. I'll go over the nano-mods with you in person."
"Sounds good. I'll take the afternoon off. You know where to bring her."
Chapter 2
Of all the "relocation" jobs I'd done, the Maynard case was the strangest, and the only one involving a complete reversal of roles. Most jobs were straightforward - middle-aged wife wants a new body to recapture her husband's attentions; the occasional lesbian couple with an FTM who wants a real life and history associated with his new gender - stuff like that. They were all drastic enough changes that a conventional nano-therapist would refuse the job. Assuming a new identity is, of course, legal so long as the change is recorded. But these people wanted new lives, and I fabricated new identities for them. It was better than being a divorce lawyer, and I figured I salvaged quite a few marriages. And the rates I charged were proportionate with the illegality of the services.
I saw the Maynards on social occasions a few times over the next few years. John invited me to some of his larger, more vanilla parties. Rumors were widespread about the "other" parties, the ones for select guests, where the dozens of pretty maids John kept on his estate were revealed in their proper state - naked slave girls - and Natalie among them.
The parties I was invited to were more dignified - though I could certainly imagine that the girls serving on those occasions were picked more for their sexual compatibility with John's dominant nature than any particular catering skills.
Nat
alie seemed to have learned her place well, and when we talked at those parties, she never mentioned the drastic changes in circumstances I'd reduced her to. I didn't know if this was out of a natural reticence or if John had forbidden her to mention it - and given her nature now, his word would be Law to her. She was certainly very agreeable company - she was beautiful, after all, and extremely deferential. John had a tendency to dress her up provocatively, which seemed to embarass her vaguely. But if I got any sense of her emotional state from those conversations, to me she seemed quite content, not at all put out by her sudden feminization.
It was some time before I realized that Natalie fascinated me. I shouldn't have found it strange that she seemed so happy in her imprisonment, since that was a natural consequence of the nano-mods I did on her. Something about her, something about her coy smile - she seemed alive to the fact that her life had been taken from her, aware of it and fully accepting.
Most behavioral nano-mod recipients didn't have the kind of self-knowledge she seemed to exude. The emotions and instincts were so natural it was difficult to second-guess them. And with the few unwilling recipients, there was a sense that the victim knew something was wrong, but couldn't pinpoint it exactly. Natalie's composure in the face of her victimization would have felt like smugness if she were capable of such emotions - which I knew for a fact she wasn't.
So I wondered about her. Professionally speaking, she was a bit of a puzzle.
One evening, at one of John's parties, I found myself alone with her in the study. She and I had been part of a larger circle of conversation - about politics - and the other three had gone off together to refresh her drinks.
She looked bashfully down at her coke - John didn't let her drink.
I decided an indirect approach was best. "I think I owe you an apology, Natalie," I said. She looked up, wide-eyed. "Your...spouse paid me a very large sum of money to do what I did to you. I don't regret taking the money, or your particular fate. You weren't exactly undeserving. But I think I could have treated you a little better when you were in my care."
She looked about her; seeing we were alone, she smiled, almost conspiratorially.
"May we sit, Mister Smith?" she asked, sounding for all the world like a little schoolgirl as she gestured to the sofa.
"Of course, Natalie," I said, and sat down. She stepped forward hesitantly, and then sat down gingerly on an ottoman directly in front of me, as if sitting in a chair were something foriegn to her. Perhaps by now it was. Her knees were together and, after some deliberation as to what to do with her hands, she clasped them on her lap.
"Mr. Smith, my nano-conditioning controls much of the way I behave - my demeanor, my body language and so on. It's what makes me act like a schoogirl instead of a clumsy, brash forty year old man in a twenty year old woman's body. I can't help it. Everyone at this party believes me to be as I am because I can't help acting the part. But it would be a mistake to think that because I appear innocent, I am in fact so. I was a manipulative bastard once, and though I'm not in a position where I can manipulate people any longer, I can tell you that Natalie was not your true client. I was."
I sat up now, interested.
"I used an implant, you see. She told you it was a therapy implant, to slow aging - and it was - but it also modified her mindset considerably. It gave her the drive and vengeful streak to want to do this to me, which was augmented by my habitual mistreatment of her. Everything you did to us was as I wished it."
I was flabbergasted. "Why?" I asked.
She smiled. "Everyone knows power is a drug, potent, attractive and addictive. Also destructive.
"So is powerlessness, That's rarely noticed, I think, but it's true. Potent, attractive and addictive. It's animal instinct - there are alphas and there are betas, and each derives satisfaction from his or her particular place in the world. There's one difference though: you can never have enough power. Power is thirsty work. If you choose to relinquish power, however, you can achieve a state of absolute powerlessness rather easily, because others are happy to take power from you.
"I strive to be perfectly helpless, which is a form of perfection, and perfection is what we all seek, right? I'm incapable of resisting John's will. I'm nano-conditioned to respond to his voice signature with utter obedience.
But it's not effortless. I strive hard to be more abject, and just when I think I've reached the lowest point John pushes me further.
"I don't expect you to understand what I'm talking about; looking at your face, I guess you're a little confused by my words. Anyway, I'm just trying to say there's no need for apology. I should be thanking you."
I looked at her in disbelief. "I guess I just don't understand why you would want to do this to yourself," I said finally.
She paused. "Mr. Smith, I think I have something you don't, though it might be hard to imagine that. Think about it later. Think about the one emotion I'm consumed with, day in and day out, and when you name it, try to remember the last time you felt it yourself."
Just then John walked in the room. Natalie immediately stood, head downcast.
"What's the punishment for sitting on furniture, Natalie?" he asked calmly.
"Thirty lashes, Sir," she whispered.
"Go prepare yourself for them."
Chapter 3
For some reason, that conversation had an effect on me. Weeks later I was still thinking about it, and about Natalie. Poor Natalie, whose desires were so unusual she had to resort to the ultimate self-abnegation - surrendering her identity, exchanging it for a life in which she had no options left - to fulfill them.
And yet I realized that she was possibly the happiest person I'd ever met.
I went back the the Maynard house, during the day.
Natalie received me in the study. Curiously, she wore a maid's outfit, albeit a very skimpy one. I sat down; she remained standing.
"May I get you a drink, Mr. Smith?" she asked.
"Don't you have help for that, Natalie?" I asked in return.
"It's one of my duties. During the day the staff may assign me to any household duty they like - today it's parlour servant. I'm on my lunch break or I wouldn't be able to see you. I make a good martini, if you'd like one."
She went to the bar and mixed a martini, put a twist of lemon in it, and returned. She knelt in front of me, holding the drink up. I took it. She remained on her knees.
"Um, wouldn't you like to sit? Your husband isn't around."
"I can't, Mr. Smith. John made a few changes to my nano regimen the last time I sat in a chair. I can't do it any longer. It makes me nauseous. I'm quite comfortable kneeling; don't let it bother you."
"I suppose you don't drink for the same reason."
"Yes, Mr. Smith. Cigarettes and alcohol throw me into convulsions."
"Could you just call me Sam?"
"No, I can't, Mr. Smith. As I said, John made a few changes - "
"To your nano regimen, I know, I know. You know, it's a little annoying, all this crap. How do you put up with it? Why the hell does John like it? I can't figure it out."
"Which is why you came, I imagine, Mr. Smith. Have you thought about what we talked about last time?"
"Yes," I admitted. "Tell me, Natalie. Are you happy?"
"Yes, Mr. Smith," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I can't change my emotions, Mr. Smith. I can't hide from them. I can't take nano because I would need the encryption key that made me what I am to do so, and only you John has that. So I'm stuck with my feelings and emotions. It had been a long time since the only thing I could say were my own were my feelings. Nothing else belongs to me here.
"You have to remember that, while some of the things I feel now are nano-induced, they might as well be real, since I have no way of escaping or finding respite from them. I can't take a pill and feel differently. And since I've been conditioned to find happiness on my knees, at the mercy of a man who treats me like something lower than a dog - even our bullma
stiff can run freely about the house, while I'm usually chained - then happiness is what I feel.
"That's the gentle way of explaining my decision - the one that reflects well on me. Here's another way of looking at it: I simply couldn't hack being a man. I wasn't strong, just rich. I had wealth and that gave me power; I used both irresponsibly. In a just world I should never have had either. I grew to hate myself and the life I led because I knew it was a lie. My mistreatment of Natalie was just the latest in a long history of injustices I perpetrated against women - and men too, but women especially. Natalie was unhappy but could have left me. There were others I kept forcibly. It provided a sheen of masculinity and virility; but I knew that by all rights I should have been the one on her knees, in chains.
"Now I am kept forcibly. The tools I used to have women at my beck and call now render me utterly helpless. Natalie married me for my money, you know. She wanted wealth and power, however she could get it. Now, as my husband, he has what he wanted in the purest way possible. I have also given him a rather extreme means of revenge upon me for what I put him through.
"He's a better man than I ever was. Being a woman - a slave - isn't easy, but it's what I deserve. Now I feel like my physical form - weak, dependent, fragile - finally matches my true character.
"And John now has what he wanted. He's much more truly John Maynard than I ever was. Where I subjugated women as a form of overcompensation, he does so because he has the right to do so. He is superior to me, and his control over me is a reflection of his superiority, rather than a feeble act of bravado."
I left Natalie bewildered and a little bemused. I went back to work, giving her little thought; I had a backlog of clients to tend to.
But her words came back to haunt me. And I began to realize that my attraction to her and her story, her motives, was more than just idle curiousity.
Several months passed.
Chapter 4
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