by Paul Blades
Dr. Morton had no doubt about the powers of dreams. He had studied the subject for too long to doubt the mind could cast out forces that could be measured and quantified. That they could pierce a dimensional divide was also no surprise, theoretically, at least. The chance to try and manipulate psychic forces to establish a bridge between dimensions, with unlimited control over his subjects, a virtually unlimited budget and free from the prying, bothersome eyes of government and colleagues who might question his methods was too much to resist.
The doctor had been at Blackthorne's side when he got the call. They were in the room of subject 722. She had proven to be especially promising and Blackthorne had just finished driving her to a series of ecstatic orgasms while filling her mind with gut wrenching fear. She now lay sobbing and moaning on the bed, naked, bound and hooded, ready for the injection of a cocktail of psychedelic drugs that would cause strong emanations from her mind to flow.
Alison Mulvihill, a shapely, twenty-two year old brunette, had been a physics major at Colgate and in her senior year when she had popped into a job fair at the Student Union Building one afternoon. She was with a couple of friends and hadn't intended on going until they coaxed her along. “What the hell,” she thought. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She had already been accepted for a postgraduate program at MIT, but she was curious at what private industry might offer. She had wandered over to the booth for Marjoram Industries, an up and comer in the technology market. A pretty young woman was at the desk and, after talking to her for a few minutes, Alison agreed to an interview with the company representative in the little office they had set up. She was impressed with the handsome, blond haired man with the deep, entrancing eyes, but didn't remember much else of their meeting.
Two weeks later, Alison was standing on the corner of College Boulevard and Cayuga Street in Utica with a small suitcase in her hands. She really didn't know why. Her bag contained just a few pairs of underwear, her toiletries, two clean t-shirts and all of the cash she had been able to raise from selling her car and closing her bank accounts. She had broken up with her fiancé the week before and withdrawn from all of her classes. She had dropped a short note to her parents in the mailbox just moments ago, explaining her desire to ‘see the world’ and not to worry about it if they did not hear from her.
A late model Ford Explorer had pulled up and she got in the back seat after tossing her suitcase in the rear compartment. There were four other young women in the car, none of whom she recognized. They nodded a greeting to her and the car pulled away from the curb. They made one more stop and a young, black haired, Asian woman got in. She introduced herself as Linda and the car headed for the Interstate.
Alison felt strange riding in the Explorer for hundreds of miles without any clear idea of what she was doing there or where they were going. The other girls were cheerful and amiable and they traded stories about boyfriends, movies, courses they had taken. But none of them shared any other real personal information aside from their first names.
The car made infrequent stops, the girls taking turns driving. It was funny that none of them knew their ultimate destination but always seemed to know just what route to take. They kept on heading south and west, stopping only for gas, convenience food and the bathroom, paying for everything with cash. Only one night, when all the young women were too tired to drive, did they stop for the evening. They rented a double room at a motel some miles off of the Interstate outside of Tulsa and shared the beds. A quick shower and breakfast at McDonald's and they were on their way again.
The women all remarked the beauty of the surrounding country as they entered the Southwestern region of the country. The Tribal Police at the entrance to the Apache Reservation admitted them without question. Driving a considerable distance along a two lane road, they approached a large gate manned by strong looking, dark skinned men in mirrored sunglasses. After passing through, their car was pulled over to the side and all of the women got out. They were ushered into a little hut located some 25 yards or so from the gate.
It was there that Alison began to become really worried about what was going on. The man at the desk knew her name and checked it off on his list. The women were all standing nervously shoulder to shoulder in line when he stood up from the desk and approached them. He had something in his hand. Alison was in the middle of the line and could not see it at first, but she recorded apprehensively the moans and cries of fear that came from the women on her right as he showed it to them one by one. When he stepped in front of her, holding it at his waist and directing her eyes to it, Alison's heart stopped and a feeling of deep despair coursed through her. All at once, she remembered everything.
The tall, muscular and attractive, blond haired man had been friendly and polite when she had entered the interview room. He was sitting on an easy chair with a large bottle of sparkling water and a glass on a small table next to him. The room wasn't really a room, just a set of four dividers that had been set up in the middle of the job fair for privacy. A nice rug had been set down in the middle and there was a comfortable chair for her to sit in. It was almost like being in somebody's living room.
The first few minutes went well enough, although Alison couldn't help but feel the man was somehow assessing her, probing her with his mind. And then it struck. Suddenly, her mind was filled with fear and anxiety. She clutched the arms of her chair as she felt her brain rewired to obedience to the man. He showed her the medallion, the same one the dark skinned, mean looking man was showing to her now. The blond haired man had forced her to pledge her obedience to it, subsume her will to his. Trembling with fear, her eyes full of tears, she had knelt before him, pulling open her blouse and raising her bra so he could see her breasts. She had crept closer to him and, after he pulled his thick, already rampant cock from the slit in the front of his pants, she had taken it in her mouth and sucked him until he discharged a viscous stream of his spunk into her. As it slid down her throat, she felt it corrupting her being, binding her irremediably to him.
The young physics major had been calm and almost blissful when she finally left the interview room. The demonic man had taken the memory of her enslavement from her mind and filled it instead with the subversive instructions that brought her to where she was now. As she stared at the small, rust colored, copper disk, she realized, dismally, she could not resist the man who wielded it.
When the man had finished displaying the infernal device to the now crying, unhappy women, he ordered them to strip and place their clothes in a plastic bag he held out for them. The women all cast off their clothes obediently. They stood there, naked, fearful and docile, as the man circled their waists with thick leather belts that had handcuffs built in at the hips. He bound their hands to their sides and applied shackles to their ankles connected to a thin, foot long chain. The last touch was a large, spongy ball he thrust into their mouths filling it and forcing their jaws wide apart.
Alison cried as she helplessly followed the other women, shuffling out the back door of the small hut to an enclosed area behind it. It was screened off from view by large, wooden panels. A dark blue minivan was waiting there and they were loaded into it. Once seated, the man who had entranced them placed dark hoods over their heads, shutting out all light and then buckled them into their seats.
The women were driven directly to the dream lab where the Apache staff was ready to receive them. Alison whined with fear as she was led into the building, a rough hand holding her arm tightly. She was third in line and had to wait, standing with the other women in the lobby for a long time, hooded, bound and naked until it was her turn. It was a distinctly feminine hand that took her in tow. She was guided down the long hallway and into the preparation room. Once her hood was removed, Alison trembled to see emblazoned on the wall a large imprint of the demonic design from the disk. It sent a wave of fear through her and reminded her of her servitude to the blond haired, dark eyed man who had enslaved her.
There were three dark skinned,
black haired women in the room with her. They sat her down in a large, padded chair and strapped her torso and legs into it. The women were wearing long, white laboratory coats. One looked middle aged and had streaks of grey in her hair. She seemed to be the one in charge. The other two women were younger, in their early twenties. They were gentle but firm with her as they tightened the confining straps.
Alison cried and protested through her filled mouth, her eyes affixed to the dreadful and terrifying design on the wall, as the women proceeded to shave off all of her long, dark brown hair. When they were done, her hairless head smooth as a cue ball, they raised her legs in stirrups attached to the chair and removed all of her pubic growth. The girls then took her from the chair and brought her to a shower where, after removing her confines, they washed and scrubbed her body thoroughly. After drying her off, they attached fur lined bracelets to her ankles and then forced her to her knees. Bracelets were attached to her wrists and her arms were locked behind her, wrist to wrist. A long, black leather sleeve was drawn up her bound arms and fastened tightly around them. Alison struggled and moaned with pain, terrified at what dismal fate the women intended for her, as her arms were bent back to her torso so that her wrists were in the middle of her back. The women were strong and apparently practiced at applying the device and her struggles failed to frustrate them. Straps from the end of the sleeve, which was now just below the back of her neck, were draped over her shoulders, between her breasts, around her back and tied off to its base at the points of her painfully bent elbows. A form fitting leather hood was placed over her head and buckled around her neck. There was an opening in the hood for her mouth and it had tabs over the eyes which could be opened to allow the prisoner sight. For now they remained closed.
The sightless and distraught young woman was placed back in the chair and forced to lean back painfully on her imprisoned arms. Her legs were locked back into the stirrups. When a hand removed the large, rubber ball from her mouth, Alison attempted to take the opportunity to scream and protest at her treatment. But one of the women pressed a hard, leather object into it while strong, female hands held her jaws open. It was a long, thick wad of leather that filled her whole mouth. The gag was designed to be affixed to the hood directly by means of small clips and the businesslike attendants connected it so that the new experimental subject could not spit it out.
The mind of the young physics student from Colgate was filled with despair as she felt her body being strapped more tightly into the chair. Already her treatment had been so bizarre and cruel she could not imagine, did not want to imagine, what the remorseless women would do to her next. She strained at her bonds and clamped her teeth down hard on the long, thick, insulting leather that filled her mouth as she felt her stomach washed with a cooling liquid. She identified its smell as alcohol. There was a strange, irritating buzzing noise and, immediately after, a fierce stinging pain to her lower belly, just above her now hairless mons.
The procedure lasted about a half hour. From the hostile noise of the apparatus and the continuous burning on her skin, Alison realized they were inscribing some kind of tattoo on her. Her mind reeled in sorrow at the desecration of her body. She realized she was being made into some form of weird sex slave and was fearful the women were labeling her body with an obscene appellation appropriate to her new status. Wwhen the procedure was finished and she was led, crying and moaning behind her hood and gag a short distance away from the chair, the women opened the eyelets to the hood and Alison saw in the long, wall mounted mirror something far worse than what she had imagined. There, amidst the bright red, irritated skin, was, inscribed in bright, blue ink, the unmistakable form of the dreaded, fear inspiring insignia on her lower belly. Her knees sagged and had she not been held up by the strong arms of the young, dark skinned women, she would have fallen to the floor.
Alison was allowed to take in her grotesquely hooded form for several moments so her new, abject condition could sink in. The female she saw in the mirror possessed her body, her recognizable, large, round breasts, her long, trim legs, but nothing else was familiar. Harsh, black straps crossed her chest and disappeared behind her back. Her plush, wiry bush was gone and in its stead was a clean, smooth set of fleshy lips with a narrow gash between them. Where her face should have been was an expanse of tight, smooth, black leather. Not even her mouth was discernable, only two little holes by her nose for access to air. The eyelets for her eyes were tiny, barely permitting sight, and she could just make out her pupils in the mirror, wide and full of fear.
The older woman came up to the terrified, shocked woman and presented to her her final adornment. It was a narrow, black leather collar. Dangling from a ring in its front was a small, brass medallion. Etched on it, in black, was the number 722. When the collar was circled around her neck and buckled shut in the back, the older women closed the eyelets to Alison's hood and reconnected the chain between her legs. After they had attached a leash to the front of her collar, they led her disconsolate figure from the room.
Experimental Subject No. 722 had proven to be the most promising in a long time. After a series of test protocols recording her dream patterns and her sexual responses, she had been kept in an almost constant hallucinogenic and lustful state. It had been found through trial and error that sensual deprivation played a significant role in increasing the strength and duration of the dreams of the many test subjects that had passed through the lab, and so 722 was kept constantly hooded and bound, confined in her little, windowless room, except for the purposes of cleaning and maintenance. The shaman, who continued to cooperate in the dream experiments, wove his own terrifying and lust inducing spells around her. Once her potentials had been realized, Jonathan tormented and drove the female to a series of wrenching orgasms at least once a day when he was at the Fortress, filling her mouth or her other, fevered orifices with his radiant, enthralling cock and spilling his seed within her. Using his ability to rewire the synapses of her brain, he manipulated her sexual urges to a constant, excruciating need. At other times, the subject's passions were seen to by the lips and hands of the female Apache lab assistants or the stiff, hard pricks of one or more of the male security staff drafted for that purpose.
Dr. Morton felt they were on the verge of a real breakthrough. Jonathan had been able, for the first time, to follow the tendrils of a subject's nightmares to the edge of the dimensional divide. He was sure of it. Of course, identifying the barriers to this dimension and breaking through them was only part of the problem. There were a virtual infinity of universes out there and this female's lustful, fearful emanations would need to be directed to the right one. It was Dr. Morton's hypothesis that once it had been shown the divide had been pierced, the mind of Blackthorne's familiar could be used to direct No. 722's to the precise place necessary to obtain access to the Whole. Jonathan had ordered the intensity and frequency of the subject's torments of fear and pleasure be increased in the hopes she could be pushed over the top. Morton had, initially, demurred, fearing that, like so many others, 722 would be driven into a deep psychosis as a result. But the renegade dream man had been insistent.
Now, as he watched the bound and naked, hooded female squirm and moan with distress on the broad, comfortable bed from the heavy dose of pain and lust he had implanted in her mind, Jonathan felt something he had not experienced since assuming male, human form five years ago: fear. The pursuer was coming, had arrived at long last, and everything he had worked for and accumulated was now at risk.
Blackthorne was a man of action, not of contemplation, and he immediately set into motion. The arrival of the pursuer was not unexpected and he had not been idle all of these years in preparing his defenses. The good news was the fact that the pursuer's arrival would certainly entail the existence of a familiar. If he could capture her, he would kill, so to speak, two birds with one stone. He would eliminate the threat of the pursuer and he would have another possible route of access to the Whole. Also, if he could convert the pursuer's
familiar to his own use, Diane, his current source of the Whole's essence, would be available for the continued experiments Dr. Morton wanted to conduct. Any concern his familiar's ability to draw sustenance for him across the dimensional divide would be compromised by the experiments would be assuaged.
Jonathan was pleased his trap for the pursuer had worked. It was he who ratted out the pimp who had taken ownership of the pretty, brown haired girl, Nadine, his familiar's younger sister. He knew that the abrupt deprivation of her reason for life itself, the master he had bound her to, would drive her into a near psychotic state. He had assumed that the pimp would be imprisoned for many years and had been even more pleased to learn he had chosen to shoot it out with the police rather than face a long jail sentence. Eventually, the police would trace Nadine's origins and her family would have her hospitalized. He had assumed the pursuer would readily be able to discover the identity of his familiar. After all, how many prominent, single women disappeared every year in the Chicago metropolitan area? Once that identity had been revealed, it was a sure, short line to finding Nadine.
The man who called had been in service to Blackthorne for the three years since Nadine had been a patient in St. Catherine's Psychiatric Hospital in Omaha. He had been corrupted in the usual ways, a financial incentive together with a revolving series of abject, devoted sexual slaves to serve as his mistress. Reggie Johnson, a clerk in the administrative offices, had noted the fact that Nadine had had a visitor. Although he would have discovered it anyway eventually by going over the visitor's log, a task he undertook at least once a week, he had been marooned at the hospital by the same storm that kept Ramón and his PI prisoners at their motel. Having nothing better to do, he went down and checked the log book. He assumed the name used was a false one, which it was, but the mere fact a visitor had come at all was important. He placed his call to the number he had been given, initiating a series of portentous events.