Chapter 5 #3
I expect to feel the suckers start up in some kind of sexual boost, but instead he smacks my bottom firmly enough to jolt me.
Another hard slap follows. If I were standing up, it would be hard enough to bring me up onto my tiptoes.
In the VR, it gives me enough impulse to make that first jump, and then suddenly I am moving, gliding through space.
The machine comes online then; suckers start working at my sensitive regions with a low pulsing input that feels good but doesn’t stimulate me into a full-blown writhing desire.
“I’m flying!” I call out. It really does feel as though I am flying.
All the sensations support the illusion.
There’s no wind on my face, because there is no wind in space, but I am moving through the universe.
I see a blue and gold planet and my intention moves me toward it.
It grows larger as I approach, and then I am sliding through its atmospheres before I find myself over a continent covered in gold forests.
* * *
Arkon
Though she complained at first, she has taken to the machine almost instantly. One smack to her cheeks and she instantly understood what she needed to do. I wonder if there is anything she couldn’t do if she were properly disciplined and trained.
She’s so immersed in it, I go through to the observation room where Drak is watching.
“What do you think?” I ask the question while knowing the answer.
“She’s good at this,” Drak concedes. “Very impressive control of the virtual model. Let’s let her play with that for the rest of the day. I want to see how much she can absorb.”
“I don’t want to leave her hooked up to the full body experience all day.”
“I think we can start to reduce the head and hand terminals,” Drak says. “But she is very responsive to the sexual stimuli, so we can leave that on if it helps performance. Right now, I’m pleased with her.”
That is practically a complete rave as far as Drak’s reviews go. He even risks looking slightly pleased.
It only gets better. Evie is a machine.
“Even more than the machine, we might have to pull her from it to let the cooling systems catch up,” Drak says hours later.
“This is phenomenal. This is why I wanted to use a human mind. They have almost no operational capacity at higher levels of cognition, but they are absolute spatial masterpieces. Look at her navigating those obstacles as if they weren’t there! ”
She’s in a maze now, one that moves toward her and requires her to make lightning quick adjustments in order not to ‘lose.’ The penalty for ‘loss’ is a quick, but pretty intense zap across the ass.
We hear her yelp as she makes a rare miscalculation and experiences her first correction.
“What the fuck was that?” she curses.
“That’s what happens when you make a mistake,” I tell her through the intercom. “There are potential consequences in the simulation.”
“Oh,” she says.
A couple of minutes later, she yelps again. And then again. And then I start to think she is not making mistakes. I think she is enjoying the slapping protocol.
I am not the only one to notice.
“We might have to adjust the penalties and use reward-based training only,” Drak says. “I think she likes losing a little too much.”
“I agree,” I say. The implications of that are still sinking in. She likes to be disciplined, or she at least likes how it feels to be spanked.
“Humans have a strange relationship to pain,” Drak muses. “They seem to enjoy being hurt from time to time, in specific ways. I think they can’t survive without some form of sensory unpleasantness.”
“We’re going to remove the punishment programming,” I tell Evie. “Rewards will continue.”
“Thank you!” she calls back. She seems relieved, but we can see everything her body is doing, and it is obvious she is less engaged after than before. Still more than we need for the operation of the machine, but definitely less than her peak.
Drak glances over at me, and for once does not say the obvious.
* * *
She spends an entire day locked into the virtual terminal without complaint. I have to pull her out to get her to eat her gruel, which she does not want to eat.
“I’m really not hungry,” she says. “It’s so fun. There are so many systems to explore in there. And they’re all real and different, and every now and then I unlock new abilities…”
She’s beaming with excitement, so eager to get back into the game she has no interest in the needs of her physical body.
“You need to eat something, drink something, and go to the bathroom,” I tell her.
“I really don’t,” she says while performing a very peculiar standing gait that tells me she absolutely has to go.
“Go to the bathroom, then come back, then you can play again,” I tell her.
She sighs but goes and does as she is told, leaving me shaking my head. We knew a human would be right for this job. I didn’t realize I’d have to physically remove her from it against her will.
* * *
Evie
If there is anything more inconvenient than urinating, I’d like to know what it is. Feels like I have to pee every two fucking seconds right now. Arkon says it’s actually several hours, but it doesn’t feel like it.
The second I stop peeing, I am back in the room. I’d strap myself in if I could, but I can’t, so I have to impatiently wait for Arkon to do it, which drives me mad because it feels as though he is doing it slowly on purpose.
The second I am back in the game I feel a kind of relief I’ve only ever felt before in life when I took up smoking for a bit just to see what it was like, but then realized I didn’t actually like it as much as I thought I did, and then discovered I couldn’t stop super easy, and then I had to wear patches, and then…
Then I am zooming through space and visiting planets and nothing matters. Nothing even exists except these worlds I have discovered only for me.
“Alright, we’re introducing new mechanics,” I hear Arkon say. “Now that you have a mastery of the basics, it’s time to start refining your skills.”