Chapter 3

We dressed, picnic clothing of course, and went to find John and Iain so we could put picnic baskets together. We were working away on picnic baskets and just doing stuff when Iain said “A moment, gentlefolk?” We looked at him. “Would someone explain what in the blurry blue blazes is going on here?” “Dad, this is called packing picnic baskets.” “You really don’t know?” We looked at him quizzically. “You aren’t touching one another. You’re handing things around like an assembly line of robots and not missing a single hand-off. I am seeing the impossible and now I am truly frightened.”

“Would you show us?” Iain went out for a minute and came back in with an old camera. “Start what you were doing again, please?” We did, and in less than a minute he said “OK, got it. Gather ‘round.”

Oh. Yah, we’d better not do that. “We need John, and I’ll show him this, and then we might have to have another experiment. Good thing we are gathering tomorrow, this is seriously bad juju if you’re not conscious of it. Look. Try to shut whatever that is down. Be a little conscious of how it is you are moving and see what’s going on.”

Put that way... “Folks, let’s try something, I have an idea,” I said. “I was letting my mind drift around. I’m going to get my bit, put it in my mouth, so I can have something to focus on.”

I came back from the play room with the bit down my throat.

Things had changed, we were normal people doing normal stuff. The serenity was gone, we were doing a dull and repetitive task, except Ali came over and began playing with my breasts. “I like your pony, um, avatar a lot, Ash.” I nodded, showed how much I was enjoying his petting. “You and I, after the picnic?” I nodded again, touched him. ‘Beautiful, sensitive man. You can be first. I think we’ll all be playing tonight.’

“Ash, you can’t possibly wear that to the picnic. It’s not a solution, but I know one,” said Bang-ja. I looked at her. “You need something to keep your mind from running away like that.” Ali and Beck nodded. “Piercings. It has to happen, like, now.”

Beck said “The only thing needed is a re-assessment of what Ash gets and I say we err in the direction of more rather than fewer. Two bars for each nipple. PA, consider adding an ampallang. Industrials and a second pair of earrings. Tongue stud. Three guiches with different length chains, I’ll figure those out. Navel. I’d love to say septum but it isn’t school-safe.” I nodded. I wanted to talk to us so we made a circle, well, a square. ‘I’m fine with it, but the different-length chains seem a bit extreme. They won’t be synchronous when they move.’ ‘That’s right. I couldn’t stand them, too much sensation, but desperate measures are called for here.’

‘What about today?’ ‘Yeah. I can’t imagine.’ ‘OK, everyone think on it, maybe Iain or John can figure it out. For now, at least, Ash’s bit’s working.’ ‘We haven’t proven that.’ I nodded, took it out and we felt the start of that serene feeling again. Put it back in, and the sensation faded.

John and Iain came back, John carrying a signal processor and a tackle box. Iain said “Gentlefolk, maybe we can see what’s going on here. You can’t, ever, be doing what’s on that vid anywhere else. This house is well-shielded and so’s the camera. Um. Why is Ash wearing a pony bridle?” “It stops whatever it is that resulted in the vid.” “First, it’s exciting to see him like that. Second, that’s strange.” Beck said “It isn’t. His mind wanders when he’s doing something repetitive. He needs to be kept in his body.” “Ah. Piercings.” “Yup, all we could think of.” John said “Frederic won’t like it so quickly but he will do it, what kind?” “Three guiches.” “Welp, you’re right. Those would do it. Ash, that will be challenging but it will be straightforward, and if it’s too much you can always remove them later.” I nodded. “Let me do a five-minute scan of the room, then I can ask Ash to take his bit out and see what happens in the EM spectrum.”

We didn’t learn an awful lot. “What’s missing, Iain?” “Phase data.” “Ouch, can’t manage that without doing some recording, or a lot of isolated computing power. Let’s leave phase as an unknown here. Cover story for Frederic?” “Nope. Militia business. No need to know, he’ll understand.”

“Frederic says ‘as and when’.” “Good man. Ash, we want to see if we’re affected on the drive, so keep the bridle but when we’re away we’ll experiment.”

Beck brought me a pair of old-lady underwear and a soft pair of shorts. “For the ride back.” She kissed my cheek. “You look so hot in that, Ash!”

Iain’s car has big windows and it feels open and bright when you ride around in it. It’s called BMW and the boot lid is littered with numbers. “OK, you can take it off now, Ash.” I did and John’s eyes bugged out. “THAT was down your throat the whole time?” “Sure.” “How do you manage ... um, Iain, is that getting into minor/major issues?” “I think it’s not, but it isn’t cut and dried. It’s a technical discussion.” “OK. Ash, if you are willing, please tell me how you can pack baskets with a - yoicks, it’s a horse-cock - dildo bigger than any cock I’ve ever seen, down your throat?” “Easy. I surrender to it, and, well, data, my owner, and they are training me to think of their cock all the time.” “Will you, um, be doing competitions?” “I have no idea. With their permission I will introduce my owner at the picnic, and you can ask them.”

“John, Iain, I was deliberately allowing my mind to wander. Are you having feelings of calm and well-being?” They looked at one another briefly. “We don’t think so.” “OK, that is what the four of us were feeling when we drifted into that machine-like behavior. It’s pleasant and we can signal without touch.” “And it is definitely Militia business now.”

We were on Lovelace and I recognized where we were when we passed Yong Chen’s workshop. Frederic’s place was another klick or so, in with the offices of lawyers and radiologists. We were greeted by a gentleperson who was so light in color I wondered if they were albino. They went in and brought out Frederic. We stood. “John, it’s strange when this is our business, but I accept that. My assistant is a minor. They will consult with...” “Sorry, Fred, things have got away from us this morning. Fred, please be introduced to Achille Boakye.” “Frederic Hotchkiss, he/him.” “Achille Boakye, he/him.” “This is my assistant Sylphe Kovattana. Sylphe, please be introduced to Ash Boakye.” They extended their hand. “Sylphe Kovattana, she/her.” I took it and her eyes widened. “Ash Boakye, he/him.” I softly turned touch/sense on and was almost flattened. Sylphe was very, very good at this.

There’d been a second’s delay where we did a lot, much of it not comprehensible to me. “Ash, I am your consultant for this piercing. Please come this way.” We went through a door and into a small office. ‘Who are you and how do you come to communicate like this?’ ‘I’m Achille David Boakye. I don’t know how to answer that, it just started happening.’ ‘I fear you. You might tell.’ ‘I will die before I will tell.’ I showed her. She sent - bear in mind this was moving extremely quickly - ‘Yes. You won’t tell. How do you know I won’t?’ ‘You showed me.’

We knew an enormous amount about one another already. I’d passed some information on about the serenity and how my brain would skitter loose from my body. ‘You don’t need piercing for that. You couldn’t know that. You and I will be lovers, and I want you to have them - and a lot of others. Please look.’ She took off her lace dress and filmy lingerie to show me a pale, slim, muscled, and heavily pierced body. She put one of her feet up onto a small stool. “This is a guiche. It is extremely sensitive.” ‘I am sure you will lead me on a tiny chain you attach to it and I will follow.’ My bits got hard and she drew in a breath. ‘Please, Ash, strip for me.’ I did and she giggled. “You’re not very body-shy, are you, Ash? Ash, I would like you to touch me intimately. Please touch me intimately.” “Sylphe, I would like you to touch me intimately. Please touch me intimately.” Sylphe’s touch inflamed and soothed and inspired and desired. Her eyes widened. ‘You touch the way I do.’ ‘Sometimes.’ She giggled. I sent her a picture of me in my tack, how I was trying hard to get all of Beck’s cock in me. ‘Yes, I will touch you like that, but not yet.’ “You just want the three guiches?” “Yes, for today, we thought a long session might be difficult.” ‘I can heal you very, very quickly but for the piercings to help your body’s awareness, I won’t take any of the pain away. Your pain tolerance will be fine except for the ampallang and maybe the industrials. Your body will especially need the pain of the ampallang, so we will do that one when your endorphins are flowing. In return we will meet tomorrow and you will please my body with your innate beauty and your new enhancements.’ She barely touched my left nipple and made me arch. ‘Beautiful, sensitive ... oh, yes, I will teach you how to be as sensitive as I.’ ‘So we are agreed?’ “So we are agreed?” “We are.” “Thank you, please dress, I will explain to Frederic and your escorts what you have decided, then we will do the selection of places, then you will initiate it yourself.” “WHAT?” “California law is clear that no person may pierce any minor. Therefore we set it up such that the act of piercing is initiated by you, and done by no one, which is machinery. One click on a telecommand and it starts.” I supposed the Legislature had better things to worry about than who consensually stuck what in whom, but I had to admit that matter of consent was within their purview.

There was a ‘marker’ machine on which I lay. Sylphe touched me. ’This machine has to eroticize various areas on your body to find the most exciting location consistent with placement æsthetics. I will help you remain calm. I wish I could bind you and caress your pretty breasts, and I will, soon. They are exquisite. When the marker comes to that point I will fluff your nipples, same with your penis. Get used to my touch. Ready?’ “Ready?” “Yes, Sylphe.”

The spidery thing got moving and it was not wasting daylight (though I supposed it could work lights-out). It poked and prodded and buzzed a little and then it would pinch - all that in a second or so, so in under four minutes I was marked for the actual piercing robot.

Sylphe helped me get arranged on the larger, industrial-looking machine - not at all spidery, this one. “There will be a stopping point where we re-arrange you for the guiches. The places will be pierced in ascending order of difficulty so your endorphins can assist you.” ‘I will be right behind the machine, treating you with [unintelligible] and that will accelerate your readiness for us to become lovers tomorrow. You will even be able to use your penis tonight, but I am tightly scheduled for classes and cannot miss. Shall we begin?’ “Shall we begin? Here’s the telecommand. Thumb the pad, please.” The machine got busy but I paid little attention to it because Sylphe was filling my head with data about medicine and sex and math and geology while she was running a second channel of information into touch and ... something ... at her fingertips. I felt everything as hard pinches but especially noticed the industrials going in because cutting the cartilage made a nasty crunch sound.

The ampallang hurt a lot and I was sweaty and drifty and feeling a little sick. Then “OK, we re-arrange you for the guiches. Drink this, slowly.” Odd, fluorescent green. “It looks like I imagine toxic waste does.” “Nothing to be done about it. It restores electrolytes and has a little honey in it.” I shrugged, drank, and found Sylphe was right - that vague ill feeling began to lift.

She helped re-arrange the machine and there I was, bent almost in an L shape with my legs apart. ‘You are beautiful and vulnerable in this position.’ She showed me how wet her pussy was. ‘We’ll make furniture to put you on so I can fuck you this way.’

‘I shall very much enjoy caressing the guiches you are putting in. You may be interested to know I have been sensitizing you and on the third and final guiche piercing you will probably cum. That is even better than lessons being fucked into you, as you say. I will just love playing with your body and mind.’ “Three last piercings.” Awkward position, that, and yet my bits were hard and the guiche piercings had pain, sure, and an awful lot of pleasure. The third one made me cum, all right - into Sylphe’s mouth. Then she walked around that bench-like thing and touched me. ‘Our first orgasm together.’ And she kissed me and shared my cum with me and we went rigid and came and we agreed to unfold together. It felt like flight but went to a grey space where there were no features except us. ‘There’s no time here and it sounds odd, but time spent here doesn’t count to our bodies, yet we can still exchange data.’

‘Together’ with Sylphe meant something like ‘together’ with Beck when I’m her pony, except deeper and wider and more intimate. We came out of no-time exactly where we were when there was time and we agreed that her after-care instructions would be disregarded, though she had to make them audible to reassure Frederic. “Okay, Ash, have a look.” Red metal and a bunch of it. Sylphe, naked, is almost glowing. I touched her: ‘My tongue will come to know your whole body, bit by bit.’ Goose bumps all over her. She laughed. ‘I desire you extremely.’ “They are red because they are ‘trainers’ meant to be removed when the healing is complete, either tomorrow or the next day. The real jewelry will be heavier. Please wear soft clothing for the time being. Please be careful in the following ways: things like seat belts will probably be a challenge. If you cycle, you need a split seat. Be wary of things like date clothing until you can have them altered to allow guiches and their chains, the ampallang and PA, and your tops to accommodate your nipple and navel piercings. Your navel piercing will alter how you have to handle things like boxes and climbing over fences.

“Urination may be painful for a day or so. Remember that urine is sterile. Don’t go in any water - neither ocean, nor pool, nor river - that is not treated for sterility. Piped utility water is fine.

“Your tongue stud will slightly change your enunciation. A touch. ’I can teach you to fix that.’ “Please be careful when moving your tongue around other metal.” Another touch. ‘Here’, pointing to her clit chains. “Eating will have its pitfalls so chew slowly at first.”

“That’s it, Achille David Boakye. Thank you.” She and I had exchanged coordinates and addresses and schedules because we’d have to build plausible parallel constructions and avoid too many coincidences.

“Thank you, Sylphe Ai Kovattana.”

We dressed, I in the old panties and soft shorts, Sylphe in her diaphanous lace, and walked back into the anteroom where John, Iain and Frederic were speaking conspiratorially. “Please, read and accept the charges.” There were none, but I ticked ‘Additional’ and put four kℂ in. Then I had to determine the outgoing account and I ticked ‘Clothing and accessories (Trust I)’, thumbed the pad and we were done.

Sylphe suggested the males were in a negotiation and we sat on the desk, touching, learning one another. I looked at her eyes: she is mosaic, blue and green. ‘You didn’t notice right away?’ ‘Confusion in the plethora of exotic assets.’ Her high chiming laugh. “Silver-tongued devil, though you cannot wear silver at all, can you?” I shook my head.

Frederic came in with John and Iain. “How do they feel?” “I’m on an endorphin high, according to Sylphe. She says let them settle down. A couple hurt. The industrials are a little sensitive, the nipples are apparently, um, - uh, look, let’s say ‘good’, all right?” Laughter.

I moved fine but yup, seat belts, and though I dragged it over my nipple and it hurt there was a little thrill and both nipples got stiff again. We were back to Beck’s place a couple hours after we’d left. I thanked John and Iain for their help, picked up the bridle, took that to the play room where the rest of my tack was, and went to find the rest of the crew. They’d started a little early carrying baskets and blankets and putting them out on the low-growing thyme ‘lawn’. We wound up converging under a moderately-sized cherry tree.

“How did it go?” asked Beck. “I ended up doing the whole list. Frederic’s assistant was persuasive.” The only sign they’d have had were the industrials and second earrings, and those were not so easy to see, yet, under my corn rows. “Show us?” I looked around, stripped. “That’s ... quite a bit of metal.” Ali said “It is. On the other hand think of Ash three weeks ago.” Bang-ja: “Nails not even colored, just his earrings - and they weren’t like those are. Never any make-up. Clothing a disaster. Even in old-folks’ shorts and a tank she looks hot, now, and that’s before you find out how good a lover she is.” All three of them knew I was blushing, because they’d got far more observant than they’d been. They were teasing.

We kissed all around with mischievous touches that started another of those ‘nipples up’ moments. Ali’s nipples are fun to play with. They’re small. They function well if you want to heat him up, though, and as I eyed them his shorts appeared to have got tighter. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed one and he put his arms around me. “Better get dressed, because I want to undress you myself, later.”

Gentlefolk were arriving and I thought I knew about half. My fam, Danni’s (but not Danni herself, she was probably playing with majors who’d line up for her), Ali’s including the juniors and littles, Bang-ja’s plus Tak. Other folk were most likely friends of Beck’s dads or FOAFs, I figured since from the point of view of first impressions they were 65% or so male. One was Frederic, and I recalled Sylphe’s comment that John, Iain and he might have been negotiating. It didn’t matter, at the start people seemed to congregate for hugs and introductions and then they would diffuse across the area. I was in the middle of greetings when Tak asked why the mom shorts downgrade, and I said “fresh piercings.” “How many?” “Fifteen.” “Wow, all in one day?” “Yep. The assistant/surrogate at the piercer’s was persuasive.” “I ... know I can’t ask, Ash, but I hope you will be showing some of them off, soon.” “That was the idea, Tak. My ... close friends, of whom you know at least one, helped me decide on them; they’ll look at me and know I listened.” Tak smiled. “Do they change anything?” “Yes, they’re making themselves felt and they keep me conscious of my body.” Tak nodded. “I’m glad they are doing good things for you.”