Chapter 8: Reactor

Hospitality

“Look, why don’t you stay over. We’ve got a double room that is not occupied tonight. It’s a long drive and, Jenny, you must be feeling exhausted. None of this can have been easy for you — and you can have dinner with us?”

Jenny looks around to Joe. He can tell she’d like to stay. He’s not so sure that he wants to spend any more time here than is absolutely necessary, but it is going to be very late by the time they get home if they start the journey now, and if it helps Jenny re-adjust then it’s all to the good — and the offer of dinner is tempting.

“Sure,” says Joe. “Why not? Thanks, Corinne, we’d like that.”

Jenny, happy for Joe to take the initiative, nods her agreement, too. “Yes. Thanks.”

“Just take one of the rooms in the guest wing, Jenny. Number 5 is free, I’m sure. You’ll remember where it is?”

Oh yes, she remembers. She remembers where the room is. Remembers waiting on — who? It doesn’t matter. She and Joe head off to the car to get a few things.

While the two of them organize themselves, Corinne leaves her office to speak with Cynthia, another member of the Senior Management Team.

Cynthia works part time at Inward Bound when she is not at her regular job as a senior surgical nurse at one of the London Teaching Hospitals. Corinne finds her, busy in her “surgery,” assisted by Josephine. Cynthia is such a striking girl, she muses. The spiky red hair and blue eyes, accentuated by her blue scrubs and white clogs. Who would have thought that such utilitarian and practical clothes could look so ... so sensual?

A slim muscular black girl is strapped down onto Cynthia’s medical couch. She is blindfolded and wears a pony bit gag. Josephine carefully wipes the drool from the edges of her mouth. Otherwise, her body is covered with a sheen of sweat even though the surgery is warm, almost cosy. A smooth segment ring (1) appears from the side of the girl’s nose and loops back to disappear into her nostril.

“That really looks good,” thinks Corinne, envious in a way of the girl’s broad African nose which bears its new jewelry so attractively.

Cynthia has been busy. Two silver, ball-ended rods transfix the girl’s dark, fat nipples. Large nipples on tight pert breasts. A tiny river of blood has come from beneath one of the balls in the girl’s left nipple, so the piercings must have just been done. “Well,” thinks Corinne, “that would explain why she is sweating!”

Cynthia is still at work, this time between the girl’s legs. She glances up as she senses some else in the room.

“Hi, Corinne. This is Stephanie, but you will have met already.”

“Hi, Stephanie,” says Corinne with a chuckle, rubbing her hand gently along the girl’s bare leg, by way of a reassuring greeting. Cynthia glances up quickly to see that whilst Corinne is not wearing sterile surgical gloves, she is well away from Cynthia’s “clean area.”

Cynthia continues, unhurried by Corinne’s arrival: “Today is Stephanie’s birthday and her partner has given her some new jewelry. Now just one last piece, Honey. Small sting here.”

Corinne enjoys watching Cynthia at work. Her confidence. The sure and deft movements of her hands. The fluid sequence of steps taken and the attractive and sexy results.

The girl yelps — even though she is gagged — as Cynthia delicately holds her clit hood out of the way and deftly passes a cannula through the clit. Cynthia removes the metal hypodermic from inside its plastic sleeve leaving the sleeve passing through the sensitive web of skin.

Josephine, now Corinne’s assistant for the moment, opens a sterile packet and Corinne uses a small curved artery clip to grasp a small neat curved barbell and pass it back through the sleeve. She withdraws the sleeve, leaving the barbell in position through the clit and returns to the packet to retrieve a shiny polished silver ball which she screws onto the free end of the rod, trapping the rod snugly in place.

The whole operation has taken hardly two minutes and leaves Stephanie with something that will give her a lifetime of pleasure.

“There, Honey! All done. Now, I’m going to leave you to recover with Josephine and I’ll come to see you later in the day,” says Cynthia as she strips off her rubber gloves and throws them into a bin marked “Biohazard.”

“Josie,” Cynthia continues, “can you clean Steph up? Then I would like her arms restrained behind her back. Use one of the shortish straps to go between her wrist cuffs, nothing too tight, but make sure she can’t fiddle with her new piercings, and I think we can take her gag out now.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” replies Josephine, winking at Corinne as she removes Stephanie’s gag.

For her part, Corinne knows that the bondage being inflicted on Stephanie will do more than keep her hands away from her wounds. The new piercings will start to itch in due course and she will be completely unable to rub her nipples or clit to give herself any soothing relief which will, in turn, increase the psychological burden by making the itch seem worse. Corinne smiles at Cynthia’s ingenuity. She is such an artful and valuable colleague!

Cynthia has not yet finished playing. “So, is this a good way to celebrate your birthday?”

“I am going to give my boyfriend such a spanking when I get home for setting me up like this,” replies Stephanie.

“You are?”

“Yep, definitely.”

“Hmmm. Have you much experience at giving punishment spankings? I mean, you are quite right. Most boyfriends need them quite often and quite hard, too...”

“Well, no, but I was thinking about on-the-job training?”

“Stephanie, I have got a better idea! Ylena always says you have to bottom before you can top and you are here to learn to be a better bottom. I will ask Ylena to give you a thorough punishment spanking first, just so you know exactly what to do if your Dom ever gives you the chance!”

Cynthia, having cleverly talked Stephanie into asking to have herself spanked, gives her patient a gentle pat on her bum and turns to give Corinne her full attention.

“Now, Corrie: what can I do for you? Envious of Stephanie?” (Actually, Corinne is envious) because Josephine and I could have things set up ready for you in no time, couldn’t we, Josie?”

“Certainly could,” calls Josephine over her shoulder as she guides Stephanie out of the room and back to her cell.

Corinne smiles and says: “Well, one day, Cynthia, but not today unfortunately because we need to talk. Has Josephine had time to speak with you?”

“Only to say that Jenny McEwan and Joe were visiting. Story to tell there, I expect,” replies Cynthia and adds with a sly smile, “oh, and by the way, I will remember about the ‘unfortunately’!”

Corinne chuckles at Cynthia’s flirtatious remark and says: “You don’t know the half of it. Look, we need a Senior Team Meeting after dinner tonight. That’s what I came to tell you.”

“Senior Team Meeting? That sounds serious. So, an interesting afternoon with the McEwans, I guess?”

“You could say so...”

Reactor

Corinne, Charlotte, Josephine, Ylena and Cynthia are gathered in Corinne’s flat. The whiskey is open and most of them are on their second glass. They are drinking doubles.

“This afternoon: that was seriously creepy,” says Josephine. “What Jenny had to say and everything...”

“and the way she became another person and the way she started to give us the prepared statement about the data,” adds Corinne. “That was serious mind control — I have never seen better.”

“and the way Jenny’s abductors are still in touch with her, still trying to control her. I thought when someone escaped from a kidnap gang, the gang would disappear as far as they could under stones or something and get as far from their victims as they could, but to keep in touch through Jenny’s computer, I mean it’s just ... well ... don’t they have any fear of the police? This is so completely outside my experience,” adds Charlotte.

“We are dealing with some very powerful people,” interjects Ylena, “and no, I do not think they have any fear of the police at all. I also do not think it was ever their intention to release Jenny. They want her back and they are trying to get her ready, preparing their campaign. I think Jenny remains in great danger.”

The eyes of those present come to rest on Ylena as she continues: “Jenny came to see me this afternoon. She wanted to ask if she could borrow my studio to play with Joseph, who might get rather more than he expects” — Ylena pauses and smiles — “but we began to talk, as you might expect. The first thing you need to know is that we spoke in Russian. Jenny is not completely fluent but she is very good. I suppose it’s only to be expected if that is almost all she has heard for two years. She told me that she worked with people from the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University. That is Russia’s leading university institution and that in itself tells us a lot about the influence of those who took her. She also said she was given a new name. Not merely a slave name, but a proper Russian name. She was told she had been given official Russian citizenship and a passport. She actually saw the documentation and passport. This underlines, if that is needed, that the people who took her were very well connected with the Russian State. They obviously have extensive resources to call on. I think Jenny’s abduction was very carefully planned. It was not a random event. They went specifically for her, not just any girl from England. They went for her because of what she knew; because of her research; because of the data she had collected; because of what she could tell them about us.”

The rest of the team looks uncomfortable. They are finding Ylena’s analysis both compelling and disturbing.

“After all,” Ylena continues, “she was not taken halfway through her data collection, but at the end when the only thing left to do was the analysis. To reap the fruits of the work she had already done.”

“So she must have been under observation for some time and her data must have also been secretly gathered over several months?” comments Charlotte.

“Yes, I believe that would be the correct conclusion,” adds Ylena.

“So, who is she now?” asks Corinne.

“Jenny? She told me she is Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova.”

“Ah, so do the names tell us anything?”

“Vyera means ‘truth, ‘ a useful virtue in a slave and especially if she is working on data analysis. Kuznetsova is a rather common Russian family name but, equally, it is a name shared with several famous Russians. Anatolyevna is interesting. Her patronymic. It would normally be the name of her father — or perhaps it is derived from the name of her owner: Anatoly.”

“An artist should sometimes be careful about signing his work,” muses Corinne.

“Exactly,” replies Ylena, “but this also tells us that it was not the intention to ever let her go. I believe they will come for Jenny again, sooner than later. She will have to develop a plan to keep her freedom...”

There is a compelling logic in Ylena’s words. Most of the group shifts uncomfortably in their chairs at the thought of the threat so cleverly and convincingly dissected from a few bald facts.

Then Cynthia asks, “Isn’t there a bit of inconsistency in her story? Jenny told you all that she was forced to wear a shock collar to keep her inside bounds. Where was the scary collar when she jumped ship?”

Ylena replies, “ ... and that was one of the things I asked Jenny this afternoon. She told me that the collar had malfunctioned. It had contracted her boundary until she was confined in her cabin. The collar was removed so she could get on with her work. There was no spare.”

“So it was pure luck that the collar had a technical malfunction and her husband and parents happened to be sitting on shore as the boat passed and her Mistress took the decision to release her because she was in that instant inspired to do something completely out of the ordinary?”

It takes the company a moment to come to terms with the narrowness of Jennifer’s escape and the special conjunction of events that made it possible. Cynthia breaks the tension: “Don’t panic, ladies and gentlemen,” she says facetiously. “Elvis has left the building!”

Ylena glances at her watch — “Ah ... you are all going to have to excuse me. I have promised to supervise a novice Top and an inexperienced sub.” She winks, leaving the rest of them to their conversation and with the whiskey.

Corrine carries on. “So how on earth did we come to the attention of these people? We are not doing anything that is exactly ‘cutting edge.’ There are other playgrounds. Our particular market differential is the attractive and safe package we wrap it up in.”

“What marked us out was having a psychologist look critically at the personalities of our clients. To study their potential,” Josephine offers.

“No,” says Charlotte. “Remember what Jenny said this afternoon. The project belonged to her supervisor — presumably in Russia — and her supervisor here was not authorized to begin a parallel study, so Jenny’s abductors must have found out about her from Professor Dawney.”

“Might have ... if Dawney was not ‘authorised’ to start a parallel study, why would she confess to doing so?” asks Cynthia.

“Well, she would not confess to that exactly,” replies Corinne. “Academia is fiercely competitive. She was probably just very cheeky and pinched someone else’s idea. Do you remember I said that I took a call recently from someone called Cathy Corbin to tell me that Jenny was back and to talk about the leak of data? The first indication we had was an article in a Russian journal. She told me Dawney had been ‘very disappointed’ to read about the activities of the other research group, but she actually meant very angry.”

“Corinne,” says Josephine, “can I borrow your laptop? I believe in spreadsheets and a spreadsheet is what we need here.”

Josephine opens Excel and selects New Workbook. In line 1 column A, she writes “Jenny Saga” and begins properly on line 5.

“So, in column A we have IWB. Here we are on our own, struggling to start a business, but then” ... she enters Clegg in column B... “but then, Larry’s people show up out of the blue to give us money. Everything is OK until” ... she enters Jenny into column C... “until Jenny joins a course and half-way through Professor Dawney calls to ask for her to return for some reason or other, I just can’t remember what it was exactly” ... and Josephine enters Jenny again in Column D with Dawney in the row underneath.

“And I told Larry,” continues Corinne, “that Jenny was, in fact, conducting some undisclosed research on IWB and that there was something about Dawney which made me feel uncomfortable.”

Josephine returns to Column D and writes Larry beneath Dawney.

She continues, “And then, the CIA pay a call demanding to arrest Jenny and, so it seems, to also arrest Dawney.” Josephine writes CIA in Column E and highlights the cell in yellow. “Now, we are all beside ourselves about what we ought to do but Larry” ... she enters Larry under CIA and Excel obligingly highlights Larry, all on its own... “but Larry says, ‘Don’t worry” because he has a friend in the Foreign Office and we get some numbers, apparently in the US, but we did not actually know who we were actually talking to. Anyway, if you look at the columns, A to B is years. B to C is many months. C to D is four weeks and D to E is days. What was it Corrie? Two, three? If you were the CIA, would you come here to arrest Jenny with all sorts of people around to see it happen or would you pick her up at home in the middle of the night when she could be taken away down deserted streets?”

“There is Joseph at home,” points out Charlotte.

“But he was away, abroad,” counters Josephine. “Anyway, I have not finished. In column F, we have Jenny collecting data with our full knowledge this time also Larry and FCE” ... Josephine enters JenDatCol and beneath, IWB and beneath that Larry and beneath that FCE... “E to F is about eighteen months or so and then, in Column G, Jenny disappears and two plus years later you have Jenny again in Column H. This time she is back and she says, in case any of you have forgotten, she says that when she presented her completed investigation to her Abductors, one of them says ‘So that’s why they were interested: They don’t have to go after people. The people come after them!’ Jenny wants to know if ‘They’ means us but we know it doesn’t mean us and there is only one other group of people on the page...”

And Corinne says, “Larry and FCE. FCE is a Transport and Logistics Company. They are transporting people and using us to identify targets. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Who have we got into bed with?”

“No,” says Cynthia, “who has got into bed with us?”

A Night To Remember, from Jenny’s point of view.

As Jenny and Joe return from dinner, Jenny reflects on her life. On how it was a few months ago and how it is now.

“When I was away, I was always the person who had things done to them.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I was the animal that had things done to it. Taken away. Made to do menial domestic jobs. Made to speak in a language that was not mine. Made to work on my project for someone else’s benefit. Made to be a sexual plaything for other people. Made to work out in the gym to look sexy for other people, or rather, look the way other people thought would be sexy. Made to have my body modified in ways other people liked or found useful. And there was never anything for me...”

“At first I just could not bring myself to believe what was happening. Surely it had to be some dreadful nightmare and I would soon wake up, at home? I never did wake up but, soon enough, self-delusion was impossible. The awful reality was truly the world in which I had to live.”

“I think back at the times I put up some sort of resistance. I was punished and forced to do whatever was expected of me. Whatever I did or said or thought, it was always a step towards total submission and acceptance of slavery.”

“The worst of it is that the longer it went on, the more I began to enjoy ‘my situation’ as my captors used to call it. I don’t know at what point I became hopelessly addicted, but addicted I certainly was. So addicted that, when the opportunity came to break free, I had to be driven to leave by the direct orders of my Mistress.”

“It seems absurd. The slave escapes but only because the slave is obedient to the commands of her owner, who has to tell the slave to return to her husband and parents.”