Chapter 15 - Revising the plan and a relentless punishment

Revising the plan and a relentless punishment.

Two days later, I lay reclined in Marie’s large living-room sofa, her head in my lap. I was playing with her hair. Her mom was out of town for the whole weekend, and we had decided to spend all of that time together, just taking care of each other and talking.

-”Daddy?” she said.

-”Yes, pet?” -”What did you and Annika talk about while we all slept?” -”I think you’ve guessed already.” -”Therapy talk?” -”I guess. She was blaming herself for behaving like a slut and having asked for it. Felt she had it coming, the way she acted that night. You know, the usual cliché stuff that is a fucking cliché because it simply happens so often.” -”That’s depressing. Did you talk her out of it? She doesn’t blame herself any longer?” -”For a while, at least. Those thoughts will probably return. Shame, you know. Shame and sexuality.” She was silent for a while, toying with the fingers of my left hand.

-”So what are you going to do about them?” she asked, taking me by surprise.

-”Them? The rapists?” -”Come on. I think I know you well enough. You made her tell you their names, right?” -”I can’t keep secrets like that from you, can I, pet?” -”No daddy, you’re transparent like that. And you’re so conflicted about morality. You don’t even know what to do about them, do you?” -”I don’t.” -”You want to kill them. You also want to cut off their balls and have them suffer their whole lives.

And then you feel bad about thinking like that, don’t you?” -”I do. Go on, what else am I thinking?” She was silent for a minute.

-”You’re thinking you also feel sorry for them, right?” -”In a sense, I guess.” -”And deep down, you feel ashamed, because who are you to blame them? What you’re doing is just as bad, you think. Worse, even. You’re the one who deserves to have his balls cut off or something.” -”The thought had occurred to me, yes. What else?” -”You’re thinking about ways of fixing their brains so that they will be proportionately punished and also be incapacitated in some way, so that they can never do what they did again, to another girl or to Annika. You want everyone to be safe from them.” -”Are you sure you haven’t installed some mind-reading technology of your own inside my brain, pet?” -”Don’t overestimate yourself. Your thoughts aren’t all that original.” -”You’re amazing, pet. I really mean that. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found you. I love you, little one.” -”I love you too, daddy.” -”I wish you wouldn’t call me that, pet. It’s embarrassing.” -”You know, I think I love you more that you love yourself.” She said.

-”Really?” I said, leaning so that I could look her in the eye.

-”Yes, because while you think pretty highly of yourself, you also despise yourself. I simply love you, and I don’t despise you one bit.” -”Come up here and kiss me, pet.” -”Yes daddy.” -”Hush.”

When we broke off our kiss, I felt better than I had done since our romp with the four girls two days previous. I had been somber and morose, but now I felt my spirits lifting. I nestled my fingers in hers and started playing with her hair again with my other hand.

-”You know” I started; “I’ve been thinking” -”Yes?” -”Maybe we don’t have to be in such a rush? To leave the city, I mean.” -”Because of all our new friends?” She asked, smiling broadly, closing her eyes with pleasure while I played with her copper red curls.

-”I would really miss many of them. Like a lot.” -”Me too.” -”It’s just I know that’s just brain chemistry. I know almost everything there is to know about those neuropeptides and hormones, yet I can’t I can’t just shrug that feeling off as just chemistry.” -”Of course not. The fact that those feelings are all just chemistry doesn’t make them any less real.” -”Yeah” I said, squeezing her hand; “For every batch of girls we’ve played with - the ones I’ve had by myself, and those I’ve had with you - I think I’ve fallen in love. And now that we’ve met some of them twice, I feel even more strongly for them.” -”You have a female brain, you know that?” She asked, surprising me again.

-”Really? How?” -”I’ve read that that’s a typical female thing, falling in love every time you have good sex with someone. That men can usually have sex without emotions like that.” -”I don’t know, really. I’m boosting my testosterone levels, pet. My brain chemistry is ultra-male right now.” -”I guess. You’re more sensitive than I am, though.” -”I don’t think I believe in female sensitivity and empathy versus male insensitivity and cluelessness.” -”You know females are more verbal that males, right? That this is a consistent find across cultures?” -”Your point, pet?” -”Would you describe yourself as verbally proficient?” I laughed at that.

-”Ok, so maybe I have a female brain. I guess I’m a lesbian then.” Her turn to laugh.

-”A lesbian with an unusually large clit, in that case, “ she continued the joke.

-”But seriously, pet” I insisted after a moment of silence; “I mean, the six-week infection period will soon come to an end, but I can still override that and keep everyone in the city infected indefinitely. For as long as we would like to stay. Or we could just let everyone’s NanoRep systems flush, except for the girls’ I’ve tagged already. And we can hang around here.” -”I think you’re being silly. Wherever we go, you’ll soon be able to infect new little fuck-puppets to be your slaves and companions, and you will fall in love with them too, and eventually you will lose your sense of a bond with the ones in this city. Or it will fade at any rate. Staying here is taking a risk. You really ought to abandon your old identity and fake your own death, you know. Eventually, someone will become suspicious of the things that are going on here - the money trail, the call centre.” -”It just feels so bad, bailing out on them, now that we’ve promised all of them to keep meeting.” -”So we establish a base somewhere far from here, and then we visit for a month of vacation at six month intervals or something. That way we keep in touch, and you will get to fuck all of them many more times, but we stay under the radar.” -”You’re so sober.” I accused.

-”I have to be, because you’re too sensitive. You need my sobriety to guide you, daddy.” -”I love you, pet.” -”So we agree then?” She asked, after a while. I was toying with her nipple, making it stand proud beneath her thin white tank top.

-”That we’ll set up base somewhere and just visit here occasionally? I guess that’s the best thing to do. We’ll stay for just a few more weeks than I had planned, so that I can talk to all the girls and explain that we need to leave.” -”What if some of them want to come with you?” -”I’d deny them.” -”What if they threaten to tell on you unless you allow them to come?” -”I could fry their hippocampus? Make them lose their memory?” -”Would you? Really? I think you’re too soft. Their love means too much to you.” -”I probably would think of some way that they could come” I agreed, letting out a sigh.

-”Just promise you’ll talk it over with me first, ok? So that we can come up with a plan together.

Don’t improvise things like that.” -”You’re so sober, pet. I promise I will come to you first, if one of them wants to come with us.” She squeezed my hand at that. I went back to toying with her nipples, feeling her breasts, enjoying how she looked. Breathing in her scent.

-”Daddy?” -”Yes pet?” -”I think the most merciful thing would be to kill them.” -”You’re joking.” -”Yes I am. Like I said the first time we talked about this, I don’t believe in the death penalty. But I can’t think of a good way of punishing and incapacitating them. I don’t know enough about the brain.” -”I could make them eunuchs. Or completely and irreversibly impotent for the rest of their lives.” -”That would be adequate and proportional punishment, sure - or more than that - but would it keep them from hurting others?” -”No, there are other ways of using others.” I said, making a wry face.

-”Oh will you just stop that, daddy? Stop wallowing in self-loathing. You’re giving people pleasure, curing people from depression, you’re going to start a research centre and release medicinal NanoReps to the public. From a utilitarian perspective, you’re doing pretty ok. And remember there are no moral truths. Just fucking accept yourself already.” -”Thanks, pet, but I just feel so hypocritical.” -”Name one girl you’ve hurt?” -”I can’t.” -”So?” -”But I can name a hundred girls that I have used.” -”Yes, but you fuck it, I’m not having this discussion with you for the twentieth time. Just get over it.” -”I probably never will.” -”Ok, I’ll just have to forgive you for your human weaknesses and inconsistencies, since you can’t.

Will that do?” -”Forgive me, pet, for I have sinned.” She barked a laugh.

-”I absolve you, daddy. Now go say your Hail Marys.” -”I’d rather eat you out, if that’s ok.” I let my hands slip lower, pulled her panties down to her knees, gently spread her legs and went down on her. She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes again.

For the sake of brevity, let’s just say sex happened, and it was heavenly.

An hour or two later, we were having some broccoli-bacon quiche in the kitchen. She put ketchup on hers, which made me wrinkle my nose in disgust, but I said nothing. Teens will be teens, after all.

-”Oh, by the way, “ she said, filling her mouth with a huge piece of broccoli so that I had to wait for her to continue; “I’ve looked into that whole business about delaying the onset of ageing to keep looking like a teenager for a really long time.”

-”Really? When did you have time to do that?” -”I’m not focusing much on school any longer, since I know I’ll be leaving shortly, so I have all the time I need during class.” -”Oh. Ok. Go on? Have you got any ideas?” -”It’s really complex and complicated. There are so many side-effects that you would get from directly manipulating the pituitary gland or the ovaries to decrease the production of oestrogen, so that idea is out the window.” She took another bite, this time drenching it in ketchup.

-”That was why I didn’t think it would work, yes.” -”But, I’ve thought about something else. You’re having the NanoReps build structures right inside the cranium, right?” -”Yes.” -”And they build around certain glands and regions of the brain?” -”Also yes. You know this already.” -”You have them damage your muscles every night, and cut and stretch ligaments in your penis, working on your corpora cavernosa.” -”Yes, though I’m only working on girth now, not length, remember?” -”Sure. But here’s what I would like to know - how the hell do they find their way to those particular places and tissues? Muscle tissue, for instance - what keeps them from hurting your heart muscle or the muscles in your gut?” -”Good question. All I can say is, they came with libraries for that.” -”As in, computer libraries? Seriously, if we want to get anywhere with this stuff, we have to dive into the nitty gritty details, which includes having a look at what is inside those libraries.” -”I’ve been meaning to do that, but I’ve been” -”You’ve been busy fucking young girls, Karl.” -”Now you called me by my name. Are you angry with me, pet?” -”Not really more like frustrated, you know. I have a different agenda here. You’re all about hedonism, and while I enjoy that a lot, I’m thinking of the long-term goals too. My goals, not yours.” -”Which includes keeping yourself in some form of perpetual teenage stasis.” -”Yes, physically. Because you would lose interest in me otherwise and I want to be your pet forever, daddy.” -”I love you pet.” -”I love you too, daddy. But I was about to tell you about my idea. I want to have the NanoReps work on my adipose tissue, and my follicles, and on certain skin cells.” -”Your follicles? In your ovaries?” -”No, my hair follicles. Like, you know, never having to shave ever again - perpetually hairless everywhere except for my head.” -”That would be neat. I don’t know if there is such a function in the libraries though.” -”Which is why we need to do our due diligence!” she gesticulated with her fork so that she spilled quiche and ketchup all over. She sighed and went to get some paper towels.

I thought of something and started laughing.

-”Hey, don’t laugh at me - I’m serious!” -”I wasn’t laughing at you, pet, I thought of something hilarious that I’m going to do if I find those functions in the libraries.” -”What?” -”This will suddenly become the city where no women have any body hair.” She shook her head at me.

-”You’re really that averse to body hair?” -”Only genital hair, sweetie, but just think about everyone’s reactions!” -”You’re a very strange man, daddy.” -”True. And the adipocytes? The skin cells?” -”The adipocytes are a simple matter. Oestrogens released in puberty cause body fat accumulation. It goes from about eight percent pre-puberty to over twenty percent post-puberty.

And for you, there’s some kind of sweet-spot?” -”You think it’s that simple? But then it could be handled with appetite control, you know.”

-”Not really. Not eating enough causes mood disorders, fatigue and hormone imbalances, and it goes against nature in a way that’s not healthy. If you simply kill off adipocytes, you could have the effect without the side-effects, I think.” -”What about bone growth?” -”You’d like me to be 4’ 11’’ for the rest of my life?” -”Sure. Perfect size.” -”I’ll have to look into that. But I think that could also be done best by immediately working on the bones, not by messing with growth factors and hormones. At least with the current level of understanding we have of the complexity of the systems involved.” -”You already sound like a med-student, pet.” -”That’s because I am one, daddy. Not formally, but that’s the skill-set I’m working on right now.” -”You’re sweet when go all prodigy on me, pet.” -”Don’t try to tell me you weren’t a prodigy at my age too, Karl.” -”I suppose I was, but I was more into computers and programming.” -”Which is fortuitous, because otherwise we wouldn’t be here right now.” -”Indeed.” When we were doing the dishes after dinner, Marie turned to me with a very serious expression.