Chapter 1: Lend a Friend, Lose Double

The return of his awareness brought only confusion. His senses groped, but there was simply not enough to orient him. He lacked light, sound, or any ability to move. With nothing to push against and no variations in pressure, he could not even tell which way was up or what position his body was in. He had risen from the murk of unconsciousness, only to break the surface in pitch black.

Breathing. He could hold his breath and feel the gentle burn in his chest. He could pant, and feel the resistance as the air squeezed through his nose with some difficulty. What was it called ... sensory deprivation tank? Was he in one of those?

It would be meaningless to try and explain what time passed in this way, as he could not reliably count the breaths he took. Conscious thoughts blended with dreams in waking hallucinations of reason. His very sense of logic failed completely, in no small part due to the fact that his memories were as unreachable as his senses.

What did he know, in this bodiless prison of time and breath? He knew he was a man, for whatever that was worth. What was the other thing? His mind spun off into dissociated spirals again. But he thought sometimes in sensation, as with breathing or flying, and other times in words. Language, that was a thing that existed. But what language?

He must have started over in this hopeless search hundreds of times. So when sensation returned, it was intoxicating. He felt vibrations, and a sudden thump. The unruly portions of his mind that had run riot in the void now suddenly snapped to keenest focus on this input. The subtle jolts were like a blinding spotlight into dark-adjusted eyes: he winced within himself at the intensity of the knowledge now that down was beneath him.

After the movements ceased, he had enough of his faculties to reflect on the probability that he was in some kind of crawling position. He was on hands and knees somehow, but suspended in a medium that kept the ground from being anything he needed to deal with. It did not make sense to him, but it was glorious to have anything new to think about.

His mind tumbled freely again, and when sensation returned, it was again in the form of touch. Hands ... a woman's hands, yes that was the other sex ... a woman running her fingers along his arms. The sensation again stunned him, and came with a growing fire in his belly that made him want to clench, to bear down on ... what, exactly? Something felt wrong.

The hands vanished, but the tingling remained. It distracted him enough that he wasn't shocked by the reappearance of sound in his world. He could now hear the breaths he took, and slowly he began to hear the acoustics of a room. He was inside and not alone, or at least the sounds of movement in front of his head made it seem that way.

"Well now, let's see what they've done for you!"

The voice was indeed female. He felt her tug at his head, and then she pulled the mask from his face. Tubes snaked painfully out of his nostrils and throat, and a rubbery mouthpiece forced his jaw open before the whole contraption vanished from his experience. His eyes stayed shut tight, and even so the light from the room was excruciatingly bright.

"Well cut my throat..." the woman swore in astonishment.

He felt a wave of nausea pass as his mind grew accustomed to the sensation of air on his face and saliva on his tongue. He gritted his teeth, working himself slowly to the world outside his cocoon. But the woman had other plans. She had already moved around behind him, and was pulling a plug out of his anus.

His muscles were somehow deliberately relaxed back there, and he let it go with a gentle wet pop. Then he felt the most peculiar sensation: some sort of sheath must be sliding off his cock, rubbing against his balls, but missing the tip? It made no sense, but he had other things to worry about as he tried to relax his eyelids.

"Oh, now this is unreal..." The woman's voice came from behind him. He was still trying to come anywhere near ready to open his eyes when he felt his glans being squashed and rubbed around and mushed into his balls and--this shouldn't be possible with a healthy penis. What had been done to him? Was he still just confused? His hips bucked in the springy suspension bondage.

"Oh, this suits me just fine!" The awed female voice sighed, and then came again from near his head. "Lights a little too bright for you, pet? Here, let me dim them for you..."

The pain behind his eyes softened, and he soon found he could open them into the darkness. Fireworks danced across his vision, but eventually he was able to focus on the fuzzy shape of a naked woman squatting in front of him.

"Like what you see?" She stood up and did a pirouette for his benefit, but it was mostly lost on him. "They did an amazing job on me, I think. Put me back better than I remembered! But this just withers compared to what they did to you!"

She giggled and squatted down again, and he began to work his jaw. He had to try and speak, but what came out was an indistinct moan. The voice he heard...

But the woman had already pulled out a floor-length mirror and wheeled it to him, and he could begin to see. He was in a box, of some sort. It was a black vacuum-box, his head poking out from one side, surrounded by the rubbery suspension membrane like a conical ruff. His head was slender, somehow ... something not right.

"This is what Mazos has chosen for you." The woman was enjoying this moment, though perhaps she overestimated the progress of his senses.

He groaned again, and it began to dawn on him what he now was. The voice from his throat was not just high, but sweet. The sensations at his groin, the arousal inside his gut, the feeling of his skin against the clingy bondage...

"That's right, pet. It's Domeda. After we were separated, the Dæmons asked my petition. And from the looks of things, they granted it!" she chuckled slightly, "And just like in the stories, they didn't do it in the way I imagined. I can't complain ... although you're probably going to hate it."

He worked his tongue and jaw, huffing out sounds. He did not know this woman. The name "Domeda" was unfamiliar. He didn't remember any of the events she referred to, though the mention of Mazos and the Dæmons brought back some kind of ancient instinctive fear.

"What's that, pet? I can't understand you."

He continued to try to make sounds he could turn to words. The syrupy voice gasped and cracked from his throat.

"Let me get you something for that throat."

The woman disappeared for a moment, and came back with a stick of something, which she pushed against his tongue. It plunged into his throat, and he felt himself swallow instinctively. He felt instantly humiliated, and the humiliation only increased the arousal in his belly.

Once he caught his breath, he tried again. Sounds came out as voice now, and his lips clumsily formed the shapes he needed, feeling swollen as if numbed.

"What's that pet? I still can't hear you." She leaned closer.

He brought all his strength to bear and choked out his question.

"WHO..."

"Yes?" she prompted, irritatingly.

"AM..."

"What?"

"I?"

Domeda had stormed out in frustration, leaving him alone with his thoughts. She didn't stop at that, of course: in one corner of the room she had set out a full-length mirror so that he could see the extent of his predicament. In some ways, this turned out to be worse than the empty confusion of the void that had tormented him before his awakening.

He bobbed his head and made faces, astonished that the bald head in the mirror reflected his actions back to him. He squirmed as best he could, and watched the slick black body struggle in the vacuum-cube displayed in the looking glass. He was captivated by what he saw, yet the only conclusion he could reach was that it was some sort of image mapping system: a bit of computational trickery to play with his foggy mind.

He could not bring to memory any idea of what his face should look like, but he was dead certain that it should not resemble the one in the mirror. His expectations would have suggested a square jaw, and he had some instinctive urge to run his fingers through what ought to be a beard. But the face in the mirror was long and slender, and so clearly female that it would be laughable to imagine any stubble on its chin.

But it was the body that had him questioning his own self-image. Squirming against the membrane that held him on all fours, he felt the suction pulling against the bulbous breasts that hung beneath his chest. The more he tugged with shoulders and stomach, the more he recognized the sensations that matched the movements in the mirror.

But worst of all was the device between his legs. Before she left, Domeda had attached something to his exposed crotch, in the concavity of the vacuum-cube's membrane opposite his head. It was out of sight in the mirror, but he could feel it just fine. And the sensations only troubled him more.

He felt a plug inside his anus, and that much was simple enough. Or, it would be except that there was a second plug that felt as though it ran straight up his frenulum and against his prostate. Where the first plug only filled and humiliated, the second plug hummed with a pleasing warmth that kept him sexually stimulated. What's worse, there was a third attachment that felt as though it squashed between his balls and rested teasingly against his glans.

The geometry of this arrangement was baffling enough, but with what he saw in the mirror he began to question his own very anatomy. Surely it must be simpler to assume that the second plug was in his vagina, and that the attachment must be teasing his clitoris? But why, despite his debilitating amnesia, was he so certain that he'd never had any such body parts before?

The last unexpected aspect of his body was the reaction to the pleasure it received. His muscle-memory expected a tease that brought on a slow crescendo in desire like a swelling balloon behind his cock. At some point the scales would tip, and he'd explode in sudden release. But the ride he was on now had a dramatically different flavor.

Everything about the teasing pleasure within was more complex and subtle. Instead of pressure and tension building in a single spot, waves of pleasure rippled through in chaotic combination. He could not put to words how it all worked, but it only began to make sense if he thought of it in terms of female anatomy. It was enjoyable, to be sure, but he felt himself longing for the crashing release that he'd come to expect.

He was still squirming and experimenting, trying to bear down on the device at his crotch when Domeda returned. She was now dressed very smartly in a slick latex business outfit complete with pencil-skirt, corset-blazer, and a pillbox fascinator that nestled in her rolled up-do. She stalked toward him on her towering platform heels and squatted down to grab his chin in her fingers.

"Ah, I can see by your pupils that you're well and truly randy right now! Well, perhaps if you're a good girl we can do something about that." She let his head drop and then held herself steady on the frame of the vacuum-cube, looking it over with interest. "I think that it's about time I let you out to begin your life of service!"

She disappeared out of view for a while, and there was a sighing sound as the vacuum-cube fell slack. He tumbled to the floor and bumped his head against the frame. His struggles had brought some tone back into his arms and legs, but clearly not enough for him to stand yet. He flailed in the loose sheets of rubbery film, and managed to drag himself only as far as freeing his shoulders and arms before Domeda hauled him to the floor.

He lay back, panting, and then turned to the mirror again. Reaching one hand to his chest, he grabbed and gently kneaded one of the firm breasts that sat atop his chest, squashed slightly by gravity. He explored the outer contours of his feminine curves, and then finally ventured to run his fingers between his thighs.

What he felt there was firm metal or plastic. He rolled his knees over to get a better angle in the mirror, and could only see a glittering panel of silver. A little green light winked slowly in time with the rhythms of the teasing devices it concealed. He ran his fingers down its length, and found it perfectly sealed to his flesh from pubic mound all the way to the plug in his anus.

"The stories say that they prefer their tribute in an aroused and frustrated state." Domeda seemed to be reciting words she'd heard before, sneering at their intent, gazing all the while into his confused eyes. "Ah, I suppose your memory hasn't returned yet. A pity the choice of belt is lost on you, then. It's the exact device you placed on me before we set out on our little journey together. Still doesn't ring a bell?"

Domeda sighed and helped him to his knees, the strength returning to his limbs with amazing speed. Still, he reached down with his hands and rubbed the smooth casing of the belt, upper arms squashing his breasts together into a not-unattractive cleavage.

"Well I'll keep it simple for now." Domeda knelt down behind him, hands on his shoulders, and spoke to his reflection in the mirror. "You took twelve slavegirls to Mazos as tribute. The Daemons found your request selfish and unappealing, and instead granted favor to me. When we entered the Ziggurat, you were my male Owner. Now you are my slavegirl!"

He stared into the mirror, astonishment leaving his jaw slack and desire fluttering his eyelashes. He slid his hands up to his pert breasts and massaged them sensuously, taking advantage of the lack of barriers over his erect nipples. Exhausted, he leaned his head back onto Domeda's shoulder and squeaked out a word.

"Please..."

Domeda sneered into the mirror, "Learning to beg, my little pet? Tell me, for what do you beg?"

"Please ... Let me ... come?"

"Well, my little fuckpet, it is time for your first lesson!" Domeda pinched his nipples hard, twisting and pulling them outward. He gasped, his eyes wide, and he arched his sore back to relieve the tension. "Please let me come... what?"

"Please!" He panted, his voice emitting high lusty peals of girly squealing, "Mistress! Please let me come, Mistress!"

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Domeda let go of his nipples and stood, letting him fall to the floor. He rolled onto all fours, and began to feel almost as if he had the strength to stand now. His hips bucked involuntarily at the unending stimulation at his new groin, but he rose to one foot and one knee.

Domeda had hiked up her skirt, and now sat on a cushion with her knees spread horizontally to either side. Her pussy jangled with rings and adornments, and she gestured to it with a long-handled riding crop.

"Here's how it's going to work. You will give me pleasure while I give you pain. Then I will grant you a reward as fits your performance. Once we have finished all these requirements we shall go out and celebrate the arrangement. Now: lick, pet."

He stopped in his half-stood crouch, stunned. He could not think of who he was or how he could get out of this. He did not want to be a slavegirl to this woman who clearly had a vendetta against him for things he could not remember. He felt nothing but the urge to run, even naked and female as he now was. His eyes shot nervously to the door of the apartment, and then back to Domeda as if afraid she'd know what he was thinking.

Of course, she did know. "Ah, not feeling up for formal slavery just yet? Well if you are feeling well enough you can always just walk out by the front door."

She seemed genuine, as if she did not care if he left then and there. Every fibre of his being, every instinct forged by memories he could not recall, every neuron in his groggy brain was telling him it was a trap, but he had to try it or wonder forever if he'd given up freedom needlessly. Slowly, on shaky legs hooked to hips that felt far too low for him, he stood and staggered toward the door.

When he reached the wall, he leaned against it for support, touching the control and letting the bulkhead swing open. Outside he saw one of the interior levels of a City Spire somewhere in one of Torei's ringdoms. He couldn't tell where he really was, but the call of outside was just too strong. He stepped forward. He could catch someone's attention. He could find a foreign embassy, or a hospital, or a kind stranger. Perhaps that screaming woman...