Less than an Hour
by Jennifer Kohl
Laura woke with a start. Her big blue eyes snapped open onto an almost completely dark room.
“Ah, awake at last, Dr. Cunningham?”
Laura became aware of several facts at once: One, she was strapped into one of the lab’s interface chair, which was bad. Two, she was strapped in, which was worse. Three, she was dressed only in panties and bra, which was worst of all.
“Phil? What the hell is going on?”
“You tell me, Dr. Cunningham.” Her research assistant’s voice dripped with sarcasm on the “doctor”.
Laura closed her eyes, trying to stay calm. “You’ve got me in an interface chair. What are you planning?”
“Just a little experiment, doctor.”
“Phil, stop this,” Laura urged. “I know you’re angry, but—”
“Angry!” Phil laughed. “I’m not angry. Why should I be angry? I’m getting a huge prize here.”
“What are you planning?” Laura had a sick feeling she already knew the answer. Something smelled odd.
“You’re not going to stand in my way any longer, little girl.”
Laura cringed. She’d always suspected Phil resented her. It wouldn’t be the first time—but Laura couldn’t help being smart. She’d excelled in school, and finished her PhD in neurology by the time she was twenty, and immediately got snapped up by a big research company. Two years later, she was working alone on a project with huge potential. It was only natural they’d assign her a recent hire, fresh out of grad school, as a research assistant; it wasn’t her fault he was nearly thirty.
“Listen, Phil, I know you’re angry and frustrated,” Laura said, “but you know you can’t do this. It’s a violation of every ethical —”
“Shut up!” snapped Phil. Was he behind her? No, that was the speaker. He must be in the observation room. And what was that smell? Laura’s stomach growled. How long had she been out?
“Ethics,” Phil spat. “That’s what you said about my proposal. It’d be unethical! Unethical to help criminals? Unethical to turn rapists and murderers into functional members of society?”
“You were talking about programming people!” shouted Laura. “Even if it were okay to do it to criminals, which it isn’t, there’s too many ways to abuse it!”
“Yes,” said Phil, “and I intend to try some of them out on you.”
Laura’s stomach was growling. “Phil, you bastard! You can’t expect this to work!”
“Oh?” he said. “And you’re not hungry?”
The elusive smell taunted Laura’s nostrils. It was rich and tantalizing, impossibly to place, and her mouth watered. “What are you doing, Phil?” she demanded.
“Things are going to be different around here,” he said. “Give me a shout when you’re ready to cooperate.”
The smell continued to taunt Laura. She tried to ignore it, and the growing gnawing feeling in her stomach. Olfactory stimulation? Completely within the capabilities of her invention and research topic: a neural probe that, inserted into the brainstem, could simulate any experience. It created an experience vastly more immersive than any VR rig possibly could, by stimulating the senses directly and allowing the brain to fill in the details. Early human trials, simulating brief sensations, had proven successful, and she was ready to start programming and testing full simulations, when Phil came up with his proposal.
Damn, how long had it been? That smell was driving her crazy. One moment it was like juicy oranges, the next like roasting meat, and the next like freshly baked cinnamon rolls, always appealing, always hunger-inducing. Her mouth was watering and her stomach rumbling. It felt like she’d been trying to ignore it for hours.
“Phil,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry. I really am sorry for anything I’ve done to make you feel this frustrated. Please, let me go, and we’ll forget all about this.”
“Thirty-eight seconds,” he said, and suddenly her mouth was full of the most delicious drink she’d ever tasted. It was cool and frothy and made her tastebuds tingle with delight. She swallowed instinctively, and felt it slide down her throat, quelling the feeling of hunger.
“What?” she managed.
“That’s how long it took for the olfactory stimuli to break you down.”
“You’re lying,” said Laura, trying to sound more certain than she felt.
“Am I?” Phil laughed. “I just stretched your time sense a little. Easy enough with this setup of yours, doc.”
It was possible, Laura had to admit. But she couldn’t believe it.
“So, now you’ve seen just how effective a persuader this system of yours can be. Do you approve my research proposal?”
“Never,” said Laura. “Especially not after that. It’s too dangerous!”
“Good,” said Phil.
“Good?”
He laughed again. It was an incredibly unpleasant sound. “I knew you’d probably reject the proposal, so I created a little program. I guess some of your talk about ethics must have stuck, though, because I promised myself I’d try every other way of persuading you first.”
Laura felt an odd tingling that wandered around her body. “Go to hell!” she snapped.
“Oh, I probably will,” Phil answered smoothly. “But I’m going to enjoy myself a lot, first.”
The tingling continued. It was distracting, but not unpleasant, sort of like a very gentle, full-body tickling. Laura felt her nipples begin to stiffen. “You—you wouldn’t.”
Phil laughed again. “Have you looked in a mirror lately, doc? That cute little angel face, those pert breasts? And your ass! My god, you have a world-class ass, and it’s all wasted on a frigid little bitch like you. Well, that’s going to change. Those sweet lips of yours are going to be wrapped around my cock within an hour. You won’t be able to get enough of me!”
The tingling seemed to focus on Laura’s breasts and between her thighs. “Fuck you!” she shouted, struggling impotently.
“Oh, you will,” said Phil.
Laura said nothing as she carefully tested her bonds, and Phil seemed content to stay silent as well. He could afford to be; she couldn’t so much as budge.
A ghostly finger trailed up Laura’s spine, and she gasped. Delicate, invisible, gentle touches brushed against her body, like gentle kisses. Her lips, her fingers, then her toes and she had to bite her lip to keep from gasping.
“Oh, quite the endorphin spike there,” said Phil. “You like the toes, huh?”
Dammit, he could monitor her brain directly! She couldn’t even hide her reactions from him!
Gentle tracings along Laura’s slender legs, around her navel, back to her toes, her lips, navel, toes. Her breath was getting faster, her pulse racing, and she felt a flush spreading across her neck and chest. She couldn’t help it; she was getting turned on.
The gentle brushes continued as Laura squirmed helplessly, for what seemed like hours. Her mouth, her ears, her eyelids; her toes and thighs and belly; but never her breasts or her slowly wettening pussy.
He could see her reactions in the machine’s readings. There was no point in trying to hide them; Laura squirmed, she gasped, she moaned. But she didn’t plead. She wasn’t going to plead. She would defy him, refuse him. He wasn’t about to break Dr. Laura Cunningham!
“Oh God...” she moaned as the invisible lips continued. They were getting more focused as time went on, returning again and again to the places that got the most reaction. It made sense; of course Phil would have programmed the system to read her responses and learn from them.
No lover had ever learned Laura’s body as quickly or as perfectly. It stroked her spine at exactly the speed, exactly the balance of firmness and gentleness, to make her toes curl. It knew where on her earlobe to kiss and where to ever-so-gently tug. It never again touched the sensitive spot on her belly after the first time, and it traced over her thighs in a pattern calculated to tease and arouse, but never satisfy.
“Oh...” she moaned. “...bastard...”
Phil laughed. “I want to hear you beg.”
The gentle touched continued their torturous dance. The system knew Laura’s body perfectly now, and it played her reactions like a puppet on strings.
“Please...” The syllable escaped her mouth before she could catch it, before she knew it was coming, and the instant it did she felt someone sucking at her nipple. It lasted only a second, but it was enough to make her scream with pleasure, almost climaxing on the spot.
“That’s better!” said Phil. “Keep it up.”
The gentle touches resumed, and Laura writhed, gasping and moaning. “Please...” she said again, without intending to, and this time something stroked her clit, and she screamed, her entirely world shattering, swerving to the edge of orgasm... and stopping, pulling back.
Laura moaned as the invisible caresses danced across her body. She hadn’t meant to beg. More than that—she was sure she hadn’t begged! Could the system make her speak against her will?
Laura struggled to think through the haze of need that increasingly filled her world. No, no it couldn’t—but it could make her think she had. It could create the sensation of moving her mouth, make her hear her own voice. And somewhere deep in her mind, a connection was being made between asking for more, and getting it...
Laura struggled to bring her body under control. The need piled up and up, those maddening, gentle touches. A fleeting kiss brushed her lips, and at the same time something nibbled at the point where her neck met her shoulder.
“God... please...” she gasped, and she had no idea if it was her or the machine simulating her. She didn’t care, as pleasure flowed from her nipples like lightning, cascading through her body.
“More...” she said, and it was definitely her now. “I need... please...” She gasped and shrieked as her most sensitive places were stimulated.
“Almost eight minutes since we started,” said Phil. “I think it’s time for the next stage.”
Laura shrieked and writhed, her body completely out of control, lost in the frenzy of stimulation from every sensitive point in her body—toes, clit, ears, neck, nipples, navel, everywhere, all being stimulated at once to the limits of her endurance.
A tiny part of her knew what was happening, knew she was in danger, but she could hear herself begging for more, and knew it was really her. She screamed out how much she loved this, and maybe it was the machine, but it was definitely true.
And so far she still hadn’t cum. Torrents of pleasure, and no climax. How long had it been? Hours? Days? An eternity.
“You want to cum,” said Phil, and it wasn’t a question.
“Yes!” Laura screamed.
“Swear you’ll obey me.”
Laura groaned. “Please... let me cum...”
“Swear you’ll obey!”
“I... no... I can’t...” God, she was so close, she could taste it. Just a little more, the tiniest ridge she had to get over... and she couldn’t, and she couldn’t, and she couldn’t, on and on and on.
“I obey,” she heard herself whisper, and shrieked with pleasure as she mounted higher—but it was the machine speaking, not her, and she couldn’t quite cum.
“I obey,” she heard herself say, and again she came still closer.
“I obey,” Laura said, or the machine, and thought she would go insane. She couldn’t breathe, her body, her mind, her whole being was a tightly wound spring, tensing for release.
“I obey!” shouted Laura. “I obey I obey I obey I OBEY!” and she came like an explosion, like light in darkness, on and on and on.
But there was no rest after. The desire, the need, kept mounting higher and higher even after she came. “I will not resist Phil,” she heard herself say, and came lightly.
“I will not resist Phil,” she repeated dutifully, and came harder.
Soon, she was shouting it repeatedly, cumming every time. Other phrases followed, and she repeated them for what seemed like hours. The more she repeated, the more true they became, the more she came.
Finally came the final phrase. “I am Phil’s slave.”
What was left of Laura resisted one final time. “I am Phil’s slave,” she heard herself say again, and the orgasm was weaker this time.
“I am Phil’s slave,” she heard again, and this time it was an almost-gasm, a tease. The tension was mounting again, and she knew she had to resist, and she knew she couldn’t.
“I am Phil’s slave,” she heard or said, or both, and her body was tightening up, squeezing the tiny remaining nugget of resistance.
“I am Phil’s slave!” Laura shouted, and came. She shouted it again and again, joyously, wholeheartedly, as wave after wave of pleasure rushed through her, burning her servitude forever into her brain.
The lights turned on, and Laura blinked painfully. Phil stepped in, and Laura smiled blissfully. “Master,” she breathed.
Phil grinned and undid her bonds. She slid to the floor, her legs feeling like jelly. She looked up as she heard his zipper. His erect cock hung in front of her face, and she happily took it into her mouth.
Phil checked his watch. “Fifty-four minutes.” He laughed and laughed.
* * *