She kneeled in front of him, her head bowed, her hands clasped at the small of her back. The air conditioning was on, and the tips of her pendulous breast, hanging like ripe fruit, were tight and sore from both the cold and the tension.

She could feel his eyes on her, but did not raise hers to his. He’d told her when her training began that she could only speak when spoken to, could only meet his gaze when he commanded it. So she kept her eyes on his shoes. They were Italian leather, expensive, just like the rug she knelt on.

He was circling her, his footfall silent on the rug. She could feel his presence, feel the authority that exuded from him. It made her feel dizzy with fear and desire. She felt her pussy throb, even as her heart fluttered rapidly in her chest.

“Look up.” He was in front of her now and the first thing she saw was the tops of his thighs. Her gaze crawled up, past the fly of his trousers, slightly bulged out, up past his sweater, up to the handsome face that looked down at her.

He kneeled down and reached out to clutch one of her breasts. “Your nipples are hard. The cold air causes a reaction when it licks a woman’s tits.” He paused, rubbing a finger across the sensitive nub. She bit her lip to keep from groaning. “Do you fantasize about me licking them?”

She kept her eyes down.

“Speak!”

She jumped at his tone. “Y-yes,” she stammered. “I have. I do…”

He stood up. “That’s good, Kitten. A woman’s thoughts should always be on her master above all else. Always.”

He said the last words softly, reflectively. She knew he was experienced in training submissives; that was why she had sought him out. All she’d ever wanted was to live as a slave for one man, to be at his beck and call, to live by his leave, to feel his tender touch when she pleased him and his lash when she did not.

“Stand up.”

She unclasped her hands from behind her, put the palms on the floor and gracefully pushed up to stand before him. Her hands went to the top of her head as he told her they should when standing for inspection.

He walked around her again. And again. He stopped in front of her and leaned down, licking first one nipple and then the second to hard, aching peaks. She felt her pussy throb and swell and moisten. His hand came to rest on her belly and then his fingers trailed down to the shaven cleft. He knelt, his hands on her hips and his tongue blazed a trail from her navel down to the top of her slit.

“Wait.” Her hands moved to his shoulders, staying him. It was a moment of modesty, a reaction. But she knew right away she’d made a terrible mistake.

He stood, took a step back and looked at her, his gray eyes narrowed in disapproval.

“Never, ever push me away. Never, ever tell me to wait. Never, ever tell me to do anything. I am the Master. Not you.”

“Master, please…” She started to beg for mercy but an icy look from him killed the words in her throat. He was pointing at the sofa and she knew what he wanted. She walked over on shaky legs and leaned over the back of it, her hands touching the seat on the other side. She parted her thighs as he always required during punishment. She could hear the belt as it whipped from the loops of his pants and she whimpered softly in fearful anticipation, even as her pussy contracted hungrily at the possible promise of his cock filling her afterwards.

She heard the hiss of the belt, felt the burn of it across her lower buttocks. She cried out but did not move, keeping the beautiful arch to her back that he required. He hit her again, brutally and cruelly in the same place and her thighs quivered from the effort to hold her position.

Tears streamed down her face and she sobbed softly as the leather of the belt hissed and bit, hissed and bit. And then it was over and she heard the jingle of the buckle as he refastened the belt around his waist.

“Stand up and turn around.”

She did, keeping her tear-filled eyes strained on the floor.

“Look at me.”

She obeyed. It was hard to believe that the angelic-looking blonde-haired man looking at her could be so terribly, unrelentingly strict.

“Are you ready to do as you are told?”

“Yes, Master.”

He walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were commanding as they held hers for a second and then he knelt and she felt his tongue snake into her cleft. His hands went around and grabbed her buttocks in a vice-like grasp as he found the tender nub of her clit and captured it in an exquisitely painful sucking bite. She groaned and whimpered but held still, feeling her head swim from the mingling of pain and pleasure. Then he stood and spun her around, pushing her forward so suddenly she would have surely fallen across the couch onto the floor had he not caught her hips. The Master sunk himself into her to the hilt and she screamed into the couch cushion as she weathered this unexpected yet delicious assault. Again she arched her back, thrusting back to meet him in the way she knew he liked.

“Ask me,” he said.

“Please!” she cried. “Please cum inside of me! Please honor me…”

“Good girl.” He collapsed on her, his body and his cock convulsing in spasms that mirrored her own.

A clatter broke through her thoughts. Madeline Stillwater blinked, reached for her head and pulled the helmet off. Her eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the bright lights of the lab. She sat up, reaching into her gown to pull the censors from her chest.

“You OK, Maddy?”

She looked up, her face flushed with embarrassment.

“I’m fine. It’s just so weird when the uninhibitors wear off so suddenly.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She could still feel moisture between her legs.”

Dr. Marcus Dimitri left his booth, no longer a disembodied voice, and walked to the table near her bed. Picking up a paper cup and plastic pitcher, he poured her some water.

“Here,” he said.

She took a few sips.

“Better?”

“I can’t do this anymore, Marcus.” She shook her head as she handed him the cup.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Maddy. You don’t have a choice.” His voice was sympathetic but firm. “I know it’s hard, being part of this. And it can be embarrassing…”

“No, you don’t know.” She looked at Marcus and frowned. He had been her senior advisor when she’d decided to go into Deep Psychology. The program was competitive, and by the time she was ready to pursue her doctorate she worried she couldn’t afford it. At the time, Mind Banking was still in development and so when she was offered a reduced tuition rate if she agreed to volunteer should it come into existence, Maddy had agreed. She’d almost forgotten her agreement when she got a letter from the department head informing her that the first experimental Mind Bank was operational. She would be required to sign a confidentiality agreement, undergo a complete physical and make herself available twice a week for what they antiseptically called “collections.” To aid in these collections she would be required to take a cocktail of medications that would include both a sedative and an “uninhibitor,” that would relax her body and allow her mind to flow with her deepest, most intimate thoughts. It was hoped that Mind Bank technology could eventually be used in military intelligence as well as in police investigations where lives were at stake.

The letter hit her like a ton of bricks as she realized what she’d done. She had agreed to be a guinea pig, to expose to others what most would keep private. Now, sitting on the bed beside Dr. Dimitri, she could only feel the regret anew.

“Look, Maddy,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sure it’s embarrassing, but if it’s any consolation you aren’t the only woman to harbor sadomasochistic fantasies…”

She looked at him, suddenly feeling sick with the realization of what he was saying. “You’ve…watched them?”

He laughed. “Maddy, it’s what I do. I collect and analyze the data. You’re known as Subject C. It’s all completely anonymous.”

“Not if someone else sees the recordings, Marcus. I’m not fantasizing that I’m someone else. I’m fantasizing that it’s me. And my god…if it ever got out…”

“Security is very tight here. And if any of this concern regards Dr. Wellington…”

Maddy turned to him. “Greg? What about him?”

“You haven’t heard? He’s being transferred to this department.”

Maddy just stared, hoping she’d heard wrong.

“No….Dr. Dimitri…no!” She slid off the table, pulling the last of the leaders off her arms and casting them aside. She put her hands on a nearby table and hung her head down, closing her eyes against the news. She and Greg Wellington had been embroiled in a tumultuous affair that had frankly scared her to death. Maddy had always been afraid of losing control, but with Greg she came close. He was a dominant personality, and a dominant man and it was with him that she allowed herself to fantasize about being fully submissive, something she’d resisted all her adult life.

She’d broken up with Greg because she didn’t know how much longer she could deny those desires. She’d told him it was because they were just incompatible sexually. He’d been very open about wanting to tie her up, to spank her. He was very comfortable with his dominant tendencies and told her he saw in her a yin to his yang. But she told him he was crazy and was determined that he would never find the truth. She’d worked too long and too hard to submit to any man, in or out of bed. It was 2037, after all; women had worked hard to achieve the egalitarian society they enjoyed. She could not justify indulging what she saw as a personal weakness.

“You can’t deny what you really are,” he’d said their last night together.

“I’m not what you think I am,” she shot back. “And you’re a fucking perv.”

And now he would be part of the Memory Bank. He’d have access to her thoughts, could watch the reels.

“I feel sick.” Maddy went to a corner chair and sat down. She blinked back tears as she looked at Dr. Dimitri. He was the one of the few people in her life she completely trusted. He was kind, and Maddy was friends with both him and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Elaina. The couple had become something of an the previous year, much to the distress of every female on campus, where it was universally agreed that Dr. Dimitri was the best looking professor. His Greek heritage had endowed him with olive skin, wavy black hair and the bone structure of a God, or so women said. Maddy was proud of herself for not falling sway to his good looks, but she was a principled woman and never allowed herself to consider men who were in relationships. Besides, she and Marcus had become such good friends that she sometimes thought of him more as a big brother than a colleague.

Now he was playing the big brother role, handing her a tissue as she began to cry.

“This can’t be happening,” she said. “Is he going to have complete access?”

“I’m not sure,” Marcus said. “But even if he does we both know there are strict guidelines for Mind Bankers, Maddy. He’s not allowed to discuss any of your collections with you in anything other than a professional way…”

“That’s not the point, Marcus!” She’d not meant to get angry but she couldn’t help it. She lowered her voice. “You know we used to be involved, right?”

“Yeah..”

“Well….I tried to hide some things from Greg, things he suspected…”

“You mean your submissive tendencies?”

“They aren’t tendencies, Marcus.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “But since I’m already breaking a rule by having a personal discussion with you, let me just reiterate that you shouldn’t be ashamed of these feelings, no matter what you call them..”

“Well I am,” she said. “I called Greg a perv, for God’s sake…”

Marcus Dimitri laughed. “Seriously, Maddy, I think you’re making too much of this. There are a dozen subjects in this group. You’re just one person. There may be other collections that would make you seem squeaky clean.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better,” she said.

He paused. “Actually I am. Yours are pretty risqué…”

“Goddamnit, Marcus.” But she was laughing now, in spite of herself.

“Listen, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s no big deal. He’s not allowed to divulge what’s in the collection to anyone so the worst you have to deal with is Greg knowing you lied. If it were up to me, the fact that you two were in a relationship would be enough to keep him out of the project, but it’s not up to me. We both know that Greg is not just brilliant, but political. He’s worked hard to get into the Mind Bank. If I had more clout, I’d try to shut him out, but I don’t.”

“It’s sweet that you’d even consider it,” she said. She leaned back against the wall. “God…I wish I’d never gotten involved in this fucking project.”

“Well, missy, if you hadn’t then you’d not be on the verge of getting your Ph.D, would you?”

“No,” she said and then leaned forward. “Marcus, can you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.”

“When Greg starts, if he’s here doing a collection on my day to participate, can you give me the sedative without the inhibitor?”

Marcus looked up from his chart and frowned. Gone was the friendly expression, replaced now by his professional poker face.

“You know I can’t do that, Maddy.” He stood and she jumped off the table, following him.

“Marcus…” She reached up and took his shoulder. He turned and looked down at her. He was 6’3” and she was only 5’1”. Standing there in her bare feet she was aware of how short she was next to him. She crossed her arms defensively.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re conducting scientific readings here, Maddy. And the protocol has to be followed. You’re asking me to risk my job because you fear being embarrassed. I’d do a lot of your because you’re my friend. But I worked hard to get where I am, and I have to do everything to the letter. So don’t ask me again, OK?”

His tone was uncharacteristically firm.

“I’m sorry,” she said, running her hand through her hair. “I’m just so stressed out.”

“Then come over to our house for dinner and a glass of wine. Elaina’s making chicken marsala.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could, but I think I’ll just go home and play Dragon Realm 3.”

He laughed. “Lord, you are such a geek. So what character are you?”

“A Mage.”

“What level?”

“Nine, baby,” she said. “Envy me.”

He clucked his tongue against his teeth. “Pretty impressive. I’m only at a seven. I can’t get past the Ice Wolves.”

“Seriously?” Maddy laughed. “You need to make a potion from the frostbane plant that grows in Dire Valley. Coat your arrows with it and make sure your health is optimized. Wait in the big oak at the head of the King’s Road. When the wolves emerge from the woods, shoot them. One will jump up and pull you out of the tree, but they’ll be weakened and won’t be able to regenerate their health before you cut them down with your sword.”

“Ah,” he said. “Frostbane. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re not a gamer girl. You’re a gamer guy. You rely on brute strength while I, as a female, use my smarts.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Maddy went into the bathroom and changed back into her clothes. Her banter with Marcus had helped diffuse some of the tension she felt, but the knowledge that Greg would be starting at the Memory Bank was soon weighing on her mind once again. Even though she understood Marcus’ refusal to slip her a placebo instead of an uninhibitor, she couldn’t help but resent it a little. He had a wife, she thought; he should understand how humiliating something like this was for her as a woman. But on the other hand, was she being a hypocrite? No one had forced her to volunteer for the Memory Bank and as fast as technology was progressing maybe she should have allowed for the possibility that something like this could happen. And besides, asking Marcus to bend the rules to spare her was contrary to the sense of independence she sought to project. But Marcus was her friend, and the only person she felt safe exposing herself to.

But Greg..she dreaded his first day at the Memory Bank and prayed it would not be on the days she was the one being collected. She’d not spoken to him for a year. Maybe he had forgotten. But she knew it was silly to think that. There was no way either of them could forget the chemistry they’d shared, and if she was honest with herself she’d admit he’d been right about her. But Maddy had her pride to consider. She’d always resented Greg’s cocky self-assuredness. She could only imagine the laugh he would have when her collections proved him right. The only satisfaction now was that he would be forbidden to speak of it. But that, she knew was a small consolation. Very small, indeed.