I felt my whole body perk up when Cesca entered her rooms; she was a butch, powerfully built. She had literal blood on her hands. I drooled. I drooled most of the day; Cesca didn’t let me close my mouth, so I couldn’t help it. She had put a puppy-pad in my kneeling spot, so the carpet didn’t get messed up.

Cesca walked into her bathroom; I heard the shower going. I imagined her, soaping up under the water, and felt my groin twinge.

She eventually came out, naked and carrying her gun, silver but scuffed. She was erect. She walked closer, grabbing the back of my head with her free hand, and pulling me forward. She inserted her girlcock into my swollen, open lips, ramming it down my throat. I had no gag reflex, of course. She thrust hard, relentless, uncaring; she knew I could take it. She stroked my cheek with the muzzle of the gun.

She pulled me even closer, and came; my lips smushed into the base of her shaft while she pumped inside me. My own cock quivered; I could not come at the moment. 

When she had finished, she held me there for a while. Sometimes she stopped me breathing at this point, enjoying my panic. But tonight she did not; I breathed in her scent, leather and soap, her pubic hair still damp. I tried to communicate how grateful I was, with licks and sucks.

Then she pulled her girlcock out, and sat down on the bed. She lifted one of my breasts with her gun.

“I haven’t let you come for some time, have I?” she said.

Four months and eleven days. I can’t say anything, of course.

“But I don’t hear you complaining,” she said, smiling at her little joke. “Well, I can’t be bothered to fetch the tablet now.”

She lay back on her bed. 

“Go to the guard room and let my girls do whatever they want to you,” Cesca said.

I nodded, and got to my feet. 

⁂

Sometimes I have bad dreams. Confused and senseless. Random memories. Time running wild. I reach out, and grab whoever is in the bed with me—usually Zlata—and cling on to them, shaking, until morning.

⁂

I coughed my guts up; racking, painful heaves, made worse by the fact I could barely move. I was still in the perspex box, and still unable to move my limbs. Something felt different though, different and wrong.

“Well, well, well. Alive,” said Cesca. “Surprising.”

“You always underestimate me,” said Doctor Griffith. “I told you I had ironed out the problems.”

“She’s just alive, Doc,” said Cesca. “You promised a lot of other features.”

“Well, if you’ll go upstairs and run your little syndicate for a bit,” said Doctor Griffith, “maybe I’ll have a chance to do my tests.”

⁂

“Well, is Griffith’s stuff all there?” asked Cesca, with irritation, but not letting her gun stray from the side of my head. The hanger was cold; I could hear rain hammering down outside. Anita’s body lay cooling on the floor. She had hesitated.

Barb opened the briefcase, carefully examining the vials. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank fuck for that, Jana,” said Cesca, nudging me with her gun. “If you’d handed them off, I would have had to torture the details from you. It’s so unpleasant torturing for information; you’re always worried that you’ll break the subject’s mind and render any information useless. Or, of course, you might accidentally kill them. Tie her hands, Barb; use that coil of wire.” 

Barb pulled my hands behind my back, roughly, and wrapped wire around them. Not tight enough to cut anything off, as long as I didn’t struggle.

Cesca sat down in a metal chair, still pointing her gun at me.

“No,” said Cesca. “I much prefer pure torture. My aim is to inflict maximum pain; the subject’s aim is to die with the least amount of pain. No transactions. No begging, at least not real begging, that you have to listen to. Just the subject’s dawning realisation that they are going to be in unbearable agony for the remainder of their life. I mean, you can still fuck up and kill them too early, but it’s easier when that doesn’t matter.”

“I can tell you whose plan it was,” I said.

“For what?” said Cesca. “Freedom? A quick death? You killed three of my employees; both of those options are out of the question. The girls will be very keen to watch you die in pain, right, Barb?”

Barb grunted the affirmative. Cesca leaned back. “Anyway, it was Renaud, right? Should have known better than to get involved with someone who’s organisation is so leaky.”

Cesca sighed.

“Jana, Jana, Jana,” she said. “I liked you. Trannies together, right? You got promoted. You got wealth. I wasn’t stingy, was I? We even… well, I liked you. But you betray me for a couple of million in illegal nanotech, and some bonds from my safe. I suppose torturing you is the best option; I will hear all your reasons and excuses before your throat goes mute from screaming. You will cry much more than me, but I might shed a few, Jana.”

She stood. “Put her in the trunk, Barb. And then back to the Steeple. I’ve still got a chair and a toolbox in the furnace room don’t I? It really messes with people watching me chuck their appendages in the flames. Really cements the ‘oh, I won’t see those fingers, my ears, that cock, again’.”

Cesca’s mobile chimed. “Yeah, Doc, all fine,” she said, answering it. “Got her here.” She listened. “Don’t think my girls will go for that, Doc. They’re pretty angry.” Another pause. “Not quite the same thing, Doc.” Pause. “Yeah, good point. Yeah.” 

She hung up. “Barb, you remember when some girls complained about those animal experiments? Poor cruelly tortured bunnies, that sort of thing. Remind the girls of that and tell them that’s how Jana is going to die.”

⁂

“I’m removing the box,” said Doctor Griffith. “Don’t try anything.”

It was her assistant, Yulia, who actually lifted the perspex box off. She was strong, with a weightlifter’s physique. She made Doctor Griffith look even more skinny and birdlike. I imagined what they’d be like to fuck: the doc, feral and frenetic; Yulia, slow and spine-snapping.

I tried to move, but my limbs and neck seemed fixed in position. 

The doctor shone a light in my eyes. She still had a dressing on her forehead from where I’d knocked her out. I bet she was the sort to bear grudges. 

“Okay,” the doctor said, with a gleam in her eye. “This next bit is going to be difficult to bear. Oh, you’ll survive. But, you know, plenty of fun secondary trauma.” She looked at her tablet. “Mhm, nice fear response. Yulia, fetch a mirror.” She looked at the tablet again. “Would you like to be able to scream or not? I can’t decide.”

⁂

Barb and Yulia dropped me a few inches onto the mesh table. Yulia strapped my ankles down before I could even react. Barb sat me up, and unwound the wire from my hands.

“Lie down,” Barb said.

I immediately reached down for the ankle straps. I heard Barb sigh, and reach into her suit. What was she going to do, shoot me? That would be a lucky escape. 

There was a click, and a sudden wave of convulsive pain radiating out from my shoulder. I jerked and felt my bladder release. With her free hand, she effortlessly pushed me down. Yulia fastened the bands on my wrists.

“Oh, Doctor,” said Barb, a bit sheepishly, “it’s okay that I stun gun her, right?”

“What?” said the Doctor, looking up from a clipboard. She had bandages around her head, giving her a cartoonish look. “Should be fine. Zap her again if you like.”

Barb shrugged, and pressed the stun gun against me again. I screamed and convulsed. When I stopped, Yulia fastened a strap at my neck and at my forehead.

“The funny thing, Francesca,” said the Doctor, “is that in a few minutes I expect she’ll be feeling nostalgic about the electroshocks.”

“I thought you said you’d knock them out for the next bit?” said Cesca.

“I mean, that’s what I recommend for a productionized procedure,” said the doctor. “But this one tried to bash my head in, so let’s traumatise the bitch.”

Yulia and Barb lifted a perspex box, fitting it over me and the metal grate. Yulia did some complex sealing on the edges; I can’t see what, but I hear the box settle into place with a hiss.

There’s a pause, and then something rises through the metal grid; a liquid, but more viscous than water. Like oil, maybe. I can feel it stinging my back, and the undersides of my legs. It seems to be dissolving my clothes as it goes. I struggle, of course, but I can barely move, and it keeps rising. Not entirely like oil; it also crawls.

I can see it now as it comes within my constrained sight; a black goo, with a horrible, iridescent sheen. I am panicking now. It enters my ears, burning, and the room goes quiet. I have to close my eyes, my mouth, as its level reaches my head. Finally, it creeps into my nose, and I can’t breathe. The burning feeling is all around me. I open my mouth and more slides in; I gasp, but there’s no air. I choke, swallowing more of the goo, and everything goes black.

⁂

The others finally persuade Zlata, the new girl, to sit on my cock. She had watched in horrified fascination as Barb and Sara put me on the table, Barb burying my face in her pussy, Sara going frenetically at my ass. When that was done, they showed Zlata how flexible my breasts were; that they would take pulling and groping that would injure a real woman. 

Zlata had tentatively twisted a nipple, then a second time, harder. At the prompting of the others, she lowered her pussy onto my cock.

“Go on, whore,” said Barb, slapping my face, hard. “Give her a ride.”

I started to drive my pelvis up and down.

“Ooh,” said Zlata. “Can you make her go faster?”

I accelerated.

Zlata started thrusting herself, slamming herself on to me, letting me take her weight. She started to moan, quietly; Barb and Sara chuckling. Zlata started swearing under her breath in a language I didn’t understand. Finally, giving a strangled groan, she came several times. Barb and Sara clinked their beers together.

“Fucking hell, Zlata,” said Barb. “Not getting enough?”

“She has a better cock than my boyfriend,” said Zlata, breathless, still sitting on me. “She didn’t come though. I mean, that’s better than my thirty-second boyfriend as well.”

“Don’t call it she,” said Sara. “It’s not a proper human, it’s just a girlthing. Right, Barb?”

Barb caught my eye. “Right,” she said. “And it probably didn’t come because the boss is edging it.”

“So I can go again, and she, er, it still won’t come?” said Zlata.

“Yeah, that would be funny,” said Barb. “Then I can show you how good it is at resisting stun guns. Hurts it but not injures; you can really go to town.”

⁂

The cell they put me in has a mirrored window; I think it’s just the doctor being cruel. They could watch me as well through normal glass.

I sit on the camp bed; my legs are too weak to let me stand for long. I stare at my reflection. Only my eyes are unchanged. 

I thought it was a gimp mask at first, a gimp suit.

“Oh no,” the doctor had laughed. “Your old skin has completely gone; dissolved away by the nanotech.”

I was a sex toy. Head to toe in black nanotech, gleaming like latex. It even went down my throat; coated my tongue. My hair was gone, but out of the back of my head a single handle protruded. Two more on my hips. Nano-bracing and cartilage, according to the doctor.

I stared for a while. I was clearly designed with one thing in mind. My breasts were bigger, as was my ass, and I think my cock was too. My waist was smaller. And I was horny; fascinated by Doctor Griffith and Yulia, even as I hated them.

Without even being particularly aware, I started playing with myself.

The doctor entered, carrying a small bowl. She set it down on the bed.

“What is that?” I said, stopping and staring at the grey mush. My voice felt strange; higher, sweeter. My tongue also felt larger and uncomfortable in my mouth.

“Food,” Doctor Griffith said. “Your insides have been rearranged as well. Believe me, you won’t deal well with regular human food.” She leaned against the wall. “Plus, buyer lock-in. Once we’re making and selling girlthings, having the owner need to come to us for food is a plus.”

Angrily, I flipped the bowl onto the floor.

The doctor took out a small tablet, and pressed a button.

I stopped breathing. My lungs just stopped working; my mouth was open, but I wasn’t breathing. I panicked, but was also angry. I went for the doctor, but I just crashed to the floor.

“I am afraid I may have misled you by speaking to you as a person,” said the doctor, calmly. “You are not. A person just breathes. But your owner controls your breathing permissions.”

I gasped pointlessly and fish-like.

“Do you understand?” she asked, crouching down. “Give me a nod if you understand.”

With difficulty, I managed to incline my head.

She pressed her tablet, and air returned. I gulped it in; it wasn’t fresh—the room smelled of terrified animals—but it still tasted wonderful. I hated myself for how grateful I felt.

The doctor turned the discarded bowl over with her foot; she drew, with the point of her plain flats, a small circle in the spilled gruel. 

“Now, be a good girlthing and lick up your food,” she said.

⁂

“Yeah, this is the worst part of the job,” I said, as we rode the lift down to the lab.

“Barb says it’s cleaning-up after an execution,” said Anita.

I winced. “That is pretty bad, especially if you haven’t dealt with much blood or brains before,” I said. “But I find this worse.”

Yulia buzzed us into the lab, and we put on heavy gloves and too-light face masks. I led us towards the trash room. Between us we manoeuvred the huge plastic dumpster into the lift, and down to the furnace. 

“Can’t they just throw them in the waste chutes?” asked Anita. “I mean, we’d still have to pick them up at the bottom, but—”

I shook my head. “Remember when a garbage bag tore and stunk up three storeys? Cesca doesn’t want that to happen with a rotten monkey corpse, and I agree with her.”

We clipped off the tarp from the top, and paused for Anita to throw up. There was a human this time, which was bad luck. She lay, like some disembowelled Disney princess, among the corpses of other animals. Mostly monkeys; macaques, and chimps. Or were chimps an ape? I don’t suppose they care. There were rabbits, raccoons and rats too.

When Anita had recovered, we dealt with the woman first. She wasn’t the first human to go into this furnace, but we tried to do it with a little respect. We didn’t know who she was; an enemy, a victim, something in between, but it didn’t matter. She was light, and her limbs were broken in multiple places. I wished I believed in a nice afterlife.

The chimps also needed two people, but after that we worked individually, in grim silence. The best case was that the animal was whole, the next when it was split, or broken, or deformed with growths, the worst case was that it was still just about alive. They were careful enough not to do this with the larger animals (they had a bolt gun), but some of the smaller animals clung pointlessly to life. I showed Anita how to brain them against the side of the furnace. True, the flames would finish then in seconds, but they screamed.

By the time we finished, Anita was looking a bit unsteady. 

“I’ll take the dumpster back,” I volunteered. “You go and find yourself a strong drink and an easy woman.”

⁂

The dildo was huge and purple, and had a suction cup which the doctor had fastened to the wall.

She used my head-handle to push my mouth onto the dildo, and thrust me forward. I kept expecting to gag or choke, but I took the whole thing in. 

“Stay there,” said the doctor, and set up the portable x-ray. It took a while.

“Great,” she said, finally.

I started to remove myself, but she shoved me back on.

“No, I prefer you like that,” she said. “Look.” She turned the screen to face me. It looked wrong to see the dildo all the way past my neck. 

“Even though this isn’t for me,” said the doctor. “I think people with dicks will really go for it. See the folds, for their tactile pleasure? And your senses are boosted down the whole throat. With their arousal and senses turned to full, you could probably get a girlthing addicted to being throatfucked. When I hand you over to Cesca, I’ll ask her to find out.”

She brushed my cheek.

“The problem with humans is that their throats are part of the digestive system that we use, in an off-label sort of way, for some sexual fun,” Doctor Griffith said. “But a girlthing’s mouth, its throat, are a sex organ. Which manages special food as a secondary thing. The same for your ass. Human’s asses are very inconvenient for sex, but yours is engineered to it. Turn around and back onto the dildo, and I’ll show you.”

⁂

Cesca was stressed this morning; I could tell because she called me into her bed, turned off my limbs, then railed my ass like someone possessed. Pulling on my handles and bucking fiercely. Then, when she had come inside me, she flipped me over and gave me my arms back.

“Wank me,” she said, straddling over me. “Until I come on your face.” She grabbed her gun, and pressed it into my mouth, hard, up to her knuckles. As I started to work her, she flicked the safety off and on.

I remember one of the first times this had happened, and I tried to lick the gun, performatively fellating it. That had earned me a backhanded pistol whip, which would have put an actual woman in hospital. So now I just let her shove it in.

It always takes a while for her to come a second time. When the shooting started, I thought for a moment I’d been shot. It was surprisingly quiet. But no, it was from downstairs. 

“Shit!” Cesca leapt off the bed, scrambled into her robe, and ran out the room.

I just lay there for a while. She would be back at some point. I listened to the shooting.

The tablet was on the bed, forgotten by Cesca. Just within arms reach, I thought. It had been almost five months since I came.

I reached out, fingertips just reaching the tablet, inching it into my grasp. I pulled it above my head. It was hard to read; I had to spell some of the words out. But I found ‘Orgasm’ and slid the marker up from none. I dropped the pad to my side and reached for my cock. 

I’d evidently turned Orgasm too high, as a simple stroke caused me to splatter my belly and tits. The second stroke repeated this, and several more strokes led to further splattering, and finally, relief.

I lay for a moment. More shots, closer now.

Cesca would be cross if she returned and found I had rogue cum all over me. I needed to think of an idea. There must be something I could do.

Finally, I picked up the tablet, and looked for Intelligence. It was at about a third; I moved it up to one-hundred percent.

It occurred to me that I could escape.

⁂

“You’re a doctor,” I said, voice rough, “and yet you want to do this to other people.”

“What?” said the doctor, flexing her hand and pulling on the belt, “fisting or strangulation?” She laughed, and looped the belt around her hand, tightening it so that I could not breathe. My limbs were inactive too; I couldn’t even thrash. I had already come once. “Oh, I know what you mean,” she said. “Shouldn’t I be curing kids with brain cancer rather than inventing robust sex-slaves? Nah, fuck those kids. This is a hobby that I’ve turned into a job: I never have to work. Have you any idea how many girlfriends have left me? Because I didn’t have time for their safe, sane and consensual? Moaning. Crying. Talking about the police. So I’m building a line of girlthings where I never have to worry about that. And I turn a nice profit into the bargain.” She flexed her hand again, spreading her fingers wide. I tried to gasp, but the belt choked it. “In some ways, I’m quite considerate. There have always been people who don’t count as human. Hell, it’s one of the things Cesca deals in. A person falls a certain way, and politicians or, ha, police know they don’t count anymore. But do you know what the problem is? They’re so breakable. If I did this with my hand to a normal girl, we’d have to go to the ER. Or to the furnace, I guess. Same with the belt; I could crush my girlfriend’s windpipe. Doesn’t facilitate repeated play. But your windpipe is reinforced; it pops back into shape. Hell, you even take longer to black out, and I get a readout of your blood-oxygen. You need less sleep, as well. All those tortures that sound fun, but would actually injure humans quite quickly; you will survive. Plus, having your pain and pleasure senses merged means you can orgasm from being beaten if that’s what your owner wants. You’re coming from this, for fuck’s sake. Girlthings should thank me.” She loosened the belt; I gasped for air. She moved her other hand inside me, a wave of sensation, and I felt my cock twinge and pump.

“And remember, most girlthings won’t really understand what’s happening to them,” she said. “I kept your intelligence and speech up, because, well, it’s fun watching you understand your position. Most girlthings though, I think they’ll be dialled nice and low. A mute bimbo, confused by constant cruelty, but loyal like a dog. I think Cesca will probably have you like that, if she lets you live; for all she goes on about the purity of torture, unlike me, she doesn’t really want to be understood. Now, I reckon you have had enough air for a while.”

⁂

I crept down a few storeys. 

This was where the fighting was; Barb and some of the others had makeshift barricades at the top of the stairs, clearly against some invading force. I hung way back, not wanting to get spotted by Cesca or the others. 

Okay. The lift was shut down, one of the first actions in making the building defensible. The stairs were guarded. How was I going to get down to ground level? 

The Steeple had waste chutes. Old, rusted metal. Cesca had once, in a fit of anger, thrown an unwelcome messenger into one. His neck was broken at the bottom, and that was only a few storeys. Actually, it was a huge problem for Cesca as her ex-wife made a real drama about her messenger being killed. 

Fatal for humans, I thought, opening a chute, but I was a girlthing.

⁂

Cesca put down her wineglass. “Well…” she said, pausing.

I finished my glass. “What, boss?”

She shook her head. “Don’t call me that. Not here.”

“Your rooms? What do I call you then?” I laughed. “Cesca? Francesca? Ms. Ricchetti? Mommy?”

“Don’t I scare you?” Cesca said. “These hands are bloody. I’ve killed people. Tortured people. Some of them deserved it, but some was just business. I mostly enjoyed it anyway.”

I leaned forward, across the table. “Of course you scare me,” I whispered. “You scare me hard. But I like thrill rides.”

“I mean, I am your boss, Jana,” said Cesca, swirling her wine. “I don’t usually…” She trailed off.

I laughed. “You lend money to those who can’t afford it, sell drugs to people who can’t handle it, sell people to those who shouldn’t even be allowed pets,” I said. “But your limit is you won’t take a subordinate to bed?”

“It makes things complex,” said Cesca.

“Oh please,” I said. “You throw me over the table and fuck me. If it works out, we do it again. If it doesn’t, I tell everyone you were a good lay, but we are not taking it further. Your girls are all grown up.”

Cesca glumly stared at her wine.

“I’d kill you too,” she said, “if business demanded it. Double-crossing, snitching, that sort of thing.”

“I know,” I said, frustrated. “You’re a mean, bloody-handed, brutal butch, who, for some reason, I can’t get to fuck me.”

“You really want this don’t you?” she said, smiling for the first time in this conversation. 

“I thought I was being subtle,” I said. I emptied my handbag onto the table. Condoms. Cialis. Poppers. Handcuffs. “I want fucking, Ms. Ricchetti. And I think you’re the woman to do it.”

She picked up the handcuffs and raised an eyebrow. 

I leant over the table and put my hands behind my back. “It makes me really hot to be tied up, Francesca. Do I really need to go to your guards and ask if any of them can help?”

Cesca stood. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” She walked over to my side of the table, and clicked the handcuffs into place. She pulled me up and kissed my neck. 

“We’ll be more comfortable in the bedroom,” she whispered. 

I rubbed against her: she was hard. “Maybe I don’t want to be comfortable,” I murmured. 

“Well then,” said Cesca, slipping a spaghetti strap off my shoulder, and kissing the space. “I will be comfortable, and you will have to squirm against hardness.” 

I made an approving noise, moving against her. She suddenly picked me up, princess-style—except princesses do not usually have their hands bound behind their back—and carried me through to the bedroom.

As she dumped me onto the blankets, I got my first look at the safe.

⁂

I love rollercoasters, log flumes, those wavy slides. Rockets on octopus arms, pirate ships, things that spin and climb. Even an ancient helter-skelter. I had my first orgasm (well, not delivered by myself) in a mostly secluded part of a theme park with an experienced and exhibitionist girl named Helen. 

I like thrill rides, but I cannot recommend the Steeple’s waste chutes. A near vertical slide, in darkness, with odd turns, and surprising sharp metallic outcroppings. A human would have been shredded and bruised, probably to death. This girlthing did not find it fun, even with my pain/pleasure cross wiring. 

I lay, just breathing, reclining on some garbage bags like they were silk pillows. I panicked that I’d lost my tablet, but, no, I’m still clutching it to my chest. I’ve gotten used to being naked, but I really could have done with pockets.

The door opened. Shit, of course, I wasn’t silent while plunging down that chute. I curled myself up; I am the same colour as a black refuse sack.

The person had a flashlight, and, I’m guessing, a gun. He scanned the room with the light. It passes over the refuse bags and me. I stopped breathing; I’ve had plenty of practice. The figure got closer. Then I heard the gun being holstered. He spoke, into a radio, I realised, “Yeah, just a garbage bag… I don’t know, perhaps they have OCD… I am checking.” He kicked the trash bag next to my knee. It clanked, garbagely. “Fuck all. I’ll see you in a minute.”  

I struck, leg unfolding to catch him in the solar plexus. As he staggered back, winded, I scrambled across the floor and knocked his feet out from under him. Then I am upright, and standing on his neck. It cracks.

I took off his shoulder holster; it doesn’t fit around my breasts all that well, but it’s better than nothing. I go over to Cesca’s torture corner, and picked out a couple of blood-specked but sharp knives. I managed to wedge them in behind the gun. I moved to the corridor; a dead lift and a stairwell, and some junk space beneath the stairwell. Eventually two of the man’s compatriots come to find him. I’m in the junk below the stairs; regrettably, I have to put my tablet down. They don’t hear me behind them; in one case my aim is true, and the backstab takes him out. In the other, it’s slightly off, and he turns, gasping and trying to draw his gun. I punched him in the neck, crushing his windpipe, and then wrestled his hands while he asphyxiated. Neediest bloody henchman ever. 

I picked the tablet up, and cautiously went upstairs.

⁂

The doctor used the handle on the back of my head to yank it back, and inserted another dildo into my mouth. This was longer and harder than the other one. It was straight, and I had to look almost directly up to allow the doctor to force it down my throat. I burned with pleasure/pain, and concentrated on sucking breath past the throat-filling dildo.

“You can’t say that isn’t appealing, Cesca,” said the doctor. She felt my throat, showing off the hardness within it. Barb touched as well, and nodded.

“And even better, if you turn off their breathing while they have something filling their throat, they absolutely panic,” said the doctor. “I mean double-panic.” She pressed a button, and moved her hand to the base of the dildo to stop it being pushed out as I spasmed and quivered. “If you turn it’s speech on, it’s so funny hearing it beg and plead before you do it.” 

She pressed a button and I could breathe, jagged and heavily, around the edge of the dildo.

The doctor watched me for a bit, and then drew the dildo out. 

“See how its mouth stays open,” said the doctor. “Another button. And—” She reached and grabbed my tongue. “This is very useful for those of us that don’t have cocks,” she continued. “Or anybody, really. Eating out, blowjobs, rimming, you name it.”

“Sure,” Cesca said. “I admire your sex toy, doctor, and look forward to the large-scale rollout. But Jana betrayed everyone; if you’re done with your tests, maybe it’s better for everyone—almost everyone—if I just take her, it, apart. It sounds like it would be a nice long torture session.”

“Could be days,” said the doctor. “And I’ve got lots of questions about it dying. It is very resilient, but I think power tools would do it. But, at the moment, it’s one of a kind. Why kill it until you’re bored with it?”

“I don’t think many people will recognise it as Jana, boss,” said Barb. “Jana was very pretty, but not a pornographic wet-dream cartoon.”

“And as long as you keep it on silent,” said the doctor, “it’s not going to tell anyone.” 

“Fine,” said Cesca. “I have missed that ass. After that, Barb, you can draw up a rota; everyone’s got to have a turn.”

⁂

The next floor was empty as far as the stairwell went. The door to the lab was propped open, and there were voices from that direction. And there were more voices, a lot of them, from upstairs. They sound like they were discussing coming down. I crept into the lab. They had remodelled in the last few months, but the metal desks were still there, and they were easy to hide behind.

Doctor Griffith was outside the Output pen talking to somebody else. Most of the walls were glass panels. I risked another glance around the edge of the desk.

The new girlthings were a sad-looking bunch; sitting listless or crying. Most looked similar to me, although some were different colours, and some had head handles shaped like rabbit ears or cat ears.

“No,” said Doctor Griffith, “with their intelligence turned down low, they don’t have any initiative, so they’re very easy to distribute.” 

“Impressive, Doctor,” said the other woman. Octavia Renaud; I had met her. Could I throw myself on her mercy? That would have been easier if I hadn’t killed three of her men. “Ricchetti really should have been all in. And you say the colour can be changed as well?” said Octavia.

“Through the app, yes,” said the doctor. “That’s the main changes with version two; all your girlthings on one app, plus new ‘latex’ colours. Oh, and the proprietary food is now in kibble form. Do you want to see the Conversion room?”

Doctor Griffith led Octavia across the corridor. The new Conversion room had ten of the mesh and perspex tables I had drowned on, and pipes connecting them to a tank of goo that filled the whole back wall. Shiny and iridescent, I think Doctor Griffith was showing it off. Yulia was doing something technical at a control bank. I couldn’t hear what was being said; I was about to sneak closer, when I heard people approaching. I ducked back into my hiding place. 

Two of Octavia’s men came in, dragging a semi-conscious Cesca between them. She had a leg wound; a through shot, not hitting any artery. Quite lucky, but she did not seem to appreciate it. She looked pretty funny in her ratty robe, now bloodstained.

Octavia slapped Cesca to consciousness, and I could hear her swearing through the wall. Doctor Griffith just looked smug. Octavia said something to Yulia, and detached a flexible pipe from the wall. Another word to Yulia, and the black goo began squirting through the pipe; Octavia directed it at Cesca, standing clear of any splatter. Cesca immediately started to spasm; Octavia had covered her head first. Yulia cut off the flow, and they all watched Cesca buck and twitch.

I stood up, and drew my gun. Any of them could have seen me through the glass walls, but they were all looking at Cesca. They only turned as I opened the door.

⁂

Doctor Griffith entered my cell, carrying the usual bowl of mush.

“You can stop now,” she said. I had been masturbating for most of the afternoon; my cock was sore, and I was lying in a pool of cum. The doctor looked at the volume, but didn’t note anything down.

“You’ll go to Cesca tomorrow,” she said, leaning on the wall. “She’s still talking about torturing you to death. Honestly, it sounds interesting to watch, but it also seems like a bit of an insult to me. I mean, it’s a bit like consigning Da Vinci’s notes to the fire. You’re not my masterwork, but you’re a rough sketch showing my genius.” She sighed. “What do you think? Would you prefer a slow, agonising, tortured death, or a girlthing life of cocksucking and having your ass stuffed till you scream.”

I didn’t answer. She began to reach for the tablet.

“Girlthing,” I muttered.

“Say ‘I want everyone to use my mouth and my ass, as roughly as they like.’” 

I repeated her phrase. She laughed. “How little pride you have. A few glimmers. Another reason to let you live; I would love to watch those sparks die.” She looked at me. “And it also occurs to me that I haven’t really used you. Oh, I had fun putting things inside you, making you beg and obey, humiliate yourself, and the like, but you haven’t made me come. Not a very good sex toy! Maybe if you make me come tonight, I’ll argue with Cesca that you should live. What do you think? Make me come, or die horribly.” She squirmed slightly. “Mhm, I like that.”

She looked at me again.

“How shall I—” I began, but she pressed a button and my voice died.

“No,” she said. “It will be more fun—for me—if you don’t speak. Just obey; without the slightest hesitation. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Oh, your food. I’ll give you a special treat.” She held up the bowl and spat into it, a long string of drool. She gave it a little stir with her finger, and placed the bowl on the floor. “Eat it all up, girlthing.”

⁂

I shot, five times. The back wall merely cracked on the first two shots, but by the fifth the glass had shattered, and a wave of goo sloshed into the room. 

It was slower than water, but quick enough to take people’s ankles. Octavia’s men shot at the goo, but it climbed them. Octavia and Griffith tried to climb onto a table; they might have succeeded too, if they had chosen different tables. But, fighting each other, the goo took them.

I hadn’t been sure how the goo would react to me. The answer was: fine. It touched my ‘skin’ briefly, and then held itself a millimetre off. I strode across the room to where the doctor was flailing; she tried to grab me, but I brushed her off, and just grabbed her phone. Moving free of her clutching fingers, I crossed the room, and opened the door for the goo.

It took a while to clear the whole Steeple. Oh, at first, people were very keen to rush into the goo to save their compatriots. When they gained a bit of caution, the goo hose was still quite effective. 

After that, I needed to talk to the new girlthings. On the doctor’s app, I set them back to as close to normal as possible. My speech was simple; help me and you can go free. 

It was a rather funny, running through the floors with a herd of pornographic girlthings, armed with buckets of goo. But a syndicate hench-person is not trained for that sort of thing. 

I took a bullet in the shoulder; bloody Barb, firing blind with her head covered in nanotech goo. It fucking hurt, but not to the degree it would have hurt a human. A few others of my girlthings got hurt too, and a few hench folk escaped. But eventually we had the Steeple. 

⁂

“I’m worried,” said Cesca, lying in bed.

I snuggled closer. “Why, sweetheart?”

“Because I think I might be falling for you,” said Cesca.

I kissed her breast, softly. “Oh, no.”

“A boss shouldn’t fall in lo—, shouldn’t fall for someone,” said Cesca. 

“I’ve loved you since that first night’s railing,” I lied. I kissed along her collarbone. 

“Really?” she said. “But you’re allowed to. I shouldn’t trust anyone.”

“In case they betray you,” I said. “I know. If I betray you, you have permission to kill me. It’s fine; I have no spite.”

“Don’t joke,” she said. “I would. I wouldn’t even regret it, at first. The anger I feel at being betrayed is… it’s too much. Cold hatred. I don’t want to feel that, for you.”

“I better assure you of my loyalty then,” I said, my kisses descending her belly.

⁂

Zlata woke me with a blowjob, as usual. She was supposed to be in the ‘atonement’ group, but took to the job with such obvious keenness that I forgave her pretty quickly. I have two groups of girlthings: ‘atonement’ and ‘free’. The ‘free’ get proper pronouns, clothes, and the theoretical ability to leave; theoretical because the outside world is not accepting of us. The ‘atonement’ group get punished, to one degree or another. I am not without spite.

I dressed in silver: it looks good against the black. Satin robes, fluted over my hip-handles. A silver and diamond necklace, bangles, shiny stilettos. A silver crown that affixes to my head-handle.

You may think I’m vain, when I tell you I have a throne room. Drama is important, though; to clients and customers.

Cesca was sleeping in front of the throne, but swiftly assumed the footstool position. I slumped in the throne, kicked a shoe off, and put my toes in Cesca’s mouth. It sucked and licked obediently. With my other foot, I rubbed its hard girldick. 

“Do you want to come, Cesca?” I ask. It nods desperately. 

“I can’t hear you,” I said. It had only been seven months, after all.

Octavia has brought a report; Octavia is ‘atonement’ but I don’t have much of an argument with it. But I’m not setting a crime boss free. And it’s smart enough to obey.

“The electroshock couple are in again,” it said. “I woke Barb to attend to them. I hope that was—”

“Yes, very good,” I said. Barb did love electroshocks, though possibly not so much on the receiving side. She shouldn’t have zapped me or shot me, should she?

In truth, I turn down the customers that are too extreme. The atonement group do get those who are borderline though. As I say, I am not without spite.

“Anything else important?” I asked.

“We have two more volunteers,” said Octavia. “Shall I schedule them for this afternoon?”

“That will be fine.” I wasn’t sure why we got volunteers. I suppose people want to be sexy. I offer a three-year contract to work off the debt; I’m not sure whether I’m being generous or mean. Yulia was doing a good job getting the lab up and running; it might not have the genius of Doctor Griffith, but it had learned a lot, and loved breathing.

That reminded me; I got off the throne, and went to Leah’s room. I filled a small bowl with kibble on the way. 

Leah—it seems wrong to call it Doctor Griffith now—is not breathing when I enter. It is shaking, and its eyes are darting this way and that. Then it can breathe again, and it’s gulping in air, choking on it.

It’s a simple program; when the blood oxygen is too low, its breathing is turned on. When it’s almost back to normal, it is turned off. It looks tired; I don’t stop the program for it to sleep. But us girlthings are robust.

Still, I wonder if I have broken it; seven months of this. One day I will turn its voice on and find out. 

I spit in the bowl, and place it beside Leah. In the early days I had to force feed it, but it seems to have learned its lesson. It’s bending towards the bowl as its breathing turns off again.

No, I am not without spite.