Snuggle Ch. 02

"Are ... are you holding us here against our will?" I asked the doctor.

He expressed surprise. "I'm shocked that you'd even consider such an accusation," he answered. He pulled out that damn penlight again. "I'm only trying to help each of you find your true potential." It started blinking again. "And you DO like it, don't you? You like the way you watch the light and relax. Relax. Now, Sleep. Sleep."

Janie was out again, but I tried hard to reason this through. The more he intoned "Sleep," however, the more difficult it was to concentrate. Finally, after losing my train of thought entirely, I succumbed and lay down beside her. I had another orgasm ... but that's all I remember. When we next awoke, however, we were both completely naked.

"Oh, HELL no!" Janie yelled, covering her breasts with her hands as the door opened. But the doc hardly seemed to take notice, and he set the tray with the two plates and two glasses down in front of us exactly like he'd done before. The incentive of food outweighed the need for modesty, and she used her hands to force the morsels into her mouth, actually whining when it was gone. This time, she looked at me suspiciously when she found another few bites on her previously empty plate, but said nothing and guiltily ate it.

"You can't keep us here," I told him savagely. "We have friends and family. They'll be looking for us."

He smiled pleasantly. "As I said before, I'm only attempting to help you reach your full potential. And ... as a matter of fact, you've each called your families and told them that you're working for Mr. Toddworth on a project, and that you won't be able to call again for some time."

The shock or such a statement suddenly became obscured in my mind. He was pulling out the penlight again. Suddenly, I thought I knew what was happening to me ... but before I could voice my thoughts, Janie asked: "Why are we nude? Why did you do this?"

"It helps create the mood for submissive reception of my suggestions of self-acceptance and mental actualization," he said. Ah, so it wasn't just my muddled brain. He was talking in double-speak. By this time, the light was blinking, and he began chanting his stupid "Relax," and "Sleep" mantra. What had that thought been? It had been so important. I slept. I came.

I awoke. It was the same scenario exactly, but this time, when I had the idea, I kept a firm grasp on it. Unfortunately, I'd already eaten the food. "You son of a bitch," I hissed at him. "You're drugging us. THAT's how you're doing this." He grimaced slightly and regarded me seriously before pulling out the penlight. I was especially dismayed when I felt Janie, beside me, topple over, asleep ... but I swore I was not going to be such easy prey. I kept my eyes locked on his, rather than on the light, and I tried my damnedest not to listen to him, but he just kept on and on while lifting the blinking light to his eye level and I again lost my train of thought and surrendered.

I came again. But this time, I DO remember what happened. Because this time, I tried and I tried ... and I woke up. I was lying on my back beside Janie in the bed, and I heard a voice, detached and distant, coming from somewhere beyond the room. I got up and went to the door, listened with my ear against it, then tried it, only to find it locked. I tiptoed over to the other door, gently cracked it open and peered inside. It was some sort of operating room, with medical devices and heavy machines all around. Dr. Arnold was bent over a desk, speaking into a phone. "Yes, I just spoke to Toddworth, and he concurred .... I'm sorry if you're inconvenienced .... The blonde's okay, it's the other one. I don't think I can control her any longer .... I understand that they both have to be done together, and I'm sorry the timetable is being moved up, but I need you now. Right away .... I'm sorry, I have absolutely nothing at all to do with the money. You'll have to take that up with Toddworth .... Yes, goodbye."

He rose, and I retreated quickly back to the bed, taking my place beside Janie; but he never came into the room (I was watching through eyes that were closed to slits). Eventually, though, I heard a door close somewhere, and rising once again, I checked the door to the other room carefully. He wasn't there, so I crept in and looked around.

The place smelled antiseptic, and was clean and shiny new. A wheeled gurney seemed to be the central feature of the room, but one end of it was literally surrounded by bulky objects ... above, below and on either side. Atop these, and on both side of them, were computer monitors, all slanted to face what must have been a control panel, which sported two keyboards and two joysticks.

Confused, I went to the desk where I had seen Dr. Arnold talking on the phone. I can't believe I didn't immediately pick it up and try to call for help ... my mind must have still been muddled from whatever drug had been in the food. Instead, my attention was drawn to several file folders sitting on the desk's surface, one of which bore Janie's and my names. It wasn't very extensive ... most of it was from our "profiles" on file with our agent in Los Angeles. After our sophomore year, Janie and I had taken all the same classes, one of which was a clinical psych class where, as one of our projects, we "evaluated" ourselves using various types of standard psychological tests. How had he gotten his hands on this stuff?

All the other folders had to do with a woman in Chicago. One of the first things in the top folder was a short news article from the Chicago Tribune dated about three years before. I still remember it verbatim. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

"WOMAN SUES CITY. CLAIMS ACCIDENT FORCED HER INTO PROSTITUTION.

"A South Chicago woman, injured in a bus accident in June, is making the strange claim that the injuries she sustained have forced her into a life of sexual dependency and prostitution.

"The woman, referred to in the formal suit as "Ms X," insists that since the mishap, she has been unable to be physically separated from another person without experiencing severe panic attacks. Without family or friends in the area, she claims that she has been forced to move from man to man in order to maintain physical closeness; her only stipulations in the mostly one-night liaisons were that the man spend the entire night with her, and that afterwards, he remain with her, holding her hand, until a substitute could be found.

"She claims that she has lost all that she had, including her job and apartment, as a result of the accident. She is seeking $20 million in damages. The City Attorney's Office calls the claim preposterous."

Most of the other folders contained medical mumbo-jumbo and what I assumed to be brain scans, circled in some places, notes written in marker in others.

I smelled him first. That's the first indication I had that I was no longer alone. A harsh, sharp, nauseating, medicine smell. I dropped the folder I was holding and started to spin around toward him, but I was too late ... he'd slid an arm around my bare stomach and pulled me back against him. The smell became overpowering. Instinctively, I took a deep breath to scream, but instead of air, all my lungs inhaled was the horrid smell. I raised my hands to claw at the hand covering my mouth, feeling cloth, but I lacked the strength to do any damage. I started kicking back at him, but my feet, of course, were bare; and by now, I could barely lift them.

"You've been naughty, Kendra," Doctor Arnold said in my ear. "I've only had your best interests at heart, but you've been exceedingly uncooperative." I couldn't keep my hands up anymore, and they fell to my sides. "I'll make you a deal," he continued. "If you be a good girl and go to sleep, I'll take away the bad-smelling cloth. Do we have an agreement?" I tried to nod, but I have no idea if I did. I did sleep though. No orgasm this time. Guess I'd been a bad girl.

When I finally awoke, the room was the same, but the scene had changed dramatically. I was in a chair against one wall, and I couldn't move. My arms were attached to the arms of the chair by some sort of tape, and apparently, so were my feet to the chair's legs. There were two figures that slightly resembled space creatures in a "B" movie, draped in greenish cloth and bulky stuff that covered their bodies, both front and back. They wore helmets that covered the tops and back of their heads, and a faceplate that sort of resembled a welder's mask, only the place for the eyes was transparent. Their feet were wrapped in those paper slipper things they use in hospitals. In stark contrast was the nude figure on the hospital gurney. Janie was lying face-down, her arms by her sides, Velcro straps around her back, her hips, her thighs, her ankles. As I watched, the bulky machines that surrounded her head were moving away, though cloth pads obscured the back of her head.

The standing figure spoke with Dr. Arnold's voice. "You're not going to monitor extraction?"

"It's all computerized," was the gruff answer. "It's going to come out exactly the same way it went in. As long as she's perfectly still, everything will be fine." He sounded condescending ... maybe a little pissed off.

There was a humming noise, and a machine just above her head began extracting a long, thin needle out of the back of her head through a hole in the cloth. I gaped as needle kept coming ... and coming. There seemed to be no end to it; and to me, it was an absolute impossibility. It must have easily been twelve or fourteen inches long. From its angle, it should have stuck several inches through the front of her face. I made a noise. It was the first I'd noticed that there was tape over my mouth.

"Ah. Little Miss Nosey is awake," the gruff voice proclaimed.

He wasn't looking at me, though. Now that the needle was all the way out I saw that it wasn't really a needle at all, but something flexible and wiggly. He man moved his chair up to Janie's head, where he began working with various tools and devices. For awhile, it appeared that he was using a screwdriver. And then he was working with a needle and thread. The whole process took maybe ten minutes. Finally, he pushed his wheeled chair back away from her.

"She's all yours, Doctor." I could hear a sneer as he emphasized that last word. Then he seemed to reconsider. "That's the first time I've ever operated on a patient who was under hypnosis. I have to admit, I'm impressed. Perhaps you should consider a second career in anesthesia."

"It's not going to work on her, though," Dr. Arnold said, nodding in my direction.

"That's alright. I'll take care of this one." The surgeon stood, walked over to a cabinet and started fiddling with something while the shorter figure pulled all the Velcro straps off of Janie's limp body, then he wheeled the gurney out of the room. When the space monster by the cabinet turned to face me again, it was holding a hypodermic needle. He walked up to me, bent down and looked me in the eyes.

"I had Broadway show tickets for tonight. I was going to take a lovely lady I met at a party. I was thinking, maybe, I'd get lucky, you know? But then ... YOU happened." He straightened up and took a step back. I couldn't take my eyes off the needle. "You obviously read my folders," he resumed. "You know what's going to happen to your girlfriend now. And so ... I'm going to give you a choice. Number one, you can voluntarily hold out your arm for me while I inject you with this; in which case, you and your blonde friend will remain together ... possibly forever. Or ... you can refuse, in which case, I'll inject it into your neck, and do the procedure, anyway." He stepped closer again, put his face mask beside my ear, and spoke in a voice only I could hear. "But, Toddworth knows the odds. Some failure is inevitable in science. With a slight error, I could turn you a walking turnip. And as for your friend? Toddworth will do whatever he has planned with her alone, and I can promise you ... as God is my witness ... you will never see her again." He let that sink in for a second. "You probably read that news article. Do you think she can survive without you?" And without further comment, he reached down and savagely pulled the tape from my mouth.

"You son of a bitch!" I screamed, only to be struck dumb by the sight of a scalpel, held inches from my face. Sure, I tried to sound brave, but my wide eyes and tear-drenched cheeks might have been giving away my true feelings just a little. Nervously, I watched the scalpel descend to my right wrist, where, with a single swipe, it cut through the tape. Slowly, I twisted it until it was free, then I raised my hand, flexed my fingers several times, and tried to wipe away some of the tears, which were coming too hard now to staunch. I looked up at the mad doctor again, who was still standing above me holding the hypo. "You son of a bitch," I whispered again, and I held out my arm toward him, wrist upward. Without further preamble, he plunged the needle into my arm. "Ow ow ow!" I exclaimed through gritted teeth as he pushed the plunger home.

Once that was done, he suddenly seemed to be in a huge hurry. Using the scalpel, he sliced through the tape restraining my other wrist and my ankles, pulling the tape clear almost brutally, then he turned away and started fiddling with something near all the machines. I simply couldn't believe that he'd free me and then just leave me sitting there! I decided ... to hell with it. I was going to run. Naked or not, I was going to escape and find some help. All I had to ... do ... was ... move. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn't open my mouth. Somehow, I realized that I couldn't even blink my eyes. And then slowly, slowly, the REAL problem hit home: I couldn't breathe.

"I need a little help in here, doctor!" the goon in green hollered. This brought some sort of immediate action, but I couldn't see it. I mean, I could still see ... but I could move neither my head nor my eyes in their sockets. I felt myself being hoisted up and plopped onto my side on the padded gurney. Fingers were suddenly in my mouth, prying it open. Oooh, I wanted SO much to bite him! But that, of course, wasn't happening. Something else was in my mouth now, pressing against my tongue, holding it down. He put strips of tape over my mouth then; four of them, at least ... maybe more. Something was pinching my nose. And all of a sudden, my lungs were flooded with air. If I could, I would have sighed in relief ... but it took another half minute to realize that I was virtually in the same situation; for not only could I not inhale, I couldn't exhale, either.

I felt hands playing with my breasts ... and then just below them. Something started beeping rhythmically, and I realized that he'd hooked up a heart monitor. Then, I was turned over onto my stomach, and he began securing my head to some sort of cushioned indentation at the end of table. I'm not sure how the thing in my mouth worked. My eyes were open, but they were less than an inch from the surface of the table, and I could see nothing at all. I felt a hand on my bare back push down hard, and the air in my lungs was finally expelled. When the hand left, pressurized air filled them again. Hands continued fiddling with straps and things around my head, as, once again, I found that I could not exhale. I began to see stars. I was about to die of asphyxiation, even though my lungs were full of air.

Dr. Arnold's voice: "What did you give her? My God, is she conscious? Is she cognizant?" I heard someone's frustrated pacing while other straps were applied. "What kind of fiend ARE you?"

"At the moment, I am one pissed-off fiend," was the reply. "Now, if you'd like to help out a little, you could press the lady's back ... like this ... once every six or seven seconds. You'll know if you aren't doing it right, because the heart monitor will flat line when she dies."

The straps were being put around my lower back now, my thighs, my ankles. "This is INSANE!" Dr. Arnold's voice half-screamed. "Do you have any idea what kind of psychological impact this might have on her?"

"Don't be ridiculous. This is nothing, compared to the psychological results of operation itself. Anyway, serves her right, as far as I'm concerned." There was a long pause. "And ... we're ready to start. You'll feel a little sting, my dear." Holy shit! A little sting? It felt like he'd jammed a hot poker into the back of head! "And ... here comes another one." Okay, that one ... whatever it was ... wasn't nearly as bad as the first one, but it still hurt. There was another pause. "And one more." It took me awhile to realize he was through with whatever it was he was doing. I hadn't even felt the "one more." I heard metal scraping against metal somewhere, and I realized he'd picked up something from a steel tray. "And now ... a little pressure." Something was definitely happening back there, but I couldn't tell what. And then, I heard it ... like somebody knocking gently on a piece of very hard wood. He was tapping on my skull.

"And now, my dear, we fire up the machines." I heard several switches clicked, and electronics could be heard, the sound rising in frequency before leveling off in a constant, high-pitched hum. "You've no doubt noticed the sheik style of clothing the two of us are wearing. These devices put out quite a bit of radiation. You should feel no ill effects from the amount you're about to absorb, but I wouldn't recommend getting a chest X-ray, MRI or CAT scan in the next year, if you can avoid it. And now, if you'll excuse me, this thing is a little loud."

I would have jumped if that were at all possible. It sounded like a dentist's drill. Then it smelled like being in a dentist's chair while he was drilling ... the smell of burning bone. Finally, it stopped. "Could you hand me that number eleven, please, doctor?" There was a pause. "The scalpel." Another pause. "No, the pointy one. Thank you." Water was coursing down my neck, then I heard air hissing. "I can't go all the way through with the drill, you see. Bone chips don't mix well with God's greatest creation." There was a long period where the only sound was scraping. "Done," he announced. "Clean as a whistle. Nice color, by the way ... sign of a very healthy brain. Oh ... and nice boobs, too. I forgot to compliment you on those. Now to position the probe." Small electric motors were being activated to my left and right.

"Aaannd ... we're off!" he said triumphantly. "Our destination, my dear, is the left lateral amygdala. Ever heard of it? .... What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? .... Well, no consequence. Now, if it were up to ME, I'd have gone through the roof of your mouth, but our employer wanted something a little more ... cosmetically acceptable. As a result, I go in just about anywhere else I want, and travel along the outside of the brain itself through the layer of fluid that protects said organ. I plan to make a right turn about half-past your left ear. Don't be shocked if you hear it. Now, nestled somewhere just below the level of your eyes, we find two of those grey squiggly things that make up your brain ... but these are oriented as almost-circles, standing upright. Those make up the hippocampus. At the forward end of each of those almost-circles, there's a little node. That's the amygdala. It reminds me, a little, of the head on a penis ... but perhaps I just have a dirty mind."

I don't know what I was expecting when he gave me that shot ... but it sure hadn't been this. I have never felt so utterly, absolutely, thoroughly helpless. I wished he would shut up, but he was obviously getting off on instilling as much terror in me as he could. I tried to reason calmly. There was nothing I COULD do ... not even breathe on my own, and so I should resolve myself to just hang on. If only he would shut up! His words were being obscured, now, by some piece of equipment, way off to my left, that ... for some reason ... was increasing dramatically in pitch and amplitude. Soon, perhaps, I wouldn't be able to hear him at all if that thing (whatever it was), kept getting louder. But then the sound crested and began tapering off, and it modulated in pitch, slightly, like the Doppler shift of a passing train. Oh, God! It was the probe! It wasn't some piece of equipment, far to my left; the sound was coming from inside me! Inside my head!