The Bullpen Ch. 02

She was in a zoo.

Homo sapiens sapiens, female. Twenty-nine years old. Black hair. 5'7". 127 pounds. Native land: Central Ohio.

She was still in a cage, locked behind glass in a ridiculous diorama of her "natural habitat" – a pink, dollhouse-esque bedroom, complete with a pink canopy bed, pink furniture, and pink wallpaper. Pink-framed photographs and paintings hung on the three opaque walls, each piece of art instilled with a pink hue. Her bed was covered in pink blankets and sheets, each a slightly varied shade of pink. And, as Erica picked herself up off the floor of her new habitat, she noticed that the hard metal/linoleum of the Bullpen floor had been traded for thick, pink, shag carpet.

Erica was confused, mystified as to how she had been transported out of ConnPharm without waking. Had there been a sedative in Hannah's needle? Had the whole deuterotone experiment been nothing more than a chance for Bill Forrester or Jake Rinaldi to sell her into white slavery?

But, perhaps more horrifying than the fact that she had been transported out of the Bullpen was her new audience. They were lined up on the far side of her glass wall – old men with canes, overweight mothers with cameras, dads in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts, little boys with their mouth agape, little girls staring in with casual disinterest. There was a field trip – thirty to forty second-graders staring in at her with their sixty-something-year-old teacher while their tour guide prattled on about the human female.

"….entertains herself by shopping for shoes, eating ice cream, and reading trashy magazines," the tour guide explained, gesturing towards Erica's body. Erica rubbed her eyes, not believing what she saw – the guide was none other than her own mother.

"Mom!" Erica screamed, tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. "Mom! Where am I? Mom?!! Let me out!"

Karen Rivers seemed unable to hear the pleas of her daughter, and continued to speak to her tour group. "Now, the human female's lifespan is close to seventy-six years, but she is only fertile from approximately the age of fifteen until around the time she is forty years old, meaning this particular animal in front of you has already lost out on half of her child-bearing years."

Erica watched as some of the mothers on the far side of the glass shook their heads in disappointment, while her own mother continued to ignore Erica's crying.

"Now," Karen began, with a finger in the air, "the common misconception is that the human female reaches her sexual peak long after the human male." She paused, and then, with eyebrows raised, continued, "This is a myth. In fact, if we were to measure hormone production, males and females of this species reach their heights of arousal at roughly the same age. However, based on pressures and influences of their society, the North American female does not reach true sexual SATISFACTION until her thirties."

"Is that why this one hasn't had a baby yet?" asked a young, blonde pigtailed little girl.

"Well, there are a number of factors," Karen responded. "The first of which is probably dissatisfaction with her personal appearance – she is uncomfortable in her own body."

Erica was taken aback by this analysis by her mother. Her mother was dead on, of course, about Erica's image of herself. She was too tall. Her breasts were too small. She had a hideous birthmark on her ass. Her fingers were too long and narrow, her thighs carrying just a little too much weight. Any of the visitors peering in at Erica would have described her as a complete knockout, but Erica doubted herself. And anyways, she had always been far more concerned with science to worry for very long over her appearance.

"But we, here, at the Beardsley Zoo, have taken it upon ourselves to inject our girl here, Kahaba, with hormones to induce sexual arousal."

Kahaba? Sexual arousal? Injected with hormones? "No, Mom, it's me, Erica! What are you talking about? Let me out!"

"As you can see," Karen continued, gesturing in the direction of Erica, "Kahaba has prepared herself to mate by making herself as alluring as possible."

It was only then that Erica noticed she was no longer in the nude. At first, it was clothing in general that caught her off guard – after a week of having her most private parts on display, it seemed unnatural that they be somewhat hidden away. But as she peered down at her scantily clad body, the outfit itself shocked her.

Somehow, she had been dressed in a pinkish-white lace merry widow, complete with sheer cups that her nipples poked right through and spaghetti-thin shoulder straps. Garters ran down her body to a matching set of floral-embroidered, thigh-high pink stockings, each stocking with a girlish little ribbon where the garter met the hosiery. Between them, Erica found herself wearing a similarly pink-hued pair of thong panties, her café-au-lait showing in the back, and another cute little ribbon at the waistline in the front, just an inch or two below her beautiful exposed navel. And, finishing off the vision in pink, were a pair of three-inch heeled feathered slippers. It was plainly obvious that Erica had been dressed to seduce.

But, more embarrassing than the outfit itself was the wet stain that seemed to be growing on the front of the panties, exposing her apparent arousal to the audience gathered on the far side of the glass. Erica seemed to be getting off on the crowd.

As Erica tried to put the pieces together in her mind, a door slowly opened behind her.

"Oh, look," Karen announced to her group of schoolchildren, "we're in for a treat today. The zookeeper has decided to allow Kahaba and Mwenyeji to mate."

The scantily-clad girl slowly turned around, unsure of what to expect on the far side of the door. With a relief, she saw her boyfriend Tom's face emerge from the shadows.

"Oh my god, Tom," Erica gasped. "Thank God it's you. I didn't know what to –"

Erica had been comforted by Tom's presence, glad to be with someone she knew and recognized. But Tom didn't seem to recognize her, and as he took a step into the room, Erica began to realize that this wasn't her Tom. This was Mwenyeji.

He was completely naked, from head to toe, and while his face was similar to Tom's, this male's body was decidedly different. It was better cut, with muscles rippling through each arm and its chest. Mwenyeji's stomach was better defined, and his thighs and legs much more athletic. But it was the penis - flaccid at first but quickly rising with excitement - that was the giveaway; Mwenyeji was significantly better equipped than Erica's boyfriend.

Her first thought was not about running away, or about screaming for help, or about demanding her release. Instead, Erica could only wonder about whether a member that size could fit into her pussy.

Mwenyeji stepped into the room quickly, without a word or even a grunted "hello." Before Erica could protest, she had been thrown to canopy bed roughly, and the strange man with Tom's face had come down on top of her. He was perched on his right side, propping himself up on his right elbow to Erica's left, away from the window and the watching crowd. His right fist grabbed at the girl's dark hair (which was suddenly longer than it had been even before Colin's makeshift haircut), pulling her whole head hard to his face. As Tom/Mwenyeji forced his tongue into Erica/Kahaba's open mouth, he used his left hand to tear her soaked-through panties away from her body, ripping them as if they'd been made of paper. Erica gasped in a mixture of pleasure and pain into her new mate's mouth as he forced his index and middle finger of his left hand deep into her waiting cunt. Her eyes went wide as his calloused thumb found her clitoris, and began to move it side-to-side like an expert.

Seconds into the sexual assault, Erica was already close to cumming. But as she caught sight of the gathering just outside her pink pen, she gathered herself and pushed Mwenyeji off of her body. His fingers were ripped away. His thumb was ripped away. His mouth was ripped away. And, as the man reached for something to hold onto, Erica's left cup of her merry widow was ripped away.

She rolled to the far side of the bed and dashed to the window. Screaming, she pounded on the glass, yelling for her mother to come save her. Yelling for anyone to come save her.

Instead, the audience simply looked at her in amusement. She was an animal that the zoo was mating. She was no different from a lioness, or a gorilla, or a dog, learning her place as a sexual object for a male of her species. They looked in, and watched her helplessness with no more interest than they'd give to a wildlife program on public television. What happened to Erica was no concern to them, and seemed to be no concern even to Erica's own mother.

Tom/Mwenyeji caught her from behind, returning his right hand to Erica's head, where he grabbed at her hair once again and forced her flat against the pane. Both of Erica's smallish breasts were pressed hard against the surface, but her left nipple – out and exposed – was flattened on the glass two inches from a goofy-looking man eating popcorn. She was lifted off her feet just enough for Mwenyeji's penis to slip inside of her, penetrating deeper than Tom's ever had. Within four quick, rough thrusts, Erica was once again approaching her climax. She was crying, both from the intense pleasure and the intense humiliation of being fucked in front of dozens on onlookers.

She screamed as she was about to cum.

But the orgasm never came.

Instead, Erica awoke on the hard floor on the Bullpen, alone and unclothed. Her own reflection, in the mirror-glass facing the Observation Room, was her only visible company. But Erica knew that there was someone else on the far side of that glass, an audience to her captivity as if she were an animal in the zoo.

"Are you okay?" Tessa Romero's voice boomed over the loudspeaker. Pete Bowie had completed her training, and now the college-aged intern was on her own through the night shift. "Your heart-rate's up, your adrenaline's up, and a lot of your other numbers, too…"

The black-haired girl inside the Bullpen rolled over onto her back, staring up through the dimly lit room towards the ceiling. "Just a bad dream," she reassured the girl.

But was it really a bad dream? Erica had certainly never had a dream quite like it before, but she couldn't deny the arousal she was feeling. If anything, she felt somewhat frustrated that she hadn't been allowed to cum in the dream.

"Would you like any water?" the girl asked from the Observation Desk.

Erica groggily rubbed her eyes with her fists. What she really wanted was to be home in her own bed. In her pajamas. With her boyfriend – her real boyfriend – slowly and gently bringing her to her climax.

But for now, water would have to do.

***

"So I heard you had a rough night last night," Natalie Hart asked Erica in the Observation Room.

The raven-haired girl was seated at the table in the corner, wearing nothing but the technologically equipped black corset. Her still-small breasts dangled out in the open, but Erica had crossed her legs to hide her vagina, as she usually did, when she'd sat down to eat her lunch. Soon after the girl had begun feeding on her Caesar salad, she'd been joined by her elder, who sat gracefully across from her. Natalie was obviously interested in the quick report that Erica had given Noah that morning.

"It was just a dream," Erica explained, unsure she wanted to talk any more about it than she already had.

"But you think it was brought on by the deuterotone?"

"It was a bit more…" the girl paused for the right word, "carnal…than my usual dreams."

Natalie pushed further. "You told Noah that it was sexual. That's out of the ordinary?"

Erica swallowed hard. "Well….no. I mean, those kinds of dreams are relatively common, I guess. But this was much more graphic than usual, much more sexual and much less sensual."

The older woman nodded.

"I just thought," Erica continued, "that because of the body confusing deuterotone with testosterone every now and then, it might explain that sort of dream. If it's not related, then it's not related…but I just thought I should report it. For the science."

"That could be," Natalie responded. "But I think we should also keep an open mind about your psychology, given your current situation."

Erica cocked an eyebrow.

"Nudists and naturalists can tell me all they want that there's nothing sexual about nakedness, but I'll never believe them," the blonde continued in a hushed tone. "I just think that, given your current situation, it's understandable if your subconscious, naturally, gets turned on by the exhibitionism."

The girl nearly chocked on a crouton. "Natalie, I am NOT a flasher. I am NOT getting off on parading myself around ConnPharm in nothing but my birthday suit." She kept her voice low and one eye on Colin on the far side of the room, but her tone showed that she was more than a little put off by her superior's suggestion.

"I'm not saying you are," Natalie answered. "But being naked can be a sexual thing, and you can't control your subconscious." She paused. "Can I ask what the dream was about? That is, a few more specifics?"

Erica shook her head. "No. Absolutely not. It should be enough that I –"

The older biologist cut her off. "Were you on display? Was there an audience? Was someone watching you?"

Silence.

"I'll take that as a yes." Natalie gave the girl a knowing smile. "If it really was the deuterotone, and it really was only the deuterotone, why incorporate anything more than just you and a partner?"

With that, the blonde woman stood, leaving the girl alone with her lunch. As she walked away, she turned, and suggested, "Just keep an open mind. You can't assume that what you're experiencing is entirely because of the chemicals injected into your body."

"What was that about?" Colin asked, after Natalie had left. The technician strolled closer to the lunch table.

"Nothing," Erica replied, pushing the rest of her salad away. Natalie really had given her something to think about. "I'm not hungry. Can you take the corset off? Can I get back in the Bullpen?"

Looking puzzled, the man answered, "Sure. Sure thing."

Her prison had become comforting. Her place of exposure had become her place of protection. And maybe, just maybe, a part of Erica longed to be bared to Colin.

***

Fifty-five hours and three intensely sexual dreams after her first injection, a tingling began throughout Erica's body. At first, it was spread out, dispersed through her body and across her naked skin. As it continued, however, the dark-haired girl explained to the assemblage outside the Bullpen that it had become concentrated – in her throat, her chest, and her groin.

Vijay and Takahashi had both still been at ConnPharm when the tingling began, and had been the first called down to the Bullpen. They were soon joined by Noah and Hannah, both of whom drove in from home to check up on their friend and test subject. And finally, Wendy had brought down Cathy Reinhardt, a registered EMT that ConnPharm kept on call throughout the night. If they needed to end the project, Cathy would be the first to try to help pull Erica back from any adverse conditions caused by the deuterotone.

"We don't know that it's out of the ordinary," Erica explained, trying to calm everyone down. "It would have been hard for Trixie to explain to us that she was feeling this sensation."

"We don't know that it is ordinary, either," Noah countered. "It would have been difficult for Trixie to explain to us that she had felt no sensation at all."

"All I'm saying," Erica continued, "is that I feel fine, other than the tingling. And Wendy can tell you herself that's there's nothing wrong with any of my vitals."

In the Observation Room, all eyes turned to the peroxide blonde.

"Heart rate went up when you all started arguing with her," the technician shrugged. "Other than that, the mainframe's not showing anything out of the ordinary."

"Does it hurt?" Hannah asked, turning her attention away from Wendy and back towards the mirror glass.

Erica answered, "No, it just…it….it's more like pins and needles. Like when your arm or your leg falls asleep on you."

"And this has been going on for how long now?" Noah asked.

"About forty-five minutes," Mike Takahashi replied.

"And did anything set it off? Did anything cause the 'pins and needles'?"

Vijay answered this time. "Mike and I have already gone over the data. It looks like deuterotone has reached a critical point – fatty tissue is starting to amass around Erica's…I mean, the subject's…I mean, around her breasts."

"Well, that explains the tingling in the mammary area," Noah said. "And the onset of second puberty would obviously create a similar tingling in the groin. But I'm a little concerned about her throat."

"My larynx," Erica cut in. "If my body's mistaking the deuterotone as testosterone or some other androgen, it might mean that my voice is going to deepen a bit."

"…which isn't supposed to happen," Noah continued.

"Which hasn't happened in the other animals," Erica corrected him, "but we knew that it was a possibility in human women."

"So if it does happen, and your voice does change…?" Wendy asked. "Do you guys go back to the drawing board?"

"Not yet," Erica answered through the intercom.

"Not yet," Noah agreed. "The larynx grows in both genders during puberty – it's just more significant in male development. Her voice might change a little, it might change a lot, it might not change at all. We don't really know."

"And even if it does," the naked girl on the far side of the glass went on, "we still wouldn't be sure if it would happen in all women, or if there's something unique to my particular body chemistry that caused it."

Her partner nodded.

The decision had to be made as to whether to continue with the project or not. Though Noah had the ultimate say, with Erica somewhat indisposed, Erica got her way and the experiment went forward. Her partner, unfortunately, was somewhat wary of the deuterotone, given Erica's dreams the past two nights, and now the strange sensation taking hold of her body.

Noah, like everyone else at ConnPharm, had no concept of the specifics of Erica's dreams. Natalie had hinted at them, but only Erica knew the ins and outs of her own imagination, and she wasn't yet ready to share the vulgar details of her dirty subconscious. Like her experience in the zoo with Tom/Mwenyeji, her two additional dreams had involved an enhanced version of her boyfriend, rough sex, and an audience. And, like the first, Erica had, as of yet, been unable to cum in any of her dreams. For some torturous reason, she continued to awake just before release, denied of her orgasm each time.

That Wednesday night, at ten o'clock, Erica was indecisive as to whether she was looking forward to falling asleep that night.

Just as she was indecisive about the somewhat pleasant sensation stirring in her crotch.

There was a part of her that was worried about the tingling, of course. But there was another part of her, a more CARNAL part of her, that couldn't help but enjoy the buzzing deep in her pussy and around her clitoris. It seemed as if her body, with the help her chemical compound, had produced an organic sex toy, a natural vibrator. And, unfortunately, it was just humming enough to keep her aroused, but – like her dreams – not quite enough to finish her off.

Even her nipples had been standing straight up since the tingling had begun. Of course, her nipples had been hard on and off throughout the past week and half, as she displayed her body to all comers. But this was different, as they were harder and more tender than before. Erica longed to touch them.