Harem Mansion Pt. 01: Cogito

I turned my attention to the wall that had posters on it. Now that I was up close, I could see they weren't posters but large screens laid behind a plane of glass. There were two on either side of the wall, and in between them was the full-length mirror I saw affixed to the ceiling earlier. I guess someone moved it; the picture of Descartes was gone. I looked at the first screen. It read in small black font:

RULES

WHEN MASTER GIVES ME ORDERS, I WILL OBEY THEM IMMEDIATELY WITHOUT QUESTION.

I DO NOT MAKE DECISIONS.

I WILL ALWAYS CALL MASTER BY HIS PROPER TITLE.

And underneath that, a vast expanse of blank space.

When Master trains me more, I will get more rules, and they will fill that space.

I shuddered when I noticed that I had called him Master in my head. I could tell by reading the rules that it was customary, but it felt like a subtle defeat.

The screen on the other side of the mirror displayed a map. I quickly deduced that it was a map of whatever facility I was staying in. There were four floors, each divided into three wings with a large circular room in the middle. Although I could see that there were four floors, only the bottom one actually had any useful information. The three flours above it were all blacked out, and any labels listed on them were covered with censor bars.

What a helpful map this is.

The bottom floor's A wing was labeled "SLAVE QUARTERS." It was a set of six hallways, each of which had twelve cells. I did the math quickly: there were 72 cells in total. I shook. Master must have been an extremely wealthy and powerful man if he could afford to manage 72 slaves at once. I assumed, of course, that I was in one of those cells now. The B wing was divided into a cafeteria and a kitchen, so I guess that was where the slaves ate. The C wing was more interesting. It was also divided into three rooms, but I couldn't tell by reading what they were. One was labeled "STUDIO," one was labeled "PLEASURE ROOM," and one was labeled "PUNISHMENT ROOM." I imagined I wouldn't want to end up there. As a whole, the C wing was a mystery. The circular room in the center was simply called "COMMON ROOM," and I could see that it had an elevator directly in the middle.

That's all well and good, but it's no use if I can't even leave my cell.

Before checking the final wall, I stopped to look at myself in the mirror again. I looked basically the same as before, but now that I could move my body, I saw something that caught my attention. There was a black mark on my right ass cheek. It was pointing away from my eyes, so I couldn't clearly tell what it was, but it was unmistakably there. I turned around and craned my neck back as far as it would go. To my revulsion, someone had tattooed my ass while I was comatose. There was a heart and a diamond, like ones from a deck of cards, as well as a large number 6. I stood there puzzled, trying to work out what it meant. Was I the sixth slave to arrive? Or was there some sort of succession going on here? And what about the card suits? It was all so confusing.

Wait a minute. Why aren't I angrier about this?

It was true. My reaction was strangely subdued. I wasn't thrilled to see that someone had tattooed me without my consent -- in fact, I was pretty annoyed -- but that's all it was. Annoyance. When I considered what the tattoo symbolized, though, it occurred to me that I really ought to have felt something more extreme. This was a permanent change. I was always going to have this tattoo now. It was demonstrable proof that my body was no longer my own, because someone could alter it and it would never go back to normal. And if my body wasn't my own, what did that mean? What else could they do to me? They could shave me bald, cut off my limbs, gouge out my eyes, they could even kill me. There was nothing I could do about it. I should have been mortified, and enraged, and distraught, but instead I just felt frustrated. It was as though I knew already that I was property, and it wasn't a great shock that others used me how they liked. It was like this was just normal.

Thinking back on it, that's how I'd felt this entire time. I knew intellectually that this was maybe the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and that my life was over, and that I was just going to suffer until I died, but that knowledge didn't translate into emotions. I was upset about what was happening, but it didn't feel like an irreconcilable evil intrusion on my very existence, it felt like an inconvenience. My emotions didn't match what I knew to be true, and that fact disturbed me more than the tattoo or the bondage gear or the cell. I realized that, despite everything, it all felt so normal.

Once again, I decided I didn't want to think about this too much. There was still another wall to check out. This one was blank except for the recess in the middle, which had a small cup and a cup holder. The apparatus I saw earlier must have been a dispenser. The cup was filled with a bright pink liquid. As soon as I saw it, I realized I was parched. I didn't know how long I'd been out, but it must have been a while since I'd had anything to eat or drink. I awkwardly grabbed the cup with my cuffed hands and drank it. I realized the moment it touched my tongue that it was the same substance Kiru poured down my throat earlier. I worried that maybe I shouldn't drink it, but I didn't want to die of thirst, so I did anyway. When I finished, I set the cup on the dispenser's counter. As if by magic, the moment it touched the surface, the machine whirred to life. I watched a small slot at the bottom of the machine open up and deposit a dog bowl at the bottom. Simultaneously, a panel at the top of the dispenser opened and started dripping a thick brown paste into the bowl. The bowl filled and the dispenser was finished.

I stared at the bowl for a long time. I very much did not want to eat from it. I understood this was an intentional humiliation by the man keeping me here, and I didn't want to play his games. Unfortunately, I was famished, and I was certain that if I didn't eat, they'd simply let me starve here. Further, I wasn't exactly dignified to begin with. Even if I didn't eat from the bowl, I was still exposed, and my stomach still read WORTHLESS WHORE. It didn't seem to matter all that much if I did eat from the bowl or not.

So this is their modus operandi: false decisions. I wonder if it's effective.

In the short time I'd been here, I learned that compliance was the best policy. I struggled to get my hand in the bowl, and I scooped up a handful of the brown mush --

BRRRT. At once I felt a shock. Actually, I felt three shocks, in three different parts of my body. The strongest was around my neck, where I felt waves of painful electricity cascade throughout my system. The two toys that were stuffed in my holes buzzed as well. It is difficult to express for those who have never experienced it just how unpleasant an electric shock is. Suffice to say that I never wanted to experience it again. If the goal was to use negative reinforcement to make me obedient, then I suppose that war was already won.

But what did I do wrong? They gave me this food to eat. Why won't they let me eat it?

I stood confused for a moment before the realization hit me. I slowly and gingerly grabbed the bowl and placed it flat on the floor. Then, I bent down to all fours and stuck my face into it, lapping up the paste with my tongue. There was no shock.

Master wants to make me feel like less than a human.

I was surprised to find that the feed was actually quite good. It was flavorful and spicy, and quite hearty. The only contentious point was that it had clearly been blended into this abominable texture, but of course, it would have been impossible for me to eat anything else with my jaw forced open. I silently hoped that once I earned the right to remove the gag, my next meals would be solid.

Loathe as I am to admit it, I crouched there for a long time, not just devouring the food but then licking the bowl clean. I felt like an animal. I understood then why it was so good -- I was supposed to react this way. I imagined I was also intentionally starved to provoke this exact groveling behavior. Once I had finally finished eating, I curled into myself, disgusted with what I had become in such a short span of time. I reflected the sheer number of psychological tricks that my captor employed to make me do what he wanted. I saw now that everything I'd done, even now when I was liberated from my bed, was engineered from the beginning.

I am nothing more than a puppet dancing on Master's string.

I was awash with shame. It would be one thing to tie me up and rape me, but it was something else entirely that I felt myself starting to wilfully choose to do whatever this man wanted -- a man I hadn't even seen or learned anything about yet.

There was nothing more for me to see or do in this cramped cell. Even though I had spent the past day sleeping almost constantly, I was exhausted. I crawled back into bed, defeated. Despite my best efforts to resist it, my new life as a sex slave had begun.