Prisoner 4053 Ch. 04

-- Author's note: Background below, if you find it immersive. Otherwise, skip to the next break.

Cruelty had not been the point of this program. It had always been about economics: the private prison industry, the unions of workers who supported it, the welfare rolls that so many resented. After the pandemic, there had come an age of socialist comfort: healthcare, a minimum basic income, sick and vacation leave, fair wages, fair housing. It hadn't been a paradise, certainly, but fewer people had fallen off the edges of society, and 4053, at university, had watched it happen. "This is history," her professors had said. She had done her master's on the phenomenon, comparing work-life balance before the new changes and after, and had graduated straight into a part-time research career supplemented by her own minimum basic. Her studies had concluded that most people, free of financial pressure, would continue to work, and she was one of those people, happily putting time into projects she was interested in her copious after-hours. The world had experienced a creative renaissance.

And then the other shoe had dropped.

People were angry.

Not everyone was going to be happy with the way things had become, of course. Landlords had suffered, and the very rich, and those who aspired to be very rich. The world was suddenly very less sure for the people who had the most. But what most surprised 4053 were the have-nots. They resented this. Handouts, they said. No incentives to work hard, they said. Those who were strict employers saw their employees quit en masse; others saw stools for cashiers, people calling in for head colds, people not working as hard as them, and thought, What a soft country we have become. And, We should punish them.

Lying chained on the cot, 4053 constructed the paper she'd write about it, and thought with irony about how she was working even now; even being imprisoned for supposed laziness didn't stop her. She wondered now how no one had seen it coming: the resentment of those who had worked so hard for so long, and who had seen others helped and gone, No fair.

The minimum basic income had been the first thing to go. Overnight, millions had found themselves short on money, and they had scrambled for more hours at work, second jobs, third jobs when the second jobs weren't enough. They were angry. Things had been fine. Things had been great. And their anger brought the hand of righteousness down on them even harder. A cascade of laws had followed. One had to be responsible for oneself; a hard-working person would never lose their job. One had to feed one's children, or see them taken away, and then one had to pay child support to the state. And if one wasn't breaking even, well... one had to work off their debt to society.

-- Pick up here if you've skipped the background.

Four-oh-five-three, as one of the most junior members on the team, had been laid off six months ago when the university couldn't move all its employees to full time. She hadn't been able to make enough money to pay rent. An eviction had been filed, a judgment issued, court costs piled up. Somewhere in the cloud, a virtual machine calculated the profit she had made; subtracted it from her debt; figured out how it could maximize her potential.

And here she was.

She would have liked to see how the algorithm worked. It would make a good study one day, too, if she could still bear to think about it when all this was over. How was it determining her earning potential in the nascent breastmilk industry, compared with the gentlemen's clubs? How would it decide on a fair price for her left kidney? How would it balance risk and compensation for a drug trial or a rotation as a subject in a teaching hospital, undergoing unnecessary appendectomies, intubations, endoscopies?

And 4053 didn't even have the right to see a statement.

She didn't know how long it was before Nate came for her, only that she was very hungry. Her vision went black when he stood her up, and she had to lean against him until the tiny cell resolved around her again. "We'll get you some water," he said, stroking her back. And then he added, "I bought your first three-month lease."

Prisoners were not to be taken home. There was no home, no public: only sprawling campuses where they could be kept, away from the prying eyes of the hard-working and the sexually conservative. This was partially for their protection; prisoners whose time had been purchased by individuals enjoyed at least the illusion of protection, in the form of rooms and suites where they were checked on daily. In theory it kept some from being dismembered in a basement, but regulations were lax. An individual who accidentally whipped a prisoner to death, for example, might find himself on the wrong end of a fine. Four-oh-five-three could expect treatment if she was found with bed sores or a UTI, but if this man decided not to feed her, or to batter her, or to pull out her pubic hairs one by one with a pair of tweezers, well... she was on her own.

It was another eighteen hours before she found herself in the room he kept. She had stayed the night in her cell, hungry, and been delivered back to the exam room for fasting bloodwork, and then had joined a coffle of other prisoners in a delivery van that had dropped most of them off all at once. Where that had been, 4053 hadn't seen. She and another prisoner had been brought to a long-term hotel and processed into rooms. She had expected Nate to be waiting for her when she was delivered, but the room was empty -- of people, anyway.

The suite was built for a free person to live in, but without an accompanying captive, it would have been pointless, as much of the floor space was lost to various accoutrements and supplies that a sexually unadventurous free person would have had little use for. There was an adjustable horse and an examination table that was similar to the one 4053 had been placed in the day before. Even the bed was designed for sex; it had multiple attachment points for restraints, and the footboard was a stocks, with holes for a captive's wrists and neck. The most significant piece was the cell in the corner, which turned out to be her first stop. It contained a bed whose size and shape would have been better suited to a large dog; it was not long enough for her to lie in without bending her knees. Nor did the cell extend to the ceiling. It was more of a cage, 4053 thought, as the door closed behind her. The attendant made sure it was locked, and then walked around the room, switching lights on. He turned down the real bed -- Nate's bed -- and left.

Four-oh-five-three sat on her own little bed, chained by the wrists to a metal ring in the wall. She wore the manacles and the rough uniform dress that she had been given at the facility, and wondered if that would change. Would he decorate her? She wasn't sure. She drew her legs up beneath her and sat against the wall, as far away as she could get from the door. What would she do when he walked in? Where would she look? Would he expect her to do anything? Not for the first time, she was glad for the restraints. They meant fewer decisions for her to make.

It was evening before the door opened again. She couldn't see it from her cage, but heard the heavy hotel door swing open, and then the sound of boots on a hard floor. When he passed her on the way to the bathroom, he only glanced at her. It was enough to make her stomach drop in fear. What would it be like, she wondered, to be raped? He would be inside her shortly, she was certain of it, and there would be absolutely nothing she could do about it. What if it hurt? What if he hurt her? The shower came on, and she worked herself into a near panic as the water ran.

He emerged from the bathroom half-dry, with a towel around his waist. "Your turn," he said, and he opened the cage door. Four-oh-five-three knew she should be meek and compliant, but it was too much, and as he leaned over her, warm, smelling of soap and aftershave, she lost her composure. She wasn't even certain what she did, only that she was struggling against him one moment, and the next he had her by the upper arm and was holding her pressed down to her side against the cage bed. "Hey. Hey. Calm down. You're okay." His grip was like iron, but his voice was gentle. "Gather yourself."

He kept her there for long seconds, until her breathing slowed.

"All right. Good. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to give you another shower, just like yesterday. We're going to take our time with it. I'll rub some lotion on you. Then we'll go to the bed." Quietly, he described what he was going to do to her, and how it wouldn't hurt. How it was going to happen, but he would give her time to collect herself. By the time he pulled her upright, she had her fear well enough under control that he could lead her to the shower. There was another ring like the one in her cage, and he attached her to it and ran the water, and shed his towel.

Four-oh-five-three would not have described this shower as "luxurious," given that she didn't have any choice in the matter, but it was certainly more detailed than the one she'd received the day before, and, oddly, gentler. He washed her with his hands and made sure to touch her everywhere, from her face to the soles of her feet, from her scalp to her nipples to her inner labia. When he was done, he toweled her off and repeated the operation with a bottle of lotion. Four-oh-five-three hated, as she had the day before, how touch made her skin feel, how both pleasant and invasive it was at the same time.

True to his word, he did not surprise her. He explained what he was going to do before he did it. She stood still while he shaved beneath her arms and inspected her pubic hair (trimmed short a few days before, to avoid the taunts she would have expected had she turned herself in with a bush or a wax), and shifted her weight so he could clip her toenails. Instead of unchaining her from the ring to clip her fingernails, he leaned against her and reached up to do it, and the intimacy of having her fingers handled while his erection pressed against her lower back was... well, it was something. She needn't have feared that she'd be dry when the time came. If this had been mere roleplay, she'd have been impatient for him to take her.

He didn't give her a chance to struggle or escape. He walked her straight to the bed with her hands manacled behind her, and held her face-down on the bedspread. She kicked, reflexively, and he caught her leg. "It's not happening yet. Lie still." The sideboards, which consisted of grids of heavy iron bars that came up only just to mattress-height, had multiple attachment points, and he chained her left leg to one. Then he leaned over her and opened the nightstand drawer, and fiddled with something at length. She could see only the opposite nightstand and the wall. He had mentioned this too, but she still jumped with surprise when he pressed a finger into her anus. He had to work it past her sphincter but didn't order her to relax; he just rotated it until it slipped in, and then he slid it in and out of her. Four-oh-five-three kicked, more out of protest than any real attempt to get away. No one had ever done this to her outside of a medical setting. It was inconceivable that she couldn't stop it, and it was even worse than having fingers put in her vagina.

The humiliation was overpowering, but what should she feel humiliated about? None of this was consensual. She tried to focus on that.

He slid another finger in, and now she felt full, as though she was about to defecate. He moved his fingers around in a circular motion, pushing at the walls of her anus, and pushed until his knuckles pressed against her perineum. It could have easily been painful, but he went slowly enough that it didn't hurt. It would after awhile, she knew, or if he tried to put another finger in. She lay still while he held her down, his other hand on the back of her neck, and moved his fingers in and out of her.

He withdrew them completely after a moment, and she was mercifully empty for nearly a minute, until he pressed something cold and hard into her sphincter. She had thought she couldn't feel further violated, but as he eased the anal plug into her body, she knew she had been wrong.

Four-oh-five-three tried to push it back out, but instead it slipped in more easily. This, he had told her, would make their eventual anal play less painful or even entirely painless. It was a more humiliating feeling than anything she had experienced thus far, even that horrific orgasm in the examination room. She tried again to push the plug out, but couldn't.

He turned her over and attached her other ankle to the other side of the bed. Her legs were spread wide, but she could still move them and sit up somewhat comfortably. He unclipped her wrists and left her there, hunched, burning with shame and hugging her chest, while he went to tidy the bathroom.

Four-oh-five-three inspected the attachments. He had fitted her with soft restraints during the shower. They were dark leather, with iron reinforcement that gave them a masculine, foreboding look. Had 4053 chosen them as a fashion accessory, they would have said something far different about her; as a captive, they only made her feel small and powerless. They fit better than the irons she had worn in the intake facility, and though they were tighter, they were more comfortable and chafed less. Both sets -- the ones on her wrists and the ones on her ankles -- had D-rings at each quarter that lay against the iron when they weren't in use. A quick link dangled from one wrist cuff, which must have been how her wrists had been attached to each other. The D-rings in her ankle cuffs were attached to the eye hooks in the sideboards with swivel snaps. Given enough time, she might be able to stretch herself enough to work one leg free, but then what? The door wouldn't open without the sensor on Nate's lanyard. She would be naked, or in a uniform, with a tracker in her hip, in a guarded hotel on a guarded campus. And she suspected he would not be so gentle with her if he had to get dressed to retrieve her from whoever would catch her. Similarly, she could probably remove the plug with her hands free, but what would he say when he came back and found it no longer inside her? The crop he carried at work was sitting near the door, almost inviting him to use it.

He emerged from the bathroom carrying a matching collar. Here we go, 4053 thought, and she took a deep, shaky breath. She didn't fight when he sat down on the bed and lifted her hair from her neck. He buckled it tighter than she had hoped. It wouldn't choke her, but its touch at the base of her throat made it difficult to ignore.

He sat in the space between her legs and pushed her down on her back, and then took her hands and held them gently, his thumbs pressing into her palms. She tried to pull away, and his grip tightened, but only just. When he leaned across her, he put all his weight into her pelvis, and released her hands to toy with her nipples. Four-oh-five-three tried again to push him away, but he only brushed her hands away from his. He took her nipple into his mouth and rolled it around on his tongue, and nibbled at it, firmly enough that she stopped fighting him and held her breath, afraid that he would bite down.

His other hand wandered down and felt between her legs. When he brought it back up, he cupped her jaw and moved his own mouth, sucking and kissing, from her breast to the side of her neck. She squirmed and tried again to push him away.

He caught her wrist and pinned it to the bed, next to her head. "None of that."

Everything below her waist, meanwhile, was roaring. It was evidently not enough, because he reached for the lubricant that he had used for the anal plug and, without looking, squirted some into her vulva. He spread it with his fingers while he kissed and sucked at her neck, and gently, taking his time, he guided himself inside her.

It felt good. He had made it feel good. His hand, when it grasped her other wrist, was wet. He slid in all the way and pressed his pelvis firmly against hers, and looked down at her on the bed. She kept her eyes determinedly on the wall to her right.

"No," he said gently, and adjusted his arms so her wrists were pinned by his forearms, and he grasped her head between his hands. He turned her face to his. "You are not going to pretend I'm not here. Look at me."

No no no. It was awful and awkward. She had given up so much. She thought she was done. That this was the final, most terrible thing she'd have to live through today.

He waited.

It was impossible to pretend he wasn't there. She could feel him inside her. She could feel the anal plug inside her, like a turd she couldn't squeeze out. Her ankles were chained to the bed and his weight was on her, from pelvis to sternum. The sensations, stacked, were overwhelming.

She looked at him.

It was too much. It was too humiliating. Four-oh-five-three looked away, but this time, less gently, he turned her head so he was back in her field of view. The motion was firm enough that it scared her, and she kept her eyes on his for a few seconds more.

"Good," he said. "Look at me." And with their eyes locked, he withdrew himself a little and began to gently, slowly, thrust into her.

It was the most terrible and intimate thing that had ever happened to 4053. The sex would have been bad enough, but she felt seen by him in a way that was difficult to describe. It was as though she was an active participant instead of an unwilling one. It was as though he could see her thoughts. She had had this last shred of power -- her eye contact -- and he had taken that from her, too.

It was pretty hot.

There was something wrong with her, she was sure, for finding any pleasure at all in this. A website had warned her that the experience of sexual servitude would fuck her up, and she had assumed it had meant in a standard sort of post-traumatic-stress-disorder kind of way, but she understood it now to mean something more complex. It meant how grateful she was that she wasn't being whipped. It meant having to reconcile her body responding to things she didn't want to be doing. It certainly meant the choices she had to make to keep from being hurt here, and how she'd wonder, later, if she had done the right things, been as firm about her boundaries as she could have been.

Case in point: as he moved inside her, she was drawing up her knees to give him better access.

Not consciously, of course. But the sex got more comfortable. He went in a little deeper. She caught herself and tried to lie flat and still again, but he reached with a hand and pressed her thigh back to where it had been. He said nothing when she averted her eyes in embarrassment, but just steered her face back to his. "You're doing so well," he said, breathless. It was an absurd sort of encouragement. Good job being raped, she thought. Here's some praise to make you feel better about it.

His thrusts were firm, and something about the confidence with which he took her against her will was... well, it certainly wasn't turning her off. There was a certain absolution in helplessness, and this was definitely not the moment to unpack it, given that he had her pretty near the edge of orgasm, but before she came, she had a moment to think about why that would be: why violence was sexy, whether adrenaline plied the same neurological routes as arousal, whether guilt --

Her breath hitched. She spasmed and arched her back, and kicked -- not him, but the air beside him -- and he stopped. "Look at me," he said, and she did. Together they lay there, feeling her vagina pulse around him, and when its throbbing began to subside, he thrust into her again, first slowly, then faster and harder, until he went still as well. He didn't look at her, though. He bowed his head and breathed hard for a moment, and then slipped his penis out. She felt his semen leaking out of her.