Taken - Pt. 01

TAKEN -- PART 1

by Kandi Kox

I'd always wanted to go to Paris. But it was Emma who persuaded me to stop dithering, forget about all the obvious travel risks and just do it.

As the rideshare car we'd booked drove us in from the airport, however, I was struggling to concentrate on the city I'd so long wanted to see. I kept glancing sideways instead to check that the amazing woman I'd met only a few days earlier was still with me. And every dazzling smile I got when she noticed my gaze made me thank my lucky stars yet again.

I still didn't understand what someone so attractive and vivacious would see in me. Slight of build and socially awkward, with all the ease around the opposite sex you'd expect of a single child who'd attended an all-male Catholic school, I was hardly a catch for any of my classmates, let alone someone like Emma. But when I met her at an end-of-term party, we somehow clicked right away. The fact that she was older and working in some kind of marketing job made the connection even more remarkable.

Still, here we were, on our first trip together in the city of love. And as I sipped the complimentary juice our driver had given us, love was very much on my mind. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, the sex that Emma had all but promised me once we were settled into our hotel and her "problem" had run its course. Sex that would be my first. Ever. I was excited and terrified in equal measure, but if I trusted anyone to guide me through the experience, it was the confident redhead sitting next me.

I looked sideways once more to check she was still there, then returned my attention to the streets through which we were driving. As we turned a corner, a river came into view. I craned my neck to look at what could only be the famous Seine... and just like that, fell asleep.

I was out for what felt like a very long time. My dreams were dark and disturbing, punctuated both literally and metaphorically by stabs of sharp pain, especially around my face. Each time the discomfort was almost enough to awake me, but then I would slip back down again into unconsciousness.

When I finally came properly awake, blinking my eyes against a harsh, artificial light, things felt... wrong. But in my confusion and lassitude I couldn't immediately work out in what way. I endeavoured to sit up, but couldn't -- some kind of strapping across my chest, arms and legs held me firmly in place on what seemed, from the equipment around me, to be a hospital bed.

I attempted instead to call out for help, but something was wrong with my voice. All that came out was something between a squeak and a sigh. Nor could I seem to clear my throat, no matter how hard I tried. Closing my eyes, I did my best to hold down the panic that was rising inside of me. When I reopened them, I had another go at trying to speak, this time more softly. In a high, breathy tone that was nothing like my normal voice, I managed: "Can someone help me? Please?"

"Oh sweetie, there's no chance of that I'm afraid!"

The cool, sardonic voice, with what sounded like an American accent, came from behind me. As I turned my head, its owner came into view -- a middle-aged woman with blonde hair pulled back tightly into a bun, horn-rimmed glasses and a white coat. "But you can help yourself -- and your girlfriend."

"What -- what do you mean?" I quavered, unable to hide the fear that surged within me.

The woman smiled. "Well, you're here to do a job for us -- several, actually. And you're going to do that whether you like it or not. But the process of getting you ready will go a lot smoother if you do as you're told. It will certainly be better for her."

She gestured as she said this to a screen on the wall, which came to life to show a chilling scene. Emma was sitting on a chair in what looked like a hotel room, with her arms behind her back. She was flanked by two men in black balaclavas. As I watched, one of them pulled out a gun and inserted the barrel into my girlfriend's mouth, slowly and obscenely, before looking up at the camera. An involuntary moan escaped my lips.

"Do as you're told, and she'll be released in a few days, with some money to keep her quiet. Or, the boys get to play with her. And she gets sold as damaged goods. To some people who'll damage her some more. Well, I say people, they're really more like animals."

I wasn't sure what was worse, what she was saying or the broad and completely unconcerned grin that accompanied it. I stared at her in horror, but all that prompted was a raise of her eyebrows. I tried to speak, but it took me several attempts before I managed to get the words out. "What -- what do you want me to do?"

She gave a satisfied nod. "Good decision. As for what we want, well, not much for now. But you can start by learning how to walk to your dressing room."

I started to ask why I would need either a dressing room or lessons in how to get there. But the doctor (if that's what she was) was already pulling back the sheet covering me and disengaging the strapping that held me in place. And my questions evaporated as I stared at what was revealed.

To my shock, I was not just naked, but completely hairless. Someone had shaved me from head to toe -- and perhaps done something more, because I couldn't see or feel anything that even looked like stubble. The second thing I noticed, as my hands shot down reflexively to cover up my genitals, is that my private parts were strangely shrunken. It's not that I was especially well endowed, but even so, there was barely anything now to shield. My balls in particular seemed to have almost vanished into my sack.

I opened my mouth to voice my outrage, but all that came out was a high-pitched squeal of pain as something whipped down and smacked me hard on the back of my hands. I looked up to see the doctor brandishing something that looked like a fly whisk. "Did I say you could play with yourself?" Her glare turned to a smirk. "Not that you'd be able to do anything with it. We decided it was a distraction you didn't need. Now get yourself to your feet, lose the modesty and we can get on with the lesson."

With a snarl, I launched myself from the bed, sending her crashing into a machine as my hands closed around her throat and her expression turned to terror.

Or at least, that's how it went in my head.

In reality, I found, I barely had the strength to sit up. It took a further painful slap on the belly to galvanise me into swinging my legs to the ground and then preparing to stand. And that's when I realised that what I had somehow taken to be slippers on my feet were, in fact, high-heeled pumps.

I reached down to remove them, but the whisk once again forestalled me. "They stay on," said my tormentor. "Unless you're in bed, or in the shower, or we give you another pair. Understand?" I nodded, trying to wipe away the tears that had sprung to my eyes. "Now, let's see you try them."

I rose unsteadily to my feet, tried to take a step, and would have collapsed but for the woman's hand reaching out to steady me. "Not very coordinated, are we?" she observed in an acid tone. "Here, watch me and do as I do..."

For the next half an hour, she drilled me in how to stand and walk in heels. The combination of her sharp tongue and merciless whisk prompted more than one set of tears on my part, but I made sufficient progress that she was ready to let me walk unassisted.

It should have been a relief that I was allowed to dress before leaving the room. But the fact that the only clothing offered to me was a pair of lacy black panties and a sheer black minidress was, if anything, more worrying than the idea of going through the door naked.

We emerged into a featureless white corridor that was mercifully free of anyone else. Not, I thought, that I could expect to find any help in this place, whatever it might be. I was under no illusion that I was in some sort of captivity. Even if I had felt strong enough to overpower the doctor who was escorting me, which I certainly didn't right now, there was Emma to think about. Her life might depend on my compliance.

So I did my best to concentrate on staying upright in the unfamiliar heels and swaying my hips in the way I'd been shown. And I tried not to think about why I'd been shaved and forced to wear women's clothing.

Our destination proved to be exactly what I'd been told -- a dressing room. Inside was a very pretty young woman with short black hair, dressed in identical fashion to me. She looked familiar, although I couldn't quite place her face. But wait -- was she actually a girl? On a second look, I saw an androgynous young man in heavy makeup, with no hint of anything that looked like breasts under the sheer fabric covering her (his?) hairless chest. I blushed as I realised that I was staring, but if s/he was disturbed by my attention, his (her?) placid smile didn't show it. Her, I decided -- she was far too attractive to be a boy.

"I'll leave you in Marissa's capable hands," said the doctor. "Just be sure to do everything she tells you. If you don't, we'll know." She gestured upwards at a camera mounted high on a wall. "And for every failure to comply, your girlfriend loses a finger, you understand?" On that chilling note, and without waiting for my hurried assent, she swept out of the room and closed the door.

"Come, sit down," invited Marissa, her voice soft and breathy just as mine had become. The accent was not French, but from somewhere else in Europe that I couldn't place. For all I knew, we might even be in her home country, wherever it was. I certainly couldn't assume we were still in Paris, given how long I seemed to have been out. "What's your name, honey?" she asked.

"Uh, James," I replied, taking the offered chair.

"Oh no," she responded with a smile, "I mean your new name?" When I looked at her blankly she motioned me to get back to my feet and then walked around behind me. To my astonishment she knelt down, lifted up my skirt and peered underneath it. "Oh," she exclaimed, "Lexi -- how cute!"

As she straightened up I stared at her uncomprehendingly. She shook her head, still smiling, then turned around and folded forward gracefully, lifting her skirt. On her right buttock, only partly obscured by the panties, the word "Marissa" was stencilled in cursive script.

"You mean," I said incredulously, "I've got 'Lexi' tattooed on my butt?"

"Yes," said Marissa cheerfully, sitting me down again. "And I think it's a very sexy name."

"But I'm not a -" I began, but the words died on my lips as I looked into the mirror in front of me.

Staring back at me was someone who looked for all the world like Marissa's twin sister. It wasn't just the makeup, although the heavy eyeliner, dark blue eyeshadow, delicately arched brows, mascara-laden lashes and bold red lips all matched hers precisely.

Our features were eerily similar, and I knew then why I had thought I recognised her -- it was my own face I was really seeing, behind the face paint. Or the face of someone who looked very much like me at any rate.

Reflexively, my hand strayed up to my mouth. Without thinking of the consequences of smudging my makeup, I touched my lips, which had always been naturally full but now seemed even plumper than normal, and stared at the red stain on my fingertips. Or rather, at what I expected to be a stain. They were completely clean -- and I hadn't even felt any stickiness.

I tried again, moistening my fingers first and rubbing my lips more forcefully this time. Still nothing. The same thing happened when I tried to rub off some of the eyeshadow, or the rosy pink blush on my cheeks.

Once again, Marissa relieved my confusion, while simultaneously ratcheting up my anxiety levels. "Don't worry Lexi," she said in what was obviously meant to be a soothing voice, "your makeup won't get messed up. It's permanent -- tattooed on, you know? Or glued on, with the eyelashes. So you don't need to worry about it every day. It will last for months!"

I had been holding things together only by the slimmest margin, and this latest revelation about how I was being physically altered tipped me over the edge. A sob that I couldn't quite stifle became a flood of tears. The fact that this was not how I would normally handle adversity simply intensified my distress.

Marissa did her best to comfort me, though she didn't seem to find my crying at all distressing. I got a sense why, when she went to a handbag and pulled out a small bottle, from which she extracted a blue pill.

"Here," she said, holding it out, "have one of these. It takes some of the worries away. And even makes some of the bad things feel, you know, nice!" She gave a delicious shudder.

I eyed the pill suspiciously. I had no idea what was in it, or what it might do to me. But I was also tired of being afraid -- afraid of what had been done to feminise me, afraid that some of the changes might not be reversible, afraid of what might still happen to me or what I would be expected to do, afraid for Emma...

It would have taken courage to resist the lure of some chemical insulation, and I had never had much courage to begin with. So I took it, washing it down with a glass of water Marissa gave me.

The effect was not instantaneous. But as I allowed my new companion to work on my hair, skilfully turning my usual tousled curls into a more stylish bob that more closely matched her own, I found some of my fears receding, or at least not pressing so heavily on me.

By the time Marissa attached new and much longer tips to my fingernails and painted them bright red to match my lipstick, then swapped out my tiny gold earrings for larger, diamond-studded pendants, a kind of haze had descended on me. Even the revelation that my nail extensions were another semi-permanent feature that I would not be able to remove without a special solvent failed to spark more than a momentary concern.

When Marissa was satisfied that I was looking as "hot and sexy" as I needed to be, she asked me to follow her to what she said was the bedroom we would be sharing. As we set off down the corridor, I found it a little easier to walk in my heels, partly because I was more relaxed, but also because I was able to watch Marissa and imitate her movements.

As we passed what was clearly marked as a women's bathroom, my attractive guide stopped and asked if I needed to go. After a moment to think about it, I nodded. She led me inside and then asked: "Do you need me to take your plug out?" I nodded automatically, but then, as the question percolated through the haze, added: "Wait, what?"

"Your plug? The one in your bottom?"

I stared at her, then felt my hand creeping almost of its own volition behind my back, then up inside my skirt and between my legs. There was indeed something hard and circular at the entrance to my rear passage -- I could feel it through my panties. And clenching my sphincter, I could now sense it inside me. I wondered how on earth I hadn't noticed it before.

Either Marissa was a mind reader or my expression was an open book. "Bit distracted, huh Lexi?" she said with a smile. "And before you try, no, you can't get it out, you have to have one of these." She reached into her bag and pulled out a small black remote control. "And, you know, I'm only supposed to do that if you really, really need it out."

I did for a minute think about suggesting that it needed to be out because there was no way it should have been there in the first place. But it was pointless to suggest the young brunette do anything other than what she'd been told. Nor was it worth asking her why I even had a plug in my butt. Even if she knew, I could tell from my sporadic and unsuccessful attempts to elicit information from her that she either couldn't or wouldn't give me any.

So I simply shook my head, then went inside one of the cubicles and did my business -- sitting down, of course. As I was washing my hands I looked at the two of us in the mirror, struck once again by how alike we looked -- and also by how pretty we both were.

No doubt it was the pill I had been given, but I had somehow got past the point of being utterly freaked out by being dressed and made up as a girl, and had begun to marvel just a little at how gorgeous a female I could apparently be. At the same time though, I could not completely put out of my head the worries about what the point of abducting and transforming me might be.

My residual (if nonetheless dampened) anxiety only grew when Marissa ushered me into our bedroom. The large and comfortable looking bed in the middle of the room certainly fitted the bill. But sleeping chambers didn't usually come equipped with all the cameras, lighting and sound equipment that surrounded it.

I looked quizzically at Marissa and she gave me the enigmatic smile to which I was starting to become accustomed. "They want us to make a little film," she said, handing me a small earpiece and taking one for herself. Following her lead, I inserted the device into my left ear, marvelling at how snugly it fit.

"Hi Lexi," said a man's voice, sounding as if he was right beside me. I gave a massive start and he chuckled. "So you can hear me? Good. Now listen very carefully, because you're only going to get one chance at this. We're going to put you through a test. Pass it, and we put you to work as planned. I won't say things will be easy, but you won't hate it, that's for sure -- just ask Marissa."

My eyes flicked sideways to my doppelgänger, who was sitting placidly on the bed with her long and shapely legs crossed. I wondered idly if my legs looked as good as hers. But the voice in my ear quickly reclaimed my attention as it went on.

"But mess up and you and your girlfriend -- Emma, right? -- will live only very short and incredibly painful lives. And each of you will have to watch every unspeakable thing we do to the other. Is that clear?" I shuddered and nodded my head so hard I almost felt that it could come off.

"Very well. Now here's the scene we want you to imagine. You and Marissa are twin brothers called Lex and Marc who've decided it would be fun to dress up in your sister's old school clothes and try some of her makeup. You've had a bit to drink and popped a few pills and you're both feeling very horny -- but you in particular. Because you've always had the hots for Marc, even though you know it's wrong, and this is your chance to make out. Got that?" I nodded again.

"Okay. As you go along, I'll give you some dialogue to say, you just repeat what you hear. But if you want to improvise, do that too. What really matters though is that you have to show us how badly you want him. We may give you some help along the way. But you need to be convincing, yeah? Because if not..."

As I moved to change into the clothes that Marissa was already laying out for us, I tried my best not to dwell on either the implications of what I was being asked to do or the consequences of not doing it well enough. Just do what you're told and act the part, I told myself. The pill was obviously still working, because otherwise I would have been a gibbering wreck. But even so, it was hard to ignore the knot of tension in my stomach as I took a seat next to Marissa on the edge of the bed.

Strangely, however, as we got underway, things became somewhat easier than I might have imagined. The fact that all the filming was being done remotely, with nobody in the room with us, plainly helped. So too did the white wine which we found on the bedside cabinet as some kind of prop and to which we very liberally helped ourselves as the scene progressed.

But what really reduced the difficulty of playing a part that was far outside my experience, spouting dialogue as contrived as how I looked, was that I didn't have to pretend to be attracted to Marissa. She had looked hot enough in her minidress. But in a transparent white blouse, loosely knotted tie, royal blue plaid skirt and white socks, to complement the patent leather high-heeled shoes left over from her previous outfit, she was absolutely irresistible.