The Device

THE DEVICE

I started my company while still in college. My father had damaged the nerves in his hand while I was in high school and having a mechanical flair, I put together a glove that forced his hand to clench and stretch, in an action that caused new nerve pathways to form. I patented the design and eventually sold it to a medical supply company for several million. I had other ideas that would eventually become reality and so I started my company to produce and market the devices. Without undue modesty, I have to say I that by the time I graduated, I was already one of the college's most successful alumni.

In college, I was already one of the most eligible bachelors, even as an incoming freshman. Having money and driving a premium Italian sports car didn't hurt the image at all. I knew that most of my dates were in it for the money, hoping to marry well, but that was okay. I was dating to get laid. Looking for love never entered my hormone driven, 18-year-old brain. And as with most things in my life, I was hugely successful.

It was junior year that I first saw Anita. She was stunning. She was one of those girls who literally, not figuratively, stopped traffic. I knew that to be true when I heard the cars behind me honking their horns and yelling at me to get my head out of my ass and get a move on. I turned as much as I could in that convertible's seat and flipped them all off. Unfortunately, when I turned back around, the goddess was gone. I pulled over and rushed around, looking for her, but without luck.

I spent two weeks rushing each morning to that intersection where I'd seen that vision, but no luck. I was about to give up when one morning I heard a cacophony of car horns and looked up to see... my goddess!

I think I tripped over my tongue twice before I caught up with her. I babbled away, stupidly, but managed to convey an invitation to date. Rarely in life have I seen a look that so succinctly summed up disgust and nausea so well. I stopped and stood dumbfounded as she continued on.

"I know that look! You've been Blared." I looked up to see a red-headed, freckled faced young man smiling at me. "I've seen that look many times. That onion assed bitch can reduce the strongest guy to rubble with just a sneer."

"Onion assed?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know. Brings tears to your eyes?" my new friend said.

"Well, I'm going to marry that ass and fry those onions. I'm Justin. Let me buy you lunch, and you can tell me all about Miss Blare." I reached out and shook his hand.

"Anita," he said, while we shook hands.

"Your name is Anita?" I was surprised. I would never have guessed.

"No, no," he laughed. "I'm Brad. No, that was Anita Blare."

Over burgers, Brad gave me the run down. Anita was a sophomore, a liberal arts student who had yet to declare a major ("She's kind of a dilettante as a student. She seems to float from one interest to another," Brad explained). "She's from a small town in Ohio, where she had been voted 'Miss Spring Flowers of 2021'. It's a beauty contest their county fair puts on. She seemed really proud of it until the cattier bitches in her sorority hung a sash on her one night when she passed out from drink. It was embossed with 'Miss Spring Flowers out of her Ass'. Apparently, her attitude had pissed off some of her sisters." He chuckled as he told the story.

He offered to introduce me to some of Anita's sorority sisters, who might be able to arrange for me to meet this goddess in a more amiable manner. I was no slouch at planning -- I already knew what might work.

It was the next afternoon when Brad's friend Rachael let him know when Anita and she would be leaving the sorority on their way to lunch. At the perfect moment, Brad and I pulled up, top down in my little Italian wonder. "Hi, Rachael." I called, "Can we join you for lunch?"

Rachael didn't get a chance to answer, as Anita blurted, "Please, yes, please join us." The look and the smile she gave me were polar opposites of the last look she'd bestowed on me.

As we followed the girls towards the cafeteria, I asked Brad, "Did you see that look she gave me? I think I'm in!" I smiled. "She didn't even recognize me from yesterday."

Brad shook his head. "I think that look was for the car, but unfortunately, I think you're in, as well. She didn't recognize you because she hardly looked at anything but the convertible." Walking ahead of us, I saw her glance back several times. At the car.

But that goddess was an amazing woman. She was bright, intelligent (she listened to my invention ideas for hours -- even my engineering friends never did that!), and she was beyond description in bed. We were soon exclusive and immediately following my graduation, we were married. Brad, who I'd hired to do the books for my company, even paying for him to continue studying for an MBA, was my best man. He was reluctantly my best man. He strenuously advised me to delay getting married, or to get a prenuptial, or just kill myself now. Brad was not an Anita fan.

I just smiled. I knew something he didn't know, something that thrilled me and filled me with passion for my bride. No, not that, although, yeah, that too. No, the thrill for me was parenthood. My bride was pregnant.

Josephine was born just six months after we tied the knot and was instantly the apple of my eye. Over the years, she grew more and more to resemble my wife in beauty, grace and as she passed through high school, in attitude.

When she was a baby and on through elementary school, my little Jo-Jo was a pure delight, a little daddy's girl. She had me wrapped around her little finger. That was fortunate for me. Her mother, who never did declare a major in college and who dropped out as soon as we married, had doted on me at first, became somewhat demanding and dismissive of me as the years went by. She still loved my money (my company became ever more successful with each of my new inventions) but seemed to find reasons to remove herself from my immediate vicinity. "I can't sleep well with your snoring," excused her move to the second master bedroom in our house; "You know I have to eat earlier, or I'll just balloon up" excused my model thin wife from sitting down to dinner with me and our daughter; and "My sorority sisters and I are just going to spend the week at the spa and catch up. I'll come back even more beautiful." was the reason for her vacationing alone, several times a year.

We still had sex, as often as a couple times a week (or so -- thinking about it, we did miss quite often) and for all appearances, she still was in love with me, holding my hand and kissing me when we were out. We went on dates almost every weekend, hitting clubs or restaurants she wanted to try. There was always a crowd. I tried to get her to hike or bike with me, to maybe just go out on the motorboat for a quiet river ride, or maybe take the yacht out for a cruise, but somehow it was always "no" or somehow a whole great group of people were included in what was to have been a private moment.

But Jo-Jo was my delight. We'd hike or bike, or just fish quietly, floating down the river. She was my delight. Anita rarely interfered with Jo-Jo's and my time together, seemingly happy for us to spend time alone with each other. That changed with the arrival of breasts. Puberty changed my Jo-Jo, changed my relationship with her, and suddenly, Anita and "Josephine" were the pair who were always together.

"Don't call me Jo-Jo, Daddy. I'm not a baby!" That demand was delivered with a look sadly reminiscent of the first look her mother had given me. My baby was becoming her mother. I saw it grow every day until finally, both mother and daughter seem to regard me with an ever-growing disdain.

It was Jo-Jo's eighteenth birthday when Brad commented on how unhappy I looked. My girls were off together for one of my wife's sorority two-week getaways, and neither had even bothered to call me during the first week. I'd objected to them going away on my daughter's birthday but was overruled. "Oh, Daddy, we can get together and celebrate when I'm back," Jo-Jo had said with a sneer. I was feeling sorry for myself and told Brad that.

My friend shook his head, and asked why it bothered me now. "Anita's never really called you while she was away. You've mentioned that years ago."

"Yeah, I never really expected her to call, but I miss Jo-Jo. She always used to call me daily when she was away. Since she began going away with her mother last year, even her calls became less frequent. But a whole week without calling me? It really hurts." I was ashamed to admit how abandoned I felt.

"I'm sorry, Justin, but I told you 18 years ago that that look was for the car, not you." He chuckled like he'd made a joke and punched my arm.

I looked at him. We both knew it wasn't a joke.

It was two days later that I got a call: not from Jo-Jo, but from her mother. My daughter had been in an accident in Quebec City, Canada. Strange, I thought they were in Santa Fe. I didn't even know that they'd left the country.

"Oh, damn it, Justin. She turned 18 and wanted to drink, so we changed our plans. Focus! Your daughter's in pain. She's got a broken leg and some cracked vertebrae. I want you to send the plane to take us home. I don't want her to have to go through a commercial flight." Since my company Lear was currently in Europe, I agreed with her demand, but explained it would be a charter from the Quebec airport. I wanted to spare Jo-Jo whatever pain I could and besides, a charter would be more immediate. I called my secretary and she made the arrangements.

Anita insisted that I didn't need to meet their flight, but I decided to go down anyway. The plane didn't land at the time the charter company had specified. When I called the office to find out what the delay was, I was told that the passengers had requested a landing in Lebanon, Ohio before returning home. "Why would my girls want to land in Ohio?"

Thinking about it, I thought maybe one of the sorority sisters had bummed a ride back. When I asked about the passenger manifest, I was told that in addition to my wife and daughter, there had been a third passenger, a "Lars Merton".

My whole life, people have accused me of walking around with my head in the clouds, and yes, I'm constantly distracted by thoughts of the inventions that float around in my head. I know I don't often pay much attention to what's going on around me. But I'm not stupid. When the facts finally make a dent on my conscious mind it doesn't take long for me to add 2 + 2 and realize that 5 is not an acceptable answer.

I held my tongue when the plane landed, and my wife and wounded daughter deplaned. On the ride home I learned that my daughter had gotten tipsy and had stepped into the street in front of a car. I reacted badly, angrily yelling at Anita. I was shaking with rage. She'd taken Jo-Jo out of the country, allowed her to get drunk and then left her to step in front of a car. "Where the hell were you when she stepped into the street?"

"I was still in the restaurant paying the bill..." Anita began, but I exploded.

"You let her get drunk and then let her walk into the street, alone? Are you nuts? She could have been killed! You shouldn't have left her alone!" I was livid and the stress and anger I had been suppressing came rushing out.

"Cool it!" My daughter yelled back at me. "I wasn't alone! My dad was right..."

"What? What did you say." My voice had dropped to a whisper. I saw panic in my wife's and daughter's eyes.

My daughter recovered quickly. "I said I wasn't alone. I said dey, DEY were right there. Mom's sorority sisters."

I felt both their eyes locked onto my face. I shook my head and sat fuming the rest of the ride home.

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Brad hooked me up with a private investigator, and soon the facts came flooding in. A sample was somehow gotten from "Lars" and my "daughter", which confirmed paternity. A surprisingly small amount of research on the PI's part established that Lars and my wife had been an item in high school, and apparently had been friends with benefits ever since, even in college and throughout my marriage. It was an open secret in their hometown and apparently not much of a secret here, either. Lars was apparently her one true love and was the "sorority sisters" with whom Anita met several times a year. Unfortunately, Lars was a store manager for a small chain, and only made $80,000 a year, and yes, Brad had been correct when he said that Anita's adoring gaze had been for my car. Anita's taste ran for richer things than Lars could afford, but married to a distractable man like me, she felt she was entitled to both Lars and my money.

Quebec City, it turned out, had been chosen for my beautiful daughter's sexual education. For her eighteenth birthday, Mommy set her up with a few gigolos she just happened to know there. The PI had offered to pay the men for the story of the week there, and they were more than happy to talk. "Apparently her mother told her she could spend years having horrible sex, or she could learn from experts. And, ho, ho, is that kid one hell of a learner. I've never met a more enthusiastic whore!" was one of the calmer quotes.

Once I had the facts, I confronted both Anita and Josephine. My wife just shrugged and pointed out that I had just wanted her body. "You didn't marry me for my mind, did you?" she laughed. "You married me because you wanted to fuck me. Well, I've lived up to my part, I still let you fuck me. Can you remember any times I refused you?" she smirked. I refrained from retorting that there were plenty of times when she avoided me, denying me the opportunity to even suggest sex.

Jo-Jo, it turned out, had known about her parentage since her freshman year in high school. Her mother told her, letting her believe that I knew about it and was willing to let a better man make my wife happy. She got to know Lars when she accompanied her mother on those "sorority" get togethers, which in reality were just Lars-fuckfests. Over the next four years, her love for me had soured into contempt for the useless cuckold her mother painted me as.

When I denied knowing about Lars, she gave me one of her mother's looks of disdain and said, "Really, 'daddeee' (dragging the word out -- never has it been said so nastily), nobody could be that blind. Even as a child I knew mom was seeing other men. Even you can't be that obtuse. Everyone's always telling me how smart you are? You couldn't be that stupid."

When I threatened to divorce Anita and disown Josephine, my girls both laughed. Jo-Jo sneered, "Go ahead! Mom's attorney said she would get 60 or 70 percent of your company in the divorce and then you'll be working for her!"

I left them, their laughter following me. I went away as the visions of an invention danced in my head, chasing away their laughter in my growing hate. My hate that would fester for the next six months, while I refined the invention my hate had envisioned.

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Anita woke up slowly and saw Josephine starting to stir on the next table. They'd been dining at home, sharing one of the bottles of the great wines I had collected. That was her last memory. She saw that Jo-Jo was in a hospital gown and looking down, saw she was similarly dressed.

"What happened?" she mumbled out loud.

"Oh, good, you're awake." I grinned at her, then went over and slapped Jo-Jo on the face a few times, until her eyes opened. "Good, you're awake as well."

Anita tried to sit up, but found that she, like her daughter, was restrained. "Justin, what's going on? What are you doing?"

"It's okay, sweetheart." I reassured her. "I just had a new invention that you inspired, and I wanted you to be the first to know about it. Well, you and little Jo-Jo." I held up my miracle device. It was relatively small and flat, like two wafers attached by a smaller, short cylinder. "Of course, the final version is coated with a soft, foam-like material that feels much like the inside of a vagina, and the top side is attached by a wire to a device that generates enough electricity through simple motion to keep the battery charged. It effectively can last forever." I smiled at the thought. "The topside also detects blood and will open ports for an outward flow. I'm quite proud of that. It was a sticking point. I was afraid it might detect blood from the other side, where I expect there will occasionally be blood from abuse and such." I smiled again.

"I don't understand." Anita sobbed.

"Daddy, what are you talking about?" Jo-Jo moaned.

"My loves, let me explain. This device is a plug for the cervix. One of the 'wafer' sections goes into the uterus and the other wafer section remains in the vagina. The cervix closes around the smaller tube connecting the wafers. A couple of stitches are added to ensure the cervix won't open enough for it to dislodge, and the sensors will detect menstrual blood to allow ports to open so the blood can escape. Other than that, the cervix will be completely closed. Among other things, it will prevent pregnancies, so the services you'll offer won't be unduly disrupted."

"Services? What the hell are you talking about, Justin?" Anita's voice had risen in pitch.

"Didn't I mention that you're my guinea pigs for this device? I've had one installed inside each of you. They are control devices." I smiled. "They allow for normal biological functions, the part inside your vagina is virtually undetectable by an intruding phallus, and if someone attempts to remove them, they'll just go off at maximum levels."

"Go off? What have you done to us?" Anita demanded again, panic entering her voice.

"I told you. I've installed a control device. Did you know, three sets of nerves send signals to the brain from the cervix: the pelvic, hypogastric and vagus nerves. And they are very sensitive. It actually takes very little electricity to arouse them.

"As for 'going off', let me show you." I picked up the remotes and gave them both a short tap.

Instantly, both women's bodies tried to fly off the tables as they screamed in pain.

"See," I said, "didn't that just go off? And that was the mildest setting."

"No, please, Justin. You've got to stop this..." Anita was begging. Josephine just started screaming, "Help me, someone help me!" I shook my head and gave both remotes a slightly longer tap. The screaming changed pitch and then stopped, replaced by moans and sobs as I released the buttons.

"Now, quiet, ladies. I need to explain to both of you what is going on. You've both demonstrated what type of whores you are, and what contempt and disrespect you have for me. So, I'm going to send you off to live the lives you deserve. But you need to understand the devices you carry.

"The batteries are self-charging from another device implanted in your uterus. You've experienced the mildest setting for a very short period of time. Frankly, the highest setting will cause permanent damage, if not death. I would recommend that you comply with commands instantly or suffer unimaginable pain. Well, maybe not unimaginable now for you, since you've had a small sample.

"I should also point out that the two devices are connected. If one of you dies, the other's device will go off, increasing in intensity every other minute, until, well, just until. If you two are separated too far, they will both go off, same conditions. I've already said that if someone tries to remove one, it'll instantly go off permanently at the highest setting. And then, when the host dies, the other's device will start going off. Everyone dies in pain." I sadly shook my head.

"But you can avoid all that. There's a minor potentate in Africa that has some peculiar habits. He likes to sexually abuse his slaves, but really wants one that will comply with all his commands and his 'advances'. I'm selling you both to him. I promised him a mother-daughter combination that he can totally control. Please him, and you'll be fine. Refuse him... Well, I won't. Just don't.