Trendsetters Part 2

[titaniumchelle]

Trendsetters
CW: Corporate America, 24A, Enforced Nudity, Altered Mental States, Slavery


Brief: Kaela makes her choice, and the rollercoaster chain goes tick-tick-tick up the hill.

— Part 2 —

Kaela didn’t hate Mondays, contrary to the wisdom of a certain lasagna loving feline. She’d always been an overachiever, starting her days early in Highschool to be in choir and staying late for cheerleading, theater programs, and running track. In college, she’d scored a full ride scholarship to get her degree in Engineering with a minor in Industrial Design to better set herself apart from her peers, and rarely shirked off morning classes like so many of her fellow co-eds.

Once she’d gotten into the working world, she made a name for herself as a fastidious worker and talented machinist, landing herself a lead engineering position at Companions Unlimited in their production department maintaining automated cleaning and detailing systems. In her time there, she even developed an entire mechanical integration of the system with their packing and shipping department, achieving near full automation for the back end of their business.

That career wasn’t a long term winner for her, though. It became clear that the sex-doll market wasn’t surviving the one-two punch of legalized slavery and the evaporating market brought on by the Widowmaker virus’ population decline. Kaela successfully navigated herself into her current post as the Director of Research & Development at Optimates LLC. She quickly made a name for pioneering new livestock management technologies and quality of life improvements for existing tech the company sold around the world.

Which brought her commute to work that Monday into focus.

The car radio droned in the background, some local news affiliate for the regional public broadcaster discussing the latest struggles in the housing markets with rising mortgage and rental cost. It sounded like there were growing fears from investors over a new financial bubble built on speculative lending backed by the value of borrowers who put their potential future indenture or slavery up as collateral. Kaela could empathize with the folks that needed to take such risky loan terms to get ahead or buy a house. Even with her job paying pretty well, she’d only managed to stay a renter in the sprawling exurbs outside of Philadelphia. She could cover her bills, and really didn’t have any debt, but she was one of the lucky ones.

As she drove into work through the early morning fog, she wasn’t her usual upbeat self. She’d spent the weekend agonizing over the situation she found herself facing down at work. Thanks to some overly optimistic and demanding colleagues in Sales, she was on the hook to have a new product line tested, approved, and finalized for announcement at the upcoming Correctional Industries Trade Show in Houston. It was doable with suitable overtime approval and a little help from some favors called in, but it was going to be squeaking under the wire even if everything went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, a critical piece was missing: a suitable test subject to validate the products for approval.

Her attempts to convince the Chief Procurement Officer, Mr. Chambers, to expedite her request for a suitable test subject fell not only on deaf ears, but left her pride stinging since the old letch thought that she was getting special treatment from her own boss, Mr. Ross. So despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get a testing slave brought in through normal channels. It would take far too long, and she couldn’t use just -any- slave. Testing required a subject who wasn’t pre-trained, wasn’t naturally submissive, and wasn’t a security risk. Buying a unicorn like that fresh off the auction block down at HCI was far too rich for a working woman such as herself, and just about everywhere else specialized in trained slaves or bulk carceral labor.

That left her with the only viable option being recruiting a volunteer who would willingly become a temporary asset of the company for bonus compensation, and subject themselves to her department’s mostly-finished training and control devices for the next two weeks while they worked out the kinks and got the necessary government approvals. That proved far more difficult than even initially thought, since the few women at the company who already possessed slave gradings and had no formal training also couldn’t be excused from their duties long enough to participate in the programmed trials.

She’d considered trying to recruit her best friend, Maddie, since the raven haired local beat reporter had always taken an interest in the subject and was an avid Slave Yoga practitioner. She’d even convinced Kaela to join her in the beginners track available at their local fitness center. While the ever bubbly Maddie relished the opportunity to feel sexy and put her curves to work, Kaela always found herself struggling to relax enough to really get the full benefit of training it offered. In either case, Maddie wasn’t an ideal candidate, not only because Kaela knew she already possessed a submissive streak a mile wide, but also that it was almost sure to be impossible for her friend to get excused from two weeks of work on short notice.

This left Kaela with the only real solution she could muster that had been torturing her all weekend; that she needed to be her own test subject, and hand the reins of her projects to her analyst, Ben. For a mercy, the paperwork would be easier at least. She was already on payroll and approved for the overtime, plus she had a suitable government issued SCID chip from when she was younger. It would mostly be a matter of formality with legal to arrange suitable FINO paperwork.

On paper, it seemed like a rational choice. For the duration, she’d be what Texan lawyers deemed ‘Free In Name Only’ on a strict service contract until the term elapsed. But the paper didn’t take into account the fact that for the duration of the testing, Kaela wouldn’t be the Director of R&D, she’d be a test subject registered as inventory of the company, and expected to behave and perform accordingly. She’d be expected to perform her duties in line with the Federal Uniform Slave Code, remaining slave naked and have her body fully available for any use deemed fit by the testing proctor or any free person for that matter. Moving beyond the fact the testing proctor would be her assistant, Ben, she’d enlisted the help of her work crush, Darryl over in the technology department, to put the finishing touches on the code needed to empower her devices.

Thinking about Ben and Darryl seeing her fully in the all-together, collared and vulnerable while they tested her own creations on her left her barely able to sleep over the weekend. Much like the batteries in some of her favorite personal devices, she was drained, slightly soiled, and desperately in need of a recharge. The clock was ticking and Kaela needed to finalize everything to start testing before the end of the day, whether that was submitting herself to the mercy of her collaborators to be a guinea pig or admit defeat and submit to the mercy of her superiors for failing to deliver on deadline.

She pulled into the mostly empty lot outside of work and stared at the normally unimposing glass and steel edifice of the Optimates HQ. On that Monday it might as well have been the gatehouse of the State Penitentiary ready to accept its newest parolee with how the butterflies danced in her stomach. She pressed her thighs together and took a deep steadying breath to will away the fog of sleep and lust still lurking in the edges of her mind.

One way or the other, it was time to step inside and make her choice.

—

Kaela breezed through the front security desk check in, buzzing herself through the door with her ID. She exchanged brief pleasantries with Carrina, the security agent on duty that morning, complimenting her choice of blue nail gels and french tips, the mocha-skinned gatekeeper happy to show off her latest nail designs. Morning niceties paid, Kaela could keep on her course towards the cafeteria and the promise of fresh coffee.

It would have been clear sailing had she not run into Hunter. She had tried to avoid eye contact when she spotted him talking to the Chief of Security, Mr. Malave, but Hunter had spotted her first and hastily ended his conversation with his boss to intercept her before she could slip out of the lobby.

“Miss Valka! Hey! Good morning!” He smiled as he waved her down, half jogging over to her.

She turned, putting on a polite smile despite the fact she’d step over his fallen body for her cup of joe. Her customer service voice took over, “Good morning Mr. Bachman. What can I help you with?”

“I was just talking to the Chief and he said I can switch to patrolling your wing this week! I just wanted to know when you think you’re gonna get started with the testing, ‘cause I know Jo was also real keen to check out what you’ve got in the works.” He planted his hands on his security belt and stood with what Kaela could only describe as the most stereotypical “main character energy” posture ever.

Kaela inwardly groaned but maintained her faux smile, “I can’t quite say, yet. Still a lot to get set up before we begin testing. And do try to temper your expectations…” She trailed off, her morning brain trying to cook up some way to discourage him from watching their work this week too intently, “we’re doing a lot with training gear so it’s not going to be as flashy as you might expect.”

Hunter beamed, gesturing at himself with his thumb, “well that’s what had me thinking! Since I’m taking night classes for my slave-wrangling certs, that’s just the kinda gear I’m gonna need to start familiarizing myself with. And it’s not every day you get to see next gen training techniques gettin developed!”

Kaela might have found the brawny brunette’s honesty and enthusiasm charming if she wasn’t painfully aware that the techniques and technology he was so excited to see were going to be getting developed on her in all likelihood.

“Well, If you’re lucky maybe you’ll come by when things are interesting then,” her smile was faltering and the siren call of the cafeteria was beckoning her. “I’ve got to get myself some coffee before I head upstairs, but maybe I’ll see you later.”

He beamed back at her, “Looking forward to it!”

She was already walking before he could finish, leaning into her course to the cafeteria and pushing aside thoughts of the charming himbro of a security goon coming by to see her on full display and collared.

Thankfully the early morning rush usually started after 8, meaning she had the run of the cafeteria for at least a few more minutes, and unfettered access to the coffee machine. She went through the mechanical routine she’d done hundreds of times before, popping the top case of the machine, loading her mug, popping a pod from the rack into the percolator, closing the lid with a confident “clack” and inputting her favored settings. Cappuccino, concentrated get up and go juice, with a shot of caramel and a little creme helped to get her day started.

Her mind wandered again as she waited for her drink to brew, drumming her fingers lightly on the counter. She’d done her best to triple check the paperwork, along with her own program guidelines for the testing to ensure that she could trust handing it off to another proctor should she be indisposed.

She inwardly chided herself, “Indisposed sure is a funny way to frame volunteering to be collared, naked and getting my mind fucked with by a computer…”

A familiar baritone voice startled her from her reverie, “Rough night, Copper-top?”

She jumped and clutched her hand to her chest, closing her eyes in embarrassment for getting snuck up on. She couldn’t help but laugh at least, blushing a little as she looked over the top of her glasses at the culprit. Darryl, her conspirator from the technology department and her personal work-crush was ever his charmingly nerdy self. He gave her a playful smirk as he sidled up to the counter next to her to wait his turn for the coffee machine.

“Morning Darryl,” her voice brightened as she answered his smirk in kind. She was trying to play it cool even if her freckled cheeks were still flushed from being startled. “And rough weekend. I had to cross check an entire training regime and UI structure across three systems. Innovation doesn’t cook itself.”

“Tell me about it, that machine learning protocol and database reference array you’re using is wild stuff. I’m glad you scored me that overtime pay because it’s going to be sweeeet to see those extra benjamins come payday. Your infrastructure is good, but proofing that much code’s gonna take a minute.”

The coffee machine dinged as it finished filling her mug, the wafting smell played under her nose. She took a deep, indulgent breath as she pulled her mug from the system and popped it open long enough to clear the pod she used and leave room for Darryl to follow suit.

She started going about adding cream to her drink before commenting, “I do really appreciate the extra effort from you on this one. It’s one thing to build the framework to get things started, but it really takes a dedicated coder's touch to ensure the whole system purrs. I’m sure we’ll need to send diagnostics over to you after we do the initial efficacy testing.”

He nodded, hands following the rote routine she had to prepare his own mug of joe. “So this thing’s really got the power to play with a slave’s heads like you think it will? Seems like some super-science wackiness you’ve got cooking in there just from some brain scans and magnetic field manipulation.”

She nodded, taking her first sip of her caramel wake up, “in theory, if the machine learning can map the subject’s brain activity fast enough and sync with the wearer’s neural patterns, it should be just a lot of binary if/then responses following standard cognitive behavioral training techniques to negatively incentivize certain outcomes.”

“So you’ve built a high tech add-on for our shock collars that does the training for you?” Darryl raised his eyebrows, leaning on the counter while he waited for his brew.

“I mean -you’re- helping build as much of the super-science as me, Mr. Code Whisperer,” she giggled, poking his shoulder with a finger. “But yes, if it works as intended, it should be able to detect things like… major motor functions and even language concept centers in the brain. So if it can get a clear pattern for when the slave is say, standing versus sitting or standing in specific postures and positions, the collar can reactively punish them for the prohibited action. It even takes advantage of the newer collar models' more precise adjustable shock application to do very light shocks as warnings and corrections.” She sipped her cappuccino before continuing the thought, “which would allow a trainer to easily manage multiple subjects without needing to hold focus on their individual trainees.”

Darryl shook his head with a smile, “you’ve got a wicked mind, Kaela. We’d best watch out you never use it for evil or we’d all be doomed.” He started to pull his mug from the machine, cleaning up. “But I’ve got your code review ready for you, and loaded up on the server, so you should be free and clear to update whatever firmware you’re cooking on.”

She gave him a genuine smile and a relaxed sigh at that news, “thanks Darryl, you’re a life saver.”

He took a swig of his own coffee, quirked his eyebrow and playfully smiled, “just remember, you said you’d make it worth my while. I’m looking forward to seeing what you got that I’ll want.”

She giggled and gave him a playful shove, “oh don’t you worry, if this all works out I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, my treat. It won’t just be a few drinks at happy hour like last time.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he grinned, “but for real, best of luck with all this. I’m around if you need me.”

They shared goodbyes and parted ways there, headed for their respective departments, successfully escaping the cafeteria just as the rest of the morning rush started to arrive.

—

Ben was absolutely gobsmacked, mouth agape as he tried to formulate his response to the bombshell his boss had just dropped on him.

“It’s the only rational option I can find to keep us on budget and more importantly on schedule,” she calmly tried to explain, despite her heart pounding in her ears.

“You are suggesting,” he slowly enunciated every syllable as he pieced his thoughts together, “that we use your old slave registry to file a slave contract and use you as proxy subject in inventory that we can use for testing…” He shook his head, “that would mean you…” he cut himself off, “don’t you realize how dangerous that is? We still aren’t fully sure about the side effects of these things, or how hard it might be to return from that kind of conditioning!”

“I knew he was going to freak out…” she scolded herself.

Kaela held her face in her hands a moment as she groaned, sitting at her desk opposite Ben’s. She picked her head up and looked him dead in the eyes, “I know that this seems extremely risky, but if we don’t start the initial testing phase of the equipment -today- then we will not have time to get the needed state approvals for the public presentation.” She took a steadying breath, “and my best friend was on a conditional contract like one of these before with her girlfriend, it’s fairly simple, honestly.”

Ben leaned back in his chair, looking exasperated, “I know that, but… there’s got to be someone else you could recruit? One of the interns, or one of the girls down in the logistics call center? Anyone under 30 is going to have a SCID we could use and most of them have more recent SRNs.”

Kaela shook her head, “I’ve already checked with the team leads in logistics, material management, sales, and the mail room. None of them have any staff that fit my criteria that could be excused from their primary duties since I couldn’t promise this wouldn’t affect their responsibilities to the current positions.”

He met her gaze, his frustration plain to see, “And what about -your- responsibilities?”

She gave him an embarrassed shrug and a weak smile, “in theory, I can do most of them outside of testing hours, and I have your help. Besides, my only responsibilities for the duration of the testing is managing and executing the tests, and overseeing your analysis. Sure, it’s going to require changing some of the testing protocols, but if we program in recovery time and put in some extra hours for the analysis I think we can do this…”

Ben looked miserable as he weighed everything Kaela was saying. She’d already sent him over copies of the company guidelines, as well as the initial modifications she did to the testing protocols positioning him as the active proctor. He re-read them several times as the reality of the situation sank in.

He looked back to her, “and how do you feel about this program you’ve added at the beginning to establish objectivity? How are we going to prove that you’re not just acting to falsely claim the equipment works?”

“That’s what the new program you saw is designed to establish. We can prove the efficacy of the scanning system before introducing any other element, and track for differences in my baseline behavior compared against what it looks like with the system active. We…” she trailed off, reluctant to say the next part out loud, “we will need you to push, and make me uncomfortable enough that under any normal circumstance I would refuse to continue… and if we can make the case for the variance between the baseline and the system’s effects, we have our our proof of impartiality. At least good enough for the state inspector.”

She picked up her coffee mug more to occupy her hands than to take a drink, studying Ben’s reaction.

Ben nodded slowly, “okay… so… in theory, if the system works as intended…” he looked over to the workbenches and their arrayed components, “the initial scanning phase can give us the behavioral baseline… and once it’s ready for calibration, we can test our theory that the system can suppress or diminish inhibitions by proving you’d go much further under its influence. And from there…” he looked back to the program on his screen, “we’d start the other integrations, like linking to our existing collar system and cuffs.”

Kaela nodded, “and it’s important to remember that we’re going to do an exit interview without the system running, so I can give a sober assessment of how it altered my behavior. So if you have any worries, we’ll be able to confirm if anything pushed me further than I could resist or truly did not consent to.”

Ben sighed and still looked concerned, “that’s precisely my worry, though, if you’re registered, even temporarily as a…” he was reluctant to say it, “a slave, then in theory your consent isn’t… supposed to be considered, right?”

Kaela’s cheeks heated up and the butterflies returned to her stomach as the S word finally came up. She nodded, “yes, in theory, once we establish impartiality and you put the collar on me… I’ll -technically- be both an employee of the company, and a registered piece of inventory… and subject to laws and regulations pertaining to the humane use and care of laboratory animals laid out in the state’s animal welfare act addendum for human livestock I forwarded to your email.”

The contract she’d pulled and submitted for legal to keep on file was modelled off of a few precedent cases she’d researched over the weekend. It wasn’t commonplace for conditional slave-term contracts, but paperwork naming a company as the legal ownership entity wasn't entirely unheard of. She used her own authority as a department head to sign off on the submission and legal didn’t seem to give a second thought to rubber stamping the plan. If she understood correctly, she’d be on strictly held terms of slave-employment, kind of like a skilled worker indenture for the contract’s short duration, with clearly defined parameters for what constituted her service timeframes during the week.

“If the system works like we think,” she swallowed the lump forming in her throat, “then for the duration, I’ll have to follow your instructions to the letter, and be subject to any… ah… requests…” she cleared her throat, “or commands you might give me, or punishments I earn during the protocol.”

Ben took a deep breath and glanced at the large bank of windows to the hallway beyond, “not just me, Kaela. Once you’re collared and acting as inventory… you’ll be subject to any employee’s demands, hell, and free person’s commands. We’re going to need to be exceptionally careful to make sure we keep strict control over who we let in the lab for the test’s duration.”

Ben leaned on his desk with his elbow, cupping his hand over his mouth as he intensely searched through the documents on his screen. His blue eyes caught the whites and greens of his screen like something out of the tech dramas Kaela watched online. She had always admired his dedication to his work, and his analytical skills, but in that moment she was most thankful for him being a good man, genuinely concerned for her well being. She couldn’t help but find his honorable mein and clean cut crispness at least a little attractive. She could acknowledge he was a conventionally handsome guy, but his efforts to maintain his objectivity really was something else.

Too many people, men especially, took the new norms of enslavement in society as a cheap thrill or an opportunistic fantasy, like all the highschool and college boys that crowd the public auction viewing rooms over at HCI Oaksglen. It was common knowledge they could score a cheap feel on girls up for sale or being displayed as part of their slave grading. One of the most coveted summer jobs now in the area was getting a part time gig in HCI’s “Slave Wash” teams where they got to hose and scrub down naked slaves, molesting and denigrating them with impunity.

Much like Hunter over in security, a lot of young men chomped at the bit to get into the industry, either with internships and handler jobs at the slave brokerages, or as independent slave catchers, trainers, and wranglers. She couldn’t have considered this if Ben was one of those guys. But she’d worked with him for a few years and learned to trust him, and her gut told her that he could handle the responsibility and restraint necessary.

At least she hoped her gut was right. With Ben’s reluctant acceptance, she’d be finding out by the end of day just how far he could push her, and if he’d relinquish that control at the end of the testing protocol.

—

The two of them sat in silence since they returned from lunch, neither of them having taken much time in the cafeteria before getting back to work in the lab. Even though the protocol edits were drafted over the weekend, they still needed to finish the final preparations for testing. While Ben set up the recording equipment and the appropriate command and control software on his work terminal, Kaela had assembled a tangle of wires and plugs linking her work terminal to their innovations.

The final collection of parts were unassuming enough on their own, non-threateningly sitting on the end of her desk while she pulled up the latest versions of each device’s firmware and uploaded it. The ‘posture training guide’ components hung together as a set of four adjustable cuffs, small status lights glowing and fading rhythmically to show they were charging. They sat beside a modified Optimates Mark 4 Slave Collar, the “shock collar” that had become so popular with clients around the world thanks to its ease of use and integrating tracking module. These collars had become ubiquitous within governmental and private slave processing facilities and correctional institutions, and to anyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them, they were a chilling reminder of how casually a tiny silver and black strap could cause them immense pain.

On another charging rack, there was a collection of metal and plastic devices shaped like small dishes and a piece that had a series of rubber probes attached facing inward, together looking vaguely like some kind of therapeutic device you might find in a sports doctor's office. These devices were simply labeled “inhibitors” in the software where Kaela was tweaking settings. These strangely medical looking devices tempted Kaela to second guess her decision since she knew the explicit function of those probes were to fill and plug a slave, preventing her from having any control over her bodily functions so long as it was locked in place, and the accompanying nipple shields would ensure that no major erogenous zone of the body would be accessible to a slave while it remained locked. Among the testing devices on the docket, these were the most physically invasive of the lot.

The final item, and the one that was taking the longest to update, was hanging on the charger closest to her. The “attitude adjuster” as it was temporarily named, looked like a cross between a piece of jewelry and a headphone system, with two loops designed to hook behind the wearer’s ears and a connecting band that extended from behind the back of their head. The whole device terminated in a small ring shaped status light positioned over the left temple. This device was arguably the most ambitious device in the lot, featuring a suite of miniaturized electromagnetic sensors and emitters that were capable of producing surface level brain activity scans, interfere with bioelectrical brain activity, and thanks to Darryl’s brilliant coding skills, would be able to record and track activity patterns in the subject’s mind.

Her reflection in the terminal monitor stared back at her as she watched the progress bars fill, each slowly growing blue bar heralding the oncoming train that she’d placed herself in front of. Both she and Ben had reviewed the paperwork, creating the necessary records for her duplicate entry in the company payroll system under her SCID, which for the duration of the testing would be once again a slave registration number and not simply a national ID number. Each of those documents had her details, including a pulled copy of her slave registration database photos from when she had been graded.

Ben had been polite and professional, and not insisted on seeing more than the cover image of her 18 year old self standing stark naked, feet shoulder width apart with her hands behind her head. He had to see that one to review the documents, unfortunately, but he made that quick work. Her SRN would also, at least officially, be her recorded identity for the duration of the tests, as slaves, especially test subjects, aren’t afforded names. Both of them were going to need to get used to the idea of her no longer being Miss Valka, or even Kaela, but 8246, the last four digits of her SRN.

An involuntary shiver took her spine as she let that thought sink in again. She knew Ben wouldn’t be cruel with his power over her, but she remembered what it was like being graded, and how slaves were punished if they weren’t attentive to their numbers being called or addressed. For now, though, she was still Director of Research & Development, and she still had her name until it was time to trade her ID badge for the collar charging on her desk.

“Great… and I’m still getting wet over this,” she thought to herself, shifting in her office chair to try and find another angle she wouldn’t be unintentionally grinding herself against the ergonomic contour of her chair.

“Hey, Kaela?” Ben’s voice cut through the dull hum of the ventilation system and cooling fans on their work terminals.

She startled slightly at his voice, so deep in her thoughts and doing her level best to ignore the physical effect all of this was having on her. She couldn’t keep the heat from her cheeks as she turned and straightened herself up to look at Ben.

He tapped the top of his terminal’s monitor, a graven seriousness in his demeanor that did not match the nervous look in his eyes. “Recording is all set to start and I’ve finished all the software pre-flight. All that’s left is your green light.”

Just over his shoulder was the filming area, two small cameras set up on tripods facing one of the lab’s spare office chairs. Ben had done the kindness of wheeling two of the lab’s whiteboards to create a booth for the filming to take place and block line of sight to the large hallway windows and lab door. Kaela once again was thankful for his thoughtfulness in making this whole affair as modest as possible.

A cold bead of sweat ran down Kaela’s back as she sat forward to run her hand over each of the charging terminals, giving them one last check over. “It won’t help anything to delay things further,” she reminded herself. She stood and unhooked the headset and collar from their charging cradles, steeling herself for what was to come.

“Let’s begin.”

—

Two little red lights kept distracting her. Kaela had thought that she’d be able to stay a little calmer, a little more level headed once she sat down in the chair for the introduction interview. She had misjudged how much different it felt to know she was being recorded, that everything she said or did would be captured and stored on Ben’s terminal, and possibly the company servers. She realized she hadn’t thought to ask him before they began, and even though she trusted him to be thorough, it would be an easy enough thing to take for granted. After all, they rarely quarantine recording data from their tests to the local lab terminals, so if he hadn’t considered that of course the videos would be spooling to his subfolders on the server.

They had already covered the initial recording verifying her identity and that she understood that she was going to be undergoing testing, and that it would entail a series of probing questions and instructions to determine how compliant she was, and further, that she would be under the influence of several devices that would need to be calibrated through a further repetition of the same or similar questions and commands.

She felt another cold bead of sweat escape down the side of her ribs under her blouse, bringing her focus back to Ben who was in the midst of asking her another question.

“Miss Valka, is everything alright? Please answer the question.”

She frowned, shaking off her loss of attention, “I’m sorry, if you could please repeat the question?”

“Could you please describe your most embarrassing memory?” He asked tentatively, maintaining as much professionalism as he could while trying to grill his boss for picky details about herself.

She sighed and crossed her arms, thinking. “There’s no way I can tell him anything about Maddie and me in college… maybe something from one of my classes…”

She scratched the back of her neck as she answered, “the most embarrassing? I think that was probably the time in college when I had gone to one of my morning seminars in my pajama pants and a hoodie, but I didn’t realize that my pants had a tear in them… right at the top of my thigh on the back, and I didn’t realize until someone pointed it out to me in the cafeteria later. It was pretty mortifying.”

Ben jotted down a note on his pad, glancing back at her, “And why did you find that embarrassing? According to your file you were slave graded when you were 18, and that seems like far more exposure.”

She shook her head, answering tersely, “not the same thing. It’s way worse to have something happen you didn’t expect than something you knew was coming, especially when your attention is elsewhere.”

He jotted something else down. She admittedly was becoming curious about what he was writing. He always was a thorough note taker, but this was the first time his notes were about her.

He asked his next question without looking directly at her. She could see the discomfort in his posture as he asked, “Would you please describe how your slave grading went?”

She frowned, “I would really rather not. I can tell you it was fairly routine as I understand it, and that it was done in a properly credentialed shop for its time by a licensed grader. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

He nodded, “fair enough. When did you lose your virginity and with who?”

“Ben, that’s hardly-”

“I am simply asking questions that should elicit a response we can determine a baseline behavior from,” he interrupted her with surprising directness, “you are free not to answer.”

She took a breath, processing what he said a moment before she nodded, “I would prefer not to talk about it.”

More notes. He glanced up at her again, “would you please stand for me?”

She tilted her head, glancing at the camera, “are we… done with this portion?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head, “I want to double check that you’ll be fully on frame if you stand.”

She considered that with a nod, finding it reasonable enough, and stood, “is this good? How’s it look?”

Ben didn’t look at his terminal monitor, jotting down more notes, “thank you. You can sit.”

“That didn’t feel right… that was… oh, I see he’s moved to commands,” she realized. She took a moment to straighten her lab coat as she sat back down, folding her hands in her lap again. "He's getting the hang of this faster than I thought."

“Would you please hand me your ID badge?”

She shook her head, “I will not.”

Her ID badge remained clipped to her breast pocket, displaying a small photo of her face, her name, position, and the Optimates logo. She gave him credit. It was an easy command to generate a no response from, given that all employees had to keep their IDs on them and properly displayed at all times while on the premises, not to mention necessary for accessing secure areas like R&D.

He had set his pen down and looked at her. He took a deep breath and with as authoritative a voice as he could said, “Collar.”

She froze, eyes locked with his gaze. He had just issued one of the most basic slave commands, which calls for a slave to kneel, knees shoulder width apart, one hand on their thigh and one hand holding their hair aside to bare their neck so that they could be collared, or for a collar to be serviced. Anyone who had experienced being slave graded had the command drilled into their memory, and even those who hadn’t would have learned it in their civics unit on contemporary slavery.

She narrowed her eyes at him, matching his stare before shaking her head slowly, “that… portion of the testing protocol has not started yet.”

Ben broke eye contact first, looking back to his notepad where he jotted down something quick. His cheeks and the tip of his nose reddened, “Of course, you are correct. Simply establishing a baseline…”

He set his pad and pen aside on his desk, turning back to his terminal to tap a few commands into the system, leaving Kaela to sit there contemplating the cameras’ recording lights again while she stewed in her own nerves. She realized that the luxury of saying “no” would soon be one she wasn’t afforded.

Ben turned back to her, “alright, that’s the pre-test interview done and timestamped. If you could please put on the headset so we can begin the calibration phase, we can keep going. Unless you’d like a break, Kae- ahem… Miss Valka.”

Kaela smiled softly, it was oddly endearing seeing him getting flustered over all of this, and almost slipping back into less formal and familiar language. She reached over for the mug of water stationed nearby to take a sip.

“I’m doing okay, Ben. Thank you. And I believe I am good to continue.”

He nodded and finally made eye contact with her again as he handed her the headset, a more familiar looking Ben to her. She could see the focus on his work, of course, but she could see the Ben that looked at her fondly, and who she enjoyed talking about technology news and the latest marble racing league results over coffee. It was a relief to see that his softer side was still there.

—

Kaela learned one thing immediately about the headset that she didn’t like, the status ring. Namely that the status ring was useful only to the observer, and not the wearer. This was, of course, very intentional. It was some mix of curiosity and anxiety that left her constantly wondering what color it was while she was wearing it. A soft blue indicated that the system was idle or that the subject wasn’t experiencing any kind of mental stress. As the colors pushed from green to yellow to red, it would indicate a variety of important functional feedback for a trainer which could indicate stress in the wearer, or if the system’s calibration had gone out of sync. Ben had all of that information at his disposal, while she was left to wonder.

Their initial question and answer period with the headset on allowed the device to start calibrating and getting her brain activity logged, but Ben’s questions were already pushing the envelope of where their pre-testing interview had ended.

“Miss Valka, please recount your most embarrassing memory.”

Kaela cleared her throat and straightened her back as she answered, “Like I said… when I was in college I had a very embarrassing moment with my ripped pants…”

Ben looked at her temple instead of her eyes, assessing the glowing status ring.

“I don’t believe you are being honest with me, Miss Valka,” he trailed off, looking back at his notes, “I want you to tell me your most embarrassing memory, truthfully this time.”

Kaela swallowed the lump that formed in her throat, she hadn’t considered the fact that the stress indicator and brain scanning could be used as a makeshift lie detector. Her heart started racing in her chest, a dull thumping in her ears.

“My… most embarrassing memory…” she hesitated, trying to think of a way to phrase things truthfully, “was while I was visiting home from college with my best friend… she worked at a sex shop over by the highway, and she… well she talked me into trying a few products on me and we got caught by her co-workers. That’s all I can really say.”

Ben took a few more notes and watched the light, glancing at his terminal’s screen, “we’ll revisit that once the headset’s better calibrated.”

He turned back to her fully again, “I want you to answer me honestly, when did you lose your virginity and to who?”

Kaela frowned and furrowed her brow. Ben wasn’t beating around the bush anymore. “He’s trying to get as many strong resistance readings as possible…” she contemplated to herself. She allowed herself a moment of distraction to straighten her lab coat before she answered.

“In highschool, and with my friend’s brother,” she answered tersely, trying to keep her honest truth as short and to the point as possible.

He nodded to himself as he studied the terminal beside him, “good… let’s try this. Miss Valka, give me your ID, please.”

He extended his hand and glanced her way expectantly.

She shook her head no again, “No, thank you.” She was sharper than she had intended, her adrenaline starting to get the better of her as she tried to steal glances at the terminal screen even though Ben had turned it away from her.

He studied her for a moment, his eyes flitting from hers to the status light a few times before he pulled back his hand. He hmm’d to himself as he turned back to the monitor, the glow reflecting in his eyes.

“All right, I believe that should be enough data to start. I am going to initiate the active function of the headset. Please tell me if you experience any discomfort, alright Miss Valka?”

Kaela nodded again, despite her doubts. “Here goes nothing… or possibly everything…”

She could feel the headset get a little warmer against her temples and the base of her skull, which was unsurprising with how much miniaturized hardware was packed into it. She held her breath, anticipating something, anything that might indicate the device wasn’t working or might cause her pain. No such shock or startle came, and after a moment, she started to breathe again, opening her eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed and slowly unclenched her fists in her lap.

Ben was looking at her with concern on his face, “How are you feeling? Did anything hurt?”

Kaela glanced up as if to look towards the status light she had no way of seeing, “I feel fine, I think. It’s a bit warm, and I feel like maybe there’s a little vibration that needs to be accounted for?” Her answer came easily and without reservation, the problem solver in her assessing the device itself more clinically instead of the test subject she was becoming.

Ben nodded and smiled in relief, “alright, then we can continue… let’s start with something simple.” He looked at his notes before holding his hand out, “I don’t want you to get too distracted, since you keep trying to look at my screen. Could you please give me your glasses?”

Kaela gave the request a cursory thought as she carefully pulled the black framed spectacles from her face. She wasn’t blind without them, but while she could identify the phone on Ben’s desk and recognize him easily enough, the notes on his notepad became an unintelligible blur, as did the calendar on the wall behind him. She held onto her glasses a moment, folding the arms against the frames as she hesitated.

Ben’s hand was still offered to her, though it was much harder for her to read his face now, which unsettled her more than anything else so far. She handed over her glasses and took a deep breath as he smiled and carefully set them beside his keyboard on his desk.

“Thank you, Miss Valka. Now if you could please tell me what slave grade you received when you were graded?”

She blushed as she answered, “You should have that information from my paperwork, Mr. Ward…” she emphasized his name like he had hers, “but I did receive a rating of choice.”

Ben nodded and continued almost conversationally, “why only choice? You seem like you could have easily been rated choice plus or prime minus.”

Kaela fidgeted in her seat as she glanced a moment at the camera next to Ben, “I… wasn’t exactly prepared… well… not prepared for grading. I never took it very seriously beforehand… and I didn’t handle my nerves well.”

Ben jotted down another note, keeping his eyes on Kaela, “and what would you say was the best part of your experience getting graded?”

“The best part…” she was taken off guard by the question and took a moment to consider, “I guess the best part was feeling…” She shook her head, “I’m not sure I can really tell you, Ben, it’s hard to say. I guess the relief when it was all over was the best part? When I knew I was released and going home… and, I guess, a little proud that I scored okay.”

He nodded again, looking back to his terminal, “excellent. Let’s move on to another topic. And please continue to address me as Mr. Ward from here on out.”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered with a nod, a moment of realization crossing her face at how automatic her deferral to him as an authority was. She tried her best to ignore the smile that briefly broke out on his face, but she couldn’t ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

“Now if you could please remove your lab coat and hang it over the back of your chair, Miss Valka,” he didn’t look at her as he addressed her, his eyes watching the monitor still.

Kaela nodded, quickly transferring her ID from the breast pocket of her lab coat to the front of her blouse before she started to slide the white fabric over her shoulders. She hopped in her chair slightly to tug the coat out from under her and after another moment of finagling with it, she had it hanging over the back of her chair. She couldn’t help but feel a little self conscious, keeping her elbows tucked against her side for fear that with how much she’d been sweating, she might be starting to have pit stains.

Ben nodded to himself as he jotted down something on his pad again, “good. Are you feeling alright? Any lightheadedness or disorientation?”

She considered a moment, paying attention once more to the presence of the headset. She had to honestly center it in her mind because she had already begun to forget that it was there, whether she had gotten used to it or it was operating so comfortably. Putting aside the quiet voice inside herself that was alarmed by how easily she had forgotten the device was on, she shook her head. “I don’t believe so, at least not particularly significant. Maybe a little… floaty kind of sensation?”

Ben set his pen down again and took a good look at her, and considered the device, assessing it and the status light that remained unseen to Kaela. She felt scrutinized and felt a spike of vulnerability as she kept her arms down and knees together, avoiding his eye contact again. She knew that the air conditioning hadn’t changed, but she felt the chill crawling down her spine as her core heated up.

She couldn’t see that every time he asked her a question or made a request, that light was flickering and fading between colors, and his terminal was being fed a stream of data about her active thoughts. His shifting tactics and odd requests were feeding the system valuable data that was slowly painting a more complete picture of her brain functions, and through some subtle electro-magnetic techno-wizardry, muting some of the more intense electrical activity the system detected was connected to her resistance and inhibitions.

He seemed satisfied with his analysis for the moment and settled back in his chair to review the terminal’s data feed. “Alright, let’s revisit our earlier topic of your most embarrassing moment. Earlier you weren’t being honest with me, were you Miss Valka?”

—

Kaela swallowed the lump forming in her throat as silence hung between her and Ben. She made a conscious effort to sober herself up in the moment, focusing on her words to choose them carefully.

“I believe I was… appropriate in my response, Mister Ward.”

Her eyes were focused on his, squinting slightly to see him clearer and hopefully get a sense of his disposition during his response.

“Miss Valka, I would remind you that for the duration of this experiment you are expected… rather, required to comply with any and all requests from the proctor of this study. But perhaps I wasn’t clear, so I will restate. Miss Valka, were you being completely honest with me regarding your most embarrassing moment?”

She looked away, feeling the pressure again from keeping eye contact with him through what suddenly felt like a scolding, “No, Mister Ward.”

He jotted down more notes before turning back his full attention on her, “this is your final chance then, and if you are not completely honest with me, I will be forced to start a tally of corrective actions needed once we proceed to the experiment proper.”

Kaela shivered and cursed the air conditioning, unwilling to accept that she suddenly was afraid of what punishments might actually look like now that Ben was focusing on being professional.

He continued, “So, I will ask you again, what is your most embarrassing memory, and why, Miss Valka?”

She struggled to maintain her focus, finding the worry about punishment looming over whatever resolve she had mustered before. She half started to speak, stopped to take a sip from her mug for her suddenly parched throat, and finally continued with her eyes cast down to the floor.

“A few years ago, my best friend lived in New York with her girlfriend. We… had planned for me to come visit and meet her, maybe go out and get some drinks, talk about our professional lives, and maybe if the vibe was right do a bit of co-topping since I used to mess around with my bestie before she moved away.”

“Except it turns out that her girlfriend was amused by how flustered I got… and before I knew it, instead of us tag-teaming Maddie, she had both of us kneeling at her feet, slave-naked. I ended up spending the entire weekend at her whim and will. And, like, I wasn’t allowed to choose my own clothing, if I got to wear any at all, and even though Maddie was basically her slave, I was being treated as being below even her, like some kind of pet. And this went on all the way through the party we had all planned on attending together, in which she…”

Kaela’s cheeks burned as she found herself babbling about her escapades, “she had me locked up on full display… and used by anyone who wanted like they do at those sleazy slave blow-bars. The worst part was this club was one I’d been to with Maddie before… and I knew a bunch of people there, and like, they all knew me as this confident, dominant, -clothed- woman who didn’t take shit from anyone. And now there I was, defenseless and free to use… thank god there was a no-photo policy.”

“A-and you’re right… being treated that way wasn’t… like, totally embarrassing on its own since I -was- graded before I left for college. Heck, Maddie was there getting graded with me. The worst part was being recognized, that was the most humiliating part…” she concluded, her hands folded in her lap, awkwardly squirming in her seat.

Silence fell again, the dull hum of the HVAC white noise overhead competing with the soft scratch of pencil on paper as Ben finished jotting down his notes.

“Thank you, Miss Valka. That was much better.”

He let that hang there between them, leaving her to stew in silence while he considered his next question and reviewed the terminal beside him.

He looked back to her, turning his chair fully to face her again. She questioned whether he had adjusted his chair to look taller, “You mentioned that you were graded alongside this Maddie, your best friend. Could you tell me about your experience being graded with her?”

She considered only a moment, finding it easier to talk about Maddie instead of herself, “well, we were both pretty nervous going into it, especially since we were doing our best to get the best scores we could. That meant stripping down out in the parking lot and being led in by my boyfriend with us both on leads with our hands zip-tied behind us. I guess it’s worth mentioning it was probably worse for Maddie because my boyfriend was her brother…”

“But after he dropped us off it was a pretty standard grading. Like, we got graded before the big brokers started doing business up here in the mid Atlantic, so we were at a local shop in a strip mall where there was the only properly certified grader on staff. He was professional enough, but clearly enjoyed his job, especially since Maddie was an absolute natural at doing her slave poses and responding to commands. I swear the only part that she got docked much of anything was for being a bit dry even when she’s really worked up…”

Kaela scratched behind her ear and tugged on a loose strand of her hair that had come from from her braided bun, “I think I mentioned before that the two of us had fucked before… but during our grading they had us put on a show for folks walking by the shop in the big window by the grading area before putting us up for a mock auction. Maddie loved showing off and being the center of attention.”

“The grader made sure to put us on full display when doing the mock auction, too… like making us hold our cheeks apart, spread our… ah… he made us spread our pussies open for the audience… and called out how easy it was for us to take the probes he’d used on our holes. He made Maddie give his fingers a blowjob for the crowd to see, too.”

Ben studied her movements as she told her story, jotting down the occasional note. His eyes kept passing from the status light on her temple to her expression, then back to his notes or his terminal. He only seemed like he was half listening, but Kaela wasn’t even aware of his social cues unlike her usual social vigilance.

She wound her meandering story to a close, “and eventually we got picked up… new grading certs in tow. Maddie scored much better than me, choice plus, on account of how anxious I was the whole time and the fact I was miserable at handling block poses and commands during the mock auction. Of course my boyfriend made the most of us still being naked while leading us back to the car and treated us like we were actually slaves until we got home… but it was a relief to finally be back in his custody after all that.”

She found herself in the silence again, wetting her lips with her tongue before chewing on her bottom lip. She hated telling stories like that, but had just rambled on about her experiences being treated as a slave with only the barest hints of reluctance. She suddenly became aware of the circlet again as she followed Ben’s gaze, and felt a renewed heat hit her cheeks as she realized just how effective their invention was at disarming her inhibitions. She pressed her thighs together as she sat, squirming with that thought, and couldn’t ignore the other heat that had hit her during all this, the fire slowly stoked in her gut as she steadily dampened her panties.

Ben’s voice brought her out of her reverie, “thank you, Miss Valka. That was very informative. Now, if you’d please stand, it’s time for us to examine how this is affecting your motor skills and any other secondary effects.”

“Secondary effects…” she thought to herself, trying to remember through the growing haze what that might mean even as she stood without thinking. “Oh god… that means the physical examination… and after that, the collar…” she had the notion that this was worth fretting over, though it was a distant worry swept aside as Ben redirected her attention.


She hadn’t even realized she had already taken off her shoes and socks on his instruction she had only half heard, and was unbuttoning her pants.

She half startled herself with the realization, that fret bubbling back to the surface, “I am so fucked…”