Part 24: The Hard Cases Meet May's Revenge
Unpredictable,
fate plays many tricks on us,
just to make us think.
“So, we’re down to the twitty-titty-twins, huh?” asked May.
Duke laughed and said, “That’s as good of a name for them as any. Both Cecelia and Diane have silicone C-cups, probably from the same surgeon, and their attitudes are equally as venomous and uncontrollable, which, under the circumstances is not very wise, so the nickname twitty-titty-twins works for me. Now what would you suggest doing to them?”
“I was playing around with the twisted-titty-twins, but that name didn’t suit me, for them. The name reminded me of something, but I just couldn’t place it, or where the reference came from.”
“We’ll go with the first one. They can be a couple of twits. And the other reference came from a Tarantino flick. The Twisted Titty was the name of a trucker/biker bar full of vampires.”
“That’s it! I remember now. Thank you, Duke. Now I know it doesn’t suit them as a nickname.”
“Now back to the original question, what do you think we ought to be doing to them?”
“OK, they’re not cooperating, which is causing problems for everyone, especially you, my master. Which in my mind is a double whammy. You’re having to waste your time on them, and that takes you away from me. I’m a very greedy bitch when it comes to spending time with you, so if they’re giving you so many headaches that it’s keeping us apart, then that’s just not acceptable. I know we can, but it’s probably not a good idea to just kick the shit out of them and make them examples of what not to do, so let’s give them back.”
“Back? We can’t do that.”
“Sure we can. I said nothing about giving them back in the same condition we got them in. We could fuck them up a little bit. Well a lot actually. Please, master, hear me out, I’ve been thinking about this. If they just show up on some street corner in Middle-of-Nowhere, U.S.A or better yet in the middle of some desert community in Baja Mexico, or South America, and if they are so out of it that they don’t even know their own names, then we’re safe, and the problems are gone, --- evaporated, --- poof.”
“When Jackson and his crew gets back later today or tomorrow, we can run it by him and see. Until then, let’s do something proactive. Let’s see what the techies have to say about what we actually have access to, and how much of it is a spy-novel pipedream.”
“I’ve got it Master,” she squealed, clapping her hands. “A boat wreck on a deserted island. Brainwash them so all of their facts are screwed and skewed, then set them adrift on a deserted island, blow up the boat so they couldn’t use it for shelter or to return, let them sweat out a couple months like Robinson Crusoe and then have some tourist, obviously of our choosing of course, accidentally find them. Even if they could give an account, no matter how fanciful and inaccurate, no one would believe them. It’s too elaborate to be anything but hallucinations from scared women who have survived a traumatic accident.”
“Wow, that’s some scenario, but it doesn’t sound undoable. Let’s go talk to Lee and Timothy.”
Duke called a meeting of his advisory staff up in one of the conference rooms. Lee and Timothy got there first and started setting up MacBook Pros for everyone. As per Duke’s special request, two more of Lee’s lab geeks, Athol and Mack were there helping him set up and wondering why Duke had summoned them. Athol was an expert on how police departments handled special situations and Mack had a background with the feds and knew how they reacted to certain extreme stimuli. They had their suspicions, but with Duke you never could be sure.
Paul, Dennis, Miguel, George, Sam, and Bruce came in talking shit about the women they were training. They were raucous and boisterous but fun loving amongst each other. When Duke came in with May, the catcalls edged out the horseplay. May went around to each and every one of them and gave them a long happy kiss, a full body hug, and accepted any mussing they gave her with the affection it was intended to portray. While they all sat around the conference table, she sat in the corner and tried to repair the esthetics and then went over to kneel at her master’s side. Duke called this meeting to order.
“OK guys, you all know that May has been helping me for the past couple of days and that she’s made some significant headway with a couple of them. I’m thinking it just needed a woman’s touch.”
“Yes, whatever you did for Amelia really worked! She’s actually working with us now instead of digging in her heels.”
“Yea, and that stunt you did with Jackie on her birthday really turned her around. By the way, your celebration was actually a day too early, but Jackie didn’t know. At any rate, the bottom line is that it got her on a positive track and now she’s working with us too, just as happy and compliant as any of the volunteers we’ve trained in the past. You did real good with that one.”
They all chimed in with stories of the positive results from May’s efforts. They were getting big laughs from the blooper reel that Timothy had put together of key moments, like when Leigh thought that May was rubbing acid on her face. He’d linked all their laptops together and was entertaining them until Duke pulled them all back to the business at hand.
“My bloodthirsty little hellion has some rather definitive ideas for dealing with our problem children. She told me the other day that she wants Paul to kick the shit out of Diane, and then put a bullet in her brainpan just to teach Cecelia that we’re serious. She’s all behind selling Geneva to the Yakuza, and you were just joking about what she wanted to do to Leigh Harrelman.”
Bruce broke in with, “May is just being a typical woman, beautiful, loving, desirable, and feminine to those she likes, fiercely loyal to and protective of those she loves, and a cold, efficient bitch to those that threaten her little world. There is nothing wrong with that. Not a damned thing. We all love May, envy you boss, and in this case, the ones I’ve talked to about this would side with her. Let’s just punch their clocks and be done with this farce. We’re geared up and trained to teach volunteers that sign up with us to be slaves, not these scared, frightened, headstrong hard-cases that are too stupid to see the trees in the forest. Your little speech about them having already served their purpose to us made their situation clear to those with a grip on reality, and except for the problem kids, they all straightened up. So, let’s just do the obvious and cull out the dullards. They won’t make quality slaves anyway. I understood the reasons to take them in the first place, but I don’t follow the reasons to keep them now. The problem kids are more trouble than they’re worth. We have women waiting in line that want to come here and get trained to serve others. My forehead is sore boss and that brick wall I’ve been beating it against hasn’t given a bit. I say let May bring out the C-4. I’ll hook it up for her, shield her with my own body and hand her the plunger.”
Duke looked around the table at the expressions facing him and asked the obvious question.
“How many of you agree with this assessment?”
He was kind of surprised when every hand but Paul’s went up.
“And why aren’t you siding with everyone else?”
“I’m not quite as bloodthirsty as some are. I still think we can find some worth in them, even if it’s as simple as what not to do with trainees. You can just call me the eternal optimist. I still believe that any negative situation can be a learning experience. But to be practical, I also realize the tremendous drain on our resources that’s going on now because of them, so I’ll play along with the majority, gladly.”
“Well, May has some ideas about that, so I’m going to turn the podium over to her and let her question you on what I’m going to call the May option. For this, would any of you mind if we forswore the titles and just let her talk? I have no objections if you don’t.”
Miguel spoke up, all serious for a moment, saying, “Hefe, I for one think a slave’s training and decorum should be absolute and that all the proprieties be met at all times,” and the others groaned, “but on this one occasion, I could be bribed with the promise of more cupcakes.”
May squealed, got up, went over to his chair, gave him a big kiss and smiling brightly said, “How could I deprive a face like that. As soon as my Duke lets me off my back and unties my arms tonight, I’ll bake up another batch of cupcakes, or would you rather have cookies?”
“Chocolate chip” --- “Peanut butter” --- “Oatmeal-Raisin” --- “Molasses” --- “Just plain old iced sugar cookies for me” --- “Damnit, I wanted cupcakes” --- “Gingerbread for me please” --- “Just make a lot of them May” ---
“One sugar-binge for my master’s groom corps coming up. Duke, I may have to stay home tomorrow, and that’s with being up all night too, baking for these hungry, hard working men. Tell me guys, is it the sugar rush or the thought of me sweating away in a kitchen, baking you these treats in high-heels and wearing something sexy?”
“Yes,” was the single word consensus of immediate opinion, and May just giggled.
“Okay Donna Reed, now let’s get back to business. Tell them about your idea for letting them go and then let them either brainstorm on it or poke holes in your plan.”
“I got to thinking about the upsides and downsides of this situation, and the main thing we can’t let happen is these fools telling anybody about anything that has happened to them since we took them. Actually, we can’t let anybody believe anything they have to say about their missing time. Is this a fair assessment?”
Again, everyone nodded in the affirmative, and May noticed that the four computer geeks were fiercely banging away on their laptops. As formulas started to appear on their screens, they all started babbling about medical jargon and medications that weren’t behind the pharmacy shelf at your local drugstore.
“Curare” --- “Lysergic acid diethylamide” --- “Phencyclidine” --- “Psilocybin” --- “Methylene Deoxy-Methamphetamine” --- “Dimethyl Tryptamine” --- “Ipecac” --- (and the lists of hallucinogens, paralytics and psychotropics went on and on)
“Okay guys, I know now that we’re on the same page...” but the grooms just kept going, talking all at once.
“Drop tank them for eighteen hours” --- “No, Red-Room them with no sleep for about three or four days” --- “Then drop them in an isolation tank” --- “Then back to solitary confinement until we’re ready to do it to them again” --- “Mummification confinement” --- “Why did they build this stuff for us if they’re not going to let us use it?” --- “We’d have to Red-Room them one at a time” --- “Would we need a different formula for each treatment?” --- “But we only have two solitary confinement rooms and there’s three of them” --- “Mummification and then suspension” --- “On any formula we’d have to adjust tolerance levels” --- “Which one should go in the Red-Room first?” --- “Did we ever get that tachistoscope?” --- “I vote for Diane” --- “You mean it came with programs!” ---
May knew they were all giving different individual pieces of the puzzle for the same thing but couldn’t agree on just how to do it. Everybody seemed to be talking at everyone else, but no one seemed to be talking to anyone else.
“Okay guys,” said Duke trying to calm the furor down to something manageable, “we seem to have a consensus of what it will take to confuse their abilities to accurately tell anyone what happened to them here, or who any of us are, but now we need to get some hard and fast plans lined up so that when Jackson and the other directors ask me exactly what we’re doing, I can tell them something concrete and answer the obvious questions. Let’s settle down and start deciding who does what to whom, when, where, why and how.”
A week later, with the approval of other High Lords and Ladies, their new plan was put into effect.
Shaved bald, Geneva, Diane, and Cecelia sat naked in straight back heavy wooden chairs, covered only with the ropes that held them to those uncomfortable seats. They had been sitting there for hours while the ambient light was being slowly raised so that they could see their environment. Brought to a large holding cell, all three waited, forlorn and miserable. Hours ticked by slowly. Occasionally, grooms would come in and check their circulation, adjusting a rope tighter if they’d been struggling or loosening a rope if it was too tight. The women were not talked to, and no sign of affection gave them any warmth or comfort. Bound to stationary chairs and gagged with sodden wads of cloth in their mouths, which were sealed in with layers of tape that were wrapped around their heads and covered the entire lower halves of their faces, the women had eventually given up trying to make intelligible sounds. Inarticulate grunts were the best they could do to communicate amongst themselves. Napping seemed to be their only respite and Cecelia was the only one of the three that did not avail herself of this option.
Fading in and out of rational consciousness Cecelia finally made out some shadows and reflections. Instantly awake and excited, she made enough noise to wake up her companions. They looked over and actually saw the darkened silhouettes of the woman next to them. All three of them became emotional, but only Cecelia and Geneva cried.
More hours went by as the lights intensified until they were almost too bright to look at. Suddenly, a voice from behind the lights asked, “Comfortable?”
Diane glared and tried hard to spit out her wadding and shake off the tape covering her mouth. Obviously, she had been working on that because she’d almost loosened the tape enough to come off. A groom in a balaclava hood came in and reinforced the gag with wraps of Vet-Wrap going around her head. This forced a tear from her eyes, but she did not cry. Anger, frustration and helplessness were taking a toll on her. To make things worse, the same groom taped her fingers into elastic covered fists and wound much more tape than was necessary around her fists making sure they felt even more helpless.
Again, from behind the lights, the voice of Duke talked to them.
“Now that we’re all more comfy and secure I want you to know that we’ve come up with a plan for you women. We’re not happy with how we have to do this, but we’re about ready to send you back to the other world.”
You could have heard a pin drop. They weren’t even breathing.
“Here’s how it’s going to work. For the next several weeks we are going to strip you of your minds. We’re not going to try and convince you to forget us, we’re going to strip you of your physical ability to remember what happened to you. You will not be happy with the outcome. Not only won’t you remember us, you won’t really remember anything. Dressing and feeding yourselves will be a problem. We don’t care how much this alternative upsets you. Remember, we tried to offer you a simpler, more pleasant choice, but you chose to be recalcitrant and defiant. That’s okay too because we have ways of counteracting thought patterns like those. We will remove rational thought from your brains and turn you into animals that have opposing thumbs but still need to be retrained not to make a mess in the corner of the room. Now doesn’t that sound like fun? Diane, you are the hard case, so you will be first. In a few minutes we will be injecting you with a cocktail that will force your body and mind to react in negative ways. If I told you what was in it, you’d probably agree to be cooperative immediately. I would if the situations were reversed, but you’ve lost that option. You’ve defied us too many times. You’ve made my grooms angry, and in our last committee I had to stop them from just putting a bullet in your brainpan. I’m not even going to tell you what my personal slave wanted to do to you for giving me the headaches that have affected our relationship.
“You see, I have a very close and loving relationship with my slave. I listen to her, and she’s more like a partner than a doormat. She’s helped many of the women that were kidnapped at the same time you were. She baked for Jackie’s birthday and gave her a truly thoughtful present. Leigh is now cooperating nicely, along with Amelia, Vivian, Malory, and Serenity. This is all because a slave, my slave, kidnapped from her home just a few months before you were, was respected enough by me to help me work with these women to offer them better options than what will be happening to you. You wanted to be the hard case, and you succeeded at it. You succeeded so well I’m going to reward a slave with a positive attitude, my slave, with the chance to inject you with this cocktail. This stuff is so potent it doesn’t even have to be an IV injection. Intramuscular will be fine. This is some nasty stuff and should take its first effects almost immediately. Oh, and for the record, this is not the nastiest stuff we have available to us, it’s just what we thought would work for you. And, this is only your first injection. There will be many more.
“Now, for today, we’re going to let the other two watch what happens to the ringleader of the resistance, you Diane. They get their first doses of the nasty stuff tomorrow. Like I said, over the next few weeks we will strip all three of you of your rational minds. You have already served the big picture by being removed from the wimps that depended on you for their individual strengths. Now, being stripped of your minds and being sent back to them will waste even more of their time trying to figure out what happened to you, who did this to you and then fix you back to normal. Think of their personal anxiety over this. Won’t that be jolly fun to watch? And speaking of watching, we are recording these proceedings so that the others can be reminded, if necessary, of our resolve. Remember, you did this to yourselves. We tried to offer you a kinder, quieter solution to your dilemma, but you wanted to stand up on your hind legs and defy us, so welcome to the darker side of these Estates. Guys, is my slave set to go?”
May was dressed in a white nurse’s uniform, with white hose and four-inch wet-heels, lab coat, clear plastic poncho and face shield. She was carrying a shiny tray with three syringes, two vials of colorless liquid, alcohol prep-pads and some gloves to protect her hands. She laid this tray down on Diane’s lap and while she pulled on a pair of gloves May said, “And this is for upsetting my Master.” As soon as the gloves were on, she slapped Diane, once on each cheek and hard enough to rock her head. She then showed the other two the first vial, which was labeled, ‘OBSERVATION JUICE’. May opened one of the pre-packaged syringes and drew up about 25cc. She swabbed Geneva’s butt cheek with an alcohol pad, stuck her and depressed the plunger. While she did the same thing to Cecelia, she talked to them in a kind voice.
“I’m led to believe that this cocktail contains a tranquilizer, antiemetic, hallucinatory stimulant and a paralytic to keep you from thrashing around. You should be able to watch the worst of what is happening to this bitch without being physically sick. I could be wrong and so could they, but the idea is to give you an opportunity to observe what’s going to happen to you.”
May roughly peeled off their gags and helped them eject their waddings. Then she started to prepare Diane’s dosage. The first thing May did was show Diane that the vial was labeled, ‘MAY’S REVENGE’. May drew up a specific dose in a 100unit diabetic syringe, and injected Diane in her belly, just like a diabetic would inject insulin. She also unwrapped the covering over Diane’s gag.
“I wanted to inject this directly into your clitoral hood, but they suggested that it might be more effective here. I hope you like your trip,” and she ripped off the tape just before the first effect of projectile vomiting erupted from Diane. Both of the other two started gagging and dry heaving, but nothing came up. Just then Diane’s bowels evacuated and then every one of the three started to heave. May pranced and high-stepped off to the side to stay out of the mess and then walked back behind the lights and joined the rest of the grooms and Duke.
When she and Duke left the room, his full advisory staff of grooms left with him. There were several fully prepared journeymen grooms in there wearing Tyvek suits and SCBA masks and tanks so they wouldn’t have to put up with the smell that was part of the effect for the other two.
Back in the conference room they all took a seat and waited for Duke to strip May down to skin and hand off the uniform to a beginner groom to have incinerated. Bringing them to order he looked down at May, who was kneeling by his chair, winked and asked, “OK, what’s the line on them?
“Five to two that Diane breaks after the third dose and seventeen to one that Cecelia is the first one to break and go back into training before she’s hit with May’s Revenge.”
And May just laughed, delighting them all.
Final solutions
are rarely the right answers,
but they sate a need.