When he felt generous enough to divulge a few scant details to the layperson, the investigator equated his role in the procedure to that of a thunderstorm. Some storms fed dehydrated earth, allowing life to thrive. Other times, dead or decaying matter needed to be cleared for new growth to emerge. And some storms were so intense that they eviscerated everything they touched. He executed his duty with a concentrated force that evoked the merciful violence of a storm. From a certain viewpoint, it was beautiful. 

Each investigator possessed many tools to examine and alter the mind. More rudimentary measures involved surgically extracting the afflicted tissue, but the results from such arcane methods often resulted in apostasy. The sudden change was too drastic. Psychology and pharmacological techniques could also be effective, but only to an extent. Despite the landmark biomedical advancements achieved in the 2030s, neurophysiology remained a relative mystery, a terrain that required delicate and relentless navigation.

The procedure itself existed in an oblique area that combined these various techniques. The force of the physical married to subtle whispers delivered through the advent of drugs and technology. Whispers used to strike the correct notes and caress the right chords, creating a new song that the mind could absorb. Music that left an imprint, carving its own unique valley as it took on an interpretation and life of its own.

The investigator examined each participant without judgment or passion. A clinician foremost, he always took a moment beforehand to compartmentalize his thoughts. Surgical precision. For the procedure to take a credible hold, it had to begin with the facts; more accurately, the participant’s perception of the facts. Even a slight deviation from protocol could cause irreparable damage to their psyche. 

He had seen what could happen when things went wrong. Some minds simply shattered. Unable to cope with the dam breaking, the participant regressed into a catatonic state. Neurons and synapses sizzled away, similar to a light bulb filament burning out, leaving behind darkness. Some paths, once disrupted, could never be repaired or traversed again. 

But this particular investigator did not specialize in darkness, he preferred light. He probed the mind with questions like tiny bolts of lightning, illuminating the memories to be snuffed out. 

*

The investigator’s voice echoed through the loudspeaker mounted in the ceiling of a sterile exam room, metallic, “Participant JM4 – 9.5, do you understand the purpose of the procedure and accept its inherent risks and benefits?"

The woman replied in the affirmative with a clear, strong voice, “Yes, I understand the purpose and my judgment is not impaired. I accept the potential risks and benefits and choose to proceed."

“Very well. Today will be identical to your familiarization. Repeat the prompts verbatim. The procedure itself will recall your recollections. Do not obstruct their entry with emotion. Let them fill your mind and dwell there, unbiased. This will improve the odds of success.”

“I will try my best.”

"Recite your anchoring statement."

“A dim-dark emptiness emerged to reign…” 

She took a deep breath, continuing, “…the offspring of needs interposed between needs interposed between needs interposed between unlit paths…” 

She pushed to the end, finishing, “…and lustfully living amidst the lies, the deep vast vacuum swells.” 

There was a brief respite.

He launched into the investigation, "Needs."
"Needs," she repeated. 

A new fear had merged with her depression and dread to form a single churning wave that beat into her repeatedly every time his voice crackled over the speaker. She strengthened her resolve, remembering her purpose. Atonement. The investigator’s voice was robotic, but there was a calm authority in the timbre. There was something else there that she couldn't quite identify. Something omnipotent. It made sense. Here, they played God.  

"Do you wish that you could forget? Needs."
"Needs."

She detected an accusatory undertone to his question and wondered whether it was her guilty imagination. Her lips moved automatically in repetition. Needs. The word lingered. Just like practice, she told herself. She had chosen her anchoring statement with great care. Each word had been selected to recall certain portions of her recollections. Per his instruction, she cleared her mind of emotion and let the memories play. It was like watching a film from another generation, centuries ago. The frames were tinged in a warm nostalgic haze.

"Was there a time when he fulfilled your needs? Needs."
"Needs."

They had met at a concert on the campus commons on a starry summer night. He approached her with a rare maturity that was bold, but honest. He wanted her, jesting and joking with no expectation of reciprocation. His merciless wit and inappropriate humor were punctuated by his ornery grin, a rare mix of cockiness and self-awareness that swept her off her feet, igniting an unmistakable push and pull dynamic between them.

"Why did you do what you did? Needs."
"Needs."

"Interposed.”
"Interposed."

She insulted and tested him back, trying to deny what she felt, but she could not ignore the wetness that spread through her panties as she sparred with him. Every sly grin and witty comeback made that wet heat intensify. He made her feel like the only person in the world. Every star, gust of warm wind, and shift of the earth was his doing, meant for her and her alone. She put up a fight, but the knockout blow had been dealt on his initial approach. After several drinks and a short skytran trip, she found herself anxiously ascending hundreds of meters to arrive at his shoddy apartment. 

"What's it like to lose someone you love? Interposed."
"Interposed."

They danced to cheesy music and drank a cheap red wine that he pretended to know something interesting about. She teased him and he grabbed her tight, play fighting with her. She giggled like a teenager and then he kissed her. They lost their clothes in a hurry and she never forgot the look of horny wonder in his eyes when he saw her naked for the first time. 

"Who taught you to feel sexual pleasure? Interposed."
“Interposed."

He was inexperienced, but his attentiveness and passion made up for those shortcomings. Their first coupling was haphazard, but enjoyable. When he dove between her legs, he explored her with filthy curiosity, unsure of his technique. His assured patience relaxed her. His tongue treated her glistening lips and engorged achy bud like a canvas to be painted. Every brush, flick, lap and swirl more deliberate than the last, finding the perfect pressures and combinations. Her body gently instructed him and he listened. She cried out his name as he guided her to her first orgasm.

"Do you long to have your heart understood? Interposed."
“Interposed."

Her legs were still shaking when he climbed atop her, slipped his cock between her breasts, and guided his tip up to her lips. She never forgot his taste. His swollen anticipation helplessly trickled from the slit, salty-sweet. She relished the way he moaned and trembled from the heat of her lips sealed around his hardened flesh. After sucking him, she flipped him onto his back with a curiosity of her own. She mounted and rode him. Neither lasted long. Perhaps such intensity was never meant to. Their gazes locked as they climaxed, a first for both, to release with such perfect mutual timing.

Do your memories cling? Interposed."
"Interposed."

The new couple fought and made love with equal enthusiasm. Always tempestuous, their public displays of affection were followed by dramatic outbursts and hyperbolic threats that did not win the confidence of their families or friends. As they both matured, a learned evenness gradually sanded the rougher edges of the relationship. 

"Do you feel that there's a piece of you missing? Interposed."
“Interposed."

There were moments that she could never forget. The stillness of the bed. The ethereal, dark blue glow that filled their room in the hour before sunlight emerged to streak the city sky. Their mutual warmth trapped beneath thick blankets, a warmth so absolute, so theirs, that it seemed infinite. The way he gazed at her when he thought that she was asleep, dark enough that he never caught her eyes opening for that split-second. The quiet vulnerability she felt in those moments nearly crushed her. These moments were beautiful, a natural resource that they could only create together. She wanted to mine them for the rest of their lives.

"Do your needs interpose your dreams? Interposed.” 
“Interposed."

But her needs interposed. And there were always needs. Nebulous, unwelcome offspring that interrupted the perfect stillness with indescribable shapes that hovered at the edge of definition. Time's inevitable march helped to clarify their blur and she found that many were jagged, painful to the touch. The need to please him. The need for more and more and more. The need to be true to herself, a singular entity that simultaneously belonged to another. She was never satisfied.

"Did you lose a fragment of yourself? Interposed."
"Interposed."

They loved each other and were soon engaged, but his wild, boyish energy was always a source of conflict. He was a fire; gorgeous to view, to dance with and be taken by, but too dangerous to be left uncontained. So she set about the task of molding him into a stable provider. She succeeded to her detriment. Once married, she realized that the man she created no longer excited her. Part of it was her own doing, but she was unable to delineate her influence from the inevitable evolution of a being over time. Nevertheless, the hot glow that surrounded him was starting to dim. The husband she thought she wanted did not have time or energy for the boyish games that had won her affection. 

"Between needs interposed."
"Between needs interposed."

"Lustfully."
"Lustfully."

The years passed and her attraction to him continued to wane. The sex dwindled to a trickle, and then ceased. By the time they reached a platonic standstill, even the arguments had stopped. Her husband was unable to meet her sexual needs and so she found another who could. She crossed paths with a man who promised to make her fantasies real and fulfill her every desire. The opportunity was too tempting to pass on. 

"What's it like to be filled full of lust? Lustfully."
"Lustfully."

He was a tech mogul who specialized in robotics and virtual reality and he introduced her to adventurous escapades that awoken an unexplored side of her sexuality. Their first night together, he gave her a designer drug that obliterated every inhibition as it flooded her with an engineered high similar to heroin without the deleterious or addictive side effects. Due its clear sheen and the faint sweet flavor, some called it Nektar. Others nicknamed it Bliss. 

“What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Lustfully.”
“Lustfully.”

He took her inside his own virtual reality software, having written imaginative scripts for their sexual exploits. In these fantastic worlds, he used her mouth, pussy, and ass in every possible way across a variety of settings, both on-planet and off. At times, he even incorporated custom-built appendages or robotics to increase her pleasure. She slipped into a constant stream of new universes and identities.  Each encounter delivered the high of a first time, the adrenaline rush of discovery. 

“Did you know that you broke his heart? Lustfully.”
"Lustfully."

Reaching these heights on a regular basis took a toll on her mind and her body. There was always a price to pay. It was indescribable bliss, but each treasonous exploration left her exhausted and spent. She was a shell of herself. Nothing remained for her husband. The affair was emotional at first and it had not felt wrong to her. Her forays into dark lust happened gradually, but once she started, they became addictive. She stifled the guilt, trying to rationalize her betrayal away. 

“What makes you think you deserve life? Living.”
“Living.”

It only took three months for this lifestyle to tear their marriage apart. Three months to systematically dismantle what took patient years to build. Her husband had been suspicious from the beginning, but had kept his mouth shut. He never took the opportunity to communicate with her. When he finally found irrefutable evidence and confronted her, she read in his eyes a knowing awareness, the realization that his time with her had ended. The vacant gleam in his eyes broke her heart. It was akin to telling a patient that their illness was terminal, that their life was beyond salvaging. 

“What makes one worthy of life? Living.”
“Living.”

She confessed her transgressions to her sister and her friends. They told her not to jerk him around, to put him out of his misery swiftly. She asked for a divorce. She did not cast blame or seek vengeance, but offered him no alternative. She forced him into reluctant acceptance that the marriage was over, breaking him irreparably. He asked her how she expected him to let go of a permanent piece of him and told her that he didn’t know how. 

"Lustfully living."
"Lustfully living."

With one final effort, he made a desperate plea. He couldn’t stand watching her leave. She sighed at his pathetic begging and shunned his advance. When she moved in with the mogul to continue the tryst, it shattered his world, setting his course. He signed the papers and they split. Days passed, and then weeks. He held the crumbling pieces, bided time, and hoped that was all she needed. She continued living in her false reality. 

"Between needs interposed."
"Between needs interposed."

"LIES."
"Lies."

Months later, a phone call came in the middle of the night. When she saw the number, she knew, deep down, that her fate was coming to meet her. She was terrified. Panic rushed through her as she drove to his house. Even though they once shared this home, it was a stranger's house now, still and unlit, nothing more than a dark museum. Her heart, which was banging, ceased when she bolted through the front door. At first, pure silence save for the thunderclap of her pulse. She heard it before she saw him. The faint creak of a slowly swaying rope. She found him hanging from the top of the stairwell. 

"Between unlit paths."
“Between unlit paths.”

It wasn’t her fault. Not directly. She believed this to be true and everyone reaffirmed her belief. She repeated the words to her psychiatrist and to herself until they lost all semblance of meaning. Words of affirmation meant nothing in the face of stark reality. Once again, she stifled her guilt. She tried to live with and conquer the pain. Life needed to go on. But between those unlit paths, the dark solitary territory where we try to move on from the past, somewhere in that darkness, she would always blame herself. 

"And lustfully living."

For the first time since the procedure began, she stumbled over the words. "…And lustfully living..." 

The investigator’s words cut into her like a scalpel. "Amidst the lies."

Emotion, which she had held back to this point, began to rush free as the dam inside her mind ruptured. "Amidst the lies."

His voice now came from inside her own head, "The deep vast vacuum swells."

It was too much to handle. Her pupils were on fire. A jolt of current shot down the nape of her neck and raised prickled hairs across her skin, causing her to twitch violently. Twice. Her vision filled with a grey blur that slowly crept across her periphery. Without warning, it receded, giving way to a sudden flash of light. She bit her tongue, tasted blood, and braced. 

She choked out the line with a sob, "...The deep vast vacuum swells..."

The voice on the loudspeaker did not return for some time. Her chest heaved up and down and her face was streaked with tears. She was weightless, untethered. She clutched both arms of the chair, white-knuckled, certain that if she let go, then she would be violently ripped away. She spit blood from her mouth onto the stainless steel floor. 

He broke the silence, "The procedure is complete.”

She let out a breathy chuckle. “Really? How can you tell?”

He never answered her question. He only said, “Please recount the following images and their anchoring words.”

The wall opposite her liquefied into a crystalline display that showed a series of images.

The first, a concert ticket. 
“Needs.”

The screen showed a ring. 
“Interposed.”

The screen showed handcuffs. 
“Lust.”

The screen showed a rope. 
“Lies.”

The screen showed a man. She had no response.

“Recite the anchoring word.”

“I don’t understand.” 

“JM4 – 9.5, recite the anchoring word. Now.”

“But I’ve never seen this man before.”

“Correct. Let’s continue.”
He showed her several more images before declaring, “Congratulations, Participant JM4 – 9.5. Based upon my readings, I believe that the procedure was a success.”

“Wait, I don’t understand. What was a success?” Her head was thick with fog, a narcotic haze. She pressed her fingers into her temples to relieve the pressure that had rapidly accumulated. Her voice cracked, “Why am I here?”

“You just underwent a non-invasive surgical operation to remove your brain tumor. The confusion is a normal side effect, but I was able to remove it entirely. A successful procedure.” 

“Wow. Ok, thank you? I’m just having a hard time remembering the last few hours.”

“Completely normal. Your fiancée is waiting for you outside. He is accompanied by a nurse. They will help you with your transition. Participant JM4 – 9.5, you are free to go. Please exit using the door on the left side of the room. Goodbye.”