Artemis left the gala announcement shoot with her hair wet, her head spinning, and her clit pounding inside its steel prison.

All her life, she had worked to make herself impervious to frustration. Teasing herself past the point of endurance, and then just a little further, all without any chance of release, that was just a Friday night. And doing the same with a hot partner, the way she had with Evie in their little video just now, that was one of her favorite pastimes.

Most of the best nights of her life had been spent more or less that way.

But this whole “partnership” with Calvin had sucked all the life out of everything she’d once enjoyed, including unfinished sex.

It hadn’t been so bad when she’d just been doing odd jobs for him, in return for a few off-the-books luxuries. That was before she’d known what end goal those odd jobs were working toward.

Now that she knew, now that she’d let him sell her on this idea that things could change for her, it was getting harder and harder to accept the same old orgasm-free existence she’d worked so hard to make herself at home in.

Calvin had a way of making every scrap of pleasure she got, every little act of rebellion she seized, feel hollow and frivolous.

What did it matter that she had enjoyed making out with Evie? What did it matter that she had the discipline to enjoy it without needing to cum? What power was there in that, when the only reason she had to do without cumming was because Calvin had decided not to allow it?

It was one thing sneaking private little trysts outside of the Bureau’s surveillance and patting herself on the back for finding some illicit joy in life. It was something else entirely trying to enjoy herself with Calvin standing right there, watching and smirking and waiting to jerk the feeling away at the cruelest possible moment.

Her pleasure was just an extension of his power, not her own.

That kind of dynamic was exactly why Artemis hated the Bureau. It was why she hated dominators of all kinds, every last one of them, and anyone who wanted to dominate too, no matter how far they were from achieving it.

But at least the Bureau would have treated her equally to most people, in the way it dominated her.

Calvin had promised that, with him in control, she'd at least get some consideration for all the work she'd done to put him there. She'd be a VIP at his new Privalock corporation, free to cum on a regular basis with no please-and-thank-you humiliation rituals.

Or rather, that was the latest version of his promise. Before that, it had been total freedom, and before that, total freedom for herself and anyone else she chose.

The deal just kept getting worse, and there was nothing she could do. She knew it and he knew it. She hadn’t set up enough contingencies to protect herself. Her only backup plan had been to report him before he got to execute his plan, but it was too late now. The Bureau had already ceded too much power, and she couldn't take back the access she’d given him.

And now, here she was, walking through a world of people who were, at least for now, unlocked, with her own clit still securely out of reach under Calvin's new Privalock model 1 chastity belt.

Some VIP status.

She took the long way home that evening, picking the train that let off near her favorite bar along the way, and told herself that was what she was there for.

Just the bar.

Not the Bureau headquarters across the street.

She made her way laboriously along the choked sidewalk, staring at the throngs of people still waiting in the hours-long line to submit themselves for relocking. She stared because it was a hell of a spectacle, and because they were in her way.

Definitely not because she was thinking of joining them.

It would be a bit of a fuck you to Calvin if she did, though, wouldn't it? Especially if she volunteered to film one of those propaganda segments of theirs, right after starring in Calvin’s gala announcement. Let the Bureau have a nice snappy shot of Privalock’s own spokeswoman denouncing the new company and its owner.

But then she’d be resigning herself right back to the status quo she’d promised herself she would never cooperate with.

And any potential that truly lay in Calvin's Privalock vision would be lost to her. The Bureau might have an infinite forgiveness policy, but Calvin certainly didn't.

Artemis reached the front door of the bar.

She still had her old device with her old point counter in her purse, so that was one thing she could still do. She could still drink.

“Ma’am, have you decided what you’re going to do about the Click?”

Artemis turned to look at the skinny little Asian kid who had spoken. No, not quite a kid, she reassessed. A man, if only just. Old enough for the lack of chain lines under his tight jeans to look out of the ordinary.

He had a fresh tan, bordering on a burn, across his nose and cheeks, as if he'd been out here all day without a break, and hadn't been particularly used to the sun beforehand.

He glanced down, tracing Artemis's own chains with his eyes.

“Ah, I see you have, sorry.” He lowered the flyer he'd stretched out toward her and turned to move on.

“Wait,” Artemis called out, the words at the top of the black-and-white flyer imprinting themselves on her vision.

You don't have to go back.

The guy stopped and waited, skeptical of her interest. 

“You're not one of ours,” she said.

Calvin no doubt had direct marketing reps working this crowd somewhere, but she knew what his handouts looked like, because she'd helped him finalize the templates. He liked everything to be glossy and bursting with primary colors.

A flicker of fear crossed the guy's face, then disappeared quickly under a friendly smile.

“One of yours?” he asked.

Artemis debated what to say about her relation to Privalock, and while she was hashing out the pros and cons to herself, the man with the wad of messy flyers turned and ran.

One moment he was smiling at her, seeming to wait patiently for her to make up her mind without a care in the world. The next he was elbowing his way forcefully through the crowd in the opposite direction, ducking deftly into the alley next to the bar and out of her line of sight.

“Hey!” Artemis shouted, running after him. She nearly slipped on the short stretch of sidewalk now littered with his abandoned flyers

You don’t have to go back.

You don’t have to go back.

“Please, I’m not going to hurt you!” she called out.

The little rebel (because what else could he be?) kept running. She caught a flash of his shirt as he turned onto the sidewalk of the next street.

Artemis could not have formed a comfortable explanation for why she was so determined to catch up with him. She had never put any stock in the anti-Bureau rebels before. Sure, they were real, maybe even numerous, but the kind of change they wanted was the kind that simply didn't happen.

Happiness, kindness, justice. Pleasure and freedom for all. People had been chasing and peddling that idea since the dawn of time, and no one had yet gotten their hands on it. The idea that someone could do it in her lifetime was laughable.

Pleasure and freedom for one, now that might be attainable, but not if you fell in with people like them. Open rebellion was how you made sure the Bureau noticed you. It was how you got more of everything Artemis didn't want in her life. And when you got caught and punished, it probably wouldn't even be an accident. It would be part of some plan, something the rebels had the nerve to ask of each other, because it was noble.

Maybe all of Calvin's teasing and denial was getting to her, in a way her own pleasure experiments never had.

Rebels were supposed to have ways of tricking chastity devices. As Artemis sprinted through parking lots, planters and alleys, the jostle of her pelvic plate against the outermost nerve endings of her pussy almost seemed to be leading the way, with an urgent, silent drumbeat under her jeans.

Or maybe the overwhelming need pounding inside her was composed of more fuck you and fuck it than for the love of god, fuck me.

“Come back! I can help you, damnit!” she shouted.

The rebel kept running, but Artemis knew the next alley he was headed toward. She had bought and sold chemical pleasures there more than once. It only let out next to the food depot next door, and she could get there quicker than he could.

She turned right instead of left, vaulted a low brick wall, and wove between the service vehicles parked out front to reach the mouth of the alley ahead of him.

The rebel skidded to a stop right in front of Artemis, but even as she reached for his collar to hold him still, she realized her error.

He didn’t try to run past her or back the way he’d come, didn’t lash out and fight, didn’t smile and try to pretend he hadn’t been running from her in the first place. He just fixed her with a distantly appraising gaze, and then looked behind her, toward the sound of one of those service trucks opening its rear door.

Artemis turned her head just far enough to perceive at least half a dozen figures all rushing in to stand around her, before one of them shoved a bag roughly over her head and two more yanked her up into the truck’s cargo hold.

#

“You’re almost done, just the sink to go,” Kristen encouraged.

“I’m aware of that,” Leila snapped, then caught herself. “Sorry. Sorry, ma’am, no disrespect intended.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t,” said Kristen, quietly proud of how steady her voice was. “Which is why I’m only going to raise your repayment quota for the day by five extra points for that.”

Leila looked up at her, as sharply as she’d spoken a moment ago, but she managed to hold her tongue this time. After several seconds, she asked almost meekly, “Really?”

Kristen held her gaze. “Really.”

Leila nodded stiffly and returned to work, scrubbing the industrial-sized cafeteria sink.

She was completely naked except for her chastity device and pleasure-proof pasties. Kristen’s only job right now was to monitor her. It felt terribly unnatural, watching her shake the cramps from her skinny muscles, while her knuckles and knees turned red from scrubbing, without offering to help.

“This isn’t going to work if other people start questioning my ability to carry out your sentence,” Kristen reminded her, more gently. “Do you see any upside to making it harder for both of us?”

“No, ma’am,” Leila agreed heavily.

When Leila finished scrubbing and began washing the suds down the drain, Kristen hopped down from the counter where she’d been sitting and picked up one of the unused kitchen towels.

“These fit the same specs as the ones on the punishment menu, don’t they?” she asked, weighing one in her hands.

“Yes, ma’am,” Leila answered. “They’re all from the same supplier. We just set a few aside for that purpose. And then we almost never end up using them.”

“Because of how inconvenient it is to bring a bucket of water up to the visitor rooms?” Kristen guessed.

“I believe that’s the main reason most officers don’t bother to offer it as an option, yes,” Leila agreed.

She had one hand on the center island of the kitchen — surfaced with the same naked, stainless steel as the visitor room tables — obviously anticipating Kristen’s next order.

“Bend over the counter, hands in front of you.”

Leila did so.

Kristen ran the dry towel under the faucet of the freshly sparkling sink, and wrung it out to just the right heft.

“How many strokes is it going to take to recoup those extra points for the day, do you remember?” she asked.

“Ten, at a half point each, ma’am,” Leila answered easily.

“Count them down,” said Kristen.

She twirled the towel around at her side to twist it into a lash, and then snapped it loudly against the left cheek of Leila’s ass, where it left a red mark almost as bright as Leila’s raw hands.

“Ten,” Leila started the count.

There was no audible pain in her voice, which wasn’t surprising. This was nothing, relative to the punishments she’d grown used to taking. Kristen was getting used to administering them, too, even on her.

The formality of their new relationship was still tricky for them both to remember, and sometimes to stomach. But the physicality was almost effortless. Almost normal.

“When we’re done here, you’ll need to get yourself cleaned up fast,” Kristen told Leila between snaps of the towel. “We’ve got a strategy meeting at one, and they want you looking and acting like an officer.”

“It’d be a lot easier — three — to look and act like an officer — four — if I were allowed to — five — feel like one.”

“Do you think I’m going to be able to make that happen anytime soon?” Kristen asked.

“Seven — No,” Leila answered. “I’m just — eight — noting it.”

“I have faith in you,” said Kristen, raising the last two welts on Leila’s porcelain skin. “Plus, if you let me down, I’m going to be watching you clean the rain gutters next. And so will everyone on the street outside.”

#

“Her device is Privalock branded, and the ID chip says her name is Artemis,” said Carmen.

Zach nodded, unable to look the leader of his cell, the leader of his whole rebel world as far as he knew, in the eye.

“Artemis!” Carmen repeated, pounding her fist on the rickety wooden desk they were using for this private meeting, in the back of one of the cell phone stores in the abandoned mall. “Is she the same Artemis who caused the Click? The person who managed to crash the entire Bureau server while we were still standing around with our dicks in our hands?”

“I wouldn’t say we were—”

“Is she the same Artemis?” Carmen stopped him.

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know, ma’am.”

“What does she have to say about it?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“You didn’t think to ask her? It’s not like it’s a common name.”

“I didn’t ask her anything,” Zach admitted.

“I see.” Carmen leaned back in her chair, bouncing against its springy back hinge, arms crossed under the stretched chest of her low-cut tank top.

Zach didn’t dare look at her for too long there either, so he focused on his hands.

“What was it you were supposed to be doing out there, again?” Carmen asked.

“Talking to people,” Zach hammered the nails knowingly into his own coffin. “Feeling them out for amenability to the cause. I did bring us Sasha!”

“You did bring us Sasha,” Carmen conceded, “and then…”

“And then I got the sense that this woman, Artemis, was working for Privalock, so I made a run for it. I was also supposed to be posing as a Privalock rep and not getting caught, so….”

Carmen leaned forward again, and clasped her hands on the desk between them.

“This isn’t about your recruiting numbers,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s not even about the fact that you brought in a potentially powerful enemy who was shouting ‘I can help you’ when we grabbed her, and you have no intel on how we should approach her.”

She reached out and put her hand on top of Zach’s.

“I know what you’re like when your head’s in the game, kid,” she said. “And this isn’t it. So, spill it.”

Zach shrugged again, and almost said it was nothing, but the words fell apart in his mouth. He comforted himself with the knowledge that Carmen had not become a rebel leader by being easy to lie to.

“I thought people would be waiting for this day,” he said. “For any chance, any scrap of freedom. I was waiting, every second I was locked up. I thought…” Kristen “I thought everyone would want what we want. Everyone except the ones in control, I mean. But even people who are obviously suffering, they just seem to be waiting for us to shut up and go away so they can stop thinking about it.”

“So, you’re finally realizing that not everyone is like you?” Carmen summed up.

Zach shrug-nodded.

“That’s all?”

Zach shrug-nodded again, and said nothing more.

“All right, then.” Carmen tugged on her long ponytail with annoyance. “I wish I could give you a day or two to grieve the much prettier universe you’ve apparently been living in all this time, but I can’t. I need you to go in there and use that new insight to figure out what Artemis is like, and whether she really can be of use to us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Zach shifted his weight resolutely onto his feet.

“Zach, wait,” Carmen called out as he reached the door.

He looked back. Her expression had softened.

“You’re a good man, Zach,” she said. “That’s why you’re so easy to disappoint.”

A melancholy warmth stung its way through Zach’s blood.

“So, if I learn to lower my expectations, I’ll be less good?” he asked.

“God, I hope not,” Carmen laughed. “No,” she added more seriously. “No, I don’t think so. You’re already so good at putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Feeling what you would feel in their place. Learning how to feel what they feel in their place, even if it’s different…. That’s just the natural next step.”

Zach nodded, without the shrug this time.

He wished he could respond with more conviction, but as always, speaking with Carmen did help a little. She never seemed to expect him to validate anything she said, which made it seem all the more likely that she was right.

“Whatever Artemis’s deal is, I’ll get it out of her,” he promised.

#

Artemis waited on one of the scuffed benches of what had once been a shoe store. The inventory had all been cleared out, but the shelves and ankle-height mirrors remained.

The rebels who had locked her in here, the same ones who had accompanied her on the disorienting ride over, had held something sharp against her spine and shushed her whenever she tried to ask questions or explain herself. They had not restrained her, however, or left a guard.

There was a bottle of water and a protein bar, the kind you could get out of any dispenser in the country, laid out on the checkout stand.

Artemis thought she could probably carve her way out of the store through the plaster walls, or possibly jimmy the back door, but without knowing exactly where in the mall the rebels lived and worked, or when they planned to return for her, she’d have a poor chance of escaping the whole complex undetected.

And besides, it wasn’t exactly as if there were anything about her life that she was itching to get back to. She’d come this far in the hope of talking to someone who had something new to say. If she was going to end up disappointed, she wanted to at least be conclusively disappointed, with no lingering sparks of hope that might flare up and bother her later.

So, she sat, and she waited. She ate the protein bar and was just debating how long she should save that last sip at the bottom of the water bottle, when the skinny little guy who’d gotten her into this in the first place strode up to the security gate at the front of the store, crouched down, and stuck a key in the lock.

He eyed Artemis attentively as he worked, but didn’t seem particularly concerned that she might try to rush him.

With the gate re-locked behind him, he sat down on the bench across from her, so that their knees were a few inches apart, and stared at her.

Artemis stared back.

“What do you want?” he finally asked.

Artemis leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and giving him what she knew to be an excellent view of her ample cleavage.

“You first,” she said.

Like clockwork, he looked down at her breasts, then back up at her face. His own face was unreadable, however, neither leering nor embarrassed. Simply aware.

“Do you work for Privalock?” he asked.

“You don’t know?” Artemis asked. “I thought the latest video would have gone out by now.”

“You mean this one?”

The rebel pulled a phone from his pocket and turned the screen toward her. The footage of her making out with Evie soon filled it. A filter of golden light made it look a lot more comfortable than it had been.

“I mean that one,” Artemis confirmed.

“Is that a yes, then?” the rebel asked.

“A yes to what?”

“Do you work for Privalock?” he repeated, then nodded at the outline of her chastity belt. “Or did you film this under duress?”

Artemis snorted. “What’s the difference?”

“So you were under duress?” the rebel pushed.

“Everyone’s under duress,” said Artemis. “All the time.”

“I’m not,” said the rebel.

Artemis couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter.

It wasn’t what he’d said. It was the way he said it, as if he didn’t even expect her to hear him. Those words could have been a declaration. They could have been a battle cry. She wished they had been. But they didn’t even have the conviction of a sales pitch.

“Did you cause the Click?” he asked, visibly annoyed.

“Yes!” Artemis went on laughing. “Thanks so much for saying so! Nobody else ever gives me the credit.”

“You’re the one who unlocked the country,” the rebel eyed her disdainfully, “and then you turned around and put your own lock right back on?”

“Oh, you’re disappointed!” said Artemis, her laugh freezing into a razor-sharp cackle in her throat. “That makes two of us. I’m disappointed that I handed the keys to the country to a man who decided to unlock fucking everyone except for me! I’m disappointed that I sat there and let him swap me into a device of his own without a fight, which, by the way, is much cheaper and less comfortable than the old Bureau one I had before. And I’m disappointed that on the day I finally decided hey, you know what? I think I feel like throwing this dickhead to the fucking wolves, the best the universe could give me was a stray puppy.”

The rebel swallowed stiffly.

“Aw, and now you’re offended,” said Artemis. “It’s good to know I can still get that reaction on demand. You know who gets offended when you call them puppies? Pathetic little weasels who wish they were puppies, because at least puppies might eventually grow into something bigger. You’re strong enough to hurt someone, and that’s about all, so that’s what you’ll spend the rest of your life doing, just to prove to yourself, over and over again, that you exist.”

Artemis would not have been at all surprised if this had been enough to prompt the rebel to hit her. That would do it. That would snuff out any lingering sparks.

He swallowed again, and said, “You seem to have me confused with someone else. Probably multiple someone else’s. I can understand why.”

“Oh, right, I forgot, you’re different,” said Artemis. “You’re offering me, and the whole damn world, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do things your way. And we should be so grateful for the opportunity to serve you, shouldn’t we, because of how different you are. Say, where have I heard that before?”

The rebel reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out what looked a little like a pair of household scissors, but with a much shorter, sturdier set of blades. He held them up between himself and Artemis.

“What’s that?” Artemis asked, trying not to react too visibly to the sudden flash of sharp edges.

“These are tin snips,” said the rebel. “They might not be not much to look at, but they’re more than private citizens are legally allowed to handle without formal supervision, because they’ll probably let me cut through your chains in about ten seconds. If not, we’ve got heavier hardware too.”

Artemis tried not to look too long at the tin snips. Not to let this ridiculous little weasel in twink’s clothing see her drool.

“Don’t you people have some kind of magic trick keys?”

“They aren’t magic,” said the rebel. “And now that the Bureau’s rebuilding their server from scratch, they don’t work anymore. Until we can get a new set of overrides set up in their new system, and now the Privalock system too, this is the technology we have to make do with.”

“And what do you expect from me in return?” Artemis asked icily.

This was how she should have spoken to Calvin all along. It felt so good to get it right this time.

“Do you want me to infiltrate someplace you can’t get into? Blow something up for you? Or just suck your cock?” she guessed. “And if I do it, what guarantee do I have that you’ll actually hold up your end of the deal? That you won’t have just one more thing I need to do first?”

Snips in hand, the rebel stood up, towering over her as much as he could tower over anyone.

“You want to know what you have to do to convince me to use these?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m dying to hear it,” said Artemis.

The rebel leaned down closer to her ear. “You have to say, ‘Zach, let me out, I want to be free.’”

Artemis laughed. “Fine, I’ll bite.” She put on her dewiest voice, a slight exaggeration of the one that had worked so well on Calvin, for a little while. “Oh, please, Zach, let me out, I want to be free.”

“You’d better be sure you mean it,” said the rebel whose name was Zach. “In fact…” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a felt-tipped marker. “Write it on your pelvic plate, and sign your name. That way we’ll both know that you’re not about to crawl back to Privalock or the Bureau and claim that you didn’t really mean to escape.”

“Here we go with the goalpost moving,” Artemis rolled her eyes.

“Here we go with the stalling,” Zach snapped back at her, his own eyes flashing. “The hemming and hawing, the oh so reasonable debating, the fucking cowardice in the face of anything that doesn’t feel like a shitty enough compromise.” He tapped the snips to his chin with mock thoughtfulness. “Hmm, I might feel like taking a stand against forced chastity today. I don’t know, though, letting people own their own bodies feels like a pretty big ask.”

He stepped abruptly away from her, paced up and down half the aisle looking like he was searching for something harmless to kick, and then turned back toward her, pointing accusingly with the snips.

“You know, you could have walked right past me when you saw me on the street,” he said. “It is possible. People do it every day. Hundreds of them. You could have joined them, and I could still be out there, finding someone else to handhold through their breakup with their belt, someone who actually wants to get through it. I’d be exhausted and hoarse and frustrated from trying to change the world one person at a time, but at least I’d be changing it for someone. But no, you decided to chase me down. You decided to take up my attention today. So, I’m going to ask you again. What the fuck do you want?”

Artemis cursed internally. What she really wanted was no longer possible. That pesky spark had flared up into a flame, feeding on the improbable sincerity this rebel was spewing all over the room. He wasn’t going to put it out for her.

The little bastard was everything she’d been afraid he would be. He was neither a fraud nor a fool.

He knew, even in all this turmoil and upheaval, how unlikely this rebel stuff was to pan out in the end. And yet, he honestly believed it was not only the right thing to do, but also the best, most reasonable thing. And having tried every other option she could think of, Artemis, much to her chagrin, couldn’t seem to disagree with him.

Zach hovered over her, still awaiting her answer.

Artemis grabbed the marker out of the hand that dangled at his side, popped the cap off, and pulled her jeans down.

She spoke as she wrote.

“Zach… let… me… out… I… want… to… be… free.”

She finished up with a swirling but perfectly legible signature.

Without a word, without any detectable expression beyond mild surprise, Zach carefully slid one blade of the tin snips under the chain on Artemis’s left hip.

He squeezed the handles. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he put his other hand on the handles for a little extra leverage, and with a barely audible snap, the tension around Artemis’s waist and hip released.

Even then, Artemis waited a few extra seconds, expecting the goalposts to somehow lurch away once more, before she let herself release a shrill burst of disbelieving laughter.

Then she grabbed Zach by the shoulders, shoved him against the empty shoe rack behind him, and kissed him.

#

 “I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve,” Leila said primly, with her hands folded in the lap of the immaculately clean officer’s dress she no longer had the authority to wear outside of these prep sessions. “But I’m not really sure what you want me to do.”

Kristen glanced nervously around the conference table at the other attendees, at Professor Lawrence, Officer Brixton, and Senior Officer Kitterage.

This whole plan had been Kristen’s pitch, and so far, they did not look pleased.

“I thought it was quite clear,” said Officer Kitterage, adjusting his gray tie. “Your attentions are popular with the visitors. You are to prepare a demonstration session for this… this trade gala thing, so the attendees can see the appeal of being tended to by someone like you.”

“I understand that,” said Leila, still in the same tone, without a trace of defensive fluster. “But the reason why is different for every visitor. A successful session comes from observing the individual, and determining what that individual needs in that moment.”

Officer Kitterage sighed and ran his fingers through his thinning hair, but before he could say anything more dismissive aloud, the younger Professor Lawrence spoke up.

“That’s precisely the nature of the beast.”

Officer Kitterage sighed even louder. “Are you suggesting we rest the future of the Bureau on… on some kind of improv game?”

“Yes,” said Professor Lawrence, simply. “Exactly. But a regimented game.” He looked to Leila. “Those of us who have served the public recently know that every visitor is unique, but not nearly as unique as they think. There are plenty of patterns to be found, isn’t that right?”

Leila answered with a careful, “Yes.”

“What if we came up with four or five routines for extremely general, common cases visitors come in with?” Professor Lawrence suggested.

“And then we could get the gala guests to fill out a questionnaire when they volunteer to participate,” Kristen jumped on this idea. “So we can pick one who fits right into one of those scenarios.”

“Ridiculous,” Officer Brixton cut in. “We’re not taking volunteers out of the audience. Not at an event being organized by people who want to destroy us. There’s too much danger of sabotage. Pre-vetted participants only.”

“Who, then?” asked Leila.

Kristen could practically feel the homing instinct of all three men’s gazes, in the seconds before they landed on her.

“The two of you clearly have some sort of chemistry,” said Officer Brixton, acerbically. “And we need to press every advantage we can get. Instead of letting that chemistry distract you, you’re going to harness it to give our demonstration some wow-factor.”

Officer Brixton had still not gotten over how much time Kristen was now required to spend monitoring her old mentor, Leila, instead of serving under her official new mentor, him. But even if it had come from a place of pettiness, she could see the logic in his suggestion. And, clearly, she wasn’t the only one.

“It would work,” Professor Lawrence agreed.

There was no room to resist. Kristen had already used every bit of leverage she had to get Leila out of solitary confinement and back to work, specifically for this project.

“What kind of scenario?” Kristen sighed.

“How long has it been since you were let out?” Officer Kitterage asked.

“Well, technically, I was ‘let out’ a few days ago, with Mrs. Daimler, but I didn’t—”

“Yes, yes, I should have asked, when was your last orgasm?” Officer Kitterage hurried her along with a circular wave of his hand. “Your last real one, I mean.”

“Just after the end of my deprivation period,” Kristen had to answer. It hadn’t been a particularly good one, but it hadn’t strictly been ruined either.

“Almost two weeks, then,” said Officer Kitterage. “And we still have plenty more time to increase the pressure before letting you blow in front of the crowd. There we go, then. You’ll save yourself for gala night.”

“I don’t have any points,” Kristen noted feebly. “I can’t earn them for regular work until I finish my trainee service, and I haven’t had the chance to take on any extra tasks since—”

“We’ll come up with a rationale to issue you some points to work with,” said Officer Kitterage. “That’s no problem. You may be a trainee, but you’re working on an unprecedented project. And you, Leila, will give her an experience beyond what any undecided citizen could even dream of giving themselves. We’ll say, the Bureau doesn’t just motivate you to be your best self, we pay out interest on the pleasure you set aside with us, yadda yadda, everyone cheers. Any questions?”

Kristen, Leila, Officer Brixton, and Professor Lawrence all looked at each other. Officer Brixton was nodding with sycophantic approval. None of the rest of them shared Officer Kitterage’s confidence, but nor were they prepared to steer him to any better conclusion than this one.

“Great,” said Officer Kitterage. “Kristen, I think we should get you started on an edging regimen, in that case. At least fifteen minutes a day. Juice the results on the day itself as much as we can. I’ll start giving you a point allowance for that, too. You’ll need to be supervised, though, on more than just the cameras, to make sure there are no accidents.”

“I’ll do it,” Brixton volunteered, raising one finger importantly.

“Fine,” said Officer Kitterage. “First session tonight.”

 #

 Kristen lay still on the visitor room table while Officer Brixton affixed the automatic edge limiter to her exposed pussy.

He had insisted on doing this part himself to make certain it was done right, but had deigned to allow Leila to secure the manacles around Kristen’s ankles and wrists.

The edge limiter was a contraption of wire and springs that attached around her waist, with a single soft wire that ran down to a sensor that nestled between the left side of her clit and the inner labia next to it.

Theoretically, it was only a failsafe that would not affect the session, as long as Leila conducted it perfectly and Kristen was compliant.

If the sensor detected signs that Kristen was passing the point of no return and beginning to orgasm, however, the narrow steel bar suspended over Kristen’s clit would snap down like a mousetrap. It wouldn’t be as bad as a mousetrap — it would only hit, not pinch against anything — but it would hurt, and it would be more than enough to cut her off before she could enjoy any relief.

Kristen swung back and forth between wishing anyone other than Officer Brixton were here to supervise, and telling herself she should be glad.

If Officer Brixton weren’t in the room, Kristen would probably set off the limiter the moment Leila started to touch her. With him here, especially if he decided to interrupt with “advice” at his usual rate, she might not be able to reach a proper edge if she tried.

Then again, edge limiters weren’t the most tried and true technology. They still had a tendency to go off based on false positives. There was a hovering possibility that this would be painful in spite of everyone’s best efforts.

Leila held up the vibrator wand that the entire gala planning committee had settled on for this task. She turned it on for a quick test buzz, at the lowest setting.

“It’s okay to try to enjoy it,” she told Kristen, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. Then she glanced up at Officer Brixton. “After all, you are technically spending your own points on pleasurable stimulation.”

She looked back to Kristen.

“It’s not easy,” she said, “but it’s possible. Just try not to expect it to be anything other than what it is.”

Kristen nodded, taking deep, steadying breaths, preparing herself.

Leila turned the wand back on, and touched it to Kristen’s body in the recommended pattern. She started with the ticklish valleys of the hip joints, then crossed back and forth a few times over the fleshy upper part of the pelvis, and finally dipped down for the briefest, lightest touch over her clit.

Kristen moaned, utterly involuntarily, as she felt herself leak down onto the steel beneath her.

“Again,” Officer Brixton directed, unnecessarily.

Leila repeated the pattern.

Kristen had not fully recovered from the first round, and this touch of her clit drew what felt like a perilously fast rush of circulation to the area.

“Again,” said Officer Brixton.

“The goal is an edging, right, sir?” asked Leila with false innocence.

“The goal is to make her hold that edge for as much of the fifteen minutes as possible each day,” said Officer Brixton. “If she ruins herself now and then in the process, she ruins herself. Don’t buy time for her again, or you won’t be included in the next session.”

With the ghost of a sympathetic look, Leila repeated the motion once more.

Kristen cried out, and could not force her hips to lie flat when Leila pulled the vibrator away again. Even Officer Brixton’s voice was not enough to quiet her body’s ill-advised excitement.

“Again, harder,” he ordered. “Hold the finish an extra two seconds.”

“Do what he says,” Kristen said as commandingly as she could, though she could hear the panic in her own breath. “I promised you’d behave perfectly, and you will.”

Kristen’s naked chest rose and fell raggedly of its own accord, and her legs strained for escape from the looming limiter, which followed her every movement.

Leila reached a hand under Kristen’s thigh. The gesture looked comforting, and it was, but it also hid a brutal pinch of one of her few hidden areas of skin.

The sharp, wonderful pain in her thigh — wonderful because it was not on her clit — gave Kristen something to focus on for the next round of the vibrator.

She made it.

Just fourteen more minutes to go.

 #

 “You’re not a prisoner anymore,” Zach said, rushing the words out whenever Artemis shifted her lips over his.

“I know,” Artemis told him. “That’s what’s got me all worked up.”

“I mean you’re not a prisoner here,” Zach insisted, prying his mouth away from hers with his forehead. “We can put the blindfold back on and take you back where you came from, or we can find you a comfortable spot to sleep, you don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I get it, you’re very ethical and consent-conscious.” Artemis bit into his neck, into skin much too soft for anyone to still have after any significant period of fighting the Bureau. “Are we going to do this, or what?”

Zach paused only a moment, and then reached back to pull off his jacket.

Losing patience fast, Artemis unbuckled his belt and yanked his still-fastened pants down over his skinny hips, boxers and all, so that she could finally grind her gloriously unobstructed pussy against his bare thigh.

Even the hair on his legs was soft, the kind of soft that made you want to keep touching it, or maybe it was just the part of her she was touching him with that didn’t want to stop.

Zach rushed through unbuttoning his shirt before she could rip it off of him, and she forced herself to take the necessary seconds to strip off her blouse.

There were no pasties to contend with, thankfully — Calvin planned to use their absence from his pleasure management system as a selling point — so she was able to put one of her breasts right into Zach’s hand.

He adjusted his grip for a few seconds, seemingly admiring the heft, and then gave her nipple a firm pinch.

It sent a thrill right down to her pussy, a thrill that she no longer needed to handle so carefully, because for once, she was going to get to put to use.

Zach was fully hard, his erection poking at the side of her belly, leaving little sticky spots whenever he moved.

She was already dripping down his leg.

As much as Artemis had once fantasized about the long, convoluted sex play she’d engage in if she ever found herself fully outside of the Bureau’s control, there was no way this first round was going to last long.

Wanting to make the most of it, she steadied one foot on the shelf beside Zach, grabbed his cock, and tried to push it in.

He wasn’t overly large, but the head still felt unfeasibly wide against her, and she didn’t have the leverage to force it in. Maybe if she were a gymnast who could stretch her leg all the way over her head… but even then, it felt like her opening was just too far back as well as too small, like his erection would have to turn a corner to make it work.

“Need some help, there?” Zach teased.

“I’ve never had this kind of sex before, shut up.”

“Huh.” A smirk crossed his face. “I’ve been told I’m not a bad first dick.”

“If you call me a virgin, I’ll step on your balls,” Artemis warned him.

“Noted,” Zach said, and shoved her down onto one of the shoe change benches.

He grabbed her by the knees, turned her so that her legs were hanging off the short end of the bench, and then yanked so that she fell on her back, with her hips resting on the edge.

He knelt down between her legs and rubbed himself back and forth along her slit several times, spreading the dripping fluids from both of them over the dry skin of his shaft.

“Show me that spot again,” he said.

“What, you need some help there?” Artemis threw back at him.

“Not really.” Zach traced his fingers probingly along the same path his cock had just taken. “I just wanted you to feel involved.”

He slipped one finger inside.

Artemis couldn’t help gasping. The nerves there, she could always feel them, the way she could feel the existence of her bones, but she was completely unused to anything, even a finger being able to touch them from the outside.

“There we go,” said Zach, dragging his fingertip slowly along the front inner wall of her vagina. Her clit danced frantically on the outer side of that same wall of flesh, shifting the skin around it, as if it were trying to fight its way out of a cocoon.

Zach pulled his finger almost all the way out, lining up his cock with it. The rest of his hand slowly pushed her lips out of the way.

“Oh, you’re going to make me wait now?” Artemis asked, propping herself up on her elbows. “And I thought you were diff—”

The rest of her sentence got lost in a sharp groan, as Zach sank the head of his cock into her. The twinging, twanging, stretching sensation it created when it entered her was twenty times more intense than a nipple pinch, so intense that she wanted to call it agony, except that only a small fraction of it was made up of pain, and she didn’t immediately want it to stop.

She couldn’t stand staying suspended in it like this for long, though. She grabbed Zach’s waist and yanked him forcefully closer, past this halfway position.

Remaining holdout patches of dryness chafed against each other, muscles spasmed and protested, the ratio of pain shot upward, and Artemis screamed with pent-up animal frustration, digging her nails into Zach’s back.

“Um, yeah, it’s usually best if you ease in at first,” said Zach, his taunting melding with concern. “You know, kind of like yoga?”

“Fuck that,” Artemis snapped, aware that she was well out of her rational mind by now, with very little inclination to find her way back to it. “Fuck them, fuck it, fucking fuck me already!”

“Jeez, okay, here,” said Zach, pulling back just far enough to give her a good, hard thrust under his own power. “Like that? Is that what you want?”

The twinge of intensity repeated, most of the pain dropping back out of it again.

“Don’t stop!” Artemis yelled.

Zach thrusted again, and again. When her sounds didn’t change for the worse, he snaked his arms under hers, gripped her shoulders from behind for leverage, and pounded into her, quicker and harder. His pelvis slapped rhythmically against her engorged clit, multiple times with each passing second.

“Oh, god, you’re such a honeytrap,” Artemis moaned, licking the smooth skin along his collarbones. “Come join the rebels! Get a little sugar from our poster boy.”

“You just can’t let anything not be sinister, can you?” Zach managed to thrust even harder.

“This should be a mistake,” said Artemis “Honeytraps are supposed to be devious, not all earnest and upfront about their worthy, altruistic agendas.”

“Still… so… fucking… cynical,” Zach grunted on top of her. “Maybe I should just found my own brand of chastity belts, how about that? What if I add some spikes? Would that get you and all the rest of your cynical fucking mercenary friends lining up to do what I say? How far do I have to go to make you believe in me?”

“Just fuck me,” said Artemis.

“Fuck you?”

“Fuck me.”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

Artemis rolled off the side of the bench, pulling Zach underneath her, and rubbed her clit harder against his pelvis.

He shoved her onto her side, onto her back again, returning himself to the top.

She locked her legs behind his hips, holding the contact for the few extra seconds she needed. His attempts at thrusting rubbed her just right, and she yelled it again, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” because the orgasm crashing through her demanded vocalization, and she had none of the faculties to come up with anything else.

When her legs relaxed, Zach kept going, pounding into her disorientingly sensitive, finished pussy for another few seconds before pulling out and grinding against her stomach.

“Fuck you,” he groaned once more, blasting streaks of white across her belly and up to the space between her breasts. Then he collapsed onto the floor beside her.

Panting became chuckling, and then manic laughter, first for Zach, and then for Artemis as well.

“So, that was… therapeutic?” he sighed.

“That was brilliant,” said Artemis.

“I’ll take brilliant,” said Zach. “It’s so… British.”

“No,” said Artemis, still laughing, though her sides were beginning to cramp. “I mean literally. What you said, about making your own belts. It gave me an idea.”

She propped herself up on one side to look at him, ignoring the cum dripping off of her onto the floor.

“I can get you and your people into that gala,” she said. “As exhibitors. The Bureau have opened themselves up to private competition now, but they never promised Calvin a monopoly. Besides, he’s so confident in his head start, he’ll probably be stoked when he sees smaller companies coming in to fill out his trade show. The guy loves feeling like a trendsetter. I can help you set yourselves up as a legitimate alternative to them both. But you’re going to have to make yourselves look like a company.”

 #

Kristen floated on the edge, suspended between Leila’s pinching fingers on one hand and the vibrator in the other.

It actually got easier after a while. And then harder. And then easier and then harder again.

It was like unfocusing her gaze to see one of those magic eye pictures. At first, it was a strain, something she could not imagine sustaining for more than a few seconds. But once she got the hang of it, she could almost treat it like her natural state. Right on the brink of an orgasm she would not have. That sharply balanced edge was her home, the place she must return to when she felt herself beginning to stray from it.

After all, Leila was here with her. Bringing her pleasure of a sort. Keeping her grounded in this place, because that was the kindest thing to do for her just now.

She had lost all track of time. She had forgotten Officer Brixton was even here, until he announced, “Just one more round should do it.”

That last round was the hardest one since the first.

It was as if Kristen’s body understood that this was its last chance to tip over the cliff today, but still failed to understand that the edge limiter was there to stop her if she did.

Leila, perceptive as ever, pinched her extra hard, out of sight, as she brought the vibrator for its last pass over Kristen’s clit, and then pulled it away.

“Adequate work, both of you,” said Officer Brixton, rushing in remove the limiter and immediately tighten Kristen’s chastity device back into place.

The steel was cold from its fifteen minutes away from her skin, and she could feel herself twitching inside it, as if her clit were searching the confines of its device for the friction it should know by now was not there.

“I’ll give you two a moment,” said Officer Brixton.

As soon as he was gone, Kristen threw herself into Leila’s arms and rested her face on her chest, waiting for the tremors in her legs to pass.

“Thank you,” Kristen whispered, then snorted grimly as she realized what she wanted to say. “Thank you for your real, actual mercy.”

“Of course,” Leila whispered, stroking her hair.

“I’m glad it was you.” Kristen lowered her voice still further. “And that you were better than I told you to be.”

“So am I,” said Leila.

“It was almost like….”

“I know,” said Leila, with a grim laugh of her own. “It’s still pretty fucking far from the real thing, though, isn’t it?”

 ***

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