Augustus Tulare - Painful paradise

"I'm afraid you're in for a bit of a shock, Pal," he said. His wryly apologetic smile might have swayed her a little, but she had not stopped looking at the cold grayness of his eyes.

"In the name of God! Get it said! Paul, can you possibly guess how frightened I am to wake up in a place like this and have no idea how I got here or why?"

"You're here because I brought you here. I brought you because I wanted you. You're going to be my playmate. If you cooperate, that is. If not, you'll be Dr. Stillwell's playmate. He isn't so particular about complete cooperation."

"Paul, for the love of God! What do you mean? You've actually kidnapped me? To make some kind of sexual toy of me?"

"That's about the size of it," he admitted. "Of course, when you cease to be enjoyable as a toy, there are other uses you can be put to. So I would sincerely advise that you just make up your mind to enjoy things as they happen, and make the most of it."

"What other uses are you talking about?"

"This is the very well-hidden basement of a building which serves as the central hub of the Harshman Research Foundation. Among other activities, we have a constant program of research which requires test animals. In the final testing stages of any seemingly successful product – as you know – human subjects are necessary. Due to the unusually advanced nature of some of these products, I would hate to see a lovely thing like you wasted in testing them. It's so difficult to tell what will happen to the human nervous system when exposed to the unknown factors of hallucinatory drugs, and even stimulants and sedatives of a less dramatic sort."

"You're mad!" she said in a loud whisper, realizing the implications of what he had said. "You're an absolute psychotic!"

"I don't think so," he said. And now his smile spread to his eyes. "I have less inhibitions concerning moral and social attitudes, perhaps, than the average citizen. But I think you'll find that I'm quite sane, legally."

"I just hope I have the chance to see you forced into proving that statement!" she said, horrified at his coolness.

"I didn't mean that I expect to be examined for sanity," he told her. "What I'm saying is that you will admit my legal sanity when I tell you that I am quite aware of the fact that most of the things I believe in are considered wrong, immoral, criminal, or otherwise undesirable, by the pseudo-puritans who run the 'establishment' or whatever you wish to call it."

"And I am not stupid enough to chance their judgment. So I leave nothing to chance when I prepare to enjoy my own specific beliefs and indulge myself in my own favorite enjoyments. There isn't a chance in the world for you to escape this place. So you really should make up your mind to accept things as they are and become a willing resident of this very private little world."

Pal's eyes hated him as she answered his attempt to propagandize her. She was angry at the unjust betrayal. She had been given no chance to realize what was happening to her, and she was determined to make things as tough for him as possible.

"Why me?" she asked. Her voice was an icy needle, but it didn't seem to affect him particularly.

"Because I wanted you. And when I want something, I find a way to get it, no matter how. That's one of the ways in which I don't agree with the accepted philosophies of our society."

"But why couldn't you just try to win me in the normal manner? Who knows? Maybe I would have come with you willingly, if you had given me the courtesy of a choice. Now, I wouldn't have anything to do with you if my life depended on it!"

Paul's laugh was a loud and frightening sound that filled the room. He laughed himself out, then sat there looking at her with amusement. It made her rise even closer to the boiling point to see his obvious entertainment with her statement.

"My dear Pal, it was out of the question. In the first place, I haven't time to fool around in one locale, playing the silly games you females require to lift a simple thing like sex to the ridiculous level of social conformity. And besides that, my particular brand of sexual enjoyment might not have met with your approval. Do you think I would waste time in a silly courtship when it might turn out that you were not agreeable to the rules I insist on using? Forget it! This is the way it's going to be."

"That remains to be seen," Pal insisted, thrusting her pert nose in the air and making her lovely chin look very determined.

"Yes, that's right," said Paul. "We'll see how it ends." He turned suddenly and left the room, and she heard the lock being secured behind him. She had forgotten her semi-cramped leg during all the fright and anger and humiliation, but now it started to make itself felt all over again.

She realized that she could get out of bed, now. So she swung her legs over the edge, and stepped onto the floor.

The electric current grabbed her and made her body writhe in pain. She was just able to make herself fall back onto the edge of the bed and collapse in a heap, sobbing loudly.

The door opened again, and Paul stuck his head inside.

"Forgot to tell you," he said. "Don't try to get out of bed without permission. The floor – among other things around here – is charged with a current to keep you under control at all times."

He withdrew his head, and the door closed. She heard the lock snap shut, and then she began to cry in earnest.

They gave her just twenty hours to herself. Minus those short periods in which she was brought food, and the times they answered her summons to shut off the floor current and let her go to the toilet.

And minus the few naps she managed. It wasn't easy to sleep knowing how helpless she was, and the very real danger she was in – to say nothing of the imagined dangers and punishments she was able to conjure up from a fearful and shocked subconscious mind. She woke from the few periods of sleep in a cold sweat, fighting off nightmares in which intangible things were performing invisible but nonetheless frightening acts which seemed to threaten her sanity.

When Paul finally led her from the room, she was eager to get out of it, no matter where she was headed.

He took her to the end of the hall and ushered her into a huge room which was a kind of gymnasium-looking place, but had wall-to-wall heavily padded carpeting instead of the usual wooden floor.

He had appeared so suddenly, and moved her so quickly from the hated cell she had come to dread, that she hadn't noticed until he closed the door of this big room behind them and stepped in front of her, that he was dressed in some kind of leather briefs and boots, and carried a coiled whip in one hand.

"Kneel!" he ordered her.

The abruptness of the command, and its surprising implications, so shocked her for a moment that she just stood there. By the time she had really registered what he had said and what he wanted, her mind began to search for a reason. Why did he want her to kneel?

The lash cracked with a loud, sharp sound as it fell on her naked back. She screamed a high, thin scream and fell to her knees in reaction, rather than in any deliberate attempt to obey.

"That's right!" he told her. "You have just learned what a tiny taste of the whip can be like. And every time you are not fast in obeying a command, you'll learn more!"

She was sobbing with the pain, and now he spoke another commend. Her ears could barely pick it up over the sound of her own choking cries. It slowed her reaction.

"Kiss my boots!" he had commanded. And while she tried to assess what the faint order had been that filtered through her sobbing, he applied another and fiercer lashing across her shoulders. It drew a shriek from her throat, blood from her skin, and an oath from Paul.