Tamed by the Sheikh Read online

  “See?” Joe Hodges had said, pointing at a list of triggers on his tablet. “She only turned eighteen at the end of August, so we only have four months of data to go on, but she probably would have come up for analysis within two months.”

  Steven had looked, there in the conference room, and now, on the plane, he looked at the same list.

  31 August (note: day after her 18th birthday): Searches on ‘discipline’; clicks on several sites with information concerning traditional disciplinary practices. Spends ca. 15 minutes apparently reading them before abruptly closing her connection.

  2 September: While doing research to prepare for her internship in Senator Metz’ office, spends ca. 20 minutes apparently researching Erin Kennedy Metz and her courtship with the senator.

  17 September: On arrival at Senator Metz’ office (where we maintain finely calibrated sensors thanks to the Metzes’ Institute collaborations) displays high-temperature blush when Mrs. Metz makes reference to her prettiness and the Metzes’ ‘understanding.’ That blush returns with regularity over the succeeding months whenever Mrs. Metz visits the office.

  5 December (confidence medium-high): person matching subject’s appearance (older surveillance camera) does net search at public library on ‘discipline.’ Closes connection after five minutes. Speculation: subject’s knowledge that as congressional intern all her computer activity is logged has made her anxious that her personal devices are also being watched. On this one occasion, subject’s repressed fantasies got the better of her, and she turned to the public library, where of course her shame got the better of her very quickly. In the absence to this point of robust data, the team speculates subject at submission rating A, and as a candidate for pickup.

  Pickup according to the new rules would have been one thing, Steven thought with something of an inward sigh as the lights of DC came into view below him. But Charlotte, it seemed, wanted him to bring back something very close to the Institute’s pickup protocols and techniques of ten years ago. Joe Hodges, writing for the assessors, had an opinion on that, too.

  It seems the assessment team will not be privileged to know why hypnotism is contemplated for subject Beatrice-194,653, but we have assumed that the real target is not her consent but some key information that the Institute wishes suppressed.

  Our best advice on the matter is that the chances of success for that strategy lie entirely with the nature of the information. Especially given that—with all due respect, which is a great deal, to Dr. Franklin—no one currently on the Institute’s medical staff has performed the hypnosis technique as it was practiced before the transition to use of the corporate taking power, we wish to emphasize that the remarkable success of the technique in the Institute’s first thirty-five years depended on its thoroughly analyzed, highly localized implementation.

  To put it very simply:

  Steven couldn’t help smiling at that: the assessors usually worked hard not to sound like they thought they had all the brains of the operation, but—especially when something had worried them in the case-working teams’ conduct of a girl’s recruitment or training—sometimes they made it entirely obvious.

  The reason the technique worked with near-perfect accuracy (the special cases of Abigail-253 and Rose-772 being the only recorded failures, with the former involving not the recovery of memory but a complex deduction) lies entirely in its application to a girl’s repressed fantasies of submission. The desire to submit to a dominant man without being made to ask for punishment and sexual use by him lies at the very root of Institute concubines’ personalities. Their psyches work together gratefully and energetically with the post-hypnotic suggestion to make them forget their consent and its circumstances, repressing those memories more as the fantasies of submission come to the fore. The resultant psychic structure supports itself so thoroughly that frequently the memory of consent triggered by the release phrase must be reinforced with visual and documentary evidence proving its truth to the concubine, since she will continue to desire not to have given her consent to her training and sale.

  If Beatrice-194,653 is to be hypnotized with the intention not (or not simply) of removing her memory of consent to training and sale as a concubine but (or but also) of removing another memory, the team wishes to emphasize that the chances are at least 50% that the subject will recover the memory within 60 days, and 90% within 120 days, unless the memory is fundamentally tied to in some essential way to subject’s repressed fantasies of sexual submission. If that is in fact the case, we think the chances of success are exceedingly difficult to calculate, though if we were provided with further detail we could at least estimate; in the absence of such detail…

  Steven laughed out loud as he read, remembering the look on Joe Hodges’ face as he grasped just how much information the assessment team was being denied.

  …we can say only that success will depend on the strength of the subject’s desire to forget the particular details of the experience targeted by the post-hypnotic suggestion, which will depend in turn on the proximity of those details to the fantasies her mind has spent so much effort denying. If what she experienced had an essential tie to a fantasy escaping repression, the probability of recovery over 120 days, or even a year or more, could be under 5%.

  * * *

  “Hello, Beatrice. I’m Dr. Franklin.” The girl—the very pretty blond girl—lay upon the hospital bed in the Institute’s small but very secure DC facility. They had released her from the hospital bed, her chart told him, soon after calling him in from the west coast seven hours before: the sedative had worn off and Beatrice had been allowed to urinate in the adjoining bathroom and to move freely about the little exam room. Before leaving the girl alone there, Charlotte had given her a tablet full of books and videos but of course without a net connection.

  They had also, however, told her absolutely nothing about her location or situation, which had understandably caused Beatrice to grow rather frantic, about an hour after being left alone. She had called out for help; had said in sobs that she hadn’t seen anything; had pleaded for someone to come in so she could explain; had promised not to tell anyone what she had heard. According to the chart, nothing Beatrice said had any specific reference to what had happened at the Metzes’ home in Georgetown. Eventually, she had curled up on the hospital bed and fallen asleep.

  She opened her eyes, a crease instantly forming on her brow. Steven reviewed one more time, in his mind, what Charlotte had given him about what had happened in Georgetown the previous evening. The little summary gave him more information about Beatrice’s situation than the assessment team had, but not much more.

  Subject Beatrice-194,653 concealed herself in the closet of a room where an Institute-trained concubine…

  (Steven felt sure it could only be Erin Kennedy Metz, but he tried valiantly to avoid making assumptions as a rule, and observed the rule with special strictness in evaluating submissive young women.)

  …was undergoing shared use by her owner and another dominant male. The extent of subject’s ability to witness the sharing of the concubine is unknown, but subject probably saw rough fellatio, simultaneous penetration of vagina and mouth, and simultaneous penetration of vagina and anus. Subject seems likely to have masturbated (under skirt, over panties) during much of the scene, as it was a cry of pleasure that alerted concubine to subject’s presence, and both subject’s fingers and subject’s underwear show signs of self-pleasure. Subject probably heard negotiations of a non-erotic and highly sensitive nature conducted in a light-spirited but not unserious manner during sexual use of the concubine. This last element of her memory, if it exists, represents the target for the post-hypnotic suggestion.

  After she was discovered, subject apologized profusely and incoherently until sedated.

  “How are you feeling?” Steven asked, not expecting an answer but waiting for one anyway.

  Beatrice did reply, though. “Okay? I guess?”

  Steven took an instant liking to her just from the three words: her willingness to answer and her hesitation in self-diagnosis intimated to him that Beatrice Graham was a good—if rather naughty—girl.

  “That’s good. Are you still feeling groggy from the sedative?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Sedative? Oh… the… the thing they put in the water, you mean?”

  She didn’t seem even to want to accuse anyone of having drugged her.

  Steven nodded. “Yes, it was to help you calm down, when you got upset, and also to bring you here where we can take care of you.”

  For the first time, Beatrice seemed to raise her guard, then. “Take care of me? What does that mean?” Now she began to become agitated. “Where are they? Charlotte and… and Kevin?”

  She’s remembering, and she doesn’t want to remember. That’s good. Kevin Logan is closely associated with the disturbing parts of the memory. Steven tried again to avoid drawing conclusions, but Kevin Logan was the liaison with the Pretorian Guard, and highly sensitive began to take concrete shape.

  “They’re nearby, Beatrice, and they only have your best interests at heart. That’s why I’m here now. I’m going to talk you through what will happen now, as we continue to take care of you.”

  He watched her anxiety grow as the repetition of take care of you brought a bodily reaction of tightly gripping the rails of the bed. That too, held some promise: a deep part of Beatrice’s psyche wanted to deny that an even deeper part desperately wanted a dominant man to take care of her.

  No, Steven hadn’t ever worked a hypnosis case in the pre-taking style, let alone one this complicated. He had, nevertheless, a good deal of experience in the basic Institute-developed techniques of hypnosis for the promotion of erotic submission, because they often proved useful with taken concubines, too. By hypnotizing them Steven could help ease their repression and allow them to feel the pleasure they deserved in their submission, rendering fuzzy and weak the memories—so shameful to a repressed submissive girl—of what they had done to beg for domination.

  “When I say we’ll take care of you, Beatrice,” he continued gently, “I mean that we’re going to give you a chance to live a life that fulfills the fantasies you want to deny you have.”

  Chapter Three

  Had she heard him right? Beatrice didn’t know if she could have come up with anything this Dr. Franklin might have said that she expected less than this strange thing about fulfilling her fantasies.

  What fantasies? I don’t have any fantasies. I’m not even sure I know what a fantasy even is. Well, of course Beatrice knew that, she supposed. You couldn’t go to the movies—or take a course in psychology—without at least figuring out that some people apparently think up crazy stuff in their heads. Beatrice, however, didn’t do that, unless you meant thinking about how much you wanted to work in Washington DC.

  That wasn’t a fantasy, though, because Beatrice had worked hard to make it come true. She had convinced her parents and her teachers that the special program where you took a year off from college to work on Capitol Hill fit her talents and interests perfectly. She had landed the position in Senator Metz’ office on her own; that wasn’t a fantasy.

  In Senator Metz’ office, where I saw his highness Sheikh Diyab, and in my mind… and, then, later…

  Beatrice forced herself to abandon the foolish attempt to figure out what the strange doctor had meant about fantasies. Take care of you could only mean silence her, right? She had remembered what had happened, much as she wished it hadn’t happened. She had pleaded with them, when Charlotte and Kevin had left her alone, but she knew somehow that whatever the Charlotte woman had meant about hypnotizing her, Beatrice would have to be taken care of, the way people who saw things and heard things they shouldn’t got taken care of, in Washington.

  Gripping the rails of the bed, she gazed up at him: he stood nearly as tall as Kevin, and his jaw had nearly as sharp an angle. His white coat with the stethoscope perfectly tucked into the front pocket seemed to convey alternately reassurance that Beatrice would soon feel better and the threat of medical news a girl doesn’t want to hear.

  “I’m going to examine you now, Beatrice,” the doctor said. “Go ahead and hop down off the bed, then take off all your clothes for me.”

  “What? Why… why do you need to examine me?” Her body started to tremble all over.

  “It’s part of evaluating your physical condition and getting you ready for the training program we’re going to enroll you in, in just a little while, with your consent.” He looked back at her with steady brown eyes.

  “With my consent? I don’t…” Beatrice’s heart had begun to race almost as much as it had when she had hid in the closet, and… She pushed the memory away desperately. “How… I-I don’t consent!”

  The doctor’s eyes had seemed a little hard, a moment before, but now they turned much gentler. “I know you don’t, Beatrice. But you will, in just a few minutes, once I examine you and explain. Please take off your clothes for me, now. I don’t need your consent to examine you, so this is the last time I’ll ask you to do it.”

  She felt the crease on her forehead get deeper and deeper. “Wh-what… if…” Her voice came out in a tremulous whisper.

  Dr. Franklin reached over to a counter and pulled out a drawer. Beatrice craned her neck and, to her horror, got a glimpse of what he would take out of it before he even touched it.

  “You can’t!” she said. “I’m… I’m eighteen.”

  The doctor said nothing until he had removed from the drawer a paddle made of thick white plastic, with four air-holes cut in the blade, and held it up for Beatrice to see very clearly.

  “I know you’re eighteen, Beatrice.” He frowned slightly. “Old enough to know that when a doctor has to examine you, you do as he says and get undressed. Old enough not to need a paddling on your bare bottom to teach you not to interfere with your medical care.”

  Beatrice had no verbal reply; at that moment she didn’t feel sure she would ever be able to put rational words together again. Her whole body seemed to blaze hot and then go suddenly cold in alternating flashes. A doctor couldn’t… he couldn’t. It was illegal. They couldn’t… discipline. No, no discipline for Beatrice. No fantasies, and no discipline. Ever.

  Her breath came in ragged pants and her hands clutched the rails of the bed. Dr. Franklin still held the paddle up for her to look at, the handle in his right hand and the blade resting in his left, but she couldn’t look at it; she looked at his stethoscope instead.

  “This is your last chance, Beatrice,” he said quietly. “You weren’t spanked at home, I imagine?”

  She shook her head mutely.

  “I know it’s frightening,” he continued, “but when I paddle you you’re going to understand that even though it hurts, for a young women to learn a lesson this way isn’t the end of the world.”

  She found words, but only two terribly inadequate ones. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  “I suppose that when I mentioned fantasies, before, you thought to yourself something like, I don’t have fantasies. Am I right?”

  Beatrice nodded, her eyes wide. Her body felt to her like a wire full of electric current with no ground into which to send it. The only reason her hands didn’t tremble was the intensity of her grip upon the beige plastic rails.

  “One of the best parts of the new life that has just begun for you, Beatrice, is that after today—after you leave this room, in fact, in a few hours—you won’t have to admit to having fantasies of submission anymore, until at last you feel comfortable doing so.”

  Beatrice’s bodily reaction to his words took her by surprise: she sobbed. She looked at the paddle despite willing herself not to turn her eyes upon it anymore. The best strategy for avoiding this stupid notion of a doctor disciplining a recalcitrant patient that way obviously lay in making it clear to him that there was no chance she would submit to it. The best method for conveying that information was to refuse even to acknowledge the possibility that the plastic paddle would make contact with her bottom.

  No, of course she hadn’t been spanked at home. Only the New Modesty freaks did that. The one drawback of working for the most powerful senator on the hill lay in his support of the New Modesty, the fully consensual but in Beatrice’s eyes terribly retrograde program that sought to return the American family to a traditional understanding of gender roles.

  Beatrice remembered reading a brochure for New Modesty College of the Midwest, and then tearing it up when she came to the part about disciplinary practices, which laid out with great frankness the rules concerning the corporal punishment of female undergraduates by their male professors. If you matriculate, you must consent to accept, should you be found to have misbehaved or neglected your work, the paddle across your underwear-covered buttocks in the classroom, or the strap upon your bare bottom in a professor’s office. In serious cases, girls may be caned upon their bare buttocks in front of a disciplinary assembly.

  Of course everyone was talking about the New Modesty these days—it was all over the media, for goodness’ sake—but even working in Senator Metz’ office and knowing that Erin Metz had come from a New Modesty school, Beatrice had found it easy to ignore that stuff. She supposed she was in fact a modest enough girl—standards for government service hadn’t eroded to the point where an intern could get by without minding her p’s and q’s, as Beatrice’s mother had always put it.

  She had had a relatively serious boyfriend her freshman year, and kissed him, and let him touch her breasts and even down between her legs, but sex didn’t really appeal that much to her. She supposed it had felt nice when John had caressed her, and she had gotten warm and wet the way she knew was supposed to happen. Beatrice felt sure, therefore, that everything worked alright down there. She had planned to bite the bullet, as it were, and give him a blowjob (she had touched his penis but hadn’t gotten a good look at it, and kind of wanted to see), but then she had found out that he had cheated on her. She had broken up with him, trying hard not to acknowledge that she felt a good deal of relief at not having sucked his cock.

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