‘O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!’
The previous chapters of this story can be found here.
“Yes, please. I need some… air.” Cora stood, unsteady, and put the empty glass down. Was it what she had just witnessed, that left her so uncertain? She felt… odd.
Antonio was right there, to offer her his arm, the counterbalance she didn’t realize she needed until she rested in his hand. “Let’s take a walk, and let the ladies think about their actions.”
He led her out of his office and onto the catwalk outside, circling a sparse common room where several other women lounged in various states of undress. Two sprawled on a couch, engrossed in a flickering television. Two more had magazines. One, completely nude, pushed a mop with obvious disinterest.
“Rosie, that floor better be sparkling by the end of the evening,” Anotonio called to her.
Rosie glared up at him.
He smiled back down at her. “Just submit, and this will all be much easier for you, darling.”
“It’s not fair,” she said, her poise breaking. “It’s not fair, Sir. I did everything I could.”
The Director nodded. “Not everything. If you spent as much time trying to improve yourself as Julia has, you’d still be Francesca’s favorite.”
Rosie looked broken.
Antonio turned Cora away as Rosie began to cry softly. “Francesca is an extremely generous sponsor of this program, but she can be rather… fickle, I’m afraid.”
“Francesca is her sponsor, too?” Cora asked.
He nodded. “It’s the first time she’s sponsored more than one at a time. I think I’ll have to discourage her in the future. It causes… well, Rosie hasn’t taken well to being replaced in the hierarchy.”
“What does she do with them, after they’re…” Cora searched for the right phrase. Something about this made her skin crawl. Or maybe that was just a little shiver? She couldn’t tell. “Served their sentence. Been rehabilitated. Whatever it is you do, here.”
Antonio chuckled, leading her down a hallway, past countless unmarked doors. “It’s a rehabilitation center, Cora. You know that.”
She shook her head, slowing her pace. “This isn’t rehabilitation.”
“It is. These girls come in here as criminals. Lawless. Addicted. We… redirect their impulses to better serve.”
“Your methods are… unconventional.” Cora stopped walking, suddenly a bit dizzy. “I’m sorry, can I sit for a moment?”
“Of course, yes. Ah, lucky you — this is the re-education room. I wanted to show you.” He opened the door and ushered her inside. “I believe you asked about this earlier.”
A single chair, with a hole carved in the seat, sat facing a bank twelve large screens. A mess of computer equipment, wires, and what looked like electrodes were piled behind the chair.
Cora sat, gratefully, trying not to imagine what the hole was for.
“This is one of our treatment options,” Antonio explained. “Every girl is different, responds differently. Some fight the rehabilitation process, and some…” He smiled at her. “Some just submit naturally, given the correct impetus.”
Cora blushed, but she wasn’t sure why. “The correct impetus?”
Antonio nodded. “Believe it or not, I actaully prefer the carrot over the stick.”
She looked like she did not believe him.
“It’s true. I feel like I get a much better result from, say, this course of treatment, than one of simple corporal punishment.”
Cora’s curiosity got the best of her. “And what exactly do you do, in this course of treatment?”
He grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. That’s what I like about you, Cora — always asking the good questions.”
She blushed, pleased, and not entirely sure why, that he… liked her.
The screens lit up, flashing images of women, naked, submitting to every variety of kinky fantasy. Cora’s eyes widened, staring up at the images.
Antonio knelt in front of her, gently pushing her knees apart, so she was centered over the hole in the chair. “A vibrator gets attached here. This retrains the mind to associate pleasure with more of… what the sponsor is looking for.”
This was all too much to handle; Cora’s mind began to numb out under the barrage of deviancy.
“But –” Antonio suddenly switched everything off. In the abrupt serenity of the darkened room, he continued. “I find that once a subject orgasms, the results are much less dramatic. I’ve tried to control for that. I’ve tried to keep them on the edge, without falling over, but, I’ve not had much success.”
“That’s why you need my drug.”
“Yes, Cora. I believe — really believe — that this could work. But I need a way for them to keep from orgasming during the treatment.”
She turned her head, slowly, feeling like she were stuck in a nightmare, with the monster just over her shoulder. “This is brainwashing. This is barbaric.”
Now he sounded angry. “Everything is brainwashing. I’m just trying to use it for the betterment of individuals in society.”
Cora stood up, now a little panicked to find herself still unsteady on her feet.
Breathing hard, she sunk back into the chair, staring up at the center’s Director with big, glassy eyes. “I see what you’re doing.”
“Do you?” he smiled at her, and it made things low in her body clench.
“Yes. I… I think.”
“Yes, you do. You do think, Cora. I need you to think,” Antonio said. “Think about all those misguided, senseless crimes that these women commit. They don’t need punishment, they need rehabilitation. They need direction. You can help them, Cora. You can help them by helping me. Help me by giving me access to your drug. The drug you don’t even think works. I can show you how it can work, Cora. Think of that — a success that honestly helps people. How does it get better than that?”