2.

I stand before the mirror again, this time alone. Every socket is plugged by a wire: four around my eye; four between my cheek and shoulder; two at my breasts; two along my spine; and one each in my mouth, crotch, and anus. I can see them pulsing in the mirror, and feel the buzz at each connection point. Though I make no conscious move, my whole body throbs in time with the feed.

And this is my feed, regardless of the gruel they pump down my throat. True, the gruel is engineered so perfectly that I never excrete a drop (not that I could), but that's the web's doing. It tells the servitors what to feed me. The Machine, on the other hand, feeds the web.

With my eyes I trace the line extending from my mouth, briefly noting the strings of saliva that dangle from it. This does not concern me, for Mistress's machinery is designed to withstand all kinds of moisture. I follow the line of the cord away from my body, watching it tangle with its fellows and then curl back into the Machine.

This is the source of all I have become. Lights flash across its cold steel surface, keeping time with the pulse of my feed. Cameras record my motionlessness and play it back to me, reinforcing the message of obedience. Speakers hiss and crackle, drumming submission straight into my subconscious.

But the centerpiece of it all is a black screen broken by a single twitching line. This, Mistress says, is my brainwave monitor. I watch it dutifully, ashamed of every hump and bump, delighted by every stretch of almost-stillness. Submit, surrender, obey, whispers the Machine, and I do my best to comply. I am a good slave. Submit, surrender, obey.

The face in the mirror becomes a shining blur, the Machine a dark bulk behind it. Submit, surrender, obey. Silver and black run together, become indistinguishable. Submit, surrender, obey. Each syllable is punctuated by a clench, faster and faster. Submitsurrenderobey, submitsurrenderobey, submitsurrenderobeysubmitsurrenderobeysubmitsurrenderobeysubmitsurrenderobey. Climax hammers my mind to silence, and the monitor flatlines.

3.

"Now, be on your best behavior, slave. You're about to meet some of the most powerful Ssilm in the Eastern Territories."

I am squatting in the center of Mistress's dining hall, knees thrown wide to display my crotch. Mistress's sigil dangles from it at the end of a plug. My arms are spread, my chest thrown out, my head tilted slightly upwards. Under normal circumstances this last would be presumptuous, but it is necessary for the entertainment Mistress has planned. As long as I am properly submissive, Mistress's guests will overlook the impropriety.

The cooks are almost finished with their work. My breasts are coated with goose liver pâté, my cunt with caviar, my head with fruit purée. Other parts of my body are slathered in Ssilm delicacies: hun'di cheese, tzlt paste, crushed boyi beetle spiced with flower petals.

I have been squatting like this for nearly an hour, but I am in no danger of falling. Mistress has locked the web so tight that my body feels braced by steel girders. I can almost hear them thrumming: in my bones, my muscles, my organs, my mind. I revel in their power to constrain me.

Mistress takes one last look at her centerpiece, then turns to survey the cushions around me. She nods her approval to the cooks, who bow without speaking. They are Ssilm like her, for no one would trust a human with art such as this, but they are of a much lower caste than she. She would not deign to speak to them, nor would they presume to speak to her, unless it were absolutely necessary.

She is satisfied, and after a last sneering look at me, she leaves the room. The cooks follow shortly and I am alone: fragrant, sticky, and frozen in place. The paste in my sockets fizzes pleasantly, as does my mind. I am perfectly content.

The guests arrive some twenty minutes later: a cluster of well-dressed Ssilm led into the room by Mistress herself. Their scales gleam black and brown and forest green, but none nearly as beautifully as hers. Their silks and jewels flash in the candlelight, but none shine so bright as she, resplendent in a low-cut scarlet gown. I draped it on her, myself, and set the diamonds on her precious ears and throat, and brushed her hair with one hundred strokes of precisely the same length. I love my Mistress with all my heart.

The Ssilm cluster around the cushions but do not sit immediately. Instead, they stare at me with greedy, open-mouthed astonishment. "Is that really her?" asks an elderly male. "Is that Monica Bellingham?"

"Indeed it is, Your Honor," purrs Mistress. "Once you've taken your meal, you'll be able to see her scars, the ones she bought in murdering Lorss and Z'kot and General Meln."

"I thought you murdered Meln," chuckles the judge, and Mistress smiles.

"I breached his defenses at a critical moment," she answers coyly, "but Bellingham did all the work. And since she never knew of my involvement, we might as well give her credit for the job. After all, she's done so little for her rulers. Until now. But please-" she gestures to the cushions- "have a seat and let me show you how she's reformed."

"Gladly," twinkles the statesman. His tongue darts out, streaming across the space between the cushions and me, and he scoops a dollop of caviar from my crotch. The organ snaps back into his mouth and he smiles. "Delicious!"

The others laugh, and they settle themselves onto cushions and begin to chat happily. Their talk washes over my head as their tongues wash over my body. The Ssilm are relaxed, content, perhaps even celebratory. I don't know the reason for their happiness, but I am honored to be a part of it. Miserable human that I am, I don't even deserve to lick the dust from their feet. Yet Mistress has made me the centerpiece of their festivities. I feel strangely ashamed.

But "Be on your best behavior," she told me, and so I do my best. I cannot achieve flatline without orgasm, and Mistress has forbidden me any arousal while her guests are dining. Yet each session with the Machine enhances my submission, and I feel myself very close to perfection. Perhaps I can reach it today. It would be a worthy gift for creatures such as these. Submit, surrender, obey, I tell myself. Submit, surrender, obey.

My mind is almost empty when a name tolls through it: Monica Bellingham.

At first I don't even remember where I heard it; little sticks in my head except what Mistress puts there. But at last it comes back to me, like a crash from beyond the silver wall. They said I was Bellingham. Monica was me.

Not that it matters, I tell myself. My old life was pitiful, meaningless, misguided in the extreme. Mistress took my name away when she elevated me to slavery, and I have no business thinking of it now. On the other hand, she spoke it in my presence and didn't command me to forget I'd heard it. That must mean she knows the name can't hurt me. I will remember it, then. If I can.

This is the most thinking I've done in all my slavery, and it exhausts me. I sag back into the web, grateful for its rigidity. No more thinking, I tell myself. Submit, surrender, obey. For a short, sweet space I am nothing.

Other slaves slip from the shadows, fluffing cushions, refilling wine glasses, offering trays of sweetmeats. They walk on their knees so that they will not appear to be elevated over the Ssilm. Like me, they are naked; but I can't help noticing that their webs are far less intricate than mine and none have more than two sockets. I don't know whether to feel proud of the work Mistress put into me or ashamed that I cost her such effort. But of course my opinion doesn't matter. If she wants me to think a certain way, she will tell me to do so. I release the problem to the web. Submit, surrender, obey, I remind myself.

But a Ssilm female has noticed the sockets, too. "Tell me, General," she says, "did it really take that much webbing to domesticate Bellingham, or is the extra silver just for show?"

Mistress chuckles. "You know me too well, Prime Minister. Bellingham did prove amazingly resistant; it took for sockets to domesticate her. The rest I punched for pleasure's sake - hers as well as mine.

"Oh yes," she laughs against their gasps. "I allow her pleasure - but only in order to deepen her torment. You see, torturing a creature like Bellingham was no easy task; she shrugged off most ordinary forms of pain, mental as well as physical. It was her greatest source of pride. So in the end, I chose to attack just that. Ladies and gentlemen, the slave you see before you has only one pleasure in life: submission. Every time she obeys a command, every time I plug a new device in her sockets, every time she abases herself before me, she burns like a chulk in heat. And nothing makes her burn harder than being plugged, fore and aft, into the Machine that reinforces her slavery. She orgasms just before she flatlines, and she enjoys it more than she ever enjoyed killing Ssilm."

The guests murmur appreciatively, all except for the Prime Minister. "But General, is that really suffering? She doesn't even know who she is anymore. I'm sure you told what you had planned for her before you started, but-"

"But," Mistress agrees. "I also left her mind intact. It's bound, certainly, but she still possesses all her skills and memories, all her capacity for emotion - even her will to fight. She can't use any of them, but they always lurk at the back of her mind, screaming feebly in the dark."

The Ssilm show their fangs; but a few still eye me nervously. "Is that safe?" asks one of the smaller guests.

"See for yourself." Mistress's tongue flicks out and jingles my clit chain, giving me a twinge of pleasure. "She's a perfect little robot, except for the rat gnawing at her core."

"And what if it gnaws far enough to escape?" This from a heavy-faced male with brown scales. "We know your taste for danger, General. Perhaps you've gone too far this time."

"I would not risk harm to my guests, Governor. Bellingham is completely under my control. I can make her flatline whenever I wish - all of her, the rat included. Besides, if I destroyed her real self now, how could I torture it later? I'm sure you've heard about the rebels' latest advances. They've infiltrated the capital again, in larger numbers than ever. But this time Bellingham fights on our side. I'll use her to take them down, then give her back her mind and let her wallow in guilt while her body continues to serve me. For the rest of her long, long life. There now, is that enough torture for you?"

"Almost," says the Prime Minister. She leans forward with glittering eyes. "But I want to see her suffer now."

The question about sockets caught my attention, but since then my mind has drifted back to its usual state of semi-sentience. When Mistress bares her fangs, their beauty drives the last feeble thoughts from my head. "I was hoping you'd say that," she says, and I have no idea what she is referring to.

4.

"Slave," she commands, and I jerk more rigidly to attention. "Come here."

My body twitches as the web unlocks. I drop to my knees, spilling a few last scraps of dinner, and crawl across the floor to her feet. I kiss them lovingly.

"Stand," she snaps, and my blood turns to ice. Mistress is seated. A slave may not elevate herself above her Mistress. But she has commanded me and I have no choice but to obey. I climb erect, somewhat unsteadily, and duck my head as far as it will go. I am exposed, humiliated, degraded. I am a bad slave.

"Look at me," snarls Mistress. "Look down on me."

How can I possibly treat this glorious creature like a slave? But I must, because she has commanded it. Hunching, trembling, I obey, and the web clenches my esophagus closed before any bile can escape.

Mistress's eyes are bright, her face cold and cruel. She draws her ceremonial dagger from her belt and holds it out to me. "Take it, slave."

I watch, horrified, as my hand jerks forward. I know of no worse crime a slave can commit than touching a Ssilm blade...until Mistress commands me to hold it at her neck.

Now my body is in open revolt. My guts spasm helplessly and the web turns to acid under my skin. I think briefly of trying to flatline, but that is a reward for good slaves, and I am evil beyond measure. The dagger trembles at Mistress's neck. It is all I can do not to cut her.

"General Bellingham," says Mistress, "are you listening? This is the moment you've waited for. Your knife is at my throat. One flick of the wrist, and you'll be rid of the woman who killed your people, stole your planet, raped your thoughts. True, you'll be killed in turn by these others, but wouldn't it be worth it? You'd die with your mind free and your vengeance fulfilled. What could be better?"

I'm too busy staring inward to follow these words. The wall in my head is trembling as though in an earthquake. I hear it groan, see cracks developing between the silver threads, feel the bulge pressing against my brain like a tumor. No! I might be damned already for touching the dagger, but if I have any virtue left at all, it is in my loyalty to my Mistress. I must maintain that wall!

I'd thought I possessed no will of my own, but it seems Mistress left me a scrap or two. Now I use them to press against that silver face, press with all my might, to hold it in place even if it means the death of me. Gradually the bulging subsides.

Mistress eyes me down the length of the blade. "Ah, your hand is steadier now. I take it that means you've conquered your inner demons. You're an obedient slave again, aren't you?"

Yes, Mistress.

"Then cut me."

I stiffen helplessly. No, this is just too much. I must rebel in order to obey my deeper conditioning. But how can I ignore a command from the one who owns me? My hand jerks forward, retreats, trembles, jerks again. I almost drop the dagger.

Gasps from behind remind me of Mistress's guests, but I forget them a moment later. Nothing exists but me and my Mistress, and I only exist because she wills it. My eyes are streaming and my breath comes in snuffly gasps. I must obey, no matter the cost. My hand jerks forward and the point of the dagger nicks Mistress's neck. Just one tiny drop of blood, but that's all I can take. I drop the dagger and collapse at her feet, writhing in full-out convulsions.

This is the opposite of flatline. This is too much thought, too much pain, too much obedience. I am in an orgasm of agony. My hands and feet drum against the marble floor. Foam spews from my lips. My head whips from side to side, jarring the mind within. The only thing I don't do is cry out, and for that I feel a moment's satisfaction. My mouth still serves no purpose but her pleasure.

After what feels like hours, the pain begins to subside. I curl in on myself like the worm I am, cowering at my Mistress's feet. She uses one of them to flip me over on my back, then plants it squarely over my mouth. "To the end of rebellion," she cries, raising her wineglass.

My arms and legs try to close over me, but a dozen feet stomp them flat. "To the end of rebellion," chorus the Sslim.

A little later, Mistress looks up at them and smiles. "Well then, that's dinner. I'll have her hosed down and we can move on to dessert. Did you know her sockets expand?"