Chapter 25.   Slave Trauma Vanquished*

*The author wishes to thank Corsair for his input on PTSD

After the meeting with Stephanie and Greg Masterson I called a taxi for her and walked back to my now deserted office.  At my desk I began to think of the therapy Masterson had said would be available to Stephanie at his expense.  I wondered if she would act on the information.  Perhaps I could do some research for her and find a suitable facility that would best suit her nature.  While my motives were partly charitable, I also reasoned that if she could get beyond the obvious traumatic stress caused by the rapes, then perhaps the prospects for our relationship would be brighter.

I picked up the phone and dialed Sherry Wilson.  Now that she was a sex surrogate she worked with a number of sex therapists and perhaps she would know somebody who could help Stephanie.  She gave me the name of an agency that specialized in helping women who had been raped.

The next morning I called the Henderson Trauma Management Center and said that I was trying to find a suitable therapy provider for a very dear friend.  Dr. Henderson’s secretary invited me to come over for an interview and tour that very afternoon.

The facility turned out to be an ivy-covered brownstone on the Upper West Side.  I was shown into Dr. Henderson’s office where I received a hearty greeting from the doctor.  After some initial pleasantries, and my filling him in a bit about the nature of the trauma my friend had suffered, he proceeded to explain the very heart of the PTSD treatment process he had personally developed.

“Mr. Steelforth”, he began, “there was research being done as far back as the early 21st century that showed a connection between the intensity of a memory and the presence or absence of adrenaline in the subject at the time the memory was formed.  Those memories that have the greatest destructive power years later were formed at a time of great stress when the body’s stress hormones were raging.  That caused the brain to store the memory in a particular way and to cause the subject to recall the stress emotions and again produce the stress hormones every time the memory was recalled.  In that way the painful memory would be continually reinforced and often grew worse with the passage of time.”

“It was also discovered”, the doctor continued, “that there were certain drugs such as propranolol, that could mediate the stress associated with the memory.  All that was required was for the subject to recall the painful memory while under the influence of the drug.  Memory of what actually had happened in the past would not be impaired, but the emotional feelings and stress reactions to that memory would be very much muted.  This would cause the brain to resave the memory in a different way so that it was less stressful the next time recalled.  A series of such treatments could take all the sting out of a bad memory.”

“Could this help Stephanie?”  I asked.

“From what you have told me of her case I would think the prospects very good.  Actually it is fortunate that you came to visit me today, as I have a young couple undergoing rape therapy that is to start in just a few minutes.  You can watch the therapy and judge for yourself if it might help your friend.”

“But what about the privacy of the young woman and her husband?  Surely, on such a sensitive issue as her rape experience, she wouldn’t want a stranger witnessing her therapy?”

“That really isn’t a problem since she and her husband have waived their privacy rights.  They came to us without the means to pay for treatment, yet they were facing the possible breakup of their marriage due to the PTSD symptoms.  As you well know, there is no government provided social safety net in Capitallia.  The young woman and her husband came to me seeking charity care.  I have been known to provide my services on a charitable basis from time to time.  But I also believe that fair value should be exchanged when the recipient of treatment has something of value to offer in exchange.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more!” I replied.

“In this case the young couple could offer me a rare opportunity to use their sex therapy for research purposes and for the education of potential paying clients such as yourself.  I agreed to treat her with her partner without charge if they both would waive their privacy rights and allow us to use her treatment and his for educational and research purposes.  By contrast, if your friend comes to us, she would be a private pay and would be entitled to every consideration for her privacy.”

“Well, in that case, I would very much like to see how one of these treatments is done!”

With that Dr. Henderson picked up a file folder, opened it and handed it to me.  Right away my eyes landed on two head and shoulder photos of the young mixed race couple.  The woman was black and looked very familiar!  At first I could not place where I knew her.  The male was white and I did not recognize him.  My eyes traveled to the names on the main data sheet.  The first line was for “Trauma patient”, the name there was “Tanisha Williamson”, sex was listed as “female” and her occupation was listed as “bank teller”.  Now I made the connection.  I had been cashing checks at the bank branch near my office for several years now and the teller I usually preferred was this Tanisha!  The second line was for “Patient’s Spouse”, the name there was “Leroy Williamson”, sex was listed as “male” and his occupation was listed as “pool maintenance man”.

“Dr. Henderson”, I began, “as much as I would like to see one of these treatments, I think I must inform you that I know Tanisha in another context.  I am not sure it would be right for me to invade her privacy.  After all she would surely be embarrassed to wait on me at the bank knowing I had been an observer of her sexual difficulties with her husband!”

“Bill, if I may call you that”, he responded, “you are worrying about something that should not even be a problem.  Tanisha and her husband have, after all, waived privacy as a way to pay for her treatments.  She understands that there is very great educational value to allowing other persons to witness her treatments.  You will be meeting her after watching a couple of her sessions and she will know that you watched.  She will have to accept that because it is the bargain she made with our clinic.  A bargain is a bargain after all!”

“The only thing we would ask Bill”, he continued, “is that since you will be witnessing very intimate activities and you will know the real identities of the patient and her husband, is that you not use that knowledge outside the context of the therapy program.  What happens here stays here!”

“Agreed”, I replied.

He led the way down a corridor and ushered me into an observation room overlooking a treatment area.  There was one-way glass, so that he and I could see through to the well-lighted treatment studio, while our observation room remained dark and not visible to persons on the other side of the glass.  The floor of the observation area was also raised about two feet higher than the floor of the studio.  In the treatment area there was a couch, a coffee table, a wet bar, a double bed and a desk where a rather professional looking woman in a business suit was doing some paperwork.

“You see our therapist, Dawn Jacobs, at work preparing her notes for the session.  In a moment you will meet Tanisha and Leroy Williams, our couple in therapy.  If you look here in the monitor you can see video of Tanisha being prepared for her session.  She will be receiving at a certain point in her therapy an infusion of a drug I patented called Traumatholin.  This drug is in the same class as propranolol that I was describing to you earlier.

In the monitor I saw the young woman I had known as Teller No.4 sitting in a chair.  She was as attractive as I remembered her from the bank.  She had just finished removing her blouse and was sitting in a chair wearing a bra and her skirt.  My eye was drawn to the dark brown skin of her very flat and well-muscled abdomen.  A technician was swabbing her slender left arm with alcohol just above her elbow.  I saw her give a start and a small grimace as the technician penetrated her arm with an IV fitting and secured it in place.  Then a small vial of a drug was connected to the IV fitting through some kind of valve and the vial and valve were also secured to her arm.

“This is all being done”, the Doctor continued, “ahead of time so that we can remotely administer the Traumatholin drug at the appropriate time without having to interrupt the flow of therapy.”

“When they first came to us Tanisha admitted that she would freeze up with anxiety or anger or both whenever she would sense any signs of sexual arousal in Leroy.  He could not make a move toward intimacy without evoking this response in her.  They had a satisfactory sex life together until one day when Tanisha was assaulted and raped on her way home from the grocery store.  That changed everything.”

Just then I hear a soft chime sound and a naked man entered the treatment area and a moment later, through a different door, a now very naked Tanisha entered the treatment area.  They both took seats on the sofa.  I noted that they were a very attractive mixed race couple, both very slender, she with perky breasts and he quite well hung.

“Can they see us or hear us?”

“No, they are completely unaware of our presence today, though they were told when they signed their contracts that there might be the occasional observer of a therapy session – for educational reasons.

“Why are they naked?” I asked.

“Because”, he replied, Tanisha needs to get a lot more comfortable with her own body and with her partner’s body.  When we first started working with them she could not tolerate being naked or seeing Leroy naked.  Now she has become much more comfortable with that, though there are still occasional issues to work through.”

After a few minutes of small talk I saw therapist Dawn touch a button on her desk. 

“That will trigger her injection of Traumatholin.   The drug will take a few minutes to become effective, so Dawn will use that time for more small talk to allow the couple to become more comfortable.”

We could hear all the banter as they told the therapist how their week had gone.  I noticed that Leroy’s rather long penis remained quite flaccid against his thigh while Tanisha’s nipples showed no sign of stiffening as yet.

“I have encouraged the two of you”, the female therapist began, addressing Tanisha and Leroy, “to gradually become accustomed to increasing intimacy in the home setting. Gradualism is necessary when you are not here because Tanisha has not entirely overcome her PTSD yet and does not have the benefit of the trauma drug when at home.”

“But here”, the therapist continued, “because Tanisha does have the trauma drug in her, we can take a bolder approach.  I want you, Leroy, to begin to be just somewhat sexually aggressive with Tanisha.  Move closer to her so that your legs and hips touch, reach out and caress her neck and shoulders.  It is ok if you become visibly aroused as you touch her – in fact I hope you will.  Tanisha, be conscious of his penis – reach out and gently hold it with your fingers.”

I noted that Leroy’s penis was now becoming partially erect.  Tanisha noticed it too, but it seemed to please her rather than distress her.

“You will have noticed”, Dr. Henderson confided to me, “that Tanisha is not freezing up or experiencing any apparent distress as Leroy makes a move on her and as he shows his excitement to her.  It took several weeks of therapy sessions with injected Traumatholin to get her to this point.  In the beginning she was quite different.  I have a video of their very first session which you are welcome to watch if you have the time.”

“I might take you up on that!” I replied.

“Now Leroy,” the therapist continued, “It is time to take it to the next level.  I think Tanisha is ready for that.  I want you to play with her breasts, her nipples and her vulva.”

Leroy began to do as he was instructed.  As he did so Tanisha’s nipples became stiff and his penis became fully hard in Tanisha’s hand.  His penis was a beautiful thing to see when fully erect.  Now we could see the beginnings of an anxiety reaction in Tanisha, she began to shake, all her muscles were in play and her face draining of color.  His hand had not gone anywhere near her vagina as yet.   Finally a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Ok” the female therapist intervened, “that will be enough for today’s session.  Tanisha, I want you to verbalize for us just what you were feeling as you sensed saw and felt your partner’s excitement.”

“I was scared”, Tanisha replied.  “His erection reminded me so much of the erection of my attacker in that rape last summer.”

“Well you know Tanisha, that the feeling you just described will become less intense every time you experience your partner’s arousal.  At our next session in two more days, I am confident we will be able to take it just a bit further!  I want the two of you to continue to be naked together at home as often as possible, but don’t try any sexual experiments just yet.  For now the sexual experimentation should only be done when Tanisha has the trauma drug.  I will see you back here Thursday.”

With that the couple left the room by their respective doors, and the therapist was left at her desk to write up her notes on today’s progress.

“At the rate we are going”, Dr. Henderson remarked to me, “I think we will have them fucking possibly in the next session or the one after that.  You are more than welcome to return to watch those sessions.  Not only that, but I can arrange for you to have an in person meeting with the couple where you can ask them questions about their satisfaction with the treatment program.”

With that we walked back to his office.

“If Stephanie does come to us for treatment she will need a partner to learn to be comfortable with intimacy.  We can supply a male surrogate partner for her, but perhaps she will want you to fill that role.  That is something I am sure you two will want to discuss.”

Two days later I returned to the clinic eager to see the proof of the pudding.  This time Leroy was able to progress with Tanisha to the point of having actual intercourse with her.  From my vantage point and with the excellent lighting, I missed no detail of their coupling.  Although I felt like somewhat of a voyeur, I also knew that seeing the two of them fuck was an important milestone in my believing in the clinic’s program.  At the conclusion of this therapy session Dr. Henderson asked me if I would like to meet and interview the couple.  Of course I nodded my assent.  He opened a door I had not noticed before and led me right into the therapy studio while a naked Tanisha and Leroy were still seated on the couch.  The therapist excused herself and left the room.  Dr. Henderson and I pulled up two chairs and sat facing the couple across the coffee table.

“Tanisha and Leroy” the doctor began, “I want the two of you to meet Bill, an observer who watched Tuesday’s session and today’s session.   Bill is considering whether our program would be suitable for treating the PTSD symptoms of his female friend.  Bill was impressed with your progress Tanisha and would like to ask you a few questions.”

“You watched us … today?” she asked, looking in my general direction, but averting her eyes.  “We had no idea we were being watched.”

“What the fuck!” Leroy said in a very loud voice, tensing the muscles of his upper back and neck as well as the muscles of his arms and legs.  He looked about ready to pounce on me.

“Leroy – chill!” Dr. Henderson said firmly.  “You both knew you might have an observer at some of your sessions when you signed your contract.”

Leroy was still tense, but obviously weighing his response.  After a few uncertain moments we saw his muscles visibly relax.  At last he spoke in a more conciliatory voice.

“Yes we did agree to that.  I am sorry if I overreacted.  You might have let us know, doctor, at the beginning of today’s session that we were not alone.”

“Ah, but then you would not have behaved spontaneously.  In all likelihood you would not have achieved successful intercourse today.”

At that last comment Leroy looked beat and no longer wished to meet our gaze.

“In answer to your question, Tanisha”, I replied, “I watched the two of you today because I felt that it could help me decide whether to recommend this program to my friend if I could see actual proof that a woman who had suffered from rape trauma could be cured to the extent necessary to actually allow … well … enthusiastic fucking, if I may put it that way.”

“I think what Bill means is that he saw how you froze up in Tuesday’s session when Leroy got hard.  But today he saw you entering into intercourse with abandon.”

“How do you know I entered into intercourse ‘with abandon’ today, as you put it?” Tanisha interjected.

“Forgive me Tanisha if I am being too blunt”, the doctor replied, “but Bill and I could see your nipples erect, the increased blood flow to your breasts and inner thighs, and frankly quite a bit of your juices running down your legs.  Also we could infer from the hardness of your partner’s penis as he withdrew that you must have been milking him pretty firmly with your vaginal muscles!”

“Oh!  Is there anything you people didn’t see or notice?  Any detail that escaped you?” she responded and looked away, embarrassed.

Neither the doctor nor I responded to this outburst, as it was obviously a rhetorical question.

“Will Mr. Steelforth be introduced to the Sergeant Major as well?” Tanisha asked after a long delay and in a somewhat sulky voice.

“That is a definite possibility that I will be discussing with him shortly.  Bill may be returning for any or all of your remaining treatment sessions if he chooses.  He is my guest here and every courtesy must be shown him.”

With that we said goodbye to the young couple and as Doctor Henderson walked with me down the long hallway he invited me to step back into his office for another private conference.

He signaled me to sit down across the desk from him and I could tell by the look on his face that he had quite a bit more that he needed to say about therapy for Stephanie.

“Bill, you have seen on your previous visit and again today how we handle the specifically sexual trauma that women so often experience after a rape.  Hopefully what you have seen and learned so far will be helpful and will enable you to speak to Stephanie with some conviction about our program.”

“I couldn’t agree more!”  I replied.

“But there is so much more we need to talk about where your friend is concerned.  Curing a woman of sexual frigidity is only one aspect of what we do here.”

“By all means please explain”, I said.  “I have the time if you do.”

“In Tanisha’s case”, he continued, “we are dealing with the trauma caused by a single incident of violent stranger rape, though it was on the street in circumstances where she also feared for her life.  Tanisha’s rapist was never caught and is at large.  Lack of closure is one of the elements in Tanisha's PTSD, along with the brutally indifferent treatment of rape victims.  Tanisha is mentally raped every day when men look her way.
Tanisha has had to unlearn the intense fear she experienced around the sexual act and to learn to be capable of intimacy with a male again.”

“In Stephanie’s case, on the other hand, we are dealing with the trauma of multiple non-violent rapes over the period of a year that she was held in defacto slavery.  These rapes were qualitatively different because they happened in an office building under an employer’s control, because she was not in fear for her life under these surroundings, and because the rapes happened under color of law.  While Stephanie will have some of the same issues Tanisha has, she will have some different issues as well.”

“What, for example?”  I asked.

“Stephanie will not only need to learn to be comfortable with sexual intimacy again, she will also need to overcome feelings that she was betrayed by the legal system and by her employer.  Right now I would predict she has a deep-seated mistrust of all employers as well as all males.  And she probably has a mistrust of YOU – not only because you are a male seeking intimacy with her, but because of the role you played in getting her enslaved in the first place!”

“That sounds rather extreme to me”, I replied. “After all, I played a central role in getting her freed from slavery and I am also showing her how to use the legal system to prosecute criminally those who wronged her.  Stephanie and I have discussed these things and she seems to have a pretty good handle on everything.”

“That is where we must distinguish heart from head, Bill.  It is one thing to come to terms with one’s traumatic experience at the level of pure logic, and it is quite another thing to get the heart to accept what has happened and be ready to move forward.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I want to get her into group therapy.  I am starting a group next month that will include four or five couples.  Tanisha and Leroy Williamson have signed up for the group.  I would like to have you and Stephanie in the group too.  This will be a nude encounter group – designed to foster social intimacy and trust as well as assertiveness among all participants.”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never done anything like that, and I don’t know how Stephanie would feel about that.  She was a very modest person before her enslavement and I think the forced nudity she endured while a slave was also very traumatic for her.  I wouldn’t want to see her traumatized all over again.”

“It wouldn’t be that way Bill.  This is a situation where I would also use our patented Traumatholin drug just prior to the nude group meetings so that the experience of nudity can be re-learned and re-stored in a non-traumatic part of her memory.  Also we would do re-enactments of past trauma inducing experiences both with Stephanie and with Tanisha and with each of the other women in the group in turn – while they are under the influence of our trauma drug.  They will learn to re-experience all of these dramas without the trauma and save them in a different area of the brain’s memory where the memories can be called up later when not under the drug without triggering the trauma.”

“I will discuss it with Stephanie and she can decide if she is up to your program.”

“There is more, Bill.   A woman who has been a slave for a year acquires a certain kind of what I may call ‘learned helplessness’.   Slaves learn to submit, to obey.  They learn that they are helpless against their masters.  Ms. Glenn learned that lesson well. “

"After the implants have been removed and the mental conditioning commands cancelled," Dr. Henderson explained, "there is still learned helplessness to overcome.  Most ex-slaves still have that learned helplessness brought on by decades of submissive behavior.  Stephanie Glenn is still vulnerable to that--despite her commendable performances when she was attacked and when she escaped her captors after being raped and tortured.  And there is a stigma attached to ex-slaves, even those who were manumitted after it was discovered that they had been wrongfully enslaved.  I call this stigma 'once a slave, always a slave.'”

“So how would you treat this ‘learned helplessness’?”  I asked.

“If Stephanie comes into our treatment program, I would want her to have a very special course in self defense” he responded. “That is what Tanisha was alluding to when she asked me if you would also be seeing the Sergeant Major.”

"What does she need self defense training for?" I asked.  "She did better than expected when those two boys attacked her on the street in front of her own apartment.  I have a brown belt in Karate and I don't think I would have done any better against those two boys than Stephanie did.  She knocked them both out.  Then she escaped that dungeon after fighting both boys while Stephanie was naked and had her hands tied behind her back. There is nothing wrong with Stephanie's self-defense skills!"

“Steelforth, I mean no insult, but people buy slaves as sexual playthings because it is less work to fuck their slave than to woo a woman and keep her interested in sex.”

"Easier still to go to a brothel," I replied.  "I'm not insulted."

"Brothel sex has been compared to fast food," Dr. Henderson said.  

“Your Stephanie”, he continued, “has had the experience of being a sexual plaything for a full year.  If you think about it, that has to change a woman – how she thinks of herself, even the level of self-confidence she projects in her posture, attitude and bearing as he walks down a street.”

"A woman who was raped once”, he continued, “is more likely to be raped again than a woman who was never raped.   

"Rape used to be more common before legal prostitution," I commented.  "Slavery and legal prostitution drove down the rape rates."

"The low rape rate in Capitallia is due to many factors.  But my point is that Stephanie Glenn is more at risk of being raped again because she is a rape victim and because she was treated as a slave.”  

“Criminal rapists”, he continued, “read any lack of self-confidence in a woman as a free lunch sign.  Were you aware that in nature predators attack the very young, the very old, the weak, injured and sick prey animals.   A sick white-tail deer cannot run as fast as a healthy one, so a wolf pack will cut the sick doe out of the herd and run her down.  It is the same with humans.”

“What would the self defense training consist of?” I inquired.  

"I contract out for that part of therapy to a school called the ‘Cold Cox Academy’, owned and operated by Susan Coxwain”, Dr. Henderson told me.  

“I have heard that name before!” I exclaimed.  “That was the woman who taught Stephanie the defense skills she used to resist the boys’ attack near her apartment.”

"Susan teaches hand to hand fighting to the New York State Police, to the New Jersey State Police, and she even has a contract for the Vermont State Police to train their special operations teams.  She gives military combatives classes to commandos from six state militias.  The class she gives to rape victims consists of ten modules of three hours each.  When they come out of those 30 hours of instruction given over a period of three to six weeks, they are confident almost to the point of arrogance.  Coxwain calls it bringing out the inner tigress.”

“Does Stephanie really need 30 hours?  With the skills she has already shown, wouldn’t a shorter course suffice?”

“Mr. Steelforth, have you read Machiavelli's 'the Prince?'  No?  Too bad--the man knew human nature.  Machiavelli advised the prince to be both lion and fox.  The lion was able to fight the dogs and the fox avoided traps.  Susan Coxwain takes her students through a comprehensive course and when they finish, they are as deadly as commandos.  She teaches the rape victims to avoid danger.  Her students also project danger signals to would-be predators.  Often she also gives this course to the spouse or significant other of her rape victims.  You might do well to consider it yourself."

“I’ll keep that decision for later.  But please go on with your explanation”, I replied.

"Ms. Coxwain's training program reduces the perception that the rape victim is someone rapable," Dr. Henderson explained.  "You've been exposed to people who have presence, those who dominate a room.  Your livelihood is enslaving people, and slaves learn to become invisible as well as submissive.  Rape victims survived being forced to submit to rape.  Their animal selves revert to behavior that helped them survive the last rape--except that the behavior 'gave permission' to the rapist.“

“I never thought of it that way Doctor!”

“Every rapist claims”, he continued, “that the victim was 'asking for it' and on a purely jungle animal level that is factual.  The victim didn't want to be raped, but learned submissive behavior as a survival tactic.  Slave training forces submissive behavior on a slave, and it takes years to unlearn that even though the hypnotic commands have been cancelled and even after bio digital implants have been removed.  Ms. Coxwain teaches her students to be wary and to walk with confidence.  Her graduates have commando-level fighting skills, so that isn't arrogant vanity.”

“How does Susan Coxwain do it?” I inquired.  

“She uses a combination of systems.  Feelie booths for mental conditioning and to teach what it feels like to execute a complex sequence of moves with perfect timing—“

"Feelie booths!"  I was insulted.  "Those are for pimply faced little boys who aren't old enough to use prostitutes!"

“Forgive my use of the slang term ‘feelie booth’.   That is actually a generic term that many people use to describe a whole range of machines that give the user a physical experience as well as a visual and auditory one.   Not all ‘feelie booths’ are in video game arcades or in sleazy sex shops.  The proper term for what Sue uses with her students is ‘virtual fight training machine’ or VFTM.  The Capitallian Defense Organization uses these machines to train soldiers," Dr. Henderson said.   Have you ever heard that perfect practice makes for perfect performance?  The VFTM lets you experience performing hand-to-hand combat moves perfectly and without risk of injury.”

“You mentioned that she uses a combination of systems.  What else?”

“Mr. Steelforth, Sue teaches fighting skills that are designed to kill or maim an attacker.  These skills cannot be realistically practiced by students against their fellow students.  That is why, once a student progresses beyond VFTM training, the student is matched with a Rape-Bot.  That is a robot that is commercially designed to sexually attack the student.  She gets a lot of seriously damaged robots at the end of each class.

Mr. Steelforth, slavers are required to demonstrate slave control techniques as part of their business license.  When was the last time you needed to lay hands on a slave?"

"It has been years," I admitted.  "Even then it was just to calm down a panic-stricken slave.  Rebelliousness is conditioned right out of the slave today.  The residual rebelliousness is deliberately left in only at the owner's request, and a hypnotic command or using the slave's remote control to the implants is a far better method of overcoming resistance."

Since the combatives Ms. Coxwain teaches are based on natural movements and on gross motor skills, once you learn the system your daily activities are like more practice, so you retain the fighting skills longer.  You don't need to train as long as you did to earn your brown belt.  How long did it take you to earn that belt?"

"Nineteen months," I admitted.  "I could have tested for black belt, but I didn't have the time.  It takes a commitment to earn a black belt."

"So it would be unfair for me to invite you to spar with me?" Dr. Henderson said.  "I took Susan Coxwain's course for rape victims with my wife two years ago, before I awarded her the contract to train rape victims as part of their therapy.  I don't work out more than 90 minutes a week--that is everything, my road work, weight machines, and a few drills to keep my fighting skills sharp.  Once every 90 days I go to Susan Coxwain's 'Cold Cox Academy' as a demonstrator.  Look at me--do I appear to be dangerous?"

"No," I replied.  "Not really."

"We put on the protective sparring suits so that nobody gets hurt," Dr. Henderson related.  "Then Ms. Coxwain challenges the new class of special police officers to a sparring match.  In seven demonstrations with an average of three challenges, I have not been defeated.  I have been matched against martial arts black belts in several disciplines.  The martial arts taught in schools are about as realistic as shooting a round of skeet is to gun fighting.  Don't be insulted, Mr. Steelforth--skeet shooters have good shooting skills.  After I best one or two of the police students, Ms. Coxwain issues an ultimatum.  We fight with no sparring suits."

"Isn't that dangerous?" I asked.  .  "Someone could get hurt."

After all, I thought, sparring suits had pads that protected joints, hands, feet, head and neck.  There was even protection for female breasts, male testicles and kidney and spine plates.  Sensors determined if the student had received concussion or other injuries and informed the instructor so that the match could be halted, so that immediate medical treatment could be given

"That's the problem with modern martial arts," Dr. Henderson said.  "You are trained to stop fighting the moment you get hurt.  Ms. Coxwain teaches you to stop fighting only after your enemy quits trying to hurt you.  The virtual fight training machine helps you develop your own mind conditioning, your own triggers to ignore pain and fear.  In the VFTM you learn a controlled rage, a controlled fury.  I have beaten a third degree black belt in Ms. Coxwain's class and he had won the New York State Police karate championship three years running.  I actually knocked him out.  When he came too, he accused me of sucker punching him.  He was right."

"You cheated?" I asked.

"It wasn't a karate bout," Dr. Henderson said.  "It was a simulation of two men fighting for their lives.  He attacked me with a sport that was designed to prevent injuries in training and competition.  While he circled me looking for an opening, I stood there relaxed and watching for him to telegraph his attack.  When he rushed up from behind, I wasn't there when his flying kick landed.  I moved.  Then I attacked him.  I took him off-balance and I hit him hard enough to knock him out even though my hand was padded and he was wearing protective pads."

"I don't think the man was happy about that," I said.  "What did he do?"

"He was complaining about it loudly while I answered Susan’s challenge by getting naked," Dr. Henderson stated.  "There I was, standing quietly in the center of the mat wearing my birthday suit while he was ranting.  I missed most of his reaction because he wore his helmet, only removing his mouth protector to talk.  Ms. Coxwain explained that my martial arts training consisted of boxing, fencing and wrestling in high school and college --and a thirty-hour three-week course in combatives for rape victims.  At the time it was a year after I had completed the training.  The other guy didn't take off his sparring suit.”

“That is an impressive story Doctor!”

“Nudity is a weapon if you use it”, he continued.  “Stephanie Glenn successfully used her nudity and apparent helplessness to get her abductors to lower their guards, and that was after she had beaten two of them senseless with her bare hands."

“OK, you have certainly got my interest in this training program!  How do we proceed?”

“I would like you to visit Susan’s training facility, talk with her, watch some of her students go through their exercises and maybe let her put you through an exercise or two yourself.  I should warn you her students train in the nude for the most part and you will almost certainly be asked to disrobe yourself.”

“Where is this place?”

“It is actually a converted warehouse in a pretty rough area in the South Bronx.  She needed a lot of low rent space for her school and that was the best way.  She tells me the local toughs leave her students alone.  She thinks it is good experience for them to run the gauntlet, so to speak, as they come and go from her classes.  Here is the address.  But I would advise you not to take public transportation Bill.”

“I will go tomorrow!” I responded.

With that we shook hands and I left his clinic anxious but also giddy with anticipation. 

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