I was working on homework Saturday after lunch when the house phone rang. Mom answered, and after a pause I heard my phone-tune and picked up. It was Davey Carmody's Mom, asking if I was interested in doing part-time work. I'd been looking for an after-school job, so I asked what she wanted done.
"You'd be providing a kind of training to an individual who needs it badly!" She sounded kind of tightly wound as she answered, but after a pause she spoke more normally. "I'm afraid I can't tell you any more until we meet. It's, uh, delicate, and I'm going to require your Bonded word not to repeat anything I tell you to anyone else."
Wow! Mysterioso! I decided I'd like to hear the details at least, before I made a decision, so I immediately agreed to come over to discuss it.
I live close to the Carmody house, so I walked there in only a few minutes. Mrs Carmody was cordial when she answered the door, but seemed not to remember we'd met before when I'd come to visit Davey. We sat down at the kitchen table and she got right to business.
"I need to access your school records, Judy, if that's all right with you?"
I'd given transcripts to half a dozen potential employers by now, so I was used to it. I told the wallscreen to connect to my school, then touched the input to give authorization. A moment later my transcript came scrolling out. Mrs Carmody looked it over for a minute or so, then nodded, looking pleased.
"This is excellent, Judy. You have a very high TechIQ and Maturity Index. Maturity is very important for the job I want you to do! And I see that, um, you also have excellent conscientiousness ratings in your work." She looked up at me, and I did my best to appear modest. "I think you'll be perfect for the job I have, if you're willing to take it."
"Thank you, Mrs Carmody," I answered, but I was beginning to worry a little. When she'd said, "if you're willing to take it," she'd sounded like the job might be a bit repulsive in some way.
Mrs Carmody took out a slip of paper and read it aloud. "Will you give me your Bonded promise that you'll never repeat to anyone anything I tell you this afternoon, or anything we discuss, or any actions you take on the same subject at a later time, unless you have my permission?"
Then she handed me the slip, so I could read it. It made me feel like a real Corporate to be giving a bond like this. I put my hand on the Voluntatis plate she had on the table and started reading. I noticed the note was smart, since all the pronouns changed to the first person when I touched it to take the oath. When I finished I knew I wouldn't be able to repeat anything I was told without a legal override, which was pretty rare.
"OK, good." Mrs Carmody gave a small sigh. "Do you know anything about psychological agents? What they do?"
I thought for a minute. "I don't know much. They usually deal with problem kids, right? Like involuntaries, uh, involuntary discipline subjects. And the agents find some way to make them act more socially, and accept authority."
"That's very good," Mrs Carmody said, nodding, "Now how would you feel about becoming a trainee psychological agent?"
I still wasn't sure what she was asking.
"I guess -- I guess I could do that. Is that the job you called about? You want me to train to be a psychological agent?"
Mrs Carmody hesitated before answering. "Yes. You'd be administering a therapeutic treatment called 'Reward-Avoidance Training', and it would involve whipping the person you'd be in charge of as part of the training. Would you be able to do that, Judy? Whip someone as a punishment?"
I flushed. I hadn't known psychological agents did that kind of thing. I began to worry that Mrs Carmody somehow knew about my VirtWeb interest groups, although they were supposed to be utterly private. I spent a lot of time at the BAD SOMA site because I got turned on both by giving whippings and getting whipped myself when I found a cute boy partner I liked.
"I, ah, I could do that I guess, Mrs Carmody." My face was hot and my voice sounded strained, so I worried that even if she didn't know about my VirtWeb preferences, she might be able to guess from the way I was reacting. But she put an entirely different interpretation on my flushing face.
"Are you sure, Judy?" Mrs Carmody sounded concerned. "I couldn't help noticing you seemed embarrassed when I brought this up. If you think whipping someone -- hard! -- is something you wouldn't want to do, we can just drop this right now. I'm certainly not going to think less of you because you don't want to hurt another person."
I took a calming breath so I'd sound more rational when I spoke again.
"I wouldn't have any trouble whipping someone if that was an appropriate therapy that I would carry out as a psychological agent."
I knew Mrs Carmody only had two kids, Davey and his little sister . . . I'd forgotten her name . . . Gwynn! Right. Was Mrs Carmody talking about having me discipline Gwynn? I'd whipped girls a few times in interactives and my friend Maureen and I had done it with each other. It was a slight turn-on for me, but I much preferred it with boys, and I'd never even done it with boys except in BAD SOMA Encounters, where the whippings were pretty Min most of the time. I always wanted to set the VirtSuit pain induction up high so the whipping would really hurt, but most of the boys I met wouldn't agree to that unless I took very short odds on the Bet.
Or was it possible that Mrs Carmody was talking about having me discipline DAVEY! God, that was such a turn-on idea! Davey was the smartest boy in the school! He'd been advanced two years ahead of his age group, and people were always pointing me out because I'd been advanced one! And he was really cute too! Vrai Reynard! He had golden blond hair and a classical face, and he was tall and athletic-looking, although I never saw him exercise much. And he had really nice legs and a cute butt when I saw him in Gym shorts. A lot of the girls I knew had their eye on him, and I'd been attracted to him since I started noticing boys! He was kind of egotistical, I could see that, but he was still fun to be around and his conceit didn't bother me too much. Yeah! But he could be really sarcastic! I knew he was mean to people sometimes -- Never to me! -- but I could imagine he might be a real brat at home!
"Now there's one other element to this," Mrs Carmody continued, "and it involves sex. I don't mean to be offensive if you don't want to discuss this, but you must know there are a large number of therapies that involve sexual tension between therapist and patient." She paused for a moment, probably to give me a chance to object to discussing it, then continued in a rush.
"I don't mean you'd have to couple, or anything!" Then, more slowly, "But you'd be in charge of withholding or providing sexual gratification to the person you were disciplining. It's part of the therapy we've settled on. Do you think you'd be able to do that?"
It was really old-fashioned to say "couple" instead of "fuck". Everybody said "fuck" now, even the News Media! But this sounded more and more like she was talking about Davey, the way she mentioned coupling and the therapy "we've" settled on -- I was pretty sure she meant herself and her husband.
"I, uh, I wouldn't expect to have any trouble . . . ah, acting sexually on someone I was disciplining if that was the appropriate treatment, Mrs Carmody." I was a little proud of how adult that sounded. "But it would depend a lot on who you're talking about. Is this a boy or a girl, and how old?" Mrs Carmody gave me an appraising look, and I tried to look like a responsible seventh year high school student, just interviewing for a job.
"OK," Mrs Carmody sighed, "I guess I can't keep the details from you any longer. You know Davey, right?"
Even though I'd been half expecting it, it was a shock to hear I was being asked to discipline Davey, and I felt another flush rise to my face as I started picturing details of what I'd be doing to him: whippings and sexual control! I realized I was starting to lubricate at the thought of it.
"Sure," Mrs Carmody," I managed to choke out. "Davey's at the same study level with me in Web Science and Math, and we've spent time after school together."
Mrs Carmody suddenly had another thought. "You're -- nineteen, right?
"Yes, that's right," I answered. "I turned nineteen last May."
"So you're only about a year older than Davey," she said in a musing tone. "He turned eighteen in June, but he acts like such a selfish brat all the time, you'd think he was pre-school! Of course, it's pretty obvious he's really an adolescent male the way he's always obsessing about sex!"
I made some sort of non-committal noise, and Mrs Carmody rushed on, telling me what Davey did last Summer, subverting the monitor cameras to spy on her and Gwynn, then being sent for discipline, and talking his parents into letting him out of it after his first whipping. I could see why Mrs Carmody was upset, since Davey obviously didn't have much respect for her or the household, but I could kind of understand his motivation in spying on his stepmother. I wouldn't mind seeing Mrs Carmody with her clothes off myself! She's extremely attractive, a natural redhead with a warm, rosy complexion. Of course I knew she'd only been Davey's stepmother less than a year, so he hadn't done anything really incestuous.
"I just found out today that he was lying to us about nearly everything when he got out of training last Summer. He was traumatized by his whipping all right, but he never had any intention of trying to reform. He's just a born manipulator."
"I guess I can picture that in him," I said, trying to take a part in the conversation. "Davey has always seemed a little bratty to me, too."
"I'm sure he's a lot worse than you can imagine!" Mrs Carmody said angrily. "When he spied on us he even saved vid clips of me using the toilet!"
She paused for a moment, then continued in a calmer tone of voice.
"You'll get advice about how to carry out Davey's training from his original psychological agent, Linda Fechtenbaum, and there's a training tutorial that can monitor to make sure you don't make any mistakes, but the basic idea is that Davey will need his agent's cooperation to reach orgasm. As I understand it, Linda was going to require him to modify his behavior before she gave him any relief, and she wouldn't just permit him to masturbate: she'd administer the stimulation herself." Mrs Carmody stopped for a second and got an apologetic look.
"Through peripherals, of course, Judy -- I should emphasize that. I don't mean you'd have to touch him if you're willing to take the job."
I nodded, breathing rather heavily, as Mrs Carmody went on.
"The idea is that Davey won't be able to resent his agent when he's so dependent on her for sex; at some deep level he'll be grateful when she brings him to climax. Between the whippings and sexual control, the agent can make good progress on psychological modification." Mrs Carmody suddenly looked hard at me again.
"Is this all something you can do?"
God, I was getting so aroused! I tried to figure out what the question really meant from Mrs Carmody's viewpoint, and how I should answer it.
"I wouldn't have any problem acting as psychological agent for Davey," I said, as mildly as possible.
"Good. But there are a few more things I should tell you. First, Davey has a very strong crush on you, and that's valuable in a therapy like this." Then, apologetically, "Naturally you'd have all the authority you need to keep him under control, so he won't be pestering you all the time."
Hmm. Mrs Carmody really didn't seem to be into sex very much. I'd always thought Davey liked me that way, but he'd never asked me to fuck, so it was good to know for sure!
"The second thing is that while Davey is under your control and not allowed to masturbate . . . " Mrs Carmody faltered a little here, then continued. "He'll have very strong sexual needs and you'll have to be careful how you handle that. It's important that he doesn't think the sexual part disgusts you, or that you avoid doing it longer than the tutorial says is therapeutic. If you're ever in doubt, you should follow the tutorial's advice."
There was a pause before she went on. "It would actually be optimal if he thought you were enjoying it -- teasing him and acting like you're having fun, before you let him reach orgasm." Diane's face was flushing now, for the first time, and she took a deep breath before continuing.
"Do you think you can act that part well enough to convince Davey?"
"I, uh, like Davey," I answered hesitantly. "I think he's cute. So I don't think I'll have any trouble making him think I enjoy . . . interacting with him this way." I was afraid I'd said a little too much, as Mrs Carmody looked at me appraisingly for a minute.
"I don't know," Mrs Carmody sounding worried. "You've looked embarrassed and upset while I've been discussing this. Are you sure you can handle Davey in these training sessions? You'd have to be hard on him to stay in control!"
"I'm positive I can handle the job, Mrs Carmody." I started using mental control to lose my sexual flush, something I didn't normally do since it makes me feel like an emotionless cyborg.
"I can only offer double minimum hourly wage, but you'll be paid for all the time you spend with Davey, after school every day until dinner. And some time on the weekends, if you're able to do that. Linda Fechtenbaum got everything out of the way in her daily seventy-five minute sessions, so you ought to have plenty of time to yourself after an initial learning period. I understand Davey's training should last six to eight months, so it might last until graduation in June. Are you willing to take the job at that pay?"
"Yes, Ma'am, I think it's a pretty good pay, as long as I can study some of the time." I really didn't care about the pay at that point -- I would have offered to do this for free for a month, or even paid premium VirtWeb rates to do it for a few hours at a time.
Mrs Carmody took a deep breath and seemed to relax for the first time since I'd arrived. Then she pulled out a large sheet of smart paper with a contract she'd written up, saying she wanted my Bonded word on how I'd perform my job as trainee psychological agent. Since this was a Geas -- a Bond that made me actually perform a set of tasks -- I needed AI advice, and Diane told me to call my family service and charge it to her. The AI confirmed there weren't any trick clauses in the contract: I just had to do everything reasonable to keep Davey's training within therapeutically correct parameters. And I had the classical out: I could resign the job anytime by notifying Mrs Carmody, and then I'd drop all obligations except not telling anyone what I'd been doing. So I read through the Geas wording with my hand on the Voluntatis plate.
After the contract was registered, we decided that I should hold Davey's sessions in my apartment. My Mom's hobby is classical Gates architecture and she spends half our income on Manufacts to enlarge our house, so I have a large suite to myself, with a private entrance. Of course I'd have to say something to Mom about turning on my privacy lock with Davey visiting every day, but I figured I could just say I was giving Davey training, letting it sound like a school thing. I was kind of surprised when Mrs Carmody had to give me permission to discuss Davey's training with my mother only in a general way, but then I recalled that I couldn't talk about it with anybody without permission.
"I'm sure this will work out fine, Mrs Carmody," I said slowly, thinking about how to handle Mom.
"I want you to call me 'Diane' from now on," she said. "You have a difficult role here, and I want to be your ally and friend. Just let me know if there's any help you need. I've worked out a budget for trainingware equipment and Web access Ms Fechtenbaum said you'd need. You can buy anything you want with the money if you and Ms Fechtenbaum agree it's appropriate. When I talked to her earlier, she said she was going out to an early concert, but you should be able to reach her around eleven tonight. I hope that isn't too late for you."
I explained that I only needed to sleep about five hours a night, so I was usually awake until well after one AM.
After Diane explained about the budget, she stood up, and I did too, figuring we were done. I was trying to think if there was anything else I needed to know before I went home, when Diane spoke again.
"I'd like to have you start exercising Davey's keycode now, Judy." She hesitated as my face flushed again, and then sounded apologetic. "I mean if you're willing. I know this is all coming at you very fast, so if you need to take some time . . ."
"No, Ma'am," I answered. "I think I should get started as soon as possible."
Diane reminded me to use her first name and walked out of the kitchen. I heard her go up the stairs in front and come down a moment later with heavier footsteps behind her. I began to feel grateful that my shorts were waterproof so my wet underpants wouldn't soak through to make my arousal obvious. I heard Mrs Carmody say something in the hall before she walked back into the kitchen, explaining that she'd ordered Davey not to talk, even when he wasn't in O- Mode, so he wouldn't give us a lot of arguments. I nodded, breathing heavily.
As Davey came into the room and saw me, his eyes widened and his pace slowed. Then he began staring at me with an expression I didn't understand, but as his face grew more and more flushed I realized what he felt was an extremity of embarrassment. At some point his eyes met mine looking back at him, and he got a frightened expression and looked down at the floor.
"I've been keeping Davey in No-Sex since his actions this morning," Diane said. "I didn't want to have to deal with his sexuality for awhile. But I brought him back to Nominal since you're here and you're going to be treating him with sexual tension." She sounded a little disgusted. "You can see he has an erection already. He seems to be like that half the time these days from what he told me when I questioned him!"
I looked at Davey, standing in O-Mode posture with his hands at his sides. I knew he'd tried to hide an erection a few times when he was over at my house, but he couldn't do that now. I could see the outline of his erection clearly, making his fly bulge out, and his face got even redder as he heard Diane talking about it. Diane told him to sit down in a chair near the table, and he moved quickly, probably to make the bulge in his pants less prominent. Then Diane put him in Deep O-Mode so he wouldn't remember later what we said.
"I'm going to put him back in No-Sex when you're not around. I'm really not up to having to deal with David's sexuality right now. But you can change his Modes around any way you want as soon as you take charge. It's probably wrong to keep him in No-Sex as a regular thing, but at least for now it will keep him from rubbing himself raw fantasizing about having you punish him. He actually gets aroused by things like that!"
Max! Lim Sup! If Davey got turned on by the idea of having me discipline him, that was all I needed to make my dream fantasy complete! It struck me as I listened to Diane telling me about Davey's sexuality, that she didn't really mean to be so negative. She was just kind of low-wattage about sex herself, so she thought it was kind of distasteful, but she also wanted to be modern and open-minded in talking about it, which made for a strange mix.
Diane brought Davey out of O-Mode entirely after she told him I was going to be a frequent user of his Keycode. Davey glanced up at me just once before he lowered his eyes again, still looking flushed and scared. I could see his erection again.
Diane gave me a slip of paper with Davey's Keycode, and after I read it aloud he went under right away. Then Diane helped me through the steps to become a frequent user, so I could just say "O-Mode" or "Deep O-Mode" to put him under, the way most parents do. She also had her homebrain register my authority to override Davey's personal privacy, so I'd be able to keep an eye on him with the monitor cameras when he was home. Finally, she took a few minutes reassuring me that I shouldn't be intimidated by Davey's greater physical strength because of the basic compulsion that made it impossible for anyone to use physical force against a frequent Keycode user. We ended up with Davey in normal O-Mode again, so he'd remember the things he heard.
"Now," Diane said, "I'm going to tell you what Davey did to me this morning that convinced me he needs discipline training right away!"
Her account was really raw! Davey learned Diane's Keycode illicitly, and used it to push up her Arousal rating and make her masturbate while he watched through the monitor cameras. That seemed like the closest thing to rape I could conceive of short of penetration! And after she caught him, she found out he was planning even more abusive things to do to her! Diane concluded her account by asking me to start Davey's training with the most severe one-day punishment in his training schedule for what he'd done to her. When I agreed Diane made David acknowledge he'd heard what was in store for him. Davey nodded, looking upset even in O-Mode.
Diane looked upset too. "I'm really in a hurry to get David out of the house and into training," she said. "When do you think you can start?"
Looking at Diane's anxious face, I realized that if I told her I could start right now, she'd hand Davey over to me without a second thought. I looked at Davey sitting there in his chair, tall and strong-looking, an attractive package of warm boy flesh, and I got a strong somatic feeling of what it would be like to be in charge of his discipline. It was exhilarating! But kind of frightening, too, since I really didn't know what I was doing yet.
Then I got a shock as I realized how selfishly I was reacting! I'd had lots of consensual BDSM Virtual Encounters, and that was fair, but there was nothing consensual about this! The plans I had for Davey weren't all that different from what Davey had wanted to do to Diane! We were both using Keycode control to do something mean to another person, overriding their will and causing mental anguish because we got turned on doing it. Of course I wanted to think that what I'd be doing really WAS different since Davey had been criminally anti-social when he abused Diane. I was going to correct his anti-social tendencies -- it was therapy!
But maybe I was just using that as an excuse to do what I wanted to do anyway! Thinking about it for a moment I decided the proper thing was to turn this job down if I couldn't convince myself that what I'd be doing was really for Davey's own good. Still, I didn't want to be hasty -- I'd take my time to understand what the training was supposed to accomplish. Anyway, my Bonded oath required me to learn more before I took charge of Davey.
"I need at least tonight and tomorrow morning to study the tutorial, Diane," I answered. Could you send him over tomorrow at eleven AM?"
"You can set up the compulsion yourself, Judy. You're in charge now!"
So I did! I created a compulsion for the first time, and Davey would be at my door at eleven on Sunday if he was physically able to get there.
As soon as I got home I stripped and took out my favorite peripheral, a Parted Roses IV. It only took me about a minute to reach my first orgasm picturing Davey's apprehensive expression when I met him in the kitchen. It was so Max that what made him anxious was knowing I'd be in charge of his discipline, and I ended with FOUR orgasms! A lot even for me!
When I was finished, I relaxed for a few minutes, then looked at my watch. It was four-thirty and Mom wouldn't be home until seven, so I sat down at my console and used the temporary access Diane had provided to access the Disciplinary Science tutorial overview.
The reward-avoidance training I was giving was just what I'd imagined from Diane's description, like some of the sex interactives I'd played on the BAD SOMA VirtSites, with much more serious pain and long-term sexual frustration. This form of training was the sexiest discipline mode there was, and I was a bit puzzled that it was permitted. It would obviously be a turn-on for some psychological agents unless there was a really tough entrance test to weed out anyone who got aroused that way. That would weed me out too of course, and then I could stop worrying about the morality of what I was doing.
But I kept reading and learned that the most valuable feature of reward- avoidance training was that it worked without causing trauma. Some Council AI's thought traumatic training could cause psychological problems in later life, but sexual domination was basically harmless. Any masochistic habits the subject picked up could be extinguished at the end of training with simple mental exercises. And the AIs didn't consider an agent getting aroused by controlling the subject to be a problem, as long as the training parameters were met. A certain amount of reciprocal arousal between subject and agent just improved the binding between them, and that was valuable in the reward area of the therapy. OK, that relieved one of my worries at least.
A lot of what was in the tutorial was technical stuff -- a prone positioner to constrain Davey while he was being whipped, settings for the Arousal mode, and for a high-tech paddle called a punishment wand. I went through the wand's functions and remembered something Diane had said about Davey buying one. It was pretty expensive nano-tech, so I phoned Diane and told her that to save money, Davey should bring the wand with him when he came to my house the next day. then I went back to studying the tutorial.
There were three phases to the training, and pain and sexual control were crucial during the first two phases. The basic idea was to keep a lot of tension by first intimidating the subject with whipping, then arousing the subject so much that he (or she) would actually be willing to accept more whipping to reach orgasm. Agents were enjoined to stay as unpredictable as possible, trying out new punishments frequently. Humiliation was an encouraged alternative to whipping -- the more sexually oriented the better -- assuming it could be carried out with enough force to make a lasting impression. I thought that wouldn't be too hard. I could question Davey in Deep O-Mode and find out what punishments he'd fantasized about. That was supposed to provide an extra erotic dimension, since he'd know he'd invented them himself. And if Davey's scenarios ran out after awhile, I had plenty of ideas of my own.
The tutorial had a monitor function to watch the session through my house cameras and warn me if I was doing anything wrong, and I was relieved to know I couldn't mistakenly do something that would harm Davey. The tutorial wasn't a real AI, it was just a little smarter than an ape, but of course it was an Expert and knew everything there was to know about discipline situations like this, including emergency medical treatment for unlikely emergencies. I'd also be able to connect an ear clip and have the tutorial tell more about Davey's reactions to the discipline, and a throat clip to ask questions.
I went through the tutorial at familiarization level and finished just as I heard the chime that said Mom was home. It was just after seven, so I went downstairs to the main kitchen, and Mom was already pulling some food out of the temporal and flashing it.
"Hi Judy!" Mom said cheerfully. "How about General Gao's chicken with balsamic rice and Aloo Paratha for Dinner? And maybe some NewFruit compote?"
"Sure, Mom." I took out plates and eating utensils to set the table. After about ninety seconds, we were both seated and starting to eat. We're pretty quick about meals in our house, so I knew I'd be able to get a lot of work in before I talked with Ms Fechtenbaum at eleven.
I told Mom I'd accepted a job from Mrs Carmody, and then there was a long, seemingly casual interchange, as Mom asked questions about what I was doing. I told her it was a training program for Davey Carmody, and that didn't cause more than a raised eyebrow, but when I mentioned that I'd have to turn on privacy while Davey was in my apartment, I knew this would be the crux. Mom wanted to know more details and when I said I'd given my Bond not to discuss it, I could see her getting worried. She knew some kinds of training had sexual elements, and I couldn't say sex wasn't involved, so it was some time before I found the right formula to calm her down.
Look," I said, "I can't talk about it, but I can say that I don't have to touch Davey Carmody at all while I'm training him."
There, that was true, and it didn't break my Bond -- I really wasn't required to touch him, but of course I could if I wanted to! And it was misleading in a useful way. I knew that when I said I didn't have to touch Davey, that pretty much covered the field as far as Mom was concerned. If she thought about my refusing to say sex wasn't involved after that, she'd probably conclude it was some attraction we both had outside of the training. She was already losing her concerned look.
"All right, Judy," Mom said. "I know you're a grown woman now, and I'm sorry if I seem to pry. Just promise me that if you ever start feeling bad about a Bond you take on -- or anything else! -- you'll come to me and tell me how you feel. I can get a Bond broken if it's bad for you."
"Thanks, Mom," I answered. "I can quit this job anytime I want, though, so I'll be fine. But I understand what you're saying, and I promise to come to you if I ever get into any kind of trouble."
I'd only promised this about a million times already, but I knew very well why she worried about me. I didn't mind reassuring Mom as much as she needed when I thought of all she'd done for me after she learned about my problem and divorced Caspar.
"Gotta go study, Mom," I said, and gave her a kiss, then went back to my room to study the details about phase one reward-avoidance training. I kept at it for more than three hours, until eleven o'clock, when it was time to call Ms Fechtenbaum.
The pretty woman who answered the phone and identified herself as Ms Fechtenbaum looked much younger than I'd expected! It struck me that the youthful appearance of a licensed psychological agent was one reason Diane thought it was reasonable to put a 19-year-old trainee in charge of Davey. I introduced myself, and Ms Fechtenbaum told me to call her Linda.
"So you want to be a psychological agent," she said. "Do you think this is going to be a career choice, or do you just want to do it for this one job?" She was addressing me like a mature colleague, so I tried hard to act the part.
"I'm really not sure yet what I ultimately want to do," I answered diplomatically, although I was actually quite sure I didn't want to make a career of this. "For now I'm just trying to do the job Mrs Carmody wants done, and I guess that means I need to apply to become a trainee."
"There's nothing easier," Linda said, and she did something on her keyboard to make a Form appear in split-screen. The Form listed the responsibilities I'd have, and things I was expected to do as an agent trainee. Everything looked simple and obvious as I glanced through it quickly. The Form clearly needed to talk to my school record, so I called that up and connected them. Then I had to use my Voluntatis palm plate to agree to my responsibilities. Two seconds after I was done I saw flashing words on the screen: "Application finalized: Judith Price accepted as psychological agent trainee," and then the date and a lot of boilerplate.
Linda was looking closely at the form. "Hmmm. VERY nice Maturity index. That's the main requirement in this field, of course, and I've never seen better ratings for someone your age." She nodded a few times, then looked up.
"So how can I help you? You should know I'm being paid for this consulting, double my usual rate for the time I spend advising you, and Diane Carmody asked me to tell you that it doesn't come out of your budget. I have the impression Diane is trying to economize a bit, but she'd certainly want you to get everything you need out of these conferences. Maybe you can just ask all the questions you have now, and then call me again when you have new ones."
"I'll do that, thank you! Uh, could you start by reassuring me that this is really the right thing to do for Davey? I know he did some awful things, but this training sounds like it's terribly hard on him, and I want to understand how it will benefit him."
"OK," Linda answered. "First of all, you have to understand that David has an extremely low Maturity index and high selfishness rating, nearly at the level that would trigger automatic involuntary conditioning. All his life he's been able to get his way by talking his Dad into things -- as Diane said, he's extremely manipulative."
"I -- I've heard that," I said, "So I have to be careful not to let him manipulate me."
"Not just that! What you need to do is perform a full exploration in Deep O-Mode at the beginning of every session of everything David's been thinking." Linda's voice was very forceful, but still friendly. "Remember, parents aren't supposed to pry into their children's private thoughts too much, but knowing everything is your job here! Make sure you're always aware of what he's really thinking. Once you understand his motivations and the way he rationalizes them, you won't be in any doubt about his need for this training. This is definitely for his own good. He's feeling more and more isolated from other people, and it's only going to get worse as he gets older, so he needs attention immediately." I nodded and resolved to learn David's motivations as soon as possible.
"Of course, he'll change during the training, and pretty soon he'll be more trustworthy, at least where you're concerned. If you follow the tutorial, in four or five weeks he'll be thinking about nothing but satisfying you that his behavior is acceptable. That doesn't mean he'll treat other people any better though, so you need to continue to progress through all the phases of the training. Have you been reading the tutorial?"
"Yes," I said. "I think I understand phase one pretty well, and I have some grasp of the others. Do I need to go deeply into phases two and three before I have my first session with Davey?"
"No. For the first few weeks, all you really need to do is follow the tutorial suggestions, or at least not stray too far from them. The end of phase one is a critical time, though -- it's extremely close to an extended traumatic experience, so you need to know what you're doing by then. The tough time you give David at the end of phase one is the only way to make him agree to extinguish core attitudes that make him so immature and selfish. And you've got to build up to that point by getting him in the habit of being reflexively obedient when you tell him to do something."
"Right," I answered, "That reminds me of something. Should I fix it so Davey can't talk, so he won't try to argue with me? He was that way this afternoon."
"No! You've got to be in charge! He'll think he's won a victory if you don't stand up to him on a personal level. Let him talk, but don't let him derail you from your agenda. Interrupt him, put him in the positioner, whip him, punish him in some other modality, whatever you have in mind to do next."
Linda paused for a moment in thought, and then went on, "In fact you should never use compulsion for things you can make him do by intimidation. Just tell him you don't want him to try to manipulate you, and after a few days he'll be much more tractable. But if he lies to you or misleads you, you should punish him immediately. He has to learn he can't get away with that."
I was getting erotic feelings again, listening to Linda's explanations.
"I read about punishment modalities," I said. "Why is embarrassment such an important aspect of the training?"
"It's a type of sexually charged punishment that's particularly effective with modest boys, who connect embarrassment with sex as soon as they start having erections in public. David is extremely modest for his age -- top tenth of a percentile. Bathroom discipline would probably be the most effective humiliation for him. Withholding permission to use the bathroom is extremely basic; it could qualify as a full punishment modality for subjects who connect bathroom discipline with sexual embarrassment as David does. Your tutorial won't let you make mistakes, so you don't need to worry about causing him damage by making him wait to urinate or defecate."
Diane considered for a moment. "Actually there's a sexual peripheral you can use that's smart enough to keep David out of risk at all times, even when he's not at your house where your monitor cameras can observe him. You'll want to punish David outdoors sometimes, to stay unpredictable."
"What peripheral is that?"
Linda brought up a purchase ad for something called the Hubba-2 on split- screen. She said it was only one-tenth the cost of the old Hubba-Hubba, but it still cost two-thirds of my trainingware budget. I was hesitant, but Linda assured me that a Hubba-2 was well worth the cost, and the rest of my budget would cover everything else I'd need, so I ordered one for delivery the next morning. Then Linda checked she still had David's positioner specifications, and asked if I had access to a Manufact. Mom has dozens of them modifying our house all the time, so I found one that wasn't too busy and put the Manufact socket up on the phone screen so Linda could send David's measurements.
We talked about the pain intensity settings on the punishment wand for awhile and how the sex-surge would add sexual tension to David's whippings.
"I'd suggest starting with a sex surge setting of forty," Linda said. "Then, if you set the pain intensity below forty, you could eventually bring him to orgasm by whipping him. But of course you know you're supposed to start off with a pain intensity of eighty and adjust it to his baby-response threshold with a child-level Pain Sensitivity, right?"
"Yes, I understand about that," I answered.
"So it won't come anywhere near giving him an orgasm during a whipping at that pain intensity." Linda was nodding as she spoke. "But it will make him feel the whipping is erotic at a deep level, so you can keep the tension up. He'll feel quite aroused at the end of each whipping round."
I was pretty red-faced by this time, lubricating freely, and I was afraid Linda might notice how aroused I was. I was right, too!
"You enjoy the idea of punishing David, Don't you Judy?" she suddenly asked. "It's erotic for you. Right?"
I must have looked stricken, because Linda laughed.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to get you in trouble. There's nothing wrong with enjoying your work, although agents don't usually talk about it. Of course you can't let it sway you from giving appropriate therapeutic training. If you make the punishments too hard on David, you'll end up a candidate for involuntary discipline yourself!"
"I -- uh," I paused to take a breath, "I gave my Bonded oath that I'd provide proper therapeutic training for Davey," I answered. "And even if I hadn't, I'd never modify his training in a way that could hurt his therapy."
Linda smiled at me, "OK, I believe you. I saw your Conscientiousness level on your school record. That leaves you with a lot of freedom anyway, since you can do nearly anything you want that isn't physically or emotionally harmful, and if you get off on punishing boys you're going to be in heaven for the next six to eight months. Of course you know you can't fuck David, right? Not until phase three, anyway, and that's several months away!"
"Yes, I know that," I answered, flushing again. I'd been a little unhappy when I saw that restriction in the tutorial overview.
I hesitated a moment, then asked a rather rude question.
"Is it common for psychological agents to enjoy this?" I blurted. "I mean, like, do you ever feel that way?"
"Well the clients I get aren't usually as good-looking as David, I can tell you that!" Linda hesitated for a moment, before going on. "OK, if you want me to talk about this, you have to give your Bond not to repeat what I say."
I wasn't used to giving Bonds so casually -- I hadn't been able to give a Bond at all until I was declared Adult, but of course Linda used Bonds every day. I put my hand on my palm plate and keyed it to Linda's through the wallscreen, then promised not to repeat anything Linda told me in confidence. Linda looked at the screen acknowledgment and started talking again.
"OK, I admit I got turned on whipping David. He's cute, and he's appealing when he's vulnerable like that. Traumatic training is too extreme for me to really enjoy, though -- it's ghastly pain! Still, I had a bit of fun wiping the smirk off his face, and I set the punishment wand to a sex-surge of 40 so he'd get aroused between whipping rounds. I misled him when I said the whipping series would extinguish his sexual attraction to me. But there's nothing unprofessional about what I did! It's an acceptable variation to have him bind to me sexually during traumatic conditioning. It makes him feel more vulnerable and reduces the amount of pain he has to experience."
She hesitated again before continuing. "And if David were sent to me for reward-avoidance training, so I had more flexibility punishing him and got to mix in sexual contact, I'd be creaming every day during his session. As I said, there's nothing wrong with that if you control any urge to change things materially for your own enjoyment. David will be able to tell you're attracted to him, and enjoy carrying out his training. The treatment is all sex and punishment mixed together anyway, and if you enjoy it you'll develop a closer relationship than you could otherwise, which is ultimately good for him."
Linda clearly thought that was enough discussion of that topic, and she put up another screen showing brief outfits called 'punishment suits', shorts and tops I should make David wear when I punished him. Tops were for outdoors; he could wear just the shorts while he was in my apartment. The suits were of smart fabric, but not very expensive, so I ordered five of them.
"I need to make a few more calls to other time zones before I go to bed, Judy, but I can spend a little more time. Are there any other questions I can answer for you?"
"Yes," I said, flushing again. "I had an idea that I might be able to make a sensie recording of David the first time I punish him so I can record his embarrassment. You say he's very easily embarrassed. Then I thought I might be able to overlay those feelings on his normal emotions when I punished him later, so he'd always feel just as embarrassed about being punished as he was the first time. Do you think that could work?"
"Sure," Linda answered. "Good idea. Imposing emotions with sensie overlays is standard practice in some treatments. I use it myself occasionally. You just have to be careful to filter out any thoughts and sense perceptions from the recording, and make it interactive so it's appropriate for what's happening at the moment in later sessions. The tutorial monitor can't quite handle that, but the Hubba-2 can do it easily. Another advantage."
Linda brought up another purchase ad for a microbead sensie recorder, and suggested I put it on the crown of David's head -- it wouldn't come off by itself, and I could give him a compulsion not to notice it. It could record Davey in full sensie and play back embarrassment overlays simultaneously.
"Do you want to experience a sensie of David's reactions to the sessions yourself?" Linda asked.
I was surprised I hadn't thought of that! I'd played a few bootleg S&M sensies that had punishment sex, but of course never of somebody I knew -- a boy I was whipping myself! I'd be able to experience everything Davey felt and thought during the sessions if I recorded him!
"A lot of agents use sensie clips to get a personal idea of how effective their punishment is," Linda said, smiling. "You can even play the sensie as it's being recorded during David's session to know how he's reacting in real time, but you should stick to sensations and emotions at first or it will get confusing. You can learn to handle real-time thoughts with a little practice, but I'd avoid visuals entirely while he's there. And you have to turn the intensity way down for emotions and sensations when you're whipping him of course, or you won't be able to administer an effective punishment."
"God," I said, "I guess I need to get two of these recording microbeads."
I ordered them and got eight AM delivery again. Then Linda looked at her watch and said she needed to make her other calls. But she told me to call her any time I had questions and if she didn't answer her phone, she'd get back to me in a few hours. Then we signed off.
The next morning, I woke a little later than usual. By the time I'd eaten breakfast, all my equipment was delivered. The positioner had been Manufacted during the night, so I had a mechanical bring all the equipment to the Exercise room in my apartment, then started studying the positioner through its Help tree. It was pretty simple without optional peripherals, and Linda had told me the Hubba-2 would be the most effective peripheral.
The recording microbeads were simple -- I had the standard system in my apartment to record David's sensies and broadcast feelings of embarrassment, and all I had to do was have David wear one. He wouldn't notice it, so the trick I was using to increase his embarrassment would seem like magic as far as he was concerned!
Also, I'd decided to call him "David" from now on instead of "Davey", since formality like that was recommended in the tutorial, and I was sure Linda Fechtenbaum would never lessen her authority by using David's nickname.
Finally, I started to study the Hubba-2, and there were so many functions, I thought it would take me the whole day to explore them all. I tried to cover the major ones, and I lost myself Webbing on the Help tree. When I noticed the time, it was almost eleven. David was due in five minutes!
I began feeling stressed, since I hadn't really thought out what I was going to do with him in the first session. Then I realized I needed to ask David a lot of questions in Deep O-Mode first anyway, so I'd have plenty of time to think during that. He wasn't going to notice an extra half hour or so. All I had to remember when I met with him was to be forceful and not to let him get away with anything. I had to keep that in mind! I'd never liked the idea of hurting someone except in S&M games, but now I had to punish David to do my job, and it wasn't a game!
Then I laughed and realized I needed to loosen up! I wanted to enjoy my work, after all, not feel overawed by my responsibility, and it was actually supposed to be good for his training if he knew I got turned on punishing him. I put in my ear clip and throat clip and booted up the tutorial to monitor the session. Then I had a thought and told the tutorial to archive vid clips of what happened. I attached my microbead and arranged that the tutorial would record a sensie of me as well as David after he had his microbead on. Just as I finished my preparations I heard my private door chime!