Kristen tapped her ID card to the sensor on the side of the subject’s Bureau-issued chastity device.

The cage disconnected from its frame with a click, and the subject let out a tremulous breath of anticipation, as Kristen eased the tight wire restraint off of his already dripping cock, allowing the blood to flow in.

“Would you look at that?” Kristen sighed, crouching down with her hands on the man’s knees, to watch the appendage bob and stretch and stand up.

It took the man a moment to recognize the gentle command in her words. His head was tilted back, eyes closed, and when he lifted it to obey her, he forced his gaze onto his cock for only a moment, before looking past it to her face.

“Are you scared?” Kristen asked him. “Does looking at it make you want to touch it more?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kristen nodded as well. “I can’t blame you for that. Who wouldn’t feel that way? I’m a little tempted to touch it myself. I mean, look at it. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“I…” a fragile smile took hold on the man’s face. “I guess so, ma’am.”

“It’s like—”

A sharp double-tap on the steel table behind Kristen interrupted her musings on the pulsing bit of trapped magic awakening between the man’s legs.

Her shoulders pulled upward in annoyance, but she forced them back down, winched a smile onto her face, and turned to look up at her new mentor, Officer Brixton.

“Lean forward a little more,” he told her. “Let him think there’s a chance you’re going to suck it for him.”

Kristen managed with difficulty to keep her smile on, and her palm away from her face. “Yes, sir.”

She turned back toward the subject, adjusted her posture closer, and tried to find her way back to her moment.

The man kept glancing over her shoulder at Officer Brixton now, and his face was no longer soft enough to hold any expressions that might be called fragile. He was shifting in his seat, and Kristen was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the pressure in his balls. He seemed to be searching for the nonexistent angle that would camouflage his rounded belly.

She had just gotten him to relax and stop looking at the pile of his clothes as if he wanted them back.

“I don’t think you have to worry,” Kristen called the subject’s attention back to her, back to the general space between his legs. “You’re not going to touch yourself. You didn’t earn all those points by being impulsive. You have the strength. You have the discipline. And you know the cost of unauthorized stimulation. You’re not going to waste all your hard work and sacrifice now. No matter how long I make you stare at it, no matter how beautiful it is, you won’t—”

“Stop calling it beautiful,” Officer Brixton ordered. “Cocks can be either impressive or pathetic, but they can’t stop being ugly. No one’s going to believe you if you say otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.” Kristen managed not to speak completely through her teeth. She winked at the subject and mouthed, “beautiful,” her lips a matter of an inch away from the dripping head.

“And you need to blow on it,” said Officer Brixton.

“Yes, sir,” Kristen sighed, and did as she was told.

The subject didn’t respond to the jet of air she swept across his skin. He was too absorbed in glancing back and forth between her and Officer Brixton, preparing for a threat. His dripping had slowed to a crawl.

Kristen couldn’t blame him. There were few situations more awkward than being sworn to obey two people who couldn’t agree with each other.

“Are you sure you only want twenty thrusts into the sheath?” Kristen asked him.

Twenty probably would have been more than enough to make him cum when she’d first removed his cage, but with Officer Brixton still hovering, he’d probably be better off budgeting higher, in anticipation of distractions.

“Actually…” the subject hesitated. “Maybe I should—”

A light beep announced an authorized keycard being pressed to the visitor room door.

“Kristen. My office,” Commander Hawkins barked, sticking his head into the room.

The subject’s erection wilted in alarm.

Kristen wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or doubly annoyed. “Coming, sir!”

She stood up and smoothed out her short, white uniform.

“I’m not sure how long this will take,” she told the subject. “Would you like to wait?”

“No, thanks, I…” the subject stood up with her and reached for his own detached cage. “I was thinking maybe I should save up some more and come back another day.”

“Hey,” Officer Brixton sat up a little straighter in his chair to look at Commander Hawkins. “Kristen is my trainee, and she’s in the middle of—”

“I need her,” Commander Hawkins emphasized. “Now.”

“…the middle of session that I’m perfectly capable of completing myself,” Officer Brixton shifted gears, turning his focus to the subject.

When Kristen scurried out of the room to follow Commander Hawkins, the subject was still trying to lock his own cage back in place with the politest of excuses.

#

As the newly appointed head of the Bureau’s freshly beefed-up site security department, this was what Commander Hawkins seemed to spend most of his time doing: sticking his head in places security had no need to be, and yelling at what Kristen considered an entirely unnecessary volume.

He yelled at everyone. He yelled at his own security staff, who also yelled at each other, even when they seemed to be happy. He yelled at the pleasure control officers, and he yelled louder at the trainees. Sometimes he even yelled at the subjects when he barged in on their sessions.

Maybe today was the day, Kristen thought grimly, as she followed Commander Hawkins down the hallway, close at his heels the way he liked it. Maybe this was the day when her tenuous position here would finally fall apart.

In the week since the rebels had blown a hole in the cafeteria, Kristen had already been questioned five separate times, by four separate people.

Senior Officer Kitterage was the one who had taken two turns with her, one of them soft, one with a more urgent, desperate tenor.

The other three were a smiling woman in a business suit (who had offered Kristen coffee, but not her name), a random security guard (who had done a terrible job of pretending to be a rebel to test her reaction), and Officer Brixton (who had demanded to know why he should accept his assignment as her new mentor, knowing how Officer Deacon had ended up).

None of them had been willing to clarify for Kristen exactly how Officer Deacon had ended up. The last time Kristen had seen her former mentor, she had still been drugged and handcuffed to that cold steel chair, babbling about how she’d helped someone called Artemis breach the Bureau servers.

Kristen wanted to believe that Officer Deacon was still in the building somewhere, locked behind one of its thousands of key card doors, but so far, she felt as cut off from her as she would have been if she’d taken Zach’s offer, and run off with the rebels.

When questioned about the events of last week, Kristen’s answers were always the same.

She knew nothing but what she had been told. Nothing about the rebels calling their members home, nothing about the server breach, nothing about whether the two events were related. She missed Officer Deacon and her fellow trainees who remained unaccounted for, but she was loyal to the Bureau, above any individual within it.

She was not aware of having done anything wrong, but if she had, she would gratefully accept punishment and correction for the future.

The truth and lies in this story flowed effortlessly in and out of each other as Kristen repeated them. So far, in spite of the persistence of the questions, she had not seen any hard evidence that anyone disbelieved her. She had not been disciplined, removed from duty, or even strapped in for the kind of interrogation she’d helped put Officer Deacon through, with drugs and vibrators and anal electrodes.

It would not have surprised her at all, however, if Commander Hawkins were the one to change that.

Though Kristen had never interfered with him, she got the impression he already didn’t like her very much.

When he gestured her through the door of his new office — the largest one located within the visitor floors — she stepped in and stood with her hands clasped behind her back, bracing for the unpleasant flavor of adrenaline that she’d already come to associate with the grating boom of his voice.

In welcome but ominous silence, Commander Hawkins took his seat. His heavily muscled and more heavily armored upper body looked comically overequipped for the task of pushing a tablet across the desk at her.

“Sit down and take a look at that,” he said, voice almost appropriate for the small space. “I’ll wait.”

Doing her best to keep her hands steady, Kristen picked up the tablet and scrolled through the file on the screen. To her relief, it was not about her, Zach, Piper, or any of the others who had left in the bombing. To both her relief and disappointment, it was not about Officer Deacon either. At least, not directly.

“Rose Daimler,” Kristen summed up the file aloud. “Wife of our Director. Victim of the recent alleged data theft. Regular of Officer Deacon.”

“Former Officer Deacon,” Commander Hawkins corrected.

Even this was more information than Kristen had received before.

“But you’ve hit the problem on the head,” Commander Hawkins went on.

“Problem, sir?” Kristen asked.

The two of them were technically not in the same chain of command, but tossing in a “sir” felt safer than not.

“Mrs. Daimler is waiting in room twelve,” said Commander Hawkins. “She would be waiting in the waiting room, if she weren’t a Daimler, and she’s not happy about being expected to wait anywhere.”

“Oh!” Kristen understood. “And she… does she not know…?”

“She doesn’t know, and she isn’t going to know, anything about Ms. Leila Deacon, except that she’s unavailable, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kristen. “Would you like Officer Brixton and myself to–”

“You are Deacon’s closest and best performing protegee,” said Commander Hawkins. “I want you to take care of Mrs. Daimler.”

“I’d be honored,” Kristen said quickly. “But trainees are only supposed to work under an officer’s supervision.”

Kristen was already off to a shaky enough start shadowing Officer Brixton. She didn’t like to imagine how he’d take it, if she left him out of a potentially career-making session with Rose Daimler.

But as Commander Hawkins’ face was in the process of verifying for her, it really wasn’t up to her.

“Are you going to make this an issue?” Commander Hawkins asked.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Because we need you to come up with the best session strategy you’ve ever devised, and you’ve got about five more minutes left, before Mrs. Daimler starts threatening to call her husband.”

“Oh, is there something special she likes?” Kristen asked. “Something off the books?”

The notes in the file on Mrs. Daimler’s sexual habits were fairly commonplace.

“She likes what everyone likes,” said Commander Hawkins dismissively. “She likes to cum. Your job today is to talk her out of it.”

Kristen sat blinking for a moment. Was this the way it was going to happen? Was she being set up to fail, so that she could be punished or fired, without the trouble of tying her to any particular act of sedition?

“...Sir–”

“You talked a pent-up new husband into ruining his release,” said Commander Hawkins. “You turned a situation with a pain slut infiltrator into one of the Bureau’s most talked about service messages of the year. You inspired Nick Holland to make that tell-all series about his shitty childhood and life in the closet and all that. What was it called? Never mind. The one where he says he owes everything good about his relationship with sex to the Bureau. That one. You did that. Or are the records incorrect?”

“No,” said Kristen. “I mean, I did… I did at least most of those things. Nick came out?”

“If you can’t handle this assignment, I don’t know who can,” said Commander Hawkins, in a scolding tone that successfully kept it from sounding like a compliment. “And if no one can, then we’re all fucked.”

Kristen risked looking him in the eye, finding nothing but bluntness.

“Why?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t need to know why.”

Kristen laced her fingers together for strength.

“With respect, sir, you’re asking me to solve a problem without knowing what it is.”

“I told you. She wants Deacon to unlock her. Instead, she’s getting you to not unlock her. Your problem is making her accept that.”

“When I made that video with Piper,” said Kristen, “the one that apparently went over so well, I was told that my problem was to get her to denounce her own behavior, praise the Bureau, and make it convincing. If I’d accepted that as the whole problem, I’d still be in that room now, trying to brute force my way through impossible, instead of finding a way around it.”

“Are you saying this is impossible?” asked Commander Hawkins.

“I’m saying there’s a reason you want Mrs. Daimler to stay locked up, and what that reason is affects how I handle her. If you need her horny for something, then I probably shouldn’t hold her back by saying something gross and off-putting. If you’re trying to punish her for some reason, I shouldn’t try to show her such a good platonic time that she forgets all about what she came here for and leaves happy. You see what I mean? Sir?”

Commander Hawkins gave this some thought. He seemed to find the experience unpleasant.

“I need you to convince her not to make us unlock her…” he moistened his lips, “so that she doesn’t find out that we can’t.”

Kristen needed to swallow to loosen up her throat before asking, “Can’t, sir?”

“You leak this, you’ll spend the rest of your life sucking cocks in debt, you understand?” Commander Hawkins barked.

Kristen nodded seriously, the chains of her own device feeling particularly tight. How could the Bureau not be able to unlock a device if it was within the rules? Was she herself, even at this moment, trapped inside an unresponsive hunk of dead metal that no one had the power to release her from, no matter how hardworking and obedient she was? No. She’d just unlocked a subject, at least partway. She’d seen it work.

“Thanks to your former mentor,” Commander Hawkins said with a hard edge, “there’s still a worm in our system that no one seems to be able to get rid of. Someone outside the Bureau has locked down the devices of about a hundred of the highest-ranking wearers in the country. We can’t open any part of them.”

“The hundred highest ranking… and none of them know?”

“The IT nerds are working on it,” said Commander Hawkins. “The rest of us need to buy them time.”

Kristen nodded, pretending to be comforted.

“Okay,” she said. “Then I guess that’s what I’m doing.”

##

Artemis sank into her client’s jacuzzi and accepted the glass of champagne he offered her as if both luxuries belonged to her.

This was how Calvin always conducted in-person meetings. Not always in his jacuzzi specifically, but always in some setting that showed off both his muscles (which he clearly worked hard on) and his pleasure access (which he didn’t, though it was the far more impressive talking point of the two).

He liked his guests to wonder if they were complicit in some crime or other just by being there.

Artemis knew this was all supposed to be intimidating, and it was, even after how many times she’d been through it. But she’d learned that the only way to revoke his advantage was to treat everything he did as if it were commonplace, even a little beneath her, no matter what it was.

“The Bureau hasn’t agreed to a single policy change yet,” Calvin said as soon as they were settled, more sourly than anyone should have been able to say anything while drinking champagne in a jacuzzi.

Drinking champagne unlocked in a jacuzzi.

Calvin was completely nude, the shape of his floating cock obscured only by the bubbling distortion of the water’s surface. He leaned back against the edge of the tub, as if he were entirely unconcerned with the possibility of some passing spy drone noticing his escape.

“I said I’d get you access to everything, and I did.” said Artemis. “You have your freedom, and at this moment, you have almost every dick and pussy in the country under your lock and key whether they know it or not. If you still can’t get what you want, it’s really a you problem at that point.”

Calvin sipped his drink and gave his cock an idle stroke under the water, still with the same sour look on his face.

Artemis set her glass aside, and, in one purposeful move, straddled Calvin’s lap.

Just like when she’d entered the tub in the first place, Artemis took care not to question whether she belonged there. She dismissed all the nagging background thoughts about whether she was too big, too soft, too presumptuous, and pressed the metal plate of her chastity device against his cock, crowding out his hand.

“Speaking of freedom…” she started.

“No.”

“I’ll let you in, when you let me out,” Artemis whispered, rubbing the jacuzzi-warmed metal against him. “Even though I did all the work. Even though you already owe me so much more than the one little unlock command we agreed on—”

“No.”

“Come on, you know I don’t spend points on Bureau visits,” Artemis pushed.

“That’s not my problem.”

“Problem?” Artemis laughed softly. “Of course not. For you, it’s the opposite. Can you imagine how tight I am right now? And I’ll let you fuck me, just as a bonus. As a celebration.”

Calvin paused only a second and a half longer before his next “No.”

Artemis sighed, put her hands on his chest, and shoved herself off of him. “Fine,” she sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to let the Bureau know who and where you are, so they can come deal with you in person.”

Calvin caught her by the wrist and pulled her back down to his level.

“The evidence auto-sends if I don’t stop it,” Artemis told him as quickly as she could without spoiling her nonchalance. “Obviously. You didn’t think I’d leave myself with no leverage, did you?”

Calvin forced out a laugh that was probably supposed to sound shrewd and approving.

“We’ll celebrate when the Bureau caves, and we’re in business,” he said. “Not before.”

“But then?” Artemis insisted.

“But then,” Calvin pulled her back onto his lap, “You’ll get to live the rest of your life as a valued member of Privalock, Inc.”

“Call it whatever you want,” said Artemis. “Just so long as it means I get unlocked.”

“Of course,” Calvin promised, kissing her neck. “More often than you’ll know what to do with.”

“Often?” Artemis repeated sharply. “The deal was that I get out permanently.”

“But then, what would I have left to pay you with, the next time I need your skills?” Calvin teased. This time his laugh had feeling behind it. “You didn’t think I’d leave myself with no leverage, did you?”

Anger flared in Artemis’s chest, hotter than the water outside her.

“The Bureau couldn’t own me,” she said, with a transparent icy sheen. “I didn’t let them. What makes you think you—”

“Because they don’t know you, and I do,” Calvin answered impatiently, tightly grabbing her hand. “You don’t get off on officers watching and telling you what to do? Fine. I’ll give you the privacy you love so much. Hate being graded on self-restraint? I’ll pay you for work you’re actually good at. You want more men? Women? Liquor? A beach to lie on? We’ll work it out.”

He pushed her hand down between them, brushing her knuckles against the unyielding outside of her own device. His cock found her palm, and he wrapped her fingers around it.

“I’m going to own you the old-fashioned way,” he whispered. “By being the best option you have. Just good enough that you’ll never be able to hurt me without shooting yourself in the foot. And no matter how much you wish you were stupid enough to do it anyway, you’re not.”

He dragged her hand up and down his length like a toy.

Artemis conjured up a few fanciful hypotheses of what might happen if she suddenly decided to squeeze him as hard as she could.

She did not test them. Not today.

“You’re going to be happy,” Calvin promised. “Mostly. Assuming this pans out. But one thing’s never going to change between us. When I tell you to do something, you’re going to do it.”

He removed his hand from hers.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

#

Kristen smiled sweetly as she entered the VIP visitor room, tablet tucked securely in the crook of her arm.

“Mrs. Daimler, so sorry to keep you waiting.”

It felt strange to apologize to a subject, especially for something as trivial as the start time. In almost every session Kristen had been a part of, the subjects were either submissive and grateful for their pleasure, or they were there to be disciplined. She had only been present for one VIP session, and that was as a skin girl, whose only purpose was to be used.

Conducting a VIP session as an officer, even a trainee officer, was a completely different task. And somehow, she was supposed to figure out how to do it alone.

She wasn’t even sure if she was supposed to be exuding authority or deference.

“It would have been nice to be informed of how far behind you were,” Rose said imperiously, tossing her silver-tinged blonde curls over her shoulder. “I’m going to miss my meditation club. And where’s Leila? I always see Leila.”

“Leila’s unavailable at the moment,” said Kristen. “But I’ve been training under her. I’d be honored to take care of you today.”

Rose raked an appraising gaze over Kristen, starting from the floor and working her way up to her face.

Kristen stood still and took the opportunity to take in the sight of Rose in return.

She was at least twice Kristen’s age, probably older, given the slower, more controlled way people of Rose’s status tended to show their years. Kristen had scrolled past her actual birth year in the file. She had a powerful jaw, and the lines of her mouth and eyes said that she had spent her life holding tightly to each of her smiles before portioning them out.

Her dark green skirt suit was ironed with the same precision as her hair, with every crease intentional and exactly where it was meant to be.

After a long moment, Rose nodded to the armchair across from her own.

Kristen sat down, doing her usual best to resist being awed by the luxury of a VIP space, compared with the starkness of the standard visitor rooms.

“I don’t undress for strangers,” Rose warned. “It took my family physician three years of brunches to talk me into an exam.”

“I completely understand,” said Kristen. “I was hoping we’d have a chance to get to know each other.”

The longer Rose asked to stay dressed and locked, the less evasive Kristen would have to be.

“So, what do you do for fun?” Kristen asked. “Other than this?”

“No small talk,” Rose stopped her.

“Oh,” said Kristen. “I thought you wanted—”

“It’s not necessary,” said Rose. “I’m an excellent judge of character.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Kristen. “Especially if you usually take three years to pass your judgment.”

“It doesn’t have to take that long for you.”

“That’s a relief.”

“You’ll just have to do something I couldn’t ask of my doctor.”

“What’s that?” asked Kristen.

Rose doled out an especially tight smile. “You’ll have to strip down and let me play with you. I find I can see more of what a person is like from on top, than from under their care.”

Kristen compulsively lifted her skirt to check the point counter on the side of her device.

“You can afford it,” Rose succinctly appraised her total, before Kristen could roll her skirt back into place. “Consider it an investment in my confidence. You might become my automatic backup for the next time Leila is indisposed.”

The sound of that name crushed Kristen’s reservations. She wasn’t certain that what she was doing would help Officer— Leila Deacon, but if the Daimlers didn’t know yet that she had helped break into their systems, or that the breach had caused consequences that were still lingering now, Kristen wasn’t going to be the reason they found out.

“Okay,” she said. “Would you like me to bring in someone to—”

“At your rank, I can do it here,” said Rose.

She pulled a tablet from her purse, and with a glance at Kristen’s ID tag and a few taps of the screen, the chains of Kristen’s device released around her.

Relief that an unlocking was still possible for her warred against Kristen’s self-restraint. She had to listen to her own advice to her last subject and think of the penalties, in order to keep her fingers from flying to her suddenly available clit.

“Lie on the bed. After you take your shoes off, obviously,” said Rose, standing and pulling back the covers on the VIP room’s generously-sized canopy bed. She waited with faint, decorous impatience for Kristen to do as she was told.

Unsteadily, Kristen stood up, set aside her opened device and shoes, and climbed onto the mattress. She lay down by slow measures, simultaneously savoring and resisting the smoothness of the high thread count sheets against her skin. Even with her short uniform still on, it felt too good, too much, to have pressed against such large areas of her body at once.

Rose strode over to the room’s shelves of unguarded implements as easily as if she owned them personally, and picked out two: a small, unassuming-looking wooden paddle, and one that looked like a bouquet of black feathers.

Duster 1, Kristen matched the correct name to the second implement, watching Rose twirl it in her hands. Called a duster because it was originally designed for removing dust from hard surfaces. It was never as good for that purpose as it is for safely stoking arousal.

Somehow, regurgitating facts from class to herself made her position feel more manageable.

“How long has it been since you last had a session for yourself?” Rose asked, brushing the duster slowly up from Kristen’s left ankle to her knee.

Each feather caressed her like a loving fingertip and itched like the footsteps of an insect at the same time.

“About a week,” Kristen answered.

With Zach gone, the truth and the answer on record were the same. Kristen had rushed herself through an uninspired orgasm, under the supervision of an officer she didn’t know, the day after Officer Deacon’s interrogation. It would have looked suspicious not to spend some points on herself, now that she was finally eligible to do so again.

Since then, she had tried to ignore her points, her device, and the typical restless stirrings of feeling beneath it.

“You’re already so reactive,” said Rose, rolling the skirt of Kristen’s uniform up to her waist as efficiently as if she were moving a piece of furniture out of the way. The duster continued on its path up to the crease of Kristen’s hip and then stopped, starting again from the other ankle. Kristen’s clit throbbed for attention, summoning a synchronized flood of moisture inside her. She had no doubt Rose could smell the tang of it.

“It’s all you,” Kristen breathed.

“Is it really?” Rose asked dubiously.

“And your choice of tools,” Kristen admitted. “And a Pavlovian response to the feeling of being unlocked at all. And that week. A week isn’t nothing. But a lot of it is you.”

“That’s nice, dear,” said Rose.

The second time Rose reached Kristen’s hips, she gave the duster a little flutter right over her pussy.

“Very reactive,” she said, almost scolding. “You’re going to give me hardly any room to play at all before you go and finish, aren’t you?”

“I’ll do my best,” Kristen answered through shallow breaths, aware of how weak a promise this was. “If you stick to the feathers, I doubt they’ll be enough to set me off, no matter how worked up I get.”

“But what if I want to do this?” Rose asked placing the tip of one index finger right on top of Kristen’s clit.

Kristen gasped at the sudden, irresistible pressure. There was no hope of her answering the question intelligently, none at all.

Rose dragged that pressure firmly around in a tight circle. Kristen could not restrain herself from moaning out loud.

A second circle began, and Kristen knew full well that she would reach the point of no return by the time Rose’s finger made it back to its starting position.

Rose must have known too. She stopped at a semi-circle and withdrew her hand.

“Don’t worry,” she said, in a tone as firm yet pleasant as her touch. “I know just what you need.”

She set aside the duster and held the narrow paddle over Kristen’s wet, ready sex.

Kristen scrabbled her fingers against the soft sheets below her until she’d gathered enough material to clutch in her hands, then turned her head to the side and closed her eyes in preparation.

Rose stroked her leg comfortingly with her bare hand. “Be brave,” she said. “Here, feel how nice and light and smooth it is.” She rested the polished wooden paddle on Kristen’s thigh. “It won’t do your soft little pussy any harm. Just teach it some manners. Don’t you want it to settle down and be patient?”

There was only one correct answer.

Nervously, Kristen nodded.

She’d had her pussy paddled a few times in class, but only to learn how the implement felt, and never while she was this aroused.

“Keep your knees wide,” Rose warned, picking the paddle back up. “We don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Kristen obeyed, pressing the soles of her feet down into the mattress to keep her legs from pulling reflexively inward.

Rose stood beside her, stroking her hair affectionately. She didn’t stop when she brought the paddle down in a hard, sharp, slap.

Kristen trapped a scream in the back of her throat, turning it into what could only be described as a whine.

“That’s it, be still, just like that.” Rose’s fingers continued twirling softly in Kristen’s hair, while her paddle hand mercilessly carried on its work.

After each slap, Rose dragged the paddle off of her rather than lifting it, giving Kristen perhaps a second of light, smooth friction before the next slap.

Her nerves were a jangle of fire and confusion. Her outer layers of skin stung pitifully, but the deeper organs refused to be beaten down so easily. They reached toward the stimulation, however rough, and tried to make do with it, turn it into what pleasure they could.

There were sensations, in the middle of hard slaps and bursts of pain, that felt almost like orgasmic contractions, but only one or two at a time, with no cohesive rhythm.

Without warning, Rose stopped and lifted the paddle away, replacing it with a light, evaluating brush of her fingers along Kristen’s inner labia.

“Hmm,” she considered. “Spread your lips for me.”

Another whine bubbled up from the back of Kristen’s throat as she rushed to obey before she could think too much about it.

Kristen lay her index fingers lengthwise along each of her outer lips, pressed down for traction, and pulled them gently apart, shivering with exposure and anticipation.

The paddle impacted wetly on her splayed pussy, bruising the knuckles of her index fingers, reaching every millimeter of skin that had managed to hide until this moment. Standing out desperately in front, protected by nothing but its thin hood, her clit took the worst of the impact. It spasmed and flared with pleasure-laced pain so sharp that her vision flashed white.

Kristen flinched instinctively away from the next hint of contact, but it was only Rose’s hand, pressed flat over her whole pussy, as if to protect it from the paddle she had set down on the floor.

“Shh,” Rose soothed Kristen’s remaining, involuntary moans. “Shh. It’s okay. There, isn’t that better?”

She rubbed one finger purposefully from one side of Kristen’s clit to the other.

The little bud of nerves responded with a shy, tentative throb.

Kristen was unsure of the proper terms for what the paddling had done to her, but she had to admit that the end result seemed to be as intended.

She was neither sated, as she would have been after a good orgasm, nor frustrated, as she would have been after a ruined one. She didn’t feel bottled up and ready to go the way she did fresh out of the belt, but she was still horny, horny for a long, slow, gentle buildup, full of care for the tenderness of her folds.

This was exactly what Rose seemed to have in mind next.

She picked the duster back up and brushed the feather tips patiently back and forth over Kristen’s pussy, reacclimating it slowly to pleasant touch.

After several long, relaxing minutes, she switched the duster for one of the soft, silicone wands, intended for stimulation inside a device. She rubbed it back and forth over Kristen’s clit, lightly, until Kristen sensed the edge coming and arched her back to increase the pressure, just a little.

As soon as Kristen moved, Rose lifted the wand away and leaned in closer to look her in the eyes.

“Now, do you still want to prove yourself qualified to administer my pleasure?” Rose asked. “Or would you rather have a proper orgasm before I lock you back up?”

Kristen fought through the fog to do the math on the question in front of her.

Showing off her capacity for self-denial was usually the right answer in situations like this. But then, she was supposed to be avoiding Rose’s pleasure today.

This couldn’t possibly be the out she was looking for, could it?

“If I say I need to cum,” Kristen asked, “what then?”

“Then I’ll supervise while you see to your needs — bare hands only, of course, no toys. And when you’re finished, I’ll make sure you’re secure, and then go find one of your superiors and request a different substitute officer for myself. I’ll tell them that you tried your best, but that I really do insist on entrusting myself only to the most selfless and disciplined professionals.”

The thought of that conversation taking place stuck like a splinter in Kristen’s throat. She had a feeling it would have felt the same, even if Commander Hawkins had not emphasized the importance of her finding a way to make this work.

“Don’t take it too hard.” Rose patted her thigh. “You’re still very young and inexperienced. It’s understandable.”

“Lock me up,” Kristen forced the words out.

“What was that, dear? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Lock me up,” Kristen repeated firmly. “Please.”

“Are you certain?” Rose asked with mischievous concern. “We’ve run through most of your point supply keeping you fully unlocked so long. If you don’t use this chance, you’ll be saving up again nearly from scratch.”

“I’ve worked my way back from worse,” said Kristen. “This session is for you.”

“Well, if you insist….”

Rose collected Kristen’s device for her and fitted it precisely over her pussy. There had been time for her body heat to dissipate from the device, and the coolness of the metal outline against Kristen’s skin sent jabs of confused sensation shooting along her nerves. She could feel herself dripping an extra mournful wave of moisture as the chains tightened automatically to the perfect, inescapable length.

#

Zach didn’t think he’d ever cum so much in a single week before.

Most rebel operatives went through a recovery period of wild hedonism when they returned from an undercover mission that required them to submit to Bureau control some or all of the time. It was a normal part of the process that usually passed without incident in a few days. With so many operatives recalled at once, however, most of the abandoned mall they were currently using for a base had been overtaken with a seemingly self-perpetuating orgy.

Participation ebbed and flowed as people paused for food and rest, but there were always at least a few people fucking over the edge of one of the old store counters, coaxing friends who passed by to rejoin the fun.

Zach was currently lying on his back on the thin carpet of what had once been a furniture store, with Amber, one of the former trainees they’d liberated in the Bureau jailbreak, bouncing frantically up and down on his cock in search of her third orgasm there.

He couldn’t fault her for her appetite. Unlike him and the others who’d gone in as rebels in the first place, she’d spent her time at the Bureau completely deprived.

Zach had already been pretty drained for the day by the time she’d gotten started on him, so he was in no danger of finishing again any time soon. He only hoped she’d be satisfied before his friction burns got bad enough to make him tap out.

While Amber rode him, Zach was also offering what help he could to Piper and Jason.

Jason was another of the more excitable newbies, and Piper was busy pegging him with a makeshift strap-on she’d fashioned from a shampoo bottle and a dog leash. Jason was taking it in a crouching position while hovering over Zach, so that Zach could lick a fresh coating of honey off of his cock as it passed by his mouth with each of Piper’s thrusts. Piper was so vigorous, however, that the two of them migrated unpredictably around the floor, and Zach’s tongue couldn’t always reach where it was needed.

His hands were sticky from reaching out to keep the pleasure going at a distance.

Throughout his stay at the Bureau, Zach had daydreamed more times than he could count about spending a day just like this.

(Well, almost like this. If this were one of his dreams, Kristen would have been involved in some way or another.)

During that time, it had been hard to believe he would ever feel again what it was like to have had enough.

Today, though, when Carmen knocked on the storefront window to signal that it was time to find a break in the fun, Zach was glad.

In fact, the exact words that went through his head were, “Finally, some excitement.”

Ten minutes later, Zach, Piper, Amber, and Jason were gathered in the mall’s former food court, along with the rest of the local rebel cell. They weren’t the only ones still sticky and wrapped in robes, towels, and whatever else had been handy.

Carmen stepped forward and stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for quiet.

For the first time since Zach had come home, Carmen looked the way he was used to seeing her. Instead of exhaustion and frustration from their ruined infiltration plan, her face sparkled once more with determination. She had found a clean outfit for the occasion, a shiny, skintight blouse and pants, which showed off her generous hourglass curves, and the absence of chains around them.

The sight of her released an aching knot in Zach’s chest. It was as if the whole cell had spent the last week being babysat by this woman’s meek, cowed doppelganger. But now, she was finally back.

Their leader was back.

Once the room had fallen easily silent, Carmen raised her hand to the crowd.

“I hope you’ve all had a restful homecoming.”

There were laughs and a few affirmative replies.

“Are we getting back to work?” Zach asked.

Carmen smiled at his enthusiasm.

“The world is about to change,” she announced. “Not quite in the way we’d originally planned, but we’re tough, we’re adaptable, and our work will be the determining factor in whether that change turns out for the better, or the worse. There will be uncertainty. There will be risk. There will also be opportunities to make more progress than we have in a generation. I will be leaning on all of you hard in the coming weeks and months.”

“Shit yeah!” Piper shouted from behind Zach. “When do we start?”

#

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Rose nodded expectantly at Kristen’s tablet. “I’ll have three rounds today, please, with suction and penetrative vibration.”

This was it. This was the point where Kristen had to work a miracle, or not.

“What time is it?” Kristen asked, rolling onto her side, pressing her thighs together for comfort and grounding.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t keep you unlocked long enough to go into debt,” said Rose.

“No, really, what time of day?” Kristen asked.

Rose checked her own tablet. “A little after three,” she answered. “Why?”

“I was just thinking,” Kristen took her shot. “Your husband usually does a late half day in his office on Mondays. Do you think he’d like to come downstairs for a quick break and join us?”

Rose let out a short, sharp, telling snort of air.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think so.”

“I’m sorry,” Kristen lied. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore subject.”

“Not at all,” Rose lied back, shaking a sudden stiffness only partway out of her shoulders. “It was a kind suggestion. But no, I’m sure he wouldn’t be able to get away.”

Kristen let the silence hang for a few seconds.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” she broke it gently, “it always seemed like a conflict of interest to me. You, having to live under the control of the Bureau your husband manages.”

Rose narrowed her eyes in preparation to repeat an especially well-worn lie. “We all have to live under the control of the Bureau.”

“Of course,” Kristen acknowledged quickly. “Only, for the rest of us, it’s impartial. For you… don’t you find yourself thinking about your point supply when you disagree with Director Daimler at home? Do you ever worry that it holds you back from standing up for yourself when you need to?”

“Never!” said Rose. “My husband has always been more than generous.” Her eyes widened for a split second, recognizing what she’d just said. “I don’t mean to say that he plays favorites, of course. I have to earn my points through hard work and discipline just like anyone else, but he… he always takes care….”

The two points she clearly wanted to make came to blows with each other on their way to her mouth.

“I completely understand,” said Kristen, putting her hand on top of Rose’s. “I’m sure he does whatever he can to take care of the people he loves, just like any warm-blooded human being. Especially one who can’t afford to spend much time with them.”

Something tightened in the general area of Rose’s tear ducts. Kristen would not have been able to tell had she not been sitting so close.

“What would you know about how my husband spends his time?” asked Rose.

“Only what I can read in your files,” said Kristen. “I know that when you spend points, it’s almost never together.”

Rose shook her head, tossing her hair out of the way again, as if the subject were attached to it.

“It happens when you get older,” she said. “People get complacent, they grow apart.”

“Yeah.” Kristen nodded reassuringly. “Sometimes.”

“What do you think you’d do in my position?” Rose demanded, instantly defensive. “Chase after him, begging for attention like a puppy? As if everything else I do for him isn’t enough to prove that I’m still invested in us?”

“No, of course not,” said Kristen. She drummed her fingers on her chin in thought. “Have you ever considered officer training?”

Rose arched one of her narrow, penciled-in eyebrows and laughed. It was an airy, controlled, intentional sound.

“I don’t mean working as an officer, obviously,” Kristen giggled along as if her own dream job were absurdly far beneath this woman. “But the training does teach us certain skills that can be applied in other ways. I’ve noticed quite a few people lately, mostly successful women in long, stale marriages, coming to the Bureau for more than just temporary release. They come to learn how to command in their lives the way officers do in the visitor room.”

This was a lie too. There was no such trend, as far as Kristen knew, and the flicker of interest that crossed Rose’s face prompted a matching flicker of guilt in Kristen’s stomach.

Kristen wasn’t sure exactly when she’d started feeling sorry for Rose Daimler.

What must it be like to get VIP pleasure on demand just because of your marriage — to someone who never wanted to be there to share it with you?

Under those circumstances, Kristen thought she’d probably be just as defensive as Rose was, just as uptight, just as hungry for a scrap of power that didn’t involve asking, do you know who my husband is?

Rose wasn’t hungry enough to cancel out her skepticism, however.

“Officers have the ability to command because they’re empowered with control over pleasure access,” she said.

“Yes,” said Kristen. “And no. There’s so much more to it than that. And you’d be a natural, if you’re interested. It’s not something you can take up casually, though. The first lesson is pretty intense.”

“And that would be?” Rose prompted, with the hint of bravado Kristen had been hoping to draw out.

“Deprivation,” Kristen answered. “Three whole months. You shouldn’t feel bad if it’s too much.”

Rose laughed out loud. “I’m supposed to get my husband’s attention by denying myself? And here I thought you might actually be onto something. The trainee deprivation period is a glorified hazing! Its only purpose is to make sure you’re committed enough to serving.”

“No,” said Kristen. “That’s what I thought at first too, but no. It teaches you things.”

“Oh yes, like empathy?” Rose derisively parroted the Bureau handbook.

“Yes, like empathy,” Kristen confirmed humorlessly. “Which is exactly what you need.”

Rose’s jaw dropped ever so slightly open.

“You think I don’t have enough empathy for my husband?” she scoffed. “He’s the one who—”

“You can’t rewire a circuit without understanding why it works the way it is,” said Kristen. “If you try, you’ll just end up poking live wires in the dark. It’s the same with people. Getting in someone’s head to comfort them, getting in their head to influence or even control them — good, bad or neutral, it all starts with the same skill. And believe me, the deprivation period puts fucking training wheels on that skill. When you can’t make yourself feel, chances to make other people feel stand out like neon. And best of all, when your turn to receive finally does come back around, you might even find you don’t have the patience to bullshit about it anymore.”

“What do you mean ‘bullshit about it’?” Rose asked, unable to take her eyes off of Kristen.

“My husband’s always been more than generous,” Kristen mimicked. “No, I don’t think he’ll be able to get away. Can you imagine being so desperate that you can’t say okay when he asks how you are anymore? Can you imagine him asking you what he can do to make you happy, and instead of saying nothing and rolling your eyes at him for not knowing, you tell him, in explicit detail, exactly what you want him to do?”

Rose let out a sadder sharp breath. “And if he still doesn’t want to?”

“Then you come here to me,” said Kristen, “And say, ‘I’d like to fuck myself into a stupor, please, while I contemplate whether my marriage is over, or whether it was a sham to begin with.’ Even that’s going to feel better than the bullshit, don’t you think?”

Rose smiled grimly.

“I do hope you have some curriculum planned for this arduous three months,” she said. “Something a little more engaging than sitting back and waiting for me to go mad?”

Kristen grinned back at her. “Oh, yes. Have you ever heard of the motivation z—”

The door to the VIP room beeped and slammed open.

“Oh my god, Commander, it’s called knocking!” Kristen snapped.

She’d smooth things over later with a successful session report.

That might have worked, only it wasn’t Commander Hawkins in the doorway.

“He had no right to do this to you, Kristen,” said Officer Brixton, re-slamming the door behind him. “You’re a trainee, for fuck’s sake.”

He stepped dramatically between Kristen and Rose.

“Mrs. Daimler, it is not my trainee’s fault—”

“Wait—” Kristen started, barely audibly, through a panic-tightened throat.

“—that the unlocking function is temporarily unavailable.”

#

Kristen didn’t get to witness the full extent of Rose’s response to this outrage.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Officer Brixton told her. “We’re in the process of finding a resolution to this situation that doesn’t involve negotiating with terrorists—”

“I don’t give a fuck who you have to negotiate with!” Rose shouted. “You will open this lock now.”

That was about as far as the conversation went before Rose called her husband, and Officer Brixton called for backup. Within seconds, security guards from Commander Hawkins’ new department arrived to take Kristen by the arms and escort her firmly back to the trainee barracks.

They tossed her onto one of the bunks at random and marched out.

Once they were gone, Kristen relocated herself to her own bunk and waited uneasily, as the rest of the trainees were herded back into the empty barracks around her, one and two and three at a time.

Kristen shrugged off all their questions. She doubted any of their superiors would take kindly to her repeating what she knew. Plus, she was getting very good at shrugging off questions, so good that it was almost a habit.

Hours passed. The curiosity and nerves of the other trainees gave way to boredom and restlessness.

Cara complained that she was missing a piercing session that she was supposed to be assisting with.

Most of the rest took the opportunity to catch up on sleep, study for class, or curl up with their personal tablets to watch movies or other recreational feeds.

Kristen only lay in bed, rigid with vague anticipation, listening the snippets of conversations and TV shows, until the moment when every sound on every tablet abruptly gave way to a single, affably authoritative voice.

This is a public service announcement from Privalock, Inc.

“What the hell?” multiple trainees responded aloud to the interruption to their feeds.

“What is this?”

Trainees got up from their bunks and gathered in the aisles between them to watch over the shoulder of the nearest person with an open feed.

Kristen followed suit, leaning in between Cara and Will for a better view.

The voice on the tablets continued in near-perfect unison across the speakers.

At Privalock, we know you have a choice of pleasure management services. The question is, did you know that? It’s true! Starting today, Privalock points are now legally interchangeable with Bureau points for all third-party transactions. And, when you switch to Privalock, you trade in harsh Bureau visitor conditions for our new, members-only club and spa facilities, where you can enjoy your well-earned indulgences in comfort and privacy. We also make it easy to port your existing chastity device onto our network, or choose from our own line of cutting-edge comfort models. Ask about how you can earn two percent rewards on saved points. That’s right, rewards! We believe there’s more to life than discipline and denial. Privalock is here to provide gentle structure and balance, so that you can meet your goals and enjoy your life to the fullest.

Because we’re not just a chastity service. We’re a pleasure company.

We know what you’re thinking. It can’t be that simple. There must be some catch, some qualification I don’t meet. There’s no way a private company can really liberate me from Bureau monitoring. We understand your doubts, and we mean to put them to rest. In…

3

The voice stopped abruptly, replaced by a three that filled the entire screen.

2

No one in the room seemed to be breathing.

1…

Click.

The click was not on the TV, but in the room, and in surround sound. It took a moment for Kristen to realize that it was actually dozens of clicks, so closely synchronized that it was impossible to separate them all by ear.

The chains that held her device in place went slack under her tunic, then retracted away, letting the pelvic plate fall to the ground with a clang.

A chorus of similar clangs followed around her.

***

Thanks for reading! If you had a good time, show me some love with your follows, favorites, and/or comments, and let me know if you want more Bureau of Pleasure Control!

As promised, a plot summary of Artemis scene: We meet Calvin, the client who hired Artemis to compromise the Bureau’s servers to blackmail them into allowing his new company, Privalock, to exist. He originally promised her total freedom in return, but is now reneging and only promising her a freer life under the control of his company instead of the Bureau. He points out that he’s still her best option and makes her give him a handjob while she’s still locked up.