Girlish giggles filled the room as Hargraves adjusted the settings on the Monitor console.

"It feels like you've brought me up to see your etchings," Suzie Masefield observed.

"I take my work very seriously, Miss Masefield," Jack replied, with a biofeedback sensor in each hand. "If you believe this to be some kind of deception, perhaps we should call it off."

"Oh, no, I'm only kidding, Jack."

"I suppose you might be nervous and trying to hide it behind a joke," Hargraves suggested.

"Exactly," Suzie agreed.

"There's no need to be nervous," Hargraves assured her soothingly. "The Acquiescence Regulation Monitor doesn't hurt a bit. It merely quantifies the degree to which you accept statements made to you.

"As I said earlier, once the ARM has proven itself, it will represent a huge step forward in the scientific execution of opinion polls and focus groups. Your assistance here will be helping to advance scientific progress."

"I still don't understand," Suzie confessed. "I thought that asking the right questions was all it took produce accurate results?"

"Yes, but you see, sometimes people lie?"

"They do? Whatever for?" Suzie's eyes were as wide as saucers. "If some stranger asks for my opinion, what possible reason would I have for lying?"

"Perhaps your true opinion isn't politically correct, or you may be trying to affect the result for some ulterior motive. ARM compensates for all those influences, identifies your actual opinion, and at what intensity you holds it."

"Oh."

"The encephalographic pickups go here, at your temples, held in place by this headband," Hargraves instructed, minutely adjusting the dull metal discs, "while the heart rate sensor simply clips over the end of your finger.

"There. All hooked up!" Hargraves proclaimed, "Are you ready to begin?"

"What does your machine say?"

"Hmm, that you're slightly reluctant."

"Does it say why?"

"Not unless I ask you a whole battery of probing questions."

"Don't bother, I'm just afraid you may find out stuff like who I had a crush on in high school, or that you might make me cluck like a chicken every time somebody asks me to dance."

"Never fear," Hargraves chuckled, "this isn't some parlour trick with hypnotism. And, I should have to know all the people with whom you went to high school, then work my way through their names before I could identify upon the correct person."

"You promise, no clucking?"

"I promise. The reason I need to test the ARM is that some people are more suggestible than others," Hargraves explained.

"Suggestible?"

"Yes, For example, if I told you that there are no alien artifacts at Area 51, you would probably say you believed me. With the ARM, I just might discover that at some level you still harbour suspicions to the opposite.

"I must learn to calibrate the ARM's selectivity. That's the reason behind all this testing."

"All right then," Suzie consented. "Calibrate."

"Good! Here we go," Hargraves advised, throwing the main switch.

There was no hum, no electricity arced between contacts, no meters trembled, nor did Suzie suddenly experience any inhuman presence lurking within her brain.

One tiny red LED labelled "On" lit up. That was all.

"Nothing so far," Suzie declared, which, after Hargraves had checked his machine's readout, he knew to be an honest evaluation.

"Do you believe that the Acquiescence Regulation Monitor works as I explained?"

"Sure, so far as you went. Why not?" Suzie replied, adding truthfully. "I don't think you've told me everything about it. I mean, there's probably a whole lot of technical stuff that I'd never understand anyway, so why bother?"

Perhaps Suzie's answer was a trifle complex for a machine to parse, but the ARM accepted it as simple truthfulness.

"First a series of very personal questions," Jack warned. "Are you a virgin?"

"No," Suzie answered and the ARM confirmed.

"Are you promiscuous?"

"No," Suzie avowed. The ARM was less decided.

"Do you enjoy sexual intimacy?"

"I suppose," Suzie asserted hesitantly. The ARM was emphatic.

"Have you ever made love against your will?"

"Never!" Suzie was adamant. The ARM agreed.

"Would you like to make love, against your will?"

"No!" Suzie was certain. The ARM was certain.

"You will not have to make love to me against your will." Hargraves assured Suzie, "because you will soon wish to make love to me."

Hargraves flicked a switch. The light above "Monitoring" went off, while the one above "Inductor" came on.

"I did not explain one thing," Hargraves confessed. "As its name suggests, the "Acquiescence Regulation Monitor" can regulate as well as monitor a subject's acquiescence to what they are told."

No more than a tightening about her eyes betrayed the fact that Suzie had heard him.

"Are you attracted to me?" Jack probed

"No. Not especially."

"That is about to change," Hargraves turned a knob labelled "Inductance" from "0" to "1."

"You now find me so attractive that you wish to have sex with me," Jack commanded.

A crows foot appeared at the corners of Suzie's eyes.

"Now do you find me attractive?"

"You are very attractive," Suzie began, "but you'd look sexier if you didn't dress like a wuss."

The ARM verified that Suzie had spoken truthfully.

Hargraves turned the knob labelled "Inductance" from "1" to "2."

"I am attractive, don't you think?" Hargraves demanded.

"Very attractive, I just wish you would dressed better."

This time Hargraves adjusted the "Inductance" knob from "2" to "4."

"I am attractive, don't you think?" Hargraves repeated.

"Very, very attractive," Suzie agreed, a frown wrinkling her forehead. "If only you would change your clothes."

With an exasperated grunt, Hargraves twisted the knob from "4" to "6."

"I am very attractive! Right?"

"Yes. Take off your clothes."

Hargraves made one final adjustment, turning the knob measuring "Inductance" to nearly its highest increment, labelled "9."

"I will enjoy fucking you," Jack advised.

"Yes," Suzie agreed, her eyes wide, a second furrow joining the first rumpling her brow. "That's what all the guys say."

"Do you like fellatio?"

"Oh! I adore sucking dick!" Suzie enthused.

Hargraves stood, dropped his pants, and reseated himself.

"Show me that you like to suck dick."

"I shall."

Suzie knelt at Hargraves' feet, gently grasping his penis within her curled fingers, while her thumb travelled along its underside, encouraging it to grow.

"You have never seen a dick like that before," Hargraves informed Suzie.

"Never!" Suzie decisively affirmed. She moved her head as though trying to ease a crick in her neck, then added, "I wish it were longer."

"Never mind that!" Hargraves snapped. "That is the most desirable dick you've ever seen. You want to suck it. You have to suck it. You will suck it as you've never sucked dick before. You won't be satisfied until you have sucked up every last drop of cum. Do

you understand?"

"Umur-hurrh!" Suzie agreed, Jack's dick already in her mouth.

At first, Hargraves flinched from the vigour with which his penis was being manipulated. Suzie's lips had clamped about his head with shocking gusto. Her mouth vacuumed him inside, as though he were no more than a strand of spaghetti. Next, she was busy employing his flaccid member as though it had no volition of its own.

One second Hargraves' penis was compressed forward as if Suzie intended to spit it out like a peach pit. Next, the woman's tongue circled rapidly around his pliant digit, until he feared she would wrap him into a permanent curl. Then, Suzie appeared determined to inhale his dick whole, drawing the member as far down her throat, as it could reach.

Needless to report, very little of this sort of abuse was needed before Jack's penis became inflamed, and rigidly tumescent. His shaft grew as long and hard as nature permitted, becoming painfully distended from internal pressure and aching with desire.

As her lips formed a tiny "O," Suzie moved her head backward and forward along Hargraves' distended organ.

Against tremendous suction, Hargraves' member was withdrawn, stretching slowly until it nearly had been withdrawn from Suzie's mouth. She then slurped him back inside.

To an objective observer had there been one Suzie's ministration appeared not unlike an anxious Robin attempting to pry a reluctant worm free from its earthen home.

One second the purple head throbbed between Suzie's lips, while sharp white incisors skated about its sensitive surface. Before Hargraves could remove his dick from such a harrowing process, Suzie's tongue began to glide over the darkly pulsing head, explore its every angle and set each nerve a-jangling.

As Suzie's head snapped forward, Hargraves' tool was forced between the tightly compressed surfaces of an unyielding palate and Suzie's undulating tongue.

Past gripping lips, across perilous teeth, over the flickering tongue and no doubt down her constricting throat had his penis possessed sufficient length.

Suzie's bridgework rapped repeatedly against Hargraves' pelvis, while her chin set his stones a-bouncing.

Within minutes, Hargraves was reduced to a moaning twitching aggregation of instinctive physical reactions, while Suzie's oral ministrations continued unabated.

Finally, Hargraves attained his objective.

With a mighty roar, he came, discharging his seed into Suzie's mouth, as an orgasmic rapture, enfolded him.

Suzie swallowed, then pressed for more.

Hargraves' spasms were summoned again, and yet again, each convulsion added another mote of seed within Suzie's demanding mouth, while Hargraves' pleasure slowly turned to pain. His hammer had shrunk to a nubbin, but her demands continued unabated.

Suzie's voraciously reverted to her original pattern, working the malleable member until once more she encouraged the captive penis to resume an upright position.

Then, Suzie devoured Hargraves' erection.

Time after time, Suzie revived the flaccid organ, only to deplete what she had animated. Over and again she continued until Hargraves lapsed into semi-consciousness.

He could no longer feel when Suzie finally abandoned his tormented penis. He remained torpid while Suzie transferred and tightened the headband holding the encephalographic pickups about his temples.

The heart rate sensor clipped onto the end of Hargrave's finger also went unnoticed.

Only after Suzie twisted the knob labelled "Inductance" to its highest setting, and voiced her first command, did Hargraves betray any sign of comprehension.

"Sit up," Suzie commanded crisply, "That is what you want to do."

Betraying signs of dizziness, Hargraves sat up.

"You'll wish to remember this," Suzie informed him. "Do so!

"This isn't the first time you've used your beastly machine. Two weeks ago you used it on my younger sister, Mary. Remember her? She's the blonde research assistant in the university's Computer Science department. It was bad enough that you used this abomination on Mary," Suzie snarled, "but you had the gall to make her pose for a bunch of pornographic photographs that you showed to all your friends. When I found out, I vowed to put an end to your detestable conduct. And so I shall!

She continued, "First, you will experience an overwhelming desire to write out a complete confession of what you have done, how you did it, and so far as you are aware, your motives for doing so. You will then be seized by an irresistible compulsion to destroy the Acquiescence Regulation Monitor, and all copies of its plans. In the future, if you ever try to recall the principles upon which your invention works, your mind will rebel. Instead of science, it will rather obsess upon your remarkably tiny dick." She paused.

"You must do all of this," Suzie insisted, "because that is your most fervent desire. No one else is involved. No one else may share in any blame that results from the eventual destruction of your contraption. Do not forget that. When you have finished writing your confession, you will discover that you must give one original copy to Mary, along with your heartfelt, public apology. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Do you acquiesce?"

"I do."

"Good," Suzie approved. "Start writing."

His pants still about his ankles, his exposed penis shrunken to an irritated red stub, Jack Hargraves sat with pen and ink, while he enumerated his many recent crimes against society.

"Despite your obvious limitations," Suzie informed the writing automaton, "you've got heaps of stamina. We might have had a lot of fun if you weren't such a complete shit!"