“Come on, beautiful. Let's get you home.” The words fill Poppy with a warmth she thought she would never feel again. Her baby is safe and Max is here for her. Everything in the world seems right.
Max looks down at the new love he's forged and smiles. It may not be what he expected, and he will probably have to deal with Charlotte soon... but for now, he's happy.
If only he had his other child here, with him. Max vows to himself, with a cold feeling in his heart, that he will have custody of both of his children. He's going to take responsibility for these babies, no matter what their mothers think.
Maybe that's wrong of him, but Max knows what's best.
Or does he?
The Drug Trial
Mind Control, Impregnation Erotica
Michael Meadows
For Tracy Bennett, it had started out almost like a particularly lurid romance novel. The parts were all there: explicit, raw, pornographic words written out on a page in front of her. Only this was hardly the same thing: this was a case study from a Top Secret - Eyes Only folder that said that the reason that Francine hadn't been into work in two weeks was the violent response from a testing subject to a serum she had been developing.
They called it "Love Potion," but it was the furthest thing from. What they wanted was nearly enough a crime against humanity.
Tracy couldn't wait to get started.
She dropped the papers into the incinerator in the back of her lab, watching the papers crumple with heat through the thick Pyrex window. She was to report to General Harmon for a personal briefing at 0900, and that gave her ten minutes to think about what she'd just read before she had to step onto an elevator. There was no way that she was going to sort it all out in that time, she knew. But it didn't stop her from trying.
"Missus Bennett," the General said. He rose when she walked into the room, a reminder of an age of manners long past. His hand reached across the desk. "You read the introductory materials I sent you?"
"And I burned them afterward, sir."
The aging man nodded vacantly.
"Very good, ma'am. So I take it you read the report of what befell miss Reede."
"Of course." Tracy shivered involuntarily at the very idea of it. "It sounded horrible."
"You can't imagine. But you will be able to. Before you begin this project, you need to be fully aware of the risks you'll be undertaking, am I understood? You will need to be able to take precautions, and that means you need to know from experience, not just from words on a piece of paper."
Tracy's mask of professionalism did not slip, even though inwardly she felt a puff of revulsion. Was the old man propositioning her? And then he pulled out a remote control from under the desk, pointing it at the old TV. It was the way with the military: no reason to replace the old equipment. She suspected that a few of the more wizened top brass thought that even the aged TVs were too "new-fangled" to be worth anything. A still image stood out on the screen.
A man sat on a steel slab, his shirt removed. The video was fuzzy, but Tracy could see that he was attractive even through the fuzz.
She thought maybe he was a soldier, since the Pentagon had more than enough of them lying around, and it would explain his bulk, his posture. She had dealt with younger soldiers like this one before, the sort of people who are volunteered for medical testing. They were enough to make the ring on her finger feel tighter: muscled, restrained, polite... often just a little bit naive about the world, even as they knew more than she ever would about death and killing.
He stood, snapping to attention and saluting, when two people entered, stepping through a door off-screen into the room. One was clearly Francine Reede, the same smug, self-sure look she always wore, hidden only enough for deniability. The other was uniformed, a tan uniform not unlike the one that General Harmon wore now.
There was no audio; it had clearly been removed, though, because subtitles flashed across the screen when lips moved.
HELLO, PRIVATE MARKHAM. -- The shirtless soldier held his salute. -- AT EASE. -- Private Markham relaxed only a tiny amount and the uniformed man continued speaking silently. -- THIS IS DOCTOR REEDE.
MA'AM.
The video was too fuzzy to make out the small movement the soldier's mouth made to form the word, but Tracy could imagine being there. It was a typical conversation, and it continued typically as the officer finished his introductions.
I IMAGIE YOU'VE READ THE BRIEFING ON WHAT WE'RE GOING TO BE DOING HERE TODAY, SO IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, ASK DR. REEDE. SHE HAS AUTHORITY HERE, UNDERSTOOD?
The soldier barked back, this time, the movement broad and visible.
YES, SIR!
The uniformed man saluted, and the shirtless Private Markham saluted back, before the officer left the room, leaving Reede alone with the patient.
PLEASE TAKE A SEAT. HAVE YOU EATEN IN THE PAST SIX HOURS?
NO, MA'AM.
VERY GOOD.
Francine unrolled a roll of medical equipment -- the image wasn't clear on what was inside, but Tracy knew what it was more-or-less: syringes, possibly a scalpel, maybe some other miscellaneous items as well. She picked something up, looked at it. It must have been a syringe. She rubbed at a spot on the man's shoulder and pricked him with the needle. Neither of them said anything for a moment while Francine laid the syringe down, noting something on a piece of paper.
TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR RIGHT HAND, PLEASE.
The big man did so. Francine made a note.
NOW I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME YOUR SERVICE SIDEARM, PRIVATE.
The big man's face moved in what might have been an expression of displeasure. He knew that if he did it, and she used it for something illegal, he would see a court marshal. Even if she did have authority, in practice giving a civilian any military equipment was a recipe for disaster. But he didn't hesitate.
He carried the unhappy face across the room and removed the weapon from a belt and walked back. He handed it to her and sullenly stood waiting.
Francine laid it down on the table and made another note on the clipboard. It wasn't hard to imagine that everything was going according to plan, even the displeasure. If Tracy understood what they wanted properly, it would be important to override that. Ideally, the face he pulled would have been a failure case, but early stages of testing, it would have been a smashing success already. Still, if the test succeeded at that point, and Tracy had designed the test, then she would have tried to push it further -- on screen, Francine Reede was doing just that.
PRIVATE MARKHAM, I WANT TO BE CLEAR ON THIS. WHEN I GIVE MY NEXT SERIES OF COMMANDS, YOU ARE TO DO NOTHING, BUT YOU MUST FULFILL THEM. AM I CLEAR?
The Private's face moved again, in a blurry indicator of some distress. But he could only give one answer.
YES, MA'AM.
GO OPEN THE DOOR.
For a moment, he hesitated. The seconds didn't stretch out for Tracy, but she imagined that for Francine it would have been stretched into minutes, hours. This was the real test of what the limits were. For that soldier, though, an eternity must have passed in the two seconds between the order being given and his acting. It was an unfulfillable series of requests -- to remain still while opening the door. What happened next, though, was entirely different from what she'd imagined.
The big soldier absolutely snapped. He let one big hand come across Francine's face like a club, sending her to the ground. He tore at her blouse, pulling it open and revealing Francine's more than ample breasts to the camera. It was worse than the file had said, more violent. The only subtitle that flashed across the screen never went away, never clarified:
[SCREAMING]
The attack went on, bruises blossoming on the half-conscious scientist's skin as the soldier held her by her throat, fussing with the zip on his jeans. The video stopped abruptly, then, that image of a half-naked Francine, delirious from pain and fear, being choked by a man twice her size as he wrestled his cock out with one hand, froze on the screen. The sound of the General speaking b
ehind her made Tracy jump.
"It was unspeakable. The video goes on for twenty minutes. By the time we found your colleague, she couldn't speak. They have her jaw wired shut." Tracy shivered in spite of herself. "You need to be aware of the fact that this can go very badly, Missus Bennett. I expect you to conduct yourself with caution befitting the video I've just shown you."
"Of course--" The general cut her off, as if he hadn't heard her speaking. She decided it would be wiser to silence herself.
"Further, Missus Bennett, I expect you to keep what you have just seen to yourself. Even Doctor Reede is not to know that you have seen this video."
"Sir. Is there anything else?"
"God speed, ma'am."
'God speed' indeed, Tracy thought as she left. It would be a miracle if she could manage whatever it was they wanted. And further, she feared, it might not be possible at all.
Her first step would have been testing. She needed, above all, to know what caused the problems to arise. A study of n=1 was nothing to go on, and the files that were sitting on her desk when she returned, guarded by a young soldier, had endless chemical notes and reviews, but it meant nothing without more studies, and no more had been performed. Private Markham had been the first, and perhaps he would be the only.
What little she did have were notes on his brain chemistry, brain scans before, after, and during, and nearly a thousand notes, scribbled beside equations, on neurochemistry and brain patterns. She hadn't seen the wires attached to his head, but with the poor video quality it wasn't hard to believe. The notes were useful only insofar as they reminded her what she already knew. She thanked the soldier for staying, sat down behind her desk in the chair that was never quite comfortable enough, and she got to work.
"Hey, babe, I'm running a little late. Do you have dinner on the stove yet?" Tracy spoke softly as she walked out the door.
She tried not to think about how heavy her bag was; if she did, then someone would see it on her face. She wouldn't be allowed to leave with the notes, and there was no way to get the work done in the next month without taking it home, thinking it over. It wasn't the first time she'd done this, over the past quarter.
But now she was getting pressure to find a solution, and quickly. 'The caution befitting the video' she had seen was becoming 'why aren't you performing human trials' and she was still uncertain of her own results. Of course she hadn't shown them to David, though he was in the same field. That would have amounted to treason.
"No, not yet." David sounded distant. Too many late nights, she feared.
They'd only been married a year, and already he was far away so much. Perhaps he was bitter that he had no work for nearly a year. She made enough salary to keep them both comfortable, but he was a brilliant mind. She could hardly recommend him strongly enough, but the brass had been fairly clear, that it created a conflict of interests for her to be romantically involved with a subordinate.
"Well, I'll be home in forty minutes. Think you can manage on your own until then?"
"I can do my best, dear."
"Love you. See you when I get home."
"Love you, bye."
Tracy hated when David called her 'dear.' It seemed to drip with the distance and seclusion that she was fearing more every week, but she could hardly tell him to stop referring to her by it either, and that presented its own problems.
The drive home was a blur. There was something missing, she knew. Something she should have thought of, but her mind hid from her. So complete was her distraction that she found herself drifting toward a barrier, barely catching herself before she scraped the panel off the door. If only, she thought. If only she could have some kind of team on the project!
But of course, it was too secret for that sort of thing. Loose lips and all.
When she finally got home she could smell the chicken, the smell of garlic stinging her nostrils.
"Tracy? Is that you?" She could hear David's voice, wafting around and filling the room just like the scent of the food he was cooking.
"I just got home!"
"Dinner will just be a few minutes," he called back.
Tracy took off her shoes, leaving them by the door, and padded into the kitchen. David was standing here, as big and strong-looking as ever. She wondered sometimes if he was fitter than the men she worked with on base, spending so much time in the gym downstairs. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his back and smelling the masculine, woody deodorant he wore.
"I missed you."
"I missed you too, sweet pea," he said. His voice was rich and deep. "But right now I need to get this chicken out of the oven, alright?"
She left to go about setting the table, not hearing him walk in. He set a platter of chicken down in the center of the table gingerly. Then he turned to his wife, drawing her close, pressing her against the length of his body.
"There's something I need to talk to you about, alright, Trace?" Tracy's heart jumped out of her chest. A thousand million ideas passed through her head, each worse than the last. Was he going to leave her? Had he found another woman? He was bored with his life? He didn't want kids? What was it? She tried to play as if she were calm.
"Anything I should be worried about?"
"Sit down; your food's going to get cold."
And then he was gone, back into the kitchen. She could hear plates and dishes clattering together, as he carried out the rest of the meal in relative silence. Tracy tried to read her husband. He always had worn his emotions on his sleeve, and what she saw worried her. He was troubled by something, she could see.
All of her fears loomed still larger, now. It was only a matter of time until he tore apart her happy little life, took away what little she had outside of work. He sat down, folded his hands. She saw his lips moving in prayer. And then his eyes opened.
"David, just tell me what it is."
He sighed. That was not the best sign -- another sign of reluctance, another hint that whatever he had to tell her, she wouldn't like it.
"I looked over those notes you've been taking home."
Tracy exploded. All of the relief of him not telling her that he was sleeping with someone else came out as anger that he'd so blatantly violated her space, ignored "TOP SECRET" marks on the top of every single page. This was the sort of thing that people were brought up on charges for!
"You did what?!" She put her fork down so hard that it bounced.
"I think I've got a solution."
Tracy was a woman, but she was a scientist. A fight broke out in her mind, the difficult decision of whether to be angry, or to get his input on a problem she'd suffered with for almost half a year.
"Is that right."
It came out as an accusation, letting him know that he needed to tread lightly without quite dismissing him. Tracy almost let out a sign of pleasure with herself, but caught herself.
"Yes. Do you think I'd have told you about it if I didn't?"
Tracy flushed with anger. Somewhere in her mind, she knew he was as capable as her, perhaps more-so. But that wasn't the thought that was running through her mind just then—how dare he, and who does he think he is being the foremost thoughts in her mind. She opened her mouth to say something to that effect, but before she could, David spoke again:
"That's enough. Calm down, Tracy."
She wondered if perhaps she hadn't lost her temper, after all. She shut her mouth again without putting voice to her annoyance.
"Would you like to hear out what I have to say?"
"Fine, I--"
"Eat your dinner, Tracy. I think you'll quite enjoy it."
Tracy rolled her eyes, but she did as she was told. It was a tense dinner, no conversation. He wasn't wrong, though -- the food was tasty. She considered breaking the silence more than once, but then she thought he seemed too stubborn to tell her anything she wanted to know, so she resolved to finish her food as quickly as politely possible.
She finished and looked up to find him still w
orking on his. Apparently speed wasn't a priority for him. Her frustration returned in force. She was tapping her toe impatiently when he finally pushed the clean plate away and sat back.
"Well?"
"Well, Trace, the answer was fairly simple."
"Yes, I get it. You're so smart and I'm so stupid."
"Can you guess?"
"Don't play this game with me, David."
"You're behind, Tracy." She looked at her husband guardedly. "I know, or you wouldn't risk taking these papers home every night for a month."
"And?"
"You need two things, and you need them soon. The answer, and a trial. Well, I've got the answer, and I'm willing to sell it to you."
"Sell it to me? What does that mean? You're my God damned husband!"
"The price is simple. It's the trial."
"You're not making any sense, David. Just speak clearly."
"I'll cut to the chase. I'm going to perform a trial. It's not complete, of course, but as a proof of concept..."
"What kind of trial?"
"It's already begun."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tracy asked the question, but inside she already knew what he meant by it. Fear and reason held back her anger. On one hand, if he had dosed her, then he could simply control her response, so anger wouldn't help. Simultaneously, she worried what might happen if she lost control like that soldier had done. David couldn't know about the dangers of the drug she'd been working on.
"Tracy, please touch your nose."
Tracy thought that it couldn't be any harm to give him what he asked for, so she reached up with her right hand, and lightly tapped the tip of her nose.
"You see?"
"Obviously not. David, couldn't I have just done it because you asked me to?"
David nodded. He stood up, walked over, and pressed a kiss against her lips.
"You're a good girl, you know that?"
Tracy flushed with pleasure. She hadn't felt like David thought she was any sort of 'good girl' in so long, she relished in hearing him say it.
"Come with me." He led her by the hand to the bedroom, planting tiny kisses on her arm, her lips, her neck. "I've missed you so much, Tracy. You're always working so late."
Sadistic Master Bundle (BDSM Billionaire Erotic Romance) Page 36
