Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion

by Lee McGeorge

offshoot of gender studies. I came to it from literature. At one end of the spectrum you have the Marquis de Sade whose writings were inspired by ideas of atheism coming out of the French philosophers. He reasoned that without God, there would be no divine retribution for sins committed against another human being and in his writing he took that to its logical conclusion. At the other end of literature is Pauline Réage writing The Story of O. Réage’s lover told her that women couldn’t write erotica so she set out to prove him wrong. She wrote a story about a woman who gives herself to every whim of her lover, allowing him to abase her even to the point of degradation. Sadism is about taking control over someone without their permission and Masochism is about giving oneself to another with absolute permission… so, no,” she said with a smile. “I’m not a dominatrix. I write essays and critical analysis on sex in the media.”

  Lynn, the editor, came into the control room to start recording. “We’re about to start.” She left the room.

  “Shall we watch it with Veraceo-Two?” Brian asked Deborah. “I’d like to see how it feels to witness S&M with this.” He didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead, he switched a few cables and checked the oscilloscope and dialled the signal strength to sixty five percent of maximum. “The camera feed on this screen has Veraceo included.”

  “But it’s just the camera feed.” Deborah said. “I don’t see any difference.”

  “It’s invisible. Our brains have two visual pathways. The eye sends information on one pathway to the temporal lobe to process the image and understand the world, whilst a second pathway to the parietal lobe manages spatial awareness. Sometimes people with temporal lobe brain damage go blind, yet they can still catch a ball because the spatial vision system works. That’s the pathway Veraceo works on.”

  On the studio floor Sonja was giving directions to two men in the rubber suits. The men held the gasmasks by their side and paid close attention to the director. Brian and Deborah settled back to watch the performance unfold.

  It was showtime.

  ----- X -----

  The Punishers brought their helpless damsel in distress into a blackened room. The men looked strong, both at least six feet tall against a thin looking woman no more than five feet. The men wore black rubber suits, rubber gloves, masks and aprons.

  Their prisoner wore only sackcloth.

  The lights faded up slowly to reveal deep purple walls as the punishers tied the wrists of their prisoner but carefully left a loop of rope at the top. The woman screamed and squirmed, fighting against the men, but periodically stopped fighting, seemingly to allow her wrists to be bound.

  One Punisher held the woman with his arms wrapped around her waist whilst the other slapped her face with a melodramatic stage-slap.

  “That looks fake,” Deborah said.

  Almost as though she had been heard, the performers stopped and looked off-set as they listened to instructions on the studio floor. The performance restarted and the woman squirmed in the arms of the strong man. She fought fiercely and was slapped again, harder, with purpose. She cried out and rocked her head back, her long black hair thrown over her shoulder.

  Brian felt an almost immediate sexual stirring in him. He crossed his legs so as not to announce his arousal to the woman sitting beside him.

  On set, the Punishers looped their prisoner’s wrists over the hook and got to work tying her ankles together then to a bracket on the floor. A handle was cranked, the woman lifted until her feet were off the floor and again, Brian felt a strong and powerful sexual thrill the likes of which he’d not felt since his teenaged years. Was it the content or was it Veraceo?

  The Punishers began spraying the woman with water whilst she screamed and twisted her head to avoid the hosing. One of the men took a cat-o-nine-tails and lightly whipped her lower legs.

  The action on the floor stopped again as the three players took direction, then one of the men checked the woman’s bindings and spoke with her, checking that she was comfortable. At this, Brian felt another whoosh of sexual energy, but beside him, Deborah made a slight gasp and a moan. Brian saw that she was caressing her neck but suddenly pulled her hand away to cover her mouth.

  It was the Veraceo. It had to be.

  Veraceo-Two with sexual content was a ferocious aphrodisiac.

  Back in the studio the Punishers went back to work, lashing their victim’s legs whilst spraying the water in her face. This time they got the angle of the hose right and the water blew up her nostrils causing genuine discomfort. The moment he recognised the woman as being in distress the volume of the eroticism dialled back. It was a clue as to what was happening. The sex was almost overpowering, the Veraceo-Two signal amplifying the intensity; but when there was some genuine pain felt on the studio floor the pain balanced the pleasure. This was a balancing act. Brian surmised that if he were to watch only torture without the sexualised content it would be horrendous, almost physically painful.

  The sackcloth was pulled away from the woman to reveal a tiny waistline and dark little nipples. A Punisher struck the woman’s buttocks with the cat-o-nine-tails when she wasn’t expecting and it made her shriek with laughter, her wide open mouth showing white teeth and enjoyment as her breasts were sprayed with water.

  Deborah leaned forward in her chair and gasped, “Oh Jesus…” she looked to Brian. Sultry. Eyes dark and smouldering. Out of the league of a bald, middle-aged professor like himself… perhaps… but with Veraceo helping, who knew?

  There was a moment between them. Eye contact held for too long.

  Deborah moved back into her chair as did Brian. He felt too afraid to look at her else he start entertaining ideas of rape and savagery. Good God, this was not like him and likewise he didn’t believe it of her.

  Then a shriek of pain. On the studio floor, the female masochist had been stung with a cattle prod. The shriek was genuine and her efforts to pull her body away from the prong were sincere. The prod stung her again with a blue flash and a pop of current. She cried now, shaking herself away from the implement as rivulets of water ran down her body. The second Punisher took the hose again and sprayed it with more force right in her face. As she gasped for breath, trying to avoid the jet of water the second Punisher stung her… and again… and again.

  For Brian, the sexual tension in the room dissipated quickly. They were back to watching the sadomasochism with level heads, the panic in their loins seemingly a distant memory despite it being barely more than thirty seconds since he was sure he wanted to fuck the woman beside him six ways from Sunday.

  “It’s the tone, isn’t it,” Deborah said. “This can’t be faked. It’s like my brain knows when it's being faked. When it’s playful and consensual I’m feeling as though I want to join in. When it's painful it's addictive. I could watch this woman get electrocuted all night long… God, I want him to touch that cattle prod on her asshole. Just once, just to see her scream.”

  Brian didn’t speak for a long while, then he said, “What does it make you feel? Seeing a woman victimised like this. Seeing a woman abused like this. The feeling, not what you’re thinking, what are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling like I want to go down there and get electrocuted too. I feel like I want to be the next star of the show.”

  Brian kept his eyes on Deborah, almost too scared of what he might do if he allowed the Veraceo signal to affect him any further. That was when he realised Deborah’s breasts were enlarging. Every time she breathed in her breasts rose, but when she breathed out they stayed the same size. Her breasts were getting bigger and bigger with each inhalation. He raised his hand to block the screen entirely and looked away.

  “What is it?” Deborah asked.

  “Look away from the screen and tell me what happens.”

  “I don’t want to look away. I really want to keep watching.”

  “I know, but just, hold off for a few seconds and see if you notice anything.”

  Deborah mimicked Brian’s stance with one hand blocking the scre
en. “Oh, Jesus… What in hell’s name… everything’s moving. Jesus, I’m tripping like I’m on acid… oh, Jesus fuck a baby into me, this is the coolest thing ever.”

  With an almost superhuman amount of willpower, Brian climbed out of the chair and switched off the Veraceo-Two signal generator. The room was swirling, the doorframe was bending, the carpet rolling like waves. Buttons on the editing console seemed to protrude on stalks then return to their position only for the next button to flex out into the air.

  “I think we need to get to a hospital,” Brian said. “We need to know what’s happening and monitor how long it lasts.”

  On the monitor screen, a woman was crying and shrieking as two men in rubber suits sprayed her with water and administered electric shocks to her naked, tied up, body. Her tears by this point were real. They may have been real for some time.

  ----- X -----

  Brian and Deborah were driven to a private clinic. Deborah was entirely comfortable with the hallucinations. She was happy and talkative. Brian felt happy but knew it was down to the Veraceo. Logically he felt he should be frightened that the hidden TV signal had triggered such powerful hallucinations, but at the same time he was content to allow his heart to rule the day and enjoy the experience. He mused whether there would be a downside to this. Would it leave him with a