Chapter 15 rewritten for publishing.
chapter SIXteen
Not a dream at all...
Zach has my hands... paws... held tightly, helping me to stand up. The room shifts around, and I suddenly have a weird, nagging feeling. As if this is actually a memory.
Echoes of a memory, which fade to black when I struggle to make changes, to take control. Then I'm back in my room, sleeping, on the verge of sleep...
I hop forward, the floor feels like a springboard, I'm ordering my feet to shift backwards onto my heels, but where a heel should be, right below my ankle, there is nothing now. My calves strain, trying to stretch that far. I bounce back up onto my toes, but instead of so much effort needed to hold me on them, it's almost no effort at all. I stare into his blue eyes, he's laughing at me and panting. His hands are warm and steady.
"Stay on your toes! Look at your feet, you're digitigrade, not plantigrade. Days of sprained ankles are over." I look down to see what he means. My lateral stability... compensates, if my feet don't land square, though the floor is flat. I'm sure this will matter while running on open terrain.
Fascinating.
I step my paws to the left and right while he holds me up, and if I concentrate on walking on the balls of my feet, it almost feels about the same as when I was human. My mind is full of a lifetime of muscle memory, but there are none of learning how to walk. That's too far back, I was too young. This all feels so new, the motions I try to use only partially match up.
"Lean forward, I'll let you go, you're going to fall." I keep my knees bent, noticing how short my femurs are, about the same length as my forearms. When Zach lets go I fall forward immediately, landing onto my padded palms. So that's the compromise, better lateral footing, but with no heels, I have less upright stability.
I look down and realize my knees don't... in fact, can't... touch the ground. My ass is probably high up in the air, but when I turn to look at it, I'm shocked to see that it not only is level with my nose, I can sense that I'm now flexible enough to actually reach it.
With my tongue.
I see my tail, and feel a sudden humorous urge to chase and bite at it, that would be so hilarious if I did that.
Instead, I stare at Zach and in the process bring my muzzle way too high again, he disappears behind my nose. He reaches forward and pushes it down, out of my field of view.
It's going to take some serious getting used to, I didn't realize how unique a human head was, able to move without interfering with vision. A nose that was never in the way, now nothing but a memory.
"Good enough," he says, nodding. "That put sockets into your brain, new areas I can fill with memories. It normally take you weeks to learn how walk upright, but we're going to do in just moments." He points at me. "This the only way you can run, on all fours. You're much more wolf than human now, leave your upright times for convenience, not speed. Big paws, your hind, take your weight. But walking upright too much, get sore. Like standing still all day, as human. All fours much better for your body." All so interesting to me, but then he asks me a question that makes me panic.
"Ready for some memories?"
"Um, sure." I feel so lost, I hope understanding isn't going to be a part of what's needed. Too much has changed in my life, way too quickly. Zach pauses, sniffing the air. He grins.
"You say you understand, but your smell says no."
"Oh. Er." Wow. Rhenthar... can't lie to each other? The implications of that send my mind spinning... a society built around honesty and trust. I can't even imagine it, humans lie constantly.
"I, uh, don't understand." I pause, he stares, seemingly patient.
"Humans learned early on not to try to lie to us. What started... the first war. Inherently superior, quality of life, ours, better. Drove them crazy with jealousy..." he says some more, but I quit listening, something else is nagging at my mind.
"Zach, I'm afraid. All these new memories, and losing my old ones... I'll lose myself. My consciousness is going to quit. From my perspective I'm going to die again, aren't I." Someone else gets to enjoy this body. It won't be me. No more than the first me is enjoying this now, he died 600 years ago, dead, rotted, decomposed, gone.
Zach whips his muzzle left and right, "No! You wake up from sleep, memories come online, like... clothes you wore, as human. You look down, see blue shirt, yes? I take your blue shirt off, give you a red one. Make you remember putting the red one on, and even if don't quite remember, your mind closes the gap, makes the connection, fills in the blank. Now, you look down, see fur. Too big of a gap. Need filler. You never wore fur," he pauses, grinning. "Except once, almost. That's one of the things make you so special."
He glances at my knees, they're wobbling. He points up into the air near my nose, and I stare at his finger, trying to back my head up because of how close he is, but he's getting closer, too close. I fall back onto my butt. I'm sitting with my knees around my elbows, like how a dog sits. He just made me sit!
"Good boy..." He says softly, petting me between the ears. I hold my eyes shut in order to lean into it. His fingers comb through my head fur with an electrifying sensation, every hair reporting to my mind that it just moved, the feeling almost takes my breath away, and I start to pant.
His claws reach past my fur to make contact with my skin, catching at it in a practiced manner. Of course he knows what feels good. His body is no different than my own, but my mind... I was always craving canine interactions with other people. Always disappointed, too.
I think back to all the times I've roleplayed with my friends, trying to get them to pet me like this. It was lame; no matter how real it felt to me, I could tell they were never into it. Such realization ruined the experience, I think by the end of my twenties, I gave up on affection, and no one should have to do that.
Moments ago, I was worried that I'd again be roleplaying a canine, now in an almost-canine body, because I know nothing about Rhenthar culture, and so far they seemed pretty human.
This affection assuages my worry, it feels so natural, both giving and receiving, I can easily imagine what canines with opposable thumbs wound up doing. Yes, lots of contact. I'm blissed out, I want to jump at him and twine my body around his, but I hear snuffling noises and his touch eases up.
I open my eyes, thinking wistfully what I always do when someone pets me: that it didn't last long enough. Zach is coughing and growling, more laughter.
"You really like that! I knew. Too much code to go through, your brain. Had to make some interpolation." He pauses, the happy expression on his muzzle vanishes.
"Hm. Stay, like shopping. I show you something." Zach walks a few feet and picks up a round circle of metal from a table nearby; he throws it at me.
I try to catch it, but since my hands are what's supporting me, I fall over as soon as I try to pick them up, it only bounces off my side and lands on the floor with a muffled clunk. I wobble back upright, using my feet to lever myself up onto my butt.
The padded floor is cold, pressed up against my sphincter. I try to shift around, but it's no use; I don't have butt cheeks anymore. I worry about cleanliness, but if Rhenthar come from canines, then they might not be as obsessed with it as humans were. They developed materials and technology right from the start, protecting their bare skin from the elements.
Surely my body would be at home in the wild, I don't need sunscreen, weapons, or insulative clothing. Zach is entranced by my silence, he apparently can tell that I'm thinking about a lot, probably by my scent. I look down at the object he threw at me, and see that it's a metal collar.
I pick it up and stare at its shiny gold stubs, equally spaced along the inside; I count six of them. It feels heavier than I'd expect, I wonder where all the weight comes from. I can only barely see the gaps between the small sections it's made of, what's responsible for making it so smooth and flexible.
An inscription is engraved on the inside, I flip it around so that I can read. "MARK V." ... I wonder who Mark is. The guy Zach wants me to meet? I turn my head to look at him, but he isn't saying anything. I inspect the collar a little closer.
The stubs are spring loaded, and they feel hydraulically dampened. Interesting miniaturization technology, making a squishy, gentle-but-steady pressure like this on something so small. I push the stubs in, one after another, and I know what this is.
It's a remote control shock collar, similar to the ones I made.
I can tell, this one is infinitely superior. I wanted things like GPS and remote lock and unlock, biometrics monitoring, I suspect this one has all that and ten times more. It feels so precisely machined, it almost seems to flow like liquid in my hands.
I feel guilt and shame, holding it. Typical for any time I'm inspecting a collar I like, because there's usually another emotion prominent in my mind: arousal. A cold sensation is building up between my legs again, and this time no amount of pulling on my sheath will cover it up. I feel even more embarrassed, and can hardly look at Zach, knowing that he's staring at me.
He knows.
"It's, um, nice." I set it down, staring at him, hoping he looks away. Can't he see that I'm uncomfortable? He sniffs in my direction and looks down at the collar lying on the floor, almost as if he's seeing it for the first time.
I steal another glance and notice how part of the outside is shinier than the rest. A small graphical screen, with an even tinier set of buttons right next to it. Somehow I missed that, and I want to pick it back up so badly it hurts. I want to try putting it on, but I wonder if my neck is too big.
I wonder how it opens.
I want to be alone, so I can look closely at it. With pure force of will, I tear my gaze away. Zach does not seem anywhere near so enamored with it as I am.
"Nice?" He laughs another one of his sad howls. "What would you do if I put it on you, and told you that if you try to take it off, it'll kill you?" He continues, interrupting my response.
"What if it fucks with your mind, tears apart your memory associations, so when you wake up with red shirt on, you have no memory of putting it on?" Growl fills his voice.
"What if it make you stupid," he's definitely angry now, "and eventually you figure out how stupid but can do nothing about it?"
An odd trickling sensation catches my attention, almost like I'm urinating, and my shame explodes when I look down in horror and realize small drops of clear pre are spattering onto the floor, and I can do nothing to stop it. It's in sync with the warm erection pulsing between my legs, and I briefly wonder if I can somehow manage to wipe it all up, before he sees. I glance around, looking for something absorbent, like a towel.
What he just said, it's the hottest thing I've heard in a very long time, straight out of one of my fantasies. A collar that can control someone's mind.
Zach steps forward and leans down to yank my arm out of the way, staring curiously at my erection and the small mess coating the floor, then looks back up into my eyes. I fear that my desires are insulting him, and I want to hide in embarrassment. I prepare some excuses, long explanations about my kinks. I'm used to people thinking that I'm a freak, but he interrupts me before I can speak.
"And that..." he points at my dick, "is why you're perfect for this." He backs up a step and laughs at my shame as it transitions into confusion.
"No time for history lesson, you wouldn't remember anyway. But, your race made us. Enslaved us. Long time ago, great, great grandfather. No more slaves, we fought. Peace, for a while. Then humans died, Dirty Eight. HIV, airborne..." He shakes his muzzle back and forth, at a loss for words.
"All dead. Thank Dog this not exist, back then. Might still be slaves today." He looks away, mumbling to himself.
"Rhenthar tend not to like collars, I take it?"
"Fuck no! Not... what represent, not feeling around neck, like Alpha's jaws. Always there, not being made into a dog, after being made not a dog!" His body visibly quakes, and though every smell is new to me, this particular scent is... warped, somehow. There is obviously something I'm missing. I stare at the collar on the floor and pick it back up, looking at the little screen in its side.
I mull over the fact that my race is extinct. There goes the possibility of tracking down any of my relatives. Though he hasn't given me any true acceptance for what I obviously like, my confidence is building up quickly. I still want to try it on.
"Who you meet." Zach says. "Hottest. He likes them, too." A grin. "Same as you."
"He likes to wear them?" Zach laughs at that, shaking his head slowly.
"No. No. Not anymore..." he mumbles something I can't hear. "But he'll be very happy to see you wearing one." Cold blue eyes, like chips of the deepest ice, contrasting well with sharp white teeth.
I'm trying to pull my sheath up to cover my prick, realizing that the days of my private parts being private are over. I attempt a few different sitting positions to give the skin connecting my sheath to my stomach the greatest amount of slack, but nothing works. My dick sticks out, and it's leaking profusely again. I quietly curse Zach for not designing my sheath to be a little bit longer, but when I glance down to see how long it would have to be, I can't help but chuckle at myself.
The problem stems from the two bulges down at the base, my knot. I estimate that it adds at least three inches to what is already no less than eight, of the veiny reddish white shaft sticking out in front of it. I'm huge!
I wonder how big I'll get during orgasm. What's that going to feel like? Is... everyone this way? Are Rhenthar physically capable of anal sex? Or will trying that tear me wide open? So many questions I have...
All the canine roleplay in the bedroom. My collars, how stupid it all felt at even the best of times, yet here I am now. I bought my way into this future, somehow.
Slow anxiety begins to brew, though, because I know full well what happens if someone approaches me on this subject in the wrong way. If they're not dominant enough, my pleasure turns into resentment. I won't submit to those of low stature.
"Zach, um, did he actually force one of these on you?" A long howl, he shakes his fur out.
"Of course. That one," he points, "mine. Things... complicated. I want him to be happy, he likes a fight, enjoys resistance, my fight was real, his pleasure was real. My pleasure was real, but not real." A pause. "I am not suitable." His last words are in a different tone, and I know that they aren't his own.
Being forced to wear this, woof, I look it over while shivering.
"I'm sorry you didn't like it, Zach. But I kinda like things forced."
"I know. But. There is much, much more. Collar not just fun, this a big complicated problem. Rubik's cube, yes? Many moves, toward solution, puzzle solved, everything moves at least once."
"More than just fun? What else... is there?" He has my curiosity, now. All the games I've ever played to wear something like this, none were ever grounded in reality. In the end, it was just a game.
"As I said, you're not Rhenthar. Not smell, not act. Very... distasteful. Not blend in and interact with Rhenthar society, stand out, problem. I can program base memories, make you Rhenthar, but they will be weak, not stand mind's scrutiny. It adapts.
"Fine, in the beginning. Enough to get around. Ten years, maybe twelve. New memories in that time be solid, real. Foundation eventually falls away, new memories at risk. Human memories come back, fill in, mesh with new, create new foundation.
"Old you, new you. Happy.
"Without collar?" he grins. "Crazy as shithouse rat, never work. Need associations kept apart for a while, several years. Mind heals slowly. Tried to speed up, once. Old memories stored in language center," he barks a sad howl, "one must go. My speech much better now than it was. But emotions, and something else... still fuck it up." His scent turns sad.
"That happened to you?" My prick warms up as it slides back into my sheath. This part isn't erotic at all.
"Yes. Too quick." He smoothes his whiskers back, shifts around uncomfortably. "Hated that collar..." he eyes it in my hands, loathing.
"Er, wait. Why not use something else if you hate collars so much?" I gesture helplessly around at the equipment surrounding us. Zach lets out a soft growl, frustration maybe?
"You not listen? Rhenthar not make that. Days of slavery over. Humans gone! Who make? Who!" I stammer, unsure what to say in response.
"Who?"
"Big question," he nods. "No answer yet. No idea how functions, method. Brainwave, resonance, new type radiation, maybe all.
"Memories, mind, what I put in just a hack. Some species out there... much better at this than us. They not Rhenthar...
"Someday, we find them. And there will be war. Rhenthar do go missing, never return. Has to do with that collar." I think about what he said earlier, the timeframe involved.
"A normal Rhenthar life for ten years... on my own?" Zach nods.
"Then, hottest come in, take you, make you his. You won't know, you can't know... perfect. Your future forced, with hate..." he reaches forward and shoves my arm out of the way, I flinch and cover my erection back up. "Then love..."
Zach pants with his tongue hanging out. I can see some of the damage in his mind, now that I think about it. I see past it, to someone painfully intelligent and devoted to just one cause in his entire universe. Whoever this guy is, he has to be worth it.
This goes way past games with a collar, being forced to eat out of a dog bowl. Past dominance and submission. This isn't some act, with it ending sitting down to pay bills and going back to work the next day. What Zach is describing feels intensely crazy, I briefly consider what it would feel like to say no again.
Even if I lived only another sixty seconds, they would be spent surviving the greatest disappointment in myself that was possible. It feels like staring over the edge of a cliff, and knowing that I'm not going to jump.
My answer has already been made.
I turn the collar over in my paws. The greatest disappointment or the greatest pleasure.
If only all choices in life were so simple.
"Zach, you really did your homework. This sounds like it will work. What's next?" He barks very loud at me, howling.
"Next, we find what best life for you to live, next ten years. Things changed, six centuries. Ah. Some fun? Adventure? Come this way, I show you..."