Move Again Research Endowment · Part 1 (1/2)
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Hey readers – I’ve gotten some good feedback from you on the various stories I’ve posted to this site, so I wanted to let you know that I just published my first book. The style is similar to my other stories, but the plot is more filled out and the writing is more polished. It is also filled, of course, with plenty of hot bondage scenes. I think you’ll like it!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my newest short story, Move Again Research Endowment.
Sheila loved her job. As a post-doc in the Move Again Research Endowment, or MARE, she knew she was putting her smarts to work for a very good cause. She and her fellow researchers were developing a breakthrough technology that had the potential to give paraplegics, or even quadriplegics, the ability to walk again. Tiny wireless devices implanted directly on an individual muscle fiber allowed that muscle to be manipulated remotely. A whole array of the electrodes, controlled in harmony by a computer, would be able to recreate complex motions that involved numerous muscles, such as walking.
Sheila loved the mental stimulation she got from this job, her first after grad school. She also loved the physical aspect that the job was currently providing. The researchers had shown promising results with mice and dogs, but they needed to move on to their first human test subject. The head scientist had told his staff that they needed someone who was physically unimpaired and in excellent shape, and that it would certainly help if that person had a thorough understanding of the technology involved so that she or he could give informed feedback as the tests progressed. Sheila had been happy to volunteer.
Growing up in rural Arkansas, Sheila had participated in beauty pageants along with most every other girl in her town. She had even done quite well during high school, qualifying for the state competition both her junior and senior years. She thought, however, that her days of strutting her sexy body while wearing a bikini had ended when her brains and hard-work landed her a full scholarship to college. When she went off to school, she had dedicated her life to science. That science, however, had apparently brought her full circle.
The researchers needed their test subject to wear a bikini so that they could visually monitor her muscles as they were stimulated by the computer. At first, they had thought that a skin-tight catsuit would do the trick, but it turned out to be necessary to be able to see even the small muscle twitches that wouldn’t be visible through a suit. They were glad that Sheila didn’t mind conducting the experiments in the rather skimpy bikini. Sheila was just glad that she had kept herself in such good shape throughout her long student career.
Perfecting a human walking sequence turned out to be far trickier than anyone on the team had imagined. Nearly every muscle in the body is involved – from the arms for balance, to the core for support, and of course to all the different leg and foot muscles that needed to be fired in just the right order. The lead researcher had thought that they could focus just on the legs and let the able-bodied test subject take care of the rest. The adult brain, however, has ingrained responses for balancing that involve using muscles throughout the body. Having the brain control the top half and the computer control the bottom half just wasn’t going to work.
The research team also found that only having the ability to fire a muscle was not going to be adequate. Sheila’s brain would automatically tense certain muscles when she thought she was off-balance, which would throw the whole sequence out of whack. Try as she might, she simply could not force her body to fully relax. Fortunately, the team was able to modify the wireless implants to add the ability to prevent a muscle from firing. They could then force some muscles to stay relaxed while firing others, and slowly made progress.
Sheila didn’t mind the long hours and slow progress; that’s what scientific research was all about. She arrived at the lab early every day to run through a diagnostic test that confirmed that each of the tiny electrodes throughout her body were working properly. When the rest of the team arrived, she stripped down to her bikini and started in on the practice runs. In a long, well-padded, room, she was walked back and forth in front of the researchers and their cameras. Every few minutes, they would discuss the results, make small adjustments to the code, then repeat the trial. At the end of a long day, Sheila would often stay late to analyze data and make suggested revisions to the program. It was a ton of work, but exercising her mind and body for a good cause left her feeling satisfied each night.
Slowly but surely, Sheila’s test walks began working better. She fell onto the pads less and her computer-controlled gait started to look more natural. When the lead researcher decided it was time to start working on turns, however, they hit a stumbling block. It became clear that the myriad of glutial muscles in the buttocks were instrumental in pushing the body to the left or right, and the researchers were having difficulty seeing all of the action through Sheila’s bikini bottoms.
“Oh, good heavens,” she said when she realized the problem. “We’re all adults here, I’m sure I don’t have anything you all haven’t seen before.”
With that, she pulled the fabric of her bottoms up into her butt crack, turning them into a thong and exposing the muscles that needed to be studied. “I’ll wear a thong tomorrow,” she added.
The young post-doc really didn’t mind showing off her ass to the rest of the team. Sure they were mostly men, and sure she was mostly naked, but they were all professional and the requirements of the science had to come before modesty. Anyway, the lead researcher always did everything he could to make her feel comfortable, providing her a robe in between test sessions and never saying anything close to lewd or rude. The same went for all the rest of the researchers, who knew how valuable it was to have scientist who was willing to be a test subject herself.
This professional attitude did not, however, extend to one-hundred-percent of the staff. Most of them were quite nice, but there were two electricians in particular who always gave Sheila the creeps. Unfortunately, their jobs as the builder of the implanted electrodes and the installer of those devices were critical to the team. They hadn’t done or said anything specifically rude, but the way John put his hands on her body when he was implanting the devices and the way Steve’s eyes wandered as she marched back and forth always made her uncomfortable.
After three months of testing, Sheila could be walked and turned without stumbling. Her knees still had to be lifted higher than was natural, to keep her from stumbling or tripping on her feet, but all-in-all the program had become quite effective. The lead researcher announced it was time to move on to a new test subject, someone who was actually paraplegic so they could prove the concept.
Sheila expected to feel some amount of let-down after all that time in the limelight, but the severity of her emptiness took her by surprise. It was as if her body, her very muscles, craved the control of the tests. She let the lead researcher know that she would be happy to perform more tests if needed, but she didn’t think it would be good for him to know how much she really wanted it, so she didn’t push the matter too hard.
A week after her personal involvement in the tests ended, Sheila found herself alone in the lab late at night crunching the day’s data. Her body had been yearning for another taste of the computer-controlled movements, so after confirming that she was indeed alone, she decided to go for it.
Sheila wasn’t actually sure what part of the experience her body craved. Was it simply a chemical endorphin produced by the firing of the wireless devices? Did it involve being nearly naked and showing off her long, toned legs and ass? Was it the feel of a complex computer program controlling every part of her body in elegant harmony?
The scientist in Sheila told her to start small and tease out what aspect she was craving. The pleasure-seeker, however, wanted to just hurry up and run a full experiment. The pleasure-seeker won. In very little time, the girl had stripped down, pulled on the thong bikini, and had programmed the computer to automatically walk her back and forth for ten minutes. As a safety precaution, she programmed an override command into a smartphone that she would be able to hold onto. The computer would control her arms and wrists, but she knew she would still have control of her fingers, so could hold the phone and abort if anything went wrong.
Ten minutes went by in bliss for the young scientist. She loved the feel of relaxation that the computer gave the muscles that were not being used. She loved the sight of her long bare legs and arms lifting and swinging with perfect tempo. She loved the thought of her body being controlled so precisely and completely by the computer.
At the end of the test, Sheila realized that she hadn’t really thought specifically enough about what it was that gave her so much pleasure. It also seemed like there was still something missing, so she quickly decided that she’d give herself a longer test. Thirty minutes, she figured, should be enough time for her to figure out just what it was. She also wanted to give herself a better view of her body as she marched back and forth, so she brought in two big mirrors and set one up on either side of the long testing room.
Upon hitting the start button on her phone, the nearly naked girl quickly slipped back into a dreamy state of bliss. That bliss was interrupted, however, by the opening of a door and the appearance of one of the last people she wanted to see: Steve the electrician.
“What… what are you doing here?” Sheila stammered as she quickly hit the pause button on her phone.
“You’re asking me?” Steve said with a smirk. “I need to make a whole new batch of implants before tomorrow’s test. But tell me, what exactly are you doing here?”
Sheila felt quite uncomfortable standing there alone with the sleazy electrician, wearing only her skimpy thong bikini. Sure, he had seen her like that every day for months, but it was different at night, and it was different when there wasn’t anyone else around. She definitely didn’t want to admit to him that she had some secret infatuation with the computer controlled marching, so she made up a quick lie.
“I… I’m just running a test on the code,” she said. “There are a couple glitches I want to work out before tomorrow’s test.”
“Oh,” said Steve with that same smirk. “Okay. Well, it seems a little dangerous for you to be doing that alone, so why don’t I stay here and watch and make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Sheila really didn’t want to give this creep a private show of her mostly nude body, but she also didn’t want to be caught in her lie. As embarrassing as it was to let Steve ogle her for the rest of her test, it would be far worse if the whole research team found out she was doing this for pleasure. She hit the button on her phone to resume the test.
It was hard to decide which direction was worse – walking toward Steve when she could see that he was checking out her bare legs and the rest of her mostly bare body, or walking away from him when she couldn’t turn to see him but she knew full well that he was staring directly at her entirely bare ass. She soon realized that the worst part was not knowing how much more time was left in her test. She had been totally blissed out before Steve arrived, and had no idea how much time had passed or what time it had been when she started. Ending the test early could expose her lie, so she had to just tough it out and keep walking back and forth in front of her one-man audience until the timer stopped the test for her.
Despite her irritation, Sheila continued to feel a physical pleasure from her controlled marching. If anything, that pleasure was greater now that Steve was in the room, and she had to wonder if there was an exhibitionist element involved. She sure hoped that the man watching her so closely didn’t figure out how much she was enjoying herself, but reasoned that she had performed this very trial hundreds of times in front of multiple people who were watching her just as closely. If they hadn’t figured it out, then surely this electrician wouldn’t either.
When thirty minutes was finally up, Sheila made a show of emailing herself the test data from the main computer. She was relieved to finally be able remove herself from the room and Steve’s probing eyes. When she got up to go, however, the electrician had something to say.
“It’s a good thing I came in, you know,” he told her. “You could have really gotten yourself in trouble if something had gone wrong.”
In no mood to be lectured, Sheila replied testily, “Whatever, I could have stopped the test from the phone in my hand at any time if I needed to.”
“And what if you had dropped your phone?” Steve pressed.
“Well I didn’t,” she snapped. “And anyway, the test would have just stopped after thirty minutes anyway.”
Steve, who sat down at the computer terminal during this exchange, wouldn’t let it go. “But surely you know how easy it is to end up with a bug in your code. Like, if you had accidentally put a loop statement right here, then your test would just keep on going after the timer ran down.”
“Well, again, I didn’t,” Sheila said with even more irritation in her voice. “And again, if I had, I could have stopped the test with my phone. Now, we both have work to do and it’s late. Goodnight.”
“Can’t you just admit,” Steve said as if talking to an unruly child, “that if you had screwed up the code and dropped your phone, then your little solo stunt could have been quite dangerous?”
The irritated girl started to call the electrician a serious pain in the ass, gesticulating at him with her phone while she did. From where he was sitting, Steve reached out and batted the phone right out of her hand. With his other hand, he hit the Enter button on the keyboard in front of him, activating the modified marching program.
Sheila’s muscles instantly responded to the wireless signals they received from the computer. Unwillingly, she resumed her high-stepping walk, heading away from Steve towards the other end of the long room. She tried to resist even though she knew full well it was futile. All of the major skeletal muscles in her body were being controlled by the computer. The muscles that weren’t being actively used for a step or to maintain balance were prevented from firing by the modified electrodes that she herself had helped develop.
The marching girl couldn’t stop; couldn’t steer herself back in the other direction; couldn’t even turn her head to address the asshole behind her. Not all of Sheila’s muscles were being controlled by the computer, however. Her mouth, for example, was quite free, and she made good use of that fact.
“Stop the program this instant!” she shouted. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
“Well, I guess I’m teaching you a lesson,” Steve said from behind her. “Do you agree that what you were doing could have been dangerous?”
The marching girl reached the end of the room, was put through her standard tight turn, then started marching back in Steve’s direction. She could see the huge grin he had on his face, and it pissed her off even more.
“No, I don’t agree,” she yelled at him. “This doesn’t prove anything, except that you’re an asshole. Now stop the program!”
“I just want you to admit,” Steve said, “that if you had made one small typo in the code, then let that phone of yours slip from your hand, then you would have been in big trouble.”
The bikini-clad girl probably should have recognized the need for more tact, but in her agitated state she just kept shouting. “I don’t need to admit anything to you! I am the scientist and you are just a techie! I knew exactly what I was doing and don’t need any help from you, now press cancel!”
While she yelled, Sheila had to march right passed the object of her irritation and off towards the other end of the room. From behind her, she heard the man laugh and say, “Oh, you don’t need any help from me? Well, we’ll see if you still feel that way in half an hour, or if you’re ready to admit your mistake by then.”
Sheila was about to really rip Steve a new one when she felt a stinging slap land on her right butt cheek. Her step was thrown off a bit, though the imbalance was quickly corrected by the computer program. Her diatribe took longer to get back on track. She couldn’t believe he had the audacity to spank her like that! As she struggled to come up with the words to berate him with, however, she heard the door to the padded test room open and close. A moment later she was turned around at the other end of the room and was able to confirm that he had indeed left her there alone.
It took the stunned girl a lap or two to process what had just been done to her. She had marched her current path thousands of times, but always before she was only a word away from regaining control of her own muscles. Even with the solo test she had set up for the night, she was a simple button press away from ending the program. Now, however, there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop from being marched back and forth across the room. Her phone lay on the floor just two feet away from her path, but it might as well have been a mile away since she had no way to change the course of her march by even an inch. She was nearly naked, alone in the lab in the middle of the night, and under the complete control of a computer that had been programmed to keep her marching indefinitely.
Move Again Research Endowment · Part 1 (1/2)
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