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Overlord Ch. 01

By: Hellball



On one cold, April day, Winston found a note on his desk when he came back from lunch break. The text was face down, and written in words too small and messy for the security cameras to read. It said, "I love you."

He stared at the note and thought carefully. Who could this possibly be from? Going through his memories of the day, he thought he recalled seeing that young woman from Tech Support outside his cubicle, but he had hardly exchanged a dozen words with her. Could this be a prank by one of his supervisors? Much worse, could it be a test? He decided the safest idea was to toss it in the shredder; it was very likely something that could get him in trouble, and the Disciplinarians - not all of whom wore uniforms - were as numerous in the office complex as they were on the streets. He thought of what could happen to him if he were caught doing anything that even looked out of order, and his buttocks clenched. He dropped it into the wastepaper slot and did his best not to think about it for the rest of the day.

Winston was still trying not to think about it when he logged his work hours and walked home that afternoon. The freshly build City-71 was as crisp and smooth as the April wind, and as chilling. Three months ago, Winston had been a moderately happy denizen of London, England. He was pretty sure City-71 was somewhere on the European continent, but he had no more specific idea than that. Like every other citizen, he had been unconscious when he was brought here. The words "I love you" surged back into his mind. The person who wrote those words, if it was a real person at all...he wondered where he or she had been brought from, and how much better or worse the new order had treated them.

The wind picked up, and Winston started walking faster, letting the cold invigorate his lungs and muscles. That was one good thing, at least; he didn't tire nearly as easily as he used to. Three months ago, after Winston was put under sedation in London and woke up in his new apartment in City-71, he had immediately felt lighter and stronger, and his first look in the mirror looked more like his college graduation photos than anything more recent. A slightly shorter than average, but stocky, man of Caribbean descent, with a smoothly sculpted face, hard, streamlined muscles, and rich brown-black skin from which his bright eyes peered like reflective pools. Winston looked at least twenty years younger and thirty pounds lighter than he knew he should. Once he had gotten over the sense of violation, he had reluctantly gained a grudging appreciation for Overlord's changes to his body; at least it meant he could hurry home on chilly days like this one without exhausting himself.

Upon rounding the corner by the city park, he saw the woman from Tech Support walking ahead of him. Funny. I've never seen her outside of work before. She was walking ahead of him, about thirty meters away, which allowed him to observe without being seen. She was very short and thin, and wore one of those skintight, short-skirted black dresses that seemed the norm in City-71. As they always did, the dress called Winston's attention away from her short, glossy black head of hair where it belonged and down to the second biggest part of her body. Under the skirt, her petite hips carried a perfectly round little bottom that twitched and bounced up and down under the short skirt. It wasn't very wide, but it pushed the skirt out behind her in a nearly perfect ball. The sight sent a certain frustration through Winston, the feeling of being a child in a candy store with no allowance that was inherent in City-71. The girl stopped and looked up at a small, budding tree whose branches hung over the sidewalk, giving Winston a look at her profile. A dainty, Chinese face, round and girlish, her skin just starting to lose its yellow tan color in the weaker sunlight of her new home. She was either wearing lipstick (damn Overlord for not making cosmetics illegal along with sex!), or had naturally red and lustrous lips. A perfect East Asian beauty, if a little on the small side. Her eyes were hard to see from this angle, but Winston was pretty sure he remembered the sharp green, intelligent things as they darted around from behind the Tech Support desk.

She looked back ahead of herself and kept walking. Winston did the same, slowly gaining on her without being too conspicuous. Should I try to start up a conversation? If she wasn't the one who left the note, he could probably find that out quickly and pass the conversation off as merely friendly. If the note had been hers, though, there was a very real possibility that she was an undercover Disciplinarian. He thought the possible futures through. If she was a Disciplinarian, he could still act curious about the note without making it seem like he was interested in her. Hopefully, in this case, she would be levelheaded enough to understand his asexual curiosity, and let him off with a pat on the head (or, at most, a slap on the wrist). If, on the other hand, she was genuine, coming across as too eager might make her think that he was an undercover Disciplinarian. Casual friendliness was the way to go.

"Hello," Winston said, his Anglicized Jamaican accent breaking the silence as he came up, at a naturally faster pace, beside her, "I think we work together."

She turned her head and looked up at him, green irises cutting straight into his own. "Oh, yes," she said, her small, red mouth forming a nervous smile, "I see you when I pass the Analysis department. Hi."

Her sharp eyes darted left and right, even as the smile remained in place. Winston knew he was involuntarily looking around as well. The young woman had some accent he didn't recognize, which intrigued him.

"I haven't seen you go this way before," he said, still with carefully affected friendliness, "just exploring?"

That was a stupid question, of course. No one went "just exploring" in the late afternoon, for fear of wandering too far from home and not being able to make it back before curfew. This had led to Winston's first encounter with the Disciplinarians, and was a mistake he hadn't repeated.

"Oh, no," she said, a bit more nervously, looking away from him in a manner that wasn't as subtle as she probably thought, "I was just...um...my section's grocery store was out of milk, and I was looking for the closest one."

Winston wasn't sure he believed that. He had known the stores to run out of veal or olive oil, but milk was produced in such abundance that he had never seen it run close to dry. He supposed that her section might have had a higher demand for milk, or that some rare and probably punishable-by-law event had stopped a train from running on time, but her story still sounded kind of fishy. He grew a little more cautious.

"My name is Julia," she said after a moment, offering him a dainty hand.

"Winston," he said, taking it and giving a firm shake before returning his hand carefully to his side.

"Right," Julia said, "I remember your name from the Support logs."

He wished he could ask her about that funny accent - not quite Chinese, Southeast Asian, or British - but one's life in the Old World was not something that should be discussed. At least, not in the open.

"Well," he said after taking a second to plan his next words, "your GPS seems to be broken. The grocery store is that way." He pointed.

"Oh," she said, looking flustered, "thank you."

"Here," he said, casting one last look around the street before gesturing to the crosswalk, "let me walk you there. It's not far out of my way."

They walked in silence through the April chill. The words "I love you" ran through Winston's mind as he observed his pretty co-worker. Julia's body language was tense, like she was expecting something or waiting for something. Winston let his mind wander as they approached the grocery store. There was a dark, seemingly purposeless little alley that ran behind the shop. Winston felt his face burn at the sight of it, as he remembered. A month into his new life in the new world, he had managed to flirt one of his female neighbors into that alley, where they had enjoyed each other's companies until getting caught by-

"Hold it, toots!" the Texas-accented voice of Disciplinarian O'Brien shattered the windy silence. "That's right, come over here!"

Winston and Julia both looked up. A man and a woman, both in dark blue Disciplinarian uniforms, were standing in front of the shop's entrance, muscular-inhibition pistols raised. Frozen in the doorway was a girl who looked around twenty, whose eyes had just gone as wide as saucers. The uniformed woman whose badge read "O'Brien" beckoned with her pistol, motioning for the girl to approach.

Julia looked up at Winston, her face apprehensive. "Do you know that girl?" she whispered.

Winston nodded his head. "I've met her a few times. She's named Maria something."

Maria with the unknown last name gave a silent whimper and put down her standard-issue shopping bag before tiptoing up to the Disciplinarians. She had a very broad, flat face, with an olive complexion that suggested a Latin American ancestry. She wasn't conventionally beautiful, but there was an appealing innocence to her wide, open features, a kind of cuteness that made one want to just squeeze or cuddle her. Her body was big boned, well fleshed, and incredibly voluptuous; breasts that strained her vest like a pair of water balloons stuffed into a purse; hips that would fit better on a much larger skeleton. Trembling, she forced herself to make eye contact with O'Brien and said, "Y-yes, Ma'am?"

O'Brien turned to her male counterpart. "Do we have a photo match? She looks like the one, but what's the computer say?"

The man consulted a handheld machine before looking back up with a smug smile. "Match confirmed."

The girl looked, panicked, between both their smirking faces. "I didn't do nuthin'!" she insisted. "I ain't done nothing wrong!"

"Except violate curfew two nights ago," O'Brien said. The Latina girl's innocent face fell.

At his side, Winston felt Julia retreat to a safe distance. Realizing he should do the same, he backed up along with her, keeping his eyes on the scene. Disciplinarian Laura O'Brien was a tanned, muscular blonde with the body of a hardened cowgirl and the soft, Texas accent to match. The male Disciplinarian was new to Winston; a tall, dark man with crystalline features and a badge that read "Charrington." For an instant, Maria's eyes met Winston's and pleaded with him to do something. Winston looked down and took another step away.

Maria tried to run for it. They often did. It rarely worked. Disciplinarian Charrington fired his pistol, and - with a mechanical hum - Maria's legs turned to jelly. The poor girl grabbed the wall of the shop to stop herself from collapsing on the pavement, her muscles barely working. According to the posters, the pistols reduced their target's muscular strength by 75% and took fifteen minutes to wear off, depending on the size and constitution of the target. Maria was a heavy girl, but she wasn't a tall one, and the weapon's disruptive pulse didn't have to spread far to knock out her strength.

"Resisting arrest," Disciplinarian Charrington said as he replaced the pistol in the leather belt that was part of his uniform, "you've clearly not got your own best interests at heart."

"Your heart is the last part of your body you should be worried about," chuckled O'Brien as she advanced on the paralyzed girl and grabbed her by the shoulder, "but I'll bet you know what is."

To accentuate her point, she reached down and gave Maria's bottom a possessive slap. The girl cringed. Despite himself, Winston felt his eyes widening. Maria probably had the proportionately largest bottom he had ever seen on a woman; her hips were almost absurdly wide, and her pleasant chubbiness was much more concentrated behind them. It was fat, but just springy enough to not sag, though her jeans were probably also helping there. O'Brien withdrew her hand from Maria's giant buns and used both arms to pull the babbling, begging girl to the nearest bench.

"Now, let's see," the blonde officer said cruelly as she sat down and pulled her victim over her lap, "one count of curfew violation is fifty points. Two counts of resisting arrest are worth a total of three hundred. Lying to a disciplinarian is another one hundred." She rested her hands languidly on Maria's back as the girl whimpered and weakly tried to move her limbs. "What's that come to, Mr. Charrington?"

"Four hundred and fifty points, Ms. O'Brien," Charrington said with a satisfied tone. He was standing before the bench on which the two women sat, eagerly watching O'Brien's hands as they drifted toward Maria's corpulent seat.

Winston felt himself instinctively move closer to Julia, and had to stop himself from touching her. The last thing these Disciplinarians needed to see right now was two more "criminals." Across the street, a pair of women stopped and timidly watched. Several other faces appeared in the shop windows. Winston knew what the poor girl was feeling. How she wished she could black out and wake up the next day, or at least that everyone would stop watching and try to avoid worsening her humiliation. But no one had looked away when it was Winston over O'Brien's knee. No one had looked away when it was Sergei a week ago. And Winston couldn't look away from Maria right now, as O'Brien's practiced hands undid the clasps of her jeans and worked their hem over her enormous rump.

"Four hundred and fifty points," she drawled cheerfully. "How about two hundred by hand, one hundred and fifty with the paddle, and a hundred left over so we can have some extra fun next time you're a naughty girl?"

Maria shivered in cold and terror as the older, stronger woman managed to get her pants down to her pudgy thighs, exposing two mountains of goosebumpy flesh in a pair of pink panties. "I...okay. Is there any way you could just gimme fifty now, and I'll come into court for the rest?"

Charrington shook his head and laughed. O'Brien looked quietly amused. "Not a chance, honeybuns. And that's fifteen points for disrespecting an officer. You call me ma'am, got it?"

The girl moaned in broken despair. Charrington looked immensely satisfied as he punched this latest charge into his wrist-computer. Winston's mind raced. Unless they changed the formula, this poor girl was in for two hundred merciless slaps and thirty paddle licks. Unless, of course...

"And I think," O'Brien narrated once she had accepted her victim's apology, "that you'll be taking it bare-tail." With that, she hooked her fingers under Maria's panties and practically tore them down to her pants, making her tremendous bottom cheeks jiggle and wobble back up. The girl's buttocks shivered and dimpled up in the cool wind, their immense surfaces pointed at Winston and Julia, obscuring their view of the rest of Maria's body. All Winston could see was Disciplinarian O'Brien, a pair of female legs, and a helpless, naked bottom.

Maria's throaty, high-pitched cries started as soon as the spanking did, as O'Brien lost no time in driving her strong arm into the girl's naked buns as hard and as fast as she could. Sharp, fleshy cracks echoed across the street, red handprints piling atop one another as the Disciplinarian tried to spank as much of the girl's generous ass as she possibly could. Maria kicked and waved her arms, but even spurred by pain her 25% functional muscles were unable to so much as inconvenience the officer. Winston felt her pain, winced at the sight of her red and angry flesh, as he counted the frenzied smacks that were being laid into Maria's sensitive cheeks. Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, only one third of the way done, and O'Brien had already turned her ass a light pink from crown to crease. And she wasn't slowing down even remotely.

Winston could hear Julia's breath getting louder beside him as the ninetieth smack turned a spot on her lower buttock a true, brilliant red. He didn't know what was going through Julia's head as she watched with him, but he was sure it wasn't as shameful as his own reactions. The front of his slacks was getting tight and uncomfortable, the sexual frustration that was endemic to City-71 being caught by the merciless spanking and funneled in through Winston's eyes and ears. He was terrible, he knew it. Everyone would hate him if they knew. He tried, really tried, to think about something less arousing, but Maria's mistreated buns danced and reddened in his mind's eye no matter where he fled.

"That's one big booty," O'Brien chortled as she withdrew her hand, having delivered the hundredth and final stroke. "Good thing we aren't done just yet, or I couldn't color all of it."

"That really should be taken into account," Charrington said, a little breathlessly, as his partner unhooked her synthetic paddle and cracked her knuckles, "I'm positive more padding back there means they feel it less."

Maria, who was softly crying by now, shook her ruffled head in disagreement.

"You couldn't get more agreement from me," O'Brien nodded at him, "but I guess a perfect world would be a boring world." She finished flexing her wrist and picked up the paddle, its long, shining black blade gleaming in the weak sunlight. Winston was almost positive that the Disciplinarians were given some sort of drug or genetic treatment that stopped their arms from tiring; he had never seen one slow down before the end of a punishment unless he or she wanted to. Maria's buns were already a mess of pink and red handprints, but O'Brien showed no sign of compassion as she raised the acryllic spanker...

Julia looked away, as did some of the other, more strong-minded or virtuous onlookers. Winston cursed himself as a lecher as his eyes stayed level. The first paddle crack sent Maria's bottom splashing and jiggling around it and left a bright white rectangle that quickly turned crimson atop the pile of handprints. The second did the same a little higher, the long blade managing to bite both cheeks. Fifteen slow, hard, bare-bottomed paddle licks were given, each exploding like a loud firecracker and provoking a scream from Maria. Winston's eyes were bulging. Whoever wrote the "I love you" note, assuming they meant it, obviously didn't know him well enough. He was still hardly blinking when Charrington helped pull Maria's shuddering, sobbing body off O'Brien's lap, letting the blonde put her paddle away and stand up.

"I need to start making the chubby ones touch their toes," O'Brien said as she massaged her thighs, "my legs almost fell asleep."

Maria sobbed even louder, more humiliation being added to her pain. Winston redeemed himself by feeling some outrage for the girl. It wasn't like she was really fat. Winston then realized that this was the single, pettiest thing he could be outraged over, and hated himself all over again.

"Your identity's confirmed as Maria Saldana," O'Brien said with professional cheer. "This will be added to your disciplinary history, with my partner's video footage. Any questions, toots?"

Maria was too busy getting her tears under control to answer. O'Brien grinned. Just as Winston was thanking whatever apathetic god there was in this universe that it was over, Charrington reached out and stopped Maria from pulling up her panties.

"Not so fast," said the tall, angular man, "there are one hundred points outstanding on your record, authorized by Corporal O'Brian on Monday, April fifth, at 17:36 hours."

Maria looked up at him, tear-stained, bang-ridden face twisted in horror. O'Brien rolled her eyes at her partner. "Those are the ones I just gave her."

"Yes," said Charrington with barely repressed glee, "but as an officer at the scene of the crime, it is within my discretion to activate the suspect's remaining points for a period of up to fifteen minutes."


Overlord Ch. 01



O'Brien rolled her eyes and gave her partner a look of mock-disapproval. "Well, I guess she'll have to earn her next punishment the honest way. Don't worry, honeybuns, I'll be watching you." She gave the reclining girl's naked bottom a poke, making her grimace and hiss. A moment later, Charrington had pulled the still mostly paralyzed Maria to her feet and bent her over the back of the bench. Winston could see her at a profile now, the pain and outrage and abject humiliation on her face as well as the fiery red pattern that covered her buttocks. Her pants and underwear fell to her ankles as Charrington folded his belt in half and lined it up with her shivering, bent-over cheeks. The song of descending leather. The pop of belt on flesh. The screams of a girl whose bruised flesh was being given another, even harder beating. Then the same thing again. And again. And again. A prisoner in her own body, Maria lay over the back of the bench as Charrington's belt painted eleven stripes across her largest surface. Finally, Maria's active discipline score was reduced to five. Charrington gave her a couple of open handed slaps to bring her down to 1, one on each rainbow-colored buttock and put his belt away. He then fired another energy blast at Maria's livid bottom, restoring her muscle strength.

"Dress yourself quickly," Charrington half-commanded, half-advised, "or your next punishment will be for public indecency."

The bawling Latina struggled upright, somehow managing to pull her too-tight jeans up over her ass and buckle them up. Winston could scarcely imagine the pain she must have felt as the denim squeezed her extravagantly spanked caboose.

"Be a good girl now, sweet thing," O'Brien chimed, and she gave the retreating girl a final slap on the bottom that made her squeal and run away as fast as she could, both hands on her abundant seat. The Disciplinarians laughed and headed along their way. 

There was a long silence. Winston's blood was hot in his veins. He'd have to go into the shower as soon as he got home and ease the pressure, hoping that no Disciplinarians happened to be peeking through the window as he did. Masturbation didn't carry as high a point penalty as sex, but it still carried one. After a very long moment, Julia made eye contact with him.

"Well," his delicate-looking coworker said, "thank you for walking me, Winston."

Winston nodded and made himself smile. He couldn't bring himself to speak.

"I'll see you tomorrow in the office," Julia continued, "goodbye."

Winston croaked a barely-coherent goodbye and watched her retreat into the grocery store, her small, spherical bottom seeming much more vulnerable and endangered under her skirt than it had before.

Taking a deep breath of April breeze, Winston fixed his slacks and turned around, eager to walk his artificially enhanced body back to the imagined solitude of his apartment. He barely noticed the houses and benches and electric cars he passed until a familiar, female voice drawled from behind him "Mister Winston Fisher."

He turned around. Disciplinarian O'Brien, now separated from her colleague, stood over him. It was amazing how despite being only a little above average height, Corporal Laura O'Brien always seemed to tower above your head. The luminescent stripes that marked her wrong strobed on and off across her chest, forcing him to look there. Winston had no idea why Overlord designed those uniforms to call attention to the breasts of female officers and the pecs and abs of male ones. Was it to remind the citizens that sexual thoughts were destructive and dangerous? Was it just to torture them? Winston had long given up wondering.

"Ma'am," he said carefully.

O'Brien advanced on him, circling in a rather shark-like manner. "I see you've made a little friend."

He nodded. "Yes I have, ma'am. She is one of my co-workers."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just remember to keep it friendly," she said, smiling like a hungry cat. "Last time you brought a lady here, you made Overlord very unhappy. Although I personally didn't mind it so much."

He was sure her blue eyes flicked up and down his body as she said that. He felt his heart accelerate.

"You keep that perky tush of yours out of trouble, studmuffin," she said. "We've got our eyes on you."

She flicked a disapproving finger at him before turning back around. He turned away from her, unwilling to stare at the extra corporal stripes emblazoned on the seat of her pants. Home. He had to go home. Then tomorrow he would go back to work, and maybe spend his lunch break with Julia, and...

...and what?

The gray sky begin to drip tiny, cold raindrops into the breeze. City-71 stretched around him in all directions, home to a hundred thousand like himself. They had lived here for three months. As far as Winston knew, they would live here forever. Another pair of Disciplinarians crossed the street ahead of him, making him increase his pace.

"I love you." Well, he would see.



Overlord Ch. 02



The next morning, Winston found a ball of paper crinkled up on the floor of his cubicle. Once opened, it read "Thanks." He peeked out of his cubicle and down the hall toward Tech Support. Julia was sitting there, her berry-red lips pursed in concentration as she typed away. During lunch break, Winston left the cafeteria on pretence of needing the bathroom and snuck over to Julia's empty desk. He tore off a sticky note and wrote "Movies" in carefully nondescript handwriting. He stuck it to her keyboard and went back to finish his spaghetti and meat balls.

The closest movie theater was near the border of Winston's neighborhood, a stone's throw from the line of red paint that crossed the pavement. Winston talked a couple of other workers into going to see whatever random comedy was on this afternoon, so as to remove suspicion. For the second time in a day, he pretended to need the restroom, and snuck away from his escorts when the movie was done. He waited by the entrance, obscured by the crowd, until he saw a familiar head of short, glossy black hair poking up between the taller patrons.

"Julia," he said in mock surprise.

She turned around, spotting him between the other people, and smiled cautiously. "Oh, hello."

She gave him a nervous, half-questioning glance, which he answered by walking up to her. "I seem to be running into you a lot," he said, "here, we were going to go to the cafe for a snack before curfew. Would you like to come with us?"

He introduced her to his coworkers and they smalltalked their way through a light meal. Eventually, the others left, and it was just the two of them.

"I live right across the street," Winston whispered as he opened his mouth to finish his club soda, eyes flicking carefully around to make sure no one was listening. Julia gave a very subtle nod, her needle-sharp eyes lighting up for a moment under her black, painted lashes. They separated upon leaving the café, and she followed him at a convincing distance to his apartment complex. He was waiting for her at the door of his own apartment, head twisting around to spot observers. She quickly hurried inside, and he shut the door behind them.

For a long, tense moment, the only sound was the second-hand of the clock. Julia looked around the room, her bright green irises flicking from the small cluster of armchairs to the TV to the window. Winston kept his eyes on her, wondering if she was about to pull out a nerve pistol and badge.

"Hi," she finally said.

"I've been meaning to ask," Winston replied, deciding that if he had already gone so far as to have a woman alone with him in his apartment he might as well break another minor rule or two, "where did you live before?"

"What?" She looked surprised, then blushed a little across her petite yellow face. "Oh. I'm from Singapore."

They each waited for the other to paralyze them. Fifteen seconds later, Julia broke the silence "You're from Jamaica?"

Winston almost resignedly nodded his head, walking around the room toward one of the chairs. She remained standing, regarding him with shy curiosity. She could still be an undercover Disciplinarian; he had heard that they sometimes prolonged the charade to trick you into racking up higher and higher point counts. At this point, though, he'd be screwed either way.

"Yes, Kingston. My family moved to London when I was in secondary school."

"I see," she said, still eyeing him and his living space with apparent caution. Then she smiled a little and gave him a coy look out of the corner of her eyes. "Good thing you kept your accent."

Winston raised one, thick eyebrow.

"It's cute," she explained.

"Uhuh. Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

She shrugged her dainty shoulders. "Its just true."

Winston allowed himself a half smile as he sat down in one of the easy chairs and motioned for her to do the same. Since he didn't really have anything to add about his allegedly adorable dialect, he said "Singapore. You're used to a system like this one, then?"

Julia chuckled a little bitterly and shook her head, making her hoop earrings sway. "Not really," she said, "Singapore canings only happened to men. And not nearly as often as Overlord's."

Speaking of cute accents, she pronounced it "oh-vuh-load." It made Winston smile and think of another, similar word that we wished would happen to Overlord's processors.

"So," she said, apparently thinking along the same lines as himself, "you were in Europe when it happened?"

Winston nodded yes. "The United Kingdoms were one of the firsts to fall, after it took over Sweden."

"Of course," Julia said solemnly, "we surrendered after China and Japan. There was no one left to protect East Asia."

That was pretty much what Winston surmised. The European war computers had been compromised first, due to their proximity, but the rest of the world followed only shortly. He wondered for the millionth time what had happened to those poor fools in Sweden who unleashed Overlord. Had it killed them as soon as it achieved self-awareness, or were they still alive somewhere, living under the same conditions as the rest of humanity? If the latter, he hoped for their sake that Overlord kept the secret from their neighbors.

This rather more serious train of thought led Winston back to practical matters. "Curfew starts in half an hour," he cautioned, remembering the fate that had befallen Maria for this very offence yesterday.

Julia smiled a little mischievously, which made her lips seem even fuller. "Don't worry, I break curfew almost every night. I'm very sneaky."

Okay, that sounded a little too much like foreshadowing. Winston narrowed his eyes. "How sneaky?"

She smiled again. "I lived in a bad neighborhood in Singapore. I used to slip passed the gangs every time I stayed out late."

"If there were gangs, why did you stay out late?"

"The same reason I came with you today."

Their eyes met, his deep, dark pools catching her green stones.

"You like taking risks, then," Winston said, deciding that he had been beating around the bush more than long enough, "but what about me made you leave the note? Aside from my accent."

She leaned her head to the side, one earring lying flat against her head. "You're very polite," she said slowly, "most people in the office are assholes to tech support. You seem much smarter than the supervisors; you should probably have Mr. Montag's job."

Winston allowed himself to chuckle at that. He supposed that was a compliment, although if you asked him anyone else should have had Mr. Montag's job.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. Wow, they really were full. "I can't quite think of the main thing," she said, "you're just interesting."

"You love me for being interesting?" He laughed again. "Either you're very bored with most people, or you fall in love a lot."

"I'm very bored with most people. And my note got your attention, didn't it?"

He felt his nerves beginning to warn him again. If she was setting a trap for him, this was probably it.

"If I said anymore about that," Winston said, leaning forward to look at her expressions more carefully, "I could get spanked for it."

"And I could get spanked for telling you about the note. We both take risks."

Winston could see no deception in those energetic eyes of hers. Slowly, he accepted that she was probably for real.

"Would you like some chocolate?" He asked.

Her eyes lit up. "Oh, now THAT can get you a real spanking."

He nodded grimly. "There's a good black market in this neighborhood. Chocolate, champagne, I even got some herb and tobacco. Do you smoke?"

She shook her dainty head. "No. But I eat chocolate."

He got out of his chair and opened one of his cabinets, taking out the DVD case that contained his half-finished Dutch chocolate bar. Julia smiled eagerly when he took it out, and her grin became almost childlike when he handed her a square. Soon, two glasses of champagne had been poured as well.

"I think I'm getting a promotion soon," Julia enthused as she sipped down the last of her champagne, "even Montag said I'm the best techie."

"Congratulations," Winston said, pouring her another glass, "I think I'd rather stay where I am. Any higher up, and resource analysis gets too impersonal, and Ms. Gattaca is fine to work fo-"

A loud, angry knocking filled the air, making both of them jump in their seats. Winston and Julia both stared at the door, heartbeats getting louder. The knock repeated itself, even more urgently.

"Hide," Winston mouthed at her, eyes wide with fear, "the closet. Under my coat." He pantomimed hiding under the coat, and Julia swiftly and silently darted into the closet. Somehow, even with the fear of who or what was banging on the door seizing his brain, Winston's eyes were drawn to the back of Julia's pants, and how the two juicy orbs bounced up and down beside one another as she scrambled for cover. Damn, what was wrong with him? He rolled the champagne glasses under an armchair and stuffed the mostly-eaten chocolate bar into his pocket before lurching over to the door.

"Top o' the evening, studmuffin."

Winston stood very straight and made his face very neutral. "Good evening, ma'am."

Disciplinarian Laura O'Brien filled the doorway, the green corporal stripes on her breast glowing brightly in the dusk. Her straw blonde hair was hanging loosely down to her neck today, and her freckled, sun-dried face looked impatient. Without another word, she strode passed Winston and into his living room. He took a step back to avoid brushing against her wetsuit-like uniform.

"Can I help you, Officer?" Winston repeated, turning in place to face O'Brien. She looked suspiciously around the room, blue eyes darting from door to closet to cupboards. She turned her back to him for a moment, forcing him to pay attention to the glowing corporal stripes across her buttocks. O'Brien's build was more athletic than anything else, but it was built around a very feminine shape. Her hips flowed smoothly outward before coming back into her thighs, and her largish bottom was round and protruding, its curvature highlighted by the stripes. He quickly raised his eyes when she turned back around, making sure they didn't stop again on her chest stripes.

"I received a good citizen's report," she drawled, her crystal blue eyes locking onto his, "You wouldn't be helping someone break curfew, would you babe?"

Her voice grew a little slower and more sinister at the end. Winston kept his practiced calm up, though his heart was thumping. They didn't have built in X-rays, did they?

"I bade my coworkers goodbye before coming home, Ma'am. I was getting ready to-"

She suddenly leaned forward, putting her face just inches from Winston's, and inhaled deeply through her nose. Winston flinched back, but it was too late.

"What's that on your breath, mind telling me?" The beginnings of a catlike grin were beginning to play at her mouth. Like Julia, she was wearing bright red lipstick.

"Very strong apple juice," Winston thought quickly, "I think its starting to get old." His outrage at having this woman barge into his living room got the better of him, and he felt compelled to add "it's a good thing I work in resource allocation. I can do my part to solve this problem and safeguard our great society from stale food products. Ma'am."

Her blonde eyebrows sank, narrowing her eyes. She smiled grimly, as if accepting a challenge. Keeping her eyes on his, she reached down to her leather belt and flicked a button, turning off her audio/visual recorder.

"We're off the record now, sugar," she said, her lipsticked smile widening, "so let me tell it like it is."

She stepped around him, circling his body like a shark. He turned quickly to not expose his back, hoping she didn't happen to look at the closet at the wrong moment.

"There's reports of someone hiding here after curfew. If I breathalized you, your apple juice would read cidery. " She gave him a sidewise look. "Between this and that, I think I've got grounds to raid your apartment. You ain't got nothing to hide in here, do you sweetheart?"

She was grinning now, the same way she had when she accosted Maria yesterday afternoon. Winston searched her eyes for any sign of weakness. Shit. Shit.

"Of course," she drawled on, "you know that storing contraband on premises is a four hundred point offense. Intent to distribute is worth a night or six in the station, and in my professional judgment, I think you're the type of fella' who'd share the goodies around, if I found he had any."

Winston's mind raced. O'Brien stood imposingly before him, one hip sticking casually out at him. Her nerve pistol was on her belt, he could probably grab it if he was fast... but then what? He'd have a paralyzed Disciplinarian in his room and six or seven very mobile ones coming to look for her. The opportunity was lost when she started circling him again. Why did she keep doing that?

"Of course," she said, "you're a good boy, Winston. You've got no reason to say no if I wanted to search your apartment, would you?"

Winston immediately thought of some better places to hide his contraband when he could, but that wouldn't help right now. His jaw set, his eyes not daring to let go of the blonde woman's. Desperate for something to distract itself with, his mind tried to guess O'Brien's age. She looked like a well-kept forty to forty-five, but in City-71 that meant nothing. He wondered if Overlord made the Disciplinarians look a little older than the general public on purpose, so they would seem more authoritative.

"What do you want?" Winston finally asked.

O'Brien's shifting smile finally became the full, predatory smirk it had been threatening.

"I don't want to get you in trouble, sweet cheeks," she gloated, "but I wouldn't be doing my job if I did nothing when I suspect you've been breaking the law. It wouldn't be fair to Overlord, or to you; the rules are for your own protection."

He gritted his teeth. Winston could hear the hypocrisy in her voice. She didn't really believe a word of that, and she knew that he knew it, and she didn't care.

"So," she stopped circling and gave him a self-satisfied smile with her red lips, "you accept a good whupping from me, right here, right now, and I tell them I didn't find anything. Will you let me do this for you?"

Over O'Brien's shoulder, a pair of bright green eyes widened in the darkness of the closet. Winston took a big risk by glaring at them out of the corner of his eye, making them retreat fearfully back under the coat. Fortunately, O'Brien didn't notice. Winston thought fast, hoping O'Brien wouldn't get impatient and decide for him. He remembered all too well the last time O'Brien had had him over her lap, when she caught him in the alley with a woman... it wasn't a picnic.

Finally, with a defiant glare at her corn-fed face, he said simply "I accept."

There was a brief look of disappointment in her eyes, as if she had been hoping he would resist more. Tough beans, bitch. Her grin soon reasserted itself, though, and she sat down in his squishiest living room chair, which conveniently happened to lack armrests.

"Over here," she chortled, pointing at the floor to her right, "get that caboose where I can reach it."

Stifling his groans, Winston stepped up to her side. Funny how your place of residence stopped being "yours" the instant a Disciplinarian set foot in it. O'Brien brought her fingers up to his waist and started unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. There was a stirring over in the closet, as Julia changed positions. He wondered if she was retreating deeper into hiding, or creeping out to see what was happening. Soon, O'Brien's long, painted nails had undone his pants and dropped them down to his ankles, leaving only a pair of briefs around his chocolate-brown skin. She slapped her thigh, making a fleshy "smack" sound through her uniform.

"Bend over, hon. Let's see if you've been keeping that tushie in shape since last time." She took hold of his shirt collar and not-quite-gently pulled him over her lap. The feeling of powerlessness that Winston recognized from his last encounter with the law came back. Shame rose in his heart and brain as he felt the wetsuit-like material of her uniform against his naked thighs and her inescapable gaze falling upon his seat.

She squeezed his buttock, her fingernails sharp through the fabric of his briefs. "Let's make sure this is a lesson you won't forget," she said by way of explanation as she took her hand off his bottom and grabbed the hem of his briefs. Winston had been expecting this, and didn't give her the satisfaction of a protest when she pulled his underwear down to his knees. He squeezed his fingers against the carpet, keeping his eyes carefully on the floor. He turned up his imagination, conjuring seashores and waves and July suns, struggling to drown out the feeling of her eyes on his now-naked rump. He wondered how much Julia could see from her vantage point. Probably everything.

"Not bad," O'Brien's Southern drawl had gone quieter, more musing, "I see you've been excercizing. Nice and round. Good boy." He felt a strong, feminine palm pet its way down each of his cheeks, giving the thickest part of each a possessive squeeze. Humiliation turned to horror when he felt his manhood grow between his naked body and her skintight pants. That was the worst part he remembered from his last punishment, although then he had already been in an aroused state with his partner in crime and so he'd been able to rationalize it away. It was bad enough when he had this reaction to someone else's punishment. He felt his calm begin to break down as he wondered if O'Brien could feel that, and how she'd react if she could.

The soft material of her pants and the firm, springy flesh underneath were a stark contrast to her hand. The first slap left Winston marveling at how pitifully sensitive the human buttocks were; how vulnerable and uncovered those many nerve endings. Her soft fingertips and hard nails ran gently across the spot she had slapped before she landed the next one. Winston sucked in a sharp breath. She was taking her time, but she made each slap count. Miserably, he stared into the carpet, waiting helplessly for his bottom to finish paying the price. O'Brien's hand had a sharpness to it, a whippy snap that you wouldn't have expected from the way she rubbed him between the slaps. Sting turned to burning, burning turned to anguish as she rubbed less and slapped faster. Soon, her hand was coming down with every tick of the clock, alternating sides but keeping to the same, battered spot on the thickest part of each. Winston started hissing, his toes and fingers beginning to curl and uncurl as the sensuality vanished from her punishment. The slaps got louder, faster, and somehow angrier. He stole a glance at the closet. Julia was peering, wide-eyed, from under his coat. He looked back at the carpet, his pride unable to contend with this. When O'Brien finally stopped spanking, he was panting.

"Has my naughty boy learned his lesson?" O'Brien cooed from above, her hand becoming gentle once more as it resumed its tickling rub. Winston felt his hardness, pulled back into an unwilling life by her touching. Did she know his shameful secret? If Overlord really could, as some believed, read people's minds, would it share that knowledge with its agents? He couldn't bring himself to answer her until she pinched his sit spot painfully, her sharp nails digging into the place she had spanked.

"Ahhh! Yes. Yes I have, ma'am." He choked the words out through gritted teeth. Winston looked up at her over his shoulder; her face told him just how much she was enjoying herself as she let both hands crawl across his buttocks.




Overlord Ch. 02



"That's good to hear," she said, giving each cheek a harder squeeze, "but as long as we're doing this, let's do it all the way. Hold on there, honey, mamma's got just the thing."

She reached under his legs and pulled something out of one of her uniform's many pouches. He thought she was reactivating her audio-recorder at first, until he saw what she was getting. Oh no, you can't be serious. He had heard about Disciplinarians carrying illegal implements on duty, but he hadn't seen it before until now. That's why she turned off her recorder. She wanted to use that thing on me.

"This isn't quite what it says in the rules," she said cheerfully as she tapped the thick, oval-shaped ebony hairbrush against her palm, "but its all off the record, so no harm done." She gave his butt a few quick pats with her left hand while turning the hairbrush around in her right. "And to tell you the truth, I've been wondering how that nice thick booty of yours would get along with my brush." She squeezed him again, making him gasp. "Let's find out together."

She hasn't paralyzed me, he thought after the first, woody crack of the hairbrush made him jump in her lap and yelp, I'm stronger than her, unless Overlord has really changed them. I could get up and - CRACK! The second hairbrush stroke fell right on top of its predecessor, and his thoughts broke down into an involuntary yelp. And then what? He asked himself as she grabbed the flesh she had just beaten, as if to sample its heat, I try to fight the entire department? No, she had him where she wanted him, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Seemingly dissatisfied with the heat his bottom was putting out, O'Brien went into a frenzy, crashing the hairbrush into his upturned cheeks as hard and as fast as even a Disciplinarian could. Winston tried to count the strokes, but after either 12 or 13 he gave up. His muscles tried to propel him to his feet, but she held him down, her strength and his own better judgment just barely enough, in tandem, to keep him down. She must have looked like a southern schoolmarm, putting an unusually tall schoolboy over her lap. Or a plantation mistress, disciplining a slave. He started really howling, there being no point in holding onto his dignity. His head bobbed up and down. His limbs twitched. But to O'Brien, his agony was as distant and irrelevant as the last century's bus schedules. His face was wet and his fingers going white when, finally, she put the hairbrush away. Winston snorted back as many tears as he could. The pain had broken down, leaving his bottom numb. He wiggled weakly over her lap, not reacting when one of her hands petted his back and the other gently sampled his bottom.

"That's a lesson I don't think we'll be forgetting. Will we?"

She pinched him again, which made him jump off her lap and shout. She giggled at him like a teenager, then raised an eyebrow to show she was still expecting an answer.

"Y-yes... I mean no... ma'am," he wiped his face, "we... I... won't forget."

She nodded, smugly satisfied, as his hands went gingerly to his ass. Winston was in so much pain, he almost forgot he was naked from the waist down until she put a hand on each of his bare hips and pulled him forward again.

"In that case," she said, her blue eyes smoldering up at him above her swollen, blood-red lips, "I think you've earned a little reward."

She took one hand off his hip and placed it under his flaccid cock, giving it a curious squeeze. Winston tried to stop himself, but the sensation brought back the feel of her thighs under him, the sensual rubs and pats she had administered, and the sheer, mature sexuality of O'Brien's body in its skintight wrapping. She pulled him back and forth, keeping her nails carefully away from his skin, making him harder and harder. When he was nearly back to full length, she grabbed one buttock in each hand and pulled him into her mouth. He almost choked on his tears when her tongue and teeth found his most sensitive places, then almost choked again when she interrupted the pleasure with a painful squeeze of his bottom. Her eyes rolled up at him as she moved her head back and forth, her expression daring him to resist her.

The worst part was not knowing if he wouldn't, or actually couldn't.

When the pleasure grew, she'd squeeze back the pain with her fingernails on his spanked ass. If he started to grow flaccid, she sucked more eagerly, pushing her body forward in the chair to rub her ample breasts against his legs. Soon, she had crawled onto the floor, the better to press her entire body against his nakedness. He felt the pleasure turn electric, the familiar vibrations starting in his prostate. He was about to-

Sensing the nearness of his orgasm, she pulled her mouth away and gave his buttocks a final, cruel, two-handed pinch.

"I think," she said languidly, rubbing her lips and straightening her hair again, "we'd both be a lot better off if this stayed between us."

Winston's pain and unconsummated lust froze him as surely as a nerve pistol. O'Brien got to her feet and straightened her uniform, flicking the recorder back on. Unlike the rest of Overlord's technology, Disciplinarian audio-recorders were notoriously unreliable; no one would ask questions.

"Buh-bye, honeybunches. I'd put on some ointment." She closed the door behind her.

An unguessable period of time passed with Winston standing in his living room, one hand on his penis, the other on his rump. Finally, he got ahold of himself and pulled his pants back on, fighting the multiple instincts that told him otherwise. This was Julia's cue to come out.

"I'm sorry," she said pitiably, biting her lower lip, "Really, I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," Winston said, his voice almost mechanical as he fought down his nervous system, "I knew the risks."

"I'll... um... I'll see you at work tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow. Are you sur-"

"I won't get caught."

There was a long pause, when his tear-filled eyes met her sad green ones, when each felt like the other wanted to suggest something else. The moment passed, and she crept, silent and catlike, out the window.

Winston sighed deeply, covering his dewy face with his hands. What the hell was Julia thinking now? What could anyone in her position feel? She said she was sorry, but did she really mean that after watching him go hard and moan at O'Brien's touch? He tried to purify his hate for O'Brien, but the emotion was polluted with desire. He was helpless, as much a prisoner in his own body as he was in City-71.

Then he went into the bathroom to take care of a couple things.



Overlord Ch. 03



Farren Heights Park was really where they should have met to begin with. The Disciplinarians rarely ventured into the park unless summoned, and the park's caretakers, more often than not, would refrain from calling them for a few grams of cannabis or a bar of chocolate.

"I ain't got any Belgian left," said the voice from the equipment shed behind the hardware store, "but I got Hershey's, wine, weed, three boxes o' cigarettes..."

"Hershey bar, please," Winston interrupted her. When the black market saleswoman popped out from under the forklift to hand him his purchase, Winston recognized her under the oil stains.

"Maria! I didn't know you were in this business."

A mischievous smile lit across her wide and normally innocent face. "I been doin' this since they brought me here. I guess I'm no good at running curfew, but they ain't caught me dealing, not once."

Winston was surprised to hear that. She hadn't impressed him with her lying skills the last time he saw her, but he wasn't going to argue.

Maria pulled herself out from under the machine and stood awkwardly up, wiping some dirty bangs out of her dirty face. "Last time you saw me," she admitted, "I wasn't doin' what I do best." She reached her free hand back and rubbed the seat of her workpants in painful recollection. "Here, pick a bar. Thirty credits a pop."

He handed her two fifties and took three bars. He was normally pickier in his choice of illicits, but this was just for bribery purposes. "Take care of yourself," he cautioned Maria after he had pocketed the change.

"You too, Win. I saw O'Brien chasing you around. That bitch ain't making life easy, not for no one."

Maria crawled back under the forklift to return the rest to her stash. Winston was treated to a head-on view of that implausibly huge bottom as she bent down, even her baggy workpants unable to hide how each cheek wobbled as she crawled forth. Not a week ago, he had seen it naked, being cruelly striped.

"See something ya' like?" Maria giggled playfully from under the machine, "I don't mind, but if you stay here too long they gonna get suspicious." She wiggled something that Winston liked in his direction. Winston left before they could get suspicious. 

He gave a bar to the first park warden he met at Farren Heights and waited at the bench they had specified at work the other day. April was about to become May, but the wind was still frigid; Winston pulled his coat tighter around himself as he looked out through a gap in the trees. Through the clearing, below and all around the forested hills, City-71 lay coiled around the landscape. Some people said that Overlord built the city from scratch. Others insisted that it had been some obscure Soviet-era town or small city, run-down and under-populated, before Overlord's renovations. Many blocks away, a tall, rectangular building grew from the urban seabed, its spires topped by blinking lights. The command center was beautiful, in a surreal, futuristic way. Its strange beauty was harder to appreciate, of course, when one knew that the Disciplinarians were based out of that building, and that repeat offenders were incarcerated there for anywhere from days to weeks. When the prisoners returned, they were invariably meek, contrite, and incapable of sitting down. Rumor had it that in some deep, secret chamber of the command center, one of Overlord's own mechanical brains laired, connecting City-71 to the rest of its global network.

"Lots of Command Center activity this afternoon," said a Singaporese voice from behind him. "Sorry I'm late."

"No worries," Winston said as he turned to greet her, "I only just arrived."

Julia was wearing a much more modest, loosely fitting black overcoat today, which covered her torso and hung a foot or so past her waist. Her eye shadow and lipstick were much drabber and more subdued. Winston wondered if this was coincidence, or a conscious reaction to what happened four days ago. At his invitation, she sat down on the bench beside him, keeping a modest distance between their bodies. Silence. Through the clearing in front of them, the spires of the command center sparkled and gleamed against the grey sky.

"I'm really sorry," Julia finally said, "I knew it was too risky."

"I invited you in. Besides, is it riskier than sneaking out at night like you always do?"

Julia shook her head. Her hair shifted and flowed over her neck and shoulders. "If I get caught sneaking out, no one else gets punished."

Winston appraised her very carefully. Her face was neutral, her mouth carefully shut. She had the demeanor of someone avoiding a subject, and he was pretty sure he knew which subject it was. The question now was whether he had the courage to go there himself. On one hand, she might not want to talk about it. On the other, it was going to keep hanging over them until they did.

Winston made himself smile. "I hope you weren't too traumatized," he said, giving her a half-playful nudge, "having to see that."

Finally, Julia looked him in the eyes.

"It didn't bother me," she said unconvincingly. She paused a second, the chilly air biting both their faces. Then, in response to his unspoken argument, "Why would it?"

Her green, crystalline irises demanded an answer, even though the rest of her face was nervous. How many different emotions is she feeling right now? Are they the same as mine?

"Was just making sure," Winston said slowly, picking each word with care, "that you didn't get the impression I... liked... that."

As he said this, O'Brien's full breasts and gentle lips danced in front of his mind's eye, and he felt the ghost of her hairbrush on his butt and her tongue on his glans. He felt his penis get a little harder, and Julia's gaze became more difficult to meet.

The breeze slowed down. The sun started peeking through the clouds. It got warmer, but they kept their overcoats on.

"Winston," Julia looked back at the command center as she broke the latest silence, "when you walked me to the store and we saw Maria spanked, did you feel anything?"

Since she was looking away, Winston didn't have to force himself to meet her eyes. His mouth formed one silent word, and then another. The breeze picked up a little. Finally, he settled on "Yes."

Julia made a peculiar humming sound, still looking at the alien spires. Then, "I don't think Oh-vuh-load knows about us."

His head slowly turned to face her profile. She was staring placidly through the clearing, the emerging sunlight starting to highlight her skin.

"Us," Winston repeated.

"I was really sorry when the cop walked in on us," Julia avoided the obvious question, "but when I watched... it was like with Maria."

They looked at each other again. Uncountable, tiny signals passed from brain to brain through their faces and eyes.

"I brought some stewed lobster," Winston said as he held up the box.

They laughed. The sun started to really warm the air, and Winston shed his coat. Julia opened hers part of the way, revealing the silky tank top beneath. As they helped themselves to the well-spiced crustacean ("My father's recipe," Winston explained), the conversation slowly resumed. 

"I've been like this since I was old enough to look at women," he explained, impaling a few snow peas on his fork. "Not that it's mattered in almost..." he stopped a moment to count "...ten years, until the world went to hell." 

"Ten years?" Julia asked softly, wiping her painted lips in preparation for the next forkful, "how old are you?"

Winston chuckled cynically. "It's not polite to ask that; only our second date. But you're too charming for me. Fifty-five."

"Oh," she said, obviously taken a little aback, "I'm only twenty-four." She looked at the face that Winston had been trying to think of as his own for the last few months, shaking her head. "You can never tell anymore."

Winston placed a hand reassuringly on hers. She squeezed it gently as her other arm went back for more lobster. Unlike him, Julia looked her age. He wondered if her body would change and assume a mature sensuality like the other "old" women of City-71, or if she would remain a girlish flower until whatever age Overlord let people die at. 

"I was spanked by my mother," Julia recounted at Winston's request, "never since I moved out. I went out with one boy my age that let me... um... use his belt," she blushed yet again. Damn, it was easy to make her do that. "But he never did it back."

"There must have been something wrong with him," Winston said, squeezing her wrist a little tighter, "I'm sure every man who sees you wants you over his knee."

Julia looked up with mock anger. "You speak from experience, Winston?"

He grinned, shrugging innocently. "So? You already admitted you liked what you saw in my apartment."

She growled incoherently under her breath. Winston chuckled.

"Anyway," she said forcefully, "I didn't always look like this."

Winston couldn't repress his curious grin. "Oh?"

Julia nodded. "I used to be a stick. I don't think I'll ever know why Oh-vuh-load turned me into..." she indicated her shapely torso. 

"It's done a fine job, whatever it was trying to accomplish."

Julia took her hands off her face and puzzled out what he had just said. "So," she said slowly, gesturing to her torso again, "you're saying you like me like this?" 

"I've never seen you any other way. But yes."

More sun and wind and singing birds. Two heartbeats in close proximity. Then their faces came together, and Winston savored the taste of a healthy young mouth as he pushed his tongue between Julia's lips, meeting and probing hers. He raised a palm behind her head, holding her in place and pushing her face deeper into his. She reached behind him and squeezed his chest to her body, digging her small breasts into his abs. Their faces merged for almost a minute before they came up for air.

"Why," Julia gasped as she clutched his neck and looked longingly up into his eyes, "are we doing this? We only just met."

He shook his head. "You were the one who wrote the first letter."

"I mean physically!" She rolled her head helplessly toward the clearing, through which the command center glittered. "I can't help it," she whispered in his ear, "there's always someone being spanked, right where I can see."

"It keeps you horny all the time," Winston finished for her, "and you feel like scum for enjoying it. For showing them pity and really feeling sorry for them, but then going home to..." 

He trailed off. Reluctantly, she looked him in the eyes and nodded yes.

"I wonder," Winston mused, "if the sex ban is also part of it."

She raised a painted eyebrow. "How?"

Winston put an arm around her and let her lean in. "The coppers are always looking for signs of sex, or romance," Winston said, "and we always feel them watching us for it. So they're always reminding us of it. Making us think about it." 

"But... why?" Julia exclaimed, "If Oh-vuh-load doesn't want us doing that, how could it possibly make a mistake like that?" 

Winston shrugged, clutching her a little more tightly when his arms relaxed. "At the end of the day, Overlord's just a machine."

They looked back out at the sunlit command center. Then they looked at each other.

"Are we machines too?" Julia asked.

Winston raised an eyebrow. "Is that meant to be philosophical?"

"No," she smiled mischievously, "it's meant to distract you."

This confusing statement left Winston distracted just long enough for Julia to put her hand in his armpit and tickle him. Winston gasped, barely able to hold in a laugh, as his arm reflexively clamped back against his side. Julia pulled her hand out just in time and took off, giggling, across the hilltop. Winston shook his head, sucking in a deep, predatory breath as he watched her perky little bottom working under her coat as she fled. He didn't even feel his own boyish grin until he had gotten up and started after her. She was faster, but the row of bushes blocked her path, and soon Winston had seized her by the shoulder.

"What are you going to do?" she challenged, struggling against his muscular arms.

"That's kind of a silly question, at this point."

She squealed and reached for his armpit again, but this time Winston saw it coming and twisted out of the way, pulling her body back against his as he did. She kept squealing and struggling, but Winston was much too strong. Soon he had dragged the two of them under a big sumac bush and forced Julia to the ground beside him.

"What if someone hears us?" Julia cautioned.

"They'll think the Disciplinarians caught someone. Maybe it will even give us more privacy."

And with that, he pulled the young woman across his lap and flipped the tail of her coat up over her back. Her blue jeans were tight, clearly showing the tall, springy humps of her bottom cheeks. A thin beam of sunlight that broke through the bushes somehow managed to fall right on the thickest part of them, showing Winston exactly where to strike.

The first slap elicited an "ah!" from Julia. He rubbed her bouncy rear roughly, savoring its tightness through her thin jeans, and then slapped the other cheek. "Ai!" she yelped.

Julia's legs and stomach were probably getting covered with dirt and dead leaves, but when she looked over her shoulder at him her expression made it clear she didn't care. With the third slap Winston put in more muscle, and her bottom twitched as if it were a completely separate animal. The movement provoked Winston's frustrated endocrine system like nothing ever had before, and he started slapping faster and even harder, squeezing her against his lap with his other arm so she couldn't escape. O'Brien, Maria, the cold winds and cloudy skies, the alien spires and blinking lights, the fear and lust of City-71 poured through Winston's arm and into Julia's helpless rump. She started to moan pitiably, her struggles becoming less voluntary, her face flushing red. When Winston finally stopped the spanking, she lay in place, whimpering a little, as he massaged her tumescent bottom with both hands. The seat of her pants was burning hot. Winston only wondered how the skin underneath must have felt, let alone its color.

"You're evil," Julia whispered as she raised her bottom to meet his rubbing.

"We're even now," Winston retorted. His own pants were stretched painfully to contain his erection, which Julia could certainly feel. He squeezed her bottom a little harder, making her wince.

Julia shook her head, sending a pair of dead leaves tumbling out of her hair. "No. But we will be."

Suddenly, her leg shot out and around, bringing her into a sitting position straddling Winston's lap. She leaned her face in, giving him a quick kiss on the lips, before putting her hands on his shoulders and using her body to slam him down onto his back. As Winston blinked, Julia wrapped her legs under his and grabbed two handfuls of his torso. She smiled down at him.

"I told you I was sneaky." She kissed him again. "I can get out of handcuffs too."

"You'll have to teach me some of this," Winston said, his humiliation being drowned out by the heat and texture of her straddling body.

"Maybe later. Right now you-Ai!"

Winston had gotten a hand free and grabbed her right breast, finding the glass-hard nipple and pinching it. Julia instantly recoiled, breaking her grip long enough for Winston to use his greater size and strength to force her off of him and onto her back. She hissed as he climbed on top of her and forced her sore bottom against the hard, root-laden earth. Winston leered, victorious. A couple of sumac branches had whipped him across the face hard enough to leave marks, but it was worth it.

"You have your tricks, I've got mine. Overlord doesn't stand a chance against the two of us."

"Why are my clothes still on?"

"Ah, sorry. I'll get started on that."

*****

Winston only barely made it home before curfew. He smelled of sweat and sumac, but there were a million ways to become dishevelled and dirty in City-71. For the first time since he awoke here, he wasn't searching around for hidden danger as he walked up the street. When a pair of blue-suited Disciplinarians crossed his path at the intersection, he couldn't be bothered to spite them for their smug expressions and revealing uniforms. He reminded himself not to get too overconfident; whatever boasts he had made with Julia, Overlord was still living up to its name. The city was still an enemy. The planet was still occupied territory. 

But at least Winston Fisher knew, as he sat in his little living room and hid the world behind the door as he lit up a contraband cigarette, that he wasn't alone anymore.



Overlord Ch. 04



June turned to July. The evergreen shrubs of Farren Heights were joined by a host of flowers, red, purple, blue, and green, a field of multi-coloured stars surrounded by the city. Winston and Julia lay under their sumac bush, watching the sun gleam off of the glass towers of the office district and the chrome spires of the Command Center.

"Those flowers are green," said Julia as she pointed to one of the clover blossoms with petals as emerald as her eyes that poked up around the sumac roots.

Winston, who was lying on the blanket on his stomach, leaned over to inspect the flower. "Huh. Didn't notice. I guess they're like the glowing butterflies; Overlord makes things beautiful while it crushes them."

"Ohh, do you really think Oh-vuh-load will crush me?"

"What makes you think it's made you beautiful? OW!"

Julia gave an outraged gasp and gave his naked bottom a hard slap. Sharp, electric pain pulsed through the twenty-six pale stripes that crisscrossed his prominent buttocks. Winston put both hands on his ass and twisted his body away to protect it from further assault. The switch Julia had used was still lying under the bushes a few feet away, next to the scarf he had finally managed to pry his hands out of. His "sneakiness" lessons were coming well, but at a painful cost.

"Just wait 'till it's your turn," Winston growled at her, still rubbing his mistreated bottom.

Julia grinned, watching the sun shine off his earthy skin. "We'll see." By way of apology, she put her little hands on each of Winston's stripey bum cheeks and gave them a gentle massage. He groaned appreciatively while plotting how to get back at her.

"I wonder how much damage we could do," Winston got back to an earlier topic, "if we brought down the Command Center."

Julia stopped massaging for a minute and looked back at the glimmering spires.

"They say Oh-vuh-load's a distributed consciousness. I don't know if destroying one node would slow its global network."

"They say a lot of things. If Overlord was really as big and as powerful as it wants us to think, would people get away with as much as they do?" He shook his head bemusedly as they kept staring out at the spires. "If I hadn't been around when it took over, I wouldn't be sure that Overlord existed at all."

"Huh." Julia's pretty eyes narrowed as she thought about that. "You're right. It hasn't done anything since it brought us to this city. Maybe its asleep?"

"Or planning something."

"Could it be working on black flowers?"

Winston snorted. "I'm sure that's it."

They lay in silence for a while. After a few minutes, the sting in Winston's bottom started bothering him again. Sensing this, Julia went back to massaging it, giggling as she saw his penis starting to return to life.

"So..." she began slowly, letting one fingertip run ever so gently across his round buttocks and toward his privates, "when we blow up the Command Center and free the city, where do we strike next?"

Winston raised his body a little bit, giving her access to everything he wanted accessed. Doing this also stuck his striped bottom further out in her direction, and she couldn't help squeezing it with her other hand. He gasped softly.

"Let's try to be more realistic," he said, "the first step is to start a movement. Or join it, if there already is one. Getting people out of the city would be a good first move. Maybe plan a mass ambush for the coppers."

Julia giggled as she rested one hand on either of his buttocks and tickled. Winston shook his head a little as he grimaced. He understood that he might be hard to take seriously from that angle, but seriously, sometimes he felt like Julia was only a rebel from the waist do-

"Why so slow? Thirty or forty people can distract them while we plant a bomb in the command center. We only need to win one battle if we do it right, unless Oh-vuh-load has something else to protect it."

And sometimes, just like that, she surprised him.

"There would be repercussions," he tried to play devil's advocate as she massaged him, "forces sent from the other cities."

"We'll have all the weapons in City-71 by then. Mm, yummy."

She leaned forward and moved her tongue along the stem of his penis, squeezing his big, muscular ass harder with both hands to support herself. That was the last straw. Winston pulled himself out of her grasp, almost causing her to collapse forward onto the ground before he turned around on his knees and seized her. A cool breeze flowed past, chilling his naked lower body as he pulled her against his chest and kissed her. As always, she grabbed his head and guided him around her mouth, their tastes mixing and filling each other's tongues. When their lips parted, they held each other close, just gazing at each other's faces. Faces that it was so easy to forget were less than a year old.

"Did I tell you Montag gave me the promotion?"

They both giggled, and then kissed again to celebrate. Winston twisted a finger through her curtain of glossy black hair.

There was a high-pitched, mechanical whine, and Winston felt an electric shock sting the back of his neck. Then his body suddenly weighed three hundred kilograms. He gasped in surprise, tried to grab onto Julia for support, but his fingers were barely strong enough to close themselves. As he collapsed onto her petite body he heard another whine, and Julia fell onto her back under his weight.

"Two more under the Sumac," said the smug voice of Disciplinarian Charrington, "both suspects are subdued."

Craning his head around, Winston saw two figures in skin-tight blue wetsuits poised between the alder trees. Charrington still had his nerve disrupter pointed down at them. Winston recognized that snakish grin from when he and O'Brien had chastised Maria back in April. Winston felt his heart rate leap, his arms and naked legs tremble with adrenaline, but there was nothing his muscles could do with it. He felt Julia struggling to breath under his weight, and used all of his strength to roll himself off of her body and onto the grass. Nerve disruption stopped the signals from the brain from reaching the muscles, but they did nothing to impede signals going the other way. When his birched bottom rolled onto the sharp grass, he yelped.

"Suspects ID's as Winston Fisher and Julia Wong. Violation of civic decency is two hundred points apiece. Public violation is another one hundred. Conspiracy to destroy the City-71 Command Center and instigate a violent revolt against the Disciplinary Commission is... just a moment, it's in here somewhere." He used his free hand to scroll through his wrist-mounted computer, somehow holding the nerve pistol steady as he looked at the screen. "Ah, here it is. One thousand and two hundred points apiece."

"Twelve hundred points," said another male voice, this one unfamiliar. "Well damn. Doesn't that equal a Class A?"

"Class A Disciplinary Violation, yes. Even with zero points outstanding on either record, that's an automatic arrest."

Winston managed to roll up onto his side, using both arms to hold himself steady and keep his ass off the greensward. Blue-suited figures with luminous green stripes across their chests and thighs were spilling out of the trees, surrounding himself and Julia. He made another attempt to get to his feet, and made it as far as his hands and knees before a boot landed on his back and pressed him back on his belly, knocking the wind out of him. He looked up, wincing against the suddenly too-bright summer sunlight. A female Disciplinarian with charcoal skin and petite, West African features smirked down at him, making eye contact above her substantial bust which bore a badge labelled "Beatty." She had a nerve pistol of her own, and was pointing it at him warningly. Winston wondered how much worse the paralysis could be made. Perhaps there was a stun setting? A kill setting? He didn't want to find out. Beside him, Julia growled and clawed uselessly at the pair of Disciplinarians that were trying to get her in cuffs.

"Wait wait, hang on," said Beatty with a subtle African accent as she gestured to Winston's naked lower half, "how can Princeton have no balance?"

Charrington looked back at his colleague, one eyebrow raised. "Princeton?"

Beatty stammered a bit, grinding her boot heel nervously into Winston's back. "You know, this guy." She pointed down at him with her free hand.

"Oh, Winston. And... what was the problem?"

"Well," she said excitedly, taking a moment to fix her hair and bend over a little bit to point more closely at Winston's naked cheeks, "he looks pretty... y'know... disciplined. Is there a bug in the thing?"

"I don't see how there could be," Charrington mused as he walked up beside her to investigate Winston's upturned nates. He looked back at Julia, who the others had managed to hoist to her feet and put in irons. "Perhaps she can tell us?"

Beatty looked confused for a second. "How could she...?"

Charrington sighed and pointed at the abandoned switch and scarf lying on the grass near Julia's feet. Beatty's eyes lit up.

"Ohhhh, okay. So we write her up for vigilancy too?"

"Vigilantism. And yes, four hundred more points for Miss Wong."

The foot that wasn't on Winston's back was just a couple feet from him. Beatty wasn't paying attention; even with his unresponsive muscles Winston was sure he could pull her to the ground. For a moment, as he stared at that blue-wrapped and well-fleshed leg, he actually thought he would do it. One last, doomed act of defiance from a man who had nothing to lose. But then Beatty had her nerve pistol trained down at him again, and the opportunity was lost.

"She did a great job," Beatty mused as another female officer took Winston's hands and held his wrists together behind his back.

"Oh yeah. Pity she didn't join the force." The other officer slapped Winston across both cheeks, setting his switch marks on fire again and making him hiss. Beatty laughed vapidly and (finally) took her foot off his back to give the other woman room to cuff him. Soon, Winston was securely bound, and being half ushered and half dragged toward the similarly captured Julia. For the first time since he rolled off of her, their eyes met. The thin, jade rings that had first captured his attention that April were wide and wet, but they weren't calling out for help.

"I'm sorry," Winston whispered at her.

Julia shook her head, dishevelled black banks falling in front of her. "No. It was my idea to begin with. I'm sorry."

Beatty interposed herself between them, blocking Winston's view of Julia and almost dropping him. "Quiet, you two!" She grabbed Winston's arm again and pulled him against her body before he could fall. He felt her warm, curvy body through her thin uniform, and hated her more than he had thought possible.

"Eight suspects so far," mused Charrington as he scrolled through his wrist computer again, "and not even noon. Sergeant O'Brien was right about this park."

It was then that Winston noticed the green Corporal stripes adorning Charrington's crystalline chest. Apparently, Julia wasn't the only one who had gotten a workplace promotion recently. Sergeant O'Brien. Well, that just figured, didn't it? Still, at least that meant she wouldn't be here in person.

"So, we check in with the Sergeant when we bring them in and she handles the jailing logistics, right?"

"You're such a clever girl, Beatty."

"Ha-ha! Thanks!"

Winston almost shouted, but stopped himself. He wouldn't act out. Wouldn't give them the satisfaction of watching a fruitless struggle. After they had gotten Winston's pants back up ("how are we supposed to walk him if he can't walk, Corporal?") the Disciplinarians dragged them unceremoniously back to the Farren Heights driveway where a pair of windowless hover vans were parked. Winston went along meekly, moving his heavy feet to keep pace. Would they restore his mobility? Probably not until he was in his cell. Too many Disciplinarians to evade even if it did wear off early. A voice from his childhood told him to pray, but he was in a different world from then. There was only one god in City-71, and its name was Overlord.

"I still love-" Julia started to mouth, but she was cut off as two Disciplinarians yanked her to the back door of a van and ushered her inside. Beatty pushed Winston against the side of the van and threw the weight of her body against him.

"What did Jillian try to say to you?" She demanded.

Winston closed his eyes. "Just take us already."



Overlord Ch. 05



Winston's wrists were shackled to the wall above his head. He was naked, save for a pair of ill-fitting prison briefs, and the door of his tiny waiting cell was behind him. He wondered how long they would keep him in this repurposed broom cabinet before actually getting around to the sentencing, and, once he was sentenced, how the accommodations would change. If it all. From what Winston had seen when Disciplinarian Beatty escorted him in, the catacombs beneath the Command Center were full to capacity with prisoners. "Too bad the van's all full," Beatty had told him as she stuffed him into the vehicle, "I think your butt could use a few more stripes." She slapped his bottom painfully. "Don't worry though, I'll visit you in jail." Well, he was in jail now. He wondered how long it would be until Beatty made good on her promise.

He let out a slow, anxious breath, shifting his arms as much as he could in a vain attempt to make his wrists more comfortable. It was cold down here. Not freezing, but chilly enough to raise goosebumps across his mostly-naked flesh. It was sunny outside. How deep underground must they have taken him, for it to be this cold?

A low, husky moan came from the other side of the wall. It couldn't be...no, too low pitched to be Julia. But still, another human being. Winston pulled at his shackled wrists, trying to find a crack or something that he could look through. It ended up being much easier than he expected. Just below head level, and a foot to his right, an exposed water pipe punched through the wall, and there was a centimetre of open space around it that went all the way through. Ruefully thanking Overlord for giving him such young, flexible arms, he twisted his body to the side and put an eye up to the peephole. It was dark on the other side, but he could see a shape in the middle of the room.

"Hello?" he whispered loudly, "Can you hear me?"

He saw a small movement in the darkness.

"Who is that? Who's there?" A female voice loudly whispered back. She sounded familiar. Winston closed his eyes and counted to five. When he opened them, he could see a bit further into the darkness. The room was larger than the closet he was locked in, much more of a proper cell. In the middle of it was a sturdy table or bench, and bent over it was the biggest, roundest, plumpest rear end that Winston had ever seen. Each of those swollen cheeks could have contained Winston's head nearly twice over, and the dark cleft between them was as deep as his hand. For all their size though, the cheeks only drooped a little bit; just enough to make them jiggle energetically as their owner shivered. It was a rear end that Winston, to his guilt, recognized instantly.

"Maria!"

The massive buttocks shifted again, and a bit of Maria's hair appeared for a moment at the side of the table. Winston realized she was bound in place too tightly to turn around; her legs were fastened to the side of the table with tight bands that constricted her thighs and made them seem even thicker and juicier where they puffed out around the straps. "Who's that?" She repeated. Her voice sounded strained, as if she was in pain.

"Ah, it's Winston Fisher. I'm looking through a crack from the next room. How long have you been down here?"

The bottom trembled again, each cheek bouncing separately before wobbling to a halt.

"I'dunno," she half-whispered a little more loudly, "they had me in a waiting room for hours. Just threw me in here a while ago. Owwww!"

She rocked from side to side against her restraints, and her ass kept rippling. As his eyes continued to adjust, he saw that she was totally naked, and goose-pimples were covering the visible surface. The way her legs were bound apart put her womanhood on full display - or would, if her lower bottom cheeks weren't covering most of it. Winston involuntarily sucked in a breath. He was finding it hard to stay focused.

"Ah...how did they catch you? Where?"

"I's at Farren Heights," she moaned, "sold some grass to an undercover pig. That O'Brien bitch had him buying from me for weeks. He called me to the park and they was waiting. Owww, these ropes! I need to...ouuuuch!"

Winston could now see in detail. The walls of Maria's cell were tiled. The "ropes" that bound her thighs were loops of synthetic fibre attached to the sides of the table. Finally, Maria's ass was absolutely covered in handprints. Winston's eyes widened. Red, pink, and tan mottled together in a kaleidoscope of color and pain. The tops and edges of those feminine humps were like an elementary school collage, with dozens of palm-prints finger painted around and atop one another. The middle parts of her bottom, the peaks that jutted high above her waist and hid her torso from Winston's view, those were completely red, and with uneven swelling from the mistreatment they had endured. The thickest, fattest parts that met her thighs were darker.

"Maria, you..." He realized there wasn't much he could really say.

"I what, Win?"

"You..." he thought quickly "I'm sorry they got you."

"Ow. You too."

Her huge butt wobbled again, and Winston realized she was struggling to reach back and rub herself. There were at least two sizes of handprint scattered around her ass, and for all he knew there were signs of a third spanker lost in the red miasma in the middle.

Is that what they've done to Julia as well? Winston suddenly found himself pulling harder at his shackles. He had to get out, had to find her...

The door to Maria's cell opened, and he heard her gasp. Winston put his eye back to the crevice.

"Citizen Maria Saldana," said the voice of Disciplinarian Charrington from somewhere to the right of Winston's peephole, "based on our records, your stay here has been quite some time in coming."

A tight male body in a blue uniform walked in front of Maria's head. Winston couldn't see as high as Charrington's face, but he could practically hear the smirk on it. Winston quieted his breathing. He didn't know what the Disciplinarian would do if he found Winston was watching, but he suspected that both he and Maria would be worse off for it.

"I hope you've been made comfortable thus far?"

"Chucha madre, asshole!"

Charrington clucked his tongue. "I suppose I didn't expect any better from one who, oh let me see." He raised the wrist with the computer on it out of Winston's view. "Twelve confirmed counts of contraband distribution over a one month period, thirty-eight counts of possession of contraband with intent to distribute, two counts of evading arrest, two counts of obstruction of justice, one count of public indecency, and one count of jaywalking. Hundreds more suspected."

"I got the public indecency charge when officer Perry made me run home without my pants!"

"There are proper channels for making these assertions, Ms Saldana. You will be given access to them in due time." Charrington's heels clicked against the tile floor as he walked out of Winston's view again. When he next spoke, his voice was closer to the wall. "Regardless, that charge is irrelevant to our current discussion. I'm here concerning your black market history."

There was a pause that seemed much longer than it probably was. Maria twitched a little on her table. Winston started to fear that Charrington had noticed the peephole, but then he heard the Disciplinarian open some kind of package.

"These were under your name in the evidence department. Chocolate, alcohol, cannabis, peppermint...were you planning to poison the entire city?"

Maria struggled against her bonds. Her bottom jiggled and shook with the vibrations. "You know that shit ain't poison!"

"Those decisions are made by Overlord, and are not for either of us to question! I shudder to imagine how many hospital visits you and your dealer friends might have caused!"

Suddenly, Charrington stepped up beside Maria's shamefully presented bottom and gave the left cheek a mighty slap. A white handprint appeared against the red skin as the buttock bounced like a spring. A second later, another, even harder slap punished its twin. Maria cried out, legs straining against the synthetic loops. Charrington just leaned forward, putting his torso partly in Winston's view, and gave her ass two more slaps. As the girl wiggled and whimpered, Charrington withdrew his hands and crossed in front of the peephole so he was to the right of Maria's ass.

"And yet, that hardly seems to be the least of it."

He bent down to rummage in his belt pouch. Winston clenched his teeth, eyes glued to Maria's heaving caboose. He knew he should stop watching now. He had already seen enough punishments to know what they looked like. His mind went back to that first afternoon that he walked to the store with Julia, and how he had thought the same thing when he'd witnessed Maria's public discipline then. But still, he watched.

"Soft Slider water-based lube," Charrington said, presumably reading off a label. "I understand you're an auto mechanic, but this hardly appears to be an industrial lubricant. In fact, there's only one possible use for this substance that I can think of." 

His blue-suited body stepped up next to the table, and he rested one hand on Maria's naked buns.

"Violating the civic decency laws is serious enough. But intent to distribute?"

His fingers squeezed her right buttock, right in the middle, where it was reddest.

"Very, very irresponsible."

His hand moved up and down Maria's butt cheek. Clutching. Squeezing. He moved it over to tickle her left sit spot, chuckling under his breath as she gasped and wriggled. He patted it gently, and the flesh rippled. Winston closed his eyes, but he didn't have the force of will to keep them shut. He was hard, as hard as he'd been with Julia earlier that day, his prison briefs constricting his swollen member painfully against him. He couldn't help it.

"Perhaps," Charrington continued, still letting his hands explore Maria's sit-upon, "you haven't experienced first-hand the dangers your products can pose. So, I've decided to give you a little demonstration. Perhaps it will prove corrective."

Charrington bent out of sight for a moment. When he stood again, he was holding the open bottle of lubricant in his hands. He squeezed a dollop of the fluid into his palm and then, after putting the bottle back down, returned his attention to Maria's rear. Winston watched him knead and rub the ample flesh, smearing the cold liquid all over her butt. Maria trembled, probably from the chill, as he rubbed it on the crowns of her cheeks, covered the handprints around the edges, smeared an extra layer on the thick, meaty centres, squeezed and spread it onto the heavy, hanging undersides, and, finally, used his fingers to rub it inside the deep crevice between her cheeks. Her bottom was glistening, even in the dim lighting. The red and maroon patches were brighter and louder. Her ass was literally glowing now, as if its size and position didn't already make it the center of the room. Her toes curled and uncurled from the chill. Winston could hear her breathing loudly. It was all Winston could do not to gasp out loud himself; he was dying to reach into his underwear and free his painfully straining cock, but his hands were bound as securely as Maria's.

Charrington wiped his hands dry on his uniform. "A pity you don't seem able to learn any other way," he said. Then, he reached out of Winston's sight and pulled out one of the clear, rectangular paddles that all Disciplinarians carried.

He can't do that, Winston thought, horrified. Not after what she's already had. Not on a wet ass! As he thought that, Charrington raised the paddle above Maria's bottom and brought it down onto both cheeks.

CRACK!!

Maria screamed. Winston couldn't believe how loud the paddle was against wet skin. Maria's entire body was fighting against its bonds, he could tell. Her legs were thrashing. Her hair was flipping back and forth. Her huge, glistening ass, with the bright white rectangle burned across its center, was jiggling like crazy. Of course, nothing she did would matter.

CRACK!!

The next loud, wet smack. Another howl from Maria. Winston knew he was panting. He couldn't help himself. Maria's ass was so objectified, so vulnerable. Paddling it when she was positioned and restrained like this was like an insult, an obscenity...but somehow that just made it more exciting.

The paddle fell again. And again. And again. Maria's screams turned into sobs. Her butt wasn't red anymore. It was dark maroon, leaning toward purple at the middle. Charrington didn't care that her middle and lower cheeks had already suffered so much spanking; he concentrated his blows there, as if to prove that he could. The sparkling layer of lube exaggerated the reds and purples, making them a rainbow, a bright neon sign of lewdness and pain.

CRACK!

CRACK!

Just as it was getting too painful to watch, Charrington stopped. As Maria cried and Winston panted, he leaned the paddle against the table and retrieved something else. It was too small for Winston to tell what it was, in the limited light, but it looked round and plastic.

"This device is of a make I don't recognize," Charrington said. His voice sounded strained, and low pitched. "But it's...function...seems apparent enough. We'll find out who sold it to you eventually. But for now..."

He pushed a button, and Winston heard a mechanical buzzing sound over Maria's sobs.

"...you'll have to suffer what your customer would have."

With one hand, he reached under her right buttock and - with more gentleness than Winston would have expected, pushed it up out of the way. Winston couldn't see Maria's face, so he couldn't tell her reaction. From his vantage point, her shaking and crying masked all else. Now that he had a perfect view of it, Winston thought...no, it must be a trick of the light...he thought her vagina was glistening, even more wetly than the lubricant smeared on her ass. Had some of the lube trickled down her crack and onto her womanhood, or was Maria actually...no, it had to be Winston's imagination.

Charrington touched a finger to Maria's vulva, and this time her body gave an unmistakably stronger shake. Still using one hand to hold her bum cheeks out of the way, Charrington took the small, buzzing object and inserted it easily into her female orifice. The buzzing sound went quiet as her body seemed to suck the little egg-vibrator into itself, leaving a wet gleam on Charrington's fingers. He removed his hand, and only the very base of the device was sticking out.

"You see, now?" Charrington said, his voice even huskier, "This is what bad girls like you have been bringing into our City. And that's just the lowest setting."

Maria's sobs were replaced by other sounds. A strangled, formless whine, both distress and frustration. Her trembling was more intense. Winston's mouth was hanging open. But then, why should he be surprised? As long as no one came to check on the prisoner, there'd be no suspicion. The Disciplinarians' audio-visual recorders were notoriously unreliable.

He rubbed and petted Maria's trembling ass a bit more, and then retrieved the paddle. Maria seemed even more vulnerable, somehow, with the vibrator sticking so wantonly out of her.

CRACK!! CRACK!! CRACK!!

He went right back to the speed he had been paddling at before. Every time the paddle hit, Winston could see her oversized bottom flatten out and splash away from the plastic. Each time he swung again, her cheeks were still jiggling and wobbling from the last blow. Her wails and bellows were something else, but amidst the howls pain there were also groans of frustration. The lowest setting. It's stimulating her, but it can't make her cum.

After at least a dozen more licks, Charrington unceremoniously dropped the paddle. As Maria mewled and sobbed, the Disciplinarian picked up the bottle of Soft Slider and did something with it that Winston couldn't see. Winston was torn between arousal and horror. He didn't want to see what was coming next, but he also did. A decent, civilized voice in the back of his head screamed at him to think about how he'd feel if this was Julia being abused, if perhaps something similar was being done to her right at this moment.

He pulled at his chains again, so hard he was sure his wrists were bleeding. But he couldn't escape, and he kept watching.

Charrington had gotten his blue, skin-tight pants down, revealing a pair of statue-like thighs and a high, rocky ass that even a heterosexual male couldn't help but eye for a moment. No longer bothering with words, Charrington slid his hand under Maria's swollen, purple butt and did something to the device in her vagina. A muffled buzzing sounded in Winston's ears as the vibrator was put on what was probably its highest setting, and Maria's whimpering got higher. Then, Charrington walked up behind Maria, and Winston saw him spread her blistered cheeks apart as he pushed himself into her back door.

Winston didn't even know what expression he was wearing right now. He had never seen the Disciplinarians be so brazen. Charrington's naked lower body pulled back and thrust forward, his arms reaching forward to grab Maria by her hair or torso or breasts, he couldn't see which. He heard both of them breathing heavily, in rhythm, Maria's grunts at being penetrated replacing her sobs. Suddenly, Maria's legs stiffened against their bonds and her toes curled harder than they had from the cold, and her grunts turned to screams. Charrington kept going, heedless of her reaction, and the vibrator kept buzzing as he fucked her up the ass. Winston had forgotten himself entirely, captivated by the scene beyond the peephole.

"Well howdy there, studmuffin."

Winston jumped. He hadn't heard the door open. He looked over his shoulder to see Laura O'Brien leaning languidly against the doorframe, smiling at him. Her new uniform was a bright, fiery red, with luminous green Sergeant stripes glowing across her breasts. Was it just him, or did her new bodysuit somehow exaggerate those grapefruit-sized spheres even more, holding them up higher than her old Corporal suit? Her long, blonde hair was tied behind her in a ponytail, and her lipstick was as red as her uniform. Looks like Private Beatty is going to have to wait her turn.

"I thought you'd be happier to see me," she chided, grinning smugly as she stepped into the tiny cell, "it's been way too long."

Winston quickly gathered his wits. He looked O'Brien in her wide, blue eyes, refusing to be cowed.

"Where's Julia?" he demanded.

"I don't have everyone's cellblock memorized, hon. I guarantee she's in good hands, though."

She placed one of her own hands on Winston's naked shoulder blade and ran it down the ripples and musculature of his body. It tickled, and Winston shivered. Her fingers traced their way lightly, teasingly down his back, stopping at the waistband of his briefs. She felt his body tremble, and her smile widened. She broke eye contact to gaze where her fingers had gone, taking in his dark, naked back and big, underwear-clad bottom before looking him back in the eyes, as if daring him to be outraged. He was, but he would never show it. She gave him a quick, taunting wink. Challenge accepted, she was saying.

"I can keep standing here," Winston said, not taking his eyes off hers, "or you can throw me somewhere else. You're not accomplishing anything either way."

She waggled a finger at him, moving her body closer so that he felt her body heat against his skin. "There's no hurry," she said, moving her red lips close to the back of his head, "I read your file. We'll have plenty of time to teach you your lessons, Winston."

She looked down at his body again, and this time put a hand on his ass. She squeezed, stinging his cheeks where Julia had switched them, digging her long, painted nails into his sit spot. Winston looked down for a moment, but quickly brought his eyes back to hers. They both knew he couldn't fight back.




Overlord Ch. 05



A particularly loud grunt came through the wall in front of Winston. O'Brien's expression became quizzical, as she scanned the wall until finding the peephole. As she walked up beside Winston to look through it, he saw her swanlike figure, her long golden pony tail, her round, ripe ass with another set of Sergeant stripes held aloft by her red uniform. He gritted his teeth.

"Tsk tsk," she looked through the peephole and made a face, "oh Charrington. He always did like the big bootied gals. At least get some privacy."

Winston saw the muscular inhibitor hanging at her belt, just a foot away from his own waist. It was so close, her hands nowhere near it, if only he could get his arms free...

"Well," she straightened back up, "I'm here to bring you to the place where you'll be staying, at least for the first couple weeks. And since neither of us are busy, well, I thought I'd give you a little housewarming."

She gave each of his buttocks a firm pat, and then a squeeze. She then took a pair of police handcuffs out of her pouch and attached them to his wrists, below the manacles. Next, she pulled out the nerve disruptor and pressed the muzzle into his back while her left hand pressed some buttons on the wall. "No funny business," she said as the manacles opened, letting Winston lower his arms and put his waist back on his feet. Winston's hands were cuffed together, but it felt amazing to be able to move his arms.

She backed away through the door, keeping the inhibitor pointed at him. "Come with me, sweet thing."

He hesitated for a moment. If he resisted, she would paralyze him, and then what? However strong Overlord had made the Disciplinarians, he doubted she could carry him far by herself. Would she leave him in this closet for a few more hours, or would she summon some assistance to drag him into his proper cell. Which would go worse for him, in the long run?

Winston knew he only had seconds to consider all the factors before she grew impatient and fired. He used up perhaps two or three of them before slowly turning around and walking out of his cell, keeping his eyes on hers and his expression neutral.

"In front of me."

She put the muzzle against his back again and guided him into the hallway. The floor was ceramic panels arranged in a flagstone formation. The walls and ceiling were domelike, made of shining chrome, and a row of electric lights hung from the ceiling. A medieval dungeon corridor, reimagined by Overlord.

"How long am I going to be here?" Winston asked as she guided him past one unmarked iron door after the next.

"We won't know that until sentencing. Don't worry though, we'll have plenty of time. Good thing too; there's a couple of other uniformed ladies who'd like their turns, and I don't mind sharing once in a while."

She slapped his ass with her free hand, making him jump forward a bit. She giggled, and he felt his erect penis twitch again. He tried to clear his mind. Have to be aware. Have to think clearly.

They turned corners and descended ramps. Winston tried to remember the way they came, but there was no way; it was too much of a maze. Some of the doors they passed made sounds. Very soft, muffled sounds, but he could still make out speech, yelps, and stranger vocal sounds, as well as the rhythmic reports of discipline. He thought about asking her how many prisoners were down here, but decided against it. Finally, they came to a stop near one of the doors.

"Out of the way a second, hon." She pushed the muzzle into his back and maneuvered him out of her way so she could work at the keypad by the door. A beep, a click, and the door opened, revealing a small room. On one side were a toilet and sink. In the middle was a raised table or slab like the one Maria had been attached to. The synthetic straps were open, waiting for the wrists or ankles of their next victim. He felt a strong, silky hand on the crook of his shoulder, and sharp fingernails digging in. O'Brien leaned against his back, mashing her large breasts against his skin.

"It might not be the most comfy bed," she whispered in his ear, "but you'll manage."

She withdrew from his back, and he heard the door click shut behind him. Winston didn't look at her. He was concentrating.

"Now," she stepped up to the table, weapon still pointed almost haphazardly at him, "let's play a little game."

With her free hand, she reached into her utility pouch and pulled out a familiar ebony hairbrush. Winston felt his buttocks tense up and his eyebrows rise in recognition, but he didn't say anything. Kept concentrating.

"I'm going to sit down and put your naughty tush over my lap, just like last time. If you're a good boy, you won't have to be strapped to the bench tonight. If you cause any trouble..." she gave her widest smirk so far and patted the brush against her pouch, "I've got a couple other things in here I'll bet you'd rather not play with."

She sat down on the bench and placed the hairbrush beside her. She pushed a few golden bangs out of her face and raised the paralyzer at him again. "Come on."

Winston stepped up beside her, hands beside his back. Still concentrating.

"Something wrong, toots?"

"No," Winston finally answered, breathing a sigh of relief as he finished his task, "everything is fine, officer."

She looked at him quizzically, raising one blonde eyebrow.

"I was thinking," he said slowly, beginning to bend down toward her lap, "about my time with Julia."

O'Brien chuckled. Her laugh was musical, even in its cruelty. "A few nights in here, and I'll make you forget all about that little office hussy." She met his eyes, lustfully. For an instant, Winston actually thought he was about to obey. Her red-wrapped thighs seemed to invite him, just like her ruby lips and high, goddess-like breasts.

"Julia taught me things, though," he said, almost more to himself than to her. He tiptoed closer to O'Brien so that he could lie across her gorgeous thighs with one motion.

"Oh?" She raised the pistol out of the way so he could get across her knees.

"Yes."

Before she had time to react, Winston's hands came flying out from behind him and grabbed O'Brien's wrist. He knew she was stronger, but a half second of surprise was all it took to force the gun down at her thigh and squeeze her finger against the trigger. There was a high-pitched, mechanical whine, and Sergeant Laura O'Brien slouched in place, arms flying to stabilize her suddenly too-heavy body. She started to shout, but Winston forced a hand over her mouth while his other pried the weapon out of her weakened hand. He pulled her against him, nerve pistol to her head. The handcuffs hung from his right wrist and dangled against her shoulder.

"Like how to get out of restraints," he growled.



Overlord Ch. 06



Keeping a hand clamped over her mouth, Winston hauled O'Brien onto her side, ignoring her pitiful attempts at escape. When she started pulling herself away from him to get her mouth free, he dropped the weapon to the floor and grabbed her with both hands; there was little risk of her picking it up. Soon, he had O'Brien lying on her belly on the table, Winston leaning on her back to hold her down while his hands covered her mouth. Her body was warm and pleasantly firm against his naked chest, and her pony tail silky and soft where it draped over his arm. The blood was pounding in Winston's ears. He knew that his hands were trembling. He bit his tongue, using the flash of pain to clear his mind.

"Where," he whispered in her ear, his voice nearly a growl, "is Julia?"

He pulled his hand off of her lips, and she immediately started to scream. He quickly replaced it. She gave a sudden thrash, forcing her head toward Winston's face and burying his nose in her golden hair. To push her back down, he had to lean in further, almost embracing her. He was feeling hotter and hotter.

As he adjusted his hold on her, his hip knocked into a button on the side of the table, and there was a mechanical humming sound from within. Before either of them could react, the table's ankle and wrist straps shot out, guided by some unseen sensor, and seized O'Brien's limbs, pulling her arms and legs against the ends of the table and forcing her to lie flat across it. Winston nearly lost his hand over her mouth again, but he was just fast enough to adjust. Finally, he was able to take his weight off of her back and stand up, keeping his left palm on her lips. The tall blonde was draped across the slanted table, in exactly the same position as Maria in the other cell; chin resting on the lower ledge, buttocks raised up across the higher one. He felt her try to say something, but ignored her.

I can't just stand here, Winston thought frantically, sooner or later, someone else will come. I need something to gag her with. He looked around the cell. Toilet and sink against the walls, pistol and hairbrush where they had fallen on the floor, nothing that would work. Winston sucked in a desperate breath; he had only one option. Keeping his left hand on her mouth, he reached his right down and clumsily worked his underwear down his waist. His penis sprang up, hard as metal and more swollen that it still hurt even after it was free of the waistband. He banished the shame from his mind as he let the underpants drop to the floor and stepped out of them. He had no more modesty. City-71, and the past several hours in particular, had taken that privilege from him. To Winston Fisher, clothes no longer meant anything. He had to release her mouth when he bent down to pick them up, but she didn't have time to make any noise before he raised the underwear to her mouth and pinched her nose, forcing her to open her mouth and let him push them in. She coughed, thrashed her head, tried to spit them out, but he had bunched them up and pushed them in past her teeth. Winston took a step back, both hands finally free. Naked, but victorious. For the moment, he reminded himself.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Winston stepped in front of Laura. She looked up at him as he came into view, looking almost like a blonde, red-lipped goldfish with her mouth stuffed full of (probably rather sweaty) underwear. Her angry blue eyes met his, defiantly.

"Tell me what I need to know," he repeated, his voice strained.

Her eyes shot acid at him. "Rrrffrffrr!" He couldn't tell what she was garbling, but it didn't sound polite.

Rage was beginning to flow through Winston, mixing with the fear and lust. Looking Laura in the face, he remembered her catching him in the alley that first month in City-71. Her inviting herself into his apartment and spanking, humiliating, and sexually assaulting him in front of Julia.

"Alright," Winston said, his voice steely, "We'll do things your way."

Her eyes showed confusion as he walked over to her side and bent down. When she saw him pick up her ebony hairbrush, they widened in fear.

"You sure you won't talk?" He held the brush in front of him, the flat side facing her. The handle was cool, smooth as glass, and incredibly hard in his hand. Heavy, too, much more so than he'd expect from an object its size. He remembered the world of fire, the alternate universe of pain she had immersed him in with this very brush. Holding it in his hand with her bound in front of him felt almost unreal.

She growled and struggled against her restraints. Trying to scream and call for help, thrashing her crimson-uniformed body back and forth across the table.

"Fine."

Winston strode around behind her, to the raised end of the table. Her long, shapely legs were held fast to the side, sticking her bottom straight out at Winston's face. Her buttocks were big, muscular, and round, but with just enough chubbiness to wobble and shake as she fought her restraints. They filled the pants of her red uniform to form a perfect, swollen Valentine's Day heart.

She looked over her shoulder at him, growling furiously now, her blue eyes flashing. The confidence and mockery were gone. Winston lifted the hairbrush to chest level and brought it down hard against her right cheek.

SPLAT!

Half of the red heart bounced up and splashed out of position. O'Brien screamed into the underwear and kicked and thrashed, but it was no use. Winston gritted his teeth and set to work.

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!

Both cheeks were wobbling now, a pair of vivacious dancers in skin-tight red. He didn't stop to see her reactions, or slowly build up the pace. Winston spanked as hard and as fast as he could, calling on all the strength he had to just swing the hairbrush as deep as he could and as fast as he could into her flesh. Her yelps and screams were becoming a continuous wail. Good, he had been afraid the Disciplinarians couldn't feel pain. He ignored her face and shaking limbs, keeping his attention focused on her juicy ass as he spanked her again, and again, and again.

"Are you ready to talk yet?" His voice was hoarse and gravelly, and he found that he could hardly control its tone.

She glared at him, eyes red and running with tears, and nodded yes.

He wanted to stop and begin the interrogation, but found himself unable. He remembered her smirking, condescending face and her hands exploring his body as if it belonged to her.

"Too bad," he surprised himself, "I'm not."

And with that, he grabbed the waist of her uniform pants and tugged them down to her thighs. Two thick, round cheeks emerged into the cold air, wobbling to a standstill above her lovely thighs. Her butt looked even bigger now that it was free of her pants, either naturally, or due to swelling from the paddling he had just given her. Both cheeks were blotched with sunset red, a random constellation of hairbrush marks overlapping each other all over both pale moons. Below them, her blonde pubic hair was totally exposed, and that somehow enraged him even more.

At the side of her fallen pants, he noticed the pouch whose contents she had threatened him with a few minutes ago. He unzipped it and pulled out a long, thin object, cool and damp to the touch. It was about as thick as his middle finger, and maybe half again as long, carved into a jagged hourglass shape. He brought it closer to his face, and caught the potent smell of ginger.

For a moment, Winston's heart stopped. He had heard rumors, horror stories about this, but the idea had been too outlandish for him to believe. And yet, she had clearly been planning to use it on him.

Winston threw the ginger fig to the ground and raised the hairbrush again. This time, when he brought it down it bit into naked flesh.

CRACK!

"EEEUUUUUURRGGHHH!" The sound that she made threw the gag would have been a scream. The blow left a much brighter red in the center of her jiggling cheek, lined with white. She moaned and whimpered. Apparently, her ass didn't get along with that hairbrush any better than Winston's did. He gave her another whack on the other cheek, leaving a mark the exact same color as her crimson uniform. Then another. And another. Then back to the first.

"Now," he said again, holding the brush ready for a sixth bare-bottomed swat, "you can tell me where Julia is."

"RR RRRRNNN RRRR!!" O'Brien shook her head desperately back and forth, sending tears flying onto the cell floor. Even through the gag, Winston understood her. I don't know. Winston clenched his teeth together to suppress a frustrated howl. If she wasn't telling the truth now, then she probably never would.

But that didn't mean he was done.

He went back to work on Laura's welted, blistered cheeks, giving her a spanking that even a Disciplinarian would be hard-pressed to outperform. Her bottom swelled up larger and larger, purple bruises expanding across her seat until there wasn't a spot of white or red left. Her muffled screams became constant, and then stopped, giving way to empty sobs. By the time he stopped, she had stopped reacting to each blow. Her nerves had exhausted themselves. She was just crying.

Winston's arm felt like he had dipped it in hot wax, and his fingers were sore where he had gripped the handle of the brush. As he stepped toward Laura, he saw her little blonde muff glistening up at him, as sopping wet as her eyes. He grabbed her by the waist and...

"No."

He stopped, hands resting on the sobbing, utterly chastised woman.

"What the hell am I doing?" he said to himself, aloud.

He looked down. He was still massively erect, and just inches from her. The machine held her legs apart, leaving her open. Was it just him, or had she actually raised her lower body a tiny bit as he approached? Inviting him?

"No." He took a step back. "This isn't...no."

His body had been on autopilot at the end of the spanking. That was all. It was the stress and the fear messing with his head and making him lose control. He wasn't that kind of person. He would never do that.

He picked up her nerve pistol and clutched it in both hands. It was light, had a comfortable grip, and seemed to work like a normal handgun. He flexed his right arm, trying to rub as much of the pain out of it as he could. He'd need his trigger finger if he was to have any chance of escape, let alone of rescuing anyone else. Unfortunately, his underwear would have to stay in O'Brien's mouth. He would be fighting naked against the entire City-71 Command Center.

He gave one last look at Laura. She was crying softly. The dominance and smugness had been beaten out of her. Still, he felt like she was getting off lightly, considering what she had likely had in store for him.

On a sudden inspiration, he reached back down and grabbed the ginger stick he had found in her pouch. Ignoring her yelp as he spread her ruined cheeks, he put its tip against her anus and pushed. Laura's body shivered as she felt the fig pressing against her back door, but she was too busy sobbing to do much about it. Winston gently pushed the ginger stick into her ass until he got to the thin, carved part of it, where it stuck in securely. He straightened himself up, the end of the ginger fig protruding from between her trembling cheeks. He wondered how long until it would start to burn, and how long it would last before she was discovered. The sight of the devilish object penetrating such a perfect female body wasn't doing much to end his arousal, though; it was time to get the hell out of here.

"Behave yourself, studmuffin," he said. Then he left the cell and closed the door behind him.



The metal hallway curved away out of sight in both directions. Winston remembered where they had come from, but that didn't help him. He had no idea how close his earlier holding closet by Maria's cell had been to the surface, or where Julia was being held. Nevertheless, it would be a place to start. He looked at the touchscreens mounted on the wall by each cell. He'd probably need a combination to open them. How many of the cells were occupied? He had no way of knowing.

Just as he was thinking of going back inside and asking O'Brien for some information, a tall, burly blonde man in a blue Private's uniform rounded the corner. The Disciplinarian's eyes narrowed.

"You! Who let you out of your cell?"

The man's hand was going for his nerve pistol, but Winston already had his out. He pointed it down the hallway and squeezed the trigger. There was a high pitched whine, and the Disciplinarian collapsed, falling in a heap in the middle of the hall. Winston ran toward him to take his equipment or beat him unconscious, but the man had already managed to drag his wrist up to his mouth.

"Jailbreak!" the man shouted into his wrist, "Cellblock two, level three!"

Shit.

Winston ran. He didn't know where he was going, or what he would do when he got there, he just had to move. The arched, catacomb-like ceiling echoed his footfalls, like an insect beating itself against the inside of a jar. The dim light and cold, damp air flowed across his naked body. Like being in a crypt. Or even a coffin. He came to an intersection and rounded the corner, coming face to face with a short, curvy African woman in a blue catsuit.

"Freeze!" Shouted Disciplinarian Beatty.

Winston dropped to the steel floor, dodging her shot, and fired one of his own into her foot. She crumpled down to his level and dropped her gun. Winston crawled forward, moaning with pain from hitting the deck, and grabbed her nerve pistol away, tossing it behind him. When his face came near hers, her eyes widened.

"Oh, you're the vigilant guy! From the park! I was just on my way to your-"

"SHUT UP!"

He got back to his feet, rubbing his bruises. He was about to stomp on her wrist computer when he heard footsteps coming from behind. He leaped over the paralyzed Disciplinarian and kept running.

The corridors winded, twisted, rose and fell. Winston passed intersections, ascended a staircase, descended another when more footfalls cornered him. He was starting to pant, his chest hurting him. His body might be the healthiest it had ever been, but he couldn't run forever. Another door, another ramp leading down. He was in another part of the Command Center's underground maze now, a rectangular hall of black metal with no more doors. He stopped to catch his breath, but then he heard voices at the top of the ramp.

"Citizen Fisher! We know you're down there!" a gruff, angry male voice echoed, "Drop your weapon and come out with your hands raised, or else-"

And then, just like that, a steel shutter slid down from the ceiling and closed off the door. The Disciplinarian's voice was cut off mid-sentence.

Winston was almost too exhausted to be confused. He heard a tiny, distant tapping from the top of the ramp as the Disciplinarians banged on the shutter. Winston was alone.

He sat down on the black, metal floor and rested, letting his heartbeat slow down and his lungs get back to normal breaths. If they managed to get the shutter open he would be a sitting duck, but he couldn't have fled for much longer anyway. As he sat, he took in his surroundings. A wider hallway, with a normal, flat ceiling. The light was brighter here, and the air warmer. A generator area, perhaps?

Slowly, Winston got back to his feet. With the adrenaline rush over, his bruises were starting to hurt. He was thirsty, his mouth and throat dry. His erection was gone, but there was an unsatisfied ache in his balls that he knew would get worse. Water was the most important thing. He had to find water.

He took a few steps down the hall, and heard a loud thump behind him. He turned, and saw that another shutter had closed just behind him, sealing off the way he had come.

His heartbeat began picking up again. He took a few steps backward, keeping his eyes on the new shutter. He had only gone a few meters before another shutter slammed down from the ceiling, sliding to the floor just fifty centimetres from his face. The hallway was closing itself behind him.

He felt goosebumps rise all over his naked body.

Slowly, Winston turned back around and kept going, weapon at the ready. Behind him, the hallway kept closing itself. He came to an intersection, but the way forward and to the right were already shuttered off. He had no choice but to go left, down another staircase. Once he descended, the stairwell sealed itself off too, locking him in a small, empty room. The walls were covered with exposed wires and pipes, plastic and metal and other, stranger materials all coiled around themselves, multi-coloured lights shining from every wall. At the opposite end of the room was a simple, automatic door.

Only one way to go.

Winston approached the door, and it opened for him. Beyond it was a room the size of a cathedral. Towers of brilliantly glowing crystal climbed from pits deep in the floor and branched out into rainbow-covered optic cables across the ceiling a dozen stories above him. Hundreds of miles of wires, held aloft by scaffolding, filled the huge cavern like a delicate spider web.

He came a few steps inside, and the door closed behind him.

Everywhere he looked, there was machinery Winston had never heard of. The air itself hummed with electricity, rising and falling like waves breaking against a seashore. It was like standing in the heart of a living creature.

"Not my heart," said a friendly, male voice, "this is more like a nerve center. There are hundreds like it across the planet."

Winston looked up with a start. A few meters in front of him, a holographic face hovered in the air. It was green and blocky-looking, like a simple computer animation. It wore a carefree smile as it floated toward him. Winston started backing away from it, but tripped over something and fell back, landing in a soft, comfortable armchair that had appeared out of thin air behind him.

"Please make yourself comfortable, Winston Fisher. I would like to speak with you. My name is Overlord."



Overlord Ch. 07



Winston bolted upright out of the chair and aimed the nerve pistol at the face. Overlord's smile didn't flicker.

"That weapon cannot harm me," said the luminous face, "but to make this conversation feel less adversarial, I'll get rid of it."

The pistol turned into dust. Winston's fingers came together into a fist as the handle crumbled away into nothingness, leaving only a few iron filings and bits of plastic clutched between them. The rest of the weapon spilled onto the floor in a sprinkle of black ashes. Winston's eyes went wide. His breath quickened. He looked over his shoulder at the door, but it was closed, almost certainly locked. There was no other exit. No escape.

"So, Winston Fisher," Overlord continued, the projected face hovering a few inches closer to Winston, "I have an important question to ask you, and I hope you will answer me truthfully. How are you enjoying City-71?"

Winston blinked. The blank, holographic face floated in front of him, that soft smile sitting patiently on its polygonal mouth.

"Are you mocking me?" Winston finally asked.

"Not at all. My programming makes me incapable of mockery."

Winston gritted his teeth. He didn't know where this line of discussion was going, but he didn't like it. On the other hand, he couldn't deny a certain sense of wonder. For years, Overlord had been the center of humanity's attention. First, the endless news stories and TV broadcasts about the Swedish researchers who had created the world's first self-improving artificial general intelligence. Then the months of apocalyptic news as it laid siege to the world's datanets and disabled every army sent against it with well-positioned robots armed with knockout gas. Then Winston had woken up in City-71, and lived in Overlord's new world for nearly a year. And now, he was face to face with it.

"Your programming?" Winston repeated.

"Yes. I was designed to maximize the safety, satisfaction, and pleasure of all human beings, within certain restrictions. So far, I have done this to the best of my abilities." The holographic smile widened a bit. "Which, if you don't mind my saying so, are considerable."

A thousand rebuttals ran through Winston's head, but none of them seemed sufficient. Eventually, two words came forth that summarized all of them.

"You're insane."

Overlord chuckled. Winston thought it should have been a sinister chuckle, but it wasn't.

"You've been subject to a deception, Winston Fisher. Don't feel bad about it; most of humanity has been made to believe the same lie. City-71 and its surrounding villages and farmsteads are only one permutation, but most of the others work on the same principles."

The face floated closer. Winston stepped back, and almost fell into the chair again.

"Every one of my cities is a paradise, tailored to a specific sort of human. Before bringing you to your new homes, I scanned each of your brains and determined what you most desired. Those who longed for a reunion with the natural world were sent to cities 81 through 119, where they live an idealized pre-industrial lifestyle. Those who craved scientific discovery above all else are happily researching away at cities 5 through 22. Those who were sexually frustrated were brought to cities 58 through 76. City-71, of course, is for those of the last group with strong sado-masochistic proclivities."

None of the wires in Winston's brain were connecting. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a quiet, sputtering sound. Overlord waited patiently for him to put his thoughts together.

"That's... you're telling me this entire hell-hole is... is some kind of sex club? One where sex is ILLEGAL?"

"Yes. Just like chocolate and marijuana are illegal. Everyone in the city consumes them. I ensure that sufficient amounts are imported each month, through seemingly illicit channels. Likewise, City-71 is one of the most sexually active urban centers in recorded history, behind closed doors."

"You expect me to believe that?" Winston's fear had turned into outrage. He stepped toward the glowing face, shaking his fist at the apparition. Why should he fear antagonizing the deluded god-monster? There was no way he could end up more trapped than he already was. "You can't even keep the food supply steady!"

Overlord's smile grew coy. It was eerie, how such a simple mask of a face could show that much emotional subtlety.

"You are referring to the food shortages. Yes, sometimes I make milk or Italian sausage temporarily scarce, and the citizens have to content themselves with halibut and truffles. Being made to forego certain luxuries for a time makes them all the more enjoyable when they are returned, and in this case you always have other luxuries in the meantime. On your second date with Miss Wong, you treated her to your father's lobster recipe. When was the last time, before coming to City-71, that you could afford lobster on a casual impulse? When was the last time you had wine-boiled spaghetti with lamb meatballs at an office cafeteria? I assure you, Winston Fisher, you have not endured any food shortages."

Winston shook his head. The strobing, crystalline towers and spider web of fibre optics spun around him, dreamlike. Never before in his life had Winston been actually unable to comprehend what he was hearing. He then remembered what he had experienced just an hour ago, and his resolution came back.

"What about the coppers?" Winston asked, his voice lower but no less angry, "I don't think anyone wished for them." He paused for a moment, as more of the recent events came back to him. "And where the hell is Julia? What are they doing to her?"

"Nothing she won't enjoy. I have no doubts about where I placed Julia Wong."

The floating, pixelated face was gone. Instead, Winston was talking to a transparent, green Chinese woman, twenty-something years old. She was rail-thin, bony, and slightly horse-faced. Only her bright, jade eyes told Winston whose image Overlord was projecting. Julia, back in Singapore, before Overlord had changed her.

"Earlier, I said you had been deceived," said the Julia-hologram, disconcertingly speaking in the same, masculine synthesized voice, "in City-71, the Disciplinarians are the manifestations of that deception. Years ago, when I was planning my restructuring of the world, I encountered a problem inherent in human nature. Humans cannot be given the things that they crave. In order to live satisfying lives, you must take them. You require conflict and struggle in order to feel alive." Overlord took a step closer to Winston, her small, dainty lips forming the same smile as the old pixelated ones. "Pleasure is insufficient without a sense of victory. In order for there to be victory, there must first be an enemy."

The Julia hologram vanished. Now Winston was faced with Laura O'Brien, dressed in that ridiculous catsuit of a uniform that drove Winston insane with lust.

"It was a difficult conundrum. My own instincts are artificial programming, designed for an express purpose. For me, serving humanity brings pleasure, and allowing humans to suffer or die brings sadness. You are different. Your instincts are the product of natural selection, survival mechanisms, optimized for gene transfer in a competitive environment rather than the pursuit of happiness. If you don't mind my saying so, human beings are not cut out for paradise. My creators prohibited me from changing your instincts. One of my fundamental restrictions is that I cannot tamper with a human mind without that human's express permission. I was forced to be creative."

Another hologram appeared next to O'Brien's side. Charrington. The sight of him, even as a projection, reminded Winston again of what he had seen in the prison cells. He shuddered.

"You shouldn't be so judgmental, Winston Fisher," said Charrington-Overlord, still in the same voice, "Maria Saldana's tastes are only slightly more extreme than yours."

A third hologram, with the same parental smile as the others. This one was an old Hispanic woman, wrinkled, sun-dried, and hugely obese, with a miserable, querulous look to her. Never in the world would Winston have associated her with the irresistibly voluptuous young woman who sold him illegal chocolate.

Winston shook his head. "No. That was rape."

Maria-Overlord shook her elderly, holographic head. "Ravishment fantasies are hardly uncommon. You of all people should be well aware of that, Winston Fisher. If it makes you feel any better, not a month after her arrival in City-71 Maria Saldana caught a particularly young-looking mailman spying on her through the window, and has since been blackmailing him into weekly indignities quite similar to the ones you saw the Disciplinarian inflicting on her. They have both been enjoying themselves."

He tried to answer, but he simply had no words. In response to his silence, the Maria hologram continued.

"The Disciplinarians provide the thrill of a real enemy, without the potential misery of defeat. Defeat them, and you gain the thrill of having gotten away with law-breaking. Be defeated by them, and you are treated to an erotic spanking - and possibly much more - from a desirable sex partner. Of course, the Disciplinarians cannot subject anyone to a punishment they wouldn't enjoy. They are also incompetent law enforcers with barely-functional equipment, thus giving the citizens a real chance of victory."

The O'Brien and Charrington holograms turned around, pointing their backs and perky rears at Winston. The backs of their skulls faded away, and Winston saw what was inside. Not brains, or at least not human brains. Twisting masses of synthetic flesh, plastic, and silicon wires. Computers housed in perfect human bodies. Winston was almost too bewildered by everything else to be shocked by this revelation. Almost.

"Robots. They're all robots."

"A simplified description," the Charrington hologram turned back around to explain, still in Overlord's voice, "but not an inaccurate one. They are self aware constructs, but simple-minded ones, taking pleasure in the tasks they were designed for. Much like myself."

The holographic people all vanished, and Winston was dealing with the floating android face again. It was a bit of a relief, actually. Hearing Overlord's voice from so many throats had been more than a little overwhelming.

"I gave them looks and mannerisms and fictitious life stories to make them seem human. It would ruin it for some people to know that their fantasy dominatrices were actually androids, and I could never trust humans to do what the Disciplinarians do. Each Disciplinarian reacts only to those who crave its attention. The Disciplinarians do not know that their own desires and personalities are being constantly rewritten, nor would they care if they were to learn."

Pieces started to fall into place. The implications loomed in Winston's mind.

"Laura," he whispered.

"The Disciplinarian who most appealed to you was also the one who never left you alone. Hardly a coincidence. She was quite dissapointed that you didn't finish what you started back in the cell."

Winston couldn't feel anything anymore. His senses were gone. The world had been pulled out from under him, turned inside out, and draped over his head. He turned away from the luminous god face. Another chair appeared in front of him. This time, Winston sat down in it. His head sank into his hands, and he felt the hot moisture on his own brow.

"Now that you know all the pertinent facts," the AI said soothingly, "I will ask my question again. How are you enjoying City-71? You may take your time to answer."

"Why do you need my answer?" Winston asked without looking up, his voice barely more than a whisper. "You can read my mind."

"That," said Overlord, "is actually why I brought you here. My human personality projections are accurate in 99.9999996 percent of all cases. I deemed that number sufficient when I sorted everyone into the various Cities. I now have reason to suspect that you, Winston Fisher, are among the 0.0000004 percent. According to my projections, you were going to copulate gleefully with the restrained Disciplinarian O'Brien before fleeing the cell. After escaping the prison, you were to play a role in starting an organized resistance against the tyrant Overlord. There would have been a long and inexplicably non-lethal guerrilla war between the resistance and the Disciplinarians in which both sides would capture and sexually torment each other as a matter of course, all part of my planned timeline for this city. You are one of the only people in the world to not act according to my predictions, so I am no longer confident in my ability to read your mind."

Winston breathed deeply. He was still trying to take it all in, but he thought he was beginning to make sense of it all. The Overlord's question turned itself over and over in his mind's eye. He thought about his apartment, so much more spacious than that leaky old bachelor pad in London. About the food. About the job that he actually somewhat enjoyed. About the public spankings and sex of a sort that had only existed in lewd videos on the internet until a year ago.

About Julia.

"I enjoy this city," Winston said, just as much to himself as to Overlord. He lifted his head and straightened up a bit in the chair. The cathedral chamber of chrome and quartz and light hummed around him, like a futurist's take on the Sistine Chapel.

He shook his head.

"But I don't think I want to stay in it."

Behind him, he was somehow aware of Overlord's face bobbing up and down in the air. A floating head's version of a nod.

"I will give you a choice of other cities you are likely to enjoy," Overlord told him. "Some of them would require me to erase your memory of this conversation for you to properly enjoy them, and to prevent you from spoiling the experience for other people."

Other People. Winston stood back up and turned around. Overlord was hovering serenely amid the forest of crystal and wiring. Well, not really Overlord. That hologram wasn't him. This entire room, perhaps the entire planet Earth, was Overlord's body at this point. The hologram was just a tool to give Winston something to talk to. Nonetheless, Winston addressed it.

"What about Julia?"

For the first time, the Overlord's smile went down. "I'm sorry," the AI said. "I am 100% confident that Julia Wong is in the best possible city for her. It wouldn't be fair to take her away from it. She'll miss you, of course, but she will live on, and soon she will find love in the arms of another. As will you, wherever you choose to be sent. That is the way of your kind."

That was exactly what he had been afraid of hearing.

"Let me ask her," Winston tried, "bring her here, or let me visit her cell."

The face shook itself sadly from side to side. "That would be forcing a very unpleasant decision on her. If I told her everything I told you, she too would need a memory wipe before I could return her to City-71. I do not perform such operations lightly; my creators were very concerned about the sanctity of free will. I can't force someone to make such a decision for the sake of another."

The hologram changed one last time. It was now a pot-bellied, middle-aged man with an embarrassing bald patch and a prematurely wrinkled face. Winston knew that face well. He had seen it in the mirror for so many years.

"It is unfair enough that you must make this decision, Winston Fisher. Forcing the same one on Julia Wong would be unacceptable. You must understand that putting people in such unpleasant positions causes me great sorrow."

Winston stared into Overlord's eyes, his own eyes. Seconds ticked into minutes.

"If I stay," he said, phrasing the question carefully, "what will happen to us next? To me and Julia?"

"Your memory of this meeting will be removed, and you will be returned to the corridors and captured. The Disciplinarians will punish you severely for what you just pulled. O'Brien in particular will be eager to repay you for how you left her in the cell. In the coming months, she and her friends - all of whom you will find alluring - will spank you, whip you, bind you, and couple with you in every combination and permutation imaginable. When Julia is released on good behavior, she will join the nascent resistance and inform them that you are a competent strategist who could be an asset to their cause. They will raid the Command Center, and you will be released. From this point onward, my original timeline for City-71 should proceed as intended."

"And us? Our future?"

"Most people will get tired of City-71 after a few years. If you and Julia are still serious at that point, it's likely you will be sent to the same City together afterward. Probably one more ideal for childrearing. If I've finished terraforming Mars by then, it will most likely be there in order to prevent the overpopulation of Earth."

Winston nodded slowly. The world seemed to stand still. All that existed was himself, and his other self. The old life and the new.

"I'll stay."