The Dependencing Process

Thread 2, Part 3
Generator

The Dependencing Process

(there) - hundreds of years ago

With a soft hiss, nostrils flared under a pair of closed, almond shaped eyes. Soft brown lips then pursed and air streamed from within. And this pattern, repeating again and again, measured time in quick stuttering steps. Hair, coarse and long, lay splayed around the woman’s head like a blackened halo. An artery in her neck pulsed in time with her racing heart. 


She wore no clothes and lay stretched on a hard wooden table. Her chest rose unevenly and with small spasms. Even though the room was warmed by a burbling cauldron in the corner, gooseflesh rose and rippled across the woman’s torso - her skin taut and flattened, under strain. On occasion, she shifted, but not much, restrained as she was. Each limb was pulled to a corresponding corner of the table. The narrowest parts of her wrists and ankles were wrapped in long strips of dark purple, patternless silk which folded around the corners of the table and anchored to the legs underneath with strong, thick, symmetric knots.

The last rays of the evening sun streamed through an open window illuminating her trembling belly and hips and the dark flash of hair covering her sex. A dry breeze also slid through, commanding flames to dance upon the tips of black candles, sending droplets of molten wax to growing pearlish piles. Steam from the cauldron wove a hypnotic skein and the carcasses of squirrel-sized rodents swung from their leather tethers tied on thick steel rings, bolted deeply into the heavy wooden crossbeams.

In one corner a thin chain swayed gently from where it was loosely wrapped around an upper bar of a sturdy metal cage. The cage door, big enough for the passage of a large dog, hung open with a key and its ring of companions hanging anxiously waiting in the lock’s casing.

In another corner, the cauldron rested upon hot, blackened bricks. A set of bellows rested against a pile of dry wood. Canisters and containers of powders and syrups and berries and  souse were stacked on an open shelf. A tress of green and brown stems lay on a small stool nearby, woven and tied tightly and sanded smooth into a stiff handle.

Sari walked through the door and set her heavy knife next to the tress - the light of candles flickering along its clean shining expanse. She gathered three small glass vials and carried them along with the heavy circlet of metal, hinged and opened, with the bold red jewel dangling and quietly lay them on the table next to the bound woman.

Valet entered the room, letting her robe slip over her shoulders and fall to the floor. The bound woman’s eyes opened, but only briefly, when Valet’s fingertips gently played across her abdomen, tracing a series of lines from the top of her pubis, over breasts and up to the her neck. Her body strained to follow the touch; her back arching, the little that her binds allowed. Valet cupped the woman’s chin, leaned over, and began whispering into her ear.

Felicia followed, stepping from her robe, folding it and spent a few moments attempting to determine the best place to put it, finally dropping it neatly against the wall. She stepped up to the table and grasped one of the woman’s ankles in each hand and began to slowly stroke up her calves to her knees and back down again.

Sari had returned to the cauldron and began to soak the wound tress of stems in the bubbling mixture, stirring slowly. “Sun’s about to set,” she said quietly.

Valet lifted her head from the woman’s ear, stroking her hair. “Alright! Let’s make the cur bleed.”

“Valet!” Fe scolded. She then leaned over the bound woman. “Miko? Are you ready?” she whispered, a slight quaver in her voice.

The bound woman’s eyes opened. Her tendons flexed and jumped under the strain of her bondage. She opened her mouth a bit but started to swoon, pulling short puffs of air in quick gasps. After a short nod, she closed her eyes and pursed her lips to reclaim control over her breath.

Sari settled the tress of stems steeping against the side of the cauldron leaving a bouquet of woody twigs looped over the edge. She began to ladle the thick, bubbling contents into four brown earthen bowls, setting each on the table symmetrically around the bound woman near the junction of each willowy limb and shivering torso.

By this time, Valet had begun stroking her hands down Miko’s body, pausing every moment to lightly pinch the flesh, forcing quiet snorts and occasional moans. She continued down, nudging Felicia out of the way with her hip as she moved around the table. Her nimble fingers began to focus on the bound woman’s crotch, lightly brushing the lips of her sex, pulling firmly on her pubic hair until Miko squeaked, pinching and opening her delicate, glistening petals.

Sari climbed up on the table with the knife and collar in her hands. She straddled Miko’s trembling body, knees bent on either side, slowly settling her weight onto the heat of Miko’s abdomen. She leant over until their chests met, Miko’s flesh warm and jumping in short spasms. Miko’s mouth opened as soon as Sari’s lips slid across them. Sari’s hands began to sweep across Miko’s face gathering and arranging her hair, pulling it up and away from her neck. She wrapped the cool dark metal of the collar around Miko’s trembling neck, squeezing the ends together. Miko’s torso jumped slightly at the sound of a final click popped through the ring wrapping her slender neck. The red jewel settled into the hollow of her throat.

Sari rubbed her fingers softly across Miko’s face, stroking her cheeks, smoothing down her eye brows, lightly pulling at the soft skin underneath her closed eyes, brushing Miko’s long, black lashes. She kissed her on the lips and traced a soft, moist line with her tongue from the corner of Miko’s mouth to her earlobe.

“It’s OK to scream,” she whispered into Miko’s ear. “In fact, we need you to.” And she suddenly grabbed one of Miko’s nipples and pinched it sharply, pulling and twisting as she did. Miko’s head jerked back and a muted grunt rolled from within.

Valet meanwhile had retrieved the tress from where it steeped in the rumbling solution of the cauldron and held it up watching a thick, yellow steam fall from winding of stems. She held the wrapping to her mouth and ran her tongue along the length, her eyebrows raising briefly, impressed and satisfied with its taste and texture. She also palmed the three glass vials and climbed up onto the table behind Sari, kneeling between Miko’s bound and spread legs. She stroked a finger along Miko’s sex until Miko’s hips seemed to move in concert with her ministrations. Finally, she pushed in with first one, then two fingers slowly working her way deeper while working lubrication with her thumb, up and around Miko’s clitoris.

After and ragged series of moans rattled from Miko’s lungs, Valet pulled her fingers out and directed the smooth, moist handle of the woven tress of stems into Miko’s sex, slowly pushing and twisting the bouquet until it was settled deep within her, and then occasionally adjusting the depth and angle seeking an appropriate response.

“It’s in,” Valet croaked, coughing lightly and clearing her throat.

“OK. Fe! Her ankles now,” Sari said, looking back over her shoulder briefly. Then she turned back to face Miko, grabbing a thick lock of hair on the right side of Miko’s head and pulling and twisting her head to the side. She lowered her mouth and pinched Miko’s earlobe between her front teeth, squeezing until she felt Miko’s body jerk and a louder squeak erupted from her mouth. 

Felicia stepped back up to the table and began pinching and pulling the flesh of Miko’s left leg, using her fingernails to dig into the skin far enough to leave red marks. At the same time she began to run a fingernail up and down the sole of her foot. Valet continued to pull and push the tress in Miko’s sex, twisting it. She began grabbing the flesh of Miko’s inner thighs, digging her fingernails until Miko screamed louder.

As Miko began to struggle and gasp underneath her, Sari slid her fingers into Miko’s mouth, pushing Miko’s lower lip over her teeth, squeezing until blood began to coat Miko’s tongue and teeth. Sari used her other hand to grasp Miko’s upper jaw, holding her mouth open wide and pressing the side of her face heavily against the table. “Come on, Miko! Scream!”

Indeed, Miko began to make more noise, gurgling around Sari’s wet fingers, sometimes in pleasure as Valet fucked her with the tress, sometimes in screeches of pain from pinches or the sting of quick, sharp slaps Valet began to apply to Miko’s crotch.

Miko’s eyelids began to flash opened and closed. Her eyes were rolling farther and farther back into her head. Her body was beginning to shake violently all over.

“Vials!” Sari shouted, rocking and pressing Miko’s face down roughly, stretching her mouth further open until Miko’s voice rattled with a distinct wretching quality.

Valet stopped slapping long enough to push the glass vials up the table so that they rolled up against Miko’s bound arm.

“She’s going to cut you, you fucking cur!” Valet screamed, slurring slightly as she resumed her slapping and grinding with a renewed vigor.

Sari pulled her fingers from Miko’s mouth and grabbed the large knife resting next to her from the table. She placed the cold metal blade against the side of Miko’s face, pushing her head to the table. Sari, then sat up and placed the blade of the knife against the inside of Miko’s right bicep, quickly pulling the blade across Miko’s skin, pressing as she did, cutting deeply, causing a ribbon of red to erupt from the fissure, causing Miko’s screams to elicit with a more earnest degree of desperation.

Felicia’s eyes began to bug out as she watched a pool of red develop on the table, growing in thick regular pulses in time with Miko’s racing heart. Drool dripped from her mouth and down Miko’s foot as she had taken Miko’s toes into her mouth and used her teeth to lightly bite. She paused and sat up groaning.

Sari’s knife clattered to the table as she grabbed for the vials, pressing them into Miko’s wound, letting them fill with dark, red blood. Miko continued to struggle for breath and cry and scream, contorting herself against her bonds.

After collecting Miko’s blood into the three vials, Sari sat up and grabbed the dark stained knife from the table, raising it to her own left bicep, she sucked in a sharp breath as she let the thin blade slide across her skin from which thick red drops began to rain. The knife fell back to the table, and Sari began to catch the crimson drops in one of the half-filled vials. Soon, the vial was full and she capped the contents with a small cork. She then bent her left arm and held it so that the blood from the cut streamed down to the point of her elbow before splattering down on Miko’s face and hair.

Valet grabbed the two remaining vials and passed one back to Felicia. She pulled the knife up from the growing pool of sticky blood on the table, turning the blade to her own left bicep, dragging the blade along her flesh, grimacing quietly as she did. She then passed the knife to Felicia.

Valet began to top off a vial with her blood as she looked more intently at Felicia. Her eyes were dilated and she seemed to be rocking slightly, her face, pale.

“Fuck! Cut yourself, before you pass out, Fe, you fucking cur!” Valet screamed. Felicia remained frozen. As soon as Valet capped her vial she turned back to Felicia, grabbed her arm and made the cut. As the blood began to drip from Felicia’s arm, Valet threw the knife  across the room against the far wall and held the vial to the new wound. Felicia’s eyes were fixed on the large puddle of red from Miko’s arm which now had begun to pour off the edge of the table in a steady stream. When the vial was full, Valet pushed Felicia away who slowly folded, collapsing on the floor.

“Useless!” Valet cursed. “She fucking passed out!”

Sari simply shook her head. Her left elbow was jammed in Miko’s mouth forcing Sari’s blood  dripping from her own wound to flow in across Miko’s teeth and tongue. Miko gulped for air, coughing and choking, sending clouds of blood and saliva to spray into Sari’s face.

“Ready?” Sari asked.

Valet pulled the tress from within Miko and tapped Sari on her butt. “Yeah, go!”

Sari grabbed one of the earthen bowls full of the viscous broth. She took a quick sip and then began to pour the contents into Miko’s mouth a little at a time, clamping Miko’s mouth occasionally forcing her to swallow. Miko’s eyes were open, staring around wildly. She coughed and blood and broth bubbled from her nostrils, her breaths were ragged and thick with liquid.

Valet also grabbed one of the bowls stirring the contents with the tress briefly before shoving the handle back up into Miko. Then Valet drained the rest of the bowl into her own mouth, cursing and shaking her head in a sudden spasm. She threw the bowl off in the same direction as the knife where it shattered into pieces. She grabbed a second bowl of the liquid and began to pour it over Miko’s sex as she pulled the tress in and out slowly and deeply. She pushed the bowl to the side, it’s contents sloshing, running like oil across the pool of blood on the table. Valet stopped abusing Miko for a moment, staring up and around the room for a moment, her eyes blinking, suddenly heavy. Her stomach seized and lurched, she swallowed, coughed, and shook her head.

Miko’s hips were beginning to push up with a renewed vigor. The movement eventually reclaimed Valet’s attention. She looked down, suddenly seeming to recall her task and began manipulating the tress with greater vigor.

Sari poured the last of the broth from one of the vials into Miko’s mouth, then bent over to kiss Miko, licking Miko’s chin and cheeks. She grabbed the last bowl and quickly downed the contents, grimacing as she did. She grabbed a fistful of Miko’s coal-black hair pulled her head back, the empty bowl carelessly clattering across the table. Miko’s eyes slowly opened and closed, a weak whine gurgling in her throat. 

   <>--+-

Sari studied Miko’s face streaked with blood and drool, tears and phlegm, her mouth was open, gulping air in grunts and moans. She could feel Miko trying to raise her hips to meet Valet’s regular thrusts behind her. Miko’s eyes were dilated and unfocused staring blindly through Sari and into the shadows of the darkened ceiling.

Sari felt her stomach lurch and cupped her mouth in an effort to keep down the contents of her stomach. Already, she could feel the toxins ooze through her body. Her hands felt fuzzy and uncoordinated. She drew her fingers across Miko’s chest, slick with fluids, and roughly grabbed the flesh of her breasts, squeezing until Miko shook and screamed. Sari looked up at the flames of the candles, reds and oranges gave way to more colors as she stared, halos of yellow greens and blues. And the smoke that rose from them coalesced into figures and faces.

“Mother!” Sari screamed, horrified by the wispy image forming in the curling smoke. But, the vision quickly dissolved into the darkness. Sari shook her head and rubbed her eyes.

Valet was pushing her from behind.

Sari sat up and began to turn around trying her best not to roll off the table as she did. Finally, she settled again kneeling over Miko, her knees on either side of Miko’s stomach facing down her body to where Valet continued rocking the tress into Miko’s sex. Valet’s face was mostly hidden by shadow, her eyes looked hollow and empty, her mouth hung open stupidly. Sari bent down towards Miko’s thrusting hips, sliding her hands into the slick, wet pubic hair, pressing the middle finger of each hand along the crease of each side of Miko’s sex, seeking to pull at her clitoral hood with her thumbs. She bent forward moaning loudly as she pressed her lips along Miko’s pubic bone, watching the patterns of the twisted stems of the tress passed in and out, and listening to the pattern of Miko’s voice as it became more ragged, more desperate.

Sari felt Miko’s gyrations become more frantic and she began to combine the caress of her wet lips with sharp pinches of her fingernails causing Miko’s evocations to be punctuated with yelps of pain followed by shivers of pleasure. Suddenly, Miko bucked, arching her back. Her screams began filled the dark room. Sari could feel the screams vibrating in Miko’s chest underneath her, shaking the table. The flames of the candles flashed and strobed in purple white. Sari let her eyes roll back as the room around her grayed out. Miko slipped over the threshold of orgasm and her body began to seize and shake violently. Sari smiled knowing that the process was working, then let the drugs in the broth pull her down towards Miko’s pulsing cunt and into the folds. She felt herself slip into a small wet space, twisting head over heels, lifting as she did - unleashed from gravity, flying through ether. Her limbs began to flail about seeking something to grab on to. She was in a liquid. She was in a thick gas twisting free. She was swimming in the soup of the interspace.

Sari opened her eyes and looked around with startling clarity. She was in a dark hollow. Small purple lit forms swarmed about erratically, glancing wetly against her skin, expanding and contracting as they moved about. Each purple light emitted a thread of the sound that together made up the sound of Miko’s screams of ecstasy. 

Valet was close by, the wide smile on her face illuminated by the flicker of the purple fluorescence. Valet caught one of the purple shapes and pressed it to her lips, sucking it into her mouth. The light of the creature brightened. Sari could see the light glow through the flesh of Valet’s cheek, the shadow of her jaw bone silhouetted. Sari found this incredibly funny and her chest gripped with a silent laughter while all around the space throbbed with a cacophony of raised voices sustaining a variety of random discordant tones.

Valet continued to grab at the purple flashes as Sari manifested the technology and spun around in space to find it. A ruby red jewel as large as her head had materialized. She grabbed the jewel and began to use it to scoop at the swarm of purple flashes. She tapped Valet to get her to help collect the flighty lights. Valet turned to her with a mischievous smile, pointing at her crotch which now was glowing from an internal light just as her mouth had.

As they collected the purple flashes, the jewel began to glow brighter and brighter and the hail of voices began to thin and lose some notes, growing more quiet with each scoop. Finally, when they had collected them all, but the ones inside Valet, the women floated together in the silence of the interspace.

As Sari looked for the last remaining flashes, she noticed Valet who had thrust her chest out and thrown her arms up high, slowly flipping backwards with her legs straight and toes pointed; her hair splayed out around her head, undulating. So graceful. So beautiful. Sari cast the jewel to the side, its purpose fulfilled. She looped an arm behind the small of Valet’s back and pulled her close. Valet’s mouth slipped into an easy smile her half mast eyes cast about until they affixed on Sari’s. Then Valet leaned forward and planted a hard kiss on Sari’s lips. And after a moment’s consideration returned to ravish Sari.

Sari’s need grew and became a thing that required tending. They pulled each other together breast to breast, belly to belly, wrapping one another in warm, sweaty arms and legs, grinding into one another. The was a moment’s catch where their bodies pressed together, and then at a threshold they merged and passed through one another. Sari felt a jolting thrill of vibrations rip through her chest, and after a moment’s disorientation, realized that Valet was now behind her.

Valet grabbed Sari’s shoulder, her nails cutting into her skin and flung her around until they were face to face again. When their lips met again Sari pushed her tongue into Valet’s mouth who bit down hard sending a brilliant flash of pain wrapped in pleasure into Sari’s gut. But again, instead of blood, Valet’s teeth and Sari’s tongue coexisted in the same space until Sari pulled back and pushed Valet’s head to the side looking for an earlobe to bite. Sari pushed her knee between Valet’s thighs as tightly as she could, and when Valet grabbed a handful of flesh, she convulsed in ecstasy and pushed her knee further still until it merged with Valet’s sex. Fires of passion tore up her leg, peeling a lust from within her. And when Valet’s eyes once again had Sari’s attention, Valet mouthed, “Fuck me” and brutally slapped Sari’s breast with such force that her arm passed through Sari’s chest and out her back.

Sari’s throat vibrated in a silent scream of ecstasy and she launched her mouth at Valet’s neck, sinking in her teeth and then passing through as the pressure exceeded the threshold of touch. Valet roughly jabbed her fingers in the flesh of Sari’s buttocks and crashed their hips together until they entered one another, and after a moment’s withdrawal she did it again, each intersection cause a flash of ecstasy, stoking each woman’s desires.

They writhed and merged with urgency and frenzy, oblivious to all else. Sensations sharp and bright and heavy.

     <>--+-

Sari felt herself being shaken awake. She slowly opened her eyes. The room was lit by sunshine. She was cold and she heard the morning cries of birds out the window.

“Sari? Are you awake?” Felicia’s blonde hair was a mess, caked with dark brown, dried blood. She was shivering, with her arms wrapped closely around her chest.

Sari looked down and found Valet still asleep in a heap between Miko’s legs. “Stoke the fire, Fe. Start heating some water so we can clean all this up.” She began to twist around to check on Miko, but had to steady herself as a wave of vertigo threatened to overwhelm her. “And get me a piece of bread to eat, please.”

After a moment, Sari was able to climb off the table. She cupped a hand around the red jewel hanging from the collar around Miko’s neck, to block the morning’s sun. It was glowing. “It worked!”

Valet slowly pulled herself off the table. “Fuck yeah it did!” When Sari met her eyes, Valet began laughing.

Sari pulled a metal device from the shelf by the window. The device had a metal handle not much longer than the width of Sari’s hand. From one end two open cuffs dangled. She returned to the table where Miko still lay unconscious and strictly bound and she wrapped a cuff around one of Miko’s wrists, snapping it tightly closed. As she maneuvered the metal handle over to Miko’s other wrist, a thin chain payed out from within. After locking the second cuff, Sari jerked the handle sharply and it snapped free from the shackles. She studied each cuff, now seemingly seamless, and pulled on the chain to verify its connection to each wrist. “Let’s try to wake her up.”

Felicia had begun wash the blood from Miko’s arm and wrapping the knife cut in a bandage. “That must be a sharp knife,” she said. “Our cuts will be completely healed by tonight probably.”

“Oh good, Fe!” Valet exclaimed as she chewed on a bite of hard roll. “That means we can cut you again real soon. It was fun watching you collapse on the floor.”

“Sorry…” Fe moaned. “I don’t do well with blood.”

“You don’t say… Well, practice makes perfect,” Valet said, chuckling. “You should lock your knees though, you’d make a much more impressive sound hitting the floor.”

Felicia glanced sadly at Valet and then looked back to Miko as she scrubbed the blood from her chest.

Sari placed a hand on Felicia’s shoulder, “Don’t worry. I know a technology that cures poltroonery.”

“Pol- what?” Felicia asked.

“She says that she wants you naked, bound, and bleeding on her table,” Valet sneered.

Felicia looked fearfully towards Sari. “You could be my second client,” Sari said with a wide grin. Felicia looked down quickly and busied herself with dabbing the dried blood from Miko’s skin.

Sari began pressing Miko’s cheeks with a cool, damp cloth. “Miko… Wake up…”

After a minute Miko’s eyes flickered a bit and then opened fully and she began to look around the room. “There you are,” Sari cooed. “Untie her ankles please, Fe.”

After Miko’s limbs were released from the table she began to sit up, looking around the room, patting her body as she did, her wrist chains jingling. She eventually reached up to her neck and explored the collar with her hands, finally grabbing the glowing red crystal dangling in the front and attempting to look down at it.

“Hello, Miko… Are you all right?” Fe asked.

Miko swung her legs over the edge of the table and hopped off to the floor. She walked over next to Sari and knelt down onto her knees.

Felicia knelt in front of Miko and placed her palm on her face, pushing Miko’s coal black hair out of her eyes. “Are you hungry?” Miko stared at Fe for a moment, then looked down at the floor. “Is she all right?” Fe asked looking up at Sari.

“She cannot answer you,” Sari said. “We took her voice.”

“Not even yes or no questions?” Fe asked.

“Nope,” Valet responded from the other side of the room, picking at something from her teeth.

“The technology requires that we restrict her ability to communicate. I’m sure that if she really needed something she would be able to,” Sari explained.

“Oh. That’s just kind of weird,” Fe shuddered as she stood up. “Miko has always been so, you know, well-spoken.”

“That’s the thing, you see. Her mouth has always served her well. So well, in fact, that it has become a crutch. With this technology she must learn to enhance other skills. It will make her more well-rounded.”

“Can she understand us?” Fe asked.

“Of course. And she will respond to commands,” Sari said.

“Kind of like a dog looking for a lover to piss on,” Valet said. “Roll over, Miko! Play dead!” 

Miko looked up at Valet, but otherwise didn’t move. 

“Wait,” Sari said, “I thought that in your love metaphor, Miko is the bush waiting to be peed on.”

“Fuck that stupid metaphor! Command her to sniff your crotch, Fe!” Valet said.

Felicia turned and looked at Valet for a moment, rolling her eyes, then turned back to Miko, brushing her fingers through Miko’s hair. “Don’t worry, love. Sari will keep you safe from Valet.” Miko sat calmly looking into Felicia’s eyes as she continued straightening her hair.

“Don’t worry, Fe,” Valet responded. “I’d keep the little slave busy if she comes over to my home.”

“She’s an Arbor. Not a slave,” Felicia said.

“Yes. You’re right, Fe. She’s not a slave,” Valet agreed. “Just a very confused Arbor. Goddess knows why she would want to avail herself to whomever it is she wishes to attract. What a fucking waste! Besides, Miko would take too much work to make into a slave. I’d prefer someone who takes to the task more naturally.”

“Like who?” Felicia asked. When Sari and Valet began to chuckle Felicia looked up from her grooming and realized they were both looking at her. “What?”

“All right, Fe,” Valet said. “Let’s get out of here so our new Generatrix friend can begin to freak out properly at the commitments she has just undertaken. I’m sure that she has no clue what she’s going to do with Miko-pet. Maybe take her for a walk or scratch her belly or something.”

“Yes, thank the goddess, please get out of here. I’m sure that she is very tired,” Sari said as she kissed Valet on the cheek. “Remember, Fe, we’ll do the body art just after her Ritual of Darkness in two weeks.”

Felicia stood up and pointed at Sari, “You are going to do the Ritual of Darkness?!”

“Oh, fuck no! You know me. No way. But Miko said that she wants to do it, so, I’ll take her there.”

Valet knelt and kissed Miko on each cheek and then on the lips when Miko turned her face up. “Kiss the girl, Fe. Let’s get out of here!”

“Wait!” Sari said as she pulled a chair up behind Miko. She sat in the chair and spread her legs, positioning her crotch directly behind Miko’s head, her robe falling open. “Now you can kiss her, Fe.”

Felicia knelt in front of Miko. She gently pulled at the jewel at Miko’s throat which seemed to glow. “So, this is her voice?” She looked up at Sari who was smiling and bidding her head.

“Yeah, all of it except the bits that I shoved in my pussy,” Valet said from near the door.

Fe placed her hands on Sari’s thighs as she leaned in to give Miko kisses. Sari swept her hand along the back of Felicia’s head catching a handful of hair and turning Felicia’s face to hers. “I’m serious about that technology, you know. In case you want to try out the Arbor lifestyle sometime soon.” 

Felicia looked up at Sari for a second, then back down at the floor seemingly trying to repress a smile.

     <>--+-

Sari was scrubbing the floor with a horsehair brush, trying to erase the stain of blood left by the previous night’s ritual. She paused for a moment and looked over to the small cage in the corner where Miko slept, curled up on a large pillow. The afternoon sun shone through the window and the cage’s bars cast dark shadows across Miko’s body. 

Sari should be sleeping too. The ritual had been physically draining, but she had too much energy to sleep. She was too excited. 

“I am a Generatrix!” Sari thought to herself, a wide smile stretching across her face as she began scrubbing again. “A Generatrix!”

A Generatrix. This is a role she had always been destined to do. There had never been any question in her mind to do something else - just like her mother and her sister before her. And now finally. Finally! She was a Generatrix.

She looked up at Miko again. Her face seemed so relaxed, so soft. And it was not that she was simply asleep. Sari had noticed it before as she was installing Miko in the cage, closing the locks, removing the keys. Miko almost looked like a different person. What was it that made her look different? Perhaps it was that her jaw was not set, prepared to speak. Normally, in the past, Miko always had some humorous quip ready. She was always ready to dissect or prod or goad or cut with some insightful thought. But now, she had no ability to speak, and so, no need, no capacity to participate in the conversation.

Her eyes even seemed more relaxed. They did not dart around her surroundings as they had before examining every aspect of her environment. Her look appeared to be more of a gaze. There even seemed to be a dash of innocent amazement or adoration as she observed things or people around her. She seemed more prepared to absorb rather than propel situations as they arose.

And now, as she slept so peacefully she seemed to glow. “She’s really quite beautiful,” Sari thought. A sudden wave of emotion surged through Sari’s chest. She felt motherly. “I have to take care of Miko for the next moon,” she thought. “She is my responsibility. She’s like a child now.”

Sari stood and walked to the cage, reaching between the tightly spaced bars and stroked her fingers through Miko’s hair. “But, she’s not a child.” In fact Miko was at least twice Sari’s age, for whatever that mattered.

By the evening, Miko had awoken. Sari unlocked the cage and attached a lead to a ring set underneath the glowing, red jewel at Miko’s neck. She guided Miko from the cage and watched as she stretched her limbs and arched her back. Sari was suddenly embarrassed when she realized that she was staring. And then she was embarrassed that she was embarrassed. She was Miko’s Generatrix after all. It is important to inspect and track all aspects of one’s Arbor.

She led Miko to a pad on the floor. “Step over your wrist chain, please.”

Sari pulled the chainfeed tool from the mantel and attached it to a link near Miko’s left hand. As she twisted the back end of the tool, links disappeared from the chain connecting Miko’s wrists. Sari stopped twisting the handle when there were only two left and snapped the tool off leaving Miko’s wrists held tightly together in the small of her back. “Kneel, please.”

Miko lowered herself onto the pad with her legs tucked underneath her. When Sari tapped the underside of Miko’s chin, she straightened her back. Sari walked around Miko twice pausing every step to look at her Arbor. At one point she used her finger to pull Miko’s hair out of her face and tuck it behind an ear. All the while Miko gazed calmly at the wall in front of her.

“I want to thank you, Miko, for being my first Arbor,” Sari said. “You hardly need my services, though. You are so naturally beautiful. I’ve always thought that your voice was your strongest asset, but, I must admit, I’m starting to wonder.”

Miko continued to stare at the wall.

“Sometimes it is useful to let other aspects shine, I guess.” Sari pulled a chair across the floor, positioning it in from of Miko. She slowly lowered herself into the seat never taking her eyes from Miko’s. “Spread your knees apart a little more.”

Miko rocked a bit back and forth twisting her knees apart a little each time. 

“That’s good.” Sari unfastened the top two ties of her dress and pulled the material off her shoulders. She pulled her arms from the sleeves and pushed the dress down to her waist. She slowly stroked her right hand up across her breast feeling how her nipple was hard and erect. Sari sighed.

“I think it was a good decision to take your voice.” Sari settled further into her chair. “It gives me confidence that we are doing the right thing,” she whispered.

Confidence. That is the key to the role of a Generatrix. Be certain that what you are doing is the right thing. And though Sari was confident that she could do what was needed to be a successful Generatrix, she knew that even the best could make grave and catastrophic errors. Errors that could have lasting effects on both one’s Arbor and the practitioner. 

But the Economy of Attention is a very simple technology to apply. There was nothing in the application of the technology that would adversely affect Miko or herself in any way. The danger lay in those occurrences that surrounded the actual process, the day-to-day care and maintenance of the Generatrix-Arbor relationship. Accidents could happen. Keys could be lost. She could leave Miko, unknowingly, in a disagreeable position with no ability to communicate her distress. Miko could grow to hate her over the course of the moon.

Sari dabbed at a drop of perspiration that had developed at the base of her neck. Sari stood up and walked to the bathroom, returning with a hairbrush. She knelt behind Miko and began to gently pull the bristles through her hair.

“But, my sister and my Mother were great Generatrices,” Sari thought to herself. “I’ll do fine. This is my destiny.”

It was true. Sari’s mother was particularly famous as a Generatrix. People traveled vast distances for her services. And Sari’s sister, Sabra, was developing a promising reputation. On the other hand, it was Sabra’s disappearance, and the fact that her mother was committed to the Hollow Well, that had postponed Sari’s career for almost twenty years.

Sabra’s disappearance was shrouded in darkness. There were even rumors that she, too, was secretly committed to the Hollow Well or fell upon by a vengeance incurring an even worse eternal fate. And based solely on these whisperings, the city Guild Mother had forbidden Sari to practice for seventeen years. Even now, Sari had not been granted the appropriate license to practice. Nor had she been allowed to attend any of the guild meetings. 

But, the Guild Mother had been called off to Loritown and the guild would not move upon her requests to join without the Guild Mother’s approval. Additionally, there was all the turmoil with the growing Electrix movement and the usual chaos, disruptions, and debate they brought with them.

The seventeen year ban was over though, so Sari felt that it was her right to begin her practice. And it was not too hard to talk Miko into being her first Arbor.

Sari finished brushing Miko’s hair. She set the brush down on the pad. She wrapped her arm around Miko’s chest and pulled until her breasts pressed firmly into her back. “Your target will have no hope against you once the technology has been applied.”


Miko slowly turned her head back towards Sari’s and Sari kissed her softly on her cheek, feeling the steady swell of Miko’s chest as she breathed in and out, in and out…