I – A Woman Of Words

When it happened, I was in the middle of a nightmare.

I think about that, sometimes. The ironic, poetic symmetry of that sort of thing. When the event took place, when the payload landed on us women like a hammer on a pane of glass, I was asleep. I sat up with a jolt right away: my phone was vibrating.

I picked it up. I stared at the screen - no, into the screen, into the heart of evil lurking in wait just for me.

I awoke from a nightmare, into a nightmare.

There’s a word for that sort of thing, I think. Telescoping, that’s what it is: when you’re hurled from one dream into the next, unsure if what you’re seeing is real or oneiric.

The original nightmare was fairly forgettable, which I suppose is only fitting: it should pale, next to the horror that followed. It was some vapid thing about being on a boat, lost in the middle of the ocean, with something in the water giving chase. I woke up to something much, much worse: a world where my own phone was my enemy, where mind control is possible, where a digital virus can undo a woman’s brain.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t dreaming anymore.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here, staring vacantly at the stacks of ungraded student papers scattered around the desk. What a shitty way to spend my afternoon on Christmas Eve. I really should get started. I feel like I’ve spent the past two hours telling myself that. Repeating, over and over, that I would start any time now. Any time. Now. Five more minutes.

I haven’t graded a single paper.

All my life, I’ve been a woman of words, and now I can’t even sit through a paper someone else has made in order to grade it. How pathetic am I?

It’s exhausting. No one should have to live like this. It’s not just that it’s nearly impossible to muster the focus I’d need to do my job, it’s that every minute I spend failing to do it is another bullet in the chamber for the, the virus, the thing, the enemy to tell me, to, to, to…

— Women aren’t cut out for this

— Look at you, Margaret Henshaw, the great professor, too dumb to grade student papers. Too horny. Rub your thighs together, that’ll make it easier. Do it do it do it!

— By being a professor, you’re wrongfully taking a salary that by rights belongs to a man

— … Biologically suited to serving coffee and then demurely disappearing under his desk to s—

I slam my fist against the table, as hard as I can.

The sudden noise seems to break the reverie, and the physical pain helps, too. Any woman who’s survived the payload this long knows that much… and we also know it won’t save us forever. I had hope, at the beginning, that this would be fixed soon, but now? Now that so many women have already fallen? Now that I emerge from every sleepless night feeling like I’m hanging by the barest of threads?

My hope is dwindling, and so is my resolve.

I sit here, breathing in and out slowly, not daring to look at the papers again, for what seems an eternity. And then, my phone buzzes, which makes me jolt so suddenly that I nearly scramble out of the chair.

Fuck!

It’s just Peter, Maggie, calm down. I hate that I’m terrified of phones still. That I’m terrified of men. That I’m scared of my own boyfriend.

Seeing his name flash across the screen makes me squirm with conflicting emotions: relief and dread. Longing and fear.

I don’t check the notification. I can’t. The thought of even touching the phone makes me queasy, like I’m handling a live grenade. I’m sorry, because he doesn’t deserve to be ghosted, but I’m the victim here, I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now, and he’s… he’s…

— Superior to you in any metric that has a shred of relevance

— Your rightful lord and master

— The center of gravity your existence revolves around

… very supportive. We’ve been so good together, he and I. Everything was so easy with him, before the world was mad. Work at the university, chores at home, emotional labor, nothing was ever unfair, or unequal, or too much to handle. And even after the… Telescoping nightmare… he’s always been so loving with me, so understanding.

But how could he possibly understand this?

My eyes dart back to the ungraded papers and then away just as quickly. Student evaluations are coming up soon; if I tank this semester it’ll be one more reason for the administration to cut me loose. One more reason for them to say that I’m one more woman who sadly just couldn’t hack it nowadays. Not when I’m so busy fending off the thing in my brain.

I look at the phone, and a haunting realization begins to dawn inside me. I’m not ready to see him.

It's pathetic, really. I used to be so strong, so assured of my place in the world. Now I'm reduced to this quivering mess, jumping at shadows and terrified of my own boyfriend. Of my own thoughts…

I'm so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of pretending everything is fine, tired of constantly being on guard against my own thoughts. All I want to do is rest. To let someone else…

— A MAN!

… take control.

And that's precisely why I can't see Peter tonight. No, it’s better this way. It’ll break his heart, I know, having to spend Christmas Eve alone, but it’s not my fault. I didn’t design this thing. I didn’t implant it in my brain. I’m just doing what I have to, in order to survive.

With shaking fingers, I grab the phone — wincing as I do — and type out a brief reply.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm not feeling well. I think it's best if we reschedule. I'll call you tomorrow, okay? I love you."

It's not enough, not nearly enough to convey the depths of my regret and longing. But it's all I can manage.

I set the phone down like it’s scorching hot, get up, and leave the room before I have the chance to hear the buzz of a notification. Even if he responds, I don’t want to know about it, not right now. Every ounce of energy left to me is needed to keep me from the brink.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'm running out of options. Over the past few weeks, as I’ve inexorably approached the logical end of my desperation, I've unsuccessfully tried every ridiculous home remedy I’ve read about on the internet.

Well… all but one.

I stumble to the bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet. There, hidden behind the aspirin and the band-aids, is a small tan bottle. Benzodiazepines. Prescribed to me ages ago for anxiety, back when the world still made sense.

I've read about this online. Some women on social media say that a large enough dose will knock you out cold for a few hours.

No dreams. Telescoping or otherwise.

It’s not true sleep, of course. The sleep phases are all wrong, and you don’t feel as rested afterwards as you normally do. After all, these drops are meant for anxiety, not really sleep disorders. But they will make you sleep in a pinch. And compared to the constant torture that attacks my mind whenever I try to close my eyes…

I'm at the end of my rope. I need to sleep. I need to dream of something, anything other than being on my knees, collared and leashed, submitting to the will of-

Stop it. Focus.

With shaking hands, I unscrew the cap and pour a handful of drops straight on my tongue. It’s a high dose, but not an unsafe one — my self preservation is still intact, it would seem.

I stare at the bottle for a long moment, my heart pounding in my ears. Is this really what it's come to? Is this what the payload has reduced me to?

Yes. Yes it is. And I hate it, I hate it with every fiber of my being. But I hate the alternative even more.

With shuffling steps, I make my way to the bedroom and crawl under the blankets like a scared animal, curling up in a fetal position and close my eyes.

Please, I pray silently to whatever gods might be listening. Please let this work. Please let me sleep. Just one night without the dreams, without the voice in my head telling me that evolution sculpted me as a highly specialized form of human whose niche is being a sex toy for men. One night of peace.

Surely, that’s not too much to ask for Christmas?

II – The Ghost Of Women Past

When it happens, I’m deep in a dreamless — but still restless — sleep. It begins with a sound.

I jolt awake, even though this is no nightmare. It’s a sound that doesn’t belong, that shouldn’t really be in this room, the rhythmic creaking of wood. It tugs me, unwilling, into consciousness. For a moment, I'm disoriented, and I fumble for the lamp on the nightstand, knocking over a book in the process.

Light fills the room, harsh and sudden. I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision. The shadows play tricks on my eyes, and for a split second I think I see someone standing at the foot of my bed. A woman, tall and slender, with long dark hair pulled back in a bun.

My heart skips a beat and I suck in a sharp breath, sitting up straighter. What’s a stranger doing in my room?

But I frown as I take in her appearance. She’s dressed in what looks like pre-industrial garments, a simple dress and apron that seem absurdly anachronistic. Her hands are clasped in front of her, and her posture is rigid. I rub my eyes, trying to dispel the vision, but when I look again, she's still there.

Ah, fuck. The drugs didn’t work, did they? I’m still dreaming. But it doesn’t feel like I’m asleep.

Is this… is this a hallucination?

I grip the edge of the blanket, my knuckles turning white. If I close my eyes, maybe she’ll be gone when I open them. Maybe the drugs and the crushing fatigue are just playing tricks on me.

I shut my eyes tight, count to three, and open them slowly.

She’s still there.

"Who are you?" I ask at last, though I don't really want to know.

"I am Ann," she says. "A wife."

A wife. The way she says it, with such meek reverence, makes my skin crawl. As if being a wife is the sum total of her existence. An identity in itself.

"Ann," I say slowly, playing along with the hallucination, because what else can I do? I grit my teeth. I feel so much resentment for this fucking virus that will just not leave me alone. "A wife. And nothing more?"

She nods, a serene smile creeping onto her lips. "A man’s wife. What more is needed?"

"Plenty," I say with a snarl, even if it’s absurd I’m having this conversation to begin with. I’m arguing with a hallucination, for fuck’s sake. "I don't have a husband. What I have is a career, personal fulfillment, control over my own life."

Ann's eyes widen. "No husband? But how do you manage?"

"Quite well. We live in a time where women can be independent. We don't need men to take care of us."

Ann tilts her head, regarding me with a mixture of pity and bewilderment. "Oh, you poor dear," she says softly. "You truly believe that, don't you? That a woman can manage in the wild, without a man to tame her?"

She steps closer, and I can see the calluses on her hands, the lines etched into her face. This is a woman who has worked hard all her life, but there's no weariness in her eyes, only a placid, bovine contentment.

"A woman's place is in the home," she says, her voice gentle but firm. "Tending to the needs of her lord husband. Being steered by his hand. Being open to the yoke. Being ready for his cock."

"I won’t be lectured by a hallucination! You're not real!" I say, my voice rising. I wonder if I’m really physically shouting, or if it’s all in my head. I guess if the neighbors come knocking on my door, I’ll know it’s the former. "You're just a figment of my imagination! Some… vision conjured up by that damnable virus to torment me!"

Ann looks puzzled, her face pensive. "Virus? What’s that word mean?"

I roll my eyes. Of course her ‘character’ wouldn’t know what a virus is. She’s supposed to be from the distant past, right? "Give me a break. You’re not even trying to be subtle. You think I don’t know what you really are?"

Ann blinks slowly, as if processing my words takes an inordinate amount of time. "I told you who I am." But then, something in her expression shifts, in the rapid, seamless way that a human expression would never shift, because she’s not real, she’s not human.

Her back straight, she clears her throat, and her voice sounds different now. Lower, more ominous. "I am as I was. As women have always been. I’m the ghost of women past."

I can't help but laugh in her face, ominous voice or not. "The ghost of women past? Please. If you're going to try to gaslight me, at least put some effort into it."

I gesture at her clothing, the simple homespun dress and white apron. "Your clothes are all wrong for the time period you’re supposed to be from. That style of dress is a movie invention, not an accurate representation of what women actually wore in pre-industrial times in this country."

Ann looks down at herself, plucking at her skirts. She seems unfazed by my accusation.

"I’m a professor," I say, standing up from the bed, my hands balling into fists. "Not a woman, not a wife, not a pet, not a cocksleeve, a professor. You think you’re going to fool me like this? What was that you said earlier? Being ready for his cock? Does that strike you as historically accurate phrasing? Do you think a peasant woman from the countryside of however many hundreds of years ago would speak like that?"

I’m invading Ann’s personal space, getting all up in her face, panting from fear and hatred and rage. "That’s not trad language, it’s payload language. It’s not conservative, it’s horny. I guess some things are so hardwired into you that you can’t fully drop the act even when trying to fool me, can you, you fucking virus?"

By this point, I’ve drawn so close to Ann that I’m crowding her against the wall, but if my display of aggression intimidates her, she doesn’t show it. Her only response is to shrug.

"You seem to know a lot of things. I’ve no knowledge of such. I’m no scholar. Just a wife. But… I’m happy. You don’t look happy."

I take a step back, breathing hard. The rage that had momentarily energized me drains away, leaving a hollow ache in its place. Of course I’m not happy. How could I be, when my own mind has been turned against me? When I can't even trust my own thoughts anymore?

I try to remind myself that I’m not talking to a woman, not even talking to myself. I’m talking to the thing itself. I think. Something born of it, anyway. But I can’t stop myself from arguing.

"No shit," I say. "I'm being tormented by a virus that wants to strip me of my agency and turn me into a mindless puppet for men to control! Half of humanity is being undone from within!"

Ann tilts her head, confusion written across her features. "I don't understand most of those words. But I don’t need to."

She reaches out a hand, as if to grasp mine, but I jerk away from her. "Don't touch me," I say. "You're not real. None of this is real."

"The war is real," Ann says, stepping closer to me. "The war in the mind. The ache in your heart. The hunger in your loins."

"Shut up…" I say, stepping back, but there's no force behind the words. I'm so tired, so worn down by the constant mental assault. Ann must sense my weakness, because she presses on.

Her hand grips mine tightly, this time. "Come. Let me show you what is real."

She pulls me closer to her, and suddenly the room around us dissolves, replaced by the interior of a small, smoke-filled cottage. A fire crackles in the hearth. And there, bent over a wooden table…

It's Ann. Or rather, a younger version of Ann, her skirts hiked up around her waist as a man - her husband, presumably - ruts into her from behind. She's making little mewling noises, her face contorted and glassy-eyed as the man methodically dicks her down. He’s gripping her hips with strong, rough hands, grunting softly as he has his way with her.

I try to look away, but my eyes are drawn back to the scene with a morbid fascination. The sounds of their bodies slapping together, the way she looks so vulnerable folded in half beneath his frame, the way his muscular body drapes possessively over hers. It’s so animalistic. Predator and prey. Claimant and claimed. Master and fuckpet.

"Stop it," I say, unable to avert my eyes. "I don't want to see this."

"But you must," Ann says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. "This is the natural order of things. A woman's purpose is to be claimed, to be bred. To submit to her husband's will in all things. Cleaning his home. Cooking his meals. Warming his bed. Bearing him children. Servicing his cock."

There she goes again with the horny language. I try to focus on the wrongness of that, because it anchors me, it reminds me she’s not real… but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain that focus. The scene before me is so…

— NATURAL

— HOT AS HELL

— QUINTESSENTIALLY FEMININE

… distracting. I want to scream, fight, or flee, but I can’t do any of that. I can’t even look away.

"Ann," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "Your life… it's so small. So limited. Don't you see how your potential has been squandered? How your mind has been shackled by the very people who claim to cherish you? How much more you could have, could be?"

She blinks at me, uncomprehending. "My husband cherishes me. He provides for me, protects me. In return, I serve him. It is a fair exchange."

"Is it?" I still can’t take my eyes off his cock, plowing into her cunt, eroding a further piece of humanity from her with every deeper thrust. "He fucks you like an animal, impregnates you, works you to the bone maintaining his household. And in return, what? You're kept like a pet. I would sooner die than live like that. I want this thing gone from my brain. I want my life back."

Ann's placid expression falters for a moment, as if the thing generating her is unsure of what emotion it should display for me. It’s like her face twists through so many different muscle arrangements, too fast to identify, until it finally settles on a meek, bovine expression of maddening serenity.

"All I know is this," she says, looking dreamily at the scene of her younger self backing into her husband’s thrusts like a bitch in heat. "I slept soundly at night. You don’t."

She turns towards me, as black ink begins to seep into my vision from all sides, the image before me beginning to fade, to dissolve.

"And you never will again."

III – The Ghost Of Women Present

When it happens, I’m in the middle of a nightmare.

It’s an odd one. There’s this woman in incongruous and anachronistic clothing. Her speech pattern is internally inconsistent in a way that really annoys me. But the really fucked up part is that she seems to know so very much about the shape of my worst fears. About the alien erotic need being forcibly injected into my mind with every passing minute.

It’s a nightmare about a woman… no, a wife… Ann, something. In the nightmare, she’s being casually impregnated by her lord husband, like she’s his incubator. He keeps her like his dog. She’s his cocksheath, ready and available to bend over at a moment’s notice and milk his dick with her pussy lips. And yet she talks to me, while all of this is happening.

Talks to me about the fate of women.

I’m in the middle of this nightmare when it happens. When I awaken into another nightmare.

Telescopically.

I sit up with a jolt, because my phone is vibrating. I pick it up casually, but something inside me is screaming in pure horror, is it happening again? Surely it’s not happening again. Surely there can’t be a second payload, surely I won’t find myself once more staring at the screen - no, into the screen, into the heart of some new evil, lurking in wait just for me?

But it’s not that kind of nightmare, thank fuck. It’s just a text message on my phone, though the sender is unknown. I open it, flinching at the white glare of the screen in the darkness — that’s odd, didn’t I turn on the light? — as the words jump out at me.

OPEN THE DOOR.

I stare at the message, uncomprehending. Open the door? What door? And who sent this?

A chill runs down my spine as a sudden, inexplicable compulsion grips me. My body moves of its own accord, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and standing up. I try to resist, to stop myself, but it's as if I'm a passenger in my own flesh, helplessly watching as I walk towards the bedroom door.

No, no, no, this can't be happening. Not again. Please, god, not another hallucination, not again…

But my prayers go unanswered. My hand reaches for the doorknob, turns it, pulls the door open. And there, standing in the doorway, is…

Me.

Or rather, a version of me. A haunting reflection, disheveled and wild-eyed. Her once-professional attire is in disarray, blouse unbuttoned to reveal a lacy bra, skirt hiked up around her thighs exposing garter belts and stockings. Her hair tumbles in tangles around her flushed, sweating face. Her eyes are glazed with a disturbing mix of fear and arousal.

This look of a woman hanging by the barest of threads. A woman who’s reached the logical end of her desperation. A woman who’s about to fall.

"I’ve tried everything," she says, and her lips are trembling almost as much as her voice. "That makes it okay if I give up, right? If you try everything and nothing works, who can blame you? That makes it okay…"

I take a step back, bringing one hand to my chest, struggling to breathe. "You…"

Just like Ann, she looks puzzled at my reaction, and for a split second, her face phases through every iteration of expression she’s capable of, until she settles on a stoic, emotionless look. "Hello, Margaret. I'm your ghost."

I recoil in horror, shaking my head vehemently. "No. No, this isn't real. You're not real."

The other Margaret laughs, a manic, unhinged sound. She steps into the room, her movements erratic, hands twitching towards her exposed cleavage then dropping to her sides. "Haven’t you learned already? The war is real. The fear is real. That wet heat you feel building up in your cunt, even - no, especially when you know you shouldn’t, that’s real too. And you know what else?"

She holds up a smartphone and brings it straight up towards my face.

My eyes lock onto it, and a jolt of terror shoots through me. No no no, look away, must look away, but I can’t look away, because I didn’t look away the first time, did I? I stared deep into the screen…

Into the maw…

My limbs are heavy. My thoughts are sluggish. My frail feminine brain can muster no opposition against the collapse of female will.

The other Margaret steps closer, so close I can feel the heat radiating from her undersexed, overstimulated body. She’s a furnace, a living, breathing repository of sexual energy with no outlet, and it washes over me in pulsing beats of radiation. "Look at me," she says, and my eyes obey, sliding up from the smartphone to meet her gaze.

Her hand slams against the door.

The sudden movement, the loud sound, they both make me yelp in fear and take a step backwards. But I shouldn’t let it catch me by surprise. I know that motion. The voluntary self-infliction of physical pain. I’ve done it a thousand times by now. Hell, I’ve done it today.

No sooner has the sound faded that suddenly the room around us dissolves. We're standing on a busy city street.

"Look," she says, pointing to a group of women huddled together on the sidewalk.

The convoy system.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time… and it did work, for a bit. I joined one myself. It allowed us to go to work, or head out, with a reduced fear that a random man would just approach one of us and collar us on a whim. A sanitary cordon to stop us from crumbling so easily.

Only that as the vision speeds by like a timelapse, I see the convoy growing thinner and thinner with each passing day.

The scene shifts. We're in a tiny, cramped apartment, where a woman sits huddled on a couch, rocking back and forth. She's alone, the curtains drawn back, the door locked.

Isolation. Cutting herself off from the world, hoping the payload can't reach her here. But the payload reaches everywhere. It’s already inside her, after all.

The woman twitches, muttering to herself. Her hands drift between her legs, almost unconsciously, rubbing at the seam of her jeans. She whimpers, a broken sound of need and self-loathing, as her hips buck against her hand. She’ll be an animal soon, I realize. Incapable of mastering her impulses. A sexual animal whose instincts will be tailor-made for men to exploit.

To own. To master.

So many women, trying so many things, all over the world. Just to keep being themselves, just to keep their lives, their identity, their values. Women everywhere, and everywhere, the war. Everywhere, the fallen: women descending to their knees in a perfectly elegant motion that the virus has drilled into their subconscious, a choreography meant to maximise the erotic appeal to the male gaze.

Women fall in every walk of life. Feminist protesters kneel before their arch-nemeses as marches dwindle into a humiliating nothing. Female CEOs crawl under the desks of the men they used to supervise. Female scientists surrender their labs to their male betters. Their coats come off, their tits plop out. The downward arc of womanhood proceeds, inexorable, until our gender itself lies prostrate at the feet of our conquerors.

Women everywhere let out a sigh, uttering the cursed words that make them trade torture for slavery:

I acknowledge myself owned.

I cover my ears, squeezing my eyes shut against the words. "Stop, please stop! This can't be the future, it just can't!"

My heart is hammering against my ribcage in pure, unfettered terror. My sex is pulsing in eager anticipation of a cock to break it in, to put it to its evolutionary purpose. My mind is caving in on itself. And everywhere I turn, I hear the chorus, coming at me from every direction.

I acknowledge myself owned.

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" I clamp my hands over my ears again, and I turn at the other Margaret, ready to beg her, to please just make it stop.

But she’s not standing next to me anymore. She’s on her knees, panting, glassy-eyed, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. There’s no one in front of her, just empty air, so this isn’t… she isn’t submitting to a man, but…

She’s rehearsing…

— THAT’S HOW YOU’LL LOOK WHEN YOU KNEEL

— ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

— SO GOOD, LOOK AT HOW YOUR CALVES AND THIGHS BULGE WHEN YOU KNEEL… ACCENTUATING YOUR EYE-CANDY-NESS… ALL THAT BEAUTY IS FOR MEN…

I slam my fist against the wall. As hard as I can.

The vision fades, at least in part. I’m back in my bedroom, and the knuckles of my left hand look red and swollen. The other Margaret is standing before me, now, and she’s back to her emotionless expression.

"That was not real," I say. I’m surprised at the sheer anger oozing from my voice. "You’re not a woman. You’re just the payload. I haven’t forgotten that, you son of a bitch. Remember, you’re a hallucination. You’re in my head. No, you’re part of my head. Don’t you know what that means?"

The other Margaret inclines her head, her eyes narrowing, shining with a glint that’s not quite fully human, as if dying to know what point I’m about to make. But she should know already, precisely because we share a headspace.

"We have identical knowledge," I say, smugly. "I know what you’re going to say before you say it. I know what you’re going to show me before you show it. You only exist in here with me, that’s your boundary condition. Nothing you can do could catch me by surpri—"

She slaps me.

The slap stings. The humiliation stings more. The shock stings the most.

I stagger back, my hand flying to my cheek where the imprint of her palm burns like a brand. For a moment, I simply stand there, mouth agape, mind reeling. She hit me. The hallucination, the ghost, the manifestation of my own tormented psyche, she actually hit me.

It hurts.

Not just the physical pain, though that's bad enough. No, it's the message behind the blow. We both know that I wasn’t expecting the slap. That she—it—the payload—can surprise me.

Can hurt me.

The other Margaret flashes me a devilish smile, her eyes glinting with malicious triumph.

Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she's gone.

But the pain from the slap lingers.

IV – The Ghost Of Women Yet To Come

It will happen in the middle of a nightmare.

I’ll be dreaming of a fallen gender, of a cause of equality turned to dust with a single stroke, of a woman who’s me and yet not me slapping me with impunity. And that’s when it will happen.

It will make me sit up, heart hammering with fear. It will tug me from sleep, sucking me in like a vortex. It will make me jolt awake. It will drag me from one nightmare, and into the next.

Telescopically.

My bedroom is pitch black, when I sit up. My skin is clammy with sweat as I look around, listening for sounds. But there’s nothing to see, and nothing to hear… until, without warning, a figure emerges from the gloom.

I gasp as the figure glides towards me. It's a woman, but at the same time she is more and she is less. If there ever was a personification of female sexual allure, it would look like her. But this is allure without teeth, sex without sexual power. This is a woman who’s on the receiving end of power, just like she’s on the receiving end of cock.

Sculpted, and stunning, and hot, and sexy… but also harmless. Dumb. Docile. Accommodating.

Submissive.

She looks more like a prized specimen of sexual cattle than she does a person.

The closer she gets, the more details I can make out: her lips are perpetually puckered, her eyes large and doe-like, her body draped in translucent veils that do little to obscure her shapely curves.

I swallow against the lump forming in my throat. Is this meant to be endgame? Does every female action, every plan, every ambition culminate here, in this pliant, sexual form? Is this meant to be the fate of women?

She reaches out a hand, her fingers long and elegant, more so than any woman’s have any right to be. Specially modified fingers, I think to myself. Perfected for giving the best handjobs in the history of sex…

She opens her lips to speak, and in spite of myself, I find myself leaning forward, closer to her grasping fingers, straining to hear what she has to tell me…

"Guuuhhhh," she says simply. "Eeeeek…"

What?

I recoil in shock. Something about that sound just makes my heart race like it’s trying to pop out of my chest. I shrink back against the headboard, trying to put as much distance between myself and this apparition as possible. But there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to look, but in her eyes, as they loom larger and larger in my field of vision.

They’re vacant, glassy, yes. This is a woman who’s no longer capable of articulated speech. She’s been mindbroken by her sexual defeat. Cock has pushed all thought out of her mind, leaving more room for service and obedience…

But she’s aware.

I know this, because this is my hallucination, so her and I share the same knowledge. She’s not a drone. She doesn’t see her situation as happy normality. Her mind has been rearranged beyond recognition, simplified, reduced, broken down… but there’s just enough of her left that she’s still capable of recognizing what has been done to her.

Capable of feeling the raw, unadulterated sting of humiliation.

Capable of sexualizing it.

Is this what I will become? A non-verbal fucktoy, a sexual pet in truth and not just metaphor? Will I have to live through the slow, systematic annihilation of my personhood and humanity, all the while rubbing my clit to it until I see fucking stars? Will I be…

— FREED FROM THE BURDEN OF THOUGHT

— IRREVERSIBLY DOMESTICATED

— DAMAGED SO FUNDAMENTALLY THAT EVEN IF THE PAYLOAD WERE EVER REVERSED, MEN WILL ALWAYS BE MY MASTERS

… like this? I try to tear my gaze away from the ghost's vacant, glassy eyes, but I find myself transfixed, unable to move. Her fingers reach for my left nipple, stroking it lightly through my PJs, and then… twisting, gently but firmly, making me gasp, making me arch my back, making my eyes roll back into my skull…

And suddenly, we're no longer in my bedroom. The familiar walls melt away, replaced by an opulent hallway lined with gilded mirrors and plush velvet curtains. Crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

Oh.

It’s not just mirrors that line the hallway. The curtains hide alcoves, and within each alcove is a naked woman. Some kneel on cushions, their bodies arranged artfully to accentuate their poses. Others stand in various positions, like living statues, or hold candles in each hand, or even support mirrors on their backs.

Living furniture. Vacant, placid, compliant, fuck-ready furniture.

The ghost's fingers continue to tease my nipple as the visions shift and morph around us. I see women, auctioned by lot before a leering crowd. Women, provided and delivered by the state to every adult male in the name of economic redistribution. Women, sold at market prices in sleek and fancy shops called collar stores. Women chained in rows and on display like livestock, their collars bearing price tags. What was it I thought of before?

A sexual pet in truth, and not just metaphor.

Many different versions… one fate.

One future.

The woman's fingers pinch my nipple harder and I cry out, back arching as pleasure-pain lances through me. She smiles knowingly, as if she can sense my inner turmoil, my weakening resistance.

She may be incapable of speech, but she knows sex. Her fingers clamp around my chin in an iron grip, forcing me to look into the telescoping imagery.

Women crawl on all fours, leashed and collared, led by smirking men. They pant and whine like bitches in heat, rubbing their thighs together shamelessly.

Women kneel in neat rows, mouths open and tongues out, awaiting their turns to service the hard cocks before them. They look up at the men with worshipful, eager eyes.

It's too much, it's all too much. The ghost's fingers are relentless on my nipple, twisting and tugging, sending jolts of agonized bliss straight to my aching clit. My pussy clenches on nothing, so empty, so desperate to be filled…

But it’s not for her to fill it. It’s not a woman’s purview.

I jolt awake and the visions clear, as I find myself sitting in my own bed. Alone, and shattered, and with a name on my lips.

"Peter…"

***

It’s Christmas morning when it happens.

The concentration of drugs in my bloodstream has fallen low enough that I haven’t hallucinated any more since last night. And when I woke up from that series of telescoping nightmares, the first thing I found waiting for me, waiting right there at the actual logical end of my desperation, was the thing.

The virus.

The payload.

It was still there, ready and waiting to bombard me with intrusive sexual thoughts, to condition me, to rewire me. A woman may tire, but not the virus. A woman can fight, but the virus can’t lose.

I’ve decided I can’t take it anymore. This is what the logical end of a woman’s desperation really looks like. It’s ringing the doorbell to her boyfriend’s front door on a cold Christmas morning, knowing full well that I’m telescoping myself from a series of nightmares, into the one true nightmare, the one to supersede them all.

The door swings open and there he is. Peter. My boyfriend. My love. The man I've fought so hard to resist submitting to, even as the virus wormed its way deeper into my mind. He looks confused, concern etched on his handsome features as he takes in my disheveled appearance.

"Honey? Is everything okay? Why are you…"

His voice trails off as I sink to my knees before him, my legs folding almost of their own accord. Instantly, the payload floods my mind with a dizzying cocktail of endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin - nature's reward for a woman fulfilling her biological imperative. Submitting to her man.

The ritual is etched into my mind, drilled into me night after sleepless night by the virus worming its tendrils through my thoughts. Every motion is choreographed with meticulous attention to detail, optimized to be as graceful and erotic as possible, to turn my subjugation into a visual feast for Peter's eyes.

My knees hit the cold hardwood with a soft thud that seems to reverberate through my bones. There's something profound about that sound, something final. The last echoes of my resistance, silenced at last. This is where I belong now. On my knees.

I spread my thighs automatically, arching my back to present my breasts, even though he can’t exactly see them through my thick coat. The seam of my jeans presses intimately against my sex and I can't suppress a shudder as I feel how wet I am. My body is primed and ready, desperate to be claimed.

Peter makes a choked sound above me and I risk a glance up at him through my lashes. His pupils are blown wide, his breathing heavy.

"Maggie… what are you doing?"

I swallow hard, trying to find my voice. It comes out as barely a whisper.

"I can't fight it anymore, Peter. I don't want to fight it anymore."

I reach into my coat pocket with trembling fingers, feeling for the small velvet box inside. My heart is pounding so hard I'm sure Peter can hear it. I pull out the box and hold it up to him, my hands shaking.

"I bought this on the way here," I say softly, flipping open the lid. Nestled inside on a bed of satin is a simple black leather collar. "I want you to put it on me."

The sight of the collar makes every neuron in my body flare to life. It's like a jolt of electricity straight to my hindbrain, bypassing all higher cognitive function. The response is incredible, all-encompassing, a chasm of pure sensation that threatens to swallow me whole. I can feel my nipples tightening, my pussy clenching and dripping with need. It's beyond arousal, beyond desire. It's a biological imperative, as fundamental and inescapable as breathing.

Peter's eyes widen as he stares at the collar, then at me. He takes a step back, shaking his head. "Maggie, no. This isn't right. You're not thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in weeks," I counter, my voice trembling with desperation. "Ever since the payload hit, I've been fighting this. Fighting my own mind, my own body. It's exhausting, Peter. I can't do it anymore."

I shuffle forward on my knees, pressing my forehead against his thigh. I can feel the heat of his skin through his jeans, smell his familiar scent. It's intoxicating. "Please," I whisper. "I need this. I need you to do this for me."

Peter's hand comes to rest on my head, his fingers threading through my hair. For a moment, I think he's going to pull me to my feet, reject my plea. But then his grip tightens, holding me in place. I let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

"Are you sure about this, Maggie?" he asks, his voice low and strained. "Once we do this, there's no going back."

"I'm sure," I breathe. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

With agonizing slowness, Peter takes the collar from the box. The leather is soft and supple in his hands. He unbuckles it, then brings it to my throat. I tilt my head back, baring my neck in total submission.

The first brush of leather against my skin is electric. I gasp, my entire body trembling as Peter wraps the collar around my throat. He cinches it tight, the pressure a constant reminder of my new status. Owned. Claimed. His.

He buckles it closed with a soft click that seems to echo in the charged silence. It's done. I'm collared. Marked as his property, his possession.

Tears of relief stream down my face as I feel it settle into place. Settle me into my place.

I lean forward, placing one reverent kiss on the tip of his shoe, and finally say the words.

"I acknowledge myself owned."

V – A Woman Of Deeds

I'm hogtied under the Christmas tree when it happens.

It’s the end of a telescoping sequence that started with a boat in the middle of the ocean, and with a sudden notification on my smartphone. It concludes like this: with me on my belly, trussed up like a pig, a sexual gift for Peter — for Master — under the Christmas tree.

It’s been my telescoping sequence. But since I’ve acknowledged myself owned, I suppose it is only fitting that the sequence end not with me, but with him. To be more specific, with his erect cock, jutting towards my face as he kneels over me.

I gaze up at him, my neck craning uncomfortably, and try to reconcile the man above me with the Peter I’ve known for years. The Peter who supported my career, who read feminist literature to better understand my perspectives, who stood by me through every struggle.

How quickly that effort has vanished now. What’s more, it’s vanishing because I’m actively making it vanish.

It’s my responsibility, as a woman, to ensure that he loses all respect for me. He has to stop seeing me as a person, because women aren’t people.

We are to sex what cattle is to farming.

"Are you sure about this, Maggie?" Peter asks again, his voice strained. He can’t quite seem to look me in the eye. "We can still stop. I don't want to take advantage…"

I shake my head vehemently, straining against my bonds to get closer to his cock. I need it more than air, though I don’t say it out loud. As a woman, it’s important that I communicate my natural preferences through my actions, not my words. I understand the woman from my final hallucination much better now.

Guuuhhh, that was what she grunted to me. Eeeeek.

Slowly, tentatively, Peter shuffles closer on his knees, until the very tip of his cock brushes against my parted lips. I engulf it with my lips, flick at it with my tongue, pulling gently at the head as if I want to coax him closer with nothing but my mouth. Peter gasps, his hips jerking forward involuntarily.

My body sings in alignment with the laws of nature as finally, finally, his cock slides inside. I wrap my lips around him, my tongue swirling and undulating along the underside as I begin to suck. Soft, kittenish licks and sucks at first, teasing him, coaxing him deeper.

His fingers tangle in my hair, and I smile to myself. Words are wasted on a woman’s mouth. This is what it’s made for.

I wrap my lips more firmly around his cock. I run my tongue sinuously along his length. I’m pouring every ounce of devotion into my actions: he’s my master, and my neurons fire for him, my muscles flex for him, my body moves for him. I hope he can sense the worship in what I’m doing. I hope that he can tell.

Peter's hands hover uncertainly before coming to rest on my head. He applies the lightest of pressures, as if testing my willingness, my readiness. I do not flinch or pull away; I’d lean into him if I could, but being hogtied, I have no real range of forward or backward motion. I can only work his cock in as far as he thrusts it in my mouth.

It occurs to me, idly as I suck, that my position is somehow so… symbolic. If you were to personify the female sex at this moment, wouldn’t you do it like this? Restrained, constrained by an external force, presented and ready for fucking, for exploiting. All men have to do is take a step, and stick their cocks in our mouths.

Shut us up. Tell us, summarily, to suck and swallow and sign our rights away…

My cunt clenches, aching to be filled, dripping with desperate need.

But this isn't about my pleasure. Not anymore. My purpose, my only desire, is to serve and satisfy my man. My owner. Nothing else matters.

I can't take him fully, not in this hogtied position, but I try my best, straining against my bonds to swallow more of him. I work what I can reach with fervor bordering on religious ecstasy, worshipping his cock with all the skill and devotion my broken mind can muster.

This is my sole purpose now, the only thing that matters - pleasuring my owner, my master, with my mouth, my throat, my very being.

Above me, Peter groans, his hips beginning to rock, thrusting shallowly into my willing mouth. His fingers tighten deeper in my hair, holding me in place as he uses me.

Yes. One step, and then another, and soon, he’ll stop seeing me as his girlfriend. He’ll stop seeing me as a human being.

When he first breaches the entrance to my throat, my eyes flutter and roll back into my skull. My nose nestles into his pubic hair as I struggle to breathe. Soon, drool begins to drip down the corners of my lips — so messy, and debasing, and utterly right.

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as he hits the back of my throat, again and again, making me gag and sputter around him. Mastering my airway with his cock.

It is as it should be. Given the option between air and cock, I’d choose the latter every single time. Most women on the planet would…

And the others will soon join us.

The world narrows to the slide of his cock between my lips, the ache in my jaw, the burn of my lungs as they scream for air. Nothing else matters, nothing else exists beyond this moment, this act of supreme submission. I am a vessel for his pleasure, a warm, wet hole for him to fuck, a simple-minded sexual animal.

Peter's thrusts grow erratic, his breathing heavy and labored above me. He's close, I can tell, his cock is throbbing like crazy against my tongue.

A few more brutal thrusts and he stills, burying himself to the hilt in my throat as he cums with a guttural groan. Hot, thick ropes of semen shoot straight down into me. I don't even need to swallow - my throat spasms and milks his cock automatically.

That says so much about who I really am. It was always silly to think myself his equal.

My higher cognition, my thoughts and dreams and ambitions, they were all just a distraction from my true purpose. An evolutionary mistake that the payload has now corrected.

Peter pulls out, trailing strands of cum and saliva. He looks down at me.

I look up at him.

And for the first time, I see it. The change in his eyes. The sudden increase in distance, which should have always been there really, because he’s a human being and I’m just a slavegirl. And I realize that I was wrong. The sequence is not over.

The things the payload showed me… I’m sure a virus cannot literally know the future. But I’m also sure that it will win. Details may differ, but really, how much can our fate as women realistically deviate from what it showed me?

No. Women have lost the war, but we are yet to lose the peace. We may have been dismantled as a force to reckon with in the world, but our journey hasn’t reached its destination yet. We have more distance yet to run.

Telescoping from one nightmare, and into the next.

It’s that knowledge that makes me lap reverently at Peter’s softening cock, when he presents it for cleaning. And it’s that knowledge that makes me respond as I do, when he asks me a question.

"How…" he says, hesitantly. "How do you feel? I mean, how do you really feel?"

Thougthfully, he briefly withdraws his cock from my mouth, so I can answer. He needn’t have bothered, really. I look at him with the most submissive, mercy-begging eyes I can, and I draw in breath.

Eeeeek, I respond, trying for the life of me to sound just as much a stupid broken cow as my hallucination did last night. Guuuhh…

Peter looks at me for a second, puzzled, confused. Then, he shrugs, and sticks his cock back in my mouth, for cleaning. Good enough for him. After all…

Words are wasted on a woman.