“Follow the marked path, pilot,” Lara said. Her pilot was still on an easy Focus 2, and Lara could see the determination and excitement on her face; the light only a little gone from her eyes from the commands coming through her mech from her handler. “I have a surprise for you today, sweetie,” Lara said into the microphone. Hannah, even in Focus 1, was already too lost in own body to visibly perk up at these words, but Lara saw Hannah’s excitement in how her rocking against the seat picked up in speed; like the swishing of a cat’s tail, pleasuring herself was the main way a mech pilot showed excitement. Hannah had always loved surprises.

“Sir?”

Her pilot had arrived at her charted destination: an evacuated helium mine. The surprise, if reports were correct, would be here shortly. But until then…

“Fire one mark-II Klaxorr missile directly upward, into the sky, pilot,” Lara said.

The rocking slowed. Lara’s pilot’s face got a cute furrow between the eyebrows. “Sir,” Lara heard in her headset from the mech. She grinned. “We can’t waste resources like that. Both Driller and the manual—”

“Pet,” Lara admonished.

Her pilot completely stilled in surprise. A soft moan came through the headset.

Wow, thought Lara. She’d never actually called her pilot “pet” before in the mech, and she’d had a sense the word would have an effect, but she hadn’t realized how much of an effect that would be. I don’t usually get that reaction at focus this low. I wonder if it will work every time I call her my pet, or if the surprise was a factor here. Maybe we can bring this out of the mech, too? I wonder if she’ll feel it this strongly in pseudo-Focus.

Lara waited for Hannah to recover and give more protests, but to Lara’s surprise, she didn’t. Her pilot did resume rocking, but no words came; looking at her face on the screen, Lara suspected that in her slightly suppressed state, she wasn’t sure how to respond to the new nickname at all. Lara slipped her hand under her slacks; no one could see her, and really how could she not do this, with her plaything all flustered like this?

She let the moment last a bit longer. Then, she reached out with her free hand and pushed a slider farther than she ever had before.

“Focus 4, pilot: Fire one mark-II Klaxorr missile directly upward.”

The pet melted into the cockpit.

Watching all semblance of independence, of the person she used to be, drain out of the thing on the screen almost made Lara cum right then and there. The missile flew high and exploded. It was loud, messy—shrapnel rained down on her pet’s giant, steel body, bouncing harmlessly to the ground. Not all the mining equipment around them was so lucky; while most of the heavy equipment could withstand the same things the Monarch mech could, there were several human-oriented seats that were open air that became pincushions as what was formerly a missile rained down; Lara didn’t know much about modern mining, but she figured the gas canisters also being punctured were important. Ah, well; she’d been given permission to engage the adversary in this location, so presumably the mine was being decommissioned or something. Her pet would do worse to this place before they were done here.

Speaking of, Lara thought, where is my surprise? She looked at the mech’s radar, waiting. She’d have expected them to respond immediately—did the intelligence officer miss something? The report had given this a “high confidence,” but Lara never knew what went into that—was that just, like, some desk kid’s gut feeling? Or did—

And there it was—a blip on the radar unmistakable as anything but an adversary mech. The shot had done its job as bait; now time to get to work.

“Edict 5: Do not use your radar, pet.”

Lara was rewarded with a slow sound—a muted scream?—from her mech. It lasted for two seconds, then faded into nothing. Lara had expected that. The edict was cruel, she knew. The radar was hooked into her pet’s mind, and couldn’t be turned off any more than she could turn off sight, or smell. Luckily, all of those things were more malleable in her plaything than in the average person, at this point. The edict punished any attempt to violate its stipulations, however; if the pilot couldn’t learn to simply stop processing one of her senses, she would be in constant pain.

The cessation of the scream hopefully meant that Lara’s pilot had done exactly that.

Lara had been experimenting, to see if she believed her pilot could do this. She’d put her pet through all sorts of interesting edicts, taking away her ability to see various things in her environment; she’d tried it at different Focus levels (though never above 3 before now) and different Edict levels (though never before at Edict 5 like this). She’d made her pet fall into holes she’d dug herself painstakingly over hours; she’d made her miss targets that her mech should have auto-locked onto, making such an action impossible. Many of these Edicts had been useless for their missions, simply making her pet’s job harder for no direct gain. But Lara needed to do those experiments, because she wanted to make sure she could eliminate every distraction from her upcoming battle.

After all, Lara was the one in control; the mech’s instincts were invaluable, but Lara was the one with full knowledge and understanding of the situation. She would have her pet sending out signals that spoofed and confused radar results soon; if someone did the same to Hannah, then the mech would be unable to trust its results. Lara, on the other hand, had jammer-preventive software running to eliminate such tricks in real time. If the mech was distracted or confused, it would be completely useless to Lara. As such, it was up to Lara to remove and protect it from any and all of those distractions. Any handler would do the same.

Even through this Edict, of course, her pet’s expression remained blissfully vacant; at Focus 4, not even the rocking slowed. The screen was accompanied by a flurry of angry red across Lara’s brain scanner, but it settled down soon as well, and nothing went outside normal parameters (or at least what Lara considered normal). Perfect. Her mech was ready.

“Ready your magneto-grapple, pilot. Disable slide preventers and enable slide shocks. Spread pseudo-wings.” As Lara gave these final preparatory orders, she watched the blip, blip, blip of the enemy mech creep closer and closer. Then, it stopped. The script Lara had read, months ago, had included the order “Prepare for evasive action and enemy combat.” Lara didn’t bother saying it. Her pet didn’t prepare for anything anymore; she simply did what she was told. And anyway, Lara intended it as a surprise for her pet; she didn’t want to give it away.

In the several months of missions the pair had been on, they’d interacted with enemy mechs a couple of times, but they’d never engaged in direct combat. Hannah had mentioned several times how excited she was about it; how eager she was to “finally put her body to good use.” (When she said that, Lara had shot out a pseudo-Focus 2 and put her tongue to good use; it was a good time, but not anything that could replace the hunger for combat.) “I wasn’t designed to dig holes or build walls,” she’d said. “I get that that’s a way I can be useful, but I want my presence to be meaningful, you know?” Lara wasn’t sure that Hannah’s definition of “meaning” was reasonable—nor that meaning was at all important for their role (she was happy to simply watch her wife become her pet)—but she understood what Hannah meant. Very few things they’d done had meaningfully tested the mech’s capabilities; everything that had had involved enemy mechs in some way. She felt like they were coasting; avoiding all the obstacles with her mech’s giant steps. But here, now, with true combat—she could no longer coast. This was a true test of Lara’s abilities as handler. The hand on Lara’s cunt stroked faster, faster; she let her gasping breaths fill the mech cockpit through her headset; it’s not like the mech could care, at this point. With her free hand, she marked a spot for the mech; the enemy missile was coming. “Shoot it down, pilot,” Lara said. As the explosion temporarily whited out several of Lara’s sensors, she felt the orgasm rock through her. This was going to be fun.

~~~

The smell of explosions and mech fuel filled the air. The Monarch practically flew through the air; it couldn’t technically fly, but the grace of movement and jumps combined with ta slight rocket-driven maneuverability engine that allowed sudden localized shifts in mech orientation and position, and pseudo-wings that caught air and preserved altitude just a little longer than otherwise would be possible, kept the mech floating through the air, dipping and bounding like its namesake butterfly. Her magneto-grapple kept her close to her enemy, both orbiting each other like a binary star, energy and light emitting from their bodies in waves, scorching and transforming the planet around them. Dodging threats was easier than it had been during testing, both because of the experience of the past several months and because all possible distractions—her entire world, except for her enemy and its weapons—were washed away. Even the radar—which had hurt, at first, to look at—was covered in the same soothing layer of fog that filled the space around the one thing in the world that was important: her master’s orders.

“Turn off grapple. Plasmoglycemic spray on. Off. Broadcast this file, pilot.” The orders came one after another; sometimes calm, sometimes urgent, but all critical instructions to be followed perfectly and obediently. There was another voice, cutting through her fog of easy focus; it told her other orders: give up, stop fighting, I am not your enemy, let my bullets tear through you. She had known, once, that those orders were broadcast from the adversary’s mech; she had known, once, that this was standard procedure in mech combat to attempt to coopt the enemy’s pilot; she had known, once, that these broadcasts auto-hacked into the mech and were said at the equivalent of Focus 3. That this was why orders form her master were coming at Focus 4. However, here, she remembered none of that. She simply knew that these other messages were important and true; however, they meant nothing in the face of what her beautiful master was telling her to do.

Her opponent (not her enemy; the broadcast said it wasn’t her enemy) was slow, sturdy; heavily armored and difficult to manipulate. She, on the other hand, was nimble, soaring and darting around the mine as she attempted to pierce its heavy armor from all directions.

“Cease firing, pilot,” said her master. “Start charging your energy beam.” On her map, threats appeared around her as her master marked locations to avoid and locations that were safe. She jumped, dodged, glided on her wings. Stray bullets battered her body; nothing enough to truly damage her, but it was beginning to ache.

“Magnetograpple on. Charge…fire!”

Her body—her mech body—wracked with the force of the blast exploding from the shaft of her weapon. For just a moment, the all-consuming heat and power overwhelmed her Focus. Delight, glee, and lust surged into her for just a moment; then, she slipped back into the cool ocean of her master.

The beam slipped between her opponent’s armor’s cracks and ripped off the chestplate entirely, exposing its delicate wiring to the world. Cheering filled her cockpit. “We got it, pet,” said her master. “Now—”

And then pain filled her body.

To her, nothing existed that wasn’t marked for her. She didn’t have her senses; she only had perfect trust that her master would protect her and alert her to exactly how to avoid any dangers.

This danger—this missile—hadn’t been marked for her. So she had simply stood there for it as it blew her left leg clear off her body.

She was part of the mech; she felt it as herself. It was her body. When her leg blew off, she felt the pain fresh, clear; almost debilitating. But this time, it wasn’t enough to take her out of Focus. She stayed in her ocean, the pain simply yet another distraction she was protected from, obediently awaiting orders, not even aware she was screaming.

“FUCK!” she heard her master say. “GOD DAMMIT you piece of shit lobotomized WHORE we HAD them you—fuck fuck fuck, um, Focus 4 pilot, low-RCS mode. Now GET IN FRONT OF IT NOW!”

She immediately contorted herself into the canine, quadrupedal—or, now, tripedal—shape of her mech’s low-RCS mode. She saw threats appear on her map once again, and she returned to dodging them; as she did so, she attempted to get in front of her opponent. Unfortunately, with her lost mobility, she no longer could run laps around the once-slower mech. Her master’s orders—which were now coming rapid-fire, laden with curses and often overwriting each other—were increasingly left unfilled when she couldn’t accomplish them. It hurt. Her body wracked with pain and distress and loss.

Finally, a shaky sprint and she was right in front of the exposed wiring, ready to shoot.

For just a moment, the order didn’t come. Them,

“FI—”

The opponent’s beam saber sliced off both her primary weapon and her left forelimb.

Once again, pain filled her, dull against her Focus.

Her master sobbed furiously and incoherently into her cockpit.

“Give up,” said the other broadcast playing for her. “I am not your enemy. You want this. Stay calm. Do not move. Let me dismantle you.”

Incapable of fighting back; temporarily without orders from her master; defeated. These words took hold of her, and as the other mech advanced, she looked up at it with a desperate, Focused desire. The mech reached out with it’s powerful arms; it lifted her broken body entirely off the ground.

Finally, overwhelmed, she came.

“EJECT! Get the FUCK out of there!” screamed her master, desperate, panicking.

What else could she do?

She pushed the button. As she disconnected from her body, she felt a burst of fresh pain from each and every one of her senses. Then, all went dark.

***

She felt…wrong, when she woke up. Like she was missing something. A nurse—she had a name, didn’t she, hadn’t she met this nurse before, at checkups?—came over to her bedside.

“Oh, you’re awake! I’ll get Lara for you in just a second. Now, you’re waking up after two days from a very traumatic experience, and you may feel a bit off for the near future. That’s completely normal for detachment syndrome. You’re not supposed to leave your mech so suddenly, you know, especially not with active commands! Well, Lara tells me you really had no choice, so honestly I’m just glad things weren’t worse. Now, detachment syndrome should fade over time, and hopefully we’ll schedule you mech therapy soon; historically, any amount of time back in a mech can mitigate your symptoms and promote healing. You’re not quite ready for that yet, though!”

Who’s Lara, the pilot thought. Right, my handler. She blinked slowly to clear her head; it felt filled with fog, a feeling that seemed familiar but still somehow out-of-place. Her left half was killing her; it seemed to alternate between extreme pins-and-needles and feeling like she was burned on her left half extremely badly.

“You’ll be out of action for at least two more months, and that’s assuming you keep your job—generally, on mission failure, mech pilots like you have their careers evaluated in a tribunal, and it’s decided if they need to be let go. The mech therapy will happen either way, though, so don’t worry about that,” the nurse—Rachel, her name was Rachel—continued. Her voice was strangely grating; nothing was wrong with it, exactly, but it was getting on her nerves, her, who was she, her as in the mech pilot named Hannah, that was her, her nerves. The nurse’s—Rachel’s—soft soprano was simply not the voice she wanted to be hearing at that moment.

“I’m thirsty,” Hannah said. She realized how true it was as she said it, her normal huskiness coming out as a scratchy mess.

“Oh, sure,” said Rachel, filling up a cup of water at the sink and bringing it to Hannah. She grabbed it with her right hand and drank, spilling a little. She made no move to clean it up; it didn’t really seem to matter. The nurse took a paper towel and wiped down her face and chest.

“Where’s my handler?”

Rachel frowned. “Your—you mean your wife? Lara?”

Hannah nodded. The nurse patted her hand. “I’ll go get her. Stay tight, and press the call button if you need me. I’ll be right back.” She turned and walked briskly out of the room.

The pilot could vaguely remember feeling, in prior meetings with the woman, like the nurse would dominate every space she was in; she was a master at feeling everywhere at once to ensure that a patient would want for nothing. It had been impossible not to notice her—her demeanor, though gentle, was insistent and powerful, and it was difficult to imagine her fading into the background of any space she was in. Now, however, the pilot couldn’t help but feel like the nurse seemed meaningless, forgettable; just a passing afterthought in what had been since she woke up a sea of nothingness.

There wasn’t anything to do. No book or computer; there was a TV, but she couldn’t imagine watching anything. That was fine, though; she’d just woken up, but there wasn’t anything she really wanted from wakefulness. She leaned back in her bed and let the time pass in silence, not quite asleep, but not quite awake either.

Finally, she heard something that felt right for the first time since waking up; a voice. It was wonderful, perfect; she’d never quite realized how beautiful her master’s voice sounded. She sighed happily. Her handler was talking to the nurse, low and excited like she was sharing a secret. The pilot didn’t feel the need to listen to the words; instead, she simply basked in the sound of the voice echoing down the hall.

“Hannah!” her handler said as she walked into the hospital room. The pilot winced at the name. The shorter woman ran to her, heels clacking against the tile, and grabbed her hands. “How are you feeling?”

“I…happy to see you,” she said. She sat up in the bed, coming to attention. “How long has it been? Has anything happened?

“Nothing you have to worry about has happened since the mission. You’ve only been out for two days. Rachel thought you’d be out for another whole day—you’re so resilient!”

“Thank you, sir.”

Her handler got a complicated expression on her face, equal parts pained and aroused. “The plan is to have you sit tight for a little while longer while Rachel makes sure you’re healing okay. I know Captain Lovehart will want to talk to us together in a few days. After that, we’ll do mech therapy, and then we’re just resting at home until our next mission. I know you were working on a chainmail glove at home; maybe you can finish that?” She laughed a little, only slightly performatively.

“Yes, sir.”

Her handler once again paused, a light shining in her eyes. “I’m sorry to do this so soon, but I need to get some things from the car—I didn’t know you would be awake yet. I have a couple of things to keep you comfortable while you’re here, like your laptop and your otter plush. Wait for me; I’ll be back in just a sec!” She leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead. Then, her handler quickly strolled out of the room once again, leaving her alone with the nurse.

Listening to her handler’s voice had left her…wanting something. She still vividly remembered her last moments in the mech, her last moments that felt real. She’d cum, that was for sure, but it was forced, incomplete, not enough. She still felt unsatisfied. She needed to get back into her body as soon as possible. In the mech, she was whole; here, she was small, incomplete, a doll facsimile of herself. She thought about touching herself, nurse or no; but she didn’t. Her handler had told her to wait, after all.

***

One week passed. Lara was at her side throughout the week, helping (or, often more accurately, making) her eat, helping her get to the bathroom, and generally keeping her company. Since Hannah had woken up, either Lara or the nurse had been with her—except, of course, when they went out together to discuss something private. Hannah wasn’t sure where they went or what they actually talked about; when she had asked Lara, her handler had said, “Oh, we’re just discussing your recovery and its schedule. Making plans for when we can get you mech therapy, what we’ll do at home, that sort of thing.”

Hannah had furrowed her brow. “Shouldn’t I know about that sort of thing?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that, sweetie,” her handler had said, patting Hannah’s head. “We wouldn’t want to overwhelm you. It’s like the sorties: I keep track of all the maintenance and management stuff so you don’t have to, and you can focus on your mission, which in this case is getting better.”

Today, Lara was anxious. She was trying to hide it from Hannah (which made sense, given her attitude towards Hannah’s recovery, even if it seemed unnecessary to the pilot), but she could see her handler habitually checking her watch and glancing toward the door of the hospital room every few minutes. Hannah had been let in on the situation this time; today, Captain Robert Lovehart would be coming to debrief them on their last mission. This conversation determined whether the two of them ever went on another mission. Usually, each mission involved a debrief with Driller after the fact; the general negative outcome of this last one required more scrutiny, apparently.

It was painful, seeing her wife distressed like this.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That I didn’t take the shot.”

Her wife looked up in surprise. “Oh, honey,” she said, kissing Hannah on the forehead. “I don’t—”

A knock sounded on the hospital room’s door. Lara stiffened, and Hannah watched as she visibly changed her demeanor to be calm and collected.

“Come in, Captain,” Lara said.

The door opened, and Hannah felt the presence of a large man enter the room. She didn’t bother turning her head to see him. It felt wrong to need to; when she was in her body, she constantly saw with 360-degree panoramic vision, all around her without needing to move at all. Her handler got up off the bed and walked towards the man to shake his hand, and Hannah let her attention follow her.

The captain was tall, and built; he stood, more than a head taller than Hannah’s handler, as if he was used to commanding attention where he went. His uniform was crisp and pressed. “So,” he said, in a voice that sounded like it had never needed to shout. “What the fuck did you do with my equipment.”

Lara let out a quiet sound that could have been a sigh or a laugh. “The enemy had been guarding supply center 5-Foxtrot with a class-A RHINOBUG. Our mission was to distract and dispatch it; we succeeded at the former, and infiltration team Zebra Stripes managed to get behind their lines and, I believe, has carried out several successful missions in the last week. The latter objective’s status is unknown.”

The opponent had been a class A RHINOBUG? Hannah hadn’t noticed. She’d used to care about that sort of thing, hadn’t she? There had been a time when a mech’s type, capabilities, design, and beauty was one of the most important things in the world to her. But that information just wasn’t for her anymore. It was easier to just let her handler worry about that stuff. Hannah would just obey her instructions like a good dog.

There was something weird about that thought, but Hannah didn’t bother trying to figure out what. She just wanted her body back.

“…armor that protected it from most conventional attacks,” Lara continued through Hannah’s reverie. “I maneuvered our asset to create an opportunity to circumvent this defense”—she’d obviously rehearsed this, presumably with the nurse—“and successfully compromised it. After that, one well-placed splinter missile would have destroyed the enemy entirely, but unfortunately, Hannah was hit by several enemy attacks that made lining up such a shot impossible. I judged—”

“Why?”

The captain’s icy tone cut straight through all of Lara’s momentum.

“S—sir?” Lara asked uncertainly.

“Why was our pilot hit by multiple attacks? You’d avoided similar attacks until then, right? What went wrong, handler?”

Lara faltered. “I—”

“I failed to follow orders, sir.” Hannah’s eyes remained fixed on her handler as she spoke, handler and captain turning to her in surprise. “I was told to get into position while avoiding enemy fire. I did not. The failure of this mission—I failed the mission. I’m sorry, sir.”

Both people in the room paused for a moment as they thought about her words. Both seemed surprised by what she had said; her handler had a peculiar look on her face, like she’d just bitten into a particularly tasty candy she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have.

“The government is trusting you with billions of dollars classified military equipment, pilot,” the captain said. “Are you incapable of safeguarding it?”

Hannah shivered. “Sir—”

Lara spoke up, her face suddenly once again schooled into neutrality. “Sir, as her handler, I am legally and ethically responsible for my pilot’s successes and failures. Her mistake was regrettable, to be sure, but we performed extremely well both on this mission before her mistake as well as on previous missions. With our newfound combat experience, I will be able to train that mistake out of her, so that our next combat encounter will be completely successful. We’d need practice with the new mech anyway. I assure you, sir, that her mistake isn’t, um, evidence that we as a team cannot handle a mech—quite the opposite. I believe the combat data will show that we recovered from her mistake admirably and did everything correctly before and after it.”

The new mech?

“And besides, self-destructing the Monarch so close to the enemy after removing its protective armor was a strategic decision. If the RHINOBUG isn’t dead, it’s at least compromised, sir. I think that’s evidence that I can salvage imperfect situations and turn them to my advantage, sir, which will be very useful in future missions.”

Self-destruct?

The captain nodded. “That matches what Lt. Casava said. Thank you for your words, ladies. The decision isn’t up to me, but I will bring up what you have told me with the tribunal. I personally think you two have done good work, and I think it’s very likely that your roles here will stay—Hannah?”

Hannah had started to shake violently in the bed. Her handler grabbed her hands, but it didn’t help.

“Did we destroy my body?” she managed. It was difficult to breathe.

“Did…did I not tell you? Yeah, we self-destructed when you ejected. Standard—I mean, I thought you knew I’d done that.”

“I’ll, I’ll, I’ll never be in my body again, then. It’s gone.” Mortifyingly, right in front of the captain, Hannah felt herself starting to cry.

“You’ll be in a mech soon for therapy, and then—”

“Another body. Not my body.. I—I thought—” The words weren’t coming.

“I’m sorry, Captain Lovehart. She’s still healing. I’ve called the nurse—is there anything else you need? I think we need some privacy.”

Hannah’s hands had balled into fists, nails digging into her hands as a bare taste of what an Edict, inside her body, would do to her.

“Thank you for your time,” he said. “I will email you if I have any questions. I do hope she feels better soon.” He turned, briskly, and walked as fast as he could out of the room.

Hannah’s mouth was open to—she didn’t know, scream? cry? but the moment his back was turned, her handler put her mouth to Hannah’s ear and whispered, “Edict 3: shut the fuck up.”

Hannah’s mouth snapped shut. With no other outlet for her energy and horror, her shaking got worse and worse, threatening to take her off the bed entirely. She was sweating.

“Hey—hey. Um, Fous 2, pet, calm down.”

But that order didn’t work, couldn’t work without her body, without the fog, without the Focus, and her body was gone, destroyed, her handler had obliterated it, she’d never see—

“Pilot,” her handler said desperately, quickly lifting up her shirt. “Focus 3, suck on my tits.”

The pilot launched herself at her handler, pushing her from seated down on to the hospital bed in a desperate attempt to feel what her body should have given her. Even without the true commands, she shivered with delight at the sheer joy of following instructions given with this kind of power and authority, sucked, pulled with her mouth not just on her handler’s nipples but also around them, leaving hickey after hickey.

“Stop,” said her handler, and the pilot pulled away. Her handler’s voice sounded different, the key word “Focus” infused into every syllable.

“Act like a dumb, horny puppy for me, pet.”

The pet’s tongue slid out of her mouth as she started to pant, letting a bit of drool slip out and onto her master’s belly and slide down towards her skirt. She wanted to whine, but she still couldn’t make a noise—she missed the warmth and the pain she should have felt immensely—so she let out an unvoiced, desperate keen. A dog wouldn’t wear clothes, she realized dimly, and slid out of her hospital gown so that she was naked above her master.

“Get off the furniture, puppy,” her master said. She jumped down on all fours, stuck her ass into the air, and then turned around, looking at her master expectantly.

She was rewarded with a hand stroking he head. She pressed herself into it, nuzzled it; she had no tail, but she wagged her naked ass as if she did. Her master’s hand slipped to the side of her face, and she started sloppily licking it. The hand slipped inside her mouth and grabbed on, hard. She let out a slight, soundless gasp.

“You want a muzzle so bad,” laughed her master.

The command was nothing and everything, like all commands in this fake Focus. The desire bloomed in her, hot, desperate. She wanted a muzzle so bad. It became all she could think about. Puppies needed to be muzzled. She needed to be muzzled. A bark slipped out of her before she could stop it.

“Shh-h-h,” said her master. She ducked her head in contrition. “Sit,” her master said as her next command. She obediently sat like a dog, hands and knees beneath her. Her master looked down at the pose, which exposed her whole body, tits forward, cunt visibly dripping on to the hospital room floor.

“Good girl,” her master said, and with a solid clack set her heel on the ground in front of her. “Use it,” her master said.

For a moment, she simply stared at the shoe, not sure what to do. In that moment, she couldn’t help but ask herself, Why am I doing this? Why are her words affecting me like this?

As she pondered, she found herself bending over and starting to lick, starting at the toe and progressing towards the heel, tongue caressing every inch of the thing and tracing its way over her master’s foot as well.

It wasn’t the Focus making her do this, she realized. It never was. It couldn’t be, not here.

But there, in her body, she was perfect. Her body made her into the creature she was meant to be every second she spent in it. The clarity, the fullness of her senses—and, yes, the Focus and the Edicts that controlled her—those were her reality, her world. It consumed her with longing. Here, with her body gone, maybe forever; here, if she didn’t do everything she could to recreate that experience, that feeling of perfection; if she didn’t follow her instructions, what was she? Was there anything left?

“Use yourself with it, pet.”

She needed herself to know she still was that creature when she was out of her body. She needed her master to know she was still that creature when she was out of her body. So she did the only thing she could; she put her clit onto her master’s shiny toe and humped it like a depraved animal.

The orgasm was light, subtle; but it was enough to knock her off balance, and she collapsed, supine, onto the ground. She couldn’t help herself. She let out one more contented bark.

“Good girl,” said her master.