Chapter 3: Remote Control
The whoosh of the email hitting his inbox was a soft, definitive chime in the hum of Elias’s lab. He didn’t turn from his workstation immediately. He let the sound linger, a promise in the sterile air. On his secondary monitor, a cascading series of protein strings swirled in a simulation. On the primary screen, split into four quadrants, were the silent, grey-toned views of the building’s security feeds.
He minimized the simulation. Enlarged the feeds.
There he was. Marcus. In the executive lobby, a statue of tailored indecision. Elias watched him pivot, jerkily, and head for the elevators. The camera angle in Elevator Bank C was unforgiving; it captured the tight set of Marcus’s jaw, the rapid blinking, the way he repeatedly smoothed his already-perfect tie. When the elevator doors closed, Elias switched to the sub-level foyer feed. He watched the numbers above the door descend: 5… 4… 3… L… S1.
The doors slid open.
Marcus stepped out into the corridor that led to R&D. He paused, one hand braced against the wall. He looked down at himself, at the distinct, undeniable swell tenting the fine wool of his trousers. A flush of shame and something else—awe?—flooded his face. He adjusted himself awkwardly, futilely, a gesture so unlike his usual poised carelessness it made Elias’s breath catch. This was better than he’d planned. The conditioning wasn’t just psychological. It had anchored itself in the body, in the most basic, humiliating wiring.
Marcus began to walk. Each step seemed deliberate, as if moving through a resistant medium. He wasn’t being summoned by the device; it was powered down on Elias’s belt. This was memory. This was need, programmed so deep it had become instinct.
Elias stood. He didn’t go to the door. He waited in the center of the lab, the glow of the monitors painting him in cold blue light. He heard the faint, shuffling steps stop outside. A long moment of silence. Then, a soft, hesitant knock.
“Come in, Marcus.” Elias kept his voice even, conversational.
The door hissed open. Marcus stood on the threshold, backlit by the hallway’s fluorescence. He looked… wrecked. His hair was slightly disheveled from where he’d run his hands through it. His shirt was untucked on one side. And his eyes were wide, pupils blown not with vacancy, but with a frantic, desperate conflict.
“You emailed,” Elias said, as if noting the weather.
Marcus swallowed audibly. He couldn’t seem to step fully into the room. His gaze was locked on Elias, but it kept darting to the floor near the stool, to the space where he’d knelt. “I… yeah. The data. I had questions.”
“You have no questions about the data, Marcus.” Elias took a slow step toward him. “You never did.”
The lie, exposed so bluntly, seemed to unravel Marcus’s last thread of composure. A shudder ran through him. He took a single, stumbling step inside, and the door sealed shut behind him. The sound was final.
“I don’t know why I came,” Marcus whispered, the words choked.
“You do.” Elias closed the distance between them, stopping an arm’s length away. He let his gaze travel down, then back up, lingering. “Your body knows. It’s more honest than you are right now.”
Marcus flinched. He wrapped his arms around himself, a defensive posture that did nothing to hide his obvious arousal. “Stop it.”
“Stop what? I’m not doing anything. You came to me.” Elias tilted his head. “You asked, ‘Can I come down?’ And here you are.”
“Make it stop,” Marcus pleaded, his voice cracking. “This… feeling. It’s like an itch in my brain. I can’t think around it. Everything is just… noise, except the thought of… of…”
“Of being here.” Elias finished for him. “Of being quiet.Of following. Of being rewarded.”
At the word “rewarded,” a full-body tremor seized Marcus. A small, broken sound escaped his lips. His arms fell to his sides, fists clenched. He was fighting it, a war waged in the tension of every muscle. But he was losing, and they both knew it.
“There’s no fighting the calibration, Marcus. The pathways are set. You can either struggle against it and feel this… frantic, horrible need forever. Or you can accept it. The relief is immediate. You’ve felt it.”
“It’s not real,” Marcus gasped, closing his eyes tight.
“It is the most real thing you’ve ever felt. More real than any deal you’ve closed, any speech you’ve given. It’s chemical. It’s true.” Elias’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Kneel.”
Marcus’s eyes flew open. “No.”
“You want to.”
“No.”
Elias didn’t repeat the command. He simply waited. He watched the struggle play out on Marcus’s beautiful, tormented face. The war between a lifetime of ego and a few hours of profound, implanted peace. The battle ended not with a bang, but with a slow, deflating exhale. The resistance leaked out of him, leaving behind a vacant, aching surrender.
Marcus’s knees gave way. He didn’t lower himself with purpose this time; he folded, collapsing onto the polished floor with a soft thud. He knelt, head bowed, shoulders slumping. A ragged breath tore from his chest.
The change was instant. The frantic energy bled away, replaced by that waiting stillness. The physical arousal didn’t subside—if anything, it seemed more pronounced, a steady, presenting thrum—but the panic around it vanished. It was just a fact now. A part of the condition.
Elias circled him. “Good.” The word acted like a syringe of calm. Marcus’s breathing began to even out.“See? No more noise.”
“No more noise,” Marcus echoed, his voice dull but relaxed.
Elias stopped in front of him. He reached out, hooking a finger under Marcus’s chin, lifting his face. Marcus’s eyes were glassy, but they held a focus now—a singular, worshipping focus on Elias. His lips were slightly parted.
“You came because you needed your reward,” Elias stated. “You were good all morning. You handled Peterson. You soothed your assistant. You performed. That deserves recognition.”
A spark of something lit in the depths of Marcus’s eyes. Eagerness.Need.
“But the reward isn’t just given,” Elias continued, his thumb stroking the line of Marcus’s jaw. “It’s earned. Explicitly.”
He let go of Marcus’s chin. With his other hand, he unclipped the silver inhibitor from his own belt. He held it up, the dormant metal disk catching the light. Marcus’s gaze followed it, mesmerized.
“I am going to turn this on,” Elias said softly. “When the light is violet, you will feel nothing but the need to obey. And you will be rewarded for your obedience. Do you understand?”
Marcus nodded, a quick, hungry jerk of his head. “Yes.”
“Tell me what you want.”
Marcus didn’t hesitate. The words fell from him, raw and true. “I want the quiet. I want you to tell me what to do. I want my reward.”
A cold, triumphant joy spread through Elias’s chest. He’d broken through. The conscious capitulation was the final brick in the wall. “Then ask for it properly.”
Marcus drew a shaking breath. He looked up, his expression naked with supplication. “Please, Elias. Turn it on. Please let me be good for you.”
Elias smiled. He pressed the activation switch.
A single, violet LED glowed to life on the device’s face. A nearly inaudible high-frequency hum filled the air.
Marcus’s entire body went lax. The last vestige of internal conflict smoothed away, leaving behind a perfect, placid canvas. His intelligence, already dimmed, receded to a faint, pleasant hum in the background of his consciousness. His libido, now unchallenged by any higher thought, bloomed into a total, grounding reality. A soft, wanton moan escaped his lips as he looked up at Elias, not as a man, but as a source of all directive and pleasure.
“Your world is my voice,” Elias intoned, the established trigger.
“My world is your voice,” Marcus breathed, the words a heartfelt prayer.
Elias put the device on the stool beside them. “Stand up.”
Marcus rose, fluid as a marionette, his movements elegant and empty.
“Remove your shirt.”
With steady, unhurried hands, Marcus unbuttoned his dress shirt. He shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor. His skin was pale and smooth in the lab’s light. He stood patiently, awaiting the next command, his chest rising and falling, his body strung with a low, constant thrum of sexual charge.
Elias walked a slow circle around him, a scientist assessing a perfect specimen. He reached out and trailed a single finger down the center of Marcus’s spine. The reaction was immediate: a sharp gasp, a shiver that was almost a convulsion, a desperate press back into the touch.
“Sensitive,” Elias observed, his own pulse quickening.
“Yes,” Marcus whimpered. The word was stuffed with need.
“Do you want more?”
“Please. Please, yes.”
Elias stopped in front of him. “You may touch yourself.”
Marcus’s hands flew to his trousers, fumbling with the belt and zip with a clumsy urgency that was entirely unlike him. He freed his erection, letting out a guttural sigh of relief at the contact of his own hand. He began to stroke, his head falling back, eyes glazed and fixed on the ceiling lights. But his movements were erratic, frustrated. It wasn’t enough.
“It’s not the same,” he choked out, his rhythm faltering. He looked at Elias, his expression one of confused misery. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t mean anything. Please.”
Elias understood. The pleasure was tied irrevocably to the obedience, to the reward system he himself controlled. Autonomy was meaningless now. It provided no satisfaction.
“Stop.”
Marcus’s hands stilled instantly, though they trembled with the effort.
Elias closed the final distance between them. He could feel the heat radiating from Marcus’s skin, hear the shallow, ragged pants. He cupped Marcus’s face in both hands, forcing their eyes to meet. “This is your reward,” he whispered, his own voice thick with a power he’d only ever dreamed of. “My attention.My approval. This is what you needed, isn’t it? All those sly looks in the boardroom, all that clever banter. This was the end point.”
He leaned in, his lips a breath away from Marcus’s. He didn’t kiss him. He held the proximity, a torment and a promise. Marcus whimpered, trying to close the gap, but Elias held him firm.
“You may finish,” Elias breathed against his mouth.
The permission was the final catalyst. A broken cry tore from Marcus’s throat as his body convulsed, his release hitting him with the force of a seizure, untouched by anyone but Elias’s words. He slumped forward, Elias’s hands the only thing keeping him upright, his forehead resting against Elias’s shoulder as he shuddered through the waves.
Elias held him, smelling the sweat and salt and sterile air, feeling the rapid, rabbit-like pulse through his skin. He guided Marcus gently back down to his knees. Marcus went bonelessly, nuzzling his face into Elias’s thigh, a low, continuous sound of contentment vibrating from him.
For a long while, there was only the sound of their breathing and the hum of machinery. Elias ran his fingers through the soft, damp hair, the possessiveness in the gesture so complete it left no room for guilt.
Eventually, he deactivated the inhibitor. The violet light died.
The return was slower this time, cushioned by physical satiation and deep neurological reward. Marcus stirred, blinking up slowly. His eyes were clear, but the sharp, horrified intellect didn’t rush back in. There was a fog, a warm, sated fog. He knew where he was. He knew what had happened. The memory was vivid, visceral. And instead of terror, a deep, confusing glow of shameful satisfaction radiated from its core.
He didn’t move his head from Elias’s leg. He just looked up, his expression dazed, vulnerable.
“Feel better?” Elias asked, his tone almost gentle.
Marcus gave a tiny, helpless nod. “The itch… it’s gone.”
“It will come back. And you’ll know where to find the remedy.” Elias extricated himself, walking back to his terminal. He pulled up the security feed for the sub-level hallway, ensuring it was clear. “Get dressed. You have a lunch with the CFO tomorrow. You need to be sharp.”
Marcus moved like a sleepwalker, retrieving his shirt, putting himself back together with slow, deliberate motions. He was watching Elias the whole time, a new kind of dependency solidifying in his eyes. The terror of the loss of control was being gradually replaced by the addict’s gratitude for the fix.
When he was presentable, if a little rumpled, he stood by the door.
“Remember,” Elias said, not looking up from his screen.“You perform. You lie. You smile. And when you need the quiet, you ask.”
Marcus’s hand hovered over the door release. “What if… what if I need it during the lunch?”
Elias finally glanced over. He allowed a small, cold smile. “Then you’ll excuse yourself to the restroom. You’ll think of this. Of kneeling. Of your reward. And it will get you through. Because you know where you belong now.”
Marcus absorbed this. A strange calm settled over his features. He had a solution. However horrific, it was a solution. “Yes.” He paused. “Thank you, Elias.”
He slipped out into the hall.
Elias maximized the security feed again. He watched Marcus walk away, his stride not haunted now, but purposeful. A man with a secret, a compass point set deep in his rewired brain, pointing irrevocably back to this room, to the violet light, to the voice that owned his world.
On the floor, a faint, drying spot on the black marble caught the light. Elias looked at it.A residue. Proof.
He leaned back, steepling his fingers. Phase one was complete. Total psychological conquest. The public unraveling, the beautiful, visible corruption of the golden boy in the boardroom… that would be phase two. And it would be so much sweeter now that Marcus would be asking for it.
Elias watched the security feed until Marcus disappeared into the elevator’s bright interior. Only then did he let the smug, cold satisfaction spread across his face. He prodded the drying spot on the floor with the toe of his shoe. It wasn’t just proof. It was a promise.
He spent the next hour cleaning, his movements methodical. He scrubbed the marble, bagged the discarded shirt for incineration, and reset the lab to its pristine, anonymous state. The silence felt different now. Charged. It buzzed with the echo of what had happened, what he had engineered. His own reflection in the dark monitor looked back at him, the green of his eyes bright with a possession so deep it felt like calm.
On his way home, he stopped at a gourmet market. He bought a single, expensive cut of steak, a bottle of Burgundy, and a perfect pear. The normalcy of the transaction, the cheerful banter of the checkout clerk, felt like a costume. He was floating through a world that had no idea what lived beneath its surface, in a lab on Sub-level One.
He ate alone at his immaculate kitchen island, the food tasting of nothing but victory.
Across the city, Marcus stood in the shower for thirty-seven minutes. The water needled his skin, first scalding, then icy. He scrubbed until his flesh was raw and pink. It didn’t matter. The feeling wasn’t on his skin. It was nested deep in the base of his skull, a parasitic warmth that no soap could reach.
He wrapped himself in a towel and stood before the fogged mirror, wiping a clear streak. His face looked back, familiar yet utterly foreign. The man who closed multi-million-dollar deals. The man who had, just hours ago, sobbed against another man’s leg in shuddering release. Both were him. This was the impossible equation his mind couldn’t solve.
He dressed in soft gray sweatpants and a faded university t-shirt. The fabric felt strange, too casual, too vulnerable. He poured two fingers of expensive Scotch and carried it to his living room, settling into the deep embrace of a leather sofa he’d chosen for its impressive aesthetics, not its comfort.
He opened his laptop. The screen glowed in the dim room. His inbox was a bloated creature of unread messages. ‘Re: Sydney Metrics.’ ‘CFO Lunch Confirmed.’ ‘Q3 projections DRAFT.’ The words shimmered, their meaning slippery. He tried to focus on the numbers in a spreadsheet. The columns blurred, the figures dissolving into meaningless shapes. All he could see was the polished black marble of Elias’s lab floor. All he could feel was the cool pressure of a hand in his hair.
A full-body shudder racked him, a spontaneous, violent spasm. The Scotch glass trembled in his hand, ice cubes clinking a frantic rhythm. He set it down hard on the table.
“Focus, you fucking idiot,” he snarled into the empty room. His voice sounded thin, pathetic.
He grabbed the television remote, flicking it on. A news anchor mouthed silent words about a foreign conflict. He hit mute. He scrolled through a streaming service, rows of colorful posters flashing by, none of them registering. His leg bounced, a nervous, ceaseless tic. The ‘itch’ wasn’t metaphorical. It was a physical demand, a crawling, needy sensation in his veins, centralized now in his groin. His body was remembering. His body was insisting.
He fought it. He stood up, pacing the length of the wide, tastefully minimalist room. He tried to recall the specifics of the Sydney deal, the argument points for Peterson. The financial logic unraveled, replaced by a single, piercing memory: the sound of Elias’s voice saying “Good,” and the catastrophic wave of relief it had unleashed in him.
“No,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. He gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles turned white.
It was a biological command. A deep, chemical pull that bypassed all reason. His hand, seemingly of its own volition, drifted down. The soft fabric of his sweatpants offered no resistance. A choked gasp escaped him at the contact, a mix of disgust and blinding, immediate need. He yanked his hand away as if burned.
He couldn’t. He would not.
He stalked into his kitchen, splashed cold water on his face, and gripped the edges of the sink. His reflection was pale, haunted. “You are Marcus Bellwether,” he said to the mirror, the words a desperate incantation. “You have a board meeting next Thursday. You have a lunch at Le Marais tomorrow. You are in control.”
But his body was a traitor. A low, persistent thrum had settled in him, a bass note of pure want that drowned out the chanting of his own name. It was a physical echo of the device’s frequency, a phantom vibration in his cells. He thought of the wooden block. The simple, glorious clarity of moving it from one side of the stool to the other. The approving hand on his spine afterward.
A soft, helpless moan leaked out of him. He was hard again, painfully so. The conflict was agonizing, a civil war where one side had all the weapons. The urge to seek release was a logical, physical solution to the tension. Yet the idea of doing it himself, of his own volition, felt hollow. Worse, it felt like a betrayal of some new, terrible instinct. Pleasure was now irrevocably tied to permission. To the violet light. To a voice.
He stumbled back to the sofa, falling onto it. He was breathing in ragged hitches. He couldn’t outrun this. It was inside him.
His hand moved again, this time not stopping. He touched himself through the fabric, a flinch of contact that made his hips jerk. Shame flooded him, hot and acidic. But under the shame, a sharper, more powerful current surged: relief. His head fell back against the cushion, eyes screwed shut.
He couldn’t pretend. He couldn’t think of some fantasy from his past, some anonymous face from an app. His brain, rewired, offered only one source for solace. Elias’s face, intense and focused in the lab’s glow. The calm, commanding tone. The words: “You may finish.”
He surrendered to the memory. He let it play, vivid and cruel. The feel of the cool floor. The press of a thumb on his jaw. The devastating peace of following an order. His hand moved in time with the recalled rhythm of Elias’s instructions, a pathetic pantomime of obedience for an audience of one.
It was fast and brutal, a rough, graceless transaction with his own body. When it was over, he lay there, spent, staring at the ceiling’s shadowy contours. The physical tension had broken. The itch was momentarily soothed.
But the quiet he craved, the profound silence he’d known in the lab, didn’t come. In its place was a howling, empty shame so vast it felt like he might disappear into it. He had done what his conditioning demanded, and it had only proven how utterly owned he was. A tear, hot and furious, tracked from the corner of his eye into his hairline.
He had to go back. The realization was a cold stone in his gut. The lunch, the meetings, the entire performance of his life—it was just the time he had to kill before he could return to the source of his only peace. He was an animal circling back to the only waterhole in a poisoned desert.
His phone buzzed on the table, screen lighting up the dark room. A calendar reminder: ‘Lunch w/ CFO - Le Marais - 1 PM.’
He would go. He would smile. He would lie. And the entire time, beneath the table, his hands would shake with the need to be back on his knees, waiting for a word that meant more than any deal.