Chapter 3: Baseline
Anya moved to the head of the cradle, her fingers brushing Ellie’s hair aside. “Alright, Ellie. This part feels a little weird, but it doesn’t hurt. Just a lot of… buzzing in your skull.”
The helmet was lighter than it looked. Anya lowered it carefully, settling the cool, smooth interior over Ellie’s scalp. It enclosed her head from the crown to just above her eyebrows, leaving her face free. A soft inner lining inflated slightly, conforming to the shape of her skull with a gentle pressure. Ellie heard a series of soft clicks as Anya fastened a strap under her chin. Then came the buzzing—a low, internal vibration that seemed to originate inside her very bones, a humming resonance that filled her ears.
“Helmet is live and reading,” Dr. Long said, her eyes fixed on a bank of monitors. A colorful, three-dimensional map of a brain—her brain, Ellie realized—spun slowly on the largest screen. Wavy lines of electrical activity danced across another. “Neural patterns are active and robust. Excellent baseline cognition.” She tapped the screen indicating the prefrontal cortex, the area glowing a bright, intelligent yellow. “See that? Lots of complex firing. Worry, anticipation, analytical thought. All about to get much simpler.”
Susan, meanwhile, had taken up a position near Ellie’s hips. She leaned in, her voice a warm murmur. “Just establishing a physical baseline too, sweetie. Gonna see how your body responds before the machine takes over. Try to relax.”
Ellie felt Susan’s fingers, slick with the same cool gel that coated the probe, part her labia. The touch was clinical, deliberate. A single, smooth fingertip traced her slit from bottom to top, circling her clit once, lightly. Ellie jerked, a sharp gasp escaping her. The serum kept her calm, but it didn’t mute sensation. If anything, it sharpened it. The touch was a bolt of pure, undiluted feeling.
“Strong initial response,” Susan noted, her voice almost conversational as she continued to lightly stroke and explore. “Very receptive tissue. Good lubrication already.”
On her monitor, Dr. Long watched a second set of graphs spike. “Physiological arousal climbing. Heart rate, respiration, dermal flush. Perfect. Syncing neural activity to somatic response.” She glanced at the brain map. The bright yellow of her higher thought centers was now interlaced with pulsing threads of red, mapping the arousal signals firing from her groin. Two systems, beginning to intertwine.
“You’re doing great, Ellie,” Anya said, her hand resting on Ellie’s shoulder. “Your brain is showing really good malleability. The serum’s working. All those clever little pathways are nice and soft, ready to be remapped.”
“What does that mean?” Ellie heard herself ask. Her voice sounded distant, focused.
“It means,” Dr. Long said, turning away from the monitors to look at Ellie directly, “we’ll be able to make you nice and dumb. A really good level for the Body Familiarity module. The hardware is perfect.” She said it with the same tone someone might use to comment on good soil for planting.
Susan’s fingers continued their gentle, tormenting exploration, dipping shallowly inside her, spreading her wetness. Ellie’s hips gave an involuntary, tiny push against the empty air, seeking more pressure. Susan chuckled softly. “She’s ready, Doctor.”
“Now, Ellie,” Dr. Long began, walking closer. “This is how it will work. The helmet is going to read the intense pleasure signals from your body during orgasm. Each time you climax, the helmet will release a pulse, amplifying the spike in activity from your orgasm. The serum uses that neural spike as a catalyst. It… simplifies things. It takes the complex, high-order connections in your cortex and streamlines them. Turns them off temporarily. Each orgasm will make your whole brain a little dumber. A little more basic. A little more focused purely on physical sensation and simple, instinctual drives.”
Ellie listened. The concepts seemed clear, logical.
“The orgasms will start small,” Dr. Long continued. “Relatively speaking. The machine will stimulate you to a peak, let you crest over, and we’ll monitor the neural fallout. Then we’ll do it again. And again. Each wave of pleasure will be stronger, more consuming, as your capacity for complex thought diminishes. Your inhibitions will fade. Your ability to analyze, to worry, to be self-conscious… it will all melt away. What will be left is what the module requires: a happy, horny, simple awareness of your body.”
Anya squeezed her shoulder. “The first one will just take the edge off. You’ll feel… lighter. Words might be a tiny bit harder to find. You’ll feel fuck-dumb, but only a little. It’s after the third or fourth that you really start to feel it. That’s when it gets really good.”
“Post-first orgasm,” Dr. Long clarified, “the effects will be just noticeable but not too intense yet. You’ll likely experience a mild fuzziness, a slight difficulty focusing on complex ideas. You’ll probably feel very aroused, more so than now, and less bothered by it. It’s a gentle step down. A nudge off the plateau.”
Susan removed her fingers, wiping them on a towel. The cool air on Ellie’s wet, exposed pussy was its own kind of tease. The probe glistened, waiting, poised an inch from her entrance.
“Are you ready to continue, Ellie?” Dr. Long asked, her hand hovering over a control panel.
The clarity from the serum was still there, but it was now flooded with a deep, aching need. The feeling of being held open, displayed, the gentle hum of the helmet, the knowing looks of the women around her—it all coiled tightly in her belly. The fear was gone, tamped down by the serum. In its place was a raw, shameless want. She wanted the simplicity they promised. She wanted the machine to fill her. She wanted to feel her mind unravel.
“Yes,” Ellie breathed, the word sounding like a sigh. “Please.”
Dr. Long nodded. “Commence Phase One stimulation."