PART THREE
Later that evening Tamantha and Kira dressed to the nines to attend the inaugural banquet of the cruise. The tables were set out on the upper deck so a canopy of stars played counterpoint to the flickering candles that lighted the banquet. The two girls found their placecards set at a table where Andre was holding court with three or four other women in attendance. Eating quietly by herself was a tall attractive blonde. Tamantha thought she looked familiar.
“Pardon me,” she said, as she and Kira took their seats, “But aren’t you Candace Wellington, the famed fashion designer?”
“I don’t know about famed,” she said, “But I do design clothes.” The three women introduced themselves while the girls around Andre burst into another round of laughter at one of his comments.
“Been on the cruise long?” asked Kira.
“Three days,” Candace replied. “Three glorious days. And I hardly miss my work at all. I didn’t even bother to phone in for messages today—that’s a first.”
“So you’ve been enjoying yourself?” asked Tamantha as she started in on her salad.
“Very much so. I’ve never slept so well. Have you used those headphones they got attached to the bed? Three minutes of audio programs and I’m out like a light. I’m going to see if I can get one of those installed at home.”
Kira looked around a little wistfully. “I was sort of hoping the men would arrive soon. Things are a little too relaxed for me.” And she smiled naughtily.
Candace smiled an aristocratic smile. “You too are a little younger than I am. A good book and a sunny deck work just fine with me. I’m not exactly the type to hang over men, if you know what I mean,” she added with a sidelong condescending glance at the cluster of giggling girls around Andre. Following her glance, Tamantha noticed that the girls were hardly dressed for dinner. Some of them were hostesses with the chain-necklace golden medallions, others were guests—but all of them were still dressed in the barest of swimsuits, their ample breasts jiggling with each burst of laughter. Andre basked in their attention.
“Has Andre showed you the treasure-hunting rig they set up in the sonar room?” asked Candace.
“We did that today,” said Tamantha.
“Find any?”
“None yet. Did you.”
“Still looking,” said Candace with a smile. “Andre said I can take a shift every day, since all the other girls apparently got tired of it. No patience, apparently, unlike us working girls.”
“So where did all these other girls come from?” asked Tamantha. “They all seem so. . .immature. Like a bunch of party-girls, I mean.”
Candace shrugged. “Who knows,” she said with a hint of disdain in her voice. “They were here when I got here. I tried to get acquainted, but they all get this blank look in their eyes. They all seem to be waiting for the male passengers to come—sort of a Bring On The Guys kind of attitude.”
That night, Tamantha and Kira dropped into bed, pleasantly tired by the days activities. Both girls reached automatically for the headboard earphones. And both girls soon slumbered while their minds soaked in the next lesson: “. . .dress for comfort. . . I want to dress for comfort. . .I don’t need to dress up on the ship . . I don’t need to dress up on the ship. . .I really don’t want to work today. . . I really don’t want to think today. . . working just gives me a headache. . . thinking too hard just gives me a headache. . . .” And then, repeated over and over again as the girls passed through their cycles of sleep: “I want to hunt for treasure. . .”
The next morning after breakfast Tamantha tried to concentrate on her laptop computer. She stared at the list of incoming e-mails in dismay—this was no better than working at the office! She scowled and tried to respond to the first one, frustrated that she could not keep her mind from wandering.
“Whatcha doing?” asked Kira, slipping into a very brief set of shorts and an equally minimal tanktop.
“Work,” growled Tamantha, bent over her laptop on the table in the room. “But I’m just spinning my wheels. Can’t seem to keep my mind on it.”
“I don’t want to work today,” said Kira. “It just gives me a big headache.”
“Me too. My head seems like it’s splitting.”
“Then come on deck, silly. That’s where I’m going.”
“Dressed like that?”
Kira stepped into some high-heeled sandals and took a backward glance at herself in the mirror. “Hey, I’m on a cruise. I’m dressing for comfort.” The tanktop molded her pert breasts perfectly, and the low-slung shorts displayed far more than they covered. Both bore the monogram of the cruise line.
“Where did you even get that stuff?” asked Tamantha.
“In the closet, the shelf. Just my size, too.” And Kira left, deck towel in hand, with a little attitude-sway in her hips.
Tamantha tried to word a reply to an e-mail from her office, but the more she tried to think, the harder the pounding in her head. She rubbed her temples and deliberately let her mind go blank, and after a few minutes, her headache melted away. Strange! Only when she tried to think. . .
The closet door caught her eye. She got up and checked—sure enough, a set of hip-hugging shorts and small tanktop awaited her. They were hardly the thing a high-powered female executive would expect to wear, even shipboard. But she decided to try them on, just to see if they fit.
They did, of course. And since she had them on, no reason not to try them out. She slipped into the high-heeled sandals—also her size, no surprise there—and stood there in front of the mirror studying the her new look: her nipples could be seen poking through the thin cotton of the tanktop, and the shorts looked as if they had been sprayed on, the fit was so tight. Her back arched provocatively as a counter to her high-heeled stance. Then the thought came unbidden to her mind: Time to hunt for treasure! She applied her make-up and hurried out the door.
Kira already sat in her chair in the sonar room, her eyes bright with anticipation. Andre was there too, chatting her up. It was so dark and cool and relaxing inside the sonar room, with everything bathed in dim red light except the sonar screens themselves glowing the soft luminescence of pale green. Andre looked up at the sound of the door. “Hello, Miss Tamantha, just have a seat,” he said. Kira felt a surge of excitement as she clamored into her chair and adjusted the sonar headphones over her ears. The screen in front of her filled her vision, its tracking beam circling around and round the center, drawing her eyes inward. . .She concentrated hard, wanting to be the first to discover a possible shipwreck. Her concentration was slightly distracted when she felt Andre pulling some straps in the chair across her slim midriff. “We may have some rough water ahead, we need to use these seat belts as a precaution,” he explained. The buckles snapped shut. Whatever, thought Tamantha. The important thing was to keep watching the screen, and listen to the steady tone of the sonar that sounded over the soft background whisper of noise (“sea-static” is how Andre described the background). The sonar image dissolved in a lazy arc that spiraled around and around. Tamantha had no trouble following the ghostly green turns with her eyes. . . so restful. Minutes passed into hours. The strange thing was, she didn’t really mind that they weren’t actually finding anything, it was so restful and calming just to keep watching the screen, sort of like sleeping with yours eyes open, only she was not really sleeping, more like dreaming while awake. . .
Andre’s assistant quietly opened the sonar room door and quickly closed it again. “Message from the island,” he told Andre as he handed him the decoded message slip.
MAX TO ANDRE: SPECIFICATIONS FOR TWO NEWEST PASSENGERS PER CLIENT’S REQUESTS: TAMANTHA FULL BODIED LOOK, AT LEAST 38DD AND MINOR LIPOSUCTION AUTHORIZED FOR THIGHS AND POSTERIOR/STOP/ KIRA PROPORTIONS SATISFACTORY BUT CAN SOMETHING BE DONE ABOUT HER CHIN (DETAILS TO FOLLOW) /STOP/ DOWN PAYMENT ALREADY DEPOSITED BY CLIENT /STOP/ CONFIRM RECONFIGURATION IN TIME FOR ARRIVAL AT ISLAND/STOP/END MESSAGE
Andre’s assistant stole a glance at Kira, oblivious to the world, her half-closed eyes glued to the radar screen. “Chin?” he asked Andre. “There’s nothing wrong with that girl’s chin.”
“All in the eyes of the beholder,” said Andre. “It’s the client’s concept of beauty, not our own. Each to his own tastes. As for the precious Tamantha, who would want to tamper with breasts like that?” He gestured at the bust of Tamantha, the woman’s breasts uplifted from the strap across her upper waist in twin half-spherical mounds. “Those are quite elegant as they are, no? And now a client wants to make her into a cow,” he said with disdain. “Must be an American,” he added. “They see too many airbrushed magazine models in their formative years.”
The assistant knew there was no arguing with Andre on matters of relative beauty. So he changed the subject. “How goes the programming?”
“See for yourself,” he said, nodding at the two women sitting in motionless attention to the screen. “We’ve already reinforcing the programming they get at night in their cabins. The two men put on spare earphones specifically designed to capture the signal of the subliminal messages being driven into the women’s minds:( " . . .so relaxing to listen to the sound in the earphones before going to bed. . . it helps me sleep to listen to the earphones. . . so relaxing to sleep with the earphones on and not have to think so much. . .thinking gives me a headache. . . thinking gives me a headache. . . I might as well have some things done in the clinic this trip. . . I know the clinic can make me more beautiful. . . “) Andre re-read the note from Max, and typed in another message that was immediately converted into audio for Tamantha’s earphones alone: (. . .bigger the better. . . I need bigger breasts to look pretty, the bigger the better. . . I’ll look so pretty when my breasts are bigger. . .I’ll feel so good about myself when my breasts are bigger. . . the bigger the better. . . “)
“Are we getting good visuals?” asked Andre.
“Yes, sir. We’ve assembled quite a collection of video of both girls. We’ll edit it into a training program.”
Andre nodded. When Tamantha had earlier asked about the cameras mounted all over the ship, he had told her they were for security. Their real reason was to capture a continuing set of images of each girl to be played back during a conditioning process yet to come. Also, Andre knew the tapes had great marketing value. Many of their clients enjoyed watching a tape showing a montage of his lovedoll’s gradual subjugation, captured on video as the voyage progressed. It was all there on tape, the whole transformation: from haughty, supremely self-reliant and accomplished women, to docile love-slaves programmed for pleasure.
Andre smiled. “Au revoir, free will,” he said with a mischievous smile.
Later that afternoon, Kira and Tamantha lay on their deck-mats near the bow of the boat, their skin drinking in the sun. Their bodies glistened with suntan lotion, but the sea breezes coming over the bow kept them pleasantly cool. Tamantha had tried to do some long-overdue work in her cabin, but the act of even uploading her e-mail gave her a headache. She just couldn’t concentrate. It was so much easier to read the stack of fashion magazines that someone had left in their cabin. Even those became too hard to read, so she gave up the work idea and agreed to go sunbathing with Kira.
They settled themselves on the deck with their bathtowels. A few of the other girls were sunbathing too—and more than one of them were shamelessly topless. One of the crewmen strolled past, and Tamantha studied his reaction over the top of her sunglasses to all this exposed feminine flesh. His glance settled on one of the topless beauties, and as Tamantha watched, he reached down and deftly unsnapped the curious black device from the girl’s hip thong. Tamantha had wondered about these devices before. As she watched, the man casually thumbed something into the control panel. The topless girl rose from her towel and obediently followed the man to his cabin.
Now that’s curious, she thought. Tamantha beckoned one of the medallioned cruise attendants for another drink. She came over in her high-heeled sandals and skimpy swimsuit and obediently offered Tamantha her favorite drink, a fruit-juice concoction with just a dash of vodka. Tamantha noticed her full breasts barely restrained by the swimsuit top—the ever present small black device riding on the girl’s hip.
“Amazing,” said Tamantha.
“What’s that?” murmured Kira beside her.
“The hostesses they have on this ship. Our waitress knew exactly what drink I wanted, didn’t even need to ask. Such service.”
“Mmmm. We deserve it, Tamantha.”
“Wonder what those little boxes are for,” she said casually.
“I dunno,” said the drowsing Kira. “Cell phones or pagers, or something like that, I imagine.”
Tamantha shrugged at the little mystery and instead studied the girls retreating form of the waitress, the girl’s hips swaying rhythmically. “What a body. I’d give anything to have a body like that.”
After a while, Kira said, “Well, they do have that clinic here. You ought to check it out. Probably cost you a year’s bonus, though.”
“I’ve often wondered about. . . you know, augmentation.”
Kira slipped her sunglasses down on her nose? “Really?”
Tamantha nodded thoughtfully to herself. I bet I’d look a lot prettier if my breasts were larger,” she thought. The thought seemed locked in her mind. She could see herself with breasts like the hostess could boast of—full, ripe, attracting attention, so soft. . .
Tamantha got up off her mat. “Well, I just might do that. Want to come and check out the clinic with me?” she asked her friend.
“No, you go ahead, I’m too relaxed to move,” mumbled Kira.
Tamantha retraced their steps earlier to the clinic. She noticed a beauty salon in the room next door, with chair filled with the other women on the trip. Beautification was apparently quite the flavor of this cruise, she thought.
She stopped at the door to the clinic, hesitating, then resolutely pushed it open. The receptionist behind the desk smiled.
“Why, Tamantha, isn’t it? How nice of you to drop by again. What can we do for you?”
Her friendliness and the fact she knew her name startled Tamantha, but she recovered by answering, “Hello. I just thought I would talk to someone here about. . .breast augmentation.”
The receptionist consulted a clipboard. “Have a seat,” she said, “the doctor could schedule a procedure in this morning.”
“Well, I wasn’t meaning to have it done, now, exactly—”
“Why, here’s the doctor now, Tamantha,” the receptionist. “Doctor, Tamantha is interested in the breast augmentation procedure.”
The doctor had gray hair and a tanned face and calm friendliness that Tamantha felt an instant response of trust. He nodded with a smile. “Yes, I’ve seen you on deck. I think we have a protocol that interests you. Right this way, Tamantha.”
She found herself following him with docile automation. He took her into a clinic with three women lying prone on beds. Tamantha immediately noticed the clear plastic suction bulbs placed over their breasts and hooked up to a machine through a connection of hoses. The machines pumped and hummed, and Tamantha could see how the vacuum expanded the pliant breast-flesh into the form-fitting suction cups. It might have been an optical illusion, but the breasts appeared enormous beneath the cups as they rose and fell with each steady pump of the machine. Tamantha recognized one of the patients—Candace, the fashion designer. The doctor noticed her gaze.
“We find that steady suction on the breasts helps to redistribute the injected solution. Each suction cups not only expands the breasts, but fits it to the proper form. The idea here is not just to have larger breasts, but larger perfect breasts.”
The words barely had enough time to sink in before Tamantha found herself undressed and gently guided to a gurney. She barely felt the prick of a needle, then everything swirled in a mist before her eyes.
* * *DECRYPTED MESSAGE
TO: MAXFROM: ANDREPSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING PROCEEDING WELL. SUBJECTS COMPLIANT AND READY FOR PERMANENT BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION ROUTINES. PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS ALSO IN PROGRESS PER SPECIFICATIONS. APPROACHING ISLAND ON COURSE 220. WEATHER IS FINE AND SO ARE THE GIRLS.DECRYPTED MESSAGE
TO: ANDREFROM: MAXMARKET STILL STRONG FOR NEW RECRUITS, WITH BRISK BIDDING FROM OUR STANDARD CLIENTS BASED ON PRE-ACQUISITION PHOTOS. WHEN PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS COMPLETED, UPLOAD OF NEW IMAGES TO ADD TO AUCTION CATALOG.* * *
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