…If I had said this once, I'd said it a thousand times, and as such I was losing my patience with him. It wasn't his fault, none of this was, but it wasn't mine either. His voice had even taken on a whiny high-pitched tone as of late, although when he had caught himself doing so he artificially lowered his voice; like a little boy trying to sound like a man, so as to be taken more seriously.
"Wars have consequences, even old ones, and losing them has even bigger consequences…" I started in that same exasperated tone that I had used on him before, when he was being especially dense and unthinking. I was talking down to him again, like an unintelligent child, but I couldn't help myself either. This too wasn't his fault, and I really should be more sympathetic to his plight, but I have to potentially live "with" these consequences, while he only has to live without them so to speak; adapt to a more blissful and simple life for "himself." We were discussing - as near equals - for perhaps one of the very last times what for us was ancient history. It was taught in all the schools, there were faded signs everywhere to remind you too, there were even very old preserved signs at every port of entry to remind you of what had once happened; what was still happening to this day, "Welcome to Dystopia, the home of the three." The sign should have said "home of the free" but nearly all of them were graffiti altered in antiquity, and the name perversely stuck.
The hot part of this ancient "war' had started long before any of us were around, but the consequences still lingered on to this day. A good part of our planet's non-critical infrastructure had been damaged with more conventional types of weapons, but attacking ground and destroying things that can be easily rebuilt, vs taking and keeping it was another matter completely. Our culture is not one to give up easily either, and the logistics of invading another world, of taking on a well-armed citizenry house to house, door to door, while at the very end of their own logistic tail was an impossible challenge for them. They could destroy our world outright, but we also fed several other worlds to include their own, all with our endless fields and crystal clean oceans, and massive inland lakes; so to make our world unfit for all life would eventually end their own. They at one time had bartered and traded with us, shipping things manufactured off-world to us, while we refilled their empty cargo ships with food stocks for the return journey; and that had worked for a millennia before the war.
"Why purchase what you can steal though?" Some long forgotten off-word ruler had maybe once decided, his grand calculus of conflict calculation obviously not taking into account our population's resilience, our hunger to fight for what was rightfully ours, instead of farm. "Plowshares beaten into swords" had many times been written of a much earlier time, but also of the same general conflict conditions; somebody had something that somebody else wanted, or even needed, but were unwilling to fairly negotiate for it. Grand theft on a global scale, or perhaps even the invasion and subjectation of an entire planet of people, a planet full of disarmed food producing slaves for them, with just a few well-armed overlords to watch over the proverbial flock, selecting the fairest of the fair to practice their ghastly perversions upon. It never came to that though; they never fully conquered us.
Again, they had underestimated our people in this… if this was their ultimate goal, their plan A as it were. But this necessitated a change in tactics for our once trading partners turned foes, and we're living with the consequences of that to this day…
They were humanoid bipedal beings very much like us, maybe a little larger and stronger, with slightly different facial and body structures than our own, but our similarities far outweighed our differences. They perhaps had a cultural excess of hubris in many things, believing they were by far the more intelligent of our two species, but to be fair they were quite gifted in the sciences, and manufacturing. We ate the same kinds of foods, and genetically we were close enough to each other, species wise, to interbreed, as was suggested a very long time ago as another way to avoid conflict with one's close planetary neighbors. Kings and queens; royalty of another realm did this too once, thinking cousins and uncles wouldn't attack their own extended families, but history had proved them wrong, horrifically wrong.
They could be brilliant scientists that struggled to feed themselves as a people, so to say that I was in awe of them would be a lie. It's just that I believe in seeing things as they are, not as we would like them. That I think makes me a pragmatic woman, not necessarily a cruel one, but you must ultimately judge this for yourself.
Anyway, our foes had something truly insidious in store when we refused to surrender, when their apparent plans of a leisurely summer-conflict quick-conquest and enslavement of our people went awry, embarrassing them on a universal scale. It was a biological weapon; one that would only primarily harm the humanoid male beings of our world, and specifically designed not to kill, or even fully incapacitate, merely render those men incapable of reproducing, of spreading their own genetics.
If their weapon had been more effective our world would have been barren and humanly lifeless in but a few generations, without importing off-world breeding stock, or reluctantly mating with our adversaries, by force even, to produce mixed lineage offspring. That as well may have been in this second plan of theirs, subjugate the men of our world, emasculate them and work them to death in the fields, and then select from the females those that they wanted; to the victors go the spoils and all of that, make them watch even. There were wild rumors of what those invaders would do to some of the women they captured, death a far better and merciful demise, even an awful death, and as a result our women of the day fought as ferociously as the men. They hadn't counted on THAT either, a theoretical doubling of our military might…
It was the ultimate doomsday weapon, but on first inspection an apparently foolish one too, as it would eventually leave our farmer's fields devoid of farmers; no farmers - no food. But these intelligent foes of ours had this all worked out, this second new calculus of war they now found themselves in would still provide food for the united planets in the short term, all while they were busy building and testing mechanized smart farming robots, an entire army of them to replace the humanoid farmers - us - that would eventually no longer be available for coerced use.
In this scenario as well, there would be but a few overlords to keep watch over the vast endless farms and fisheries, and animal stocks as well, but these would for the most part be specifically skilled repair technicians and not security type people, with some surviving fair local women no doubt thrown into the mix as a bonus, for manly - anything goes - entertainment. This as well was an "old as time" consequence of conflict, be they barbarians, or modern "enlightened" warriors. Not that there is anything truly new under the sun - any sun - but it seems that once you see a fellow being as something loathsome and less than what you see yourself as, anything done from there on in is justifiable, maybe even properly just if lacking enough empathy…
Anyway, there were obvious logical holes in their grand plans - and to be fair these were our own "best guesses" at their tactics and strategy - but the larger problem for them was that their biological weapon wasn't totally effective; their vector delivery system being the apparent root cause. But, it did still seriously eat into our birth rate as a world all the same, as it stealthily infected our population, as did the more overt hot part of the war itself. This biologic also caused our culture to morph and change; to now accept this new pragmatic reality shoved down our proverbial throats. And this brings me full circle back to this last discussion I was having with my "husband" in his present useless form, and of course the subject of this story.
"We didn't lose though" my husband whined, and in this he was both right and wrong; we as a people had eventually repelled the invaders, but at a huge and lingering cost. Biological weapons are tricky things to be sure, and we as well had some gifted scientists, gifted and enraged at what had been done to us as a people; that whole "first of all, do no harm" thing right out the f-ing window. All our scientists had to really do was stand on the proverbial shoulders of these other evil off-world geniuses; identify the biological weapon, reverse engineer and replicate it in bulk, and send it back where it came from in a more efficient, more stealthy manner. No mercy at all.
What idiots build an unstoppable weapon like this without first building the antidote? I and a great many other intelligent people today ask of the ancients all the time.
Ones that had such deep hubris that they thought it couldn't possibly happen to them. I answer in my head.
Anyway, this had all happened after the official secession of hostilities some years later, when we were back to trading together and pretending like it never happened. Our government went to extraordinary lengths to hide the magnitude of what had been done to us, as a people, at least from those off-world. Denying an adversary the accurate battle damage assessment and casualty count is also as old as time, and here we went to some extraordinary lengths to do so.
"Don't ever piss off the people who handle your food, most especially when it's done out of your sight" should be written in every military textbook ever. But, these proud and very intelligent foes of ours had forgotten this basic lesson, and crops treated with our modified "gift" back to these people wiped them out in a generation, their species simply ceased to exist, except for some strays off-world and traveling for the sciences, or doing deep space exploration. Their planet was barren now, their great cities taken over once again by nature, and nobody dared to go there in person for fear of catching what they had…
Justice delayed, but eventually served! And the adroit way it was done gave our people plausible deniability on the entire affair…
"True, but we did pay a price, and some of us still are" I remind my husband. It's unclear if we're talking about him or I to be honest, but I have to deal with this little problem for the rest of my life, and he only needs to be dealt with, the one in my mind far more challenging and time consuming than the other.
"I can try harder, I promise" he whines still again. It's pathetic at this stage of things really, but I have spoken with both the doctors, and the government officials, and this is but one of many steps that this "condition" must take. It starts with angry denial, and ends with humble acceptance, and I for one can't wait to put this behind me and get to the latter. In all fairness it will be easier on both of us when that happens, or so they say, once everything is in it's proper place and I can move on…
"It has nothing to do with trying, and it's not your fault, but life has to go on. I need to be fruitful and multiply, and for the good of our very world we now need three, not just two to one day replace ourselves… at a bare, bare minimum. Perhaps I'm wrong though, perhaps your sing-song squeaky high voice, rapidly growing boobs, your smooth soft skin and now hairless body, not to mention your shrinking flobbly inert man parts; perhaps that's something else entirely? Perhaps the last four-ish years of trying to plant your own seeds in my fertile fields, about as often as we could, all without result I might add, perhaps that's something else as well!" I chide, my tone is just a bit less than totally loving, but my frustration was bleeding through. I'm only human here, and I've squandered four plus prime baby making years of my life, and I feel slightly cheated, although this as well isn't his fault.
"We both know it's not" he sullenly admits, defeated by the logic of my words and observations. Sometimes it just takes another, even one who loves you, to point out the obvious, but thinking in terms of "he" being a he is getting harder each and every day now, no matter how he's dressed. It goes fast once the dormant biologic kicks in, or again so I've recently been told, so I've read too. I wanted to do this next part gradually, ease him into the transition, but his shifting moods and utter dependence on me has made me just a bit less sensitive to his plight. One minute he's angry, the next he's crying, and pretty much anything I have to do myself to be done with all this nonsense I'm more than willing to do at this stage of the game.
"I could have had you tested before I consented to marry you; you know that right?" I offer in a tone that perhaps suggests that I should have.
"I thought that was quite decent of you to be honest. You've always treated me quite well, better than I deserve really… If it's three human replacements, have you already decided?" he then asks far more calmly than I thought he might. I had accidentally let that one slip during my minor rant to be honest. I've been advised that it's best not to introduce them to the concept of a specific new rooster in the henhouse, just the general concept of a replacement for purposes of procreation, at least until the old rooster is properly caged up, and possibly trained up if necessary too.
… I've taken a head start on this next part already, giving my moody and suddenly unemployable husband house chores to occupy his mind during the day, keeping him busy with work while he learns a new domestic skill or two. He doesn't realize this yet, but he was auditioning for his next role in my life and helping me to decide if I wanted to keep him after everything went down. I like not having to do house chores myself, but having a paid live-in domestic is well beyond our budget, especially with one salary missing as of late. I have short term disability for now to cover most of the financial gap, but long term is another matter…
"You know how this must go," I told him. "I've already made your appointment at the clinic, and filed the proper notices with the government so that I can start receiving my long-term disability checks from them; so everything is already set in motion. It's quite fair of them really, I'll get a lump sum check to compensate me for lost time from the date of our engagement, and monthly disability checks for loss of service, and even maintenance going forward."
"I don't want to go to any f-ing clinic" my husband - for just a short while longer - told me angrily, again with the damn mood swings.
"REPEAT BACK TO ME YOUR WEDDING VOWS!" I sternly commanded.
"Love, honor, and obey."
"And which of the three AREN'T you doing right now?"
"You know what they'll do to me in there, don't you Jacqueline?" he tells me, as if he's the sharpest knife in the drawer suddenly. How he specifically knows this is another mystery, unless he saw this coming himself, and decided to do a bit of research on the subject. It's not a subject that most like to bring up, like it's a big family secret or something, but again this isn't fair, it's just the way some of them are, and this as well isn't a naturally occurring condition, but the result of a log ago conflict, the residual lingering aftermath. Still, I have to be tough here, have a bit of separation for my own mental wellbeing, in the end it will be appreciated…
"First off, I don't like your attitude, and second I don't like your tone either. Remember who you're talking to… here!" I barked while wagging my finger in his face. I can get all pissed off too, and he knows he doesn't want to see me like that if he can help it. I wanted to actually say "remember who you're talking to 'mister'" I thought to myself, but to slip and then do so, and then not laugh afterwards might be impossible for me, certainly while looking at him in his present condition.
"Yes ma'am, I'm sorry. This is just so hard for me" he squeaked.
"I seriously doubt that!" I quip while looking towards his crotch, my double entendre perhaps not fully appreciated though, "his" ability to appreciate witty penis humor perhaps as attenuated as the signals from his feminized brain that now fail to tell it to get ready to make babies for me. Zero viable sperm too, and about zero masculinity; the former he apparently had since puberty though. They were there - the sperm - but placebo in nature, and detecting this was near impossible, short of using it as intended, taking it for the proverbial road test in a fertile womb. Making babies in our society, bearing in mind all we've been through as a people, is something women just don't do accidentally, not to mention that having a local town stud or two randomly breeding women, even married ones, could introduce further health problems into our society, close accidental breeding down the road and all of that. Breeding partners are registered with the government, so that less accidents like this happen, but those rules are also sometimes bent for the wealthy.
The masculinity crash was a later rapid onset symptom as if somebody threw a switch in his brain, as earlier when we had first married he had been quite the stud himself, although not ever a tall or muscular man specifically. I prefer them like this to be sure, muscular and masculine enough to do what I wanted and needed physically, nice enough looking to show off to my friends too, but not so much so that I couldn't physically control him if necessary, if I ever had to take that kind of heavy hand. That was the test that I had personally used, thinking foolishly that a one-time stud couldn't morph into what was presently standing before me, whining like a little child that just dropped her ice cream cone, and somehow wanted me to fix that for her. There were of course other back alley "medical" tests one could subject a potential mate to, but I had elected not, thinking such might not be all that good for his self-esteem, plus there were a lot of false negatives in such crude tests; the irony of our present untenable situation almost laughable in comparison though.
I didn't necessarily like this next part either, but I knew instinctively that I had to set some new firm ground rules, they like to know where the boundaries lie, or again so I've been told recently…
"While we're on the subject, I don't like you using my given name so casually, so going forward from here my first name to you is ma'am unless I tell you differently; you got that?"
"And any men you might meet in the future, if you know what I mean here, they are to be addressed as 'sir,' or if they're children you are to address them as 'young master' or 'young miss,' do you have that as well?"
"Yes ma'am I do" he reluctantly tells me, but if looks could kill… Respect, with just a tinge of fear, fear of my strap lately though, as I've had to take a heavy hand with him over the last few months; and truthfully, I don't care for such personally. Some women live for this level of dominant control, beating a whiny three into utter trembling submission, but I've also read that they get much more well behaved once they're fixed, and I personally prefer this route over daily corporal punishments, or using the shocker device. If one was to specifically misbehave that is another matter entirely, but I'm not up for unearned daily maintenance beatings, no matter my level of sexual frustration…
…I personally drove both of us to the government clinic in my car; ever since informing them that I had a potential three - as they were called disparagingly in crude slang form - "his" license, credit cards, and even cell phone had all been electronically canceled, as had his electronic keys to his cherished convertible sports car. Even if he could somehow drive it without the electronic access key, he had no way to charge it as all charging stations worldwide were locked out for him now. Had he wanted to use his bus pass instead, as a last ditch effort to escape the city and what we both knew his fate to be at this point, the driverless bus would only deliver him to the clinic where his appointment for "evaluation" was scheduled anyway. Such was a mere formality in this particular case, but it was a block that I had to electronically check, to get my own check. Once properly fitted, the clock would start ticking, legally speaking, and my half of my marriage vows would be legally null and void from that point forward. Once again I would be on the open market for dating, although in this as well I have a slight head start…
This was a clause in every modern marriage contract, a "failure to perform" clause for half annulment, but his love, honor, and most especially obey vows would still be in full force, unless I specifically released him from them. I would shortly have the full legal authority to even put him up for rent or sale if I so wanted, and some ladies did this to get a true fresh start with the next man in their lives, but I actually hoped it wouldn't come to that. I still loved him, and liked having him around, and he knew my routine too. He therefore could still be of some limited service to me, although not the original service I had anticipated when I married him. Threes can be useful tools though, but one doesn't share a bed with them, it's just not done like that.
I had also vowed to keep him for the rest of my life on our wedding day, and I take such things seriously. He was currently unemployable for most thinking jobs though, at least in his present biologically altered state of mind, but maid duties and other like minded simple pursuits - with hopefully limited daily management from me - would likely still be within his new limited skill set.
For the truly difficult to train or control there was even a company that would fit a chipset at the base of the three's skulI, allowing for a remote-control unit to guide the three through its day, knocking off items on an electronic checklist in endless repetition. I'd prefer not to go that route if necessary, but I wasn't taking the option off the table either, although my preference was for a somewhat freely thinking threes servant going forward, as opposed to the programmable fleshy robotic kind.
If I wanted continuing disability checks from the government, I had to keep him though, retain possession, house and feed him too, and that made this decision of mine just a bit easier. If he was going to transition to being a full-on domestic of some kind anyway, he might as well be my domestic, unless of course if he couldn't get along with Tommy that is…
Tommy Thompson was the devilishly handsome one-time teen boy that used to cut our lawn back in the day, back before he went off to university; and my husband used to give him such a hard time about the smallest of details, nonsense really. Tommy was a good sport about it all though, but even then that young man and myself would eye-flirt and smile at each other when my husband wasn't looking, and I think this is the reason that young man put up with all that bull. It was nothing really serious at the time, but that young man and myself only had - and have - maybe six or seven years between us, so it was a realistic flirting, rather than the creepy kind. I'm always pragmatic in such things though.
I can't say it's the most mature thing in the world to do, but a when a married woman in her early twenties who is trying very hard for a baby with her husband gives the handsome, hardly dressed tan eighteen-year-old cutting their lawn a great big stiffy, while sunning herself in her little bikini with the straps undone, it's very empowering. And to have some irony here, we'd been trying to knock me up pretty much since our wedding night. And not having any luck to that point, if my proud and slightly "cocky" husband - back then anyway - had only nicely asked little Tommy sometime during that long summer, before he went off to university, if he might like to help me out with that; consented and gave permission that is, he and his flobbly guy parts might not be on his way to the clinic in my car.
Some very wealthy women did it like this, bending the rules as it were; hiding their husband's "budding" feminization by dressing them creatively and keeping them from the public eye; then finding discreet breeding partners from halfway around the globe on the open market to make babies with. Human stud service like this was expensive and "hard" to find, if you'll pardon the cheap pun, and almost nobody does it for free these days, for the sheer enjoyment of the activity.
We didn't have that kind of money anyway, but if my husband had only swallowed his considerable pride and asked Tommy really, really nicely, he still could have maybe saved some face here, and I could have had the first of my babies just a bit sooner. Even back then with the teenage Tommy, I thought it might be great fun to make some babies with him, as in more than one, as he had and has a rather fantastic body, very ruggedly handsome, not to mention a sharp mind. He was also a fine young man from a good family though - nearly neighbors - and as such he'd want a hand in raising any offspring of his, and this is where stud service gets tricky, and why most who take this route import their studs from faraway lands, once and done service as it were. Another way it's done is a week-long vacation package, without the legal husband in attendance, the lucky woman leaving for vacation as one, but coming back home again as two… nine months later.
…Anyway, we walked into the clinic together, although "he" was three steps behind me and looking down at his feet as if somebody we knew socially might see him there. Get over it! I thought to myself, you'll have bigger fish to fry shortly. We sat down next to each other in crappy plastic chairs in a dingy and old looking waiting room, just waiting to be called; this place not seeing any fresh paint, nor any serious cleaning in quite some time. The government drone workers shuffling here and there are no better looking themselves, but that doesn't stop me from telling him sternly not to embarrass me with any theatrics in front of them.
The others in the waiting room are there in pairs as well, two apparent women sitting close to each other, in each case one in obvious deference to the other. My husband is the only "man" presently in the waiting room, and even that is stretching it a bit, but he's at least dressed as a man, but the clothes are no longer fitting, in more than one way. It's nothing more than an impractical costume of masculinity now, nothing more, and nobody here is buying it either. "He's" here with me, in this particular place and walking behind me, just that alone pretty much tells the whole story…
Here and there I catch some of the deferential women looking at him, stealing covert glances really; they don't say a word, but to a woman the look is screaming "you poor fool!" I know these to be required monthly "inspections," but only for the first year. I keep that part to myself though, as I don't know how extensively he'd researched all this, before his internet access had been shut down anyway. They only like threes getting one official version of how things will go, once actually confirmed, so that's why they're locked out of any competing forms of information. If you repeat a story over and over again it eventually becomes, if not the truth, the accepted version of events anyway. Along these lines I skim over a pamphlet I selected from the table to kill time, they're running late at the clinic, imagine that. It's titled "Transitioning 'Him' To The Third Gender" and the simplistic smiling cartoon figures inside make it all look so rosy. He's not smiling though, he's terrified, and I'm reminded of taking the family dog to the vet, as he looks about to wet himself too. Perhaps this is the real reason for this crappy cheap plastic looking decor, and the drone workers projected attitudes, "oh great, another pee puddle mess to clean up!"
These things are both faded and dated, it's obvious, but there's almost a comfort in that, as in many have come through these doors before you, and many will after too; if they can do it, so can I. In other words, he's just one of a very many - currently like ten percent of the adult male population, but fortunately that number is slowly declining through natural selection - so get over yourself.
The third gender is what this specific condition is called, not male, not quite female either, literally no man's land in between both somewhere. I'm half reading my old worn-out pamphlet with one eye, while watching him pick up another titled "Living A Life Of Service Without Your Penis" with the other. Nothing subtle there, is there? I ask myself. The woman sitting closest to me and her charge are called next, and she takes a slight detour towards me and puts her hand on my shoulder affectionately and looks into my eyes, telling me to be strong and that I've got this. It's just what I needed, when I needed it, this being a very stressful point in my life for me. I thank her for her kindness, but she with her own burden in tow are soon gone to room number three. We're eventually called to go into exam room number two, leaving our dated reading material and sticky tile floor behind for the next fortunate souls.
"Have, ahhhh "him" disrobe please" the nice doctor tells me with a sarcastic little smirk for my eyes alone, she apparently not wanting to talk directly to the patient. It's objectifying for him, but I get it too; just like ranchers don't give the cow's names; why get all attached? She smiles at me more deeply with her eyes though, they're stunning just like the rest of her, this likely her little dry form of humor to no doubt put me more at ease during this potentially stressful time, female solidarity and all of that. She's nothing like the nurse drones I've seen wandering around the clinic, this woman has a purpose, this one is in charge and has authority, I can feel it. The door to exam room number two is still open though, in fact there are things piled in front of it so that it likely hasn't been closed in quite some time.
"Strip everything off and stand there like a statue, hands at your sides" I tell him in no nonsense fashion. I don't want him embarrassing me with anything stupid while in front of this doctor, or for that matter in front of the open door with anybody walking down the hallway and looking in. Such might make it look like I'm not up to controlling one like him myself, and were she to report such to the authorities, keeping "him" might not be an option for me any longer. I've heard of this very scenario, but it's rare, although as long as he listens to me there shouldn't be any problems. The government can also do a full forced buyout for those that can't be made to assimilate any other way, assimilate this new reality of theirs. I don't want to go there if I can help it, although straight up trading this former "man" of mine for my oppressive big-house mortgage - big enough to fill with a great many children, as was our first plan - has its allure.
I can see the chair there, just like it was pictured in that pamphlet in the waiting room, widespread stirrups facing the open door, and all. What wasn't accurately pictured was the thick restraint belts, and the overall stout construction of this "exam" chair. The thing is bolted to the concrete floor in a dozen places with big bolts. The lifts that they use to work on my car at the repair shop aren't bolted to the floor so well, and I see my husband notices this little detail as well. He looks to the open door briefly as if he's about to make a break for it, and my stare back at him says "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" I don't have my strap with me, but I'm certain that I could borrow something, the very necessary belt to his very baggy suit pants, if nothing else.
The nice doctor asks me his name, date of birth, and confirms that we're actually married, and when exactly that unfortunately happened. We go over some additional details, a year from this date there is a second appointment that must be made right now, as the waiting list for that procedure is long, although not a complicated thing really. They do it all the time, but I don't want to go there just yet, first things first. There are monthly mandatory inspections as well, to make sure there are no sizing problems with the rig, no unauthorized tampering either. There is also a tiny but powerful battery pack that must be changed regularly, but I'm getting to that part as well.
This doctor is stunningly attractive, the kind of woman that my husband at one time almost couldn't help but to stare at. She's several years older than I and I ask about her own situation, looking for some further solidarity, to which she admits that her's is fully functional, and always has been, five kids later. I'm envious, but I try not to let it show. We then get into a deep and pleasant discussion on gardening of all things; ripping the unwanted weeds out by the root and nurturing the fragile little things you want, so that they can grow up tall and beautiful, just like the children that I one day want.
She's distracting me and putting me at ease with her dual meaning conversation, and I sincerely appreciate it, as this is very stressful for me, although I'm trying not to let it show. Her tone is just as nice as pie, but she has the world in her palm, why shouldn't she be nice? I think this is someone I could be social with once outside this dreary office, have her over for coffee or something, maybe have the new maid serve us lunch even? The fruits of her labors on my behalf as it were.
I have my back mostly towards my stripping husband, but the nice doctor is watching him with one eye like a hawk watching a scurrying rodent. She doesn't like what she sees, I can see it on her pretty scrunched up face, and when I turn I expect to see a naked skinny quasi-man with growing boobs, and shrunken genitalia, to be standing there silently and waiting for further instructions. I instead see he has managed to drag his feet and only has three buttons undone, and I know for a fact that there are people waiting in the waiting room, and we're wasting this lovely woman's valuable time. I also make brief eye contact with my friend from the waiting room, she's right across the hall in her own open-door exam room, her companion in an identical chair and very nude, and I briefly see the device…
As if nothing more than an annoying distraction to our conversation, she stops mid-sentence and says into her breast mounted little communication device, after tapping it twice to make it start listening: "Sixty-five, sixty-five, room two please."
And then to me, "please step over this way just a few feet if you would, sometimes this gets a bit rough."
We continue talking about the best soil for carrots, and something else that I don't quite remember, when three large and muscular orderly type men walk in with a purpose in their stride. My husband is half their size and looks like a proverbial deer in the headlights of a monster combine about to shred him to pieces, and he comically starts to strip off just a bit faster. Too late for that now, I think to myself, as my nice new doctor friend fully pulls my attention away from what is now happening behind my back.
I hear the unmistakable sound of a shock baton being discharged, and the high-pitched squeal that follows; no natural man able to hit highs like that without serious operatic vocal training. Several faces appear in the open doorway with the commotion, my new friend from the waiting room among them, not to help or interfere, but just to watch the humiliating spectacle; it's apparently always entertaining when they resist. I see a similar baton on my new doctor friend's sash, and we've all seen them in use in public on unruly new number threes. I remember seeing this as a teenager at the market, thanking my lucky stars that I was born as I was, instead of as the sometimes-weaker sex.
I then hear mumbling behind me, and clothing being roughly ripped from a body; buttons flying just everywhere, wondering in ever-practical fashion how I'm going to get what's left home again, assuming they let me take him home. Transporting nude is perfectly legal for number threes, it's actually preferred on public transportation; so much so that many trains and planes even have cages set up for them somewhere out of the way, like in the cargo hold, or baggage car, so it's easier to store them in bulk like that for transport. They even give you a paper claim ticket so there's no confusion at baggage pickup later on, the second half of your ticket affixed to the physical body of your number three, or so it said so in the pamphlet. Where exactly they pin that I don't know, but I can surely imagine.
They always cross reference this with its tattooed on registration number, every number three gets one. It makes it easier to do a title transfer, if such becomes necessary, or return one that gets lost or misplaced somehow, back to its rightful owner. The date of first service is even built right into the lengthy number, and there is always a tracking RFID chip installed too. I had hoped to spare "him" some of this, transition him into this new chapter of his life just a bit more kindly. I'm not truly an evil woman, I do have actual feelings for him.
"Rip the band-aid off quickly" was where we're heading now though, but I didn't do this to him either, he did this to himself by not listening to me, by not promptly obeying me as he had once vowed to do. I now have my doubts if he can be trained up enough to work out with Tommy, but there are training camps that one can contact, if such becomes necessary, and I could always have him programmed with a chip set too. The camps are expensive, and what they do there makes this look like summer camp, that as well was in the pamphlet. I have no confirmed number threes in my extended family unit, so my personal hands-on experience with them is quite limited. It's hard to explain, but they blend into the background in our society, it's the thing that one usually tries to pretend doesn't exist.
"I think we're about done now, you can turn around if you want" the nice doctor tells me.
I turn and put my hand to my face, not in shock, but to hide my smile and possibly stifle my laughter. He's nude now, clothes all over the floor in rags; one of the orderlies picking them up and stuffing them into the trash as I watch. My eye contact with him wordlessly asks him, why didn't you just do as you're told?
He can only answer with his eyes now, as he's wearing a clear plastic panel gag, and I can also see the size of the part that's filling his oral cavity, stretching it open obscenely. It looks almost like he's offering his mouth to the orderlies, to apologize for not cooperating by fellating them. I hadn't really thought to press him into that kind of service, but I know that there is a market for such, some men really, really like that kind of thing, dominating the very least in society, but then again some women can be like this too…
Each ankle and knee is strapped tight in its corresponding leg piece and stirrup on the stout chair, and it's obvious now why the thing looked so overengineered. His wrists as well are buckled to the large frame of the chair, over his head, and the part of the chair behind his back is not flat, but convex, forcing his chest out as if showing off his growing "man" boobs, bending his spine backwards. These are actually more than that though, and if he keeps on track he'll soon be wearing bigger bras than I do, the rare times I have him clothed. Many number threes are kept nude in the house, it's cheaper this way, and they're less threatening if everybody can see what's going on under the proverbial hood, or not going on one could say. It makes escape a little less particle too, but there are other ways that is accomplished…
Women in our society run things and are both feared, and respected, and the men are cherished for what they can do; they can and do build some wonderful things when properly motivated and supervised. I'm told it wasn't always like this, that at one time the men ran things, but that was back before that little biologic had ravaged our population; took the very best from our bloodlines. We've as a gender had to step up, and it's been like this ever since. Anyway, women are respected, men cherished and useful, but number threes get none of that. They're what's left over, an ugly reminder of what was once maliciously done to us, and as a result they are the least among us, as a people.
It's truly unfair, from a certain point of view, but that's the way it's been for generations, there is no easy way to change that, and no will to either. The laws put into place since that time guarantee this, but it's more than just this, it's a cultural thing. I'm trying to be as fair and respectful of this process as I can be though, I'm trying to be enlightened here, but many times the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and we still need to repopulate our species. In my possession, this one at least will be treated quite well, and maybe such things even start at home on an individual basis, and radiate out from there…
Speaking of what's going on under the proverbial hood, with his little hairless pale legs spread wide and upwards his little shrunken package looks like it belongs on a six-year-old boy that just got out of a cold pool, and I'm embarrassed for myself that this was something that once used to rock my world, but back then it didn't look like that, and really neither did he. Not that I can truly empathize, but if this is hard for me to watch, imagine what it's like for him? Four short years ago he had been my stud muffin, and we did it all the time, everywhere we could, whenever we could. And now look at him, it's hardly believable…
"We're good now, thank you" the doctor tells the watching orderlies, and I'm reminded of loyal guard dogs, waiting for the signal from their master to pounce. She has dismissed these human guard dogs kindly enough, even though she obviously runs things around here. They're just men after all, but still she treats them nicely enough, and I think there might be a lesson in this here for me somewhere.
"Oh my, she has such nice legs" the doctor tells me, she then runs her bare hands up and down my husband's hairless and smooth legs, feeling them. She unlocks and bumps each stirrup out wide, spreading her even more obscenely, all the time with people walking by and looking in the open door, to include my new friend.
"Do you have her shave them?" she asks, this very nice-looking doctor of ours apparently a leg girl. My husband does have some nice ones to be sure, although they have been covered up by long pants this summer, so far at least, to hide the early stages of transformation from the neighbors. I know they would look even better all tanned up and sexy, but sexy for whom is the question, I don't really want to whore out my brand-new number three, although I'm sure he could pick up these rather simple physical skills rather quickly. I know for a fact that he's good with his mouth and tongue, I've made extensive use of it myself, at least ever since his guy parts stopped working properly.
"No" I confirm, "they're natural, well natural for what we have going on now obviously."
"Can we talk rather candidly for a few moments Jackie?"
"I'd prefer that to be honest," I tell her.
"There is a working theory that this condition grows rather more aggressively in a more specific fertile soil. So as not to beat around the bush as our time here is limited, the biologic works more efficiently, produces a better looking more realistic end product, when there is a heavy fem component already within the host. Carrots and rich soil, that kind of thing. I need to finish my evaluation before I say anything further, commit here, but I think that if you decided that you wanted a fresh start, I could find a new home for this pretty little thing here."
"Doing what exactly?" I asked.
"Men, real men that is, say that they give the very best oral on the planet, and that they do other things quite well too. Think about it, if you 'once' had a penis of your own, you'd know how to please it like nobody else. She's had twenty something years with a functioning one, most of those post puberty, and at least a few months of sexual frustration without, so given the right training and motivation she could still service society."
"I don't know" I tell her, she's pretty good at oral with me after all, but depending on how the Tommy thing works out, I might not need that any longer. Oral orgasms are nice and all that, but I want deep penetration, and babies, lots of babies.
"Let me get a look at the rest of it and I'll have a better idea of things."
It? It's not the first time I've heard my husband referred to as that; a thing, not a person.
She gets between his outstretched legs and runs both her bare hands from his knees to his hips, feeling the smooth skin of a woman on his shapely legs. I catch myself wondering if she wants to evaluate him, or seduce him while right in front of me and strapped down to this massive chair. She sees me watching, expertly reading my face, and tells me that this is all part of the evaluation.
I have to take her word for this, but my husband looks just as confused as I do. She then grabs the zipper of her uniform dress and zips it slowly down, stopping well under her lacy white bra.
"Like these?" she asks my gagged husband.
She then runs her hands up his flanks, grabbing his own significant developing boobs and kneading them, before pinching on his nipples. He groans in response, helplessly watching. She then tells him that she likes his, that they look pretty and sexy. She stares into his eyes, where before she didn't even want to acknowledge him as the third human in the room, and I'm even more confused.
Some more tender caresses follow, touching on the common erogenous zones that most of us have, and then she comes full circle back to the apex of his pinned legs, swatting upwards on his shrunken child-sized man package with disdain. Each time it flops back down under the force of gravity, lifeless and inert.
"Back in the day some opportunistic husbands and wives would conspire to defraud the state, claiming disability where none existed, all to claim the very generous benefits offered. Such depleted the funds for those truly deserving, and ran up the statistics on the truly affected, inflating the numbers as it were. That brought about the clinics, and the cage program, and as a result the numbers went down." The doctor explained.
"So what was that all about? Were you seeing if he would stimulate for somebody else just then?"
"Exactly. There are ways to game the system, and those that want a free ride are positively clever at doing so. Anyway, I can see that this one isn't playing, and I think this might be the real deal, but first another test. Just because you or I don't excite, doesn't mean that somebody else might not, and this as well will help me to be able to present the best possible options for you, going forward."
Then the doctor asks one of the buff male orderlies to come into the room. "Tony, you look a little stressed today, how about you pull that plug and tickle its tonsils for us?"
Tony then pushes a button on the chair and pivots it slowly backwards as I watch aghast, never had I considered for a moment that my husband had willingly decided to suddenly start playing for the other team as it were. I would think I might have had a clue, and the look on my husband's face as his head comes to rest at the proper height to service Tony's likely massive male organ, tells me he isn't into this at all. Tony then pulls the plug portion from my husband's panel gag - it looks like a small male appendage - leaving his pinned open mouth gaping in open invitation. Tony then forcefully turns my husband's head to face his bulging crotch, stirrup bound legs pointing towards the dirty ceiling tiles.
I can't watch this, and I think to stop the action, but I don't know that I have the authority to even do so. It's a medical office, and these are the professionals, government employees, they theoretically know what they're doing here. Tony and my husband are looking each other in the eye, but in my husband's case this is no "come hither" look. Before Tony takes the plunge though our nice doctor is again between my husband's legs, swatting and letting his man bits flop down, they are still just as lifeless as before.
"Thank you, Tony, that will be all," the doctor tells the orderly, dismissing him kindly.
"We could obviously train it to do anything we might like with enough force applied, even to be of service to men like Tony, but its heart just wouldn't be into it, so I must decline the offer I was thinking of making you. Anyway, it looks like you probably have a real number three here, and the only thing left to do is fit the cage and set the appointment."
"If it passed the test; why the cage at all, for that matter why the one year follow up thing either?" I ask. I even caught myself calling him an "it" now, but in this environment it's positively contagious. People talk, and I kind of knew the answers to these questions anyway, but I had a limited time audience with this "in the know" woman, and I wanted to tap into that for all I could.
"Because also back in the day some husbands would go to the extraordinary steps of playing along in the device for a whole year, so that they could stay at home for the rest of their life and not have to work, faking their disability and collecting a check. Look at it another way, if this is a real thing, and if not having access for an entire year is no hardship, removal shouldn't be either. Since instituting this policy the numbers have gone down significantly, and from the government's point of view; if they're writing the checks, and you're cashing them, they can dictate the conditions."
"How long will this take? I have an, ahhhh… 'appointment' with somebody for lunch," I told the nice doctor; she understood what I was saying without further elaboration. She gives me a look that says, "good for you girl, choose wisely this next time." In our society if one can't make it happen after the third husband it's considered poor form to search any further, plus time isn't exactly on a woman's side by the time she's had her third number three anyway…
The cage device is a one size fits most kind of thing, there are boxes of them all over the place, some even being used as doorstops. It's made from some special alloy, and the wide serial numbered ring easily goes over his shrunken child sized sack, the bared tube section as well easily going over his little shrunken and flobbly little penis.
I used to call that thing a cock, a tool, or several other manly sounding names when we had first been married, back when that thing had been super impressive on his somewhat small frame. He rocked my world with that thing more times than I can count, and I wonder if this version of things isn't even more cruel to him. If he never had a functioning one to begin with he wouldn't know what he was missing, but this way he does, and this explains why he looks on the verge of crying so often these days. It's not his fault, I remind myself for the hundredth time, but it's not mine either. Those long-gone foes of ours own this one; wishing to enslave, emasculate, and then eradicate our species, a fate they eventually endured themselves…
The pamphlets were just a bit vague on this next part, but a machine is swiveled into place on a heavy arm, this looks like something that belongs in a factory making heavy farming machines though, and not a medical clinic. It - that is my husband - starts to struggle a bit more seriously on the massive chair when it sees this thing, and I now know why the chair is constructed like it is, bolted to the concrete floor so firmly. This device as well is very heavy, and the only way the doctor can move it so easily is because it's mechanically counterbalanced. I'm caught up in that specific detail, but this is mental cowardice, as I want any excuse NOT to watch this machine do its ugly job, so as not to ponder the profound thing that is about to happen. "They" say it doesn't hurt them, that at this stage of debilitation the area we're discussing has no more sensitivity than your earlobe, but "they" likely aren't the ones having it done either.
"Anesthesia?" I ask. I don't want to sound alarmed here, but I remember reading that they use this so that the threes don't associate pain with visiting this office in the future.
"We've talked a bit long for that I'm afraid, and that little delay with disrobing has you almost into my next appointment already. I get a big vacation bonus for staying on schedule, customer service satisfaction scores and all of that; so please give me all fives when they contact you later to inquire. I'm only three points away from a tropical island getaway, believe it or not," she tells me cheerily as she works, "and I am so looking forward to getting away from this grind for a month or so."
"It's really only a pinch though, so forget I said 'grind' will you please? Turn away if you must, if you don't want to watch, but for most it's quite symbolic, kind of like cutting the umbilical cord, out with the old and in with the new and all of that. Come to think, I really better put the gag back in place so it doesn't disturb the other patients, sometimes they howl like we're chopping it off early, it's amusing really, but this kind of work can take it's toll, twist your humor a bit."
"Find the time for the anesthesia!" I tell my new friend flatly while staring into her very pretty eyes. There is steel in my tone now, a decision has been reached in my mind. This may be nothing but just another three visiting her clinic, but this patient of her's is still my husband, and even when he/it isn't my husband any longer, it will still be my de facto property. I have a lot of female solidarity with this nice woman, but in the big scheme of things I don't give a rip about her vacation.
"It's nice to see such concern, not all threes are so lucky, you know" she tells me. Is she saving face from my none too gentle rebuke, or is she being genuine with me? I'm left to wonder.
The anesthesia only took a minute to work, making me wonder if she got a commission on the supplies she DIDN'T have to use on the patients. I'm starting to not like this pretty woman the more I get to know her, she sees this human before her as something less than the others in society, instead of just different. I have a bit of that going on myself, but I vow to myself to work my mind away from that point of view. If kicking little puppies is cruel and inhumane; treating fellow humans inhumanely must be doubly so.
Anyway, we watch and hear the machine do its job, hydraulically crushing the cage and ring assembly down into a tight custom fit. There is no lock, and therefore no key either, it's simply crushed on, and adjusted tighter and smaller each month as necessary, to both ensure no tampering, and to make sure it doesn't fall off on its own.
As the machine is removed I see all this, and this as well re-enforces the tiny size of both the device, and what it encapsulates. The nice doctor looks at her handiwork, handling it roughly as she points out the unique features to me, including the tiny pin assembly that goes through the end of its little shrunken penis. I see my bound husband's eyes as big as saucers as he looks on too, but nobody is talking to him, including myself. There is a serial number on the ring area, and a matching number and barcode tattoo above the area now as well, the machine apparently a multitask unit that works fast.
"They call this the anti-tamper device, somehow pull this thing off and the carnage will be gruesome. I'll give you some antibiotics for it to take just in case, but infection is rare these days. One a day for ten days on a full stomach" she further advises. "I have other patients, and I believe you have a date yourself" the nice doctor says, ruining what I had wanted to keep secret just a bit longer.
"What's that device underneath it there?" I ask.
"Okay, I almost forgot. Under the barcode is the RFID chip that is registered to you presently, as you're the owner of record, and under the cage is the neurostimulator, imagine a dog shock collar, but way more powerful. The serial number is also registered to you presently, and they will help you set up your phone to actuate the stimulator if it gets away from you. Imagine an electronic leash, ten feet away and it gets a gentle correction, one hundred feet off your property and a bolt of lightning delivered right into the nerve bundle directly. They usually pass out cold when that happens, so this is no joke…"