Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58317 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58317 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Straps came across my chest, my waist, my thighs—tight enough to keep me in place, but not quite tight enough to cut off circulation. I tested them reflexively, knowing it was useless but unable to stop myself. They didn’t budge.
One of the officers reached into a compartment near the door and pulled out a clear plastic bottle filled with water. He twisted off the cap and held it up in front of my face.
“Drink.”
I turned my face away. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Wasn’t a request.” His hand came up to grip my jaw, fingers digging into my cheeks hard enough to make me gasp. The moment my mouth opened, he pressed the bottle to my lips and tilted it up.
Water flooded my mouth. I tried to spit it out but he held my jaw closed, forcing me to swallow or choke. I swallowed, coughing and sputtering as he poured more in. The water went down the wrong way and I choked harder, my eyes streaming.
“Easy,” he said, without a trace of sympathy in his voice. “You need to drink the whole thing. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
He pulled the bottle back long enough for me to catch my breath, then brought it to my lips again. This time I drank, gulping down the water in desperate swallows just to get it over with. My stomach felt heavy and uncomfortable by the time the bottle was half empty, but he didn’t stop. He kept pouring, kept forcing me to swallow, until the last drops were gone.
“Good girl,” he said, and I wanted to spit in his face.
The officers climbed out of the van and slammed the doors shut, plunging me into near darkness. A moment later I heard the front doors open and close, felt the vehicle shift as they settled into their seats. The engine rumbled to life.
We started moving.
I couldn’t see anything. The back of the van was completely sealed off from the front—no window, no gap, nothing. I had no idea which direction we were heading, how far we’d traveled, where they were taking me. The van could have been driving in circles for all I knew.
The restraints held me firmly in place as we turned corners, as the van accelerated and braked. The diaper crinkled with every movement, a constant reminder of my humiliation. My ass still burned from the spanking. I couldn’t actually feel the sensor between my legs, but I kept thinking I could, like a foreign object, a violation I couldn’t escape.
Project Dollhouse. The words kept echoing in my mind. What the fuck was Project Dollhouse? Some kind of rehabilitation program? Punishment? Something worse?
I thought about Leo, probably sitting in a normal jail cell right now with access to a lawyer and due process and all the rights I’d just lost. Because I was female. Because Selecta’s fucking assessors had decided my ‘psychobiometric profile’ made me suitable for whatever nightmare waited at the end of this drive.
What the ever-loving fuck was going on?
CHAPTER 3
Pam
The drive probably lasted an hour. When the van finally stopped and the back doors opened, the sudden flood of fluorescent light made me squeeze my eyes shut. Hands grabbed my arms before I could even process where we were, and the officers began unbuckling the restraints.
They pulled me out into what looked like an underground parking garage—concrete floors, harsh lighting, numbered parking spaces. Nothing distinctive. Could have been anywhere in the city or the suburbs.
The horrid rubber pants crinkled loudly as they marched me toward an elevator. I tried to keep my legs together, tried to minimize the waddling gait the padding forced on me, but it was impossible. The officers didn’t seem to notice or care. We reached the elevator and one of them pressed the call button.
The ride up was silent except for the mechanical hum of the elevator and the soft rustling of the pants with each breath. I watched the numbers light up: B2, B1, G, 1, 2. We stopped at the second floor.
The doors opened onto a hallway that looked nothing like what I’d expected. Clean carpet, neutral walls, recessed lighting—it could have been any corporate office building. Photos of cityscapes were interspersed with doors marked only with numbers like 2A08. The cognitive dissonance made my head spin.
They walked me down the corridor, past several of the doors, until we reached one with a piece of paper taped to it. The paper had been printed from a standard office printer, nothing official about it. Just two words in Arial font: ‘Dollhouse Intake.’
One of the officers knocked twice, then opened the door without waiting for a response.
Inside was a room that looked like a conference space someone had repurposed. A folding table sat in the center with two men seated behind it. Both wore business casual—khakis and button-down shirts. The one on the left had salt-and-pepper hair, brown eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard. The one on the right was younger, dark hair streaked with premature silver, blue eyes and sharp angular features.