Cautionary Tales Read Free

you come to me, understanding the nature of the deal?”
    â€œI—don’t know,” I said, my hands hovering near the helmet. “It’s so awful!”
    â€œI trust that you have considered that you will be subjected to similar indignities in reform school,” he said smoothly. “The main difference being that those are physical rather than merely in emulation. The male instructors take their pick of the girls or boys, who are completely in their power, and of course other girls have their tastes.”
    â€œOther girls?” I asked blankly.
    â€œYou can’t escape them, in the barracks. I understand the perverts work in teams, if there is resistance. One holds you down, another pries your legs apart, while a third wields the—”
    â€œNo!” I screamed, clapping my hands over my ears.
    But his words came through anyway, because the ears of a persona have no physical reality; like the rest of the images, their aspects are only for convenience of orientation. “I apologize for causing you discomfort, girl. I have no wish to appall you. I merely wish to be certain you understand the alternatives. Do you?”
    I stood for a moment, my eyes blank. I shuddered. Then, slowly, I pulled off my fancy dress. Persona naked, I went to the bed and lay down on it. Lucifer didn’t seem to mind that I was weeping continuously as he proceeded to do with my body what pleased him, indefatigably. It was all in simulation, but the mirrors made it quite clear what was happening in great variety. I couldn’t close my eyes to it; he required me to look, to see every detail. If I looked away, he did it again, and again, until I watched. Because the sound and sight was all there was; if I didn’t see it, I didn’t react, and he wanted the reaction of a child. I had a total course in normal and aberrant sexual expression. Every time I tried to demur, faintly, as he perpetuated some new outrage, he said that it was almost done, and reminded me of the alternative, and I let it continue. It became a dullness, a series without meaning other than amazement, horror, and disgust. I was almost beyond shock, and it showed—which was what he wanted.
    At last his disgusting passions were exhausted; he had acquainted the innocent girl with so much that she would never thereafter find any novelty in any sexual act. Nothing, pleasant or unpleasant, remained to be learned. He had, as he put it, thoroughly deflowered her innocence.
    I got up, put my hands to my helmet, and lifted it off my head. The game scene vanished. I blinked, reorienting to reality as I tore off my gloves and socks. I was in the bedroom of our house, and I stood beside our bed.
    My husband left his portable console and stepped toward me. “Are you all right? Some of the things you were saying—”
    I held up a hand in a stop gesture. “Please don’t touch me,” I said. “It will be a while before I—before I’m ready for that. I’m still thinking like a ten-year-old girl, after making such an effort to identify with Nettie. Even as an adult, I found some of it mind bending. That monster had notions I never dreamed of! They knew she was ten.”
    â€œThey wanted underage girls? It wasn’t just random?”
    â€œAnd underage boys,” I said, my disgust brimming. “Did you get it all?”
    â€œCompletely,” he said. “Everything has been recorded. Every image, every word, every motion, every identity. I saw the indications as we locked on to the perpetrators, thanks to this special equipment, and every member of the audience who paid to watch. I believe we shall have a clean sweep of this live-action virtual porn ring, and no child will have to testify. The Interact white slavers will be finished. But of course I couldn’t see the actual images while I made the electronic record. When you started crying I wasn’t sure how much of it was acting. How