Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“As you’ll see,” she said, “we think we’ve found an answer. We’ve been developing the next generation.”
The new slide read: Perineal Integration System: Sensor-Linked Clitoral Stimulation Module
My face went hot. I could feel the heat radiating from my cheeks, and I kept my eyes fixed on my laptop screen, typing as if the act of transcription could somehow create a clinical distance between me and what was being said.
Dr. Holt spoke with the enthusiasm of an engineer who loved her work. The new design, she explained, incorporated a micro-sensor array that mapped to the wearer’s anatomy with sub-millimeter accuracy, paired with a vibration module so small it was virtually undetectable from the outside. The system connected via encrypted Bluetooth to the suitor’s or husband’s phone, giving him ‘pinpoint control over clitoral stimulation, with adjustable intensity, pattern, and duration.’
“The key innovation,” Dr. Holt said, advancing to a diagram that I did not want to look at but could not stop looking at, “is the autonomous mode. We know that suitors and husbands are busy. They have careers, responsibilities. They can’t always be actively managing their girl’s experience. So the system can be set to run on an algorithm—monitoring her arousal levels in real time through the perineal sensor and delivering stimulation according to parameters the man sets in advance. He decides how aroused she’s allowed to get. He decides whether she’s kept at a simmer or brought to the edge. He decides if and when she comes. And he can do all of this while he’s in a meeting at work, or on a golf course, or asleep.”
The room nodded. The vice president made a note on his tablet.
“Let me show you what this looks like in practice,” Dr. Holt said, and dimmed the lights.
CHAPTER 2
Anne
The video that appeared on the screen was shot in soft, natural light. I saw a bedroom, tastefully decorated, with white curtains moving in a breeze that might have been real or might have been staged. A young woman sat on the edge of the bed. She looked about my age, or maybe a year or two older, with dark hair pulled into a messy bun and a face that was pretty in the way that didn’t require effort. She wore a simple white camisole and, below it, the training panties. I recognized them from the product slides: high-waisted, white cotton, with that deceptively plain exterior that concealed the ‘special features’ David had described.
The girl’s forehead creased. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth. The camera moved down to show, to my dismay, that she had begun to press her thighs together in a way that seemed involuntary, a slow rhythmic squeeze. The cut to a close-up of her face indicated that she didn’t seem to be fully aware of what was happening, down there. She held her phone in her hands.
“What you’re seeing here,” Dr. Holt narrated calmly, “is footage shot for the New Modesty Blue stream we’re planning to launch with the refresh of the NM training intimates line. The sensor-linked system in Karen’s panties is in autonomous mode. Karen’s fiancé—Marcus, I think his name is—set the parameters that morning before he left for work. She’s been kept at a low simmer for approximately three hours. The algorithm has been reading her arousal levels and maintaining them just below the threshold he’s designated. Karen can’t come. She can’t quite settle down, either. She’s in what we call the awareness window.”
The girl on the screen shifted on the bed. Her thumbs moved over her phone, typing something. The camera angle shifted—a split screen now—and I saw the message appear on what I assumed was Marcus’s phone.
Can I please touch myself, sir? I really need to.
A pause. Three dots appeared on her phone as on the other side of the split screen Marcus typed a message.
On the left side, Karen stared at her phone with an expression that made something twist uncomfortably low in my stomach. Her eyes held… need, plain and open, the kind of need I had been raised to believe a girl had to fight against—not ask to assuage. Definitely not ask a man if should could… could… give into it.
Karen’s forehead creased deeper. She squeezed her thighs again, harder this time, and her breath came out in a small, audible huff.
“You’ll notice,” Dr. Holt said, her tone as measured as if she were describing rainfall patterns as she gestured to the right side of the screen, where Marcus had pulled up another display, “that Marcus can see her biometric data in real time on his app. Heart rate elevated. Core temperature up. The arousal index—that’s our proprietary metric based on the perineal sensor readings—is at eighty-seven percent. He knows exactly how needy she is. He doesn’t have to guess. He doesn’t have to rely on her telling him, though as you can see, she’s telling him anyway.”