Eleven
Twenty Three O Five: 8
by Josie_h
Notes
Richard woke in an off-white tiled room he didn’t recognize, and quickly realized something was out of kilter. He didn’t remember stripping off, but noted he was very nude and in a spa bath with a second figure.
He recalled being pleasantly inebriated and bar hopping on a Friday night somewhere in Vancouver guided around by his new friend (and great kisser) Ron. He remembered talking for a very long time on this particular night, it was the first time he really felt he could open up to anyone except Spike and Xander… and his sisters of course.
He recalled discussing his former employment in vague terms and Ron being intensely interested in Richard’s research. They even talked about the occult and beliefs, and all sorts of things… but it was all a bit of a blur. He did recall signing his name a few times at some point for Ron on some blank paper Ron seemed to have tucked in his pocket. He thought it was some sort of personality test through comparative handwriting. They had definitely kissed a lot, his friend had fetched him another drink, after which he agreed to go back to Ron’s apartment. After that, everything was a blank.
He would learn much later that he’d been ‘out’ for a full twenty four hours and that there were stitches and a soft spot toward the back of his skull by the time they slipped him into the tub. He had signed his own life across to the very research group he had rescued his boys from. Wolfram and Hart had a way of finding those who crossed them.
In his haze, he now realized that there was now a very pretty young man in the spa with him. It must have been the ‘special surprise’ Ron had promised so watched with fascination as the person submerged and took Richard’s erection in a talented mouth. Obviously the other man must have been attending Richard before he awoke as the researcher had never felt so stimulated, it was utterly euphoric. He was on the brink of delirium with eyes closed as he climaxed in the boy’s mouth, therefore failed to notice a tail, and did not see the assistant approach. He barely felt the prick of a needle sliding into his arm nor its delivery of anesthetic and the fluid that would alter everything.
He awoke much later feeling very strange. The boy was gone, though the spa had been refilled with warm water which should have been comfortable, but even semiconscious, he knew something was odd about the whole situation. He was too groggy to move but could hear someone behind him chanting. His legs began aching, muscles spasmed, and limbs all pulled taut in excruciating pain. He just had time to wonder why he was suffering cramp before the hurt became a stronger, sharper pain throughout his entire body causing him to arch out of the water and scream in agony then pass out as his bone structures began to realign permanently and his body shifted into its new form.
When he roused again, the bath smelt odd, salty, he could not open his eyes and his skin seemed to itch all over. He tried to scratch and ended up crying out again as he found his arms caught tight in restraints and efforts therefore ineffectual. The crawling sensation under his skin continued, it was unbearable. Finally someone jabbed his arm with a needle then all he knew was blissful black.
The next time he awoke, he knew there was something terribly wrong. He tried to move but someone had tied his legs together… why would they do that? He tried to call out for help, but his tongue would not cooperate. He opened his eyes slowly and gasped in disbelief as he saw the lower part of his own body.
It seemed his legs were… gone… or had fused together. From the waist, down there was a very pretty blue green tail with white underside. His anus was now around where his knees used to be ….at the front(!) and just below what looked like a fold in the skin. His private parts were no longer visible, instead it was apparent they resided in the fold, a penile slit, it now held his sheathed phallus and scrotum. His skin had … changed too, thicker somehow and (other than his head) hairless. From just below around where his belly button should have been his body was that of a dolphin… He reached out to touch the bizarre form, not quite believing it, then cried in anguish as he realized that his arms too had changed. From the elbows down there were seal-fin like appendages, the fingers on his hands grossly distended and webbed solidly between.
He tried to yell for help but only succeeded in biting his lip and finally ran his tongue over his front teeth, feeling the razor sharp incisors of a predator… He still could not make sense of it all. It had to be a dream!
He had almost convinced himself, until a cruel few seconds later when two raw small tuna were dumped on the edge of the spa beside him. His instinct and stomach signaled that now he apparently preferred diet of raw fish. He dove on the offering, consumed them, then cried his shock and anguish. His voice finally came… in a series a strangled high pitched squeaks.
He still had the male torso of a human and his attractive face, but his lower two thirds, his forearms and hands had the form of a mythical sea creature… Richard the human was no more… and Wolfram and Hart had dealt with yet another maverick employee.
Less than an hour later, he was incapacitated by the pain end of his chip, manhandled onto a trolley, strapped down, and moved to a watery enclosure.
Once there, the scientists stimulated him to euphoria along with the other individual in the pool… at which point he and the male mer-person began coupling enthusiastically. The lad was the same pretty boy who had been compelled to service Richard in the spa.
They coupled swiftly near the edge of the pool. Richard entered his friend’s penile slit with a rock hard erection while holding the taut male to his own torso, then followed by penetrating the tighter ring of muscles below. There was no option but to partner face to face. Their repeated climaxes and interchanging positions was done without conscious thought, it was simply to satisfy a desperate need until their handlers dialed them down again. They came hard, fast and often.
Their chips were eventually dialed back to neutral, the relieved pretty merman pulled Richard into a hug and held him tight as they rested by the edge of their pool and consoled each other… the water soothing the former humans. Richard’s lovely new ‘friend’ had no doubt also been human too… once upon a time as Richard saw the sad look of empathy as he held up his deformed forearm and hand, it was met by the other’s fin. Richard tried to convey a question with his eyes and by mouthing “You too? When?”
The reply was a series of clicks and squeaks but the mouthed words were “Two months”. He then moved back a little and caressed his new lover down his human torso with the palm of his flipper-like hand. He clicked and whistled his way through saying, “Glad you’re here but wish we weren’t.” He paused his caress to stare sadly at his own hand. “I’m Dean.”
Richard pulled Dean close, kissed him passionately, mouthed “I’m Richard” with associated sounds, then peppered his new friend with more light with kisses. Finally Dean hugged tight as they allowed themselves to grieve for their lost humanity.
The following few weeks were a series of stimulated ‘sessions’ of sexual intercourse, while two observers holding the implant controls madly took notes. But even when ‘dialed down’ the two former humans engaged in an increasing number of quite spontaneous periods of lovemaking, each willingly exploring their new lover. Their penile slit was incredibly sensitive and they both found that stroking or licking it, even without touching the other’s erection, resulted in almost instant climax. The tips of their tails were also ‘touchy’ and anal area was wonderful too.
Both their penises were slightly longer, purely muscle and now tapered a little to the end. Richard was utterly stunned when Dean displayed his control over the erect member curling and straightening the end, even wrapping it around Richard’s wrist. Richard found he could do it too. It certainly brought a new dimension to fellatio.
Richard gradually came to enjoy the power of his tail and his apparent ability to consciously slow his heart rate when underwater. Always a reasonable swimmer, he quickly found an incredible thrill in the increased speed he could now find with a very true dolphin kick, though took a little time to learn some of the maneuvering tricks of his lithe companion.
Richard had always been slim and now his narrow shoulders were proving an advantage. He also discovered that a second eyelid slid across when he submerged, allowing him to see as well or better than if he wore goggles, and there were definite advantages in being able to consciously close off nose and ears when underwater.
At some level they had both resigned themselves to their fate since incapable of making their own escape due to loss of hands and legs, and the lack of speech rendered them unable to even negotiate some help as far as human communication was concerned. An added complication seemed to be the need to keep their skin wet (at very least their tails) for most of the day as they discovered to their detriment in a session with their torturers.
The two mermen had been tranquilized, injected with a diuretic and hauled out of the water. They woke some hour or two later in what appeared to be a playpen type arrangement with heat lamps over the top. There were a few balls and some skittles in the area, but they ignored them and simply lay side by side stroking each other basking in the rather pleasant heat. They both snoozed but as the afternoon wore on skin began to prickle and itch, increasing in its intensity until they felt like it was on fire and their bodies began to overheat. They hauled themselves to the gate of their torture pen and cried out to the scientists impassively taking notes, dry throats giving very little sound just a series of pathetic high pitched squeaks.
By the end of the afternoon, their skin was puckered and dehydrated and they lay panting assuming it was to be their end. Finally mouthing ‘love you’ to the other before they both fell unconsciousness. They woke sometime later in a cool spa with drips inserted in arms and jets of slightly salty water soothing their skin.
As the weeks passed, the scientists seemed to increasingly treat their subjects like trained dolphins, ignoring Dean and Richard’s attempts to communicate with them in preference to giving curt commands and forcing them to ‘perform’ with or without dialing pain via their implants. At least for the two lovers, the whistles and clicks began to make more and more sense as they spent all day everyday together, after two months lip reading was a rare necessity.
Richard was most definitely in love with his amorous and very pretty friend and the sentiment was reciprocated. If only they weren’t the aquatic equivalent of lab rats, they might have at enjoyed the new physical status more, but for now they were both trapped in hell, their only solace - each other.
……….
Xander and Spike had been frantic. Richard had not come home from his night on the town, they weren’t even sure where he had gone but initially figured back to Ron’s place. It was not to be.
Richard’s supervisor at the docks rang his home on the Tuesday to ask where he was and when it was reported that he had not come home simply left a message that if he wasn’t back by Thursday he was out of a job.
After a week, when his bank accounts were not accessed, they suspected foul play. They finally tracked his last movements to a nightclub downtown, but from there he seemed to have vanished.
A month later, they finally tracked down ‘Ron’. He had not been seen for ‘a few days’, but he was only a contract accountant so that was nothing new. And of course his Email bounced, his phones were both disconnected, and his apartment vacated.
After six weeks Richard’s clothing and a typed suicide note with his signature at the bottom, were ‘miraculously found’ buy a Vancouver port worker neatly placed near a pylon. The note cited his Ron leaving as the main cause, depression, loneliness and apologized to his family “for everything”.
The lower section of a leg, part of a torso and left arm with Richard’s watch still on the arm was found a fortnight later, the police suggesting that the body had been caught in one or more ship turbines, although the tearing of flesh also suggested some scavengers had enjoyed a free meal also. His assets were frozen as the Police investigators officially closed the case, and the family prepared to bury what little of him that was left.
His family had hoped for the best but prepared for the worst, and his grief stricken mother called his home to discuss the implications of his death with his two house mates. She tearfully asked them to ‘move out’ as the family had broken his lease and would come within the week to ‘deal with his possessions’. She sobbed as she offered them his old van as some sort of reminder of her son and to compensate them for not having consulted them regarding breaking their tenancy.
Spike too was upset at the news, thanked her profoundly for notifying them, and was extremely kind to the dear lady on the phone, but something just didn’t fit. She mentioned in passing how terribly helpful Wolfram and Hart, his old employers had been, even though “…he left so suddenly and they said under a bit of a cloud. He’s always been such a good boy but the lovely attorney did point out that his behavior is consistent with severe depression… I mean running away to Canada… and he stole from them too apparently…. And now this! Ohhhh” She sobbed into the phone, “They aren’t even charging the family for their advice and assistance. They said they had everything they needed from our family and were just happy to help. Isn’t that just… so thoughtful.”
As soon as Spike got off the phone, he hugged Xander “I’d bet me last bloody pack o’ fags that Wolfram and Hart have him, and he’s still alive… It’s the same pattern as yours an’ all the others.”
“But that just means he could be *anywhere*.”
“Nah, Pet, they’ll have taken him somewhere close and I’ll bet if we get into Richard’s files on the laptop, there’ll be a list of the places they use. They’ll be privately funded places and within a day’s drive I’ll bet.”
Sure enough there were three facilities listed under the Special Research Facilities that were likely and within a few hours’ drive, though all in the USA.
The last time they jumped the border they had traveled in as corpses. Richard had stolen a set of standard papers Wolfram and Hart issued when clients wished to transport ‘less live’ items. Both vampires had been most definitely ‘dead’ and the rather uncomfortable young driver ‘on his first trip with dead people’, was trying to take the two to their loved ones for burial. He freely offered the border police the opportunity to open the body bags, but they declined.
But this time it had to be a different strategy. Spike researched a little, and swiftly arranged forged Canadian passports. He didn’t think Richard would mind ‘letting go’ of the few items he had to hock to pay for their little venture.
Xander rang around the Research Centers. One was a biochemical laboratory that did not deal with humans at all. The second call was an answering machine and Xander did not leave a message. But the third was answered by a chirpy young receptionist who was very forthcoming once she knew that the board of Wolfram and Hart was hoping for a progress report on their research, and switched Xander through to the head of the centre. He sounded a little put out by the reason for the call.
“Look tell Manners, or whoever, that we are flat out at the moment. We appreciate you guys arranging the volunteers for us but as I said to him in the last report – we’ve run out of space again. I don’t care who comes to pick ‘em up but we’ve pretty much finished with a few of them, and I’ve got two more coming in Monday. Look why don’t I run down the list since they’re your people and let me know who you want to take and I’ll have ‘em ready for you to pick up pronto.” Despite lack of soul Xander shot a spark of hope to Spike thought a little prayer.
“Yeah sure…” Xander had no idea what he would do if the Richard was not amongst them, but the name Manners was the same last name as *his* ‘friendly attorney’ when he’d been taken and was bolstered by Spike’s hopeful thoughts.
“OK, you guys have all the details your end so I’ll just read the names if that’s OK I’ll go slow and you just let me know. Richard Jacobson, Dean Serpinski, Lara McClure, Rosemary Murphy…” and on he went… twelve names but one the most important. Xander waited patiently for all to be read out then spoke again.
“Why don’t I just take um the first…” He was cut off by the director who sounded decidedly more cheerful.
“Great the first two… that’s perfect… The question is when?”
“Umm… just let me confirm…” Xander knew Spike could hear and ‘feel’ the conversation and looked over for guidance. His Sire mouthed “Tomorrow night”
“Hello …. Yes I believe my colleague and I can detour and be in your area late tomorrow evening, would anyone still be there around say 9pm?”
“Sure!! Mick’s our nightshift. I’m sure he won’t mind doing the handover, take him a few beers and you’ll have a friend for life. And look… I really appreciate the call, I think you’ll find our next quarterly most encouraging for your boss.”
The conversation concluded quickly after that.