The Flesh Project

DIRTY LAUNDRY

Dick Hardman sat in his cluttered office, waiting for a phone call. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and as foul as the mood of the man in the room. It was not a phone call he was looking forward to receiving. The caller on the other end of the line always made him feel uneasy- and what was more, his head was pounding like an irregular techno bass line, punishing him with well-deserved and wicked hangover. Hardman stubbed out his cigarette sourly, and reached for the cup of coffee he had placed on the edge of his chart-littered desk.

No, he didn’t want to answer the phone. The voice he expected to hear would not bring good news, accolades or, say, a candygram. No, he’d have questions, and Hardman knew exactly what those questions would be about. What he didn’t know was how he’d answer. In the painful hours of this particular morning, he contemplated the circumstances that had led him to this point.

He had started out with good, if perverted, intentions. He’d drawn up the basic business plan, acted as a consultant in the refurbishing of the complex- even scouted the first members. He could still remember the talk he had given to the board of directors at Toyase Medical headquarters.

---Look, it’s simple. You make operating capital and more off sales to private collectors. The rest, you’ll make off of patents. When it’s all over, you’ll have enough data to revolutionize sexual medicine. You’ll gain an understanding of deviancy, hormonal disorders, and sexual psychoses that will make Kinsey look like a country quack.---

Hardman took a sip from his coffee cup, lost in the recollection of the pitch meeting.

The best part is, these people will come to you, he had said. They’ll want a place to belong, they’ll want a cure, they’ll want the cash- some of them will just want to meet others who are in the same boat. What you pay them will be a pittance compared to what private collectors pay you for a glimpse of them in action. And any medical research you do towards a cure will make you a bundle in the long run.

The executives had said no, at first. He remembered that all too well. But he had pressed on, cold-calling the New Business Manager and getting his ear, telling him that he was stupid for missing a billion-dollar opportunity, stupid because hey, Toyase is a company that makes drugs to deal with impotence, sterility, sexual complexes, infertility, nymphomania, erectile dysfunction, and this was right up their alley. Nonetheless, he’d been turned down a second time.

It could be a PR nightmare.
We would be opening ourselves up to lawsuits.
It would destroy the company if word got out.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong, he had replied. It had a perfect cover, for one thing- legitimate medical research. They would admit only people who would be practically incapable of going public. And moreover, the subjects would have no reason to blow the whistle- because they’d finally be in a place where they could move forward with their lives.

Still, they had said no.

Then, a month later, just when he was starting to give up on the idea, planning to go back to his previous occupation, Toyase had called him. Not the board of directors, either. The old man’s son, Kenji, in person. Kenji had said they had decided to move forward with his plan, and they wanted he, Dick Hardman, to run point on it, head up the Flesh Project and keep it moving forward smoothely. Kenji had spat the alias out with contempt. But there was no way Hardman was going to give up his real name, not to a corporate bloodletter like Kenji Toyase, a young man who had presided over the development of countless beneficial drugs, only to ratchet the price through the roof, denying them to anyone but the super-rich.

Now, a year later, and a month into the project, Hardman was sitting in his office, head pounding, waiting for a call from the same young man who had started the ball rolling. And when the phone rang, as much as he hated himself for doing it, he sprang to pick it up, nearly upending his coffee cup.

“This is Hardman,” he said.

“Well, doctor, I’m glad your punctuality has improved since the last time,” came the tinny, muffled voice from the other side of the line. Even hampered by the less-than-expressive phone speaker, it was deep and commanding, the voice of a young man accustomed to the power politics of corporate life. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hardman said. “But if it’s complaining time, I’ve got a few of my own.”

“Oh?” Kenji’s voice sounded amused. Hardman could imagine him leaning back in a big, leather chair, preparing to chuckle at the meager babblings of the rank and file monkeys below him.

Fuck, I hate this guy, thought Hardman.

“First of all, I want to know who ordered those guards to put their hands on me.”

Kenji’s response was matter-of-fact, like he was explaining an accounting error instead of an assault. “One of our business partners, a player in one of the medical research labs, called in a favor.”

Hardman was pissed. “Yeah? Tell me, golden boy, why would that favor have anything to do with sucker punching me? When I was just trying to do my job?”

I go out of my way for these assholes, he thought, and I get my fucking nutsack zapped by a cretin in Kevlar because some slimeball associate doesn’t like me? Cocksuckers. He hoisted his middle finger at the phone in a disobedient salute.

“It won’t happen again, doctor- it was a one time deal. And we didn’t know exactly what the security staff would be ordered to do. We only made them available to the mandatory recruit for one executive order, and that was the end of our involvement with her.”

A lightbulb flicked on in Hardman’s head. It hurt. Without knowing he was doing it, he reached up to rub a hand over fading bruise above his temple. “Mandatory recruit?”

“Yes. The new subject was admitted by request of the same medical research company I mentioned. The interview wasn’t necessary.”

“Why did your sister wake me up at dawn to conduct it? You could have just told me that the new meat was some bigwig’s personal favorite, you know- I would have just booked her!” Hardman was livid. His beating, it turned out, had been both painful and completely unnecessary.

“Milia has been watching the recordings,” Kenji replied, voice smooth and bemused. “She has some…issues…with the way you’ve treated the women.”

Hardman lowered the handset of the old-fashioned landline from his ear and cupped a palm over it, silently mouthing “That fucking bitch!” in an exaggerated, pantomime face, before returning it to his ear.

“I imagine you’re upset,” said Kenji. “But you knew there would be unpredictable and unique factors to deal with when you took this position. For the money we’re paying you, I presume my sister thought you’d take it like a man, and go back to work.”

Hardman rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. The little cunt had been right- the money had been too good to leave. Not only that, but…

“Plus, you’ve got a little something going on the side, don’t you?”

Liz, he thought.

“Well, you’ve been watching the security recordings,” said Hardman, challenging. “What do you think is going on?”

“Nothing you can’t handle, I’m sure,” Kenji replied. “But that segues well into the reason I’m calling. We’re concerned that our charming zoo is slowly turning into a bad episode of Melrose Place.”

Yeah, he’s 25 years old, alright, thought Hardman. Melrose Place was right in the bastard’s pop culture wheelhouse.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that instead of fucking who we want, when we want, our subjects are shacking up and forming little couples. It’s cute, but it’s going to get in the way. We can see that already.”

“What do you expect me to do about it? I’m not a fucking sociologist.” But in this statement, Hardman knew he wasn’t going to get any relief. It was his job to run the project according to the wishes of the money men- even if that meant hampering the pursuit of happiness for people who had been kicked around their whole lives. Not for the first time, he wondered how much of his tattered soul would be left hanging when the project was finally done.

“Put a stop to it. We want you to run more mandatory ops. Mix it up a little. You’ll figure it out- you’re the whoremaster. But know this- we’re getting impatient. The offer we’ve received for footage of the grey-eyed freak together with the platinum blonde is staggering. You were right about the viability of this idea, now you need to back that up by actually making it happen.”

Hardman sighed. “Look, we may never be able to get those two together. They have some sort of history. One of them already tried to attack the other.”

“Don’t give me excuses,” snapped Kenji. “Give me what I ask for. I don’t rush to act as quickly as my sister- but when I do act, it’s more decisive than you’d care to know.”

Hardman bridled at the threat, and against his better judgment unburdened himself of a great deal of pent-up frustration.

“The chance of any meaningful encounter between those two is lower than the chance of Toyase Medical lowering the markup on those AIDS treatments you overprice by 5000%. Sometimes you can’t get what you want, Kenji. Just ask every dying African woman you ever sent home empty handed.”

“While you cry for South Africa, ponder this,” Kenji replied, his voice cold. “If I can let half a continent burn, how long do you think I’ll scruple about you?”

Hardman’s heart skipped a beat.

“Don’t put me to the test.”

Click.

Dead line.


==================================================


Meanwhile, Lola was taking a load of laundry down to the washer/dryer room, located somewhere near the centre of the facility. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting pajama shorts and a black bra, and quite enjoyed the soft pressure the basket laid on her nipples as she hefted it with two pale and perfect arms.

Looking down into the mingled Lola and Setsume laundry, she saw with a mixture of guilt and arousal that many of the undergarments were stained with streaks and blobs of drying semen. The rumpled bedsheet that she had included in this particular load was marred with great splashes of dried liquid, the encrusted, sex-smelling issue of her girlfriend’s massive cock.

Lola dipped her head downward slightly and inhaled the cummy aroma floating up from the laundry basket. How many times had her own black panties been stained white from the slick bubblings of her overfilled cunt? How many times had the she pushed Setsume’s bloated cockhead inside herself and fucked the 16-year-old as hard as she dared, driving herself down on the shaft of thick meat until the incomparable heat of spurting cockslime painted the inner walls of her pussy?

Countless times. She could remember a dozen occasions in these last two weeks where she had lain, awash in afterglow, knowing that her stretched slit was allowing great globs of semen to issue back down into the crotch of her panties, or onto the bedspread. She had treasured the feeling of virility and security, loved the nasty gurgling sounds that emanated from her crotch as the overload of girlsperm tumbled out.

I make my lover cum so hard, my body can’t hold it all.

It was an empowering statement, a thought akin to shouting love from a mountaintop, and there was another aspect as well, the deep and instinctive part of Lola that felt, in some way, that her wet, pretty slit had become marked territory, stained by Setsume’s cum in the same way a fencepost might carry the telltale scent of an the alpha male wolf.

She marked me, Lola thought, turning the idea over in her mind. Whoever else might pass by, in this crazy place, I’m hers. She’s fucked herself into me, she’s filled me with her big cock, and with- everything else. Everything else Setsume, from her piercing grey eyes to the gentle way she touches me, to the bravery she has shown, inspiring me.

Lola’s eyes closed as she approached the laundry door, and her white teeth gnawed at her lower lip lightly, sexily, the unconscious gesture of a young woman in the throes of deep fantasy.

God, I want her to fuck me right now. I want to feel myself bend around her.

Lola reached the featureless gray door and turned the latch. It was open, as always. It could lock by key from either side, but no Flesh Project subject had a key, of course- and in any case, there was never any cause to lock the laundry room. Lola couldn’t think of a less sexy place for a rendezvous. White tile, buzzing fluorescent lights, monolithic, ugly washers and dryers, mouths hanging open hungrily for a meal of clothes. She placed her basket on top of one the machines, mind turning idly.

Then again, thought Lola, I wouldn’t mind getting fucked in this pile of cummy laundry. With my stained panties stuffed in my mouth. Smelling sweat and dried cum, feeling the stiffness of dry stains brushing against my skin, tasting the wetness of my own cunt.

With a flourish, Lola whipped the bedsheet from her basket and identified the largest, filmiest cum-stain upon it- the round, fabric-darkening remnant of cum that had leaked from Setsume after the hot little mynx had, with Lola’s help, fucked her own ass. The raven-haired girl pressed the foot-in-diameter splotch to her face, feeling the stiff cloth wrap her cheeks, and even some hints of dampness. Exhilarated, she inhaled, drawing long swirls of scent in through her cute little nose, savoring the unmistakable scent of cum. She remembered how hot and nasty the sounds had been, the burbling, farting noises that had accompanied the outwash of cum from Setsume’s ass, how the flow had dripped down Lola’s leg to pool around her thigh.

Next time, she thought, I’ll show her a new trick. I’ll suck it out of her.

Lola mind conjured the image of her kneeling below her lover, mouth open, as Setsume crouched, orgasming, her teenage asshole twitching helplessly, releasing a torrent of bubbling second-hand sperm to pour over Lola’s pink tongue. It was nasty, intimate- an unspeakable and sinful act of sharing.

“Whew!” she exhaled, blowing a cute strand of stray black hair from in front of one gleaming, green eye. “Getting hot in here!” Lola fanned herself, waving a hand overtop of her plump, bra-encased tits. This was a rare case where the heat had been caused not by rigged climate controls, but by the burning fantasies stirring up her loins.

The euphoric horniness vanished quickly, though, when she heard the door shut quickly behind her- and the sound of a key clicking in the lock. Her mind had only a second to register the wrongness of the sound

(nobody has a key, none of us, only the guards have a key)

before she whirled and her eyes were able to catch up to the reality that her mind was dreading. A guard of medium high and medium build had come into the room, and was standing between her and the door.

The Starer. She knew it was him in an instant. In her increasing concern with his voyeurism and over creepiness (a concern she had mostly kept to herself), she had grown familiar with him, the way he walked, his posture, his mannerisms. Even without being able to see an inch of his bare skin, she could identify him. A chill went down her spine, and her mind looked up at the security camera in the ceiling, barely visible under hemisphere of black glass.

Lola was speechless- and when the intruder’s hands moved to his helmet, with the clear intention of removing it, she imagined what might be inside. She would barely have been surprised if the lacquered plastic were to fall away, leaving behind the head of a slug, snail, or some other disgusting creature. The Starer had never shown any human characteristics, only a desire to watch, and to stalk.

Still, when the guard removed his helmet at last, and there turned out to be a smarmy, smirking face underneath, a frat-boy’s grin below cold eyes and short black hair, Lola wasn’t relieved. For she knew, all too well, what human beings could be capable of.

He looks like the cat who swallowed the canary, she thought. He looks like the ringleader of a pack of out-of-control jocks who just picked up a naïve hooker and are planning to give her more than she bargained for.

“Hey, sweetheart,” said the guard, his cowboy grin showing a large number of teeth. “I was wondering when we’d get some time alone.”

Lola looked up at the glass bulb in the ceiling, and this unconscious cry for help was noticed at once.

“Camera’s off in this room,” the guard continued. “I’ve seen to that.” With a deft hand, he flipped his key ring up and then pulled out a loose pocket of his uniform pants to let them drop in.

“What do you want?” Lola asked, and regretted the question as soon as it was out of her mouth. She was already pretty sure what he wanted, and it wasn’t to play Monopoly or sit down to check out an episode of Deadwood. The guard had begun to stride slowly forward, his smile was that of an overgrown, petty kid in a young soldier’s body.

“Just to talk,” he said. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while, you know. You’re my favorite.”

No shit, Lola thought wearily. It seemed that even inside the Flesh Project compound, seemed she couldn’t avoid the advances of sinister men, men who would like nothing better than to use her condition to their advantage, to make her their obedient slave, a mindless, begging husk to fill with their flesh and fluids.

“You know, if you’re nice to me, I can make your time here go very easily. I can give you special treatment.”

“Look, please, just leave me alone,” she ventured, trembling, her fleshy ass backed up against the coldness of the washing machine, piling up against it in a breathtaking, sexy swell.

“I can make things easier for you and your friend,” said the guard, now just two paces away. She could see from the angular way his neck dipped into his shirt that he was put together fairly well- at least 60 pounds heavier than her and a soldier by training- she would have no chance of outrunning him or overpowering him to get the keys. And while the thought of making things easier for Setsume was a nice one- she wasn’t going to fuck some guard to do it.

“This isn’t fucking Indecent Proposal,” she said, green eyes flashing with royal anger. “And if you think Setsume would be ok with me sucking you off just to get extra helpings of dessert at the cafeteria, you’re even stupider than you look. Fuck off.”

The Starer threw back has head and laughed, a terrible sound, the sound of a bully who had just thrown a smaller kid into a gym locker and shut the door. “Come on, sweetie. Information is a valuable commodity around this place. I can get into the doctor’s office. I know you want to know how your treatment is going- how their research is going.”

Lola’s mind whirled. It was true- she did want to know. She had asked the doctor if they had made any progress, and had gotten no answer. And she wanted to know so many things. Who was running the Flesh Project? Why had so many of the promises they’d been made during recruitment had been broken? What was the plan going forward? When would they be able to contact the outside world again? If they wanted to, that was.

Still- there had to be a better way to go about it.

“And you and that little vixen you’re shacked up with,” the guard continued. “You think they’re going to put up with that shit forever? The money men want to see your pretty little honeypot get split open by every cock in this place.”

He stepped forward. Lola shrank further back against the washer, hands clutching the white surface desperately. The guard leaned in, stormy eyes alight with mischief, black hair a short, shiny mat of darkness around his brow.

“A lot of the boys would love to see you get fucked by that blonde freakshow,” he whispered, inches from her face. “How do you think that would feel? You think the Little Miss Cuntless Wonder would forgive you? Knowing that you lost control and begged for it from her arch-fucking-enemy?”

Lola couldn’t speak. She was on the verge of tears- and what was worse, she could feel a familiar twinge in the back of her mind, all over her nerves. A feeling of impending chaos. There were two ways for her condition to manifest itself, she knew. The first was arousal. The second was sexually-charged fear- the fear of being violated, of being taken, hard, and against her will. Her mind’s psychotic solution to that pain was to turn it to pleasure, to turn revulsion into enjoyment. It had happened before.

“I can stop that from happening,” whispered the guard. “I can protect you, make arrangements to stop you from getting passed around.” He moved closer, and she could feel the heat of his erection pressing against the side of her waist, rampaging inside his pants. “But you have to play ball.”

Please, Lola begged herself. Be strong. Hold on. Don’t allow yourself to like this. Hate it. Hate it, because it’s wrong, and he’s an asshole.

Suddenly, he teeth bared themselves into a growl, and she shoved as hard as she could, taking the Starer by surprise and pushing him backward a few inches.

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed.

Then, she spit in the black-haired man’s face, a tremendous, fear-fueled spray of white spittle. “There’s someone that I love,” she said, simply. “You can’t touch that, you can’t hurt that, no matter what you do to me. Fuck you. Fuck you and everyone like you!” She was crying. Wet tears were rushing down her cheeks, her words were uttered in gasping, desperate wail of determined sorrow. “My whole life, guys like you have tried to hurt me- but I’m hers now, with or without this,” she said, grabbing her panty-clad crotch, "and she’s mine, and I love her more than anything, beyond everything, farther than you can imagine, harder than you can imagine!”

She sniffled, bringing in a great lungful of air. In that instant, the guard, spittle awash over his stunned face, looked less like a powerful, confident soldier-boy and more like a kid- a spoiled, bullying, scared little kid. “You can’t touch what’s inside of me!” she cried, eyes red. “There’s nothing you can do that can steal away what she’s given me.” Her voice was growing weaker. She was exhausted, her nerves shot.

In this state, Lola narrowed her crying eyes and spoke, cold and assured. “Now, you take that key, and you unlock that door, and you walk the FUCK away.”

It was an order. The Starer, mesmerized, slack-jawed, seemed to hesitate. Then, his eyes hardened. “You spit on me, sweetheart,” he said, voice low and threatening. “And I’m going to take payment for that out of your pretty little CUNT!”

He started forward, grabbing a wrist. Lola struggled, screeching, battering him with her thin arms. She felt his off-hand press hard into her crotch, questing, feeling the folds of her sex through the sheer fabric of her panties. The hard, cold leather of his gun holster was digging into her left breast.

No! her inner voice cried out even as she wailed, feeling her mind start to slip toward the inevitable emergence of S-H-A-M-E. No! No! No! Not like this! Sumie, I love you! I’m sorry!

Then, there was a rattle in the lock…and the door swung open. Both heads, Lola’s red-eyed angel face and the Starer’s spit-spattered, sneering mug, turned toward the door. It was a second guard.

Blondie. Before Lola could wonder if he was here to break up the unwilling tryst or join it, the Starer cried out in frustration.

“What the fuck are you doing here? I said no one comes down here!”

Again, the hands went to the helmet. Again, it was removed, and beneath it was a handsome, confident-looking young man with big, beautiful brown eyes. He had the face of a wiseguy class-clown who also spent a lot of time at the gym- where the Starer’s face had been cruel, his was carefree. Or perhaps caring. Drawn back behind his head in a romance-novel mane was a long carpet of dirty-blonde hair.

“Get your hands off of her,” he said. His voice was an edgy whipcrack. Though she knew next to nothing about him, Lola couldn’t help liking him very much at the moment- he was her rescuer, or so it seemed.

The Starer was livid, the hand at Lola’s crotch was limp, but not gone. “Kyle, you motherfucker, I arranged this! We all talked about it!”

“I wasn’t there,” said the blonde man, walking forward, his combat suit and vest rustling amidst the fluorescent hum. “And I never would have gone along with it if I was. Neither would Ira.”

He stopped several feet away from Lola and her attacker, looming. His fists were clenched. “You’re holding a hundred million dollars worth of potential revenue and research data, you stupid motherfucker. Get your hands off of her, now!”

The Starer stepped away from Lola and regarded his challenger, sizing him up. “If you’re not one of us, you’re one of them,” he growled. “We stick together. You want to be part of the team, or do you want to throw your lot in with this fucking carnival sideshow?”

Kyle seemed to hesitate, and then his face became hard. “You’re a little bastard, Murray- and I don’t like you. Now get the fuck out of here before I fuck you up!”

Lola’s avid eyes darted back and forth, wide as saucers, as the two continued their shouting match.

“You couldn’t take me!”

“You want to find out? Delta, motherfucker. Fort Bragg.” Kyle stepped forward. The Starer, aka. Murray, stepped forward to greet meet him, nose to nose. Kyle was half a head taller. Murray was a lot angrier.

“Pride of the 75th Rangers, fuckstick," the black-haired young man said. "You make one move, and I will skullfuck you.”

“You couldn’t make Delta, you little pissant!”

“Yeah? I bet I could kick your ass, you long-haired hippie faggot!”

Abruptly, Kyle raised his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “You’re right, Murray. But I guess we’ll never find out,” he said, taunting, “since I turned the camera back on before I came down here. Everybody in security is watching this right now.”

Murray’s mouth dropped open.

“So unless you want to explain to Ira why you were jeopardizing a fifty-million-dollar operation just to get your dick sucked, I suggest you get the fuck back to the security office.”

Murray’s eyes shifted from Kyle, to Lola, and then back to the blonde-haired man. He wiped spit from his face with one gloves hand, and regarded the palm leisurely. Then he looked back up at Lola.

“I didn’t want this filthy cunt anyway,” he said, lifting his helmet from the centre table. He began to walk away, and strode backward as he moved out of the room, looking at Kyle and Lola all the while. “You better watch yourself,” he sneered. Then, he slipped between the door and the frame like a ghost.

There was silence for a moment. Kyle turned to Lola, who had her cute hands clasped between her breasts. Her eyes were gleaming with moisture, pretty and wide, emerald green.

“Are you ok?” he asked, eyes concerned.

Lola slowly nodded, sniffling.

Kyle broke into a smile. “The reason I came wasn’t because of what I said about research and revenues,” he said. “The truth is- I can’t stand to see a lady in trouble. It’s not my style.” He paused.

“I’m sorry if you thought I was talking about you as if you were an asset, or a commodity,” he continued, face sincere, voice deep and gentle. “That’s also not my style. But it was the fastest way to persuade him. Retribution from the company is all Murray fears.”

Lola couldn’t speak. She seemed lost in examining Kyle’s handsome, gentle face for any sign of sarcasm or ill-intent. But there was none.

“Not very romantic, was he?” Kyle asked, raising a joking eyebrow. And then they both laughed. The tension in the room was diffused in that instant.

“No,” said Lola. “No he wasn’t.” She smiled hesitantly at the taller man.

“I’m Kyle,” he said, smiling. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room.”

And then as he reached out a hand to her, she felt herself doing something like melting…wanting to collapse in his arms, to be held safe, and close, to have assurances of his protectorship whispered in her ear.

She reached a hand out to him. He paused. Then, he cocked his head to one side, motioning toward something behind her.

"I guess you should put your wash on," he joked.

Again, they laughed, her small hand in his large one. “I’m Lola,” she said, electric at the touch of his gloved fingers.

Then, Kyle winked at her. "Oh yes," he said. " I know."