Maximum Security Confinement

Author: eckie
Title: Maximum Security Confinement
Date: 07 September 2003

This story has been taken off the net and modified by user respect. The original author cannot be traced, so if anyone assumes ownership of this story, i'll gladly add the credits here.



The car came to a halt by the security gatehouse. The tinted glass of the driver's window slid smoothly downwards. From the gatehouse a guard in a black leather uniform emerged and approached the driver. After a brief exchange of words he nodded to a colleague still in the gatehouse and the high black metal gates began to part.

Rick had not heard of the Human Response Laboratories before Mr. Hunter had asked him to book a meeting with them. However, they seemed to be expecting his call and a date and time were readily agreed. He had been slightly surprised to be asked to accompany Dave to the meeting and the forty minute car journey had passed in a series of awkward silences punctuated only by Dave's desultory conversation with Max, his bodyguard and driver.

It was something of a relief to leave the car and walk with the two men towards the large doors of the main entrance to HRL. Inside the building they were greeted by another security guard manning a reception desk. He also wore a uniform of thick, shiny leather, which creaked softly as he moved. The guard issued them with lapel badges and made a phone call to summon their host.

As the trio waited in the lobby, Rick looked around at the stark facility. From the outside it had looked like any modern office complex, but inside it was so sparsely furnished, and so deserted, that it seemed more like some top-secret military base. From the reception hall a featureless corridor extended into the distance. It was from here that in a due course another man approached them. His uniform was even more impressing than the other men’s' were. It was also made completely out of heavy black leather. He wore tight-fitting black leather pants and a tight leather uniform shirt with shoulder badges. His heavy belt was accompanied by a shiny shoulder strap. Even his tie was made of leather. His feet were encased in heavy black riding boots reaching up to the knees. Although it was rather warm inside the building, he wore leather gloves. His uniform was completed by a black leather cap with the low peak almost hiding his eyes. The whole outfit made the officer look extremely macho. His iron-clad soles made a sharp clanking noise with every step, and the heavy leather creaked as he approached the men.

"Mr. Hunter, how nice to meet you again" he greeted them.

The two men shook hands – of course the officer did not take of his gloves - and then Hunter introduced Rick to the officer.

"Sergeant Steele, this is my assistant Mister Rick Shepherd."

Sgt. Steele offered Rick a strong handshake and a smile. Rick was surprised to find that Dave had met the man as he had never heard his name, or that of his organisation, mentioned before he had arranged this visit. As was his habit, Hunter didn't introduce Max to their host. The bodyguard seemed to not care, and he ambled behind the group as Sgt. Steele led them along the main corridor.

Rick surveyed Sergeant Steele and judged him to be in his early fourties. As his tight-fitting uniform allowed seeing, he was in a very good shape. The black leather tightly encased a very well-trained, muscular body. It almost seemed that his shiny black uniform was made a little bit too tight on purpose, just to present the perfect body of this muscular man. Sgt. Steele had a good-looking dark face, with a precisely cut black beard, perfectly matching the black leather of his uniform. They stopped at an unmarked door and Sgt. Steele swiped a plastic card through a reader to the right of the frame.

"Knowing of your area of interest I've set up a little demonstration for you." said Sgt. Steele.

Once inside the door, Rick realised that they were in some kind of large laboratory, brightly lit and with walls lined with work benches and storage cabinets.

However, it was what stood in the middle of the floor that caused Rick's breath to catch in his chest. Standing bolt upright, and securely bound to a metal post, was a naked man. Sgt. Steele motioned the visitors to gather around the startling exhibit, and Rick forced himself to look at the unfortunate man. The man was around Rick's own age and build but was a bold head, with a clean shaven face. Wide leather straps at his ankles, knees, waist and neck held him secure and his arms were fixed behind him. His mouth was filled by a painfully large ball-gag and saliva trickled from one corner of his lips.

Rick tried to concentrate on what Sergeant Steele was telling them.

"…this is bondage at its most basic. It's pleasing enough to look at but the limitations are obvious. Our volunteer is not really fully immobilised and we can only keep him here for a couple of hours before things begin to get messy. If we want a more severe and long-term restraint then clearly something else is needed."

It was at this point that Rick noticed that bold head was not the only exhibit that Sergeant Steele had laid on for them. Some four feet behind and further into the lab was another man - or at least Rick assumed that it was a man. Bound to an identical post was a human figure entirely encased in heavy black rubber. As the group moved towards him Sergeant Steele was explaining the features of this new captive.

"…this young man is restrained by a tight-fitting heavy rubber body suit, and a rubber hood. He's fitted with rectal and urinary catheters and has both breathing and feeding tubes…"

Rick studied the complex of tubes that emerged from the man's head and lower body and ran to fitments in the metal plate beneath his feet. It was all horribly reminiscent of one of Dave's little `experiments' whereby he had bound Rick from head to toe in plastic film and thick packing tape leaving only a tiny nose tube for him to breathe through. Dave had left him like that for hours and released him only when he was on the point of wetting himself. The poor man in Sergeant Steele's lab didn't even have that as an end-point to his suffering, as the officer took delight in pointing out.

"…this means that he can be maintained in this state for many hours. The only limitation is temperature control."

`Temperature control!' that was a polite way of putting it, thought Rick bitterly. He remembered the awful suffocating heat that had built up in him after only a short period of his tape bondage. More than once he had almost felt like being boiled within his terrible cocoon. What this poor man must be enduring inside his rubber prison did not bear thinking about.

"The body is unable to dissipate energy in the normal way and soon begins to overheat. In this case we have a flow of cooled air from the ceiling ducts to try to minimise the problem…but even with this we could not extend containment for more than a few days." continued Sgt. Steele.

A few days! Rick swallowed. The thought of such severe and prolonged bondage was terrifying.

Sgt. Steele now led the group to his next demonstration, beyond the rubber clad man. At first sight this seemed to consist of nothing but a featureless white obelisk, about 8 feet high and a metre square. However, at the touch of button on a console to the side of the structure, its white panels slid upwards to reveal a glass tank filled with a clear liquid. Floating, suspended in the fluid was another naked young man. The man, who might have been in his late twenties, was anchored to the bottom of the tank by short chains which ran from cuffs around his ankles to lugs on the floor of the tank. His arms appeared to be pinioned behind his back, but otherwise he was unrestrained. Two plastic tubes emerged from his anus and his cock and then looped behind his to exit from the tank's open top into a panel on the ceiling. The man's pale, frightened eyes watched Rick from behind a full face mask. Another thick tube (or perhaps a bundle of smaller tubes - Rick couldn't be sure) connected the mask covering his face to the outside world and presumably kept him supplied with air.

"This is a different approach…" began Sergeant Steele.

"Here we are using liquid immersion to solve our heat dissipation problems. This is just plain tap water, but we have experimented with a number of other liquids. By varying the temperature of the water we can keep the subject comfortable…"

"Or uncomfortable!" Dave interjected with a smirk.

"...more or less indefinitely." concluded Sgt. Steele.

Dave Hunter, who had remained quite cool thus far, now tapped a finger on the glass tank enthusiastically.

"So this would allow long-term restraint?"

"Not as long term as we'd like…" said Sgt. Steele, shaking his head.”Although water solves the overheating issue, it creates other problems. Long term immersion causes the skin to swell up and then slough off - that was why we tried other liquids. But we were unable to find anything that didn't cause deterioration. This method would be good for maybe…three weeks."

Dave fell silent and shook his head. Max had shown no reaction to any of the exhibits and was now looking around the room with bored indifference, as if seeing naked men in bondage was an everyday event.

"Our final experiment in this series…" said Sgt. Steele "…involves using a gel formulation."

With this he walked over to a second obelisk which completed the row of four bondage demonstrations. Once again the casing was winched away to reveal an identical glass tank with a young man suspended within it. Rick was immediately aware, however, that this tank did not contain water. Whatever was in it was only semi-translucent and the effect was rather like looking at someone frozen in a block of ice. The same thought occurred to Dave Hunter.

"Is it ice?" he asked.

"No." replied Sgt. Steele. "Although ice has many of the properties we were looking for. This is a synthetic silicone based gel which was our first attempt to develop a novel compound specifically for long-term human storage."

"Does it work?" asked Hunter bluntly.

"Almost." replied Sgt. Steele with a sardonic smile. "We got quite excited about this when we first developed it a few years ago. It conducts heat in the way we needed, and it doesn't degrade the skin."

Rick wiped the sweat away from his brow. This company, or whatever it was, had apparently been working for years to develop ways of subjecting men to bondage for increasingly long periods of time. Who could be funding such research? And who could possibly want the results? For Rick there was also the horrible realisation that bondage - what he had thought of as a peculiar quirk of his ex-lover - might actually be a major industry with God-knows how many devotees.

"So what's the problem?" asked Dave.

"It's just not rigid enough…" replied Sergeant Steele.”…the captive is able to move slightly and over time their struggles disrupt the gel and it becomes more like syrup. However we felt we were near enough with this compound to justify further effort to perfect our techniques. Modestly, we feel that we've now done that and I'd like to show you the results."

Sergeant Steele lead the group back to the corridor and down it a considerable distance until they came to a pair of elevators. He pressed the call button between the two and instantly the doors of the left-hand shaft opened. When all four of them were in the car Sgt. Steele pressed the button marked `B' on the control panel. The doors shut and the elevator began its descent.

The elevator took only seconds to reach the basement level. The doors opened, but when Dave moved to step out Sergeant Steele called him back.

"Sorry, not quite there yet!"

He took a key from a ring attached to his belt and inserted it into a lock below the elevator's control panel. He turned the key through ninety degrees and instantly the doors closed once again and the elevator began to descend once more. Sergeant Steele turned to his passengers and smiled in response to their quizzical looks.

"Security I'm afraid folks. We are going to a sub-basement level that can't be reached without the right authorisation. It's not shown on any plans of the building. If you don't have this key you wouldn't know it existed."

For the second time the elevator stopped and the doors opened. This time Sergeant Steele lead his guests out into a smallish room in which a number of leather-clad and booted officers were sat at computer consoles. (Strange, thought Rick, they even work with leather gloves on...) Sgt. Steele approached one of them.

"Officer, this is Mr. Hunter and Mister Shepherd, who we discussed earlier."

The young officer, a nice-looking man with a short black beard and dark eyes blinking underneath his leather uniform cap, stood up promptly, pressed his hands to the sides of his leather pants and clicked his heavy boots. He was clearly junior to Sergeant Steele and seemed to be trimmed to military obedience.

"Accompany us into the storage facility", said Sgt. Steele.

It was clearly a command, not a question. The younger officer put his gloved hand to the peak of his uniform cap, once again clicked his boots and then followed Sergeant Steele to the far end of the room where a large metal door was set into the wall. Sgt. Steele took another key from his bunch and inserted it into a keyhole to the left of the door. His assistant produced a key of his own and fitted it into a matching receptacle to the right. Sgt. Steele counted to three and they turned their keys simultaneously. The metal door rumbled slowly open revealing a dark void beyond.

Rick followed the men into the inner chamber and was at once aware of an unnatural chill in the dry air. Sergeant Steele hit a switch that activated some small, rather dim, lighting tubes on the left hand wall of the new room. As Rick's eyes became accustomed to the low-level lighting he began to appreciate the size of the space they now stood in. It was a gallery of perhaps 15 metres width and at least 60 metres in length - it was difficult to tell in the gloom. The ceiling was high and almost featureless. To the left was a smooth wall broken only by the lamps and by a series of rectangular panels of no obvious purpose.

To the right hand flank of the gallery were a series of large objects of identical but mysterious design. Rick looked at the nearest one uncomprehendingly. It was a huge block of dark material, measuring perhaps 2 metres by 1 metre on the nearest vertical face that it presented. It appeared to extend back at least 3 metres and was apparently supported by the large metal frame in which it stood. Rick was reminded of the strange black monolith in the film 2001. Pivoted about it's middle and lain on it's back that was what the objects in the gallery looked like. On the right-hand pillar of each supporting frame was a computer terminal, also blank.

Gesturing to the first block in the room Sergeant Steele spoke with all the pride of a parent for a gifted child.

"Gentlemen, this is the result of our researches. We call it Plastiglass, although it's neither plastic nor glass. Please feel free to touch it…"

Rick joined the Dave and Max in approaching the block. He touched the surface, and then tapped on it with his knuckle. It was smooth and cool to the touch like glass and yet it didn't feel quite as hard, as if a fingernail or a sharp object might scratch its surface.

"Now if you'd stand back a little…" continued Sgt. Steele, "…I'll show you how we use it."

Sgt. Steele hit some keys on the computer terminal attached to the frame of the block they had been examining. The monitor screen sprang to life, displaying green characters on a dark background. Sgt. Steele typed a series of commands and the block began to come alive. A light appeared at it's furthest end; unseen motors hummed and the whole structure began to rotate about its horizontal axis. Within moments the slab was standing upright before them. As the light, now at the top of the edifice, grew in intensity the visitors were able to appreciate the significance of what lay before them.

The slab was translucent, like a huge crystal, and trapped at it's core was – a man! He seemed to float in its centre like a prehistoric insect cast in amber. He wore no shackles or fastenings yet his strong muscular body hung quite symmetrically, his legs parted and his arms a little away from his sides. Set in the Plastiglas with him were a number of tubes and wires. His nose and mouth were covered by a small mask from which some pipe work travelled towards the back of the slab. Catheters were in place from between his buttocks and from his cock and a large number of fine wires terminated in electrodes distributed across his body. A slightly thicker cable was attached to a small terminal on each of his upper thighs. Throughout the block ran a matrix of fine, metallic looking pipes.

The man was completely hairless. Both his head and body were unnaturally smooth, giving him a waxy, unreal appearance. Rick struggled to comprehend what was before him. If this was real, and not some hideous practical joke, then it went well beyond sexual perversion and into the realms of criminal insanity. He took some comfort from noticing that even Max seemed surprised and was giving the terrible spectacle his full attention. Clearing his throat Rick managed to speak for the first time since they had arrived at HRL.

"Is he…alive?" he stuttered.

"Oh yes! Very much so." replied Sgt. Steele enthusiastically, "And he's in excellent health".

Sgt. Steele typed some more on the computer console and the characteristic trace of a heart-beat appeared on its screen.

"All vital signs are monitored from the control room we passed through. We record pulse, blood-pressure, brain activity, the lot. The devices you see attached to his thighs enable us to sample blood gases, electrolytes, sugars - everything that you'd monitor in an ICU facility."

Dave Hunter was still unruffled and had a more basic question for the officer.

"Can he move?" he asked bluntly.

"No. Not at all!" replied Sgt. Steele with a smile. "He can move his eyes. That's all he can do. His arms, legs, his body, his head, even his tongue – fully immobilised. Once incarcerated inside this block, there's nothing left to do."

"So how can he breathe?" asked Max, breaking his brooding silence.

"An excellent question…" said Sgt. Steele.”Tomkins, you're the expert here, would you like to explain?"

The younger officer looked taken aback at being invited to speak and coloured a little. Then again he clicked his boots and cleared his throat.

"Our early experiments showed us that you could achieve respiration without expansion of the thorax as long as a positive pressure was provided and enriched oxygen content. The downward travel of the diaphragm and compression of the viscera allow sufficient inspired volume to give gaseous exchange. In practice a little thoracic expansion is achieved due to the compressibility of the breast tissue…"

"What Tomkins is saying…" cut in Sergeant Steele, "…is that we force air into his lungs so he doesn't have to worry about breathing."

"Can he blink?" asked Dave watching the man's unwavering gaze.

"Another good question…" nodded Sgt. Steele.”The eyes were an area that gave us great problems initially. Unfortunately the cornea requires exposure to the air to remain properly oxygenated - that's why some contact lenses have vents in them. What we've done is to protect each eye with a plastic bubble which is ventilated with fresh air. As this air is filtered to remove dust particles, we decided that the blink response was unnecessary. Thus the eyelids are fixed open using an acrylate-based adhesive. On the subject of the senses I should point out that he can hear us. There are miniature headphones in his ears and a microphone in the control console."

"So you've done it." murmured Dave appreciatively. "Absolute immobility… total dependency…perfect incarceration."

"We'd like to think so," said Sgt. Steele. "…the plastiglas sets hard, rigidly enclosing the body. The mouthpiece we've designed immobilises the tongue, avoiding the danger of it being bitten or swallowed – and of course preventing any attempts to speak. Each subject is carefully prepared before encasement. We administer a thallium compound to induce permanent hair loss, and the body surface is disinfected. We use high dose antibiotics to clear bacterial growths from the digestive tract. Once encased, the subject is supplied only with sterilised water and nutrients. Muscle tone is maintained by electrical stimulation. With these precautions we believe that we can maintain the body in optimum physical health indefinitely …"

As Sergeant Steele pontificated, something terrible was taking shape in the back of Rick's mind. Something so awful that he could not yet put it into words. The primitive instinct to survive made him begin to look towards the gallery door that they had all come through. It was still open and Rick began to measure his distance from it and to assess his chances of getting past Tomkins and Max, both of whom stood between his and the control room. Then there was the elevator to consider - it had needed a special key to descend to this level. Would it also require a key to travel back up?

Sergeant Steele was still talking, and clearly liked the sound of his own voice.

"Perhaps the single most important property of plastiglass…" he continued pompously "…it that it is hygroscopic. As the patient sweats the plastiglass absorbs the moisture, which then diffuses out across the block and evaporates from it's surface, removing heat in the process. We assist with a number of ventilated channels through the material and the low ambient temperature that we maintain within the facility."

Dave was listening intently to Sergeant Steele's discourse. The mention of the subject's perfect physical health prompted a question from him.

"What about his mental state?"

"Naturally such a severe incarceration does cause considerable mental stress." replied Sgt. Steele glibly. "The longest encasement we've had with a subject who was subsequently released was twelve months. That was with one of the young men you met upstairs. It was our final trial before we began full scale commercial operation. We persuaded him to volunteer for another experiment, which he had done some times before. We told him that he would be kept in heavy bondage for an extended time, but he didn't know exactly what awaited him when he was given a narcotic injection to prepare him for the experiment. When he awoke, he found himself already encased from head to toe." Sgt. Steele laughed, as if he was telling a joke. "You should have seen him when he realised what we had done to him. I'll never forget the look in his eyes, when he realised that he couldn't move a single muscle, couldn't speak, couldn’t do anything – but wait. Wait in his solid prison until we would decide to let him out again. And well, he did have to wait! We checked his body reactions for three days, and the experiment seemed a success. So we decided to extend his incarceration to three months to get some long-term data. At the same time we checked his muscle contractions and his brain activity. We didn't turn on his earphones for the first days, so he had no idea how long he would have to stay encased. He could see us standing in front of him and talking, obviously about him, but he could do nothing to find out what we were planning to do with him. His muscle and brain reactions went steadily down until the 10th day, when he seemed to accept his confinement somehow. It was then when we turned on the phones to tell him that we would extend his confinement to three months. Boy, you should have seen his brain activity graph rise! After three months we still found our experiment working so well that we decided to extend it some more. Sure he was not enthusiastic to hear he would stay entombed for another nine months, but there was nothing he could do. He had signed a contract that gave us the right to extend the experiment's duration for as long as we found further research necessary. Of course, the man showed significant emotional trauma when we finally let him out, after twelve months of total immobility and silence... " "And life expectancy?"

"Theoretically, many decades…" replied Sgt. Steele.”There are a number of factors we think will offset the emotional stress, and may even extend the natural life span. The subjects receive no UV light and have no exposure to pathogens. They receive perfectly balanced nutrition, with their body weight kept constant. We are also planning to use growth-hormone and melatonin supplementation as the years go by."

"So how long has this man been incarcerated in there?" Asked Max.

"Let me show you…" replied Sergeant Steele, turning again to the computer console. He typed some more and then turned to his audience.

"Please look at the screen behind you." he instructed.

As Rick, Hunter and Max turned to look away from the man in the slab, the dark panel on the wall opposite came to life. It was a very large display screen, showing letters and numbers picked out in red LEDs against a black background. Rick's stomach churned as he read the data:

3 YEARS

7 MONTHS

3 WEEKS

5 DAYS

10 HOURS

28 MINUTES

Rick for a moment thought he might vomit. It couldn't be true - could it? No-one could survive 3 years of such treatment. And yet Sergeant Steele appeared quite serious about the claim, and Dave was nodding in appreciation.

With a theatrical flourish Sgt. Steele typed a further string of commands on the console and the remaining five plastiglass slabs in the gallery began to illuminate and rotate.

"Now let me introduce you to the rest of our little group." he said, clearly enjoying himself.

Within moments Rick and the others were looking at a row of six young men embedded in plastiglass. The screens on the left-hand wall of the gallery showed that the men were in order of incarceration. The first that they'd seen, nearest the door, was the earliest to be entombed while the sixth had been suffering for only 3 months.

Dave and Max walked between the men admiring the view and clearly impressed. As they browsed they threw further questions to Sergeant Steele. Rick was horrified to notice that, if he looked closely, he could see the eyes of the trapped men moving to follow their spectators. Somehow this confirmation that there were real live men in this ghastly tomb was more frightening than a trace on a computer screen. Like the other men, Rick was struck by how similar the captives all looked. It was amazing how important hair proved to be in characterising a man. Without it, one slim, naked young man looked very much like another. Dave raised this point.

"What about pressure sores?" asked Dave, who had more than a little medical knowledge of his own.

"The prisoners are rotated on an hourly basis throughout the day," replied Tomkins, who had by now overcome his shyness. "The time spent upright, as you see them now, is balanced by periods lying face uppermost and face down."

As the group circulated between the monoliths and their male cargoes, Rick took the opportunity to work his way closer to the door. Eventually he was standing near to the first captive and none of the men were between his and the control room. As the conversation slackened Rick took the risk of posing perhaps the most obvious question.

"Sergeant Steele…" he said, "…who are they?"

"I was wondering who would ask that." he said, instantly having the attention of the group. "To be honest I only know the identity of the man by the door. The others we refer to only by codenames. They are men brought to us by clients who are willing to pay, very substantially, for their permanent incarceration. Our security department vets the client to make sure they are sound and creditworthy and that they have a legitimate interest in the young man concerned. Our security people also handle the details of the subject's disappearance to make sure that neither the client nor HRL fall under any suspicion in the event that there is an investigation. In practice the police seldom investigate the disappearance of adults, so a few false leads are all that's required."

Rick wanted to ask more, particularly about what constituted a `legitimate interest', but the knot of dread in the pit of his stomach told his that he might already know. He glanced over his shoulder, trying to screw up his courage to make a run for the lift.

Dave's next question made him pause and listen.

"Why do you know about the man by the door?" he asked Sergeant Steele.

"He's a volunteer…" replied Sgt. Steele. "…in fact he was the inspiration for the whole project. He asked us to come up with a way to subject him to a severe long-term bondage, while maintaining his physical health. He's just a bondage freak. He wanted to experience a maximum security life-time incarceration. And this is just what he's got now." Sgt. Steele smiled. "I don't know, maybe today he regrets his decision. Maybe it's not quite what he had expected. Maybe he just thought of a nice solid cage and some heavy welded-on chains. Maybe he wants out badly. We will never find out though, for unfortunately, he'll never be able to tell us." He laughed sadistically. "But anyway, it's too late now. He has to stay inside this prison as long as he lives. He won't ever get out."

With this, Rick turned to run for the door. As he did so he found his way barred by another of the leather-clad young officers. He stopped dead, staring at the strange device he held in his hand, looking to him like a cross between a gun and a TV remote control. He heard Sergeant Steele's smarmy voice behind him.

"You're not leaving us, are you, Mister Shepherd. We had hoped you'd stay with us for a little longer…"

The strange device emitted a high pitched squeal and ejected two small projectiles, each trailing a fine wire. The tiny darts embedded themselves in the fabric of Rick's jacket. He experienced a searing flash of pain and then blacked out.

***

Rick awoke from a troubled sleep. He had been dreaming that he was back at Dave's house in that horrible metal box. Only this time, instead of just dumping him outside, his staff had buried him in the grounds. Somehow the mud had gotten into the casket and filled his mouth. He woke just as, in the nightmare, he had been trying to clear his mouth to scream. As he lay on his back looking upwards Rick was relieved that it had only been a dream, though his mouth really was uncomfortably dry. The ceiling above his head was in darkness and instinctively he tried to turn his head to look at his bedside clock. Puzzlement grew in his still drowsy mind as his head refused to move. He tried to prop himself on his right elbow, but his arm also remained fixed in position. Panic supplanted puzzlement and he was instantly awake, desperately trying to rise, to move in any direction and to scream for help.

He stopped abruptly, frozen with terror, as he realised that his mouth was indeed filled. Something round and hard and foreign was occupying his mouth, pinning his tongue down to his lower jaw. Suddenly all the images came flooding back to him - the laboratory, those terrible slabs and the men trapped in them. Fighting for self-control he tried to move each of his hands and feet in turn. Nothing would move. Every attempt at movement met the same absolute resistance. As he focused on the sensations of different parts of his body he realised that his cock ached and that something large and unyielding had been inserted into his rectum. Clutching at straws he tried to think of any explanation other than the mind-shredding one that confronted him. Perhaps he'd been given a drug which had paralysed his muscles?? That would mean he was not restrained but just unable to move anything. Perhaps if he closed his eyes and opened them again it would all go away?

Rick felt his eyelids snag as they began to close but were then prevented from doing so. In an instant he knew it was true. He was not paralysed. His muscles were functioning, but his entire body was in total restraint. As the full horror of his situation struck him he began to heave desperately against his bondage, screaming Dave's name into his mouthpiece. After a few minutes he was exhausted by his futile struggles. Too exhausted to scream he now began to sob and plead for help, the restraint of his tongue reducing his efforts to meaningless noises. Surely Dave wouldn't leave him like this? Perhaps this was just a warning - a few hours constraint to persuade him to resume their relationship. If so, he would do whatever he asked - he'd go to live with him, let Dave put him into bondage if that's what he wanted. Anything to be released from this private hell that he was now trapped in.

At that moment there was a jolt and Rick felt his world begin to rotate. He was being moved to the upright position! This could only mean one thing - Dave had come to let him out! As the slab reached the vertical he was aware of a light above his head flickering on. Once his eyes adjusted to the strange distortions of the plastiglass block, Rick found himself looking at the leather-clad Sergeant and Dave Hunter. Both were smiling at him. Rick realised that he must be naked like the other men he had seen. Another wave of sweat broke from his pores. Sergeant Steele spoke first.

"Welcome back, Mister Shepherd." he said with mock sincerity. "The computer let us know you were awake and I see you've already tested the strength of your confinement. That's quite natural, but let me assure you that there is absolutely no possibility of escape. Plastiglass is incredibly strong and, as you've found, you will be unable to make even the slightest movement. Now I think Mr. Hunter wanted to say something to you."

Dave stepped forward, a cruel smile on his lips.

"I want you to understand one thing Rick - when I start a friendship with a man, I decide when it ends. No man has ever left me and none ever will. And now I'm afraid that our involvement is going to last a little longer than you had hoped - in fact I hope you appreciate the level of my commitment to you. I'm going to be paying for your care for the rest of your life. Of course if you outlive me - which is quite likely - my company will continue to fund your incarceration here, so you need have no worries on that score."

Sgt. Steele once again took over the taunting of the captive.

"I realise that these developments must come as a considerable shock to you but I would ask you not to distress yourself too much. The sooner you come to terms with your situation the happier you will be. Judging by their brain activity most of our men find the first six months or so to be the most difficult. What you must understand is that you will be spending the rest of your life here with us, just as you are now. You will never again move, or speak, or eat, drink, or see anything beyond the inside of this chamber. On the plus side you are going to be enjoying the most severe bondage that money can buy, and I understand from Mr. Hunter that you took considerable pleasure in being restrained."

"Now to more mundane matters…" continued Sgt. Steele "…you will receive water and nutrients twice a day, injected directly into your stomach via the tubes in your mouthpiece. Your bowel will be washed out once per day and your urine will drain as it forms. You will also be subject to muscle stimulation at frequent intervals. Of all these processes you will probably be aware of only the muscle stimulation and the colonic cleansing, which will cause a sensation of pressure in your abdomen. The chamber is usually in darkness, but from time to time each day lighting will be provided to help maintain your eyesight. Likewise you will occasionally hear white-noise played into your earphones to counter the effects of continual silence."

Sgt. Steele's manner now switched again from grave to mocking.

"Before we go I must congratulate you on your athletic body," he said leeringly. "All of my staff who worked to prepare you were quite enthusiastic about your muscles. And let me add, you even look more virile with a bold head. We could all appreciate why Mr. Hunter was unwilling to lose you. Now, we always encourage our clients to keep in touch with loved ones who they have placed in storage at our facility and so we have arranged for Mr. Hunter to visit you exactly a year from today. As that does rather leave you with some time on your hands…" both men smirked openly at Sgt. Steele's cruel jibe, "…we will give you something to look at.".

Sergeant Steele typed something on the control console of Rick's slab and the screen on the wall opposite his sprang into life. Through the blur of the crystal, and his own tears, Rick read,

0 YEARS

0 MONTHS

0 WEEKS

0 DAYS

6 HOURS

37 MINUTES

As he watched the 37 turned into 38.

***

POSTSCRIPT

The elevator doors opened and Sergeant Steele stepped into the control room with creaking boots. Accompanying him was Tom Sherman, the Chief Executive of HRL, as well in full uniform. On seeing their boss of bosses all of the officers jumped to their booted feet. It was a strange sound, all the thick leather creaking as the uniformed men jumped to attention, and dozens of heavy boots clanking at a time.

"Please, please…" said Sherman, spreading his hands in a placatory gesture. "Sit down, relax…this is very much an informal visit." The flush on the cheeks of both Sgt. Steele and Sherman suggested that they had enjoyed an excellent lunch.

"Today, as you know, is Sergeant Steele's last day with us." Sherman paused for the polite applause that followed. "We've just been upstairs doing the formalities and I certainly don't intend to repeat the speeches we've both just sat through."

There was a murmur of laughter around the small room. One of Tom Sherman's many skills was being able to connect with his audience and the control room staff were quickly put at their ease.

"I just wanted to come down here with Sergeant Steele to join with you, the folks who worked with him the most, to say the goodbyes that matter the most. I don't need remind you what his innovation and skill has allowed us to achieve here at HRL. Twenty years ago the concept of long-term human incarceration hardly existed as a science. Beyond the hospital bed or the prison cell there was no way of keeping the human body alive yet in suspension. With your able assistance Sergeant Steele has invented a new technology and a new paradigm in long-term storage."

The applause was both spontaneous and heartfelt as Sergeant Steele's team expressed their very real respect for their mentor.

"Now I'd like to invite Sergeant Steele to join me on a last tour of the storage facility."

Once the chamber doors were opened the two men began to walk slowly through the galleries.

"You know you'd always be welcome if you wanted to come back and visit some time…" said Sherman after a few moments, "…you must feel quite attached to our men after all these years."

"Thank you, that's most kind. But, you know, I think I want to remember them just as they are today, strong and helpless."

"It's strange to think that most of these galleries didn't exist when you first started - there was just the single chamber. Do you have any special favourites among the captives?"

"Well, I've always had a special regard for number one, the first of our volunteer captives. It's coming up to seventeen years he's been down here."

As they spoke they headed toward the first gallery where the man in question was imprisoned. "But even more than him…" continued Sergeant Steele, "I have to admit a soft spot for number seven."

The two men stopped in front of the seventh slab which, like all the others, was now illuminated.

"Why this one?" asked Sherman.

"I don't know really. I can remember the day he was brought in; so handsome and so naive. It was one of the few times I actually felt sorry for what we had to do. I think his name was Rick…"

"How long is it?" asked Sherman glancing over his shoulder to the data panel. "Fourteen years give or take…"

"He's kept wonderfully well, hardly different to the day we encapsulated him," said Sgt. Steele admiringly. "The really amazing thing about him…he's stayed responsive for all these years. Most of them are catatonic after four or five years but his EEG is still near normal. You can still see his eyes follow you when you walk by…"

"Incredible…" breathed Sherman appreciatively. "Do you think he still has hopes of release?"

"I hope not, for his sake." said Sgt. Steele. "His sponsor died a couple of years back…sudden coronary."

"Are we still getting paid?" asked Sherman, a trifle less light-heartedly.

"Oh yes, no problems there. He'd set up a covenant when he first had him incarcerated."

"Say something to him…" suggested Tom Sherman, now smiling again.

Sergeant Steele looked a little taken aback.

"We have a very strict policy about not interacting with our captives once they're established here..." he said, trying not to sound too pious, "…the lack of human contact is part of the experience."

"Well I think we can make an exception on your last day…go ahead, speak to him."

Sergeant Steele typed the necessary commands on the console, secretly delighted at being able to indulge himself. When the microphone in the console was live he cleared his throat.

"Rick, I know you can hear me. I'm Sergeant Steele. You met me the day you were brought here. You will also have seen me working in the chamber from time to time. I'd like you to move your eyes up and down if you understand "

To the fascination of the watching men, Rick's eyes moved unmistakably.

"I'm afraid this is my last day here, so you won't be seeing me again."

Once more the eyes rolled.

"I have some bad news for you about the gentleman who brought you here. Alas, he died recently. You may also wish to know that you were declared legally dead some years ago. Your friend paid for your permanent incarceration, so you don't have to worry about being released at any time."

The eyes stared fixedly ahead.