Nano by Melody Mounier

know the mods I'd made, and could wield considerable power over me.
    But he was a known quantity.  I didn't have the ability to change myself back - the knowledge, the facilities, the resources - I had put everything I could in my own way.  But he could do it.  The trick was to not let him know he was doing it.

Chapter 14
    The pager startled me, buzzing its silent call for attention as I was walking out the door of my own old office, tired from my first day of work as Mr. Dentz's secretary.  I'd gotten my foot in the door; Mr. Dentz had treated me as I'd expected he would a fresh looking girl with little office experience.  I'd been thinking about how different a man can be depending on who he's talking to when the pager went off.
    I walked around the corner and ducked into a doorway.  I pulled the pager off my hip, where it'd been resting quietly for the past ten days.
    The page read, "6:30 PM 9th/29th. 335 9th Ave. Basement apt."  I frowned.  I'd been too busy scheming lately to have anything like a life, so it wasn't like I would have to change my plans much.  But I didn't have money for subway fare - I'd have to walk something like forty blocks. In a half hour I could just make it.  I briefly considered ignoring the page, but thought better of it.  His watchers were still camped out in front of my house.  He'd get me one way or another if he wanted me.  Better to obey.
    Besides, my adrenaline was kicking in again, my nipples hardening.  Dammit.  Damn this horny little body.
    I walked fast, and just made it to the building with five minutes to spare.  It was a tenement building, ill-kept and in disrepair, with a bodega storefront.  Two old Cuban men eyed me with evident but vague interest.  They had the look of old men too poor for nano; their age was written on their faces.  A cute young office girl?  White?  In that building?  I could see them mentally ticking off the names of men they knew living there, to figure out who the lucky guy was.
    I found the stairs down to the basement apartment.  I knocked on the old wooden frame.
    The door opened, a large hand shot out, grabbed me by my dress and yanked me inside.
    It was dark, and my eyes didn't have time to adjust as the hands pinioned my wrists, twisted them over my head and pinning them against the wall.  My hands felt and tried to grasp a wall-mounted lamp; the man's hands jerked mine to the left, out of reach.  A knife turned downward between my breasts, and jerked down to my pubic mound, the dull side against my skin.  My dress ripped open, fell wide, exposing my front.
    Two quick cuts and the straps fell away, along with my dress.  I was thrown to the ground, and a heavy weight sat on my back.  The man cut away my g-string and pulled off my shoes.  Leather cuffs around my ankles; a padlock.
    The weight shifted and hands grabbed my wrists.  They were similarly restrained behind me.  A blindfold over my eyes.
    I was yanked up to my knees.  A third padlock joined my wrists to my ankles.  I remember thinking angrily that that had been my best dress - and what would I wear when he'd finished with me, anyway?
    Those thoughts were running through my head as I heard the man walking slowly around me, not speaking.  I heard a strange whistling sound - like a fly swatter - and a half-second later felt my body struck backwards a fraction by the force of a blow across my small breasts.  At the same moment I felt the pain flame outward through my whole body from two thin lines of white injury - one across each breast.  I cried out, and would have fallen backwards helplessly if a hand didn't steady me.
    That fucking riding crop.  It had left streaks across my buttocks the last time, and had hurt; this was far worse.  There was less padding, so I felt the blow compress my breast flesh into my ribcage, practically cutting my breasts in two.
    And, as I'd already discovered, my breasts were far more sensitive to touch, and to pain, than my