A brainwashing device?

It contained a single pod-like structure, placed horizontally, machines and canisters hooked up to it. Clear lid half-raised. Padding inside the shape of a body. Tubes. Screens gone dark. It looked medical and it looked wrong and it did not look like anything the police used.

Lauren began turning around to ask the officers what it was.

A rag covered her face.

She could smell the chemical. It smelled sweet and sharp. She tried to suck in a protest and got a lungful of it instead. She struggled. The sundress rode up. Bare feet scraped the bumper. Three officers held her down like they had done this a hundred times before, one on each arm, one wrapping her from behind so her tits were crushed and she could not get a knee up. She kicked. She tried to scream into the rag. Her green eyes watered. The long red hair stuck to the cloth and to her mouth.

The struggle slowed.

Her arms went heavy.

The last thing she felt was the air on her bare ass where the dress had hiked, and then that was gone too, and she faded into unconsciousness.

Todd arrived at the scene ten minutes later.

He took the corner too fast and stopped behind the van hard enough to rock the chassis. Jacket still on from the office. The look of a man who had left a meeting without explaining himself. The first thing he did was find the officer in charge.

“What have you done with Lauren?”

The officer did not waste time on comfort. He took Todd around to the van and opened the doors wider.

Lauren was naked inside the pod.

They had cut the pink sundress off her, it was just in the way. Her massive tits sat heavy on her chest, nipples soft in the cool of the van. Her waist looked even smaller laid out like that. Wide hips. Juicy ass flattened against the padding. Long red hair fanned around her head. Green eyes closed. Electrodes at her temples. A cannula in the back of her hand. Machines ticking up as they prepped her for reconfiguration. She looked like his wife and she looked like a malfunctioning product on a bench and Todd felt both things at once.

“But how can this happen? I’ve been getting her maintenance done regularly.”

The officer shook his head.

“It is not that simple, Mr Langford. Regular maintenance helps with keeping them docile and obedient, yes. But assets like yours, with a really strong inner mind, cannot really be kept in check unless their psyches have been destroyed. It seems that you went with the least intrusive option. Tweaking her memories. Making her dedicated to you as your wife. That is akin to her playing house with you. It does not change her sexual orientation, and she still loves that wife of hers. We can see that from her neural scans. Even while she is completely dedicated to you, she still feels like she is living a compromise. You’re lucky this was caught before she broke free completely.”

Todd looked troubled. He watched Lauren’s chest rise and fall. He had liked the least intrusive option. He had liked coming home to a woman who cooked and spread her legs and called him honey without looking like someone had taken a hammer to the inside of her head. He had liked the challenge of it, if he was honest. A trophy who still had enough of a person left to choose him, or to think she had.

“But then what about Amelie?” he said. “The girl she was married to before we took them both. She’s the asset who called it in. Why did she turn out so much better?”

The officer shrugged.

“Maybe she wasn’t so strong mentally. Or just didn’t love her enough.”

Todd looked disappointed. He had had to choose. The curvy redhead over the petite French girl. He had wanted the challenge of breaking in the butch lesbian after all. The buzz cut. The man-hating mouth. The way she had looked at men like they were a joke she was tired of hearing. He had wanted that one on her knees in a sundress with no panties, worshiping his cock every morning, and he had gotten the shell of it. He cursed himself for the choice now, standing near a van that smelled like disinfectant.

“Oh, she loved her alright,” a voice said behind him. “Probably more than this big-booby bitch loved her.”

Todd turned around.

Richard. Amelie’s husband and owner. A small smile on his face. He walked over and Todd shook his hand because that was what you did with a man who owned the asset that had just saved your house from collapsing.

“I am so glad you’re here, Richie. I don’t know what to do. Please help me.”