RR Vignettes #5 - Carla Stanhope (Patreon)

RR Vignettes #5 - Carla Stanhope

Frustration gnawed at Dr. Carla Stanhope’s patience as she paced back and forth, her gaze fixated on the dormant Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer.  The lights were all off and the machine had already accumulated a noticeable layer of dust during its downtime. There were plenty of other tasks she could have been doing right now but instead, she was practically chained to her lab space, idly flipping the contents of her lab coat’s lower left pocket: her cell phone, a pencil, her mini-notebook, and a capped syringe.

Among the tinkering of metal and plastic from the back of the downed machine came a gritty, deep male voice.

“So what did ya say yer problem here was again?”

“Again…” Dr. Stanhope said with an impatient sigh, her arms crossed over her chest, “the particle manipulation readouts are consistently–”

“--oh yeah; gotcha, gotcha.” The noisy clang of a tossed wrench sounded against the assorted metals of an adjacent toolbox as the repairman rose to his feet.  He towered over Dr. Stanhope, but the red-haired scientist’s pose did not change nor did her scowling demeanor.

The repairman, either oblivious or indifferent to Dr. Stanhope’s impatience, adjusted his trousers around his large belly. He’d finally concealed a persistent plumber’s crack that Dr. Stanhope had been forced to ignore since he’d taken position under the instrument.

The repairman stood much closer than she would have liked, and his breath was sour with strong black coffee and cigarettes. Dr. Stanhope had to look up to make eye contact, and she was punished with the unsightly view of stubble sprouting throughout his double chin. “Ya see the problem is yer calibration settings.”

“Excuse me, but the calibration settings are fine. We set everything to the operations manual’s req–”

“--well, ya see that ain’t what ya did…cause if ya did you’d be gettin’ the right readings. I just came from a lab in Virginia that was havin’ the same problem:”

He pointed a beefy finger toward the red-headed scientist. “End user.”

“Mr. Duggle…” Dr. Stanhope struggled not to grit her teeth as she spoke.  “...I assure you that the problem originated well before we started using the instrument.”

“Well, I don’t know how you could know that…and I don’t know what to tell ya.  Everything here’s installed correctly.  We can set ya up with some on-site training like we did the folks in Virginia but it’ll cost extra.”

“Completely unnecessary. The problem is with the voltage.”

“What about it?”

Dr. Stanhope’s green eyes widened in disbelief. “I told you as soon as you arrived over an hour ago!  The equipment is not getting enough voltage!”

Mr. Duggle chuckled. “Hon, your little lab here has its own dedicated power panel. I know it looks small on the wall but it's plenty powerful enough for all yer little gadgets and gizmos. I’ll bet you could even–”

“--I understand the power distribution for my lab quite well, thank you,” Dr. Stanhope said with indignation. Her face was beginning to get red.  “This lab’s main power panel is fed by a 45-kVA, 480:208/120V transformer. The loading of my lab’s equipment here doesn’t even exceed half of the transformer’s current rating”

“Okay, so what’s the problem?  The equipment runs on 208 volts and it's even got a nice, pretty lil’ 30-amp breaker right here in the panel. Ya see the square with a ‘D’ inside of it?  That’s the brand of the circuit breaker that’s protectin’ your mass spec.”

Dr. Stanhope ignored the technician’s condescending lecture and flipped through the installation manual for the mass spectrometer, her unpainted fingernail stopping abruptly halfway down one of the text-littered pages. “It says right here…it runs on 240 volts, NOT 208 volts.”

Mr. Duggle rolled his eyes, “Okay, I’m rememberin’ this now.  Check the footnote, hon.  The tiny little text at the bottom.  The mass spec operates on a tolerance range of 15%.  That’s 204-276 volts if ya left yer calculator at home.”

“This is unbelievable!” Dr. Stanhope said with exasperation.  “Look right here .  It says 10%, not 15%!  Our source voltage of 208 Volts is not sufficient for this instrument!  I’ve already told you…we need a buck/boost transformer to get to 240.”

Mr. Duggle sighed. “And when did ya tell me about the buck/boost? Before or after you blindfolded me?”

“After.” Dr. Stanhope said, and then added within her own head, ‘while your beady little eyes were glued to my chest.’

“Ya know those folks up in Virginia were workin’ on classified projects, too.  Probably more classified than whatever you girls are workin’ on here.  And they didn’t need to blindfold me like some sorta hostage.”

“The blindfold is for your protection, Mr. Duggle,” Dr. Stanhope growled, returning her fidgeting left hand to its lab coat pocket. “Fisher-Scientific has been made fully aware of our terms in the agreement clause….which I’m sure you reviewed.”

“Yeah, yeah…big, fancy, windows that frost over…” Mr. Duggle gestured toward the room’s windows that were set to opaque and then toward the purple blindfold on the counter. “A pretty, purple ‘do-not-disturb’ light out in the hallway, and a funny lil’ blindfold.  I swear, you girls have no idea the kinds of setups I’ve been privy to repairin’ over the years.”

Dr. Stanhope looked at her watch. “Mr. Duggle, please don’t change the subject.  I am a very busy woman and as unbelievable as the notion may seem to you, I have other very important matters that require my attention.”

Mr. Duggle chuckled, “Okay?  What do ya want me to do then?”

“I want you to install the buck/boost.”

“Well, that’s gonna cost extra, hon. And best believe I’ll be lettin’ Fisher know to price it as an optional add-on.”

Dr. Stanhope stomped her foot. “It should have been installed on Day 0!”

“Well, that ain’t my fault!  You turned me away, remember?  Held out for one of the female techs if I’m rememberin’ right.”

Dr. Stanhope’s face had taken on a shade of red that nearly matched her beautiful hair. If the temperature of her face had increased even another degree, the freckles on her cheeks and nose might have singe off. “Mr. Duggle, I am NOT going to ask you again.”

The large technician gripped his round belly and laughed. “Ya know, you remind me a lot of my oldest step-daughter.  She cries and cries when she doesn’t get her way, too.”

Dr. Stanhope had several responses as fiery as her mane of hair planned for Mr. Duggle but none found their way past her lips.

The door to Dr. Stanhope’s lab flew open, pulling hers and Mr. Duggle’s eyes toward a short young woman in the doorway wearing a cheap lab coat. Restrained by a crimson red scrunchie, her thick, wavy brown hair rebelled at every opportunity from scalp to tip.

Her hazel eyes were wide as they scanned over her red-headed supervisor and the tall, overweight technician.  She still clasped the brass doorknob in her left hand, standing frozen in the entranceway.  Balanced in her other hand at about chest height was a stainless steel tray, as if she were a busy waitress carrying a tray of drinks.  Instead of drinks, however, there were not one…not two…but three recently reduced subjects.

Naked.

Afraid.

Alert.

Aware of Mr. Duggle.

They waved their arms frantically toward the heavyset technician at Dr. Stanhope’s side, an audible but linguistically indiscernible squeaking emanating from the stainless steel tray.

Mr. Duggle’s eyes widened.  “What in God’s name…?  Are those…”

The intern with the red scrunchie finally released the doorknob only to cover her gaping, gasping mouth as Dr. Stanhope’s syringe tip sank deep into Mr. Duggle’s neck.

Mr. Duggle’s speech became groggy and incoherent. His momentarily alert eyes drooped, crossed, and finally closed as he collapsed like a heavy sack of potatoes into a disorganized heap on the floor.  Several twitches radiated throughout his body with a final, weak kick of his left foot before he laid completely motionless.

“Oh my god, Dr. Stanhope…” The intern said, roughly setting down the tray of recently reduced subjects into the closest empty confinement unit she could find on the counter. “I didn’t even see that the windows were frosted over.  The light wasn’t…I should have knocked. I’m SOOOO sorry!”

“It’s alright, Jenna.” Dr. Stanhope sheathed the needle and deposited it back into her lab coat pocket.  The red-headed doctor dropped down to her knees and rummaged through the pockets of Mr. Duggle’s denim button-up shirt and jeans.

“I think the access light in the corridor is blown or something.” Jenna strided back to the entrance and peered at the silver paneling overtop of the door. “Yeah, the light’s not even on!”

The red-headed doctor flipped through the leather folds of Mr. Duggle’s wallet. “Is the LED fully screwed into the housing?”

Dr. Stanhope didn’t look up from the wallet, but she smiled and nodded when Jenna replied that the LED was in fact barely threaded onto the housing, its metal contacts far away from its source of power.

“It was ready to fall off! Gee, how did that happen?” Jenna asked, her young face now catching the LED’s subtle pink glow.

“Oh, there are so many possibilities. The equipment here generates strong vibrations which could propagate through the walls and rattle the fixture...”

Dr. Stanhope lost interest in the wallet and set it alongside Mr. Duggle’s other possessions.

“...and if the frequency of those vibrations matched the natural frequency of the LED’s light emission, the amplitude of the oscillations could increase.”

“Well gee…I still feel bad.” Jenna said, peering down at Mr. Duggle who was now snoring loudly from the floor.  “I’m guessing he won’t be able to fix the mass spec now, huh?”

“No, certainly not.” Dr. Stanhope said.

His repairing days were officially over.

She turned her gaze from Mr. Duggle to Jenna. “But don’t feel bad.  Fisher Scientific informed me that Beatrice will be returning from vacation in two weeks.  We can wait until she gets here.”

“And the machine will just be down until then?”

Dr. Stanhope nodded with a smile. “Don’t worry, dear.  When we send word of Mr. Duggle’s violation of the agreement clause to Fisher Scientific, I’ll be sure to include an invoice that details the downed mass spec’s operational impact.”

“Well, that’s good. And what about him?”

Dr. Stanhope looked down at the unconscious Mr. Duggle, splayed out haphazardly on the floor of her lab.  He could inconvenience and disgust her even with a complete lack of consciousness.  It was impressive, really.

“The sedative should last for another 4 hours, which should give us plenty of time.” Her lips moved as she did some mental math. “Although he’s a bit larger than the average male…best not to take any chances.  Please grab a stretcher from one of the supply closets right away.  I recommend asking Brandi, Jane, and Allison to help. Tell them that it’s urgent.”

Jenna nodded.  “Okay.  And we’re taking him to the Reduction Therapy Room, I’m guessing?”

“Mm-hmm!” Dr. Stanhope chirped, sitting down at the lab computer next to Mr. Duggle’s unconscious body. “I’m sending an email to Dr. Walker and Dr. Bexley now, letting them know that we’ll have to bump any scheduled Reduction Therapy sessions in order to make room for Mr. Duggle here.”

“Sounds good, Dr. Stanhope!” Jenna said.

“Which one of you is subject-329k?”

Dr. Stanhope stared down into the confinement unit containing three subjects.  They were the three subjects Jenna had been transporting to her lab for testing.

Two of the subjects were around 1.5 inches tall while the third one was around half of an inch tall.  Neither of the three subjects said anything.  Even if they did, the sound of their voices would have been far too faint for Dr. Stanhope to understand.  She made no attempt to listen nor did she need to.  Two of the subjects shakily pointed toward the shorter third.

Her green eyes narrowed in on the subject as she peered over the cliff of her expansive bust, the weight of her gaze seemingly heavy enough to buckle his wobbly knees. To the little subject’s credit, he stared up at her with stoicism and solemnity.

“You’re up first.”

The red-headed scientist deposited the other two larger subjects into their own separate confinement units.  With just a few taps on their respective touch screens, each of the confinement units’ plexiglass panels had frosted over just like the larger lab windows had earlier.  She also enabled the sound insulation feature.

Dr. Stanhope had just sat down with subject-329k when the door of her lab slowly opened.

“You can come right in, Jenna!” Dr. Stanhope said, “I’m just prepping subject-329k for his assessment.”

Jenna wiped the shine from her forehead and took a seat next to Dr. Stanhope.

“How did it go with Mr. Duggle?”

“It went okay.” Jenna said, scooting her bar-stool chair in closer for a better view of the subject that cowered before them. “He sure was heavy though.”

‘A fleeting problem that shan’t last much longer,’ Dr. Stanhope thought with amusement. “You girls turned him over to Dr. Walker then?”

“Mm-hmm! Dr. Walker was in the Reduction Therapy Room waiting for us.  She needed our help getting him staged but Dr. Walker said that she would take care of Mr. Duggle personally.”

“Oh, I’m sure she did,” Dr. Stanhope chuckled. “Did you grab the screening items?”

“You mean these ziplock bags?” Jenna asked.

“Yes, those are the ones.  You can set them here on the counter next to the subject’s file.”

The red-headed scientist set what looked like a wired speaker about the size of a soda can on the counter with two cords. She unwound both long cords that had been wrapped several times around the speaker. One was plugged in for power and the other connected to a small, black platform.

“Why don’t you set subject-329k down on the Amplipad.”

The subject’s legs may as well have been cooked spaghetti as he nearly stumbled atop the black disk in the presence of not one but two driven, intelligent, massive, and intimidating young women.

Dr. Stanhope flipped the toggle switch and a short spurt of static crackled from the small speaker and then a male’s voice.

It was frantic.

“--promise you!  I don’t even care about the money!”

“Dr. Stanhope and Jenna both grimaced at the sharp, abrupt noise.  Jenna covered her ears and Dr. Stanhope speedily reached out for the speaker.

“Apologies, Jenna.” Dr. Stanhope said, pinching the small volume knob and twisting it from 11 to 0. “Someone left the volume turned all the way up.”

“Wow…so that speaker amplifies his voice?  How does it do that?” Jenna asked, leaning in close to examine the speaker and ignoring the animated motion of the now inaudible subject.

“Do you see the pad he’s standing on?  Bio-resonant crystal particles were introduced to the subject’s body during his Assignment Shot. Do you see that pad he’s standing on?  To put it in simple terms, the Amplipad generates a weak magnetic field that interacts with those particles and sends the signal to the speaker.”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” Jenna said.

“Thanks!  It actually started out as my EE/ME Senior Design project when I was in college but it became a labor of love that kept my interest long after I’d gotten my degree…and now, here it is.”

As Dr. Stanhope slowly increased the volume on the speaker, subject-329k’s voice became louder.

“Please don’t make me go back there!”

“Calm down, 329k.” Dr. Stanhope said.

“No, you don’t understand!  She doesn’t wash back there!  She’s fat and disgusting! She doesn’t care about me! At least give me to someone else, please!”

“You’re unsatisfied with your assigned Participant, then?” Dr. Stanhope asked.

“The insane, trashy woman that keeps me in her fat, unwashed ass all day long?  Yes! I hate her! I hate her so much!  I hate her condescending laugh!  I hate her bratty daughters! I hate what she calls me!  What she calls herself!”

As Dr. Stanhope wrote several notes into her notebook, Jenna leaned over and whispered into the red-head’s ear.  “Do we honor reassignment requests?”

Dr. Stanhope almost laughed, “Absolutely not!  Not from the subjects.”

“Please…I’m not even asking for you to grow me back anymore…I just want to go to someone who is…clean…please!” subject-329k begged.

“Reassignment is not what today is about, subject-329k.  You know that.”

“I won’t go back!” subject-329k shouted.

“Let’s talk about that later, okay?” Jenna said, trying to calm him down.  “Can you just help us out with finishing this screening?  We have to make sure that you’re doing okay.”

The subject didn’t verbally consent but he was at least no longer yelling or crying.

Dr. Stanhope was pleasantly surprised by Jenna’s success.  The red-headed scientist discretely slid the screening protocol paperwork in front of Jenna, who grew a toothy grin and excitedly picked up the stack.

“Okay…” Jenna said. “Please count backwards from seventeen in increments of 4, subject-329k.”

The subject looked back and forth between Dr. Stanhope and Jenna before cautiously counting.

“A little slow, but that’s to be expected.” Dr. Stanhope said.

“Next we’re going to check spatial awareness.” Jenna held up an index card with a pattern in the top left, top right, and bottom left corner of the card.  The bottom right location was empty.  “Can you predict what the next arrangement will be based on the previous three?”

The subject stared for several seconds.  Dr. Stanhope had immediately deduced what the pattern should have been but in all fairness, she hadn’t spent the last several years in the darkness and high-pressure environment of a woman’s rear end.

“I know it’s a little hard.  Just take your time, 329k.” Jenna said with encouragement.

He finally spoke up, offering his best guess.  It was wrong, but his guess was close enough to prompt a passing score…with a descriptive comment about the failure in his file.

“Okay, subject-329k has passed the cognitive tests. You did great, Jenna,” Dr. Stanhope said.

“Okay I did your test.  I did what you wanted,” the subject said. “Now let me–”

The weight of Dr. Stanhope’s index finger flipped the toggle switch of the speaker to off, abruptly silencing the subject as she spoke to Jenna. “Do you remember the physical checklist?”

Jenna’s hazel eyes went up to the ceiling as she struggled to find the answer.

“It’s written down on page 34 if you need to steal a quick–”

“--No, no.  I can do it.” Jenna said, her brow wrinkled in concentration and determination.  Her eyes widened and she smiled, gently lifting the tiny subject up to her eye level.

“First is Body Mass Analysis…” Jenna recited from memory, turning the squirming subject over in her hands.  She tugged gently at the subject’s arms and legs. “Push back against my fingertip as best as you can, okay?”

Dr. Stanhope couldn’t tell if the subject was trying, and considering subject-329k’s diminutive state and weakness, she wondered if Jenna could even tell.

“Muscularity appears lower judging from the last entry in his file…but he seems well-nourished and healthy.”

“Compliments to Dr. Zhang.” Dr. Stanhope smiled.

“Oh, she’s the one who synthesizes the vitamins right? The ones that the Participants take in order to…feed their subjects?  She’s really nice!”

“Yes, indeed!”

“So his Participant is on the vitamin regimen then?”

Dr. Stanhope nodded, leafing through the subject’s records. “It looks like Ms. King weaned subject-329k off of conventional food over a year ago.”

“It really is so much easier for them…” Jenna said, directing her speech toward the subject in her hand as if she were trying to convince him. “...that way, they’ll basically never go hungry.”

“It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for sure,” Dr. Stanhope commented. “Some might even say that the subject gets more out of it than the Participant!”

“I honestly don’t know why the Participants don’t all just do it.”

“What comes next?” Dr. Stanhope asked.

“Next is…inspect the skin for abrasions and infections?”

“Exactly.”

Jenna squinted closer at the subject, “Hmm…well, I don’t see any abrasions, breaks, or signs of infection….but…his skin…why’s it so…”

“...dark?” Dr. Stanhope smirked, to which Jenna smiled and nodded. “We’ve discovered that subjects who spend years in gluteal confinement will usually go one of two routes after so much direct exposure to their Participant’s gluteal cleft.  Most often, the subject’s skin will become increasingly fair and take on a nearly translucent appearance.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Jenna said, biting her lip as she thoroughly inspected the subject’s genitals. “Because natural light has a difficult time permeating between Ms. King’s buttocks, right?”

“Exactly! And Ms. King has been consistently housing subject-329k in her rear for around 15-17 hours per day. The chances of him even being out from between her buttocks during the day is unlikely to say the least, let alone the probability of his skin even greeting sunshine.”

“I suppose that makes sense, being shielded from sunlight by her buttocks…but then he should be really pale, right?”

“But our naturally fair-skinned subjects like subject-329k here are a bit more impressionable to their new environment. In some of these uncommon cases, the subject’s skin will stain to match the brownish hue of his Participant’s gluteal cleft. This happens mostly with Participants who practice sub-par hygiene, although this could be correlation instead of causation.”

“Oh, how interesting. It’s almost like camouflage!” Jenna said.

“That’s one way to put it!” Dr. Stanhope laughed.

“Should we try to wash it off?  The staining, I mean.”

“Oh, no; not much of a point in that.  The pigment staining is irreversible.”

“Oh, wow.” Jenna said, rubbing at the tiny subject’s bronzed body. She increased the intensity of her rubbing, provoking squeaks of protest and discomfort from the subject. “You’re right, Dr. Stanhope. It’s not coming up at all!”

“Not even steel wool can pull up that color, trust me,” Dr. Stanhope said with conviction, “...based on my experience, I would call it permanent after two years and subject-329k has been under gluteal confinement for three years now.”

“Fascinating.” Jenna said.

“Next up is the stress test.” Dr. Stanhope said, turning her attention to her pale pink laptop.  Her fingers glided over the keys as she looked back and forth between the laptop screen and the subject’s file.

“Before we start,” Dr. Stanhope instructed, “We must access subject-329k’s stats from our subject Monitoring System. Have you had any experience with sMS duty yet?”

“Uh-huh!” Jenna answered, “Quinn and I were each assigned one subject to monitor.  We watched their readouts during lunch yesterday. It was really cool.”

“So you recognize this interface then?” Dr. Stanhope asked, turning her laptop screen to face Jenna.

“I do!” Jenna replied, pointing at the various graphed lines, oscillating waves, and dense fields of flowing numbers and symbols. “That group right there at the top represents the intensity of perception in his five senses.  And then that graph towards the bottom has his heart rate, blood pressure, and some other things I don’t recognize.”

“Very good!” Dr. Stanhope said, “You’ve definitely been paying attention!  Today’s test is going to be a bit simpler than standard subject monitoring.  Today, we are mostly concerned with this value below the heart rate and blood pressure.”

Dr. Stanhope pointed with the capped tip of her pen at one of several white oscillating waves.  With a few keystrokes, the oscillating wave changed color to a beautiful light purple as did the words “STRESS INTERPRETATION”.

“As you can see, subject-329k is exhibiting some noticeably elevated stress levels.  Only a standard deviation or two higher than what would be typically expected in a normal male in the company of women so much larger than him.”

“Oh yeah…his heart rate and blood pressure are higher, too.”

“Indeed,” Dr. Stanhope agreed, reaching down to pick the subject up.  She began gently stroking the subject’s back with her fingertip.  She filled her lungs with cold air and breathed out softly a soothing melody, haunting and captivating in its beauty.

As Dr. Stanhope comforted subject-329k, she and Jenna watched the subject’s stress values begin to slowly decrease.

“The skin-to-skin contact…the body heat…the comforting tone…” Dr. Stanhope whispered, “...all of it contributes to a slight lessening of subject-329k’s stress levels.”

“It’s working.” Jenna said.

Dr. Stanhope gently extended her hand out to Jenna, urging the intern to accept subject-329k into her open palm.  “Continue calming him.”

As the curvy brunette intern began stroking subject-329k as if he were her classroom hamster, the redheaded beauty opened one of the opaque zip-lock bags and removed a pair of underwear.  The peach-colored panties felt soft and comfortable in Dr. Stanhope’s hand and she admired the cute little white heart pattern continuing in all directions.

“Are those…yours?” Jenna whispered.

“No, certainly not…although they are cute, don’t you think?” Dr. Stanhope replied quietly.  “You’ve met Dr. Becotte, right?  I believe she sat next to you at the weekly meeting last Monday?”

“Oh yes!” Jenna said, still petting the subject despite a majority of her focus being on Dr. Stanhope. “She’s really friendly and super helpful.  They’re hers then?”

“No, these belong to her sister Sabrina.  Sabrina is not only a long-time Participant but she is also a friend of RR Labs. She offered up several pairs of her worn undergarments for experiments such as the one we’re conducting now.”

Dr. Stanhope carefully unfolded the pair of panties, opening the mouth of the waistband wide. “Okay, go ahead and set the subject down here…right into the inside seat of the undergarment.”

Jenna placed subject-329k down atop the panties and Dr. Stanhope immediately sealed the waistband mouth shut, neatly folding the underwear in and over on itself. Protocol called for the subject to be pressed face down into the area of fabric that would naturally come to wedge between the buttocks of the wearer, but Dr. Stanhope didn’t want to be too critical of Jenna.  She was still learning.

Even as she folded, she and Jenna could see the subject’s stress levels climbing.  The intensity settled above where it was when Dr. Stanhope and Jenna were stroking him, but still slightly below their first reading.

“Is he okay?” Jenna asked, looking back and forth between the darkening and steepening purple waves on the computer screen and the tiny little lump shifting slightly under the peach fabric.

“Oh, yes.  This is expected.” Dr. Stanhope replied in a normal voice.  “The experience of a new scent signature has him confused and stressed.  It doesn’t matter that Sabrina Becotte has impeccable hygiene and that the undergarments hardly carry an unpleasant scent. It’s new and unfamiliar to him, and therefore causes him stress.”

“You don’t think it's just that the underwear..well…smells like a butt and he doesn’t like that?”

Dr. Stanhope smiled.  She loved the pushback from Jenna.  “Do your feet smell, Jenna?”

Jenna appeared taken aback. “Umm…what?”

Dr. Stanhope leaned to her left, sliding her left foot out of her sneaker and hooking a thumb into her white ankle sock.

“I’m going to prove that the subject’s stress levels are not aromatically correlated.” Five long, pale toes settled atop her white sneaker as Dr. Stanhope raised her pristine white sock to the countertop. One corner of her mouth rose in a smirk along with one reddish-brown eyebrow.  She was challenging Jenna to join her.

Jenna smiled, realizing what Dr. Stanhope was suggesting and followed suit, removing the sock from her right foot and setting it neatly on the table.  She waited to see what Dr. Stanhope would do next.

Dr. Stanhope chuckled, “Okay then.”

She removed the squeaking and struggling subject from Sabrina’s peach-colored underwear and hovered him over the gaping mouth of Jenna’s opened black sock.

“Keep an eye on the readout as he enters your sock, Jenna.” Dr. Stanhope suggested as she dropped the subject in.  No more than a second after his soft and playful bounce into the toe section of Jenna’s sock did the two women see the subject’s stress levels reach new highs.

Jenna’s cute, chubby cheeks blushed nearly as red as her scrunchie. “Oh my god….why is he freaking out like that?  They don’t smell bad!”

The intern pressed her nose into the mouth of the sock and breathed in.  “They smell like coconuts!”

Dr. Stanhope laughed, “You mustn't take it personally, Jenna. Watch.”

The red-headed scientist maneuvered Jenna’s sock so that it was mouth to mouth with her own.  As if the two socks were kissing, they passed the tiny subject from one to the other.  Still, his stress levels remained high and the graphed line a deep, troubling purple.

“May I?” Jenna asked awkwardly, to which Dr. Stanhope nodded and handed Jenna her white sock.

Jenna’s eyes widened, “Your sock doesn’t smell bad either!  It's just a fruity scent!”

“So are you convinced now that his stress and comfort is not linked explicitly to negative aroma stimulation?”

“Hmm…I mean…I think that makes sense…but maybe it's just a mental thing?  Maybe he just really doesn’t like feet? My feet have NEVER smelled and I take really good care of them…and I’ve had a few boyfriends that still wouldn’t even give me a foot massage.”

Dr. Stanhope grinned, “Well, if you’re not convinced yet…I think you will be soon.  We’ve got one last test.”  She gestured toward another ziplock bag that had yet to be opened.

The moment that Jenna broke the seal of the ziplock bag, the poor intern began gagging.

“Oh, dear…that smells terrible!” Jenna exclaimed, pinching the offwhite cotton bundle with as little of her finger and thumb as possible, pulling it out of the bag.  She gagged again.

Dr. Stanhope was just as affected by the pungent, earthy, feminine musk as Jenna was, but Dr. Stanhope had quite the poker face.  She held out her hand and Jenna seemed grateful to be rid of the stinking fabric.  The red-headed beauty delicately opened up the nearly thread-bare fabric, revealing that the off-white cotton was in fact a pair of underwear.

“Whoa…those are much bigger than Sabrina’s.” Jenna said.

“Well…Ms. King is much bigger than Sabrina!” Dr. Stanhope replied, pulling open the waistband just like she did with the peach-colored pair.  The aroma was wildly unappealing and unpleasant, but Dr. Stanhope remained stoic and her facial expression unchanged, even as she identified a strong discoloration along the inside seat of the underwear.  The discoloration did not appear new and it matched the subject’s new, permanent skin tone.

“Oh, no.” Jenna said as Dr. Stanhope retrieved the subject from her own sock and moved him toward Ms. King’s gargantuan pair of underwear.  “That’s gonna kill him.”

Dr. Stanhope gently but firmly forced the subject face down into the discolored stain tracking vertically along the center of the underwear and folded it over several times, securing him tightly in the balled up panties.

“What the…his stress levels…” Jenna’s response amused Dr. Stanhope to no end.

Boy, did she love being right.

“...they’re….”

“...non-existent.” Dr. Stanhope finished proudly.

“How?  He called Ms. King’s rear fat and disgusting earlier!  She has poor hygiene!  He finds her wildly unattractive!  How on earth could her dirty underwear be calming him down right now?”

“It’s quite simple and is more common than you might think.  It’s not as if subject-329k was lying about his feelings regarding Ms. King or her large backside. However, those feelings of revulsion and his desire for solace are not conflicting concepts. Something very interesting is happening here.”

Dr. Stanhope gently squeezed the large wadded ball of soiled panties together in her hands, increasing the pressure on the subject buried within.  Just as she expected, subject-329k’s stress levels continued to decrease.

“And the pressure….” Jenna said, her mouth agape as she put the pieces together.  “Now you’re…simulating his experience in Ms. King’s bottom…”

“What we’re seeing right now is an involuntary response,” Dr. Stanhope said. “His years spent compressed and surrounded by the flesh of Ms. King’s buttocks as well as the accompanying and unrelenting pheremonal exposure has imparted in subject-329k the impression of exclusive comfort, safety, and protection.”

“You’re saying that…even as much as he appears to dislike it, Ms. King’s butt…literally makes him feel safe?” Jenna asked hesitantly.

“Precisely! That’s why Sabrina’s undergarments were marginally constructive in minimizing the subject’s stress levels and only somewhat more effective than our gentle petting and soothing tones.  Nestling between buttocks is a large part of his life now…and he recognized the aroma of Sabrina’s rear present in the fabric. Whether he’d admit it or not, the aroma prompted within him the memory of being compressed between two large buttocks.”

“But not Ms. King’s buttocks.” Jenna added, smiling.

“That’s right!  Sabrina’s buttocks would be more than adequate at protecting and insulating subject-329k, but as Dorothy said back in 1939, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

Jenna giggled and then gasped, her widened eyes indicating she’d had another epiphany. “And that’s why he was so repulsed by our socks! Even though they didn’t actually smell unpleasant at all!”

Dr. Stanhope grinned and nodded, “Being surrounded by such a foreign scent of a woman, no matter how pleasant it may be, is a traumatic experience for him.  His file indicates that he’s made A LOT of progress since his last visit.  Have you read about the sTS?”

“That’s the subject Tier System, right?  Dr. Bexley mentioned it during lecture last week but I don’t think we’ve gotten into it yet.”

“Well, I won’t steal Dr. Bexley’s thunder, but the tier system essentially describes how far along a subject is in accepting his new environment between his assigned Participant’s buttocks.  After Reduction Therapy, they start at Tier-0 and hopefully ascend to Tier-4.”

Dr. Stanhope unfolded Ms. King’s underwear and subject-329k flopped out, landing with a light thud.

“Dr. Becotte performed this subject’s last screening and she assessed him at Tier-1. I can confidently say, with his reaction to our socks as well as Sabrina’s and Ms. King’s undergarments that subject-329k is AT LEAST Tier-2 and possibly encroaching on the boundary into Tier-3. Let’s make a note of that in his file and wrap up.”

“That’s exciting!” Jenna chirped, “I can’t wait until we learn more about the subject Tier System!”

“I’ll speak with Dr. Bexley later today and find out when she plans on discussing it.” Dr. Stanhope said, scooping the squeaking subject up and depositing him in a small pill-box container and capping the lid. “Perhaps I’ll sit in, seeing as I helped develop the sTS!”

Jenna frowned, watching the cap seal over top of the subject.  “It’s a shame that Ms. King’s panties are so huge.  Perhaps we could have stuffed them into the container with him to comfort him?”

Dr. Stanhope applied a small sliver of plastic adhesive over the cap of the container, creating a tamper-proof seal and placed her initials, CS, overtop of the lid.

“Well, you know what they say...absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Jenna laughed as the two gathered up the supplies, leaving their workstation as clean as it was when they first started using it.

“Let’s get him over to Dr. Zhang so she can conduct her nutritional analysis.”

~