#electrostimulation

You take a step back. Then another. And another. Your back hits cold steel.

It stands in front of you, impossibly quiet for its size, and reaches out to hold your neck in place. Polished metal limbs glint under the flickering industrial light overhead. It’s eye– if you could even call it that– is a slit of glowing blue humming softly like a bug trapped in a glass jar. It doesn’t speak. You’re not sure if it can. You try sidestepping, but its arm slides from your skin, barring your path abruptly. You knew this would happen when you came here alone.

Its free hand trails lower, cold fingertips running from your collarbone to your chest. Its digits stop right over a nerve-dense spot below your ribs, close to your waist. Organic nervous systems are so much easier to manipulate, you’re sure it’s thinking as it presses down on the skin there and watches it concave around the touch.

A sudden jolt– a sharp, precise zap, perhaps– hits beneath your skin, right where it’s pressing. It’s not painful, but it's certainly not pleasurable either; it's a third thing, a surge that runs through your nerves, from your torso to your arms and thighs to your fingertips and toes. Your knees wobble. You’re on high alert.

You realize what it’s doing now, it’s testing you. It’s observing your reaction to its actions, better yet, it's liking them. 

Another jolt. Higher this time, just beneath your ribcage, pressing into the bone. You suck in a breath and squirm, but it pins you harder against the wall. The pressure releases from your neck as its hands roam again, probing, searching for the perfect cluster of nerves to exploit. Tell me where it hurts or I’ll find it myself, it’s thinking.