The music stopped - Argenta's doing again - and she stood, hands on hips, tapping one foot impatiently. "Put that wig back on, bitch. Now."

It was still clutched in one hand, like a strangled mink. Now he flung it to the floor. "You fucking wear it! I've had it with you-"

He had turned away, but more quickly than he could have imagined she was at his side, gripping his wrists like twin vices. He struggled, swore and kicked with all his might, but it was like wrestling with an earthmover, and he was unable to stop her from dragging him to the nearest armless chair, planting him face down on her lap. Then she waited, calmly, silently, pinning his wrists behind him until his struggles, his cries, inevitably ceased, and he lay on top of her, exhausted, sweating.

Then, keeping his wrists pinned with one hand, she reached up with the other beneath his dress, grasping the elastic of his knickers and pulling them down past his garter belts and stockings to his knees.

Paxton felt as if he was dropping down a narrow, dark, bottomless well. His cockhead rubbed against the material of Argenta's own dress, but he was unable to reposition himself to get more comfortable.

Then the smack came without warning, sending waves of shock, pain and humiliation through him like a wire. He gasped audibly, fighting back tears as she repeated it a dozen times.

When she stopped, his buttocks were ablaze, raw. Worse, his cock continued to scream for relief. Damn it, why was he enjoying this?

"Do you promise to be a good little girl, and do what l say?"

"Fuck off!"

Another dozen smacks followed. Her hand was like a steel cricket bat against his rapidly tenderising flesh. Then she stopped, repeating her question. This time he wasn't defiant, caught up in the rush of emotion through him, but she took his silence for continued resistance, and began a third assault.

Finally he cried out, "I promise! I promise!"

Argenta stopped, letting him rise to his trembling feet, tears running his makeup, face and ass red and burning, cock sticking forward from under his rucked up dress. Ineffable pleasure made him shudder.

"Put your wig back on."

He reached down to pull up his knickers; as alien as they were to him, they were better now than nothing.

"No. Take them off completely, and use them to clean up that drink you made me spill."

Something in her voice made him obey. Knickers in one hand, wig fitted back on over his own hair, he turned and knelt by the dark oval stain in the plush carpet. Still crying, and glad to be able to turn away from her, he vainly tugged at the back of his dress, unable to even partially cover his still-stinging buttocks, and tried to mop up the drink. But the satin wouldn't absorb the liquid! What would she do to him now?

He found out when she attached something to his collar. He glanced back from the corner of one eye: it was the chain Argenta had slung around her. Now it functioned like a dog leash. She tugged on it, reminding him continuously of her proximity and his submissive stance. "I know what you're feeling Paxton. Even more than you know yourself. Don't worry, it's all part of your rehabilitation." She knelt behind him, one hand rudely squeezing his rear end, which welcomed her cool, polished touch. One finger - her middle one, he guessed with an almost absent detachment - pressed against the puckered opening to his rectum like a doorbell. Instinctively he clenched and pulled away slightly.

"Don't resist me, lover. You can't fight me. Just surrender." That voice, electric honey, demanding, promising. A part of him wanted what she promised. When her finger returned, he made an effort to relax, allowing her entry. She seemed to fill him up slowly, drawing back and forth. He stopped even pretending to clean up the mess, remaining on his hands and knees, eyes closed, enjoying the sensations produced. It was exquisite; denied access to his cock, he sought relief in any form, from any source. When she finally withdrew, he perceived it as an emptiness, a loss: how strange.

Argenta was doing something behind him, parting his thighs, his buttocks, further.

"And now comes the fun part, girlfriend."

And she re-entered him.

And not with her finger.

Paxton didn't dare look behind him as he was filled up, again and again. One of Argenta's hands still clutched his chain, the other his dress, grunting and cursing him for being such a tight fit. Amazingly, these remarks aroused him, and even made him thrust back to meet her inexplicable advances. Time dilated, focused in on itself until it no longer mattered. What did matter was the build-up of pressure inside Paxton, until, without even being touched, his orgasm shuddered from him, and he felt the creamy bullets forced from his cock to the carpet below.

Nothing, nothing before had ever equalled this! From a far off distance he was aware of suddenly being emptied and released, and he fell into a welcome foetal position, ignoring the stains of his own semen on the dress, ignoring the persistent tug of the chain on his collar. Something warm and wet seeped from between his rear end; gingerly he reached back and dabbed his fingertips into it, bringing it into view. It was semen-like, but not real.

"I know you enjoyed that, baby."

Paxton looked up finally. Argenta stood naked above him; her body had changed significantly. Her breasts were gone, her chest now flat and masculine, but what drew Paxton's immediate attention was the large erect phallus sprouting from her pubic thatch, with a large pair of balls hanging in a wrinkled sac beneath. He had half-expected something like that; nothing could surprise him anymore.

"Like it, girlfriend?" she asked needlessly, lewdly grasping her phallus by the base; lingering drops of semen clung to the tiny slit on its head. "Oh, didn't you know that the Mark XlI line has Dual Gender Configuration? You get more for your money with us." Her smile dropped. "Get on your knees and face me again. And don't move."

He obeyed, sore, afraid. Excited.

"You've ruined that dress, girlfriend. Remove it. Tear it from your body. All your clothes, in fact!"

Again, he obeyed; the gel bubbles used to simulate breasts, and glued to his chest, made him cry out as he pulled them. In moments, he was as naked as she was. But of course, that was where any equality ended.

In seconds, a warm stream of what could have been urine spouted from Argenta's phallus, striking Paxton's face, his body. He shuddered, cried inside. But he obeyed, as if he'd been doing this all his life.

Her smile returned, and she tugged at the chain still connected to his collar. "Tell me you loved that, Paxton."

Paxton found his voice, "I. loved it.". And he had.

"Now tell me you want it again, over and over."

"I. want it again. Over. And over." And he did.

"That's all I wanted to hear." Then, strangely, Argenta shuddered, as if something had gone wrong with her internal machinery. Paxton blinked, frowned, half-hoped she was malfunctioning. That he also half-feared this outcome was not something he was prepared to consider now.

But then it became academic, as "consciousness" returned to Argenta's eyes. Only, from the way she moved now, and what she said, it became immediately clear that it wasn't Argenta's consciousness. "Hello Paxton."

He recognised the new voice, and immediately covered himself up. "Angela?"

The eyes were ablaze with immense satisfaction. "I doubt if you've worked it out, so let me help you along. Your family did arrange for this Mark XII to be your Rehabilitator but they let me reprogram it. It seems they found it more important to court my company's favour over protecting a scummy little predator like yourself. I didn't program Argenta to serve your already overweening macho ego and libido, but to break you, to humble you, to make you grovel in the dirt, as you made me do. Do you remember, Paxton?"

"Y-Yes," he declared blankly, his hed spinning.

"And Argenta has sent me detailed reports on your progress. Like these," Behind them, the wallscreen lit up with rapid-fire images, video/audio recordings that were obviously from Argenta's point of view. Images of Paxton on his knees, wanking. Of Paxton parading about in Argenta's knickers and stockings. Of Paxton tonight, over Argenta's knees. And of Paxton, being taken from behind, and loving it. "And I've sent selected images to all your former friends. You've been quite the spectacle at parties."

He swallowed hard; all this time, and she'd been watching him, watching his most private humiliating moments. and showing others! "Okay, Angie. You've had your fun. Now the show's over."

The images vanished. "Over, Paxton? Not likely. In fact, the fun's only started."

He sat up now, his hands vainly crossed over his crotch. "What?"

"You should have accepted the opportunity to receive behaviour modification. You're a useless creature of privilege, Paxton, a rutting stag with delusions of importance, a relic from a bygone age, and so very badly in need of improvement. So, for the good of womankind, Argenta and I intend to keep you here for long after your year is up."

Paxton's stomach knotted and curled like a worm on a hot plate. "You can't- the Courts- My family-"

"Yes, I can. Your records are being carefully modified, so as far as the Courts are concerned, you'll serve your time and disappear. As for your family, do you really think they care about you? Really?"

Paxton's stared bleakly, didn't dare answer that. It was no joke, he could tell; he didn't even question it. He fought to find some last shred of dignity. He may as well have tried to catch smoke in his hands. "And what happens to me?"

"You learn to serve me. Argenta and me." Angela, still in Argenta's body, circled around him slowly, her cock still erect, pointing the way. "Telepresence technology allows me to 'inhabit' her body like this. You'll not starve. But you'll work hard, harder than you ever did before. And you'll be made into your own ideal woman: servile, submissive, sluttish.

Your old identity's dead and gone now. It never suited you, anyway; you were never truly comfortable with it. But you are with this," She waved a hand in his direction. She must have seen something in his eyes, some dying spark of denial, for she added, "You forget, Argenta's programmed to seek out what its 'owner' truly desires, even if they don't know it - yet. But now you do." Argenta's lips curled into a smirk. "See, Paxton? Everyone gets what they want out of this relationship. I'll check in on you every now and then. Have a good time."

Argenta's eyes blinked, flared out momentarily, then returned, and Paxton knew Argenta's core personality had returned. "I suppose we should rename you now: 'Pavla' should do; it means 'little'. You'll be able to remember that, yes?" She stopped, her smile dropping.

He nodded, unable to take his eyes away from her. She moved closer, her erection pointing at him.

"Now, show me what you can do."

He understood, drawing Argenta's phallus into his mouth, tasting honey sweet come and watery faux-urine still clinging to it.

*

Paxton scrubbed the rim of the toilet slowly and methodically; Argenta, with her optical sensors, could pick up minute traces of dirt better than a Marine drill sergeant, and he wasn't ready for another spanking so soon.

He had worn the black and white maid's outfit for so long now he ignored it, unless Argenta gave him one of her close inspections. If the seams of his stockings were misaligned, or if he had forgotten to shave his legs again, or if his new breasts, 38Ds, the result of ongoing nanotherapy, failed to please her.

When he was finished he straightened up, stopping to check his lipstick and eyeliner in the mirror; he'd learned their proper applications quickly enough to please Argenta, which was all that mattered to him now.

Absently he reached down to touch his crotch, still fascinated by the changes occurring there, too. Thanks to the nanotherapy, he was becoming a woman, slowly but surely, and with none of the butchery of sex-change operations of the 20th and early 21st century either. His penis was barely an inch long now, and impotent, and his balls almost non-existent; below his testicles, a vagina had formed, continued to develop. Someday soon, Argenta had promised, he would awaken one morning and find the last vestiges of his manhood gone, his penis having become a clitoris. Then he would be a fully functioning woman, with clitoral and vaginal orgasms - even periods!

He made his way into the living room, tottering only once on his high heels; after weeks of enforced practice, he could wear even the steepest stilettos now. Argenta was there at the Cyberterminal, dressed in one of his old T-shirts and jeans, her - his? - hair a rude crew-cut. Her features, even her skin, had changed permanently, becoming harder, masculine, even as he was moving towards the softer, the feminine.

Paxton broke one of the new house rules, and stared directly into his Mistress' eyes. They were dimmed, and her hand was on the power coupling. She was recharging: something she normally did when he was fast asleep.

He could disable her now.

Slowly, quietly he crept into the kitchen, returning with the pulse disc he had secretly removed from the cooker that morning, when he was scrubbing behind it. The disc could send a disabling electromagnetic charge through her skin, disrupting her neural network and shutting her down long enough for him to go for help. One second more, and he'd be free again. Free.

But free to do what? Even assuming he could regain his old gender, his old identity, would his family take him back again? Would his friends? An even if they did, could he return to what he was? As harsh as his new life could be, it was also more satisfying that any he'd known. His rehabilitation had made him a better man woman than he'd been before.

"Tell me you loved that, Paxton."

"I. loved it.". And he had.

"Now tell me you want it again, over and over."

"I. want it again. Over. And over." And he did.

His admission, as true now as they had been on that fateful night, weeks ago. He had a purpose, a meaning in life now, even if it had been the last thing he had expected.

He returned the disc, aware that he could never come that close to rebellion ever again.

"I hope that's settled any lingering doubts, Pavla." Argenta rose - it had been a test; she must have been watching him, known what he had thought of doing, all this time - and towered over him. "Has it?"

Paxton nodded meekly, acknowledging his fate was sealed. "Yes, Sir."

"Good." She slapped him on the ass. "Now get back to work. And if you please me, I'll let you wear that red chemise to bed tonight."

Inside his favourite black satin knickers, Paxton's pussy stirred for the first time and grew wet.