They say "traveling opens the mind", it's indeed hard to convey how much this trip to Weltbeltein had shattered my view of the world. You get used to being treated like a king. Like I believe most men would have, I tried to resist the dehumanizing ways this country treats half of its population. Reading Claire's report, I can see how horrible my behavior look like. But it was another country, another culture. You must remember it's not the case of a gender dominating another, the current situation had emerged from a democratic process where the women themselves had championed these discriminatory laws. And "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", isn't it? I can assure you that all the companions I was  given were perfectly willing and eager to submit to any men's desiresand very willing to serve me in particular.

And there's the case of Claire. We would never suspect she would be classified as cattle. Fortunately, she was assigned to me so I could protect her as much as I could. I couldn't soare her the deeply ingrained humiliation stemming from Weltbeltein's laws but at least she was safe from any sexual assault from the general misogynistic population.

I'm only a man. I believe not a single man on earth, save maybe some monks, would succumb to temptation if he were locked like I was, assaulted relentlessly like I was, by dozens of beautiful women trying to seduce him. Don't get me wrong: Claire is the obvious victim of Weltbeltein's practices, I'm not trying to compare our sufferings. If I crossed a line, I'm ready to accept the consequences. But I was never prepared for what I saw there, I'm just an office worker, I've never had any training to react to situations like these. It was abuse.

I understand why this country is so closed and secretive now. It's as much to protect themselves and their way of life as to protect the foreigners trying to get in. Claire and I will be both scarred by this experience, maybe for life.

So, believe me when I say I wasn't in my right state of mind. In retrospect, I should never have agreed to volunteer her as a subject for what they call "The Brain Scrambler". I deeply regret it.

During the meeting with Mr. Vuskvangher, I didn't grasp the full implication of this particular device because he purposely deceived me, trying to use the charm of the two beautiful girls he had in his office to distract me. 

The device offered a new process to quickly train women, literally reprogramming their brains to condense years of training into days. If I had understood it correctly, I would never have put Claire under it.

Training a woman, a "cattle" as they said was indeed hard work, and it would often takes years of drugs, conditioning, punishment, reward... and results were never guaranteed. A rebellious woman was a rare thing in this country, but, as I was told, not unheard of. Also, Weltbeltein's people were not monsters. They tried as much as they could to have the women enjoy their life of servitude and that was precisely what the device was designed to do: make the subjugated women more obedient, yes, but also happier.

The day after Vuskvangher's meeting, I was woken up by one of the girls servicing me. Again, I never asked her to do that, but when I opened my eyes, she was there, sucking my member sensually and willingly. The other girl soon joined. They could have been twins. They were both blonde, with perfectly applied heavy makeup, small noses, high cheekbones, both the product of plastic surgery without a doubt. All the girls that were assigned to me since I entered the country have looked like that and I'm not stupid, I understand it was a deliberate strategy to make me incapable of distinguishing them, to push me to dehumanize them more.

It was a bit before noon. I finished my business with the girls just as the doorbell rang, announcing three bowls of mush for the girls and food for myself.

Claire was looking less agitated than the day before. It was still a shock seeing her: her platinum hair, her face colorfully painted, with a vacant, frozen, happy, somehow sultry expression, and these lips! Big, plump, dominating her face. She was starting to look a bit like the other two women I have in my room. On her ear, her tag was still displaying a picture of her old face, with her brown hair. The portrait had been taken when she first arrived in the airport. With her eyes wide open and her all-natural face, she looked so different, so much more human. Just below was the picture of her anus and vagina, and I tried not to look at it.

The three women knelt in front of the bowls, with only Claire wearing clothes and I slapped them one after the other so they could eat. I turned my back on them as I ate my own food on the table.

The girl then tried to dress Claire but she fought back silently and pointed at my computer. I understood immediately and left her the keyboard, heart racing, bracing myself for an accusation about my behavior of the previous day. I was deeply ashamed of my actions. What was I thinking, masturbating, ejaculating on my own boss? This sick, perverted country had twisted my mind.

But instead of the blame I was so afraid of, she simply typed with her long nails: "How did it go?"

"Ah." Of course, she couldn't really focus during the meeting yesterday and was eager to know what happened. I wondered how much of my own attitude had she forgotten.

"Uh...It went well. He's ready to sell us the exclusive right of use of their tech."

More clicks on the keyboard: "Worldwide?"

I nodded. She typed some more.

"Tech? Price? Details?!!!!
-Yes, uh, there is a small condition first. That... would depend on you. They didn't tell me exactly. They want... to show us. Today."

She made a gesture with her hands, encouraging me to continue.

"Well... ok... for the demonstration, they want to showcase the effects on... on you."

Claire thought for a minutes, then shook her head and wrote: "NO WAY. NEVER. Other way?"

"No other way, he was pretty adamant. He said the tech is safe, reversible and that they would never harm an US citizen. I... I don't think we have a choice."

I think I suggested we should give up. And, as she deliberately wanted to oppose me, I could almost see the gears turning in her head. She was an obstinate, determinated woman, some would even say stubborn. She would do anything to get what she wanted, to get this exclusive deal with this country that was 10 years ahead of the rest of the world. And she already did a lot here. All the efforts, all the humiliation, the pain she had endured. Maybe that's what decided her. She shook her head and her nails clicked on the keyboard again.

"I'll do it. We need the tech."

She did her makeup herself then dressed up in a micro-skirt and minuscule top. She didn't seem to trust the girls anymore. Soon after, I received a text message telling me a car was waiting for me downstairs.

I took her leash and we exited the room. At this point, I'd gotten better at holding her chain, able to react better when she was tugging, capable of adjusting my pace so she would not trip on her heels. We walked confidently to the hotel entrance where I helped her get inside the car, trying not to look up her skirt as she sat.

The vehicle brought us to a vast research institute, with several very modern looking buildings, and we parked near one labelled, in English, "Center for Advanced Neuromodulation".

After a short stay in a waiting room, I was greeted by a short scientist with a thick grey mustache.

"John, isn't it?", he asked, all smiles.
"Yes.
-I'm professor Sonnenblum. Leave your cattle here, we'll take care of her."

I could see the panic in the half-closed eyes of Claire, as the last time she got separated from me she had to endure 2 weeks of conditioning, but I muttered her to not worry. Not sure if she had heard me.

I was led to a darkened room behind a one-way mirror. There was one other scientist here, intensely focused on computer screens displaying gauges and knobs, operating the device I could see beyond the glass.
On the other side was something like a high-tech dentist's chair. Suspended above it hung a device that looked like some helmet, bristling with greys wires that snaked in every direction, contrasting starkly with the pristine, sterile white of the room.

And Claire entered. She also clashed with the room, in her way.
Her long legs looked even taller in the heels she was wearing and how much thigh was on display in the blue miniskirt that didn't even reach the bottom of her small ass. On top, she was wearing a crop top that would reveal a bit of her underboob every time she moved. A very different attire from the white coats of the two scientists that were helping her walk, then sit.

They spent a long, long time connecting the helmet to her head, working in a tight loop with the operator on the other side of the mirror. 

"They're implanting the interface now.", said the mustached scientist with pride. "It's robotically guided by the helmet. See this glowing thing jutting on the right of the device? That’s the thread bundle: fifty-two thousand channels total, spread across sixty-four ultra-flexible polymer threads. Each thread is thinner than a human hair."

I tensed. Open skull surgery? This was not at all what I had envisioned. But there was no going back now. I wondered if I could stop the operation, but I was paralyzed. On one hand, I knew Claire would kill me if made the deal fail. On the other hand... was she really ready to go that far?

Sensing the panic setting in, he tried to reassure me: "It's a invasive procedure, but very minimal, don't worry. Still, there is more than FIFTY THOUSAND electrodes across targeted cortical and subcortical regions. Not bad, uh?"

He clearly loved his job. 

"It's not connected to all neurons of course, that would be impossible.", he continued, full of enthusiasm, "Each thread will stimulate key areas of her brain. It will be trivial to map it with AI."

When it was done, one of the operator stayed with her and the other joined us in the control room.

"We're ready.", he said.

I looked at Claire, who was bizarrely indolent. So, from my point of view, she was OK with the whole thing. I would learn later she had been given a strong cocktail of sodium amytal, scopolamine, GHB, thiopental... drugs designed to make her docile but also to decrease her higher cortical brain functions and inhibitions. They were shutting down any logical filters between the external world and her brain.

"Ok. Calibrating."

Claire's room darkened. On the wall in front of her was projected different scenes: a beach, a park, a room. Streets. Animals. People. Facials expressions. And words. Lots of words. 

"We're building her individual neural concept map. Words are very useful for that. The implants record neural activity in real time."

After forty silent minutes, one screen turned green. "Baseline mapping at ninety-four percent confidence", a technician said. "Ready for closed-loop validation."

Then, after a while, he announced: "Now, we're ready for the reverse."

A single word was projected on the screen: "covered". At the same time, a 3D visualization of Claire's brain illuminated certain areas on a computer screen.

"Good. It matches the prediction. We are recording concepts, and how it's organized in her brain.
-What... what will you do with it", I asked, half fascinated, half scared by what my boss was being subjected to.
"Originally, it was called a brain scrambler, and it was used to remove certain concepts. Right here, you can see the blood flow, the electrical charges, how the neurons are connected and activated. Basically, we are reading her mind.", he said casually. He noticed my eyes widening.

"Haha. That's nothing revolutionary. Your own country already had that tech in 2025. But the brain scrambler can REMOVE a concept. Display a picture of the word, and inhibit the neurons from firing, or fire different neurons." He looked at me with playful eyes. "Neurons that fire together, wire together.", he quoted. "We can do something much more interesting than reading her mind: we can substitute a concept by another."

I stared at Claire's body sitting still on the other side of the glass, and felt a chill.

A picture appears on the wall: a woman covered head to toes, her hands in gloves, her eyes behind a one way veil, exercising on a treadmill.

"The first thing we must fix is her fashion sense, because all subsequent training sessions contains picture of barely dressed cattle.", he explained. "And we don't want her to be distracted by what they are wearing. Look at the predicted words."

He pointed to a screen, which had lots of words, a lot of different concepts, organized in different size like those words cloud you can see on some presentations. Most words were green, indicating a match with the prevision :
*poor girl*, *horrible thing to wear*, *abnormal*, *too much covered*, *hindering*, *suffocating*...

"This is her feeling when seeing a girl exercising in a thick burqa. A pretty normal feeling."

These words were played back on the screen, a feedback loop, an ultimate test, the match was validated. They were really reading into Claire's mind.

Another picture. A woman entirely covered in thick layer of clothes, preparing food. The words *too hot*, *too covered*, *weird*, *uncomfortable* flashed up, among dozen of other conceptually similar ones, were displayed.
Another picture. A beach, a woman strolling on the beach, under layers and layers of clothes, her eyes hidden, in fact, not na inch of her body were visible. The words coming form Claire's brain were similar: *suffocation*, *horrible*, *too covered*....
After dozens of pictures, they had a clear map of what this concept of "being covered in too many clothes" look like in her brain.

The process was repeated with picture of women a bit less clothed. This time, the words weren't as intense: *hot*, *overdressed*...

Then, images of women with normal attires, that didn't really trigger any particular words. I saw the words *beautiful*, *tight*, *chic* flash, but even I could tell fashion wasn't the central point of attention. Most words were about the location, the action, the general scene and not the clothes.

The intensity went back up with people wearing short skirts and crop tops. The words cloud now contains *revealing*, *too short*, *cold*, *shame*.
The pictures changed again, to street walkers, strippers and pornstars and the intensity spiked. Words like *slutty*, *shame*, *obscene*, *vulgar*, *disgusting*, *filthy*, *indecent* would pop up.
Everything was recorded and mapped and ready to be played back. That was the next phase.

In the darkened white room appeared a bright picture of a fit young woman, standing in a mall, wearing a short crop top, showing a bit of her toned stomach, jean shorts displaying her toned legs that ended up in sneakers.

Claire would have judged the outfit too revealing, for sure. But the scientists PLAYED BACK the "being covered in too many clothes" concept: electric charges firing with nanometer precision stimulating the precise brain areas linked to this concept.

Then, stop. The room became pitch black. The same picture, the "being covered in too many clothes" concept fired back at her. And again. And again.

Then, another similar picture illuminated the wall: a female secretary in a very short skirt and a blouse, displaying a copious amount of cleavage. Once again, they fired back the concept, delivering a clear message deep into Claire's mind: this skimpy dressed secretary was in fact wearing too much clothes.
And, little by little, they remodeled her thoughts. They would display a picture, fire the concept. Then display it again, see what neurons were firing. Scramble it, fire the new concept. Doing it again, and again.

At first, nothing changed in Claire's mind. But, slowly, I could see in real time Claire's thought pattern changing.

A grid girl in a skimpy mini-short and tight branded crop top? *suffocating*, *too covered*, uncomfortable*...
A model wearing a one piece conservative swimsuit? *too hot*, *too much clothes*, *restraining*, *constrictive*...
A young women wearing a minidress at a party? The words popping were: *suffocating*, *too covered*, *uncomfortable*...
Slowly, her concept of how much clothes was acceptable to wear changed.

At one point the screen displayed a picture of what was clearly a street walker. Her jean shorts were so tiny that one side of her pussy lips was lewdly poking out. Her crop-top barely containing her breasts, threatening to burst out, hard nipples first. It was pornographic but Claire's neural response was almost flat.
On the screen, a single glowing word confirmed success: *normal*.