Neural Stimulators

The neural stimulator was invented when I was a little girl. Though like many new technologies, early prototypes were not practical. The first designs cost fortunes to make, more to maintain and operate, were as large as rooms, and generally only existed at big universities, laboratories, or government research facilities.

I did not even hear about them until I was older, beginning high school. When I did, they immediately hooked my curiosity and interest. I wanted to learn all about them, specifically what they felt like to use. I remember writing a big essay in my sophomore year all about the technology behind neural stimulators.

How they work is by stimulating brain activity through use of projected, low-energy, fractally oscillating, pseudo-harmonic waves. The energy level and frequency of these beams is extremely mild, so no brain damage results. But certain brain cells are definitely, measurably stimulated into activity. Several areas, or clusters, scattered throughout the brain, mostly the limbic system, are susceptible. Including the nucleus accumbens, septum pellucidium, anterior cingulate cortex, and many others.

That is all very technical. What is important is the end result, the practical applications, which were potentially numerous.

Early tests indicated that the device acts like a powerful anti-depressant, and could potentially cure many mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder. One early study seemed to show that neural stimulators could induce docility in chronically violent patients. In some cases the machine appeared to reduce the frequency and severity of migraines, among many other minor, positive effects.

What neural stimulators really do, their biggest effect, is that they create a pleasurable sort of physiological and psychological high within the subject’s mind. Like being high on drugs.

Indeed, studies revealed that subject’s bodies release natural drugs or hormones within their brain, during treatment with a stimulator. For instance, researchers demonstrated very early that the device triggers massive release of epinephrine, endorphins, enkephalins, and dopamine, among others. The subjective effect is a feeling of happiness, or euphoria.

Supposedly it is like the good feeling associated with orgasm, except that one does not have an orgasm. There is no physical response, or muscle activity, only brain activity.

Upon learning this, I immediately wondered what it felt like. Deeply curious, I often thought about it, through my early teenage years. Of course my body was developing then, hormones and puberty and all that. When I discovered masturbation, my fantasies regularly centered around these sort of thoughts, imagining what it must be like to use a neural stimulator, to be in that state of induced orgasmic bliss or euphoria.

Neural stimulators were not available commercially back then. They were still too big, clunky, expensive, and impractical. But their use was spreading.

The scientists who invented the device had immediately went public with their discovery, hoping for fame, recognition, or perhaps scientific awards and money donations for further research. The publication of their discovery created a stir of excitement within the scientific and medical communities, worldwide.

As a result, many enthusiastic fans of the technology, from all over the globe, raised funding and started developing their own versions, worked out new and better ways of inducing the euphoric effect, and perfected smaller, cheaper designs of the machine which used less energy to achieve the same, or stronger, end result. And many of them in turn published their findings. As it became cheaper, the technology spread even faster.

After a few years, neural stimulators had shrunk down to around the size of an automobile, and then to the size of a refrigerator or large oven. They still demanded large amounts of energy to operate, and were awfully expensive, but cheap enough that most big hospitals could afford one.

A subject would lay upon a table and slide their head into a hole in the device. Switch it on and their brain was bombarded with carefully computer-calculated, oscillating, low-range, waves of energy. And hopefully, the subject achieved the desired state of mind.

See, neural stimulators do not work for all people equally. Everyone has unique wiring inside their brain, and for some people, neural stimulators are more effective than for others.

Each person has an individual and unique responsiveness that falls somewhere on a scale, from non-responsive or immune at one end, all the way to exceptionally susceptible at the other.

Studies showed that when measuring how a given individual responds to the device, on a scale of zero to ten, they could score anywhere in that range, and would have the same response index every time they used the machine. But it was almost impossible to predict where someone would score in advance, until they used it and their responsiveness was measured.

Some scientists theorize that it has to do with how the subject’s brain cells have folded during development, when they were a fetus inside the womb. This folding was essentially a random process determined by all sorts of variables related to cell division, genetics, luck, and who knows what else. Anyway, by adulthood these brain-folds are cemented into place, and a person’s responsiveness index was long ago locked in at whatever it would be. But nobody could figure out a way to predict it just by looking at a person.

Age, race, IQ score, preexisting conditions, general health, nothing seemed to be related to the effect. Except for one thing. For whatever reason, the responsiveness differential is gender-based. Women tend to respond to neural stimulators more than men. Though even at that, results are highly varied. There are a few highly-responsive men, and non-responsive women. Rare, but they exist.

Plotting the distribution, or responsiveness curve of the population, say on a bar chart, spitting results by gender, one notices that about 19% of males are a zero, or totally non-responsive to the device. Whereas only 2%, or one in fifty females, measure as a zero. At the other end, 23% of women rate a nine or higher, but only 3% of men do.

Statistically, on average, men react to the effect at an intensity level of two to three, most often. But women average around a six to eight.

I wondered where I would score on the scale. Being a girl, I could expect at least a 75% chance of responding at a five or higher! But I had yet to find out. Even by my late teenage years, I had not yet had the opportunity to try.

As the years went on, neural stimulators kept getting smaller and cheaper. When I was a senior in high school, they were already about the size of a standard microwave oven. Several companies were manufacturing and mass-producing them, with better versions every few months. By that time most hospitals owned a few stimulators, for specialized treatments.

But the biggest breakout commercial application for these machines turned out to be their adoption by the sexual service industry.

Sex shops started buying them, for their clientele to rent. Then soon after, brothels did too. After all, using a neural stimulator was safer than sleeping with a prostitute. No chance of disease, or physical abuse, or other ugly issues. And for many people, especially women, the effect felt more pleasurable than orgasm anyway.

I was intensely curious, and though I fantasized about it often, I never did sneak into any of these places, to try out a neural stimulator. My parents were strongly against that sort of thing and I did not want to disappoint them if they should find out.

At first, the availability of renting one of these machines was limited to seedy, underground, dirty-seeming establishments. Places like porn shops, strip clubs, and similar. But as their popularity swelled, stimulator rentals gradually became more accepted socially, until it was even commonplace for every moderately-sized city to have at least one neural lounge.

Neural lounges became the hot new type of business. Typically clean, well-managed, legitimate service providers. Customers would enter, rent a certain amount of time with a machine, most often in a private room, and use it for what was euphemistically termed mood enhancement. Some people just called it getting high.

While getting high, customers performed various activities. Since the device does not engage the body, and induces no muscles spasms or other physical reactions, it is possible to multitask and do something productive while the machine operates. Like say knitting. Or any other idle activity involving your hands. For instance, masturbation.

It is very natural to play with yourself while under the effect, as the feeling is so closely tied into the pleasure center of the brain. The owners of such establishments usually looked the other way. That is why the rooms were so often private, after all. But despite the natural tendency, not all customers at neural lounges masturbated every time.

Many people brought magazines, or newspapers, or books, to read while they were stimulated. Stimulator waves are low-energy, extremely short range, thus the machines when running do not interfere with other electronic devices. So customers at neural lounges sometimes brought their laptop and would browse the internet, or check email. Many people texted, or talked on the phone, while being stimulated. It is entirely possible to hold a conversation while under the effect, though you may be distracted, spacey, or silly-happy.

Some people developed an addiction to sessions with neural stimulators, much like drug addiction, for in a way that is what it was. They are addicted to the drugs released by their own body in reaction to the energy waves from the machine.

People already prone to that sort of behavior, that is, those with addictive personalities, are particularly vulnerable. At least neural stimulation was a safe sort of addiction, with no harmful side effects commonly seen with other drugs.

In fact, because they were safer than taking chemical drugs, neural stimulators started to replace recreational drug use. Why mess around with white powders, hallucinations, bad trips, hangovers, lung cancer, and so on, when you could safely and easily get high with a stimulator, and the effect would feel better anyway.

Use of a neural stimulator is a naturally habit-forming activity, according to the principle of pleasure conditioning or reward reinforcement. Support groups formed, just like with all other addictions from gambling to alcoholism. In proportion to the natural gender differential of the effect, these support groups are usually 90% women to 10% men.

Neural lounges necessarily benefited from the addictive property of their service, making huge profits on repeat business.

Owning, running, and visiting these establishments was always legal, from the very beginning. Though a few times the continued legality of this business model was in serious doubt.

Many concerned groups such as churches and self-proclaimed morality police attacked neural lounges as unethical and immoral. They brought complaints to the courts trying to get such establishments banned, made illegal, or at least regulated. They had some success.

Regulations, such as minimum age limits for customers, were quickly put in place and enforced upon the booming new industry. But despite all the attacks and moral criticisms, neural stimulators and the lounges that rented them out, remained legal.

The regulations did frustrate me though. For just as I was graduating high school, moving out of my parent’s house to attend college, now finally free of their rules, an adult capable of making my own decisions, now the law prevented me from experimenting with neural stimulators, as I was not yet old enough. And neural lounges were strict about enforcing the law too, carding and ID’ing everyone closely, because the fines for infraction were steep. I resigned to wait out the three years, until I turned twenty-one.

During those three years, miniaturization improvements kept making the devices smaller, cheaper, and less energy-hungry. Manufacturers came out with personal versions suitable for individual use within the home. Just plug them into a wall outlet for electricity.

No longer were stimulators limited by cost to hospitals, therapist’s offices, and neural lounges. Anybody could afford one. Though regulations and licensing restrictions still applied. You had to have a permit to buy one.

As neural stimulators grew in popularity, they also grew more socially acceptable. Slowly they became more and more mainstream. Owning one was viewed as no different or worse than owning a sex toy, or having beer in the fridge. In some ways, stimulators were actually more socially acceptable than those things.

Then manufacturers cracked the big barrier. They figured out how to reduce the extremely-high energy demands of the device, until battery power became sufficient for most short-term operation.

I avidly follow all the technical and marketing journals covering neural stimulator technology, and I knew about the breakthroughs as soon as anyone. Companies were planning on releasing portable versions. Then nineteen years old at the time, I was extremely excited.

Early portable designs were headgear. Goofy-looking helmets covered in circuitry. During focus group testing these proved ungainly, unattractive, and unpopular. So manufacturers tried other options.

The harmonic waves degrade quickly with distance, and so have rather short range, but as long as a device is within a few inches of your head, you feel the effect. So the next generation portable design was disguised as jewelry, such as large earrings or ear clips, in a variety of styles or product lines.

But the earring designs also proved ungainly, and still goofy-looking, just a little too big to look like proper earrings. Also, they proved unreliable, since hanging jewelry tends to swing with body movement and relative motion compared to the user’s head could interrupt or disrupt the signal. Those product lines were scrapped.

Then they finally hit it right. Marketing geniuses tried a different type of jewelry item: necklaces. A stimulator-wave device attached to a short necklace, or even better a collar, is close enough to the wearer’s brain for the field to be in range, to affect them. And they would not dangle or swing. The first designs were small enough to not look goofy or ungainly. At the time, chokers and collars happened to be fashionable, in style, and growing popular. All the elements of the equation were lined up for a smash hit, and it was. Sales skyrocketed.

Now you can take your stimulator with you anywhere. Find a moment of privacy, like say waiting alone in the elevator, or even just a discrete spot out of sight, around a corner, or in the bathroom, switch it on and get a quick high. Batteries did not last very long though, and had to be recharged frequently.

Because these devices were growing so popular, and so many people were wearing them and using them all over the place, it soon became acceptable to use them in plain sight, or openly in public. No worse than lighting up a cigarette. More acceptable in a way, because smoking is prohibited inside many buildings while stimulating is not.

Since the stimulator effect commonly induced an urge to masturbate, it eventually became sort of socially tolerated for people to casually touch themselves sexually in public, as long as they were at least moderately discrete about it.

More than once, I came around a corner in a deserted hallway or stairwell at school and stumbled across some older classmate standing there getting high with her collar. Visible signs sometimes included glazed or unfocused eyes. Or perhaps she would be squeezing a breast through her blouse, or even casually have a hand slipped under the waistband of her skirt. Those incidents always made me flush with arousal. Or how I desperately wanted to know what they were feeling!

After awhile, because stimulators were so popular and demand was so high, manufacturers, along with politically active users and supporters, successfully lobbied congress to lift permit regulations. Now anyone can buy one. Once potential customers did not need to muck around with the bureaucracy of applying for a permit, sales increased all the faster.

The age limit still applied though. If under twenty-one, you were not allowed to use them. However lots of people broke the law and got one when they were younger, usually by having an older friend purchase it for them. I know a lot of girls, friends and acquaintances, who did that. I never risked it myself, though I was tempted.

Meanwhile scientists figured out lots of ways to further reduce energy consumption. Combined with improvements to battery life, this meant that users could turn on their neural stimulator and leave it on for prolonged periods of time. Most users began doing so.

It is possible to walk around, go to your job, and otherwise function in society, while under the effect. More or less. You are aware of your surroundings, can talk and move normally, but you feel euphoric, perhaps dazed, almost floating, high on endorphins, the body’s natural pleasure drug. With practice, most users learned how to deal with these symptoms, growing accustomed to them, so they could function relatively normally while stimulating.

Although, they found that under the effect it is hard to be self-motivated, and so users tend to not be productive hard workers. Though it was soon discovered that external motivation works well. Users can and do follow instructions just fine, and so can get work done when under supervision and direction from their boss or others. Regular, day to day, long-term use of stimulators continued to become more and more common.

There were social implications. Almost immediately it became illegal to drive, or operate heavy machinery, while under the effect. Many users, especially the more susceptible women, are too spacey or happy-dopey when high on neural stimulation. So it was deemed unsafe to drive and stimulate at the same time, sensibly so.

A year later it even became illegal to possess a driver’s license at all, if you are a collar user. I had no problem with that, as I rode the bus. So I knew that when I finally did get to wear a collar, I could stimulate all the time if I liked. I was looking forward to it. Some people complained about all the regulations though.

Eventually, stimulator manufacturers figured out how to reduce the power requirements further, so much that they hardly consumed any energy at all, to operate. That way collars could be recharged kinetically, just by the wearer’s body movements, or even by their body heat. Like those new watches that do not need batteries and never wind down, they just keep running forever, as long as you wear them.

Soon, the typical collar design did not even come with an on/off switch, they were just on all the time while worn, by default.

Neural stimulator usage by that time was very widespread. They were everywhere. Walking down the street, it was normal to see half of women, and sometimes a few men, wearing a collar stimulator. They were always smiling and in a good mood. Some of them appearing visibly euphoric, dilated pupils, dazed-acting, or other symptoms of flying high.

Many users were by then wearing active stimulators for long periods of time, often around the clock. It became a sort of lifestyle choice for many people. After a few months of this, long-term exposure effects began to become apparent.

It turns out that after long enough continuous exposure time, a user’s responsiveness index increases. So someone who first responded to the waves at say a level four, will over time rise to a five, and then to a six, and so on. Neurologists say it is due to the user’s brain learning how to better receive the signals.

Early studies of this phenomenon disagreed on the rate of change, but they all unanimously agreed that it happened. After awhile they did work out the formula as logarithmic, or one of diminishing returns. Each gained level takes longer than the one before.

Non-responsive people seemed to remain forever immune, regardless of exposure time. Those poor, unfortunate souls, never to know what they are missing. But all other people will increase in response, relatively quickly at first, then more slowly, until after a few months they seemed to settle in at three, then eventually four levels above their initial response score.

It was around this time that somebody, a psychologist professor at some big university, discovered the interaction between the stimulator effect and hypnosis. People under the effect are more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. They reach deeper levels of trance. Also, when their hypnotic suggestibility is measured, say on a standard hypnotic susceptibility scale, or hss, there is a strong correlation between their hss-score and their responsiveness rating to the stimulator effect.

Lots of conspiracy theorists have since argued that this connection must have already been known, years ago. How could the early developers, in all their studies of the machine, have missed it? That is a good point, in my opinion. Chances are high that somebody somewhere did know, but had kept quiet about it. But at the time this study came out, most people just brushed it off as a harmless, interesting side effect.

Once the university professor published his findings, and the knowledge became public, researchers everywhere around the world repeated and verified his experiments, and quickly discovered even more.

They found that user suggestibility is not at all limited to hypnosis. People under the effect are suggestible whether or not they are hypnotized. Said in technical terms, those under the effect of neural stimulation are easily extrinsically motivated, or follow the motivation or direction of others, rather than their own will. That is, users become weak-willed, or display increased tendency to obedience, while under the effect. And their degree of obedience is proportional to their responsiveness to the effect.

As with any scientific discovery, there were conflicting opinions. Some people denied the theory entirely, or said that the effect was not actually very strong, nothing worse than say the loss of inhibitions you experience while drunk. Nothing to be concerned about. I was skeptical.

Other conflicting viewpoints argued that while the effect was genuine and powerful, it was hard to demonstrate reliably. Because suggestions given to a stimulating person had to be given in the proper way, in order for them to be followed. Users seemed to only respond to directions given in a certain sort of firm tone of voice, the voice of authority, which few people could do correctly. So they said the suggestibility effect was rare, and not all that big of a deal.

By this time, long-term users had risen four full notches in their responsiveness index, and this brought some of them to all new record highs, or higher responsiveness than had ever been measured in the early days of the technology, above a ten or eleven. This was especially common in women, who tended to start out at a seven on average.

It was soon discovered, or so claimed by some, that once a user reached a responsiveness rating above ten, they became totally obedient to the suggestions and commands of others. Even users at slightly lower levels, such as eight or nine, become very docile and suggestible while stimulating, and are quite likely to obey commands, especially firmly-given, authoritative ones.

The device seemingly acts as a sort of ego suppressant. Users who respond strongly to the effect supposedly follow any sort of command, no matter how humiliating or self-detrimental.

I read of studies which showed that these highly-responsive users are aware of possible dangers, or embarrassment, when following risky or humiliating orders, but they are just too happy-dopey and euphoric to care. Counter-claims said the studies were bogus, or invalid, clouding the issue. I was not sure who to believe.

At this point, usage had become so common, so widespread, that one in seven men wore stimulators, with response indexes typically at level five or six, occasionally higher. And nine out of ten women wore them regularly, with response indexes typically level nine or higher.

Once the obedience phenomenon became common knowledge, there were immediate abuses. It was inevitable, human nature. A few abusers were con artists looking for a quick profit. Other abusers were seeking other goals, such as long-term control or power. In any case, anyone looking for susceptible victims did not have to look hard. Collar Users were everywhere, walking the streets, going to their jobs, continuously living the collar lifestyle as it was called. And the unscrupulous took advantage of them.

But many people denied the reliability of these abuse claims. They said that these stories were exaggerated, or the effects were not actually to blame on the stimulator collars, these were merely normal sorts of crimes, and nutty conspiracy theorists were just laying blame and spreading false rumors.

I was not sure. Was all this for real? Or just some smear campaign, possibly by the morality police groups, trying to shutdown the neural stimulator industry? The latter seemed very plausible, and indeed that is what most people thought. But still, abuses seemed to keep happening, more and more often.

A few users stopped wearing their stimulator, at least publicly, when they heard about the possible side effects. But not everybody heard about it right away, or at all. And even if they did, so many were addicted to wearing their collars continuously such that they struggled, usually unsuccessfully, to beat that addiction. The abuses continued.

Though soon nobody seemed to call the abusers that anymore. The politically-correct term became controller, or just dom. As if by calling it a politically-correct, nicer-sounding word made taking advantage of helplessly suggestible people more acceptable.

It bothered me how little people seemed to be concerned about these rumors. The worst thing about all the abuses was that government did not seem interested in doing anything about it. There were no new regulations, or laws against that sort of thing.

Whispers in conspiracy circles even said that politicians had started seriously discussing using the suggestibility effect as a handy tool for civil control. Citizens would be less likely to revolt, commit crime, and so on, if they were given proper suggestions, say through television broadcasts, while they were using their stimulator. I even heard of lay people defending or supporting this concept! They argued that such policies would result in a happier, more stable, strongly-knit society. In the end, most countries around the world eventually did adopt some or all of those policies.

I started to hear stories about how a few controller types began collecting whole groups of obedient, submissive thralls, like harems. Not sure if these stories were true, or how common it happened, but in either case, the government did nothing to stop them. As if it was fine to do that.

Actually, it was not long before government agencies, and big corporations, the school boards, every leadership role or position of power everywhere, seemed to be primarily staffed by dominant-type personalities, many of whom were the ones committing the abuses, or who at least tolerated them.

These dominant types were typically those who did not wear collars themselves, usually because they were immune to the effect of the device. Statistically, that meant dominators were ten times more likely to be men. You occasionally heard about women dommes though.

As a result, corporate executive jobs, and government leadership positions, political offices such as congress, and the like, all eventually began to be overwhelmingly male-filled positions with a few women, dominatrix-types, scattered among them. This change came gradually though, and nobody seemed to notice.

There were other, more obvious social changes happening at the time. For instance, there was then a trend toward growing acceptance of public nudity. Many cities changed or removed the laws regarding public indecency. It was all over the news. Sometimes it seemed like it was all the television figures talked about, how it was okay for people to go undressed in public. They were covering it on all the channels.

After that, in warm weather you would see people walking around in underwear, or topless girls, or even those wearing nothing besides their collar! Sometimes you caught them casually touching themselves, a quick discrete rub for extra bliss, before resuming their normal activities.

Seeing people doing that turned me on. It was so naughty and exciting! Part of me wished I had the courage and confidence to be like those other women, and go naked in public. But I did not. Though I did start to wonder what it would be like, perhaps to be forced into such a situation, and thus have no choice, so that lack of courage would not matter. How humiliating, but sexy too!

Gradually, public nudity became completely socially accepted, and increasingly common. Now you see so many people walking around without clothes that it is hard to remember a time when it was taboo. Other displays and fetishes became more common too.

Dominants began going out in public with their thralls, sometimes with the thrall kept on a leash to indicate their ownership. A few vanilla-type people said it was bizarre to see that sort of thing, at least initially, but quickly it became more and more commonplace and accepted.

I heard about some controllers even occasionally making their thralls do embarrassing or humiliating things in public. Such as public masturbation, or openly having sex. It took several months before I witnessed it firsthand though. I was shocked and appalled. Though I admit that later I did masturbate, thinking about it. What a turn on!

In any case, society was changing. For better or worse. Apparently, as some said, due to a side-effect of neural stimulators, the obedience phenomenon, which experts could not even agree existed verifiably. But the changes happening in society were certainly real.

I could hardly believe it all. At the time I was twenty years old, a handful of months from turning twenty-one and legally being able to use a neural stimulator. I had waited half my life for that day, and had even been shopping around for a stylish collar that I could buy for my birthday, when news of the obedience phenomenon went viral through the technical journals and collar-enthusiast forums of which I was a member.

Now I was faced with a horrible dilemma. I had waited so long for the chance to experiment with neural stimulation. But if I started using one, and became addicted to the effect, I would want to use it more and more, perhaps all the time. Then prolonged exposure would raise my susceptibility, or response to the effect. And if the obedience phenominon was for real, then the damn thing would make me completely suggestible and obedient. Then I’d end up as a submissive thrall to whomever got me first.

Part of me did actually feel excited about that idea. I will admit that on some level, that sort of thing could be extremely sexy. But it is also scary. I do not want that, not really. At least I do not think so. Though in the last couple months before my birthday, I started to fantasize about it when I masturbated. After awhile, I was not so sure anymore. I felt all conflicted and confused inside.

During that time, manufacturers of stimulators came out with collar designs that locked into place around the neck and could not be easily removed. These new models rapidly grew in popularity.

At first sales were driven by dominators, who apparently purchased them to put on their early thralls, before the thrall’s susceptibility had risen, making them incapable of taking off their collar in the rare case they suffered a fit of resistance. This practice was supposedly most common with dominators who were just starting to recruit.

I even heard rumors about some thrall recruiters using these collars as give-aways, to trick new users into unknowingly being permanently and inescapably under the effect, to ensure prolonged exposure and eventual, inevitiable rise in susceptibility up to obedience levels. I did not hear about it often, but just hearing about it at all was frightening enough. Yet intriguing too. It could not be true. People were not actually capable of doing that, were they?

One upside was that many new designs also came out in attractive new styles or colors, which soon became widely popular all through the collar-using community. They looked really sleek and elegant. Then lots of people began buying the new models for themselves, upgrading to the newest, most stylish versions.

There was talk that due to rising popularity and incredible sales of these new designs, that many old ones may be phased out, taken off shelves. That started happening in many stores, and soon they became hard to find. You could still get old models second-hand, or from smaller retailers, occasionally.

Nobody seemed bothered by these trends. Well, a few people complained, but they were usually derided as cranks and conspiracy nuts. Society now fully accepted continuous usage of neural stimulators, apparently whether voluntary or involuntary, as a totally acceptable activity. But I for one, was a bit scared by it all.

Part of that was because I knew more than the average person. Because I was an avid enthusiast of the technology, and stayed up to date on all the technical journals, I knew far more than most people. There were still lots of people out there who had not heard about the prolonged exposure effects, or the suggestibility studies.

My girlfriends in particular struck me as blissfully, almost willfully, ignorant of the implications. Most of them were already collar wearers anyway. A few of my friends, the early adopters, had been exposed long enough by then to have risen quite high in their responsiveness.

A couple of my friends had even recently joined into a special relationship, what sounded to me like a harem, with one of the dominant guys on campus.

When I talked to them about it, they told me I was being silly. Nothing sinister is going on, they said, it is totally normal.

I just did not have the proper tone of concern to convince them, I guess. Not wanting to be stubbornly argumentative, I dropped the issue. Probably they were right anyway. And who cares what sort of guy my friends hang out with, it was their choice to make.

This same guy came with them to my birthday party. He was cute. And rich, I had heard. His father owned a big company that he stood to inherit. But he seemed a bit imperious to me at first, or something.

He hung back, not joining in much at my party, just watching while my friends and I goofed off and acted silly and cracked jokes. My friends are the happy, giggly sort. But I guess most people are these days.

While we cut my cake, I glanced in his direction and happened to notice him looking me up and down, checking me out. Did he find me attractive? I quickly looked away, suddenly feeling shy, but secretly liking the attention of a cute guy.

Later came the gift-giving and unwrapping. He had brought a present for me. When I opened it, I saw inside the box a beautiful, brand new, golden-metallic collar, etched with fancy, elegant, eye-catching designs.

My heart skipped a beat. I could not take my eyes off of it. The collar represented both my greatest, life-long fantasy dream, and a scary conspiracy-theorist’s nightmare.

One of my friends, sitting on the couch, said that since I was now twenty-one, I deserved to experience the new coming-of-age ritual that had replaced alcohol on almost every campus: neural stimulation. It feels wonderful, she told me. You should try it.

While she sat there on the couch, she was idly, casually touching herself. Her hand slipped inside her unbuttoned blouse, gently groping and squeezing. Nothing socially unacceptable. My friends did that sort of thing a lot, these days. Whenever I saw them at it, I always wondered what they were feeling, doing that while wearing their collars. And I always had to look away, or those thoughts would get me too worked up and horny.

I turned away, forcing myself not to watch her as she openly and casually played with her braless breasts. My roving eyes fell upon the gift, still in the open box before me. I picked up the collar, hands trembling.

Were all my concerns about these things true? Or was collar wearing more like most people said these days; just a harmless, pleasurable recreational activity, like smoking pot or something? I did not know. I swallowed, nervous and unsure what to do.

The gift’s owner was still standing in front of me. He looked me deeply in the eye and firmly said, go ahead. Put it on. Get high. Just try it. You’ll love it. His voice sounded so confident and authoritative, it made my tummy flip flop and my heart beat faster.

I moved the collar a little closer, then paused. Putting on the collar would carry with it no small risk. What if the rumors I had heard were true? And what if I had a naturally high responsiveness to the neural stimulator effect? But that would feel really good, and that was what I wanted, right?

Still I hesitated, not knowing what I truly wanted, or what I should do.

what if I put it on and it makes me weak-willed? What if he tells me do things? Like take off my clothes. Or masturbate. Or give him a blowjob! Or sex!? Would I be able to resist those suggestions? Did I want to? What if he made me participate in some sort of orgy with my friends? The possibility of that made me tingly, and I felt my nipples harden. Was that something I really wanted? I felt so confused.

A big part of me was still incredibly fascinated by the effect of neural stimulators, and wanted to experience it, to find out just what it was really like. If I did not like it, or if he did anything out of line, I could always take it off, stop using it, throw it away, or whatever. Maybe I would be one of those rare, one-in-fifty women, who did not respond at all? That would be a relief, in a way, but also a big let down. Perhaps I would respond, but not very strongly. And then maybe, just maybe, I would be like most girls, and respond very strongly to the effect. There was only one way to find out.

Are you going to put it on?, my friends asked, impatiently. Come on, try it. They pressured, everybody does it.

What the heck, I summoned the courage and put the stylish golden collar around my neck, pushing the sturdy latch closed with my hands, hearing it snap into place with a firm click.

The effect was immediate, very powerful, and felt incredibly wonderful. At long last, I truly understood what it felt like! They were right, I loved it. Whatever happens from now on, it is worth it.