A tapping ring: a small, precise hammer striking a perfectly milled steel cotter pin. The smell of shaved steel and machine oil, a dark, musty but sharp scent. Brilliant platinum halogen lights try to penetrate the thick darkness of the cavernous room, but light is sucked away; the room's corners are invisible. The lights seem lonely, frightened, by the immensity of the cold, hangar-sized space. They huddle around the workspace, where a small, elderly, balding man hunches over a tiny mechanical assembly, his eyes obscured by a grey metal magnifying visor. Above the man, the great beast slumbers, menacing, dominating, drawing my gaze, sucking the light into itself as if its gunmetal-steel hide is made of shadow.

Macchine.

For sixteen months it has grown, base then skeleton then flesh and organ and carapace, growing into a dark consciousness in this concrete and steel cavern. If I am its father, the little man below is its mother, crafting it lovingly, gear and bone and sinew. He is Havel, a master machinist and a genius of industrial design. He is unique in the world.

Men must have obsessions; men are, in many ways, defined by their obsessions. It determines their self, their style, their character, their color. Havel's obsession was perfect machines: machines that interlock and fit without play or squeak, gears that lock with a solid *snap*, perfect-folding hinges and tensioned springs. My father's obsession was money, a bland and boring habit but one which left me wealthy beyond care. My own obsessions were sex and power. Our obsessions were smelted together in this entity: a blending of wealth, mechanical craft, and raw sexual power.

Macchine.

Starting as a typical small-minded idea, a seed of lust, it had grown to something beyond art, beyond industrial craft, beyond function. No longer purely machine, it had begun to form its own personality: dark, brooding, single-minded and more obsessive than its creators. Macchine had but one purpose, and it waited for its prey.

Obsession, art, craft, and lust: all directed and focused, but at what? The missing ingredient was the muse. The inspiration. The prey. Her name was Sonya, and she, like Macchine, was a force of nature, a creature beyond mortal. They were two halves of a whole.

Sonya was the perfect submissive. Like a raging fire demanding to be quenched, she burned in perfection, challenging all she saw. I had lasted longer than any of her previous tops, probably because she saw my obsession and its possibilities. But I was mortal, and would eventually fail to meet her need, and be consumed in the flames.

I remember times, wielding the whip, lashing across her back and bottom with all my strength, leaving welts deeper and deeper until the blood flowed. I would finally crack, frightened of what she could drive me to; stop without saying a word, amazed that only the barest whimpers escaped from her lips. She would turn those bottomless eyes to me, pleading for something no human being could ever give. To Sonya, a safeword was simply an insult, accepted by her as a favor to her current top. I could scream insults, filthy cunt, selfish bitch, worthless slut, they were absorbed and burned in her dark fire. She became all those things, as ordered, and transcended them all. I would have her ride the escalator at the mall, order her to hike up her skirt and fuck herself with a large dildo for the viewing pleasure of the following shoppers. She would do it without complaint, bringing herself to orgasm in front of those shocked and titillated eyes, without ever blushing.

And always she needed more.

The idea of a machine to top her, to beat her, to bind and twist her body more powerfully than any man could do, was an idea born as much of desperation than lust. But the idea swelled, sprouted, grew roots that locked deep in my soul, with a speed that terrified me. I could not sleep; my painting and music came to be trivial distractions. Even Sonya herself became secondary to my new obsession. It had to be tried.

Money was no obstacle at all. But my first attempts to hire a machinist and artisan were disappointing; some laughed, some hid greed under politeness, others tried to cheapen or commercialize the vision. It was not until I found Havel that the seed was truly planted. And then, what grew from that seed was far beyond my original vision. It was not a machine at all.

It was Macchine.

Sonya expressed only a mild curiosity when I starting making plaster casts of her body parts. Her body was mine to do with as I pleased, for so long as the idea pleased her. When she became bored, she would vanish, change her identity, as she had done so often before. But perhaps the curiosity helped me to hold her a little longer. What did I have in mind? We had played corsets and stays, rubber suits and other wrappings. But she saw the fire, the intensity in my eyes, my aura of excitement -- she would not leave, even though our play sessions became less frequent and intense. The casting itself became our play sometimes: shaving and wrapping a perfect limb with the warm cheesecloths, the dusty smell of plaster, the heat of drying turning her skin bright red; and later, licking the sweat off her flesh as the mold cured beside the bed. I never told her my purpose, of course, but she knew it was something special.

Crafting the flexible model of her body took three months by itself. It was quite realistic; I found myself, at times, stroking its pliable rubber surface and actually feeling Sonya's skin. Later, when Macchine's early clumsiness would break a limb or punch an inappropriate hole, I would cringe inside, feeling nausea and terror.

Around the model, Macchine began to take shape. First the hinged beams and custom metal clasps, then the support frames and bearings, then the complex probes and pumps, sexual organs for a creature of pure lust and fantasy. Macchine was *big*, bigger than I'd ever imagined. Havel would have no thin rods, sagging supports, or underpowered mechanics; he used earth-mover technology and absurd amounts of torque capacity. Machhine could have manipulated a dummy made of hardened steel as easily as our plastic and rubber model. But Havel was equally masterful working with 10-inch thick steel beams as he was with Swiss watch components. In his hands, a steel pipe became bone, a hydraulic shock sinew, a giant electric motor a pulsing heart. And his combinations of tiny stepper motors, scale hinges and miniature elastic belts could turn several hundred hard steel parts into a sinuous, curved, living organ -- with eighty to a hundred horsepower of torque behind it.

We discussed motions, watching computer simulations for hours; Macchine would not be a jerky, pumping, spastic machine, but a creature of slow, inexorable, sensuous strength. It would be completely unyielding, totally in control, bristling with untapped power. Sonya would be always poised on the edge of death and mutilation by a beast that could snap her body into nine or ten parts in an instant; but a trained beast, slowly performing my ritual of dominance and intense, alien mating.

We discussed appearance. For a time, we worked with E. R. Giger of Alien fame, but his visions were too insectile and impractical. We found another, less known, sculptor and artist to assist. Macchine became reptilian, rounded and sleek, but never using soft materials. Always, we used thick gunmetal plates, hammered, beveled, and burnished. It came alive, gradually rousing from deep slumber. Even without the motors running, without the strange, obscene hunching and stretching motions of the practice programs, Macchine seemed to breathe softly, waiting.

And finally, the artist was dismissed, his visions having become part of ours. It was just Havel and myself, now, and the computer that was Macchine's rudimentary brain, and the final polishing. Havel's dream was coming to an end. His masterpiece completed, he had no real desire to watch the final ravishment. Sex vaguely disgusted Havel, its mechanics always imperfect, the motions too variable. Someday, perhaps, Macchine would slumber in an art museum in some wing devoted to sex and horror, and Havel would come worship at his creation's riveted feet. But for now, his dream was ending, and mine was beginning.

And today, as I stand in this space, listening to Havel repair the tiny imperfection (undetectable to me, I'm certain) in the third phallic probe, I see the whole Macchine, and it sees me. I think of Sonya, on her way here to the preparation room, and project my lustful thoughts to Macchine. Macchine's industrial brain awakens with a spark of lust like a welding torch, and projects a frightening thought back to me:

"I was not created for Her. She was born for Me."

Havel cried when he left, as I knew he would. I wanted to weep for him, but I must save my tears for Sonya. Just as I had taken Macchine from Havel, I knew Macchine would take Sonya from me. And Sonya, who would perhaps find an answer to her deepest cravings from Macchine, would still find no great love in those cruel steel arms. I suspected the only real winner in this crazy game would be Macchine. He was, of course, born only to win.

Sonya arrived at the outer studio in the early evening. I supervised her preparation but did not touch her. She obediently followed all my instructions, from the careful shaving and oiling of her genitals, to the three high enemas to cleanse her inside, to the careful pinning back of her long hair and the long series of yoga stretches, loosening up her already supple body. We finally touched, in a deep kiss, and I began spreading the slippery oil over her body. Finally, I clasped the heavy manacles around her wrists and ankles, and looked again at the vision of perfect submission.

I thought to fuck her then, but it would be a sad and unsatisfying experience. We were upon the edge of something truly climactic, and we both knew this. I would masturbate as I watched my creation take Sonya. After she recovered, perhaps long after, we would see what had changed.

As I led her from the room, I walked the edge of my own deepest fear. Would my creation be enough to master her? Was there truly anything in this world that could push her enough, that would give her what her dark eyes always asked for, pleaded for, demanded? Or would Macchine be just another sex toy, a distraction, to be sampled and tossed into her flames?

I should'nt have worried. I led her, manacled, into the Cave. The lights had been arranged to show Macchine in its perfect meld of light and shadow. Its purpose, hidden at first, took about fifteen long seconds to reveal itself fully. Sonya made a sound I had never heard before, a whimper or high moan, but not of pain. Of fear. She turned to me, offering me the highest gift she had to give: the sight of honest fear, even terror, in her eyes.

Her trembling, at first a bare shiver, increased as we walked the long blood-red carpet runner up to Macchine. It loomed, menacing, the metal clamps open like teeth. Sonya's chain was snapped onto Macchine's throat, and as I flicked the warm-up switch to start the deep growling rumble in its belly, Sonya sank to her knees and shook.

I came up behind her, took her hair gently in my hand, and bent her head back to see her face. Her tears were real, like her fear. But with this was a deeper lust and excitement than I had ever seen in those eyes.

"This is Macchine. He is your Master. Do you accept him and offer him your body, completely, without reservation?"

Sonya looked again at Macchine. While the probes were hidden, retracted into flush metal sleeves, there was still a sense of infinite danger. Macchine appeared to be built to crush, to rend, to impale; its power rumbled, waiting, heedless of all flesh. I was asking Sonya to trust that this giant tractor would somehow spare her life, although it did not seem capable of motion without killing. A very deliberate effect.

Sonya never even looked back at my eyes. Mesmerized by Macchine, she knelt transfixed, nearly a minute, weeping, shaking, and taking deep, long breaths. Finally something in her released, and she bowed her head, pressed her lips to the cold metal, and said directly to Macchine:

"Your will."

Your body was actually trembling less when I removed the manacles and helped you up into the belly of Macchine. I can't know what decision you made inside, but you seemed to be radiating love and power as well as terror. Your body was positioned face down in the steel harness, about four feet off the floor. Your oiled flesh would be visible from below and the side, except where obscured by the thick steel bars which would run along your limbs, hinged at her joints.

Havel had designed to three factors: rigidity, steel-on-flesh, and comfort. Your body would be held absolutely rigid to the frame, with no possiblity of struggle; part of the machine. All the bonds would be pure steel, no padding, leather, cloth, or rope. And comfort was achieved by absolute attention to body shape; the steel milled, rounded and burnished to fit your body and no other's.

Each steel restraint went *snap* *thunk* as the shaped cuff closed around a limb, and the precise, heavy latches were thrown. Three for each arm, with the wrist-cuffs shaped into a handgrip. Three for each leg. Two for the hips, grasping your pelvis. The oil on your body allows for very slight motion within the cuffs as the beams move. The steel hands will grip you, massage you, force you into Macchine's desired mating stance. Your breasts fit into a strange, rounded steel "bra" that forces them into conical shapes. Two concave steel plates on thick rods fit onto your forehead, and another cups your chin, holding your mouth, at the moment, closed. I turn dials, adjusting tiny calipers in Macchine to account for differences between the model and your body. I tell you to struggle. You try; your body shifts less than an inch any direction. We are ready.

I have debated giving you the off-switch, the ability to kill Macchine once it begins. But I know the insult to your pride that would give, as well as I know your body and its limits. You knew, when you submitted to Macchine, there would be no turning back. Havel and I have run the program a hundred times, and I know every danger spot. And if the program fails, if a part collapses, if Macchine goes insane, no switch will prevent tragedy. But Havel has built and tested well. Now it is time for your testing.

I type the "begin" command and bring Macchine out of its warming rest. the motor's sound thrums, deepens, and the beams begin to compress, bending your legs downward. You start to cry again, feeling the complete helplessness of knowing your body now belongs to the metal beast. Your arms are brought up as your legs fold to your body, arching your back. This is a fairly rapid motion, not quite a snap, but enough to let you feel the full power; another foot of motion and your spine would crack like a twig. The head restraints force you to look downwards as your arms are held up and back.

The front of the metal "bra" is now visible, along with the clear tubing that runs from the cut-out tips. An air-pump whirs to life, gently drawing air through the tubes, making a vacuum in the cups. Your breasts seal against the metal, are sucked into the cones, compressed further and further. You let out a shriek, just as the red, swollen nipples emerge from the ends of the cups. Around each nipple, two gently serrated metal rods snap closed, pinching the nipples flat at the base. The suction releases with a soft sigh, your breasts extended by the nipples alone. Your long, drawn "Aaaaaaauuuuuu" fades to ragged breaths.

Now the metal bars shaping your legs and thighs begin to part...slowly, so slowly. It takes a full minute before your thighs are forced wide, knees and hips still bent at 45 degree angles. At the same time, your arms are lowered and your head raised, until you are in the classic female animal's mating posture. The thigh-bars continue to spread, even more slowly, stretching your muscles, showing you how impossible it is to resist. You must relax your thigh-muscles more and more over the next minute, and at the end, you are spread almost flat, your sex and anus thrust out, open and accessible.

But Macchine will play before it will mate. To be a suitable receptacle for its lust, you must be broken mentally to its will, your body moved beyond fear into total submission. Macchine knows you well.

New gears silently engage. Slowly the whipwheels begin to turn. From six perfectly recessed thin slots in Macchine's body, meter-long wires are drawn, attached to the edges of the whipwheels. The wheels begin their pivot inward towards your body, wires making a thin swish through the air. Two are arranged to strike your inner thighs from below at an angle; two more to strike downward at your upturned ass; the last two to strike your upper back. But for now, the wheels spin free, faster and faster, the whipping sound of metal wires growing higher and louder, until the sound is a dangerous sizzling. You hear, and understand, and begin to sob in fear. It is the sound of flesh being flayed from your body.

Macchine's touch is gentle, though, for all its ferocity. The carefully rounded ends of the wires barely touch your skin, and precise servos "feel" the touch, keep the ends of the wires barely grazing your flesh each pass. If you tense a muscle in your ass or thigh or back, raising your flesh, the next pass brings a *snap* and a welt. You realize you must go completely limp to avoid the metal scarring your body. The wheels drift over you, change angles slightly, like a dangerous metal tongue caressing your skin.

Once they have traced, memorized and recorded your contours, these tongues of steel retrace their steps; but this time, the whipwheels begin slowing down, to devastating effect. As the wheels spin more slowly, the wires move outward, beginning all at once to drive into your flesh and muscle. The servos react more slowly, drawing the wheels gradually away, but only quickly enough to avoid your skin being torn. You are dealt a barrage of rapid-fire whipping, raising welts all over your back, ass and thighs within seconds. The assault brings an uncontrolled shriek and a long, drawn-out scream of pain from you. I see your every muscle tense as you try to twist, buck, kick; but you are bolted to solid iron. The only motion left to you is the ability to hunch your back slightly; but this pulls your clamped and aching nipples harder against the tips of the steel bra. Your only release is through sound, and your wail is that of a mating cat.

The wires slow and stop, the final pass closing in for a long, slow lick of each wire against your tortured flesh, then recede back to their home-slots, their work complete. They were cruel but precise; your back is completely covered with red welts, but no blood has been drawn. The endorphins are beginning to flow in your body now, your breathing growing heavy as your mind reels in terror.

Your body has a brief respite while the heavy whips extend slowly, out of your vision. The two flexible graphite and fiberglass shafts rise from below like twin phalluses, one on each side of you. Unlike the wires, these are heavy shafts, like a riding crop or fishing rod. And no simple wheels are used to move these whips. The offset gearing and counterweights used to simulate whipping were one of Havel's greatest challenges. As in everything, Havel did not stop until he acheived perfection.

The first of the five-foot whips stops in position in front of your ass. A sudden twitch of gears, and the whip's body jerks backwards, bending the whip into a graceful arc. Just before the tip catches up to the new position, the gear reverses, bringing the whip even more violently forward. The tip yanks backwards, describing a whistling figure-eight, and forward to slam into both your buttocks with a force that rocks your entire frame. You were unprepared, of course; it takes nearly a half-second for your overloaded nerves to register the strike, and translate the pain into a the start of a long scream.

But there is little time for thought, because the second whip has begun its strike as the first whips back to original position for a second blow. The second whip aims just below the first, just above the entrance to your sex. The long cycle of the whips is mesmerizing, each keeping precisely out of the way of the other, as they beat you, deep strokes you will feel inside your belly. The screams coming from your throat do not sound human. But gradually, as your endorphin levels reach higher and higher, the sounds deepen to groans, and I hear your breath being sucked in, deep and slow, in between.

The whips finally stop, as suddenly as they began. As they retract, I hear your voice, soft, deep, moaning from your belly, in a tone that sounds like distilled bliss. You are saying, in a rhythm that echoes the whip-strokes: "Master. Master. Master."

Deep in your submission, your eyes closed, your body limp and soft, your soul opens to Macchine as it never did to me. I cannot feel jealous or angry -- you and Macchine are elemental, polar, bonded, nature and science, interlocking halves. As Macchine becomes more machine, you become more human, the contrast touching something deep inside me. I feel no pride, strangely, in creating this; just a sense of dark, rich joy in the watching, overwhelming my senses. You recite your soft litany, over and over, and I sense satisfaction and poised readiness from Macchine. Soft, small movements: the final program begins.

Like a pair of pincers closing on the space behind your ass, the two heavy probe-sheaths slowly swing into place; one lowering from above, a larger rising from below. The third sheath lowers down in front of your vision. Circular vents iris open with a hiss of steam. The probes emerge ever so slowly from their sheaths, steam rising around them. Your eyes, open now, are mesmerized, locked on the phallic shape slowly revealing itself before your face. Behind you, a large probe emerges downward towards your ass, and two probes, one small and one nearly arm-sized, rise from the lower sheath.

Each probe's intricate joints, tubes, and motion-belts are hidden within a tapered, scaled-metal hide, capable of delicate motion but completely unyielding to flesh. Each is a powerful, sinuous steel tentacle. Around the metal hide is a thick skin of latex, and another, somewhat thinner, looser skin, coated with oil, blue-black in color, looking something like a foreskin. They extend to nearly touch your mouth, your pink sex, and your anus. Then, in a move designed purely to show off and intimidate, all four probes do a sinuous dance, a corkscrew ripple starting at the base and moving to the tip, with a curling, spiral motion. You watch the hypnotic motion of the mouth-probe as you feel the other three caress your thighs and bottom, smearing them with hot oil. More oil drips down along the dark, slick shafts. Your tongue obediently extends to try to catch a drop of oil, but the mouth-probe stays just out of reach.

Your anus will be penetrated first. Slowly, smoothly, the slender tip is pressed outward, touching and parting your ring, entering your ass. The probe cares nothing for resistance, but moves slowly, millimeter at a time, as you moan and accept this inexorable invasion. The probe continues, its gentle taper finally reaching its maximum inch-and-a-half diameter, and slowly slides up inside your colon. A gentle squirm inside shows you how deeply you have been penetrated, how a part of Macchine now lives and moves deep inside you. You gasp.

The smaller of the vaginal probes extends upward. Only a half-inch thick, it has been designed for flexibility. Sliding past your clitoris, it curls and enters your sex, as your gasps turn to cries of passion, frustration and need. I cannot see the curl continuing, but I know it is wrapping around your pubic bone, holding it like a curled finger, finally pressing your G-spot with its tip and your clit with its smooth, oiled shaft. And I see and hear your dramatic, intense reaction when the probe tightens around your pubic bone and -pulls- down!

Your scream and renewed attempts to thrash and pull away show the effectiveness of the technique we called "wishbone." The anal probe pulls upwards, pressing your tailbone higher, as the pubic bone is pulled downward. The probes are strong enough to pull you apart, but they apply just enough pressure for you to feel your bones being separated, the mouth of your sex stretched wide. Stretched in preparation, of course, for Machine's real penis.

It begins moving now, its blunt head nudging between the other probes, until it is pressed against your open sex. The head seems impossibly large, the size of an apple, but I know your limits well. The probe is about the diameter of my closed hand, which you have learned to accept over time. The probe starts to squirm, gently moving your inner lips out of the way, parting you, spreading you, and penetrating.

Once again, your body can accept this, but your mind cannot. Nothing has prepared you for the intensity of this invasion, this splitting open of your body by steel and rubber. You scream again, the sounds becoming strangled, gasping, until you suddenly pass another threshold of submission. Some final part of your mind clicks off, and you feel no need to scream; just to accept, to let Macchine use you, force you, mate you. As the mouth-probe extends and the head clasps force your jaw apart, your tongue extends loving, accepting this final part of Macchine into your remaining opening.

The motions of the other probes are slow, delicate, sinuous now. The wishbone probes relax, your sex having streched to its widest ever. The mouth probe requires your final, most intimate submission, as it slides past your tongue and down your throat.

You cannot breathe, and the gag reflex cannot be completely turned off, though you try. Involuntary spasms wrack your body as the long probe slithers into your esophagus, widening your throat. The fifteen seconds of penetration must seem like an eternity, but at last the probe withdraws, leaving you gasping, retching, sputtering, and crying. I hold the pause switch this time, letting my intuition aid Macchine in making sure you are safe. When your coughing subsides and you have had two deep breaths, I release the switch and let Macchine penetrate you again.

This continues until Macchine finally owns your throat as surely as your other passages. The penetrations now are smooth, with no gagging or thrashing, and you breathe deeply in between. Thin streams of saliva mixed with oil run from the corners of your mouth. Your eyes are closed in total peace, tears streaming, but accepting all.

Macchine now moves as a single organism, mating with your entire body as no animal could do. Perfectly synchronized, the hinged bars begin to thrust and shape your body in the slow, hunching motion of the build to ecstacy. Gradually, the speed increases, almost imperceptibly. The anal probe swells further, as hot water is pumped between the latex membranes. Inside your ass, a balloon of warm liquid adds to the intense pressure. Slowly, the small vaginal grip-probe starts to thrum with slow vibrations, as if a violin string is being plucked.

The vibrations increase in intensity as Macchine pumps faster. The mouth-probe now penetrates only to the back of your throat, but its tip, too, begins to swell with warm liquid. Your body's flush tells of your impending orgasm as your mouth and jaw are streched to their limit, your body rammed back against the probes, your flesh rippling.

As you come, I signal the end to Macchine. Tubes throughout the probes fill with the warm, creamy, drugged mixture that forms Macchine's sperm. And the pumps begin to force it into your openings, first in jets, then a slow, languorous flow. You swallow rhythmically, greedily, but a thick stream still flows out beside the swollen mouth-probe, the white cream contrasting with the dark skin of the probe and your own red, flushed complexion. The flow into, and therefore out of, your sex is slow, filling you but not forcing. But the anal probe pumps steadily, with no leakage, filling your bowels and colon as the probe in your throat fills your stomach until you can no longer swallow. Only when your belly is distended, stretched full with Macchine's seed, does the flow finally stop, the probes' swelling recede, the slow withdrawal begin.

As the probes finally exit, the cream drains from all your openings, your body overwhelmed, expelling the huge burden. Macchine relaxes into a gentle slumber, allowing your limbs to collapse inward to a fetal position. Even so, you choke, panicked, and I must run over, release your nipples and head, and help you clear your lungs.

The last clasp is released. Your limp body falls into my arms. Your face shows no comprehension, no emotion; all your humanity for now is drained, given to Macchine. Your belly ripples with cramps as more cream is forced from your bowels, but the pain does not touch you. Your mind is somewhere deep inside, deep underground, at the very heart of your deep caverns of submission. I will never know what secret you find there.

The gentle drugs work their effect, and you slide off to a deep slumber, joining with Macchine once more in your unconsciousness. When you awaken late tomorrow, perhaps we will talk; or perhaps, like a machine, you will cast me a cold glance and walk away into the unknown. Macchine will rust, or be oiled and polished, but never again take your body. Perhaps someday your body may be given to a person again, and perhaps it will be me.

For now, I will indulge myself by licking the last drops of cream from your body, gently washing your abraded skin and arranging you on the gentle flannel sheets. I begin to cry softly, then deeply, sobbing, astonished as what and who we are, and what we are capable of, at the senselessness and total logic of it all. We are exactly what we are, intensely, profoundly:

Human. Human.