Quad124-c

The Marquis led us down a corridor and into a side room. "This is Irina," he announced, "one of my little projects."

On one side of the room, perched on a tiny padded pedestal, was a cute girl. She had shoulder length brown hair and a cheerful, slightly manic expression. It wasn't at all clear how she could maintain her balance, becuase she was almost completely without arms or legs.

"She looks delightful," I said, "very compact and convenient. I'm sure she's lots of fun. But how does she keep her balance on that stool? it must be only six inches across at most. Maybe less."

The Marquis looked at the girl, at me, and then back to the girl. "Will you tell him how you manage it or will I?"

The girl spoke. "When I gave myself to the Marquis, he made several changes." She lifted her arms and legs and waved. "You'll have spotted the most obvious thing, the reduction in the length of my limbs. That was part of the deal."

"Part of the deal?" I asked, puzzled.

She grinned. "Certainly. He had some plans he wanted to try out on my body, I told him if he wanted to experiment on me like that, he'd have to remove my arms and legs, to give me the sort of body I wanted, before he started."

"Isn't she just wonderful?" said the Marquis. "All I had to do was give her the reduction she craved, and now I can experiment on her just as I like."

The girl interrupted in turn. "So we both win, we both get what we wanted."

"I get it," I said, "you're both lucky. I still don't know how you balance."

"Oh, right," the girl said, with the smile still on her face, "this is the cool bit. He's made a sort of channel through the middle of my body, it runs up from my butthole in a dead straight line about eighteen inches long or so."

"There's a post fitted in the centre of her stool," the Marquis continued, "stainless steel, about an inch thick."

The girl broke in once more. "You have to be really careful when you put me on the post, you have to make sure it doesn't go the wrong way, because that can be quite painful. But if you get it right then I'll slide all the way down."

"And when she does that," he concluded, "she's trapped. She couldn't fall off the stool, even if she really wanted to."