Alyssa uncrossed her legs and shifted over to face the bartender. She motioned for another couple of beers, and then smiled at me. Pretty brown eyes, curly hair. The years had been good to her.

I met her back in grad school when the two of us were in the same circle of friends. I think we’d first met because her boyfriend at the time was living with my best friend Jay. But in any case, over those years we’d all become good friends.

We’d started talking on facebook a couple weeks ago. She was living upstate, had a good job at a marketing firm. I’d been busy myself, after getting my PhD in Bio-Mechanical Engineering. I had a job offer almost right away with a start-up called Krae Research and Design.

Things were going well, I was making way more money than I ever had and had plenty of time outside of work for recreation.

And then it happened that she was coming into town for a business trip, and would be staying through the weekend. Better yet, we were both single.

“So Mark,” said Alyssa, finishing the last of her second beer. “You’ve got a new job. A place called Krae, right?”

“We usually just call it KRD,” I said. “But it’s pretty amazing stuff. You’re aware of Kryser Portals, right?”

“Of course! They’re all over the news. They’re used for data transmission right? And now everything, everywhere can be wireless without radio right?”

“Essentially, yes. Mikhail Kryser figured out how to make a ‘portal’ in a solid object, so you can pass signals, even particles through as if it were intact, but have separate pieces in different places. Which has obvious and massive repercussions for communications. Well, we’re hoping to do the same thing, but for human engineering.”

“Human engineering. Okay Dr. Frankenstein.”

I laughed. “That’s actually not that far from what we’re talking about. You can create a Kryser portal through semi-solid objects as well. For instance, people.”

“Yea! I saw that on TV. These guys were doing a ‘Real Magic Show!’ using them, and they cut a woman in half, only she was like … really in half. Her legs were dancing on the stage while she walked around on her hands.”

“Exactly. So we’re taking that a step further, and using it for a couple different projects. I’m working on a Human Storage System right now.”

“A … what?”

“I can show you later if you want. Essentially, you can’t use a Kryser portal to just transport objects. That’s why we can’t put one portal in LA and another in New York and walk through them. It has to be in a solid material, which is dense enough to hold onto the ‘charge’. But you can use it to make the objects much smaller so they can be more easily transported. It’s like a way of ‘hacking’ the physical space so it stores more than it should. I’m not a physicist though, so I can’t tell you that much more about the actual nuts-and-bolts at that level. I kind of just design the devices to work with human anatomy.”

“I would definitely like to see your mad science lab,” said Alyssa. “Perhaps after this drink?”

#

I was a little nervous bringing her in to show her the Condenser as we’d named it. Not that failure was a likely outcome — we’d tested it very thoroughly — but more so I wasn’t sure how Alyssa would respond to the machine’s experience. Some people were uncomfortable with how ‘constricting’ it could be.

But in any case. We were nearly ready to deploy, so it wasn’t going to hurt to show it off a little bit. Mainstream opinion had adjusted to accept the idea of using Kryser Portals on people, and there hadn’t been any type of real accidents with them yet.

I flashed my badge and opened up the door to the lab. It was a pretty unimpressive location, just a converted warehouse by a closed shipyard. But the lease was cheap and we were still getting started. And I found that aspect to be much more exciting, honestly.

“It’s back here,” I said. “In Bay 3. That’s where I work anyway. Bay 2 is where we’re working on a modularization package, but that’s not completed yet.”

“What would that be?”

“Well, the idea is to be able to swap one body part for another. It’s easy enough to take someone apart, but to put them together again with new pieces, it’s tricky. But it could someday revolutionize medicine, transplants, everything.”

“So I could someday just pop off my head and put on a blond one?”

“Well, you’d need your brain moved to the new head, but that’s pretty much the idea. We’ve had some success with switching arms and legs, but larger parts get more complicated.”

“This is going to be so cool when you finish it!” said Alyssa. “Okay. Show me what you’re doing.”

“Over here,” I said.

We went over to Bay 3, and I opened the door to show the Condenser. It was essentially a low waist-height table with some Energizers hanging over it. There was a rack of portal-shells, and a computer wired up to it on a folding table.

“Oooh,” said Alyssa. “Very high-tech.”

“I guess,” I said. “Personally, this feels kind of ghetto, but that’s only because at the lab I used to work, we had some real state-of-the-art equipment.”

“Alright then,” said Alyssa. “How do we get started?”

“Lie down on the table and take off your shoes.”

I couldn’t help but steal a lustful glance at her while she climbed up on the table and pulled her skirt down. She had amazing legs. Too bad about those I guess. Well, the rest of her was very nice too, wasn’t it?

“Okay,” I said. “First we uh… turn it on.”

I booted the computer up and powered on the machine. After a moment of loading, the screen flashed up with the interface we’d built.

“So wait,” said Alyssa. “You never explained what exactly this thing does.”

“So basically, we’re working on making people more portable.”

“Portable.”

“Yes. Smaller. More easy to transport.”

“So this is a shrinking machine?”

“Um… probably not like you mean, but kind of. Would you like me to just show you?”

“Please do!”

I got out one of the portal-shells from the rack. Each of these was a flexible band of metal that was capable of picking up a charge from one of the Energizers. Once the charge was stable and a portal established, the band could be separated. But that wasn’t exactly what we were doing.

I looped the band around her leg at mid-thigh, right at the base of her skirt, letting my hands linger there for just a moment.

“Is that tight?” I said “It should be comfortable, but not loose.”

“Seems pretty good to me,” she said.

“Great.”

I followed with another shell around her other leg. After that, I got two more out and looked them around her arms at the shoulders.

“Okay,” I said. “Now we’re ready. Just lie still, more or less. As long as the shells are in contact with the table, everything will work fine.”

I went to the computer and clicked Energize.

The machine began to make a rhythmic humming, as the accelerator started to spool up. It got both louder and faster.

“It’s loud!” said Alyssa.

“Yea!” I yelled back. “It needs to build up a lot of energy before it can open the portal.”

I point to the bar on the computer which slowly filled up until complete, then turned green. The humming stabilized to a lower noise, and the table lit up. There was a crackling noise as all the power was distributed to each shell. After that there was only the noise of the spool spinning down.

“There,” I said. “The portals were successfully established.”

“So you could take off my arms and legs? Like on the show?”

“We could, yes. But that wouldn’t really make you portable, just kind of a temporary amputee.”

“Okay, got it. So what are you gonna do instead.”

“Watch,” I said. I pressed one of the buttons on the computer.

“What am I watching?”

“Your left leg.”

The portal’s light lit up green to show it’d been activated.

“It’s … like retracting.” Alyssa’s mouth hung open as she looked at her leg, running her hand down her thigh as it was pulled into the portal.

“Right. Technically, we’re compressing your leg until it’s two dimensional, basically putting it where things go ‘between’ the portals.”
Alyssa’s leg had disappeared up to her knee, and kept going. Soon it was just her foot, until everything finished being sucked up by the portal.

“Is this like a metal disc or something?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “We use platinum as a catalyst for the reaction to take place, which means that a thin strip of it will ‘protect’ your leg. Although at this point, we could just take the portal shell off and you’d have a smooth stump on your leg.”

“I wanna see!”

“Sure.”

I removed the portal shell, exposing a perfectly shaped thigh, ending in a right angle and flat surface.

“Weird,” she said, stroking it. “I can feel it like it’s inside my leg. But the rest of my leg I can’t feel at all.”

“Do you wan to keep going?” I asked.

“Definitely!” she grinned. “Can you do the other three all at once!”

“Sure,” I said. I went back to the computer and selected the remaining portals, then told them to activate.

I looked back to Alyssa who was lying back, watching her arms begin to withdrawal into the portals.

“I have kind of a confession to make,” she said. “And that’s that I like being tied up.”

“Oh yea?” I grinned.

“Yea. And this — this seems like it’ll be like being tied up, only better. Because I won’t be able to move at all.”

“Oh, you can still squirm around a bit,” I said. “And I may as well tell you, I may have a bit of a thing for seeing girls tied up.”

“Why didn’t we do this sooner? Look at that, it’s up to my elbows!”

We both watched her hands flex, before she waved goodbye to me. Then her arms and legs were both gone.

“Take off the portals!” she said. “This is so cool!”

I undid the portals, exposing three more perfectly flat stumps.

“So this is for storing someone?” she said. “Are you sure it’s not for this?”

“Well, ‘this’ is why I was so interested in the project. But at least on the surface, it’s for storage. We could collapse an entire person down and retrieve them later. You could ship through the mail. We’ve done it.”

“I think you’re overlooking the utility of this as a toy for people like us.”

I laughed “It’s a ten million dollar machine, but maybe there are some rich perverts we should be looking for.”

She shrugged her empty shoulders. “I love this. How long can I stay this way?”

“Pretty much as long as you like. As long as nothing happens to the shells, your arms and legs will be fine.”

“Can we take it further?” she said.

“What’d you have in mind?” I laughed.

“My head.”

“Hmm,” I said, sitting down on the table next to her. I lifted her up so she was sitting on my lap. “Your head…” I tracked my finger along her neck.

Her eyes closed, and I thought I felt her pulse throbbing, quicker, quicker.

“Yea. Is that possible?”

“It is. There’s just one thing I need to do first.”

“And what’s that.”

I kissed her. Kind of predictable. But okay. Had to be done. We made out for a couple minutes, before the idea of vanishing her head became too intriguing.

“Okay,” I said. “So we’ve tested headlessness on people before. Some really didn’t like it. It’s like complete sensory deprivation. You’ll still be able to feel what happens here, but everything else is gone.”

“Have you done it?” she asked.

“Yep. It was … like being underwater in the dark. And you don’t feel yourself breathing. Kind of hard to describe.”

“I want to try it,” she said.

“All right then.”

I lowered her down and went to get another portal shell. I fastened this one around the base of her neck and pulled it snug. I ran my fingers through her curly brown hair.

“Hmm…” she said, closing her eyes. “Why don’t you undress me.”

Those aren’t words that anyone needs to hear twice. I practically tore her clothes off, first her blouse and skirt, then slowly, and along with some extra attention, her lingerie. I looked at her naked, limbless for a moment. She looked up at me with wide eyes.

“All right,” she said, her chest heaving up and down. “Do my head too.”

I powered up the machine again. This time, with only one charge needed, it went a bit faster, although it was hardly any quieter. Finally it was ready, and I engaged the shell around her neck.

“Ahh, I can feel it starting,” she said. Her neck started to creep into the portal.

“I leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her lips as the portal got closer to her chin.”

“Mmm, thank you for doing this!” she said, just before the portal moved up to her lips. It continued up her nose towards her eyes, which were still wide open and starting into mine. Just before the portal got to them, she glanced down and then… that was pretty much it.

The portal sucked in the rest of her head and hair.

I just looked at her helpless body, her chest glistening and heaving up and down. I tried to imagine what she may be feeling. Excitement. Distress. Helplessness. But if she was the kind of girl who enjoyed this — the kind of girl I thought she was — I knew this had to be drawn out. I removed the portal shell and set it by the others. Another perfectly smooth cut, right across the base of her neck. I kissed the area once, and then kept my distance for a minute. Another kiss on one of her nipples. A lick on the other one. A hand brushed across her ribs.

But I had to check on something first. I want to be sure she was okay, that she wasn’t panicking. Without anything she could move, we hadn’t indicated a ‘stop’ button or anything.

I took the shell that contained her head and set it flat on the surface of the table about a foot or two away from her body. Then I went to the computer and told it to restore.

While compression takes about a minute to achieve, restoration is typically much faster. This, I understand, has something to do with the way the molecules become packed. They’re under a certain type of pressure, so when they’re released they kind of ‘spring’ back into existence.

Alyssa gasped loudly.

“Oh….. My god!”

“Being brought back is kind of intense.”

“It’s a huge rush. Like, I was headless, and it was all so quiet and then… wow. Everything just came back at the same time. I think I’m sweating— hey wait! I’m … you took off my head!”

“Thought you might like the view,” I said, turning so faced her lower body.

“Oh my god, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Pick me up, I wanna get a closer look.”

I scooped up her head and held it so she had a view over her whole body.

“I wanna suck on my tits,” she said. “And give myself head. And give you head. Oh god, I’m so turned on by this…”

Exactly that went on for a few minutes. I stripped off my clothes, and positioned her head wherever she asked for it, which generally meant giving her something to suck on.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I want you to make my head disappear again. And then I don’t want you to bring it back until tomorrow. Can we do that? Please, please, please?”

“Like you really need to beg about something like that,” I said, giving her another kiss.

“Take me home with you,” she said. “Use me as many times as you like…”

“I can set up a camera,” I said. “If you want to watch it later.”

“Ohhh… yes. Do it. Please!”

I went over back to the computer and re-activated her portal. A few minutes later, I had her back as she’d asked to be, a limbless, helpless torso.

What an amazing night that was going to be. I gathered Alyssa’s clothes and various bits and pieces into a duffle bag, and whistled while I went out to the car.