The Long Embrace of Change

The Long Embrace of Change

 

Part II

 

I felt groggy the next morning.  I had no idea why – I stayed late at school, but no later than I’ve done in the past, and I came straight home.  No beers with the guys, nothing.  Just home.

 

My name is – was – Chris.  I was a biologist.

 

In hindsight, it’s incredibly ironic that this happened to me, an expert on solitary wasp behavior.  To know why, one must first understand solitary wasps. 

 

Solitary wasps don’t build big nests like hornets do.  They live alone.  And their reproductive behavior comes right out of science fiction.

 

The tarantula hawks (Pepsis formosa and Pepsis thisbe) are good examples.  They live in deserts where tarantulas can be found.  When it’s time, the female finds a tarantula and stings it.  Her venom paralyzes the tarantula, which is then dragged into a shallow burrow.  An egg is laid on the paralyzed tarantula.  When the egg hatches, the larva feeds on the tarantula until it becomes an adult wasp and digs itself out of the burrow.

 

But here’s the totally creepy part – the tarantula isn’t killed.  It’s paralyzed.  That means it’s still alive when the wasp larva starts eating it.  And it can’t do a damn thing about it.

 

Different solitary wasps target different prey.  Some only attack cicadas, for example.  Others find grubs burrowed in wood and insert long, thin ovipositors right through the wood, laying an egg on the grub.  In some cases, the larva deliberately leaves the vital organs of its host for last, keeping it alive as long as possible to keep it from starting to rot.  

 

No one knows if the victims are conscious or able to feel pain while their being eaten alive.  Part of me wants to believe they’re not, if only because the alternative is too horrible to imagine. 

 

But a few solitary wasps are much cooler than that.  They actually manage to direct the behavior of their host.  Biological mind control.  One of them injects venom directly into the brain of a cockroach.  As a result, the cockroach lets itself be led into the burrow and is uninterested in escape.  It’s not paralyzed - it just sits there, being eaten alive.

 

Then there’s Hymenoepimecis argyrophaga.  It’s a Costa Rican wasp that attacks a small spider called Plesiometa argyra.  Like the roach-controller, Hymenoepimecis doesn’t paralyze the spider and is more interested in mind control.  But in this case, the control is much more elaborate.  The tiny mother wasp simply lays an egg on the spider and flies away.  When the egg hatches, the larva begins to suck on the spider and, while doing so, drools a bunch of chemicals into the wound.  At a particular time, these chemicals cause the spider to stop spinning its own web and start spinning a cocoon for the larva.  The spider never knows why it suddenly decides to build cocoons – it only knows it must.  It works furiously, as if the future of the whole world rests on the completion of this one cocoon.  Once the cocoon is finished, the larva kills and eats the spider, crawls into the cocoon, and finishes its transition to an adult wasp.

 

Food, clothing, and shelter all from one easy source.

 

My own work was simple enough – I was trying to figure out how, exactly, the chemicals made by these wasps control another animal’s behavior.  And that’s why what happened to me was so ironic – a few chemicals, along with some other behavioral conditioning I still don’t completely understand, made me want to change to please – to serve – another. 

 

So anyway, I felt stiff getting out of bed.  I ran my hand along the back of my neck – it felt sore for some reason – and noticed a bruise on the inside of my left elbow.  I had no idea how that got there.

 

I washed up and started to get ready for class.  I taught two labs and had a late-afternoon seminar.  We were two months away from the end of the term.  But, just as I was putting my jeans on, I stopped. 

 

There was something in the air - a high-pitched sound of some sort.  I didn’t hear it as much as felt it.  It wasn’t loud – in fact, it was barely audible.  It was almost painful.  It stopped me in my tracks.

 

And then, for reasons I still don’t understand, I found myself walking into the bathroom, picking up a pair of scissors, and cutting my goatee off.  I didn’t consciously want to remove my goatee – I thought it looked good on me – but for some reason, I felt compelled to shave it off.  It had to go.  It was as if nothing could be more important at that moment.  I managed to keep my hands from shaking as I lathered up my face and razored the rest of the whiskers away.

 

Once that was done, I finished getting dressed and sat down for breakfast.  And as I did so, I opened the medicine bottle sitting on my table and took two pills – one yellow, one blue.  I closed the pill bottle and headed out the door.

 

That the bottle had no prescription label didn’t bother me in the least.  That I couldn’t remember being told to take pills, or having ever taken these pills before, or what the pills were for – those didn’t bother me either.  It was simply what I did in the morning – one yellow pill, one blue pill, taken down with my morning orange juice. 

 

I had a sense of excitement all day.  I can’t describe it.  It wasn’t the fact that I’d shaved my beard off – I kept rubbing my denuded chin all day, but I tended to grow and remove goatees fairly regularly – it wasn’t unfamiliar.  I couldn’t think of anything scheduled for after seminar.  I didn’t have anything special planned for my students.  There weren’t any deadlines coming up, and I wasn’t expecting a package.  I just felt as though I had big plans, and I couldn’t wait. 

 

I felt sorry for my students.  I must have spoken a mile a minute, stuttering the whole way.  I just couldn’t finish my classes fast enough.  By the end of my second lab, I was pounding the chalk against the blackboard, sending chalk chips flying though the air with every letter I wrote.

 

I found sitting through seminar intolerable.  I don’t even remember what we were talking about.  I just had to get out of there.  I fidgeted in my chair.  It was impossible to take notes.  The professor and the other students in the room kept glaring at me as I tapped my pencil against the table, staring at the clock, practically willing the clock to hit 5:00.

 

Once 5:00 arrived, I leapt from the chair and bolted from the room.  I hastily threw my textbooks and homework to be graded into my bag and ran for the door.

 

And, once I was outside, I turned left.  Why, I didn’t know – home was to the right.  But I just had to go left.

 

The stores along this stretch of the street were mostly fast-food restaurants catering to students.  There were also one or two nightclubs and a couple of bookstores.  My pace quickened.

 

I walked a few blocks and stopped at a door.  The sign over the door said, “TATTOO & BODY PIERCING.”  I stepped in.

 

My heart was pounding.  Why was I walking into a tattoo studio?  It was as though someone was making me do this – and oddly, I didn’t seem to mind.

 

I walked to the front counter.  It was empty except for a woman at the front counter.  She had black crewcut hair, harsh makeup, a ring through her nasal septum, and at least ten piercings in each ear.  She looked up.  “May I help you?”

 

The words were out of my mouth before I realized I’d said them.  “Yes – I’m here to get my ears and nipples pierced.” 

 

I stood there with what must have been a completely dumbfounded expression.  Never, in all of my life, had I ever thought of piercing an ear, much less my nipples.  The thought never crossed my mind.  I wasn’t opposed to the idea, mind you – lots of my students had piercings.  But me?  Wasn’t my style.  And I said “ears,” plural.  Both ears?  I knew some guys did that, but most men pierced only one ear, not both. 

 

And yet I just couldn’t wait to be pierced.  I can’t really describe how I felt.  It was as though someone was living in the back of my head, whispering the idea to me.  It wasn’t an instruction – not really, anyway.  It didn’t feel like I was being made to do this - I honestly wanted it.  Someone had made a suggestion, and for whatever reason it seemed like the most brilliant idea I’d ever heard.  I don’t know why I wanted it; I’d never wanted it before, and I could think of no compelling reason why I should want it now, but I wanted it nonetheless.  Wanted it badly.  Needed it, and needed it now.

 

She looked at me..  My intense need to have my ears and nipples pierced must have shown through in my voice, and I can’t imagine how that looked.  But however I looked, she didn’t seem surprised.  In fact, she almost looked as though she expected me to come through the door at that very moment and ask for those specific services.  “OK – your name?”

 

“Chris.”

 

“OK.  Fill this out – I have to make a quick phone call, and we’ll get started.”

 

She handed me a disclaimer form and a pen.  While I was filling in my name and address, the piercer stepped away from the counter and made a call on her cell phone.  I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she occasionally nodded and glanced in my direction while she spoke.

 

She finished her conversation just as I finished filling out the form.  We walked through the main part of the studio.  The walls were covered with sheets of colorful flash – ships, roses, snakes, pinup girls, dragons, abstract designs of all sorts.  She led me into a small room in the back of the studio, turned on a light, closed the door, and said, “OK – shirt off and have a seat.”

 

Almost mechanically, I pulled my shirt off and sat in what looked like a dentist’s chair.  Meanwhile, the woman from the counter pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

 

“14 gauge OK?”  I had no idea what she meant, but nodded anyway.  Whatever she was doing was what I desperately wanted done, and I still didn’t really know what that was.  And as I awaited the needles, I found my cock growing hard.

 

She stepped over to me and touched my earlobes with a felt-tipped pen.  “Placement OK?”

 

She held up a mirror.  Each of my earlobes had a small black dot.  I nodded again.  I grew stiffer still.

 

 “This’ll sting a little, but not too badly.”  In the space of a minute, she’d slipped a long, thin needle through each of my earlobes and threaded a stainless steel ring behind each one.  The rings were each about half an inch in diameter – much bigger than I’d imagined.  She closed each ring with a small steel ball.  They hurt a little. 

 

By now, my erection was clearly visible as a bulge in my jeans.  Sitting was painful.  The woman piercing me glanced down every so often, betraying her knowledge of my condtion with the slightest fleeting grin.

 

“Nipple time!”  She changed gloves and placed a small black dot on each side of each nipple.  She then clamped what looked like a hemostat on my left nipple.  The tips of the hemostat were loops. 

 

The clamp was very painful – but not nearly as painful as having the needle actually go through the loops and pierce the nipple itself.  That has to have been the most painful thing I’ve ever felt.  My whole gut seemed to clench, as though the needle passed right through my stomach.  I cried out.  But it was mercifully quick, and in no time at all I was looking down at a half-inch ring, just like those in my ears, dangling from my left nipple.

 

A minute later, the other nipple was pierced.  It was just as painful. 

 

“Can you excuse me?” I asked.  She nodded and pointed to an open door across from the chair.  I practically dove through the door, which led into a small bathroom, and closed it behind me.  I almost came right in my pants – as soon as my underwear was pulled below my balls, a jet of semen shot straight out and hit the mirror behind the toilet.  In my reflection, I stared in amazement at the steel rings fastened to my chest.  They looked amazing!  And somehow, I knew they would look amazing. 

 

I finished coming, trying very hard to keep from moaning, cleaned up the mess, and pulled my pants off.

 

I needed a minute to catch my breath.  When I was ready, I stepped out of the bathroom to find the piercer on her cell phone.  As soon as she saw me, she hung up.  “Are you OK?”

I was still panting.  “Yeah.  Yeah….must have been a little nervous about this.  Got sick.”  I wiped my chin with the back of my hand, as though to wipe my mouth clean.

 

She nodded.  “That happens a lot.”

 

I put my shirt back on.  The piercer handed me a bottle of saline solution and a care sheet.  I paid her and left.

 

I walked home.  As soon as I was in, I pulled my shirt off and looked at myself in the mirror.  I couldn’t pull my eyes away from my ears and chest.

 

After a while, I found myself rubbing my groin, making myself hard again.  While staring into the mirror, I brought myself to another climax.  I hadn’t had two orgasms – both of them large - within the space of a couple of hours in years.  But soon, the events of the day faded into the back of my mind, I crawled into bed, and drifted off to sleep. 

 

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt like my whole life was changing at that moment.