Chapter 2: Taming a Fox girl
I ENTERED THE SLEEK, antiseptic little room where I performed most of my bindings, weary and tired from another long day of work but excited to use my powers to their fullest.
The room was small and dark, like most of Night City, my home city. There were dim lights up above the binding chair with a greenish-blue tint to them, also characteristic of Night City. There wasn't anything in the room other than the chair, a long, steel appliance much like ones in a dentist's office but without the cushions. Sure, that seemed needlessly cruel, but I'd been told that the space allowed by the cushions could cause unforeseen complications in the binding. I wasn't sure if that was true, though, since it'd been that way since long before I became a binder. In fact, it was one of the first things Elias Berg, the CEO of TelCorp, instituted when he took charge.
Satisfied that everything was in order, I turned my attention to the woman strapped tightly to the chair with metallic restraints. The foxgirl was incredibly beautiful, like all of them were. That's what made her kind so desirable. She had long pink hair and pointy little ears sticking up from beneath her curls. Other than that and her long, equally pink tail, she looked mostly human.
She looked up at me with wide eyes, no doubt afraid of what was about to come. She couldn't say anything, though, because a metallic restraint was also strapped across her mouth, necessary to hold her head down and ensure that the binding took properly.
The more movement a client had, the more likely everything would get all fucked up, and sometimes, the foxgirls just couldn't help but squirm and thrash during the procedure.
I glanced over the forms one last time on my clunky gray tablet, as I always did, to make sure that everything was in order. The TelCorp logo, a sharply slanted T surrounded by a half-circle, was etched into the back of the device. I smiled at the sight of it, as I often did, proud of the company that my father had built before his untimely death when I was young. Everything looked correct, so I turned o the device and slipped it underneath my long leather jacket. Unlike most, which were black, mine was gray, which signified that I was one of TelCorp's elite binders.
It was a heart attack that did my dad in, which was a little odd because he'd only been forty. I'd only been four at the time, so most everything from that time was pretty blurry. My mom died when she was giving birth to me, so my dad was all I'd had.
I remember thinking how strange it was that the rich and powerful Mak Joch was killed by something as mundane as a heart attack, and there was nothing anything could do to save him, no matter how much money he had.
He'd been a binder, too, and a damn good one at that. I always thought about him right before performing a binding. It made me feel closer to him somehow.
One day, maybe I'd get to be CEO of TelCorp just like he was from when he founded it until his untimely death. I'd been on track for an executive position for a while now, but for the time being, I relished doing my bindings.
I stood over the woman in the steel chair which was pushed down so that it was almost as flat as a bed. A very uncomfortable bed, anyway. I smiled down at her, trying to make her feel as comfortable as possible for the procedure.
"It's alright," I assured her. "It'll be over soon. It might hurt for a few minutes, but you'll be glad you did it, though. Foxgirls always are."
For whatever reason, my clients were always terrified even though they consented to the procedure. No amount of reassurance ever seemed to soothe them. I liked to try, anyway. Bot oh well. Sometimes, I wished I knew what it was like to be bound instead of just being the binder, but I would never consent to tie myself to another like that. Too much of a hassle.
I held my gloved hands up over the woman's body, which was bare except for where the straps held her down. Her clothing sat in the corner, waiting for her, while my other client, Mr. Wright, waited outside. I'd met with him first, not just to explain the procedure, but also so that I knew who to think of during the binding to ensure that it took.
I closed my eyes and focused clearly on the other client with my mind and with my soul. I focused on his appearance, his slicked-back dark hair, square jaw, and mismatched dark suit. But I also thought of his cool demeanor and weird look, and the certainty he had that this was what he wanted.
It was important for binders to pick up on emotions as well as appearances, given that we deal in spirits, not the physical world.
It was easier to perform the procedure since he was so near, the energy of his spirit resonating through the doorway. It would be even easier were he in the room with us, but that tended to add other complications to the procedure.
Much like fathers growing weak and anxious when their partners give birth, the binding clients tended to react similarly during the procedure. Most binding companies like TelCorp stopped letting them watch years ago for just that reason.
Once I had a grasp on his spirit and could feel it there in the room with us, I turned my attention to the foxgirl. She struck me as a warm and inviting person with a loving spirit. Of course, I had never interacted with her, but I had a knack for picking up on these things. Most binders do, but I even more so than most. I wasn't sure why. I'd just always been that way. I think my dad was like that, too, from what I remember. There was just a warmth about him that was difficult to miss.
This woman seemed that way, too, on the inside, even though she was scared right then.
Apparently, I was right about her because her spirit came to me easily enough. I could feel it rise in the air above me, where my hands were spread out. As the two spirits met in the air, green streams of smoke appeared around them, illuminating their presence in the form of two bright flickers of light, almost like stars down on earth.
The green smoke swirled around both of the lights, and one end of each swirl of smoke latched on to each of the spirits, pulling them tightly together until they were one, a single larger, brighter star now. I smiled, feeling the two spirits combine.
Another job well done.
I really did love my work. It's kinda like when rich people do charity not to help others, but only so they can feel good about themselves. I basically bring people together; in the most literal way possible.
Then something unusual happened.
Somehow, the foxgirl seemed to dislocate her shoulders and managed to wriggle out of her restraints before shifting her shoulders back into her sockets. Now free, she snapped the rest of the restraints binding her to the chair.
"What the hell?" I said in surprise as I stepped back. It took an incredible amount of strength to break those things. Though the restraints were made of a mesh-like material, that mesh was laced with steel. I knew that the foxgirls were strong, but I'd never seen one this strong.
The foxgirl's biceps bulged as she broke the last of the restraints. Then she leaped off the table and darted over to the corner of the darkroom, her hands held high in a defensive position. She spat out the restraint that still lingered in her mouth and growled at me.
"It's okay," I said, holding out my hands to show her I meant her no harm. "It's over. The procedure's done. Nothing to worry about now."
"Nothing to worry about?" she spat, her voice low and raspy. "You just enslaved me, binder!" My mouth dropped open.
"Well, yeah…? That's what I was hired for?" I started to ask, but she cut me off.
"You bound my soul to another. Now, I'm indebted to him for life," she hissed, and I noticed that her fingernails were long and pointed, like claws. Given her strength, I certainly didn't want to be on her bad side.
"Isn't that what you wanted?" I said, while tilting my head in curiosity. I reached into my jacket to retrieve my pad, and she growled again, louder and harsher this time.
"Don't even think about it," she warned as she arched her claws in my direction.
"I'm not going for a weapon," I said, quickly pulling out my pad and holding it up to show her. "I wouldn't need one, anyway."
Sure, she may be strong and have claws and all, but I was a binder, and a damned capable one at that. She didn't represent much of a threat to me. Even so, I didn't want to hurt her. She seemed confused and disoriented, though. Had something gone wrong with the binding?
"Look." I pulled up the contract on the pad and showed it to her. "This is your consent form. You signed it, remember? You consented."
"I did no such thing," she said, swiping at my pad with her claws. I quickly pulled it back and returned it to the inside of my jacket. I didn't want to break another pad if I could help it.
"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely concerned. "There's no way you didn't consent. We don't do nonconsensual bindings at TelCorp."
It was true. TelCorp went to great pains to make sure that all of its clients, both the master of the bound like the man outside and the bound like this woman, consented to the procedure. Though my father died when I was young, I remembered one day in particular when a client had offered him a lot of money to do a binding without the bound's consent.
Some of the investors wanted him to do it, too. That sent him into a rage like nothing I'd ever seen from him before. He marched around our apartment, screaming at the investors on the phone and chewing out the potential client for even suggesting such a thing.
Sure, there were some seedier corporations and lone binders that did that sort of thing, but that was illegal and punishable by a lifetime in prison and the disbanding of the business. Even so, the foxgirl scoffed at this notion.
"Right." She laughed sarcastically. "That's why women like me go missing from the projects every day. Because we want to be slaves."
I shook my head, still trying to process this. "That's not possible," I said, gesturing to my chest where I'd safely tucked away my pad. "The contracts--"
"Are forged," she finished for me. "You don't honestly expect me to believe that you don't know that. That you don't understand how these things really go."
"Holdup" I was unsure for the first time today. "You mean… this is common?"
"Yeah, no shit sherlock" She glared at me.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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