Gerlinde noticed Lisle's divided attention - her anticipation; her "arousal" - instantly.  And instantly, she knew she had inspired it deliberately.  She realized she was toying with the girl a bit.  Enjoying her power over her.  Playing with her kitty. Her carotid artery began pumping helium.<br/><br/>She hid the crawling rise of her penis with a shift of her legs.  Focus, she told herself.  It's time for some revelation.<br/><br/>"You know enough about this place to know it has a reason to be nameless."  Gerlinde told Lisle.  Her hand picked up a motion on Lisle below the blanket.  She strummed obliques like guitar strings, even as she concentrated on what to say.  "I think you should know a bit about how I came here, so you understand why you're here and what you're to do."<br/><br/>Part of her rebelled.  Not the vulnerable part.  To what extent she felt tender and exposed, Gerlinde just wanted a cigarette - some meditative breathing; something else filling her reassuringly.  The part that rebelled was the fresh part - the one that had put her hand on Lisle's belly and was stretching fingers as low as they could get, inches under Lisle's navel.  The part that relished her power told her she should remain a figure of mystery to the girl - not Gerlinde, but "Doktor Baumann."<br/><br/>She soothed that part by telling it that as much as she might be opening a vein, it would be another tether to wrap around Lisle.  It may link both ways, but she was the only one that had the real strength to tug and lead.<br/><br/>"I got arrested once.  Just once.  It was a protest against the rise in hostility by the German-led European Union against the supposed threat of the Russian Federation."  Gerlinde waved her free hand elaborately.  "No Blood For Oil - that kind of thing.  Other than that, I had a pretty ... normal life.  If any life is normal.  I had just graduated medical school when the actual shooting started."<br/><br/>What came next was a minefield of questions, but Gerlinde just leapt over it, talking a bit faster.  "I signed up for the service.  As a medic.  I was sent to the lines near Kiev.  Things went badly there."<br/><br/>The green eyes drew her hand down and she brushed Lisle's hair as she spoke.  "I'm not going to say that what you went through and what I went through were identical.  I understand that I was part of the Reich and you were working against it.  But what we probably shared was the fear - that constant anxiety; wondering what you were going to lose next:  Going through a day knowing that as peaceful as things might seem, any moment could take away a friend, a lifelong dream, a piece of your morals.  I lost a lot, as I'm sure you did, and it just made the waiting for the big loss - even worse.  You get wishing for death after awhile."<br/><br/>Gerlinde paused.  She stared steadily, but at the same time wondered whether that was true.  Had she been suicidal?  Not consciously.  But then, what had happened to her next - what she had done - she did out of instinct.  She talked about it, tones handling it gently like the strange, delicate thing it was.<br/><br/>"I lost a best friend and I lost the ability to say that I never did anyone.  No more hippocratic oath for me.  I didn't mean to, really, but I got a lot of people who didn't deserve it ... hurt.  Dead, even."  Her jaw needed loosening.  She exhaled and talked on.  "Then, to help some people trapped in a burning tank, I got myself caught in an explosion."<br/><br/>Gerlinde shrugged.  "Woke up fine.  Yes, I was hurt."<br/><br/>She left off petting Lisle's head long enough to tap the narrow little scar under her ribs, then the one next to her chin.  "I was healing.  Then I went to sleep one night and woke up three days later different.<br/><br/>"You've seen how I'm different."  Gerlinde paused for emphasis.  She gathered her thoughts as well.  Should she talk more about what it was like to have ... what was done to her?  Should she go into the way having a cock put a new harness of hormones around her brain, yanking it eagerly in directions she wouldn't have imagined?  Or the fleshy weight of having her body extended in a new way, with so many, many new sensitivities that demanded attention?  Of how pleasure was now redefined?  She figured she would, in time.  For now, she just let her mouth run - the same slow, steady flow in synch with stare and caressing Lisle's crown.<br/><br/>"I was sick in two ways, when I woke up that way.  Physically, on some level.  Not so much my body adjusting, as a nausea over how ... permanent and severe the change felt."  Gerlinde had to pause again.  The next part took some effort to say.  "And sick in my thoughts.  Having this new part makes me ... feel things differently.  Want different things.  The things a man wants.  Kind of.  But twisted, I think.<br/><br/>"They said it was to help me make sense of how I would serve my new assignment."  Gerlinde glanced up for a moment, as though looking at the whole camp.  "This place.  A place where they do experiments on people, to see how the body and mind can be shaped into new forms with new instincts."<br/><br/>She shook her head.  "I don't know what use this place is, except to find out just where science can take civilization without ethics constraining it.  I know that most of the people sent here don't even see that side of it - they're just here to work in the chemical factories until they waste away and die.  I just know that the reason I got ... changed, and sent here, was because they had a special purpose here."<br/><br/>Gerlinde looked about her room: At her antique-style telephone, her ivory hairbrush, her wicker Italian rocking chair.  "I get all this because I'm special.  Which is what brings me to why I did what I did to you - and why you're with me now, rather than shivering in the prison barracks and waiting to die."<br/><br/>Her hand dipped to cradle Lisle's rump and her neck.  She held her like she was keeping her intact - more; like she was shaping her.  Gerlinde imagined Lisle to be clay in her hands, drying slowly into striking shape.  "Yesterday, I got orders to make a girl into a pet.  I...they use me to do all manner of things - deadly things.  I've had to burn people alive with their own hormones, and turn men into breeding sows and women into...like me.  But not you.  You were chosen for me to turn into...someone who would be treated like a pet.  Taken care of.  A pet who pleases.  For the Kommandant."<br/><br/>And that, as soon as Gerlinde had said it, was the hardest part to say.  Telling Lisle that she would be given away, not kept in her power.  That was the part she had been avoiding like a child avoids a tetanus shot.  That was the part that was the brittle part; the splinter in her heart.  She let a little of that show, before she could hide it.<br/><br/>"You couldn't stay as you were; only people who are...special; who're changed are treated with any decency here."  And to get past the difficult part, Gerlinde was rushing out the words now.  She was tossing ugliness on top of it like a dog kicks dirt over shit.  Gerlinde spoke steady, but she talked until she couldn't taste bitterness any more.  "New parts of their anatomy, to give them new desires that help with what they're expected to do.  New forms, because the people who run this place consider anyone who looks entirely human to be trash.  Normal people get killed for nothing here, Lisle.  Nothing.  I've seen a mother of two shot in the face because she was picking up a stone to take back to her daughters as a gift.  I've seen the guards strangle people just to see how long it takes.  This is a deadly place for those who aren't special.  Worse; it's an insane place."<br/><br/>Gerlinde sighed; her hand cupped the heart-shaped face.  She lowered her lips closer to the green eyes, as though to drink.  "I wanted better for you as soon as I saw you.  You were so beautiful - and I don't just mean your face, your body.  I mean the kindness and respect you showed me.  The gentle way you submitted to me.  I ... I don't want you to be thrown away."<br/><br/>She firmed her voice; her entire bearing.  Her hand gripped Lisle's bottom harder.  Very hard.<br/><br/>"That's why I told you what I did about obeying and being pleasing."  She impressed this with silence.<br/><br/>"That's why I did what I did to you without feeling too sad and too guilty about it."  And firm as she was, Gerlinde surprised herself with the feeling of wet growing on her eyelashes.<br/><br/>"I want you to be special.  I want you to fit in this place - not the camp, but here: A warm place, where someone is waiting to feed you, and wants to make you feel good, and who you..."<br/><br/>The bitter splinter dug in again.  A vision of the Kommandant entered her mind.  It was clear, clear enough to come with the usual ecstatic, formless thrill:  The Kommandant, who killed on a whim and crushed throats down with her cock and was quicker with a whip than she was with her smile - and who rarely found a reason not to smile.  Gerlinde cradled Lisle and tried to be firm.<br/><br/>In her panties, she was mountainous.<br/><br/>"Who you like to make...feel good." Gerlinde finished.  She cleared her throat with a light noise.  "The way you are now, it will make you feel wonderful to do the things you're expected to.  Wonderful inside.  And I know it'll hurt, but the hurt comes from having to accept that you're special.<br/><br/>"That's the part I want more than anything to help you with.  Understand?"