by Van © 2023
			Chapter 7

Edwina was exhausted... or nearly so.  Her heart was thumping, her breath coming in pants, her skin flushed and shining with sweat, and if it wasn't for the fan-generated breeze moving the air around her straining body she probably would have been in an even worse way.  She was also naked and her entire body inescapably restrained.

Some time earlier, naked, her wrists crossed and bound behind her back with synthetic rubber tubing and her lips sealed by a wide, broad strip of Microfoam tape, she'd followed her mini-robot guide to yet another subterranean chamber lined with vertical panels no doubt hiding yet more robo-arms with cunning arrays of interchangeable manipulators—and centered in the space was an elaborate, complex, sinister, yet arguably aesthetically stylish mechanism of highly polished stainless steel.  Armature?  Scaffolding?  Framework?  Whatever its official designation, it was a collection of heavy-duty articulated rods, interlocking gears, pistons, braided steel cables, complicated pulley arrangements, and padded clamps, all of which were open and ready to close around any available body-parts and  were definitely sinister.  The mechanism gave Edwina a very bad feeling as the chamber door whisked closed behind her.  She continued staring at the apparatus, not knowing what else she was supposed to do.  Then, as expected and feared, the vertical panels snapped open and a dozen robot arms quickly extended in her direction and lifted her naked body into the air once again, and her cooperation with whatever the system intended was neither necessary nor expected.

The nude captive didn't bother struggling... much... and even though the infamous shock-collar wasn't around her neck, when the tape was peeled from her lips she refrained from voicing complaints, demands, and/or insults, articulate or otherwise.  The robots released and removed her wrist bonds.  Edwina still hadn't gathered sufficient data to form an understanding of the functional details of Lydia's synthetic rubber-tubing bondage system, but she did know that once applied it was totally inescapable.  In any case, when the system "wanted" it to happen, the tubing disconnected and disappeared into the manipulator mechanisms.  It was remarkable... in a perverse misuse of advanced technology sort of way.

Next, working with their usual elegant and superbly coordinated finesse, the arms pressed Edwina's body against the thing-in-the-middle-of-the-chamber, and as she'd feared, its padded clamps snapped closed and tightened around her upper arms, waist, thighs, upper chest, neck, and—after a quick-change with the robo-arms' manipulator-clamps—her wrists and ankles.

"Ohhh..." Edwina whined in frustration as she tugged, squirmed, and tested the restraining power her new bonds.  She was hovering in midair in a sitting position with her bare feet about two feet off the floor, as if she was seated in an invisible floating armchair (with padded restraints).  It evenly supported her weight in a more-or-less uniform manner so she was arguably comfortable.  Also, totally helpless.

There was a pause as a gigantic flat-screen monitor lowered from the ceiling directly in front of her and the lights dimmed... then text and an obviously computer generated image of a female figure appeared.  Edwina noted the image in question had more than a passing resemblance to herself, both in features and physique.  The three-dimensional figure even had Edwina's complicated French braid, and she was clamped in the embrace of a computer-generated version of the machine imprisoning Edwina herself.  And oh by the way, Edwina's nearly semi-realistic virtual twin was also naked (which reminded Edwina of her own involuntary immodest condition).

Edwina scanned the text.  It was organized in a table with the overall title: RESISTANCE TRAINING, and each row listed a specific exercise—SQUATS, LUNGES, DEAD-LIFTS, PULL-UPS, LAT PULL-DOWNS, BENT-OVER ROW, PUSH-UPS, BENCH PRESS, etc., etc.—and each exercise specified the number of required repetitions.  Unfortunately, Edwina wasn't a aficionado of weight training and had only the vaguest idea of how most of the exercises listed were performed, nor did she understand how she was supposed to do anything while helplessly restrained.

"Commence preliminary warm-up and stretching exercises."

Edwina heaved a deep sigh.  Oh bother.  It was her old friend the disembodied and irritatingly obsolete synthetic voice was back and giving more orders.

"Conform with the actions of the illustrated figure.  The machine will allow the required movement and provide the required resistance.  Failure to follow instructions will result in punishment."

Punishment? Edwina wondered.  What punishment?  At least the purpose of the mechanism holding her prisoner was now clear... assuming the diabolical thing actually worked.  There was a hum of servo motors, and—Oh no!—a pair of what amounted to wire-form bra-cups deployed from either side, closed over her breasts, and pressed tight while the same thing happened to her virtual twin on the screen.  The cups fit the contours of Edwina's modest tits quite well, another example of sophisticated custom design.  Ominously, wherever two of the cups' curved wires met a tiny copper cone pointed inwards, and all of them were now dimpling her pink flesh!

If anything, Dr. Edwina Bliss was quick on the uptake.  Oh, that punishment.  She swallowed nervously.  It was now obvious.  The system would zap her breasts if she didn't obey its instructions!

"Prepare for punishment demonstration."

Edwina's eyes popped wide.  "No!  Wait!  That won't be n—AHHH!"  The bra cups had, indeed, zapped her breasts, and it had been dreadful!  The collar punishments had been even more painful, but the wire-form-bra and its many copper cones was certainly painful enough.  The copper-studded bra was monstrous... as well as motivating.

"Commence warmup."

On the screen, the computer generated image of naked Edwina began doing slow jumping jacks in mid air, and the real naked Edwina quickly followed suit.  The machine's servos whined, gears turned, cables slid through pulleys, and the machine conformed to Edwina's attempted motions while still providing support.  Edwina had to admit that once again the technology involved was impressive.  She kept flailing her arms and legs in the required manner as she felt her breath quickening and her muscles warming... and she very much feared this was only the beginning of what would be a strenuous ordeal.

Several very long minutes of strenuous effort later... at least a half hour... Edwina had struggled through every exercise listed on the first column of the projection screen's table, and according to additional columns, additional sets with an increasing numbers of reps and increasing resistance levels were still required!  Edwina wasn't at all sure she was up to the task, but she had no choice but to keep trying.

So far, Edwina had been spared additional breast-zapping punishments, but as her strength began to flag, the bra-cups began providing tingling "encouragement" for her to redouble her efforts.  Her muscles burned, she was already sore in places that had never before been sore in her life, and her entire body was flushed and dripping with sweat.  And the system wasn't finished with her!

Edwina gasped for breath... her muscles strained... the servo-motors whined... and Test Subject Bliss' daily exercise session continued.

Lydia had learned long ago that she could only goof off for so long before she was overwhelmed by the urge to check in on her business concerns and/or continue one or more of her ongoing research projects.  She heaved a sigh, rose from her lounge chair out on the deck, executed an extended full-body stretch (testing the strength of the strings of her white bikini and the fabric of the bra-cups themselves), then gracefully padded to her bedroom office and settled into her ultra-comfortable office chair.  As she did so the system automatically activated the multiple screens arrayed in an arc across the far side of her desk.  She scanned their contents for a few seconds... then her fingers began dancing over the desktop's virtual keyboard and glide-pad.

All was well.  Λ≡LIOS ÇYB≡RTRONICS™ was humming along as expected, generating billions of dollars of revenue from innumerable endeavors and (from a human perspective) reinvesting it as quickly as it was accrued; and all of this was happening with minimal human intervention.  The corporation's high-level executives were earning their colossal paychecks, but as usual it was Lydia's expert system software that was doing most of the heavy lifting and keeping the multi-dimensional business plan on track.

The news of the day from traditional journalists and social media sources was largely uninteresting.  Her data filters, fine-tuned with years of machine-learning, had flagged nothing requiring her immediate attention; and that included the apparent and/or alleged disappearance of the actress Alice Lindgren.  Lucasfilm and Disney continued working on their blockbuster SciFi franchise project without pause.  Most of those involved still wanted Alice to play the crucial role in which she'd already been cast... but where was she?  Her agent claimed to be as much in the dark as the rest of them, the police had found no credible evidence that foul play was involved, and so far the entertainment media hadn't picked up on the "story."  Eventually, as the "Alice Lindgren kidnapping case" grew colder and colder, the studios would have no choice but to re-cast Alice's role, the police would close their files, and the world would move on... but it hadn't happened yet.

On the home front, a subroutine of the Test Subject Edwina sub-system had flagged something User 00 (Lydia) might find interesting and/or entertaining and had cued up a copy in her in-basket.  The time-stamp on the file was about an hour in the past.  She smiled and tapped the relevant icon on the relevant screen and video of the something in question began playing on the wall-sized mega-screen directly in front of the desk.

The onscreen image of Edwina was larger than life, and she was also naked and clearly quite furious.

"Lydia!  Lydia Aelios!  Show your face, you barmy nutter!  I have a few choice words for you!"

Dr. Bliss was surrounded by several general purpose robo-arms with general purpose prisoner-handling attachments—and they were closing in on the angry test subject.

"No!  Stay away!  Let me go!  Let me go immediately!  MRRRF!"

When the restraint routine had run its course, Edwina's bare feet were deposited back on the chamber floor, her wrists were now crossed and bound with Lydia's revolutionary new synthetic rubber tubing and her lips sealed with a generous strip of hypoallergenic tape, but was otherwise naked and unrestrained. The prisoner's attitude, however, was anything but unrestrained.  "Mrrmpfh!"  She stamped her bare feet, tugged on her bound wrists, twisted her hips, and rolled her shoulders.  The only practical effect was to cause her modest boobs to bounce and sway (a little).  She was quite upset.

Lydia smiled.  So... Edwina Bliss wasn't the docile little captive resigned to her fate she pretended to be.  Remove her collar and the deliciously cute and oh-so-proper Brit was as feisty and high-spirited as ever (within the limits of her proper English reserve, of course).  This was probably why the Psychological Expert System software had approved flagging Test Subject Bliss' "diatribe" for Lydia's attention.  Psychology was hardly an exact science and Lydia knew she could rely on the software to manage Edwina's "conversion" only so far.  Occasionally, she'd have to personally assess the situation and adjust the sub-program's parameters as required.

Lydia's smile morphed into a truly wicked grin as she rose from her office chair.  This will probably be fun, she mused as she padded towards the elevator to the lower levels.  However, halfway there she decided to take a detour to the deck off the bedroom.  She stood in the open doorway and gazed at her girlfriend.

Alice's sunbathing experience was something like a half hour in the past.  Midway through the session the capture-bots had released her spreadeagled, sweaty, and cocoa-butter slathered body, flipped her over onto her stomach and boobs (easily controlling her struggles while they did so), and restored her wrist and ankle-bonds.  Lydia had then applied cocoa-butter to her back, butt, and other not-yet-anointed anatomy... taking her time in the process... and the sunbathing had continued.

When the session-timer reached zero, the canvas sunscreen overhead deployed, shading that portion of the deck, Alice's slab or lounge-platform lowered itself to a fully horizontal position, and the capture-bots rumbled close and revised Alice's bondage.  Unfortunately for Alice, the post-session change was much more extensive and restrictive than a spread-eagle.  Specifically...

Alice was now hogtied.  Alice was now elaborately hogtied.  In fact, an objective observer might argue that Alice was now ridiculously hogtied.

The blonde's hands were behind her back, palm-to-palm, and virtually mummified in a macramé-like web of synthetic rubber tubing from her wrists to her fingertips.  More tubing pinned her elbows together and her arms against her back and butt by means of an upper-body harness that framed her breasts and yoked her shoulders.  More tubing lashed her forearms to her waist, with tight cinching strands between her waist and arms.  Additional strands passed through her crotch, cleaved her butt-cheeks, and both framed and cleaved her pussy.  The crotch-tubing also pressed her mummified hands against her butt.

As for her legs, Alice was bound at her mid-thighs, above and below her knees, her mid-lower-legs, and her ankles, feet, and big-toes.  Finally, enforcing the aforementioned hogtie, her wrist and ankle-bonds were lashed tightly together in close proximity, her toes and foot-bonds linked to the upper-body-harness at the level of her shoulder blades, and her thighs lashed to her lower-leg-bonds, with hitches and cinches to make everything one complex system of stretched tubular synthetic rubber.  Alice was essentially balanced on her stomach, with her knees and most of her breasts hovering just above the slab's padding.

Adding torment to confinement, the capture-bots had released the tight hair-bun that had ensured maximum exposure of Alice's face to the sun, folded her golden tresses back onto themselves, wrapped it all in a neat, tight sheath of rubber-tubing, then linked the result to her big-toe-bonds!  As a result, Alice's chin was raised and her head pulled back and more-or-less immobilized.

As usual with Lydia's amazing new synthetic-rubber-tubing bondage system, all of the strands were stretched the same amount, distributing the tension over Alice's entire body.  Her tan skin still glistened with cocoa butter and sweat and her pale-blue eyes were angry and glaring at the person ultimately responsible for her condition, Lydia Aelios.  She would have told the smiling, bikini-clad brunette exactly what she thought of her, but the captive's lips were sealed by a taut, stretched, generous strip of Microfoam tape.

A thrill of erotic power rippled through Lydia's pussy and up her spine as she gazed at her incredibly helpless and beautiful girlfriend... but she decided not to say anything.  She limited her gloating to a self-satisfied smile... then continued on to the elevator.

Alice watched her go... and settled in to suffer in solitude.  (She didn't count the machines overseeing and implementing her ongoing ordeal as company).

To her vast surprise, Edwina survived the entire training session without having her boobs fried.  She completed the final rep of the final exercise (which filled in the final cell of the session table displayed on the gigantic flat-screen monitor).  Her heart pounding, her breath coming in pants, her skin flushed and dripping with sweat, and her muscles burning, Edwina relaxed in the machine's inescapable padded restraining-clamps.  She heard humming motors, opened her eyes, and watched as the now blank monitor disappear into the ceiling.  At the same time, the system was transferring custody of her limp body to a pair of mobile capture-bots... and they rolled out the door and transported her to a tiled chamber.  She barely noticed as that room's robot arms subjected her to another involuntary rinsing, soaping, scrubbing, and generalized external cleansing.  Next, still naked but no longer hot and sweaty, the capture-bots regained custody and transferred her to yet another chamber.  This one had a padded floor and walls of a kind Edwina had experienced before.

So, was Edwina going to be allowed to rest?  Almost.

The vertical wall panels snapped open, the inevitable robo-arms deployed, seized the exhausted test subject, then proceeded to bind her from head to toe with more synthetic rubber tubing.  When they were finished, Edwina was lying on her side on the padded floor with her wrists crossed and lashed together behind her back—her big-toes, feet, and ankles tied together—and a neat ladder-tie of slightly stretched tubing binding her legs together, pinning her arms against her torso, and yoking her shoulders.  All the bindings were cinched between her legs, her arms and torso, and through her crotch.

Edwina's long brown hair had been released from its former French braid back in the bathing chamber, and while it was now clean and dry (like the rest of her) it was also badly in need of a thorough brushing and combing.  In fact, it was a tousled and disgraceful tangle draped around her head with strands trailing across her pouting face.  She shook the mass to either side of her head as best she could, and watched as the capture-bots trundled from the chamber, the door whisked closed, and the robo-arms returned to their alcoves and the covers snapped shut.

Edwina wasn't gagged (for once) but decided to keep her disgruntled comments to herself.  Why waste clever (and snarky) repartee on computer code and robot hardware?  She heaved a sigh, stretched in her bonds (which stretched back), then closed her eyes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  zzzzzzz  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Wha?" Edwina muttered as she opened her eyes, smacked her lips, swallowed, and blinked.  She'd been awakened by the opening of the chamber door.  She shook the hair from her face as best she could, with limited success, and directly in front of her found a pair of bare feet!  She lifted her chin off the padded floor, looked up, and scowled.  "You!" she accused.

The feet belonged to Lydia, who was standing with her hands on her hips and smiling down at the prone, naked, tightly bound Edwina Bliss.  For some reason the mad-scientist/despicable-kidnapper was wearing a skimpy white bikini (with a pair of folded sunglasses tucked between the bra-cups and dangling between her breasts) and nothing else (not that Edwina cared).

"I got your message," Lydia with in gloating purr.  "You have something you'd like to say?"

Edwina swallowed and marshaled her resolve.  This was her chance, and it might be her only chance.  "You villain!" she accused.  "I know the real reason you're treating me in such a deplorable and uncivilized manner, and it has nothing to do with your supposed girlfriend or your wounded heart."

"I see," Lydia chuckled.  Her smile became truly evil.  "And that reason would be?"

This had better work, Edwina thought.  "Professional jealousy!" she huffed.

Lydia's pale blue eyes widened in surprise.  "J-jealousy?" she chuckled.  "Are you serious?"

"Almost immediately after I entered your employ it became obvious that I am clearly your intellectual superior," Edwina stated.  (That wasn't even remotely true, but she knew she had to make Lydia angry.)  "You have some middling talent in coding, but once you created... or stole... your first expert system programs, you began relying on them for the bulk of your so-called research.  You're a charlatan, and you're envious of my talent!"

Lydia shook her head.  "Oh, Dr. Bliss... you disappoint me.  You know that's utter nonsense."

Edwina scowled at her captor.  "Without my work you'd still be spinning your wheels with your high-level control algorithms, like you had for months... if not years."

"Nonsense," Lydia chuckled.

Edwina swallowed with carefully hidden nervousness.  It was time to strike the main blow.  "Prove it!"

"Prove what?"

"Prove you don't need my work!" Edwina responded.  "Isolate all my files, personal and especially professional, in a closed archive—but I know you won't do that!"

Edwina and Lydia, captive and captor, scientist and scientist, locked eyes.  Edwina's heart was hammering (which she hoped Lydia wasn't noticing) and Lydia's superior, gloating smile had slowly morphed into a cold stare.  Finally...

"This is user zero-zero," Lydia announced (obviously for the listening system).  "Isolate all of Dr. Bliss' files in a closed archive."

"Acknowledged.  ...  Process working.  ...  Process complete."

Lydia's smile returned.  "There.  It's done.  Now what do you have to say for yourself?"

Edwina's heart was still hammering.  Would it work?  Was the worm she'd planted in the servers working?  She had to be careful not to make Lydia suspect something might be happening.  "You're jealous and your work is inferior," she huffed.

Lydia's expression remained the same... but Edwina noted her blue eyes were now decidedly cold.

"I should have the system move on to the next test regime immediately," Lydia said, "but instead, I'll let the prescribed rest period play out.  However, I will tell you that next up is an especially unpleasant routine involving a great deal of nipple pain and involuntary orgasms.  There will be no gag, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to scream yourself hoarse... and afterwards I'll have the system restore your pretty collar so I won't have to listen to any more of your insulting, petulant falsehoods, ever again."  And with that, she spun on her bare feet and padded through the chamber door.

Edwina watched as the door whisked closed behind her bikini-clad captor... then heaved a relieved sigh.  It was done!  Assuming that her worms hadn't been purged from the system, even now they would be rewriting all of the high-level administrative access tables across the entire network.  When they were done... assuming nothing went wrong... she should be able to terminate Lydia's test program and free her with a simple command!  Then, she'd have it direct her to the closest workstation and she could start dealing with the entire situation.  Edwina lay on her side on the semi-soft padding, naked and inescapably bound in Lydia's hateful synthetic rubber tubing, from her big toes to her shoulders, and stared up at the ceiling.

It was fortunate Lydia hadn't decided to have the system gag her or restore the shock-collar immediately.  She wants me to scream in pain, the captive thought, and that can't happen with the collar around my neck and paralyzing my larynx.  It would have been truly hateful and ironic to have her voice silenced now, when a few well chosen words should be able to restore her freedom... and Alice's freedom as well.

Edwina rolled onto her back and bound arms, bent her knees and rested the soles of her rubber-tubing-bound feet on the padded floor, and continued staring upwards.  It would be prudent to wait until the system had plenty of time to distribute the worm-revised access instructions throughout all the servers.  That way there would much less chance of a conflict alerting Lydia that what amounted to a cyber-coup was in progress.  Right now (assuming the worms had worked) Edwina and Lydia had equal authority, but Lydia had more knowledge of the ins and outs of the software.  Edwina needed to maintain the element of surprise.

Edwina reviewed her next words... deciding exactly how to phrase her commands for optimal result and minimal conflict with the probable structure of the protocols managing her captivity... and trying not to worry that it was all in vain, that the worm had already been purged or had failed and she would remain the system's test subject and Lydia's plaything.

Finally, after about five seemingly endless minutes, Edwina decided the time was right, licked her lips, swallowed, and spoke.

"This is an executive command from user zero-zero: release all test subject restraints at this location."

Lydia shook her head as she rode the elevator to the top.  She wouldn't have thought Edwina Bliss could be that petty.  They were both brilliant scientists, and they both knew it.  Edwina accusing her of professional jealousy was... silly.  It must be a reaction to the stress of her situation, Lydia decided.  Perhaps I should go easier on her, slow the pace of the test program, and give her more time to adjust to being an erotic torture guinea-pig.  Lydia's smile took a sinister twist.  But that would mean even more delay in introducing Alice to all the exquisitely creative punishments I've been planning for her for all these years.  No, Edwina will just have to suck it up and get with the program... not that she has any real choice in the matter.

In Lydia's absence, as usual, the array of monitors in the office had all gone dark, and that included the small flat-screen off to one side that would otherwise be displaying an unusual amount of activity among the upper tier administrative servers dedicated to the coordination and de-confliction of the Λ≡LIOS ÇYB≡RTRONICS™ cyber-empire.

Anyway, rather than returning to the office, Lydia padded out onto the deck and focused her gloating smile on Alice, who was still naked, hogtied in a tight bundle, gagged with a strip of off-white tape, and balanced on her tummy on the white canvas padding of the "tanning slab."  At the moment, Lydia's blonde girlfriend's eyes were closed and her contorted body "relaxed" in the elastic embrace of her incredible bonds.

"Poor baby," Lydia purred.  "That looks so very uncomfortable.  Are you sorry you broke my heart all those years ago?"

Alice's only response was to open her pale blue eyes, focus on her captor... then close them again.

"No?" Lydia sighed.  "No matter.  I'm going to punish you anyway... but I think we've had enough fun for now."  Next on Alice's schedule was several hours of rest... but it would be rather unusual rest.  "Put her away," Lydia ordered as she spun on her bare feet and padded away, not back into the bedroom but continuing around the deck.

The order had been for the system, of course, and the pair of mobile capture-bots that had been patiently waiting (meaning had been powered down and off to one side) sprung into action and trundled towards Alice and the slab.  Lydia didn't even bother looking back to watch as the robots lifted Alice's hogtied form off the slab and lowered her onto the top of one of the bots, which used its arms to hold her secure.  Then, the automatons rolled away with their precious cargo in the direction of the nearest elevator.

Lydia had decided it was time for her own daily exercise.  She turned a corner and arrived at a rectangular pool of clear, mirror-still water set in the deck.  It was about eight feet by fourteen feet by four and a half feet deep, and was of the "endless" variety, designed for exercise rather than recreation.  Powerful water jets were built into the front end and when energized would require a hypothetical swimmer to work hard to maintain a mid-pool position and not be carried against the back wall.

After placing her sunglasses on a nearby café table, Lydia gracefully stepped onto the slightly raised lip of the pool, then stepped off into the water.  She was now standing on a slab of thick glass with the water sloshing against her breasts.  Directly below the pool was a lounge/conversation-area she sometimes (very rarely) used for meeting with her most senior executives and/or VIP visitors.  At the moment the lounge was empty, of course, but a hypothetical occupant sitting on one of the comfy Ultramodern chairs or sofas would be able to look up at the rectangular "skylight" overhead and watch as the water-jets began churning and Lydia began swimming a leisurely Australian/American crawl.

The water was unheated, but this time of year it was cool rather than cold, and the exercise was invigorating.  Lydia's brown hair streaming behind her back as she easily kept pace with the artificial current.  Lydia smiled as she contemplated "Mermaid On the Hook," a punishment she had planned for her beloved.  In it, Alice would be encased in a skintight latex single-sleeve (trouser leg?) sheath from her hips to her toes.  It would bind her legs together but would allow some flexibility for her knees and the ability to point her feet, and it would have a built-in swim-fin similar to those worn by conventional divers, but with both feet tucked into a single generous fin.

Once installed in the mermaid sheath, Alice would be unable to free herself, even if her fingers and hands were free; but, of course, they wouldn't be.  Her arms would be folded behind her back and bound in a latex sheath tightly encasing her fingers, hands, and forearms from elbow-to-elbow.  The harness system would include a bra-strap that would capture Alice's breasts, but the cups would have generous circular openings to expose her nipples.

So, once dropped into the endless pool, Alice's only options would be to either let the artificial current carry her against the far wall, or to start swimming.  However, the system had a clever and cruel detail that would encourage her to take the first option and get her daily exercise.  A pair of spring-loaded nipple-clamps, each with a length of high-test fishing line attached to the front wall, would be pinching her nipples!  So, if Alice chose not to swim, she'd find herself suspended in midstream by her nipples!  The clamps were designed to tighten to a non-damaging but nonetheless quite painful tightness, then lock until the attached fishing-line went slack—and the only way Alice could make that happen would be to swim... and keep on swimming.  The dolphin kick would be her obvious choice, and over time it would make for a very intense abdominal workout.

Dr. Bliss would be testing the system first, of course, and her mermaid costume would be plain and utilitarian, probably in the same translucent natural-rubber amber color as Lydia's Revolutionary New & Improved Synthetic-Rubber Tubing Bondage System.

On the other hand, Alice's costume was planned to be "realistic."  It was silly, really, but Lydia liked the idea of Alice as a mermaid, with silver-blue scales and realistically fish-like fins and tail, as if she really was a mermaid.  Also, the bra would incorporate a pair of very large scallop shells with circular cutouts for her nipples (so the clamps could get at them) and they'd be held in place by synthetic rubber tubing made to look like strands of kelp with a few short, drifting, decorative leaves.  The same would go for the bra-box-tie-sheath, meaning it would also resemble kelp.

A thrill rippled through Lydia's bikini-bottom-covered pussy as she churned through the water.  Alice will make a gorgeous mermaid! she thought.

Lydia couldn't be happier, reveling in her limitless power as she swam with strong, sure strokes and graceful, fluttering kicks through the cool water.  She was in total control of everything and everyone in her ultra-modern mansion and subterranean lair ... and it was only the beginning!