The Implant Knows What You Need - Notes on Writing 'Mantamer'

"You’re helping us build something extraordinary," she whispered. "Something that could... could fix relationships forever" 

-- Dr Shirin Dastgir, Mantamer

 

Mantamer is an interesting one for me - I started writing it half-way through writing of On Chestnut Tree Lane, because I was finding it tough to keep my head in a dystopian setting while also reading the news (Hey, it was late 2024...).

I sat down with the intention of creating a fun corporate femdom setting - dominance dressed up as performance reviews, sales targets dressed up as chastity release-conditions, that sort of thing.

(And actually, I still think that's a pretty good idea...).

But without my meaning it to, Vireon became a biotech company - and really what's more deliciously sinister than a man like Harry, desperate to submit inside and yet trapped in the societal framework of having to play the strong executive, getting so rapidly out of his depth?

It was inevitable that Vireon's core product like would be working on neural implants that can control the male orgasm, because Harry made such a gorgeous test subject - from there it was only a short step to him testing a new version of the Mantamer system, an implant so intense that it almost strays into body horror when he discovers how much control it has over him.

Where Chestnut Tree Lane was about external control and the impact of femdom on an entire society, Mantamer shifted the lens inwards and into something far more intimate, a tighter focus on how Harry is reshaped by the women who use him. 

I particularly adore the scene where Dr Dastgir plays with the settings to shape the things he can say: it's such a beautiful moment in some ways - a genuine deepening of her character and on some level even her affection for Harry - but it's also just deliciously twisted. There's always something utterly intoxicating about a sub saying not what he wants to say but what he knows you want to hear. 

...If I could bottle Harry's desperation as he realises she's asking him questions he literally can't answer I'd never need coffee again!

And I do low-key love Dr Dastgir, which I hope comes through in the text - she's not a perfect domme, she gets carried away, distracted by her own emotions, and she makes at least one huge mistake - but she always tries her best and she learns from it. 

(Dr Lin doesn't - she's an absolute nightmare, and I don't love her at all... But I also found it really hard to look away as she was working: her absolute focus on power and her goals is intimidatingly addictive. She acts as a foil for Dr Dastgir in that sense; all of Shirin Dastgir's fascination with the power of the Mantamer chip but none of the empathy that keeps Shirin grounded and humble as a domme.) 

But I do try - however much my poor male leads are suffering - to give them some sort of a happy ending (even if they're otherwise strictly denied!), and I think that's important. Believe it or not, I do really feel for my characters when I write them, even when I deliberately write them being put through the wringer: in fact, if I didn't feel for them quite as much, I probably wouldn't dare subject them to such deliciously relentless denial. 

But that means they deserve fully realised, engaging dommes too. Not necessarily perfect dommes: it's easy to write dominant characters who are perfect and flawless all the time, but it's also a little dull. Instead, I try to make them realistic, make them flawed-but-compelling. Dommes who appreciate the trust and power they've been given (even if they do get briefly carried away at having access to subdermal implants that can make a man into a good boy at the click of a button!). 

I think my readers deserve the kind of domme that they can aspire to find one day, and that doesn't mean perfect (it probably doesn't mean too merciful either!). I've never met a domme who didn't at least sometimes get carried away, but the good ones feel guilty when that happens: I think it's important to reflect that, and show how redeeming Harry's trust is for Dr Dastgir.

 So in the end, Mantamer didn't end up as a bland corporate antidote to the dystopia of Chestnut Tree Lane - it just ended up a much more modern, cyberpunk dystopia (the coda gives me goosebumps!). But I think that's OK too. Often when I'm writing I try to switch between projects, because focusing on other characters help things pop into closer relief. 

It was after writing Shirin Dastgir in Mantamer that I realised Katie Whitmore in Chestnut Tree Lane needed more depth. She needed doubt. She needed to start wondering if the NVLA regime might not be entirely ethical after all.

She’s never known anything else - but by the end of the book, she’s questioning whether edging a man to tears just because he glanced at a woman’s legs is… entirely just.

Mantamer was a different dystopia, that's all. But it was one where I was better able to foreground love and the trust subs sometimes show, and that was a wonderful thing to write about (and it led me almost directly into the core ideas of Sense of Submission, too: because once you’ve written a man who gives himself so completely to a system out of fear, you have to ask what it would feel like to volunteer.)

The feeling you get when a good sub puts all their trust in you is another feeling I'd bottle, if I could. 

Although, then I'd never get out of bed.