Dark Days (Written Pictures #2) (17 page)

CHAPTER XXXVIII – Opening Ceremony

The unseasonal ferocity of the early evening sun on already tender breasts snatched Raven’s breath despite the constriction she already felt around them, gripped tightly as they were by the ring of reinforced blue latex. Instinctively recoiling from the prickly sensation, bell-fitted breasts tolled their warning and she was dragged forward again by an impatient tug on her neck.

It was the cheer that snapped her fully back to reality. There, encircling her in her strange outfit were people, lots of them, laughing and pointing at the strange sight of a deconstructed dominatrix being pulled into a ring.

They were higher than she, elevated in stands around a sunken arena that looked more than a little like a bullring. Slowly she turned, adjusting her stance on the ridiculous heels as she looked from face to face, bells tinkling from her tits as she did. They all watched, all laughed, all focussed on her and what she had now become.

A hundred? Maybe more but it was hard to tell with the sun in her eyes and impossible to tell how many more laughed at the other side of screens when she noticed a camera zoom in and pan down her decorated body to take in the full ignominy of her perfectly prescribed exposure.

The white blush on her cheeks started to tinge pink and then, with laughter ringing louder than the bells swinging from her quivering breasts, that pink turned to red before transitioning quickly to scarlet.

She looked up, defying the shame that weighed her down. At the top of the stand, Alexei was shouldering his way purposefully through the howling crowd toward his seat, eyes fixed on her, examining appreciatively.

His eyes never left her as he barged through the baying crowd who, like a pack of hungry dogs, feasted on her humiliation. And what humiliation. She was a comic fetishists dream; Captain America, sexualised and feminised.

Part appreciation, part amusement, Alexei couldn’t help himself as he smiled. Even clad as she was, she was the American dream,
his
American dream. She even managed to make the garish explosion of red, white and blue look mouth-wateringly good. Though her makeup looked like it had been applied by a seven year old embarking on her first exploration of her mother’s cosmetics, her natural beauty still clearly shone through.

== ~ ==

She was ridiculous. With her sex and chest exposed, framed and exploding with white stars on her outfit and boots more often seen worn by some overtly patriot backstreet hooker, Raven knew she was ridiculous even before she heard the first shout. She pressed her thighs tightly together, making it difficult to stand but struggling on anyway, just to try to cover her shame.

Fists clenching tight around the rubberised props she carried, one hand rose to cover her displayed breasts behind the shield while her crop arm ineffectively covered her exposed butt. She needed his strength and looking up to pick Alexei out in the crowd again, she experienced instead a crushing of her soul. He was smirking at her too.

A cacophony of catcalls rung around the stands, stabbing at her like arrows shot from each laughing face.

“Stupid Yankee bitch.”

“Silly little slut.”

“Bet she takes it up her ass.”

“Bet she takes it any way she can.”

The laughter and insults continued, some vile, some just sounding idiotic delivered as they were by people shouting in a second or maybe even third language. They assaulted Raven’s ears, wrapping themselves tighter, constricting until she could barely breathe. And as they squeezed the very air from her lungs, the woman enveloped by them, standing alone in the middle of the arena, fractured and broke apart. She was Jacqueline Corbeau again and Jacqueline Corbeau cried.

CHAPTER XXXIX – Pieces of Eight

If she could have counted, the little black and white cat would have realised the symmetry in her life, a life of eights. Just eight months old, she had already wasted one of her nine lives due to a kittenish misjudgement of her own dexterity.

She always tried to nap eight times a day: anything less left her exhausted, anything more equally so. It was eight hours that her owner slept and she made sure she was at the kitchen door at eight sharp as the house awoke so she was ready to wrap herself in figures of eight around legs that sloped sleepily into the kitchen.

When she arrived on this particular morning though, the legs were already there and, curling her tail to encircle her carefully presented seated position, the little cat tilted her head and twitched her whiskers to watch for the hand that would reach for the cupboard where her food was kept.

It was always the same routine; coffee maker, milk and juice from the tall, white, humming object by the wall. She left them alone to do that part, it was cold and no place for a cat. Cup and glass from the shelf and then, when all that had been readied, the most important part - her turn. They obviously left the best until last and she would watch intently as they gathered a bowl, a fork and those meaty chunks in gravy she so loved, along with the vitamin pill she always intended to leave aside but never quite remembered to as she furiously fed. She guessed they had her wellbeing at heart but even the silly tall things that fed her should know better than to try to make a cat do anything other than it wanted to.

Tucking her back legs in tighter, her tail quivered in eager anticipation, willing the legs to bow to her will and serve her food. It wasn’t going to plan today though, and try as she might, the little cat couldn’t persuade the legs to present her with her delicious breakfast.

More was needed and so, with a mewl to herald her approach, she stalked to the legs and nuzzled as lovingly as she could before circling through them to spread the love on the other side in a persuasive sweep.

The smell of the coffee was so homely but lacked the meaty edge she craved. The little cat remembered nuzzling the toes on those same legs the previous night just to say hello and so redoubled her efforts in case her current message was being confused. But even her increased urgency didn’t work.

A brief crescendo of music tumbled from the work surface high above and the little cat paused, cocking her head to one side to gather in the sound. In her mind, the sound connected to an image of what made it; it was the warm thing with the bright window and the strange moving floor that she often laid on to get attention before being gently dumped somewhere else. At some point later the thing that competed for their attention would have to die, there was room for only one laptop in the house and that was her. But right now she needed to be served and things were getting out of paw.

Gathering her hind quarters ready, the little cat looked up at the work surface, whiskers twitching. It was high, but had been successfully reached many times before. That was usually achieved with a run up though and twice she hunkered back before relaxing – no margin for error here.

The third time her courage was high enough and she sprang, slipping as she landed in juice spilled from the glass she knocked over. She was greeted not by food but by a curse from the torso that should have been feeding her.

Looking around, the little cat quickly noted her surroundings. The thing with the window, they were looking at that again and so she turned back on herself to pace onto the warming keyboard, leaving orange footprints in her wake.

“Ah ah puss, no you don’t,” warned the torso, though of course in a gruff tone she didn’t care to understand. At the same time, the small cat felt a large hand scoop under her belly and lift her high in the air before she was deposited carefully back on the floor.

Frustrated at the displacement of her routine and the rejection of her affections, not to mention the indignity of being moved without her permission, the little cat sloped off, ears flat, mind set on hunting a bird to bring back to show the legs that
she
, at least, still cared.

As she passed over the threshold of the room into the carpeted hallway beyond, the little cat had her new focus, while the owner of the legs had her own. Eyes wide, peering hard at the laptop covered in sticky orange paw prints, the blonde called loudly, “Oh my God, Kat honey, you have to see this….”

CHAPTER XL – The Jester

Trumpets heralded the entrance of an effeminately dressed man with a chalk white face who pranced theatrically into the arena. He skipped two circles around the crying Jacqueline, leaning closer to steal a light brush on her exposed breast, then as she reacted to cover herself further, a breezed pass of his gnarled hand against her rear.

A third circle followed and after a pause and to the encouragement of the crowd, a fourth. Hands brushed here, there, everywhere normal society would say they shouldn’t. Through tears, Jacqueline watched his movements, reacting to them, covering what she could but still flinching to each intrusion, to which the crowd whooped their approval.

Shame told her to shove him away, kick him hard where it would hurt most, but sense argued that it would probably do her more harm than good. He was vile, circling, leering and fondling, passing around her for a fifth time, his hand lingering longer between her legs. Her own hand shot down to push his away and in response his flicked up, tinkling the bell hanging from her nipple. The sound of her slavery was barely audible over the braying of the crowd, but very clear to her own ears and she tried to still the bell, but as she did his hand shot down to her exposed crotch again.

Craning her neck, she forced herself to watch the strangely costumed man, clothed in a suit of left half yellow, right half red, with a large, floppy hat wilting over one eye. She needed clues to where he would touch her next if she was to be able to pre-empt him, it was the only defence she felt she had.

Breast, butt, bell, crotch; all received the outlandish jester’s attentions and each time she covered one area, she exposed another. She couldn’t keep up with his hands and her body bucked and twisted in a strangely enforced dance to the orange-haired clown who called and cawed, taunting her in a sing song voice, “Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, poor little Ki-Ki!”

The painted lips turned down and bobbing up left then right then left again, the man darted to remain in her line of sight, no matter how she tried to avoid it. “Ki-Ki cryyyyy for Jester,” he teased, wrinkling his face and screwing balled fists in front of his eyes to mock her.

Suddenly, arms flailing wide, he dashed to the side again, poking her tummy before slapping her exposed ass, then squeezing her breast as she flicked out the useless rubber crop to try to knock his invasive hand away.

== ~ ==

Alexei watched as the Jester teased and toyed, playing to the crowd, spurring them ever higher in readiness for the main event that had been staged in celebration. This was the start of his crowning glory and yet it didn’t feel quite right. His laughter felt a little false, and he wondered whether he would laugh at all if his sister’s eyes weren’t on him, assessing him instead of watching the further degradation of his slave.

“I’m almost too overwhelmed to laugh!” he shot in his native tongue as cover, snapping his head round with a broad smile to Natalia. “Thank you, sister dear, this celebration will indeed be one to remember!” And in response, Natalia forced her own smile to reflect his, though inside neither had substance beneath the veneer.

== ~ ==

Round and round the Jester went, urged by the crowd to continue his torment, jangling the bells on the end of his feet as a comedic echo to the bells that swayed and rang from bare breasts.

Turning and twisting, she tried in vain to shut out the crescendo of sounds that accompanied her humiliation. It seemed to get louder and louder, drowning her in a sea of noise, pummelling her pride in a relentlessly ironic assault of liberty bells.

She stumbled as she tried to watch the Jester while he circled and cackled his scorn, exposing herself to the thrust of his hand between her legs. Abruptly he stopped squarely before her and, with a ceremonial flourish of his wrist, he snatched back his hand and licked each finger lasciviously. A smile curled across his ridiculously painted yellow lips and he screamed to the crowd in broken English, “She is ready!!” to an outbreak of rapturous applause.

Bowing low, the effeminate man sneered at the strangely dressed woman who stood motionless in the middle of the ring, taking his exit with a lurid smile as his tongue slithered out and sampled her taste once more.

Tears still trickled down Jacqueline’s streaked face, watching her tormentor who winked and flickered out his tongue to taste his fingers yet again. With a flowing sweep of his arm, he froze, chin thrusting out, pointing stiffly up to the gallery. Miserably, her blurred eyes followed, if only to move from watching his display of vulgarity.

The crowd quietened and even while she was blinking and slowly focussing, Jacqueline knew who it was she would see.

Alexei paused, milking the adoration of the crowd while the expectation built, allowing him to drink in the full spectacle of his position. He needed this moment, their support. For the election, for the pipeline, for his future, he needed it. He couldn’t let his anger at her treatment show.

Slowly, the crowd settled - hubbub decaying to murmur and murmur finally to absolute silence. Satisfied he could not wring more attention from his chosen guests, Alexei’s booming voice rang out powerfully around the arena as, with a broad sweep of his arms, he finally started his declaration. “Your esteemed Royal Highness,” he announced, his gaze settling on a figure sheathed in flowing white robes who courteously nodded an acknowledgement with an added flourish of his right hand. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Let my Games begin!”