Vesta - Painworld (23 page)

Long straps were passed over Clarissa's shoulders, crossed between her shoulder blades and drawn tightly to the top of the main corset at the rear. Where these straps passed over the shoulders, smaller, very short tags were affixed at right angles. These in turn were attached to a stiff collar, beset with wicked-looking two inch spikes, that encircled Clarissa's neck and fastened at the nape with a sharp click of some sort of locking mechanism.

Lower down at the front, the long straps also supported a web of thinner straps that were designed to fit around her breasts, tightening to mould them into an elongated and exaggerated profile that forced her nipples through heavy steel rings positioned strategically for that purpose.

The remainder of Clarissa's upper ‘armour' followed swiftly; stiff shoulder length gloves that laced to fit every contour and, in doing so, efficiently deprived the elbow joints of all but the merest flexibility and the fingers of most of their normal dexterity. When Clarissa pointed this out, the two women merely nodded and assured her that Christina would be handicapped identically.

‘What's the point?' She shook her head. ‘Why not just scrap it out naked?' They looked at her uncomprehendingly.

‘It is not done that way,' Tara said, and Alma nodded her agreement. Clarissa sighed, her caged breasts rising and falling in exaggerated fashion.

‘I always thought I was a screwy cow,' she said, ‘but this crowd take the bloody blue riband.'

Her comments were wasted on her companions, who continued with their task in silence, now producing long boots that were similar in design to their own, but with one notable difference. She was not to know it, but the ballerina styled footwear was identical in concept to that being worn by another unfortunate inmate of the painworld, although Susie's extended only as far as mid-calf.

Like Susie, however, Clarissa found she could stand and move about in the steepling boots with only a minor degree of difficulty, a feat she knew she could never hope to emulate under more worldly circumstances. She stared down at herself with some difficulty, the high collar preventing her from lowering her chin more than a few millimetres, marvelling at how the boots made her legs seem endless.

‘Y'know,' she said, as much to herself as to the two women, ‘there are certain things here I could almost get to appreciate, if only the place wasn't crawling with so many weirdoes. Hey, what now?'

She had been so engrossed in admiring her lower limbs that Alma and Tara had taken her completely off guard with their next move, grasping her gloved arms and snapping spring links between rings set inside the elbows and the top hem of the main corset. Now Clarissa was deprived of yet more use of those limbs.

She could still use her lower arms, though raising them more than a few inches was still rendered impossible by the tightness of the leather in which they were sheathed, but there was no way in which she could reach with either hand to release the opposite elbow.

‘How'm I supposed to have a bloody fight like this?' she protested, demonstrating the effectiveness of this latest bondage. The two women gave her identically wan smiles.

‘You will see, when the time comes,' Tara said, simply. ‘The rules will be explained. But now we must shave your hair.'

‘What?' Clarissa screeched, stumbling back as she pulled away from them. ‘You're not touching my bloody hair and that's final!' They regarded her impassively, not making the expected move on her, and then Clarissa realised. Proud as she was of her unruly mane of red hair, losing it here meant nothing, for afterwards when it was all over her real body, which doubtless still lay in the pod contraption where they had earlier strapped her, would remain untouched.

‘Oh shit!' she said, a grin forcing itself onto her face. ‘Go ahead then, do your worst. I suppose it let's out hair-pulling as well as scratching, so it'll be a decent scrap.'

They performed the task swiftly and expertly, using manual clippers and shearing her locks to within a quarter of an inch of her scalp. After so many years it felt curious to be without her heavy tresses, and she wondered why the likes of Christina apparently preferred to go through their lives like this.

‘Are we through now?' she asked, as the two of them collected up the fallen hair and placed it reverently in a neat pile on one of the chests against the wall. Clarissa wondered why they were bothering; after all, it wasn't real, was it? Unconsciously, she pressed her gloved hands into the naked flesh above the tops of her boots. But it felt real enough.

‘We have to fit you with your weapons now and then your mask,' Alma said. She lifted something from the adjacent chest and brought it towards Clarissa, who stared at it in disbelief.

‘What the fucking hell is that?' she demanded. It looked like another glove, though only designed to fit as far as the wrist. But it was like no glove Clarissa had ever seen, nor even imagined, for each finger tapered into a gleaming, claw-like chrome fingernail, honed to a razor-sharp tip that could almost certainly slice through flesh like a butcher's knife through a Sunday roast.

‘It fits over your left hand,' Alma said, unmoved. ‘There is a whip for the other hand.'

Stunned, Clarissa stood rooted while the claw glove was fitted to her and buckled securely in position and waited similarly while her other hand was dealt with in the same fashion. Except this time there were no nails, simply the stubby handle of a whip stitched to the leather in such a way that it required no holding, yet suddenly Clarissa discovered she could once again clench her fingers, which seemed to grasp the shaft of their own volition.

She tried to release her grip again and was only half surprised when she discovered she could not. Experimentally, she flexed her left hand, the claws gleaming menacingly under the lights.

‘Jeez!' she breathed. ‘Am I glad this isn't for real.'

Real enough. You'll feel every cut of my whip and every slice of my claws, when the time comes
.

‘But will you feel mine?'

Oh yes, if you're as good as you seem to think you are
.

‘How do I know you're playing this straight?' Clarissa demanded, but once again the contact had been broken. She raised her right hand as far as the restrictive gloves and elbow links would permit and studied the whip properly for the first time, letting out a low whistle as she took in the multiple braided thongs, their tips set with what appeared to be small pellets of lead. It was a fearsome instrument, designed to inflict damage as well as pain on an opponent, an opponent who would be equipped with an identical whip and who would have no compunction about exploiting its awful potential.

For the first time Clarissa began to have serious doubts about the coming contest, but she thrust them aside, determined not to give the dyke woman the satisfaction of hearing her cry off. Besides, she reasoned, none of this was real and no permanent harm could come to anyone inside VESTA - that much she had learned from her captors.

‘Ye gods!' she exclaimed when she saw the next item Alma produced, and then burst out laughing, despite herself. ‘You want to fit me with a bloody cock!' She stared at the huge appendage that rose from the middle of the collection of straps that Alma was deftly shaking out, gaping at the thought of being impaled on such a monstrous appendage.

‘What am I supposed to do with that? It better hadn't be going inside me,' she added. ‘That'd rip me apart.'

‘No, it goes outside,' Tara assured her. ‘You're supposed to put it inside your opponent.'

‘What? I'm not a fucking lezzie!'

‘If you can,' Alma added, ignoring her. ‘It's how you win,' she went on. ‘Once your opponent is penetrated she cannot fight on and you must finish her while she lays helpless.'

‘Even if I managed it,' Clarissa retorted, ‘I can't see that big bitch laying down all helpless like and just letting me fuck her.'

‘There will be no choice,' Tara replied, enigmatically. ‘It is the way.'

‘But if we're both wearing those things, how the hell - oh, I see,' she finished, as Alma presented the harness to her loins. She saw the things had been cunningly designed so that, whilst the straps held the massive shaft like an erection before her, they were cut away and adjusted so that her denuded sex was left open and unprotected, an easy target for Christina's own phallus.

Clarissa shook her head. ‘This gets worse and worse,' she grunted, as the straps were pulled tightly about her. ‘Me and my big mouth. Why didn't I just shut up and ride it out. Someone's bound to find us eventually.'

Eventually could be a long time, but I shouldn't even count on that ever happening
.

‘Back again? Well, let me tell you, no one ever gets away with anything forever. They'll be onto you in the end.'

Don't hold your breath, slut. Save it for something worthwhile
.

‘Bitch!'

You better believe that!

 

Slowly Susie dissolved, the personality that had established the total lack of control of Paul's female virtual body beginning to fade back almost as soon as Dolores and her two henchmen departed, leaving the ballet-toed form lying limply on the floor in the centre of the halo created by the spotlights overhead.

Susie's bondage, however, remained, as did all her exaggerated femininity, and Paul lay motionless, eyes screwed tightly closed, unwilling and unable to look at the evidence of what he had been reduced to.

‘Very fetching.' The voice cut through his befuddled thoughts, his eyes opening wide as he recognised the accented tone. Rolling further onto his side, he stared up at the towering blonde figure.

‘You!' he gasped, wishing his arms were free of the cramping pouch at his back. Christina laughed, but without real mirth.

‘I'm touched to see you haven't forgotten me,' she sneered. She extended one booted foot and pressed it against his naked left breast. ‘Suits you,' she said, deliberately making the fleshy globe wobble beneath her sole. ‘And no male bits either, I see. Let's have a closer look.'

She kicked him onto his back and, still using her boot, forced his thighs apart, exposing the evidence of his virtual feminisation.

‘Inviting,' she said, her tongue tracing a track across her upper lip, ‘but plenty of time for such things later - plenty of time.'

‘What do you want?' Paul croaked, staring up at her through saucer-like eyes. ‘How did you get here...?'

I got here,' Christina said, stepping back, ‘the same way you did, through Marlon's clever little boxes of tricks. However, unlike you, I was not prepared to trust myself to one of his so-called “passive” portals. No, I am here via one of the active portals, which gives me control over you and your friends in the same way that we have now taken over control of VESTA in its entirety.'

‘But how?'

‘Oh, you don't need to know the details,' Christina said, ‘just that we do have absolute control now, not only of the machine, but of the building in which it stands and the entire estate around it. Your old friend, Mr Naylor, went to a lot of trouble to see to it.'

‘What about the others?'

Christina raised her eyebrows. ‘By that, I assume you're referring to your little girlfriend, the blonde slut who showed such scant respect for my hospitality at our last meeting,' she said. ‘Well, she is safe and secure, I can assure you - very secure as it happens, and you shall see her in time, though not just yet.'

‘What are you going to do to us?' Paul said, wishing his voice would return to its usual male sound.

Again the eyebrows went up. ‘Anything that takes my fancy, I expect,' Christina said. She aimed an idle kick at his right boot, but the contact was not heavy, simply a symbol of her power over him.

‘I've already done plenty,' she continued. ‘For instance, it was my idea to create those two studs and have them screw your pretty brains out, though I didn't expect you to enjoy it quite as much as it appeared you did. I must say that was quite a floorshow. Oh yes, I was watching the whole thing. Quite the slut, little Susie, aren't you?'

‘You're warped!' Paul cried, but turned his face away from her steely eyes.

Christina shrugged. ‘I am constantly amazed at how you people keep accusing me of being warped, sick and many other things, and yet here you are...' She paused to let her words sink in. ‘Was it my idea for you to come in here as a big-titted whore, eh? No, I don't think so. That was already underway before I was able to take a hand - an extension of your little secret longings, I believe - and then I merely took things to what I assumed would be a natural conclusion. If you take on the body of a slut, you must expect to take on everything else that goes with it.

‘The same goes for your subservient little girlfriend, except I'm not so sure she likes it now she's found out once more what it's really like to be helpless and completely under the control of someone else.'

‘Hardly surprising when that someone else is you,' Paul pouted. The facial expression was not missed by Christina.