Vesta - Painworld (26 page)

‘And I should not want any of you to miss out on this,' Christina said firmly. ‘There are still two spare portals, apart from the one I've been using, and both are designated as active at the moment, so what are you worrying about? You wouldn't be just a little scared, would you?'

‘Not scared,' Naylor growled, ‘just careful.' He paused, thinking. ‘So, what's so special about this little side-show of yours? Still keen to give this slag an even break?'

‘Let us just say more even than if we met out here in the real world,' Christina replied. ‘Jurgen here has carried out a few adjustments at my request, so the loudmouthed Australian girl and I will be of equal physical stature and dressed and equipped in identical fashion. Beyond that, she certainly has none of my training and experience.'

‘So you're confident of winning?'

‘Totally, as I told you before. But it will make the fight far more interesting,' Christina added, turning towards the door. ‘Far more interesting indeed.'

 

Even before she had realised that something was wrong, Nadia was beginning to think Marlon still had quite a lot of work to do before VESTA would meet the standards she was seeking. True, the surroundings were realistic in every detail and the characters were indistinguishable from real people in every way, except that perhaps there was one way in which they differed and that was the all-important one, so far as she was concerned.

All three of her current “victims”, whilst presenting a variety of choice that opened up any number of possible combinations, lacked one vital element - spirit. In the real world, Nadia knew only too well, even the best trained and most docile submissive would at least betray some sort of reluctance, whereas this trio did exactly what she told them and the chains and cuffs, let alone Nadia's switch, were totally surplus to requirements.

There probably were dominants who would welcome such passivity, she thought, but as yet Nadia was still to meet them and certainly she could not think of a single one of her current extensive client list who would not pick up on this and probably complain vehemently about it. Still, she reflected, these were still early days and Marlon had explained that these scenarios worked better when the characters in opposition were all hooked into real “players”.

‘You three are pathetic,' Nadia said, smiling sadly at her charges. ‘Not an ounce of go in you.'

She had already fastened Gina over one end of the whipping horse, face up, her arms linked beneath the padded top with a length of fine chain, her ankles cuffed to the two supporting legs so that her thighs were widespread and her shaven sex gaped open. Troy had then been led forward, arms still cuffed behind his back, erection bobbing obscenely before him and Nadia had released Becky's wrists and given her her instructions, passing her the switch as she did so.

The younger girl had obediently stepped up, grasped Troy's burgeoning shaft and pulled it towards Gina's waiting sex, positioning the head between the glistening lips and then pushing against his buttocks so that he entered her. Then, stepping back and to the side, she had brought the leather braids whistling around in an arc, so that, as they slashed across his firm buttocks, he thrust in and out of her in an involuntary lunging action, a sharp gasp accompanying his reaction.

Again the switch rose and fell, but Nadia shook her head and held up her hand.

‘No, no, no!' she cried. Becky stopped, but did not turn to face her and Nadia let out a deep sigh of frustration.

‘Can't you at least try to put something into this?' she said, at the same time aware that she was addressing what were only electronic images, but hoping that her intervention might trigger some response deep within VESTA's data banks. She decided that maybe it was best to lead by example.

‘Troy,' she ordered, ‘pull out of her and turn around.' With calm deliberation, Troy withdrew and pivoted to face her, his organ still glistening from Gina's juices. VESTA had got that much right, at least, Nadia grimaced. She reached down and swiftly detached the studs that held the triangular leather crotch piece over her own sex.

‘Stand still,' she said and moved up to him, raising herself even taller on her toes, gripping his penis and straddling it. ‘Now,' she said, as she sank down over his length, pleasantly surprised by the pure physical contact, ‘this is what I mean by putting something into it.'

Gripping his shoulders, she swung her legs up and around, crossing them behind the small of his back and quickly began to raise and lower herself on him, astonished at how good it felt.

‘Now,' she breathed, ‘this is more like - oh shit!' She swung her legs back around and dropped her feet to the floor, lifted herself clear of him and stepped back, slapping him hard across the face as she did so. He flinched and his cheek reddened immediately, but he scarcely took a backward step.

‘This is a waste of time,' Nadia rasped. ‘I'd be better employed seeing how some of the others are getting on and I just hope they're having better luck than I am. Now, what's the phrase? Oh yes.'

She uttered the failsafe words and waited. Nothing happened.

‘Bag and baggage,' she repeated. There was a slight shimmering in the air and the image of Troy blinked out, but Nadia remained in the room with the two women. She tried again. This time the women dematerialised, but everything else remained the same. A third try brought no further change, so Nadia turned back towards the door, hand extended towards the handle. It turned, but the door itself refused to open.

‘Bag and baggage!' Nadia shouted, but to no avail and that was when she began to realise that something might be seriously wrong.

 

Once again, the woods seemed totally deserted and as endless as before. Pausing every now and then, Ellen strained to listen through the latex cat helmet, but as far as she could discern, everywhere was absolute silence, not even a breeze to stir the foliage overhead.

She stopped, squatted against a handy tree and for at least the tenth time tried the mask helmet, padded fingers probing for any clue as to its means of removal and, for the tenth time, drew a blank. Exasperated, she lowered herself even further, settling on her buttocks, legs stretched out before her, and considered her situation.

Further walking was almost certainly likely to prove a waste of time and effort. Not that there seemed to be that much effort involved, for the virtual reality set-up, whilst programmed for such things as pain and pleasure, did not seem to recognise more mundane symptoms and Ellen guessed she could probably walk another hundred miles without becoming physically tired.

The problem was, she reflected ruefully, that she could also probably walk another hundred miles and still not find the end of these interminable trees. Presumably because the environment was created from some sort of loop system, a theory which was borne out to a great degree by the regular reappearance of certain distinctive trees and bush clumps, a repetition that was not completely obvious to the casual observer, but one which, despite the subtlety of its various combinations and variations was nonetheless inescapable to someone who had walked through it with nothing to do but use her eyes.

So I wait, Ellen told herself. I sit here and I wait, stuck inside a giant sized pussycat skin, without a fag, without a drink, and without anything else to relieve the boredom.

She closed her eyes and wondered if it were possible to sleep in a world which largely existed inside her own brain...

 

Marlon had been inside VESTA's world many times before, but never as a passive participant, and his first hour had not been an enjoyable one; how Nadia thought people would ever pay good money for similar experiences was beyond him. It was one thing to put oneself into a position of absolute power, with a bevy of willing slaves conjured up out of his brainchild's massive memory banks, but quite another when one of the slaves was him and he had no way of telling which, if any, of the creatures that kept arriving to torment him were hooked up to real players and which were simply creations of the computer.

He looked down at himself and shook his head. The costume he was wearing - and costume was a word he selected only advisedly - was like hundreds of others he had seen during the programming and development stages of the VESTA project. But it was one thing to see illustrations and photographs of it, quite another to experience it first hand.

Basically, it was a body harness, fashioned from what appeared to be heavy rubber straps, all dependent upon a central body belt, or corset, which had been laced and buckled until Marlon's waist was as slim and tightly compressed as those of any of the females that populated this scenario.

From this, straps went up and down, over his shoulders to support another web that criss-crossed his upper torso and also fastened to a thick rubber collar, down his legs to connect to knee length boots, a series of transverse straps biting into the flesh of his thighs en route and a final series of straps performing a similar duty down the length of his arms, to where they fastened to padded mittens that held his hands clenched into useless fists.

Thus attired, and hampered by the fact that his boots perched upon outlandishly elevated wedged heels, Marlon was a helpless puppet in the hands of a series of tormentors, the latest of which was a willowy brunette who, in her own high heels, towered over him by several inches. She was dressed - surprise, surprise, he thought - in dark red leather, the boots thigh length, the studded skirt barely reaching the top of her thighs and the matching halter-top plunging to reveal most of what was an inordinately large cleavage for so slim a woman.

The long gloves had an open-work design throughout, a pattern which was repeated in the leather choker, and the fingers were cut away to reveal long, black lacquered nails. With her severely styled hair, heavy eye makeup and black lip-gloss, the woman was an imposing and intimidating sight, an effect not lessened by the multi-thonged whip she carried clipped to her waistband.

She had lost no time in arranging Marlon beneath the suspension frame, cuffing his wrists to either side of his collar and attaching chains to various parts of his body harness, where sturdy rings had been strategically positioned. Then, using the winch mechanism at one side, she had quickly hoisted his feet clear of the ground, bent his legs back and up at the knees and kept them in that position by clipping short chains between his ankles and the corset belt.

Stalking around him, she reached out one hand and cupped his scrotum with surprising gentleness, but Marlon's organ steadfastly refused to stir.

‘The little man is reluctant, little man,' she smiled. Marlon tried not to look into those green eyes, but it was a losing battle. With her other hand, she took hold of his limp penis and began to massage it.

‘Perhaps we should have a little slave come in and suck it for you,' the woman suggested, her eyes twinkling. ‘We appear to have tried everything else and you don't seem to respond to all the usual methods, so whipping you would be a waste of time, I suppose?'

‘Unless you just want to cause me pain and suffering,' Marlon said quietly. ‘I'm afraid I don't really get off on that stuff.'

‘It is a predilection not shared by everyone, I agree,' she replied. ‘However, it is what I generally specialise in.' She continued to play with him all the while and, to his chagrin, Marlon realised that her ministrations were beginning to have some effect at last. She peered down, saw the evidence for herself, and smiled.

‘The problem is,' she continued, ‘that my instructions are that you are to be prepared and trained as a slave, which means you must quickly accustom yourself to all this.' She nodded to include the frame, chains, and Marlon's own attire.

‘And you must also learn to respond at the behest of your superiors, master or mistress. This thing,' she said, squeezing his slowly thickening shaft harder, ‘must learn to serve and obey.' She looked down again and nodded once more.

‘That's better,' she said, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, ‘nearly there. And, when we have you good and hard, do you know what we're going to do next?'

‘I can't imagine,' Marlon replied, through gritted teeth. The smell of her perfume, mixed with the twin odours of her leatherwear and the rubber about his own warm body, was beginning to have a strange, heady effect on him.

‘Well, let's see now,' she said, smiling enigmatically and looking up into the air above his head, ‘should we maybe have a couple of girls in here to keep this thing nice and hard for a few hours? After all my efforts to make it stand up, it would be a great shame to waste it all immediately.'

‘Then why don't you put it to use yourself?' Marlon groaned. ‘Or do you prefer just to tease?'

The woman looked horrified. ‘Good heavens!' she exclaimed. ‘How could you possibly suggest such a thing? You don't for one moment suppose this miserable object is worthy enough for me, do you? I can see you need a severe lesson in humility.' She stepped back and released her hold on Marlon. ‘I think now I know exactly what to do with you next,' she said, turning away. ‘Just you wait there a moment and don't go wandering off.'

Hanging helplessly clear of the floor, Marlon did not appreciate her attempt at humour, nor the sight of the object she drew out of the trunk that stood against the wall. She brought it back over to him and held it up in front of his face, giving him a good close-up view so there could be no mistaking what was about to happen.