Vesta - Painworld (27 page)

‘This,' she said, ‘is one of my favourite adornments for my slaves, especially those who get ideas above their station. See this?' she asked, pointing to the curiously shaped leather spheroid and probing for something with her long nails. ‘This fits nice and snugly around your balls.'

She finally found what she had been looking for and the spheroid suddenly hinged apart in two sections, revealing a lining of dozens of short steel spikes, the needle-sharp points gleaming against the black of the leather.

‘And then this,' she added, turning over the attached strap to reveal a further band of the same spikes, ‘buckles around the base of your cock. Even a partial erection becomes very painful after a time, but then you have to get hard before you can come, and coming is the only way to take some of the pressure off your poor balls - at least, for a little while.

‘So you see, this is quite an interesting little game. If you don't come, the needles play havoc with your balls. If you get hard they also play havoc with your cock stem, so the sooner you manage to come, the better. The skill in this is to see just how long we can keep you nice and hard without actually letting you come.'

She stooped down and began fitting the leather sac about his testicles, and the first touch of the devilish barbs brought a gasp of anguish from Marlon. There was no doubt that she heard this, but she did not deign to look up and acknowledge the fact.

‘I think I shall send Penny and Patsy in to play with you for a while,' she murmured, tugging the various adjustments into place. ‘And I think they will amaze you with the different ways they have of keeping a man on the verge. Hours at a time is nothing to them.'

She buckled the spiked strap about the base of his now tumescent shaft, dragging another gasping cry from his lips as she pulled it tight.

‘Comfortable?' she enquired, standing up again, an evil smile on her lips. ‘I sincerely hope not.' She patted his cheek and made a moue with her mouth. ‘Feel free to scream,' she said. ‘Of course, if you scream too loudly we'll have to gag you, but then maybe we'll do that anyway. I do so hate to hear grown men grovelling.'

 

‘Christina insists they should all be able to watch this idiotic contest affair,' Naylor said. Jurgen Koenig nodded.

‘So I understand,' he confirmed. ‘Actually, I do not share your opinion of what she intends. I think this could be very interesting indeed and will also serve as a salutary lesson to the others.'

‘I doubt they'll need any extra lessons,' Naylor grunted. ‘In any case, all the time they're safely wired up to VESTA they have little alternative. They do, after all, have no control over events whatsoever.'

‘Quite so,' Koenig agreed, ‘but there is yet another factor you appear not to have considered.'

‘Oh yes?' Naylor raised on eyebrow, almost a challenge, but the German remained unperturbed. He eased himself down into the armchair opposite, crossed his legs and leaned back, making himself comfortable.

‘Yes indeed,' he said, ‘for there is a very interesting possibility here. You see,' he continued, placing his fingers together and making a steeple of them, ‘it is your idea to keep them all inside VESTA's world indefinitely, yes?'

Naylor nodded. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Indefinitely. They will make interesting slave characters for our future clients.'

‘Of course,' Koenig said, ‘but would they not perhaps make even better slaves out here, in the real world? After all, we can generate slave clones electronically and, whilst it would no doubt suit your sense of retribution to have them all suffer for as long as possible, why waste them so?'

‘Because they'd be unmanageable out here,' Naylor said. ‘One or two of them might be trainable, but I can't see the likes of Nadia Muirhead kow-towing as a humble sex slave.'

‘Maybe not the Nadia you know now,' Koenig said, sagely. ‘But who's to say any of them will be the same people after a few weeks in VESTA?'

‘You think this machine might break their spirits? That's an interesting thought.'

‘Fascinating,' Koenig concurred. ‘But it is a little more than just breaking their spirits that we are talking about.' He leaned forward again. ‘I cannot be sure - not one hundred percent sure, anyway - but I have a theory that, if they remain in there for long enough and if everything is handled carefully, we may find that they become... well, brainwashed, I suppose is the best way I can put it.

‘You see, after a while the human body is pushed to its limits. In the real world overexposure to pain causes certain parts of the brain to close down in an automated defence or self-preservation move. The victim faints, passes out, whatever you wish to call it, and only regains consciousness again when the system has had a little time to recover.

‘However, inside VESTA they are deprived of this safety valve. Our little friend has carefully ensured that there is a pain threshold - for instance, you could place a welding torch to their most sensitive parts and the pain experienced would be no greater, nor less, than that of a sound whipping.'

‘But you could reprogramme to alter that, I assume?' Naylor demanded.

Koenig gave him a patronising look. ‘Of course,' he replied, casually, ‘but it would not be a wise move. You see, although they are not actually experiencing genuine physical pain stimulus inside VESTA, the effect upon their brains is just the same. After all, the various stimulating electrodes are designed and positioned for just that result.

‘Because of that, if you push any of them too hard or too far, it is quite possible that the shock could kill them. Much better to leave that buffer effect as it is.'

‘Point taken,' Naylor conceded. ‘But I still don't get what you're driving at.'

‘Then let me finish explaining,' Koenig said patiently. ‘Even with the buffer effect in place, they are all still capable of experiencing quite a high degree of pain, but after a while they can grow accustomed to this. Even in the real world this has been known to happen.

‘However, it is a curious fact that the one thing the human mind cannot condition itself to accept is the pain and suffering of others, especially when those others are near and dear to them. Of course, only Marlon has any direct condition with the artist woman, but to see her suffer a bad beating at Christina's hands would be a salutary first lesson for them all.

‘But even that is only the smaller part of what I am trying to explain. You see, if they remain inside VESTA for long enough, especially if they are all made to witness the punishments and humiliations of their friends, they will eventually come to a stage when the brain has to resort to different failsafe measures.

‘It is quite possible - highly likely in fact - that they will ultimately become quite mad; in the strictest sense of the word, that is. Eventually they will be so conditioned to their new existence that they will be totally unable to distinguish reality from virtual reality.'

‘Are you saying what I think you're saying?' Naylor asked, his eyes narrowing.

His own eyes still closed, Koenig smiled. ‘It depends upon what you think I am saying, Herr Naylor,' he replied, quietly. ‘But to save an extended guessing game, let me make it clear.

‘If I am right, and I have every reason to believe I am, then eventually you should be able to remove the subjects from VESTA and they will continue to act as if they were still inside its world. They will have become so accustomed to the maxim that resistance is futile that they will lose any ability to do so.

‘In other words,' he ended, opening his eyes again at last, ‘you will have yourself a crop of perfect, mindless, docile and obedient slaves - and that includes Ms Muirhead.'

 

At Christina's command, Lianne stumbled to a halt and stood panting, sweat running down the bridge of her nose and sideways along her lip to dribble onto the straps of her bridle. The powerful blonde looked across to where the lap counter board stood, noted the number showing and gave a grudging nod.

‘You've done much better than I expected,' she said, ‘but then there is a stubborn streak in you, slut. Not that it will remain there for much longer, I can assure you. I have a way of knocking streaks out of my slaves, believe me.' She walked across, detached the long check rein from Lianne's bridle and jerked her head sideways.

‘Come,' she said, ‘it's time for William to groom you and then there will be some entertainment for you and all your friends to enjoy. The stupid red-headed slut, Marlon's sister, seems to think she might be some sort of match for me, so I intend to give her the opportunity to find out that she is not.

‘I am even going to concede certain of my natural physical advantages, which I think is extremely generous of me, under the circumstances. Then, when I have beaten her, I think we shall have her join you in the stables for a while. A week or two with a horse face should teach her due humility.' She stopped, dragging Lianne to a halt, and peered down into her eyes.

‘I am sure you understand what I mean,' she said. ‘It must be so frustrating not to be able to talk, even if the bit were removed, and also to know that you look more beast than human. Maybe I can arrange for VESTA to handle a few more improvements.' She slapped Lianne across her rump.

‘This arse and these legs are still far too human,' she said. ‘Maybe we can give you a proper pony body from the waist down. I wonder what it will feel like to have knees that work back to front - interesting, do you think, Amber?'

She laughed, jerked the lead rein again and they continued back towards the stable buildings.

 

‘This really is most remarkable,' James Naylor said, as much to himself as to Christina. He stood in the centre of the room, turning slowly, studying every tiny detail of the cupboards, racks, stands and their contents. He stepped over to the nearest rail, selected one of the long boots that hung from it and turned it over slowly in his hands.

‘Quite incredible,' he whispered. ‘It's impossible to tell, isn't it?'

Across the room, Christina was putting the finishing touches to her outfit, aided by the lithesome Marika, whose brown form was being displayed to its best advantage by the brief cut of the white leather skirt and halter she now wore. Naylor smiled to himself as he tried to accustom himself to the sight of a Marika who was now taller than Christina. Or to put it more accurately, he reminded himself, a Christina who was now shorter than the Asian girl.

‘There are a few anomalies,' Christina said, as Marika finished tightening the dildo harness about her hips, ‘but they're not that important and Koenig reckons they can all be taken care of in time.'

‘But even this is far more realistic than I ever expected,' Naylor said, replacing the boot and taking up in its place a complex head harness. ‘I mean, when I came to here, for a moment or two I thought the machine had failed. It's hard to believe I'm still laying out there in that coffin-like thing.'

‘It takes some getting used to,' Christina agreed, holding out a hand for Marika to begin fixing the whip to it. ‘But you'll be surprised how quickly it happens. What about you, Marika? This is also your first time inside VESTA.'

‘I am trying not to think of this as anything but the real world,' Marika replied, her features expressionless as ever. ‘And in a way that is all it is; an extension of one reality taken into another, a form of reincarnation without the intervention of the death mechanism.'

‘Don't get her started,' Naylor laughed harshly. ‘When she starts banging on about karma and levels and all that other religious bullshit, I start falling asleep.'

Marika did not appear to react to the insult, but her words were carefully measured. ‘You may dismiss many things simply because you choose not to understand or believe them,' she said, ‘but be careful they do not ultimately dismiss you. We tamper with the natural laws at our own risk and should not forget that for every cause there is an effect and for every effect a cause.'

‘Well, I've got my cause all nicely mapped out, thank you girl,' Naylor said. He was working his way along the rail and had discovered a very lifelike rubber face mask, complete with attached wig. In its unstretched state the features were very distorted, but even so, there was no mistaking the identity of the woman's face it was meant to replicate.

‘I can't understand why the machine has gone to all this bother,' he said, pulling the rubber this way and that. ‘After all, if we want to make someone look like someone else, why not just programme the computer to do it anyway? It'd be a lot quicker than fitting this over someone's head.'

‘But not so symbolic, I think,' Marika said. She took up the claw-nailed glove for Christina's other hand. Naylor shook his head.

‘I've never been able to understand all this so-called symbolism,' he said. ‘You want to bring someone to heel, give ‘em a dose of pain and promise ‘em more of the same and they soon come around to your way of thinking, I reckon.'

‘Some understand and some don't,' Christina retorted. ‘I long ago gave up trying to re-educate you, James.'

‘Is that so?' Naylor snapped. ‘Well, bully for you, but you've been able to enjoy your little games thanks to me and don't you ever forget it, so don't get on your high horse.'