The Shame Gambit

by Emily Tilton

  Thankfully, if that occurred within fifty feet of either of the tiny drones in Herrier’s garden, David would know. He would probably be able to race across the park of the chateau with his team and grab Cynthia, leave Barbara to Jean, and guide the Granbys to safety. He would, however, have to secure Kevin’s phone, first, while the chateau went up in space-laser-induced flames, and inject a piece of software into its operating system.

  Unexpected, dangerous, and sometimes fatal things generally happened in that kind of situation, though. Fredricks and Herrier himself represented wild cards, and David’s team would also have to do their best to ensure the safety of the trillionaire’s household staff. The Guardsmen directing the space laser would try to light the fire surgically, but very little in the obliteration of a chateau from the upper atmosphere fell into the range of confident prediction.

  David turned his attention to the other feed on his laptop. The drone in the grass had received a fortuitous kick from the foot of a player or a piece early on, so that it lay now somewhere in the vicinity of Kevin’s chair and could pick up his voice very clearly, but its camera had turned to the ground at that point, too. The video feed showed only the out-of-focus green blades of Herrier’s gorgeous lawn.

  The sound, though, conveyed a nearly complete picture in and of itself.

  “That’s it,” Henry Granby said, as the wet noises of a gentle face-fucking came clearly through David’s headphones. “Good girl, Jenny. Good girl.”

  “You’ll notice,” Herrier contributed, “that a man’s style of dominance comes through very clearly in the course of this kind of contest. I didn’t understand that element of the game—or its charm—until I played myself, thanks to Kevin. Henry, the way you enjoy your piece’s pretty mouth says a good deal about you: you are a demanding, but also a very thoughtful master. There’s a genius in the design, and though Kevin tells me that it originated perhaps much later than the Romans, I like to think of the legions’ military tribunes proving their worth this way.”

  “Well,” Fredricks said, “if Kevin is correct that it was the Victorians of my nation, we had quite the empire at the time ourselves.”

  Herrier laughed. “True, but at my country’s expense! The Romans, on the other hand, made Gaul what it was. Mr. Granby, you have another turn coming, now.”

  Granby’s voice sounded thick with the pleasure he found between Jenny’s lips.

  “Kevin,” he asked, “any suggestion? I would like to introduce my piece...”

  A whimper of aroused protest came audibly from Jenny at the degrading word.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” Henry said, and David couldn’t help imagining him stroking his pretty wife’s cheek. “You know you’re a piece, now, and you’ll do as you’re told.” He raised his voice again, completing the thought he had begun. “If I wanted Barbara to eat Jenny’s little pussy, how would I do that?”

  Kevin chuckled. “You need to get one of the pieces into position first. I would recommend benching Barbara, on her back with her knees apart. Then you can have Jenny queen her on your next turn. Come on, Fredricks, let’s pull the bench out for him. The formula is I spread.”

  Thunderous crunching sounds of Kevin walking in the grass, a groaning sound of wood, murmured words about positioning the bench, which must David knew to be one of the low, padded kind that Herrier had in great profusion throughout his homes for the convenience of being able to enjoy, or punish, a girl at a moment’s notice.

  “I spread,” Henry said, a frown audible in his voice as the American executive tried out the unfamiliar stylized language of the game.

  Kevin said, at a volume that indicated he had stayed in the contest area to assist, “Take Barbara’s leash and fasten it to the bench. Barbara, you lie on your back and hold your knees open.”

  Herrier’s voice put in, “Red, it is your turn.”

  Jean had clearly studied the materials that David had deduced lay in a storage compartment in the players’ chairs. He spoke confidently now.

  “I torment.”

  “What?” Jenny Granby asked, alarm raising the pitch of her voice. Barbara, on the bench, had given her own tiny cry of alarm.

  “Very clever,” Herrier said. “Mr. Granby, Mr. Mercator has taken advantage of your positioning his piece for the move you intend to make, and he is going to whip the cunt of the girl who left him to be my little whore.”

  David’s eyebrows went up. Pussy spanking and even pussy whipping played a part in his relationship with Cynthia, but they had negotiated in no uncertain terms that it represented a true punishment—the most severe, because the most intimate, that David could apply. He reflected as Barbara suddenly began to plead with Jean to discipline her in some other way that if Sebastian Fredricks had decided to whip his wife’s sweet, smooth, adorable pussy, David would have had a great deal more trouble dealing with that act of involuntary sharing than he would with the Englishman having fucked his wife.

  Also, he thought to himself, Yes, I think I’ll whip Cynthia’s pussy for putting herself in a position where they could get her into the limo that way and drive away with her. David hadn’t had time to feel any frustration, let alone anger, for the contribution Cynthia had made to the complexity of this potential fiasco, but station chiefs of the Order of Ostia had training that should prevent them from being kidnapped so very easily, in the middle of a European capital.

  Jean spoke again. “This one is for the cunt, I imagine?”

  A slight rustling, knocking sound, as of implements on a rack being jostled aside so a master’s hand could secure one particular tool of correction.

  “That’s right,” Herrier said. “You are a man of hidden talents, Mr. Mercator.” The magnate’s voice betrayed no evident suspicion that he had severely underestimated Jean, at least over the attenuated audio from the drone’s mic. Herrier was despite his arrogance no fool, however, and a chill went down David’s spine at the thought that the French trillionaire might catch on to their being several more enemy operatives at his chateau than he had bargained for.

  Then David had to suppress a snort of sheer indignation as he understood that he himself truly had little idea how many of the operatives present belonged to his side: even Cynthia, Barbara, and Jean could have been turned by Kevin and Jessica, wittingly or unwittingly, to whatever interest the Logans represented.

  God, I wouldn’t even put it past Erin and Andrew Metz to have faked the whole thing, so that the White House could gain control of the Guard.

  “Please, Jean,” Barbara was saying. “Please don’t.”

  David found that his heart had begun racing, and his cock had swollen in his jeans. Despite the geopolitical implications of this kinky game, its basic capacity to arouse anyone with an inclination toward dominance and submission seemed undeniable—the possibility of civilization’s fall, and even the chance of the chateau’s being set ablaze in the next few minutes, seemed much too remote to consider. He pictured Jean standing over Barbara, and the lovely girl looking up at him between her spread knees, her smooth pink pussy on shameful display, and helplessly exposed for the whip. Surely that implement took the form of a small flogger, the leather tails soft enough not to injure a girl’s most sensitive parts, but stiff enough to teach her a lesson she would not soon forget.

  “Keep your legs apart, cunt,” Jean said.

  His tone raised David’s eyebrow again: Jean spoke as a man who means to reclaim a submissive young woman from the dominance of another—a man whose arrogance and brutality have captivated her, but cannot fulfill her as her true master’s careful control can.

  “Yes, sir,” Barbara sobbed.

  David wished he could see Herrier’s face; presumably when the magnate had forcibly invited Jean to play this game he hadn’t supposed Jean might actually show such ability.

  A sound of leather swishing, a smack, and then a scream from Barbara. Another lash, another scream.

  “Oh, please...” Jenny’s voice, a sob given words.

  T
he third cut of the whip, and the third scream, loudest of all.

  Then, Jean’s voice, simple and clearly versed in at least the most basic rules of these contests.

  “I bestow. Jenny, you’re going to kiss that poor little cunt now and make it feel better.”

  David saw it in his mind’s eye, though the picture on the feed showed only grass. Jean took Jenny’s leash and led the young wife over, her face bright red. Then, a different kind of scream from Barbara, the groaning of the bench under her bucking hips. The unmistakable noises of an enormous, rending climax atop the bench.

  Kevin, his voice’s proximity to the mic indicating that he had sat down again in his player’s chair, cleared his throat.

  “Jules,” he said, “I think...”

  Herrier’s voice couldn’t now conceal his annoyance. “Very well. I cannot say I am happy at this development, but Red wins this contest. Mr. Mercator, Blue’s piece belongs to you. Here is the chain to bind their wrists together.”

  “Henry?” Jenny said, her voice very anxious.

  Kevin said, “Henry, you’re allowed to refuse—and Jenny may also revoke her consent. If you were part of a group that plays the game regularly, it would mean you might be sanctioned or even expelled, but that’s probably not a concern for you.”

  “Jenny, come here, sweetheart,” Henry said.

  Henry’s voice fell to a murmur, then, so the conversation that ensued couldn’t be heard on the drone’s mic, except for Jenny saying, “But...” twice, and then, after a pause, “Yes.” The monosyllable sounded drawn out and almost agonized to David’s ears, as if the young wife had struggled to admit honestly to feelings about which she felt terribly conflicted. Then, “Yes, sir.”

  The metallic sounds of a light chain sounded, and then the gamemaster said, “Follow me, girls. Gentlemen, I’ll return for your moves and upgrades. The endgame has begun.”

  David returned his eyes to the feed showing the board, to see that Cynthia and Jessica had stopped talking. In the torchlight he could barely make out the expression on his wife’s face as she watched the two pieces who now belonged to Red making their way to d5, where the contest had taken place, only two squares away from Purple’s pieces on f2.

  Cynthia’s eyes seemed troubled, but not by mystification at what was happening, if David could judge from the set of his wife’s brow. Whatever words she and Jessica had exchanged, Cynthia appeared to her husband, at least, to know the gravity of the situation.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jenny’s face still felt just as hot as it had when Mr. Mercator, the Frenchman who now owned her, sort of, had pressed her face down into Barbara’s pussy. The heat in her cheeks, then, had seemed to match the warmth that rose from the bare, moist, intimate place where Jenny had had to put her lips and her tongue.

  Barbara had received a whipping there, and Jenny had to kiss it and make it better, even though she had never kissed a pussy before. She had hardly been able to bear watching it happen, the whip falling between the lovely girl’s legs as she lay holding her knees apart, but Jenny hadn’t been able to look away, either.

  Made to crawl over there and confronted by the sight of the swollen pinkness, punished by the boyfriend she had jilted, Jenny’s heart had pounded wildly and her breath had come raggedly through her nostrils. She hadn’t known what to do, but then the hand had pushed her face down into the warmth of Barbara’s fragrant, needy pussy, and Jenny had pursed her lips and started to kiss the naughtiness she found there. Even an innocent young wife knew what made her feel good, when her husband touched her down there, so Jenny had known how to lick the little nub that needed the most attention, while Barbara cried out under the mouth she covered with her flowing arousal.

  Now, bound to Barbara by the little chain that connected their wrists, Jenny couldn’t bear to look at the girl whom she had brought to such a wrenching climax. The embarrassment arose partly because Jenny had what her brain told her was a silly worry that Barbara would think less of her for being the kind of girl who did that.

  Much more, though, did Jenny fear that the other girl, who had so much more experience, would see in the young wife’s face how desperately Jenny wanted to do the thing her husband had planned for her to do, before Mr. Mercator had abruptly won the contest. Henry had meant to have Jenny straddle Barbara’s pretty face and ride it. He had meant Jenny to feel what it was like to receive another young woman’s shameful service before she had to give that service herself.

  Instead, Jenny had been made to do it, to soothe Barbara’s pretty pussy, where men put their penises, and to look at it, too, even Barbara’s bottom-hole, where the penises went sometimes, also, when a man thought she needed it there. Her own pussy had ached, as she had licked and licked. She had put her hand behind her, to touch her own bottom furtively, because she couldn’t help it, though she kept her fingers from between her thighs where she wondered if Henry would whip her, too, if she touched her neediest place.

  And now she couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen next, about the wicked things that might befall her and Barbara together, about whether she might still ride the face of the pretty girl whom Monsieur Herrier called his little whore. She had almost begged Henry to refuse, for Mr. Logan had said it would be alright, but not because she didn’t consent—Jenny had felt, in that needy moment, that she consented too much.

  Henry... as Jenny stood with Barbara, looking over at Jessica and Cynthia, she felt a little sob rise in her throat as she remembered their brief conversation before Jenny had gone to have her wrist bound to the other piece’s.

  “Sweetheart, I need you to be completely honest with me and with yourself. Do you want this? Even if another man has sex with you? If you want it, I want it for you.”

  Jenny’s Yes had come out before she could think about it, but she could not doubt its honesty. The yes made her feel brave, loved, and even powerful despite the way the game worked: how it turned girls into cunts bound to one another and put over blocks and benches for punishment and sex that they weren’t allowed to refuse.

  “The players are going to move us around the board for a few turns, now, I think,” Barbara said softly. Her voice had the tone Jenny might have used to break the ice with a friend she hadn’t talked to for a while, because the friend had forgotten to invite her to a party, or something little like that.

  “Why?” Jenny asked, finally managing to turn for an instant and look into the face of the girl with the red collar.

  Barbara smiled, before Jenny had to look away again, her heart thudding because the sight of Barbara’s face made her think of what Henry had meant them to do on the bench, before Mr. Mercator had given her his own lewd command.

  “I think they try to get their pieces into the most favorable position for them in the contest. I’m not sure: the only other time I played I got eliminated early in the game.”

  Now Barbara’s voice conveyed sincere regret that she couldn’t tell Jenny more, and suddenly the young wife thought about the country club, and about her tendency to gossip and to censure other women who made choices different from her own.

  Henry whipped her when she did that, and part of Jenny had wondered at times, back home, whether she kept doing it because some important element of her personality needed her husband’s firm correcting hand. That wasn’t all of it, though: Jenny misbehaved at the country club because she knew that deep down she had the same needs as the women she criticized.

  She took a deep breath and turned to Barbara, to see the other girl still smiling gently back at her.

  “I want to ride your face,” she whispered, feeling her cheeks blaze as Barbara’s eyes went wide and then her smile broadened. She giggled.

  “That would be only fair, I guess,” she said, a tone of mischief in her voice.

  Jenny bit her lip, and then she giggled, too. “You don’t know how big an admission that is,” she said.

  “I think I can guess,” Barbara responded, her eyes very merry now. �
�You made me feel so good, after the whipping. Thanks.”

  Monsieur Herrier had returned, now, to stand in the center of the board.

  “My lovely American girls,” he said, in that elegantly accented voice that seemed to make every part of Jenny quiver, especially the naughtiest parts of all. “We begin the endgame now.”

  * * *

  She and Barbara tried to figure out why Jean—Barbara called him Jean, rather than Mr. Mercator, so Jenny started to do the same—moved them to the squares he did, without much success. Jenny could hear in the other girl’s voice that the breakup with Jean hadn’t been easy, and that playing as his piece in this game made it even more difficult.

  Jenny wondered from time to time, too, since Barbara seemed so very on edge and so aware of Cynthia and Jessica never more than two squares away from them, if something even deeper might be going on. Jenny supposed it could have to do with the whole reason she and Henry had come, the favor to Gordon and Maia. It couldn’t be about that incomprehensible business deal the men had discussed, though, she thought, because Barbara didn’t have anything to do with that. Plus, at the same time, Jenny’s own experience of the game of Discipline seemed so overwhelming, even with her husband as the man who had claimed her, that she imagined being reunited with a man you had loved and maybe still did this way would put a girl on edge.

  “We’re coming for you!” Jessica called with a laugh, as the two teams’ paths began to converge on the a1 square, Red’s home space. Next to her, Cynthia seemed pensive. Jenny wished she understood that girl’s story: how exactly had she ended up here, without her husband, to be used so very shamefully by another man, and then won by still a third? At least she and Jessica seemed to be getting along, though Jessica had a rather forced air of merriment and Cynthia’s brow wore a deep crease.

  Yes: Jean moved Barbara and Jenny to a1, and then they stayed there.