Vesta - Painworld

by Jennifer Jane Pope

  ‘First one to try it gets her tits shoved up her nostrils,’ Clarissa snarled, trying to sound more confident than she felt. The women stopped and one - the one to Clarissa’s left - spoke.

  ‘We are not here to harm you, mistress,’ she said, ‘merely to prepare you for your coming battle.’ She looked sideways to her companion, who nodded, sagely.

  ‘Yes, you must be armoured and prepared, for your opponent is a worthy one.’

  Clarissa straightened up, hands dropping to her hips. ‘What the blazes are you two on about?’ she demanded. Again the two women looked at each other. Again the one to the left spoke first.

  ‘You are to fight the fair-haired one?’ she said, half statement, half question. Clarissa blinked, trying to concentrate, half recalling.

  ‘If you mean that hulking great blonde bitch,’ she said, ‘then I offered her, but she said bugger all to me about actually accepting.’ She wrinkled her nose, scratching the side of her jaw.

  ‘You mean I’m actually going to get a chance to fight her?’ she asked at length. The two women nodded and Clarissa let out a low whistle.

  ‘Fuck me,’ she breathed. ‘Well, in that case you’d better get stuck in finding me this armour stuff. With her, you’d better make it steel plate, preferably tungsten plated, ‘cause I reckon I’m gonna need every bit of help going.’

  ‘You are both to wear the same,’ the one on the left said. ‘There will be no advantage to either combatant - those are the rules.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Clarissa laughed harshly. She jabbed a finger at the speaker. ‘What’s your name, mongoose.’

  The woman allowed herself the vestige of a smile. ‘I am called Alma,’ she said, and indicated her companion. ‘This is Tara. We are your seconds.’

  ‘So when’s this bloody fight supposed to be happening?’

  Tara stepped forward. ‘It will be soon enough, mistress,’ she said, ‘but there is time aplenty to prepare you.’ She nodded towards the wall on the left, where Clarissa saw a doorway she was certain had not been there a moment earlier. ‘Perhaps you will follow me?’ Tara suggested, turning and walking towards the opening. ‘Everything is ready.’

  It took Ellen several minutes to recover her senses and strength sufficiently to wriggle herself off the boy-cat’s still rigid penis and slide out from beneath him. He hadn’t looked particularly heavy, but as a dead weight it required all the effort she could muster, and he made no attempt to lift himself clear.

  Scrambling unsteadily to her feet, Ellen stood over him studying the unmoving form, and then prodded his midriff with one paw-booted foot. There was absolutely no reaction. She dropped to her knees again and placed her ear as close to the side of his face as she could manage, but either the latex head mask was blotting out too much sound, or...

  Standing up she kicked him again, much harder this time, but with the same lack of result. Puzzled, she scratched her head, but stopped when one of the claws dug into her.

  She turned slowly, her gaze travelling around the trees and bushes, looking for inspiration as much as anything else. But everything still seemed as it had appeared before the now lifeless form at her feet had first appeared.

  The mysteriously materialising portal led into another chamber, a little larger than the one in which Clarissa had first arrived. But unlike the first, this room was cluttered with a bewildering array of racks, stands and chests, and immediately upon entering Clarissa’s senses were filled with the now familiar aromas of rubber and leather. Alma and Tara lost no time in getting things started.

  ‘Please raise your arms, mistress,’ Tara said, as her companion lifted a complicated looking piece of leatherwear from the nearest rail. Clarissa eyed the thing suspiciously. Alma held it out for inspection.

  ‘It is part of your armour,’ she said. ‘You must be dressed correctly, as must your opponent. It is the rules.’

  ‘Fuck the rules,’ Clarissa growled. ‘That thing doesn’t look that much different from the bloody harness contraption that spiky bitch had me in before.’

  ‘But it is to protect your vital organs,’ Tara persisted. She placed a hand against her own side, moving it about and then across her stomach. ‘Liver, kidneys, the solar plexus - the leather is thick and stiff and will deflect much force.’

  ‘And your opponent will be wearing the same,’ Alma intoned, as if that were the end of any possible argument. Clarissa hesitated, considering the situation. It could easily be a trick, she knew. But then given what she understood of this VESTA world, there was no need for the blonde dyke to resort to such measures. If she wanted Clarissa to wear this paraphernalia for any reasons other than those currently being given, it surely would have been a simple enough matter to have her wake up already attired.

  So why, she asked herself, whatever the reasons anyway, was it necessary to go through this rigmarole, this ritual?

  Ritual?

  Yes, that was it. The ritual, that all-important aspect of all human sexuality, whatever the proclivity or preference involved, was always paramount, an integral part of it and, in some cases, the major part of it, more important than the final act itself. In all probability, the Christina woman was somehow tuned in to this scene, watching, enjoying, probably controlling it overall.

  Just observing, slut. The programme is self-generating now and, for the moment at least, will react to you.

  ‘Where are you?’ The voice seemed at once inside and outside of Clarissa’s head, though neither of the attendants seemed to have heard it and nor did they show any reaction to this last question. In fact, as she turned her head from side to side, trying to identify the source, Clarissa saw that Tara and Alma had frozen like statues, just a flickering aura about them in the manner of a video player on freeze frame.

  At the moment I am out here, simply monitoring and waiting.

  ‘Bitch! Have the bottle to come in here and face me!’

  All in good time, slut! You’ll have plenty of opportunity to regret it when I do. Meanwhile, let me explain.

  You should understand that you are now inside VESTA, although, more accurately, VESTA is inside you, inside your head, as it is inside the head of everyone who enters it. But no matter. Enough of semantics.

  What is important is that I intend to give you the chance to meet me face-to-face as you appeared to desire and, furthermore, I am prepared to concede certain of my natural physical advantages, to make the contest more interesting.

  To that end and to all intents and purposes we shall start equal - equal stature, equal weight, equal armour and identical resources, as you shall see shortly.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ Clarissa demanded. She heard a hollow laugh.

  What alternative is there? Should I just return you as you were, my little pony bitch, put you in the stables with your bit and harness and trot and whip you once a day? That will come soon enough, believe me, so what have you to lose in the meantime?

  ‘And what happens if I beat you?’

  Again the laugh.

  You won’t.

  ‘Just supposing I did. Will you free me? And Marlon?’

  More laughter.

  I could hardly do that, could I? I think maybe you know too much for that to be a feasible option.

  ‘Then why should I play along with your games?’

  My games? Need I remind you that it was you who issued this challenge? I need not have given you even this opportunity.

  ‘So why have you?’

  Because it amuses me - and appeals to me. Now, have you changed your mind? If you like you can join the other slut here for a while, as the sort of pony girl I cannot yet create outside VESTA. See for yourself. Look!

  Clarissa saw, as the rest of the room faded out around her and she was suddenly looking into a swirling mirror, to where a lone figure stood before a curious cart affair, stooped, beaten, humiliated, th
e traces laying across her supine back, bit and bells buckled tightly to the rigid harness, dull eyes staring ahead over a...

  ‘No!’ The picture faded and the room came back. ‘No, I’ll fight you, you twisted shit! But if you’re that bloody confident there should be something more in it for me. C’mon, blondie, put your money where your mouth is!’

  Very well, let me think. Ah yes, I have it. Should you beat me, then I will allow you and your brother to remain here as prisoners in the manner that aristocrats and royalty were prisoners centuries ago. In other words, although you will still be prisoners, you will be given comfortable quarters and left largely without interference.

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’ It was something at least, Clarissa thought. But she was prepared to try for more while the opportunity existed.

  Take it or leave it. You are hardly in a position to bargain. Besides, you will not win.

  ‘Because you’ve fixed it?’

  Not at all. There would be no satisfaction in that. I shall rely on my training and experience, plus the strength of my inner self. Now, let the ladies prepare you and remember, everything they give you I shall also have. There will be no tricks.

  There was no actual sound, but Clarissa felt as if there had been an audible click, as if a switch had been thrown and she knew that Christina had gone again. Before her the two attendants were animated again.

  ‘Please, mistress,’ Alma said, holding the leather garment out again. ‘If you would raise your arms.’ With a sigh Clarissa complied and the girl stepped closer, wrapping the main section around her middle, hooking something at the rear to hold it temporarily in place.

  Meantime, Tara had stepped behind her and quickly began fastening the heavy straps and buckles that not only effected a more permanent fit, but also drew the leather hourglass inexorably tight, drawing in Clarissa’s waist to a seemingly impossible degree. However, to her astonishment although it felt constricting, it was not especially painful, nor did she have any trouble with her breathing, as she knew she would have done outside of this world.

  As the two women fussed with the adjustments, Clarissa considered this and came to a rapid conclusion. This VESTA world might seem realistic, but it was only based on reality and anything that might have proved inconvenient in the real world was carefully doctored here, so that fantasies could be enacted to the full without the restrictions that normal human frailties might have imposed. That was an interesting concept, she thought, and carefully filed it away for future reference.

  However, not every inconvenience had been removed, as Clarissa discovered when she made to move, for the tight bodice precluded any chance of her bending at the waist, regardless of how little it impeded her respiration. Evidently the removal of the human frailty factor was a selective business.

  Having secured the corset-like section of the garment, which left Clarissa’s breasts bared but supported with two narrow sections that came somewhat short of quarter cup dimensions, a baffling series of straps and cuffs followed, which Clarissa suspected might have proved a lot more difficult to sort out in any other existence. Her two attendants, though, moving like the automatons they so very nearly were, handled the intricate harness without hesitation.

  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.

  ‘Wha
t 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.