‘Fairytale One, this is Fairytale Two, do you copy?’ The metallic voice burst from the overhead speaker and, not taking his eyes from the screen, Koenig leaned forward and depressed the transmission key on the tabletop microphone alongside it.
‘Fairytale Two, I copy you,’ he intoned. ‘Have you an ETA yet?’
‘Touchdown in approximately ten minutes, Fairytale Two.’ This time it was Naylor’s voice, easily distinguishable, despite the distorting effect of the UHF radio link. ‘Everything ready for us down there?’
‘Everything proceeding according to plan,’ Koenig confirmed. ‘You are to land on the large lawn at the rear of the house as agreed, and approach the door at the eastern end of the building. He’ll be watching you, Fairytale One, and he almost certainly has some sort of magnifying equipment, so I trust you have seen to things with your passenger?’
‘Affirmative,’ Naylor returned. ‘She looks totally delightful, I assure you. Everything is prepared to deal with our host. How’s he doing?’
‘He appears to be simply monitoring a random programming sequence. VESTA is working on several scenarios at the same time, some of them apparently intended to overlap at some stage. I have not interfered, but my key programme is ready to drop in the moment you give the word.’
‘Roger, Fairytale Two,’ Naylor came back, and now Koenig could detect the excitement in his voice. ‘We have visual on the target area now. Just circling around to be sure. Keep your eyes glued to that system and hit the alarm at the first sign of anything. I’m leaving this channel open.’
The minutes continued to tick away, but still there was no sign of whoever was supposed to have set the net snare for her, and Lianne was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. A couple of times she tried to squirm around and reach up to where the net was gathered at the bottom of the rope from which it swung. But she soon gave up any hope of freeing it, for the running slipknot was held tight by her own weight and could not be loosened again until she was lowered back to the ground.
‘Sod it, Marlon!’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘I know I said things happened too quickly before, but this is ridiculous. I’m beginning to think you’ve forgotten me.’
She turned to survey the tree line again, and this time she was rewarded by the sight of two figures emerging from the dense undergrowth...
Seated in the back of the circling helicopter, Clarissa was close to shedding tears of frustration. Her short spell as Christina’s prisoner had taught her what it was to feel truly helpless, but even the ordeal impaled upon the cruel display perch seemed unimportant compared to her present situation.
Her captors clearly intended to trick Marlon, there was no doubt whatsoever of that, for Christina had already made it clear to Clarissa that she had other plans for her other than handing her over to her half brother. Yet there was no way she could warn him, nor any way that he could see she was even gagged, so cunningly had the task been carried out.
Removing the harness and pony hood, Christina had forced a hard plastic device into Clarissa’s mouth, a curved shield, shaped like the skin of an orange segment, which fitted neatly between her teeth and the inside of her mouth, held in place by four tiny screw clamps that now held tightly to her back teeth.
From the inside centre of the shield a tongue-shaped piece projected inwards, forcing her own tongue down and preventing speech, while from the outside, as Christina took great pleasure in showing her in a mirror, her lips were held apart slightly and the outer surface of the plastic was contoured and coloured to reveal what appeared to be a perfect set of gleaming white teeth, the overall image that of a welcoming smile.
Her hoof boots had been replaced - only temporarily, Christina had assured her - by knee length boots with slightly less exaggerated heels, while a full length leather coat, drawn tightly about her waist, hid the fact that she still wore her dappled pony skin underneath. Cunningly concealed cuffs held her hands uselessly inside the pockets of this coat, so she was powerless to do anything to remove the curious heavy pendant that had been hung about her neck, an adornment which although decorative, Clarissa suspected had other more sinister purposes.
The room had, indeed, proved to be part of a hotel, and downstairs the bar area was well patronised by a colourful selection of fellow guests. Poised on the high stilettos, a small bag slung from his shoulder, Pauline swayed into the room, avoided the eyes in those heads that immediately turned, and minced up to the bar, perching on a bar stool that emptied itself as if by magic.
‘Martini,’ she said, smiling at the barman, who was making no attempt to conceal the fact that he was undressing her with his eyes. ‘Make it a large one.’ She turned away and surveyed the length of the bar counter.
Most of the patrons at the bar itself were male. But a little way along a raven-haired beauty, clad in a skirt as daringly brief as Pauline’s own, sat brooding over a half empty glass of wine, her talon-like red fingernails drumming an erratic and lazy tattoo on the polished surface. Pauline felt sudden urges that were at once familiar and unfamiliar and, as her left hand made to move the small bag to hide her obvious excitement, she suddenly remembered there was currently nothing in her panties to cause any such embarrassment.
‘Can you hear me, Marlon?’ she said, under her breath, but there was no reply. Slowly, a smile began to spread across Pauline’s new features, for as she studied the other woman closer, she realised she was Hazel O’Dee, who had spent the past few years playing the wicked Madame B’s sidekick Dolores in the Della strip, and who was, Pauline knew, a confirmed lesbian.
This could be fun, the former artist thought, taking a five-pound note from her bag and passing it across in exchange for the tall glass the barman placed before her.
‘Keep the change,’ she said aloud, flashing him a wide smile and then, picking up her drink, she slipped elegantly from her perch and began making her way along the bar.
‘Too easy,’ the first hunter said, thrusting a booted foot against Lianne’s balled-up body as it hung trapped in the net, setting her swinging gently to and fro. His companion, whose dark hair was cropped closely to his skull, leaned on his curious spear gun and grinned.
‘They always are at first,’ he said. ‘But it’s surprising how quickly they learn, once they get their new skins.’ He dropped the bulky sack he was carrying and nodded an unspoken instruction.
The fair-haired man had already set his own gun aside and reached up with a wicked knife, sawing away at the rope just above the point where it had tightened the mouth of the net.
‘The skin she’s wearing is okay by me,’ he leered. ‘And she looks to have a pretty good filling for it.’
Lianne sighed. ‘Hey, don’t mind me guys,’ she said. ‘Just talk about me like I’m not here, eh?’
‘Oh, you’re here all right,’ the blond hunter laughed. ‘Though pretty soon you’re going to wish you weren’t.’
‘Naturally,’ Lianne retorted, stifling an urge to giggle. ‘And I suppose you just happen to have a whip in that sack, right?’ she went on. ‘And of course you’re going to string me up, possibly to one of those trees over there, and whip this rubber catsuit off my defenceless body, yes?’
‘We’ve got a mouthy bitch here, by the sound of it,’ the blond man said, sourly, redoubling his efforts to sever the rope. ‘And this bloody knife has no edge to it, Greg. Here, pass me yours.’
Close-crop reached down and withdrew a blade from its sheath at his belt. It looked far less imposing than the one his partner was struggling with, but it evidently had a much keener edge, for with two swift strokes it parted the rope and Lianne was deposited in a bruised and ungainly heap on the hard packed earth.
‘Get the net off her, Marcus,’ the one called Greg instructed, taking back his knife and turning to the sack. ‘And watch she doesn’t try anything clever. The bitch seems to fancy herself.’
Marcus certai
nly was not taking any chances, for he kept a firm grip on the back of Lianne’s neck, his powerful fist knotted painfully into her hair, using his free hand to drag the net clear of her with unhurried deliberation.
‘She won’t be so damned feisty once she’s been through the genetic accelerator,’ he said, and laughed as he saw the flicker of confusion cross Lianne’s face. ‘Let her sound off all she wants... while she still can,’ he added, and this time his companion joined in with a loud guffaw.
After a surprisingly short time, Ellen found that the high heeled ‘paws’ into which her feet had been placed did not offer as much a handicap to fairly swift movement as she had initially anticipated. She settled into a curious lope whenever the trees gave way to brief, grassy open spaces, slowing again to negotiate the gradually thickening carpet of undergrowth that lay between the trunks beneath the green canopy overhead.
In the distance the baying hounds seemed closer now, but not worryingly so as yet, and she wondered if the hunt would be protracted deliberately, presumably for her own benefit, unless one of the others was even now part of whatever virtual party was pursuing her. After what she guessed to be the better part of half an hour she stopped, crouching between two dense bushes, and attempted to take stock of her situation again.
The fearsome claws made any attempt to remove even a part of her outfit impossible, always supposing that it would come off, here in this curious, electronically generated world. But at least they did offer her some form of defence, though she shied away from the thought of raking these wicked talons into even a virtual animal. She grimaced and wondered if the computerised pack of hounds would extend such considerations to her in turn, and somehow doubted they would.
Marlon had matters to engage him other than monitoring the progress of the subjects inside VESTA’s bizarre world, even though he was aware of the presence of several ‘bug’ files that were already altering and adding to his original scenarios, and even to those being created by VESTA herself.
Clearly, Jurgen Koenig had not been content to use the telephone link-up simply to monitor VESTA’s operation, nor to render inoperative her system of escape passwords. But neither of these facts came as a surprise to Marlon. Watching out of the small window, peering towards the line of hills in the distance, he grimaced, but there was nothing else he could do, not until he was certain that Clarissa was safely back with him and out of the clutches of these hideous monsters. Up to that point, he knew, he was helpless to intervene, and he was also pretty certain that Naylor and his thugs wouldn’t simply hand his half sister back to him anyway, not until they had exacted every iota of tribute available to them.
And, with VESTA opened up to their access, that tribute was almost incalculable.
Blissfully unaware of the impending danger, Nadia Muirhead was just beginning to enjoy her latest venture into virtuality, this time as the hunter, rather than the hunted, a stipulation she had made to Marlon very forcibly.
Dressed in a form-fitting leather leotard, thigh boots, gloves and collar, the areas of flesh in between shimmering through the fine mesh of what appeared to be a body stocking, she approached the wall mounted racks and ran a leather-covered hand lovingly over the array of whips, crops and paddles that hung there.
‘Very nice,’ she murmured. ‘Just what the customers will love.’ She selected one long-handled paddle and swished it through the air experimentally, letting its broad end smack against the stone wall with an ear-splitting crack. Even Nadia was impressed, for the implement’s balance and lightweight handle belied the force it was able to generate in her expert hands.
‘Top stuff, Marlon,’ she muttered. ‘Or is this some of VESTA’s own handiwork?’ Not that it mattered, Nadia thought, as long as the finished product was as good as this. She looked down at herself and once again a grin of satisfaction spread across her usually impassive features. Everything so far was not just perfect, but absolutely class; the perfect replication of the ultimate fetish experience - a replication for which certain people would be willing to pay handsomely.
Not that Nadia needed the money, but it was a satisfying thought that she could soon begin to recoup a little on her massive financial investment. She replaced the paddle, took out a wicked-looking crop, and turned back towards the door of the long chamber.
Time seemed to be taking on a curiously elasticated quality. The dogs seemed to be little nearer as yet, even though Ellen felt as though she had been trotting through woods and undergrowth for hours. However, judging from the positions of the shadows cast by the trees, it might scarcely have been minutes, for the sun did not seem to have shifted its position in all the time since she’d found herself in the role of hunted cat.
She didn’t get it, pausing in the midst of a thick screen of bushes. Okay, so maybe she was over estimating, but it had been more than an hour, so why the bloody delay? Why not just move it up to the final chase stage and have done with it?
Briefly, she wondered if the idea were to exhaust her before bringing the hunt to its climax, but quickly dismissed that theory, for here in VESTA’s electronically generated domain there did not seem to be such a thing as fatigue. In the real world, Ellen knew, running, even jogging as she had been, for such a length of time in these extreme boots would have had her panting heavily long before this, her calf and thigh muscles screaming out for oxygen and for any relief from their distorted positions.
She emerged from the bushes, crossed a patch of grassy ground, found a large tree that stood alone and apart from its fellows, and lowered herself to sit with her back against it, eyes darting about the perimeter line of green foliage for any sign of movement.
She let out a long sigh that emerged, via the peculiar device that filled her mouth, as a loud purr, and only the gag itself prevented Ellen from laughing out loud.
‘Whatever is this place?’ Pauline almost squeaked, as the dark version of Hazel flicked a switch and overhead strips began flickering into life. But she already knew the answer before the bigger woman opened her mouth, the various wooden and metal racks that adorned the end wall and the menacing looking frame that stood in the centre of the floor, picked out by a circle of five spotlights, saying more than any words ever could.
‘Just my playroom,’ Hazel said and, before Pauline could react, moved behind her and shoved her roughly inside, slamming the door behind them and barring any line of escape as the lock clicked shut with an ominous finality. For a brief instant the old Paul machismo tried to reassert itself - the old Paul could have easily outfought Hazel, big as she was, but the new Pauline had only to look down at herself to understand the futility of such a course.
At very little over five feet tall without the heels and weighing well under a hundred and twenty pounds, poor little feminine Pauline was like a helpless midget beside the dominant, nearly six foot frame of Hazel O’Dee - or Dolores, as she had introduced herself in the bar, reverting to her in-character name. Idly, Pauline realised that both artists, the villainous Naylor originally and now his brilliantly talented female Welsh replacement, had always drawn Dolores as a brunette, rather than as the blonde she was in real life.
But for now there was no chance to dwell on such little idiosyncrasies. Hazel loomed over her, eyes gleaming.
‘Time for some fun and games, Susie,’ she hissed.
Pauline had selected the name out of thin air, not wanting to give any indication as to his real identity, and conscious of the fact that Hazel would know that Lianne always referred to his male-to-female transformation character as Pauline. She held up her hands in a vain attempt to ward off the closing predator.
‘No, listen,’ she squeaked, the maddeningly girlish female voice echoing in her head. ‘You don’t understand, Hazel. Look, I ought to explain - just give me a minute!’
‘My name is Dolores,’ Hazel grated. ‘However, sweetmeat, for the moment you can call me mistress.’ Pauline continued to back away, her
voice now filled with genuine panic.
‘No, listen, Hazel - I mean Dolores... mistress! Oh shit! Please!’
The low building seemed to suddenly appear from nowhere, the dense woods melting away to reveal a small clearing before it. Stumbling along behind the two men, Marcus tugging roughly on the leash that connected to the heavy collar that was now locked about her throat, Lianne was concentrating so fiercely on keeping her footing on the rough ground that she hardly had any time to take in any of the exterior details before they entered by way of a sturdy and businesslike door at one end of the structure.
Lianne’s nostrils twitched at the tang of antiseptic that filled the air, and she at last looked around her. Not that there was much to see, for they appeared to be in some sort of foyer, with just a spartan steel-framed desk table and single upright chair behind it as furniture. The white painted walls were bare of any decoration, the only break in their monotonous surface being a second door, apparently leading deeper into whatever place this was.
Marcus turned and began unfastening the leash, but the sturdy cuffs that still held Lianne’s wrists close behind her precluded any chance of escaping. Not that any attempt was likely to avail her for long, she guessed, for VESTA was undoubtedly programmed to ensure that she met whatever fate had been ordained for her in this part of the ‘game’.
As the neck chain dropped away the inner door swung open and two females emerged, both wearing what was presumably intended as a parody on a nurse’s uniform; a brief ensemble in dark blue and white that had clearly been lifted straight from the pages of a fetish magazine. For not only was the hemline at least a foot higher than any normal hospital would have tolerated, but the entire garment was made of thin, clinging rubber.
The women themselves were tall and willowy, though each boasted a bust that appeared to be defying all natural laws of gravity, even the tight latex unable to flatten out the incredible curves. Despite herself, Lianne smiled - she was beginning to learn more of what made Marlon tick, she thought...
Vesta - Painworld Page 11