THE GLADIATOR

by Sean O'Kane

  But their optimism vanished as a shadow fell across the doorway.

  “Ah, now, if I were you gentlemen, I’d hold the preparations for the pony racing.”

  Conor Brien was standing just outside and grinning broadly.

  “Why’s that?” John asked cautiously.

  “I’ve had a little look at the contract meself, after that trick you pulled this morning. Turning up here bold as brass with Blondie and Carlo in attendance......” He shook his head in mock despair. “It’s getting so a man just doesn’t know who to trust. So, I thought, two can play at that game! And d’you know what? I found that there’s nothing to stop me introducing another event with another slave.......one just for fun!”

  John’s thoughts raced. “But we agreed three events,” he protested.

  “Ah yes, we agreed verbally but it wasn’t put in the contract. I guess you were too busy trying to bamboozle me about what bitch you were putting up and took your eye off the ball.”

  John’s heart sank. The man was right, now he thought about it there was no specified number of events and now he couldn’t pull out. He cursed his own stupidity. “Listen Conor. If we win we take all the losing slaves right? So that means you stand to lose another slave,” he was improvising madly. “And if we win, just think how much we’ll charge this stable to hire in Carlo and Blondie if you do this.”

  Brien simply grinned and shrugged. “There’s always got to be a penalty for losing; or where’s the fun in winning?” His grin faded suddenly. “Out on the lawn in front of the house in ten minutes. A nice little torture session........before the pony racing.” He turned on his heel and was gone.

  John and Carlo turned to look at Blondie. She was still standing placidly by the tack table and gave no sign of whether or not she had understood anything.

  “Can she do it?” John asked hoarsely.

  Carlo shrugged. “She’ll have to.”

  When she was led out onto the lawn, Tara got that strange mix of fear and fond memories again. Every time she had been here before she had experienced exquisitely erotic suffering and the two tall, rectangular frames she saw now, promised more of the same. But though she had ‘turned off’ during the altercation at the stable, she knew her master was very worried. She tried to nuzzle his shoulder to reassure him but he was too preoccupied to notice. The truth was that she didn’t care about Conor Brien anymore. All she cared about was winning for Carlo. And she would do whatever that took, but if it meant beating Conor Brien in the process; then all the sweeter.

  It was Carlo who fitted her into the frame, shackling her wrists and ankles to the corners of the frame so she was stretched out in the classic X configuration, in complete suspension, her toes unable to touch the ground. She looked over to see who was opposing her in this bout and got a shock. There, spread out just like she was, was Cherry, the slave who had shared her bunk and been her own sub when they had just been starting out in the squad. The girl made no show of recognition though, just glared at her and Tara realised that she regarded her as an enemy of her master’s stable now - nothing more.

  Around the two slaves a ring of rope had been laid out and in the hot sun, the crowd now settled down comfortably to watch. Conor strode into the ring and addressed them.

  “I’m pleased to announce that purely for your pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve added a little freebie for you this afternoon. There will be no points awarded so it won’t affect the outcome of the real competition. But who can resist a little extra fun with a couple of lovely slaves like these two, eh? They’ll both take an equal measure of pain and then they’ll be left to add their own pleasure. The slave which passes out first, loses. Like I said, no points but a lot of fun to watch!”

  He left the ring and the little German man, Gerd, who had sometimes stood in for Carlo as trainer, entered the ring and behind him came four guards carrying two tables which were covered with dungeon implements. Tara licked her lips nervously as she took in the short needles and the long skewers, the clamps, the weights and the whips and paddles. Carlo, looking far from happy, also entered the ring and went to stand by Cherry. Gerd came to stand by her and fingered the implements on his table eagerly.

  “Okay,” Conor announced. “We’ll start with a little work on the tits. Twelve with the crop, just to bring the blood up to the surface, then we’ll start on the needles!”

  Gerd smiled at Tara and took up the crop from one of the tables.

  Tara gritted her teeth as the count began. The German didn’t flick with the keeper as some masters might at the start of a session. He brought the shaft down across one taut mound and let the keeper snap at the other, then he moved round and did the same from the other side.

  One!

  Two!

  Three!

  Slowly the count mounted as Tara writhed and twisted, her breasts a solid mass of white-hot pain as the shaft of the crop bit into them remorselessly.

  Four!

  Five!

  Six!

  Tara’s fingers clawed at the chains above her restraints as the blows fell straight across her nipples and they responded by engorging even more, hardening into throbbing peaks of agony and inviting what was about to be done next.

  Seven!

  Eight!

  Nine!

  Ten!

  From somewhere Tara heard Cherry begin to scream and at last felt able to let go herself.

  Eleven!

  Twelve!

  Tara hung limply in her bonds, her hair matted around her face as she looked down at the scarlet traces carved in her smooth breastflesh. Gerd’s hands came into view and they held one of the short needles with a colourful plastic handle. From bitter experience Tara knew that masters liked their slaves’ tits to look colourful. She gritted her teeth again as one hand held a nipple and pulled it out into an angry red, elongated tube, then the other hand brought the needle down and slowly pierced her vertically. There was the usual sharp little shock as the point went in and then another as it exited. She gave a breathless gasp as the two peaks of pain stabbed through the dull pounding in her breasts. There was a polite round of applause from the crowd as Gerd stepped back and Tara looked over to see Carlo doing the same, Cherry’s left nipple - characteristically dark red and disproportionally big in its state of erection - was also pierced vertically.

  But then Gerd was back and Tara just had time to wipe the sweat from her face against her upraised left bicep before the same nipple was pierced again, this time horizontally and just behind the vertical needle. Again there was the applause then he started on her right nipple and did the same. Between her achingly spread legs, Tara felt the familiar surges of masochistic pleasure in the face of the sharp lances of pain and heard the crowd respond. She knew perfectly well what an erotic spectacle she made, all she had to do was look over at Cherry’s suspended body and see the taut breasts sporting their colourful adornments right at their tender peaks. But then Gerd picked up a heavy leather paddle and moved behind her, she gritted her teeth as she prepared for the broad swathes of stinging heat which would soon erupt in her buttocks. But after only five resounding smacks which had her desperately heaving her pelvis forward, even in her stringent bondage, she gave way to cries and tight grunts. The crowd took up the count again as Gerd mercilessly swung the heavy paddle in until Tara’s and Cherry’s cries mingled and merged into one loud, continuous siren -like wail. At the count of twenty the beating stopped and Tara’s head fell forward as she gulped for breath. Her entire pelvic area seethed and roiled with burning pain, she was fairly sure she had climaxed several times but amid the furnace of pain which the beating had stoked up she couldn’t tell for certain. But all doubt was removed when she jerked in her bonds as she felt the German’s fingers slide easily up into her vagina which spasmed hungrily around the penetration. He flexed and twisted the fingers inside her until she was moaning helplessly, then he removed them and came to stand in front of her, proudly holding up his glistening fingers for the crowd t
o see. There were gleeful cheers and Tara blearily looked over at Cherry, whose head was still hanging while Carlo also held up the evidence of a slave’s helpless arousal under punishment.

  For what seemed like an eternity Gerd went to work on her prepared buttocks. He took small pinches of skin and threaded each of them through with a needle until Tara felt her backside must look as if each cheek had been laced up like a boot. The flogging had rendered the flesh exquisitely sensitive so the repeated shocks of sharp penetration soon had her moaning and sweating all over again. Although the only expression her body could give to its stimulation was a slight bucking of her hips and clenching of her stomach, nonetheless she could clearly feel the growing warmth and hunger between her legs. By the time that particular torment was over, Tara’s head was tossing in frustration and she was groaning helplessly, much to the crowd’s growing delight. Suddenly she realised that Gerd was in front of her again and running the lashes of a flogger over the palm of one hand.

  Given the nature of the slaves’ suspension, there was only one place such an implement could be destined for. Tara stared at her grinning tormentor as the crowd’s excited murmur built around them. She heard a hiss and smack from over at Cherry’s frame and then a wail of almost demented passion. The crowd erupted but she hardly had time to register it before Gerd swung the flogger in an uppercut and a bolt of hot, delicious agony shot through her as the leathers snapped at her labia and bit along the tender flesh which they had peeled apart to reveal. Her head flew back and she arched and screamed at the same time. Then another lash struck her and another until she was only aware of her hips pumping forwards for another dose, her stomach clenching and inside her, the mad spasming of her vagina as she achieved orgasm after orgasm and felt herself ejaculate, draining her innards in thick spurts which flooded her vulva and soaked the lashes as they struck her. She was so completely drained that she hardly felt the clamps squeeze her lips and then pull them down as they were weighted. She only wanted something inside her, deep inside her, filling the aching space of her vagina. She moaned and cried out urgently, bucking her hips again and setting the chains and weights to clicking and rattling against each other as they hung between her straining thighs.

  She didn’t care what Gerd did anymore; all she could focus on was her need. She hardly felt the points of the long skewers locate against the sides of her sweat-slicked breasts and then press through, but the thought and the strangely nerveless feel of the steel passing through the fatty tissue inside her, made her look down and watch. She snorted and gasped in desperate excitement while female squeals and moans of ecstasy rose from the crowd. One skewer through each breast and then Gerd stepped back and acknowledged the applause. Her body now aching in every sinew, burning and stinging from the beatings, her labia and breasts throbbing, Tara was crying from sheer frustration as she looked over at Cherry. She too was writhing in her chains, her body gleaming with sweat and Tara thought she had never looked more devastatingly erotic as her chest heaved and her breasts trembled with their savagely beautiful decorations.

  But Gerd returned and Tara dragged her eyes away, almost whimpering in gratitude as she saw the huge, ribbed dildo he held. Without any preparation, knowing she needed none, he came close and pushed it up into her, the girth of the thing making Tara gasp again as she felt it stretch her inner flesh. Once it was safely lodged he reached up and freed her right wrist. Immediately her left arm began to hurt even more but without any thought, Tara’s right hand had flown down between her legs, grasped the base of the dildo and was pumping it desperately into herself. In her headlong flight towards fulfilment she glanced once at Cherry and registered how utterly; how shamelessly and abjectly the two of them were behaving. In the full view of a voyeuristic audience, with their legs spread so wide that no shred of dignity was left, they were pumping dildos into themselves and crying out in pleasure as their orgasms approached. But that thought was drowned in the ecstasy of feeling herself filled at long last and she growled with determination as she felt the first waves begin to break and sweep her away. She spiralled down into a scarlet realm of exhausted pleasure so intense it was as if her entire being was centred in that tight wet tunnel which pulsed and clamped around the thick rubber shaft inside it. Beyond all thought, blinded by the silent explosions of lightning and deafened by her own screams, Tara went on and on pumping until she knew no more.

  Back in the stable, Carlo surveyed what he had to work with. They had more or less carried Blondie back and laid her on the tack table while Patti dabbed at the small trickles of blood from the piercings. The slave lay on her back, her chest heaving and her tongue ring clicking as she gasped her way back to consciousness.

  “Christ! Two more events left and she’s a shagged out wreck! What are we going to do?” Beside him John Carpenter was almost hysterical and Carlo couldn’t blame him. He had gambled everything and looked set to lose it. If ever he, Carlo Suarez, needed all his slave handling skills - it was now.

  “Leave her with me,” he said quietly as he realised what he had to do. He held his hand up to silence any protests or queries. “Go,” he said simply.

  When he was alone he helped the blonde up to a sitting position and gave her a drink of water before helping her to stand. She was weak but her legs held and her eyes were clear enough as she ran her hands over her body, assessing and exploring her various hurts. He allowed her some moments and waited until her hand was cupping her sex, her fingers delving into her own vagina and rubbing moisture over the swollen labia. She gave a shy glance at him and clicked her tongue ring. It was time.

  He turned her to face the table and pushed her torso down onto it, then he unzipped his flies and rubbed his flaccid cock at her opening which was clearly visible between her swollen and reddened lips and her equally reddened buttocks, until he began to harden. The slave moaned with pleasure as she felt it. That was what he needed.

  Once he was hard enough he aimed himself at her entrance and pushed in, making her cry out at first as his shaft pressed against sorely tested tissue. But he couldn’t afford the time to be gentle, she needed her master inside her and she needed to listen to him.

  He leaned forward and grabbed her hair, pulling her up so he could whisper into her ear while he began to rock his hips and give her the screwing she wanted.

  “I know you can hear me in there, Blondie. Sometimes I know you don’t want to hear but now you need to listen - and listen up good. Understand?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation as he went on thrusting into her tight depths and then the tongue ring appeared and was withdrawn.

  “Okay. Conor Brien thinks he’s got us. You’re going up against Jet in the pony racing and then you’re fighting another fresh slave. In the state you’re in, even you can’t do it Blondie.”

  Again there was a hesitation and then the ring came out.

  “So we’re going to lose the race and put everything on the last fight. But we got to make it look good so we don’t get disqualified. You’re going to put on the show of your life, Blondie. You’re going to stagger and stumble and look like you’re all in. And I’m going to thrash you like my life depends on it. But you can take the whip like no one else, all you need is to keep some energy left. Pain you can deal with. Okay, Blondie?”

  Again the tongue ring showed.

  Carlo smiled. “That’s my girl. Now you can have a screw.”

  He settled down to giving her what she needed; her master’s undivided attention.

  Chapter 24

  The studded tack was a torment that was worse than even Tara could have imagined. She squealed around her bit as the crotch strap was drawn tight against her throbbing labia, the plugs stung both her passages and made her eyes water so badly she could hardly see the course ahead. She even heard some indrawn gasps from the crowd as she went up on tiptoes as the strap was mercilessly applied. She felt the trap behind her shift as Carlo settled and she steeled herself for further torment. Beside her she knew that Jet,
the strong black girl who was the only one who had ever come close to her for pace, was prancing and fresh.

  The starting pistol cracked and Tara yelled as Carlo lashed her but she leaned into her work and concentrated on giving the show he needed from her. Jet pulled clear almost immediately and while Carlo made a great display of swearing and cursing her while he swung the whip, she managed to block out the pain and concentrate on keeping just within striking range of the opposition. Her legs didn’t feel too bad, all things considered, but everything else either felt wrung out or in agony. The plugs shifted inside her but she managed to focus on the memory of her master being inside her and whispering in her ear what he needed her to do and she was able to dispel their mingled discomfort and arousal.

  The course was familiar, she had run it in training hundreds of times and for the first two circuits put up what looked like a brave fight, struggling alongside Jet but failing to respond when she was whipped up. But all the time she kept well within herself, on the final lap, Jet would be whipped into a sprint and it was then that she would have to fail.

  Sure enough, there came a time when Jet’s driver let loose a flurry of lashes and the black girl’s powerful haunches drove her well clear of Tara. Carlo stood up and screamed at her as he threw his full weight into scything lashes which curled down over her shoulders and bit into her tightly strapped breasts. She reared her head wildly and let herself wobble from side to side of the track, she snorted desperately through her nose and managed to give the appearance of complete exhaustion as Jet pulled farther and farther away. The whip rained lashes down on Tara as she stumbled along, never making more than a trot but making that look as though it was as much as she could do. From up ahead she heard a cheer go up and realised that Jet had crossed the finish line. Carlo seemed to completely lose his head and whipped her with insane ferocity, lacing her chest and pubic mound with scalding lashes that curled round her body, but still Tara concentrated on maintaining a staggering, lurching trot.