Vesta - Painworld (30 page)

The targets, therefore, had to be the shoulders and upper chest, including the breasts in their leather cages, the hips and upper thighs and, of course, just behind where the rubber dildo thrust up and out, the unprotected sex lips. That, however, was not an easy mark, she decided.

Without further warning, Christina suddenly darted forward, whip thongs flailing before her like a demented propeller, her claws raking out in a low arc, only to find herself clutching at thin air and then a line of fire exploding across her shoulders. Twisting away she staggered backwards, moving out of range, wondering just how her opponent had been able to move that quickly.

‘Surprised, drongo?' The eyes behind the redhead's mask gleamed maliciously. ‘I was more dragged up than brought up, mostly with boys who had an idea they could use me as a sort of parking bay for their randy little cocks. It was a case of fuck them before they fucked me.'

‘Very impressive,' Christina conceded. ‘But I spent several years training in various combat techniques. I think you might find me a little more of a challenge than a couple of outback hooligans.'

‘Who said anything about being brought up in the outback?' Clarissa laughed. ‘That would have been a picnic. Most of the fellas out there are more interested in shagging sheep, haven't you heard the stories?'

‘You won't find it so funny in a few minutes,' Christina warned, tensing for another attack. Clarissa merely laughed even louder.

‘You talk a good fight,' she said, ‘but so far the only blood is on you, in case you hadn't - whoa! Nearly!'

Christina had thrust forward with the whip again, hoping to catch her off guard. But Clarissa seemed to be made of rubber, not just wearing it, and it was as though she had springs in the heels of her long boots, for she pirouetted, leapt and was gone, though not without landing another stinging cut across the top of Christina's right arm.

The blonde let out a hiss of pain and annoyance as she staggered to regain her balance yet again, but Clarissa was already moving and twice her whip found unprotected flesh, before she was once more out of range. There were roars of approval and encouragement from the crowd, but neither combatant was hearing them now.

Christina bounded forward once more, twisting, jumping, her right boot lashing out in a vicious karate style kick, but her opponent was yet again too agile for her and this time her claws opened up four deep gashes in the back of Christina's airborne thigh.

‘Five-nil to me, I think!' Clarissa kept circling, flicking her whip idly, deliberately trying to goad her former tormentor into lunging again. Breathing hard Christina resisted the temptation, knowing it was precisely what was expected of her.

‘You're pretty good,' she rasped. ‘Makes it all the more interesting. Maybe I should have kept an inch or two and a couple of pounds advantage.'

‘Maybe you should,' Clarissa agreed. ‘So why don't you get your computer boffin to - waheyyy!' She spun away as Christina attacked again, but this time her whip also missed its target and, with a backhanded flick, Christina landed her first scoring contact; two vivid welts across the back of her right shoulder. The Australian girl barely seemed to notice the blow.

‘You're learning,' she sneered. ‘Maybe you're not as stupid as you look.' She backed off a few steps, whip hanging limply. ‘I'll give you one thing, only being able to use the forearms makes this pretty interesting.'

For several minutes they circled, feinted, lunged. Christina managed to land another whiplash across Clarissa's other shoulder and rake the top of her thigh with the tip of one claw. But in return she received another stinging lash, this time across both breasts and her opponent's claws opened up a deep gash along the top of her left arm. Drops of bright red blood splattered the sand about them and, to Christina's disgust, she realised that most of it was her own.

Her breathing was much harder now, as much a result of her frustration as from the efforts she was largely wasting. It was, she decided, time for serious methods.

She dived forward, hitting the ground on her side, rolling and kicking upwards, the thick soles of her boots driving into Clarissa's abdomen with a satisfying thud, knocking the other girl onto her back, though not before her whip had exacted another welt across her back. Ignoring the pain Christina rolled over, coming back to her feet in one movement, only to find herself hurtling backwards as Clarissa's right boot arced around and slammed into the side of her head.

Bright lights exploded before her eyes, but she retained enough presence of mind to keep rolling backwards, whip thrashing as a defensive screen until her head began to clear. When it did she saw that Clarissa remained several feet away, standing easily, legs slightly apart, whip hanging idly, her clawed hand gripping the rigid dildo and pointing it towards her dazed opponent.

‘Come suck some cock, blondie!' The Australian accent was even harsher now and, for the first time Christina began to have serious doubts. She looked up towards the gallery where Naylor and Koenig were sitting and gestured with her whip hand, making the sign of an X at her feet. Koenig raised a hand in acknowledgement, but Christina could not afford to take her eyes off her opponent for any longer. Already she was moving in again, brandishing the thick shaft like a pennant.

‘You made the rules, blondie,' she called out. ‘Let's see you stick to ‘em - or is your little mate up there going to fix things for you, eh? Well, he'd better be quick about it.'

Ignoring the jibe, Christina went in again with a flurry of kicks, landing one, two, three times, the final impact sending Clarissa sprawling onto her back, legs akimbo. In a trice, Christina was on top of her, landing with her knees driving into the other woman's midriff and driving the air from her lungs with a satisfying hiss. The claw raked out, ripping four bloody tracks across both undefended breasts, tearing apart one of the leather harness straps with its force.

‘Now we'll see who's fixing who!' she snarled, thrusting her knees between Clarissa's thighs, her claw hand reaching to guide the black phallus to its target. She forced the swollen knob between the damp lips, pushing the shaft in an inch or so and then lowered herself over her vanquished opponent, who lay with eyes closed, face contorted with pain.

‘You can suck my cock later,' Christina leered. ‘But first I'm going to push it into you so far you'll think you're choking.' She wriggled her hips, feeling the phallus settling into the soaking tunnel and could not resist one final taunt.

‘The next cock you feel inside you will be about fifteen inches long, slut,' she snarled. ‘But you'll have a cunt big enough to take it. You'll be joining the other bitch in the stud farm. A nice pair of brood mares you'll make - Aaaahhh!'

Again lights exploded everywhere, this time accompanied by what felt like an explosion somewhere between her ears. Christina's entire body suddenly went rigid, her every sense numbed. When she came round again it was to find herself lying on her back, Clarissa poised with her own rubber phallus nestling between the tops of her thighs. Desperately Christina tried to wriggle aside, but her muscles were refusing to obey her brain's feverish commands.

Clarissa sat back slightly, the back of her whip hand glove wiping away the flecks of blood that had appeared in the centre of her forehead. Behind the mask she grinned triumphantly.

‘Back home we call that the Botany Bay salute,' she said. ‘In this country they call it the Liverpool handshake, and I believe the Jocks call it the Glasgow Kiss. Fuckin' hurts me almost as much as it hurts you,' she added, but the fact did not seem to bother her. ‘Difference is, you're stunned silly and I've just got a lump on my head. However, it wears off a bit quick, so let's just make sure of you, shall we?' She grasped Christina's shoulders, arched her back, and thrust hard with her hips. Christina felt the long rubber penis penetrating deep within her, just as the strength began to return to her arms. She tensed her muscles, preparing to swing a round-arm blow into the back of the unsuspecting redhead's neck and...

...her entire body went completely limp and numb again, except this time it was not as the result of a stunning head butt between her eyes.

‘No-oooo!' she cried. ‘It shouldn't have...'

And then her vocal chords also stopped working. Only her eyes and ears remained normal. Above her Clarissa was lazily pumping back and forth, her black phallus sliding in and out of a helpless tunnel that its owner could no longer feel.

She stopped, holding herself up on extended arms. ‘Shouldn't have worked, should it?' she said, giggling happily. ‘So, I wonder what went wrong? Whatever it was,' she added, pulling herself clear and staggering to her feet, ‘I'd say you were well and truly fucked - in all senses of the word!'

 

‘The really clever part was, in all honesty, only clever because of its simplicity,' Marlon said, beaming from ear to ear. The rest of the company looked at him in a mixture of bewilderment and awe, for the little computer genius' definition of simplicity would have rendered Einstein's theory of relativity as the equivalent of the blurb on a cereal packet.

‘Okay,' Ellen said, speaking for all of them, ‘so tell us, brain-box, how you managed it. I'm no expert, but I thought the Kraut had searched for all the safe-words and stuff and erased them?'

‘Oh, he did,' Marlon agreed, nodding enthusiastically. ‘And he did remove them - all the ones that were there, including some very sophisticated failsafes I'd generated.' He sat back in the huge armchair and his smile, if it were at all possible, seemed to grow even wider.

‘Some of those little programmes took me at least fifteen minutes to create, you know,' he said. ‘In all I wrote five special ones on top of the original stuff, and buried them pretty deeply, though I was pretty certain he'd find them eventually.'

‘So why bother at all?' Paul asked, leaning forward. ‘If you knew he was good enough to dig them out, wasn't that just a waste of time and effort?'

‘Au contraire, mon ami,' Marlon smirked. ‘Our Bavarian friend - or is he Prussian? - would have been most suspicious if he'd searched and found nothing. After all, he knew I had those few hours and that I wouldn't waste them, so if his search software had unearthed a blank he'd have smelled the proverbial.'

‘Now, just hang on a minute,' Lianne interrupted. ‘I probably know less about computer stuff than anyone in this room, but even I see a flaw here. If this Koenig guy was good enough to write programmes that could search your programmes out even in the very depths of VESTA, how come he never found what you'd done?'

‘That,' Marlon said, his chest puffing out visibly, ‘was the really clever and simple bit about the entire thing.' He chuckled and looked around the eager eyes for a few seconds before continuing. ‘Let me ask you all a question.' He was beginning to really enjoy himself and no one was prepared to spoil his fun; after all, whatever he'd done, whether any of them would ever understand it or not, he was the one who had proved to be their saviour. Only Nadia betrayed the slightest sign of impatience. She raised her glass in his direction.

‘Marlon,' she said, smiling gently, ‘my bloody wine is getting warm.'

‘Of course,' Marlon nodded. ‘You must forgive me.' However, he still milked the stage for a few more seconds before continuing.

‘The thing is,' he said at last, ‘friend Koenig was looking for something that wasn't actually there at the time. No,' he said, raising one hand, ‘I'll explain, so don't all get on at me, but I am rather proud of this, you know.

‘This was the simple bit I was talking about. All the various clever little bits and pieces I created were really nothing more than a smokescreen. There was always the slim chance he might miss one, in which case I could have sorted everything a few hours earlier than I did, but I never really thought he would. So, having set up a few decoys, I put the real failsafe somewhere he'd never be able to find it - on a small private website I've had for a few years now.'

‘It's all beyond me,' Ellen said, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. ‘What bits of my brain VESTA hasn't already scrambled have just run up the white flag!'

‘Bear with me,' Marlon persisted. ‘It really is so simple. This site is not cached in VESTA - sorry, that means that there isn't a copy of it here. The files I created originally are in my own computer in a small cottage in Herefordshire, and the active site is on a very small commercial server based in Bali, I believe it is.

‘Anyway, that's not important. What is important is that it's a long way away from VESTA herself, though distance, in this technological world of ours, is a relative thing.

‘As you may know, VESTA was originally programmed to search the world wide web for data from which to carry on constructing a base from which to create the various scenarios which her subjects would experience. In order to do that in the shortest possible time, she is connected to fifty ISDN lines - Nadia happily underwrote that cost some weeks ago - and continually surfs the net via those lines.

‘Now, given the nature of the data she needed, there were certain keywords for which she was programmed to search. One of these keywords was contained within my private website, which also contained an automatic download of a new failsafe programme. However, I didn't want VESTA downloading this failsafe until our friend had finished satisfying himself he'd found all my little devices.