Monica's Games 2.27

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Games 2.26)

Chapter Twenty Seven: Jill Paints the Town

Day Seven

Morning Event: Paintball
White Team: Jill, Leila, Emma and Trish
Black Team: Megan, Debra, Kris, and Marilyn
Points at Stake: 15
Start Score
White Team: 30 Black Team: 51

The locksmith arrived just after Steven, Trish and Mary had left, looking for Monica.  I was as worried as anything by then, with a feeling that the whole competition was getting out of hand.

We intended getting the lock guy to open the shed, so that we could then access some bolt cutters, since we really did draw the line at one of us having to squat on the guy’s face while he fiddled about with his lock picking device.  That really would be one to tell the rest of the boys back at the office.  That was when Shawnee discovered a spare lock the same as the ones that secured our crotch cables, and saved all of us some time and embarrassment.  

The guy was cute, but by that time we had changed out of our uniforms into normal skirts and dresses, since jeans weren’t the best when you have a bulky lock rattling around in your crotch.  Shawnee came on hot and strong to the guy, until I gave her a warning look.  He was a bit too young for me.  I like my men a bit more mature, and less your pizza delivery type.  A bit more your home handyman type, if you like, but you didn’t hear that from me.

By the time the lock was sussed and the guy had cut us a new key, it was nearly ten o’clock.  I got him to open Steven’s workshop anyway, while he was there, since we did not know when Mistress Lynx would decide to return our keys.  We were finally able to extract the butt plugs that had been there since mid-afternoon, but I found myself unable to relax and sleep knowing that somewhere out there Steven, Trish and Mary were searching for Monica.

I’m not normally a worrying type, for there are some situations where you can do nothing and there is no point.  This was one such situation, but it made no difference to me.  Monica was too big a part of our lives, and too many things had been happening recently that had ominous overtones, ever since Leila and I had been kidnapped in Hong Kong.

I lay there in the darkness of my room listening for the footsteps that would herald the return of the others.  When a knock came at the door I started, then heard Emma’s voice.

“Jill, are you awake?”

I turned on the bedside light as Emma slipped through the door.  She wore only a skimpy satin nightie that barely covered her butt.  Her long black hair was shiny from brushing and looked stunning against the white satin and her alabaster skin.  

“No, come on in.”  

“Too much thinking about Monica?”

“Uh-huh.”

Emma crawled into bed beside me and I spooned into her back, letting my hands run over the bulges of her breasts under the satin.  Emma had a gorgeous body, her breasts full and plump, so unlike other Chinese.  She made a small intake of breath as I stroked her nipples, feeling them respond and harden like two little pop-up fingertips.

“We..we shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.

“Because of Monica?”

“Yes.”

“I know, Em, but maybe this is what you want to take your mind off things.  Monica will turn up.  Monica’s indestructible.  And if we mess up because we’re tired and haven’t slept, Monica will definitely not be happy.”  Emma sighed, a small exhalation of breath that was perhaps part agreement and part reaction to my fingers still slowly caressing her nipples.  I was justifying the situation to myself as much as to Emma, for I needed something to distract me, too.

Emma made tiny moans as I slid my fingers down the smooth material covering her stomach and insinuated them under its hem, into the warm furry garden that lay beneath.  She shuddered as I entered her.  I felt her breathing quicken and my own nipples harden in arousal against her back.  She began to pant and tried to close her thighs against my advances, but it was to late for that, and I knew it was not what she wanted.  I made gentle rubbing motions over her clit and let my fingertips tantalise and tease her, before sliding deeper inside.  

The orgasm, when it came, was a quick and restrained one. It seemed to catch her by surprise as I held her tightly and she moaned into the pillow, jerking and struggling against the arms I had wrapped around her, before subsiding into a series of trembling spasms.  Then she was still, and soon I heard the regular tone that I knew signalled she was asleep.  It looked like despite my distraction, I was the one who could still not get to sleep.

I lay awake for a long time, feeling the warm curves of Emma snuggled against me like child who wants comforting.  I felt I was the one who needed comfort, for Monica was somewhere out there in the darkened world, and I could do nothing to help her, whatever torment she might be suffering.  I fell asleep finally, somewhere after three o’clock, I think, listening to the sounds of the night and continuing to worry.

*   *   *

It seemed like I had only been asleep a few minutes when the faint sound of a vehicle brought me awake.  The engine died and I heard the soft noise of doors being closed by people who are trying to make the minimum of noise.  Emma was lying on her side, making little snuffling noises, her arm draped over my breasts.  I extricated myself as best I could without waking her and climbed out of bed, pulling on a dressing gown.  

Dawn was breaking with the first rosy tint in the sky as I opened the door on to the walkway outside.  It was just light enough to see the van parked on the grass beside the pathway leading to back entrance to the basement.  Mary, Trish, and a shirtless Steven were gathered round the back doors of the van.

I hurried down the steps and across the lawn.  They looked around as I appeared, and I was about to ask for news when I saw inside the rear of the van and gasped.  Monica was sitting up against the bulkhead, her legs stretched out in front of her, the white thigh boots disappearing into a block of concrete the size of a large fruit box.  She wore Stephen’s shirt and looked tired and cold, and I could see marks on her wrists where ropes had cut deeply into her flesh.  Around her neck was a heavy chain locked at her throat, the remaining few metres of it coiled on the floor beside her.

“Good morning Jill,” she said, doing her best to smile.  “I’m really getting past these all nighters on the town.”

I climbed in and hugged her as best I could.  I discovered I was crying, and suddenly we both were.  Then the others were there beside me, and we were all doing it, and I realised everyone was soaking wet.

“It’s a long story…” said Monica.

*   *   *

It was not one of the better mornings at Bilboes.  Mary, Trish and Steven were cold, wet, and still had their butt plugs locked in place.  Monica, of course, was suffering from all of the above, and remained trapped in the concrete, as well as having had to overcome the trauma inflicted by her near-drowning.

I told Steven that we had obtained a key for the workshop, from the locksmith, and he was able to retrieve his own porter’s trolley from there, enabling us to drag Monica out of the van and wheel her inside to the sluice room. There the four hosed each other with hot water as they stripped off, while I sought clean clothes and the key to the butt plugs.  They were all in much better spirits when I returned.

“My, my, don’t you all look cute with matching padlocks,” I teased.  Indeed, the three girls all showed the cables disappearing through their crotches, with the big dangling locks visible, though Steven’s was half hidden behind his dick.  Monica, of course, still wore her white thigh boots, now unlaced as far as they could go and turned down to below her knees.  I suspected these would be handed down to Shawnee if they were ever considered usable again.

When all parties were dry and dressed - with Monica in a short denim skirt that left the access that was obviously going to be needed for concrete removal – I heard the full story of her rescue.

“I was convinced I was going to die,” Monica said, with understandable feeling.  She, Trish and I were seated now around a portable table in the sluice room, while Stephen went ferreting in his shed for appropriate tools to begin the demolition of Monica’s pedestal.  A bottle of brandy and some hot toast was being tucked into with some enthusiasm.

Mary returned at that point.  “I just checked the paper.  High tide was at five past four.  You were still breathing air at that point.  I’m sure we didn’t get there until just before then.”

“Thanks, Mair, that really makes me feel good,” said Monica acidly.

“The point I’m making is that Warren didn’t intend to bump you off.”

“Well he came bloody close to doing it,” Monica retorted. “And I’ll do the same when I catch up with him,” she added.

“So how did you get free?” I asked, steering the subject away from what might happen in the future.

“Warren left a marked up street map in the garage,” Trish explained, tossing down another gulp of brandy.  “Mmmn, that’s warming me up! The map had an ‘X marks the spot’ on it.  Clearly he wanted us to find Monica, and wanted to give her a real good scare in the process.  Sounds a bit like a certain supernatural role-play that I can remember,” Trish added, looking at Mary, who smiled in agreement.  Monica just glowered.  “We got there and found Mon making all sorts of gagged carry-on, and of course we had to wade out to haul her back in.  That was when we found she was chained to the damned mangrove.  Fortunately there was a hacksaw in the van toolbox, but we had to lift our leader here while that went on.  We ended up tilting her enough to get a couple of rocks under her block, and Mary and I held her while Steven sawed a section of mangrove out to allow the chain to come clear.  Suffice to say we were all up to our necks in it, but Steven had the good grace to be the one to go under and put the rocks in place.”

“Always the gentleman,” I murmured, as he reappeared with an assortment of drills and grinders and hammers.

“God, I’m tired,” said Mary, knocking back her brandy.  “I can’t take the pace like I used to. I’m going to bed.  Nothing more I can do here.”

“I think I will, too, if that’s okay with you, Mon?  Nothing else you need?”

“Only feeling back in my feet.”  Monica smiled gratefully as Trish gave her a kiss on the cheek and headed for the door.

“Er, on a more practical note,” I ventured, “you were supposed to be heading the paintball team this morning.  Clearly that’s not going to happen.”

“Looks like it’s going to be you, then, Jill,” said Monica. “You’ll have to use Shawnee – she’s the only one left sober and not half asleep.  She can be the fourth in the team.”

*   *   *
 

I felt as though a great weight had been lifted off me with Monica’s safe return, but our troubles were only just beginning, when Mistress Lynx turned up with the retinue and the Citadel team, and refused to allow Shawnee to participate.

“This is between senior members of the establishment,” she declared.  “Slaves must not be permitted to take up arms against their mistresses.  What got into you, girl?” she demanded of me.  “How could you even think such a thing?”  she had the ability to make me feel like a schoolgirl in front of the head mistress, which I guess she was, when you think about it.

“But Mistress Lynx, Monica is still trapped in the concrete and the others have been up all night.”

“Not my problem,” said Mistress Lynx. “You’ll have to improvise.”

I knew at that point I had precious little choice, and raced out the back to the sleeping quarters.  I had to decide between Mary and Trish, and that really was a no-brainer.  Mary would go ape at the thought of paint ball again, after her last experience of it, never mind the fact that she had been up all night and had sunk several glasses of brandy since returning.  Trish, on the other hand, was a team player and would do her darndest whatever the circumstances.

“Trish!  Wake up!”  I was standing in her room by the big bed, shaking her by the shoulder.  She seemed to gradually dredge her consciousness up from somewhere dark, and finally opened her eyes to look at me blearily.

“This had better be important.  My head hurts…”

“You have to get up – we want you in the paintball team.”

“You’re kidding, right?  Sorry.”  She flopped back on the pillow, eyes closed amid a welter of auburn hair.  

“Seriously, Trish!  Monica’s still being cut free and Mistress Lynx won’t let Shawnee take part.  It’s you or Mary.”

“So go ask Mary,” she said, turning over and burying her face in the pillow.

“Be serious!  There’s no way Mary would do this!”  I pulled the covers back.  Trish was naked underneath them, the cool morning air making her nipples come erect as she rolled over to look at me.  I hoped I would be in as good a condition as Trish in a few years time, I thought absently.  “Trish, we really need this!  We’re over twenty points behind!  You have to do it, for Monica!”

“All right, all right…” 

I hugged her.  She waved me away.  “Stop making me feel guilty,” she grumbled, rubbing her eyes. ”What do I have to wear today?”  

“Uniform and boots again – you’ll be out in the grass and bush, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember what happened last time, too.  I didn’t even get to fire a shot before somebody popped me on the tit, and that was Patricia out for the rest of the game.  And then you and brought that phony ‘friend’ to screw me while I was trussed up on the Reamer.”

“You made a lot of fuss at the time,” I teased her.

“I knew it was Steven,” she said trying to sound off-handed.  “There’s something about that lad’s technique that’s…”

“Unique?”  

She paused in thought.  “Yes.  He has a kind of knack of…getting to the right point… Know what I mean?”  She had a wistful smile on her face as she said it.

“Yes, I do know what you mean, dear, but right now I need you in uniform.”

Trish went to the closet and retrieved a pair of knee-length white boots, and sat naked on the edge of the bed while she laced the front of each up her leg.

“This requires way too much coordination for this hour,” she groused.

”It’s almost nine o’clock,” I said.

“Not on my body clock,” she said, stepping into the skirt and doing the belt up snugly, before pulling on the crop top.  “I suppose underwear is a bit pointless?”

“Pretty much,” I agreed.  “Why risk it?  The Godmother would probably cut anything to pieces because it’ll get in the way.”

 “I wonder which plug we’ll have today,” she sighed as she brushed her hair then cleaned her teeth.  “I wonder what delightful torments our dear Mistress Lynx has in store for us?  God, we’d better win this damned thing to make it worthwhile.  And I’d love to see that Black Team on the losing end for a change…”

*   *   *

I was nervous as we walked up the hill to the back of the property to prepare for the game.  Steven and the Zubair brothers had been working in the bush, on the paintball field of battle off and on for several days, but Steven wasn’t talking.  With Monica out of the game I was now having to take over the role as Director for the White Team, and I was starting to realise what a responsibility this was.  Everything depended on me.  All the others had to do was stay on their feet and point their guns and pull the trigger when I told them.  How easy was that?  I now understood why Lisa and Shawnee had been so anxious when we had put them in the role of Directors for our first foray.

As we crested the rise I saw half a dozen heavy-duty pvc pipes lying on the ground.  They were about half a metre in diameter and probably three metres long.  They looked like they would take a fair volume of water and I wondered what our devious designers had been up to with them.

Mistress Lynx was waiting with her usual bag of tricks as both sides presented themselves.

“Ladies, the concept of this game is very familiar to you, I understand.  This event has a value of fifteen points, winner take all.  Each team has a director, who will direct her team from the goal at each end.  Three members of the team will be deprived of sight and speech and will be at the director’s control via radio headset.  The object will be to terminate the opposing director with your paintball gun.

“At each hit I shall call a halt to the game while I assess the seriousness of the injury, and incapacitate the victim as appropriate.  Now, in order to speed the process, all team members will kindly select a butt plug, insert same, and lock it in place with the cable.  You will note all waist cables carry power packs, each of which is attuned to a remote which will activate the plug for a brief moment.  Also connected to the power pack are your nice nipple sensors, which will tell you when you’re too close to the buried ground cable.  You may attach those sensors yourselves, but you’d better do it properly, or I’ll be screwing them on with clamps myself.  I hope I make myself clear?”  I thought there was no doubt in the ranks that Mistress Lynx was extremely explicit.  All right, girls, go about your business and I will deal with the next stage when you are finished with this.”

Dutifully we lined up and selected the plugs.  They were stubby chrome ones, with bands that demarcated the electrodes.  They were not as big as the normal plugs, and slid in relatively easily, after the cable had been threaded through the protruding ring on the base.  I had not experienced these ones before, and I was ever distrustful of what was now planned for us by Mistress Lynx.  

I pulled my top up and attached the stick-on pads over my nipples.  The pads were like TENS pads, but circular with a cut-out in the centre for the nub itself.  For some reason the tension must have aroused me, or maybe it was just the feeling of the plug working its way in my back passage.  Whatever, my nubs had popped up, and as I worked the annular pad over each one I felt a tingle in my loins which was nothing to do with any electrical stimulation.  This was real sexual arousal ahead of a big event.  I pressed the pad down firmly all around each nipple, then pulled my top down again, looking up to see Trish smiling at me.

“Getting a bit excited, are we?” she said softly.  I swear I blushed.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter what is being done to you, but when something happens under your own hand, it’s embarrassing.  I just smiled and said nothing, noting, however, the taut bumps under the lycra of Trish’s own top.  Way to go, girls, I thought!

I watched as one by one the infantry – as I called them - inserted earpieces then pulled rubber bathing caps over their hair.  Finally they submitted to the expert hands of Mistress Lynx as she placed foam pads over their teeth and eyes, then bound their mouths and eyes with repeated turns of silver duct tape, finishing with vertical turns that locked their jaws closed.  Like a production line, Mohammed and Rashid followed behind her padlocking on the motorbike helmets with the visors screwed closed, connecting up the earpieces to the receivers as they did so.

“Now you, Miss,” Mistress Lynx said to me.  I waited as she walked to a nearby tree and returned with a piece of plywood that I recognised as a backboard that Madam Wong and Portia had used on us.  I groaned inwardly.  They were so restrictive, even when all your limbs were free.

The board was roughly hour-glass shaped, and I was made to hold the bottom of it against my butt while Mistress Lynx bound it tightly in place.  This was the sort of thing she enjoyed most, I think, barring a good flogging.  She pulled the cords taut around my waist, and crossing over up between my breasts and over my shoulders, so that I could hardly breath.  It was like wearing an absolutely rigid corset.  Then off she went again, knotting as she went, around my hips then down through my crotch, finally tying the knot securely behind me.

As if this was insufficient, she produced a stiff acrylic neck brace that was locked in place.  I found myself rigidly splinted from head to hip, save for my arms. I felt like the Michelin Man on a diet.

“You look very nice, dear,” she said briskly, adjusting the headset band on my head and positioning the mike near my mouth, finishing things off with the clear plastic goggles.  “Here’s your gun.”  She handed me a cool-looking pistol loaded with a wad of white paint balls.  “Now wait while I fix up Megan.”

Ten minutes later I was being led to the ‘goal’, the low-level semi-circular fort made from piled up logs with two entrances.  Fat lot of protection I’d get from the logs in my stuck-up state, I thought.  Once I was down, getting up would be well nigh impossible.  Mistress Lynx shepherded the three blind infantry of White Team into and area in front of the fort, then ordered Megan down to the other end, while I was given my briefing.

“Now Jill, you’ve played this before, and not much has changed.  You direct your team to shoot down the others.  It’s as simple as that.  Take out Megan before she gets you, and you win the game.”

“So what’s changed?”  I asked, staring her in the eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve always got a few tricks up your sleeve.  What is it this time?”  Mistress Lynx looked somewhat nonplussed by my direct approach.

“You’re a smart one, aren’t you,” she mused.  “Yes, Monica told me about you.”  She gave me a thin smile.  “Well, it so happens you’re right.  We’ve made a few changes to the landscape, as you can see.  There is an open area in front of the fort.  You will see that this open area is accessible to the opposition only via that little embankment between the two mud pools.  Well you might try sending your troops through the mud, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  Should you be faced with on-coming troops, you have a weapon you can call on.  You will note that the embankment is under that big eucalypt bough.”  

I followed her gaze and saw a large branch spanning across the embankment.  Tied to this was a rope, leading away towards the trunk, where a large black bag was suspended and tied back to the trunk itself.  It was about the size of one of those punchbags that boxers use.

“That, my dear, is filled with water-soaked sponges.”  She pointed to another rope that trailed from the trunk across the open space to the wall of dead trees, where it lay in a loop on top.  “Pull that rope as someone is crossing the embankment and the bag will swing down and maybe take them out.  If they are knocked off their feet, it counts as a kill.  It’s all in the timing, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed.  “What else?”

“Oh…er… your gun.  Slightly less powerful than the others.”

“How less powerful?” I asked.

“Half the range.”

“Thanks for telling me. So they’ll be able to take potshots at me from the other side of the clearing, and I can’t hit back?”

“Correct.  But then they can’t see what they’re aiming at.  And of course Megan’s gun is the same as yours.  I should also tell you that you, the director, may not leave the fort until there are no Black Team infantry left.  You must gain permission from me to leave.  It goes without saying that there is an identical layout at the other end of the field, which you can sort of see if you climb that little stepladder there and use the opera glasses.”  She indicated a three-step ladder with a handrail at the top to which a small pair of green opera glasses were attached by a cord.

“And expose myself further to enemy fire.”

“You choice, honey,” she said, patting my cheek in a condescending way guaranteed to infuriate me.  “You will now wait until I give the signal, then you may turn your mike on and commence your attack.”

Mistress Lynx turned and wobbled off to the other end where I watched her instructing Megan.  I saw the big boxing bag slung up in a tree at the other end, and wondered whose idea that was.  I figured Mohammed or Rashid had had a hand in a lot of this.  The narrow approach embankment was like a breach in a castle wall, through which the troops would have to advance in the face of withering enemy fire, except in this case I probably couldn’t even reach that distance.  I decided to have a practice shot, just to determine if such was the case.  Might as well use my time productively, I thought, trying to quell the butterflies starting to gather in my stomach.  I sighted at the embankment, visualising a Black Team member slowly advancing towards me, and pulled the trigger.

At the moment I did so, two things happened.  I saw the splat of a white ball as it died halfway across the clearing.  This looked decidedly ominous.  But by far more ominous was the sharp pain jolting through my rectum.  The bitch! Mistress Lynx had wired our guns to our butt plugs!  

This suddenly put a different picture on things.  Now there was a very real psychological aspect to the game.  Every time you pulled the trigger, you got a jolt in the bum.  Talk about aversion therapy.  Maybe they should send this technology to America and the National Rifle Association, I thought with grim humour.  It was certainly going to make our players think twice before they squeezed off a long burst.  I reckoned it was a novel way of conserving ammunition.  But it also meant that every time I ordered one of my team to fire, I was ordering them to take a zap.  Mistress Lynx was playing mind games again.  The strongest and most disciplined team was surely going to win this game.  I wondered what else she hadn’t told me…

We had discussed tactics before the game, and had decided that attack was the best form of defence.  Emma would feint down the left wing as fast as she could, while Trish would take the right wing.  Hopefully in one of these two engagements, one of two things would happen.  Firstly, we hoped that the centre enemy would also be drawn to cover one of the feints, leaving the centre clear for Leila.  Alternatively, if one of the enemy was taken out, Leila was to rush the middle the moment we had an overlap.

Knowing what I now knew about the embankment trap and the directors’ guns and the butt plug, I could hardly wait for the signal so I could convey all this to the troops, who were standing blindly in the middle of the clearing in front of the fort looking like lost sheep.

I was watching Mistress Lynx as she made her way back from Megan’s end, when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned to see Monica and Steven coming up to the edge of the combat field.  Monica’s feet were free of the concrete, but she seemed to be limping slightly.  She was wearing sneakers and I could see signs of bruising near the top of her shins.  The heavy chain was being carried by Steven and was still locked about Monica’s neck, and I assumed that having become mobile she had forsaken the removal of the chain to see the competition.  They must have been exhausted, I thought, for they’d had no sleep for the last thirty-odd hours.

At that moment Mistress Lynx dropped her hand and the game was on.  I talked fast and urgently, getting my three in line astern with one hand on the shoulder of the person in front, then shuffling quickly across the embankment on the way out from the clearing.  Here I stopped Leila and fanned out Trish and Emma to the right and left into the low scrub and long grass that covered most of the battlefield.  Megan did not seem quite so organised, and was having more difficulty getting her team of Debra and the two American girls across the embankment.

“All right, Emma, go!  Straight forward, facing as you are…”

Emma took off quite quickly, and bravely, I thought, for walking through brush and long grass when you can see none of it takes some nerve.  I reckoned she was near the halfway mark and I could see her opposite number starting to move in her direction.  We were ahead of the play here, looking to territorially dominate the opposition like one does on a squash court or a chessboard, and I was preparing to get Emma to fight when she suddenly disappeared from view.  What the…?

I had a nasty suspicion then that Mistress Lynx and the boys had laid some traps somewhere in the middle.  I did not know what they were – maybe pits or something of that nature, but I had been correct in surmising that something else had been afoot.

“Emma – I don’t know what’s happened to you – I can’t do anything until you get up.  Trish, go forward as best you can.  There’s some sort of trap, I think, near the midway point.  I’ll get you to slow down there, when you get closer.  Leila, move forward slowly – turn slightly to one o’clock…”

And so it went.  A minute passed and there was no sign of Emma, then the white helmet with the number 3 popped up again.  She looked like she had hit a mud pool, for her boots and skirt were splattered with brown.  Meanwhile the opposition was moving.  It was as I had hoped – the Black centre was going to help defend against Emma.

“Leila, a bit faster, sweetie – a shade to your left to miss a bush – you’re in the long grass now – easy going.  Your opposite number is heading for Emma.  Get ready to make a move.  Emma, you’re almost ready to open fire.  On your knees – get ready…”

Emma suddenly disappeared again, and I lost sight of what was happening.  There was some scrabbling around and the two opposition were almost upon her.  She was in their territory, and Mistress Lynx was taking a close look at what was going on.  I heard the pop of guns and the shooting figures of the Black Team seemed to jerk together, and I figured they had just discovered where the triggers were connected.

“Stand up, Emma, I can’t see you!”  I called.  Emma did so, but she had lost her gun in her fall.  Oh geez, I thought.  “Trish, go forward again!”  Emma was a lost cause, I thought.  I could do nothing with her without a gun.  Unless she could find it she was doomed, and could do nothing to help our side.  My thought was echoed as there were further shots and Mistress Lynx called a halt.

“We have a casualty,” she announced.  “White Team has just suffered its first fatality.  Emma is out of the game.”  

Oh God, they’d got Emma!  Mistress Lynx was squatting in the grass and presumably immobilising Emma.  Monica and Steven, now joined by Shawnee and Mary, were all looking on from the boundary, and I felt terrible that we were already going downhill.  What was happening up in that grass that was causing us problems?  Damned Mistress Lynx and her tricks!

“Continue!”

“Trish – go forward, slowly.  Wait there.  Get ready to fire, eleven o’clock.”  I was on top of the stepladder at this point, and had a relatively good view of Trish as she crouched behind a bush.  “Fire now!  Again, a touch left – more!”  I wondered how many shots I could ask from her, knowing she was getting a jolt in the arse each time she pulled the trigger.  “One more, please, Trish!”

“Time out!  Hit on Black Team!”

Trish’s shooting left Kris immobilised with one leg taped, ankle to thigh, and I got Trish moving out of range quickly.  Leila was moving up the centre when things got complicated as she and Trish tried to get past Debbie and Marilyn.  There followed a skirmish that was a mad confusion of people falling over, getting up and firing in all directions.  I did my best, and we took out Debbie, before moments later Marilyn caught Trish with a belly shot and Mistress Lynx stopped the show.  

I could see a big roll of duct tape being wielded with enthusiasm, and I sympathised with Trish and Deb, but there was nothing I could do, other than prepare Leila to take out Marilyn as soon as Mistress Lynx gave the all clear to recommence.

“Leila, there’s a bush between you and Marilyn.  Turn to three o’clock now, and as soon as I say ‘go’, take three big paces and turn to nine o’clock and fire.”

“Continue!”

Leila moved as I instructed, but unfortunately Marilyn had moved as well, and I saw Leila trip and go sprawling, her gun looping through the air.  So that was it – trip wires!  The bitch!  Now Leila was sunk.

It did not take long for Marilyn to administer the coup de grace to a helpless Leila scrabbling in the grass for her gun.  I saw Marilyn shudder as she fired point blank at the helpless target and copped the backlash zap.

Now I felt like a rat in a trap, except that it was this faceless cyborg directed by Evil Megan that was hunting me, and I had nowhere to run.  I was sweating in the warm morning sun as Marilyn picked her way slowly through what seemed to be a maze of tripwires.  Megan and Marilyn were in no hurry, but when she finally reached the embankment I was ready with the rope holding back the bag.

I had no idea how hard I would have to pull it, or exactly when.  I tried to gauge things as best I could, knowing that Megan would have warned Marilyn what she was about to encounter.  I wondered what the American girl was thinking, unable to see or speak and walking forward blindly, one step at a time.  Was she expecting a whoosing sound to come out of nowhere and knock her off her feet?  I wondered what Megan was telling her.  Was she going to rush it, or maybe feint?

I reckoned it was a rush, and yanked hard on the rope.  Marilyn stopped momentarily, just quickly enough to feel the rush of the wind as the bag swished past in front of her.  Megan must have told her to run at that point, for she rushed forward past the Bag of Damocles, into the clearing.

The jolt in my arse took me as I fired, doing my best to allow for the lack of power of my gun.  The ball caught Marilyn on the shin, to a cheer from the crowd, and Mistress Lynx called proceedings to a halt.  Marilyn soon sported an ankle-to-thigh leg position like her American friend, and I could see Megan with her binoculars at the other end straining to work out what to do.  A paintball whizzed past me to the accompaniment of a grunt from Marilyn.  I fired back as she rolled away, and fired again.  My arse stung, and she was right on the extreme limit of my range, but at least I could see what I was doing.  

The second shot caught her high up on the right shoulder, and there came the halt as Marilyn was made to sit in the dust while Mistress Lynx bound her arm with duct tape in a reverse sling, behind her back.  It was pretty much all over from there.  I scored another hit that left her other arm bound over the top of the first, with her torso swathed in duct tape by then.  The only option she had was to roll away a bit further, until she was out of range entirely, which effectively left only Megan and I as the last women standing.

“Permission to leave the fort, Mistress?”

“Both directors may leave their forts.”

So this was it.  It was Megan and I at close quarters.  I headed out, determined to restore some pride for the Bilboes Team, pausing only to administer the coup de grace to Marilyn on the way.  Mistress Lynx obliged me by binding Marilyn’s other leg with tape so that she lay face down in the dust, barely able to move.  

I was not taking chances here with anybody sneaking up on me, and while keeping one eye on Megan, I detoured to check on the other American girl.  She had crawled some distance, but had lost her gun in the process.  She was dragging herself forward as best she could, with one leg out of action, and got the shock of her life when I sat on her and pressed the barrel of my gun between her shoulder blades.

“Sorry, sister.  I can’t afford to have you come out of the woodwork.  I stood up and  was about to pull the trigger, when she rolled desperately to one side and managed to trip me.  I landed on my back with a thump that drove the air out of my body, and I momentarily saw stars as my head hit the ground.  Kris was on all fours, scrabbling frantically to get away, when I fired.  The jolt made me gasp with pain, but I had the satisfaction of seeing a white spatter blossom on Kris’s ribcage. 

I lay there as Mistress Lynx bound Kris’s wrists and elbows in front of her, then secured them to her previously unbound calf.  Kris was a real mess as she was rolled on to her side and left in the long grass, while Mistress Lynx stepped away and ordered us to resume.

That was when I knew I was in trouble, for I found myself staring at the sky, unable to bend my spine from my legs to my neck.  I began to struggle, panicking to roll over somehow, but I couldn’t quite manage it.  I became more and more desperate, until a shadow fell over me, as Megan appeared.  I was about to raise my gun, but a black leather boot with a three inch heel pinioned my arm to the ground.

“So, White Queen, we meet again!”  Megan’s imitation of every bad science fiction film climax was wasted on me at that moment, when I knew all was lost.  I closed my eyes and thought that this was how it must be to die, just before there was a terrible pain as a paintball exploded on my left nipple and I screamed.

*   *   *

A minute later Mistress Lynx was on the scene like a demented paramedic attending to the fallen, except that the limbs were being immobilised with duct tape, and in my case this meant sitting up while my arms were secured to my sides with swathes of the silver tape.  Having removed my head mike, she forced a hard rubber ball gag behind my teeth and buckled it tightly at the back of my head. Then I was laid on my back and dragged to some point near the boundary where she bent each leg and immobilised them with more tape, ankle to thigh.  She propped me leaning back against a tree trunk, I think so that I, as team leader, could see what was happening to my defeated troops.

It was not a cheering sight that I witnessed.  Mistress Lynx’s first job was to release Megan from the back board and neck brace, and a delighted Megan poked her tongue out at me as she set about releasing her team.  This done, they helped to clear the battlefield of the wounded, dragging the helpless forms of Leila, Trish and Emma to positions nearby, and I was surprised to see Monica and Stephen come into my field of view.  Mistress Lynx was leading them on a chain - the same heavy chain that Warren had locked around Monica’s neck, and that obviously Stephen hadn’t been able to cut free as yet.  Mistress Lynx had evidently put a further turn around Stephen’s neck and secured it with a lock of her own, and was towing them along like a slave trader of old.

I thought this was unfair, considering what they had been through during the night, and until now it had only been the actual players that had suffered punishment for failure to perform.  She locked the loose end round a nearby tree trunk, obliging the pair to stand close together while the opposition gleefully positioned my team within view of the chained pair and myself.  Mohammed and Rashid had were also there.  Rashid looked highly delighted with the outcome, while his brother looked decidedly glum.

Emma, the first to have gone down, had been bound into a hogtie with probably a whole roll of duct tape which enveloped her body in a cocoon, pinioning her arms behind her alongside her bent legs, and encircling her torso.  The two American girls laid her on her stomach a few metres from me.  She emitted a muted “urff!” as they deposited her none-too-gently in the dust.

Leila was next, each forearm taped to the corresponding shin, so that normally she could sit comfortably, and this was the case when they first plonked her down, before giving her a push that saw her roll on to her side where she could only move her limbs feebly.

Trish was the last one, her arms crossed and taped fore-arm to fore-arm across the small of her back, and her thighs pulled close to her chest before more miles of tape had been wrapped around her body and upper legs, leaving only he lower legs – with the ankles now taped together – still movable.  Poor Trish was dumped on the dusty ground a couple of metres from me.

It was then that Mistress Lynx reappeared with a long length of rope, and I was laid on the ground forming the fourth corner of the square of bound captives.  Mistress Lynx tied one end of the rope around my ankles, then threaded it between Trish’s and Emma’s taped ankles, then through the space between Leila’s taped arms and legs, before returning to me and attaching it to my ankles again.  The four of us were now attached in a square, and I wondered what the big plan was.  Mistress Lynx obviously saw no reason to keep us in suspense, and appeared in my field of vision to inform me of her plans for us.

“I promised the winners they would get to go to a real paintball site for a proper game, and Black Team will have this fun outing.  I’ve even had some nice outfits made for the winners.  However it seems a shame that you losers should miss all the fun, so we’re going to take you along as well.  However we have to go and change and have lunch, so we’ll leave you here to enjoy the peace and serenity of the bush for a bit.

“Oh, and in case you’re wondering, where you’re lying now is almost on top of the boundary line.  You can see where the underground cable was installed.  Well, you could if you could turn your head, Jillian, my dear.”  She laughed.  “You’re all such a sight!  The cable runs right through the middle of your little square.  It’s turned off for the moment, but it won’t be for long.  But now we have to go and prepare.  Enjoy!”

We lay there.  What else can I say?  It was like waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall.  Mistress Lynx had obviously turned off the power to the cable at some point at the end of the game, but we had never really been close enough to the boundary to feel its effects.  Now the thing came to life, as did the little ring pads encircling our nipples - pads that we had so carefully placed with our own hands.  

It was a dull buzzing, just a tingle sufficient to stimulate the sensitive flesh around the nubs that now stuck up hard through the lycra of my top.  Poor Emma was lying on her stomach, her breasts pressed into the dirt.  That would be uncomfortable, I thought, but she was so tightly secured with the tape that I did not think she was capable of rolling on her side, unlike Trish and Leila.  I could hear nothing from any of them, probably to do with all the tape around their mouths and their helmets then covering their heads.  

I didn’t think this whole thing would be a big deal, but after a while the buzzing and tingling grew from irritating to annoying then started to become just a tad painful.  After perhaps thirty minutes I started to hear little whines coming from under the tape and helmets, and was not past a snort of my own.  Things then started to get worse, from that point, mainly for Emma and me, since we were so bound that we were incapable of movement across the ground.  Trish and Leila, however, had just enough freedom that they could gain a tiny amount of purchase and somehow squirm in the dirt.  I couldn’t see this, of course.  Since I had been laid on my back I could only stare at the tree branches above me, my head held rigid by the neck brace.  I knew Monica and Stephen were there, chained to the tree, and there could have been an audience of a thousand on-lookers for all I knew.  

What I could discern, however, was the tightening on the ropes tied to my ankles, as Trish got the jitters and endeavoured to wriggle further away from the cable.  Probably she had no idea what she was attached to, namely me, but sensed a slight decrease in the intensity of the vibration as she pulled on the rope.  Of course it was the opposite for me, and even a few millimetres seemed to up the sensation.  My bent legs were still upright, and while I could not move away, I could at least dig the heels of my boots into the ground and halt Trish’s progress.  I detected a snort of frustration but the pain I was starting to experience was becoming extremely uncomfortable, and I could not suppress a few whimpers of my own.

Nobody came to our aid as the pain intensified until my nipples were on fire, and I could do nothing but lie there rigidly, the heels of my boots slowly working their way into the ground as I strained against Trish’s insistent pulling. I was starting to keen into the gag, and I could make out moans coming from my fellow captives.  

My muscles were tense and quivering when the pain abruptly stopped.  At once my body seemed to go to jelly as I relaxed the tension and the gnawing at my tender aureola slowly subsided.  Then Mistress Lynx was standing over me again, and within my limited vision I could make out the four members of Black Team.  They no longer wore the black skirts and tops, but instead were dressed in one-piece lycra body suits in a camouflage pattern.  It was quite a sexy outfit, I had to admit.  Long sleeves and a high collar, with a zipper running from throat to crotch, it left nothing to the imagination, clinging tightly to breasts and thighs.  The people at the paintball centre were going to be surprised.  I just wished it was me and my team.

Megan squatted down beside me.  A webbing belt sat snugly around her waist, accentuating her slim figure, and she had tucked her hair under a matching camouflage cap.

“We felt sorry for you, so we’re going to take you along with us,” she said with a sly smile that told me I was probably not going to enjoy going along with her.  “How are your poor nipples?”  She pinched both of my nips through the lycra of my top.

“Gurmmph!” I gurgled.

“Oh dear.  A little sore, are they?  Was it really awful?”

“Urhhh,” I admitted.  I would have at least nodded my head, but I couldn’t move it because of  the brace.

“Poor Jillian,” Megan soothed, rubbing my tits in a way that was both painful but arousing.  “There, there,” she crooned, as one would to a child who has just fallen over and skinned her knee.  “You’ll enjoy this little outing we have planned. It’ll make you feel much better.”

“Furmfft!” I spluttered.

“Nonsense,” she said.  “You’ll love it!  All right girls – let’s prepare Emma first.  You might as well watch the fate of your team, Jill.”  Debbie and Megan slit the tape securing my ankles to my thighs and with blessed relief I was able to stretched out my legs.  They each grasped one side of the back board and hauled me into a sitting position against a tree, where I could watch the ignominious treatment handed out to my team.  

It was at this point that I saw that four of the large pvc pipes had been brought to the site, and I started to have misgivings from that moment on. The four camouflaged soldiers cut the tape from Emma and tore it from her body in quick movements, provoking little cries from under the helmet.  As soon as her arms were free, a heavy strap secured her wrists in front of her, and was then cinched with a piece of stout cord, leaving several metres in a tail.  Then came the same treatment for her ankles, over the top of her white leather boots, once the last of the tape had gone.  Emma was laid out on her back and her arms pulled over her head.  That was when the pipe appeared.

Megan tossed the tail from Emma’s wrist cinch through the grey pipe and Debbie grabbed it and began hauling Emma into the pipe.  Emma was on her back with her wrists strapped over her head, and had no option but to wriggle on her butt until first her arms, then her head, and finally the aforementioned butt disappeared into the pipe.  She had recognised the inevitable and gave a final shove with her legs before she was unable to bend them, and with Kris and Marilyn astride the pipe to hold it in place, Debbie dragged Emma the rest of the way into the pipe such that she disappeared entirely.

I noticed then that each end of the pipe had two notches cut at right angles to the top edge.  The notches were diametrically opposite each other and about five centimetres deep by a centimetre wide.  Megan quickly tied a loop in the ankle tail rope and threaded a piece of steel reinforcing rod through it.  The rod was bent in the shape of a U, with the centre length just longer than the diameter of the pipe.  The bar sat in the two notches spanning the pipe with the rope loop in the middle, while the two legs of the U pointed back up the length of the pipe.  The girls propped the pipe on a log while Megan wound a couple of lengths of cord around the outside, looping around the legs of the U-bar, before tying it off so that the bar was held in place.

That had been the forerunner of what was to happen at the other end.  The end of the pipe where Emma’s feet were was raised and held by the American girls, obviously using Emma’s weight to stretch the rope tight securing her ankles.  At the other end it was slightly different, for I saw that the bar had a large nut welded to the middle of it, and it was to this nut that the tail rope from Emma’s wrists was tied.  The bar could then be wound up like a winch, so that Emma was slowly stretched inside the pipe.  Poor Em, I thought, knowing that this was obviously going to be the fate for all of us.  

When Debbie thought the tension was sufficient, she wound further cord around the outside of the pipe and secured the U-bar so that it could not unwind, then directed that the pipe should be laid down again.  The final act was the hammering in place of a plastic lid at each end, which fitted in much the same way as a plastic lid on one of those cardboard cylinders used for transporting rolled up pictures.  It was going to be stuffy with only the airholes through the notches, never mind the fact that the others  had helmets on inside the tubes.

I watched as Trish and Leila were freed of the duct tape, only to be rebound at wrists and ankles and then inserted arms first into two more pipes and stretched taut.  They, unlike me, had no idea what was happening, for theirs was a world of darkness and muted sound.  Finally it was my turn.  Evidently it was expected that I had to at least be as uncomfortable as my team, for I too, had my head pushed into a motorcycle crash helmet and the chinstrap was pulled tight, jamming my jaw and teeth hard against the rubber ball in my mouth.

I knew the drill, of course.  I was thankful to be free of the neck brace and back board, but my freedom was brief, as my wrists and ankles were strapped and now in my own dark and silent world I was pulled into the plastic pipe.  I felt the rope tighten on my ankles, then I was tipped partly upside down and my body weight went on to the ankle rope, followed by the strain coming on to the wrist rope as I was winched tight.

I was lying on my back at this point, with my taut arms forcing my helmet forward against the inside of the pipe.  This tended to lock me into position, and I found there was very little I could move, other than to wiggle my toes and fingers.  Then came the hollow muffling sound of banging as the end caps were hammered into place and I was locked in my cylindrical tomb.  Thank God I wasn’t claustrophobic!

I was carried a short distance and deposited on the ground.  For a brief moment I pictured myself lying at the top of the grassy slope leading down to the back of the house, and I realised with a sickening feeling what was about to happen, as someone gave the pipe a shove and I went tumbling down the hill.

It was a wild and not very pleasant ride.  The grass was relatively long and evened out many of the bumps, but I was dizzy and breathless as though from the worst ride you could have at a fun park.  I fetched up against something solid and lay there on my stomach, my breasts pressed against the pipe wall.  Nothing happened for a minute, then something banged hard against my pipe, and I knew it was one of the others.  We were all getting the same treatment.

Two more bumps followed soon after, and I pictured the four pipes lying side by side.  What happened next surprised me, for we were loaded on what was obviously a trailer of some sort.  I knew a normal trailer was 2.4 metres long, because I had helped Steven move sheets of plasterboard this size.  I figured from the fact that my head was slightly elevated that my ‘top’ end must be resting on the front upstand of the trailer, with my bottom end resting against the inside of the tailgate.  They loaded the four of us aboard that way, two up and two down, like sardines in a can, peas in a pod, or whatever metaphor you wish to use.  It was a difficult position, stretched taut and immovable.  I wondered what lay in store for us.  What were they going to do and where were we going?  We were leaving the relative safety and security of Bilboes and going into the real world, bound, gagged, and securely tied inside plastic pipes designed to be buried in the ground.  Suddenly this was starting to get really scary.

*   *   *
 
 
 

05.11.03

story continues in Monica's Games 2.28

o0o