Vesta - Painworld Read online

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  VESTA - PAINWORLD

  By

  Jennifer Jane Pope

  Publisher Information

  VESTA - Painworld first published in 1999 by

  Chimera Books Ltd. Published as an eBook in 2011 by Chimera Books Ltd

  www.chimerabooks.co.uk

  Chimera a creation of the imagination, a wild fantasy

  Digital Edition Converted and Published by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  New authors are always welcome, or if you’re already a published author and have existing work, the eBook rights of which remain with or have reverted to you, we would love to hear from you.

  This novel is fiction - in real life practice safe sex

  This eBook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The characters and situations in this eBook are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright Jennifer Jane Pope. The right of Jennifer Jane Pope to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Vesta – Painworld

  The masked man was close now and she could hear his laboured breathing, the air hissing in and out of the narrow apertures in his tight fitting leather hood, but in the near total darkness Nadia could see nothing. He, on the other hand, she knew, would know exactly where she was, for her white latex bodysuit would appear almost luminous, while the black leather which covered him from head to toe gave him an unfair advantage.

  She stopped, turning slowly, facing the approaching sound, crouching ready for the expected onslaught.

  ‘Okay, clever fucker,’ she growled. ‘Come get me if you’re man enough.’

  Her only answer was an ear-splitting crack, as the bullwhip coiled itself around her right ankle, the sudden jerk overbalancing her so that she fell backwards, cracking her head against the unforgiving stone floor and momentarily losing consciousness. It was all her opponent needed and, by the time her head had even halfway cleared, he was on Nadia, grasping her wrists and twisting them cruelly behind her, snapping steel cuffs around them and rendering further resistance all but impossible.

  She heard the faint clicking sound of switches being thrown and then, as the dim overhead tubes flickered into life, got her first glimpse of the creature who had been stalking her through these catacombs for the past half hour. Nadia’s heartbeat moved up yet another notch as she saw the huge leather pouch hanging down from his groin and the quick release buckles that held it attached to the rest of the suit. Unless some of that was padding...

  They were in a long chamber, one wall of which was lined with heavy wooden chests, the other wall beset with racks, from which dripped a lifetime’s collection of whips, crops, straps, chains, gags and masks. The bastard had let her lead him here, she realised now, awaiting his moment until they were in the one place he had prepared for her. Her darting eyes took in the cramped cages, the stocks, pillory, whipping post and X-shaped timber cross-bolted into the centre of the floor. How she had managed to move through this minefield without falling over something, she had no idea. Nor had she smelled the heavy aromas of leather and latex that now assailed her nostrils.

  ‘Damn you, Marlon,’ she muttered, under her breath. ‘That’s bloody well cheating.’ She slowed her breathing and stared defiantly as her captor walked nonchalantly back towards her.

  ‘Very nice,’ he sneered, his pupils bright through the eye slits. His gloved right hand dropped to the pouch and he massaged it, the message obvious. ‘The bitch mistress herself,’ he went on, standing over her, savouring his triumph. ‘The bitch mistress who is about to become the grovelling slave girl.’

  ‘Never!’ Nadia cried and spat at him, but the saliva sprayed harmlessly wide of her target as the brute side-stepped with an agile grace his huge build denied. The leather sheathed frame rocked with laughter.

  ‘Never say never,’ he gloated, and kicked idly at her high heeled booted foot. ‘From where I’m standing, I’d say it was going to be very soon and, quite possibly, forever. Now, let’s have you up, bitch queen!’ He reached down and hauled her effortlessly to her feet, proof of his strength if proof were needed, for Nadia was not a small woman. However, even in her steepling heels she felt dwarfed by him.

  Resistance was futile, but she still struggled as he dragged her across to the pillory. With her hands cuffed at her back only the neck stock was required and, seizing her hair, he bent her forward and slammed the heavy timber board into place. In a trice he had returned, having selected a wicked looking multi-thonged whip, heavy knots at the end of each of its strands. Nadia swallowed hard, for she knew what sort of havoc such an implement could wreak.

  ‘Please,’ she wailed, ‘not with that. Please.’

  He laughed and ran the stock of the whip along her rubber-covered spine. ‘You’d rather I used the bullwhip, would you?’

  Nadia gasped. ‘No - no, that’s not what I meant!’

  ‘Then it’s this, my arrogant bitch,’ he snapped. ‘What makes you think a slave has the right to select her punishment anyway?’

  ‘But I’m not...’ Nadia began, but stopped, realising the futility of further argument. Of course she wasn’t a slave, not out there, not in the real world... but here? Here she was in the role of escapee slave girl, caught and about to be punished by her master, a creature whose face she had never seen. The man chuckled, a deep, throaty sound without real humour.

  ‘Not what?’ he said. ‘Not a cock-sucking little whore who deserves a sound thrashing for her arrogance? Not a hungry-cunted slut who should beg for a man’s meat?’ He reversed his grip on the whip and brought the handle up between Nadia’s thighs. The butt slid easily into her wet quim and he allowed seven or eight inches to penetrate her before stopping. ‘Hah!’ he exclaimed triumphantly, pushing his face close to hers. ‘Even the anticipation of the whip’s kiss is betrayed. Well, I’ll not keep you waiting.’

  The handle slipped from her and Nadia tensed. The wide neck stock prevented her from seeing anything to the side or behind her, but she heard the sound of his boots shuffling on the stone and knew he was carefully adjusting his stance and position for the maximum efficiency. She barely heard the whistling of the braided thongs before the lashes exploded across the middle of her back, but she screamed, unashamedly, as the agonising fire seared through her every fibre.

  ‘Count, bitch!’ he roared. Nadia knew the rules.

  ‘One!’ she managed to gasp, between sobs. The whip whistled again, and again her shriek echoed around the unsympathetic walls.

  ‘T-t-twooo!’

  Whistle.

  Crack!

  ‘Dreeeeeeeeee!’

  Nadia’s world started to turn a deep purple...

  James Naylor screwed up his hawk-like features in concentration, as his eyes scanned the crowded VDU screen in front of him. His right hand moved automatically on the mouse, zooming in on different segments of the pages as he browsed them for the second time.

  ‘There!’ he said at last, finger jabbing at the relevant menu. ‘That’s the bitch, even though the site address is different. I’d know her turn of phrase anywhere.’ Behind and slightly to one side of him, Christina Fredrickson stirred her powerful body inside its black leather shell and leaned forward for a closer view. />
  ‘Virtual reality,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder exactly how far they’ve got with it?’ Her voice was slightly accented, betraying her Danish origins, but her English was otherwise flawless.

  ‘A lot further than we suspected, judging by this,’ Naylor rasped. ‘Marlon Vincent may be slightly crazy, but he’s an absolute genius. That’s why I tried to get the bastard to work for me in the first place.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have offered him more money,’ Christina mused. ‘He did say that the figures you were talking about wouldn’t be enough to fund his research at the level he needed.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Naylor snapped. ‘The little bastard was just being plain greedy. I even offered him a percentage deal once we went on the market.’

  ‘Which was no damned good to him if he didn’t have the up-front cash to fund the project,’ Christina persisted. Of all Naylor’s employees, she was the only one, male or female, who would ever dare to disagree with him, but then Christina was an unusual person in more ways than one. At nearly six and a half feet tall and weighing in at a fraction under seventeen stone of fabulously sculpted muscle, she would have been quite capable of flooring Naylor with a single blow. In addition, Naylor knew only too well, the amazonian blonde possessed a cruel streak that exceeded even his own.

  She was also extremely inventive and was constantly developing new refinements to practise on their almost willing volunteers, and not-so-willing and steadily growing collection of slaves, most of whom they had tricked into servitude with a mixture of extortion, blackmail and bribery. Christina rose from her seat and walked slowly across to the open window of Naylor’s study, her cropped head narrowly missing the light fitting, due to the towering heels she invariably wore. There was only the slightest hint of a limp now, but the broken leg and the way in which it had been inflicted on her would never be forgotten.

  That little bitch Lianne and her sissy boyfriend had a lot to answer for in Christina’s book, and she was determined that both accounts would be settled before too much longer. She already had plans for the pair of them and frequently lay awake at nights conjuring up ever more evil schemes and scenarios. Her private cellar, deep beneath Naylor’s house, already contained the ‘trophy pole’, upon which Christina planned to mount Lianne Connolly, impaled by the monstrous dildo fixed into the centre of the narrow, curved saddle bar.

  As for Paul Dean, Christina had not yet made up her mind, but she did know one thing for sure. When she dressed the little bastard in a rubber maid’s uniform this time, there would be no need to strap his male organs out of the way. With the help of a particular doctor of her acquaintance whose gambling habits ensured he was forever in need of large sums of cash, Paul Dean would not just play the part of a woman, she would make sure he became one.

  ‘If Muirhead gets anything like a start on us, we might as well give up altogether,’ Christina said, speaking over her shoulder. ‘Jurgen Koenig seems to be spending his days with his thumb stuck up his arse. Hasn’t he made any sort of progress this last month?’

  ‘Some,’ Naylor said, ‘but not enough. He’s having trouble capturing the visual images in a way that can be regenerated realistically.’

  ‘He’s not a patch on Vincent,’ Christina said, ‘but then we knew that before he even started. I told you that you should have let me deal with little Marlon. A couple of days downstairs with me and the girls and he would have been begging to work for nothing. Then he’d have had plenty of spare funds for the research side.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Naylor conceded, grudgingly, ‘but it’s too fucking late to cry over spilt milk at this stage.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Christina mused. ‘And then again, perhaps not.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Naylor demanded. ‘It’s certainly too late to get at Marlon now. My sources tell me he hasn’t set a foot outside Nadia’s place in over three months, except when he’s had to go to London and then she sends at least three minders with him. And she won’t risk losing him at this late stage, you can be sure.

  ‘She’ll know I approached him originally and she’ll also have a good idea how fucking useless the Kraut is, so she won’t have to be a genius to know that my only hope is in getting Marlon from her. It’d be like trying to kidnap the President of the United fucking States.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Christina said, turning back to face into the room. The sunlight behind her glinted off the black leather catsuit and created a halo effect around her stubbly blonde skull. ‘Marlon Vincent may be safe inside Muirhead’s personal Fort Knox, but the rest of the world most certainly isn’t.’

  ‘What are you driving at?’

  ‘Well, I always thought you were trying to handle Marlon the wrong way,’ Christina began, leaning back against the window frame. ‘Money was never going to convince him, except that he needed large sums to fund the development work itself. People like Marlon don’t care about money for themselves, which was why I tried to tell you that you should have agreed to his terms originally.

  ‘Marlon Vincent is a borderline fruitcake, like most geniuses. He’d work for nothing, just so long as he could keep on with his compulsion to achieve perfection...’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ Naylor interrupted, his features clouding angrily. ‘So you were right and I was wrong; there’s no need to keep ramming it down my throat. Tell me something I don’t already know!’

  A slow smile spread across Christina’s square features. ‘I intend to,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’ve made it my business to investigate friend Marlon’s background and I’ve found an Achilles heel, I think.’

  ‘You think?’ Naylor echoed, testily. ‘Well, madam, for your information, I had Marlon checked out pretty thoroughly myself and all the usual avenues are useless. He was orphaned at the age of five, raised in a home, has never had a girlfriend and has no living relatives we can use as leverage.’

  ‘Except his half sister,’ Christina replied, smoothly. Naylor opened his mouth, but no words came out. Christina’s mouth twitched crookedly. ‘Surprised?’ she challenged. At last, Naylor found his tongue.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he growled. ‘I had the orphanage records checked out thoroughly and there was no sister mentioned anywhere. If there had been, she would have been taken into care along with him, because there were no uncles or aunts on either side of the family.’

  ‘I said half sister,’ Christina pointed out. ‘Marlon’s father left his first wife while she was expecting their first child and took up with Marlon’s mother, whom he’d obviously been screwing on the side for some time, seeing as Marlon was actually born a month before the girl. When Marlon’s parents were killed, the first wife refused to have anything to do with what she called the “little bastard”. She had already remarried an Australian businessman and moved to Melbourne and she refused to even consider adoption.’

  ‘So why would a half sister, who Marlon has never seen, be a lever?’ Naylor demanded.

  ‘I never said he hadn’t seen her,’ Christina retorted. ‘Actually, when he was eighteen, Marlon started tracing his family tree, or what little there was of it, and he made contact with the girl through some agency. His parents had left him well provided for, financially at least, so he took off down under to meet the sister he never had. By all accounts, they hit it off really well.

  ‘The slightly mad genius streak must come from the father’s side, because the sister is about as crazy as Marlon. She’s made quite a name for herself as a sculptor, though it’s not what I’d call art. She welds just about anything and everything together and gives her pieces titles like “Fall of Woman” and “Checkpoint Infinity”. Idiots with more money than taste pay hundreds of thousands for her work.’ Naylor’s jaw dropped even lower than it had upon learning of the existence of a relative in the first place.

  ‘You’re talking about Clarissa Beaumont!’ he exclaimed, a note of awe tingeing his voice. ‘She’s the
cookie Aussie bird...’

  ‘With the bloody great exhibition in Birmingham at the moment,’ Christina finished the sentence for him. ‘Which is where she’s staying at present. I have the hotel and the room number.’

  ‘But we can’t kidnap someone as famous as Clarissa Beaumont,’ Naylor almost shouted. ‘There’d be a fucking uproar they’d hear all the way back to Australia!’ Christina was shaking her head.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘And so would you, if you knew as much about dear Clarissa as I’ve found out. She has a history of just taking off into the blue and then resurfacing in places like Nepal or Peru weeks, sometimes months later.’

  ‘But not in the middle of an exhibition,’ Naylor persisted.

  ‘No? She disappeared for three months halfway through an exhibition in Los Angeles only last year, and halfway through a reception being given in her honour by her home town, she just upped and walked out. Everyone assumed she’d gone to the ladies, but the next they heard of her was when she appeared in New York with a load of scrap iron she called “The Feast of the Vampire King”. She said she’d been inspired halfway through the main course and just had to follow her muse.’

  ‘I seem to remember reading something along those lines,’ Naylor admitted, thoughtfully. ‘The press call her the Iron Butterfly.’

  ‘Something to do with bats would be more appropriate,’ Christina snapped back. ‘But at least it would work to our advantage. If Miss Scrap Iron melted away overnight, everyone would assume she was off communing with her arc welding kit and just sit back and wait for her to show up again in Outer Mongolia.’

  ‘I reckon you could be right,’ Naylor said. He was smiling broadly now. ‘Perhaps it might be an idea if you had a couple of the team scout around Clarissa’s hotel and see what can be worked out.’