Gone for Six

The following morning after breakfast Ariel and Michael were taken to the dungeon, where Ben touched up their smoothness, oiling and polishing them to perfection again. Josh had the day off. No special activity was planned until the evening, the day would be for conversation and writing, and perhaps impromptu music. Ariel had been encouraged to keep a diary for the week. Before he accepted the invitation he was asked to read Jen's fantasy which would be enacted, with a few details changed, on Friday night. Ariel was invited to write his own account of the event, as he expected it actually to occur.

Jen wrote some pretty lurid story lines for JenLiz Productions over the years. Our cg capability made it possible for people to have fun acting out fantasies which would be either too impractical, too painful, or too dangerous to enact for real. But even with that, this new one would have been totally over the top - a human sacrifice to the sun - but for the exceptional circumstances. The "rumor" that the participants actually were sacrificed would give sales a big boost -- rather like the stories about all the people who died filming Ben-Hur. It worked -- this video sold exceptionally well. Thank you Jen -- we'll miss you. This is the story line that Jen wrote; the resulting video followed it pretty closely.

The victims were brought to the site before dawn, spread-eagled on the wagon's frame, to be sacrificed to the sun. The crowd cheered as they were led naked in chains to the hilltop to be bound tightly side by side to metal poles in the early morning glow. The exceptional beauty of the female sacrifice brought rounds of applause as she was displayed to the excited crowd. She had chosen two men who loved her in life to share in her final moments, and they received applause also; they were deemed worthy. Now fastened to poles suspended a couple of feet off the ground, metal masks cover their faces and secure their heads to the poles. Each victim's chest is bound by a pair of steel bands crossing in an X shape. Further bands circle them at the waist and thighs, knees and ankles, and their wrists are bound behind them. Shackles on their upper arms hold their elbows a little away from their bodies, allowing the sides of their torsos, along with their chests and bellies, to be fully exposed except where the bands cross. The bands are not especially wide, so most of their flesh is vulnerable. They have no collars, and will not be strangled before they are consumed in the blinding radiance.

A huge dish-shaped mirror stands nearby, pointed to the east. Once the sun rises the rays it gathers will be focused to deadly intensity, ready to be redirected by three more mirrors. These will rotate to reflect the fiery beams onto the three bound bodies in response to devices detecting them coming to sexual climax. The bands of steel will not burn, ensuring that they remain well secured until the sacrifice is fully consummated. Likewise the masks will protect their heads from the intense sunlight so that they remain conscious to the very end. From time to time one of the mirrors is turned on a victim momentarily, to check the focus and excite the crowd with the struggles and screams.

In preparation for their blazing orgasms, the victims are coated with oil, which drips from their feet. When the appointed time for the sacrifice arrives, irresistible stimulation begins; the victims will be forced to come simultaneously. Their mounting excitement is evident as they writhe and twist helplessly in their bonds, the crowd shouting and singing madly, trying to guess from their thrashing and bucking the exact moment the sacrifice will occur. At the instant they come the mirrors turn and the intense sunlight illuminates them in blinding glory -- wisps of vapor ascend from the superheated oil. The victims writhe in agonizing pain as jets of pure oxygen are directed up from below, and an igniting wire wrapped around their ankles is energized. Additional fuel is pumped into their bodies through all available orifices. Three roman candles erupt magnificently into the sky, their bodies consumed in minutes, an excellent sacrifice to ensure a generous harvest.

Ariel spent a lot of Tuesday writing his version, but at mid-day he took a break, going down to the living room to improvise on the Steinway. His music was poignant, expressing his love for life and sadness at its brevity. Sara, listening from the study where she was working on details of the evening, picked up her viola and joined him at the piano, the two playing a duet suffused with sadness, but extraordinarily elevating in erotic depth, as if she read his mind and looked time and eternity in the face, as Ariel in fact was. It is fortunate that everything played in the living room is captured for just this eventuality. A little work, rather like the video cg, though far less invasive, made it possible to share this performance with the world, an extra legacy for Ariel, and a source of solace for Sara and Liz.

A mid-afternoon meal allowed them time to prepare for the evening, Jen's catharsis. Jen was furious about her disease, angry at Liz, Sara and me that we would continue life without her, and jealous especially that I would be with Liz and she would not. At the same time she loved Liz deeply and begged me to move in with her after she was gone, to take care of her and ease her loneliness. Since Ariel had wanted to endure a session with Jen, and Michael, also deeply in love with her, would do almost anything to relieve her pain, regardless of his own, we came up with a plan. The "rental fee" for the chamber was steep, but we had already negotiated for Friday night, and this would be our last chance to play with Jen, if "play" is really the right word. So Michael, Liz and I rode over to the punishment chamber that night, prepared to let Jen have her way with us.

Sara had taken Ariel a little earlier. Years ago he wanted to spend extra time in the initial bondage, hoping to be ravished by Jen in a session like the one where we were introduced, and instead received eighteen strokes and an X for his impertinence. Tonight he would get his wish, an hour with his legs spread and arms pulled behind him, pressing his wrist binder to his belly, contemplating the suffering Jen would soon inflict. Unlike the rest of us, Ariel wanted the works, including the changing chamber, but the rental did not include the front guard's entrance. The corridor is accessible from the viewing theater, so he was taken in that way. On Friday both he and Michael would have to go that way, to provide incontrovertible evidence of assent.

So Ariel got to undress, put on the smock, and place his neck in the collar, in preparation for his date with Jen on pole three, just as he fantasized. When we arrived we were a bit surprised to see Sara being bound next to him on pole two. Apparently she though he was lonely, and rather than wait for the rest of us she decided to go in and keep him company. While we waited closer to the time Jen would arrive, Ariel and Sara talked quietly in bondage about the intertwining of music, sadomasochism and erotic love.

There would be various deviations from a normal punishment session that night. For one, talking, to the extent possible through the gags, as well as swearing, screaming and cursing were all on the menu as long as it didn't compromise the scene. Poles one and seven would not be used - there would be only five of us, and the session would be only thirty minutes on the clocks rather than fifty, still plenty of time for Jen to thrash me thoroughly. Michael, Liz and I went into the chamber, where Ben and another JenLiz staffer fitted us with saddles and bound us in the standard punishment hogtie - no need to bother with the holding bondage, except for Sara and Ariel. I took the center pole, number four, the one often reserved for the vilest offender. Michael was on five, Liz on six - turnabout is fair play. Once we were secured, Sara and Ariel were rebound similarly. There we were, gagged, penetrated, electrified and greased with generous squirts of electro-gel, wrists and ankles bound together behind us, ready for Jen, the writer of the lurid sacrifice fantasy, to unleash the fury of human anguish on us. Looking down at my cable hanging neatly on my punishment harness, I was genuinely frightened. I knew Jen would go easy on Ariel and Michael, so as not to damage them for Friday. Liz she loved too much to really injure, though she might put her in plenty of agony. She had little bone to pick with Sara, which left me. I would be the whipping boy that night, even though she wielded no whip. The virtual whip would be worse - it offered a much wider range of torment.

Jen came out. She had dressed in her finest dominatrix gear for the evening, voluptuously terrifying in glistening black leather. Her bustier, ominously trimmed with chain, made her always beautiful breasts push forward threateningly, and she left her nipples exposed like two pistols to command our complete obedience. Her midriff and thighs were bare, though her pussy was hidden from our eyes that night by tight legless leather pants. Her high boots projected utter superiority, while her bare upper legs reminded us of the lovely naked Jen we also all knew. The thrill of subjugation to such an overwhelming power surged through my consciousness. I was grateful for the cautious attention of the two JenLiz staffers in the theater who would have override pads, a precaution even Jen insisted on so she could abandon all inhibition; otherwise I would surely die that night.

Jen pulled out the cable from the punishment console with relish, dragging it to the mirror, then turning to grin at us as we squirmed anxiously. "Thanks for being here tonight - I'm going to have fun." Not especially reassuring!

She took the left split over to Sara. Gazing into her eyes, Jen began plugging in her wires and hoses one by one. Sara shivered. "Sara, you are so irritatingly calm, so pathetically nice. Compassion matters, but you'll never be able to do my job if you can't learn to be cruel." Then softening, she continued, "Learn cruelty tonight - you'll do fine. Remember the lesson when I'm gone." Sara struggled in her bonds, tears in her eyes, as Jen turned to Ariel.

"Ariel, worship me as I prepare you for torture. Endure my torment tonight, and earn my love tomorrow." Ariel writhed in bliss, hopelessly in thrall to Jen, precisely as she intended.

Jen had a special treat for me that night, an insult totally out of bounds in a regular session. Without so much as a glance she walked to Michael and started on his connections.

"Michael, remember how you lusted for me as Liz punished us and made us come in bondage, your first time. Lust for my touch tonight. Remember our good times together as I torment you one last time." Then on to Liz. "Oh Liz, don't cry for me. I could make you hate me forever, but I love you too much. Let me punish you with cruelty and kindness. Carry on your life with that schmuck over there - I love him too, but I'm going to thrash the living daylights out of him tonight - he deserves it for taking you from me."

Finally turning to me, she thrust my wires and tubes enthusiastically into place with the effortlessness honed by years of practice. "You heard what I said to Liz - time for you to pay her bride-price. Suck it up, Gabe - no woman would let herself look so frightened." Taking a few steps backward, she glanced at her pad, smiling. "OK, let's roll," and with a fingerstroke she started the calibration.

Calibration is brutally efficient, mechanical, impersonal, and painful. It's the first actual punishment, other than the bondage itself, that an inmate receives. The purpose is to establish the limits of response for each individual, so experience in BDSM, or high tolerance for pain, will not help you; the calibration will explore and test your limits, however extreme. Michael himself worked on the algorithm, improving on what he first experienced, especially in regard to cheat-proofing. Even Michael, though he knew it intimately by then, could not outwit it. Stimulus occurs when least expected - every scream is tested - the algorithm can't be fooled. So Michael and all the rest of us suffered the slings and arrows of this outrageous robotic tormentor, while Jen watched with undisguised glee. Each of us let out a bloodcurdling scream at least twice, but the strangest, most ego-dissolving experience was the result, a perfectly harmonious chorus of grunts, groans and gasps, all of us suffering together precisely equally. As the calibration wound up, Jen took front and center.

"I'll give you all a break - I won't make you come until we're almost finished... except for Gabe." She set up the others with rather pleasant stimulation, all of them squirming sexily, while she froze me in her icy gaze.

"You, Gabe, will come now. Get ready to be raped. Wondering what it feels like? Liz taught me." Raking me with her fingernails from the tips of our X which peeked out past my punishment bra downward she continued, "It'll make it so much better - for me."

She wasn't kidding - it was the most painful orgasm of my life, my last Jen-orgasm. She ground and pounded my ass, alternately convulsing me with shocks to my penis and massaging me relentlessly, making me painfully erect but not letting me climax, finally driving me to orgasm as she swelled my anal marauder mercilessly. I thrashed and bucked on the pole while Jen danced and yelled.

"Yes, yes, come, you asshole, come so I can send you to Hell with a touch, come, open your soul to my torment, give me your body to torture, to bend and twist as I will." Two and a half minutes, not four, was all it took, and I was grateful.

The pain of bondage surging back, I struggled desperately to escape Jen's virtual embrace, almost as I struggled to escape the strokes of the steel band years before. With a penetrating smirk Jen reminded me, "twenty seven minutes more, Gabe baby. Suffer pretty."

I'll have to admit, though, Jen had imagination when it came to punishment. The first tingles which would quickly grow into agonizing bursts of pain were often deliciously subtle, and as they grew they could be astonishingly erotic before becoming unbearably intense. How strange to share such an experience with those I knew so well - to read the anticipation in their faces. Then came the waves. Jen could make a body twist excruciatingly erotically, and the anticipation, seeing such obscene convulsions progressing down the line, knowing that in a moment I would be displayed enduring the same embarrassing insult was breathtaking. This was the easy part - the calibration meant we all suffered equally. But I knew that Jen had it in for me specially that evening, and it was coming for sure.

Jen pitted Liz against Sara for the first round of bondo-battle. They've always had a slightly tense rivalry. Sara worships Liz, but she also resents her competence, and Jen was able to exploit that devilishly. At the end the two women attacked each other ferociously - a good deal of apologetic making-up came later. But that was just a hint of what was coming. This was to be Michael's and Ariel's catharsis also, and I would be their anvil. Suffice it to say that Jen, through the medium of her worshipers, paid me back ten times over for my victory years before. All the anger, the hurt, the disappointment at life's brevity, was directed at my body by those three that night. Ariel made a touching joke at the end, saying "Thank you, Mistress, for allowing me to win at bondo-battle," for which he got an agonizing convulsion and let out a piercing shriek. The remainder went quickly. The one-minute compassion dustups were rough on Sara and Liz, lame for Michael and Ariel, and brutal for me, no surprise. Jen gave all the others a colossal simultaneous farewell orgasm, not the least of the pleasure taken watching each other, though I hurt too much to enjoy the view and obviously didn't get to join in.

I left the facility promptly after the JenLiz staffers released me, not speaking to anyone. The mood was somber - no-one, except perhaps Ariel, had a particularly good time that night, not even Jen, really, though I think she needed to do what she did. For the next three days, except for a few short appearances at the studio I stayed home at my apartment to nurse my aches, play the piano, and think back on my time with Jen, Ariel and Michael. Jen sent me a beautiful, touching note of apology and farewell. I dreaded Friday night.

Wednesday would be Jen's and Ariel's wedding day.

Sara led Ariel into the dungeon by a strap attached to his collar for his "marriage" to Jen. He was naked under his gown, except for his collar and his cuffed wrists, which were fastened behind his back. In the center of the dungeon stood an adjustable Y-shaped horizontal bench, comfortably padded with leather, set for a moderately wide angle of spread. Sara removed his orgasm suppressor, then released his wrists and helped him climb onto the bench, making him lie down on his back with his legs out on the two branches of the Y.

She bound him with clear, almost invisible bands to the bench, at his ankles, knees, thighs and waist, but not above, though she fastened his wrists above his head. He was stretched, but not tightly. She lubricated and inserted an anal penetrator similar to those on the saddles in the punishment chamber into his anus, fastening it securely to the bench by fittings below the split of the Y. The penetrator had the full capabilities of the the ones used in the chamber, with the usual hoses and wires, which Sara plugged into a control box below the bench. She lubricated his penis and massaged it gently, making Ariel very hard. He was careful not to come, but confident that Sara could suppress him if he lost control. Once he was fully erect, Sara snapped a ring around his base.

The ring also had a tiny hose which Sara plugged into the box. It could swell up and compress his penis to arrest an impending orgasm, though more painfully than the strap of his usual device. So fitted out, Ariel would not be able to come without permission, nor could he become flaccid, not that he was likely to given what he was anticipating. He lay back, drifting in subspace, lost in the subtlety of his bondage, looking at himself in the mirrored ceiling. Sara left him to drift, giving him a little kiss and a parting "Have fun, give my love to Jen" tease.

Soon Jen came in, though not exactly as Ariel anticipated. Jen was bound in delicate chains, naked otherwise, Liz leading her by a chain collar and leash. A chain belt circled her waist, her wrists shackled to it behind her back. A fine chain descended from the front of the belt over her trim pussy to a steel oval which circumnavigated her labia, while a second chain attached to the other end of the oval continued around to secure an anal penetrator like the one impaling Ariel, finally terminating at the the chain belt in back. The steel oval would permit penetration, and also provided mounting for an electrical device pressed to her clitoris.

Liz led Jen over to Ariel. Touching the dungeon's pad, she lowered Ariel about a foot off the floor and closed his legs together, then tugged on Jen to straddle him. Liz clipped Jen's ankle shackles to the rings on the floor, then released her wrists, attaching a triple-chain to each shackle. Touching the pad again, Liz pulled Jen into a taut spread-eagle. This was not at all what Ariel was expecting, but seeing Jen stretched above him was hugely arousing. He strained upward, but his penis, erect as it was, could not quite reach her - Liz had set his height carefully. Fondly fingering Jen's steel oval and Ariel's penile restraint, Liz whispered, "with these rings I thee wed," then touched the pad again, slowly raising Ariel, guiding his member through the steel oval into Jen's moist inviting lips. Ariel and Jen both moaned with pleasure as Liz pressed him smoothly all the way into her warm embrace, Ariel finally coming to rest firmly between her spread thighs, like a human version of the saddle used in the punishment chamber. Although he was close to orgasm, he knew he would not be allowed to come yet.