Death by Chess

Chapter 5

The shackles holding the Harlots in their squares all popped open at the same time. The freed warriors leaped upon each other in jubilation, fired up both by what they had won and by what they had avoided. Their screams of joy were inundated by the cheers of the crowd reverberating in the closed dome of the arena. They danced and jumped and saluted the spectators with their weapons. They ran about the arena, weaving among the vanquished Vixens still locked glumly in place. Kim ran to the Vixen's end where the heads of her four dead teammates remained atop their poles. One by one she moved down the row, standing on tiptoes to kiss each cold mouth — Jenna, Glee, Holly and Sara — in a farewell tribute that brought the crowd to a stormy crescendo.

As the tumult of the crowd, the blare of victory music from the sound system and the grandiose special effects on the arena screens reached their peak of delirium, the twelve surviving Harlots formed a procession behind Michelle, their Harpoon Girl on her sleek white stallion. She waved a long red and yellow polyester banner in figure eights over their heads as they marched triumphantly out of the arena.

When the noise level had dropped to a sustained buzz, the music was replaced by the solemn voice of the Chief Referee ordering the ten defeated Vixen players still locked in place to toss their weapons to a corner of their squares where they could be safely collected by a sextet of stunning young women, B1's (between pregnancies) in white silk costumes. The arena cameras followed them closely as they threaded their way among the doomed players, capturing for the arena screens and home monitors erotic peeks at their lovely faces and long slim limbs, at their milk-laden breasts with hard nipples itching to fill the hungry mouths waiting in the nursery. Millions of men, watching these incredibly beautiful women load their arms with the discarded weapons, pictured themselves as certified studs with the enviable task of helping to draw off some of the milky largess swelling those magnificent globes.

While these women in white were collecting arms, another group — also B1's and equally lovely, but dressed in red versions of the same silken material — began politely cuffing the Vixen's hands behind their backs and clipping one end of a four foot length of silver chain to a ring that decorated each player's labia. Once all the weapons had been cleared, the girls in red began herding the vanquished chess pieces into a line, draping the silver chains between their legs to connect them vulva to vulva. The chain of doomed girls began with the Queen's Rook, Knight and Bishop along with their three Pawns, all still standing on their original squares. Lyra, who had pinned herself between them and her own Bishop, was next. Then the Bishop, then Edie and finally another Pawn who stood a few squares away on her left. That Pawn, whose name was Pebble, became the lead member of the chain as they were led around the arena past the stands.

Pebble was tall with thick, sandy hair that billowed around her shoulders. Her sad brown eyes, thin lips and long face gave her a patrician air. Delicately slender down to her waist with the taut, voluptuous breasts typical of Musgrave livestock, below the waist her hips were a little too wide and her legs a little too thick. That imperfection made her unsuitable for spit roasting. Her value as meat following the post-game event would be primarily in her thigh and rump cuts for broiling or oven roasting. Pebble, pulled along on her own chain by one of the red-frocked attendants, grabbed the segment of chain that passed between her legs to Eadie behind her, so as to absorb as much tugging on her labia ring as possible.

Eadie and the others quickly adopted the same technique; except for the Rook at the end of the line who, with her hands restrained behind her and the chain in front, could not reach it. Her only insurance against having the ring yanked painfully was to stay close to the girl ahead of her. They were marched in a circle around the circumference of the arena so the spectators could view them from all angles. The announcer named them one by one and pointed out their individual qualities, both for the upcoming final event and the lucky winners of their meat. The Breeder in red then led them in a straight line from one corner of the chessboard to the diagonally opposite corner and brought them to a halt.

"And now," the announcer boomed, "it is our distinct pleasure to welcome Mr. Trent Bartholomew, Executive Director of the Federal Meat Commission and a member of President-for-Life Osama Bormann's National Governing Council, to draw the names of our ten lucky Audience Participants. The stubs in this barrel . . ." the arena screens showed a glass tub slowly rotating, square bits of paper tumbling off the paddles on its inside walls, ". . . were torn from the tickets of our audience today; that is, all of those who chose to enter the drawing. Which was most of you, I'm pleased to say. As our winners are announced, will they please stand up, wave their stub at the center bank of cameras and proceed directly to our beautiful Breeder Girls in white stationed at the bottom of each aisle. Each winner is asked to bring along one friend to share in his or her good luck and take part in the upcoming hunts. Mr. Bartholomew will now reach in and pull out our first winner."

The rotund representative of the official government bureaucracy did so, first brandishing it flamboyantly over his head, then reading off the name and number printed on it. The announcer repeated them as they were plastered in fat, sans-serif letters on the arena screens. The screens zeroed in on an excited man midway up the west side of the stands. He rapped on the shoulder of a man sitting next to him and they both began scurrying down the aisle toward a shapely girl in white. This ritual was repeated nine more times until the ten winners had been named and assembled, along with one friend each, on the arena floor. Eighteen men and two women altogether.

"The next step," the announcer intoned, "is to match up our lucky pairs with one of our ten vanquished chess pieces. I ask our winners to please take note of the lovely Breeder Girl in red who is approaching you now. You will see that she is holding a fanned out set of ten cards. Please form a circle around her. We want each pair of winners to select one card as she offers them to you."

They did. As this was going on, a line of ten Prime Breeders in alternating red and white dresses trooped up beside the ten chained team members. Each was holding up a round blank electronic paddle, about the size of a tennis racket.

"Now," the announcer continued, "please note that ten more of our gorgeous Breeder Girls have stationed themselves beside our pretty 'prisoners of war.' I can't help but say," he chuckled as an aside (as though it weren't on the script), "that it's no wonder Musgrave has an unequalled reputation for delivering quality roasts with Breeders as sublimely beautiful as these! Quality breeds quality, right? Anyway, starting at the front of the line with Pawn Pebble, each Breeder in turn will turn on her number screen and the winning pair holding that number will go and claim their prize. Ready? Go!"

The girl next to Pebble pushed a button on the handle of her paddle. The number "3" materialized in fourteen inch letters on both sides. She held it aloft for the spectators and the cameras. The man holding the three card waved it triumphantly over his head. He and his partner jogged excitedly up to the tall, sandy-haired Pawn. He was exactly her height, about five-ten, and rather beefy, his partner a bit taller. The Breeder at Pebble's side glanced at his card to confirm the number, detached Eadie's chain from Pebble's cunt ring and handed Pebble's chain to the beefy man, shouting directions to him over the din of the crowd. He led her by the chain to the doorway the B1 had indicated, his partner following.

The same routine was repeated until all ten losing warriors had been led out of the arena in humiliation at the end of a chain leash. The announcer resumed his script.

"We're going to take a twenty minute break now, so we can prepare for our closing Hunts and give our pairs of lucky winners a chance to get more intimately acquainted with their quarry." He managed to insert a sufficiently lecherous tone into the words so that all but the dimmest bulbs would catch his meaning, without actually spelling it out. It was never wise to offend parents whose young children might be watching. Witnessing deadly violence was normal family entertainment; but watching people having sex was unfit for impressionable young minds.

"Take a look at your programs during the break. Match up the hunts with the pairings listed on the betting kiosk monitors and test your skill at predicting which of our defeated fighters-turned-quarry will outlast her hunters. It's a lot of fun and you could bring home a ton of winnings! Take twenty, then see ya back here for the final show!"

As the crowd in the stands surged about stretching their legs, looking for refreshments and lining up at the kiosks to place their bets, another type of activity was taking place in the undercroft beneath them. The ten "prisoners" were being stripped of their chess piece costumes, including the elaborate headdresses, and strapped down to a row of padded tables lined up side-by-side along one wall.

Krystal, former Rook and the last prisoner to be led off the field, had actually looked forward to a fight to the death. At twenty-three she had been in service as a Pleasure Girl for seven years and was fed up with it. The normal dosage of O-drugs they gave her at the brothel had granted her minimal orgasms to accompany the pounding penises of her customers, but it was no longer enough to override her sense of ignominy. Every day she felt less a human being and more a farm animal. Seven years of contemptuous treatment by men who were restrained from causing her serious damage only by the expense of having to purchase her carcass ("break it and it's yours!") had soured her on life. She was an M1, prepped those seven years ago for live spitting and a glorious orgasmic sendoff with a massive O overdose. But year upon year in that sex mill had ground away most of her youthful beauty. Another few years, another several thousand brutish customers, and she'd be lucky to end up an M2. They'd just cut her throat. She'd get a little O, a small climax, and death. Better to die whacking away with a sword, she'd thought. But shit! Now she'd been deprived of even that much dignity. She'd never even moved off her fucking square! Dumb-cunt Lyra had let herself get sucked into a checkmate with half her team still in the starting gate!

Krystal noted that the Breeder Girl tending to her preparation kept her in handcuffs until both her feet were strapped into the stirrups at the foot of the table. These pretty-faced baby-machines were too damned precious to risk being attacked by well-trained P- Girls-turned-gladiators. As if Krystal would try to make a break for it, especially with that fucking taser in her cunt.

"Lie back, dear," the B1 told her in maddeningly gentle tones, "then reach down and grab the table legs with your hands."

The dainty little wimp had a voice as soft as her tits were huge. Goddamned if the massive jugs weren't even oozing milk, staining her dress! Krystal looked away, ground her teeth and did as she was told. She held on to the table legs while the woman strapped both wrists to them with the same banding gun she had used on her ankles, the type used to bind up large packages.

Krystal laid on the table and stared up at the ceiling as the cold steel of a pair of scissors slipped between her pussy lips and snipped the suture. Rough, calloused fingers pried the lips apart and felt around inside for the taser, finally pulling it out. Krystal was greatly relieved by its departure. They hadn't used it on her because she'd never given them cause, but she remembered the quick demonstration they gave everyone during training and would be happy to die without another one, thank you. Whatever they had planned for her in the arena could not be as bad as that!

The next thing she felt inside her was warm, hard and extremely familiar. Thousands of them had been in there before. This one belonged to the man who had won her, who was also the owner of the rough fingers that had extracted the taser. He was a broad, thick-necked man with curly black hair and hard brown eyes. He seized both her boobs and crushed them painfully in his fingers as he pumped away with an instrument surprisingly small for such a sizeable body. For that she was thankful because her pussy lips were sore, probably infected as a result of the crudely installed suture. From long practice, she simply grit her teeth and bore the pain silently.

She turned her head to the side and saw that similar activity was taking place at most of the other tables. The winners from the stands were enjoying the first perk of their success. Or, looking at it another way, the losers were getting fucked once again. And not just once. The partners selected by the winners all had their turns, too. For Krystal this meant bearing up under the assault of a far larger weapon sprouting from a tall, older man whose hairline was in rapid retreat but whose sexual vigor was unabated. He preferred to kneed her small waist as he rammed himself tirelessly into her for what seemed like hours, saving her tits to suck on later. Fortunately, the copious semen from her previous visitor had lubricated the channel he was ploughing and by the time he had added his own load, Krystal had actually enjoyed a small orgasm. Nothing like the ones boosted by the O drugs during her P-career, of course. Still, if she had to be fucked by yet another self-gratifying jerk, even a little rush helped her get by the fact that she was no more to him than a sheep in girl's skin.

A bell rang. Apparently it was the signal that intermission (and prisoner fucking) had come to an end because the Breeders, with help now from the winners and their partners, began releasing their quarry from the tables. Their hands were cuffed behind them once again, and the leashes reconnected to their pussy rings. Once again they were lined up, but this time in a different order with Krystal next to last. Another bell rang and they were led back out into the arena. With no regalia to display their former rank as chess pieces, they were simply a forlorn parade of naked, shackled young women facing one last test, then death.

Two long platforms had been set up at the edge of the marked chessboard area on opposite sides of the arena, one on the east and one on the west. Both were seven steps up off the arena floor. The east side platform contained a row of ten two-inch iron pipes no more than a foot and a half high screwed into flanges on the platform. Each had an iron chain of the same length welded to the top and hanging down the side. It was to this platform that Krystal was led, pulled along on her humiliating pussy chain by the tall balding man whose jizz was still dribbling down the inside of her thighs. When they reached the pipe associated with her place in line, the black-haired man disconnected the little silver chain from her vulva and replaced it with a padlock connecting her to the iron chain welded there. The only thing between her and freedom, she thought wryly, was the easily torn tissue of her pussy. That and the dozen cheerless guards with taser guns stationed around the arena floor and beside every closed and locked exit.

The platform on the west sideline contained eight slaughtering frames — essentially tall, rectangular, steel frames with cuffs dangling from pulleys at the top corners. Krystal certainly knew what those were for. Soon eight girls would be hanging upside down by their ankles, bleeding out before being spitted or butchered. Indeed, a glance at the north end of the arena told her where their second stop would be. It was arrayed with six butchering tables and two spitting tables.

Eight girls. But wait! There were ten girls. What about the other two? Krystal looked at the north end of the arena and her heart sank. It had been set up to accommodate two live spittings. Only M1's like herself were eligible for live roasting, having been implanted with a special tube for it at fifteen. She happened to know that Bishop Wednesday, the piece Lyra had tried to hide behind, was also an M1, and it was Wednesday who was now right behind her, bringing up the end of the line. Normally M1's did not fear their fate, even though they would have preferred to live, because they knew the O drugs would turn the agony of live roasting into cataclysmic orgasms. But this was different. Everyone had been told from the beginning that the losing team would be slaughtered without the O drugs. Somehow she had assumed that meant she would be slaughtered like the M2 girls. Clean and quick with minimal pain. Now she felt the beginning of terror.

Krystal looked to her right at Wednesday. She, too, was staring at the two sets of roasting paraphernalia and fire pits at the north end of the arena. A large refrigeration unit had been rolled in, as well, which no doubt contained the preassembled stuffing that would go into their cleaned out body cavities. Wednesday was a slender blonde girl with a tiny waist and the disproportionately full breasts the Company favored for roasters because they looked so luscious as they turned on the spit. Blue eyes radiated raw fright. She chewed nervously on her lip, an animal trapped by her predators, a delicate morsel soon to be ripped apart and swallowed.

"Those are for us, I guess," Krystal said to her.

"I guess," she answered, her voice as pale as her face.

"So how did you get here?" This was a question they all asked each other, eventually. Until now, for some reason, Krystal had never really conversed with Wednesday.

"I was a Pleasure Girl," Wednesday replied simply. "Three years of whoring for Musgrave was enough. I was depressed and had tried to volunteer for activation several times, but my manager wouldn't let me. He did let me volunteer for the chess game, though. And I don't mind dying. But Jesus Christ! Over the fire with no drugs? I thought they would just slit our throats."

"Me, too. I guess we should have read the fine print."

"Or paid attention to it. Or believed it."

"You worked three years? So you're, what, nineteen?"

"Yeah. How about you?"

"I was a P-Girl, too. For seven years. I'm twenty-three."

"My God! Seven years! How did you stand it?"

"I learned how to shut off my mind. I told myself, what's the difference whether you're plate-meat or fuck-meat? I didn't mind the work, except for the gross stuff — licking shit off dicks and assholes, or drinking some guy's beery piss. The fucking was okay; or when guys wanted to suck on my tits or eat me out, that was okay, too. With the drugs I could sometimes get a decent orgasm. It was the nasty stuff and the physical beatings and verbal shit that I hated most."

"And feeling like something that has to be scraped off a shoe?"

"That, too."

"God, I'm scared," Wednesday whispered, staring at the north end crew arranging skewers and viscera tubs.

"Yeah."

"And we never even got to fight."

"Yeah. All that training, then shit-for-brains Lyra never even puts us into play. She almost had their King, too, and she fucked it up."

"Then fell into the same damn trap! But she's only an M2. One quick slash and it's all over for her. Just about painless. We, on the other hand, are left to cook to death slowly on a spit. Where's the fucking justice in that?"

Music that had been belching from the loudspeakers suddenly faded under the return of the announcer's voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our closing games as the losers of today's chess match taste the bitter fruit of their failure. Please note that the names of those who have won a share of meat from today's defeated team will continue to scroll on the arena and home screens between the Hunts, together with the name of the girl whose flash frozen meat they will be receiving.

"Before the action begins, I want to make an important announcement. As most of you know, Musgrave, Inc., adheres strictly to CoHump — the FDA's Code for Human Meat Processing — as well as the International Accord for the Humane Treatment of Female Livestock for all our slaughtering and live-roasting procedures. Every member of our inventory looks forward to the day when she will be processed for meat because we spare no effort to make the experience pleasurable. That means, if you are head of a household and the parent, guardian or custodian of a young female whom you would like to enroll in the National Meat Program, and if you feel she can meet our high standards of quality, you will not find a better placement opportunity than Musgrave, Inc. We pay top dollar for qualified females. Equally important, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have put her in the best of hands. That's because we believe that the best meat comes from happy livestock. Her experience from beginning to end will be top notch — best living conditions, best accommodations, best nutritional program, and best euthanasia. So if you have one or more female assets to market, give us a call. We'll be happy to give you a free appraisal. Remember, you haven't had your best offer until you've heard OUR offer!

"And by the way, the girls who participated in today's games are all farm-grown livestock, bred and raised right here at this Musgrave facility. They signed up voluntarily and enthusiastically, with the full understanding that the game involved mortal combat and that the losing team would be publically snuffed without the special drugs we normally use that makes the process enjoyable. The winning team, on the other hand, will be enjoying many special privileges that will make the remainder of their time here at Musgrave even more delightful.

"Please understand that what our girls are willing to do to each other for their pleasure and our entertainment is one thing. What others do to them is another. So in keeping with our commitment to their humane treatment, we're not going to let you big brutes down there (chuckle) cause them any serious damage before they're snuffed. Besides, you wouldn't want to bring home bruised meat, now, would you? (More chuckling.) So keep in mind that any unnecessary damage to your quarry during the following series of hunts will be grounds for disqualification. Which means you won't get a share of the meat. Okay guys?

"Folks, as you've seen in your programs, each and every hunt will be a race against the clock. Each pair of hunters will have five minutes from the starting bell to catch their quarry, tie her hands behind her, get her up on the snuffing platform and hang her up by the ankles. If she's not strung up within that first five minute round, two more standby winners from the lottery will join you to help out for a second five minute round. Of course that means splitting your portion of her meat with them. If she's still not swinging in the breeze by the end of that round, we'll add two more hunters. If six strong men can't take down one poor tired meat girl in a third five minute round, we'll transfer her to the winners team and the six of you will go home hungry and embarrassed.

"Of course, to make the hunt more fun, we give the quarry incentives, too. If she eludes the first pair of hunters in Round One, she gets a normal dose of O drug for her snuff. If she's still free at the end of Round Two, she gets a double dose. She'll orgasm at the touch of a butterfly! And if the final group of hunters fail to hang her up by the end of Round Three, she gets to walk away from the hunt and join the winners."

Krystal and Wednesday exchanged glances.

"If I can just hold out for a double dose," Wednesday said, "they can go ahead and snuff me."

"Same here," Krystal agreed, "although it would be nice to live long enough to enjoy some extra perks."

"It would be sweet just to outlive fucking Lyra," added Wednesday.

"Your program," said the loudspeaker voice, "was printed before we knew who our losers would be, and how many, so it contains only a generic description of the hunts. For the identity of the quarry, her hunters and the weapons they will be allotted, please refer to the arena screens."

Krystal and Wednesday looked up in unison to see, "Quarry: PEBBLE, King's Rook's Pawn, 16, M3, 5'9", 147 lbs, 38D-21-39. Hunters: Charles Davenport and Henry Presnell; Omaha, Nebraska.

"The first prey is Pebble," he went on. "She was a Pawn for the Vixens but did not get a chance to show us her pluck during the match. Her hunters are Charlie Davenport and Hank Presnell. They hail from Omaha, Nebraska. Charlie has been armed with a taser dart gun and Hank has the rope to tie her up. Now that's not the kind of taser voltage that will knock down a 250-pound perp, but it will sure knock pretty Pebble on her sweet ass if he lands one. Probably take her a few seconds to get back on her feet, too. So . . . let's see how our mighty hunters fare against a determined meat girl!"

Krystal watched one of the white-gowned Breeders remove Pebble's handcuffs while a red-gowned Breeder unlocked the padlock holding her to the vertical pipe. One on each side, they took her hands and led her down the steps to the arena floor where each kissed her on a cheek and whispered something in her ear. Pebble smiled at them, and took off running to the center of the floor.

A bell clanged and a gate slid open on the south side of the arena. Two men lumbered out, the black haired man holding a gawky handgun, the taller man gripping a folded length of rope. Charlie and Hank. They ambled toward Pebble, now standing in the center of the playing field, feet apart, eyes blazing with determination to outwit these fuckers and go for the O.

They slowly separated as they drew closer, and, just as slowly, Charlie raised the taser gun to where he could sight along the barrel. He squeezed off a dart, but somehow his target wasn't there any more. The dart thudded harmlessly into the dirt at the far end of the arena. Pebble had dropped to the ground, rolled back to her feet and was zig-zagging toward the platform of chained girls. Charlie fired off two more darts. None hit their target. Pebble swung in behind one of the platform legs, waiting to bolt right or left. She watched Charlie's fingers. She had keen eyes and could see them move on the grip of the gun as he squeezed the trigger. She saw the tell-tale twitch and dove to her right, sprinting to a spot equidistant from the sides of the field and within a couple of squares of the south end. Charlie and Hank trudged relentlessly toward her. She had no idea how many darts Charlie had, but she had to assume they were endless.

This time when she sprang to the right to avoid a dart, both her pursuers charged hard to cut her off. Hank, for all his gray receding hair, was much faster than she'd guessed and nearly caught her. She had to change direction quickly, cutting to the left, but her bare feet slipped on the fake grass and she landed on her knees. As she struggled to her feet, a dart landed in her left breast. Fiery pain blasted through her torso and she screamed, falling heavily on her left arm. Before she could recover her senses and scramble to her feet, another explosion of pain ripped through her belly taking away her breath. Her wrists were yanked behind her and quickly bound before she could breathe properly again, much less think. The two men were hustling her toward the platform with the slaughter frames. As they were hauling her up the stairs, she started to kick at them, desperate to delay the inevitable. But another searing pain exploded in her right thigh and blasted away her resistance. Her senses began to reassemble as her feet were pulled upwards and apart. A bell rang somewhere just as she thought she was about to be split in two. She heard the amplified voice of the announcer as she swung to and fro upside down inside the frame.

"Two minutes and twenty five seconds! We have one-hundred-fifty-seven winners here in the stadium and in our cyberspace audience who came within five seconds of that time. Congratulations to our two hunters and the other winners. Watch your screens for the payouts."

"Poor Pebble," mourned Wednesday. "She was such a sweet girl. I hope it doesn't hurt too much when you don't have the O."

"It's pretty quick, I think," Krystal said, in a lame attempt to sound upbeat. "Just a slash with a scalpel. Better than we can hope for."

Wednesday said nothing. Krystal bit her tongue. Why had she added that last bit?

The announcer was already introducing the next event. It was Eadie. Her pair of hunters was to be given a paintball gun and a rope. Less painful for the quarry, but more colorful for the spectators. Eadie was able to recover from several painful hits with the paintballs, and was nimble enough at dodging and sprinting that it took four minutes and forty-three seconds for the two men to capture her, tie her arms behind her, drag her to the slaughter frames and hang her up. No O for Eadie, either.

The next event was more exciting. Salli, the Bishop Lyra had tried to hide behind, was beset by one hunter on horseback and another on foot. The man who had actually won her was atop the black stallion formerly ridden by the Vixen harpy. He was an experienced horseman and wasted a minute or so cantering in slow circles, cutting back and forth, getting the feel of the magnificent animal under him. Salli, a lovely black haired girl with a heart-shaped face and exquisite figure knew she didn't stand a chance. When he finally turned the horse in her direction and charged, she was terrified. The heavy thudding of its hooves, the saliva spewing left and right from its bit, the crazed gleam in its eyes — and above horse and rider a great billowing net, ready to gobble her up! Her bowels loosened! She felt hot pee flowing down her legs! She didn't know which way to dodge! They were almost on her! In a blind panic she dove left, but the rider had seen her push off on her right leg and caught her neatly like a flying fish. He dismounted in a flash and quickly wrapped the netting around his squirming catch. As he and his partner carried her up the platform steps in the net, she kicked out furiously. But there were two of them to one of her and she was thoroughly tangled in the net. They carried her like a seal in a wraparound hammock and in seconds she was upside down in the frame. They cut away the net and tied her arms together as she hung there. She wept out of shame and frustration. Her thighs were wet with the evidence of her fear, and she had not even come close to avoiding slaughter without benefit of O.

Lyra was next. How humiliating for her. She should have been first. Or last. Not in the middle between a Bishop and three Pawns. The only salve for her pride was that they would be using both horses to hunt her down. That must indicate some kind of special status! The down side was that there was no way she could escape two horsemen. But she would try!

Like the others, she had run to center field to await her pursuers. They had trotted out on the handsome black and white stallions of the harpies. But wait! The man on the white horse was not posting smoothly like his partner. He was bumping along in obvious discomfort looking far less in control. He had a paintball gun. His obviously more horse-savvy partner had a net. Lyra had seen the effectiveness of the net on the previous girl and decided her only chance would be to challenge the clumsy paintballer instead.

They were coming directly toward her, now, so she made a sudden dash toward the white horse, thinking she could grab the man's leg and pull him out of his saddle. Maybe climbing on it herself. She had no experience with paintballs or might have been more leery of the muzzle pointed in the general direction of her face. Fired at point-blank range as she hurled herself toward his leg, the impact when the ball smashed into the bridge of her nose snapped her head back in a blinding flash of red paint. She caromed off the side of the horse and landed painfully on her right shoulder. Stunned, lying on the fake grass, hooves pounding around her head, she tried to shake and blink the paint out of her eyes. In spite of pain searing her right arm and shoulder, she stumbled to her feet, only to feel the soft nylon net settle over her and whip her off her feet again. She was dragged screaming to the foot of the steps. When she started to put up a fight, the paintball partner wrapped a powerful arm around her neck from behind and stuck the barrel of his gun in her mouth. "Shall I pull the trigger?" he asked calmly. She went limp for the rest of the journey to the steel frame and was hauled up by the ankles in a record one minute and sixteen seconds. Screeching with pain as they pulled her arms behind her to tie them up, she knew her shoulder was broken. She, too, would die without an orgasm for comfort, but at least death would end her agony.

"Now , for a change of pace, we will hunt down our pretty quarry in pairs!" the announcer declared.

The next two nude girls were released from their stanchions and scurried to the center of the playing area. The screens silently bellowed out their identities. "CLOUD, 16, M3, 5'5", 130 lbs, 36C-24-36. RAVEN, 17, M2, 5'7", 138 lbs, 37D-26-36."

"The first of our pairs, a couple of pawns, look like a couple of frightened deer when stripped of their trappings, don't they? The four hunters who will pursue them, including our two lady winners, will have to chase them down on foot. But . . . they're armed with some pretty mean weapons. Cattle prods! Trust me: once you've been touched by a cattle prod, you do not want to repeat the experience. Cloud is the pale girl with the gorgeous blond hair that goes all the way down to her firm little ass. Her tawny friend with the short black hair and scrumptious tits is Raven. Let's see how much of a fight they can muster."

The two girls were huddled in midfield, trying to come up with a reasonable defense against the two men and two women advancing toward them.

"We have to split up now!" urged the blonde.

"No! If we stay together until they're close, we can run in opposite directions and they'll all be stuck here in the middle!"

"So? They'll just split and come after us in pairs!"

"And they won't if we split now?"

"Oh God! Let's just surrender! Those things hurt so much!"

"Jesus! You're such a fucking wimp! You stay here and surrender!"

Then there was no more time for strategizing. The hunters were only twenty feet away and had broken into a sprint. Both girls squealed and bolted in opposite diagonal directions. The hunters split as well, the two men following Raven, the two woman in hot pursuit of Cloud.

Cloud was covering ground fast, but soon realized she was running into a corner. She cut to the left, hoping to find a more promising direction, but it was too late. Her hunters had anticipated her belated attempt to avoid entrapment. There was no way she could run around or between them without being tagged by one of those dreaded cattle prods. As she slid to a stop, her hunters stopped running and began closing in at a leisurely walk. Cloud backed up, her mind racing, trying to figure a way out of the corner without being tagged by one of the cattle prods.

Cloud assumed these two women were lovers. There were many such pairings among the thousands of female teenagers at Musgrave. With only a few years to enjoy the pleasures of sex in their short lives and very few males available to provide it, they appeased their hormonal demands mostly with each other. Cloud had developed a loving relationship with a girl named Moxie when they were both fourteen. But Moxie had been purchased and spitted two weeks after her seventeenth birthday. Cloud, whose seventeenth was still five months away, had been devastated and had signed up for the chess game the next day as a quick way to escape her grief. She had planned to offer her exposed neck to her first opponent. Suicide by combat. Peace with the swipe of a sword. Perversely, while strapped to the table under the stands, her will to live had been revived by the gentle touches and sweet kisses of the woman who had won her. With her eyes closed, it was as though Moxie were there again, thrilling her back to life with her soft, wet tongue and delicate, exploring fingers.

Now those same fingers clutched a diabolical device whose double-pronged tip

Cloud feared far more than death. All the chess players who failed to work hard enough during training had been given a bite of that prod on at least one occasion. She remembered that touch of unimaginable pain very clearly and could not bring herself to suffer another. Her two protagonists were fit, sleekly muscled and nothing in their faces suggested mercy. They had positioned themselves to equalize the width of her escape routes around or between them. There was no way she could get by them now. It was hopeless. She threw up her hands like a mime pressing against an invisible wall.

"Please!" she wailed. "Don't use those! Please, I'll go with you. I won't resist. Please!"

"Oh, really?" said one. "Prove it. On your knees. Now!"

Cloud crouched, reluctant to drop to her knees and make herself totally vulnerable. "You promise you won't use those on me? Please?" The two women were only an arm's length away, now. Cloud hugged herself, shivering in her fear. "Please!" she keened.

"Last chance," the woman said. Both she and her partner spread their arms, nearly encompassing her, prods ready to stab her with their painful kiss.

Cloud tipped forward on to her knees. "Please! I'll do anything you say. Please!"

And she did. She held her arms behind her back so they could bind them quickly together. She let them haul her to her feet and trot her between them to the platform and up the seven stairs. She let them snap the cuffs on her ankles and hoist her feet to the upper corners of the steel frame. The bell sounded. The announcer quoted their time. The crowd cheered.

Then they smiled and reached slowly toward her with the prods.

"No!" she screamed. "You promised me!"

"Promised you? Heather, did you hear me promise this craven piece of meat anything?"

"Not a word."

"It's very naughty of her to attribute to us promises we never made, don't you agree?"

"Absolutely. She needs to be punished."

"I agree. One last lesson in manners towards her betters before we take her home in freezer bags."

"I hope she tastes better than she fights."

"I'll stick mine in her cunt. You put yours on one of her pink nipples. Let's go together at the count of three. Ready?"

"Ready? One . . . two . . ."

Cloud burst into tears. "Please don't! You promised! I did everything you wanted! Pl . . . ."

She screamed and twisted violently as pain ripped through her from both cattle prods at once. She was still twitching and weeping as the two women left the platform waving to the noisy crowd.

In the meantime, Raven's situation was quite different. She had let her hunters chase her to the north wall of the arena where she turned to face them, one foot and both hands against the wall. As they closed in, she pushed off and dove at the ground midway between them and rolled away, out of reach of their prods. Instantly she was on her feet and running back to the center. Raven had taken her training far more seriously than Cloud. She was on no suicide mission. She had planned on her team winning. She had wanted to extend her life as long as possible. That was still distantly possible and she intended to go for it.

This time she waited until the two men were nearly on her, then sprinted to her right. The man on that side held the prod in his right hand, so couldn't reach her with it as she flew by on his left. She stopped and faced them again, then repeated the same maneuver with the same results. Now the men smartened up. The man on the left switched the prod to his left hand. But this time she dove between them again as they spread out to trap her. The prods were in their outside hands and again they couldn't reach her with them.

Now they were becoming angry. The women hunters were already stringing up their half of the quarry and here they were being made fools of by an ignorant piece of Goddamned meat! They conferred together while Raven caught her breath and psyched herself up for the next round. This time instead of running, the hunters walked slowly toward her, waiting for her to make the first move. When she did, only one of the men chased directly behind her; the other followed in his wake and when she cut to the right just as the first man lunged at her, he veered to the right to take up the pursuit. She didn't want to get trapped against the wall, so she slowed to let him catch up and, as he did, stopped and threw herself at his feet. He fell over her, but managed to drag the prongs of the cattle prod across her back as he did so. Raven screamed, but got to her feet and staggered away, trying to ignore the terrible pain.

In a few seconds she had recovered control of herself. Both men ran at her again, forgetting their more successful tactic, and she eluded them again by plunging at the ground between them and rolling to her feet. She kept this up until a klaxon sounded. She had survived the first round and had earned a dose of O drug for her slaughter. She steeled herself to last another five minutes for the double dose.

The two women were now added to the hunting team arrayed against her. She tried the same trick: luring them to the wall and diving between two of the hunters; but the women were on to her. They had seen how she had shaken off the effect of the cattle prod and told the men actually to tackle her, knock her down, then use the prod to incapacitate her. It worked. A few minutes later she was hanging in one of the two remaining unoccupied frames. A girl in white came to her as she hung inverted, and injected her with the coveted pink substance that would turn death into rapture. The girls in the other frames looked on in envy.

"Our next hunt," the announcer was saying, "brings our beautiful black and white stallions back to the field. It happens that Al Fresco and Bob Morris, two of our hunters, are expert horsemen. This will be fun to watch because they will be armed with snares. They look like old fashioned buggy whips, but the long leather thongs are tipped with little steel balls that will wrap the thongs around the quarries neck, waist or ankle if she's not nimble enough to evade it.

"The quarry, as you can see on the screens, consists of an ex-Knight named Boston and an ex-Pawn named Francesca. Francesca's the cute little thing with the dark brown hair, big boobs and tiny waist. Boston's the taller, more substantial girl with the body to die for. Only, most likely, she'll be doing the dying before the day is out and Al and Bob will be feasting on those magnificent hooters. But maybe not. She's quite a fighter, I'm told. They're both 16, strong and ready to fight! Let's watch and see how this plays out. Here come our intrepid hunters!"

The gate to the hunters' waiting area slid open and the two horses thundered out. Al and Bob rode them in opposite directions around the perimeter of the arena waving ostentatiously at the crowd as the two hunters on foot strode toward the two girls in the center. The two on foot were carrying ropes. Al and Bob twirled the long leather whips with the ball weights at the end in a circle over their heads. The four hunters had worked out a plan during their long wait based on what they had seen worked best for their predecessors. They had noticed that the girls seemed to be easily intimidated by large horses galloping straight at them. Who wouldn't be? They had decided to single out one girl at a time. Al and Bob, coming from opposite directions, would force her to jump one way or the other; then the horseman on that side should be able to snare her with the whip. The men with the ropes would bind her up while Al and Bob went after the other girl. Of the two girls, Boston was obviously the strongest and most athletic; she had a defiant look in her eyes and was already talking furiously in Francesca's ear, apparently taking the leadership role. "When she's put down," Al had assured Bob and the other two hunters, "her little friend will go meekly, just like that last blonde."

The horsemen queued up facing each other from the north and south sides of the arena as planned, then charged toward the taller girl. She feinted one way, then started running in the other, but the two horses easily cut to the new direction and sandwiched her. The speed and abruptness of the move, however, caused a collision. The two horses bounced off each other, crushing the girl between them. Boston was spun around by the double impact and collapsed on the turf, her head bouncing off the artificial grass. Dazed, by the time she was back on her feet and able to take stock of the situation, the horsemen had circled back and easily sandwiched her again. This time both whips lashed out and encircled her, Al's around her neck, Bob's around her calves. As the horses cantered past she was yanked off her feet and landed painfully on her back. Al released his whip so as not to break her neck (the officials had warned him about that), but Bob held on and dragged the hapless girl to the two men with ropes who flipped her on her stomach. One tied her arms behind her while the other unwrapped the whips and handed them back to the horsemen.

They turned toward Francesca. This time it was no contest. The terrified girl sank to her heels, tucked herself into a ball and covered her head with her hands. Al dismounted with a jump, grabbed the girl by both arms and marched her ahead of him to the hanging platform, right behind Boston.

No O for them.

"Well," said the disembodied voice after announcing the time of the capture, "There's only one pair of vanquished Vixens left. This shouldn't take long."