Lady Livuetta looked across the board in the heart of the House of Balances, at that bitch Madame Catalina. The whore who had stolen her Antoine’s heart, or at least his cock, had an entire household arrayed around her in the ranks required of the game. Her over the top curves made her look like a slut in black velvet, a far cry from Livuetta’s willowy frame.
Livuetta had her own ranks, arrayed in white as she was. It had taken enough doing just to get them there. Coin for the servants in the front ranks. Demonstrations of her prowess on the board for those consenting to play the major pieces. Promises and threats. Although often not so many of those. It turned out that the attractions of the House of Balance were enough for most, even with the threat of consequences. Maybe especially with them for the likes of Reynard and Timon, her rooks. And for her sister Teresa, it hadn’t even taken that.
Teresa stood next to her, the queen to her king on the board. The two sisters looked so alike that for today, Teresa had consented to wear a mask so that they could be told apart. They were both blonde haired and blue eyed, tall and slender, and of course beautiful enough that half the country’s nobles had paid them court. Livuetta was the older by a year at nearly twenty, holder of their parents’ fortune. Teresa had come simply because Livuetta had asked it, although now she was visibly nervous. Practically shaking at the sight of some of the things around the giant board.
“It’s all right, Teresa. It’s just a day if it goes wrong. You’ve lost more than that at cards. I paid your debt, remember.”
“I remember.”
Of course, it would be more than a day for her. Livuetta was risking a lot by being there, but then, she would risk far more for revenge. On Catalina, and on Antoine, who currently stood in the queen’s place for her.
The grey cloaked figure of the Dealer stood on a platform above the centre of the board, looking from her to Catalina and back before glancing up at the audience. Those at the House came in all kinds. Those there to game. Those there to enjoy the myriad other pleasures it offered. Those there to watch.
“Lady Livuetta and Lady Catalina come here today to play for their enmity.” The voice was utterly neutral, as befitted an entity of such total balance. “That enmity will serve for my House’s pleasure, will it not?”
That got an answering yell of approval from the crowd.
“Lady Catalina and Lady Livuetta have both requested that the fate for the loser be permanent. A duel to the… finish, as it were. I ask them now, does either of them wish to back down?”
Catalina shook her head. Livuetta shook hers just as fast.
“You are aware of the other rules? This is chess, but with my House’s rules. Forfeiture to be penalised on the taken pieces, falling to my House?”
They both nodded again.
“The term is set at one year.”
“A year?” Livuetta asked. “That is not what was agreed, Dealer.”
“I set the terms.” The Dealer’s face could not be seen, “In this case, as Lady Catalina has requested. You may, of course, still withdraw. It is your choice.”
“Livy, you have to pull out of this.” Beside her, Theresa looked frantic.
Livuetta looked across at Lady Catalina, who smirked. She actually smirked. “I can win this, Theresa.”
“That isn’t the point. A year…”
“She’s put that to try to scare us off. She’s frightened of what I can do, Theresa. She knows she can’t win, so she has to get me to back off. Trust me, Theresa.” She turned back to the Dealer. “I accept, and I will reward any of my people who must serve their year most generously. If any wish to leave, let them do so now.”
No one moved.
“Very well,” the Dealer said. “Any piece who moves other than as directed from this point is forfeit. Those who are forfeit will suffer… appropriate torments.”
The devices scattered around the room that held the board. After all, chess would merely be chess without the threat of something worse for those captured. Without the distraction for those involved.
Of course, Lady Catalina would be suffering similar pangs. The Dealer had specified those close to them for the higher pieces. For Livuetta, it was her servants, her noble friends, an adventuress she knew, her sister. For Catalina, it looked a more mixed bunch. The contents of that whore house she called her court.
“White to move,” the Dealer said.
Livuetta gestured to the servant in front of her, pushing the young man forward two squares. Catalina countered by moving one of her knights. Livuetta pushed Teresa’s servant/pawn, a serving girl this time, forward to match hers. Catalina pushed her pawn forward seemingly carelessly. Livuetta swallowed. The possibility of the first capture of the game was there for the taking. She didn’t take it, pushing one of her own knights, the minor poet Obern, forward to threaten.
Catalina took her sister’s pawn with the next move. The girl stood there looking stricken as the Dealer’s people came to pull her away to the side. She was dark haired and pretty, a couple of years older than Livuetta perhaps. She tried to fight as they took her, but she fell still as the Dealer gestured. Here, the Dealer’s power was unmatchable. Even those Outsiders who came in from the planes to play had to abide by the entity’s rulings.
They stripped the woman, revealing round breasts, slender curves. They tied her wrists behind her and forced a thick gag into her mouth. They bound her ankles to her thighs. Then they carried her over to a device and forced her down onto it. It was such a simple thing, no more than a carved phallus sticking up atop a rod, lubricated so that it was glistened. The serving girl, Livuetta didn’t know her name, was pushed down onto it so that her knees just grazed the floor. The torment was obvious. What would it be like to be forced to kneel like that, Livuetta wondered, with that cock driven deep into her, forced to put more pressure on aching knees to relieve it. Forced to drive it deep into herself to take pressure off her knees?
“White’s move,” the Dealer reminded her.
Livuetta pushed thoughts of the girl from her mind. When her year was up, Livuetta would reward her handsomely. And she could take revenge immediately, of course.
“Obern, take that pawn.”
The poet/knight looked more than a little worried by that, because doing so would put him at threat from Catalina’s knight, but what choice did he have? He moved forward into the square of the black jacketed pawn, and the Dealer’s people took the young man away to the side to strip him. He begged until they gagged and bound him, then they bound him in a situation that wasn’t so far from the serving girl’s. He was forced up onto his knees, but with his impressive manhood bound to a post. Relaxing would undoubtedly be painful.
Catalina moved her knight next. Not to take Obern, simply to threaten. Livuetta moved a pawn forward to support Obern, then had to pull him back anyway when Catalina threatened him with one of hers. Catalina was surprising then, moving Antoine out into play. Livuetta was not going to risk Teresa like that, and so moved another pawn forward to threaten Catalina’s knight, forcing her to move him.
Right onto one of Teresa’s diagonals.
“Take him, sister,” Livuetta said.
Teresa looked at her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe. Take him.”
Teresa moved across, making the lightest of touches on the man’s shoulder. The dealer’s people quickly hauled him away to the side. They stripped him, stretching him out on a frame so that everyone could see his taut muscles. They shoved a gag into his mouth. Then they started to flog him, not hard, but with the clear suggestion that they weren’t planning to stop, ignoring his whimpers of protest. The steady slap of the flogger formed a background beat to the contest.
Livuetta looked over at Catalina, but the woman’s face was unreadable. She moved Antoine, her queen, across the board, seemingly ignoring the way that left another of her pawns, a young woman this time, vulnerable to Obern.
Livuetta took her without mercy. It was only as she did it that she caught sight of Obern’s frantic signalling and realised her mistake. A powerfully built woman who was one of Catalina’s bishops swept forward to take him a moment later.
A mistake, and such a mistake. She was a fool! No, she was distracted. Distracted by the sight of the flogging. The moans of those forced into uncomfortable positions already in the contest.
It was too late now. The guards took both Obern and the young woman who was the pawn to the side, stripping them together. They took them to something that resembled a cooking spit, tying Obern atop it at the woman beneath, both pressed tight together.
“The game for the two of you is simple,” the Dealer said. “You will pleasure one another with your mouths. The one on top will be beaten. Every time the one on the bottom climaxes, the wheel will turn a half step. I advise you to work diligently. I am sure our patrons will enjoy the bets on how long each turn will take.”
A cruel fate for Obern. Not only was he on top to start, but Livuetta had no doubt that any slut from Catalina’s house would know how to suck a cock well. A quick glance at the other taken ‘pieces’ revealed that the knight who had been flogged was now having his cock stroked to hardness by a beautiful young man, while the two pawns were writhing in their bonds. She forced her attention back to the game.
She moved a pawn forward, threatening the bishop who had just moved, but with the trap of another pawn waiting should Catalina take it. And should she not… except she came up with another move. Casually, she brought forward a dark skinned woman dressed in swirls of black silks, her other knight. Livuetta had the sense to pause this time before taking the piece she wanted, and saw that the knight was now in a place to take…
“Teresa, move!”
Teresa ducked back behind a pawn. It was all Livuetta could do to protect them both, although it allowed Catalina’s bishop-whore to pull back again. She tried to think; not an easy thing to do over the swinging of the whips and the moans of the taken.
Livuetta started to develop her pieces, bringing out the red-haired adventuress who had agreed to be her other knight. Catalina moved a pawn. Livuetta considered the golden haired brother and sister who were her bishops, who had laughed so much when they agreed to this, sending forward the brother. Catalina pulled her bishop back. Livuetta moved a pawn, Catalina her rook.
Back and forth it went, jockeying for position. It was almost impossible to ignore the moans in the background. The occasional cries as whippings and fuckings switched places for the captured knights. It seemed to Livuetta that the severity of what the house had in store relied as much on the piece’s value as anything, so what would the House of Balance have in store for Teresa? For her?
She castled with Reynard, not wanting to find out. The muscular minor noble smiled, and Catalina used her remaining knight to take the pawn who had been standing in front of her. The dark skinned woman gave the young man an almost contemptuous kiss before the guards dragged him to the side, stripping him and binding him tightly in a bow, a plug forced into his anus, another one protruding from a hood they forced over his head, so that he had to take it into his mouth. His cock, they forced into a kind of cage, locking it tightly.
Livuetta retaliated by sending the brother bishop forward to stand just a square from Catalina, threatening her and taking the serving woman in front of her in the process. This girl had dark hair in a braid and a slender body. The guards attached rope to that braid, pulling it taut through her legs, then tying her arms down to a bolt behind her so that she could choose pressure on either her arms or her cunt. She moaned as they pulled the ropes tight. Livuetta smiled over at Catalina as the other woman was forced to move to avoid being taken.
She was so pleased that she made a mistake the next move, bringing Timon, her other rook, to the centre to join Reynard. That, however, allowed Catalina to take another of her pawns with Antoine. This young man was made to kneel by a wall, a pulley system taking pressure off a rope around his cock only when he moved well forward, and to do that, he had to take the wooden phallus before him deep into his throat.
“Too many more moves like that and you’ll be mine,” Lady Catalina called out.
“Keep leaving Antoine in the middle of the board, and I’ll have him first,” Livuetta countered. She moved up the red haired adventuress, hoping to force more movement. Catalina just moved Antoine back, and Livuetta found herself with a choice between protecting the bishop brother and protecting the adventuress. She moved Teresa over in a bid to protect both, then took an offered up pawn with one of her own. Catalina moved Antoine forward while the Dealer’s people stripped and bound the girl on her hands and knees, a metal hook shoved into her anus and tied to a head harness, forcing her to arch her back brutally. She knelt there, a look of shock on her face at her fate. Catalina had given her up like she was nothing.
Livuetta used the adventuress to take a pawn, only to find Catalina using her bishop to sweep forward to take one of hers. The two young men quickly found themselves tied face to face, body to body, cock to cock. Livuetta had other problems. For the first time in the game, she was under threat. Not a deep threat, one move avoided it, but a threat nonetheless.
She tried to be more aggressive, sending Timon forward to take the dark skinned knight. She walked off, ashen as she saw what was being prepared for her. It was a frame of moving parts, into which the Dealer’s people clamped her as she begged. There were clamps for her nipples and her labia, cuffs for her ankles and wrists. And there were phalluses on poles, three of them, connected by strange artifice to the rest. Those went into every hole the knight-whore had, and it was obvious that any movement she made would set them moving and plunging while other arms pulled on the clamps. Livuetta smiled at that. She would have enjoyed doing all of that to the slut herself.
“What will you do now, bitch?” Livuetta asked.
Of course, Catalina did the only thing she could. She sent Antoine forward to take Timon and put Livuetta in threat again. Opening Antoine up to being captured just the way she had… Livuetta saw the danger while the guards were stripping Timon. While they were binding his hands strappado fashion, forcing him to bend over between two women. The one in front pulled his mouth to the naked junction of her thighs. The one behind had a strap on phallus obviously intended for only one use. A use that Timon begged against, and then cried out at, until he was forced back to pleasuring his captors.
The bishop in the corner. The powerfully built woman who had backed away so readily, seemingly out of the action. The last move had left her with a straight line to Teresa.
“No,” Livuetta said, but she could see it now. Now that it was too late. There was no way that she could protect Teresa and herself. It was the classic dilemma. Except that it didn’t feel quite so classical and cold right then. Livuetta looked over at Teresa, and she could see that her sister knew what might be coming. She could see her shaking. In desperation, Livuetta moved Reynard forward, offering him up in the slender hope that Catalina might take him instead.
She didn’t. Catalina’s smirk of triumph was bad as she moved Antoine across to Teresa, but Antoine’s look was worse. He was enjoying it. He sauntered over, touching Teresa so lightly on the shoulder.
“No,” Livuetta said. “No.”
“Yes,” the Dealer replied. “You knew the stakes. You know the stakes. Remain in your square, or forfeit all.”
Teresa cried as they stripped her, slowly revealing the beauty of her slender body. They took everything from her, even the mask. They took her to a slender length of wood balanced between two saw horses, starting to tie her with rope, wrenching her arms behind her until her palms met between her shoulder blades. Wrapping ropes around her breasts. Tying her hair to the rest of the knots, so that she couldn’t even look straight ahead. They balanced her above the wooden horse, tying her feet to either end of a pole spread wide, so that she was forced to straddle it obscenely as they let her down onto it, just her toes touching the ground as they strove to keep some of the weight of her body from pressing down through her most intimate parts onto the plank.
They went further then, running clamps beneath the horse, connecting them to each of Teresa’s labia while she cried out. Connecting weights to her breasts so that any movement brought a whimper. They gave her a gag, an oversized thing that seemed to distend her mouth, but it did nothing to let Livuetta tear her eyes away.
“White to play,” the Dealer said evenly.
Livuetta took Antoine with the young man who was one of her bishops. Any other time, that would have felt so good. It would have been so much fun to see him stripped and suspended above the floor, weights tied to his manhood. It would have felt good to see the male attendant who stepped up behind him, forcing his way into Antoine while her former lover begged at being used in a way he had no desire for. Even the sight of one of her pawns being taken, the young man tied and forced to stand before Antoine so that her former lover could take him into his mouth, did nothing to her.
She looked around at all those who had been taken. The servant pawns, tied so tightly. The knights, beaten and fucked or just held in that impossible device that held Catalina’s dark skinned beauty. Timon, taken and abused so relentlessly. And Teresa. At the heart of it all, Teresa, her skin already sweat slick.
No, she needed to focus. Win first, then try to find a way to reason with the Dealer. Maybe it would take another bet for Teresa.
Livuetta moved the noble woman bishop across, trying to set up a threat to Catalina. The big, muscled woman who was Catalina’s bishop moved to threaten Reynard. And Livuetta couldn’t move him for fear of putting herself in harm’s way. She moved other pieces, trying to threaten Catalina. Trying to distract her attention. She took Reynard two moves later.
They gagged him and placed him in the centre of a whipping cross. A woman and a man moved in perfect synchronisation to him, a selection of implements set out before them on a small table. Reynard screamed as they started even through the gag.
Livuetta took the woman bishop herself, enjoying the look of surprise as she realised that Catalina had sacrificed her. They took her almost gently, tying her beneath a frame to which dozens of candles had been affixed. It was easy to see that the least movement, even breathing too much, would bring wax down. The whore was far from still, and she screamed as heat touched her flesh, each writhing move of pain bringing more wax. Good.
But Livuetta’s position was not good. She had her bishops left, the adventuress who was her knight, and three pawns. Catalina had both her rooks, a bishop, and as many pawns. She managed to manoeuvre her knight around to take a pawn who looked quite beautiful as they stretched her out on the floor with leather belts, but the move was one of instinct, not thought, and one of Catalina’s rooks quickly took the knight in revenge. The adventuress struggled, but the Dealer’s people quickly had her fastened against a wooden post, bent over, her arms tied to it behind her back and above her head while a phallus on a pole kept her in position. She could relieve the pressure on her arms and cunt only by pressing forward harder into the post, on strained tiptoes.
Desperately, Livuetta tried to use her brother and sister bishops in concert to pin one of the rooks, but she wasn’t thinking clearly now. She couldn’t stop glancing back to Teresa, moving in terrified, pained rhythm on the wooden horse. She didn’t even see the trap until a rook took the brother. They gave him a perch trapped against a pole, his genitals tied to a pulley with another pole opposite, clamps covering almost every inch of his flesh. The message was obvious.
Livuetta pulled the sister back to herself, ignoring the obvious fury on the other woman’s face at the stupidity of her previous move. With no other options, she started to shepherd her remaining pawns up the board, knowing that it was futile even as she did it, but unwilling to just give in.
To her amazement, the shepherding seemed to work. Catalina committed a rook, a sinuous eastern woman, and Livuetta took her with her remaining bishop. They stretched her wide between two posts, naked, her legs fully split, her arms tied strappado. Beneath her, the same mechanisms that worked on Catalina’s first knight drove cocks up into her cunt and anus while she screamed.
Catalina brought her remaining bishop, a barbarian man, forward, and Livuetta used the noble girl to take him too. He ended up opposite her bishop, trapped in a tug of war with only pain for both parties. Yet another move by the girl took one of Catalina’s remaining pawns, a young man who quickly found himself tied inside her when Catalina brought her rook down to take the noblewoman in turn. The Dealer’s helpers bound them face to face, the pawn’s shaft buried in her, while a whip worked her back, forcing her to move atop him.
Livuetta played a chasing game with the rook for a few turns, then took advantage of a brief change of tack from Catalina. She drove one of her pawn servants to the end of the board.
“I want to make her a queen!” Livuetta said. She pointed to where Teresa was sweat soaked and moaning now. “Release her.”
The Dealer shook its head. “The pawn is now a queen. The original piece remains taken.”
“But-”
“I have made my decision.”
Livuetta bunched her hands into fists. She barely even noticed as Catalina took another pawn, threatening her. She barely noticed as the young woman was tied up into a tight ball, clamped by her nipples to a ring in the floor. She barely even noticed as she made another queen of her last pawn, only for the rook to take it. Only for her to immediately take the rook.
The two men were lucky. They were merely tied into the middle of a machine, forced to suck one another’s shafts while more clockwork and balances thrust into them. Even the audience didn’t care by then. Livuetta was hunting Catalina.
Now it was Catalina’s turn to try to push her last pawn to the end. Livuetta knew she could not allow it. With so much ruined, so many people bound up and sworn to the House for a whole year… no, she would not let that be in vain. She followed Catalina with her new queen, hunting down her last pawn. Taking the young man almost apologetically, so that he could be bound up, stretched back on his knees.
Catalina had no pieces left but herself. Livuetta chased Catalina. This could still be a draw played wrong. A draw, from all this… carnage. She could not allow that. She would not allow that. Slowly, carefully, she stalked her. Finally…
“You’re taken, you bitch!” Livuetta fell to her knees as she said it. “You’re mine.”
Catalina looked around her, apparently in shock. Then she stood tall. “I might be yours, but look at what it cost you.”
Livuetta looked. She looked at all her servants but one, bound up. She looked at noble friends and acquaintances being hurt or fucked or both. She looked at her sister, still bound to the wooden horse, crying freely now. Then she looked back at Christina.
“In a year, they’ll be free. Maybe sooner, if I can make a deal. You won’t be. Ever. Now strip, slave.”
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31.10.13
story continues in Chess Part 2: Double or Quits
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