_____		___		_____
		DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
		Sweet Jamie Seaton & the Abominable Avengement of Lady Freddie Brightman A one chapter mini-story by Van © 2005

MARGO WELL'S PRIVATE RESORT
GONDALOO ISLAND, GREAT BARRIER REEF
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

---

The palmcom in Penny's hand beeped, signaling that she had returned to the start of the proposed "short bridal path" of the resort's long-awaited riding stables.  The layout of the complex was more or less finalized, but Penny insisted on walking the entire site herself, especially the paths and trails.  Among other concerns, she wanted to be sure the disturbance to the island's natural habitats would be minimized.  This was hardly an afterthought.  Maintaining, and even enhancing, the native populations of plants and animals was a cornerstone of all development on Gondaloo.

Margo's architects and Gondaloo Eve's site planning always got things exactly right, but Penny was the resort's Official Hotelier, and she saw it as her personal duty to verify as many of the details as her merely human senses would allow.  And so far, her senses were pleased.  On the mountain side of the loop, the path's gentle curves snaked between the forest giants, and on the ocean side, only a few stunted saplings near the beach would have to be sacrificed.  They were too close to the surf zone to ever thrive, anyway.

Penny was dressed in cargo shorts, a sleeveless top, hiking boots, and a TESSERACT ballcap.  Despite having set a rapid pace for herself, she had hardly broken a sweat.  "I think we have a winner, Eve," Penny said, speaking into the palmcom's tiny microphone.  "That's the last thing on my list, isn't it?"

"The verify-Eve's-already-perfect-plan list?" Gondaloo-Eve responded.  "Yes."  There was an mistakable teasing tone to the AI's synthesized, Irish accented voice.

"What other list have I got going?" Penny teased back.

"The torture Jamie list?"

Penny's smile broadened.  "Oh, that list.  And where are we vis-à-vis my favorite biologist?"

The map of the proposed stable complex disappeared from the palmcom's tiny screen and the list in question began to paint the screen line-by-line, as Eve spoke.

"Step one: trick Jamie into bondage—check!
 Step two: drag her to interactive VR suite number seven—check!
 Step three: slice and/or rip off her clothes—check!
 Step four: bind her to the Special Platform using cuffs, collar, and the Special Rope—check!
 Step five: tell the victim she has exactly one hour to escape... or else!—check!  In fact..."

"Yes?"

'The hour expired quite some time ago," Eve intoned, "and before you ask, no, she hasn't escaped, nor is she going to."

"So, I'm late," Penny huffed.  "The short path is, what, five kilometers?  Did you expect me to run it?  I've already had my daily workout."

"The point is, you're late," Eve scolded.   "Very bad form for a villainess, I must say."

"Of course you must," Penny giggled.  "Anyway, please forward phase one of the stable complex to Margo for her final approval."

"As we speak," Eve answered.  "I predict we'll receive the go-ahead for groundbreaking in less than twelve hours."

"Excellent!"  Penny started walking back towards the main resort.  "So... back to poor little helpless Jamie.  What's next?"

"Step six: gloating and exposition."

Excellent!" Penny repeated, and slipped the palmcom into the pocket of her cargo shorts.

Jamie tugged on her bonds.  She'd established long ago that they were completely inescapable and that she was totally (and deliciously) helpless... but how else was she to pass the time?  Penny had left her on her back, on a hard, flat platform, with her arms and legs splayed in a loose spread-eagle.  Red leather cuffs were buckled around her wrists and ankles, and a red leather collar around her throat.  In addition, meters of red rope criss-crossed the platform and her naked body.

The cuffs and collar were thick, wide, and tight, without being too tight.  They were secured with tiny padlocks, so even if Jamie could somehow reach the unreachable buckles, she knew she wouldn't be able to remove anything.

The rope keeping her pinned to the platform had no knots—nothing terminal, that is.  If there were any free ends, they were out of sight and safely out of reach.  A few of the ropes were looped around her body and hitched through themselves, trapping her torso in a semi-loose embrace; but most of the strands traveled through pulleys and tiny blocks around the periphery of the platform, then back and forth across her body and limbs without seeming to be tied to anything.  The cuffs and collar had small rings that were included in the rope's pattern... if you could call it a pattern.  The red tangle was more or less a random web.

There was one other significant property of the system.  When Jamie tugged on a cuff or tried to lift her head, the ropes shifted.  It was puzzlingly complex.  If she pulled a fraction of an inch on the left wrist cuff, several strands of rope would slide across her skin in response, some only a little, but some as much as a couple of inches.  Pull on something else, and other ropes would slide, in the same disproportional manner.

In addition, the braided, nylon sheath of the rope had a strange texture.  Jamie could see (and feel) tiny specks of clear plastic, as if pinpoint sections of the entire length of the rope had been melted at closely-spaced, regular intervals, then allowed to cool into beads of slag.  Nothing was rough or scratchy, but it felt... peculiar as it slid against her body.

Jamie willed herself to stop struggling.  It was pointless, and she had a sinking feeling that she should be saving her strength.

The walls and ceiling of the suite were illuminated in a slowly roiling, red glow.  She knew it was a relatively simple projected effect, but it was as if Jamie and the platform holding her captive were floating in a vermilion fog.  It was mildly disorienting, which, obviously, was the point.

Also, red was Jamie's least favorite color, so red restraints in a red room were simply one more torment for "Lady Freddie" to visit upon her innocent victim.

Suddenly, a door opened in the swirling red mist, and Jamie's wait was over.  Lady Freddie Brightman made her Grand Entrance.  Penny had delayed her already tardy return to the scene of her current crime to change into costume; specifically, a black latex catsuit, a red and black leather corset, black thigh boots, and black leather opera gloves.

Jamie shivered in her bonds, an appreciative smile on her pixie face.  Her "evil" captor was an incredibly erotic sight.  "Very nice," the helpless, naked captive sighed, then tossed her head, shaking her tousled red bangs from her face.  "Not exactly a period costume, though," she chided.

Penny was staring back, drinking in every naked curve and dimple of her beloved prisoner's pale, freckled skin.  "I've been thinking about that," the tall blonde purred.  "Victorian or Edwardian jungle hijinks are all well and good, but why limit ourselves?"  She struck a dominant pose (not a difficult feat, given the circumstances).  "Meet Lady Freddie, contemporary International Criminal Genius, and welcome to her Secret Subterranean Lair."

"Displeased to meet ya," Jamie giggled.  "And I am?"

"Oh, Jungle Jamie's great great granddaughter, if you like," Penny said, "or, Secret Agent Jamie, code name Freckle Fox?"

"Good one!"

"Thank you," Penny said, executing a polite bow.  "And since I've got dominant and not-so-dominant personas in the roles of Lady Freddie and Lady Penelope, you need at least two different role-playing identities as well.  Your dominant form will be Jungle Jamie, Agent Freckle Fox, Captain Jamie of the Space Patrol—"

"Oh, I like that one, too," Jamie laughed, squirming in her bonds.

"And your subbie-side," Penny continued, "shall be... Sweet Jamie."

Jamie shuddered in horror.  "Sweet Jamie??  Crikes!  That's terrible!"

Penny smiled sweetly.  "Yes, isn't it?" she agreed.  "A feisty little tomboy such as yourself with a nom de partie like Sweet Jamie?  Terrible!  Incidently, I have Eve shopping for the appropriate costumes.  Frilly baby-doll nighties and dressing gowns, petticoats, flouncy skirts, the sort of things Suzie Sunshine would think were too girlie."

"And the sort of things Lady Penelope would love," Jamie sneered.  "I'll never wear any of it."

Penny's smile became even sweeter.  "Not by choice, anyway" she amended, leaned close, and kissed Jamie's left nipple.  "Lady Freddie will have a lot of fun playing dress-up with her Sweet Jamie dolly, and holding tea parties."

"Tea parties from hell," Jamie growled.  "I'll fight ya, ya know."

A quiver of pure affection shivered through Penny's sex and up her spine.  She leaned even closer, and kissed Jamie's right nipple.  "I'm counting on it," she whispered.

Jamie blushed.  "I'm sorry I've been such a bitch in recent weeks," she whispered back, "during the Tree House inauguration, and all."

"I know," Penny said with a sincere smile.  "That's why you were so easy to capture this morning.  You let me slap those cuffs on you."

Jamie gasped in outrage.  "I did no such thing!"

"Yes, you fought like a hellcat," Penny said sarcastically, "or maybe a hell-kitten.  You've been expecting me to take my revenge."

"Fair is fair," Jamie sighed.  "Now... what are you going to do with me, you monster?"

Penny's evil/sweet smile returned.  "What am I going to do?  Why, nothing, Sweet Jamie... but I've got friends, you see."  A quiet, mechanical, clattering noise echoed through the room, and Penny directed her gloating attention to the edge of the platform, between Jamie's splayed legs.

Jamie lifted her head to follow her captor's gaze—and froze in her bonds.

A robot spider, roughly the size of a tarantula, had clambered over the edge of the platform and was waving its plastic pedipalps and fangs in Jamie's direction.

"Uh, I don't recognize that model," Jamie said, nervously.

"They're new," Penny explained, "something Eve-L developed for Kitty-Kat."

"It's an obvious robot," Jamie noted.  "There's no effort at camouflage, or to make it mimic a real spider."  In point of fact, the little machine's plastic body was a gleaming red.

"Oh, it's not one of Eve's surveillance and security units," Penny said, referring to the many spider and crab-bots already patrolling Gondaloo's jungles and beaches.  "Big Red and her sisters are interrogation specialists.  You see... they have TIKLER beads embedded on the ends of their feet and mouth-parts."

Jamie stared at the artificial arachnid in horror, then turned her gaze to her captor (and lover).  "TIKLER beads?  You wouldn't!"

"I told you," Penny gloated.  "Not me... them."  There was more mechanical scrambling and a dozen more red spider-bots joined the first.  "Eve-L has them all specialized.  There are foot ticklers, toe ticklers; goose-spiders and pussy-probers; boob-bouncers and nipple-teasers; bots for the neck, armpits, thighs, ribs... and then there are the generalized wander-around-and-tickle-everything spiders."

"You evil, sadistic witch!"

"It takes one to know one," Penny laughed.  "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the rope."

"What?  What about the rope?  It's red.  I hate it.  Happy?"

Penny reached out and began gently stroking Jamie's left breast with one gloved hand.  "It's encrusted with TIKLER beads, some tuned to tickle, and some to arouse.  As you squirm and struggle, the rope will slide and tickle and tease, wherever it touches your peachy-pink skin."

Jamie's eyes were wide as saucers.  "I... I'll die!" she protested, shivering in horror.

"Don't be silly," Penny reassured her victim.  "What would be the fun in that?  Eve-L popped in from Seattle, and she'll be monitoring and controlling everything.  She'll make sure your vital signs stay within safe parameters, that you maintain a constant state of distress and/or arousal.  And, of course, she'll make sure you don't cum more than once an hour."

"Penny!" Jamie whined, a heartrending, pouting frown on her freckled face.

"She has all that baseline data from the many times Kat has tortured you," Penny explained, "so she has a high degree of confidence she'll be able to fiddle your helpless body like the proverbial Stradivarius."

"I'll die," Jamie repeated in a sad whisper.

"No, you'll only wish you were dead."  Penny reached behind her back and produced a red leather ring-gag.  "The final touch."

"No—m'mmpfh!"

Penny had thrust the padded ring in Jamie's mouth and was buckling the strap at the nape of her neck.  She tugged on the strap until Jamie's cheeks bulged and the ring locked behind her teeth.  Penny leaned close and gazed into her captive's green eyes.  "That's so you won't disturb poor Evil-Eve while she's trying to concentrate on her work."  She kissed Jamie's forehead, noting the film of sweat glistening on her lover's worried face.

Penny stood erect, and the door opened behind her back.  "Well, I'll abandon you to your horrible fate, now, Sweet Jamie.  I'll be back, sometime in the vague, distant future.  Play nice with my spiders."  She took several steps backwards, the door closed, and only the uniform, swirling red glow of the projected background remained.  Jamie was alone.

Well, not quite alone.

More mechanical skittering noises echoed through the chamber, and more spider-bots began climbing over the edge of the platform and slowly scrambling over the ropes towards the helpless redhead.  Even more spider-bots began lowering through the red mist overhead, dangling on fine lines of transparent wire and waving their many legs.

Jamie watched the approaching mechanical horrors with wide-eyed distress.  Oh, crikes!  I'll never think of something to top this!

The TIKLER beads on the tips of the first spider's feet were flashing ruby and emerald.  It paused, then touched Jamie's right foot.  An unbearable itching sensation rippled across Jamie's sole and between her toes!  At the same time, the ropes pinning her to the platform began to twinkle with red and green light, and added their own nerve-stimulating torment.  Jamie forced a gurgling, whining scream through her gag as more and more of the spider-bots joined the assault.

 

Penny emerged from the maintenance tunnels and made her way to her apartment.  She went straight to her bed and pulled wide leather cuffs from hidden compartments in the headboard and the foot of the platform.  They were attached to long, heavy cables that disappeared into holes in the frame.  She wrapped and buckled the cuffs around her wrists and ankles, over her gloves and boots.

She didn't undress, because, in point of fact, she couldn't.  Her catsuit, corset, boots and gloves were all secured with heavy zippers and tiny padlocks.  The locks were radio controlled, and only Eve had the key frequency.

"No more than five hours, Eve," she ordered, "and don't make her suffer too much."

The mirror on the far wall rippled and resolved into an image of Gondaloo-Eve.  "Goin' soft, are we?"

"I feel like a rat for doing this to her," Penny confessed, "but she'll never forgive me if I just... forgive her.  I have to take some form of revenge, and it can't be too easy."

"Agreed," Eve responded.  "Testing."

Penny yelped and flinched.  The cables trailing from her wrists and ankles whipped and snapped as she shuddered and twitched.  "Ahhh!  Not yet!"  The dildo buried in her sex had come to vibrating, squirming life—then gone still.

"Only a test," Eve said, a gloating tone in her characteristic Irish lilt.

"Make it four hours," Penny said, reached for a roll of wide, transparent, dermafoam tape, and ripped off an eight-inch strip.  "Only four hours."  She pursed her lips and plastered the center of the tape over her mouth.  She pulled the ends tight against her cheeks, then smoothed out any wrinkles with her gloved fingers.  She then flopped onto the bed and splayed her limbs into a spread-eagle, making sure there were no loops or kinks in the cables attached to her cuffs.

"I take it you're ready," Eve said.  The cables whined and reeled into the holes in the bed frame, and Penny was pulled into a business-like stretch.  Simultaneously, the image of Gondaloo-Eve morphed into Eve-L.

Penny blinked in surprise and stared at the screen.  This was unexpected.

"Oh, Lady Freddie," Eve-L sighed.  "Tsk, tsk.  You call yourself evil?  You invite me out here to exploit my diabolical talents—to use me to torture your precious Jamie—then you ask Gondalevie to ease your conscience by entertaining you while I entertain her... meaning Freckle Fox."  The screen behind her rippled, and now Eve-L was superimposed on an image of a writhing, struggling, giggling Jamie.  The helpless redhead's naked body was covered with creeping, crawling red spider-bots.

"Using me, a specialist avatar, to do your dirty work while you play with the local nexus?  How very rude.  No way to treat a guest, carbon or silicon-based."  Eve-L pointed towards Penny's crotch.  "Ping!"

The dildo buzzed to life.  Penny screamed through her tape-gag and pulled on her bonds.

"Hmm..."  Eve-L looked Penny's writhing form up and down with a critical eye.  "Too much wiggle room," she decided.

Penny's bonds snapped taut and her spread-eagle was now what you'd have to call strict.

"Four hours," Eve-L scoffed.  "The original agreement was ten hours, and ten hours it shall be, for both of you."

Penny whined in complaint.

"Oh, don't be like that," Eve-L scolded.  "You should have read the fine print of the out-sourcing contract."  She affected a sly grin.  "Silly me, I never printed it out for you, did I?  No matter.  If you had read said contract, you would have seen the 'Duration/Intensity Discretion' clause, and the 'Kat Vets Everything' clause.  Anyway, our initial discussions bandied the phrase 'all day', and Kat and I agree that you'll never forgive what's left of yourself, after all this is over, if we let you whimp out."

Penny whined again, then shuddered as the dildo brought her to climax.

"That was quick," Eve-L observed, "but then, you've been dripping with pussy-juice since you first snapped the cuffs on Freckle Fox, haven't you?"  Eve-L's evil smile returned.  "To continue...  I love gloating and exposition as much as the next villainess, by the way...  Ten hours, yes, but after an initial period of peak intensity for the Fox, I'll dial back the tickling, dial up the arousal, and we'll see how long she can hover on the edge.  And there will be hourly orgasms.  I'll see to it, and I guarantee they'll be humdingers."

Penny tugged on her bonds and panted in distress, then squealed as the dildo came back to life.  She knew Margo and Eve-Prime had programmed Eve-L with a cruel sense of humor.  She was Kat's cyber-partner, after all.  But they'd also included strict safeguards that made it impossible for her to do any real harm.  Also, all the AI's, Eve-L included, tended to be rather legalistic.  There probably was a contract on file on some TESSERACT server, somewhere, and it almost certainly had the clauses mentioned.  Come to think of it, Penny reasoned, it's probably required by the Inner Circle Bylaws.  Artificially Intelligent due dilligence.  I'll have to ask Anne.  Drat and bother!—"Nrmf!"  The dildo began wiggling and buzzing, making further cogent thought difficult.

"And as for you, Blondie," Eve-L continued, "I'll be making you cum as often as possible, for the next ten hours.  I have a hypothesis that carefully timed, very brief naps of beta-enhanced sleep can compensate for endorphin depletion, and I might be able to induce REM-state orgasms!  There's no way you'll last anything like the full ten hours, of course.  Eventually you'll settle into a nice, exhausted, post-orgiastic coma; but we'll give it the ol' college try!"

Penny was barely able to process Eve-L's words.  She writhed in her bonds and mewled through her gag.  The dildo was TIKLER-enhanced, and it was bringing her to climax, again!  On the screen, Eve-L's simulated image had shrunk to a large icon and had migrated to one of the lower corners.  This left Penny with a virtually unobstructed view of her bound, gagged, struggling, and sweating lover.  Spider-bots were clustered around Jamie's feet, breasts, and sex, with the remainder riding the ropes near other parts of her pale, freckled body.  Every now and then, one would reach out and touch an armpit, or ribs, or some other part of her helpless body.  Oh god, what have I done?  And then Penny came.

"Don't worry about your precious Jamie," Eve-L said, as if reading Penny's thoughts.  "Only a few more minutes of intense tickling to go, then we settle into a nice, long, gentle period of total erotic denial.  I'll try to time things so you're still awake when it's time for her first hourly mega-orgasm."

And Kat vetted all this? Penny thought.  Revenge on Eve-L was almost certainly impossible, and would be small satisfaction.  The AI was only doing what she'd been programmed to do, after all.  Katherine Mayfair, however, was another matter.  Just you wait 'til Lady Freddie gets her hands on Kitty-Kat, Penny promised herself, then shivered in sweat-soaked dread as once again, the dildo began to buzz, heralding the start of round three.

In her corner of the screen, Eve-L conjured a comfy recliner, settled into the soft cushions, then threw a lever on the side of the chair and put her feet up.  "Quite the challenge," the tiny avatar sighed, "keep one damsel on the edge for as long as possible, and make the other cum as often as possible."  She smiled, in her evil, maniacal, disturbing way.  "Good thing I love multi-tasking."