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Voyage Out 6 (m/f, 18+): Yelena Kant Stop Laughing
Here’s the latest installment of The Voyage Out. A little racier than usual, and a brief departure from our core of heroines. There’s a lot of buildup, but a big payoff, I promise. Feedback cherished.
This story is for readers 18+ years of age only.
The Voyage Out Part Six: Facing the Board. Plans for Vengeance, and a New Quest. Yelena Kant Stop Laughing.
The Yelena Kant who walked into the executive offices of the Kandaele Corporation the day following the finale of the cruise ship debacle looked strikingly different from the one who had tormented Leah and the others, and sworn her revenge amid swirling streams of crackling energy. The world that had produced her, this crazed, naïve vision of paradise, was a patchwork of cultures, ways of life, and even levels of civilization—some areas were like visions from a fantasy novel, complete with knights, wizards, dragons, and castles, while others, perhaps only a few miles away, were shining urban megaplexes, World’s Fair visions of the City of the Future. To function effectively beyond one’s own little postage stamp of world, one had to adapt to the expectations of other places. Yelena Kant did so eagerly and effortlessly.
Today the sinister sorceress had traded in the robes and capes that typically denoted her profession in favor of a smart grey business suit, expertly tailored and wildly expensive, with a short skirt that showcased her trim, shapely legs. Her waves and waves of dark crimson hair, which fell below her waist when set free, was confined in an elaborate bun, simultaneously conservative and fascinating as an engineering marvel. The ivory pallor that came over her flawless skin when she worked her magicks had abated, returning healthy color to her high cheekbones and even conveying the hint of a tan. Her makeup, considerably less dramatic than it was when she embraced her sorceress mode, was artistic and effective, enhancing the naturally arch beauty of her patrician features but hinting at a bit more humanity than her coldly stunning aspect usually bore. Her only real affectation was the stiletto heels of her crimson pumps.
Yelena’s somewhat under-dramatized appearance, by her standards, was consistent with the tenor of the day. She was here, much as she hated it, much as she dreaded it, to eat crow. The results she had given the board in her report were a far cry from their expectations—she had brought them no slaves from the other side, no sources of energy with untraceable origins and no legal liabilities. She had gained access to an enormous amount of money, but that would be next to useless on this side, and she would have to turn over the wealth she had thought would go only to herself and Caliban as a peace offering to the board. This was not good at all. Thankfully, she was the only sorceress they had, and probably the most powerful mystic in this world—at least, the most powerful who was willing to use her abilities as they wanted her to—and they would not jeopardize their alliance with her. Still, she fully expected to take her lumps during this meeting.
She nodded curtly at the fawning male secretary as he pressed a button under his desk, causing the great mahogany double doors to the board room to whisper open. Yelena Kant strode into the vast room, lit pleasantly by the afternoon sun as it streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. A massive table took up most of the room, far larger than anything the small and exclusive board would ever need. Yelena bowed to the Chair, nodded to the other three, and sat primly in her soft, fragrant leather chair. Feeling their eyes on her, Yelena opened her stylish briefcase and began leafing aimlessly through the pages of her report.
There were four of them, including herself—the central board of this unnamed consortium of the world’s wealthiest, most ruthless, and most powerful. The chair was Owen MacArthur, who, like many others in this strangely artificial but all-too-real world, looked as if he had been created to be exactly what he was—a rich, powerful, stern businessman. He was also an unmitigated bastard, even by Yelena’s standards. Seated in his massive, thronelike leather chair, bedecked in his obscenely expensive suit, the silver-haired mogul regarded Yelena with hawkish eyes over steepled fingers. His very bearing whispered gravitas; his wardrobe screamed it. MacArthur was heir to the first and still most successful corporation on the world of Eldrun—they had been pioneers, centuries ago, in amplifying and harnessing mirth energy, improving economy and efficiency immensely. Thanks in large part to them, the laughter generated by everyday life was enough to keep most public works functioning in the more industrialized cities. MacArthur, distant descendant of the altruistic scientist/sorcerer who had developed the first mirth-amplifiers, was also the first to manifest and indulge a dark side, seeking slave labor and investigating weaponization of mirth energy. He imagined himself, Yelena thought, a potential emperor, and might have the power to make that ambition a reality.
To his right sat Mina Elhonne, media mogul and instrumental force in introducing internet technology to Eldrun. The cool thirty-six year old had long, straight silver hair, a model’s physique, and the savvy and morals of a mob boss. Her fortune was immense by any but MacArthur’s standards, and she intended to augment it in any way possible.
To MacArthur’s left, looking unpleasant, hung over, and garish, was Speed Blackjack, simultaneously one of the most brilliant people Yelena Kant had ever encountered and one of the most stunningly idiotic. Speed Blackjack had been born Euclid Schlomowitz, a math and science genius and nebbish. He had been the one who, twelve years ago, had secretly figured out how to travel between worlds. While the basic history of Eldrun was well known, none but a few apocryphal wizards and sorceresses had ever managed to cross from this world to the other until Euclid made his breakthrough in the Delryn University Techmage laboratory.
Always an opportunist and nobody’s fool, Euclid kept the discovery a secret from the world at large. Instead, he managed to meet with Owen MacArthur, who paid him an obscene amount of money for his secret and his silence. MacArthur parlayed the discovery into untold riches, sending trusted operatives to bring back technology from the other world to market in Eldrun. That was how Mina Elhonne’s wealth had come about—previously little more than a sharp intern who was not averse to doing a fair share of work under MacArthur’s desk, she became the figurehead and “discoverer” of the newly imported internet technology. Now Euclid left the work of reformatting and adapting Earth technologies to a mirth-driven power system to his vast network of underlings, all kept in the dark about the origins of what they worked on. Restyling himself as Speed Blackjack, supercool man about town, he partied till dawn, slept with supermodels, and polluted his system with virtually every substance imaginable (and fashionable.) Today he wore a white sport jacket with a teal t-shirt underneath, a do-rag, and “blade”-style sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes. The sleeves of his jacket were pushed up to his elbows, which rested on the table.
Mina Elhonne spoke first, in clipped, British accented tones. “Well, Operative Kant, with all due respect, you’ve really cocked this one up.”
Yelena shot her a venomous look, eyes sparkling, then reined herself in. She was right, after all.
Owen MacArthur interceded. “Dwelling on this failure is of limited utility. Still, we cannot overstate its importance. I have factories sitting idle. Certain very powerful interests in the north—interests both powerful and comparatively uncivilized—were very upset to hear that their work forces will not be swelled by your acquisitions. Jaga Khan himself flew into such a rage that I expected him to try to lay hands on my person. I was fortunate to be able to calm him.”
Yelena looked at the table top. “I am sorry, Mr. MacArthur. Somehow that operative, the genetically engineered soldier, Ellefson, managed to gather support among both crew and passengers and sabotage the project.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve read your report. We understand that some of those who thwarted you have been brought to this side.”
“Yes. I intend to hunt them down as soon as my spells can trace the residual energy of their crossing—another day at the most.”
Mina Elhonne broke in here. “Your personal vendettas, Ms. Kant, are your own. The committee has other uses for your energies—if you’ll pardon the pun.” She smiled thinly, grey eyes slits of contained merriment.
MacArthur gave Mina a stern look, silencing her.
“What does she mean?” Yelena asked, openly looking daggers at Mina this time. Her limited tolerance for sackcloth and ashes was wearing thin, and Mina’s statement made her nervous. “I could incinerate all of them with a single spell,” she reminded herself, and felt a bit better.
“Speed, tell her the deal you’ve brokered,” MacArthur commanded.
Speed managed a grin, Delphic behind his sunglasses. “Well, Khan and a few other interests were understandably pretty upset about how it all shook out. The money you brought back helps, but not enough. They want the energy those slaves would have brought. That, my dear, is where you come in.”
Yelena glared at him coldly. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know.”
“You disgusting little worm! How dare you suggest such an indignity?”
MacArthur’s voice rang out, silencing the others. “Indignity or not, Ms. Kant, it is the only way to appease the mystic warlords to the north. As a sorceress, you produce categorically purer, more powerful, and more efficient mirth energy than virtually anyone else. A few gigaspheres from you are worth hundreds from more plebeian donors. Also, as you well know, the energy of a sorceress can be used in unique and potent ways. You will give Jaga Khan twelve gigaspheres of your own mirth energy—as you know, it cannot be counterfeited—by tomorrow morning.”
Yelena looked from one board member to the next, fuming, enraged. “I should kill them all,” she thought. But then what? The board represented a kind of power and clout beyond sorcerous purview. With them, she could be at the forefront of a new world order—something she could not do alone. “Very well,” she acquiesced, barely audibly.
“Umm…but that’s not all,” Speed murmured, wincing as her icy gaze snapped back to him. “In fact, that’s just the first step.”
***********************************************************************************
Half an hour later, as she returned to her palace on the picturesque steppes outside of town, Yelena Kant was still incredulous, and still furious. The marble doors flew open at a gesture as she stormed inside. She muttered a single word and her long, luxurious hair fell from its baroque bun in a liberated torrent. Cursing, she kicked off her stiletto heels, one of which struck a crystal decanter on the far side of the room with a distant, audible crash. She stood on the deep, soft fur rug, closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and kneaded it with her bare toes, an activity that relaxed her. Gradually, she felt some of the tension and anger slipping from her, and she was able to think more clearly about the tasks ahead.
Jaga Khan, and possibly the Board as well, had been waiting for this opportunity for some time, she realized. As a sorceress, she had power that they could only dream of. Khan was powerful—perhaps moreso than she, in strictly martial matters—but the sorceress, in inaugurating the mystic forces that powered this world, had imbued the few females who chanced to be born with mystic abilities with unique and magnificent energies, often without their knowledge. Now, they wanted her to give not only of her own mystic energies, but to hunt down three other “power cells,” as they called them—women who had unique and mighty energy signatures that Jaga could harness in building his weaponry.
Part of her rebelled against the idea as insulting, beneath her. But part of her, she realized as she sipped a glass of wine and calmed down a bit more, ironically welcomed the challenge. She would find these women of power, however ignorant they might be of their own potential, and she and her agents would drain their forces. Whether Jaga Khan ever saw any of that energy was a different matter entirely, she thought, with a sly, humorless smile.
As quickly as it came, the smile faded. There was much to do first. She would be avenged against those treacherous and meddlesome women who had foiled her plan. But even before that, she thought with a grimace, there was the matter of the twelve gigaspheres of her own energy.
She put her glass aside, rose, and stretched. With a thought, her clothes changed—she wore a diaphanous black silk gown, slit high on the leg. May as well endure in comfort, she thought. Still barefoot, she walked through an oaken door and down a flight of winding steps to her laboratory.
Upon entering the vast, magically illuminated laboratory, she was greeted by manic, hysterical laughter, tinged with desperation. For a moment she was taken aback—then she saw Gustav, and remembered.
Gustav, her erstwhile apprentice and fawning follower, sat strapped into a bizarre chair on the far side of the room. The round, moon-faced, middle-aged little man wheezed and sputtered, cackled and whooped; tears ran down his apple cheeks. He was buckled in at the waist, wrists, and ankles, both legs together and elevated. He wore a helmet with a great crystal mounted on the front, and tubes running from the crystal that ran both into his own chest harness and to a hand-like mechanism at the base of the chair that used a feather to tickle the bottoms of the man’s wiggling bare feet. He howled, clenching and unclenching his tormented toes as the plume whisked mercilessly across his bare calloused soles.
It would be impressive, Yelena thought, were it not so absurd. Gustav had developed a perpetual motion machine of sorts—the victim’s laughter powered the tickling device and continually renewed his or her own endurance through the mystic transducer in the harness. He had been at it since early that morning—impressive dedication, Yelena thought, until a quick examination of the machine revealed that the idiot had neglected to build in an off switch. Rolling her eyes impatiently, she snapped her fingers and the machine ground to a halt. Another snap freed the red-faced, teary amanuensis from his bonds.
“Oh…th-thank you…Mistress Yelena….F-forgot…the….escape…mechanism.” He uttered a brief incantation to summon a tub of warm water, and gingerly lowered his feet into the steamy depths. “Aaaaahhhh,” he sighed, beaming and mopping his bald brow with a handkerchief.
He looked up a bit nervously as Yelena strode over to him and sat down directly across from him, fixing him with her raven-eyed gaze. He was not used to this kind of intense attention from his mistress (and the object of his middle-aged onanistic fantasies) and it made him a trifle uneasy. He tried for the right balance of deference and expectation as he looked back.
“Gustav,” she said, with great gravity, “I must command you to do something highly out of the ordinary. You must do it efficiently and mercilessly, and you mustn’t hold back no matter how I seem to suffer—the more merciless you are, the briefer the process will be. You will do this without question and you will never, ever speak of it to anyone. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Mistress Yelena,” Gustav replied, intrigued and a bit frightened. “What must I do?”
Yelena sighed, steeling herself. “You must drain me of twelve gigaspheres of mirth energy. The only way to do it in the time I have is through physical means—tickling. I refuse to submit to machines or magical constructs. Therefore, I must rely on you.”
Gustav stared open-mouthed. The idea seemed almost sacrilege. His eyes wandered over her cruelly beautiful face, her stunningly endowed, magnificent body, and he felt a tightening in his balls. “Of course, my lady,” he replied, struggling to hide his enthusiasm.
A few minutes later, Yelena Kant sat back in a comfortable chair, bare feet propped on an ottoman and crossed at the ankles. She allowed herself to be bound at the knees and ankles, tying her feet and legs in place. She kept her arms free, refusing to relinquish control to that degree. Her long, luxurious hair hung about her shoulders and over the back of the chair in dark crimson waves. Gustav was breathless at her beauty. “Very well, Gustav. You may begin.”
Gustav stepped toward her, reaching out with trembling hands for her ribs and taut, muscled belly, little hidden by the sheer black gown. A sharp, nauseating pain brought him up short as she seized his testicles and gave them a smart, firm tug. He barked involuntarily. “Lay hands on this body above the knee and you will sorely regret it,” she said. Gustav nodded, grimacing and mincing as the pain faded. “Yes, Mistress Yelena,” he managed, breathless.
“Besides,” she added bitterly, “The soles of my feet will be the most effective target.” She struggled to remain clinical, but was in truth full of dread.
Duly chastened, Gustav pulled up a stool at the feet of his barefoot mistress. Like the rest of her, they seemed almost consciously artistic creations—long and narrow without being bony, with delicate, pale pink toes and soft soles crisscrossed by delicate wrinkles at the insteps. Although he had never taken a particular interest in feet, except as targets in mirth research, each time he had seen Yelena Kant barefoot he had been struck by how unconsciously animated her feet and toes were—though the rest of her statuesque form was calm and regal, her toes tended to flex, wiggle, spread, and clench, animated by nervous energy that appeared to have no other outlet. At this moment, her bare feet continued their practice of expressing emotions the rest of her body hid—though her bearing was relaxed, her face studiously placid, her toes were curled tight in dread, her soles furrowed with deep wrinkles.
Tentative, Gustav reached out and drew a fingertip lightly down the bottom of her right foot, then back up again. To his shock, his smoky-voiced mistress erupted into bubbly, musical, girlish giggles, her stern face immediately breaking into a full-toothed grin as her long toes splayed and wriggled. The mirth energy conductor/gatherer, positioned near her head, whirred to life and began to glow more brightly than he had ever seen. “Do it,” she commanded, her authoritative voice gilded with residual giggles. “Show no mercy, lest I show you none.”
Spurred by the vivid memory of his privates in her vigorous grip, Gustav began to tickle her as if his life depended on it. A fairly accomplished mirth techmage, Gustav was no novice in the art of producing laughter by stroking a pair of bare feet. Warming her up, Gustav scratched both soles lightly, using the slight fingernails he maintained for this very purpose, zipping along the curves of arch, ball and heel, teasing the pads of her toes, never breaking contact with her sensitive feet. Yelena’s cataract of schoolgirl giggles poured forth mightily, her face a glowing mask of glee, such a powerful contrast to her usual stern demeanor. He grasped her struggling toes in one hand, pulled her sole taut, and flicked skillful fingers along the remarkably high arch. Yelena’s eyes flew wide and she screamed, her shriek turning at its crescendo into squealing laughter. There’s a spot to remember, Gustav noted to himself, grinning now in spite of himself at Ms. Kant’s acrobatic and operatic struggles. As he artfully shifted gears, worming wriggling fingers between her writhing toes, Yelena’s squeals became giggles again, quieter but no less insistent, bubbling out of her as if she were a newly popped bottle of champagne.
Yelena’s emotions, to the extent that she could process them at all, were in turmoil. She had not imagined that she would be this ticklish—she had been tickled before, in the interest of her various mystical studies and experiments, but never with this level of abandon and intensity. Part of her was utterly humiliated to be thrashing and giggling like a barefooted schoolgirl at her underling’s touch: she was Yelena Kant, sorceress, mystical power to be reckoned with, and yet—oh, god, he’s going for the arches again—part of her was responding in a quite unexpected way. She was becoming, she realized in the rare moments between spasms of laughter and bursts of giggles, quite aroused. It wasn’t the tickling, specifically, and her feet were not generally high among her erogenous zones (perhaps because they were so damned ticklish). It was the helplessness, the very humiliation of being reduced to a mound of quivering, giggling flesh by this absurd little subordinate who stood there sweating, his hard-on about to burst his trousers, tickling and tickling the bottoms of her bare feet.
The mirth apparatus hummed at a pitch that Gustav had never heard before, its energy readings off the charts. Gustav was beginning to enjoy himself, despite the straining erection and brutal blue balls that kept him hunched over. In a flash of inspiration, he grabbed a sterilized test tube brush off the lab table nearby and began to scrub earnestly at the balls of Yelena’s feet. She whooped anew, upper body bucking and writhing in the lounge chair, as he hunkered down over her ankles and brushed vigorously at her endlessly ticklish soles. The brush worked wonders between her poor, sensitive toes, making her muscular legs vibrate like a plucked violin string and her laughter reach a sympathetic, quivering tremolo, but was most devastating in a broadside assault on the soft, buttery bottoms of the feet. As he scrubbed at her arches, Yelena’s girlish giggles became a shriek, then a squeak—yes, this menacing, sinister sorceress squeaked!—then a hoarse, half-silent wail of laughter. Her toes wiggled and strained in endless desperation; she had taken to pounding the side of the chair with her fist. To Gustav, she looked more beautiful than she had ever looked before, her laughing, desperate, tear-stained face lit by a glow of mirth (and, though he didn’t know it, arousal), framed by her rich dark hair.
At last, after what seemed an eternity (and what was in fact the better part of an hour—sorceresses’ endurance goes considerably beyond that of most people) the twelve gigaspheres of energy were stored. Gustav reluctantly stopped tickling, venturing to give her pinky toes a little affectionate tweak as he left off. Yelena lay heaving, gasping, still sobbing with laughter, for several minutes. She sat up, twitching one finger to banish the bonds that held her legs down and together. She stretched, reached down to her poor bare feet, and massaged them for a moment. The sensations that coursed through her were unbelievable. She couldn’t remember being this aroused, by actual lover or solitary conjuration. She was exhausted but energized, and thoughts ran through her normally cool head that she would never have otherwise entertained. She sighed loudly, falling back on the lounge in languor. Then her eyes came to rest on Gustav, standing nervously at attention, his obviously rigid member tenting his pants in what must have been a humiliating and uncomfortable way.
“Stand right there,” she commanded, her stern tone back, but touched with a hint of slyness. Staring into her underling’s myopic eyes, she parted her thighs and eased her hand between them. With her other hand, she parted the top of her gown, revealing firm, ample alabaster breasts with small, rigid nipples. She caressed one nipple and stroked the warm wetness between her legs until she came with a powerful shudder, her stern face again breaking character, taking on an aspect of innocent wonder at what her practiced hands had done to her overwrought body in a long and satisfying orgasm.
Gustav, balls like boulders and cock like a crowbar, was beside himself, desperate either to mount her, which he knew would be the death of him, or at least to join her in self-release. He could only stand there, trembling and fidgeting, and watch her as her body calmed in the aftermath of orgasm.
Catching her breath, she registered his presence once more, and smiled, half kind, half mocking. “Take a step toward me,” she commanded, and he did. Staring into his eyes with a look of coy, teasing mockery, Yelena extended her bare right foot and gently prodded the unbearably swollen mass at the front of his trousers with it. With a little whinny, Gustav came immediately, emptying the heavy load into his trousers in a tortured, ecstatic convulsion, unconsciously reaching down to rub himself as he did so, enhancing his somewhat degrading pleasure. When he had finished, and stood red-faced, a great dark patch on the front of his pants, Yelena allowed herself a chuckle. “Go home, Gustav, and never speak of this again. And be here early tomorrow—we have vengeance to pursue.”
Here’s the latest installment of The Voyage Out. A little racier than usual, and a brief departure from our core of heroines. There’s a lot of buildup, but a big payoff, I promise. Feedback cherished.
This story is for readers 18+ years of age only.
The Voyage Out Part Six: Facing the Board. Plans for Vengeance, and a New Quest. Yelena Kant Stop Laughing.
The Yelena Kant who walked into the executive offices of the Kandaele Corporation the day following the finale of the cruise ship debacle looked strikingly different from the one who had tormented Leah and the others, and sworn her revenge amid swirling streams of crackling energy. The world that had produced her, this crazed, naïve vision of paradise, was a patchwork of cultures, ways of life, and even levels of civilization—some areas were like visions from a fantasy novel, complete with knights, wizards, dragons, and castles, while others, perhaps only a few miles away, were shining urban megaplexes, World’s Fair visions of the City of the Future. To function effectively beyond one’s own little postage stamp of world, one had to adapt to the expectations of other places. Yelena Kant did so eagerly and effortlessly.
Today the sinister sorceress had traded in the robes and capes that typically denoted her profession in favor of a smart grey business suit, expertly tailored and wildly expensive, with a short skirt that showcased her trim, shapely legs. Her waves and waves of dark crimson hair, which fell below her waist when set free, was confined in an elaborate bun, simultaneously conservative and fascinating as an engineering marvel. The ivory pallor that came over her flawless skin when she worked her magicks had abated, returning healthy color to her high cheekbones and even conveying the hint of a tan. Her makeup, considerably less dramatic than it was when she embraced her sorceress mode, was artistic and effective, enhancing the naturally arch beauty of her patrician features but hinting at a bit more humanity than her coldly stunning aspect usually bore. Her only real affectation was the stiletto heels of her crimson pumps.
Yelena’s somewhat under-dramatized appearance, by her standards, was consistent with the tenor of the day. She was here, much as she hated it, much as she dreaded it, to eat crow. The results she had given the board in her report were a far cry from their expectations—she had brought them no slaves from the other side, no sources of energy with untraceable origins and no legal liabilities. She had gained access to an enormous amount of money, but that would be next to useless on this side, and she would have to turn over the wealth she had thought would go only to herself and Caliban as a peace offering to the board. This was not good at all. Thankfully, she was the only sorceress they had, and probably the most powerful mystic in this world—at least, the most powerful who was willing to use her abilities as they wanted her to—and they would not jeopardize their alliance with her. Still, she fully expected to take her lumps during this meeting.
She nodded curtly at the fawning male secretary as he pressed a button under his desk, causing the great mahogany double doors to the board room to whisper open. Yelena Kant strode into the vast room, lit pleasantly by the afternoon sun as it streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. A massive table took up most of the room, far larger than anything the small and exclusive board would ever need. Yelena bowed to the Chair, nodded to the other three, and sat primly in her soft, fragrant leather chair. Feeling their eyes on her, Yelena opened her stylish briefcase and began leafing aimlessly through the pages of her report.
There were four of them, including herself—the central board of this unnamed consortium of the world’s wealthiest, most ruthless, and most powerful. The chair was Owen MacArthur, who, like many others in this strangely artificial but all-too-real world, looked as if he had been created to be exactly what he was—a rich, powerful, stern businessman. He was also an unmitigated bastard, even by Yelena’s standards. Seated in his massive, thronelike leather chair, bedecked in his obscenely expensive suit, the silver-haired mogul regarded Yelena with hawkish eyes over steepled fingers. His very bearing whispered gravitas; his wardrobe screamed it. MacArthur was heir to the first and still most successful corporation on the world of Eldrun—they had been pioneers, centuries ago, in amplifying and harnessing mirth energy, improving economy and efficiency immensely. Thanks in large part to them, the laughter generated by everyday life was enough to keep most public works functioning in the more industrialized cities. MacArthur, distant descendant of the altruistic scientist/sorcerer who had developed the first mirth-amplifiers, was also the first to manifest and indulge a dark side, seeking slave labor and investigating weaponization of mirth energy. He imagined himself, Yelena thought, a potential emperor, and might have the power to make that ambition a reality.
To his right sat Mina Elhonne, media mogul and instrumental force in introducing internet technology to Eldrun. The cool thirty-six year old had long, straight silver hair, a model’s physique, and the savvy and morals of a mob boss. Her fortune was immense by any but MacArthur’s standards, and she intended to augment it in any way possible.
To MacArthur’s left, looking unpleasant, hung over, and garish, was Speed Blackjack, simultaneously one of the most brilliant people Yelena Kant had ever encountered and one of the most stunningly idiotic. Speed Blackjack had been born Euclid Schlomowitz, a math and science genius and nebbish. He had been the one who, twelve years ago, had secretly figured out how to travel between worlds. While the basic history of Eldrun was well known, none but a few apocryphal wizards and sorceresses had ever managed to cross from this world to the other until Euclid made his breakthrough in the Delryn University Techmage laboratory.
Always an opportunist and nobody’s fool, Euclid kept the discovery a secret from the world at large. Instead, he managed to meet with Owen MacArthur, who paid him an obscene amount of money for his secret and his silence. MacArthur parlayed the discovery into untold riches, sending trusted operatives to bring back technology from the other world to market in Eldrun. That was how Mina Elhonne’s wealth had come about—previously little more than a sharp intern who was not averse to doing a fair share of work under MacArthur’s desk, she became the figurehead and “discoverer” of the newly imported internet technology. Now Euclid left the work of reformatting and adapting Earth technologies to a mirth-driven power system to his vast network of underlings, all kept in the dark about the origins of what they worked on. Restyling himself as Speed Blackjack, supercool man about town, he partied till dawn, slept with supermodels, and polluted his system with virtually every substance imaginable (and fashionable.) Today he wore a white sport jacket with a teal t-shirt underneath, a do-rag, and “blade”-style sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes. The sleeves of his jacket were pushed up to his elbows, which rested on the table.
Mina Elhonne spoke first, in clipped, British accented tones. “Well, Operative Kant, with all due respect, you’ve really cocked this one up.”
Yelena shot her a venomous look, eyes sparkling, then reined herself in. She was right, after all.
Owen MacArthur interceded. “Dwelling on this failure is of limited utility. Still, we cannot overstate its importance. I have factories sitting idle. Certain very powerful interests in the north—interests both powerful and comparatively uncivilized—were very upset to hear that their work forces will not be swelled by your acquisitions. Jaga Khan himself flew into such a rage that I expected him to try to lay hands on my person. I was fortunate to be able to calm him.”
Yelena looked at the table top. “I am sorry, Mr. MacArthur. Somehow that operative, the genetically engineered soldier, Ellefson, managed to gather support among both crew and passengers and sabotage the project.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve read your report. We understand that some of those who thwarted you have been brought to this side.”
“Yes. I intend to hunt them down as soon as my spells can trace the residual energy of their crossing—another day at the most.”
Mina Elhonne broke in here. “Your personal vendettas, Ms. Kant, are your own. The committee has other uses for your energies—if you’ll pardon the pun.” She smiled thinly, grey eyes slits of contained merriment.
MacArthur gave Mina a stern look, silencing her.
“What does she mean?” Yelena asked, openly looking daggers at Mina this time. Her limited tolerance for sackcloth and ashes was wearing thin, and Mina’s statement made her nervous. “I could incinerate all of them with a single spell,” she reminded herself, and felt a bit better.
“Speed, tell her the deal you’ve brokered,” MacArthur commanded.
Speed managed a grin, Delphic behind his sunglasses. “Well, Khan and a few other interests were understandably pretty upset about how it all shook out. The money you brought back helps, but not enough. They want the energy those slaves would have brought. That, my dear, is where you come in.”
Yelena glared at him coldly. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know.”
“You disgusting little worm! How dare you suggest such an indignity?”
MacArthur’s voice rang out, silencing the others. “Indignity or not, Ms. Kant, it is the only way to appease the mystic warlords to the north. As a sorceress, you produce categorically purer, more powerful, and more efficient mirth energy than virtually anyone else. A few gigaspheres from you are worth hundreds from more plebeian donors. Also, as you well know, the energy of a sorceress can be used in unique and potent ways. You will give Jaga Khan twelve gigaspheres of your own mirth energy—as you know, it cannot be counterfeited—by tomorrow morning.”
Yelena looked from one board member to the next, fuming, enraged. “I should kill them all,” she thought. But then what? The board represented a kind of power and clout beyond sorcerous purview. With them, she could be at the forefront of a new world order—something she could not do alone. “Very well,” she acquiesced, barely audibly.
“Umm…but that’s not all,” Speed murmured, wincing as her icy gaze snapped back to him. “In fact, that’s just the first step.”
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Half an hour later, as she returned to her palace on the picturesque steppes outside of town, Yelena Kant was still incredulous, and still furious. The marble doors flew open at a gesture as she stormed inside. She muttered a single word and her long, luxurious hair fell from its baroque bun in a liberated torrent. Cursing, she kicked off her stiletto heels, one of which struck a crystal decanter on the far side of the room with a distant, audible crash. She stood on the deep, soft fur rug, closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and kneaded it with her bare toes, an activity that relaxed her. Gradually, she felt some of the tension and anger slipping from her, and she was able to think more clearly about the tasks ahead.
Jaga Khan, and possibly the Board as well, had been waiting for this opportunity for some time, she realized. As a sorceress, she had power that they could only dream of. Khan was powerful—perhaps moreso than she, in strictly martial matters—but the sorceress, in inaugurating the mystic forces that powered this world, had imbued the few females who chanced to be born with mystic abilities with unique and magnificent energies, often without their knowledge. Now, they wanted her to give not only of her own mystic energies, but to hunt down three other “power cells,” as they called them—women who had unique and mighty energy signatures that Jaga could harness in building his weaponry.
Part of her rebelled against the idea as insulting, beneath her. But part of her, she realized as she sipped a glass of wine and calmed down a bit more, ironically welcomed the challenge. She would find these women of power, however ignorant they might be of their own potential, and she and her agents would drain their forces. Whether Jaga Khan ever saw any of that energy was a different matter entirely, she thought, with a sly, humorless smile.
As quickly as it came, the smile faded. There was much to do first. She would be avenged against those treacherous and meddlesome women who had foiled her plan. But even before that, she thought with a grimace, there was the matter of the twelve gigaspheres of her own energy.
She put her glass aside, rose, and stretched. With a thought, her clothes changed—she wore a diaphanous black silk gown, slit high on the leg. May as well endure in comfort, she thought. Still barefoot, she walked through an oaken door and down a flight of winding steps to her laboratory.
Upon entering the vast, magically illuminated laboratory, she was greeted by manic, hysterical laughter, tinged with desperation. For a moment she was taken aback—then she saw Gustav, and remembered.
Gustav, her erstwhile apprentice and fawning follower, sat strapped into a bizarre chair on the far side of the room. The round, moon-faced, middle-aged little man wheezed and sputtered, cackled and whooped; tears ran down his apple cheeks. He was buckled in at the waist, wrists, and ankles, both legs together and elevated. He wore a helmet with a great crystal mounted on the front, and tubes running from the crystal that ran both into his own chest harness and to a hand-like mechanism at the base of the chair that used a feather to tickle the bottoms of the man’s wiggling bare feet. He howled, clenching and unclenching his tormented toes as the plume whisked mercilessly across his bare calloused soles.
It would be impressive, Yelena thought, were it not so absurd. Gustav had developed a perpetual motion machine of sorts—the victim’s laughter powered the tickling device and continually renewed his or her own endurance through the mystic transducer in the harness. He had been at it since early that morning—impressive dedication, Yelena thought, until a quick examination of the machine revealed that the idiot had neglected to build in an off switch. Rolling her eyes impatiently, she snapped her fingers and the machine ground to a halt. Another snap freed the red-faced, teary amanuensis from his bonds.
“Oh…th-thank you…Mistress Yelena….F-forgot…the….escape…mechanism.” He uttered a brief incantation to summon a tub of warm water, and gingerly lowered his feet into the steamy depths. “Aaaaahhhh,” he sighed, beaming and mopping his bald brow with a handkerchief.
He looked up a bit nervously as Yelena strode over to him and sat down directly across from him, fixing him with her raven-eyed gaze. He was not used to this kind of intense attention from his mistress (and the object of his middle-aged onanistic fantasies) and it made him a trifle uneasy. He tried for the right balance of deference and expectation as he looked back.
“Gustav,” she said, with great gravity, “I must command you to do something highly out of the ordinary. You must do it efficiently and mercilessly, and you mustn’t hold back no matter how I seem to suffer—the more merciless you are, the briefer the process will be. You will do this without question and you will never, ever speak of it to anyone. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Mistress Yelena,” Gustav replied, intrigued and a bit frightened. “What must I do?”
Yelena sighed, steeling herself. “You must drain me of twelve gigaspheres of mirth energy. The only way to do it in the time I have is through physical means—tickling. I refuse to submit to machines or magical constructs. Therefore, I must rely on you.”
Gustav stared open-mouthed. The idea seemed almost sacrilege. His eyes wandered over her cruelly beautiful face, her stunningly endowed, magnificent body, and he felt a tightening in his balls. “Of course, my lady,” he replied, struggling to hide his enthusiasm.
A few minutes later, Yelena Kant sat back in a comfortable chair, bare feet propped on an ottoman and crossed at the ankles. She allowed herself to be bound at the knees and ankles, tying her feet and legs in place. She kept her arms free, refusing to relinquish control to that degree. Her long, luxurious hair hung about her shoulders and over the back of the chair in dark crimson waves. Gustav was breathless at her beauty. “Very well, Gustav. You may begin.”
Gustav stepped toward her, reaching out with trembling hands for her ribs and taut, muscled belly, little hidden by the sheer black gown. A sharp, nauseating pain brought him up short as she seized his testicles and gave them a smart, firm tug. He barked involuntarily. “Lay hands on this body above the knee and you will sorely regret it,” she said. Gustav nodded, grimacing and mincing as the pain faded. “Yes, Mistress Yelena,” he managed, breathless.
“Besides,” she added bitterly, “The soles of my feet will be the most effective target.” She struggled to remain clinical, but was in truth full of dread.
Duly chastened, Gustav pulled up a stool at the feet of his barefoot mistress. Like the rest of her, they seemed almost consciously artistic creations—long and narrow without being bony, with delicate, pale pink toes and soft soles crisscrossed by delicate wrinkles at the insteps. Although he had never taken a particular interest in feet, except as targets in mirth research, each time he had seen Yelena Kant barefoot he had been struck by how unconsciously animated her feet and toes were—though the rest of her statuesque form was calm and regal, her toes tended to flex, wiggle, spread, and clench, animated by nervous energy that appeared to have no other outlet. At this moment, her bare feet continued their practice of expressing emotions the rest of her body hid—though her bearing was relaxed, her face studiously placid, her toes were curled tight in dread, her soles furrowed with deep wrinkles.
Tentative, Gustav reached out and drew a fingertip lightly down the bottom of her right foot, then back up again. To his shock, his smoky-voiced mistress erupted into bubbly, musical, girlish giggles, her stern face immediately breaking into a full-toothed grin as her long toes splayed and wriggled. The mirth energy conductor/gatherer, positioned near her head, whirred to life and began to glow more brightly than he had ever seen. “Do it,” she commanded, her authoritative voice gilded with residual giggles. “Show no mercy, lest I show you none.”
Spurred by the vivid memory of his privates in her vigorous grip, Gustav began to tickle her as if his life depended on it. A fairly accomplished mirth techmage, Gustav was no novice in the art of producing laughter by stroking a pair of bare feet. Warming her up, Gustav scratched both soles lightly, using the slight fingernails he maintained for this very purpose, zipping along the curves of arch, ball and heel, teasing the pads of her toes, never breaking contact with her sensitive feet. Yelena’s cataract of schoolgirl giggles poured forth mightily, her face a glowing mask of glee, such a powerful contrast to her usual stern demeanor. He grasped her struggling toes in one hand, pulled her sole taut, and flicked skillful fingers along the remarkably high arch. Yelena’s eyes flew wide and she screamed, her shriek turning at its crescendo into squealing laughter. There’s a spot to remember, Gustav noted to himself, grinning now in spite of himself at Ms. Kant’s acrobatic and operatic struggles. As he artfully shifted gears, worming wriggling fingers between her writhing toes, Yelena’s squeals became giggles again, quieter but no less insistent, bubbling out of her as if she were a newly popped bottle of champagne.
Yelena’s emotions, to the extent that she could process them at all, were in turmoil. She had not imagined that she would be this ticklish—she had been tickled before, in the interest of her various mystical studies and experiments, but never with this level of abandon and intensity. Part of her was utterly humiliated to be thrashing and giggling like a barefooted schoolgirl at her underling’s touch: she was Yelena Kant, sorceress, mystical power to be reckoned with, and yet—oh, god, he’s going for the arches again—part of her was responding in a quite unexpected way. She was becoming, she realized in the rare moments between spasms of laughter and bursts of giggles, quite aroused. It wasn’t the tickling, specifically, and her feet were not generally high among her erogenous zones (perhaps because they were so damned ticklish). It was the helplessness, the very humiliation of being reduced to a mound of quivering, giggling flesh by this absurd little subordinate who stood there sweating, his hard-on about to burst his trousers, tickling and tickling the bottoms of her bare feet.
The mirth apparatus hummed at a pitch that Gustav had never heard before, its energy readings off the charts. Gustav was beginning to enjoy himself, despite the straining erection and brutal blue balls that kept him hunched over. In a flash of inspiration, he grabbed a sterilized test tube brush off the lab table nearby and began to scrub earnestly at the balls of Yelena’s feet. She whooped anew, upper body bucking and writhing in the lounge chair, as he hunkered down over her ankles and brushed vigorously at her endlessly ticklish soles. The brush worked wonders between her poor, sensitive toes, making her muscular legs vibrate like a plucked violin string and her laughter reach a sympathetic, quivering tremolo, but was most devastating in a broadside assault on the soft, buttery bottoms of the feet. As he scrubbed at her arches, Yelena’s girlish giggles became a shriek, then a squeak—yes, this menacing, sinister sorceress squeaked!—then a hoarse, half-silent wail of laughter. Her toes wiggled and strained in endless desperation; she had taken to pounding the side of the chair with her fist. To Gustav, she looked more beautiful than she had ever looked before, her laughing, desperate, tear-stained face lit by a glow of mirth (and, though he didn’t know it, arousal), framed by her rich dark hair.
At last, after what seemed an eternity (and what was in fact the better part of an hour—sorceresses’ endurance goes considerably beyond that of most people) the twelve gigaspheres of energy were stored. Gustav reluctantly stopped tickling, venturing to give her pinky toes a little affectionate tweak as he left off. Yelena lay heaving, gasping, still sobbing with laughter, for several minutes. She sat up, twitching one finger to banish the bonds that held her legs down and together. She stretched, reached down to her poor bare feet, and massaged them for a moment. The sensations that coursed through her were unbelievable. She couldn’t remember being this aroused, by actual lover or solitary conjuration. She was exhausted but energized, and thoughts ran through her normally cool head that she would never have otherwise entertained. She sighed loudly, falling back on the lounge in languor. Then her eyes came to rest on Gustav, standing nervously at attention, his obviously rigid member tenting his pants in what must have been a humiliating and uncomfortable way.
“Stand right there,” she commanded, her stern tone back, but touched with a hint of slyness. Staring into her underling’s myopic eyes, she parted her thighs and eased her hand between them. With her other hand, she parted the top of her gown, revealing firm, ample alabaster breasts with small, rigid nipples. She caressed one nipple and stroked the warm wetness between her legs until she came with a powerful shudder, her stern face again breaking character, taking on an aspect of innocent wonder at what her practiced hands had done to her overwrought body in a long and satisfying orgasm.
Gustav, balls like boulders and cock like a crowbar, was beside himself, desperate either to mount her, which he knew would be the death of him, or at least to join her in self-release. He could only stand there, trembling and fidgeting, and watch her as her body calmed in the aftermath of orgasm.
Catching her breath, she registered his presence once more, and smiled, half kind, half mocking. “Take a step toward me,” she commanded, and he did. Staring into his eyes with a look of coy, teasing mockery, Yelena extended her bare right foot and gently prodded the unbearably swollen mass at the front of his trousers with it. With a little whinny, Gustav came immediately, emptying the heavy load into his trousers in a tortured, ecstatic convulsion, unconsciously reaching down to rub himself as he did so, enhancing his somewhat degrading pleasure. When he had finished, and stood red-faced, a great dark patch on the front of his pants, Yelena allowed herself a chuckle. “Go home, Gustav, and never speak of this again. And be here early tomorrow—we have vengeance to pursue.”
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