By Hooder

The cube was the first thing Jen saw when he arrived home from college that evening. As he picked it up off the doormat and carried it into the living room he was frowning slightly – he hadn’t been expecting any software, which is what he thought this probably was. The frown turned to an expression of amazement as he unwrapped it. “Oh wow! Alzira 5!!” He opened the clear plastic box and slid the ROM cube carefully out into his hand, holding it just by its edges so as not to damage the contact strip. He turned it, laughing in disbelief, then checked the packaging to see where it had come from, but there was no sender’s address anywhere.

Alzira was one of the best VR games ever, and Jen had been hooked ever since he’d bought the very first, three years ago. He’d just finished 4, and was saving up to buy 5 – it had only been released the previous week. With a sudden fear that it might only be a demo version, he checked the info panel – 2240 Gigs – No! It was the full game! But who the hell would send him a brand-new copy of his favourite game as a present?

Who cared? With a whoop, he slotted the cube into the X90 console and switched it on, leaving it to boot while he made himself a quick coffee and mentally rearranged his plans for the weekend. A couple of phone calls later he had no commitments until college on Monday.

The temptation to put the headset on right now was almost too much to resist, but he knew from experience that once he got immersed in the game he would be there for hours. A little preparation would make things much better.

He nuked himself a light meal, went to the toilet, had a shower, and pulled on a pair of loose shorts. After putting a couple of bottles of mineral water within reach of the recliner and locking the door, he set the outside display to ‘Do no disturb’, and settled down in the soft reclining chair. With a grin of anticipation he put the headset on, reclined the chair to almost horizontal, and gave the mental command to start the program.

The first few times he’d used the X90, he’d been very disorientated by the way the real world faded into nothingness and the virtual reality environment took over – but years of use had accustomed him to it and now it seemed the most natural thing in the world as the view of the ceiling and the feel of himself lying on his back in the chair dissolved away and he found himself standing, looking at a beautiful blue sky with the words…

X90 Apple Systems Inc MMXV

…glowing in the familiar burnt orange. A gentle warm breeze around his bare skin accompanied the fluffy white clouds which moved lazily across behind the huge letters. After a few seconds the words changed to:

ALZIRA 5

© Gemstone Parrit Inc MMXVII

Install Persona

Create New

Jen directed his eyes to the ‘Install Persona’ line and did a mental ‘click’. The screen cleared, and Jen smiled as more words appeared:

Persona: Jen the Magnificent

Start Game

Cancel

With a deep breath, Jen clicked ‘Start Game’. He tapped his virtual foot in time with the beloved theme tune and briefly scanned the familiar control panel when it appeared. This gave details of his persona: age, rating, spell and energy levels etc., and also settings for the game. He clicked the ‘continue’ button with his mind and his world did a Technicolor swirl into blackness as the game started.

* * *

He was standing on a rocky shore. Shafts of sunlight speared between dark clouds scudding across an angry sky, and it looked like a storm was coming. It was clearly late in the day, and he needed shelter. Picking his way across the boulders he found higher ground. In the distance to his left there loomed a gothic castle; to his right a village with lazily-smoking chimneys caught the rays of the dying sun. He smiled, and headed for the castle.

As he walked, watching all around him for creatures – it was unusual to get very far in Alzira without having to fight for your life – he noticed that the air against his face and the rocks beneath his booted feet felt unusually vivid. He breathed in deeply, and grinned at the fresh, seaside smell.

The rocks gave way to grassland, and he met only one creature on his way to the castle: a giant mutated scorpion which cost him only 7 spellcreds to demolish. He left it twitching in a decapitated frenzy as he walked up the path to the castle.

The portcullis was raised, the drawbridge was down, and the main door was open invitingly. This didn’t look good. Jen took out his Sonascope and checked out the castle thoroughly before moving any closer. The ‘scope revealed nothing living within a 100 meter range, and no undies within 50. That scan had cost him 2 creds. Living creatures and undies – undead creatures – demanded different strategies and weapons, and he could only arm himself against one kind at once. He decided to arm against undies, and pulled the hyperlaser pistol out of his belt, flicking the control over to ‘U’ as he did so. That should be enough to see off all but the most intractable ones. He glanced at the panel floating at his side and noted that he had a healthy 1250 energy creds left. Feeling confident but cautious, he walked over the drawbridge and into the castle.

Jen chuckled as the bridge, the portcullis and the main door all closed behind him with reverberating scrapes and booms. As he’d expected, he wasn’t going to be getting out that way in a hurry.

He was in a main hall of some kind. Doors and passageways led off in various directions, and no doubt there were some that weren’t visible. Those would be the ones of interest. Keeping alert for enemies, he inspected the walls between the doors and the standing suits of armour carefully. His fingers ran over the oak panelling and he looked in unlikely places for buttons and catches.

It took him a long time to find one, but yep – there is was. With his finger firmly on the trigger of the pistol, he moved the catch. A section of the wall swung inwards on silent hinges, and he darted to the side to avoid any suddenly-emerging creatures or weapon fire. A screaming Banshee rushed out, its eyes glowing like hot coals and its arms reaching madly for him – but he was familiar with Banshees, and without having to think about it he fired directly into its brain, which was in the middle of its chest. Arms flailing, it collapsed in a wailing heap at his feet.

Jen peered around the doorframe and saw an empty room with a large table in the middle. Cautiously he stepped in, staying back far enough to be able to escape if anything materialized suddenly. Nothing moved. After a pause, he entered the room, keeping his pistol up and ready. Apart from the table, the room appeared to be completely empty. This was unusual – in Jen’s experience Banshees were usually guarding something valuable. He inspected the table, running his fingers over the ancient stained wood. A splinter caught his thumb and he grimaced. “Ow!” That hurt! He removed the shard of wood and sucked the small wound distractedly to relieve the pain while surveying the rest of the table. There appeared to be nothing unusual about it at all. The splinter had hurt more than he’d have expected, and he hoped it wasn’t an enchanted one, already poisoning him – he didn’t want to die and have to restart the game so early. To be on the safe side he shook a couple of general-purpose anti-magic pills from his belt bag and swallowed them.

There had to be something special in this room, else why the Banshee? He searched the floor, the ceiling, and the walls. Nothing. Strange. And then he saw it: one of the table legs was almost obscuring a trapdoor handle. Yes! The pain in his thumb forgotten now, he shifted the table and lifted the trapdoor. Wooden steps descended into total darkness at his feet. Oh well, this was obviously what the Banshee was guarding, so he was going down there. Pistol at the ready, he took the steps slowly, one at a time…

The first thing that hit him was the smell: leather! This was getting interesting. The room was black – what little light entered from the trapdoor over his head wasn’t enough to let him see anything at all. He came to the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto something slightly spongy. He stood, motionless, listening. He could have been surrounded by enemies, just feet away, but the detector on his hyperlaser pistol would have beeped. Somewhere there must be a light switch. He walked forward blindly, feeling for the wall. It was like walking through treacle – the surface of the floor seemed to give with each step, and the room was dead. There was not the slightest sound at all.

When he found the wall, it too was surprisingly soft and yielding. It was very smooth under his fingers – the wall was covered in leather! That explained the smell. He could feel the texture of the material with unusual definition. Leather! His cock hardened slightly in his pants. There had to be a wall sconce, or a light switch of some kind somewhere. Jen followed the wall, feeling for anything that might provide illumination, all the while breathing in that beautiful, sexy smell.

His fingers bumped against a small lever. Hmm. Squatting down, he felt around in case he was standing on another trapdoor – he did not wish to be precipitated onto something unpleasant – but the floor was unbroken and seemed to be covered in leather like the walls. He straightened up and pulled the lever down firmly, scrunching up his face and waiting for disaster.

The only thing that happened was that the lights came on. Torches burst into flame along the walls and bathed the room in flickering yellow light. And then the trapdoor by which he’d entered closed with a dreadful finality. He new without trying it that it would be locked. Every surface of the room – the walls, the floor and the ceiling – were covered by thick, padded, shiny black leather. It looked like something out of a kinky insane asylum. He was beginning to enjoy this very much. At the same time, the thought occurred to him that such shiny, highly-finished leather was something of an anachronism for the time the game was set.

He was considering whether to save the game at this point and have a drink of water, when his hyperlaser emitted a shrill beep. Simultaneously half a dozen figures materialized around him. Automatically, he raised the pistol and was about to shoot, when he noticed that they weren’t attacking. In fact not only were they not attacking, but they were unformed, mannequin-like figures with no faces or clothes. This had never happened before. Jen was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the program.

Then, in the middle of the room, another figure appeared. This one was fully-formed, and dressed in the robes of a High Wizard. But that was not what was making Jen stare disbelievingly bug-eyed – it was the fact that it was Kalim, Jen’s friend in the real world. What the hell was he doing in this game?

“Ah, Jen the Magnificent, I presume,” said Kalim. He laughed when the boy’s face reddened at the use of his private game-name. “Bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here, eh? Well let’s get rid of those, and we can chat.” He flicked his eyebrows, and Jen’s teeshirt, shorts and trainers – and all of his armourment: every pistol, grenade, spell, the lot – simply vanished. There was a sharp ‘pop’ as the surrounding air rushed in to fill the newly-created vacuum which their leaving had created.

“Forget Alzira, Jen, we’re going to play our own little game.”

“What the fuck –“ Jen covered his semi-hard cock in embarrassment.

Kalim wagged an admonishing finger. “It’s rude to interrupt. I suggest you keep quiet or I’ll have to gag you.” A black leather gag appeared in Kalim’s hand.

Jen closed his mouth abruptly, and after a few moments the gag disappeared.

“Now, this is going to be a little guessing game. There are six people here,” he indicated the motionless mannequins with his hand. “What you have to do is simply to guess what they have in common. Easy eh?”

The first mannequin sort-of flickered for a moment, and then clothes appeared on it from the feet up: motorcycle boots; tight leather jeans; studded leather bike jacket; leather gloves. The face appeared – a good-looking young man with designer stubble and dark hair. He folded his arms and stared at Jen with a sardonic smile on his lips.

Jen frowned. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t quite place him. Nice, though, he thought – very nice indeed.

“No?” Asked Kalim. “Ok then, number two.”

The second mannequin turned into another young man – this one was a punk, with clear blue eyes, a blond mohican, and a ring through his nose. Below a studded and ripped leather jacket, his bleached jeans disappeared into high DMs.

Jen was becoming uncomfortable – the sight of the punk had triggered his recollection of the biker, and he didn’t like the way things were going. If the connection was what he thought it might be…

“On to number three.”

Jen swallowed hard, his worst fears confirmed as mannequin number three took shape. Dressed in football kit, he remembered this lad well. Fuck, how that cute boy had struggled. In spite of his mounting fear, Jen’s cock was getting very hard very quickly at the sight and memory of these sexy young men.

“I think you’re catching on, Jen, but let’s make absolutely sure…”

The fourth figure morphed into a seriously heavy-looking leather top complete with breeches, high boots, skintight leather gloves, and cap.

Number five turned out to be a lad Jen had picked up only a week ago – he was in his uniform: the shiny black tecothene catsuit, mask and boots of a soldier.

“And finally, number six!”

Jen groaned. The final mannequin changed into a second – and slightly younger – version of Kalim himself. Dressed in skintight stretch-leather jeans, white teeshirt and combat boots, the second Kalim leered mockingly at Jen.

“Now, you have ten seconds to link these people. The time starts… Now!” Abruptly the lighting changed, unseen spotlights hitting Jen, and scanning slowly along the line of young men, just like a bad game show on the vid. There was even clock-ticking music to go with the lights. An unseen audience chanted: “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” and erupted into hysterical applause.

To a subdued tympani roll, and with theatrical drama, the Wizard Kalim turned and pointed an outstretched arm at Jen. “Time’s up! What’s your answer?”

Jen was sweating. “You can’t do this…”

“WRONG!” He turned to the unseen audience. “The answer is…”

As one, the audience shouted back: “TICKLING!”

The lighting returned to what it had been, and the unseen audience were cut off mid-applause by a flick of Kalim’s finger. He gazed at the boy who was looking very worried indeed. “Every one of these guys suffered at your hands, Jen.” He nodded at the line of young men one by one. “Dec, the biker. You got him into your playroom by telling him he could fuck you. And what horny biker could resist a cute, blue-eyed boy like you, Jen? Eh? But you’re top, and you don’t like being fucked, do you? A spray of anaeson in his face and when he woke up the restraints were on…

Same story almost for Dilane.” The punk boy smiled sexily. “Then there was Pauli. Was it the football shorts, Jen? Or his cute, little-boy-lost face? Or the way he looked at you through that blond hair? Never been tied up before, had he… wanted to try it. But being tickled out of his mind hadn’t been part of the deal.”

“The leatherboy is Damien. He’s a top. But anaeson works on tops just as well as subs, doesn’t it, Jen!”

“And the soldier boy – you never even knew his name, did you? Well it’s Brad. The kind of ‘interrogation’ he’d wanted did not include tickle torture. And the last one – oh, that’s me! Hi, Kalim.” The other Kalim waved, grinning. “He was your very first, I think – at least the first I know about.” He looked his younger self up and down. “Hmm, bit out of fashion, those stretch leather jeans, but I can see what you saw in him, Jen. He fills them well, doesn’t he? Trouble is you got him drunk at your party and tied him up in the playroom, didn’t you… The poor boy never had a chance.”

The Wizard Kalim turned back to Jen. “Well, now, it’s…” The music and the lights did their game-show thing again and finished with another tympani roll. “… Payback Time!” Kalim went into a sleazy game show-host voice. “The Game That Makes You Laugh Till It Hurrrrrrts! Yes folks, we’ve got the bastard, we’ve got his records, and…” the unseen audience were back, joining in with the catchphrase: ‘WE KNOW WHAT HE DID!” Wild applause.

This had gone quite far enough. Somehow – Jen had no idea how – Kalim had doctored the game cube. Time to get out. Jen reached his virtual right hand out to the floating panel and hit “Exit” – but nothing happened. He stabbed it again, without result.

“Nyah – I disabled that. Oh – and look at the settings.”

Jen’s eyes widened as he scanned the game settings. “Feelies’” was set to 5 – halfway. Jen usually had it at around 2. That would account for why everything felt so vivid, and why the splinter had hurt so much. He noticed that the safeties were still on, though – unless Kalim had disabled them as well. He shuddered at the thought. “Ok Kalim, it looks like you’ve got me. What happens now?”

“I would have thought that was obvious!”

Canned laughter from the audience.

“You, Jed the Magnificent, are gonna get….” The audience added their voices in unison, “TICKLED!!”

Jen stood there and began to shake his head. “No. This is some kind of joke. You can’t do this, Kalim…”

“Oh, but I can! I can do anything!”

Jen was flung back against the padded leather wall as if a giant invisible hand had pushed him in the chest, and his arms and legs moved outwards into a classic spread-eagle position although he struggled to stop them. Kalim looked at the six boys – and in the hand of each there appeared a soft, golden feather with a long, pointed tip. Each feather was moving of its own accord in the fingers that held it – writhing as if it couldn’t wait to get started. Together, the boys advanced on Jen, surrounding him.

Jen stared at the feathers in horrified fascination. He was still shaking his head. “Please, Kalim, stop this. I can’t stand being tickled.”

“Oh I know that, Jen – I know that. That’s why you get off on tickling other guys so much, isn’t it? You can’t stand it yourself. Well, looks like you’re gonna suffer, doesn’t it, eh?” He cackled. “Ok boys – get him.”

The six feathers attacked his defenceless, ticklish body. Slowly at first, they stroked and caressed lightly over his bare skin. There were far too may for him to keep track of – they were on his nipples, his ears, his nose; they were in his armpits; they glided softly over his stomach, the inner contours of his elbows; they traced along his arms, across his thighs, they got in to the backs of his knees; they tickled along his calves, the sides of his feet; they danced over his balls and perineum; and they teased gently along the length of his cock, which – against his will – quickly reached full erection.

Jen screamed in hysterics – and then with a quiet ‘thwuck’, a thick black rubber hood materialized over his head, cutting off the sound in mid-flow. It had no openings of any kind – not even for breathing. It sealed airtight around his neck, and fitted like a second skin to the contours of his face. Jen panicked for a moment as he couldn’t get any air – and then he found that he didn’t need to breathe any more. But he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t make the slightest sound. He stood there against the wall, silent and immobile, as if the devilish feathers were having no effect on him at all – but under the hood the boy was going insane. The tickling feathers were building up an unbearable tension in him that he had no way whatsoever of releasing. He couldn’t struggle, couldn’t scream, couldn’t laugh – he was in his own private hell and could do nothing about it at all. The invisible restraints immobilized him totally, and the thick, skintight rubber hood gripping his head and blindfolding him, magnified every stroke of every feather unbearbly. All he could so was to scream silently in his mind.

After what seemed like an eternity, the tickling stopped and the hood dematerialized with another soft sound. The forces holding him against the wall let go, and he collapsed into a jerking, gasping heap on the leather floor. The boys looked down at him – every one of them had a hard-on.

“Hmm… interesting, but not really satisfying. I need more visible reaction from you.”

Jen looked up at the Wizard. “You bastard. At least turn the feelie level down a bit. Please.You’ll drive me mad.”

“Very possibly,” smiled Kalim. “But the feelie level stays as it is. I may, uh, adjust it later… Now, please stand well back…”

With a smack of displaced air, a large green industrial circular saw appeared in the centre of the room.

“Oh I do wish the air wouldn’t pop every time I materialize something.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction.

A whining noise came from the saw as its blade spun, too fast to see.

Kalim eyed it dubiously for a moment, then shook his head. “Nyah, too theatrical.”

The saw disappeared – this time without the accompanying pop of air – and instead a light sabre materialized in the Wizard’s hand. “Did you see that old film? Brilliant stuff. May the Force be with you – or in this case me!” He made a few swordfight moves, the sabre buzzing like an angry wasp with each stroke. “Ok – hold him, boys.”

As one, the five young men grabbed Jen in various places and held him immobile.

Kalim approached the boy, his head tilted to one side thoughtfully. “There are six lads, so six pieces would be logical, I think.”

A look of terror came over Jen’s face. “You’re not going to cut me up…?”

“Oh now don’t worry, Jen. You won’t feel a thing. This is VR, remember? And I’m controlling everything. I can control exactly what you feel or don’t feel. My intention is not to cause you pain, Jen. Oh no, that’s much too unsubtle.” He sliced the light sabre carefully across the top of Jen’s left thigh, following the crease of the boys’ groin. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Jen looked down. Nothing appeared to have happened – he seemed to be still intact.

Kalim repeated the move with the other thigh, then drew the sabre across the boy’s abdomen level with his hip bones, and finally sliced both arms from just below the armpit, up to the collarbone on each side.

Jen frowned, not sure what was going on.

“Ok, boys,” said Kalim.

“Whooooaaaaa!!!!!!” As the six lads moved apart, each took a portion of Jen’s body with him. It didn’t hurt at all, but it felt very strange indeed: in a way Jen felt that he was still all in one piece, but he could see the biker and the punk each holding a leg. The soldier had one of Jen’s arms (the footballer had the other one), the leatherman was carrying his pelvis and genitals, and the young Kalim was holding Jen’s torso / head up so that the boy could see everything that was going on. There was no blood, no pain, and the ends of the various bits of Jen’s body were just plain, blank greyness.

Chairs and small leather-padded tables began appearing in the room. The five boys sat down, each cradling a part of Jen’s anatomy in their laps. Kalim placed Jen’s torso gently onto a padded table. Jen found that he could feel his entire body, as if it were somehow still intact. He tried experimentally to move his limbs. It was possible to flex individual muscles, move fingers and toes, elbows ankles and knees, but not move anything that depended on another part of his body to move against. There was no way, for instance, he could move an entire leg, or thrust his pelvis, or swing his arms. He was beginning to feel very helpless indeed.

“No. Don’t do this, Kalim. Please. I can’t stand being tickled. Please. Don’t do this!” Jen craned his neck to see the Wizard.

“Now, I’m afraid I have to go for a while,” said the Wizard Kalim, ignoring him. “I’ll be back later. In the meantime, boys – have fun!” With a flash of white light he disappeared.

“NOOOOOO!!!!!!!” Screamed Jen.

The biker, the punk, the soldier, the footballer, the leather man and the young Kalim looked at each other, grinned, and started in on tickling Jen.

It was worse than anything Jen could have imagined. Worse even than the feathers, because now he could yell and try to struggle. It began unbearable, and got progressively worse. The boys’ fingers stroked and caressed his sensitivity-enhanced skin, tickling lightly. The biker and the punk who had his legs worked on his feet, upending the limbs and locking the shin between their thighs so that they could use both hands – Jen could feel one of his legs between leather-clad thighs and the other between rough denim; the soldier and the footballer each had an arm – with armpit and the top of the chest attached – and they set to work with enthusiasm on the boy’s sensitive pits. The leather top had Jen’s cock and balls, which he began now to tease and tickle.

Arbitrary as the pairing between body-part and tormentor had seemed, there was in fact a small amount of reasoning behind it: Kalim knew that Jen was very turned on by the feel of leather – especially on his cock and balls, his thighs and his feet – hence Dec, the biker, got a leg to work on. Damien, the leather top was, in the real world, an expert at cum-control and milking, and the irony had appealed to Kalim, so he’d given him the boy’s cock, balls and arse to play with. As for the others, they were all programmed creations of Kalim’s anyway, and Kalim had full access to Jen’s psychological profile – so that meant that they could all tickle the boy as effectively as they wanted to. At this point, they were only playing with him, learning about him, softening him up. Things were going to get a lot worse later on.

Jen howled. Six pairs of hands were working on him, tickling him lightly and gently, and he could do nothing at all about it. Struggling was quite impossible – all he could do was try to take it. Dec, the biker, was running his leather-gloved hands over one of Jen’s feet; the punk Dilane was concentrating on the toes of his other foot; Brad and Pauli each had their fingers jammed into an armpit and were tickling unbearably; but even worse was what Kalim was doing: he was alternating between brushing the boy’s nipples lightly and gently probing his ribs. Jen’s sides and ribs were his two most exquisitely ticklish spots. Although he was insanely ticklish just about everywhere on his body, his sides were buttons to his soul as far as tickling was concerned. Thankfully, Kalim hadn’t yet started to jab his fingers into the boy’s sides, but Jen was under no illusions that that ultimate torture wouldn’t happen at some point.

In the midst of all this unbearable stimulation, something extremely worrying got through to Jen’s brain: Damien, the leather top, had turned Jen’s pelvis arse-up, had inserted the boy’s hard cock between his legs, squeezing them together tightly. The young man’s breeches had enclosed the cock; the loose, creased, shiny black leather enveloping it completely. Having done that, he started to pump the boy’s cock slowly up and down, making it fuck those leather breeches. On its own, the feel of his horny cock sliding in and out of that tightly-gripping black leather would have been more than enough to bring Jen inexorably towards orgasm – but with a sadistic, knowing smile, the top reached his other hand underneath and positioned his leather-gloved fingers, so that he could give the sensitive head of Jen’s cock a firm rub at the extent of each downward stroke. He was not only milking the boy, he was making it totally impossible for Jen to stop himself from cumming.

Oh fuck – Jen knew that if he came, the tickling would be worse by orders of magnitude. He must not cum! But even as the thought passed through his tortured mind, the leather sliding over the shaft and the gloved fingers rubbing the head of his cock did their irresistible work on him, and his cock erupted – spunk shooting out uncontrollably onto Damien’s gently milking leather fingers and breeches. Damien chuckled quietly to himself as Jen came, helplessly.

The unseen audience was back, whooping and applauding madly. Lights swirled, and the scene changed instantly. Jen was now back in one piece, and strapped to a table in the centre of the room.

The Wizard version of Kalim looked down at him, grinning. “That was silly, letting yourself cum. But you couldn’t do anything to stop it, could you? Eh? Splitting you into bits is all very well, but there’s a lot to be said for being strapped down, feeling those restraints holding you down, and struggling…”

The six boys gathered around the table, and then they attacked. This time there was no gentle, light teasing: this time it was carefully calculated to be torture.

And Jen had only just cum…

And the ‘feelie’ level was still set to 5…

*  *  *

When Jen regained consciousness his body ached all over. It was as if it had its own memory of the tickling – his muscles still twitched uncontrollably just as they had while the twelve hands and sixty digits had jabbed, probed, squeezed and tickled his defenceless, restrained, hypersensitive body.

When had that been? The tickling had seemed to go on for hours. He looked at the panel by his side, and pushed the ‘Exit’ button repeatedly, but nothing happened. Then, a shock of horror passed through him as he saw the clock.

“WHAT?”According to the clock, it had been precisely two minutes and twenty-two seconds since he’d begun the game. That was impossible! It couldn’t… Then he saw the small blue icon in the top left-hand corner of the panel:

TC = On.

Jen groaned and closed his eyes. Time Compression was switched on. If that were true… He had no idea what Kalim had set it to, but it was possible that he could be here for days!

That did not bear thinking about. Wearily he looked around. He was in another empty room – this one had the usual stone walls. There was no door. “Oh fuck,” he groaned, and pulled himself to his feet. Then he realized he was clothed again. Not the teeshirt and shorts he’d started out in, but full black leather. On his feet were heavy bike boots; then skintight, thin, stretch-leather jeans; leather gloves; and a studded leather jacket. As he moved, he felt something around his genitals. Unzipping the jeans, he looked down. A thin band of black leather tightly encircled his cock and balls. He noticed that there were some kind of fasteners around it, and he wondered what they were for. It felt sexy – which, he reflected morosely, was probably the idea. He knew that the tickling hadn’t even started yet, and whatever happened, if he wanted to have any chance of surviving it, he must not cum again. There was no way he could endure another ordeal like the one they’d just put him through. He zipped the jeans up again.

There was a window in one wall – he thought it looked like the type they used to shoot arrows through in medieval days: it was narrow, with bevelled stone edges, and a cross of thin iron bars set into it. He wandered over to it and looked out. He must be in one of the towers, as the view was of roofs below him, and beyond that the ground – a long way down.

Ok – nobody builds a room it’s impossible to get into, and although that didn’t necessarily mean it was possible to get out of, he was fairly sure there’d be a hidden door somewhere. After all, Kalim and Co. were probably waiting for him to come to them. He set about examining the walls in detail.

The button turned out to be a complete stone – he’d been looking for something smaller, so it had taken him a while to find it. With a sound of ancient creaking hinges, the section of wall swung away, revealing a spiral stone staircase going down. Jen sighed resignedly, and started down cautiously.

The staircase was, surprisingly, lit – by miniature versions of the window in the top room. It turned away below his descending feet, leading him to… He wished he knew what.

He came to a landing, and he had to make a decision: he could either continue on down, or open the door and go wherever that lead. He decided to have a look, and if he didn’t like what he saw, he’d carry on down the stairs.

The door opened onto a narrow passage – and there, lying on the floor was his hyperlaser pistol! It was just beyond his reach at the moment, and he had a nasty suspicion that if he let go of the door it would close behind him. It was too obviously a trap. He’d almost decided to forget the pistol and continue down the stairs when he had an idea. Shrugging out of the leather jacket, and keeping hold of the end of an arm, he threw it over the pistol and used it to drag to the gun to him. Yes! He closed the door, put the jacket back on, and set off down the stairs, checking the charge in the weapon. It was almost full.

The stone staircase ended at a second door, which gave onto another narrow passage. Was he any better off, he wondered? Well at least he’d declined what had been a fairly clear trap. Unless, that is, Kalim had known he’d do that… This second-guessing himself was pointless, he thought – and anyway, he was now armed. He’d made his decision. With a little more confidence, he stepped into the passage.

The clump of the door’s closing behind him didn’t surprise him in the slightest, and he knew without trying it that it was now locked. The passage before him went in a straight line for a while, then came to an end at another door. Jen opened it and peered through at an amazing room.

From where he stood, a flight of stairs led down to a maze – but it was a strange kind of maze: all the walls were made of glass. From his elevated position he could see the tops of the glass walls, where each passage went, and how to get to the middle of the maze. In the very centre was a table, and on it was another game panel – a bit like the floating one that always stayed by his side – but this one had only one button: a large one, with ‘EXIT’ clearly written on it.

Jen scanned the room for enemies of any kind – including sexy punks, leatherboys, soldiers or footballers. Nothing moved anywhere. There were several other doors in the outside stone walls, all leading into the maze, but at the moment they were all closed. Jen suspected he was going to have to move fast when he moved. He studied the layout of the maze for a long time, committing the route to memory. It was a large room, and a complicated maze – there were lots of junctions, crossroads and dead ends. He would have to get it right first time, because he knew that once he was at ground level and inside the thing, it would not be quite so easy.

He closed his eyes and traced the route from memory, then opened them and compared it with the real thing. “Left, right, left, left, straight on, right, right, left, right…” It went on for a long time. He knew he would get it wrong. There had to be an easier way of remembering. “L, r, 2l, s, 2r, l, r…” That was better – it had a certain rhythm to it. He continued practising for a long time before he was satisfied that he had it.

Jen took several deep breaths, and then, with his hyperlaser pistol armed and ready in his hand, he ran down the stairs and into the maze. He raced around the course, chanting the mantra as he went. “LEFT! RIGHT! TWO-LEFT! STRAIGHT!…”

Then he ran full-tilt into a glass wall. “Eh?” That can’t be…” He recited the mantra again from the beginning, and realized where he’d gone wrong. “Yes!” Retracing his steps, he took the correct turning – and the lights went out.

Actually the lights stayed on, but a metal helmet with no eyeholes had materialized around his head. In the shock of the helmet’s sudden appearance, he dropped the hyperlaser and heard it go skittering off across the floor somewhere.

“SHIT! YOU FUCKERS! THAT’S NOT FAIR!” He yelled, infuriated. He tore at the helmet, but it was locked securely in place. After a few deep breaths, he managed to calm down and think. He could still do this. By touch alone now, he made his way slowly through the maze, counting the turns. Just another straight-on, one right, and he’d be at the centre!

His fingers slid along the glass wall on his right hand side. They came to an edge. He must be at the last crossroads. Straight on here. Then his fingers ran off the edge of the glass and over something that wasn’t glass. It was warm, smooth, rubbery, shiny. Tecothene. Then it moved. Oh fuck – it was the soldier.

Strong arms grabbed him, lifted him off the ground, and spun him around several times, disorientating him. Then they put him down again and let go. There was a quiet chuckle, and Jen heard footsteps receding. He waited for something to happen – but nothing did. He felt around for the soldier boy, but it seemed he’d gone. Then he realized he had absolutely no idea which way he was facing.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK!!” He felt so frustrated! He was a few paces from the centre and he couldn’t see which way to fucking go! Think, man, think, Jen told himself. You’re at a crossroads here. You have to go to the next right, and there you are. If you don’t get it right first time, come back here and try again – there are only four choices, after all.

Feeling his way carefully, he proceeded to the first passage on the right that he came to. If this was the centre, there should be a table facing me, he thought. He walked forward, and bumped into a glass wall. Ok, that was the wrong way. Turning 180 degrees around, he retraced his steps until he was at the crossroads again. Next, he tried the passage to his right. First right, and search for the table. Another wall.

Ok, retrace your steps… Out of that passage, turn right and head back to the crossroads.

After trying all four arms of the crossroads he’d found nothing. Frowning inside the blackness of the helmet, he went through his recent moves mentally – and then gritted his teeth in fury. Three or four moves ago, he thought he’d turned right instead of left when coming back to the crossroads. So where the fuck was he now? He had no idea.

Quiet laughter drifted to his ears. The bastards. It was impossible to get out of this fucking maze while he couldn’t see. He pulled at the helmet impotently – and it dissolved into powder under his fingers. Blinking in the light, he looked around. He could see the table in the centre room over to his left, four or five passages away. Then he saw the six boys standing watching him. They were scattered around him in different directions, all appeared to be at the edges of the maze room. So now it looked like it was going to be a race.

Jen took off down a passage and turned towards the centre room at the first junction he came to. Smiling wickedly, the boys began walking slowly through the maze towards him.

A T-junction here. Left or right? Jen scanned the passages and decided left. As he ran between the glass walls, the refracted images of Dec and Pauli, still walking slowly but getting closer, mocked him through the glass.

“Run, Jen, cos if we catch you we’re going to tickle you…”

Jen’s passage came to a dead end. Furiously he turned around and legged it back to the T- junction, this time taking the other arm.

“We’re getting closer, boy… And when we get you we’re going to torture the shit outta you…”

Jen tried to ignore the taunting, and concentrate on where he was going. A crossroads! He turned left towards the centre. The control panel was getting clearer – he was getting closer!

Now, straight on, or left again? The left route looked most likely, but… hardly stopping, he raced down to the left. SHIT – the passage turned right and then right again, away from the control panel. He didn’t know what to do. Oh fuck it – he followed the passage and YES! It turned left again! He was on the home stretch.

The figure of Damien loomed beside him. Jen yelped, and then realized there was a glass wall between them. If he’d chosen the right route, he could still make it!

Another crossroads – and for some reason he just knew that this was the one he’d been at before, when he’d been turned around by that fucking soldier. And he could see now! So – first right and he’d be there!

Dec appeared at the crossroads, along with Kalim and Pauli. Damien was close behind. With the boys mere feet behind him, Jen raced round the right-hand turn and saw the table with the control panel lying on it. He dived towards it, grabbed it, and punched the ‘EXIT’ button with all of his strength, as the others piled into the room.

The maze room disappeared, and was replaced by the blue sky and white clouds, and Gemstone Parrit’s logo. “Do you wish to exit the game?” Asked a disembodied voice.

Jen punched the button again and again. “YES!” He screamed.

“Are you sure?”

A leather-gloved hand reached out from the sky and took the panel away from him. “No, we’ve changed our mind,” said Dec.

The blue sky disappeared and Jen was back in the maze room with the others standing around him. Dec glanced at the control panel and threw it up in the air. “Close,” he said, “but not close enough.” At the apex of its arc, the panel disappeared.

Hands grabbed him and dragged him kicking and screaming out of the maze.

*  *  *

The room they took him into now made no pretence of being anything other than what it was: a torture chamber. Torches flickered on the walls; a brazier glowed in the corner; metal shackles hung from hooks in the stone walls; and leather restraints, hoods, manacles, and a vast selection of devices whose purpose could only be – shudderingly – guessed at stood about, hung from the ceiling, or were stacked on shelves. It was a very well-equipped torture chamber indeed.

“Feeling ticklish again yet?” The voice was unmistakably that of Kalim (the elder), but the Wizard robes had gone now. Instead, he wore the stereotypical uniform of a torturer: studded jerkin, leather breeches and an executioner’s mask. He looked around the room. “Like it? I thought I’d save a bit of ROM and use this as it was here already. Waste not, want not, eh?” He chuckled. Then, seeing Jen’s expression of horror, he rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ve told you before that I’m not interested in inflicting pain on you! Get it through your thick skull, Jen the Magnificent – this is about tickling you!”

“How long are you going to keep me here?” Jen asked.

“Well, you have to be at college first thing Monday morning, so we’ll have to be done by then. In fact I’ll let you get a good night’s sleep Sunday evening, so we’ll finish by 8pm. I don’t want to interfere with your education. But don’t worry – we have lots of time. You started the game at about 8pm Friday, so that’s 48 hours. Real hours, that is.” He grinned maliciously. “I’ve set Time Compression at 1:3600, which works out at an hour in here for a minute out there. Makes the arithmetic simple. Now, you should be able to work it out. It comes to one hundred and twenty days in here. That’s almost four months! Like I said, there’s lots of time. Lots of time to tickle you, boy…

Jen felt his knees go weak. This was a lot worse than he’d feared. Four months? He’d be insane in less than a day at this rate.

“Of course it won’t be continuous tickling. Oh no! This is a game! We can do whatever we like here. When you’re not being tortured you can wander around, get to know the place, enjoy the facilities… I’ve thought up lots and lots of interesting ideas – and I’ll tell you something, Jen: when I started this it was really just a question of revenge. I wanted you to suffer in the same ways you made these boys suffer (but for a lot longer, of course). But! Wonder of wonders! Guess what? I’m really getting into this tickling thing. I can see what you see in it. It’s fun. I’m getting off on it.” Kalim managed to look bashful here – difficult in a torturer’s uniform – “In fact, while the guys were working on you last time, you know, when you were strapped down? I came. Had to. Watching you struggling and fighting the straps while the boys laid into you – oh fuck, that was so horny. I wanked myself silly. And I intend to do it again. And again. And again. Unfortunately, because of certain technical reasons, I can’t actually do any hands-on myself – but I can enjoy it almost as much through making the lads do exactly what I want to you.” His voice suddenly got harder, meaner. “Yes, Jen. There’s lots of time to play with you and to torture you. And it’s going to get worse and worse and worse, believe me.”

Jen felt like he was going to faint. Four months of hell inside a castle with torture chambers and god knows what else, and a tickle torturer who was getting more sadistic by the minute.

“Well, tempus fugit and all that. We’re in a suitable setting, so I think – yes, I think we’ll have you hanging from your wrists. With well-padded cuffs, of course – don’t want to hurt you.”

They grabbed him, stripped him except for the leather cock strap and got him strung up from a couple of chains in the middle of the room. Kalim grinned. “Boys, you can have a break. Watch and learn. Play with each other if you feel like it. I’ve arranged an entertainment for us all…”

The door to the chamber burst open and Jen stared in fascinated horror. There, framed by the stonework was a Pliropod. He’d come up against these creatures before in earlier versions of the game – they were usually green, repulsive things. But this one wasn’t green: it looked as if its skin was made of soft, thick, oily black rubber. As it moved towards him with surprisingly cat-like smoothness for such a large creature, its ‘rubber’ skin creased and gleamed in the torchlight as it flexed over the muscles beneath. And unlike any other Pliropod Jen had ever seen, this one wasn’t disgustingly ugly – in fact there was something primordially sexy about it. It was an image the deepest, most perverted parts of his mind might have generated in a particularly erotic wet dream.

Pliropods had two pairs of muscular tentacles of snake-like flexibility instead of arms. Where they joined the body, these were as thick as a man’s thigh – but they tapered smoothly and gradually to a ‘wrist’ of normal size. Each tentacle branched into eight strong, multi-jointed appendages at the wrist – and this Pliropod’s digits were designed for tickling: some of the ‘fingers’ were long and slender, for probing into nooks and crannies; others were strong and shorter, for power-tickling. In addition, this particular creature appeared to be wearing gloves. Unlike the rubber-like skin of the beast, these were extremely shiny – as if they were continually exuding a film of lubricant of some kind. They looked for all the world like shiny black PVC gloves. And they had attachments: on the last fingertip of one ‘hand’ there was a device which had the appearance of a false nail. It came to a sharp, flattened point – and would be devastatingly effective, Jen thought, at scraping along bare soles… Some of the other appendages had soft, brush-like things sprouting from them – or pointed, feathery ones – and these, worryingly, seemed to move independently of the finger which bore them.

From the Pliropod’s crotch there extended a fifth tentacle. Shorter than the others, this one ended in a glisteningly slippery, flexible cylindrical thing which looked disturbingly like a shiny black rubber masturbating device.

The creature walked slowly into the room and stood in front of Jen, giving the helpless boy a calculating gaze. After a few moments of scanning his naked body with its eight eyes, it began. The cylindrical thing was indeed a milking device – and Jen discovered the purpose of the fasteners around the leather cock-strap.

The Pliropod slid the black, rubbery cylinder over Jen’s hard cock and clicked it into place using those fasteners. There were things inside the cylinder which gripped his cock-head warmly and wetly. They moved and sucked and stroked and teased and tickled and rotated…

A long, thin appendage with a glossy black, oily, mobile tip snaked between the boy’s legs, slid into his arsehole, and positioned itself directly on Jen’s prostate, ready to start massaging it. The other digits on the same ‘hand’ had tiny, soft, feathery fingers designed for tickling a boy’s balls and the insides of his thighs.

The first thing the Pliropod did was to made Jen cum. It did this quickly, efficiently and irresistably, while staring unwaveringly into the boy’s eyes – as if it were simply a chore that needed to be done to sensitize the victim, for the torture to come. Then, with Jen’s body still convusling from the orgasm, the purpose-designed tickle-torturing creature went to work in earnest on the boy’s anatomy. In its single-minded awareness, the naked body swinging helplessly from the restraints before it was simply a nervous system that must be stimulated by tickling as intensely as possible. It would do whatever was necessary to accomplish that: gagging or blindfolding the boy whenever that would make the torture more unbearable; milking him whenever his sensitivity began to drop. It was designed to find the victim’s most vulnerable spots and, having found them, to stimuate them maximally. As Jen stared in terror, the shiny, slippery, black PVC gloves glided towards his bare skin, the ‘fingers’ moving in mindless, sadistic anticipation…

Before the creature had finished with him Jen had cum nine times, passed out three times, and screamed hysterically during every second he was conscious. The Pliropod was a learning creature, however, and soon became adept at modifying its timing and techniques to make it impossible for Jen to escape into unconsciousness any more.

While this was going on, the other six boys wanked so much at the sight in front of them that by the time the Pliropod left, the floor was slick with spunk.

I can’t take this, thought Jen, twitching and dangling in his restraints, his eyes showing only the whites as his brain tried to deal with the stimulus overload it had been presented with. A tiny part of his mind that was still able to function rationally realized that it was about ten past eight on Friday night in the real world. And there was the entire weekend left. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit…

*  *  *

What the fuck was this? Jen was lying on a comfortable bed. He screamed – his mind conjuring up the sight of the Pliropod’s shiny black PVC-like gloved fingers reaching for him again – but then he realized he was alone. He appeared to be unrestrained, and – surprisingly – he felt good. No aches, no pains. He lay there for a while, afraid to move in case the creature reappeared, but as the minutes went by and nothing happened, he sat up and looked around.

At the side of the bed was a small table, and on it was the leather gear he’d found himself in earlier, and his complete armourment belt – and it had everything in it! He slipped off the bed, put the leathers on, fastened the belt around his waist, and tiptoed to the door. He’d expected it to be locked, but it wasn’t. Opening it a crack, he listened carefully, but heard nothing. Silently he set off down the passageway.

He had no idea where he was going, other than that he was getting out of here! He ran down stone corridors, through doorways, around corners, and slid full-tilt into the punk. They both gasped in surprise as they bounced off each other, and then Dilane smiled. “Well hello, Victim. Where you off to in such a hurry?”

Jen didn’t know what to say. “Just looking around the place,” he replied lamely.

Dilane nodded, and squeezed his crotch. “You look good in those jeans, boy. I think you’d better come with me.”

Under other circumstances, the thought of going with the sexy punk boy would have appealed greatly to Jen, but at the moment that was the very last thing he wanted to do. “Erm, some other time…”

“No, now.” The punk produced a pair of handcuffs and, roughly pulling Jen’s arms behind his back, snapped them on. Then he led the protesting lad a short way back along the corridor and into a disused storeoom. Slowly he closed the door and locked it, placing the key in the back pocket of his skintight bleached jeans, then removed Jen’s handcuffs. “On your knees,” he ordered.

Jen had no choice. He knelt on the cold stone slabs before the punk, and found himself at eye-level with the boy’s cock-bulge.

“You like tight jeans, don’tcha, Victim?”

Jen nodded silently.

“Well so do I. They make me horny. Enjoy them.” He grabbed Jen’s ears and pulled the boy’s face hard into his crotch, holding it there.

Jen felt the outline of the punk’s hard cock between his lips, and the round curve of his balls against his chin. The rough, thin denim felt wonderful, and he began to get a hard-on. Bringing his hands up he ran them over the skintight thighs, and up to the boy’s perineum, where his fingertips began scratching and carressing at the sides of the denim-clad balls. Dilane closed his eyes and groaned in pleasure. Jen’s teeth scraped gently along the elongated mound of the punk’s cock, and came to rest on the ridge of the head, where he sucked and worked on it industriously. Jen’s own cock was tenting the stretch-leather jeans out between his thighs and he wanted to cum.

“Enough!” Said Dilane. He pulled Jen to his feet, moved him over to a large barrel which was lying on the floor further into the room, and pushed him over it. Beyond the barrel was a heavy wooden table, and Dilane hadcuffed Jen’s wrists to the bottom of one of its legs to keep him there. The barrel was pushing Jen’s cock downwards between his legs, the stretchy thin leather of his jeans pulling tightly over it. Dilane spread the boy’s feet wide apart, and ran a single fingertip slowly down the length of Jen’s hard dick right to the end. Jen groaned urgently and his pelvis thrust against the barrel involuntarily, causing his leather-covered cock to slide against the wooden surface – which brought another loud sigh of lust from him.

Jen felt the punk’s fingers at his arse and then, unexpectedly, cool air on his bare skin. He frowned, not understanding. The punk chuckled and walked around the barrel to Jen’s head. He held up a two-inch-wide circle of leather edged with some kind of Velcro-type fastening. “Didn’t know this came off, did you?”

Jen hadn’t realized there was a removable piece in the arse of his jeans – it had been invisible when it had been in place. He groaned.

Dilane moved closer to the boy. “Get my cock out, Victim.”

Jen could only use his teeth, and getting the zip of the boy’s skintight jeans down was not easy – it took him a while. Even more difficult was extracting the rock-hard cock. In the end the punk had to do it himself, and he stood there with his cock and balls framed by the bleached denim, waving it in Jen’s face. “You like getting fucked by a punk in tight jeans?”

Jen didn’t like getting fucked by anybody – fucking was something he’d never been into for some reason – but the sight of that punk boy in those those boots, that ripped leather jacket, and those sexy, skintight jeans, his thighs stretching the thin denim to bursting, somehow made the idea less unattractive than usual.

Dilane went back to his position between Jen’s legs, spat on his cock, and pushed the full length smoothly into Jen in a single movement. Jen opened his mouth ready to scream in pain – but there was no pain. It felt amazing. The punk rested his hands on the barrel at Jen’s sides and, keeping his tight-jeaned legs as much in contact with the boy’s as possible, started to fuck Jen slowly. With every thrust, Jen’s cock slid and pushed against the wooden barrel, adding to the horny feelings building up in him. Dilane’s fucking got faster and faster, until he was pumping Jen’s arse violently.

For the punk, this was good, but not good enough. He wanted the boy to suffer. His hands moved inwards and suddenly attacked Jen, jabbing and probing mercilessly into his unbearably ticklish sides with his thumbs, while his fingers reached under to get at his ribs. His timing couldn’t have been better – or worse – because at that moment Jen came into the stretch leather, which pulsed and throbbed as it elastically made room for each gob of spunk erupting from his dick. As Jen’s orgasm subsided, what the punk’s fingers were doing was quickly transformed into torture, and Jen screamed in hysterics.

That was what Dilane wanted. He felt the boy struggling and kicking under him, unable to get his hands free to defend himself, yelling fit to bust – and he felt his spunk boiling in his balls. His cock rammed into the helpless boy, skintight denim jeans smacking against skintight leather jeans with each violent thrust, and his fingers worked on Jen’s sides more and more mercilessly. As the boy jerked and screamed under him, the punk came. He made grunting noises like a rutting animal as he emptied himself into the helpless boy.

With a long, almost whispered “yeahhhhhh………” Dilane collapsed onto Jen, his pelvis now just moving in and out gently. He bit the back of the boy’s neck, then stroked his blond mohican over Jen’s cheek – an act of gentleness which surprised Jen.

After zipping himself up and replacing the leather circle over the boy’s arse, Dilane released his victim’s wrists and slapped him on the bum. “Nice one Victim. See you around.” Then he was gone.

Jen stood up, rubbing his sore wrists. He ached all over. Pulling himself together, he opened the door and listened. There was silence. Waddling slightly, he set off again looking for a way out of this hellish place.

* * *

Jen had no idea where in the castle he was, except that he was on the ground floor. For what seemed like ages he explored passageways, opened doors, searched for an exit. Eventually he turned a corner in a corridor he’d suspected would be a dead end, and found himself looking at a small door set into the wall. Cautiously, and holding his pistol ready, he opened it.

Fresh air blew at his face and birdsong greeted him. He couldn’t believe his eyes – he was out of the castle! Keeping low, he ran down a lane and across a field. Breathing hard, he stopped for a rest, hiding in a ditch and surrounded by high grass. Hopefully, he pressed the ‘Exit’ button on the panel by his side – he was a good way from the castle, and Kalim’s influence might well not extend this far…

Nothing happened. “Shit!” He said, through gritted teeth. Carefully he raised his head, trying to get his bearings: he’d come out of the castle at its right-hand side, and so the road should be… Yes! There it was – and beyond it, the shore. If he could get back to the point where he entered the game, he could leave through the portal there – and there’d be nothing Kalim could do about it.

With a deep breath he set off again. A loud roaring behind him almost made him jump out of his skin. Recognising the sound, he turned, bringing up the pistol, and flicking the setting from ‘undies’ to ‘living creatures’ without conscious effort. He shot the giant Slugworm repeatedly until it was dead. As long as all he had to deal with were these ordinary creatures he’d be ok. He was an ace player of Alzira.

He reached the road, crossed it, and felt the welcome rocks of the shoreline beneath his feet. And then there it was – glistening metallic grey against the horizon: the portal! Jen picked his way as quickly as he could down across the rocks towards it, and then he was there. He reached out his hand to touch the thing that was his way out of this nightmare. The gap between his leather-gloved hand and the portal closed, and then…

He touched it! It was real! Jen closed his eyes in relief for a moment, then flung himself through the gate.

He wrenched the headset off and lay in the reclining chair, panting. He was out! Then he sat up, pulled the game cube out of the X90 and stamped it under his booted foot. It smashed into tiny pieces. Wearily he went into the kitchen and, sitting on a stool, poured himself a stiff drink. The alcohol felt good as it went down. Oh shit, what an experience. How the hell had Kalim got hold of that Alzira cube and doctored it, he wondered? Well, no matter – he would find out. Right now all he wanted to do was get out of these leathers and have a shower –

His hand froze halfway to his mouth with the glass. He was still wearing the boots, stretch-leather jeans, leather jacket and gloves he’d got in the game. That couldn’t be right – it wasn’t possible to bring material things back into the real world…

“I’ll have a large Scotch please.” Kalim, now dressed identically to Jen, suddenly appeared sitting on the other stool in the kitchen. “I wondered how long it would take you to realize.” He spread his booted feet and leaned back against the refrigerator, smiling. A glass of Scotch blinked into existence in his hand.

Jen closed his eyes, a dreadful sinking feeling in his stomach. “Oh fuck. I’m still there aren’t I?”

“Yep. We’re still in the game. Clever, though, don’t you think?”

“Look, Kalim, please –“

“Now don’t start whining. Take it like a man. Enjoy it! It’s only a game.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You have no idea how much I’m getting into this,” said Kalim, sipping his Scotch appreciatively. “You are the perfect victim, you know that? Eh? You put those six guys through hell tied down to your bed or your restraint table, but you can’t stand being tickled yourself, can you? When I planned this, it was going to be just a punishment for you. But it’s gone way beyond that. I never for one moment thought I was actually going to enjoy it so much. You’re bringing out a side of me I never knew existed. And it is fascinating. I intend to explore it, develop it, let it grow. It’s not just punishment now, Jen – I want to make you suffer, because I love it.” He raised his glass in an ironic salute and drained it.

“Talking of suffering, we’re wasting time – not much, of course, with Time Compression on – but all the same, I’ve got a lot of things planned for you and I’m itching to get started.” His face suddenly lit up and he grinned, pleased with himself about something. “Itching! Now there’s a thought!”

The kitchen disappeared and Jen was instantly back in the castle. He was naked. He blinked, and tried to make sense of what he was seeing: the room was divided in half horizontally by a glass ‘floor’. In the centre of this floor was a hole, and Jen was sealed into the hole – everything above his waist was above the glass, and the rest of his body hung down below it. A thick, spongy rubber grommet sealed tightly but comfortably around his waist, protecting him from the sharp edges of the glass and gripping him securely. His feet were held apart by a spreader bar, which was itself attached by a rope at each end to anchor points on the real floor below. The length of the ropes allowed for some movement, but not much.

A door opened in the bottom half of the room, and two of the boys – Brad the soldier and Dilane the punk – entered. They each held a container of something, and a paintbrush.

Jen yelled to them, begging them not to do whatever it was they were going to do – but either the glass floor soundproofed the room or they were intentionally taking no notice. The two boys positioned themselves one either side of Jen’s swinging legs, dipped their paintbrushes into the containers, and applied a single stroke each to the outside of the helpless boy’s thighs. Then they just stood there waiting, and looking up at him.

A low moan started in Jen’s throat. The moan slowly gained intensity, and transformed into a mixture of sighs, shrieks, and hysterical laughter as the liquid began to itch – madly and intensely. He needed to scratch. He needed to scratch more than anything else in the world. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t a painful itch, it was an intensely tickly itch – the kind that you sometimes get on the edge of your nose – and scratching it became the most urgent, compelling need in the universe.

Seeing Jen’s hysterical struggling to try to get his arms down to scratch, the two boys smiled at each other and, pleased with the results of a single stroke’s application of the liquid, dipped their paintbrushes into it again and set to work, covering every square inch of the boy’s lower body except for his genitals.

Jen kicked his feet, twisted and did everything he could to get away from those brushes, but the boys just let him struggle, and when an untouched part of his anatomy came past, they painted it with the liquid.

Dilane held first one ankle and then the other in his rubber-gloved hands while Brad – his cock visibly hard under his skintight tecothene uniform – applied the stuff to Jen’s feet, getting well between the toes.

Gradually the liquid took effect, and by the time the boys had finished coating Jen’s legs and body, he was hoarse with screaming. He couldn’t even scratch one leg with the other foot – the spreader bar made that impossible.

It felt like his entire body was being slowly stroked by individual, single hairs. The compulsion to scratch was overpoweringly intense, and yet he was totally helpless to get relief in any way at all. He writhed, shrieked and laughed maniacally in exquisite torture.

The liquid’s effects began to wane after a few minutes – but to Jen those minutes were lifetimes. When he had enough breath left from the screaming he begged and pleaded – but the two boys below just stood there looking up at him, and playing slowly with their hard cocks.

When things eventually became bearable again, the punk tightened the two ropes holding the spreader bar until Jen had no movement at all, and then he and the shiny black-uniformed soldier charged their brushes and began to apply them carefully to Jen’s cock, balls, inner thighs, perineum and arsehole.

Once this was finished, and before the liquid began to take effect, they released Jen’s ankles from the bar completely so that now he hung free. Then they put their containers and brushes down, got their cocks out and began wanking slowly, as if waiting for the main show.

 Part 2