After uttering this obscure phrase, the Herald rolled up his parchment. For a moment, he looked at Dorée with something like pity and something like fascination. Then he made a beckoning gesture. Dorée hardly had time to think about who he was signalling before she was seized bodily from behind and blindfolded. Plunged into darkness, she could feel her clothing being summarily stripped away. Her hands were bound before her. Something cold and hard closed about her throat. There came a clinking sound like chain-links and almost in the same moment Dorée was pulled forward by the collar about her neck. Bound in this manner, Dorée stumbled through the corridors. She was blind and helpless but for the chain that pulled her once way or another, and the occasional tap of a hand on her hip or shoulder which guided her to step up a stair or turn more sharply to avoid something.
Finally, she was brought into a halt in a place that felt spacious --very spacious, almost like being outside, except that the air was still and thick with incense. She could hear a murmurous clamour, as of a crowd whispering. Her skin prickled with the feeling of being watched while she was blind and vulnerable. She wished someone would tell her what was going on.
"Golden Girl," said a soft, husky voice by her ear. A familiar hand touched her shoulder lightly.
"My Lady!" Dorée breathed. "What is happening?"
"The duel. Listen to me. You must not stop once you begin on the path. Stop, and you lose. Rush too quickly, and you also lose. Follow the rhythm given. Do not speed or slow unless directed. Keep your paces even. Your success depends on it."
"Please, what does that mean?" Dorée cried, now truly afraid.
At that moment, the Herald's voice boomed out: "Ladies, please take your seats!" The warm presence at her side was gone. Dorée suspected the call was meant for the Lady, to keep her from saying any more. She felt all the more alone for having been touched so briefly by the one she adored.
After what seemed like an eternity, the Herald's voice rang out anew, calling,
"Your attention, Ladies and Gentleman! We are gathered here today to witness a Duel between one of our newest slaves and some of our finest. Bets may be placed while the slaves are blind, but once their blindfolds are removed you must hold your bets until the second round. Place your wagers now, folks, and see which will prevail!"
The wagers continued some five minutes more, but it was quite clear by the sounds in the space that most of the spectators were already settled and waiting. As the whispers faded to silence, Dorée drew a deep breath and steeled her resolve.
No amount of resolve, however, could prepare her for what came next. For in a flash, the blindfold was ripped from her eyes, and Dorée beheld the most incomprehensible scene to yet strike her eyes. She was indeed in a cavernous indoor space, even bigger than the Terraced Room. The Duc was seated at the far end of this veritable stadium on a raised dias. Next to him was the Scarlet Lady, with her Companion at her feet. But between herself and her Master and Mistress, there was a confusing array of...things. They appeared to be tracks or bars made out of segments of smooth-polished brass, all raised a few feet above the floor on wooden posts. They were the most strangely shaped objects; here dimpled with small divots, there lined with rounded protuberances or grooved into long, narrow ridges.
"Behold the race-track!" The Herald cried out, as if for the benefit of the slaves. "On these courses, our competitors will be put through their paces. Each course has been tailored to the carnal weaknesses of the slave in question. The slaves must walk the course, following the directions of their handler. Any who succumb to pleasure, or pain" --here the Herald winked broadly toward Dorée, and the crowd laughed-- "will be disqualified from the competition. Should any slave make it across the track, they will be granted the honour of challenging the Duc directly for the fulfillment of their desire."
There was a polite patter of applause as the Duc rose and waved to the crowd. His handsome face was jovial, but as his gazed raked Dorée she saw that his black eyes were hard as glass. They flashed at her with a fanatical hunger almost verging on rage. She was shaken to her core to see the intensity of his emotions break through his amused demeanour. But in an eyeblink he was smiling again at the crowd as though nothing were amiss.
"Your first competitor tonight is the Golden Girl, Dorée. This is the Golden Girl's first showing in our race. Rumour has it the little fool asked to compete --and what's more, she vies today for the chance to martyr herself for desire."
There were incredulous guffaws from the assembly.
"Let us hope her sponsor, the Scarlet Lady, knows what she is doing with this one."
There was more applause as the Scarlet Lady stood up to wave, but the tone of their cheers suggested many were cynical about her chances of success.
"Next up, we have the Duc's champion: Thierry, Steward of the High Table!"
Dorée gasped to see the lovely black-haired brother step up beside her, collared and bound just as she was.
"This is Thierry's third competition. Many of you will recall the rousing scene from our last event in which he made it through his paces, but failed when facing the Duc one-on-one."
The cynical murmurs gave way to sounds of approval as people began to recount this apparently moving scene to each other. Clearly Thierry was the favourite to win among those in the know. It dawned on Dorée just how sheltered she had been in the South Wing, despite all that had happened to her.
"Once again, Thierry will challenge the Duc to win freedom for himself and his lovely sister Mariette, who will take his punishment should he fail in his challenge."
Thierry tossed an agonized glance up to a spot above the Duc's box. Dorée followed his gaze and was stricken to see the black-haired beauty, suspended by the Duc's left hand in a veritable net of ropes which wound about her body and held her immobilized off the floor.
"Finally, we have another entry tonight: Berenice, former head Chambermaid of the South Wing! She challenges here for the second time as an independent competitor to win back her position under the Scarlet Lady."
Dorée spun around to see Berenice stepping up beside Thierry, as regal in bearing as a Queen despite her nudity. Unable to help herself, Dorée cried out,
"No! Berenice, I'm sorry! You don't need to do this! Please come back, I didn't mean to take your spot, I didn't know what would happen when Iâmmmph!"
Dorée doubled over as a heavy blow hit her squarely in the belly.
"Looks like the Golden Girl is off to a rough start. Good thing she likes it that way!" The Herald commented. The crowd laughed. Dorée struggled to draw breath and stand up again, to catch Berenice's eye. But the woman refused to look at her, holding her head just as high as she had that day leaving the South Wing vestibule.
"Contestants, take your marks." The Herald called. Both Thierry and Berenice stepped up to the bars. Dorée followed suit hastily. The bonds around their hands were cut, allowing them to bring their arms to their sides, and their iron collars were removed with an ominous rattling of chains.
"Mount!" The Herald commanded. The other two swung their legs over the bars. Now very confused indeed, Dorée did the same, standing on her toes to keep her sensitive flesh from the cold metal.
"Make your paces...now!"
Thierry stepped forward. Berenice stepped forward. And so Dorée also stepped forward.
The purpose of the brass bars became viscerally evident. Each bar was coated with some slick, viscous oil which allowed the metal to slide, slippery yet hard, between Dorée's legs as she walked. Every dozen steps or so, the track was elevated or cast in a way that would block her progress unless she submitted and pressed her body through it.
First, Dorée encountered a hump in the track carved with a series of grooves that spread her lower lips wide. Then there came a dip filled with a patch of small, dull spikes which rubbed delicately against her freshly-exposed tissues. The sensation was like nothing she had ever known: once uncomfortably grating and immensely stimulating. When Dorée stopped to regain control of her squirming hips, she was struck from behind by guard who wielded a bundle of nettles bound into a flail. She screamed and bucked instinctively, driving herself harder upon the spikes between her legs. It was like an immense, elaborate wooden horse upon which she must walk or be thrashed again, or an obstacle course in which succumbing to either pain or pleasure meant failure. Given her particular weakness to both sensations, Dorée immediately saw the disadvantage she faced.
Adding to her humiliation was the fact that she could see her competitors walking on ahead of her, facing their own challenges on bars wrought of assembled pieces that targeted their natures. Thierry's was full of honey-traps: holes and crevices into which he must thrust his already throbbing-hard cock until his handler let him walk on. Whenever he was deep into one of these traps, the Duc did something to his poor bound sister which made her moan or cry out. At the sound of her voice Thierry's member leapt again as it had in the washing-chamber and his lips twisted as he tried to hold himself back.
Berenice's path, too, was fraught with sensual stimulations: places where the bar had been padded with moist velvet that caressed her hungry sex, then raised into shafts that penetrated her. There was even one obstacle in which a man lay bound underneath the track with his legs spread and his enormous cock protruding up, so that Berenice had to mount him to pass. By the way she looked down and apologized as she ground against him, he must have been her secret lover. The poor man had been brought to the very edge before the race even began, and he spent inside of her after just a few moments. Berenice, unable to resist his final exertions, rocked with spasms of her own that earned her an early disqualification from the race.
Dorée, meanwhile, faced obstacles that challenged even her high tolerance for pain. After the spikes, she had to mount a series of phallic protuberances that increased in length and girth as she made her way down the row. She was not allowed to pass until she had pushed herself down the full length of each one. The sensation of the thick, unyielding metal filling her, stretching her recently-virginal hole almost to the point of tearing her open, pushed her beyond all previous limits. But at the same time, it stirred her to the depths of her being, so that even in her pain she fought to hold back from the culmination that would disqualify her along with Berenice.
Hearing Berenice's climax, Mariette's cries, and Thierry's breath coming rough and harsh with desire did nothing to help Dorée resist her body's urges. In a way, it was more shameful and yet more arousing to be undergoing such intimate tortures alongside them, whom she had admired from afar and longed to be closer to. Dorée's legs shook with the nearness of them, not to mention the nearness of her climax. She cast a pleading look back at her handler, but all he said was "Keep to your paces."
And so she did. Though the bar rose until even standing on her tiptoes was not enough to keep it from gouging with brutal pressure at the tender flesh between her legs, she kept moving forward slowly. Though her handler made her stop over a dip in the track where she was forced to squat and impale herself over and over on a shaft ribbed like a corkscrew, she did not move forward a step until she was told to. Even when the handler brushed her breasts and flanks, so softly but so sharply, all over with the nettle-flail while delicate grooves in the bar massaged her pearl to dripping slickness, still she did not give in.
Dorée had fallen once again into that spiritual state of trance where she could endure the most outrageous sensations in a kind of floating grace. She felt every jolt of pain and pulse of pleasure intensely --how could she not? But at the same time it was as if she rode on top of her sensations as a dolphin rides the waves. Tears streamed down her face, but they were ecstatic. The Scarlet Lady was calling her name. Even the Duc noticed the transformation that had come over her, for his eyes were now locked on her in something like wonder.
It was not until the final stretch of the track that Thierry was overcome --and that was only because his sister broke first. Whatever it was that was being done to her in her bondage, it finally grew too much. Just as Thierry entered his last obstacle, her cries waxed louder, growing raw, panicked, and then, finally, orgasmic. Hearing her release, her brother's member rose in physical sympathy, spurting just as she gave vent to her loudest screams. The crowd gave a collective gasp --some of those gasps sounding distinctly like masturbatory releaseâas the Duc's champion fell in the first round.
So it was that Dorée made her way on trembling legs down the final incline, and stood before the Duc to face the second round of the Duel.
