This story is loosely inspired by Iain M. Banks's
Culture
novels, specifically
The Player of Games.
The focus is mainly on the mental aspect of erotic humiliation and ENF. Not a whole lot of actual sex, if that's what you're looking for! Naturally everyone depicted is a consenting adult of 18 or more years of age.
Thanks to E, K, and H (you know who you are!) for providing inspiration and motivation for the story! It wouldn't have been completed without you guys!
Lainne stared out at the vista of her backyard, not seeing the rolling plains and curled mountains she herself designed years ago. They had been a gift from a wealthy student who had long since made their own way, on another system habitat. The modest dwelling hosted the tail end of a birthday party, her own two hundredth, and she found that, deep in thought as she was, even the sight of old friends, pupils, and well-wishers did not prove the distraction she had hoped it would.
Many had already left, each paying their respects to perhaps the most sharpened biological mind ever turned to the playing of games this corner of the universe was likely to produce. Lainne looked up, seeing in the sky a panel occluded by wispy clouds and blued atmosphere, one of the habitat's orbiting panels moving slowly into place, marking the end of the day for this part of the giga-structure on which she called home. Time to begin the slow process of herding the last of the party-goers off on their way.
A thought was all it took to signal System to galvanize the small machines the dotted her home, some carrying food and drink and so already near the visitors, into gently suggesting they begin wrapping things up and departing. The woman of the hour closed her eyes for a moment, leaning on the stone balcony, and then pushed off to play the host.
She walked among the throngs of people, shaking hands, touching mobile environment plates, and bowing to those where physical touch was either impractical or impolite. Slowly her living quarters emptied, the only stragglers (besides the ancillary automatons clearing up glasses and such) being close friends and locals who need not worry about off-hab shuttles, and whom anyways Lainne trusted to make their way out presently.
Hostly duties done, she found herself once again deep in though, looking but not seeing, and trying very hard to not to succumb to an ennui she had been trying and failing to ward away for a very long time.
Lainne had made a name for herself in the civilized reaches of the universe at a very young age for being an extraordinary player of games. Games of skill, instinct, luck, reflexes, and especially mental acuity had been learned, played, and mastered in astonishingly small amounts of time. When the pursuits of entire swathes of civilizations, of galaxies, were oftentimes what the individual made for themselves, not constrained for hundreds of thousands of years by survival, or even scarcity, the competitive nature of games were one of the last bastions of anything resembling danger and conflict, and as such those citizens whom made it their calling found celebrity among the most vaunted of artists and athletes, their matches and records the gossip of trillions of sentient minds.
Lainne had been the foremost of these players, filling entire planets with spectators eager to see her face off against the best of the best, in any number of different pursuits. An entire moon was once terraformed and filled with atmosphere, to represent the board of a game of pieces and counters called
Ghet.
Each piece, usually represented by a small glass pebble, blown up the size of small town. Spectators camped and partied
on
the pieces of their favorite player, literally as in the action as it was possible to get.
Lainne and her opponent, another
Ghet
player from a system colonized by it's aquatic natives, played the traditional strategic board game to its fullest extent, taking (Lainne blinked, as she saw a small System controlled shuttle decamp in her valley, far in the distance; annoyed, she queried System but didn't get an immediate answer.) a record breaking three standard months to complete. The final configuration of that game had since become a popular destination point, staffed and peopled with the die-hard fans from the original playing, some of them having never left their titanic game piece. (
A latecomer for your party, Lainne
came System's response, having no trouble taking the time to hold a personal conversation despite its billions of other responsibilities.)
Lainne's status, rising and soaring into the realm of legend, only continued to grow as she explored the universe for new and novel games. Some were as deceptively simple as placing markers on a grid, some incredibly complicated (one required the player to grow several additional arms to effectively play, and others played only in the mind, moves made and defended with how well one could exert their emotions), and her hungry mind voraciously learned, mastered, and promptly moved on when the pool of skilled players dried up. It was a heady pleasure to win, a greater pleasure to win against masterful opponents, and an even greater pleasure to win despite dizzying odds, for ludicrous wagers. It was the one addiction she couldn't shake.
Soon, her reputation began to work against her.
It began to take longer and longer to find another game after moving on from the last, the time spent traveling from system to system taking ever greater amounts of time, until finally Lainne found she spent nine tenths of each year twiddling her thumbs on her luxury class ship, pretending to enjoy the company of her entourage, playing handicapped games against the ship intelligence.
And when she finally came across some far flung habitat or planet with an interesting game and competent players, she found herself politely shunned by communities who regarded her in the realms of inorganic intelligence: so far outside of the realm of equal footing that games were pointless, except as practice.
One day she decided, after spending three years traveling to visit a planet hosting a game, played using only droppers containing perfumes, and finding no skilled opponent willing to risk their reputation against her, to go back home.
Dropping lackeys and hangers-on off along the way, Lainne thought for a long time about what she wanted, and ways to achieve what she liked best in the world: a close game, and the euphoric feeling of victory over an opponent skilled enough to give her a run for her money. She considered adopting a disguise, surgical IQ limiters, and a host of other ideas along the way, and scheduled stops to test the various methods out.
Nothing really worked, or if it did, not for very long.
At last, Lainne disembarked on the habitat on which she was borne and made known that she would start a school. Teaching filled the void for a while, but it proved no substitute for what she wanted, and even her secret hope (that she find and raise up a player even more skilled than she) never came to pass.
As the institute grew around her, she spent less and less time among the eager young minds, and left after installing a bright former student in her place as headmistress.
Years passed, much of it spent in her retreat, growing more pensive and melancholy. She kept her skills sharp by sparring with System, the only person she kept much in contact with. She insisted she be given no handicap in any of their games, and therefore not won a single game of chance or skill in all her time in isolation.
Lainne had come to the unfortunate conclusion that she was the best (organic) player of games in the universe. Her hungry mind, so used to the constant thrill of learning and playing, had to content itself with other pursuits. A few more untried methods to find an interesting game and skilled opponents lay before her, but they were paths that, once started, could not be halted. And so she sulked and moped.
The end of the party left her in a particularly deep gloom. Perhaps it was time to consider one of these untried solutions.
One would be to ask to be interred to suspended animation, something citizens usually only did when they felt they had reached the end of their life, and succumbed to the boredom that haunts those twilight years. Naturally, it was a reversible process, but not something to be treated lightly.
Lainne figured a century or two would be enough time for existing opponents to come to maturity, a remarkably similar solution an ancient hunter would opt for, after a locale had been scoured of game.
Yes, and why not? It isn't as if I weren't dead already, with how little I socialize. Maybe I'll ask to be put under even longer, so I'm totally forgotten when I wake up...
thought Lainne, already perking up at the prospect of her decision. She looked over her hills again; would they be gone when she next awoke?
She found she didn't much care.
The house was empty, and Lainne was invigorated, now she had a plan of action. She asked System to draft up an announcement of her internment, to be circulated to among her few friends and colleagues. System itself seemed a little withdrawn after she had told it her decision, but had not tried to convince her otherwise. Lainne reclined on a chair, happy, but feeling a bit guilty despite herself.
