Chapter 25: The Resistance

Marie lay on the courtyard's hard stone floor. Dizzy and throbbing, she rolled onto her side in an attempt to sit up. The ringing in her ears faded slowly, and after a while she was able to prop herself up against one wall.

Something was missing. No, it felt more like everything was missing. The world was all wrong except for Marie, a pierced-through fetish schoolgirl in a slave collar waiting to obey. Waiting for ... it was coming to her, but...

Marie squinted and tried to think, looking in vain for her Mistress or the court nobles that attended her. Where was the crowd of tormentors, the sedan chair, the bondage? A vague understanding crept around the edges of her mind, dream-logic thinking revealing that she lay next to an antique wooden telephone booth, and that the courtyard was part of a school of some sort.

"Oh Marie! Are you all right?" Kusako ran over to her and squatted down, her face showing shock and concern. Marie couldn't make words, as though they had simply melted from her mind. The only thing she noticed were the dozens of silvery rings in Kusako's labia.

It was a struggle, but Marie managed to tear her eyes away from Kusako's crotch and give a somewhat convincing nod. Something was still wrong. Something to do with telephones and courtyards and slaves and masters and words and vision and sex and piercings and...

"Oh you poor dear, here, let me help you up. My Master's just waiting for us outside. Can you walk?"

Marie could walk just fine, and she followed Kusako out to the street. She felt light, somehow, as though instead of walking forward the world was splashing over her and flowing away behind. She noticed herself spreading her legs and looked down, realizing she was getting onto a large motorcycle behind Kusako, who herself was clinging tightly to her Master's back.

A wave of the world surged and rolled over Marie, space and time balling up and pressing through her as a firehose through a chain-link fence. She stood in a garage, held Kusako's hand, skipped through a high-ceilinged loft. Her own perceptions and senses felt alien: distant memories or dreams or the visions of a tale told by another.

The world was a sea Marie floated in, aimless. She felt a kind of peace in a way, without obligation or direction or ego. It was a beautiful feeling to just let go of reality and drift.

The current of the world pulled her gently around the room, a slow gyre focusing around something at the center. Focus increased, attention began to awaken, and Marie slipped down the whirlpool until she was back in her own head again.

"Master, she's looking at the chains now!" Kusako cried, summoning her master from another room.

"Great! This one should last a few minutes while we get ready. Let's get started." Marie did not connect the voice to a body, hearing it ring out from the glittering steel before her, the resonance of the room shaking the air around her and the sounds simply penetrating through into her dissipating experience.

Tiny girlish hands with delicate fingers worked at fastenings and peeled clothing from Marie's body. Marie saw only chains and cuffs and padded rests, feeling them pluck fasteners and peel latex from her body. Beneath her wig, Marie felt her scalp tingle as the gentleness of the force disrobing her worked its charms. In her confusion she perceived steel cuffs on long chains snaking down her legs peeling off her stockings. Metal clips hooked her wig and lifted it off with a human rustling sound. All was nakedness and exposure to the world and sharing and peace and oneness with the metal.

There came smooth chills, registering slowly as metal against skin on a body that once felt uniquely hers. Joints moved, bringing tension Marie could only marvel at as another astonishing example of existence, a miracle of being and time and motion and flesh and steel and stone and stone and stone and stone...

... stone courtyard. Not the school's atrium, but her courtyard. Ego and sensation drew together with a snap, and Marie felt the paving stones beneath her knees and the cool metal cuffs all over her body. She was forced to kneel by cuffs around thighs and ankles, joined by only a link or two of chain. Her big toes had tiny cuffs linked to the ones on her ankles, keeping her weight on her toes and the balls of her feet.

Marie's shoulders were completely wrenched back, elbows held together by cuffs around her upper arms. These were held high by a chain connecting to her collar, and her lower arms were kept straight by cuffs at wrist and thumbs.

Marie blinked and realized that she was looking at a slavegirl bound exactly as she was, kneeling with knees touching her knees, thick circlets matching her own in every location.

Marie lifted her head to get a look at the girls face, and she snapped back down suddenly as a chain from her septum ring went taut. The other girl gave out a sharp scream followed by gasping as she recoiled from some pain or other. Marie never saw her face, but recognized the voice.

"Kusako?" she mumbled, her lips and tongue still warming up to moving under conscious control.

"Marie! Oh owww, Marie can you hear me?" It was definitely Kusako.

"Yes! Oh what's happening to me! I feel ... I feel my brain isn't well! Kusako, am I ... Am I dying?"

"Oh sweetie no!" Kusako cooed sympathetically, "Oh I'm so sorry to frighten you like this. It's just that, well this is the only way we can speak to you alone."

Marie realized that she actually wasn't frightened at all, and that she had kind of hoped that the vast oceanic sensations of peace were a reward for a life lived in obedience. She squirmed in her chains some more, trying to exercise her elbows and shoulders, only to get another yelp from the other slave as she accidentally tightened a chain that ran from her own thumb cuffs down between her legs and into Kusako's labial rings.

After more breathing exercises, Kusako began again, "We don't have much time now. I need to tell you the most important thing you've ever heard, and I need to know that you are listening. Do you understand, Marie?"

Marie caught her breath, beginning to feel fear now. She must have paused for too long, because suddenly she saw Kusako shift, and a chain running under the girl tugged painfully on Marie's clitoral hood ring.