Kyla slept better than she had in months, so it was especially jarring when she was literally yanked from her sleep. The cuffs on her wrists suddenly sparked with energy, hauling her sleeping form up off the floor of her cell. Jolted into wakefulness, Kyla let out a reflexive groan of protest and turned her head to rub her face against her arm to stop the room from spinning as adreniline surged through her brain.

The cuffs on her ankles came to life also, supporting some of her weight so it wasn’t all on her wrists. Stretched vertically in the air, Kyla couldn’t do anything but hang there as a group of three ethereals entered her cell. One of them was Lonji, who flashed her an apoligetic look. The other two studied her critically, walking in a circle so they could examine her from every angle.

Kyla did a double-take, noting that one of them appeared to be female. The other ethereal gestured, and Kyla’s ankle cuffs sprang apart, stretching her legs wide. The female walked under her, a glowing hand tracing the curve of Kyla’s butt and pussy.

“Excellent muscle tone, good proportions, highly capable genitals,” the female ethereal noted.

The male nodded in agreement and turned to Lonji. “You’ve done well, servant. You shall continue to care for this one, in my name.”

“Yes, Lord Falavax,” Lonji replied, bowing.

Falavax gestured again, and Kyla’s ankle cuffs snapped together again. “Take her to the colleseum and register her. I will send notice ahead.”

“As you will, Lord Falavax,” Lonji bowed again.

The lord, and the ethereal Kyla assumed was his Lady, departed, leaving her alone with Lonji. As soon as they were gone, Lonji gestured and Kyla’s cuffs went dark. She dropped gracefully to the floor and stood, absently rubbing her wrists.

“Sorry about that,” Lonji said. “Standard procedure when a gladiator is in close proximity with a ranking noble.”

“Sure,” Kyla said dismissivly. “Was that a female ethereal with him? I’ve never seen one before.”

Lonji laughed. “Oh sure you have.”

“I have?”

“I’ll explain on the way. We shouldn’t delay in Falavax’s orders.” Lonji told her, taking her hand.

He pulled Kyla into an embrace, her naked flesh pressed against his impalpable form. She felt his phalus grow against her slit, finding its way to her opening the way no human penis ever could. Kyla gasped as it entered her, legs wobbling as she leaned into her ethereal caretaker.

The cuffs came alive, more gently than before, lifting Kyla’s legs and securing them around Lonji’s waist, and locking her arms around Lonji’s neck. Kyla squirmed happily as she hung from him with his cock burried in her feminine flesh.

“This is part of your duty, isn’t it,” Kyla asked, wiggling on the ethereal’s shaft.

“Of course,” Lonji admitted. “But rest assured that I enjoy it. Now, don’t be alarmed.”

Before Kyla could ask, “About what?” they were moving. Moving fast. Straight up. Lonji carried her out of her cell and out of the Nethership altogether. Once she got over the momentary shock, Kyla grinned and lifed her face into the wind.

Lonji’s movement was marked by shimmering afterimages of his body trailing behind him in the air. Kyla was flying in more ways than one, streaming weightless through the white Nether, with Lonji’s energy phalus pulsing inside her, jolting her pussy with rythmic shocks of pleasure.

The ethereal carried her away from the Jagged Etherblade until she could look down and see its entire length, then he began to arc around it, moving parallel to its shape.

“So,” Lonji said in Kyla’s ear, “the reason you think you’ve never seen a female ethereal is because all ethereals are both male and female.”

“You’re both?” Kyla repeated.

“We ethereals choose our gender when we bind our energy into humanoid form,” Lonij explained. “Our wrappings appear simple, but the weave carries complex magics that shape our energy internally, giving us vocal chords, for example, and of course, our genitals of choice.”

“I never imagined,” Kyla murmured, a part of her mind pondering the implications. The rest of her, however, was a little preocupied with her building orgasm.

She shook against Lonji, her fleshy walls spasmodically gripping his energycock as she came.

“Hoooh,” Kyla sighed. “Do ethereals have orgasms?” she wondered.

“Every time you feel a sharp burst of energy discharge into your flesh, that’s me ejaculating,” Lonji told her, emphasizing the point by thrusting into her and setting off another cascade of those ever-so-pleasurable jolts.

“Oh wow,” Kyla breathed. “So you’ve been cumming this whole time?”

“Yes. Our orgasms are mild but we can sustain them for a very long time. Unlike the fleshbound, our orgasms have no bearing on our continued arrousal,” Lonji explained. “Now look, there’s your new home.”

“Huh?” Kyla blinked, and turned in the direction Lonji indicated. “Whoa.”

The colleseum. A truely massive construct, like a floating city dotted with dozens of the glowing ecodomes Kyla had seen in the Netherstorm. It rose into view from behind the Jagged Etherblade as Lonji completed his arc, like a sun breaching the horizon.

Lonji carried her down, flying through the spires of the city towards one particularly large ecodome. Dropping into an empty avenue, he slowed, drifting to a stop just beyond the haze of purple energy that marked the threshold of the dome.

The force binding her manacles released and Kyla slipped from Lonji’s embrace, keeping hold of his hand so she wouldn’t go floating off.

“Ready?” he asked.

Kyla shrugged. “I guess so.”

Lonji gestured, causing Kyla’s wrist cuffs to gently tug her hands behind her back, one ontop of the other, and then snap together. The cuffs exerted a gentle pressure on the small of her back, propelling Kyla after Lonji through the glowing haze of the ecodome.

As soon as she was through, gravity returned and her feet hit the ground. Lonji kept a hand on Kyla’s shoulder to steady her as he walked her down the street towards the looming structure that could only be the arena itself.

They weren’t alone on the wide street, but the majority of the other ethereals in view, also had a fleshbound charge. Males and females, orcs, elves, draenei, trolls, even a few humans. All were naked except for the cuffs that bound their hands behind their back, like Kyla, but unlike her, most seemed downtrodden or hollow.

Lonji shook his head and murmured, “Most handlers aren’t as gentle as I am. It’s upsetting, especially when their heavy-handedness yields poorer results.”

“They all have nicer skin than me, though,” Kyla grumbled.

Lonji chuckled. “I really can’t take all the credit for you. You’re a rare treasure indeed, Kyla.”

The gladiators and their handlers were gathering in a clump around the gates to the arena, which were still closed. A balcony jutted out of the building above the gate and most of the ethereals were looking up at it. Kyla and Lonji joined the throng. Kyla tried to catch the eyes of some of the other Azerothians, but none of the ones near her would look up from their feet.

While they waited, Lonji used the ankle cuffs to gently nudge Kyla’s legs apart as she leaned back slightly against the support of the wrist cuffs and Lonji’s chest. Keeping one hand on her shoulder, Lonji slid his other over Kyla’s ass, squeezing and massaging the taut flesh. His finger slipped down her buttcrack, searching forward until it found her moist heat and slipped inside.

Kyla arched her back to give Lonji better access, feeling a little proud of herself for how thoroughly she had shed her shame and modesty. Kyla smiled to herself as the ethereal finger wiggled into her. She noticed some of the other handlers staring at Lonji, envious of his charge’s lasciviousness.

When Lonji’s agile fingers began to evoke soft moaning from Kyla, a few of the other fleshbound finally looked up from their feet and took in the spectical. Kyla realized that Lonji wasn’t just showing off for the other handlers, but also exhibiting her as an example for the benefit of the captives.

“Your pride inspires them,” Lonji murmured into her ear as his finger continued to play with her insides.

Kyla felt a shy grin sneak onto her face. She wasn’t used to being an object of admiration. It made her a little self-consious, as odd as that was.

Lonji very deliberatly took his hand off her shoulder. As soon as he did, the crowd converged on her. The hand on the shoulder thing must have been some kind of symbolic signal, that a handler’s charge is off-limits. She tensed in her bonds, not sure what to expect, but she needn’t have worried. Dozens of hands–both ethereal and flesh–swarmed over her body, fondling her flesh and stroking her sensitive bits, but they did so with a reverance and respect that Kyla did not expect.

In the world she knew, Kyla would have been decried as a dirty, filthy, perverted slut, for her recent behavior. But here, here she was the epitome of virtue. The thought was staggering, and it almost distracted her from the dozens of hands working in concert to bring her to orgasm.

Lonji removed his hand from her crotch and serveral others immediatly took its place, massaging and caressing her slick, sensitive womanhood. A female ethereal came forward, pushing her charge before her. He was a night elf, with bluish skin, long aqua-blue hair, and an inch of beard. Like Kyla and all the coporeals, his wrist cuffs were bound together behind his back.

With a little prodding from his handler, the night elf sat down on the polished stone-like surface of the street directly under Kyla and hesitantly pressed his lips to her glistening slit. While so many hands caressed her body, stroking her marred skin as if there was nothing wrong with it, tweaking her nipples, touching her face, feeling every curve of her legs, every line of her shoulders, and every jiggle of her flesh, the night elf’s thick tongue snaked into her cunt.

Kyla moaned happily, gently suckling on the pale fingers a female blood elf had slipped into her mouth. Ethereal hands tickled her nipples with little sparks of energy as the night elf’s thick tongue burrowed through her tight tunnel.

Suddenly, Kyla was screaming as orgasm tore through her like a tidal wave. It had just hit her, completely without warning. Wave after wave of orgasmic spasms wrenched her body around, making her thrash in her bonds under all the stimulating hands. Her cries of pleasure echoed down the street as ecstasy took her again and again. The night elf got a face full of her juices, bathed from brow to neck.

She fell, shaking, into Lonji’s arms and the myriad hands retreated. Slack in the ethereal’s grip with glazed eyes, Kyla gasped for breath while a big smile stretched across her face. She thought about Azeroth again, and how differently this scene would have played out there. For the first time, Kyla realized just how much hatred for her homeland she had been supressing. She grinned all the more, exulting in the fact that she was free of the perversion. Free of the world where being horny was considered a failing.

Lonji held onto her until she could stand on her own again, releasing her gently onto wobbly legs, but keeping his hand on her shoulder. The other handlers were pairing off with their arroused charges, as with bound hands they could not masturbate themselves.

Cocks were stroked and engulfed, pussies were fingered and fucked, so that by the time Kyla had recovered, all who had touched her were themselves going over the edge. The night elf who had eaten her out was pounding into his bent-over handler who was looking over her should at him with approval. Kyla could see the night elf’s cock being squeezed by the glowing energy inside his handler as he shuddered and jetted a fountain of cum into her ethereal body.

The activity died down after a while, in deference to the soon-to-be-opened arena gates. Streamers of energy wooshed through the crowd’s feet, taking with them the sexual discharges that had fallen to the ground, returning the street to pristine condition.

“What are they?” Kyla asked.

Lonji glanced down. “Ethereals just like the rest of us. Just ones to young or too poor to afford a body.”

“Oh,” Kyla said simply. “So, the hand on the shoulder thing, is like a signal or something, right?”

“Correct,” Lonji nodded.

“Is that why our hands are bound?” Kyla asked. “It’s symbolic?”

“You’re observant,” Lonji complimented her. “Yes. It is customary. When in public it is the handler’s duty to do everything their charge might need their hands for.”

Lonji underscored the point by brushing his thumb through a spot under Kyla’s ear that had begun to itch. She hadn’t even had time to want her hands back before he responded to her need.

“How do you do that?” Kyla wondered. “It seems like you can read my thoughts sometimes.”

“Oh, no, its much simpler than that,” Lonji said, a smile in his voice. “I don’t have eyes; I see the world in its shapes and flows of energy. The electric energy in your body, the energy that lets you think, feel, move, be, is more visible to me than your actual shape. Like right now, I can tell you’re thinking about your left nipple, because slightly more energy is flowing between it and your brain than normal.”

Kyla blinked. “That’s… impressive.”

“Its just in our nature,” Lonji said, reaching around to gently cup Kyla’s breast.

Just then, there was motion on the balcony above the gate. Three ethereals wearing ornately shaped armor strode into view, raising their hands for silence.

“Hail Salhadaar!” the lead Lord began. “The season of contest begins! For a low entry fee of two-hundred gold, pit your fleshbound slaves against each other in the anointed stadium!”

“Two hundred to enter, over a thousand for the manatory equipment and treatments,” Lonji muttered under his breath.

The ornately armored lord continued the sales pitch. “Up to forty-two gladiators may enter, but only one will claim the ultimate prize. To the ultimate victor, goes freedom for the slave, and the title of Nexus-Prince for the master!”

The end of the promoter’s speech was underscored by the deep whirring slide of the arena gates opening. With an air of excitement, the crowd poured into the colleseum. There were several floors under the arena itself, and this was the first. It was a large open space, with areas partitioned off by hanging cloth.

Lonji and Kyla got in line behind several other pairs at the first booth, which had a sign hanging over it which said, “Registration,” in twelve different languages, including Common. A cheerful female ethereal sat at the table, taking down entrant’s names and passing out guides.

“Name?” she chirped when Lonji and Kyla reached the front of the line.

“Kyla Valstar, by way of the Lord Falavax,” Lonji replied.

“Rotation Theta,” she told them, handing Lonji a schedual card. “Good luck.”

Lonji nodded and turned, walking Kyla out onto the floor proper. “You’re in luck,” he said with a grin. “You’re in the first batch for cleansing.”

“Cleansing?”

“You’ll see.”

They joined a small group heading into the largest booth in the place. It was quieter inside, the hanging cloths dampening sound with a surprising effectiveness. Several ethereal technicians flitted around a towering silvery sphere that sat in the center of the booth.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, Kyla’s manacles released her. Most of the other charges had likewise been freed. Apparently the interior of the booth didn’t count as “in public.” Handlers lined up their charges and after a few minutes, the technicians waved the line forward.

Up first was a well-proportioned but slender human male who had several weeks of beard growth and thick dark body hair swooping around his pale shoulders and down his belly in a stripe to a tangled forest of pubic hair. With a faint hiss, the silvery sphere cracked open like a flower and the man was lifted into the air by his manacles. The cuffs stretched him out spread-eagle and carried him inside the sphere, which closed around him.

There was an electrical hum that grew in intensity, culminating in a rapid burst of light flashes and a rather loud grunt of pain from within the sphere. Kyla and the other half-dozen or so charges eyed it apprehensively.

Then the sphere cracked open again and Kyla saw what had been done to the man. “Grace of the Light,” she gasped. His skin was a bit inflamed, but other than that, it was perfect. He had no hair on him at all anymore, and his skin was now all the same perfectly uniform shade. His manacles carried him back to his handler and released him.

Kyla almost had to stop herself from lunging over those ahead of her for her turn in the sphere.

Lonji grinned at her. “I thought you might appreciate this.”

“Uh, yeah,” Kyla nodded. “You have no idea how much I hated… I used to curse the fates for marring me so… this… this is fantastic!”

One by one, each of the half-dozen or so fleshbound was stretched spread eagle and put into the the sphere, and each came out a little tender but perfectly smooth. When Kyla’s turn came, she found herself grinning as she was lifted into the sphere.

A technician fitted her with eye protection and warned her, “This will hurt a bit.”

Kyla just nodded and then the sphere closed. It seemed to take a long time for it to wind up, but that was probably just her excitement distorting time. Finally, the electrical hum reached its cresendo and Kyla was bathed in fire.

That’s what it felt like anyway. Kyla gritted her teeth against the pain, exulting. Yes, it hurt, but it was like scrubbing the dirt off after a long day. Kyla started laughing as her hair burned away right down to the roots, her pimples popped and healed, and her scars melted back into smooth skin.

Once it was over and Kyla was back on her feet, she ran her hands over her body, marveling at her flawless texture, finer than silk. She didn’t even care that her head was bald now; it was worth it.

“How long does it last?” Kyla asked.

“It’s permanent,” Lonji told her. “Well, as permanent as these things ever are.”

Kyla continued to marvel, running her fingers over her insanely soft netherlips. “I’m beautiful.”

“Come on,” Lonji said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go get you a coiffure.”

“A what?” Kyla asked as her wrists snapped together behind her back once more.

“Your emblematic headdress,” Lonji explained. “Few fleshbound ever get used to having bald heads, so a long time ago the practice started of sewing scraps of fine cloth together to resemble hair. Then, of course, these coiffures became customized with colors and a style each gladiator chooses to represent themselves with.”

“That sounds nice, actually. Do I get to pick my own colors?” Kyla asked.

“You do,” Lonji told her, guiding her across the floor to a long, narrow booth near the back wall.

Colorful fabric adorned the entrance and the cloth walls of the booth were line with headdresses in various shapes and colors. Kyla spotted one that resembled the hairstyle she’d worn as a teenager, but was silver and blue. She pointed, “Oh, I like that one.”

Lonji went to ask for the style in Kyla’s size, leaving her to look around some more. She heard the cloth rustle behind her as another pair entered the booth. Kyla glanced around and recognized the night elf that had licked her out in the street. He looked up at her and did a double-take at her hairless state. He had yet to go through the cleansing and still looked a little on the rough side.

“Hi,” Kyla said.

The night elf just stared at her until his handler nudged him and he blinked and said, “Hello.”

“I’m Kyla. You’re really good with that tongue of yours.”

“Thank you,” he replied simply. His handler nudged him again and he added, “You have a pleasant taste. My name is Shandel.”

Kyla smiled and held out her hand, and the night elf shook it without a prod from his handler. “Good to meet you.”

Lonji came back, then, with the silver and blue headdress Kyla had pointed at, sized for her. “Here, let’s try this on,” he said, placing it on her head and pulling it into place.

It fit snuggly but was very comfortable with the strips of fabic soft and cool against her skin. There was a mirror on one side of the booth and Kyla went to it to examine herself. She couldn’t help grinning at what she saw. “I don’t look real,” she breathed.

Lonji chuckled. “Come on, we still have things to do,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Kyla nodded, turning to the night elf as Lonji walked her out. “Bye Shandel,” she called.

The next booth they visited was large, but divided into several smaller rooms. A female ethereal greeted them as they came in and ushered them into one of the sub-booths. A large, padded table stood on a large hinge, and above it hung an oval of metal.

“Up on the table please,” the technician directed.

Kyla moved to comply, asking, “What is all this for?”

“To test your responses,” the technician replied vaguely.

Kyla’s manacles moved her to the center of the padded table, lashing her down on her back with one cuff fixed to each corner of the table. The technicion walked up to Kyla’s midsection, holding a small metalic bead.

“What’s that?” Kyla asked.

“An instrument that measures arrousal,” Lonji explained as the technician pulled Kyla’s pussy open with one hand and slid the bead in with the other. Once that was done, she flitted up to the metal ring and activated it.

“Relax, and do not look away,” the technician ordered as images began to appear in the ring.

The first was simply a naked man and a naked woman standing next to each other. Kyla looked at them, wondering if there was something she was supposed to be doing. The image changed into two new moving images, one of a man masturbating, one of a woman masturbating. As she watched Kyla felt her pussy moisten.

That image vanished to be replaced by an image of a woman being fucked by a disembodied cock. That image went dark, and a moment later, it was a man being ridden by a disembodied vagina. Those images went dark and for a moment there were no more.

The display lit up again, this time showing a man and a woman making passionate love, bodies sweaty and pressed tightly together, kissing furiously. Then an image of two woman in a similar act, then two men, then back to the man and woman. The three scenes rotated several times, and Kyla was starting to get really annoyed that she couldn’t attend to her flushed genitals.

Then the images were gone again and the technician came over to pull the bead instrument out of her. Kyla cooed as the ethereal’s fingers reached into her, but she simply took the bead and went to a larger device on the other side of the room.

“Lonji?” Kyla asked. “Could you…”

But he was already moving. He sad on the edge of the table and rested his hand on her mons, sliding a finger down to gently massage Kyla’s folds. “Thanks,” she sighed.

“You’re perfectly bisexual,” the technician annouced. “Arrousal levels were equal for both sexes.”

Kyla blinked. That was news to her, but then she realize that she’d never really thought about it before. She wasn’t not attracted to women. “Huh,” she noted.

Then the technician splashed cold water on her face. Kyla spluttered, “What the fuck?”

Lonji gave the technician a scathing look. “Its the next test, you have to be in an unarroused state or it wont be accurate,” he explained.

“Could have warned me,” Kyla muttered.

“Yes, she could have,” Lonji agreed.

The technician retrieved another device and came back to the table. It’s primary component looked a lot like a stiff cock, but the base had two prongs on either side, one shorter with a little inlet on it, and the other long and ribbed, but thiner than Kyla’s pinky finger. It glistened with a coating of lube and the technician unceremoniously positioned it at Kyla’s loins and shoved it into her.

The ethereal reached behind her and hit a button on a mechanical clock, at the same moment flicking a switch on the base of the device that was hilted in Kyla’s flesh. Kyla gasped as the device came to life inside her, with its thick shaft buried in her pussy, its thin finger penetrating her asshole, and the little inlet fitted to her clit.

The device vibrated, wiggled, and teased her with a mild electric current, soundly stimulating her clit, pussy, and ass all at once. Kyla’s body shook from the pleasure and suddenly she came, her juices flooding out around the device.

“Forty-three seconds,” the technician noted, switching off the device and removing it from Kyla’s body. “Information logged under Kyla Valstar.”

Lonji nodded to the technician and then turned to help Kyla up, the table having released her bonds. “I hope that wasn’t too rough,” he said.

“Are you kidding?” Kyla laughed. “I want one of those things.”

“Oh, by the end of the day, you’ll have forgotten all about that little toy,” Lonji promised.

Kyla eyed him doubtfully as she hopped off the table and Lonji took her by the shoulder.

“Our last stop is perhaps the most important,” Lonji explained as he guided her into the last booth. “And the most complicated,” he added.

A female ethereal popped up as soon as they were over the threshold. “Hi. I’m Hylesia. I’ll be your neurologist today.” She checked a list. “Kyla, right?”

Kyla nodded. “That’s me.”

“This way please,” Hylesia beckoned, walking around to a comfortable-looking chair with a complicated-looking headrest. “I’ll need you to take off your coiffure and have a seat, Kyla.”

Kyla did so, tucking the arrangement of silver and blue cloth between her leg and the arm of the chair. Once seated, her cuffs pulled her arms onto the armrests and snapped down, holding her in place. Hylesia adjusted the headrest to match her height and gently pressed her head into it. There was a strap that went around her browline, and once it was fastened, Kyla found she could not move her head the slightest bit.

Hylesia came around in front of Kyla, showing her something in her palm. Four small metalic squares with some kind of little filaments on one side. “Each of these has to attach to your brain in a specific place,” the ethereal explained. “Each one creates a seal against your scalp, in which these little wires must burrrow through your skull. It’s going to hurt, but it will be quick, I promise.”

Kyla gulped.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Lonji promised.

“Alright,” Kyla said warily.

Hylesia went to work, carefully placing the four nodes. Each one sealed itself to her scalp so well she could barely feel it there. Once all four were in place, Lonji slid his hand into Kyla’s and Hylesia turned the system on.

There was a moment of blinding pain in her head, and she had the fleeting thought that it was a good thing Lonji didn’t have bones, because they might have cracked in her grip. Then it was over. Hylesia checked something Kyla couldn’t see, then released her from the headrest.

“What are these things for, anyway?” Kyla asked.

“They overwrite your natural arrousal and orgasm triggers,” Hylesia explained. “Right now they’re off and you shouldn’t feel any different than normal. When they’re switched on, they have three modes, each designated by these tiny colored lights on the node on the back of your head. Blue is for complete unarrousal.”

“Which you don’t need to worry about,” Lonji jumped in. “That one is only used for punishment, and you’re exemplary.”

“Green is for complete arrousal. Allow me to deminstrate,” Hylesia continued, heading over to a console against the wall. “Every gladiator’s neural nodes are controlled from a central system, to prevent abuse. There are terminals in multiple places. Ah, here we go.”

Kyla’s breath caught. Out of the blue her pussy flooded, the flesh engorging and the outer lips parting like curtains. It throbed with her heartbeats and felt both amazing and bizzare to be that arroused without any sort of stimulation.

“This is the state gladiators enter the ring in,” Lonji explained.

“Right,” Hylesia said. “And finally, red is for orgasm.”

Without warning, Kyla’s pussy exploded with orgasmic spasms. The pleasure washed over her as she thrashed in the chair, but as she expected the convulsions to grow weaker, they just continued at full strength. And continued. And continued. Kyla’s vision swam in a haze of ecstasy, drool falling from her lips as her body quaked in an endless orgasm.

“Uahaaahuh! Caahaan’t stoahaoahop cuuuhumming!” Kyla gasped.

After how long, Kyla couldn’t guess, the nodes were switched back to Green and she suddenly wasn’t cumming anymore. Panting, her butt nearly submerged in a puddle of her own juices, Kyla asked, “What’s… that… one… for?”

“Our version of getting stabbed,” Lonji said wryly.

“Huh?”

“We install sensors just under the outer layers of skin in strategic places on your body,” Hylesia told her, “and triggers on the palms of your hands.”

“In a match, your goal will be to touch your opponent’s sensors, without letting them touch yours,” Lonji added. “As long as you’re touching a sensor, your opponent’s nodes will stay in Red mode, and whoever is made to orgasm for more than a cumulative one-hundred seconds, is declared the loser of that match.”

“Oh,” Kyla said, glad to finally have that explained.

“A side-effect of the system is that it stops your fertility cycle in its tracks,” Lonji added. “You’ll never have a period or be able to get pregnant as long as the nodes are installed.”

Kyla took a moment to absorb that.

“Now don’t worry about the sensors,” Hylesia said as Kyla’s wrists came unstuck from the chair’s arm-rests. “They’re much easier to install than the nodes.”

Kyla stood up and pulled her headdress back on, then slid a hand down to her hyper-arroused sex. Just touching it sent shivers of pleasure through her, but there was no orgasmic tension. Truly a bizarre sensation. She fingered herself experimentally and let out a long shaky breath. No hint of an orgasm looming but it felt amazing, better than she was used to. It felt like… like she was passed the point where she would have normally cum and stop. Far passed it.

“I have to switch the system off to install the sensors,” Hylesia warned.

Kyla felt it like a lurch in her gut, her legs wobbling. Without the control of the neural nodes, her heartbeat alone was enough to push her over the edge. Kyla moaned, shaking from a much more natural orgasm as her pussy spasmed around nothing.

Lonji vanished for a moment and reappeared with a water skin. “Here, you probably need this.”

Kyla sank into her handler’s arms as she took the water, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was. “Thanks,” she said, drinking deeply.

She handed the water skin back to Lonji and turned to the other ethereal, nodding. Lonji gestured, making Kyla’s manacles gently lift her arms and spread her legs, as Hylesia approached her with a stack of what looked like small white ovals of paper, only glossy and a bit translucent. She carefully smoothed the eight ovals onto Kyla’s skin. Two went on the insides of her thighs, two on her hips, one just under each of her underarms, and the last two went into the crease under Kyla’s breasts. The ovals seemed to sink into her skin, coloring to match her, but producing a distinct glow.

The sensors in place, Lonji let the manacles drop her.

“Hands please,” Hylesia ordered.

Kyla held out her hands and Hylesia placed a smaller black circle on each palm, that vanished like the ovals had. Hylesia nodded and went back over to the console. “Now to initiate and key the sensors, and then you’re done!” the ethereal chirped.

“So, the contestants in the lesbian bracket are equiped with wrist-mounted dildos?” Kyla asked, trying to imagine it as Lonji walked her towards the lifts.

“There’s a third kind of sensor in the head,” Lonji continued. “It detects the texture, heat, and moisture of the inside of a vagina, and if one gladiator manages to penetrate the other, the match is immediatly won.”

“What about in the straight matches?” Kyla asked as they stepped onto the lift.

“If the contestants in a straight match engage in coitus, both are locked into Red mode, and whoever has the lower score at the time ends up winning,” Lonji replied.

Kyla nodded as the lift platform rose through three floors. When it stopped, Kyla’s cuffs unfixed from behind her back and then to her great surprise, sparked and fell open. Lonji picked them up and smiled at her. “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping” he said.

He led Kyla into the sleeping quarters. Cloth hangings, reddish-flesh-colored rather than the blue of the first floor, made hallways and rooms for each of the gladiators. Each room was either empty or fronted by closed curtains, but they looked spacious and comfortable, with plush rugs on the floor, cusions, and a gleaming washbasin. Little etched metal panels hung over each room with numbers on them.

It was much quieter up here, but a few indistinct moans of pleasure made their way to Kyla’s ears, as well as a few sobs of despair that Kyla tried to tune out.

“Number twelve,” Lonji annouced as they stopped at an open room. “This is yours.”

Kyla padded slowly across the soft rug in the center of the room, looking around, taking it all in. There was a pile of cusions in one corner, next to a desk and chair. Another corner had a waste shute and a large tub with a spigot. The last corner was empty, but there was a large metal box mounted on the celling above it, with the letters N.E.S.T engraved on the side. A sheet of parchment was pinned to the fabric of the walls in this corner, and the floor was a different color.

“What’s that?” Kyla asked.

“That’s your NEST,” Lonji replied. “Its where you’ll be sleeping.”

Kyla strode into the NEST corner, confused. She went to the parchment that was pinned there, which was labeled, “NEST Voice Commands,” and had a list of words and phrases like, “Slow Massage,” “Cradle,” “External Stimulation,” “Bind,” “Mild Vaginal Penetration,” “Fast Vaginal Penetration,” “Ejaculate,” and more like that.

“What is this?” Kyla wondered.

“I have to key it to your voice before it will activate, but the NEST consists of forty artificial tentacles that extend from that box in the cellling,” Lonji explained. “The NEST is designed to attend to your every sexual need.”

“Tentacles?” Kyla asked, not sure what Lonji was talking about.

“Here, let’s key it and then you can see for yourself,” Lonji said, blinking up to the celling. “Alright, all you have to do is state your name.”

“Kyla Valstar.”

The box beeped and forty circular hatches opened its underside. A glistening limb slithered out of each one, like the tails of forty snakes, but with blunter, rounder ends. They extended down, waving softly like grass underwater.

“Go on,” Lonji encouraged her, smiling.

Kyla hesitantly stepped forward into the forest of hanging tentacles. They were a dark grey, glossy like polished obsidian, but soft to the touch like flesh with their warm surfaces slick with some sort of lubricant, each appearing to be about one-and-a-half inches in diameter. The tentacles responded to her presense, sliding across her skin and caressing her flesh as she moved through them.

“Oh,” Kyla noted. “They’re warm.”

“Glad you like it,” Lonji said. “Want to know how to use them?”

Kyla shivered with excitement at the thought of these luxurious limbs pleasuring her. “Absolutely.”

“Alright,” Lonji began. “Well, the command words are listed on the parchment there. As you can see, there are three columns. The five commands in the first column are the most important. ‘Cradle,’ ‘Bind Up,’ ‘Bind Down,’ ‘Bind Vertical,’ and ‘Release.’ Cradle makes the tentacles pick you up and support your weight as innocuously as possible. Bind Up makes them wrap up your body, imobilizing you face up, Bind Down makes them imobilize you face down, and Bind Vertical makes them hold you in a standing position. Release, of course, makes them return to the state they’re in now.”

Kyla nodded, letting some of the tentacles slide through her hands, feeling the warm, slippery texture.

“The second column,” Lonji continued, “are modes of stimulation, and are fairly self-explanatory. The third column are preset sequences, that you can activate and then just lay back and enjoy.”

“Makes sense,” Kyla acknowledged, sighing as the languid tentacles caressed her body. “So I just speak the command and the tentacles will obey?”

“Essentially,” Lonji told her, nodding. “You simply say ‘NEST’ and then the command. One other thing. Commands from the first column will reset commands from the second, and initiating a sequence from the third column overrides all other commands except ‘Release.’ Understand?”

“Yeah, it seems simple enough,” Kyla said, stepping reluctantly from the forest of flowing limbs and putting her arms around Lonji. “Thank you.”

The ethereal hugged her back briefly and then slid from her grasp. “Have a good night, Kyla. I’ll be back tomorrow with your breakfast.”

Kyla waved with a smile as he left, closing her curtains behind him. She grinned, turning back to the NEST. The tentacles’ slow, billowy motion was teasingly sensuous and oh so inviting. Kyla walked into them again, holding her arms loosely out to the sides to feel their warm texture slide over her skin.

Glancing at the list, Kyla said, “NEST, External Stimulation.”

Nothing happened.

Kyla frowned, trying another. “NEST, Slow Massage.”

Still no change. There must have been something Lonji had forgotten to tell her. She tried a few more commands from the second column but none of them worked. Then it occured to her that maybe she had to give it one of the first-column commands first.

“NEST, Bind Vertical.”

Suddenly, the tentacles swarmed her, slithering around her body, between her legs, around her limbs and around her belly, shoulders, neck, and breasts. She was lifted off the ground, suspended with her arms loosely out to the side and her legs spread slightly. Once she was suspended, there was no other motion. The tentacles were perfectly still, presumably awaiting her next command.

She just hung there for a second, noticing how pleasant it was to be in the warm, slippery grip of these tentacles. She twisted around, trying to see if she could move. There was a little give in the limbs and the slipperyness of the tentacles afforded her a minimal mobility, but for the most part she couldn’t move.

“NEST, Bind Up.”

The warm limbs slithered over her body as they adjusted her so she was laying on her back, arms out to the side, her legs spread wide but not uncomfortably so. She was still held immoble, but it was so comfortable, Kyla almost wanted to let herself fall asleep and save her experimentation for another day. Kyla yawned, feeling the the tentacles slide against her breasts as her chest rose and fell.

On the other hand, sleep could wait. Kyla decided to forgo manual commands and start one of the sequences. Not knowing the specifics of each one, she simply looked at the list and picked one at random. “NEST, Stimulation Sequence Four.”

Suddenly the tentacles were moving. They shifted her back to the standing position and started squeezing her body like dozens of massaging hands. The rubbing and squeezing didn’t pay any particular attention to her loins or breasts, but it didn’t neglect them either. She sighed with pleasure as the tentacles around her crotch rubbed at her pussy and ass, and the tentacles supporting her upper body rolled and slid over her breasts.

One tentacle slithered up to her mouth, circling her lips with a teasing tenderness as it pushed in. Kyla kissed it and opened her mouth to let it in, running her tongue over the smooth head and noticing that it tasted very much like her own wetness. It slowly began to fuck her mouth, thrusting past her lips with a sensual gentility.

The NEST shifted her, keeping the tentacle in her mouth moving at a slow, steady pace while it rearranged her so she was hanging face-down, legs wide and knees bent. Tentacles continued to slide and squeeze around her flesh, faster than before and with more attention paid to her intimate bits. The tentacles around her pussy began to rub harder, massaging in a circle around her clit. Kyla moaned around the tentacle in her mouth as her nipples were flicked, pinched, and pulled by the slippery tentacle heads.

Kyla’s moans grew louder as she felt an orgasm begin to overtake her. The full-body stimulation was enough to make her cum just from the rubbing. The tentacles continued, heedless of her orgasm, as the tentacle in her mouth became more insistent as it filled her.

She tensed suddenly as she felt a tentacle slither between her buttcheecks and lick at her virgin pucker. “Mffesh, Etheesh,” she called around the tentacle in her mouth as she tried to give the release command, but distorted as it was, it didn’t work. Kyla had a moment to worry at the tentacle proding her anus, but then it pushed in a little harder, swirling around like a tongue, and she didn’t want it to stop anymore.

The other tentacles were still doing their work, rubbing her pussy, fucking her mouth, teasing her nipples, and massaging her limbs. As the anal tentacle finally worked her sphinchter open and slithered into her, another orgasm crashed through her body, making her shake in the tentacles’ grip.

While she was still cumming, the tentacles rubbing her pussy shifted and one finally thrust itself into her dripping passage. This one tentacle speared into her flushed pussy, much less gentle than all the others. It slammed into her hard and fast, driving her to cum yet again.

After a little more of this, Kyla was flipped over onto her back and the rest of the tentacles sped up, not quite matching the one ravaging her pussy, but definately a step out of the realm of “gentle.”

“Muaaauaaauaaaumphf!” Kyla cried out around the tentacle in her mouth, thrashing as orgasm washed through her again and again. The tentacles shuddered, simulating an orgasm of their own as all forty tentacles ejaculated, spraying Kyla down inside and out with their warm goo.

Eventually, the tentacles slowed, bringing her down from the heights of orgasm carefully. The NEST finally stopped entirely, setting her back on her feet. She mumbled a quick, “NEST, Cradle,” before her legs gave out on her and the tentacles scooped her up as she began to fall.

It held her gently as she caught her breath, flowing over and around her flesh, moving with her. It felt a little bit like floating in water, only more sensual. Sighing with contentment, Kyla closed her eyes and let the NEST rock her to sleep.

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