Sarobah : The prisoners' dilemma (m/f)

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Sarobah : The prisoners' dilemma (m/f)

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By sarobah » Sat Aug 16, 2014 4:27 pm

The Prisoners’ Dilemma

Debitum dare diabolo

To — His Diabolical Majesty Luciferus Bestiæ Æternum, Father of Lies, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Darkness, King of the Bottomless Pit, Archangel of Death, Corrupter of the Innocent, Etc., Etc.

From — Dæmon Devorantem, Satanic Minion, Special Projects Office

Dear Boss,

First of all, let me offer my hearty congratulations on the anti-vax campaign. It is succeeding beyond our most optimistic projections. The guys and gals in the False Prophets Division really pulled this one out of the fire (if you’ll pardon the pun). Recruiting that bimbo was a stroke of genius. I’m told she now has a talk show, so the investment should continue to pay off.

Meanwhile, the Prisoners’ Dilemma Project has progressed exactly as expected and the results so far have been pleasing; so I propose we move the operation immediately into top gear. (Speaking of… Jeremy’s definitely on the team. He’s been well worth the outlay.)

For our test case, I found the perfect pair. Jack and Jane were good-looking, intelligent, well-bred, well-educated… in other words, full of the naïve self-confidence we love down here. I offered them the customary deal — for him wealth immeasurable, for her love everlasting — with the standard price, their immortal souls. They naturally would have no part of it, so as they were applauding themselves on their rectitude I countered with The Wager. That worked like a charm. It always does, of course. Humans rarely disappoint. It’s why we’re so fond of them. I could just eat them all up… but I’ve promised to stop doing that ;)

I put Jack and Jane overnight in the Nero Suite. At the risk of repeating myself… humans are so predictable. Instead of getting well-rested, or planning some sort of strategy, or at least getting to know each other’s minds better, they rutted like satyrs all night. Their breakfast conversation amused me no end.

“So Jane, what’s your reward, if you win?”

“Never-ending, passionate love.”

“Heh… just like a woman.”

“Really? So what’s your prize?”

“Inexhaustible riches, of course.”

“Just like a man. Don’t you know money can’t buy happiness?”

“Maybe not… but it can buy everything else.”

That’s when I knew we’d picked the right couple. I had them brought straight down to the dungeon. The place has been done up nicely — not so intimidating that it puts the new chums off their game, but just enough to keep them jumpy and jittery. (The house must always have the edge, but you don’t want to scare away the players.)

I gave them a brief rundown on the three trial options — the rope, the whip or the phallus. “Lady’s choice,” I said.

Jane thought for a moment before choosing the bondage. In these situations, the women always go for that one first.

I explained the rules.

“Jack, you have just two pieces of rope with which to tie up Jane. There are three possible outcomes. If you do your job poorly and Jane manages to liberate herself from the ropes before she succumbs to exhaustion and any other unpleasantness, she wins. If she cannot get free and begs for release, you win. In either case, the loser gets nothing.”

Whenever I am doing a deal like this, I pause at this point, for dramatic effect. It’s funny to watch their faces as they await the punchline.

“However, if you take pity on Jane and try to help her in any way, you both stay down here, with us… with me…” (At this point I winked at Jane, just to see her cringe. I really do enjoy this job.) “…for eternity.”

I gave them a chance to back out. Rules are rules — that damnable “free will” clause. But in any case, there’s no fun if the players are not completely on board. When they both started to waver, I pulled out the usual deal sweetener.

“Look, we’re not heartless down here. Soulless yes, heartless no.” (To prove my point, I thought about showing them my splendid collection of hearts, but decided not to push it.) “If Jack plays the pity card, you can get a second chance.”

Jack was already mentally counting his winnings. Jane was suspicious. It must have been my devilish charm.

“I don’t quite understand,” she said. “What’s in it for you?”

“It’s an experiment, my dear. We like to observe you humans in your natural habitat, in competition with each other and with your own true nature.”

Well, that was mostly true. Humans never get it when we offer these bargains. They think we expect them to barter away their souls there and then, and are too arrogant to realize that we get enough of them in the long run to keep the home fires burning. It’s not about the prize, it’s about the game. But telling you this, I am preaching to the converted. (Home fires... preaching… ha ha… I really should be on stage.)

“Jack, if you wish you can tie the ropes loosely and let Jane win. But Jane, you don’t have to work yourself free if you really care about Jack and decide to forfeit.”

For each of them, it was like offering a banana to a monkey. Give humans a conscience alternative and they’re suckers every time. Jack wouldn’t shaft Jane (unlike last night LOL) if he had the choice. He could play the self-sacrificing hero and still have a get-out-of-hell-free card to play. But that’s the thing about high stakes poker. You can only play your best card once. (Is that poker? I haven’t played since I dealt those aces and eights to Wild Bill.)

Well, this report is becoming very Faustian… oops, I meant fustian. Please pardon the Freudian slip :)

So they agreed and signed the papers. To get started, Jane was told to take off her clothes and she immediately objected.

“Why do I have to be naked?” she demanded.

I could have replied, “To make sure you have nothing that can help you.” Or I could have been honest and asked, “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Instead I answered, “Did you read the fine print?”

She shrugged and sighed and stripped. The chilled air from the vents flowing across her bare skin made her shiver and shudder. (It’s funny how people expect it to be hot everywhere down here… like we can’t afford air-conditioning.)

The two ropes Jack had for his use were large coils of silk, soft but strong. He obviously knew what he was doing, for he first bound Jane’s elbows behind her back, knowing that it would be easier to tie her wrists securely once her arms had been pinioned. The woman gasped as her shoulders were pulled back and her magnificent chest was pushed out. The way her eyes bulged and her lips puckered, I could tell that this was her first experience of bondage. And she must have wondered where Jack had picked up his skills.

He asked her politely to kneel and then he trussed her feet. After that, taking hold of her arms, he gently lowered her onto the floor until she was lying on her stomach. The polished granite tiles were freezing and as she began to turn numb she knew already that she was in trouble. Jack, oblivious to her plight, lifted her heels up to her backside and bound her ankles to her wrists. He supplemented the hogtie with a harness which he looped around her throat and connected with her elbow ropes. Again he showed admirable skill, making sure the yoke was tight enough to further immobilize his victim without choking her. He used the second rope to wind about her arms and breasts, between her legs to her hands, and then down to her knees for a final binding.

Jack had done a very good job, and Jane struggled and squirmed for maybe an hour before the futility and fatigue put an end to her efforts. Her ordeal was far from over, of course. She was a tough, brave little thing, no doubt about that. Every so often she would resume her wriggling and twisting, flexing her limbs and testing the efficacy of her bonds. But after many more hours of desperate exertion, she finally gave in, succumbing to exhaustion and despair.

I offered Jack a cigarette. “No thanks, given it up,” he declared, but then, “Oh, what the hell?”

“Indeed,” I replied, flicking my fingers to produce a flame.

“Nice trick,” he said. We looked down at the Jane’s delectably naked and helpless body prostrate on the frigid tiles, silent and motionless except for the whimpering and the quivering. “How much longer?”

“It’s only just begun. Read the…”

“Yeah, the fine print.”

I could almost hear the gears working inside his brain.

“Let me see that contract again.”

He inspected it carefully, examined every clause, studied every line, scrutinized every phrase, analyzed every word. Prepared for this, I offered him a fine-toothed comb. My finest. Teeth extracted from princes, pontiffs and presidents.

With a jubilant “Aha!” he pointed to the second chance provision, the one I had already described. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He could score some amatory points by playing the martyr and still get another shot at the untold riches. So he put on a showy charade of going through the agony of indecision, and then announced in his most heroic voice that he was setting his lady free.

Looking grateful and delightfully dishevelled, Jane staggered to her feet brushing away offers of assistance and the ropes that had stuck to their pink indentations on her skin, and then slumped into Jack’s arms. He kissed her puffy, sweaty cheeks and neck, stroked her bare back and shoulders, caressed her naked breasts and belly… and as she swooned in his manly clutches I saw the glint in his eye and the curl on his lips.

“Sorry to intrude, folks,” I intruded. They both stared at me, with that inimitable combination of frustration and irritation — the look of coitus potentialis interruptus.

“Jack, those were nice ties. Jane, nice moves. The first round goes to the man, but he has magnanimously agreed to forego his reward. Now it’s time for round two, the final round, and the stakes are higher… no third chances. So again it’s the lady’s choice. What is it to be, the whip or the phallus?”

I showed her my instruments. The whip was your classic nine-tails, with braided leather thongs knotted at the end. The phallus was long and wide and… well, putting aside all false modesty, let’s just say it was modelled on yours truly.

Jane stared at both long and hard… just like… okay, no phallus jokes. Still stiff and sore and rope-marked, she winced and wilted as my minions shackled her wrists and ankles to the scaffold.

“This is so unfair,” she moaned. “Why should it be me both times? It’s downright sexist!”

“We’re in hell, sweet cheeks”, I replied. “What did you expect?”

“Deal with it, honey,” Jack said.

She gave him a withering look and chose the phallus. Big surprise. I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say that by the end of the contest Jane had evened the score. Poor Jack did not know whether to be impressed or intimidated by her stamina and… what’s the right word?... penetrability. When they unfettered her, she rubbed her arms and legs where they had been chafed and lacerated by the chains, and more delicately massaged those parts of her that had suffered the brunt of the game. She managed to walk, albeit with a wobble.

“Well, this is a shock result,” I lied. “It seems we need a tie-breaker.”

“Tie-breaker???’’ they chorused. “There’s nothing in the contract about this!”

“I just added it.”

“You can’t do that. It’s a contract!”

“So sue me.”

“Sue you? How the hell are we going to find a lawyer down here?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Oh, of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Unfortunately for you, their schedules are full for the next few millennia. We have this big racetrack and a fleet of ambulances, and… Okay, I can explain later. Anyway, if you wish you can take the matter upstairs… or downstairs, really, if we’re speaking literally. Of course, if the ruling goes against you…”

“There’s hell to pay?”

“Exactly.”

“Then let’s play.”

“That’s the spirit. As I was saying, the terms have been modified. Whoever wins this round gets everything, the immeasurable wealth and the everlasting love. The loser, naturally, forfeits his soul.”

“His soul?” Jane’s face brightened.

“Sorry, my dear,” I said. “Don’t get excited. I meant the loser is damned. Your language really needs gender-neutral pronouns. But this is not the time or place.”

“Just get on with it,” Jack grumbled.

“Easy for you,” Jane growled, as the minions took hold of her arms and dragged her back to the scaffold. She grunted and groaned as they strapped her torso to the frame. She kept her lips pursed and her eyes fixed firmly on her man’s inscrutable face as her wrists and ankles were once more locked in place. But this time a gag and a blindfold put a quick end to the pout and the gaze.

By the end of the game she was even more flushed and haggard. Gorgeous rose-red stripes and pretty purple ridges criss-crossed her spectacular body. Her face was a superb shade of ashen as she blinked back tears when the blindfold came off. She licked the saliva and sweat from her lips as the gag came out. She glowered at Jack, unmarked and unperturbed and smoking his umpteenth cigarette, as I tallied the final score, adjusting for artistic quality and degree of difficulty.

“Let’s start with the second place,” I finally announced. “And as we know, there are no second prizes. So, without further delay… the loser is…”

They stared at me expectantly as I paused, letting the tension build.

Well, we all enjoy a surprise ending, so I won’t keep you in suspense.

Sarobah
Australia


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Soraka
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Post by Soraka »

The Prisoners’ Dilemma, continued…

“Damned… forever?” The woman shrieked. “Oh my God!”

“God has most definitely nothing to do with it, my dear,” I said. “But I am no monster. (Don’t be fooled by the tail, horns and talons, the green scaly skin, red glowing eyes and fiery breath.) Eternity is a long time. So let’s give it a trillion years and see what develops.”

Jane howled in exquisite anguish. I blinked, and in a sulphurous puff of smoke she was gone.

“Such a pity.” Our victor leaned back in the vast armchair of babyskin-soft chamois, sipping 200 year-old brandy. “She was a sweet girl. Lots of promise.” An aromatic whorl of cigar smoke wafted upwards and eddied about the ornate crystal chandelier. “I suppose right now she’s hanging upside down screaming in a cave, being flayed with red-hot pincers.”

“Something like that,” I said.

A silver bell tinkled, and from all parts of the palace came running a hundred naked haremgirls, to sit or kneel or crouch or lie on the marble floor before the throne. Their new owner studied the beautiful forms and lovely, shyly smiling visages, to decide whose delectable body should have the honour of making the night’s first submission. The lucky one giggled with gratitude and carefully parted the sides of the silk robe; and as the girl’s face pressed into the velvet folds, the recipient of her outstanding oral offering gasped and grinned, but then turned to me with a quizzical frown.

“When you gave me poor Jane’s reward as well, this was not exactly what I was expecting.” As the girl’s head began moving in a steady, gentle rhythm, Jackie sucked in a sharp breath and her breasts heaved. “Oh well,” she continued between sighs of pleasure, “I can adjust.”

*

Well, Boss, here I must sign off. As we both know, the tortures and torments don’t inflict themselves.
Please give my regards to Lilith and all the little hellspawn.

Yours in perdition,
D.D.
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Jason Toddman
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Post by Jason Toddman »

Sarobah must have been a fan of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
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