Paladin Ch. 06: The Projected Sight

Raya is slowly losing her mind.

Not in the figurative sense, of exasperation, or mental exhaustion. In the literal sense. She can feel her sanity slipping away. At one point, in the not too distant past, she was an intelligent well-rounded person. With skills, and interests, and aspirations. But now her every thought twists itself to be about sex, about hard cocks and sweaty naked bodies grinding against each other, and she finds herself utterly unable to think of anything but satisfying her simmering needs.

True to Simon's word, his research is taking hours. As the minutes tick slowly by, and morning turns to afternoon and then dusk, Simon slowly makes his way through his books. Only an occasional "hmm" or scribbled note on parchment marks the passing of time. He seems comfortable sitting on the cloak he's laid out on the stone floor, as if he's prepared to go for hours more.

Seated at his side, Raya is pretty sure she'll be dead by then. Death by orgasm denial is a thing, isn't it? It must be; nobody can live like this. Raya is acutely aware of the wet spot her pussy is leaving on Simon's cloak, but there's nothing she can do about it. Even though Simon almost definitely hadn't meant it that way, her Collar has interpreted his instruction to "stay by my side" as a command, and Raya is compelled to obey.

In a way, that's nice. It feels right. Simon gives a command, even an off-the-cuff one that he doesn't really mean to give, and Raya obeys. His role is to provide protection; hers to provide obedience. To just turn her brain off, and mindlessly surrender to the whims of her benevolent master. It was a strangely irresistible compulsion. If only his whims weren't so constrained by his piety.

But even as a part of Raya revels in the accidental control Simon is exerting over her, the rest of her rages against it. All she needs is a minute of privacy, no more than that, and she can get herself off and end the torture. But no. She can't even ask. "I don't want you out of my sight" Simon had said, and it simply isn't an option to violate that command.

And so Raya sits quietly next to Simon, and tries to concentrate on anything other than how badly she wants him to just pull his pants down and fuck her. Like finally getting out of the keep. That's a happy thought. Seeing her friends at the monastery again after all these months, when Simon delivers her to safety. Of course men aren't normally allowed in the monastery, but an exception would surely be made for the hero returning one of their own, in need of rest and recovery from the injuries he'd sustained in rescuing her. Raya would offer up her own room, and in the dead of night she'd come creeping down the hallway...

Gah! No. Raya shakes her head angrily. You're supposed to NOT be thinking of fucking Simon. It's no use. She can't do it. She's already tried conjuring up the saddest memory she could think of, the day her dog Rolo passed away. That had worked for around a minute. Until somehow the memory of the burial had transformed into a fantasy orgy, with Simon bending her over a tombstone and taking her roughly from behind.

It's quite a pair they make, sitting side by side. Him; tall, dark and handsome, calmly engaging in the pursuit of scholarship. Her; naked, wet and horny, desperately trying to concoct a plan to get fucked. Somehow, this all feels right. Why should she wear clothes? She's a creature of pure sex, an object to be used for pleasure, a vessel by which her masters may satisfy their needs. Zeff has trained her well for that role, and for the first time she's eager to embrace it.

Except Simon hasn't gotten the memo. Raya has long since tried everything she can think of to entice him. Licking her lips - men like that, right? - twirling her hair, running her hand slowly up her thigh. As the hours have ticked by, she's gotten less subtle. Big yawns and stretches that thrust her breasts out invitingly. Sitting in poses carefully chosen to accidentally-on-purpose ensure all the goods are well displayed to Simon.

But the harder Raya tries to provoke a rise out of Simon, the harder he tries to ignore her - and his willpower proves up to the task. Raya has no option but to sit there, defeated and rejected, and let her mind conjure up a fantasy Simon to fuck her silly while the real one is buried in his books. Is there any chance he's gay? If she can't get him to abandon the principles of his church (which, when considered that way, is an awful thing for Raya to be trying anyway - she realizes that, but can't stop herself) is she at least making him hard for her?

Oh god, she's staring at the bulge in his pants again. Raya gives a start, and tears her eyes away guiltily. Simon's already caught her at it twice, looking up from his book with an unreadable expression on his face, making Raya blush and look away. Stop staring at his pants, you harlot, Raya tells herself. Stop imagining what his cock looks like. She has to focus on something safer. Like Simon's shoulders. His thick, powerful shoulders, straining against his tight linen shirt. Or his muscular arms, with the angry purple welts on them still showing the evidence of the battles he's fought on her behalf. Or his red lips, and the cute way he bites the lower one as he concentrates on a text. What it would feel like to have those soft lips pressed up against her own, for him to nibble on her lower lip, for their tongues to meet and push against each other...

Her pussy is leaking again.

Suddenly Simon's shoulders tense, and he looks up from his book to stare at the entrance to the dining room. Raya can immediately sense that something is wrong.

"It's Zeff," Simon says quietly. "One of my wards was just activated. He's on this floor."

Raya feels a chill as she follows Simon's gaze out into the hallway, and unconsciously shifts her position to get closer to the paladin. She thinks that she can feel an evil coldness suddenly seeping into the room. Though maybe that's just an overactive imagination. "Is he going to attack us?" she asks Simon in a whisper.

Simon allows himself to relax fractionally. "No, I don't think so. Not now. Maybe tonight; a man like Zeff draws power from the darkness. But we're well warded in here." Simon returns his eyes to the book he holds.

Despite Simon's comforting words, Raya keeps her eyes glued to the entrance, alert for any sign of Zeff. But there's nothing to see, nothing until - and all of a sudden where a moment ago was just empty space, now there's a swirling mist, and now the mist is dissipating and in its place is... Raya?

Raya sits frozen in shock as a perfect facsimile of herself is seen through the doorway. The false Raya stands as naked as the real one, and is looking vaguely in the direction of the two seated companions, but apparently without seeing them. It's eerie, and Raya gives a start when Simon lays a hand on her shoulder. "It's not real," he tells her. "There's nothing there."

Be that as it may, both Raya and Simon keep watching as fake-Raya suddenly drops to her knees, and starts talking. "My lord, please! I'm begging you! I need it so much!"

It's a surreal sight for Raya to see, an almost out-of-body experience, since what she's seeing is completely life-like. And it all seems... familiar, somehow.

Fake-Raya is now on all fours, crawling towards the dining room but not crossing the threshold, her breasts swaying hypnotically beneath her as she approaches. She continues to beg as she does: "Please, please, please. Your cock my lord, I need your beautiful cock," fake-Raya pleads. "I can make you feel so good. I know I can, please, just let me try. Let me taste it. I'll do anything, anything!"

Raya feels a hot flush of shame, and immediately looks away from her doppelganger. Now she knows why she'd felt a sense of deja vu. This scene has actually happened. Months ago, in her first few weeks in the Keep, which is why she hadn't recalled it at first. But now she remembers.

Before Zeff had produced the collar, and before he'd broken her with the chastity belt and rousal weed - back when she was still rebellious and resistant - Zeff had other ways of controlling her. Brute force of course, and magical compulsion, those were options. But Zeff preferred a more subtle approach. He tinkered with her brain.

Zeff delighted in planting hypnotic suggestions in her mind, to change her behavior. He'd make Raya believe that he was the most handsome man in the realm, and her fondest desire was to seduce him into her bed. Or he'd make her think her pussy had been poisoned, and the only antidote was his cum. Or that his cock was the most delicious delicacy in the world, and everyone would be jealous of her for tasting it. Or that her deepest desire was eternal beauty which could be achieved only by rubbing his cum all over her face and chest.

No matter how absurd the premise, she'd accept it unconditionally, and utterly debase herself acting on these implanted suggestions. Then after a few hours the magic would fade, and reason would return to her - Zeff was her captor, and worshiping his cock was not the solution to all life's problems. But the memories wouldn't fade, and she'd burn with humiliation at how she'd been tricked into crawling after Zeff and kissing his feet and begging for the privilege of pleasuring the warlock's body. Then he'd recast his spell, and she'd do it all over again.

And apparently Zeff had somehow magically recorded all that, and was now replaying the scene for a captive audience.

"Please my lord, let me touch it! Can I taste it again? Oh please, this time will be even better than last time, I promise. Let me be your little cock slut, please oh please..." Fake-Raya continues pleading for a taste of cock, while real-Raya does her best to sink into the stone wall at her back, willing the magical memory to fade.

This isn't fair. Why is Zeff doing this to her? She'll never be able to look Simon in the face again. She needs to say something, she realizes. Simon probably already thought she was a slut, but him watching this memory, this is too much. She can't have Simon thinking that she was a willing - if not desperately enthusiastic - participant in Zeff's sick games. Because the cock-hungry fake-Raya certainly didn't look like she was being forced.

"My lord, what you're seeing -"

"It's ok," Simon interrupts with an understanding tone. "It's not real. I know."

"Yes, but you have to understand. When I was doing that, saying those things... I wasn't in control. Zeff had done something to my mind," Raya tries to explain.

"Oh, hmm." Simon looks thoughtful, and an awkward pause is made even more uncomfortable by the sounds of fake-Raya's continued begging for permission to kiss Zeff's cock. "Interesting, I had assumed Zeff had conjured a simple illusion, which was odd because I can usually see through them. But if this is actually a temporal projection, that would explain it."

Raya groans, and slumps down even lower against the wall. Leave it to her to make the situation even worse. Of course Simon would have just assumed it was some sort of illusion. And then she has to open her big mouth and say "Nope, that crazy sex fiend you see - that was me alright! It's no trick, I did that!"

"Why is Zeff doing this?" Raya moans. "Can you make it stop?"

Simon sighs in response. "Not from inside the wards, I fear. And I suspect that's the exact reason Zeff is doing this. To try to provoke me into the open, where I will be more vulnerable. No," he repeats, "As unpleasant as it may be, remaining here and enduring the provocation is the wisest course. If this is the worst Zeff can throw at us, we will count ourselves lucky."

Raya certainly doesn't feel lucky though. Especially as her projection has apparently been given the permission it had been waiting for, and starts noisily slurping at an unseen cock. It's bizarre to watch, with her projection's mouth forming a wide O around seemingly nothing, bobbing enthusiastically up and down on air. But there's no mistaking what the glug-glug-glug noises mean, and Raya shoots a guilty look at Simon to gauge his reaction. But Simon is calmly flipping pages in one of his texts, as if nothing at all is wrong.

Eventually Raya's projection glugs her final glug and pants out her pathetic thank-yous for the delicious treat and finally, mercifully, fades out of existence. Only to be replaced by a new temporal projection; a Raya from a different day, a different humiliation. This new Raya has the collar on, indicating a more recent memory, and sits on the floor with her legs spread wide open, her hairless pussy lewdly displayed. She leans backward against some invisible support and has her eyes closed and a look of apparent blissful concentration on her face as she plays with her nipples. And what's she holding in her hands...?

White feathers, Raya sees, and she groans as she realizes the scene Zeff has conjured. From an afternoon maybe a month ago; the warlock had been doing something unspeakable to a white dove in his lab when Raya had come to report she'd finished her cleaning. With no other tasks to assign to her, Zeff had casually plucked out two tail feathers, and ordered her to go wait someplace where she wouldn't distract him and play with herself until she was needed.

And Raya had done exactly that - of course she had, the collar left her with no choice. She'd retreated to the kitchen, which was her favorite room of the keep (always warm, and a place Zeff tended to avoid). She arranged some sacks of flour into a comfortable seat for herself. And she went to work, teasing and stroking herself, turning the feathers into instruments of stimulation and torture.

The soft touch of the downy feathers had been frustratingly light, tickling as much as they were arousing. It was a maddening sensation on her most delicate bits; her pussy, her clit, her nipples, simultaneously both too much sensation and also not nearly enough. But it had worked. It had taken a while, but the soft strokes of the feather had eventually brought her to the peak of orgasm and then crashing over into bliss.

And that had been when the true ordeal began. Engorged with blood and hyper-sensitive from the orgasm, her naughty bits felt every touch and swirl of the feather as if magnified by a factor of ten. But the collar didn't let her take a break, to rest and recover. The command was to play with herself until she was needed, so on she went through the endless afternoon, using the deceptively innocent-looking feathers to ruthlessly tear one agonizing orgasm after another from her unwilling body. It had been pure torture.

So why, present-day Raya wonders, doesn't her projection look like it's being tortured? Quite the opposite, in fact. The languid moans from the illusion, the wanton thrusting of her hips, projection-Raya looks like she's on cloud nine. She looks blissed out and enraptured. But that was just a defense mechanism. When the collar was compelling her actions, Raya had found it best to just shut her brain down and go along for the ride. But would Simon see that, or would he just see a freaky slut who loved being Zeff's sex toy?

Eventually that Raya projection fades also, only to be replaced by another, then another, then another. Projection Raya getting spanked and asking for more; projection Raya dancing lewdly and shaking her tits; projection Raya humping the corner of a table and begging for permission to cum; projection Raya contorting on the floor trying frantically to lick her own pussy. A seemingly endless parade of Rayas performing the world's most pornographic show, while Simon simply reads his books and the real Raya watches in horny misery and wishes she could turn invisible.

Suddenly Simon slams his book closed and Raya looks up in alarm. His face seems strained, but his expression is unreadable. Which is probably for the best. Raya can only imagine what he thinks of her by this point.

But Simon makes no mention of the Raya projection in the hallway busily alternating between fucking herself with a massive cucumber and then licking it clean of sex juices in the most graphic way possible - even though he has to talk loudly to be heard over the illusion's moans.

"I believe I have what I need now," he tells Raya. "But we must adjourn to the library, there's one more book I must consult."

"Is it safe?" Raya asks tentatively.

Simon nods grimly. "As long as you stay with me. Zeff is taunting us, but he won't dare try an assault, I think. I'll be ready if he does."

Despite his confident words, Simon pauses for long moments at the threshold of the room, peering down the long corridor into the gloom of the keep. Finally he motions for Raya to follow him, and the two creep cautiously through the passages of the old keep. As Simon had predicted, there's no sign of Zeff, though projections of Raya continued to appear all around them as they walk, and the visuals and soundtrack follow them the whole way. Raya moaning in pleasure, Raya begging to cum, Raya slurping on cock, Raya convulsing in orgasm.

It's hard to imagine this day getting any worse. But they're not out of the keep yet, and Raya is certain Zeff has at least one card left to play.