Walking the Catwalk pt. 5

The walls of the massive cylindrical chamber were covered in large rotating panels, each coated on both sides in a thick layer of brilliant green moss. In the center of the chamber, a giant screw-like triple-helix structure slowly rotated. The structure was composed of stacked sets of three flat blades, slightly offset from the ones below, linked at their far ends, forming what amounted to three steep, interlaced spiral staircases. When Jacqueline first entered the room, she initially took the giant structure for a propeller, until one of the blades passed by and she found herself sprayed with a heavy mist of odd-smelling water. The spray filled the room with the sound of a downpour that drowned out all but the loudest sounds in the roar of the falling drops and the steady, constant whirring of the central structure.

She entered the room on extremely wobbly legs, barely keeping herself from letting out the small noises her body was making on reflex as it was barraged with a whole slew of new sensations. When the vibrator had started getting more and more frequent, she’d received an aggressive crash course in how her new body handled arousal and stimulation. The extreme hardening of her nipples against the tight fabric of the suit, the flushing of her whole body with an embarrassing molten heat, the slick wetness and fluttering of new muscles between her legs; each one was a new lesson in feminine arousal that she would have preferred to have delayed as much as possible. When the vibrator had ramped up to near-constant stimulation, she had to clutch the handrails to keep her legs from buckling from the assault of the constant waves of buzzing pleasure that radiated through her body, leaving her lightly delirious.

She had entered on one of four walkways that connected in the center of the room at the midpoint between the top and bottom of the chamber. The rotating structure had just enough of a gap for the walkways that one could crawl to the intersection. Based on the persistent and distracting pulse from the vibrator, Jacqueline suspected that her target was somewhere nearby. The only question was whether it was up, at the top of the chamber with the brilliant lamps that shone like a tiny sun, or down, in the pool of water collecting at the bottom of the chamber where it drained as fast as it filled. It was too far to see which it was from the walkway. She considered her options and decided that the only logical solution was to look at the top first. After all, if she started at the bottom and was wrong, she would then have to climb up the entire structure, but if she reached the top and didn’t find what she was looking for, it would be all downhill to reach the goal.

She watched the spinning structure carefully, timing her approach, and then made her move, clamoring onto the lowest step of the spinning structure. Having to pull herself onto the first step, swinging her legs up so that she could get her lower half onto the step and start climbing, was a potent reminder of her changed body with its widened hips and slimmed legs being pulled up by her green hands and dainty arms, with her newly formed breasts pressing against the blades as she pulled herself up. Once she was on the blade, she steadied herself enough to stand, finding that the center of the blade was the safest place to stand, with a balance of a lower speed than the outer edge of the blade and a gap between the blades that was easier to climb than near the axis. Under any other circumstances, it would have been as easy as climbing a set of stairs, but, as the vibrator’s pulses responded to her climb by growing more frequent, it became increasingly difficult. She needed to clutch onto the upper steps to stabilize herself as she climbed or risk a bad foot placement causing her to fall. She started climbing and looked up to see if she could spot any drones she might need to avoid. As she looked up through the overlapping blades, she saw first one, then two, and then more. Six in all between her and the top of the chamber, each one stationary on the edge of the chamber, pointed inwards with larger-than-normal cones that reached the center of the chamber. Luckily, none of them seemed to be in too close of proximity to each other, and their presence gave her confidence she was on the right track. She decided she’d need to calculate when to pause her climb to avoid them, but that just meant that she needed to be patient and she could reach the top with relatively minor difficulty. Of course, the moment she realized that was also the moment that she saw the flash of pink and Daisy’s annoyed expression from one of the room’s other entrances.

When she next caught sight of the woman, Daisy appeared to be signaling for her to come down. Jacqueline responded with an incredulous look and a shake of her head as she continued climbing. When the next rotation came around, Daisy was gone. For a moment, Jacqueline hoped that the other woman had taken the hint and gone to search somewhere else, but then she spotted movement behind her. The cowgirl had crawled onto the rotating structure, following directly behind her.

“What are you doing?” Jacqueline asked the woman, her voice nearly drowned out by the sounds of the water.

“I need it more than you do!”

Jacqueline found herself stunned by the woman’s audacity. This woman had been nothing but a wrecking ball to the lives of everyone around her, and Jacqueline had a front-row seat to the devastation she’d inflicted on both Aaron and Delia’s lives. And now, after digging herself a hole simply because she couldn’t keep her mouth from being a spewing geyser of toxic spite for a few minutes, she wanted someone else to take a dive for her? Part of her knew that both Delia and Aaron would want her to help the other women, but neither of them had ever been able to wrap their minds around the reality of how much of a black hole the woman was. From Jacqueline’s perspective, the thing that Daisy had proven over and over again was that any hand held out to her in aid did nothing but pull others into an inescapable orbit where she would take and take until there was nothing of interest left. If this whole situation was going to be a competition, then how much would she and the others be asked to sacrifice to help shield Daisy from the consequences of her own actions?

Jacqueline had been so stunned by the combination of the woman’s bold request and the persistent buzz between her legs that she didn’t realize the other woman was gaining on her. Daisy’s timing had apparently been perfect in starting her climb, and she’d been able to slip past the cone of the first drone without the long pause that Jacqueline had needed to take to pass the same. By the time she’d realized the other woman had seized the distraction, Daisy’s hands were catching up to Jacqueline’s feet. When Jacqueline reached another point that she needed to stop and wait for the structure to pass the next drone’s detection cone, Daisy was able to cover even more ground. Jacqueline was able to start moving again just as Daisy’s hands were reaching the level of her waist, but she heard Daisy speak again just as she was about to start climbing.

“What do you think would happen if I screamed?”

Jacqueline’s hand stopped just as it was about to grab onto the next rung, and she turned a glare down at the woman below her. The noise of the water was more than enough to allow them to speak without the drones noticing, but if Daisy screamed as loud as she could, Jacqueline was certain that any nearby drones would be sure to hear them. The other woman was smirking as she continued to climb, finally coming level with Jacqueline.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’ve already got a penalty, and my start point isn’t far from here,” Daisy lied. “So, what’s it gonna be?”

“Do you have no shame at all?”

“We’re all supposed to be working together, right? Seems to me the goal should be for us all to be working to keep as many people from getting eliminated as possible, right? Since the bot and that friend of yours both clearly have such a vendetta against me, I think it should be everybody’s goal to even the odds. You wouldn’t want me screwing you over if it was you on the line? Or if it was your daughter?” Daisy asked, lacing her words with venom.

“Don’t you dare threaten my daughter,” Jacqueline said, trying to keep her own volume in check. The racing of her heart from the stimulation of the vibrator, combined with the rage and fear the other woman’s words had stirred up, was making it difficult to focus. She had no idea if there would be some situation where Daisy might be a threat to Jenna or herself, but she did not doubt that the woman would absolutely seize such an opportunity if presented. Jacqueline was confident that, even if such a situation would hurt Daisy herself, she’d still take the opportunity to hurt someone who had antagonized her. She strongly suspected that it was only the warning about violence that kept Daisy from tossing her off at that very moment.

“Just asking you if you want this to be a friendly competition or an antagonistic one. I would never threaten anyone.”

“No, you just get your boyfriend to do it,” Jacqueline said, recalling an envelope arriving on her patio filled with photos of Aaron with Jenna and Jacqueline’s male self both together and separately and a letter warning that further association with Aaron could have consequences. She’d never told Aaron or Jenna about the envelope, hiding it in her home safe, but she’d been a little more cautious ever since and taken special effort to make sure that Jenna always had a ride home and a can of pepper spray.

“That was just a friendly warning. If you or my sister had listened to me, maybe none of us would be in this situation. Do you really know that friend of yours as well as you think? Aaron’s not as innocent as you think. I’m sure you’ll figure that out now that you’re a woman. You’ll finally understand how uncomfortable he makes us. Just wait till it’s your minty tits and ass that he’s staring at.” The other woman replied, not showing an ounce of shame or guilt.

Jacqueline considered the situation as much as she could given the dual assault on her senses and her emotions. She ultimately concluded that, as much as she loathed the idea of giving the foul woman any assistance, the truth was that she had no chance of successfully climbing the rest of the structure faster than the other woman. At halfway up, her legs were starting to quiver, and her hips were beginning to flex involuntarily. She had no doubt that, if she continued to climb, she was at a very real risk of being incapacitated by her first female orgasm at an inconvenient moment and falling to what she hoped would not be her death. Meanwhile, the other woman seemed not only to have a much greater ability to withstand the vibrations of the device, but also to be showing her almost supernatural lucky streak as she passed between the drones’ detection areas with perfect timing. She decided that, as much as she hated it, she really had no choice but to surrender the card to Daisy.

“One of these days, you’re going to finally get what’s coming to you. I hope I’m there to see it.”

“Oh, you will. When I’ve won this whole game, and I get that wish.”

And with that, Daisy started climbing again, passing Jacqueline, who resisted the urge to yank the woman off the structure by her flopping cow tail, gritting her teeth in anger, the rage warring with the stimulation of the vibrator. It was only when Daisy was more than two body lengths ahead of her that she started to move back down the structure, grumbling to herself while descending. It didn’t take her very long to get back down to the walkway, pausing again to pass the drones’ detection cones. Still, by the time she reached the walkway, she looked up and saw Daisy reaching the top of the structure, followed by a flash of light. She shook her head in frustration before she started considering what her next move would be. But after a few moments, she realized that the vibration between her legs, which had died down somewhat as she climbed down the structure, hadn’t disappeared completely. She looked back up the structure and saw no sign that Daisy was still present, but the vibrations were still going. Curious, she looked below the walkway, at the remainder of the chamber, and saw that, just like the area above the walkway, the space below had a number of drones similarly arranged. She let out a sigh, briefly frustrated that she hadn’t searched before and potentially saved herself the competition with the other woman. She briefly considered taking a moment to lie down and breathe for a second but realized, to her shock, that, despite how much she’d been walking, climbing, and resisting the arousal from the vibrator, she didn’t feel nearly as tired as she would have expected to. She decided that it must be a side-effect of her transformation, either due to her altered age or some trait of the women that Jenna had written about. Either way, she decided to be thankful for the silver lining she had discovered. She moved to the edge of the walkway and sat, preparing to lower herself down onto the lower structure when, once again, another woman entered the room.

She looked up to see Delia’s surprised smile. The other woman approached, ducking under the spinning structure above as she crouched, settling next to Jacqueline.

“Jacqueline? Sorry, it’s still so weird. I’m honestly not sure what’s weirder, having to remind myself that my business partner suddenly looks like an alien co-ed, or having your name swapped out in my head like that. You should see if C2 will let you use a nickname, because it’s not letting me at the moment and that’s a bit of a mouthful.”

“Yep, in the minty flesh. You’re telling me. This is definitely the weirdest night of my life. Hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re not looking half bad in that corset, though.”

“I know. I definitely got off lighter than anyone else, especially compared to you or my sister.”

“Speaking of your sister. Are you here to beat me to a second key card? Because I’m pretty sure there’s only one left in here.”

“Oh no. She didn’t.”

“She did, caught up to me when I was halfway up and threatened to scream. She snuck in a little threat against Jenna and me as she did it.”

Delia let out a defeated sigh and took a seat next to Jacqueline, dangling her feet off the edge of the walkway.

“I’m sorry. No, you go right ahead. It’s first-come-first-served as far as I’m concerned. Though, I already helped out Serena, so we might already be getting pretty far down in the placings. Just my luck, I suppose.”

“Yeah, we should probably get moving. But, Dee, we need to talk. About a lot of stuff, but Daisy’s at the top of that list. She’s going to cause nothing but problems if something isn’t done about her.”

“If I had any power to control my sister, I would have done so ages ago.”

“Well, you need to try again. I love you, Dee, you’re one of my very best friends, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything, but your sister’s a shipwreck waiting to happen, and I’m not going to let her pull the rest of us down with her. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to try and get down these stairs before I lose my mind from this damned vibrator.” She said, lowering herself so that the slowly-moving structure would catch her as it passed by.

When it came close, she had to time her drop to keep herself from missing a good foothold and falling or ending up too high on the structure and getting clothes-lined by the next walkway. Still, she managed it with only some slight bruising to her chest as she ended up dropping slightly farther than she expected due to her altered height. She managed to grab on before she was able to slip too far, but she had to clutch onto the structure tightly as she made her way down. By the time she was low enough to look back up, she saw Delia, still seated, looking both dejected and frustrated. She wished she could do more for her friend, and swore to herself that she would when she could. But, for the moment, she needed to focus on the challenge and didn’t have the time to help her friend unpack several decades of a toxic sibling relationship. Delia gave her a little friendly wave as she resumed her own hunt, and Jacqueline returned it with a sad smile.

The climb down wasn’t nearly as difficult as the climb up. However, it still required intense focus as she carefully placed her feet and hands to make sure, even as the vibrations grew stronger and the sensation became more difficult to resist, that she wouldn’t miss a step and plummet into one of the drones’ waiting cones. It became harder and harder to focus on her climb until finally it became too much and she found herself clutching the structure as hard as she could as her first orgasm crested over her. She clung to the blades as wave after wave of sensation crashed over her; she could feel how much her body wanted to cry out but, in a moment of desperation, she bit down on her own arm, the suit preventing her from breaking the skin as she felt an overwhelming need to scream out her pleasure. She clung there for a while, riding out the aftershocks of the seismic experience. She managed to catch her breath, feeling the strands of long silver hair that clung to her moisture-covered face. Despite the release, she still felt the building heat as the vibrator continued its assault, threatening her with another orgasm. Part of her was tempted to ride out another one, but a more rational portion intervened and observed that there was only one drone and less than twenty feet between her and the water. She did some quick math, which was made distinctly more difficult by the warm fog that seemed to permeate her mind, and moved to the far edge of the blade and, when she was certain that she was out of range of the last remaining drone, pushed herself off the structure towards the wall. She began to free-fall towards the water, praying that it was deep enough to stop her fall and, preferably, cold enough to give her some relief from the persistent waves of pleasure which reached a fever pitch as she fell.

She hit the water, and the impact of the frigid water was the perfect remedy for her fevered mind. As she surfaced, thankful that the water had been even deeper than she hoped, she began to look around for the card. She spotted it attached to the base of the structure, rotating along with the rest. She swam over to it and sighed with relief as the brilliant light washed over her.