Reminder: Nathan is on level seven of ten and has a ball weight, a tongue clip with chain to the nipples, shackles on his ankles, a weight belt around the hip, a collar that keeps his head from turning, cuffs keeping his wrists together in front of him, a short string from cuffs to dick and further to the ankles, and a nipple chain with six gems.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I exited onto the eighth level and saw the staircase for the ninth right before me. It was separated from my position by glass. As I stepped off the stairs, I realized that the whole place was a glass-maze.
Lights in all colors of the rainbow dashed around the ceiling, making it impossible to see the path between the glass planes. At least I knew where the exit for the next floor was, relative to me. As long as I kept track of the direction I was facing, it should have been possible to find back there once I had the gem.
By now my nipples were one of my greatest pain sources, simply because holding still didn't make the shifting clamps stop from alternating their bites.
Slightly crouched, I walked into the maze. It was completely seamless glass, with no visible corners or imperfections. The only thing letting me know when I was about to hit a wall, was my ugly reflection. Although the erratic lights obscured the bruises and emphasized the impossibly toned, glistening muscles, my gear made me feel utterly humiliated.
I waddled around the place, always turning to a random side when my reflection came to close. After a while I realized that the angles weren't exactly ninety degrees which meant I had lost track of the exit's position.
So lost in thought was I, that I hit my nose on the next glass wall. I left no imprint behind. My sweat on the material simply vanished instantly.
That was when I noticed my reflection looking slightly different from me. It was the same in every way except for the facial expression.
While I was in great discomfort and made no effort to hide my pain and anger, my reflection looked just a little more serene. It felt as if my mirror image found a little enjoyment in the torture.
That was weird, of course, but nothing unusual in a hell full of physical and psychological torture.
Still without a plan or an understanding of the place's purpose I marched on. After examining the floor for a while and trying to find patterns in the flying lights' movements, I paid attention to my mirror image again and found the traces of pleasure gone.
Since this was the only hint I had as to the meaning of all this, I tried to ponder it for a while.
Something passed by in front of me. There was glass between me and the thing, but I recognized it after a second of panic – it was Igor.
If the Russian was still on this level, it had to be a riddle that wouldn't be solved by running aimlessly. Fairly sure he hadn't seen me, I turned back to get away from him. Once I made my way in the direction from which I had come, I saw the look of slight enjoyment reappear on my reflection's face.
That was it. A way to keep myself oriented. If the change in expression indicated a direction – to wherever – I could establish a mental map even though the corridors met at weird angles.
I wandered faster, but tried to stay quiet in case the massive bodybuilder walked by my location again.
As I had predicted, my reflection looked less and less pained but more and more pleased. I wandered faster, not even concerned with Igor anymore. If he hadn't figured it out so far, he was probably not getting too close to wherever my mirror image led me.
After a minute of fast walking – or whatever my bound self's motions could have been called – I saw the reflection's enjoyment grow into ecstasy and finally uncontrolled, rapturous bliss. Left and right of me, the images spurted cum and trembled madly as I walked on.
There was the gem.
I came near it and right away it attached itself to my nipple chain. All my reflections vanished. The glass became opaque black.
Looking behind me I saw that the train of sweat, drool and precum I had left was gone. I had no idea how to find the exit or how to avoid Igor.
My strategy was simple. Assuming the maze was in one connected piece and not in multiple untouching part, I could find the exit just fine, but it would take a while. The dummy-way to escape a labyrinth was to pick a side – say, right – and always touch it. That way I was sure to visit every part of the place one after another. But it was highly inefficient to do so, since it led me into every dead end along the way. I would traverse the entire maze until I found the exit.
Presumably the walls were still transparent for Igor. Would he stop me? We both knew that only the loser was punished, so two winners were possible. But he would still profit from knocking me out just to make sure.
The gift of the eighth gem appeared on me. A string tied my collar to my cuffs. Of course it was too short. Now I had a connection from collar to cuffs to dickhead to ankles.
I decided I had to risk it.
For all I knew, Igor could already be done with the level. And it was also possible for Kang to appear any moment.
With my right shoulder on the wall, I went into the least stressful positon the wrist-dickhead-leg rope allowed and waddled along at top speed, leaving a film of sweat on the wall which dried instantly.
My hip weights slammed into every corner and my collar made sure I couldn't easily look ahead and forced a slowdown at intersections. I was still trying to avoid Igor if possible. Maybe that was paranoid but how should I know?
It seemed like forever – of course it did – but I made it to the staircase eventually.