Part 56
Evelyn
Evelyn paced the dimly lit confines of her private chamber, the ever-present thrum of Abyss pulsing through the walls. Each night, the same haunting thoughts plagued her: Lena and Mina, somewhere out there, mastering the cursed clarinet and preparing to challenge her. The image of Lena standing victorious, ready to strip Evelyn of her position and consign her to the needle coffin, haunted her every waking moment.
The stakes were unbearably high. Evelyn knew that failure to complete her own challenge would leave the owners to decide her fate - a fate that would likely end with her retirement into the needle coffin. The thought of that confinement, the relentless, unyielding press of needles against her skin for eternity, drove her to the brink of madness.
She had to complete her Seventh Circle of Hell before Lena and Mina did, so she could set the stakes herself to anything other than the coffin.
Every night, Evelyn donned the Stilettos of the Languished Arches and stepped onto the private stage in her chamber that her living room floor had become. The music began again, the very familiar notes of the Seventh Circle of Hell echoing around her. She moved with practiced grace, each step carefully measured, her endurance tested to its limits.
Her lovely batteries were brimming, embedded in the infernal circuit of suffering. Women were drained constantly in their chastity, under Caps of Despair, slowly but steadily drawing out their energy, empowering Evelyn. Yet, her own soles leaked enough of it away, to the Count, into the Abyss itself. No matter how hard she pushed herself, she could never make it past the two-hour mark. After that long time, her calfs would be cramping up, the spikes digging more and more into her soles, adding to the pain searing through her resolve, forcing her to eventually collapse in exhaustion. The song’s final hour remained an insurmountable wall, one she feared she would never conquer.
Unable to escape her growing paranoia, Evelyn began channeling her frustrations into the weekly pain games at Abyss. She needed more. More energy, more sustenance. The club’s patrons thrived on the dark aura she exuded, their own desires for pain and pleasure feeding off of her intensity.
Nadia returned weekly for hygiene, her chastity belt still sealed tight, her desperation palpable. Evelyn reveled in her suffering. Her chastity didn’t mean as much to her as Lena’s and Mina’s of course, but it was very tasty and she drank in her sexual frustration like a succubus. Nobody would ever take up on any of the desperate challenges issued sometimes by Nadia, and Evelyn orchestrated again a cruel dance that Nadia could not resit. It left her crumpled on the stage, the sharp spikes in her shoes fully and mercilessly extending into her soles. Elise and her boyfriend Alexandru were among the audience and cheered, kissing passionately while observing this display of pain.
They jumped up on stage for a surprise they had arranged with Evelyn before. Alexandru stood behind the still kneeling Nadia, steading her, to look up at her rival. Elise flashed a golden ring on her finger and erupted into cruel laughter. Her orgasms were so much better knowing her former rival languished and would go without sexual relief for the foreseeable future. Looking at Elise's engagement ring, Nadia screamed once more, this time out of horror instead of pain. There were cheers from the audience, but only few understood the cruel meaning of her ring. Nadia condemned once more the forfeit she demanded in that dance duel so long ago. As long as they are a couple…
In the background, Evelyn smiled satisfied. This battery was not running dry anytime soon.
Camelia, too, reappeared regularly as a guest, her confidence still intact and unbroken by her previous dance as the Flickering Flame. Evelyn challenged her to dance in the Ballet Shoes of Torment once more, delighting in the sight of Camelia struggling to maintain her poise as the translucent soles revealed the needles working over the arches of her feet. Though Camelia endured, gracefully floating, almost defying gravity despite her heels, Evelyn found a bit of solace in the brief moments of her pain. She obsessed over her, not as much as over Lena of course, in her fantasies she invited Camelia as a centerpiece to her solitary sessions of lust in the depths of the night. She’d need a better way to feed off of her.
Each month, new faces joined the familiar ones, all seeking the twisted pleasure that only Abyss could offer. Evelyn manipulated them with ease, her own fears and frustrations manifesting in the challenges she devised. Yet, no matter how much control she exerted over others, the fear of her own downfall remained.
Evelyn’s paranoia grew with each passing day. She saw shadows where there were none, imagined whispers of Lena and Mina’s impending triumph around every corner. The thought of the needle coffin consumed her, its existence a constant, looming threat.
Despite her nightly attempts, the Seventh Circle remained undefeated. Each failure chipped away at her confidence, leaving her more vulnerable to the fears that gnawed at her soul. The owners had made it clear: if she could not master the final circle, the duel’s stakes would be set by them. And Evelyn knew exactly what that meant.
Evelyn had trained for endurance, and her pain tolerance was legendary. The Stilettos of the Languished Arches, with their retractable spikes that punished every misstep, no longer terrified her. She could absorb the pain for quite a while. Her soles had suffered for Abyss in countless trials, and she had danced long enough that the spikes, once biting, now felt even like mercy, when compared to more demanding needle-equipped heels. But time itself had become her enemy. Age had quietly crept slowly back into her body, stiffening her joints, robbing her of the breathless fluidity that once came so easily. She had never admitted aloud how deeply the second hour of the dance drained her - not from pain, but from sheer, bodily depletion. That final hour, the abyss between her and triumph, stood like an iron wall.
She stood again, her back stiff, and walked barefoot over the polished stone floor to the corner of her chamber. There, resting like a relic, lay her personal pair of the Stilettos of the Languished Arches. She placed a hand over them, letting her fingers trace the shape of the nodules, the smooth leather. She would try again.
The Stilettos of the Languished Arches bit into her flesh again as she stepped onto her private stage in her quarters, her candlelit chambers. The music rose - haunting, relentless. The first hour passed like a ritual she had rehearsed a thousand times, her feet gliding in perfect sync with the punishing rhythm. The spikes within her heels activated only when her rhythm slipped, but she had long since mastered their cadence. It was not the spikes that defeated her. It was time.
Her age betrayed her. She looked visibly older now. The Count had drained her too often through the infernal heels.
By the second hour, her legs ached with a tremble she could not suppress, her joints stiffening, balance becoming tenuous. Her body no longer obeyed with the crisp ease of decades past. She had always prided herself on endurance, on control, on poise - but now, the final hour seemed like a summit she could no longer scale.
And yet she danced.
What made this harder, more unbearable, was not simply her age, or the cruel tempo of the Seventh Circle, but the subtle drain that accompanied her movements. She did not feel it directly. No one could.The drain was elegant, hidden. There was no bite, no sting, no invasive hand siphoning strength - but she noticed the fatigue afterward. A hollowness. A depletion that sleep never truly cured.
When Abyss was brimming with activity - when chastity belts clicked shut, when sobs echoed from the Needle Frame, when guests suffered - then Evelyn could draw strength. She fed indirectly, her form sustained not by direct rituals, but by the collective currency of pain, endurance, and erotic frustration.
Nadia’s long belt sentence, Alina’s ice-cold devotion, Ana’s fruitless cravings, and the occasional screams from the needle frame gave Evelyn enough to maintain her presence, to keep her skin smooth and voice crisp. But it was a fragile balance. When the games waned, when chastity belt timers reached zero, and when no fresh pain ignited on the stage - her source weakened.
She remembered well her recent attempt - she thought back again to the night she tricked Ana into the Needle Frame. Evelyn had taken to the stage while Ana writhed and screamed beneath the cold attention of the automated pins. It had worked. That night, she had passed deep into the third hour. Her feet had burned, her calves twitched uncontrollably, but she had nearly conquered the circle. Nearly.
She almost made it. But ‘almost’ was never enough in Abyss. She still had failed.
Now, she danced again in her chamber, her breath tight, her skin glistening with exertion. The hourglass on the wall ticked down. Her lips were cracked. The arches of her feet pulsed in remembered agony. The heels, locked to her like an oath, offered no forgiveness.
She sank to her knees.
Another defeat.
Evelyn sat slumped in the center of her stage, a dark silhouette framed in candlelight, every muscle trembling, her strength spent. She gazed into the dark corners of the chamber and whispered names like spells.
"Camelia… Ana… Nadia… Elise… Lena… Mina…"
She needed them. Their pain. Their denial. Their dread. Without them, she would not make it through her challenge. Abyss would grow quiet. She would grow old. She would be retired.
But she would not surrender. She had one more gala to plan, one more challenge to orchestrate, and many more strings to pull.
Camelia could be tested again. Those delicate arches were still learning pain.
Ana could be baited. Her hunger for the tongues still lingered. Evelyn would turn it into a noose. She would drain her completely until she would be a husk of her former self. Rich, but empty and hollow. But she understood, just as she had baited Ana into impossible challenges, so had the Count baited her.
Nadia… a puppet of denial, still so malleable, so desperate.
And Elise? Still seeking retribution.
The Count would not have her. Not yet.
Evelyn pushed herself upright, her joints protesting. Her soles tingled with remembered spikes. Her reflection in the mirrored wall looked once more older than she remembered. Just slightly.
She would dance again tomorrow.
But she could not afford to fail many more times. If she didn’t make it tomorrow, she would need to rest, regain energy and age. If she did not master the Seventh Circle before Lena and Mina completed their own terms, she would be at risk of being retired. She needed to find a delicate balance. Dance too often, and the drain would win, she would age and wither. Delay the successful dance too much, and the she could find herself suddenly facing a duel for the Needle Coffin and for her permanent retirement.
The rules were simple: defeat the song, or be defeated by it. And if she could not… she knew where she would go. And the Count would feast continuously. And she would wither within the embrace of her retirement.
Yet, despite the terror that gripped her, a flicker of resolve remained. She would continue to dance, to fight against the inevitable, to delay her fate for as long as possible. She had managed Abyss before, she had the tools and knowledge to solve the situation. The darkness of Abyss was her world, and she would cling to it until the very end. She would need to keep Abyss spinning, the Inner Sanctum shivering with tongues, the Needle Frame groaning with pain, and the rubber coffins occupied with fresh captives.
Unbeknownst to her, the soles of her own feet were destined to become the most languished soles in the history of Club Abyss. She truly had entered the Seventh Circle of Hell.