Image Set 07-42 B—Images:  3462-3478—to accompany Literature Section “07-42 Revelations in the Church of the Poisoned Souls”— Published 2025-12-24—©2025 The Remainderman.  This is a work of fiction, not a book of suggestions.  Horse tack is only for use with horses by trained equestrians.  And imaginary horse tack is only for use with imaginary horses.

CAUTION:  Contains themes of heavy degradation and filth some readers may find disturbing.

RULES OF THE CARD GAME THE CHARACTERS ARE PLAYING AVAILABLE HERE.

PREVIOUSLY:  Playing the demonic card game, Perdition Tarot, Channah has wagered Penny, Chas, Esmeray, and her other servants against Húanglóng; and everyone has wagered some combination of money, dares, and sacrifices on every trick and deal.  The doors have been sealed, the atmosphere is rowdy, the stakes are high, and everyone in the Lodge is intoxicated.  Queen Channah is descending into a dark mood for reasons other than, but somehow bound up with, the game.  After the other bets have been settled, Channah inserts marbles into Penny and Chas that she mysteriously promises—or threatens—will make them cleaner than they have ever been.  Now she leads them away from the rest of the gamers to prepare them for the frightening events to come.  NOW:

“Clothes off!”  Channah paused at the stairway, waiting while the girls stripped.  Taking their dresses, she almost led Penny and Chas further upstairs, but then shook her head, setting their dresses down on the upward flight and murmuring “better safe than sorry” as she led them downstairs instead, down the garden path, past the hot springs, where she commanded them to pick up soap and towels, and through a thick grove of ancient forest to a narrow defile, half-hidden behind an old āhuēhuētl tree, that cut down through the rocks to a small ledge five or ten feet below the cliff face where water from one or all of the springs spilled over the cliffs, forming a small and shallow pool in a bowl perhaps carved from the rocks by the water itself, before brimming over the lip of the small ledge to plunge down the face of the high cliff.

From the floor of the valley, perhaps the water revealed itself as a gorgeous and dramatic waterfall.  But from the dizzying height of the narrow ledge, it seemed to disappear down an infinite chasm, likely dissolving into spray and mist long before it reached the bottom.  If it ever did.  Chas gasped for breath, pressing herself back against the face of the cliff, the second the side of the defile slipped away to reveal the terrifying fall.

Channah laughed harshly.  “Not even the birds build nests here.  Only two reasons to come here,” she opined.  “To contemplate death, or do what you’re about to do.”

“What is that, Domina?”  Chas asked.

She just laughed in reply, enjoying keeping them wondering as long as possible, pushing Penny so she was pressed up against the cliff face with Chas, commanded them “Sit!” and then squatted before them, unfastening their cages, washing them in the water beside her before setting them on the rock to dry as she began to speak, her eyes flicking up to meet theirs firmly between concentrating on what she was doing:

“As you have no doubt already gathered, I’m off my game today.”

“I’m sorry, Domina,” Penny quavered, nervously but honestly.  “I can see you are upset.  Is everything all right?”

“No, I’m not,” she answered, surprising them with her candor.  “And I’m not sure.  I’m obviously going to lose every bet I place today.  Including, most importantly, my ill-advised—or possibly fated—bet with Húanglóng.  I do regret the consequences of placing it, although Penny, if you were more open to the pleasure that awaits you from surrendering, it would not have been necessary.”

“I’m sorry, Domina.”

“Hush.  You’re not.  Some, I know, but not sorry enough, anyway, despite my best efforts to make you so without spoiling your sweet disposition.  So many years’ training, and now I’m backed into a corner.  It was a reckless bet, but I’m not sure what else I could have done.  And again, I feel the hand of the fates at work here.  Revealed…” she hesitated.

“In your cards,” Penny whispered.

Nodding, she agreed:  “Especially so.  But not just in my divination hand—the entire deck.  You have to be ready in less than a month to serve a man eagerly, no matter what he looks or smells like.”

“Domina!”  Penny sounded as shocked as she was horrified.

“Try not to sound so surprised, sweetie,” Channah giggled despite herself.  “It’s charming, but it does make you seem a bit stupid at this point.  I mean…” she looked straight into Penny’s eyes, bursting out laughing when she looked away, reddening with shame.  “Really!  You’ve known I bought and bred you to be my whore for at least a week… and as clever as you are, perhaps a part of you has seen and feared it for years.”

“No.  No—”  Penny shook her head.

“Oh, dear,” she laughed, looking piercingly into Penny’s eyes and delighting with the shame she saw blossoming in her girl’s countenance.  “Your denial was just a little too emphatic, sugar bear.  An unmistakable tell.  That’s a direct hit, isn’t it, Princess?  Your cheeks, so red.  And you can’t even hold my gaze!” she thrilled.  “I love it so much I want to lick and eat you up.  That delicious shame…. I think it’s your very-most attractive quality, Pleaser.  It makes me hot and wet like a volcano every time.”

“Domina!”  Penny gasped, shocked by the intensity of her reaction and how much it revealed about the deep, intimate connection between them. 

“You know it’s true.  I see that,” she sniggered gleefully.  “Suspected so long, and still stayed with us and tried so hard to please us….”  She reached forward, taking Penny’s chin in her hand, to force the girl to look at her.  “Oh, you must despise yourself!  Don’t you, darling?  Fuck yesss….” She used her other hand to stroke herself.  “I can’t believe I’m about to lose you two for a week!  You better hope you don’t fall into my hands in the final deal of the game.  I want you two filthy-innocent sluts so badly….”  And then, in a sing-songy teasing voice, she chanted:  “Penny loves the Queen of Hell enough to be her eager whore….”

“Domina!”  Penny squealed in protest, squirming.

Channah threw her head back and laughed.  “Oh I wish there were a bit more time right now.  But I fear there’s not.”  Shaking her head and becoming businesslike once again, her tone became instructive:  “That’s your problem, darling.  Denial.  And your charm:  The innocence persisting and longing for a past so long-gone, it won’t accept the reality of corruption.  Perhaps the next week will help cure you of that.  After you’ve lusted so desperately for things you never imagined you could, it’s much harder to pretend it wasn’t you.”  She shrugged.  “Húanglóng has that effect.  All dragons do, Húanglóng more than any of them, of course.  And you’ll enjoy it, I promise.  If I had considered it acceptable for even a second to risk trusting you to the custody of another court I would have sent you to him years ago.”  And then, almost deliberately to cut off the question she could see forming on Penny’s lips, she preempted:  “How do you feel?”

“A little queasy, Mistress,” she conceded.  Then whispered under her breath, almost too quietly to be heard:  “From the disgusting conversation….”

Channah whooped with laughter.  “Oh, you wouldn’t dare sass me if you didn’t know I was in a rush, would you?  Let’s get you ready but don’t think you’ve gotten away with anything.  Now, dear, breathe deeply, this is both going to feel strange and it’s going to hurt, but I don’t have time to put you under this morning.”

“Put me—”

“BREATHE DEEPLY!” she reminded her girl, carefully positioning her right hand around Penny’s belly button and grasping her piercing firmly in her left hand as she closed her eyes, calming and composing herself and whispering something in a language neither girl understood as she pressed forward, a warm feeling emanating from her right hand seeming to loosen and relax Penny’s muscles so much she almost doubled over with the intensity and weirdness of the sudden loss of muscle control and sensation over a part of her body.

And then Channah ripped it out.

Really:  ripped.

It felt like a bandage being torn off a wound to which it had stuck, taking scab and healthy flesh alike with it; and sounded the same, not unlike tearing cloth.

Penny squealed, provoking Channah to smirk and shake her head, interrupting her chant.  “Please.  It’s not that bad.  Not a tenth as dramatic as putting it in in the first place, you big baby.  You won’t even have a scar to remember your piercing by.  If you let me get on with my spell.”  Then Penny’s squeal turned to a shout of shock and surprise—and Channah’s smirk to laughter as she tried to resume her chant—as Chas suddenly yelled, too.  As she pulled on the piercing, it came out…

And came out…

And came out.

Several feet of copper wire with small charms affixed to it at intervals, like a very long charm bracelet, but with the shapes molded into the same piece of copper as the wire itself rather than hanging free from it.  The charms were too small and bloody for the girls to tell what they were, but each one had a different, irregular, and quite deliberate-seeming form making it clear they were neither identical nor accidental.

“THAT was inside me, Mistress?!”  Penny screeched.

“Yes, dear, and you didn’t even know it, did you?  You never would have known it if this card game hadn’t gone so badly.  Or… if it was not necessary…” she mused as the last of it finally came out and she set it on the rocks in a shallow part of the pool beside her.  Channah kept her hand on Penny another good minute and a half, whispering, until she was satisfied; and with a quick nod, shifted to face Chas.  “I hadn’t planned this game.  But the sudden desire to play it was… overwhelming.  And I wasn’t expecting it, so… it’s even harder to avoid being manipulated when you don’t realize it’s happening.”

“Manipulated, Domina?  By… the fates?”  Penny breathed.

“Yes.  Destiny.  Prophecy.  Necessity, perhaps.  Call it what you like.”

“The cards,” Penny repeated her previous guess, nodding with conviction now.  And guessed:  “Death and The Devil!”

“Very good, smartypants,” she nodded.  “Or should I say, ‘smartyskirts’.  But not the only ones.  What made you notice those two?”  She asked, as she relaxed a second time, her right hand on Chas’s belly now, her left hand on Chas’s piercing.  Then she began whispering as Chas made a startled sound.

“I’m not exactly certain, Domina,” Penny admitted, shuddering sympathetically as she watched Chastity, stunned to see what was coming out of her body despite the fact she obviously had known what to expect.  “Instinct?  There were a series of cards in your first hand that you played strangely, almost like you were performing a ritual instead of playing a card game.  And…. Oh!  The Huángdì of Wands!  You played it around the same time in the first hand.  Then in the second hand, you played the Pharaoh of Wands first—even when you shouldn’t have.  Death and the Devil—they—they’re very memorable cards so I remember seeing them when you played them.”

“Me too,” Chas agreed, although it was unclear if she simply meant she remembered the cards, or if she remembered anything about how they had been played. 

Penny resumed:  “In both cases, you were terribly… intense.  Almost obsessed.  But… why are you removing—our chakra ornaments?”

After she had set Chas’s piercing in the same shallow puddle and finished chanting, she opened her eyes again and answered:  “Did you notice anything about the cards I played?  What was on them?”  And then she clarified:  “Who was on them?”

We were!”  Penny exclaimed in shock.  “Or—or at least, a blonde and a redhead.”  And then she whispered, either from amazement or shyness:  “Serving a powerful Succubus.  I—I thought I was… fantasizing it.”  Channah laughed, a sharp laugh of surprised, genuine pleasure as Penny turned bright red, realizing what she had said.  “Imagining,” Penny clarified.  “You know what I mean.”

“Perhaps better than you, Pleaser.  ‘Fantasizing.’  Not ‘imagining.’  I have your number fully now, what a horny little slut you are,” laughing even harder as Penny covered her eyes with her hands.  “And I love it that you’re still shy about it.  After the things we’ve done,” she shook her head, feigning shock.  As she rinsed the two piercings in the water, she continued, answering Penny’s most-recent question:  “Because you’re starting to figure some of this out, I’m going to tell you a bit more.  Not because I want you to know it, but because I want you to know how important it is to your own interests not to share a whisper of your speculations with anyone other than me.  Listen carefully, and take this seriously.  And keep it to yourself.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Domina,” they answered, swallowing and looking at one another, impressed with how serious she was.

“I’m going to tell you just enough, so you can be on your guard, before you say anything in front of others.  So you can protect yourselves and me.”

“From what?” Chas asked.  The fact Penny had not asked the same question should have suggested to Chas that Penny already knew the answer; but even if this had occurred to Chas, she would not have put together that Penny and Channah had previously had a previous discussion about this subject.  She would have assumed clever Penny had figured it out on her own.

“Am I dangerous?” Channah asked unexpectedly.

“Oh, yes, Domina!” They both answered unhesitatingly, without anything other than total sincerity.

“So if I have enemies—and I do—that I have been battling for centuries without vanquishing, they must be dangerous as well, mustn’t they?”

“Yes, Domina.”

“And if any of them realized how important the two of you were to my ambitions… what do you think?  Would you be safer?  Or…”

“In terrible danger,” Chas answered, nodding slowly to herself.

“Yes.  That’s why we’re having this conversation away from even my most-trusted lieutenants; because even they lack the powerful incentives to keep quiet about this that only the two of you share with me.  If my rivals come to even suspect two humans as weak and insignificant as you may have an important role to play in my fate… they would see you as my most vulnerable point, and exploit that.  Perhaps by killing you; perhaps by trying to turn you with magic or torture or blackmail; perhaps….”  She shrugged, unable or feeling it unnecessary to offer further alternatives.  “Do you understand?”  She hardly need have paused for their response; they were both, immediately, nodding earnestly. 

“Good.  Then listen well.  The two autumn leaves—I called them that because they appeared for the first time on the Death card, on All Hallows’ Eve, in 1517.  Just—long before—I met you.”  The girls exchanged an uneasy look.  That didn’t sound good.

“The cards are slippery.  Their destiny is to reveal the future, but they seem to fight that destiny as vigorously as I tried to fight mine today.  Or, perhaps, they are simply serving their own purpose in causing the events they are to tell by making us their pawns.  They do all they can to conceal what they reveal, and leave us all in confusion, looking the wrong way, so they can laugh at us afterwards and tell us ‘we told you so, fool (allusion to the Tarot fully intended, even required), and you should have listened!’  Only in hindsight are their messages clear.  There’s always a chance you two are…” she shrugged again, emphasizing her uncertainty and the powerlessness of every soul, “Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Or perhaps, originally, you were nothing—until, suspecting I might have recognized you in the cards, I plucked you up and made you a part of my story by reading, and then pulling, you into a prophecy that had nothing to do with you.  That’s Fate’s second-favorite trick.”

“What is its favorite?” Penny asked.

She laughed bitterly.  “To persuade you to engineer the very situation the cards are warning you to avoid.  They love to do that.”

“That’s… cruel,” Penny opined, as Channah reached forward to unfasten Penny’s collar, shooting her an intense, commanding, silent glare in response to her look of surprise.  Apparently, this was a secret within a secret, to be kept even from Chas.  And not for the first time, Penny wondered how many secrets of Channah’s surrounded her, woven by Channah through the people around her, cautioning them not to share with Penny, even as she was warning Penny not to share her secrets with them.

“Ironic, at least,” Channah proposed, even as the collar came off—something deeply unsettling to Penny because of its significance, and of how much she had come to expect it as a permanent fixture of her life.

Rubbing her neck while Channah washed the collar, Penny said, strangely:  “I—I feel… something.  Nauseated.  Empty.  Terribly—” her eyes met Channah’s.  “Lonely.”

Channah smiled, abandoning Chas for a moment to take Penny’s cheeks in her hands and pull her forward for a deep soul kiss.  “Yesss….” She hissed.  “I knew it.  I knew you were feeling what I was feeling.  Our—” she spared a glance at Chas, before composing herself and returning to remove the third girl’s collar “Our three souls, are fusing into one another, I as your Domina, you as my slaves.”  And she laughed ruefully:  “Either confirming the cards, or proving how very slippery they are.  “Do not doubt for a second my collars will return to your necks.  Or rather, that they will return you to your rightful places under my gorgeous infernal feet—when Húanglóng brings you back for the next heteraslakos next week.  These accouterments, and more.”

“More?”

“You have six chakras, ginger.  Two more to go, sealing our union completely, after these first four.  But you don’t even need them anymore to feel the basic connection between us, do you?  It will never leave us; it is already a part of who we are.  That, and the craving your soul has to cleave to mine ever-closer, emphasized by the loss of the even deeper connection lent by the collars, is the loneliness you are feeling.”  As as she washed Chas’s collar, she explained:  “The connection between us, longing for the intimacy and amplification brought about by the chakra accouterments.  Even I feel it.  Now—” she stood up, and pointed to the platform on the other side of the stream.  “Go stand over on that platform.”

“Why, Domina?”  Penny asked.

Get—over there—now!” she barked, stamping her foot, swatting their hips—and then their bottoms as they instinctively turned away from the blows—pointing insistently, staring down the girls until they obeyed her and cautiously made their way to the far ledge, hugging the cliff every step of the way despite the fact they had a good five or six feet insulating them from the precipice.  The platform was roughly a square, six feet on a side, defined on one side by the rushing water, a second by the cliff wall which provided the only sense of security, and on the other two sides by the abyss. 

Only after they were obeying did she explain:  “The loneliness you’re feeling is all about separation from me.  Magical separation, emphasizing—or more precisely, failing to compensate for—the physical separation that feels increasingly at odds with the spiritual connection between us.  But the nausea you feel is only partly at the isolation.”  She smirked a moment before becoming serious again:  “And Penny’s yummy shame.  Right now, the magico-chemical suppositories I placed inside you are finishing their work of dissolving everything inside your intestines and stomach.”  The girls looked at one another, worried.  “Well, except for the twister and the trigger, which will jell all by themselves when I command them.  And believe me, you want me to command them to do so, which I will do as soon as you’re in position.  Right now, they’re what are holding in your filth; but as your intestines churn more intensively…. They are ultimately tasked with not harming you, so they’ll allow you to vacate before anything more extreme happens.  But they will hurt like hell exiting your body if they’re forced out, without any further help from me.”

“Why?” Penny asked.  And Chas, simultaneously:  “How?”

“Now step to the very back of the ledge, furthest away from the edge, and squat down with your hands on the cliff wall.”

“Mistress!”  The girls whined with alarm and fear.  “Please!  Mercy!”

“Obey me and I will be merciful and jell your toys.  It’s hard not to experience what’s about to happen to you as unpleasant—”  Then, nodding her head thoughtfully, she qualified:  “Well, unless circumstances or spiritual darkness compel you to experience it a few times.  Then, I’m told, it can become quite addictive.”

What?!

She laughed.  “I know!  Humans are disgusting.  Point for today being, it’s unpleasant but not harmful or excruciating.  It won’t hurt a tenth as much as Fang’s paddling this morning.  It’s mostly the bad associations that make it unpleasant.  It’s hard for your mind not to experience it as the worst case of the flux you can imagine.”

“Mistress!”  The girls were almost crying.

“Good girls,” she laughed, enjoying their plight but pretending it was routine.  “The most important thing is to keep your mess there at the base of the cliff wall so the trigger and the twister aren’t swept over the ledge.  If they drop down there, you’ll spend the next week and a half after your return from Lytos searching for them.”

She shook her head, smiling, and sat down on a rock watching the girls shivering and whining and casting looks of fear at one another, then at her.  Bursting out laughing, she dried her hands on her dress while she cautioned them:  “Remember.  Do not let anything solid go over that cliff.”

“MISTRESS!”  They squealed in alarm, looking terrified, just before she smirked at them and relaxed something inside herself.

Immediately, their expressions melted into extreme discomfort.  “Oh no!” Chas yelped, as she became sick at both ends at once.

“Please look away, Domina!”  Penny begged, her face becoming agonized as she tried to resist what Chas had accepted.  “Privacy please—”

Channah sneered.  “Absolutely not!  It’s physically revolting, of course, and you should be disgusted and disgraced with what vile creatures you are.  So wallow in it, you dirty, despicable girls!  Go on!  Look at me while you void yourselves or I’ll whip you until I can see your bones!”  And when they obeyed her, she shuddered, her eyelids fluttering with the intensity of her arousal as she began rubbing herself, completely overcome with passion.  “Oh fuck I wasn’t planning to do this but occasionally I disgust even myself!”  She was laughing with the same intensity of their bitter tears, even as her body shook and jerked with one of the strongest orgasms they had ever seen her experience, a rolling orgasm that surged and subsided and surged again like waves on the ocean at high tide.  She could barely speak, half-grunting, and disturbingly, even shimmering back and forth between her human and demonic forms.  Most unsettling, in her intense state, the human and demonic forms, while similar to one another and all recognizable to the girls as their Domina Channah, were not the same.  As a demon she would have U-shaped horns, then curled rams’ horns, no tail that they could see, then a long one; and her human forms would vary between her usual obscene plushness and a grotesque, almost inflated fatness; then between olive and almond skin tones.  “Your shame is like opium honey to me,” she grunted, as she burst out laughing, unusually cruelly, which was saying something for her, as Penny, like Chas, started crying, shitting, and vomiting all at once.

Channah applauded and mocked them, their indignity, and their misery, when she could gather enough breath to do so between bouts of laughter so strong her efforts to breathe became a form of sobbing similar to her girls.  “This is horrific!  You’re the most disgusting, nasty, filthy mud-fountain whores I’ve seen in—years!  Lilith and Cain, I LOVE BEING SUCH AN EVIL NASTY BITCH!  OH FUCK!” 

By the time it—orgasm for her, flux for them—was more or less over, Channah was slumped back against her rock, staring off into space with glassy eyes, while the girls were quietly sobbing with their misery and humiliation.  It was several minutes before Channah finally took a deep, relieved breath and, apparently too fatigued to stand, practically crawled forward to wash her hands once again in the stream, before drying them again on her dress.  “Ohhh… thank you, girls.  Your mortification was so hot.  I love to see you suffering, emotionally and physically at once.  If you can train yourselves to get aroused while you’re suffering that way—” she ignored the girls’ noises of shocked protest—“You’d really learn to endear yourselves to me.  Now, set your triggers and twisters in that little pool there for safekeeping, but stay over there, well back from me and the stream, until you’re done.  Well—more precisely, until I’m satisfied you’re done.”

“We’re not done yet?!”  Chas asked incredulously, amusing her again. 

“In the main, my darling bimbette.  But to be safe, I’m going to give your tummies and bowels a few minutes to settle and finish whatever activity they may have remaining in them, while you attend to what I’m explaining.  We must be absolutely sure that you’re both done and pure.”

“Mistress….” Penny whined.  “I can’t stand myself!  Let alone—”

“Good!” she snorted.  “You can’t imagine how much that pleases me.  Do you disgust yourselves?”

“Yes, Domina, “they admitted miserably.

“Tell me.  Tell me!”

“The smell—it’s terrible.  And my skin—even the rocks around us—this is worse than Sodom!”  Penny bawled.

“I’m certain I’m going to be sick all over again—every minute I have to kneel here!”  Chas wailed, proving her words with a dry-retching sound that momentarily cut off her ability to speak. 

Channah whooped.  “That’s perfect!  You girls are a delight to me.  Although clearly I’ve been treating you too well.  But have a thought for your betters, Miriam and Rivqah.  Stop thinking about yourselves, and start thinking about them!  They’re going to have to kiss your nasty bottoms when we get back to the game, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Domina,” the girls admitted, surprised to remember it, or perhaps even to start to suspect it might be an actual possibility.

“And they deserve the very best, don’t they?”

“Yes, Domina!”

“Certainly, better than you two.  Just as I do.  So show us all the proper respect for our relative stations and have the patience to make certain you are clean as a whistle before we have to touch your nasty bodies.”

“Yes, Domina,” they mumbled in shame.

“Turn and face me, and get down on your knees and elbows in a proper posture of respect.”

“But the surface of the rock—” Penny began, gesturing unnecessarily at the spray of liquid filth polluting every inch of the stone around them, almost to the edge of the pool and stream.  Meeting the unexpectedly implacable and dark fury in Channah’s eyes, she started, even before Channah growled:

“One more bit of sass or resistance of any kind out of you and I’ll make you lick that entire side of the ledge clean with your tongue before I allow you to wash yourself.  If I sense anything other than gratitude and unqualified respect from you, you’ll have nightmares for a year from the things I force you to do in the next two hours.  Do you understand me, Penance Batonnoir?!

“Yes, Domina!” Penny corrected herself, and her attitude, with an alacrity that clearly pleased Channah, an ugly smile blossoming on her face at how genuinely cowed Penny was as she watched Penny scramble to assume the specified positon.

And after pausing and staring her slave down, she hissed:  “Lower.  Spready your knees and your elbows so your hips—and especially your nose—are half as far from your stinking corruption as they are now.”

 “I’m so sorry, Domina, I swear it, I’ll be better!”  Penny fell over herself to show how contrite she was, and how bereft of the hubris that often made her try to act better than the chattel slave she was.  “I’ll be a good girl, Mistress!  Thank you for this chance to apologize and do better!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Domina, I’ll be your good girl!”

“Of course!”  She crowed with satisfaction.  “You’re such a prissy, affected little snoot I should have guessed it!  Now I have another way to control you when I really want to.  Or how to punish you.”  She laughed meanly when Penny moaned fearfully, continuing to revel in her own power, and rub Penny’s nose in her own helplessness and lowliness, so to speak.  “Thank you for being so thoughtless and stupid as to reveal another profound vulnerability to me!  Now I have two:  Pain… and filth.  One day, perhaps we’ll have a test to see which one breaks you faster.  Unless you can continually impress me with your devotion and submission.”

“Yes, Domina,” Penny whispered fearfully, her voice shocked with horror.  “That won’t be necessary, I swear it!”

“You should be grateful I’m consigning you to my husband’s control.  I advise you to sink completely into your desire to surrender to him, and learn how to embrace the benefit and blessing of willing surrender, before I waste another minute on you.  Otherwise, you will find it very emotionally stressful to serve me with the level of meanness and humility I will require.”

“Yes, Domina, I’ll try, Domina, I promise!”  Penny babbled.  “Thank you, Domina!”

“And your lowly position is thoroughly appropriate.  You should be humble.  I am about to reveal to you my destiny, and yours.  Your place in this world.  Your significance, such as it is, here; and the meaning and purpose of your existence.”

Channah felt inordinately pleased with herself. As the girls knelt, shivering and miserable, their guts still cramping and their nostrils and eyes assaulted and assailed by the evidence of their lowest form—and how easily she could reduce them to it—she, their master, relaxed easily on a clean rock in a fresh warm breeze, overlooking a beautiful deep valley on a fresh morning, pulling a piece of cloth and a lacquered box from the folds of her robes.

Literature Section “07-41 Filth and (Mis)Fortune—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 41 of Chapter Seven, “Channah’s Slavegirls:  Pawns of the Court of Lust”—4994 words—Accompanying Images:  2510-2521—Published 2025-11-18—©2025 The Remainderman.  This is a work of fiction, not a book of suggestions.  It’s filled with fantasies, stupid choices, evil, harm, danger, death, mythical creatures, idiots, and criminals. Don’t try, believe, or imitate them or any of it.

RULES OF THE CARD GAME THE CHARACTERS ARE PLAYING AVAILABLE HERE.

PREVIOUSLY:  Playing the demonic card game, Perdition Tarot, Channah has wagered Penny, Chas, Esmeray, and her other servants against Húanglóng; and everyone has wagered some combination of money, dares, and sacrifices on every trick and deal.  The doors have been sealed, the atmosphere is rowdy, the stakes are high, and everyone in the Lodge is intoxicated.  Queen Channah, well-known for and quite intent on maintaining her reputation as a good sport who pays her debts, is descending into a dark mood for reasons other than, but somehow bound up with, the game.  After impulsively commanding their servants to satisfy them sexually, the second round of play is about to begin.  NOW:

The eight demons resembled lizards in the sun, lying motionless and relaxed with their eyes barely open.  Beneath and before them—or in Esmeray’s case, near them and with more determination than anyone else—their human and cambion servants waited, carefully still, determined not to disturb their masters or be the first to draw attention in the slowly-stretching stillness and silence.  By the time the succubae, incubus, and dragon began stirring, the open-air design of the house was working its magic, clearing and re-energizing the stale atmosphere around them.

Channah and Húanglóng, whether from superior constitution or the call of duty, came back to life first, Channah immediately glancing to her part of the table, looking for her hand of cards.  “Do you have our cards, Tifaret?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Tifaret stretched as she answered, fishing their hand from a pocket sewn into her dress.

“Very good.”  Channah stood up, rearranging her own dress and speaking to Penny:  “Once Tifaret releases your legs, bring us more wine and water.  And maybe a sna—” stepping away from the nonresponsive Penny, she looked down and realized she was unconscious, passed out in the stillness that had followed their lovemaking, her mouth open and her eyes closed, snoring quietly.  Drawing her foot back to prod her, she thought further on it and turned to Esmeray.  “You owe me.  You owe us all.”

“Yes, Domina,” Esmeray agreed hastily, scrambling to her feet, acknowledging her debt.  “Wine and water for everyone, immediately!”  

Channah continued to stare down at Penance, hands on hips, considering what to do with her.

“Perhaps best to leave her alone, Your Majesty,” Fang offered.  “Frankly, I think we’re lucky she hasn’t gotten sick.”  She giggled.  “The stakes are higher than her constitution is prepared to tolerate.  I was sure illness was where she was headed.  Perhaps we can wake her up for the next deal, and spank her after everyone has their cards?”

“Spank–?  Oh, yes,” Channah chuckled quietly.  “Or earlier, when it’s time for her to kiss my ass.”  Suddenly she looked back at the table, then shrugged in resignation to see someone—most likely Esmeray—had beaten her to the humans’ hand, forestalling any possibility of securing her victory now.

After a moment’s consideration, she nudged Penny awake with her boot in her groin; and when that didn’t work, she reached down and twisted her hair, yanking her head up, slapping her cheeks, and finally pinching her nostrils shut until the girl’s confused eyes opened and she gasped for breath.  She staggered back up into her seat, urged by Channah’s insistent hands, blinking and moving like one entranced and sitting quietly where Channah put her.  Not disinterested—her eyes followed the activity around her—but subdued.  Fang reminded her she had an empty chamber pot under her seat if she felt sick.

When everyone was back in their places, they played the second deal.  Everyone sensed the dark mood gathering in Channah from the moment she saw her cards on the first deal, getting even stronger as she played.  And she played terribly, making egregious errors.  Those who had gambled with her before knew something was amiss—something other than losing at cards—guessing by simple process of elimination what the nature of the problem was, if not its exact form or portent.  Cards only served two purposes, after all.  Nor did she seem frustrated or angry, as a bad loser might be expected to seem; but deeply pensive instead.  Still, it meant she wasn’t in the easy, approachable mood she usually maintained at cards; and now everyone at the table except Húanglóng found themselves second-guessing how their sovereign would react to unwelcome news.  And in Húanglóng’s case, the similarly tricky task of second-guessing his wife’s reactions.

“Are you… throwing the deal?!” Húanglóng finally blurted out, astonished.

“Never!”  Rivqah and Miryam blurted out, angrily, as Channah opened her mouth with a sour—but shocked—expression, ready to answer.

“Wait!  Don’t answer that at risk of cheapening the stakes!”  Húanglóng prevented her from answering by raising his hand sharply, glaring at her until she closed her mouth firmly, her irritation plain in her expression.  “This is a chance I’ve been waiting for ever since I heard the stories about the orgy with Claudius—”

Channah cracked a smile despite herself, shaking her head “No.  No!”  While Miryam and Rivqah both giggled.

“Wait, let me finish!  If you’re not throwing the deal, I’ll cover your bet.  But if you are throwing the deal, you’ll give him the Claudian Forked Tongue.”  The entire table gasped, shocked and titillated at once.

Hearing the intensity of the table’s reaction, Chastity dropped what she was doing and looked sharply around the table.

Meanwhile, Miryam was shouting:  “Slanderer!” genuinely upset at Húanglóng’s suggestion.

“Our Mistress would never throw a game!”  Rivqah amplified.

“You must be higher than my little redhead,” Channah laughed at Húanglóng.  “How am I supposed to respond to that without cheapening the stakes, revealing the answer by my own, before you say ‘done’?!”

“Fuck.  Maybe Kadidia’s remarkable laudanum is stronger than I had realized,” Húanglóng conceded.

“He probably would have agreed anyway!” Judas snickered.  “You missed an opportunity there.”

“I’ll take the bet!”  Miryam and Rivqah both slammed their fists down on the table loyally, looking at one another with surprise.

Miryam blurted:  “But you’re covering for my—our—bet, not the original bet!”

“Second!” Rivqah insisted.

“Fine!  Done!”  Húanglóng brought his own palm down, followed in rapid order by Channah’s devoted ladies.

“WAIT!  Foul!  Or—spoiled bet—or—”  Channah looked frustrated with her inability to identify the correct phrase.  “Whatever. Point being, this is a bet that cannot be made without my consent!”

“‘Missing party,’” Fang supplied the correct objection quietly.

“What she said!” Channah snapped her fingers for emphasis, glaring at Húanglóng with a faint twinkle in her eyes.

“NO!  No harm, no foul!” Húanglóng insisted.  “You can’t complain about a bet merely because you benefit from it!”

“I—I—” Channah scrambled for words. 

“HA!” Húanglóng pounced, as if he’d just completed a brilliant mathematical proof. 

“I will be harmed!”  Channah insisted.  “My reputation is on the line here!  Was I too subtle in assuring Princess I’m no sellout that you don’t see my credibility is what’s truly at stake here?!”

“Oh, bother!  But I’m sure we can find a solution to buy you off,” Húanglóng suggested.

“Your Majesty, with respect, that’s not enough—Penny is also a missing party!”  Chastity blurted, stoutly and bravely, everyone at the table looking first at her, then at the dazed Penny.

“The blonde bimbo lacks standing to object!” Judas shouted. 

Húanglóng blinked.  “Exactly!  She’s not a part of this bet!”

“Then I—I object,” Penny added, frowning as if she were trying to figure out what she was objecting to.

Fang’s eyes glittered.  “You’re standing up for your teammate, is that what you’re saying?” she asked, quietly and calmly, with a confidence that would have given Chastity pause if she were closer to sober.

“Yes, Your Grace!” Chastity swallowed, looking nervous.  And then, when the entire table whooped with delight, and even Channah looked intrigued out of her foul mood, Chastity looked terrified.  “What?”

“I’d say it’s a pity that by my calculation, just as Her Majesty says, her consent is required here,” Fang shrugged.

“Well… as reluctant as I am to consent, the stakes have been raised through the roof, now I kind of feel torn…” Channah mused.

“Consent!”  Judas urged her immediately, chanting:  “CONSENT!  CONSENT!  CONSENT!”  Looking around the table and making encouraging gestures until almost everyone who wasn’t human, was clapping or pounding on the furniture and chanting with him.

Trying ineffectively to smother her smile, Channah raised her hands for silence.  “QUIET!”  And once she had it, she chortled.  “I’ll consent on two conditions:  I get to defend my honor by warming them up first, and they be purged and purified first.”

“Ohh…. Fuck,” Miryam cursed, the look of confusion and hurt on her face mirrored by Rivqah’s, even as almost everyone else in the room slammed their fists down with an enthusiastic “DONE!”

“You said you were standing up for your teammate!” Húanglóng took Chas by her long blond hair and shook her head.  “Say ‘done!’”

“Your Majesty, I—I—” Chastity looked terrified.

“Her point was that Penance is incapable of agreement,” Esmeray interjected, calmly but not entirely happily.  “She agreed to stand up in Penny’s place, but it was to assert her incapacity, Mistresses and Masters.”

“Ah-ha!”  Judas thundered, nodding confidently, as if he’d just come up with a definitive explanation of the motions of the heavens.  “But she did agree to stand up for her!  And she IS capable of consent!”

“Regrettably,” Kadidia growled, “Much as I hate to admit it, I’m certain that doesn’t make any sense, Judas.  You’re as addled as the rest of us.”

“Fuck,” Húanglóng grimaced, turning Chas’s terrified face so he could glower at her at extremely close range.

“But Esmeray can agree on behalf of her team,” Fang suggested quietly, the same glitter in her eye as when she had trapped Chastity a few minutes earlier.

And instantly, the demonic and cambionic eyes in the room all swiveled to focus on Esmeray.

“No, I’m sorry,” Esmeray shook her head firmly.  “They’re my teammates.  And I’m their qahramanah.  And I don’t know… what this—‘forked tongue’ is.”  And, faced with the stony, unflinching gazes and silence of the rest of the room, she shrugged and spread her hands.  “It sounds bad!

“That’s fine,” Channah agreed quietly.  “You’re standing on the rules of the game.  And you’re entitled to do so.”  And after a momentary pause for emphasis, she continued:  “As are we.  Henceforth, we all shall expect your strict compliance with the rules.  No more special consideration.”

“Hear hear!” the other succubae applauded, with an undercurrent of special enthusiasm.

“This game is getting better and better,” Kadidia murmured, expressing the sentiment of the crowd.

“Yes.  It.  Is,” Húanglóng agreed decisively.

Esmeray looked physically ill.  “Please—Mistress—Mistresses—I—”

“Please, Mistress, don’t force her!  I’ll consent,” Penny interjected, glancing back and forth between Channah and Esmeray.

Channah shook her head.  “Your and Chastity’s ability to give consent have been challenged.  So it must be Esmeray.”  And lied vindictively:  “This is, after all, a matter of honor.”  Glaring into Esmeray’s terrified eyes, she continued:  “Fang, why don’t you go first.  Assuming Húanglóng’s consent to cheapen the stakes, spank her teammate as savagely as you like,”

“I consent,” Húanglóng agreed quietly.

“And then I’ll deliver on my promise.  I think the Claudian Forked Tongue is easily within the parameters of the bet already made.  I expect I can remember what I did in Rome.”  Her gaze remained, unblinking, on Esmeray.

“Oh, all right, Mistress!”  Esmeray burst out, looking miserable and ashamed.  “I agree!  We agree!  I’m sorry, Mistresses and Masters—please!  Please, we agree!  Done!  Done!  Done!”  she pounded her palm on the table three times.

Channah smiled at her, a terrible and cold smile showing she was not ready yet to forget, let alone forgive, and hinting at the possibility of retribution to come, as the rest of the room whooped in delight.  “Then let’s finish the hand,” she suggested, her quiet voice dripping with malice.

At the end of the deal, Esmeray and Penny had won the hand again; and Channah had come in dead last, despite a notable improvement in her playing after the side-bet.  Her mood was pushing the atmosphere of anxiety to even greater heights.  Tifaret did her best not to whoop and crow as she raked in the other players’ antes, all too aware what a mood Channah had been in even before Esmeray’s brief flare of defiance had pushed her into worse.  Players and lovers alike shifted uncomfortably, hesitant to predict what Channah would do next.

Blinking and realizing the hand was over, Channah shook her head and snorted.  “It’s time to perform, isn’t it?”  Sighing, she confessed what several at the table had figured out when she gave her conditional assent to the bet:  “I wasn’t throwing the game per se.  Not on purpose.  Rivqah, Miryam, I am ever-grateful for your unswerving loyalty.  I would never have meant to throw a game And all of you—I apologize for letting the side down.  I suppose—I was trying to resist the Wheel of Fortune.”

Several demons gasped at the confirmation, even though it was of something they had suspected.  The humans all seemed, to different degrees, confused, fearful, curious, or—in Esmeray’s case—guilty.  “With predictably poor results,” Channah amended.  “I suspect—no, I’m sure—the fates were forcing my hand.  And I was momentarily focused on trying to resist them, not playing to win.”  Shaking her head as if to clear it, she snapped:  “Let’s satisfy honor first, and continue this discussion before the next deal, when our dealer is fully conscious again.”  Heading toward the door, she snapped:  “Jacob, Oliver, Hong, and Huifen—with me.  Fang, would you like to wake her up, while I find the girls’ kits?”

“Very much so,” Fang smiled evilly, crooking her finger at Chas, who gasped and raised her hand to her breasts questioningly.

“You and your little companion can both drape yourselves face-down over that divan,” Fang pointed.  “Tight against one another, like you’re two peas in a pod.”

“But—Mistress—” Chas sputtered, as Penny managed to look indignant through her frustration at the injustice of what was happening around her.

“But what?” Fang asked distinctly.

“Yes, Mistress,” Chas blushed, hurrying to obey her to cheers and applause.  Esmeray, unbidden, her head down refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, helped the girls reposition the divan; before scurrying to take the chamber pot and set it directly under Penny’s face in case she got sick.  Although she made a couple of incoherent noises, she appeared to remain asleep even after she had been moved into position.

“Go on, tight up against Penny,” Fang sang, with a suggestive push on Chas’s ribcage.  Humming merrily after asking Boubacar to fetch her another glass of wine, Fang carefully pulled up each girl’s dress, leaving their bottoms and even their backs bare, before raising her own dress and settling daintily onto their backs, skin to skin, centered between them with her legs spread to the outside of both girls’ hips.  Still humming, she rubbed her hands lasciviously over both girls’ buttocks, thighs, taints, and purses, sharing a conspiratorial smirk with her audience and giggling at the way the girls shivered and sighed from Fang’s gently teasing fingers.

Channah returned to the room, alone, as Fang began swatting her victims’ backsides, slapping her palms against their buttocks, left, right, left, right.  First striking the girls’ inner cheeks, then their outer ones; third using her right hand against Chastity, under her right leg, then her left hand against Penance, under her left leg; fifth using her right hand on Penance and her left on Chastity.  She varied her blows unpredictably, hard smack then soft pepper, fast-drumming in sequence then slow-falling and brushing against their flesh in leisurely fashion.  The only consistency was the average intensity over the course of her overall arc, beginning mildly and growing steadily heavier, like a gathering thunderstorm.

Beneath her, Chastity remained stoic and still for a long time; while Penance quickly began to respond to her punishment with twitches and moues, rapidly escalating to jerks and whines, then outright struggles and cries.  “I’m sorry, Chas,” Penny whispered, embarrassed.

“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Chas assured her back, also whispering.  “You didn’t do anything.”  It wasn’t that either of them believed they could keep their exchange private; but simply that it was private, directed to one another, not wanting or inviting input from anyone else in the room.

Their audience seemed torn, between staying where they were to enjoy the slow, steady pinkening of the sacrifices and the irregular, unpredictable dance of Penny’s hips and legs as she tried unsuccessfully to remain still; and shifting their chairs or simply standing behind Fang to watch the girls’ faces turn red and their expressions grow increasingly stressed.

“I offer anyone a Hate the redhead starts crying first!” Judas called out.

“That’s a sucker’s bet, if I’ve ever heard one!” Kadidia replied, over a chorus of guffaws.  “No one’s going to accept that.  But I will bet you Fang can make blondie cry, too!”

“Fine.  Done!” Judas responded as they slammed their hands down.

Fang laughed, and without pausing or showing any disruption to her assault, bantered:  “I’m insulted!  I should object on the grounds of nonconsent, but I’d much rather insist on my right to take Kadidia’s bet.  And triple it!”

“Yes!”  “Outstanding!” the crowd applauded gleefully.

“Fine!  It will be worth it to see you win!” Judas conceded.

“May I at least gamble on how long it takes Penny to cry?” Kadidia began.  But barely before she finished her sentence, Penny started crying, provoking a round of laughter and mockery.  “Never mind!”

“I think that slave is defective!” Tifaret shook her head.

“In so many ways,” Rivqah snorted.

“You have no idea,” Channah concurred.

“She’s defined by her shortcomings,” Miryam elaborated, chortling.

“I can see that!” Tifaret agreed.

“We can all see that!” Húanglóng laughed, applauding.

“Esmeray, be a dear and hand me my shoes,” Fang commanded as she reached down to wrap her finger and thumb around the base of Penny’s scrotum, squeezing hard and stretching it backwards out from the protective globes of Penny’s buttocks to where she could reach it. 

“Yes, Domina,” Esmeray obeyed her, kneeling before her and gently removing her high heeled sandals, waiting patiently until Fang, holding Penny’s scrotum stretched back hard between her finger and thumb, used her free hand to take the shoes and set them on the table in front of her. 

“It is a tiny little thing, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically, swatting hard and then—with a predatory, triumphant expression—using her long fingernails to jab Penny’s balls and delighting to hear Penny’s cries grow louder and more urgent.  “And getting smaller.”

Choosing one, she held it by the heel and used the flat, hard sole to slap Penny’s scrotum, over and over until she was bawling up a storm, before jamming the heel into the soft, spongy flesh for good measure.  “You do know that, don’t you, missy?” Fang asked.  “Long-term chastity makes your little penis even littler.  And softer.  Some girls lose their ability to get hard at all,” she smirked, making eye contact with her audience as Penny whimpered between screeches.  Finally, when her sack was as red as her bottom, Fang reached back around her to look down at Penny “Open up!” she commanded, shoving the heel into Penny’s mouth and warning:  “Hold it gently with your lips.  Don’t you dare scratch my beautiful shoe with your nasty teeth!”

Penny made a sound of obedience as best she could manage as Fang took her other shoe and repeated the same process on Chastity’s scrotum, only harder and longer to win her bet—elevating the level of intensity, and thus pain, until she was satisfied with the agony expressed by Chastity’s crying mouth and flailing limbs.

When Esmeray, still seeming guilty, finally said:  “I see tears, Domina!” the room cheered.  Fang visibly relaxed, making the weeping Chastity hold her other shoe as she resumed her more-conventional spanking.

“I suppose I’m holding up the game,” Fang offered.

“It’s quite all right, dear, we’re all terribly amused,” Kadidia responded.

“Only—I feel—I need to finish their discipline properly!”  And then, addressing her charges, she cautioned them with a series of particularly-heavy slaps:  “And—neverever!—drink from my glass without permission AGAIN!  Do.  You. Understand?!”  She demanded.  At the same time, she accelerated her attack into a frenzy of blows, until they were whining and moaning urgently and emphatically around the shoes in their mouths.

“Good!  I think they’re sufficiently contrite and awake for—whatever it is—you have planned, Your Majesty,” Fang offered.  “And Penny didn’t even get sick.  Yet.”

“Thank you my dear,” Channah replied, standing, picking up the two wooden boxes she had collected and starting around the table towards them.  “I hate to disrupt you—” she began.

“Your slavegirls are most comfortable, Majesty,” she conceded, rolling her hips sensuously as if testing them. “And their skin is soft as lambs’ wool.  I will miss their backs warming my bottom.”

“Please, keep them there in position for me another moment.”

“Happily.  Although I’m not sure if they’ll miss my hands warming theirs quite as much!”

“Not yet!”  Channah suggested.  “But given enough time and conflicting messages….”

“It’s quite common,” Fang agreed; “If you’ll give me that much time with them.  I have the impression you plan on keeping them busy….” and cooing, she stopped slapping and started stroking them, quite gently and entirely skillfully, right up and down their cracks, taints, and scrotums, causing them both to bloom with goosebumps and moan from the unexpected and undeniable pleasure.  “Any animal can be domesticated,” Fang finished her thought.

“Especially the weak and pliant,” Channah added, approaching them, setting the boxes down, setting Fang’s shoes down on the floor below their heads, and holding two marbles in front of their mouths, one copper and one gold.  “Speaking of which… open up, girls.  Go on.  Unless you don’t want the lubrication?”  The room laughed as the girls swiftly popped the balls in their mouths, hanging their heads in shame.  “You’re right of course, Fang.  I do have work for them, starting with the King’s upcoming visit.  I expect these girls to be the toast of the court.  Several courts.  And the heteraslakos.  I demand it, really, after all the training and pampering they’ve received.”  And then, frowning, she spoke to them again:  “Time’s up.  Drop it, doggies!”  She sneered as the balls fell into her hands.  “Yuck.  Bad puppies, drooling so much.”  Stepping around Fang, she expertly popped the two balls into the girls’ bottoms, goosing each of them for good measure as she wiped her hands across their red, inflamed backsides.  “Pound those in for me, will you Fang?”

“Certainly, Mistress,” Fang replied, half-slapping and half-punching the girls right on their vulnerable cracks, even as Channah moved around them again and snapped her fingers, before shoving them in their mouths.  “Clean!”

Patting their bottoms proprietarily, and promising:  “I look forward to doing this again with you girls for real on the heteraslakos!” Fang stood, commanding the girls:  “My shoes.”

“And thank your Mistress for spending her valuable time correcting you!”  Channah reminded them, watching approvingly as they kissed her toes murmuring their thanks, slipping her high heels back on in turn.

Fang petted each of them on the head, as if they were pets who had performed a trick successfully, before releasing them to Channah, who turned on her own heel and headed toward the door, breezily commanding them:  “This way, girls!” without pausing, leaving them to scamper after her.  And with a throaty, unsettling laugh, she promised:  “We’re going to make you cleaner than you’ve ever been in your life.”

Literature Section “07-40 Dangerous Games:  Wrecked and Reckless”—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 40 of Chapter Seven, “Channah’s Slavegirls:  Pawns of the Court of Lust”—3873 words—Accompanying Images:  2503-2509—Published 2025-11-11—©2025 The Remainderman.  This is a work of fiction, not a book of suggestions.  It’s filled with fantasies, stupid choices, evil, harm, danger, death, mythical creatures, idiots, and criminals. Don’t try, believe, or imitate them or any of it.