PREVIOUSLY: A traumatized Chastity and Penance, naked and vulnerable, are led by Channah into the honeycomb, a mysterious structure used by the demons for travel, finding it dark and silent and sterile enough to make them feel like they are being cut off from the world all over again. NOW:
With her sixth step, the silent darkness ruptured, practically exploding into light. Despite Channah’s warning, of course, they were startled and surprised. Of course, they jumped involuntarily, causing her to chortle merrily, as images swam into focus around them—organic shapes of flora and fauna, geometric ones of geography and buildings, on each of the six walls of the room, with a seventh billowing from smoke into clarity above them, and even a flickering below them like the floor itself might start to resolve into something—
“No!” Channah gasped as if scandalized, covering their eyes with her hands. “I saw you looking down, Penance Batonnoir! You saw the floor spark, didn’t you? Clever girl—too clever by half for your own good, isn’t that right, Chas?”
“Very much so, Domina,” Chas had to agree, sounding amused and bemused at the same time.
“Don’t you dare look down, Penance girl. Just one stray moment of curiosity—and I know you, you’re curious about everything—and gravity might drag the three of us straight down before I could even teach you about the sheets of the Honeycomb!” She giggled. “And since you have no business leaving my sheet, so to speak, that’s a skill you’ll never need anyway. So… let’s spend this week exploring my sheets only, shall we? In your own sheet, it’s simple: Back and to the left is always home. Always. Back and to the right is where you just came from, unless that happens to be your home, in which case it’s determined like the other four faces,” she kind-of explained, turning them 150 degrees counterclockwise and guiding them—with her hands still over their eyes and counting: “One. It’s already gone.” But she kept her hands on their eyes until she announced: “Two.” Then she brought her hands back down around their necks. “Three. Four. Five. Watch your pretty toes!” And then she finished authoritatively, “Six!” drowning out the girls’ tentative “Seven and a half” (precise Penny) and “eight” (casual Chas). As well-matched as they were physically, there was little chance there was any actual difference to speak of between their respective strides.
“Now. I need you to move just over here…” she guided them to the right, and then forward, maneuvering them around the outside of the glass cube. They immediately noticed there were chains hanging from the upper rail and rings embedded into the lower rail, on this side. “Now kneel down, and stay over here on the side, out of the main path. You don’t want to get in the way of any important people. And since everyone who uses the honeycomb is a succubus or accompanying a succubus, you can presume there will always be at least one person much more important than you, in here. Got it?”
“Yes, Domina,” they chorused unconvincingly, getting what she was saying, but not why she was saying it.
“For the same reason, to make sure you’re in a respectful position if any of your betters come across you, I want you down on your knees.” She was unfastening Chastity from the leash she shared with Penny as she spoke. “Go on, kneel, I know the floor hurts a little but we have a strict rule, animals left in the honeycomb are always hitched.”
“‘Left?!’” Penny asked, scared. “‘Hitched?!’” Chas protested.
“Ohh… come on, Chastity!” she teased her, thereby easily ignoring Penny’s question. “Who’s your cowgirl?”
“You are, Domina,” Chastity answered, embarrassed but also a little excited. “See?” she kissed the back of her head as she pushed the girl down to the floor. “What good little hucattle you two are.” And with that, she locked each girl’s collar to one of the rings in the floor, Penny’s to the ring nearest the iron door, and Chas’s to the ring nearest the honeycomb, spacing them about six feet apart.
“Mistress?” Penny squeaked. “Domina? Please, you aren’t going to leave us, are you?”
“Aww… my little poodle. You’re a grown-up! Don’t tell me you’re still afraid of the dark, darling?” she asked, managing to sound both sympathetic and irritated at once, as she pulled up on Penny’s bound wrists, hard, causing the girl to whine and shuffle her knees forward to ease the pressure on her shoulders, before using one of the chains hanging from the top bar to hold her wrists up and behind her in the strappado position.
“Not the dark per se, Domina,” Penny squeaked, sounding a little whiny and pathetic, even to herself. “But, it’s just—this—today—after the trigger—the honeycomb, Mistress!”
“Aww… does the honeycomb bother you?” she pouted distractedly.
“It’s just… kind of upsetting, Domina…” Chastity chimed in, her voice a little uneven, sounding even to herself like she had doubts about what she was saying.
“Oh, you poor little dears,” she said regretfully, locking Chastity’s arms into the strappado position. “Unfortunately, I have to make an appearance here at Sademtsaowah. Half an hour is about the minimum I need to linger here to be confident I’ve given all—well, almost all—of the damned enough time to wrap their empty skulls around the fact they need to attend to me here. Most of them react faster than that most of the time, but taken as a herd…” she shrugged. “It takes time to keep the number of stragglers down. Now,” she began, stepping over the bar into the cube, heading toward the iron door. “You g—”
“Can’t we please come with you, Domina?” Chastity pleaded frantically.
“Please, Domina, I promise we’ll be good girls!” Penance added.
Sounding firmer, she emphasized: “I have a great deal to do here and want to get as much of it done as possible, in those thirty minutes so I can give you sweet little love muffins mommy’s full attention on our honeymoon!” They heard her turning and stepping toward the door.
“Please can you leave us with the guards Domina, please?!” Chastity pleaded. “We’ll be ever so well-behaved!”
“We—we’ll be a credit to you, Domina!” Penny assured her.
She hesitated, and then turned back towards them, slowly, seeing the hunger in their eyes, not just for her, but for the light she was radiating. A thoughtful, calculating look crept into her eyes, and just the hint of a smirk lifted the corner of her lips. When she saw that both of her girls had caught the look on her face, and that it made them both quail like red-headed stepchildren, she bit her lip and pressed her knees together, sniffing deliberately and sighing with pleasure at their sudden burst of lambchop panic….
Literature Section “06-121 Led Astray”—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 121 of Chapter Six, “Le Saccage de la Sale Bête Rouge” (“Rampage of the Dirty Red Beast”)—1101 words—Accompanying Images: 1949-1950—Published 2025-05-20—©2025 The Remainderman. This is a work of fiction, not a book of suggestions. It’s filled with fantasies, idiots, and criminals. Don’t believe them or imitate them.