Category: Uncategorized

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

ALTAR CLOTH REFERENCED BY CHANNAH IS IMAGE 2500, AVAILABLE HERE.

THE OCULAR OF SODOM IS IMAGE 3461, PUBLISHED CONCURRENTLY

HIGH PRIESTESS IMAGE REFERENCED BY CHANNAH IS IMAGE 2510, AVAILABLE HERE.

ADDITIONAL CARDS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT WILL BE PLACED IN THE “PERDITION TAROT” GALLERY AS THEY ARE PUBLISHED

PREVIOUSLY:  Playing the demonic card game, Perdition Tarot, Channah is losing a wager of Penny, Chas, Esmeray, and her other servants she made against Húanglóng.  Under the excuse of cleansing the girls to reenact a legendary party trick against them, she removes all the physical magic she has surrounded them with to prevent Húanglóng or any of his vassals in Lytos from suspecting how important the girls are.  To ensure they are on-side with her and will protect their shared secrets, she is explaining just enough for them to understand the extreme danger they will be placed in if they do not keep Channah’s secrets, and other demons came to suspect their potential significance to Channah’s plans.  NOW:

Inordinately pleased with forcing the girls to prostrate themselves and attend her in a pool of their own filth (and even more, discovering a new vulnerability to exploit in Penny by seeing how strongly she overreacted), Channah hummed slightly as she sat on the other side of the narrow stream, pulling a folded piece of cloth from her robe and opening it, spreading it carefully out upon a flat bit of rock before her between her perfect sandaled feet. 

“Chas, did you ever wonder why the rules of Perdition Tarot require a human dealer?”

She shrugged, looking nervous.  “I don’t know, Domina.  Why did you ask me?”

“Because I don’t need to ask Penny.  Of course, she wondered.  And doubtless tried to guess.  It was funny to watch her bursting with the desire to ask her questions!”  She snickered as she pulled a fine piece of black silk brocaded with a silver pentacle and a constellation of astrological symbols from her dress, unfolding it and arranging it so one of the five tips was pointing directly back at her—and, discomfortingly, so that its two horns pointed at the girls.  “Because when demons deal cards, it isn’t a random deal.  The card order is prophetic.  Any cards, any demon.”  She shrugged:  “With regular cards—human cards—or regular demons, the effect is weak.  Enough to bias the game.”  She laughed.  “Enough to provoke a duel when you’re gambling with hotheads experienced enough to notice the patterns in the cards.  And among demons—we can influence them as well.  We do influence them, every single deal, on purpose or unintentionally or both; it comes with the prophetic power.  And if we’re playing cards, of course we’re going to influence them to win.  No demon would be stupid enough to let another demon deal.  Occasionally, for fun, we’ll allow one another to take turns cutting.  But it’s not a best practice for an honest game.”

“This,” she pointed to the fabric in front of her, “is an altar cloth, inscribed with the pentacle over our natal chart.” 

“‘Our,’ Domina?” Penny asked, her voice distorted by her efforts to breathe through her mouth without risking ingesting anything before her.

“Demons.  Well, Elder Demons.  The originals.  We were all created at the same time, so we all have the same natal chart.”  Very delicately and precisely, she held her arm out over the mat, pointed her index finger down, and set it in the middle of the mat.  “I have a gorgeous altar stone, permanently inscribed and inlaid with gold and semiprecious and precious stones, positioned precisely in the center of my satanikoklus, my castle, and my hell, where I perform the most-important readings.”

Next, she removed a heavy, foreboding, elaborately-sculpted pewter box a bit larger than the Succubaean Tarot deck, from the other side of her robe.  The images on the box were all witches and devils, evocative of hellfire damnation and apocalypse, decorated with her familiar themes of rot and hate, medlars and coins, and broken hearts.  Just the sight of it made Penny and Chas shudder with an uncomfortable feeling of dread and fear.  “And this is the Oracular of Sodom.  The source of the Infernal Tarot.  With this, even Chava could predict the future,” Channah snorted, then flicked her eyes up to meet theirs.  “My very worst succubus, in every way that defines us, the poor dear,” she sneered.  “But useful in her own way.  And by contrast, as you know,” she announced with perfect aplomb and hubris, “I am no ordinary demon. Not even an ordinary Elder Demon.  I could draw pips and numbers on toilet paper and still divine with them.  When I use the Oracular, on the Evil Altar of Sodom, we become one of the seven most-powerful instruments of prognostication in Hell or Earth.”  Very precisely she opened the Oracular, revealing a deck of cards with her medlar-and-hate backing, nestled perfectly in black velvet lining. 

She paused, her eyes burning into theirs and speaking quietly:  “And do you know how useful this great power is for making the most-important predictions of all?  About my future?  About our great project?   Not at all.  Well, that’s not quite true.  The point is, it doesn’t help me at all any more.  It hasn’t done so for years.  All it does is tell me what I already know.  The exact-same prophecy, over and over and over again.  The only thing that changes at all—occasionally—are the directions of my cards.  Today’s game suggests the effect is now so powerful, demons and even humans around me are affected, as if by the field of attraction of some invisible planet close to hand.  But,” she shrugged, “I am old-school.  And disciplined.  So, to release my control, and let the fates use my power to show me the answers to my questions, I will use the altar mat, and the Oracular, and compose myself before my abject worshipers.  By whom I mean you two, kneeling in shit at my command.  You’re pretty pathetically abject for me, aren’t you, pumpkins?”  And she raised her eyebrows, indicating she expected an answer.

“Yes, Domina,” they agreed.  Shee-it.  What else were they going to do?  Deny it?

“Prostrate yourselves,” she suddenly commanded.  “Legs straight back, arms straight front, faces down.”  And when they balked, she hissed:  “Brown-nose for me, girls.  Faces right down in that vile mess.  Remember:  It can always get worse.  If you make me force you, it will be with your mouths open and your tongues hanging out.”  She laughed merrily at their revulsion and horror as they forced themselves to obey her, fighting every natural instinct in the bodies to do so.  “Now, that’s abject, sweeties.  What weak, sweet little simping worms you are.  When I draw a card, without having any chance to see it, I will predict what it is.  That will be your cue to look up, confirm my guess, and watch me position the card.  Then, without delay, you will put your faces back down, touching your nose and chin to the wretched rock until I announce the next card.  Understood, you dirty bitches?”

“Yes, Domina,” they choked, Penny jumpy as a cat, tight as a wire, radiating an intense loathing and even an unreasoning panic at her situation that washed over Channah like a gentle ocean wave. 

“Yessss….” She hissed.  “Our Unholy Rite has commenced in its full, abominable vileness.”

Pentacle Reading—Channah’s Great Purpose

Relaxing herself, closing her eyes, and making herself still, she took six deep, calm breaths before tapping the top of the deck ten times.  Then, quite calmly, in a voice cadenced with ritual and practice, she spoke:

“Dread abyss,

of sorrow and pain,

Serpent hiss,

the words of my shame.

Hear my cries,

I will attend,

With ears eyes,

Nose mouth and skin.

Make me echo

All your madness,

Force me to sow

Seething chaos.

By revealing what we Succubae most need to know to achieve our great purpose!”

And then, calmly, she leaned forward to draw a card.

“Pharaoh of Diamonds, reversed,” she announced.  When the girls dared to look up, they found their Mistress staring at them, her eyebrow cocked inquiring for their confirmation, holding a card delicately between her thumb and forefinger facing them, such that she could not possibly have seen what card it was, even if she were focused on it instead of intimidating the girls.

And she smiled, a bitter, knowing, ironic smile when she saw the truth of it in their astonished eyes, even before they confirmed her guess verbally:  “Yes, Domina,” they murmured.

Never taking her eyes off theirs, she set the card down at the tip of the pentagram pointing to her where it met the circle circumscribing the pentagram:  “First position, foreshadowing the ninth, is the Significator.  It speaks to the overall character or nature of the prayer.”  And after she set it down, she looked at them expectantly until they forced their faces back down.

“The Chariot.  Upright.”  And when they confirmed it, miserable in their uncleanliness, she continued, placing it on the tip pointing to Chas:  “Second position, foreshadowing the seventh, is called the Manifest:  What you already know, your starting point.”

And so it went, as she moved through the rest of the rite:

“Huángdì of Wands… reversed?” which she placed on the tip to her left.  Despite her uncertainty, she was correct.  Again.  “Third position, called the Present, foreshadowing the tenth.  The now.”

“Sice of Swords, reversed.”  The tip to her right.  “Fourth position, called the Past, foreshadowing the eighth.  The proximate cause.”

“Pharaoh of Wands.  This is the hardest to predict… upside down?”  (It was.). She set it down on the tip pointing toward Penny.  “Fifth position, called the Future, foreshadowing the sixth.  What’s next.”

Although her voice remained calm and lyrical, the voice of a priest giving a sermon, or perhaps a witch canting a spell, the next one could hardly avoid causing the girls to feel a cold shiver running down their spines:

“Death.  Almost as variable as the Pharaoh of Wands, but the stronger bet is reversed.”  (It was.). This and all the cards to follow, she placed on the inner corners of the pentagram, where different arms of the pentagram met together with one another, and with a corner of the inner pentagon formed by the middle segments of the five lines comprising the star.  This first one went to her left.  Her discussion of its position was the opposite of reassuring, really putting the ‘omen’ into ‘ominous.’  “Sixth position, recalling the fifth, called the Outcome.  The ultimate result.”

“Trey of Spades.  Upright.”  She placed it at the vertex of the pentagram opposite where she was sitting.  “Seventh position, recalling the second, called the Occult.  What is hidden.”

“The Devil.  Upright.”  It went to the vertex to her right side.  “Eighth position, recalling the fourth.  Called the Foundation:  the root of the issue.”

“Pharaoh of Hearts.  Upright.”  This one, she placed on the vertex by her right hip.  “Ninth position, recalling the first, called the Challenge.  The obstacle or antithesis.”

“The High Priestess, usually reversed.”  Of course, she was correct again.  In fact, at this point, the girls would have been astonished were it otherwise.  It went on the vertex by her left hip.  “Tenth position, recalling the third.  Called the Counsel.  The voice of good advice.”

She paused, breathed very deeply, and nodded to herself almost as if she were talking herself into something.  “And this prophecy is mine, the divination of our, but especially my, great project.”

Had she given Penny a second’s thought, she would have expected her to ask what the ‘great project’ was.  But she did not.

Path Reading—How the Girls May Serve

“Now.  One more reading before our ritual ends.  Before I let you up.  And this one requires your utmost sincerity, devotion, and abnegation.  Before you pass out of my hands on your journey with Húanglóng, I must read your course and what we need to know.  I also want to get a baseline, before you go to Lytos, in case you pick up any bad habits or ideas I need to correct.”  Something that might sound innocuous enough on the surface; but was anything but, coming from the mouth of a Queen of Hell and well-known sadist.  “I have read your fortunes before, of course, but for the truest reading it must be done for you, and therefore in front of you and with your attention and awareness.”

And with that, she lay another, smaller black silken mat down across the arm of the pentagram pointing directly toward her, a rectangular strip of cloth that stretched from left to right but was narrow enough it didn’t overlap any of the ten positions of the Pentacle cloth.  “This one will be quite fast.  Three cards, and I’ll go as quickly as possible and release you immediately to hop in the pool.”

“Thank you, Mistress!” they both cried, sounding desperately hopeful and afraid at the same time.

“But only IF you are very good girls and cooperate completely.  You can—and you’ll definitely want to—keep your mouths shut, with your lips pressed tightly together.  I don’t need you to look up or speak during this one; in fact, I want you as deeply-immersed in your most-intense emotions as possible.  Now genuinely, sincerely, kiss that shit.  Push your faces down into it.  If you don’t come up filthy from cheek to cheek I will use you as my own toilet when you return, so degrade yourselves now or I will destroy you later!  That’s the way, wallow in that muck!” she growled with a contemptuous, gleeful satisfaction tinged with hate.  “Now, stay and be good girls so I can concentrate.”

After taking a few moments to re-center herself again, she tapped three times on the top of the deck and intoned:

“Dread abyss,

I still attend.

Teach us this,

Help us offend.

Join me now

Your slaves most girlish

Teach them how

To be most churlish.

Make them worse

By disclosing

Th’evil course

Worst disposing.

Reveal to us their involutions,

Provocations, and solutions.”

She drew three cards in turn, which she laid in order from her left to her right on the second mat: 

“The Non of Spades, upright,” she read woodenly, as if reserving all thought and feeling. 

“Huangdì of Clubs.”  She snorted.  “Of course!” she added, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  “But these images…. Er, upright.”

“Sultanah of Diamonds upright,” she sounded surprised, vexed, and intrigued all at once.  “What—”

And then she hissed sharply, unable to mask her true feelings, speaking more stridently than calmly:  “Under the Huangdì of Clubs—the Ot of Spades!  How—I—”  And then, belatedly, almost having forgotten to speak it:  “Upright.  How can this be?  After so many centuries.  This—simply—does not—happen—”

“Mistress please!” Penny whined and moaned and squealed all at once, managing to produce an extraordinarily plaintive and desperate sound strident enough to catch Channah’s attention and even break, if only for a moment, the intense mood that had seized her.

Barking a rough laugh, she snapped her fingers.  “Go!  Into the pool you disgustingly vile and nasty little girls!  I can hardly stand to be within sight or smell of you!”  But they were in the water before she could even finish, Penny especially moving with an uncharacteristic speed that jollied her despite the shock she was still processing.  Their desperate, and entirely over-the-top, antics in the pool, especially Penny’s near-calisthenics, managed to distract and amuse her for several seconds as she plunged below water, shook her body and head violently, shoving herself right under the plunging torrent of water from above, scrubbing her hair and face as if she were trying to peel her own skin off, and finally moving out of the deluge just enough to gasp desperately for breath before throwing herself back under it.  All before she even reached for the soap!

But even this over-the-top display could not distract her for long from the sobering and daunting reading before her.

By the time she looked up again, Chas was already clean—and, reason itself insisted, Penny must be clean, despite the fact she was applying and excessively scrubbing in yet another round of soap and, Channah eventually realized, making some kind of droning whining sound of horror like she just couldn’t get past what she had just experience—what, apparently, she was still experiencing in some way.  Even Chas looked mildly surprised.

“Abram!”  she burst out laughing.  “Fool!  What’s gotten into you?”  and then, with a mild twitch of annoyance:  “Stop this!  Get over here!” 

Chas, either to protect Penny from Channah’s wrath or to cop a cheap feel, moved forward and began helping to scrub Penny’s hair, telling him quietly:  “Let me help you get the soap out.  Come now, Penny, you’re clean.  You’re perfectly clean!  Don’t drown yourself.”  And when Penny reached for the soap again, Chas intercepted her arm and kissed her hand, physically interposing herself between Penny and her fixation to get her attention and pleading:  “Penny!  Please!” 

Penny froze and blinked for a moment, as if stuck and uncertain whether to heed her friend or try to plow past her, accepting Chas’s embrace reluctantly and unenthusiastically, which seemed to make Chas want to hug her even more forcefully to get through to her.

“Don’t crush the girl,” Channah suggested.  “That’s quite enough, Penny, listen to Chas.  Come over here, sweetie.”  And when Penny still seemed uncertain, she pronounced, clearly and emphatically, with a mildness of tone that was all the more arresting:  “Princess.  Do you really think I would invite you to me if there were the slightest mess left upon you?”

Penny, surprised, shyly met her eyes, blinking in the spray of the falling water as she focused on Channah’s voice before she finally moved forward murmuring:  “Yes, Mistress.  I mean, no, Mistress.”

“That’s my girl,” Channah soothed her.  “You two stay away from the cards.  Circle around opposite sides of the spread to keep them dry, and settle in on either side of me here.”  She extended her arms in invitation, watching as they carefully picked their ways around the cards before settling in beside her, causing her to shiver.  “Brr!  You’re so cold!  You’re lucky mummy loves you so much.  Come on, nestle into me and warm up so you can read the cards with me. Are you back with us, P—” she began, unnecessarily as it happened.

Penny gasped.  “We’re—”

“Yes.”  She agreed simply, knowing exactly what she was saying.

“We’re—Chas and I—on almost all the cards!”

“Yes, you are.  Unless there’s another pair of gingerbread and lemoncake girls I haven’t met yet, up in every aspect of my life.  This is the first time you’ve been on so many.  And the most-important card in this respect?”

“The Sice of Swords,” Penny answered wonderingly and immediately.  Of the fourteen cards on display, it was the only one without a paired redhead and blonde.  Gray and cold and nearly emotionless, it leapt out visually from the other cards in almost every way. 

“Swords are the suit of the Devils.  Our enemies.  They are as far from us as they can be.  Of course, the images on the cards are never literal.  The first Triumphs were fashioned to flatter the princely families of Italy who commissioned them or were gifted them.  But when the Infernal Tarot dresses up an allegory in familiar characters and places…” she took each girl’s hair, turned her head, and met her eyes briefly in turn to punctuate her point, “It does not mean they’re to be interpreted literally.  Or even that they necessarily relate at all to the real figures they portray.  Beware familiar people and scenes on the Infernal Tarot.  Assume they’re a trap.  But…” she hesitated a moment, weighing how to say it. Almost reluctantly, she admitted:  “They can be suggestive… at a minimum, they remind us how our own prejudices shape our perceptions, how we can become the victims of our own expectations…. And they tell us something about how we view the world.  When the resemblance is faint, or suggestive—the color of hair alone, whether the style of the art is Ottoman or Persian or Indian, whether the themes are suggestive of legends of a particular culture or religion, whatever aspect it may be—the fact you make an association between the specific in the real world, and the archetype of the card, may tell you something very different than you assume.  Or nothing at all that you are able to tell.  For instance, it could alert you that your subconscious is aware or suspicious of something, and you should examine the actual situation or person more closely.  All of which is to say, the specific personal appearance of people on the Sice of Swords is almost irrelevant to their interpretation, or where and to whom they might apply.”

She shrugged.  “But this—gingerbread and lemon-cake don’t exactly look like you two, but… in addition to the hair, they’re effeminate, hermaphroditic, and always submissive.  Even their chastity cages resemble yours.  And the same two figures appear on so many cards…. It’s very hard to ignore or dismiss the resemblance completely.  And so we should not.”

“What does it mean, Domina?”  Penny asked, reaching her arms further around Channah and hugging her more tightly, nuzzling her sweetly.

“Never assume it is obvious.  It never is.  But… the fact the two of you appear to be so prominent in this reading suggests to me that you two are important to the events occurring right now and in the immediate future, that are most-relevant to my future.  So, for example,” she tapped the card in the Counsel, or tenth, position of the Pentacle, “even if you girls aren’t relevant to the specific lesson the High Priestess is trying to tell me—despite the presence of you two, well…” she snickered.  “very dirty girls!  You—or more precisely, what is happening to you—is apparently very relevant to my mission at this moment in time.”

Penny and Chas both leaned in closer, squinting to make out the details of the card that Channah had singled out as dirty.  And gasped, in embarrassed surprise, complaining simultaneously as they saw exactly what was happening to their little avatars:  “DOMINA!”

“Don’t look at me, silly girls!” she threw up her hands.  “I’ve been reading the Tarot for millenia.  I know what I’m doing and the chance of my having influenced the cards more than by neutrally channeling the fates, or altered the order and content of the cards,  is quite.  Small.  Despite my experience, to enhance it, I took all the precautions I could, using the alter-mat, the rituals of desecration, forcing you to attend me as my worshippers, and entering my receptive state.  I am very confident this reading is overwhelmingly attuned to the cosmic energies as a whole, not any unintentional moods or thoughts of mine that could have contaminated them.  Blame the Fates if you dare to pick a fight with them, girls, but don’t think it’s me or my intention.”

“Yes, Domina,” they intoned, because it felt as if they ought. 

“I hope that’s not going to—” Penny began, Chas cutting her off before she could even finish:  “That looks dangerous!”

Channah snickered.  “It’s more than dangerous.  True impalement, by sharpened stakes, even the Judas Cradle, is irrecoverably harmful.”  Penny shivered.  “What, dear?”

“You talk about it so matter-of-factly,” she whispered shyly.  “You’re so ruthless and cruel, Domina.”

“You love it,” she opined.  “Don’t you?” And when she didn’t get a response, she took Penny’s hair again and forced her to meet her eyes, raising her eyebrows inquisitively.  ‘Don’t you?”  Turning bright red, Penny swallowed and whispered:  “Sometimes, Mistress,” turning even redder when she saw how much pleasure Channah took from the admission.  “But this…”

“I’ll bet that your admission, and my essential bitchiness, not the Judas Cradle, made your tiny little rosebud harden against its diminutive cage, didn’t it?”

“Mistress!”  Penny wriggled uncomfortably as her Mistress laughed.

“That’s a yes.  You’re still well behind Chas on your learning- and craving- curve, but we’re starting to get you there.”

“‘Craving?’” Penny asked in a tiny voice.

“You know what I mean,” she dropped her other hand to Penny’s caged penis, confirming her suspicions and stroking the girl until she shivered.  Gripping her purse viciously, she demanded:  “Don’t you?”

“Yes Mistress,” Penny wriggled some more, looking miserable and mortified, dropping her eyes the moment Channah allowed her to by releasing her hair.

“Good.  I hope we made it small enough to pinch a clit as tiny as yours.”  And again, sensing a new level of submission in Penny, she pushed harder than she had in the past:  “Did we?”

“Yes, Domina.”  Penny sounded like she wanted to melt into the rocks around them.

“That helps my mood,” she smirked.  “But to complete my thought, no, impaling is something we do to our enemies, not to our own jawari.  Whatever the High Priestess means to us, or to the Fates, it’s not showing you any ritual of mine.  It’s suggesting something analogous that is going to happen to all of us, or involve all of us.  Perhaps it suggests some sacrifice on your parts, not even physical, but it could be committing to something you are avoiding, or doing something you’re reluctant to do.”  Her voice changed, becoming suddenly serious:  “Study these two readings carefully, girls.  My fortune is well-known to me.  The same cards, in the same order, have made it clear I am either in a narrow strait, or at an important juncture.  And for some reason, in some way, it relates to the two of you.  Perhaps you can even help me understand your part in this, if I teach you more about the cards.”

“But what I have not seen before, what is completely new to me, and what you do need to fathom as quickly as you can, for the sake of our project and possibly your own comfort and security, is your fortune.”  She drew her finger along her second reading.  “What should have been three cards, but by destiny or extremely rare chance, is four.  And I do not like it.  It is a fortune of caution….  Just look at it!  The Non of Spades is a cruel card.  The card of insomnia.  Of a child waking up alone in the middle of the night in an empty house and monsters under the bed.  Or, for succubae, a priest waking up alone in the middle of the night in an abandoned monastery finding he’s spent himself after being ridden by one of us.”  A short, harsh laugh.  “Only it’s no good, because in the Perdition Tarot, we are not the monsters.  Certainly not those loyal to the Court of Lust, and to me.  We’re the sleepers.”  She shuddered.  “Upright, there is a strong suggestion the card may not be warning me I should be scared, but that I should not.  It may be asking me if I am overly worried, and being held back from the right course of action, or doubting what is obvious, because of my own fears.  Which to be fair…” she nodded “could fit me, and my situation, perfectly.  In which case, this fortune is no disaster, just the opposite; it’s urging me to embrace this and assuring me the only risk is if I hold back from it.”

“The Huangdì of Clubs is my—and your!—first husband, a fact that no doubt” she rolled her eyes “will seem terribly ironic to you as you learn more about the cards.  By the rules of Succubaean Tarot, which is to say my rules, the Pharaoh is highest-ranked in gameplay, just as in Draconian Tarot the Huangdì is highest.  But the game ranks are always irrelevant to the divinatory significance, which remains the same regardless of the game played.  The ironies and complications—and the profound themes—of the Infernal Tarot, to human eyes…. Well, your world is but a distorted mirror of ours.  Still, its appearance here is at once obvious and admonitory.  Your visit to our husband is, indeed, the present likelihood and the cause of the concern that led me to test your fortune now.  It is what my fear relates to.  And it is a card of action.  Some humans might say, the card of action.  Your visit with Húanglóng is… could be… momentous.  By itself, I think that’s fine.  Maybe even fortuitous.  I hope it means we will finally unlock Penny, freeing you both from what is holding her back.”  The girls exchanged a quick, uneasy peek beneath Channah’s breasts.

“But the fact the Ot of Spades was, quite literally, hiding behind it…” she shivered.  “Highlights the stakes and the risks of such an important event.  Possibly its warning refers to the visit to Lytos itself; but I tend to think more than that, to the beginning of our great project.  Our project which is in fact fraught with peril.  A project which has brought calamity to other Houses of Hell attempting it.  Every other House of Hell which has made its move, has failed disastrously.”   She tapped her finger on the card.  “Hiding behind… in conjunction with the Non of Spades, it almost screams treachery.  Someone betraying me….”

“Húanglóng.  Or…” she growled, “one of you, would be the most-obvious candidates, since you’re the ones actually shown on the faces of the cards.  But the source of treachery is rarely obvious, even in the cards.”  She made a frustrated sound.  “And for all I know, it could be telling me I am the traitor, betraying my own cause through over-caution!”

“And finally.  What, in a way, is the most-perplexing card of all.”  She snorted, a sound at once frustrated and amused; perplexed, and delighted.  “The Sultanah of Diamonds.”  Grabbing the girls’ hair, she pulled their heads back and looked into their eyes again, then turned their heads back towards the cards and shoved them forward.  Shaking their heads briefly, she demanded:  “Who is this pig-bitch?”  Wrenching their heads back to her, so both of them had to roll over to avoid hyperextending their necks, she laughed with exasperation:  “And more to the point:  Why are you grovelsimping for her?!”

There was no way the Whore of Babylon herself, who slept with more men every time she dreamed than most mortal women sleep with in a lifetime, and who quite literally demanded her jawari wives prove their loyalty and devotion to her by whoring themselves out for her, could be jealous; and yet, it almost sounded as if she were.  The girls had barely enough experience in life to begin to suspect that what she felt had nothing to do with sex, per se, or even romantic attachment; but a more feudal expectation of loyalty.

“We don’t know, Domina!”  Her girls protested, looking terrified and surprised. 

“We’ve never seen her before!”  Chas promised sincerely.

“We’ve never even seen one of—what is that?!”  Penny threw up her hands, her credibility almost assured by her obvious, omnivorous and rabid, curiosity about all things unfamiliar.  “She’s not a succubus, is she?!”

“Certainly not!” Channah harumphed.  “She’s a filthy Rakshasi.”  Her voice managed to put a diatribe’s worth of loathing and contempt into the single word.  “Lowest and most-disgusting of the demons.  They wallow in filth like the pigs they are, and revel in the things we—proper demons, even humans—revile!  The worst punishments and degradations I impose on you—like that!” Still holding their heads in her hands, and pulling them in closer to her sides, she turned them suggestively towards the other side of the pool where they had evacuated their entire GI tracts of every molecule of their contents.  “Such loathesome, repellent pestilences are practically considered delicacies by those depraved, repulsive swine!”

The girls were taken aback by the strength of her reaction to the rakshasi—the reaction of a demoness who, a few minutes earlier, had been discussing the pros and cons of the most vile tortures with a casual, almost lighthearted, at best scientific, lack of any concern or empathy whatsoever.

The girls’ faces reflected the worry and horror they were feeling as they contemplated a demon who could make such a sadistic murderess and torturess as Channah feel such distaste.

“I hope we never even meet one of them!”  Penny assured her.

Chas opened her mouth to pledge her loyalty but realized before she spoke, that she didn’t even know how she might do that.  Their Domina planned to pimp them out to serve her, and had already ordered them to gratify the whims of half her own court.  How did one demonstrate the loyalty Chas and Penny both felt, under such circumstances?

“To guide you and protect us, take a few minutes to memorize these fourteen cards, their images, and their positions.  Do not comment on them, or draw attention to them, with others.  But be alert for them in the actions of others, and in the workings of fate around you.”

Literature Section “07-42 Secrets of the Elder Demons”

The featured damned being tormented by demons in images 3423, 3425, and 3427 were inspired by Deviant Zel!  Please check out her further adventures and perils at https://www.deviantart.com/kristine301/gallery/88191813/zellys-endless-sessions-in-extreme-therapies

More material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 42 of Chapter Seven, “Channah’s Slavegirls:  Pawns of the Court of Lust”—5389 words—Accompanying Images:  SET A—3423-3432, 3461; SET B [published separately]—3462-3478; SET C [published separately]—2443-2458—Published 2025-11-24—©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.  Also, horse tack is only for use with horses by trained equestrians.