Tag: chakra


1727 06-85 In the Realm of the Senses
1728 06-85 In the Realm of the Spirit
1729 06-85 With a Devil on both shoulders…?
1730 06-85 The Maddening Discordant Orchestra
1731 06-85 Frenzy

PREVIOUSLY:  Penny has been completely deprived of all sensation—vision, hearing, smell, taste, and feeling; even their auxiliary aspects like balance and orientation and the awareness of her own heartbeat and breath.  Outside her isolation, the world moves forward, with Esmeray trying to murder Chastity for defying her and disrupting Channah’s spell.  Trying to recover, Channah has just put Chastity’s earplugs back in, cutting him off again.  NOW:

Fang crouched over the effectively-mummified Penny, with her hands steady on Penny’s ajna, the third eye in her head, and muladhara, the basic center of trust in her root—or as close to them as her hands could be.  Channah and one of Hong’s girls knelt on the restrained Chastity.  Hong and her other three jawari struggled to restrain the still-livid, almost-rabid Esmeray.  Like Penny and Chastity, when she could keep her skirts down, Hong almost appeared to be fully-dressed, if sweaty and disheveled with a whore’s slightly smudged makeup.  Unlike them in one respect, the plunging neckline of her cheongsam had already been ripped open, revealing the inner edges of her breasts in a manner that would have been most fetching if it weren’t for the exigencies of the moment.  Hong’s girls were disheveled, and naked, from head to toe, even their cages discarded on the other side of the platform with nothing to interrupt their shiny sweaty perfect cinnamon skin except the marks Hong had made on them with her fingernails and her stiletto heels.  All of them had been forced to interrupt their own ritual to come running to the aid of their overlords in separating the murderous Esmeray from the rebellious Chastity, while the band played on, in accordance with its standing orders, to doggedly play until they were told to stop no matter what they saw or heard or felt, no matter what happened to them.

“Those fucking little bitches!  And of all the times for this!”  Channah spat, furious, astonished, and amused all at once, and shaking her head ruefully.  Yet for all that, she couldn’t help but reveal the genuine, sharp concern beneath:  “How is she?!”

Fang, like Chas and all the others, would have known who she meant, even if she hadn’t been caring for her.  “She’s fine,” Fang assured her Queen soothingly, still snickering herself, meeting her Master’s eyes insistently to convey her seriousness and certainty despite the irresistible lightness of her mood.  “Everything is fine, My Liege.  I promise!”

“Then why are we both laughing?”  Channah threw up her hands in exasperation as she stood, flicking her head at Hong’s girl and watching from the corner of her eye as the girl hopped to her feet and darted to help her sisters, her little noodle flopping irrelevantly.

“Because it’s funny!”  Fang laughed merrily like bells pealing on a sweet summer day.

“It fucking is.  It really fucking is!  Isn’t it?”

“IT IS NOT FUNNY YOU INFERNAL WHORES!”  Esmeray screamed and spit.  Only unlike Channah, Esmeray was so out of her mind there wasn’t anything figurative about the spitting.  “Bintāni al-haram!”

Hong and her girls gasped, mortally terrified to be so close to the woman, even in her vicinity, their eyes fearfully sidling to those of Channah and Fang for their reactions, to see if the five of them should dive down the stairs back to the protection of the castle in pursuit of minimum safe distance, or if they should continue to hold the defiant madwoman down.

Channah and Fang looked at one another in a shock that rapidly dissolved into even harder laughter, trying and failing to appear stern and judgmental, slowly shaking their heads in wonder, their eyes alight with gaiety, sharing an intimacy that was rare and profound because they found themselves in such a rare situation it was fresh, taking them back to their own youth.  Esmeray, an even more rare specimen than Penny:  A human, throwing the truth of what they were in their faces in an almost naïve attempt at disrespect, instead of hiding and burying that truth, which every human who knew or imagined the ancient succubae dreaded in their heart in the dark of night.

Without looking away from Fang quite yet, Channah extended her arm straight out towards the tangled knot of clothed qaharamanat and naked jawari, snapping her fingers decisively in command.  “Don’t you dare let the truth-speaker go.  Keep her here, in the hetaraslakos.  Do not break the ritual.  Bind her if you can, but I want her conscious and don’t you dare let her interrupt us again!  Then mount them both on the rails!”

“You biiiiiiitch!” Esmeray screeched, and “Yes, Domina,” Hong solemnly swore, and “Yes, My Liege!” the four naked girls imitated Fang.  And that was the last Channah paid them any mind, the sound of them fading as Esmeray’s speech devolved into a profane mishmash of bastardized Turkish and Arabic that almost complemented the discordant, insistent music of the band.  Below and all around them, incredibly, the roar of the damned had grown even louder than before, louder than either Channah or Fang could remember hearing.

The moment was so real and genuine, Fang felt comfortable breaking through the centuries and millennia of formal fealty that had calcified their once-passionate relationship, the bond they’d shared before they understood their new reality, even back before their Fall, to tell her what she needed to know:  “It’s kind of your fault, Channah,” she laughed.  “Stop, and experience!”

“But Penny—”

“I’m telling you, she’s fine,” Fang assured her master, understanding Channah’s concern.  Every moment she was cut off from her own metabolism, Penny was at extreme risk:  In life, her soul needed her body, inhabited her body; and her body incarnated her soul.  With the connection interrupted by the Ajna-nerve wall, Penny’s mind could go mad—a typical mind would have already—and her body could die.  They couldn’t do anything for her mind beside monitor it, because the wall was something they were doing to it already.  The most powerful sorcerers debated whether a soul in this state even was alive, but agreed that at best it was on a knife’s edge.  But what Fang could do—and was doing—was reassuring Penny’s body in her absence, persuading her Penny was alive, that she was alive, reminding her heart to beat, her lungs to breathe, every cell and organ of hers to continue going through the motions necessary for life.   Indeed, the actions arguably constituting life. 

That was what Channah had been doing when Esmeray lost her shit, throttling Chas and bowling Channah over in the process of her violent struggles with the thrashing, desperate, senseless Chastity.  A particularly violent jackknife by Chas had thrown Esmeray full-on into Channah’s back, impossible to ignore, impossible even to weather, knocking her away from Penny and breaking her sacred contact.

Back in this moment, frowning curiously at Fang, Channah did make herself pause to experience this moment, this place, comprehensively—with her full complement of outer senses, and also with her third eye, taking herself out of her narrow focus…

And gasping. 

“Yes!”  Fang nodded excitedly.  “Discordance… on a potentially astrological scale.”

“Yesss….!”  Channah agreed, breathing faster, practically leaping to kneel beside Penny, opposite Fang, restoring her connection to Penny, and joining Fang’s consciousness and hands at Penny’s ajna and muladhara.

“Feel her, Channah!”

And then Fang saw something she never saw.  Something that no one saw, not from the Queen of Lust:  uncertainty.  Almost fear.  In this moment of connection, Channah whispered her confession, as she needed to:  “I’m not ready!  I don’t feel ready—”

“My liege, you’re ready,” Fang assured her, moving the hand on Penny’s muladhara to be on top of Channah’s so she could give her a reassuring squeeze.  “She’s ready.  Finally,” she widened her eyes for emphasis, reminding Channah how long she had been working towards this.

“But—we haven’t even shared solitude—”

“Then do it now,” Fang urged her.  “Use the wall.”

“How can I know she’s ready, when I couldn’t even—”

Fang nodded with understanding.  “The one thing you can’t do, in all of hell and Earth, because it’s beyond your comprehension.”

“But then—how did Chava—?”  She shook her head uncomprehendingly. 

“Maybe she didn’t.  Maybe it was Penny.  Most likely, it was just an accident.”

“Our plan—it’s hubris.  Madder than Esmeray!  Pure good can never surrender to pure evil.”

“We know that.”  Fang struggled to conceal her exasperation.  Of course, it was the steadiest of all who didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, really internalize the doubts until the moment of crisis.  “You know that already, My Liege.  And that’s not what we’re doing.  We’re just doing what can be done, the closest we can come.  A makeshift bridge.”

“And if it doesn’t work—”

Fang laughed at Channah, to show her the absurdity of the last-second surfacing of doubts they had harbored from the very start.  “You know this.  Then we start again.  Or if we can’t make it happen, we wait for it to happen again.”  She shrugged and smiled, the immortal’s joke:  “It will give us something to do.  It will happen.  Again, and again, and again.  Every one of our enemies has found one—”

“And ultimately failed!”  Indeed, it had been their very success in the attempt that had been their undoing in the world.

Which was why Channah had waited for so long before she even considered it.  Perhaps it was the only reason the Succubae alone still roamed the Earth:  because demons could not understand the good, and therefore struggled to use it instead of corrupting it.  Fang honestly didn’t know what the correct course of action was.  After so many millenia, she wasn’t even quite sure she cared.  She was pretty sure the High Coven, maybe the whole Court, had agreed to go along out of some brand of inertial boredom or simple fatalism, rather than a careful analysis of their enemies’ mistakes and how to avoid them.

Fang shrugged, doing and deciding what she urged Channah:  “It is a mystery.  It will always be a mystery.  You must know even better than me.  Experience it and tell me—is this the best moment we are likely to have?  Or not?  Decide, don’t decide, roll the dice.  Time and heaven don’t care.  Only we do.”

Literature Section “06-85 Penny’s Astrological Discordance”—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 85 of Chapter Six, “Le Saccage de la Sale Bête Rouge” (“Rampage of the Dirty Red Beast”)—1653 words—Accompanying Images:  1727-1731—Published 2025-05-07—©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.

1542 06-46 A nagging unease in the conscious mind…^
1543 06-46 … a vivid nightmare in the unconscious (edited)^
1544 06-46 Fighting to surface^

EXPLICIT VERSION AVAILABLE AT https://patreon.com/TheRemainderman

continued from 06-45

Bathing

Sindonie led Chas and Penny to the hidden doorway between the private chapel and the second step of the family’s private staircase, allowing them to return from the chapel to the Queen’s private quarters without going through any public spaces.  They did have to pause while Sindonie peered through a peephole to make sure no one was in the Great Chamber, and wait while Sindonie stepped through confirming visually and audially that the coast was clear, before she ushered them swiftly across the Great Chamber to the Privy Chamber of the Countess, shooing them into the garderobe while she made sure the human servants had prepared the baths properly and escorted them out of the Privy Chamber.  Finally, she summoned them from their end of the garderobe, right next to the door, where they had huddled to stay as far away from the creepy Earl as possible.  These days, the Earl spent most of his time chained to the privy hole at the other end of the garderobe, avoided by everyone who could avoid him; and the garderobe windows were kept open whenever the weather permitted to keep it smelling fresh.  The Countess’s clothing was neatly arranged on racks and cabinets in her Privy Chamber so she could avoid the garderobe, and its smell, entirely.

The bathroom—very specifically, a room holding two bathtubs, a water furnace, and pipes for filling and draining the bathtubs—was the only one of its kind for leagues in any direction.  Certainly, some of the King’s palaces had similar facilities; but they were rare, in the extreme, reserved only for the wealthiest and highest-ranked, like the Defalaises.

The girls sank into their baths, contriving to keep their blankets between them and their governess until they were in the water, sighing contentedly.  Truly, the baths were a rare and precious luxury the girls had not known until moving to Fensmere; and quite rarely before they turned 18.  They were only allowed to use the baths—and in fact, required to do so—now that they were adults because of their marriage to the Queen, who required her servants to be squeaky-clean and fresh.  So it was typical enough that Chas was splashing and soaking merrily the moment he settled in; but it highlighted that Penny seemed uncharacteristically subdued and distant. 

Sindonie frowned questioningly.  “Is everything all right, Penny?”

Penny glanced back at her, surprised and maybe a little embarrassed she hadn’t been aware her mood was so obvious.  “Yes, thank you, Mistress.  I think—I don’t remember it very well, but I think I remembered…. A nightmare—something about a bathtub, I can’t quite—”

“You certainly did.”

“I did?” she looked startled Sindonie would know.

“Yes, the men were talking about it.  Apparently you both kept sleeping, but your cries eventually became so loud, and your movements so violent, they spread to Chas and the two of you woke up the men.  It started early this morning.  Fortunately, Obedience was still in the room and scurried them out without waking you.”

The girls exchanged a wondering look.  “I can’t really… remember it exactly, only I’m sure I was in a tub, like this one…” she idly stirred the warm water back and forth, enjoying the way it felt running through her hands.  “But I could swear—it seemed really important I remember.”

“Obedience told the men it was the spiked wine, and that it had an especially strong effect on you because you were unused to wine.  Especially not Succubaean Hippocras.”

“What’s ‘Hippocras’?”

“Spiced wine.  Or in the case of the succubus, liberally spiced and spiked.  It’s a wonder you slept as well and as long as you did.”  Her face softened.  “But I’m sure you girls were exhausted.”  They nodded their agreement.  “Well, of course your main duty on your honeymoon will be to make sure your Domina is happy, but hopefully you will have some more opportunities for rest.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes to wash,” she told them.  “And when I come back, you’re to be dried and sitting right here,” she patted a bench facing two large mirrors on the wall. 

“May we get dressed first, Mistress?”  Penny asked.

“Nope,” she smiled impishly.  “But there’s a reason for that.  Cover yourselves with the clean towels next to your baths.  Do not touch those filthy blankets again.”

“Yes, Mistress,” they chorused, looking at one another curiously.

Skin Care

“Wait.  Two more things.  First, because your collars are ensorcelled, they won’t be affected by water.  They won’t absorb it, let alone be damaged by it.  So you can dip your heads underwater and should do so.  Second,”  She pointed to a pot of lotion made with sesame seed oil, beeswax, and honey.  “I’ll give you a few extra minutes to care for your skin.  Be careful to get it everywhere.  You want your skin to be soft and smooth for your Domina.  Everywhere,” she emphasized mischievously, imagining their reactions, as she turned and walked out, hearing them starting to speculate about what was going on as she closed the door.

When she returned, she found them sitting on the bench, each with one towel wrapped around their long hair, a second tucked under their arms, and a third around their waists.  Although as she entered, she caught a flicker of movement from their waists and guilty expressions on their faces.

She frowned at them, putting her hands on her hips, watching them turn redder but not volunteer anything, until she figured it out and her face turned sympathetic.  “Oh.  You girls haven’t even had a chance to talk about—” she gestured “—anything that has happened to you, have you?”

They hesitantly shook their heads, as she walked around behind them, making a tisking sound, and running a finger along the top of each of their backs, above the towels.  “Dry as a bone.  Why didn’t you help one another?”

She met their eyes in the mirrors, seeing the dismay and consternation about what to say etched on their faces, pressing her lips together to avoid smiling too obviously.  Then she gave up and laughed.  “We’re all girls here,” she insisted.  “There’s no reason for modesty.  And by the way.”  She moved up behind both of them, her hips and breasts pressing against them, resting her hands on their shoulders.  “I may not be your valide anymore, but I will always outrank you.  And now that you’re adults…” she ran a fingernail along each girl’s collarbone, laughing harder as they gasped, pulled away, and protested:

“Mistress Sindonie!”

She clamped her hands on their shoulders, holding them still, to finish her sentence.  “I have the same privilege as any of your other superiors, jawari.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress,” they acknowledged, tight as drums.

“Oh, relax, dearies,” she rolled her eyes, patting their shoulders and moving off them.  “My point is, next time you’re feeling squeamish about touching one another… think again.”  She sat down on a cushioned chair nearby and crossed her legs, raising her eyebrows expectantly.  “Go on.  Do now, in front of me, what you were too silly to do when you had your privacy.”

They swallowed and moved with extreme awkwardness and embarrassment as she enjoyed herself, not particularly interested in them sexually—such a thing wouldn’t even have been likely to cross her mind if their own reticence hadn’t caused such a scene—but mightily amused as they tried to hold their own towels in place while rubbing lotion onto one another’s backs.

Finally, covering themselves as best they could, they reluctantly turned to meet her eyes, hoping to meet with her approval.  She shook her head and stared pointedly.  “Did you use it everywhere?” “Ohmygod!”  Penny burst out, squeaking and covering her mouth with shock at her own sacrilegious outburst.

CHAPTER SIX PART 46:  “LE SACCAGE DE LA SALE BÊTE ROUGE (RAMPAGE OF THE DIRTY RED BEAST)”

2025-03-30 Literature Section “06-46[X] Hella Honeymoon III”—Abridged 1305 words::Explicit 1332 words—©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.

1539 06-45 Lady in London/Jariya in Constantinople
1540 06-45 Good girls in Christendom & dar al-islam
1541 06-45 Different Worlds… Different Lives?

continued from 06-44

“Why is qahwah a secret?” Penny asked, beginning to eat with Chas.

“First, because it’s an advantage.  We always prefer to keep our advantages over our enemies, for as long as possible,” Sindonie explained.  “Second, we always want to avoid unexplained contacts with other parts of the world that the humans don’t have.  Everywhere we go, we try to blend in and be like the hucows as much as we can.”

“Hucows?!”  the girls laughed.  “Is that like…”

Sindonie pinkened.  “Human cattle.”

“But we’re—”

Christendom, dar al-Islam, and Beyond

“Let’s stay on track, shall we?  Speaking Arabic as fluently as you both do, you can range from Spain to India and the Balkans to the ports of the Indian Ocean without raising an eyebrow.  In Christendom, you can be what you are, gentle English.  Your class was at one advantage the Countess intended you to have by selecting you. 

“But because you’re both so fair and pale, and you would have trouble blending seamlessly, in dar al-Islam—the Muslim world—your story will be that you are Saqaliba—from the Balkans.  The other option would be Circassians, but since saqaliba live amongst Christians, you’re less likely to be caught posing as a Saqlabi.  Either way, it’s a near-perfect cover for a mamluk or jariya because as Christians and pagans, respectively, Saqaliba and Circassians, like blacks, are preferred as slaves in the Western part of dar al-Islam.  Many if not most mamalik and jawari are Saqaliba or Circassian.  To serve the Queen outside Christian and Muslim territories, you would have to learn other languages.”

“Does she have operatives in Cathay?”  Penny asked, wide-eyed.  “The West Indes?”

“And beyond.  She has operatives everywhere there are people.  I’m told those include parts of the world no one in Europe has ever even heard of.  Now try your qahwah, girls,” she insisted.  And when they hesitated to touch their cups to their lips, she said:  “I know it smells harsh.  Try it.  With sweetening, you’ll come to enjoy it.”

And they did.  “I do love sugar, Mistress,” Penny admitted.

“I know you do, dear.  Now eat up.  Not rudely, but efficiently.  The human servants were beginning to prepare baths for you when I took your food.”

Honeymoon Advice

“Is there anything we need to know about our seclusion to be prepared, Mistress?”  Penny asked between bites.

“According to rumor, you girls have already learned most of what you need to know for the honeymoon,” she teased them again, watching them squirm a moment, a distant look coming into her eye as she doubled down.  “I remember when I first met each of you.  You did look girlish to me, as many children do.  But the way you evolved and grew… you’re both quite lovely and feminine.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” they chorused, turning redder.

“The Queen has a remarkable eye for transgender jawari.  I’ve met dozens of them and like you, most of them don’t even need makeup.  Your Svadhishthana Cages will help you look like beautiful young women by preventing the further growth of hair.  But to preserve your beauty, it will be important for you to keep eating carefully, avoiding male animal flesh, and using the herbs and spices as you’ve been trained, even when you are out on your own.”

“Yes, Mistress,” they answered.  “We understand,” Penny amplified.

After considering carefully for a moment, Sindonie continued:  “To answer your question, I know you’ve had a very hard week, and that you are struggling with anger and confusion about the changes.  Especially the cages, collars, and twisters, and… what she expects of you to serve her cause.”  Their eyes blazed with the truth of that, and their hurt.  “Oh, dear girls, I’m so sorry,” she reached forward, placing a gentle hand on each girl’s shoulder and neck to connect and empathize with them.  “Even I, who was not adopted as a child but came into the Queen’s service as an adult, have had to face—challenges.”  She bit her lip, shaking her head slightly but firmly as if rejecting something.  “Serving our Queen is not easy.  But the same can be said for any human King.  Their concerns are not ours.”

“Your honeymoon is a time for you to heal your connection with Her, to feel the joy of your union with Her, while learning your new relationship with Her.  Try to find other outlets for your anger, like working hard to serve her.  And sublimate the feelings you can’t work out, into your natural submissiveness.  In this respect, you are more fortunate than the mamluks.  We’ve given you all the tools we can to prepare you to be content, even joyous, in your service and obedience to her.  The mamluks have rigid honor where you have bent desires, but honor keeps them even more emotionally separate, from Her and from other humans, even as it protects their loyalty and fidelity.  You have… this.  There is no ‘honeymoon’ for the mamluks beyond what they enjoyed of your trials.  They are pushed out into the world, not sheltered at home from it.”

“Also, now that you are proven and sworn to Her, She can start to share Her amazing knowledge and experience with you.  You cannot even imagine the worlds she moves through.  If you can relax, and follow her lead, try the new things—like qahwah—that she tries to show you, you will be a richer and better person for it.  And, I am told, you will know dark delights that she only shares with her jawari.”

The boys shivered with both the warmth and the chilly thrill of anticipation, looking at one another, and then back at her, anxiously, seeking and receiving reassurance from one another and her eyes.  “Thank you, Mistress Sindonie,” they chorused.

Valide to Valide

“Good.  Here, stand up,” she urged them, walking to one side of the table and embracing both girls for a long, tight hug.  “With your initiation,” she began, her voice cracking as all three of them began to sob together, “With it, I will no longer be your valide.  For most jawari, that role would belong to the most-senior jariya; but for the two of you, your valide will be your Domina.  I promise, though, I will always be your governess, and I will always be here for you.”  With a final, intense squeeze, she implored them:  “Trust and obey your Queen and Domina and—” she could hardly say it “valide in all things.  Trust and obey her.  Promise me!”

“We promise!” they bawled, delaying their separation. 

But finally, she shook her head and backed away, wiping her eyes and waving vaguely toward the stairs.  “Come!  We’ve taken too long already.  Penny—no, you’ll want to keep your blanket around you—girls, please work together to bring the tray with you and set it in the Great Chamber.”

CHAPTER SIX PART 45:  “LE SACCAGE DE LA SALE BÊTE ROUGE (RAMPAGE OF THE DIRTY RED BEAST)”

2025-03-29 Literature Section “06-45 Hella Honeymoon II”—Accompanying Images:  1539-1541.  1142 words—©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.

adventuresofaradicalprovocateur tudor england femdom humiliation dominatrix succubus coffee jariya jawari governess honeymoon wedding polyamory valide mother chakra

1535 06-44 Penny begs Sindonie for breakfast
1536 06-44 A hive filling the whole world?!
1537 06-44 If She dreams the hiveworld, will it come?
1538 06-44 Even good transitions are hard (Sindonie, Chas, and Penny)

PREVIOUSLY:   Like a substantial minority of the biologically male orphans, slaves, and refugees “adopted” into Channah’s global family of proto-operatives, Chas and the slightly-younger Penny had been raised as transgender girls.  Upon Penny’s eighteenth birthday, they had undergone the hazing and trials to become jariya women:  For six days and nights they were guilted, punished, trained, seduced, subjugated, intimidated, cajoled, drugged, teased, confused, gaslit, sleep-deprived, tormented, and broken to the ultimate will of the succubae.  But unlike almost any of the orphans, their wedding to Channah as her 35th and 36th sisterwives—her first human brides in centuries—had comprised the last phase of those trials.  After suffering the Seven Indignities, the protracted ceremonies allowing the girls to demonstrate their loyalty and worthiness through their submission and suffering, they had finally been allowed to sleep.  NOW:

Graduation

The girls were awakened by the smell of hot eggs and bacon, their first hint they had been allowed to oversleep.  Blinking and rubbing their eyes like schoolchildren, they discovered the sun was well up in the sky, although from the North-facing windows they could not see its exact angle.  They were where they had fallen asleep the previous night, on futons laid on flattened pews in what they could not help thinking of as a private chapel but, as a desecrated church that had never been restored, had been taken by hell as a satanikoklus of the succubae.

Sindonie, their governess of a decade, sat smiling across from them on an uncovered pew.  As always, she was practically, if exquisitely, dressed, reflecting at once her personality and class.  There could be no doubt she was a member of the gentry, England’s lower nobility.  Her clothing was neat, to all appearances unworn, made of the finest cloths not reserved for upper nobility.  The girls could not remember ever having seen her disarrayed, or even with a scuff on her boot or a single hair out of place beneath her hood; certainly nothing as vulgar as being sweaty or dirty, no matter the temperature.  But typically for her, atypically for her class, she wore little or no jewelry, the cuts of her dresses were simple with clean lines, and she avoided fashions like tall heels or dress loops that would hamper her movements.

Between them stood a low table, cleared of the night’s empty cups and wine bottles, now filled with a silver tray loaded with the eggs and bacon they had smelled, as well as breads, sweetbreads, water, milk, sugar, and a hot pot of something having a strong and brisk odor they had never smelled before.

“Mistress Sindonie, is this for us?” Penny marveled.

“Yes, it is,” she beamed.

“And you brought it to us?!” Chas wondered.

“I did,” she nodded, cocking one eyebrow as if to say “can you believe that?”  “I even boiled the qahwah myself, because it is considered a secret of the Court.  So you’re not to speak of it to outsiders.”

Since they didn’t even know what qahwah was, they weren’t worried about spilling the beans, so to speak.  Instead they looked at one another, somewhere between dazed and amazed, before Penny asked quietly:  “Mistress, are we part of the Court of Lust now?”

She smiled again, warmly, and nodded.  “You are.  You’re still not quite fully married, but you have completed the trials—and before you start looking worried, don’t.  You’ve endured the trials and passed the tests.  The hard part is done, now it’s time for your reward.  You and the other members of your class will be formally initiated into the Court of Lust when you return.”

“Return?”  Penny asked, a little anxiously.

“Reward?”  Chas asked, a little hopefully.

“From your honeymoon with Channah!  Which is a celebration, mind you, my dour little Penny—a celebration for all three of you to bond in seclusion and seal your marriage—not a challenge.”  Meeting their eyes for a moment, and reading them instantly, she tossed her head to one side.  “Do your business, girls.  There’s a screen over there if you’re still feeling modest.  Although,” she snickered, “It may be a little late for that, from what I heard.”

Both boys blushed, intensely.  “Mistress!” they chorused in protest to their childhood governess, both opting to scurry behind the screen, holding blankets around themselves for modesty, doubly happy to escape from her sight.

“I’ll always be your governess, but you’re adults now, girls.”  And meeting their eyes as they returned, reading their minds as she so often seemed to do, she confirmed:  “It’s much better to stay near the food.  The chapel desperately needs a good airing-out.  Big George modified the top of the windows so they can be opened to vent,” she nodded toward a thin strip of glass at the top of the stained-glass windows where George had painstakingly moved grout and glass from their original stone frames to metal ones mounted on hinges, “but they have to be small and high to keep prying eyes from seeing inside.  So it will take awhile for this—” she smirked again, shaking her head and teasing them.  “You girls’… scandalous activities….”

They both opened their mouths to protest but shut them decisively, reddening again.

“I had to bring your food because the human servants couldn’t be allowed in here to smell the—evidence of debauchery in the chapel, or find it filled with naked men and girls.”  And without their having to ask, she again anticipated:  “Your Dominae left yesterday—”

“Yesterday?!” they chorused.

“Yes, you’ve been asleep almost twenty hours.  The men woke up earlier this morning.”

“Thank you for bringing us our breakfast—or dinner?—Mistress,” Penny bowed slightly in appreciation while Chas echoed him.

The Honeycomb

“You’re welcome.”  She had been preparing two cups, putting milk and sugar in them before pouring a brown, almost bitter, stream of steaming-hot liquid into the two cups.  “Qahwah,” she explained.  “Because you girls are soft and sweet, I’ve put milk and sugar in it so it won’t be too strong for you.  When you return from your honeymoon, if the Queen hasn’t taught you already, I’ll teach you girls how to make it for everyone.”  She giggled.  “You have to make it in the Countess’s bathroom, away from the eyes of cook and the kitchen maids.”

“What is it?”  Penny asked.  It was always Penny who asked.

“A hard little bean from a plant that grows far up the Blue Nile.  It gives you energy and sharpens your mind.  Now that you know who your Queen is—” she met their eyes briefly— “yes?”

“Yes, Mistress,” they nodded, still showing traces of the awe and anxiety they felt at the revelation.

“Penny told me,” Chas explained.  “Although I can’t imagine—”

“You won’t have to, not for long,” she assured them.  “The Queen will take you through the honeycomb in her realm to your honeymoon.  It’s how she and members of the Court travel around the world.”

“Where are we going?”

Sindonie smiled.  “I suspect I know, a particularly wonderful place she calls her natural cloister.  But I’m certain she’ll want to tell you, or more likely show you, herself.  The honeycomb is how the Court stays in communication with all our operatives, and the reason you were taught Arabic.  The honeycomb is also how the qahwah came to England, from the Queen’s palace in Cairo.  You know we have always discouraged you from drinking small beer, Chas?”  Chas nodded slowly.  “No discouragement required for our prudish little Penny, of course.  Whose example should have illustrated the truth, that small beer for breakfast and dinner doesn’t actually protect health.”  She shook her head.  “Now you can both drink qahwah instead.  Wine and spirits should be for celebration—or comfort—not for sustenance.”

“Why is it a secret?” Penny asked, beginning to eat with Chas.

CHAPTER SIX PART 44:  “LE SACCAGE DE LA SALE BÊTE ROUGE (RAMPAGE OF THE DIRTY RED BEAST)”

2025-03-28 Literature Section “06-44 Hella Honeymoon I”—Accompanying Images:  1535-1538.  1170 words—©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.