Tag: demons


1840 06-100 Hong’s empathy, Esmeray’s truth
1841 06-100 Edging Esmeray

1842 06-100 What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
1843 06-100 1,2,3! Point to the biggest bitch on this balcony!

PREVIOUSLY:  At Channah’s command, Hong has shackled Esmeray by the ankles overlooking the sea of devils and demons.  Now she stands close behind her, challenging Esmeray to take her hand, wanting something from Esmeray.  NOW:

Esmeray slowly put her hand into Hong’s, felt the dry warmth of her hand, and then, as a test, rolled her fingers around Hong’s fingertips, her palm wrapping around Hong’s knuckles.

Neither woman moved, not their hand, not their eyes, Hong encouragingly, Esmeray suspiciously, until Hong nodded reassuringly again, showing Esmeray her right hand and then shifting behind Esmeray until the younger woman could look over her other shoulder and see it.  Steeling herself to patience, she took hold of it, the same as the other.  A stupid test.

Perhaps sensing that anything that could be construed as smartassery by Esmeray, would be construed that way, Hong was very careful, simply making a soothing, approving noise, before explaining:  “I’m going to step closer behind you if that’s all right.”

“Why?  What do you want from me?”  Esmeray demanded sharply, and Hong stopped, considering her answer.

“Two things.  My Domina has commanded me to train you for something that I would have thought you were totally unsuited for.”

Esmeray snorted, shaking her head wryly and even managing a hint of amusement.  “Oh, you noticed, did you?”

“I thrive by serving my Domina successfully.  To do that, I have to understand you better—your feelings, your motives, your limits, and, yes, your clear but strange potential.  Then…” she considered “I felt it too, as strongly as you, the reaction when we met.  Very fierce and competitive.  On the surface, we have been given the same job, even the same title.  Obviously it is a test.  Obviously it is a competition.  And if it is a competition, I mean to win, as surely as you do.  But…” Hong shrugged.  “Competing with me, at least on my terms, in the way I understand… I think this is impossible for you.”

“You noticed,” Esmeray repeated, unable to keep the insecurity out of her voice entirely.

“Here my thoughts follow two paths.  The first is that if we cannot compete directly with one another, we could become allies.  Not friends.  But allies.  Every member of the Coven has, or will have, a qahramanah.  So we each have at least 12 rivals, and very little chance to get to know any of the 11 others.  You are obviously a lone wolf, and if you will forgive me,” she tittered carefully, “A crazy one.”

Yes, Esmeray conceded, thinking how mad her situation was, and that she felt quite sane by comparison.  She was only mad by the standards of people who were privileged to live sane lives.  But she responded:  “Who’s crazier, the madwoman or her tormentor?”  Almost, she let loose of Hong’s hands—almost, she threw them away.

Seeming to sense it, Hong squeezed back very gently and compellingly.  “I don’t want to be your tormentor.  It doesn’t benefit me at all, or give me any pleasure, because you don’t know how to enjoy being tormented by others.”

“No one enjoys being tormented.”

“You are wrong.  Some people live in torment.  Even if not of their own making, then they accept them, or simply cannot escape them.  Some—maybe you, maybe your memories—even torment themselves.  All my little boys-who-are-girls live in that dark palace.  All jawari—even yours—are chosen for this potential, and raised to fulfill it.  If you can understand this, you can master them better, faster, and more effectively.  The fact you do not know this yet is more proof, if you are willing to see it, that I have a lot to teach you.  But the job I have been given—we both have been given, me to teach, you to learn—Do you at least understand this is your job, to learn from me, whether you want to or not?”

“Yes,” Esmeray spat.

Hong huffed, whether from concern, arousal, frustration, or success, Esmeray wasn’t quite sure.  Hong chose her words with even more care than usual, balancing loyalty to her Dominas with candor to her putative future ally.  “This job I have been given—at first, it almost feels the job I was given is intended to provoke you.”

Esmeray relaxed slightly, ever so slightly, but it was there, and Hong sensed it, nodding with satisfaction behind her back.  “You speak truly.  I think we are enemies, but—”

“Unfair!”  Hong protested, smiling at the long, lustrous, wild hair in front of her.  It was beautiful hair.  “You think everyone is an enemy.”

“Everyone is!”

“You, too, speak truly.”  And, Hong thought, you seem to enjoy this sparring as much as I do, in your own tormented way.

“But I also understand the advantages of alliances.  The necessity for them.  In a world of enemies, allies are valuable.  And your second path?”

“I ask myself:  What is our real job?”

“To entertain our masters by clashing with one another, like harem gladiators?”  Esmeray guessed dryly.

Hong laughed merrily.  “Ooh la la, so cynical.  I adore it.  Again, you are probably right.  And I think we can give them a good show.  Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But… there is more.  And I think, if I’m right, we are meant to teach one another.  Our Masters’ minds work that way, layers hidden under layers, wheels working within wheels.  But for me to explain it, you need to understand what this place is for, and what a qahramanah’s real job is.”

Hong bent her head, a slight sign of deference, and asked again, thrilling Esmeray with the unaccustomed sound of her own name:  “Please, Esmeray.  I ask again, can you bear to have me step closer to you?”

And after a beat, Esmeray nodded sharply, steeling herself and trying not to be obvious about it.

She felt Hong’s proximity before Hong actually touched her back.  It was an electricity, a low buzz from her buttocks up through the arch of her back to her shoulders, sensing Hong’s field of energy before, with a gentle, accepting sigh, the perfectly-formed woman made contact with Esmeray’s scarred back.  The deepest pressure was of her breasts against Esmeray’s shoulders; followed by her pelvis against Esmeray’s haunches.  Esmeray kept reminding herself that, although deep, the touch was and had been soft, slow, and consensual.  And although she couldn’t see Hong, she still held the woman’s hands, perhaps simply to prove to one or both of them that she could; or perhaps to reassure herself the hands were accounted for and therefore, not up to any mischief.  Of course, Hong could bite her, her crazy brain reminded her unhelpfully—but she refused to think about that now, shaking her head to herself to dismiss the idea so she could learn whatever it was Hong was up to. 

As if to prove she had no such intention, Hong asked softly:  “Is this tolerable?”

“Yes,” Esmeray answered, almost but not quite entirely able to keep the edge of irritation out of her voice.  So she forced herself to repeat herself, not wanting to actually feel Hong’s flesh—she couldn’t think about it, so she focused on trying to learn what Hong meant to teach her, telling herself this would be worthwhile, and that simply earning Hong’s trust would be worthwhile, ignoring all her contrary urges and feelings—the ravenous, dark ones—as best she could. 

Then Hong pushed it by whispering:  “Can you abide… more?”

Literature Section “06-100 Edging Esmeray”—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 100 of Chapter Six, “Le Saccage de la Sale Bête Rouge” (“Rampage of the Dirty Red Beast”)—1212 words—Accompanying Images:  1840-1843—Published 2025-05-25—©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.

1576 06-57 *3 of 5* Manifesting Ghosts^
1577 06-57 *4 of 5* Hellfall^
1578 06-57 *5 of 5* Hellside^
1579 06-57 Facing Hell^

PREVIOUSLY:  Channah, a Queen of Hell, for reasons of her own, has married two human transgender girls.  The girls, raised by Channah’s servants as her grateful wards, had just been put through the arduous indignities—hazing and trials—required for a human to be properly bound in left-handed marriage to a demon.  Seclusion is the last requirement of the ritual; but to reach their destination quickly, they will have to travel through the honeycomb, which is only accessible in Hell.  She has just prepared the girls for their journey through her country.  NOW:

And as they moved forward, it was true: To Penny, the light rapidly became stronger, much too rapidly for the normal physics of Earth or, as she would learn, of Hell.  They were a result, instead, of the unique physics of the place where the two dimensions met and interacted with one another.  And it was not just the light:  there was heat, there was humidity, there was noise, there were gusts of wind, and there was smell. 

Three steps forward from their place near the door, the red figures seemed clearer and more detailed than they could possibly have become in such a short distance.  There was a rustling whisper, like foliage in a low wind.  The heat rose as if they were in an active kitchen, and almost, Penny imagined she was smelling something sweet baking on the hearth. 

Beside them, getting her first glimpse of hell, Chas suddenly gasped:  “Bless me, Lord!”

Channah sniggered.  “Try to stow that sort of talk while you’re here.  Remember, there’s a great deal of rage.”

Six steps from the door, and the no-longer-obscure red figures began to react, turning and bustling as sufficient light fell on the Queen and her sisterwives to make them discernable from the other side.  The shapes went from blurs to hazy to looking underwater, the heat became that of an afternoon in late summer, rustles became whispers and then murmurs, and the smell…

“It smells wonderful here,” Penny marveled, and then figured it out, looking at Channah.  “It’s you, isn’t it?  You said—in hell—you smell… dreamy and… and appetizing.” 

She smiled with pleasure and nodded.  “Yes, Penny.  Stay close.”

“Like I needed another reason to do so,” Penny moaned, then suddenly stiffened and blushed as she realized what she had said.  Channah squeezed her arm.

The Sense of Being in Hell

And then, without quite realizing the transition had ended, they were in hell.

The air was like the steam in a Venetian bathhouse—Penny had never seen one in England, but she supposed they could have them here.  Penny had never been in a desert before, but her mind insisted the air in a desert should be dry, like a kitchen fireplace, not a bathhouse.  She was going to sweat under her brand-new dress; but she told herself what mattered was how she looked, not how she felt.  Or smelled. 

And around Channah, it smelled, well, heavenly, she thought, her mind rebelling at the conflicting and confusing thoughts and sensory impressions here.  She could drown in Channah’s smell, her flesh, and be happier than she had ever been in her life.

The air was cloying, heavy, without any cooling breeze; but still she felt something she eventually realized were tiny grains of sand, whipped against her by a wind she could not feel or did not exist.

Everything was wrong here.  Everything was unnatural and contradictory. 

Most of the landscape consisted of hot red sand, relatively flat and thin here, but with dunes visible in the distance.  More imposing were the black volcanic rock structures that erupted from the sand sea, the bulk of them conic, but bristling on the surface of the cones—and even, in places, erupting from the sand—black rock in twisting, reaching shapes like beasts that had become trapped in tar, captured in their last and most desperate moments.

The sky was faintly red, matching the sand, at the horizon; but became solid, perfect black not too far above it, and remained so all the way across the sky to nearly the opposite horizon, interrupted only by a few stray swirls of what looked to be the red sand hanging listlessly in the air like smoke that had reached its maximum height.

Most jarring of all, there were jets of flame scattered across the sand and rocks, like the fire of a forge flaring when the bellows were vigorously applied to it.  Seeps, she realized.  Naptha, or even tar, seeping out of the ground and shooting straight and constant or, in some cases, flickering, swirled by the insensible wind.

The only constructions visible anywhere, from horizon to horizon, were walls, some intact, some crumbling, clustered close around the satanikoklus on this side of the border, made of blocks of the black volcanic stone; and a single flat road, just wide enough for two carriages to pass, extending in a perfectly, geometrically-straight line to the horizon.

But incredibly the environment of Hell—the reality of being in a whole ‘nother world—was pushed into the backs of their minds by the very real and urgent threat posed by the hoard of demons and devils swarming towards them, seemingly concentrating here as quickly as they could from every corner of the vast firelit desert around them.  Whether they were running toward them, or warily loitering a couple of steps away waiting for courage, they were waving their arms in ways that felt and looked more crazy than purposeful.  And although their mouths moved and shaped, and different sounds came out—not simple animal cries, but modulated voices that could have been speech—it was not speech.  It was gobbledygook, more alarming in its own way than coherent, reasoned threats would have been.

They were not men—or, a few of them, women—but they were so close to being so it was hard to imagine they didn’t have the capacity for speech.  The fact they were jabbering anyway, maybe aware they weren’t speaking, maybe not, was profoundly unsettling.

As Domina and her two sisterwives finished the transition to hell, the noise broke over them like a wave:  screaming, shouting, incoherent jabbering from a thousand inhuman throats, and the drumming of two thousand feet on the stone square that extended from the ruined satanikoklus they stood in, to the low roofless walls of a few low stone structures, a kind of town, around it.

Penny instinctively reared backward when hit with the noise, prevented from falling backwards into Earth only by Channah’s arm suddenly tightening to hold her.  The larger woman stood and held them there, making them feel safe, until they realized the wild demons and devils were not entering the satanikoklus or its cursed grounds.

When she felt them relax, she loosened her grip again on their arms, shouting over the pandemonium:  “This is a desecrated place.  Only the Unforgiven, and those they allow to accompany them, may come here.”

“The ‘Unforgiven,’ Domina?”  Penny yelled.

“Later, Aristotle,” she snickered, gesturing at the madness all around them, which was plenty reason enough.

Literature Section “06-57 Hella Honeymoon XIII”—Part 57 of Chapter Six, “Le Saccage de la Sale Bête Rouge” (“Rampage of the Dirty Red Beast”)—1092 words—Accompanying Images:  1576-1579—Published 2025-04-09—©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.