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Ancient Memories: The Matriarch's New Pet
- Ancient Memories: The Matriarch's New Pet -
No matter how generous the Baroness Cyndijaz Megg, supreme Matriarch of the House Hara'kaon oft was said to have been, she was in part known to be of a sadistic bent. During all my time in her house, I can only suppose that I was fortunate to never have had to have been at the receiving end of any of the worst of her capacity for cruelty. Even when for a time we became enemies. But back in the days when I was yet zealously loyal to her, I witnessed much that would perhaps be beyond the comprehension of sane minds regarding the lengths to which the Matriarch would go to pursue a violent vendetta. To say she was depraved was not, to her, a disparaging comment. She cultivated her depravity, refined it, and made of it a thing of twisted beauty at times. She taught me much of depravity as well, much of how to refine it, and even more of how to refine cruelty so that it was almost an art form. My name was Count Gislu Ra'vann, and I have written much about that life in which such was how I was called. But I held back at times from telling of certain things. Events I witnessed, or was a part of, that I feared might be a bit too much for certain readers to bear. This memory is one such thing of that sort. For context, there in those days was a certain noblewoman who had openly mocked the Matriarch... sometimes to her face. I shall not relate the names she called her, the scandalous things she inferred about her, and the far worse things she leaked to the public about her. For years, this noblewoman had been under the protection of a powerful sect of healers and scientists who were in the direct employ of various other noble houses. But Megg was cunning, and delved deep into her enemy's past using spies and people in positions whereby she could discover much of the noblewoman's past regarding things more scandalous still. For although the lady was a member of an untouchable sect, her past misdeeds made that sect cast her out from their membership. Without them to back her up... her outcries against the Matriarch became less bold, and as time went on she went into hiding. One of Megg's own physicians took to protecting her, and when she found out... she dealt the man a horrific punishment that caused him to never again act against her. This was during the time immediately prior to the onset of the Elemental Wars on the planet Ra'qia, and for a brief span I had decided to return to my home planet of Gehenna Primus in order to see how things had been going back there. I had been abroad on various missions, journeys, and wanderings and oft would I return to my home planet whenever it suited me to, or whenever I had a need to. Though sometimes I actually preferred to put just a little bit of distance between myself and that world... and then if only so that whatever intrigues the Matriarch was up to would not sweep me into their complexities and Megg's machinations. I disliked it when she used me as a pawn in her political or power games, and preferred to chart my own course in life rather than be told what to do by her. She was demanding at times, and to say she was hard on failure was perhaps beyond true. In this case, the vessel carrying me landed at one of the usual star ports and I disembarked with very little fanfare, not wishing to draw any attention as so regarded my... it was to be hoped... brief visit. I settled in at my holdings, and paid a visit to any and all loved ones and friends I had in some of the cities outside of the planetary capital. I wanted to avoid any trip to the capital at that time, but sadly the Matriarch had eyes and ears everywhere. In this case, I was approached whilst visiting a certain establishment for a bit of pleasure. It was not a brothel, exactly. To call its' employees prostitutes would be to downplay their actual roles. They were... something more, a lot more elevated and enlightened in what they did than mere prostitutes. They had a way of reaching a person on a deep level and pleasing them in ways not simply physical or sexual, but also emotional and mental. Some sought them out as counselors or for a kind of therapy when they felt troubled. That was why I sought such services now. My last journey abroad was a troubling one in some ways, and I simply did not wish to dwell upon what was bothering me. But... as soon as I approached the reception desk at the pleasure house, the receptionist almost immediately could tell I was troubled and before long she in short order placed her palms upon my temples and empathically learned at least some of what it was I was hiding. She smiled warmly, and told me to wait whilst she connected me with a pleasure mistress.
It was a gorgeous looking establishment. Elaborate architecture, with opulent finery... within the halls of the brutal looking but beautifully designed building. The inside, had halls that were designed to look like the interior of some massive techno-organic thing, with walls of a smooth black metal for the most part but with a lot of elegant white and silver patterns etched into the walls' surface. The walls curved a lot near the ceiling, and there were many columns that looked like tall spines of gigantic creatures. The spines also curved, and met in grotesque archways above. The effect was otherworldly and strange, at least by the standards of most other worlds and their peoples. But such architecture was common to the world of Gehenna Primus, and for myself I was used to it. Stonework was there in addition to the metal, and the entire foundation was a mix of concrete and stone. The pleasure house was, like pretty much all of the buildings in this particular city, built upon what in ancient times was volcanic rock and soil. As a result, the ground was dark and for some reason in places very, very hard. Any trees that still existed in that region were vitrified or petrified, and there was evidence of atomic devastation in the distant past. No one spoke of that past though, or the disasters that led to this hellish warping of the environment. It was simply the way it was, and people accepted it. There were bluish white light sourced set into the walls of the pleasure house, all modern conveniences, and many antiquated but beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling as well. The chairs looked as if they were made from bones, but they were not. They were made from black metal just like most of the walls were, and had black and white cushions and padding for comfort. I sat in one as I waited for my pleasure mistress to arrive, and nodded as the slave girls and boys who worked at the pleasure house passed. They were all as pale as albinos... with shaved heads and silken white garments of the finest quality. Despite their young ages, for they were all children and teenagers with ages ranging from six to sixteen years of age, with some variance thereby... every single one of them was skilled in whatever aspects of pleasuring that they were taught to excel at. A few were in training to become counselors, and I recognized at least three or four of them from past sessions I had with them. They were easy to talk to, good listeners, and everything was confidential. To say that they knew more about me than perhaps anyone else was fairly accurate. And even the Matriarch was forbidden from access to the pleasure house's records. I felt safe in this place, and sometimes I felt happy there too. One of the girls was an eleven year old child named Zelirah, and she smiled as soon as she noticed me. She walked over to me, and placed both of her gentle, graceful hands upon my left arm as she said in a kindly tone: “Gislu! It is good to see you here today. I have not seen you in a long time, and have been worried about you. How have you been doing since our last session?” She spoke with a little girl's voice but an adult's mind. I replied honestly: “Junior Counselor Zelirah! You honor me with your concern. And, with your favor by approaching me in this way. I have been... troubled lately... and I cannot openly speak of what troubles me. I am waiting for a pleasure mistress in order to ease my stress prior to speaking with a counselor. After that, there is some business I have elsewhere in the city. Then, I will be departing the planet and returning to what I mean to be about elsewhere.” The girl's dark black eyes seemed to sparkle like the void of space when the stars can be seen in it, as she said unto me then: “I think perhaps I will take on the role of both for you today. You were supposed to check in with me a good month or two ago, but you did not. Point of fact, it has been a very long time indeed since you did so despite the fact that I had an appointment set up for you. Have you been avoiding me or something?” And I replied truthfully: “No, I would never avoid any appointment that we set up... I was just unable to keep it due to events that kept me from returning here. This, is the first free time I have had for such a thing in all this time... and regrettably up until you just mentioned it I had almost forgotten we set up an appointment at all. But thank you for reminding me... and, for offering to service me today. Naturally, I accept your gracious offer. With eagerness!” And I smiled, trying to appear charming but feeling as if I somehow was failing at it woefully. The girl leaned forward and placed her palms upon my temples. As soon as her hands met my head, she winced in pain a bit. She said: “Yes! You are in need of me today.”
She took me to her office... which was a comfortable chamber containing a desk, a bed, a couch, and lovely decorations such as plants, landscape paintings on some of the walls, and several cases and many shelves that held various curios and objects of interest to the Junior Counselor. There was also a water dispenser, and a refrigerator containing many different kinds of non-alcoholic beverages. I was free to partake of any of that during the four hour session. Sometimes, with Zelirah, we went over the limit of the allotted time and I once spent a full six hours in her care before we both felt I was ready to leave. It was not uncommon for counselors to have such flexible and varying schedules. I sat upon the couch to start with, and Zelirah and I went over all the details of my case history with her before starting. Then, once we finished that review, she bade me to sit back and be relaxed and comfortable. She had me take all of my clothes off including my undergarments, and she brought out a soft, silky gown for me to put on. This was to maximize my comfort and enhance the pleasure of the moment. She began to caress me all over my body, massaging my muscles and kissing them after massaging them. She hummed a lovely little song whilst she worked, and then sang for a bit as she skillfully relieved my body of any and all of whatever physical stresses it had been suffering from. I had a delicious fruit iced tea to drink after that, and she had to lay down on the bed, where she straddled my body and placed her palms once more on my temples, rubbing them gently. She then kissed me passionately, to begin the process of my arousal. The sexual activities came first, with everything else following. It was good to be in her care again, and before too much longer I forgot why it was I had felt troubled in the first place. In time, as the hours of our session passed blissfully and pleasantly, she learned all though. She had remarkable skills, not just of empathy and pleasuring, but of almost telepathic connection to her clients. And when she asked me questions, I was happy to answer them. When she had me talk about my problems to her, I felt always that I could tell her anything and everything. And I did! I lost track of time, as did she, and before we so knew it we had gone over the session limit once again. “It is so late, I will need to be closing the office for the day!” she remarked. “But it was a good session today, and I am happy you stopped by for it.” I then said to her in answer: “I enjoyed it immensely! Next time, I will try to be on time.” She then said to me about that: “No need to worry! Let us just... not set a specific date this time. Come by whenever you feel you need to.” We then kissed again... passionately, as always... and that marked the end of the session for today. There was a deep and beautiful intimacy I felt with Zelirah that was unmatched, and sometimes I thought about purchasing an exclusive contract from her so that I could have her live with me and provide me with her services as much as I wanted. I was considering this strongly when I made my way to the vacation home that I had on the outskirts of the city. The tall buildings, lofty skyscrapers and massive factory complexes of the city were bathed in the neon lights of nighttime. It was colorful, familiar, and something of a haven for me. This particular city had no serious crime rate to speak of, its' people were friendly to me, and whenever I visited the place I felt at home. More so than ever I did in the palaces of the nobility into which I had been born. I stopped by the park on the way, where a small oasis of artificial green met my gaze. Synthetic grass, from which artificial trees rose up gracefully. It was summertime, and yet because the trees were artificial some of them retained their spring blossoms. One day perhaps they could make artificial tress that could simulate the actual seasonal cycles of real trees... but at that time, this was the best science could produce. Most of the planet's surface was poorly suited for supporting greenery, although there were said to be some nature preserves in which greenery still existed, protected by the Matriarch and her government. But such was rare, and were it not for the machines that produced the healthy and breathable atmosphere that allowed life to exist on the planet at all... Gehenna Primus would have become a dead world ages ago. There was a dark beauty to the black mountains of the planet's wild places, and the fiery chasms and lava filled streams that were as common as the clean water that lay in the world's oceans and other sources of such. Water kept clean by science, so that the world would not become a place fit only for the dead. It was a harsh world, for the most part.
Vast stretches of the sky were covered by a perpetual cover of dark clouds, although sometimes there were breaks in them and you could see the sky. The place was over industrialized, and its' resources all would have been used up long past, were it not for the fact that science had found a way to replicate the resources themselves and keep them abundant. It was only through the miracles of science that life still existed on my home planet, and so civilization continued to thrive there and the people endured. I tried to break off a leaf from one of the blossom trees, only to remember that they would not break. So I left the leaf alone for now. I once visited a park that had real trees in it still, and it was used as something of a meeting place for members of the pleasure houses' caste and their clients. They kept it maintained and there were harsh laws against polluting there. I had a wonderful experience when I went there! For the pleasure mistresses of that place gave their services freely, which was swiftly becoming the normal for such services all across the planet. In contrast, this artificial “natural” environment was too perfect in its' appearance, too idealized, to truly capture how lovely that real park was. For some reason, thinking of that always made me feel sad. I tried not to worry about it, when four men in black approached me. They wore black uniforms trimmed with blood red, with belted tunics over their attire. The tunics were emblazoned with one of the royal symbols of House Hara'kaon itself. “Count Ra'vann!” They shouted in a gravely serious, official sort of tone of voice, adding: “We have been looking for you all day... you can be a very hard person to find sometimes, you know. In any case, the Matriarch so wishes you to be present in order to oversee personally the punishment of the noblewoman Vash'mana Yuri. It is... not a thing that can wait. Due to the late hour, you can stay at the palace until morning... but you must come to the palace with us at once, and at the eighth hour after dawn you will be called to the interrogation ward of the palace. Wait to eat anything until after.” This meant that the sort of punishment that Megg had in mind was most certainly going to be quite gruesome indeed. They finally caught her enemy, the woman who had dared to raise her voice against the Baroness. I would have a late supper tonight, but most definitely it was wise to wait on breakfast until after this business was concluded. “Very well! Let us be on our way then.” I agreed, and the guards took me by air car to the capital city... and the palace. I was silent the whole way, and the guards did not speak to me further. They escorted me to the rooms so appointed for guests, and there I turned in for the night following a hearty meal. I sighed as I closed my eyes. I was not looking forward to the morning. Lady Yuri was a thorn in the Matriarch's side, and now it was going to fall to me to oversee the removal of that thorn. Did they mean to kill her? Sometimes, a punishment entailed death, or fates far worse than death. I would just have to wait and see. Overseeing, in this case meant watching whilst a torturer went to work and did his or her thing. Sometimes, the sort of things they did were horrific, unspeakable, and on occasion truly sickening. I felt almost sorry for the lady Yuri... part of me had hoped she fled off the planet. But then I realized even if she had, she would have been found all the same. Some called me a demon, and a beast, and worse things till... but even I had my limits. The Matriarch's torturers knew no limits, for they were like machines in their cold logic and unwavering, fanatical devotion to Megg herself. The Matriarch would not be present, and that is the reason I was expected to be present in her place. The last time I had to oversee a punishment like this, it entailed a man having wires and cables inserted into every hole in his entire body... except for his nose. For he had to breathe to live long enough to suffer. Electric currents were run through those wires, with varying degrees of intensity beginning at the lowest and ending with so high a setting that the man was nearly... but not quite... electrocuted from the experience. They kept him alive for weeks, so I was told, long after my time overseeing his punishment came to an end. After which, he was castrated and made into... something no longer human. I never saw, never witnessed, what they did to him in the end. No one spoke of what he became. But the Matriarch had a new pet delivered to her menagerie not too long afterwards, and the thing that was added to it... everyone said it had once been that man. Such horrors... they were not uncommon for enemies of our noble house. But they were always very disturbing things.
The morning came all too soon, and as soon as I was ready for the day I contacted the guards over an intercom in the guest room I was given and they arrived to take me to the interrogation ward. So large, so massive was the palace that I would never have found my way there on my own. The architecture of the palace was as splendid as ever, and as twisted as the imagination of the Matriarch could make it. All the strange alien splendor of the pleasure house paled in comparison to the palace now that Megg had... over time... renovated it, altering it into a fitting home for her growing insanity. She suffered from some kind of poisoning that afflicted her, and many believed it was robbing her of her sanity more every day. I was glad to not be meeting with her on this occasion. She was beautiful once, intelligent and wise too. Now, she was well on her way to becoming as inhuman as her taste in architecture was almost alien, or demonic. We passed by an aquarium containing large whales that only grew on colder worlds, and from this aquarium the Matriarch sometimes would select one to be slaughtered for its' oil. She would bathe in that oil, believing firmly that it held certain healing and age defying properties that it actually did not possess. One of many very irrational beliefs she kept insisting upon! Sometimes, she drank their blood also, and never even gave a reason why. The cavernous hallways we walked down were black, dark, all dimly lit with stark white lighting from above. The floors of these particular hallways were tiled, with black and white tiles that gave the floors a look similar to that possessed by chessboards. Carpets, were set upon those floors, long carpets that were black with white trim and abstract blood red patterns upon them. There were columns resembling spines, and bone-like protrusions from some of the walls looking almost like claws that clutched glowing light spheres that further illuminated the halls. The archways as rose over the columns were equally like unto spines, and some had horned skull-like visages decorating the center of the arch itself. As if skeletal devils, were gazing down on whoever walked down this hall. Music was played over a speaker system set up in that hallways... classical music written by some of the most beautiful composers in our planet's history. Soothing, relaxing music. In direct contrast to the awful place this hallway led to, the dreaded interrogation ward of the palace. As we neared the double doors that led to that ward, the guards stopped by an intercom and spoke in some guttural language to whoever was on the other end of it. A buzzing sound came from the doors, and they slid open allowing us to enter. As soon as we passed through the doors, I could hear screams of pain and agony coming to my ears from various rooms to the sides of the rounded tube-like hallway that we were now walking on down. As dark and forbidding as the previously hall, this was had the added distinction of having some bloodstains on some of the walls that slaves were busy attempting to wash away. The slaves wore over their ears noise canceling headphones which allowed them to listen to relaxing music and not have to hear the unpleasant noises that otherwise filled this place at times. One of the guards grabbed the rear end of one of the servant boys, who continued working despite that distraction. The guard chuckled and said: “I had him two nights ago! I gave that fine young ass of his a right good pounding, I did. Oh, you'd think it was the lad's first time, the way he screamed. But, it wasn't! Not by a long shot. I was just... that rough with him, I think.” One of the other guards replied, saying almost mirthfully: “Got to be careful! When they're that young, you can bleed 'em if you go that rough. Me, I always take it slow and easy, at least until they get loosened up a bit more. Especially when you poke a virgin! Cherry boys like those, you've got to break 'em in before you can give it to 'em rough like that.” They then laughed as if it was just two old friends discussing sports. I tried to put their conversation out of my mind and focus on the unpleasant task that surely awaited me whenever we got to Lady Yuri's place of confinement. I wanted to be away from these men as soon as I could be, but also was in no hurry to witness the horrors that I felt certain were soon to befall the captive noblewoman. Soon, we reached the place where the guards so told me the noblewoman was being held. They pressed a button on the door, and I entered the awful chamber beyond it. It was quiet, at least at the moment. I half expected to be greeting by shrieks of pain or screams of terror, but instead everything had this silence about it that was much more uncomfortable.
Various machines lined the walls, and tables and shelves containing all manner of devices, tools, and implements of torture. Jars of strange liquids, vats and tubs containing animal, insect, and human parts, all of which had about them the strong smell of preserving fluids. In the middle of the room, there was an X shaped table on which was shackled a beautiful young woman. She was in her mid-twenties, and had long straight raven black hair and somewhat sharp but still lovely features. She had brown eyes of a rich, deep color and her skin was sallow with a slight yellowish tone to it. She was slender, had small but well rounded breasts, and was wearing a long green silk gown with long puffy sleeves. The gown was laced up in the front, and had silvery trim. The sort of attire a noblewoman often favored. Her feet were bare, and I noticed that her face was bruised from having been struck. Clearly, this was Lady Yuri. She nearly fainted when she saw me enter the room, and then began to scream: “Oh gods no! No, not the Beast! I've already told you... I am sorry. I am sorry for the things I said against the Matriarch. But please, do not leave me at his mercy.” One of the five torturers on hand said to her in reply: “Silence! The Count is not here to partake in your agony... rather, to oversee your punishment which shall be up to us to administer. At least, once the Chief Interrogator arrives. You're early, Count.” I then said to the man as I sat down in a nearby chair to wait: “It was not my idea to come this early in the day! I came at the insistence of the guards, who demanded I get here by this hour. And so, here I am.” I smiled at the noblewoman, saying to her: “I see you have heard of me! Good. Then you know to fear my displeasure. You have a lot to answer for, woman... though I take no pleasure in your suffering, and in truth part of me hoped you had escaped so we could avoid this unpleasantness altogether. Did you not flee to a far enough place to escape the Matriarch's wrath?” Lady Yuri then said, sobbing in tears as she did so: “I tried... but no vessel would take me off planet once the Matriarch issued the warrant for my arrest. No way to flee! Now, it no longer matters. Where is my husband?” I then said to her, not comprehending: “What husband? I was not informed that you were ever even married.” One of the torturers then told me in answer: “The Matriarch's physician, the man who took her in. They had been married all along, although they kept their little union a secret from the public. We suspected it already, however... and, it was all too simple to extract the truth of it from her and from him... all it took was calling the man in and having the guards restrain him so he could watch whilst they raped her over and over again. Even so, both were very stubborn and it took her being violated many times more than it should have before he finally broke down and admitted to having wed the lady. She was crying for him to admit to it, by the time he finally saw reason and did so.” I then asked of the torturer: “Where is the husband now?” to which the torturer replied, by pointing to a large black window positioned high on the wall to the far right from the entrance door. One could see nothing through the black glass, but I knew that sort of a window was able to be seen out of from the other side. It had a spectacular view of the chamber and it has especially a perfect view of the torture table and the woman secured to it. The torturer said: “He is watching from behind the window there. Restrained, of course, so he remains a captive audience. This will ensure that he never betrays the Matriarch and our house ever again.” I regarded the woman on the table, as I asked her: “Was it worth it? To act as you did in defiance of our house!” She then said unto me angrily: “Damn your house! And damn you... filthy animals, all of you.” The torturer then told me: “Feel free, my count, to have your way with the lady. Perhaps that will cool her temper. And... do not be gentle with her either.” I walked over, and decided to indulge the invitation since I was bored waiting as it was. I felt Lady Yuri between her legs, fingering the moist cleft of her womanhood through her gown. I chuckled a bit and said to her: “I am surprised the guards left you clothed! You have a nice body. I will not make their mistake.” Then I unlaced her gown and roughly tore it open, exposing her breasts. I gave them a squeeze, and the woman cried pitifully. She spat at me, and then I slapped her across the mouth. After that, I tore her gown and ripped it until it was in tatters before proceeding with the business of so raping her. As I heaved atop her, the shaft of my manhood thrusting in and out of her... she kept crying.
I had just finished my violation of Lady Yuri and fixed my own clothes decently once again, when the Chief Interrogator walked into the chamber. I was surprised that it was somebody I actually recognized. It was the chief mentor and teacher to the Matriarch's immediate family, the lovely Kor'ha. I knew full well that she had often acted as an assassin and a spy in the past, but never until this day did I so realize she was also in charge of the interrogation ward at the palace. She smiled at me as she walked into the chamber, and noticed me hastily dressing myself. She glanced over at Lady Yuri, who lay moaning in a pitiful state, still firmly secured to the torture table. Then, she chuckled a bit and said: “Having fun, my count? You always do enjoy a good tryst with the ladies... and the lads too, when the mood takes you.” She was always quite a bit of a tomboy, and she kept her hair short and in a pixie style that would not have looked out of place on some men. She wore the same clothing the torturers all wore... blood red baggy pantaloons with a long sleeved blouse the same color tucked into it and a blood red sash belt tied around the waist. It was a very practical choice, clothing of that color, since if they got blood on it then it would show up a lot less if it stained. Privately, she always preferred male clothing to female clothes, and spoke in a tenor voice that showed she was trying to cultivate an effeminate but masculine gender identity. Even so, she was not yet ready to use male pronouns, and so I continued to use the female ones whenever addressing her or speaking about her. She was slender, beautifully androgynous, with totally silver cybernetic eyes which had replaced her original organic eyes years ago at her own insistence. Her new eyes could see much better, and also see things normal human eyes cannot. It was said some found her new eyes frightening to look into, but I personally was used to them and if anything I thought they lent her a certain unusual kind of beauty. Her lips were moist and had traces on them of a certain liquid she was addicted to, a substance some members of the Mentor guild used in order to boost their mind's capacity to perform intellectual feats far beyond those of most people. It had not yet begun to stain her lips though, so she was at least using the substance in enough moderation to avoid that side effect. Over time, she would succumb to temptation though, and come to bear those stains. But such was not yet the case. She walked with the confidence and flair of a high fashion model, and looked like she could be a model as well. She had a certain presence to her, and through that she commanded the respect, fear, and admiration of those who worked with. How many times, had I kissed those lips of hers? And tasted on them, the sweet apple flavored juice that was her drug of choice. I wondered sometimes, if some of the effects of it were transferred to me by way of our kisses. But enough people called me stupid to the sad degree that I knew I was most certainly not experiencing an increase in my intellect anytime soon. I did say unto Kor'ha: “It was not so much a tryst as a way to pass the time waiting for your arrival. I am very surprised... but delighted... to see it is you, we have been waiting for.” Then, the mentor walked over to the torture table and grabbed the captive noblewoman by the neck. She hissed at her: “Yes! But what of you, my lady, hmm... are you happy to see me again?” Lady Yuri's eyes went wide with fear, and she did begin to stammer a bit as she said in answer: “Oh gods, oh gods... no, no, not you! Not you! No, no, no, not you again.” Kor'ha sighed, then gestured theatrically about her as she spun in a slow circle and said: “Why! Why do they always, always, always act like this when I enter the room? You would think they'd get used to my presence, but no. They scream, they stammer, they stutter, and they shriek.” Then, she so focused her attention back on the captive prisoner, and said to her evilly: “Stop acting like that! I mean it... oh, what's the use...” and then the mentor struck Lady Yuri hard in the mouth with her fist, just not hard enough to break any of her teeth. She explained: “I know, precisely, how much pressure to use to hit you, my lady... without breaking even a single one of your teeth. I could hit you, and hit you, and hit you again and again and batter you until you were bruised and bloodied... leaving every single tooth in your mouth perfectly intact. But what about your sanity! Is it starting to slip, just a little?” Then, she did kiss Lady Yuri on the mouth passionately and savagely. After that, she licked the captive's face and then laughed hysterically. I sat back down in the chair, and decided to watch what was about to so transpire.
I had heard tell that Kor'ha had become twisted and insane in recent months. That she finally chose to embrace the darkest side of her nature. But even I was not prepared for what I witnessed her do next. It was a sight which would stay with me forever, for it was horrible beyond all imagining. The mentor did begin to bring over various canisters of fluids, and several machines... and I could not tell you what any of that was for. She inserted the tubes... which ended in sharp needles... into Lady Yuri's body, and this did cause the noblewoman to scream loudly in pain. Two tubes without needles, she inserted into Yuri's mouth, and then covered the woman's mouth with a transparent breathing mask that fit over the tubes. Tubes were inserted by that point into various key places all over the noblewoman, and the mentor did turn on the machines that were hooked up to the canisters. A low humming sound was heard, and then another needle and tube were placed into the prisoner's arm and this was hooked up to a large cylinder of liquid. A wire with a sharp needle on the end of it was then inserted between the woman's ribs and fed deep into her body until a loud beeping sound resounded and a nearby monitor turned on. It was a heartbeat monitor, but this was the cruelest way I had ever seen one implemented. No physician would ever use such a cruel, painful, and invasive method! Once this was in place, Kor'ha pressed buttons and levers and switches on the various machines until some of the fluids from the canisters began to empty into the woman's body by way of the tubes. Some kind of anesthesia was then pumped into her mouth by way of the tubes fed into it, and Kor'ha explained aloud that it was just enough to eliminate physical pain but without rendering the captive unconscious or asleep in any way, shape or form. In other words, whatever was about to be done to Lady Yuri... she would feel none of it, but be awake through all of it. “After all, we do not want to kill the lady... we want her alive, and fully aware... of everything we are going to do to her.” Once this was achieved, the mentor walked over to the tools on one of the shelves and picked out a cutting device with a laser-enhanced blade on it. It was strong enough to cut through bone cleanly, and the laser would cauterize the wound instantly to prevent the person from bleeding to death. A mercy when it came to necessary amputations in the medical profession... but a nightmare in the hands of a skilled torturer. Kor'ha walked over calmly, then put a finger over her lips as if to say: “Hush!” and then, she began to cut. She cut off the woman's arms and legs, and handed them to one of the torturers who I realized were her assistants. They then took them and placed them in an empty tank filled with preserving fluids for the time being. The noblewoman was then continually infused with the awful fluids from the canisters until her body began to bloat obscenely in the stomach and the abdomen quite grotesquely and nauseatingly. As she bloated... her skin blackened and began to wrinkle in places. She felt no pain, she could not scream, and she knew every second of what was happening to her. I had never witnessed anything like this before! What Lady Yuri, became... was something hideous, and truly grotesque in appearance. Made worse, when Kor'ha decided to tinker surgically with her. The horror of it was that Lady Yuri's face was still recognizable when all was said and done... except that instead of a normal mouth, she now had a long tube with a mouth at the end of it. Her tongue was lengthened, so it ran the length of the tube. And she could ingest liquids by sucking them up through the tube, and eat by the same means. How this was accomplished was meticulously laid out and enacted by Kor'ha with the utmost scientific and medical precision. Into the noblewoman's head was implanted two large and awful looking mechanical eyes which sat in her head above her natural eyes so that she had four eyes in all at the last. Then, her spine was “enhanced” with various mechanical means so that her head could be bent backwards for a short distance. Kor'ha bent the woman's head back so that if Yuri was on her stomach, her head could be fully looking forward, and tested moving it up and down just to be totally certain that it could move from its' normal position to that position, and also downwards a bit, with no difficulties. Kor'ha shaved the woman's head and burned her hair in a nearby oven. Then, she asked if the woman's limbs were reads to be reattached. Her assistants rushed to fetch the limbs, which during all this time had been altered so that they were now long and spindly, and as black as the woman's body so became.
The limbs were likewise “enhanced” through various means mechanical and otherwise, and after they were reattached to Lady Yuri's body... four more were brought over. Two more arms, and two more legs. These were as warped as the noblewoman's own limbs had become, and were obviously from another victim. The additional limbs were also attached to the woman's body, and everything was tested to be certain it was in proper working order with no side effects or difficulties. “Let me see her crawl, now!” ordered Kor'ha, and the noblewoman was taken down off the table and placed on the ground. Her eight limbs were like a spider's now... ending with palms in the front, and feet in the back. She crawled for a ways, lifting her head so she could see forward as she did so. Her breasts hanging down... the tube that replaced her mouth hanging down, and her eyes filled with the horror of what she had become. “Show her! I want her to see what she looks like now.” commanded the mentor, and Kor'ha's assistants brought forth a mirror and let the thing that had once been Lady Yuri gaze into it. The creature let out a horrible sound that was basically a slurping shriek, and it tried to speak, but because Kor'ha had messed with its' vocal chords surgically, it made inhuman sounds instead of words. It understood our language, for once it had been able to speak it as we could, but it never again would be able to speak coherent words at all. Its' monstrous, bloated bulk below the waist was in appearance just like that of a fat spider's body... but above the waist the thing had the appearance of a slender woman. Except for the head, which had those extra eyes and the tube instead of a normal mouth. The skin all over was stretched and wrinkled, and all trances of the noblewoman's former beauty were now gone forever. All of the tubes were then taken out of the thing, and it was allowed to crawl about freely. Two of the torturers came forward with long taser staffs and made certain to shock the creature whenever it went to make a violent move. It was angry, it was beyond broken, and its' mind had likely snapped from this experience. Kor'ha told her assistants: “I want her... it... sent to the animal trainers to be trained to obedient and subservient. I want this thing as docile as a kitten when all in said and done! Do you understand me?” and they bowed in obeisance as they had the creature taken out of the chamber. Kor'ha then washed her hands in a nearby sink, smiled sweetly and cheerfully and said unto me: “So... up for a bit of a late breakfast? Me, I am starving! Work always takes such a toll on me, Gislu my dear. If anything, I find myself more hungry after a good day's work than on a day when there is no work to be done at all.” I sighed, and asked her: “How can you be hungry after all that?” I personally felt sick to my stomach, and it did not help that this laboratory... for I realized now, that was what this chamber was... was filled with the strong smell of all manner of fluids, chemicals, and more ghastly things than those. I was honestly shocked that I had not thrown up yet. But I simply figured the shock of all this would likely hit me, more fully, later on. I said to Kor'ha: “What in the world, did I just witness?” the horror evident in my almost trembling voice. She dried her hands on a clean towel and said to me in reply: “The Matriarch just got a new pet, darling. That is all it was.” She looked up at the window through which, assuredly, Lady Yuri's husband had witnessed the whole awful transformation, and she remarked: “He probably fainted by now... or is mad with grief. I have to say, he chose a poor match for a wife. I doubt he will cause any trouble for the Matriarch again after all this.” Then, she looked back and me and explained: “And do not worry! Even after all those rapes, that thing will not be pregnant. I had Lady Yuri sterilized as soon as she was brought in, before any of the guards was given permission to so much as lay a finger on her. And I checked to make certain she was not with child already before we even got started with her. So, nothing to worry about there! This is a very large improvement over the last one I tried to make. That one could not seem to crawl even after extra limbs were attached... but this one took to it straight away. Guess sometimes women can be stronger than men are, eh? It definitely seems my stomach is stronger than yours... and they call you Beast! Ha.” I then did remind the mentor: “You forget! I am only partly male. I was born hermaphroditic, after all.” Kor'ha did answer to that, stating in a matter of fact manner: “Intersex. The correct term is intersex, actually. But, I get your meaning and of course I have not forgotten. We have... been intimate with each other after all.”
Once she got her clothes changed, into far more casual attire, Kor'ha decided to take me out for a bit of breakfast. I agreed that, as sickening as what I had just witnessed was, I needed to eat to keep myself in good health and remaining strong. We took a trip back to that city that I liked, and went to a diner we both loved eating at there. They still had the old video game machines there that Kor'ha always loved to watch me play. One was about a barbarian fighting monsters across the volcanic wilderness of Gehenna Primus in ancient times before the dawn of recorded history. At the end of the game, he becomes a king by his own hand. That, was the one that Kor'ha most enjoyed watching me play since I was good at it. I could beat the game most times I played it, too. And every time I did, Kor'ha would clap her hands and exclaim: “Bravo! My conquering hero!” and she would give me a big passionate kiss and I would hold her close, and it was good to feel her body up against mine, warm and inviting like that. She loved me, and I loved her. But her work kept her apart from me, and my life kept me far away from her from time to time. Whatever we had together... we had to make it last, whenever we crossed each other's paths yet again. “Care to give the game a try?” She asked, pointing to it after we had finished eating. I shook my head, and said: “No, not this time! Today, I just want to spend as much time focusing on you as I can. I am supposed to be going off planet tomorrow... though I could postpone my departure one more day if you like.” She smiled sweetly, almost innocently, and said unto me: “Yes! Please do, actually. I have a whole day free now, myself... I delegated sending a detailed report to the Matriarch to one of my most loyal assistants, so I do not have to get my hands dirty with boring bureaucracy. That means we would both have tomorrow for just... us. Speaking of which... what are we to each other, anyway, Gislu?” I did answer after pausing to think about it for a brief bit, stating: “Two soulmates who never really got much of a chance to find out where life could fully take them together.” That made her sigh, but she kept on smiling, and that made me smile also. She then told me in a serious tone of voice: “The Matriarch plans on sending me off very soon, on some strictly covert missions against our old enemies, House Hydres... the House of Water. That, means a trip to Ra'qia for me, one that could take a great deal of time, since it also involves me helping to secure the part of the planet that rightfully belongs to our house. Nothing to my knowledge has happened to our holdings there, but I need to make certain that House Hydres has in the Matriarch's absence not attempted to usurp our rightful claims on the part of the Holy Planet that is ours to maintain. In time, she will likely call for you too to come to Ra'qia and help out there. So, of a certainly our paths will cross again in due course.” She was so methodical even when she was relaxed! Her mind was a marvel to me, and it was her intelligence that I found so incredibly attractive about her. I said to her: “Kor'ha... do not worry, when the Matriarch calls for me to go there I will go. And we will meet up again, when I do. In the meantime, let us please not think of business, or of plots or plans or of missions and troubles with rival houses. Or any other complications in our lives! Just for today and for tomorrow, let us try to be like a normal couple and simply enjoy ourselves together.” She suddenly and very quickly rushed a deep and passionate kiss upon my lips. We had both taken breath mints to eat just after our breakfast, so the kiss tasted sweet and perfect. “Is that more like it?” she asked, her face very bright and beaming with undisguised delight. I smiled, and replied: “Perfect, actually!” She then ran to the video game machine and popped a coin into it. She motioned for me to come over and play. I did as she wished, and immersed myself in the game for her entertainment. And so, there we were... two of the most feared people on the whole planet, if not on many plants, and we were acting like children again. Playing, laughing, and having the time of our lives! I wanted that moment to last forever, but it went by quickly although in my memory it has lived on throughout the centuries long since. It was a good way to put aside the horror of what had befallen the unfortunate Lady Yuri and her husband. They were the Matriarch's problem now, and she was welcome to them. Right now, I was once more playing the hero for my sweet Kor'ha... and wondering why she and I never got married. “I love you!” I said to her, but the sound of it was drowned out by the noises of the video game machine. Even so... I think she knew.
No matter how generous the Baroness Cyndijaz Megg, supreme Matriarch of the House Hara'kaon oft was said to have been, she was in part known to be of a sadistic bent. During all my time in her house, I can only suppose that I was fortunate to never have had to have been at the receiving end of any of the worst of her capacity for cruelty. Even when for a time we became enemies. But back in the days when I was yet zealously loyal to her, I witnessed much that would perhaps be beyond the comprehension of sane minds regarding the lengths to which the Matriarch would go to pursue a violent vendetta. To say she was depraved was not, to her, a disparaging comment. She cultivated her depravity, refined it, and made of it a thing of twisted beauty at times. She taught me much of depravity as well, much of how to refine it, and even more of how to refine cruelty so that it was almost an art form. My name was Count Gislu Ra'vann, and I have written much about that life in which such was how I was called. But I held back at times from telling of certain things. Events I witnessed, or was a part of, that I feared might be a bit too much for certain readers to bear. This memory is one such thing of that sort. For context, there in those days was a certain noblewoman who had openly mocked the Matriarch... sometimes to her face. I shall not relate the names she called her, the scandalous things she inferred about her, and the far worse things she leaked to the public about her. For years, this noblewoman had been under the protection of a powerful sect of healers and scientists who were in the direct employ of various other noble houses. But Megg was cunning, and delved deep into her enemy's past using spies and people in positions whereby she could discover much of the noblewoman's past regarding things more scandalous still. For although the lady was a member of an untouchable sect, her past misdeeds made that sect cast her out from their membership. Without them to back her up... her outcries against the Matriarch became less bold, and as time went on she went into hiding. One of Megg's own physicians took to protecting her, and when she found out... she dealt the man a horrific punishment that caused him to never again act against her. This was during the time immediately prior to the onset of the Elemental Wars on the planet Ra'qia, and for a brief span I had decided to return to my home planet of Gehenna Primus in order to see how things had been going back there. I had been abroad on various missions, journeys, and wanderings and oft would I return to my home planet whenever it suited me to, or whenever I had a need to. Though sometimes I actually preferred to put just a little bit of distance between myself and that world... and then if only so that whatever intrigues the Matriarch was up to would not sweep me into their complexities and Megg's machinations. I disliked it when she used me as a pawn in her political or power games, and preferred to chart my own course in life rather than be told what to do by her. She was demanding at times, and to say she was hard on failure was perhaps beyond true. In this case, the vessel carrying me landed at one of the usual star ports and I disembarked with very little fanfare, not wishing to draw any attention as so regarded my... it was to be hoped... brief visit. I settled in at my holdings, and paid a visit to any and all loved ones and friends I had in some of the cities outside of the planetary capital. I wanted to avoid any trip to the capital at that time, but sadly the Matriarch had eyes and ears everywhere. In this case, I was approached whilst visiting a certain establishment for a bit of pleasure. It was not a brothel, exactly. To call its' employees prostitutes would be to downplay their actual roles. They were... something more, a lot more elevated and enlightened in what they did than mere prostitutes. They had a way of reaching a person on a deep level and pleasing them in ways not simply physical or sexual, but also emotional and mental. Some sought them out as counselors or for a kind of therapy when they felt troubled. That was why I sought such services now. My last journey abroad was a troubling one in some ways, and I simply did not wish to dwell upon what was bothering me. But... as soon as I approached the reception desk at the pleasure house, the receptionist almost immediately could tell I was troubled and before long she in short order placed her palms upon my temples and empathically learned at least some of what it was I was hiding. She smiled warmly, and told me to wait whilst she connected me with a pleasure mistress.
It was a gorgeous looking establishment. Elaborate architecture, with opulent finery... within the halls of the brutal looking but beautifully designed building. The inside, had halls that were designed to look like the interior of some massive techno-organic thing, with walls of a smooth black metal for the most part but with a lot of elegant white and silver patterns etched into the walls' surface. The walls curved a lot near the ceiling, and there were many columns that looked like tall spines of gigantic creatures. The spines also curved, and met in grotesque archways above. The effect was otherworldly and strange, at least by the standards of most other worlds and their peoples. But such architecture was common to the world of Gehenna Primus, and for myself I was used to it. Stonework was there in addition to the metal, and the entire foundation was a mix of concrete and stone. The pleasure house was, like pretty much all of the buildings in this particular city, built upon what in ancient times was volcanic rock and soil. As a result, the ground was dark and for some reason in places very, very hard. Any trees that still existed in that region were vitrified or petrified, and there was evidence of atomic devastation in the distant past. No one spoke of that past though, or the disasters that led to this hellish warping of the environment. It was simply the way it was, and people accepted it. There were bluish white light sourced set into the walls of the pleasure house, all modern conveniences, and many antiquated but beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling as well. The chairs looked as if they were made from bones, but they were not. They were made from black metal just like most of the walls were, and had black and white cushions and padding for comfort. I sat in one as I waited for my pleasure mistress to arrive, and nodded as the slave girls and boys who worked at the pleasure house passed. They were all as pale as albinos... with shaved heads and silken white garments of the finest quality. Despite their young ages, for they were all children and teenagers with ages ranging from six to sixteen years of age, with some variance thereby... every single one of them was skilled in whatever aspects of pleasuring that they were taught to excel at. A few were in training to become counselors, and I recognized at least three or four of them from past sessions I had with them. They were easy to talk to, good listeners, and everything was confidential. To say that they knew more about me than perhaps anyone else was fairly accurate. And even the Matriarch was forbidden from access to the pleasure house's records. I felt safe in this place, and sometimes I felt happy there too. One of the girls was an eleven year old child named Zelirah, and she smiled as soon as she noticed me. She walked over to me, and placed both of her gentle, graceful hands upon my left arm as she said in a kindly tone: “Gislu! It is good to see you here today. I have not seen you in a long time, and have been worried about you. How have you been doing since our last session?” She spoke with a little girl's voice but an adult's mind. I replied honestly: “Junior Counselor Zelirah! You honor me with your concern. And, with your favor by approaching me in this way. I have been... troubled lately... and I cannot openly speak of what troubles me. I am waiting for a pleasure mistress in order to ease my stress prior to speaking with a counselor. After that, there is some business I have elsewhere in the city. Then, I will be departing the planet and returning to what I mean to be about elsewhere.” The girl's dark black eyes seemed to sparkle like the void of space when the stars can be seen in it, as she said unto me then: “I think perhaps I will take on the role of both for you today. You were supposed to check in with me a good month or two ago, but you did not. Point of fact, it has been a very long time indeed since you did so despite the fact that I had an appointment set up for you. Have you been avoiding me or something?” And I replied truthfully: “No, I would never avoid any appointment that we set up... I was just unable to keep it due to events that kept me from returning here. This, is the first free time I have had for such a thing in all this time... and regrettably up until you just mentioned it I had almost forgotten we set up an appointment at all. But thank you for reminding me... and, for offering to service me today. Naturally, I accept your gracious offer. With eagerness!” And I smiled, trying to appear charming but feeling as if I somehow was failing at it woefully. The girl leaned forward and placed her palms upon my temples. As soon as her hands met my head, she winced in pain a bit. She said: “Yes! You are in need of me today.”
She took me to her office... which was a comfortable chamber containing a desk, a bed, a couch, and lovely decorations such as plants, landscape paintings on some of the walls, and several cases and many shelves that held various curios and objects of interest to the Junior Counselor. There was also a water dispenser, and a refrigerator containing many different kinds of non-alcoholic beverages. I was free to partake of any of that during the four hour session. Sometimes, with Zelirah, we went over the limit of the allotted time and I once spent a full six hours in her care before we both felt I was ready to leave. It was not uncommon for counselors to have such flexible and varying schedules. I sat upon the couch to start with, and Zelirah and I went over all the details of my case history with her before starting. Then, once we finished that review, she bade me to sit back and be relaxed and comfortable. She had me take all of my clothes off including my undergarments, and she brought out a soft, silky gown for me to put on. This was to maximize my comfort and enhance the pleasure of the moment. She began to caress me all over my body, massaging my muscles and kissing them after massaging them. She hummed a lovely little song whilst she worked, and then sang for a bit as she skillfully relieved my body of any and all of whatever physical stresses it had been suffering from. I had a delicious fruit iced tea to drink after that, and she had to lay down on the bed, where she straddled my body and placed her palms once more on my temples, rubbing them gently. She then kissed me passionately, to begin the process of my arousal. The sexual activities came first, with everything else following. It was good to be in her care again, and before too much longer I forgot why it was I had felt troubled in the first place. In time, as the hours of our session passed blissfully and pleasantly, she learned all though. She had remarkable skills, not just of empathy and pleasuring, but of almost telepathic connection to her clients. And when she asked me questions, I was happy to answer them. When she had me talk about my problems to her, I felt always that I could tell her anything and everything. And I did! I lost track of time, as did she, and before we so knew it we had gone over the session limit once again. “It is so late, I will need to be closing the office for the day!” she remarked. “But it was a good session today, and I am happy you stopped by for it.” I then said to her in answer: “I enjoyed it immensely! Next time, I will try to be on time.” She then said to me about that: “No need to worry! Let us just... not set a specific date this time. Come by whenever you feel you need to.” We then kissed again... passionately, as always... and that marked the end of the session for today. There was a deep and beautiful intimacy I felt with Zelirah that was unmatched, and sometimes I thought about purchasing an exclusive contract from her so that I could have her live with me and provide me with her services as much as I wanted. I was considering this strongly when I made my way to the vacation home that I had on the outskirts of the city. The tall buildings, lofty skyscrapers and massive factory complexes of the city were bathed in the neon lights of nighttime. It was colorful, familiar, and something of a haven for me. This particular city had no serious crime rate to speak of, its' people were friendly to me, and whenever I visited the place I felt at home. More so than ever I did in the palaces of the nobility into which I had been born. I stopped by the park on the way, where a small oasis of artificial green met my gaze. Synthetic grass, from which artificial trees rose up gracefully. It was summertime, and yet because the trees were artificial some of them retained their spring blossoms. One day perhaps they could make artificial tress that could simulate the actual seasonal cycles of real trees... but at that time, this was the best science could produce. Most of the planet's surface was poorly suited for supporting greenery, although there were said to be some nature preserves in which greenery still existed, protected by the Matriarch and her government. But such was rare, and were it not for the machines that produced the healthy and breathable atmosphere that allowed life to exist on the planet at all... Gehenna Primus would have become a dead world ages ago. There was a dark beauty to the black mountains of the planet's wild places, and the fiery chasms and lava filled streams that were as common as the clean water that lay in the world's oceans and other sources of such. Water kept clean by science, so that the world would not become a place fit only for the dead. It was a harsh world, for the most part.
Vast stretches of the sky were covered by a perpetual cover of dark clouds, although sometimes there were breaks in them and you could see the sky. The place was over industrialized, and its' resources all would have been used up long past, were it not for the fact that science had found a way to replicate the resources themselves and keep them abundant. It was only through the miracles of science that life still existed on my home planet, and so civilization continued to thrive there and the people endured. I tried to break off a leaf from one of the blossom trees, only to remember that they would not break. So I left the leaf alone for now. I once visited a park that had real trees in it still, and it was used as something of a meeting place for members of the pleasure houses' caste and their clients. They kept it maintained and there were harsh laws against polluting there. I had a wonderful experience when I went there! For the pleasure mistresses of that place gave their services freely, which was swiftly becoming the normal for such services all across the planet. In contrast, this artificial “natural” environment was too perfect in its' appearance, too idealized, to truly capture how lovely that real park was. For some reason, thinking of that always made me feel sad. I tried not to worry about it, when four men in black approached me. They wore black uniforms trimmed with blood red, with belted tunics over their attire. The tunics were emblazoned with one of the royal symbols of House Hara'kaon itself. “Count Ra'vann!” They shouted in a gravely serious, official sort of tone of voice, adding: “We have been looking for you all day... you can be a very hard person to find sometimes, you know. In any case, the Matriarch so wishes you to be present in order to oversee personally the punishment of the noblewoman Vash'mana Yuri. It is... not a thing that can wait. Due to the late hour, you can stay at the palace until morning... but you must come to the palace with us at once, and at the eighth hour after dawn you will be called to the interrogation ward of the palace. Wait to eat anything until after.” This meant that the sort of punishment that Megg had in mind was most certainly going to be quite gruesome indeed. They finally caught her enemy, the woman who had dared to raise her voice against the Baroness. I would have a late supper tonight, but most definitely it was wise to wait on breakfast until after this business was concluded. “Very well! Let us be on our way then.” I agreed, and the guards took me by air car to the capital city... and the palace. I was silent the whole way, and the guards did not speak to me further. They escorted me to the rooms so appointed for guests, and there I turned in for the night following a hearty meal. I sighed as I closed my eyes. I was not looking forward to the morning. Lady Yuri was a thorn in the Matriarch's side, and now it was going to fall to me to oversee the removal of that thorn. Did they mean to kill her? Sometimes, a punishment entailed death, or fates far worse than death. I would just have to wait and see. Overseeing, in this case meant watching whilst a torturer went to work and did his or her thing. Sometimes, the sort of things they did were horrific, unspeakable, and on occasion truly sickening. I felt almost sorry for the lady Yuri... part of me had hoped she fled off the planet. But then I realized even if she had, she would have been found all the same. Some called me a demon, and a beast, and worse things till... but even I had my limits. The Matriarch's torturers knew no limits, for they were like machines in their cold logic and unwavering, fanatical devotion to Megg herself. The Matriarch would not be present, and that is the reason I was expected to be present in her place. The last time I had to oversee a punishment like this, it entailed a man having wires and cables inserted into every hole in his entire body... except for his nose. For he had to breathe to live long enough to suffer. Electric currents were run through those wires, with varying degrees of intensity beginning at the lowest and ending with so high a setting that the man was nearly... but not quite... electrocuted from the experience. They kept him alive for weeks, so I was told, long after my time overseeing his punishment came to an end. After which, he was castrated and made into... something no longer human. I never saw, never witnessed, what they did to him in the end. No one spoke of what he became. But the Matriarch had a new pet delivered to her menagerie not too long afterwards, and the thing that was added to it... everyone said it had once been that man. Such horrors... they were not uncommon for enemies of our noble house. But they were always very disturbing things.
The morning came all too soon, and as soon as I was ready for the day I contacted the guards over an intercom in the guest room I was given and they arrived to take me to the interrogation ward. So large, so massive was the palace that I would never have found my way there on my own. The architecture of the palace was as splendid as ever, and as twisted as the imagination of the Matriarch could make it. All the strange alien splendor of the pleasure house paled in comparison to the palace now that Megg had... over time... renovated it, altering it into a fitting home for her growing insanity. She suffered from some kind of poisoning that afflicted her, and many believed it was robbing her of her sanity more every day. I was glad to not be meeting with her on this occasion. She was beautiful once, intelligent and wise too. Now, she was well on her way to becoming as inhuman as her taste in architecture was almost alien, or demonic. We passed by an aquarium containing large whales that only grew on colder worlds, and from this aquarium the Matriarch sometimes would select one to be slaughtered for its' oil. She would bathe in that oil, believing firmly that it held certain healing and age defying properties that it actually did not possess. One of many very irrational beliefs she kept insisting upon! Sometimes, she drank their blood also, and never even gave a reason why. The cavernous hallways we walked down were black, dark, all dimly lit with stark white lighting from above. The floors of these particular hallways were tiled, with black and white tiles that gave the floors a look similar to that possessed by chessboards. Carpets, were set upon those floors, long carpets that were black with white trim and abstract blood red patterns upon them. There were columns resembling spines, and bone-like protrusions from some of the walls looking almost like claws that clutched glowing light spheres that further illuminated the halls. The archways as rose over the columns were equally like unto spines, and some had horned skull-like visages decorating the center of the arch itself. As if skeletal devils, were gazing down on whoever walked down this hall. Music was played over a speaker system set up in that hallways... classical music written by some of the most beautiful composers in our planet's history. Soothing, relaxing music. In direct contrast to the awful place this hallway led to, the dreaded interrogation ward of the palace. As we neared the double doors that led to that ward, the guards stopped by an intercom and spoke in some guttural language to whoever was on the other end of it. A buzzing sound came from the doors, and they slid open allowing us to enter. As soon as we passed through the doors, I could hear screams of pain and agony coming to my ears from various rooms to the sides of the rounded tube-like hallway that we were now walking on down. As dark and forbidding as the previously hall, this was had the added distinction of having some bloodstains on some of the walls that slaves were busy attempting to wash away. The slaves wore over their ears noise canceling headphones which allowed them to listen to relaxing music and not have to hear the unpleasant noises that otherwise filled this place at times. One of the guards grabbed the rear end of one of the servant boys, who continued working despite that distraction. The guard chuckled and said: “I had him two nights ago! I gave that fine young ass of his a right good pounding, I did. Oh, you'd think it was the lad's first time, the way he screamed. But, it wasn't! Not by a long shot. I was just... that rough with him, I think.” One of the other guards replied, saying almost mirthfully: “Got to be careful! When they're that young, you can bleed 'em if you go that rough. Me, I always take it slow and easy, at least until they get loosened up a bit more. Especially when you poke a virgin! Cherry boys like those, you've got to break 'em in before you can give it to 'em rough like that.” They then laughed as if it was just two old friends discussing sports. I tried to put their conversation out of my mind and focus on the unpleasant task that surely awaited me whenever we got to Lady Yuri's place of confinement. I wanted to be away from these men as soon as I could be, but also was in no hurry to witness the horrors that I felt certain were soon to befall the captive noblewoman. Soon, we reached the place where the guards so told me the noblewoman was being held. They pressed a button on the door, and I entered the awful chamber beyond it. It was quiet, at least at the moment. I half expected to be greeting by shrieks of pain or screams of terror, but instead everything had this silence about it that was much more uncomfortable.
Various machines lined the walls, and tables and shelves containing all manner of devices, tools, and implements of torture. Jars of strange liquids, vats and tubs containing animal, insect, and human parts, all of which had about them the strong smell of preserving fluids. In the middle of the room, there was an X shaped table on which was shackled a beautiful young woman. She was in her mid-twenties, and had long straight raven black hair and somewhat sharp but still lovely features. She had brown eyes of a rich, deep color and her skin was sallow with a slight yellowish tone to it. She was slender, had small but well rounded breasts, and was wearing a long green silk gown with long puffy sleeves. The gown was laced up in the front, and had silvery trim. The sort of attire a noblewoman often favored. Her feet were bare, and I noticed that her face was bruised from having been struck. Clearly, this was Lady Yuri. She nearly fainted when she saw me enter the room, and then began to scream: “Oh gods no! No, not the Beast! I've already told you... I am sorry. I am sorry for the things I said against the Matriarch. But please, do not leave me at his mercy.” One of the five torturers on hand said to her in reply: “Silence! The Count is not here to partake in your agony... rather, to oversee your punishment which shall be up to us to administer. At least, once the Chief Interrogator arrives. You're early, Count.” I then said to the man as I sat down in a nearby chair to wait: “It was not my idea to come this early in the day! I came at the insistence of the guards, who demanded I get here by this hour. And so, here I am.” I smiled at the noblewoman, saying to her: “I see you have heard of me! Good. Then you know to fear my displeasure. You have a lot to answer for, woman... though I take no pleasure in your suffering, and in truth part of me hoped you had escaped so we could avoid this unpleasantness altogether. Did you not flee to a far enough place to escape the Matriarch's wrath?” Lady Yuri then said, sobbing in tears as she did so: “I tried... but no vessel would take me off planet once the Matriarch issued the warrant for my arrest. No way to flee! Now, it no longer matters. Where is my husband?” I then said to her, not comprehending: “What husband? I was not informed that you were ever even married.” One of the torturers then told me in answer: “The Matriarch's physician, the man who took her in. They had been married all along, although they kept their little union a secret from the public. We suspected it already, however... and, it was all too simple to extract the truth of it from her and from him... all it took was calling the man in and having the guards restrain him so he could watch whilst they raped her over and over again. Even so, both were very stubborn and it took her being violated many times more than it should have before he finally broke down and admitted to having wed the lady. She was crying for him to admit to it, by the time he finally saw reason and did so.” I then asked of the torturer: “Where is the husband now?” to which the torturer replied, by pointing to a large black window positioned high on the wall to the far right from the entrance door. One could see nothing through the black glass, but I knew that sort of a window was able to be seen out of from the other side. It had a spectacular view of the chamber and it has especially a perfect view of the torture table and the woman secured to it. The torturer said: “He is watching from behind the window there. Restrained, of course, so he remains a captive audience. This will ensure that he never betrays the Matriarch and our house ever again.” I regarded the woman on the table, as I asked her: “Was it worth it? To act as you did in defiance of our house!” She then said unto me angrily: “Damn your house! And damn you... filthy animals, all of you.” The torturer then told me: “Feel free, my count, to have your way with the lady. Perhaps that will cool her temper. And... do not be gentle with her either.” I walked over, and decided to indulge the invitation since I was bored waiting as it was. I felt Lady Yuri between her legs, fingering the moist cleft of her womanhood through her gown. I chuckled a bit and said to her: “I am surprised the guards left you clothed! You have a nice body. I will not make their mistake.” Then I unlaced her gown and roughly tore it open, exposing her breasts. I gave them a squeeze, and the woman cried pitifully. She spat at me, and then I slapped her across the mouth. After that, I tore her gown and ripped it until it was in tatters before proceeding with the business of so raping her. As I heaved atop her, the shaft of my manhood thrusting in and out of her... she kept crying.
I had just finished my violation of Lady Yuri and fixed my own clothes decently once again, when the Chief Interrogator walked into the chamber. I was surprised that it was somebody I actually recognized. It was the chief mentor and teacher to the Matriarch's immediate family, the lovely Kor'ha. I knew full well that she had often acted as an assassin and a spy in the past, but never until this day did I so realize she was also in charge of the interrogation ward at the palace. She smiled at me as she walked into the chamber, and noticed me hastily dressing myself. She glanced over at Lady Yuri, who lay moaning in a pitiful state, still firmly secured to the torture table. Then, she chuckled a bit and said: “Having fun, my count? You always do enjoy a good tryst with the ladies... and the lads too, when the mood takes you.” She was always quite a bit of a tomboy, and she kept her hair short and in a pixie style that would not have looked out of place on some men. She wore the same clothing the torturers all wore... blood red baggy pantaloons with a long sleeved blouse the same color tucked into it and a blood red sash belt tied around the waist. It was a very practical choice, clothing of that color, since if they got blood on it then it would show up a lot less if it stained. Privately, she always preferred male clothing to female clothes, and spoke in a tenor voice that showed she was trying to cultivate an effeminate but masculine gender identity. Even so, she was not yet ready to use male pronouns, and so I continued to use the female ones whenever addressing her or speaking about her. She was slender, beautifully androgynous, with totally silver cybernetic eyes which had replaced her original organic eyes years ago at her own insistence. Her new eyes could see much better, and also see things normal human eyes cannot. It was said some found her new eyes frightening to look into, but I personally was used to them and if anything I thought they lent her a certain unusual kind of beauty. Her lips were moist and had traces on them of a certain liquid she was addicted to, a substance some members of the Mentor guild used in order to boost their mind's capacity to perform intellectual feats far beyond those of most people. It had not yet begun to stain her lips though, so she was at least using the substance in enough moderation to avoid that side effect. Over time, she would succumb to temptation though, and come to bear those stains. But such was not yet the case. She walked with the confidence and flair of a high fashion model, and looked like she could be a model as well. She had a certain presence to her, and through that she commanded the respect, fear, and admiration of those who worked with. How many times, had I kissed those lips of hers? And tasted on them, the sweet apple flavored juice that was her drug of choice. I wondered sometimes, if some of the effects of it were transferred to me by way of our kisses. But enough people called me stupid to the sad degree that I knew I was most certainly not experiencing an increase in my intellect anytime soon. I did say unto Kor'ha: “It was not so much a tryst as a way to pass the time waiting for your arrival. I am very surprised... but delighted... to see it is you, we have been waiting for.” Then, the mentor walked over to the torture table and grabbed the captive noblewoman by the neck. She hissed at her: “Yes! But what of you, my lady, hmm... are you happy to see me again?” Lady Yuri's eyes went wide with fear, and she did begin to stammer a bit as she said in answer: “Oh gods, oh gods... no, no, not you! Not you! No, no, no, not you again.” Kor'ha sighed, then gestured theatrically about her as she spun in a slow circle and said: “Why! Why do they always, always, always act like this when I enter the room? You would think they'd get used to my presence, but no. They scream, they stammer, they stutter, and they shriek.” Then, she so focused her attention back on the captive prisoner, and said to her evilly: “Stop acting like that! I mean it... oh, what's the use...” and then the mentor struck Lady Yuri hard in the mouth with her fist, just not hard enough to break any of her teeth. She explained: “I know, precisely, how much pressure to use to hit you, my lady... without breaking even a single one of your teeth. I could hit you, and hit you, and hit you again and again and batter you until you were bruised and bloodied... leaving every single tooth in your mouth perfectly intact. But what about your sanity! Is it starting to slip, just a little?” Then, she did kiss Lady Yuri on the mouth passionately and savagely. After that, she licked the captive's face and then laughed hysterically. I sat back down in the chair, and decided to watch what was about to so transpire.
I had heard tell that Kor'ha had become twisted and insane in recent months. That she finally chose to embrace the darkest side of her nature. But even I was not prepared for what I witnessed her do next. It was a sight which would stay with me forever, for it was horrible beyond all imagining. The mentor did begin to bring over various canisters of fluids, and several machines... and I could not tell you what any of that was for. She inserted the tubes... which ended in sharp needles... into Lady Yuri's body, and this did cause the noblewoman to scream loudly in pain. Two tubes without needles, she inserted into Yuri's mouth, and then covered the woman's mouth with a transparent breathing mask that fit over the tubes. Tubes were inserted by that point into various key places all over the noblewoman, and the mentor did turn on the machines that were hooked up to the canisters. A low humming sound was heard, and then another needle and tube were placed into the prisoner's arm and this was hooked up to a large cylinder of liquid. A wire with a sharp needle on the end of it was then inserted between the woman's ribs and fed deep into her body until a loud beeping sound resounded and a nearby monitor turned on. It was a heartbeat monitor, but this was the cruelest way I had ever seen one implemented. No physician would ever use such a cruel, painful, and invasive method! Once this was in place, Kor'ha pressed buttons and levers and switches on the various machines until some of the fluids from the canisters began to empty into the woman's body by way of the tubes. Some kind of anesthesia was then pumped into her mouth by way of the tubes fed into it, and Kor'ha explained aloud that it was just enough to eliminate physical pain but without rendering the captive unconscious or asleep in any way, shape or form. In other words, whatever was about to be done to Lady Yuri... she would feel none of it, but be awake through all of it. “After all, we do not want to kill the lady... we want her alive, and fully aware... of everything we are going to do to her.” Once this was achieved, the mentor walked over to the tools on one of the shelves and picked out a cutting device with a laser-enhanced blade on it. It was strong enough to cut through bone cleanly, and the laser would cauterize the wound instantly to prevent the person from bleeding to death. A mercy when it came to necessary amputations in the medical profession... but a nightmare in the hands of a skilled torturer. Kor'ha walked over calmly, then put a finger over her lips as if to say: “Hush!” and then, she began to cut. She cut off the woman's arms and legs, and handed them to one of the torturers who I realized were her assistants. They then took them and placed them in an empty tank filled with preserving fluids for the time being. The noblewoman was then continually infused with the awful fluids from the canisters until her body began to bloat obscenely in the stomach and the abdomen quite grotesquely and nauseatingly. As she bloated... her skin blackened and began to wrinkle in places. She felt no pain, she could not scream, and she knew every second of what was happening to her. I had never witnessed anything like this before! What Lady Yuri, became... was something hideous, and truly grotesque in appearance. Made worse, when Kor'ha decided to tinker surgically with her. The horror of it was that Lady Yuri's face was still recognizable when all was said and done... except that instead of a normal mouth, she now had a long tube with a mouth at the end of it. Her tongue was lengthened, so it ran the length of the tube. And she could ingest liquids by sucking them up through the tube, and eat by the same means. How this was accomplished was meticulously laid out and enacted by Kor'ha with the utmost scientific and medical precision. Into the noblewoman's head was implanted two large and awful looking mechanical eyes which sat in her head above her natural eyes so that she had four eyes in all at the last. Then, her spine was “enhanced” with various mechanical means so that her head could be bent backwards for a short distance. Kor'ha bent the woman's head back so that if Yuri was on her stomach, her head could be fully looking forward, and tested moving it up and down just to be totally certain that it could move from its' normal position to that position, and also downwards a bit, with no difficulties. Kor'ha shaved the woman's head and burned her hair in a nearby oven. Then, she asked if the woman's limbs were reads to be reattached. Her assistants rushed to fetch the limbs, which during all this time had been altered so that they were now long and spindly, and as black as the woman's body so became.
The limbs were likewise “enhanced” through various means mechanical and otherwise, and after they were reattached to Lady Yuri's body... four more were brought over. Two more arms, and two more legs. These were as warped as the noblewoman's own limbs had become, and were obviously from another victim. The additional limbs were also attached to the woman's body, and everything was tested to be certain it was in proper working order with no side effects or difficulties. “Let me see her crawl, now!” ordered Kor'ha, and the noblewoman was taken down off the table and placed on the ground. Her eight limbs were like a spider's now... ending with palms in the front, and feet in the back. She crawled for a ways, lifting her head so she could see forward as she did so. Her breasts hanging down... the tube that replaced her mouth hanging down, and her eyes filled with the horror of what she had become. “Show her! I want her to see what she looks like now.” commanded the mentor, and Kor'ha's assistants brought forth a mirror and let the thing that had once been Lady Yuri gaze into it. The creature let out a horrible sound that was basically a slurping shriek, and it tried to speak, but because Kor'ha had messed with its' vocal chords surgically, it made inhuman sounds instead of words. It understood our language, for once it had been able to speak it as we could, but it never again would be able to speak coherent words at all. Its' monstrous, bloated bulk below the waist was in appearance just like that of a fat spider's body... but above the waist the thing had the appearance of a slender woman. Except for the head, which had those extra eyes and the tube instead of a normal mouth. The skin all over was stretched and wrinkled, and all trances of the noblewoman's former beauty were now gone forever. All of the tubes were then taken out of the thing, and it was allowed to crawl about freely. Two of the torturers came forward with long taser staffs and made certain to shock the creature whenever it went to make a violent move. It was angry, it was beyond broken, and its' mind had likely snapped from this experience. Kor'ha told her assistants: “I want her... it... sent to the animal trainers to be trained to obedient and subservient. I want this thing as docile as a kitten when all in said and done! Do you understand me?” and they bowed in obeisance as they had the creature taken out of the chamber. Kor'ha then washed her hands in a nearby sink, smiled sweetly and cheerfully and said unto me: “So... up for a bit of a late breakfast? Me, I am starving! Work always takes such a toll on me, Gislu my dear. If anything, I find myself more hungry after a good day's work than on a day when there is no work to be done at all.” I sighed, and asked her: “How can you be hungry after all that?” I personally felt sick to my stomach, and it did not help that this laboratory... for I realized now, that was what this chamber was... was filled with the strong smell of all manner of fluids, chemicals, and more ghastly things than those. I was honestly shocked that I had not thrown up yet. But I simply figured the shock of all this would likely hit me, more fully, later on. I said to Kor'ha: “What in the world, did I just witness?” the horror evident in my almost trembling voice. She dried her hands on a clean towel and said to me in reply: “The Matriarch just got a new pet, darling. That is all it was.” She looked up at the window through which, assuredly, Lady Yuri's husband had witnessed the whole awful transformation, and she remarked: “He probably fainted by now... or is mad with grief. I have to say, he chose a poor match for a wife. I doubt he will cause any trouble for the Matriarch again after all this.” Then, she looked back and me and explained: “And do not worry! Even after all those rapes, that thing will not be pregnant. I had Lady Yuri sterilized as soon as she was brought in, before any of the guards was given permission to so much as lay a finger on her. And I checked to make certain she was not with child already before we even got started with her. So, nothing to worry about there! This is a very large improvement over the last one I tried to make. That one could not seem to crawl even after extra limbs were attached... but this one took to it straight away. Guess sometimes women can be stronger than men are, eh? It definitely seems my stomach is stronger than yours... and they call you Beast! Ha.” I then did remind the mentor: “You forget! I am only partly male. I was born hermaphroditic, after all.” Kor'ha did answer to that, stating in a matter of fact manner: “Intersex. The correct term is intersex, actually. But, I get your meaning and of course I have not forgotten. We have... been intimate with each other after all.”
Once she got her clothes changed, into far more casual attire, Kor'ha decided to take me out for a bit of breakfast. I agreed that, as sickening as what I had just witnessed was, I needed to eat to keep myself in good health and remaining strong. We took a trip back to that city that I liked, and went to a diner we both loved eating at there. They still had the old video game machines there that Kor'ha always loved to watch me play. One was about a barbarian fighting monsters across the volcanic wilderness of Gehenna Primus in ancient times before the dawn of recorded history. At the end of the game, he becomes a king by his own hand. That, was the one that Kor'ha most enjoyed watching me play since I was good at it. I could beat the game most times I played it, too. And every time I did, Kor'ha would clap her hands and exclaim: “Bravo! My conquering hero!” and she would give me a big passionate kiss and I would hold her close, and it was good to feel her body up against mine, warm and inviting like that. She loved me, and I loved her. But her work kept her apart from me, and my life kept me far away from her from time to time. Whatever we had together... we had to make it last, whenever we crossed each other's paths yet again. “Care to give the game a try?” She asked, pointing to it after we had finished eating. I shook my head, and said: “No, not this time! Today, I just want to spend as much time focusing on you as I can. I am supposed to be going off planet tomorrow... though I could postpone my departure one more day if you like.” She smiled sweetly, almost innocently, and said unto me: “Yes! Please do, actually. I have a whole day free now, myself... I delegated sending a detailed report to the Matriarch to one of my most loyal assistants, so I do not have to get my hands dirty with boring bureaucracy. That means we would both have tomorrow for just... us. Speaking of which... what are we to each other, anyway, Gislu?” I did answer after pausing to think about it for a brief bit, stating: “Two soulmates who never really got much of a chance to find out where life could fully take them together.” That made her sigh, but she kept on smiling, and that made me smile also. She then told me in a serious tone of voice: “The Matriarch plans on sending me off very soon, on some strictly covert missions against our old enemies, House Hydres... the House of Water. That, means a trip to Ra'qia for me, one that could take a great deal of time, since it also involves me helping to secure the part of the planet that rightfully belongs to our house. Nothing to my knowledge has happened to our holdings there, but I need to make certain that House Hydres has in the Matriarch's absence not attempted to usurp our rightful claims on the part of the Holy Planet that is ours to maintain. In time, she will likely call for you too to come to Ra'qia and help out there. So, of a certainly our paths will cross again in due course.” She was so methodical even when she was relaxed! Her mind was a marvel to me, and it was her intelligence that I found so incredibly attractive about her. I said to her: “Kor'ha... do not worry, when the Matriarch calls for me to go there I will go. And we will meet up again, when I do. In the meantime, let us please not think of business, or of plots or plans or of missions and troubles with rival houses. Or any other complications in our lives! Just for today and for tomorrow, let us try to be like a normal couple and simply enjoy ourselves together.” She suddenly and very quickly rushed a deep and passionate kiss upon my lips. We had both taken breath mints to eat just after our breakfast, so the kiss tasted sweet and perfect. “Is that more like it?” she asked, her face very bright and beaming with undisguised delight. I smiled, and replied: “Perfect, actually!” She then ran to the video game machine and popped a coin into it. She motioned for me to come over and play. I did as she wished, and immersed myself in the game for her entertainment. And so, there we were... two of the most feared people on the whole planet, if not on many plants, and we were acting like children again. Playing, laughing, and having the time of our lives! I wanted that moment to last forever, but it went by quickly although in my memory it has lived on throughout the centuries long since. It was a good way to put aside the horror of what had befallen the unfortunate Lady Yuri and her husband. They were the Matriarch's problem now, and she was welcome to them. Right now, I was once more playing the hero for my sweet Kor'ha... and wondering why she and I never got married. “I love you!” I said to her, but the sound of it was drowned out by the noises of the video game machine. Even so... I think she knew.
Published 5th Jul 2023
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