Keyholder Demoness

Book 3

Chapter 01

“Your sister was right. You are the most stubborn person I have ever met,” Empusa said to Charity in her proper British accent..

On the other side of the steel bars that formed a sparse cell furnished with only a narrow cot, Charity raised her right hand with her middle finger extended.

Empusa scoffed. “The groomers and stable hands report that you are constantly talking to yourself. I know what you are trying to do! You obviously have decided that if you can hold on to your language then you can prevent the Zoic Amplifier that is locked around your waist from transitioning you to your true calling as a womanimal.”

Charity rolled her eyes.

“No one here speaks English. No one can understand a single word you are saying except me,” Empusa said. She looked at the woman in the next cell over. “Well… I guess that there is still a chance that Killdoll remembers English…”

Charity glanced over into the next cell. Killdoll had been kidnapped many years ago from Charity’s universe. She had been permanently encased in metal and rubber designed to erase her identity and focus her entire being on her arousal. Killdoll was currently standing in the far corner of her cell with her legs spread wide, twisting her torso from side to side so that her rubber, orb shaped hands swung away from her body.

“Whatever she is doing, I assume it is some form of masturbation…” Empusa commented as they watched Killdoll twist and turn, seemingly oblivious to anything else. “She has no way of communicating and even if she did, I’m fairly certain that she is so doped up on dopamine that she hardly cares.”

Charity turned back to look at Empusa, frowning, crossing her arms underneath her naked breasts.

“I understand that you have to go through this process of yours… You have to come to terms with the inevitability of your dehumanization… I even encourage you to take all the time that you want. I have patience.”

Charity continued to stare at Empusa, doing her best to remain expressionless.

“The truth is…” Empusa’s voice cracked a little. Charity gritted her teeth, wondering if this was an act. “The truth is that I really, really miss your sister.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Charity said and turned and walked to the far side of her cell distracting herself from the anger mounting within her by watching Killdoll’s rhythmic twisting.

“I didn’t have a choice!” Empusa stated. “When your Goddess requests something from you, you don’t ignore her! I’m in the same position as you wondering why Dammasch would be interested in Faith! I want you to talk to me. Tell me everything about your sister. Maybe I can… maybe WE can understand what it is about Faith that would draw the Goddess’s interest. Please! Before it’s too late…”

“Too late?!” Charity said, spinning around suddenly. “Your bitch goddess isn’t going to hurt Faith, is she?” Her words were slurred by the hardware embedded in her tongue. The ‘s’ sound came out as a ‘th’.

Empusa breathed out in disgust. “All life is considered precious here, Charity. We don’t hurt people as a means for revenge like in your failed universe. We are much more perfect.”

“What a crock,” Chastity mumbled. “You just modif… mod… You fucking change the people you don’t like into strange monsters, like that… that…” Charity pointed over to the cage that housed an ugly cat woman hybrid creature. Then she let out a long moan. “Oh! Fuck me!” Charity started to stagger over towards her cot, pressing her hands over the faceplate of the chastity belt locked around her loins - her arousal quickly climbing.

In the next cell, Killdoll’s twisting suddenly became stunted and she dropped to a knee before slowly tipping over - the featureless steel orb that encased her head made a clanking sound as it hit the floor.

Charity climbed into her cot, no longer concerned about Empusa or her anger or the ugly cat-woman hybrid. “MMmm!” She only cared about her need to orgasm.

Empusa looked at Charity struggling with her arousal in the cot. Then she glanced at Killdoll shaking and stretching on the floor in the next cell over somewhere deep in the throes of another orgasm. She shook her head and walked away, realizing that more conversation with Charity would have to wait now, mumbling to herself. “That’s got to suck - never able to orgasm, while you neighbor can do nothing but orgasm all day long…”

<>--+-

It had been two weeks since Empusa had betrayed Faith. (tick) arrived at Charity’s cell and dressed her in a strong leather harness with a sturdy chain lead.

“click oree click ah-ee click in?” Charity asked. She had been trying very hard to learn the native language, determining that any form of communication was better than none. Unfortunately, with a chain half submerged in the flesh of her tongue, she was incapable of making proper clicking sounds. And that apparently made her diction difficult for the native speakers to understand.

Indeed, (tick) looked confused for a moment, so Charity said the words again more slowly. She was simply trying to ask if (tick) was getting her prepared to go for a run with Hazel and Garnet, the paired, armless ponygirls. Finally, (tick) shook the lead chain of the harness that Charity was wearing, then pointed over to the corral where the ponygirls were being fed and nodded her head.

It seemed like for every three words that Charity learned of the native language, she forgot two. Regardless, it seemed like an improvement… as long as she disregarded the fact that she was forgetting English words by the page. Of course, the ponygirls could not speak at all.

Although Charity was no longer living under the illusion that she was anything more than Empusa’s prisoner, her daily routine had changed very little since Faith had been taken away. She was tethered to the ponygirls almost daily and they would run freely for miles across the fields bordering the seaside cliffs.

Hazel and Garnet were much bigger than Charity. They were much stronger. Since the three were physically chained together, Charity was always subject to their whims regarding their routes and destinations. On the other hand, the ponygirls were extremely protective of Charity and always gentle.

The closest that Charity was able to get to sexual satisfaction was providing the ponygirls with oral pleasure. They especially loved the metal nubs that lined Charity’s tongue. And, in Charity’s mind, that made her diction problems completely worthwhile.

Often as they ran in the cool, ocean breezes with the sun overhead, Charity felt that she should simply succumb to the chastity belt, the Zoic Amplifier, as they called it - the device that was apparently sapping away her language, her understanding of the use of tools, and so much more - the device that was turning her into an animal.

Unfortunately, Charity knew that once her transformation was complete, Empusa would not allow her to run with the ponygirls any more. Rather, she would be confined with chains in a cave up at the Promontory where she would be left in isolation to wallow in rabid, unending arousal. She would be a Source Witch. Her arousal would be a power source for Empusa’s magic.

So, Charity was determined to cling to humanity for as long as possible. Maybe Faith would be able to convince Dammasch to rescue her. Maybe Hope, Charity’s well-decorated native lover, would figure out a way to free Charity. Maybe Charity would eventually find Blue, who wore the key to the chastity belt. Maybe she would again be free of the belt which she had worn for so long now… In fact, she hardly remembered ever NOT wearing the belt. Even in memories that predated Empusa, or Dammasch, or even Blue, she imagined herself as walking through life naked and belted.

In the early afternoon, the ponygirls led Charity into the shade of a small grove of trees. She pulled food from a small bag attached to her harness and hand-fed Hazel and Garnet between her own mouthfuls. They drank from a small creek and found a soft grassy spot to settle for a little while. Charity smiled up at the ponygirls and reached an arm around Hazel’s waist. She dropped to her knees in front of Hazel and began to press her tongue to Hazel’s sex. She gently grasped Garnet’s leg, just to affectionately let her know that she would attend to her, all in good time. This was the standard sequence of events during an afternoon’s rest.

Just as Charity began to press her tongue into Hazel’s slit, though, on this day, Hazel stepped forward causing Charity to fall over on her back with a squeal. Hazel turned around and knelt down with her knees on either side of Charity’s body, pressing her large muscular butt down on Charity’s upper chest, easily pinning her to the ground. Meanwhile, Garnet had gently kicked Charity’s legs wide apart and dropped down to position herself so that she held Charity immobile.

Then both ponygirls attacked her with their inordinately long and muscular tongues, licking and teasing along her inner thighs and the soft flesh of her abdomen - getting as close to her sex as the chastity belt allowed. Charity closed her eyes and smiled, “Oh, fuck yes!” Hazel pressed her butt further back forcing Charity to close her mouth.

Charity could not move at all and the weight of the women on top of her was divine. They were in complete control. All that Charity could do was exist and experience the pleasure that the ponygirls were giving her. “Mmm!” Maybe they would take her there - over the crested wave of arousal.

As their attack continued, Charity moaned in satisfaction, encouraging each advance as they became more aggressive. Hazel eventually shifted back enough to force Charity to lick her slickened sex, pressing more heavily each time Charity tried to moan. Both of the ponygirls’ tongue stokes soon became interrupted by the scrape of teeth and even bruising nips of flesh.

“Maybe!” Charity thought while simultaneously trying not to think at all.

Later, the three lay motionless in the tall grass as the sun slowly made its way across the sky, pleasantly exhausted, drool, cum, and somewhat surprisingly, a bit of pee drying on their bodies. Unfortunately, none of the cum was Charity’s.

But still, Charity was happy. She loved these beautiful, powerful, simple, ponygirls with all her heart. “I love you, Hazel and Garnet,” she whispered. Then she started laughing. The ponygirls smiled back at her.

Eventually they made their way back to the creek and washed off before jogging back toward their home in the menagerie.

<>--+-

Killdoll was standing in the corner of her cell, her leg thrust between the bars, slowly drawing in the dirt of the adjacent stall with her toe. Charity sighed and went to look and see what Killdoll was up to.

They had made a practice of playing hangman. It was about the only way that Charity had been able to communicate with the bound woman. Unfortunately, Killdoll used the same word almost every time they played, “love”. Charity was concerned that Killdoll had been so badly damaged mentally by her isolation that there was not much cognitive activity going on in Killdoll’s head anymore.

Unfortunately, Charity’s empathy for Killdoll was somewhat tempered by the fact that almost every interaction caused Killdoll to have an orgasm. And every time Killdoll had an orgasm, Charity could feel the waves of erotic energy wash out from her, swamping Charity in an extreme state of arousal that basically disabled her for a brief period of time.

When Charity looked through the bars, she saw six hearts drawn into the dirt. For some reason, Killdoll was unable to draw any symbol other than a heart, but Charity recognized that each heart represented a single letter of the word that Killdoll wanted to communicate. Charity was ecstatic that this evening’s word was not “love”.

“E,” Charity guessed, looking into the camera lenses mounted on the faceplate of Killdoll’s crotch piece that acted as her eyes. Killdoll nodded her featureless orb head and pointed with her toe.

Charity drew the ‘E’ where Killdoll indicated.

_ _ _ _ _ E _

“R?”

_ R _ _ _ E _

‘S’, ‘T’ and ‘C’ were all misses, but ‘G’, ‘O’ and ‘A’ filled out more of the puzzle.

O R G A _ E _

There was no word that Charity could think of that would complete the puzzle. She started to worry that maybe it was a word that she had forgotten - that perhaps her conversion to becoming an animal was washing away her language. Then again, it had to be a word that fit into Killdoll’s extremely tiny world. Maybe Killdoll was a terrible speller. Could the word be ‘orgasm’? Didn’t you spell ‘orgasm’ with an ‘s’? Certainly, Charity knew how to spell ‘orgasm’. But, maybe SHE was the one who was misspelling the word. Charity couldn’t remember how to spell ‘orgasm’!

“M?” Charity asked.

Killdoll was practically jumping with excitement as she pointed to the last space with her toe.

O R G A _ E M

Charity looked at Killdoll, who was trembling with excitement. She frowned. She knew what was going to happen when she made the guess that completed the puzzle. Killdoll would become overwhelmed with excitement and collapse as she orgasmed. And Charity would drown in extreme and unrequitable arousal. An arousal so encompassing that she would forget her concern about the correct spelling of the word. Maybe she would even forget the word itself.

Charity sighed.

“Z…”

<>--+-

“Clock-ee-ah?” Charity asked holding up the chain leash and shaking it as (tick) prepared her for another day outside with the ponygirls.

(tick) smiled and spoke with emphasis. “(clock)-ee-ah… (clock)… (clock)…”

It was a sound that was created by pressing one’s tongue against the top of the mouth, forming a bit of suction, before popping the tongue away. With the metal nubs in her tongue, Charity seemed to be incapable of making a proper (clock) sound.

“Clock?” she said.

“(clock)…” (tick) replied.

“Fuck!” Charity said, halfheartedly.

“Fuh!” (tick) mimicked, smiling.

<>--+-

“Faith was your sister, but you aren’t actually related to her, right?” Empusa asked through the bars of Charity’s cage a week later.

“We refer to that as a step sister,” Charity explained. “She had different parents then me, but she was aband… uh… her parents did not want her… or something…”

Charity had decided that talking to Empusa not only allowed her to hear English and practice speaking it, but also, she hoped that Empusa might pass on any information about what had happened to Faith. For the past three days, Empusa had talked to Charity. Unfortunately, even though Charity answered all of Empusa’s questions as honestly as possible, she could tell Empusa was becoming increasingly frustrated. She obviously wasn’t finding out any useful information.

“So, your parents adopted Faith when she was 12 years old,” Empusa confirmed. “And you were not born yet.”

“No!” Charity had told all this to Empusa before. “My mother was told that she should not have children, so they got Faith. Of course, as soon as they did, my mother became pregnant with me. And… it turns out that the doctors were correct. My mother did not… She died.”

“And, you are sure that Faith is not actually your mother?” Empusa asked.

“What the fuck? Are you gross?” Charity screamed. “She was only twelve!”

“You’re the one from the failed universe,” Empusa responded. “I’m sure all kinds of crappy things happened there.”

“What bullshit,” Charity grunted. “I’ve seen pictures of Faith when she was twelve with my mother who was pregnant with me. My mother died when I was born…” Charity felt tears start to run down her face.

“So, basically, you killed your own mother?” Empusa asked.

“I… Fuck you, Empusa!”

“You sister was right. You are a potty mouthed, annoying bitch.”

“She never said that!” Charity screamed. “I’ve tried to be as helpful as possible answering all your questions. You’re the fucking bitch that betrayed her. Eat shit and die!”

“And I can see that talking with you has just been a waste of time,” Empusa replied. “I’ve decided that you are useless to me. I want you to transition to being an animal now.”

“What?!”

“Conversation time is over, animal,” Empusa said. She slapped the bars of Charity’s cell and turned to walk away.

“You say I’m stubborn!” Charity screamed. “I’ll show you stubborn. I’ll never be your animal! Cunt!”

<>--+-

The next morning Charity awoke in her cell. She could see handlers and groomers in the menagerie, starting the day, feeding and bathing the inhabitants as normal, but it was inordinately more quiet. When (tick) arrived at Charity’s cell, she understood why. (tick) was wearing some sort of panel gag.

“What the…” Charity said in horror. She said the word for ‘breakfast’ in the local language which she had learned recently. (tick) nodded, but almost imperceptibly. Her eyes seemed to be filled with fear. She began to prepare Charity’s meal.

“Empusa! You are a cruel bitch!” Charity yelled. There was no answer from any of the individuals working or living in the menagerie. It seemed that Empusa had decided to prevent anyone from communicating with Charity in any way. Obviously, Empusa’s patience with Charity’s transformation had come to an end. “I’ll keep on talking no matter that no one is able to respond to me, Empusa! Hey, Hazel and Garnet!” Charity yelled. “Kick your handlers. Bite them!”

Some distance away, Charity saw Hazel and Garnet turn to look at her. They smiled at her, but otherwise seemed content to let their handlers prepare them for the day. They couldn’t understand anything that Charity said.

“Killdoll!” Charity yelled. The faceless woman in the next cell over bounced to the shared wall of bars. “Let’s riot! Let’s fuck this place up!”

Killdoll started jumping around excitedly.

“Oops!” Charity screamed out into the menagerie. “That was a mistake! The horny bitch is going to cum again, now! That’s right, ugly cat woman!” she shouted to the inhabitant of the cell across the walkway. “Killdoll’s going to meow! Which is more than you ever do!”

Charity continued to scream out into the silence of the building - whatever random thoughts entered her head. At least until Killdoll DID get so excited that she collapsed in the midst of another orgasm. Killdoll’s energy washed over Charity until she was so filled with sexual arousal she dropped to her knees, incapable of forming words, clutching her own breasts and pinching her own nipples. Her belt was glowing blue.

For the next week, the routine inside the menagerie went on as normal except in complete silence. Every person that worked in the building wore a panel gag. They all went about their business without making any vocal sounds at all. Charity, on the other hand, made sure to babble on endlessly.

(tick) groomed Charity as normal. She treated her kindly at all times. But Charity could tell that all the other workers were becoming more and more annoyed with Charity’s hoarse voice.

Once, even, while resting in the shade of some trees, Hazel nudged Charity until she was pressed up against Garnet’s body. Then she pressed her nipple into Charity’s mouth, muffling the constant stream of words that Charity spoke. They held Charity like that even after Charity promised to stop talking and quieted down. It was actually very comforting for Charity to be pressed so tightly between the ponygirls. They had draped their legs over her, keeping her from fidgeting at all. She closed her eyes and fell into a pleasant sleep, awaking sometime later with Hazel’s nipple still pressed between her lips.

One evening some handlers wheeled Killdoll’s frame into her cell. Charity watched as the handlers installed Killdoll into the frame, locking her hands high above her head, spreading her legs so they fit in the open sided tubes that formed the base of the frame which resembled an upside down Y.

“Great!” Charity screamed out into the menagerie. “I guess Empusa is going to have another one of her fucking rituals where she turns an inno… a… a young woman into some kind of… of monster and says that she is helping with her calling! Such bullshit!”

Eight tall women dressed in armor entered the menagerie and were walking towards her cell.

“I guess the bitch is going to make me watch!” Charity yelled. “That’s fine. I will enjoy disrupting whatever evil is going on! I don’t mind being annoying.”

The women were not wearing panel gags, but they seemed to have no intention speaking with Charity at all. One unlocked the door to Charity’s cell and they all began to file in. Charity was definitely starting to get nervous. She staggered back away from the door, doing her best to maintain her bravado.

“I’m glad that you could all join the party! Did anyone bring something to drink?”

Two more guards entered the menagerie pushing some sort of chair mounted on a wheeled platform. Behind them was the queen.

“Ah, Empusa! Bitch! Betrayer!” Charity screamed. Four of the guards surrounded Charity, suddenly grabbing her arms and legs. “Let me go, you fucking bitches!”

More guards surrounded Charity. She was no match to their strength as they picked her up off the ground and deposited her into the chair once it was rolled into the cell. The chair forced Charity into a reclining position on her back. There were stirrup-like projections that her legs were pushed into and leather straps were used to secure her in place.

“I don’t have anything to lose, Empusa!” Charity screamed. “You won’t break me!”

“I love a formidable challenge,” Empusa said with a smile.

Charity felt a sudden wave of arousal wash over her. She looked over into Killdoll’s cell and noticed that one of the handler’s was starting to run a finger over a slight groove on the faceplate of Killdoll’s crotch piece.

“Aren’t we going to go outside… so you can show off all your… ugh… crappy magic tricks… bitch?” Charity said as she felt herself begin to lose control of her tongue.

Guards had pulled Charity’s left arm out to the side. They placed her hand on a flat thin board with an array of small holes drilled through it. A U-shaped metal piece was slipped over her wrist. The ends of the U were pushed through two convenient holes on the board and some sort of nuts were tightened on the underside, pinning her hand in place. A collection of smaller U-shaped pieces were produced and slipped around each individual finger.

“Tonight’s show is purely for your benefit, my annoying, obnoxious, animal friend,” Empusa said.

Charity realized that her right hand was quickly being secured in a similar manner as well. “What… what… are you… doing?”

A blue glow began to pulse from the faceplate of Charity’s chastity belt. The light slowly became brighter each time that Killdoll’s handler stroked her groove. Killdoll was already trembling uncontrollably.

Empusa reached into a compartment in the base of the chair and pulled out a long, wide-bladed knife with a serrated edge.

“No! N.. n.. No!” Charity screamed. “Em… ple… No!”

“Don’t worry, my pet,” Empusa said, her mouth set in a wide grin. “My magic will transform the pain into pleasure.” She turned the blade of the knife from side to side watching the light from the smooth mirror finish. “Hmm… You might even like this…”

“No! Mmmm… mmmfff…!”

On each side of Charity a guard was wrapping a small leather band around the tip of each thumb. Charity was flailing against the bonds that held her tightly in the chair.

“My magic will also heal you almost instantaneously,” Empusa continued. “But, you are already quite familiar with my work… After all, Hazel and Garnet don’t even have scars where their arms once were attached…”

“Mmmm!”

“Animals don’t generally have opposable thumbs,” Empusa explained. “I’m simply aligning you with your future identity, animal.”

The guards used the small leather straps to pull Charity’s thumbs away from her pinned hands. Empusa brought the knife down with a controlled and precise strike.

Charity’s screams filled the menagerie.

Chapter 02

Charity knelt in front of Garnet, pressing her tongue between the ponygirl’s labia. The sun was shining and a cool breeze was blowing off the ocean. Hazel knelt into the grass beside Charity and began to kiss gently along her neck, using her tongue to push Charity’s hair out of the way as she moved closer.

Charity closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. She moved her head a little higher and started to tease Garnet’s clitoris with the slick metal nubs in her tongue. She slid her right hand up Garnet’s thigh and pushed her middle two fingers into the wet warmth of Garnet’s sex, curling her fingers after sliding in a bit.

She no longer had thumbs.

It had been more than two weeks since Empusa had used her knife on Charity’s hands. It still did not seem real. She no longer had thumbs.

Empusa had spoken truthfully. Charity had felt no pain. She may have even orgasmed. She had passed out the moment that she saw the first thumb separate from her hand. When she revived, her thumbs were gone.

There were no wounds to heal or even scars. There was no indication that she had ever had thumbs at all.

Hands look strange - alien, even - when they lack thumbs. She stared at her hands for hours afraid to touch anything with them. It took several days before she had the nerve to press the flesh where a thumb once emerged. There was no pain. There was no indicator beneath the skin that she had once had thumbs - no bone stub. Nothing. They had been erased from existence.

Regardless of Charity’s trauma, life went on as usual in the menagerie. (tick) harnessed Charity and chained her to the ponygirls for daily runs - a pouch attached, filled with dried vegetable pellets to eat. Charity’s hands were shaking the first time she pulled the pellets from the pouch, dropping half on the ground as they slipped through her clumsy fingers.

She held her mutilated hands up for Hazel and Garnet to see, but they didn’t even seem to understand that her hands were different from what they had once been. What do armless ponygirls know about the natural shape of hands?

Charity no longer spent her days talking endlessly. Perhaps, that was Empusa’s goal - to shut her up. She still talked to herself from time to time, but not merely to be annoying. Empusa seemed content to wait for Charity’s transformation to complete. Charity was beginning to feel it was inevitable too. She knew she was losing words.

She thought about what people would think when she returned home with no thumbs. How would she take notes when her patients visited her? That thought only bothered her until she realized that she could no longer remember why she had patients. She could remember sitting with them in an office and asking probing questions about the dark spaces in their lives. This had been something that she had trained many years to do, but she could no longer remember exactly what her goal was or how someone chose to utilize whatever service it was that she provided. She couldn’t remember her job title.

As the sun began to slide towards the horizon, the ponygirls would become keen to eat something more than the dry, vegetable pellets and they would turn back towards the menagerie. Charity would quickly match their pace as they jogged back towards the building that housed the animalized women. (tick) would unchain Charity as Hazel and Garnet kissed her one last time for the day.

(tick) would remove the dusty harness. Charity would stand quietly as her handler washed the dirt from her naked skin with a pleasant smelling soap and hand fed her fruit. She held cups of water to Charity’s lips and lovingly tipped the containers to allow Charity to drink her fill. Finally, she would lead Charity to her cell, closing the barred door, turning the key to set the bolt, and bidding a parting wave until the next day.

<>--+-

Late one afternoon, a collection of handlers entered Killdoll’s cell and began to strap her into the upside-down Y frame. Charity immediately started trembling in fear, worried that Empusa would soon arrive and lop off another body part. She started to feel a little relieved when the handlers wheeled Killdoll out of her cell and through the exterior doors of the menagerie.

Unfortunately, moments later, Empusa arrived with six guards. They made their way straight over to Charity’s cell.

“Are you an animal yet?” Empusa said with a smirk on her face.

“Fuck you,” Charity replied, quietly.

“Ah, I guess not. And, you are pleasant as ever, I see,” Empusa said.

The guards opened the cell, entered and grabbed Charity by her arms.

“What the hell do you want?” Charity asked.

“It’s a beautiful afternoon for faeries, don’t you think?” Empusa said. “Are you horny? Of course you are.”

Charity noticed that one of the guards had a pair of fetters connected with a thick chain. Charity glanced down at her hands. Maybe now that she had no thumbs she would be able to slip right out of a pair of cuffs.

Two guards pulled Charity’s arms behind her back as the third approached with the fetters. Unfortunately, Charity felt the cuff tighten around her upper arm just above her elbow, not her wrist. As the second cuff was applied to her other arm, the guards manipulated Charity’s forearms behind her so that each hand was grasping the opposite elbow. Leather straps were wrapped tightly around her forearms, locking them into a strict box tie.

Empusa looked down at Charity’s chest. “Just like your sister said. Your body loves a little bondage.”

Charity flushed and looked down at her naked breasts with her nipples swollen in arousal. “Fuck you!” she said, once again.

“You’ll love this,” Empusa said as she produced a chain, shaking it out. “Custom measured to fit your nasty little mouth.” Empusa roughly grabbed Charity’s face, squeezing her cheeks so that her mouth was open. “Stick out your tongue!”

Charity didn’t really see any reason to resist. The six guards standing around would likely force Charity to do whatever Empusa wanted anyway. Maybe if the Queen became a little complacent, Charity could bite her.

As soon as Charity stuck out her tongue, Empusa hooked the chain through the ring embedded in the tip of her tongue. She dropped the chain and its weight yanked Charity’s tongue a little further. The chain branched into two about halfway down, and each arm ended in a flattened clamp.

“Ahhh!” Charity grunted. And she moaned even louder when Empusa attached each clamp tightly to each of Charity’s nipples. Charity tried to pull her tongue back into her mouth, but the chain was too short to stretch from her chest into her mouth, so she was left looking down with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

The guards holding Charity’s arms pushed her forward and marched her out of the menagerie as drool started to drip down her chin.

The guards escorted Charity at a brisk pace to the location where a new outdoor amphitheater was currently being built nestled between the oceanside cliffs and the hilltop Promontory - the site of Charity’s future permanent prison cell. Charity was forced to keep her head down as she was dragged along the rocky path. The tension of the chain strung between her tongue and nipple clamps was a constant annoyance.

By the time they arrived at the amphitheater, Charity’s breasts were covered in drool and her nipples were quite sore. Regardless, Charity strained to look around. Killdoll’s upside-down Y frame had been set up on a low rise on the opposite side of the open air wooden stage. A handler sat in front of Killdoll, occasionally stroking a groove on Killdoll’s crotch plate. Charity could feel each stroke as a wave of arousal splashing against her.

There was no audience this afternoon. On the other hand, there were a number of guards and a coffle of four naked women chained to one another by their necks. The woman at the lead of the coffle was unleashed and escorted onto the stage by three guards where Empusa was waiting. Killdoll’s handler began stroking the groove with greater enthusiasm and frequency. Charity’s knees began to become weak and she was unable to suppress an open-mouthed moan. The guards held Charity’s arms tightly so that she could remain upright.

Empusa seemed to be staring at Charity. Her face evolved into a look of satisfaction as Charity’s chastity belt began to emit a blue glow. She turned to the naked woman held before her, raised her hands and began to dramatically chant in the local language. The naked woman’s face was contorted in fear as she looked up at Empusa.

A bolt of electricity crackled from Empusa’s hands. The guards surrounding the naked woman jumped out of the way as she was enveloped in a flash of light that forced Charity to close her eyes. When Charity was able to open her eyes again, at first she thought that the woman had simply disappeared. Upon closer inspection, however, she realized that the woman had been shrunken. She was only about ten inches tall and four diaphanous wings extended from her back.

Empusa said something to the shrunken woman who was twisting from side to side, suddenly discovering her new wings. Slowly, they began to flap, building in intensity from moment to moment. Empusa seemed to become impatient. She bent down and grabbed the miniature woman and then cast her into the air off the side of the wooden stage. The small woman carved a gentle arc through the air. Her wings began to emit a buzzing sound. Still, gravity took hold, and the woman fell to the earth, landing with a distinct thud - a small cloud of dust rising around the point of impact.

The small woman seemed to be fairly hearty and slowly stood up. However, two guards were standing nearby. One grabbed the small woman, while the second produced a sturdy bird cage.

Empusa walked over to Charity, smiling. “That was quite an improvement! She was almost able to fly!”

Charity looked up at Empusa and grunted, breathing heavily, her chest covered in sweat and drool.

“I’ve improved my technique and your arousal is providing an excellent power source. I’m certain that when your transformation to womanimal is complete, I’ll be able to turn women into fully functioning faeries with ease! We’re so close!”

Empusa turned to look at the remaining three naked women cowering in chains. Charity shook her head vigorously. “Let’s give it another try, shall we?”

Empusa shouted at Killdoll’s handler and strolled back onto the stage as the second naked woman was detached from the coffle. Charity felt her knees weaken again as arousal began to wash over her. She realized that she was jerking her head back, her tongue vigorously pulling the chains to her clamped nipples. She could not help but to writhe in ecstasy as her guards held her firmly in place. She was so close to an orgasm. Just a little more…

There was another flash of light and soon after, a second winged, miniaturized woman sailed a smooth arc through the evening sky, buzzing loudly, but, still, collapsing with a thump into the dirt.

Eventually, the coffle was empty and the bird cage held four small, winged, naked women. Empusa, despite her complete lack of success, seemed happy with the progress of her faerie making skills. Charity was incapable of supporting herself on her feet and she was covered in sweat and drool. Killdoll seemed to be unconscious in her metal frame as they all slowly made their way back towards the menagerie under the stars of the darkening night.

Back in her cell, the guards dropped Charity onto her cot. They unclamped her nipples, briefly inspiring a new degree of vigor to Charity’s moans. Then they shut her cell door and walked away. Charity lay there with her arms still pinioned behind her back and the jewelry chain still clipped to her aching tongue. The bondage would remain until (tick) arrived the next morning.

<>--+-

“She was a girl, soft but estranged. We were the two, our lives rearranged.”

Charity could tell she was losing her words more quickly every day. When she whispered to herself, alone in her cell, she could tell she was having difficulty stringing entire sentences together. On the other hand, she found that words came smoothly and quickly when she sang songs. So, she had taken up the practice of singing as often as she could.

“Twisting and turning, your feelings are burning, you're breaking the girl!”

She tried to remember as many songs as she could. One day as she was singing an old Red Hot Chili Peppers song from the ‘90s, she realized that Killdoll was moving oddly in her cell. The time measure of the song is 6/8 which gives it a waltz-like feel. Killdoll was stepping, then shifting her hips from side to side… step-hip-hip, step-hip-hip.

Charity started singing a little louder. “Think you're so clever, but now you must sever. You're breaking the girl.”

Killdoll was dancing! She made her way over to the bars between their cells and began to beat out the rhythm with the padded rubber orbs that encased her hands - thump-tap-tap, thump-tap-tap. Killdoll knew this song!

Of course, Charity knew that Killdoll was kidnapped from Charity’s world long ago. But with few lines of communication available, it was easy to forget their common origin. As Charity sang and Killdoll thumped out the beat, Charity started to wonder if she could estimate when Killdoll was kidnapped by what songs she knew. She started thinking of other songs in the same genre that Killdoll might remember.

“Twisting and turning, your feelings are… Oh, crap!”

Killdoll collapsed on the ground, shaking. The waves of arousal swept over Charity and she, too, stumbled to the floor, crawling towards her cot. Dancing was, by far, enough stimulus to make Killdoll orgasm. Unfortunately, no matter how close, there was never enough stimulus for Charity.

<>--+-

It had been a month since Faith had been gone. Charity was lying on her cot in her cell, mindlessly lightly brushing her breasts with her fingertips. More and more, she found that hours would pass and she would have no memory of what she had been thinking about. All she would remember was the swirl of arousal pulsating through her body and the frustration of the inability to do anything about it.

(tick) opened the door to Charity’s cell. She was carrying a new harness. Oddly, it was made of thin metal straps. The harness fit over her head - a curved piece slipped over each shoulder. The shoulder straps were connected by a metal strip that ran across her chest, just below her neck. The shoulder straps continued down, curving to the side, framing her breasts, then tucking in, matching her curves, to her waist. Behind her, the shoulder straps merged between her shoulder blades into a single piece that descended into the small of her back. Two metal pieces were attached to circle her waist and ratcheted tightly. A short stub descended from the cross piece below her neck. It ended at the very base of her sternum. A heavy chain was attached to a staple, at the end of the stub. About twenty five feet of sparkling links of chain payed out across the floor of Charity’s cell.

The harness fit well, but still, Charity was worried about how it would chafe as she moved. Certainly, this material was much less forgiving than the leather harnesses she was normally fit into for her runs with the ponygirls.

Charity tried to question (tick), but got no response at all from the gagged handler. Oddly, however, once the harness was completely set about Charity, (tick) leaned in and pressed her gagged mouth to Charity’s cheek for a second, a kiss of sorts.

Four guards arrived at Charity’s cell. One picked up the chain attached to her sternum and pulled her forward. They led her out of the menagerie, two in front, two behind. They walked across the pasture and onto a forest trail. After about a mile, Charity noticed a woman standing amongst the trees - Queen Empusa.

“Hello, Charity,” she said. “A beautiful day for a walk, isn’t it?”

“I’m not… I’m not inter…” Charity was having trouble completing the sentence. “I don’t want to be with you.”

“I’d think you’d value each verbal interaction you have,” Empusa said. “These are likely some of the last you will ever have.”

“Fuck you,” Charity said.

“Ah! There’s my favorite, little ill-mannered pet,” Empusa said, smirking.

“I’d rather be… be…”

“Masturbating in your cell? I know,” Empusa said. “I have news about Faith. I thought you’d be interested.”

Charity looked up at Empusa, frowning.

“She is doing great, apparently,” Empusa said. “She is being hosted in a guest suite by the Goddess, herself. They have been seen together throughout Paradise. She’s perfectly healthy. She’s not wasting away in some dungeon or being sacrificed to some horrible, hairy monster. She is perfectly safe.”

“What shit,” Charity said.

“There’s no point in me lying to you, pet,” Empusa said. “Let’s walk.”

Despite the fact that Charity did not believe Empusa, she felt a small sense of hope. If Dammasch was talking with Faith, then certainly, Faith would plead for Charity’s release. Maybe the Goddess would come for her and unlock the chastity belt from her waist.

“You may be interested that a group of people followed you through the gate from your universe into mine,” Empusa said.

Charity had a vision of Tumalo, the police detective that Faith shot.

“Apparently two of the people who came through are, in fact, Aradale, Goddess Dammasch’s sister,” Empusa continued.

“Two?” Charity asked, unable to quell her curiosity.

“Sure. Every parallel universe has its own copy of battling sisters,” Empusa explained. “Here, Dammasch won and our universe is beautiful and steeped in magic. In your universe, Aradale won. You have your technology which is killing your universe. Obviously, your version of Aradale has decided to get out while she can. Apparently, she brought another universe’s version of herself along too.”

Charity was having trouble understanding what Empusa was talking about. “Who is… Aradale?”

“Don’t you remember? Poor pet,” Empusa said, laughing. “Long ago, the Goddess Dammasch and her sister, Aradale, fought for the control of the universe. In our version of the universe, Dammasch won and condemned Aradale to eternal bondage in the Hollow Well. So, now the Goddess has discovered two other Aradales in exile. Apparently, they are guests of the Goddess in Paradise now.”

Charity remembered the story, but she was trying to conceptualize that there were now multiple people who were the same person here.

“So, is your sister Aradale?” Empusa asked. “Is Faith actually Aradale?”

Charity stared at Empusa. “Faith is my…. My…. She’s my fucking sister!”

They quietly walked along the path through the forest. Charity was still being led along by the chain leash attached to her harness. They came around a bend and arrived at a barn-like structure. Charity felt a sudden pulse of arousal course through her body.

“Ah, here we are,” Empusa said.

“Where…” Charity started to ask. She felt another pulse of arousal.

“Hmmm… Anyways, I’m hoping that you will find comfort knowing that Faith is doing well,” Empusa said. “You are the one with the special calling. This is your path. You need to let your past go. Stop wasting your energy worrying about your sister.”

Charity grunted as another wave of arousal washed over her.

“You are the Source Witch. Become who you are meant to be,” Empusa said.

Charity opened her mouth to say something, but she had become too aroused to be able to align her mouth and could only make inarticulate noises. “Ahhh uhhh!”

Empusa opened the doors of the barn and the guards led Charity into the dark interior.

Once inside, Charity glanced to the left. Killdoll had been installed into her metal frame, the upside down Y, where her arms were chained above her body and her legs spread wide below. A handler was kneeling between Killdoll’s legs, occasionally, sliding her finger down the groove in the middle of Killdoll’s crotch plate. Each stroke sent a pulse of arousal washing over Charity.

“It’s inevitable, pet,” Empusa continued.

Charity looked around the dark space. The A-frame roof was high above her. Some sort of pulley system was hanging from the rafters far above. The guard was attaching the far end of her leash chain to some sort of hook. Charity turned back towards the door. She wanted to run. Two guards were blocking the exit.

“All pets should be kept on a leash,” Empusa said.

A guard over by the far wall was turning some sort of crank. Charity realized that the hook threaded through her leash was rising up towards the rafters. It wasn’t long before Charity’s leash grew taut and she was forced to stagger over to a point directly below the pulley.

“Nuhhh!” Charity cried out. Still, arousal washed over her in pulses gaining both strength and frequency.

Charity’s toes scratched at the dirt for a moment before she was lifted into the air by her metal harness. Soon she was twisting away from Empusa. She swung her arms furiously trying to turn back towards her.

“Don’t worry, pet,” Empusa said. “You’ve witnessed this magic before.”

“Nuhhh! Mmm! Ohhh!” Charity screamed from ten feet in the air.

Suddenly, the barn was filled with a loud screeching sound like heavy metal bending under an excessive load. The metal harness Charity was wearing was getting tighter. It was starting to crush her. It was shrinking. Charity couldn’t breathe.

There was a loud popping sound all around Charity. She felt for certain that it was her body exploding under the pressure of the shrinking metal. She looked down fearfully, certain that she would see blood pouring from her crushed chest. The metal of the harness was half sunken into her skin, it was so tight.

But, there was no blood. The metal harness continued to shrink, although it no longer felt like it was crushing her. Charity could only grunt as her limbs flailed about uselessly. She looked down again and the metal harness was sinking into her body. Soon all that was left was the chain emerging from her sternum between her breasts extending twenty five feet further up to a hook.

The awful noises died away. Charity frantically grabbed at the chain emerging from her chest with her thumbless hands. She pulled at the chain as though she might dislodge it from her body somehow. All her efforts were fruitless. The chain was now part of her.

“It works just like your tongue chain, pet,” Empusa called up from below. “Just like the chain that connects Hazel and Garnet together.”

Charity was at a strange angle, suspended from the center of her chest. She flailed her arms and legs about trying to turn over to look at Empusa. She grabbed the chain with both hands and tried to pull herself up. She was even able to create some slack in the links between her chest and her hands. But after a few seconds her strength faded and she dropped back.

“Don’t worry,” Empusa shouted up. “Your chain and that harness which, by the way, shares the same space as your body now - they are extremely sturdy. Hanging around will have no ill effects upon you at all. Of course, a demonstration will help you understand that better than any words. So, someone will drop by sometime tomorrow to lower you down.”

“Ahhh!” Charity screamed. “Ffffuh! Ahhh!”

Empusa laughed and turned to walk out of the barn. “Feisty, little bitch,” she mumbled as she left.

The guards departed and soon after, Charity heard the handlers push Killdoll and her metal frame out of the barn. As they left, they shut the door, blanketing the interior of the barn in darkness, leaving Charity dangling ten feet up in the air.

<>--+-

Charity had been afraid that her spine would be permanently damaged. Certainly, gravity was her biggest enemy. It pulled at her legs, her arms, her head, bending her in an unnatural manner, down and away from her solar plexus. Empusa’s magic must have fortified her musculature accordingly. Her position dangling ten feet above the floor was by no means comfortable. And, after hours, she no longer had the strength to lift her head or arms. She could no longer raise her legs up and hook them around the chain that was anchored between her breasts.

Sometime, during the eternity of her night of suspension, she actually drifted off to a fitful sleep. When she awoke, the door to the barn was open and someone was lowering her body to the floor. It was painful to move her body at first, but after a bit of stretching, she was no worse for wear.

Four particularly tall guards waited as she slowly stood up. One wrapped the majority of her new twenty five foot long leash over her shoulders, then wrapped the last bit twice around her neck. A gentle tug was all that was needed to convince Charity to follow them back to the menagerie.

A new device hung from the ceiling of her cell. Once the guards had unraveled Charity from her leash. One of the guards reached up to squeeze a pair of handles together. A section of an O-ring, held four feet away by a metal bar, popped up and the most distant link of Charity’s leash was slid onto the ring. When the guard released the handles the section slipped back down to form a perfect circle.

The guards left, locking the door to her cell.

“What is the purpose of this?” Charity wondered, staring at her new anchor point. “I’m already locked in a cell…”

She stood up and reached for the pair of handles with her left hand.

“Oh…” Charity sighed.

There was no way to squeeze the handle with her thumbless hand.

She used both hands to squeeze the handles together and watched the section of the O-ring pop up. As soon as she reached over to try and flip the chain from the ring, though, the section snapped back down. Empusa made this device simply to prove how helpless Charity was.

She squeezed the handles together with her hands and tried to quickly swing her leg up to kick the leash off the ring. Her hands were not strong enough and she found herself lying on her back on the hard floor of her cell in a cloud of dust, with her breath knocked out.

Later as she was lying in her cot, she examined the location where the chain emerged from her chest between her breasts. Her skin tissue seemed to completely merge with the half link sticking out of her body. When she pulled on the chain, surprisingly, she felt no movement of her ribcage, rather the force seemed to wrap around her entire upper body, distributing the pressure as though she was in a supportive cradle. This long metal chain - her leash - was part of her!

Life went on just as it had before Charity had been leashed. She was still hooked up with Hazel and Garnet for runs across the hills on sunny days. Twenty-five feet of metal chain is quite heavy and she had to constantly deal with the challenge of managing the links. If she let it drag on the ground, it inevitably snagged on roots and rocks. She had to loop it over her shoulders or around her waist.

The ponygirls did not really understand how much effort the chain management took, and more than once, they took off at a jog before Charity was ready. The chain would go taut and send Charity spinning or face-planting depending on the state of her leash.

It was too long and heavy to swing like some kind of bat or other weapon.

One evening she lay on her cot gently masturbating as best she could, staring at the leash as it hung from the o-ring. She hadn’t spoken a word in two days. “This is it,” Charity thought to herself. “This is my life now.”

She heard the thump of Killdoll pounding a padded fist on the bars between their cells. When Charity looked up, Killdoll had stuck her leg between the bars and was pointing to the dirt with her big toe. Slowly Charity stood and ambled over the corner of her cell. Killdoll had drawn four hearts in the dirt. She apparently wanted to play hangman again.

Charity sighed. “L, O, V, E. The answer is ‘Love’! Stupid, fucking…” She turned to go lie down again.

Killdoll thumped on the bars again. She pointed at the hearts with her toe enthusiastically.

“Okay, okay,” Charity said. “E.”

Killdoll pointed to the last position.

_ _ _ E

“O,” Charity said.

Killdoll pointed again.

_ O _ E

Charity sighed, shaking her head. “L.” She reached her toe through the bars to draw the letter in the first position, but Killdoll pounded on the bars.

Charity looked at Killdoll. She was twisting her hips from side to side. There was no ‘L’.

“M?” Charity asked. “R?”

Both were wrong. Charity could feel her arousal grow as Killdoll became more and more excited.

“P?”

Killdoll was practically jumping up and down, pointing with her toe.

_ O P E

Charity looked at Killdoll, her own chest now pounding. “H?”

Killdoll broke out into the same hip-gyrating dance that she had when Charity was singing that 90’s rock song. At least until she began to tremble and collapse in an orgasm.

Charity began to stumble as well, her knees going weak, up and down making no sense in the swirl of unrelenting arousal. She had no voice as she dropped to the floor of her cell, but her mouth formed the word…

“Hope…”

Chapter 03

Charity was awoken in the middle of the night. When she opened her eyes, (tick) was standing over her with a finger over her lips, suggesting that she remain quiet. (tick) reached up, squeezed the handle to open the anchor ring and released Charity’s leash.

When Charity stood up, (tick) looped the long leash chain over her shoulders - alternating from side to side until the leash was no longer dangling randomly. Charity followed (tick) through her cell door and to the menagerie’s exit. She quickly looked over at the dark space where Hazel and Garnet were sleeping and felt a lump of sadness in her throat.

“Goodbye,” she mouthed, soundlessly.

(tick) opened the external door and then stood, staring towards the trees on the opposite side of the pasture. A bright light flashed briefly, and she pointed towards it to make sure Charity saw it. Then she hugged Charity and gave her a particularly passionate kiss. Charity touched the side of (tick)’s face for a moment. Then (tick) pressed a leather pouch into Charity’s hands.

They waited quietly in the darkness for a moment. The light flashed again, and (tick) pushed Charity into the night. Charity ran as fast as she could, holding the leash chains close around her chest so they would not rattle. She quickly made it to the tree line with her heart racing.

Hope! Hope was waiting for her! They embraced each other in a side hug - the needles protruding from Hope’s areolas would draw blood very easily. The hug only lasted a second and Hope grabbed Charity’s hand, pulling her further into the trees. Hope led Charity at a quick pace for ten minutes or more until they reached a wooden fence. A number of slats had been pulled out which allowed them to slip through. Hope spent a few minutes reseating the fence, then pulled Charity on through the forest.

Finally, after another ten minutes or so, they reached a clearing lit up by the glow of the moon.

“Hope!” Charity whispered and hugged her friend again. After a moment, Hope pushed Charity away and took the leather pouch that (tick) had given to Charity. She motioned for Charity to unwrap the chain leash from her shoulders.

Hope then began to rewrap the leash. The pouch had contained some metal ‘S’ rings which allowed Hope to secure the chain in a balanced fashion around Charity’s torso. Charity simply held her arms out to her sides and let Hope work. Tears began to fall from Charity’s eyes. Soon she was shaking from her quiet sobs.

Hope wrapped the chain over Charity’s shoulder, around her neck and back down across her chest - using an ‘S’ link to keep the chain from sliding. She wrapped a few more turns over shoulders and loosely around Charity’s waist, finally back up to the place where the leash was embedded in her chest, where she applied the final ‘S’ link. When she let go of the leash, it was still long enough to drop onto the ground.

“You… run?” Hope asked quietly.

Charity wiped the tears from her eyes. She leaned over and kissed Hope on her cheek. “I’m so happy to see you! Oh… Fuck yeah, I can run.”

Hope bent down and grabbed the end of Charity’s leash from the ground. “We run.”

Charity felt a tug on her chest as Hope pulled on her leash. Then they were off - running through the forest with only the diffuse light of the moon to guide them. Regardless, Charity began to feel that particular sensation she got when she ran. She felt herself focus on her surroundings and quickly developed a confidence in every step she made - ducking under limbs, jumping over roots, reacting immediately to every subtle tug that Hope made on her leash.

They must have run through the forest for a couple hours. Charity felt strong. She could go for hours more. They had run away from the coastal cliffs, slowly climbing into forested hills. They came to a place where Charity could hear some kind of mountain river running down below. Hope stopped at the edge of a small cliff. She turned to Charity and pointed down over the edge. “We…”

Charity tried to look into the darkness. “We’re climbing down?” she asked, squeezing her thumbless hands together nervously.

“We…” Hope repeated. Then she yanked hard on Charity’s leash and jumped into the darkness, pulling Charity along with her.

Charity yelped and fell awkwardly over the edge of the cliff. She hit the cold water with a tremendous splash and sank into its dark depths. She could feel the current pushing her along. She quickly lost her sense of up and down. She felt slippery rocks with her feet and she tried to push herself away from them hoping to find the surface. She felt a tug on her chest for a moment. She pumped her arms through the water in the direction of the leash’s pull.

Her chain leash was weighing her down. She felt rocks under her feet again, and she no longer could feel a tug.

“I’m going to drown,” she thought to herself and began flailing her arms and legs desperate to find the surface. She bounced hard off a rock wall. The current was pushing her down the river at a rapid pace.

Suddenly, she felt a huge tug, and her face breached the surface for a moment. She gasped for air, but then slipped below the surface again. She banged her knees on some rocks and pushed up from them, finally finding the surface again. Hope was there, pulling on her leash, dragging her into more shallow water until Charity was able to grasp a rock and keep from drifting any further.

Hope held up her hand indicating for Charity to stay where she was. “Okay…” Charity sputtered, as she watched Hope clamor to the river’s edge. After a moment, she returned with two wooden hoops. Some sort of bark was woven on the underside of the hoops. By the first light of dawn, Hope showed Charity how she should sit on the woven strips of bark inside the hoops. They were going to use the hoops like inner tubes. When Charity sat back she still sank into the water so that only her face was above the surface. Once again, she felt a tug on her chest and Hope was leading them down into the rapids.

The next few hours were spent painfully bouncing down the river. Charity often felt as though she would drown as the cold water splashed over her face.

Finally when they hit a flatter section, Charity tried to ask Hope how long they had to float down the river. Hope simply admonished Charity to be quiet and turned away with a small tug at Charity’s leash.

The morning sun was rising in the sky and Charity could see Hope clearly for the first time in more than two months. Her long hair was wet and slick down her back and the grid of jewelry chains wrapped around her head. Sun shone through droplets of water that clung to the short, narrow sharp pins that surrounded Hope’s lips and areolas.

Hope’s body was covered in tattoos. Jewelry chains emerged from Hope’s arms and seamless metal manacles gripped her wrists. Hope was lithe and her arms showed her musculature. She seemed to have been able to stay well-fed and healthy. Mostly, Charity noted how exotically beautiful she was.

Charity looked down at her own collection of chains which were much thicker and heavier than Hope’s. What a pair they made now!

Eventually, they arrived at a boulder in the middle of the river. A rope had been set up, dangling down from thick tree limbs overhead. Hope scrambled up onto the boulder and helped pull Charity up by her leash. She pulled the wooden hoops from the water and then used a large rock to break the hoops into small pieces slowly tossing them into the current.

After making quick work of the floatation devices, Hope pointed at the rope, then at Charity and then up into the limbs overhead. “You… go!” she whispered.

Charity held up her thumbless hands for a moment and looked nervously at the rope. Hope nodded, but continued pointing up.

Charity grabbed the rope and jumped up, wrapping her legs around as best as she could. She started to pull herself up, but without thumbs, she had no grip strength. She slowly slid back down the rope.

“No!” Hope said. She stepped up to the rope and reached as high as she could with her hands. Then she raised her right knee. She gripped momentarily with her hands and used her left foot to loop the rope under and then over her right foot. She then pressed the rope down on top of her right foot so that the rope sandwiched between her feet. This allowed her to use her legs to advance up the rope, rather than depend on hand strength. With the rope locked between her feet, she was able to straighten her legs, reach higher and repeat the process again. She slid down the rope and pointed to Charity and then up into the canopy above.

Charity started climbing as Hope had shown. She was not graceful at all, but she was making progress slowly. Every time she gripped with her hands they would slide down the rope, but if she moved her legs up quickly she could usually end up a little higher than before.

She was getting higher, but her arms were burning and the palms of her hands were on fire. She imagined herself falling and breaking her body on the boulder below and whimpered, looking down at Hope.

Hope continued to encourage Charity to climb while also occasionally nervously looking up the river.

Finally, Charity made it up to a tree limb that was so thick, that she was able to let go of the rope and lie on her stomach hugging the limb, shaking in fatigue.

Hope nimbly scaled the rope and when she reached the limb, undid the knot that secured the rope to the tree, pulling the rope up and coiling it around her shoulder. Then she stepped over Charity who was still trembling with her arms and legs locked desperately around the limb.

“Come!” Hope then walked gracefully along the limb towards the trunk. Charity watched Hope step into some sort of hollow space in the tree. Charity tried to lift herself up from the limb, but she was too scared of falling into the river far below. She finally started to painfully inch her way along the limb scraping her flesh along the rough bark.

Charity eventually pulled herself into the hollow. The space inside the tree was surprisingly large. The first thing she noticed was that Hope was perched on her knees, bent over with her chest pressed to her thighs. Her arms were stretched out in front of her, palms facing up - her forehead pressed to the ‘floor’. Charity turned her head and found herself looking up at a tall, thin, naked woman standing above her.

The woman said something to Hope in the native language. Hope remained motionless, but said “Up!” in a muffled voice. Slowly Charity stood up in the interior of the tree hollow. The woman was at least a head taller than Charity. She grabbed Charity’s leash near the point where it exited her chest and pulled on it forcefully, then yanked it from side to side, apparently testing to see how secure it was. Charity stumbled back and forth, unable to resist the woman’s superior strength.

“Hello…” Charity said, quietly.

The woman said something sharply that Charity decided must mean “Shut up!” And so she closed her mouth, cowering under the woman’s examination.

The woman slid her hand down over the leash chains wrapped around Charity’s waist, eventually bending over to look more closely at the faceplate of the chastity belt locked around Charity’s loins. She slid a finger over the seal, with its upside-down ‘Y’.

Charity then noticed something odd about the woman’s hair. Or rather, in lieu of hair, the woman seemed to have metal chains growing from her scalp. The loops of chain jingled as they slipped around the woman’s shoulders.

Hope spoke up from her position on the floor. “Illie airen ohdess (click) ah (teek) (tit) oo en emah (click) oo mayah… she say you fuh her.”

“Huh?” Charity said.

“Fuh her!” Hope said louder. “Fuh Illie airen ohdess (click) ah (teek) (tit) oo en emah (click) oo mayah.”

The woman grabbed Charity’s face in a strong hand and squeezed her cheeks to force her mouth open. She reached into her mouth and securely grabbed the ring embedded in the end of Charity’s tongue. She pulled Charity’s tongue out and looked intently at it, slowly smiling.

“You fuh her,” Hope said as the woman slowly forced Charity down onto her knees.

Charity found herself staring at the chain-haired woman’s smoothly depilated crotch. After a moment, Charity felt a hand at the back of her head and then her face was forced forward. A thousand thoughts were spinning through Charity’s head. Who was this woman? Why was Hope so subservient to her? Had she just traded one tyrant for another?

Charity had not even realized that her tongue and lips automatically went to work, teasing the chain-haired woman. When she DID realize what she was doing, she became angry. But rather than stop her actions, Charity decided to use all of her skills to bring this woman to her knees as quickly and effectively as possible. She raised her hands to grasp the woman’s hips and ran through an exploration of stimulations, gauging the effectiveness of each by the woman’s reactions. She developed a plan, not consciously, but using some instinctive sense, and she applied her technique with full passion.

In only a short time, the chain-haired woman stumbled backwards moaning, partially collapsing against the wall as her vagina pulsed with a series of strong contractions - a spray of fluid wetting Charity’s face.

Charity turned to look at Hope, who was still crouched in supplication on the floor, although she had turned her head a little to watch. Charity flashed her a smug grin as the chain-haired woman expressed some litany of exaltations.

<>--+-

Charity and Hope were kneeling next to each other on the floor of the hollow in the giant tree. Hope had shown Charity how she must kneel with her hands crossed behind her back. The chain-haired woman was doling out moist green balls of something soft wrapped in grass. With a command, Charity was expected to open her mouth and stick out her tongue. Then the woman would place the ball far back in Charity’s mouth. A second command indicated that Charity could chew and swallow the food. While Charity could never conceive of such a meal prior to her arrival in Hope’s universe, she, none-the-less, found that she liked the taste and texture. Her palate was changing.

Hope addressed the chain-haired woman using the long, formal name “Illie airen ohdess (click) ah (teek) (tit) oo en emah (click) oo mayah”. There was no way Charity could learn all that, much less make the sounds with her metal-laden tongue. Fortunately, the woman had no expectations for Charity to speak at all. She issued commands to Hope, who then communicated to Charity what was expected. So far the commands had been relatively benign, and Charity quickly complied, simply to ensure that Hope did not get in any trouble.

“Is Illie… a bad woman?” Charity asked Hope quietly. Charity decided that she would use the first part of the woman’s name.

Hope quickly said, “Shh! No!”

Illie spoke with Hope for a while. It sounded like a conversation. Their emotions seemed to remain neutral. Finally Hope said, “She ta-e you me.”

“She’s going to take us… somewhere?” Charity asked.

“Shh! No! Yes! No! You, me - she…” Hope was struggling with her English. Finally, she briefly placed her hands around her neck, then placed her hands in a similar fashion around Charity’s, then she pointed at Illie. “We are hers…” For emphasis, she gently tugged at Charity’s leash, then pointed at Illie. “Hers…”

<>--+-

They rested in the hollow until the afternoon. Then Hope looked cautiously out the hole and listened for a while. She and Illie spoke at length and Illie grabbed Charity’s right arm and examined her thumbless hand. She grabbed Charity’s leash and shook it for a moment.

Illie left the hollow, walking out along the limb with no apparent regard that she was balancing over forty feet in the air. Hope pulled Charity out of the hollow and onto the limb. Charity immediately sat down and splayed her legs around the branch. Her heart was pounding. She looked up at Hope, who wore a clear look of disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she looked nervously at the ground far below.

Hope simply held her finger up to her lips to shush her.

Hope began unwrapping the leash from around Charity’s torso, removing all the ‘S’ links that she had used to contain the links. Next she fed the end of her rope through the furthest link, then walked far out on the limb - so far that Charity could see the wood bend under Hope’s weight.

Hope had tied a large knot in the end of the rope. She tossed the heavy knot over a limb above and into the waiting hands of Illie who was perched two large trees away. Illie pulled the rope, and subsequently, Charity’s leash until they were taut. Hope then beckoned Charity to walk along the limb towards her. Charity did not want to disappoint Hope, so she stood and started walking.

“They’ll catch me, if I fall,” Charity told herself over and over again.

Before she knew it she made it to where Hope was waiting. She reached out to grab Hope’s hand. Hope knocked Charity’s hand away and jumped up slightly, then pressed down, surprising Charity as the limb dropped away from under her feet. Hope pushed Charity off the limb. Illie was prepared and the leash was taut, so Charity swung out into the air, supported with her chest up. A moment later Illie grabbed Charity’s arm and pulled her onto a new solid perch.

And so they made their way through the forest, away from the river, high above the ground.

The third time Hope pushed Charity to swing out between two trees, Illie did not catch Charity, and she swung back toward Hope with her arms and legs flailing around. She looked fearfully towards Hope, who had a very serious look on her face. She held her finger to her lips, imploring Charity to remain silent. She did not even try to catch Charity, who proceeded swinging, once again, in the other direction.

Then Charity heard a sound down below. She twisted her head back and forth trying to look down, but was unable to, held as she was. She kicked her legs up and looped them around her supporting leash, so that she was upside down and able to see the forest floor far below through the foliage.

She saw movement. It was one of Empusa’s guards. She was following a collection of dog-like animals who were sniffing frantically along the banks of the river. Soon, Charity saw another guard, then another. More than twenty guards eventually passed below and four times that number of “dogs”.

Charity hung from her chest for over a half hour waiting for the guards to pass. It was clear that Empusa was expending all resources to recover her stolen source witch.

It was well past sunset, when Charity’s group descended from the trees. They had used the branches to traverse a ridge into an entirely different watershed and drop down into a large creek. Hope wrapped Charity’s torso with her long chain leash - this time with a much shorter lead, which she handed to Illie.

“I don’t want to… to go… too far from the… the… um… ocean,” Charity whispered to Hope.

Hope frowned and shushed Charity, and with a stiff yank, Illie pulled Charity’s chain and forced her to start stumbling her way up the creek.

Charity doubted that Hope had understood her request. Generally, their communication took much more gesturing. Hope had not learned too many English words. As they walked upstream, Charity pointed to herself, then back downstream. Then she pointed to her locked chastity belt and downstream again.

Charity felt like she needed to be near the ocean so she could watch for the next arrival of the airship from Paradise. Or maybe there was a seaworthy vessel that could sail there. She needed to find Faith and Blue and get Dammasch to remove the cursed chastity belt. Going inland felt like the wrong direction. It was leading her away from where she needed to go. Besides that, she wasn’t sure whose best interests were currently being served.

The sun had set and it quickly became too dark to use hand signals as they splashed along the creek. Hope had dismissed all of Charity’s gesturing with a frown. Illie continued to lead Charity up the stream.

Shortly after the sun rose the next morning, they came upon a small cave hidden behind a waterfall. Illie pulled Charity into the cave and forced her to sit. Hope sat down next to Charity and wrapped her arm around Charity’s back. Charity leaned over and kissed Hope on the cheek, but Hope did not even look towards her.

Charity decided that she was going to have to force Hope to remember the love that they had shared, because they HAD been in love. Hope shouldn’t be ignoring her like this. So, Charity slid her hand down Hope’s abdomen. She slipped her fingers under the thin chain that dangled from Hope’s navel piercing. She stroked downward, letting the thimble and the end of the chain play across her knuckles. If she were to slip and finger into the thimble, she would be able to breach the forest of sharp needles surrounding Hope’s clit and tease her decorated lover to a pleasant orgasm.

They should be exhausted. They had been traveling for a day and a half. Charity leaned her head on Hope’s shoulder and continued to gently stroke Hope’s abdomen. Her skin was warm and soft. Hope did not really respond to Charity’s advances, but at the same time, she did not push Charity’s hand away. Obviously, Hope had to be subservient to Illie somehow. Charity decided that Hope must owe Illie some sort of allegiance. After all, who knows what sort of struggles Hope had faced over the past two months. What had she had to do to survive?

Charity was sure that Hope still loved her. She just couldn’t show her love with Illie around, perhaps?

She pulled gently on Hope’s thimble, slipping her pinky finger into the open end. Charity should be exhausted, but, wow… She was so incredibly horny… Sitting so close to Hope’s warm body…

Illie was suddenly standing over the two of them speaking and pointing down at Charity. She kicked Charity’s legs apart and planted her foot on the faceplate of Charity’s chastity belt. Charity realized that her belt was glowing blue.

Hope was speaking with the chain-haired woman. They were having an extensive discussion. Apparently, the glow was upsetting Illie for some reason. Charity didn’t want to give Illie a reason to separate Hope from Charity, so she looked away and tried to think of something other than the pulsing need between her legs.

She thought about the ponygirls, Hazel and Garnet. No! The image that popped into her head was the three of them having sex in the grass. She thought about her cage in the menagerie. No! The image that popped into her head was Killdoll falling down in the next cell over shuddering from a massive orgasm.

Hope was scooping up mud and plopping it down on top of Charity’s belt to hide the glow.

Math! Charity had to think about math. Nothing cools a libido more than reciting multiplication tables. “17 times 1 is 17,” Charity thought to herself. “17 times 2 is… um… it’s 34. 17 times 3 is… 17 times 3 is 17 more than 2 times 17 which was 28… so… 35? No, that can’t be right… 45?”

Illie slapped Charity across her face hard enough for her to fall to her side. “Oww!” she cried. She sat back up, staring at the woman towering over her - hoping that her eyes were communicating all the anger she felt at the moment.

A chunk of mud slid off Charity’s chastity belt and the interior of the cave was bathed in the blue glow. “What the fuck?” Charity thought to herself. She was angry, not horny now… “Wait! No! I am horny as hell!”

“Shh! No speak!” Hope said, as she slapped more mud onto Charity’s crotch.

Illie was tugging on one of the chains growing from her head. Somehow she popped a single link of steel from the end. She reached down and looped the link through the last link of Charity’s leash, then forced her fingers into Charity’s mouth. She grabbed the ring embedded in the end of Charity’s tongue and slipped it onto the newly added link. There was a clicking sound and she stepped away.

“Ahh!” The weight of the chain pulled Charity’s tongue past her teeth and lips. Illie had somehow connected her tongue to her leash. Charity grabbed the link with her hands, desperately trying to find a way to remove it. “Ahh!”

“Shh!” Hope said again. “Shh!”

Charity couldn’t see the link as it was halfway in her mouth. She couldn’t figure out how to unlatch it with her thumbless hands. Finally, she leaned against Hope, burying her face in her hair and started to silently cry. Hope placed her arm arm her but did little else to comfort her.

<>--+-

Charity was awoken by Illie. She was using her foot to shake Charity. Hope was slowly waking up next to her. Illie grabbed Charity’s leash and pulled her up into a kneeling position - an action which also tugged painfully on Charity’s tongue. Thankfully, Illie disconnected the link and Charity was happy to wipe the drool that had dried on her chin.

She knelt quietly and submissively as Illie fed her and Hope by hand.

Hope slipped out of the mouth of the cave, through the waterfall. She returned after about a half hour and beckoned Illie and Charity to follow. It was later in the afternoon and they once again continued their trek upstream, further into the mountains, further away from the ocean.

In the middle of the night, they came upon a rope hanging over the stream, which they climbed, then they traversed from tree to tree for a while. As the sun was rising, they finally dropped to solid ground. Illie immediately grabbed Charity by her leash and they began to jog through the forest along narrow animal trails.

At night they slept under a rock overhang and the next morning they continued on, jogging. At one point they crossed over a ridge and Charity was able to see a grand view of the next valley filled with an endless sea of trees. She had no idea where they were. Certainly miles and miles from Empusa, but also far from the ocean. Far from anything that Charity could use to navigate on her own. Very, very far from anyone who might be able to remove the chastity belt that was slowly sapping her humanity from her.

After three days of jogging through endless miles of forest, Charity noticed that Illie seemed to relax. They arrived at a big trunked tree, not especially different from any number Charity had seen along the way, with the exception that this one was Illie’s home.

Illie cleared a bramble from the base of the tree to reveal an opening into the trunk and she stepped inside. Hope pointed at a place on the ground near the trunk that looked soft, and that is all Charity needed to curl up on her side. She was utterly exhausted. She closed her eyes and napped until Hope woke her up. She had apparently been gathering some collection of edible vegetation which she presented to Illie. Then she showed Charity where she should kneel with her hands crossed behind her back. Finally, Illie hand fed them the food.

After their dinner, Hope poked Charity’s shoulder, then pointed at the chain-haired woman, who seemed relaxed and fairly satisfied. Hope led Charity to where Illie stood and pointed at the ground and then at Illie’s crotch. Charity gave a meaningful look at Hope, who simply looked away, frowning. But then she turned, with her tongue extended, and engaged in the task set before her.

Charity was not happy about being Illie’s sex slave, but her pride in her skill and technique eclipsed her anger, and soon Illie was writhing in ecstasy. She even dropped to her knees and hugged Charity tenderly afterwards.

Then Hope led Charity into the tree. It was actually fairly spacious inside, though quite dark as the sun had already set. To one side of the interior, there was a nest-like bed. Over the bed there was a hammock woven from soft ropes. Hope indicated that Charity should climb on the hammock. Once she was laying down on it, Hope pulled on a series of ropes to remove much of the slack in the hammock. This was obviously going to be Charity’s bed and she was happy that Hope was making it more firm.

She also realized that as Hope tightened the ropes, the hammock rose into a small cavity over the bed. In effect, Charity was becoming constrained in the small space by the weave of the hammocks ropes. It wasn’t too secure. Charity could easily slip out if she needed to. But, where the hell would she go?

Charity relaxed. At least she felt safe from Empusa or any wild animals. She was still quite exhausted and she closed her eyes and started to drift off.

A thumping sound revived her before she could drift too far into dreamland. Illie was climbing into the nest directly underneath her, no more than a foot below. Moments later Hope climbed next to Illie. Charity could see them easily through the weave of the hammock. Illie and Hope were spooning. Hope was wrapped in Illie’s arms. Illie was nibbling on Hope’s ear and Hope let out a needy moan.

Hope was wearing some sort of mask over her mouth. It was fat and padded. She was wearing some sort of bra as well. These were apparently to keep Illie from cutting herself on Hope’s sharply needled lips and breasts.

Charity watched as Illie’s hand drifted down Hope’s abdomen. She slipped her finger into the thimble and pushed on down through the spikes surrounding Hope’s sex. Charity wanted to tell herself that Hope was struggling - the way that Illie held Hope’s torso so tightly, the way she chewed gently on Hope’s shoulder, the way she looped a leg over Hope’s to prevent her from moving much. But Hope’s muffled groans did not tell a story of distress, but rather one of satisfaction and joy. Soon the groans were long and originated deep in Hope’s throat and they were followed by soft high pitched whimpers and the scent of arousal permeated the small area.

Illie whispered something soft and musical in the native language and she and Hope giggled together for a moment. Then Charity, to her utter horror, realized that the entire space was bathed in a blue glow that emanated from her belt.

Chapter 04

On the first full day after their arrival at Illie’s home. Hope drew a triangle in the dirt. Two of the lines represented major creeks, while the third represented a series of cliffs at the far end of a meadow. Hope made it clear that Charity should remain inside these boundaries. She pointed inside the triangle. “Ho-e!” She pointed outside the triangle. “Em-hoo-sa!”

The instructions were clear and Charity had no plan to disobey the rules. Certainly, life with Illie and Hope would be much better than Empusa.

“What are you going to be…” Charity started.

“Shh!” Hope said. “No!”

“Fuck! Hope!” Charity said, balling her hands into fists. “I have to be able to talk! Or I’ll forget…”

“No! Pet! Shh! Pet.. are shhh!”

“I’m not a fucking pet, Hope!”

Hope said, “Illie…” she pointed at her eyes and then at her chest. “Me! Pet!” Next she held up one finger. “Illie!” Then a second finger. “Ho-e!” She used her other hand to make a circling motion around the two raised fingers as though they were united in some way. Then she pointed to her eyes and then to Charity. “Chai-ree are pet.” For emphasis, she pointed to her eyes, then to the Charity’s chastity belt. “Pet!”

Illie stepped out of the tree with a frown on her face. Hope said quietly, “Pet! Shhh!”

“Shh!” Illie confirmed.

Charity sighed in exasperation. She wasn’t completely sure what to make of the conversation, but it sounded like Hope had detailed the pecking order. And it sounded like Charity was clearly on the bottom - a pet’s pet, apparently - even in Hope’s eyes.

<>--+-

Within a week, a routine had developed. After Illie fed Hope and Charity a morning meal, she and Hope usually went off to do whatever they needed to do to survive on this planet. They basically abandoned Charity, leaving her to her own devices. She explored the area around the home tree, which was several square miles. She enjoyed the meadow the most. She would hike up there and then run wild and free whichever way she felt. It reminded her of Hazel and Garnet.

One day when she arrived in the meadow, there was a herd of some sort of deer-like animals. As she approached them, they watched her, but did not seem afraid of her. They were eating some green bell-shaped fruit that had fallen from a tree. She picked up one of the fruits, but dropped it again when she determined that it was covered in worms. Instead she picked one of the fruits from a limb, and after determining it was worm free, took a bite. She recognized the taste as something that Illie had fed her. It was very flavorful! After finishing one, she picked another and held it out to one of the deer-like creatures nearby. After a bit of sizing one another up, the “deer” actually started to eat out of her hand. Charity thought she could probably even pet the deer, but she remembered that it is impossible to understand what a wild animal is feeling. They could become violent suddenly for reasons a human could not conceive.

She noticed that a lot of the fruit growing on the lower limbs was being snatched by the herd. Charity looked at her thumbless hands and determined that she needed to improve her grip strength. She needed to learn how to climb trees.

She also found a tree that had recently fallen over. She walked out along the trunk and discovered that she had developed really good balance. She just needed a bit of practice and confidence and she would be able to skirt along the high limbs of the trees like Illie and Hope did.

Charity spent her time napping in warm patches of grass and bathing in creek pools. She enjoyed exploring the forests and watching the strange animals that lived in the area.

Every night, she would be waiting when Hope and Illie returned, simply happy to see another human. She would hug Hope and sometimes Illie would smile at her and pat her on the head. She would kneel submissively with her hands crossed behind her back as Illie (and sometimes Hope) hand fed her. At night, perhaps after servicing Illie with her tongue, she would climb up into her hammock over the nest and glow with lust as Illie teased Hope to orgasms.

One day, she found herself running through the meadow amongst the younger deer who were playing around her with no fear. Her belt was glowing so brightly blue, she could see the light even out from the cover of shade. She suddenly realized that the last memory that she had was of teasing her own nipples to hard points by a fallen tree in the forest. She had been so incredibly horny, it was almost painful. But, she could not remember deciding to walk up to the meadow. She didn’t remember approaching the herd of deer. She was living in a libidinous haze.

That evening, she determined that she was going to have to communicate with Hope. Hope was about to slip a slice of fruit into Charity’s mouth, but Charity bobbed her head to the side. “Hope… I… I… need to…” She looked down at her crotch, which had started to glow blue.

“Shh!” Hope said, quickly glancing around to see how far away Illie was.

Tears of frustration began to form in Charity’s eyes. She pointed at her crotch and then to Hope. “I… I need… I need you to…”

“Shh! No!” Hope said, but she was starting to look nervous, or unsure for some reason.

Charity was becoming angry. Things couldn’t keep going on this way. She was losing her humanity. “No, Hope! You have to… fuck me! You have to! To fuck me!”

Hope threw the fruit on the ground and began to walk away. That made Charity even more angry. Suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. She leapt up from the ground and landed on Hope’s back knocking her to the ground. Charity grabbed a handful of Hope’s hair, pulling her head back. She grabbed Hope’s arm and tried to turn her over. She yanked her over and jumped on her again.

Suddenly, Charity was pulled up into the air. She flew a few feet and tumbled into the dirt. Illie was standing over her screaming at her. What the hell was happening here?

Charity cowered on the ground, curling up to be as small as possible. What was she doing? “I just attacked Hope,” Charity thought to herself.

Illie was pushing Charity around in the dirt. She was unwrapping the chain leash from Charity’s torso. Next she was dragging Charity across the ground to a large tree. One of Charity’s hands was covered in blood and there were many small puncture wounds on her chest.

Illie had wrapped Charity’s leash around the tree and locked it in place with a link removed from her head chains. Charity was crying now. She pulled her knees up to her chest and lay on her side. “What have I done?” she thought to herself. She had attacked Hope! Her sense of shame was overwhelming. “What have I become?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Hope was standing and walking around. She was okay. She was speaking with Illie, though. Their voices were raised. They seemed to be arguing.

The sun had set before Hope approached the tree that Charity was chained to. Charity crawled up to her knees and bent over with her hands crossed behind her back. “I’m so sorry, Hope. I love you. I’m so sorry!”

Hope crouched next to Charity and started stroking her hair. “Shhh…” She helped Charity sit up and began dabbing a wet cloth on Charity’s wounds.

Tears were falling from Charity’s eyes. She couldn’t even look at Hope, she was so ashamed. “I’m… I’m… losing…,” she whispered.

Hope quietly washed the blood from Charity’s hands, being particularly gentle. “Only a dumb… animal… would… grab a woman with sharp… nee… nee… spikes…” Charity cried.

Hope continued to work quietly, not saying a word.

“Do you hate me?” Charity asked. Charity looked into Hope’s eyes. “Do you still love me?”

Hope stopped cleaning Charity’s hands and looked back into her eyes. She reached up and touched the set of jewelry chains that exited from below her lower lip. She opened her mouth and Charity could see that the hardware installed there had been lowered so that it rested on her tongue. Illie apparently had applied Hope’s built-in gag by unclipping the complex array of chains that were wrapped about Hope’s head and through her nasal passages.

Charity reached up to help reverse the gag, but Hope simply pushed Charity’s hands back down. She gave her a short hug and then walked off into the hollow of their tree home.

Charity was left outside, chained to the tree overnight, which she found to be slightly terrifying. Illie fed Charity the next morning, but she and Hope left without unlocking Charity’s leash.

“Now, I know what a chained-up dog feels like,” Charity thought to herself.

<>--+-

In the afternoon, Illie and Hope returned to the home tree. Hope knelt next to Charity. “Illie fuh you… try to…” She was frowning as she said the words.

Illie removed the link that anchored Charity to the tree. She led her over to another spot below a rope hanging down from a limb. Hope stood in front of Charity, she sucked on her index finger for a moment, then used her finger to tease one of Charity’s nipples.

Illie crossed Charity’s wrists in front of her and tied the rope, tightly securing them together. She pulled on the rope until Charity’s arms were raised over her head. Hope continued to tease the flesh of Charity’s torso.

“Green paste,” Charity suggested. She was enjoying the attention, but the only two times she had been able to have an orgasm, they had used Hope’s magic green paste.

“Shh!” Hope responded and continued to stroke Charity’s flesh.

Illie tied a rope around Charity’s right ankle and pulled her leg off to the side, anchoring it to a tree. Soon after, she did the same to Charity’s left ankle. Maybe with two women attending to her, she could go over the edge. She was definitely enjoying the attention.

All the ropes were pulled more tightly, until Charity’s limbs were straining. Illie stood closely behind Charity, pressing her breasts into Charity’s back. She wrapped her arms tightly around Charity’s torso and began to kiss and nibble on Charity’s neck. Hope knelt in front of Charity and began to slide a feather up and down Charity’s inner thighs.

Charity’s breathing became labored. Maybe this would work… Hope, who apparently was no longer gagged, mumbled some instructions, and Illie began collecting Charity’s long tangled hair into two parts, knotting them together somehow along with another rope.

“Ahhh!” Illie pulled Charity’s hair up and back until she was forced to look up into the limbs of the trees before her. The rope must have been tied off, because Charity still could not move her head, even after she saw Illie move in front of her. She grabbed Charity’s chain leash and slowly walked away, wrapping the chain around a small tree and gently pulling it tighter and tighter, forcing Charity’s torso to bow forward.

“Guuhh!” Charity was hyperventilating, she felt her eyes rolling back in her head. She needed a little more. Hope tied a bit of cloth over Charity’s eyes, blindfolding her. She stood behind Charity, teasing her hands up and down her torso. She slid them down Charity’s inner thighs and then, pushed her head between Charity’s spread thighs. She began to lightly graze Charity’s flesh with the pointy needles embedded in her lips.

Charity yelled when Illie grabbed both nipples and pinched them tightly, pulling her breasts further from her torso. “Yahh! Mmm!” Illie kissed her lips, shoving her tongue inside. She captured Charity’s tongue with her teeth and pulled the tip out of Charity’s mouth. “Ahhh!” Illie pulled Charity’s tongue to its limit, securing it somehow, so that Charity could not pull it back in. Strong callused fingers spread Charity’s drool over her chest, roughly grabbing and squeezing her breasts.

Hope pushed at Charity’s butt, forcing her forward, forcing a greater arch in her back, taking the weight off Charity’s toes for a moment. “Uughh!”

Illie had stepped away for a moment. There was a swishing sound and a splat as some sort of leather strap slapped across Charity’s lower abdomen causing a bright flash of stinging pleasure to blossom across Charity’s skin. “Aaaahhh!”

<>--+-

Two hours later, Charity lay motionless in a sweaty heap on the ground. Her body was pulsing with vibrations. Any movement hurt, but it was a pleasant hurt. Hope and Illie sat next to each other a little distance away - both sweaty and disheveled. Their faces were lit in the darkness by the blue glow from Charity’s chastity belt.

“Green… paste…” Charity said, her voice, raspy. “I think I need… the green paste… to cum…”

Hope mumbled something to Illie, who rolled her eyes with a look of frustrated exhaustion.

“Green paste…”

“Shhh!” Hope said, with great annoyance.

<>--+-

While they had not succeeded in providing the relief that Charity was becoming desperate for, she was happy to see that Hope and Illie seemed to actively be considering the problem. Often in the evenings, she witnessed Hope and Illie actually talking to one another. She interpreted their frequent glances towards her as evidence that they were speaking about her. It was actually quite arousing to think that they were discussing ways to provide her with an orgasm.

At the same time, after Charity had attacked Hope, they were fairly serious about taking precautions around her. In the evenings, as Charity knelt submissively to be hand fed, Illie would first bind her wrists and ankles together behind her back - a loose, kneeling hogtie. They all noticed the blue glow emanating from her belt each night as the sun slipped below the horizon. The bondage was a small price to pay to avoid being leashed to a tree and forced to sleep outside in the dirt.

Almost nightly, Illie demanded oral servicing - something that Charity, bound as she was, had begun to enjoy more and more. Illie was an easy target, and Charity quickly learned how to drive Illie to body-shuddering orgasms in minutes. She took a certain amount of pride in her skills.

On the other hand, her heart hurt a little when she watched Hope and Illie interact. There was no doubt that the relationship was dominated by Illie at all times. At times though, she had seen the two holding hands. Often when the two spoke to one another, there seemed to be a lot of tension, but not always. It was obvious that Illie did not consider Charity to be human at all, But Charity was worried that Hope may feel the same way.

Sometimes, it was obvious that Illie was not interested in speaking at all. Sometimes it seemed that Hope was badgering Illie, often at times when they seemed to be discussing Charity. Illie would grab Hope by the hair, slip her hand to the back of Hope’s neck and unhook the jewelry chain from its hook. Then she’d adjust the tension that fed into Hope’s nostrils, finally pulling on the jewel dangling below Hope’s chin, engaging the hardware in Hope’s mouth to clamp down on her tongue. Hope would be reduced to muffled grunts. It seemed that those nights were the times when Illie made the most passionate love to Hope.

Charity rarely had an opportunity to speak with Hope. Illie was always nearby, watching, making sure that Charity was not about to attack Hope or do some other unexpected thing. Every time Charity said a word, Hope immediately shushed her.

During the days, Charity was once again allowed to run free between the creeks and the cliffs. She had no desire to breach Illie’s trust by crossing the boundaries. More and more often though, Charity began losing herself in a haze of arousal, she would forget why she was doing whatever she found herself doing. For example, one afternoon, she emerged from her haze in the middle of the meadow, surrounded by a flock of large waterfowl. Her mouth was full of half chewed grass seeds. Initially she spit them into the palm of her hand. She looked around and noticed that all the birds seemed to be making quite a meal of the seeds. The taste in her mouth was pleasant. She was a little hungry. So, she licked the seeds back out of her palm and then spent the next hour perfecting her skill at harvesting the seeds with her teeth.

About a week after Charity had attacked Hope… maybe it was two weeks… Charity fell asleep in the hammock above the nest in the hollow of the home tree. She was awoken from a sex dream, by the sun shining in her eyes. She suddenly realized that she was lying in dewy grass. Someone… or rather something was standing over her prone body. Her legs were spread and some wide, wet tongue was gently licking across the faceplate of her chastity belt. She could feel the rough surface of the tongue slipping along her inner thighs.

Her eyes quickly focused on the fat head of some sort of large lion-like creature. Charity’s first instinct was to scramble away, but she didn’t want to startle the beast and have it attack her. She could see its teeth. They were as long as her fingers and quite sharp looking.

Charity whimpered slightly, and the large eyes of the creature shifted to focus on her eyes. The creature raised its head from Charity’s crotch. This creature was huge and swollen with muscles.

“Hello, Charity,” a woman’s voice said.

“What… the fuck!” Charity remained frozen on her back.

“Hello! You may remember me! My name is Fedea!” the voice said.

Charity tried to slowly slide away from the large animal.

“Don’t worry! My lay-ho-yah won’t hurt you. Uh… this animal… My escort. Um… Can you understand me?”

Charity nodded her head.

“Can you still speak, Charity?”

Charity nodded her head again.

“It seems like you’ve taken a bit of a runner this morning. And frankly, if you are seen, Empusa will be on you in no time. So, you need to get yourself together and do what I say,” the voice said.

“Fedea?” Charity asked.

“One second.” The lioness pressed a huge paw on Charity’s chest, pushing her flat on the ground. The beast turned its head, looking around, its huge ears twitching.

The woman’s voice began speaking loudly in the local language. A second voice responded from some distance. Some sort of negotiation was taking place. Charity recognized the second voice. It was Illie.

“It’s the local nature witch. She says that you are her pet,” Fedea’s voice said. Charity did not see the beast’s lips move, so she wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from… Maybe it was in her head. “Hopefully, she will act rationally…”

More words were spoken. The beast removed its paw from Charity’s chest. She scrambled backwards away from the beast. Illie appeared from behind a tree and grabbed Charity by the arm - dragging her quickly across the grass away from the beast. Illie screamed at the beast and shook her arms at it, seeming to shoo it away.

The voice replied as Illie pulled Charity up to her feet and began to pull on Charity’s leash, directing her across the field, towards the forest. The beast started walking along with them.

“This bitch is kind of stubborn,” the voice - Fedea - said.

“Fedea? From earth?” Charity asked, starting to remember that name from a time that seemed so long ago.

“Shh!” Illie said, walking more quickly, dragging Charity along.

“She’s kind of controlling too,” Fedea said. “But, yeah… Fedea from earth… or, well, your universe. I worked with your sister, Faith. We were employed by the same company, that is… in the high tech industry. And… well… I worked with Dammasch-”

“Dammasch?!” Illie said, picking up her pace a little more, so that Charity had to start jogging to keep from being pulled over.

“Dammasch,” Fedea said, followed by some words in the native language that made Illie growl. “Anyways…” Fedea continued. “I worked with Dammasch to… uh… facilitate your manifestation.”

“What? Facili… I don’t know how to speak the… I can only… speak… English,” Charity said.

“Ok,” Fedea replied. “I’m speaking to you in English! I said I helped bring you here.”

“You were in a cage… when I saw you… on Earth…”

“Frizzy haired woman? I hijacked your phone. I snuck into your house. I did all kinds of mean things,” Fedea explained. “But I was gone by the time you found the frizzy haired woman in the cage. That was a drone.”

“Phone?” Some words seemed as though they should be familiar, but Charity was having difficulty following what the woman was saying.

“You are… a… a big cat?” Charity asked.

“Shh!” Illie said.

“No. The… er… cat is my escort,” Fedea said. “I’m… uh… attached, if you will, to the cat’s collar.”

Charity glanced over and noticed that the beast, indeed, was wearing a big metal collar. Something was dangling from a ring at the front.

“What?” Charity asked, utterly confused.

“Shh!” Illie said, yanking violently on Charity’s leash.

“I’ll explain when we get you back home… The bitch seems to be getting her panties in a wad,” the voice said. “And she doesn’t even wear panties.”

“Pan… panties?” Charity asked, confused.

<>--+-

Charity was stunned at how far she had run in her sleep, in the middle of the night. Far outside the boundary of the creeks and cliffs. Hope was waiting when Illie yanked Charity over to the big tree opposite the one they used for shelter. Illie was none too gentle as she unwrapped the chain leash from Charity’s torso and wrapped the end around the tree, anchoring Charity in place.

Hope’s attention was quickly focused on the large lion-like creature that was scratching at some leaves and turning in circles preparing to lie down. Her face wore an expression of shock when Fedea began talking to her.

There was a lot of discussion between Hope, Illie, and Fedea over the next half hour. Every once in a while, Fedea took a moment to provide commentary for Charity.

“I’ve been explaining that Empusa has activated the stone golems,” Fedea said.

“Stone… golems?” Charity asked.

“The chain-haired woman doesn’t think that you are worth keeping around. She wants to take you to a nearby box canyon and toss you in the river there - let the current carry you away,” Fedea explained.

“That’s… not good,” Charity mumbled.

“Hope is emphasizing that you are the only existing mythical womanimal,” Fedea continued.

“I’m not a… wom…” Charity argued.

“Not yet,” Fedea confirmed. “I’m trying to convince the chain-haired woman that a good orgasm would keep you under control. I’m trying to play to her vanities.”

“Green… paste…” Charity suggested.

“That’s what Hope has been saying all along. ‘Use the green paste.’ Whatever that is…” Fedea said. “I think that Chain-Head is upset that Hope might be more knowledgeable about something than she is… What a toddler!”

The sound of three different voices speaking was kind of comforting. The native language was so musical and rhythmic. Charity kind of got lost in the sounds of their voices, lulling her into a bit of a dream.

Also, Charity discovered, and felt that it was quite noteworthy, that if one slid a blade of grass across one’s stomach it could feel either soft and smooth or rough and sticky depending on the orientation of the blade.

“Hello? Charity? Are you still with us?” Fedea said.

“Huh?”

“There you are! So, I made some suggestions that Chain-Head seems excited about. First, I’m sorry. Second, they will keep you as a pet. So… yea!! Oh! And Chain-Head has demanded a new variation in sleeping arrangements. Once again… sorry.”

Hope came over to where Charity was sitting next to the tree that her leash was chained to and patted Charity on the head. “G-een pas-e.” Then she actually smiled for the first time since she had rescued Charity from Empusa’s menagerie.

Hope and Illie left Charity chained to the tree that day as they went off to do whatever they did. Supposedly, Hope was gathering materials to brew the green paste that augmented the sexual sensitivity of Charity’s skin.

After gathering up her nerves, Charity approached the lion-like beast, attempting to get a better look at the collar it was wearing. From a ring, under the lion’s chin, a tiny naked woman was dangling, bent over and restrained with golden wire in a particularly immodest position. She was upside-down with her legs splayed wide and bound to her outstretched arms leaving her sex displayed foremost and her long hair swishing from her head down below.

Charity cautiously reached out to touch the woman, but jerked her hand back when the lion began to elicit a cautionary growl.

“Rule number one,” Fedea said. “Don’t touch the tiny woman!”

Charity could see the tiny woman’s lips moving. She was most definitely the source of Fedea’s voice.

“How?… Who… who are you?” Charity asked. “Why?”

“Wow! Your transition is pretty freaking far along! I already told you that I am Fedea. Do you remember?” she asked Charity.

“But you… here… now?” Charity asked, perhaps beginning to realize how much she struggled trying to form simple sentences.

“It’s a long story. But I’ll make it as short as possible, because I don’t think that your attention span is capable of… Charity! Are you listening to me?” Fedea asked.

Charity, who had been gently rubbing her breast, shook her head. “Mmm hmm.”

“Long ago, Empusa, the bitch queen, somehow decided that it was my calling to be a tiny faerie. She shrunk me down to this size, but I ended up having no wings. I was another one of her failed experiments and she grabbed me off the ground and shoved me in a tiny cage to live in her menagerie, which I believe you are quite familiar with.

“Well… the good thing about being six inches tall is that you can easily be misplaced… I escaped the menagerie and slipped aboard the airship to Paradise. Since then I’ve been working contracts. I did that thing for Dammasch where I went to your earth for a while. And when that contract ended, I started working for someone else who is particularly interested in you. So, I’ve been watching you for the past few months - your menage a trois’s with those two pony girls…”

Pony girls! Charity wondered what Hazel and Garnet were up to. Did they realize that Charity was gone? Were they sad that she was gone? She missed them a lot. They were the best…

“Charity! Charity! Are you listening? So, here we are! Holy goddess, talking to you is almost useless, which is why, seeing as to how you are safely secured, my escort and I are going to go scout around and do lion type shit for a while.”

The lion stood up and stretched. “Hopefully we can beat an orgasm out of you and… whatever…” The lion trotted off into the forest.

Charity lay back in the grass in the sun, rocking her legs open and closed, then open again. She grabbed her leash chain and slowly let the links pool on her stomach until they slid off the side. She lightly stroked her breasts with her thumbless hand, smiling. “I’m going to have an orgasm!”

<>--+-

That evening, Hope was busy preparing the green paste. Illie hand fed Charity who had been released from the tree, but tied hand and foot for the evening. Fedea and her lion returned, and she talked and talked. Charity had no idea what she was talking about, as she only spoke in the native language, but she didn’t care. She watched Hope methodically mashing her ingredients with a pestle in a large, wooden hollowed out burl.

Unfortunately, the paste would not be ready until the next day.

Illie fetched a second spare hammock of soft woven rope and laid it on the ground. She motioned for Charity to lie on top of it, which Charity thought was kind of odd, since generally hammocks are best when suspended in the air. Then Illie began rolling Charity over onto her stomach, then again onto her back, three times. Suddenly, Charity realized that she had been wrapped tightly in the ropes of the hammock. Her arms were pinned to her sides. Her legs were wrapped together. She could barely move at all.

It reminded her of when her sister used to swaddle her in sheets and blankets to calm her down as a child. “Faith,” she mumbled to herself.

“Shh!” Illie said. She then scowled at Fedea, who was still rambling on about something. Then she walked over to Hope and roughly, yanked her head chains around until her built-in gag pinned her tongue. All this, despite the fact that Hope had hardly spoken all evening.

Finally, she carried Charity into the tree and shoved her up on the hammock over the nest. Illie pulled Hope into the nest with her and squeezed her tightly, with her finger inserted in the thimble and pressed between Hope’s legs sending her to multiple muffled, squirming orgasms while Charity was forced to watch. Charity could barely move. There would be no sleep running on this night. On the other hand, it felt really good to flex her muscles and feel the restraint of the ropes pressing tightly all around her. The nest was bathed in a bright blue glow late into the night.

Chapter 05

In the morning, Illie pulled Charity from her sleeping hammock. She was still securely wrapped in a web of soft ropes. Illie placed her on the ground and pulled at the web, sending Charity rolling through the dirt. When she looked up, Illie was already busy unpacking some food for breakfast, while Hope knelt obediently with her hands crossed behind her back.

Fedea’s lion was sitting nearby, licking its paws, occasionally batting Fedea’s tiny body back and forth where it dangled from the collar’s ring. Fedea did not seem bothered by the lion’s activity.

Charity walked over and knelt next to Hope, smiling. She placed her hands behind her back and opened her mouth when Illie offered a bite for breakfast. Charity looked at Hope and nodded her head, still smiling. Hope held up her hands which were stained green from her work the night before.

Charity leant over and kissed Hope’s hand.

“Es (click) oo-ah (click)!” Illie shouted. Hope quickly placed her hands behind her back again and opened her mouth to receive another bite for breakfast.

“Green paste?” Charity whispered to Hope.

“Shh!” Illie admonished.

Charity looked at Hope, nodding her head, smiling.

Hope looked at Charity, then up at Illie, who was scowling back. Her lips began to move, but she never formed any words.

“Oh! For fuck’s sake!” Fedea yelled, who had been watching the morning’s proceedings. “Tonight! Chain-Head wants to wait until tonight to use the green paste!”

Illie turned toward the lion and kicked some dirt at it, mumbling something in the native language…

Charity frowned and ate the rest of her breakfast in silence.

<>--+-

All day Charity was so filled with anticipation that she could not keep still. Illie and Hope had gone off to do whatever it was that they did during the days. Fedea and her lion made themselves scarce as well. Charity ended up eating fruit with the local deer herd in the meadow. She was able to recognize individuals and was learning their pecking order. The deer accepted her. They mostly ignored her. Sometimes though, one would actually nudge her if she had fruit in her hands.

One of the deer snorted a warning and they all started to run for the cover of the forest. Charity didn’t realize that she was running along with them in the middle of the herd until she made the treeline. She looked back towards the meadow and saw Fedea’s lion ambling across the field. She rolled her eyes and made her own snorting sound at the deer, then walked back out to meet Fedea.

“My apologies to your deer friends,” Fedea said as Charity approached. “I’ll advise my escort to refrain from eating any more of them while we are visiting.”

“Wha…?” Charity glanced back toward the treeline, then back to Fedea’s lion, which had sat in the tall grass and begun to lick its paws.

“Hope and Chain-Head are almost home,” Fedea said. “So, come now and we’ll see if you can cum now.”

“Huh?” Charity said, confused.

“That’s what I thought,” Fedea replied.

Of course, Illie wanted to take care of dinner first. So, Charity knelt next to Hope, with her hands and ankles tied behind her back, eating from Illie’s hand. After dinner Hope and Illie went into the forest while Charity knelt impatiently. She heard the sound of wood chopping and rocks being thrown about.

The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time Illie returned. She spent a bit of time slowly circling around Charity, looking intently at her. She knelt in front of Charity and grabbed a handful of her hair - forcing her head from side to side, front to back - examining Charity from various angles. Then Illie stood up and began pulling at some of the chains from her head. A single link popped out and bounced off Charity’s knee and into the dirt. Charity looked down at the link. It was a perfect circular ring, with a single gap. Illie picked up the ring, letting it dangle from a finger as she slowly raised it to her lips. Illie cupped Charity’s chin in her hand and forced her to look up at her as she slipped her tongue through the metal ring and sucked it into her mouth.

Next, Illie started unwrapping Charity’s leash from around her torso. After the entire leash was in a pile on the ground, Illie grabbed it about two feet from where the leash was anchored on Charity’s chest and pulled up sharply. She slipped the metal ring that she had been sucking on from her mouth. Illie held the ring in front of Charity’s eyes for a moment before slipping the ring’s gap over a nearby link of Charity’s leash. She then picked Charity up, still bound by hand and foot, and slung her over her shoulder. Charity watched her chain leash slither along the forest floor as Illie carried her. She noticed that the ring that Illie had slipped onto the leash had a particularly sharp point on one side of the open gap.

Illie dropped Charity unceremoniously on the ground and gathered her leash into a pile. She reached up and tied a thick rope through the last link of Charity’s leash. The rope extended up into the shadows of the tree limbs. Illie walked off to the side and began pulling down on a rope. It must have been the opposite end of the length tied to Charity’s chain, because, soon, the links began to lift off the ground.

Charity looked up into the shadows and decided that she would certainly follow the links. She scrambled to her feet. Moments later the leash became taut. Soon Charity was on her toes - another strong pull, and Charity left the ground with a surprised little yelp. Charity was not too high before Illie tied the rope off. Still, she was unable to touch the ground and her back was arched, facing up towards the night sky.

Hope appeared at her feet. She untied them and then began to secure each ankle with separate ropes. She pulled each rope around trees and began to apply some tension, until Charity’s legs were pulled down and away, her legs held open wide. Charity began to groan and tremble as Hope made sure that the ropes were secure enough to act as anchors.

Illie, meanwhile, was untying Charity’s hands from behind her back. She moved Charity’s arms in front of her face and tied them together again, but with a heavier rope and a stronger knot. This rope led up a fair distance behind Charity.

Charity watched Hope walk over to a large pile of rocks, each about the size to two fists. She hefted up two of the rocks and disappeared behind Charity for a moment. The rope tied around Charity’s wrists jerked suddenly and she felt a slight amount of tension. Soon, Hope returned to the pile of rocks and grabbed two more. Somehow, the rocks acted as a counter weight to her arms. After four trips, Charity’s body was pulled fairly taut, suspended in the air at a 45 degree angle.

Illie stood behind Charity, wrapping her hair into a ponytail. She pulled down on Charity’s hair, sharply forcing her head back. Charity could see the ropes tied tightly around her wrists, then leading up to a horizontal branch and back down on the far side to a large bag. Hope slipped two more rocks in the bag and Charity felt their weight pull a little more on her arms. She looked to the side. There were a lot of rocks still sitting in the pile waiting to be added to the bag.

Illie jerked on Charity’s head again, forcing her to look straight back. Her face was upside-down from Charity’s perspective. Illie leaned forward and kissed her, slipping her tongue into Charity’s mouth. She felt her nipples harden and shortly after Hope dropped two more stones into the bag.

Illie stepped away, leaving Charity to hang in her bondage. Charity pulled on her arms. She was strong enough to lift the bag a little, but as soon as she stopped pulling, she felt the bag lower again. She could hear Illie and Hope talking quietly some distance away. Fedea was there too. They seemed content to let Charity simply hang for a little while, stretched out in the night air.

Soon, Hope stood up next to Charity. She had a glob of green paste on her finger which she started to gently pat around the middle of Charity’s chest where the leash was embedded. It kind of tickled, and Charity smiled.

There was a jerking on the rope, and Charity felt a bit more tension in her arms. Illie had dropped a few more rocks in the bag. Illie then walked over to Charity. She leaned over - a collection of cold metal strands of chain from Illie’s head pooling on Chastity’s chest. Illie delicately poked at Charity’s nipples with her tongue.

Hope stood between Charity’s legs and poured a huge glob of the paste on her abdomen. She began using two hands to massage it into Charity’s skin, which began to tingle sharply with sensations. Charity pulled her head up to see, looking between her breasts and around the tensioned leash chain as her abdomen was painted green. Hope, meanwhile, seemed to be blue as she was bathed in the glow of light from Charity’s chastity belt.

Illie had stepped away for a moment. Charity felt the tension in her arms increase again, causing her to moan. Illie returned and dumped some of the green paste on Charity’s chest, working it up to her neck and across her breasts, pinching Charity’s nipples in a most delicious manner. Charity let her head fall back as Illie ran her hands up around Charity’s neck, kissing her lips. Her skin was tingling - every caress amplified - sending shocks of arousal through Charity’s body - causing her muscles to occasionally spasm and her body to bounce in the tensioning ropes.

Hope was working between Charity’s inner thighs, spreading the paste, using her fingernails to incite waves of shivers to splash their way across Charity’s body.

Two more rocks, and Charity flexed her arms, but was unable to lift the bag anymore. She was fully stretched, anchored by her feet and hands. Her breathing became limited to short gasps.

“Ooooh!” she groaned and lifted her head to see Hope with something that looked like a flogger made of many supple strands of leather. When Hope dragged it across Charity’s breast and abdomen, it felt like a thousand gentle fingers. Hope did more than drag the flogger though. After a pass, she lifted it and gently slapped it down on Charity’s chastity belt. The impregnable shield took the brunt of the strike, but tiny sparks of pleasure popped all along its periphery.

Two more rocks, and Charity could no longer bend and buck her hips when the sensations made her muscles spasm. Even when Illie pushed the green paste deep into Charity’s sensitive armpits, she could hardly do more than groan. Illie returned with another handful of paste and slathered it across Charity’s face. She slipped her coated fingers around Charity’s lips and pulled at her tongue ring. She pushed her fingers along Charity’s nose and even briefly stuffed a finger up each nostril, twisting the paste inside until it began to sting and burn.

Meanwhile Hope continued to alternate caresses with increasingly powerful strikes across Charity’s abdomen and upper thighs. Every second Charity could feel her skin becoming more sensitive. Her panting became more labored as more rocks were piled on. She lost track of who was touching her. Sensations popped from place to place - a pinch, a needle grazing her skin, a slap, a kiss, a large, wet rough rag. Her eyes were rolling back in her head.

Charity felt her hair being pulled. She opened her eyes to see Illie and Hope looking intently at her face. She saw Illie’s hand grab the open ring she had left to dangle from Charity’s leash. Illie slipped the ring free and slowly lowered it, touching it lightly against Charity’s cheek. It was cold and metallic. Illie held the ring directly in front of Charity’s eye for a moment. The metal looked thick. Illie moved the ring down over Charity’s mouth briefly, then began to shove the open ends of the ring up Charity’s nose.

Hope’s voice somehow rose above Charity’s moans. “I luh you, Chai-ree.” And she smiled.

Charity felt a sharp pain in her nose, and that somehow finally pushed her over. Her entire body seized up for what felt like an eternity. She couldn’t even force herself to breathe. Finally, her muscles relaxed and Charity screamed until she seized up again. Her vision dissolved into gray noise and she slipped away into an orgasmic dream.

<>--+-

“I feel great,” Charity said. “It’s like I have awoken from a dream. I mean, not a bad dream, just… different…” She reached up and touched her nose. “But… um… does this come out?”

Charity was referring to the large, thick steel ring that was now embedded in her septum. The diameter of the ring was big enough that the lower extent of the piercing settled perfectly in the crease between her lips. Every time she spoke the ring would flop up and down, which made Charity flinch a little, because the piercing was still tender.

Fedea translated Charity’s question into the native language. Hope and Illie passed guilty looks back and forth for a moment. “Nope,” Fedea said. “Chain-Head wanted to mark you as her pet.”

Charity rolled her eyes. “Well… It’s worth it, I suppose. It’s kind of a… a pain when I try to talk.”

“Chain-Head can not conceive of any language other than hers,” Fedea explained. “She doesn’t consider you to be human anymore. To her, you can’t speak. You just make annoying noises.”

“Great,” Charity said. “Where are they going?” Having finished cleaning up from breakfast, Hope and Illie set off into the forest as they did most every day.

“They are nature witches. They provide services to a number of small villages that are nearby… mostly healing medicines,” Fedea explained.

“While you are lucid, I have some questions for you,” Fedea said. “Did Empusa use a lot of metal when she stuck that chain leash inside your body?”

“Yeah! There were four horizontal plates. Two, front and back. You know, over and under my breasts. Then another plate that connected the two. Plus some bars over the shoulder.” Charity rolled her shoulders a bit. “It’s hard to believe that all that metal is inside me, but I guess that’s the magic…”

“Mmm hmm,” Fedea said.

“Now, I have a question for you,” Charity said, looking down at her body. “Why is your uh… lion’s tongue green?”

“Hey! We had to pull out all the stops to get you to cum,” Fedea said.

“Ooo!” Charity frowned. She swore that the lion smiled at her.

“I have a theory that your chastity belt, the Zoic amplifier, works by sending filaments into your nervous system and up to your brain. Those filaments are made of metal that is extracted from your diet.”

“What’s a fila… men…?”

“Like tiny roots growing through your body,” Fedea said.

“Is that bad?” Charity asked.

“No. But if Empusa placed all that metal inside you,” Fedea explained, “then the amplifier will have a vast source of metal to perform its job. But, you know, the chastity belt is around your crotch and the metal plates are at your ribcage, so… one would think it would take a while for metal pathways to link between the two.”

“Ok,” Charity said. “I think I understand what you are saying, but it doesn’t matter now that I am with Hope and able to orgasm. See how much better I can speak now?”

“Oh, yeah much better,” Fedea said.

“Test me!” Charity said, smiling.

“Uh… Ok… so, um… you say that you are feeling much less somnambulant now after the orgasm?”

“No fair!” Charity said. “Stick to English words only. You can’t expect me to remember Spanish. Stick to common English words that everyone knows.”

“Alright. Um… ‘television’,” Fedea said.

“Tele…?” Charity looked confused. “We should probably stick to shorter words. Long ones might take a while to remember.”

“How about ‘tampon’?” Fedea asked.

“Now you’re just making up words. Don’t fuck with me!” Charity said. “That’s just cruel.”

“Sorry, you’re right,” Fedea said. “How about ‘clit piercing’?”

“Ha!” Charity said standing up. “I know what that is. I actually have one!”

“You have one?” Fedea asked.

“Yes! That woman who put the belt on me… um…”

“You’re girlfriend?”

“Hmm?”

“Blue? The woman you lived with?” Fedea asked.

“Yes! She wanted me to wear the piercing under the belt,” Charity explained. “It was like an extra little tease, because the weight of the piercing would shake things around, when I jumped up and down. Like this.” Charity started jumping up and down, the links of her leash jingling all around her. A confused look crossed her face for a moment, then she jumped more vigorously.

“Well, after all this time, I’m sure things have shifted a bit probably. Maybe I gained weight…”

“Uh uh…” Fedea said. “I think that the belt had probably fused with the piercing.”

“Fused?” Charity asked.

“Yes!” Fedea said. “The belt and the piercing are now part of the same thing most likely.”

“You will need to speak slower,” Charity replied.

“Over time, most likely, the belt has used the metal in your clit piercing to send its roots into your body. The belt has probably grown… you know… around your clitoris. It’s probably anchored to you now. Even if you had the key and unlocked the belt, I bet it’s, like, physically attached to you now. And by using your clit piercing, there is by far enough material to burrow through you to the metal plates that make up your leash.” Fedea seemed to be getting excited. “There’s so much metal inside you that I bet the amplifier will just discard whatever unneeded excess there may be.”

“This is crazy,” Charity said, anxiously. “I’m going to go to Paradise and find this Dammasch bitch and get her to take the belt off.”

“Not if it is growing through your body,” Fedea said.

“You are just making shit up,” Charity said. She started jumping up and down again, tapping on the faceplate of the chastity belt as she did.

“Whatever… Maybe…” Fedea said. “But it would explain that strange lump you have on the left side of your lower back.”

“What?!” Charity said, pushing her leash chain to the side, pressing her fingers into the skin on her back. Suddenly, she felt something hard and smooth, narrow, but about two inches long, under her skin. She felt around on her right side. Something was there too, smaller, but definitely solid.

“What do I do?” Charity screamed.

“Relax! You’ll be fine,” Fedea said. “The amplifier will make sure you are as healthy as possible. This is actually kind of exciting.”

<>--+-

Sex was the only thing that could distract Charity from what Fedea had explained about the metal. Mainly because every day the hard lump in her back was a little bit longer and a little bit more prominent. Five days later, Fedea and her lion were gone, and though Charity forced Hope to feel the lump on a daily basis, she simply shrugged her shoulders. Charity had no idea what else could be done.

So, Charity invited the opportunity to think about sex. Her greatest discovery was that she could actually use the new nose ring to her advantage when providing oral sex for Illie. Once Illie’s crotch was sufficiently lubricated by Charity’s tongue, she would flip the large ring up. It would then thump up and down over Illie’s clit while Charity worked her nubby tongue to great effect down below.

Charity was so efficient in her ability to pleasure Illie, that she was worried that Hope was becoming jealous. Illie resolved that problem after a few days by making Hope stand behind Charity. She directed Hope to thread her fingers into Charity’s hair and control the positioning of Charity’s head. Meanwhile, Illie would slip her finger into Hope’s thimble and press the smooth, rounded surface through the forest of sharp needles around Hope’s clitoris.

On the sixth night, Charity sensed that Hope was particularly anxious. She drew the outline in the dirt of the safe zone again for Charity - the land between the two creeks and the cliffs.

“I know! I know! I’m staying around home!” Charity said. “I promise. What are you so anx… uh… nervous about?”

Hope pointed at Illie and herself, then pointed at her eyes.

“You and Illie saw something?” Charity asked.

Hope sucked in a big breath then began shuffling along stiffly.

“You saw um… dead people walking around? People who were sleepwalking?”

Hope pointed at some rocks. Then she spit and pointed at the rock again.

“People were spitting on you and throwing rocks? Sleepy people were spitting?”

Hope pointed at Charity, acted big and pointed at her eyes.

“You have been having gas and you don’t want to get me sick? You’re trying to see if I have bad gas?”

Whatever Hope was trying to communicate, never really made sense to Charity. Eventually, Illie and Hope started speaking to one another excitedly. There were a lot of frowns. Finally Illie made a forceful declaration and Hope reluctantly allowed Illie to apply her built-in gag, ending the conversation.

Shortly afterwards Illie pushed Charity, who was still tied up from dinner, onto the second hammock, wrapped her up tightly in the web of ropes, and then shoved her into her sleeping compartment over the nest for the night.

The next morning, after breakfast, Illie fastened Charity’s leash around the leashing tree. They left a bowl of water by the tree and then went off on their day’s errands.

“Such is the life of the family pet,” Charity thought to herself as she slowly sat down in the grass somewhere near the furthest extent that her leash allowed. The hard lump was growing fast. It now wrapped around her waist on her left side. She could feel it growing just below her ribs.

Such was the rhythm of life for some number of days, until one rainy afternoon Charity heard a voice.

“Have you been a bad pet?” Fedea asked.

Charity was startled for a moment, but then crawled on her hands and knees through the mud over to the lion and looked at the tiny woman dangling upside-down, held immobile by coils of wire, from the beast’s collar. “Where… have…?”

“Oh, my! I think you need another orgasm!” Fedea said.

Charity nodded.

<>--+-

Hope made another batch of the green paste. When everything was ready, Charity was bent over a narrow branch. Her ankles were anchored by ropes two feet above the ground. Her arms were tied up and far in front. Her leash was pulled down until Charity’s back was significantly bowed. A fire was burning about ten feet away.

“What… to pierce… this… time?” Charity asked.

“You will not have an orgasm if you know what to expect,” Fedea explained. “There will be no piercings.”

Illie wrapped a blindfold around Charity’s eyes and pulled her head back by pulling on her hair and securing it somehow. A significant amount of green paste was massaged into her back, hands occasionally wrapping around her chest to fondle her breasts. The flogger was employed judiciously upon her back and with much greater force on her well-presented back end.

Soon Charity was screaming and moaning in ecstasy, just shy of the edge of orgasm. She felt the sensation of searing heat near her chest.

She heard Hope and Illie speaking together: “Hee-roo, bee, bah-(tick)…” It was like they were counting down or something.

“Oh, fuck! They’re going to brand me!” This was her final conscious thought until she was revived, untethered in Illie’s arms. Each breast was sore. They both now sported a flat, thin metal strip that had been cauterized into the skin, circling each nipple. When she shook her chest, she could feel the weight of the metal strips.

Hope knelt next to Charity and brushed a tangled mass of necklaces to the side. Charity’s new decorations looked identical to those that circled Hope’s nipples. Charity leaned over and kissed Hope’s breast.

Once again the next day, Charity, dyed green by the paste, felt as though she had awoken back to her old self. She remembered words like “door” and “glass”.

Hope, Illie and Fedea spoke together at length about the lump around Charity’s waist. Indeed, the lump now completely circled Charity at the narrowest point just below her ribcage and above her belly-button. The skin was noticeably raised and somewhat darkened.

That night, Charity felt a painful ripping sensation. Her screams awoke all the others. In the early light of the new morning, they found that a solid, sturdy metal ring now circled Charity’s waist. The metal was about a quarter inch thick. It was no longer embedded in her skin in any way. It could even be raised and lowered by, perhaps, an inch. Its dimensions were far too narrow, though, for it to ever be lifted past her chest or lowered past her hips.

“What is it going to do now?” Charity asked Fedea, pushing at the metal ring.

“It’s not going to do anything, I don’t suppose,” Fedea responded.

Illie was pulling at one of the chains embedded in her head.

“But, is it going to just stop growing?” Charity asked.

“It’s no longer inside you, so there is no longer a source for more metal,” Fedea explained. “Obviously.”

“So… how do I get it off?” Charity asked.

Illie had popped a ring from her head. She tapped it on Charity’s waist ring several times.

“Get it off?” Fedea said. “Yeah! That’s not going to happen.”

“What?!” Charity asked.

Illie was mumbling in the native language. Hope was sitting back watching with a look of concern in her eyes.

“Maybe there is some witch who can remove it with some magic,” Charity suggested. “Please tell Illie to stop tapping me with her ring!”

“Oh! Great idea!” Fedea said. “I know a witch that can do that, too! Her name is Queen Empusa.”

Illie grabbed Charity’s leash and tapped the ring against one of the links. Immediately, she noticed that Illie’s ring had linked with her leash.

Illie grabbed Charity’s arm and dragged her roughly over to a log lying on the ground. She forced Charity onto her stomach over the log, then started tapping on Charity’s new waist ring again.

“Someone tell this bitch to stop pounding on me!” Charity said.

“Shh!” Illie said as she pushed on the skin at Charity’s side attempting to slide a finger under the ring. The gap was so tight, she could only get part of her pinky through.

Illie screamed something at Charity and then walked away. Charity started to get up from the log.

“No!” Hope said, shaking her head. “No!”

Charity let out a huff and laid back down.

Illie returned with a tool that could be used as a hammer. She pushed on Charity’s back. “Ae-(tick)-san (cuh) el-dee!”

Then she struck the ring with the hammer. Since Charity was bent over the log, her waist ring was pressed into the wood. Charity could feel the strikes from the hammer rattle around her waist.

“She’s going to bend it! Tell her to stop!”

Illie was pounded harder and harder on the ring. Charity kicked at Illie to get her to stop hammering. Illie stepped back mumbling and walked off again.

Charity started to get up again.

“Nooo!” Hope warned again.

“Gahhh!” Charity lay down again.

Illie returned with some rope and bound Charity’s ankles together. Then she pushed the rope between Charity’s waist ring and her skin. When she began to pull the rope through, the friction began to burn Charity’s skin and she screamed.

Hope spoke harshly to Illie for a moment. She stepped up, yanking the rope from Illie’s hands, but continued the task of slipping the rope through the gap - just much more gently. Soon, Charity’s legs were pulled backwards and her back began to arch as her ankles approached her waist.

“This is humil… this…,” Charity grunted.

“You shouldn’t have tried to kick Chain-Head,” Fedea said.

“Stop laughing!” Charity screamed at Fedea.

When Charity’s ankle ties met the waist ring, Illie pulled up on the rope, lifting Charity into the air. She then started shaking Charity up and down, apparently testing to see how sturdy the ring was.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Owww! Stop!” Charity said as she was jerked around in the air.

Illie dropped Charity back onto the log and pushed her over onto her side.

“No! No! No, no no no!” Charity screamed as Illie pulled out another tool with a serrated, metal blade, used for cutting tree limbs.

Ten minutes later, Charity was still bound in a strenuous arch, but mostly happy to have not been sawn in half.

Illie was sitting some distance away, sweating from exertion, staring at the ruined blade.

After quietly staring at Charity’s waist ring for a while, Illie built a large fire and dropped her favorite feather into the red hot flames, followed by a link of chain from her own head.

“She thinks your waist ring is the most beautiful, perfect, metal ring that she has ever seen. She’s giving thanks and an offering to the Goddess Dammasch.” Fedea explained.

Charity simply grunted.

<>--+-

Later that day, Charity was sitting in the meadow with Fedea and her escort. Illie seemed to believe that Charity did not need to be leashed to the home tree as long as Fedea’s beast was around.

The skin underneath her new waist ring had been pink and sensitive in the morning, but now it looked and felt completely normal. The metal ring was perfectly oval shaped and fairly tight. She could push a finger between her stomach and the ring if she sucked in her stomach. But, due to its shape, she could not move the ring much.

“When I get home, they should be able to cut it off,” she said, hopefully to Fedea.

“Home?” Fedea responded.

“Back to my universe.”

“Um… You can’t go back there…” Fedea said.

“Why not?” Charity said, looking up from her waist. “You have traveled both ways between the universes.”

“Uh… it’s been decommissioned,” Fedea said.

“I have no idea what decom… whatever… means,” Charity growled.

“It has been turned off,” Fedea said.

“Well, there is a gate, right?” Charity said. “They can turn it back on again, can’t they?”

“No. Your universe is gone-”

“Gone?! What?” Charity stood up. “You can’t just turn off a para… a paral…”

“A parallel universe,” Fedea said. “You are not from a parallel universe.”

“That’s what Empusa said,” Charity said, beginning to pace.

“She lied,” Fedea responded. “You are actually from a simulation. When you went through the gate, you were manifested here based on your specifications in the simulation.”

Charity had dropped to her knees holding her stomach. “I’m going to be sick… It’s gone?”

“It was considered a failed universe, so, yeah, it’s gone,” Fedea said.

“Eight billion people…” Charity’s stomach started to heave and she bent over to vomit.

“Well… Each woman that acted as a host of the simulation has a complete copy of the state when the universe was decommissioned in their brain, but… yeah… Their contract is complete. They’ve gone home.”

“You need to leave me alone for a while…” Charity said.

“Some people came through the gate after you and your sister… looking for you…” Fedea said. “That police detective… some other people… two Aradales.”

“What’s an Aradale?” Charity asked - not so much because she was interested in the answer, rather she needed the subject to change.

“Aradale is the Goddess Dammasch’s sister,” Fedea said. Her voice sounded much more relaxed, and she began to ramble on… “Every universe has a Dammasch and an Aradale and there is always a conflict where one of the sisters takes control. Here, of course, Dammasch is the Goddess and Aradale is permanently confined in the Hollow Well. Magic rules. But, in your universe, Aradale and her technology was supreme and she found the gate and slipped through along with another version of herself. I’m not certain where the second Aradale came from… Was she from a parallel universe’s simulation of your universe? Can a simulation begat parallel simulations? Maybe a simulation host had a previous Aradale imprinted in her repository? I’m not sure anyone knows, but…”

Fedea talked on and on…

Charity’s hands, meanwhile, were worrying at a newly discovered hard lump on the back of her neck.

Chapter 06

“What is a stone gah… gol…?”

“A stone golem,” Fedea corrected Charity. “They are creatures without a brain or a soul. Empusa has awoken them to… uh… Well, they are all looking for you.”

“And they are around here?” Charity asked.

Charity and Hope were kneeling next to each other as Illie hand fed them twisted lumps of (tick)-doh grass. (One of Charity’s favorite treats.) Charity was mostly relieved that she seemed to be able to swallow with no problems. A metal ring had emerged from the flesh around her neck. It was tight, but not constricting. There was no way that it would ever slip over her head, so Charity had to consider it as nothing more than just another piece of permanent jewelry.

“Chain-Head says that it is the second time that they have seen one nearby - probably the same one,” Fedea said.

“Should we just leave?” Charity asked.

“No. We are very isolated here,” Fedea explained. “You are much more likely to encounter one if you are traveling.”

“Can you… kill…?” Charity asked.

“They are not alive,” Fedea said. “You can eliminate them, but that might lead to an investigation… which means Empusa’s guards would arrive…”

Charity nodded her head even though she did not fully comprehend what Fedea said.

“The search algorithm that a stone golem uses is not very sophisticated,” Fedea said. “So, if you are located in a…”

Charity had no idea what Fedea was talking about anymore. She glanced over at Illie who revered silence above all else. Her mouth was locked in a frown. Charity rolled her shoulders a little and tugged at the ropes that were holding her wrists locked behind her back. She was not interested in pulling her hands free. She just found that she liked the way that the ropes felt both physically and mentally.

She leaned to the side and nudged Hope’s shoulder. A moment later, Hope nudged her back. Recently, they seemed to be reconnecting a little bit. Most of their communications were now performed through subtle touches. This connection was buoyed on Illie’s new practice of requiring Hope to direct Charity’s head while Charity was orally servicing Illie.

Since Illie always slid her finger into the thimble that allowed her to safely navigate between Hope’s legs, Charity quickly learned that by controlling her effort to push Illie over the edge, she could indirectly affect the amount of pleasure that Hope received from Illie. Hope seemed to realize Charity’s strategy and started shifting Charity’s head around as a signal to indicate how hard to push Illie’s arousal. Basically they were able to successfully to reframe the act of three-way sex to an act of love between two with a go-between. And while Charity ended up as frustrated as always - glowing bright blue, there was a certain satisfaction in the idea that Hope’s physical needs were wonderfully fulfilled.

“… For example, one would not consider a revolving security camera as looking around with any sense of intelligence. It’s just following a simple algorithm…”

Illie was noisily stashing food supplies back in a storage container, so Charity leaned over and kissed Hope on the cheek (which involved pressing several layers of metal together - a thick nose ring and the jewelry chains wrapped around Hope’s head). Hope actually smiled for a moment and winked.

“…and we monitor the boundary that Chain-Head has defined then, we can safely distract their meanderings…”

Charity’s left ring finger knuckle felt weird. She feared that a new ring was growing…

<>--+-

Charity was lying on her side, randomly slathered in green paste, a tear sliding across her cheek. Illie, in her frustration, had tied Charity’s hands behind her back and looped the loose end of the rope around her bound ankles - a fairly stringent hogtie. She had then roughly pushed Charity from her knees and into the dirt. Now, Charity could barely move. Her body was so tired and sore, she did not even try.

Hope, Illie, and Fedea had been arguing for the past hour in the native language. She had no idea what was being said. She could not help but feel like a failure.

Her freshly pierced ear was starting to sting a little. She could feel the three fat links of metal draping across her jaw. This act of creating this new piercing was meant to induce Charity to have an orgasm. Charity felt like she had been on the edge, but she was unable to slip over. Now her body was swamped in a mind-numbing state of unquenchable arousal.

She did not even realize that Fedea had been talking to her until her escort, the beast, had pawed her. “Chain-Head is such a stupid bitch,” Fedea was saying. “She threatened to pierce a rod through your mouth from cheek to cheek like some kind of permanent bit. I think that Hope was able to convince her otherwise.”

Charity lifted her head and realized that Illie and Hope had gone into the home tree, leaving Charity lying in the dirt under a moonless sky. Fedea’s beast lay down next to her. “I told them that a second ear piercing would not push you over. We did your other ear last time. The extreme bit needs to be more unpredictable. I couldn’t argue with Hope though. At least now both ears are pierced.”

Indeed, the previous orgasm had been induced by the thick, seamless chain link in her right earlobe. The resulting earring was a three link chain that constantly brushed her shoulder. Now, she had a matching earring on her left side, also permanent, but without the same payoff.

“In the end, Hope agreed to try my suggestion tomorrow,” Fedea continued.

Hope climbed out of the Home Tree and walked over to where Charity lay on the ground. She placed a gentle hand on Charity’s shoulder then began pulling Charity’s leash across the ground. She looped it around the leashing tree and locked it in place. Then she stopped by Charity and placed her hand over Charity’s heart.

Charity tried to say something, but she was still incapable of forming words, so her communications were no more than meaningless moans. Hope pointed at Fedea’s beast, then her eyes, and then Charity. Obviously, Illie had applied Hope’s built-in gag. Fedea confirmed that she would watch over Charity until morning. Then Hope climbed back into the Home Tree.

It was probably best that they had left Charity hogtied. All she wanted to do was run. She would run until she collapsed and then just lie until the ground covered her up.

An orgasm definitely improved her cognitive skills, but the effects were degrading more quickly each time. And now, she was having more and more difficulty having an orgasm. It was utterly clear that they were traversing to a point where the act of inducing an orgasm would be too extreme to be safe. Charity had already declared that she was unwilling to be disfigured or blinded… No more amputations…

At the same time, more metal rings were popping out of her skin almost every day. Many of the rings emerged in places where they could be removed - finger and toe rings, for example. There had even been a few thigh rings that she had been able to slip over her knees and around her heels. Illie insisted on collecting all the metal rings, which she stored in a special leather pouch.

Just as often, though, a new ring would emerge that could not be removed. She had three rings around her neck, three on each ankle. She had four rings on her right wrist and two on her left. A second ring had emerged from her waist, but it was bigger than the first and sat low on her hips. Recently, they had been able to pry a ring from around the shell of her ear.

<>--+-

In the morning Illie untied Charity. She unlocked Charity’s leash and allowed her to roam. Fedea and her lion followed her around all day. Fedea had a habit of talking incessantly, but Charity did not really remember much of anything that she said. She was moody and slipped into daydreams - some erotic, some filled with anxiety.

In the evening Hope was working on cooking up another batch of the green paste. A ring that had been emerging from Charity’s left bicep broke free of her skin, but the diameter of the ring was large enough to slip over her elbow and wrist. Illie added it to her collection. Certainly, there was a limit to the amount of metal that Charity would shed. Eventually, she would stop making new rings.

Illie, Hope and Charity made love in their standard odd configuration under a sky full of stars. Charity found that she couldn’t form any words at all for the rest of the evening. Even when Fedea and her beast returned from hunting and Fedea asked how Charity was feeling, she could only shrug her shoulders and mumble. She knew what she wanted to say. She felt like she was making the sounds necessary to speak her thoughts. But, when she actually heard the words coming from her mouth, she did not recognize the sounds. Apparently, no one else did either.

The next evening, the green paste was ready. Charity was nervous. She knew that they were not going to tell her the exact details, but she felt certain that she was about to receive some new permanent modification - a piercing, perhaps, or metal cauterized into her skin. What could they do? Pierce her nipples? The flesh between her fingers? Her lips? She was quickly running out of suitable locations.

After they had finished dinner, Charity was left kneeling on the ground with her wrists and ankles bound behind her back. Hope approached her with a goblet filled with the paste.

“Drinhh!” she said, pushing the goblet to Charity’s lips.

Charity had little choice, but to start gulping the paste down. Soon half the goblet was empty. Illie, Hope, and Fedea stood around quietly. Waiting… Watching…

Charity looked nervously between the three. “What…?”

“Do you feel anything?” Fedea asked.

“Mmm… horny?” Charity replied. “Same…”

Fedea and Illie spoke for a bit. They waited for another five minutes.

“Anything?” Fedea asked.

“Same…” Charity said. “What… how should…”

Illie delivered a command, and Hope tipped the goblet to Charity’s lips, coaxing her to drink a bit more.

“Anything now?” Fedea asked.

“Horny,” Charity said.

Illie grabbed the goblet from Hope’s hands and pushed it up to Charity’s lips. She forced Charity’s head back, making her gulp down more of the paste. Charity started to choke. She coughed. Green paste started to run out of her nose, dripping down the nose ring. Illie simply wiped the paste from the ring with her fingers which she then pushed into Charity’s mouth.

Hope and Fedea were speaking frantically, by the time Illie was satisfied that Charity had consumed everything in the goblet.

“Anything?” Fedea asked after a few more minutes.

“Pee…,” Charity said.

Illie carried Charity out of the camp, and propped her over a fallen tree. As Charity was peeing her crotch began to feel like it was vibrating. It felt very satisfying. Very arousing even. She looked down and noticed a small green puddle. She had drinken so much that she was peeing green now!

Illie carried Charity back to the camp. Charity moaned at the feeling of being cradled in Illie’s arms, snuggling her head a bit against her shoulder. She groaned with disappointment when Illie set her back down on her knees. Charity tugged at the ropes that confined her wrists. It felt so nice. The way her shoulders were stressed by the way the bondage pulled them back was really erotic.

“Itch!” Charity shouted suddenly, struggling with her bonds frantically. Illie and Hope looked at each other for a moment before Hope stepped up and touched Charity’s cheek with her metal tipped fingers. Hope did not have fingernails, so she wasn’t the best person at scratching an itch.

“Low… lower,” Charity said. She opened her mouth and licked Hope’s fingers, leaning forward to try to suck them into her mouth. Hope allowed Charity to suck on her fingers, but gently placed her other hand on Charity’s chest.

Charity thrust her chest out. “Suh!” She said around Hope’s fingers. She began to flex her hips forward and back “Suuuh!!” she demanded.

Hope looked at Fedea, confused. Fedea said some words. Finally Illie knelt in front of Charity. Charity lunged at Illie, spitting Hope’s fingers from her mouth as she moved. Finally, meeting Illie’s lips, pushing her tongue and a portion of her nose ring into Illie’s warm, wet mouth. She was hopping on her knees, struggling to get closer. Pushing out her chest so she could brush her nipples against Illie’s naked skin.

“Suuuh!!” Charity screamed at Illie so loudly, that Illie looked afraid for a moment. Charity was lifting her chest towards Illie’s mouth. Illie looked at Fedea and Hope for a moment, both of whom seemed to be frantically making suggestions. Finally, Illie bent over and sucked one of Charity’s nipples into her mouth. Charity let out a wild growl. Her entire body was jerking around. Every single sensation was far too intense. She was becoming more and more sensitive by the moment.

Illie hugged Charity to keep her from moving so much and latched on tightly to one of her nipples. Hope moved behind Charity and began supporting her weight, pushing her into tighter contact with Illie. Charity felt like she might explode from all the sensations.

The entire camp was bathed in pulsing blue light emanating from Charity’s belt.

Hope turned her back to Charity, pushing her even harder, by using her butt. Sliding up and down. Charity screamed as an orgasm washed over her and despite its arrival the tension in her arousal seemed to continue to grow.

As Charity released another scream, even Fedea’s beast stumbled back for a moment, Fedea was pressed into the animal’s fur. It’s whiskers blown back by the force of Charity’s orgasm. Then the beast staggered forward to where the three women struggled together, pressing into the group with its large, furry head. Illie was shaking and screaming now as well, lost in her own orgasm. Hope’s was not long after. For all though, that was only the beginning.

<>--+-

The next morning Charity was awoken by Hope gently shaking her shoulder. “Ohhh! Mmm! Oohh! Too much, still!”

Hope helped Charity back into a kneeling position. She was still bound hand and foot. Illie, who was sprawled in the dirt, was slowly starting to move. Fedea’s beast was laying on its side, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

“Why the fuck haven’t I just been eating that shit all along?” Charity asked when she finally had the presence of mind to do so.

“There will be…” Fedea said, sounding as dazed as Charity felt. “Side effects…”

<>--+-

Somewhere around ten days later, Charity was once again recovering from a night of ingesting the green paste. Fedea’s beast was stretching and yawning.

“And they said a six inch woman would never get any action…” Fedea said, somewhat groggily.

“I think that we used the right amount this time,” Charity suggested. “I felt like there was a little more control.” She pulled on a ring that wrapped around the base of both her left pinky and ring finger. Usually, the rings that appeared on her fingers were easy to remove. This one seemed to be awkwardly jammed below the knuckles on those fingers. It was hard to pull off rings when one doesn’t have thumbs sometimes. Maybe Hope would be able to get it off.

Charity now had five rings around her neck. She wondered how many more might appear before she couldn’t move her head. A third ring had appeared around her waist.

<>--+-

Four days later Illie seemed to be suggesting that it was time for Hope to make another batch of the green paste.

“Has it already… been… ten days?” Charity asked.

Fedea and her beast had been away for the past two nights so, there was no one around to understand what Charity was saying. It also meant that Illie insisted that Charity be leashed to the leashing tree while she and Hope were away.

Hope said something to Illie. Her voice sounded cross. Meanwhile, she continued coating Charity’s right big toe with the sap of a flower that acted as a lubricant. She was trying to help pull a newly generated ring off the toe without much success.

Charity was staring at her arm. She was trying to remember when it was last coated in the green paste. Usually the dye mostly wore off after five days or so. Her arm still looked pretty green.

<>--+-

“Charity, say something to me,” Fedea said.

“Something,” Charity responded.

“Oh, good! Much better than yesterday,” Fedea said.

“I guess that eating the paste is still working… but…” Charity frowned.

“Not quite as effective?” Fedea asked. “I thought this might happen. You’re becoming resistant to its effects.”

“Can we go down to the creek today? I think I need to bathe,” Charity said.

“Sure.” Fedea’s beast stood up and they started down the hill. “Do you remember what I was telling you about yesterday?”

“Sorry,” Charity said. “I remember that you had heard some news about something…”

“Yeah,” Fedea responded. “Apparently there was a third Aradale that crossed over from your universe…”

“Aradale?” Charity asked.

“Aradale. The Goddess Dammasch’s sister,” Fedea said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, the rumor is… she brought another womanimal with her from your universe. Another woman like you, locked in a Zoic Amplifier. Except, they say, she had been wearing the device for hundreds of years…”

“What?” Charity asked. “Someone from my world who has been wearing a chastity belt for hundreds of years?”

“Uh huh. They met up with Queen Collis - she’s another ruler like Empusa - but in a distant land. Anyway, Collis, the womanimal, and the imported Aradale went to the gates of the Hollow Well and were somehow able to free our Aradale from the Hollow Well.”

“And that is bad?” Charity asked.

“Yes!” Fedea said.

“Why would a womanimal from my world want to free Aradale?” Charity asked.

“Oh! I’m sure she has no idea what was going on,” Fedea explained. “She was used as a tool. She was the source for whatever magic must have been used to open the gates.“

“Oh,” Charity said. In truth, she was more worried about Faith than the politics of this planet. She didn’t really care what the evil sister was up to. The evil sisters. Whatever.

“What this means is…” Fedea started.

“Does my hair look green to you?” Charity asked, fanning through her thick mane. They had arrived at the creek. Charity quickly waded out into a small pool and submerged herself for a moment. She rose back up and pushed her wet hair out of her face and then began staring at it again.

“What this means is… Now, every queen on the planet wants a womanimal. If a womanimal can empower Collis to open the Hollow Well, then who knows what else is possible,” Fedea explained.

“My hair IS green,” Charity said. She balanced on one foot in the creek and pulled her other foot up to look at its underside.

“And everyone knows that Empusa is desperately searching for you, the only other known womanimal on the planet,” Fedea continued.

“The bottom of my foot is green too, isn’t it?” Charity said.

“So, that means that everyone is now looking for you,” Fedea said.

“Am I turning green?” Charity asked. “I am. Aren’t I?”

“You are so totally green,” Fedea responded.

Charity started looking for some calm water so she could look at her reflection.

“I don’t know how much longer you will be safe here,” Fedea said.

“Are my eyes green?!” Charity asked.

<>--+-

“I will not be around tomorrow. So, Chain-Head is going to leash you to the tree during the day,” Fedea said after dinner that night.

“Fuck!” Charity said.

“I told Hope that she must not let Chain-Head force her to make another batch of green paste,” Fedea continued. “Chain-Head thinks that you need another dose, but she doesn’t even talk to you, so I have no idea why she thinks that. I think that she is becoming addicted to the orgasms that you give her when you are high on the paste.”

“I can still speak,” Charity said. “I remember words!”

“Good!” Fedea said. “I’m going to try and find a way to get you to Paradise before one of the queens discovers that you are here.”

“And Hope, too!” Charity said.

As soon as Fedea’s beast had trotted off, Charity looked up to see Illie standing over her. There was a predatory look in her eye. Charity had seen it before, but never quite so intensely. She spoke sharply with Hope and soon the decorated women lined up in position behind Charity, slowly directing her mouth toward Illie’s crotch.

Charity started as usual, but soon noticed that Illie’s hands were also slipping into her hair and directing the action to some degree. Illie did not slip a finger into Hope’s special thimble. She left Hope unenticed and later unfulfilled. Illie broke the ring of love between the three of them.

After Illie had her orgasm, she forced Charity to lie down on the second hammock, still bound, wrist and ankle. She rolled Charity in the web of rope and shoved her into the sleeping compartment.

Shortly after Hope spoke with a bit of irritation and Illie was quick to apply Hope’s built-in gag, before applying the padded muzzle, bra and panties which protected Illie from Hope’s sharp spikes.

The next day, as Fedea had predicted, Illie leashed Charity to the tree, leaving a bowl of water sitting to the side. Charity found that with the sun at the correct angle, she could use the bowl of water to look at her reflection. She could see the change of color in her hair. It was turning a dark emerald shade.

In her time in this universe, her skin had developed a dark tan. There was no doubt that the brown was quickly transitioning to a dark green. She used some of the water to vigorously rub her skin, fruitlessly hoping to get past the layer of green. She found a plant nearby with thorns and quickly scratched it along her calf. It was not a deep cut, but after a few seconds a dark green ebbed up to the surface of her skin. Even her blood was green!

She let out a frustrated growl. Even if Fedea was lying or mistaken about her universe being gone. How could she ever go home? She had a thick metal chain implanted in her sternum. She no longer had thumbs. She had seamless rings encircling all the narrowest parts of her body. And now, apparently, she had turned completely green.

The next day, Fedea and her beast returned, so Charity was allowed to wander within the boundary that Hope had set. In the afternoon, she was laying in the sun near the cliffs. A deer nearby snorted and the herd ran for the cover of the forest. Charity jumped to her feet as well, but immediately saw what caused the alarm. Fedea’s beast was running full speed across the meadow towards her.

It was an impressive sight - watching the animal move at full speed - its head down, back arched. The animal looked like a wheel and it was moving really fast, straight towards her.

Charity was so entranced by Fedea’s beast, that she did not hear the other creature that was moving in her vicinity until it made a loud burping sound. She immediately turned and attempted to run, but a large warm blob of mud impacted around her feet and ankles. When she tried to lift her foot, the caked mud prevented her from moving at all. She looked up to see a creature almost twice her height,the color of sandstone. It walked on two stony legs. Its eyes were no more than two large empty sockets and its mouth was huge and hanging wide open, Its stomach began contracting and lurching as though it was about to vomit at her again.

Charity was frozen, not only in fear, but also it seemed that her feet were particularly stuck in the mud-like vomit. The mud made popping sounds and seemed to be hardening more and more by the second.

Suddenly Charity felt like she was hit by a wall. She felt her feet ripped from the mud and she flew through the air some distance before landing in a heap. It was Fedea’s beast. “Run!” Fedea screamed as the beast circled past Charity and started to run at the creature.

Charity tried to get up but the impact had knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely move. She rolled over enough to get another look at the creature. It must be a stone golem. It was turning its head towards Charity. Its mouth was opening wider. A guttural retching sound began to tear from within the creature.

Suddenly the golem’s head exploded - a blast of rock shards splintering across the meadow. Then Charity saw Illie standing behind the creature. She was spinning something around in the air like a sling. It took a moment for Charity to realize that she was wielding a long heavy chain. Illie was bald! Actually, she only had a single chain that emanated from the crown of her head and it was this chain that she was using proficiently as a weapon. Another strike at the creature’s shoulders sent another shower of broken stones through the air.

The creature stumbled and dropped to its knees.

Hope was lifting Charity up from the ground. “Go!” she screamed as she pulled Charity by her leash towards the cover of the trees. Charity had recovered her ability to breathe enough to stumble along behind Hope.

Once they made it into the shelter of the trees, Hope pushed Charity against a trunk. “Stay!” She began looking around frantically. Charity slid down into the dirt, breathing heavily. She assumed that if she made a smaller target she would be more difficult to see - in case there were any more of those things roaming around.

Charity looked down at her feet. She had not shaved her legs since she had arrived in this universe, but she had never had a lot of body hair. Most every hair that grew around her ankles was now embedded in a small pebble. Even worse, though, the metal rings that had been collecting around her ankles were coated in stone.

<>--+-

“That was a… stone golem?” Charity asked.

“Yes,” Fedea said. “Illie dispatched it, but I’m afraid that Empusa’s people will become suspicious when they find that one of the golems has been destroyed.”

Illie had reinstalled all the chains around her head so they looked like hair rather than an effective weapon. Charity definitely had a new respect for Illie and tried to thank her. Illie’s response, of course, was to shush her and argue with Hope and Fedea.

The three argued all through dinner as Charity knelt on the ground with her wrists and ankles bound being fed by Hope. After a while Illie grabbed Hope by her arm and dragged her back towards the home tree behind where Charity knelt. A short time later, it became obvious that Illie had installed Hope’s built-in gag as Hope was grunting loudly and making inarticulate sounds.

Charity slumped in her bonds, disappointed that she was the cause of so much upset. She looked up at Fedea and her beast and rolled her eyes.

“Wait! Illie, stop!!” Fedea yelled suddenly.

Charity heard a thunk and saw a white flash. The ground was getting closer. Then she felt an intense pain on the back of her head. She was lying in the dirt as the world faded to black.

<>--+-

When Charity awoke again, her head was aching. She was curled up in a tight ball - walls pressing all around her. There was pounding. This sound came from the wooden surface directly behind her.

Charity’s wrists had been unbound. She struggled to twist her body in the cramped space. Moonlight was shining through an opening above her. The floor and walls were really sticky. Her ankles were still tied. Slowly she was able to turn.

The pounding stopped.

“Illie?” Charity said. She was enclosed in some space. The wooden surface was rough. Charity suddenly realized that she was inside one of Illie’s storage trees. Some trees around the home tree had hollows which Illie used to store food and other supplies. Apparently, Illie had stuffed Charity into one of those hollows.

The patch of moonlight shining from above was suddenly covered up.

“Illie?” Charity said.

The pounding started again.

“Illie!” Charity screamed. She was being sealed inside a tree! Charity pushed on the walls around her, but they did not budge at all. “Illie!”

Charity used her fist to bang on a freshly installed slat. “Illie! Let me out!”

Charity heard Illie shush her. Then there was more pounding - reinforcing the slats used to seal Charity in the hollow space of the tree. When the pounding stopped, Charity called out again, pounding her hands on the walls, “Illie? Illie!? Let me out! Illie!!”

Chapter 07

Charity was boarded up inside the cramped hollow of a living tree. She had pounded on the slats that Illie had affixed over the opening. She had kicked at them with her feet. No matter what she did, she was still stuck.

When the morning sun rose, Charity noticed that there were some cracks between the slats. At the very bottom there was an opening tall enough for a small tray to be pushed into her space with some food.

“I need to pee!” she screamed after eating and pushing the tray back out the slot. Illie’s answer was simply to push the empty tray back into the tree and shush Charity.

Charity screamed to be released for a while. She tried to look out through the cracks. She didn’t see anyone around. She assumed that Hope and Illie had gone off to the villages to perform whatever services that they provided there. So, eventually she gave up yelling and resigned herself to the idea that she was going to be trapped in the tree all day long.

It became a bit stuffy inside. She was able to twist around and lay on her back with her face near the slot at the bottom. This allowed her to stretch her legs straight up and rest her heels against the walls of her prison. When that position became painful, she started to sit up, but yelped when the chain dangling from her left ear piercing seemed to become snagged. She realized that she had inadvertently pressed the end of the chain into a sticky pool of tree sap.

There was sap everywhere. It coated the walls and pooled on the bottom of the hollow. Soon Charity was covered in a sticky mess. Her hair was tangled and stuck together in clumps. Every once in a while she even felt some sap drip down from above.

In the evening another tray of food was shoved into her space.

“Illie! You can’t leave me in here!” Charity screamed. “Let me out!”

Illie shushed Charity.

“Where’s Hope? Where’s Fedea? Let me out!”

Charity endured another long night. And the next day passed the same way. Charity was exhausted and her joints hurt from being in the cramped space for so long. Time passed in a dreamlike fashion - a restless nightmare.

“Illie! Open the… the… open the… let me out!” Charity screamed in the evening when Illie pushed the tray of food into the hollow.

In the middle of the night, Charity was awoken by a voice. “Charity? Charity?” It was Fedea.

“Make that… bitch… let me out!” Charity screamed.

“Shhh! Charity! There are several stone golems surveying this area right now. A collection of Empusa’s guards are headed this way too. We need to keep you hidden for a few more days,” Fedea said.

“Days?! Let… let me out!”

“You need to be quiet, Charity!” Fedea said.

Three more days and nights passed. Charity could feel a new ring beginning to emerge on her left wrist. She already had two rings on that wrist. Her tongue felt funny. There was a hard lump that stretched laterally across it. She had never had a ring emerge from her tongue before.

Charity was certain that this situation was bad for her quest to avoid losing her humanity. Or her sanity, for that matter. She considered that she should talk or sing to herself so she wouldn’t lose any more words, but she was afraid that she might be discovered if she did that. So, she lay quietly in the cramped, sappy tree trying to find ways to occupy her mind.

She thought about Hope. She envisioned the way she looked, the way she smelled, the way her skin felt. Charity was surprised to see a dim blue glow emanate from her belt. “How can I be horny at a time like this?” she wondered.

Regardless, she challenged herself to remember every detail of all her jewelry and piercings. She envisioned every bit of her tattooed skin. She imagined her lips in such exquisite detail that she felt she could count the number of needles extruding from them.

Every once in a while, Charity would notice the blue glow and realize how horny she was. She would squeeze a sap covered breast with her sticky hands. “What else is there to do?” She would slip back into a half dream of her and Hope making love. Real love - where they could kiss and taste and share their private spaces.

“Charity!” It was nighttime and Fedea was whispering outside the tree.

“Huh?” Charity responded dreamily.

“Are you ok?” Fedea asked.

“Uh huh,” Charity responded.

“I wanted to let you know that Empusa’s guards will be arriving here in the late morning. You need to stay quiet, OK?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“We’ll try to get them to leave as quickly as possible. Illie has snuck off to attack another Stone Golem two watersheds away. She is hoping to…“ Fedea continued to talk. “…if they can identify her, but I don’t…” Charity couldn’t remember what Fedea was saying. “… Empusa was seen…”

“Ho-e buh,” Charity whispered. She was trying to say Hope but her mouth wasn’t working properly. “Ho-e… Ho-e Buh!”

“Shh!” Fedea whispered. “I’ll be back again tomorrow night.”

A tray of food was pushed in through the slot at the bottom. Charity was really hungry. Had they missed some meals? She might have peed on herself, but all she could smell was sap, so maybe that was just a dream.

There were people walking around outside! She could see movement if she looked through the cracks. Lots of people! She covered her hand over her chastity belt to try to keep the glow from being too strong.

It was night time. Charity was having trouble opening one of her eyes. The sap had sealed her eyelashes together.

It was day time. “Hun… gry…” Shh! Those voices do not sound like Illie.

It was night time again. “Twith-ting and turning… your feelingth are… burning… Your brea-hing the gir…” When she licked at the sap on the walls, her tongue made a scraping sound.

<>--+-

There was a loud crash on Charity’s tree. She jumped back from the wall as best as she could. Another crash and a new crack formed. Some kind of metal hook was shoved through the crack. It twisted and then pulled away. Wood was cracking and daylight was beginning to spill into Charity’s tree.

A pair of eyes looked through the crack for a moment. A voice shouted something in the native language.

The hook reappeared and more of the slats concealing Charity’s hiding spot fell away. Two pairs of eyes were looking in now. A hand covered in a thick leather glove reached in and grabbed at the leash that was wrapped around her body. She was quickly yanked from the hollow in the tree and unceremoniously dumped on the ground in the dirt.

“Ohhh!” Charity started to move, but her arms and legs wouldn’t straighten out without a lot of pain. The sun was shining and it was far too bright to see. She tried to lift her face out of the dirt. Bits of leaves and twigs stuck to her face. She was covered in sap.

Someone was laughing. Someone was laughing at her!

“Oh, Charity! I should be angry at you, but look at you! You disgusting little pathetic thing!”

Empusa…

Charity looked up. There were about twenty women looking down at her. All looked physically quite formidable. Guards. And Queen Empusa standing at the front.

“Puhhh!”

Empusa spoke to the guards. Some jumped into action, grabbing Charity by the arms and legs and gently beginning to straighten them out.

“Oooh! Owwww!” Charity screamed.

“You’re green!” Empusa laughed. “The villagers said that the local witch had a pet who was covered in rings. I was worried that it was not you, but look at you!” She bent over and wiggled Charity’s nose ring, then ran a fingernail, clicking over her five neck rings. After she drew her finger away she looked at it in disgust, then wiped it on her thigh.

“Can you stand?” Empusa asked.

Charity groaned.

“Even more importantly, can you speak? Someone bring the poor animal some water!”

A guard pulled Charity’s head back by grabbing a handful of hair. She poured some water in Charity’s mouth, which for a moment, was like heaven. When the guard tried to let go of Charity’s head, she pulled Charity’s hair painfully as it had stuck to her hand.

“Owww!”

“I’m so offended that you would run away from me,” Empusa said, although she was smiling. “I certainly would never seal MY pets inside trees. But… I guess love makes us do strange things… Maybe you are angry that your lover would stick you in a tree? Maybe you have some choice words to say to her? She’s sitting right over there. Ready to listen!”

“Ho-e?” Charity mumbled. She struggled to get her feet underneath her. She struggled to stand and look.

The crowd of guards parted.

Illie was kneeling on the ground. Her head chain had been unraveled from around her head, leaving a bald pate with a single thick chain emerging from her crown. Illie’s head chain was pulled up towards the tree limbs above. Her arms were bound behind her. There was a cut on her cheek and some bruising on her ribs.

“She refused to talk to my guards, so I decided that she didn’t need to talk anymore at all,” Empusa said. “You remember how I silenced your little trap? I did the same thing to your pretty lover. I figured that she probably enjoyed your nubby little tongue. I gave her one just like it. If she’s flexible enough maybe she can lick herself in the future. She certainly won’t have access to yours anymore.”

Illie continued to kneel, stoically staring at the ground.

“My guards also hunted down that oversized cat that was lurking around here. One guard shot it with an arrow and it vanished into thin air. No doubt, it was sent by one of my rivals. It left behind this fancy collar though.”

Empusa raised her hand revealing a gold collar with Fedea dangling from it. Empusa wrapped her hand around Fedea’s body and began to squeeze.

“Oooeee!” Charity screamed in horror.

There was a snapping sound, like twigs breaking. Empusa opened her hand and pieces of Fedea fell to the ground. There was no blood. Her little body was simply thin pieces of hollow metal. Metal? Was that Fedea?

“Hm. That got a reaction,” Empusa smiled. “Can you still speak?”

Charity frowned and scowled at Empusa, pressing her lips together tightly in defiance. Empusa nodded at a guard who walked up to Charity and began unwrapping the leash from her torso as she stood with her arms pulled wide by two other guards. As the leash came loose, the guard laid it out in the dirt around Charity.

Three more women approached Charity. Each was carrying something that looked like an oversized fly swatter - a flexible pole with a flat, rubber square at the end.

Once her leash was completely unraveled, the guards holding her let go and stepped away. Charity could run. She eyed the crowd of women around her. Empusa remained standing relaxed, with a smirk on her face. Charity took a step backwards. There was a swishing sound followed by a distinct splat sound. Charity’s right butt cheek was stinging badly.

She twisted around. There were three more women with their fly swatter weapons raised.

“Even though I am in such a good mood, bad deeds must not go unpunished,” Empusa said.

Once again, a swishing sound from behind Charity, forewarned the inevitable sting of a strategically applied swatter. Immediately, Charity’s senses sharpened. Her fight or flight instincts focused her ears and eyes on every movement around her. She was surrounded by six women who were prepared to hurt her. She could hear another swishing sound behind her. She turned quickly and blocked the brunt of the attack with her arm. Already two more swats were being applied to her thighs from the women behind her. Charity squeaked in pain.

Charity brought her right arm around, circling up from underneath, wrapping the chain of her leash around her forearm and gripping it as tightly as she could with her thumbless hand. She whipped her hand around, slicing horizontally through the air in front of her body. Unfortunately, the chain was too long and too heavy for her arm, weakened from being cramped in the tree for days and days. The chain dragged uselessly through the dirt as three more swats landed on her skin.

“Arghhh!”

Her attackers had over committed. They had moved too close. Charity faked a move in one direction, then moved through a space between two of her attackers. Even after all the time in the tree, Charity knew that her legs were strong. She was a faster runner than any of these guards. She broke through the circle of her attackers and started to plan a path to take her into the forest.

She made it three steps before the chain that was embedded between her breasts, which was trailing behind her, grew taut and her momentum forced her to suddenly spin around and then stumble, collapsing on the ground with a grunt.

Two of the attackers paid the price of grabbing on to Charity’s leash as they also tumbled to the ground. The other four, however, advanced on Charity’s vulnerable position with their swatters held high.

The swatters rained down upon Charity fast and hard. She rolled over and curled up. Her long and tangled hair provided some protection for her back. The weapons were splatting all over her exposed flesh and each stung painfully. A guard grabbed her hair and pulled it forward, exposing Charity’s back to the fury of the attackers circling around her.

“Thop!” Charity screamed in pain. “Pweeze thop!”

After an eternal moment of hellish stinging hits, Empusa must have made some sort of signal. The guards suspended their attack, leaving Charity shaking in a heap on the ground. Footsteps approached. Empusa bent down and grabbed Charity’s leash, yanking it up until she was kneeling before the queen.

“So, you can still speak…” Empusa said. “Somewhat, at least. Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.”

Reluctantly, tears running down her face, Charity did as the queen instructed. Empusa immediately grabbed the ring pierced through the end of Charity’s tongue and pulled.

“Hmm…” Empusa said. “You have two rings wrapped around your tongue. The rings seem to be tangled in the metal nubs that I gave you. No wonder your diction is failing you. How have you gotten all your jewelry?”

Charity slowly held up her right arm. She pointed to her wrist where a fifth emerging ring was still embedded just her skin. “Growth fwom… inthide me…” she whispered.

Empusa grabbed at one of the rings on Charity’s wrist and tried to jerk it over the swell of her hand. It was far too tight to allow the passage however. Empusa reached down and slipped a finger between Charity’s abdomen and one of her waist rings. She attempted to move it - felt its weight and density. Slowly Empusa started laughing.

“You are the most exotic pet I have ever seen,” Empusa said. She then turned to the guards and issued some commands. Charity provided no resistance as her arms were pulled behind her and locked together with a pair of metal cuffs. A guard pulled Charity’s leash chain to its fullest extent, then yelled at her, yanking the leash in an upward manner.

Charity slowly stood up.

Two chains had been attached to her wrists and each was held by a guard. With tension from the three chains, the guards were able to maneuver Charity in any direction they chose. Soon she was forced around to look at Illie who was still kneeling stoically, held in place by the chain embedded in the crown of her head - her arms tied behind her back.

Empusa said something and guards began to pull a rope that wound over a high tree branch and back down to the far end of Illie’s head chain. Illie’s eyes grew wide as she was forced to stand up. Her neck was pulled up straight as her toes were lifted from the ground. She jerked around a little as though trying to find the ground with her feet.

The guards continued to pull Illie higher into the air. Her ankles had been bound together with a rope that was also attached to a large leather bag. When the leather bag left the ground, it was clear that it contained a considerable weight. Illie was obviously uncomfortable, her body twitching under the tension, held immobile between her ankles and the top of her head.

Empusa gave a signal when she determined that Illie had been suspended high enough. She pushed the leather bag hanging below as hard as she could, causing Illie, the arm of a pendulum, to swing.

Empusa walked to Charity. “Don’t worry about your lover, pet,” she said. “The villagers will need her services and come and cut her down… Eventually…”

Empusa shouted a command. Charity’s leash was pulled and the entire regiment of guards set out into the forest with Charity in tow - away from the home tree and Illie. Away from Hope.

After being marched through the woods for two hours, they came upon a small village of women. This village was obviously one that benefitted from whatever services Illie and Hope provided. The inhabitants would know right away that Charity was not Illie’s short pierced and painted pet that the villagers knew.

Charity prayed that Hope was somewhere far away. She was horrified thinking about what Empusa would do to Hope if she knew she existed.

She watched carefully as Empusa greeted some of the women of the village. They all turned to look at Charity as they were talking. She was relieved about five minutes later when Empusa seemed to conclude their conversation, apparently still satisfied.

The guards controlling Charity directed her towards the nearby river. Four naked women with fetters on their wrists and ankles were waiting for Charity there. Charity was pulled by her chains into the shallows of a pool and held while the four women began to bathe her.

At first their touch was painful on her skin, still tender from the repeated swatting. After they had scraped more of the dried sap off, however, their caresses began to feel more pleasant. It took nearly an hour of washing and tugging combs through Charity’s hair before it was actually clean again.

The women wove her hair into a long braid that descended down to the top of her butt. When a clean Charity was presented to Empusa, however, she apparently told them to undo the braid. They then spent some time teasing Charity’s hair working to make it as wild and disheveled as possible.

Charity decided that Empusa must be planning to use her as some sort of prop - to create a particular narrative. Her suspicions were confirmed shortly when a cart rolled into the village pulled by eight harnessed ponygirls. The cart allowed for a single driver and behind was a large heavy metal structure. It was a sturdy, well constructed, cubical cage, about ten feet on each side. Held suspended inside, was a second cage with much smaller dimensions.

Charity’s leash was fed into the back of the larger cage, though the smaller cage and back out the front of the larger cage. Soon, of course, Charity had no option but to follow. After she stepped into the larger cage, guards unlocked her wrist cuffs. A pair of painfully applied swats directed Charity to climb up into the smaller interior cage. It was only about three feet on a side, so she was forced to crawl in on her hands and knees. Behind her, the cage door was loudly slammed shut. Heavy bolts were set and then large padlocks were applied.

After the guards stepped out of the outer cage, its door too was closed and locked. Finally, heavy wooden posts were slid into place to further barricade the door’s access. Charity was displayed locked in a cage within a cage.

When Charity turned to look forward, Empusa had climbed up into the driver’s seat. She had Charity’s leash in her hand - the Queen leading the conquered wild animal.

“You look marvelous, love,” Empusa said. “Green and all your new metal jewelry. I’m beginning to suspect that your little holiday abroad was just the perfect thing to truly perfect your evolution to becoming MY womanimal. The Goddess works in mysterious ways, doesn’t she?”

Charity stared at Empusa with anger.

“I’ve definitely learned my lesson. Don’t ever grow too relaxed when it comes to the security of one’s most prized possessions!” Empusa sighed happily as she sat down in the driver’s seat with Charity’s leash in her hand.

Some kind of gear box was sitting beside Empusa. She began threading the end of Charity’s leash onto the teeth of some wheel. She then turned a crank until the leash had been wrapped around the wheel several times. Finally, she locked the wheel from any further movement.

She turned back to look at Charity. “Beautiful day for a parade, no? There should be quite the crowds out to see the glorious return of the queen and her womanimal. Feel free to do whatever you want. Make whatever sounds you are still capable of making. Put on a show for the people! Have fun!!”

Empusa turned and issued some commands and the eight ponygirls leaned into their hitches. There must have been about eighty guard-women surrounding the cart as they slowly rolled out of the village and began the trip back to Empusa’s estate.

From her perch inside the cage, Charity looked out at the villagers who stood by silently as the cart and its parade of guards passed by. These were the people that Hope and Illie helped with healing and horticulture. Maybe it was likely that they were hiding Hope, protecting her from Empusa. Charity hoped so.

Charity whispered quietly, “Thucking Emputha!” Her bad diction only confirmed how much the rings on her tongue impeded her ability to communicate. She mindlessly worried at another ring that was about to pop through the skin on one of her fingers.

Charity prayed that Hope stayed and helped these villagers - that she no longer felt it was her duty to save Charity. “Go live a happy life, Hope,” Charity thought to herself. “My luck is done.”

Chapter 08

Charity was paraded across the countryside in her cage within a cage. They traveled all afternoon until they arrived at another larger village where Empusa and the guards set up tents. Charity was left in her perch. At least ten armed guards watched her at all times.

She wasn’t sure why there were so many. She obviously wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe Empusa had them scared that Charity had some mysterious powers. More likely, they were protecting Charity from being stolen by some other interested agent - one of Empusa’s competitors.

They used poles with a forked ending to pass a tray of food into a slot on the bottom of Charity’s inner cage. Just as when she was cramped inside the tree, she used the tray to pee in after she had eaten. She considered being rude and simply tossing the tray of pee toward the outer cage to let it splatter on the villagers who were gawking up at her. But when she looked for a good place to toss it, she saw young girls running around, playing.

A guard pushed a forked pole into the cage, so that Charity could return the tray. Unfortunately, Charity could not figure out the mechanism to get the tray to be held securely by the fork. It couldn’t be too complicated, but she just could not make sense of it. Eventually, the guard pulled the pole away and the tray tipped and clattered across the platform, splashing its contents onto the crowd. Those who were hit screamed, not from fear, however, rather from excitement - as though they had been splashed with holy water. Charity groaned and closed her eyes.

A thunderstorm swept through after dark. The pounding, cold rain did not bother Charity so much, but she was praying that she didn’t get fried. Sitting on a raised platform inside a metal framework is probably a bad thing to do with lightning all around.

The next morning, the ponygirls were hitched up again and they continued along the road. At one point, a ring finally popped through the skin of one of her fingers and she was able to pull it off. She randomly flicked it out of her inner cage. It bounced loudly on the platform of the cart and off into the grass alongside.

A young girl ran up and grabbed the ring. A woman started yelling at the girl, seemingly horrified that she would touch the ring because the girl threw it back down on the ground with fear. Charity realized that this was a cruel ruse, because the woman then picked up the ring and started to stick it in her pocket. Another woman who had observed this interaction had something to say and soon guards had to jump in to break up the ensuing fight.

The cart was halted and Empusa stepped down, silencing the commotion. Someone gave her the ring. Then she spoke for a bit pointing up at Charity and holding up the ring. She then made a show of placing the ring on her tongue and closing her mouth. She waved a hand under her chin and golden light seemed to emit from her mouth for a second. She opened her mouth and spit the ring back into her hand, smiling. Then she bent down and gave the ring to the original young girl who first picked it up. The girl held up the ring, smiling, showing it to the woman standing next to her - her mother perhaps. Lots of other little girls were cheering.

Empusa bowed for the crowd - ever the people’s savior. She turned to Charity and winked and then jumped back into the driver’s seat, and goaded the ponygirls onward.

By the afternoon of the third day, they were at the gates of Empusa’s estate. The crowds were huge and noisy. The noble Queen had returned from her daring adventure capturing the wild and dangerous green, metal-jeweled womanimal.

The cart rolled up to the menagerie and the guards made a great show of carefully extracting the inner cage from the outer one using long wooden beams - never getting too close to the viscous animal held within. They carefully carried the smaller cage into the menagerie. But, as soon as the exterior doors were closed, they dropped all pretenses of danger. They opened the smaller cage and grabbed Charity by her arms, roughly dragging her out and delivering her to her old cell, anchoring her leash and securely locking the door. Four guards stood outside.

Charity glanced into the next cell over where Killdoll was watching with her crotch camera eyes. Charity raised a hand as a greeting, but immediately felt the first wave of a particularly strong arousal. “Oh, thuck!” She watched Killdoll stagger then drop to her knees and roll onto her back, shaking. She was apparently so excited to see Charity that she was having an orgasm.

Of course, another wave of arousal washed over Charity and she lost her balance as well. She slowly collapsed to the floor of her cell. Even after the waves of arousal passed. Charity continued to lay where she landed for a long time. She could think of no reason to stand again.

<>--+-

The following day Charity was lying on her cot, listlessly slipping the loose links of her leash chain back and forth across her engorged nipples - lost in some erotic daydream. Suddenly, sounds of struggling and stomping echoed from the ponygirl end of the menagerie.

Charity jumped out of bed and ran to the bars to try to see what was going on. She saw Hazel and Garnet flailing about, tussling with three or four guards. Charity saw one of the guards pull out some sort of flogger and swing at Hazel.

“Hey!!” Charity yelled, uselessly shaking at the bars of her cell.

One of the guards stationed outside Charity’s cell pulled out one of their swatting poles and smacked at Charity’s fingers whenever she tried to wrap them around the bars of her cell, until she had to back up a bit.

More guards entered the menagerie and in due course, Hazel and Garnet had been hobbled, blindfolded and removed from the building. Two guards left holding their ribs and another had a bloody ear.

Charity looked over at Killdoll, who seemed to have observed the whole thing. Killdoll turned to Charity for a moment then turned and walked away.

<>--+-

(tick) was no longer working in the menagerie and that troubled Charity. What had happened to her after she had helped Charity escape? Hopefully, she had run away.

Instead, three tall, muscular groomers were assigned to Charity and they cuffed her with four point prisoner transport cuffs before they even entered her cell. Her wrists were bound behind her and connected to a short chain that descended down to the center link of a hobbling chain.

They led her by the leash out into the pasture to do her business, then right back into her cell for a rough scrub down.

Some days Empusa would come for a visit and talk to her, but Charity generally ignored everything she said and did not respond in any way. That is, until one day: “Say a word and I’ll tell you what I’ve heard about your sister, Faith.”

Charity stopped idly rubbing her skin with the cool links of her chains and looked over at Empusa.

“Yes. I have heard some information about her… fate…”

Charity sat up, filled with anger. “Grrr…”

“Ah ah!” Empusa said. “Say a word first.”

Charity struggled for a bit. Thinking of a good word to say. “Ow… oww… thiyid. Oww - thiyid.”

“What’s that?” Empusa said, smiling. “You want to go outside?”

Charity nodded.

“Apparently, the Goddess has taken quite a liking to Faith. She is kept as a guest of honor in the Goddess’s quarters. They are often seen together at events and celebrations. The Goddess keeps her close, so no one would dare approach Faith in any way.” Empusa’s face turned a bit more unguarded. “No one is certain what sort of relationship they may be sharing… Mistress and pet? Lovers?”

Empusa stopped talking and frowned for a moment, randomly sliding a finger up and down one of the bars of Charity’s cell.

Charity’s heart was racing still due the way that Empusa suggested that Faith had met some ‘fate’. She tried to think of how many ways that the word could be used until her head began to hurt. In the end she decided that Empusa used it to trick Charity into speaking. Charity hated Empusa and wanted to expel a few more choice words, but was having trouble thinking of a good collection. She knew her diction would be awful and her delivery stunted. So, instead she spit at Empusa.

Unfortunately, Charity had neglected to remember that her nose ring was big enough to dangle over her lips, so the spit ended up spraying randomly down her chin.

Regardless, Empusa snapped out of her reverie. “Pleasant…” she said as she watched a drop of spit drip from the end of Charity’s nose ring. “Well, a deal is a deal! I’ll schedule some outside time for you.” She started to walk away, but then turned, “By the way, Hazel and Garnet have been moved to a stable in town for now. They are both okay.”

Charity glanced at Empusa, uncertain whether to believe her. She could find no reason why not. She wondered why Empusa told her.

<>--+-

Several days later, Empusa appeared at Charity’s cell again.

“Do you know what this is?” Empusa asked. She had a stubby, circular wooden block with a V-cut around its circumference. Some kind of string was tied to it.

Charity didn’t reply. She wasn’t interested in playing games with Empusa.

The Queen played around with the string a little bit, twisting and twisting. Then she held her arm out and dropped the wooden block. It fell towards the ground with a zinging sound only to stop inches before it hit. Then with a flick of her wrist the wooden block zipped back up into her hand.

The bitch was obviously showing off her stupid magic tricks again. Charity rolled her eyes for a moment, but continued to watch. Empusa dropped and then magically retrieved the round block a number of times in succession.

Charity noticed that her belt was beginning to glow. Empusa stopped for a moment and pointed over Charity’s shoulder. She already knew what she was going to see when she turned to look. Killdoll was standing at the bars between their cells shaking. Charity could feel the influence of Killdoll’s arousal begin to sweep through her own body squeezing an involuntary moan from her throat.

Empusa smiled and then dropped the block a few more times, summoning it back into her hand. She even threw it away in a more horizontal direction a couple of times, always safely zipping back into her hand. Meanwhile, Killdoll was stumbling to the ground shaking as an orgasm washed through her body.

Charity rolled onto her back on her cot grasping at her skin seeking an impossible release.

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been masturbating with your chains alot,” Empusa said. She rolled the wooden block into Charity’s cell. It hit a leg of her cot and fell to its side. “This is just a tool in case you want to experiment with a little more intense levels of arousal…”

<>--+-

Charity realized that she wasn’t shedding metal rings any more. She grasped her leash where it exited from her chest between her breasts. It was as embedded as always. She must have hit some sort of metal equilibrium.

<>--+-

Charity was bored. She looked down at the wooden block lying under her cot. She looked over at Killdoll who seemed to be in one of her less responsive mental states.

She stood and picked up the wooden block. She held her hand out and dropped the block - exactly as she had seen Empusa do it. However, it didn’t make a zinging sound. It just fell to the floor with a thunk. It was enough to get Killdoll’s attention.

Charity picked up the block again. Did Empusa expect Charity to have the magical capability to make the block zip back up to her hand? She dropped the block again with the same results. The string that had been wrapped around the core in the V-cut became a little unraveled.

Charity pulled on the string causing the block to roll away from her until the string was fully extended. A wave of arousal passed through Charity. Killdoll was obviously getting excited watching Charity manipulate the block.

She picked it up and dropped it again making a quiet “thiiip!” sound with her mouth. Still it only clattered to the floor.

Charity tried to pick the block by its string which was particularly difficult with no thumbs. She had to use both hands. The block dangled a few inches below her hands in the air. Charity moved her hands back and forth and the block swung like a pendulum.

Killdoll seemed to like that. Charity swung the block with more enthusiasm until it was going around and around in a loop. She didn’t have the dexterity to continue holding the string through. When she let go, the block went flying out between the bars of Charity’s cell and clocked one of the guards in the head.

The guard turned around, screaming some words. She took the butt of her swatting pole and crushed the wooden block. That caused the other nearby guards to yell at the victim, who was rubbing her head.

Charity didn’t really care, because the scene was enough to set Killdoll stumbling to the ground. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the waves of arousal.

<>--+-

It was nice to be outside. The skies were blue. The sun was shining. Charity saw a red berry near her foot in the tall grass whose taste, she knew, was both sweet and tart. She started to bend down to pick the berry only to remember that her arms were cuffed behind her back.

A tug at her chest goaded her to keep moving as well. Charity looked up at the guard that was leading her along, ten feet ahead of her. In fact, there were about twenty guards surrounding Charity. They were giving her a berth of about ten feet on all sides. They were pushing back the crowds of onlookers as they made their way across the fields towards the ocean cliffs.

Women were singing and chanting. Young girls were running about. Charity realized it must be the day of a ritual of some sort. She looked around and realized that many of the people were watching her. She was one of the main attractions - a creature of curiosity.

The guards led her up to the outdoor, cliffside amphitheater where the open stage backed up to a magnificent view of the ocean below. The guards stopped on a rise on one side of the crowd. Charity could see Killdoll on the other side. She was already strapped into her frame that held her arms straight up and her legs spread wide like an upside down Y.

Slightly above her was the Promontory, a cave which would soon be Charity’s permanent home when she was finally installed as Empusa’s Source Witch.

Crowds were filling in the area in front of the stage. Some collection of guards had to push their way through the people carrying some sort of metal structure. Soon they made their way up onto the stage and Charity froze with horror for a second.

They were setting up a human shaped cage on the stage. Meanwhile, behind the stage a large coffin shaped box was being rolled up and positioned directly behind the cage.

Charity had seen this ritual before and found it particularly terrifying. She remembered Empusa and Faith explaining that the ritual allows an individual to become a host for a simulated universe. They promised her that the victim became a goddess in some virtual reality where experiments and research were conducted to continue the evolution towards the most perfect universe.

Charity distinctly remembered how she felt though… It felt like a sacrificial ritual. She started to tremble a little.

Across the crowd, Killdoll’s handlers began to stroke the faceplate of her crotch piece. Shortly, the arousal washed over Charity and she forgot about the ritual and the crowds for a moment. Her own belt began to glow and she felt pleasure pulse through her body.

She opened her eyes and night had fallen somehow. She had been zoned out for a bit, perhaps. Empusa was on the stage near the open, empty cage. She pointed up towards where Charity was standing and the crowds cheered loudly.

Six guards were escorting a short woman up onto the stage to join Empusa.

“No!” Charity screamed when she saw the woman - tattooed and arrayed in jewelry chains. Hands gripped Charity’s upper arms. Guards kneeling at her side grabbed her legs to keep her steady. “No! Ho-e!!”

It was Hope! Empusa had Hope!

The guards were pushing Hope into the standing cage. She was fighting as best that she could, but stood no chance. They backed her into place, locking her wrists by her sides. Empusa shut the front of the cage, sealing the door.

The Queen began to make some sort of invocation and Hope started screaming over her. A guard made the mistake of raising her hand to Hope’s mouth to force her to remain silent only to have her flesh opened up by Hope’s dangerous lip needles.

Charity fought the arousal that was growing within her. “Thtop!” It was a losing battle though. Across the crowd Killdoll’s handlers were driving her to orgasm after orgasm and Charity’s belt was glowing like a lighthouse.

There was the sound of twisting metal screeching through the night air. The body cage shrank - smaller and smaller - pressing in on Hope’s small form. The metal hinges popped off and locks broke as the cage conformed tightly to Hope’s body.

Finally, Empusa walked up to Hope - immobile in the cage. Hope screamed a scream of rebellion and fury. Empusa smiled and pushed the top of Hope’s cage. It fell over backward with a splat into the viscous fluid in the coffin box.

Charity couldn’t tear her eyes from the scene as the cage, with Hope inside, slowly disappeared below the surface. A lid was quickly hammered on and then the coffin was rolled over the edge of the cliff where it dropped into the turbulent waves below.

<>--+-

Killdoll was pounding on the bars between their cells with her padded hand orbs. Charity climbed out of her cot to see what she wanted. Killdoll had stuck her leg through the bars and was pointing at some markings in the dirt with her toe.

Charity looked at the markings and smiled. They looked like a short row of neatly lined up butts. Killdoll was good at making etchings in the dirt with her toe. Charity turned and began to return to her cot, but Killdoll was pounding on the bars again. She pointed at Charity. Maybe she wanted Charity to add to the drawing somehow. Charity looked at the dirt for a bit, then stuck her leg between the bars. She made a few random scrawls in the dirt. She frowned a bit. Then she turned and walked back to her cot.

Sometimes when Killdoll got excited, she would have a spontaneous orgasm which would send Charity’s arousal into the rafters. This was apparently not one of those times.

<>--+-

Sometimes Empusa would still visit Charity in her cell, but they didn’t speak anymore. Well, Charity might hear Empusa’s voice, but the words were meaningless. Charity just ignored her.

One day though there was quite a commotion. Killdoll was strapped into her frame in the next cell. Lots of guards entered Charity’s cell carrying rolls of heavy chains. Soon, Empusa arrived as well.

A metal cuff was clamped around Charity’s right wrist. They had a little difficulty finding the proper placement between the metal rings that Charity had grown. A long chain was attached to the cuff.

Charity’s eyes crossed with arousal when Empusa performed a magic spell with Killdoll’s handlers stroking away. It was the same spell Empusa had used to anchor the chain leash between Charity’s breasts. The cuff had shrunk into the flesh of Charity’s arm, leaving only the chain which now emerged from her wrist a couple inches in from her open palm. Unfortunately, the attached chain was long and heavy.

Soon Empusa performed the same spell again on Charity’s left wrist.

Charity was wondering how she was going to move around with all this weight attached to her arms. She was lifting her arms up and down to see how quickly she would tire out, as the guards started to add a cuff and chain to each ankle.

When the ankle cuff shrank into her flesh, the chain was routed out the back as though they were fastened about her achilles tendon.

Charity was in a complete daze by the time they worked a narrow collar between all her neck rings. When Empusa finished with her spell the collar had shrunk into her neck and the chain passed through her head emerging from her crown.

Afterwards, Charity was extremely tired. All the chains were so heavy. She could only lay on her cot.

In the evening, the groomers had quite the task to help Charity out into the yard to do her business. Chains from various anchor points kept getting tangled. Charity had no energy and had to be half carried. Empusa seemed to be tired and irritable.

Eventually, they got Charity back on her cot and organized all the chains as best as they could.

Charity would be permanently installed in the Promontory the next day.

Chapter 09

It took a full day to install Charity in the Promontory. Each of Charity’s five new leashes (from her wrists, ankles, and the top of her head) were passed through appropriately sized channels in the rock of the cave where she would dwell. Deep inside the stone, springs, pulleys and capstans controlled the extent to which the chains move, thus controlling Charity’s freedom within her space.

Luckily, a clever web of supports hanging from above, carried much of the load of the heavy chains, and allowed Charity to move about without too much trouble. She could climb into a nice, cozy nest when she wanted to sleep. She could maneuver her way to a narrow chasm to eliminate her waste. She could step down into a cool stream that flowed out of the cave to bathe or soak.

Of course, all the chain leashes prevented her from reaching any of the walls. She could walk towards the opening of the cave, but was stopped well back from the entrance. Indeed, several days were spent drilling heavy metal bars vertically and horizontally across the opening - their ends buried deep in the stone. Empusa then used a bit of magic to harden the grid until it was a single seamless, impenetrable gate.

It was commonly believed that the power of the Source Witch is in her extreme need for physical human contact. So, every effort was made with the understanding that no one would ever pass the gate again. There was no door.

Of course, there was one point of human contact that Charity would still enjoy. On one wall of the cave, holes were provided where a sufficiently sized breast could be squeezed. Those whose calling was to be wet nurses were employed. They entered the Promontory at an alternative entrance and pressed themselves against the holes.

Charity could not touch them with her hands. She had to approach to the greatest extent allowed by her chains and then lean forward, letting the chains take her weight. The engineering was so precise that only Charity’s nose and lips could achieve the range necessary to nurse.

When it was time for Charity to be used as a Source Witch, the capstans would be turned and the leashing chains would shorten, forcing Charity to move so she was facing out the entrance of the cave. Her arms would be pulled up and out and her legs stretched apart until her body was lifted from the floor of the cave in an extreme spread eagle, leaving her with no wiggle room at all.

Then Killdoll would be used to excite Charity to the very extreme precipice of physical arousal where her brain could function no more than to send her body instructions to writhe (which the chains prevented from ever happening). She would be left in this state for hours as Empusa performed her great feats of magic, transforming the people of her queendom. Her belt would shine like a beacon out the mouth of the cave - its blue light visible far out at sea.

Surprisingly, Charity was not particularly distressed by any of this at all. Her life was dictated by a powerful reward system. Any simple pleasure, such as a nap or a splash in the water, or a brief oral stimulation and a full stomach brought her such happiness that she began to forget about how small her subset of simple pleasures was compared to those available to any other normal woman.

When she heard the capstans start to turn in the walls and her leashing chains began to shorten, she would begin to shake with a thrill of arousal. Although she never tripped over the precipice of orgasm, her extreme, extended existence at the very edge became the ultimate point of pleasure where she would, literally, float in a timeless ecstasy.

One of the first presentations of magic that Empusa performed after Charity had been installed as the new Source Witch involved (tick), the groomer who had helped Charity escape the menagerie the year before. She had been wrapped in a strict harness of chains. The harness had been attached to a larger web of chains that spanned the area of a six foot diameter ring. (tick) was held tightly with her arms stretched up past her head and her legs held wide in an upside down Y.

(tick)’s ring was rolled up to the Promontory where Charity could see. Killdoll was stroked to orgasm and Charity tightened in her chains, shining brightly with arousal. Empusa spoke a powerful incantation drawing from the magic that Charity sourced and slowly (tick)’s flesh began to transform. Her skin turned gray first, then began to shine with a mirrored finish. Her features froze, reflecting a look of sheer terror.

After the spell was complete, Empusa approached (tick) and rapped her knuckles on her abdomen creating a ringing hollow metallic sound. She explained to the crowd gathered in the amphitheater to watch that (tick)’s loyalty to the Source Witch made her the perfect candidate to forever guard their new treasure. Everything that made (tick) a sentient being was now forever bound within her metal body and she would watch over the area, unblinking, forever more.

The ring with (tick) held inside was raised high above the entrance to the Promontory and left to slowly sway in the wind through the days and months and years going forward.

Charity, of course, understood none of this as she was totally blissed out on endorphins and incapable of understanding any form of human language anymore.

Next, Empusa began to work on her transformational skills. Her very first attempt to create a faerie after installing Charity was an incredible success. When she threw the newly transformed faerie into the air, not only did she fly immediately and with great confidence, but she even emitted a pleasant glowing light as she made a track across the evening sky.

Soon Empusa was making all kinds of transformations - pony girls with pony parts, hybrid cat girls that were not hairless and ugly. Members of Empusa’s Queendom with all variety of callings were being satisfied. New creatures were flying through the skies and running through the forests. Rituals were held often and the evening’s transformees would wait in a cage-like area for their turn to be transformed by Empusa. Some evenings went so well for Empusa that she even drafted individuals from the general crowd if the candidate pool in the cage was empty. Some citizens found that Empusa was “learning” an individual’s calling before the individual did.

At some point a crazed citizen ran up to the gate protecting Charity from human contact. She threw a dagger at Charity which was luckily deflected by a chain and fell harmlessly to the ground. Charity was busy splashing in the stream of water and did not even notice.

No one knows what happened to the assassin, but it is said that the sewage system in the nearby town suddenly improved vastly.

Empusa decided that a second outer grid of bars needed to be established to protect the Source Witch from attacks. She no longer allowed women to get a close look at Charity and began a campaign explaining how incredibly dangerous a Source Witch is. Indeed, by this time, Charity was well known to be the undisputed, greatest Source Witch of all time.

And so it was… during the hardening of the new secondary gate that something strange occurred…

<>--+-

Charity was held stretched out taut and on the very edge of orgasm, maximally blissed out when suddenly there was a blinding white flash followed by the sound of a gentle breeze blowing through an infinite field of wind chimes.

Charity collapsed on the floor of her cave, suddenly totally unrestrained. She was finally able to writhe as her brain commanded, but by the time she did she had already dropped too far away from the edge of orgasm to claw her way back.

She opened her eyes and looked at her right wrist. The leash chain was missing. The anchoring ring half submerged into her flesh was still present but the chain was gone. The same was true for her left wrist and her ankles. Charity felt the top of her head and found that leash gone as well. Even her original leash embedded in her sternum was gone.

When she looked around, she saw the source of the wind chime sounds. It was as though all the links of chains suddenly were no longer connected, but rather individual circles and they rained down into her cave.

Charity ran her hands down over her waist. All her body rings were still present, but any type of chain had somehow fallen away.

Charity looked out the mouth of her cave. The gates were gone. Somehow all the bars had broken into identical sections - each about six inches in length. There was no longer any structural integrity and the gates had simply collapsed.

There was nothing between Charity and the world outside her cave. There was nothing anchoring Charity in this place. She sat and thought for a bit. Supposedly, Empusa would appear soon and fix everything. She was not ready to give up her home which had a nice nest and clean water and occasional oral stimulation. She decided that she would sit and wait and Empusa would rebuild the chains and the gate.

After a minute or two. She looked out the mouth of the cave again. In the distance she could see Killdoll strapped into her framework. Her handlers seemed to be in some sort of panic. They were no longer stroking that special place on Killdoll’s crotch’s faceplate. Charity remembered how Killdoll used to draw funny pictures of butts in the dirt with her.

Charity realized that she could go over to where Killdoll was. She could easily walk out of the cave and then come back after touching Killdoll just once or twice. She could try to make one of those butt etchings in the dirt.

Charity took a closer look at Killdoll. She was still strapped tightly in her upside down Y framework, but she was flexing her hips somehow in some kind of rhythmic fashion - once left, then twice to the right. Boom - cah - cah… Boom - cah - cah…

Charity heard music in her head. Music forgotten from far away in another time. “Twisting and turning your feelings are burning…” She didn’t actually hear the words in her head. She FELT them though. “… you’re breaking the girl…” She heard the tune in her head. Boom, cah, cah. Boom, cah, cah. “…think you’re so clever… but now you must sever… you’re breaking the girl…”

“HOPE!” It was not a word in Charity’s head. It was an image. “HOPE!”

Charity looked further past Killdoll, down the hill through the amphitheater, past the stage and over the cliff. That was where they had sent Hope. That is where Charity was going to go. And she was going to go there right now. She no longer cared about the oral stimulation or the cool water or her nice nest. She only knew one thing: “HOPE!”

Charity stood and walked out of the Promontory.

Down below, the crowds went into a panicked frenzy seeing the green Source Witch free from her cage. Empusa, on the other hand, was yelling at guards to move into action to capture Charity as quickly as possible. Ten or so guards were heading up toward her very quickly.

“HOPE!” Charity started to run towards the cliff’s edge behind the stage. Her legs were still strong and she was fast. She lowered her shoulder and knocked one guard to the ground. She would have to get through many more.

Suddenly, a host of flickering lights appeared from over the rock wall behind where Killdoll was mounted. There was a buzzing roar as a swarm of faeries flew down towards the amphitheater - faeries that Empusa had recently made from the women of her queendom - many were zipping around Empusa’s head who was waving her arms wildly trying to protect herself and no longer directing the guards.

It was pure chaos. But through it all, Charity maintained only a single thought: “HOPE!” She sped towards the cliff’s edge.

A number of guards were waiting for her though. They were equipped with some sort of net and were well placed to deploy it with precision and efficiency. Charity’s brain no longer held the concept of a net. She continued headlong towards the ocean and directly towards their trap.

But, as she ran, something big streaked past her on her left, running much faster than she could ever hope to. It was Hazel and Garnet, moving at top speed! Their heads were down and traveling straight at the guards. The more intelligent guards dropped the net and dove away.

Charity heard some kind of impact - the sounds of breaking bone. Now there was nothing in her way and when she reached the edge of the cliff, she jumped out as far as she could.

It felt like she fell for a long time before she hit the water. She went under a long way and pumped her arms, struggling to get to the surface again. She was no longer weighted down by all her leashes, but she still wore many pounds of rings. Her head broke the surface and she took a deep breath before the turbulent waves washed over her again.

She had landed in a place where the land formed a large bowl. As the water from the previous wave washed from the bowl, the rip-tide caught Charity and she was quickly sucked hundreds of yards from the shore. After two quick breaths, she was already more than a quarter mile out to sea. She went under, uncertain if she would surface ever again, tiring and spinning in the current.

Then she felt a hand grab her. The hand came from below, not from above. Charity opened her eyes and saw a beautiful woman with long black hair floating in front of her, smiling. The woman leaned in and kissed Charity on the lips. Charity felt her lungs fill with air. She felt her body buzz with renewed arousal. She smiled dumbly and relaxed as the woman pulled her deeper underwater.

Charity woke up and found that she was moving along underwater at a great speed. She luxuriated in the feel of the water washing past her skin. Her arms and legs fluttered uselessly behind her. She was on her back, held in the arms of a powerfully strong woman whose body was flexing up and down against her own. The woman had a long, powerful tail that was propelling them through the water at great speed. Every once in a while the woman would turn her face down to Charity’s and kiss her - another breath of air, another kiss of ecstasy.

Charity looked to her side. There were maybe thirty women… mermaids! Mermaids swimming along with them. Charity closed her eyes again.

She had no idea how long they swam. Sometimes when she opened her eyes it was dark, sometimes not. The woman who was carrying her seemed to change from time to time…

Finally, Charity was jolted awake by a rough, scratchy sensation on her back. She opened her eyes to find she was no longer underwater. She was looking up into the eyes of the black haired mermaid. The mermaid leant down and kissed Charity one last time, then giggled and flopped around awkwardly in the sand again. A shallow wave washed up the beach and with a flap of her tail and a splash, the mermaid was gone.

Charity turned onto her side and proceeded to cough up her own ocean of water. She thought that she’d never get it all out of her system. Finally, though, she had the strength to look around.

“Welcome to Paradise, Charity,” a voice said in her head. Charity was staring into the face of a particularly large, particularly beautiful, green-skinned woman with a brilliant pair of antlers growing from her head.

“Hello again, it’s me! I am the Goddess Dammasch!” the woman said. Actually, the words were more like an image that appeared in Charity’s mind. “You are in Paradise now and I know that you are driven by a particular purpose but I think you may still appreciate a quick look around.”

The Goddess extended a hand and helped Charity stand. A normal sized human woman walked up with some rectangular fluffy cloth that she placed in Charity’s hands. Charity promptly dropped the cloth into the sand so she could wipe the ocean water from her eyes with her hands, then followed the Goddess up the beach.

They walked into a very symmetrically shaped, brightly lit cave with walls that could be swung about and provided access to various branches of the cave system.

“This is Agent Smith and Agent Jones most recently from your earth, although neither were from there originally. They are actually both alternative versions of my sister, Aradale,” the Goddess explained as they passed a pair of women. Charity had no idea what was going on, but continued to jog along, keeping up with the Goddess’ brisk pace.

“Ah! Here is Perit and Metolius!” the Goddess said.

In Charity’s mind’s eye, she received the image of two women, who she recognized. However there was only a single woman standing in front of her with a mix of attributes from the two drawn from her memories. She was wondering if she should be seeing a second woman. The woman made some sound with her mouth.

Charity shook her head and hurried to keep up with Dammash.

They walked through some more caves, then out, under the sunny sky where there was vegetation and flowing water.

“Believe it or not, this is that woman named Tam who once dated your former girlfriend,” the Goddess was pointing at a stone statue of a naked woman kneeling with her knees spread wide and her hands clasped behind her head. The statue wore a blindfold and a form-fitting panel was strapped over her mouth - each accessory rendered in stone. “She is art now, but her essence is forever tied to this statue. Oh! Look! And here is Blue! Your ex-girlfriend.”

It WAS Blue! Except she was bald now. Charity smiled when Blue made sounds with her mouth. She was wearing a beautiful tight collar with a fancy disk hanging from the front with an upside down Y etched on the surface. Charity briefly reached out and touched the disk, before turning away and catching up with the Goddess once more, leaving Blue behind with a hand possessively resting on Tam’s statue.

They walked down along one side of a very clean chasm. “Look up there in the window! It’s Faith! She’s waving at you,” the Goddess said.

Charity followed the Goddess’ eyes since she had no concept of a window. But, yes, up there she could see Faith. She wanted to go to her. She ran across the chasm and placed her hands on the wall, looking for a way to climb up. Climbing is hard when you don’t have thumbs. Maybe there was another way up? She began to jog along the wall looking for a way up.

“No time for this, Love,” the Goddess said, directing Charity along. Charity stomped her foot and looked up to where she had seen Faith. Then the image of Hope appeared in her head and she completely forgot about Faith and jogged to catch up with the Goddess again.

“Just down this hall,” the Goddess said.

They traveled down a long dark tunnel and passed through a special place where the Goddess knew the wall could move. They entered a brightly lit cave. “There she is!”

Charity saw the people-container. She ran to it and jumped up on top of it. She could see Hope underneath the surface, frozen, trapped in a tight steel cage. Charity scratched desperately at the surface of the container with her fingernails. It was slippery. She stood up and thumped the transparent lid with the heel of her foot, trying to break through, but the surface was very hard. Soon she was jumping up and down.

“Come down, Charity,” the Goddess said. “I’m trying to bring you to her.”

Charity jumped down impatiently.

The Goddess pointed. Charity saw another container just like Hope’s, but the lid was open. Charity walked up and looked in. It was filled with a thick white fluid. She touched the fluid. A little sticky. She tasted it. Hmm… familiar.

“Up here, Love,” the Goddess said, gently grasping Charity’s shoulder and helping her climb up on a plinth upon which stood a human shaped cage. The Goddess firmly pushed Charity backwards into the cage. “Put your arms down by your sides.”

When the Goddess shut the door the cage immediately began to shrink down around Charity’s body.

“Huuuuh!” Charity definitely did not like this. The Goddess had stepped away from her. She was no longer paying attention. “Huuuuh!” Hope! Imagine Hope!

Just as the steel cage was pressing against Charity in all directions, it stopped shrinking. But then it slowly tilted back until she was dropped with a splat into the liquid filled container. The liquid oozed up around her body slowly covering her up. It filled in her ears and tickled its way up her cheeks. Finally, it spilled over her lips and began to drain into her nose. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, she was staring up through the white liquid. She took a deep breath, inhaling the liquid into her lungs and the world slowly turned to black.

FF; bodymod; chastity; majick; fantasy; rom; cons; X

Chapter 10

When Charity woke up she was lying in the dirt on the ground. She looked around. Nothing looked familiar. There was vegetation and flying insects and birds and beasts, but none of it looked like anything that she had seen before. The terrain was mountainous and rocky, but lush.

She slowly stood up, brushing the dirt from her sore breasts, passing her hands over the metal rings looping her waist and the hard metal faceplate of her chastity belt. She shook out her long mane of dark green hair.

Hope!

Where could she be?

Charity slowly turned in a circle, gazing out into the unfamiliar landscape. After a moment, she knew which way to go and started off to find Hope.

She climbed over a mountain ridge and through a meadow filled with a herd of large mammals that mostly ignored her passage. She descended down into a valley and waded across a swift stream. She gathered some berries to eat as she traveled. She used some large, floppy leaves to carry more berries to give to Hope when she found her. She stopped and turned again until she found the proper direction to go in.

Something was wrong with Hope. She could feel it in her bones and she began to jog.

In the distance she saw a large tree. That was where Hope was. Charity knew it. She ran up to the tree and stepped into its hollow trunk. Hope was lying there, unconscious on a bed made of dry leaves. Charity knelt down next to the bed and slid a hand across Hope’s cheek.

Her lips! Hope’s lips did not have needles in them anymore. They were gone. Charity looked at Hope’s nipples and crotch. All the needles were gone. She leaned down and kissed Hope on the lips for the first time.

Hope groaned softly. She seemed barely alive.

Charity pulled up some berries for Hope to eat. She pushed them to her mouth, but Hope weakly slapped at Charity’s hand. Hope made some sounds with her mouth and briefly opened her eyes, only to close them again.

Charity found a curved piece of wood with a bit of water standing on it and touched it to Hope’s lips. As Hope’s little pink tongue grazed the water, Charity suddenly realized what she needed to do. A particular instinct suddenly engaged within Charity’s being.

She raised Hope’s head up and pressed her nipple to Hope’s mouth. Charity did not know how, but ever since she had awoken her breasts had felt sore and heavy. Now, she knew why. She was beginning to lactate.

It took some work, but once Hope got a bit of a taste of Charity’s milk, she gained the strength to draw forth more. Soon, she was appropriately latched and Charity settled into a strange new floating cloud of bliss.

<>--+-

Faith was eating breakfast when Dammasch entered her spacious, opulent bedroom.

“I have a gift for you!” Dammasch said, presenting a tablet-sized touchscreen device for Faith to look at. “This is a way to see what is going on in that little toy universe that I made for Charity and Hope.”

“Oh!” Faith said, surprised. “You have already added Charity to the simulation?”

Faith took the screen and looked at the image. “Is she breast feeding?”

“Well…” Dammash said slowly, grinning. “Now that Charity is a womanimal, there is a particularly impermeable communication gap between her and Hope. I was worried that they might grow apart over the course of time. Believe me! There is nothing more lonely than being a one-of-a-kind in an entire universe. You and I both know that!”

Faith nodded.

“So, I added a bit of extra dependency to keep the two together,” Dammasch explained. “Hope can’t digest any of the available food in the universe. Only Charity can nourish her.”

“Why didn’t you remove all their chains and piercings and Charity’s chastity belt?” Faith asked. “Since they are in a simulation, there doesn’t seem to be a need to carry over their, uh, metal induced restrictions.”

“I got rid of all of Hope’s needles!” Dammasch said. “Those were just cruel! But… when you place someone into a simulation, we have found that it’s best to use an exact replica of their actual selves. When you make changes, the individual learns to deal with the change fairly quickly, but after about a year in simulation-time, they fully integrate with the change. So, if you bring them out of the simulation, there is a huge misalignment between who they are and who they think they are. It can be messy.”

“What about that nursing - feeding thing that you added?” Faith asked. “Mightn’t that become part of who they are?”

The Goddess shrugged her shoulders. “Hmm… Oh! Look! There are some controls here too.” Dammasch grabbed the tablet and tapped a button a number of times. “This speeds up the passage of time in the simulation, so you can fast forward to some interesting events. Let’s see… 3… 4… 5… Here! I just advanced the clock eight months!”

Faith looked into the screen. “Oh! Good! Hope looks much more healthy!” Hope was sitting in a meadow, smiling, watching Charity run through fields with three young, fleet footed deer-like animals. Charity circled around laughing. She did a forward roll and slid up next to Hope, kissing her on the lips, then jumping up and running off again.

“You give the time feature a spin,” Dammasch said.

“OK,” Faith said. She tapped the button a few times. “There! That’s up to about a year and a half. Ooo! Hope and Charity are making love. Wow! She certainly looks satisfied.”

“You see how it works!” Dammasch said. “Good girl!” She patted Faith on the head. After a moment Dammasch said: “How are your memories? Have you recovered any more?”

“I have,” Faith said. “I remembered living through a vast swath of what we called The Middle Ages back on my earth.”

“Oh, yeah!” Dammasch said. “Aradale in your universe was certainly more wily than I’ve ever seen before. I can’t believe that she was able to manipulate our memories so well. Your memories. My memories… whatever…” Dammasch laughed.

Faith smiled. “There’s so much you can learn from alternate, parallel universe versions of oneself, isn’t there?”

“Yes, Faith Dammasch,” the Goddess said. She looked around the room briefly. “Anything you need up here in your quarters? Are they treating you well?”

“Everything’s great,” Faith said, staring into the tablet again. “Thanks for the toy!”

As soon as Dammasch left her quarters. Faith examined the tablet device in greater detail. After a few minutes, she reached over and pressed a button. “Lucy? Could I get a E-14 standard cable with a 3 splice ACK connector and a 78 inch monitor? Thanks!”

<>--+-

Charity presented Hope with a collection of wild flowers and a wooden burl filled with nuts and berries. Then she dropped down to her knees in a kneeling position and linked her thumbless hands behind her back. She smiled up at Hope and waited patiently. Hope had been fashioning some new tools to make it easier to cut wood. The tree that Hope was living in was filled with clever inventions and conveniences.

Every once in a while she would pick up some nuts and berries and feed Charity with her fingers, just like they did back when they lived with Illie. Every once in a while she would lean down and kiss Charity.

“How can you get so dirty in such a short time?” Hope asked as she grabbed a damp cloth woven from native fibers and wiped at Charity’s face and breasts. Her voice was beautiful and melodic as she spoke in her language of clicks and pops.

Charity’s green eyes filled with innocent wonder as they always did when Hope spoke to her. Charity loved the sounds that Hope made. That was just one of the million things about Hope that mesmerized Charity. She flicked her nose ring with her tongue so that it tapped on her lips a couple of times. Otherwise she waited patiently for Hope to feed her another bit of food.

When Charity had had her fill, Hope knelt in front of Charity and latched her lips around her nipple. Charity’s eyes went wide, her focus - far away, and her body began to softly shake.

<>--+-

“I’ve got it!” Faith said to no one. It was the middle of the night and Faith was surrounded by three large monitors, fans and the tablet device that allowed her to watch Charity and Hope’s universe.

“I understand the purpose of Charity’s chastity belt - the Zoic Amplifier - whatever! I understand what it has done to her!”

She turned to a keyboard and started hacking away. “This is so much more than just a toy universe!”

<>--+-

Charity did not know what inspired her to do so one day, but, as Hope was nursing, she suddenly pushed Hope away and bent over to kiss Hope. She sucked some of her own breast milk from Hope’s mouth. Hope looked confused, but she complied. Hope gave Charity’s nipple another pull and held the milk in her mouth for Charity to suck back out.

Charity pushed Hope onto her back in the nest and pushed her legs apart. She clamped her mouth around Hope’s sex and forced the milk from her mouth into Hope’s vagina. Hope pushed her head back, eyes closed, mouth open in a scream of ecstasy.

<>--+-

Hope was walking along a path in the evening time holding the hand of a five-year-old girl.

“Mom, why can’t Charity speak?” the girl asked Hope.

“She does speak,” Hope said, gently. “But she only speaks in the language of Love. The language of Love is so vast, though, that she simply can’t handle any other language. It’s such a powerful language that it imbues her with the power to watch over our village and the animals in the fields and the food that grows on the vines. It gives her the power to watch over Aunt Perit-and-Metolius and Mei and Imani and Akna and Hannah and their new baby. She watches over me!”

“And me too!” the little girl said, smiling.

“And you too, my dear daughter, Progress. You, most of all!” Hope said. “Now, be a good girl for your Aunt Perit-and-Metolius.” Hope looked out into the forest. “I think Charity is looking for me right now.”

“Ok, Mommy!” And the girl ran off to a nearby wooden structure.

Hope turned and stepped off the trail. She saw a flash of blue light about the exact same color as that which Charity’s belt gave off whenever she was aroused. Hope smiled, and walked into the darkening wood.

Meanwhile on a ridge overlooking the small village, two seeds dropped off a strange tree. The seeds quickly transformed and grew into two fully formed human females.

“Hello, Aradale,” said the first.

“Hello, sister,” said the second.

“It looks like we are at the dawn of time for another candidate for most-perfect universe!” Dammasch said.

“Yes,” Aradale replied. “It’s nice here. I like this place.”

The two Goddess sisters were distracted for a moment by the flashing of blue light and the sounds of Hope moaning in ecstasy down in the woods below.

“Wow!” Dammasch said.

“No doubt,” Aradale replied.

“You know? I’m kind of tired of our constant rivalry. I was thinking of maybe chilling for a while. Maybe sit back and watch how this universe plays out,” Dammasch said.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Aradale said. “I’m burned out as well. Oh, my! What was that sound?”

“I think that was Charity,” Dammasch said, looking out over the forest. “I feel like I want to take a new approach. New everything! In fact, I think I’m going to use a different name this time around. Something to always remind me of my current attitude.”

“That’s a brilliant idea, sister,” Aradale said. “What will be your name?”

“Faith,” Faith said.

“Hm. I like it,” Aradale said. “Maybe I’ll try that too. Call me Fedea.”

“Nice,” Faith said.

The two Goddesses stood looking out over the forest which was flashing with blue lights and moans of carnal bliss.

“Hey! Do you want to go for a walk-about?” Faith asked. “See what this universe has to offer?”

“Let’s go,” Fedea said, and they turned away and walked up over the ridge.

<>--+-

Faith’s Lab Notes:

“The Zoic Amplifier - An individual receives the greatest pleasure when they are performing the act that their maker sees as their greatest purpose - this being reproduction and the sexual orgasm. The Zoic Amplifier is a machine which evaluates an individual mind and determines what she, and not the maker, believes is her greatest purpose - and that becomes the ultimate orgasm. Apparently, Charity believes that her greatest purpose is to nourish Hope. Charity’s chastity belt is not preventing her from ever achieving an orgasm. Charity is experiencing an ultimate, sustained orgasm every time Hope latches on to her breast and drinks from her bosom. She is probably the most physically satisfied woman in all the known universes!

“Probably even more than Killdoll…”