Scene VIII: The Cat
The 1st Day of the 4th Moon, 1536 P.V.
Corax Asylum, Togaduine
Stacia was running around in circles through the vast and enclosed forest that surrounded Corax. To complicate matters further for Stacia, and to amuse his own libido, Nicolas had released other lower tributes into the grounds, ones he considered used up, and set Pauley, Mr Frustrated Dibble, Dr Shiverton Smythe, who had returned from Sapari blazed out of his skull, and the chef Nicolai Meatcleaver Pierre on them. At every turn Stacia was faced with Nicolai chasing, sexually entertaining or eating alive some raucously loud, highly bloody, and petrified woman. Nonetheless, and in spite of her exhaustion, Stacia continued to run.
She did not know how, but whatever direction Stacia ran in took her straight back to Nicolas’s wall of heads, a feature that formed about the main gate of Corax. Nicolas had an external fence and gate around the wider ground, which included the forest, then a second higher enclosure around Corax’s main grounds. The latter enclosure also displayed the wall of heads. It was not so much a wall as iron posts that erupted from the cracked ground and rose about the main gates showing off a range of baer heads in different stages of decomposition.
The Electi had never mentioned a wall of heads, but then the Electi had failed to mention a lot of things, such as The Nicolai, the corrective facilities, and Nicolas’s insane depths of debauchery and insanity. The Electi had, however, managed to convince both Stacia and her sister, the second Immoless, Lucia, that they were both psychic.
After several years of their own father, Electi Priest Donotoris, administering electric shocks and psychic testing to both Stacia and Lucia, both girls had, quite unsurprisingly, made some effort to develop skills in the art of telepathy and seeing the dead.
Tempus, Allyra’s father, often remarked that Donotoris had simply driven his daughters insane, but Donotoris denied this and framed the electric shocks as part of the Electi educational system. He even attempted to shock Allyra for the sport of it, but Tempus had stayed his hand with a good kick in the nuts and Donotoris never bothered again.
Stacia had passed the wall of heads at least twenty times before she stopped counting. Her feet, already scorched from Webster’s underfloor heating and electric shocks, bled from the prickly grounds.
Prior to each Immoless season Nicolas would insist on Chives collecting holly leaves, cacti, rose thorns and rose hip, slicing them all up and scattering them all over the Corax forest floor. Due to the size of the forest, Chives was obliged to begin this process several moons before the arrival of the Immolesses, whilst maintaining all of his other duties as well. His other duties consisted largely of doing whatever Nicolas barked at him to do. Nicolas promised Chives a fifty percent pay rise for the season on the understanding that Chives made the forest floor extra prickly. Chives maintained his end of the bargain, even throwing in heaps of stinging nettles for good luck. Nicolas, in return, kept his promise. Chives was unpaid and fifty percent of nothing, Nicolas calculated, is a whole lot of nothing. This is exactly what Chives received in accordance with Nicolas’s promise.
Stacia eventually stopped running and collapsed against a large oak tree, riddled with exhaustion. She closed her eyes and breathed in the obnoxious airs of Corax. Her aching back pressed into the rough body of the tree, and she let out a deep sigh.
Her moment of rest, however, did not last as she was interrupted by the purring of a frisky cat,
‘Are you lost?’
Stacia looked up and saw a gentleman lounging on a branch of the tree in lavish purple garments, and wearing a top hat with embellishments. His long wavy auburn hair hung down his shoulders and in his hand he held a flute that was big enough to be an oboe. His eyes were closed, and he played a soft tune after he spoke.
‘Pardon?’ Stacia muttered.
The music ceased.
‘I said,’ Chester the cat replied as he opened his eyes, ‘are you lost?’
‘I’m looking for the way out. I am lost.’
‘Where do you wish to go?’
‘I don’t know.’
The cat swung his legs over the branch and dropped down next to her,
‘You can’t be lost if you do not know where found is,’ he said impatiently as his foul breath splashed her neck.
‘I want to go…’ Stacia hesitated. She could not go home as the Electi would execute her for being absent without leave. She did not know anybody else and had no knowledge of the geography of The Deep. She considered her narrow options and elaborated further,
‘I want to get out of this forest.’
Chester smirked and leaned in closer, sniffing her face,
‘Now we are getting somewhere. You wish to leave this monstrous forest.’
‘I do.’
Chester’s hand smoothly drifted onto Stacia’s bosom,
‘And what would you give to leave this forest?’
Stacia inhaled as his fingers caressed her nipples,
‘I don’t understand.’
‘If you have been in that place,’ Chester said, nodding his head towards Corax, ‘Then I think you understand exactly what I want.’
Stacia nodded,
‘Then you will help me escape this forest.’
Chester placed his free hand on his heart,
‘I swear I will get you out of this forest if you let me play with you, just for a while. I promise you will enjoy it.’
Stacia nodded again and pressed her body further into the rough bark.
Chester continued to caress her breasts whilst writhing slowly about her. His free hand wandered and roamed in front of her tired eyes, dancing for her. His eyes caught hers and flashed green, and his dancing hand combusted into flame.
Stacia’s eyes rolled back into her head leaving only empty, white balls. Chester pulled his head back without aligning his body. He smiled, and his face elongated. His skin thickened and grew porous. His eyebrows narrowed into one streak, then his mouth opened. A purple and black tongue exited the cavity. It extended to his chin, then grew more. It dropped past his shoulders, then his waist, before extending outward until it aligned with the hem of Stacia’s filthy nightdress. There it opted to change direction, raised the hem, and took a look underneath. The tongue was pleased with what it saw, and its growth quickened as it travelled under and up Stacia’s gown.
Stacia was not wearing underwear. Nicolas forbade lingerie unless it suited Nicolas. Most of the time it did not as the tributes and other inmates caused him enough trouble with their futile fighting and defensive attitudes that he considered underwear another annoying barrier to the success of his day. This arrangement proved equally beneficial to Chester when capturing escapees. Nicolas was generous in providing both Chester, and Nicolas’s delightfully rugged forest-dwelling brother, Theaten’s Evro Kane, with plenty of escapees and used up tributes to play with. Nicolas thought highly of Kane and pitied him for having to tolerate Theaten.
The tongue located its target without any trouble and the end of the tongue split into two factions. One half sought out the entrance to Stacia’s body, whereas the other sought to enforce the most pleasurable sensation for her precisely where it was required.
Chester was renowned throughout The Deep for his tongue. Free women, wives and daughters alike, welcomed The Cat with open arms. And legs. Chester would always leave during the afterglow and move onto the next house where another dish of cream would be waiting. The women either did not notice or did not care that Chester was a demon of sorts. Nor did they realise that he was part of Nicolas, Nicolas’s primal self. His Evro. The men, and women who had not encountered Chester did not believe he existed at all, and considered the whole situation to be an old wives’ tale. His position as a voluntary postman both quelled the rumour and perpetuated the myth.
Stacia was no exception to the rule. Chester had mesmerised her enough to prevent fuss, but not enough to affect her sensation or awareness. The two pronged tongue split into three and smothered every aspect of Stacia’s sex rubbing with such damp accuracy that she was grinding back responsively in no time. Chester had to hold her up as during two especially deep and long licks he was convinced that she was going to faint.
Nicolas had no interest in sex with Stacia, she was blonde, he did not find blondes attractive, and that was the end of that. He had left it to the other Nicolai to explore her. Smythe had taken the helm in this matter some two days previously. Webster wanted to test a new, powerful anaesthetic, and Smythe volunteered. He took the anaesthetic to Stacia’s cell, injected himself with it, and then spent the day using her body, whilst injecting himself further and banging used needles into her back until she looked like a hedgehog.
Smythe was so stoned at the end of his campaign that Nicodemus was forced to remove the needles surgically, and he took a helping of body and blood too. Webster was pleased with the overall situation, as the impact on someone as hedonistic as Smythe indicated that the serum was indeed a powerful anaesthetic. Nicolas argued that that made no sense at all, but did enjoy sharing the sensation of Smythe’s buzz.
Chester’s tongue was so ravenous, and Stacia so deliciously confused, that it stirred an interest in his pants that could not be denied. He took Stacia as close to orgasm as he dared, then ordered his tongue to retreat. As the tongue folded back into his mouth, and the taste of her body fed Chester’s need, he unbuckled his many silver buttons, hoisted up the nightdress, and entered Stacia with a stream of wavelike thrusts. This sent Stacia into an explosive sensation greater than anything she had ever encountered before. Chester pressed against her with a deep thoroughness and allowed her to ride the waves.
Once he was satisfied that he had done a magnificent job, Chester kindly turned Stacia to face the tree, pressed down on her hips, and pounded her with such great consideration for himself that he quickly followed suit.
The Cat licked his lips, and left Stacia in her semi-conscious state. Before fulfilling his promise to get her out of the forest, Chester’s sharp fangs explored her throat and he fed voraciously. He then lifted her body, which fell easily into his arms, and carried her out of the forest, as promised, and straight back into Corax.
Nicolas met him at the door,
‘Good catch Ches,’ he smiled, and then licked the blood from Stacia’s throat.
‘What shall I do with her?’ Chester asked
‘Hmmm,’ Nicolas thought, ‘we shall dump her in the dark room.’
The dark room was a very specific torture chamber. Inmates could either be chained up and raised slightly off of the ground all night in the pitch black or they could be left to crawl around the wilfully holey floor in the hope that they fell into one hole or another and suffered during the process.
Nicolas straightened his hat,
‘Throw her in and I shall come back to Thanata with you?’
Chester scratched his head under his hat,
‘Why?’
‘To see our bride of course. I shall wait until you are asleep and then woo her with my magnificent personality.
Chester peered under his eyebrows and grimaced,
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘I only ever have good ideas!’