Servers would come through the gap, then step over the silk rope, before bringing whatever it was to the table. Gawkers would just stand outside the rope, and gawk.
Two women occupied the table, both stunning in their own way. The fact that both had eyes of the deepest red kept the gawkers interested. The fact that one was utterly gorgeous, clothed only in her own long brunette hair, which tantalised the viewer with glimpses of the woman beneath, while never showing the complete picture. And then there was the other. Her costume seemed to consist of additional muscular tissue outside her skin, glistening scarlet with blood. Yet even more stunning, so much so that people would not bring themselves to vomit in horror until they were no longer in her sight. Almost without notice was blond hair atop a head that appeared to have too much bone.
The instantly recognisable figure of Donna Vinciessa proceeded through the gap in the mirrors and stepped up to the table. “Ladies, I hope everything is to your satisfaction.”
“Yes, it seems to be. If the hunks can bring out the cocaine now, we can relax and get down to business.” said the horrific woman.
“Of course.” Said Vinciessa. “Majesty, If I might ask, are you able to say how long you might need the table? It is rather an extensive edifice we have had to build to meet your requirements, and this is normally one of our most popular rooms.”
“I’ve no idea. We’ll just have to see how it goes.” Said the horrific woman. “Quicker, I’ve no doubt, if we’re not chatting with you, my dear.”
“Of course. I’ll send the boys right out.” Vinciessa said, and then with a small bow, departed.
“Why are we sitting in the middle of a hall of mirrors?” said the gorgeous woman.
“Because that way, neither of us can do anything behind the other’s back.” Was the reply.
“Any reason why we might?”
“Other than the fact that the last time we met, I killed you, you mean?”
“Well, I suppose there is that. On the other hand, I doubt I could actually finish anything destructive before your darling brother could drop in from up there in the lighting rig where he’s hovering. Not very subtle having him stuck up there.”
“One can never be too careful. It’s not particularly you he’s there for. Change always has its opponents, and our change, so recent as it was, replaced a status quo that had lasted forever.”
“Very well. That has logic I suppose, and I’ve never objected to admiring myself in a mirror. But aren’t you worried about the audience?”
“What audience?”
“That would be the somewhat large number of former Rebman witches who have made mirror magic their very own special thing. They communicate through them, watch through them, and in the most skilled cases, travel through them. You’ve given several hundred of Discordia’s best a ringside seat for whatever it is we’re going to be talking about.”
“Well, that just once again goes to prove that I picked the right demoness for this. I’m willing to put up with letting some Discordians listen in, if it means I can see anything coming up behind me. Unlike the Queen of the 5th Abyss, I’ve never quite been happy with the ‘eyes in the back of my head’ thing.”
“I assume you mean Lolth? The spider daughter of the actual Queen.”
“There you go again, you see. It’s that extra level of detail you have that is why I want you to do this thing.”
“You keep going on about ‘this thing’, but you seem to be shy about actually telling me what it is?”
“We’ll get to that. The hunks are here.”
Indeed, two men had arrived, prime examples of the beefcake adjective, each carrying a polished mirror on which three lines of white powder were laid out, with a one-hundred-dollar bill alongside. Both the men were naked, gleaming in oil, and standing to attention in the presence of the two ladies.
“After you, my queen.” Said the gorgeous woman.
The other woman took the hundred-dollar bill, rolled it like an expert and proceeded to snort one line of powder up each nostril. She then handed the bill to her hunk, before taking his manhood, licking her tongue along the underside of it, laying it down atop the remaining line of powder so that the powder stuck to it, and then taking it into her mouth to the root. From the expression on the hunk’s face, it was difficult to tell whether he was in ecstasy or agony, and his eventual convulsion almost caused him to fall over. Shortly after, the queen released his phallus from her mouth, no longer erect and no longer bearing any white powder. Blood stains decorated his body where he had been touching her, particularly where her breasts had been crushed against his thighs.
The man was looked down at himself, swayed, and began to turn a greenish white colour. “Not here!” commanded the queen. “You will not puke here!”
“Doesn’t that upset you?” asked the gorgeous woman. “Having guys want to throw up because you bled all over them while giving them head?”
“On the contrary. He’s fascinated yet revolted. He was erect after all when he came. And now, he strives to obey my command, yet his insides are churning, causing him both agony and joy. It gives me great arousal to cause such duality in people. I would orgasm if I so much as let him just touch my clit, yet I fear that letting him see that would break my control over him, because I tend to ooze and squirt even more when the spasms take over. I fear we would have too much mess to clean up.”
“I’m sure they’re used to it here. After all, Feds are some of their best customers these days, and they freely enjoy every substance that can be emitted from any orifice as part of their sexuality.”
“Yes, but you don’t, do you my dear?”
“I can’t give you a fair answer, my queen. I am a demoness. I strive for pleasure. Yet I am also required to do those things that I am contracted or ordered to do. I have found the Federation female attitude that if one has no choice about doing things, then one should modify one’s mind set until those things bring you pleasure, to be invaluable in allowing complete satisfaction, during whatever is required of me. So if you were to let him touch your clit such that you came and that caused him to vomit all over you, then I cannot deny that I would find pleasure in that.”
“Bitch! I’m sure you would.” The queen chuckled. “For fuck’s sake, just do the coke so we can get these bozos out of here and get back to our conversation.”
The gorgeous woman looked at her man’s erection, then twirled her finger, and the three lines of cocaine started to swirl around the man’s phallus in a triple spiral, settling and sticking in three fine lines along the length of it. The woman then proved herself the equal of her queen as she took it to the root in her mouth, holding it there until that man also reached his tumult. As he withdrew from her mouth, his organ was glistening but clean.
The woman shook her head, causing her hair to wave, revealing a body that would put most of the women at Blackhall to shame. “Wow! That’s good stuff.”
“Nobody ever accused the Don of selling inadequate product.” Was the queen’s reply. “Now, you two fuck off, and tell them to bring the meal in 10 minutes.”
“Yes, majesty.” Said the man who had been next to the gorgeous woman. The other man still seemed to be incapable of speech. His companion dragged him away from the platform and out through one of the gaps in the mirrors. From the noises that followed, it seemed that a crowd of people had observed him lose his internal battle once he was out of the queen’s presence.
“They’ll charge you extra for that.” Commented the gorgeous woman.
“They better fucking not! They were given due warning, and told to have clean-up crews on hand. I’m surprised more of the gawkers aren’t doing that anyway. Clearly, it must be your influence.”
“I’ll take the compliment with thanks. Even if I don’t believe it. It’s probably more that they’re used to the Feds by now.”
“Anyway. To our discussion. Having had your hands on it for a short while, you are no doubt aware of the Two-fold Crown of the Demon Queen.”
“Yes, I am aware of it.”
“I’m sorry about killing you. But you have to realise that you had no chance of keeping it, and I just wasn’t willing to let that farce go on any longer.”
“I nearly lost my mother that night.”
“She shouldn’t have been involved. She’s not one of us. That was her mistake and yours, not something you can blame me for. I apologise to you, but I will not apologise to her.”
“She is as much of me as your mother is of you!”
“No, she is not. Our nature is not as hers. Even though you came out of her womb, she is not as we are. She cannot feel the things we can, or do the things we can. She cares about Order and Chaos, and Good and Evil. She is not ruled by rapture and agony as we are.”
“Get to the point. You are not improving my mood, my queen.”
“Very well. You are aware of the Crown. You are also aware where it rests. As with my predecessor, I do not need to wear it upon my head for its Power to be with me. However, I feel a need to take a more hands on approach to the place where it sits. Simply declaring that the Realm is off limits to others of our kind will not satisfy me.”
“What does it matter, if you get the Power anyway?”
“What it matters is that any of our kind who are on that world will get the same benefits. She who came before me either didn’t know or didn’t care. As she never lost even a grain of her soul, ever, from being queen, she never could understand the temptation that such things have.”
“OK. That makes sense. So what do you want from me?”
“I wish to place you as my steward in that realm. You will be responsible for enforcing my prohibition on our kind being there.”
“Me? Why me? Why not one of your co-wives? Why not your brother? Or one of your daughters?”
“Because this is all about Power, and none of them would be any better for this than if I were to do it myself. Power for the most part is a product of the mind, and you are without question the demoness most blessed in that attribute.”
“So, you like me for this because of my big brain?”
“Pretty much. And the things you have done with it. You have studied all the arcane disciplines. You even have that Amber Pattern in your portfolio, which means that you are best positioned to deal with Power hungry bitches and bastards who try and steal the benefits of my Crown.”
“Marvellous.”
“Look, of all the ones who had their hands on it that night, you are the one of them all that I could have hoped might have been able to keep it. But hopes are no use in the real world. Power was not going to be the outcome of that night. As we sit here, the uncomfortable fact is that I am the 14th most dangerous thing in existence, and you are somewhere in the upper 400s on that scale. Despite all these mirrors, I could stand up, move round behind you and decapitate you and it would mostly be over before you have time to do more than raise an arm in defence, which would only change things such that I ended up cutting your hand off in addition to your head. This is simply what it is. It’s not that you’re bad. You’re not. It’s just that there are so many more Princesses of Anihilation that are better than you at combat. It was going to happen. By me doing it, at least that was the end of it.”
“So, if I’m such a crap fighter, why are we here talking about this?”
“Because, like I said, this isn’t about fighting. A sharp sword isn’t going to find the sneaky bitches who are stealing my Power. Combat isn’t going to set the wards that will spot them as they creep onto that world. This job was made for you. Literally actually. You’re the only one I’ve talked to about this.”
“And what is to stop me from benefitting from being there?”
“Absolutely nothing. In fact, that’s the main perk I’m hoping will persuade you to take it. You get to be there, with my full approval, with all the benefits that entails. Hell, if you play your cards right, you can even gain some soul from this. We both know that we both have burn. Now, we would both have the chance to reduce that, helped by it not increasing any more. But you have to be there, to get that result.”
The gorgeous woman closed her eyes for a moment as an expression of rapture passed across her face. “OK, I’m interested. What are the rules?”
“Glad you asked. The pentacle has five points, and for that reason I will permit five to gain this benefit. I am one, you would be the second. You may therefore, at your discretion allow up to three other demons or demonesses to be on that Realm at any one time while you are there, and if you are absent, one more may take your place. It is up to you to decide who those others would be, and to ensure that they are the only ones there, with the proviso that at any given time, I may give you one month’s notice on the local Realm’s calendar, that one of my Consort partners or one of my own children or my brother, will be visiting the Realm, and taking up one of those slots, until such time as they wish to leave again of their own accord. There will only be one at once of those, and if you have all the slots full when I give you notice, then you have a month to evict someone to make a slot available. Do you understand these rules as I have explained them?”
“I believe I do. Do you realise there are already two demonesses in residence there, despite the previous queen’s edict?”
“You see! There you go. I had no idea, not did I have any idea how I would find out.”
“Very well. I believe we have an agreement.”
“One more thing. Don’t make me regret this agreement with you. For the very reasons that I have chosen you for this, even though I’m your queen, we both know I can’t order you to do this in any binding way. So we are going to have to trust each other. I am going to have to trust you to do as you have agreed, and you are going to have to trust that the death I gave you in the night on the Five Queens will be a simple prick in comparison to the pain and agony I will cause you if I find you to have betrayed me in our agreement. Do we have understanding, Princess?”
“Yes, we do, my queen. We do not have to like each other to be able to do business. We are demons after all.”
“Very well. Then let us eat, drink and be merry, as the Hendrakes say, for tomorrow we may die. And as they do not get to go on to say, we will eat drink and be merry again the day after.”