Keyholder Demoness Bk 02 Ch 08

It was early in the morning when the inhabitants of the menagerie began to stir. Charity still wore the hard leather mouth guard and the fist mitts as she lay on the small cot in her cell. Various workers walked past her cell tending to the needs of the menagerie's residents. One worker stopped by Charity's cell, speaking at her in the local language. Charity sat up and shrugged her shoulders and the worker walked away quickly.

Fifteen minutes later, the worker returned with two helpers. They were carrying some sort of harness. They stood outside talking and staring at Charity. Finally, Charity motioned for them to open the door. She really wanted to go to the bathroom.

Finally, they unlocked the door and entered the cell, spreading out defensively. They seemed to be uncertain whether Charity would attack them or something. She raised her hands as a sign of surrender, but it did not seem to affect the handler's plans in any way. They moved very quickly and wrapped her in the harness, securing buckles as they moved. There were straps over her shoulders, between her breasts and around her waist which were quickly tightened. Her arms were pulled back and secured to the waist band in the small of her back. A crotch piece was left dangling in front of her.

A leash of some sort was attached to a pair of loops at her sternum and the handlers pulled Charity from her cell, down the hall and out into a yard. Charity trotted along, doing her best to ease whatever fears the handlers may have had by cooperating as best as possible. In the yard, there was another handler leading an armless ponygirl strapped in a similar harness. Charity watched the ponygirl squat and pee in the grass.

"Fuck," Charity thought. "I'm going to have to pee in the yard like an animal..."

Once back inside, Charity was returned to her cell where a tray had been filled with the standard ponygirl breakfast. The cell door was left open, but the leash was secured so that Charity had very little range. A handler worked at the back of Charity's head. Finally, the mouth guard was removed. Charity looked down at the tray of food and her stomach rumbled with hunger. Unfortunately, her hands were still secured behind her.

"And now I have to eat like an animal?" Charity thought. "Where the fuck is Faith?"

Charity heard the sound of stomping feet and looked over to see Hazel and Garnet trying to get her attention. They smiled at her from their own stall, where a similar tray of food had been provided. She smiled back and stomped her own feet a couple of times in response and then bent over and did her best to pick up food with her tongue and lips.

Hazel and Garnet had been thoroughly bathed and their glorious, long hair had been freed from the tight ponytails that they had worn on the trail. They both seemed to glow - so happy and healthy. They were very beautiful and Charity felt a pulse of arousal behind the faceplate of her chastity belt.

After breakfast, Charity was led to a chair where she sat as a groomer washed her body down with warm water and brushed out her long hair. The groomer was very gentle and Charity felt like she was enjoying a day at some sort of strange bondage spa.

As her hair was being braided, (tick), Charity's lover from the night before, came into the menagerie with two other women. Unlike the handlers, who were clad in a uniform that provided full coverage, (tick) was topless as were her two friends. Apparently, she was no longer "on the clock". And, indeed, she seemed free to roam the estate. Charity smiled at (tick) and her friends, bowing slightly, as she could think of no other greeting with her hands still bound behind her.

(tick) spoke excitedly with her friends as they watched the groomer finish Charity's braid. With the groomer's permission (tick) walked up and gave Charity a hug. The other two women seemed to be pestering (tick) somehow - pointing at their mouths and then at Charity's. Whatever they were discussing, Charity noticed that (tick) blushed and spoke with a bit more insistency. Regardless, one of the women stepped up to Charity and used her thumb to pull down on Charity's chin. (tick) seemed to become angry, but the second woman pulled her away from where Charity sat.

Charity decided that the first woman wanted to see inside her mouth, so she held out her tongue. The woman made a surprised exclamation and ran a finger along the metal lumps aligned down the middle of her tongue.

Charity realized what must be going on. Likely, (tick) had revealed how exceptionally well Charity had entertained her with her tongue, and now her friends wanted to see for themselves.

Her theory seemed to be confirmed when the woman examining her tongue grabbed her by the upper arm and started to drag Charity from the chair. It was a particularly rude thing to do, but Charity complied and soon found herself kneeling before the stranger.

Oddly, in the moment, Charity felt a certain sense of power. Ever since she had become trapped in the belt, it seemed that she had been slowly losing her ability to do things for herself. She felt she was losing control of her autonomy. But now, as she knelt before an attractive woman who was lowering the thin skirt she was wearing, Charity knew that she had the power to reduce the woman to a mindless, moaning heap. For Charity, it was a really exciting thought.

Charity smiled and winked at (tick), hoping to convey that she was ok with servicing the rude woman. She leaned forward and pressed her tongue to the woman's sex. She enjoyed the feel of the woman's skin and the taste of her arousal. Charity even liked the way that the woman threaded her fingers around Charity's head and pulled her closer in sheer, unthinking desperation. All too quickly the woman let out a few loud moans, stumbling slightly.

Charity knelt back on her haunches for a second, catching her breath. Then she turned to the second woman that arrived with (tick) with a grin. The woman pushed (tick) to the side and stepped up to Charity, dropping her skirt, as she did.

"I've never tasted two different women with such a short gap in time," Charity thought. The subtle differences between the two women intrigued her. As Charity was plotting a sequence of maneuvers to decimate her current lover, she noticed Hazel and Garnet out of the corner of her eye, smiling at her. "Wait! What am I thinking? I HAVE tasted two different women close together... Hazel and Garnet!" Charity thought. "Strange that I thought of them as one individual..."

"Ay-(click)-eena!" (tick) said in a loud whisper.

The woman Charity was servicing stepped back quickly causing Charity to almost fall over. When she regained her balance and looked up, Empusa and Faith were standing, watching. Empusa laughed as the woman quickly pulled her skirt off the ground. speaking quietly as she quickly slipped out of the stall behind (tick). Faith simply stood with her mouth hanging open, which, for some reason, made Charity smile. She licked her lips and noticed how her wet chin felt cool compared to the burning arousal she felt down below. She wondered if her tongue would have the same effect on Empusa.

Empusa shouted something over her shoulder and a few moments later a groom arrived and helped Charity up from her knees. She released Charity's arms from behind her back and began unbuckling the fist mitts.

"I'm sorry about all the restraints," Empusa said. "The groomers follow a certain protocol. I hope that they treated you well enough. You seem to be attracting a fanbase of some sort."

Charity shrugged and smiled as the groomer unhitched the leash from the harness that Charity wore.

"I believe that we should be able to recover your voice once again," Empusa said. "Certainly, the toxins have moved out of your system by now."

Charity raised her hands as though she was cheering.

Empusa had Charity sit in the chair. "Take a deep breath." Charity breathed in and opened her mouth. Empusa reached in and pinched at the metal nubs along her tongue. Finally, she seemed to get a good grip and Charity felt the chain slip out of her tongue. Suddenly, she was choking though, as Empusa pulled at the chain. She felt the links wrenched from her throat. Empusa pulled a bit harder and Charity let out a gagged squawk - indeed, though, it was a sound.

Finally, Empusa had the chain completely extracted from Charity's throat, but as she pulled, it was still attached to the end of her tongue. Charity remembered that Empusa had actually physically pierced her tongue as an anchor for the chain. Empusa pulled a tool from her pocket which she used to snip at the links. After a moment, she dropped the tool and a large portion of the chain to the ground, however, there was still a short length of chain attached to the tip of Charity's tongue. Empusa carefully laid the remaining links back down along Charity's tongue and she felt them slip back into her flesh.

"All done!" Empusa said.

"Uh!" Charity said, tentatively. "I can thpeak!" She looked at Faith, somewhat surprised. "Well... mothtly..."

Empusa laughed. "Tongue piercings sometimes can impede one's enunciation. Also, given your appeal to Hazel and Garnet and, as well, to some of my staff, apparently, I thought that you might like to keep the metal ridge along your tongue. It is a harmless accessory."

"I gueth tho," Charity lisped. While she was shocked with her inability to make a proper 's' sound, she did enjoy continuing to wield a certain amount of power with the pleasure that her ridged tongue could supply. "Can you remove it later, if it becomes too... uh... too...?"

"Too debilitating?" Empusa asked. "It's easy to remove at any time."

Charity was not quite sure what Empusa had said and she looked over at Faith, who appeared to be comfortable with the result.

"Okay," Charity said, smiling.

<>--+-

"Some women, like Hazel and Garnet, find that it is their calling to become something other than human." Empusa was giving Faith and Charity a tour of the menagerie. "Sometimes what they are destined to become is a functional animal like a ponygirl. Sometimes they become decorative creatures or even toys. There is a role for all women regardless of their calling."

They started walking from the stable side of the building back toward the cages. They passed the cage that Charity had slept in the night before.

"To become one's calling sometimes requires a sorceress," Empusa explained. "I am the sorceress responsible for doing everything in my power to suitably transform an individual so they may achieve their particular calling."

They stopped in front of the cage of the woman with the odd flesh-colored tail. The woman scampered up to the bars and knelt before her queen. Empusa stuck a hand through the bars and petted the girl's head.

"A transform requires precise technique and a ready supply of power - something you might refer to as mana. No sorceress is too powerful alone. She must rely on others to supply most of the mana she needs to perform a transform. It is my job as queen to identify good sources of mana and to integrate them in my work."

"What makes someone a good source of mana?" Faith asked.

"Mana is pulled from human emotion. The more powerful that one feels emotion, the better they are as a source for mana," Empusa explained. "I'll introduce you to my best source in a little bit, but first, I want to show you why the menagerie exists." She turned back to the woman kneeling in the cage before her. "(Clack) u-ah, here, represents someone who has gone through a partial transformation. Simply, our technique has not yet advanced to a degree where a complete transformation can be achieved with the mana to which I have access."

Charity noticed the woman's eyes were huge and the pupil was slitted. When she smiled, she displayed a row of pointy teeth.

"(Clack) u-ah's calling is to be a woman with a number of cat-like characteristics. Some of the characteristics you can see, but there are still many that she is lacking. We decided that she is incomplete and have decided to keep her here in the menagerie until we have the skill and mana supply to fulfill her calling. The same is true for most all of the inhabitants of the menagerie. They are incomplete or, perhaps, not currently capable of existing successfully in the wild."

"When will you... do the rest of her?" Charity asked.

"We still are refining our techniques. So... as advancements are made," Empusa explained.

"Why not change her back while you are learning?" Charity asked.

"When I perform a transform, I start with someone who is perfect as they are. I transform them into something new and, as it is new, it is also perfect," Empusa said. "A sorceress cannot transform someone into something old that was perfect and hope that they would be equally perfect."

Charity frowned. "What?"

Empusa sighed and frowned. "Imagine that you had a cube of clay and that you used the clay to create a new shape from your imagination. If the new clay figure is insufficient to meet your imagination, you could not simply reshape the clay back into a perfect cube. No matter how hard you try, it would always be a little bit mis-shapen. Instead, you would save what you have until you are ready to make the appropriate changes to meet your vision. So, I have taken a perfect (Clack) u-ah human and molded her into a catlike hybrid. I could try to recreate the (Clack) u-ah human, but it is impossible to make her perfect again. Right now, though, she IS a perfect catlike hybrid (Clack) u-ah. And so she shall remain like this until I can make her a better, different, perfect catlike (Clack) u-ah."

Charity looked at Faith, who seemed mesmerized by the words that Empusa was saying. She seemed to understand Empusa. Charity, herself however, was having difficulty following Empusa's logic. Her brain was feeling foggy and it made her concerned that the animal within her might be gaining more traction. She decided that it was best to watch Faith for cues in the future. Faith would explain things so she could understand.

"Let me show you some more in my collection," Empusa said, leading them down to another cage. The next cage held a woman whose arms had been transformed into a hideous pair of fleshy wing-like appendages.

"Here, we are experimenting with introducing the ability to fly. Ideally, we need to be able to add the wings rather than transform her arms into wings. As it is, she is as dependent on the groomers as our ponygirls are. And these wings are insufficient for flight."

Next they walked down to a stack of cages ranging between one to three feet in height.

"Ay (tick) or-ee, nes (click)-ah-(click)!" Empusa said.

In each cage, between one to four miniature women walked up to the front edge. Some greeted Empusa in higher pitched voices.

"We have performed a lot of research on creating faeries. It seems to be a popular calling in my queendom."

As Charity looked closer, she realized that many of the women had fragile translucent wings extending from their backs.

"Here, we were able to add the wings by reducing the height of the women," Empusa explained. "We are close to actually achieving flight, however, originally, their reduced size made the women much more fragile physically. One of our great victories has been to overcome their fragility. These girls are very durable. Unfortunately, their wings are not so much."

<>--+-

"Blue! It'th Blue!" Charity yelled and she ran up to the bars of the cell. The woman inside also ran up to meet Charity on the other side. Her head was completely contained inside a featureless metal orb. Her chest was covered in some sort of flexible metallic sports bra. Her arms ended in padded ovoid stumps through which a wide hole had been bored. Her crotch was covered in a large metal bikini. Tubes and cables connected the belt to a mount on the woman's neck.

Most notably, though, the woman before Charity was not wearing the collar with the key to open her chastity belt.

"It'th not Blue," Charity said, disappointed.

"No. This is Killdoll. You should say 'Hello' though. She once spoke English," Empusa said. "I have no idea whether she still understands it after all these years though."

"This is how Blue was dressed... when Dammasch took her," Charity lisped as she turned to Faith.

"But this is not Blue," Faith confirmed.

"Killdoll was rescued from your failing universe quite some time ago," Empusa explained. "She was brought here by the Goddess to have the privilege of being an antenna for the gathering of mana. The Goddess gifted her to me almost ten years ago."

"Hello?" Charity said, looking at the featureless orb covering Killdoll's head.

"She can see you," Empusa said. "But her sensory input has all been focused around her sex, now." She was pointing at the woman's crotch.

Charity knelt down so that she was looking at the metal faceplate of the woman's bikini. She noticed that there were a pair of lenses toward the top of the faceplate as well as a microphone on each side. The technologies were familiar.

"Hello?" Charity said again.

Killdoll clumsily reached out one of her padded hands between the bars of the cell and gently touched Charity's face.

"Killdoll is, by far, the most pampered woman in my entire queendom," Empusa said, proudly.

Charity looked back into the cell. It seemed pretty sparse. There wasn't even a bed. In fact, the only piece of furniture was a tubular upside down Y frame held at a 60 degree angle with open shackles clearly meant for the woman's wrists and ankles.

"Her entire life is geared around sexual arousal. Her sole task is to orgasm - the bigger, the better. Every interaction with her environment stimulates her in some way."

"Babe, you're glowing," Faith noticed.

"Yes," Empusa said. "That is the effect of Killdoll's mana on the zoic amplifier. The more aroused Killdoll is, the more power I have access to use for magical purposes. All the transformations that are represented in my menagerie have been performed with Killdoll's help. She only grows more and more powerful over time. I could not even imagine how much dopamine she constantly has coursing through her body. So, yeah, she used to speak English, but now she probably only understands the language of arousal."

"If you had more women like Killdoll," Faith asked, "would you be able to complete the transformations of the women here?"

"Well, like I said, love, the transformations are limited by both mana supply and technique," Empusa replied as she placed a hand, gently, on Faith's shoulder. "Certainly, a second antenna would quicken our research into better techniques. Unfortunately, each Queen is only allowed a single antenna. The Goddess has over one hundred purely dedicated to maintaining the perfection of our universe, which is a much greater purpose than running a queendom on the Edge of Paradise. But, I am excited to say, the Goddess Dammasch has promised me a Source Witch which when used in combination with Killdoll, will vastly grow my available mana. We are currently preparing a special home for the Source Witch called The Promontory. But, that is a tour for another day..."

Empusa and Faith started down the hall. Charity, still kneeling, stroked her hand along Killdoll's thigh. "My name ith Charity," she said, staring into the lenses on the Killdoll's belt. Killdoll brought both her padded hands to rest over her heart.

"Come along, pet!" Empusa said to Charity.

<>--+-

They were standing in a pasture just outside the menagerie. Hazel and Garnet had been meandering about the field along with a number of other ponygirls. When they saw Charity they began to jog over to greet her.

Faith had a serious look on her face as she began to speak. "Empusa and I are concerned about your episode last night, babe."