I almost went mad. Certainly I was out my mind, and into the minds of others, a cacophony of wretched misery and anguish punctuated with dull aches, stabbing pains and brutal lashes of sharp agony. Of my own body I was barely aware, shackled to the cold stone floor of the dungeon cell where I had been thrown.
"Never before," the Queen had said, "has a Servant of the Court committed a crime that would see her stripped of the black and clothed in the scarlet. But what you did was far worse..."
The assembled nobility murmured angrily. "Burn her," a woman said, adding with a hiss, "with acid." Other voices suggested equally terrifying fates for me.
"Murder," the Queen said, her voice and eyes icy cold. "Three murders no less, and in a manner so vile that it sickens me. Death..." She paused for effect. "Is too good for you. No, you are going to live."
Her words prompted cries of astonishment from the crowd, and she held up a hand to calm the glaring onlookers. "You will live, though you will beg for merciful death. You will share in every torment visited upon the Scarlet Women. You will feel every whip on your skin, every blade in your flesh, every exquisite torture dreamt up by these noble minds." She bowed ironically to her audience, and this time they murmured with approval.
"You will get," she whispered, "exactly what you deserve. What every Scarlet Woman deserves." Her fingers touched my corset briefly, delivering an electric shock that threatened to tear me apart as my convulsing limbs tore at the chains that held me. Worse than that, almost, was the heat that blossomed from her touch, a bright point spreading swiftly, burning like fire, turning the black of my corset to a vivid scarlet to match the long tail projecting from my ass. The fire swept across my back, then dimmed to a gentle heat that spread slowly throughout my body. "One day," she said, "you will thank me for this."
But there was something else the Queen said, in private, before I was hauled away into the Castle's dungeons. "You took the life of an aristocrat," she said, "and they will make you pay dearly. But let me remind you: We are connected. Your pain is my pain. Your pleasure is mine. As long as I still live, you will not be alone."
"And how long will that be?" I asked morosely.
"Long enough." She kissed me softly on the lips. "You are going to be amazing, and I hope I live to see it."
I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't feel amazing. I felt dirty and broken. I felt utterly alone, abandoned in a dark cell, enough freedom of movement only to lick and chew at the scraps of food they cast in my direction. Untouched by my jailors, and yet their hands were all over me, their cocks fucking my ass and mouth, their cunts squashed against my mouth, choking me, riding crops and bull whips bringing tears to my eyes, knives making me scream until hoarse. The violation of my flesh where limbs had been replaced with clockwork.
None of it was real for me, but all of it was. I clung to the Queen's words like a lifeline, a slender thread of impossible hope, a reason to survive each day without my spirit being utterly crushed by the endless abuse.
*
To be fucked, and have no idea who was doing the fucking, was not a new experience. Indeed, as a Rose Girl, it had been a regular occurrence. Four times a year, during the Grand Balls at solstice and equinox, when all the aristocracy assembled in the Royal Court for a long day of dancing and other entertainments, some of those other entertainments were provided by Rose Girls.
Except Rose Girls were not permitted within the Royal Court. Instead, out of sight of cameras, a dimly lit hallway ran the length of the back of the Royal Court, with holes of various designs puncturing the wall at waist height. The aristocrats could stand facing the wall, or lie in comfort on benches, enjoying in anonymity the services of unseen Rose Girls.
I had been a Rose Girl for only three weeks at the time of my first Grand Ball. To the faint sounds and distant rhythms of dance music, I spent six hours on my knees, sucking cock after cock after cock until my jaw ached and the chest of my plain pink corset was soaked through with cum that had spilled from my increasingly weary lips, or that had been deliberately sprayed across my chin and neck. It had been fun, in a way, comparing so many different sizes and shapes of cock in such quick succession, comparing the often bitter taste of their cum too.
This was something I grew more adept at over the years. I took pride in this work. It was far more enjoyable than just lying on a bench, my rear end pressed against the wall, passively taking an unending queue of cocks in my cum-soaked ass. Reduced to a body part. A thing to be fucked. Although I would be lying if I said I got no pleasure from it.
By far my favourite of these activities was being on my knees again, presented not with strident cocks but sweet, aristocratic pussy. No two cunts were alike, and I don't mean merely the dressing of pubic hair or the colour of skin, which were also greatly varied. No, each had a unique and distinctive smell, a different pattern of folds in the tender labia, and a clit that could be shy as anything or as prominent and demanding as a miniature cock.
And whereas my goal in sucking cocks was to make them come as swiftly as possible, quite the opposite was true of the cunts I worshipped...
*
A month, two months, possibly even three. My mind adapting gradually to the deluge of sensation, and to the flood of emotion, and to the relentless hammer of despair. The Scarlet Women, one hundred and eight of them, individuals, all abandoned to the dungeons and endless torment without even the slender thread of hope that had been offered me.
And as I became aware of them, so they became aware of me, an invisible presence in their minds, sharing their suffering. Solace in a time of need. None of us were alone.
And I had no doubt that this was the Queen's doing. Under the guise of punishment, she had made me instead a queen. A Scarlet Queen, perhaps. Helpless in a cell, but not powerless.
I had changed in other ways too. They had stripped me naked before chaining me in my cell, leaving only my corset, of course, and the scarlet-haired tail that had now been lodged in my ass so long it might never come out - not, bizarrely, that it had needed to. Though I often had no choice but to pee on the floor, not once had I had the urge to pass solids.
Without my weekly shave, my hair had been growing too, and had even reached my eyes. My fingernails and toenails... I couldn't tell. From my elbows to my fingers, and from my knees to my toes, my skin had thickened, becoming leathery yet sensitive like my corset, and the corset itself had spread down into my crotch from in front, and down between my cheeks from behind. Restrained as I was, I had no way to tell what was really happening to me.
