The God Key Chapter Two:
Et Tu Divinity?
Kuki stretched and threw off the silken sheets from her naked form. Today was as everyday was, grand and wonderful as one of the few people in the world that wasn't struggling to survive. She was Hoagie's Concubine, his first and favorite though she could feel his attention on her slipping. Men were fickle, she knew but she had learned a few new tricks from a local whore and would use them on him as soon as she could. This life, in a world fueled by suffering was nothing to scoff at.
Pretty clothes, good food, a nice bed, everything she would ever need until her beauty failed and by then she would most likely have been dead for a few years. Concubines don't retire, they get beheaded. And still, she wondered as she stepped into the gilded tub waiting with hot water and rose petals, she couldn't help but think the world was not supposed to be like this.
A black sky? People forced to fight in tournaments for food, ugly women killed for meat, more whorehouses than grocery stores…. It never seemed right, but she tried to remember past three years ago it only turned dark. Hoagie told her that he found her bleeding on the street from a head wound and took her into his palace and nursed her to health. She still remembered that night.
"Kuki, you are so beautiful. I will care for you as no one else should." He said his eyes twinkling through the arches of his beautiful hair, "But you must let me sample your juices, taste that velvet slit between your legs. And when I'm sated, you can live your own life." With those words, he pushed her back on the bed, moved her legs apart and brought her to the brink of heaven. His touch felt divine and his bed felt right. But that was before she knew what being his concubine really meant.
The first time he hit her, he broke her jaw and arm as a single punch sent her spinning across the room into her makeup table. Concubine really meant she was his favorite fuck and favorite punching bag. She left him after that, stole away into the night and went into the city.
There she found what outside the castle walls held. Depravity, despair, desolation, all of the named above and so much more. Her first night in the city a man attacked her and chased her down trying to rip the jewels from her tunic. She escaped somehow, able to jump and grab the end of fire escape and flip herself on top of a building. She didn't know she possessed such a skill and led her to further to believe she was something more before she met Hoagie.
She wandered for three days looking out at the world before returning to the castle. He was waiting for her with that arrogant smile on his face.
"What did you see?" he asked her pulling her toward a warm bath. "Do you wish to live out there?"
"No." she answered as he pulled off her dirty tunic, "I wish to stay with you."
He pushed her down into the tub and rubbed the grim from her back with a soft towel. "Very well you may stay as long as you promise to never leave me again." He mused behind her, dropping the towel in the water and running his hand up her back into her hair. "If you leave me again…" he said softly before griping her hair and shoved her down into the water.
Kuki screamed underwater, filling her lungs with scented bath water. She fought against him with her broken and good arm, and scratched at his arms with her nails. She could feel her system shutting down, body going limp, and just as she was about to pass from this world to the next he yanked her out of the water and slammed his hand down on her back. She coughed and threw up rose petals and water as he dragged her out of the tub and dropped her on the cool tile.
She gasped filling her lungs with precious air in between mouthfuls of vomit.
"This is the cross you bear My Sweet, for being my favorite and the one I detest the most." He stood above her, tendrils of power flowing out like there was a great black spider resting on his shoulders. "For every hurt I give to you, another hurts tenfold. You are my weapon, my tool, and for every tear you shed so does he."
Kuki gasped, looking into his eyes. "Who…" she managed before coughing up more water.
"You don't remember, but I do. Cross me again and you will beg for death."
With that he left.
Kuki didn't realize she was crying until her servant and friend was shaking her out of her sobs. The memory broke and she saw Iva then, her red bob- hair cut and smooth white skin. Iva was certainly pretty enough to be one of Hoagie's women: tall shapely, busty, with the face that could make angel weapon. But she refused, and paid for it with her sight; Hoagie blinded her with hot wax to the eyes.
"Kuki you must pull yourself together, He is coming." She said in a hushed voice as she reached out and grabbed a large towel for her mistress. It always amazing to Kuki that Iva could find things in her chamber, she never knew how she did it but she was always able to move through the world without sight when most couldn't move through a crowd with it.
Kuki wiped away tears, sat up, and took the towel drying her body quickly. "Tell me what mood is he in?"
Iva hesitated, holding up Kuki's silk kimono, "He is angry…"
"About?"
"The Compound. He is very angry."
"How angry?" Kuki asked as she scrubbed her teeth with a toothbrush.
"Mary offered him a drink when he returned to the palace and he ripped her throat out."
Kuki sighed; she liked Mary but the girl never learned when to stay out of his way. Mary had aspirations, be a good maid and flaunt her tight bum until Hoagie fell in love with her and bored of Kuki. She knew Mary hoped to replace her not only as his top lover but become his wife. There were rumors around the castle that Mary helped him torture enemies of the state. But they were rumors, like Hoagie's mercy and plenty of food in the city.
"Bring me my balm." Kuki ordered, "And tell the other servants to make themselves scarce for the rest of the day.
Iva obeyed and went to Kuki's fine vanity and grabbed the crystalline bottle and handed it to her. Kuki tipped the bottle and poured a liberal amount into her palm before rubbing it across her vagina. This was a special oil, that was a mix of antiseptic, lubricant, numbing agent, and aphrodisiac. In short it prepped her for the pain and pleasure to come. The next few hours were going to be horrible.
"Mistress, we all worry about you," Iva said opening the large wardrobe and pulling out Hoagie's tools. Whips, cuffs, floggers, and other painful toys he would use on Kuki when he got there. "We all worry that one day he will go too far and…"
"Kill me?" Kuki asked braiding her long black hair into an elaborate knot.
"His torture, we all fear it will kill you."
Kuki paused in her preparations, "He will. But this is my cross to bear. I agreed upon this years ago when I returned to him. And when he hurts me, he doesn't hurt others as badly."
"But…"
"No buts," Kuki reached for the other woman and pulled her into a tight hug. "This is how I pay for all that I have in this fucked up world. Besides he's only hurting himself at this point. He may kill me, but I will live long enough to see him suffer."
"But why Kuki," Iva very rarely used her name, "Why do you feel the need to pay for other people's suffering? You share your food with all of the servants, you smuggle people out of the country to escape him, you hide servants he ordered killed, you take care of all within these falls to the best of your ability! Why should you be the one to suffer?"
"He hits me once, or he burns down a church. He rapes me over and over, or he beheads children. I take that hurt so none else does. This world, his world is already fucked up enough with me alleviating a fraction of his rage. This is what I am here, and if these tools," Kuki pointed to the weapons of one-sided pleasure on her bed, "If these tools keep my friends alive so be it."
"Kuki—" the other woman started.
"Enough Iva. You need to leave now. If you hear me stop screaming prepare a distraction; burn something, break something, or lie; just be sure no one gets blamed. But trust me, Iva, there is more going on here than you realize. Get Gone, and have a healer standing by."
With that Iva left the room through one of the many secret doorways Kuki had installed in her quarters. Hoagie appeared just as she managed to drop to her knees in front of her bed.
"On the bed, on your hands and knees." He ordered.
She obeyed pushing her rump into the air and waited. He looked at his toys for a moment before he selected the Cat of Nine Tails. The first hit strung more than anything else and the next few burned like fire. She screamed for him as loud as she could, draining his rage into her body. As he hit her he complained about The Compound, its scarcity, and his need for more. She listened through her own sobs and recorded his words. Eventually he would let whatever The Compound—the key to his power—was slip and she would have her revenge.
They would have their revenge.
And she would have the pleasure of watching the KnD Kill him. Know and Destroy, or KnD, as they've nick-named themselves, were a small group of rebels that were slowly bringing down Hoagie's empire, by telling people what he was and sabotaging his efforts. As soon as they knew what The Compound was, and could get ahold of one of his special little pills they could destroy his power for good. They recruited her several weeks ago and it was her job to find out what The Compound was or to secure a pill for them to analyze. She was getting close.
Iva thought she took these beatings out of some misplaced need for absolution, seeking forgiveness in malevolence, she was wrong. Kuki wasn't looking for Divinity in his Darkness; she was waiting for her chance to fight.
As he switched from the Cat of Nine Tails to a large dildo and forced it inside of her tight sex, she smiled. She was going to watch him bleed.
Author's note
So…. Its been awhile and I had forgotten I started this story almost three years ago. There will be updates weekly or bi-weekly, perhaps tri-weekly depending on my work schedule. Question, comments, flames, whateva are welcomed.
-Jones