Chapter 17H
The poor working class Dominatrices were pale with fear and adrenaline, as Wendy Sevenson gathered them in her giant circular sitting room in the centre of her giant palace on the Nightmare Asylum for yet another cull of her suitors.
The women all sat fearfully in comfortable seats throughout the circular sitting room full of chairs, all the chairs facing a circular space in the middle of the room in which stood Wendy Sevenson flanked by her pair of tickle slaves, and further flanked by a pair of massive Sevenson Night Lord chaos space marines in power armour acting as bodyguards for Wendy. Wendy and her slaves were all dressed up in elegant black formal dresses for this occasion, as though this horrible suitor cull was in any way something to be celebrated or romanticised.
The Dominatrices all felt sick with fear and stress and nerves. These culls were always absolutely horrible, always culling the number by slightly more than half each time. Every woman knew that the odds of them being in the minority who got to stay were much lower than their odds of finding themselves in the majority that got culled, and it was a horrible feeling just sitting and waiting with no way of knowing which they would be.
Wendy Sevenson was a single eligible *billionaire*, she had palaces and money and privilege and luxuries beyond anything these women could possibly imagine. The one who won this contest would win *everything*, palaces, money, comfort, power, privilege, everything that Wendy had would be theirs!, They would never be poor again, never be hungry, never have to work themselves to exhaustion just to survive. They would be transported to heaven.
Wendy Sevenson was famous and infamous in professional Dominatrix circles on the Sevenson fleet, because once or twice in a generation she would become single again and would *always* pick one of the working class professional Dominatrices to be her new wife, with the singular exception of her tickle slave Octavia as the last Dominatrix wife. Wendy Sevenson had an insatiable appetite for Dominatrix wives and went through them regularly, with her marriages lasting on average for a decade or two before getting bored and divorcing them to find a new Dominatrix wife.
Wendy Sevenson and her most recent wife Octavia were divorced, (though the situation was complicated by the ex-wife remaining a plaything in Wendy's dungeon), and Wendy was single again and back on the marriage market. Wendy had waited for longer than usual after the divorce to start dating again, but now she had finally made herself available and the feeding frenzy of competition had begun.
A multitude of professional Dominatrices had been waiting for this moment. They had been training and preparing themselves for years at the first hint of turbulence in Wendy's marriage to Octavia. The infamous "Wendy Chasers" had gotten to work studying everything that was known or recorded about Wendy's likes and dislikes, they had trained their bodies and their skills. They had done role-play workshops with each other to act out encounters with Wendy and to predict her reactions, even consulting Wendy's still living ex-wives like Fetter to learn everything about her to maximise their success.
When the stakes of victory were billions of script currency notes and marriage into the Sevenson Family Cartel, women who wished to win were willing to train and prepare for this like professional athletes. They were all competing in the most important and high stakes event of their entire lives, and the stress levels were so high that some of the women were starting to crack under the pressure.
At the start of the dating game Wendy had welcomed pretty much any woman who claimed to be a Dominatrix, not even vetting their credentials at first and just giving everyone a generous chance. All sorts of amateurs and posers had turned up, thinking that they could impress a 300 year old hardcore experienced lifestyle sub like Wendy, and Wendy had not been impressed and had culled them immediately.
Even the nonprofessional lifestyle dommes had only lasted a few culls, simply lacking the raw experience of the professional Dominatrices, and by this point in the race it was a professional level competition between the best professional Dominatrices in the entire fleet.
Unfortunately the legendary professional Dominatrix Mistress Lash Lee was now a very serious contender in this race, arguably the best living professional Dominatrix in the fleet who was *apparently* still (just) physically young enough to stay in the race!, This was a disaster and the competition to defeat this highly experienced legend of a woman was absolutely horrendous for all of her rivals!
It wasn't supposed to have happened!, Mistress Lash was biologically in her forties, less than a decade away from menopause in the time of real space. She was divorced, she had adult kids, she had about a billion Khorne worshipping ex boyfriends and no end of baggage. What the hell was Wendy doing not culling her!
Mistress Lash had over twenty years experience for Chaos's sake!, She was so experienced and had so mastered her profession that she was now an educator Dominatrix who trained her skills to a steady relay of new apprentice dommes!, Mistress Lash had only even come here to give moral support and encouragement to her six current young adult apprentices who were taking part in the race, as well as to encourage a few fully graduated former apprentices who were taking part, but she had *never* been meant to hang around this long and somehow become the top place front runner!, This was supposed to be a *young* woman's race without impossibly experienced older competition!
The other Dominatrices were almost cracking under the stress, but Mistress Lash was cool as ice, currently sitting in a group with her apprentices and former apprentices offering them encouragement and advice.
Mistress Lash terrified the competitors and with good reason. During the hard years of floating adrift as the fleet was starving, all of the Dominatrices without exception had had to do some pretty uncomfortable things to get enough food to survive. Rich customers like Wendy hiring their services had helped a lot, but Wendy had been trying to keep so many alive at the same time that even *her* available food supplies had been stretched so thin that nobody got quite enough to eat, (remarkably including the generous Wendy herself). The Dominatrices had needed additional sources of food and they had been pretty desperate to get it.
While most of the Dominatrices had hooked up with any loser guy who could give them scraps of food, no matter how big of a creep he was, dating mostly scrawny teenage recruits in the military forces who had any ration packs of edible bacteria paste to spare, Mistress Lash had hooked up with a gods damned ten thousand year old World Eater Khorne Berserker Chaos Space Marine with fucking butcher's nails sticking out of his head!, Not only had she hooked up with this brutal killing machine but she had also SURVIVED the relationship and subsequent breakup without her head being cut off!
The sheer amount of skill and dominance it would have required to handle such a man spoke volumes about just how superlative Lash's ability was, a single wrong move could have killed her but her boyfriend hadn't so much as scratched her skin nor laid a hand on her. The relationship had been really weird, mostly involving Lash telling her boyfriend to sit down calmly on his shins and do elaborate tea drinking geisha rituals with her, (using the boiled and sterilised blood of his slain enemies in place of tea), followed by the Khorne berserker sitting quietly watching Lash do elaborate hand fan dances in her kimono. Apparently the berserker found this activity soothing to the madness from his butcher's nails and just sat quietly with the geisha for hours.
Lash had been relatively well fed by her massive Khorne berserker boyfriend when everyone else was starving, her violent boyfriend and his World Eater warband *very* effective at taking food supplies by violent force, and Lash had barely even gotten skinny during the entire famine!
How in the HELL were the other Dominatrices supposed to compete with a geisha Dominatrix skilful enough to tame a Khorne berserker?! To say that the others were stressed was an understatement.
Wendy herself was grinning like a smug little bitch in the centre of the room, totally aware of her own absolute power in this situation. With her supernaturally submissive Night Lord bodyguards at her sides Wendy was in no danger of being attacked by angry rejected suitors, and she could be as smug and arrogant as she liked without consequences. The women dared not say a word to call out Wendy for being a smug little bitch, lest this act got their names added to the cull. They had to just sit here and take whatever came, praying that they themselves were not culled with the majority.
"Is everyone here?", Wendy asked cheerfully in her black formal dress, as though this was some fucking bachelorette show or something, and the dommes all hated her so much for putting them through this humiliation with such rambunctious glee.
"It's culling time again, to see who gets to marry a billionaire.", Wendy said playfully with adorable smugness.
"There can only be one winner ultimately, so please don't take it personally if you get chosen for the cull. None of you are bad at all, it's just a measure of levels of excellence above the rest at this stage.", Wendy said with cheerful smug encouragement.
"And you won't be going home empty handed. I have been… Nagged, (very thoroughly), into giving every culled person a payment of ten thousand paper script for their time and troubles, as well as a coupon to get ten free Stōørølø slaves from the slave trading market as a long term earning investment to make your lives prosperous.", Wendy said reluctantly, giving Octavia a pointed look.
The women all gasped at this extreme generosity, and felt marginally less stressed about the possibility of losing. Ten thousand script and ten slaves might be pocket change to Wendy, but to these working class professional Dominatrices this would make life considerably easier. The slaves in particular were a very thoughtful gesture, ten thousand script might be gone once spent but a good work slave could be rented out for money year after year for the rest of their lives.
"So with that said, let's get started naming the culls.", Wendy said with disgusting cheerfulness, holding up a bit of paper to read.
"Mistress Pain…"
Four different Dominatrices all wailed in lament at the same time.
"No no, not *all* of you!, I'm looking for Pain Lee…"
All four Dominatrices wailed in distress again.
"Seriously?, All four of you have the same first name and last name?!"
The four women exchanged grim looks and nodded fearfully, knowing that one of them was gone and not knowing if it was them.
"I don't even recognise… Is there a fifth Mistress Pain Lee?", Wendy asked in confusion, apparently not seeing who she was looking for.
Wendy looked around the room and suddenly pointed at a horrified looking woman whose face had blanched pale with adrenaline, the young woman one of Lash's own apprentices that she was morally supporting.
"You are the Mistress Pain Lee I am looking for.", Wendy told the doomed woman happily.
"There is a mistake, my name is not Mistress Pain!", the young woman pleaded desperately.
"Well I guess I forgot what your name is, but I remembered your face. You are out I'm afraid., Wendy said almost callously.
"But why?! What did I do wrong?!"
"What is a polite way of saying you're crap?", Wendy elaborated tactlessly.
An exotic geisha house slipper suddenly shot through the air to smack Wendy on the side of the face with perfect accuracy, making Wendy fall over onto the floor off her high heels!
Following the trajectory the crowd saw Mistress Lash looking furious and holding up the remaining second slipper warningly. The sight of an angry Asian woman holding up a slipper was so universally threatening even here in this place that everyone fell silent, even the Night Lords looked taken aback by this. The Night Lord bodyguards looked provoked by this act, looking at Wendy for orders, but Wendy subtly shook her head and the pair of bodyguards relaxed in peace.
"So help me I will smack you with the other one if you don't mind your manners to respectable dominant ladies you naughty girl!", Mistress Lash warned Wendy severely like she was talking to a child, obviously very protective of her distraught young apprentice.
Wendy moaned blissfully at this chastisement, looking completely smitten.
"Your name is absolutely *not* getting culled Mistress Lash…", Wendy began.
"I don't care less!, You were rude to one of your dominant betters!, Apologise to her, NOW!", Mistress Lash barked with severe authority.
"Yes Mistress Lash. I deeply apologise for disrespecting you exalted mistress.", Wendy said with contrite repentance.
The culled apprentice Dominatrix was already in tears at having been culled, and barely acknowledged this apology.
"The moment this is over I am putting you over my knee and smacking your bottom with my slipper until it's bright red you naughty girl Wendy!", Mistress Lash said sternly.
Wendy looked aroused and smitten at these words and nodded enthusiastically.
"Well, the next highly respected lady being culled is Mistress Bullwhip."
Distraught weeping filled the air.
"But why?! I thought you liked me?"
"I do like you Mistress Bullwhip, but one of my daughters is named Bullwhip, it would be really weird and uncomfortable for my daughter.", Wendy apologetically explained.
"I could change my name?", Mistress Bullwhip offered.
"With great respect, that comes across as a little bit desperate…" Wendy replied uncomfortably.
"A nickname?"
"Still too weird I'm afraid Mistress Bullwhip, ah even then it felt weird saying it!",
"But but… (Cries)"
"I'm sorry… Ok next on the list is…", Wendy continued with this terrible roll call.
The room filled with weeping and sobbing as more than half of the professional Dominatrices were culled from Wendy's suitors, missing their chance of marrying the billionaire. It was a horrible sound to hear all of this built up stress culminating in despair.
Those who had survived the cull were giggling slightly hysterically with relief, clearly cracking slightly under the stress of this long drawn out competition. Mistress Lash who had also survived the cull simply looked extremely pissed off and severe, and she very promptly bent Wendy over her knee as promised and tanned her bottom red with the slipper.
The losers cried emotional tears, hugged each other and hugged those still in the race in sportsmanship. They then also tanned Wendy's bottom at the invitation of Mistress Lash, making Wendy's bottom go black and blue with bruises from literally thousands of hard smacks of the slipper.
With many sad farewells they collected their belongings, and collected their ten thousand script and their voucher for ten free slaves each. With one last group hug they sadly left.
Mistress Lash then spanked Wendy yet again just because she could…
***…