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"description": "The trio makes it to their destination. Visiting the old church, Danielle and Rick learn a lot about themselves and about Kyle.\n\nFollows directly on from \"an emotional journey\" but like always I've tried to include all necessary information to make it work along.\n\nMy longest piece to date I think. Lots of talking about emotions in this one, but don't worry, it pays off by the end. ",
"description_bbcode_parsed": "The trio makes it to their destination. Visiting the old church, Danielle and Rick learn a lot about themselves and about Kyle.
Follows directly on from "an emotional journey" but like always I've tried to include all necessary information to make it work along.
My longest piece to date I think. Lots of talking about emotions in this one, but don't worry, it pays off by the end. ",
"writing": "\"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!\" the words started before she was even done forming up. The blob of magic/ectoplasm/whatever she was now was an exceedingly excited yellow to those that could perceive it before it formed into the likeness of a young adult female deer, long blonde hair containing several strategically placed pink streaks and speckled brown fur sporting a large and now rather ironic tattoo of angel wings on her back.\n\nNotably she did not manifest any clothing, presenting an indecent eyeful to all onlookers.\n\nKyle, a dirty blonde furred German shepherd whose left arm was completely black from elbow to fingertip, didn?t respond from where he was sitting in the lap of the only other person for miles in the desert, Rick. The larger green and red lizard was leaned back against the front passenger side tire of the school bus turned makeshift camper that was currently all of their home. \n\nDanielle continued not even registering the lack of response. \"I mean talk about zero to sixty in nothing flat. Talk about and they were roommates. ?There was only one bed, so when he had a wet dream I just let him fuck my thighs? I mean holy shit. And then the follow up. Oh my god I thought you guys might be an enemies to lovers deal but what the fuck was that last night. Where did all that tension come from? Just a blowjob but holy shit what was with all that emotion.\" Danielle was zipping back and forth overloaded with excited energy as she talked, seemingly in danger of exploding if she didn?t let it all out. \"One word but did you hear the desperation in his voice? Forget a blow job you could have had him doing AN EE THING! What the hell did you do to him?\"\n\n\"I don?t know\"\n\nThis time Danielle caught the answer. \"Oh you don?t know! Bullshit, look at you sitting all cute in his lap like that. God as if I wasn?t horny enough already.\" The deer didn't even try to stop herself as her hand disappeared between her legs. \"Normal people don't just go from wanting to tear your throat out to begging for you dick in two days.\"\n\nRick drew a breath and started to say something but before he got anything out Danielle cut him off\n\n\"AND FUCK YOU I?M NOT PUTTING ON PANTS OR STOPPING, THAT WAS HOT SO YOU CAN JUST SUCK IT UP!\" Danielle yelled from where she had stopped a couple feet away, raising the hand not already busy with middle finger extended as she floated on her back back a couple feet above the ground, and then immediately proved to be true to her word in fact spreading her legs making sure her audience of two could see.\n\nRick gave Kyle an exaggerated eye roll, his face significantly darker than usual as he blushed through the green. \"Not gonna do anything about your ghost girlfriend being a massively horny exhibitionist?\"\n\n\"She?s not-\" Kyle?s response was cut off by Danielle?s yell as she orgasmed so hard she turned back into a blob\n\n-----\n\n\"No you don't understand, aside from Kyle letting me spy last night I?ve had NOTHING to work with since you killed me.\" Danielle was still naked, floating between where Kyle was driving the bus and where Rick sat in the passenger side front row.\n\nKyle chuckled \"You could have said something\" \n\n\"and what, you kill a dildo so I can use its ghost?\" Danielle retorted before a thoughtful look crossed her face and a large knotted dildo appeared in her hand. She had only just figured out manifesting clothes but now both males could see the gears turning as suddenly a whole world of opportunity opened before her. \n\nShe admired it for a second before waving it away \"I?ll see you later. OK that doesn?t count.\"\n\nKyle couldn?t help but chuckle. \"There are options.\"\n\n\"Would you please manifest some clothes\" Rick said face still flushed at the girls antics. Then shifting his focus to Kyle he added \"and you?re one to talk mister I?m not gonna say anything about being molested in my sleep\" \n\n\"How many times do you want me to say it, the plan was to tease you until you did it again and maybe get some sort of casual sex thing going since you clearly needed it.\"\n\n\"Oh so it was entirely for my benefit then.\" Rick said, heavy on the sarcasm.\n\n\"OK so maybe I?m also a little touch starved and it was nice to be held. Go put me on a wanted poster is that?s so bad.\" Kyle huffed with a mix of faux irritation and real embarrassment. \"OK gimme a sec so I don't get the bus stuck\" \n\nThe canine focused on driving as they finally crossed into the ghost town they?d been headed toward for the past couple days. Approaching the backside of a row of building he maneuvered the bus down an alley between the towns saloon and what was left of the general store. He pulled forward so that the door was clear of the fronts of the building and the flat front just poked out into the main (only) street (line of slightly more well compacted dirt).\n\n\"All right, we?re here\" he declared, popping the door open\n\n\"Wow, you weren?t kidding about this being a ghost town\" Rick said looking around. There were at least a dozen buildings still standing, but not a single one was undamaged, all of them at least missing chunks out of the wall or suffering a caved in roof.\n\n\"This much time and zero maintenance will do that\"\n\nDanielle piped up \"that one looks pretty good\" she said indicating to the large church house dead center at one end of the main street \"I?ll be honest, I didn?t think your hometown would have any Christians\"\n\n\"It didn?t.\" Kyle made a dramatic flourish \"I present to you The First Church of The Gospel of Our Lady of Pain. Make sure you sign the guest book and take a pamphlet\"\n\n\"that is entirely too many ?of?s\" \n\n\"Don?t look at me, I didn?t name it\"\n\nRick raised a brow \"It?s actually called that?\" \n\n\"Yes actually, gimme a sec I gotta get dressed more appropriately.\" Kyle said climbing back into the bus. \"On second thought, don?t sign the guest book, I think you?re both technically members already\"\n\nRick raised his brow again, but even higher. \"If you come out wearing some cultist robe shit I?m going back to killing you\"\n\n\"HAH\" came the reply amid the sound of rummaging on the bus followed by a more muted set of \"where the fuck is it\"s for a few minutes \"HEY OFFICER, THEY EVER TEACH YOU HOW TO SHOOT A SINGLE ACTION?\"\n\nRick walked over to the bus and stood just inside the sliding door on the first door step. \"I know how to work a single action. Why?\"\n\n\"You any good at it?\" \n\n\"Enough to get invited to one or two cowboy action shooting matches. Didn?t place or anything but I got the basics.\"\n\n\"Good enough, catch.\" Rick barely had time to get his hands up before an old beat gun belt bearing a pair of Single Action Army Revolvers came flying over the seats and thudded into his chest causing him to stumble back out of the bus. \n\n\"Ow, what the fu...\" the swear died on his lips as Kyle stepped back off the bus. He was wearing a black flat brimmed hat, had traded his usual sleeveless red duster for a proper unmodified one over a white cotton shirt, and this pair of black cotton pants were held up with suspenders. He wore a gun belt of reddish leather on which he had holstered a firearm of his own, although instead of a six shooter of some description he had a mares leg, a cut down lever action rifle, to which he had added a lever that had a larger hand loop.\n\nBoth Danielle and Rick were left speechless. Danielle recovered first \"Did I miss a stop at spirit Halloween on the way here?\"\n\n\"What, you don?t like my fashion sense?\" Kyle couldn?t help but grinning as he passed a small box to Rick. \"I recommend a cowboy load. I?ll tell ya from experience they will go off if ya smack the hammer an its sitting on a round.\"\n\nRick nodded, strapping on the gun belt and checking for clear and inspected each revolver in turn before he started loading the first, skipping over the second chamber in sequence so that when he was done the chamber under the hammer was empty while the others all held cartridges, a procedure he then repeated with the second. Keeping them pointed down the street until they were back in their holster. The whole affair clashed with his modern jeans and tee shirt, but the familiar ease shown in his weapon handling made the whole affair seem right.\n\nStarting to move toward the church, Kyle pulled a similar box out of his own pocket and started thumbing them into the side gate at a surprising speed before spin cocking the rifle and adding one more. After returning it to its holster he caught Ricks look. \"What now?\"\n\n\"Whoever taught you to handle a gun did a miserable job with safety.\"\n\nKyle chuckled \"Self taught, and it was a different time with different standards.\"\n\n\"Well if you shoot me on accident you better do some magic bullshit and fix it so i can blow your head off.\" As he started to move toward the church as well Rick lifted his arm and glanced at one of the holsters. \"Wait, are these fucking antiques?\"\n\n\"They weren?t when I acquired them them\"\n\n\"Acquired?\"\n\n\"Well the guy didn?t need them anymore.\" \n\nBoth his companions gave him a look\n\n\"Hey, he shot me first!\"\n\nThe three walked/floated down the street towards the church in silence for a few moments, just listening to the sound of the wind and their own thought.\n\nEventually Danielle broke the silence \"So why are we here?\" \n\n\"What, I need a reason to visit my home town?\"\n\n\"It seems pretty inconvenient to just pop by.\" Rick said.\n\n\"You got me there. It?s kinda just a general thing. I stop by periodically to keep an eye on the place, maintain my connection with it, keep myself from forgetting what almost happened, and pay my dues\" Kyle?s face darkened as he recited the list.\n\nThe group resumed walking and in a few moments they reached the fence surrounding the church, it was simple, a short wall of white stone with bars of iron reaching up out of the top, connected. Each bar ended in a wicked looking head that would have seemed more at home on a spear. The gate was matching construction minus the stone and when Kyle pushed it it glided silently open instead of producing the rusted shriek rick had expected. To the left of the church was a small graveyard, a dozen or so headstones dotted around the somehow green grass. On the right hand side there was an old style water pump, a trough in which there were piled a handful of buckets, and a wooden wheelbarrow, all of which were still in great condition.\n\nThe white paint of exterior walls of the church likewise didn?t show a single sign of weathering or peeling, and the bell up in the steeple gleamed in the light like it had been freshly polished that morning. Two wooden steps lead up to the porch on the front side of the building, and it was upon the steps that Kyle sat down. He produced a beat up looking cigarette from somewhere and lit it with a palm full of black fire before talking a long drag. He didn?t smoke these days, but it was part of his ritual here. \n\nRick and Danielle had both stopped at the gate. It wasn?t just the weirdly unblemished state the place appeared in, it felt different. Somehow both of them could tell this was the border of something different. \n\nTaking a deep breath before putting his head down with his arm up shielding it, Rick walked through that gate. \n\nImmediately the vibe changed. The town had felt warm and inviting, the sun warming everything in a sorta cozy way. Despite the desert heat Rick realized it had somehow felt comfortable and he was barely sweating. He hadn?t recognized it until it was gone, but the town had felt welcoming.\n\nCrossing the barrier into the church yard though, he couldn?t help but shiver. Despite that same desert heat he somehow now felt needles in his skin like he was freezing. That same cozy sunlight now felt sharp and hostile and he half expected to somehow cut himself on it. He was suddenly aware of just how many shadows there were around the place, and how they seemed deeper and dark than they reasonably could have been. \n\nDanielle got it even worse, Immediately collapsing her image and fleeing over to Kyle, incorporeal for a frightened shade of gray.\n\n\"What is this place\" Rick asked while looking around.\n\nKyle seemed more somber this time \"The First Church of The Gospel of Our Lady of Pain.\" \n\nDanielle pushed her form under Kyle's arm, too frightened to even question making physical contact. \"I don?t like it here.\"\n\nKyle took another drag at his cigarette. The smoke he exhaled was dark and slightly prismatic like an oil slick and fell heavily to the ground before dispersing. \"I would be worried if you did. This wasn?t a happy place.\" Kyle shook his head. \"Even before what happened this was not a good place to be.\"\n\nHe looked up. \"I think that?s enough tho. Y?all have now felt her presence. I?m gonna stay the night but y?all don?t need to be here if you don?t want to be. Its not gonna get better. Not by a long shot\" \n\nDanielle whimpered and pressed into his side but didn?t move even an inch toward the gate. Rick looked at his master, that part of their connection they had both been deliberately avoiding. He felt that master/slave relation pushing heavily on his mind. Every part of his normal being told him to leave, to just sleeping in the bus and wait for Kyle to finish whatever he was doing. But some other part of him, the new part of him that he?d been reckoning with the last couple nights, insisted he stay. His master was going to need him. \n\nRick nodded \"I will stay, master.\" He hadn?t intended to say that last word, but somehow it slipping out hardly surprised him.\n\nKyle wasn?t thrilled to hear the decision or the title, but there was still time for minds to change.\n\nLooking down at Danielle. \"Just so you know, once things start you wont be able to leave. If you aren?t absolutely certain you should-\"\n\nKyle stopped, amid the black of the fear her there formed a green core of resolve, he default form handily communicating her thoughts without any words. He knew she?d made her decision as much as Rick had.\n\n\"Fine.\" He took a final drag from the butt of his cigarette then incinerated it with another handful of hellfire. \"Lets not keep The Lady waiting.\" \n\n-----\n\nWhile the outside of the church had looked like an unassuming small old west church, the inside most certainly did not. Rows of pews on either side of an aisle leading to a stand from which to speak, elevate about a foot and a half by a stage at the far end of the building. However there was no particular religious iconography from any religion. There was a cross depicted in the large stained glass window at the back behind stage, but it was depicted as laying on the ground at an angle, and it was an X shape. The scene was done in dark colors, purples and deep reds and dark browns. It depicted someone having spikes driven through their hands and feet for crucifixion but the scene itself was so abstracted and vague that the victim and their torturers could easily be anyone. The only thing rendered with detail were the large twisted nails, the wounds they left, and the bright streaks and puddles of blood, which were a bright almost glowing red and stood in stark eye catching contrast to the rest of the image. \n\nThe rest of the church was hardly better. Everywhere one looked there were more depictions of torture of all kinds and all finding creative ways to emphasize the pain and suffering they contained. \n\nThe trio walked in and Kyle shut the door behind them, immediately cutting the bright daylight?s intrusion into the space before he looked around. Everything was just as he remembered it, but no less unpleasant for it.\n\nDanielle stood with them, her appearance back to that of the mortal deer she had once been and feet on the floor. She continued to press against Kyle while Rick stood a few steps back and off to the side. \n\nAt the pulpit stood a statue of a canine figure wearing a simple robe, appearing to be frozen in the middle of preaching, hood thrown back and mouth agape as he passionately spoke of pain. Laying on the stage to his right was a bound individual with a sack over his head. His uniform and badge proclaimed him to be the local sheriff's deputy. He had mostly just been the town?s barber until this had turned weird around town.\n\nAs his eyes adjusted to the gloom Rick looked around and saw that Spread through out the pews were several dozen other figures, all with their heads bowed down and faces obscured by the hoods.\n\nKyle took a few steps forward, leaving Danielle. The deer wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Rick felt for her. He?d seen some awful stuff in his former life but there?s no way she could have been ready for this he thought. Then he realized he could hear Kyle mumbling. He strained his ears but he could only catch snippets as Kyle slowly moved toward the altar\n\n\"...seek your wisdom and pow...\n\n\"...dy of pain, tonight we off...\"\n\n\"...in appreciation...\"\n\n\"...at you demand of us...\"\n\n\"...of your blood...\"\n\n\"...that our suffering bri...\"\n\n\"...ur servants...\" \n\n\"...for your pleasure...\"\n\nAs Kyle got further away he stopped being able to hear any of it, only an indistinct mumble.\n\nInstead stopping in front of the preacher Kyle turned to one side and moved up a small pair of steps onto the raised floor from which he preached and moving behind him knelt before a small altar upon which rested a simple stone knife.\n\nAs Kyle finished a wind blew through the church house, cold and sharp as it snaked its way between the bowed statues. Rick and Danielle felt their ears strain, trying to hear whatever it held. Instead what they heard was \"Shove it up your ass you fucking bitch, its not happening\" \n\nIn the following quiet Rick and Danielle approached the stage, nerves causing them to move as slow as Kyle had.\n\nRick looked at the doe, her eyes darting wildly around as she held his arm, and once again felt sorry for her. \"You shouldn't have come\" he whispered, not in admonishment or accusation, but rather a general statement of fact.\n\nThe doe?s head snapped around to him at his voice. \"Yes I should. I need to be here just as much as you.\"\n\nThat gave Rick pause. Need. The word stuck out to him. That was absolutely how he would describe his own feeling. He didn?t want to be here, or in this role, but he needed to be. \"Why?\"\n\nShe looked at him square this time, terror somehow forcibly put on hold. \"Can?t you feel it?\"\n\n\"I feel I need to be here for my master.\" Rick said, quietly placing heavy emphasis on the words. \"I don?t know why.\"\n\nFor a moment Rick would have sworn Danielle was looking right \n\n\"Because you care. Because for whatever fucking reason he?s important to you. Because something bad?s going to happen to him and we can help.\" She sharply whispered, sounding more like an accusation than an answer.\n\n\"Why would-\"\n\nKyle?s voice cut over their whispers, startling them. He was sitting on the edge of the stage near where they had stopped at the first row. \"Why he come here to suffer?\" \n\n\"Forgive me master, I meant no disrespect. Why give us the option to leave if our being here would make things easier.\"\n\n\"but also that other question.\" Danielle added, forcing herself to let go of Rick and restrain herself for immediately latching back on to Kyle\n\n\"I?m not in the habit of using people for my own benefit. As for the other thing, have you ever noticed that for someone who?s supposedly the avatar of pain I don?t really hurt people much? That I?m kinda really bad at my job?\"\n\nRick thought about it and realized in the time he had know Kyle the only time he?d seen the canid hurt someone there had been outside interference. \n\nDanielle had been with him longer, but after considering the question she also realized that nearly every case had been either consensual or deserved, and the rare time it was neither he was quick to use magic to dull or eliminate pain. \"I guess, yeah. So what, this is like some sort of punishment for sucking at it?\"\n\nTurning to the side and kicking his legs up Kyle lay back on the edge of the stage. \"Not even that, although guess you could look at it like that if you want. No, I just have to pay my bar tab.\"\n\n\"Master that doesn't make any sense\"\n\n\"heh. Every spell, every action, has a cost. Most mortal magic users pay out of their own soul, spending its essence as energy to fuel magic. Some even take other people?s souls to use. There?s also those who deal with the supernatural, trading what they can for a gift of additional power to use. Those are the guys I usually end up chasing down when they eventually don?t want to pay. But me?\" He held up his black arm, and began to dance a small amount of hellfire between his fingers. \"I?m an avatar. Most of the things I do are beyond the reach of a regular mortal.\"\n\nDanielle pushed her self up on to the edge of the stage, sitting on the edge next to where Kyle?s head rested on the dark stained wood \"I?ve seen you take peoples souls. Heck, I asked you to take mine. And in two hundred years you probably got a lot so you have a lot of magic.\" \n\n\"A good theory but no. That rabbit we beat up would have needed hundreds more warehouses full of kidnapped souls on top of his pact before even getting into the ballpark of what I spend on a regeneration.\" He paused and let the hellfire ignite the fur between his index and middle finger. \"Being an avatar I draw directly from my ?god?, for lack of a more biting term.\" He watched as the black fire spread, quickly burning away his fur and starting to char his flesh, the awful smell of burning hair and skin starting to fill the space.\n\nDanielle started to reach for his burning paw. \n\n\"I wouldn?t\" Kyle said, stopping her arm with his other hand and gently pushing it away. \n\n\"But master, if you are drawing from another powerful being then why would it cost you anything?\"\n\n\"Because its not mine, and its not endless. Not really. Incredibly immense but not infinite. At the end of the day magic is basically another form of energy. It still has to come from somewhere. Souls grow it naturally through life experience, but the amount is small. So how do I repay this massive debt\" He paused. The tips of the canines digits had fully burned now, and his claws fell away as clean white bone was exposed. \"I serve pain. I am the avatar of pain. I can take pain and repurposed it, use it. It is with pain that I pay my debt.\"\n\nKyle extinguished the fire with a wave, in the process dislodging the bones of two completely burned fingers and leaving a third as stump ending at the knuckle. They scattered with a clatter, disappearing somewhere under the front row of pews. \"This place is special. Its been ritually blessed as part of her domain. Here, healing damage requires next to nothing for anyone she has marked, so that they may tribute her more and for longer. Through your connections with me you are both marked.\" \n\nPushing himself back up to sitting. \"I meant what I said earlier, about leaving. If you?re still here at sundown you?ll be pulled into what goes on and pay part of my debt. It going to be bad. It?ll be the worst thing you?ve ever experienced. I?m serious, you really should just go back to the bus for tonight\" \n\n \n\n\"Not happening\" \"I?m not leaving master\" Danielle and Rick spoke at the same time. Kyle saw that both of them were shaking slightly now, but their eyes were set hard. His own eyes began to water. \n\n-----\n\nThe three sat together in an empty section of the seating, Kyle?s duster spread out over all of them to provide as much of a blanket as possible. He tried to enjoy the company and warm contact, but it was hard knowing what was coming for them.\n\n\"Seems silly for you to get dressed up for this\" Danielle remarked.\n\n\"Habits die hard I guess\"\n\n\"So why am I all alive now?\"\n\n\"Do you want the complicated answer or will ?magic? suffice\"\n\n\"Is there an in between option?\" \n\n\"The magic in here is an extension of our patron, and she wants you in a body. Well, a close enough approximation of one. That form probably won?t last when we leave.\"\n\n\"The Mother of Thorns, Angel of Suffering, Primeval God of Pain, wants me to have a body?\n\n\"Seems so.\"\n\n\"Why\"\n\n\"Probably best to not think on that\"\n\n\"Ah\"\n\n-----\n\nThe last sliver of light cast by the stained glass disappeared as the sun slipped below the horizon. Then came a deep rumbling that seemed to shake the very earth, though nothing moved, before everything went deathly silent.\n\nReluctantly Kyle stood up, followed by his companions. He had meant to push them to leave again, but in his lightly dozing state he had lost track of time. He sighed. \"That?s our cue.\" All three moved up to the stage again.\n\nMoving to the small altar Kyle retrieved the knife that lay there. His knife. An artifact so intrinsically tied to his being that he could could remake or summon it no matter circumstance or distance.\n\nIt was a simple affair, a jagged shard of obsidian with a handle wrapped in leather that was at this point permanently stained darker with blood. At his touch it seemed to glow from within, a malicious crimson red. \n\n\"Don?t worry, I?m sure tonight you?ll get your fill.\"\n\nThe other two moved to stand behind him, and all three stood before the alter under the large stained glass, completely dark in the low light outside. It was a simple affair, really just a big stone block with some decorative cloth draped over each end and a circular depression about a foot diameter in the middle. \n\nEven though it was pretty obvious what was coming, both his companions winced as Kyle took the blade and slowly drew it across his wrist, cutting cleanly to the bone. dropping the knife and bracing himself against the altar, he held out his arm and slowly a pool of blood filled the depression. When it was sufficient the stone drew back, revealing a set of stairs. \n\nLooking back at his companions he said \"Just remember, whatever happens down there won?t be anyone?s choice. We?re likely going to be made to hurt each other, but its important not to blame each other or yourself once we leave. The only person who?s fault this is is mine.\"\n\n\"I?m not going to blame you either\" \n\n\"Nor will I master\"\n\nKyle wiped his eyes with his arm as they started watering again. He didn?t deserve them, and they didn?t deserve what was coming. Then he took a deep breath and started down the stairs.\n\n-----\n\nKyle hangs loosely from the metal frame too agonized to move, limbs all jagged and bent wrong from multiple breaks. Danielle brings the metal bat she?s holding down on his skull.\n\n-\n\nRick moans as Kyle lifts the sledge hammer to finish driving a third railroad spike through his gut.\n\n-\n\nDanielle grins as she peels another thin layer of muscle from Kyle?s back with his own knife\n\n-\n\nKyle?s body cooks as he drowns Rick in an endless lake of boiling oil.\n\n-\n\nLaughing Danielle pours a crucible of molten gold into Ricks forced open anus.\n\n-\n\nTwo pairs of legs desperately kick as they hang, just barely out of reach from where a restrained Kyle is forced to watch\n\n-\n\nKyle?s knife carves through Ricks penis a thin layer at a time, blood and seed continuing to flow long after it should have been depleted.\n\n-\n\nKyle turns Danielle?s body on the spit as her head screams from a nearby platter. He knows she can feel all of it cooking.\n\n-\n\nAnd so it continues for what feels like all of eternity\n\n-----\n\nAs the dawn broke Kyle was the first to wake. He found himself and his companions on cots in a small circular stone room, bodies fresh and unblemished, belongings in a neat pile at the foot of each. He recognized the shelter that was what was actually under the altar when pushed aside like normal.\n\nLooking over at his companions the canine was crushed by a wave of overwhelming guilt. The memories of the night replayed violently in his mind. He should have pushed them harder to leave, even ordered them to. Why had he let them get involved. He cursed himself for falling asleep.\n\nHe pushed himself off the cot and grabbed his glasses off the pile of clothes and gear neatly folded under it. He began to move through the dark bunker. He needed to collect himself. He wouldn?t be any help when they woke up if he was just beating himself up, and right now that meant he needed distance and isolation. \n\nHe had no problem finding his way though the network of passages, studded with similar small rooms serving various purposes. It was a shockingly large structure that nobody would ever guess could be under the church. Theoretically the place could have held the entire town and enough supplies to last everyone a month, assuming the normal half of the town could be convinced to overlook everything this place was and did. After a few minutes he reached his goal. The ritual chamber.\n\nThe petrified sheriff and deputy still had their firearms raised as they eternally broke through the door, ambushing the nine cultists and so far in over their heads they weren?t ever aware of the danger. Eight cultists circled the altar, daggers frozen less than an inch from plunging into the missing centerpiece. A ninth cultist lay bent over the altar, petrified torso exploded outward by the shotgun?s pellets, head resting by the edge of the child sized divot in the altar?s center. His arm was still raised where he had attempted to continue despite the wound.\n\nKyle?s dagger appeared unbidden in his hand. It always did when he came here. It was fair he supposed. It was as connected to this place as he was. Not for the first time he found himself wondering if it had some sort of will of its own. He touched its tip to the imperceptibly small scar on chest, impossible to spot through his fur and difficult even if he shaved it. \"I wonder, are you happy with how things turned out. Would you rather have plunged into my heart, completed sealing me away so that she could use my body? Or maybe it was your plan all along to nick me just enough to disrupt the spell matrix at its most vulnerable moment.\"\n\nAs usual the knife did not respond to his inquiries. He?d asked the inanimate blade those same questions so many times over the years and never once had it yielded an answer.\n\nKyle stepped into the ritual room and slowly walked the circle of cultists, looking each frozen face in turn. All of them were canines. In fact all nine were german shepherds, like him. He figured there was a pretty good chance that both his biological parents were in this room, forever frozen in the moment where they were going to sacrifice him to their beliefs.\n\nHe continued to pace circles around the ritual chamber, long after he normally would have stopped circling. He?d done this easily a hundred times and yet this was new. She?d requested he introduce his companions to her presence. He was a damn fool for obliging. He should have seen this coming. It was so obvious in retrospect that they would get dragging into his bullshit more than they already were.\n\nHe heard the click of hooves on stone and turned to see Danielle standing in the doorway, eyes downcast, right arm holding her left. Kyle?s stomach dropped. He squared his demeanor as much as he could. He was not ready for this, but he had to be there for her, especially since all of it was his fault.\n\nHe set the knife down on the altar and approached her, speaking as gently as he could. \"Hey. I didn?t expect to see you up so early. Its a lot to recover from, I know, but you?re safe now. Come on, lets go find somewhere to sit that isn't quite so... culty\" he waved generally at the room before he offered his hand for her to take. Danielle reached out, but drew away before grabbing it. She shook her head. \n\n\"Sorry, I can?t right now.\" \n\nKyle hid the flash of pain at her response, but not well enough to keep it from the deer. He?s trying so hard, Danielle thought, and I?m still hurting him. She felt sick. Kyle led her down one of the hallways to a kitchen type room with a simple table and bench as well as counters, cabinets, and a sink with another manual well pump. \n\nShe sat down at the table and watched Kyle out of the corner of her eye as he pawed through several cabinets. He had given her nothing but genuine kindness since they met, one of so very few people to ever do so. And she had hurt him. She had killed him. Repeatedly. Maliciously. It had felt great. Even thinking about it she felt sick again. And now, after what she had done here he was still still showing her nothing but concern.\n\nThere was the sound of clanking metal and running water, and she opened the eyes she hadn?t realized she?d squeezed shut to see a glass of water deposited in front of her before the canine dropped into the bench on the other side of the table. She could barely look at him.\n\n\"Hey. Drink, you?ll feel a bit better.\" \n\nThe deer numbly reached for the glass. How could he still be this nice to her. After she\n\n\"Danielle, come on, have a drink\" Kyle?s voice broke through her thoughts and she took a sip of the cold water. \n\nIt wasn?t much, but it did enough to let her speak. \"I?m sorry\"\n\nA look of confusion crossed the canine?s face. \"You?re sorry? What could you possibly be sorry for?\" \n\n\"Wha... For hurting you. For enjoying it. I killed you. I killed Rick. I tortured and killed you both so many times. And I wanted to. It felt so good. I wanted to do it. I wanted more.\" She realized she was shouting and she could feel the hot tears running down her face.\n\nThe canine moved back around the table and she closed her eyes, but the revenge never came. Instead the cup was pushed into her hands again.\n\n\"Come on. Deep breath. Then some water.\"\n\nDanielle sniffled but did as she was told. Part of her wished he had been mad. She deserved it. She \n\n\"Danielle.\" Kyle?s voice again broke through her thoughts. \n\nThe canine hugged her. \"Look, I?m fine. Rick?s fine. Whatever you felt down there that wasn?t you, isn?t you.\"\n\nBlinking away her tears she looked at him \"but I-\"\n\n\"No listen to me. That?s what that place is. That?s how it works. What did I tell you before we went in?\"\n\nDanielle wracked her brain. That felt so long ago. Finally she said \"That we were going to do bad things to each other?\"\n\nKyle shook his head \"I told you that it wasn?t going to be your choice. And to not blame yourself or Rick. That place causes pain every way it can, not just with broken bones and sharp things. If it felt good to you, that?s because that?s what hurt.\"\n\nHis words made sense. If only she could believe them. But she knew it wasn?t true. Not completely.\n\n\"Its over now. You don?t have to let it keep hurting you. It was just a bad dream.\" Kyle hugged her tighter. \"I?m so sorry. You never should have had to go though that. But its over now\" \n\n\"Yeah...\"\n\n-----\n\nKyle walked back to the room where the cots were. Danielle had requested some time alone to think. He wasn?t happy to leave her by herself, but if that was what she needed.\n\nHe paused outside the doorway. He heard movement. His faint hope that the lizard at least might still be asleep vanished. As he stood there, the sound changed. \n\nThe walking stopped, there was the creak of a cot, and then came several slick noises along with a huffing and a low moan. \n\nKyle continued hesitating at the doorway. Startling and embarrassing the lizard as he masturbated would be a terrible idea right now. He couldn?t see how Rick could be horny right now, but if that was how he coped then it was better to let him be for the moment. He peeked around the corner\n\nRick had moved over to the cot Kyle had been on, was laying on his side, head on the pillow. One hand was between his legs, teasing his slit as his slick member started to push out. It was a little weird but would have been passable had the lizard not also been crying as he held Kyle?s underwear to his nose. \n\nKyle pulled back around the corner. He already knew that beyond the magical master/slave thing he had been determined not to push that the lizard had acquired some sort of fixation on him. They?d had a chance to discuss it the morning before getting into town but they hadn?t really gotten to the root of things but Rick had seemed able to accept his new reality and sudden interest in Kyle despite his being straight relatively calmly once he had slept and had a chance to process.\n\nClearly, Kyle thought, I was mistaken.\n\nThe canine didn?t like using their connection. He felt people were entitled to the privacy of their own thoughts. But most people also weren?t masturbating while huffing his worn underwear and crying.\n\nThe canine sat down in the corridor, back pressed against the cool stone of the wall. He concentrated, pulling on the link between his metaphysical being and Rick?s, entering his mind. He was careful to keep it one way so the lizard didn?t notice any feeling from him. He was washed over with the lizards awareness. He could smell the scent of his crotch in the clothing item, interpreted lustily by the lizards mind, he could feel the sensation of the lizards stimulated genitals. But overwhelmingly he felt need, surrounded by confusion and fear. Need for him, wrapped up in still not really knowing why and fear of what it made the lizard want. Fear of what it meant for who he was. \n\nKyle pushed in, exploring the feelings. The lizard needed him, but he needed something more from him than just being around him or having sex with him. He turned over the feelings, examining it, trying to find what more there could be. Then Rick?s surface thoughts caught his attention. Looking into it, Kyle expected to find just a normal sex fantasy between himself and the lizard, maybe involving some fetish the lizard had given the situation.\n\nWhat he absolutely did not expect was to find the memories of what had just happened that night from Rick?s perspective, focused solely on the ones where Kyle hurt him.\n\nWatching was it?s own form of torture, but he saw and felt the aching memory of that large blunt spike being driven into his torso, and he could feel Rick?s dick twitch each time the hammer drove it deeper. Kyle felt the burn of the memory of a brand on his naked ass, and how much pleasure it brought him knowing he was forever his masters despite how much it hurt. Felt the memory of how proud Rick was when Kyle told him he was doing a good job as Rick shoved his arm into the meat grinder while the canine turned the crank. Kyle shared the memory of Rick's ecstasy, cumming endlessly as the memory version of Kyle carved his dick off a little at a time.\n\nAnd then it was a slightly older memory, altered into fantasy. This time at the diner the canine stood behind Rick. This fantasy version of the canine began to slowly cut his throat but also started to whisper in the fantasy lizards ear. That he would never be free. That the canine owned him fully now. The feeling of the blade itself was the same as it was in canine?s own memory, but much stronger without any familiarity to take the edge off and tinged erotic. Along side all of it was that fear and need.\n\nThe fantasy continued, completely into fiction now. His imagined counterpart picking up the lizards completely removed head and opened its mouth. Leaning back on the bench at the diner table the fictional Kyle began to pump the head up and down, using it as a sex toy before forcing his knot past the lizards lips and exploding. The fantasizing lizard imagined what the cum dripping from his exposed windpipe would feel like.\n\nHe was sitting in the corridor, pressed against the stone wall. It all made sense now. He knew what Rick needed, why it scared and confused him that he wanted it. And unsurprisingly, thought the canine, I?m to blame for that too.\n\n-----\n\nRick lay on his master?s cot breathing hard. He folded the underwear back in half and reached down, setting them back on top of the clothing pile. He looked down at the floor where his climax had sprayed. He?d stopped crying a while ago.\n\nHis master had been outside the door, he knew. The canine didn?t want him to know, but had gotten sloppy while looking in on his thoughts. Rick guessed this was it. His master knew what kinda freak he?d become. He hadn?t really even known himself until now, but everything had felt so good last night. It hadn?t really. It had been the worst pain he?d ever been in. But he?d enjoyed it anyway somehow. \n\nAnd as if that weren?t bad enough, there had been the other thing. It had been incidental to the proceedings, not part of the pain, but for him at least it was the most critical thing about what had happened. He couldn?t understand the joy, the purpose being his master?s slave had been. That wasn?t how it was supposed to work. \n\nWas that who he was now? A masochist and a slave, content and even proud to be used? \n\nHe tried to get angry. It used to come so easy. But now he lay there internally straining and couldn't produce even the slightest flicker of rage toward the canine or the situation\n\nRick lay there, scent of his master still faint in his nose from the cot and pillow. He was forced to admit that he didn?t hate any of this. At first he?d thought that he?d lost the ability. But he?d snapped at Danielle when she?d flashed him, he?d yelled at his master in anger when the dog hadn?t had any answers about what was happening to him. He just, wasn?t mad about any of this.\n\nWith that realization he felt lighter. A tension he?d been holding finally let go. He?d always been so angry, so mad at the world and everything in it. He had hated so much, used anger as his sword and his shield so often that it had become second nature. \n\nBut his life had changed, and he found that he just didn?t need it. For the first time things felt right.\n\nGetting up off the cot, Rick slowly approached the doorway, but sticking his head out he saw his master was gone. He threw on his clothes as well as the gun belt. He needed to find his master, they needed to talk.\n\n-----\n\nMoving through the halls, what Rick found instead was Danielle looking miserable seated at the table in a small kitchen area.\n\nHer head was down, fingers interlaced behind it, elbows resting on the table. In front of her were the broken remains of a glass. The largest piece was sitting to the side, edge marked crimson.\n\nBlood dripped down Danielle?s left arm from a handful of fresh cuts. She reached for the glass shard, but it wasn't there. Looking up she saw that Rick was sitting across from her, examining the broken piece. \"Now I?m pretty sure that Kyle would be upset seeing you do that despite how you met.\"\n\nThe deer?s ears folded back. \"I wanted to hurt him\"\n\nRick tossed the shard on the table in front of her \"Well if that?s what you want, I think you?re on the right track\"\n\nHer fingers touched the piece of glass where it lay on the table and she blanched, knocking it away instead.\n\n\"I thought so.\"\n\n\"You don?t get it.\" said Danielle miserably.\n\n\"Try me.\"\n\nShe looked Rick in the face. He seemed serious.\n\n\"I enjoyed it. Kyle said that wouldn?t be us, but it was. At least a small part of it. Maybe it made it made it stronger when it took control, but I know that at least some of it was just me.\"\n\n\"It made you see a part of yourself you don?t like.\"\n\n\"Yes. I don?t want to hurt anyone. Especially not Kyle. But at the same time I do. Even now the idea of cutting him instead feels...\" she didn?t finish\n\n\"OK\"\n\n\"OK? That's it? OK?\" Danielle looked at Ricks face for any other reaction.\n\n\"If everybody who had a part of themselves they didn?t like did that\" he waved at her wrists \"the world would be pretty empty.\"\n\n\"But I want to hurt people. I?m awful. A terrible person.\"\n\nRick leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, ignoring the tiny piece of glass that crunched under the left one. \"One thing I learned as a cop is: everybody has the capacity for violence. There is nobody on earth who won?t hurt another given the right circumstance. The important difference is why and how you handle it.\"\n\n\"but-\"\n\nRick held up a hand \"Let me finish. I hurt a lot of people as a cop. Sometimes I enjoyed it, most of the time I felt nothing about it, it was just easier than whatever other option there was. The idea of hurting people or actually doing it never bothered me. Most of the others were the same. Same for most of the career criminals. The person being hurt simply didn't matter. THAT makes you a bad person. That?s not you. You?re a good kid. I can see it in you, the mas- Kyle definitely sees it in you. If you weren?t, forcing you to enjoy it wouldn?t have been an effective torture, and you wouldn?t be here now broken up about it.\"\n\n\"OK but I?ve also killed Kyle before when we first met, and I liked that too\"\n\nRick grinned at her \"And did you do something like stab him in his sleep, or were you perhaps playing with his immortality with his permission?\" \n\n\"I... the second one, but it still hurt him\"\n\n\"With his permission. So you?ve got a small sadistic streak in you, so what. We cant help what we enjoy.\" Rick paused, his own situation running through his mind, hand unconsciously rubbing his neck \"We really really can?t. But you care, you feel bad if you?ve done something wrong. I suspect you try to make amends if its possible. And bonus, lucky you, you?ve somehow landed in a position where you have people you can explore that part of you with without any harm. Well, any permanent harm. You?re not bad. You are, however, a giant pervert\" Rick grinned at her and gave her a wink at the last bit.\n\n\"Thanks.\" Danielle gave him a weak smile \"Ya know, you barely seem like the same guy who would only grunt at me, like, what, three or four days ago\"\n\n\"You?re not the only one learning about themselves\" \n\n-----\n\nKyle stood in the middle of the void. Before him stood a figure, alabaster white and smooth, limbs long and sharp and ending in a single point. What would be its head was smooth and featureless. The simple geometry from which it appeared to be made contrasted heavily by how wrong it was.\n\n\n\n\"Cut the bullshit. I?m not in the mood. What do you want from me? Why are you interfering now?\"\n\n\n\n\"Nearly two hundred years you mostly leave me alone, and now suddenly I?ve got a thrall undergoing an identity crisis after being traumatized out of himself, suddenly you want to meet my familiar and ask me to bring her here. A familiar I acquired after she somehow finds a real, if completely amateur, book of magic. Suddenly two people who I care ab- who I am responsible for are throwing themselves headfirst into torture no mortal should endure.\" He paused and took a breath.\n\n\"I may not operate on your level but I hardly stupid. A suicidal young adult with abusive parents happening to find an amateur spell book I probably would have just written off as happenstance, but in the same time span I just happen to get killed by a man who you then thrall, place under my control, and then a bum turn of fate just happens to turn a practical demonstration into a life altering experience, which is only further exacerbated when I stupidly let them get involved here. Its not exactly the most discreet work now is it?\" \n\n\n\n\"Do us both a fucking favor then.\" the canine growled\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Oh joy and bloody rapture. And those are?\"\n\nThe laughter did not manifest as audible sound, instead leaving the canine with a thousand thin cuts of varying depths, as though he had fallen into a barrel of razor blades.\n\nHis blood fell away into the nothingness as the cuts did not heal.\n\n\n\n\"Well then tell me something else. Why? Why after all this time have you arranged fate to bring two souls under my care only torture them in front of me. If you want my pain then there are easier ways. Its not right that they suffer for my burdens. And whatever fucking mystery plan you have I?m not going to play ball if it hurts people I care about\"\n\nThe second bout of laughter was much longer and more intense, leaving the canines skin and fur torn to shreds, living muscle and bone exposed over a great deal of his body. It hurt to move, to breath.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Go fuck yourself, I?m not hurting them for you.\" The canine rasped.\n\nThis time the laughter left just a broken bleeding mess nearly unrecognizable as having once been a person.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-----\n\nThe void receded and Danielle rushed into the room with a shriek. It was a simple unused store room walls barren and floor empty. The cry echoed round the space. Rick rushed in hot on her heels.\n\nLanding on the floor with a bloody splat, the oozing pile that was what was left of Kyle began to shift and move, on hold regeneration finally starting. However the process was slow. Slower than either had ever see it.\n\n\"I?m gonna kick that bitches ass\" Danielle was absolutely furious. \"Forget what I said about not wanting to hurt people, she?s gonna pay.\"\n\n\"You and me both, but the crusade on the heavens is going to have to wait.\" Rick leaned in closer to the remains, despite the sight and smell making him gag. \"Somethings not right. Master Kyle is barely recovering.\" He said straightening back up\n\nThen as they both stared all signs of recovery completely stopped.\n\nDanielle frantically paced back and forth \"What do we do?\"\n\n\"I don?t know\"\n\nBoth startled and whipped around as there was a clattering noise in the doorway. On the ground, just inside the door frame, was an all too familiar blade.\n\nPacing over, Danielle picked up the obsidian blade. It surprised her just how comfortable and familiar it felt in her hand.\n\nRick looked at her. \"You aren?t thinking what I think you?re thinking.\"\n\nLooking back Danielle said \"I think I am\"\n\n\"That?s insane. Neither of us knows the first thing about any of this\"\n\n\"No, but consider what the bitch said.\"\n\n \n\n\"Yeah, pain is magic, I got that far.\"\n\n\"No stupid, the other stuff. Think about it. She wants Kyle to hurt us. Kyle doesn?t want to hurt us. I don?t know about you but I?m not particularly opposed to the idea, although from what she said I think you might be the same. So she gets us to hurt each other to get him over it\"\n\n\"It can?t be that simple\" Rick said, nevertheless starting to strip back out of the clothes he was wearing.\n\n\"Is it? Like Kyle Said, Ms Made of Building Blocks hardly seems like the subtle type\"\n\nA breeze blew through the underground compound carrying the faintest suggestion of approval and razor sharp laughter.\n\nRick gave a small smile \"I guess that means you?re on the right track. Where do you wanna start?\"\n\nDanielle shrugged \"Where ever is good\" \n\n\"Well how about a we start with something small and recoverable. Trust but verify, right?\" \n\n \n\nDanielle nodded \"Makes sense.\" Then she glanced at the still present cuts on her arm. \"Seems like we?re on our own for recoverable though.\"\n\nShe gripped the edge of the blade with her left hand and quickly pulled the knife down. \n\n\"MOTHER FUCKER! OW. Why do they always do that in the movies. That would have hurt less literally anywhere else.\" \n\n\"Well the pains the point. Look\" \n\nWhat remained of Kyle saw a brief bout of activity, the faintest impressions of organs appearing in places.\n\n\"Yeah but there?s pain pain and then there?s sexy pain.\"\n\nRick cocked an eyebrow at her\n\n\"Oh shut up. I heard you moaning like a whore last night.\"\n\nRick held his hands up \"Fair. Cut me some slack, this is all brand new to me\"\n\n\"Well then newbie,\" Danielle said flipping the knife and completely catching the wrong end \"Ow fuck, why don't you drag a couple of the cots down here while I see what else I can find to work with\"\n\n\"Yes ma?am. Do you want me to hang onto that before you injure yourself again?\"\n\n\"Thanks, but I think I got it now. I?ve grown rather attached\" Danielle held up her hand showing the knife now embedded in her palm with half sticking out the other side\n\n-----\n\nThey ended up not dragging the cots from the room where they awoke, which turned out to be at the opposite corner of the space, and opted instead for raiding a nearby room full of a towns worth of blankets, layering enough of them on the floor that it was comfortable to sit on for a bit, and a pile more nearby to be wadded up as pillows. \n\n\"or possibly used to staunch some bleeding. I don?t know about you, but I think we should avoid outright killing each other, at least without adult supervision\" Rick had added lightly when they found them, tearing one into strips, a few of which had been used to stuff and bandage Danielle's hand. that they then used to pack. \n\nDanielle started to remark she was already dead, but then realized she still didn?t really know what the deal with this temporary body was. Was she still dead right now? Could she double die? \"Agreed\" \n\nOther things that had procured included 2 cutlery drawers from the kitchen, A tool box with a bunch of older (possibly modern at the time) hand tool, a few random gardening tools, a wooden chair, half a dozen buckets of water each with a couple gallons, a couple bottles of grain alcohol for disinfectant they could use as disinfectant if necessary, a coil of rough rope, and a small pile of candles, though Danielle had said they were the wrong type. They'd also grabbed Kyle's clothes\n\nDanielle looked over the setup and nodded, proud of the little play area they?d gotten together on short notice. She sat down on the blanket, Rick moving to join her.\n\n\"So how do you wanna do this?\" She asked\n\n\"What do you mean? Now We just hurt each other til master finishes healing right?\"\n\n\"I was thinking at least a safe word?\"\n\n\"I... That somehow seems both incredibly practical and entirely pointless.\"\n\n\"I know what you mean. Pineapple good?\"\n\n\"Pineapple. OK. That?ll work\" Rick shrugged\n\n\"Two other big questions.\" Danielle could see Rick was shaking slightly, though she couldn't tell if it was nerves or fear or excitement. \"First. Do you wanna be on the end dishing it out or taking it first. Figure we?ll end up trading off unless you have a strong preference.\"\n\n\"I... uhh... I guess I?ll take it first if it doesn?t bother you\" Even after everything that had happened Rick surprised himself. \n\n\"Heh go figure.\"\n\n\"You don?t have to do this you know. You seemed pretty bothered by it before.\"\n\n\"Thanks, but I?m good I promise. Besides, its different. This is for Kyle.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I guess its funny how it worked out that way. You said there were two questions?\"\n\nDanielle blinked \"Oh right. Other question is are we fucking or not.\"\n\nIf he had been drinking he would have done a spit take. As it was he choked on the air and spent several second coughing. \"Sorry, don?t know why I wasn?t expecting that. Yeah sure. Sounds good. OOF.\" \n\nThe last bit came as Danielle sprung at him with surprising speed, pushing him from sitting to lying down with her on top. pinning both his wrists together above his head with one hand. \n\n\"Wow, aggressive much?\"\n\n\"Boy you have no idea. Whatever Kyle did to me its done nothing to reduce my sex drive and everything to prevent me from dealing with it. And then you to got me all stirred up.\"\n\n\"I?ve seen you masturbate.\"\n\n\"Yeah, once! In like over a week! I used to do multiple a day! Now shut up.\" With the Danielle leaned down and began to kiss him gently at first but as he began to relax and surrender She rapidly became more forceful and even biting at him a little \n\nDanielle sat back and felt something warm on her ass. She wiggled back a bit, full catching his emerging member between her ass cheeks. \n\n\"Ooh hello. I take it that means you?re ready\"\n\nRick nodded.\n\n\"Good, then get to work.\"\n\n\"What do you- oh.\" Rick watched as Danielle turned around, lifted her hips and planted herself firmly on his face. Dutifully he got to work, sucking and licking at Danielle?s cunt \n\n\"Good boy\" she purred. reaching to the side, she snagged the corner of one of the cutlery drawers and dragged it closer.\n\nRick couldn't see what was going on but he heard metal clinking as Danielle rummaged through the drawer before stopping \"That?ll do.\"\n\nRick wondered what she had grabbed. He hadn?t expected to go straight to the tools they found. He didn?t have to wait long before finding out what was in store for him. The deer rained a flurry of blows down on his stomach with a meat tenderizer. With each impact rick let out a grunt and it wasn?t long before his abs ached fiercely. \n\nSatisfied with her start Danielle ran the head of the wooden hammer up the side of his shaft, which twitched and already beaded with pre. Pulling his shaft up against his body with her free hand, Danielle gave a half doze hits to his testicles, using nowhere near the force she had on his abs but still drawing a pained groan from the lizard that vibrated amazingly in her crotch. They had just started but she was already close. \n\nShe lifted off Ricks face. It was too soon. Rick panted for air and ran his hands over his abs. The red of his coloring was now showing some yellow and purple, and he knew the whole thing would be a massive bruise later. \n\n\"Tag in?\" Danielle offered \n\nIn a few moments they had repositioned and grabbed a few things. Rick sat in the chair with Danielle now lain across his lap, ass up. Grabbing the large wooden spoon that had inspired them, he brought it down across Danielle's rear with a thwack, making her squeal slightly.\n\n\"Why don?t you count them off\" Rick ?suggested?\n\n\"one\"\n\nwhack whack whack whack whack. The hits came in rapid succession\n\n\"two three four five six seven\" Danielle squealed as she tried to keep up and count.\n\nRick bonked her lightly on the head with the spoon. \"Wrong.\" He said before hauling back and delivering a thunderous slap to her rear. \"That?s seven\"\n\nSetting the spoon down on her back for a moment Rick grabbed her burning ass with both hand and gave it a squeeze, eliciting a different type of squeal from the doe. He enjoyed pulling on her ass cheeks, spreading them apart and squeezing them together. It almost seemed like with enough practice he might be able to play the doe like a musical instrument from the range of noises this caused the doe to make. \n\nAfter a minute or so he released the doe?s reddened ass, pulled back and delivered a hand-on blow to the deer?s ass. \n\n\"I don?t hear counting.\"\n\n\"Eight\"\n\nSlap Slap Slap Slap slap Slap SLAP\n\n\"Nine Ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen FUCK F-fifteen\" \n\nThe doe?s eyes were watering and her stinging ass felt like it was on fire. Se was also so very very wet and couldn?t stop rubbing her thighs together. Rick reached his hand between her legs but had barely brushed her clit before she came, tensing up and then releasing with a shout leaving her slightly twitching on the lizards lap.\n\n\"Fuck, I needed this\"\n\n-----\n\nThe two were taking a short break, multiple folded up blankets providing cushion to the deer?s ass.\n\n\"The Master?s still not recovering very fast.\" Rick observed\n\n\"No.\" \n\nThey?d both avoided checking before now, It wasn?t the most pleasant sight in the world. Things were starting to take shape, but at the pace they were going it would still be quite a bit of time before it got anywhere. \n\n\"I don?t know about you but I doubt I can keep going that long.\"\n\n\"No.\" Danielle?s face was a portrait of worry and contrasted sharply against her earlier elation.\n\n\"So what now?\"\n\n\"I don?t know. I thought I had figured it out.\" Said the downcast doe.\n\nRick thought. \"You did. The way I see it we have a couple options. One is we just keep doing what we?re doing and plan to be here for a while. We?ll get there eventually\"\n\nDanielle looked at him dubiously. \n\n\"Or we could find some people and drag them down here to torture them.\"\n\n\"RICK!\" \n\n\"What, just saying its an option.\"\n\n\"Well even setting aside how monstrous a suggestion that is, we?d have to make it back to civilization, capture people, evade the authorities, and somehow find this place again. Assuming I don't just vanish when this body unravels.\"\n\n\"OK when you say it like that it sounds like a stupid idea\"\n\n\"Yeah I wonder why.\" If they had served sarcasm instead of pain the amount Danielle injected into that particular phrase would have solved all their issues.\n\n\"Well, third option I can think of is we turn things up a notch or three.\" \n\nDanielle considered it \"We?d have to go pretty hard. No lasting injury would be right out the window.\"\n\n\"Well you just said you can?t leave, and I?m not leaving you or Master Kyle behind. So either we pace it out and hope we make it before starvation or exhaustion takes one of us out and that there?s no time limit on this, or we abandon sanity and you get as close as you can to killing me as you can without actually doing it. Your call.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Wait why is it my call, WAIT! Why only you?\" \n\n\"Cause I?m game but I'm not going to push you into something you aren?t on board with, and because like you just said we don?t know if you can survive that body falling apart right now.\" \n\n\"But I might kill you for real!\" Danielle was beyond distraught, she could not believe what she was hearing\n\n\"It?s a risk\" Rick shrugged \"But it?s one I?m OK with. Against all odds this has the past couple days with you guys have been some of the best of my life. But like I said, we could also keep on as we were, slow and steady\"\n\n\"I... I?m gonna take a quick walk and think\"\n\n\"Sure\" Rick said kindly \"take your time\"\n\n-----\n\nDanielle didn?t know how but she somehow ended up back at the ritual chamber where she had met Kyle. What was functionally BDSM didn?t bother her, and she could have tolerated some lever of abuse even. She was unfortunately familiar, having been her dad?s plaything growing up. Its how she had ended up with Kyle in the first place, looking for escape from that monster.\n\nShe looked at the tableau in front of her. She?d been too in her own head to look properly before. She knew the basics from talking to Kyle, but somehow seeing it was an entirely different thing. They really had been mere inches away from ritually sacrificing him. \n\nHe?d never mentioned they were all family as well.\n\nShe could see it in their features. Two distinct families, both of which he resembled. It had to be entirely immediate family tree in this room. And they had been ready to throw him away.\n\nShe realized Rick was right. It wasn?t just hurting someone that made you a bad person. It was everything around it. How and why and what you did afterwards. Her dad had been a bad person. These cultists had been bad people.\n\nKyle though, he was not. He wasn?t perfect but he tried. He deserved better. And right now she could help. \n\nRick said he was OK with the risks and seemed to mean it. She would be doing it to help Kyle. She would enjoy it she had no doubt. But it wasn?t for her own benefit at someone else?s expense. Not like Kyle?s family. Not like Rick used to with the other cops. Not like her dad.\n\nKyle?s knife was in her hand. Danielle gripped it tight. She realized she'd made her decision. \n\n-----\n\nRick was laid out on the blanket?s when the blonde doe came back. It was easier on his sore stomach. Although, he supposed, that was actually kind of counter productive. Not that a mild ache would have accomplished much.\n\nHe didn?t need to ask. Even if she hadn?t had his master?s knife he could see it in her face. He stretched out, several joints popping. She dropped down next to him. \n\n\"I?m going to enjoy it. I shouldn?t, but I am.\"\n\n\"You aren?t doing anything wrong, I literally asked for this. Don?t torment yourself for having a little fun with it.\" He raise his arms about his head continuing the stretch.\n\n\"Thank you Rick\" she whispered\n\n\"Hey don?t ment- ah\" the words died on his lips.\n\nPulling back Kyle?s knife, Danielle reached up and drove it through both of Ricks palms, the blankets, and into the stone floor pinning both his hands in place quite effectively. Rick groaned loudly. Already this was on a whole different level to a bruised up stomach. \n\n\"I will never not be amazed at how ridiculously sharp that thing is. Rick? You still there?\"\n\nThe lizard grunted and took deep breaths. After another couple seconds he looked back up at Danielle \n\n\"Yeah. I?m OK (ouch) well not really but you know what I mean.\" He winced, fighting the instinct to start pulling his arm to try and free himself. Every slight movement of his hands sent a fresh wave of agony coursing up his arms.\n\nDanielle looked over the lizard. For all her thinking about it she hadn?t actually thought about what she was going to do. Mulling it over she looked around at the tools they had brought. The concerns they had had while setting up seemed almost silly now. \n\nShe grabbed a handful of the candles. As she had noted before, they were just regular candles, not the low melting point ones you were supposed to use for sex. Setting them in a row she lit each one in turn, getting them started on melting.\n\nConsidering the tools available again, she got an idea. in the large tool box were a couple large spikes that each a ring on the end. It said log dog on the side, but she had no idea what they were used for. Suddenly though they seemed very useful. Grabbing one and a large hammer, she moved to one side of the lizard just past the edge of the blanket. \"I shoulda had you do this before we started\" \n\nRick didn?t respond, watching her activity with pained curiosity.\n\nImagining the angles in her head, she eventually found where she wanted it, placed the spike on the floor and oriented its large eyelet, and then hit it with the hammer. \n\nIt compliantly sunk an inch into the floor without kicking up any rock chips. \n\n\"OK so either I?m suddenly the hulk or something?s up with the floor.\" \n\nRick grunted \"Given what this place is for I, fuck, I would not be surprised if something were helping you\" \n\n\"Or someone\" Danielle murmured as she hammered the log dog into place, then moving around to ricks other side and repeating the process.\n\nThen grabbing the rough rope she looped it around Rick ankle and ran it through the eyelet, giving it a yank that pulled ricks left leg to the side. Grabbing the other end of the rope she mirrored it, yanking is other leg to the right, leaving him exposed. \n\nThe green and red lizard squirmed a little, readjusting how he was laying on his tail which was currently trapped under his back, but stopped just as quickly as his trapped hands protested any movement in his shoulders. His eyes followed the lines of the ropes and doing the same mental geometry the doe had earlier he realized that she would be able to force him into full splits and possibly further when she pulled.\n\nShe pulled.\n\nRick's hand screamed at the forced movement, but soon his legs took center stage. His flexibility was limited at the best of times. and its was all too soon that his legs reached the end of their comfortable movement.\n\nDanielle grinned and kept pulling on both ropes, hooves finding ample purchase as she stepped back, hauling on the ropes.\n\nRick could feel the pull in his inner thighs as the strain of a stretch they had never worked up to kept increasing. He was sure something was going to rip.\n\nDanielle stopped and tied the ropes off, careful not to give even and inch of slack.\n\nRick alternated between grunts of pain and heavy panting. If he thought moving had hurt before now even the slightest shift felt like it would tear something. Danielle knelt down beside his head. \n\n\"Hey\" She said softly\n\n\"Hey\" Rick grunted back\n\n\"You?re sure about this? Last chance before we start causing real damage?\" A look of genuine concern on her face replacing the sadistic grin she?d had just moments ago. \n\nRick started to give a sarcastic reply about his hands, but he involuntarily tensed up and was left groaning and breathing hard for a few moments. Danielle was just about to pull the plug on the whole thing when he finally managed to nod \"I?m sure. Do it.''\n\nThe blonde doe nodded, he pink highlights catching the candlelight. Neither had questioned how they could see in the gloom down here without them, but now the flickering orange light lent the whole thing an intense ambiance.\n\nWhen she moved over to the cutlery drawers, crawling instead of standing to walk the couple feet, Rick caught a glimpse of her nethers. And as she shifted to the tools after not finding what she was looking for he got the full display. \n\nAnd holy shit was she soaked. In spite of (or possibly because of) his predicament this cut right through the pain and by the time she had turned out he was fully erect and rock hard. \n\nShe giggled, toying with the large bowie knife she had found \"Pretty dangerous thing to be bringing out right now, don't you think?\"\n\nIronically Rick was the one who looked like a frozen deer caught in the headlights of the car speeding towards it. \"Oh god\" he croaked hoarsely with equal levels of excitement and fear. \n\nDanielle approached between his legs, legs straddling his hips. Without waiting she lowered herself onto him, and in one fell swoop she had his entire length buried inside, horny need overwriting any discomfort from lack of adjustment or stretching.\n\nThe added weight on his hips did nothing to ease the pull in his thighs. Danielle rocked back and forth a bit, grinding against him. She toyed with the tip of the knife on his belly but for now did not press or draw blood. She had to admit, part of her was envious of the lizard's position. Sure she had her new found pleasures, but that hardly erased her own masochistic tendencies.\n\nPlacing both hands on his stomach to brace herself, Danielle raised her hips and began to ride him properly. Part of her considered saving her energy, but that part of her was quickly hushed and locked in a cage shoved into the back corner of her mind. \n\nThe mix was overwhelming for Rick. The deer was tight and wet and intensely hot inside. Probably one of the best lays he'd ever experienced. On the other hand, every bounce yanked against that already impossible strain in his inner thigh. His moans mixed with increasingly loud groans that quickly increased in volume and pitch to shouting, and then as the inevitable tear finally happened, screaming. \n\nDanielle felt it happen. Suddenly the taut ropes gained a bit of slack and Rick's legs move a few degrees toward his head. Even with out his screams she knew they'd cross the thresh hold, and she nearly came again already. As it was she kept riding him, each bounce widening the tears in the muscle and pulling at everything that still held. \n\nThen she slammed down on him as hard as she could, burying him deep inside her. She didn't know if it was her imagination or not but she thought she might have even felt the lizards taped length pushing through the inner barriers into her womb. Was that a thing that could happen or had she just read too much porn. As she sat she drew a deep line across Rick's belly, not deep enough to open him up, but a deep and long cut that would require stitches in any normal circumstance. The pitch or Rick's screams fluctuated in response. She hit him across the jaw with the knifes pommel, his head turning roughly to the side. His screams turned hoarse and gurgling. She waited and after a few moments more they lowered, although that could have just been a lack of energy. Head still to the side Rick spit out a gob of blood and two teeth. \n\nShe could also feel him throbbing inside her. She was sure that his tapered tip had pushed through her cervix and into her womb. Looking down as she sat on him, she got an idea. It was absolutely insane, but then again so had been everything else. This might be pushing the remaining limits they had, but once the idea crossed her mind she knew she had to try it.\n\nFlipping the large blade around with a smooth flourish, she drove it into her own belly and yanked to the side before the pain could hit. Her scream echoed off the bare walls louder than Ricks had, but she avoided doubling over. Rick was in too much pain to ask her what the hell she was doing, and so only watched as he watched one of her hands dive into the wound.\n\nThen he felt it.\n\nDespite Danielle remaining stationary he felt her vagina squeeze around his dick then begin to move up and down. More down than up. He felt himself being forced deeper into the deer. There was something ridiculously tight just past his tip as well.\n\nDanielle pushed and pulled, slowly forcing more and more of her victims dick up into her womb. She was ecstatic, the knowledge of what she was doing alone enough to let her push through what should have been crippling pain. She dropped the bloody knife on ricks chest and stuffed her other hand into her abdomen as well. She could feel every throb and twitch of the lizards member as she played with herself from the wrong side. She felt him tense up and push down as hard as she could, pushing he organ down so far that a bump raised on the back of her womb as the dick inside it bottomed out. All of it hurt so good, the ache from her forced open cervix to the sting of nerve ending contact on the wound to the twisting wrongness of things moving in ways they never should. Both parties came hard, Rick flooded her inner chamber with a guaranteed pregnancy had there been any chance of an intact survival for her. On top of him she shuddered and quaked, hand coming out of her stomach and back to bracing on him, leaving bloody hand prints on his bruised abdominal muscles. \n\nBoth stayed like that for a while, panting and twitching, taking a moment to recover. After a minute Danielle flopped backwards, rick popping free from her in a flood of cum stained pink with blood. Slowly catching her breath Danielle began to laugh.\n\n``Holy shit. I cannot believe I did that. Can't believe how amazing that felt.'' She winced as she poked at the massive bleeding gash across her belly, various organs threatening to posh their way free as soon as she sat up. ``Oh man, that's a lot of damage. Guess its all or nothing now.''\n\nRick forced himself to breathe slowly in and out, calming his racing heart. ``What the hell were you thinking? Did you forget that we don't know what you can survive right now?'' He sounded angry.\n\nDanielle raised her head, looking across where her legs were draped over his to see his face. ``Yeah, and I might kill you on accident. Why do you get to be the only potential martyr?''\n\n``That's different.'' He didn't know how to articulate that it was OK because it was him.\n\n``It's not.''\n\nBoth heads snapped over to where Kyle's remains had been. The canine slowly pushed himself up to sitting. \n\n``Neither of you... never mind. Let's just get out of here'' Kyle's face was a dark cloud of emotion. He waved his hand and both the knife and ropes holding Rick vanished. Then he traced a much simpler shape in the air than either had come to associate with magic, as the air in the room seemed to become dense and vibrate. Despite neither being adept at magic they could both tell this was just pure brute force. \n\nBoth damaged bodies knit themselves back together in an instant, all the pain they had received playing in reverse on fast forward, equally as intense but not leaving anything behind afterward.\n\n``I thought you'd be happy to see us.'' Danielle pouted\n\nKyle pushed himself off the ground. ``I am, believe me. I'm sorry if I don't seem it. It should never have been like this. We'll talk more once we're out and away from this.'' He rapidly started to get dressed, still checking the chambered round in his gun when he got to the belt.\n\n``Master I-'' Rick started from where he had just finished putting on his own slightly less involved outfit\n\nKyle's voice was low but somehow louder in their ears than if he had shouted.\n\n``Out. Now.''\n\nIt wasn't a request, or a suggestion. It had been an ORDER. The kind he had been refusing to give. \n\n``Yes sir'' ``Yes master''\n\nA sharp breeze started to blow, but the canine dispelled it with another hand wave. ``no''\n\nKyle's face was grim as they started to move to the exit.\n\n-----\n\nOnce they had exited the church Danielle's form had started to lose it's solidarity, and by the time the three exited the gate she was once again floating, a projected imaged of her body instead of the physical copy that she'd been for the last day.\n\nCrossing into the town from the church yard, the cold sharpness of the air instantly disappeared and was replaced with the friendly warmth that had been in the town before. Now however, there was also a static charge on the air, like a terrible thunderstorm was about to start. The feeling was reinforced by the roiling think gray clouds covering the sun and sky.\n\nKyle stalked over to a beat up structure next to the church just outside it's fence and dropped onto its porch. It looked like it had been some sort of bunkhouse or barracks, neat regimented rows of destroyed beds lining each side of the building. The wood walls had more damage than just the signs of age the rest of the town suffered, the wooden construction showed more than a few signs of bullet impacts, the door had clearly been broken down, several of the bunks and tables showed evidence of having had been turned over. And the remains of a several unidentifiable pieces of furniture stood near the door having clearly been used as a barricade.\n\nHis followers stopped a step away, not sure if they were to join him or wait or what.\n\nKyle groaned and put his head in his paws. This seemed to break whatever tension had been holding the moment and Rick sat down beside him as Danielle floated over to him. Kyle stammered as he started to talk. \n\n``l-look I'm... No. Y'all shouldn't... I...'' Eventually he settled on ``Sorry.'' He too a deep breath and continued. ``I just needed to get out of there. To get you out of there.'' \n\n``Master-''\n\n``You don't have to keep `master'ing me. We're out, you should be able to shake off whatever's left of her in your head. GOD! Why didn't I think of that. Of course she was gonna get in your heads. I figured when you started calling me master but I... I don't even know. I guess I thought it wasn't gonna be that bad. Didn't realize. I should have known when you stayed. Why did I let you stay. Why did I bring you here. Nothing good's ever happened here, why would that change.'' \n\nThe canine wasn't even talking to them, completely lost in all the self loathing that had been building.\n\n``Is that what you think happened?''\n\nThe canine looked up at Rick.\n\n``You think the reason we both willingly went into a night of torture and then nearly killed ourselves just because someone made us want to?''\n\nKyle blinked at him\n\n``I mean-''\n\n``Look dumb ass'' Kyle turned to Danielle. ``Nobody made me feel any way about nothing.'' \n\n``but-''\n\n``No but. We're both freaks. You ever consider maybe that's WHY she picked us to hang with you.''\n\n``If she had been forcing our emotions, then surely it would have gone a lot smoother'' Rick looked him dead in the eye ``Master.''\n\n``Okay but, I know this isn't you Rick.''\n\n``People change.'' Rick shrugged\n\n``You can't be comparing being enslaved and traumatized to healthy emotional growth''\n\n``Look, Kyle, however it happened we're both happier than we were before. I've learned things about myself and come to terms with them in a healthier way that was ever gonna happen when I was alive.'' Danielle swatted at him, arm passing right through his head. She giggled.\n\n``As have I master.''\n\nKyle looked at them both incredulously.\n\n``I saw it. Danielle you nearly had a panic attack when rick asked you to hurt him and you were on the verge of a breakdown over last night before that.'' \n\n``And with a bit of caring support from my two friends I learned to accept myself.''\n\nThe clouds in the sky started to lighten and break and the static charge in the air seemed to dissipate. Kyle looked at Rick. ``You're really OK with all this?''\n\n``Do you have any idea how bad it feels to be angry all the time? I didn't until today. However it happened, I'm better than I've ever been.''\n\n``Well.'' Kyle said as he looked at the sky, rays of sunlight beaming through the breaking clouds. ``I guess I owe you both an apology. And my thanks for bringing me back.''\n\n``So we did good?'' Danielle said hopefully.\n\n``You both did very good. And I have to admit, I'm impressed. I didn't know either of you had that in you.''\n\nRick grinned at him ``And did the master enjoy our show?''\n\nKyle laughed ``I guess I did. Now that I'm not worried about you I have to admit that was fucking hot.''\n\nDanielle's laughter proved infectious and soon the town echoed with their laughing. \n\n-----\n\nIt was just before sundown, and the dark stained glass cast long beams of dark color into the room. Kyle sat on the edge of the stage again. \n\n``I'm not going to apologize, and frankly I'm still pissed at you for the way you did things'' He paused and took a deep breath. ``But thank you. For bringing them to me, and for helping them to see themselves.''\n\nHe stood and walked over to where the lizard knelt in front of the small stone altar, wrist and ankles bound behind his back.\n\n``You're absolutely sure about this?''\n\n``Master, you've been in my head, you know I want this just as much if not more than you or her. Yes I'm sure.'' \n\n``Yeah look how much his dick is leaking'' Danielle commented, still a ghost this time around. \n\n``Shush, no comments from the peanut gallery remember. This is supposed to be serious'' Kyle hushed her lightly. ``OK then''\n\nKyle mumble chanted his way through one of the shorter and more generic prayers, finishing it quickly and stepping forward so he was just behind the bound lizard. His knife once more appeared in his hand from wherever it usually went when he wasn't using it. In one smooth move he drew it across the lizards throat, severing Ricks windpipe and arteries but leaving his spine intact. Immediately rick spasmed and his exhalations became wet, gurgling with blood from his partial neck stump.\n\nMoving around to the lizards front side and bringing his own erection into the lizards view, the avatar of pain leant down and kissed his slave lightly on the forehead. Then, holding the lizards head the canine hooked a thumb in the lizards mouth, opening it. He wasted not time in sinking into the hole, not rushing but also not wasting the time before Rick bled out. With each stroke he picked up his pace sliding in and out of the dying lizards mouth as the gasping gurgles coming from the hole in his throat weakened. For his part, Rick did the best he could to use his tongue on his masters member, enjoying the taste, but rapidly found himself much to weak to do anything other than take it and enjoy being used. \n\nIt didn't take long until Kyle forced his knot into the lizards mouth, wincing slightly as the lizards teeth scraped him. The lizards body tried to gag at the intruder, but wasn't really able to do so. The canine let out a moan as he throbbed and unloaded down the lizards throat, cum dripping out Rick's slit throat down his torso. \n\nSlowly Ricks awareness and pain faded, leaving just contentment filling his mind.\n\n-----\n\nRick's eyes opened and he looked around. It was the middle of the night and he was back on the bus. He was laying on his side on the large mattress in the middle of the bus. Cuddled up against him and the small spoon position was his master, who had his teddy bear hugged to his chest. Rick grinned. How Kyle thought he could be upset with all this was beyond him. He wrapped his arm around the canine, pulling him close.\n\nHowever, Rick realized, he was still very worked up, not having gotten a release earlier. He grinned, slipping his hardening member between the canines thighs. Yeah, he could definitely get used to this.\n\n",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": ""WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" the words started before she was even done forming up. The blob of magic/ectoplasm/whatever she was now was an exceedingly excited yellow to those that could perceive it before it formed into the likeness of a young adult female deer, long blonde hair containing several strategically placed pink streaks and speckled brown fur sporting a large and now rather ironic tattoo of angel wings on her back.
Notably she did not manifest any clothing, presenting an indecent eyeful to all onlookers.
Kyle, a dirty blonde furred German shepherd whose left arm was completely black from elbow to fingertip, didn?t respond from where he was sitting in the lap of the only other person for miles in the desert, Rick. The larger green and red lizard was leaned back against the front passenger side tire of the school bus turned makeshift camper that was currently all of their home.
Danielle continued not even registering the lack of response. "I mean talk about zero to sixty in nothing flat. Talk about and they were roommates. ?There was only one bed, so when he had a wet dream I just let him fuck my thighs? I mean holy shit. And then the follow up. Oh my god I thought you guys might be an enemies to lovers deal but what the fuck was that last night. Where did all that tension come from? Just a blowjob but holy shit what was with all that emotion." Danielle was zipping back and forth overloaded with excited energy as she talked, seemingly in danger of exploding if she didn?t let it all out. "One word but did you hear the desperation in his voice? Forget a blow job you could have had him doing AN EE THING! What the hell did you do to him?"
"I don?t know"
This time Danielle caught the answer. "Oh you don?t know! Bullshit, look at you sitting all cute in his lap like that. God as if I wasn?t horny enough already." The deer didn't even try to stop herself as her hand disappeared between her legs. "Normal people don't just go from wanting to tear your throat out to begging for you dick in two days."
Rick drew a breath and started to say something but before he got anything out Danielle cut him off
"AND FUCK YOU I?M NOT PUTTING ON PANTS OR STOPPING, THAT WAS HOT SO YOU CAN JUST SUCK IT UP!" Danielle yelled from where she had stopped a couple feet away, raising the hand not already busy with middle finger extended as she floated on her back back a couple feet above the ground, and then immediately proved to be true to her word in fact spreading her legs making sure her audience of two could see.
Rick gave Kyle an exaggerated eye roll, his face significantly darker than usual as he blushed through the green. "Not gonna do anything about your ghost girlfriend being a massively horny exhibitionist?"
"She?s not-" Kyle?s response was cut off by Danielle?s yell as she orgasmed so hard she turned back into a blob
-----
"No you don't understand, aside from Kyle letting me spy last night I?ve had NOTHING to work with since you killed me." Danielle was still naked, floating between where Kyle was driving the bus and where Rick sat in the passenger side front row.
Kyle chuckled "You could have said something"
"and what, you kill a dildo so I can use its ghost?" Danielle retorted before a thoughtful look crossed her face and a large knotted dildo appeared in her hand. She had only just figured out manifesting clothes but now both males could see the gears turning as suddenly a whole world of opportunity opened before her.
She admired it for a second before waving it away "I?ll see you later. OK that doesn?t count."
Kyle couldn?t help but chuckle. "There are options."
"Would you please manifest some clothes" Rick said face still flushed at the girls antics. Then shifting his focus to Kyle he added "and you?re one to talk mister I?m not gonna say anything about being molested in my sleep"
"How many times do you want me to say it, the plan was to tease you until you did it again and maybe get some sort of casual sex thing going since you clearly needed it."
"Oh so it was entirely for my benefit then." Rick said, heavy on the sarcasm.
"OK so maybe I?m also a little touch starved and it was nice to be held. Go put me on a wanted poster is that?s so bad." Kyle huffed with a mix of faux irritation and real embarrassment. "OK gimme a sec so I don't get the bus stuck"
The canine focused on driving as they finally crossed into the ghost town they?d been headed toward for the past couple days. Approaching the backside of a row of building he maneuvered the bus down an alley between the towns saloon and what was left of the general store. He pulled forward so that the door was clear of the fronts of the building and the flat front just poked out into the main (only) street (line of slightly more well compacted dirt).
"All right, we?re here" he declared, popping the door open
"Wow, you weren?t kidding about this being a ghost town" Rick said looking around. There were at least a dozen buildings still standing, but not a single one was undamaged, all of them at least missing chunks out of the wall or suffering a caved in roof.
"This much time and zero maintenance will do that"
Danielle piped up "that one looks pretty good" she said indicating to the large church house dead center at one end of the main street "I?ll be honest, I didn?t think your hometown would have any Christians"
"It didn?t." Kyle made a dramatic flourish "I present to you The First Church of The Gospel of Our Lady of Pain. Make sure you sign the guest book and take a pamphlet"
"that is entirely too many ?of?s"
"Don?t look at me, I didn?t name it"
Rick raised a brow "It?s actually called that?"
"Yes actually, gimme a sec I gotta get dressed more appropriately." Kyle said climbing back into the bus. "On second thought, don?t sign the guest book, I think you?re both technically members already"
Rick raised his brow again, but even higher. "If you come out wearing some cultist robe shit I?m going back to killing you"
"HAH" came the reply amid the sound of rummaging on the bus followed by a more muted set of "where the fuck is it"s for a few minutes "HEY OFFICER, THEY EVER TEACH YOU HOW TO SHOOT A SINGLE ACTION?"
Rick walked over to the bus and stood just inside the sliding door on the first door step. "I know how to work a single action. Why?"
"You any good at it?"
"Enough to get invited to one or two cowboy action shooting matches. Didn?t place or anything but I got the basics."
"Good enough, catch." Rick barely had time to get his hands up before an old beat gun belt bearing a pair of Single Action Army Revolvers came flying over the seats and thudded into his chest causing him to stumble back out of the bus.
"Ow, what the fu..." the swear died on his lips as Kyle stepped back off the bus. He was wearing a black flat brimmed hat, had traded his usual sleeveless red duster for a proper unmodified one over a white cotton shirt, and this pair of black cotton pants were held up with suspenders. He wore a gun belt of reddish leather on which he had holstered a firearm of his own, although instead of a six shooter of some description he had a mares leg, a cut down lever action rifle, to which he had added a lever that had a larger hand loop.
Both Danielle and Rick were left speechless. Danielle recovered first "Did I miss a stop at spirit Halloween on the way here?"
"What, you don?t like my fashion sense?" Kyle couldn?t help but grinning as he passed a small box to Rick. "I recommend a cowboy load. I?ll tell ya from experience they will go off if ya smack the hammer an its sitting on a round."
Rick nodded, strapping on the gun belt and checking for clear and inspected each revolver in turn before he started loading the first, skipping over the second chamber in sequence so that when he was done the chamber under the hammer was empty while the others all held cartridges, a procedure he then repeated with the second. Keeping them pointed down the street until they were back in their holster. The whole affair clashed with his modern jeans and tee shirt, but the familiar ease shown in his weapon handling made the whole affair seem right.
Starting to move toward the church, Kyle pulled a similar box out of his own pocket and started thumbing them into the side gate at a surprising speed before spin cocking the rifle and adding one more. After returning it to its holster he caught Ricks look. "What now?"
"Whoever taught you to handle a gun did a miserable job with safety."
Kyle chuckled "Self taught, and it was a different time with different standards."
"Well if you shoot me on accident you better do some magic bullshit and fix it so i can blow your head off." As he started to move toward the church as well Rick lifted his arm and glanced at one of the holsters. "Wait, are these fucking antiques?"
"They weren?t when I acquired them them"
"Acquired?"
"Well the guy didn?t need them anymore."
Both his companions gave him a look
"Hey, he shot me first!"
The three walked/floated down the street towards the church in silence for a few moments, just listening to the sound of the wind and their own thought.
Eventually Danielle broke the silence "So why are we here?"
"What, I need a reason to visit my home town?"
"It seems pretty inconvenient to just pop by." Rick said.
"You got me there. It?s kinda just a general thing. I stop by periodically to keep an eye on the place, maintain my connection with it, keep myself from forgetting what almost happened, and pay my dues" Kyle?s face darkened as he recited the list.
The group resumed walking and in a few moments they reached the fence surrounding the church, it was simple, a short wall of white stone with bars of iron reaching up out of the top, connected. Each bar ended in a wicked looking head that would have seemed more at home on a spear. The gate was matching construction minus the stone and when Kyle pushed it it glided silently open instead of producing the rusted shriek rick had expected. To the left of the church was a small graveyard, a dozen or so headstones dotted around the somehow green grass. On the right hand side there was an old style water pump, a trough in which there were piled a handful of buckets, and a wooden wheelbarrow, all of which were still in great condition.
The white paint of exterior walls of the church likewise didn?t show a single sign of weathering or peeling, and the bell up in the steeple gleamed in the light like it had been freshly polished that morning. Two wooden steps lead up to the porch on the front side of the building, and it was upon the steps that Kyle sat down. He produced a beat up looking cigarette from somewhere and lit it with a palm full of black fire before talking a long drag. He didn?t smoke these days, but it was part of his ritual here.
Rick and Danielle had both stopped at the gate. It wasn?t just the weirdly unblemished state the place appeared in, it felt different. Somehow both of them could tell this was the border of something different.
Taking a deep breath before putting his head down with his arm up shielding it, Rick walked through that gate.
Immediately the vibe changed. The town had felt warm and inviting, the sun warming everything in a sorta cozy way. Despite the desert heat Rick realized it had somehow felt comfortable and he was barely sweating. He hadn?t recognized it until it was gone, but the town had felt welcoming.
Crossing the barrier into the church yard though, he couldn?t help but shiver. Despite that same desert heat he somehow now felt needles in his skin like he was freezing. That same cozy sunlight now felt sharp and hostile and he half expected to somehow cut himself on it. He was suddenly aware of just how many shadows there were around the place, and how they seemed deeper and dark than they reasonably could have been.
Danielle got it even worse, Immediately collapsing her image and fleeing over to Kyle, incorporeal for a frightened shade of gray.
"What is this place" Rick asked while looking around.
Kyle seemed more somber this time "The First Church of The Gospel of Our Lady of Pain."
Danielle pushed her form under Kyle's arm, too frightened to even question making physical contact. "I don?t like it here."
Kyle took another drag at his cigarette. The smoke he exhaled was dark and slightly prismatic like an oil slick and fell heavily to the ground before dispersing. "I would be worried if you did. This wasn?t a happy place." Kyle shook his head. "Even before what happened this was not a good place to be."
He looked up. "I think that?s enough tho. Y?all have now felt her presence. I?m gonna stay the night but y?all don?t need to be here if you don?t want to be. Its not gonna get better. Not by a long shot"
Danielle whimpered and pressed into his side but didn?t move even an inch toward the gate. Rick looked at his master, that part of their connection they had both been deliberately avoiding. He felt that master/slave relation pushing heavily on his mind. Every part of his normal being told him to leave, to just sleeping in the bus and wait for Kyle to finish whatever he was doing. But some other part of him, the new part of him that he?d been reckoning with the last couple nights, insisted he stay. His master was going to need him.
Rick nodded "I will stay, master." He hadn?t intended to say that last word, but somehow it slipping out hardly surprised him.
Kyle wasn?t thrilled to hear the decision or the title, but there was still time for minds to change.
Looking down at Danielle. "Just so you know, once things start you wont be able to leave. If you aren?t absolutely certain you should-"
Kyle stopped, amid the black of the fear her there formed a green core of resolve, he default form handily communicating her thoughts without any words. He knew she?d made her decision as much as Rick had.
"Fine." He took a final drag from the butt of his cigarette then incinerated it with another handful of hellfire. "Lets not keep The Lady waiting."
-----
While the outside of the church had looked like an unassuming small old west church, the inside most certainly did not. Rows of pews on either side of an aisle leading to a stand from which to speak, elevate about a foot and a half by a stage at the far end of the building. However there was no particular religious iconography from any religion. There was a cross depicted in the large stained glass window at the back behind stage, but it was depicted as laying on the ground at an angle, and it was an X shape. The scene was done in dark colors, purples and deep reds and dark browns. It depicted someone having spikes driven through their hands and feet for crucifixion but the scene itself was so abstracted and vague that the victim and their torturers could easily be anyone. The only thing rendered with detail were the large twisted nails, the wounds they left, and the bright streaks and puddles of blood, which were a bright almost glowing red and stood in stark eye catching contrast to the rest of the image.
The rest of the church was hardly better. Everywhere one looked there were more depictions of torture of all kinds and all finding creative ways to emphasize the pain and suffering they contained.
The trio walked in and Kyle shut the door behind them, immediately cutting the bright daylight?s intrusion into the space before he looked around. Everything was just as he remembered it, but no less unpleasant for it.
Danielle stood with them, her appearance back to that of the mortal deer she had once been and feet on the floor. She continued to press against Kyle while Rick stood a few steps back and off to the side.
At the pulpit stood a statue of a canine figure wearing a simple robe, appearing to be frozen in the middle of preaching, hood thrown back and mouth agape as he passionately spoke of pain. Laying on the stage to his right was a bound individual with a sack over his head. His uniform and badge proclaimed him to be the local sheriff's deputy. He had mostly just been the town?s barber until this had turned weird around town.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom Rick looked around and saw that Spread through out the pews were several dozen other figures, all with their heads bowed down and faces obscured by the hoods.
Kyle took a few steps forward, leaving Danielle. The deer wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Rick felt for her. He?d seen some awful stuff in his former life but there?s no way she could have been ready for this he thought. Then he realized he could hear Kyle mumbling. He strained his ears but he could only catch snippets as Kyle slowly moved toward the altar
"...seek your wisdom and pow...
"...dy of pain, tonight we off..."
"...in appreciation..."
"...at you demand of us..."
"...of your blood..."
"...that our suffering bri..."
"...ur servants..."
"...for your pleasure..."
As Kyle got further away he stopped being able to hear any of it, only an indistinct mumble.
Instead stopping in front of the preacher Kyle turned to one side and moved up a small pair of steps onto the raised floor from which he preached and moving behind him knelt before a small altar upon which rested a simple stone knife.
As Kyle finished a wind blew through the church house, cold and sharp as it snaked its way between the bowed statues. Rick and Danielle felt their ears strain, trying to hear whatever it held. Instead what they heard was "Shove it up your ass you fucking bitch, its not happening"
In the following quiet Rick and Danielle approached the stage, nerves causing them to move as slow as Kyle had.
Rick looked at the doe, her eyes darting wildly around as she held his arm, and once again felt sorry for her. "You shouldn't have come" he whispered, not in admonishment or accusation, but rather a general statement of fact.
The doe?s head snapped around to him at his voice. "Yes I should. I need to be here just as much as you."
That gave Rick pause. Need. The word stuck out to him. That was absolutely how he would describe his own feeling. He didn?t want to be here, or in this role, but he needed to be. "Why?"
She looked at him square this time, terror somehow forcibly put on hold. "Can?t you feel it?"
"I feel I need to be here for my master." Rick said, quietly placing heavy emphasis on the words. "I don?t know why."
For a moment Rick would have sworn Danielle was looking right
"Because you care. Because for whatever fucking reason he?s important to you. Because something bad?s going to happen to him and we can help." She sharply whispered, sounding more like an accusation than an answer.
"Why would-"
Kyle?s voice cut over their whispers, startling them. He was sitting on the edge of the stage near where they had stopped at the first row. "Why he come here to suffer?"
"Forgive me master, I meant no disrespect. Why give us the option to leave if our being here would make things easier."
"but also that other question." Danielle added, forcing herself to let go of Rick and restrain herself for immediately latching back on to Kyle
"I?m not in the habit of using people for my own benefit. As for the other thing, have you ever noticed that for someone who?s supposedly the avatar of pain I don?t really hurt people much? That I?m kinda really bad at my job?"
Rick thought about it and realized in the time he had know Kyle the only time he?d seen the canid hurt someone there had been outside interference.
Danielle had been with him longer, but after considering the question she also realized that nearly every case had been either consensual or deserved, and the rare time it was neither he was quick to use magic to dull or eliminate pain. "I guess, yeah. So what, this is like some sort of punishment for sucking at it?"
Turning to the side and kicking his legs up Kyle lay back on the edge of the stage. "Not even that, although guess you could look at it like that if you want. No, I just have to pay my bar tab."
"Master that doesn't make any sense"
"heh. Every spell, every action, has a cost. Most mortal magic users pay out of their own soul, spending its essence as energy to fuel magic. Some even take other people?s souls to use. There?s also those who deal with the supernatural, trading what they can for a gift of additional power to use. Those are the guys I usually end up chasing down when they eventually don?t want to pay. But me?" He held up his black arm, and began to dance a small amount of hellfire between his fingers. "I?m an avatar. Most of the things I do are beyond the reach of a regular mortal."
Danielle pushed her self up on to the edge of the stage, sitting on the edge next to where Kyle?s head rested on the dark stained wood "I?ve seen you take peoples souls. Heck, I asked you to take mine. And in two hundred years you probably got a lot so you have a lot of magic."
"A good theory but no. That rabbit we beat up would have needed hundreds more warehouses full of kidnapped souls on top of his pact before even getting into the ballpark of what I spend on a regeneration." He paused and let the hellfire ignite the fur between his index and middle finger. "Being an avatar I draw directly from my ?god?, for lack of a more biting term." He watched as the black fire spread, quickly burning away his fur and starting to char his flesh, the awful smell of burning hair and skin starting to fill the space.
Danielle started to reach for his burning paw.
"I wouldn?t" Kyle said, stopping her arm with his other hand and gently pushing it away.
"But master, if you are drawing from another powerful being then why would it cost you anything?"
"Because its not mine, and its not endless. Not really. Incredibly immense but not infinite. At the end of the day magic is basically another form of energy. It still has to come from somewhere. Souls grow it naturally through life experience, but the amount is small. So how do I repay this massive debt" He paused. The tips of the canines digits had fully burned now, and his claws fell away as clean white bone was exposed. "I serve pain. I am the avatar of pain. I can take pain and repurposed it, use it. It is with pain that I pay my debt."
Kyle extinguished the fire with a wave, in the process dislodging the bones of two completely burned fingers and leaving a third as stump ending at the knuckle. They scattered with a clatter, disappearing somewhere under the front row of pews. "This place is special. Its been ritually blessed as part of her domain. Here, healing damage requires next to nothing for anyone she has marked, so that they may tribute her more and for longer. Through your connections with me you are both marked."
Pushing himself back up to sitting. "I meant what I said earlier, about leaving. If you?re still here at sundown you?ll be pulled into what goes on and pay part of my debt. It going to be bad. It?ll be the worst thing you?ve ever experienced. I?m serious, you really should just go back to the bus for tonight"
"Not happening" "I?m not leaving master" Danielle and Rick spoke at the same time. Kyle saw that both of them were shaking slightly now, but their eyes were set hard. His own eyes began to water.
-----
The three sat together in an empty section of the seating, Kyle?s duster spread out over all of them to provide as much of a blanket as possible. He tried to enjoy the company and warm contact, but it was hard knowing what was coming for them.
"Seems silly for you to get dressed up for this" Danielle remarked.
"Habits die hard I guess"
"So why am I all alive now?"
"Do you want the complicated answer or will ?magic? suffice"
"Is there an in between option?"
"The magic in here is an extension of our patron, and she wants you in a body. Well, a close enough approximation of one. That form probably won?t last when we leave."
"The Mother of Thorns, Angel of Suffering, Primeval God of Pain, wants me to have a body?
"Seems so."
"Why"
"Probably best to not think on that"
"Ah"
-----
The last sliver of light cast by the stained glass disappeared as the sun slipped below the horizon. Then came a deep rumbling that seemed to shake the very earth, though nothing moved, before everything went deathly silent.
Reluctantly Kyle stood up, followed by his companions. He had meant to push them to leave again, but in his lightly dozing state he had lost track of time. He sighed. "That?s our cue." All three moved up to the stage again.
Moving to the small altar Kyle retrieved the knife that lay there. His knife. An artifact so intrinsically tied to his being that he could could remake or summon it no matter circumstance or distance.
It was a simple affair, a jagged shard of obsidian with a handle wrapped in leather that was at this point permanently stained darker with blood. At his touch it seemed to glow from within, a malicious crimson red.
"Don?t worry, I?m sure tonight you?ll get your fill."
The other two moved to stand behind him, and all three stood before the alter under the large stained glass, completely dark in the low light outside. It was a simple affair, really just a big stone block with some decorative cloth draped over each end and a circular depression about a foot diameter in the middle.
Even though it was pretty obvious what was coming, both his companions winced as Kyle took the blade and slowly drew it across his wrist, cutting cleanly to the bone. dropping the knife and bracing himself against the altar, he held out his arm and slowly a pool of blood filled the depression. When it was sufficient the stone drew back, revealing a set of stairs.
Looking back at his companions he said "Just remember, whatever happens down there won?t be anyone?s choice. We?re likely going to be made to hurt each other, but its important not to blame each other or yourself once we leave. The only person who?s fault this is is mine."
"I?m not going to blame you either"
"Nor will I master"
Kyle wiped his eyes with his arm as they started watering again. He didn?t deserve them, and they didn?t deserve what was coming. Then he took a deep breath and started down the stairs.
-----
Kyle hangs loosely from the metal frame too agonized to move, limbs all jagged and bent wrong from multiple breaks. Danielle brings the metal bat she?s holding down on his skull.
-
Rick moans as Kyle lifts the sledge hammer to finish driving a third railroad spike through his gut.
-
Danielle grins as she peels another thin layer of muscle from Kyle?s back with his own knife
-
Kyle?s body cooks as he drowns Rick in an endless lake of boiling oil.
-
Laughing Danielle pours a crucible of molten gold into Ricks forced open anus.
-
Two pairs of legs desperately kick as they hang, just barely out of reach from where a restrained Kyle is forced to watch
-
Kyle?s knife carves through Ricks penis a thin layer at a time, blood and seed continuing to flow long after it should have been depleted.
-
Kyle turns Danielle?s body on the spit as her head screams from a nearby platter. He knows she can feel all of it cooking.
-
And so it continues for what feels like all of eternity
-----
As the dawn broke Kyle was the first to wake. He found himself and his companions on cots in a small circular stone room, bodies fresh and unblemished, belongings in a neat pile at the foot of each. He recognized the shelter that was what was actually under the altar when pushed aside like normal.
Looking over at his companions the canine was crushed by a wave of overwhelming guilt. The memories of the night replayed violently in his mind. He should have pushed them harder to leave, even ordered them to. Why had he let them get involved. He cursed himself for falling asleep.
He pushed himself off the cot and grabbed his glasses off the pile of clothes and gear neatly folded under it. He began to move through the dark bunker. He needed to collect himself. He wouldn?t be any help when they woke up if he was just beating himself up, and right now that meant he needed distance and isolation.
He had no problem finding his way though the network of passages, studded with similar small rooms serving various purposes. It was a shockingly large structure that nobody would ever guess could be under the church. Theoretically the place could have held the entire town and enough supplies to last everyone a month, assuming the normal half of the town could be convinced to overlook everything this place was and did. After a few minutes he reached his goal. The ritual chamber.
The petrified sheriff and deputy still had their firearms raised as they eternally broke through the door, ambushing the nine cultists and so far in over their heads they weren?t ever aware of the danger. Eight cultists circled the altar, daggers frozen less than an inch from plunging into the missing centerpiece. A ninth cultist lay bent over the altar, petrified torso exploded outward by the shotgun?s pellets, head resting by the edge of the child sized divot in the altar?s center. His arm was still raised where he had attempted to continue despite the wound.
Kyle?s dagger appeared unbidden in his hand. It always did when he came here. It was fair he supposed. It was as connected to this place as he was. Not for the first time he found himself wondering if it had some sort of will of its own. He touched its tip to the imperceptibly small scar on chest, impossible to spot through his fur and difficult even if he shaved it. "I wonder, are you happy with how things turned out. Would you rather have plunged into my heart, completed sealing me away so that she could use my body? Or maybe it was your plan all along to nick me just enough to disrupt the spell matrix at its most vulnerable moment."
As usual the knife did not respond to his inquiries. He?d asked the inanimate blade those same questions so many times over the years and never once had it yielded an answer.
Kyle stepped into the ritual room and slowly walked the circle of cultists, looking each frozen face in turn. All of them were canines. In fact all nine were german shepherds, like him. He figured there was a pretty good chance that both his biological parents were in this room, forever frozen in the moment where they were going to sacrifice him to their beliefs.
He continued to pace circles around the ritual chamber, long after he normally would have stopped circling. He?d done this easily a hundred times and yet this was new. She?d requested he introduce his companions to her presence. He was a damn fool for obliging. He should have seen this coming. It was so obvious in retrospect that they would get dragging into his bullshit more than they already were.
He heard the click of hooves on stone and turned to see Danielle standing in the doorway, eyes downcast, right arm holding her left. Kyle?s stomach dropped. He squared his demeanor as much as he could. He was not ready for this, but he had to be there for her, especially since all of it was his fault.
He set the knife down on the altar and approached her, speaking as gently as he could. "Hey. I didn?t expect to see you up so early. Its a lot to recover from, I know, but you?re safe now. Come on, lets go find somewhere to sit that isn't quite so... culty" he waved generally at the room before he offered his hand for her to take. Danielle reached out, but drew away before grabbing it. She shook her head.
"Sorry, I can?t right now."
Kyle hid the flash of pain at her response, but not well enough to keep it from the deer. He?s trying so hard, Danielle thought, and I?m still hurting him. She felt sick. Kyle led her down one of the hallways to a kitchen type room with a simple table and bench as well as counters, cabinets, and a sink with another manual well pump.
She sat down at the table and watched Kyle out of the corner of her eye as he pawed through several cabinets. He had given her nothing but genuine kindness since they met, one of so very few people to ever do so. And she had hurt him. She had killed him. Repeatedly. Maliciously. It had felt great. Even thinking about it she felt sick again. And now, after what she had done here he was still still showing her nothing but concern.
There was the sound of clanking metal and running water, and she opened the eyes she hadn?t realized she?d squeezed shut to see a glass of water deposited in front of her before the canine dropped into the bench on the other side of the table. She could barely look at him.
"Hey. Drink, you?ll feel a bit better."
The deer numbly reached for the glass. How could he still be this nice to her. After she
"Danielle, come on, have a drink" Kyle?s voice broke through her thoughts and she took a sip of the cold water.
It wasn?t much, but it did enough to let her speak. "I?m sorry"
A look of confusion crossed the canine?s face. "You?re sorry? What could you possibly be sorry for?"
"Wha... For hurting you. For enjoying it. I killed you. I killed Rick. I tortured and killed you both so many times. And I wanted to. It felt so good. I wanted to do it. I wanted more." She realized she was shouting and she could feel the hot tears running down her face.
The canine moved back around the table and she closed her eyes, but the revenge never came. Instead the cup was pushed into her hands again.
"Come on. Deep breath. Then some water."
Danielle sniffled but did as she was told. Part of her wished he had been mad. She deserved it. She
"Danielle." Kyle?s voice again broke through her thoughts.
The canine hugged her. "Look, I?m fine. Rick?s fine. Whatever you felt down there that wasn?t you, isn?t you."
Blinking away her tears she looked at him "but I-"
"No listen to me. That?s what that place is. That?s how it works. What did I tell you before we went in?"
Danielle wracked her brain. That felt so long ago. Finally she said "That we were going to do bad things to each other?"
Kyle shook his head "I told you that it wasn?t going to be your choice. And to not blame yourself or Rick. That place causes pain every way it can, not just with broken bones and sharp things. If it felt good to you, that?s because that?s what hurt."
His words made sense. If only she could believe them. But she knew it wasn?t true. Not completely.
"Its over now. You don?t have to let it keep hurting you. It was just a bad dream." Kyle hugged her tighter. "I?m so sorry. You never should have had to go though that. But its over now"
"Yeah..."
-----
Kyle walked back to the room where the cots were. Danielle had requested some time alone to think. He wasn?t happy to leave her by herself, but if that was what she needed.
He paused outside the doorway. He heard movement. His faint hope that the lizard at least might still be asleep vanished. As he stood there, the sound changed.
The walking stopped, there was the creak of a cot, and then came several slick noises along with a huffing and a low moan.
Kyle continued hesitating at the doorway. Startling and embarrassing the lizard as he masturbated would be a terrible idea right now. He couldn?t see how Rick could be horny right now, but if that was how he coped then it was better to let him be for the moment. He peeked around the corner
Rick had moved over to the cot Kyle had been on, was laying on his side, head on the pillow. One hand was between his legs, teasing his slit as his slick member started to push out. It was a little weird but would have been passable had the lizard not also been crying as he held Kyle?s underwear to his nose.
Kyle pulled back around the corner. He already knew that beyond the magical master/slave thing he had been determined not to push that the lizard had acquired some sort of fixation on him. They?d had a chance to discuss it the morning before getting into town but they hadn?t really gotten to the root of things but Rick had seemed able to accept his new reality and sudden interest in Kyle despite his being straight relatively calmly once he had slept and had a chance to process.
Clearly, Kyle thought, I was mistaken.
The canine didn?t like using their connection. He felt people were entitled to the privacy of their own thoughts. But most people also weren?t masturbating while huffing his worn underwear and crying.
The canine sat down in the corridor, back pressed against the cool stone of the wall. He concentrated, pulling on the link between his metaphysical being and Rick?s, entering his mind. He was careful to keep it one way so the lizard didn?t notice any feeling from him. He was washed over with the lizards awareness. He could smell the scent of his crotch in the clothing item, interpreted lustily by the lizards mind, he could feel the sensation of the lizards stimulated genitals. But overwhelmingly he felt need, surrounded by confusion and fear. Need for him, wrapped up in still not really knowing why and fear of what it made the lizard want. Fear of what it meant for who he was.
Kyle pushed in, exploring the feelings. The lizard needed him, but he needed something more from him than just being around him or having sex with him. He turned over the feelings, examining it, trying to find what more there could be. Then Rick?s surface thoughts caught his attention. Looking into it, Kyle expected to find just a normal sex fantasy between himself and the lizard, maybe involving some fetish the lizard had given the situation.
What he absolutely did not expect was to find the memories of what had just happened that night from Rick?s perspective, focused solely on the ones where Kyle hurt him.
Watching was it?s own form of torture, but he saw and felt the aching memory of that large blunt spike being driven into his torso, and he could feel Rick?s dick twitch each time the hammer drove it deeper. Kyle felt the burn of the memory of a brand on his naked ass, and how much pleasure it brought him knowing he was forever his masters despite how much it hurt. Felt the memory of how proud Rick was when Kyle told him he was doing a good job as Rick shoved his arm into the meat grinder while the canine turned the crank. Kyle shared the memory of Rick's ecstasy, cumming endlessly as the memory version of Kyle carved his dick off a little at a time.
And then it was a slightly older memory, altered into fantasy. This time at the diner the canine stood behind Rick. This fantasy version of the canine began to slowly cut his throat but also started to whisper in the fantasy lizards ear. That he would never be free. That the canine owned him fully now. The feeling of the blade itself was the same as it was in canine?s own memory, but much stronger without any familiarity to take the edge off and tinged erotic. Along side all of it was that fear and need.
The fantasy continued, completely into fiction now. His imagined counterpart picking up the lizards completely removed head and opened its mouth. Leaning back on the bench at the diner table the fictional Kyle began to pump the head up and down, using it as a sex toy before forcing his knot past the lizards lips and exploding. The fantasizing lizard imagined what the cum dripping from his exposed windpipe would feel like.
He was sitting in the corridor, pressed against the stone wall. It all made sense now. He knew what Rick needed, why it scared and confused him that he wanted it. And unsurprisingly, thought the canine, I?m to blame for that too.
-----
Rick lay on his master?s cot breathing hard. He folded the underwear back in half and reached down, setting them back on top of the clothing pile. He looked down at the floor where his climax had sprayed. He?d stopped crying a while ago.
His master had been outside the door, he knew. The canine didn?t want him to know, but had gotten sloppy while looking in on his thoughts. Rick guessed this was it. His master knew what kinda freak he?d become. He hadn?t really even known himself until now, but everything had felt so good last night. It hadn?t really. It had been the worst pain he?d ever been in. But he?d enjoyed it anyway somehow.
And as if that weren?t bad enough, there had been the other thing. It had been incidental to the proceedings, not part of the pain, but for him at least it was the most critical thing about what had happened. He couldn?t understand the joy, the purpose being his master?s slave had been. That wasn?t how it was supposed to work.
Was that who he was now? A masochist and a slave, content and even proud to be used?
He tried to get angry. It used to come so easy. But now he lay there internally straining and couldn't produce even the slightest flicker of rage toward the canine or the situation
Rick lay there, scent of his master still faint in his nose from the cot and pillow. He was forced to admit that he didn?t hate any of this. At first he?d thought that he?d lost the ability. But he?d snapped at Danielle when she?d flashed him, he?d yelled at his master in anger when the dog hadn?t had any answers about what was happening to him. He just, wasn?t mad about any of this.
With that realization he felt lighter. A tension he?d been holding finally let go. He?d always been so angry, so mad at the world and everything in it. He had hated so much, used anger as his sword and his shield so often that it had become second nature.
But his life had changed, and he found that he just didn?t need it. For the first time things felt right.
Getting up off the cot, Rick slowly approached the doorway, but sticking his head out he saw his master was gone. He threw on his clothes as well as the gun belt. He needed to find his master, they needed to talk.
-----
Moving through the halls, what Rick found instead was Danielle looking miserable seated at the table in a small kitchen area.
Her head was down, fingers interlaced behind it, elbows resting on the table. In front of her were the broken remains of a glass. The largest piece was sitting to the side, edge marked crimson.
Blood dripped down Danielle?s left arm from a handful of fresh cuts. She reached for the glass shard, but it wasn't there. Looking up she saw that Rick was sitting across from her, examining the broken piece. "Now I?m pretty sure that Kyle would be upset seeing you do that despite how you met."
The deer?s ears folded back. "I wanted to hurt him"
Rick tossed the shard on the table in front of her "Well if that?s what you want, I think you?re on the right track"
Her fingers touched the piece of glass where it lay on the table and she blanched, knocking it away instead.
"I thought so."
"You don?t get it." said Danielle miserably.
"Try me."
She looked Rick in the face. He seemed serious.
"I enjoyed it. Kyle said that wouldn?t be us, but it was. At least a small part of it. Maybe it made it made it stronger when it took control, but I know that at least some of it was just me."
"It made you see a part of yourself you don?t like."
"Yes. I don?t want to hurt anyone. Especially not Kyle. But at the same time I do. Even now the idea of cutting him instead feels..." she didn?t finish
"OK"
"OK? That's it? OK?" Danielle looked at Ricks face for any other reaction.
"If everybody who had a part of themselves they didn?t like did that" he waved at her wrists "the world would be pretty empty."
"But I want to hurt people. I?m awful. A terrible person."
Rick leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, ignoring the tiny piece of glass that crunched under the left one. "One thing I learned as a cop is: everybody has the capacity for violence. There is nobody on earth who won?t hurt another given the right circumstance. The important difference is why and how you handle it."
"but-"
Rick held up a hand "Let me finish. I hurt a lot of people as a cop. Sometimes I enjoyed it, most of the time I felt nothing about it, it was just easier than whatever other option there was. The idea of hurting people or actually doing it never bothered me. Most of the others were the same. Same for most of the career criminals. The person being hurt simply didn't matter. THAT makes you a bad person. That?s not you. You?re a good kid. I can see it in you, the mas- Kyle definitely sees it in you. If you weren?t, forcing you to enjoy it wouldn?t have been an effective torture, and you wouldn?t be here now broken up about it."
"OK but I?ve also killed Kyle before when we first met, and I liked that too"
Rick grinned at her "And did you do something like stab him in his sleep, or were you perhaps playing with his immortality with his permission?"
"I... the second one, but it still hurt him"
"With his permission. So you?ve got a small sadistic streak in you, so what. We cant help what we enjoy." Rick paused, his own situation running through his mind, hand unconsciously rubbing his neck "We really really can?t. But you care, you feel bad if you?ve done something wrong. I suspect you try to make amends if its possible. And bonus, lucky you, you?ve somehow landed in a position where you have people you can explore that part of you with without any harm. Well, any permanent harm. You?re not bad. You are, however, a giant pervert" Rick grinned at her and gave her a wink at the last bit.
"Thanks." Danielle gave him a weak smile "Ya know, you barely seem like the same guy who would only grunt at me, like, what, three or four days ago"
"You?re not the only one learning about themselves"
-----
Kyle stood in the middle of the void. Before him stood a figure, alabaster white and smooth, limbs long and sharp and ending in a single point. What would be its head was smooth and featureless. The simple geometry from which it appeared to be made contrasted heavily by how wrong it was.
<IT IS RARE FOR YOU TO CALL TO US DIRECTLY CHILD>
"Cut the bullshit. I?m not in the mood. What do you want from me? Why are you interfering now?"
<WE?RE AFRAID WE DON?T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN>
"Nearly two hundred years you mostly leave me alone, and now suddenly I?ve got a thrall undergoing an identity crisis after being traumatized out of himself, suddenly you want to meet my familiar and ask me to bring her here. A familiar I acquired after she somehow finds a real, if completely amateur, book of magic. Suddenly two people who I care ab- who I am responsible for are throwing themselves headfirst into torture no mortal should endure." He paused and took a breath.
"I may not operate on your level but I hardly stupid. A suicidal young adult with abusive parents happening to find an amateur spell book I probably would have just written off as happenstance, but in the same time span I just happen to get killed by a man who you then thrall, place under my control, and then a bum turn of fate just happens to turn a practical demonstration into a life altering experience, which is only further exacerbated when I stupidly let them get involved here. Its not exactly the most discreet work now is it?"
<IF ANYONE ELSE SPOKE TO US THUS WE WOULD REND THEIR VERY SOUL UNTO OBLIVION>
"Do us both a fucking favor then." the canine growled
<WE WILL NOT>
<YOU AMUSE US AND WE HAVE OTHER PLANS FOR YOU>
"Oh joy and bloody rapture. And those are?"
The laughter did not manifest as audible sound, instead leaving the canine with a thousand thin cuts of varying depths, as though he had fallen into a barrel of razor blades.
His blood fell away into the nothingness as the cuts did not heal.
<TELLING WOULD SPOIL THE FUN>
"Well then tell me something else. Why? Why after all this time have you arranged fate to bring two souls under my care only torture them in front of me. If you want my pain then there are easier ways. Its not right that they suffer for my burdens. And whatever fucking mystery plan you have I?m not going to play ball if it hurts people I care about"
The second bout of laughter was much longer and more intense, leaving the canines skin and fur torn to shreds, living muscle and bone exposed over a great deal of his body. It hurt to move, to breath.
<OH CHILD, DO YOU NOT SEE>
<YOU ARE, AS YOU SO ELOQUENTLY PUT IT, BAD AT YOUR JOB>
<SO NOW THAT YOU HAVE HAD TIME TO ADJUST TO MATTERS ETHEREAL WE HAVE SIMPLY PROVIDED YOU SOME TRAINING AIDS>
"Go fuck yourself, I?m not hurting them for you." The canine rasped.
This time the laughter left just a broken bleeding mess nearly unrecognizable as having once been a person.
<YOU WILL HURT THEM FOR YOURSELF>
<YOU STILL HAVE MUCH TO LEARN>
<PLAY WITH YOUR NEW FRIENDS, THEY MIGHT JUST SURPRISE YOU>
<AND REMEMBER, FOR YOU AND YOURS THAT PAIN AND MAGIC ARE ONE AND THE SAME>
-----
The void receded and Danielle rushed into the room with a shriek. It was a simple unused store room walls barren and floor empty. The cry echoed round the space. Rick rushed in hot on her heels.
Landing on the floor with a bloody splat, the oozing pile that was what was left of Kyle began to shift and move, on hold regeneration finally starting. However the process was slow. Slower than either had ever see it.
"I?m gonna kick that bitches ass" Danielle was absolutely furious. "Forget what I said about not wanting to hurt people, she?s gonna pay."
"You and me both, but the crusade on the heavens is going to have to wait." Rick leaned in closer to the remains, despite the sight and smell making him gag. "Somethings not right. Master Kyle is barely recovering." He said straightening back up
Then as they both stared all signs of recovery completely stopped.
Danielle frantically paced back and forth "What do we do?"
"I don?t know"
Both startled and whipped around as there was a clattering noise in the doorway. On the ground, just inside the door frame, was an all too familiar blade.
Pacing over, Danielle picked up the obsidian blade. It surprised her just how comfortable and familiar it felt in her hand.
Rick looked at her. "You aren?t thinking what I think you?re thinking."
Looking back Danielle said "I think I am"
"That?s insane. Neither of us knows the first thing about any of this"
"No, but consider what the bitch said."
"Yeah, pain is magic, I got that far."
"No stupid, the other stuff. Think about it. She wants Kyle to hurt us. Kyle doesn?t want to hurt us. I don?t know about you but I?m not particularly opposed to the idea, although from what she said I think you might be the same. So she gets us to hurt each other to get him over it"
"It can?t be that simple" Rick said, nevertheless starting to strip back out of the clothes he was wearing.
"Is it? Like Kyle Said, Ms Made of Building Blocks hardly seems like the subtle type"
A breeze blew through the underground compound carrying the faintest suggestion of approval and razor sharp laughter.
Rick gave a small smile "I guess that means you?re on the right track. Where do you wanna start?"
Danielle shrugged "Where ever is good"
"Well how about a we start with something small and recoverable. Trust but verify, right?"
Danielle nodded "Makes sense." Then she glanced at the still present cuts on her arm. "Seems like we?re on our own for recoverable though."
She gripped the edge of the blade with her left hand and quickly pulled the knife down.
"MOTHER FUCKER! OW. Why do they always do that in the movies. That would have hurt less literally anywhere else."
"Well the pains the point. Look"
What remained of Kyle saw a brief bout of activity, the faintest impressions of organs appearing in places.
"Yeah but there?s pain pain and then there?s sexy pain."
Rick cocked an eyebrow at her
"Oh shut up. I heard you moaning like a whore last night."
Rick held his hands up "Fair. Cut me some slack, this is all brand new to me"
"Well then newbie," Danielle said flipping the knife and completely catching the wrong end "Ow fuck, why don't you drag a couple of the cots down here while I see what else I can find to work with"
"Yes ma?am. Do you want me to hang onto that before you injure yourself again?"
"Thanks, but I think I got it now. I?ve grown rather attached" Danielle held up her hand showing the knife now embedded in her palm with half sticking out the other side
-----
They ended up not dragging the cots from the room where they awoke, which turned out to be at the opposite corner of the space, and opted instead for raiding a nearby room full of a towns worth of blankets, layering enough of them on the floor that it was comfortable to sit on for a bit, and a pile more nearby to be wadded up as pillows.
"or possibly used to staunch some bleeding. I don?t know about you, but I think we should avoid outright killing each other, at least without adult supervision" Rick had added lightly when they found them, tearing one into strips, a few of which had been used to stuff and bandage Danielle's hand. that they then used to pack.
Danielle started to remark she was already dead, but then realized she still didn?t really know what the deal with this temporary body was. Was she still dead right now? Could she double die? "Agreed"
Other things that had procured included 2 cutlery drawers from the kitchen, A tool box with a bunch of older (possibly modern at the time) hand tool, a few random gardening tools, a wooden chair, half a dozen buckets of water each with a couple gallons, a couple bottles of grain alcohol for disinfectant they could use as disinfectant if necessary, a coil of rough rope, and a small pile of candles, though Danielle had said they were the wrong type. They'd also grabbed Kyle's clothes
Danielle looked over the setup and nodded, proud of the little play area they?d gotten together on short notice. She sat down on the blanket, Rick moving to join her.
"So how do you wanna do this?" She asked
"What do you mean? Now We just hurt each other til master finishes healing right?"
"I was thinking at least a safe word?"
"I... That somehow seems both incredibly practical and entirely pointless."
"I know what you mean. Pineapple good?"
"Pineapple. OK. That?ll work" Rick shrugged
"Two other big questions." Danielle could see Rick was shaking slightly, though she couldn't tell if it was nerves or fear or excitement. "First. Do you wanna be on the end dishing it out or taking it first. Figure we?ll end up trading off unless you have a strong preference."
"I... uhh... I guess I?ll take it first if it doesn?t bother you" Even after everything that had happened Rick surprised himself.
"Heh go figure."
"You don?t have to do this you know. You seemed pretty bothered by it before."
"Thanks, but I?m good I promise. Besides, its different. This is for Kyle."
"Yeah, I guess its funny how it worked out that way. You said there were two questions?"
Danielle blinked "Oh right. Other question is are we fucking or not."
If he had been drinking he would have done a spit take. As it was he choked on the air and spent several second coughing. "Sorry, don?t know why I wasn?t expecting that. Yeah sure. Sounds good. OOF."
The last bit came as Danielle sprung at him with surprising speed, pushing him from sitting to lying down with her on top. pinning both his wrists together above his head with one hand.
"Wow, aggressive much?"
"Boy you have no idea. Whatever Kyle did to me its done nothing to reduce my sex drive and everything to prevent me from dealing with it. And then you to got me all stirred up."
"I?ve seen you masturbate."
"Yeah, once! In like over a week! I used to do multiple a day! Now shut up." With the Danielle leaned down and began to kiss him gently at first but as he began to relax and surrender She rapidly became more forceful and even biting at him a little
Danielle sat back and felt something warm on her ass. She wiggled back a bit, full catching his emerging member between her ass cheeks.
"Ooh hello. I take it that means you?re ready"
Rick nodded.
"Good, then get to work."
"What do you- oh." Rick watched as Danielle turned around, lifted her hips and planted herself firmly on his face. Dutifully he got to work, sucking and licking at Danielle?s cunt
"Good boy" she purred. reaching to the side, she snagged the corner of one of the cutlery drawers and dragged it closer.
Rick couldn't see what was going on but he heard metal clinking as Danielle rummaged through the drawer before stopping "That?ll do."
Rick wondered what she had grabbed. He hadn?t expected to go straight to the tools they found. He didn?t have to wait long before finding out what was in store for him. The deer rained a flurry of blows down on his stomach with a meat tenderizer. With each impact rick let out a grunt and it wasn?t long before his abs ached fiercely.
Satisfied with her start Danielle ran the head of the wooden hammer up the side of his shaft, which twitched and already beaded with pre. Pulling his shaft up against his body with her free hand, Danielle gave a half doze hits to his testicles, using nowhere near the force she had on his abs but still drawing a pained groan from the lizard that vibrated amazingly in her crotch. They had just started but she was already close.
She lifted off Ricks face. It was too soon. Rick panted for air and ran his hands over his abs. The red of his coloring was now showing some yellow and purple, and he knew the whole thing would be a massive bruise later.
"Tag in?" Danielle offered
In a few moments they had repositioned and grabbed a few things. Rick sat in the chair with Danielle now lain across his lap, ass up. Grabbing the large wooden spoon that had inspired them, he brought it down across Danielle's rear with a thwack, making her squeal slightly.
"Why don?t you count them off" Rick ?suggested?
"one"
whack whack whack whack whack. The hits came in rapid succession
"two three four five six seven" Danielle squealed as she tried to keep up and count.
Rick bonked her lightly on the head with the spoon. "Wrong." He said before hauling back and delivering a thunderous slap to her rear. "That?s seven"
Setting the spoon down on her back for a moment Rick grabbed her burning ass with both hand and gave it a squeeze, eliciting a different type of squeal from the doe. He enjoyed pulling on her ass cheeks, spreading them apart and squeezing them together. It almost seemed like with enough practice he might be able to play the doe like a musical instrument from the range of noises this caused the doe to make.
After a minute or so he released the doe?s reddened ass, pulled back and delivered a hand-on blow to the deer?s ass.
"I don?t hear counting."
"Eight"
Slap Slap Slap Slap slap Slap SLAP
"Nine Ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen FUCK F-fifteen"
The doe?s eyes were watering and her stinging ass felt like it was on fire. Se was also so very very wet and couldn?t stop rubbing her thighs together. Rick reached his hand between her legs but had barely brushed her clit before she came, tensing up and then releasing with a shout leaving her slightly twitching on the lizards lap.
"Fuck, I needed this"
-----
The two were taking a short break, multiple folded up blankets providing cushion to the deer?s ass.
"The Master?s still not recovering very fast." Rick observed
"No."
They?d both avoided checking before now, It wasn?t the most pleasant sight in the world. Things were starting to take shape, but at the pace they were going it would still be quite a bit of time before it got anywhere.
"I don?t know about you but I doubt I can keep going that long."
"No." Danielle?s face was a portrait of worry and contrasted sharply against her earlier elation.
"So what now?"
"I don?t know. I thought I had figured it out." Said the downcast doe.
Rick thought. "You did. The way I see it we have a couple options. One is we just keep doing what we?re doing and plan to be here for a while. We?ll get there eventually"
Danielle looked at him dubiously.
"Or we could find some people and drag them down here to torture them."
"RICK!"
"What, just saying its an option."
"Well even setting aside how monstrous a suggestion that is, we?d have to make it back to civilization, capture people, evade the authorities, and somehow find this place again. Assuming I don't just vanish when this body unravels."
"OK when you say it like that it sounds like a stupid idea"
"Yeah I wonder why." If they had served sarcasm instead of pain the amount Danielle injected into that particular phrase would have solved all their issues.
"Well, third option I can think of is we turn things up a notch or three."
Danielle considered it "We?d have to go pretty hard. No lasting injury would be right out the window."
"Well you just said you can?t leave, and I?m not leaving you or Master Kyle behind. So either we pace it out and hope we make it before starvation or exhaustion takes one of us out and that there?s no time limit on this, or we abandon sanity and you get as close as you can to killing me as you can without actually doing it. Your call."
"Yeah. Wait why is it my call, WAIT! Why only you?"
"Cause I?m game but I'm not going to push you into something you aren?t on board with, and because like you just said we don?t know if you can survive that body falling apart right now."
"But I might kill you for real!" Danielle was beyond distraught, she could not believe what she was hearing
"It?s a risk" Rick shrugged "But it?s one I?m OK with. Against all odds this has the past couple days with you guys have been some of the best of my life. But like I said, we could also keep on as we were, slow and steady"
"I... I?m gonna take a quick walk and think"
"Sure" Rick said kindly "take your time"
-----
Danielle didn?t know how but she somehow ended up back at the ritual chamber where she had met Kyle. What was functionally BDSM didn?t bother her, and she could have tolerated some lever of abuse even. She was unfortunately familiar, having been her dad?s plaything growing up. Its how she had ended up with Kyle in the first place, looking for escape from that monster.
She looked at the tableau in front of her. She?d been too in her own head to look properly before. She knew the basics from talking to Kyle, but somehow seeing it was an entirely different thing. They really had been mere inches away from ritually sacrificing him.
He?d never mentioned they were all family as well.
She could see it in their features. Two distinct families, both of which he resembled. It had to be entirely immediate family tree in this room. And they had been ready to throw him away.
She realized Rick was right. It wasn?t just hurting someone that made you a bad person. It was everything around it. How and why and what you did afterwards. Her dad had been a bad person. These cultists had been bad people.
Kyle though, he was not. He wasn?t perfect but he tried. He deserved better. And right now she could help.
Rick said he was OK with the risks and seemed to mean it. She would be doing it to help Kyle. She would enjoy it she had no doubt. But it wasn?t for her own benefit at someone else?s expense. Not like Kyle?s family. Not like Rick used to with the other cops. Not like her dad.
Kyle?s knife was in her hand. Danielle gripped it tight. She realized she'd made her decision.
-----
Rick was laid out on the blanket?s when the blonde doe came back. It was easier on his sore stomach. Although, he supposed, that was actually kind of counter productive. Not that a mild ache would have accomplished much.
He didn?t need to ask. Even if she hadn?t had his master?s knife he could see it in her face. He stretched out, several joints popping. She dropped down next to him.
"I?m going to enjoy it. I shouldn?t, but I am."
"You aren?t doing anything wrong, I literally asked for this. Don?t torment yourself for having a little fun with it." He raise his arms about his head continuing the stretch.
"Thank you Rick" she whispered
"Hey don?t ment- ah" the words died on his lips.
Pulling back Kyle?s knife, Danielle reached up and drove it through both of Ricks palms, the blankets, and into the stone floor pinning both his hands in place quite effectively. Rick groaned loudly. Already this was on a whole different level to a bruised up stomach.
"I will never not be amazed at how ridiculously sharp that thing is. Rick? You still there?"
The lizard grunted and took deep breaths. After another couple seconds he looked back up at Danielle
"Yeah. I?m OK (ouch) well not really but you know what I mean." He winced, fighting the instinct to start pulling his arm to try and free himself. Every slight movement of his hands sent a fresh wave of agony coursing up his arms.
Danielle looked over the lizard. For all her thinking about it she hadn?t actually thought about what she was going to do. Mulling it over she looked around at the tools they had brought. The concerns they had had while setting up seemed almost silly now.
She grabbed a handful of the candles. As she had noted before, they were just regular candles, not the low melting point ones you were supposed to use for sex. Setting them in a row she lit each one in turn, getting them started on melting.
Considering the tools available again, she got an idea. in the large tool box were a couple large spikes that each a ring on the end. It said log dog on the side, but she had no idea what they were used for. Suddenly though they seemed very useful. Grabbing one and a large hammer, she moved to one side of the lizard just past the edge of the blanket. "I shoulda had you do this before we started"
Rick didn?t respond, watching her activity with pained curiosity.
Imagining the angles in her head, she eventually found where she wanted it, placed the spike on the floor and oriented its large eyelet, and then hit it with the hammer.
It compliantly sunk an inch into the floor without kicking up any rock chips.
"OK so either I?m suddenly the hulk or something?s up with the floor."
Rick grunted "Given what this place is for I, fuck, I would not be surprised if something were helping you"
"Or someone" Danielle murmured as she hammered the log dog into place, then moving around to ricks other side and repeating the process.
Then grabbing the rough rope she looped it around Rick ankle and ran it through the eyelet, giving it a yank that pulled ricks left leg to the side. Grabbing the other end of the rope she mirrored it, yanking is other leg to the right, leaving him exposed.
The green and red lizard squirmed a little, readjusting how he was laying on his tail which was currently trapped under his back, but stopped just as quickly as his trapped hands protested any movement in his shoulders. His eyes followed the lines of the ropes and doing the same mental geometry the doe had earlier he realized that she would be able to force him into full splits and possibly further when she pulled.
She pulled.
Rick's hand screamed at the forced movement, but soon his legs took center stage. His flexibility was limited at the best of times. and its was all too soon that his legs reached the end of their comfortable movement.
Danielle grinned and kept pulling on both ropes, hooves finding ample purchase as she stepped back, hauling on the ropes.
Rick could feel the pull in his inner thighs as the strain of a stretch they had never worked up to kept increasing. He was sure something was going to rip.
Danielle stopped and tied the ropes off, careful not to give even and inch of slack.
Rick alternated between grunts of pain and heavy panting. If he thought moving had hurt before now even the slightest shift felt like it would tear something. Danielle knelt down beside his head.
"Hey" She said softly
"Hey" Rick grunted back
"You?re sure about this? Last chance before we start causing real damage?" A look of genuine concern on her face replacing the sadistic grin she?d had just moments ago.
Rick started to give a sarcastic reply about his hands, but he involuntarily tensed up and was left groaning and breathing hard for a few moments. Danielle was just about to pull the plug on the whole thing when he finally managed to nod "I?m sure. Do it.''
The blonde doe nodded, he pink highlights catching the candlelight. Neither had questioned how they could see in the gloom down here without them, but now the flickering orange light lent the whole thing an intense ambiance.
When she moved over to the cutlery drawers, crawling instead of standing to walk the couple feet, Rick caught a glimpse of her nethers. And as she shifted to the tools after not finding what she was looking for he got the full display.
And holy shit was she soaked. In spite of (or possibly because of) his predicament this cut right through the pain and by the time she had turned out he was fully erect and rock hard.
She giggled, toying with the large bowie knife she had found "Pretty dangerous thing to be bringing out right now, don't you think?"
Ironically Rick was the one who looked like a frozen deer caught in the headlights of the car speeding towards it. "Oh god" he croaked hoarsely with equal levels of excitement and fear.
Danielle approached between his legs, legs straddling his hips. Without waiting she lowered herself onto him, and in one fell swoop she had his entire length buried inside, horny need overwriting any discomfort from lack of adjustment or stretching.
The added weight on his hips did nothing to ease the pull in his thighs. Danielle rocked back and forth a bit, grinding against him. She toyed with the tip of the knife on his belly but for now did not press or draw blood. She had to admit, part of her was envious of the lizard's position. Sure she had her new found pleasures, but that hardly erased her own masochistic tendencies.
Placing both hands on his stomach to brace herself, Danielle raised her hips and began to ride him properly. Part of her considered saving her energy, but that part of her was quickly hushed and locked in a cage shoved into the back corner of her mind.
The mix was overwhelming for Rick. The deer was tight and wet and intensely hot inside. Probably one of the best lays he'd ever experienced. On the other hand, every bounce yanked against that already impossible strain in his inner thigh. His moans mixed with increasingly loud groans that quickly increased in volume and pitch to shouting, and then as the inevitable tear finally happened, screaming.
Danielle felt it happen. Suddenly the taut ropes gained a bit of slack and Rick's legs move a few degrees toward his head. Even with out his screams she knew they'd cross the thresh hold, and she nearly came again already. As it was she kept riding him, each bounce widening the tears in the muscle and pulling at everything that still held.
Then she slammed down on him as hard as she could, burying him deep inside her. She didn't know if it was her imagination or not but she thought she might have even felt the lizards taped length pushing through the inner barriers into her womb. Was that a thing that could happen or had she just read too much porn. As she sat she drew a deep line across Rick's belly, not deep enough to open him up, but a deep and long cut that would require stitches in any normal circumstance. The pitch or Rick's screams fluctuated in response. She hit him across the jaw with the knifes pommel, his head turning roughly to the side. His screams turned hoarse and gurgling. She waited and after a few moments more they lowered, although that could have just been a lack of energy. Head still to the side Rick spit out a gob of blood and two teeth.
She could also feel him throbbing inside her. She was sure that his tapered tip had pushed through her cervix and into her womb. Looking down as she sat on him, she got an idea. It was absolutely insane, but then again so had been everything else. This might be pushing the remaining limits they had, but once the idea crossed her mind she knew she had to try it.
Flipping the large blade around with a smooth flourish, she drove it into her own belly and yanked to the side before the pain could hit. Her scream echoed off the bare walls louder than Ricks had, but she avoided doubling over. Rick was in too much pain to ask her what the hell she was doing, and so only watched as he watched one of her hands dive into the wound.
Then he felt it.
Despite Danielle remaining stationary he felt her vagina squeeze around his dick then begin to move up and down. More down than up. He felt himself being forced deeper into the deer. There was something ridiculously tight just past his tip as well.
Danielle pushed and pulled, slowly forcing more and more of her victims dick up into her womb. She was ecstatic, the knowledge of what she was doing alone enough to let her push through what should have been crippling pain. She dropped the bloody knife on ricks chest and stuffed her other hand into her abdomen as well. She could feel every throb and twitch of the lizards member as she played with herself from the wrong side. She felt him tense up and push down as hard as she could, pushing he organ down so far that a bump raised on the back of her womb as the dick inside it bottomed out. All of it hurt so good, the ache from her forced open cervix to the sting of nerve ending contact on the wound to the twisting wrongness of things moving in ways they never should. Both parties came hard, Rick flooded her inner chamber with a guaranteed pregnancy had there been any chance of an intact survival for her. On top of him she shuddered and quaked, hand coming out of her stomach and back to bracing on him, leaving bloody hand prints on his bruised abdominal muscles.
Both stayed like that for a while, panting and twitching, taking a moment to recover. After a minute Danielle flopped backwards, rick popping free from her in a flood of cum stained pink with blood. Slowly catching her breath Danielle began to laugh.
``Holy shit. I cannot believe I did that. Can't believe how amazing that felt.'' She winced as she poked at the massive bleeding gash across her belly, various organs threatening to posh their way free as soon as she sat up. ``Oh man, that's a lot of damage. Guess its all or nothing now.''
Rick forced himself to breathe slowly in and out, calming his racing heart. ``What the hell were you thinking? Did you forget that we don't know what you can survive right now?'' He sounded angry.
Danielle raised her head, looking across where her legs were draped over his to see his face. ``Yeah, and I might kill you on accident. Why do you get to be the only potential martyr?''
``That's different.'' He didn't know how to articulate that it was OK because it was him.
``It's not.''
Both heads snapped over to where Kyle's remains had been. The canine slowly pushed himself up to sitting.
``Neither of you... never mind. Let's just get out of here'' Kyle's face was a dark cloud of emotion. He waved his hand and both the knife and ropes holding Rick vanished. Then he traced a much simpler shape in the air than either had come to associate with magic, as the air in the room seemed to become dense and vibrate. Despite neither being adept at magic they could both tell this was just pure brute force.
Both damaged bodies knit themselves back together in an instant, all the pain they had received playing in reverse on fast forward, equally as intense but not leaving anything behind afterward.
``I thought you'd be happy to see us.'' Danielle pouted
Kyle pushed himself off the ground. ``I am, believe me. I'm sorry if I don't seem it. It should never have been like this. We'll talk more once we're out and away from this.'' He rapidly started to get dressed, still checking the chambered round in his gun when he got to the belt.
``Master I-'' Rick started from where he had just finished putting on his own slightly less involved outfit
Kyle's voice was low but somehow louder in their ears than if he had shouted.
``Out. Now.''
It wasn't a request, or a suggestion. It had been an ORDER. The kind he had been refusing to give.
``Yes sir'' ``Yes master''
A sharp breeze started to blow, but the canine dispelled it with another hand wave. ``no''
Kyle's face was grim as they started to move to the exit.
-----
Once they had exited the church Danielle's form had started to lose it's solidarity, and by the time the three exited the gate she was once again floating, a projected imaged of her body instead of the physical copy that she'd been for the last day.
Crossing into the town from the church yard, the cold sharpness of the air instantly disappeared and was replaced with the friendly warmth that had been in the town before. Now however, there was also a static charge on the air, like a terrible thunderstorm was about to start. The feeling was reinforced by the roiling think gray clouds covering the sun and sky.
Kyle stalked over to a beat up structure next to the church just outside it's fence and dropped onto its porch. It looked like it had been some sort of bunkhouse or barracks, neat regimented rows of destroyed beds lining each side of the building. The wood walls had more damage than just the signs of age the rest of the town suffered, the wooden construction showed more than a few signs of bullet impacts, the door had clearly been broken down, several of the bunks and tables showed evidence of having had been turned over. And the remains of a several unidentifiable pieces of furniture stood near the door having clearly been used as a barricade.
His followers stopped a step away, not sure if they were to join him or wait or what.
Kyle groaned and put his head in his paws. This seemed to break whatever tension had been holding the moment and Rick sat down beside him as Danielle floated over to him. Kyle stammered as he started to talk.
``l-look I'm... No. Y'all shouldn't... I...'' Eventually he settled on ``Sorry.'' He too a deep breath and continued. ``I just needed to get out of there. To get you out of there.''
``Master-''
``You don't have to keep `master'ing me. We're out, you should be able to shake off whatever's left of her in your head. GOD! Why didn't I think of that. Of course she was gonna get in your heads. I figured when you started calling me master but I... I don't even know. I guess I thought it wasn't gonna be that bad. Didn't realize. I should have known when you stayed. Why did I let you stay. Why did I bring you here. Nothing good's ever happened here, why would that change.''
The canine wasn't even talking to them, completely lost in all the self loathing that had been building.
``Is that what you think happened?''
The canine looked up at Rick.
``You think the reason we both willingly went into a night of torture and then nearly killed ourselves just because someone made us want to?''
Kyle blinked at him
``I mean-''
``Look dumb ass'' Kyle turned to Danielle. ``Nobody made me feel any way about nothing.''
``but-''
``No but. We're both freaks. You ever consider maybe that's WHY she picked us to hang with you.''
``If she had been forcing our emotions, then surely it would have gone a lot smoother'' Rick looked him dead in the eye ``Master.''
``Okay but, I know this isn't you Rick.''
``People change.'' Rick shrugged
``You can't be comparing being enslaved and traumatized to healthy emotional growth''
``Look, Kyle, however it happened we're both happier than we were before. I've learned things about myself and come to terms with them in a healthier way that was ever gonna happen when I was alive.'' Danielle swatted at him, arm passing right through his head. She giggled.
``As have I master.''
Kyle looked at them both incredulously.
``I saw it. Danielle you nearly had a panic attack when rick asked you to hurt him and you were on the verge of a breakdown over last night before that.''
``And with a bit of caring support from my two friends I learned to accept myself.''
The clouds in the sky started to lighten and break and the static charge in the air seemed to dissipate. Kyle looked at Rick. ``You're really OK with all this?''
``Do you have any idea how bad it feels to be angry all the time? I didn't until today. However it happened, I'm better than I've ever been.''
``Well.'' Kyle said as he looked at the sky, rays of sunlight beaming through the breaking clouds. ``I guess I owe you both an apology. And my thanks for bringing me back.''
``So we did good?'' Danielle said hopefully.
``You both did very good. And I have to admit, I'm impressed. I didn't know either of you had that in you.''
Rick grinned at him ``And did the master enjoy our show?''
Kyle laughed ``I guess I did. Now that I'm not worried about you I have to admit that was fucking hot.''
Danielle's laughter proved infectious and soon the town echoed with their laughing.
-----
It was just before sundown, and the dark stained glass cast long beams of dark color into the room. Kyle sat on the edge of the stage again.
``I'm not going to apologize, and frankly I'm still pissed at you for the way you did things'' He paused and took a deep breath. ``But thank you. For bringing them to me, and for helping them to see themselves.''
He stood and walked over to where the lizard knelt in front of the small stone altar, wrist and ankles bound behind his back.
``You're absolutely sure about this?''
``Master, you've been in my head, you know I want this just as much if not more than you or her. Yes I'm sure.''
``Yeah look how much his dick is leaking'' Danielle commented, still a ghost this time around.
``Shush, no comments from the peanut gallery remember. This is supposed to be serious'' Kyle hushed her lightly. ``OK then''
Kyle mumble chanted his way through one of the shorter and more generic prayers, finishing it quickly and stepping forward so he was just behind the bound lizard. His knife once more appeared in his hand from wherever it usually went when he wasn't using it. In one smooth move he drew it across the lizards throat, severing Ricks windpipe and arteries but leaving his spine intact. Immediately rick spasmed and his exhalations became wet, gurgling with blood from his partial neck stump.
Moving around to the lizards front side and bringing his own erection into the lizards view, the avatar of pain leant down and kissed his slave lightly on the forehead. Then, holding the lizards head the canine hooked a thumb in the lizards mouth, opening it. He wasted not time in sinking into the hole, not rushing but also not wasting the time before Rick bled out. With each stroke he picked up his pace sliding in and out of the dying lizards mouth as the gasping gurgles coming from the hole in his throat weakened. For his part, Rick did the best he could to use his tongue on his masters member, enjoying the taste, but rapidly found himself much to weak to do anything other than take it and enjoy being used.
It didn't take long until Kyle forced his knot into the lizards mouth, wincing slightly as the lizards teeth scraped him. The lizards body tried to gag at the intruder, but wasn't really able to do so. The canine let out a moan as he throbbed and unloaded down the lizards throat, cum dripping out Rick's slit throat down his torso.
Slowly Ricks awareness and pain faded, leaving just contentment filling his mind.
-----
Rick's eyes opened and he looked around. It was the middle of the night and he was back on the bus. He was laying on his side on the large mattress in the middle of the bus. Cuddled up against him and the small spoon position was his master, who had his teddy bear hugged to his chest. Rick grinned. How Kyle thought he could be upset with all this was beyond him. He wrapped his arm around the canine, pulling him close.
However, Rick realized, he was still very worked up, not having gotten a release earlier. He grinned, slipping his hardening member between the canines thighs. Yeah, he could definitely get used to this.
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