The Imp of the Perverse

"I am so-called because my kind is understood to have inflicted various misbehaviors on those influenced by us. We are believed to be responsible for great, boiling, masses of misbehavior that expand, self-reinforcing and amplifying themselves to the point of leaving a crater of chaos in their wake."

"And is this not the case, Master Imp?" I asked.

"It is, in the way most indicative of humans, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees wrong."

QUASSI

She was taken to breakfast in the pink restraint pajamas which she saw with dismay were made to appear in the form of a hare with floppy ears on the hood, and a lighter pink cloth to cover her front and appear as the 'under-belly.'

The acolyte girls felt she was utterly adorable in it, and insisted she wear it to the morning meal with the senior acolytes. They didn't take her out of the absorbant so she sat, submitting to being fed the gruel (while the senior acolytes dined on meat and eggs around her) while needing to pee.

She wasn't sure how she'd be punished for squirming, but she was fairly certain that any complaint would result in punishment calculated to be worse than the urgency.

After her disappointing breakfast, she was removed from the pajamas and allowed to urinate before everyone in a bath chamber where the senior women were getting washed and dressed. She was allowed to squat naked and relieve herself in front of all of them—but she wasn't cleaned.

"She can go a day without a bath," Miss Kessna assessed. "Let her dirtiness perfume her." She drew a finger behind Quassi's ear, rubbing it thoughtfully.

"If you're a good girl," she said, "I'll wash you personally."

Quassi whimpered and thanked her.

Her morning penance took place in one of the schoolrooms. She and four other girls were placed in a tiled room with large enema jars on high shelves. The tubes were greased and inserted into five bottoms, and the valves opened. The height produced water pressure that was calculated to be in the "punishment" zone so as they were watched, the girls squirmed and whimpered and groaned.

The worst part came where, instead of relieving them, the nozzle was inflated with a hand bulb such that the water was trapped inside each of them. A girl who had leaked down her thigh was spanked then—hard—and she yelped and cried out.

Then the five uncomfortable girls were taken to kneel in a room, their stomachs feeling bloated and crampy. A young acolyte stood before them, energetically scolding them for being badly behaved girls who desperately needed correction. She encouraged them to embrace their punishments and make humiliating suggestions about how they ought to be punished.

She clearly knew who Quassi was, and told her that her father would deeply approve of his bratty little daughter being put in her place. She also detailed her spurting orgasm in front of everyone and brought Quassi to tears.

Quassi was scolded to propose a further punishing of her already sore vagina as penance for her orgasmic incontinence. Quassi was required to suggest her channel be filled with an irritant gel as she couldn't take more spanks on her bruised organ, but the awful acolyte demanded that Quassi consider carefully if she deserved such a gentle punishment for such a dirty, slutty, lapse of control. Quassi was forced to, while sobbing uncontrollably, request both the irritant douche and a firm hand-spanking on her sex!

She was dearly afraid, and suspected, each unfortunate's suggested punishment would be delivered after lunch.

One of the other miserable unfortnates was an order teacher who had taken bribes to elevate one of her more submissive students (from a wealthy family) to a higher position in the school hierarchy.

The order looked very poorly on this and placed a good deal of trust in their young teachers. Now here, the humiliated young woman sorrowfully recommended that she, herself, be put at the mercy of the girls whom their more submissive classmate had bullied extravagantly.

The apprentice loved this idea and assured her that a recommendation for just that would be sent with her when she returned—but since that punishment could not be executed here, she would spend the afternoon in the punishment gardens. When the poor girl broke down, pleading for mercy, she was adjudged to have had "a tantrum" and would sleep in the dungeons tonight.

Quassi was thoroughly terrorized into abject submission. They had expelled their enemas and Quassi was cleaned enough to attend the senior acolyte's luncheon. She felt miserable and defeated. Kasti fetched her, and she caught a glimpse of the boy with the pumpkin-like scrotum, face down on a bed in a recovery room, surrounded by order nurses.

"He itches everywhere down there he can't scratch," Kati said, darkly. At least they gave him medicine to let him rest—but it's beyond his endurance.

Quassi, naked, sore, and miserable, didn't have much sympathy to spare for him.

She was the appointed 'centerpiece' for the senior acolyte's table. She knelt on a large serving patter, her legs spread far apart. Her head was down, touching the polished metal surface. One of the kitchen girls placed a thick tube into her vagina and filled her channel with some kind of thick, congealed sauce or dressing.

She thought, at first, in panic, that it was an irritant—but it simply felt cool and a little wet. The ladies speared vegetables and dipped them in her cleft as they ate. A bowl of the gross porridge was placed under her face, and she ate it quickly, without utensils or complaint.

At the end of the luncheon, again, the huge form of the Abbess appeared before her, visible through her dangling bangs and the porridge caking her face as she tried to look up, without raising her head.

"Do you believe your father is coming to 'rescue you,' unfortunate Quassi?" The woman with her four grotesque legs asked her.

"No, mistress," said a ragged Quassi. She considered adding a 'I-deserve-to-be-here' humiliation—but she didn't.

The woman's rumbling laugh had an unpleasant 'gelatinous' quality to the sound.

"You are quite correct, little unfortunate. He will have other things to attend."

Quassi felt Miss Kessna's fingers at her sex, stroking her. She pushed back, into them, knowing such behavior was an invitation to punishment.

"My milk is potent, as you have felt! Why, you feel it even now, don't you? I see how you slut yourself on her hands!"

"I'm a dirty little slut, Mistress-abbess," Quassi said, hearing the crackle of humiliation in her voice.

"Oh you are—but the milk brings it out in you beautifully. You know how much of it my udders produce now?" The woman's tone was one of wicked, terrible triumph.

Quassi shook her head. Miss Kessna rewarded her questing pudenda by gently stroking her clitoris. Quassi bit her lower lip to keep from making humiliating sounds.

"Barrels," crowed the abbess. "My udders—" she rubbed one of her many breasts, "produce it day and night. Pulled as the girls do, they ejaculate it into buckets. Those buckets fill barrels. Over time, we have more of the milk than any enclave ever has. The barrels, filled to capacity, shall be leaving my gates at dusk. They will arrive in the dark hours of the morning where the wells will be sweetened!"

Quassi shuddered.

"The village of Ormally castle has a single subterranean water supply," she said. Quassi gave a tiny gasp as Miss Kessna circled her clit.

"Those barrels, even watered down, will produce an insatiable sexual incontinence in the town and the castle. Their misbehavior—" She laughed. "Will awaken storms of Unclean."

"Our little abbey will be an after-thought, child. You will stay with us until your full penance is done—and then you shall be returned to whatever remains of Castle Ormally."

Quassi sobbed as Miss Kessna's fingers reached a crescendo. She knew, in the depths of horror, hearing this, she would be made to orgasm in front of all of them.

She lay curled on a towel over one of the recovery beds. She'd been distraught enough that Miss Kessna had deemed her deserving of "a break" so she lay on her side, knees drawn up, whimpering into a pillow.

The nurses had checked her over and declared that she was unlikely to masturbate given the still bruised state of her sex. She was told that Eleni was "mucked" and was meeting with the spirit they had spoken of. She felt badly for the dryad—but there seemed little she could do.

For the dryad. She had to warn her father, however. If this plan came to fruition. She lay there, miserable and humiliated—but she gathered herself. If there really was a wagon piled with barrels of Sattva's nectar ready to leave? She would have to stop it. However she could.

She was at a loss for how she could even do such a thing—so it was surprising when the young acolyte Kati came for her.

"Penitent Quassi, you play the Great Game?" she asked.

Quassi, red-eyed from crying, blinked. She nodded.

"Strange question, I know," the girl said. "There has been a request for you to play. We are seeking a board and pieces. Come, up."

Quassi slowly got out of bed—owww. Then: "There is a set in my luggage—where has it been placed?"

The girl blinked but: "I shall inform Miss Welta," she said.

The senior acolyte who was in charge of the abbey's running, observed the drenched, defeated looking penitent and the acolyte with her. The girl was naked and couldn't walk well from her discipline. She had been tasked with finding a fine board and pieces—and she was unaware of one in the abbey otherwise.

"Her boxes are in the carriage house," she said to Kati. "Take her, locate it. Bring it to me. If she is anything but servile spank her badly."

Kati took her hand. "'Tis lucky I guess you thought to bring one," she said.

"My father taught me to play," she said. "I enjoy the game." She waddled achingly down the stone corridors.

"How fares your puss," Kati asked. "From the milk?"

"I still feel it," Quassi said, uncomfortably. "It's . . . strong."

"I know, I hate it. Drops in tea are enough. They should not have given you a full bottle of it."

"Miss Kessna meant to make the point that I am at the mercy of my pudenda—and she made it. It was meant to be an unpleasant lesson, Miss Kati, and it surely was!"

They exited the abbey proper and looked upon the carriage house. Out in front of it was The Wagon.

It did not have "barrels" on it—it held a single gigantic barrel on its wheeled base. The barrel was perhaps sixteen hands in diameter at either end and swelled to 24 hands at its center. It was reinforced with metal bands. The yokes for horses were attached—but there was a rubber hose leading from a scaffolding platform with a wench pulley system to haul ordinary barrels up—and a funnel to empty them into. Several regular sized barrels sat below it, waiting to be loaded and to fill the massive single chamber before it left.

"What is that?" Quassi asked. It was cool out, and she was naked. She could hear sobs and cries from the other side of the abbey—the punishment garden.

Kati looked. "I don't know," she said.

They could both smell the faint scent of vanilla from it. Kati swallowed. "It's cool here. Let's get you back inside," she said. She led Quassi to the nearby carriage house. Quassi shuddered.

When they entered, the chamber was large and nearly empty. Bales of hay for the horses were piled on a platform. She saw extra wheels, boards, and nails. There was even a metal stove, presumably for heating if there were horses stabled here.

Quassi saw her belongings—several chests—clothing for her and for Eleni of several days worth.

"Miss Kati?" Quassi asked, going to the small pile of chests and boxes, "I don't see the one with my game-set. Could it be elsewhere?"

She squatted by the pile. She was looking in the direction of the stove, a small pile of coal. Tinder. What she really needed was already here. Fire.

"There isn't one, is there, child?" The voice of Miss Kessna came from the door. Quassi looked up, face pinkening.

"I'm lucky I found you before you made any mischief," the woman said, walking across the floor. "You are going to be very uncomfortable for a very long time, young lady."

Her hands went to her hips. "Stand up at attention, girl." Miss Kessna demanded. "I know you told this story to find yourself here—at the carriage house. What have you to say for yourself, Welp!?"

Miss Kessna slapped Quassi hard on her cheek and Quassi cried out, her hands flying to her face, her cheek blazing red where Miss Kessna had slapped her.

"You are going to spend the next week under the abbess' throne, girl! You shan't like the taste of it, and I'll ensure your bared bottom gets constant attention while you are there!"

"That hurt!" Quassi said, tearfully, holding her face.

"Back in position, girl!" Miss Kessna snapped. "I'm going to slap you again—until I tire of it."

Shaking, Quassi moved her hands behind her back and, fighting tears, raised her chin.

"What have you to say for yourself, Welp!?" demanded Miss Kessna. She drew back her hand again, palm open, and let it fly.

"I'm my father's daughter," Quassi said. She ducked as the slap sailed over her head. She seized the shoulders of Miss Kessna and used the grip to vault up, driving her knee hard and with focus into Miss Kessna's solar plexus. She didn't wait for a reaction. The woman was off balance, still turning and Quassi wrapped one of her legs around the larger woman's and let them both drop, rolling on the ground.

Miss Kessna was struggling to breathe, on her face, her eyes glassy, and Quassi, as her father had taught her, hammered down with the base of her fist into the back of the woman's neck where it met the skull. Miss Kessna went limp.

Still naked, Quassi stood.

She looked at a terrified, shocked looking Kasti.

"Get the stove going," Quassi ordered her. "I'm getting the hay." There were some restraints she'd intended for use on Eleni, if needed—but they served for Miss Kessna, should she awaken.

Quassi had lugged two bales of hay and used it to line the wooden platform around the giant barrel before Miss Kessna came to.

She lay on the stone floor, arms shackled behind her back, legs similarly cuffed. She groaned and twisted trying to get free.

"I am going to BRAND you, you little slut!" she shouted. "On each buttock—and you, Kasti! You will be sleeping in the tantrum dungeon from henceforth!"

Kasti looked terrified—but Quassi had only stopped long enough to get a dress over her head. Quassi ignored the woman and strode to the stove. Kati had started a fire.

"What are you doing girl!?" Demanded Miss Kessna from the floor. "What are—"

Quassi took the burning coals in a small shovel from inside the stove.

"No! You stop that! You're going to ruin it!" Howled Miss Kessna.

Quassi, exiting through the doors, stood before the wagon. The hay was dry and the air was cold. It began to release gray smoke when she dumped the coals into it—but then the fire spread through the hay and crackled.

There were moments when she was terrified that it would not be enough to catch the wood of the wagon or the barrel itself—but then one of the two bales she had simply wedged in at the side caught and it burned high and hot, audibly crackling. Then, ever so slowly, the barrel itself caught and the wagon's wood blackened and then begin to smoke and burn as well. Huge billowing clouds rose above it. She knew it would soon be noticed from the house or even from the far side, in the garden.

"I'm my father's daughter," she said again, turning back to the carriage house. She had not packed a chess set, no—but she had packed another item her father had insisted on.

At the bottom of her personal chest, secreted in the base, was her short sword. She drew it. Causing Miss Kessna to finally fall silent. She turned it in her hands, looking at the fine, alloy blade.

"I'm going to get my Dryad," she said. She stalked out, the column of smoke rising even higher behind her.

ELENI

I understood why I had been asked to speak with the Imp: when it looked at me, unlike with humans, I could sense its gaze—but I could also, as we were touching, spirit-to-spirit, feel its intent, like a lead dancer.

It could twirl and spin me and, if I were unable to see or feel the nudges, I would be caught in its maelstrom.

I could, however, feel them—and just knowing that meant it would be hard to drive me into its complicated actions even were I willing. Seeing, or in my case, feeling the strings prevented their force on me from having the deft touch necessary.

I could tell why they feared it.

"It is, in the way most indicative of humans, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees wrong." it said. "I am not the cause. I am the effect."

Imps-of-the-perverse, as the books had said, preceded disasters, chaos, and catastrophic change.

"It's the inflection points," said the Imp, "That create us. It isn't us that creates the events."

I waited. And then I decided. "I will inform them about the game, master Imp. I don't know if they will allow the girl to play—to be with you alone."

"Just ask," it said. "As you were told, use your own words."

I did. It didn't protect them.

I was being fed by the nicer and more submissive of the two astrologists when the bell rang. It was still the penitent gruel I'd eaten before, but she had me kneel, and my Muck seemed content to let me eat in peace.

The more dominant of the two women, scowled and marched to the door, apparently ready to excoriate whoever had dared disturb her. She didn't get the chance. She opened the door, hands flying to her hips, and Mistress Quassi struck her on the bridge of her nose with the pommel of her personal blade.

She crumpled, hands to her face, making unintelligible noises and mistress Quassi, looking like a storm cloud, crossed the floor where my feeder cowered from her.

"This is Mr. Perverse?" she demanded.

"Master Imp," I said softly. She looked me over.

"Are you alright—save for the muck?"

"Yes, mistress," I said. I didn't know what was going on—but the blade, the violence—I knew things were wrong."

"Can we peel it off you?" she asked, looking dubiously at her sword.

"Just command me," I told her. "So long as I'm obedient and properly a meek little contrite wood-spirit, she won't punish me."

Mistress Quassi actually laughed at that. "You've been nicely humbled, Eleni!"

My muck quivered with approval as I blushed.

"Seal the door," said the Imp.

"What?" Quassi asked.

"Some one is very angry at you," said the Imp.

Quassi turned and ran to the door. She grabbed the senior girl by the arm and hauled her out into the secure room. She slammed the door and threw two heavy bolts.

WHAM! WHAM! Whatever hit the door, it sounded too big to be human. The heavy iron-bound wood, held, however. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!!!

Someone outside was shrieking at us, howling in fury.

I turned to the Imp. "Why did you help us, Master Imp?"

"The humans annoyed me," It said.

CODA 1- LORD GRUMMURAND

Proctoress Abagail stood in Lord Grummurand's office. His decision to send a squad of soldiers—and he had made the decision at the last moment to send elite troops with a commander who had experience in investigation—had been fortunate. They had seen the rising smoke column from the road and arrived in time to capture the mutated abbess and free his daughter and ward from the telescope building.

Now both girls were recovering in the castle. If Quassi hadn't had the presence of mind to take action . . . he did not want to think about what might have transpired.

The abbess was being held in one of the old prison buildings—a maze of passages and corridors. From what he had gathered, she no longer needed to feed, was stronger than any single human, and could produce not only the potent milk of Sattva—but other chemicals of an unpleasant nature.