Absolute Reality

Through a Dark Looking Glass

Just smut ahead mostly. If you're opposed to lesbian sex or dubious consent or blood...skip this one. Otherwise - happy triggering, pets.

Her Majesty's castle was Briarcliff - but not like any Briarcliff Eunice could have imagined. Walls painted blood red. Floors tiled dizzyingly in black and white. Caged windows Gothic peaked. And Sister Jude's beloved Stairway to Heaven? A menacing black lacquered fortification of iron and spike. She tapped a spindle with the palm of her hand and found it sharp. Winced.

"Come on, already." Shelly groused tiredly. "If I don't get you cleaned up and delivered to the games, it's my fucking hide." She yanked Eunice's arm none too gently.

"What exactly are these games?"

"Stupid croquet." At the end of the staff quarters corridor, she paused before a gilt door. "Can you play croquet?"

"I never have." Eunice chewed her lip.

Shelly rolled her eyes, opening the door. "It's cool. She likes you. She won't care that you can't play."

The room Eunice found herself in should have been her own room at Briarcliff. But here, it was an homage to luxury - to hedonism. To sin. An enormous dark wood bed clad in lush sanguine satin and velvet. Pillows piled high. A wardrobe with massive mirrored doors. A bathtub the size of three bathtubs exposed beneath a window draped in black taffeta. Furs on the floors and a fire crackling in a white-tiled floo. "It sounds like she doesn't like very many people," Eunice murmured, taking in her surroundings wide-eyed.

Shelly turned at the wardrobe. Her gaze was haunted. "She liked me once."

"Once?" Eunice watched her open the wardrobe, flicking through garments inside.

She produced a white dress. Extended it to Eunice. "She found me amusing for a while, I guess." A shrug. "Until the newness wore off. Get dressed. I'll find a hairbrush."

Eunice stepped behind the wardrobe door to change while Shelly rifled through drawers on a nearby vanity. "Well, I won't be around long enough for my newness to wear off." She was surprised at how well the dress fit, if it was a little short. Sheer sleeves belled. The loose a-line style's hem brushed her knees. She couldn't help thinking it was very pretty, and closed the door to examine her reflection with a small smile.

The smile fell when the mirror revealed Shelly standing behind her holding a wide hairbrush. "You don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

Laughing ruefully, Shelly began roughly brushing Eunice's mussed locks. "There is no stay or go as you please here. Her word is law."

"But...she's going to help me get home."

"Idiot." Brisk fingers secured Eunice's hair in a white satin ribbon. "She's going to keep you here. Like a little pet." At the young nun's stricken expression, Shelly smiled sickly. "And trust me: she'll pet you. Until you purr like a kitten to lick her cream." She leaned into Eunice's ear. "Then her claws will come out. And she'll make you scream."

"Jude would never hurt me." Her voice trembled just the same.

Shelly patted her shoulders, done with her preparations. They stared into the mirror together - at the prettiest Eunice Eunice had ever seen. "There's a fine line between pleasure and pain, girly girl. She'll push you riiiiight up to that line until you're barely balancing on it. Then, she'll bend you over it and break you like a fine glass flower." She pinched Eunice's ass lightly. "Now come on before she sends for us."

Eunice followed Shelly through the maze of this dark Briarcliff in a haze of worry. Surely Shelly was just teasing her. Being mean. Maybe she was out of favor with Jude, and jealous. Maybe she was just being Shelly - a little crazy and a little dirty. But what if she was right? What if this Jude was genuinely nothing at all like her Sister Jude? What if this Jude -