172: Season of Sacrifice and Slaughter

There are three NEW (3) colored and two (2) black & white artworks for DISCIPLE and ACOLYTE members. Sign up & log in to view to images by visiting our secret fine dining establishment. For more details on membership tiers, ways to support the site and how to purchase comics/collections, click here. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. 

Before we go ahead to today's content, just a few news items. This Carte du Jour is a particularly time consuming endeavor and I hope it is apparent to see and well appreciated by you, my valued supporters. Sometimes, I will hit a particularly tricky story where I would almost post an update then being dissatisfied, would go back and redo the storyline with a few added images not having that "feel" for the initial take. Which is why this update comes to you a little late.

I'm also playing around with the idea of changing the tempo of updates without sacrificing the number of content, namely, taking a 2 week break per month, while the following 3 DISCIPLE level updates would come 3 days apart. I'm not too keen on this as I feel I should be as regular as possible, however, doing the work and stories in the quality you know I can do, I feel I need moments to recharge and be re-inspired without having to feel drained or that I'm going through the motions.

In any case, I'm thankful for your patience in all this, and I will always make up for it later before the month's end.

With that, on to the show.

Conversation between the Prince and the Servitor.

What a pity. Our bold little experiment was fun while it lasted, didn't it?

Fun, you say? The arrogance of the man almost brought the Consortium down and all of us with it! God knows what the Diarchy would've done to us if he had told the FBI or Interpol about us.

But...  he ultimately played his part well to tie up any loose ends with his... suicide.

We have to learn from this. We fly too high to the sun and the wax would melt away, along with our wings. We are playing with fire, my friend.

We are not invincible. The Financier, God knows how much money, power and influence he brought to the Foundation. He was in line to be a member of the Inner Circle give a few more years. An Exarch, and still he was brought down. Times are different. Secrets are brought to light a lot more easily these days. We must be tactful. Will the Consort remain silent?

She will. Unlike the Financier, she has vowed to toe the line and lead the authorities away from our more degenerate activities towards their tamer vices.

And no ties to the two missing girls leading to me?

None whatsoever. What the Financier had on them we already have in our possession. Fortunately, you won't have to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Rest assured, you will only have to fear from us.

I hope you're right. But yet, I'm sure the other Disciples would want for the Consort to be silenced.

They do not know her as well as Lucian does. You might be surprised to know that she was considered to be one of the front-runners even ahead of the Financier himself for the position of Tetrarch? She is vulnerable at the moment, but she will hold. Be calm, your excellency. She has earned our trust. All evidence about our dealings have been wiped clean. Our insiders have made sure of this.

When I am king, we wouldn't have to deal with all this nonsense!

With all due respect, your excellency, but you are wrong. No kingdom or power will be any protection. If you remember, there was one who had such aspirations. The Dictator Jean-Bedel. He had an empire of his own, grew arrogant in his excesses that even the Patriarch Caliban himself could not protect him from his people and the hammer fell on him. It was more than a miracle in itself to keep exiled in France as a favor to a friend. Powerless, but nonetheless, still alive and his dark exploits reduced to mere rumors. Humility, tact, patience. Even the Osnovatel learned this lesson eventually and made peace with Lucian. And remember, dear Prince. You may be boundless in your own desert domain there with your billion dollar yachts, sports cars and golden palaces, but here, within the walls of our secret kingdom, you are nothing but a vassal.

My apologies. I am not my father nor my brothers. Living in my world... I forget my place here sometimes... I am ever grateful for you and Lucian to have opened up a new world to me. Please don't say a word to him about my indiscretion.

Of course.

Well, here's one to the Financier. May he live well in the afterlife with the souls of the beauties he devoured. Forty virgins, perhaps more? I can only wish such good fortune to such a man despite his frailties! To the Financier!

To the Financier.

Oh, the things we did on that island... Do you know I still see her sometimes in my dreams after all these years as one usually does with their first? I remember her so vividly.

I remember that week when you earned your mask. There were a pair of them that week. One straight and long auburn haired girl, the other with reddish curls.

First when they were presented to us, I could barely decide. They were both too beautiful, and I was too nervous and even afraid to make that leap until her friend was taken first. I know that the choice had been out of my hands, but yet, I was at peace, knowing that fate decreed that the other girl was meant to be mine. They were both beautiful, but she was special to me. But I never really did know her or what happened that weekend. Forgive me for being too curious, but was it true that she almost escaped?

Escape from the compound. Yes, but not the island. That word is subjective when you are still a mile away from the next shore. There's only so far that one can swim without us pursuing her.

Wondrous. A fighter! I had always sensed that she was a little more than she led on. Even as she stood up there in the mirrored room presenting herself to us, I felt she was playing a role for people like us. And during our night together, she still played a little dumb, and eager, hiding her true self from me. I still see her sometimes sitting naked on those golden sheets. Her, fresh, beautiful, and alive, intelligent and yet so clueless... with still a breath to her and a sweet voice to speak... I was too quiet and nervous then... I would've wanted to know her better. But all I cared was to fuck her, and to taste her! I sometimes wished I could go back to that night.

But the day after, I remembered a commotion, and then the delay, when I thought that I wouldn't have her as my meal, that there would be a delay, I remembered being so frightened. That the one and only desire I have and would ever have would slip from my grasp.

But in the end, it was meant to be. My girl had been returned. The day after, I was summoned into the slaughtering room, I knew the moment had come. I brought one of my most prized possessions at the time, my family's ancestral blade, and Patriarch Lucian was there in the white teardrop mask with my auburn haired American girl. The Patriarch allowed me to use my family's ancestral sword to behead her, just before the moment I swung the blade down on her neck, I could still see her face, the fear, anger, the defiance, before it came off, relaxed, still beautiful but finally at peace. It thrills me so, to have that much power over a human being! And then... and then.... I wanted to have more time with the body, to butcher her myself, to lay my hands on her dead defenseless body, but Lucian wouldn't allow inexperienced hands work on such an exquisite body. He'd only allow me the choice of how she would be butchered and how my first meal would be and I told him.

We have a traditional dish in my family, one of my favorites, of a whole lamb, goat or camel on a bed on a large platter of rice. We call it the "ouzi". I've always had fantasies of seeing an exquisite female laying on that bed of nuts, dates and rice. And I had a good long thought about it, so many options, and in this particular moment I showed him how I wanted her butchered. I wanted her arms cut off at the shoulder and legs cut at the knees, just leaving the torso and the thighs attached and served in such a way. A Hairless Doe Ouzi!

Oh, it was priceless to see Lucian's mastery, how he knew a woman's anatomy so well, to know where to cut and slice, like seeing a master chef at work. His hands worked on her so sensually, the way he cut and broke her down so professionally. It was surreal, from life, to delicious cuts of meat that I'm used to seeing on my place.

Yes, the first will always be special. I remember so vividly, Lucian came out through the kitchen door, with those words "Honored guest, I present you the meat for tonight's feast." as he holds the carcass with one hand firmly holding the meathook spiked through her neck, the other hand supporting it between the thighs at her 'tender' regions... I was speechless. There she was, my love, the same beautiful girl who sat naked on golden sheets no more, just a hanging slab of butchered meat on a hook ready to be cooked. And to be eaten, by me!

To be continued...

Bonus preview sketches: