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Hips connected with her ass. Defeat drove all the way home, jammed to her limits. The pulse came again and again, vomiting thick dominion into her cunt. Where the spurting ended, the violation began anew. Slow plunges glutted semen out around the sated cock, sent it seeping down past the empty buzz of her clit.

And then the invasion was gone. Phallus and body retreated, leaving Buckeye to lie there for dead. Bone-weary and broken.

“We’ve spent enough time on this today,” said Mather from the far side of the room. “Secure the servants. Brothers, you will do penance as you leave.”

Again, like a ragdoll, arms were gathering her up, lifting her from the floor. This time holding her under knees and an armpit to a grey-uniformed chest. She couldn’t look at the guard.

A line of priests formed at the open door. One of the guards stood by, baton held out at chest level. The first of the clergy stepped up and reached for it. His body jerked, and he growled but maintained a grip. It might have been two or three seconds before he let go and passed out into the crypt, chest heaving, neck bent in pain.

The next took his place, grabbing the baton of his own will, suffering for a moment before he left. Then the next. And the next.

Penance.

Mather was punishing the priests? For what? Fornicating?

The man in white spoke as if her barely-coherent thoughts had been aloud. The other captives must have been gaping at the sight, as well.

“Oh yes,” he said, addressing the naked huddle of waiting Vicers, “These Brothers have volunteered to acclimate you to your service, but they are not exempt from payment for their transgressions. Whether they slip off to the Territories, or profane themselves here, even in support of our efforts.” Another priest yelped and then stifled the sound. “They will do penance if they wish to continue wearing the cloth.”

The last of the black cassocks left through the door. Two remaining guards moved in around the lustworkers, goading the sitting few to stand with the threat of their batons. In her idiot haze, Buckeye wondered how strong this one was, to have been holding her dead weight up the whole time. It was the only way she was getting out of the room, though. Her legs were liquid, useless.

The men corralled the Vicers into a line and began herding them out the door. Buckeye’s guard fell in at the end, turning sideways to get her through without hitting her head. As she passed, Mather stepped into view. Cool eyes looked down into hers.

“Do better tomorrow.”

She had almost enough energy to blink at him before he left in an eddy of white.

You’re not dead. You made it.

They deposited her in a cel

l.

They deposited all of them in cells.

Well. The others, the guards goaded into cells. Like cattle. They could still walk. Buckeye could not.

The cells sat end-to-end, segments of a centipede, their doors off the hallway that ran in the opposite direction of Mather’s original right turn toward the crypt.

Rather than solid walls, or bars like some old-timey jail, something clear and thick divided each Vicer from the next. It could have been glass or plexi, but Buckeye was too far to reach out and touch it from where the guard had laid her on the bare floor. Too far, and she didn’t have the strength yet to move much more than her head. Either way, she was certain the stuff wouldn’t shatter, no matter what any of them did.

She coughed, throat still raw from trying to outrun the ceiling. Other parts of her were raw, as well. Buckeye grimaced. Swallowed. Dim, circular lights recessed into the ceiling stared like impassive eyes.

Her face rolled to the side to watch the last of the church’s new ‘servants’ put away, so many tools after use. Though a dozen panels of transparent barrier diluted her view of the furthest cells, she could still see the last three were different.

As the guard had lowered her to the ground, Buckeye had scanned her own personal prison to find it devoid of anything except a single, discomfiting, bucket. No furniture. No bedding.

The cells at the opposite end of the row had something that looked like a thin mattress on the floor. A stainless fixture rising from the ground that she guessed was a toilet. These three cells stayed empty. At least for a time.

When the grey-clad men escorted lustworkers into these by the upper arms, Buckeye saw their hair plastered to their heads, dripping. The doors closed behind them and they each moved to grab up what turned out to be a thin blanket, folded at the end of their mattresses, to wrap around their nakedness.

Buckeye recognized these three as the first to submit to the priest’s demands.

‘Service without question has its rewards. These three will eat tonight. And shower.’

A part of her sneered.

Sold their asses just like that. For fucking nothing.