EXTREME WARNING. This is intended for persons of 18 years of age or
above. If you are not 18 then go away.

EXTREME WARNING. This story contains descriptions of violence, snuff,
eroto-cannibalism and sexual acts. Do not read if these subjects are
likely to offend.

EXTREME WARNING. In no way do I condone any of the anti-social behavior
described in the story. This is an erotic fantasy, not to be confused
with reality.

Please reply by preference to the newsgroup, or failing that to
grim_williams@hotmail.com

The Feast of Purim
By Grim Williams

AFTERWORD TO SERIES ONE

I'd like to relate the following anecdote as an afterword. It provides
a little teaser, a clue, as to what happens next, where this story is
heading in Series Two.

I'm sure you will be clever enough to relate the events I describe to
our current story...

So. Let me see now...

Once upon a time, there was a young king whose name was Ahas. He was
rich and powerful and ruled over the mighty empire of Persia. His
kingdom was a superpower, broad in dominion, extending from the Ganges
in India to the East, to Macedonia in the West.

But he was a mean man, a small man, superstitious and arrogant. It's
said that he doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. Of course, I
could never say that, not of a king.

Now Ahas was a man who enjoyed his women, many women, pretty women.
This isn't a problem in a land that's almost devoid of men. The women
are very grateful. But of his many wives, there was one that had made
herself the most prominent in his Kingdom, had forced greatness upon
herself, even if she wasn't in any way the King's favorite. Her name
was Vashti. She was a tall and slender woman, with the grace of a young
swan and the lips of a fresh rose, blood red, and sprinkled with
morning dew.

Vashti had been born in privilege. She had been raised as a princess in
the small, seemingly insignificant Kingdom of Phoenicia. Yet this
Kingdom has an importance that far exceeds its size. For it stands on
the major trade route between the powers of Persia and Egypt, and the
many passing merchants provide it with prosperity and riches.

Vshti's father, Erus foresaw that Persia, smelling weakness in Egypt,
its greatest adversary, would soon be pushing at his borders. Both
empires were hungry to expand and to extend their influence. He was
sadly sandwiched in the middle. And so, to ward off the danger, Erus
decided to trade his beautiful daughter, Vashti, in a marriage alliance
with the young King Ahas.

This marriage of convenience, would, he hoped, in time give him
influence with the most powerful man in all the Zodiac. His daughter
would, at the very least, become his permanent ambassador pleading his
case, and, perhaps, if his stars were truly favorable, she might even
end up dictating his terms.

And so the contract had been signed, and Vashti had been dutifully
dispatched. She'd arrived in Persia with a great deal of pomp. Erus was
a master statesman. There had been an enormous caravan of possessions,
as befits a princess of Royal blood. He had spared nothing, bestowing
upon his daughter a dowry of precious jewels, of gowns and of imported
lingerie. There had been dams and working dams, gifts for the king and
for his greatest nobles. There had been female companions, maidservants
and even the odd manservant. Apparently, it was nothing less than the
beautiful Princess Vashti deserved.

And everyone had been extremely impressed, including Ahas.

The wedding, that night of her arrival, had been a formality, as Royal
weddings always are in Modern times. Ahas had taken Vashti to his room
and, having undressed her, had consummated the union. The deed was
done. The marriage was secure.

And for the next seven days, the days of the Honey Moon, Ahas had
dutifully called Vashti to his chamber, as a Royal husband ought, but
with increasing frustration. Vashti was beautiful, certainly. She was
glamorous, to be sure. But she was an inadequate wife. She lay on his
bed, lifeless and still, docile, and simply allowed him to fuck her
body while she remained shut off in her mind, unresponsive, scheming
her intrigues and planning her moves.

It wasn't right. This wasn't the way a woman should be. It's not the
way that they're made.

And so Ahas gradually began to see her as nothing but a piece of skin,
plenty of surface, but no body: all glitz and fancy clothes, but no
soul. She promised the world, yet delivered nothing.

He found her boring, dull, lifeless. He would rather fuck his food
taster or one of the slaves that bathed him of a morning than this so-
called sex goddess, his wife.

And so his roving eye remained itinerant; he remained restless, fucking
and enjoying large numbers of women. After that first week, Ahas
refused to call Vashti to his chamber. Instead, he'd sown his oats
elsewhere.

And there our story would have remained, had it not been for the
insistence and the consuming ambition of Vashti. Ahas could never
remember the names of his wives. He wasn't clever. He certainly would
have soon forgotten this insignificant being from Phoenicia. If Vashti
had simply allowed herself to fade into the background, to find her
place within the King's harem, then she would doubtless have grown old
gracefully, would have been well cared for, and would have eventually
become a Persian matron.

But Vashti hadn't come to Persia to be forgotten. Her father had
assigned her to be his spokesperson, his ambassador, and so she'd
continued to push herself forward, to make the King's officials notice
her, even if the King no longer would.

First, she wasted no opportunity in lifting herself above Ahas' other
wives, proclaiming herself to be his Queen. There was some fuss, of
course, and much bitchiness, but the title stuck. She was the Queen.

Next, she set about winning the King's ministers. She would invite them
to her chamber, fluttering her eyelashes, lifting her bosom.

And they came: all of them. Men fell at her feet, flattering her and
offering their lifelong obedience. There were countless rumors of her
infidelity, but nothing was ever proven. But if she did fuck around,
then her paramours were obviously more impressed by her than the King,
for somehow, steadily, she grew in stature and influence.

But this prominence increasingly became an irritation and a frustration
to the King. His ministers would speak of what Vashti had said, or of
Vashti's considered opinion, even, when at times it contradicted the
King's own. They would talk with a glow in their cheeks, with fire in
their eyes, with lust in their groins.

Remember, I'm describing here a man of limited intellect and
confidence, not a clever man.

Ahas was also a superstitious man. He couldn't forget what had happened
that first week in his bedchamber. Soon, he began to suspect that
Vashti was the devil incarnate, or a sprite, sent by Erus to rob him of
his Kingdom. For whoever has heard of a woman that doesn't worship
cock? How can a woman take a man's penis into her body and not be
aroused by it? It's unheard of!

And so, he grew first to be suspicious of his wife, and then to fear
her, and finally, to hate her. He viewed her, rightly or wrongly, as a
threat, his enemy. And he determined to be rid of her.

Thus we come at last to the crux of our story.

A year and a day after the wedding, Ahas invited his nobility to a
feast. Of course, being king, no expense was spared.

There was caviar and venison and lashings of wine. There were carcasses
of beef, stuffed salmon and speared crocodile. But center stage, above
the table were a dozen young dams hanging by their hocks.

"Five days," Ahas decreed. "They must hang for five full days before
the flame can touch their flesh."

The dams were skinned alive before an invited audience. A master
butcher cut their legs, just below the knee, and also around the neck
just where it meets the shoulder, and he then tugged firmly and boldly,
ripping skin from flesh to the accompaniment of the most terrible
screams. From knee to neck they were skinned, stripped in the most
terrible of ways.

"Five days," Ahas said drunkenly, stoking a young serving wench with
his kingly cock. "Five days they must hang there. And then we shall
cook them, and then we shall party."

Ahas invited all the nobility to this event. He ate and drank and got
very drunk and at the end, for the first time in nearly a year, he sent
for his wife, for Vashti. There was no obvious reason for it. Her name
hadn't been mentioned, nor her opinions extolled.

I would have surmised, if we were talking of anyone else, that he had
some master plan in mind, some great scheme to finally bring Vashti to
book. But, since we're talking of Ahas, well, I'm not convinced that he
has enough intellect for such a thing.

Maybe it was simply the screams of the dams and the sight of their
skinned bodies, shuddering with pain and from the physical shock of it
all; some still screaming and blaspheming, others simply groaning,
dying in agony. MAybe it was this that aroused him, that reminded him
of what he would so like to do with his Phoenician wife.

He called her to attend upon him.

And she came. Vashti came, as everyone knew that she would and that she
must. She'd stood before her Royal husband in all her jewels and her
silks, with her hair decorations and her great extravaganza of
maidservants.

She looked nervously about her, at the dams, stripped and skinned, all
dead now, hanging by their hocks.

"I'm bored," Ahas said dully, enjoying his wife's anxiety. "I want you
to entertain me. I want you to entertain us all."

He sat upon his throne, leaning upon his arm, a childish disgruntled
air clouding his countenance, daring her to defy him.

"Of course, my lord. What would you like?" Vashti asked him anxiously,
pondering the least she could get away with. She very deliberately kept
her back to the dead women, but their image was fixed firmly within her
mind, unsettling her. She knew that her husband was aware of them too,
that he was enjoying the horror. What was he up to? She didn't know.
"Would you like me to tell you a story? A sexy story? A story of brave
men and lusty dams, perhaps?"

But Ahas wasn't in the mood for a story. He was after something much
stronger. "What about a song?" he suggested moodily. "Sing me a song. A
raunchy song about a Queen who gets speared in the butt with a spit!"

But Vashti wasn't willing to sing. She had the voice of a frog, she
complained. She begged to be excused.

This had seemed unlikely to the king, but he graciously accepted what
she told him at face value.

"Then how about a dance?"

"But sire, you know well. I've never been good at dancing. Perhaps I
can offer you one of my maids, to please you in my stead."

But the king didn't like that idea at all. "I don't want to be
entertained by a maid," he complained. "If I'd wanted to be entertained
by a maid, then I would have married a maid. The kind of dance I have
in mind is not difficult. Any woman can do it. It simply involves
removing the clothes. It would please me, it would please us all, if
you would perform a striptease. For what is a wife for, if not to
undress and plug in one or other of her holes?"

Vashti blushed prettily hiding her face behind her fan and declared
that she couldn't possibly take off her clothes in public. After all,
she was Queen and had her dignity to think of. But again, if Ahas cared
to take her to his chamber, then of course she would oblige. Or if he
wished for a maid, then certainly a striptease could be arranged...

At this Ahas was visibly furious. It confirmed all his worst
suspicions. This woman was more concerned with her own dignity and
position than in pleasing her master and husband. He hadn't made her
Queen. She had given herself that title. How dare she!

His nobles were equally as shocked. If the Queen could freely ignore
the will of the King, dishonoring him, then what hope was there for a
mere noble? Their wives were sure to hear of it and respond: 'As Vashti
rebukes Ahas, I rebuke you!'"

"Get out of here!" Ahas roared suddenly, jumping up from his throne,
picking up a chair and throwing it across the room. It clattered into a
wall, the noise echoing through the large banqueting hall. Apart from
that single noise, there was now complete silence. A pin could have
dropped.

"Take her away!" Ahas raged. "Get rid of her! Get her out of my sight!"

Vashti tried to argue. She didn't want to go. But her own attendants,
sensing the fickle mood of the King and Vashti's peril, whisked her
away for her own good. In this frame of mind, Ahas was completely
unreasoning and capable of anything.

Ahas strode up and down. "She is an offense to my harem," he roared at
his advisors, pointing a shaking finger at the doorway through which
Vashti had been scurried. He was in a vile mood, viscous, enraged. "I
want her replaced. What kind of wife lies in her husband's bed,
lifeless, a piece of meat? She's garbage! She's an insult to all women.
I would rather have raw meat in my bed than her. It couldn't serve me
worse."

"But Erus..." one of the counselors mumbled unadvisedly. "You shouldn't
upset him... If you offend him..."

"Fuck, Erus!" Ahas returned in his rage. "He's nothing. I'll overrun
Phoenicia and hang his cock on the wall of my bedchamber. I'll show you
what I think of Erus. Get me a scribe! Get one! Write down my words! I
want some dams brought to my room. You! Write this down! Even a fucking
piece of meat can fuck better than that Phoenician shit! You! Go down
to Hegai's and bring me half a dozen of his best carcasses. Let me
choose between them. Then you can send to that fox, to Erus, telling
him that I've replaced his daughter with a piece of meat from the
Butchery! Ha! Let him put that in his peace pipe and smoke it! Ha!
Write it down and I'll sign my name! And whatever you do, get rid of
that cunt, Vashti! Send Erus a present with my regards! Send him...
send him a nice juicy kebab!"

Then he sat back down on his throne and smiled, relaxing, and suddenly,
he wasn't angry at all.

Until Series Two...