So, I was playing cards with a swamp witch, a vampire, a snake girl, and a one-eyed riverboat captain. But hey, I'm undead, so who's to judge.
Some of these characters are new, some are old. Here's a little guide in case you're confused:
Swamp witch = Marie, Sabina's traveling companion.
Vampire = Louise. the elegant, well-dressed woman from the bar when they first entered Bianca's.
Snake girl = Simply known as Snake Girl, covered in scales with the top half of a woman and the bottom half of a snake (full description in this chapter).
Riverboat captain = Magnolia, Marie's friend. A tall woman with blonde hair, one-eye, and who's body is best described as thick.
On the surface, the game is remarkably simple. Each player is dealt three cards, everyone presents their cards, and the lowest hands loses some clothes. The problem is in the details. The deck we're using follows no classical or logical model. There are no suits, no number cards, no face cards, and no two are alike.
So, on the first round when I draw a pumpkin, some kind of scrawny cat-thing, and an oak leaf and everyone at the table declares me the loser, I figure the damn thing is a scam.
"But the Pipreeque always loses. Everyone know that." Snake Girl says, indicating the cat-thing card with one of her black claws. The nods of the others, especially Marie makes me realize it's not a battle I'm going to win.
I try to get away with removing my necklace, but they're not having any of that.
Magnolia squints her one eye and says, "There ain't no world, above or below, where that's clothes."
Luckily, they accept my shoes, so long as I take off the pair. I'm regretting leaving my stockings in the room. I'm also regretting that the moonglow has worn off. Although, whether it's a good or a bad thing to be lacking any and all inhibitions in this game is debatable. In truth, it messed with my mind so much, I'm sticking to Chardonnay like Marie.
The next deal goes to the Vampire, who's name I've learned is Louise. She's the glamorous woman from the bar in the red velvet dress. She shuffles like a card-shark, cutting one-handed and spreading the card through the air with her hands a good three feet apart.
I get my new cards: an acorn, a snail, and a something that looks like caramel corn with eyes.
"Revenant Girl loses again," Louise says.
"Oh, come on!" is my clever retort.
Also, it seems that the folks at Bianca's view me as a revenant and not a zombie. I don't really understand the difference, but it would seem zombies are looked down upon. So, I guess I'm moving up in the Underworld.
I remove my dress to a chorus of hoots and catcalls. These woman are pervs, as are nearly everyone at Bianca's, it seems. I'm just happy we're in a private room and not in one of the bars with a bigger audience to view me in nothing but my underwear.
Snake Girl takes the deck. She doesn't shuffle nearly so well. The cards are awkward in her hands which only have two fingers and a thumb. They end in nasty talons nearly as long as the fingers themselves. Although she's a monster, she's quite captivating. Her large orange eyes are bisected with a vertical pupil and glow with an inner light. From the waist up she looks fairly normal except for the dark green, almost black scales covering her body that gleam like oil. Her hair is the same color, and she keeps it short and slicked back, so from a distance she looks bald. She wears a simple white tank-top with a tight black vest over it. The vest pushes up her breasts and makes her D-cups look huge, and her exposed cleavage is deep and tantalizing. From her black tube-skirt, her tail pours out. It must be ten feet long, but to "walk," most of it stays on the ground, which means she only stands a few inches taller than me. She decorates her tail with a red ribbon near the end. So far she is the least human of any of the people of met in the Underworld, not counting Big Bertha, but she had no human traits what-so-ever and is hard to consider as "people."
The cards come down.
Elk skull.
Bubbling vial.
House Fly.
Miraculously, I don't lose this one. Louise gets the Pipreeque and tosses her cloak aside revealing her milky white shoulders. The next round Snake Girl has to strip and the table counts her ribbon as clothing. Because, of course they do.
It's finally my deal, and I lose again. I have the tough call to make: bra or panties. I can be bare chested or hide my nudity under the table, but be really fucking exposed. They stare at me, anxious for me to choose and get on with it. Trying to avoid a public striptease, I pull my panties off while still seated. No one cheers me on, and they seem disappointed at the lack of performance.
But Magnolia says, "Our little slut is acting shy, but still being slutty getting her cooch out for us." Then, she picks my underwear up from the floor and takes a deep sniff of them. The big, blonde woman offers them to the others, in case they want to smell them too, but no one accepts.
For the next little while, I manage to not lose any hands, and I'm not even the first one to show her tits. When Louise takes off her dress, she's not wearing a bra and her breasts hang free. They're maybe a C-cup and look like carved alabaster, hard and cold. Her areolas are pale blue and don't spread far from her needle-sharp nipples.
Snake Girl doesn't get topless but she ends up down to her shirt. It clings to her curves and does nothing to hide her thick, erect nipples.
Magnolia has followed my lead, taking off everything down below. Although, she made sure everyone had a close-up of her wet, hungry-looking pussy and her massive butt cheeks (each one is bigger than my head). She even spreads them to give us a rear view of her two holes.
Remarkably, Marie hasn't lost a single hand and still has her shift dress on, her only piece of clothing.
But of course, I'm the first one out of the game. That fucking Pipreeque.
When I hesitate to remove my last stitch of clothes, Marie encourages me saying, "Come on. Be proud of them." Then, to the others, she says, "They might not be big but they're a whole lot of fun."
Blushing deeply, I unclasp the hook in back. Before I can pull it from my shoulders, though, my whole body clenches up as something warm and smooth slips between my slightly parted legs and probes my nether lips.
"Eeep!" I shriek with all the cool and composure that you've come to expect from me.
Louise looks under the table and begins to giggle. Magnolia turns to Snake Girl and says, "Hey! No fair. If you're giving tail to anyone, it should be me." She stands, running a finger along her slit showing the full extent of her need.
Snake Girl is just staring at me with those mesmerizing eyes of hers. Is it wrong to want to open wider for her? But do I really want to be fucked by a monster girl in front of everyone? The tip flickers in my hole, and I'm starting to think it is what I want after all.
"Everyone, cool your jets." When Marie speaks, everyone stops (unfortunately, this includes Snake Girl). She pulls the cards to her and begins to shuffle. "There's a simple way to settle this. Since Sabina is the loser of the game, I propose one more hand. Winner gets her for the night."
There's a general murmur of agreement and Marie begins dealing to everyone except me.
"Don't I get a say in this?" I ask.
Everyone says, "No!"
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Marie (They're so cute together) Votes: 4 36.4%
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Louise (Give me some of that vampire on revenant action) Votes: 2 18.2%
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Snake Girl (Let's get kinky) Votes: 10 90.9%
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Magnolia (Time for someone to break Sabina in) Votes: 2 18.2%
I want the snake girl to win
You and many other readers!
Oh nice
I tried to research what a revenant is and found several different definitions, but none fit entirely in your novel.
The only thing that I clearly understood, is revenants are a type of undead that has returned from the grave, due to a strong desire to fulfill an unfulfilled task or promise. That there are stories that portray them possessing corpses, whether they are their own or not. And others that portray them as ghosts with ethereal bodies strong enough to curl up and pretend to be alive.
What exactly is your novel's definition of revenant?
Thanks for the chapter
Yes, I'm playing a little loose with the term revenant. Typically they tend to be either zombie-like or vampire-like. And nearly always they're very violent (at least when I've come across them in stories or games). But I needed to describe what Sabina was and "zombie" no longer fit now that she's breathing and pumping blood. So, this story would define "revenant" as a higher level of zombie that is close to being human without actually being alive.
There would be another level above that, which I haven't named yet (and haven't explained outside of this comment). Marie and many of the other characters would fall into that category. Unlike Sabina, they were never reanimated from spirit or corpse, but were granted a physical body in the afterlife because of their supernatural abilities. So for example, because Marie had supernatural powers when alive, she was put at that level when she died. For Sabina to ascend to that level, she'd have to acquire an ability or have her form changed to something more magical.
Hope this helps.