Black Star – Steel eels
The rules of the Emperor’s harem were based on pain and pleasure. They were implacable. Every so often the mature women were purged. This was done by a series of harem regeneration tests known as the “Maturalias”. The oldest women, all of them over 40 years old, were subjected to severe tests to establish if they were still worth a place in the harem. In these tests they had to show their worth as the Emperor’s concubine in tests of pain resistance, sexual skills and ability to withstand severe penetration.
Those who failed the tests were condemned to spending the rest of their days in much-feared confinement centers, or were made to participate in the Pain Festival. In this festival the Emperor’s concubines were submitted to the cruelest punishments purely to satisfy the whims of the Great Master of the Empire, as the Emperor now called himself. Those who were able to withstand all kinds of humiliating abuse were allowed to stay in the harem.
The Pain Festival is the high point of the Maturalias. Pain is administered in a special arena known as the Painkorror. It is full of the most blood-chilling instruments of torture. Most of the spectators are the cruel inhabitants of the Black Planet, who sit on the terraces drooling over the horrendous torture sessions. The Emperor Helmekios sits on his sacred throne, surrounded by female slaves who have passed the tests and who are allowed to serve him with their glistening naked bodies.