The goddess Ereshkigal smiled at the intoxicating up swelling of emotions radiating from within Alexandra's mind, that overwhelming taste of mind numbing fear tainted by just a hint of darkly masochistic longing. For Alexandra this night marked an anniversary, one thousand years of submissive servitude as one of Ereshkigal's willing pleasure slaves. A thousand years of libertine excess, of days filled with unimagined pleasures, of nights of slow obscenely torturous death. An eternal existence Alexandra accepted of her own free will, her final act of freedom.

Perhaps that was why the goddess's words came as such an unexpected surprise to Alexandra, because never in the last thousand years had the goddess ever given Alexandra such a choice. Tonight, after willing enduring a thousand years of torture and brutal butchery at the hands of the goddess, the goddess was giving Alexandra a choice. And while it remained a dark and obscenely cruel choice, it remained the fleeting moment of self determination, self determination Alexandra hadn't experienced in the last millennia.

The fiendish choice the goddess Ereshkigal offered Alexandra this night was devoid of kindness but a choice never the less. Alexandra could choose for the goddess to run her through, a single excruciating sword thrust through Alexandra's belly and emerging from her back.

Of course, Alexandra's other choice is far more insidious. A slow and obscene demise that the goddess hadn't subjected Alexandra to since that first horrifying night spent within the Mesopotamian Underworld's dungeon torture chambers.

Once long ago, in the days before she so willingly accepted the goddess Ereshkigal's grim bargain, Alexandra worked as an entertainer in a medieval traveling carnival. At each performance she'd perform a sword dance for the audience and then as a magical finale she'd take the sword and tilting back her head, swallow the blade until the sword's hand guard reached her lips.

It was that act of seeming magic that the goddess Ereshkigal forced her to recreate on her first agonizing night within the Mesopotamian Underworld's dungeon torture chambers. Only here, the sword blade was considerably longer and far, far, sharper. The memory of that night still haunted Alexandra's dreams, the sensation of that cold steel blade slipping down her throat and sliding into her stomach. The terrifying realization as she stared up at the long steel blade still protruding from her lips as she felt the sharp tip of the sword reach the bottom of her stomach. That horrible moment Ereshkigal released her grip of the sword, and then, despite the desperation with which Alexandra clenched her teeth against the blade, the sensation of that sword's deadly blade slipping gradually deeper into her body.

And while being skewered by that razor sharp blade hurt, the long agonizing hours that followed exceeded any hideous torture she'd ever fantasized enduring.

You see, Alexandra managed to survive into the early hours of morning, on that her first fateful night in the Mesopotamian Underworld. It wasn't until then that Ereshkigal came to retrieve her sword. Lightly stroking Alexandra's tear soaked face, Ereshkigal leaned close and whispered in Alexandra's ear, "This is merely a small taste of the torturous delights you will come to know as one of my willing pleasure slaves, my dear Alexandra."

Unable to respond, Alexandra watched in horror as Ereshkigal's gloved hand moved to grasp the hilt of the sword sheathed within her body. Then, with a smile of pure sadistic pleasure, Ereshkigal brutally twisted the sword's blade within Alexandra's body, tearing the woman's insides apart before pulling the sword from between Alexandra's dying lips.

Staring into the cold merciless eyes of the death goddess, Alexandra smiled as she paused to briefly consider her choices. She knew that both options ended in a brutal agonizing death. But the long centuries of agonizing torment spent in the willing service to the death goddess had changed the woman standing helplessly before the razor sharp point of Ereshkigal's sword. And while the long eternity of agonizing deaths that would always lie ahead terrified her, Alexandra had come to embrace that feeling of pure masochistic submission that only one of Ereshkigal's pleasure slaves could ever fully comprehend. That exquisite realization of utter and complete subservience that comes from the knowledge that one would willing endure any brutal torture, any agonizing death, merely for the amusement of the death goddess.

Still smiling, Alexandra tilted her head back and opened her mouth to accept the sword. This time, she'd try harder not to bite down on the blade as is slipped into her guts.

After all, the night was just beginning...