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Talla's Temple Ch. 01

By: xtorch



As she stood alone before the gates of the Temple, surveying that which she was about to enter, Talla brushed loose strands of dirty hair out of her eyes and took a deep breath to steady her quivering nerves. The walls of the Temple were light brown and stretched hundreds of metres to each side of her. Atop them, some ten metres over her head, were statues. Many were of nude men and women: intricately detailed portraits of those who had been famous throughout the history of the Temple and the surrounding town of Gern. Others were sculptures of shapes and devices for which she had no names. Funny angled things, strangely shaped things. She wanted to know what those things were. The answers were waiting for her in the Temple.

She eyed the three steps leading up to the open gate, wide enough for six or seven women to walk abreast, beside which two women stood at attention, one on each side of the gate. They wore leather armour that, as far as Talla knew, was ceremonial. There weren't any wars, were there? She decided that there would be more than two guards if there were. 

Her own clothing was ragged and a faded brown colour. Well-worn sandals clung precariously to her feet. Not at all like the Temple women in their well cut, tailored dresses of varying colours. She would see them wandering through the town, watching with envy as they darted by. Most only came into town at night and she had only caught the merest glimpses of their long, muscular legs, their heavy breasts, the flash of beautiful features and long hair. None had ever stopped to talk to a fawning little girl like her. And now she was supposed to enter the Temple and reside there with them.

She took another deep breath and eyed the guards who were studiously ignoring her. Through small gaps in the armour they wore, Talla could see hints of orange clothing. What were they wearing underneath? More of the same tailored clothing?

Realizing that she was simply delaying the inevitable, something that the child she no longer was would do, she walked up the three steps and stood before them. The two women immediately lowered and crossed their spears to block Talla's path. The one on her left said sharply, "What is it you wish?"

"I have come of age," said Talla, speaking the words as she had been taught, "and I wish entrance to the Temple."

It was a law and an avoidable fact of life. Upon her eighteenth birthday she was required to join the Temple and begin her service to the Goddess and the town, whatever that might entail. No one could enter earlier or, for that matter, later.

"Speak your name."

"I am Talla," she replied continuing the ceremony, "daughter of Kain out of Mih'lan."

"Enter Talla, and welcome."

The two guard women raised their wooden spears and Talla, taking a deep breath, walked through the gate. Beyond the gateway, she glanced upwards as she passed through the spread legs of a statue of the founding Goddess of the Temple. It was a fabulous, thirty-metre tall bronze statue, the breasts and aureola rendered in stunning detail. Her hair even seemed to flow though she knew it was metal. The spread of the legs allowed those passing under her to see a hint of the goddess's genitals through the articulately sculpted pubic hair. So pretty, Talla thought, compared to my bald ...

Talla finished her deep breath and continued through the gate. There was a sharp tingle that went through her spine. She was departing the world of her childhood, of low buildings and thatched roofs, of men and their toils, of poor clothing, of ... of all sorts of things. She was entering a world of brightness, of architecture, of women. The Temple meant tall buildings. It meant an end to her relationships with younger girls in her dormitory. She would have sisters now; age mates.

The gate opened on to a small, uncovered courtyard where a few men and women milled around. They were speaking to one another in serious tones. Work tones, Talla recognized. The men were there to find out what construction needed to be done or what crops needed to be sewn and reaped. The women were telling them what was needed. She looked carefully. No woman wore more than a single colour. Some wore skirts of varying lengths. Some appeared to be wearing nothing but underwear. On their upper bodies some wore what amounted to a pair of triangular cloths strung over their breasts while others wore shirts. But none wore more than a single colour.

"Talla?" a woman's voice called to her.

Talla twisted around to search out for whomever called her. She had summoned up her courage to enter the gate and now found herself lost, unsure how to proceed. She found the woman who had called her. A pretty woman with long blonde hair and largish breasts. She wore orange clothing. It was the skimpiest combination Talla had seen: she wore triangular cloths over her breasts, but only a small, snug pair of underwear over her lower body.

"I'm Sara," the woman said, "and my job is handling new girls entering the Temple."

"Oh, good."

"Now come with me and we'll get you cleaned up."

Well, Talla thought, I'm in.

She followed Sara out of the courtyard and through a maze of sandy brown walls, tapestries and conversing people. She noticed that the further they went, the more women there were and the less men until, very quickly, it became the case that there were only women. She felt like she stuck out in her drab brown rags.

"Where are we going?" she asked Sara.

"To the baths," Sara answered.

Shortly she found herself inside a building with a giant rectangular pool inside it. In the corners were smaller pools, big enough to hold five or six women each. Women, who were all naked as far as Talla could tell, were either swimming or simply floating on their backs. A light steam rose off the water to the high ceiling. There were spaces in it through which sunlight streamed and strategically placed frosted panes of glass let sunlight pass in through the walls. Glass was rare on the outside of the Temple and most windows were simply squarish holes in the wall with wooden doors on them. All along the walls of this great room were torch mounts. It was meant to be used all day and night.

"Here we are," Sara said and clapped her hands, "Ada, Meena! Duties!"

From the main pool, two skinny young swimmers climbed out. Talla noticed with a glance that their breasts were small, although one had a chest marginally larger than Talla's flat one. Neither had any pubic hair to speak of. That made Talla feel better. Her clothing made her feel pathetic as it was. She didn't need well developed naked women to rub it in.

Each picked up a pile of white clothing from the wooden racks at the edge of the pool, presumably having shed that clothing to go swimming. With a quick fastening, they both donned knee length white skirts and white tops that were much like Sara's in shape. Smiling, they came to meet Sara and Talla.

"Don't bother with your clothes," Sara told them, "This is Talla and she needs to be bathed." Sara pointed to a small pool in the nearest corner of the giant room.

Without hesitation, both Ada and Meena undid their clothing and let it drop to the floor. "Hi, I'm Ada," one of them said to Talla. The other girl, the one with the barely developed breasts, introduced herself as Meena. Talla thought they might be a year older than her, but she couldn't be sure. 

"You'll want to get rid of that stuff," Ada said, gesturing to Talla's clothing. At first she had been worried about being naked with all of these people around. But she suddenly felt that her brown rags made her stand out more than nudity would. With a sigh, she loosened the ties on her shirt and lifted it over her head to reveal her flat chest and a pair of nipples that were almost the same colour as the rest of her breasts. She stepped out of her sandals and then undid the clasp on her skirt, letting it fall to the ground. Between her legs grew not a single strand of hair. She looked out at the pool where some women floated on their backs and she could see the soft, thick hair that grew between their legs.

She touched herself, feeling only the sweat on her bare mound. Well, no matter, Ada and Meena looked the same as she.

Ada and Meena led her to the small bathing area. Meena carried her clothing. Beside the pool was a small pipe coming out of the wall. "Stand here," Ada said, pointing to a spot under the outlet of the pipe. She pulled a lever on the wall and hot water began to sprinkle over Talla's naked body. Her eyes widened in shock. They didn't have this on the outside. What luxury!

Meanwhile, Ada and Meena lathered up their hands with soap. Meena kicked the lever to stop the water flow and they began washing Talla.

"I remember my first real shower," Ada said, "It was just two weeks ago. I can't imagine living without it now."

They washed her upper body, front and back, first. As the water evaporated, Talla felt her little nipples harden. She hoped the soap hid that from prying eyes. It certainly couldn't be hidden from Meena's or Ada's hands. She reminded herself that these two eager girls were no different from her.

They rinsed her off with more hot water and made her sit on the end of a small bench. Then they washed her from her toes upwards. 

"Open your legs," Meena said softly, "It's okay, we're all sisters here. There's no need to be afraid."

Ada smiled and giggled, "I remember when they washed me. I was so scared."

Talla cautiously opened her legs. Meena put her hands on Talla's knees and pushed them open until her legs were almost diametrically opposed.

"Now lie on your back."

Talla's heart rate increased as she nervously obeyed. The bench was cold against her skin and she felt very vulnerable. She felt Meena's hands slide up the inside of her thighs as Ada flipped the lever to pour water over her genitals. Meena massaged her gently and opened her lips, sliding a single along the little nub that Talla herself massaged whenever she felt the need. It felt nice.

"You'll want to keep yourself clean," Ada said, "Especially once you start Serving. It's important to your health."

Talla could hear the capital 'S' in Serving and wondered what it was. She shrugged it off as they directed her to stand and turn around. 

"We need to do your bum," Ada said.

Talla felt quite vulnerable as they nudged her to lean over the bench so they could wash her. "Just relax, okay?", Meena directed as she spread Talla's cheeks and more water poured between them. They scrubbed her with soap and rinsed her again.

"Good," Ada said, "Now you're clean enough to come in."

Ada stepped in to the small pool and waved Talla in. Talla stepped down gingerly, thankful to get something to cover her modesty. The inside of the small tub had a ledge upon which she could sit was just deep enough that it covered her chest as long as she slouched a little. The temperature was warm and soothing. She began to relax a little and feel a bit less naked. At that point, she saw Meena take her clothing and drop it in a chute next to the pool. Talla's eyes widened in panic. Temporary nudity was one thing, but -

"Don't worry," Ada said as she touched Talla's shoulder reassuringly, "There'll be some new clothes for you. Your old clothes are being burned underneath this bath. It makes the water hot."

The water was warm, but she was suspicious that the fire underneath ran entirely on the discarded clothing of girlhood. 

"Excellent!" Meena announced as she slid in to the pool. Talla breathed a sigh of relief. She was quite shocked when Meena took a hold of her waist and slithered down to plant two kisses on her, one on each nipple. No sooner had she backed away then Ada did the same thing. Following that, Ada got up on her knees and stuck her chest out toward Talla.

"Go ahead," Ada said, "kiss them."

Not wanting to offend someone with such a cheery disposition, Talla leaned forward and pressed her lips to each of Ada's nipples. The flesh of her nipples was stiff with the cold, and Talla could feel the hardness of the bones of her ribcage behind it. Next, Meena offered her own somewhat more developed breasts. Her nipples were stiff on Talla's lips as well, but there was softness behind them. Talla pressed her face deeply in to each tiny breast before pulling away.

"There," Ada said, "Now we are sisters." 

Had that been a ritual of some kind?

Ada held her hand out between the three of them, with the palm open and faced down. Meena put her hand on top. Following that lead, Talla put her hand over top of Meena's. Ada smiled cheerfully before something caught her eye.

"Sara has your new clothes," she said excitedly, "Try them on."

Unfortunately, Sara had not brought towels. Talla stepped out of the bath, somewhat less shy of her body and took the proffered clothing. "You get a skirt that goes down to your ankles and a bikini top, both white," Sara said. "That's before you're initiated. Later you'll trade in your ankle length skirt for a knee length one like Ada and Meena have. Now I have to go back to the main gate. Ada and Meena will take care of you for today until you're ready for Lessons. Good luck!"

Sara turned and fled the pool room and Talla caught a glimpse of a mature female form. The muscles in her legs and butt were finely developed and well displayed by her underwear which contained almost no material in the back. In a flash she was gone. Fortunately Talla still had her new sisters.

"What now?" she asked them as they all donned their clothes. It clung to their wet skin, allowing their bodies to be plainly visible, but the fabric seemed to be drying quickly. Ada helped Talla adjust her top so the triangles of cloth fit over her chest properly. What had Sara called it? A bikini?

"Now," Meena said as she squeezed water from her hair, "we tell you about the Temple"

"Right now," Ada said as they left the pool room along the same path that Talla had entered it, "you're in the entrance section of the Temple, which is a common area for all women of all different Divisions and Disciplines. Now you remember that the Temple is in the shape of a triangle right?"

Talla nodded, getting the feel of Ada's rhythmic teaching voice.

"Okay. So the Temple is divided up in to three different Divisions. Each of those Divisions gets a triangle that is one fourth of the entire Temple. The Divisions each get one corner."

Talla said, "That leaves a triangle right in the middle?"

"Yes," Meena cut in, "That's the Goddess's domain, although some of it is taken up by this entrance area and the common area. The Goddess's domain is this way. Come on."

They had walked back to the courtyard just inside the main gates. A wide street led straight in to the heart of the Temple. She noted as they walked it that it was the strangest street she had ever seen. For one thing, it contained no doors or windows of any kind. It was flat brown sandstone. For another thing -- it was not a trick of her eyes -- it got wider as it got closer to the domain of the Goddess.

Talla looked at the area in to which they had walked. Another solid sandy brown wall, but this one had black, curvy scribbling painted all over it. There were steps leading up to two ornately carved doors, each engraved with a bronzed carving of a nude woman. The women in these statues stood on their toes with their legs together. Their faces, with eyes closed, were generic and their arms were outstretched. Their breasts were heavy and their pubic hair thick.

"You can't go through those doors unless you have special permission," Meena warned, "The guards would stop you anyway."

Where the guards at the main entrance were ceremonial, these guards were serious. Thick chain mail from head to toe, six women guarded the door, three to each side. Talla wondered at the need for guards but Ada replied before she could ask. "There have been assassination attempts; a long, long time ago."

"Oh."

That explained the curious nature of the street leading to this door. It also explained the slits in the walls above the door.

"Anyway," Meena said, perking up and leading the way back to the main courtyard. "We'll show you where you sleep for now ... until you choose a Discipline."

"A Discipline?"

"Yeah," Ada said, "It works like this. Remember I said that there are three Divisions? Well, each Division has three Disciplines. Each one of them deals with working on a different part of your body."

"Three Divisions, Nine Disciplines?" Talla asked.

"Yes. I joined the Division called Endowment," Meena said proudly. "In Endowment, we work on our breasts."

"Endowment," Talla repeated.

"Right," Meena rhymed off. "If you join Endowment, your quarters will be in the triangle on the right side of Temple when you come in by the main entrance."

"I joined Form," Ada put in. "It's all about muscle building and appearance." She took a breath to contain her excitement, "I completed Initiation and got my first upgrade last week!"

So Ada had only been here slightly longer than Talla. She opened her mouth to ask what an 'upgrade' was, but Meena was already speaking.

"Form," Meena put in, "has its triangle off to the left of the main entrance. The triangle at the back of the Temple belongs to Sweetness. They work on your genitals."

"You mean pussy?" Talla said. She had never heard the word genitals, but it was the only part left.

"That's a vulgar man's word when you use it like that," Ada scolded lightly. "In here, there's a Discipline called Pussy."

"Oh."

"Okay," Meena explained, a little more softly than Ada, "pussy is the hair between your legs, that covers your genitals. One of the Disciplines of Sweetness is devoted to that hair, and it's called Pussy. That's how you use that word in here. Understand?" 

Talla nodded.

Meena went on. "The whole of Sweetness is all about bringing pleasure during sex using your genitals. The most important Discipline is Within. That's where you learn how to squeeze a man's ..."

She stopped suddenly, seeing confusion on Talla's face.

"How much do you know about sex?" she asked.

Talla's face probably turned red, "Not much."

"Well, it's enough to say the ability to use the muscles inside your vagina is a very valuable skill. It's the most sought after Discipline."

"Follow," Ada said and twisted around in a flare of white skirt. Meena and Talla tagged along as she led them back through the maze, past the pool building, to a building with rows of beds in it.

"This is where you will sleep," Ada said. It was a long building with tall, skinny windows. The walls were bright white, a contrast to the sandy brown of everything else. The beds, ten on each side of the aisle, were big enough for one person to sleep if that person didn't roll around too much. The bed sheets were also white, as translucent as the curtains that separated each bed from its neighbour. "You can sleep naked," Meena said gleefully, "and you don't have to worry about strangers wandering in. It's so much more comfortable than wearing anything to bed."

"Who is this?" a woman asked.

"Oh, hi Maksa," Ada said to the woman who approached. Then she spoke to Talla, "Maksa is the dorm agent for the Virgin dormitory."

Meena put in, "Maksa, this is Talla."

Talla noticed that Maksa was clad in a yellow bikini top and skirt that was made of strands of yellow grass. It covered her to just below her crotch, but it was so thin that if she moved it was easy to tell that she wore nothing underneath - that and the fact that she had a light fuzz of 'pussy'.

"Hello, Talla," Maksa said in a friendly, welcoming voice. "The sixth bed on the left is untaken. You may have it for your week."

"My week?"

"Yes," Ada put in, "after one week of instruction, you'll do your Initiation, pick a Discipline and move in to one of the triangles. For now you stay here."


Talla's Temple Ch. 01



"Oh, okay"

"We're going back to the pool now," Meena said, "but we'll be back tonight to see you, okay? Maksa has some things to teach you."

Talla's eyes widened in fright, "You're leaving me?"

"Don't worry," Ada said, "we're sisters, remember?" She touched her own bikini covered breast to remind Talla. "We'll be back tonight."

Talla watched them go. In just two hours, she had been handed off four times. From her old house to the guardians to Sara, then to Meena and Ada and now to Maksa. At least Maksa seemed pretty friendly.

"I'll start your education," Maksa said, "by describing some simple things to you. It's important that you use the right terms so that other women in the Temple can understand you. Here, sit down."

Maksa sat at one end of Talla's bed and spread her legs to straddle the bed. "Take off your clothes."

Talla was still a little shocked at the prevailing casual attitude towards nudity. Outside the Temple, where she had spent all of her life, revealing oneself was a crime punishable in a number of humiliating ways.

"It's okay," Maksa said, as if reading her mind, "as long as there are no men around, you don't have to worry about it. On the outside of this room, did you notice a red star over the door?"

Talla said that she hadn't noticed.

"Well, you will notice it from now on," Maksa said. "The red star means two things: that only women are normally allowed past that point; and that clothing is optional. If you don't see the red star, even if it's women only, you should still have your clothing on."

"So I can always wear clothes if I want?" Talla asked nervously.

"In most places," Maksa said. "The only exception is when the Goddess herself is in the room. Etiquette demands that there are some times when the rest of us must be unclothed in her presence. You'll understand that better later on. Also, once you get used to it, you'll prefer being naked."

"Oh," Talla whispered.

"So pull your skirt up already," Maksa said impatiently.

Talla shrugged. After having two other girls suck on her nipples and wash her genitals, she was quite beyond embarrassment, at least for the moment. She hiked her skirt up to reveal her hairless genitals and straddled the bed facing Maksa, who spread the strands of her clothing apart. Comparisons were inevitable. Maksa, although she didn't have much hair, had much more than Talla. Talla's bald genitals were a pale white to Maksa's toned and flushed flesh.

"You tan in the nude?" Talla asked.

"Of course," Maksa added with a patronizing smile. Then she reached down and opened herself with both hands.

"I'm going to teach you the words that we in the Temple use," Maksa said, "when we're discussing sex and we're teaching you about sex, we're going to use these words and you have to know what we're talking about, so pay attention."

Talla stared wide-eyed at Maksa's hands as she pointed things out. She couldn't imagine talking about her ... parts ... so casually. "This is your clitoris," said Maksa pointing out the small bump in the centre of her lips. "If you've played with yourself, this is the best part to play with. It's very sensitive and easy to manipulate with finger or tongue. If you get upgraded, you'll notice it getting a little larger, a little redder and a lot more sensitive. Now show me yours."

Talla's eyes went even wider even though she'd not thought that possible. Maksa waited, calmly, almost patronizingly, as Talla opened her lips and bared her clitoris.

"Good, now compare them, what do you see?"

"Well," Talla glanced down at her own clitoris, tucked tightly between her inner lips, "mine is smaller, and it's light brown, almost white ... and yours is a little redder and quite a bit ... well ... bigger."

"Now go like this," Maksa said and put her middle finger over her clitoris and made several quick, small circles on it. Talla did the same.

"Compare again."

"Oh!" Talla said in surprise, "Yours has gotten redder and much bigger but mine ... mine has barely changed at all."

"Good," Maksa said, "that's because my Discipline is Lips. I've had four upgrades in it, that's why I'm wearing a grass skirt and a bikini top. You'll learn about clothing tomorrow, with the rest of the girls. For now, the important thing is that you notice the difference my upgrades make."

"How do you get the upgrades?" Talla asked.

"You earn them through schooling, satisfying sexual quotas, and passing examinations," Maksa replied, "and then you undergo a ceremony in which the physical traits are transferred to your body."

"Oh."

She had seen men exercising, intentionally working their bodies over in order to build muscles. That didn't apply to women?

"Now for the rest," Maksa said. "This flesh is called your lips, and the little parts that cover your clitoris -- these two here -- we simply call the inner lips. The hair on the outside is called your pussy. I've taken two upgrades in that -- go ahead ..." 

For a moment, Talla didn't understand what 'go ahead' meant. But Maksa nodded towards her genitals and repeated herself, "Go ahead, touch it."

Talla reached over with a finger and rubbed Maksa's pussy. "How does it feel?"

"Um, a little rough; scratchy," Talla said. "But prettier than my bald ... um ... lips."

"Don't worry," Maksa said, "every woman started out just like you are right now."

"I've also had two upgrades in 'Within'," Maksa added, "but there's no way to show you that. It's a matter of being able to squeeze a man's penis while it is inside me. Within is the single most popular Discipline for upgrades. Almost every girl wants to get in to it, and almost every optional upgrade you get, you'll want it in Within. Therefore there is serious competition for those upgrades, especially past the third upgrade. But we'll get to that later."

Maksa then lifted her bikini top up and over her head. Talla, fully engrossed in the lesson, didn't even flinch and removed her own top in the same fashion.

"Now I have only one other upgrade that I can show you," Maksa said, "and that's the single upgrade I received in what we call Point. Compare your nipples to mine."

Talla looked down at herself then at Maksa. "Your nipples are definitely a darker colour than the rest of your breasts, not like mine which are almost the same. And, well, yours stick out a little more than mine, but not much."

"Good," Maksa said, "you're becoming much more natural with your body already. That's the real point of this exercise -- to be able to discuss your body naturally. Now the term we use for the dark part of the skin around the nipple is 'aureola', but otherwise you're doing fine."

Talla smiled. It was true: she wasn't flinching any more.

"Notice the size of your breasts compared to mine?"

Talla nodded, "They're the same?"

"Exactly," Maksa said, "I tried to get an upgrade in Abundance, to make my breasts bigger, but the competition for those upgrades is also very harsh, so I took an upgrade in Point instead."

Talla nodded. So there was competition, was there? And it didn't take a genius to realize that the competition was foremost for the pussy - the genital enhancing Division -- the one with Pussy, Lips and Within. And Within was definitely the biggest one. Talla didn't need to hear it from Maksa, she could have figured it out from the fact that the triangle for the Sweetness Discipline was at the back of the Temple, up higher on the hill. And it also didn't take much to figure out that Abundance was also important, even if it was in a different Division. After all, even if they were covered, the size of a woman's breasts was always obvious.

"All right then," Maksa said, breaking Talla's reverie, "your first class is tomorrow morning. There are nine other girls that came in over the past two days, so we can start a new session. You'll have a number of teachers, at least one from every Division. They'll teach you all the etiquette and everything you need to get along in the Temple."

"The etiquette is hard?"

"Quite," Maksa answered, "but your virgin's clothing will excuse you from everything but intentional rudeness and improper nudity. If you decide to go swimming, there is waterproof chalk on the side of the pool. Just put a white line over your chest and one on your back. That way everyone will know that you're a virgin and they won't expect much from you. But until tomorrow you're free to do as you please. Stay inside the Temple, meet some other women and don't try to go in to any rooms with guards in front of them. You're one of us now."

With that, Maksa stood up off the bed while replacing her bikini top in one smooth motion. The grass of which her skirt consisted fell back in to place gracefully. As she walked, the wave of her hips tossed the grass from side to side, giving Talla brief flashes of the colour of flesh underneath.

Now what?, she wondered. Deciding that there was nothing to do where she was, she got up and tried to find her way back to the pool. She had at least six hours before bed time, so she might as well spend time exploring. And what about food? She hoped she could find someone when the time came.



Talla's Temple Ch. 02



"That was her?"

"Yes."

"Not much to look at."

"No woman ever is before her first upgrade. The gods see to that. It's how the first one takes that matters."

"So you say."

"You'll see. She'll be everything her breeding says she should be."

"You won't interfere?"

"She doesn't know who her mother was. Neither will anyone else."

"As long as there's no bias."

"There won't be."

Talla had managed to find the pool again. At least she was pretty sure that it was the same one. It was closer to the Virgin dormitory than she thought and it would be a simple matter to get back there without getting lost. She had stripped and slipped into the pool quickly and was now quietly treading water whilst she examined the other women with curiosity and discretion. Of those in the pool, it was easy to see those who had had a lot of upgrades and who had not. The obvious indicators were the thickness of the hair between their legs and the size of their breasts. Some of them had what appeared to Talla, to be ridiculously awkward breasts, but they managed to dive and swim gracefully regardless. From the women who were mingling around the pool, she tried to work out the varying levels of rank from the clothes that they wore. The colours went from white to yellow to orange and together with the physical differences, it was obvious that the women wearing orange were ahead of the ones wearing yellow. What other colours were there?

She hadn't been able to find Meena or Ada, but she had found two other white-clad girls in the pool. At first, she thought they were the same rank as Meena and Ada, but when they got dressed their clothing wasn't the same. Instead of a skimpy bikini top, each wore a pair of thick white sashes over her shoulders, which crossed in front to cover the girls' breasts.

They barely had time to introduce themselves and point out to Talla where she could get food before they were off to some duty or other. She sat down for dinner alone, the white marks on her chest only a little bit visible. Two yellow-clad women sat near her and struck up a conversation. They both wore bikini tops and grass skirts, just like Maksa had worn. In fact, as far as Talla could tell, all of the yellow-clad women wore either grass skirts or skirts made of strips of yellow fabric. Styles varied, but the basic character and length of the skirts did not.

Without giving their names, they started talking to her, asking her what it was like. It seemed to her that a lot of the women she ran in to looked at her somewhat nostalgically. She remembered the same look in Maksa's eyes.

"We have duties to attend to," one said, "but remember to enjoy this time. The Initiation is something you will always remember. The best thing to do is dive right in."

The other smiled and the two of them walked away in a flare of grass skirts.

Talla wandered around for a while after that. There was no one that she could really relate to, but there was a lot she could learn just by watching. The deference one woman showed another indicated which outranked the other, and could be correlated with the clothing each wore.

The yellow ones bow to the orange ones, she noted mentally, and the ones in bikini tops bow to the ones with heavier upper body clothing. All of the orange ones wear bikini bottoms rather than frail grass skirts. That must mean that it's a privilege of rank to cover your body more.

Which confused her because she was more covered than anyone. Clothing was complicated and important here and she didn't understand it.

Talla found the path back to the Virgin dormitory just as easily as she'd thought she would. After spending so long in the pool, it was dark by the time she got there. There was so little to do besides swimming and walking around. Friendships and conversations seem to take place between those of similar ranks, and she had found no one else of her rank by the time night had fallen.

She arrived to find the dormitory full of girls. Eight of them were sleeping, tucked under their bedsheets against the chilly night air. One of the sleeping girls was quite obviously cold -- Talla could see her nipples poking the sheets up. 

"Oh, good," the lone non-sleeper said, "You must be Talla. I'm Sila."

"You're waiting for me?"

"Yeah. Maksa made us do this exercise earlier and told me to show it to you. Take off your clothes." As Talla undressed, Sila removed her own clothing and Talla noted that Sila was a bit taller than her and that she was a bit stringier and longer in the legs.

When they were both naked, Sila lowered herself onto Talla's bed, straddling it. Taking the cue, Talla sat facing her. "Okay," Sila said, "Lean back on your elbows and I'll show you what we did."

Talla obeyed as Sila leaned forward and lowered her head between Talla's thighs. "Okay," Sila said nervously, "I'm supposed to rub your clitoris until you get, um, at least a little wet."

"How wet?"

"I have to be able to get my finger inside you - your vagina."

"Oh!"

"Ready?"

Ready? Ready? How could she be ready for that?

"Uh, sure, go ahead."

Without further ado, Sila put her weight on her elbows and parted Talla's bald lips. Talla watched Sila's expression as she gently tickled Talla's clitoris with one finger and Talla could feel Sila's breath caressing her flesh. 

"Maksa said that different women require different kinds of touching," Sila said, "So I'm supposed to try different things until you tell me which one works."

Sila then tried pushing on Talla's clitoris. 

"Ow!"

"Sorry," Sila said with a wince, "No one likes that, I guess." 

She then switched to a rotating motion.

"That's it," Talla said as she closed her eyes.

"Oh!" Sila said, "You're getting wet already. I can see it."

In fact, Talla had started getting wet as soon as soon as Sila had described what she was going to do, but it was only just now becoming noticeable from the outside. Ever so gently, Sila slid her finger up inside Talla's vagina. Talla bit her lower lip. It was excruciatingly tight. Sila stopped and looked up at Talla's strained face. 

"Keep pushing," Talla insisted. She had never tried pushing her finger inside herself when she masturbated. She'd always been happy just stroking her clitoris.

Sila kept pushing until her middle finger was completely buried inside Talla. "Wow," Sila said as she tried to wiggle her finger -- to no avail -- "none of the other girls were able to get a finger in this fast."

"It's always gotten wet quickly," Talla replied with surprise in her voice.

"Always?"

"Yeah, when I rub it myself. You don't?"

"Um, no."

"Oh," Talla said, "Your turn now?"

Sila nodded and pulled her finger out of Talla's vagina -- a little too quickly. Talla gasped. A look of horror came over Sila's face, 

"Sorry. I'm sorry -"

"It's okay," Talla said with a deep breath. "Ready?"

"Um, yeah," Sila said as she leaned back on her hands and closed her eyes. "Go ahead."

Talla leaned over as Sila had, resting on her elbows, and spread her newest friend's lips. Her clitoris looked a bit different from Talla's. It was smaller by a smidgen and tucked in further between her inner lips. Talla gently blew air over Sila's genitals before starting to stroke her clitoris. Sila was stiff with anxiety. 

"Just try to relax," Talla whispered as she tried a circular motion. Sila was incredibly dry, with not even sweat to lubricate herself. Talla solved the problem by licking her finger before proceeding. Sila let out a gasp but remained tense. Talla tried squeezing Sila's clit between two fingers, tried pushing it inwards, tried pulling on it. None of this seemed to get a positive reaction.

After a lot of trying, she tried pushing the little nub of flesh towards her vagina and finally felt Sila's body move in response. Muscles loosened up and her legs spread a little further apart as a wave of relaxation washed over the other girl's body. Talla found her finger getting dry and licked it again. As she pushed down, Sila very gently thrust her hips upward.

Talla looked closely and she could see moisture just beginning to leak out. 

"I think I can get my finger in now."

"Okay," Sila breathed.

Talla used her left thumb to continue to stroke Sila's clitoris as she slid her right hand underneath and extended her middle finger upward. She only made it a little way before Sila began rolling forward, forcing Talla's finger all the way in. Sila moaned.

"Leave it in for a while ..."

"Okay," Talla said. She sat up, but left her hand under Sila who wiggled contentedly.

"Sisters?" Sila offered.

"Definitely," Talla replied with a smile. They were both naked. It wouldn't be hard to complete the short ritual.

She leaned over, somewhat awkwardly, and kissed each of Sila's tiny nipples. They were cold and hard on her lips. "I think I have to take my finger out for you to -"

"No, please," Sila begged, "Just sit on my lap"

It was tricky, but by putting one of her legs up on Sila's legs, Talla managed to bring her breasts to Sila's face without withdrawing her finger from the others vagina. Sila reached under Talla's legs to pull her upward by her skinny butt. She carefully and gently kissed Talla's left nipple. As she twisted to reach the other nipple, her thumb came in to contact with a wet spot on the edge of Talla's lips. Just as her mouth met Talla's nipple, a shock went through both of them and

...

Talla was elsewhere. She felt her body, but it was different, longer ... and there was a finger inside her vagina. No, that was Sila's vagina. Sila was kissing her nipple and she could feel the texture of her own flesh through Sila's soft lips and

...

The two girls broke apart in shock, Talla's finger involuntarily being yanked out of Sila's vagina. Sila didn't even notice the pain. The girl sleeping in the next bed stirred restlessly as the two conscious girls stared at each other wide-eyed. 

"What was that?" Talla whispered.

"I don't know."

There were no words to describe what had happened. They stared at each other. Nothing like that had ever happened to Talla and, from the expression on her face, nothing like that had ever happened to Sila either.

"Wanna try again?" Talla asked.

"Are we allowed?"

"They would have told us, don't you think?"

"Maybe, but Maksa was watching the others when they did it."

Talla looked around nervously. Where was Maksa anyway?

Sila said, "Maybe we should just go to sleep."

"Yeah," Talla agreed.

Neither slept that well.

"The two of them meshed?"

"Maksa claims to have felt it and reported it directly to me. She had left the room for a moment and decided to watch them discreetly -"

"No one else knows?"

"She thinks that one of the other Virgins reacted, and they're barely attuned at all. Other than that, no, no one else knows."

"Make sure Maksa doesn't speak of it."

"Do you think me a fool? I've already ordered her silence."

"Good."

A pause.

"What have we done?"

"I don't know."

Talla woke up to find herself naked under her sheets. Her clothes were at the edge of the bed where she'd left them. The other girls were waking up. Curiously, all of the them were dressed. Only Talla was naked. Consequently, only her dress was unwrinkled.

"Alright, girls," Maksa said, "Follow me to the baths."

Most of them were giggling as they went. All except Talla and Sila. Their eyes met briefly and both jerked away.

The baths were in a different building, close to the pool. Just like in the pool, the pull of a lever was all that was needed to cause water to spray down. Maksa showered with them, then had them wash one another's backs before getting dressed and going for breakfast.

"Your first class is today," Maksa said. "Your teacher will teach you all of the basic etiquette you'll need to get along in the Temple. You'll know what's what and, best of all, you won't have to put those chalk marks on your tits and asses when you go swimming."

The ten of them had followed her from breakfast to the classroom. There was a blackboard at the front of the room along with two extra chairs, presumably for teachers. The seats for the girls were arranged in two columns of five, facing the blackboard. 

Talla tried to catch Sila's eye as the girls chatted nervously to one another, but Sila was at the front of the left column and was conspicuously avoiding her gaze from the back of the right column. Finally, a woman entered the room. She wore orange clothing in the form of strong bikini top and a tiny pair of underwear. Her breasts were -- there was no question -- huge. They lay heavily against the fabric of her bikini top. Talla thought that, just possibly, she might be able to hold one of those breasts if she used both of her hands. Other than that, the most remarkable thing about the woman was the aura of fear she exuded. Having her hair severely pulled back in a dark ponytail only exaggerated the effect.

"Good morning, girls," she said sharply. "My name is Shanata. It is my duty to speak to you of Temple etiquette so you may become good citizens. If you have any questions during class, ask them immediately."

Talla thought that Shanata was a little too brusque to really expect anyone to ask a question.

"The most important thing here is to know the rank of those whom you approach. So I will teach you all of the ranks. You can identify a woman's rank by the clothing which she wears. You are not responsible for knowing the rank of a woman if she is nude. If, however, she outranks you and you work with her, you will be expected to remember her."

The girls were nodding, wide-eyed.

Shanata struck a pose at the front of the class: arms folded and feet spread shoulder width.

"Each of you is wearing an ankle length skirt and a bikini top," she said, "This is the clothing of an un-upgraded Virgin. It means that you have not chosen a Discipline or Division yet and, most of all, that you've never had sex. Once you've had your first upgrade and have sex, you'll get a shorter skirt that stops at your knees. While your rank will still be 'Virgin', the shorter skirt indicates that you are not truly a virgin in the common sense of the word."

Her speaking rhythm quickened.

"The next rank is called Initiate. Your skirt becomes slightly shorter, stopping just below your crotch. The next rank is Neophyte, where you get rid of the bikini top and get a pair of sashes, one over each breast. As well, your skirt will be knee length again. At the fourth upgrade, your clothing becomes yellow and the first yellow rank is Keeper ..."

Shanata went on and the girls tried to absorb the information, or at least avoid drowning in it. Shanata was speaking far too quickly for most of them. Her dry tone and monotonous cadence really didn't seem to help them absorb what they had to learn.

"And the final rank is Goddess, of which there is only one in any Temple, as I'm sure you know. She always wears black."

Shanata paused for a moment and looked down at them over her nose. She had not moved from her position at the front of the class.

"Stand up, please," Shanata commanded and they obeyed. "Now I want you all to face outwards from each other and to bend over your chairs."

With nervous looks and giggles, the girls bent over their chairs, using their hands to support themselves on the backs of their chairs. 

"Now lift up your skirts."

It was early in the morning and quite surreal. The girls looked around at each other, now quite unsure of what was going on.

"Now! All the way up!"

Frightened, they obeyed. There was no giggling. Just the ten of them, barely days in to adulthood, baring themselves to their strident teacher.

Shanata held a thin pointer stick in her hand, produced from where they knew not. There was enough room in the aisle, even with ten girls standing in it bent over, that Shanata could walk between them. She stood behind Sila at the front of the left row and touched the pointer to Sila's shoulder. 

"What colour does an Acolyte wear?"

"Um, yellow."

"Wrong," Shanata declared darkly. Her single word was followed by a short whistle and a sudden snap. All of the girls turned to look as Sila yelped. What they saw was Shanata walking to the next girl in Sila's row -- and a red line across Sila's bony cheeks. Now the girls were wide-eyed with terror.

"What rank wears blue?" Shanata asked the next girl.

"I ... uh ... I think -"

The pointer cracked against a second pair of pale cheeks. 

"Too long," Shanata said, "you must know these things without thinking."

She went along the first row and not a single girl answered a question correctly. The pointer left three more red marks on three more asses. The girls were nervous and shaking now as Shanata casually strolled back to the front of the room and started with the second column.

"What colour does a Sorceress wear?"

That one's easy, Talla thought.

"Red," the girl at the front answered.

Crack!

Next girl. "What colour does a Queen wear?"

"Red," that girl answered.

"Correct," Shanata said. She remained by the same girl and asked, "What does an Acolyte II wear on her upper body?"

"A shirt?" came the hopeful reply.

Another crack and a yelp. It didn't seem fair to Talla. Shanata's goal seemed to be to punish everyone. That didn't seem like a good teaching technique ... 

The next two girls, nervous with the knowledge that the stick was coming regardless of their answers, were unable to answer quickly enough and got whipped. Talla took a deep breath as the stick touched her shoulder. She breathed deeply and cleared her mind of fear as best she could.

"What colour does an Adept wear?"

"Yellow," she replied, a deadpan expression on her face.

"Correct. What does a Sorceress wear on her upper body?"

"A bikini and a single sash."

"Correct. Who wears blue?"

"A Second."

"Three correct answers," Shanata said. "Only one of you is capable of remembering what I have taught."

Talla relaxed as Shanata spoke. She shouldn't have. The pointer came cracking down on her ass, harder and louder than on anyone else's. She yelped involuntarily, surprised. Good gods, that hurt ...

"Can't have you feeling left out, now, can we?" Shanata asked as she turned to the front of the classroom.

"You may all sit down now, if you can."

The girls sat gingerly. Truth be told, Talla thought, it didn't actually hurt for very long. It just stung. But it stung a lot.

"Let's go over this again," Shanata said, "We don't go on to etiquette until I can go through the entire class with no mistakes."

It had taken two repeats of the lesson before they got it right. And Shanata distributed her punishment to everyone -- even the ones who got three questions right. It made them a team. When they finally made it through all of the girls without any mistakes, they got to put their dresses back in place and sit their twice-whipped asses on their chairs.

Shanata then went in to etiquette and it became apparent why knowing rank was important. And not just rank, but rank relative to other women. And on top of that, there were specific ways to act in the presence of a Sorceress, a Queen or the Goddess. Then there were the special occasions, in which clothing changed according to a sliding nudity spectrum. The more nude the highest ranking guest, the more nude those below her had to be.

Talla soaked it all in as fast as she could. There was no more whipping. The point of the exercise had been made. Shanata had them learning as fast as they could learn. More punishment would only have demoralised them.

"You are no longer excused from etiquette," Shanata informed them, as the lesson came to an end. "No more chalk on your breasts and behinds. You will comport yourself properly or you will be punished."




Talla's Temple Ch. 02



At that point Maksa came in. Shanata nodded to her with a grin and left the room.

With a sigh, Maksa said, "Let's see your asses."

Slowly all of them turned and lifted their skirts. Maksa inspected one girl's raised red flesh. "Come on back to your beds. I have some oil you can rub on each other."

She led the way back, saying, "Different partners this time."

The oiling led to Talla making a new sister. She kissed nipples with Arlia, a pretty blond girl. Then Maksa took them to lunch. At lunch, Talla sat with Arlia and another girl who was already Arlia's sister. They knew where they were supposed to sit now. Talla realized that the place in which she had sat the day before was reserved for those above the white ranks. Only the chalk marks had allowed her to sit there undisturbed. If she were to sit there now, she'd get another swat on the ass -- and it wouldn't be with a teacher's little pointer stick either. Talla shuddered involuntarily.

Arlia had noticed the shudder. "I know, eh?" she said, "One false move. So many things to remember. So many rules to obey."

In her brief conversations with Arlia, Talla had found a kindred spirit. More so than with Sila, Arlia was a thoughtful and mature girl. Her laughter wasn't giddy and her vocabulary wasn't full of stupid little girl words. Arlia, Talla decided, was smart.

Sila, meanwhile, looked to be too frightened to even speak to her and so Talla decided to let it be for a while. Perhaps they'd try again, when no one was looking. Nothing they had learned so far suggested that it was wrong for them to touch each other like that. But she also realized that there were six and a half more days of classes and a lot could be packed in to just one morning. There were a lot of things that they'd have to learn.

Maybe the next rule would be something about women not being allowed to touch each other. They were both worried and both of their asses were sore; a subtle reminder that would make them pay attention in class.

Talla regarded Sila as a bit of a lost cause in the friendship department, at least temporarily. She decided to keep in touch with Arlia. As much excitement as there was in her sisterhood with Sila, she was too wary to be counted on. Arlia, though, would be a valuable brain to pick in times to come.



Talla's Temple Ch. 03



Seven days of teaching had had a profound effect on all ten of the girls in Talla's group. They had been taught and then tested on hundreds of rules. The threat of physical punishment was more than enough to make them pay attention, although over the last week the the method of meting out that punishment had evolved. Punishment itself was rarer as the Virgin's knowledge increased and errors decreased, but the trade off was that it had become more embarrassing. Rather than bending over their desks when they committed their errors, the instructor would mark simply down their names for later.

The teachers said that this was more in keeping with the way proper Temple discipline was enforced. In "the real world", those who committed crimes and broke rules would have a day to collect witnesses and consider protesting the charge. At the end of that day, the punishment would be meted out with the venue set so that an appropriate number of people would be able to watch.

To imitate this, the teachers and the Virgins would gather at the end of each day. There was another group of Virgins going through training who had started three days after Talla's group and they would watch too. At each gathering, the "guilty" from both groups would be called up and asked if she had anything to say in her defense. There being no such defense, she would submit to her punishment. In front of the assembled Virgins and teachers, the guilty individual was required to lift her skirt up and bend over a table at the front of the room for the appropriate number of swats. So positioned, she would receive her punishment from whichever teacher she had failed.

Of all of them it seemed Sila was taking the most damage – even three swats on one occasion. She tried to hold it in, but let out a mewling cry on the third strike.

Maksa handed out the salve generously.

Talla's head was full of rules. She'd taken one good whip on the third day, while thirty women watched, and that had been enough to teach her. Her butt was soft and easy to sit on, not like poor Sila whose many times abused flesh was a source of constant discomfort. Talla wondered what would happen to the poor girl when they were all required to deal with "the real world" and the whipping stick became a lash.

There was but one thing that remained for Talla and the other girls in her group: the Initiation. No one had clued them in yet as to what was involved. It was an incredibly well kept secret considering the fact that every woman in the Temple had gone through it. Talla remembered the two women who had advised her to dive in and enjoy it. That was the closest she had come to actually finding something out about the ritual.

The last of the girls on the punishment list, Eletta, took a swat on the ass for mixing up the names of the parts of a penis. That was essential knowledge. Each of them had been taught – theoretically - rudimentary skills for handling men. Eletta, a member of the group following three days behind Talla's group, replaced her clothing and returned to her group of Virgins.

"All right, girls," Maksa said, "Your studies are over for today. You may go have dinner. If you are in my dormitory, you have now completed your orientation. You will return here by the seventh bell. Go on."

She clapped her hands and rushed them out of the room.

"Do you think that's it?" Arlia whispered to Talla. "Tonight?"

"I think so," Talla whispered back eagerly. "What do you think we'll have to do?"

"I don't know," Arlia said as she peered in to the distance, "I've thought about it but I don't know. Do you think it will be painful? I know we won't be having sex. Everyone says that comes after the Initiation."

They argued right through dinner as they tried to guess what would happen to them, continuing to discuss possibilities until they returned to their classroom at the seventh bell, as instructed.

"Good, we're all here," Maksa said as Talla and Arlia arrived. "Come with me."

There was no further explanation. The girls nervously followed Maksa through a maze of Temple streets and alleys until they stood before a large circular building with a single door for an entrance. Maksa paused at this entrance and turned to face them.

"This is the Initiation Temple," she said reverently, "Please enter quietly. Inside you will find, among other things, many closets around the room. Please choose one of the curtained ones and stand in front of it. Once you have chosen your places, the rest will be explained to you and you will begin your Contest."

Talla could almost hear the capitalization of that last word.

She entered eagerly, trying not to push the girl in front of her.

Among the "other things" that Maksa had offhandedly mentioned were four spectacular bronze statues. They were done to about double scale and faced outward from a central bonfire whose flames, snapping and crackling, reached two or three metres into the air. Each statue was of a woman standing on her toes, leaning forward slightly with her arms stretched out and backwards, almost touching fingertips to fingertips with the next statue. The heads of the statues were facing up and, like almost every female statue in the Temple, they were nude. The resemblance to other statues ended there.

These statues featured slim women instead of giant breasted ones. Their genitals were free of hair and their legs were skinny. Talla realised that these statues were of Virgins and had a moment to wonder if they might be the only such statues in the whole Temple. Around them were hammered sheets of metal that reflected the sparkling firelight up the fronts of the bronze Virgins to the high domed ceiling.

After dragging her eyes away from those unique shapes, Talla noticed the glossy white tiled floor. Then she noticed the small table – no, altar - facing the door through which they had just passed. Finally she noticed the closets that Maksa had mentioned. If she guessed correctly, that they continued behind the statues, then there must be at least twenty of them. Only the five closest to the entrance on either side had curtains in front of them. As the girls filed quietly in to those ten slots, they could see around back of the fire.

Shanata was there, as were some other women. The others were wearing what the girls recognized as High Temple Clothing. None of them had ever seen it before, but it was easy to spot. A combination of brown and black leather clothing and a bronze mask that had been decorated with golden shapes obscured everything about the women. Besides that, each one had a musical instrument. Two had drums of different sizes, one had a pair of cymbals and the last had a flute. The four musicians stoically formed an arc behind the motionless Shanata, who wore the same scant orange clothing as always, but without the whip stuck in her waistband. 

That was a hopeful sign.

Shanata walked around to the front of the fire where all of the Virgin girls could see her. Maksa stood next to her. They paused there, calmly examining the girls. In the back of the room, the women on the drums began beating them softly.

"You are about to take part in a long standing tradition," Shanata spoke, her voice paced to the drums. "For hundreds of years, longer than this Temple has stood, women have undergone this Contest of Initiation, not only as an entrance to the adult world, but as a test to determine who will get to choose her Discipline."

"Compete well in this test," she continued as she walked from one end of the anxious arc of girls to the other, "and you will have your choice of Disciplines. Compete poorly and you will have less choice. Compete poorest of all, and you will have to repeat the Rite. One person from every Rite is required to repeat."

Talla swallowed nervously. So it would be girl against girl. But there was as yet no clue how the competition would work.

"Look behind you," Shanata said, "On the outside of the closet you have chosen are nine symbols. You should recognize them."

Talla looked behind her. Indeed, there were nine symbols carved in small ceramic tiles. These were arranged vertically along the edge of the doorway. She recognized them as the symbols of the Nine Disciplines. The Disciplines of Sweetness were highest, followed by the three Disciplines of Endowment, and finally the three of Form. Pointing outward above each was a wooden peg.

"Your objective in this Contest is speed," Shanata said as she picked up a small wooden circle from a pile on the altar. "You must get a ring on each of the nine pegs, one for each Discipline."

Which, Talla noticed, still did not explain the nature of the Contest. The girls were tense, hanging on her every word.

"The way to achieve a ring is simple," Shanata said, "you must make a boy ejaculate on the part of your body corresponding to each Discipline. For Sweetness, his semen must be on your lips or inside them. For Endowment, it must be on your breasts, and make sure that it is on your nipples when you execute Point. As for Form, the Tight ring will be given only when his semen drips between your cheeks. The Iron ring requires ejaculation on your stomach and for Facial, it must be on both your face and in your hair. And no smearing! The semen stays where it lands."

"The rules, besides those, are simple," Shanata said. "The boys who are eligible have blue ribbons in their hair. These are the boys who are not too old for you and yet are still adults. You may use your hands and only your hands to make them ejaculate. No other part of you may touch their penises. You will go in to the town, find such a boy, tell him that you are doing your Initiation and bring him back to the doorway you have chosen. Take off your clothes, take off his, then make him ejaculate."

"Inside each closet is a gong. When he has finished his orgasm, allow him to dress and then hit the gong. Either Maksa or I will come over, inspect your body for semen and award you one ring according to where the semen is. You will only get one ring at a time, so you will have to find nine boys. This means that you will have to make three boys ejaculate on your breasts and three on your genitals. After each boy, use the showers at the far end of the room to wash off. Then dry off quickly and find another boy. You are being timed. You are competing with each other."

"Are there any questions?" Shanata asked. No one raised a hand, and so she said, "Then the Rite of Initiation begins ... NOW!" 

The cymbals crashed together and the women with the drums began beating them much faster. Shocked out of their stillness, the ten girls pelted out the exit like so many flaming white arrows.

It was an easy path to reach the outside of the Temple. There were torches lined up, adorned with white ribbons, to lead them lest they get lost. Four female guards in full leathers were watching the entrance through which they ran. This would be one of those occasions in which men were allowed inside the Temple.

Talla was one of the last to leave. She was jogging. Let the others run ahead, she thought, this will be a long night and I don't want to tire early. She briefly considered the fact that the other nine girls would take the boys closest to the Temple entrance and leave her with a more difficult job finding her first boy, but she decided to risk it.

Talla stepped outside the Temple for the first time in a week. It looked different now. It was a place of childish glee and innocent ignorance. This was the place of her past, of living among men and children, of wearing ratty clothes and wondering what was inside the Temple. She was better than all of this now. She was clean. She had nice clothes.

As she jogged, searching for one of the elusive beribboned boys, she tried to remember what ignorance had been like. It was surprisingly hard. How could she have been idly whistling away her time without an awareness of what adult life would be like? Had she really been ignorant of what hung between a man's legs? No, she must have known somehow, but how could she?

Lost in reverie, she stopped paying attention to where she was going and suddenly ran headlong in to someone.

"Ow, sorry," the someone said.

It was a boy. He looked a little dazed as he rubbed his stomach where her elbow had jabbed him.

"Um, my fault," she said, having woken from her fugue, "I'm sorry ..."

That was when she noticed the bright blue ribbon tied in his dark hair. Not a boy then but, technically, a man.

"Oh!" she screeched, "Have you ever done an Initiation before?"

"Um, done a what?"

"It's easy," she said quickly, "Will you help me with mine?"

"What do I have to do?" he asked.

"Just ejacu - I mean, come on me. I mean, ah, part of my body."

She had to remind herself to use the cruder words when talking to boys.

His eyes widened in shock. "Here?"

"No, no!" she replied. "Come back to the Temple." She grabbed his hand and pulled him back the way she had come. "Hurry, I'm in a race!"

"Oh!"

With their hands clenched together they ran for it. Talla could feel her heart beating. She began to wonder what it would feel like to hold his penis in her hand, to watch semen come out. Would it stick to her or slide down her body? They had told her it would be white, but would it be sort of see-through or completely opaque? How fast would it really come out?

She could see the Temple entrance the whole way. The statues were so tall that you could see them from anywhere in the city. As they wound their way back, she couldn't believe how far from the Temple she had run without even thinking. A jink and side step around a passerby and they ran up to the gate that would lead to the Initiation Temple. The guards let them by.

"I'm allowed in?" he asked while gasping for breath.

"As long as you stay with me," she replied. "Come on."

The entrance was easy to find. He stopped at the threshold, stunned by the combination of the statues, the fire and sound of the instruments. 

"Come on," she urged, "this way."

He followed, looking a little ill at ease as he saw the masked women on the far side of the fire. Talla didn't spare them a glance. The bare second that she had before she got to her own closet was spent checking the closets of the other girls. Four of them were curtained off. Of the open ones, one already had a ring in it. She couldn't remember who had taken that one.

Talla dragged him through the entry and jerked the curtain closed behind her. He seemed to relax once there was some privacy. She was already stripping off her top.

"Okay," she said as she unfastened her white skirt, "you're the first one, so you get to pick. Where do you want to come?"

"Where?" he asked as his eyes locked on her tiny breasts.

There's nothing to see yet, Talla thought, but you just wait.

"Yeah," she continued as she knelt down and undid his pants, "you can come in my face, on my breasts, my stomach, my pussy or on my ass. I'll let you pick."

Well, she thought, he's certainly ready. They'd told her that sometimes a man could take a while to arouse if he were nervous. This one didn't have that problem. His penis popped out of his pants as if it had a coiled spring underneath it. It pointed directly at her nose.

"Er. Wherever. I, um, your face. Okay?"

She nodded and wrapped her right hand around the top of his penis and used the left to cup his testicles. 

"Okay, I don't want to put too much pressure on you, but I'm in a race, so the faster you can come the better, okay?" She was babbling and she knew it. It seemed to be working, though. His penis was definitely getting harder and was starting to point up over her head. The tip of it was even turning purple and starting to swell wider than the rest of his penis. That was one of the signs she had learned.

She glanced up at his face and noticed that he was intently staring at her chest. Her flat chest with its unremarkable pair of light-coloured nipples? "Are you sure you want to come on my face, not my, um, tits?", she asked him as she continued to jerk on his penis.

"Uh ... no," he said between ragged breaths, "I just like to ... look at them."

There was something about that she liked; a man's eyes locked on her breasts even though she basically had none. What would it be like if she had larger breasts? She thrust her chest out so that he could see her little mounds of flesh a little better. What else could she do to make him ejaculate sooner? Flustered, she tried to think back to her lessons. The only thing that came to her mind was that most men liked to hear their own names.

"What's your name?" she said, trying to be demure.

"Zhair'lo," he gasped. "What's ... yours?"

"Oh, Zhair'lo, my name is – "

That was as far as she got. His penis had swelled up as she pronounced his name and within the next three syllables, she received her first load of semen. Her mouth, hanging partially open because she was speaking, got a taste of it. Her eyes closed by reflex as his semen traced a line from her chin up to her right eye and down her cheek. It took all of her willpower to overcome the instinct to move away.

She managed to stay focused on the importance of the Initiation. She leaned her head down and made sure the second shot of semen got into her hair. After that, she wasn't concerned except that Zhair'lo's orgasm finish properly. She jerked a third, fourth and fifth shot from him, all landing on her left cheek. The sixth she had to milk out of him. She watched as the last bit of his semen hung at the end of his penis before dripping down stickily to her chest. Of all the semen that landed on her, this was the only portion that she could actually see. It was thick and white and warm on her face. No one had mentioned that it would be so warm. It even warmed her breast where the tiniest drop had landed.

"My name," she decided to finish her sentence with just her left eye open, "is Talla."

Breathless, he laughed. 

"Nice to meet you, Talla."

"Okay, you have to put your clothes back on so they can inspect me," she said, still squinting at him with her right eye closed. "Hurry, hurry."

He complied, lacing his pants back up. His breathing was slowing down now. He suddenly appeared to be quite relaxed.

Without standing up or opening her semen covered right eye, Talla reached for the little gong and rang it. She heard the music speed up in response.

It was Shanata who yanked the curtain back and examined Talla's semen covered face. "Face and hair?" Shanata confirmed. 

She came around to look at Talla's face. Her eyes widened. Talla had never seen Shanata surprised by anything.

"Great gods, what a load of semen. What's your name, boy?"

"Zhair'lo, ma'am," he responded to the older woman with respect and a degree of uncertainty.

Shanata noted his name on a piece of paper she was carrying and held up a wooden ring.

"Well, Talla," she said, "that little bit of semen on your breast doesn't count, so this definitely goes under Facial." She hung the ring on the peg that was third from the bottom.

"Wash off," Shanata instructed. "You, boy – Zhair'lo – stand over there. Someone will escort you out in a moment."

"Bye Talla," Zhair'lo shouted as Talla ran off.

Talla waved as Shanata looked on disapprovingly. Men and women were not supposed to forge friendships. It was enough that they related to one another sexually. Anything else would simply get in the way of duty. Talla didn't notice Shanata's concern, though. She had other things on her mind.

Three hours later, seven more boys had ejaculated on her body. She had stopped giving them options after Zhair'lo. The next three after Zhair'lo were made to come on her breasts. The first of them even managed to hit both her nipples. The only really odd thing was that their semen had cooled very quickly. Had it only been her anxiety that made Zhair'lo's seem warm?




Talla's Temple Ch. 03



She had little time to think of such things. After taking care of her first four rings in just under an hour, the boys had become scarce. There were only so many, and they got tired after coming. That meant that the girls had to go deeper into the city to hunt up enough boys. Of the last four boys, three of them had already helped Initiate another girl that night, but Talla managed to get them going again by talking to them seductively and telling them where she'd let them come.

So the next three boys, the tough ones, were all privileged to ejaculate between her legs. She made sure that some of their semen landed inside her lips and some on the outside. She could have used any of them for any of the three rings of Sweetness.

She'd left the hardest one for the last. All eight of the rings she'd done so far were acquired by having semen ejaculated on the front of her body. For the last one, she'd have to jerk the boy's penis while it was behind her back and somehow aim it so that it hit where she needed it to.

She considered these things as she stood under the shower, rinsing off her semen coated labia. The last boy she'd caused to ejaculate had quite sticky semen which had dried quickly. It was nowhere near as difficult as getting Zhair'lo's semen out of her hair had been, but it was still annoying. It distracted her only momentarily as she jumped out of the path of the water and ruthlessly dried herself off. The flesh on her chest and genitals was red from the repeated thorough cleaning and rough drying it had been through these past hours.

Donning her white clothes, she ran for the door. She traced the now familiar path to the gate and dashed in to the street. It was getting late and properly beribboned boys were getting hard to find. Each time she went out, she had to run farther and farther to find one of them. The sun was long down. Older men were going in for their late meals and the younger ones, who were apprenticed to them, were following. She expected it would take a while to find the last boy she needed and time was of the essence. She had looked at the rings on the other girls' closets and noticed that someone else already had eight rings, but none had yet finished. She had a chance to finish first and therefore choose her Discipline.

As she ran, she considered her options should she win. They had studied a little on the value of the various Disciplines, and it was obvious from the instructors' attitudes that the Division of Sweetness was most valued, especially the Discipline of Within. The power to contract one's vagina in the trained powerful strokes of a Within girl carried with it political strength. Of the last eight Goddesses, five had come from Sweetness, four of which had started out in Within. The others came from Lips, Point and, the one extreme oddity, Iron. Talla had decided to study the history of the Temple and discover exactly how it was that a minor Discipline like Iron could yield a Goddess. Meanwhile, she had developed a taste, while in class, to get in to Sweetness – and Within if possible. That way lay the straightest route to power in the Temple.

But something had changed. She had seen Zhair'lo staring at her breasts and something had clicked. The statues had given her the same feeling. Within might give one political power, but who could tell from the outside? An Endowment girl: now there was notoriety. How would Zhair'lo react if her chest weren't flat? If instead of counting ribs, she amassed a little size?

Her mind had wandered again, and so had her body. She stepped up her pace, getting up to a speed that would tire her out if she didn't cut back soon. She could hear some talking, lots of voices. She ran around a corner and found a low building that was torch lit from the inside. There were a lot of deep, male voices emanating from within. Perhaps there would be a boy of the right age as well. She meant only to peek inside to see if there were any such, but a rumbling voice called out to her.

"Who's that there?"

She stepped out in to the doorway shyly. 

"Talla, sir," she replied meekly. 

Those gathered turned to look at her. There were several men and boys of different ages casually lounging around a small fire at the centre of the room. As they turned their bodies, some of the fire light shone on her.

"What are you doing out of the Temple this late at night?"

"My Initiation, sir," she responded meekly, squinting in to the firelight as her eyes quested for a blue ribbon. 

"I see," the man said. Then he turned aside and spoke to someone else, "Go with her boy, and put on your ribbon."

The boy in question clearly didn't like wearing a ribbon in his hair, even if it was the rule. He pulled the ribbon out of his belt and stuck it haphazardly in his unkempt mane. Talla estimated that he was a bit older than she. That should have meant experience, which ought to bode well for her purposes, but she couldn't fathom the reason for his lack of enthusiasm.

She took him by the hand, nevertheless, and starting running back towards the Temple. "What's your name?" she called back over her shoulder.

"Zo'kar," he said, devoid of any emotion.

"Come on," she encouraged. "It's a race, you know."

"Yeah."

She stopped running and looked at him with a confused frown. 

"Is something wrong? How come you're not excited?" Except that she could see from the bulge in his clothing that he was in fact a little excited.

He shrugged.

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked.

"Once," he replied sluggishly.

"Just once?" she asked, "But you're more than old enough."

He muttered something that might have been a confirmation.

"So how come just once? Did you just have your birthday?" It didn't make any sense unless he'd just become old enough to wear the ribbon. Had he just turned eighteen? Initiations must go on fairly frequently and there were only so many boys in the right age group. Simple arithmetic said that the average boy had to do nine Initiations to make the numbers balance out.

"Look, just find someone else," he said, turning away.

"No, wait," she grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back to her, pressing their bodies together. Their noses touched and he finally and somewhat resentfully made eye contact with Talla.

"It's late. It's hard to find boys. Please, help me." It was funny to have to beg like that. She was sure the Temple women never begged for sex from their partners. Why was she begging for this? It all had the feeling of being faintly improper.

He was unconvinced and she couldn't figure out his unwillingness. "Come on," she pleaded, "I'll make you come on me." He twitched at this comment, blinking and staring at the ground beside them.

"You can try," he said, the resignation apparent in his voice.

"What?"

"The last one couldn't."

"Oh." Oh! So that was the source of his reluctance. 

"Maybe she just sucked at hand jobs."

This won a partial smile and snort from him.

"Let me try, okay?" she asked again, "Please? I'm sure I can do better."

He shrugged, perhaps encouraged, and shifted his weight toward her and toward the Temple.

"Let's go," she said.

This time he ran willingly rather than dragging her down as before.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Talla."

"Talla," he repeated.

"Yeah," she said between breaths, "I've only got one more to go and my Initiation is all done."

"I'm your last one? What's it mean when you're done?"

"Then I'm a full member of the Temple," she replied, "And I get to pick my Discipline. The best Disciplines go to the fastest girls. Here we are."

The special gates beckoned. They darted beneath the low arch with Talla pulling Zo'kar along brutally. "Hurry, hurry," she said. She knew that rushing him could be bad, especially considering his peculiar situation. But she wanted to win, gods damn it.

They entered the Initiation temple and Zo'kar paused in trepidation. Don't have a fit on me now, she thought and pulled him past the statues. Just across from her own closet, there was another closet with eight rings already marked and the curtain closed. She was in a dead heat with some girl in there.

As she pulled her curtain across the doorway she spoke to him. "Just try to relax and let me take care of it. Okay?" 

She tried to keep her voice soothing to relax him as she slipped out of her clothes. Next went his own pants and shirt. She tried not to let any expression show on her face as she realized how unready he was as compared to the previous boys.

No problem, she thought, they taught us how to handle this. Just bring him around nicely, It can be done. That other girl just didn't know what she was doing, that's all.

She started teasing and testing.

Would this work? Would she fail like that other girl?

No she wouldn't.

His body responded.It responded to Talla just fine.

"Attaboy," she said as softly as she could. 

The words from one of her teachers came back to her. "Caress him with your voice as well as your body."

"Now I want you to get big and hard for me..."

She looked up to see that his eyes were closed as she brought him around.

It was going to be less work than she'd thought.

"Zo'kar, Zo'kar," she murmured, "I need you to come all over my ass, okay?"

This was going to be difficult.

She turned and crouched before him, putting her butt just below the level of his erect penis. He was swelling quickly. He would pop just as fast as the others.

"That's it," she said as she stroked him. "You're good and hard now. Shoot all over my ass."

No question. It was working.

"Please, please, please," she begged him. "Whenever you're ready, just go ahead."

She was so close to winning. So close.

He grunted and gasped. She couldn't see what was happening, but she felt it. She felt his penis twitching and she felt liquid sliding down between her cheeks.

"Yes!" she encouraged him, "yes, keep it up. Get it right in there."

She milked out every last drop until he fell away from her and sat on the small bench.

"Quick, pull up your pants," she said.

He had relaxed for a moment, elated and relieved that he managed to perform, but jerked back to attention and pulled on his pants.

Talla yanked the curtain back and rang the gong.

Shanata was there to examine her. Talla turned her back and looked over her shoulder for approval. Shanata nodded. 

"Saved the hardest one for last, I see. Good work."

Talla was elated. She had won the Contest ... or had she?

Across the way was Natta, standing in front of her open closet. Nine rings adorned the pegs there. Natta herself was naked and standing proudly, even with semen coating her face.

"Second place," Shanata confirmed, "Do not wash until all is done."

That seemed odd, but she supposed it must be part of the tradition somehow. She would probably have to wait, with cooling semen dripping down her legs, until all of her fellows were done.

Arlia came in next, dragging a boy in to her closet. There was nothing for Talla to do but watch as Shanata took down Zo'kar's name and escorted him out the door. She had failed to win her Initiation, but she knew she'd done a good thing for Zo'kar. That's what the Temple was for, wasn't it? That was her understanding and her only consolation.

It was only moments later that Arlia's gong rang out and her curtain was shifted aside.

Arlia's face was splattered with semen. Talla wondered about that. She had done Tight last because it was inconvenient. Would most other girls do Facial last for reasons of decency? She'd been concentrating so hard on winning that she'd barely thought about taking semen in her face. Well, they'd have to stand there with it drying on their faces. It made her feel a lot less uncomfortable with her own predicament.

"Third place," Shanata announced.

Sila followed, taking fourth place with her semen-coated face.

Of the six remaining girls, all but one did her Facial last. That one chose, as Talla had, to do Tight last.

The ninth and tenth places were in a dead heat, jerking away at their boys, not wanting to repeat. Their names were Atani and Rela. It was Atani who rang her gong first, only seconds before Rela. Both stepped out, faces streaked with semen. Atani was triumphant, Rela chagrined.

Once the boys were gone, Shanata stood before them.

"You have been given your ranks," she said, "from one to ten. You will choose your Disciplines based on this order. Rela, you will not have to repeat."

Rela looked up at this, hopeful.

"That is a deception we play upon Virgins to motivate them," Shanata explained as if she found the rationale very dubious. "It is a long standing tradition."

There was a great deal of relief at this pronouncement and not just from Rela. There was a good deal of camaraderie among the girls, mostly fostered by their collectively punished rears.

"Now you will be allowed to choose your Disciplines," Shanata said. With that, Maksa stepped forward with a small case which she laid on the small altar. She opened it and stepped back.

"In this case are the medallions of the Disciplines which currently have openings," she said. "You may choose any of the ten. It will be yours to keep, though you will not wear it often. Name your choice and I will place your medallion over your head."

The ten naked girls moved forward eagerly to gawk at the white ribbons and the gold medallions. They knew the symbols by heart. Talla looked for the three vertical lines that represented Within and found them encased in the downward pointed triangle that represented Sweetness. She noted with some disappointment that there was only a single medallion with the Within markings.

She didn't know it then, but she learned later that there was only ever one place in Within offered at any Initiation.

Next to it were two medallions, one each for Lips and Pussy. On the second row were the medallions for Endowment. Talla only began to examine them when Shanata spoke.

"Natta," she said, "you may choose first."

Was there really any question?

Not for Natta and she spoke without hesitation. 

"I choose Within."

Shanata lifted the medallion from the case and carefully put its ribbon over Natta's head so as not to get it soiled. She stood, proud and naked but for the gold triangle and the semen on her face.

"Talla, you may choose now."

It should have been a foregone conclusion: go with Pussy or Lips. Neither was actually Within, but being in the Division of Sweetness gave a girl a closer shot at getting the valuable Within upgrades. The girls had all seen the upgrade patterns for the lower ranks. They knew that they wouldn't be allowed to get any upgrades outside of their Divisions until they reached fourth rank. Being in Sweetness gave them a shot at Within by second rank.

But Talla could not rid herself of the image of Zhair'lo, his eyes glued to her tiny breasts. There were practical considerations like the advancement of her career in the Temple. But there were emotional concerns, too. She didn't understand it fully, but she knew that she loved the way he gazed at her. She wanted that attention from every male she met, but especially him.

It warred inside her, the decision between the achievement her victory had earned her and the desire of her heart.

The other girls were eagerly waiting for her decision, wondering what would be left to them. She had a sinking feeling that she would regret whatever choice she made. It would be reckless and impulsive to throw away the opportunity of her lifetime. Lips or Pussy would give her a shot at greatness; a leg up to power and opportunity.

But Endowment. That would make her happy.

"I choose Endowment," she said, "I mean Abundance."

The women often used the name of that particular Division to refer to its most prominent Discipline and the new Initiates had picked up the habit from their elders.

Shanata raised her eyebrows in surprise and then smiled as if someone had given her a gift. She lifted the Medallion from the case and held it before Talla. The symbol for Endowment was a circle. The symbol for Abundance was a pair of semi circles, side by side like tea cups, within the larger circle of Endowment.

"Welcome to my Discipline," Shanata said as she lowered the medallion over Talla's head. Shanata was an Acolyte. She had had seven upgrades to the size of her breasts. Would Talla's ever grow so large? What would it be like to bare those to Zhair'lo? She caught her breath. The decision was made. She felt no regret. Only relief. She had followed her heart and chosen right.

So wrapped up was she that she didn't notice Arlia choosing Lips and receiving her medallion.

Sila went next and, to everyone's surprise, chose Iron. It was a surprising choice, but the rest of the girls were too afraid that commenting might be construed as poor etiquette.

It made the next girl happy, though, because she was able to take Pussy, the last opportunity to get in to Sweetness.

There were two medallions for Point, which were taken next by two girls named Lara and Salee. None were offered in Strength – the third Discipline of Endowment that worked on the firmness of the breasts and the muscles of the chest.

The last medallions were from Form: one for Facial and two for Tight – the latter going to Atani and Rela, who had apparently raced each other for nothing but bragging rights.

"The choices have been made," Shanata said. "Now you will go forward with your lives, to serve your Temple, your Goddess and the people of Gern."



Talla's Temple Ch. 04



Talla, Lara and Salee walked bare-chested out of the Initiation room, led by Shanata through the torch lit alleys of the Temple. The medallions they wore were all the explanation needed for their otherwise objectionable partial nudity.

The girls had been given an opportunity to shower - quickly and en masse – and then were separated in to their Divisions. The Sweetness girls covered only their chests and left with Maksa. The three Endowment girls wore only their skirts. The Form girls were left completely naked but for their medallions.

"The celebration will be unusually bright tonight," Shanata said. Gone was her stern countenance. Talla was surprised to see such glee from her teacher.

"Why?" Talla asked.

"You have brought us much honour," she explained. "You have chosen our Discipline ahead of Lips and Pussy."

She hadn't thought of that. She had never felt anything but small and insignificant next to her teachers, but now...That this particular decision would matter to Shanata? And to others? Why should the opinion of an untested Virgin matter?

While she was thinking, they arrived at the entrance to Endowment's section of the Temple. She had seen the entrance before but had never been allowed inside. The doors were large and plated with bronze. Hundreds of overlapping circles of varying sizes had been laid into the bronze. On either side of the doors were bronze statues of women, topless, their large breasts and nipples in sharp relief. 

In front of the door stood a single armed guard. She wore imposing full leather body armour and was armed with a spear, yet appeared quite casual about her duty. She perked up noticeably when she identified Shanata and made out the state of her charges.

"Initiates to be welcomed," Shanata announced. "Talla here was second in tonight's Rite."

The guard perked up further and grinned.

"An honour to meet you Talla," she said.

This was a bigger deal than Talla had expected. Shanata introduced Lara and Salee quickly and all three were ushered through the door.

Talla didn't know what to expect. What she saw was a large, squarish courtyard with numerous alleys and buildings facing it, all in the same sandstone beige as the rest of the Temple. Some of the buildings were lit from the inside, others were darkened for the night.

A single large building dominated the courtyard. Two stories high, with a dozen torches burning under the same number of windows, it stood a little over fifty paces away from her. Its wide double-doored entrance stood open and beyond it Talla could see a common area where hundreds of women were gathered talking and drinking.

"It is a customary gathering," Shanata said. "After giving Service in the town, we gather here at Endowment Hall to talk and relax with one another. On Initiation nights, the celebration is a little larger. Many women who were not scheduled to Serve in town will be here tonight to welcome their new sisters."

As they approached, Talla could see that the common room was lit and warmed by a central fire. The warmth would be nice. It was closing on midnight and with the adrenaline wearing off – and her nudity – she was finding it quite cool.

Someone in the common room noticed their party when they were half way across the courtyard. She raised the glass in her hand in their direction and pointed them out to her companion, a second level Acolyte who turned to face them. She too raised her glass and the pair of them, alone of all the women in the common room, came to the entrance and watched them approach.

Both wore orange bikini bottoms. One wore a full blouse, signifying that she was an Officer, only two ranks away from being a Sorceress of her Discipline. The other wore the double sashes of an Acolyte II.

Both had enormous breasts. Talla supposed that, in this house, everyone would have giant breasts and she might as well just get used to being the skinniest one around. She would get there eventually.

Arriving at the giant doorway, Talla was just about to observe the ornate patterns moulded into the bronze doors of the common room when the Officer gave a signal to someone Talla couldn't see. A loud gong was struck shortly after.

The room went silent as hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to face the three topless girls at the entrance. Talla was aware that she had gone painfully white under that focus. Was she expected to say something? No, it was Shanata who stepped forward.

"My sisters," she said in her sternest voice. "I bring you news and fresh blood."

Shanata stepped back between Lara and Salee and placed her hands on their shoulders. "These are Lara and Salee. Salee placed seventh in her Rite of Initiation and Lara sixth. They have chosen the Discipline of Point."

A polite round of applause went up at this. It was probably expected that, if ten girls were Initiated, the first three or four would go to Sweetness and the next three to Endowment. Sixth and Seventh was nothing to get excited about.

"This is Talla," Shanata said, careful about her timing, "She placed second in the Rite and has chosen Abundance."

Eyebrows were raised. A few in the back gasped, "Second?"

The second round of applause was thunderous. There were whistles and shouts. Talla was awestruck. This was for her? There had to be a thousand women cheering for her?

Shanata meant to complete her introduction but was stymied by the continuous cheering. She gave up and simply shouted, "Welcome them to our sisterhood!" She needn't have said so. Talla's new Division-mates were already approaching her.

The Officer and Acolyte II who had stood nearest the entryway were the first to greet her.

"Yolana, Abundance," the officer introduced herself. "Welcome, and thank you for the honour."

"Egleena, Point," the other said. "Thank you."

Topless and skinny to the bone, Talla became lost in a sea of happy faces and congratulatory handshakes. Would someone be getting her a top to wear? She was supposed to be wearing a bikini top whenever she was with other women. A drink was handed to her. Some kind of sweet liquor. Thirsty, she drank it too quickly.

"Water, please," she croaked to the crowd as it continued to introduce itself to her. A wooden mug found its way to her hand and she drank heavily from it, hoping it was water. The liquor had been quite strong and the mood was festive. She didn't feel cold any longer, nor particularly concerned about her nudity. Apparently she was to remain in this state of undress for the night.

At some point, she came across Lara and Salee, both of whom had clearly had more than one swig of the sweet liquor. The two were falling over each other and soon stumbled in to Talla.

"Isn't this great?" Salee shouted. "Home! We have a real home now."

Lara agreed, probably, but seemed to have lost the power of speech.

It was heady stuff, coming home and being drunk.

The three of them found a soft couch to sit on just a short distance from the overly large fire. Talla sat in the middle with Lara and Salee leaning amicably on her shoulders.

"It's gonna be so nice," Salee was murmuring. "We'll do our first Upgrades soon and then we'll be on our way."

Salee had goals, apparently, but wasn't about to enunciate them. She began to snore softly and then slumped over, her little blond head coming to rest in Talla's lap.

"Never had liquor before," Lara said, although it wasn't clear if she meant Salee or herself. "It is nice to be in here."

Talla took in the whole room. The celebration had calmed down quite a bit. The population was about the same but much quieter and no one seemed to be staring at the three of them. She breathed a sigh of relief. This place was her place now. The giant common room, all in beige sandstone, with its tall, grooved pillars, bronze statues and wall engravings flickering in the firelight. It was a nice place to be, she decided.

She had just started to relax when two blurry shapes, orange and blue, appeared standing in front of her. It took her a while to focus. One was Yolana, the officer she had just met. The other, in a blue bikini and a skirt so short its hem was at Talla's eye level, was clearly a Second. Second of what, exactly, Talla didn't know.

"Welcome Talla," she said with a smile that showed she had had a drink or two, "I am Atreya, Second to the Sorceress of Abundance."

Every Discipline had but one Sorceress who held the Perfection of that Discipline. Every Sorceress had but one Second who stood one step – one Upgrade – behind her, ready to take her place and maintain the Perfection of the Temple. Abundance was Talla's Discipline. The Sorceress was her Mistress and this was the Sorceress's chosen assistant.

"Nice to meet you," she said, hoping her words weren't slurring. She was tired and drunk and couldn't even show the courtesy of standing up without waking Salee.

This was apparently acceptable, given how informal everyone seemed to be at this occasion. Atreya and Yolana pulled up stools and straddled them – Atreya somewhat gingerly and with a wince.

Yolana muttered, "Yet you keep going back to him..."

"It feels good at the time," Atreya defended herself.

Talla realized that they were talking about sex; sex that Atreya had just had. She was only slightly distracted by the fact that she could see up Atreya's skirt. She'd wondered if the girls and women whose uniforms included skirts wore underwear. In Atreya's case, at least on this occasion, the answer was 'no'.

Atreya's eyes returned to her and she twitched. Had the other caught her looking? She would not have this liquor again, she decided.

The Second only smiled, however, and spoke, "Are you aware that you have brought much honour to us?"

"They tell me so," Talla said, not trusting herself to longer sentences or more complicated expressions of humility.

"You should believe them," Atreya admonished cheerfully. "It is very rare for any other Discipline to be chosen before all of the places in Sweetness are taken. The gods have given us you."

The gods had done it, then? That must matter somehow.

"I understand the Fourth went to Form, is that correct?" Yolana asked.

Talla nodded. "Sila took Iron."

"Very odd," Atreya said, looking to Yolana, who shrugged. "A very odd night. They will be celebrating as well in Form, then."

"You must understand, Talla," Atreya said, suddenly turning very serious, "the Divisions of Endowment and Form are used to being subordinate in glory. It is only in rare circumstances that our traits are considered more valuable than the others. For someone to choose us over them is, ah, significant. In many ways."

Atreya seemed to be grasping for words. She sighed.

"You will come to understand," she said. "What matters is that the gods have put you here with us, and here is where you belong. You are welcome and you are a sister to us all."

"Now, if you would consent," Atreya continued, "I would be your sister in every sense."

Talla could hardly protest – or even move, what with Sara still snoring softly on her lap. Awestruck by the offer, she could only nod.

Atreya perforce untied her bikini top with one pull around the back of her neck. Talla barely noticed that the talkative crowd in the common room slowly became quiet. If Atreya's breasts had looked large while contained, they looked stupendous now.

Behind Atreya, required to follow Protocol, Yolana was pulling her orange shirt off over her head. The same act was doubtless being played out throughout the room as others took notice. Talla tried not to think about it all of those topless females staring at her.

As dictated by the etiquette she had learned, Talla knew that the higher ranking women must always go first. That made it clear that the lower ranker wasn't overstepping her bounds. So she waited patiently as Atreya knelt and, her heavy breasts rubbing against Salee's cheek, leaned over to kiss each of Talla's tiny nipples with the lightest brush of her lips. She then rose higher on her knees and offered each of her nipples to Talla's lips. Talla kissed as lightly as she could manage in her bleary state, feeling a tingle each time as she did so. Atreya blinked, possibly having felt it as well, and leaned back.

"Now we are sisters," Atreya said, "forever and always."

She stood and refastened her top. Yolana followed suit and crowd soon began milling around and talking again. Talla breathed a sigh of relief, hoping she had done it right. Her cheeks could still remember the price of doing things wrong.

"She likely needs sleep," Yolana admonished. "None of them look ambulatory."

Strong women were drafted in to serve to carry Salee and Lara. Talla vaguely noticed as she passed out that it was Atreya who carried her off.

"What news?"

"She came second."

"Hm. A little disa-"

" - and chose Endowment."

"What?"

"Indeed. Even though Lips and Pussy were available."

"We had not predicted this. Any idea why?"

"No. I asked Shanata. She said that no one noteworthy ejaculated on her breasts."

A pause.

"Odd choice. That's not a reliable route to power."

"Yes. And worrisome, too."

"Because her mother -"

"Exactly."

Talla would definitely not have any more of the sweet liquor.

She woke in a new room. 

The first thing to notice was sunlight streaming in. Figuring it to be morning, that made the direction in front of her east.

Taking stock of her surroundings she discovered a small white-walled bedroom. It was an odd contrast to the beige sandstone of which every other structure in the Temple was built. This one had large ports for sunlight, also unlike many other buildings.

She sat up, blinking her eyes. Salee and Lara were sleeping in beds across the room from her. A fourth bed, empty, was beside her. The sheets were clean and white. She was naked. Completely naked. Someone had taken her ankle-length skirt in the night. Beside each bed was a dresser, bleached to almost complete whiteness. On it were clean, folded clothes.

She stood up carefully and was punished with a blood rush to her head. Taking a deep breath, she waited for it to pass before donning her fresh clothes. The skirt was exactly the right length. The top was a rectangle of white cloth that slid over her chest and fit so perfectly that it didn't need any fastening over her shoulders – which was fortunate as it had no straps. Matching white sandals were found under the bed.

She glanced at the other girls, wondering if she should say something. They'd had more to drink though and probably wouldn't appreciate it. Other than the window, there was only one way out of the simple bedroom: a doorway on her right. She slipped quietly through it, opening the wooden door as quietly as she could. She closed it just as quietly behind her and turned to see what was outside.

Talla was on a second floor walkway in what appeared to be an apartment complex. Though the insides of the room were white, the outsides were wood-braced sandstone like everything else in the Temple. The walkway went on and on to her left, periodically interrupted by small landings and stairways both up and down. She quickly realized there was a walkway above her as well. More apartments? Probably. Outside the Temple, where the men had plenty of space, there were very few two storey buildings. Inside, with twelve thousand women sleeping, eating and working, they probably had little choice.

"Hey!" a voice called from her right.

She turned quickly – too quickly – to see another girl dressed in white.

It was Meena. She had placed a small chair and a table on one of the landings and was relaxing with her feet up. It left Talla with a brief view up her skirt before she stood up. Meena, unlike Atreya, wore underwear. Talla briefly flashed back to the night before. Had Atreya really lowered her breasts to Talla's lips? Yes, she had. Talla shook off the image and faced her other sister.

"It's a bit tough, first morning after drinking liquor," Meena said. "I thought I'd be waiting a lot longer."

"I didn't drink so much," Talla said.

"Hungry?"

"Thirsty, I think."

"Yeah, I bet," Meena sympathized. "The others won't wake up for a bit. I'll take you down to the caf for a drink."

Talla couldn't help but glance at Meena's chest. Though the two girls were about the same stature, Meena had had one upgrade to her breasts. Talla could see the difference. It wasn't fantastic or anything, but there was no question who was more mature. She flashed back again to the previous night, but this time to Zhair'lo's eyes, gazing in rapt fascination at her flat chest. Would one such upgrade affect him? Would he notice? Would he prefer Meena to her?

Meena had turned away and led her down a flight of stairs to a wide street between the apartment blocks. The ground floor of the Temple seemed to be taken up by offices whereas the two upper floors were apartments. She did take enough time to notice that the doors on the upper floor apartments were further apart, suggesting that the rooms were larger. Privilege of rank, she decided.

Women in orange and yellow were hard at work, pouring over drawings, arguing about things, writing. Younger girls in white were busily running around, carrying messages, food and otherwise maintaining things for their mistresses. The pecking order was obvious, even from this passing examination.

"You'll see no glass windows here," Meena was saying. "Some of the men's fancier buildings have it, as do some of the Goddess's. But not here. We don't believe in that kind of nonsense."

As they walked along, Meena continued to make conversation. "Most of our responsibility in Endowment is engineering," she said. "We lay out the plans for the construction of buildings, for the manufacture of all sorts of everyday items. We study ways to improve things, new ways to use materials. You'll see Acolytes and Officers working on things like that. The rest of us are apprenticed to them. Since you're wearing white, like me, you'll be running a lot of errands until you get a little more educated and find something useful to do."

"How come no one told me this before?" Talla asked. "What do the other Divisions do?"

"Sweetness are physicians and administrators," Meena answered. "If you've ever been sick, it was a Sweetness woman who healed you. If you've ever drunk a potion, it was made by Sweetness."

"And Form?"

"Legislation. Order. Punishment. They write a lot of the Protocols that we use to keep life peaceful. If things go wrong, if people don't want to cooperate in our society, it's Form that makes things right, one way or the other. They know how to fight – with weapons I mean."

That sounded ominous. When had there ever been a need for such a thing? Not in Talla's memory. 

"There's a whole Division for that?"

"They're artists, too," Meena added. "Most of the statues, if they aren't made by men, come from Form."

But Meena hadn't answered her first question.

"How come they don't tell us this before the Initiation?" she repeated sternly.

All they were told was that Sweetness was the most powerful Division. All they were told was that Sweetness was the surest route to power. It was a tactic guaranteed to put the fastest and most eager girls in to that Division.

"The Rite of Initiation is a test from the gods," Meena said, clearly uncomfortable. "The gods place you where you belong. Telling you anything more would mess with that."

"Then I chose wrong," Talla said.

"No," Meena was on firmer ground now and spoke as if she had memorized her words, "You can never choose wrong at your Initiation. If you are here and chose to be here, then this is where you belong."

That settled, they arrived at a sparsely populated, open air cafeteria. There were benches, clearly labeled so that women knew where to sit by their ranks. There was a counter where two Initiates in their tiny skirts, a Neophyte in her double sash and a single Keeper in yellow would take food orders.




Talla's Temple Ch. 04



Obviously not everyone was suited to the high tasks of engineering and construction. Someone had to cook. Someone had to clean. Talla wondered where she would end up.

She asked for a cold glass of water. It was handed to her with a knowing smile by the Initiate behind the counter. Someday soon she would get her first upgrade and trade her long skirt for a knee-length one. When she got her second upgrade, she would then be expected to wear the tiny skirt worn by the one who gave her that drink.

She'd have to wear underwear under that, right?

She sat down with Meena at one of the appropriate tables.

"Sure you don't want some food?" Meena asked.

She shook her head.

"So, uh, what happens now?" she asked.

"There will be a formal Orientation," Meena said. "Every Division and Discipline is a little different, so you have to learn the ins and outs. It's not very complicated. Then you get ready for your first upgrade."

"How does that work, exactly?"

"Um, well, you'll find out at Orientation," Meena was uncomfortable again. "It's really not for me to say."

Talla looked at Meena carefully.

Meena melted under her gaze. "Look. It's just better if you're told by someone else, with experience. It's not my place. Sorry."

Talla shrugged and gave up. She would have to wait.

"So what do I do for now?"

"You have the day off," Meena said. "Walk around, stay out of trouble. Rest if you want. Your Orientation will be this evening. Be back at your apartment by the seventh hour."

"Just the three of us?"

"Yep."

Meena hesitated a moment. "Um, I should really go back and check on Salee and Lara. You want to come?"

Talla thought about that. Meena obviously wasn't a good source of information.

"I'll stay here," she said. "Maybe have a bite. You go ahead."

"Alright", Meena replied a little too happily. Inquisitiveness wasn't overly valued in certain subject areas, obviously, and Meena seemed relieved to escape. With a twirl of her skirt, she darted off.

The water was making Talla feel much better. She finished the tall glass off, returned it to the kitchen and found a place to relieve herself. Biological needs attended to, it was time to explore. 

What did she know so far? She didn't even know where she was except, presumably, that she was still in the Endowment triangle.

She decided to get her bearings.

She could see the long street which led back to her apartment. On one side of the cafeteria, alleys fanned out in different directions. The other side was a wall. The long lane that started at her apartment went straight through the cafeteria. It might be that this lane ran along the outside of the Temple, or maybe just Endowment's border with the rest of the Temple.

The best thing, she decided, would be to follow it that long lane.

She walked along the long row of apartments and offices and it quickly became clear that the tall wall must be Endowment's wall within the Temple itself. Its height was nowhere near as regular as Talla could remember the outer wall of the Temple being. Eventually it gave way to a plaza that Talla recognized.

Ah! Now she knew where she was. She saw the giant bronze gates through which she had entered her new home. The plaza itself was immense for a place that must value space above all else. The paving stones gave way to a grassy field with carefully placed trees. She hadn't noticed those the night before. Women, mostly oranges and a few high ranking yellows with their crossing sashes covering their breasts, were sitting under the trees conversing. Whites were waiting on them, bringing drinks and running other errands.

Walking along the paved path between the bronze gates and the Endowment Hall was a party of men and women. That surprised her. Men weren't allowed in the Temple often. She shadowed them through the trees. The escorts were four Keepers: yellow grass skirts and bikini tops. Two walked in front of the men and two behind. The men, four of them, were in beige-coloured work-ready clothes and were taking the opportunity to eye the women scattered throughout the compound.

The party entered the common room with Talla pretending to idly go in after them.

She was surprised by how different it was by day. It was cavernous and refreshingly cool instead of comfortably warm. The bronze plates on the wall were cold and metallic instead of flickering and alive with reflected firelight. Business was about. The tones of voices echoing off the walls were different; harsher. Efficiency was the game now, not relaxation.

The men were led to a table where two Officers and two Acolyte IIs in their tiny orange bikini bottoms, were leaning over a large table.

Gods, she thought, would she ever stop being jealous of larger breasted women? What effect would this have on the men?

They seemed to take it in stride though. She thought this might be a product of maturity. She watched from a short distance away as the Officers outlined plans for a building that needed to be constructed. She couldn't see it clearly, but it was some kind of tower with an internal stairway.

One of the men pointed at a portion of the drawing and asked a question she couldn't hear. Another man shrugged and indicated some type of answer. Wise heads nodded.

It seemed she couldn't follow the conversation without being obvious. Instead she breezed past the table so she could get a good look at the drawing as she walked to the back of the common room. The thing they were working on was a tower, but she couldn't say for what. It was tall, narrow and it had a pointed roof covering an observation platform on its top. That was all that she could see.

They were busy enough that they hadn't noticed her. To remain inconspicuous, she had to continue her way to the back of the common room, past the women milling around there. There were two doorways at the back of the room, both of which had small red stars on the wall above them. Privacy from men, then, and perhaps nudity.

She picked the leftmost of the two doors, past which there was a dark hallway that took a quick jig to prevent men from seeing things in places they should not be looking.

Sunlight, then, and an open courtyard not even half the size of the one on the other side of Endowment Hall. The difference was that men were never allowed here and women were not required to be clothed.

Some hundred or so women were laid out on towels on the thick, dark grass, tanning themselves in the warm sunlight. Not a single one of them wore clothing. She saw breasts of all sizes, though no chests quite as flat as hers. She saw both well toned muscles and skinny legs. She saw thick, dark pussy and bald mounds like her own (a lot of the latter. This was Endowment after all). At least she didn't have to guess at rank. The women kept their clothing folded in neat little piles wherever they tanned.

It was a quiet, peaceful place. Most of the women were resting with their eyes closed. A few engaged in conversation with someone lying nearby. There was neither loud chatter nor any sounds of work. She almost wanted to undress and lie down just to take in the serenity of the place. She'd never been in a place that made her feel so at ease.

But no. She was far too curious to take a break now. If this was to be her home, she wanted to know it like the back of her hand.

The only way forward was a three metre high arched portal across the courtyard. There were no doors but it did have an outline of a red star over it, meaning that proper clothing was required.

As she passed through the portal, her eyes took a moment to adjust. The floor was no longer brown paving stones. It had become white marble. This place was important. She was standing at the centre of two concentric semi circles of dark, wooden desks. Each desk had a woman in orange clothing working behind it. None of them looked up at her entrance.

The area she was in was three storeys high. There were two stairways, one along each of the walls to her left and right, that led to the second floor. The balconies there were adorned with banners of green cloth and the symbols of the three Disciplines of Endowment. Somewhere up there were stairways to the third floor. All she could see of that floor from the ground were red banners.

No doubt, these were the offices of the Sorceresses and Queen of Endowment. She probably shouldn't be here.

"You are lost, young one?" a quiet voice asked.

A guard, fully armoured, had popped out of nowhere.

Well, not nowhere precisely, she had come from a large set of closed doors opposite the entrance, behind the rows of desks.

"Um, just looking around."

The guard gave her a once over, took in the length of her skirt and spoke mildly. "You'll learn soon enough. But if you don't have business here, it's best that you leave." The busy women hadn't looked up during this quiet exchange. Talla nodded her agreement and let herself out.

What were they so busy with in there? It seemed to be a lot of writing, not drawing. If Endowment women were engineers, what were they doing in these marble offices? Maybe she'd find out later. It gave her a creepy feeling to have the sunlit serenity of the tanning courtyard right next to these studious women who so steadfastly ignored her.

She breathed a sigh of relief and let the sunlight wash away her unease. There was a Temple to explore and she had a good six hours to find everything.

"How fare your charges, Meena?"

Meena bowed to her superior.

"Well, Mistress Kara," she replied. "Salee and Lara had lunch and are resting."

"You had three charges, did you not?"

"Yes, Mistress," Meena replied. Eight ranks up, you damn well put 'Mistress ' on the end of everything. "Talla preferred to explore by herself, Mistress."

Consternation from the Officer.

"You left her to wander around unescorted?"

Meena was getting uncomfortable, standing here while Kara sat behind the desk.

"She's a sister, isn't she, Mistress? I didn't see a problem."

"There will be if she doesn't show up on time for Orientation."

"I told her when it is, Mistress," Meena said, adding somewhat defiantly. "I assume she can make an appointment."

It seemed unfair to berate her for this. Her charges were adults according to Temple Law. Why should she be punished - well, scolded, hopefully not punished - for treating them like adults?

Kara thought about this for a moment. She glanced aside, twisted her lips and took a deep breath.

"Yes, well. Not your fault, Meena," she eased back in her chair. "Go about your business then."

Meena bowed lightly and left her Mistress's office.

What on earth had that been about? What precisely was 'not your fault'? She tried to imagine Kara reading out some charge against her. What on earth would it say on the decree? "Virgin Meena D'jin. Failed to spoon feed an adult like a babe in diapers. Three common lashes. By Order of Kara T'lai."

That seemed unlikely.

She wasn't stupid, though it often paid for a junior to pretend to be stupid in a wide variety of situations.

The salient point in that conversation was Talla. She hadn't missed that. Someone was especially concerned about Talla. A virgin still in her long skirt was important enough that an Officer, a woman with nearly sixty upgrades to her name, was nervous and irrational about keeping an eye on her.

If there were people who cared enough about Talla's disposition to make an Officer nervous, then there were people who could be absolutely ruinous to a Virgin like her.

She set out to find Talla, intending that, by the gods, Talla would be well early to her Orientation and Meena D'jin could go back to safe anonymity.

By sixth bell Talla was tired. She had a good map of Endowment's portion of the Temple in her head though she didn't know what was done in many of the buildings. The apartments for some four thousand women covered the entire wall that faced the rest of the Temple. Periodically, there were cafeterias along the street that ran through these apartments. Talla's apartment was located as far to the back of the Temple as the apartments went. She imagined that she could throw a ball from her front door over the wall into Sweetness's triangle.

The plaza through which she had entered Endowment's triangle was in the middle of that wall of apartments. The place they called Endowment Hall backed on to the tanning courtyard which backed on to the mysterious marble offices with the busy women. Whatever was inside that building was large and had no other entrances. She had trekked all the way around it and found nothing but more workstations, offices and cafeterias.

She'd found an area in the back with large construction equipment being raised and tested. There was another place where young women in yellow were receiving instruction from oranges. They sat at small desks and took notes while the oranges dictated to them and posed questions. It reminded her a little of how her dorm mother had taught her charges how to read and write and do arithmetic. This seemed more formal.

After several hours of exploring, she was getting hungry. She looped back around the complex behind Endowment Hall and came to the plaza once again. It was getting dark. Initiates in tiny skirts were scurrying around lighting torches. Their superiors were calling it a day and heading in for dinner.

Talla watched the chaos unfold. She had seen the like outside the Temple as the men came in from fields and factories to their evening meals. The difference was density. There were just so many more women packed in to a smaller space, each with her own destination. The throbbing mob was daunting. The only oddity was the young girl in a knee-length white skirt standing in the middle of it all.

Talla looked more closely. It was Meena and she was busily scanning the mob teaming past her in all directions.

Was Meena looking for her? That was thoughtful. It would require a great deal of effort to find one person among the thousands of women that inhabited the Endowment triangle. Talla slid carefully in to foot traffic so as not be trampled.

Meena's eyes lit on her and there was obvious relief in her expression.

"Talla!" she shouted jubilantly.

She seemed a little too excited. Had the time of the Orientation changed?

"What's up?"

"Nothin'," Meena was playing non chalant now. "Just checking on ya."

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

"Wanna get some food? It's past sixth bell."

"Sure."

Meena was hiding something. Talla was determined of that fact. She was playing it casual now; the responsible guardian checking on her charge. But there had been something else in her expression when she had first seen Talla. There had been something calculating back behind those eyes. 

Something was wrong and Meena wasn't saying.

There was a wait to get a table at the nearest cafeteria so they continued up the street back towards Talla's apartment.

"Where do you sleep?" Talla asked casually.

"Just across the street from you and down a bit."

"Do you have to share a room?"

"Yeah. You usually share a bedroom four ways until you go yellow. But the rooms get bigger when you go up in rank. When you go yellow, you only have to share with one other woman. I'm not sure when you get your own place, though."

They found a cafeteria, a little ways off the apartment street, that had a few empty tables where whites could sit. They took a couple of plates of pasta off the buffet station and sat down with a couple of Initiates.

"Hey, long skirt," one of them addressed her. "How long 'til your upgrade?"

Talla raised her eyebrows but didn't know how to respond.

"Tomorrow night," Meena filled in for her. "She just got here last night."

That was news to Talla. One night of Orientation and her first upgrade was the next day?

"Exciting," the other Initiate said. The two then starting gabbing about some personal subject and ignored the two Virgins.

"So you had some time to explore?"

"Yeah," Talla said. She couldn't help herself. She was bubbling over with the things she had discovered: the architecture; the artwork; the curious relationships the women had with each other. Meena stopped her when she mentioned the men coming in to Endowment Hall.

"That's very rare," Meena observed. "Usually men only come this far in to the Temple if the one of the High Officers is Serving them."

'Serving' meant sex? Talla assumed so.

"I thought we were supposed to Serve in the town? That's how I've always seen it done." She remembered once again seeing the finely dressed Temple women wandering through the town at night. Now she knew what they'd been doing.

"Well, High Officers can't leave the Temple, can they?"

"They can't?"

"No. So the men have to come to them."

More rules and regulations. She hoped that these were written down somewhere. She'd like to read the whole damn book and be done with it. Getting it all piecemeal like this was annoying.

So she told Meena about the courtyard where all the women had been sunning themselves.

"The place behind Endowment Hall?"

"Yeah."

"It's called the Tranquil Square. Sometimes they call it Tranquility."

So she'd gone through the Tranquil Square to the building beyond it.

"And you got your butt kicked right back out."

"Uh, yeah."

Meena's intellect suddenly turned back on. The vacant look with which she usually covered her face had disappeared again as she leaned forward.

"Yeah, they're insanely busy in there. Those are the hardest jobs in this place, as far as I know."

It occurred to Talla that she suddenly believed that 'as far as I know' actually went quite a way for Meena.

"All these complicated tables: balancing out Service in the city; taking orders from Central; passing them on to the women; making sure the orders are carried out. It's really complicated, but it's the only route to power."

That was a lot for Meena to know. Talla looked at her piercingly and Meena realized she'd given a lot away.

"That's what I heard anyhow," Meena added, trying to cover herself with ignorance again.

Talla was not fooled, nor would she ever be fooled by Meena's pretence again. The only question was why she did it.

"Well, you're right. A guard kicked me out pretty quickly. I only had time to see the banners on the upper floors. Are those the offices of the Sorceresses - "

"And the Queen of Endowment, yes," Meena cut in, "but it's also their living quarters."

"Must be huge."

"I've only ever been in Abundance's office and it was only once," Meena said. "Yeah, it's huge. There are more people working inside, along with really, really beautiful living space. It's only fair, I suppose, as she can't leave the Temple like we can."

Talla had noticed the shorthand for the High Officers. 'Abundance' meant the Sorceress of Abundance. 'Endowment' referred to the Queen of the entire Division. There was no shorthand for the Goddess of the entire Temple, not that she had heard at any rate.

The two of them chatted over the rest of Talla's discoveries that day as the sky darkened overhead. The less clearly she could see Meena, the less Meena stopped pretending to be stupid. She had a keen insight and Talla couldn't figure why she hid it.

"Let's head back," she said. "Salee and Lara should be waiting."

Yes, Talla thought, and why aren't you hunting them down with such concern as you searched for me?

They left their trays at the buffet station and trod their way to the apartment street. A right turn put them back on track. The streets were empty again.

"Where is everybody?" Talla asked.

"It's Friday," Meena said. "Most''ll be down at the hall getting their orders for the night."

"But not you?"

"No. Quotas are lower for Virgins and Initiates. We don't go out as often. Besides, I'm in charge of you three for the night."




Talla's Temple Ch. 04



More information, coming in tiny little bits. This 'Orientation' had better live up to the name.

They had reached the ground floor offices that were underneath Talla's apartment.

"Hallo, Salee. Hallo, Lara!" Meena called up.

A blond head poked out the door.

"Hallo!" she called down and waved behind her to Lara.

"Coming, coming," the other replied.

In a flurry of long white skirts, her room mates swirled down the stairway to join them on the ground.

"This way," Meena directed them down the deserted and torchlit street.

"The office you will enter is that of Officer Kara T'lai," she said. "All that you need to know is that you bow to her as you would any Officer and refer to her as Mistress."

Her three charges nodded carefully.

Meena knocked on the doorframe.

"Enter," came a hard female voice.

The four of them entered, Meena first.

Kara was a stern woman with a body to match her voice. Black hair tied back in a ponytail meant no nonsense would be entertained. The fact that their arrival did not prompt her to stand – in fact she barely looked up – meant that she was busy and important. She looked strong enough, and more than willing enough, to break any of younger girls in two.

"Sit," she said while continuing to write on the papers arrayed in front of her. There were three chairs in front of her desk.

"A moment, Meena," she said as Meena attempted to leave.

"Yes, Mistress," Meena said and waited, standing in the doorway.

Salee and Lara took the seats closest to the door. Talla couldn't blame them. The idea of an escape route was foremost in her mind as well.

Kara fished three fine pieces of parchment from the stacks on her desk.

"Salee, Lara and Talla," Kara said as she slid one sheet to each of them along the surface of her desk.

Talla took hers and looked at it. It was a simple chart with two columns. On the left were the nine symbols of the Disciplines of the Temple. The odd thing about them was the order. Usually the Sweetness Disciplines were at the top of any list. Here in Endowment, she thought that the three local Disciplines would appear at the top. Instead, this chart started with Facial, then Point, then ...

She looked over at Lara's sheet. Hers started with Iron.

She looked back at the second column on her own sheet. There was Temple script there. Outside the Temple, they had only taught the printed characters that men used. The fancier curving syllable symbols of the Temple women were new to her. Based on what little she had learned, she tried to make out the first word, next to Facial. 

Ha-lo?

Har-lo.

It struck her suddenly.

Zhair'lo!

This was a list of all of the boys from her Initiation night, in the order that they had ejaculated on her. Following each name was a number of stars. It pleased her immensely to see his name at the top, especially with five stars next to it. None of the other names had more than two except for Zokar's, at the very bottom of the sheet, which had three.

"You will receive your first upgrades tomorrow," Kara told them sternly. "The Temple gives a privilege to Virgins like yourself. You are permitted this once to choose the male who will participate in your upgrade."

Three pens dipped in ink bottles were pushed across the desk.

"As you may not remember all of their names, the ring you won when each one ejaculated is listed next to his name," Kara explained. "Circle the one you wish to use for your upgrade. I advise you to take the one with the greater number of stars. Your teachers marked those down based on their performance."

She would have taken Zhair'lo regardless, and wondered for a moment what his "performance" consisted of. The amount of semen? Zhair'lo had won that contest, certainly. She sneaked a glance at Lara's sheet. There was no boy there with more than three stars. That won a sly smile from her. She circled his name without hesitation.

"Good," Kara said as she collected the papers. "Now there are some things I have to teach you about life in Temple. After that, we will delve in to the Protocol for your first upgrade."

She handed the papers to Meena. "Take these down to the Hall so they can get on the docket tomorrow. Also, I have Service tonight once I'm done here and I haven't picked up my orders yet. Be a dear."

Meena bowed curtly, took the papers and was off with a whispered, "Yes, Mistress."

Kara went to the blackboard behind her desk and began writing.

"You should know by now that there are nine Disciplines," she said as she drew the nine symbols on the board, "They are grouped in to three Divisions: Sweetness for the genitals; Endowment for the breasts; Form for fitness."

"Now each of the Disciplines has a Sorceress who has been upgraded eleven times to the point of Perfection in that Discipline. She also stands one upgrade short of Perfection in the two other Disciplines of her Division."

"For example, consider my own Mistress, the Sorceress of Strength," she said. "She holds the Perfection of Strength. She also has been upgraded ten times in both Abundance and Point. Should she be called upon, as any Sorceress might be called, she is only two upgrades away from being Queen of Endowment."

A Queen, it turned out, held Perfection in all three Disciplines of her Division. In addition, she was upgraded to the tenth level in the Disciplines of the other Divisions so that she could take over as Goddess should the need arise.

The Goddess, then, held Perfection in all Disciplines.

It was essential that the Perfections be maintained. Without that, Kara averred, chaos would result. The peace that the Temple brought to the men and women around it was dependent on the maintenance of the Perfections the gods had given. Kara painted them a very dark picture of a future without the holy influence of this precious gift.

Talla peered at Kara and started to speak, but was somewhat afraid. This was so much like Shanata's lessons that she feared a stick was hidden somewhere in the room.

"A question," Kara asked, her tone strongly indicating that such were not appreciated.

"Begging your pardon, Mistress," she said. "But if it's so important, why is each Perfection only given to three women? Why not give it to more?"

This was a bad question to ask. She decided this, based merely on Kara's facial expression, before she was even done asking. It would have been better to shut up, but it was too late now.

Kara looked at her. There was a rebuke there. Talla could see it. A scolding waiting just under the skin. Kara's lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. Then she glanced away as if suddenly remembering something. Her countenance changed. After a deep breath, she spoke.

"While it's really none of your business at this point, Talla," she said firmly, "The fact is that any attempt within a single Temple to pass a Perfection on to a fourth person fails. And it fails in a spectacularly painful way for the recipient. It's not clear why, but we presume the gods have limited us in this way for some reason. So, long ago, we adapted our hierarchy to it, knowing that there must be a Goddess to influence the people and that she must have auxiliaries in case some accident befalls her."

The two gazed at each other for a moment.

"Questions like these are more appropriate for the effete scientists of Sweetness," she said dismissively. "We prefer to get work done here."

With that out of the way, Kara continued with her lesson.

Silken red robes trailing behind her, she let herself in to her Mistress's candlelit quarters carrying a single sheet of parchment. It was nearing midnight, but High Officers were traditionally night owls.

"Have you seen the docket for tomorrow night?"

Her rank allowed her to wear pretty much whatever she wanted as long as it was red. The target of her question wore a closer fitting, more practical dress entirely of black.

"No," the other replied without looking up from her work.

"Good thing I checked then."

She held the paper over the other woman's desk and let it float down over her work.

As the woman in black blinked her eyes, blue flashes of light twinkled from her eyelashes to float off in to the air. She looked up, glaring at her underling with eyes that had gone black as black could go under the weight of so much Perfection held in one body. It was a frightening glare, even to a friend who had seen those eyes so many times before. It was much more frightening, even, than the eerie golden glow of her skin.

She went over the parchment. Nine upgrades were scheduled in Sweetness. A truly full schedule. 

"So your people will be busy tomorrow," she said, unimpressed. "This should concern me?"

"Keep reading."

Such things happened, statistically, after all. One did not bother her with such details. 

The docket had only six upgrades in Endowment and four in Form. Everything averaged out over time.

She began scanning the names.

The woman in red waited patiently. She knew her superior had hit the mark when she swore very softly. 

"Monogamous beasts," she whispered.

It wasn't the worst she had heard, not even the worst today or the worst from this particular woman.

"Zhair'lo."

"Indeed."

"He was supposed to have been assigned away in the fields somewhere. They were not supposed to meet."

"I know."

"Monogamous beasts, rutting in the fields," she cursed again. "We could exercise absolute control over her except on this one night. This one night where she could go off randomly. I ordered him tucked away, safely out of her range."

"I made the arrangements myself," the woman in red answered apologetically. "They did not go through in time. It is my fault."

"Possibly. Shall I have you lashed?"

"What would you put on the decree? This was to be a secret."

"Hm. I could simply list 'disobedience', but it would still raise questions I'd rather not answer. I suppose I'd have to do it myself."

"I'll just hike up my skirt, then," she answered, not making any move to do such a thing. One did not lash a Queen.

Her superior laughed darkly.

"You could overrule. The right to choose the Conduit is a Protocol, not a Dictate. The authority is yours," the Queen offered dubiously.

"And not yours, conveniently, dear Sweetness. Do you know how much suspicion overruling would arouse?"

The Goddess rose and began pacing, still holding the copy of the docket. Shimmering blue sparks danced off her hair as she moved.

"We assumed, with her parentage, she would come in first in her Contest," the Queen said, "and she would take Within."

"Yes, and you could watch over her then."

"And even if she came second or third, we assumed she would take Lips or Pussy."

"And she didn't. Something went wrong," the Goddess said as she handed the parchment back.

"And she picked Zhair'lo," the Queen of Sweetness replied. "Rutting beasts, who wouldn't? Shanata put five stars next to his name. How many boys that age can put out five stars?"

That was a stupid question. It was no surprise that Zhair'lo could.

"There's nothing we can do," the Goddess said. "The choice is hers. That's the rule. After that, we can keep them apart."

Zhair'lo was exhausted. He'd suffered under a lot of different work orders in his life, but farming had to be the hardest. Sure, the oxen and horses did a lot of the labour, but there were still a lot of things to lift and shove. And an ox wasn't necessarily an obedient animal.

He didn't think he'd ever get the taste of dust from his tongue or the feeling of grit from his skin.

Worse yet, the Master of the Farm, a brutal block of a man named Harzen, hadn't taken well to him. Mind you, Zhair'lo thought, he doesn't seem to take well to anyone. The work term hadn't started well, not that it was his fault. He was supposed to have started a day earlier than he did but the notice hadn't reached him for some reason. He'd spent an extra day assisting a blacksmith instead. Harzen hadn't been pleased and had worked him hard yesterday – right through the evening.

At the same time, he was glad the notice was lost. It had let him stay in town the day he met Talla. He hadn't stop thinking about her.

He'd only just come of age, so it had been the blacksmith's duty to tie the blue ribbon in his hair on the occasion of his birthday. He didn't know what it signified except living for eighteen years. He had just decided to wander around the town for a while, wondering what it meant to be an adult.

And he'd run in to Talla.

He hadn't expected the Initiation. He had seen Temple women wandering through the streets at night. So exotic were they in their flashy clothing that they could send a young man like him to his bed to relieve himself. Some of them wore the tiniest bits of fabric as they went visiting at night.

But he couldn't see what they did during their visits. Doors were shut. Latches were closed. In a city with such busy streets, spying was so difficult. He'd managed to peek in on the blacksmith once when a woman in orange had come visiting him. Wandering around the side of the blacksmith's house, he'd managed to look in a small gap between the wooden shutters to glimpse the woman, unclothed, sitting straddle over the blacksmith. She would rotate her hips and he would thrust his. Zhair'lo had nearly been caught when someone came down the alley. He'd had to run away. After that he could watch no more.

She'd been making him come, that was Zhair'lo's analysis. He'd heard the word. He'd masturbated and knew what that meant. All he could make of it was that she had been rubbing up against him for the same purpose. No one had told him differently.

So he sweated in a corral, urging horses to do his bidding. But the horses didn't know him and didn't particularly care what he wanted. Harzen assured him that they would eventually obey him.

Panting, he took a break. There would be time to teach the horse to follow a line in another moment. Leaning on the low fence around the corral, he peered off toward the farmhouse where he would eat and sleep for as long as he worked here.

Harzen was talking to two young Temple women in white outfits.

Throughout his life, he had seen messengers come from the Temple. A pair of girls with a satchel would show up, hand a rolled up piece of parchment to some boy or man, and depart. These two must be on a similar mission.

Harzen put his right hand over his eyes to shield them against the evening sun as he scanned the farm. Then he pointed toward the stables and corral. For me? Zhair'lo wondered. There was no one else in the stables.

The two girls jogged out toward him.

Was Talla coming to visit him?

One of them had Talla's very dark shade of brown hair but the clothing was wrong. He very clearly remembered both the swirl of Talla's long white skirt and the minuscule coverage her top had afforded her. The fair haired woman wore the same top but a very short skirt. The other, the dark haired one, wore a knee length skirt and crossing sashes over her breasts.

There were making a good pace – in fact an incredible pace - and Zhair'lo soon realized the dark haired one was not Talla, even cleaned up and in a change of clothes.

He watched them carefully, thankful that his exhaustion would prevent any sign of arousal. The tinier of the two skirts was so short that he could see the fair haired one's underwear as she ran.

Presently they arrived. He wished he weren't so dirty and sweaty. What must they in their Temple finery think of him?

"Zhair'lo M'han?" the dark haired one asked, only slightly out of breath. She had incredible endurance. Her fair haired friend was only a little more winded.

"Yes," he said.

She handed him the parchment.

"You have been Summoned. The Temple requests your Service this evening."

"My Service?" Summoned? He could hear the capital letters. What the hell was going on? He was confused but also elated. Would he get to see Talla again? The Temple was a big place. He hoped to get a chance to go looking, at least.

"The details are written in the Summons," she said.

The fair haired one spoke, "This is your first time being Summoned?"

He nodded.

"Make sure to be on time," she chided. "You will need instruction in your role."

"What role?"

"That is all we can tell you," the dark haired one overruled any further conversation. She turned to her comrade and said, "Let's go."

And that was that. The two of them turned and ran off back to the farm; back toward the Temple. He watched them go. The underwear he had seen on the fair-haired one had almost no material at the back. She had incredibly strong legs. He ought to have stared longer, but his curiosity over the parchment overruled any arousal. A Summons to the Temple? That was intimidating. Deciding there was no use fretting, he cracked the green wax seal and unrolled it.

It had been written using simple words that any man could understand. The date and time were listed at the top of the parchment: this evening at the seventh bell. There was a gate symbol below that; a small circle.

He'd been by the Temple often enough to know the symbols: square; circle; triangle. The main gate had all three, with the square inside the circle inside the triangle. But each shape had two of its own gates as well, one large and one small. The small gate was usually closed, but that was the one he was to attend tomorrow evening.

And do what?

The only other legible thing written on the parchment was his name. After that it was Temple Script that he had no idea how to read.

He looked back to the farmhouse. Harzen was looking straight back at him.

Right. Back to work.

It was too bad that he couldn't read Temple Script. If he had ever been taught it, he'd have been able to read the last word on the letter.

"Upgrade."



Talla's Temple Ch. 05



"You'd best go now," Harzen said jovially as they finished dinner. "You don't want to be late."

He'd been quite a bit more personable this afternoon, since Zhair'lo's message had come.

There hadn't been any talk of rejecting the 'request'. He'd shown it to Harzen by way of wondering if he could get the evening off. Harzen had brightened considerably since that moment and explained to him quite clearly that a man should never refuse a 'request', no matter how phrased, from the Temple.

That just wasn't how things were done, foolish boy.

Zhair'lo had wanted to leave earlier and tried to explain that he wanted to take a quick bath in the river before heading to the Temple. He'd been embarrassed by his uncleanliness before and didn't want that happening again.

Harzen had simply laughed and said, "Don't worry. They'll take care of it."

So, at Harzen's behest, he put on his newest clothing and began the long walk in to town. The two girls from the Temple had apparently run all the way out to see him and then run back. He didn't think of himself as a slouch, but it seemed preposterous to do that in the afternoon heat and barely break a sweat. Besides, Harzen had given him more than enough time. A brisk walk would get him there in well under an hour.

He had all that time to fret over what it was they wanted from him and whether or not he'd get to see Talla. He knew, underneath it all, that he was probably deluding himself. He understood what that race had been. All of the girls in it had been making guys come. He had seen the pegs for the rings on the wall. After he came on Talla's face, the woman in orange had placed one ring on one of the pegs. From that alone, he assumed that Talla would have had to make eight other guys come on her.

Why would she remember him?

Talla was trying not to shake.

She now knew what was in the back of the well guarded marble office building. It was the upgrade room. More precisely, it was Endowment's "Augmentation Chamber" which, as it was the only room in the whole complex that had the word "chamber" in it, was usually just called "The Chamber". The thing she was going to do today would be done dozens of times over the next few years of her life.

The thing she was going to do?

The thing she was going to have done to her.

They had told her it might hurt a bit, but they might have been understating.

Knowing what was coming was sometimes even worse than not knowing. Maybe her imagination just wasn't vivid enough -- or cruel enough.

There were other women in the waiting anteroom, sealed off from the Chamber. Salee had gone first. Lara had just followed. Talla waited, sitting on one of several flat marble benches, with three other women for company. The room had two doors: one through which she had entered from a small shower room; and the door to the Chamber. At some point, the Chamber door would open and her name would be called.

The other women were older and calm. They'd done this before. Conversation between them was casual. She'd picked up that all three were here for Point upgrades. Two were being promoted in rank -- one of whom would be dropping her yellow clothes for orange. The third was a Keeper from Form. She'd just had her fourth upgrade in Facial and was choosing Point as her first upgrade outside her own Division. She was beautiful. Even Talla in her senses deadening state of anxiety could see it.

All it did was make Talla the odd one out. They were all here for Point, even Salee and Lara. Only she was here for Abundance.

Alone, alone, alone.

She took a deep breath. The bright light was that this was a chance to see Zhair'lo again. And not just see him...

But she remembered Kara's lesson from last night. Monogamy was a curse word, spat out of the side of one's mouth. Everyone was shared with everyone else. Monogamy was dangerous in a way that Talla could not understand. It was about possession. It was destructive to society. It led to wasteful competition, fighting, injury, even murder. Monogamy was unthinkable.

She wanted to be with Zhair'lo, but knew that this desire was wrong. Her stomach trembled.

Think positive, she told herself, willing her insides to settle.

Zhair'lo was somewhere past this door, waiting for her; waiting to do his part. She hoped he was eager, too. If she couldn't have forever, she could have now.

Another deep breath. Salee's upgrade seemed to have taken all of five minutes. Lara's was taking a bit longer. When would it be her turn?

Zhair'lo looked at the men around him, waiting their turns. They were older than he, but still quite young and strong. They seemed pleasant and happy. Why not? Zhair'lo had been briefed on his role. It seemed a pleasant thing to do.

Two things had been made clear though. The first was that it was a privilege that Talla had chosen him. The second was that the privilege would never come his way again if he violated the Protocols.

He shook off his dark thoughts. He was here to see Talla, to do what needed doing.

He inhaled deeply and tried to clear his thoughts by looking upward. The ceiling, if you could call it that, was a series of wooden beams mounted on the beige stone walls. The beams were widely spaced enough to let him see constellations. What if it rained? There must be actual roof panels hidden away somewhere. For now, he took in the fresh night air, watched the torchlight dance off the wooden ceiling beams, and tried to relax with a few deep breaths.

"First time?" a dark haired man asked him.

"Huh? Yeah."

"Do it well, you can come back."

That was curious. "You've been here a lot?"

"About once a week," he said proudly.

That would be something, doing this sort of thing often. He didn't know if he could take the stress.

The heavy door opened as it had twice before to take away the first two boys.

The same woman who had come for them now stepped through and softly spoke his name, reading it off a sheet of parchment, "Zhair'lo M'han?"

"Yes."

"Come in, please."

The three men he left behind patted him on the back and wished him luck. They were quite chipper about the whole thing. The woman he followed wore the least clothing he had ever seen on a female body. Her clothing consisted of a tiny pair of orange underwear and a strongly reinforced piece of clothing that held in her breasts. Men usually referred to the ensemble as simply a "bikini".

He followed her in to the room beyond, expecting the giant chamber he had been told about. Instead it was another small room, torchlit and open to the night sky through two or three storeys of walls. The room had two more doors, a large and serious looking one directly ahead and a smaller one to the side.

"Ella and Renia will see to you," she said to him with the officious tone of a Busy Person.

She turned to the two girls who stood by the door to his right and instructed them, "You have some time. He's a new one, though, so be careful."

Be careful of what?

She then exited via the smaller door and closed it behind her.

There were two girls a little older than him, dressed in bikini tops and skirts as tiny as that of one of his messengers of the night before. The difference here, of course, was that neither wore anything under her skirt. This fact was soon revealed when they approached him, smiling comfortingly, and began undressing.

That was unexpected. He'd received instruction on his part in the Upgrade Rite. No one had mentioned this. He was too nervous to think sexually, too disconnected from his surroundings to do anything but stand still and let things happen.

Once both of them were naked, they began to casually remove his clothing.

"I'm Ella," one girl said softly. "Don't worry, Zhair'lo. We're just going to wash you and get you ready."

That was a bit of a relief. Harzen had told him not to bother washing. The woman who had briefed him on his role hadn't said anything about his state of filth either. He hadn't wanted to show up like this, with all of these girls in their fine clothing - or not, as the case now happened to be.

His shirt was unlaced and put aside. His pants went next. He was naked and skinny in the thankfully dim torchlight, just like they were. He was not particularly aroused. Ella looked down and noticed. 

"Good," she remarked with a smile, "we'll have some time then."

Each holding one of his hands, they led him to the left side of the room where a curious pipe hung overhead. Renia pulled a lever on the wall and water came spraying gently out of the pipe. They pushed him into the spray.

It was warm. Luxuriously warm. There was nothing like this outside the Temple. Not that he knew of at any rate. He closed his eyes and relaxed as the water poured over his body, rinsing the dirt and sweat of a day of farmer's labour from first his hair and then the rest of his body.

Ella or Renia, he couldn't see which while blinded by the spray of water, was rubbing his hair now. He smelled a strange, fruity fragrance -- something other than mere lye. The scalp massage was delicious.

"Lean back a bit," he heard Renia say. "Let me rinse your hair."

He obeyed. He hadn't felt this clean in a long time.

Ella, meanwhile, was rubbing soap on his arms and chest. It would have been embarrassing if he weren't so distracted and anxious. Her body was developed. She had breasts, even if they were small. He felt like a skinny runt, a child among adults. Sure, his body was a wiry kind of hard. He'd been apprenticed to a blacksmith for the last year after all. But he still felt ... juvenile ... next to these two.

But they didn't seem to mind. They had a job to do and apparently his role was important enough to merit their devout attention.

Ella washed the front of his body while Renia washed the back. Soon both were kneeling, working their way down to his feet. Several days of sweat and dirt were furiously and meticulously scrubbed from his body. He couldn't see Renia, so he watched Ella. Slim and fit, young and just a little bit curvaceous, she diligently cleaned him down to his toes.

Then her eyes leveled on his penis. He almost withered under that glare. He was barely aroused even now. Without looking up, she began laving his member gently, cleaning it below and above. Renia reached from behind him to gently soap his testicles. He closed his eyes as she tickled him from underneath. He felt Ella pull his foreskin gently back to rinse underneath.

"He needs a little help, I think," Ella said -- speaking not to him but to her partner.

He looked down, wondering what she meant, and so he was able to watch the whole thing as it happened. She leaned in close, opened her mouth, and slid it completely over his unaroused manhood with practiced ease.

Her tongue gently slid along his shaft and he gasped at the tingling sensation that fired up his spine. No one had ever told him that anything like this was done. He felt her tongue swirling around the head of his shaft and all anxiety -- and all thought, really - disappeared from his mind. Ella soon found that she had to back off.

He looked down at himself, taking the moment to recover his wits. There, that was better. At least it was a little less to feel embarrassed about.

"Getting there," Ella said with a smile, praising her own efforts more than him.

Renia, for her part, held her naked body against the back of his, hugging him tightly around his narrow waist. She slid her hands up his chest to his neck and gently pulled his head back so she could nibble on his ear. Even with the water washing over all three of them, he could smell a strong floral scent in Renia's hair. He inhaled deeply as Ella went back to work below, stroking him very gently.

"We have to be careful," Renia whispered. "We can't make you come. We'd be in so, so much trouble."

And this as Ella forced him deeply and quickly in to her mouth.

She backed off just as quickly.

"Help a little," Ella said, quite mysteriously.

Renia hummed softly in to his ear before sliding around in front of him to kneel beside her companion.

He looked down to watch as the two of them, with an excellence of coordination intimating their experience at this particular venture, tickled him with their tongues. Ella went underneath, to the base of his penis under his testicles. Renia worked her way up to the tip.

Don't come, don't come, don't come, he chided himself.

Truth was that neither was stimulating him hard enough to make him come, or so he thought. He didn't think such gentle motions could cause him to release, but ...

Both girls stopped quite suddenly, sensing his state.

"Breathe deeply and relax," Renia advised, staring wide eyed at his swollen member from inches away. He tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about how much this reminded him of his position relative to Talla the day of her Initiation.

The urge went away.

"Good," Renia breathed a sigh of relief. "Good boy."

She reached around her back without turning her body and flicked the wall lever.

More quietly now, with the water no longer flowing, she went back to teasing the tip of his penis with her tongue.

"We want you all charged up," she said softly. "But you save it for the upgrade."

Ella was back to work, too.

The upgrade. Remember the upgrade. Remember what this is for. Remember whom this is for.

There was a series of four knocks at the door: three quick and light; one sharp.

"Two minutes," Ella translated as Renia fetched towels.

There was a knock at the door. Talla tensed and looked up as she felt blood drain from her face.

The door swung open, agonizingly slow.

"Talla?"

It was the same Officer that had called for Salee and then Lara. Talla had never met her. It was enough to see that she was wearing the formal attire of an Officer. That meant a fancier version of the normal bikini and shirt decorated with jewels, tassels and baubles, a circlet about her crown and a wooden spear in her hand. Nothing like that for Talla. Whites merited nothing so fancy. Just her simple, rectangular top and long skirt.

"Yes, Mistress," she said as she stood up.

"It is your turn."

"Yes, Mistress."

There was nothing else to say. From here, everything was Protocol and Dictate. The Dictates came from the gods. The Protocols were written by the Temple. All must be obeyed. As such, none of the four older women in the anteroom said anything to her as she followed the Officer out.

The Chamber was huge and clearly designed by someone who wanted you to know how huge it was. Entering that vast space for the first time was like being punched in the stomach.

The walls were three storeys high and curved inward as they stretched toward the sky. Flickering light came down, reflected off that curved stone from wall mounted torches. She turned her eyes up just a moment. Stars twinkled in the open space between the tops of the walls. The ceiling was the cloudless night sky.

The door through which she had entered was in a corner of the Chamber along the lowest wall the room had. She followed the Officer to the centre of that wall and turned her body to the left to face the room at the exact moment the Officer did. Then she waited, just as she been told.

The Chamber was tiered. Talla and her guide stood at the lowest level, looking up at those who oversaw the ceremony. There were four thrones several levels above them, about twenty paces away, one higher than the others and to the right side of the room. In that highest throne sat a woman in the most ornate red clothing Talla had ever seen. Her crown was jeweled, not with a single orange jewel like the Officer's, but with numerous different gems. This was the Queen of Endowment and she looked down on Talla as if she were a bit bored.

Boring for her, Talla thought, she must do this several times every night.

Of the three simpler thrones one level down from the Queen and off to the left, two were occupied. These would have to be the Sorceresses of Abundance and Point. The Sorceress of Strength would have no reason to be here tonight.

Behind those thrones were higher levels for spectators. They sat in darkness, the room having been designed to throw very little light in to their midst.

In the middle of all this, the focus of the entire Chamber, were the two altars, one to either side of Talla. These were simple marble platforms meant for a woman to lie on. The one on her left was completely flat. The one on her right had an angled backrest so that the user could sit in a reclined position while facing the altar on the left. Upon each altar sat a single ornately molded golden chalice. Other than that, the altars were plain marble.

The altar on the right was where she would -

Her thoughts were interrupted as the Officer at her side struck the floor three times with the butt of her spear. The cracks echoed through the otherwise silent chamber.

"Whom do you present to Us?" the Queen asked..

"Highness," the Officer replied, "I present Talla: daughter of Kain; out of Mih'lan."

Their voices carried so well in the Chamber. She feared hers would not.

"Talla out of Mih'lan," the Queen addressed her, leaving out her father's name. "What do you seek?"

Deep breath now. Relax. Speak clearly.

"Abundance, Highness. My first upgrade."

Her voice was weak, but it didn't crack. She hoped she'd said her line properly. A quick glance to the sides of the Chamber confirmed this. There were female guards among the attendants along the side walls, shrouded in darkness like the spectators, ready to swiftly correct violations of Protocol. Kara had told her that all such guards were chosen from among the Disciples of Form, even for ceremonies in the heart of Endowment.

"I see no fault," the Queen replied. "What say you, Abundance?"

It was the formal way to identify a Sorceress, naming her simply by the Discipline she had mastered.

The woman in green, just one tier down from of the Queen and to her left, turned her head to speak over her shoulder. "Neither see I any fault, Highness."

"Then who will stand for this Virgin?" the Queen asked.

They'd been hazy on this part when they had explained the ceremony to her. She knew her lines and what preceded each of them, but little else about what would happen had been related to her. Someone had to be the source for her upgrade. She assumed someone a single rank above her would be chosen, but she had no insight in to that part of the Rite.

"I will stand, Highness," a voice called out from the darkness behind the Queen.

Talla thought that she recognized that voice.

"Come forth in to the light."

It was Atreya, resplendent in a translucent blue skirt and gold-inlaid blue blouse, who stepped forward beside the Queen's throne. Talla was relieved to see her. They hadn't spoken since she'd drunk herself to sleep two nights ago. She hadn't imagined that Atreya would do this for her. It seemed quite an honour.

"Very well," the Queen said. "Let it begin."

Somewhere high in the darkness, behind even the spectators, drums began to beat softly.

Torches were quietly snuffed so that the Queen and Sorceresses were in darkness with the rest of those gathered. Atreya slowly walked down the tiers and until she stood between the two altars. When she came to a stop, it was Talla's cue to approach.

Deep breath. She need do nothing else but follow in step and keep quiet.

Her walk was much shorter than Atreya's. Only four paces and one step up, she stood facing her tall, beautiful senior. She sparkled in the torchlight, and not just because of the jeweled crown she wore. There were tiny flecks of gold in Atreya's otherwise jet black hair.

"From me to you, sister," Atreya said quietly. 

It was not part of the Protocol to say anything. Talla didn't want to be rude. She glanced aside to the guards, worried that she might do something wrong.




Talla's Temple Ch. 05



"Thank you," she said in the same low voice, hoping that was okay.

Atreya smiled, laughing quietly at Talla's concern.

"It's alright," she whispered. "Just relax."

Atreya's blouse was held in place by a series of toggles that went diagonally across her chest. She began undoing these one at a time. When she got to the last one, she slid the garment off her shoulders and stood bare-chested before Talla.

All Talla could think was how tiny and immature her own body was. Atreya's breasts were full, her chest so firm, and her nipples -- well, Talla well remembered how those felt. Talla felt like a child standing in front of someone so heroically perfect.

Well, not perfect.

A young girl in white came to Atreya's side, apparently conjured out of the darkness for the occasion, and took Atreya's blouse. 

Now it was Talla's turn.

She had nothing so extravagant. Her top had no shoulder straps. There were no toggles, buttons or hooks of any kind. She removed it as quickly as she could, to get it over with, by pulling it over her head, and handed it to the girl. The attendant disappeared with both pieces of clothing as quickly as she had appeared.

Talla tried to hold her body steady. For the moment, Atreya was shielding her from prying eyes, but that wouldn't last. With a last comforting smile, Atreya turned toward the left altar. There were two steps at the long side of it to help her get up. She mounted the altar quite gracefully before turning her body to point her toes at Talla. She then laid on her back.

As instructed beforehand, Talla did not move during this proceeding. She was not to move until Atreya was in position. She was not even supposed to turn her head to watch. When her peripheral vision told her that Atreya wasn't moving, she turned to her right and walked to the other altar -- her altar.

The same two step stairway was there for her, though it wasn't as easy to use for someone as short as she. She made a small jump on her tiptoes to get her butt on the flat surface. Then she turned and laid herself against the angled part of the altar.

Now she could see Atreya, breasts splayed, patiently waiting just across from her.

Aplomb. That was the word. Atreya had been through this so many times -- on both sides of the aisle, as they said -- that she did it easily; calmly. Talla tried to copy that attitude. Might she find herself on the other side someday? She expected so, though she had no idea how such things were decided.

Deep breath. Relax and -

"The Conduit," the Queen called out of the darkness.

"Highness," the Officer nodded.

There was more knocking at the door. This time it was two sharp, hard raps.

"It's time," Ella said excitedly.

The girls had dried him off and given him a two piece beige robe. The top was long enough to cover him just past his waist. The bottom was more of a short, fur skirt than anything else. It was nothing that a man would normally wear. The advantage of this outfit was that Ella and Renia could continue demonstrating their skill with lip and tongue right up to the last moment.

The door began to creak open and the girls darted out of way to stand out of sight along the wall.

Ella mouthed, "Good luck", to him and smiled. Renia gave a thumbs up.

Well, at least he was aroused.

A different woman in much fancier orange clothing was standing in the doorway when it opened. She waved a hand toward the Chamber, indicating that he should go in. Someone closed the door behind him.

The place was big and full of people. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them. Their breathing. Their presence. There were a lot of people watching. Not just people, he knew, but specifically women. Just women. And all but one of them were watching him. The one who couldn't see him was the one he most wanted to see. The door from which he entered was behind Talla. The strange marble altar on which she sat hid most of her body from him. All he could see was her long white skirt and her feet but he knew it was her.

Drums were beating. A quiet two-beat rhythm. 

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

He walked along the wall as he had been told, breathing deeply and hoping his erection would hold. Ella and Renia had done a good job.

He made a right turn to face the darkness above. He could make out a few large chairs with women in green and red sitting in them. There were more people behind those chairs.

Did they really have to put this much pressure on him?

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

He turned not his head but only his eyes so he could see Talla, reclining on the cushions of her altar. Their eyes met and locked together. She was biting her lower lip in anticipation. A tingle went through his body as her eyes lit up.

Time to get moving. He walked toward the darkness until he stood between the two altars. The first part of his job lay on the left side of the room. He turned that way and walked up the small stairway beside a flat marble altar.

A woman lay there. She wore a blue skirt, a crown and nothing else. Her breasts were stunningly large, her nipples in stark relief in the night air. He took a deep breath as she turned her head to the side to look at him. She smiled as she reached over and unlaced the lower part of his robe. When it came undone, a girl in white appeared to take it away.

"Here," the prone woman said in a low voice and patted her stomach.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

He climbed up on the altar and put one knee to the far side of her body, wondering the whole time how it must look to Talla to see him from behind, straddling this woman.

She took a golden chalice from her side and handed it to Zhair'lo. As he had been instructed, he held the chalice in both hands so she could dip her fingertips in to the clear syrup within. She laid her hands on the tops of her breasts and began spreading the liquid around in very gentle circles, surrounding but not touching her nipples. The amount on her fingers was not quite enough to coat the undersides, so she dipped her fingers once more in the chalice.

Shortly, both of her breasts were glazed. They shimmered in the torchlight. She took the chalice and laid it aside before rolling over a little on her left side so that her right breast fell heavily inward.

"Very gently now," she said as he patted the outside of her right breast. "Right here. Don't touch anything else until you feel it Seize."

He hadn't completely understood this part about "Seizing". The Officer who had briefed him simply said that it would make sense at some point. What he cared about was not prematurely spraying come all over her. He knew that would violate the Protocols.

His erection was pointing well above the horizontal, so he had to lean over her as if he were doing push ups to get it to touch her. Upon contact, he felt a wave of dizziness. What the -?

"Rub against me now," she whispered, apparently having some foreknowledge. "It will pass."

The dizziness was not passing. He felt sluggish and just slightly nauseated. It was as if he were suddenly exhausted and at the end of his strength. He had trouble focusing his eyes.

But Talla needed him. She was waiting just behind him. He tried hard to concentrate and obeyed the order he had been given. He thrust his hips gently so his erection rubbed against the offered breast. The woman, for her part, simply kept every part of her body away from him except for the side of that one prodigious melon.

The nausea did start to fade. He was able to focus his eyes at least. He could see the woman watching him carefully for some sign. He wished he knew her name. This seemed a very intimate thing to do with someone without knowing her name.

Then things start to feel a lot better.

And suddenly he knew exactly what it meant to be Seized.

It felt like a very tiny static shock shooting up from the base of his spine to his brain. He jerked his head back involuntarily as some sort of conversion took place inside his body. It was so intense that it almost hurt. Things went black a moment and then came back.

He was still hovering over the woman, but she was lying on her back again.

"There we go," she whispered in his ear. "Bring your cock right down here."

He hadn't thought that a woman like this would talk like that, but she spoke very quietly to keep anyone from hearing. Maybe that made it okay. She put her slightly sticky hands on his lower back and pulled him down to her.

"You like them big, don't you?" she whispered again as she pressed her breasts together, surrounding -- in fact completely burying - his manhood.

There was something really strange going on in his body. He'd masturbated. Talla had stroked him that one time. Those things had felt good. But the good feeling had all been in his groin. Sure, he'd been a bit high from the pleasure of it all, but this was something else. Something was happening in his head. He felt alert, awake and strong. He felt like he could punch holes in stone blocks. His vision had sharpened. He took a look in to the darkness to his right. He could make out faces and clothing as he hadn't before. Could it just be his eyes adjusting? No. This was something else.

And his genitals were burning. Something different was happening there, too.

"Slide now," she said in a clear voice, and then added in a sly whisper, "In and out. Very gentle. Your come isn't for me, but my breasts are for you."

This was going to be difficult. There was some serious burning going on that had nothing to do with a normal desire to come. He had no doubt that ejaculation would solve the burning, but it was still extraordinarily uncomfortable. All that he had been told in his briefing was that the woman who was the source of the upgrade would tell him when he was fully loaded and that it would take some time.

He start thrusting in to her cleavage, leaning over her beautifully sculpted face with its wavy black hair flecked with gold glitter. All the while, the drums kept up their steady, hypnotizing, two-beat rhythm.

The woman smiled amicably, craning her head to look up in to his eyes. She'd done this before, clearly. It was even more clear that he hadn't.

He was sweating. The burning wasn't just pain. It was heat, too.

She looked at him in a curious fashion, examining his perspiration. She released her breasts and slid her hands up his robe to his heart, feeling for a beat. Her hands were slippery and soothingly cool against his skin. Her eyes went wide.

"I think -," she started and paused. She felt his forehead and her expression became urgent. "Yes, you're ready. Go to Talla. Go now."

That wasn't precisely how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to take several minutes of burial-at-cleavage before he was ready. Things were going fast.

He dismounted the woman in blue and tried to stand on the stairway beside her altar as the drummers changed their beat. Faster now, with a triple beat. 

Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump.

He faltered for a moment but regained his balance. He hoped no one had noticed. He checked up in the darkness. He could clearly see the face of every single female eagerly watching the proceeding and not one of them seemed to be offended. Good sign, that.

He was breathing raggedly now. There was heat and pain and too much of both. There was only one way to get rid of it. He turned to face Talla. For only a moment, he saw the eagerness he had seen before. That was quickly covered by concern.

No, he thought, don't let her see you in weakness.

He managed a reassuring smile. He had come here for her. He would not get a second chance. Nothing could be allowed to ruin this.

He walked down the two steps very carefully, never taking his eyes off his prime motivation, the bare-chested girl in the white skirt that awaited him.

Four steps across to the other altar.

Gods, let me just make it to her. Don't let me fail her.

Two steps up. The pain was making him delirious. The heat was making him sweat so much he thought he might lose his grip on the smooth floor.

Talla was smiling, still waiting for him.

He braced himself on the angled part of her altar so he could put one leg over her.

She looked at him closely. 

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

He nodded. 

"Burns," he said between gasps.

"It's okay," she said. "Normal. Men aren't meant to hold it. Give it to me and you'll feel better."

So this was normal? True, no one was rushing to help him. It must be expected. But the woman in blue -- she had been surprised.

Talla held up the chalice full of Synergist to him. She watched with worry as he took it in his hands and tried to hold it steady.

This wasn't right. She'd listened intently to Kara's Orientation, and this simply wasn't right. She didn't know Zhair'lo that well, but he was plenty young and plenty strong. She'd seen most of his naked body, even if it had been in the panicked race of Initiation. She knew him for a tradesman's apprentice -- someone sturdy with good stamina. There was no reason for him to be in this bad a state.

She wasted no time retrieving some of the liquid and spreading it over her entire chest. Atreya had assured that he was Seized to the right Discipline. Talla had watched it happen, seen his body jerk. The only thing he had retrieved from Atreya was Abundance. It mattered not if Talla now spread the Synergist over her entire body because the only thing Zhair'lo carried was Abundance. 

But why was carrying it hurting him so much?

She took the chalice back and laid it aside quickly.

"It'll be okay, soon," she said. "Trust me."

And she began stroking him as she had the night of her Initiation. 

The drum beat changed once again, this time to a four beat rhythm. Mixed in with that was a new, deeper drum that would sound in time with the smaller drum. Someone else up there in the darkness was starting a quiet drum roll.

It was like coming home, to have him in her hand like this again. So familiar and yet so frighteningly different.

"Trust me," he heard her say. It was a voice down a long, dark tunnel.

What was happening?

He knew it was Talla. He recognized her touch as the only touch he had ever felt. He felt safe in obeying her.

His world was his burning body. Heat and pain throbbed through him with the beat of the drums.

But relief was close at hand. Talla said so.

The burning would stop. The drums would stop, too, he hoped.

All he wanted to do was get it out of his body. 

Let it end.

"Come for me," Talla encouraged as she stroked his swollen penis ever more vigorously. "Come all over me as soon as you can."

She'd said it a little too loudly, knowing that he might not hear her otherwise, but she didn't care. She was getting worried for him. He was twisting his body, turning his head from side to side.

"It's okay. You can come now. Come. Come. Come," she pleaded.

Over Zhair'lo's shoulder, Atreya was sitting up. That wasn't quite to Protocol. Atreya looked worried and opened her mouth to say something.

Whatever it was, Talla couldn't pay attention. Zhair'lo gasped suddenly and she felt his erection tense in her hand.

Take aim ...

The first shot of ejaculate was more than she had seen from him the night of her Initiation. She had aimed it carefully, from only inches away, at her right breast. She had not, however, been expecting him to hit her with such speed. A good measure of it deflected off her breast and went up over her shoulder. That was a tragic waste. She turned to her left side as quickly as she could. It wasn't quick enough. His second surge strafed a line across her chest.

That was okay. As long as she got to it while it was fresh. The magic it held, taken from Atreya, wouldn't last long outside his body. She continued to pump him with her right hand while spreading his semen over herself with her left hand.

Semen, hot upon her flesh, mixed with the clear syrup of the Synergist which served to bind her first upgrade to her body. They had told her it would be hot. That was a side effect of it adjusting her body.

She knew, even as the third line of semen splashed across her left side, that the magic was soaking in to her. She could feel the warmth of it. It was working. Not only was it working, but relieving Zhair'lo of the burden of it was visibly calming him down.

His body was relaxing as she played strip after strip of his juice across her body, continuing to rub it into herself. She was relieved on his behalf. He would be okay.

But it was hot. It was definitely hot. He had warned her so with the only word he had been able to speak. It was supposed to be pretty warm. Kara had told her so.

Zhair'lo looked down at Talla with relief. He had done his job. He had held on to the burning magic that the woman in blue had given him and delivered it to Talla. He hadn't accidentally sprayed the girls in the shower or anybody else. He hadn't fallen down, hurt anyone or violated any other rule. All that he had wanted to do for the last minute or so was get it the hell out of his body and he'd somehow -- miraculously by his account - done it exactly right.

He had expected the whole experience to be arousing, which it had been up to a point. He had expected it to be odd, which he also considered as confirmed. He hadn't expected to be in pain.

All he had cared about was getting it done, and he'd gotten it done.

And there was Talla below him, squeezing the last drops from his depleted member while infusing her immature mammaries in what he had already delivered.

"Hot," she remarked in a whisper.

"Yeah," he said, finding speech at last. Not just speech, but balance and the ability to focus his eyes had suddenly returned. Something had gone wrong, on his end. Of that he was certain. There was no way that men came back, on purpose, to do this thing -- to be Conduits -- if doing and being such were typically so painful.

But he'd cleared it from his system.

He was relieved.

Talla was not.

What had he done?

A look of frightened horror was coming across her face.

"Talla?"

Her eyes were wide. 

"Hot," she whispered hoarsely as panic overcame her. "Too hot."

He knew exactly what she meant. He'd just been there, after all. And now the pain that he had so badly wanted to discharge had flooded in to her. He didn't have to understand any of the mechanics of it. What he had done was as clear as the stars sparkling over their heads.

He glanced around in a panic, looking for someone to help. Surely someone would know what to do?

That was when Talla shrieked, her arms thrust backwards and her chest thrust out. Her chest - she had breasts now - they hadn't been there a moment ago, but they were there now, swelling before his eyes and glowing a faint blue.

Glowing?

There was a shout from somewhere behind him. A word he'd never heard before.

Strong arms were upon him. The guards took him - women with muscle enough to take him down one on one, never mind there were two of them. They hauled him backwards, lifting him off the altar and towards the lowest wall. They held him there.

"Talla," he shouted as she continued to shriek. Then, to the guards who pinned him back, "I've hurt her! What have I done?"

The guards held him against the wall, not even looking back over their shoulders.

"Not your fault," one of them said in an attempt to soothe him. "It's normal for it to hurt a little. Especially the first one."

A little? This was not a little and it was not normal. The commotion around Talla was enough to belie any such nonsense. The woman in the blue skirt, still topless, had run across from her altar and was directing two more guards to hold Talla down lest she fall to the marble floor. Others were bringing water in buckets to be poured copiously over her torso.

Zhair'lo was fighting the guards the whole while, wanting to reach her.




Talla's Temple Ch. 05



"Be still, boy," one admonished. "There's nothing for it and you can't possibly overcome us."

"But I hurt her."

"You did your job," she replied tersely, still refusing to look over her shoulder. "You violated no Protocol. It's not your fault."

But it was. It was his fault.

Talla had become quiet. 

From high in the darkness, a commanding voice spoke out, "Fem sol. Condu-sai hay."

The guards pinning him to the wall took this mysterious verbiage as a command. They forced him past Talla's altar toward a door only a little higher in the wall than the one through which he had entered the Chamber.

"But, but, but -," he sputtered. How could he leave her like this?

He had been momentarily relieved to hear her screaming come to end, but as he passed the altar he caught a glimpse of her face between the women gathered around her. He saw that she was unconscious. Somewhere along the line, the heat, the pain and the cold had been too much. 

He knew that feeling. He had nearly been there just moments before. And he'd passed it on to her.

The last thing he saw before being dragged out was Talla's chest rise in a laboured breath.

He hadn't killed her. She was alive.



Talla's Temple Ch. 06



"She can hear nothing now?"

"The shock will clear her mind for some time, Second of mine," the Sorceress of Abundance responded.

Atreya was worried. She'd seen a lot of corporal punishment carried out, but had never seen anything so painful in her life.

"Indeed," the Queen added as she looked down at the head cradled in her lap, "she hasn't her wits about her yet."

Talla looked up blankly at the Queen, confusion and the memory of pain creasing her brow.

"There, dear, easy now," the Queen said soothingly. Unlike Atreya, the Queen had seen the like before, but never at an upgrade. She pulled the thick white robe more tightly around her young charge to stop her shivering. It helped very little.

"Perhaps you could tell Us what happened."

Abundance sat in a chair at right angle to her Queen's couch. Atreya stood before them wearing only her skirt, not having taken the time to retrieve her top when they had taken Talla out of the Augmentation Chamber. The Sorceress of Point had been left to finish the evening's docket. The upgrades remaining were all hers anyway.

"He took too much," Atreya started. She stammered a moment and then corrected herself. "I gave him too much. I – I've never seen anyone draw it out so quickly. I thought it impossible, that I was fooling myself somehow. But he really pulled it out of me before I even - "

She stopped speaking and shook her head.

"How much, do you think?" the Queen asked patiently. There was only one more thing she could do for poor Talla. Cradling Talla's head in with her left arm, she began undoing the toggles of her blouse with her right.

"I don't know," Atreya replied.

The Queen slid her right arm out of her dress sleeve and let the left shoulder slide down as well. She drew Talla in closer, bringing the young one's mouth to her breast.

"Drink, dear," she said softly as she squeezed her breast. "You'll feel better."

A tiny drop of milk came forth and dripped in to Talla's mouth. She latched on mindlessly and began suckling from her Queen.

"There. It will calm you some."

Abundance, following Protocol and finding herself in the presence of a topless Queen, unlatched her sash and removed her bikini top. She looked at Atreya and raised an expectant eyebrow.

Yes, rules, Atreya remembered.

If a Queen is wearing only a long skirt and a Sorceress is wearing only a mid length skirt, a Second has no business wearing the same. She unlatched her skirt and let if fall to the floor. Too bad she hadn't worn anything underneath.

"You didn't consider halting?" the Queen asked. Her voice was still quiet but the soothing had gone out of it.

Atreya shook her head. Halting the Rite was her responsibility. But it was a difficult thing to do. It was frowned upon as an admission of failure. "Not until I saw him ... when I saw him twisting like that. I knew I hadn't been imagining things. I was about to -"

"Yes," Abundance put in as she folded her arms under her pendulous endowment, "I saw that. Late."

"Yes, late," Atreya admitted.

"This is a violation, you realize," the Queen said.

Protocols. If she had done this knowingly – and with intent – the punishment was severe. Mere incompetence merited punishment as well, but not as harsh. A woman of her rank was expected to know what was going on with her body.

"A lack of control," Abundance put in deadpan, "from my Second."

"In your defense?" the Queen asked.

Naked, in this quiet, dark room in the Queen's offices, she was to defend herself?

"It is difficult," Atreya began, "to pierce the seal of an unupgraded Virgin. That's why we use Officers and High Officers."

"Indeed," Abundance said, unimpressed.

"Many woman even take two or even three tries to get the first upgrade to take."

"Also true."

"When has any man every taken more than one upgrade from a woman in such a short time?", Atreya added, "I have heard of a double upgrade, but even that never led to such – such -"

She looked down at Talla, sleepily taking in the wonder drug that was the milk from Perfected mammary glands.

"Such pain," she finished sadly.

"I have myself witnessed several accidental double upgrades," the Queen said. "If I were to search the histories, I would probably find many more. I would probably also find that punishment for such was minimal."

That was hopeful.

"But what have you done today, Atreya?"

That wasn't quite as hopeful.

"I don't know. He was so fast. I don't know how much he took."

The Queen pursed her lips and looked down at Talla. She shifted her body to the side and let her other breast in her charge's mouth.

"I'm nearly empty," she remarked to the Sorceress.

"Let me know."

They turned back to Atreya.

"What of this?" the Queen said. "This can be no accident. You should have realized what you had given to this boy. The harm done to Talla could have been immense."

She nodded to the Sorceress as she lifted Talla's limp body to a sitting position. They switched places so Abundance could cup her own breast to let Talla suckle thereon.

"Yes, Highness," Atreya said contritely. "It pains me."

"As it should."

Atreya nodded in agreement.

There was silence for a time. The Queen refastened her dress. Atreya remained, by reason of her Sorceress's semi-clothed state, naked. The three women stayed in these positions for some time – nude, topless and fully-dressed – while Talla suckled peacefully away.

"She is done now," Abundance said.

The Queen rang a bell. The door opened immediately to admit two attendants – Endowment women with several Form upgrades.

"Take her to my quarters," the Sorceress said to them as she replaced her top and her sash, "Find someone to keep a close eye on her, then find a physician. Within, if you can find her, or her Second. Let her know that there was an overloading incident during an upgrade."

"Yes, Mistress," the senior of the attendants replied with a curt bow. They produced a stretcher, in to which Abundance gently lowered the young girl in her thick white robe. Talla was carried off.

Neither of the attendants showed any awareness of the naked woman standing at attention in the middle of the small room. They both knew who it was, even without the clue of the blue skirt sitting in a pile at her ankles but the tension in the room was palpable enough to speed them out.

The door closed behind them.

The room became decidedly cooler. All sense of soothing was gone. Atreya stood stiffly with her hands clasped behind her back and looked over the heads of her seniors.

The Queen rubbed a forefinger on the bridge of her nose and looked at the floor.

"A court would say six common lashes and one night severe Service," she said. "We offer you six common lashes, here and now. Five of them to the rear."

The Sorceress nodded her agreement.

"We make the offer to keep it a private matter," the Queen said, "out of respect for your many deeds. You may protest and take it to court on the morrow."

Court would be worse. Without the context of seeing the Rite – seeing how fast Zhair'lo's absorption had gone – a judge might not be so lenient. It was just so rare for a Second to be lashed at all. At least if she did it this way, in this room and without protest, few would know of it.

"I accept."

At least she was already naked. That saved a lot of time.

The Queen produced the common whip from a drawer in her desk. Did she always keep one there? Atreya had never seen it before. Was there a heavy whip in some other drawer?

The Protocol was clear. Already bare of clothing, Atreya needed only to lean over the couch while keeping her knees straight and her feet planted shoulder width apart. If this were done in court, there would be a wooden table upon which she would have to lay her upper body and restraints to hold her wrists in place. Here, in this informality, she was trusted to accept her punishment without resistance or evasion.

"For the crime of Overloading a Conduit, for causing unnecessary pain to two human beings and for reticence in acknowledging your failure in time to prevent such pain and suffering, you will receive six lashes," the Queen said.

"I am ready."

The Queen was a strong woman. She possessed eleven upgrades in the three Disciplines of Endowment. That wasn't the part that worried Atreya. Except for some pectoral strength, it hardly mattered. What really mattered was that a Queen was upgraded to the tenth level in every other Discipline, lest some accident require her to suddenly become Goddess. That meant ten upgrades in all of the Form Disciplines.

That was why the first lash she'd had in so many years stung so badly. The funny thing was that she heard the snap before she felt any contact. Her ears gave her a tiny fraction of a second to anticipate the pain that was coming. It seared a line across her rear that almost made her move. Almost.

But she didn't move. That would have been unforgivable in these circumstances. They were giving her the chance to keep this off the record. She must demonstrate her appreciation by acting as if she actually were tied down to a piece of wood somewhere in the domain of Form.

The second strike was just as bad. The Queen might not have to personally punish her underlings often, but she was more than dexterous enough to repeatedly strike a single spot with a lash. Her cheeks burned.

She accepted it, though. What she had done to Talla through her negligence had been far worse than this. Hell, what she had done to Zhair'lo had probably been far worse. At least he had recovered and walked away.

The third strike was vicious; an assault to remind her of her failure, not just as a qualified source of upgrades, but as a human being.

Number four scraped across the upper part of her thighs. It surprised her so much that she had to stifle a scream. They would get no such protest from her. She knew that what she was enduring was only what she deserved. A protest would be an attempt to deny that simple truth.

The fifth lash was the hardest, striking diagonally across her cheeks and cutting across the three streaks that had already been laid in to her delicate skin.

She took a breath as the stinging faded. There was only one left. The Queen had said that five of them would be to the rear. That didn't leave a lot of options. There were only two other places that Protocol allowed a lash. One of those places was the stomach. But this was Endowment. The abdomen wouldn't do.

Atreya stood up and turned her body sideways to her Queen.

Protocol dictated that she stretch her arms over her head and close her eyes, so she did just that.

She clenched her teeth as she heard the whip whistling through the air.

It struck across the tops of her breasts, narrowly missing her nipples but catching the edge of one aureola.

Gods, that hurt. Sensitivity was the gift and the curse of the Upgrade. She knew that she deserved neither sympathy nor pity, so she tried to hold back the cry of pain that wanted out. It was all she do to hold her protest to a low moan.

While the Queen returned the whip to her desk, there was moment in which Atreya could consider her pain. The Queen hadn't chosen that last part of the punishment idly. This was the pain that Talla had felt, stinging and burning in her chest. 

Being in pain was awful. Knowing that she deserved it was depressing.

"I would like to keep watch over Talla," she said without turning to face either of her superiors.

In the periphery of her vision, she saw the Queen nod.

"See to yourself first," she said.

"Yes, Highness. Of course."

Atreya quietly collected her skirt but didn't put it on. She didn't want to stain it with blood.



Zhair'lo was waiting. He'd been waiting for a while.

He was in the departure room – for so he'd dubbed it – just outside the Augmentation Chamber. He'd been there, with a single guard to watch over him, since they'd dragged him there. Two other men had come in, received their clothing, waved politely to him, and left. The mere presence of the guard quashed any chance for conversation.

He reeked of trouble and knew it. He'd screwed things up badly. He'd hurt Talla. He'd disrupted the whole peaceful, musical thing they'd had going.

All he gained from the men passing through was that the evening's upgrades were proceeding despite whatever had happened between him and Talla. There was no one who spoke to him. No one gave him updates. He asked the guard once if someone could tell him how Talla was. She was only willing to say that she had been ordered to keep him here, so she couldn't leave to perform any such check. And yes, she agreed, that was not the way upgrades normally went. But she assured him, in a tone that failed to reassure him, that Talla would be just fine.

So he sat in his beige Temple robe, the bottom of which someone had kindly brought to him, and waited.

The last upgrade was apparently finished. The last of the three men he remembered from the waiting room came through. He was given his clothes by an attendant dressed in white and changed immediately. He looked at Zhair'lo's sad face, looked at the guard with her spear and did the same as his comrades had done: polite wave and out.

The room wasn't big. It was just a place with a small bench for a single man to change and leave. Four made a crowd. But once the attendant left, it seemed more vast and empty than the Chamber ever had. Silent companions could do that, even in a small space.

Zhair'lo heaved a sigh.

"How long do you think it will be?" he asked.

"I can't say for certain," she replied without looking down at him, "but I would guess that, the docket being complete, they will have some time to get to you now."

"How much trouble am I in?"

"Trouble?" she asked, showing her first emotion of the evening. She was so confused that she actually made eye contact. "You followed Protocol perfectly. Far better than many rookies. You have no idea how often I've seen premature ... well, never mind. It's more likely they're concerned for your health."

"Oh."

His health?

"Why?"

The guard pressed her lips together and looked at the wall. 

"It's hard to say," she replied, "and mostly not for me to say regardless."

She looked down at him, sitting on the bench, and something like pity overtook her. At first she had thought that he was ill from his part in what had transpired. Now she came to the realization that what she was seeing was a man fretting with concern for the health of a sister of the Temple. This endeared him to her somewhat, despite her training.

"It is possible that you took on too much," she said in what she hoped was a comforting voice. "You may have been overloaded with the -"

The door to the chamber was pushed open at that moment. The guard snapped to attention, cutting herself off. Zhair'lo jumped up. He hoped to see Talla. He hoped to see her come in, eyes wide open, to tell him everything was all right.

But it was just Ella and Renia. What were they doing here?

The guard relaxed her stance as she looked at them carefully. "What is it, Initiates?"

Ella and Renia looked at each other and shrugged.

"Mistress," Ella said hesitantly. She stepped close to the guard and leaned in to whisper something. Zhair'lo only caught one word that sounded like, "Valee". It was not a word he knew.

"Here?" the guard asked in surprise, displaying only her second emotion since Zhair'lo had met her.

"Draco," Renia said, as if that solved everything.

The guard shrugged. "Inador. Harum Talla."

Ella and Renia nodded, apparently understanding this. The guard let herself out back in to the Chamber, leaving the door slightly ajar.

"Sit," Ella said as she gently nudged him on to the bench. She sat to his right while Renia sat on his left.

Were they here to give him bad news?

"Is Talla okay?"

He wanted answers. If they were bad answers, he wanted them immediately.

"She's fine. She's fine," Ella said, pulling a leg up on the bench so she could turn to face him, "We just went to see her. She's sleeping now. She was given, um, some medicine. She should be fine in the morning."

"She looked very peaceful," Renia added.

There was an awkward pause. If everything was fine, why did the two of them have to come here to tell him?

"Look," Renia said, "We have to ... um ..."

She trailed off.

Ella finished the sentence somewhat dubiously, "... make sure you're okay."

"I feel fine. I'm just worried."

What were they getting at?

He looked from one girl to the other. Both were biting their lips.

It was Renia who spoke next. "Why don't you just lie down?"

Oh. That kind of 'okay'.

Now he was worried. As Ella pushed him on his back, he asked, "Is there a chance I was damaged?" That would be terrible.

"Probably not," Renia said as she vacated her side of the bench so he could lie down. She knelt on the floor by his head. "We just have to make sure."

"You took on a lot," Ella said. "The important thing is that you relax and that you know Talla is doing fine."

Renia placed her lips upon his very softly. He closed his eyes as he felt her tongue gently probing him. Ella, meanwhile, was working below. He couldn't see her, with Renia blocking his view, but there was no doubt that she was going for a repeat exhibition of her considerable talents.

Was he damaged? That was concerning. There was no reaction from his lower body. That was very concerning.

"Shhhh," Renia murmured as she kissed him. Their tongues met, briefly. It was a very uncertain kind of thrilling. 

"It's okay," she said after pulling apart. "Touch me."

He wasn't quite sure of the breadth of that invitation, but he was too stunned to refuse.

It felt like drowning. The light from the torches was waning. He was exhausted from his adrenaline rush and almost an hour of worrying. Renia pushed her lips in to his and he surrendered, hoping to lose himself and forget everything. One of his hands found the back of her neck. The other hand found her bare thigh.

Her hands were on the sides of his head, rubbing his temples. The friction of her fingertips against his head made the most soothing sound inside his skull. Ella continued her work. He ignored her. He couldn't concentrate on both of them at once and found, in his calm disregard for his sexual state, that he became aroused.

He slid his hand up along Renia's thigh to no protest. When he reached her cheek, his fingertips found those of Ella. That was odd. Renia twitched the muscles of her legs. He felt Ella respond with a squeeze. What was that about?

Renia pulled away from his lips with a soft smile. She pulled her top off over her head in one smooth motion and brought her mouth to his again. 

"There", she said, pulling away, "try this." 

She sat up a bit and pushed her chest in to his face.

Should he -?

Apparently he should. She pushed her nipple directly to his lips. He sucked gently on the little nub and was rewarding with a slight stiffening of its tissue. Renia murmured approval and looked skyward as he continued to tickle her with the tip of his tongue. He could spare a glance to Ella now, but could only see her dirty brown hair as she was tucked under the lower part of his robe.

He returned his attention to Renia, who apparently enjoyed such attention considerably.

"I like my Discipline," she said dreamily. Zhair'lo found that mysterious.

Ella came off his erection for a moment and looked at him over his stomach. "Point, you know," she said casually and just as mysteriously.

"Two upgrades," Renia continued in that dreamy voice, "makes them more sensitive."

Ah! Working the conversation backward. He knew "upgrade" was what he had done – or tried to do – to Talla. Renia had had two upgrades. Since she was referring to her nipples, that meant that her two upgrades must have been to them. For some reason, the Discipline involving the nipples was called 'Point'. And finally, therefore, she found direct stimulation to her nipples to be – pleasant?




Talla's Temple Ch. 06



Ella ducked back under for a moment as Renia gave him the other breast to toy with.

"Gods," she said with a heavy sigh, "you've never been Served before?"

"No," he admitted. He'd been able to glean from his briefing at least what that euphemism meant.

"Too bad," Renia replied in soft disappointment.

Ella pulled away again to say, "Talla would kill us."

"And justifiably," Renia said back, her resignation evident.

"He's good now," Ella said, a little too loudly. Then, more quietly to Zhair'lo, "This'll just be a moment, okay?"

He heard soft footsteps at the door. A woman walked around behind Renia and knelt on the floor where Ella had been.

What the hell?

"I need to examine you, young man," she said without making eye contact. "Please forgive my intrusion."

A physician? She wasn't dressed like any doctor. She wore a blue bikini top and a blue skirt. The skirt looked like a plain version of what the woman from the upgrade had worn. It looked like the sort of thing women might wear everyday.

She took his erect member in hand and began squeezing it at various places.

She grimaced as he began to lose rigidity.

Renia and Ella were visibly upset with her, but were reluctant to speak.

"You've spooked him a little, Mistress," Renia warned finally.

Deference, Zhair'lo noted. This one outranked them. She was older, clearly, and more developed. It wasn't just the breasts, but the structure of her face, the nature of her hair. Even her muscles seemed stronger.

"Indeed, Initiate," she admonished without looking up. She pressed under his testicles, causing him to twitch. She pressed her lips together, apparently unsatisfied. She started to lower her head towards his flagging member but hesitated.

"How old are you, boy?" she asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but Ella stepped in for him, "Only a few days of adulthood, Mistress."

"Well, then, the two of you will have to unspook him," she said.

This was clearly to their liking. Renia fell on him, lips to lips and somewhat more passionately than he had expected. Ella had to straddle the bench to return to her work while the physician - Zhair'lo decided she was a physician regardless of her dress - gently stroked and examined him. Under Ella's gentle tongue, his erection quickly came back.

The physician poked and prodded his lower abdomen and continued to squeeze various points along his manhood. Ella worked carefully around her.

Finally, the probing was over. The physician stood. Renia stopped kissing him for a moment and Ella looked up.

"You seem fine," she said. "At least physically."

That was a relief.

The physician handed something to Renia and said, "Progetus", before turning to leave the room. She turned back at the door and relayed a stiffly admonishing reminder, "Uncontaminated."

More random Temple speak.

At least she was gone. Were they going to stop now?

"How should we do this?" Ella asked Renia.

Do what?

"Like Initiation maybe?" Renia asked.

Ella giggled. What was so funny? The girls pulled him to a standing position.

"We don't get to do this very often," Ella said. "Neither do you, really."

Ella unhitched the lower part of his robe and laid it aside. She scratched her head for a moment and finally decided to pull him up so he was standing on the bench. She got up behind him while Renia, still topless, stood in front of him.

"Just pretend you're upgrading me," she said as she began stroking him.

His eyes went wide.

"Or ... or Initiating me," she corrected her fantasy, having suddenly remembered what a negative association the former might be.

"That's a boy," Ella whispered in his ear, one hand groping his testicles, the other scratching at his chest. "Give her some come."

It was at least better, from Zhair'lo's perspective, than leaving him with an erection and a long walk home.

"We need a sample," Renia said, working him vigorously, "just to make sure you're okay. And it's my job to get it. No one said how."

There was no need to prompt him further. Overwhelmed by the upgrade, the worrying and the surreal examination, he hadn't the stamina to resist two such determined women.

He felt the desire building. They knew what they were doing.

And suddenly, it just started happening. He watched in a fascinated stupor as his body jerked and his overworked shaft twitched a small strip of semen on to Renia's chest.

"Good boy," Renia encouraged, "keep it coming."

It was safe to do this. He was comforted by the fact that that funny syrup wasn't anywhere in evidence. He was just coming on a pretty girl's bare flesh. There was no chance of hurting anyone. Just relief. He had needed that.

His juice was nowhere near the torrent with which he had decorated Talla, but it was apparently enough. There were three short streaks across the top of her breasts and a couple drops where she had milked the last of his come out of him.

"Two times in a row," Renia said. "The second one's never going to be a lot."

From the belt of her skirt, she pulled out a corked tube. With her fingers, she carefully collected his semen and resealed the tube.

"That should make Within and Tia happy, at least," Ella put in. "Come on, we'll get you dressed and get you home. Where are you working now?"

It was an obvious question to ask. He sat down, truly exhausted.

"Harzen's farm," he answered. "Uh, third sector, farmlands. Between twenty and twenty one."

The men divided up the town in to three sectors, each based on a wall of the Temple. After that, they simply used place names. The Temple women, though, further divided the sectors by number. Men generally knew the numbers, but preferred the names.

"Twenty one?" Ella asked. "That's a long walk."

"We'll find you a place to stay," Renia answered.

"Where?" he asked, and thought about it a bit. "Here?"



A dark room with black furnishings, scant lighting provided by a pair of torches on tall staffs, hosted a midnight meeting of three women who should never be in the same room.

"Your report," the woman in black said.

"She rests well, Imminence," the Sorceress, standing stiffly at attention, said. "The overload should have killed her. Fortunately, Atreya acted very quickly to douse her. Abundance and Endowment then gave her milk to soothe her. Her heart beats normally now. Her pupils are still a bit constricted but they do react. I will check on her again later, but I probably can't tell more until morning."

The Sorceress of Within was one of the finest physicians the Temple had.

The Goddess, sitting at her obsidian desk, rested her chin on her folded hands.

"How much did she receive?"

"At least three, probably four upgrades. Again, it's hard to say."

"Four?" The Queen of Sweetness, sitting in a chair off to the side of the desk, her legs crossed, had not spoken until then.

"I can only estimate. The swelling and inflammation may be skewing the results. She actually measures five, but there are no cases like this."

"Double upgrades occur occasionally," the Goddess said. "About once every ... what?"

Within peered in to the air for a moment.

"It happens about once every two hundred times we upgrade a Virgin, Imminence," she said.

"But triple upgrades?" the Queen asked. "I remember one case from the histories. Galett was the Conduit for a Virgin named Serena. He carried three upgrades to her."

"Galett died," Within added, recalling the case. "He went in to shock after ejaculating and never recovered. His heart failed the following morning. Serena, who was receiving a Tight upgrade, had trouble walking for several months, but became very strong thereafter."

"And you think this could me more than three?" the Goddess asked.

"Almost certainly."

"And the boy," the Goddess asked, feigning ignorance. "What's his name?"

"Zhair'lo, Imminence," Within said. "Tia examined him. He appeared to blame himself for what happened. Once he was assured that it was not his fault, she was able to obtain a specimen."

"What?" the Queen asked, sitting up. "How in the gods' names did she get a specimen?"

"The Primers were still available," Within said. "He was responsive to them and so Tia was able to examine him while aroused and obtain a sample."

"After carrying four upgrades – which we all agree should have killed him – he was not just conscious but able to ejaculate again?" the Queen asked.

Within hadn't thought about that. It stymied her for a moment.

"I sent Tia to inspect him while I attended Talla," the Sorceress said as she mentally examined the sequence of events. "She wouldn't have known the severity of the overload at that point, so she would have carried out a typical examination."

"That's explains her expectations," the Queen pointed out, "but that doesn't bear on the condition of his body."

"No," her Sorceress answered dutifully. "I too am surprised, now that you mention it."

There was a pause as the three women digested this. A boy, barely days in to his manhood, should not have been able to live through such an ordeal.

"What did Tia report?" the Goddess asked.

"He is healthy, obviously," she said. "His physical reactions were strong. His testes did not appear damaged. His sperm count was good, considering he'd already ejaculated once shortly before."

The Goddess shook her head.

"Amazing," the Queen said. "Make a note to monitor him."

It was the correct thing to say if one wanted to pretend to one's Sorceress that the boy was a new discovery.

"Yes, Highness", was the only response.

"It's best you go", the Goddess said. "We've taken enough risk already."

There were safety considerations.

"Yes, Imminence," Within said, but hesitated.

The Goddess raised her eyebrows, giving her permission to speak quickly.

"He should be advertised," she said. "If he can really do what it looks like he did, he will be very valuable for seal breaking."

Seal breaking. Some Virgins had a difficult time getting their first upgrades. Some bodies resisted the first dose of magic. Stronger males were needed when the ones chosen by the Virgin weren't capable or compatible. Zhair'lo seemed to qualify. And, being as young as he was, it was acceptable for him to young girls Men with such strength were often so old that using them would violate well established Protocols.

"Indeed," the Goddess said. It was a moment in which she could have taken the Sorceress in on the game. But she said nothing.

"Did you, perhaps, keep any of the sample?" the Goddess asked.

"No, Imminence," she replied, "it was used up during testing. It being his second ejaculation, there was very little in the first place."

"Thank you, then."

A simple nod was enough to dismiss the Sorceress.

The two remaining women said nothing until the door shut behind the third.

"Gods unleashed, I almost killed them both."

"That was you, was it?" the Queen asked.

"Who else?"

"There are more than enough taking responsibility for that, no? The gossip is that Atreya took several lashes - quite willingly, I might add."

"It was my decision not to overrule Talla's choice. I had the information that Atreya did not."

"You could not have known and, furthermore, you could not have done anything without arousing suspicion."

"And this ..."

"... is the worst of both worlds, yes," the Queen acknowledged. "Danger and attention, though the danger is – presumably – past."

The Goddess stood and paced while the Queen laid back in her chair.

"This is why we did it though, isn't it?" the Goddess said. "At least we know it's working."



Talla's Temple Ch. 07



Zhair'lo hadn't known that there were places for men to sleep within the Temple. He'd been led to one such place the night before. Lost in a daze, he'd simply followed where Ella and Renia led. He must have passed hundreds of Temple women and failed to take any note of them. Talla wasn't among them. Why should he have cared?

Presently, he found himself blinking awake in a room that sported the same beige sandstone as much of the Temple and most of the city around it. There was nothing really remarkable about the room. Plain. Spartan, even. You wouldn't know you were inside the Temple except that it was so clean.

He surveyed the room. Nothing but empty beds and empty clothing racks if you didn't count his bed and the rack next to it.

Someone had laundered his clothes.

Oh, and he was naked.

Someone had done that, too.

He was pulling on his pants when he heard a female voice call in, "Are you dressed?"

"Um, yeah," he said. "I am now."

The wooden door swung open to admit a girl in an ankle length white skirt and the tiny top that seemed all the rage in the Temple now that he'd started noticing. The skinny girl looked him over.

"You look pretty good," she remarked. "I'm Natta."

"Zhair'lo," he replied dimly. She seemed unnaturally bright and cheery. What time was it?

"I know," she said. "I heard."

"Heard?" he wondered. "Heard what?"

"About what an amazing job you did last night," she replied.

Amazing? His jaw dropped. This crazy girl was giving him credit for what he had done to Talla? What was amazing about that?

"Don't be shy," she said. "I hope you can upgrade me some day."

What sort of rumours had been spreading about what had happened? The look in her eyes was some kind of hero worship.

"I -- I hadn't thought that it had gone that well."

"Are you kidding?" she asked, her eyes alight. "It went great!"

This floored him. He didn't mind the idea of adoring throngs of girls. But he didn't want to arrive at it like this.

Natta turned her head just slightly toward the door in a way that indicated someone was just outside.

"I have to get you some food and escort you out though," she said. "You're not really supposed to hang around longer than you have to."

"Oh, sure."

"Anything particular you like?"

"Uh, whatever you usually have."

"Sure."

And with a flare of skirt she was gone.

There was nothing for him to do except, perhaps, take a piss. In the town, you went outside to take care of such things. Outhouses were the order of the day. What did women do when the whole place was inside a building?

There was another door in the room. He tried that. Yep. Indoor plumbing. Must be nice.

That taken care of, he had a moment to consider Natta's attitude. She clearly didn't have an accurate story if she wanted him to be a Conduit for her. So what story did she have? What had he done that could be viewed in a positive light?

"It is possible that you took on too much," the guard had said in the departure room.

Ella had said something similar, that he'd 'taken on a lot'.

Was that what this was about? Did Natta have some weird version of last night's events which held that he'd done Talla some kind of service by overwhelming her? Obviously a huge chunk of that story was missing. What was he to do? Should he be correcting her? 

He was struck by a sudden flash of memory: an image of dozens of women behind the four thrones. They must have thought themselves well cloaked in that darkness, but it couldn't protect them from the strange super-aware state the blue-skirted woman had put him in. That meant there were a lot of women who could easily dispel this rumour. That was a lot of women who weren't dispelling the rumour. It took a lot of power to keep that many people silent. Would it be wise for a boy, only days in to his adult life, to cross such a force? He was afraid, suddenly.

Natta was back very quickly with a tray containing an absurdly vast quantity of food: fruit, bread, scrambled eggs, a few pieces of ham.

"I told them it was for a man who worked on a farm," she said. She giggled when she saw the look of surprise on his face. "That's right, isn't it? You work on a farm?"

"Yeah."

How had that gotten around so quickly?

"I've been working with a blacksmith for a year or so," he said. "Just started at the farm."

Natta seemed to hang on every word he spoke. Her attention bothered him.

"What about you?" he asked. "What do you do?"

"I just got my first upgrade," she said. "Joined the Temple last week."

Last week? The same time as Talla?

"I'm in Within."

That meant nothing to him. Abundance was Talla's Discipline. He'd learned what Point was from Renia. Within? Hadn't Renia said something about "making Within happy"? He'd taken that for the name or title of the woman who had so coldly examined him. But Within was the name of a Discipline?

"So what do they do in Within?" he asked, prodding her to talk so as to both avoid her questions and dampen the blindness of her adoration.

"Medicine," she said. "Science. Administration. Stuff like that."

"You're going to be a doctor?"

If she could talk more, he could eat more.

"Maybe, maybe not," she replied. "At the moment I do a lot of boring stuff. Laundry and cooking. Cleaning. Fetching things for people. Running errands. Bringing you breakfast is the only nice thing on my list today."

So the youngest ones got the worst jobs. They must have to work their way up. It wasn't really much different with men.

"When do you start doing something interesting?"

"Hard to say," she said, looking up at the ceiling. "We take a lot of classes when we aren't working. Maybe around fourth rank, when we go yellow, we start an apprenticeship."

Someone rapped sharply at the door. Natta straightened suddenly.

"Um, just a second."

She disappeared out the door.

Well, that was good. At least he had a chance to eat. He was starving. He didn't know if it was his nerves, a general result of ejaculating twice in one evening or some effect of taking part in an upgrade, but he had no problem downing the entire ridiculous meal that Natta had brought him.

She returned in good order, but slightly muted.

"If you're done, I'll escort you out," she said quietly.

The adoring look was still in her eyes, but she managed to look simultaneously sheepish. He nodded, wiped his mouth with the provided napkin and followed her out of the room. Outside the room there stood a guard, fully armoured, keeping watch. How fortunate he hadn't decided to go for a walk.

There were women everywhere. He was in the middle of some thoroughfare. White, yellow and orange clad women were traveling in every direction across a wide, cobblestone plaza. He had never seen the Temple like this. The brief glimpses of it he had seen last night, from the mostly underground path joining the small circle gate to the Augmentation Chamber, had shown him a nearly deserted Temple. Suddenly, in daytime, the full impact of some twelve thousand women crammed in to the area of the Temple hit him.

This place was full.

"This way," Natta said. "You came in by Endowment's lower gate, didn't you?"

"What?"

"Small circle?"

"Yeah."

"I can't take you back that way," she said. "Not my Division. Not proper without special reason. I can take you out the main gate. If you walk -"

"To the left," he said. "I know. I've lived here my entire life."

"Right," she said as they ploughed through the crowd.

She stopped quite quickly as they turned a corner. It was a narrow alley; deserted. It was not, he realized, a part of any route to the main gate.

"Listen", she said seriously and quietly, "Back there ... I said some things ..."

"About wanting me for your upgrade."

"Well, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about," she explained. "I shouldn't have told you about -- about how things work here. It's not something men should know, okay? I'm new, so I didn't know what you shouldn't know."

She ran a hand nervously through her hair as she looked at the foot traffic passing by. No one was paying them any attention.

"Look, just, uh, just don't tell anyone, okay? I know it doesn't make much sense anyway, but, just don't, okay?"

"Okay," he promised. What was there to say? That Within specialized in science and medicine? That girls new to the Temple were assigned crappy jobs? She hadn't told him anything ...

"Okay," she said with a deep breath, and smiled then congenially, "Okay. But I still hope I get to be upgraded by you someday. Let's go, then."

What was he to make of that?

He followed her out.

Shadows of pain.

Creeping across her body. 

Burning out of her heart.

Triumphant ecstasy and relief, so brief, swallowed by a sea of agony.

Then blackness.

But these were memories. Hazy memories. They traced across her chest whenever she thought about it. 

She laid on her back on a soft bed. She had been elsewhere. A hard marble altar. She shuddered thinking about it. Her body felt wrong when she shivered.

Someone was holding her hand.

She opened her eyes.

Though she felt rested, she knew it hadn't been an easy sleep. There was a lot of sunlight in the room around her, but curtains had been let down at the nearest window. The curtains waved in a light breeze, casting waves of filtered green light over her. 

It felt close to noon.

She pictured the sun, high in the sky. Then she thought of the flickering light of torches and another shudder went through her.

Something was wrong. Her shoulders tightened involuntarily when she thought of what had happened. But it felt wrong. Her body felt wrong. Damaged, perhaps.

"Talla," she heard someone say.

She blinked her eyes a few times.

"Where am I?" she asked hoarsely.

"Principia Abundance," was the reply.

That explained the green curtains, at least. She was in a Sorceress's offices.

Who was holding her hand?

She attempted to sit up, rolling over on her side. Her breasts shifted sideways as she did so, painfully pulling her skin. Her flesh ached. It was at that point that she realized exactly and without doubt why her body felt wrong when she shivered.

"Easy, easy," her companion warned her. "You may still be in shock."

"Atreya," she said in surprise. "I mean, ah, Mistress."

"It's okay," Atreya said, supporting her back. "Just sit up slowly."

"I have breasts," she said, perplexed.

It occurred to her that this was a stupid thing to say. There was also a stupid thing to do, and she did that next. Someone had wrapped her in a body length white robe with a tie at the waist. She pulled the fabric of it away from her chest so she could look down at her body.

Atreya let out a breath in a way that might have signaled humour.

"Yes, you do. And you should be careful. They will be tender for some time."

She was still looking down, thinking of Meena, who held one upgrade in Abundance. Meena didn't look like this.

"They're ... bigger than I thought they'd be."

"Yes, they are."

Silence then. She stopped examining herself. Surely Atreya wouldn't be impressed, given her considerable assets.

"That is my fault," Atreya said, chagrined, "and I must apologize."

"Apologize?" Talla said. It was embarrassing to see her senior say such a thing. "For these? I should be grateful."

"No, Talla," Atreya said. "I failed in my duty. I did not realize how quickly Zhair'lo could take from me. He took too much, and it was my responsibility to notice. It was my responsibility to halt the Rite. I was afraid to do so. I was not brave enough to interrupt the Rite."

She paused then, choked up. Talla looked in her eyes and saw redness there. Had she been awake all night, sitting here? What had she been thinking all that time?

She'd been writing this speech in her head, Talla knew. Part of her wanted to stop her mistress from going on. But she didn't have the will to do that.

"Because I didn't stop it and - and because I was afraid, I let it proceed. The overload was extraordinary. It could have killed you -- both of you. Even now I don't know how much was delivered. It is my duty to care for those under me, especially the newest ones like you. Instead, I failed. I caused you so much pain and for that I am deeply, deeply sorry."

At least it was over. Talla was distinctly uncomfortable. Where could she go from here?

"I -- I feel okay now," she said. "I -- thank you."

Was that sufficient? Was that how one accepted such a humbling apology?

"Am I okay?"

"The doctors say so," Atreya said, her voice still weak. "Within herself was here twice in the night."

A Sorceress's office for sleeping quarters and another Sorceress to examine her. She wasn't sure how much reassurance to take from that. Was it good to have the best care or a bad sign that she needed it?

"Zhair'lo," she snapped out suddenly. "What happened to him?"

Atreya was taken aback by this outburst.

"I believe he was fine," she said. "Although I'm surprised by what I heard of his recovery. Mind that he had to carry what you were given. Men are not as well equipped to transfer as we are to hold permanently. If the measurements are correct, the load he carried is more than any man has ever lived to tell about."

"Can I see him?"

That was apparently outrageous, regardless of her state.

"No," was the firm response. "He'll be long gone back to his work."

She sighed. Another time, then.

Then she remembered something else. Another time soon, then.

A thought came back to her.

"Measurements?" she asked.

With some Disciplines, like Iron, it was very easy to quantify the number of upgrades a woman had received. A simple strength test and a couple of calculations relating to body mass and height told the story. With Lips, for example, it was considerably harder. But the Temple had its ways whenever there was dispute.

Abundance, clearly, ranked among the easily quantifiable.

"Within measured you while you slept."

That seemed vaguely creepy, but she supposed a medical examination was appropriate. She was too concerned about the results to dwell on it.

"It's hard to tell," Atreya said, "because of the swelling and the stretching of your skin. But -"

She trailed off.

"But?"

"It is likely that the most appropriate thing to do is dress you in yellow."

"A bit late this morning, lad," Harzen observed amicably when he showed up at the farm.

Zhair'lo nodded.

"How'd you like it?" the older man asked. "Haven't done one myself in years."

He wasn't sure how to respond. "It wasn't what I thought," he started.

Harzen laughed.

"I mean -- I don't think it went as planned."

The old man suddenly became more serious. "You didn't -- ah -- mess things up somehow?"

Zhair'lo knew exactly what that meant. 

"No", he said hurriedly. "I did it right. They said I did it right."

Harzen relaxed. 

"Good!" he exclaimed and slapped him on the back. "Everything is right, then. Get your ass out to the stables."

"Yes, sir," he said

It was back to work. In a way, he'd wanted to talk to Harzen. He'd only been working the stables for a day and didn't know anyone else yet. He wished he could talk to a couple of his old friends back in town. Maybe Marek would know something. He hadn't had his blue ribbon yet, but he was far better at sneaking around and listening to gossip. Or Plin. Plin would know. He was almost half a year older than Zhair'lo. He'd probably done several Initiations and a few upgrades and just not bothered to tell Zhair'lo about it. Hell, he'd no doubt been Served by now.

All Zhair'lo wanted to know was what "normal" was for this sort of thing. Was it normal for there to be pain? For whom? Was it just a little more than usual? Did most men nearly pass out when they acted as Conduits? Was there something wrong with him? Had he hurt Talla? Was it supposed to hurt her, even a little?

There was no one to ask. Marek and Plin were a good distance away. If he had enough energy at the end of today, he could walk in to town and find them.

Energy. "Not up to standard" is what they said when you started a new job and that new job had found new muscles to hurt. It meant weak. That was him today. Not up to standard.

Regardless, there were stables to be maintained. Horses had to be cleaned and run. Hay had to be pitched and stalls had to be cleaned out.

He would go in to town tonight, if he could. If not, then the next day. Maybe someone in the Temple could tell him if Talla was okay.

Atreya had given Talla instructions to sleep and was no longer present. She had drifted off, still exhausted. She awoke only when someone disturbed her bed by sitting on it.

"Talla," a familiar voice whispered, "I brought you some lunch."

Talla blinked awake once more. She was lying on her back, staring at the green fabric adorning the ceiling over her head. There was a column just behind her head and to her left that was part of the outside wall. She eyed the grooves on the column for a moment before realizing they were superfluous. That column supported two arches that she could see. She idly traced their shapes. One arch went along the wall, while the other arced in to the room off to the left side of her bed. There was no wall under that arch but instead a green curtain hung there to give her privacy.

"Meena," she said, shaking herself from her reverie. She should have been surprised but she was well beyond being surprised. On top of that, the smell of the food struck her nose, seizing control of her will and overriding all other thoughts.

In her hunger, she pulled in her legs and sat up too quickly. For this, she was punished with a wave of dizziness that forced her to brace herself on her knees.

"Gods!" Meena exclaimed.

After steadying herself, she recovered her wits and looked at the other girl. Meena was staring, completely unabashed, at Talla's chest. Compelled by the stunned looked on her sister's face, Talla looked down, too. She hadn't tightened her robe before she slept. Her sudden motion had loosened it further. She wasn't quite topless -- the fabric of the light gown still covered most of her newly grown breasts -- but leaning over as she was now, her cleavage was quite visible.

More importantly: she had cleavage.

"Whoa," Meena whispered. "I'd heard a rumour but -"

Meena paused a moment and gulped as she turned her head down to look at her own bikini-clad chest. Her single upgrade, which had looked so dazzling to Talla only a day ago, now seemed insignificant. She then looked back at Talla. Slowly, she reached over and pushed Talla's robe open. Talla did not resist.

"Just don't touch them," she begged quietly. "They're really sore."

"I can imagine," Meena said, still wide-eyed. "I remember from my upgrade and that was just -" She waved at her own chest but stared at Talla's unnaturally reddened breasts.

"I can't believe it. Yours are bigger than mine. That must be three upgrades you got, all at once."

"Atreya said that Within had a look," Talla said softly. "They think maybe four."

Meena shook her head and hastily closed Talla's gown.

"Four ... you're a Keeper, then?"

Talla shrugged and dove in to the food Meena had brought. Her hunger was an uncompromising beast. She was vaguely aware that her frenzy might appear inhuman. She looked up guiltily at Meena.

"Sorry," she mumbled through a mouthful of food. "Bad manners."

"Very normal," Meena explained confidently. "Even after a normal upgrade."

Talla chewed her food slowly as she surveyed what she could see of Principia Abundance. Her view to the left was blocked by the privacy curtain, her right by a wall. Over Meena's shoulder, though, she could see that the two lines of columns that started behind her head continued for quite a way Were those all really necessary? The ones in the middle were shorter with taller arches. That made sense, if they had to support the floor above. The central columns would have to be stronger, wouldn't they? Maybe not. Whoever built this structure had thought so.




Talla's Temple Ch. 07



The wall on the right had a gap in it. There were two pillars bracketing that gap. The pillars extended all the way to the ceiling without any arches. If arches mattered, what good were those?

She swallowed her mouthful and washed it down with juice.

"Atreya told me I would get yellow clothing," she said, trying to imagine jumping up in station like that. "Can I just skip ahead?"

"No, you can not," a firmer, older voice came from her left.

Talla sucked in a breath as her Sorceress pushed aside the privacy curtain. At least she didn't have food in her mouth for her first meeting with her Discipline's leader.

"Mistress," both girls exclaimed. 

Meena stood immediately. Talla made to get out of bed but the older woman waved her back. 

"No, no. Rest."

She gave Meena a once over as she sat on the bed and focused her attention on Talla.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. Her voice was very soft, much like the blond, wavy hair that framed her face. It was a curious contrast, where the golden hair fell upon the green cloth.

"Well, Mistress," she said. "Though a bit sore."

Abundance hummed softly. 

"That will be all, Meena," she said without taking her gaze away from Talla.

Meena curtsied carefully and backed out of the private space the curtains had created.

"You can not jump ahead," Abundance said as she adjusted her sash to cut properly across her bikini top. She pointed to the ceiling and added, "No more than I could build the third floor before the second."

"Then what am I now, Mistress?"

"You are a Virgin, both in rank and in, ah, common terminology," she replied. "We'll have a top that will fit you. That's easy. As well, you will be accelerated. But you can not claim the rank your breasts declare without the other upgrades that go with it, and those can only be added to your body so quickly."

Talla grimaced. "This I know, Mistress."

Abundance grimaced as well. "Let me see."

Talla raised her eyebrows but didn't dare disobey. She shrugged her robe off her shoulders. If she felt mature facing Meena, she felt positively juvenile facing her Sorceress. Even covered by the well reinforced bikini and single sash that crossed her left breast from over her left shoulder, each of the Sorceress's breasts were obviously more than Talla could hold even if she used both of her hands. Talla's breasts, meanwhile, were a bare handful each.

Abundance didn't seem to care. She examined Talla without touching her, looking from one side to the other.

"The swelling seems to have gone down," she said. "Put your arms up and I'll measure you."

A tape with enumerated markings on it was produced from a pocket in her skirt. She unspooled it and wrapped it around Talla's chest at the level of her nipples.

"Four, as we thought," she said. She pursed her lips as she rolled up the tape.

"Is something wrong, Mistress?"

Abundance thought about this a moment.

"To claim the rank of Keeper, you need more than just the four upgrades in Abundance," she explained. "You will choose four upgrades in some combination of Point and Strength as well as one upgrade from another Division. Point and Strength I can grant you on my own authority, as long as you choose two in each. But I can not grant anything from another Division. With your lack of seniority -"

Talla was starting to lose track of the conversation. No one had explained to her yet how women competed for upgrades. Getting an upgrade in her own Discipline was a simple matter of fulfilling sexual quotas and, at higher ranks, passing written examinations. That much she had been taught. All she had been told about the other upgrades was that "there is competition for them".

It sounded like she was automatically excluded from these competitions for some reason.

"Does it mean I'll get a lesser choice, Mistress?"

"In all likelihood, I'm afraid so, yes," the older woman told her. "But you only get one such upgrade anyway, so it won't be too bad."

Talla nodded. She still felt very awkward. She was sitting next to someone important; she wasn't properly dressed; she had neither bowed nor curtsied. She pulled her robe back on and tried to find a calm centre to the situation.

Abundance let out a sigh. "Mind you, there are other requirements: various duties and sexual quotas. On top of that, no one gets more than one upgrade per month except in the most dire of circumstances. It can become dangerous."

The older woman hesitated then, glancing at Talla's chest. Talla looked down in to her cleavage. Clearly they both realized that she could handle quite a number of upgrades at once.

"So the sooner I start Serving, the sooner I can move up?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," the Sorceress responded, a little surprised.

"It's up to me, right, the first one?"

"Yes. That was Dictated. You know that."

Dictated. Meaning: by the gods. No one could deny the choice of when she gave up her virginity or the partner to whom she would give it.

"Then I choose tonight," she said. "I will find Zhair'lo."

Abundance was clearly taken aback at her hastiness.

"Are you certain?" she asked. Her lips were steady, but her eyes brightened as if she were hiding a smile. "Have you even tried standing up yet?"

"Um, no," Talla replied.

There being no time like the present, she swung her feet over the left side of the narrow cot and planted them on the floor. With a deep breath and fully prepared for a wave of dizziness, she stood up.

She glanced around tentatively.

"How do you feel?"

"Okay," she said. And it was true. Nothing seemed to be wrong. She looked down at her chest. "A bit awkward, though."

"As I said, a proper top will be provided shortly," Abundance said. "In the meantime, if you're well, you can put on your old clothing and head downstairs to file for your Service schedule."

The older woman's voice had changed. Imperious was the only word to describe it. This was her Mistress, now, giving an order.

"Yes, Mistress," she replied and bowed her head.

So that was that. Her convalescence had come to end. She was expected to keep up with everyone else. With a flip of green skirt, the Sorceress was gone.

I'm just like everyone other woman, she thought. She started getting dressed. The long skirt went on easily enough. Nothing down there had changed. The top, though, was fresh and new. The one thing that struck her about life inside the Temple was the efficiency of the whole thing. They planned everything out.

So her old top, the strapless one, was gone. A new one had replaced it. This one, designed for someone with actual breasts, had straps. But it was also designed for someone who had received one or possibly two upgrades. They probably didn't make a white bikini top in her size. She was supposed to be a Keeper by that point and be wearing yellow.

Abundance had made it clear, however, that a proper top would show up.

She spent some time adjusting it. The only real Protocol she had to obey was the one that said her nipples ought to be covered. That was easy. But she also had to move and her flesh was still raw and sore. Did she really want to see Zhair'lo tonight? So fragile?

Yes. Yes, she did.

She settled for tucking the stiff underside of the bikini under her breasts and letting the fabric cover as much of her from there as possible. She still felt embarrassingly exposed, but at least it would stay in place.

Now what?

Get out of Principia Abundance. She had no place in the Sorceress's offices now that her Mistress had kicked her out. She walked out of the private little corner they had constructed for her and moved in the general direction of the mysteriously useless pillars she had seen before.

She had to admit, as she first took in the scale of the place, that it was beautiful. The arches and pillars were artistically simple but well arranged. Most of the Principia Abundance was open, so once she stepped out of the place in which she had slept, she could see from one end of it to the other. Pillars, arches and evenly spaced desks filled the place from wall to wall. Some of the desks were empty. Some had several Officers and Acolytes gathered around them discussing various drawings. In another section, more women in orange bikinis were gathered in a circle of chairs. There was only one exit in the centre of the wall farthest from the useless pillars.

She took the opportunity to walk along the wall that led to those pillars and discreetly banged her elbow on the nearest one. She heard a metallic ping that reverberated inside the pillar.

Hollow! Ha!

Even allowing that metal might be stronger than stone, that was still suspicious.

The noise she had created had attracted attention however. From the gap between the pillars, an Officer appeared. "Some trouble walking, girl?"

Talla bowed her head. "Sorry, Mistress," she said. "Clumsy today."

The woman's features softened then. Perhaps she realized who Talla was. 

"Off you go, then," she said. "Exit's that way."

Well, that was the end of exploring this room. She turned on her heel and left the green draped room through the large oak doors, passing several dozen of her seniors hard at work.

The three storey high room she found herself in was one she recognized easily. She was in the marble floored Offices of Endowment. She was standing on the second floor balcony looking down at the circular rows of desks. The Offices of Abundance were in the back of the building, prominently placed in the middle. Strength and Point would each take a side of the second floor. The Queen would take the entire third floor.

Nothing to do now but walk around to the stairways and find the registration desk. She felt conspicuous in her ill-fitting white clothing amongst all these scantily clad women in orange, but no one seemed to pay her any attention. This time, though, she noticed the guards at the bottom of the stairs before they popped up in her face.

"You have business here, girl?" the nearer of the two asked.

She wondered what rank she had to get to before they stopped addressing her that way.

"I'm registering for Service, Mistress," she answered. The guard was in armour and was probably from Form, so Talla was only guessing with that 'Mistress'.

"Desk seventeen," the guard replied and pointed toward the back of the room. Back there were the doors she had once seen and wondered about. Now she knew: those doors led to the Augmentation Chamber. But she wouldn't be going there. Desk seventeen was just in front of them. A dark-haired woman wearing two crossing orange sashes was there.

"Yes, girl," she said without looking up from her papers. 

Acolyte II, Talla realized. They ranked high around here.

"I'm here to register," she stammered. "Um, to begin Service."

The woman turned to a series of stacked, narrow shelves on her left. Her hand hovered over the shelf marked 'Virgins'.

"Name?"

"Talla, daughter of Kain out of -"

But the Acolyte had already pulled out a thin folder. 

"Here you are," she said, "You mean to begin tonight?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"Have you selected a young man, or would you prefer for us to do it?"

"I have. His name is Zhair'lo M'han."

The Acolyte smiled, but only briefly. "Yes. Of course."

She laid Talla's file out on the desk and placed a small red pad next to it.

"It is my duty to tell you that you may delay the beginning of your Service as long as you wish. This is a Dictate of the gods. But once you begin, you may not turn back. Do you understand?"

"I do, Mistress."

"Then place your index finger on the pad and make your mark here," she said, pointing at a place on the form.

Talla did so, feeling the last vestiges of her childhood wither away under the gentle force of her fingertip on the parchment.

"Good", the Acolyte said. She flipped the form around and began scribbling dates and other information on it. "Now the question of pacing."

"Pacing?"

"The mandatory quota for someone your age and rank is once per week," she said, "Most set themselves at two or three. The pacing is up to you."

Talla thought about this for a moment. She really, desperately wanted to be with Zhair'lo. But once she began, she would be doled out high and low to whomever came up in the Service queue. That was her duty and her pleasure as a servant of the Temple. 

She looked down at her chest. She'd suffered a lot to get those. She didn't want to waste all that suffering by achieving her quotas at some snail's pace.

"How many times must I Serve to become an Initiate?"

The Acolyte also eyed Talla's chest, perhaps reaching some separate conclusion. 

"You do realize that there are obligations besides sex?"

"Yes, Mistress. But how many -?"

"Fifty two."

Exactly one year if she did it the slow way. How nice. She had no interest in that.

"How fast can I go?"

"No one may Serve more than five times a week. It would interfere with your other duties."

"Then set me to five."

"As you wish," the other woman responded dubiously. "You should know that you can slow down if you find the pace, shall we say, untenable at a later time."

"Thank you, Mistress."

More scratches on the paper which was then placed in a box at the corner of the desk.

"You'll be in the rotation now," the woman explained. "Check in here every day any time between lunch and sixth bell to see if you have an assignment -- sexual or otherwise."

A second, fresh sheet was taken from a drawer. This one was something special, detailed with a white, lacy border. The Acolyte wrote Talla's name at the top and Zhair'lo's underneath it. She handed it to Talla.

"Take this to Booking. Desk One."

And that was that. The Acolyte was back to work.

Desk One, then, was the one just on the left as one entered from the ground floor. Another busy woman, this one in an orange bikini top, waited there.

"Yes?" she asked without looking up. 

Talla slid her form across the desk. 

"Ah. Virgin's Choice?" This woman also had stacked shelves from which to draw folders.

"Zhair'lo," she said as she thumbed through them. "Zhair'lo. Where is he? Ah! Of course." She opened a drawer of her desk and pulled out a folder.

"He was being held for you. Naturally."

"Held for me?"

"Well, he's a virgin as well, isn't he? In the common sense of the word," she explained. She tapped an odd shaped tag on the folder. "So, being your Conduit, we held him for you. Many Virgins make such a choice as you have."

She opened the folder. Talla expected it to be as empty as hers, but it had several sheets of parchment already in it. On the first one, she recognized the Temple Script of her own name. It appeared twice. It was followed by several other names. She wasn't strong in Temple Script yet, but she thought she recognized Atreya's title and that of the Second of Within. The Acolyte flipped the sheet away quickly. 

"Here we are," she said, indicating the latest line on a different sheet. "He's out in the farms, third sector. The short side of twenty one. Have you ever been out there?"

"No, Mistress."

This caused the woman to frown.

"Seela?" she called out.

"Mara," a woman behind her replied without looking up.

"You got anyone headed out toward three stroke twenty one?"

"Hell, probably," Seela responded and began rifling through sheets of paper. "Here," she said holding one up. "Inga's headed that way."

"Rank?"

"Adept."

"Tag her to meet with Talla."

"Done," Seela declared firmly, scribbling on a small piece of paper and clipping it to the file she'd found.

"So," Mara explained to Talla, "wait at the entrance to Endowment Hall at seventh bell. Inga's an Adept and she'll know you're a Virgin, so you should be able to find each other. Got it?"

Talla nodded.

"Now off with you. I'm busy."

"Yes, Mistress."

So that was it.

Organized. Planned. All but executed.

She'd see Zhair'lo tonight.

Two virginities would be lost.

Horses were unpleasant animals to break. He'd learn that his first day. But if you could get past that point and be allowed to ride one someone else had broken, they were actually quite nice.

"You've got a pretty good seat after all," Harzen observed as Zhair'lo rode the horse around the small corral.

He'd worked with horses at the blacksmith. One of the most important duties of a blacksmith was fitting a horse with a proper shoe. The farmers and transport men had pretty high expectations regarding the health of their steeds. Shoeing a horse, though, was relatively safe. A proper horseman would bring the horse in and walk it in to a small pen. Then he'd get out of the way and let the blacksmiths get to work with their measuring, trimming and fitting. The horse was never able to move.

But actually handling a horse? There were rules and they weren't the kind crafted for politeness. They were the kind that kept you alive.

Don't approach a horse from behind. Don't approach it from the front either. Don't spook the horse. Always talk in a calm voice so the horse knows where you are. But hurry up for the gods' sake, we don't have all day.

"Shift your weight a little forward," Harzen advised.

The man's voice was quite kindly. Zhair'lo didn't understand what he had done, or what had happened, that had changed Harzen's attitude. Regardless, he meekly accepted the advice whilst intensely trying to stay on the horse.

"Relax a little," Harzen reminded him. "The horse can feel your tension."

Easy for him to say. He took a few more trips around the coral while the old man watched him from the centre of the fenced ring. Harzen could do this effortlessly. Zhair'lo imagined that everybody else on the farm could, too.

"That's enough for today. It's time for dinner, at any rate."

He dismounted the horse, managing to completely avoid getting tangled in the stirrup and making an ass of himself. They began walking the horse back to the stable.

Well, no time like the present to ask ...

"Harzen?"

"Hm?"

"Is it a problem if I head in to town after dinner?"

Harzen blew out a breath that sounded like mockery.

"You're an adult now. You know that, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"I've got no business telling you what to do once your work is done."

He let that sink in a moment.

"Hoping to catch another Initiation?"

"Um, no," Zhair'lo answered quickly. That was actually furthest from his mind. "Just wanted to see some of my friends."

Harzen nodded.

"Look, kid," Harzen told him. "You have every right to want to be in town. That blue ribbon only stays with you for two years. Why they tried to put you out here on your birthday, I will be thrice damned if I understand. Seems damned cruel, by my eye."

Zhair'lo was taken aback at this. It was the longest Harzen had ever spoken to him.

"Go in to town, see your friends. If you're lucky, you might catch another long skirt. But for the gods' sake, be here at eighth bell."

"Eighth bell? Why?"

"Because you -"

The older man stopped walking and looked at Zhair'lo for a moment. He pensively scratched the side of a knuckle on his shadow of facial hair. There was a distinct lack of certainty in what he said next.

"Because you should be. Can't make you, though, nor really explain why. Can't even be sure there's anything in it for you."

That was as obtuse a piece of advice as he'd ever received.

"Let's say someone might visit and leave it at that, though it's not terribly likely."

Another pause.

"You upgraded that girl just last night?"

Zhair'lo nodded.

"Not terribly likely, then."

Right. It's not like they'd expect him to do another upgrade so soon, would they?

"Madra Zen!" Lara exclaimed.

It was a fairly juvenile curse, spoken mainly by children who had no idea what they were saying. Talla hadn't heard it in a while. The last time was from a four year old in her dormitory outside the Temple. She had admonished the child for using a god's name like that. Then she had been admonished in turn. 




Talla's Temple Ch. 07



"Really, Talla," the Temple Sister in charge of the dormitory had said. "I think the gods are too powerful and busy to care about a four year old insulting them."

But this wasn't a case of a frustrated four year old. These were three eighteen year olds, sitting in their bedrooms, having removed their tops to compare their upgrades.

Lara and Salee had gone first. Yes, their nipples had clearly darkened. The first upgrade produced a notable difference in the size of their aureolae and the protrusion of the tips of their nipples.

Talla had gone next. Not that she needed to take off her top to astound them. Her cleavage was clearly visible even with the new top that had shown up in the afternoon. Still, the act of baring her breasts to her sisters had inspired awe.

Salee went silent.

"That must hurt," Lara added softly. "I mean, my nipples are crazy sensitive and they've been nothing but rock hard all day. But that -"

"I can't run, if that's what you mean," Talla told her. "But if I move carefully enough and don't, y'know, rub them, then it's not too bad."

"What was it like?" Salee asked. "The upgrade, I mean."

"Bad," Talla said. "I don't remember much from when he came on me to when I woke up in Abundance's Office."

She shivered involuntarily as a fiery memory crossed her body.

"You look pretty good now," Salee observed.

Talla took a breath. 

"Yeah. It still hurts, but it's getting better. They said they gave me some medicine while I was sleeping."

Lara reached out a hand and paused just short of Talla's chest. Their eyes met, asking and giving permission. She cupped one of the absurd mounds of flesh and gently squeezed it from underneath.

Talla winced.

"Sorry," Lara said. "It's just so, well, firm, I guess. I wondered how it would feel."

"Maybe it'll change later. My skin feels really stretched out right now."

The conversation paused as they eyed one another's chests. Talla was promised two upgrades in Strength and two in Point once she qualified for them. The Strength upgrades were supposed to help support her breasts and keep them firm.

"And you're going to Serve tonight," Lara added excitedly, breaking the silence. Both she and Salee had opted to wait a day to heal. Talla didn't want to wait any number of days. She wanted to see Zhair'lo as soon as she could.

"Yeah. He's out at some farm," Talla said. "I head out after dinner."

"You have to tell us what it's like," Lara pleaded.

Did she really want to share this with them? Would they understand how she felt about Zhair'lo? Did she even understand how she felt about Zhair'lo? And what did Zhair'lo feel? There'd been some connection, some feeling that passed between them when their eyes had met. There'd been no space for conversation. And after that ... pain for him, then pain for her. They had both walked away, though, eventually. At least they could say that.

"Sure, I guess."

"I hope he's gentle," Salee put in, nodding at her chest.

Talla smiled. Of course he would be. Of that she had no doubt.

Zo'kar was trolling. That was what boys his age called it when they hung around the Temple hoping it was an Initiation night.

Something had changed in him just three nights before. He'd never been outgoing. He'd been outrageously shy in fact. He'd hidden from girls. He'd done everything he could, since that first failed Initiation night so many months ago, to avoid girls.

A shock of humiliation came through his body as he remembered the look of disappointment on the young girl's face as she tried and tried again to arouse him. Too scared. Too surprised. Too timid in general. Nothing she did aroused him. He couldn't remember her name. Had she even told him her name? He'd thought it a failure on his part.

But it wasn't like that with Talla.

Even though she had meant it as a joke, he remembered her words; the words that took the blame off of him. "Maybe she just sucked at handjobs."

Such a silly, juvenile thing to say.

But it resonated. Oh, how it resonated. It had played a melody inside his skull.

Maybe it wasn't his fault after all.

Nervous and giddy, he had let her lead him back to that same room, the same place where he had failed so miserably once before.

But he hadn't failed that second time. She hadn't made him feel bad. She'd needed him and her anxious eagerness had proven contagious.

Then she had turned her back on him. When she couldn't see him -- when he couldn't be seen -- all the pressure had evaporated. He could do it. He could do what other boys could do for other girls.

And he'd done it. In fact, he'd done it so fast, he felt like he'd missed it.

On the one hand, it was enough to get through it without humiliation. He was happy to have cleared the hurdle. That having been said, he wanted to do it again.

Which brought him back to trolling. The problem with trolling was that the Temple never announced when Initiations would be. The wait was more than enough to dissuade most boys. Add to that the fact that the girls being Initiated could apparently come out of any of a number of gates and it made it very difficult to troll effectively.

But Zo'kar was a little more determined than most. For one thing, he'd never been Served. He'd never wanted any girl in his bed after his failure and the Temple had never sent him one. His mind had recently changed on this matter but the Temple, however it catches up on such things, had yet to catch up to this thing.

So he waited. Three nights in a row now, he'd come out after dinner and casually strolled around the Temple. He kept about a block away from the actual walls of the Temple, trying not to be too obvious. 

He hoped to see the running girls in long white skirts. He was certain the skirt length was what mattered. When he'd done Talla's Initiation, he'd been stuck a while outside that cylindrical building waiting for an escort out. All of the girls racing in and out had been wearing long white skirts, a mode of dress he could not remember seeing elsewhere in the throngs of women milling about the town.

The last two nights had been failures. As far as he could tell, there had been no Initiations.

"Talla?"

She turned toward the sweet musical voice that had called her name. There was a gentle faced woman with shoulder length, strawberry blond hair looking at her inquisitively.

"Yes?"

In her anxiety she had arrived early for her rendezvous. The only consequence of that was that she'd been waiting nervously in a different location.

"I'm Inga," the woman said kindly. "We're to travel out to Harzen's farm together?"

Talla nodded, not trusting her tongue. Inga smiled.

"It's okay to be nervous your first time."

Talla looked down at her plain white, full length skirt. That told her story in the clearest terms.

Inga's outfit, by contrast, was stunning. She wore a tasseled yellow top and a gold embroidered sash across her chest. The yellow skirt wasn't to regulation either. It was supposed to be grass or stranded cloth down to her knees. Instead, the strips of cloth varied by length from almost nonexistent at her right hip to ankle length down her left side.

Add to that, Inga was clearly beautiful. She'd had at least one upgrade from Form. Talla was jealous, consoling herself with the fact that their breasts seemed about the same size.

Talla mentioned none of this, just took in the other's appearance.

"Let's get going," Inga said. "It's a bit of a walk."

Other women were milling around, meeting up with friends. It was easy to spot which ones were coming out to socialize in the giant hall and which were going to Serve. It was the clothing. In the time she'd spent in Orientation, she'd never seen women on their way out at night. As a child, she'd rarely glimpsed them. Now she could see them in their full splendor.

Forget the staid attire of daily work. Night time clothing was for show. It seemed that the women still had to wear the right colour, but the fabric was cut in more stylish shapes and laid in with embroidery and small jewels. The whites would embroider with silver thread and sometimes blue. The yellows and oranges would use gold or red. Tops which should have been simple bikinis or rectangular stretches of cloth had all sorts of possible shapes. Inga's wasn't the only odd looking grass skirt. Many of them had far less material.

And not a single woman, not even the Initiates in their tiny skirts, wore underwear. She felt a bit embarrassed to be wearing anything under her skirt, but at least no one could see.

"Hey! You there!"

A rush of adrenaline brought a tingle to his skin as he realized that it was a girl calling to him. He turned quickly to face her. There she was -- a slim girl with a long white skirt and a tiny top -- running at him at full tilt.

"Yo," he replied as casually as he could manage.

"You have to come with me," she said. "It's my Initiation."

"Sure."

They started running back to the Temple.

"What's your name?" he called out.

"Eletta."

"I'm Zokar."

He planned to remember all of their names from now on.

"You have been masturbating? The way they told you?"

"Two fingers in," Talla replied, "every night."

"Good," Inga said. "It probably won't hurt too much, then."

"Did it hurt your first time?"

"A little. I recommend that you make sure you're on top. Do you know if it's his first time?"

Talla nodded. "That's what they told me."

"Then you should definitely be on top, at least to start. He might hurt you just from clumsiness."

A Virgin in a long skirt, her hair wet from recent washing, pelted past the two of them at full speed.

"Initiation night," Inga observed with a grin. "Watch your step."

Talla suddenly understood the nostalgic look other women got when they thought of the Rite of Initiation.

"I've already done my butt and my face," Eletta was saying as she undressed.

It was just the way he remembered it: the slim body; the clothing coming off; the anxiety and enthusiasm all wrapped up together in a powerful little package. He wanted to do this every day.

"I'll let you pick," she continued as she knelt as she undid his pants. "It's either my tits or my pussy."

He hadn't thought about that. What had made it possible with Talla was that she turned her back on him. That had given him the confidence to do what he done. Deep breath, then. He had that confidence now. His erection was solid just from thinking about this whole ritual on the way in. He wouldn't be dissuaded.

"Uh, pussy, I guess."

"Sure."

She was flexible. Give her that much. She put a foot on the wall behind him, catching enough friction with her sandal that she could hold the position while she stroked his erection.

"It is a race," Eletta said as sweetly as she could between laboured breaths, "so I need you to come on my pussy as fast as you can."

That wasn't going to be an issue. She was stroking him pretty hard and keeping the tip of his shaft at point blank range to her crotch.

"This is the trickiest part," she said. "I have to make sure some gets inside."

Her right hand continued to piston up and down as he swelled in her grip. Her left hand reached down to spread apart her hairless lips. He could see everything from where he stood. Her lips, her clitoris, even her vagina was open to him. Then, whether by accident or intent he would never know, she brushed the tip of this penis up against her pinkest flesh.

That was when he lost it. A tingle went up his spine at that first contact and he began to release volley after volley of semen, spraying over her lips, in to her little pink vagina, up over her stomach. The reaction was so passionate that he started to feel faint and barely managed to stay standing.

"Gods!" Eletta shrieked in surprise.

Their path took them past the Initiation Temple. Girls were pelting in and out as Talla and Inga carefully circumnavigated the building, passing through a narrow alley that separated it from one of the office buildings.

Talla was listening intently to every piece of advice Inga offered. There was a lot about sex she didn't know; a lot of simple, practical things. She hoped that everyone had someone like Inga as a guide.

"Anyway," Inga was saying, "the thing to watch out for is -"

Then something happened. A wave of dizziness passed over Talla. Her vision tilted madly and then compressed in front of her to a long, dark tunnel. The tunnel pulsed at her, violently ... and again ... and again. The fourth pulse was weaker. Her vision began to return to normal.

Inga was holding her up. She hadn't realized she'd fallen sideways in to the older woman.

"You all right?"

Talla nodded, speechless.

"You felt that, did you?"

"You did, too?" Talla gasped.

Inga smiled. "You're incredibly sensitive. Maybe that's to be expected with that unusual upgrade you got."

Her balance had returned. In fact, she felt pretty good all things considered. She stood up straight and took a couple of experimental steps forward.

"What was it?"

"An orgasm," Inga explained, tilting her head to indicate the building next to them.

"Not like any I've ever had."

She had been masturbating, after all. She hadn't lied. It really was two fingers every night. None of her orgasms had been exciting enough to make her room mates pass out. Maybe she hadn't had any real ones yet.

"Well, not just an orgasm," Inga corrected herself. "It really means someone in there was cheating just a little bit. But we won't tell, will we?"

"They meshed?" Talla asked. She'd been told about meshing. It was supposed to happen when sex started, when genitals made contact. It was one of those things that the teachers left vague, supposedly for the Virgins to discover for themselves.

Inga nodded with a knowing smile. "They touched. Like I said: cheating."

Zhair'lo was bored.

The cook had taken a long time making dinner and then served it in several courses. It wasn't a festival day. There was no need for that kind of nonsense. It felt like it was arranged to keep him from heading in to town. By the time dinner was done, it was past seventh bell. Even if he ran to town, it would take so long to find Plin or Marek, he would just have to turn around and come back. That was assuming that this "not terribly likely" visit of Harzen's was something worth coming back for.

But Harzen had been clear on the 'staying around' thing. Zhair'lo let out a dismissive breath and promised himself that if he didn't get a Summons from the Temple -- or whatever it was Harzen was expecting -- by eighth bell, then he was heading off.

So he strolled around the farm. He'd only been there a couple of nights. There was a lot to see: huge empty corn fields; foul smelling pig pens; dirty stables; sheds full of ox sized ploughs and other farming implements. Yep. Giant bag of excitement, this farm.

It was a warm night, the kind that followed naturally from a hot, dusty day. He made his way over to a well. During the day, they used the horses to haul bucket after bucket up to the cisterns over the various wells. They usually lasted until the evening and kept the farm hands in cool, drinkable water in the meantime. At least it took the a layer of dirty sweat off his body.

Feeling refreshed, he decided to walk out toward the stables. 

At eighth bell, he thought, I'm out of here.

Trepidation now. Was she really ready for this? Other girls were waiting a day. Should she have waited? Inga was with her, though. That presence was comforting as she approached the big farmhouse. How many men were living here?

"Ready?" Inga asked as they reached the door.

Talla nodded.

She expected the place to be noisy, with men bustling about, shouting, drinking and doing whatever men did in their spare time. She expected some kind of masculine free for all. So she was pleasantly surprised to see a quiet, clean common room. There were older men there, playing some type of board game with wooden pieces and dice. They took little note of Talla, knowing her to be too young for them. One or two did look to Inga, wondering if she were meant for them.

Inga cleared that up right away, saying, "Nikrit and Zhair'lo."

"Ha!" an exultant voice exclaimed from another room. A frighteningly large block of a man came through a doorway from another room, banging his hip on a table in his jubilant rush.

"Talla," Inga said cordially. "This unshaven brute is Harzen, Master of the Farm."

"Bah! You flatter me, woman."

No one had taught her how to act around older men. Were they like women in the Temple, layered in formal hierarchies? Was a Master like a Mistress? She didn't want to offend anyone -- especially anyone that large.

"Sir," she said with a moderate bow that she hoped was appropriate.

"You're Zhair'lo's girl, then?" Harzen asked. "From last night?"

He seemed like a nice enough man, despite being very loud and very large.

"I suppose so, sir," she said. "Where is he?"

"Outside," Harzen said. "Went for a walk. Wanted to go in to town, he did. I told him to stick around until at least eighth bell."

Zhair'lo might have left? Talla panicked. How close were they to eighth bell?

"I'll go find him, then," she said anxiously. She couldn't come all this way and have him not be here!

She bowed again, minding her manners, and went back out the door.

"Check by the stables!" his voice trailed after her.

He couldn't have left, could he? He was out here, somewhere. Wouldn't someone have told him she was coming? Did Temple women often go out and find the men they were meant to Serve had gone elsewhere? That couldn't be right. How did they arrange it? It seemed wrong. He ought to be here when she came for him!

Stables. What did stables look like? A place for horses. A wooden shed with large doors? That was all she knew about stables. There was a silo, its top shining in the moonlight. There was only a half moon, but it was enough. She just had to relax and let her eyes get adjusted. There? Was that it? She started to run but was quickly reminded of the state of her breasts. The bouncing did them no good and neither did the friction between them and her top.

She settled on a brisk walk. Should she just shout out his name? How dumb would that be, if he weren't here and she were shouting desperately at nothing? What if she'd come all this way and he'd just wandered off somewhere? Oh, how could he! But if he didn't know, it wasn't his fault.

She walked along the dirt tracks made by horse carts toward the one low building she could see. She hoped it was the right one. There was flickering light coming from it. Maybe a small fire or a torch. Someone must be inside. It had to be him.

As quickly as her sore flesh could bear, she strode up to the building. Yes, horses. This was the stable, for certain. There was the torch, mounted on a stone post in the middle of the building where the horses couldn't reach it and cause a disaster. Where was Zhair'lo? She passed through the building, ignoring the sleeping beasts, and came out the other side.

She caught her breath. 

Standing beside the well, soaking his head in water running out of a cistern, it was him!

She ran, then, not caring for the pain in her chest. Across the knee high grass she made for him as fast as ever she had run. At about ten paces he must have heard her despite the water pouring over his head. He reached for the spigot on the cistern as he turned to face her. He never quite touched the spigot.

He paused a moment as he saw of the blur of white cloth that blazed toward him. He had less than a second to recognize her before she leapt on him, taking him to the ground.

"Ow!" he shouted, not the least bit aware of the pain. "Talla!"

"Yes?" she asked, grinning ear to ear as she pinned his shoulders and sat straddling him.




Talla's Temple Ch. 07



"You're all right?"

"Yep!"

He winced as the pain of her assault finally hit his brain. "Gods! Is it always going to hurt when we meet?"

"Maybe," she said, still pinning him down and smiling exuberantly as water poured from the cistern to spray on her back. "I hope not."

It is wise, one of the teachers had told her, to begin with kissing.

She fell upon him, then, not sure how it was that men and women went about kissing, but certain that it was the right thing to do. Their lips met. Their eyes closed. It was all that either had wanted for so long. Sweet release was found in the knowledge that the other had wanted it too, that the feeling hadn't been a dream, that the exchange when their eyes had met so briefly was as real and strong as it was simple.

His arms, thin but hard and sinewy, wrapped around her back, pulling her closer, squeezing her. She winced as her breasts were compressed between their bodies. He felt her pain in the tensing of her lips and stopped. His eyes opened.

"Sorry," he said. "Are you okay?"

She nodded as she tried to gloss over the pain, not wanting to spoil the moment.

"They're kind of sore," she said, "since the upgrade."

That was a sore spot of its own. Concern came to his expression. That and guilt. Zhair'lo looked down at her body for the first time. His eyes widened.

"Whoa," he whispered, awe wiping away his shame.

She smiled and looked around. They weren't supposed to do this sort of thing out of doors. Violation of Protocol. But this was what she'd waited for and she could wait no longer. Besides, there was no one in sight to catch her.

"Wanna see?"

She didn't wait for his answer. She sat up, bending her neck downward so she could watch his expression despite the water pouring over the back of her head. The water washed through her hair and spilled on to his chest as she reached around her back to undo the straps of her top.

It was a heroic thing, that top, faithfully and gently containing her recent acquisitions. But it's job was done. It had taken her here, where she'd been going for what seemed like ages, and it was time for it to get out of the way.

Through the veil of water running through the hair draped in front of her face, she watched his eyes as she pulled the already soaked top away from her chest. His reaction was everything she could have hoped for. His mouth formed an 'o' and his eyes widened in astonishment.

"You overdid it a little," she said as she she leaned over him again, bringing her nipples to graze his chest.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Guilt, then, returned.

"I hurt you," he said.

She felt him tensing up. 

"I must have done it wrong."

"No," she assured him. "You did it right. It wasn't your fault. You were just given too much."

That assuaged him somewhat. She kissed him again, on purpose to melt away his worries. When he was relaxed once more, she pulled away.

His eyes opened slowly, calmly. That was better.

"We're going to get muddy," he said.

She giggled and rolled away from the well, pulling him on top of her.

"Just a sec," he pleaded. He stood up to fix the spigot and stop the water flow. She watched the last of it splash over his arm. It was delicious, just lying there in the grass half naked, watching him stand over her, waiting for him to come back. She didn't want to get up. She just wanted to stay there in the grass, soak in the moment, feel the anticipation and let him come to her.

Her skirt was in the way. She pulled it up so he could kneel between her legs. She sighed and wished she had dropped the underwear somewhere. It was enough for now that she could wrap her bare thighs around his waist while her arms embraced him. They kissed again. She felt him now, straining against the light cloth of his pants, pushing up against her.

Here? Could they do it here?

Yes. Yes. Clearly they could. Protocols be damned.

There were ties on his pants. She undid them while they kissed. He lifted his body enough so that, with her feet, she could push his last piece of clothing off his body. Their lips never separated. Just one last thing ...

His body met hers again, his erection pushing at the stupid pair of underwear she had foolishly chosen to wear. What was she going to do about that? Zhair'lo fumbled with the lace on her skirt, getting it undone and laying the material out like a blanket..

All right. Time to take charge. With a twist, she rolled him over again and hovered for a moment on her knees.

Trust to courage, more than one teacher had said. Be bold with men. Tarry not. It is we, the women, who hold everything together.

Courage, then. She had nothing to hide and nothing to fear. She was a woman of the Temple and proud of her body and the Service she performed. She stood up, ever so slowly, as she looked down in to his eyes, watching them trace over her flesh. She felt that gaze as it slid down her neck, caressed her breasts and gently found its way to her last piece of clothing.

Biting her lower lip in anticipation, she put her legs tightly together and began pushing that last piece of clothing, her last protection against the night air, down her thighs. Completely rapt with fascination, Zhair'lo stared unabashedly at the triangle between her thighs, the soft flesh, untouched by any man, that was to be his in just a moment.

The white garment hit the ground. She stepped out of it and moved her feet so she was standing over him again. His erection indicated his readiness, standing proudly away from his stomach.

You're going to put that where ...?

Their eyes met and she sank down to her knees. The moment of truth. She lowered herself until the tip of his penis met the outside of her lips. Close now. She was wet. She could feel it where he touched her, where her own juices met the little bit that leaked from his manhood.

"Gently," she whispered.

Barely able to breath, he could but nod in response. He would not be a part of hurting her again.

She paused a moment, gathering her resolve. Courage. Courage.

She pushed, feeling the head of his penis, swollen, engorged with blood, pushing up inside her. Their juices mixed.

...

Panic!

He couldn't speak. He wanted to scream her name. 

Talla!

She was inside his head. He was inside her body. He could feel her from the inside. His vision was doubled. He could see her and see himself from her eyes.

Talla!

She couldn't speak either. 

Relentlessly, like a force of nature, a choice was made. Neither could tell who made the choice. But the decision was complete. Her body came down - hard. There was a rush of pleasure and a moment of pain and fear.

Talla!

Ecstasy and fear.

She couldn't speak, but she could feel his alarm.

"It's okay," she seemed to say, in that place where there were no words. "I've been here before. It's safe."

They didn't move for a while, absorbing the feeling of sex from both sides. He could feel his own pleasure at penetrating her and feel her pleasure at being penetrated. She could do the same. She radiated her calmness to him, letting him know it was normal, while she tried to sort the feelings of her body from his.

Now she knew what it was to mesh. What she and Sila had once shared was the same thing. It was a gift from the gods, the force that bound men to women, the relay that brought the peace of the Temple to all those around it.

When the panic passed, when the shock and pain had relented, she found she could see herself through his eyes. She could focus on what he saw and then gently return to her own body. But he was ever present. She could feel him, too, moving around in her body and behind her eyes.

She -- or they - started to move her body, her hips making gentle circles, forcing the head of his shaft to slowly rotate inside her, stretching her. She couldn't decide what feeling that invoked. It was odd and uncomfortable and daring all at once.

He was there, swelling painfully inside, at the limits of his willpower.

"It's fine," she promised inside his mind. "Release. Relent."

He didn't want to but couldn't help himself. She felt all of her breath leave her lungs in anticipation. His muscles tensed, trying to hold off what was so clearly inevitable. He never wanted this moment to end. That was obvious. But with a final twist of her hips, she forced it from him.

She had made nine boys ejaculate with her hands. She knew what a twitching male member felt like. She knew when it was close to coming. But to feel the tension inside her body, with all of the swelling and stretching was a whole other matter.

She could feel him trying to hold off. He held, and held, and ...

A bolt of lightning fired through her spine. She cried out as the line between agony and ecstasy was irretrievably blurred. She felt what it was to be him, coming inside her. He felt what it was to be her, impaled to all her depth with a rod of iron pumping hot fluid within. His vision blurred. For a moment, they were two minds joined in mindlessness.

Neither could say whose body twitched more violently, nor who it was that screamed, nor how long it lasted. He could only vaguely see her, in his clouded unreality, as she glowed with a faint blue aura in the moonlight, her head thrown back as she rode him to his end. For herself, she could see nothing.

Inga was with Nikrit. They were in no particular hurry. With experience came patience. After some time spent kissing and caressing, she had pushed him on his back and slid down to the floor beside his bed. She was just beginning to use her tongue to better engage his arousal when she felt a wave of dizziness overcome her.

It was fortunate, she knew, that she was kneeling down when it happened. She might have fallen over otherwise.

She could sense the direction. The wave had come, vaguely, from somewhere on the other side of the house.

Nikrit looked down at her, wondering why she had paused. He wouldn't have felt it. Men didn't.

That had been a strong one. Amazing for someone as young as Talla to let her orgasm be felt across such a distance. She would have to see where Zhair'lo's room was. Later. She had Nikrit to take care of.

It was a privilege of a Goddess, to come up alone to the roof of her domain. There were three storeys to her offices and living quarters. There were two stairways from the top floor to the roof. She would sit on a reclined, cushioned chair on a raised platform facing two altars, and gaze out from that vantage over the whole of her Temple and the city beyond.

More than eight thousand women were under her command and on any given night some two to three thousand of them went out to Serve the men of the city, to deliver her strength and her peace to all.

When she sat there, above the stone and wood and mortar, she could feel them. With many upgrades came that skill. With Perfection came vast improvement of the skill. She could feel every one of those thousands of climaxes, going off like popcorn in a fire. They were visible to her, the closer ones, in a weird way that wasn't quite seeing. They were like the little blue sparks that fell from her hair and eyelashes. She could see them at night and feel them wash over her like water softly lapping at a sandy beach.

She would come up here, when she had time, to reach under her skirt and gently stroke herself in the tide of those thousands of orgasms beating down on her body. Orgasm would come to her, too, as she pressed her clitoris towards her vagina. It wouldn't be the violent rapture that she shared with men, but a gentle tingle between her legs that would lock up her leg muscles and bring a sigh to her lips.

Then she would stand, as she did now, glowing faintly with that pleasant aura, to let her clothing fall in place as she watched the last of the sparks going off in the houses nearest the Temple.

What a wonderful -

Confusion, then. An expression of curiosity crossed her face; incredulity at the sensation that had struck her at the base of her the spine. Somewhere behind her, there'd been a particularly strong one. It wasn't enough to affect her in any serious way, but it stood out.

She turned, looking out over Form's triangle. Was Form or one of her Sorceresses Serving tonight? Proximity was the logical explanation. But no. Although she hadn't been facing the right way, she knew it had come from further out than that.

Odd.

Talla had fallen upon him.

They were separate again, both in body and in mind. He laid there, stunned speechless, and looked down at her, resting her weary head on his shoulder. He became aware of the heaviness of his breathing, the sweat from their bodies, their legs tangled up and her breasts against his ribs.

Time passed, incomprehensibly. He watched the half moon move across the sky. He had no desire to move yet. It was enough just to be here.

"That's how it is?" he asked, some time later, still staring off in to the sky.

"Meshed," she said, not yet capable of meeting his eyes. "We meshed."

"It's always like this?"

A pause.

"I wouldn't know. They only taught me the word."

That was a thought. She knew as little of this as he did. She had taken the lead. She had known what to do and how to do it. She had made sure that she didn't get hurt -- at least not too much. She had made it so he expected her to know everything.

"Can we do it again?"

She perked up at this, found some manual dexterity. Propping herself up on his chest, she looked at him from so close he almost went cross-eyed. 

She nodded and said, "Yeah, but we should go inside. We're really not supposed to do it outside."

"Really? Why not?"

She shrugged. "Rules."

He would have taken her just about anywhere if it meant having sex again. The inside of a house seemed a minor quibble.

She got up on her knees, a vaguely cheerful expression on her face, and located her top. It went back on first, gently. Then he had to get up so she could take the skirt that had served for their blanket. He laced up his pants while she tied off her skirt. Her last tiny piece of clothing was lying in the grass. He retrieved it for her.

"Don't really need it," Talla said. "Turns out most women don't wear anything underneath when they go out."

Fair enough. They were just going back to the house for more anyway. He tucked it in to the lace at the side of his pants. No one would see it there.

Inga was cooling her heels. She'd finished with Nikrit some time ago and had left him thoroughly unconscious. She was proud of her work and didn't consider it a job well done if her man could still stand up when she was done with him.

That being done, and most of the men gone to sleep, she waited casually for Talla to come down the stairs from Zhair'lo's room. There hadn't been any further orgasms -- not that she could feel.

So she waited, knowing that it was Talla's first time and that she deserved all the time she wanted. On the other hand, it was getting ridiculous and Inga was starting to get annoyed.

That was when the door opened. Not one of the bedroom doors up the stairs, but the main entrance. Talla came in first, breathless, pulling a boy behind her. Presumably, this was Zhair'lo.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"We, uh, went for a walk."

"Needed some fresh air?"

There was a guilty look about the two of them, more Talla than Zhair'lo, but it was overwhelmed by the clear and abundant joy in their eyes.

Inga couldn't help but laugh. There was no point scolding them now. She had no right to be upset at Zhair'lo anyway, and anything she said to Talla would be meaningless.

"It's near eleventh bell," she told the younger girl. "We have to get going."

"Oh. Right."

She turned to Zhair'lo, somewhat apologetically. "We're supposed to be back by midnight."

He seemed disappointed, even as he nodded understandingly. "Some other time," he said.

Inga frowned slightly.

"Let's get going," she said firmly.

Talla nodded. Her eyes met Zhair'lo's. They embraced - fondly and briefly - and separated. They hadn't even had the chance to close the door so it was easy for Inga to shoo Talla out.

Passion was normal, especially after the first time, but Inga still felt odd about the way the two of them had acted. When they were a good distance from the house, keeping her voice as casual as she could, she spoke.

"The first of many," she said. "How was it?"

"Amazing," Talla replied in quiet awe.

"So you Served him and then ... wandered out for a walk?"

Talla hummed noncommittally in response.

Inga let the question hang in the air, forcing Talla to elucidate.

"I didn't know how much time had passed," she finally said. "Sorry."

"It's all right," Inga told her.

They walked a bit longer in silence.

"How come no one told me it would be like that?"

"Which part?"

"Meshing."

Inga smiled knowingly.

"Suppose, young lady," Inga replied, sounding very much like a teacher, "that I were a Virgin on my way out to cut my long skirt. How would you describe meshing to me?"

Talla actually stopped walking and fell behind two paces before Inga noticed. They turned to look at each other. After a moment, Talla eyes went thoughtfully downward. She made fists with both of her hands and held them in the air pointing at each other. Inga watched with amusement as the younger woman pushed her fists together, letting the second row of knuckles on each hand interlace with the other. She then squeezed her fingers tightly, locking the fists together, and meanwhile tried to pull them apart with her arms.

Inga raised an eyebrow, so Talla went on. She held her interlocked hands up at her eye level and looked through the curves of her fingers at Inga.

"It's like you're inside his head," Talla said as she wiggled one set of fingertips. Then she wiggled the other set, adding, "and he's inside yours."

Inga looked at those fingertips, representing, apparently, each person's perspective pointed back at him or herself, and frowned.

"Not quite," she said, "but that's the best explanation I've heard."

The two of them continued walking.

"That's why we don't bother trying to explain it", Inga added with an officious note of finality.

Which was odd, because Talla thought that she had explained it exactly right.

Zhair'lo pushed his bedroom shutters open.

The half moon was still up, lighting the path back toward the Temple. Off in the distance, he could see Talla and her friend walking away.

That had been something.

Three days ago, he hadn't even known what sex was, nor what it was to be Served. A woman in orange had patiently explained all of that in addition to his part in Talla's upgrade. He'd felt stupid but the woman had been kind. He couldn't have been the first stupid person she'd educated.

And then, this night, defying all expectation, Talla had come to him.

He suddenly realized that there was so much he should have asked. He should have asked about the ritual, about the pain she had felt, about the pain he had felt, about what was normal and what wasn't. Those questions were still in his head but he'd been so happy just to see her that he'd never thought to ask.

No, it was enough to have had this night with her. Talking about pain and rituals would have ruined it.

As the two women passed out of his sight, he turned away from the window without closing it. Let the cooling night air come in to his room for all he cared. As he stripped off for bed, he was momentarily disturbed to find Talla's little white underwear tucked in to his pants. 

Should he run after her? Probably not. He was tired and he hadn't liked the frown that woman had tossed his way. No point causing trouble. If Talla needed it back, she would have to come get it some other day.

He folded up the little piece of cloth in to a neat triangle and tucked it away at the back of his dresser. It would be safe there. 



Talla's Temple Ch. 08



"Should I feel different now?" Talla asked.

"Do you think you should?" Inga replied. 

Talking to Inga was so much like talking to a teacher. Did all older women end up like this when they talked to younger women, or was Inga chosen on purpose to accompany her? The orange-clad officer who had picked Inga seemed to have pulled her name at random.

"Well," Talla started. "I was, um-"

"Penetrated," Inga offered.

"Yes."

"By a penis."

"Yes."

"Hasn't happened before?"

"No." Obviously.

"Sounds different, then. But how do you feel?"

That required some thought. She liked that this conversation was taking place in the dark on their long trek back to the Temple. It let her think more clearly when she thought her face was less visible. How did she feel? True, the actual physical feeling inside her body was still there. It wasn't as if Zhair'lo were still inside her, but the purely physical sensation that she had been - opened - and stretched was still there. Gods how she wanted that again. And on top of that there was the whole fuzzy thing the Mesh had done to her brain.

"Different."

"But not in the way you expected?"

What had she expected? She hadn't known what sex was just a couple of weeks ago. She'd had so little time to think about it. And tonight she'd actually gone and done it. She'd sought out the man she wanted and ... gods, what were they talking about?

"I don't know what I expected," Talla said. "I can't remember what I thought it would be."

Inga smiled.

"You're a part of the Temple now," she said candidly. "You're one of us. You have a role in bringing the peace of the Goddess to the men -- all of the men -- of Gern."

All the men. Indeed, she'd be expected to do this over and over again with hundreds of different men. Every other woman in the Temple did the same thing. Everyone and everything was shared with everyone else.

"But, remember, you're still you," Inga went on. "You were Talla before and you're Talla now. Having sex doesn't change who you are inside."

That seemed sage advice. Talla nodded in agreement.

They were passing through Endowment's major gate. They waved casually at the guards and Talla turned for her apartment.

"Nuh-uh," Inga said. "This way."

Back to Endowment Hall?

"I'm pretty tired," Talla begged. "I was just going to go to sleep."

They'd heard the eleventh bell go off during their long walk back from the farm.

"Not on your first night," Inga declared firmly. "This way."

-----==================----

The meeting was coming to an end. The Sorceress of Abundance, seven of her Officers and her Second, Atreya, were gathered in a circle of chairs amid the pillars of Principia Abundance.

"Last one. Item 17 on the agenda," Atreya said, somewhat fatigued. "Zhair'lo M'han."

"Seal breaker," someone commented.

"He's ours, then?"

Proud murmurs at that thought.

"Until we test him," the Sorceress put in, quelling the sudden tide of possessiveness. "Pril, what do we have?"

"Across the Division, we have eleven sealed Virgins queued up, Mistress," a blond haired Officer responded. "One of them has already defeated three upgrade attempts."

Two failures wasn't all that unusual. Three was getting outlandish.

It took time to find the most powerful young men and you didn't dare put them through more than an upgrade every other day. The Temple meanwhile didn't like to have any woman taking more than an upgrade per month for simple reasons of safety. They pushed that limit for Virgins, on the theory that repeatedly pounding at a wall ought to break it down faster.

"Her name?"

"Nadine, Mistress. She awaits her first Point upgrade."

"Put her on the docket tomorrow night. Let Zhair'lo have a shot at her."

"Abundance?" a dark haired woman put in.

"Yes, Greta?"

"I looked it in to it earlier," Greta replied. "He won't be available tomorrow night."

"Why not?"

"Virgin's Choice, Mistress. He will be busy."

"Popularity," the Sorceress said with a sigh. "We tried to quell it."

Which was perfectly untrue. It was, however, the line she and her Queen had decided to take rather than shout to the rooftops the screw up that had actually happened. If everyone thought Zhair'lo was amazing, they weren't thinking that the Division of Endowment had nearly killed two people.

"Book her the following night, then."

"Mistress," Pril nodded politely as she noted it.

"That's the end of the agenda," Atreya said.

"Good," the Sorceress responded. "The new recruits should be finishing their Initiation soon. Let us attend."

-----==================----

The last time she had been in this room had been the night of her Initiation. Talla supposed that this night had been an initiation of its own. It was fitting, tired as she was, to return to Endowment Hall.

"There was an Initiation tonight," she observed aloud as they entered the packed common room. It was her room now, warm and welcome. It even felt like home after the long walk back from the farm.

Inga nodded. "Yep. Three or four more recruits."

What an odd thought. Three or four girls, clueless, befuddled and topless, would be stumbling in just as she had three days ago. They would feel the warm fire, watch the reflections bouncing off the bronze pieces of art on the walls and be overwhelmed both by the sheer size of the place and by the attention they received.

Talla was feeling nostalgic and let herself relax for a moment. She still had a picture in her head of herself, seen from Zhair'lo's eyes, straddling him ...

"This way," Inga said, leading her deeper in to the crowd. 

Placidly daydreaming, Talla followed Inga to a bar where the older woman ordered two drinks and handed one to Talla.

"Your first night," Inga toasted.

"My first night."

Glasses clinked together. Drinks were sipped. They found their way to a hip high table convenient for leaning. Inga nodded to a pair of women on the other side of the table. Acquaintances, perhaps? The two of them nodded back and came around to say hello.

Inga set her drink on the table and said, quite mysteriously, "Up!"

Talla didn't understand what that meant until Inga put one of her hands under Talla's arm. She tried to protest while also protecting her drink. Then she realized someone else had her other arm and a third woman was helping by lifting her at the waist. They planted her feet on the surface of the table before she could even get a word out.

With her mostly preserved drink in her right hand, only her left hand was free for a gesture of indignation. Her expression of resentment - fist on hip - was drowned out in drunken applause.

"Long skirt," someone heckled from the back of the room.

"Snip! Snip!" another shouted.

Ah. Another stupid tradition that no one had bothered to mention. It must become funny, later in life, to spring such things on younger women. The Temple managed to keep so many secrets.

The room broke in to a rhythmic three-beat foot stomping. 

Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.

"Hey-yah!" came a chorus of voices.

Thump-thump-thump.

"Hey-yah!"

From somewhere a pair of shears was handed forward until it reached Inga.

"Time to cut your skirt," she said to Talla over the din.

Talla hadn't thought to take the expression literally, but apparently that was how it was done. She didn't see any point in arguing and contented herself to rolling her eyes.

Inga held the shears up at about the height of Talla's knees and pinched the fabric of her skirt to begin cutting.

"Nyit!" came a shout from the back of the room.

The voice carried enough power in it that Inga stopped to turn and look. What she and Talla saw was enough to drain the colour from both of their faces as all of the foot-stomping and chanting ceased.

Walking toward them through the crowd was not just a group of Officers in their orange blouses, but Atreya, Second of Abundance and the Sorceress of Abundance.

It was the the last of these who had called out for Inga to stop. There was no arguing with a force that numerous and high ranking. Was this tradition somewhat outside of Protocol? Talla hoped that she wasn't in any trouble.

"Nyit te hana," the Sorceress clarified, holding up one finger.

She held up two fingers and said, "Ren hana."

Not one something, but two somethings? Talla's grasp of Temple language was not where she would have liked it to be. What was a 'hana'?

Inga relaxed, at least, and then grinned as she turned back to look Talla in the eyes.

"Yes, I forgot," she said as she tilted her head at Talla's chest.

The shears went higher then, almost to the level of Talla's crotch, and Inga began cutting the fabric away. It was about then that Talla remembered where her underwear was. It hadn't seemed particularly important until someone start slashing away at her skirt. She'd felt secretly daring. That was how she liked her daring -- secret. Ankle length had seemed so, so safe.

The stomping and chanting had started again.

Without any means of protest, she could only rotate her body so that Inga could slice away her Virgin's long skirt in to a mini-skirt.

The fabric fell to the table at her feet.

"Congratulations, Initiate," Inga said with a sly grin.

Initiate? That would require some explaining. If she wasn't a Virgin of the first rank, why wasn't she a keeper of the Fourth rank? She remembered what Abundance had said earlier, about not being able to skip ahead. Yet it was clearly she who gave the directive: not one, but two. For some reason Talla was getting the free promotion to Initiate.

The jovial crowd went back to its former state of ignoring her completely. Inga took hold of her hips -- hands to bare flesh under her mini-skirt -- to help her down to the floor.

"I seem to recall you saying that you were wearing underwear on your way out?" she asked.

"Um, yeah. I forgot them."

"Forgot them in his room - or outside somewhere?" she enquired further with a gentle tone.

Talla looked away.

"Listen," Inga said seriously. "I'm not going to rat on you. Just don't get caught doing it outside, all right?"

Talla looked up in to the older woman's eyes and nodded.

Inga the teacher was back again.

"It's like urinating in an open field," she explained to Talla firmly. "It's the sort of thing beasts do. We are better than beasts. Understand?"

Talla nodded.

"Good," Inga said. She took a deep breath and her expression brightened. "Let's finish our drinks over - "

A loud gong was struck, interrupting Inga in mid sentence. Talla recognized that sound from just three days before.

"New recruits," Inga observed. 

As deep as they were inside the giant hall, they couldn't see the entrance where the new girls would be standing, topless as Talla had been, wondering what was going to happen to them next.

A voice echoed off the ceiling, announcing names and Disciplines. Talla strained to hear but the only thing she was even halfway confident about hearing correctly was the name 'Eletta'.

-----==================----

Not enough sleep.

Not up to standard.

Sex took a lot more out of him than masturbating ever had.

Nevertheless, Zhair'lo was up at the crack of dawn to wolf down a serious breakfast. It was a man's hunger he felt, not a boy's. Was that the sex or the labour?

"Tired, huh?" one of the older farm hands, a man named Kurran, mocked him in a kind fashion.

He could feel colour rising in his cheeks.

"Yeah."

"Ah, Zhai-Zhai," Kurran said as he mussed up Zhair'lo's hair. "There'll be more of those nights."

Zhair'lo sincerely hoped so. He felt like he'd been stunned by the whole experience. He was worried he might have missed something in doing it so quickly -- or maybe in lying there staring at the sky for so long. He would have liked to do it again. When could he see Talla again?

"Do they come often?" he asked.

"Depends," Kurran said as he cleared the table. "When you're young, they come more often than when you're old. If you do your job, they definitely come more often. If you get lazy -- well, they don't come so much."

He tried to remember how often women had come by night to visit the blacksmith but found his memory quite fuzzy. He still hadn't quite summoned his wits about him. 

Was hard work the requirement? He determined then and there to work quite hard. That meant getting out to the stables.

-----==================----

Talla, on the other hand, felt quite energetic. 

She stepped out as early as she could. She really didn't want to be quizzed by Lara and Salee. She had no idea how to tell them what had happened -- or even what parts she wanted to share.

After picking up a light breakfast at the closest cafeteria, she went to Endowment Hall to get her assignment. Kara had drilled that in to them during their orientation. If a woman didn't have daytime work or her term expired, she was to go to Endowment Hall -- not the Offices -- for a new assignment. Visits to the Offices were for night time assignments only.

The morning sun had already evaporated the dew off the grass by the time she got there. It was going to be a hot day. The cool shade of the Hall was a welcome relief.

"I'm here for an assignment," Talla told the Acolyte behind the desk.

"Name?"

"Talla."

The woman searched through a stack of files.

"Initiate Talla?"

No question about it; they kept things up to date.

"Yes."

"Nursery," the woman said curtly as she handed Talla a card with a date on it. "Four weeks."

What in the names of the gods was a 'nursery'?

"Um, Mistress?"

"Yes?" the woman replied impatiently.

"Where would that be, Mistress?"

"Goddess's Triangle. Right across from the entrance to Sweetness. Can't miss it."

"Thank you, Mistress."

The Acolyte waved her away so she could serve the next woman in line.

-----==================----

Across the hall, side by side, a woman in blue and another in orange watched Talla walk away.

"Initiate, then?" Shanata casually asked Atreya.

"We discussed it at length," Atreya replied.

Shanata hadn't failed to notice the red streak across the flesh of her senior's chest. The crossing pieces of fabric of which her blouse was comprised covered her breastbone as long as she wasn't moving, but observant eyes could catch sight of the scar as her clothing shifted. As a consequence, Shanata didn't buy the 'Zhair'lo as hero' theory that was going around. 

Atreya had been punished. That told the true story. It had been a screw up. Of that Shanata had no question. But was shoving Talla up to Initiate more of the same face saving nonsense?

"Upgrades come from the gods," Atreya said, stating one of the axioms of the Temple. "Whatever else we accept about that night, we must accept that."

Was it Shanata's imagination, or had Atreya made a subconscious gesture at her chest? Indeed. What had the woman in blue 'accepted' for her part in that debacle?

"We can not be permitted to question this any more than we could question a woman's choice of Discpline," the Second finished firmly.

"Indeed, Mistress."

"But a rank is not achieved merely with in-Discipline upgrades."

Ah!

"So she needs the rest of the upgrades that go with her ranks?"

"That was our decision, yes," Atreya said.

"But an Initiate of Abundance gets at least one upgrade in Point or Strength. So why is she an Initiate?"

"I agree," Atreya said. "But the long standing tradition has been that rank -- and clothing -- change when the in-Discipline upgrade is transferred."

"So she achieves second rank -- Initiate - because she has two upgrades in Abundance, but - "

"But she's not a Neophyte because she doesn't yet have the other upgrades of an Initiate."

Shanata shook her head in confusion. That meant that when Talla got her Initiate's upgrade -- in Point or Strength - the fact that she already had her next upgrade in Abundance would make her a Neophyte?

"This sounds like one of those arcane rulings we get out of the Judges in Form," she told her superior.

"I won't disagree," Atreya said. "But I defy you to come up with something better."

Shanata let out a breath in resignation before shrugging her shoulders and turning back to the drawings laid out before them.

-----==================----

"We don't need you here," a woman explained to Talla when she arrived at the nursery.

There were pregnant women there. She'd been told about pregnancy, about how babies were made and how they came out. Within the Temple, she'd seen a few mildly pregnant women. But she'd never seen women so heavy with child -- and so many of them in one place.

And there were children. Really, really tiny children. Talla ogled. These little ones were absolutely helpless. They couldn't even walk.

"Never seen a baby before, I take it?" the woman asked.

"No, Mistress," Talla replied as she stared. She wasn't even sure of the woman's rank. Her clothing was orange but unconventionally practical. It was always safe to add the honorific.

"Well, there you go," she said with a wave of her hand. "Now you've seen a baby."

So tiny. Talla took a few steps to look at one sleeping in a small basket.

"That little boy is ten days old."

Talla touched his cheek with her fingertip.

"What is his name?"

"S'tek", the woman replied. She seemed faintly amused at Talla's reaction to the baby.

Some day they would expect her to produce children. It was every woman's duty. Some day something like this would come from her.

"Like I said," the woman continued, "we don't need you here. You were supposed to be assigned to Dorm 3 up the hill."

The children's dormitory. That was a relief. The prospect of caring for a baby frightened her. She wasn't ready for that.

"Here, give me your card," the woman said. She scribbled something on the card. "Just tell them Shar said you could pass and they'll let you through Sweetness, all right? Now hurry up. You're needed over there."

"Yes, Mistress."

She had been assigned incorrectly. It was the first sign of disorganization she had ever seen.

-----==================----

Zhair'lo was taking a break from pitching hay when the messengers came. The days had been getting hotter. It was getting close to the height of mid summer. Soon the Temple would start sounding the heat bell in the afternoon. An hour in the shade would be a relief. For now, he and Kurran took breaks to rehydrate themselves whenever they needed it.

It was while they were standing next to the well that the messengers arrived.

"Message for Zhair'lo M'han", one of them said.

He had never seen these two girls before. They were both wearing bikini tops and the shortest version of the white skirt. And they were slim, like Talla had been before her upgrade.

Zhair'lo was keenly aware of the fact that he was standing almost exactly where Talla had tackled him.

He was also aware, as he had never been before, how physically close he was to having sex. Two pieces of clothing. Hell, one piece of clothing. There was no real need to remove the skirt. She could sit on the edge of the well and he could just -

"Thank you, young ladies," Kurran said wisely.

"You've been Summoned before?" one of them asked Zhair'lo.

"Ye-yes," he stammered, trying to look her in the eyes and speak properly. He was out of breath for some reason.

"Good," she said. "Then I needn't remind you to be on time."

With which insult both girls turned and jogged away. Zhair'lo remained standing there, staring at their retreating forms for some time. Their legs were so lean and muscular ...

There was mirth in Kurran's voice when he spoke. "Changes things, dunnit?"

Zhair'lo nodded.

"I never realized -- that -- I just - it's right there," he pointed at the retreating girls. "The whole time, it's been right there and ..."




Talla's Temple Ch. 08



There was an image, burned in to his eyes just last night in this very location: Talla, straddling him; her head was thrown back; her chest thrust out; her flesh glowing blue for no apparent reason ...

"Yeah, exactly," Kurran agreed knowingly as the two of them watched the girls jog around a corner and out of sight. "First un's always a shock."

He poked Zhair'lo in his nearest kidney with the scroll.

"You gonna open this?"

"Yeah, yeah."

It was much like the one they had brought him a few days ago. The green seal broke away just as easily and he unrolled it.

Like the first scroll, it listed a date and a time -- they were giving a whole day of advance notice this time -- and his name. The rest of the parchment was more of that maddeningly elusive Temple Script.

Kurran tapped the last word of curving script on the bottom of the parchment.

"Upgrade," he said.

Zhair'lo's heart skipped a beat. They wanted him to do another one? After what had happened with Talla? That didn't seem like a brilliant idea. Three days ago he hadn't a clue or a care about things like this. Then he had met Talla and ejaculated on her. If someone had told him then about the Rite of Upgrade, he'd have been ecstatic about participating. What boy his age wouldn't be?

But he'd felt his body burning and he'd seen Talla screaming in pain.

There was a grain of something like fear in him. It was somewhere between performance anxiety and sheer cowardice. There was a sharp desire to shirk this duty.

But he couldn't do that. The dorm mothers had drilled it in to him until the age of six. Then the Preceptors had joined in the drilling until the day he was ready for apprenticeship.

A man does his duty. Period.

Do your work. Serve the Temple. Rewards will come.

Even Harzen had been clear on that the day the first message had arrived. A "Summons" from the Temple wasn't a request. It was a work order just like any other. He had to do as he was told. Anything else was unforgivable. There was no question on this matter.

He just wasn't sure he would be able.

-----==================----

Cutting through Sweetness had saved a lot of time, especially given the way that particular Triangle had been laid out. It was nothing like the circuitous alleys of Endowment. Sweetness had direct lines between the gate through which Talla entered Sweetness and the two gates by which Sweetness devotees could leave the Temple. In fact there was a partially disassembled wall along both of the routes that was made of the oldest, most worn stones Talla had ever seen. 

Workmen had been taking stones off that wall, presumably to be reshaped and used elsewhere. There was a lot of stone to harvest: that half dissected wall was thicker than any interior wall she had seen anywhere in the Temple.

The important thing was that the straight road had made her passage brief. Dormitory three was just up the hill from the gate. Children, then. That was better than babies.

She was still a bit shaken when she arrived. Dormitory three, it turned out, housed children of ages six through twelve, with the genders mixed together. There were fields up above the city where the children could play games for exercise. They also received en masse instruction from teachers. Many of the lessons were shared between the genders, but the girls were more focused on mathematics and literacy while the boys were developing their motor skills.

Teaching wasn't Talla's job, which was fine by her. It seemed that the actual teaching part was reserved for the senior devotees of Sweetness. The rest of the girls and women on hand were given the less glorious tasks. Her assignment was food preparation and clean up. This wasn't just a school, after all, it was a place where half a thousand children lived. They played, learned, ate and slept here. As efficient as it could be made, it still required staff, even after dark. A select few women took it in rotations to stay behind and watch over the children through the night.

They had just finished serving lunch when someone called out to her.

"Talla?"

She turned to see a girl she had met when she arrived.

"M'lis," she said.

"I'm heading back to the Offices," she said. "Do you want me to check assignments for you?"

Busy as they were feeding and cleaning up after five hundred kids, there wasn't necessarily time for everyone to run back to the Temple to see who had what night time duties. M'lis was a Neophyte in Point, which made her the highest ranked Endowment woman on hand. She took it as her responsibility to make the run for everyone else.

"Sure, thanks," Talla replied.

"No trouble."

And she was off. Talla returned to her labour.

-----==================----

Kurran had explained to him, quite clearly, how things worked. A man never quite knew, on any particular night, if he would be Served. The general rule was that the women went out from the Temple at seventh bell. They weren't particularly punctual, though, so if you were in town you waited until about half past. Out in the farms, the mines and down the river, you waited a bit longer -- maybe until eighth bell.

If no one showed up for you, you went about whatever you felt like doing. Mostly that meant the sorts of peg and dice games that you played as a boy.

It was considered extremely inappropriate for a man to fail to be present when a woman came to Serve him. Sanctions were implied but never stated. 

"Sometimes they'll warn ya 'bout 'the extreme displeasure of the Temple'," Kurran had said, quoting something he had heard long before. "They might as well just say 'or else ...' for all that could mean."

So he sat with the other men in the common room that night, his heart pounding one instant, cold chills running through him the next. He tried to be coy about it, tried not let on, but the other men weren't stupid. They could see how poorly he played.

"Oughtn'ta put your queen there," Tilgan remarked as he slipped a minor piece in next to it, trapping it.

Zhair'lo nodded in agreement. It had been a stupid move.

The seventh bell had rung long ago. Would the eighth bell ring soon? That's when Talla had shown up the night before. Anything to end the waiting. How did the other men tolerate it? How could they sit here, wondering every night whether someone would come for them? He couldn't pay attention to anything else and all the while everyone around him was complacent.

They took their turns in the game, going around the table. He might be able to salvage something if he gave up on his threatened queen and protected the other queen. Keep it close to the goddess, but not too close ...

"Do the same women sometimes come back?" he asked, pretending it to be an idle question.

This was amusing for some reason. A knowing laugh went through the other players.

"Can't get her outta your head?" Tilgan laughed.

Zhair'lo made a noncommittal humming noise and hid his embarrassment by furrowing his brow in pretended concentration.

"Not right away," Kurran said. He smiled, too, but his tone wasn't as cruel as the others. "You'll eventually make it back around to her, though. There are only so many your age."

That was a thought. How big was the town? If his sexual partners were limited by age, how many were there in his age group? Would he have sex with all of them?

Daunting, that was. More so than the impending upgrade.

He just wanted Talla to come back, but that seemed out of the question. He let out a disappointed sigh. He might have sex with hundreds of other girls before she ever came around to him.

And just when he had stopped thinking about the coming of the eighth bell and all the unpredictability it implied, the large, exterior door swung open. Zhair'lo's heart stopped and all the air left his lungs. His gaze and attention were locked on that door.

-----==================----

The card that M'lis had picked up for her had had only two words on it: "History, Shanata." Below those words was the symbol that the Temple used for Endowment Hall.

Night time assignments were supposed to be sexual. What was "History", as she understood the word, doing on such a card?

She would find out soon enough. She had made sure to be in the common room at seventh bell, when women traditionally left for their Service in town. It was only a few minutes before she spotted Shanata, the unmistakeably striking figure of her former -- and continuing? - teacher striding towards her.

"Talla," the older woman addressed her.

"Mistress," she replied with a polite bow.

"Time for a lesson, then," Shanata said sternly.

Talla's eyes went to Shanata's waistband. This elicited a laugh from her superior.

"No," she said softly as she waved a hand to indicate where they should walk. "No whip. I'm going to assume you'll pay attention."

"Yes, Mistress," she replied. "Pay attention to what?"

"Virgin's History," Shanata replied. "This happens on the rare occasion of a double upgrade. Women end up missing the group lessons they should have taken because they skipped a rank. Someone has to fill them in."

"So I won't attend classes?"

From the age of six to twelve, she had taken a lot of schooling -- the sorts of things they didn't bother teaching boys. She could name the last fifty Goddesses without even thinking and do mathematics and all sorts of things. But history? History was a monotonous list of names and dates. History was memorization. History was a pointless chore.

History was boring.

"No," Shanata confirmed. "We don't believe in mixing ranks in classes. You shouldn't have that mini-skirt if you're in a Virgin class. My job is to catch you up."

Talla nodded.

She found herself in a small study off the side of the common room. What possible purpose it could serve besides this one, she had no idea.

"Sit," Shanata said and the two of them took chairs on opposite sides of a small table with a thick book on it.

"What do you know of the time before the Temple?" Shanata asked.

"Before?"

"How long has this Temple stood?"

"Since the year one hundred twenty two," Talla replied, knowing this off by heart. "It's been eight hundred sixty three years."

"Good," Shanata said. "What happened at year zero?"

"That's when the gods came," Talla said, still quoting school lessons, "and brought us peace and made the first Goddess."

"Good," Shanata said again. "What was it like before that?"

Talla stopped a moment. Her eyes scanned around the room as she searched her memory for an answer. What lesson had ever covered that? History started at year zero. The gods had arrived, created the first Goddess, sanctified the first Temple. They had brought peace to the people of the world. What had come before? A time of without peace, she supposed.

"I, uh -- I don't know."

"That's because no one told you," Shanata confirmed

This stunned her. There was a whole history hiding in the place before the history she had been taught? Why hadn't she ever thought about it before?

"It is important, as a servant of this Temple, that you understand the importance of your Service," Shanata said. "As such, you must understand what it would be like without your Service."

Talla nodded.

"We can not pretend that our pre-Temple records are perfect," Shanata said. "It was a hard time, protecting that first Temple. The women of nine centuries ago were rarely literate and the peace the gods brought through the Goddess was only so powerful. There was fighting. A lot of it. And that made record keeping difficult."

"We do know that the violence and cruelty that plagued mankind nearly destroyed us. At one time, we had such a penchant for killing each other that we were barely surviving. Those who wanted peace were killed. No one was safe."

It was hard to imagine such a time. The solid walls of Endowment Hall were around her. Beyond those, the thicker outer walls of the Temple were better protection. When had anyone ever attacked a Temple? When had anyone ever attacked anyone at all? She knew the word "fighting" but it was something children did with each other and were subsequently punished.

"Your thoughts?"

Talla stammered a moment.

"Why was this allowed?" she demanded in horror. "Why would women do that to each other? Why wouldn't they stick together?"

"Women weren't in charge, Talla," Shanata said, her eyes cold and dark. "Men were."

That sent a shock through her that left her eyes wide and her mouth open.

"Men?"

"Men ruled over women once," Shanata explained. "They called their women 'wives' and treated them like property. They forced child after child from them. Then they went off to fight and left their illiterate women behind to fend for themselves."

Their picture of history wasn't perfect. Shanata acknowledged that. But what was unfolded to Talla was stark and frightening. A woman of those times had no one upon which she could rely. She was barely regarded as a person. It was no wonder that the world was in a shambles, if that was the case. What would men do, without women to guide them, to keep peace and to organize what needed doing?

-----==================----

Zhair'lo watched as a tall, slim woman stepped in to the room while unseen others continued to push the door open. That first woman wore a skimpy orange outfit embroidered with gold flower patterns. More women came in, filling the foyer, wearing various unusual yellow costumes. Some were showing a lot of hip. Others displayed cleavage. All had soft, eager looks on their faces.

Could any of these be for him? There were all older. Not by much, but still older. It felt a bit intimidating. There were at least a dozen of them now, gathered at the entrance, posing provocatively. Provocatively? Well, really, they were just standing there. It was more what they meant that was provocative. Zhair'lo saw a sea of yellow clothing, with just two women now in orange. The predominant colour, regardless, was that of flesh in all its pinks, browns and tanned bronzes.

Zhair'lo simply stared, stupefied. Here was so much possibility in front of him -- of a kind he hadn't known existed a day ago. The thought of rotating through hundreds of such women -- not these ones, of course, but others his age -- set his mind spinning.

It also made him nervous. Would one of these imposing women come to him? Surely not. His mind split in two as he tried to decide what he wished for. He hoped none of them were for him. He also hoped that one of them would drag him up to his room. It was just the sort of heart-pounding, cold-chill feeling he'd been having all night, multiplied a hundred times now by the sense of immediacy. Talla had caught him by surprise, the night before, conjured out of the night air from beyond his dreams. He hadn't had time to be anxious.

At last they were all in the house. There had to be enough of them to Serve at least half of the farm hands. Some of the men turned around to look. Others, oddly enough, ignored the women. Were they so certain that no one was coming for them? Or were they just excessively casual about it?

The ones in yellow waited calmly while the two in orange, foremost in the group, glanced at each other. One made an invitational wave of her hand towards the other, who then spoke.

"Master Harzen", she said. "I come for you."

It was one of the sweetest voices Zhair'lo had ever heard. It entranced him for a moment with it's softness. For a moment, his anxiety was gone.

By the time he was paying attention again, Harzen had come out of his study in the back of the common room to meet the woman who had called his name. He jovially took her by the hand and the two disappeared up one of the stairways.

"Kurran", the second woman in orange called out.

"Guess we'll finish the game tomorrow", Kurran said with a smirk as he rose from the table.

They went on like that, calling out names and pairing off. The women in yellow were less formal, calling out for their men before the previous couples had even cleared the room.

Zhair'lo's heart continued to beat in his throat as the crowd dwindled and those at the back came in to view. Men came from other rooms, from the kitchen and from upstairs as their names were called.

As one of the yellow clad women stepped aside, he caught a glimpse of a small girl, dressed in a long white skirt. He swallowed nervously. Was there anyone else at the farm as young as he was? As young as this girl?

He couldn't see her face until another woman stepped out of the way. The young girl's eyes came in to view as she peeked around the shoulder of one of her fellows. Her eyes searched around the room and locked on to his.

Natta.

No question, then, that she was here for him. Her eyes told that story, even if her age hadn't made it abundantly clear. Zhair'lo gulped, unable to tear his eyes away from her. For her part, she pulled off a stunned smile.

Oh, gods. Oh, gods.

One of the women in yellow -- actually, the last woman in yellow. Where had they all gone? - nudged Natta with her elbow.

Shaken out the mutual reverie, Natta spoke quite suddenly. 

"Zhair'lo," she said, as if it weren't obvious.

It only seemed like all the men left in the room were staring at him. He supposed it could be worse. They could have made her call him first and he would have had to walk across the room in front of everyone. At least this way half of the room had cleared.

He rose, only a little unsteady, and carefully circumnavigated the game board.

"Not my night, I guess," Tilgan said with a dramatic sigh. "Take it easy, kid."

It was a kind enough remark. Zhair'lo relaxed a little as the older man turned his back to the door and put his feet up on the table next to the game board. There was only Natta now, waiting for him with her left hand extended.

"Hi," he said as he took her hand.

"Hi," she said, keeping things simple on her side, too. Her hand was small and soft. It felt strange and foreign in his grasp. Her eyes glowing, she squeezed his hand tightly.

"Um, where ...?" she asked.

"Oh, uh, up here," he said, nodding to the stairway on his right.

As she was unwilling to release his hand, he had to lead her up stairs. It felt so odd, bringing a girl up these stairs. He had lived among men for so many years that having a female inside his place struck him as ill-fitting. But that only added to the trembling in his chest.

They reached his door. He turned to face her to tell her so, and found her lips upon his. It wasn't what he expected; wasn't like Talla. It was different, and that was it's own kind of thrilling. He might have wondered if every one would be different, but his mind was far from wondering. His thoughts, the bare minimum of brain that he still had, was busy contemplating the warm, thin body pressed up against his. He was busy feeling the way she kissed, the way it was different, the way her tongue felt as it darted so quickly across his lips.

She pulled away, panting, her eyes unfocused as she blearily looked up in to his eyes. There was a smile on her lips.

He took a breath, wondering if he ought to speak.

"Whoa," was the only word he could muster. More of an exhalation than a real attempt at communication.

She looked down at his chest, seeming a bit flush and embarrassed.

"That's just how I say hello," she replied.

He pushed his bedroom door open and ushered her in to the tiny cube that was his private space. It was grey and drab in the waning twilight. He could fix that.

There was an unlit candle on the dresser. As he'd done every night he'd lived here, he took the candle and lit it from a wall torch in the hallway. The candle changed the room from cold blues and greys to warm, flickering oranges. That was better. It was the also limit of his willpower.

Natta was waiting for him, leaning against his bed, candlelight dancing in her eyes. It was a small room. She was only a step away. When he approached, she stood up to meet him. He wrapped his arms around her tiny waist. Her hands went in to his hair to pull his head closer. They were kissing again, just like before. She liked to use her tongue. If that was what people did, then he could do it, too.




Talla's Temple Ch. 08



It felt wonderful. It washed away the worry about the coming day and what was expected of him tomorrow night.

There weren't any thoughts for a while, two minds having been drowned in the blindness of youthful lust. She was tugging at his shirt, trying to make enough space between them to undo the ties at the front.

"Get this off. Get this off," she was whispering between gasps. "I've wanted this so badly ..."

So badly? They'd barely met. The brief conversation they'd had over breakfast hadn't seemed that significant. But then, what had he shared with Talla? How many words had he spoken to her? Thinking about that in the brief moment while she stripped away his shirt, he realized that more words had passed between Natta and him than he'd had with Talla.

Her top was easy. It was a rectangular band of cloth wrapped around her chest. She raised her arms above her head, her slim body stretched out in invitation. He slipped her top off over her head to reveal her thin chest and tiny, pink nipples.

The embrace came easily, naked chests and beating hearts crushed together. In privacy, his anxiety was gone. This was what he wanted. He could admit that now. There was nothing to fear. It wasn't going to be like it was with Talla. It could never be like the first time again. But he had a body, and he was young and healthy. And there was a girl, as healthy as he was. That was all that he could ask for.

He knew where the tie on her skirt was. It was identical to the one he'd untied the night before. There was no protest. She pulled her hips back just far enough to let the skirt drop to the floor. 

His hands went to her waist, looking for that last piece of clothing. It wasn't there. She was completely naked. That was thrilling enough to stun him a moment. It was a moment she put to good use, fiddling with the strings that held his pants together.

Zhair'lo's pants hit the floor. Natta fell backwards on the bed, pulling him after her, and wrapped her legs around his back.

"Put it in. Put it in. Put it in," she urged with a desperate whisper.

He would be on top, then? 

It occurred to him that Natta had been thinking about him far more than he had thought about her. He had already had his first night. This night was Natta's. He felt he owed her to do it right, but it wasn't the same.

That didn't matter, though. There was a privacy. There was a naked girl. His body was responding, shutting down his reasoning. It was primal and it was wonderful. What would it be like to mesh this time around? He didn't want to miss it, didn't want to speed through it like he had with Talla. He wouldn't be so panicked.

He set the tip of his erection against her, just barely pushing her lips open.

"Slowly," she warned -- begged, really - her eyes wide with anxiety.

He remembered, very vividly, how much it had hurt when, together, he and Talla had forced her body down on his manhood, impaling her far too quickly. He remembered it from the inside, having felt his own exhilaration and her pain simultaneously when they meshed. He would not do that to Natta if he could avoid it. If nothing else, meshing had taught him to be gentle.

Ever so slowly, wanting to savour the moment of penetration, the moment when he would be inside her body and inside her mind, he pushed forward. Moist warmth enveloped him. He felt it starting. He began to get a sense of her arousal, already matching his. He could feel her anticipation, bubbling up inside his stomach. He could sense her anxiety. 

It was as if she were singing a song and he were following along, trying to match her tones. He could feel the two notes coming together. It was peaceful, that pairing.

But that's all it was. He wasn't inside her head. She wasn't inside his. It was a blurring, lustful sensation, confusing their separate states of arousal in to one. It was powerful and tranquil at the same time. But it wasn't the same.

"Imagine," he would later tell Plin, "that we had all decided to go for a run. Then, as you got ready to really sprint across the field, you found that everyone else really just meant to go for a slow jog. That's how it felt."

He was all the way in. There was no going any further. Natta had locked her legs around his back, holding him in place, while her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Just hold it there," she breathed in his ear. It was a plea.

Yes, it had to be stretching her out. It probably hurt a bit. He didn't know how much though. All he could feel was her desire; her arousal. Whatever pain there was, it obviously wasn't enough to get in the way of that.

She pulled her body away a little and turned her head to look down between their sweat-tacked bodies. Looking up at him through her eyelashes, she smiled just slightly and ... squeezed.

He gasped as a ring of muscles tightened around the base of his shaft.

"Wha -?"

"Within," she said. "It's what we do."

And she did it again.

She didn't move her hips. She didn't twist or grind. She just squeezed.

It was fantastic. He didn't even have to move. He just kept himself buried inside her as deeply as he could, pushing up against her pelvis with all his might.

"Come with me," she begged.

This wasn't going to take any longer than it had with Talla. He might have wanted to take his time and enjoy it a little more, but Natta had no such compunction. She was in as mad a rush as he had been the night before.

She started a new motion, squeezing his erection and then pulling her hips away from him, letting the tight ring of muscle at her entrance ride a short distance up his shaft.

That was about all either of them could take.

She could feel it and he knew that she could feel it. Together, they were reaching the limit of their willpower. The difference was that she was trying to force it forward and he was trying to hold it back.

She won.

His wits were about him with time. Instead of being blinded by whatever had struck last night, he felt the actual physical sensation of the orgasm taking over his body, forcing his erection to twitch inside her; launching his fluids in to her belly. Once it started, he went with it, pushing as hard as he could with each ejaculation.

Natta, on the other hand, was overcome. Her mouth and eyes locked wide open in what appeared to be a panic induced seizure. Her fingernails dug in to his back. It was only that shock had driven the air from her lungs that kept her from screaming.

Her vagina had seized around his shaft, keeping it locked in place as it fired volley after volley in to her.

Lack of oxygen eventually caused her to collapse, relenting from every grip she had on him as she gasped for breath, nearly losing consciousness. Exhausted, Zhair'lo fell to the bed beside her.

-----==================----

"The gods saw what we were doing to ourselves," Shanata explained. "So they intervened. They gave us a way to make the men peaceful."

She was still horrified by how bad it had been. They had spent the last hour reading some of the stories from the history book on the table between them. The very idea that people -- even children -- could be left to starve because some man had died was bad enough. But the men who lived often sold their girl children to other men, either to seal some temporary peace or in exchange for goods. Imagine! Exchanging people for food or livestock!

"The Goddess keeps them peaceful?"

"Through us, Talla. Through us," Shanata said sternly. "The peace comes from the Goddess to you. When you Serve men, you bring that peace to them."

That sent a shiver through her. Such a tenuous thread! No wonder things were so well organized. The Temple had to be sure that every man was Served in turn.

"We keep the men peaceful by having sex with them?"

Shanata nodded.

"That's how the power of the Goddess acts."

-----==================----

"Yeah," Natta whispered. "Yeah."

Zhair'lo propped himself up on his elbow and took a moment to wipe sweat from his brow. Natta was too limp to move and merely turned her eyes to meet his.

"Meshed," she said and closed her eyes with a contented sigh.

He supposed that that was true. He had felt a sort of merging -- and they had come at the same time.

"Meshed," he agreed.

Her eyes popped open.

"I didn't know what to expect," she said. "They don't tell us much. I guess you knew, though."

He nodded. What could he tell her? That it wasn't like the night before? He wanted that again. He wanted to be able to feel her body from the inside

"It was surprising," he said, hoping that was appropriate.

She was lost in a post-orgasmic world of her own.

"I've wanted you since that morning." she said, gazing happily in to his eyes. "What you did was so amazing ..."

Was this a good time to ask questions? She seemed pliable, in her current state. Given how long it would be until he could see Talla, it might be his only chance for weeks or even months.

"What did I do?" 

"You gave her four upgrades. Didn't you know?"

Four upgrades. Talla's breasts had looked pretty large, but he hadn't had anything to measure against. What did one upgrade look like?

"I saw her ti- I saw her breasts," he said, correcting his language. "I just didn't know."

Natta rolled her eyes and turned on her side to face him.

"What you did was amazing," she explained. "No one's ever done four upgrades all at once before."

How to broach the subject? What had Natta heard?

"How big were her tits?" Natta asked.

He was surprised to hear her talk in slang like that. But he was more surprised by what that statement implied.

"You haven't seen her?"

"No," Natta admitted. "I just heard about it."

It. The upgrade. Not 'her', Talla. Natta had rumours, not facts.

"In fact, I haven't seen her since our Initiation. That was a big surprise."

"What was?"

"When she chose Abundance over Lips or Pussy," Natta explained.

Abundance was Talla's Discipline. He also had heard of Point and Within. Now there were Lips and Pussy to add to his mental files.

"It was an odd choice?"

"Uh, yeah," Natta said, as if it were obvious. It was as if she thought she were speaking to another female. "She came in second in the Rite and took the fourth best choice."

"Any idea why?"

Natta shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply in contentment.

"Did your upgrade hurt?" he asked.

"It did -- a bit," Natta told him as she took a long, cleansing breath. "I had a guy come on my pussy and I had to push it up inside."

"Was it hot?"

"Yeah. And it makes everything kind of tense."

So some pain was normal. He thought about that a moment.

"So how big were they?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Her tits?"

"Oh, uh," he stammered, still astounded that she used the word. 

Still on his side, he held his free hand over her bare, flat chest with the fingers splayed out like an upside down cup.

"A bit more than a handful."

"Wow," she said breezily. "I've seen a couple of women -- in the baths and stuff -- with one or two upgrades. That's way smaller than that. Maybe I'll get mine done someday, if I'm lucky. But it'll be a couple of years."

"Years?"

"Yeah. Not my Division. I have to reach fourth rank before I can do anything outside the triangle."

She used her thumb and fingers to make a small shape over her pelvis so he knew exactly what 'triangle' she meant. 

In his current sexually content state, he wanted information more than anything. And Natta seemed to be in a mood to give it away free. He'd be a damned fool not to take advantage.

"Your Division?"

"Sweetness," she volunteered, still apparently in a daze. She stretched one leg up in the air and then pulled her knee up to her chest. "I'm in Within. It's the most important Discipline. You just felt what my muscles can do and I only have one upgrade."

He looked down at her crotch. Apparently, she was going to explain some things to him.

"Then there's Lips," she continued as she opened herself to expose the slightest bit of pink flesh. "They work on all of this -" she caressed her lips "- and on this little thing right here." She stroked her tiny clitoris with her finger.

"And there's Pussy," she said, still stroking herself and looking at him through glazed eyes. "That's the hair on the outside. I don't have any yet."

She was still stroking herself.

"I need you inside me again," she begged.

"Um ..."

He wasn't near ready yet. She looked down and noticed.

"Hm," she murmured. "I heard about this trick, but it only works for older women -- with lots of upgrades."

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and pushed two of her fingers in to her vagina. He watched, visually interested if not quite physically aroused, as she worked them around in a circle. Then she took them out and rubbed them gently against his flaccid penis.

"Anything?"

"A little," he said. "I think it was just from watching you."

Was that insulting? To tell her she wasn't good enough to make this trick of hers work?

"Oh yeah?"

He nodded.

She closed her eyes.

"Was it the part where I rubbed myself like this?" she asked as she stroked her lips. "Or was it the part where I went - " she gasped as she penetrated herself too quickly " - inside?"

No question that watching her play with herself was a turn on.

"You wanna do it?" she asked as she gently poked herself.

"Which part?"

"Either," she said. "I don't care."

He wasn't sure he could competently penetrate her with his fingers, so he settled his fingertips between her bald lips and gently stroked the hard little nub that had seemed to bring her such pleasure. She continued to penetrate herself with two fingers while he worked the outside.

She moaned and rolled on her back. That gave her the benefit of being able to thrust her hips in to the air as he pushed down in to her crotch.

"Whatever you do," she gasped, "just don't stop."

He nodded and tried to maintain a rhythm. That seemed to be the right thing to do.

"Faster," she begged. "Faster."

Her hips were bucking spasmodically in to the air as her fingers strove to get deeper inside. But they were only so long -- and she'd just had a considerably erect boy inside her. The fingers could never satisfy for depth, only for width if she forced them apart.

"Oh, gods. Oh, gods. Oh, gods!"

She had air in her lungs this time. Her hips locked at their highest point, making a bridge out of her body. Zhair'lo, for his part, continued manipulating her as quickly as he could, even as his fingers were aching. She let out a scream. A bit of panic went through him then. Would someone think that he was hurting her? How thick were the walls? He couldn't remember ever hearing other women scream like that.

He also felt an odd kind of disconnection. He had just watched an orgasm without participating. Had Talla felt like this, when she'd made him come? It was so odd to see someone in the throes of such passion while not feeling it himself.

Natta collapsed for the second time.

"Awesome," she murmured appreciatively. "Now what about you?"

He was building up an erection, but it wasn't quite there yet. She traced a gentle line with her finger, from under his testicles up along the length of his penis.

"Just lie on your back," she said. "I'll see what I can do."

She gave him a gentle push to enforce her instruction and slid down the bed until her head was level with his crotch.

"I've never done this before," she said, somewhat adventurously, and began to lick.

She used her tongue widely, generously covering him with saliva. It wasn't done with nearly the skill that Ella and Renia had used -- especially Ella, he remembered that well enough -- but it turned out that it didn't particularly matter. A tongue and a penis went together terrifically well with even the tiniest bit of skill. He supposed that it was her enthusiasm more than anything else.

"I think the good spot is right here," she said as she pulled his foreskin back and tickled the underside of his penis with the tip of her tongue.

He gasped.

"I was right," she confirmed triumphantly.

She continued to to tickle the same spot for a bit before taking the head of his penis in to her mouth and swirling her tongue around. She came off with a pop.

"I think you're ready now," she said with a smile. "I'll be on top this time, like I'm supposed to be."

"Supposed to be?"

"They tell us," she volunteered, "that we should be on top the first time. So you don't shove it in too fast."

He supposed that there really weren't any rules, just assumptions. He had only had sex once before and that was all he knew -- besides the rather brusque tutorial he'd been given the night he had upgraded Talla. Sex, to him, meant what he and Talla had done. But that was too narrow a definition. Much, much too narrow. How many ways were there to do it?

She put a leg over him and angled her hips to set his penis against her lips. She was wet and warm. Two orgasms had gone most of the way to making her a veritable fountain of natural lubrication. She pushed down, burying him to the hilt with unbelievable ease. He discovered that meshing accelerated him in to her much higher state of arousal.

Gods, she was good to go. 

She straightened her body up so she could ride him more comfortably. She leaned her head back and stretched her arms above her head. Her body didn't look all that mature, being so slim, but the undulations at her entrance told an entirely different story. And this was only her first time. She was only learning the power of her body. What would she be like with practice?

He thought that she might go straight away for orgasm again, but she seemed a little more content now. He watched the shadow of her form on the wall of his room, as she made gentle circles with her hips and her hands wove shapes in the air. It was almost a dance; almost a work of art.

"You are so amazing," she said softly. "I'm so glad I ran in to you."

Not just a form of art, then, a gift from a worshipper.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He didn't mind the worship, but the way he'd come by the fame that brought it on left him feeling guilty. Causing people pain shouldn't merit that sort of treatment - no matter the outcome.

"Just did what I was told," he said, trying to take the edge off it.

"Yes, you did," she crooned. "And being awesome just comes naturally to you."

She was doing it to herself now, putting herself on. She didn't even know him, really. He was some kind of idea in her mind. That was all that mattered. In her head, she was having sex with a hero and that was enough. He barely had to do anything.

Natta pinned his shoulders and pushed down as hard as she could. Then came the twisting, the grinding and the squeezing. Zhair'lo was helpless. Her arousal was hopelessly contagious. Her worship was an aphrodisiac of irresistible power.

"Gimme, gimme," she pleaded. "Fill me up."

There was something about having sex twice in a row that simply cleared out his brain. He could only feel lust; could only give in; could only go forward at his best speed. He didn't expect much out of a second orgasm so close to the first, but he was wrong. He was wrong because he wasn't just having his orgasm -- he was having hers, too.

And her climaxes, quite the opposite of his experience, only increased in violence and mind numbing power as the night went on. His breath vanished from his lungs as he felt his erection pulsing more fluid past her twitching vaginal muscles. 

When it stopped, he found himself unable to hold a thought in his brain. A feeling of contentment coursed over his whole body, relaxing every muscle and letting his mind drift away.

-----==================----

"So all of that violence stopped when the first Goddess came?", Talla asked.




Talla's Temple Ch. 08



"Hardly," Shanata replied gently. "The influence of a Goddess can only extend a short distance. The more women inhabit her Temple, the further her power can reach. The first Temple was small. The women that served it kept the peace by Serving the men nearest it."

"You said there was fighting," Talla recalled.

"Yes," Shanata confirmed. "Men who wanted peace came voluntarily, giving their girl children to the Temple. Men who thought women ought to be treated better did the same. But there was fighting. There are men who prefer war, who prefer to take without giving. Those men, in the days before the peace of the Goddess overwhelmed their hatred, brought war to the walls of the Temple."

That was a strange image. The battles the book had described, the ones among men, could involve hundreds and hundreds of fighters, rushing at each other with swords, cutting each other to death. And those men did the same thing, attacking the walls of a Temple and the women inside? She recalled a long ago conversation with Meena, when she had been surprised to learn that most of the Division of Form was dedicated to martial training. At the time, that had seemed like a ridiculous number of people. Suddenly it seemed dangerously insufficient.

But she had noticed something else.

"You said 'there are men ...'," Talla pointed out. "They're still here?"

"The power the gods gave us, through the Goddess, keeps them at peace," Shanata said. "But if a man strays too far from the Temple, that power can not reach him."

She tried to imagine Zhair'lo turning in to some raging monster, bent on killing her or subduing her in to a 'wife'. What a terrible thought. Was that what he really was underneath?

"All men are like this?"

"No," Shanata said firmly.

That was a relief.

"Some will turn violent without the protection of the Goddess, but not all," she clarified. "Many will simply fall in to a very deep slumber, losing all will to act until a new Goddess comes. A few others -- a precious few -- will continue as if nothing happened."

Like rolling dice, then. One never knew what numbers would come. Which kind of man was Zhair'lo, underneath it all? How would his dice fall? What piece was he on the board?

-----==================----

When he regained consciousness, it was to the sensation of a mouth on his penis.

Gods. Again? The skinny, little girl was insatiable. Was there any more in him to give?

Yes. It turned out there was. 

He did his best to keep his penis hard. If he could just hold it erect long enough to get it inside her, she could take over. He was counting on the mesh now, to prop him up.

Sweating heavily with determination, she straddled his exhausted body.

"One more time," she murmured. "Just for me."

She forced him in to her again and he felt a sudden rush of awareness and arousal. He wasn't sleepy anymore. His exhaustion was forgotten. Meshing had done its job yet again and she had brought him to her level.

A boy could drown in that feeling. It wasn't what he'd had with Talla. That was certain. But it still smothered him, merging him with Natta until -- for a short while - he didn't care about who he was.

Bliss -- all the way to orgasmic oblivion.

By the time he woke again it would be morning and Natta would be gone.

-----==================----

"So those were the first gifts from the gods," Shanata concluded. "The Perfections of the first Goddess; the Upgrade so she could pass it on; the Mesh so her servants could bring her peace to men. All of this was given to us at year zero."

Talla nodded. It was a lot to absorb in a few hours. 

"I advise you to think about this for a while," Shanata said. "I have taught you tonight what girls your age learn in a month or two. We will meet again, at some later date, and you may ask questions then."

"Yes, Mistress," Talla replied vacantly. Her mind was elsewhere.

Dismissed from her lesson, she wandered out in to the common room of Endowment Hall. A few other Virgins were there, stoking the fires and doing other menial tasks in preparation for tonight's post-coital gathering. No one that she knew was there. Lara and Salee would be out cutting their long skirts. That was okay. She had more time for her thoughts.

The gods had purposefully placed their magic in the hands of women because men had failed so miserably. To think that, at one time, it was the men who had learned to read and write and that women could rarely do either. How odd a time that must have been. The gods had seen a flaw in that plan, or perhaps an injustice. They had corrected the situation by giving women the power to make men peaceful.

But to use that power, the women had to cooperate with each other. One woman -- even a Goddess -- could not use it alone. She needed all of the women, working together with her, to bring that peace. Fear of violence would keep them together.

Clever, Talla thought. Very, very clever.



Talla's Temple Ch. 09



Talla had desperately wanted to be left alone for a while to ponder all of the things that Shanata had dumped in to her brain, but that was not to be. As she attempted to leave Endowment Hall, she spotted Lara, bubbling with excitement, returning with a clutch of women in white and yellow outfits.

"Talla!" she shouted and starting running towards her.

"Lara," Talla called back. Lara was so happy that, even in her current distracted state, Talla couldn't help sharing the other's joy.

"I did it," Lara whispered as she took Talla's hands. "I did it."

"How was it?" Talla asked. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell of her night with Zhair'lo, but she definitely wanted to hear about Lara's experience.

"Just amazing," Lara said quietly, her eyes still alight. "When he gets inside you and you can feel how turned on he is."

Lara closed her eyes reverently as Talla nodded in agreement.

"And then he just starts swelling up inside," Lara said, clenching her fists in memory. "And you know he's just going to burst any second. And then ... oh ... it's just pulsing and pulsing away, shaking your whole body."

Talla was stymied. That was it? That was Lara's experience? Was she leaving something out? Talla tried to decide how to approach the issue.

"Were you scared at all?" Talla asked.

"Huh? Oh, nervous at first. But I got over it," Lara replied. "I wish I'd been able to talk to you this morning. I'd have been a lot less nervous."

"Yeah, sorry. I'm assigned to the children's dorms."

Lara, still giddy, accepted this without comment.

"So," Talla probed gently, "could you feel what he was feeling?"

Or think what he was thinking? Talla was afraid to ask. It seemed like far too important a thing to leave out. What did it mean if she felt things that others didn't? She was already different enough, what with her quadruple upgrade. She didn't feel the need to stand out more.

"Um, no," Lara scanned the night sky thoughtfully. "I could feel how bad he wanted me. That's about it."

She thought about it a moment more and added, quietly but with obvious delight, "We did it twice."

Talla smiled to cover the calculating going on in her head. The experience she had been through with Zhair'lo was not the same that Lara had had with --

"What was his name?"

"Uh, Tino, I think? Something like that."

- was not the same that Lara had had with someone probably named Tino. Talla and Zhair'lo had been very nearly able to converse inside the Mesh. From the sounds of it, Lara's most invasive experience was that of having her vagina penetrated. With Zhair'lo, it had been so much more than that.

"Congratulations," Talla said.

"Thanks," Lara said. "Now when and where do I get my half skirt?"

"Um ... this way. Let's get a drink."

-----==================----

Zhair'lo squinted his way down the stairs to breakfast. At least the cook and his assistant had serious-sized meals ready. Farm hands weren't small people given to light meals in the first place. A heavy night like that only made it worse. Having been drilled in his mattress repeatedly by Natta, Zhair'lo was prepared to join them in consuming copious amounts of whatever the hell was available. 

Give Natta credit: she'd been thorough. He hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

"Heard you had company last night", Kurran said as he pulled out a chair across the table. "Two nights in a row a bit much?"

"Suppose so."

"And the upgrade the night before."

Zhair'lo nodded.

"And another 'un tonight."

Kurran was making fun of him now.

"Wish I had your problems."

Zhair'lo smiled. There was nothing to do but smile. 

Truth be told, he was feeling a lot less nervous than he had the day before. He was content and confident that things would work out, somehow or other. The Temple women knew what they were doing, after all. They wouldn't allow a repeat of that horrendous upgrade, would they? Of course not.

Tilgan had joined Kurran.

"And how was that little vixen?" he asked

"She was fine," Kurran answered, knowing very well that the question wasn't for him, "but I wouldn't call her little. She was actually -."

"Jackass," Tilgan remarked, then turned his attention to Zhair'lo. "Hot to trot? Good to go?"

Zhair'lo nodded, not entirely sure it was appropriate to compare a girl with a horse.

"She had that look to her," Tilgan said, analytically. "Despite the long skirt, she just had that look."

Zhair'lo was a bit too embarrassed to speak.

"How many times'd you do her?"

A direct question. He had to answer, no matter his shyness.

"Three," he volunteered quietly. "Well, four. Kinda."

He supposed it depended on the definition of 'do'.

Tilgan and Kurran shared a knowing look.

"The tits on you," Tilgan snorted.

"To be that young again, huh?" Kurran agreed. "Four times in a night."

Tilgan shook his head, saying, "Busy little boy."

Having had their fun, their talk devolved in to work related banter which gave Zhair'lo some time to think.

Natta had left after he had fallen asleep. At least, he was pretty sure that was what had happened. He couldn't remember anything after their last orgasm. Was it possible that he had seen her leave and forgotten? No. Not likely.

There was no question that his encounter with Natta was much more physical, more energetic, than it had been with Talla. With Talla, he'd been so stunned by their mental merging that the two of them had lain there -- apparently for hours -- afterwards.

But which one was normal? He had to ask someone and he couldn't see asking Kurran, especially while Tilgan was there. 

Oh, how he wanted to talk to Plin.

-----==================----

Talla had arrived at the dorm shortly after sunrise. As her duties involved food preparation for five hundred children, it was necessary to be there bright and early.

She didn't consider herself an expert in the kitchen, having only learned a bit of the cooking arts while living in the older girls' dorm after she turned twelve. Making pancakes, however, was not particularly hard. Milk, flour and sugar were thrown in to a bowl and mixed. How complicated was that?

The food tasted bland. She'd noticed that the day before and thought it might be characteristic of the meals that day. But no, the food still smelled wrong. Something was missing from it. She supposed that it was children's food, so what could one expect? Perhaps children didn't like spicy food.

That smell evoked nostalgia, though, as it steamed off the grill. She could remember eating food like this a long, long time ago. Everything she'd eaten -- inside the Temple and in the older girls' dormitory -- had tasted spicier than this.

She looked at the children -- boys and girls -- as they lined up to get their breakfasts. She'd been like that once, eating bland food and walking around totally ignorant of the world around her. How wise she felt now, by comparison.

Talla shrugged and went back to flipping pancakes.

-----==================----

Zhair'lo was jogging.

He calculated, based on where he last thought Plin was working, that he could reach Plin in about a third of an hour. And he had to see Plin.

So as soon as the heat bell had gone off, he waved to Kurran and started off. The Temple had finally decided that the afternoon heat warranted a midday nap. The unusual sounding gong was loud enough to be heard by most of the population but was repeated from watchtowers at the three corners of the town regardless. The break the gong gave the citizens of Gern was never less than hour and it was seldom more. It was a chance for everyone to get out of the heat for a while.

Zhair'lo had no interest in napping.

The heat was brutal and running in it would only make it worse, but he had to know what was going to happen tonight. He had to know if he was likely to hurt someone else and there were few people he trusted enough to ask. Plin was one of those people. Marek was the other, but Marek was months younger.

If he could really make it in twenty minutes, that would leave him just enough time to talk before he had to bolt right back. It wouldn't make the afternoon easy, nor the upgrade, but as long as he didn't do it every day ...

He was jogging through empty streets, letting them go by in a heat exhausted blur. It appeared that nearly everyone had decided to take advantage of the heat bell. He imagined that the only people on duty right now would be the guards at the Temple gates.

He hoped that finding Plin would be easy. While Zhair'lo had been hopping around from one vocation to another, Plin was fairly well set as a baker's boy. It made it very likely that Plin hadn't gone anywhere. He would be living and working in the same place that Zhair'lo had last seen him. At least, he hoped so, otherwise this whole trip would be pointless.

Finally. Past the dormitories to the only buildings in the town with people crazy enough to produce more heat.

Bakers didn't sleep inside during the heat bell. That would have required an insanity past their current level of running ovens on the same day people were passing out from heat stroke in the shade. No. Bakers strung hammocks up from pillars and awning posts and took their naps outside, away from their ovens.

His only trouble now, besides a desperate need for air and water, was finding where Plin had strung up his hammock. He counted on the bakers being sound sleepers. None of them noticed him jogging by on his quest.

Around a corner in to the next block. At least the bakers' building in this sector were all grouped together. Now where in the gods' names was -

"Zhai?"

He turned. There he was, still wearing an apron with a cloth in his hands.

"Plin," he panted, out of breath.

"Going out for a run?" Plin asked, incredulous. "What kind of cunt do you think you are?"

Zhair'lo shook it off.

"Had to -- had to talk -- to you," Zhair'lo stammered to his friend.

"'bout what?" Plin wondered. "What could be worth killing yourself like this?"

Zhair'lo's heart was pounding but his breathing was returning to normal.

"I did an Upgrade," Zhair'lo began explaining.

"Good for you ...?"

"It didn't go right," Zhair'lo clarified. "At least I don't think it did."

Plin grimaced.

"Did you come all over the Source?"

"No!" Zhair'lo exclaimed indignantly.

"So you hit the target and ...?"

"Can I sit down somewhere?"

Plin gestured around a corner, away from the sleeping bakers. There were tables and chairs there, protected from the sunlight by an awning. It was a probably a place for the bakers to eat.

"Alright," Plin said as waved Zhair'lo in to chair. "Gimme details."

-----==================----

The assignment card that M'lis had brought back to Talla only had one word on it.

"Primer?" Talla asked.

M'lis nodded.

"What's that?" she asked the older girl.

"You don't know what a Primer is?" M'lis asked, surprised.

"I joined two weeks ago," Talla pointed out.

"Oh," M'lis said, eyeing Talla's mini-skirt. "Accidental double upgrade?"

"Um, yeah."

Talla found it comforting that she could occasionally run in to people who hadn't heard her story through rumour and gossip.

"Okay, then," M'lis explained. "Do you remember when your Conduit came in to the Chamber?"

"He came from behind me - "

"But you remember, right?", M'lis cut her off.

"Yes."

"Did you notice that he was ready?"

"Ready?" Talla wondered.

"Erect," M'lis clarified bluntly.

Talla tried to think back. She'd watched Atreya disrobe Zhair'lo. She'd seen him get up on top of her. Now that she thought about it, yes, she had caught a glimpse.

"Yes," she told M'lis. "He was ready right away."

"Okay," the more experienced girl went on. "That's because there's a room between the Chamber and the room where the Conduits all wait in a group."

Talla nodded, waiting for M'lis to continue.

"And there are two girls in that room - "

Talla's eyes opened wide.

"- called 'Primers'."

"Oh," Talla replied quietly to this revelation. She scanned the sky as she thought about that. "So my job is to get someone -- the Conduit -- ready?"

"Yes," M'lis said with a smile, glad to have communicated her point. "I read somewhere that it was originally just a place where we washed the men. I mean, the Chamber is a sacred place and men are -- well -- dirty. What do you expect? They're men."

"So we wash them?"

"Yeah," M'lis said. "But it turns out that the more, um, enthusiastic you are about washing them, the better the upgrade works. So that's part of it now."

Talla mulled that over for a bit.

"Would you mind watching the door?" M'lis asked, already on her next task. "We're expecting the fruit cart any time now and I have to check on the linens."

"Sure."

-----==================----

Plin let out a heavy sigh.

"I don't know, Zhai," he said. "I've done two upgrades. They went nothing like that. I came on the one girl's face and another one's butt. Seemed fine. No one cried or screamed."

Zhair'lo was disappointed. He had high expectations of Plin, being the eldest of the trio.

"Do you know if she's okay? Have you seen her since?" Plin asked.

"Yeah, she came by two nights ago."

"She picked you for her first, anyway?" Plin asked.

"Yeah." Her first. He hadn't thought to think of himself that way.

"Can't have been that bad, then," Plin offered by way of consolation.

Zhair'lo sighed. "They want me to do another one tonight. What if it happens again?"

Plin tilted his head from one side to the other, considering possibilities.

"Maybe it's got nothing to do with you. Ever consider that?"

No. He, in fact, hadn't.

"Look," Plin said as he leaned in close. "You do your job and you can't go wrong. Right?"

Zhair'lo nodded.

"I just want to know what's normal."

Plin considered that a moment.

"I've only done the two," Plin said as he waved a hand in surrender. "And I don't think they let men watch."

"They don't," Zhair'lo said. Another image, burned in to his brain, from when he had looked up in to the audience. "At least not for mine. There were lots of women watching, but no men."

"You could see them? I remember it being pretty dark."

"Yeah," Zhair'lo said. "While I was full of whatever that magic is, everything was wound up really hard. I could see and hear and smell ..."

"Yeah, anyway," Plin interrupted. "Men only get to see the upgrades they do. I can't tell you what's normal. Maybe find some guy that's done more."

Zhair'lo leaned his head back and stared up at the awning. He knew he was running out of time.

"How many girls have you had?"

"Huh? Lots ... I dunno ... maybe fifty or so."

"When you're ... um ..."

"Fucking them."

"Yeah," Zhair'lo confirmed. "Can you see inside ... I mean, can you hear what they're thinking?"

Plin's eyes bugged out.

"Hear what they're thinking?" Plin asked. "What in the nine hells are you talking about?"

"With her. With Talla," Zhair'lo clarified. "I could hear her inside my head. I could talk to her. It wasn't the same last night with Natta."

"Sure you weren't just a little light headed?" Plin asked. "Had ya been running around in the heat like an idiot?"

"No. I'm sure. I could see from her eyes and hear her speaking inside my head."

Plin shook his head.

"Never seen nothing like that," he told Zhair'lo.

"Gods damn it."

"You could just ask one of the women tonight. Before the upgrade. They always brief you."

Zhair'lo winced. He really didn't want to let that out of the bag. What if it wasn't normal? What would that lead to? More impersonal doctors examining his testicles, that's what. Differences were not a good thing. If you wanted to be different, then you did your job better than anybody else. Otherwise, you went with the flow.

"How come you never told me about any of this?" Zhair'lo asked.

"Any of what?" Plin asked.

"Upgrades. Sex. Any of it."

"I tried," Plin said, holding his hands out, palms up. "You wouldn't listen. You didn't care. I was actually pretty angry at first."

"What?"

"Seriously," Plin continued, lowering his eyebrows. "Go find Marek some time and try to tell him. See how pissed off you get."

That was odd. Zhair'lo couldn't remember Plin ever raising the subject. He was sure that he would have remembered.

"You gotta head back, eh?" Plin prompted with concern in his voice. There was work to do and he wouldn't be a good friend if he let Zhair'lo forget.

Zhair'lo nodded. The run back was going to be a lot harder -- not just because of the heat, but also the lack of motivation.

"I just wish I could know what the hell is going to happen tonight."

"You and me both," Plin said. "Just do as you're told. I'm sure it'll work out."

An axiom they had learned from birth. A boy couldn't help recite it in situations like these.

"Take care."

"You, too."

There being no time like the present, he made off, hoping to hit the same pace he'd had on the way in. So it was back around the corner, past the sleeping bakers. Back through the dormitories and -

He skidded to a halt, cramping his legs.

There she was, standing by a horse drawn cart loaded with boxes of fruit. She was a good distance away and she was wearing a skirt much shorter than the one in which he had last seen her. There was no doubt in his mind, however, that he was looking at Talla. She held a wooden board in her hand and was making marks on it as several men unloaded the boxes and brought them in to the dormitory.

He approached cautiously. There was nothing really wrong with him being here, was there? He'd just come to see his friend. He was an adult. He could do that if he wanted. But talking to Talla. Was that okay? Could he catch her eye?

The street was empty save the horse cart and the men unloading it. He was easy to see, jogging along, sticking to the walls of the dormitory opposite. Would she look up? He was close enough to hear her voice.

"We only need ten boxes," she was telling one of the carters. "The rest must be for number four up the hill."

It was as she turned to point up the street that her gaze passed over him. Her eyes only paused for a moment, but he knew that she'd seen him. She handed the wooden board back to the carters as his comrades climbed back aboard and he spurred the horses onward. Zhair'lo continued walking down the street toward Talla, who stood there pretending not to see him until the cart was out of sight.

Then her eyes locked on him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, a flushed look of panic in her eyes.

"Came to see Plin," he said, still walking. "Saw you."

He could see her chest rising and falling rapidly. There was no question in his mind what that meant. He continued to approach.

She spared two glances, up and down the street, before she grabbed him by his shirt collar and pulled him in to a little alcove around the doorway. They were out of sight of most of the street there. It would be safe, if only for a moment. 

And they had to hide. She knew that she wasn't supposed to Serve without being assigned. There were rules about that. Very specific rules.

She didn't care, though. She had Zhair'lo. She understood, from the way things worked, that the rest of her life was at the mercy of the Temple. She got to choose her first Conduit. She got to choose the one who took her virginity. But that was it. The rest was out of her hands.

Unless Zhair'lo walked right up to her out of nowhere.

Lips met, rashly, without dignity or style. Each knew that time was limited. They could not possibly mesh. There was nowhere to go anyway. Should they do it on the street?

Zhair'lo started to feel a tingling sensation, radiating up from his groin. Even with the clothing separating them, he could already get a sense of her. He could feel her arousal and, as if shouting from a great distance over a roaring wind, he could hear her voice. It was calling out, "Bad idea, bad idea. Don't stop. Bad idea, bad idea."




Talla's Temple Ch. 09



He pulled his lips away from hers and looked in to her eyes.

"We can't," she panted desperately. "Not here. We'll be caught."

Right. Sex outside was against the rules. He remembered that.

"Then when?"

"I don't know," she said, looking pathetically at the ground. Anything to avoid his eyes. She couldn't control herself if she looked in his eyes. 

And it really wouldn't be that hard. She could just push her underwear to the side ... there was no one in the street ...

No.

"Maybe another heat bell," she begged. "If we do it right."

"Not tonight?"

He would have to come to town. Could he meet her somewhere? His sense of the oncoming mesh was getting stronger and stronger -- and harder and harder to fight.

She shook her head.

"I have duties tonight," she explained.

Duties?

"Serving someone?" he asked.

She shook her head again, looking up in to his eyes.

"No. Priming."

"What's that?"

He would already know, wouldn't he? He just didn't know the name.

"Remember the girls that got you ready for my upgrade?"

"Yeah."

"Primers."

"Oh."

Oh! His eyes lit up.

"I'm doing an upgrade tonight!" he exclaimed.

Her eyes lit up, too. 

"Where? Endowment?"

"Um, same gate as when I did yours."

She would get to Prime him? They would see each other soon enough, then.

More kissing, then. His arms wrapped around her tiny waist and her hands in his hair. But it was a contented kiss, both of them being satisfied that more was coming.

It still wasn't easy to pull away. The burgeoning mesh that they were incubating was not a force to be treated idly. It seemed to have a life of its own. It was primal, simple even. It had no notion of rules or propriety. It intended for them to conclude this accidental encounter properly and they just couldn't afford to do that.

They also couldn't stop. Not with their bodies pressed together. Not of their own volition.

"Talla!" someone called.

They both jerked away. The moment of fear had torn through the mesh like an axe through kindling. There was violence and pain in that separation and suddenly there was nothing left of their arousal.

Zhair'lo looked around in panic. No one was in sight.

"I have to go," Talla pleaded as she slipped away along the alcove wall towards the door. "I'll see you tonight."

"I'm coming!" she called back in to the building.

Zhair'lo took a deep breath.

It wasn't like that with Natta. It just wasn't.

He started running.

-----==================----

"You've never done this before?"

"No," Talla answered.

"When did you become an Initiate?" Tina asked.

Tina, like M'lis, was a Neophyte. Crossed sashes for a top and a knee length skirt on the bottom. Talla and Tina were sitting in a small room between the Augmentation Chamber and the men's waiting room.

"Um -- last night, I guess," she replied.

"Oh, okay," Tina said, eyeing Talla's breasts somewhat suspiciously. Tina did not appear to have heard about Talla's situation.

"Well, our job's not too hard," she said. "Men come in one door. We undress them, wash them and make sure they're good and ready to do an upgrade."

"Good and ready," Talla acknowledged with a nod.

"Hard," Tina clarified. "Do you remember the guys from your upgrades?"

"Um, yeah," Talla said, not bothering to correct Tina's use of the plural.

"Well, they weren't ready by accident," Tina said. "Two girls were in this room making sure that your Conduits were good and hard."

"Right."

It wasn't much different from what M'lis had told her. It was just a lot more vivid now that she was standing in the little shower room. She hadn't really dwelt on the details of what went on in here.

"So, ah, what do we do?" Talla asked.

"Follow my lead," Tina said. "I've done this several times before."

If they needed two girls for Priming, then the math of it dictated that every girl had to do this twice for every upgrade she got. Had Tina done it more than that? Maybe it went by aptitude, too. Everything else did.

"The key is to get them as hot as possible -- but without making them come," Tina explained. "That would be a disaster and we'd have to cancel somebody's upgrade."

Talla nodded warily, hoping to see Zhair'lo come through the door shortly.

-----==================----

He figured that he ought to be tired. The hot day together with the afternoon run should have taken him down but his excitement kept him going. The crash afterwards was going to be horrific, but it would be an entirely satisfactory horror.

The men were queued up in the waiting room. There were three boys ahead of him. The four of them had just come from their joint briefing to wait in line with the older men

-----==================----

A boy had entered the small shower room, led in by an Officer.

"Tina and Talla will see to you," the Officer had said and left.

Tina took the lead and approached the boy. He seemed, to Talla's eye, to be a bit older than Zhair'lo. He was more filled out in a muscular sort of way.

"A'kan, isn't it?" Tina asked.

He nodded, slightly anxious.

"I'm Tina," she said as she slipped her skirt to the floor, "and this is Talla."

That seemed about the right time for Talla to start undressing, so he dropped her much smaller skirt. Tina had told her to ditch the underwear before A'kan had even entered the room. A'kan's eyes went back and forth between their bald mounds for a moment.

"Just relax," Tina said. "We're going to get you cleaned up first."

-----==================----

There was a boy sitting across from Zhair'lo, looking more nervous than anyone he had ever seen. He kept looking around the room as if he were waiting for someone to come take him away.

"Hey," Zhair'lo said.

The boy nodded.

"You done this before?" he asked Zhair'lo.

Zhair'lo nodded. "Yeah. Your first time?"

He nodded.

"What's it like?"

That struck Zhair'lo as such an odd question. He had been assuming, from the beginning, that his experience was abnormal. He had spent the last couple of days wanting to do nothing but ask other people, "What's it like?", and here was someone asking that question of him.

How should he answer?

Should he tell him what it was like? What it should be like? How he would have liked it to be?

"Um, neat, I guess," Zhair'lo answer noncommittally. "You've done an Initiation?"

"Twice," the boy said, nodding eagerly.

"It's like that but, well, you were at the briefing." Zhair'lo shrugged.

"Yeah," the nervous boy said, trying to calm himself with a deep breath. "Are there lots of women watching?"

The situation seemed to warrant a small lie.

"Just a few, I think."

The boy calmed down considerably. As long as he didn't get the hyperactive eyesight Zhair'lo had had, he would never know that he'd been misled.

"Oh, okay. I hope I can do this."

You and me both, Zhair'lo thought, but didn't want to say it. No point adding to someone else's misery. They learned that when they were young, too.

The door to the small shower room opened and a large-breasted woman in orange stepped through for the second time.

"Zo'kar Ch'lai?" she asked.

The nervous boy jerked his head up to look at her.

"You're up," she said. "Come this way."

"Good luck," Zhair'lo said, and meant it.

Poor guy.

-----==================----

Zo'kar was next.

Go figure. She'd been so looking forward to seeing Zhair'lo that she hadn't thought to wonder who else might be on the docket.

"I'll lead if it's okay," Talla told Tina. "I know the guy and he was pretty nervous at my Initiation."

"If you think you're ready," Tina replied amicably.

It wasn't complicated and there wasn't much protocol, at least as Tina had described it. You could do pretty much whatever needed doing as long as you didn't make him come and didn't let him in to your vagina.

Oh, and you had to keep your clothes on until the woman in orange left. That was the only rule Talla couldn't fathom. It seemed more a style issue: letting the guy watch you undress. She couldn't understand why they had made it a rule, but she didn't care either.

She forgot about it quickly. She had just put her top back in place when he was led through the door.

He recognized her immediately and called out, "Talla?"

She nodded and smiled. "Your first time doing an upgrade?"

He nodded. He was a lot stronger than the last time she had seen him. She remembered how pathetic he had looked, how immersed he had been in his previous failure, how much fear he had carried with him. She could see that he was still shy, but he was steady. His feet were planted.

"Don't worry," she said. "We're here to take care of you."

With that, she unlaced the side of her skirt and let it drop to the floor. Zo'kar started at that. She heard Tina doing the same behind her and the two of them advanced.

Helpless, he let them undress him before they removed their own tops. Zo'kar stared unabashedly from one set of breasts to the other. Tina was a devotee of Strength and had one upgrade in Abundance. Talla, quite accidentally, had four.

"Come on," Talla said and led him by hand over to the shower spigot. Tina kicked it on for her and warm water began spraying over all three of their naked bodies.

Tina gently forced Zo'kar to lean back and poured fragrant liquid soap over his hair. Talla soaped up her hands and, shielding his body with her own, began washing his chest and arms.

Now the fun part. If she was going to put a penis in her mouth -- and it appeared it would be necessary -- it was at least going to be a clean penis. She kicked the lever to turn off the water and knelt on the floor in front of Zo'kar.

Fair enough. He was shy and only a little bit aroused. With two freshly soaped hands, she casually scrubbed at his thighs and worked her way between them and under his testicles. That got a encouraging reaction. She continued tickling him underneath with one hand while she pulled back his foreskin and very lightly rubbed the head of his penis.

More swelling. Good. Tina was done washing his legs from behind and had stood up already. Talla kicked the lever again and sent a spray of water down over three soapy bodies. They twirled Zo'kar around to rinse him off before bringing him to face Talla again.

"A little more help, I think," Talla said as she knelt once more.

Well, then.

She'd seen Tina do this just a few minutes ago -- and with such grace. Maybe in a little while she'd do it for Zhair'lo, too. Wouldn't he be surprised? Practice, then. She followed Tina's pattern, it being the only one she knew.

Her breasts were larger than Tina's which made the first part easier. If she got up high enough on her knees, she could lift one of her breasts up with one hand and use the other hand to rub his penis against it. He looked down in surprise as she traced the tip of her nipple along the underside of his penis.

"Just don't come," she warned him. "We'd be in ever so much trouble."

Zo'kar nodded and gulped.

It was the phrase Tina had used. Talla had copied it. Unbeknownst to either of them, it was a phrase that had been passed down for generations from one Primer to the next, spoken for centuries to almost every single boy on his first trip through this room.

"Make sure he's looking when you do it," Tina had advised. "They love eye contact."

He was looking at the ceiling, breathing deeply. Talla measured the strength of his erection. She had to be careful, she knew, but she didn't think he was that close. He wasn't even completely stiff yet.

She made a clicking sound with her tongue, just to get his attention and make him look down. He did. The moment their eyes met, she opened her mouth and did it. As quickly as she could, afraid that she would lose her nerve were she to delay, she took as much of his penis in to her mouth as she could. In fact, she took a little too much. The head was just hard enough to push down on the back of her tongue and she gagged in panic. She swallowed, hard, and managed not to pull completely off him.

Breathing through her nose, she managed to calm down. Back to work, then.

The sweet spot was supposed to be underneath. Erect as he was, the foreskin wasn't in the way. She could wiggle her tongue directly on that tender stretch of skin just behind the head of his penis.

He gasped.

Yep. That was the spot. There was a taste in her mouth. A bit bitter; a bit salty. A passing thought -- what would ejaculate taste like? Ignore. Go on. There was a job to do.

Someone knocked at the door. It was the series of four knocks that they called the two minute pattern. It meant that the next woman to be upgraded was about to be let in to the Chamber. Tina said nothing. She simply slid around Zo'kar and knelt beside Talla.

Carefully, they arranged themselves so Tina could work her tongue around Zo'kar's testicles while Talla continued to bob up and down on the end of his shaft. One of Tina's hands snaked around the back of Talla's leg and pinched. It was part of the code that Tina had quickly explained beforehand. That particular signal meant that the boy in question wasn't quite hard enough.

Talla agreed and started stroking Zo'kar as hard she could while sucking on the tip of his penis. Tina took his testicles in to her mouth. For his part, Zo'kar merely moaned, helpless under their ministrations.

Tina was getting nervous. They were pressed for time. She detached herself to fetch a towel, leaving Talla to maintain Zo'kar's erection. Tina then began ruthlessly drying the boy off. Talla had done the same thing when Tina had taken lead.

"Whatever you do," Tina had advised, "don't give up on him. Keep working him right to the last moment. He has to go out there in front of all of those people and that erection has to hold."

Tina deemed their charge dry enough and threw the beige shirt over his shoulders while Talla remained on her knees. Any moment now and that door would open to take him away. He was good and hard in her mouth. She felt like she'd done her job well.

On went the lower part of the robe. Talla kept her head underneath it while Tina fastened it around Zo'kar's waist. No point stopping now. She'd do it just like Tina had -- right up until the door opened.

She couldn't possibly walk on her knees to lead him over to the door. She had to stand and lead him by hand. When they got to the door, she went down again.

"Alright, kiddo," Tina said. "They're going to come for you in a second. You ready?"

Zo'kar nodded.

"Good. You'll do fine."

She kissed him on the cheek.

The door began to creep open. That was the last that Talla could do. She slid him gently out of her mouth and let the pleats of the bottom part of the robe fall around his erection.

"Good luck," she whispered hopefully as the door slid the rest of the way open.

Zo'kar nodded, still anxious but a little more certain, and strode forward.

-----==================----

The third boy had already been called in. Zhair'lo was left waiting with the men -- again. He didn't recognize any of them. All that mattered was that he was going to see Talla. They were doing an upgrade about every ten minutes tonight. He just had to wait a little while longer and he'd get to see her .

-----==================----

Talla had to admit that she was surprised by the size of the Augmentation Chamber. She'd never seen it in daylight, so she hadn't known how far the observing area behind the thrones of the Queen and Sorceresses went. It looked like there was seating space for at least two hundred women there, more if they got cozy enough on the benches.

The first two rows were reserved for those wearing orange and it was always the privilege of those of higher rank to push back those of lower rank. Tina swore that the seating arrangements could get pretty stratified if something important were to happen. But on this night no one particularly high ranking was getting upgraded, so there was plenty of room available.

They were told that A'kan and Zo'kar had both been successful. Indeed, Eletta had already washed herself and was sitting a few spaces over from them, not so discreetly examining her swollen breasts. Tina, Talla and Eletta had all missed the third upgrade of the night. The guard at the back of the Chamber had prevented them from entering. Women simply weren't allowed to come and go while an upgrade was in progress. Protocol ruled it out as too likely to cause a disturbance.

So they'd stood outside in the hall behind the Augmentation Chamber and waited until the third upgrade was done. Having seated themselves, they waited for the fourth upgrade to begin.

Talla was interested to watch it, just to see how it looked to someone on the outside. She also hoped that she hadn't missed Zhair'lo. What a disappointment it had been when Tina had told her it was time to leave.

"Leave?" she had asked. "Aren't there more?"

"We do two a night," Tina had replied. "Someone else will come for the next guys."

There was a short recess after each upgraded girl was led out. Attendants meticulously wiped down and dried the altars while the Officer with the spear watched officiously. Once the attendants scurried out of the way, the Officer took a signal from the Queen and went to fetch the next girl from the waiting room. 

Whispers quieted down.

A quick knock and a quiet conversation. A moment later and the Officer was leading a fourth long-skirted Virgin in to the Chamber.

"There's a fourth one?" Talla whispered to Tina. "I thought there were only three recruits."

"There were," Tina said. "Didn't you see the docket?"

Talla shook her head.

"Sealed Virgin."

"What?"

Tina, wary of violating the Protocol that demanded silence, covered her mouth and spoke directly in to Talla's ear.

"Some girls don't take their first upgrades. So they bring a stronger Conduit and a stronger source."

Stronger Conduit? Did that mean Zhair'lo, then? It had to. She'd been damned disappointed to have missed him in the Priming room, but at least she hadn't missed watching him in the Chamber.

She listened in silence as the Officer introduced Nadine, just as Talla herself had been introduced.

"And what do you seek, Nadine out of Marta?" the Queen asked.

"Point, Highness. My first upgrade."

"I see no fault. What say you, Point?"

The Sorceress of Point, off to Talla's right, replied, "Neither see I any fault, Highness."

"Then who will stand for this Virgin?"

It was a bit eerie, watching the whole thing play out from the other side. It was so easy to look at that slight, brown-haired, white-clothed girl and imagine herself standing there.

"I will stand myself, Highness," the Sorceress of Point answered.

"Very well. Let it begin."

Which was the signal for the drums to begin beating.

The Sorceress dismounted her throne and came down the steps to meet the Virgin. Talla had met her own Sorceress but had entirely forgotten about the other Sorceress who had been there the night of her upgrade. The Sorceress of Point had just about the darkest skin Talla had ever seen on any woman. There were probably cities where skin of that colour was common, but Gern certainly wasn't one of them. It was an idle point of interest. Talla had more concern for the proceedings.

She could just make out Nadine's facial expression. The girl seemed a bit worried and more than just a little depressed. How many times had her upgrade failed to take? The Sorceress put a hand on the girl's shoulder, said something which seemed to comfort her, and began to undress. The bright green sash came off first. She folded it in a neat, green bundle and handed it to an attendant. It was followed by her bikini top.

Talla could only see the larger woman's muscular back. Firelight really did wonders for showing the contours of muscles. She couldn't even see Nadine around the larger woman. All she saw was an attendant take away Nadine's top.




Talla's Temple Ch. 09



Point turned and mounted her altar, leaving the skinny, topless Virgin girl on her own at the focus of the Chamber. When the Sorceress was seated, Nadine moved and took her place at the inclined altar.

"The Conduit," the Queen commanded.

There was a commotion as attendants snuffed out some of the wall torches. Talla took that moment to whisper to Tina.

"How many times has she tried, you think?" she asked.

Tina frowned.

"Dunno. I've never heard of using a Sorceress for a Virgin upgrade. Must be bad."

So what did it mean that Atreya, a Second, had done Talla's upgrade?

Talla's eyes were on the men's entrance now. The Officer had knocked on the door and was pushing it open. Right now, some girl was using her tongue to give Zhair'lo a last send off. Some other girl. Some girl who wasn't Talla. Talla grimaced. She tried to tell herself that there was no point being bitter.

She caught her first glimpse of a boy coming out of the door. Yes, that was him. A shiver went up her spine. She wished for some way to communicate with him, just to see him acknowledge her. But she couldn't speak and he couldn't see this far. She sighed in disappointment. Cloaked in darkness, she might as well not be here as far as he was concerned. She wondered if he missed her, too.

There was nothing to do but watch.

-----==================----

Zhair'lo, for his part, had been put off only slightly when he discovered two girls who weren't Talla in the Priming room. In Talla's absence, he had become much more concerned with his ability to perform his duty. Ella had been there, whether by accident or design he didn't know. That had helped a little. It was comforting to see a familiar face.

That part was done.

From the centre of the Chamber, he bowed lightly and turned to the left altar. A topless woman in a green skirt waited there for him. They'd told him what was at stake here. The girl on the right had rejected three previous attempts at an Upgrade. Consequently, they were bringing in a Sorceress to try to break through. It was like the popular peg-and-dice game. When a pawn didn't do the job, you brought in a higher value piece. But the most powerful pieces couldn't leave their Temples, so the pawns had to be drawn in.

He felt a bit like a pawn himself today.

So this was a Sorceress. It was a rank he was more familiar with from playing board games than from any knowledge of the Temple. If he understood things right, that put her one rank above the blue clad woman from the previous upgrade. She looked at him with a calm smile as she unlaced his robe. An attendant in white took the bottom part of the robe away and he climbed on top of the dark-skinned woman.

Her breasts seemed to be about the same size as those of the woman who had lain here on his last visit. Her nipples - they were bigger. As he knelt over her, his painfully throbbing erection hovering over her stomach, she began to twirl and pinch those nipples. He watched in rapt fascination as they began to lengthen and stiffen. Even the edges of her aureolae, where brown went to a shade of brown so dark as to be rendered cocoa in the firelight, began to sharpen.

So beautiful.

He had to restrain a primal urge. 'Deep breath' had been Ella's advice for such occasions. He took that advice now. Who would have thought that just watching a woman play with her nipples could evoke such a strong physical reaction?

No matter. She had stopped, perhaps satisfied with the state of her body, and reached for the chalice.

Here we go, he thought. He took hold of the chalice and watched as she dipped just two fingers in to the thick, clear syrup within.

This is brutal. Deep breath.

He watched as she touched the liquid to the very tip of her nipple. It slowly dripped down from there. Ever so delicately, she spread it around the areola.

I can't take this. Look away.

He hadn't thought it possible, but he could see her nipple actually perk up just a little more under the influence of the cool liquid.

She dipped the same two fingers in to the cup and repeated the mind numbing procedure on the other side.

Zhair'lo took a moment to close his eyes. Was there enough air in this chamber for all of the relaxing breaths he was going to have to take to get through this? Maybe Ella and her friend -- what was her name? D'yon? D'yan? Something like that -- maybe they'd done too good a job on him.

Think about her name, he told himself. Di'yan? Dyen? Think about anything but what's going on in front of you.

That cooled him somewhat.

The Sorceress was already reaching for the chalice. He relinquished it so she could lay it aside.

"Very carefully now," she reminded him, her voice soft and soothing. She turned her body to put one breast under his quite erect penis. "Just the tip."

Her tip or his tip? He supposed that she meant both. This was to be just like the last upgrade. Each Discipline had a specific spot on the body for the Conduit to use until he Seized. With Abundance, it was the outside of either breast. With Point, it would be the tip of the nipple. Until he was properly Seized, there was always a danger of picking up the wrong kind of magic if he fumbled around.

His foreskin had fully retracted due to the strength of his erection. He shifted his body to the left. That made it easy to let the underside of the head of his penis lightly brush up against her nipple, coating that sensitive, swollen flesh with clear syrup. 

Fortunately, he was completely prepared for the sudden wave of dizziness that washed over him. If not for his experience, he might have wavered and touched some other part of her chest. But no. He would hold himself steady, in minimal contact with her nipple, and fight off the nauseated spin that meant his body was trying to Seize. At least it made ejaculating extraordinarily unlikely.

The Sorceress cupped her right breast with both of her hands -- it was just that big -- and slowly moved it around so that her nipple stroked the underside of his penis and that little stretch of sensitive skin ...

Zhair'lo was relieved when the feeling of being out of focus started to fade. That was a comfort. He was in a good place now. He told himself that it was just like learning any other duty, like any other apprenticeship he'd been on. It was just a matter of getting up to standard. He knew how this part of the upgrade was supposed to go. He knew the nausea was temporary.

As she tickled him, he began to feel better.

Finally, with a body wide muscle spasm that actually pulled him away from her, he Seized. His senses were heightened. His eyes were able to focus. He felt completely steady, even kneeling and leaning over this half naked woman.

She saw it, too.

"Good," she said as her eyes sharpened eagerly. "Now, here."

At which point she pushed her breasts together so the nipples nearly touched. There was a triangular slot there, meant just for him. The strength of his erection was such that he had to lean much farther over now, until his head was past hers, in to the silky black hair that she had laid out behind her.

There was nothing to do but thrust his hips, letting his body draw that all important magic from those chocolate, erect tips that rubbed against either side of his manhood. He could almost hear it humming to him, ringing off the two stiffest points of contact.

She would let him know, hopefully, when he was fully charged. This was the only part that really worried him. Well. The only part that worried him at this point. Ella and her friend had taken care of his other concern. 

Now it was just a matter of not taking on too much;.

And not hurting anyone.

He looked down at his body. He didn't really want to. It vastly increased the danger of wasting this whole ceremony away by ejaculating in the dark-skinned woman's face. But he looked anyway. He couldn't help it.

What he saw were the sharp eyes of the Sorceress scrutinizing his face. There was no softness there; no sense of soothing. This was a woman diligently carrying out her duty. It reminded him very much of the doctor who had come to examine him after Talla's upgrade.

"Good," she announced quietly. "You're done."

That quickly? It was even faster than the last time. That was a good sign, really. It probably meant that he was carrying less. He lifted himself away from her and sighed contentedly.

Yes, he could feel a tingling in his body. His hearing was acute. His sense of smell was stronger. There was even a burning between his legs. But it was nowhere near what it had been the last time. That was a good sign.

What about his eyes? Last time he could see well in to the darkness. As he stood and faced the spectators, he looked up -

-----==================----

Talla watched, engrossed, her mouth hanging partially open. It wasn't just that it was the first upgrade she had ever watched. It was him. It was Zhair'lo. And not just Zhair'lo, but Zhair'lo with a powerful erection. Gods, how she'd wanted that a second time that night. Gods, how she wanted it now. She could weep if she could find the breath for it. She'd just had to get two boys who weren't Zhair'lo ready -- all with no relief in sight for herself.

And there he was, the boy she wanted, in the state she wanted him. She imagined herself running down to him, as she had run to him just two nights ago. Let them try to stop her.

Her heart was pounding.

He looked up in to the crowd, as if he could actually see in to the blackness. His eyes found hers, seized upon them. Could he really see this far up? Were they really looking at each other?

He turned away.

Gods, damn it. Had he seen her or not? Why did it matter?

It hurt. That's why it mattered. She wanted him. Him. Not some other. And she was powerfully aroused by the work she'd already done this evening.

He crossed the floor and mounted the second altar. She watched him, wishing it were her, wishing that proud rod and the magic within it were bound for her body.

Tina whispered something which Talla, in her distraction, missed.

"What?" she whispered back.

"Ren hana," Tina whispered, pointing at the Sorceress.

The Sorceress of Point, still topless, had propped herself up on her elbows, watching the proceedings with furrowed brow. Visible to everyone in the room besides Zhair'lo, who faced the wrong way, and Nadine, who was blocked by Zhair'lo, she held her hand on the side of her altar with two fingers extended.

It was a signal; a declaration to the onlookers that what was about to happen was happening on purpose.

Ren hana.

Two ranks.

Talla was outraged. Her jaw clamped shut and her eyes bulged. They were overloading Zhair'lo on purpose? Well, why in nine hells not? If four could almost kill him, why not try two just to see what happened? She could feel her blood rising. How dare they!

Her eyes flipped back to Zhair'lo, now straddling Nadine and holding the chalice for her. Nadine slathered the Synergist on to her body, generously covering the entirety of her flat chest. There was a desperation in her expression, even in her movements.

Just let Zhair'lo be okay, Talla thought.

He seemed okay. He didn't seem to be quivering as he had been for her upgrade. Maybe he would be fine. She bit both her lips and pleaded for him to be fine. It shouldn't take much longer.

Just give it to her, she begged him with her mind. Just get rid of it before it hurts you.

-----==================----

Nadine reached for his penis with her right hand. He was just a hand's breadth from the shiny targets for which he was aiming.

"Let's hope this works," she said. It was a plea. She was in as bad a way as poor Zo'kar had been in the waiting room.

"It will," he vowed, wondering why he thought that he had the right to make such a promise. The words had come involuntarily.

A faint wisp of a smile crossed her face as she began stroking him. 

She had very nice eyes. He noticed that suddenly. The sharpness of her eyelashes leaped out at him. Those eyes were hopeful, almost speaking to him with their longing.

"Whenever you're ready," she said.

He could feel the same plaintive cry in her words.

"Oh, I'm ready," he assured her.

Nadine nodded anxiously and increased the vigour of her stroking, aiming him directly at her left nipple.

"Okay," she said. "Go ahead."

It was all the encouragement he needed. Between the two girls in the Priming room and the Sorceress behind him, he was well beyond aroused -- perhaps somewhere around the "kicking like a wild horse" mark.

He looked down at Nadine; her eyes pleading; her lips pursed; her right hand torquing away; her left hand ready underneath her breast -- one last squeeze -

He exploded in her hand, firing a volley of semen in to her nipple with such force that it made a crater in the syrup around her pale, pink aureola.

"Oh!" she shrieked as her eyes widened.

She didn't miss a beat, despite her surprise, and quickly jerked his twitching organ to point at her right side even as her left hand began massaging semen and syrup in to her right breast.

His second volley was only slightly less proud; the dispersal of syrup only mildly less violent. She wasn't shy. In fact, she was focused on her task with a determination Zhair'lo hadn't seen since the day the blacksmith had been asked to shape a piece of ceremonial garb for someone important in the Temple. She mixed his semen together with the syrup, rubbing it thoroughly in to her nipples even as she played more of his juice out onto her chest.

Zhair'lo watched, content both from having ejaculated and from having rid himself of the magic without any obvious disasters. He watched Nadine's facial expression carefully. She wasn't looking at him. Her head was turned down, her concentration focused on her body. He could barely see her eyes through her lashes. Was it going to hurt her? Was it going to be like it had been for Talla?

She twitched suddenly, the muscles in her chest and shoulders tensing up as she stared open mouthed over his shoulder.

Oh no, he thought. Not again.

"Burns," she said.

Zhair'lo started to panic. What were they waiting for? Shouldn't they be ready for this?

Then her eyes met his.

And she smiled.

"It's working," she said triumphantly. "It's working. You did it!"

It was a little too loud. Someone politely double-tapped a spear butt to the floor as a warning. Nadine didn't appear to care, but lowered her voice.

"Thank you," she said as she continued tweaking her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers.

"My gods," she added in surprise.

Zhair'lo looked down. Even through the inseminated batter, he could see the change. The contrast between between the flesh tone of her chest and that of her aureolae was much more pronounced than it had been just a moment ago. The nipples themselves were wider and more erect.

He looked more closely. Though the torchlight nearly hid the effect, he could see a faint blue glow. It was nowhere near what it had been when he had upgraded Talla. Maybe that was to be expected. After all, this was a single upgrade, not a quadruple.

Nadine seemed so relieved. The tension and anxiety that had seemed to consume her whole personality were gone now. A giddy, almost childish look overcame her expression -- indeed the entire language of her body had shifted.

"Thank you so much," she said again.

Towels arrived. This, he recalled from both briefings, was the procedure when upgrades went as planned. A small wet towel for him. A larger one for her. Attendants whisked those away once they'd served their purpose.

Someone handed him his robe so he could cover himself again.

As he refastened the robe, he glanced up in to the audience. His crisp night vision was gone. He couldn't see in to the dark. It was pitch black past the very faint outlines of the thrones. He tried to peer past them, to the rearmost rows of benches, but he could make out nothing.

And so he was left guessing what Talla had thought of all that.

-----==================----

So that was it, then.

Zhair'lo was safe. Nadine was upgraded.

Talla breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn't believe the risks they'd just taken with Zhair'lo's life. Sure, he looked okay, but what if the damage it was doing to him was cumulative? What if loading him up like that took its toll every time around?

Combining that anger with her disappointment at having missed him in the Priming room, she found her stomach quite unsettled. She told herself that she would sit for one more upgrade and head back to her room.



Talla's Temple Ch. 10



He faced a walk home that seemed longer than it ever had.

Zhair'lo knew that there was no reason for them to let him sleep in the Temple this time around. They had returned his clothes in the exit room. No doctor had examined him. A guard had quietly escorted him out through the funny tunnel-road that served to transport men back and forth between Endowment's small gate and it's Augmentation Chamber.

So he stood outside the thick Temple wall and considered his options.

Talla was, last he had seen her, inside the Temple. She probably couldn't get out.

Would that he could have communicated with her somehow, but the way they had of speaking inside one another's heads had so far only worked when they were having sex or in very close proximity to each other.

He had only been able to look at her and she back at him. And with their eyes they could speak to each other of longing. That was as far as it went.

He turned to look at the gate that had closed behind him. The guard who had escorted him was gone. Another guard, who stood atop the wall, had let the metal trellis slide back in place. The wall itself was smooth and tall. Insurmountable, it stood between Talla and him. There was nothing to be done about it. He thought about waiting by the gate, hoping that she might happen by, but there was that guard and it was her job to be suspicious.

So he began to walk home, trudging along the Temple wall, his mind blank.

As he passed by the main gate, it occurred to him that all was not lost. Sure, something had gone wrong this night. Both he and Talla had assumed that her assignment and his Summons would bring them back together. Neither had considered that they could miss each other in such a way. The town was a big place and so was the Temple. It was possible that there were people who lived here that he would never meet.

Gern was big. He'd never thought about it that way before, but walking along the monolithic beige of the exterior Temple wall, he realized how truly large the city was. How wise was it to expect chance to put Talla near him again?

But this wasn't some random search for a needle in a haystack. He was looking for a particular girl in a short white skirt and he knew exactly where she went every day. At least he hoped so. How often did women change their assignments? She should be at the same dorm every day, shouldn't she?

His pace quickened as he thought about it.

There would be more heat bells. They were getting in to the worst part of summer. He could find her again, if he were willing to make that run in to town. And he was more than willing to race every day for such a prize.

He was passing by another gate, a small one with a square at the top of its arch. The circle was from Talla's Division. Which one was the square? He had more questions than answers. Whom should he ask?

-----==================----

Talla decided to watch one more upgrade, just to let her stomach calm. An Adept who appeared to be from one of the Discplines of Form -- if Talla were to guess based on the shocking crimson shades in her hair -- was getting an Abundance upgrade. She found it really odd to see a woman several years older than herself with such a small chest.

She realized that such an assumption was just her own bias. In the few days that she had been in the Temple, she had become so accustomed to seeing women with large breasts that she had to force herself to remember that there were places in the Temple where other features reigned supreme.

The crimson haired woman had, if she were indeed a devotee of Facial, five upgrades to her facial structure. She had coaxed five different men -- six if you counted her Initiation -- to spray her face and hair with semen. She was beautiful, and elegantly so. There was a certain class and presence that came with those upgrades. It was expressed in the way she pursed her lips and the way she gently stroked her Conduit. There was no urgency here; no desperation; no demand. None of that. What she wanted from this man, she brought about with understated skill and grace and a flash of long eyelashes.

Talla watched, trying to understand how this woman could be so smooth. Could a man really ejaculate when stimulated so gently? Her first experience with boys had been her Initiation and so she had only ever thought of it as a race; a thing to be done quickly and so harshly as to be nearly violent. 

Would this technique work for this man? And he was a man. She kept trying to tell herself that she was a woman now, but she still took herself for a girl and males of Zhair'lo's age for boys. This Conduit, this man, was larger in every way than every boy she'd ever touched. Someday, she'd be a woman like the red haired woman on the altar below her. And someday, she would give Service to men like this.

What the woman wanted, she received. Holding her man in sway with her eyes, she forced his seed out of him, spraying across her chest. She smiled only slightly, knowing that this tiny change in her expression was all the gratitude that her Conduit needed as he emptied himself over her flesh. Smoothly, without interrupting anything else, she suffused semen and Synergist in to her chest.

Did her lips move? Did she say, "thank you", in some quiet voice? Even squinting Talla couldn't be sure. But the red-haired woman didn't really have to say anything, did she?

The clean up procedure went on as it had before and Talla let her mind wander. Was that what it was to be a woman? To be mature? Would she learn to be as smooth and graceful as that? Maybe not. Maybe it was just the nature of the women of Form, a way barred to her for many years.

What a disappointing thought that was.

There was only one way to go, if her goal was to be like this woman. That way was to proceed as quickly through the ranks as she could. She already had the benefit of her accidental upgrade. The rest was just a matter of Serving the Temple, in whatever capacity they required of her, as often and quickly as she could. She supposed that she would start Serving soon. She ought to be in the schedule by now, shouldn't she? So far it was a history lesson and this night of Priming. Wasn't it time for her to see some real action? She felt ready for it.

Which brought up another problem. Between her anticipation at seeing Zhair'lo, her duties as Primer, her disappointment at missing him, her anger at what they'd done to him and finally her relief at watching him ejaculate without incident -- she had some issues of her own.

"I'm gonna go," she said to Tina, now that the Chamber had cleared of upgrade participants.

"You sure?" Tina asked. She eyed Talla closely, "You okay?"

Talla shrugged and stood up to leave.

"Alright," Tina said. "I'll come with you."

Another shrug. Talla really would have preferred some time alone.

As she exited, Tina in tow, she nearly bumped in to a girl in a long skirt.

"Sorry," the girl said.

"Oh! You're Nadine," Talla said, surprised

"Uh, yeah."

"I'm Talla," she introduced herself. Here was a girl that had just been with Zhair'lo. What should she say?

"How was it?"

"It worked," Nadine replied with a weary kind of happiness. "Finally. Three times I've waited to feel it."

"So you feel, uh, good?" Do you feel what I felt? Did he make you feel the way he made me feel?"

"Yeah. It still burns a bit."

Behind Nadine, Tina held two fingers up in the air and rolled her eyes in childish mockery.

Possibly Nadine wasn't yet aware of what had been done to her.

"Girls," the door guard said. "Either find a seat or be on your way. The next upgrade will start soon."

That stiff admonishment galvanized all three of them in to action.

"Yes, Mistress," Nadine said, speaking first. "I'm going to watch."

"We're, um -" Talla started.

Tina cut her off. "We're headed out, Mistress. Nice meeting you, Nadine."

Upon which Tina jovially took Talla by the arm and led her out. Talla was glad for that. She'd had enough of upgrades for the time being. Was it possible to catch Zhair'lo? She should have thought of that before. It was probably too late, even if she knew which way he had gone ...

"How do the men get in?" she asked Tina.

"From the small gate," Tina replied, still hooking her arm and dragging her along. They had reached the ground floor of the Offices already. "There's a guarded road that takes them to the back of the Augmentation Chamber."

Must be quite a secret road, Talla thought. She'd gone all around the Augmentation Chamber on her first day in Endowment and not found it. 

The Offices were quiet and scarcely lit. Having just come from the thundering drums of an upgrade, there was a distinct shift toward silence here. A single guard eyed them curiously.

"Girls," she nodded politely.

"Mistress," they chimed back as they padded across the marble floor.

The courtyard they called Tranquillity was quiet and dark. Stars were visible.

"I've never seen it this empty," Talla remarked.

"They wouldn't be back from Serving yet," Tina explained. "Even after that, most want to socialize, not be alone."

They passed through the courtyard and in to Endowment Hall.

"Feel like a drink?" Tina asked.

Talla thought about that. There were a lot of things in her head. A lot of things that made her frustrated and angry -- and disappointed. She did not feel like hanging around with crowds of women.

"Not really," she replied with a frown.

Tina read something in that frown and didn't bother arguing.

Talla took a look around Endowment Hall as they entered. It was still mostly empty. A few women were milling around at one of the bars while a pair of girls in white waited for drink orders. Fires had been lit. The Hall was warm. It just wasn't what Talla wanted right then.

"Come on," Tina said, never having relinquished her arm. "We'll go for a walk."

-----==================----

Kurran was still up when Zhair'lo got back to the farm. More importantly, he was alone and held a flagon of some type of ale in his hand.

"Something on your mind, Zhai-zhai?"

How to begin?

"What do you know about the Temple?" Zhair'lo asked.

Kurran hummed and looked around the room idly. It was clearly not his first flagon.

"Big triangle," he replied with a shrug. "Tells us what to do; sends us women to fuck. What else is there to know?"

"How is it run?"

Kurran blew out a breath of air.

"Goddess at the top," he said wearily. "Three Queens. Nine Sorceresses. Not something I particularly care about, Zhai-zhai."

It wasn't an unreasonable position to take. If women came with orders - and came back later with sex - what purpose would curiosity serve but to disrupt the flow of rewards?

Zhair'lo plonked himself down on a well-padded chair next to Kurran.

"I just wonder, is all," he said, trying to catch Kurran's diction for the sake of comfort.

"Wondering about the Temple won't do you no good."

Zhair'lo winced. A man's duty was his work, not the idleness of mental wandering.

"I just wanna know why they called me back for another upgrade."

"How could I know?" Kurran replied. "Can't be that bad a burden, can it?"

Well, no, it oughtn't to be a burden. It should be the stuff of dreams, being fawned over by two girls in a shower and then -

No. He had questions. This wasn't the time for daydreams.

"No. It's not that. Just, why me?"

"Because you did it right," Kurran said. "You followed orders. Maybe you do it better than the other little boys."

Because he'd overdone Talla, then? That was a sign of strength? He had to mull that over. Were other boys incapable of doing what he had done to Nadine? He'd thought, briefly, that they were just testing him for damage done by Talla's upgrade. Probably not.

"Do you know the Disciplines? The nine of them?"

Kurran was getting uncomfortable, despite the drink.

"Can't remember the Disciplines, just the Divisions," he said. "All I recall is that the ones with the big tits come out whenever we have to lay out a new building. Endowment, that is. Abundance -- that's a Discipline - are the ones with the biggest racks. The Sweetness girls are the ones who can squeeze you 'til your head pops off. And Form ... well, you wait until you have a girl from Form."

There was a pause then.

"Well. 'nuff said. I'm off to bed."

Without further comment, or even eye contact, Kurran stood up and left the room, swaying only slightly.

Well, that had been odd.

-----==================----

"Come on," Tina said, pulling Talla through the entrance.

"Swimming?" Talla asked doubtfully.

"A bath, then," Tina negotiated. "The place will be mostly empty."

Endowment's pool house was, fair enough, quite empty. It was pretty peaceful and Talla did want a moment or two of quiet to calm herself. That's why she had turned down the Hall in the first place.

Tina turned away from Talla toward the clothing pegs along the wall. She bent over to slide out of her skirt in a smooth motion. Her top -- a pair of crossing sashes fastened to a waistband -- went off over her head. It happened so quickly that Talla hadn't even had a chance to touch her own clothing.

Tina looked over her shoulder and nodded toward the closest sunken basin.

Fine. A bath.

Talla slid her tiny skirt and underwear off in one shot and unfastened her top. Her breasts fell, pulling down on her chest and shoulders. She had to admit that the breasts themselves felt a lot better than they had since the upgrade, but the motion as they walked and the sheer weight of them still caused her pain.

Tina had already stepped down in to the water and was wading across to the far side of the bath. She turned to face Talla and stretched her arms out extravagantly along the edge. The position she took left her nipples just barely exposed at the water line. That couldn't be an accident, but Talla couldn't figure out what she meant by it.

Talla slid down in to the water as gracefully as she could with her twin encumbrances. She adopted the same position as Tina did, letting the waves the two had generated lap at the erect tips of her nipples. It was nice to let her breasts float in the water. It took some of the strain off her chest.

In a moment of relaxation, she wondered at the construction of the pool house. What kind of effort had it taken to hollow out the giant swimming pool? Then these little baths? On top of that, the stone structure that was built over top of it with louvred windows to control the temperature. Underneath, there were fires to keep the baths warm? How did one build a fire pit under something else? The bottom of the bath was stone, after all.

She grimaced and waved off her thoughts. She'd have to have a look under the pool house sometime and see what they'd done. Guessing would serve no further purpose.

She looked across at Tina, still displaying herself.

Are we showing off? she thought.

Tina looked back at her oddly.

Showing their nipples off to each other didn't make any sense. Talla didn't have any upgrades in Point and, as far as she could tell, neither did Tina. So why -?

"No gods damned way you're an Initiate", Tina said, glaring candidly at Talla's breasts before meeting her eyes.

If Tina hadn't had a look at her in the shower, she could certainly have a good look now. Was that why she had adopted this pose, thereby inviting Talla to follow? Just so she could examine her?

"That's the rank they told me to take," Talla said. "Then they gave me the skirts to match."

Tina looked doubtful, but did not lower her body in to the water.

"Yet," Tina said, "I'm a Neophyte in Strength and I've worked my ass off to get both of my in-div upgrades in Abundance."

Talla could see where this was going.

"You claim to be an Initiate of Abundance. Therefore, also two upgrades."

Talla didn't know what to say. There was nothing to do but let the inevitable chain of logic conclude.

"And my tits are nowhere near as big as yours."

Which was an oddly crude choice of words. It was so derisive that a chill went through Talla. This sort of thing had happened to her several times already. A lot of girls who heard Talla's story, one way or the other, went very cold on her. Tina seemed like such a nice person. It would be a shame to lose her friendship.

"It makes this very awkward," Tina said, letting out a breath of frustration.

"Awkward?" Talla asked.

"Hello? When they're pointy, it means they're getting cold," Tina said with finality, as if that explained everything.

Talla stared at her, squinting her eyes in confusion.

"What?"

If Tina was getting cold -- and she clearly was - why not slide under the water?

"How long should I wait?" Tina asked.

This was getting more and more bizarre.

"Wait for what?" Talla asked, completely befuddled. "Look, I really don't know what you're getting at."

Tina let out a heavy sigh.

"Madra Zen," she cursed. "How long have you been in the Temple?"

"About two weeks, honest," Talla stammered. There was some fine point of etiquette she was blowing; something she should know; something that Tina expected her to know

"Two weeks?" Tina goggled. She nodded at Talla's chest. "How'd you get those?"

"I got hit with a quadruple on my first upgrade," she confessed, still distressed.

Tina's eyes came up to meet Talla's. Shock was in those eyes, and some concern.

"Must have hurt like hell," Tina whispered.

Talla nodded, not letting her eyes waver.

"Like all nine of them," she replied in the same quiet tone. "I passed out."

Tina thought about this for a moment. At least her frustration and anger had dissipated. Whatever piece of etiquette or Protocol Talla had failed to satisfy seemed to be waived in light of this new piece of information.

"So you really are an Initiate," Tina said.

Talla nodded.

"Until I complete my quotas or whatever."

Tina was looking up at the ceiling, some calculation evidently going on behind her eyes.

"Oh, well then," she said finally. "I suppose it's to me."

"What's to you?"

All she could think was: Please, please explain what's going on.

"In this Division, it's usually pretty easy to tell rank, even when two women are naked," Tina explained. "You can see, plain as day, how many Abundance and Point upgrades I have. You can probably take a pretty good guess at the Strength, too."

Talla nodded, trying to figure out where this was going.

"So I look at you," Tina went on, "and having seen you naked, I think you're a rank above me. Never mind that the clothes I saw you in say otherwise."

"You thought I was a Keeper?" Talla tried to find a thread of logic in this discussion.

"Yes," Tina confirmed. "So that makes it your responsibility, after our teamwork in the Priming room, to offer me sisterhood."

Sisterhood? Talla shook her head clear of all of the possibilities she'd been considering. This was about sisterhood?

"So I sit here, in this pool, offering sisterhood the way a junior does to a senior," Tina explained, nodding to her chest, "by keeping them out where you can see them."

"Y'know? Hint, hint?"

Talla's mouth formed an 'o'.

"Yes. Exactly," Tina said. "But it turns out this wasn't some trick. You really are what your clothing says, not what your chest tells me."

Talla nodded.

"So I'll say it," Tina concluded. "I would like for you and me to be sisters."

Talla, quite speechless, nodded again and, as Tina waded across the bath, she lifted her body a little so that her breasts were clear of the water. It made her chest ache, but she knew it was temporary. Tina planted one kiss on the tips of each of her nipples before rising up out of the water to offer herself in return.

As Tina's breast hove in to alignment with her mouth, Talla was reminded of how Atreya had assumed a very similar position a few nights before. The difference here was that, due to the architecture of the tub, Tina had to kneel on the small, submerged ledge on which Talla was sitting. One of Tina's legs wedged itself between Talla's thighs, pressing them apart.




Talla's Temple Ch. 10



Talla sighed as Tina pressed first one, then the other breast, in to her mouth. She opened her mouth just a little, to let the cool, erect tip slide between her lips.

"You okay?" Tina asked, sitting back on her heels but not moving her legs.

Talla shrugged.

"Tell me," Tina insisted gently. "We're sisters now. We can talk."

Annoyance, frustration and anger overwhelmed caution. Tina was very close, her face only a hand's span from Talla's. She could whisper. It would be private.

"You know the Conduit that did the double upgrade?" she asked.

"Ren hana," Tina said, nodding. "Yeah, I was there."

"He was the guy who did my upgrade."

"The quadruple?"

"The only upgrade I've ever had, yeah."

"So?"

"So I picked him for my Virgin's choice, too."

Tina nodded, still waiting for something of substance. Picking one's first Conduit as one's Virgin's Choice was not at all unusual.

"When he did my upgrade," Talla explained. "It looked bad. The expression on his face -- well - I thought he was going to die. And after he came I thought I was going to die. It hurt that badly."

She shivered, thinking about it.

"And?"

"And they did it to him again," Talla pronounced darkly, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. Her heart pounded as her anger came back fresh.

"On purpose," she emphasized.

It was Tina's turn to make an 'o' with her mouth.

"You care about him?" Tina asked.

Talla wagged her head from side to side, feigning indifference. It wasn't right to care about a specific male. Not too much, at least.

"He's a person," she said, somewhat defensively. "It's bad to hurt people on purpose."

That was one of those axioms that was drilled in to children very, very early.

Tina considered this and put her forehead against Talla's, ever so gently.

"Listen, giant-breasted sister of mine," she said affectionately. "I've seen ren hana upgrades a lot of times. It's the only way to crack some Virgins. Everyone in the Chamber knew what that signal meant because they've seen it before, too."

Talla was acutely aware, particularly after being addressed that way, of how Tina's nipples tickled at the tops of her breasts.

"I've never heard of one going wrong, or anybody being hurt -- male or female. Yeah, threes and fours are dangerous, sometimes fatally dangerous. You'll learn about that later. But ren hana? Perfectly safe."

That was comforting. It didn't leave Talla entirely satisfied with what had happened tonight. But she had to acknowledge that there had been no sign of objection in the Chamber to such use of Zhair'lo and, despite a somewhat cavalier attitude toward male welfare, the outright killing of men was not something of which she would accuse the Temple.

She let out a breath of air to calm herself. She felt better, having stated her fears out loud, but was still muddled with emotion. Her racing heart was slowing back to normal.

Tina backed her upper body away so she could look in to Talla's eyes.

Eyebrows raised, she asked, "Was that all that was bothering you?"

Talla looked around. Yes, something else was troubling her. Something under her skin that she just couldn't grab a hold of.

"I don't know," Talla said. "I feel really -- really ..."

She didn't know how to describe it. Tina watched her carefully as her eyes roamed around the room, searching for some way to explain herself.

"I want to run. I want to be left alone. I want to crawl in to bed. I want to go screaming through town."

That made no sense, but for some reason Tina smiled with some mischievous sense of comprehension. Under the water, one of her hands slid up Talla's thigh, fingers on the outside, thumb on the inside, until she came to Talla's hip.

Talla quivered as Tina's thumb slid inward along the fold where her abdomen met her leg.

Tina acknowledged the shiver by glancing around the room. Her thumb lightly traced the very top of the slit between Talla's lips before she withdrew her hand.

"Come on," she said as she backed away. "Let's get dried off."

-----==================----

The Queen of Endowment was too busy to sit and talk. She held court with her juniors while marching around her Office. The short train of her red gown led two women in green and a retinue of others in orange.

"So it worked, then?" she asked

"Yes, Highness. Perfectly," Abundance replied proudly.

Much more soft spoken, her dark-skinned comrade added, "It is most likely that both upgrades will take to Nadine, Highness."

The Queen rounded to the back of her desk, not immediately looking at either of them as she leafed through a stack of parchment on her desk.

"We'll have twelve more days," she said, pointing at one Sorceress then the other. "Then we'll have to release this Seal breaker to general."

Point pursed her lips in a gentle pout.

"That will get us through only half of our queued up Virgins, Highness," she said.

"Don't I know it," the Queen said with a shrug. "But we'll get him once a week after that. That will just have to do."

Abundance let out a sigh. Point was more reserved, merely running an index finger from her forehead to her nose.

From behind them another voice spoke up. "There is another possibility, Highness."

"What?" Endowment asked, interrupting her examination of the mountain of parchment in front of her to peer past the considerable shoulders of her green-clad subordinates. "Pril?"

"Yes, Highness," a woman in an orange blouse and tiny underwear stepped forward. "The other double upgrade."

Everyone stopped then -- Queen, Sorceresses and Officers all.

"Other double upgrade?" the Queen asked.

"Eletta, Highness," Pril stated flatly, consulting the wooden board she now hugged as if it were a shield against unwanted attention. "Her measurements just came in."

Another unintentional multiple upgrade. They'd just gotten over what they'd done to Zhair'lo and Talla without incurring any obvious signs of displeasure from over the wall. What was this now?

"Just a double?" the Queen asked, pleading in that imperious way that woman of power often did.

"The physician was certain, Highness," Pril stated, eyes wide. "The swelling was not enough to measure three, but would definitely hold at two."

"Name?"

"The Conduit was Zo-"

"We'll get to him later," the Queen interrupted. "Who was the source?"

"Shanata, Highness."

The Queen snapped her fingers. Two attendants in chest-crossing white sashes perked up immediately.

"Find Shanata," she ordered. "Both of you. Go, now."

They curtsied high, showing that there was nothing under their white skirts. No one -- no one at all -- was to wear underwear while on duty in this Queen's Office. It was quite a trick, though, to show enough thigh at the side to prove there was nothing underneath while keeping one's genitals concealed in accordance with all of the other rules. A junior never made either mistake twice and was ever careful to demonstrate her obedience to this particular Queen's rule.

"Do you think we could have found a second Seal Breaker?" the Sorceress of Abundance asked. More credit to her if that was the case, as Eletta had chosen her Discipline.

"Another toggle for your blouse?" the Queen asked. "We'll see after we talk to Shanata."

-----==================----

So what was up with Kurran anyway?

Zhair'lo had shoved open the wooden shutters to his quiet little bedroom and was looking out at the moon and stars. His bedroom faced roughly toward the glow on the horizon that he knew to be the Temple.

What is it with you? he asked the hidden building. Why does no one wonder at you?

Maybe men just didn't care. Maybe they learned not to care. Then how was it that he had come to care? Were other men just naturally incurious?

What did he know so far? There was a Goddess. There were three Queens. There were three shapes -- triangle, circle and square. So figure that each Queen had a shape and the shapes were Divisions.

Endowment's shape was the circle. That was Talla's Division. There were Disciplines. Talla's was Abundance. Renia's had been Point. 

Natta was in Sweetness -- the triangle - which had Within, Lips and Pussy. 

Kurran had mentioned Form, another Division.

But why? That was the overarching question. Why this hierarchy? How did it get that way? What purpose did it serve?

So his knowledge had some gaps. So there wouldn't be a lot of men interested in filling those gaps for him, even if they knew anything. It would be women, if anyone at all, who would tell him things.

Just as Natta had told him things. He pictured her now, holding her fingers in that triangular shape over her smooth genitals, the line of her lips bisecting the shape perfectly and cleanly.

If more women came to him, perhaps he could coax them to speak.

He peered out at the ineffable glow as he leaned on the window sill.

There was also Talla. She would tell him things, probably, if he asked. But he would have to go quite a way to find her.

There would be more heat bells, though, right?

-----==================----

"When did you get a room like this?" Talla asked.

"Neophyte," Tina answered, waving three fingers in the air.

The room, quite a distance down the street from the apartment Talla shared with Lara and Salee, was a bit smaller than Talla's but only held two beds. Beside each bed was a small dresser, much the same as she had in her room.

Tina was lighting a wall torch so they could see better while Talla looked around. The walls were decorated with a few keepsakes and pieces of art.

"Where did you get those?" she asked.

"Form, mostly," Tina replied. "They make all sorts of things there."

The paintings were quite pretty, Talla had to admit. Very colourful and smooth, except for one odd piece of work. It hung on the wall next to Tina's Strength medallion -- the one she would have received at her Initiation. Strength's symbol was the circle of Endowment wrapped around an arrow made of two lines. Talla had always thought it looked like child's drawing of a roof, but without the building underneath. The odd piece of art next to it was a strip of bronze, bent in a circle, with another piece of bronze bent inside it. It looked very much like an incredibly crude representation of the very same symbol.

"Oh, that," Tina laughed as she noticed Talla's curiosity. "Just a weird thing I can't let go of."

It was completely out of place, that twisted piece of metal in amongst the other, nicer works.

Tina quickly turned Talla toward a rack of clothing that took up the far wall of the room. A brass pole had been mounted horizontally across the wall. Tina and her roommate apparently shared this space to hang up their fancier clothing.

The simpler, working style of clothing would be folded up in the dressers. This was the nicer stuff -- the ceremonial clothing and the things they might wear to go out Serving. Talla had nothing like this.

"Where do you get stuff like this?" Talla asked as she leafed through the hangers. She'd seen the other women, on their way out to serve, dressed in things like these. She'd even seen them, occasionally, out of her window when she lived in the dorms.

"They have bazaars every now and then in Form," Tina explained as she opened one of her dresser drawers to reveal a small pile of metal discs. "You get coins for Serving and you can spend them at the bazaar. When you're done with whatever you bought, you can sell it to someone else, or trade it."

That was the first Talla had heard of a 'bazaar'. There was nothing like it in the dorms. No personal possessions at all, really. There were board games -- where players marshalled their resources in cooperation and competition with each other. It was enough that Talla knew the words 'buy' and 'sell'. She hadn't realized they could pertain to an individual's actual day to day living.

"I kept some of my Initiate outfits," Tina said. "You can try them on."

Neophyte clothing would look somewhat like the crossed sashes Tina was currently wearing whereas Initiate clothing was nothing but a mini-skirt and a top. It would be easy to tell which was which.

"Why did you keep it?" Talla asked as she leafed through the hangers. 

Why not get rid of anything she couldn't use? The coins, like resources in the boardgames, were obviously finite.

Tina shrugged. 

"Dunno," she said. "I guess I just like having ways to remember things. I want to keep at least one outfit from every rank."

Talla pulled out a hanger to examine its contents. The skirt, embroidered with flowery blue and silver patterns, looked very short even for an Initiate. The strapless top was made of angled pieces of fabric and looked so foreign that it confused Talla. 

"Forget the top," Tina warned. "You're too big for it already. But the bottom would look great. Hold on a sec."

Tina brushed past her, the fabric of her sashes just touching Talla's upper arm, to ferret out another outfit.

"I wouldn't know how to put it on anyway," Talla remarked, holding it up in the torchlight.

Tina harumphed. 

"I can show you," Tina said as she handed Talla a top. "But try this on first."

It was the nicest top that Talla had ever seen. Maybe that was why Tina had kept it so long. It wasn't the stretchable fabric of which her current top was made. Instead, it was very close to silk. She felt the fabric between her fingers. Soft, and loose. It wouldn't provide much support.

"I won't look," Tina said eagerly as she turned around. "Try it. Surprise me."

Talla shrugged and turned around at the same time Tina did. Talla was a bit jealous. She'd never had personal possessions, and now here was Tina with two walls full of them. At least Tina felt like sharing. As Talla slipped out of her top, she wondered when she would be rewarded with these coins.

The top had a tight band around her chest that fastened around the back with hooks. Straps went over her shoulders. The silken layers of light blue and white were loosely draped from the straps to the horizontal band so they didn't quite cross her cleavage.

"Am I wearing it right?" she turned around to ask.

Tina, it turned out, was also playing dress-up. She had managed to get herself into the patchwork top that had befuddled Talla. No wonder Talla had been confused. Not only was it made of weird, triangle-shaped patches, it was also designed to look like a triangle in general. It covered her left shoulder and the left side of her chest, but left her right breast mostly bare and her right shoulder strapless.

"Doesn't quite work anymore," Tina eyed herself. "When I was an Initiate, I only had the one upgrade in Abundance. I'm a bit too big now."

She looked up at Talla.

"Now you, on the other hand ..."

She trailed off to approach Talla and adjusted the band around her chest upwards so it pushed her breasts up. Talla had to hide a wince.

"There!" Tina pronounced.

"I feel kind of naked," Talla said as she looked down at her chest. The silken fabric was so loose that it hung away from her. She could see her nipples quite clearly, as would anyone who was standing beside her. "You're allowed to wear this?"

The Protocols regarding nudity were quite specific about breasts -- especially the pointy parts. The only rules that were more stringent were those about genitals.

"It's a little more relaxed when we got out Serving," Tina said, admiring Talla. "You want daring, try this."

With a quick movement, she pulled the string on Talla's skirt and yanked it away.

Talla started to protest but Tina was already handing her the odd skirt.

"Try it," she said with a smile. She turned her back as she added, "And for the gods' sakes, lose the underwear. No one wears that when they're out Serving."

Talla wasn't sure about this whole thing. Neither her mind nor her stomach had really had time to settle down since ... since when? When was the last time she'd felt stable?

She laced up the skirt as she thought about it. Had she felt right before Tina had brushed against her in the pool? No. Before she'd watched Zhair'lo do the double upgrade? No. Before she realized she'd miss Zhair'lo? Before working Zo'kar with her mouth?

No. She hadn't felt calm in body or mind since she'd run in to Zhair'lo at the dormitory. Everything had felt upside down since then. She took a deep breath and tried to centre herself.

The skirt was done up, at least. The issue was whether or not it was the sort of thing that she would wear on her way out to Serve somebody. The only way to test that out was, like it or not, to take off her underwear.

The sound of it sliding off was enough to make Tina turn around.

"Well!" she shouted in approval.

"Now I feel completely naked," Talla said. "You actually went outside in this?"

Tina nodded eagerly. "A couple of times, anyway."

She moved around Talla from one side to the other, sizing her up.

Talla looked down. The skirt, if you could call it that, was a string on her right side, knee length on her left thigh and barely covered her crotch in the middle.

"I dunno," she said doubtfully. She pointed to one corner of the room and added, "If you stand there, can't you see underneath?"

Tina moved to look from the indicated angle.

"Maybe a little."

"A little? What's a little?"

Tina closed one eye and and lined up a pointed index finger with Talla's genitals. She closed in on Talla, letting her finger follow the imaginary line she had made in the air. Talla watched, nervous and silent, as that finger brushed against the flimsy protection of her skirt and touched a spot so close to her lips that it made her let out a gasp of air.

Tina looked up at her with wide-eyed sincerity.

"It's tough, isn't it?" she said softly.

Talla nodded as the tip of that finger explored the edge of that cleavage.

"Working the boys over," Tina continued, almost pleading. "Touching them."

Her finger pushed, ever so gently, in to the flesh over Talla's clitoris.

"Those hard, hard penises. In your mouth ... between your breasts."

Talla, helpless, let Tina stroke her.

"You can't wait until tomorrow, can you?"

Speechless, Talla shook her head.

"Just lie down," Tina said. "It'll be easier, and you can see to me, too."

Talla gulped and let Tina gently push her to the bed, that small, gentle hand never leaving the throbbing flesh that was her mound.

It hurt. It hurt so badly, to want and not have. It wasn't even that she wanted Zhair'lo though he was always on her mind. Her body just wanted satisfaction so badly, and all she could think was that the boys she could have were so far away ...

But Tina was here, and Tina was a woman, like her. So she trusted that Tina would know what to do.

And Tina did know what to do. With the patience of a cloud drifting across the sky in the quietest night, she nudged Talla over on her side and curled up behind her. One hand snaked around Talla's neck and dove down to search for a breast. The top, faint protection even in the best of situations, utterly failed to cover her chest in any useful way in this position. Her breasts spilled freely in to one another. Tina grasped one, palm over nipple, and began kneading it.

Her other hand slid down between Talla's legs. Talla spread her thighs, welcoming Tina in.

Fingers found lips, caressed, pressed down. Talla felt Tina's naked breasts press up against her back. When had the other girl discarded her top?

"Abundance you have," Tina whispered as she took a tight grip on Talla's breast. "And Abundance you will be. So it's for nothing if you don't -- squeeze."

And she squeezed hard as she pushed in to Talla's mound and hugged her tightly.

Talla moaned.

She remembered, quite suddenly, how she had felt when she had run to Zhair'lo and tackled him. She recalled how vibrant and powerful that moment had been, seeking him out, hunting him down. It brought back a memory of desperate hope.




Talla's Temple Ch. 10



This moment was different. It was desperate, but so much more helpless. She didn't know what to do. There had been no instruction about this. She hadn't known that women did this with each other. What should she be doing?

Should she be doing something for Tina?

'... and you can see to me, too,' Tina had said.

Afterwards, or at the same time? Her hands felt useless, tucked there against her stomach as Tina plied at her.

She reached back with one hand, over Tina's arm, to touch the other girl's spine.

Somewhere, something was beginning to hum.

Tina was getting rougher now. Sensing Talla's rising desire, she began pinching her nipples and pushing more deeply in to her genitals. Her lips separated like a wet field surrendering to a plough. Talla's hand meanwhile quested downward, cupping Tina's cheek to pull her in more closely.

Two of Tina's fingers, thick with Talla's juices, prodded at her entrance.

It had been too much, that beautiful penis ensconced between her breasts, throbbing in her mouth. That beautiful thing, begging for her make it come, begging her to take it -- not across her tongue but deep within. She wanted it in inside her. She wanted Tina's fingers inside her, but those fingers just couldn't reach.

The humming was a song now, inside her head, a melody growing ever louder.

She could take no more slowness. She twisted her body round, rolling herself to face Tina, naked breast to naked breast. Sweat across her brow and out of breath, only her eyes could beg the more experienced girl to continue.

Tina smiled, not quite able to draw a full breath either, and hugged her tightly. It tingled where the flesh of their breasts met over the inconsequential fabric of the silk top. The most upgraded parts of their bodies would always be sexual centres. That's just how it was. And pressing the bounty of their Abundance one against the other was generating some strange sensation ...

Tina planted a light kiss on Talla's forehead and her fingers once again found their way to Talla's entrance. This time, they plunged inside -- first two, then three.

Impaled, Talla could only close her eyes and thrust against the intrusion.

She opened her eyes.

No, she could no more. Tina was so kind; so gentle. She could do for Tina what Tina was doing for her. Her free hand found it's way down between their bodies, touching the uppermost split of Tina's lips.

The song was becoming a harmony. Talla had heard this before, though the tune was different.

Tina was wet. She was so wet that Talla could already feel her juices on the outside. Tina let out a soft sigh as one of Talla's fingers found its way between her lips and nudged her clitoris.

...

"Hah!" someone shouted inside her mind.

It was Tina.

"Beautiful," she seemed to say, struck with the wonder of it.

Where Sila had been afraid of punishment and Zhair'lo had been panicked by sheer inexperience, Tina was greeting it with childlike glee.

She slid herself behind Tina's eyes, in to Tina's body, and felt the way the other girl moved her fingers in and out. Drifting slowly back to her own body, she pushed her own digits up in to Tina's vagina. She did it slowly, sensing as she did so the way Tina wanted it done. She felt Tina's pleasure at the penetration.

And all the while she basked in Tina's amazement, radiating like a song being sung in to her soul.

It struck her to wonder what her breasts would feel like in another's hand, but there was no way to speak. She tried to call out to Tina, to say, "Cup my breast", but was met with a sense of denial. They were snuggled so tightly together that only one hand was free to do it and that was the one that was working between her legs.

So she drifted in to Tina's body and tried to get her to remove that busy hand. But it was to no avail. The fingers that were stroking her towards orgasm were locked where they were.

Tina pulled back, knowing somehow what Talla wanted to feel, and looked in her eyes. It was dizzying, doing that; looking in to the eyes of someone when you could see it from both points of view.

"New!" Tina seemed to shout in excitement.

There weren't words, though. They couldn't speak. It was only the mesh now.

"New?"

"Very new," was the reply as Tina's eyes narrowed and pierced her. "Never before."

Their breasts had come apart though their fingers were fast in place. Talla looked down at those disobedient fingers, buried inside each other.

"Mesh," Tina called out, her eyes alight. "Unbreakable."

But she knew what Talla wanted and, as awkward as it was, the mesh demanded it of her. So she withdrew her hand from around Talla's shoulders, curled it up against her own body, and took hold of one of Talla's breasts.

An incoherent groan of pleasure came from Talla's throat and was echoed back from Tina.

Talla drifted in to Tina's body and immersed herself in the texture and softness of her own breast in her sister's hand. She directed Tina to squeeze, which was done without hesitation or awareness of where the command had originated. It was enough to say that the mesh wanted it and so it was done.

Enraptured, both girls began to stroke each other with more vigour. Tina's grasp on her oh-so-sensitive breast became tighter, harsher -- even painfully so. Her thumb started to prod at Talla's nipple, stretching it out of place.

Talla's eyes crossed and she became blind as orgasm approached.

A hammer struck her between her thighs. She couldn't localize it. It was inside her vagina; it was outside her lips; it was on her clitoris. It was a crashing drum that drove her fingers deeper in to Tina's wet tunnel. No, those were Tina's fingers inside her vagina ... she had lost track of who was who.

The thunder fired from her to her sister and she felt the other girl's orgasm, her involuntary pelvic thrusts as the same hammer hit her even harder, right at the base of her spine.

Suddenly two bodies were frozen as every muscle in each of them locked itself in place. Tina's hand clenched Talla's breast in a death grip as their flesh was battered by the hammering of the orgasm that bounced between them. Back and forth it went, faster and faster, pounding at the insides of one paralysed girl then the other until it was a blur that pushed them both in to unconsciousness.

-----==================----

The Sorceress of Abundance caught her Queen's eye and jerked her head to indicate something at the door. The Queen turned around to see one of her Disciples being escorted by a girl in white.

"Shanata, Highness," the girl announced quietly.

"Thank you, Naia," the Queen replied. "That will be all for the evening."

"Thank you, Highness," the girl replied before gratefully curtsying her way out.

"Highness, you called for me?" Shanata asked, all business.

There was no messing with this woman. She must have started with a body built like a brick wall in the first place. On top of that, she had taken all the Strength upgrades she could instead of the Point ones that most favoured. Then, when offered upgrades in other Divisions, she had taken as many in Form as she could and the minimum in Sweetness. Women who preferred Form over Sweetness just weren't worth messing with. It meant a penchant for rules and order before power and advancement.

Even a Queen, with her vastly superior level of upgrades, could feel a bit uncomfortable in that unbalanced presence.

"Could you tell Us what happened in the Chamber this evening?" she asked, quite formally.

"Of course, Highness," Shanata replied calmly. "Which part?"

This startled even the Queen, causing her to make a motion very much like a hiccup.

"Your upgrade of Eletta," the Sorceress of Abundance put in. "Did you not hear?"

"No, Mistress," Shanata replied, perplexed. "It succeeded, of course?"

"It was a double upgrade, dear," the Queen said softly.

Shanata thought about this only for a heartbeat.

"No, Highness," she said. 

It wasn't defiance or argument. It wasn't insubordinate or irrational. It contained no anger or wounded pride or any of the hundreds of other emotions that it might have contained had it come from someone else. It was spoken as a simple statement of fact. In that odd manner that Shanata had of speaking -- and in spite of the difference in rank -- there was nothing offensive about her denial.

"No?"

"No," Shanata confirmed in that same, even tone. "I only delivered one upgrade, Highness."

The Queen didn't even know how to react to that. Neither did the Sorceress of Abundance. So it was Point who spoke first.

"Pril?" she said. "Show her the chart."

Pril, a full Officer, couldn't believe Shanata's attitude, nor her success in getting away with it. So she came forward quietly and handed the Chamber's record sheet to Shanata.

"The measurement is here, sister," Pril said, pointing to Eletta's portion of the sheet. With her eyes, she tried to warn Shanata that she ought to tread carefully. It was the least she could do, considering their relationship.

Shanata gave it a glance and handed it back to Pril.

"The physician has made an error," Shanata replied, her confidence unperturbed. "Either she measured incorrectly or she measured the wrong person."

This was getting a bit thick, even considering Shanata's steady demeanour.

"Shanata," Abundance said in her most reassuring voice. "You must understand that there is no punishment, nor any stigma attached to this situation. Double upgrades are not that unusual."

Shanata dipped her head once in a nod of understanding, but said nothing further.

The Queen stared at Shanata a moment, not quite aghast, but rather stupefied by her junior's attitude. The woman was an Acolyte, four ranks away yet from Perfection, and had the gall to act this confident of herself in front of those who held Perfection?

"We will have her re-examined on the morrow," the Queen said. "That will be all."

"Highness. Mistresses," Shanata acknowledged her superiors with a bow. She turned on her heel and walked out.

When she had left, the Queen turned aside to the Sorceress of Abundance, looking over the woman's shoulder from as close as their respective chests allowed.

"What an odd woman," she whispered without making eye contact.

It wasn't quite an accusation. There was just a vague implication that, a Sorceress being responsible for her Disciples, perhaps this particular Sorceress might wish to speak with her junior. The Sorceress looked slightly uncomfortable and grimaced in acknowledgement of her superior's suggestion.

"Like as not, Highness," she replied in the same quiet whisper, "her confidence is entirely warranted. Her record for upgrades is flawless. On top that, she is our strongest liaison to Form when it comes to matters of Protocol."

The Queen grimaced, unknown thoughts dancing behind her eyes.

"Indeed," was all she said.

Her mind was already on something else.

-----==================----

It was much too soon to wake up.

And she was in the wrong place.

Talla had heard a door creak open and it forced her to consciousness. Bleary eyed in the struggling torchlight, she tried to rouse herself. She was comfortable -- physically at least. She was in a warm embrace, her head tucked against the bare, smooth chest of another.

Another? It was Tina, also slowly coming around, who held her. Tina's breasts, smaller than hers but still ample and soft, made a cushion for her cheek.

Someone else was in the room.

That person, a girl in a silver embroidered white dress, glanced at Talla and let out a breath at the sight. It wasn't indignation, at least. Maybe derision.

"This was a room for two, last I checked," she said with a sigh.

"Y'ris," Tina mumbled. She sat up very slowly. "Sorry."

Y'ris shrugged.

"S'alright," she replied with a smile. "I had a pretty good night. One of those warrior types."

Tina's breasts bounced in to Talla's view as the older girl finally got herself upright. Y'ris was slipping out of her dress.

Y'ris would be a Neophyte like Tina, or she wouldn't be in this room. A quick glance as she leaned over to slid her outfit past her knees told Talla all she needed to know: three upgrades in Point and probably one each in Abundance and Strength.

"But really," Y'ris eyed Talla as she slipped out of her dress, "you shouldn't be caught sleeping here."

Talla sat up suddenly at that. Her heart started racing.

"It's not a big deal," Tina tried to assuage her fear.

"No," Talla said. "It's okay. I'll get going."

"It'd be a bigger deal in Form," Y'ris, now quite naked, warned. "There are rules."

Tina, also naked, put her hands on her hips.

"Are you going to report us?" she asked.

"No," Y'ris said, indignant. "I'm just saying. Don't let some hard-ass from Strength catch you."

It was an odd thing to say, given that Tina's Discipline was Strength.

"I'll just go," Talla said. "I should go anyway."

She was uncomfortably aware of the tension she had created between the two other girls. She hadn't even known that there was any rule against what she and Tina had done.

She stood, a bit queasy, and felt her breasts moving too freely.

"Oh, gods. My clothes," she said frantically.

"It's alright," Tina said, trying to soothe her. "You can borrow these for when you go out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"You're Serving tomorrow," Tina said. "Just bring my clothes back some other day, alright?"

Talla nodded without looking either of the Neophytes in the eye.

"I'll go. I should really go."

She rushed out the door.

"No, wait -" Tina called out, trying to stop her. 

But Tina was naked and Talla knew that she wouldn't run out in to the street without any clothes on. Whatever rules Tina might be willing to break to relieve sexual frustration, the punishment for public nudity was just far too severe to risk.

Talla didn't stop running until she reached her apartment.

*

Thank you for all of your comments and encouragement, both private and public. I'll endeavour to keep the chapters coming more quickly, as summer vacation is over.

Cheers,

Xav.



Talla's Temple Ch. 11



The Queen of Endowment awoke in the casual way that she always did after a busy night.

The man she had Served had left her bed some time before she had woken. It was considered gracious of her to have her servants set out breakfast for him and see him well fed before he was escorted out of the Temple. Once he was gone, it was acceptable for her to get up and have her breakfast. It just wouldn't do to eat together. She had to set a good example for her Disciples; women and men simply didn't dine at the same table.

She took a deep breath and sat up.

His clothing was gone. He would have taken it after it was laundered in the night. There was barely any sign of him, really. Just the rumpled, somewhat stained sheets and a feeling of fullness inside her. Just those little signs -- and her memories.

She remembered that tall, bearded man, taking a knee at the threshold to her bedroom.

"Highness," he had said in his deep, sonorous voice as he bowed his head.

"Arise," she had replied in kind, eager as any girl on her first night.

She smiled with the memory.

She couldn't leave the Temple. She rarely left the Endowment triangle except when summoned by the Goddess. 

But she did have this place; her own Domain. 

And she had this room in all its fiery and crimson shades of red.

And she had this body, with its full breasts and perfect, wide and pert nipples. She admired herself in the full length mirror so large that few could afford it. So nearly perfect, this body that the gods and her own efforts had given her. So very nearly perfect and unlikely to ever make the final jump. 

Those last six upgrades were not to come her way. She knew and accepted this. She ran her fingertips over the luxurious fur between her legs. Ten upgrades. Ten men she had coaxed to orgasm to obtain this much, but the eleventh would not come.

And her legs: strong and supple. She traced the lines of her muscles as she turned sideways to the mirror. Quadraceps. Hamstrings. Calves. Lean and hard. It was a good body. It served and it Served. But it wasn't perfect.

Her face, her hair and her muscles, even the ones inside her, would never quite reach perfection.

"In stability: Sweetness."

That was the rule, known as far back as Temples went. This was a time of stability, of controlled growth and peace and health. So when the Goddess's time was done it would be the Queen of Sweetness replacing her, not either of the Queens of Endowment or Form.

And that was fine.

Endowment had her own projects to see through, her own responsibilities to carry out.

That meant it was time to stop admiring herself in the mirror. There was a small, private shower just off of her bedroom. A frosted glass window in the ceiling let sunlight shine down on her as she pushed the lever to let the water flow.

That felt good. Getting water up to the third floor of a building was no mean feat. She knew that better than anyone in the Temple. But, by the gods, this was the Division of the engineers, and if they couldn't get their Queen a hot shower in her bedroom, there would be nine kinds of hell to pay.

Sex was a wonderful thing, but so was washing off the stickiness of sweat and semen from her body. She smiled at that thought, too. No matter how pleasant meshing was, there was always a thrill in taking a man's erection between her breasts, in squeezing it between those mounds of flesh. She liked to feel that engorged rod thrusting against her.

Some men -- some few, blessed men -- were long enough to poke out the top of her cleavage. She could watch their heads swelling before her very eyes. Some men. Like Kendrik, last night.

"Come," she would say, as she had said last night. "It's okay."

And they would fight it, or snarl, or grunt to hold it off. Or they might be like Kendrik, who would just smile and let loose; let her feel his pulsing manhood thrashing in her bosom and spray her from neck to forehead.

Semen was life. It was energy. It was the necessary Conduit for the magic that the gods had given to the Temples. It was a lovely thing to see it launching out at her, as it had in dozens of Upgrades and hundreds of other more playful times.

Some thought of it as wasteful, to let an orgasm go by without meshing. But she understood, as maturity could make one understand, the power of anticipation.

Besides, it was no loss to her.

Thirty three Endowment upgrades had been sprayed in to her chest. If the perfected mammary glands therein couldn't produce something to bring back an erection, then something was terribly wrong.

-----------===================-------------

Talla had lain awake for hours, trying to figure out how she felt about what had happened with Tina. It was undoubtedly a mesh that they had made. It was a bit like the one she had had with Zhair'lo, but much more like the one she had barely had with Sila. She and Sila had broken that one out of fear -- mostly Sila's.

Then Sila had gone to Form, to Iron, where rules mattered.

Had Tina and Talla broken a rule? Had they done something that no one did?

"New!" Tina had seemed to shout in jubilation.

New because women couldn't do such things? Or because no one had ever tried?

Turmoil set her stomach to a great deal of unease.

She didn't want more trouble. She didn't want more attention. She wanted to take the one semi-fortunate accident that had happened to her and push ahead.

The scent of Tina was still upon her fingers.

Fingers.

She needed to wash up and head out to the dorms. The children would be getting up soon and she had to see to their breakfasts.

Fingers.

There was an image burned in her mind. Two dark-skinned fingers held casually against an ivory white marble altar.

Ren hana.

Maybe it hadn't hurt Zhair'lo. Maybe it was just like Tina said: a thing so routine that no one worried about it.

Or maybe, just maybe, they were killing him very, very slowly.

Either way, she would always remember that night in the Augmentation Chamber. She would never lose that image. Not as long as she lived.

-----------===================-------------

"Eat up, Zhai-Zhai," Tilgan castigated him. "Rain coming. No time to waste."

Breakfast was quick, apparently, on rainy days. There was work to be done and it was best to get the outdoor parts of it out of the way before the ground turned muddy.

He polished off his meal, nodded gratitude to the chef, and headed out.

Mind you, Zhair'lo thought as the morning sunlight hit him, the rain would be a blessing in this heat. It was five bells from noon and it was already uncomfortable. He imagined standing out in the rain, letting it beat down on him, and continuing to work in spite of it.

He looked up at the sky without tilting his head.

Bring it on, he told the clouds with a smirk.

-----------===================-------------

Shanata was dumbfounded. Even Eletta could see that. 

Eletta had never seen her strict, frighteningly imposing teacher in such a state. Her left fist was on her hip. Her right she held clenched in front of her face, absentmindedly biting the knuckle of her index finger as she stood in front of Eletta and stared at the younger woman's chest in disbelief.

Eletta was getting uncomfortable. It was bad enough her breasts were sore from what had turned out to be a double upgrade. She really didn't care to add to that her current predicament -- standing in Principia Endowment, topless, with six high ranking women gathered around her. She couldn't do anything but stand there stiffly, hands at her side, while they examined her.

There were rules, meant for the comfort of high ranking individuals, that required lower ranking Disciples to strip when in the presence of their naked betters. There were no such rules for the comfort of naked juniors.

What was she supposed to do? She was afraid even to shrug.

Though she didn't realize it, the women weren't really staring at her. Only Shanata had eyes for the uncovered portion of her body. The other women were all staring at Shanata, waiting in silence.

"Do you have any questions?" the Sorceress of Abundance asked, breaking a silence so lengthy that her voice startled Eletta.

Shanata shook her head.

"Impossible," was all she said.

"Really, sister?" Atreya asked.

Shanata nodded.

"Yes. Really, sister."

Eletta was still having a hard time getting modes of address straight. Sometimes you had to call a woman of higher rank 'Mistress' and sometimes you didn't. Sometimes 'sister' was okay between certain people. Shanata was, by her clothing, three ranks below Atreya -- yet still called her 'sister'.

"I told you what I did," Shanata confirmed, her eyes out of focus. "This makes no sense. I swear it."

"It's not that bad," another woman -- an Officer in orange -- offered. "This happens once every hundred upgrades."

"Not to me, it doesn't."

It didn't happen to you, Eletta thought, it happened to me. But she said nothing. This seemed like a really good time to say nothing.

Shanata leaned in more closely, as she already had twice before, and examined her junior's small breasts from several angles.

Finally, she shook her head.

"I don't understand," she said. "I must have been mistaken."

Five women let out very gentle, cautious sighs.

It hadn't been an easy admission. That much was certain.

"I should be taken off upgrade duty," Shanata added firmly.

"Shanata, dear," Abundance consoled.

"Mistress, I insist," she said, pointedly not looking at Atreya. "Think what damage I could do without even realizing it."

Abundance considered this for a moment and tried not to sigh in exasperation.

"Very well," she said. "Have yourself examined by a physician. I will expect you to return to your duties in short order, or I'll hear why. Am I understood?"

"Mistress," Shanata said as she bowed.

Eletta watched as Shanata left the room. Gods, the woman had strong legs. She epitomized strength, even if her Discipline was Abundance. Seeing her like this was just plain odd.

Now that Shanata was gone, would she be allowed to leave, too? Or at least put her top back on? Maybe it was a good time to ask - no, the older women were talking.

"You let her shirk duty?" Atreya asked.

"You know her as well as I do," the Sorceress replied. "Do you think she would do her job well, right now, with her confidence so shaken?"

Heads nodded in acknowledgement of this piece of wisdom.

"Give her three days," she added, "then put her back in the schedule. She's one of the best we have for Virgin upgrades. I won't have her dawdling over a minor error like this for any longer than that."

Another woman in orange nodded and took a note.

"Now, let's find this Zo'kar -" the Sorceress said as she turned away.

The four remaining women turned and followed their Sorceress back in to the depths of her Offices, leaving the topless Virgin in her long skirt standing there, forgotten.

Eletta shrugged, not particularly happy at having been abandoned, but glad to have the attention off her. She replaced her new top and scurried quickly out. She had some paperwork to fill out.

-----------===================-------------

"Zhair'lo M'han?" a female voice called out quietly.

They were in the stable, brushing down the horses. It was not a place where one expected women to show up, so the sound of woman's voice would always command attention.

"Yes?" he said, turning to face the two girls at the stable doorway.

"A Summons," one of the girls said, holding out a scroll. "For tomorrow evening."

Zhair'lo blinked at her and took a breath. The one who spoke was dressed like Talla, in a tiny skirt. But her legs -- her legs were much stronger.

"Again?" he asked.

The Summons could only mean one thing. How often did they expect him to do this?

Both girls looked at him oddly then, not sure what to say.

He shrugged and held out his hand for the scroll. The girl who held it gave him a raised eyebrow as she released the cylinder from her grip.

The other girl, who wore crossed sashes over her breasts and looked slightly older, gave him an admonishing look.

"If it's not too much trouble for you," she remarked glibly.

One did not shirk duty. One did not even let on for a moment that one wanted to shirk duty.

"No. Not at all," he retreated hurriedly. "Thank you."

They nodded in return and darted off. Doubtless they wanted to get under shelter before the rain hit, just like everybody else.

He cracked the seal on the scroll before they were even out of sight. 

Another upgrade. Same gate as before.

Kurran had strolled up behind him.

"You'll be wanting to be more careful, Zhai-zhai," the older man warned him.

"Huh?"

"Gettin' clever with the Temple ladies," Kurran said. "They don't like ya acting like that."

"Like what?"

Kurran thought about that for a moment.

"Ungrateful."

Zhair'lo's eyes went wide. He hadn't meant to -

"Probably nothin'," Kurran said with a wave of his hands. "Just mind yourself, alrigh'?"

Zhair'lo nodded, taking it to heart.

Everything in his life had taught him to do his job. And his job was whatever apprenticeship or duty the Temple sent him on. There were penalties implied for disobedience, but he'd never experienced any of them himself. It was enough to know they were there. He could only hope the messenger girls hadn't misunderstood his reticence for -

"Zhair'lo!" a deep voice called out.

He stuck his head out of the stable doorway. Harzen was approaching.

"Master Harzen," he replied, trying not to let fear in to his voice. Had the girls complained about him? It can't have been that bad, could it? Harzen didn't appear happy. That was for certain.

"Let's saddle up a horse, boy," Harzen told him. "Grab Sunrise or White Spot, whichever. Get one of them out in the corral before the rain hits."

"Yes, sir," Zhair'lo replied. It didn't sound like any form of punishment.

Harzen grabbed a saddle off one of the gates and jammed a scroll with a broken red seal in to the saddle next to it. So Harzen had received a message as well? Did he have an upgrade to do, too? Then why did he seem so upset? Zhair'lo's impression was that most men looked forward to the rare occasions in which they were called to participate in that ceremony.

Odd.

Very, very odd.

-----------===================-------------

The rain had started to fall. Talla looked out through the windows forlornly. The children would be a bit harder to control on days like this. At least M'lis had told her so. That's why they'd put the children out earlier in the day. Let them run around and burn off some energy before the rain came and cooped them up inside.

Talla and her crew had only to see the children through to third bell. After that, they'd change shifts and someone else would see them off until the night came. Let the afternoon child minders suffer. The children could play with board games and blocks until lunch.

But no, the effect of the rain on the children wasn't Talla's chief concern.

The rain would make it cooler today and that meant there would be no heat bell.

No heat bell meant that there was no way for Zhair'lo to come by -- or for her to go find him.

She'd spent a lot of time thinking about that second option. She knew where he lived. She could run out there as she had on her first night of Service. But what if she went to see him at the same time that he came to see her? The streets were tangled enough that they could miss each other entirely. Then what? He had come to see her once. Might he not come again?

They had made no arrangement. She'd thought she would see him in the Priming room. They had probably made eye contact in the Chamber last night, but there was no way to communicate.

And she had to see him. She had to tell him what they'd done to him. She also had to mesh with him. There was still that incomplete mesh, the one they'd started in the alcove just around the corner from where she presently moped.

She sat up straight. Moping was unseemly. Scheming was more appropriate.

She narrowed her eyes and turned away from the window so she could look at the children as they played their board games. The games were all about scheming, weren't they? Sometimes you schemed in competition. Sometimes you played in cooperation. But you always planned. You always took careful stock of your resources. When you could, you even used someone else's stuff.

Talla didn't have any stuff of her own. She hadn't even realized until last night that she could have possessions. But those possessions would cost her coins she didn't have and, besides, none of the things she could buy would help bring Zhair'lo to her or help her get to him.

Communication was the key.

She had to talk to Zhair'lo. But how could she arrange a meeting? There was the mesh, but that seemed to have the range of about the length of an erect penis. Fine for the circumstances for which it was used but useless for her current needs. Messages did go out, though, didn't they? How else did men know when to come in for upgrades?

How did one send a message? And how did one go about sending a secret message?

She would have to find out.

-----------===================-------------

Horse riding lessons?

Harzen had come out to the stables, under skies that threatened imminent and violent thunderstorms, to give him horse riding lessons?

He was already astride Sunrise and focused on trying to remember all of the tips he had been given.

Harzen still seemed angry, but Zhair'lo had slowly grown to realize that the big man's anger was directed elsewhere. His attitude toward Zhair'lo was as patient and patently condescending as it ever was. What Harzen had to be angry about, he had no idea.

"Good," Harzen said, vaguely satisfied even in his disgruntlement. He kicked at the gate to unlatch it. "Take her out for a trot around the ring. If she starts to gallop, you rein her back in right away, got it?"

That was something -- Harzen trusting him with a horse outside of the corral. Few other farm hands were allowed to do that. Those privileged few were the older ones; those with the most experience. These horses were at the disposal of the Temple, not playthings for the farm hands. They rotated four at a time to be sent to a small stable very close to the Temple, ready at a moment's notice to ferry messengers off to other cities. Zhair'lo had no idea how often that sort of thing occurred. As far as he had seen, four horses went out and the same four rotated back a day later.

As he went past Harzen, keeping the beast to a gentle trot, it occurred to him that the horse could take him to town in a fraction of the time that he could run there. Too bad it had to be the most conspicuous possible way to search for Talla.

He imagined himself, just for a moment, galloping through the city, pelting through alleys, knocking down awnings and upsetting boxes full of food. His heart raced at the thought. There was danger, too. His eyes narrowed as that was added to his dream. He was being chased. Things were burning. He could almost smell the smoke. He would find Talla, then, and whisk her up on to the back of his horse ...

He shook himself back to reality and refocused on controlling his steed.

Keep it to a trot, Harzen had said.

Right.

Likely he'd kill himself if he let the animal start running around like that.

-----------===================-------------

"Nothing for it, then," M'lis remarked as the eight girls of Endowment gathered at the entrance to the children's dorm.

Rain was pelting down, as it had been for hours, rinsing clean what little dirt there was on the cobble stone streets of Gern.

Credit where credit is due, Talla thought. The deluge, heavy as it was, sluiced off in to gutters to be drained in to the river far away. The people who had laid these streets had done it well.




Talla's Temple Ch. 11



"We're gettin' wet, no matter," a quiet, lilting voice agreed.

The third bell of the afternoon, only faintly audible over the rain, had already signalled the end of their shift. New girls had come in, wet from the weather, and taken over supervision of the children. It was time for these eight to leave.

The problem was the distance. The Sweetness girls had a short dash to the closest entrance to their part of the Temple. The Endowment girls didn't have such good fortune. Unless there were extenuating circumstances, women did not run through each other's sections of the Temple. It just wasn't done.

That left the eight girls of Endowment in a lurch because, while all dormitories were within short distances of Sweetness gates, this particular building was in the section farthest from Endowment. The girls would have to pass around Form's corner of the Temple.

"At least it's still warm," Talla remarked. "No point waiting."

There was a chorus of agreement. M'lis turned to look at Talla who raised her eyebrows in return.

"Take it at a run?" M'lis asked.

Talla nodded. Six others, Neophytes and Initiates all, prepared to follow.

"The fastest way is past the carters' depot," someone said. "Straight up the road."

"Let's go!" M'lis shouted.

And they ran. The rain was unbelievable. It must have been some ridiculous storm coming down from of the mountains. Talla couldn't remember ever seeing anything like it. She imagined the sewers deep under their feet filling with rain water as it rushed madly down to the river. Would this rain overwhelm them and flood the streets? 

She thought of things like that these days, even as she and her companions raced along the cobble stone streets. They tried to find shelter as they ran, ducking under awnings wherever they could in their mad sprint. This was really a childish and stupid thing, running on wet ground like this. But it was exhilarating, too, to be set free. The rain made them anonymous, almost invisible. They weren't being watched and they weren't worrying about rules.

In just the first few moments, they were soaked so thoroughly that you could tell who had the Point upgrades and who didn't. Talla was glad that her top was tight enough to hold her breasts in place. The last thing she needed on this unsteady ground was unnecessary undulation.

She concentrated mostly on keeping the small amount of bounce her breasts did generate in synch with her steps -- while avoiding crashing in to fruit baskets and other sundries laid out under awnings rendered useless by the power of the storm.

Someone shot past her, a flash of black hair and white fabric against the impermeable grey of rain, and shouted, "This way!"

Where was she going? Who was it? She hadn't even gotten to know all of the other Endowment girls by name yet. But everyone seemed to follow her, so Talla did, too.

There weren't quite past Form's corner of the Temple yet. If they could make that corner, they could run along the wall -- maybe even draw a little relief from the downpour. But they weren't heading toward the wall. Where, then?

Suddenly, they were under cover and the rain was no longer assaulting them.

M'lis was there already, heaving with exhaustion and delight. So was the other girl, the one who had run past Talla so quickly.

Talla wiped water from her eyes so she could take stock of her surroundings. They were in a building that reminded her very much of Zhair'lo's stable. Tall stone posts, high ceilings, lots of wide doorways and storage space. A few oxen sat placidly in their stalls. 

"Where are we?" Talla asked between breaths as the last of the girls were coming in behind them.

M'lis, standing with her hands on her knees to alleviate the cramps in her side, said, "Carters' depot."

"Figured it'd be empty," the dark haired girl said. "Rain and all."

Both girls were Neophytes, wearing the sopping wet chest sashes that denoted their ranks.

"You Talla?" the dark haired girl asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm Adria."

"Hey."

That was all that could get out while tried to get air in to their lungs. Talla blinked her eyes clear. Both of her comrades were so wet that their sashes hung a good distance from their bodies. From where she was standing, catching her breath, she could see down both of their tops. M'lis was clearly in Point -- though she already knew that. Adria, on the other hand, had had three upgrades in Abundance. That was obvious, too. Talla could see everything from where she was -- breasts splattered with clear raindrops and nipples stiff in the cold rain.

Talla flashed back suddenly to the previous night. 

Tina. 

She remembered Tina embracing her.

She remembered waking up cushioned on the soft flesh of that girl's breasts.

She was also staring, an activity at which both M'lis and Adria promptly caught her.

"Not satisfied looking at your own pair?" M'lis asked with a laugh. Still unable to rise to a standing position, she instead stuck out her tongue and shook her shoulders, making her breasts dangle quite freely back and forth.

Adria laughed and did the same.

Talla had to laugh, too. With the rain and the cold and the exhilaration of running, it was just that kind of moment. She was, in fact, just about to pull her top down and return the semi-rude gesture when she heard a voice behind her.

"Something wrong with your clothing, girls?"

It was a deep, powerful voice. Undoubtedly feminine and not to be trifled with.

Adria and M'lis, despite the pain in their sides stood straight up immediately, wincing as they did. Talla came up, too, and twisted around.

"No, Mistress," all three chorused in fear.

The other five girls straightened up as well, but it was just these three who were the focus of the older woman's ire.

Oh crap, Talla thought.

The woman wore orange clothing in the form of a double sash -- just like the Neophyte costume -- and a tiny bottom Talla would have mistaken for underwear. It was the habit of the women of Form to wear the tiniest bottoms they could possibly find. That was one clue. The other clue was that she also had the strongest legs Talla had ever seen.

Form. Probably Tight, even.

Law and order.

And an Acolyte II to boot.

Of all the damned luck.

"Ho, M'yalik!" the woman called out to someone out of sight.

"Ho, Zhana!" a female voice called back.

"Ren jin ree," Zhana sang back.

M'lis made a plaintive noise at this declaration. Talla cursed again her inability to understand Temple speak. Two of what?

"Hai," the other voice replied.

"Follow me," she said darkly. "All of you."

-----------===================-------------

So it was going to piss rain all day, then.

Zo'kar would have preferred to be outside, repairing rooftops, but that was nine steps past stupid in weather like this. He and the rest of the roofers would take some time off. The rain was chilling so someone started a fire.

"Be nice to be a baker today," someone shouted.

This invited a number of laughs. Who would really want to be a baker, cooped up inside all day, sweltering by an oven?

"So tell me, boy," Chu'zen said, "How'd you do last night?"

Chu'zen had been his master for years, ever since he'd taken on construction as his vocation. The man had taught him roofing and masonry and a hundred other worldly pieces of wisdom. Chu'zen wasn't from Gern. He'd moved to the town just before Zo'kar had been old enough to leave the dorms. Not only had he been there for Zo'kar throughout his adolescence, he also seemed to take it personally that the boy move smoothly in to adulthood.

So this was no idle question. The cacophony of the rain hitting the roof gave them a measure of privacy.

"Good, I think," Zo'kar said.

Chu'zen observed him closely. The shyness that had dominated his personality had waned. There was enthusiasm now where before the subject of women had brought only signs of embarrassment.

"The upgrade worked," Zo'kar added. "That's what they told me."

Also, Zo'kar thought, Eletta's tits were glowing. Should he mention that? Maybe he was wrong and it was just a trick of the moonlight and the flickering torches.

"They don't generally lie," Chu'zen said wisely. "Where'd you do her?"

"Chest," Zo'kar said.

Chu'zen eyed him a moment.

"More of an ass-man then?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"You didn't seem very excited," his mentor observed.

"Oh, no, it was cool," Zo'kar offered. "Just weird, y'know? Girl staring at me. All those people watching."

"Bit unnerving," Chu'zen observed.

"Yeah," Zo'kar confirmed. "It was a lot easier, the first time -- at that Initiation, I mean."

"That time I had to kick you out the door?"

"Yeah, that one," Zo'kar said. He hadn't really spoken about this to anyone, but he supposed that Chu'zen was the sort of man he could trust. "She turned around, see?"

"You did her ass?"

"Yeah."

Chu'zen nodded wisely. So that was how the boy had broken his spell. A little confidence booster just to get him going.

"And a few days later you're coming for an audience," he said with a smile.

"Yeah," Zo'kar said and smiled back. "I hope I get to do another one."

"If you did it well, you will."

He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell Chu'zen that he could actually see Eletta's tits getting bigger right in front of him, while she was rubbing his semen in to her skin. He wanted to tell Chu'zen how he'd seen this faint glow in the mix of his semen and the Temple's clear syrup. But he held back a bit. The man was a bit older. Maybe he didn't want to hear about it?

"Have you done it a lot?" he asked.

"At least a hundred times, when I was young," Chu'zen said wistfully.

Probably he didn't want to hear Zo'kar's tales then -- it being old news. No one who had been through so many upgrades would care about the details of Zo'kar's first trip. Chu'zen would be more than familiar with the girls in the showers and the altars and the whole feeling of having all those people watching him.

Zo'kar smiled as he thought of his chance meeting with Talla in the showers. Seeing her there had been a huge boost to his confidence. He'd never felt the least bit worried after she and her friend had finished with him. He'd walked out of the little shower room and straight to the centre of the Augmentation Chamber. He'd looked up at that crowd of women in their rows of seats and never flinched -- not even once.

-----------===================-------------

Talla felt a kind of cold that went down in to her bones where rain water couldn't reach even in the worst storm. Cold sweat could do it - even to people who were cold anyway.

The woman in orange had brought them in to the Temple. She hadn't brought them through the main gate, but through a much closer gate, a gate with a small square over it.

Welcome to the Division of Form.

They'd been marched in to an imposing building made entirely of wood. It was the only one of its kind Talla had ever seen. Most everything else -- especially in the Temple -was made from sandstone that ranged from pinkish brown to yellowish brown. This place stood out in its darkness and the grain of its wood. Talla had dimly noticed the red star over the doorway as they had entered.

Soaking wet, the eight of them had been led through privacy baffles in to a long, tall room with narrow wall slits where small amounts of light could enter. The place wasn't meant to be bright, nor to be cheery and comforting. The walls were too close; the windows too narrow; decorations absent.

The eight girls in white were led past bench after empty bench to the front of the room.

A pair of stoic, spear-armed guards stood against the wall, bracketing a woman at a small desk. In one corners, nearly forgotten and unnoticeable, there were several girls in knee length skirts and small tops sitting in chairs.

Talla tried to drive the shivers out of her body when she saw that woman, but her trembling wouldn't stop.

The older woman, sitting on a wooden chair, wore a style of orange robe that seemed designed to be imposing. There was no doubt that the woman was an Officer -- the blouse and tiny bottom visible through the gaps in her robe told that story. She also wore a circlet of cold, rough iron about her crown. Talla had never seen that circlet, but she knew what it was from descriptions she'd heard. That also removed all question of where they were and who that woman was.

"Zhana," she said to the woman who had caught them. "What have we here?"

"Adjudicate," Zhana said with a bow. "Two Neophtyes. Caught at jin ree."

Adjudicate. A judge. And this was her court. 

During her first two weeks, Talla had been told about the courts, about how quickly judges reached their decisions. There were benches here for women to be lined up to take their turns. Apparently it was a slow day because the benches were all empty.

"Which ones?"

Zhana turned to face the quivering girls.

"State your names," she ordered.

What else could they do? Two frightened, shivering girls who knew they'd done wrong? Six others watching with a strong sense of inevitability? Talla sensed it, too. Punishment was coming. Pain was in the air. She remembered the sting of the teacher's crop on her cheeks. This wouldn't be like that. That little stick was a toy compared to what would be used here.

"M'lis, Adjudicate."

"Adria, Adjudicate."

"Do you admit that you were exposing yourselves in public?"

"Yes, Adjudicate," they confessed, simultaneously. 

The language and cadence of obedience had been drummed in to them. 

Nine hells, Talla thought, we've even formed two ranks of four without even thinking about it.

"What did you expose?"

The girls glanced at each other, wondering which of them should answer. It was M'lis, feeling responsible perhaps, as the senior of the two, who spoke.

"Our breasts, Adjudicate."

Talla flashed back to that moment. It had been playful; funny, even. They hadn't meant anything by it. They had just caught her staring and were making fun of her.

The judge turned to Zhana.

"Were there men in the area?" she asked.

"No."

That mattered? Talla supposed that it must, somehow.

"A mitigation to the sentence, then. Where was this?"

"A carters' depot," Zhana replied.

"A place where men could often be," the Adjudicate stated thoughtfully and sighed.

"Young ladies," she said with evident disappointed, "rules exist for reason."

She stood up and came around from behind her desk. All eight girls braced to stiff attention. It felt so familiar, just like being in the classroom, waiting as the teacher stalked between the desks; waiting for the trivia question that would mean either reward or pain.

"M'lis, can you tell me why we do not expose ourselves?"

"It is a Protocol, Adjudicate," she stammered.

"And why do we make Protocols?"

"I -- uh -- to make things better."

Another sad sigh.

"Adria, do you know why we do not expose ourselves?"

"It's a rule, Adjudicate," she replied. "That's all I know."

The Adjudicate shook her head.

"We make Protocols to keep the peace and ensure fairness," she explained. "We cannot have women of the Temple running around naked. Men have work to do. They get sex at night when that work is done. You would distract them. You would arouse them when relief is not in sight. Our job is to keep the men peaceful, not distract them and arouse them beyond their skill to resist. They are simple creatures who cannot handle such things."

Young heads nodded.

"You have all studied history, yes? The end to which you would lead us is nought but violence and anarchy. It is a slippery slope. I am tasked with ensuring we do not fall down that slope. That is why we have this rule. It has served us well and kept peace for centuries. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Adjudicate," M'lis and Adria said in hopeful unison.

The Officer took a deep breath and raised her voice.

"Do you all understand?"

"Yes, Adjudicate!" they shouted back.

"Good," she said, her voice relaxing slightly. "Very good."

She looked back with a sad grin at the two Neophytes in their soaking wet sashes. 

Talla became hopeful, then. Perhaps, frightened as they all were, this scolding was all that was needed. She was fairly confident that neither of the two Neophytes would ever risk such playfulness again.

"Had men been in the area," she said, "the punishment would be quite severe, depending on how many women we would have to send out to Serve them in the middle of the day."

Punishment? Surely there was no longer any need -

"There were no men," she went on in a kind voice. "But I fear this lesson must still be reinforced."

Talla, standing close to M'lis, felt the other girl take a sudden, panicked breath.

"Three common lashes is the minimum," she declared. "Which of you is senior?"

Stunned by the apparent contradiction between the woman's tone and her words, M'lis could only take a hesitant step forward.

"I am, Adjudicate."

"Very well, M'lis. You will watch," the Adjudicate said. She beckoned to Adria, "You first."

Adria, startled though she was, twitched forward in blind obedience. She walked tentatively, with fear making every step a threat to her balance. As she approached the desk -- whose purpose every girl knew - two of the girls that had been quietly waiting in the corner stood up and approached her.

"Disrobe," the Adjudicate commanded.

The attendants were by then standing beside Adria. One of them held her hands out, palms up.

Adria unlaced her skirt and handed it to the attendant. She folded it neatly and handed it to her partner. Underwear went next. Talla, horrified, tried not to watch but was unable to avoid detecting, in the periphery of her vision, the exposure of Adria's bare flesh.

The underwear, wet though it was, was folded in to neat, crisp triangle and handed off.

The attendant held out her hands again.

Adria seemed surprised.

"Complete nudity is part of the Protocol," the Adjudicate informed her dryly.

It seemed unnecessary. It was very rare for any crime to require lashes to anywhere but the rear. Why would she have to take her top off?

But Adria was well past being able to disagree. She released the buckle that held the waist band of her sashes in place and lifted it over her head.

So sad, Talla thought. Only moments ago she'd looked at those breasts and thought of Tina's warm embrace. Now she could only think how cold and alone Adria looked and how nudity only made it worse.

"Hands in the sleeves."

The 'sleeves' in question were leather belts fastened to the far side of the table. To reach them, Adria had to stand on her toes and lay her upper body flat on the table. The two guards stepped forward to pull her hands through and tighten the belts that locked her wrists in place.

So this is how it's done, Talla thought with a chill. In this cold, dark place, this is how they punish people who step out of line. They tie them to a slab of wood, bent over and humiliated for everyone to see. How horrible to watch. What must it be like to be Adria?

It was just like the classroom, but scaled up in every respect.

The Adjudicate looked over in to the corner where two attendants still waited. She held up a single finger, which was apparently a signal. On the wall hung a number of lashes of varying thicknesses. The attendant unmounted the one farthest to the left. Perhaps it was the lightest? Talla earnestly hoped so.

The attendant, a Virgin in a knee length skirt, handed the lash to the Adjudicate. The Virgin's eyes met Talla's for just a moment.

Sila.

She glanced at Talla in surprise. Then she saw Talla's clothing and her eyes went wide in pure shock. She looked away, still fearful of their encounter even this many days later, and bowed to the Adjudicate before rushing back to her place in the corner.




Talla's Temple Ch. 11



"The crime is jin ree," the Adjudicate announced clearly, "to which the accused freely confesses. The punishment is three common lashes."

There was nothing Adria could do to prepare herself. She was on her toes with her arms stretched out off the far end of the table. There was no way to hide or to adjust her position to try to protect herself.

The whip sang through the air and cracked off her cheeks, instantly raising a long red, rash as it traced across her flesh and licked at her flank.

Without a moment's respite, the Adjudicate pulled the whip back and cracked it across Adria's rear a second time.

Talla watched in horror -- unable to look away - as Adria muscles went taut from the pain; as her body instinctively tried to get out of path of the onslaught. But, painful as it was, the young girl refused to make a sound of protest. She seemed determined to maintain what little dignity she still had.

At least it was quick.

The third slash left its mark between the angry rashes of the previous two strikes.

An instant later the guards were releasing Adria's hands from the belts. She stood up immediately, able to relax her calf muscles once more. The attendant was there with Adria's clothing folded in a neat pile. Adria was forced to face them as they handed her clothing back to her, one piece at a time. She stood with as much pride as she could.

Talla couldn't see the bruises from the front but she didn't need to. She could see Adria's eyes and that was enough. She could also see that the table on which Adria had lain wasn't polished. There were long, white marks where splinters had scraped the flesh of her breasts and stomach when the guards had yanked her hands through the sleeves.

As Adria dressed, the Adjudicate held up two fingers. Back in the corner, Sila took this signal and retrieved the next largest lash from the wall.

Apparently M'lis deserved something slightly worse ...

Rain wasn't that bad. Zhair'lo was eighteen years old. He'd been rained on.

But this storm wasn't like any of those that had come before.

Standing out in it had been more like having pails of water dumped on his head.

The entire complement of farm hands had retreated to the large farmhouse. There just wasn't any way to get anything done outside and they had already done all of the work they could in the stables and the silos.

The funny thing about the rain was that, heavy as it was, there was almost no wind with it. Zhair'lo could sit in the common room with the shutters open and watch it come straight down. It was blinding and violent in a way that he had never seen before. There was nothing he could do but watch sheet after sheet of it pour down in a continuous assault on the land. The farm wasn't going to look pretty when this was done.

Would it let up before the evening? At least he didn't have an upgrade to do tonight. He couldn't imagine having to walk half an hour in that ridiculous weather.

-----------===================-------------

"It's not your fault, Talla. Forget about it."

"But, M'lis, if I hadn't-"

"Talla," Adria cut in, "each of us is responsible for our own actions. You never, ever, blame your mistakes on someone else. Right?"

Which, as axioms went, pretty much settled the question. Both Adria and M'lis seemed to accept the fact that a phrase taught to them as children overruled any other distribution of guilt.

"We are women," Shanata had said once, reinforcing the old rule. "We rule from this Temple. We are each of us capable. We can face our mistakes. We do not run from our responsibilities or our errors."

But Talla had made a mistake, possibly, last night with Tina. Was it really her fault if she hadn't known there was a rule? Women could kiss each other's nipples, couldn't they? And during her first week, hadn't they all been instructed to penetrate each other with their fingers?

If someone was going to whip her ass for breaking rules, shouldn't they let her know all of the rules?

Even more strongly on her mind, however, was the distinct memory of the moment when Zhana had sneaked up behind her.

"Something wrong with your clothing, girls?"

Talla's hands had been cupping her breasts. The tips of her fingers had been curled around the edge of the fabric of her top in preparation to pull the top down. She had been about to expose herself and return the gesture the other girls had been making at her.

If Zhana had waited just another moment to interrupt, Talla would have joined Adria and M'lis on that table. Talla would have been tied down and helpless, just like them. It would have been her flesh that felt the searing kiss of the whip. It would have been her breasts, their flesh still sensitive from the stretching caused by the upgrade, scraping against that table.

M'lis had been bleeding.

Bleeding.

Had that really been necessary?

Talla shook her head and huddled closer to the fire.

Like many of the women of the Endowment, the eight of them had gathered in Endowment Hall to warm themselves by one of the many fire pits. M'lis and Adria might have joked about enjoying the cold rain water on their abused skin but they stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest around one of the small fires and rubbed their hands over its flames.

"Suppose we'll have to make a run across Tranquillity?" Talla asked.

What with the rain, no one had made the run today to fetch the assignments. They were still sitting there in their slots in the Offices, waiting to be picked up.

"No rush," M'lis pointed out. "We're already here anyway, right? We're not going anywhere."

There were nods of agreement. No one wanted to go back out in the rain. It was much better to stay here, together. They might not know what to say to M'lis and Adria; they might not have the words to make it better, but they could at least be there, commiserating.

So they commiserated for a while, best as they could, in silence.

"Talla!" someone whispered urgently.

She turned around to see Tina and panicked a moment. The last thing she needed right now was a reminder that she might have a beating in her future.

Tina was giddy, though, and wet from the rain. She was in a different place relative to Talla, who had just seen ... what she had seen.

"Hey," Talla said as she left the group huddled around the fire.

She handed Talla her assignment card.

"I saw you when I went through," Tina explained. "Then I saw your assignment in its slot, so I picked it up for you.

At least it didn't say, "History, Shanata" again.

Instead, the writing on it said, "Jace Ch'lai. 2-11 House 7."

"You know where that is?" Tina asked.

"Yeah," Talla said.

The '2' meant Endowment's side of the city. After that she just had to find the eleventh block and the seventh house. Everything was numbered -- for this purpose and probably for many others.

Jace.

She'd never heard the name. After all she'd been through today, she was going to go out and Serve a boy she'd never met?

Talla thought about that for a moment, looking blankly out the giant doorway of Endowment Hall in to the pouring rain. What a grey day this had turned out to be.

She peered in to the rain as a shape began to form.

A figure in yellow was walking through the rain, quite casual in spite of water coursing over her double sash. As she came through the rain, Talla could see that she favoured the cloth style of skirt over the grass kind. The strips of her skirt, as soaked as the rest of her, clung to her powerful legs.

She wasn't accustomed to seeing that kind of muscle in Endowment. Women here were busty and softer. This woman wasn't of Endowment. She came to the threshold of the Hall, standing just out of the path of the rain -- not that the rain had seemed to bother her -- and waited.

A woman in orange -- an Acolyte of Endowment -- approached her.

"They were all delivered?" the Acolyte asked.

"Of course, Mistress," the yellow woman of Form answered. "We made sure they made it before the rain came. The scrolls were dry and legible on delivery."

The Acolyte nodded and retrieved a group of canvas bags the Form woman had been carrying over her shoulder.

"Our gratitude," the Acolyte said with a light bow.

"Our duty, Mistress," the other said with a deeper bow. She turned on her heel and walked back in to the grey nothingness .

The Acolyte took the bags and hung them on the wall.

Talla stared at that wall quite a while. Could it be that easy?

Tina was shaking her shoulder.

"You alright?" her sister asked.

"Um, yeah," Talla said with narrowed eyes and a smile. "I'm fine."

Jace it would be, then. 

Maybe that was exactly what she needed after this particular day.



Talla's Temple Ch. 12



So this is what women do? Talla thought, as she eyed herself in the small mirror she shared with her roommates.

Salee and Lara were sitting on her bed, looking at her. They weren't Serving tonight so they were just there to see her off.

"You're really going to wear that?" Lara asked.

"Yep," Talla replied haughtily.

If someone from Form dragged her off and whipped her, so be it. She might deserve it less than M'lis and Adria had, but only barely.

"No underwear?" Salee prodded.

"Nope."

That was how she felt tonight. She had no reservations or concerns. She didn't care how unprotected she felt. She wanted it that way. Her eyes were cold with determination even as she felt the heat between her thighs.

She didn't have a word for how she felt this evening. There just wasn't one in the current vocabulary of the people of Gern. There had been such a word but the women of the ancient Temples, having long ago judged the word unnecessarily derogatory, had struck it from history.

Bold. That was the best word that she knew.

The top she had appropriated from Tina was revealing. No one could look at her tonight and think that these were the breasts of an Initiate. Let them ogle. Let them see her nakedness. She would take it as a compliment if someone stared. In the meantime, she would gladly feel the wind between her thighs every step of the way to her destination.

Now to find this Jace...

-----------===================-------------

"Your business, Mistress?" the guard asked.

"Adjudicate Sonja with the daily justice report," she replied stiffly.

The guard turned her head slightly.

"Go ahead, girl," she said to a Virgin in a knee length skirt.

The young girl turned and padded her way in to formally announce the Adjudicate.

Sonja stood at the threshold to Principia Tight, proudly taking in all of its glimmering silver and green glory. Here was the true centre to the Temple. This was where law and order was kept; where the centre was held, where the weak were strengthened and those gone astray were corrected.

Oh the rules themselves were made next door in Iron but, for the most part, it was Tight that made sure those Protocols and Dictates were obeyed.

Without Tight their blessed society would descend in to lawlessness.

The young girl padded her way back to the entrance.

"The Sorceress of Tight will see you now, Mistress," she reported. "She asked me to remind you that she is Serving tonight, so it will be a brief audience."

Sonja remembered a time, many years in the past, when she had served at this little girl's post.

"Thank you, girl."

The Virgin curtsied and stepped aside.

Tight's domain was a beautiful, well-ordered place. It was always a pleasure to come here, to see the precisely aligned desks and the green banners fitted snugly in place against walls and pillars or pulled taut from ceiling to floor. It was a sharp and serious place to be. It was the way the whole Temple should be, really, if anyone would think about it for a moment.

The Sorceress was at her desk at the very back of the room. Due to the hour, the room was empty save for a few attendants lingering around their leader.

Sonja walked smartly to the foot of the desk and waited for her Mistress's attention.

The Sorceress signed a final document and raised her eyes to look at the Adjudicate.

"A summary, please," she said.

"Three decisions today, Mistress," Sonja reported.

"Only three?"

"The rain, Mistress," Sonja pointed out helpfully. "It tends to cut down on both criminality and the discovery of same."

Tight pursed her lips.

"Indeed. Go on."

"Two Keepers from Pussy were caught switching Service assignments," Sonja said. "Both confessed and were given a choice between six common lashes and two heavy lashes. Both chose the former."

Not surprising, really. The heavy lash was slightly barbed ...

"Their names were recorded?" Tight asked.

"Yes, Mistress," Sonja replied. For such crimes it was important that a note appear on each woman's record for future reference. Recidivism was a primary concern when it came to enforcement. If punishment didn't discourage repetitions of antisocial behaviour, then punishments would be changed.

"Go on."

"The other was Insubordination," Sonja said. "An Adept from Lips speaking improperly to an Officer. She also confessed, Apologized to her superior and was given one heavy lash."

A simple docket, really. Nothing that had tested her jurisprudence to any level.

"You said there were three?"

"Oh, yes."

She'd almost forgotten the last one.

"Two stupid girls from Endowment, exposing their breasts to each other at a depot outside the Temple. I gave them three lashes with the toy whip," she said casually. "I told them it was the common lash. They appeared to believe me."

The Sorceress actually smiled at the notion. "Toy whip" was a term for any of the lashes used on the young women who weren't from Form. It would be almost completely ineffective against any woman with even a single Tight upgrade, but was sufficient for others.

Stupid girls, indeed.

"Did you report it?"

"No, Mistress."

Which was fine. Young girls were expected to do stupid things. They needed to be corrected, certainly, but there was no need to take note of such trivial juvenile idiocy. It was enough that they knew that someone was watching and that rules would be enforced.

That, after all, was the purpose of Tight.

-----------===================-------------

How many women were there in Endowment, anyway? Talla had been so anxious the night she'd gone to see Zhair'lo that she hadn't noticed how many women had been crammed in to Endowment's plaza on their way out to Serve.

There must be a thousand women here tonight, she thought.

Many of them were calling out addresses. It seemed insane, trying to gather with those headed to the same place.

Seeing the dumbfounded look on her face, an Adept stopped to speak to her.

"Lost?"

"Um, maybe."

"Where you headed?"

"2-11, house 7."

"Sector two gathers over by the entrance to the Hall. They'll be in order from one to thirty two."

"Thanks."

With that in mind, Talla soon began to see the order in it. The women were in bunches, gathering according to their destinations. It wasn't complete guesswork after all. She took a stab at where the eleventh group might be and headed that way, navigating past women who were crossing her path.

She blinked as she recognized someone.

"Nadine," she called out without thinking.

She was hard to miss. There were never going to be very many long-skirted Virgins at any one meet up.

"Oh, hey," Nadine paused to reply. "Um, Talla, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," she said. "You're Serving tonight? Already?"

It seemed to Talla that most girls didn't start Serving right away. Most, like Lara and Salee, waited at least a day. Why was Nadine in a hurry?

"I didn't really want to wait anyway," she said distractedly, her eyes on the groups of women at the far end of the plaza. "And then they told me that I could either have him tonight or miss my chance."

She turned to look at Talla and added, "He's going to be busy, right?"

Zhair'lo. 

Nadine was talking about Zhair'lo. Nadine was on her way out to Zhair'lo's farm. Could they switch places? No. Nadine would never go for it. She had chosen Zhair'lo on purpose, just as Talla had. Could she send a message, just something to let Zhair'lo know that...what? What did she want Zhair'lo to know? What was there to say besides, "Come to me as soon as you can"?

She felt the opportunity slipping through her fingers. What could she do? What could she say?

"Have fun," was what came out of her mouth.

I want to be you, was what she wanted to say. But even that would have been a lie. Talla didn't want to be anybody but Talla. All she wanted was to be going where Nadine was going.

"Thanks," Nadine said, her eyes once again attendant elsewhere. "You, too."

Talla watched Nadine swirl away to the groups of women headed to sector three – Zhair'lo's sector. A frown slid across her expression before she shrugged it off. There was nothing to be done about it.

-----------===================-------------

"You're not pregnant?" Tia asked.

She was formally dressed in the white smock of a physician. They were not sisters, at this point, but a doctor and a patient.

"No," Shanata replied.

"The urine sample didn't indicate any problems," Tia told her in a coldly serious tone. "Remove your top."

Shanata had seven upgrades in Abundance. When she removed the rather scant top that protected her considerable assets, they stayed firm and high. Six fortifying upgrades in Strength could do that, making her breasts seem even larger than they were.

Tia, as a physician, knew how to compensate. She ran a tape measure around the Acolyte's breasts at the level of her nipples.

"No sign of degradation here," she announced.

She flipped the tape over to measure across the width of Shanata's areola. She then gently squeezed and tugged at one of her nipples until it became stiff.

"Size and response are good. Lie down."

Shanata laid back on the cloth coated bench. Her breasts sprawled a bit as she did so – there was only so much that Strength upgrades could do, after all. She knew this test. She'd already done it herself when she began to have doubts about her body. Tia was going to check her pectoral strength.

The correct position was the one that men used for lifting barbells – an activity for which women had no use except as a test of health. Tia placed her elbow in to the palm of Shanata's hand and leaned.

Shanata could have pretty much lifted Tia off the ground with one arm – the physician was not particularly heavy – but contented herself with merely holding her ground.

"Good," Tia declared.

She then put a leg over the low bench on which Shanata was lying and, straddling her abdomen, pushed on the larger woman's shoulders.

"Four upgrades in Iron?" she confirmed. "Sit up."

Shanata felt her stomach muscles tensing as she pushed against Tia's weight. Tia nodded and let Shanata sit up.

"Remove your bottom," Tia said.

This was always the least pleasant part of visiting a physician. It shouldn't be any more awkward than having sex, but it was hard to be even a little bit aroused in a clinical environment.

She slid off her small orange bottom, laid on her back and stared at the ceiling in resignation. Tia knelt at her side and slid a hand down her belly to her crotch. Shanata felt fingers coursing over her mound.

"Two upgrades in Pussy. Coarseness and thickness are correct."

A well-practised physician could tell with a touch. Tia parted Shanata's lips.

"Two upgrades in Lips. Clitoris and labia appear correct."

She hesitated a moment.

"You are a bit too dry," she warned, holding two fingers in the air over Shanata's upper body.

It was a matter of preference. Temple women didn't use artificial lubricants, not even for medical reasons. Saliva was always available. It was just a matter of where it would come from – and it was left to the patient to decide.

Shanata opened her mouth. She found it too intimate to use someone else's saliva. Tia slid her fingers in to that open maw so Shanata could thoroughly coat them. Tia took the wet pair of fingers and first rubbed them in circles around Shanata's clitoris.

"Clitoral response and size are good," she concluded. "Are you prepared?"

Shanata nodded and immediately felt Tia's fingers pressing at her vagina. She winced slightly as the physician forced her way in. That mild clitoral stimulation had not been sufficient to relax her vaginal muscles, which protested the intrusion.

"Squeeze," she commanded, and Shanata obeyed. That wasn't comfortable, not in the least. 

"Squeeze inward."

That meant to use her muscles to pull Tia's fingers up inside.

"Push down."

She tried to push the offending digits out of her body.

"Two upgrades in Within," Tia said, a trace of chagrin in her voice. "Feels right."

She did not, Shanata noticed, remove her fingers. Shanata grimaced. She had never been able to do this part of the physical exam, yet they always asked her if she -

"Are you able to have an orgasm?" she asked.

"It would be difficult," Shanata said. 

She understood Tia's desire to give her a full examination, but it wasn't likely she could make herself aroused in this environment.

"I do want to warrant your good health," Tia told her. "Have you ever been able to have an orgasm during an exam?"

"No," Shanata replied. 

Tia's fingers were still inside her. 

"With only two upgrades in each of the Sweetness Disciplines," Tia said, "direct stimulation is not likely to work without some other source of arousal."

There was that chagrin again, as if Shanata were some oddball failure because she preferred Form upgrades over Sweetness. If Shanata had chosen even two or three more upgrades in Sweetness – rather than unbalancing herself so heavily toward Form – then simply rubbing her clitoris while penetrating her would eventually force an orgasm regardless of her mood.

Tia appeared pensive a moment.

"There is a possibility, if you consent," the physician spoke after a moment. "It is not something we discuss, given the Protocols."

Shanata raised an eyebrow. She hadn't imagined, so many years in to her career, that there were yet surprises.

"I can use my own fluids to arouse you."

Shanata's eyes widened. She had known that Within women possessed the ability to stimulate men with their vaginal juices, in the same way that a well advanced Abundance woman like Shanata could squeeze small amounts of breast milk onto a man's penis and achieve the same goal.

"I thought that only worked on men."

"It will work on women," Tia said. "We just don't discuss it, what with – as I said – the Protocols against sexuality between women. Your confidentiality is assumed."

Shanata, still lying on her back with a pair of fingers inside her, thought about that a moment. She had been caught, a long time ago, fingering one of her sisters after an evening of Priming. It had seemed innocent to her at the time. The woman who caught the two of them, however, had had a different opinion. Shanata had barely escaped a public whipping by promising never to do it again.

"I do require your consent," Tia said. "I think it is relevant, though, if you have health concerns."

Shanata took a breath. She very deeply wanted to find out what was wrong with her.

"Go ahead," she said.

The physician gently took her fingers from Shanata's vagina and rose up to her full height. She removed her smock to reveal the plain blue skirt and blouse she always wore. It was a simple matter then, as she stood there, to push her skirt out of the way and begin stroking her clitoris with the fingers of her dry hand.

The wet hand, the one covered with Shanata's saliva and internal liquids, waited at the entrance to her vagina.

Tia, as Second of her Discipline, held ten upgrades in Within. As well, she had nine each in Lips and Pussy. A slight moan escaped her mouth as she became quickly aroused. Shanata was amazed. It had taken only seconds and Tia was already sliding her fingers up inside her vagina. She worked her fingers around, carefully making sure that they were as slick as possible.

Those two fingers came out again, now glimmering with the Within woman's powerful fluids. Shanata watched Tia kneel at the foot of the bench and tried to ready herself for another round of digital penetration.

She later acknowledged – if only to herself - that nothing in her life had ever prepared her for what happened when those syrup laden fingers spread her lips and came in to contact with her clitoris.

Shanata gasped in shock. The sudden increase in her arousal banished all of the air from her lungs. She'd been penetrated by hundreds, maybe thousands of men. Through the mesh, she'd been elevated by their arousal whenever they were hornier than she was.

But she had never, not even once, felt such a sudden mindless burst of lust like this. Two fingers of Tia's right hand slid unimpeded in to her vagina while the fingers of the left made forceful circles around her clitoris.

Shanata moaned incoherently and clutched both of her breasts.

Gods, gods, gods ...

How embarrassing was this? Moaning like a Virgin on her first night – here in a doctor's office?

She didn't care. Her genitals were covered and penetrated with a natural elixir far too powerful for her to resist.

Normally she liked to have men massage her breasts, perhaps twiddle at her nipples or suck on them gently. There was none of that here. She squeezed as hard as she could, pinching her nipples to make them as stiff as possible.

She was getting close now. Never had masturbation brought her to climax so quickly.

Tia switched to three fingers and stabbed as deeply as she could while working Shanata's clitoris as vigorously as possible.

It was too much. Orgasm overtook Shanata. Her back arched painfully and her hands latched on to her breasts spasmodically as she felt her vaginal muscles twitching and squeezing at the fingers that had brought her to this state.

Tia, with the complete lack of emotion typified by those of her profession, carefully observed the force exerted by Shanata's internal muscles. She placed her left hand over the inside of Shanata's left breast. Given Shanata's death grip on her breasts, it was the closest spot she could reach to her patient's heart. She nodded in satisfaction as Shanata's orgasm continued.

-----------===================-------------

Jace's house wasn't one of the bigger ones. It was a modest, greyish, single storey building with more chimneys than a building this size could possibly need. It wasn't, she noted, the least bit like Harzen's farm.

"Just the three of us?" Talla asked one of the women in her little party.

"Probably clear the building," a woman in her thirties, an Adept II named Nanda, said. "Can't imagine there are more than three men living here."

Talla nodded as Nanda opened the door. As the highest ranking woman, she entered first. The other woman, an Adept, went next. Talla followed, closing the door behind her as a fragrance struck her quite strongly.

"What's that?" she said with a strong sniff.

"Soap factory," the other woman whispered and added with a wink, "at least they'll be clean."

Talla giggled lightly. The room they found themselves in was a small, clean place that doubled as both kitchen and common room. A man was playing some kind of solitary game on a table while another man and a younger boy were talking in the kitchen.

Talla caught sight of the young boy – whom she assumed to be Jace – before he saw her. He was facing away from the door so all she could see of him was the black of his hair, tied back in a pony-tail, and the tips of his nose and one ear. The three small torches that lit the room made for light that shimmered off his hair and rendered what she could see of his flesh a slightly brown shade. 

She watched as he turned to look at the door. With a quick scan his eyes locked on to Talla.

I need you right now, she wanted to tell him. I've needed you for hours, ever since I watched my poor friends suffer under that whip. I need relief. I need to take out my anger and my frustration. I need it more than I can possibly explain to you.

She turned her body just slightly, to let him look sideways under the scant protection of her slanted skirt, and then she smiled at him in genuine affection – or at least honest heat. She only had to wait her turn now.

"Erizen," Nanda said softly.

The man playing solitaire stood and took her hand. Nanda smiled and let herself be led off.

"Molyar," the second woman said before the first couple had even left.




Talla's Temple Ch. 12



The scene was repeated with the man from the kitchen.

Talla looked across the room at the last remaining male occupant.

"You must be Jace," she said and drew in a breath.

He nodded as he approached her. Dark complexion. Black hair. Thin, solid arms. He seemed neither confident nor shy and only faintly eager.

"I'm Talla," she said, figuring that introductions were appropriate.

"Hi, Talla," he said.

So calm. He must have done this before. Despite her steadfast and desperate need for sexual release, she still felt her stomach trembling at the idea of having sex. It was new to her. How new was it to him?

"How old are you?" she asked as he reached her and put a hand on her hip – the bare hip. She suppressed a shiver.

"Nineteen," he said. "You?"

Nineteen. That explained it. He'd been doing this for over a year. He'd probably had a hundred different women in his bed; probably done lots of Initiations and more than one upgrade.

"Just turned eighteen," she said, forcing defiance in her voice to hide the lilt that inexperience wanted to put there.

"Eighteen?" he asked, somewhat surprised. He glanced down at her breasts. Tina's top left her well displayed.

She smiled. He might have been Served by hundreds of women, but a nineteen year old boy would never be sent a Keeper. The age difference would violate one of the most rigid rules the Temple had about sexual interaction. That meant that she had something he had never seen before, despite his experience.

She pulled the frail silk pieces of her top out of the way, uncovering her chest for him.

"I'm a bit special that way," she said, pretending as much coyness as she could.

Jace let out a light gasp and then checked over his shoulder in a slight panic.

"It's alright," she said, letting her eyes turn fierce and narrow. "They won't be coming out any time soon."

Seeing his anxiety, hers disappeared. She pushed him backwards in to a small, cushioned chair near the fire and knelt on the floor in front of him.

If she could do it in the Priming room, couldn't she do it here? She wanted him hard, right from the start and she knew how to do it. 

It was easy to unlace his pants and pull his semi-erect penis out. A partial erection wouldn't do, would it?

With a look in her eye bordering on salacious, she took the whole of him in to her mouth. Jace moaned, completely disarmed now, and let his neck relax as he turned to look up at the ceiling. It took only the least bit of tongue work before he became rigid.

Talla slid her mouth clear. She was glad – oh, so very glad – that she had chosen to leave her underwear at home this night. She got up on the chair, kneeling straddle over top of him.

Here it comes, she thought. I hope you're ready.

She didn't care if it hurt, or how much. She had seen pain today, under Form's lash. She'd cringed in sympathy watching M'lis and Adria suffer. If she went a little too hard tonight with Jace - if it she went so hard that it hurt her, then so be it. If she couldn't walk properly in the morning, it would be in sympathy for her friends.

And, finally, it wouldn't be any more than she deserved.

She set herself against him, the tip of his erection just touching her lips as her body loomed over his helpless form. She could feel wetness where they touched. If there would be pain, it wouldn't be for friction.

He opened his eyes in a moment of panic.

"Reguno," he muttered.

"What?"

"Kid," he gasped. "Apprentice."

A child? Someone under eighteen lived here. That someone could, possibly, wake up and come across them. There were rules about keeping children away from sexual activities.

"Then we'll make the first one quick," she promised, and forced herself down, sliding inch after inch of him slowly up inside her.

And they meshed.

She could feel the faint mists of his uncertainty blow away in the gale of her arousal. His doubts were as nothing to the strength of her needs. She brought him to her level with astonishing speed, before even the hilt of his manhood touched her bare lips.

Yes. Yes, indeed, this was what she needed. Tina had provided ... what Tina could provide. There had been a mesh there almost as intimate as the one she'd had with Zhair'lo, and much, much stronger than the one she now had with Jace. But Tina hadn't been enough. Tina might have shored up the dam for a bit, but the dam was weak and the storm waters were coming through.

She needed a man inside her body, stretching her out, filling her up. It was such a base, primal desire that she scarcely noticed the crudity of the mesh, the lack of clarity in her reading of Jace's thoughts. It was enough that she had brushed away his uncertainty and she could use him now to fill her needs.

"Come for me," she said, looking him in the eye.

He nearly whimpered under gaze.

"If you fear discovery, come now."

It was her turn to gasp, then, as he obeyed. He let himself pass the point of no return as she rotated her body and ground him in to the chair.

Oh, how he swelled inside her!

Yes, yes, yes!

She pushed down as hard as she could. He thrust up in to her and released his seed in to her belly.

It wasn't what she'd had with Tina or with Zhair'lo. It wasn't a violent hammer pounding at her genitals or a fire burning up her spine. But it was an orgasm. It was his orgasm and it was hers at the same time - the promise of the mesh fulfilled – and it was the feeling of her body clenching itself around the intruder that was bursting inside her.

It was painful and it was ecstatic and it was everything she needed right then.

But once wouldn't be enough.

Not even close.

-----------===================-------------

"Whaddaya think?" Eletta asked eagerly.

He'd had to wait through eight other women making their announcements before Eletta, last in line, had called out his name. The first thing she did, after dragging him to his room, was tear off her top. Apparently, having made Zo'kar ejaculate on her breasts and her genitals, she had no truck with modesty in his presence.

"Um. They look ... great?" Zo'kar replied, not quite sure of the appropriate response.

She shoved him over on to his bed and leaned over him, letting the slightly reddened masses dangle in his face.

"Not just great," she said pointedly. "Double great."

"Double?"

"Double," she said as she pressed her forehead lightly against his. "Somehow you managed to pull two upgrades out of that Acolyte and put them -" she cupped one of her breasts upward "- right here."

"Wow."

"Yeah," she said, her eyes bright and eager. "You're practically a hero."

"Hero?"

That was better, by a nine thousand step march up a mountain, than failing to perform at an Initiation. Gods, how far had he come since then?

"Hero," Eletta confirmed as she pulled his pants off. She took a glance at his penis, already growing erect, and smiled. "My hero. It's gonna help me a lot, you know, getting bumped up like that."

"Bumped up?"

She unlaced her skirt and let it fall to the ground.

"I checked around," she told him as she took his penis in hand and stroked it. "I'll get a free promotion to second rank. That's a year I get to skip. A year of laundry, mopping and other crap that happens way too early in the morning."

Her breathing quickened as she ran out of things to babble at him. With one hand she stroked the length of his shaft while the other hand went underneath. Two fingers poked under his testicles, increasing his stiffness.

"You ready?" she asked.

Zo'kar nodded, unable to find a single word to speak.

"Good. Me, too."

-----------===================-------------

"There's nothing wrong with you."

"Then how do you explain the double upgrade?" Shanata replied.

Tia held back a shrug. Shrugging, she reminded herself, is a sign of intellectual cowardice. She took a breath though, and tried to soften her voice.

"Maybe you just made a mistake," she told the Acolyte earnestly.

If she expected an angry outburst, she was pleasantly surprised. All that Shanata had to offer was a frown and a desultory sigh.

"I'm sure – I'm so sure," Shanata said as she looked at the floor, "that I only put one upgrade in to that boy."

"I can feel your certainty," Tia observed patiently. "You're very unhappy with the thought of being wrong."

"Exactly. How can I trust myself the next time?"

"You're asking me how to build your confidence back up?"

Shanata looked up at her.

"There's no good reason not to trust yourself," Tia told her. "It was one mistake. You'll only get your confidence back by doing an upgrade again and getting it right."

Shanata nodded in agreement. There wasn't any arguing with the logic.

"Besides," Tia added. "You've probably found another Seal Breaker. That's no small thing."

-----------===================-------------

The virtue of making it to Keeper was the improvement in work assignments.

Maksa was done, as far she could tell, with laundry, food preparation and running idiotic errands for her august superiors.

Years ago, she had chosen Lips at her Initiation. That usually led to a medical or scientific career of some kind. But as time and education had gone on, she'd developed a different interest. She'd learned about genealogy. It wasn't a real focus in general Temple education. In fact it was rarely discussed at all. Nevertheless, she'd taken a keen interest.

Genealogy was the responsibility of Pussy, which meant she was only slightly out of place. She was at least in the right Division. That made it a possibility. When she'd put in a request – a general indication of interest - they had put her in charge of one of the Virgin's Dorms without any further explanation. That had seemed like an odd choice at the time.

Then, as the girls had come in, she'd been sent off to fetch family trees for each of them. It should have been tedious, pouring over those charts, looking for common ancestors to the sixth generation.

And tedious is exactly what it would have been for almost anyone else. Maksa, however, was fascinated. Her position gave her access to the Stacks, a library locked up under the ground floor offices of Sweetness's Hall. She began to see patterns – tendencies – among women in their choices of Discipline. Most, given the opportunity, chose what their mothers had chosen. Failing that, they took something in the same Division. If the women on the paternal side strongly favoured a particular Discipline, it could, rarely, come through.

How did any that happen, though? Didn't the race through Initiation generally determine Discipline, with the fastest going to Sweetness? How did maternity decide such things when women gave their children to the dorms before they could speak? Were the women of Within somehow faster or more effective at the Initiation in a way that they could pass on to their children?

When she had witnessed Sila and Talla meshing, she reported what she had seen up her chain of command. As long as she was working in the Virgins' dorms, that meant reporting directly to the Sorceress of Pussy. Pussy had listened calmly, asked her to provide deeper genealogies and then, in a casual sort of way, sworn her to silence on the matter.

That had been mildly disturbing. No one had ever ordered her silence before. But she was new to the yellow skirt and accepted that such confidences and responsibilities came with the rank. So she was silent.

Then she had gone to the Stacks and fetched Sila's dossier, and only Sila's.

Because, after all, she'd only been ordered to fetch Sila's.

That had made her wonder. Why hadn't they told her to fetch Talla's dossier? Wasn't that at least as important? The answer had come to her, in the middle of the night, a couple of days later.

The reason they hadn't asked for Talla's dossier was because they had already looked her up for some other reason.

That explained her purpose in the Stacks on this night. She had the authority to enter based on the fact that she was supposed to be running genealogies on any girls that came in to her dorm. And Talla had, after all, come in to her dorm. She was just doing some, ah, extended research.

That was the question, then, which preoccupied her: what was so special about Talla? Why had they looked her up before she'd even come in?

The dossier was clear. Her mother, Mih'lan, had been an Acolyte of Pussy, passing away at the age of 42. They were Sweetness on her mother's side for generations: mostly Pussy but some Lips and Within. Her father, Kain, had a mish-mash of Disciplines in his tree. The women there showed only a general predilection toward Sweetness and Form with very little Endowment. In her short experience, she knew that it took a strong and specific tendency to override the mother's effect.

And that was very, very odd.

How did Talla come to Endowment, and specifically Abundance, when there was no such thing in her ancestry? Why would she choose Endowment when she'd come in second in her Initiation?

-----------===================-------------

No one had come out to catch them having sex by the fire pit. Talla had actually felt just a bit disappointed. M'lis and Adria had been punished for so much less while she had gotten away with this particular act twice.

Jace had immediately taken her off to his bedroom, never mind the semen dripping down the inside of her thigh. His anxiety made her wonder what sort of inducements men were provided that made them want to obey the rules.

He was lying on his back now, breathing heavily and recovering from their second orgasm. She was sitting beside him cross legged, having ridden him again and just dismounted. She found she rather liked being on top. She'd have to try letting someone be on top of her some other day.

Jace turned on his side to face her as the heaving of his chest started to subside. He looked at her breasts.

"How you figure you're eighteen?" he asked.

She looked down, delighting in the attention he was paying her body.

"I've had eighteen birthdays," she replied smartly.

He reached a hand out to gently cup one of her breasts.

"Never seen 'em that big."

"I suppose you haven't", she said, pushing her chest out in to his hand, let the tip of her nipple rub against the palm of his hand whenever she inhaled.

Someday, maybe a year from now, they'd let her get her first Point upgrade. Then her nipples would stand a little more erect.

She touched what looked like a scar on his forearm.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Caustic burn," he said. "Lye, you know. Pretty dangerous."

She hadn't thought that soap could be dangerous. She examined that lightened patch of skin, running a finger along it while he caressed her. He still seemed stunned by the size of her breasts.

"How did you -?" he took a deep breath and then shuddered as some aftershock went through him.

He had looked as if he wanted to ask her more, but he seemed so tired suddenly. That was fine. Best he saved his energy anyway. She would let him rest for a little bit, but she was far from done with him.



I've never tried the doctor-fetish thing before, so I hope I pushed the buttons properly.



Talla's Temple Ch. 13



Nadine was going to be different. Zhair'lo had realized that almost immediately.

First off, she hadn't tackled him at a run as Talla had. Nor did she have the bright eyed eagerness that had made Natta so ... so very much like Natta had been.

Nadine's eagerness was in a wholly separate class. It was in the way she called out his name, the way she took his hand. She wasn't any slower than Natta had been. No, that wasn't it. In fact she seemed even more certain in her desire to drag him off to his bedroom.

There was just something odd to her – a faint touch of darkness to which he wasn't accustomed.

He half expected an attack at the doorway. But no, Nadine was not Natta. He would have to remember that. Instead, she peered around the door frame before carefully walking in to the dark room.

He took the candle off the dresser and lit it from the torch in the hallway.

Nadine was looking around his room, apparently admiring the tiny, plain cube. She pushed open the shutters and looked out toward the Temple.

Weird. Not at all like Talla or Natta, then.

She turned to face him, leaning her butt and her hands on the window sill and letting the darkness of the sky silhouette her.

"Thank you," she said, looking him right in the eyes

"Um. You're welcome."

She took another look around his room – wall to wall and floor to ceiling.

"You have a place all to yourself," she observed with admiration.

"You don't?" he asked.

It wasn't as if his room was particularly luxurious. He'd had more space living with the blacksmith.

She shook her head.

"Four to a room at my rank," she said, shaking the fabric of her long, white skirt.

The two of them weren't that far apart, physically. The distance from his dresser to his window wasn't more than a step for either of them. If felt awkward, though, despite – or maybe because of - the clear look of desire in her eyes. Standing there, he couldn't figure out what to do with his hands.

"I've waited," she said. "A long time."

"Three tries, they told me," he said, deciding to fold his arms and wait her out.

Nadine nodded.

"They let a month go by every time," she explained without ever letting her eyes deviate from his. "Three months I've waited for that upgrade. And for tonight."

Zhair'lo, now growing quite self-conscious, gulped involuntarily. He wanted to look anywhere other than her eyes, but neither did he want to show fear. That was a lot of pressure she was piling on.

Her mouth opened slightly as if she needed more air. Her right hand went to the tie on her skirt, loosening it and letting it drop to the ground. She wore underwear – a tiny, white pair – which she daintily covered with both her hands.

She tilted her head down to look at her hands. Then turned her eyes to him and smiled, her eyes lit with some inner delight as she watched him through delicate eyelashes. He remembered her eyes from the night before. Oddly enough, he remembered them more than anything else about her.

"Wanna see what you did?" she asked, the burning in her eyes adding unnaturally to the reflection of candlelight.

He nodded, not trusting his vocal chords to be coherent or his brain to avoid some entirely unclever diversion. She seemed so far away and wasn't making any move toward him. How frustrating.

Her top was simple, much like the one that Talla had worn the night of her Initiation and Natta when she had visited. Just a rectangle of cloth that she pulled off over her head, revealing a very slim pair of breasts with wide, reddish-pink nipples.

"They're still very sensitive," she said as she touched one lightly with her fingers. "Y'know, from the upgrade."

She ran her finger gently around the edge of her areola. The nipple started to become erect. Her finger traced across her chest to the other side, where she repeated the gesture.

"They barely have time to get soft before they start getting hard again."

He nodded again in quiet awe. Point. He had given her a Point upgrade.

"You gave me two upgrades," she said. "Did you know that?"

His eyes went wide.

"What?"

"This is what two upgrades in Point looks like," she said.

He looked down at her chest – albeit briefly – before turning his wide-eyed gaze back to her eyes. He thought of Talla, shrieking in pain. He thought of his own wave of debilitating dizziness.

"Did it hurt?"

He hadn't felt any pain, at least nothing like what had gone before.

"Only a bit," she said. "Nothing more than normal, I guess."

She lifted her body off the window sill and gently slipped out of her underwear, careful to keep it from touching the floor. She folded it up in her hands, making a small, neat triangle. Taking very small steps, she approached him. He could feel his heart pounding by the time she came close enough for him to feel the heat of her body.

"Three months I've waited," she said, her eyes burning at him.

He couldn't take his eyes from hers, and he saw a desperate sadness there. Three months she'd waited for her first upgrade. Was that what hurt her? No. There was something else.

"You've waited a long time for your upgrade?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Not just that, though," she said and looked down. "It's that long skirt, too."

Skirt? Huh?

"What does the skirt have to do with it?"

"The long skirt," she said as she untied his pants. "It means I've never Served."

His pants fell to the floor and she kissed him, trapping his erection between their bellies. Revelation and passion hit him at the same time. Talla had worn a long skirt her first night. So had Natta. No one had ever told him the skirt meant anything. Did all clothing mean something?

The softness of her lips, the texture of her tongue and the pressure of her naked body were an onrushing river, flooding over its banks, threatening to sweep the train of his thought from its track.

But gods damn it, it was important to understand ...

And he lost whatever it was he'd been thinking about. Lust had overtaken thought. Deduction had been ruined by emotion.

She tugged at his shirt, pulling it down off his body, letting those pert nipples press in to the bare flesh of his lower ribs. His hands, compelled by a more primal instinct, went to her rear, gripping her cheeks and pulling her in tighter. She moaned, the delicious vibration of her lips transferring directly to his tongue. 

She was skilled at kissing, he noticed, far past Talla or Natta. How was it that she came by such skill? That was important, too. He hoped he could remember to ask her later, but abilities such as that had a way of distracting men from interrogation.

She wasted no more time, dragging him to the bed and pulling him close while she sat on the edge of his mattress.

"Now," she said – demanded really, if he were honest about it. "Like this."

She leaned back to give him access and waited, panting. It was perfect, position wise. The bed was just high enough. He'd never thought to try it on his feet. Wasn't that what beds were for? Nevertheless, there was a clearly wet pussy poised and waiting for him – and the angle was certainly plausible.

He pushed her legs apart so that even her lips spread, revealing that tiny pink tunnel, only the third he'd come across in his short adulthood. He set himself against her, found her as wet as he'd hoped.

Nadine's mouth opened in anticipation, a plea of – of what? Desire? Desperation? Fear? He couldn't say. So he pushed gently, sliding his swollen head past the tight ring at the opening of her vagina and then further beyond.

She winced, but only for a moment, because the mesh struck them. And with the mesh came a whirlwind of emotions. He felt tears welling up in his eyes. They weren't his tears, and they weren't for pain, but they were in his eyes regardless.

Loneliness. Torment. Isolation. Embarrassment. Self-deprecation. It was like picking individual flavours out of a dinner. He could taste each of her emotions even as they washed over him as one. And all were being transformed to joy because of this single moment, this instant of penetration. It was important to her in a way that he couldn't understand, damn the poor quality of this mesh.

The tears, though, were definitely joy; a gushing fountain of it pouring from her heart, ignorant of any crude, merely physical pain. All of that hardship; all of that aching and waiting, and he was somehow the cure for it.

It was a more powerful recipe, that tidal wave of emotion, than anything he had experienced. It was breaking down something inside her much deeper than the tunnel he penetrated and the flesh which enclosed him.

He could only share her joy – and her urgency.

When she locked her legs around his back, and her eyes made another demand of him, he gave what was asked, sending them both headlong in to orgasm. He swelled inside her as she clamped her legs and squeezed him as tightly as she could. He rose up on his toes, lifting her off the bed in his desperate desire to please her.

For a moment – single terrifying moment – nothing happened. They were trapped at the start of an orgasm that just wouldn't happen.

Then it did.

Cross-eyed with delirium, he felt his penis twitch and violently expel his juice within her. She cried out in surprise and perhaps pain. He couldn't feel the pain, not even through her. With his toes locked in this position, he wasn't even able to move, never mind appreciate her emotions. There was just his manhood, trapped in her womanhood, pumping load after load after load as far in as she could force it.

-----------===================-------------

She'd been born M'lar T'Shan. The first name was the one that people used to address her throughout most of her life. There was a point where some started having to call her "Mistress". Then she ascended to become a High Officer and they had all had to address her as "Mistress", except the few who had referred to her as "Lips".

Then she'd become "Sweetness".

Nowadays, they just quivered at the sight of her golden skin and the blue flecks that flashed from her hair and eyelashes and reverently called her "Eminence".

She recalled the last discussion she'd ever had with the previous holder of that office. It had been a deathbed conversation. From her predecessor she had learned many things and, in the learning, been forced to agree that she would have to pull the Sorceress of Pussy up to the position of Queen behind her.

"Keep the genealogists close," her predecessor had said. "Carry on what we have done. We are so close, now."

She'd held that woman's hand in her own and watched the force of her life fade from her body.

So young. Far too young. 

Such was the price of Perfection; the weight of it pressing down on a soul. Goddesses had to ascend while young, lest their tenure be cut short to utter meaninglessness. But even then it would be a lot to expect more than six years before the pressure overwhelmed a woman.

Genealogy and Time. Those brought her to tonight.

She sat at her desk, resting. It was important that she rest and not just for the hope of living longer.

Her right hand rubbed her belly nervously.

There would come a point where she and the Queen of Sweetness would have to let the Sorceress of Within in to their circle. It was all well and good to keep as many in Endowment and Form out of the loop, but the personal physician of the Goddess? That could only go on so much longer.

Still, M'lar was loathe to spread such information where it didn't need to go. Neither did she look forward to explaining the whole thing to Within. She could have delegated it to the Queen of Sweetness, but that felt like cowardice – and Goddesses didn't ascend by being cowards.

"Adept," she called out.

An attendant at the far end of her office snapped to attention.

"Summon the Sorceress of Within."

"Eminence," the woman acknowledged and bowed out of the room.

She had a story to tell.

-----------===================-------------

That was the end of Jace.

Talla had managed to rouse him for a third run, but realized she'd hit his limit when he passed out without a word after coming inside her.

She was sitting in the common room of the soap makers' house, having agreed with her companions to wait until at least the tenth bell before leaving. It wouldn't be much longer.

It left her time to think, a luxury she'd been ill able to afford of late.

There was Jace, who had pleased her body immensely. She'd pounded him in to the bed until there was nothing left to pound. That had washed away the last vestige of physical frustration that Tina hadn't quite been able to clear up.

With better mental vision, she was able to see what remained inside her head and it was much more disturbing. Jace was not Zhair'lo. Meshing, specifically, was not the same and she had a pretty strong intuition that meshing with anyone else would never be like that.

She knew Zhair'lo from the inside. She'd been inside his head. The feeling that they were tuned to each other, like musical instruments, was very strong. She doubted she'd ever find anybody that matched her quite so well as that.

Zhair'lo was special. She had to find him again.

At least she knew what her next step in that quest was.

Her mind wandered for a bit as she waited. She tried to adjust her top to accommodate her breasts. The pain from the upgrade had subsided – at least the part that had ached in her over stretched skin and the freshly grown flesh under it. But her breasts were still heavier than they ought to be and it pulled at her chest uncomfortably. 

Admittedly, the top was well made. The designers seem to have understood that women could have a lot of Abundance upgrades without the supporting Strength upgrades. As long as she wore that top, it was at least bearable. Removing the top, however, made her chest muscles ache.

She grimaced, wondering if she would manage to get used to the pain before she had a chance to do something about it.

-----------===================-------------

As they lay in bed beside each other, panting from the second round that had followed so closely on the heels of the first, Zhair'lo took a moment to eye Nadine's slim, heaving chest.

Her nipples were gorgeous, nicer even than Renia's. Wide, soft areola. Tight, perky tips. Nicely darkened. He remembered the woman – the Sorceress - who had been the source for Nadine's upgrade. Dark nipples contrasted against skin already quite dark, all of it shimmering in the torchlight with the clear liquid that had transferred her magic to him. Did it even make sense to try to compare two upgrades on a girl with such pale skin to so many upgrades on such a dark-skinned woman?

Propped up on his side while she lay on her back, he reached out to casually stroke one of those pale tips. Was she receptive? Was this a good time?

Nadine, her eyes bleary with exhaustion, whimpered.

"They made you wait so long," he said in his softest tone.

She nodded.

"How come?"

She didn't seem to have any will left. It was as good a time as any to impose upon her.

"They think it could be the gods," she murmured. "Maybe the gods were saying I wasn't ready."

"So you had to wait."

She nodded again and smiled, saying, "For you."

"I'm just glad it didn't hurt," he said, probing.

"Hurt?" she asked. "Why should it hurt?"

"It hurt a lot, the last time. But that was a quadruple."

He didn't stop stroking her. Her nipple was hard to his touch. At least when they'd done it the second time, she'd been on top. It had given Zhair'lo a chance to do a little more for her than just impalement and hanging on for dear life.

He let his hand wonder down to her belly, palm flat, where he made gentle circles.

"The girl you did before me?" she asked. There was a bit of a grimace in her voice. Maybe it wasn't right to talk about other girls at a time like this.

He made an affirmative noise.

"I nearly passed out, and she went completely out – afterward", he said. That was as daring as he felt like being. He did not want to ruin her informative mood.

His hand wandered up her body, the tips of his fingers passing ever so gently over the farther of her nipples before he slid back down to her belly.

"Nothing like that for me," she confirmed dreamily. She touched her nipples, ever so gently, and made small circles. "Just a little heat here ... and then I could feel it. It tingled. Swelled. So nice."

She closed her eyes in fond memory.

Zhair'lo thought about that for a moment. A double upgrade was barely uncomfortable, but if he were to judge by the intensity of the general reactions to the upgrade he'd done for Talla, it seemed like a quadruple could kill or at least seriously injure people.

"Why's it important?" he asked. "Getting two upgrades."

"Better jobs," she said. "Nicer duties. The gods smiled on me – and on you."

He didn't believe that. If getting extra upgrades was the gods smiling on someone, why would two be pleasant and four nearly fatal? He went back to caressing her, paying special attention to her now solidly stiff nipples.

What duties had Natta been complaining about? He tried to remember that conversation from the eerie morning after the horrendous evening.

"So, um, no cooking and cleaning for you?" he asked.

She nodded happily. 

"I've been doing nothing but laundry for this whole time. Virgin scut work," she groused as her eyes sneered just slightly. What a beautiful expression that was with her long eyelashes. "All done with that."

Zhair'lo raised an eyebrow. That couldn't be right.

"All the laundry is done by virgins?" he asked. "There can't be that many -"

"Not that kind of virgin," she replied, laughing. She rolled on her side to face him.

"Virgin – the rank," she explained. "Even after Serving, they would still call me a Virgin until my second upgrade."

Zhair'lo let out an 'ah' of comprehension.

"But because of you, they'll call me an Initiate," she said. "Although I don't think it's that simple."

"Why not?"

"I'm not really sure," she said, her head clearing up and eyes setting firmly on his. "I only found out this much by asking around and bugging a lot of people who didn't like being bugged.."

"If I were really an Initiate, I'd get an extra upgrade in Abundance or Strength", she said. "That's what you get at second rank."

She scratched her head a moment.

"But they won't give me that extra upgrade until I meet all my quotas and everything else."

Add that to his store of knowledge: Virgin meant one upgrade and Initiate meant two. Initiates got one other upgrade, too. At the top of the chain were Goddess, Queen and Sorceress – he already knew that. What else was there to know? What did he want to know?

Then it hit him. Virgins wore long skirts ...

"What will you wear now?"

"The shortest skirt you will ever see on any woman," Nadine replied with a wide-eyed smile. She was getting giddy now. It was a pleasant transformation from the depressed girl he had upgraded.

"If I go out without underwear on, you'd be able to – well – see me," she said.

She looked down at her body.

"Though I guess you've already seen all of me anyway."

There was so much joy in her voice when she said it that it made Zhair'lo smile. Her hand slid down her body. A single finger parted her lips ever so gently.

"Do you know what they tell us to do?" she asked. "To get ready for all of you?"

He shook his head, still stroking her nipple with his free hand.

"Two fingers in," she said, plunging slowly in to her flesh. "Every night."

"Every night?" his eyes widened.

She nodded, curving her pointer and middle fingers to push up inside her body.

"Every night," she moaned. "All by myself."

He couldn't see how he could help except by watching and playing with the erect tips on her chest.




Talla's Temple Ch. 13



"Three months," he murmured in her ear. "All alone. Fingering yourself."

She knew her own body. That was certain. Her orgasm couldn't be far off.

Breathing raggedly, she put in, "Not always alone."

"What?"

"Other – sealed virgins," she explained, still rubbing herself.

Zhair'lo's eyes widened. Now there was an image ...

"What about the other virgins?" he whispered.

"We – sometimes – mmm ..."

"Sometimes what?" he asked eagerly.

"Each other," she murmured, thrusting her hips upward. "Help – each oth -"

Her sentence broke off as a shriek escaped from her lungs. Her body froze in an arch, fingers in to the knuckles, before she collapsed on his bed.

That was something, wasn't it? Zhair'lo thought. How many girls were in that room? Four of them? Taking it in turns to do to each other what he'd just seen Nadine do for herself.

Yeah. He tried to imagine a way to sneak in to the Temple so he could see that. He determined that he wasn't a good very good fantasist. Mostly he saw himself getting stabbed by angry women with spears.

Nadine rolled over on her side to face him. Her eyes were narrow and fiery, each one like the little slit that let the blacksmith check on the state of his forge. The image of that barely contained furnace was so vivid that he feared for her to open her eyes any wider, lest flames pour out and singe him.

"They tell us not to do that, y'know," she said.

"Do what?"

"Please each other," she said, her anger a living thing calling to him from her recent past. "They won't let us have men and they won't let us have each other."

He gulped, sensing the raw ferociousness of her emotions. Absent a few minor scoldings in his younger days, he couldn't remember encountering an angry woman. What was there for her to angry about? It was just the way things were. How could someone be angry at that?

"But I got away," she said. "You got me away."

He nodded, still awestruck by the strength of her emotions.

Nadine slid down the length of his body, letting her feet to the floor. For a moment, he thought she might do for him what the Primers had done; what Natta had done. The thought alone aroused him considerably, but not quite enough. Nadine, however, had other plans. She twisted her body in a gentle arc and brought one small breast to hover over his testicles. She lowered herself until her nipple just tickled at the bare fuzz of hair on his scrotum.

The tingling forced a sigh of pleasure from his lips.

She gently pushed her body up, gliding the tip of her nipple up from the base of his shaft to the very tip. Shocked by her emotion, overwhelmed by her touch, he closed his eyes and let out another shuddering sigh.

Twisting and curving her body, she brought her other breast to his testicles and slid that nipple from base to tip.

Paralyzed with the advent of this new technique, he watched as her body – hips and shoulders, head and chest – rotated and gyrated to tease him with one nipple and then the other, over and over again until he was so painfully erect that a tiny bit of fluid leaked from his erection.

She smiled, first at the outcome of her efforts, then up at him, flashing those long eyelashes at him once more. Then she lowered her head just a little and pressed her lips to the tip of his penis. He twitched. Such a soft gesture and yet, if he hadn't already come twice, he might have ejaculated all over both of them right then.

"I've been imagining doing that for a while," she volunteered with a quirky smile.

Nadine climbed back on the bed – and on to him. She rubbed his penis against her lips, moving her entrance toward his tip. Just before penetration, she paused a moment and looked desperately in to his eyes.

"There are ten more," she said.

"Ten more?"

"Girls," she clarified starkly. "There are ten more like me – like I was. None of them were there as long, but they're just like me."

She pinned his shoulders to the bed. Where was this going?

"You have to get them out," she said. "You're the first one to come along who can."

"I – uh – okay."

"Believe me," she said. "It's the worst feeling, being on the inside and still being left out."

Nadine, it was clear, felt very strongly about this.

"I'll do my best," he promised her, "whenever they call on me."

She was helping her friends, the only way she could. He could understand that, even poised at the threshold to ecstasy.

"Good," she replied. "They're people too."

Then she forced herself down on him with the same vicious certainty that he'd seen burning in her eyes. That thrust, taking him in to her body as fast as she could, was a kind of punctuation to the promise he had given, as if she were signing his oath for him in something more sacred than mere blood.

Gods help me, he thought as he drowned in the mesh. This time he caught not just her sexual desire and her long-suffering loneliness but her anger, her sorrow and her desperate plea for her disadvantaged sisters. It came like the rush of a thunderstorm's wind; a gale as overwhelming as the glare in her eyes.

Those emotions were real, damn it, and even as she pushed down harder and harder to get the deepest possible penetration, he felt her pent up rage at her predicament unfolding like some kind of starved flower coming in to long denied sunlight. It wasn't all that pretty, that poor flower, but maybe the sunlight could heal it. 

Maybe he was that sunlight. 

Maybe in letting her Serve him, in letting the shadowed flower out, he was healing her.

He hoped so, because he couldn't think of anything else he could do.

Once again, sorry for the delay.  I was probably over thinking this one a bit, but I hope Nadine comes through clearly.  I'm already busy at work at the next one.

Enjoy!



Talla's Temple Ch. 14



Talla couldn't claim that she was comfortable this morning.

No matter how she adjusted her top, her chest ached from the weight of her breasts. Neither had she had been able to find a good way to sleep. She had always preferred to sleep on her back but the weight of her breasts stretched her skin and pulled at her muscles, producing a nagging pain. As a result, she'd resorted to sleeping on her side, tossing one way and then the other for relief.

After a couple of hours, she'd finally figured out to pile some clothing in front of her body. That had won her a few hours respite, but the pain had returned in the morning. She couldn't expect tonight to be as easy.

"Talla?"

She turned to see M'lis calling her. She had trouble dealing with both M'lis and Adria. She was just as guilty as they were, at least in terms of intent, yet they had suffered while she had escaped punishment. The two of them were very casual about it and clearly didn't blame Talla. It wasn't in them to do so, but she didn't feel the same way, which made it made it hard for her to speak to either of them.

"I'm headed in after lunch," the Neophyte called out. "Do you want me to pick up your assignment?"

Talla already had her answer worked out, if not how to handle her guilt towards them.

"Naw, thanks," she said, keeping her tone as light as she could. "I'm heading in there anyway."

"Alright," M'lis said with a shrug. "See ya later."

Talla had a plan. And she figured that she at least needed to slip in to the Offices to get it going.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo was, once again, feeling quite content with the world. Events hadn't brought Talla his way a fourth time, but he was confident that -- on top of the Initiation, the Upgrade and their first night together -- they would find each other again.

Nadine, mind, had left some troubled thoughts in his head.

There were women -- or was it better to call them girls in that case? - inside the Temple who were left out. They weren't upgraded and therefore weren't allowed to Serve. He wondered if they were even educated like the others, the way Natta had described it to him. Probably not.

They were stuck that way, wearing their long skirts as a sign of their curse, until someone like him came along. Nadine had been trapped in that pariah existence for months. Could others be in direr straits?

That had to be a miserable way to live. He supposed that Nadine might be exaggerating. The Temple, after all, was a force for good and peace and the happiness of everyone. He'd known that from before he could remember and had no doubt of it. It was just a very mysterious force for good, peace and happiness. That was all.

Harzen had had him up on a saddle already today, giving him further training in horsemanship. Why? Zhair'lo didn't know. The old man had a grim look of determination on his face. He was still upset about something and, while it clearly wasn't Zhair'lo himself, it was obviously related to him in some way.

In the meantime, he had an upgrade tonight to think about. At least he felt better about that. Whatever had gone wrong the first time, the women had clearly figured it out.

He'd be rubbing against one of them and coming all over another and everything would be fine. He was even certain that he would enjoy it. On top of that it would be a rescue, exactly the sort of thing pawns were used for in board games. This was pleasing in its own right, because being valuable to the Temple was what every man wanted for himself.

His only regret -- the one thing that was always at the back of his mind -- was the fact of Talla. Neither Natta, for all her eagerness, nor Nadine for her desperation, had found a way inside his head the way Talla had. Sex was sex. Service was service. But the mesh he'd had with Talla had been something beyond that.

He wanted it again.

But it wouldn't be today. The previous day's rain had cooled things off just enough to avoid a heat bell. He would have to wait.

He frowned. Maybe, if he was lucky, she'd been in the audience tonight.

-----------===================-------------

Talla had also been unhappy with the milder weather, and for much the same reason. At least it hadn't rained. That would have been far too much of a reminder of the previous day's events. It was enough to watch M'lis and Adria moving as carefully as they did and never sitting longer than they absolutely had to. 

The gaggle of Endowment girls had gone their separate ways when they hit the bronze gates of their home. Some would be off to lessons, others to enjoy a swim. She might do that herself, later.

For the moment she rested in Endowment Hall, waiting as she had since half past the third bell. The empty sacks were still hanging on the wall where they'd been placed when the messenger had returned them.

She perked up as a woman in orange marched smartly from the back of the Hall to the front and gathered three of the sacks from their hooks. The rest of the canvas bags were left hanging on the wall.

This was why she had been sitting here. Talla waited until the Acolyte II had walked past her. Then, as casually as possible, with a slight sigh as if she were growing bored, she stood up and followed the other woman out through the back of Endowment Hall.

Through the baffles she went, grabbing one of the white towels that lay neatly folded on the shelves by the exit. She found herself in the Tranquil Courtyard with perhaps twenty or thirty women sunning themselves. Here the high walls protected them from both wind and prying eyes. They could sun their naked bodies in warmth, privacy and security.

She remembered her first trip here -- especially how stunned she'd been to see so many naked, large-breasted women. She'd gotten over that. Tanning nude was just what women did when they had the time and inclination.

It wasn't something Talla had found time for as of yet, but she might not have a choice. Thus the towel.

For the moment, she was an Initiate coming to the Offices to check for a night time assignment.

Having had only two assignments before, one picked up by M'lis, the other by Tina, this would be the first time she picked up her own card.

She passed through the wide gateway and paused a moment to let her eyes adjust. She exaggerated a little, pretending to be blinder than she was so that she could keep track of the Acolyte with the message sacks.

The woman had put the message sacks over her shoulders and was walking from desk to desk. Talla couldn't hear what was being said as each whispered exchange of words and scroll was occurring between her and the woman behind each desk.

This wasn't very hopeful. Talla had been hoping that the scrolls would be piled up somewhere and the Acolyte would simply shovel them all in to the sacks. That would have made it a good deal easier to drop a message in. Instead, the scrolls appeared to be handed over one at a time.

At least she now knew what a scroll looked like. It consisted of two circles of wood holding a rolled up piece of parchment between them. The roll was sealed with, as far as she could tell from her sunlight-dazed eyes, a brown wax seal.

She couldn't dawdle at the entryway much longer. Everyone knew that the assignment cards were placed in one of two giant banks of slots under the stairways to the left and right of the door. There was no excuse for wandering around.

Talla frowned. The Acolyte was still making her rounds, desk by desk. Talla wouldn't be able to keep watching her quarry if she also went looking for her assignment slot. But there was nothing for it.

The slots were small -- they had to be, on account of there being something like four thousand women falling under the authority of the Division of Endowment -- and most of them were empty. It was pretty late in the afternoon and most of the women would have retrieved their cards by now.

Talla searched for her slot. It would be down near the ground with the rest of the Virgins and Initiates. She cast a casual glance around the room as she searched for her name among hundreds of others. It was in Temple Script, fortunately, which didn't follow the typical alphabetical order. It let her stall a little longer as she pretended her illiteracy was worse than it really was.

She was surprised to discover, however, that there was a small cloth bag in her slot next to the card. Forgetting her mission, she quickly untied the bag to look inside. There was a small bronze coin inside, embossed with a star. Talla held it up to her face and examined it.

"Bragging, are we?" a girl nearby whispered.

"What?" Talla asked, turning to face the girl.

She was a Virgin in a knee length skirt.

"Penta," the other girl said as she nodded at the coin. "You must have done something special."

"Penta?"

The other girl looked at her oddly.

"You've never been paid before?" she asked. "Penta. It's worth five coins."

She emptied out her sack in to her hand and held it out for Talla to see.

"See, three coins," she said. "That's for two weeks of Service."

"So why'd I get five?" Talla asked. "I've only Served twice."

The other shrugged.

"You must have done something special," she repeated with a shrug and walked away, leaving the Offices.

Talla watched the Virgin leave. That had been a girl, a rank below Talla, who nevertheless knew a lot more than Talla did. Sometimes Talla felt as if she had slipped through a crack in the outer wall of the Temple.

With a sigh, she pulled her assignment card out of the slot. Tonight she would be seeing a boy named Shen. He worked in sector three, somewhere out on Form's corner of the city.

Close to Zhair'lo, she thought.

And that thought reminded her of her real purpose here. Where had that Acolyte gone? She wasn't on the floor anywhere ... gods damn it, where -?

Oh!

She was climbing the stairway directly above Talla's head. Her tiny underwear-like bottoms gave Talla a view of the woman's well-muscled thighs as she mounted the steps.

Well, that just about screwed everything up. There was no excuse for Talla to go up there. The best she could do now was wait outside and hope the Acolyte came back out. With a grimace, she put her money back in to the little pouch it had come in and walked back out of the Offices in to the daylight of the Tranquil square.

She picked a spot close enough to the path that she could see in to the Offices, but far enough to not be obvious about it. It seemed weird to be stripping her clothes off in broad daylight. All of her recent nudity had been under the light of torches, fire pits and most memorably, a half moon.

Well, there was no use being conspicuous. She laid her towel out at an angle to the only pathway through the square. Keeping an eye out for the Acolyte II and her cargo, Talla slipped out of her skirt and underwear in a quick motion. She knelt and, much more gently, untied her top. 

She winced as her breasts pulled at her aching chest. That was getting to be a bit too much, but at least it was temporary. She quickly lay down on her stomach. It wasn't the least bit comfortable, leaning on her sensitive breasts that way, but it was the only way to get the viewing angle she wanted without being obvious.

Using her hands for a pillow, she turned her head and squinted in to the darkness of the ground floor of the Offices. This was all for nothing if she couldn't see where those scrolls went. Her plan had been to find a blank scroll, write a message on it, and somehow sneak in to the Offices to get her scroll inserted with the rest. 

But there hadn't seemed to be a good spot to drop it.

On top of that, this wouldn't just be a matter of getting a piece of parchment. If she wanted her scroll to look like the rest, she needed the piece of wood that the parchment wrapped around. Then she needed to seal it somehow and drop it in with the rest of the messages.

It was dangerous. She accepted that. But Zhair'lo had to be warned. Plus, she had to see him again. She wasn't sure which was more important, or even if she should have to pick one as her prime motivation.

For now, she would wait, lying here naked, rolling her body from one side to the other, until the orange clad woman with the messages came back.

-----------===================-------------

"Zo'kar!" Zhair'lo called out when he entered the room.

The guard who had escorted him to the briefing room waved him in without further comment. She knew him well enough by now, he supposed.

"Zhair'lo!" the room's only other occupant called back. "You back again, too?"

"You do a job right ..." Zhair'lo trailed off. 

It was never really necessary to finish that axiom.

Zo'kar smiled as the two of them clasped wrists and thumped each other's shoulders in greeting.

"I guess I did alright, then," he replied with a shrug. "Not sure why I'm back so soon. Other guys don't -"

"You both did very well," a woman spoke as she marched in to the room. "Have a seat."

She had taken them both by surprise.

"Mistress," they both said with a polite nod.

They'd been told use that term for anyone wearing orange clothing. This one wore yellow, but she'd startled them enough to provoke a response. They took their seats immediately as she passed between them, the sparkling strands of her golden skirt dancing around her taut leg muscles.

She turned to face them, one eyebrow raised almost to the copper circlet about her crown.

"My name is Alli'anya," she said. "Do you know why you're here tonight?"

Zhair'lo had been to two briefings. On the second occasion, a woman in orange had asked him precisely this question -- but only after letting the other three boys go.

"Seal breaking," he said, guessing that Zo'kar must be there for the same reason.

That meant that Nadine hadn't been kidding. There really were a lot of Virgins queued up. Zhair'lo looked at Zo'kar who merely shrugged back in confusion.

"Seal breaking?" he asked.

"Perhaps you can explain it to your friend," Alli'anya said as she coldly eyed Zhair'lo.

Zhair'lo wasn't sure how to take her tone. Either she really meant that he should explain it, or she meant for him to shut up.

"If you wish, Mistress," he said, guardedly.

She waved an invitational hand toward Zo'kar.

Very well.

"Sometimes Virgins get stuck," Zhair'lo explained carefully. "The first upgrade won't take, so they try a little harder. They get some stronger woman to be the Source and they get some stronger boy -- er, man -- to be the Conduit."

"So we're the stronger men?" Zo'kar asked him.

"That remains to be seen," Alli'anya interrupted. "Zhair'lo. You will be attempting to break through the seal of a Virgin who wishes to join the Discipline of Strength. Zo'kar, you will be attempting a Point upgrade."

Zhair'lo hadn't done Strength yet. Were they getting him to try each Discipline at least once? Was he only doing the three Disciplines of Endowment?

Alli'anya went on talking, refreshing their memories as to proper decorum and behaviour. Zhair'lo remembered Nadine's plea that he rescue the ten girls still left behind. If Zo'kar had the same ability, that would cut through the backlog a lot more quickly, wouldn't it?

"The initial point of contact for Point is, obviously, either of the nipples," Alli'anya was saying as she pointed at tips whose impressions were just visible through her silken sashes. "The contact point for Strength is along the breast bone."

Alli'anya tapped her bare sternum sharply and offered a stiff admonishment to Zhair'lo.

"Do not touch either of the Source's breasts until you have Seized."

Zhair'lo nodded warily. This woman was much colder than the others had been.

"Any questions?" she asked with weary sigh.

Zhair'lo shook his head. This didn't seem to be a good time to bring up any of the things burning in his brain.

"Good," she said and gestured to the door behind her. "Then off with both of you."

She left the room back the way she'd come. Zhair'lo watched her go.

"You get all that?" Zo'kar asked him.

"I guess," Zhair'lo replied. "A lot to expect from us when she's flashing that much cleavage."

Zo'kar let out a laugh.

"I was busy staring at her ass," he volunteered.

Zhair'lo hadn't really meant it as a joke, but he supposed it was funny.

"I wonder if we'll get to do any others," he said.

"Others?"

"Disciplines."

"What?"

"You know," Zhair'lo clarified. "Within or, um, any of the Form ones."

Zo'kar shrugged.

"Doesn't matter to me," he said. "Wherever they want me to come, I will."

Zhair'lo nodded. That was fair enough. Zo'kar wasn't required to be curious. Maybe it was enough for him to just enjoy the things that came his way. Zhair'lo wondered if he could ever be satisfied with that.

-----------===================-------------

There was something about erections, Talla decided. Once you've had a couple inside you, the desire to try another and another becomes irresistible.

She never wanted that to change. It didn't even matter who it was. As long as he was hard and ready, he'd do. There was another boy she'd rather be with but he wasn't available. So until she could reach him, the physical desire would only burn hotter.

Shen, at least, looked well rested. He was taken from among stone carvers and brick layers who all seemed like an energetic lot. He was definitely one of the skinny ones, though, among the larger men. And quiet, too. She wasn't sure how to take that. 

"Where's your room?" she asked as he approached.

"This way," he said, unable to prevent his eyes from wandering to her cleavage.

"It's okay," she said, trying to make him feel comfortable. There was no reason he should feel awkward about looking at her body. "I'm here to Serve you."

He nodded in nervous understanding. Why was he nervous? He seemed a bit too old to be a virgin.

"Have you been Served before? How old are you?"

He nodded again.

"Nineteen," he said quietly as he led her down a hallway.

It had to be the same situation as Jace. Shen had been Served, but probably not by anybody who looked quite like her. She remembered Zhair'lo staring at her chest when she hadn't had anything worth looking at. That was why she'd chosen Abundance, wasn't it? So she could capture his eyes?

This was more of the same. The question was how to get things rolling. She didn't have a lot of interest in talking. She had an interest in getting Shen inside her.

Shen stopped at the door of his bedroom and waved her in.

"Um - ", he started as she walked past him

"Um?" she asked as she turned around.

"How, er, how old are you?" he asked.

"Eighteen," she said.

That seemed to relax him for a moment, but then he stared down at her breasts in confusion.

Oh! Realization dawned on her.

"You thought I was older?"

"Yeah," he replied, as if it were the obvious assumption to make.

"Well, I'm not," she said. "I just got upgraded a little too much. Have you ever done an upgrade?"

He held up two skinny fingers. "Twice," he said.

"My upgrade got overdone," she explained.

That made it as good a time as any to get things moving. She reached behind her back to unlace her top. She tried to hide a wince as the weight of her breasts was shifted from her shoulders down to her chest.

"See?" she said as she put her hands around his neck.

The two of them looked down at her breasts. "They're big, but the nipples haven't had anything done to them. I've only had the one upgrade."

She rubbed up against him, pelvis to pelvis, backing him up until he was leaning against his bed. She did not feel anything that could indicate arousal. This could be difficult -- or at least challenging. Zhair'lo had been ready straight off. So had Jace. None of the boys she'd handled had given her problems like this.




Talla's Temple Ch. 14



That is, unless she counted Zo'kar.

And she'd cured him, hadn't she? Didn't she have a lot more at her disposal, both in skill and body, than she did when she'd met Zo'kar?

So Shen was spooked, somewhat like Zo'kar, and she'd just have to treat him that way. No problem.

Step one: get him undressed. The shirt could stay on, but the shortened pants had to go. Easy enough. She smiled at him before sliding down to kneel at his feet. The laces were a bit tight, but she got them undone and slid his pants down to the floor.

No, he definitely wasn't ready.

"Do you remember your last upgrade?" she asked, looking up in to his eyes.

"Sort of," he said, somewhat sheepishly as he looked aside.

"Look at me," she said.

The moment their eyes met, she did it, taking the whole of his barely aroused penis in to her mouth in one gulp.

He gasped and his eyes lost focus. She honestly felt that he'd have fallen over if he hadn't been supported by the bed.

Blood rushes in, the teachers had told her, causing the male member to swell and stiffen.

She could almost feel the rushing of the blood and the beating of his heart as the penis in her mouth grew in reaction to the swirling of her tongue. In the brief moments when he could open his eyes, he found her staring right back at him. Then he would lose focus again.

"Gods," he murmured.

She had to rise off her knees now. The whole of his penis wouldn't fit in her mouth and it was pointing above the horizontal. It pleased Talla to see that her manipulations were working so well. She'd brought him from disinterest to arousal in good order. A woman of the Temple ought to be proud of her abilities.

She could work several inches of him with her tongue and so used her hands to work the base of his shaft and cup his testicles.

He groaned.

Well and good. He was getting closer to the place where she wanted him. She pulled her mouth away for just a moment, not relenting from her hand work.

"I want you really hard," she whispered with a pout. "Make it really hard for me."

That wasn't a put on. It was honesty. There was nothing like working a guy over like this to bring her around. Her sole experience at Priming had taught her that.

Shen looked down at her and opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, but she was already sliding him back in to her mouth. When she looked back up in to his eyes, she saw a look of panic there.

What? Why would he be -?

She should have realized it a fraction of a second before it happened, or it might just have seemed obvious in hindsight -- she would never know for sure. What she did know, at that moment, was what it was like to have semen fired in to her mouth.

A warm, wet jet of fluid hit the roof of her mouth and sprayed in to her throat. She gagged as it pulsed at her and yanked her head back.

Some instinct, drilled in to her from Temple training, kept her hands moving, stroking and squeezing each pulse of his orgasm -- taking one shot off her cheek and the rest dripping down on to her breasts.

Talla had wondered once, only two nights before, what semen might taste like. He tasted nothing like Zo'kar had, in that faintly citric, bitter sort of way. Shen was bland. His seed tasted something like she expected wood or sawdust might, in the way that things tasted the way they smelled.

There wasn't much for her to do. The stuff was already in her throat anyway, so she made up her mind to swallow what was left on her tongue, forcing it down.

Shen was breathing heavily, quite frenetic for a man who'd just had an orgasm. Wasn't it supposed to relax them? Wasn't that the whole point of Serving -- to bring contentment and peace to men?

Instead he slid down to the floor to sit sulkily next to her.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Why?" she asked.

"Coming too fast," he muttered, staring at the floor.

"Not your fault," Talla excused him. "I was the one that made you come."

He looked up at her oddly.

"It's not a big deal anyway," Talla added. "We can do it again, right?"

He'd better be able to do it again. The teachers had said that people their age could generally go at least three times a night.

Shen shrugged. He wouldn't lift his eyes to meet hers.

Alright, then. This was going to be an issue

-----------===================-------------

Zo'kar stepped in to the Augmentation Chamber, confident in being able to do a second time what he'd succeeded in doing once. The girls in the shower had cleaned him up nicely enough. Their names were Renia and Tina. He had promised himself he would keep track of every name and he may as well count the ones that were tasked with sucking on his cock.

Weird.

The Chamber must have been darkened on this occasion. The last time he'd stepped out, he'd been able to see dozens of women up in the stands. This time he could see none. He could only feel their presence in their breathing and the way sounds were muffled by their bodies instead of echoing around. He knew that there were more of them than last time, even if he couldn't see them.

He remembered looking up and seeing them clearly, and wondering if Zhair'lo had lied to him or merely taken an erroneous guess. He hadn't cared much at the time. The job Talla had done on him that night had left him feeling enormously assured of himself.

This night, however, he was stunned by how blind he was. He couldn't see anything up there at all.

He shrugged it off and started walking to the center of the Chamber.

His purpose here was to ejaculate all over the nipples of the pretty eighteen year old girl on his right, after rubbing up against the much more elaborate chest architecture of the topless, yellow-skirted woman on his left.

With any luck, the one in white might visit him soon.

He'd like that very much.

-----------===================-------------

The teachers had told her that, in times of trouble such as these, it was best to get the man to relax.

So she'd told Shen to relax, got him up on his bed, and laid him on his back.

In that position, it had been easy to bring him around again.

Having slid halfway down his bed, she was playing with his testicles, lightly tickling at the hair underneath and marveling at the reaction that got her. She wasn't daring to use her mouth lest she overwhelm him again.

For his part, he was gently caressing her breasts.

"Wow," he breathed.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. He responded by nodding at her chest.

She smiled. "Never seen 'em this big?"

He shook his head.

She turned her attention back to his penis, now quite erect. Good. She would get some play then.

She tossed her leg over him and straddled him. If she could just get him inside her before he blew his load again -

Talla slipped him easily in to her moist tunnel. There was no doubt she was ready. That had been the easiest penetration of her life.

They meshed.

And what a confused babbling brook of a mesh it was. Talla had the vague sensation of being battered by wind, sunlight and white water rapids all at once. 

Shen was not, she then realized, a stable person.

It wasn't as if he were dangerous or demented. Talla didn't fear for herself. It was more akin to the sensation of handing a fragile vase to a three year old child. Only disaster could result.

Steady, she beamed at him. Steady.

He was frenetic, trying to thrust up at her whilst simultaneously trying to control himself.

Steady, she asserted more forcefully, trying to make her emotions push through the mesh to override his mental confusion.

She leaned forward to pin his shoulders down, stressing her intention. She knew that dangling her breasts in front of his face wasn't best for his lack of control, but she intended to slow him down at least a little and she didn't see another way. Maybe the pain in her chest would echo through the mesh and slow him down. Hopeful thought, that.

"Easy," she said gently.

Talla waited until he stopped moving and all of the undulations up in to her chest had ceased. Gradually, the clattering of his emotions inside her head faded away.

"There," she added with a sigh. 

She hadn't even realized how stressful it had been to bond with him until he calmed back down. Now she would be able to actually enjoy Serving him.

What first? Talla began to rotate her hips, ever so gently, letting his erection stretch her a little at a time. That was nice.

Too bad her chest hurt so much. Leaning over this way just made her breasts pull at her even more. Through her eyelashes, her eyes met his. Brown eyes twinkling in the torchlight, he looked at her with an odd calmness. Then he reached up with both his hands to gently cup her breasts and push them up against her chest.

Talla sighed with relief. How had he understood? It didn't matter. Her ability to please both of them had improved immeasurably. She could devote more of her attention to bringing them both to the brink of orgasm.

The undercurrent of instability was still there. Shen had by no means been cured of his affliction. Talla had merely locked it down for the time being. With twitches of her hips, she could chisel way at that instability. With restraining force exerted on his shoulders -- and through the mesh -- she could bring him back in to check.

Good.

This time she would feel the spasms of his ejaculating penis from inside her vagina instead of her mouth. Gods that had been weird. And what was with the taste anyway?

-----------===================-------------

While Talla was trying to control Shen and wondering how to get the aftertaste of his semen off her palate, Zhair'lo was taking his turn in the Augmentation Chamber.

Rubbing against a woman's breast bone, no matter the visual appeal of the breasts sprawled out of reach on either side, wasn't all that exciting. Once he'd Seized, however, the woman in the gold-sequined yellow skirt pushed her breasts together to envelope his erection.

"There we go," she whispered playfully as her flesh surrounded his and covered him with a layer of clear syrup.

"Oh!" she said with a giggle. "You are the quick one."

Zhair'lo looked at her oddly. He'd only done this twice, but he'd assumed the whole thing was a little more formal than this. Somewhere in the darkness behind her head, he heard a polite cough.

She rolled her eyes in the general direction of the cough and then glared at him.

"You're only getting one from me," she said warily but no more formally than before. "Off you go. Anzha is waiting."

Weird woman.

He dismounted her altar, meaning to take a casual look in to the audience. What he saw stunned him. Though he couldn't see as clearly as on earlier nights -- he couldn't make out faces properly -- he could tell that there were hundreds of women up in the gallery.

He gulped.

Up at the front were several women in blue and green. Behind them ... well, there was no chance of making out Talla in that mass of orange and yellow clad women.

It wasn't like his erection was going anywhere. He stood assured of that. He wondered if it was even possible for a man, charged up as he was, to somehow lose his arousal. Probably not.

He mounted the other altar. In his mind, he still called it Talla's altar, even if it was Nadine or Anzha or -- whoever else they put there for him.

When he looked at Anzha, he remembered what Nadine had told him about the girls waiting in that suspended state for their lives to start. Knowing what to look for, he saw the darkness in her eyes. It wasn't as bad as he'd felt from Nadine, but he'd felt Nadine through the mesh. Anzha, though topless, wasn't nearly as naked as that.

"Ready?" she asked as she handed over the chalice.

"Oh, yes," he said, his voice calmer than he really felt.

"Good," she said. "I hope you're the one who can get me out of here."

She slathered her chest -- breasts, sternum and everything nearby -- with the liquid, then took the chalice from his hands and set it aside.

Anzha took his penis in her tiny hands and began stroking him with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. There was no need for patience -- not for a man this hard - but her urgency seemed unnecessary.

"They said you could break through," Anzha whispered. "Can you?"

"It worked before," he offered with a nod.

She pursed her lips.

"Okay," she said. "Whenever you're ready. Gimme."

Compelled by both word and hand, he felt the head of his shaft stiffening and swelling just that little bit more. Anzha felt it, too.

Eagerly, she released one hand from stroking duties in preparation for his semen. The other hand made rapid, light movements around his swollen tip, tickling him to orgasm.

With a last thrust of his hips, he let his orgasm take over, firing a stream of fluid in to her breastbone from almost zero range. She'd angled it so that that first and most powerful load flowed uphill between her slim breasts.

Anzha continued to coax more out of him with her rapid strokes while spreading his semen up her breastbone and over the tops of her breasts.

Zhair'lo felt an immense sense of relief. He could soon get out from under the prying eyes of the gigantic crowd of women.

As he collapsed back on his heels, he watched her expression. She was thoughtfully looking back and forth in to the air over his head.

Then she twitched and looked him in the eyes.

"You did it," she said, much more in control of her voice than Nadine had been. "It's warm."

He wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked closely at her chest. He couldn't see any of the telltale blue glow that had marked his previous upgrades.

"You're sure?"

She nodded confidently.

Then the girls in white skirts came forward with towels and clothing, cutting off all further conversation.

-----------===================-------------

"It started at the second upgrade I did," Shen volunteered as they lay together in his bed.

He was curled up behind her, gently supporting her breasts.

"You came on the Source?"

"No," he said, quite calmly. Two orgasms had gone a long way towards relaxing him. "In the showers, beforehand. Nothing worked properly after that."

"And they haven't called you back since?"

"Nope."

That was kind of sad. One pair of girls somewhere had overdone a Priming episode and a guy was left thinking of himself as a failure.

"How long ago was that?"

"'bout six months," he said.

Talla bet that, despite the casual tone of his voice, Shen knew the exact day it had happened.

"That wasn't necessarily your fault," Talla said. "That just happens sometimes. Besides, they might call you again. Most girls don't get their second upgrades until they're nineteen, so you might just have to wait your turn for a shot at them."

She felt him shrug in return. What could she do?

"You're fine, really," she assured him. "You just have to take a deep breath and relax."

If there was one thing Talla knew about with any certainty, it was the deep and abiding value of taking a deep breath and relaxing.

She backed in to him more snugly and was pleased to feel a stiffness pushing at her thighs. She spread her legs a little to let his erection develop until the topside of it pushed against her lips, leaving the tip poking out between her legs.

That was pleasant. They started moving their hips against each other so his penis could slide lengthwise between her wet and spreading lips.

"You ready?" he asked.

She murmured an affirmative and felt his weight shift on the bed as he changed his angle and set his penis against her.

Would it really work like this? The Temple women who'd taught her things had always talked about the importance of the women being on top, but maybe that was just for the first time. There were lots of ways to do it, weren't there?

He slid in to her as easily as before and quite a bit more deeply.

Oh, this was nice.

Shen probably wasn't as long as Jace or Zhair'lo, but this angle more than made up for it. She arched her back away from him so she could swivel her hips down and give him even better penetration. Oh, to be stretched this way! She desperately pushed down on him and bent her spine as far as it would go. It forced her breasts out of his hands, but that was only a small amount of pain. She didn't need to be caressed for pleasure. This time around was all about depth.

Talla was surprised, then, when Shen leaned on her to push her on to her stomach. She acquiesced, caring only to find a place inside her body that hadn't yet been reached and trusting that he'd done this before.

Oh, yes.

Her chest was down on the bed, her hips in the air. Shen was slowly and gently thrusting in to her more thoroughly than anyone yet had. Even her chest felt fine, her sore breasts laid so gently on his bed that they were under neither tension nor compression in this absolutely stunning position.

And there was an urge. She felt it through the mesh. Shen's left hand held fast to her hip, pulling her gently in as he drilled forward. Where was his right?

He was holding back something back. His right hand came to rest on her cheek even as he continued to pulse his erection in to her.

What was it? There was a sense of something missing. That was all she could get through the mesh. Here she was, perched on his bed, helpless to do anything but accept her unavoidable impalement ... and something was missing?

"What is it?" she asked heatedly.

He didn't stop his slow, deep thrusts in to her.

"Some girls -"

"Some girls what?"

She moaned as he pushed in to her. What was it that he wanted? What did he do with other girls? Whatever it was, she wanted that, too. But he wouldn't say.

Talla frowned in frustration and let that flow over the mesh.

Tell me, that message said.

And so Shen lightly tapped at her cheek with a few fingers of his right hand.

Oh.

It occurred to Talla that her training, which she'd come by in Endowment, was meant to emphasize the particular gifts of her Division. If someone from, say, Form, had received different training, emphasizing different gifts and different positions ...

Should she really let him? Form girls were built differently. They could take it. Maybe even enjoy it. Could she?

An image flashed in to her mind. Adria first, then M'lis: the punishments they'd taken and she'd undeservedly escaped.

The decision was made in an instant. She flashed stark, glaring approval down the mesh, turning her hips just a little to give him an angle.

The last time she'd been spanked, it had been in the children's dormitory over a decade before. This was wholly different.

Shen struck the side of her cheek with a polite snap.

No. She had to make him understand. This wasn't what she wanted. She wasn't looking for playful.

She beamed more frustration down the mesh and turned her head to whisper, "Harder."

She sensed Shen's disbelief but overrode it with her clear desire.

He struck her again. It stung. Was that how Adria and M'lis had felt? Not likely.

"Harder," she demanded again, her unsung guilt welling up inside her.

Shen was leery of hurting her, but also overwhelmed by the strength of their mutual lust. If she wanted it harder, he would do it. His next thrust, at least, was stronger, more forceful at the end.

The third strike was what she'd been looking for. It hurt more than just a snap and a sting. The feeling penetrated in to muscle and bone.

It was turning Shen on. Talla felt his instability threatening to break out of the box she'd locked it in. But she wasn't done. She held him back with all her strength, forcing tranquility upon him. He only had to hold out a bit longer.

Again, she demanded through the mesh.

Shen, though undeniably in the superior position, was helplessly trapped in her control. 

He struck her again.




Talla's Temple Ch. 14



They would leave a mark, these strikes. Talla was sure of that, even as pain and lust merged and threatened to overtake them both.

But Talla held them back.

Because Adria and M'lis had endured three strikes, and she would do the same. He could never hit her hard enough to draw blood, as M'lis had endured, but she could at least share their pain.

Just one more, she begged the gods. Just let him hold out for one more ...

But Shen wasn't striking. His hand was limp and relaxed on her cheek even as he thrust in to her. Why wasn't he complying? Didn't he want to do this? Wasn't this his idea?

He wasn't getting too closing to coming. She was started to lose control, letting her chance at redemption slip away.

"Again!" she demanded aloud.

In the moment that she shouted, she felt herself seizing control of his body, rearing his hand back and bringing it down with unprecedented strength on her already reddened flesh.

That one did hurt, coming with the force of not just his lust, but also her frustration, guilt and anger. It cracked off her body and, in the delivery, it was the explosion that broke the dam of their collective resolve, releasing the instability that was Shen to his own lust and his seed in to the deepest parts of her of her body any had ever reached.

She felt that fluid being pumped in to her, the sensation of his orgasm mixing with the crude pain that ached from her right hip down to her thigh.

Talla stayed there, bent over, unable to do anything but accept the torrent of fluid and the relentless thrusting against her cheeks.

When he had pumped the last of himself into her, he fell over on his side, pulling his flagging erection out of her a little too quickly. Talla turned to say something to him, possibly to protest, but found his eyes bleary and unfocused.

"Wuzzat?" he wondered aloud, his senses clearly having vacated him. "Talla ..."

Then his eyes closed and an empty expression spread across his face.

-----------===================-------------

Zo'kar was in the exit room when Zhair'lo entered.

Zhair'lo changed quickly, wondering why the other had waited.

"Come with me," a leather armoured guard instructed them.

"How come you waited?" Zhair'lo asked.

"She told me to," Zo'kar shrugged, nodding at the guard.

Zhair'lo turned to her.

"There are many upgrades tonight," the guard said stiffly. "We can't spare escorts for every one of you."

Admonished by her tone, the two boys walked in silence behind the powerful woman. The gate to which she led them was promptly opened for them and closed behind them.

"Whaddaya think that was about?" Zo'kar asked.

"Which part?"

"Her Bitchiness," Zo'kar clarified in the most exalted tone he could manage.

Zhair'lo hoped that his voice didn't carry all the way to the guard up on the wall.

"Must be a busy night," he told Zo'kar. "Maybe someone important is getting upgraded."

Zo'kar thought about that as they walked.

"Imagine getting to see that," he said finally. "One of those big-titted Sorceresses all laid out for somebody."

"I got to use a Sorceress last time," Zhair'lo volunteered.

"No kiddin'?"

"No kiddin'," Zhair'lo replied haughtily. "Point. Skin as dark as it goes and nipples even darker."

Zo'kar was stunned for a moment, but a spark shortly lit in his eyes.

"Dya' think they'll have me back for something like that?"

Zhair'lo was pretty sure they'd only used a Sorceress because it had been Nadine, who had proven so hard to break.

"Suppose so," he replied doubtfully. "If you come back often enough, it might happen."

Zo'kar seemed entranced by the prospect.

"Why do you think they picked you?" Zo'kar asked.

Zhair'lo read the real meaning of the question, which was that Zo'kar was wondering about his own fortune.

"I gave a girl named Talla a quadruple upgrade -"

"Talla?"

"Yeah, you know her?"

"Yeah," Zo'kar said in a far-off tone that Zhair'lo found a bit disturbing. "I did her Initiation and then she was there in the showers, last time."

So Zhair'lo had been that close, had he? Gods damn it. And Zo'kar had the luck.

"She's special," Zo'kar said in that same tone, continuing to speak because Zhair'lo hadn't yet interrupted.

"Special?" he asked.

"Yeah," Zo'kar replied, freezing up.

"How come?"

Yeah. What's special to you about her?

Zo'kar hesitated a bit, not quite meeting Zhair'lo's eyes.

"I was -- afraid, before," he volunteered with a degree of embarrassment. "But after I did her Initiation, I wasn't anymore."

That made Zhair'lo feel a bit better. He had half expected that Zo'kar was going to describe the kind of mesh that he had had with Talla -- but it looked like Zo'kar never had.

There was a silence, which Zo'kar broke.

"So you gave her a quadruple upgrade?"

"Yeah."

"Her tits did look pretty big," Zo'kar offered, thinking back to seeing her in the shower. "Good work."

"Thanks."

"That must be what makes us special, then," he said. "You quadrupled Talla. I doubled Eletta."

"And then I doubled up Nadine," Zhair'lo added.

"So that's why they called us back."

"Yeah," Zhair'lo said. "Do you think you did a double tonight?"

"How should I know?"

"When I did Talla and Nadine, they glowed," Zhair'lo said. "But I'm pretty sure I only did a single on -- um -- Anzha, tonight. No glow, and the other woman, she said I was 'only getting one' from her."

Zo'kar murmured thoughtfully. "Eletta definitely glowed. Her tits were bright blue all over, like burning alcohol."

When and why had Zo'kar burned alcohol?

"Come to think of it, I think her nipples were glowing," Zo'kar added. "Tonight I mean."

"So they gave you a double and not me."

Zo'kar shrugged.

"Weird."

"Yeah. Weird."

-----------===================-------------

So much for Shen.

Having spent all of the impatient boy's energy, Talla was cooling her heels in the foyer of the mason's housing.

She felt like she'd cleared her internal debt to M'lis and Adria. They would never know it, of course, never having felt that there had been any debt to clear. It was only Talla who had felt that something was out of balance. Tonight the balance, even if just her own, had been restored. So she sat in some discomfit, the dull ache in her rear a reminder that things were quiet well now, actually.

Her chest, mind, was another problem. She wouldn't be able to Serve any more if this kept up. It was enough -- this time - that Shen had supported her once to keep the pain away, and turned her over the second time.

She was of Endowment. Her breasts were central to her ability to Serve. If they couldn't be caressed, squeezed, stroked and otherwise handled, how could she be effective? How could she get full enjoyment? How could her partner?

Talla sighed.

What would be the point of meeting Zhair'lo, assuming she managed it, if this was her condition?

She would have to see a doctor. She promised herself that she would do so immediately after she finished with the children the following day.



Talla's Temple Ch. 15



When ill, Talla had been told, one was to go directly to the Offices. Physicians were always available.

Illnesses were a lot simpler in the dorms. There the doctors would come to the patients. Here, Talla supposed, it made more sense to put the doctors in one place and have the patients come to them.

Did her condition really merit the term "illness"?

That normally meant "disease". What was she going to say, "Please help me. My breasts are too big"?

Having finished her day of child minding, she trotted past the sunbathing courtyard full of her naked sisters. She made the best speed she could, having yanked the straps on her top as tight as possible to take the weight off her chest.

She wasn't happy about what she had to do. Whining wasn't looked well upon. "Unnecessary drama" would have been the accusation of her dorm mothers. She could almost hear the condescending tone and had to blink away an image of a woman pointing at the stool in the corner.

Talla grimaced as she entered the dark, cool chamber of the Offices. Just as quiet as the courtyard, but so much the opposite in every other respect.

Did she really need to see a doctor?

With what she knew was an intent to procrastinate, she went first to the shelves full of night time assignments. There, in her slot, was the card. 

What would it be tonight? Whose name would be on the card? There was a certain anxiety in reaching for that card, knowing it would contain the name of a boy she'd never met -- a boy she'd be expected to go out in to the night to find. And then Serve. Another penis, plunging in to her. 

And his name was -

What?

All that was written on the card was "Desk 15" and some Temple Script which she translated to mean "immediately".

Not a hard direction to follow. Desk 15 was just behind her. She crossed the marble floor -- quietly so as to avoid distracting the hard working women -- and stood in front of the fifteenth desk.

"Yes?"

An Officer, probably of Abundance. She wore a tight fitting but rather fancy blouse. It wasn't quite the sort of thing that women went out Serving in, but the plunging next line and lace in the cleavage was a notch above standard work wear.

"My card said to come here, Mistress," Talla said, showing the Officer the card.

"Ah, Talla," she said. "My name is Pril. Pleased to meet you."

"Mistress," Talla replied with a curtsy. She supposed it was an honour to be recognized. There were very few Officers, after all.

"You're here because you have a choice tonight," Pril explained.

"A choice?"

When had there been talk of choices? Her first night, certainly, but she didn't think she got choices after that. Could she choose whom she Served? That thought lit her eyes up.

"Yes," Pril explained. "You chose to be paced at five Services per week."

Talla nodded.

"Many girls do this to meet their quota more quickly," Pril said. "And your devotion is admirable. There are, however, other duties of equal import -- and credit."

Talla raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"If you wish," Pril said, "we have an opening in Priming tonight. We're offering it to you based on your success in discovering -- ah -- Zo'kar, I believe it was."

"Zo'kar?" Talla wondered. "What about him?"

"He's a Seal Breaker," Pril said. "Having been involved in his discovery, some of the credit is yours. So if you would prefer to achieve your quota with a greater degree of Priming, that can be arranged."

Zo'kar was a Seal Breaker, just like Zhair'lo. How about that?

And what of her choice? Would she rather be out Serving, or Priming? She thought of her beleaguered breasts. Priming, even twice, they would only be unwrapped for a few minutes -- half an hour at most. It wouldn't cure her arousal, but she could always masturbate if it came to that. If she chose to Serve -- well -- the pain in her chest ...

"I'll take Priming," she said confidently.

She took from Pril's smile that it was the right decision. Whatever her part was in getting Zo'kar prepared, it was obviously an important duty. So be it.

"Good," Pril said. "We'll see you at seventh bell, as before."

Talla lingered a bit.

"Is there something else?"

"I -- I think I need to see a doctor," she stammered.

An expression of concern crossed Pril's face.

"Go up to Principia Abundance and tell the guard there," Pril said. "I hope all is well."

"Thank you, Mistress," she said and curtsied again. "I'm sure I'll be fine."

-----------===================-------------

Down in the vaults under Sweetness Hall, Maksa was hard at work.

There were no skylights, so even in the middle of the day work was done under candlelight.

Maksa had examined Talla's dossier, tracing back through all five ancestral generations available to find something that might stand out. There was nothing there. The dossier was perfectly clean.

Stymied, she then decided that there might be something in the sixth generation. She could, theoretically, go through all thirty two of Talla's available ancestors, dig up those dossiers and see what they held. But she had learned a few things in her stint at genealogy. People moved from one city to another. When they moved, a copy of their records moved with them, but their parents' records didn't. So if Mih'lan or Kain or one of their parents were immigrants, Maksa could spend hours looking through the oldest parts of the Stacks before she realized the pointlessness of her task.

She could, however, look up Mih'lan and Kain themselves.

So here she sat, having found Mih'lan's dossier and placed it next to Talla's, comparing the trees.

It was a perfect match. The left half of Talla's family tree matched perfectly with Mih'lan's, right out to the sixth generation. Mih'lan's chart then had one more generation. There was no more sign of predilection towards Endowment than she would have expected.

There was something though.

On the bottom of Mih'lan's chart, where children would be listed alongside the names of the fathers, someone had made an error and scratched it out.

Mih'lan had had two children, both girls.

The first was Zhina, fathered by someone named Kortis.

On the next line was Kain's name, something scratched out, followed by Talla's name.

It wasn't uncommon to see scratch marks on older parchment. The stuff hadn't been cheap to make until more recently. If Talla was eighteen, then this name was written eighteen years ago. But what had been scratched out?

Maksa held the parchment up to the light.

Whoever had made the scratch marks had been sloppy. The ink used to scratch out was not the same colour as that used to write the original word. That didn't make a lot of sense. 

The most likely explanation was that someone, most likely Mih'lan's doctor, had changed her mind about the baby's name. Wouldn't the person who made the error be the one crossing it out? And wouldn't the same pen be used?

Maksa tried viewing the parchment from different angles, attempting to decipher what Talla's name might have been.

It was difficult. Names could be. There were so many possibilities. Besides, Temple Script allotted a special symbol for names, just as the common language capitalized the first letter. This name, for some reason, did not have that symbol.

That made it not a name, but a word.

Knowing that, something clicked inside Maksa's head. She began to look at that scribble in a different way.

And, quite suddenly, she recognized the word.

"Stillborn"

-----------===================-------------

"What seems to be the problem, young lady?" the physician asked.

She was a young woman, wearing orange clothing of indeterminate rank under her white coat. Talla had waited half a bell to speak to her.

"My chest hurts," she said.

"That is normal after an upgrade," the physician said. 

Her brief encounters with physicians had led her to suppose that they were trained not to emote. Talla could tell, regardless of any such training, that this one wanted to roll her eyes.

"Yes, I know," Talla said. "My upgrade was six days ago. My breasts don't hurt anymore, really. It's just, sort of, in behind."

The physician raised her eyebrows in confusion.

"Very well," she said. "Let me see."

They were in a curtained off section of Principia Abundance. Talla assumed it was acceptable to be naked with a physician present.

She unlaced her top and gently let her breasts fall. She tried not to wince.

The physician now looked completely at a loss.

"Initiate, you do not appear to have any Strength or Point upgrades," she said. "And what -- three Abundance upgrades?"

"Four, actually," Talla corrected. "It was an accident."

"I'll say. Where does it hurt?"

Talla placed her fingertips gently on the tops of her breasts.

"Here," she said. "Sort of, in behind. It pulls."

"Yes, it does."

The physician placed her left hand above Talla's left breast and cupped the same breast with her right hand.

"Here?" she asked, pushing in Talla's chest.

Talla nodded.

The physician gingerly lifted Talla's breast.

"Now?"

"Not so bad."

"So you're okay when you're wearing your top?"

"Yes," Talla said. "Well, better anyway. It is very sturdy."

She repeated the procedure with Talla's right breast, confirming her diagnosis.

"We warn Endowment women about this sort of thing," she said. "Every now and then, however, some fool Abundance Neophyte, having aced her exams all the way up, manages to get both of her extra upgrades in Point. Fancier, you know, having nice nipples. She makes it to Keeper, gets her fourth upgrade and her breasts are just too big for her chest strength. Then we make her get a Strength upgrade, as soon as possible. But she has to spend some time in your condition."

"I guess that's me, then," Talla said.

"Yes."

"But they won't let me have any other upgrades until I've met my Virgin quotas," Talla said.

The physician tilted her chin up just a fraction, now on firmer ground.

"We'll see about that, dear. Come along."

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo was at the farthest edge of the Harzen's farm, about two kilometres from the farmhouse. Someone had reported a leaking roof in one of the ancient stone sheds. Why there was a shed with a thatched roof way out here was beyond his ken. It was enough that he was the most junior worker on the farm and consequently was handed the crappiest jobs. Even Kurran had stayed behind, having more important things to do.

True enough, he had spent some time learning to repair roofs. 

Once.

A long time ago.

For about a week or two.

He sighed. Nothing for it but to march out to the middle of nowhere, which he had done, and climb up to the roof, which he was about to do.

What was the point of this stupid shed? There was a plough and a pair of butter churns stored in it. Otherwise it was a large empty building with a wide doorway and a chimney. What possible reason could there be for a pair of butter churns to be out here?

At least there was enough thatch on hand to repair the hole in the roof. He'd carried the bundles and the long straw on his back. They'd promised him that it would be enough. 

He supposed that the complaint came from someone who had been stuck out here when the rain storm had hit. What could you do in a storm like that except run to the nearest building and wait it out?

And if that building started leaking, you might wonder if the whole roof would follow.

Fair enough. He could fix it before the next bell if he did it right. 

Looking up at the hole in the roof, it did seem pretty simple. Without a ladder in evidence, however, he'd have to climb up the back of the chimney or find some other purchase to get up there. After that it was just a matter of packing the bundles in tightly enough across the rafters that this wouldn't happen again.

He exited the building by the same wide doorway through which he'd entered and, with weeds, grass and damnable thorns whipping at his bare legs, made his way around the shed. There was no ladder, but the chimney was quite scalable. He wasn't going to be able to climb up carrying the full load of thatch on his back, though. It would take at least two trips.

He unsaddled half his load and started climbing. At least his sandals were in good shape. That made for a pleasant and reasonably safe climb even if he was hot and sticky from the walk out.

The shed, in addition to being unnecessary and in the middle of nowhere, was also stupidly tall. Why bother complaining at this point?

He reached the top and unloaded the tightly bound bundles he'd brought up. Then he took a moment to rest. Over the length of the shed, he could see all the way back to the farmhouse, but the path he had walked was below the edge of the building. So he turned around instead and contented himself with a look out past the town limits.

There was a path out there, just the other side of a copse of trees. He could see it. It didn't lead away from the town, though, but rather across his view. A group of people, men and women, carrying swords or bows on their backs, were jogging along the path.

Fighters, the men were called.

He knew them enough to name them. Sometimes they were seen in town, marching from one place to another or guarding some baggage train. That it was a job was all Zhair'lo knew about it. There were occasionally people to fight. Out there. Somewhere. And Fighters did the fighting.

Presumably this casually paced run on this path at the edge of town had something to do with guarding the town against whomever it was that the Fighters were employed to fight.

Zhair'lo had never really thought about it, but he did now. The existence of the Fighters, well known but rarely spoken of, meant that there must be someone out there, in the vast wilderness between cities, that contested the rule of the Goddesses and their Temples.

He was about to wonder why when a voice called out, "Zhair'lo M'han?"

"Up here," he shouted back.

The voice had been distinctly feminine. There was only one reason for that in the middle of the day. Another message scroll. Another upgrade.

"Where?"

"I'm on the roof - around back."

"There is a message for you," the same voice replied. He could hear their footsteps as they walked around the building.

"Can you just leave it somewhere for me?"

There was a pause in the footsteps and a whispered conversation.

"No," an older voice replied. "We must hand it directly to you."

More Temple rules. If they had been able to leave it for him, they would have left it with Harzen back at the farmhouse and saved themselves four kilometres of running.

"Alright, alright," Zhair'lo called back. He was going to have to go back down anyway to get the rest of the long straw. He might as well do it now. He couldn't imagine asking them to come up. "Let me climb down. No use you walking through all those weeds."

"Thank you," the first, younger voice replied.

He clambered down the chimney stones as quickly as he could without killing himself. When he got around the side of the building, he found the two girls carefully extricating themselves from the hip high weeds that were threatening their white, knee length skirts. 

One wore the simple rectangular top that he associated with the lowest rank. The other girl wore a pair of sashes. He could only see her from the back, but he assumed her sashes crossed in front to cover her breasts.

He had almost caught up to them at the front corner of the building when the younger one got her skirt snagged on a particularly stubborn thorned weed. It made him glad that he was wearing work leathers. The thorns would have torn up any of his other clothes.

He was about to warn her about damaging her clothes, but she had already realized she was caught. She turned on the thorn bush, clearly frustrated by her arduous trek through the wilds of farm country, and yanked on her skirt.

Zhair'lo wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Sure, the thorns could be stubborn, but the weeds they grew on weren't that strong. She didn't seem to realize she was fighting with, basically, a blade of grass. She braced herself for what she clearly thought was going to be a tug of war.

Instead, one hard tug later, she found herself flat on her ass with her skirt in her hands, pulled up over her belly.

Zhair'lo, for his part, found himself staring at her naked, hairless genitals.

He blinked, pretending not to have noticed as she quickly forced her skirt back down.

Her senior, however, had noticed.

"Gods damn it, Atani," she muttered. "Where is your underwear?"

"It chafes, Marie" she said. "Only six days since the upgrade. Can't run with them on."

Marie turned to face Zhair'lo.

"Did you see that?" she asked him.

Zhair'lo made a noncommittal noise, not quite willing to lie to avoid trouble. He was meanwhile thinking -- how many days had it been since Talla's upgrade? Was this girl part of Talla's group?

"Of course he did," the older girl said to the younger. "Stupid. Do you know how much trouble you get in for that?"

"It was an accident," Atani protested.

"An accident in front of a man," her senior chastised her. "Don't make excuses. Your job is to avoid accidents. You want them to send somebody out for him in the middle of the day?"

What did she mean by that? 'Send somebody out'?

"It's not really that big of a -" Zhair'lo started to protest. 

Really. He'd had plenty of sex lately. It wasn't like he hadn't seen one before.

Marie, however, wasn't paying him any attention.

"Get inside the building," she told the younger girl, interrupting Zhair'lo.

She turned to Zhair'lo, softening her tone only slightly.

"Sorry about that," she said as she waved toward the doorway of the shed. "Come inside a moment."

-----------===================-------------

Talla and the physician, along with two Virgin attendants, waited outside the entrance to the Sorceress of Abundance's innermost sanctum. The guard had said that the Sorceress couldn't be disturbed but promised that it would only be a moment.

Talla was in the middle of letting out a sigh of impatience when she heard a strange fizzing sound from behind the door. What was that? She was about to ask when she heard a loud pop followed an explosion that sounded like a stroke of thunder.

What in the nine hells?

Then again. 

Fizz. Pop. Bang!

Then silence.

Someone inside the room called out, "Come."

The guard perked up.

"The Sorceress will see you now," she said as she opened the door and ushered them in.

The physician, for her part, didn't appear the least bit surprised by the sound of explosions. She led Talla into the wide rectangular room and bowed politely to the blonde Sorceress and her dark haired Second. The Virgins followed them in and stood by the door.

Both Abundance and Atreya looked a bit tired though contented.

Talla sniffed at the air. Was something burning? She looked around the room and saw a scorched and smoldering bale of hay at the far end. That wasn't the smell, though.

"What is it, Iyana?" her Sorceress asked, cutting off Talla's bafflement.

"Young Talla, Abundance," the physician responded.

The Sorceress brushed her blonde, wavy hair back off her face and let out a breath of exhaustion, apparently recovering from whatever she and Atreya had been up to. Atreya, for her part, merely looked Talla in the eye, saying nothing.

"We have met her, yes."

"She has four upgrades in Abundance," Iyana said, rather severely, "and none in Strength."

Abundance grimaced.

"Yes," she said.

"She cannot be left this way," Iyana continued. "She is already experiencing pain. There could be permanent damage."

"We were hoping not," the Sorceress said. "Come here, girl. Let us see."




Talla's Temple Ch. 15



Talla approached her Sorceress and stood in front of the sitting woman. As the physician had before her, the Sorceress groped at her breasts. Unsatisfied, she unlaced Talla's top and examined her more carefully -- kneading, cupping and lifting.

"Redress," the Sorceress said with a slight pout on her lips. She turned to her Second.

"An Extraordinary?" Atreya asked.

"Except that it's only been six days since her last upgrade," the Sorceress said.

"She clearly has the capacity, Mistress," Iyana put in, "if she could take a quadruple."

"She barely took that quadruple, physician," Atreya said darkly. "I was there."

Iyana nodded in acquiescence.

The Sorceress appeared pensive for a moment and then suddenly snapped her fingers. "A scroll, at once."

One of the Virgins was spurred in to action by this sudden demand. She fetched a sheet from a stack on a shelf near the wall and brought it to the Sorceress.

"Mistress," she said with a curtsy.

"Understand, Talla," the Sorceress said as she scribbled, "that medical upgrades such as this one don't count in the general scheme of things. You are still an accidentally accelerated Initiate. You still have to complete your quotas."

"Yes, Mistress."

"You will still dress as an Initiate and be treated as one. You must still complete your lessons."

"Yes, Mistress."

The scroll was wrapped around a wooden cylinder. Green wax, apparently kept hot and ready in case of need, was poured over the scroll and sealed.

"Take this next door to Strength," she told Talla. "You will need her permission for the Extraordinary. There shouldn't be any problem."

"Thank you, Mistress," Talla said with a curtsy. She turned to the physician and curtsied again. "Mistress."

Then she turned on her heel and left.

Well, that was something.

"Best of luck, Talla," Iyana said as she returned to the curtained off area where her next patient waited.

"Thanks."

She felt on the verge of an anxiety attack. She would get an extra upgrade. She'd be back on that altar, someday quite soon, making another guy come on her chest.

She suppressed a shiver. Surely this one would go better. It wouldn't be so painful. She tried not to think about it. If her career was to progress, she'd have to do dozens of such upgrades with men ejaculating on to all the parts of her body. There was no use being afraid. What would be done would be done.

She would just have to get over -

Something interrupted her thought train. A Virgin in a knee length skirt had just darted in to Principia Abundance, no doubt on an errand, and grabbed a handful of the wooden cylinders used for sending scrolls.

They were sitting there on a shelf just inside the room.

Anyone could take them.

Really? It was that easy?

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo entered the shed behind Atani, mostly wondering if he could just get his message and get back to work.

Marie walked back around the corner of the building. He heard something snap from that direction as he came in to the cool shade of the shed to find a very solemn and downcast girl standing in the middle of the space. 

Marie followed him in, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Kneel down and take care of him," she told Atani.

"Here?" she asked, shocked.

"Or I can report you and let them handle it, after they figure in for sending someone way out here. Your choice. Me or them."

Somewhere between the words 'report you' and 'handle it', Atani's eyes widened in fear.

"Here," she agreed, and fell to her knees.

Marie walked around behind her.

"Everything will be fine," she assured Zhair'lo.

Atani was unlacing his shorts.

"Why are you -?" Zhair'lo began to ask.

"It'll be fine," Marie assured him, possibly misunderstanding his apprehension.

Seriously? This was how they did things?

If he was putting things together correctly, Atani was responsible for making sure that she didn't expose herself in public. Having done so, in front of him, she -- what? -- owed it to him? - to relieve any anxiety he had. Was that it? Marie seemed insistent. His protest had been ignored completely. It was as if Marie thought he was too immature and irresponsible to be able to handle seeing a woman's genitals.

No matter. In another moment, Atani's mouth and tongue were upon him. He'd been with the girls in the showers. He knew what it was to feel a tongue working his shaft. She was tasting his sweat, he was sure of that, but the level of urgency her senior was inflicting upon her clearly overrode any concern for hygiene.

"Quickly," Marie said.

She glanced out the door to ensure they wouldn't be interrupted while Atani vigorously bobbed her head up and down on his shaft.

"It's too big for your mouth," Marie chastised her. "Use your hands, too."

She was giving orders now? Was she going to coach the younger girl the whole way through? Zhair'lo was in too much shock to be any further surprised.

"And for the gods' sake, look him in the eyes."

Atani obeyed, stroking and sucking while loyally keeping eye contact.

Gods, it felt good. Just some random girl showing up in the middle of the afternoon, sucking on his cock for reasons he frankly couldn't fathom. As long as she didn't stop, he didn't care about the logic of the thing.

Marie slipped around behind Atani and unlaced her skirt.

Something like a whimper came from Atani's lips. Her eyes widened just a little further as the skirt slipped away.

She had, Zhair'lo noticed, a fine pair of legs and a really well toned ass. He could admire that from his position. It made sense, if she were running all day long and delivering messages. The question was, was the muscle tone from the running, or were the runners chosen for their muscle tone? If Endowment worked the breasts and Sweetness the genitals, did Form gets the legs and ass?

"I don't want you biting him by accident," Marie said. "Hands and knees."

With a grimace, Atani slid her mouth off his wet and rather substantial erection to take the position directed.

Marie produced the thorned branch she'd apparently been carrying behind her back.

"Three is what they would give you if there were no men present," Marie chastised her. "Since you're taking care of the man who was present, three will do. Hopefully this hurts enough."

Without further warning, she brought her makeshift switch down on the lithe and sinewy cheeks that Zhair'lo had been admiring. A sharp snap filled the stifling air of the shed as muscle shook in place. It was loud enough to make Zhair'lo twitch.

A second crack, hard on the heels of the first, came down on the young girl's ass.

Zhair'lo winced again, but this time he was watching Atani's face. The right side of her face twitched -- as if in annoyance but not actual pain. That was odd. It was a bloody thorned branch. Shouldn't that hurt?

The third crack came down. Atani barely reacted at all.

Was it possible that, given her strength -- and upgrades? - she was tough enough back there not to care?

"Finish him off, then," Marie told her.

The bizarrely incongruous punishment had done little to dampen his spirits. He was glad to be back in Atani's mouth, feeling her tongue -- and Marie's gaze.

"What sort of man are you?" Marie asked.

"Huh?" he asked, out of breath.

"What do you like?" she clarified helpfully. "Ass man? Or you want to come in her face? You like tits more?"

She must have seen something in his eyes when he heard 'tits', because she smiled and crouched beside Atani.

"Sorry she doesn't have big ones," Marie said as she shrugged her sashes off her shoulder to bare her chest. "I'll show you mine if that helps, but they aren't any bigger."

Then she turned to Atani.

"When he starts coming, point him here," she instructed as she pulled the fabric of Atani's top down and away from her chest.

It was true. They both had very small breasts. Since he'd been through upgrades in Endowment, he'd rubbed up against some of the biggest there were. Atani was so slim as to be basically flat chested. Her nipples were small and a very pale pink. Marie was much the same.

In an odd way, it was a pretty big turn on. It reminded Zhair'lo very much of the night he had met Talla and how wonderful that had been. There was just an extra topless girl here.

He felt the muscles in his groin tense at that thought. He didn't know if Atani felt it, or if she'd ever done this before, but she didn't pull off even when he gave out a sharp breath of warning. The head of his shaft swelled in her mouth just before he fired off a stream of semen.

She gagged in panic and yanked him out, rising up off her heels to point his spasmodic manhood at her right breast. Zhair'lo watched, captivated, as his second shot fired in to the top of her breast and traced a line down to her nipple.

Three and four were close on its heels. He was a bit weak; dehydrated perhaps. But the three shots he did take at her breast left a small but satisfying white puddle that coated her nipple completely.

"Good," Marie observed when he was reduced to a slow drip. "Did you swallow?"

Atani, tight lipped, shook her head without saying anything. She hadn't stopped milking the last of his semen on to her flesh.

"Spit it out on the other one, then."

Somewhat unwillingly, and with a slight gag, she pushed a wad of semen and saliva out of her mouth and spat it down on her left breast. It was a pretty good shot, but it missed her nipple. Marie corrected this, using her index finger to smear the mixture in to place.

"Good and empty?" she asked Zhair'lo with a smile.

Creepy woman, he concluded. Whipping her comrade one second, putting on a kind face for him the next.

"Uh ... oh yeah," he replied, still trying to catch his breath -- and his mind. What had just happened?

"Good," Marie concluded. She put Atani's top back in place -- over top of her semen covered breasts.

"Lace him up and get dressed. We've got work to do."

Atani nodded and quickly fixed Zhair'lo's pants.

"Sorry about that," she said, quite meek.

She was apologizing? How was he supposed to reply to that?

"It's okay," he said, hoping that didn't sound stupid.

She turned her back to him to replace her skirt, which meant he got one last look at her ass before she covered up. Not a scratch, bruise or even a reddened streak. Not a single sign of any damage. And Marie hadn't been joking around. She'd hit Atani with malice in an attempt to punish the younger girl. Atani had merely seemed annoyed, as if the embarrassment was the worst part of it.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Atani collected her sack of message scrolls and handed one to him.

"You've done an upgrade before?"

He nodded, speechless.

"Good. Make sure you're prompt."

He nodded again and watched as the two of them ran out the doorway on their next errand.

He heard them talking as they departed.

"I'm going to be hot and sticky all afternoon," Atani groused.

"Maybe that'll teach you," Marie remarked. "The switch hardly did anything to your ass."

There was a pause before Atani spoke again.

"Why does it taste so lemony?" she asked.

The rest of their conversation was lost to distance.

Zhair'lo shook his head. His life had taken an odd turn since he'd put that blue ribbon in his hair. It had started with coming in Talla's face and just gone bent from there. There was the pain and fear of the upgrade. Then Talla's visit. Since then it had just been a blur of semen covered mountains and moist tunnels.

And today. 

Today some girl was running errands with a load of his semen gluing her breasts to her top.

Adulthood, he decided, was outright fucking weird.

-----------===================-------------

Talla had been waiting in line behind several others wanting the attention of the Sorceress of Strength. There was a bevy of Officers and others gathered around her, bringing matters both of administration and engineering to her attention. Talla was trying to listen in, hoping to be enlightened about what went on. It seemed that the women of Strength were ever concerned with checking over everything done by the other women of Endowment.

Finally, she made it to the front of the line.

There was Kara, standing just beside the place where the Sorceress was sitting. Talla looked daggers at her.

You did my Orientation, she thought.

You didn't tell me about ren hana. You didn't tell me about the dangers of triples and quadruples. You didn't tell me the rule that women shouldn't make each other have orgasms. 

I have not once felt Oriented. 

You failed.

Strength looked up.

"Yes, Initiate?"

Intimidating as nine hells, this woman. She could see where Kara had gotten it from -- and where Shanata took her cues, even if Shanata was of Abundance. 

She'd chosen an abnormally dark shade of green for her tight fitting clothing. Her sash and top fit snugly around her large, high breasts. Her skirt clung to her thighs. Her black hair, though obviously possessed of a natural waviness, was pulled back in to a severe ponytail.

No nonsense. No frills. A straightforward working outfit for a straightforward woman.

Talla curtsied.

"A letter, Mistress," she replied as she placed the scroll on the desk, "from the Sorceress of Abundance."

Strength took it from her and cracked the seal open. After unrolling it, she gave it a quick once over. She frowned and then looked up -- not at Talla's eyes, but at her chest. With a gesture, she beckoned Talla to come around the back of her desk.

Once there, Talla found herself once again being fondled -- though much more roughly than the doctor or Abundance had been in their examinations.

One squeeze of each breast. One compression of each pectoral.

"Foolishness to wait so long," she said. "They should have scheduled you immediately."

"Mistress," Talla said, not quite in acknowledgment.

"It's too late to schedule you tonight," the Sorceress explained. "There's an Initiation and we'd have trouble finding you a Conduit regardless."

I could find one for you, she thought. Then, darkly: if he's not busy with someone else.

Strength turned to an Officer at her side.

"Schedule her for tomorrow night," she instructed. "Mark it as an Extraordinary."

"Yes, Mistress," that one said with a smart nod.

"On your way then, girl," she waved at Talla and immediately turned her attention to the next problem in line.

Talla curtsied and departed.

When she left Principia Strength, however, she was richer by one wooden scroll cylinder, casually lifted from a rack containing dozens of such cylinders.

No one seemed to have noticed. 



Talla's Temple Ch. 16



"Talla?"

She turned to see Meena looking at her, somewhat concerned.

"Hey."

"Hey. Uh -"

"What?" Talla asked.

"Whatchupto?" Meena asked.

"Not much," Talla said. She jerked her head to the doorway behind her, indicating the Office of the Sorceress of Strength. "I just got permission for a special upgrade."

"Really?" Meena asked, her voice still more worried than surprised.

"Yeah," Talla said. "I guess it's unhealthy to have four Abundance upgrades without any Strength."

"Lucky you," Meena acknowledged with a nod. "Be careful."

Talla became suddenly aware of the scroll cylinder in her hand. Meena had noticed her pilferage, even if no one else had.

"Uh, yeah."

"Use the brown wax," Meena said, very quietly. "And be careful, sister."

Meena left with a warning purse of her lips before darting off on some errand or other.

That gave Talla pause. She thought she had been subtle. No one else seemed to have spared her as much as a glance. Any girl in a white skirt, hurrying about, might as well be a drapery of some kind for all the higher ranks paid any attention.

No matter. Her mind was set. She could grab a sheet of parchment from anywhere. And if Meena told her to use brown wax, then brown wax it would be.

-----------===================-------------

The Goddess usually summoned her Sorceresses in the middle of the night. Whether that was for safety, habit or simply a desire to sleep during the day, one could never say.

Nevertheless, when one's Goddess sent a Summons -- even in the middle of the afternoon - one dropped one's business and went directly.

The Sorceress of Pussy was no exception to this rule.

The guards at the entrance to her Eminence's innermost sanctum didn't even nod as she passed. When she'd received the summons, she'd changed to her simplest outfit. She wore a dark green skirt, tight as they were made, together with the smallest bikini top the Temple afforded and a simple sash across one of her breasts.

She passed down a long hallway and through a pair of doors. There was a small room there where two more fully armoured guards waited. Wordlessly, she undid her skirt and handed it to one. If they were surprised that she wore nothing underneath it, they gave no indication upon seeing the luxurious hair that the skirt had covered.

After her skirt was examined and found to contain no weapons, it was handed back to her.

Goddesses took no chances. Neither did their guards. Pussy had known this when she'd received the summons and it was for the swiftness of her passage that she'd changed in the first place.

Through another set of doors, leaving the guards behind, she came finally to the central office of the Goddess.

Black was the motif here. Where obsidian and ebony could not be found, walls were painted black and glittered with silver and golden flecks. Curtains were grey and yellow and speckled the same way. Sunlight filtered in, shadowed in to yellow and gold, reflected off mirrors and brightly polished surfaces. Black torchstands stood unlit in the day time.

The Goddess stood in front of her desk, looking -- to Pussy's eyes - not quite right. It was too early for her to be dying, so it couldn't be that.

She was not alone, however. She and a dozen other women of varying ranks stood waiting by chairs in a circle.

Varying ranks, yes, the Sorceress thought, but not varying Disciplines.

She knew every one of them.

"That will be all," the Goddess called out to the Virgin and Initiate attendants that lined the wall by the entrance.

Each one curtsied carefully and the lot of them filed out in order.

When they were gone, she gave another order: "Seal the doors."

This was promptly done by two Adepts who braced the door with wooden beams left there for precisely that purpose. Strong women, they were. Women of Pussy, to be certain, but inducted in to this group for the other upgrades they held. Since Form women could not be recruited, others would have to serve their roles. And Form women would never be inducted in to this group.

When Pussy took her place in the circle, the Goddess carefully rose from her seat.

"We begin," she said, quite formally, making thirteen women come to stiffer attention.

She unlaced the ankle-length skirt about her waist and laid it over the back of her chair. Thick, luxurious hair, black as the fixtures that decorated her domain, covered her genitals. She sat down, leaving her legs spread just slightly. It would have been inappropriate anywhere else. But this meeting was special.

The Sorceress went next, removing her much simpler skirt and taking a seat. She left her legs slightly spread, just as her superior did.

They went down the ranks from there. Most of them were from the orange ranks -- Officers and Acolytes I and II. They removed their tiny underwear like bottoms and sat in their places. The last two members, the lowly Adepts chosen for their physical strength, removed their grass skirts.

It would have wildly unthinkable, in any other place, to have such a juxtaposition of clothing. A Goddess with her genitals exposed while those who held no Perfections weren't completely naked? Unforgivable! And here she was, a Sorceress stripped to a sash and bikini top while an Adept sat next to her in exactly the same clothing?

But here it didn't matter. What mattered was that this group, this clandestine group, were the genealogists. Genealogy was the province of Pussy. And so, to symbolize the true purpose of these meetings, they bared their genitals -- the very thing which defined them -- to one another.

"I carry a child," the Goddess said, provoking a gleeful and collective intake of breath.

"It is most certainly," she continued, "the child of Finch, a Goddess-born himself."

They had all known that getting pregnant via this man, or one of the few other Goddess-born available, had been the goal. It was still a relief, however, to understand that this goal had been achieved.

"Within has been here for my examination, and has been sworn to secrecy."

That was important to know, that a new member had been inducted -- even if forcibly -- in to their membership. The fact that the new member was a Sorceress made it a vital matter.

"How did she take it?" Pussy asked.

"Stoically. How else?"

It might have been a joke. No one laughed. They didn't do a lot of humour at these meetings.

"I am healthy and the child appears to be as well," the Goddess went on. "I will need to stay as secluded as I can for the next five months. Yana?"

"Eminence," one of the Officers acknowledged. "I've drawn up schedules to keep members of this group at your side as often as possible for the duration. We cannot trust Virgins and Initiates to keep secrets, nor can we exclude them from this room without arousing suspicion. You will have to remain behind your desk when they are here and dismiss them as often as it pleases you."

The Goddess rubbed her eyes.

"I have already made a habit of dismissing them with some frequency," she said. "No one should notice a continuation of that habit."

She took a breath and rubbed her belly.

"I don't remember any of my previous pregnancies being this difficult."

No one responded to this. 'Age' was the unspoken reply. Time was a precious commodity to someone carrying so much Perfection -- time that she was further sacrificing with this pregnancy. There was nothing for that. The long running mission of this group was more important than any single woman's health or longevity.

Besides, all those Perfections had to give her some shelter from the normal miseries of pregnancy, didn't they?

Of course they would.

She would survive. She would have her child. Their centuries old mission would continue.

-----------===================-------------

No one was coming for him tonight. If Anzha had picked him for her first, as Talla and Nadine apparently had, she would be coming some other night.

He'd asked Kurran about it. The general pattern seemed to be that women came out to the farm in huge droves. They'd Serve about half the men one night, half the men the next, then take the third night off. If some guy was sick or missed out for some reason, a couple of women might come out that third night, but that didn't happen often

That being the case, Zhair'lo found a desire to head in to town.

If nothing else, Talla was there, and the closer he could get to her the better. 

She pulled at him, in some strange way. He knew it, too. He knew he was just heading in the direction he figured she ought to be. The closer he got to the Temple, the faster he wanted to go. The faster he went, the more aroused he felt.

There were no girls in sight. He'd been reasonably thoroughly emptied out by the messenger and her friend.

What was making him so horny?

-----------===================-------------

Talla was Priming with Tina again.

Falling in to the rhythm they'd set before, Tina had taken the lead with the first boy and Talla had naturally taken the second.

She held him in her mouth, just the swollen head of his penis for the moment, while Tina washed him from behind.

He had clearly been here before, this stout boy whose manhood throbbed on her tongue. He stared at her breasts unabashedly.

Talla liked that attention. She liked it very much. It almost made the pain worth it.

Besides, she could ease the pain and increase his pleasure at the same time, couldn't she?

She pulled his erection out of her mouth and raised her body up enough that she could rub him against one of her breasts, spreading the little bit of glistening fluid on its around in circles around her nipples.

He moaned in appreciation, stiffening in her hand.

She relaxed her grip, thinking of Shen. A false move on her part could have repercussions she didn't want to think about just now.

Instead, she cupped her breasts and lifted them, taking the strain off her aching chest and capturing him in her cleavage.

The young man - what was his name? Goran, wasn't it? Yes. Goran.

Goran let out a contented sigh at this type of attention, so she kept it up, juggling his erection back and forth between her breasts, feeling a tingling as she did it.

Abundance was her Discipline and, without a doubt, rubbing a penis against her breasts was going to turn her on. At least she had Tina, if it came to that, if they could find some privacy. If not, there were always her own fingers, which had served her quite well in the days before she'd joined the Temple -- before she'd taken Zhair'lo ...

Someone knocked on the door -- the two minute pattern.

No question Goran was good to go. He seemed quite confident and -- oh -- so very hard. Talla was reluctant to let him go and so kept him between her breasts. He wasn't nearly as sad to depart. He had an orgasm in his near future, and probably a much larger pair of breasts to rub against in the meantime.

Talla had no such outlet. And gods dammit there was a solidly erect boy right here. She ached to have him inside her, but the only way she could have him was like this. She grimaced, tormented, and pushed her body up so that his penis pressed against her sternum and her breasts wrapped around his shaft.

She smiled. It was all she could do for herself to let him rub against the most sensitive part of her anatomy. Tina had already turned off the water and was busily towelling Goran off.

Talla, having tortured herself enough, went back to sucking on her charge. Gently, to be sure, but enthusiastically. Lucky guy, the benefactor of her arousal. 

Gods, but she needed to drain away this feeling.

-----------===================-------------

He was getting close to the Temple now.

Maybe it was just the awareness of all those girls -- all those women -- so close by. Maybe that was what was influencing him so sharply.

But really, what could he expect? Girls didn't come marching out of the Temple at some man's beck and call. That wasn't how it worked. Men didn't put in requests. The women came out to the men when they felt like coming out.

On the other hand, there was no questioning the strength of his arousal. Too bad there wasn't anything he could -

"Hey, you!"

Zhair'lo turned to see a girl in a long, white skirt. She was out of breath and running at him.

An Initiation.

How fortuitous.

-----------===================-------------

Alli'anya looked down between her naked breasts at the penis that rubbed against her.

The boy was erect and enthusiastic. She had no doubt of that. The drums were pounding and the torches were dim. Excitement was all around them. They'd both been here before. They both enjoyed being here. It was always a proudly done duty for all involved.

In spite of all that, however, something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

He had been rubbing at her sternum for some time now. Not only had he had failed to Seize, he had also failed to go through the period of nauseating dizziness that they calling Hunting.

For herself, she felt nothing -- not the faintest tingle of magic being pulled from her lubricated chest. She was trying to push a Strength upgrade in to him and it wasn't working.

She looked up in to his eyes. He didn't seem to think anything was wrong, although he too must surely wonder why the sensations of Hunting and Seizing had not struck his body.

His eyes met hers.

"This isn't like before," he breathed softly, his eyes wandering around the room in worry.

"You are not Seizing," she observed.

He shook his head in confirmation.

She placed one hand over his penis and slid the other up to his chest to feel his heart. She knew that hard, steady pattern. She'd been trained to recognize it. It was the one he was supposed to have when he'd been charged up.

Charged up how? With what?

Her eyes widened in realization. The boy seemed nonplussed. Quite resilient, really.

"Siste!" she called out to the darkness.

There were no few gasps from the gallery, violations of well understood Protocol. Spears cracked sharply on marble tiles to call for silence. The drummers, high up in the gallery, ceased their drumming.

"For what reason do you call a Halt?"

"He is charged, Highness," Alli'anya answered the disembodied voice. "But not from my Endowment."

There was a short pause. Perhaps the Queen conferred with one of her Sorceresses.

"Condu-say hay," the Queen said. "The Rites will continue."

Virgin attendants moved swiftly to offer the young man his clothing back. Perplexed, if not quite embarrassed, he allowed himself to be led to the exit room. A guard would watch him there.

Once the door was closed, the Queen spoke again.

"Alli'anya?"

She was wiping Synergist from her cleavage.

"Highness," she acknowledged as she exchanged a soiled towel for her top.

"Attend your Mistress and assist her with this boy."

Torches were being re-lit in the upper parts of the gallery. The Sorceress of Strength, her crown jewelled with the jade typical of her Discipline, beckoned her upwards.

They would leave via the back of the gallery, then, and meet the boy somewhere upstairs.

-----------===================-------------

"Did you want to watch a few?" Tina asked politely.

They had finished drying themselves off and were getting dressed.

"Um, no," Talla replied.

Her last experience watching upgrades had been the night she'd caught Zhair'lo's eye -- the night they'd overloaded him. She didn't need a reminder of that.

Besides, there was something else she needed.

How to broach the subject? Where before she had been quite determined to stay away from Tina, to find succour at her own hands if necessary, she now found herself desperate for the other's intimate company. An orgasm from masturbation, while pleasant, would never be the same as a mesh.

If Tina read anything in her eyes or her body language, she gave no hint. They left the Priming room together and walked out directly in to the quiet ground floor of the Offices.

Maybe Talla could cool down. There were no naked boys here; no erect penises demanding attention or begging to be ensconced in the by-now-quite-moist tunnel between her legs. Could she let it go? Calmly go back to her room and possibly use her own fingers to quiet the rebellious murmurs in her belly?

No.

Her arousal was getting stronger, not weaker. She was out of breath and sweating just a little. The desire to be penetrated was not waning in the least.

"Y'ris is sleeping early tonight," Tina said with all the casualness of one commenting on the weather. "She's got duties early in the morning."

It meant that Tina's place was out of the question.

"Lara and Salee have a class," Talla said. "Virgin History, I think."

"It's an Initiation night," Tina observed. "They do a lot of teaching on Initiation nights."

Talla nodded.

"I have your clothes, if you want to pick them up," Talla said, anxiously stumbling toward the thing she really needed.

They were passing through the baffled passages in to Endowment Hall. Tina turned her eyes to meet Talla's. There was understanding there.

"Sure," she replied.

Talla heaved a sigh of relief and quickened her pace. Something was building up and she felt that if she didn't hurry, she was going to miss it.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo had been here before.

The girl had dragged him through the entrance to the large, cylindrical building with the weird female musicians in their masks.

In to a closet they went.

This wasn't her first time doing this. He remembered that Talla had hesitated just a little when she'd undressed. This girl didn't hesitate. She was naked in moments and without shame or even concern.

He admired her skinny body and plain hair. He wondered what she would choose for her Discipline. What part of her body would be altered by some boy -- probably some other boy -- ejaculating on it?

Nice thought, that. His part was much simpler than that tonight.

"I've already done my chest and my stomach," she said, "and two to my pussy. Just three spots left."

"Which one you want next?" he asked.

"Um, pussy or face I guess."

He'd done Talla in the face. Why not again?

"Face," he said.

She gulped. He got the feeling she'd been putting that off.

"Gotta do it eventually anyway," she said, more to herself than him.

"It'll be quick," he promised.

"Thanks," she said sardonically as she knelt on the floor.

-----------===================-------------

"It has to be you," the Sorceress of Strength said.

"Really?"

"Yes," she insisted.

Standing thoughtfully in her most formal clothing, Shanata considered the situation. Rubbing her temples, she dislodged the forgotten circlet of brass about her crown. Wearily, she simply decided to remove it and set it aside.

"Why does it have to be me?"

"We wish to know what this boy was charged with," Strength said. "If, somehow, he managed to Seize on some Discipline other than the one intended, he may have pulled almost anything off Alli'anya."

Alli'anya stepped in at that point.

"Most of my upgrades are pretty much what anyone else would choose," she said. "But I have three in Tight. You're the only one here with enough experience in upgrades to figure out what happened who also has more Tight upgrades than I have."

"I won't permit some accidental upgrade," the Sorceress added. "There is nothing Alli'anya has that you do not, so there's no danger of anyone getting a free pass."

Shanata turned to the guard who had accompanied them from the Augmentation Chamber.

"Did you see any possible contact that could have allowed anything but Strength to pass in to this boy?"

The guard, a woman of Form who knew she was well out of place in Principia Strength, was restricted by Protocol from speaking unless spoken to directly.




Talla's Temple Ch. 16



"No," she deadpanned. "I am certain there was no contact except to the sternum."

The Sorceress of Strength laid her own jade crown on the table next to Shanata's circlet.

"Nevertheless, Shanata," Strength said. "I insist."

"Very well, Mistress," Shanata said. "Despite the absurdity of pulling a Tight upgrade out of someone's cleavage, I will of course obey. Where is this boy?"

-----------===================-------------

"Tina?"

"Hm?"

Talla was panting. It was almost uncontrollable, the way her heart was pounding in her chest. She had the unmistakeable impression, as they walked toward the room she shared with Lara and Salee, that she was going the wrong way.

"Is it wrong, what we did?"

"Wrong?"

"Will we get in trouble?"

Tina thought about that as they walked.

"'pends who you ask," she said. "If we did it somewhere that somebody in Form could catch us, we'd be in trouble."

Form. She flashed back to Adria and M'lis and that awful, awful whip.

"But here?" Talla asked hopefully.

"They kinda look the other way," Tina said. "It's understood, after Priming, that we're ... y'know ... ready to go."

"They should let us Serve then," Talla said firmly. "Let us go out and find a boy."

"You always Serve the night after," Tina explained. "That's the best they can do, considering the timing and all. Besides, they don't usually let Virgins and Initiates go out when there's an Initiation going on like there is tonight."

"There was an Initiation my first night."

"Virgin's Choice, though, right?"

"Yeah."

"That takes precedence."

Silence then, for a bit, while Talla thought of Zhair'lo and Tina thought ... whatever Tina thought.

"You're okay with it, though?" Tina asked.

"It?"

"Us."

Her arousal was getting the best of her.

"Oh ... yeah," she said with a sigh.

They were almost at her room.

The sense of urgency was getting to the level of panic. She felt something, some chance, slipping away from her, running away from her at great speed. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it tore at her heart and made her want to cry because she was missing it.

-----------===================-------------

"This is going to seem a bit odd to you," Shanata explained to the boy. "It will be a bit like doing an upgrade, as far as you need be concerned."

They had curtained off a quiet section of Principia Strength for the purpose. A bed, normally reserved for those especially ill, had been arranged with pillows so that Shanata could lean back comfortably. It wasn't quite like the altar in the Augmentation Chamber. It was actually quite a bit more comfortable.

Shanata sat straddling the narrow bed and faced the boy.

"Kneel here," she instructed him as she patted a place at the foot of the bed.

"Mistress," he said with a nod.

He seemed nervous, more out of place here than even the guard from Form had been. Men were rarely allowed this deep in to a Temple. It was pretty much an honour reserved for those being Served by a Sorceress or, rarely, her Second. Safe bet Goran had never been here.

"You must be aching," she said to him.

He nodded.

"It won't be much longer," she said, feeling a touch of sympathy for him.

No one was particularly comfortable being stopped at the edge of orgasm. It had to be worse for a man carrying magic. Not only was the magic burning to get out -- along with the semen -- he also had to walk around with an erection.

So there was no point in delaying, nor any need to arouse the poor guy.

She untied her top, an unnecessarily frivolous affair with lace, hanging strands and all too much glitter. She much preferred the simplicity of a good, strong bikini or halter top. Next went her bottoms -- a style of clothing called a side skirt. It didn't violate the dictated clothing of an Acolyte because it left uncovered the mandatory portion of her thighs on either side of her genitals and left the thong of her underwear visible at the back. Only the outsides of her thighs were covered by the fashionable thing.

She slipped it off and stretched her legs out. Might as well give the boy a good look at what he had to work with.

"Like I said," she explained to him as she undid his shorts. "This is going to be a bit different. You'll notice I'm naked, not just topless?"

He nodded.

"There's a reason," she said. "We don't know what you have and it's my duty to find out."

They'd left a small bowl of Synergist at the bedside table. She dipped two fingers in it and used them to trace a line from her forehead down her nose to her neck. More of the clear syrup went across her breasts, from one sharply defined, air cooled nipple to the other.

She traced a third line down her firm, rippled abdomen in to her thin layer of pubic hair. She rubbed further, delighting in the anxious look on his face when she pushed her fingers between her lips, pushing the Synergist inside herself.

"You'll have to stand to make sure you hit my face," she said as softly as she could, drawing him closer and pulling him to a position standing over her. "You must have a lot for me, right?"

He nodded with a gulp.

She looked up at him and started stroking with her right hand.

"Alright," she said with a soft smile. She touched her nose, "Aim here first, okay? Then work your way down. I need you to come absolutely everywhere."

A look of panic came over his face.

Good, she thought, he'll be quick. Shanata had been upgraded numerous times. She knew how easy it was to coax an orgasm from a charged man. Quick, light movements around the edge of the head of his shaft would do it.

"Come for me," she said, tapping her nose again. "Right here."

His eyes swelled. The head of his penis swelled. Poor buy must have a killer load.

The first shot surprised even Shanata, who'd been ejaculated on dozens of times in her life. He was, indeed, quite loaded, and sprayed his first shot just to the left of the bridge of her nose.

With one semen-covered eye closed, she rubbed his juice in to her face with the Synergist.

Nothing. No tingle. Nothing at all.

His second shot she pointed down at the breast most convenient for his twitching. He fired a shot in to her left breast, close enough to her nipple that could smear it around and feel for any of the any of the Endowment Disciplines.

She began rubbing it in, but knew that the boy might not have much left. She pulled him roughly down to his knees and let him spill the remainder of his seed over her stomach and down in to her sticky pubic hair.

Like a flag flailing in the wind, he let her jerk the last shots out of him.

Shanata, meanwhile, was busy testing for sensations.

Nothing from her genitals, even when she pushed the mixture between her lips and up inside her vagina.

Nothing on the stomach. Would she have to test her legs and ass too?

No, wait.

She took her hand off his now spent manhood and squeezed both of her breasts, rubbing and kneading the white syrupy emulsion in to her skin.

There it was.

Goran had been carrying an Abundance upgrade -- maybe even more than one. Alli'anya had put two upgrades in to a boy she later said was jammed?

Shanata remembered that the Form guard had been adamant on that point. At no time had he touched Alli'anya's breast. Shanata knew the girl. Even without the guard's word, she knew Alli'anya wasn't sloppy. Besides, any brief touch that could have happened by accident certainly hadn't been enough to put as much in to Goran as Shanata had felt coming out.

So where had it come from?

Her eyes narrowed and she took in a sharp breath.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo felt his body go tense. He knew he had to get her face and her hair. Talla had told him that. He hoped that he had enough. It had been a hot, dry day and Atani had already taken a shot at whatever he had stored away.

The girl - what was her name? She'd never told him -- pulled at his erection with an intensity he'd never felt before. Certainly Natta and Nadine had gone at him pretty hard, but that had been with their pussies, not their hands.

"Here it comes," he warned.

"Go ahead," she prodded as her movements sped up. "C'mon. C'mon."

He went blind from exhaustion the moment he started coming. It felt good to get it out, but he really couldn't see anything. He trusted her to aim properly and get done what needed doing. He had nothing more to give.

When she'd drained him, he looked down at her upturned face and heaved a sigh of relief. He'd done a good job, if he said so himself. Two wet streaks crossed her nose from side to side. Another went from her forehead up in to her dirty brown hair. The last bit, he supposed, was where she presently milked him, a puddle on her chin that dripped down, down, down between her slim breasts.

"Thank you," she said with palpable relief. 

"Good stuff. Put your pants on quick."

-----------===================-------------

Talla was distressed.

Her arousal was still there, but it was wrapped in something else. Some depression had replaced the feeling she'd had before, the sense that events were escaping her.

"Are you alright?" Tina asked.

"I don't know," Talla said. "Everything feels -- off, somehow -- knocked over -- wrecked."

They were in Talla's very plain apartment. Neither she nor either of her roommates had earned enough coins to decorate the place. It seemed a bit on the side of pathetic relative to Tina's place.

Tina reached out to touch Talla's hand.

It was a question, really, that touch.

Talla took Tina's hand.

Yes, she still needed Tina. She knew of no other girl she could trust this way. Did Tina?

"Do other girls do this?"

"Some do," Tina said. "I can usually tell the first time I Prime with somebody."

She took Talla's hand and laid on her chest, against the bare flesh between the white sashes that denoted her rank. She pushed that hand sideways until Talla's smallest finger touched the edge of her aureola.

Tina let out a sigh and closed her eyes.

Talla knew that, whatever weird feelings were passing through her body, this was what she needed. She prepared to surrender herself to that simple fact, and to the mesh that she could feel building.

Tina released Talla's hand, letting Talla proceed at her own pace -- and not coincidentally freeing up her own hands to reach for Talla's waist.

Bang!

There was a crack at the door like thunder. Embarrassed, the two girls burst away from each other as if a bolt of lightning had struck the ground between them.

Guards entered, leather clad, following that sudden entry. They were at least as out of breath as the girls they had disturbed and in no pleasant mood.

Talla was frightened out of her wits and unable to speak. She spared a glance at Tina, who looked equally distraught.

"Against the wall, Initiate!" one guard ordered her.

Too frightened to do anything else, she let the guard push her to the back wall of the room and soon found herself turned around with her chest and face pressed against the rough plaster.

Had someone told on them? She imagined Y'ris, Tina's roommate, getting offended. No. Not reasonable. Someone else. These guards were Form. Of that, Talla had no doubt. She recognized the walk and the muscle and the attitude.

They were in trouble. What was the penalty for this sort of thing?

"Search everywhere," she heard someone shout.

How many were invading her room? She couldn't turn to see. And searching? What for?

A new wave of panic hit her. The scroll cylinder! They were looking for the scroll cylinder. It was just sitting there inside a drawer full of white underwear. She heard them opening drawers, going through Lara's and Salee's stuff too. They would find it any moment now.

She waited for the triumphant announcement; the moment when she would be declared guilty and hauled off to Form's triangle.

She waited some more. They stopped opening drawers. They were lifting up mattresses now, still searching. That didn't make sense. They couldn't have missed the thing. It was just sitting there, right on top of her neatly folded clothes. She'd done nothing to conceal it except close the drawer.

"Nothing, Mistress," someone declared.

"Search them," a gruff voice that Talla dubbed 'Authority' declared.

The guard who had her arm barred to the wall yanked at the tie on her skirt and pulled it off. What were they doing?

There was a muffled protest from Tina, off to her right. Talla managed to turn her head that way so their eyes could meet. Fear. They had nothing but their mutual fear to share.

The guards stripped off the girls' tops next. She could see someone behind Tina carefully examining the fabric. Were they expecting to find a message scroll hidden in the seams? That wasn't even possible.

What in the nine hells was this about?

She stifled a screech as the guard forced her legs apart and poked a finger between her lips and just a short distance up in to her vagina. Violation. So crude! What could this possible be about?

Then they spread her cheeks. Oh, please, she thought, don't poke there. I can hardly have hidden a scroll cylinder up there, can I?

"Clean," her guard announced, followed shortly thereafter by Tina's guard making the same announcement.

"Sit them down," Authority gave another order.

The two naked girls were turned and roughly placed side by side on Talla's bed. Frightened and nearly crying, they sat cheek to cheek. They'd have hugged each other if they could have, but they still both feared that their previous encounter was the reason for this intrusion in the first place.

Authority was an unarmoured woman. She was either an Acolyte II or an Officer -- her top was of ambiguous style. It was no one Talla had ever seen, but she was definitely from Endowment. There was no mistaking the size of those breasts. She sat down on the bed opposite them as the guards made a impenetrable wall all around

"Where is it?" she asked, quite directly.

"What, Mistress?" Talla asked, frightened and willing to confess to whatever it was they wanted.

"Don't play games, girl," the woman said. "This is serious. Where is the Synergist and how did you get it?"

Talla and Tina both looked at her, completely stunned.

"What, Mistress?" Tina asked. "Synergist?"

"You must have procured some in some manner," she said. "Is it all used up, the container now discarded? How did you get it?"

"We never had any such thing, Mistress," Tina pleaded. "Honestly."

The woman looked at them darkly before turning to part of the anonymous wall of leather armour that surrounded the three of them.

"Your thoughts?" Authority asked someone.

"They appear honest," one of the guards said.

"I am in doubt," Authority replied.

There was a moment then, as she considered to the two wretched, naked specimens before her, near tears and scared out of their wits.

"Very well," she said. "I have no evidence against you. But be warned. I will be watching you in the future."

With that declaration, she stood and the whole lot of them filed out, slamming the door behind them.

Tina and Talla took one glance at each other and both burst in to tears, weeping as they collapsed in each other's arms. There would be no mesh tonight. Not after that.



Talla's Temple Ch. 17



Zhair'lo was waiting just outside the Initiation Room, the place where he'd just ejaculated over the face of a young girl. It had been as good an experience as he could imagine it being. She'd been eager, he'd been horny. She'd done him quickly, being in a hurry to finish the ritual and place as highly as she could.

She hadn't even told him her name.

He wasn't done thinking about her anyway.

Something else was wrong. He felt something alternately pushing him away and pulling him in. Something was terribly, frighteningly wrong. Part of him wanted to run straight out of the Temple as fast as he could. Another part wanted to run in to the Temple, deeper -- somewhere -- and ferret out the trouble.

He squinted and realized as he did so that he was mostly trying to ignore what he was seeing. The problem wasn't something he could see from here. His eyes were just showing him torchlit, sandstone walls. Useless information.

If his eyes were useless, what point was there in leaving them open?

So he closed them and reached out to the turmoil brewing out of his sight. The thing out there had been pulling him this way, toward the Temple, all night. It had been driving him here. He had thought it was just his general arousal and a desire to head to where women were to be found. But that wasn't it. The thing in his head had been pulling him right past this building, not to it.

If he had his bearings right, it was pulling him in the general direction of the Augmentation Chamber where he'd been so many times before. Endowment's Augmentation Chamber, that was, the one where he'd upgraded Talla. It had been pulling him toward Talla?

Was that a figment of his imagination? Wishful thinking? Then why the fear now? Did he feel bad, that he'd been going toward Talla and spent his orgasm on someone else?

No.

He opened his mind.

Fear!

It was the mesh. Her mesh.

He knew it well. The song might have changed, from one of joy to one of terror, but the instrument hadn't. The player hadn't. This was Talla's song.

Pain!

Someone was hurting Talla. His heart quickened. His breath raced. He knew exactly which way to run to help her. His eyes popped open.

A normally stoic guard was staring at him, one eyebrow raised.

He'd make it exactly three steps past her before she took him out with her spear. Assuming she didn't just trip him on the way by.

Stymied, he tried to ignore her and feel again. The mesh tying him to Talla, even at this distance, was strong enough to sense her emotions. He could not physically reach her. He remembered his daydream, riding to her rescue on horseback. That wouldn't work here.

No horse, for one thing.

Guards with spears and the muscle to back them up, for another.

Fear again. Confusion. Vulnerability. Was she naked? It felt like that. Being outside and naked. Embarrassed. Maybe cold, too.

Someone was with her -- also under threat.

Lots of large, menacing things around her. Not really people. Just scary things.

And then a measure of relief.

Talla was safe again, sort of. She was still frightened and hysterical.

Zhair'lo grimaced. What could he do for her? He couldn't reach her, couldn't comfort her. He thought that he might take her in his arms. Wasn't that what one did with children when they cried? Could one do that with an adult? Men didn't do it with each other, but he thought women might, and women and men might.

Could he comfort her? If he could feel her, could she feel him?

It's okay, he beamed at her, squinting and focusing his eyes where he thought she might be, wishing that his thoughts could burn a path through wall and beam and cold night air.

"Boy!" a woman ordered.

He snapped back to his surroundings.

"Mistress?"

"Time to go, the lot of you," an armoured woman said to him and the several other boys gathered around the entrance to the Initiation building. "Let's go."

She had already turned away, her obviously ceremonial leather skirt leaving her legs bare well up her thigh.

It's okay, he kept trying to send, even as he ran in the opposite direction. It will be okay.

-----------===================-------------

Two skinny, naked girls were crying in each other's arms, both shoulders soaked with the tears that coursed down their bodies.

What had that been about? They were suspected of stealing and using Synergist? What could possibly have brought that on?

At first, Talla had thought they were being accosted for what they'd been planning to do. There was a rule -- a rule none of her teachers had thought to mention -- that forbade women from doing that with each other. Orgasms were to be saved for the men.

Next she'd thought they were looking for the scroll cylinder she'd appropriated from the domain of Strength.

But that hadn't been it. When they'd taken her clothes and starting poking her insides, she'd been thoroughly confused.

It had turned out they'd been looking for Synergist, the liquid that allowed the transfer of magic from woman to man and back to woman again. They expected Tina and Talla to have it? 

Why would they think that?

A wave of calmness overcame her then. And another. She took a breath to quiet her sobbing. Tina was still hysterical and hyperventilating.

Talla pulled away from her and took her by the shoulders. Their foreheads touching, Talla spoke to her softly.

"It's okay," she said. "It'll be okay."

Tina opened her eyes to meet Talla's. Tears still streamed down her cheeks to spill down to her breasts. She was beautiful, in a sad and tortured way.

"It's okay," Talla repeated.

"Why?" Tina sobbed. "Why would they think that about us?"

She let her head fall to Talla's shoulder again.

Talla was calmer now. Her brain had started working.

Indeed.

Why? Why would they think that?

"Something must have happened tonight," Talla said.

"What?"

Talla's eyes narrowed, peering through the wall behind Tina's head.

"Something must have gone wrong at the upgrade."

"We did it right," Tina protested. "Both of those guys were good and hard and ready."

Talla nodded.

"I've only Primed twice," Talla said. "How many times have you done it?"

"Dozens," Tina replied with a sniff. "So what?"

"So you can tell me," Talla said. "Were the times with me any different from the others?"

Tina had stopped crying. She was thinking now. That was better. Women weren't to be crying and sobbing like children. They were expected to handle any adversity -- sickness, punishment, even death -- with a certain degree of calm maturity. That mental conditioning was starting to work in Tina's head.

Her eyes still blurred with tears, she gathered her wits.

"I don't think so," she said as she shook her head. "I mean -- we get them hard, suck 'em, rub up against them. Make sure they're clean."

Tina's eyes were wandering now as she tried to pull details out of her memory.

"You're the first one who's been called back so quickly," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes I get matched with someone," Tina replied. "And we might run in to each other again and again. But I've never seen anyone come back so soon for another Priming."

What had the woman in the Offices said when she'd offered Talla another shot at Priming?

"Zo'kar," Talla said suddenly. "It was Zo'kar. He's a Seal Breaker, possibly. They said we got part of the credit for finding him."

"That means he did a ren hana," Tina said. "He must have pulled two upgrades out of someone. That's how they find Seal Breakers -- the only way, as far as I know."

They sat in silence a moment.

"No one came in to your room last time and ripped off our clothes," Talla said.

"Nine Fortunate Gods, no!" Tina exclaimed. Then, more calmly, "Our clothes weren't on anyway. Would have saved them some time."

Talla was still thinking.

"So something else happened tonight."

"What else?" Tina asked.

"I don't know," Talla said. "What else can go wrong?"

"If upgrades fail, it's usually marked Yinay Ador," Tina said.

"What kind of failure?" Talla asked.

"Yinay," Tina said. "It means 'release'. Y'know, as in 'prematurely'? The guy'll sometimes come on the Primers, the Source or even the girl getting the upgrade."

"Why's it a problem if he comes on the one getting the upgrade?"

"If the Synergist isn't in place yet," Tina clarified. "The magic in his come burns out pretty fast if you don't rub it in to your body."

"Oh, right," Talla replied with a frown. That had been covered in her early lessons. "Do you think that's what happened tonight?"

Tina shook her head.

"No way," she said. "That happens a lot. Even if he comes on one of us while we're Priming, we catch a reprimand and that's it. If it happens too often, you're just removed from the Priming list, that's all. Nobody busts in to your room in the middle of the night."

"Hmph."

More thinking.

"What did you mean 'marked'?" Talla asked.

"Huh?"

"You said it's 'marked as Yinay Ador'," Talla said. "Marked where?"

"On the docket."

"Can we find that docket?"

Tina smiled, the shifting of her facial muscles pushing the last, abandoned tears from her eyes.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, we can."

-----------===================-------------

The evening had gone pretty much as he could have hoped.

He'd removed the ribbon out of his hair, lest he come across another girl on her Initiation and find himself empty, and had taken to wandering around the Temple at an innocuous distance.

He could still feel Talla, distantly. She was calmer now, if a bit shaken. Maybe he'd helped her a little.

Could she feel him the same way? It didn't seem so, but he considered it likely that whatever had happened to her was distracting her attention.

It seemed natural to him to meander the wrong way around the Temple, past where Plin lived with the bakers rather than take the faster route to get closer to Talla.

Maybe Plin would be around. Would he have been swept up by the wave of eager girls in their long skirts? Possibly. Zhair'lo didn't want to leave the area until he knew Talla was safe but neither could he just walk in to the Temple.

Besides, she didn't seem to currently need any rescuing.

So he wandered, blue ribbon in his pocket, pretending to be older than he was.

-----------===================-------------

Sister.

That word had a meaning to genealogists that it did not have to anyone else. The words "mother" and "father" weren't all that commonly used either. It was enough for a woman to separate herself from other women of the same name by saying that she was the "daughter" of a particular man she'd never met, and had come "out of" another woman she knew equally well.

The women of Form had been pushing for decades to eliminate even this. The Temple had replaced what had once been called the "family". There was no need for those ancestral bonds. Everyone would have an equal opportunity and all that such associations could do was raise questions of favouritism. Hadn't that been one of scourges of the times before the Goddesses and their Temples?

It hadn't been such an issue when life expectancies were shorter, but it had become possible for women to live to see their daughters enter the Temple. Best if, the Form women said, they nipped it in the bud now.

So secondary names had been invented, names for creches and nurseries and babies grouped by time and place of birth. A woman might know that she'd given birth to a girl of Ch'lai or a boy of M'han, but she would know little else if the child knew nothing else.

But "sister".

That was a curious word.

To every man in their society, it meant nothing. A word, overheard perhaps, spoken between women. To women, it meant that kisses had been shared, lips to nipples, back and forth. It meant a bond of friendship.

A sister, to a genealogist, meant a woman who shared a parent with another. "Half-sister" was the old term, because it was most often the case that people with one parent in common would have both in common. But how likely was that, in the time of the Temple? There were thousands of possible parents, all dealt out to each other at random by nightly assignment cards.

Talla had a sister.

That sister's name was Zhina.

According to the sheet that lay before Maksa, Zhina was older than Talla by two and a half years.

Having been stymied on the front of looking up Talla's ancestors, she had done the next best thing and looked up her siblings.

Maybe she could find Zhina and see what she had done with her life. Had she mysteriously violated the tendencies of her ancestors, as Talla had, and taken to Endowment over Sweetness? What Discipline had Zhina chosen? The girl would be just past twenty, probably a Neophyte.

What was Zhina up to?

Maksa looked at the bottom of the sheet.

There was no information about Zhina. The last entry was Temple Script. The word was "emigrated" and the symbol next to it was the one they used for the city of Beshenna.

Zhina had moved -- or, more accurately, she had been moved -- to Beshenna, just about eighteen years ago.

Right about the time Talla had been born.

That was damned curious. People did move about. It was fairly common to find people who enjoyed travelling from one city to another, spending a few years here and there. Some liked it. Some didn't. The Temples made allowances for both kinds of people. But children two and a half years of age? They didn't make decisions. They had decisions made for them.

Next, she checked on Mih'lan herself. Where was Talla's mother? It was possible, these days, for a woman to live a little past forty. Thus the concern of Form regarding favouritism.

Mih'lan might actually be alive, somewhere, wondering when the weakness of old age would come upon her. Maksa might be able to find her.

Maksa found the record.

And choked.

"Emigrated, Turiksa", and almost the exact same date.

So Mih'lan had given birth to Talla, apparently in a manner that had made someone temporarily think that she had given birth to a stillborn child. Then, just a few weeks later, both Mih'lan and her other offspring had moved -- or been moved -- to separate distant cities.

What in nine hells had gone on eighteen years ago?

-----------===================-------------

"Did you honestly believe -" the Sorceress of Abundance fumed at the Officer before her, "that two girls of that age had managed to thieve away an allotment of Synergist?"

Atreya had never seen her Sorceress this angry. She hadn't known Abundance all that long -- the woman had only ascended to the rank of Sorceress a few years ago upon the death of the previous Queen of Endowment. She had chosen Atreya as her Second on the same day.

She'd seen her Sorceress under stress and duress. She'd felt her superior's disappointment the day Talla and Zhair'lo had nearly died. She'd seen every kind of annoyance, concern and derision the woman had to offer.

But she'd never seen anger like this from her Sorceress. Anger that burned in blue eyes. Anger that frankly sizzled off blonde hair as if the entire body were a flaming torch of fury. This woman, Atreya knew, could cause serious physical damage if her anger were unleashed.

The Officer of Strength, a woman named Reesa whom Atreya had only met on a few occasions, was firmly standing her ground.

"The evidence was overwhelming," she replied. Harried, perhaps, but nowhere near the level of terrified she ought to be given the situation. "Both of the women in question had Primed an upgrade before, a ritual which had resulted in a double Abundance upgrade. Both women in question had sufficient Abundance to transmit a double upgrade. Both women were there again, tonight, in the Priming Room - and the Source found herself blocked on a Conduit already Seized to a double Abundance upgrade."

"One does not argue about the evidence," another voice put in, calmly. This was the Sorceress of Strength, attempting to mediate between her Officer and her comrade. "One is given cause to wonder at your jurisprudence and enforcement."

"Mistress," Reesa said, straightening herself at this very gentle rebuke. "What should I have done? If Synergist had slipped out of official hands?"

"Out of official hands," her Sorceress replied, "and in to the hands of an Initiate just weeks in to her adulthood and a Neophyte barely wiser?"

That stymied the Officer a moment.

"Would those two women -- and I use the term only because it's technically accurate," Strength continued, "Are those two women really likely to be part of a conspiracy to subjugate Temple Orthodoxy via the illegal distribution of Synergist in -- of all places -- Priming Rooms?"

Reesa opened her mouth to speak, but words didn't come out. There was worried calculation behind her eyes.

"If Synergist really exists outside of our control," the Sorceress of Strength went on, "would those who seek to subvert the peace of the Temple really allow its use in such a flagrant manner?"

The Officer's mouth snapped shut. There was a moment of silence.

Clearly, she had not considered these things in her rush.

It was in to that silence that an older voice spoke.

"We appreciate your sense of urgency," that voice said. "And your loyalty. Let none dispute."

Reesa bowed solemnly. "Highness," she acknowledged.

"But had there actually been a conspiracy, which we very much doubt," the Queen of Endowment continued, "you might have driven away what could have been tracked and stalked."

Reesa considered this a moment. At the very least, Atreya thought, the woman was beginning to realize what a stupid thing she'd done.

The Queen was issuing a judgement, at this point, and everyone else in the room was silent.

"We respect your loyalty, and the swiftness of your action," the Queen stated, "but not the thought behind it. We see, however, no reason for punishment, given that you acknowledge your error."

There was a pause there, a moment in which Reesa found it prudent to bow her head and mumble, "Highness" with appropriate gratitude and humility.

"You are dismissed, then," the Queen added. "Send in the Guard Captain."

-----------===================-------------

Talla awoke from a troubled sleep.

She had pretended to be asleep when her roommates had returned from their classes, already having done her best to clean up the room before Lara and Salee had arrived. She hoped that she'd reordered their clothing to something resembling their own standards.

The last thing she'd wanted was to talk to them.

Tina had collected her clothing and left chagrined but, like Talla, determined to find out what had provoked such a violent search for Synergist. At least Talla had returned Tina's clothing. That was one thing off her mind. She didn't know if the two of them could ever again share the mesh they'd had before. What punishment would it have merited if the Officer and her guards had discovered them naked and rolling on the bed together?

No.

Too risky.

Sex would have to come from men, then, wouldn't it?

But what man, aside from Zhair'lo, had brought her the kind and depth of mesh she'd had with Tina?

Zhair'lo was out there, somewhere, and as much as she wanted to know what stupid thing had gone on that led to those women busting in to her room last night, she wanted to be with Zhair'lo so much more.

She could feel him, out there -- way, way out there.

She rolled out of bed, looking down at the breasts that he had given her -- accidentally and at great personal cost to them both.

She'd chosen Endowment because of him, or at least because of the way it made her feel when she looked at him She liked that look, whether it came from Jace, Shen or Zhair'lo or just about anybody.

She shook off her thoughts. It was time to go.

Child-minding wasn't the sort of task one could put off. Children didn't wait. They got hungry and needed feeding and supervision.




Talla's Temple Ch. 17



Besides, they were almost in the right direction. At the very least, they were closer to Zhair'lo than her bedroom, and that was something.

She dressed quickly and stepped outside in to the morning heat. The sun was just rising and already she could feel it.

-----------===================-------------

The temperature was, in a word, stupid.

The farm hands recognized it, going about their duties in a certain lazy haze that said, to those who knew such things, that the Temple had damned well better ring the heat bell sometime soon. Some jobs were dangerous to do, and all the more dangerous when heat made palms sweaty and brains muddled.

Zhair'lo was cleaning out stalls. It had the virtue of being a task that was done out of the sun. But the correlation between heat and the scent of a horse's stall wasn't a happy thing.

Harzen had taken him out early in the morning for his horse riding lesson, the daily affair that that that had become, so as to be as kind to the horse as possible. The beasts rested placidly, allowing him to shuffle them from one place to another as he cleaned each stall.

Worse, though, than the heat that tormented him now, was the knowledge of what was to come.

He could feel Talla, sense her now, even at this great distance. Something had happened last night, driving more power in to the thing that linked them together.

They'd started a mesh, how many days ago now? In that alcove were Talla had been directing the carters with their produce. That mesh had been growing in strength, every time they came close and missed each other. Now it called out -- sang to him -- from as great a distance as the Temple was from Harzen's farm.

He would have run in the morning if he'd been able, if he'd thought he could get away with running away from his duties -- and if he'd thought he could reach her inside the Temple.

But the heat bell.

The heat bell was coming today. Everyone seemed certain of that and none were more certain than Zhair'lo. Once the bell rang, and the men went inside to sleep, Zhair'lo knew where he'd be going; knew where he'd be running.

-----------===================-------------

The children were cranky. There was no other word for it. A day like this, sweltering and miserable, brought out the best in neither young nor old. It took every bit of patience Talla owned to deal with the children today.

But there was hope, too, and that hope was what kept her going.

Hope was out there, calling to her, wanting her to run out of the dormitories, in to the heat, to follow the course of the river for a bit and then wander off its course toward an old farm ...

"Talla?"

"Ho, Minga?" Talla answered the little girl.

"It's your turn, Talla," the little one reminded her.

"Right, sorry."

Entertaining six year old children was her job today. There was no point beating them at trivial games like this. That only led to crying and a temper tantrum. Best to let them win as often as possible. She moved one of her pieces in to an exposed position.

"Gotcha!" another girl exclaimed as she captured Talla's piece.

Talla smiled, but not at the game. Her mind was elsewhere.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo's body hit the water with a splash.

Cool, refreshing and -- most importantly -- cleansing.

He was going to meet Talla. He knew that now, clearly and without a doubt. The feeling he had, driving him up the hill towards the Temple, was no illusion, nor any other trick of his mind. It was really happening. He was going to see her and he knew exactly which way to go.

And he'd be damned if he'd show up smelling like he'd been walking through a hot stable all morning. So he thrashed about in the water and he swam against its gentle current, letting the water wash away the sweat and grime before he pulled himself back to the shore.

He'd washed in his clothes, expecting the heat to dry him off in short order.

He found himself in a small clearing with an old well, overgrown with disuse, in the shadow of a large tree. Foliage shielded the clearing most of the way around. He was, in fact, stuck, blocked by trees both healthy and fallen, in every direction but the river.

No, not quite trapped.

Some of those logs weren't trees at all, but a fence that must be as old and unused as the well itself. Why was there even a well this close to a river anyway? That made little sense. He didn't spare it more than a thought. He'd already used up precious time flailing in the water. The fence had a gate, mostly dislodged from its hinge and intertwined with thorns.

The weeds put up a fight, but they were no match for muscles with a mission and for that battle he had strength aplenty.

It was a short run to get back on the path he had left and so he continued his journey up to the Temple.

Talla wasn't moving yet. Closer now, he started to sense her feelings, her frustration at being delayed. She wanted to see him, too. She could feel him, too. He knew that now. She would come as soon as she could. There was enough time. There had to be.

-----------===================-------------

"I'll take care of it after the heat bell," Talla promised.

That was the nature of the heat bell. It was an hour where no one was supposed to do any work. 

The children, however, were an obligation that outweighed the weariness of mortals. The child-minders had to see the little ones to their beds and make sure they were sleeping before taking the hour off themselves.

M'lis, though, seemed to have it in her head that a few more things could get done before anyone took a nap.

She frowned at Talla, then let out a sigh.

"You're right," she said. "I'm letting the heat get to me."

"We all need a rest," Talla said, oozing all the sympathy she could. "That's why there's a heat bell. Take is easy, right?"

"Right," M'lis echoed wearily. "I'll see you in a bell."

Talla nodded as they separated. Already a quarter of the bell was probably gone. She cursed silently and started running, feeling for Zhair'lo, trying to sense where he was.

Zhair'lo was already on the move and, strangely, comfortably cool and refreshed. How had he managed that?

She knew which way to go, though. She could feel him getting closer, his thoughts becoming more clear.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was moving.

He could feel that. He could feel her eagerness, her unabashed energy and enthusiasm. And she was definitely heading toward him. Building passed by. People seemed to be sleeping everywhere in Gern. A few, those whose occupations made their buildings uncomfortable, slept outside under awnings. Most were inside, so the streets were deserted.

Which way?

Around a corner. This way!

Half of the heat bell was gone by now, with all this running around and Talla being delayed by whatever it was that had frustrated her. They wouldn't have long, once they met, but she was near -- oh, so very near.

A large, blank wall loomed in front of him. Which way to Talla? She must be on the far side. They could spend forever circling whatever building it was, if they were to pick the wrong direction.

Talla had already chosen. He could feel it. Head to the right.

"I'm here," she shouted in his mind.

She was that close.

If he had it right, he just had to round this corner ...

There she was!

Standing at the far corner of the same building, an empty lane way separating them, Talla stood in her mini skirt, breathless and staring at him.

"Warning," came through the mesh to him.

Her eyes darted around, which prevented him from running to her as much as the mental caution had.

The anticipation was painful, but he made himself lean against the wall, pretending to casualness while she peeked inside one of the entrances to the large building that had temporarily prevented their progress.

"Safe," she said, eyeing him before she ducked inside.

He took another look around. Waiting was killing him. The pull of the mesh was a force within him that he could barely resist. The best he could do was to walk at a brisk pace, making sure that no one was around to follow him.

He reached the entrance and ducked in, meaning to let his eyes adjust so he could find Talla.

Instead, he was grabbed by his hand and pulled down a hallway he could barely see.

"Here, here," she whispered, dragging him in to some kind of large closet.

Out of sight, in the cool shade, his hair and clothes still wet from the river, she pulled his head down and their lips came together.

They didn't need words anymore. There were lips and tongues for expressing longing, bodies pressed together to speak for lust and arms wrapped around bodies to show desperation. What else was there to say? He was inside her mind, feeling and thinking what she felt and thought.

This was nothing like it had been with Natta or Nadine. He realized that now. It hadn't been a figment of imagination, that the mesh with Talla had been something actually quite different. It wasn't novelty or infatuation, but something genuinely unique.

She pulled away from him a moment, looking him querulously in the eyes. She had seen the images in his mind, of Natta riding him, of Nadine rubbing her nipples against his erection. With a slow blink, she rendered to him an image of Natta, standing so proud and naked, her face streaked with semen.

He recognized the location immediately. It had been the night of the Initiation. Natta, he realized then, had beaten Talla. The image was a joke, a snide dig at the girl who'd bested her in that race.

Their foreheads touched as he smiled. Then he looked down at her chest.

"Why?" he wondered in to her mind.

Why had she chosen Abundance? He let her see the conversation he'd had with Natta, when she'd wondered the same thing.

"You," she answered, and let him see his own face, looking down at her flat chest that same night. He sensed the pride she'd felt, knowing what she could incite in him if her breasts were larger.

She shrugged the straps off her top, letting them fall off her shoulders. She loved to capture his eyes -- his above all others -- in this way. He gulped, so stunned that his mind was wide open. She saw all the other breasts he'd seen -- Atreya's and Nadine's and Natta's, even the dark, massive orbs of the Sorceress of Point. But Talla's? Hers were special. She was special -- to him.

They were kissing again. One of his hands crept up between their bodies. She turned so he could reach her breast, gentling kneading it, palm over her nipple.

She let him back her in to a table.

What was there to do or say now? Distantly, she was worried about being caught. But it wasn't enough of a concern to prevent what had to happen. The most she would concede to caution was to keep her skirt on and press her underwear to the side.

If she could just get enough of the ties on his pants undone, he could slip between the laces ...

Oh! There he was, just poking through, the tip of his erection already dripping with clear fluid.

Best not to make him come too soon.

An image of Shen came to her mind, and so also in to Zhair'lo's mind, along with the unusual experience of semen being ejaculated in to her mouth.

Zhair'lo stared at her curiously. She could only roll her eyes in pity for the boy she'd eventually helped.

The tip of his penis touched against her lips. It wasn't quite enough to seal the mesh. She just had to spread her legs a little, open the tender pink flesh inside to the rod that begged -

Something crashed behind Zhair'lo.

"Panic!" she screamed through the mesh.

Were they caught? An image, full of fear and self-loathing, of M'lis and Adria flashed in to her mind. She banished it quickly, hoping he hadn't seen it.

Someone was coming. They were in a storage room, full of sacks of grain and flour and who knew what else. Where could they hide? A delivery was being made. They could be discovered any moment.

The table. It was the only place to hide. There were sacks of flour underneath it. They both crouched down. There wasn't enough room between those sacks for both of them. They both understood it instantly.

Then a thought flashed between them so quickly that neither could tell who came up with it: only one of them needed to hide. They were only in trouble if they were caught together.

Zhair'lo, skinny as he was, wriggled underneath and amongst the sacks of flour, wedging himself between them and the wall. He tried to slow down his breathing, to exude as much calmness as he could. What was Talla going to do? Did she belong here? Did she have an excuse made up?

He could only hide and wonder. The mesh was getting shaky again, nowhere near as intense as it had been.

He felt the table shift. What was she doing? Lying down?

Ah. He understood this game. When sleep had eluded him in his childhood, he'd played it on the women who'd watched them in the dorms.

Footsteps, walking down the hallway. The sound of wheels turning, wood clacking on the hallway stones.

He might not be able to understand every thought, but he knew Talla's emotions right then, quite intimately. He could feel her heart, pounding in her chest even as she tried to quell it.

"Store room 7 with the grain," an authoritative female voice said.

"And the flour?" a male voice, lighter and more courteous asked.

"Number 8, with the ... oh, hell," the female replied.

The echoing character of the voice had vanished. The woman must have been standing at the doorway to the room they were in.

"Hell of a place to take a nap," she said, chiding no one in particular.

If the worst they got out of this was that she was scolded for improper sleeping arrangements, then he could sneak off sometime later. He might get back to the farm a bit late, but he could make up for that.

Assuming, of course, that they didn't box him in with sacks of flour, or discover him while they shifted things around.

"Hell," the female voice said. "Let her sleep. Eight's pretty much full. Start filling up nine. I'm going down for a rest anyway."

"Aye, Mistress," the man said.

The two of them pattered off down the hallway. Relief came to her mind and through to his. That had been close. If they were lucky, those two would head off for the rest of the heat bell.

He wiggled his way back out of the bags of flour and poked his head just above the level of the table. She was lying on her stomach, facing him. She propped herself up on her elbows.

The view was breathtaking.

She smiled, still happy that, even in this situation, even with her breasts mostly covered, her cleavage could still strike him this way.

"Safe?" he asked, using his vocal chords for the first time.

"I think so," she said with a nod. "But it's too dangerous here. You've got to go."

"And the heat bell's almost up," he added as he crawled out of pile of bags and stood up.

"We'll have to wait a bit longer," she said sadly, not bothering to mention that for which they would have to wait.

"Until when?"

"More importantly," she said as she stood to face him, keeping her head cocked to listen nervously for more footsteps, "Where?"

Nerves hit, then, crossing back and forth between them.

"You have to get going," she told him, miserably.

A vision flashed in to mind. He pushed it in to hers, having to force it through a mesh damaged by fear.

"There's a place, off the path you take to get to Harzen's farm", he told her as she pushed him away and tried to hurry him. "A broken gate leads to an old well with a tree over it."

"We can be alone?" she asked, stopping.

"No one can see in," he said. "It looks like no one's been there in a long time. Nothing but trees and the river. I'll tie my ribbon around the gate, where you leave the path. Otherwise you'll never even see it."

"Tomorrow?" she asked, out of breath.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Or whenever the next heat bell is. A gate with a blue ribbon."

"Okay," she said. "Now go, please!"

He nodded and, with a last backward glance, ran off down the hallway.

She would wait a bit and leave in the other direction.



Talla's Temple Ch. 18



Talla was still going over all of the images that had flown in to her mind when she and Zhair'lo had tried to mesh.

There were images of Natta, both having sex with him and fingering herself while lying next to him. There was Nadine, rubbing her nipples along the length of his shaft. One of the images of Nadine, forcing herself down on him with considerable vigour, was laced with some strange emotion of desperation.

She shook off those thoughts.

If only they'd had time to talk. She had so much to tell him. There was the imminent danger of the double upgrades they were forcing him to do, for one thing. How could she have forgotten that?

She cursed herself.

There had been the more immediate danger of being discovered.

Having let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the Offices, it was time to check on her nightly assignment. She wondered what would be in the slot tonight.

Tina had told her that she should expect to be out Serving tonight, based on the fact that she had Primed the previous night. It was unfair enough, the theory went, that women should have to prepare men for the Rite of Upgrade without getting to have sex with them. The standard procedure, so Tina had said, was to make sure Primers got out the following night to relieve themselves.

So there was that. She would appreciate it very much, even if it wasn't Zhair'lo. She had worked those two guys over pretty hard the previous night. When Tina had come back to Talla's room, Talla had hoped that they would be able to relieve each other.

That was before the disastrous and violent intrusion, which was its own kind of stress.

Then there had been the afternoon run in and almost-sex with Zhair'lo. Gods, the tip of his erection had been right there. She could still feel the place on her lips where it had touched, even now.

She could use some sex right about now.

The other possibility was the Extraordinary upgrade that the Sorceress of Strength had promised her. If it was that urgent, and everyone seemed to agree that it was, she would expect that to take precedence.

She bent over and drew the card out of its slot.

What would it be tonight? Semen sprayed on her chest or pumped in to -

"History"

History?

History with someone named Alli'anya. Why not Shanata?

Seventh bell. Exactly as if she was going to Serve.

How about that.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo had a lot of things on his mind. He had managed to get back to the farm in time to not be missed. He was tired, but he was also very young. He would survive, even through the afternoon heat and upgrade he had in the evening.

Just like Talla, he had a pile of images in his head, too, and they weren't just the ones Talla mad meant him to see.

There was an extremely confused jumble of images involving Talla and another girl. Zhair'lo could gather from the cluttered kaleidoscope dancing in his head that Talla and this other girl had been fooling around somehow, but the images were a mess. In one of them, Talla seemed to be able to see her own body, with her breast in the grip of the other girl.

That was a mess that, while erotic, was more of a headache than it was worth to examine.

There were other things that came to him, too. Emotions, mostly. Very, very raw emotions. Fear. A flash of vicarious pain that came without any image of a person but instead an imposing, dark building made of wood. There was anxiety. There was the pain in her chest.

Talla had, accidentally or intentionally, put a lot of stuff in his head.

There was one image with so much anger, so much burning passion attached to it, that it hurt when he thought about it. He could feel his heart pounding and his face warming whenever he conjured that image to the front of his attention.

He just couldn't, however, for the life of him, understand how a picture of a dark-skinned and heavily breasted Sorceress, her hand at the side of her altar, could possibly be related to the level of anger Talla attached to it.

-----------===================-------------

"What are you doing?" Tina asked her roommate.

Y'ris had already discarded her underwear and was slipping out of her knee length skirt.

"Working in Principia Endowment," she responded. "You know the rules."

No underwear - that was one thing upon which the Queen insisted. The other was the trick of curtsying high enough at the sides to prove you weren't wearing underwear while keeping the hem low enough in the front to avoid exposing your genitals.

"This skirt," she said of the one she was folding, "is too tight to pull off a curtsy pleasing to her Highness."

Y'ris, a Neophyte like Tina, hadn't had a chance to get upgrades outside of Endowment. She had absolutely gorgeous nipples. That much Tina knew, even if those pretty tips were currently covered by Y'ris sashes. There was nothing exciting, however, to see below the waist but the same bald lips that Tina had.

Besides, Y'ris wasn't interested in that sort of thing.

"Can you check something for me?"

"Wazzat?" Y'ris asked.

"I Primed a couple upgrades last night," she said, casual as could be. "They were the first two on the docket. Can you see if they worked out?"

Y'ris paused, half way in to her skirt, and looked up at Tina.

"Any reason to think they wouldn't?" Y'ris asked. "That sort of thing is right in your slot, isn't it?"

That metaphor could mean either of two slots. Y'ris, straight laced as she was, meant the one with the coins in it.

"Yeah," Tina shrugged. "Just got a funny vibe off an Officer today. Don't have time to check myself."

Y'ris pulled her pleated white skirt the rest of the way up to her waist.

"Sure," she said, somewhat distracted. "First two?"

"Yeah."

Y'ris eyed herself in the mirror. Facing sideways to Tina, she lifted the sides of her skirt up to her waist.

"You see enough from there?" she asked her roommate.

"Yep," Tina said after examining the bare length of tanned thigh.

"Good. See ya later."

"Later," Tina confirmed.

She only hoped that Y'ris would remember to check the docket. Tina hadn't wanted to put too much stress on the request. The less attention, the better. She and Talla had agreed to keep whatever the hell was going on between the two of them. That was why she was getting Y'ris to do it in the first place.

-----------===================-------------

Talla walked past the women in their finery, all headed out to Serve the hundreds of men to whom they'd been assigned.

Not for her, that pleasure. She would be enjoying a history lesson.

History was knowledge. If there was one thing she needed more of, it was knowledge.

So History was good. It just wasn't "erect penis" good, and that's all there was to it.

"Talla?"

She turned at her name.

"I'm Alli'anya," the woman introduced herself.

Her clothing left Talla guessing at her rank. Her skirt was yellow, although nowhere near the regulations regarding style and length. It was also laid in with embroidered patterns and jewels. Her top was very much a blouse. But the best anyone in the yellow ranks could ever wear was a pair of sashes.

Talla deduced that the woman was an Adept II, the highest of the yellow ranks, based on what she was getting away with.

"Are you Serving tonight, Mistress?" Talla asked.

It was the polite mode of address, appropriate if this was her teacher.

"Just call me Alli'anya," she said dryly. "And no, I'm not Serving. I'm doing an upgrade when we're done, though, and I won't have time to go back to my room."

That was unfortunate. Talla had hoped, if only for a moment, that her lesson was cancelled. That might give her leave to at least take care of herself, a need that had recently been increasing in urgency.

At least if Alli'anya had an upgrade to do, she might be quick with the history lesson.

"Shall we begin?"

Talla nodded, following her superior in some discomfort. The warming between her legs was growing.

As they walked, Alli'anya began to speak.

"What do you remember of your previous lesson?" she asked Talla.

Thinking on her feet, with the thoughts currently bouncing around inside her head, was not going to be easy.

"Before the Temples," Talla stammered, trying to clear her head. "There was a lot of fighting. Chaos. The men were in charge and they treated women terribly. They subdued women, treated them like, like – things - used them to make children."

But Zhair'lo wouldn't have been like that, she told herself. Of course not.

"The gods came," Talla said. "They gave us the Nine Perfections and gave the Goddesses dominion over the Temples, over the women and the men. There was peace and order. People were healthier and happier."

Alli'anya nodded.

"Precise and simple," she observed. "An excellent summary."

"Thank you," Talla said.

She made to walk toward the room that she and Shanata had used for her previous lesson, but stumbled when she realized that Alli'anya wasn't headed that way.

"We'll walk a bit," her superior said as she indicated the doors that led to the Tranquil courtyard.

"Okay," Talla shrugged.

Maybe the cool night air could quell the sensations stirring under her skirt.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was nearby.

Zhair'lo could tell. He hadn't really lost touch with her the entire afternoon since they'd met. He'd been able to feel the connection between them growing during his walk in from the farm. 

He thought about her as he looked at Zo'kar across from him. He was in again, too, having passed the test that confirmed him as a Seal Breaker.

The two of them were sitting in the waiting room with a small group of older men. For once, in all the time he'd spent hopping from one vocation to another throughout his youth, Zhair'lo actually felt like an old hand.

"Who do you think is first tonight?" Zo'kar asked.

Zo'kar was still a bit nervous, but far better off than he had been the first time they'd met.

"Can't say I could guess," Zhair'lo said, laying back and relaxing.

If there was one certainty in the world, it was that he was more than ready for this. He'd been so close to penetrating Talla, the tip of his erection right at her lips, when they'd been torn apart.

He imagined that there would be a surprising amount of semen for some unsuspecting Virgin.

That thought made him smile.

He'd been assigned another Point upgrade tonight. That should be fun. The last time he'd done one, for Nadine, the Sorceress who'd passed the magic to him had had such a beautiful pair of nipples.

-----------===================-------------

"Do you remember the first time you menstruated?"

Talla was befuddled. That wasn't Temple Language. It was clearly Common.

"Menstru-what?" she asked, turning to face Alli'anya.

"When blood comes from your vagina," Alli'anya clarified. "Menstruate."

Talla probed her memory. Yes, she did vaguely remember.

"I was in the children's dorm," she replied, peering not at things in the darkness of the courtyard around her, but in to her past. "I was almost twelve, I think. My stomach started hurting and then I found red spots in my underwear."

Alli'anya nodded.

"Then what happened?"

"I'm not sure," Talla replied slowly. "One of the teachers gave me some tea to drink. It tasted really strong. I think it made me sleep. When I woke up, I was in the adolescent dorm in a new bed."

"The tea contained two herbs," Alli'anya explained. "Aloysia Castus and Aloysia Divinus. One of which you can taste, the other you cannot."

"What are they for?"

"They prevent, among other things, menstruation," Alli'anya explained.

"Prevent it?" Talla asked.

"Without it, you would bleed in that manner every 28 days," Alli'anya said.

Talla's eyes widened in shock.

"And you would continue to bleed anywhere from three to ten days afterwards."

Talla winced.

"That's stupid."

"Yes, the gods agreed," Alli'anya said.

Talla was sufficiently stunned by this revelation that it stymied her arousal for a moment. Alli'anya waved her to a spot on the grass and the two of them sat.

"You see, Talla," she went on. "One of the things the gods realized was that our ability to bear children, while it should be a strength, was a weakness men used against us. If someone could force us to bear children, we would become slaves, dependant for sustenance."

Talla nodded, sitting cross legged to better cool the lower part of her body.

"Once pregnant, we had children. Loyalty to those children kept us in thrall. Men could force us to bear more. Seeing this, the gods gave us Aloysia Divinus and taught us how to cultivate it. It's in almost all of the food we eat, in sufficient quantities to keep us even from menstruating, never mind getting pregnant. You've been eating and drinking it since you were twelve – since that first cup of tea."

Alli'anya stopped speaking, letting the lesson sink in. Talla considered this revelation.

"So this is how we decide when to have babies?" she asked.

She'd known that it was a choice that was made, a necessity in passing upwards in rank. She hadn't known the logistics of it.

Alli'anya nodded, seeming to know that this was not the time to say anything.

"How hard is it to get pregnant without the herb?"

"At the rates we Serve, keeping the men in line, we would all be pregnant almost constantly."

Talla's eyebrows twitched. She did a quick calculation. A baby per year per woman from age 18 to age ... what?

"Wow," she murmured in awe. "That's a lot of babies."

"Too many," Alli'anya agreed. "We would outstrip our resources. That's why the gods gave us Aloysia Divinus. It freed us from the slavery of continuous child bearing, allowed us to control our bodies while maintaining peace with the men in the way we had chosen, and let us control the growth of our population."

Talla nodded. That was eye opening, at least as much as her last lesson. 

When she'd entered the Temple, she'd thought of it as a homogenous triangle of sandstone. It now seemed a vastly more complicated place. There was a lot more going on than she had imag-

Suddenly, she let out a whimper as a wave of emotion came over her.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo was pleased.

Renia was there. Renia, who had once, first among all women, lowered her nipples in to his mouth. She was with some other girl he'd never seen before. The two of them had dropped their miniscule clothing and set upon him with the enthusiasm he'd come to expect in this room.

"Already so hard," Renia had complimented him when she'd taken his shorts.

If only he could tell her why. Instead, he slid his hand up her body to cup her slim breast in his hand, gently squeezing her nipple between thumb and forefinger.

She closed her eyes and sighed before sinking to her knees to quickly finish washing him. In another moment, her mouth closed around his very erect penis. It wasn't necessary, really. He was more than ready. She wasn't doing it out of necessity but out of some combination of duty and her own arousal.

"Someday," she said between mouthfuls. "Someday they'll send me out to Serve you."

She slid over his manhood again.

He only wished he could reach her breasts in this position.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was sweating and she had just realized why.

Zhair'lo was nearby. Very, very nearby. He was doing an upgrade and she was getting images from him. Hazy though they were, there was enough information to figure that much out.

A nipple squeezed between his fingers. A mouth on his shaft. Hands. Slippery, soapy hands all over his body.

It was too much for her to concentrate on her lesson.

"Are you alright?" Alli'anya asked.

Talla tried to shake off the assault on her senses.

"I, ah – just need a washroom, I think," she begged with what she hoped was a convincingly embarrassed smile.

Alli'anya stifled a laugh.

"In there," she jerked her head toward the Offices. "There's a stairway to the basement behind the desks on the left."

"I'll be right back, sorry," she said as she turned and jogged away.

"No use holding it," Alli'anya said with a shrug. "I'll be here."

Talla stumbled across the marble floor, feeling the throbbing of his manhood as she got closer. At least the lip and tongue action had ceased. They must be preparing to let him out.

She needed privacy. A washroom would do. So would a closet. She couldn't let this happen where people could see. Too many questions. Too much embarrassment.

Down the stairs.

She felt a refreshing blast of cool air, but it wasn't on her body. It was Zhair'lo, stepping out in to the Augmentation Chamber, walking in the torchlight.

She found a small room. It looked like a broom closet. No one would be cleaning in the middle of the night, right? She hoped not and closed the door behind her, sealing herself in the near darkness of the room.

The darkness made it all the more vivid. Without the information from her own eyes, she could see out of his more clearly.

Oh, gods, no.

Not her!

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo faced the Sorceress of Point once again. He'd hoped it would be her doing the Point upgrade. Exotic, he supposed, was the right word. She had the most beautiful, soft skin, and such a rare shade of chocolate brown. He had wondered, when he'd had time to wonder, if there was some upgrade that did that to skin, just the way that it was done to their legs or breasts or the muscles between their legs.

As he turned to face her, though, he felt a pang of fear.

He tasted that fear, finding it both foreign and familiar.

In a moment, he recognized it as being very much like the fear he'd felt the night before. It was Talla's fear. It had something to do with that image – the one of this very Sorceress. There was fear and anger wrapped up in it, all focused on the hand; on the fingers silhouetted against the altar.

He couldn't decipher it. Neither did he have time. There was work to do.

He climbed the altar and straddled the topless woman, as he had before, and prepared to Seize to her Discipline.

-----------===================-------------

Oh, anyone but her!

Talla fell backward to lean the backs of her thighs against a narrow table and rest her shoulders against the wall behind it. Her hands went between her thighs, pushing against her flesh to quiet the burning inside.

What could she do? His arousal was overwhelming. She was in torment, caught between the power of a full day of sexual frustration and her fear of what they were doing to him.

But what way out was there for him? Was it even dangerous? What harm would come to him if she did manage, at this distance, to cause some hindrance to the Rite of Upgrade?

How could she possibly -

Ah!

A jolt shook her, causing her vision to waver and suddenly crystallize.

He was Seized, absorbing the magic of the Discipline of Point through his erection, sliding between the Sorceress's nipples.

One of her hands twitched, almost out of control, and went up to her breast. It slid under her top to tightly squeeze one of her nipples. The other hand, still between her thighs, starting making circles in her mound, stroking at her clitoris through her underwear where a wet spot was developing.

Gods, Zhair'lo, don't take on too much!

-----------===================-------------

"You're ready," the Sorceress said.

He nodded in agreement, overwhelmed by more than just the upgrade. Something was going on with Talla. She wasn't in the gallery. The magic inside him let him see well enough now that he could confirm her absence. But she was very close. And she was aroused. She was also stressed somehow.

He crossed the floor, willing himself to do his duty.

Talla was happier now, less conflicted, since he had separated himself from the Sorceress. Why did this woman evoke such emotion in Talla?




Talla's Temple Ch. 18



Odd.

As he stood at the side of the second altar, he had a sudden urge to take a sideways glance back at the altar behind him. He obeyed the subconscious command and saw the topless woman, propped up on her elbows, watching him carefully. Seeing his brief glance, she withdrew her hand from where it had been on the side of her altar.

That was important, for some reason, in Talla's thoughts.

Why?

He shook it off so he could finish climbing up the second altar and put a leg over the young girl there.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," she nodded eagerly and handed him the chalice of Synergist.

He was pretty sure she wasn't going to be ready for this.

-----------===================-------------

Talla muffled a cry of impatience. Zhair'lo had to wait for the girl to dress her naked chest with the clear syrup, and so Talla had to wait, too.

It was done. The girl was taking Zhair'lo's penis in hand. Talla could feel it. She squeezed her breast, pinching her nipple. Her other hand rudely shoved her underwear aside and delved down between her lips, pushing her clitoris toward her vagina.

So wet she was!

Zhair'lo was loaded. Well and truly, he was. As his orgasm approached, at the hands of this girl neither of them knew, the images from his mind to hers became more and more clear.

In her little, dark storeroom, she was behind his eyes. She was in the torch lit chamber. She was seeing the girl in front of him, the desperate hope in her eyes pleading for the semen about to be launched on to her skin.

The moment was approaching. Talla jammed two fingers, then three, up inside herself, forcing her thoroughly moistened tunnel open as Zhair'lo let the dam break.

She watched, amazed, as if through his very eyes, as bursts of semen came out of him and fell in strip after strip on to the chest of the soon to be unsealed Virgin.

Her own eyes were blind, in that little storeroom, as their orgasm overcame her and her body locked up every muscle from her toes to her neck. She groaned, holding her fingers as deeply inside her body as she could, letting them feel the twitching of vaginal muscles that dreamed their own dreams of squeezing the juices of men to places yet farther inside.

-----------===================-------------

That had been damned odd.

Zhair'lo was confident the upgrade had succeeded, long before the girl in front of him announced the warming feeling that denoted success. He'd seen the blue glow in her nipples, even through the mixture of semen and Synergist. She'd been happy, feeling that warmth.

He'd done his job, his duty, freeing her from the semi-adulthood of a Sealed Virgin.

But what had gone on with Talla? Why the reticence? What was with the issue with the Sorceress of Point?

Very little was coming through from Talla now that the moment had passed. He could sense where she was, roughly. He gave himself better than an even chance that he could find her, were he permitted to wander the Temple at will.

There would be no such opportunity, though. They were handing out the towels now, cleaning up and preparing to send him back home.

-----------===================-------------

"You seem a bit distracted, Talla," Alli'anya observed when she returned.

She'd been horny. Horny as hell. Alli'anya might have noticed. It was probably pretty obvious.

"Primed last night," Talla said, hoping that excused everything without further discussion.

"Yes," Alli'anya said. "I'd heard."

Talla looked at her superior.

"It was unfortunate," the older woman volunteered with pursed lips. "They shouldn't have set upon you like that. Entirely inappropriate for the circumstances."

A surprising admission, if nothing else.

"It was frightening," she said, glad for the darkness of the Tranquil courtyard. 

She remembered walking home with Inga. Things could be said in the darkness that couldn't be said in the broad light of day.

"It won't happen again," Alli'anya said. "It was an error in judgement, which has been dealt with. Please rest assured that no one thinks that you are in any way responsible for any difficulty."

Talla let out a sigh.

"Really?"

"Yes," Alli'anya said firmly. "Shall we continue?"

Talla nodded.

She wanted to ask, "What difficulty? What circumstances?" 

But she was afraid, even in the dark. 

Tina would find out for her. Tina would figure out what had gone on. 

Best to keep things quiet.



Talla's Temple Ch. 19



"What -- precisely -- have we done, then?"

"I don't know Imminence," the Queen replied. "It may have been a coincidence."

The Goddess rolled her eyes.

"Really?"

The Queen of Sweetness looked aside in doubt.

"No, you don't believe it either," the Goddess added, rubbing her belly subconsciously. "They found no Synergist?"

The Queen shook her head.

"Nor any reason to think there might have been any."

That was just as frightening.

"Zhair'lo I can understand," the Goddess said. "He is what we expect."

She looked down at her belly. For such a private audience she had chosen the smallest top in her wardrobe, leaving her overheated stomach bare.

"But what of Talla?" she asked. "What is she?"

-----------===================-------------

Talla's heart skipped a beat and she read the card again.

"Upgrade. Strength. Extraordinary."

Deep breath.

She suddenly wished that she had never visited the doctor. Sure, her chest hurt, but couldn't she live with it? Wouldn't that be preferable to going through another upgrade? Maybe she could get out of it; just say it wasn't that bad after all.

No.

There was no point in running from this particular ordeal.

She stilled her heart. Upgrades would be a part of her life for the next decade at least. She would have to get used to them.

Deep breath, again. Relax.

That calming influence wasn't just her own. Zhair'lo was out there somewhere, sweating in a field on a day not quite hot enough for the heat bell they'd both wanted. Zhair'lo, perhaps sensing her anxiety, was sending gentle waves of calmness in her direction.

Reason and logic returned.

Zhair'lo would not be coming in tonight. She would be so much more comfortable with him as the Conduit. If he became overloaded, he would know. He would recognize the difference between one or two upgrades and being charged with a life-threatening quadruple.

But he had done an upgrade last night. They wouldn't have him back tonight. She had learned enough to know that boys were never allowed to do upgrades two nights in a row.

As a Seal Breaker, like Zo'kar, he'd be pushed to the limit. The two of them would be doing Virgins every other night until the Temple was emptied of them.

Talla sighed.

How she'd wished for the heat bell today; for a chance to go looking for that blue ribbon.

Zhair'lo was out there, far away. She could feel him - him and every metre of the distance between them.

Her eyes narrowed.

They would have their chance. 

And if they didn't, they would make their own chances.

-----------===================-------------

"Beshenna?" her Mistress asked.

"I have a desire to travel," Maksa said earnestly. "To see other cities."

The Sorceress of Lips looked at the document in front of her. Migration requests were not uncommon. Some liked to move about, some didn't. The women of Pussy were ardent that migration be encouraged for the sake of genetic stability. The women of Form supported it for a sense of inter-city cohesiveness and uniformity of culture. Within thought it was a barely tolerable nuisance of administration and Endowment really didn't care as long as they still got to build things somewhere.

"You are currently assigned to the Virgins' dormitories, are you not?" Lips asked.

"Yes, Mistress."

The Sorceress nodded thoughtfully.

"I have no reason to hold you here," she said. "But you will need the permission of my sister across the way. The Virgin dorms are the province of Pussy, after all, and that is your current assignment."

"Thank you, Mistress," she said and bowed herself out.

"Safe journey", she said and waved her Disciple away.

It had been a difficult decision. 

Talla's mother, if the documents were correct, was in Turiksa. But there was no guarantee that she was even alive. In a way, that made Maksa want to travel there first, on the chance that the woman might even now be on her death bed. Mih'lan's possible demise wasn't the only downside of heading that way first, though. Even if she were alive, what would she remember of the mysterious events around Talla's birth? If something truly strange had gone on, Mih'lan might not even want to talk about it, and she would have a good deal of seniority with which to brush Maksa off.

On the other hand, her real desire was to see what had happened to Zhina, Talla's half-sister. Had Zhina strayed from the leanings of her genealogy? Was there something in that ancestry that Maksa didn't understand? She'd only been doing it for a few months now, after all. Surely she had much to learn.

So it was Zhina she wanted to meet.

And therefore it was to Beshenna that she wanted to travel.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was passing through Endowment Hall, preoccupied by her impending upgrade, when she was startled to see the Engineering women once again bent over a central table, consulting with men.

"A beverage?" one of the women asked those around her.

There was some agreement that this was a good idea and the whole group, men and women, retired to a nearby counter where a girl in white offered them water and iced fruit drinks. It was a little odd, seeing men and women together like that, so casual. At least they weren't eating together. That would have been ridiculous.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Talla trotted over to the table with the abandoned drawing. It wasn't a secret, was it? Endowment was her Division and the women of Endowment built things. Her curiosity was perfectly justified, wasn't it?

Besides ... no one was looking.

It was the same tower she'd caught a glimpse of before. There were a few light correction marks here and there. She looked at the drawings and felt a faint sense of disappointment.

She knew how to read these sorts of drawings. Like every teenage girl, she was well versed in the mathematics and geometry that weren't worth teaching to boys. Consequently, cross sectional drawings were nothing new to her.

So when she looked at this tower and noted its lack of windows for most of its length, she understood that its primary purpose was as some kind of observation tower. Thinking about the dimensions, she figured that it would be the tallest building in Gern -- taller even than the presently existing watchtowers out on the periphery. Were they building taller watchtowers? Possibly.

That wasn't Talla's concern.

What she saw in the drawings ... she couldn't put her finger on it.

She flinched.

Ugly. That was the word. Not 'ugly' in the sense of a poorly painted picture or some creeping vermin. It was a different kind of ugly. She should have a different word for it, but she -

"Talla!" came a harsh whisper.

She twitched.

"Tina," she whispered back.

Tina jerked her head toward an empty corner of the common room.

"What did you find out?" Talla asked in a low voice as they walked.

"I had Y'ris check out the upgrades," she said.

"And?"

"It just says 'Impedia'."

"Impedia?"

"I think that's what they put whenever they have to call a Halt," Tina said. "I really don't know and I don't want to poke around too much. Y'ris was already suspicious, wanting to know how I knew there was a problem."

Talla nodded in agreement. Y'ris had seen the two of them ... together. There was no sense irritating her.

"We need someone that we can trust, but who's high up enough to know stuff," Talla said thoughtfully.

Tina squinted and pursed her lips.

"Who's your highest ranking sister?" she asked Talla. "No one I know goes above Neophyte."

"Me neither," Talla said. "Unless, well ... no."

"Unless who?" Tina asked sternly.

Talla wagged her head from side to side.

"Technically," she said. "There's Atreya."

Tina's eyes widened.

"Atreya Or'yan?" she asked. "The second of Abundance? You've kissed her -"

"Yes," Talla said, flashing back to a drunken memory of the beautiful tips of a pair of incredibly large breasts being lowered to her mouth one at a time. "I don't think I could bring it up with her."

Talla suddenly remembered talking with Alli'anya the night before.

"I had a lesson last night," she told Tina. "The teacher told me we weren't in any trouble."

"Hm," Tina replied doubtfully. "That doesn't tell us what happened, though."

"No. No, it doesn't."

"It'd be nice to know what made them so upset."

"They thought we had Synergist," Talla said.

"But why?" Tina asked.

Impedia.

Impeded.

A shock went through Talla. Why hadn't she realized it before?

"What?" Tina asked, seeing the look on Talla's face.

-----------===================-------------

"You requested an audience?" the Sorceress of Pussy asked.

She was alone, in the rearmost of her private rooms, unharried by any attendants. It was a quiet place for a calmly asked question.

Maksa bowed.

"Yes, Mistress."

"I'm afraid I have little time," she said as she slipped out of her simple working skirt. "I will be sourcing an upgrade for a Sealed Virgin tonight."

Maksa began unlacing her skirt, aware of the Protocols. But Pussy interrupted her.

"Oh, don't bother," she said. "I'm just getting dressed again. Now what is it you wanted?"

"To ask for the end of my assignment in the Virgins' dorms, Mistress," she said, "so that I may visit the city of Beshenna for a time."

The Sorceress paused just a moment, halfway out of her khaki-green underwear, before removing them entirely.

"Are you unsatisfied in your role?" she asked Maksa. "I understand you've been spending quite some time in the Stacks."

"Oh, yes, Mistress," Maksa said, unable to contain her keen interest. "I find it quite interesting, especially the predictable tendencies of the girls' Discipline choices."

Now Pussy did stop. She had been reaching for a jewel-encrusted skirt, having skipped on the underwear that would be a hindrance this evening. She turned to look over her shoulder.

"Predictable what?"

Maksa felt uncomfortable suddenly, and it wasn't just because of the relative nudity of the woman whose clearly visible pubic hair made her obviously superior by many ranks. Maksa barely restrained the urge, driven by that glare, to remove her clothing. 

"The girls' Discipline choices," she said, wondering if the Sorceress were engaging in some odd teaching technique. "The way they're mostly predictable based on the choices of their ancestors."

Pussy fastened her skirt in place and began changing her top. There was a pair of breasts Maksa couldn't hope to have any time soon. A Sorceress would always be ready to become a Queen, and a Queen to become a Goddess. So, even out of Division, Sorceresses were constantly upgrading themselves in readiness.

"You are telling me that you can tell what Discipline a girl will end up in," she asked carefully, "by examining her parentage?"

"Yes, Mistress. With some degree of error, of course."

The Sorceress donned her top, a match for the bottom in both cut and glamour. It was a soft, complicated piece of work, leaving her breasts free to move about behind shifting layers of fabric.

"I have to attend upgrades," she told Maksa. "When are you free from the Virgins' dormitories?"

"Tonight?"

Pussy nodded.

"I put them to sleep at ninth bell."

"Meet me half a bell later in the Stacks," she ordered.

Maksa bowed.

"Yes, Mistress."

No word on her request for transfer. She could, perhaps, pursue that later.

-----------===================-------------

"Whom do you present to Us?" the Sorceress of Strength asked.

She was the highest ranking person present. This being a night of fairly low ranking upgrades, the Queen's throne was empty and the other Sorceresses' thrones were occupied by their Seconds. That was reassuring. Atreya's presence gave her comfort. So did the absence of the Sorceress of Point.

The Officer standing next to Talla replied to this query, as crisply as Talla remembered it.

"Mistress. I present Talla: daughter of Kain; out of Mih'lan."

The formula. The same formula as last time. Talla willed her knees to stop shaking. This was no time for cowardice.

"Talla out of Mih'lan," Strength called out. "What do you seek?"

"Strength, Mistress. An Extraordinary, for my health."

"I have no objection," the Sorceress said.

There it was, just like before. The torches were snuffed. The drums began beating.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo had found a quiet place. He imagined that the farm hands didn't actually know about it. He'd had to climb out his window, swing along an eavestrough and pull himself up on to the roof. There, nestled between adjoining sections of tiled roof, there was a small corner that looked out over the front of the farm.

It seemed to Zhair'lo that it was very rare for anyone his age to be assigned to a place so far from the Temple. There were no apprentices here. In fact, everyone here seemed to be well in to adulthood. Given their ages, it was quite possible that none of them had ever taken to swinging along eavestroughs and climbing up on roofs for the sheer hell of it.

Of course, he wasn't up here for the sheer hell of it.

He'd started to feel uncomfortable, maybe even anxious. It was a faint, distracting feeling that, over the course of his evening meal, he'd begun to realize was something he was getting from Talla. After dinner, when the anxiety became more noticeable, he had decided to get as far from the other men as possible.

So he'd come up to his room and then, finally, felt the desire to climb up to the roof where he could be alone.

He supposed now, sitting on the roof, looking over the intervening distance toward the Temple, that this was the nature of strange mesh that he had with Talla. Her feelings could just slyly insinuate themselves in to his awareness. He had started to mistake her feelings for his, but the song that played inside his head became loud enough that he knew it was her.

Somewhere on the horizon -- somewhere in that flickering glow -- Talla was anxious. Not in any danger, the way he perceived it, but unsteadied just a little bit by something or other.

Calm, he urged. Just be calm.

-----------===================-------------

Well, Talla thought, here we are. Bare chested and waiting.

She had no point upgrades, but the cold air had caused enough stiffness that it might have fooled some people.

The young man in question, someone she did not know and who had barely spared her a glance, was currently thrusting up against a Keeper of Strength. Talla could see little of the interaction from her reclined position. Just the strips of a yellow skirt and the back of the guy's robe.

She took a breath and tried to relax.

The last time this had happened, it had resulted in Zhair'lo stumbling over to her and -

No, she told herself. Don't think about that.

A wave of relaxation came over her.

She searched around with her eyes and then, on a whim, closed them. A faint smile crossed her lips. It was him. It was Zhair'lo. He was far way. Really, really far. But even so, she could faintly hear his voice, telling her it would be alright.

Thank you, she told him.

The drum beat changed. Talla opened her eyes to see the young man approaching, his erection neatly hidden in the folds of his robe. He nodded to her, politely and tight lipped, before climbing the altar and straddling her.

She saw his penis, then. Gods, could she go for one of those. She had feared that the interruption two nights ago had permanently sucked the sexual desire out of her. Now that there was an erection hanging right there in front of her, she was reassured.

Not now. This was not the time for that.

The first business was preparing for his load and the magic it contained. She handed him the chalice of Synergist, which he took quite gracefully. He'd done this before.

As she dipped her fingers, she felt a little hiccup in the calmness that pervaded her mind. Something odd had happened to Zhair'lo, just enough to give him a start.

No matter. He'd done what he could for her. She was calm now, her anxiety having abated. She spread the Synergist across her flesh. The mandatory part, for a Strength upgrade, was the 'T' formed by her cleavage and the tops of her breasts.

For good measure, and perhaps for the pleasure of the arousal of the guy who knelt over her body, she rubbed it over the entirety of the ample breasts that still stretched her skin. She looked him in the eye, whoever he was, and watched him twitch as she gave soft strokes to the tips of her nipples before taking the chalice back from him.

"Ready?" she asked in a whisper.

He nodded.

Was there anything else she could do? She wanted this to succeed.

"As long as you've got lots for me," she whispered. "These things are killing me and I really need this upgrade."

He nodded again, nervously, as she took his penis in her hand.

"Any second," he warned, generously.

"Good," she said.

No point egging him on any further in that case. She started stroking him, letting the Synergist act as a lubricant. It was so much like her first upgrade: the coldness on her chest; the rod in her hand; the nervousness.

This one would be quick. The Primers had done their jobs well. He moved his body closer, the tip of his penis almost touching the centre of her chest. With one hand fondling his testicles, she knew the moment was near when they tightened in her grip. That hand went to her chest as the other hand kept stroking.

Don't be afraid, she told herself. They won't let that happen again.

The fragile, long distance link with Zhair'lo had nearly been broken by whatever he had seen. She was very much on her own. But he'd propped her up, gotten her past her negative anticipation. She could do the rest.

The boy in her hand twitched, thrusted through her grasp, and bumped against her before blowing a wet strip across the top of her breasts. She looked at it, that charged white fluid that had embedded itself in the clear white of the Synergist.

Rub it in, she told herself, and did it, smearing it in to her flesh, letting the magic soak through her skin in to the muscles behind. More was coming. She turned his erection to spray over one breast and then the other.

She started to feel a warmth there, as the magic-infused semen invaded her body. She was also feeling dizzy. It took her a moment to realize that she had actually been holding her breath.

She exhaled.

There was no burning, just a comforting glowing feeling in her upper torso.

The Conduit was dry. There was no point squeezing or stroking him anymore.

Attendants were arriving with towels.

He looked at her inquisitively.

"It worked," she told him in a quiet voice. "Thank you."

He gave her a polite bow before taking his towel from the girls in white.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo, of course, had other things on his mind. There were two benefits to his position on the roof. The first was solitude. The second was that he had a good view of the path that led from the centre of Gern to the farm.

So his calming influence on Talla had been interrupted when he'd paused to open his eyes to the world around him and found a large crowd of women on the approach. They were still quite a distance and not in any particular hurry. It gave him plenty of time to crawl down from the roof.

In fact, he decided to wait a moment. He ought to be able to tell if any of those were here to see him. None of the farm hands were nearly as young as he was, so if -

Yes, there she was. There was no moonlight whatsoever, so it was only the faint torchlight from the house that lit the women. That mean that he couldn't be sure who she was, but she was definitely wearing a long, white skirt. That meant company for him tonight.

He started crawling down over the eaves trough, trying to remember that he was supposed to think of women as interchangeable, a different one in his bed every night. That was what respectable men did. They didn't get attached to one girl.




Talla's Temple Ch. 19



"A lot of pussy out there," Tilgan would say.

Zhair'lo had never heard him say it, but he could easily imagine the man's crude guffaw followed by those exact words. It would sound much the same as when they'd laughed at him the night he'd asked if Talla might someday return to him.

He slid in through his window and landed next to his bed. A girl, a new girl, was going to visit this bed tonight. His heart skipped. That was better. This was how men were supposed to act: eager; excited; care free. A man shouldn't think about any particular woman longer than bragging the next day about what he'd done with her the night before.

Zhair'lo opened his bedroom door and walked toward the stairway and the front of the house.

Every other man he knew, from a guy as young as Plin to the farm hands in their late thirties, had no problem with the world the way it was.

So what was wrong with Zhair'lo?

He'd had Natta and Nadine already. They were fine, weren't they? What was going on inside his head with Talla? It didn't matter. There were other things to catch his attention now.

The stairway was wide enough to accommodate the several men who were leaning against its handrails, patiently and casually waiting to see if their names would be called.

The women had already started. There went Master Harzen, then Tilgan followed by farm hand after farm hand. All men he knew, closely or distantly.

It was eerie, watching it from here, so far back that it felt as if he weren't participating. Unlike his first nervous night, he was much more aware of everyone around him. How casual and unperturbed they were!

Each one, when called, would gently take the woman who had called him by hand and lead her away.

He was a part of this now. He forced himself to that belief. He was, aside from the apparently rare talent of ejaculating in a specific fashion amenable to the transfer of magic, just like these men. He watched how they acted. They had been through this simple ritual -- what - thousands of times?

Would he ever grow so casual?

The women in yellow dwindled and dwindled away, leaving just a girl in white. It was Anzha. He'd done her upgrade three nights before. When she hadn't shown up the night after the upgrade, he'd written her off, assuming that she had chosen some other for her first night.

Apparently she had not.

"Zhair'lo," she called out timidly, looking around the common room.

"Up here," he said.

It wasn't as if any of the farm hands could be confused and think that she had come for him. Most of them had complacently accepted that this wasn't their night when the last woman in yellow had gone. No one was even looking.

She seemed timid anyway. Maybe he had been too loud in answering her call.

"This way," he said as he came down the stairs and held out his hand, softening his voice as best he could.

Anzha replied only with a tight-lipped smile and took his hand in turn.

-----------===================-------------

Talla had never been through the normal post-ritual examination.

She was led off to a room where a physician waited. It was Iyana, the same physician who had set her on the path to this upgrade.

"Good to see you again," she said in that matter of fact voice all physicians seemed to have. "Let's see what we've done."

Talla nodded and removed her top. She was quite satisfied by the way her breasts held up, instead of falling and pulling at her chest.

"Nice and warm?"

"Yeah, it worked."

"They do look firmer than the last time I saw you."

Iyana kneaded at the muscles in Talla's upper chest.

"Good," she said. "Just one upgrade. There's a bit of swelling, but not near enough to mean even a double."

"You were worried?" Talla asked.

"Weren't you?"

Talla thought about that and let out a deep breath for the first time since the start of the ceremony. 

"Yes. Try to relax," the physician advised.

Talla nodded.

"Your shoulders," the doctor reminded her as she placed her hands on either side of Talla's neck. "Relax them."

She forced her muscles to soften. She hadn't realized that she'd tensed up.

"Yeah. I guess I was worried," she admitted.

"Well, you're fine," Iyana told her. "You can get dressed and -"

Talla sucked in a breath as her eyes widened.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded quickly.

"Yeah ... just have to ... um ... pee," she said as she dressed hastily.

"Alright," Iyana said doubtfully.

Talla moved out of the room quickly, stopping only after she got around the corner in to a quiet corridor. Once there, she leaned against the wall and tried to right her senses.

Somewhere very far away, Zhair'lo had meshed with some girl. Some girl - some girl who wasn't Talla -- had been penetrated by him.

She wasn't close enough to take part in it, the way she had the night before. She could only know that it was happening. 

Also, she could frown.

That was about it.

-----------===================-------------

Anzha might have been timid, but she had apparently decided how to deal with her fear. She had chosen the direct approach.

Since greeting each other at the door, not a word passed between them before their lips met. She kissed softly, carefully, in a sensual way that Natta and Talla hadn't. Her kisses, down to the quick, light flitting of her tongue on his lips, reminded him very much of Nadine.

Was this how girls kissed each other, when they were denied men? Was that what he was experiencing?

Her skirt was discarded, then his pants. She pulled him on top of her as she fell on her back on his bed. They bumped heads a bit as they got things sorted out, the passion of kisses erasing any pain or discomfort.

Her eyes managed to narrow and widen all at once, a trick of furrowed eyebrows and fearful eyes that told Zhair'lo all he needed to know about Anzha: eager and afraid; wanting to get through this and hoping it went right.

She nodded to him and gave a brief glance down their thin bodies. Then she bit her lip, waiting for him.

"It'll be okay," he told her, pushing her lips apart with the head of his penis.

"I know," she whispered.

He pushed, sliding just a bit inside. They began to mesh. He felt her fear, the feeling of anxiety bubbling up inside her. He felt her enthusiasm, wanting to push past the fear. He tried to make her feel his calm as he rotated his hips so that his erection could pry at the tightened muscles inside her.

She was wet enough, that part was okay. She was just so tight.

"Just relax," he told her in his quietest voice.

She took a breath and he felt the last of her resistance fade from her mind as she surrendered herself to him. Her legs relaxed, then her vaginal muscles. Ever so slowly, he began to slide himself in to her.

"Oh," she breathed as their mesh completed. "That's ... just right."

-----------===================-------------

"Show me what you see," the Sorceress of Pussy said.

Fortunately, the scrolls containing the records Maksa had been reviewing were still in a bin marked with her name. How arduous and inconvenient it would have been to search them all out again.

"Here, Mistress," Maksa said. "Look at this girl, Arlia. She was in my dorm a while ago. You can see from the pattern that her ancestors clearly favoured Lips and Within. She chose Lips."

Pussy looked at the tree a moment before turning to look at Maksa.

"I see no such thing," she replied. "Look here and here: Strength and Iron."

"Patrilineal, Mistress," Maksa rebutted. "Matrilineal is much stronger. The line through generations of mothers is where to look."

"Fine," Pussy said before pointing at another point on the document. "What about here? Direct matrilineal descent, four generations back and she has Abundance in her ancestry."

"Yes, Mistress," Maksa said as she pulled out another, much older scroll and carefully unrolled it. "I checked on that. The woman in question was Elga Serenza. There's a notation here on her sheet that says she was injured from a fall while running during her Initiation. She would have finished much sooner had she -"

"And would have had a better choice," the Sorceress concluded, her eyes sharpening.

Maksa nodded.

"Possibly enough to get in to Lips."

Pussy was thoughtful.

"I won't pretend that it's perfect," Maksa said. "It seems to be that, given the choice, women will follow in the footsteps of their mothers. If something odd happens in the Initiation, they might be forced to other choices, but that's rare."

"Have you tested your beliefs?"

"Of course," Maksa said, distractedly forgetting to litter her sentences with honorifics. "I'm not an astrologer."

It was a derisive remark that made the Sorceress smirk. When they taught logic and reason to little girls, they taught them ways to avoid deluding themselves

"With each new group that I get, I examine their parentage and make my best guess at which way they'll go."

"And?"

"I'm a little over 70%."

The Sorceress's eyebrows rose. If that was true, this was significant. She would have to find a way to use Maksa's talents. The woman had a gift, clearly, and belonged with the women of Pussy, not with those of Lips. She was considering ways to convince Maksa to stay in Gern when Maksa, encouraged by the approval she was receiving, continued her eager chatter.

"That's why I find Talla so confusing."

The Sorceress stopped then, and turned to face Maksa. Making her voice as calm as she could, she asked, "Talla?"

"Yes," she said. "Look here."

And she began laying out the mystery of Talla. The Sorceress began to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. None of them had ever thought of this problem, and here was a Keeper -- a Keeper with a genius for genealogy -- laying bare everything they had done.

Pussy listened as Maksa ardently and thoroughly tore through scroll after scroll in what was, if Maksa only realized it, a patent exposure of a centuries long conspiracy.

"So why, given a choice of the Disciplines favoured by her many generations of mothers, would she choose Abundance?" Maksa concluded.

Pussy felt a sledge hammer hitting her in the stomach.

Maksa turned to look at the Sorceress and saw the darkness there in her superior's eyes.

"That's why I wanted to travel to Beshenna," Maksa explained, somewhat wary now. "I want to see Talla's sister."

It suddenly occurred to Maksa that she ought to have remembered how, when Sila and Talla had meshed, her superiors had only asked for Sila's documentation. They hadn't asked for Talla's because, Maksa had figured, they had already looked it up. Talla was already special for some reason.

"Half-sister, actually," Maksa corrected herself, not sure whether or not she should continue talking. "I -- ah - want to find out what she chose."

The Sorceress of Pussy nodded, knowing that such a thing could never be allowed to happen. Maksa could not be permitted to meet Zhina. If she hadn't figured out what was going on yet, seeing Zhina would blow the whole thing down like a house made of the frailest reeds.

There weren't a lot of options for the Sorceress, but there were loose ends.

"Have you discussed this with anyone else?"

Maksa shook her head. Pussy's tone had been firm enough that Maksa was reminded again of their difference in ranks.

"No, Mistress" she said. "I assumed that this was some kind of test, letting me do this and seeing if I noticed."

"It was not a test," Pussy said as she rubbed her chin. "But you passed it, nonetheless."

Maksa wasn't sure what to make of that.

There was a long and pregnant pause. Maksa watched the torchlight flicker across the Sorceress's frozen and inscrutable features.

"I believe that your talents are wasted in Lips," she said finally.

"Pardon, Mistress?"

"Are you aware that transfers are possible?"

Maksa was startled.

"Mistress?"

"I advise you to consider it - immediately. I will honour such a request should you make it."

"I -- I didn't know it was possible."

In fact, it seemed anathema to everything she understood about the Initiation ritual. That ritual was supposed to be the gods' way of assigning every woman to the Discipline best for her. If she changed Disciplines, was she admitting that the gods were wrong? That she had chosen wrong?

"It is possible," the Sorceress confirmed, eyeing Maksa sharply.

"But my choice ..."

"What place did you come at your Initiation?"

"Third," Maksa said.

"And so you chose Lips because Within and Pussy were taken?"

Maksa acknowledged this with a gulp.

"Did you ever look at your own documents?"

Maksa shook her head. It had actually never even occurred to her to do so.

"Your talent is clearly here," the Sorceress said, tapping the scrolls. "No one has seen what you have been able to see. I don't even see it now except that you tell me you can predict these choices with remarkable accuracy."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Codify what you have done, so that others may learn. It may be significant."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Now," the Sorceress added, "do you wish to join my Discipline?"

Just like that? Leave one path and hop to another? Could it be done? It was how the Initiation ritual was done, after all, and with much less of an understanding of what the options really were. The difference was that she knew now what each of the Disciplines meant.

Maksa looked at the Sorceress and made her decision.

"Yes, I do."

"Good," the Sorceress nodded firmly. "I will arrange it. Until then, do not speak of any of this, especially of this girl Talla, until we have spoken again."

"Yes, Mistress."

-----------===================-------------

Talla passed through Endowment Hall, having no particularly to drink and socialize. She was frustrated in the weirdest way she'd ever felt it. Zhair'lo was out there, having sex with someone in what seemed to be a very gentle, slow fashion. She could feel it, but not enough to really get in to it.

She was left frowning and found herself making the same face at the same ugly drawing that had been sitting on the large table in the middle of Endowment Hall since the afternoon.

Stupid drawing.

The problem with it was the arrangement of the timbers that braced it across its diameter. The tower was slightly conical, probably a necessity of wanting the walls to lean inward instead of out. So wood was used to brace the insides. But the pieces of lumber were just laid out -- so -- wrong.

Talla rubbed her forehead in consternation.

She understood the necessity of the internal stairway that wound its way up the wall. That had to be part of the design. But if they would just arrange the internal braces in 'X' shapes and arrange it so the stairways -

"Something wrong, girl?" someone asked.

She turned to see an Officer looking at her.

"Just looking," she said, trying to find a tone between defiant and defensive.

"It's an interesting piece of work, isn't it?" the Officer said, coming to stand beside -- and towering over -- Talla.

"Yeah," Talla agreed. "Seems like the stairways are causing a problem, though."

The Officer raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed they are."

"Could you move these braces around so they make taller triangles and let the stairways pass through?"

The Officer smiled.

"Perhaps, if wood were stronger than it is. Then we could make beams long enough to make those triangles without breaking in half."

She hadn't thought of that. 

Too bad, really. It could have been much more elegant without that limitation.

-----------===================-------------

"How many days has he been like this?" Tia seethed at the junior physician.

"Three, Mistress."

It was so rare to see an angry doctor. They were used to dealing with injuries, even with deaths. They had to be calm in the worst of situations. To see one of them actually losing her reserve of patience was bad enough. Being the target of that impatience was another order of magnitude worse.

"And you only bring him to me now?"

"I -- I didn't know what it was, Mistress."

"It's Catatonia. Any fool could see that!"

"But he was Served, Mistress, on the very night before he took ill."

"If he had been Served," Tia said with a glare, "he wouldn't be Catatonic, would he?"

The younger woman gulped.

"I saw his bed," she said defensively. "The sheets were clearly soiled. That's why I ruled out Catatonia."

Tia let a breath hiss out between her teeth.

"Let's see about that," she told the younger woman. She cast her voice to an attendant near the door and issued an order. "Find out who Served him three nights ago and bring her here."

The attendant nodded and, prodded by her Mistress's irate tone, promptly darted out of the room.

"Meanwhile," Tia told the other woman, "we have to plan an Awakening."

The attendant popped her head back in to the examination room.

"Mistress?"

"Yes, Initiate?"

"What is his name?"

Tia turned to the junior physician.

"Shen," the younger woman told the girl in white. "Shen M'han."



Talla's Temple Ch. 20



She was lying on her back, and had been for a while now, looking at the ceiling of his little room while he watched her chest gently rising and falling. Eventually he realised that he was the one who would have to break the silence before it became too awkward.

"You alright?" Zhair'lo asked Anzha.

She nodded, a bare whisper of assent passing through her lips. He hadn't hurt her. The mesh let him know that much.

Okay, he admitted to himself, he knew that he hadn't hurt her body.

There had been a very strange combination of fear and courage in her mind, well beyond what he'd felt from any of those he'd bedded before. Virgins all, and yet Anzha was different. Maybe it was a mistake to ever think that there would be two quite alike.

Maybe?

Definitely.

Propped up on his elbow, he looked in to eyes that refused to look back in to his.

"You seemed scared," he ventured.

"A little," she said, a light whisper fading in to the windless night air.

He didn't know where to go from there, so he laid a hand on her belly, letting just the tips of his fingers touch her skin. He dragged them slowly up her body.

She shivered in response and closed her eyes.

Good or bad?

A tear escaped the corner of her eye.

Why was she crying?

She rolled over suddenly, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Wh-Why?" was all he could stammer in reply.

A sniffle escaped her then, before she took a breath to calm herself. Finally their eyes met, hers glistening with tears.

"I shouldn't cry," she said firmly.

"No?"

"No," she replied, quick and smart. "It's just -- it's been a long wait."

"I heard," Zhair'lo said sympathetically.

"I just didn't know what to expect," she said. "What if I did something wrong? I'd imagined it -- how I would do it. But what if that's not the right way? What if it's not the normal way?"

That was a load to take on -- the idea that she could be as unsure as he was. Talla had seemed so confident in her actions that first night. He imagined all women to be so.

"You didn't do it wrong," he said. "I'm sure of that."

She laughed lightly through her tears.

"And you know?"

"I guess so," he replied. "We can do it any way we like, I think. I wouldn't know the wrong ways from the right."

"We're supposed to -- they tell us -- we're supposed to be on top."

Zhair'lo shrugged.

"We can try that next," he assured her.

At which point she punched him, in a gentle manner that told him he'd probably said the right thing.

-----------===================-------------

What now?

All that Talla wanted to do was go back to her room and possibly play with herself in peace and quiet. But no. For some reason, there was an Initiate standing at the bottom of the stairs to her apartment. She was dressed somewhat like Talla: the same tiny skirt on her bottom while her smaller chest featured only the simple rectangular top.

If you were Point, she thought, I'd be able to tell through that top. If you were Abundance, that top wouldn't fit. And an Initiate in Strength would have a broader chest than you have, never mind an upgrade in Point or Abundance.

You, she glared accusingly, are not of Endowment. So what are you doing here?

"Talla?" the girl asked as she approached.

"Yes," she confirmed suspiciously.

As she closed on the intruder, she noticed the badge on her hip. Two snakes wrapped around a triangle. It made her a physician's assistant.

"The Second of Within requires your presence in a medical matter," she said. "It is very urgent."

That explained how this girl had gotten in to the Endowment triangle. Medical emergencies could allow for that. What medical matter could be so important and involve her?

"Should we run?" Talla asked, hoping they hadn't discovered disastrous with her health. "I just got upgraded."

"We should make good speed," the girl responded. "Come."

They would set a brisk pace, then.

"What is this about?" Talla asked.

"It's best that my Mistress explains it."

-----------===================-------------

"Maksa Ayella, Keeper of Lips," the Sorceress intoned so her voice would carry to those gathered around.

"Mistress," Maksa acknowledged with a bow.

"Sisters all," the Sorceress of Pussy called out.

"Mistress," they chimed in unison.

It wasn't a small gathering. There were dozens of women of differing ranks who had formed a circle around the Sorceress in green and the Keeper in yellow.

"Today we welcome a new sister to our ranks," Pussy said.

"Welcome," they called back.

"Every woman who joins us, joins us in the same state," the Sorceress said. "You, too, shall rise as one of us just as every Virgin girl becomes a woman of Pussy."

"As you wish, Mistress."

Maksa had been surprised to learn how easily she could switch Disciplines. Her own Mistress -- her former Mistress -- had already released her to travel. That had made getting that permission irrelevant, at least so her new Mistress had said. All she'd needed was the permission of the Sorceress of Pussy, which had been pre-granted.

So here she stood, waiting for the ritual to continue. She wondered if every Discipline had its own ritual for this sort of thing, or was it just Pussy? Most of the others couldn't really do anything like this, could they?

Step one.

The Sorceress of Pussy undid the small metal catch on her skirt and let it fall to the floor. Such luxurious hair. It would be so soft to the touch, were Maksa permitted to touch.

But Maksa stood, making no movement, as all around her the others of her new Discipline followed suit, stripping off their jeweled orange bottoms, their stylized yellow skirts, their solid white skirts embroidered with blue. They'd all come out with their nicest clothing for this private ceremony in Principia Pussy.

Maksa was last. With a Sorceress, seven ranks above her, standing there without a stitch covering her below the waist, Maksa ought to be several ranks past complete nudity. Nine hells, the only people with any clothing on ought to be the Second of Pussy who would get away with wearing her bikini top. Officers, if they chose and had one handy, could wear a single sash and leave only one breast exposed., but the only way they'd get a single sash was to steal one from an Acolyte II ... who would also have to be naked.

But those complex Protocols weren't for this occasion. Everyone kept their tops on. Everyone took their bottoms off.

And Maksa, as the centre of this ceremony, was the last to slide out of her simple yellow skirt.

"Be seated," the Sorceress told her.

Obediently and quietly, as befit the solemnity of the occasion, she sat on the small reclined chair provided and laid back.

The Sorceress clapped her hands twice, a signal for two attendants in white to come forward with a small basin of hot water and cloths. Maksa took them for Virgins, though with bottoms missing, there was no way to tell them from Initiates. They placed their basin at Maksa's feet and knelt down in front of her.

Maksa, ready for this, spread her legs as one of the younger girls soaked a cloth in the water. Both of them had the bare fuzz of pubic hair that denoted a single step in rank; a single upgrade. Maksa, having started in Lips, was only one step beyond them in this matter. There were things unsettled in her mind. Would they give her the two upgrades in Pussy so that she could properly be a Keeper of Pussy? Would that violate the rules about upgrades? A Keeper ought to have four upgrades within her Division. Maksa currently held four in Lips, two in Pussy and two in Within. If they brought her up to four in Pussy, she would be holding six in Within and Lips when she should only have four -

Her thoughts were knocked aside by the careful application of a hot cloth to her genitals. The girl in charge of that ministration carefully kneaded at her lips through the cloth, making sure they would be soft and warm. Maksa stifled a sudden urge to urinate.

The cloth was drawn away and the second Virgin came forward with an unusually fragrant bar of soap in her hands. She dipped it in the water and lathered her hands. There was an immense amount of lather from the bar. It must have been specially made for these sorts of occasions.

This hot, soapy lather was delicately spread over her pussy until all of her hair was buried beneath it.

When that act had been satisfactorily performed, the Sorceress clapped her hands again. The two girls bowed and backed away in to the crowd. Another came forward. This was an older woman whose orange bikini top indicated the rank of Acolyte.

Maksa was relieved, in a way. Best to have this done by someone with a steady hand.

This woman, like the Virgins, knelt at her feet. It made Maksa feel awkward, having someone so obviously senior in such a position relative to her.

From her hand, the woman produced a small blade which she carefully soaked in the steaming water. Maksa bit her lip as the blade was laid along the flesh of her belly and slowly stroked through the cream covered hair between her legs.

Two upgrades, she thought, and they shear it away just like that.

It would grow again, just as before. The upgrades weren't really gone, just symbolically and temporarily removed. The flesh underneath knew to bring it back.

Nevertheless, the blade swept her hair in smooth strokes, leaving a bare and tender skin behind. In a few expert flashes of the blade, her mound was cleaned of both soap and hair. She felt more naked now than she had been in all the times she'd ever exposed herself to anyone, man or woman. Now she was like one of the Virgins in her dormitories.

The Adept finished her work and stood up, giving a nod of satisfaction to her own work.

Almost immediately, a young girl in a white bikini top came forward with a towel so Maksa could dry herself off. It felt very strange, running that towel over her shorn genitals. It just wasn't a done thing, going back to bare skin after having one's first Pussy upgrade. Yet, here she was, plain and bald as any of the girls that had passed through her dormitory these last few months.

This was a tradition in Pussy, was it?

Maksa stood up to face her new Mistress, who was still as bottomless as all others. In this crowd, pubic hair all around, Maksa suddenly felt the most juvenile.

Another attendant came forward and handed the Sorceress a small bundle in yellow.

The Sorceress unfolded it in to a long, yellow band of fabric. She then handed it to Maksa.

"Welcome in, Maksa Ayella, Adept of Pussy," she said.

Maksa's eyes widened. A promotion with her transfer.?

"I -- I -- thank you, Mistress," she replied, taking the proffered cloth.

-----------===================-------------

Anzha was on top this time.

She'd still wanted him to handle the penetration part, but she'd rolled him over soon after.

At the moment, she was experimenting with shifting her weight from one side to the other, letting the head of his erection push at her insides from different angles.

It was a slow process, gently finding her limits, testing her tolerance for pressure and pain.

Zhair'lo watched her, not daring to move. She was tight in there, tighter than he'd ever felt before, absenting Natta's peculiar talent. Whether it was her nerves or her body, he couldn't say, but he knew better than to thrust while she probed the depths of her tunnel with his member.

She rocked back, ever so slowly, and a shiver went through both of them.

"What's that?" she asked in a hoarse whisper, as much to herself as him.

"Something," he said. "Some little -- thing -- right at the tip."

She nodded, rocking her hips forward.

Nothing.

Gently, she repeated her backwards motion.

"Ah!" she sighed. "There."

He felt it. Whatever part of her he was rubbing against was a good spot for her. He felt it through the mesh, even as it tickled him. He placed his hands gently on her thighs. Her hands came to rest atop his as he began to rock back and forth.

She sighed again and let her head roll back.

"Bigger," she murmured, never missing a beat in the rhythm she'd made. "I can feel it -"

She was patient. Zhair'lo had to give her that. Maybe all those weeks trapped in the half-adulthood of a Sealed Virgin had done that. Maybe it was her nature. Whatever it was, it made her patient, and her patience came through to him, even as his erection swelled to its painful limit.

"So ... big," she murmured, her eyes closed.

She pressed his hands against her. He squeezed the thin muscles of her thighs, both holding and held against the inevitable.

His breath left his lungs. It hurt so badly and he just -- couldn't -- come.

And just when his fear and breathlessness were about to become a panic, the swelling inside her overcame then both.

"Ah!" she shouted in joy.

She never stopped her rocking, even as her eyes narrowed and her features became fierce. Their bodies pulsed in unison, drawing spasm after spasm of semen out of him and in to her.

When they both were spent, she didn't dismount right away, choosing instead to enjoy the feeling of post-orgasmic happiness.

Their eyes met. A slight smile came to her mouth, slowly reaching her eyes.

"I think they were right," she said. "I really like being on top."

-----------===================-------------

The Initiate, who had not spoken a word for their entire jog through the Temple, waved Talla through the doors to the Casualty Ward. Had someone been injured? It couldn't be her, could it? She didn't feel injured. Was some latent problem about to manifest itself?

Candles were lit, fainter light than even torches would normally provide. It took her eyes a moment to adjust.

There was a naked boy -- a young man -- lying on a low, narrow table, his arms draped to the floor. He appeared nearly lifeless. At first she'd thought he might be dead, but no. His chest occasioned to move in a nearly imperceptible fashion. Was he the casualty then, and not her?

A Second was attending. She sat in a reclined chair as low as the table, facing the feet of the emaciated boy.

Talla was able to identify the woman at once. She was pretty sure that the Seconds of Pussy and Lips weren't even doctors, and this woman had laid her white smock over the back of the chair on which she was sitting, a position from which she faced the boy on the table. The discarded smock made her a doctor; the consequently visible blue clothing made her a Second; and the Second of Within was well known for her medical skill. Her name, Talla knew, was Tia.

Tia the doctor sat patiently, hands folded between her legs, as she stared at the boy.

Two other physicians, still dressed as such, stood by, along with a girl in the white skirt and double sashes of a Neophyte. That last one looked the most nervous of all. She, like Talla, didn't appear to have the medical snake badge that the others sported. She glanced up when Talla entered, gulped nervously, and said nothing.

"Mistress," the Initiate who had led her in whispered. "This is the one who Served him."

Tia looked up at her sharply.

"You Served this boy three nights ago?" she asked, using the same piercing tone as the woman who had burst in to her apartment so recently.

"Mistress?" Talla asked, startled.

"This boy," she repeated. "You Served him, as you were assigned?"

Talla approached the table. He didn't look like anyone she had -

"Gods," she whispered. "Shen!"

She ran to the table and knelt at his side. She hadn't even recognized him, so thin and frail was he.

"What happened to him?" she asked as she examined his pale features.

"Did you Serve him?" the question came back.

"Yes, Mistress. Of course."

Her inquisitor had not risen from her place at the foot of the table.

"How many times did you Serve him?" came the next question from the corner of her vision.

This was interrogation. There was no doubt of the tone in the woman's voice.

"Three -- well, two -- kind of," Talla stuttered.

"Explain."

"He wasn't -- um -- ready," Talla said. "So I used my mouth the first time. He surprised me and - well -- ejaculated."

"In your mouth, I see," the Second said. "Then what?"

"We had sex twice after that," she said. "I was on top the first time. The second time he was -- well -- behind me and on top."

"Did you notice anything odd in your encounters with him?"

How would I know? Talla wanted to say. I've Served exactly three guys. 

But she held her tongue. Did she want to explain how she'd made Shen spank her, inviting him to strike ever harder and then overcoming his resistance to the punishment she wanted? Did she want to delve in to her guilt and how she'd used him to cleanse herself of it?

"Nothing but that he ejaculated in my mouth," Talla replied, holding her eyes on Shen.

It was at that point, as she stroked Shen's hair, that she turned to her look at Tia.

She twitched and immediately looked away. She realized that she had been mistaken. In the faint light of the candles, Talla had thought that the older woman had been merely observing the patient on the table, quietly waiting in her seated position for some particular and arcane event. Talla realized, with that quick glance, that this was not the case. One of the physician's hands had been down between her legs, rubbing at her genitals. Talla had looked directly up her skirt, unavoidable given their relative positions. Tia appeared to be masturbating.

Okay, then ...

She turned her attention back to Shen. Had she done this to him?

"What happened to him?"

"He did not wake up the morning after you left."

Horror. It must be her fault.

"Shen," she whispered. "It's me, Talla. Wake up, Shen."

"Ready?" Tia asked.

Talla turned, thinking that this question was for her. That, much like her assumption that Tia had been idly sitting in her chair, turned out not to be the case. Tia had been speaking to the anxious Neophyte.

"Yes, Mistress," that one whispered and gave a quick nod.

The Neophyte moved to stand between Tia and Shen. Tia did not rise. She merely unlaced her skirt and let the sides of it drape over chair. It created an odd symmetry, her skirt and Shen's arms. Draped; spent; lifeless.

Tia paused and looked at Talla.

"You might as well stay," she said. "Since you Served him most recently, it might help. We may yet be able to rouse him."

Talla gulped. That statement sounded merely hopeful and decidedly not confident. Did that mean Shen's future was in doubt?

And how was she to help? Like in the Priming room? If anything she could do could help poor Shen, she would do it. But Tia gave her no further direction, turning instead to the Neophyte.

"Yinna," Tia said. "Prepare to take from me and Awaken our ward."

"Yes, Mistress."

Yinna began undressing. Her tiny top went first, slid off over her head. This girl was older by years than Talla, but Talla felt so much the senior to her when she compared chests. Yinna's skirt went next and it occurred to Talla that she was now overdressed.

The two physicians who waited quietly at the side made no move to undress, perhaps an immunity of their professional positions. Talla doubted that she was so excused. Eight ranks below a woman who had surrendered her skirt and one rank below the nude Yinna, she was violating Protocol.

On the other hand, what in the nine hells were Yinna and Tia going to do? Was sex going to wake Shen up? He wasn't even conscious, never mind -- she checked surreptitiously -- aroused. Well, whatever. If that was what was going on, she'd better do her part.

She unlaced her top, releasing her breasts. She was pleasantly, though distantly, pleased to find that the pain of the upgrade was nothing compared to the pain that had been her Abundance pulling at chest muscles unequipped for the task. Thank the gods for small and quickly effective upgrades.




Talla's Temple Ch. 20



She laid her top aside before sliding her skirt and underwear to the floor without rising from her kneeling position. She wiggled her clothing past her knees and laid it aside.

Yinna, in the meantime, had placed one of her feet on the arm of Tia's chair. It gave Talla a good view of two important things. One was the hair between Yinna's legs, speaking to a number of Pussy upgrades that Talla didn't know how to count.

The second thing she saw was Tia taking two glistening fingers from between her moist lips and holding them up to Yinna's crotch. Yinna dutifully spread her lips apart so that Tia could deliver her fluids to the younger woman. Those two fingers slid along Yinna's clitoris and briefly pushed in to her vagina.

Yinna gave a start. Even from behind, Talla could tell that Tia's fluids had done something to the Neophyte, but she couldn't say what.

"Go to him, now," Tia instructed as she sat back in her chair.

Yinna nodded and turned to face Shen and Talla. No question, then, that Yinna had been affected. Even in the candlelight, Talla could see the red in the girl's face, the sweat accumulating on her brow and that her mouth was hanging partially open in shock.

Talla cradled Shen's head against her naked breast. It was all she had to give, that Strength and Abundance. She hoped Yinna was from Within. That would make the most sense, wouldn't it? The two of them, with their talents, ought to be enough if anything could be enough.

Now the sense of the low table became obvious. It was just the right height, and just narrow enough, to allow Yinna to comfortably straddle Shen with her feet on the floor. Their eyes met, briefly, a fleeting assurance that Yinna accepted Talla's presence and that they were partners in this endeavour.

Talla could only whisper in to Shen's ear, encouraging him to wake up as she watched Yinna rubbing her wet lips along the length of Shen's flaccid penis.

"Please, Shen," Talla whispered. "Wake up."

What had she done to him?

She felt the faint tickle of his cool breath running along her flesh. It felt so tenuous, that frail link to life. She tried to hold in her mind the image of the vibrant, skittish Shen that she remembered from that evening. He had been so frenetic, so unstable. It was hard to believe that this grey, motionless boy could be the same person.

Yinna leaned forward, possibly for a better angle, possibly to talk to Talla.

"What's your name?" she asked in a whisper.

"Talla," she whispered back.

"If we can get him erect," Yinna told her, "then we have a good chance."

A chance? A chance at life? Was that all Shen had? A 'chance'?

"Anything yet?"

Yinna grimaced and shook her head.

"Have you done this before?" Talla thought to ask.

She shook her head again.

"I know what to do, though," she said, never stopping in the slow stroking of genitals on genitals.

"What should I do?"

Yinna was sweating pretty hard now, her short black hair falling slightly over her face. Talla imagined that the vaginal juices of the Second must be quite powerful. It was nothing anyone had ever taught her.

"They never mentioned anyone helping me," she said. "I don't know. What did he like?"

Talla tried to remember. Shen had liked when she'd sucked on him. What man didn't? She looked down between Shen and Yinna's bodies, watching her wet lips part around his penis. Obviously, application of her mouth wasn't part of the plan today.

He'd liked to spank her. Talla shivered. That might have been how she'd broken him in the first place. No use going back to that. It might drive him so deeply in to this state he was in that he might never come out.

What else could she do?

Breasts, she thought. I have breasts. And they're bare. He can't see them, but ...

Were there rules here? They were trying to save a life, weren't they? Well then, if she broke a rule, then they could stop her.

So, while Yinna did the work she could do best, Talla gently lifted Shen's sagging arm, taking his hand and pushing it in to her breast, curving his fingers to push in to her flesh.

"Do you feel that Shen?" she whispered, hoping that he could somehow hear her. "It's me, Talla. It's time for you to wake up."

He had cupped her breasts like this, once, when she'd been on top of him. It had been a moment when her chest had been sore. It had felt almost as if he'd answered a mental plea for help, something she'd sent over the mesh. Talla had thought it an illusion of coincidence at the time, but it occurred to her that -- given the sensation of snapping she'd felt when she'd forced him to spank her -- it might be the case that he really had reached up to support her breasts because she'd asked for it.

"I need your help, Shen," she whispered, trying to make it so even Yinna couldn't hear her. "Help hold them up for me."

A twitch.

He'd twitched.

It was so faint she could have mistaken it for a heartbeat, his or hers, but she was sure that his fingers had tightened. Had to be.

Yinna inhaled suddenly, causing Talla to look up at her.

Her eyes were starting to blur.

"I can feel him," she said.

They were starting to mesh. Talla realized that she'd never actually seen two people mesh. She'd had her own, with girls and boys, but she had no idea what it looked like from the outside. She looked down where their bodies met. Nothing there yet from Shen. Whatever Yinna was feeling, it wasn't physical. Not yet.

"Close," Yinna murmured to no one in particular.

"That's good, Shen," Talla whispered. "But I need more help."

A coolness spread across her chest, a sharper intake of breath.

"You've got to squeeze," she urged.

This time, the movement of his hand was unmistakeable.

"That's it," she encouraged. "Squeeze. For me."

"He's getting hard," Yinna said.

Talla looked up to see the other woman's eyes were closed as she focused on her task. Shen, meanwhile, was starting to grow between her lips.

"Careful," Talla warned, adding, "Yinay ador."

Yinna opened her eyes, briefly, to acknowledge this advice. Talla's assumption was that penetration was necessary to make this work -- and Shen did have that issue of his ...

"Good boy," she told Shen. He still couldn't support his own hand against her breast, but at least his fingers were, consciously or not, groping. "That's just what I need you to do."

Talla knew now what she had done to Shen. She'd damaged him, broken something inside him. She'd forced him to do something, to strike her, when he hadn't wanted to do it. And she hadn't done it verbally, or through some physical way. She'd done it in his head. She'd forced her will over top of his.

After that, he'd gone to sleep -- or passed out, depending on how charitable one felt in the description. And he hadn't woken up.

So, if her commands were what put him to sleep, was it her commands that would awaken him?

"Wake up, Shen," Talla said, firm as she could and still keep to a whisper. "It's me, Talla, and I'm telling you to wake up."

Nothing. Not a squeeze, twitch or breath of air.

"It's close," Yinna said. "But he's not here yet."

Commanding Shen was what had broken him. She'd taken away his will to survive. It struck her that giving further orders could make it worse.

"It's up to you, Shen," she whispered to boy cradled to her breast. "Do you want to live? Yinna is here to Serve you, the instant you're ready. You just have to wake up."

"Wake up for me, boy," Yinna begged.

A thin bead of sweat had run down the side of her face; a single drop had fallen from the line of her jaw down to her chest. Her situation seemed almost as dire and desperate as poor Shen's. This was what it took to save his life, though, and Yinna accepted it.

"That's right, Shen," Talla whispered. "Live. Live with us. Come to us. We're waiting."

A shock wave of dizziness flashed over Talla, stunning her for a moment.

"He's almost here," Yinna called out, louder than she had been so far.

Talla clutched Shen's head to her breast as a second wave struck her. How fortunate that she was kneeling! Whatever it was not only unbalanced her but flashed her eyes in to temporary blindness.

"That's it," she told him, desperately hoping that all of this was a good sign. "Live."

She looked down between Shen and Yinna's bodies. Shen was firmly erect now.

"Wha-?"

His eyes fluttered open.

"Now," Talla said. "Take him while you can."

Yinna nodded, sliding her body forward so his erection disappeared beneath the thin fuzz of hair covering her genitals. There was a twitch of her hips as she got the angle right, and then she slid -

...

What in nine hells?

Talla was spinning. The floor didn't seem to be stable. Was there an earthquake? People were shouting -- but not really shouting -- just a lot of panic.

She felt nauseated. All she could do was tense up her muscles and hope like hell that some part of her body was holding on to something so that she wouldn't fall to her death. It seemed like a long way down from wherever she was.

And the yelling. People were so happy and angry and confused somewhere and they were loud. Her ears ached, but she couldn't cover them because she couldn't let for fear of falling. Hands were prying at her, trying to force her to release her grip. They were trying to throw her off; throw her to her death. She was going to fall!

She fought those hands, clinging for dear life, but they were stronger, picking at her fingers. She didn't have the strength to -

...

Something had snapped.

Two women in physician's smocks were pulling her backwards on her butt across the floor. In front of her, Yinna was riding Shen, looking down at him with the most contented look Talla had ever seen on someone's face. Shen, who now seemed quite awake, watched his saviour in unspoken but exhausted delight.

"Lie down, now, girl," one of the physicians said.

She pushed Talla on to her back on the floor and lowered her head to Talla's chest to listen to her heart.

"You're alright," she pronounced. "Just sit up slowly."

Talla did so, glad that her nausea had passed.

"What was that?" she asked.

The second physician, who was watching the happy couple with relief, turned her head just slightly to say, "A mesh is no place for three. Your help was appreciated, but any further participation could only interfere."

"Best you get dressed and be on your way," the first one said, handing Talla her bundle of clothing.

When Talla looked over at the Tia, she found that the Second had already refastened her skirt and was donning her smock. She paid Talla no attention at all. It was probably best, Talla figured, to get out while she could. It seemed that Shen would be fine, if she was to guess based on the general mood of the doctors.

She slipped her clothes back on as quickly as she could, nodded in the general direction of the doctors, and darted out the doorway.

-----------===================-------------

"You recognize that you erred in your diagnosis?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"And you'll recognize Catatonia the next time you see it?"

"Yes, Mistress. I'd never seen it before."

Tia shook her head.

"Sad, really," she told her subordinate. "Every doctor should have to serve at one of the frontier Temples at some point, just so she knows."

There was no response to this. The junior physician was glad that talk was straying away from censuring or, worse, punishment.

"He'd clearly been Served," the Second said. "That girl wasn't lying."

"The evidence I saw agrees with that assessment," the junior doctor confirmed.

Tia let out a sigh.

"At least we saved him," Tia said. "Despite the delay."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Make a note to credit Yinna for her work," Tia said. "As well as ... what was that Abundance girl's name?"

"I don't know," the other said. "I could check."

Tia shrugged, the exhaustion of the event overwhelming her.

"Don't bother," she said. "It's not likely that her assistance mattered."

A nod this time. Her junior was happy enough to have succeeded in saving the boy's life after her dreadful mistake. She saw no sense in stirring that pot.



Talla's Temple Ch. 21



Talla was looking forward to some point in her life when things would become normal. It couldn't be far away, could it? The pain in her chest had disappeared. Neither her oversized breasts nor the Strength upgrade from the previous night were causing her any discomfort. So she was healthy. That had to be a good chunk of normal, didn't it?

She probably wouldn't be doing any more Priming. Whatever Alli'anya might have said about her Mistresses considering her and Tina innocent of pilferage, she doubted she'd be back in that privileged position any time soon.

Add to that Shen's healing. She had damaged him and was pretty sure that what she had done to him was not something that any other girl could have done. That much she had to acknowledge, even if only to herself. Would they punish her, if she told them what she'd done? What would they think of her? She would have to tell them that she'd done something to his mind – overridden his will. 

And they would ask her, then, what was it that you made him do?

What could she tell them?

"I was forcing him to punish me," she would say, "because I thought I deserved it."

Would they punish her more? And would being punished make it right?

Or was it sufficient that she would never, ever do anything like that to anyone again?

So maybe she could just try to be normal.

Yeah.

Normal.

She was just an Initiate with unusually large breasts. She was going to take care of children during the day. She was going to go out five nights a week, have sex with randomly chosen young men and in doing so bring the peace of the Goddess to those men, delivering social order and containment directly through her vagina.

Just like everybody else.

Who was she trying to fool?

She could tell herself that she was the same as the women she passed in the alleyways and courts of Gern, but deep down she knew she was lying.

There was still a hook, buried in her chest. It pulled at her; pulled her toward a farm not so far away. Out there, somewhere, a particular young man was labouring under the sun. He was sweating. He was tense and anxious for reasons she couldn't quite grasp. He was exhausted.

And in spite of everything she knew, in spite of every warning she'd been given concerning the hazards of monogamy, the unorthodoxy of the violation on which her heart was set, she knew that the moment they had a chance, they would run to each other.

There was nothing she could do about it, and no amount of fear or false desire for normalcy could overcome it.

-----------===================-------------

"This is what we've been doing?" Maksa asked blankly – she was still in shock.

Her new Mistress, the Sorceress of Pussy, nodded slowly.

"For over three centuries?" Maksa added.

It wasn't necessary to tell Maksa the entire truth, was it?

"Across every Temple," the Sorceress pointed out.

"Only those of Pussy are ever inducted in to this?"

"Sometimes it is necessary to tell those of Sweetness, Lips and, rarely, a few of Endowment," Pussy said. "They can be sworn to secrecy by the Goddess."

"But never Form."

"But never Form," the Sorceress confirmed. "They would never have it. We can't imagine the consequences. We only induct those whom we have already determined are likely to have a very strong belief in the wisdom of the project. No woman of Form would ever – well – the secret would be out in a day."

Maksa nodded.

Form was all about rules and justice. You couldn't have rules and justice without equality of opportunity. Even now, the idea of using the magic of Goddesses to breed some kind of super women made her heart want to rebel. If such women were being created, what chance did others have by comparison? What would happen if the women of the Temple thought, even for a moment, that they did not have an equal chance at promotion?

That was fundamental to their existence. It was one of the axioms they taught to children. It was supposed to be ability that mattered. Maksa had never understood why that lesson was jammed down their throats so violently. Now she knew the alternative. Now she knew what the Temple had been preaching against with that lesson. But here was Pussy, secretly ignoring it just a little bit.

Maksa understood the necessity. Her new Mistress had explained "The Difficulty" as she called it. Form wouldn't believe it. Not in nine centuries or nine millennia. Not until it was too late. Form would want a meritocracy and let the gods and the principle of fairness decide.

As it was, the women of Form wanted to end the use of parental identification to differentiate women of the same name. They had already successfully pushed to start using creche names. The next step was obvious: stop telling people who their parents were. It would be the grand goal of the ages, the end of nepotism. There could be no genealogical favouritism where parentage was anonymous. Only those of Pussy, with their charts, would know.

Form would have those charts destroyed. Ancient argument, that one. Pussy would toss up the rather frightening danger of inbreeding. But Form had an answer to that, too. If the rules of sexual interaction were followed, it was only necessary to keep pregnancies far enough apart, wasn't it?

One by one, the cloaks in which the conspirators of Pussy had wrapped themselves were being stripped away. Soon they would be entirely unclothed and they could either end their project and dress like everyone else or walk down the streets naked and let everyone see every inch of bare flesh.

Maksa shivered.

But until that day, there was work to be done. There were well born men to be matched with women of high rank. There was – greatest shock among all other surprises – the Goddess's pregnancy to be managed. There were children, progeny of this process, to be shuffled off to other cities -

Gods, Maksa thought. To think she'd been planning to travel to Beshenna. What a waste of time that would have been! 

Zhina, she thought derisively and rolled her eyes.

Someday she might meet Zhina. But the actual daughter of Mih'lan would be a curiosity, and that was all, because there was no sense in which she was a sister – half or otherwise – of Talla.

-----------===================-------------

"That's the fastest I've seen anyone learn," Zhair'lo heard someone mutter.

It made him proud. A compliment accidentally overheard always seemed more meaningful.

As it was, he was proud of himself anyway. He was quite good on horseback by now. He had found, as Harzen called it, his "seat".

He even thought he could ride as well as any of the farm hands – not that he'd ever seen any of them ride. They would exercise the horses, letting them run on a track around the farm. Occasionally he would see, in the distance, an unidentifiable rider, but that was the exception.

"Alright, boy," Harzen exclaimed while watching him. "Lead them once around the track and back in to the stable. Keep it to a trot."

Harzen had been letting him lead the stable of horses around the track, making sure they stayed in shape, ever since he'd managed to bring Sunrise back in one piece from his first trip.

"Aye, Master Harzen," he replied crisply and turned the horse about.

He trotted the horse past his boss, who leaned back quite casually against a section of the corral's fence.

"The tits on him," Kurran said to Harzen after Zhair'lo had passed out of earshot. "Fit to be a messenger and not even two weeks."

"Yeah," Harzen answered softly. "That's all the time they gave me anyway."

"Really?"

Harzen frowned at the departing steeds as Kurran came to lean against the same section of fence, but from the outside.

"He's a Seal Breaker, you know," Harzen told Kurran.

"I figgered," Kurran replied, "what with him coming and going every other night."

Harzen wiped sweat off his brow and heaved a weary sigh. Kurran had known Harzen for years and had never once seen the man like this.

"They're sending us another one."

"Another Seal Breaker?"

Harzen nodded.

"Another kid. Same routine."

"Horseback training?"

"Peculiar thing is," Harzen remarked, "the new one will be here a whole month instead of two weeks."

"Two weeks ain't enough?"

"Was enough for Zhair'lo," Harzen grunted. "Not for the new guy. Can't say how they knew Zhair'lo'd be so quick."

No point saying who 'they' was. There was only one 'they'.

"Some got skills," Kurran replied doubtfully.

Harzen shook his head.

"Doesn't wash," Harzen said. "You know it was his birthday the day before he came here?"

"So he said."

"Think about that."

"Rather not," Kurran replied uncomfortably. "Thinking's not my thing, y'see."

"Think anyway," Harzen ordered.

Kurran thought about it. What did Zhair'lo's birthday matter? A boy's eighteenth birthday meant he was an adult in the eyes of the Temple. The cook starting serving him adult food, someone put a blue ribbon in his hair and off he went.

"Thought it was a bit mean," Kurran said, "sending him out here so far from those little girlies in their long skirts."

"Uh-huh," Harzen confirmed.

"So what?"

"Why do they send us these kids?" Harzen asked, beginning to show a mild frustration with Kurran's stubborn ignorance.

"For horseback training."

"Because?"

"Because Seal Breakers need training."

"So they sent us Zhair'lo, on his birthday, because he needed the training of a Seal Breaker."

Kurran's brain halted and, quite contrary to the sweat dotting his brow, he felt a chill of ice shooting through his veins

"I don't wanna think about this," he protested in complete honesty.

How could they know? How could they possibly know that Zhair'lo was a Seal Breaker before he had his blue ribbon? Before he'd been touched by a woman or even shown an interest?

Harzen heard the catch in his friend's throat, knew it for the sound of dawning comprehension.

"Exactly," the Master of the Farm muttered. "Exactly."

"I ain't got no need to meddle with the Temple," Kurran remarked defensively.

"Me neither," Harzen said darkly. "But there it is."

-----------===================-------------

Shen woke slowly, trying to pull some sense from the dreams he'd been having.

He'd been sleeping. A lot.

He remembered Talla. Remembered her very well right up to a point. He could recall putting his bare palm on her cheek, asking permission for that somewhat scandalous act that some of his previous night time visitors enjoyed. She had acquiesced – encouraged him even.

She'd wanted him to strike her with greater force. He hadn't understood why, but he'd done it. But it hadn't been enough. She had demanded more.

That was where his memory went blurry. The mesh had blinded him with its intensity. There had been an uncontrollable burst of ecstasy washing over and through him and finally rushing past him and pushing him to the side.

He'd sat there, at the side, devoid of all desire. A vast, sleepy greyness had encompassed him. He hadn't cared about anything. He couldn't even say how long he'd been there.

Then he'd heard Talla's voice calling to him. She had been calling him back, needing his help, pulling him back inside himself. He'd been needed again and so he'd found strength again. He'd found his will and, eventually, his body.

When he had returned to consciousness, a girl had been straddling him; Serving him ever so gently. When that had ended, he'd gone back to sleep, but it was such a different sleep.

There had been dreams, for one thing, instead of empty greyness.

There had also been people waking him up occasionally to give him water and sweet fruit juices.

This waking was different in that there was sunlight and white curtains. He felt rested, even a bit energetic. He sat up and, having done so too quickly, was hit by a wave of dizziness.

"Easy, now," a woman called to him in a rush of footsteps.

She was by his side immediately, supporting his back.

"No need to be rushing things," she remarked, her voice both casual and reassuringly laden with wisdom. "Just end up throwing up everything we managed to get in to you."

He finally succeeded in getting his eyes open and tried to take stock of his surroundings. The woman that braced him appeared to be a physician of some kind. There were white curtains on either side of his bed but none in front. The arrangement let him see across the aisle to a row of beds opposite, all set with linens in white, just like his bed, but unoccupied.

Hospital, he concluded, and imagined two long rows of beds facing each other.

"What happened to me?" he asked, still a bit dizzy.

"What do you remember?"

He took a deep breath, remembering that Talla had told him to do that.

He was speaking to a doctor and he'd been taught from a very young age to speak to doctors without shame, no matter the subject.

"Sex," he said. "Then it went all grey for a long time. Next thing I was on a bench, having sex with someone else."

"Nothing in between?"

"Just grey. Really boring and grey."

The woman nodded, not providing any more information.

"How do you feel now?"

"Good," he said. "'til I sat up."

"Drink," she said, handing him a cup.

He drank. It was a deliciously sweet fruit juice, possibly the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. They must have done something special to it to get it like that. He took the whole thing down in one shot.

"You're definitely improving," she stated, "but we're going to watch you for the rest of the day. You wouldn't be able to work yet anyway."

"I'm inside the Temple?"

"Yes," she replied. "Now lie back a moment and try to relax. I need to check your pulse."He obeyed and waited patiently while the woman held his wrist.

"Tell me," she said, conversationally, "do you remember the girl you had sex with last night?"

"Yes."

"What do you remember?"

"Um, slim?" he said. "Brown hair."

"Do you remember how the sex was?"

Odd question.

"She was – y'know – really tight," he said, trying to remember that he was talking to a doctor. "She could make her pussy do funny things."

The doctor nodded.

"And the night before. Do you remember that girl?"

"Yeah," Shen said with a smile, his eyes blurring over. "Big breasts. So big I think they were hurting her."

Concern passed over his features. There was something important there, but he couldn't think what it was.

"You seem strong enough," the physician said with a nod. "Just remember that you're recovering. Try to relax as much as you can."

With that, she nodded and stood up. She stepped past the edge of his curtain and turned to disappear from his sight.

Shen couldn't put a finger on how he felt. The juice he drank was sweeter than anything he'd ever drunk. The sunlight shining in to the room was the most brilliant he had ever seen. Even the air he drew in to his lungs was like some magical elixir, energizing his body with every breath.

He was tired, though, too. Tired and suffused with energy all at once. He felt confused and messed up and absolutely perfect.

Rest? He would rest and relax, as he was told. He was comfortable with that instruction. The world was such a precious and delightful place today that he could just lie back and soak in it, as if today were a bath in a cool river.

So he was smiling contentedly when the girl came in. She was cute. Short, dark hair, trimmed to the edges of her jaw; twinkling blue eyes full of eagerness. All that and a nice pair of breasts covered by crossing white sashes.

"Hi," she greeted him. "I'm Orna."

He propped himself up on his elbows.

"Shen," he replied curiously.

She pulled on the curtain at the foot of his bed, cutting them off from the rest of the ward.

"How are you feeling?"

"Um – good?"

He started to sit up.

"No, no," she said hastily, stepping forward with a taste of concern in her eyes. "You're to rest."

"Oka-a-a-ay," he replied.

"You are good to go, though, right?"

"I – uh – what?"

She didn't seem interested in explaining – at least not with words. Instead, she slid her sashes off her shoulders.

Shen, still propped up on his elbows, found himself staring at the girl's rather significant breasts. A nice handful each, tipped with the cutest pair of dark nipples. She must be a bit older than he was. Ignoring Talla, he'd rarely seen a girl with breasts this large.

"Let's see what we've got to work with," she said before she pulled his bed sheet down.

He was naked. That wasn't a surprise, this being a hospital and all. Orna looked at his member and smiled.

"Good," she said with relief. "Sometimes I work a whole shift here and don't get even one chance all day long. It's so annoying."

"Yeah, I guess it would be," he was forced to agree.

She leaned over his crotch, viewing him from so close her eyes probably couldn't focus. He wasn't completely erect yet and couldn't be expected to be. All she'd done was bare her breasts and stare at him. She gently blew air under his testicles, tickling at the short hairs there. He shivered in response and let out a soft, "Ah."

She looked up at him coyly and licked her lips. Then she began planting soft kisses on his shaft, working her way up to the tip in the tiniest of steps. When she got there, he found himself completely hard.

"Lie back," she instructed him gently. "You're supposed to rest."

That had to be the most bizarre thing anyone had ever told him to do. He obeyed, though, and robbed himself of the sight of her ministrations. If rest was so important, why would they send someone to -

"Oh!" he breathed.

She had taken about half of his penis into her mouth in one swift, wet gulp.

"Be careful," he whispered, a historical panic striking him.

She pulled off his penis.

"Why?" she asked in confusion.

"I – uh -"

Yes, why? The moment she'd start sucking on him, he'd remembered the numerous failures he'd had with women, from the Priming Room all the way to his night with Talla.

But he didn't feel that now. He breathed deeply, taking in the air that still seemed so delicious and perfect. He was aroused, but not beyond his control. He felt steady, rock solid in more ways than one.

"I used to have this problem," he muttered while looking at the ceiling in wonder. He felt no shame in admitting it to her. "But I guess it's okay now."

He felt her shrug and then her mouth was on him again, forcing him in and out.

Rock hard, heavily aroused, exulting in the best oral treatment he'd ever received, and he wasn't fighting a desperate urge to ejaculate. It was the best sex he'd ever had, and they hadn't even meshed yet.

She slid her mouth off him. He craned his head to look down his body, wondering what she would do next. She was on her hands and knees, crouched over his lower body, and she lowered her chest so that his wet and erect manhood was between her delicately hung breasts. Gently and ever so focused on her task, she started swaying from side to side, swinging her soft orbs of flesh so they bounced against the sides of his penis.

He let his head fall back, overwhelmed by visual stimulation. She continued to tease him with her cleavage, shifting back and forth, letting her cool flesh bump against the hot, saliva coated rod that now stood well away from his body.

"That should do it," she said.

She crawled up the bed until her breasts were over his face. She let one nipple down in to his mouth and rubbed her bare and smooth slit against his erection.

Shen felt a tingle that he took for the mesh approaching. He knew that feeling, that strange humming in his mind and up his spine. But it had never been so strong. It had never vibrated his body so violently. He felt her hips shift, felt her body aligning itself to his.

A moment passed and wetness began enveloping him.

The mesh!

So perfect. So much more steady and vibrant and alive than it had ever been. It was as if he'd been blind his entire life and could see sunlight for the first time.




Talla's Temple Ch. 21



"Madra Zen," he cursed under his breath.

"Yes," she murmured back through dreamy, slitted eyes. "She sent me just for you."

A godsend, was she? He did feel reborn the moment she had impaled herself on him.

He could feel her emotions, too, not just her flesh, and so he sensed the real frustration underlying her joking veneer. She'd been holding back a desperate arousal, begging for any man, any erection, to penetrate her. She was so relieved that Shen had woken up and that she'd been chosen to – to what? Have sex with him, yes, but something else too. Shen couldn't say. Was this what the mesh was like for people other than him?

"Don't thrust," she said, ever so caring and soft. "Let me do the work. You rest."

Drowning in ecstasy, he accepted this order and enjoyed the grinding of her cheeks against his pelvis.

"Don't hold back, okay? Just come when you need to. Don't fight it."

He nodded, awestruck by her generosity.

"So hard," she complimented him. "So good."

Her eyes were closed as she too took enjoyment from his flesh.

"There you go," she said gently. "Getting even bigger – let it go, now. Don't fight it. Gimme, gimme."

He could control himself now, if he wanted to, but he didn't. This exercise had something to do with his health. He was sure of that, now. Both women had insisted that he avoid exerting himself. So he thought it prudent to do so and relaxed his body. 

"Oh!" she cried, feeling the oncoming orgasm. "Yes!"

So calm and perfect. He released the first surge from his loins, twitching a load of semen down the long, moist tunnel of his – what? - healer?. Again and again, he let stream after stream in to her body. She squeezed him as tightly as she could, revelling in the orgasm that the mesh shared between them.

"Oh, thank you," she breathed, even though he was still twitching inside her. "Thank you – I needed that. Oh ..."

She wiped sweat from her forehead before she opened her eyes. He watched her breasts heaving in delighted exhaustion.

"That was perfect," she said, gently separating their bodies.

"It was," Shen agreed, feeling a contentment that bubbled up from deep inside him. "It's never been that good."

Orna smiled.

"I think you'll get one more this evening," she said. "Just to make sure."

"You'll be back?"

"No," she said. "I just get one a day, if that. Somebody else will be here for you. Now get some sleep."

Shen nodded, already drifting off before she even put her top back on. She'd never bothered to remove her skirt. He wanted to ask, "Make sure of what?" but the question was lost alongside his consciousness.

-----------===================-------------

The heat bell rang.

A grappling hook running straight through Zhair'lo's chest yanked at his body. He fought it, just for a moment, just long enough to make sure no one was near him.

Then he ran. Going out the back way, through the stables, he wouldn't run in to any of the farm hands who would all be heading in to the farmhouse. He barely had time to think about the possibility of evoking suspicion from his fellows. That long, invisible rope was pulling him with more power than he had sense or strength to resist. He knew who was at the other end of that rope. He could feel her fighting it, too. She had something to attend to, something she was handling with all possible haste.

That was fine. He might get there first, that was all.

The exit at the back of the stable led to tall reeds and a wooden fence made of three horizontal pieces of wood. The highest was too high for most horses to jump, but a boy had no problem slipping between two of them and dashing off in to the forest.

He was out of breath and sweating, but at least he was in the shade now. The closer he got to the river, the thicker and greener the forest got. What Fortune that he knew his way. Fortunate, too, that the forest floor was cleaner than the brambles and thorned bushes that grew in the farthest section of the farm.

Here he could run and at the greatest speed his legs could carry; could let his instincts take over and run the direction he wanted at the speed he wanted. Nothing would keep him from Talla.

A hundred metres later, he hit the edge of the river and turned to run along its banks. There were places where the trees touched overhead, filtering the sunlight in to dappled green blotches that reflected off the water.

A peaceful scene. Serene, even, if it weren't for Zhair'lo, bolting along the sand and dirt fast enough to take flight.

His heart jumped. Talla was loose. She'd gotten away from whatever it was that was holding her. She was outside. He could feel the sun beating down on her skin as if it were his own.

There! She was running now, pulled by the same force that pulled so relentlessly at Zhair'lo. Forward, forward, endlessly forward.

He had to slow to a jog. His lungs were killing him. At least the air was cooler now, but he simply couldn't sprint the whole way, no matter how strong his desire.

Keep running, she urged him.

So he tried to pick up the pace. There wasn't much further for him to run. He could see the spot where the banks of the river thinned out ahead. It would soon be impossible to travel on foot. He veered in to the river, running in ankle deep water, listening to the splash of the water with each footfall.

His side ached. He'd already run, what, at least a kilometre? He had at least half that left before he'd be completely out of riverbank.

But Talla was calling. He had to keep going. Every moment spent walking instead of running was a moment he couldn't spend with her.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo was beat. She could read that, even from this distance. Even as she felt his suffering, she exhorted him to greater effort. She wouldn't allow anything to come between them now. If she wasn't flagging, why should he? At least he was in the shade, not running through wide, blindingly bright alleys open to the sun.

She cleared the last significant buildings of the town of Gern and began her run down the path out to Harzen's farm. There was some foliage now, just a few bushes as harbingers of the forest ahead. She would feel safer once she had some cover for her conspicuous behaviour; running out in the open when everyone should be taking a snooze. Who was there to see her anyway? It was a faint concern, not even enough to make her check over her shoulder.

She could feel Zhair'lo now, soaking in the water. His heart was calmer now that he was swimming. He would reach this secret meeting place of his well ahead of her. That was fine. It would give him a moment to rest.

Talla was in the thick of the forest now, following a path just wide enough for a horse cart.

She could hear music now, and it wasn't coming from her ears. Flashes were coming in to her head, too. Images taken from his eyes, brought to her mind through the mesh. He was drawing himself out of the water. She could see him brushing brown strands of hair out of his eyes. It made it hard to run, watching as he ran his hands down his arms and legs to sweep water off his skin.

Oh, to touch that skin! She could feel it and she couldn't. The mesh wasn't the same as being there. Not as this distance.

Zhair'lo was breathing hard. His anticipation came through to her like a magnet, pulling at her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs when she most needed to breathe. Form girls wouldn't have this problem. They could run and run and run ...

-----------===================-------------

Nine obstinate gods, that girl could run.

Marissa was from Form, but not from Tight. She had five upgrades in Iron, three in Facial and one in Tight. She had more upgrades coming, given her rank, but there were Protocols about how long she had to wait. That single Tight upgrade didn't make her a great runner, but it ought to have been enough to keep up with this idiotic Initiate that was dashing off in to the forest ahead of her.

Her quarry was clearly not of Form. Besides the fact that she was violating a rule no Form girl would dare violate, there was also the matter of her breasts which, even at the distance – the increasing distance, gods damn it - separating the two of them, were obviously large. She was of Abundance.

She was of Abundance and she was outrunning Marissa. It was embarrassing. Marissa was now at the point where she only hoped that she could catch up. She was starting to feel faint. 

Five Iron upgrades and my lungs can't keep up? she thought. What are you doing out here, running in such haste, little girl? What drives your legs?

What are you doing that you shouldn't do, when you know you should be sleeping?

It's my job to find out, little girl. You're not going anywhere.

-----------===================-------------

Talla didn't need the blue ribbon that Zhair'lo had left behind as a trail marker. She already knew which way to go because she knew exactly where he was. She yanked it viciously from the tree branch on which he'd hung it and turned to run through a break in the bushes. Zhair'lo was inside her head now, guiding her footsteps along the cleanest, quickest path through the brush. He'd gone this way once already. He knew where to step. She let him come in to her mind and take control of her body.

Guide me, she told him and he did. What a strange sense of freedom, to let her body go like that, casually handed over to another. She hadn't even known that it was possible.

Branches scratched and scraped at her skin. None of that mattered, not with the pain already in her lungs and her calves. Zhair'lo understood their mutual need. He knew well enough to take her as quickly through this mess as he could and never mind the discomfort.

Gods, the song was getting loud.

She spied a fence. Something clicked in her head when she saw the broken gate. That was where she had to go. She took control of her body again. It wasn't clear if that was something she did, or if he relinquished the hold he'd had. Either way, she reached the decrepit obstacle and leapt over it.

There he was, leaning against the well, in the shade of the single tree that had grown in the clearing. He was breathing a bit heavily and leaning over a bit to alleviate the cramp in his side. She dislodged herself from the last thorny branch that had caught on her little white skirt and ran at him.

The song. The song was getting so loud now. So many harmonies, intertwined in to a deafening symphony. And something was crackling in the air. This meeting had been too long denied. The thing that was about to happen was supposed to have happened days ago. Only now that mesh was getting its chance, and it would not be stopped.

He reached out his hands, stepping away from the well, preparing for the violent collision that was inevitable result of the speed of her approach.

Fingers were the first things to touch and a thing like a lightning bolt ran between the two bodies. Both bodies trembled, dizzied by the release of whatever had been pent up between them. Clumsily, half numb from the shock, they ran in to each other and fell to the ground. Cold, refreshed skin touched upon flesh that was hot and sweaty from running.

They kissed, oblivious to whatever it was that had passed between them. They were meshed already, dancing behind each other's eyes, guiding each other's bodies. She rolled over on top of him. His hands found the ties at her back, yanking them loose and setting her breasts free.

Oh, yes, man of mine, she thought, and lowered one of her prodigious mounds to his mouth.

He set upon it hungrily, sucking up her nipple and a good portion of her breast like a starving beast.

Abundance you are, Tina had said. And Abundance you shall be.

What a rush. She pushed her chest down on him, forcing more of her body in to his mouth. She felt his teeth greedily sinking in to her flesh.

Yes, bite. I am Abundance. Use it. Use me.

But time. They only had so much time and there was something burning between her legs.

She yanked her breast away, tearing it from teeth that had left deep red marks around her areola. Their eyes met. They exchanged glares.

Her hands tugged at the laces of his shorts, trying to loosen them enough that she could strip him down. She became frustrated when she couldn't get them undone quickly and instead pulled savagely at the fabric. She felt a report of pain over the mesh as it raked over the skin of his hips. It was of no more importance than the bloody traces left by the thorns and branches that had torn at her arms and legs on the way in.

He was naked, at least in all the important places, but his dip in the cold water had left him somewhat – unprepared – for her.

She didn't hesitate. She was already down there anyway. Her mouth enveloped his manhood as quickly and deeply as she could manage, letting the moist warmth of her mouth enervate that all important organ. It gave her a moment, while she slurped at him, to slide off her underwear.

I don't care about the skirt, he told her through the mesh.

His penis, which had only shown a tinge of arousal, was now erect. That quickly – just that little effort from her tongue – and she had overcome the chill of the river.

Gimme, gimme, gimme, he called to her, his voice echoing inside her head.

She came to him, pinning his shoulders to the grass and lining up their genitals.

"Ready?" she said, the first audible word that passed between them.

"And waiting," he replied.

Through the mesh came the mutual agony under which they had suffered in waiting for this moment. She saw all the women he had bedded, and how they hadn't measured up. He saw those she had Served. No combination had ever come close to matching what they had now, and they weren't even having sex yet.

A last, piercing gaze passed between them.

She slid her body downwards, letting the saliva coated head of his shaft plough open her lips. Talla shivered.

Oh, this is going to go in easy, isn't it?

She tilted her hips, spreading her thighs as widely as she could, letting him slip inside her to the hilt.

It wasn't like meshing normally was, for they were already joined. There was no onslaught of emotion, no adjustment of arousal, no invasion of foreign emotions.

She felt as if they were stepping out in to a moving river. She found herself being swept away from the safety of the banks alongside him. Exhilarated, they sped away together, letting the current move them faster and faster. Their minds were merging. Memories from one were spreading to the other. It was too much. There were things she didn't want him to see ... 

The pace of the river's flow began to induce panic. Too fast! They were going to drown and the stubborn integrity of the mesh gave them no escape.

The water drew them down, pulling them under, filling their lungs.

Completely submersed, their panic subsided almost at once. There was nothing to fear after all. Calmness pervaded them.

For a brief moment, they saw each other with only their eyes.

There was Talla, her narrow face framed by short, sweat tacked brown hair. She was hovering over him, silhouetting herself against the gently fluttering green leaves of the tree that shaded them from the cruelty of the day's heat. 

There was Zhair'lo, pinned down on the grass, laid out next to the old broken well, his wet mop of hair arrayed wildly about him. His beige working shirt., counterpart to the shorts that she had torn from his body, was loose about his chest.

Every moment of their lung burning sprints had been worth this. Every bloody scratch on her shoulder. Every bruise he had from climbing out of the river. It had all been worth it to experience this, this moment of blissful mutual awareness.

They were content then, having rushed so hard to get to this point, to rest a spell at the point of maximum penetration. He was buried inside her as far as he could go. This was as close as they could ever be to each other, wasn't it?

In that moment of patient consideration, the memories came.

It was hers that came first. An image of a boy laid out on a low bed, dangerously unhealthy. Talla had cradled his head to her chest and begged him to come back to life. Why? Feelings now. Talla was being penetrated, from behind, her rear ringing with pain from being struck. She had done something, something terrible, to the one who was spanking her. She had done something to his mind to make him do it harder. 

Why? Why did you want him to hurt you?

Guilt. 

Where was the guilt from?

She tried not to think about it, tried to drag their train of thought away. But trying not to think about a thing was only a different way of thinking about it.

Unavoidably, the whole scene was played out for him. M'lis and Adria, tied to a wooden table, mercilessly whipped. She didn't want Zhair'lo to see it, but there it was, laid out for him as vividly as she remembered, every moment coloured with her sense of horror and guilt.

He didn't recoil. He didn't even seem surprised. And so she echoed his own question back to him? Why not?

She saw a girl, lying in sunlit grass with her skirt up over her stomach, hairless genitals bare to Zhair'lo's eyes. Talla recognized Atani and flashed a picture to Zhair'lo, of Atani, almost last among those who had done their Initiations in Talla's group. In Talla's image, Atani's face had lines of semen dripping down -

Then she saw Atani, from Zhair'lo's angle, kneeling at his feet. Why, he wondered in the memory, is she sucking my cock? Another woman was there, striking Atani's ass with a switch of some kind. And then Atani was finishing Zhair'lo off, jerking his semen out on to her breasts.

For some reason, the whole thing was overlaid with a vague sense that Zhair'lo had been insulted.

At least she understood his lack of surprise about what had happened to M'lis and Adria.

"That's what you do to each other?" he asked.

She nodded as concepts came from her mind to his: peace; order; control; orthodoxy.

The punishments were necessary, Zhair'lo understood suddenly, to maintain their society.

Because a man who sees a woman naked has to be Served immediately?

Yes.

Why?

Talla didn't have an answer. Men weren't to be left aroused. It hadn't been explained very well to her beyond that point. It made things unstable – or something.

A gentle breeze blew over their bodies. It cooled his skin, raising goosebumps. It evaporated a bit of sweat from her body and both were suddenly reminded of their physical selves and the urgency of their situation.

Talla shifted her weight, pushing the head of his shaft against one side of her cervix. That brought them both back to the present in a hurry.

"Not much time," she muttered to him.

"How much do we need?" he asked.

She slowly rotated her hips, working him around inside until he swelled against the opposite side of her tunnel.

What should she do with him next?

A wealth of images came to him. Of Nadine, running her nipples along his shaft, of Alli'anya and other women, sourcing upgrades with his penis buried between their breasts. Oh, she would love to do that for him – to bury his shaft in her chest, clutching it to her bosom and bringing them both such pleasure.

If only she had known before! They had already achieved penetration. The mesh was sealed. It could not be broken now except by orgasm.

But he did like her breasts, even if only to watch them moving ... swaying over him as she rocked back and forth. She removed her hands from his shoulders and stretched her arms wide to let him see her more clearly.

Reach for them, she told him, and he did, cupping both from underneath and rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. She moaned as they sprouted under his attention. She was so glad, now, that she'd complained about the pain in her chest and had herself fixed up. What a waste it would have been to meet Zhair'lo and still be in that state!




Talla's Temple Ch. 21



He squeezed her then, both hands at once, distorting her flesh and making her breasts bulge toward him, stretching her areola and making her nipples ever more erect.

That was pleasure, his grip so tight that it bordered on painful. 

I am of Abundance. Never forget from where my power comes. She felt it building up inside her, under his grip. It was a kind of energy that she gathered from every part of her body and pulled in to the masses that hung so delicately from her chest. The earth fed her energy from under her knees. The sky and the forest fed strength in to her arms.

Spirals worked the energy in to the centre of her torso, growing more and more powerful as the pressure from his hands increased.

She rocked her hips back and forth, stroking the rock hard pole that pushed at her insides.

So deep. So large. It swelled inside her.

His fingers tightened on her breasts. There would be marks; this she knew, even aside from the ones his teeth had left. But it was perfect. It was exactly what they had both wanted.

They'd had sex just once, out on the grass at the farm. They'd wanted to do it again, but time had run out. Time, in fact, had run out on them over and over again.

But not here. Not this time.

Here they were, finally. She was firmly impaled upon his manhood. He clutched her breasts as a drowning man would cling to anything within his reach. And in their minds, they were more deeply immersed in each other than any other mesh could provide. Memories and ideas flowed back and forth, gelling together in to a homogeneous, single experience of life. There was too much information passing between them for either to process. What had gone before was a mere taste of memory. This, then, was drowning.

Perfect.

So perfect and overwhelming, in fact, that it could not last.

Their eyes met, dizzyingly, as they could look through one another's eyes and see their own faces looking back. Then, even in the daylight, Zhair'lo could see that Talla's skin was beginning to glow. An iridescent blue light first started to shine from between his fingers where they dug in to her breasts. The glow spread from her chest up to her neck and down the tense muscles of her belly.

Talla saw it, first through his eyes, then through her own. She looked down at her body so she could watch it spread past her belly and down under her skirt. Her eyes twisted to look at her arms, seeing the glow spread to her outstretched fingertips. She felt more than saw it coming up her neck to irradiate her face and her hair.

What was happening to her?

Zhair'lo felt the worry build inside her, but there was nothing they could do.

Her body, glowing with its unnatural light, twitched, her vaginal muscles gripping the base of his penis and twisting it.

He convulsed with something like pain. She was pulling too hard, squeezing him too tightly. He couldn't take much of that.

She looked down at him, fire in her eyes, and issued a demand. It wasn't like with Shen. She would never do that again. But she could insist, and he could comply. It's what they'd both been killing themselves to achieve for the last week. Orgasms had been had many other ways, by the hands and bodies of many other people. But none could match what they shared here.

Give to me!

Take it!

And he released himself, letting the flood of semen fire up in to her body. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for what happened next. The last time they'd had sex, in the waning moonlight, he'd seen a faint blue glow around her body. This time, she was lit up like the moon itself. And when the first surge of their mutual orgasm shook their bodies, a band of blue light exploded from her body, spreading rapidly across the small clearing in which they lay.

Surprise echoed back and forth across the mental link. What had that been?

A second ejaculation fired in to her belly. It was accompanied by another explosion of blue light, shining out from her breasts. He yanked his hands away in panic – they had been too hot to touch! Those prodigious orbs hung now, in blinding glory, as orgasm continued to shake their bodies.

Pulse after pulse ran up his erection in to her body, filling her with fluid, each one eliciting a blast of sparks from her body. They both felt the heat in her chest, rising to unbearable levels. They needed to get away from each other! But the mesh wouldn't allow it. The orgasm, burning with pain and yet ecstatic with lust, continued unabated.

Talla clutched her breasts, hoping to cool them with her hands, but could touch them for no more than a few moments.

When Zhair'lo was emptied, the mesh finally released them.

"Hot," Talla cried, in full panic. This was so much like her upgrade now that she could barely think.

"Water," Zhair'lo told her. They might not be fully meshed any longer, but he could still feel her pain echoing down the link. He remembered what the women had done the night of Talla's first upgrade. Cold water. Cold water would have to do it.

She stood up as quickly as she could, cruelly yanking his erection from her vagina. That was painful, but insignificant compared to the pain in her chest. Together, they ran the short distance to the river where she jumped in, soaking her chest in to the cold water.

There should have been a hiss or some sizzling sound as water was burned off in to steam.

Talla heaved a sigh of relief as she lay there on her stomach, letting the heat bleed off in to the water that rushed around her.

Zhair'lo plopped down in the water next to her.

"What in the nine hells was that?"

Talla shook her head as she gasped for breath.

"Fucking hells," she muttered.

Zhair'lo had never heard a woman curse that way. Women usually shouted out the names of gods. Only men used crude words like that. No, wait. How did he know how women cursed? They never did it around him. It was Talla who knew that ... and so he knew it by her.

"You've never seen something like that?" he asked her.

"No," she breathed in confirmation, giving him the answer that was already in his head.

"You glowed a bit like that," he told her, "on our first night. And sometimes I see a glow when I do an upgrade."

"But not like this," she said, finishing his thought. "And not during sex. What was this?"

He shrugged.

Not supposed to shrug, Talla thought, numbly.

"It was a strong one," Zhair'lo said. "I've never come that hard before."

"Someone might have felt it," Talla warned.

Zhair'lo knew now that women could feel that final consummation of a mesh. He could remember her strongest memories almost as if they were his own. Specifically, he recalled the night that she'd felt someone else's orgasm on her way out to visit him.

"Can you run?" he asked.

"I think so," she said.

She planted her feet in the water and stood up. The hem of her skirt was just low enough that the current in the river licked at the edge of that wet and clinging fabric. Talla looked down at her breasts. Zhair'lo eyed them too.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Ice cold water drops dotted her flesh. Her nipples were erect from the cold, which was a relief compared to what had gone before. There was no glow. They appeared to be a perfectly normal pair of breasts.

"We can't dawdle," she pressed. "Something that strong ... it could have been felt a long way away."

He nodded unhappily and promptly offered her a hand so they could step back up on to the riverbank. Clothing was retrieved. On went his pants. On went her top. They embraced, kissing again.

"Is it dangerous?" he asked when he pulled away. "If we do it again?"

"I don't know," Talla answered, warily keeping an eye on the forest.

She didn't want to give him up, not now that they had found a way to be together. Was it worth the risk?

"Maybe no one felt it," she said, hopefully.

"But if we mesh again, it might get stronger," he said, sadness gripping his heart.

She nodded in agreement, pursing her lips.

"Then we won't mesh," she said firmly. "Maybe we can't mesh, but we can come here again. I'll suck on you if you want. I don't care. Anything. It doesn't matter."

They kissed again. There was an image in her mind of Shen and that orgasm he'd had in her mouth. If she'd done it for Shen, couldn't she do it for Zhair'lo? And he could do something for her, couldn't he? It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be something.

"Two days," she said. "Don't come tomorrow, but come the first heat bell after that, okay?"

"Two days," he said with a bow of his head.

"And be careful," she said, at last remembering the warning she'd been wanting to give. "They're using you for double upgrades."

He blinked, seeing that harsh, anger-clouded image that consumed so much of Talla's mind. The chocolate skinned Sorceress, her massive breasts tenuously sprawled across her body, her nipples so perfectly wide and erect. And Talla ignored every part of the woman's gorgeous body to focus on those two dark fingers against the white marble altar.

Ren hana: words to haunt Talla's dreams and now Zhair'lo's.

"On purpose," Talla said firmly, punctuating her warning with a tense glare.

"I don't have a choice," he said. "Duty."

Talla nodded in rueful agreement.

"We have to go," she said.

"I know."

A last kiss, bittersweet kiss. Could they ever have sex again? Would it ever be safe, in any sense? Neither knew. They seized each other's bodies in a last desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable before they pushed away.

"Be careful," he told her. She had the more dangerous journey.

"I will," she promised.

She didn't look back, and neither did he, as they ran in opposite directions.

Talla hit the gate at a run and vaulted it over it, ignoring the thorns that scraped at her. She was sure that they'd used up far too much time. She couldn't even think about it now. There wasn't time to consider all the ramifications of what had happened. And what conclusions could she reach anyway? She didn't have any information.

Between thinking, running and panicking, she utterly failed to observe her surroundings as she burst out of the brush and back on to the forest path toward the Temple. If she had taken even the least bit of caution, she would have noticed the woman, in the brown leathers of a Form guard, lying prone in the leaves and yellow grass along the side of the path. As it was, Talla rushed passed the woman without taking any notice.

-----------===================-------------

Marissa regained consciousness very slowly. The first thing she was aware of was the pressure of leaves and grass against her face. She couldn't quite move yet. What had happened? She had been following that troublesome Neophyte, and then what? Dizziness had overcome her. Was she suffering from heat exhaustion? Even passed out, she'd felt wave after wave of nausea overwhelming her.

How embarrassing. Women of Form, and especially those of Iron, had hearts that beat strong and lungs that could keep them running for hours. Here she was, five upgrades to her name, and she'd passed out chasing a Neophyte of Endowment?

Footsteps.

Someone was running, crunching through some chunk of underbrush. Marissa, recognizing the pattern of those steps, wanted to rise but couldn't find the energy. She felt so groggy. She clawed her way up toward consciousness. Those footsteps had to belong to the girl she'd been chasing. Sheer force of will overcame the disoriented exhaustion that had overwhelmed her.

First she lifted her head, squinting her eyes against the brightness of the few patches of sky she could see through the trees. There! There was her quarry! Running away – soon to be out of sight.

Palms met dirt. Here was her Discipline. I am of Iron, she reminded herself. Arms, back, abdominal muscles. She called each muscle by name and forced it to act. She was still dizzy and, though her lungs still ached, she pushed her upper body off the ground and got a knee under herself.

Leathers. It was the leathers. Must be. They were making her overheat. But she could no more get rid of them than she could shirk her duty to follow this disobedient whelp that had eluded her thus far. Being ceremonial, the leathers only covered her from her shoulders down to just below her ass cheeks – and that was only when she was standing. On her hands and knees, as she was now, they allowed a cool breeze to pass between her burning thighs and drift under her armour to cool the core of her body. Fortunate that she wore the most minimal thong underwear beneath her uniform.

Get up, she urged herself. Lying here in a ditch so gods-damned ... unbecoming.

One booted foot found earth. She grabbed her spear in her right hand – it had fallen right next to her when she'd collapsed. She jabbed the butt of her weapon in to the ground and pulled her body upright.

Fresh air came in to her lungs. She felt her strength returning. 

A determined and angry look came over her face.

Marissa, Adept of Iron, had a score to settle.

-----------===================-------------

Talla slipped back in to the dormitory through a side entrance. She was out of breath, but not out of time. The children were still napping, which was great, and her colleagues were just waking up and getting back to the nitty gritty details of their work.

"M'lis," Talla acknowledged her superior with a nod.

"Talla," the other answered back, twitching an eyebrow.

Talla hoped that she wasn't obviously out of breath. M'lis eyed her carefully while Talla pretended to be perfectly normal, thank you for asking.

M'lis shrugged.

"The carters will be by with the load of fruit soon," she told Talla. "You can handle the unloading."

Talla nodded.

"No problem."

There was a commotion near the main entrance. Talla strained her eyes to look over the rows of sleeping children in their little cots. A woman in the armour of one of the enforcers from Form was standing just inside the open doorway. Talla couldn't make much out – the woman was silhouetted against the brightness of the sandstone buildings across the way.

Whoever she was, her body language said that she wasn't happy. She stood with her legs spread while her fully extended arm held her spear planted on the floor.

A chill went through Talla. This was no idle visit. This woman clearly had a purpose and was also very obviously tired. It was a rare thing to see a woman of Form panting and leaning on her spear the way this one did. Talla was glad to be at the corner of the building farthest from this woman. She became keenly aware of the fact that, in all of her running around, she had never really checked to see if she was followed. Was it possible?

She gulped. She wished for the children to wake up now, to crowd this invader and hide Talla in their numbers.

Be calm, Talla, a voice came inside her head. It relaxed her, but only a little. Zhair'lo couldn't know what was happening, only that she was afraid of something. He didn't realize what kind of trouble she thought was coming.

An Acolyte of Sweetness, her rank as a Teacher marked by the sheer impracticality of her garb, casually approached the guard and waved her out. The guard must have been low ranking, for she acquiesced immediately and stepped outside. That made Talla feel better. The teachers would never let anything but the most dire emergency disturb the children sleeping in their places on their little cots. Scant protection, but she'd take it.

Talla pretended to be occupied replacing light bed sheets over the toddlers who had kicked them off in their sleep. It let her move around so she could see what was happening at the entrance.

The Acolyte, her flowing, translucent orange scarves hanging off her shoulders and elbows, stood firmly with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side while the guard appeared to be pleading a case with her.

What were they discussing?

The Acolyte's head bobbed side to side. She might have rolled her eyes. Talla couldn't tell at this distance. Finally, there was a reluctant nod and she dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand. Talla had never realized that the authority accorded to a Teacher actually let her treat the guards of Form in such a manner. Regardless, she was relieved to see the armoured woman depart.

She let a breath out and carefully tucked another child in before moving on. Whatever the guard had wanted – or seen – there was nothing to do about it now.



Talla's Temple Ch. 22



It wasn't going to be easy to follow his clandestine meeting with Talla by doing an upgrade this evening. He'd been unnerved feeling her anxiety and panic, but all he could do at the time was to try calming her down. Fortunately her panic had abated and since then he'd tried to focus on his work.

Heading into town, passing by the unseen path that led to their secret meeting place, he began to hear her whispering inside his head.

"Coming to the Temple?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Gonna come on somebody?"

He could almost see the way she was giggling at him. The link between them was clear for that brief moment before fading away to its normal background level. Zhair'lo kept walking, knowing that the closer they came to each other, the stronger it would get.

She continued murmuring inside his head, probing his memories with questions. It was voluntary this time, unlike the random dump of information they had received from each other while meshed. Talla mostly wanted to know about Natta, Nadine and Anzha. What had they done for him? What could she do for him? What did he do?

It occupied his mind the whole trip in. They couldn't -- quite -- talk to each other. But she could ask him for details and he could provide them.

After all of that, he stood once again outside Endowment's small gate, waiting for a guard to come fetch him.

"Zhai!" someone called out.

He turned to the voice.

"Zo'kar," he said. "Howzit goin'?"

"Fuckin' great," the other boy replied. "Nothing but upgrades and pussy. Well, some roof repair. You?"

"Horses," Zhair'lo shrugged. "Pretty much the same otherwise."

"Horses?" Zo'kar asked. "You too?"

"What?"

"They're sending me out to some farm for a month," Zo'kar explained with a frown. "Piss off, really. Farther from the long skirts at night."

"You're doing upgrades every other night and Virgins in between," Zhair'lo pointed out. "When have you got time for long skirts?"

"Never know," Zo'kar said. "I can fit one in after an upgrade if the timing's right."

That brought a smirk from Zhair'lo.

"You two," a female voice commanded their attention. "Scrolls?"

They twitched to face the woman at the gate.

"Mistress," they chimed as they handed over their Summonses.

The guard, Zhair'lo recalled from Talla's imported memories, was from the Division of Form. Out of respect for the heat, she was wearing the lightest version of armour available: a brown, leather outfit that protected only her chest, belly and just enough of her legs to cover her crotch. Zhair'lo didn't suppose it was likely that anyone was going to attack her, but it seemed scant protection if someone actually did.

After examining the scrolls, the guard waved them in.

"Follow me," she ordered sternly.

-----------===================-------------

The Queen of Endowment looked down possessively at the altars. She had seen thousands of upgrades in her time, from Virgins to Goddesses. Men had sprayed their magically charged seed upon her own body exactly ninety three times. And yet, somehow, the act never became boring. There would always be that element of raw sexuality accompanying the beat of the drums and serenity of the ceremony; a man desperate to reach climax and a woman desperate to take him there.

She let a faint smile cross her face, her blue eyes twinkling in the darkness where no one could see her.

Here was Zhair'lo, the magnificent young man who had earned so much fame recently. She knew him well by now. This was, what, his fifth time back? They were using him as often as they could to clear their backlog of Virgins before they had to release him to the other Divisions.

For now, young man, she thought, you are mine and I shall clasp you to my ample bosom.

Too bad, really, that he was so young. At eighteen, he was just past half her age, which put him nowhere near old enough to find himself stumbling in to her bed. There were rules, after all, and the Temple wasn't gentle with those who tampered with the young.

There he was, thrusting that ever so powerful tool of his through the breasts of one of Abundance's Officers, a woman named Pril. The Queen didn't imagine that it was a coincidence that Pril, who was in charge of the scheduling of upgrades, had managed to schedule herself in to this particular position relative to the young Breaker of Seals. Perhaps the Queen could have herself written in to the role as well. It was the only way for a woman over the age of twenty to catch a piece of the lad.

Pril's hand, up inside Zhair'lo's shirt, gently pushed him away. There was a whispered exchange and a nod from the woman. The boy, with a wealth of experience well beyond his age, knew what was what. He shifted his weight off her body and withdrew his manhood from the ample cleavage in which it had been ensconced so he could began his short walk across the chamber.

There was no comparison between source and destination. Pril had gorgeous breasts. Even now, as she propped herself up on her elbows and lay two of her fingers against the side of her altar, those heavy, glistening orbs drifted only slightly to the sides of her chest and hung there like sweet, juicy melons. Torchlight, flickering as it always did, could do wonderful things with wet, Synergist covered flesh. The Virgin opposite was like every other long skirted girl who came in to this chamber: skinny; pale and thin. And jealous. One must never forget the jealousy. Always looking to her superiors and wishing to emulate them. Always looking for promotion and improvement.

The drum beat shifted once more. The Queen took in a breath. This was the moment for which all the anticipation had built.

A whispered exchange as Zhair'lo mounted her. The kids always thought they were being subtle, but they never were. The chalice was passed and the skinny girl was spreading the thick syrup across her chest. Back it went and soon that giant erection was being stroked.

Endowment pushed her legs together, flexing her thighs so the muscles created inward pressure. Oh, what it would be to have that boy in her bed! She could almost feel his power, even from her throne so many steps above him. She lamented that she wasn't scheduled to Serve tonight. She would have to see to herself regardless ... though it would be so much later in the evening.

She watched him intently, wanting to savour the moment, to record indelibly in her memory the sight of his first ejaculation for a future fantasy.

Ah, look at him swell! The things I could show you, boy. The things I could do to that penis of yours if I could take it inside me; things those little girls could never do.

The image of a man holding back to the last second, that tension that ran through his face, the tightening of every muscle in his body, was so familiar to the Queen. Here it comes ...

Ah!

A string of semen spat out of him on to the pale flesh of the waiting girl, drawing a thick line up her cleavage.

Enjoy it, girl! It's your first time. Youth is so wasted on the young like you with your daintiness.

The second volley of semen was quite unexpectedly weaker. The Queen had seen Zhair'lo in action already and knew him to be better than that. 

It would be enough, probably, to break the Seal of the Virgin whose chest was now being massaged with the gooey mix of come and Synergist. That wasn't the concern. 

Why would a boy his age -- and well known strength -- have such a difficulty? Dehydration from the heat? Overuse? She made a mental note even as she watched the Virgin milk the last drops from his manhood. It wouldn't do to abuse his talents and wear him out. What good could be, then?

-----------===================-------------

Not enough, was all that Talla could think.

Alvin's penis was as deep inside her as it could go. She'd shove him on the bed with what she figured was more ferocity than he was generally used to. He hadn't objected, though, and he'd been ready.

There was nothing wrong with his erection, his appearance, his attitude or anything else about him. He was about as long as any she'd had in her short sexual career. She felt as wide open as she'd even been, impaled there on the end of his manhood.

She pushed down on her hips, inviting him to thrust up into her. He read, at least, her need for force and obligingly jammed himself up in to her. That was almost enough. She shifted her hips around, trying to get more depth out of him. He started rotating, too, stretching her insides as his rod poked at various angles.

Internally, she sighed. Only a few hours ago, it was Zhair'lo who had so dramatically penetrated her. It was his erection and the mesh between the two of them that had ruined her for this encounter. Nothing could compare to what he had done to her. She had to resign herself to that and take from Alvin -- and do for Alvin -- what she could. That was her job, after all, to Serve the men and, through them, the Temple.

So she would do that duty. She would stroke that cock, receive however much semen in to her belly that it could offer, and do it again and again until the man she'd been assigned was done with her body and she was done with his. In that time, she would take the pleasure offered by that crude mesh. Maybe the second time she could try it bent over, like she'd done with Shen. That might at least get a little more depth of penetration.

But it wouldn't be the same.

Not ever.

-----------===================-------------

Maksa had picked out her nicest skirt for the occasion. The rule for yellow skirts, in day to day work terms, was that they had to be made out of either dried grass or layered strips of yellow cloth. In practice even the women who liked the traditional grass look would have a layer of cloth underneath. But even then the fabric underneath had to be strips, not solid. And if you wanted to keep your genitals out of contact with whatever you were sitting on, you had to wear underwear, not depend on some skirt hidden beneath the strips of grass.

There were few times when a woman of the yellow ranks could violate such rules. The most common occasion was Service. So long as she did nothing that insinuated a higher rank, the rules on skirt lengths and fashions were waived in favour of personal preference and enjoyment. If Form sold it at a bazaar, one could assume it was legal to wear.

Another occasion, rarer but quite a bit more critical, was that of the Rite of Upgrade.

It was for that purpose that Maksa had worn her very finest clothing this evening. She stood before her Queen and her new Mistress, the Sorceress of Pussy, in a sparkling yellow skirt that tightly hugged her thighs. The 'waistband' of said skirt would have barely covered her pubic hair, if she'd had any left to cover. They had taken that from her when she'd accepted the transfer. It felt odd, being smooth down there after so many years of having the simple curled hairs that had adorned her genitals.

No matter. It would all come back -- and much more nicely. It would take her three of these upgrades to get from where she was all the way to the five upgrades that an Adept should have.

So here she stood, in the centre of Sweetness' Augmentation Chamber, waiting for her new Mistress to step down from her throne. What a gorgeous outfit she was wearing. The skirt was layer after transparent layer of some fine fabric that an Adept could never afford. Pieces of smooth jade were stitched into the outermost layer of fabric, matching with the character of her her top. A Sorceress of Sweetness would never have the ridiculous breasts they sported in Endowment, but this one still had enough to considerably fill out her emerald encrusted top. Abdominal muscles like steel and never, ever forget the long, glistening black hair that spilled off her shoulders in curls.

"Welcome," the woman in green said when she came close enough.

"Thank you," Maksa whispered back, wishing she could afford even a circlet that could match the silver crown about her superior's head.

The Sorceress of Pussy unhitched her layered, ankle length skirt and handed it to an attendant. Maksa couldn't help but glance down. Such, soft, rich, luxurious hair. She could only wish, at this point, to achieve such heights.

Once her Mistress was out of the way, it was Maksa's turn to bare herself to those assembled. The difference, of course, was that she would have to do it facing everyone.

She stripped off her skirt, exposing her genitals to the cool night air. The attendant respectfully folded her skirt and laid in on top of the fabulous green one.

Well, here I am, she thought, bald as any long skirted Virgin.

She took small solace in the fact that her chest was covered with a loose and shimmering yellow affair she'd bought to celebrate her promotion to Keeper. They weren't letting her wear her Adept's sash yet, which was fine. The one Pussy had given her was so plain it would have looked out of place with this outfit.

One last bow to the thrones before she climbed up on the receiving altar.

Torches were snuffed. Drums began beating. The call went out for the Conduit. Everything went according to the Protocol, level and perfect.

In came the man in question. It wasn't anyone she recognized, but she'd had sex with something like a thousand different men in her years of serving the Temple. It's not like anyone could expect her to remember any of them.

Seizing, in the Disciplines of Sweetness, was known to be a much more delicate matter than in any other place in the Temple. Maksa, for herself, had only done one upgrade outside of this Chamber, and that was in Point -- itself quite a delicate matter.

In Sweetness, however, all three Disciplines were connected to very closely situated parts of the body. A small slip up on the part of the Source or the Conduit and the whole thing would have to be called off. The engineers who had designed the altars had been cognizant of this and had done their best to make it easy for everyone involved.

The Sorceress of Pussy, therefore, sat at the apex of a 'v' with her feet firmly planted on its arms. Spread thusly, she was fully available for the man who stood between her legs. The altar itself was fixed at a height that made angles and points of contact easily attainable for the very tallest man that could be expected to enter such a chamber. For any other man there were interchangeable wooden blocks upon which he could stand to get his erection correctly positioned. It was the job of the Officer handling the upgrades to make sure that a reasonably correct block was in place for each Conduit.

And now, the transfer.

From her position behind the tall semi-naked man, Maksa watched as the Sorceress twisted her body a bit to the right and bowed out her left leg. This let the Conduit get easier access to the fine, soft hair covering her genitals without coming in to contact with her lips.

Careful as it was, it was nothing compared to trying to Seize for Within. Trying to penetrate a woman, even partially, without touching any part of her exterior genitals would never be an easy task.

So she watched as the man's muscled thighs gently rocked his body back and forth, presumably rubbing his erection against the genitals of the Sorceress between whose legs he stood. She watched his body waver, Hunting for a Discipline. And then -- click -- you could almost hear it. The muscles twitched, the body froze for a moment and when movement returned she could tell that the dizziness had passed in favour of a new, confident steadiness. He had Seized.

Pussy had seen it, obviously. She clamped her legs around his back and pulled him in. It was more efficient to surround a man with her genitals this way and embed his erection in her soft pubic hair.

The two of them went thrusting away at each other for quite a while. Was the Sorceress having trouble pumping her magic in to the man? That shouldn't be a problem at this level -- no, they were done.

Her legs unlocked around his back and released him. He gave a polite bow to her before he turned to face Maksa, his Synergist covered erection poking through the folds of the kilt he wore. Behind him, her legs still splayed wide and her matted hair dripping with clear syrup, the Sorceress looked over his shoulder.

I'd probably keep my legs spread too, Maksa thought. Wait until I can wipe myself off.

Maksa smiled at the man. He was handsome enough with his dark hair and deep-set eyes. He was muscular, like most men, and had a nice smile which was unsurprising for a man in his situation - hard as a rock and with a clear target so unashamedly displayed. Maksa's altar was a mirror of the Sorceress's and her feet were already mounted on the arms of the 'v', as welcoming as she could possibly be.

The Conduit stepped up on the block on the floor and accepted the chalice from her hands. She dipped her fingers in and smothered her triangle with the refreshing coolness of the syrup inside it. It had been a while since she'd felt the magical fluid insinuating itself between her lips. A bit of nostalgia touched her heart as she took the chalice back and began stroking the engorged rod before her.

"Good and ready?" she asked.

He leaned over a bit and made a quiet, grunting sound. "Oh, yeah," he whispered.

Over his head, Maksa caught the eye of the Sorceress of Pussy, still sitting on her altar in magnificent, spread-eagled beauty. One of the Sorceress's hands slid down to her syrupy genitals. Once there, she extended two fingers over her matted pubic hair.

Maksa didn't miss a beat in her penis-stroking rhythm, even as she acknowledged this gift. It would speed things along, wouldn't it? Given her situation, she had all the in-Division upgrades she'd be allowed once she got her Pussy up to the fifth level. The upgrades she already had in Lips and Within would fill up her allotment for an Adept. After that, the only upgrades she could get would be the out-Division ones. She had her eye, quite literally, on a Facial upgrade and maybe one from Endowment if she could manage it. But none of that could happen until she got her Pussy upgrades done and since the rule was to separate upgrades by a month, Maksa could have three months of waiting. If this worked; if she could jump directly from two to four as the Sorceress's fingers implied, it would cut a month off the time before somebody would be ejaculating on her face or breasts.

Tits, the ambitious woman thought darkly. I want bigger tits.

First things first, and the first thing was definitely the penis in her hand. The block they put on the second altar was always a bit higher than the first. It let the receiver of the magic get a better grip on things and made sure that the ejaculation was at a good angle.

"Whenever you're ready," she whispered.

"Now's good," he grunted back.

"Come, then," she commanded, as sultry as she could manage.

She sped up her jerking as he swelled to the point of bursting in her hand. Looking down, she saw that the enlarged head of his penis was turning that particular shade of purple that indicated the imminent arrival of semen.

His hips locked as his body tensed at the point of no return. Maksa made sure he was pointed at the highest point in the cleft where her lips separated. Not a drop of him would go to waste if she could help it. Her Sorceress had given her a special gift by attempting to pump two upgrades in to this man and it would be a kind of sacrilege to squander such generosity.

"Ah!" he exhaled and semen shot forth on to her shorn and syrup laden genitals.

Her left hand continued stroking while her right massaged his juice in to her body. She didn't care where it went, knowing as every woman did that a Seized man carried only the Discipline to which he had Seized. She could freely rub the liquid mixture over her bare skin, between her lips and even towards her vagina. Its warming glow could be felt everywhere it went; even tingling a little inside her. Tingling a lot, actually.




Talla's Temple Ch. 22



She had never been the recipient of a double upgrade before. As her Conduit fired several more loads in to the mix, she noted that there was a lot more heat than she had expected. Nothing that would make her uncomfortable, but still ...

The man in her hand relaxed and leaned back a bit, clearly spent and sweating just a little from the brow under his dark hair. She nodded confirmation to him to let him know that he had done his part. This brought a quirky smile to his lips, suggesting that he had been quite certain it would work.

The drums stilled their beating and attendants arrived with wet towels for all three of them. The advantage, she realized, of having hairless genitals was definitely in the hygiene. Wiping herself down was much, much faster when she didn't have to scrub through any hair. Lifting her legs up in the air, she carefully wiped down to her vagina and back between her cheeks. It was as the towel passed over her vagina, perhaps pushing a bit of semen and Synergist inside her tunnel, that she felt another tingle.

Madra Zen, she thought. Not here!

With a deep and stifling breath, she got off her altar, bowed respectfully to her superiors and headed immediately to the exit that led to the physician's room, snatching her skirt from an attendant on the way out. Part of her hoped that no one was offended by her sudden departure, but another part didn't care, for the urge was unbearable.

The physician was still seeing to the previous upgrade recipient which gave Maksa time to grab a curtained off bed and a moment of privacy.

A moment was all that she needed.

Two fingers plunged urgently past her lips, forcing themselves through the semen and syrup that she'd washed up inside her vagina. So wet and so hot from the upgrade! Her right hand worked her artificially moistened tunnel while the left jabbed at her clitoris. She didn't know how much time she had before the physician's attention would be turned her way.

But, as she had predicted, she didn't need much time. Her mouth became a rictus of near pain as her thighs clamped around both her hands. She had to bite both of her lips to stop herself from crying out. All that escaped from her orgasm was a muffled groan as her body shook itself repeatedly on the fragile bed. Six, maybe seven times she felt the muscles of her vagina closing down on her fingers before her climax relented and she was able to relax.

What in the nine hells had that been? Did that happen to a lot of women after double upgrades?

Maybe.

At least no one appeared to have noticed.

She picked her skirt off the floor where she had unknowingly dropped it and fastened it back to her waist. Still breathing heavily, she waited for the physician.

"That's the last of the agenda, Highness."

The Queen of Endowment nodded.

"Pril?"

"Highness?"

"Were you able to see our young hero ejaculate this evening?"

"Zhair'lo?

"Yes."

Pril pursed her lips as she tried to recall the upgrade she'd sourced. With the rites complete for the evening, she had cleaned herself up but was still wearing the embroidered orange clothing she'd put on for the occasion.

"No," she replied. "I was blocked by his body."

The Queen paused a moment.

"I am concerned for the ... lack of volume."

"I see, Highness."

"I suggest that we give him a day off. I assume his bed has been full every night?"

Pril checked her notes while the rest of the crowd of high rankers looked worried.

"Do you think he's damaged?" the Sorceress of Abundance asked.

"Doubtful," Greta put in. "If he could handle a quadruple without dying, I can't see how this schedule could be an issue."

"It shouldn't be a problem, Highness," Pril concluded. "We're down to four Sealed Virgins. If the Virgin -- um, Yua is her name - he did tonight wants him, she can have him tomorrow. Then I'll give him a day to recharge before the next upgrade."

Endowment nodded.

"That's it, then," she waved them away. "I'll be down for a drink in a bit."

It was a dismissal, casual as could be, but no less of a command than any other order she gave.

Most of the women bowed. Both Pril and the Sorceress of Abundance, as the only two wearing skirts, curtsied high. Not even women of this high a rank would dare to wear anything underneath their skirts and both made sure to demonstrate obedience to the Queen's rules while in her domain.

"A moment, Shanata."

Shanata, impassive and proper as ever, turned back to face her Queen and waited attentively.

"Highness?"

The Queen pursed her lips as though she wasn't sure if she wanted to proceed with whatever it was she had held Shanata back for. It wasn't customary to have anyone below the rank of Officer at a meeting like this. An Acolyte I, two levels further down, was quite an exception.

Shanata, however, was an exception in herself. Her mental fortitude, intelligence and discipline made her well positioned to fly up the ranks. She would be Acolyte II quite soon, if she could avoid annoying too many people with her demeanour.

Endowment made up her mind. She reached for something on the desk behind her and came up with a sealed, black scroll cylinder tied with a green ribbon. This item she handed to Shanata.

"A mission for you," she told her junior. "The Sorceress of Tight is concerned that one of our young charges is involved in a -"

She choked for a moment.

"A monogamous relationship."

Shanata's eyebrows rose. Didn't they spend hour after hour teaching the young girls the dangers of monogamy? The Temple put a lot of effort in to making sure that women were rotated around -- a lot -- before they ever got back to the same men. The whole point was to have so many partners that one became immune to the temptation toward such focused devotion. A woman's duty was to the Temple and the entire city, not to one particular man. The punishment for such behaviour ... there was a knot in her stomach.

"Does Tight identify the woman?" Shanata asked, nodding to the scroll.

If so, it was a simple matter. She would be rounded up by some leathered enforcer from Form and dealt with. What did that have to do with Shanata?

"No," the Queen said. 

The Queen leant back on her desk and took a glance at the ceiling. All but one of the panels of her skirt parted to the outsides of her thighs, leaving scant protection for her crotch. The split in the fabric went high enough that Shanata knew that even the Queen obeyed her own rules about underwear.

Her superior let out a breath.

"You can read the details," Endowment nodded to the scroll. "For some reason I don't understand, the guard was unable to properly track the young criminal in question. So we only know what building our stray white skirt went in to -- and there are numerous possibilities within that building even with the knowledge that criminal had considerable breasts."

"And my role in this?"

"You are to deliver a warning," the Queen told her. "Warn these foolish girls en masse. We don't know which one it was and it might not be easy to find out."

"We could interrog-"

"It might not be easy to find out," the Queen interrupted gently. "As it stands, after all, we have only one incident."

Shanata waited a beat as she contemplated the Queen's interruption. Comprehension dawned in her eyes.

"That is insufficient for a charge of monogamy," Shanata noted.

She knew the law. Never forget that. There was a punishment for unsanctioned meetings, but it wasn't anything like being found guilty of that repetitive devotion the Temple called monogamy.

"Yes," the Queen said, "and your goal is to ensure it goes no further."

"I see, Highness."

"I'm glad you do. You are dismissed."

Shanata, without a skirt, could only bow with the perfect form and poise for which she was known, letting her heavy breasts threaten to fall from their containment, and then turning on her heel and leaving.

-----------===================-------------

Marissa, like most women of Form, was trained for a variety of martial tasks. For the purpose of adventures outside the city, she had learned the skills necessary to hunt and kill both people and wild beasts -- though she'd yet to have occasion to attack the former. Within the city, her purpose was to patrol and maintain order. For the most part, the presence of people like her was enough to keep the Protocols and Dictates at the forefront of the collective female mind. In other cases, like the little girl who had recently eluded her, apprehension and judgement were the goals.

Two other guards had been drafted in to her service. With her recent promotion to Adept she had the right to make certain requisitions from the lower ranks. For her current level of authority, that amounted to a pair of Keepers clad in the same leathers she wore while on patrol. Thigh to shoulder was more than enough in this heat, and certainly more than was needed for the quarry she intended to track.

It was very much like the training hunts she'd done outside the city. Tracking a wild animal through the forest, her instructor had explained, was quite similar to tracking a human. Learn one task and you will easily grasp the other.

This was a hunt, and Marissa was taking point. As the ground still bore marks from where she had fallen the day before, she had found it easy to position herself at almost the exact place where she had passed out, taking only a few steps back in to the forest to keep her cover. She maintained an excellent view of the path in either direction.

Her two accomplices performed two different services -- one which they understood, the other they did not. Primarily, she had told them, they were there to provide coverage for a larger portion of the path. Marissa could not be certain where it was that her quarry had been headed, so she spread her subordinates in either direction on the path, spacing them out so there weren't any gaps in their coverage. Once they were able to find the girl, they would follow her and find out what she was up to.

The assumption on which all three guards operated was that she was meeting with some young man. Bad enough if it happened once. A second meeting would spell out a curse word above all other such words.

If that were the case - and what else could it be? - then they would want to identify the male as well. So Marissa had brought her comrades along not just for the purpose of helping her find the one who had escaped her the day before, but also to find the other -- the man she was meeting.

Marissa's lips formed a thin line and then a frown.

That was what she had told them and it was, in all honesty, their major purpose. Anyone in Marissa's situation, with the same training she'd had, would have set things up pretty much the same way.

There was another reason for their presence, a reason she had not stated out loud to either of them. Something had made her fall unconscious the day before. Perhaps it was unwise to run so hard just a few days after an upgrade. The Adept told herself that that must have been the case and that it certainly couldn't happen again. But if it did happen -- if another personal failure befell her - at least she had some backup. That was the responsible thing to do.

-----------===================-------------

Talla's shift was winding down. The procedure at this point in the day was to hand everything off to the girls coming in for the afternoon. Mostly that meant letting them know which of the little ones were puking today and which were behaving hysterically. Talla had recently decided that they were quite adorable creatures, full of curiosity and bright eyed innocence. They could be quite endearing if you knew how to handle the temper tantrums.

The heat bell had come and gone. It had stirred her heart like a bubbling cauldron and she'd felt Zhair'lo twitch to it as well. But they'd both held themselves in check. Wait a day. That's what she had told Zhair'lo and, despite the fact that she could have overruled herself with a single mental message, she went with caution.

She vividly recalled that guard, panting as guards never panted, arguing with the teacher.

Wait a day. Be careful.

"Endowment!" a voice called out.

Heads twisted. Bodies turned. Talla saw Shanata standing at the main entrance.

Her dark hair was pulled back as tightly as it could be, the ponytail going straight out behind her head to keep it off her back -- a wise precaution in this heat. She stood with her hands on her hips and her feet firmly planted just a bit farther apart than the width of her shoulders. It was Shanata the Teacher once more, the pose telling the story even if the tone of her voice hadn't.

"Assemble!"

All of the women of Endowment in the building were wearing white. That meant that none thought twice about disobeying an Acolyte. Nearly a dozen followers of Abundance, Point and Strength promptly trotted over to the entrance and formed two rows with the higher ranking ones to the front. Talla, perforce, was in the back row. She strained her neck to see her superior properly. The only thing odd about her was the leather satchel over her shoulder. That was the sort of thing a messenger from Form might wear and it looked out of place where the beige strapped crossed her tanned cleavage.

Once they settled in, Shanata spoke again, her words crisply formal.

"Who is senior here?"

M'lis stepped forward.

"I am, Mistress."

"I require the attention of those that were present yesterday morning," Shanata told M'lis. "Are all of those here today?"

Talla inhaled sharply and stifled a gasp. Yesterday. Why did it matter who was here yesterday? What else could it be but -

"Yes, Mistress," M'lis replied. It was her job to keep track of such matters. "There are none sick, nor have any been reassigned."

"Good," Shanata said. "Those from the afternoon may return to their duties. The rest of you ... on me."

She turned on her heel and marched out. They could do naught but follow as she set a casual, jogging pace. It was nothing like the mad run Talla had taken the day before to the little well under the tree.

"You're coming closer," a voice whispered a warning inside her head.

"You're not supposed to yet," it added.

"I know," she acknowledged, relaying her fear. "Something's going on."

"What?"

There was a nascent panic in his query.

"I don't know," she mentally shrugged at him.

That worried him. The link faded at that point, whether due to their fear or her exhaustion she couldn't say. All she could feel from him was his concern.

Shanata was continuing to lead them south. It was very close to the route she had taken through the city the day before. Was that where they were going? Had she and Zhair'lo been discovered?

But no one followed me, she complained to the universe. I'm sure of it.

Shanata was going to take the whole lot of them to the well and she was going to call Talla out and punish her. That's what was going to happen. What would they do to her? If the punishment for flashing your breasts at somebody was three across the ass, what was it for what she and Zhair'lo had done?

She nervously gritted her teeth. Her only saving grace was that the sweat from her brow and the squinting she had to do in the face of the bright sunlight combined to cover up the guilty look on her face.

Shanata swerved suddenly. Where were they going? Talla was surprised but relieved. The path to Zhair'lo's farm started somewhere off to her right. The little clearing with the well was in a direction that she would characterize as vaguely southwest. Shanata was leading them to the left, somewhere just west of due south. Where to? Talla's heart began to beat much more steadily when they came to a stone bridge that crossed the river. If they were crossing the river, they definitely weren't going to either Zhair'lo's farm or the little clearing.

The entire group had a chance to catch their collective breaths while they waited for a row of horse drawn carts to cross the bridge in the other direction. Regardless of any cramps any of them might be having, not a single one of the girls leaned over to give some relief to the muscles in her side. They all remembered what had happened the last time they'd gone for a run. Then, as now, a brusque woman in orange was leading them somewhere and not taking questions. The similarity, absent the rain, was eerie.

Talla caught M'lis's eyes, then Adria's. All she got from them was the same bafflement she felt in herself. She shrugged back. This couldn't be about her, then, could it?

The horse carts had cleared the bridge, allowing Shanata to lead them across it and down river toward a lush pasture. They shortly came to a stop when Shanata leaned an elbow on the fence that separated the roadway from feeding grounds.

"I invite you all to observe," she told them with a nod towards the deep, green field.

Shanata was the only one who had complete control of her body. How many Iron and Tight upgrades did the woman have? As the rest of them were panting, they happily took the opportunity to scamper up to the fence and rest against it for support.

What were they supposed to be looking at? There was a long silence in which the girls stared obediently at the slow moving, dumb animals while Shanata stared at the girls expectantly.

"Cows, Mistress?" M'lis asked.

It was a fair question. Who hadn't seen cows before?

"It may occur to you," Shanata intoned, speaking as though she hadn't heard M'lis's query, "that there are a few differences between a person and a beast of the field or a beast of the wild."

"You have all studied history. You are all aware of what it was like before the Temples were built. People actually were beasts. They visited murder and violence and all sorts of cruelty upon each other. When men ruled this land, they took control of the women, fought over them as if they were trinkets or paintings and used them to make children by the dozen."

She nodded again at the field.

"M'lis?"

"Mistress."

"Which ones are the males?"

Stupid question. Who couldn't answer that?

"The ones with the horns, Mistress."

"And how many females are there for each male?"

That required some thought. Talla looked out at the field and noticed the way the animals were clustered around each other. It looked as if each group had one bull roughly in the centre of it with a number of heifers surrounding him.

"About ten or so, Mistress," M'lis answered.

"If we were to remain here long enough," Shanata continued, "we might get a chance a to see two of the bulls fight each other for some of the heifers. Very occasionally, one of them will die in such a fight. Most of the time, however, one yields to the other and loses a few of his possessions."

She let that sink in a moment.

"And so it was with us."

Talla's entire knowledge of pre-Temple history consisted of two lessons and yet this material had already been covered. On account of a total lack of surprise from her colleagues, Talla concluded that it must be the first thing they teach to every woman when she enters the Temple. It was odd to actually see it -- it was a little more vivid to be forced to imagine human women being herded around like these cows -- but it was nothing new.

Shanata looked away from them, steepled her fingers and touched them to her lips.

"They called it monogamy," she said derisively, "and they enforced it upon us. Each man wanted to be sure, you see, that the children he was raising were his own. Each man wanted as many children as he could have from the women he owned. And a man who killed another man would only take the wives he saw fit to take, leaving the rest to starve along with their children."

"Women had no choice. For men, it was a thing called polygamy: many for one. For us, though, it was monogamy: utter submission of a female to a single male."




Talla's Temple Ch. 22



She turned to face them.

"Monogamy is the oppression of women. Monogamy is a tool of subjugation. Devotion to a single male is the enemy of our society."

There was a note in her voice that chilled them all.

"I invite you again to look carefully at the bull," the stern Acolyte continued. "It owns them, as men used to own us. If we slide back to monogamy, men will own us again. That is why we don't tolerate it. That is why you will go through a hundred men or more before going back to the same ones again. Let no man ever think that he owns you or controls you. Let no man ever get greedy or jealous against his peers."

Did Shanata's piercing eyes flick towards Talla? Did she know what Talla had done? Why else were they being given this lesson -- this reminder that should otherwise be unnecessary?

Shanata turned to face the field of beasts once more, saying nothing at all for a while, leaving them to consider ramifications they should have considered long ago.

"The difference between us and these cows," she said, very quietly, "is that we are wise enough to avoid the fate to which they have been consigned -- that of merely breeding and providing milk. It would be foolish indeed to disregard the centuries of wisdom that have brought us to where we are today."

Talla looked at the girls around her. Most of them seemed unconcerned and slightly confused as they tried to understand the purpose of this lecture.

"You are dismissed," Shanata said, finishing in the same quiet voice, "and reminded to consider what you have seen today."

This was greeted with a general shrug, several curtsies and a number of polite mumbles of, "Mistress."

As they turned to leave, Shanata added, casual as could be, "Talla, I have an assignment for you."

"Mistress," she replied with a nod, trying not to shake.

This was, in fact, about her, then, wasn't it? Then why this lesson? Why drag every one out here across the river?

"Come with me."

Without a look back, she followed Shanata towards the nearby farmhouse. The older woman gave her not a clue, in words, facial expression or body language, as to the subject of her "assignment". Talla's brain stalled. What could she do? The only thing that came to her mind was to examine the building to which they were headed. It certainly wasn't nearly as grand as the one where Zhair'lo lived. The stone work was simpler, for one thing, and the building was smaller. A little path led through some long grass to the front door.

"In," Shanata said as she pushed the door open.

Talla meekly obeyed. It was cool, dark and quiet in the small common room. There were no stairs as there was no second floor. The furnishings, from the tables and chairs to the big doors leading to what were probably bedrooms, were all dark oak. The place seemed to be empty, lit only by reflections from the small beams of sunlight slipping in around the blinds that had been pulled over the windows.

"Sit," Shanata directed her to a seat against the far wall where some men had been playing a board game of some kind.

Shanata carefully slid the game to the side and sat on the low table so that her knees nearly touched Talla's. She took a thoughtful breath and opened her mouth to speak. Only a stutter came out and she grimaced before looking Talla in the eye.

Talla hadn't seen Shanata act like this before. It was very much the way Atreya had acted once upon a time, when she'd sat down to apologize to Talla. Shanata stalled by removing her satchel from her over her shoulder and setting it down on the floor beside her.

"You have vexed me for some time, child," she said quite mysteriously while looking at the ground.

Finally, her superior made up her mind and reached around the back of her neck to undo the tie on her top. Talla twitched and frantically looked around the room as Shanata's top came away from her chest to reveal her immense breasts. She had been jealous the first time she'd seen Shanata, when her own chest had been so flat. Even now, with four Abundance upgrades and one in Strength to back them up, she felt juvenile sitting across from such a strong, well developed pair with such nice, sharp nipples springing to attention in the cool air.

"What if someone comes in?" she asked in a panic. Visions of M'lis and Adria danced through her mind. She didn't want any part of that again.

"We're in private, for now. If men come in, then I will have to Serve them, I suppose," she told Talla with a faint taste of amusement in her voice.

"Them? Plural?"

How would Shanata handle more than one man at a time? They'd have to at least take turns, wouldn't they?

"It's not likely any wandering in will be your age," Shanata said with a smirk. "But you can watch."

She nodded expectantly at Talla's chest.

Right. If an Acolyte was topless, an Initiate ought to be naked. Shanata, however, hadn't actually removed her top. The underwire was still in place, tied around her back. All that the older woman had done was let the rest of her top, most importantly the little orange triangles that had covered her breasts, hang down from the underwire.

Talla didn't see any choice. With a last glance around for the men that were most assuredly out working the fields, she untied her top and let her own breasts free. At least with the Strength upgrade she didn't feel them sagging and pulling at her chest painfully. They might be small by comparison to the pair only a few handspans away, but they were a respectable couple of handfuls and she was happy with her body.

The next fork in the road was whether or not she had to get naked or not. Shanata had made her little head nod gesture at Talla's chest and was not making any further gesture at her tiny white skirt. At least this way, they could both whip their tops back on if someone came in.

"Let me be clear," Shanata said. "The sisterhood I offer you today is not like that which Atreya offered you."

Sisterhood? That meant she could keep her bottoms on?

"What she gave you, in public, was an honorary thing," Shanata explained. "What I offer you today, here in private, is sisterhood proper. Should you need my aid, or require counsel, I will be there for you."

Talla gulped and nodded. It wasn't the sort of thing she supposed she could refuse.

Shanata leaned over, her dangling breasts coming to rest where four knees met. She gently touched her lips to one of Talla's nipples and then the other. She sat back and waited.

Not fully understanding what was going on, Talla completely the ritual. Shanata might be one of the most harsh disciplinarians Talla had ever met, but that didn't affect in the least the softness of her seven times upgraded breasts with their wide, smooth areola. Each kiss was a gentle pleasure upon her lips.

Talla was still nervous. They could really put their tops back on now, couldn't they? All things considered? But if Shanata kept her top off, Talla could hardly replace hers. How ridiculous that would be, to be so cowardly next to one so brave.

"This is a moment of honesty," Shanata said. "So we bare ourselves to one another."

No obvious response came to Talla's lips. In all likelihood, nothing was necessary.

"A week ago, you and another Primed an upgrade for which I was the Source," Shanata told her. "That upgrade was, quite accidentally, a double upgrade in Abundance. At the time, I could not believe that I had made such a mistake."

Shanata's eyes darted to the side for a moment, evading Talla's gaze. This was some kind of shame to Shanata?

"A few nights ago, you and the same girl Primed for a Strength upgrade," Shanata explained, her voice heavy with discomfort. "When the upgrade was attempted, the Conduit was found to be blocked. I tested him myself and found him to contain yet another double Abundance upgrade."

"That is why you were -- set upon -- in the manner that you were."

"In my haste ... in my anger ... and in my need to blame my error on someone else, I caused that rather deplorable search," Shanata admitted, lightly hanging her head.

Things were clicking in to place in Talla's mind. That's what the whole thievery accusation had been about? Nine Gods ...

"For that I apologize, and as I know how abhorrent and crude that search was, I know that I can not easily make up for it. But I wish to atone as much as I can."

Shanata reached in to the satchel and pulled out a black scroll.

"Have you ever seen one of these?"

Talla shook her head, saying, "No, Mistress."

"Call me 'Shanata' - or 'sister', if you must -- when we are like this."

"No, sister," Talla replied earnestly. "I've never seen such a scroll."

"Good," Shanata told her tersely. "You should endeavour to avoid them in the future. Scrolls that look like this are called Disciplinary Scrolls and I certainly shouldn't be telling you the details of this one. But, as we are sisters now, and being honest with each other, and I owe you a debt, I will give you this warning."

"Yesterday, a woman of considerable Abundance -- who could not be identified -- was followed by an enforcer from Form."

Talla steadied herself, trying as hard as she could not to flinch. Her legs had turned to lead. Any moment now, Shanata would be asking where she had been -

"It is presumed that this unidentified Disciple of Endowment was meeting with some man. As she was not identified, and there was only the one incident, the punishment would be relatively minor. If such a thing occurred a second time -- and with the same man -- the crime would be classed as Monogamy."

That last word was spoken like a death sentence. It had the thump of a hammer and the crack of a whip when it issued from Shanata's mouth.

"As I said, we have no idea who it was," Shanata explained, looking Talla in the eye quite firmly. "We are likely never to find out, all things considered. But all the same, I was sent here to remind you -- all of you, of course -- of the dangers of monogamy."

Talla nodded solemnly.

Shanata's voice became very, very soft, so that she was almost a different person.

"Can I trust, sister, that my warning is clear?"

"Yes, Mistr -- yes, sister."

Shanata inhaled deeply and looked over Talla's head, forcefully clearing away the tension that had enfolded them.

"Good," she said. "Very good."

She glanced around the room.

"No one came in after all," she smiled. "Let's cover these up and get back home."



Talla's Temple Ch. 23



Though sweat matted her dirty brown hair and dripped down her face, Talla felt no heat. Her meeting with Shanata had left her with such a chill in her bones that it was a wonder her legs could still move. She might freeze up altogether and become a statue on the road. People would remark upon her as they passed. "How lifelike!" they would say, and perhaps wonder why a statue had been made of one of such low rank. Maybe they would peek up her skirt and find it odd that the artisan had given her underwear.

But she wouldn't be a statue. There were too many things she had yet to do. She forced her stiff legs to walk her home and, with some protest, they walked.

What now?

Shanata's lecture had been abundantly clear on the subject of monogamy. From the sounds of it the guard who had appeared at the doorway of the children's dormitory had managed to follow Talla but luckily hadn't managed to identify her. However, from the very private conversation that followed her superior's lecture, it was obvious that – even if no one else knew – Shanata did know that it had been Talla.

What had given her away?

Talla harkened back to the evening when she and Tina, sitting naked and crying on her bed, had been interrogated by that awful woman while surrounded by enforcers in their leather armour. One of those women in leather armour had seemed to possess the ability to tell when people were lying. It was she that had ended the interrogation by indicating that both Talla and Tina were telling the truth.

Did Shanata possess the same skill?

Probably. Maybe it came with the Form upgrades. Shanata was well known for having as many of those as she could get. In any case, it was obvious that Shanata was letting her off easy with that warning. All she had to do was stay out of trouble.

Pain struck her. An empty feeling in her chest that she hadn't felt in a very long time. Staying out of trouble would mean staying away from Zhair'lo. That hurt. Only yesterday, they'd embraced each other. Only yesterday, in the shade of that tree, breaking so many rules, had they come together.

Now she had to give that up? How wrong was that? Why couldn't they be together?

But the answers came, even to her indignant mind. Her body was not hers, nor was it his. She was an instrument of the Goddess. Her vagina was a tool to be used to glue their society together. If women could absent themselves from that – if men and women could choose some and exclude others – chaos would ensue.

Did it have to be that way? It seemed so.

She felt the tenuous link with Zhair'lo getting weaker and weaker the more she thought about it. Distance could do that too, but this withdrawal had nothing to do with the growing physical space between the white skirted Initiate and her most favoured man.

Lost in the depths of her own misery, she hadn't even realized that she'd passed through the Temple's main gates and was entering the Division of Endowment.

Home, she thought with chagrin.

She'd been so happy to have a grown-up place to live. What was that? Two weeks ago? So happy. She'd met Zhair'lo. She'd Served him. Everything had seemed so good. And now she'd have to give up the one thing – the one person – that she wanted most. 

Home was an empty consolation.

She passed through Endowment Hall, cool and dark as it always was during the day. Women milled about, doing their work in a slow and gentle fashion out of respect for the intense heat that awaited them outside these walls. More were out in the Tranquil Courtyard, tanning in the nude so as to make sure there were no unsightly lines on their bodies.

Such beautiful women, Talla thought sadly.

Once she had wanted to be like them. Now she wanted a certain other something, and all her previous desires were swept aside.

Grow up, she whined at herself. This is how women live. Deal with it.

The thing for a grown-up woman to do was to go in to the Offices and see if there was anything in her slot.

From heat, nudity and brightness back in to the darkness of serious work and busy women fully clothed. Talla walked quietly to her slot and pulled out the card. No surprise that there was a card. She'd set herself to five Services per week. That worked out to a lot of penises, but she kind of felt like she needed it to make up for not having Zhair'lo.

'Patah'.

She wondered who he was. He lived out in Sector one, possibly with the metal workers or maybe the quarrymen.

Very well. She'd go out tonight and fuck his brains out, if that's what they wanted. It didn't matter, really, and there was no point not doing her duty if she wasn't going to have Zhair'lo anyway.

-----------===================-------------

Infuriated was the only word to describe Maksa's condition.

The Sorceress of Pussy had put her newest Adept into the Stacks with the genealogists, giving the whole bunch of them the goal of trying to codify what it was that Maksa understood with a glance. It was hellishly difficult to explain to them. Every time she pointed out something that was obvious in a matrilineal line of descent, they would give her a counter case – an instance where a woman had voluntarily chosen not to follow in the path of her mother.

Maksa would look at those odd cases and most of the time she could patiently explain why each one did not invalidate her theories. In some cases she could not. The records were so old in some cases that there were no annotations regarding the quality of each of the boys the woman doing her Initiation had used. Perhaps, Maksa would tell them, there was an especially powerful boy that caused the young woman in question to change Disciplines? This type of answer did not satisfy them.

"Just-so stories," they would criticize.

At first she had found it offensive and so had to reminder herself that this was a scientific endeavour. If her theories were valid, they would stand up to scrutiny. If they could not stand that scrutiny, they would fall or be revised. Such was the emotionless way of the physician.

And none of that had anything to do with her utter infuriation.

Her pussy – or as the men would say, her "pubic hair" - was starting to grow back as an itchy stubble. On top of that irritation was the effect of her recent double upgrade, causing the hair to grow back faster, thicker and, eventually, softer.

That was bad enough.

But something else had happened during the upgrade. She hadn't been able to curb her sexual arousal. Having tried to ignore it all night, she had eventually given in and masturbated her way to several orgasms. Then she'd woken up in the morning and fingered herself again.

Her labia were now red with irritation from all of the stroking even while they were dreadfully itchy. The fortunate thing was the amount of salve that she had access to. There was quite a bit left over from her recently terminated career as a teacher of Virgins. It was meant for use on their lightly stroked rears, but the aloes it contained did a pretty good job soothing the irritated skin of her genitals.

Even now, sitting here in the Stacks and pouring over genealogy charts in an attempt to mathematically define what her mind spat out without any apparent calculation, she was still horny. Sitting as she was now, with her thighs pressed together, she could feel the stiffness of her clitoris compressed between her swollen lips.

Gods, why?

She tensed and relaxed her quadriceps, pulsing them against her genitals. Just two giant, wooden tables away from her, there was an Officer of Pussy studiously working away at something or other. Maksa could hardly afford to have a go at herself given that situation and forced herself to concentrate on her work by biting down on the tip of her tongue.

It was clear from what she was seeing that the circumstances of an Initiation could influence and even override a woman's genetic inheritance. All it took was an accidental fall with a short delay for a bandage and a woman who should have gone in to Lips or Pussy would be forced to take Strength or Facial. That didn't take any complex mathematics to comprehend. There was more, though. A lot more. The newer charts would show how much each of the nine boys ejaculated, and that certainly had an effect in making the young Initiates choose a Discipline. But – and this was a big 'but' – the boys seemed to ejaculate the most on the body part that should have been favoured anyway.

What did that mean? Did the girls know which boy was best and point him to their favourite body parts? Did the boys simply tend to ejaculate more on the locations that were best for each girl? Were the best boys naturally attracted to the best body parts and somehow found a way to hint to the girls where they wanted to be pointed?

There was a lot about the social dynamics of what went on in those closets that Maksa didn't know. She vaguely remembered how she acted, but she couldn't remember why. How did most young girls act in that situation? It wasn't talked about very much, for some reason, but someone had to have studied it, right?

The Officer heaved a sigh and stood up from her work. Maksa watched nervously out of the corner of her eye as the other woman walked to the torch-bracketed exit and stomped up the grey, stone stairs.

Alone? Oh, gods, could she handle another one?

Her lips were so sensitive that it wasn't funny anymore. She couldn't even wear underwear at this point and had chosen to wear her softest, stranded skirt to be as kind as possible to her tender flesh.

But she was alone again and her arousal had long ago worn away her willpower. First she parted the soft, cloth strands of her skirt. Then, with the utmost care, she splayed her fragile lips to give her fingers access to her clitoris. At least that little nub hadn't been rubbed raw – the saving grace of her state of constant arousal was the abundance of vaginal lubricant she had available.

It was a simple matter to slide two fingers around her entrance and then to rub the fluid from there between her inner lips and around her clit.

Oh, glorious!

Feverish with desire, and knowing that she would pay for every moment of pleasure with hours of excruciating burning in her genitals, she began making gentle circles between her lips, twirling her clitoris round and round. As much as she kept her sensitive, stubbled lips out of the way, she knew that even pulling them open like this was causing them some degrees of stress.

Faintly the desperate woman wondered if someone might detect the scent of her later. It didn't matter. Something between the double upgrade and her shaven genitals was overloading her senses and it left her helpless as she squeezed her clitoris between finger and thumb.

Not good enough.

She abandoned the pretence of treating her body kindly. Her tortured lips would have to look out for themselves as she need both of her hands – the left to work her engorged clitoris and the right to plunge two fingers to knuckle depth in her vagina.

So wet!

Gods help her if that annoyed Officer came back in now.

Maksa was panting, squeezing her eyes shut against the stinging pain she was inflicting upon herself.

Let's get this over with quickly, she thought with a wince as she jabbed at herself. Oh! There it is.

She thrust her fingers up inside herself in a manner most unkind – and again – and again. Clenching her teeth against the screams that begged to escape her throat, she held herself to a faint and pathetic mewling as her vaginal muscles wrapped themselves snugly about her fingers and pulsed away while the fingers of her left hand pushed her clitoris down.

The spasms passed in a short period of time and she became aware once more of her surroundings. Still in the Stacks; still sitting in front of numerous documents spread out before her.

After baring out a post orgasmic shudder, she took a deep breath and wiped her fingers off on the waist band of her yellow skirt. She hoped that the candles would cover up the smell of the vaginal juices she had expelled before anyone else came down those stairs.

That should sate her lust for at least an hour. She could work now, possible, and save the rest for whomever she would be Serving tonight.

-----------===================-------------

"Patah," Talla called out in to the large stone hall.

The quarrymen lived in a building with a style and flavour that set itself well apart from the structures in the rest of the town. This place felt more like a cave than a house. The grey stone that was found in few other places was the main construction material here. Even the tables on which the men played their games and set their ales were made of rough edged sheets of stone as thick as any three of Talla's fingers.

The men themselves were much like their buildings – rough around the edges of built like walls. Smashing and picking at rocks all day, then lifting the big blocks they'd cut on to the backs of carts left them all in a state as cleanly carved as that which they produced. She'd waited with some anxiety as the older members of her group called out names and were led away through doorways to smaller caves.

They're not actually caves, she reminded herself. It's just the grey stone throwing you off.

A lifetime of exposure to the brown and beige varieties of sandstone had left with her with some assumptions.

Where was Patah? Most of these men looked much too old – and too frighteningly large – to be in her range. What would it be like to be in the arms of someone with muscles like that, grunting and sweating over top of her? Or underneath her? She gulped nervously, trying not to let her worry show through. Why hadn't Patah answered?

A head poked out of a back room. It was a young man with darkish skin, slightly slanted eyes and the strangest hair she had ever seen. He had shaved his entire skull except for a strip that went from his forehead straight back to his neck. From this strip of hair he had made a jet black ponytail into which was woven his blue ribbon.

At least he was Talla's age and, if she were to guess his build based on the one arm and shoulder she could see, he did not count himself among the gigantic stone throwers who lived here.

"Oh, sorry!" he shouted to her, most inappropriately.

Her confusion was cleared up when she saw him shuck off an apron and hand it to someone out of her sight. A kitchen boy, then. She breathed a sigh of relief. The monstrous men, the primary population of the quarry house, were not in her line up for tonight. Some other day perhaps she might be ready for someone like that. For now, they ignored her and she tried not to think about them.

Patah dashed out and took her hand, his eyes sheepishly meeting hers.

"Sorry about that," he said in a quick babbling voice. "I was Served two days ago and didn't think I'd be up again so soon."

She wondered about that. The needs of the men must be matched to the pace of the women – and the women got considerable allowance for how they wanted to be paced. Men expected sex only once every three days, and Talla was out Serving five times a week? That meant that a lot women Served less than Talla did.

"Must be your lucky day," she told him with a smile.

His eyes never really settled on anything, darting to her eyes, the ceiling, down to her chest, back to the floor and on and on. It was a strange kind of nervous. She hoped that he wasn't going to be like Shen. He wasn't anything like any of the others she'd been with, most especially Zhair'lo.

Zhair'lo, she thought, laid with me in the grass and found a place under a tree.

She possessed only the most vague awareness of Zhair'lo now. He was out there, that was for certain, but no information passed to her - no sense of him at all beyond the fact of his existence.

She had to stop thinking of Zhair'lo. Here was Patah, who led her to his cave – his room, she reminded herself – and expected Service. That was her duty and she would not shirk it.

Shirk it? She needed it at least as badly as he did.

Patah turned his back to the door and pushed it open with his hip, ushering her in.

"You're, uh," he stuttered at her, barely meeting her eyes before glancing away.

Looking at his shoulder, she approached him, waiting until her breasts were up against his chest before looking in to his eyes.

"I'm, uh?" she mocked with impish delight.

He looked down in to her cleavage.

"Uh, well, kinda big," he replied with a nervous laugh.

"Yeah," she drawled out slowly. "I am kinda big. Kinda special that way."

Boys like Patah brought out the best in her. Trust to courage, the teachers had said. This gentleness called on her bravery. The intimidation of that giant stone hall and its population of dusty, muscular statues had passed out of her mind. Here was a boy her age, no more or less experienced than she and captivated by her breasts.

Talla knew how to deal with that and it didn't involve waiting around for this naive boy to make a move. She pushed him backwards onto his bed, a piece of furniture which had the singular distinction of not being made of stone. Tina's top having long since been returned, it was her own plain white piece that covered her breasts. She knelt on his bed, straddling his chest, and removed that top in one smooth go, yanking it off over her head.

Her breasts fell as well as they had ever fallen and the stunned look their sudden exposure had on Patah's expression was all that she could have asked for. He lay before her with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

Perfect.

She leaned over him, grabbing his hands and pinning them to the bed behind his head as her naked breasts hung before his eyes.

Left and right she swung them, letting her nipples dangle just out of reach of his mouth, getting closer and closer with each pass. Rapt in her spell, he tried to reach for her with his lips; tried to capture those tantalizing points. She teased him endlessly, keeping herself just out of his reach until – after one sweep came a little too close – he reached out with his tongue and caught the very tip of her nipple.

Oh! Such a delightful surprise. She had never expected ...

Unable to hold herself back, she plunged her breast, nipple and all, down in to his mouth. He sucked it up greedily, his tongue working around her aureola and wetting a huge swath of her skin. It was so much like what Zhair'lo had done that she a dizzying vision – just for a moment - of being back in that clearing by the well.

Where was Zhair'lo? What was he doing?

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo remembered Yua from the night before. He mostly remembered her eyes. Well ... that and the part where he came on her breasts. It was no surprise when she came out to the farmhouse with the usual gaggle of women in their yellow and orange finery. Neither was it a surprise when she quietly called out his name.

She had the dark hair and heavily slanted eyes that told a story of having come from very, very far away. Even the way that she spoke his name was a bit strange, as if the 'l' gave her a bit of a tough time.

He took her tiny hand in his and gently led her to the stairs. She was a much smaller girl than any of those he'd been with before. Zhair'lo had never felt like he was particularly large, but Yua made him feel like a giant – at least once they got out of the common room and left the older men behind.

Yua followed him in shy silence until he opened the door to his bedroom and waved her in.

She gulped nervously at the threshold.

"You all right?" he asked.

She nodded, took a hesitant step forward and paused again.

"You will be, uh, gentle?" she pleaded. 

Her eyes briefly met his and quickly shied away.

"Of course," he said.

Taking a breath, she stepped in to his room.

"Are you – worried?"




Talla's Temple Ch. 23



She nodded and continued rapidly: "You've been Served before, though, right?"

"Yeah, a few times."

She seemed relieved and finally met his eyes without hesitation.

"So you know what to do."

It was not quite a question.

"More or less," he said, closing the door.

Her eyebrows rose in concern.

"More or less?"

"It seems to me," he shrugged, "that there are lots of ways to do it. I can't have found 'em all just yet."

She was tense. Zhair'lo could tell without looking too hard that she wasn't going to be the kind to jump at him all of a sudden. He bit a corner of his lip thoughtfully as he went over to the window and opened the wooden shutters.

The distant glow on the horizon was the Temple. Talla's Temple. She might be in there somewhere, or out Serving somebody else. It felt as if she were very far away. Nothing to do about that now. He turned to face Yua.

The virgin in her white, ankle-length skirt was still looking quietly at the floor. Zhair'lo wasn't sure where to go from here, so he held out his hand to her. The speed with which she seized it told him that this had been the right thing to do.

Slowly and without any particular insistence, he reeled her in until her breasts nudged up against the bottom of his rib cage. She was quite short – the shortest of any girl he'd held in his arms.

"You sure you're all right?" he asked.

She nodded confirmation, putting her chin on his collarbone so she could look up at him through her eyelashes. He almost went cross-eyed.

"It's a little awkward," she whispered.

"First time?"

She shook her head.

"It's been over two months of trying," she explained.

"This was your third try," he nodded, peering at her and trying to understand.

She blinked at him as she grasped for words.

"The dorm they put us in -"she stammered and stopped.

"With the other Sealed Virgins ..." he continued for her.

She nodded.

"We had, well, each other, you see?"

"Yes," he smiled. "I've heard."

Was this what she was concerned about? The girls who found pleasure with each other when they were denied boys? What was the trouble with that?

"Someone told you?" Yua asked as her eyes went wide and she pushed away from him ever so slightly.

"After I broke through Nadine's Seal," he said. "She came here the next night and mentioned it."

"Nadine," Yua said softly, almost – if Zhair'lo read it right – reverently.

"Yeah," Zhair'lo nodded. "Made me promise I'd keep going back until I'd gotten all of you out of that, uh, room or dorm or whatever it is."

Yua's gaze softened, finding something in the sky to look at for a moment.

"I miss Nadine," she said in a whisper softer than cotton.

"You and Nadine used to, um?"

"Um," Yua confirmed with a nostalgic sigh.

There was an image that sent a surge of blood to his loins: Nadine and Yua locked in a passionate and desperate embrace. At first he imagined Yua's naked breasts rubbing against Nadine's rather gorgeous nipples, but he realized the error there. The chest enhancement Yua currently supported, exaggerated as it was by her tiny frame, wouldn't have been in play when the two of them were still Sealed. It would have been two very slim, nearly flat chested eighteen year old girls in that bed of his imagination.

"Aren't there other girls in the room?" Zhair'lo asked

"Yes, four to a room."

"Don't the others notice?"

Yua shrugged. "They're doing the same thing."

"But what's that have to do with tonight?"

"Well," Yua replied with a sideways glance. "You kind of get used to it."

Zhair'lo mouth opened with an 'ah' of realization.

"You're finding it hard to - switch over – to men?"

"It's a little weird," she explained and her voice became rushed, almost babbling. "I looked forward to it for so long, y'know, the real thing – and I do want it to be you. You got me out of there – but now that I'm here, all that's in my head is a bunch of things the teachers told us about sex and all the times I was, y'know, with Nadine and some of the other girls."

Zhair'lo nodded patiently.

"So you're not sure how to start?"

She looked up at him again.

"Yeah, something like that."

Her eyes narrowed as she appeared to be searching her memories.

"But I do know where to start," she said quite suddenly.

With that declaration and a determined look on her face, she slide down to her knees and began unfastening his pants.

It was probably best, Zhair'lo decided then and there, to let her take the lead. At the very least, she got his shorts off with considerable speed and skill and after that there seemed little point in getting in the way.

As it was, his penis was still hanging down a bit, only partially aroused. Still leaning against the wall, he watched as Yua carefully extended her tongue and licked a faint and gentle line along the top of it from his tip to the base. He found himself delirious waiting for her to do it again and, after the second lick was complete, he realized that he'd been holding his breath in anticipation.

Exhale.

She took him in hand then, lifting his partial erection so it pointed at the bridge of her nose, and gave a wide tongued lick to the underside. Waving her entire head back and forth, she graced the sensitive bit of skin on the underside with a thorough and repeated bath with her tongue.

Pulling off, she looked up at him and spoke.

"They taught us all this," she told him. "Just theory, though."

"Good theory," he murmured desperately.

She smiled, obviously having grown more comfortable, and took the head of his penis in her mouth so she could swirl her tongue around and around and ...

He came free of her mouth suddenly and she stood up, her face blushing red. With a pull of a single tie, her long, white skirt came free of her waist and slid down in to a pile at her ankles.

It still gave him a start, seeing a girl do that and finding her naked under her skirt. Nothing, not even a single pubic hair, to shield her genitals from his eyes. She drew him over the bed and pushed him down. He waited, laying on his side facing her.

Standing by his bed, her breasts still covered but otherwise nude, Yua looked at him thoughtfully – first at his erection and then at his eyes.

"There are lots of way, you said?" she asked.

He nodded.

Making a decision, she laid herself down reversed to him with her head by his crotch. Lying on her side, she propped one of her legs up so he could see her hairless genitals clearly.

A moment later and she was licking at his penis again with quick, darting assaults on various sensitive locations from the underside of his testicles to the end of his shaft. She would pause occasionally to look up and meet his eyes.

The third pause was longer and she gazed at him oddly. Her eyes twitched towards her bare mound. Zhair'lo shot her a querulous look.

"It's what we do for each other," she hinted.

His confused look elicited a light sigh. She then nodded at her crotch again and wiggled her tongue at him.

Oh!

Well, why not? If girls could do it for him, and for each other, why couldn't he do it for her? Where to begin? What did he know?

He'd brought Natta to orgasm with his fingers after all, so he had a decent idea of what went on down there. His hands took possession of her tiny waist and pulled her mound to his lips. A murmur of appreciation came from Yua as he planted a tiny kiss on the cleft in her lips. Finding her leaking with moisture, even at that gentle pressure, he pressed harder until he found that little nub of flesh that had pleased Natta so much.

Yua moaned, sucking a great length of penis in to her mouth in enthusiastic gratitude.

Zhair'lo parted her lips with his hand and took the hard little nub in to his mouth, applying as much suction as he dared. She tasted of a strange and tangy fruit juice.

"Oh," Yua moaned, having cleared her mouth. "My clit ..."

"Clit?"

She shook herself for a moment.

"Clitoris," she said. "That little thing – Oh!"

For he'd done it again, sucking on her clit and wiggling his tongue back and forth across it. Her legs tensed and it seemed that it took her the greatest of effort not to clamp them shut as the overwhelming pleasure of his actions washed over her. He moved his tongue faster and faster still until she suddenly pulled away from him, gasping for breath.

It took a moment, but she found some air for her lungs and eventually sat up beside him. With some embarrassment, she met his eyes for a brief moment before looking down.

"There's a – favour – I want to ask you," she said quietly.

"Sure?"

Biting her lips to draw on her courage, she pushed him on his back and straddled his chest while facing him. She reached behind her neck and undid the ties on her top.

"Your double upgrade," she told him shyly as she exposed her chest to him.

With a deep breath, she inched up his body ever so slowly until her well soaked mound was just over his face.

"Please?" she asked with meekness in her voice.

She seemed too small to actually hurt him, and he'd never done any of this before, so ...

"Sure," he replied and smiled.

He reached around her side to cup her breasts in his hands as she lowered her pussy to his lips. There was nothing to do now but go straight to her clit, forcing her easily spread lips apart with his mouth and seizing on the hardened nub.

Yua moaned again and shifted all of her wait on to her pubic bone, forcing his chin up inside her vagina. She grounded herself against him as he worked her clit as hard and fast as he could.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she shrieked.

Girls only seem tiny and light, Zhair'lo realized, when they aren't putting their entire body mass on your chin. He hoped she came quickly, which seemed quite likely.

"Just – like – Oh!"

And just like that, he felt her coming, the tensing and releasing of the muscles of her vagina as they squeezed at his now quite wet chin.

It wasn't a very long orgasm, as such things went. She ran her hands through her sweaty hair to brush it off her face and took a moment to sit back on his chest. At least it gave his jaw some relief.

"Thank you," she breathed. "Now what about you?"

-----------===================-------------

Patah was doing some good work on her breasts. She wished that she had a Point upgrade. Watching and feeling him sucking on her nipples was great, but she had a pretty solid notion that it would be better with a little Augmentation.

There had been enough of that anyway. It was time to get serious. Could she get penetration in this position and still leave a breast for him to suckle on? She could try.

A little neck craning on his part, a little weight shifting on hers.

There.

The tip of his erection was at her entrance. She was moist and ready – oh, most definitely ready.

She pushed herself down, waiting for the mesh to take hold, to feel his emotions, to ...

...

Dizzyness. This wasn't right. What was -?

-----------===================-------------

"What about me?" Zhair'lo asked.

"I'm ready now," she said, eyes on fire.

She slid her hips down his body until his penis bumped up against her ass. Knees spread wide, she angled her hips until his tip was pushing her saliva soaked lips.

Yua pushed down, shedding her fear and her virginity in one swift stroke.

...

-----------===================-------------

Disoriented as she was, Talla recognized this feeling.

"A mesh is no place for three," the physician had said.

There were too many people in this mesh, and her eyes had stopped working so she couldn't even see what was going on. Had someone else been in the bedroom? She didn't think so. If the mesh was no place for three, it definitely wasn't a place for however many were attached to her now.

She was suffocating and her head was aching. There was nothing but pain and ephemeral hands grasping at body parts and other things. She couldn't put a name or a place on any of it.

Focus.

What was the problem?

There were too many people in this mesh.

So what?

Get some of them out.

She concentrated her attention on those extra bonds, the ones that were the most frail, the weakest and most easily broken. Whatever those were, they had to go. She could never break the strong one; the one with Patah. That mesh simply would not yield.

So she hacked away at everything else, tossing off those imaginary hands, those prying fingers.

With a ping that was almost audible, she felt them snap away, and with that sanity returned.

Patah looked up at her, mildly confused. He quickly shook it off and refastened his mouth to the nearest available of her breasts.

-----------===================-------------

What had that been? Zhair'lo had never felt anything so nauseating in a mesh before. It almost felt like Hunting during an upgrade, but much worse. He had felt so tangled up and lost for a few seconds and then, with an uncomfortable snap, found everything back to normal with an eager Yua gently sliding her vagina up and down the length of his shaft.

Very well, then.

Yua, at least, didn't seem to care. She'd just taken her first man, slid him up inside her as easily as a perfectly fit glove. She was tight but she didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable with his erection. She was even letting the swollen head of his shaft repeatedly exit and enter her vagina, pushing at the tight ring of muscle at her entrance, repeatedly stretching it.

"So much bigger than fingers," she murmured in appreciation.

It made Zhair'lo wonder, ever so briefly, if she meant her own fingers or Nadine's. He couldn't think for long, though. The motion of his swollen head breaking repeatedly through the ever tightening and moist hole he had unsealed was bringing him to the brink. That was probably why she was doing it. The mesh let her feel his pleasure and that appeared to more than cancel out any pain she was feeling.

Zhair'lo reached for her breasts, squeezing them as tightly as he could in an attempt to hold himself back.

When his orgasm reached the point of inevitability, she slid her hips down, taking the entire length of his penis inside her, the tip pushing up against some deeper, inviolable wall. It was there, against that wall that prevented further progress, that his erection was about to expend itself.

Yua screamed as he sank his fingers in to her doubly Augmented breasts and exploded inside her belly, filling her with his fluid.

-----------===================-------------

Maksa had been hoping that if she let her man for the evening do her from behind, it would make things easier on the abused skin around her genitals. It was almost considered unbecoming for a woman of Sweetness to do it like this, but she needed the sex quite badly and she wanted to avoid the pain.

So here she stood, legs planted firmly on the floor, bent over at the waist, with some brilliant hulk of a man pounding ruthlessly away at her, thumping his pelvis repeatedly at her cheeks.

She could hardly blame him for the pain given that, first of all, she kept begging him to do it harder and, second of all, the cause of her discomfort was all the masturbating she'd been doing.

Maybe, just maybe, if she could draw three orgasms out of him – real, meshed orgasms, not the self-induced kind – then she would be able to rid herself of her excessive arousal.

Maybe.

-----------===================-------------

Talla hadn't really been a serious participant in the post-coital social gatherings in Endowment Hall. If you didn't count the night Inga had made her go - the night she'd lost her virginity – she'd really never gone at all.

Tonight was different.

She'd lost contact with Zhair'lo when she'd snapped the extraneous bonds from that confused mesh. 

It was for the best, wasn't it? Just disconnect. Let him slip away. The thing they'd had was not the way things were suppose to be. They weren't entitled to that kind of relationship. It was destructive and anti-social. So give it up. Give him up. 

She sighed.

"Rough night?" the girl minding the bar asked.

"I guess so," Talla shrugged, letting her manner ward off further discussion. 

The girl was no one that Talla knew, after all, and there were few people with whom she could discuss this matter anyway. She took a look around the room. Having run Patah out of energy so early in the evening, there were few people to socialize with in any event.

"What do people drink that isn't as bad as that, uh, gold stuff in the little glasses?" she asked the bartender.

"Brandy a bit too strong for you?" came the response. "I'll make you a drink with fruit juice, keep it light?"

"Alright," Talla nodded.

She didn't want to feel sick like the last time, but maybe a little bit of alcohol could help. The bartender was prompt, slicing and squeezing an orange and then mixing it with a small quantity of alcohol in a tall glass.

"There ya go," she said, handing it over to Talla.

"This a fun job?" Talla asked.

"Better than laundry."

Talla nodded agreeably. The girl who had served her was wearing the knee length skirt of a Virgin. There was a whole host of jobs Talla simply got to skip past because she'd been bumped straight to Initiate. Bartending was probably the nicest of those jobs. You just hung out with all the women coming back from Service, poured a few drinks, stayed up late and slept in in the morning. Nothing at all like taking care of children. She didn't really want to stay too late, knowing how poorly she'd do her duties in the morning.

She also didn't want to sleep. Zhair'lo was out there and she couldn't feel him properly. He wasn't dead or anything like that – she was certain that she'd be able to tell if something truly fatal occurred – but he felt very, very far away.

After waving a thank you at the bartender, she tried to find a quiet spot in the back of Endowment Hall. The place was mostly empty and she hoped that other women would know that she didn't feel like socializing. If she just snuggled up in a couch by a fire somewhere, maybe she could – if she was lucky – just maybe – get a better sense of her favourite man.

Here. This was a good place. Just in front of the doorways that led to baffled hallways protecting the Tranquil Courtyard. She could just sit here with her drink, close her eyes, and think of Zhair'lo.

Was he thinking of her? Could it be like that again, when their minds were together and they could share thoughts?

It was tenuous, like tugging on a single thread of a spider's web and hoping to pull the whole thing along with you. If she tried too hard, she knew that she would break it. The volume in the Hall was increasing as more women came in. It made for a rather pleasant, hypnotizing chatter that allowed Talla to relax.

Closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair, she started to tug very gently on the one thread she had – the one very weak connection linking her mind to Zhair'lo's. Patiently, knowing that she had all night, she drew it out, pulling it closer to her, looking for a second thread to grasp.

"Initiate?"

Talla's eyes snapped opened to see a dark-haired woman decked out in a sparkly orange dress leaning over her with concern.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," she replied quickly. "Just – um – resting."

"Some nights are more tiring than others," she smiled at Talla knowingly. "Best to get off to bed if that's the case."

"Yes, Mistress," Talla answered with a nod, popping out of her chair. "Maybe a little fresh air."

The woman, probably an Acolyte, turned gently on her heel and strode off. Not wanting to look suspicious, Talla slipped away through the baffles into the Tranquil Courtyard. Here, certainly, was a place where she could lie quiet and undisturbed. The distant sounds of the Hall were a faint murmur.




Talla's Temple Ch. 23



Did she need to strip off? Did women do that at night? Probably not. She didn't even need a blanket, really. She could just take a few steps off the path – just over here behind this tree – and lie down in the darkness. No one would even know that she was there.

Now, back to work.

She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and concentrated on Zhair'lo. Was he calm, too? Was he being Served? Talla was certain that she would be able to tell if he were in a moment of passion. There was nothing she could do but reach out with her mind and start pulling at those tenuous strands, trying moment by moment to pull him closer.

Footfalls.

People were walking on the path. Talla tried to ignore them and whatever muttering they were doing, but it was hard. In the Hall, the number of voices had the effect of drowning out the intelligibility of any particular conversation. Here, where only one voice spoke at a time, the words could be heard with almost perfect clarity.

"He's damaged, you think?" one of them asked.

The voice sounded familiar. Who was it?

"We're giving him a day off," another softer voice said noncommittally.

"But do you think he's damaged?" the first voice repeated.

Atreya. It was Atreya. Who were they talking about? Who was damaged? Talla felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Hard to say," the second woman answered.

They had stopped walking and were standing on the path, finishing their conversation in what they thought was the privacy of the darkened Courtyard.

"There are only four Sealed Virgins left," the second voice said, "and we don't have to release him for four days. Between him and Zo'kar, we can afford to give them an extra day to recuperate."

Talla inhaled, trying not to gasp as the women paused for a moment. They were talking about Zhair'lo. They were hurting him, just as she'd feared. She had to warn him as soon as she could. In her haste, she yanked at the frail, silken ties that held her mind to Zhair'lo's.

She yanked too hard and, with a painful tearing in her mind, found herself completely disconnected. All that work trying to retrieve her link with him – all gone in a moment of impatience. She would cry if she could afford to make a noise.

"I hope we're not hurting him with all these doubles," Atreya said quietly.

The other woman didn't answer. In another moment, there were footsteps again, moving away towards the Hall.

Her link was destroyed. She couldn't sense Zhair'lo at all anymore, and just at the worst possible moment when she desperately needed to warn him. There was nothing else she could do but wait for the next heat bell and run to meet him just as they'd planned. It would be dangerous, but if she could make sure not to be followed, it would be alright. 

His only hope would be to run away to somewhere outside the limits of the city. 

Did he know how to live on his own? She felt certain that he must. He'd been a baker, a roofer, a farmer and all sorts of other things. She remembered that from the random memory dump that she'd received the last time they'd meshed. He had skills and he could survive. He would have to, because they were far too reckless with his life here.



Talla's Temple Ch. 24



Yua lay beside him, her tiny body heaving with delight.

For a girl who had wanted him to be gentle, she had certainly stepped it up. She'd found it unsatisfying to straddle him the second time around and had rolled over so he could be on top. Zhair'lo had still been gentle. No matter how much masturbating the women claimed to do before their first time out, she still seemed far too tight to just pound away at.

There was a brief silence in which he reached out for Talla and felt ... nothing.

That was weird.

The place where he could usually feel her was gone. He felt his heart race for a moment which, given what he'd just been through, nearly knocked him unconscious.

"That was - ," Yua gasped, drawing his attention.

He turned on his side to face her.

"That was -- I ," she started again and had to close her eyes.

She turned her head to face him and wiped sweat away from her eyes before opening them.

"Thank you," she said, finally. "I didn't know what to expect, but -"

A shudder went through her body, forcing her eyes to close as a light moan sounded in her throat.

"Thank you," he replied when her eyes opened again.

She grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a long, wet kiss.

"If I'd known," she said, "I wouldn't have been afraid."

"I try not to be scary," Zhair'lo said. "Y'know, in general."

She laughed the way that people do when they've been under too much stress.

"You're Zhair'lo," she said, stressing his name.

"Um, yeah?"

"Do you have any idea how -- I mean -- you're Zhair'lo. You and Zo'kar are, like -," Yua stopped, completely at a loss for words.

"Famous?"

"Heroic," Yua corrected. "All the girls you saved from that dorm? They come back and they tell us that you did it; that you're amazing."

She paused a moment before adding in a voice gone solemn, "And you are."

"Oh," was all he could think to say.

"So you can imagine," she went on as her eyes traced the beams in the ceiling, "how intimidating it is to come here."

"I'm intimidating?"

"Not you," she explained with the faintest tinge of impatience in her voice. "The idea of you."

"Oh," he repeated, trying to see the difference.

There was a person named Zhair'lo -- an actual person who did normal everyday things like shovelling manure and taking a piss in an outhouse. There was also an idea of Zhair'lo, gathered from stories, rumours and the like, that girls in the Temple idolized.

"It's kind of like a statue," she went on. "It's not you, y'know?"

So they had made a statue of him in their heads, all bronze and perfect and never having to do any of the banal things that people actually did.

That was either flattering, unnerving or, most likely, both. It made him dizzy.

Try not to think about it, he told himself.

She kissed him again, at length, and one of her hands slid down between their bodies to find that he wasn't quite ready for a third round. Not to be dissuaded, she wiggled down the length of the bed to put her lips to his flaccid shaft.

Zhair'lo wondered how that might taste. Her juices had thoroughly coated him right down to his testicles. Sweat was mixed in to that and no small amount of semen. Yua didn't seem to care. She took all of him in to her mouth and worked him over playfully. He wasn't nearly the mouthful he had been the first time she'd gone down on him.

Even in his state of recent satisfaction, watching her work him over with such enthusiasm was overwhelming. It was like being tickled too much. It was a rush -- a blood rush. He felt himself coming around.

He hadn't thought a third round would be possible following so closely on the heels of the second, but there was something about the timid little girl who had turned her anxiety to enthusiasm in such a short space of time.

"There we go," she said, admiring the effects of her work.

She flipped a leg over him and positioned herself. He wasn't even really that hard yet, but she was more than wet enough to make up for it. A little bit limp, he slid inside her as she moved her body downward.

The mesh struck and a painful surge of blood flowed in to his penis, hardening it in an instant as her arousal became his arousal. It was enough to make him dizzy. Yua wouldn't tolerate his nausea, trying to roll him into position on top of her.

"On top," she insisted. "Get it in deeper."

She twisted her body so he slid off the bed and had to put his feet on the floor to stay inside her. With her thighs spread as widely as she could manage, she locked her legs around his back.

"Push it in," she begged through clenched teeth.

Her hips were angled perfectly.

Sweating with the strength of her emotions and determination, Zhair'lo slowly pushed. Yua raised her body to meet him.

There was resistance in there, a tight spot where muscles deep inside still fought against his penetration.

She whimpered but did not relent, her heels digging in to his back to push him still farther inside her. With a last wince, his pelvis met her cheeks and took up all the slack her skinny body provided.

"Oh gods," she muttered as she closed her eyes and bit her lips.

He could feel the intensity of the experience, the stretching and all the pleasure it brought her. He didn't even need to move. He could feel the muscles in her belly trembling and vibrating all around his shaft.

"Getting bigger," she moaned. "No ... no ... no!"

There was a moment of wide-eyed panic as she approached orgasm. He couldn't imagine pulling out now. What would that do, even if the mesh allowed it, to have the swollen head of his penis yanking backwards at her insides? There was nothing either of them could really do about the situation.

Yua's mouth opened wide in a rictus of pain -- a pain he felt quite acutely both through the mesh and from the amount of pressure crushing his manhood inside her.

He cried out a sharp report of relief as his first load of semen sprang forth. It was painful to her, the involuntary twitch of his penis. It wasn't directly pleasant to him, either. She was so tight inside that there just wasn't room for him to expand or move. The throb as he ejaculated couldn't make any more room.

It wasn't pleasant, but it was intense.

A second throb. Yua squeaked a protest out this time.

With some gratitude, Zhair'lo felt his erection dwindling inside her. The pain stopped. There was enough room, at that point, to finish coming inside her without feeling like they were ripping the skin off their genitals.

"Sweet Madra Zen," Yua intoned as the last twitches of her orgasm.

"Sweet Madra Zen," he replied, tasting the strange words on his lips.

Yua giggled.

"It sounds funny when you say it."

-----------===================-------------

Talla woke up in a darkness that had nothing to do with her eyes. The decor of her shared bedroom had never seemed so dreary. The white walls which had seemed so brilliant and full of life now seemed sickly pale, never mind the sunlight streaming through the blinds.

Zhair'lo was gone, just plain gone. He might as well be dead for all she knew.

When she'd been in that horrific mesh the night before, she'd torn away the confusing parts with complete recklessness. She hadn't even realized what was really going on or who was at the end of those annoying tendrils. In that little bit of house cleaning, that unfortunate sweep of a mental brush at what had seemed like annoying cobwebs, she had torn herself away from the one boy she really wanted.

Even then, their link hadn't been completely lost. No, there had still been a connection, faint and frail. But she'd ruined that in her haste to warn him of the dangers that her superiors were putting him through.

She rolled out of bed with an empty feeling in her chest, just behind those enhanced muscles. Habit kept her going now, with Zhair'lo erased from her consciousness.

Naked, she needed clothing. So she opened the small top drawer in her dresser.

The scroll cylinder was one possibility. But to make it work, she'd need to write a message, seal it and get it into one of those delivery bags in Endowment Hall. She had neither the resources nor the time to get those resources. 

She pushed the cylinder to the back of her drawer, behind her many pairs of neatly folded underwear.

If she had it right, Zhair'lo had done an upgrade two nights ago and would be doing another tonight unless they were giving him a break like they'd said. How many more times could he handle a double before it killed him?

Maybe a hundred times. Maybe once. Maybe his next would be his last.

There was only one way left to get to him in time and it was the most dangerous path. They had planned to meet at the first heat bell that happened this day or later. Even without any connection to his mind, she knew that he would make that appointment.

The wise thing to do, the grown-up thing, was to forget about him. If they couldn't be together anyway, why bother caring so much about him? Why not let him go? Just skip the meeting. He would get the idea, wouldn't he? That they couldn't be together? Monogamy wasn't a nice word and a woman didn't want to be charged with it. Wouldn't it be for the better to avoid the whole problem altogether?

Wise and grown-up or just selfish?

Could she really bring herself to abandon him?

Surely the Temple wouldn't push Zhair'lo to the point of really harming him, would they?

Talla frowned as she pulled on her underwear.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo pulled back on Sunshine's reins and glared accusingly at the horizon.

The stable of horses, all riderless save his own mount, eventually came to rest around him. In the large oval that was his daily run with the horses, this was the closest point to the Temple.

'What have you done with Talla?' he mentally queried the distant triangle.

He reached out, trying to quiet his mind and listen for that odd mental song that meant he had found her.

Nothing.

There had been that crazy instant of time when he had penetrated Yua. It had been a horrible moment that had reminded him of the time Atani had caught her skirt on the thorned branches out by the shed at the far end of the farm. Frustrated, hot and sweating, she had simply torn at the plants that were clinging to her. Talla -- he was now quite sure that it had been Talla -- had done the same thing. She'd just torn away at the tangled mess that four people meshing together had created.

"A mesh is no place for three."

He heard that phrase, spoken quietly into Talla's ear by someone wise. Because Talla had respected that voice, so did Zhair'lo. If a mesh was no place for three, what kind of place was it for four?

Zhair'lo slunk off his horse and closed his eyes. His excuse for this behaviour was that he was switching horses, giving Sunshine a break on the second half of the run. The true purpose was to give him a moment of peace in which to try to reach for a young girl in a tiny white skirt.

There had been another moment, when he had lain quietly with Yua, that he had felt what might have been Talla trying to reach for him.

Just as it had started working, though, something had happened. What it had been, he couldn't say. Some vague emotion had started to come to him. It was vital, that emotion, but maddeningly elusive. He just couldn't pin it down. She had frantically wanted to tell him something. Something really important.

With a sudden snap, the link had disappeared. Even now, as he tried to recall that emotion, as he tried to clarify what he had felt from her, he felt only frustration. It was like trying to see something in a room lit only by a sputtering candle. If only he could have had a slightly better source of light.

He shook his head. He didn't want to be caught standing out here doing nothing. Although the likelihood was that no one was watching him anyway, there was no point taking even a little risk for nothing.

Standing out here all day wasn't going to get him a gods damned thing.

There was only one other horse with a saddle. No point making the others sweat more than they had to. He mounted up and started the trot back to the stable.

Zhair'lo's life didn't have a lot of certainties at this point. He couldn't even be sure that Talla was alive, for one thing. Was it possible he'd felt her death? It seemed to him that dying would have been a lot worse than what he'd sensed, but he couldn't really say. It's not as if someone had handed him a rule book for this sort of thing.

No, he couldn't be certain that she was alive.

But, if she was alive, he was certain that she would keep her promise. Whatever it was that had made her so frantic that she had broken the link, it would also drive her to keep the appointment they had made.

He was also certain of the heat. This was definitely the kind of day that merited a heat bell.

Last of all, he was certain that he would run up along the river and reach that clearing.

Nothing would prevent that.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was putting away the children's toys when she overheard an Initiate and a Virgin talking.

"You think somebody's in trouble?" the Virgin asked.

"Why else would we get that lecture from Shanata?"

"Whaddaya figure?"

"Some twit probably out fucking somebody on her break or something," the Initiate said with a derisive shake of her head.

"That's stupid. Why would anyone do that?"

"If there's a crime called Monogamy, it means somebody's done it sometime."

The Virgin nodded acknowledgement of this piece of wisdom.

"How do they know?" the Virgin asked.

"Know what?"

"That somebody's out there -- y'know -"

"Fucking?"'

The Virgin looked around nervously for children within earshot. Talla pretended to ignore them.

"They can feel it," the Initiate said.

Talla looked up involuntarily.

"Feel it?" the Virgin asked.

"Yeah, the mesh," the Initiate explained patiently. "A lot of higher ranks can sorta feel other people's orgasms if it's in a mesh. The Goddess is supposed to be able to feel them from really far away."

"That's how this girl got caught?" the Virgin asked.

"Dumb bitch if you ask me," the Initiate said. "If you do it at night when everybody's fucking, no one'll know. But if you do it during the day, you'll be, like, the only one."

"So everybody'll feel your mesh?"

"Well, the orgasm, at least, and not everybody can feel it. But for those who can, you might as well set up a big, smoky fire or ring a bell."

The Virgin nodded.

-----------===================-------------

Maksahad managed to get enough out of her charge the previous night that she had been able to sleep. A day of masturbating whenever she could catch a minute and an evening of sex had bought her that much.

Morning, however, had brought her two things: a return of sexual desire and an irritated, burning pussy. How was she supposed to take care of both of those? The pain was enough to keep her fingers away, at least for the morning, and her work was there to distract her through noon. But the more time passed, the more her desire grew.

Working in the Stacks, there were far too many women around to get the privacy she needed. Would there be a heat bell? If there was, she might be able to take a 'nap'. Did women bother with the heat bell when they were working underground? It was never unpleasantly warm or cold down here. The candles seemed to make up for the general chill that a basement ought to have. The other women, pouring over documents and occasionally conferring with her, certainly weren't sweating.

'Just me,' she thought, 'with a burning triangle.'

Shouldn't it be time for the heat bell soon, if there was one? Was it even audible down -

Halfway through her thought, the muffled but clearly identifiable sound of a bell echoed down the stairway.

"Time for a rest," one of the Officers said with a shrug.

"Doesn't make sense," another offered. "Cooler down here than up there."

There was muttered agreement about this, but no actual argument.

'Of course not,' Maksa thought. 'There's a rule about the heat bell, isn't there?'

She followed the crowd of yellow and orange-clad women up the stairs, feeling the heat and humidity increase with each step. By the time they finally reached ground level, they all understood the need for the heat bell.

Not feeling the need for ceremony, Maksa turned as quickly as she could for her apartment. With any luck, her roommate would be asleep before she got there.

-----------===================-------------

Talla stuck her head out of the depot doorway. It was the same place where she and Zhair'lo had nearly been caught just days before. It was empty now, as were the streets. Nothing but blinding white cobblestone in either direction.

The corner of her mouth twitched. Something didn't make sense. If Shanata knew what she'd been up to, and a guard from Form knew that someone was breaking rules, then why couldn't she see anyone? Why wasn't anyone watching her?

Getting caught at this stage would barely merit punishment.

Barely. Huh. When had the idea of a whip on the ass become so trivial?

If they were following her, though, this was the spot where she wanted them to catch her. It would prevent her from reaching Zhair'lo and warning him. But if they were following her, she wanted to pay the smallest possible price for getting caught.

In a way, it would also absolve her of this whole mess.

'Sorry,' she could say to herself, 'I couldn't warn him. They stopped me, after all.'

She gritted her teeth. Womanhood was not about making excuses. It was about making decisions and making them stick. Standing around and waiting for things to come to you, whether instructions or sex, was the domain of men.

Nothing for it. She darted out in to the street and shot to the next corner as quickly as she could. No heads peeked out of the windows. No blinds were drawn aside. She might as well be the only one alive. She glanced around the corner.

Why wasn't she being followed?

-----------===================-------------

Maksa crept in to her room. With her promotion had come new quarters and a new roommate. Still two to a room at this point, but it was a bigger room with nicer furnishings. Blue bedsheets, purchased years ago, adorned her bed. The mirror belonged to her roommate, but the two of them shared it. Maksa would have to buy something of equal value at some point to make up for that generosity.

She didn't care right then.

What really mattered was that Anna's bed, covered in Temple-issued, white sheets, was empty. The woman must have found some place else to take her nap. Perhaps she was assigned to some far flung medical post and couldn't be bothered to make it all the way back. Was she from Within? Maksa hadn't even bothered to ask her yet.

It was the furthest thing from Maksa's mind.

She crawled up on her bed and curled up with her knees under her stomach. It wasn't the most distinguished position, what with her ass up in the air like this, but it seemed the best way to do it. She had realized in the early morning that placing herself like this, with her legs spread just right, she could reach both her hands between her legs. It meant that she could gently spread her lips with one hand and play with her clit with the other.

Slow and easy was the order of the day and this gave her all the right angles for her patience. The stress of the upgrade, followed by repeated masturbation, followed by the pounding she'd received the night since, all summed up to make her extremely delicate. She didn't need to rush. There was the whole bell to deal with her problem and no roommate to worry about.

That was the assumption, at least.

The smallest creak from the door was all the warning she got. In a panic, she yanked her fingers away and quickly pushed herself flat on to her stomach. There was nothing she could about the state of her skirt or covering herself with her blanket, but at least her roommate wasn't walking in on her with her ass up in the air.




Talla's Temple Ch. 24



Anna was tiptoeing into the room, apparently aware of how late it was to be coming in for a heat bell nap. Had she noticed? Had she seen anything or had she been so focused on not waking Maksa up that she hadn't even looked? How embarrassing. Maksa tried to calm herself

The woman had been at the rank of Adept much longer than Maksa had. In fact, she'd had this room all to herself for a number of weeks, waiting for someone to get promoted. And so Maksa came to inhabit what she still thought of as "Anna's room".

'Why is she still standing there?' Maksa wondered. 'Shouldn't she be getting in bed?'

"Still 'aving trouble?" Anna whispered in that odd accent she had.

"Whuh?" Maksa muttered back, hoping to sound half asleep.

"Since you moved in," Anna said, speaking to Maksa's back. "You've been a bit -- um --."

Maksa rolled on her side to look through her sweat-tacked hair at Anna, who was biting her cheek while trying to find an adjective. She had the thin frame that declared an absence of Iron and Tight upgrades and the lightly blond hair of a woman who had taken at least one load to the face.

"What?"

"Well, you've been 'aving a go at yo'self, 'aven't you?"

Maksa flushed. It wasn't the most direct way to say 'I heard you masturbating all night' but, then, they didn't know each other all that well, did they?

"You noticed?"

"You're no' as quiet as you think."

Maksa groaned and buried her face in her pillow. Anna had known for three nights?

"Sorry," Anna said with a wince. "Maybe I shouldn' 'ave said anything."

With a sigh, Maksa rolled over and sat up.

"No, not your fault," she said, sweeping strands of hair out of her face. "Not even a big deal really. They gave me a double upgrade when I switched to Pussy. Y'know, to catch me up?"

"You switched Disciplines, then?"

"Yeah. I didn't know it was possible. But now I have to bring Pussy up past Lips, so they doubled me to make things go faster."

"And since then -?"

"Since then I've been so gods damned horny that I can't stop myself."

"Even af'er Serving las' nigh'?"

Maksa nodded. "Even with my Pussy burning because it's so irritated."

"I've 'ad Pussy upgrades," Anna said. "Why would yours be irritated?"

Maksa rolled her eyes. She reminded herself that she'd spent several months teaching barely adult women to be natural with their bodies. With a sigh, she parted the strips of her skirt.

Anna's eyes widened at the bare flesh revealed.

"They shaved me," Maksa explained. "Some ritual about changing Disciplines."

"Gamana Anesh," Anna swore softly. "You've been shaved, double upgraded and you're so 'orny you're rubbing yourself red."

Maksa wiped sweat off her forehead and covered her eyes with her hands. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.

"Poor thing," Anna said.

Maksa was surprised when she felt a hand on her forehead. Rather patronizing, wasn't it? Sure, Anna was older, but -

Slowly, the blonde woman pushed Maksa into an upright position. Maksa looked up, astonished. Was she about to receive some kind of lecture about self control? She met Anna's eyes, prepared to be indignant against self-righteousness. Instead, she found sympathythere as she continued to to push until Maksa was on her back.

Then she pushed Maksa's legs apart and paused.

Maksa propped herself up on her elbows.

"You're kidding?"

"No' kidding."

"Setting aside the fact that it's illegal," Maksa pointed out. "We aren't Virgins. Our skirts are yellow. We're grown-ups?"

"Your Pussy is red," Anna said. "If you wanna rip yourself apar' with your fingers, you're welcome to suffer. I can be quite a wee bi' kinder."

Maksa lowered her eyebrows. "You've done this before?"

"It's been a while," Anna said. "They aren' such sticklers where I was born. But yeh, I 'ave."

"I haven't."

Anna hummed noncommittally and let her eyes wander around the room.

Maksa looked at the blonde woman. She needed only a moment to consider the offer. Now that the embarrassment was over, the aching between her thighs was back with a vengeance.

"Oh, nine hells," she breathed. "Yes, please."

"Jus' you come quick," Anna said as she parted Maksa's skirt. "Getting caugh' at this can put a nail in my career around 'ere."

"You're Within, then?"

Anna nodded and slipped down to the floor. Maksa could only bear to watch a second of the little blonde head burying itself between her thighs before her head fell back to the pillow. She wasn't wasting any time. She licked a wide, wet slick from Maksa's vagina up to the top of her lips.

"Warn me if it 'urts too much," Anna whispered. "You're really red down 'ere."

Maksa muttered something that she hoped Anna would take as acknowledgement. She felt a tongue splitting her lips, touching her clitoris. She gasped involuntarily. The last time she'd been involved with another female was when she'd been a Virgin. They'd both felt a bit bad about it and had jacked up the pace of their respective Service schedules so they wouldn't need each other again. Even then, they'd only used their fingers.

And under no circumstances had a man ever done this for her. As often as things went the other way -- in Priming rooms and all sorts of other situations -- Maksa had never had a man work her like Anna was. Would she even want a man with his scratchy beard and big jaw licking away at her? Maybe not. A woman like Anna, though, with her soft, delicate skin, her tongue flitting lightly around and her tiny chin just prodding at the edge of Maksa's hole.

I must be dripping all over her, Maksa thought.

A tongue was nothing like a finger. It could dart down to poke at the edge of her vagina and be flicked up over her clitoris. It could wind its wet path around her lips with an agility well beyond what any stiff digit could do. It could be soft, as it was now, widely surrounding her engorged little nub. It could dive, softly but firmly, into the hole she held tightly against any wider penetration.

It was the moment when Anna licked her way back up to her clitoris that Maksa realized what she needed.

"There," she whispered. "Right there."

Anna obliged, unable to speak, and kept flicking her tongue. Maksa shifted her weight, trying to push down on her benefactor's face. She felt the other woman's hands snaking around and her back and under her waist.

With a sudden heave Anna lifted her body and pulled her down so her ass was at the edge of the bed. She was surprised, but it worked so much better with Anna kneeling on the floor. She spread her legs in the air. Did she dare? Yes. She straightened her knees. Glorious.

With her head thrown back, she had to find Anna's head by touch alone.

Push, she wanted to say, but couldn't find words.

So she pushed on the back of Anna's head, forcing the woman's chin in to her vagina. Anna didn't fight, continued flitting her tongue around as frantically as ever.

"Yes," Maksa hissed.

It was the last vocalization she managed before her body locked up. It overtook her like one of those spasms that shook a woman at night when she had a nightmare of falling. Her limbs went rigid and the barest of squeaks escaped her mouth.

And Anna. Anna didn't stop. She kept licking. And pushing.

Maksa couldn't bare it. Her vision started to sparkle with black dots as the muscles inside her tried in vain to grasp at the little bit of bone penetrating them. She couldn't control any of it. She could barely mew in a desperate attempt to get the blonde head to stop moving.

Somehow or other, Anna did get the message and carefully withdrew from between Maksa's thighs. Still twitching inside, Maksa felt her body go limp, arms falling to the bed and legs to the floor.

Staring at ceiling and seeing nothing, she felt something she hadn't truly felt in days.

Sated.

Satisfied.

The craving that neither finger nor man had been able to cure was truly flushed from her body. It wasn't as if she would never have sexual desires again, but the desperately screwed up sensation left over from the double upgrade was vanquished.

She propped herself up on her elbows and found Anna wiping her face.

"You alrigh', then?" Anna asked when their eyes met.

Stunned by the orgasm that had left her dripping her fluids down the side of her bed, Maksa blanked out for a moment before she could respond.

"Now I understand why this is illegal," was all she could think to say.

-----------===================-------------

Talla checked the path in both directions. No one had followed her. She was dead sure of it. No one was coming down the farm road from up ahead either. This was the spot where she would break from the path and head into the forest. Zhair'lo would be there, waiting in the clearing. She knew it, even if she couldn't feel him.

He had to be there.

This was her last chance to pretend she was going somewhere else. It was the last moment at which she could still be caught and punished for the fairly minor infraction of ignoring the heat bell.

She pursed her lips, checking both ways again.

Deep breath.

She turned and plunged into the forest.

Behind her, across the wide road that led to Zhair'lo's farm, a well camouflaged woman in hunting leathers stood up from her hiding spot.

Once Marissa knew that Talla was out of ear shot, she let out a bird whistle and signalled to her comrades with quick hand gestures.

Follow her, that meant, and the three of them crossed the path and entered the forest opposite. They would find her now. They were hunters after all, whether their target was human or beast, and neither kind of prey would hear them coming.

-----------===================-------------

"Are you alright?" Zhair'lo called out the moment she popped out of the bushes.

"Yeah, you?"

He nodded and reached his arms out to her.

Something started humming in his brain, a song he hadn't heard in a while. It was her song. It got louder as they ran to teach other. When they touched, a shock went through their bodies as their minds started to mesh again.

In the bushes, three creeping women wobbled a bit as a light wave of dizziness washed over them. Separated as they were in an attempt to surround their prey, none of the three realized that it was a shared experience.

Stunned by the tingling sensation that ran through their bodies, Zhair'lo and Talla more collided than kissed. Relieved to know that the mesh that had brought them so much joy was still alive, they recovered quickly.

Zhair'lo fumbled at the strings of Talla's skirt, but found her hands on his, preventing him. He looked in her eyes and saw pain there, a pain so deep he couldn't imagine what it was. Wasn't everything fine now?

"We can't," she whispered.

"What?"

"They can feel it," she told him. "If we mesh and we come, they can feel it. I don't know how far away, but they can. They'll find us. I don't even know what the punishment is for this, but we can't."

His hands were frozen at her sides.

She gave a wary glance to her right.

"Were you followed?" he asked.

"No," she said, but she lowered her voice to a whisper. "I'm sure no one followed me."

But she gave another glance to her left before she took his face in her hands.

"I had to come to tell you," she said in that quiet voice. "They're hurting you. I heard them talking last night. That's why they're giving you a day off. They know that they're wearing you out."

"I feel fine," he said, but worry had crept into his voice.

Talla's hands were on his shoulders. She found herself unable to let him go. His hands were still on her hips. They encircled her waist then, pulling her closer.

It's the mesh, she realized. They were doomed from the moment they touched.

"You have to run away," she told him. "Get away from here."

His hands stopped their gentle massage of her lower back.

"Go where?"

"Anywhere," she said. "Hunt for your food. Live off the land. You can do that. I know you can."

He thought about it. He could, in fact, do as she said. Build a small house. Put a roof on it. He might even be able to kill a wild beast, cook it and eat it. Fruit was abundant. But live away from the city? Away from people?

"Do you think it will kill me?" he asked. "Doing upgrades?"

"I don't know," she told him with a pathetic shake of her head. "But they knew they were hurting you. I don't know how long you can keep it up or what might happen."

They kissed again, mouth to mouth and tongue upon tongue. She felt the taut muscles of his shoulders and let her hands slide down his back. He pulled her in close and she felt his erection pushing at her belly.

That was what she wanted. She needed it inside her and couldn't have it.

"They'll know," she muttered through his kisses.

But she couldn't let him go. She could move her hands around his body, but not off it. The mesh wouldn't let her. If she let his penis get inside her, the insistence of it would only get worse. She hadn't even been able to pull her fingers out of Tina the time the two of them had meshed. No way would it be easier with a fully erect man inside her.

Trapped.

What could she do?

And suddenly, she knew.

Her hands went to his waist and tore at his wet leather shorts, raking them over his hips and slipping past his erection. How fortunate that it had still been pointed down when she'd done that.

He winced anyway as his penis sprang past the waist band of his shorts.

"I thought you said -"

She slid her hands around to his chest.

"There's only one way out of this," she said and knelt in front of him.

His hands were upon her head, running through her dirty brown hair but never losing contact with the skin underneath.

"Are you sure this -?"

She interrupted him with a wet lick on the under side of his erection. He moaned in appreciation.

"This might just work," she said.

It was the last thing she said for some time, because at that point she took as much of his erection in to his mouth as she could handle. One of her hands went to the base of his penis and started pumping. The other went around his back.

"Uh ... Talla," he muttered.

The only acknowledgement she could offer was an encouraging mumbling around his fully erect manhood.

If she had it right, and she really hoped she did because it was the only way out of this, the near-mesh thing they had created could only be broken by either meshing or by one of them having an orgasm. Fear had broken it once, in that alcove outside the dormitories. But there was nothing to fear here. Besides, the meshes they built were growing more and more powerful with every meeting. There was no guarantee that a moment of panic could break them apart this time.

And she was only guessing that his orgasm could break them apart. She just had a feeling it would work.

He swelled in her mouth to something very much like gag-inducing size. Good. Just get him going and then pull him out and let him come wherever he wanted. There was that image in his head of him coming on Atani's breasts, and her having to spend the rest of the afternoon with her tits all sticky. She could let him do that. It made her laugh to think of it.

His body was tightening up. Not just his penis and testicles, but everywhere. He was really close. She stroked his penis and pulled her head back until just the swollen tip of his shaft was in her mouth.

And stopped.

Her eyes widened.

It wasn't that his penis was too big. It wasn't physically stuck. There was an image in her head of her and Tina looking down their naked bodies at fingers that refused to leave the other's vagina.

"Mesh," Tina had delightedly spoken into her mind. "Unbreakable!"

Oh, Madra Zen!

There was nothing for it. She remembered Shen. But this wasn't going to be like Shen. She was stuck here for the duration.

"I -- uh -- Talla," Zhair'lo stammered out a warning.

Timing would matter. Talla took the deepest breath she could and jerked on his penis, knowing that this was the move that would drive him over the edge. She angled him to point at her cheek, hoping to avoid having his fluids firing directly in to her throat.

It helped a little.

She felt him twitch just a moment before she felt wetness filling her mouth, sliding back around her cheek and down the back of her mouth.

Swallow fast, she told herself. More is coming. Lots more.

She'd seen Zhair'lo come; watched it in his memories playing out over the breasts and faces of more than enough women. She knew how much was coming.

That faint lemony scent was there again, along with the salty bitterness that both he and Shen held in common.

The second volley of semen oozed its way into her mouth while she was still trying to choke down the first. She nearly gagged as it went down her throat.

Maybe it was better to let it accumulate?

He was coming so hard and so fast she couldn't hope to swallow in between his bursts of semen.

Three, four and five were still voluminous. It was filling her mouth up even as she kept pumping at him.

Get him clear quickly, she thought, and we can get out of here and stay out of trouble.

Six was a weaker shot, but the mesh wasn't going to let her mouth off his penis until he was empty and her mouth was getting full. She swallowed again, clearing her mouth for his last few dribbles of semen.

-----------===================-------------

Marissa crouched next to one of her charges, a Keeper who went by the name of Elena, as they watched the lawbreakers carefully from a distance. 

Quite an odd thing for a woman to do, taking that much ejaculate in her mouth. She had to wonder why. It made sense not to have sex - they'd all clearly heard Talla's reasoning for that before the two of them started whispering -- but why swallow all of the man's semen?

She shrugged. It didn't really matter. They now knew, at the very least, Talla's name. The boy had shouted it out at least twice. They could identify her visually if necessary. The young man, however ...

Marissa tapped Elena on the shoulder to get her attention. Silently, she made the signals for "follow" and "man" to let the Keeper know that this was the only obligation left for the three women. There was a nod of acknowledgement. The two of them separated, fading back farther into the forest so they could creep around and cover every possible exit the young man might take.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo and Talla fell to the ground, separated at last.

"Wow," Zhair'lo said slowly.

His eyes were starting to focus again.

"That's new," he added.

"For you," Talla said as she tried to decide what she thought of the taste left in her mouth. "Second time it happened to me."

Zhair'lo nodded. "Shen."

"Yeah," Talla said. "But I could get away then. This time I was -- uh -- stuck."

Zhair'lo smiled and failed to stifle a giggle.

"Funny for you," Talla accused.

"I could do it for you," he said suddenly. "Since we can't mesh."

"What?"

"I did it for Yua," he explained as he crawled toward her. "Not all the way until she came, but -"

"No," Talla said, scuttling on her butt away from his advance.

Zhair'lo stopped mid-crawl, eyebrows raised.

"There's no time," she explained. "And we might get stuck again."

Reality came back to her.

"You've got to run," she said, standing up. "As soon as you can. Gather whatever you need and leave the city."

"Leave Gern?" he asked, taking an unwilling step towards her. "Leave you?"

She moved to put the well between them. Let the cold stone be a substitute for willpower that could fail at any moment.

"Zhair'lo," she said, feeling her throat closing up for reasons having nothing to do with what had just gone down it. "You've got to go. They'll use you up. You don't understand. They'll use you up and they'll kill you. If you can get away, maybe -" 




Talla's Temple Ch. 24



It wasn't terribly likely, was it? She forced herself to say it anyway.

"Maybe we can find each other again."

He could only look at her. He wanted to run to her, grab her, hold her -- anything. But that would only make things more dangerous. He might never touch her again.

"I'll find you," he choked out.

"Then go," she urged and, as much as it hurt, turned her back on him.

"Go," she repeated over her shoulder.

She started running, hoping he was doing the same, knowing that if she didn't leave at that moment, she might fail entirely.

-----------===================-------------

The boy was a healthy swimmer. Elena had to give him that much credit.

She had made the assumption that he was using the river because he had to cross it, so she'd found a wide part of the river and carefully stepped across the rocks to the far bank. All she had to do now was follow him down until he exited. She could even afford to be pretty casual about it. There was very little chance, given the way he was frantically thrashing in the water, that he would notice even a person standing right at the river's edge.

Hunting was her skill. Elena had been raised much closer to the frontier than Marissa had. She'd been in battles. Real ones. The kind where people died. It gave her a perspective that Marissa lacked despite her seniority. It made tracking this disobedient whelp a rather trivial, almost relaxing game -- more a test to keep her in shape than the serious matter that her superior supposed it to be.

The river was narrowing and getting deeper. It gave the boy a bit of help, seeing as how he was headed downstream. No matter. She was from Tight and no amount of foliage or current would keep her from tracking a swimming male.

There. He was treading water, preparing to get out.

She crouched. The water was deep here. It took some effort for him to pull himself up on to an embankment.

Where was he going? Well, this was stupid. Why had he used the river if he was getting out on the same side as he went in?

Elena rolled her eyes. Diving into the river wearing leather armour would be the height of stupidity. She wasn't planning on engaging in battle anyway and she did need to follow him.

In the distance, a bell rang out. Nap time was over.

Madra Zen, her quarry was getting away. The bell seemed to have inspired him to greater effort.

Two buckles on her side came undone, releasing the entirety of the armour covering her upper body. Underneath it, she wore only the smallest yellow top she owned. It was really only there to protect her nipples from chafing on the leather. Point was her only external upgrade, a small luxury of hedonism where her mates would have taken Strength.

The skirt was another problem. Not removing it, naturally. With only one buckle holding it in place, it fell off easily. What was underneath it, on the other hand, was not something she wanted to talk about.

With her armour in a neat pile on the bank, she dove into the water with a nearly silent rip, eager to catch up to her prey.

-----------===================-------------

Having heard the bell, the men of Harzen's farm were waking up. The first of the men to stick his head out of the farmhouse was Tilgan. He stretched his neck, fixed his straw hat in place, and prepared to return to work.

He heard footsteps behind him.

Slowly, not quite completely conscious, he turned to see a woman at his side.

"Sir?" she said.

"Hm?"

A woman out here? Without a message satchel on her back?

She pointed out towards the stables.

"Do you know that boy there?"

Tilgan squinted.

"Zhair'lo, probably," he told her. "Only kid we got out here."

"Zhair'lo?"

"Mm-hm. That's him."

He turned to look at her.

Odd.

Dripping wet, for one thing. Dark hair just starting to go strawberry blond in some places. Flat chest with the tiniest yellow top he had ever seen.

His eyes wandered down her body. Legs of a messenger, no doubt about it. This was a woman of Form. But -

She coughed and his eyes immediately moved to meet hers. She was blushing.

"Thank you, sir," she said, drolly, and turned to run away ... into the forest?

Tilgan had fucked a lot of women. He was in his late thirties, after all. They'd worn white when he was young, and nowadays they only came in orange and yellow. The orange women always showed up in some fancy tops and little underwear-like bottoms. Sometimes they wore thongs, sometimes they had patterns or jewels in their little outfits. 

The yellows, though, always had skirts.

And yet, with all the yellow-clad women that had ridden his cock, never in his life had he seen a yellow pair of underwear on a woman.

That made today a first.



Talla's Temple Ch. 25



"Adjudicate."

Sonja was in full kit. The woman must truly enjoy the long orange robe that split at the front to bare her blouse and scant orange bottom. She wore it as often as she could, even when there were no cases before her. The iron circlet, however, was set aside on her desk as she busied herself with paperwork.

She glanced up only long enough to identify who stood before her.

"Marissa," she said. "You have a charge to file?"

"Yes, Adjudicate," Marissa replied coolly. "A charge of Monogamy."

Sonja stopped in mid scrawl to glare at Marissa and then take in the two women who flanked her.

"Are you certain?"

"I tracked a girl two days ago to a location in the woods," Marissa explained. "Where I presumed she met a man. Today, the three of us spotted the same woman at the same location and witnessed her Serving the man."

"Was it the same man?"

Marissa twitched.

"I did not see the first encounter, but I judge it likely."

"Judge?" Sonja mocked lightly. "Interesting word."

Marissa gulped.

"A charge of Monogamy requires two encounters," Sonja explained in a dry voice. "You did not witness the first encounter. Did they have sex the second time?"

"Oral penetration, Adjudicate."

"Sufficient for the charge," Sonja said.

She cocked her head to the side and looked up at the ceiling.

"Do we know the young man?"

"I followed him," one of the women at Marissa's side offered.

Sonja thought for a moment.

"Bring her tomorrow morning, then," she said. "Fetch him as well. It's possible I can get her to confess, in which case he may as well be here."

-----------===================-------------

It would probably speed things up, the Queen of Sweetness thought, if we could simply dress the Adepts up like Initiates. Adepts of Pussy, provided they kept their genitals covered, could pass a low-ranking women of some Endowment Discipline without much trouble -- at least as long as no one recognized them.

Then the Goddess could at least have attendants who were allowed to know that she was pregnant.

In the meantime, there were several girls clad in white sitting outside the Goddess's chamber, watching the Queen of Sweetness remove her clothing.

Obedient to the last, all six of the Initiates and Virgins stripped off their own clothing out of respect for their superior's nudity.

Well, that's where it would fall apart, wouldn't it? There would be no mistaking an Adept of Pussy for an Initiate of Point once the underwear was off. They'd have to shave -- frequently -- to pull off that ruse.

She raised her arms in the air so that the fully armoured guards could assure themselves that she hid no weapons in the pits of her arms or tucked under the flesh of her breasts.

"Thank you, Highness," the lead guard said with a bow.

They hadn't laid a hand on her.

She recovered her red skirt and blouse and refastened them, watching the jealous eyes of those around her. 93 upgrades, she thought at the gathered whites. How far away are you from me?

Her blouse appropriately attached, she passed through the doors to meet her superior.

Once the doors closed, she checked the room.

Besides the Goddess, only two other women were present this particular evening.

"How fare you, Imminence?"

The woman in black looked up with a sigh as she approached.

"Well enough, I suppose," she said, patting her belly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You haven't heard?"

The Goddess shook her head.

Sweetness slid a folded sheet of parchment across the black desk. It was promptly opened.

She knew when the woman in black hit the important part of the sheet. That was when her eyes closed and she whispered a curse.

"With Zhair'lo, I presume? It doesn't say."

"I checked, yes."

She looks exactly like I looked when I saw it, the Queen thought. As if someone took her favourite piece of clothing and set it on fire.

"There's nothing we can do."

"There are a lot of things we could do," the Queen corrected. "Not a one of them would be a good idea."

"We'd reveal ourselves," the Goddess agreed.

She looked at the note again.

"When was this?"

"Today."

"No, I mean the first encounter," she clarified distantly. "You need two for -- um - this charge."

Even a Goddess, the Queen noted, had trouble using the word Monogamy except as a curse.

"Two days ago, I believe."

"Also during the heat bell?"

The Queen nodded.

The Goddess touched her chin with the back of one finger, as if trying to probe a lost memory.

She shook her head.

"No. Couldn't be."

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo was staring at his ceiling. There was enough moonlight that he could make out the fuzzy shapes of its beams.

What was he supposed to do now?

Every ache and pain, every twitch he felt was a sign of his impending death. Fear, in the middle of the night, was a unmanageable beast with a life of its own. It grew legs and rampaged through one's mind, pointing out every reason for its growth and not a single idea that might cause it to wane.

Should he really leave Gern? Could he?

Worse yet, he could feel Talla again. Whatever had been broken between them was forged again by their meeting. The distance was too great to get more than a general sense of her sadness, a kind of fog of misery that misted over both of them.

She pulled at him. She pushed him away. Her emotions were no more stable than his. At least she was safe. He had to content himself with that much. He was the one in danger.

Was he really in danger? He hadn't noticed anything until she'd mentioned it.

There, what was that unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach? Was that the beginning of his body falling apart?

It's nothing. It's nothing, he told himself.

Unconvinced, he rolled over. It was a long time before he fell asleep.

-----------===================-------------

"I didn't think I was vague," the blonde Sorceress said.

Abundance's tone was light, but neither of the women in front of her were fooled.

"You were not, Mistress," Shanata said, her face gone to stone as she stared at the floor.

Atreya raised her eyebrows.

"Vague?" she asked.

"Our Mistress asked me to deliver a message to the girls working in a particular dorm," Shanata said. "To be clear on the dangers of Monogamy."

"And?" Atreya prodded.

"I delivered that lecture, quite thoroughly," she continued, deadpan. "I even -"

She gulped and paused.

"I even took Talla aside -- I could tell it was her -- I took her aside and warned her specifically that she'd been seen."

"Shanata -", the Sorceress scolded.

"I know, Mistress," Shanata said, her voice beginning to crack. "But I felt that I owed it to her."

"And even with that warning," Atreya put in, "she went back to him anyway."

There was silence at this statement. None of the three women could imagine what would possess a woman to take a risk like that when she knew she'd already been caught. What kind of stupidity was that? They'd had such high hopes for Talla, after her spectacular upgrade. And the poor thing had already been through so much.

"And what of Zhair'lo?" the Sorceress asked.

"What of him?" Shanata replied.

The woman in green sat down and brushed her hair back with both hands. She quickly tied it back in a sloppy ponytail.

"Why the two of them?"

"Maybe the quadruple upgrade did something to them," Shanata said. "Who knows?"

Atreya winced at this, one of her hands twitching toward the place where a whip had once traced a line across her chest.

Shanata's eyes lit up.

"I could tell her to make that argument -"

"You are forbidden to warn her in anyway," Abundance said. "You know the rules better than anyone."

Shanata stopped.

"True," she said. "But I can go tomorrow, to her trial."

"Really, Shanata?" the Sorceress asked. "By what right?"

"Sisterhood," Shanata replied, adding somewhat flippantly, "the real kind."

Atreya choked indignantly.

"When did this happen?"

"When I warned her."

Abundance took a breath and stared at the ceiling a moment.

"Very well. You may go," she said. "It's not like I can stop you. But you are not to speak to her beforehand, and you won't get to say your piece until after she's been interrogated. I don't know what you hope to accomplish."

"Mistress," Shanata said with a sharp bow. She gave a half-nod to Atreya as she turned and left the room.

-----------===================-------------

By breakfast, Zhair'lo was nowhere near ready to run from Gern. He'd spent most of the night wrestling with sleep. In the manner of many insomnia inducing problems, it did seem less urgent in the morning and his anxiety was further soothed by the mundane arrival of breakfast on the table in front of him.

What did he need if he were to run? His primary concerns, if he really wanted to strike out on his own, were food and shelter. 

He looked at the building around him with its wooden beams and stone walls. He could build something from wood, if he could take an axe with which to chop down trees. He could build a roof if he had access to straw.

And what of food? He could live off the land, possibly. They'd never taught him how to hunt, but with a ration of wheat flour he could make bread and he was certainly capable of cooking and cleaning anything he might catch. He'd need to take a pot to cook in.

Pot. Axe. Flint. Bow? He'd never spent any time using a bow. Maybe he could take one from somewhere and learn how to use it. If seeing someone do it counted as training, then he knew how to loose an arrow.

He might even be able to hit something.

How soon could he leave? He munched on his breakfast, unaware of anything around him.

"Zhai?"

"Huh?"

He blinked his eyes and shook his head at the boy sitting across from him.

"Zo'kar?"

Zo'kar gestured to the leather backpack on the floor by his feet. "Just got the assignment last night. Came over this morning."

"Horse training?"

"That's what it said," he confirmed, looking around the room. "Nice place. But pretty gods damned far from town."

"'bout half a bell from the Temple," Zhair'lo remarked idly.

"Don't catch an awful lot of long skirts out here, I imagine."

"No. No, we don't."

"How much longer are you here?"

"I don't -"

"Until he gets a new assignment," a booming voice intruded on the conversation.

Zhair'lo straightened, clearing all rebellious thought from his head lest it show on his face.

"Master Harzen," he said. "This is Zo'kar."

"Don't I know it," the large man said, settling down on the bench beside Zo'kar. "Welcome to my farm, young man."

"Thank you, sir," Zo'kar said, sitting up straight.

"What did you do in town?"

"Roofer all my life, sir."

"Zhair'lo took care of the last roofing problem we had," Harzen remarked. "But we'll get you up there if we have any problems. Meanwhile, get yourself settled in. Zhair'lo will show you to your room -- it's the empty one right across from his."

"Yes, sir," the two young men chorused.

"Have you had breakfast?"

"Before I left, sir."

"Good," Harzen remarked and stood up again. "Off you go, then. Get out to the stables as soon as you're unpacked."

Zo'kar blew out of a breath when Harzen was out of sight.

"Big guy," he remarked.

"Wait'll you see the horses," Zhair'lo warned.

-----------===================-------------

Nothing had seemed right all morning. She'd long since gotten over the surprise of swallowing more than a mouthful of semen. That was furthest from her mind. She could feel Zhair'lo out there, as she'd felt him all night.

He either wasn't running or he was very calm about it if he was. There was no sign of the kind of stress she'd felt from him on other occasions. He was preparing, probably. She knew what set of skills he had to rely on but she didn't know what he would do with those skills. Could he really live off the land or would he just starve to death?

It was nearing lunch time and still no sign of his departure. There was no sense that their link was fading as it always did when the distance between them increased. That was a bit frightening, but also strangely reassuring.

If nothing else, it meant that she could find him if she had to, once he found a place to live outside the city. That brought a smile to her lips as she folded blankets for the children.

"Talla," someone whispered.

She turned to see an extremely pale faced Adria.

"What?"

"Some people - at the door."

Talla felt her stomach drop. The look on Adria's face told her more than she wanted to know.

"For me?" she croaked.

Adria nodded, biting her lips.

Talla looked to the door, an unwillingness deep inside her trying to hold off the inevitable.

There they were. Two of Form's enforcers in their darkest, heaviest leathers. Even at this distance, she could see that one of them held a black scroll in her hand.

What was it Shanata had said of black scrolls? The words came back to her: "You should endeavour to avoid them in the future."

Maybe they weren't really here for her. Maybe it was just to ask her a question about something else, something that had nothing to do with Zhair'lo or Tina or anything else she'd done wrong.

They were both staring at her, waiting with the patient confidence of a stone wall very slowly tumbling down on the people beneath it.

-----------===================-------------

Tina was running pointless errands, the sort that they gave to a girl when they didn't have a longer term assignment ready for her. It was a hot miserable day and she mostly kept her eyes on the ground so that fatigue didn't make her stumble and look stupid.

Some familiar noise nagged at her; that certain sound made by the all-serious marching style of women wearing heavy leather armour. It was the kind of sound that would always bring a chill to her. She stopped to look up.

Yes. There they were. Two of Form's finest with their gorgeous faces and lifeless expressions. One of them carried, most frightening of all, one of the dreaded black scrolls in her hand. Tina relaxed a bit when she noticed that they already had their victim with them. It meant that they weren't coming for her.

She froze as she met the eyes of the suspected criminal.

Talla.

Pale faced and nearly as expressionless as the guards, she trotted obediently between them.

Did her eyes plead with Tina's, even for a moment? Tina couldn't say.

Talla didn't turn her head to track Tina. Maybe she didn't dare. She just kept pace with the guards and passed through into Form's triangle.

Tina watched her go.

Her shift was almost up. Chances were that Talla would leave Form after - whatever it was -- and go back to Endowment. Tina would wait for her there.

-----------===================-------------

"How many upgrades you done?"

"Same as you I think," Zo'kar said. "Four."

They were walking out to the stables, where Zhair'lo had been directed to take Zo'kar. Harzen's instructions weren't complicated. "Show him what you do," the old man had said.

Zhair'lo had actually done five, counting Talla, but he wasn't concerned about that.

"How do you feel?"

Zo'kar gave a start.

"Feel?"

Zhair'lo waved his hands in denial. He hadn't meant the question in the emotional sense.

"Y'know, overworked?" he asked. "Doing so many upgrades night after night?"

"I don't think so," Zo'kar replied. "Feels like I could do 'em forever. You?"

"Oh, fine," Zhair'lo said. "They're just giving me a break and I wondered if you were having problems."

"Not because of me," he told Zhair'lo with a smile. "I could spray those girls every night, two at a time, if they asked me to."

Zhair'lo laughed.

"I wonder if that would work."

"What?"

"One source, two destinations."

It was Zo'kar's turn to laugh.

"What? Just put them side by side on the altar and try to get them both? I -"

He was making a gyrating motion with his hips to simulate his proposed technique when he was interrupted.

"Zhair'lo M'han!" a firm voice called out from behind them.

Both boys turned to look for the speaker. They found themselves facing a pair of women in heavy leather armour.

"Mistress?"

"You are Summoned to the Temple on urgent business," the same woman went on. "You are to accompany us immediately."

The two boys looked at each other a moment.

"Later, then," Zo'kar said.

"Yeah. Guess so."

Zhair'lo marched off with the women bracketing him.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was standing in front of that nasty table again. The tall, narrow room was empty of other suspects, just as it had been when she'd been pulled in here along with M'lis, Adria and five other girls. Was it common for this place to be empty? Why all the benches if no one ever sat in them?

It didn't matter.

At least this time she wasn't dripping with cold rain. The shivers she tried to control were entirely those of fear.

There was the woman in the orange robe and iron circlet, sitting behind her desk. There were the two guards who had brought her here, still standing on either side of her and one step back. There were the four Virgins in knee length skirts along the back wall.

So familiar.

"Talla," the woman said carefully. "Do you understand how our society is held together?"

"Mistress?"

She pursed her lips.

"We are assigned men to Serve," she explained. "And we Serve those ones, and only those ones. Men are kept docile because they know it is never long before another women comes to their bed. They do their work; we do our work. We keep them entertained with sexual variety and satisfy our own needs."

"When you step out of those assignments -- when you select for yourself which men to Serve -- you do great damage to the fabric of our society. The randomness which assures each of the men that they will eventually stumble upon women whom they find greatly attractive is broken by such behaviour."

"It makes men ... restless. A situation we can ill afford if you have ever studied history."

Her eyes narrowed to meet Talla's.

"It is important that you do not lie to me, Talla," the woman said coldly. "I will know, first of all. And second, it will count against you."

Talla gulped, not daring to break eye contact. Shanata had seen right through her once. The women of Form clearly had some ability to tell lies from truth.

"Yesterday, during the heat bell, did you meet him this young man Zhair'lo in a place to the southwest of the city?"

Talla's stomach dropped. She knew!

"Yes, Mistress," she choked out.

"And performed Service upon him with mouth and tongue."

They'd been watching? How?

"Yes, Mistress," she stammered.

"Three days ago, did you also meet with the same boy at the same location?"

Dammit, dammit, dammit! They knew everything!

"Yes, Mistress," she admitted.

"And Served him on that occasion."

It was a statement. She lowered her eyes.

"Yes, Mistress."

The Adjudicate sighed.

"This is a worse crime than merely seeking out a man of your preference. You have engaged in Monogamy, one of the worst offences known."

"It will become known among other men that Talla prefers just one of them. The others of his age will become jealous at your preference, especially with that body of yours, and wish to take his place. They will seek to injure him to achieve this goal and attain possession of you."

The Adjudicate let that sink in a moment.

"A possession, Talla," she repeated. "Is that what you wish to be? A token? A piece of clothing? A thing to be hung on a wall?"

'That's not how it would be!' she wanted to shout out. 'He's not like that!'

But she remained silent. The wall covered with coiled whips and the knowledge that this woman had the authority to use them were enough to keep her from arguing.




Talla's Temple Ch. 25



"No, Mistress," she said meekly.

"Good," the older woman responded. "Women are not to be possessed. We are free beings; beings of strength -", she flexed her arms without unfolding her hands, "- beings of intellect. We drive this society and maintain its health and happiness as we have done quite successfully for centuries."

She paused again to observe Talla.

Talla looked straight over the woman's head and gulped.

"The crime is Monogamy," she called out formally, "to which the accused has freely confessed."

It was louder than necessary, really, given that all eight of the room's occupants were within a few steps of her. Talla waited. The next thing that the Adjudicate was going to do was tell her what her punishment was.

But ... nothing.

The Adjudicate merely looked at her in a somewhat unpleasant fashion, as if waiting for something else to happen. Was Talla supposed to say something?

She swallowed reluctantly but was saved the embarrassment of trying to speak when a door to her right clicked open. Was there going to be an audience? Was that part of the punishment -- to have people watch her and add to the humiliation? The Adjudicate wasn't reacting.

Talla didn't want to turn her head. She didn't want to see who was coming to watch her suffer under the whip. But her eyes, unbidden, veered to that side of the room. When she saw who was coming, her entire head turned in shock.

Shanata?

That just made her feel stupid, not embarrassed. Here was the one person who had come yesterday to warn her against doing what she did and taken a risk to give that warning. And what had she done with Shanata's sacrifice? She had gone ahead and done the stupid thing anyway and exercised insufficient caution while doing it, in spite of the warning.

Failure. I failed Shanata.

Lips pursed together, Shanata came and stood next to her.

"Identify yourself", the Adjudicate said, all formal.

"Shanata, daughter of Entek out of Marletta."

"Shanata out of Marletta. By what right do you stand here?"

"The convicted and I are sisters," Shanata said. "We shared the kiss."

"Very well, Shanata, sister of Talla," the Adjudicate said. "You have something to say in the defence of the convicted."

That's why Shanata was here? To defend her? But she'd already been convicted. She'd confessed. What else was there to say?

Shanata folded her arms defiantly, orange drapes of cloth from her elbows rearranging themselves to align with those hanging off her hips. It was only then that Talla noticed what her sister and former teacher was wearing. She had never seen Shanata dress this way. She hadn't even known the woman possessed such clothing.

This was the formal wear of a teacher in the dorms outside the Temple. It spoke of delicacy, knowledge and power. It meant that the woman wearing it didn't have to do any manual tasks at all. While it's floating panels of orange fabric did not cover the important parts of her body any more than the bikini top and bottom, it gave Shanata an aura to match that of the Adjuciate.

"There are a number of factors which should be considered before a sentence is pronounced," Shanata enunciated.

Talla watched out of the corner of her eye as Shanata ticked off her fingers, one at a time.

"First, Zhair'lo was both Talla's first Conduit and Virgin's Choice, and that inappropriate affection is common in such cases."

"As we are well aware," the Adjudicate said. "Go on."

"Second, by Zhair'lo's transfer, Talla received four upgrades," Shanata stated. "This unprecedented experience was painful for both of them. The shared experience may have contributed to building an unusual emotional bond between them."

"A bond that it is our duty to break," the Adjudicate declared.

"Third, the receiving of that quadruple upgrade was an extraordinarily painful experience for Talla," Shanata said. "It is quite possible, and should be taken into consideration, that it may have addled her wits for some time afterwards."

"You're arguing mental incapacity?"

Her voice was incredulous.

"No," Shanata replied, "merely that her judgement may have been impaired in a way that we did not detect."

"My records show that she was recently given a Strength upgrade -- an Extraordinary," the Adjudicate answered back. "If you were worried about the effects of her quadruple upgrade, why did you pile on more?"

"Perhaps this court needs a reminder," Shanata put in stiffly, "that there are serious dangers in carrying a large number of Abundance upgrades without the Strength upgrades to back them up. It was the medical judgement of a physician of Sweetness that led to that upgrade."

That was cold. It was all Talla could do not to glance at the breasts of the Adjudicate. That pair was even smaller than Talla's.

"Very well. Do you have any further defence?"

"Only that the court be reminded that this girl joined the Temple less than one moon ago and has undergone a considerable amount of pain and disorientation," Shanata concluded simply.

"We are not without mercy," the Adjudicate said. "However a crime of this magnitude can not go unpunished."

"No," Shanata agreed with a twist of her lips. "Of course not."

The iron-crowned woman turned to Talla.

"Do you have anything to add in your defence?"

Her throat was dry. She wasn't sure she could speak, never mind form sentences.

"No, Mistress," she croaked out.

The Adjudicate waved a hand at one of the Virgin girls behind her. This one stood and dislodged one of the heaviest whips from the wall. This was brought and laid on the desk in front of Talla.

"I will now explain to you how you will be punished for this transgression against the very orthodoxy of the Temple," she intoned as she stood and took the whip in her hand.

"You will do exactly as you are told. You will follow the script I lay out for you perfectly. Deviate from it and you will feel the barbs of this whip. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress."

The Adjudicate turned to look at Shanata.

"I am -- required to leave now, sister" Shanata told Talla.

"Thank you, sister," Talla blurted out, trying to hold her composure.

Shanata marched out. When the door clicked, the Adjudicate began her instructions.

-----------===================-------------

Every step he took in the wake of the two armoured guards was a step that brought him closer to Talla. She was near and she was frightened. The more he walked, the more determined he became of her fear.

The guards led him up a set of stairs to a doorway and silently indicated that he should enter the room beyond. It was a small and simple wood walled office. From his left, the space was dimly lit by rays of sunlight shining through small slits in the wall. On his right, it overlooked a lower floor full of rows of wooden benches. The back wall was covered in dark brown curtains.

A very pretty woman wearing a long orange robe, her jet black hair held tightly by an iron circlet, sat behind a small desk with her hands folded together. She smiled in a way that frightened all nine hells out of him.

"Zhair'lo, is it?" she asked, pushing one of the two glasses on the desk toward him.

"Yes, Mistress," he replied.

"Close the door behind you and have a seat," she said cheerfully. "Have a drink. I understand it was a long walk."

"Mistress," he said with a nod.

The door closed with a smooth click and he sat on the small wooden stool in front of her desk, taking the glass in his hand. She took a deep draught from her drink and so he did the same. Ice cold water mixed with some sweet, clear fruit juice. It should have been refreshing. Instead, it made him feel dizzy, burned down his throat and weighed heavily in his stomach.

The woman took a breath and cocked her head at him somewhat sadly.

"My name is Sonja," she said. "I am an Adjudicate here in the domain of Form. It is my duty to correct the behaviour of those who have, shall we say, gone astray of the law. Do you understand?"

Zhair'lo gulped and nodded.

"Sorry. Couldn't hear you."

"Yes, Mistress. I understand."

"You have fallen in the way of some very unfortunate events," she went on with a shake of her head. "Not your fault, of course, but here we are nonetheless."

Not his fault? What did she mean?

Sonja stood at this point and walked over to the balcony on his right. She swept her robe backwards so she could put her hands on her bare hips. Even in his frightened state, Zhair'lo was shocked by the sight of her body. He'd never seen a woman built like that. Every step -- every movement -- showed muscles twitching in her thighs and calves. Her stomach rippled and her smallish breasts, tightly covered by her small orange top, were a distant second to the muscles of her chest. Her arms were just as strong as the rest of her. He watched her triceps flex as she turned her wrists.

She could shatter his body if given the excuse and probably chew up the pieces without losing that smile on her face.

"It's a curious thing, really," she said while peering out over the room below. "The laws of the Temple don't allow us to punish men for any crime that doesn't harm women. We leave all other matters to your brothers."

"In fact," she went on as if discussing a legal curiosity, "you would be in a greater degree of trouble for refusing a woman's Service than you would for accepting it -- at least from our point of view."

A heavy sigh, then, as he watched the muscles in her chest flex and relax. She turned to face him, leaning on the ledge with her ankles crossed and her stomach muscles tense to hold her upper body in perfect posture.

"But you see, here we are," she said with a wave at the room below and behind her. "Talla should not have done what she did. It is one of the gravest crimes in which a woman could involve herself."

She glanced at the ceiling, pursing her lips in what Zhair'lo thought was a transparently false attempt to appear thoughtful.

"What good would it be for you if each woman Served only a few men, or a single man?" she asked. "It would never balance. Some men would be Served more, some less, some rarely at all. How would that be? Oh, the unfairness and the jealousy. It simply wouldn't do."

She peered at him.

"And you wouldn't want that, would you?" Sonja asked. "The same woman every night? How boring, right? Think of all the blondes, the redheads, the brunettes. Think of all the things you'd be missing. Sure, someone like Talla has large breasts, larger than mine even. But what else is out there? What about muscular women -" she peered at him playfully and flexed a bicep, "or those women with the muscles inside."

Sonja looked down at the small triangle she had made with her fingers over top of the scant material of her bottom. She met his eyes and raised her eyebrows.

"There are women in my Division who can do things with their mouths -- well," she made another theatrical pause, "you'll see in due time."

"But again, none of this is your fault," she repeated. "It was Talla's offer -- her repeated offer -- that is the problem. It is that which we must correct."

Another pause for a pretend moment of thoughtfulness as Sonja touched her chin with a finger. Her voice and manner turned stern.

"All the same, of course," she said. "I do wish to -- let us say -- discourage you from making future arrangements with Talla. Just for the sake of propriety, you understand?"

She stared at him, narrowing her eyes.

"You understand?" she repeated, a little more loudly.

"Yes, Mistress."

"Good," she said, standing up and letting her robe fall back around her body. "Come along, then."

She opened the door and led him out.

They went back down the stairs he had just come up and turned to go through a set of large oak doors that had been closed when he'd gone by them.

He found himself trailing Sonja's orange robes through an absolutely cavernous wooden hall full of empty benches and narrow strips of sunlight. The sense that he was closing in on Talla became quite acute, so much so that he hadn't really taken stock of the room he was in.

A chill went through him. He suddenly had a notion that he'd been here before. But he hadn't. He was remembering Talla's memories. Things were missing from those memories, things Talla had desperately tried to hide. He knew what this room was for, but why was he here? If they weren't allowed to punish him, then -

"Stand here," Sonja said as she stepped to the side.

Talla.

There she was, standing in front of that table that he knew all too well from her memories.

Her eyes met his, cold and lifeless. He knew the eyes were lying. She was frozen with fear, right up to the muscles in her face. She felt a lot, even though her face showed nothing. He knew that because, at this distance, he was inside her head.

They stood facing each other for an eternity, uncountable and nameless emotions bouncing back and forth between them.

'I'm sorry,' he said into her mind.

'Me, too,' she answered.

Something was pressed into his hand as a movement at the corner of his vision caught his attention.

Sonja was holding a whip. It was the nastiest thing he had ever seen: a coiled snaked with sharp barbs along every centimetre of its length. Zhair'lo looked at it in horror. She was going to hit Talla with that! That wouldn't leave those red rashes and lines of blood that he had seen on Talla's friends -- it would rip her skin entirely!

"It's the most amusing thing, really," Sonja said as she touched a finger to one of the barbs and retracted it with a twitch. "We're not allowed to punish men, but we are allowed to make it very clear to them what the consequences are of breaking our rules."

Zhair'lo was sweating now. She was going to torture Talla as both punishment for her and an object lesson for him. But Sonja didn't realize what was really going on. No one -- and that included Zhair'lo and Talla -- fully understood what the mental link between them was. Regardless, he knew that he would feel every bit of pain she caused Talla.

"So the choice is up to you."

Choice, what choice did he have? To leave or to stay? That seemed unlikely. He looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

She nodded at his hand and, compelled, he looked down.

He held the handle of a whip there, its thin tail extending to the ground.

His eyes widened in shock.

Oh, nine hells, no!

"Zhair'lo," Talla said stiffly, no longer meeting his eyes but looking straight over his head to the entrance of the dark hall. "You have to."

Sonja beckoned to the girls in white who sat along the back of the room. Two of them came forward and stood next to Talla.

Zhair'lo watched, holding the whip in his hand, as Talla slid her skirt off and handed it to the attendant. Her little pair of white underwear, a match for what still lay in his dresser back at the farm, was next to go. One Virgin attendant folded each garment and handed it to the other.

Talla's top went next. His heart skipped, seeing those beautiful breasts revealed. He felt the skin on his forehead becoming warm, threatening to sweat. His breathing sped up. What was going on?

Naked, Talla turned her back to them and leaned over the table. Her wrists were fastened down.

"Well, then," Sonja said as she approached Talla. "Here we are."

She touched one of the barbs to Talla's flesh. Zhair'lo flinched as he felt Talla's pain. Sonja dragged that barb across Talla's rear, making a light, red streak across both cheeks. Zhair'lo bit his lip. He didn't need to see Talla's face to know how that felt.

"When I tell you to strike, you will strike here," she said, indicating the line she had made. "If you do not, I will."

She took two steps back and stood with her hands on her hips.

'Do it,' Talla thought at him. 'She really will hit me if you don't.'

'I'm sorry', he beamed back at her.

"Raise your whip," Sonja instructed. 

Nine gods, she was still smiling.

'No,' he thought, frozen to the spot.

Sonja raised her whip.

'Do it,' Talla insisted. 'You have to.'

Zhair'lo raised hand and held it back behind his shoulder.

"Now!" Sonja commanded.

'Do it!'

He tensed, his arm driven forward against his will, a machine like a miller's wheel doing only what the laws of motion insisted it do.

Cringing in preparation, he heard it crack off of Talla's tender pale skin only a moment before he felt searing pain shoot through his own body.

Gods! The pain!

"Again!"

He breathed through the pain, pulled his arm back and lashed out a second time. He refused to watch where it struck her body, refused to let her see -- through his eyes -- what he was doing to her. This was worse than the upgrade. He hadn't understood the dangers back then. It hadn't really been his fault.

But this.

This he had seen coming. He had seen her memories of what the Temple did to those who stepped out of line. He'd seen M'lis's bleeding ass. He'd seen Adria being struck. And even then, he'd consented to one more dangerous meeting. And now she was suffering, and so was he.

Because as that second strike seared across her rear, he felt every inch of her pain as if it were burning a path through his own body. He wobbled dangerously, dizzied by the mesh that held their minds together.

"That won't do, Zhair'lo," Sonja said. "Again, and harder, or I'll see to it myself."

Talla begged him to do it again. He knew that he had to. She certainly believed that this was no idle threat. As he raised the whip a third time, he felt the mesh shiver.

'No. No you don't,' he demanded.

'We don't both have to suffer,' she replied.

'I won't -'

"Again! Now!"

Jarred by the interruption, he lashed out, striking Talla's cheeks harder than before. Agony swept through his body, starting in his own rear and lighting up his spine like some kind of anti-orgasm.

Talla used the pain - used his own involuntary recoil -- to rip at the mesh.

'I won't let go!'

'You must!'

'No!'

"Again!"

His heart was going to kill him. Breathing had become short and erratic as the beating of his heart throbbed in his ears. His stomach was nearly ready to turn, tensing up every muscle he had from his rib cage down to his groin.

Without any other option besides watching the red lines across Talla's skin become large and brutal tears, he raised the whip and struck her a fourth time.

'Let go!' she demanded, using the pain to force them apart.

'Never! I won't abandon you!' he declared.

But he was losing the battle and he knew it. It was like climbing a rock wall during a earthquake. Every tremor loosened his grip a little bit more. It might have been possible to hold on, but someone was stepping on his fingers at the same time.

"Again!"

Even though he was looking away, he could see the telltale flash of red that told him blood was trickling from the wounds he was inflicting. He struck again, madly, determined to see this thing through and come out the other side before Talla could shake him from his hold.

Pain. Oh, gods, such pain as he had never felt. And his mental fingers, losing their grip, Talla stepping on every one of them in an effort to free him from having to share her burden.

"Again!"

It came so close on the tail of the last blow.

There was a moment of intense agony, an instinctive urge to run away that he fought like a bucking horse, and then a sudden disconnection that felt like a thing dying, like a small animal having its life taken with a quick snap of its neck.

Zhair'lo shook his head, utterly disoriented. There was Talla, bent over the desk in front of him, bleeding in thin little rivulets, and he felt nothing. She'd done it. She'd broken the mesh, disconnected from him completely.

"Enough!" Sonja called out, stepping between him and Talla.

Enough? Gods damn it. They'd only had to hold on for one more.




Talla's Temple Ch. 25



"There, you see?" Sonja said.

She touched a finger to Talla's cheek and held it up to him, a drop of blood poised on the tip.

"I trust that we will never have to repeat this exercise, young man?"

He nodded. His eyes were stung with tears he hadn't noticed shedding.

"Understood, young man?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"Good."

She must have made a gesture to one of the guards. He found himself gripped by the elbow and led away.

What was wrong with him? Was it anxiety? His heartbeat was completely messed up. It was pounding in his ears and throbbing all the way down to ... what in the nine hells? This could not be happening. How could it be possible, after some like this?

Delirious with what he was certain could not be lust, he was shoved onto a bench by the guard.

"Yours, Vunja," the guard declared before leaving and slamming the door shut behind her.

He was in a very small room, sweating and breathing laboriously. There was a woman in front of him. Young woman in a very short skirt. He barely saw her. Brown hair, complexion like a very milky chocolate. Very expressive, large eyes. His vision was blurry and distorted. Maybe her eyes were normal and his were the issue.

"Don't worry," she said very softly. "My name is Vunja. I know what your problem is and I can fix it."

She knelt at his feet and began unlacing his leathers.

"Nuh-no," he protested weakly.

"Yes, yes," she said, pushing his hands away with ease. "You can't resist."

His hands weren't working properly. It was all he could do not to fall over sideways.

"There we go," she said, undressing him at last.

Her mouth found his thoroughly erect penis. How could he aroused after what he'd just done to Talla? He was horrified at his own rebellious body.

I should be in mourning, he thought, not fucking some stupid girl.

But he didn't have the coordination to stop her. He was nothing but erratic heartbeats, blurred vision and an incomprehensible erection. 

Some time passed. Zhair'lo couldn't be certain how much. She was a wonder with her tongue and he hated her for every second she licked and sucked at him.

"That a boy," she said as she stroked him. "I'm just what you need. I'll make you feel all better in just a minute."

She glanced over his head for a moment. Did she nod her head? If he didn't even understand his own body right now, how could he understand hers? Vunja stood up and started removing her clothing.

Part of him was eager to watch her take off her little skirt. The rest of him was angry at that part. 

'What Discipline is she?' he wondered. 'Must be the one with the legs. Her muscles are so strong.'

She wasn't wearing anything under the skirt. She tossed off her top.

No breasts, he thought fuzzily. Not like Talla. Or maybe like Talla was when I met her. I can't feel Talla anymore. Talla is gone.

Vunja straddled him on the bench, setting his erection against her entrance.

"Everything will start feeling better right now," she said. "Vunja will fix everything for you."

With that, she slid his manhood up inside her.

He remembered nothing after that but sheer, dark ecstasy.

-----------===================-------------

Her eyes red despite her refusal to cry, her throat dry and choked with the effort of denying her emotional turmoil, Talla stood at attention in the otherwise empty little room the Adjudicate used for her office.

They'd applied salve to her abused rear the moment Zhair'lo had been taken out of the room. It had stung horribly, but it had stopped the bleeding. She bitterly told herself that they cared more for their flooring than they did for her health.

At least she'd saved Zhair'lo the worst of it. They couldn't be together anymore, could they? So why bother hurting him? Every time she'd torn at the mesh, it meant a little less pain was going through to him. Until they got to the end, and she'd broken their bond, and they couldn't use her to hurt him anymore. That was the only victory she'd salvaged.

They hadn't returned her clothes yet. Probably wanted to make sure the salve stopped up the bleeding. Form didn't want women walking around with bloody clothes, did they?

The door slid open behind her and closed again.

"I trust," the Adjudicate began, "that we have made clear how horrible we view the crime of Monogamy."

"Yes, Mistress," Talla replied, lifeless as she could manage.

"Good."

The Adjudicate moved past her desk to the wall behind it. There were brown curtains there that she slid open. She looked downward into whatever room was beyond and gave a slight nod to someone there.

"Come," she said in a kindly voice. She waved Talla forward. "Observe your young man."

Talla carefully walked around the desk to obey. Much like the window on the right side of the room, this portal also looked down on to the main floor, but into a much smaller room.

She gasped.

It was Zhair'lo.

He was in the throes of passion with a small, muscular girl riding astride him.

Her mouth hung open as she watched him grasping at this girl's back, her hair, her legs. How could he? Just moments ago ...

She tried to pull away, but the Adjudicate grabbed her by the back of the neck and forced her forward, pressing her bare chest against the unfinished wooden ledge.

"You see how men are? Is this beast worthy of the devotion you wanted to give it?"

The slim girl gave a quick glance up to the window before she leaned over and attached her mouth to Zhair'lo's ear. A moment later and Talla watched as his right hand flashed through the air and struck the girl's ass.

"Oh!" she screeched in pleasure. "Again!"

Talla felt the tears rising in her eyes; the tears she had locked up and refused to shed through all the lashes of the whip. Mere physical pain could never have forced her to show weakness. But this ...

Zhair'lo's hand struck again.

Over and over, the skinny girl begged for him to spank her. Over and over, he did it, his head buried in the crook of her neck. Perhaps he was biting her, too. Talla would never know.

Another sly look up at the window. The Adjudicate nodded and closed the curtains.

"Yes, well," she said to Talla. "I think the point is taken."

She thumped on her desk.

"She's ready now," the Adjudicate called out.

A Virgin attendant came in to the little office and stood beside Talla, offering her folded up clothes. Talla didn't care. What was nudity now, after that? She took the clothing anyway. If she walked around naked, they would bring her back and whip her again as they had M'lis and Adria.

How could you? she thought. How could you do that?

-----------===================-------------

He woke up with a pounding headache.

What the hell time was it? Where was he?

When his vision cleared, he recognized the room immediately. It was the same one they'd tossed him in on the night he'd upgraded Talla. It wasn't morning though. He remembered the angle the sun had made through the windows. It was afternoon, maybe early evening. How long had he slept? What had happened?

Memories came flooding back. Talla. The whip. Horrid memories. There'd been a feeling like he was going to die. Then a girl who promised to make it better. It got blurry after that.

Still lying down, he closed his eyes and searched for Talla, like a little boy poking his tongue at the place where his baby tooth used to be.

Nothing. She'd torn the mesh. He hadn't been able to hold on through the pain. If he'd just been a bit stronger, fought just a little harder ...

Gods damned bitches, he cursed. What have you done to us?

He stood up, dizzy and with a throbbing in his head, but he stood.

I will get you for this, he swore. I don't know how, but I'll get you for this.

His clothing was still on. They hadn't stripped him this time. He wobbled to the door, braced himself while he found his centre of gravity, and knocked with the side of his fist.

The door opened.

A woman he had never seen before, wearing light leather armour, appeared.

"You're awake, then," she noted. "Let's get you out of here."

He wanted to reply but felt like retching. Stomping on the urge to vomit, he merely frowned at the woman and gave her a nod.

"Come along," she said, waving him to her side.

She paused a moment and held up her hand, preventing him from passing through the doorway. A large group of men and women, all wearing armour, was marching by at great speed. They made a considerable entourage and carried several more people on stretchers.

'Fighters,' Zhair'lo thought. 'But whom do you fight?'

He and his guard watched them go by before resuming their walk.

'Whom do you fight?' he asked again. 'Because I have a sudden desire to meet them.'

-----------===================-------------

"Talla?"

She looked up, wondering who would be calling her.

"You don't look well."

"Tina," she acknowledged.

The two girls looked at each other for a moment. Both faces were a bloodless white, but at least Tina's had some expression. Talla might as well be dead.

"Come with me," Tina said.

"I want to be alone," Talla replied.

"No," Tina told her, hooking her arm. "No, you don't."

Talla didn't care. She would go with Tina if Tina cared so much. Or, if Tina wanted to take her to a bath and hold her head underwater, she would go along with that, too.

She was vaguely aware that she was being led through the Temple into Endowment's triangle; down the long and mostly empty streets that led to Tina's apartment.

"There's something I need to show you," she said to Talla as she pulled her up the stairs.

Talla couldn't muster the effort to shrug. Shrugging would mean that she cared enough to let someone know that she didn't care at all. Wasn't it more sensible never to shrug at all?

Tina closed the door behind Talla and stood up on her bed to take something off the wall.

"Here," she said, handing Talla a bent piece of metal.

Talla recognized it. It was the one truly awful thing in Tina's entire collection of possessions. The presence of Tina's clothing from previous ranks was merely odd. This thing was distasteful.

"Ugly thing," Talla remarked with a frown.

It was the work of some horrible craftsman attempting to twist a piece of metal into the shape of a Strength medallion -- the roofless house inside the circle of Endowment.

"It was a gift," Tina said with a breath.

Talla perked up at this.

"A gift?"

"From a young man," Tina added sternly.

Talla choked.

"You had a young man, too, didn't you?" she asked Talla.

Talla nodded, tears burning fresh in her eyes.

Tina swallowed.

"And they caught you today?"

Talla lost it, then, and felt her body begin to shudder with uncontrollable sobs. Tina embraced her as waves of denied emotions racked her body. She felt, distantly, Tina's tears falling over her.

"How could he?" Talla sobbed. "How could he?"

Tina gulped.

"They made you watch him with someone else, didn't they?"

"What? How did you know?"

Tina took Talla's face in her hands and forced their eyes to meet.

"It's a thing they do," Tina said. "To break you apart. To make it so you never want to go to him again. I don't know why he went along with it. I don't know why -- why mine did either."

"You've been through this," Talla said.

Tina nodded.

"They're so wrong," Talla said as her eyes dropped and she started putting the pieces together. "They hurt us. They hurt him. They -- they're just so wrong."

"Yeah, they are," Tina sighed and shrugged. "But what are you going to do about it?"

Talla's eyes, red and brimming with tears, rose to meet Tina's.

There was ice glinting behind that water.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo trudged, rucksack over his back, toward his new assignment. He carried his gloves and working leathers a few other articles of clothing. Inside his cleanest shirt, wrapped up carefully, was a small white piece of white cloth that, though it didn't truly belong to him, was his most prized possession.

Hunters, the assignment scroll had read. Lyric's Camp, Sector Two.

They were going to teach him how to use a bow, were they? 

Fine and good.

He would learn how to use a bow. He would become a gods damned Master of the bow. He would make them regret it.

The path he followed went upwards and peaked off at a rocky outcrop. From that vantage, he could see most of Temple laid out on its hill, from the low wall of its main gate to its highest point farther to the north.

"I'm not going to run away," he said aloud to that triangle. "I'm not afraid of your rituals or what they might do to me. I promised to get those girls out and I will."

"And after that, I don't care if doing your upgrades kills me. If staying here and dying young is the cost of destroying you, I will gladly pay it."

END OF BOOK 1

I'd like to extend my gratitude to Mahanamatashi, a volunteer editor who faithfully edited every single chapter of this story.  Also to Ken Scades who provided some very helpful critiques of my writing. 

Thanks also to all of the people who sent me a private or public note with critiques and helpful advice – even those who just kept reminding me to write with their enthusiastic desire for the next chapter.

Please feel free to drop me a line to let me know what you thought of it, who your favourite characters were and if I forgot them, anything like that.

Cheers,

Xavier.