Priestess of the Heavens

"Such a waste," he said, chuckling.

"Oh, I know a lot of gals who would disagree with that sentiment," she responded with an additional punch on his arm.

"You know, strangely enough -- I don't find that thought comforting right now," laughed Pax. "A million miles from the nearest straight woman and you talking about that body doing something with another woman... no, I'm just about due for a cold shower. Third one in two days, if you must know the truth."

He walked past her toward the living quarters with one more glance at her body.

"Damn," he whispered.

She watched him go with... admiration, you might call it. It wasn't as though she hadn't noticed him as well. The human form, male or female, is a lovely thing. She had certainly noticed his rippling chest as he'd been shoveling or hauling supplies. She had nothing but admiration for his body. But 'admire' is a very different word from 'desire'. She also admired vintage sports cars from the time of petroleum. There was nothing as gorgeous as an ancient Ferrari, but that didn't mean she wanted to fuck it.

Three weeks in, they hit the first day of spring and decided to raid the still with a vengeance. About ten rice beers in, they got to talking about the occasion and all of the different festivals around it.

"Spring Equinox, all of that -- we've been celebrating it since before we even recorded history."

"Really?" asked Pax.

"Oh yeah," said Kari. "This is when the fertility rites took place -- as people got ready for planting. This is Inanna's day.

"Banana?" said Pax, struggling with the word due to the beer.

"Inanna, Paxy," said Kari, hitting him on the shoulder, "Inanna! This was her time of the year. You prayed to her, sacrificed to her, other stuff."

"You girls are always into those goddesses."

"What girls?

"Lesbians. I had a couple of friends at the Academy. Dagmar and Butch..."

"Wait a minute, you had a Lesbian friend named Butch? Really?"

"Yeah, her real name was Jessina - but it was an opposite nickname -- you know, like calling a tall guy tiny. Butch was all lipstick. Hottest girl in the Academy. Anyway, she and Dagmar were always talking about the ancient goddesses, pagan stuff. Why is that?"

Kari contemplated this for a while -- trying to find the words that best described the odd mystique around the ancients.

"So, I'm into women, right? "

"So am I," agreed Pax with a wry grin.

"Okay, yeah yeah yeah," said Kari. "But you're not a woman. When you're a woman who loves women -- it makes you very aware of what it means to be a woman. Start from the uterus and work your way out from there. That makes you see what it's like to be a woman in society, both the good and the bad."

"So, that ties into ancient Sumerian goddesses how?"

"So -- I came from New Utah. Still, today -- in the twenty-fourth century, lesbians and gays can't expect to rise to the highest level of heaven after they die. Legally, the Mormon church can't outlaw them, or excommunicate them -- but that doesn't mean they can't pressure you otherwise. Try being a teenager sitting through seminary, having your biggest crush be on the two girl missionaries who stop in every week and have them tell you god thinks you're doomed to never 'ascend to the highest level'. The point is, once you become aware of women from the center of your being, you look back over our history and you A) get pissed off at the way women have been treated most of the time and B) Find yourself drawn to those times when women -- when the feminine -- was acknowledged."

Pax pondered this and queried further: "So, do you hate the big religions? Christianity? Islam?"

"No, Pax," said Kari patiently. "I find each religion has a vast array of beauty and kindness in its beliefs. However, if you look at where things go wrong through the ages, it is most often when religions are used to exert power as opposed to providing guidance. When the power equation comes into play -- men generally are the more power-hungry, and as a result imbalances come about both between masculine and feminine, and with the more base foundations like respecting the ebb and flow."

"Can you give me examples?"

"Sure," said Kari, thinking it over, "here's a good one. In Sumeria, there were temples to Inanna, who was the goddess of fertility. There may have been sacred prostitution in the early days -- but it was there on a ritual level, to celebrate the act of giving life. However, the priestesses were also in charge of monitoring the crops, and they also probably worked hand in hand with the Priests of Enki who oversaw irrigation systems. However, the kings eventually saw that people made donations to the temples where the sacred rights took place and where there were beautiful women in the form of priestesses. Soon, they figured out that sex sells -- and turned the temples into nothing more than glorified brothels with the state collecting the money. Those wise priestesses were stripped of their power, killed if they complained, and made into common whores. Those priests, they were put in charge and became nothing more than pimps. No one put it together when the crops started to fail due to overplanting and poor water management leading to excess salinization in the soil. In the beginning, you had a time in those early days of Sumeria when the king paid tribute to the High Priestess of Inanna -- the goddess of love and fertility. The King, went to her."

"Cool."

"It was beyond cool," mused Kari. "It was a time when someone like me or my friends... it was a time when someone who was smart and intelligent could seek out a true profession -- and we're talking over seven thousand years ago. Any woman who wanted could live in a temple among the other priestesses. She could study, learn, be a healer, help society. There were millennia when women -- lesbian or otherwise -- didn't have that option."

"That is pretty awesome. Thanks for explaining it to me."

"Thanks for listening, Pax" said Kari, taking another sip. "Worst case scenario, all the priestess had to do was sleep with the king once a year in a sacred ceremony in the spring. Even if a baby came out of it, it belonged to her."

"Good for her... what was that?"

Pax was suddenly more interested.

Kari rolled her eyes at her slip-up and then tried to explain things as clinically as possible.

"Each spring Equinox," she started, "the King, his retinue, and all of the citizens and farmers in the area would proceed to the temple which was on the edge of the river, near the most fertile fields. The sacred marriage bed would be brought out -- most often in the largest room of the temple, but sometimes in an actual field. Before the assembled onlookers, the king would then lie with the high priestess -- spilling his seed into her fertile fields, much like the farmers would soon do with the real seed into the in the soil around them. In fact, drunken revelries followed and couples were encouraged to take each other in the fields."

They sat in silence for a while.

"So... you knowing all of this stuff," said Pax. "That would make you the equivalent of a Priestess of Inanna, sort of."

"Yeah, sort of," agreed Kari.

It took a few moments for the implications to sink in.

"Wait a minute, Paxy babe. Did you just proposition me?"

Pax looked up to the sun and the stars, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Yeah, sorta," he said with a shit-eating grin. "I mean, we are here among the fields. It's the equinox.

"Oh Pax, my dear friend let me put it to you this way? If you were up here with a guy -- no matter how horny, would you get with him?"

He contemplated this for several moments.

"Good point," he said, laughing. "Well, I tried. But, you must realize that if Inanna-Banana is pissed off with anyone for not performing their duties -- it'll be you."

"I'll live with it, smart ass," she chuckled.

He wobbled to his feet and crossed to her.

"Well, g'night," he said.

He bent down to give her a kiss. It was the first time he'd ever done such a thing. It was all innocent though -- brotherly and sweet. She returned it with the same sentiment.

"You," he continued, "are the most beautiful, smart, amazing lesbian I've ever known."

"And you're not bad for a straight-boy, yourself," chuckled Kari. "You sure you can find your way back?"

"No problem," slurred Pax.

He meandered his way back to their quarters, weaving in and out among the plants.

Kari nursed her last beer for a while longer before stumbling back, herself.

Opening the door, she was surprised to hear distinct sounds of sex emanating from Pax's room. Her kneejerk reaction was embarrassment at having walked in on him until she realized through the beer-induced fog that there was no one else he could be with. Pax's clothes and boots were strewn in a trail from the entry all the way to the door of his sleep chamber.

Kari skirted the edges of the common room and crept up to Pax's door. She knew he often kept himself occupied in his room and had heard enough to gather the general idea of what was going on. Tonight, she was able to gather a better idea of his activities due to his inebriated state and forgetting to close the door to his room.

Peering around the corner, she saw that the porn was straight, no surprise there, but that wasn't the thing that caught her attention. Her eye was instantly drawn to the perfect view she had of Pax's body. It felt almost like a framed picture, her view down his muscular chest and arms to the shapely penis below. Not massive, by any means, but certainly long enough for the long sensuous strokes he was applying to the shaft. She was surprised to see he shaved which made his cock which made it even more beautiful from an aesthetic perspective.

She watched him stroke himself and was utterly fascinated by it. She was certainly horny. Hell, she'd been alone for nearly a month. Though her eyes were riveted to his cock, she realized there was no desire within her for what he was stroking beyond an aesthetic perspective. When she looked further inside of her and asked the tough question: "Would I enjoy any of that?" The stark answer was 'no'. She realized she was far more interested in the mini-vibe waiting for her in her room than anything Pax had to offer. She lingered a bit longer, just to see if Pax was going to finish himself off -- but he seemed to be taking his time so she retreated to her room and sought out her own relief from the head of lustful steam she'd been building up.

Back in her room, she pulled up the vid that Tricia had sent two weeks before. The distance between the wheels and earth made it impossible to have two way communications -- so vid conversations most closely resembled the paper letters from days of old. People would send vids to the wheel, and the Corps members would view them and then compose a reply. Tricia had sent an amazing strip tease that had led to her pleasuring herself, and Kari had 'joined' her several times already. Tonight, she grabbed her microvibe which was shaped like a thimble that fit perfectly on the end of her finger.

With Tricia's image to spur her on, she was soon massaging her clit with her truly magic finger. As she grew close, she licked the fingers on her other hand and reached down to massage a nipple.

"That's it baby," she moaned, imagining it was Tricia's mouth on her breast instead of her hand. Just one pinch was all it took to send her skyward. The orgasm rocked through her body with surprising ferocity. Kari arched her back in rapture. Images of Tricia's tongue down below surged through her mind as she began to feel tremors shaking her thighs. Grabbing a pillow, she practically shoved it down her mouth so she could scream out and fully surrender to the heavenly climax.

She awoke the next morning in almost the same position. Her hand was still between her, the pillow was still draped over her head, and the bed sheets were wildly askew from her thrashing.

"Ooh, thank you Tricia," she said, purring. "That was a lovely night."

She looked to the console and was excited to see a new message had arrived from that very same person. She mused on how hot this next vid might be, but grew concerned as soon as she saw the worried look on her girlfriend's face. Tricia's nose was also runny and her eyes were red.

"Hi Kari," she said, trying to force a smile. "Listen, I need to..."

Tricia stopped and brushed back some tears.

"Listen -- things are not good here. There's some really, really, really bad shit going down in China. A separatist group has made a big grab in the Northwest of China and most of Mongolia and they've also grabbed a third of China's weapons. Russia is justifiably freaked out, as is Japan. As for America, our president might have been good for some things -- but he sure as hell isn't good at diplomacy. I don't know how to describe it, but I've never had this sort of feeling before. Of course, probably part of the way I'm feeling is just this stupid flu that everyone has. Anyway, I'm blabbering. Just... just take care of yourself, okay -- and keep your fingers crossed for us down here."

Kari jumped up and got quickly dressed. She found Pax already at the communications console with a worried look on his face.

"Tricia call you?" he asked. "My mom sent an emergency vid."

Pax turned back to the console. "Moon base 1, Moon Base 1, this is Wheel 23 requesting information."

They tried hailing several more times until a harried looking comm agent appeared on the screen.

"Wheel 2-3, this is moon base -- please stand by for a wide broadcast."

The next few moments were filled with tension as they watched the screen anxiously. Finally, a stern looking woman appeared on the screen -- reading from a prepared statement.

"To all members of the Agro Corps and any other non-planetside citizen or military member. As many of you have already heard, there is a difficult situation on earth. There have been several skirmishes already and all sides have suffered losses, though nukes have yet to be deployed. There have, however, been several rumors of biological weapons being deployed. What type is unknown but for everyone's protection, all transport has been halted to and from Earth until further notice. "

Kari looked down to discover their hands had drifted together as the Moon's C.O. had been talking.

"What kind of biological weapons could they mean?" asked Pax.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Kari, wiping away some tears. "That stuff is as nasty as you can imagine."

"Holy shit," said Pax in barely a whisper.

***

The first plague hit...and it was ethnically based. The gene engineers had found a way to target those with specific DNA strands frequent in national populations. The first people hit were people with ancestors from the British Isles and Teutonic states - clearing a wide swath through Europe and the broad population in North America. That wave actually hit the moon as well, which had more of a mobile population than the wheels. Nearly two billion were lost in the space of a week. The moon base lost ten percent of her five thousand with that wave. Kari also lost the majority of her family.

In retaliation, a virus was loosed that targeted people with ancestors of Mongolian and North Asian markers - it was a fast acting virus that caused internal hemorrhaging -- another billion lost in the next two weeks. The moon lost another thousand.

What the genetic engineers didn't seem to factor, however, was the mutation factor and the intermingling of the gene pool in the past two centuries. Plague C, as it was later called, jumped the constraints of both of the originals and spread like wildfire through Russia and South America. The only lucky continent was Africa -- though losing a full third of the population seemed a morbid gauge of 'luck'. The moon, luckily was spared that version. It seemed the initial quarantine had spared them any further infections.

Pax's family was gone in Plague B. He had great grandparents from China and the steppes on both sides. Tricia, miraculously survived -- though communications were limited and Kari could only get news of her through text missives.

They were four months in. August was approaching. The next wave took Tricia. It was the pollen of late summer that triggered this one. The blooms of late summer grasses triggered the plague -- that was how specific the masterminds behind the illnesses were.

The good news, for Earth, was that her dwindling resources were ample for her decimated population so they didn't need the food from the wheels. The bad news was they were living the fate of Damocles - the threat of another pestilence hung menacingly over the collective consciousness of her people. That plague did indeed hit -- there had been a mutation which jumped over and did hit the African continent this time.

On the wheels, the crew members felt like ghosts. Two months into the crisis they had ramped down production of the crops, switching the plants over to non-fruit-bearing varieties for the most part. All harvested foodstuffs had been preserved and stored. Pax had done the math and figured out that even if they didn't' grow any more food -- they had enough to last the two of them for the next seventeen centuries, give or take, without growing another thing. They were prisoners -- well-fed prisoners, but prisoners all the same -- or perhaps 'exiles' was a better word.

For Kari, one of the most difficult parts was watching Pax. They were both grieving, without a doubt -- but she knew that Pax was suffering in other ways. He was a young, sexual being -- marooned on a space farm with a gorgeous woman who had no interest in him. She saw his increasingly lingering stares and truly did feel sympathy for his situation. He spent more and more time in his room -- and she knew exactly what he was doing there.

In September, the new commander of the moon sent out another wide broadcast (the first C.O. had been an Asian-American and perished in the first waves).

"Hello Agro Corps members and spacers. I'm sorry to say, I don't have the most cheerful news. The genetic engineers who created the devastation on the earth have perished, for the most part -- many from the very viruses they created. We have a handful of remaining scientists who were able to remain quarantined or survive the plagues. They are endeavoring to create tests and cures for illnesses that remain. However, they fear there still may be the possibility of sleeper viruses in our own population that could take as much as another year to be triggered. Since we don't know when many of these illnesses were released, we can't even let you intermingle with each other. Statistics point to a ninety-nine percent chance that you on the wheels are safe, but we can't risk that other one percent.

Pax and Kari cursed under their breaths -- contributing to what was doubtless the collective groan of all two hundred people manning the wheels.

"Sadly," said the captain, "we can't even bring you back to the moon. Our surviving crew are doubtless carriers of death for the vast majority of you. For now, we can only advise you to look after your plants, care for one another, and keep your fingers crossed that we at least get an all-clear within the year. Until then, we still have to require that no contact be allowed between wheel personnel. I hope the next time I address you, I'll bring you better news."

The screen went dark and the two of them sat in desolate silence. A year more -- together.

"I'm going to go out to section five," said Pax.

"To do what?"

"To have the droids plant barley. I'll be damned if I'm going to be here another year without real beer. We need hops."

"Sounds like a plan," agreed Kari. "I'll go to three and put in some grape vines."