Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 10

"Lacy," the girl said. "But today I'm Elsa."

Talla felt her brain stop.

People didn't have two names. Well, they had a name and a creche name, in case names got reused. But people didn't go changing their names, or using different names in different circumstances. Her mind railed against the idea. How would anybody track anything?

"You see," Lacy -- or Elsa said, "we can make arrangements."

"Arrangements?"

"Like I arranged to meet you here."

Talla felt her body go stiff and cold. This was worse than merely locking up Talla's brain. What Lacy -- for that must be her real name -- was saying was either impossible or incredibly dangerous. Was this a trap? A trick? She'd trusted Zoe. Dare she trust this girl who couldn't get her own name straight?

"So who is Elsa?" Talla asked, whispering the first thought in her head as soon as her brain got going.

"Elsa was supposed to Serve D'ren here tonight," Lacy whispered back. "But we switched."

"Why? You like D'ren?"

"Never met him before," Lacy replied. "But I had to meet you."

Talla shivered.

"Why?"

"Things I heard," Lacy whispered, turning so she was nose to nose with Talla. "But we can't talk now."

Now Talla was intrigued. Facial was the Temple's weak spot. Her mesh with Zoe had taught her all that she needed to know on that subject. Was Lacy sent by Zoe or was this some separate subterfuge?

Or a trap?

She'd have to be careful.

"When?"

"Screw J'ree into the ground as quickly as you can," Lacy advised. "Then meet me out behind that shed by the second torch post. You saw it on the way in?"

Talla nodded, not the least bit surprised that Lacy somehow knew the name of the boy she was Serving tonight.

"Tenth bell," Lacy said. "No later."

And with a wink, all trace of Lacy the conspirator vanished from the golden-haired girl's expression. She became, Talla supposed, someone named Elsa, giddy and empty headed and not suspicious in any way at all.

"Oh," she added to Talla in a louder and completely different voice. "You've got J'ree tonight? I know what that guy really goes for."

Then she leaned in close, one last time, and whispered a last piece of advice to Talla.

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The trip up the stairs to J'ree's room was surreal. He was a fairly muscular guy -- had to be, to be a carter -- but he held her hand very gently, as if he didn't have the strength to just haul her over his shoulder and carry her up the stairs. It was strange to see that kind of muscle on someone she could actually Serve. The normal gamut of eighteen to twenty year old boys didn't come out this big. But he was a carter, and those giant sacks of flour didn't get themselves off the carts, did they? Nine hells, sometimes she'd seen guys like J'ree pulling smaller carts by themselves -- no horses at all.

But the dark colour of his hair and the shape of his body was nothing compared to the thoughts in her head.

If Lacy were telling the truth -- and that was a big 'if' -- then she had the ability to arrange assignments. Talla's heart was pounding in her ears. There was only one assignment she could imagine trying to arrange. There was only one reason, in point of fact, that Lacy would come to her.

Zhair'lo.

But first, J'ree.

He ushered her into his room, gently, and entered behind her. There was a tingle, then, as she turned her back on him, taking her eye off him in the privacy of his room.

"So what's it like?" she asked.

"What?" he asked, carefully lighting a small candle.

"Carting," she said. "I've never Served a Carter before."

As the candle flickered to life, Talla found herself in a small, garishly decorated room. The drapes and blankets, like all of the fabric in this building, were of many colours woven together. The wall hangings, absent in the rooms of most men, were of the same flavour. No two items seemed to go together if she didn't count the fact that the shutters on the window matched.

"It's important," J'ree said after a short pause. "Food and clothing have to be moved from one place to another. Can't even build a house without someone to bring the wood from the lumberjacks and the stone from the quarries."

He lit a second candle, which steadied the light in the room a bit. It seemed odd that someone would need two candles to light such a small room, especially as they weren't about to do anything that really needed a lot of lighting. But the more Talla looked around the room, the more dizzying the clash of colours became. At least, she supposed, the light of two candles would cut down on the flickering.

Absolute darkness would have been better, of course, but that wouldn't have worked for tonight. Not if she wanted to take Lily's advice.

"Everyone has a role to play," she said, approaching J'ree. "Yours is as important as any."

They had taught her to say things like that, to keep the men understanding what the unspoken concord was between them and the Temple.

J'ree took her face in his hands.

"Indeed," he said, his voice almost a growl.

Then he kissed her.

It wasn't as gentle as it could have been, but it wasn't unkind either. Not quite rough, but more along the lines of urgency. She responded in kind, pulling on the collars of his shirt to keep him close even as his tongue pushed into her mouth.

With his left hand holding the back of her neck, the right slid down between their chests, a thumb sliding between them to trace past the edge of her nipple. The hand found its way to her hip, and then under the hem of her skirt to grab a handful of cheek.

He squeezed. And again, Talla was struck by the plaintive urgency, as if he had far more strength than this, as if -- even more - he wanted to use more strength than this, but his desperation was held barely in check.

Talla felt something pass through her; a kind of thrill that she couldn't quite describe. There was something odd about J'ree, something she had never felt before. Was it the muscles? The garish colours everywhere in sight?

J'ree backed away a moment, raising his eyebrows. Had he sensed something from Talla.

Talla smiled. Whatever was going on, it was easy to figure out what to do next. She began unlacing his pants. Carters, it seemed to her, tended to where loose, light pants. With their legs constantly in motion, heaving things this way and that, it made sense to wear the most comfortable clothing possible.

They certainly came off quickly enough.

She knelt in front of him, admiring his already erect penis. It wasn't quite the largest she'd ever dealt with, but the vein riddled erection was no minor thing. She squeezed until a small drip of clear was forced from his tip.

"In a hurry?" he asked.

She looked him right in the eye and nodded.

"You have no idea."

Then, without taking her eyes from his, she took as much of his manhood in her mouth as she could, doling out her saliva generously. She couldn't count on herself to be wet enough quite yet, so she was going to make sure he was as slippery as possible.

He groaned.

"That's it, girl."

She slid his penis out of her mouth, noting the acrid, bitter flavour of his fluid, and tickled the tip of his erection with her tongue.

"My name's Talla," she corrected him, only mildly admonishing.

He smirked as she took him into her mouth again.

"Sure," he said. "Talla."

She swirled her tongue around him, eliciting another groan.

"You're gonna get it in your mouth," he said.

It didn't sound like a warning. More like a promise. She pulled away.

"Not yet," she said. "I want it in my pussy now."

She backed away to the bed, pulling him after her. Wasting no time, he pushed her on her back, keeping his feet on the floor.

"I hope to all nine hells you're ready," he said.

"Oh, yeah."

It was a ruse, but he needed no convincing in his state. She was only ready enough that penetration wouldn't damage her. Anxiously eyeing his throbbing erection, she spread her legs as widely as she could and relaxed her muscles as much as possible.

J'ree didn't even bother taking her skirt off. He simply set his saliva-soaked member against her slit and began pushing.

She was so grateful for the mesh. The moment that the exposed flesh of his glans touched her insides, his astonishing level of arousal seared up her spine and set her skull aflame. There had never been anything like this in any mesh she'd had before.

J'ree wasn't a man or a boy. He was a living, breathing ball of fire, long charred to deep, charcoal black, never mind the pale colour of his skin. Inside her, he pushed and thrust, and put all her insides to burning. She couldn't call it painful, or even unpleasant, given how powerfully aroused they both were.

But it wasn't anything she'd felt in her short career.

'If I could quench this fire,' she thought, but there was nothing with which to douse it. He was hotter than her ability to cool. With his feet firmly planted on the floor, he could burn into her as hard as he liked and she was helpless to avoid it, pinned as she was on the end of his erection.

Not that she wanted off, really. Not that the mesh would have let them separate.

It was just odd to even notice the inescapability of her position. It had never occurred to her before.

The room was darkening around her, a weird kind of tunnel vision born of the intensity of J'ree's desire. All she could see was the red aura around his body, backlit by the candles on his dresser.

J'ree was a ball of fire, so much was certain, but the brightest flames always burn out the most quickly and Talla had neither the ability nor the desire to hold him back.

'Imagine a fire burning out of control,' she thought. 'Now imagine a fool, meaning to douse it, but throwing a bucket of oil on it by mistake.'

That's what their orgasm was like. A sky torch lighting up the night, launching out the edge of his penis and exploding through her insides. She threw her head back, letting the energy burst skyward out of her chest. She didn't even have the sensation of his erection pulsing, her muscles twitching nor of any fluid firing into her. There was only the fire, and not fire, and fire again.

It waned, finally, and he withdrew.

She collapsed, exhausted, falling on her side so her head didn't hit the wall. They were back in his bedroom, out of the fires of nine hells.

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In a dark hall, deep in the Offices of Sweetness, an Initiate waited on a wooden bench outside a suite of offices, all but one of them darkened for the night.

"Julie?" a woman's voice called out from one of the doorways.

The Initiate stood up and walked into the single candlelit room.

"Yes, Mistress Tia."

Tia, wearing not her physician's coat but the blue of her rank, was looking at a sheet of parchment in front of her.

"You -- you filed a Note?"

A Noteworthy Report was a rare thing to fill out, especially for someone as lowly ranked as she. You were supposed to do that whenever a boy acted differently from how you expected, whether it was good or bad or just plain inexplicable. Julie had filled out a couple before, not really knowing what the threshold was for any of the three categories. As far as she knew, those notes were thrown in a folder or a shelf somewhere.

But not this time.

The moment she'd filed this one, the Officer downstairs had looked at her and sent her up here to Principia Within. The amazing thing was that the Note she'd written had beaten her here. How did they do that?

"Yes, Mistress."

"This Note was for Shen M'han, whom you Served this evening."

"Yes, Mistress."

"How is he?"

"Good," Julie replied, trying to put as much reassurance in her voice as possible. "He's really good."

She would have really preferred if this all just went away. Couldn't they handle it without having her speak to a Second?

"Good?" Tia asked, eyeing her suspiciously, "and yet you filed a Note?"

"It's not a big deal, Mistress."

"If that were true, you wouldn't have filed the Note," Tia pointed out, her voice tinged with frustration.

Julie shrank.

Tia, with a great sigh of effort, softened her voice and manner.

"You should understand that Shen is a concern," Tia explained. "He was -- let us say 'ill' a while ago. His record is flagged for that reason."

Julie nodded.

"Now what was Noteworthy with this boy?"

Julie gulped and sat up straight.

"Well, Mistress," she started. "You see, I've been with him before. He was really -- shaky - you know? Like clumsy or something. You're always worried he's just going to fall over, like you're teaching a baby to walk or something. I've never Served anyone and been so -- so -- worried for him, you know?"

"Indeed," Tia replied. "This is in his file. He was too unstable to do an upgrade. Yinay Ador."

Premature ejaculation, that unfortunate condition which disqualified men for duty as Conduits.

"Yeah, exactly!" Julie breathed out.

Tia raised her eyebrows.

"Exactly?"

"I mean," Julie went on, embarrassed for having shouted out. "That's how I remembered him. All shaky and stuff."

"And?"

Julie shook her head and her eyes went wide.

"He's not like that anymore."

Tia paused and looked at Julie. She wasn't a bright girl, that was obvious, but she wasn't making this to get attention. She clearly didn't want to be in Tia's office and it was patently obvious that she was bereft of the intelligence required to stick competently to a lie.

"How is he now?"

"Steady," she said, a firmness in her tone as her voice hardened. "Like a rock. Solid. He knows what he's doing. You wouldn't believe the confidence. It's like a completely different guy. He's like, all over me and doing exactly the right thing at the right time."

Julie took a deep breath, the memory of the multiple encounters obviously still fresh.

Tia thought for a moment, then she took out a sheet of parchment and started writing on it. When she was done, she folded it in thirds and handed it to Julie.

"Thank you, Julie," she said. "I trust that I don't need to seal this note? Good. Take it to desk nine on your way out, please."

Julie stood and bowed.

"Yes, Mistress. Good night."

"Good night."

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J'ree seemed to be napping for a bit, which was odd. Talla had never really known anyone to fall asleep after the first go. There had only been that time, after her first night with Zhair'lo, where the two of them had just lain there, staring at the night sky for hours. They hadn't really slept, mind.

Other than that timeless experience, no one had fallen asleep. Some guys liked to talk and others like to be quiet, or close their eyes and just sort of soak in the warm, fuzzy feeling.

But not J'ree. He seemed to have actually gone to sleep. That was fine by Talla, seeing as she needed some time to recuperate from the sensation of having one of the those flaming candles from an Ascendancy Festival go off inside her belly.

What had that all been about? Was she getting more sensitive to the emotions of those with whom she meshed? It was possible, but even then -- she'd never felt anything so turbulent.

Shen came to mind, as he often did, what with the whole "being responsible for nearly killing him" thing. He'd been unsteady, but not nearly as -

Her thoughts stopped for a moment.

There was only one word to describe what she'd felt form J'ree.

J'ree had felt dangerous.

Not dangerous like Shen. Not dangerous in the sense that he might accidentally ejaculate in her mouth and curl up in a ball and be ashamed of himself. J'ree was another kind of dangerous. There was something inside him, something almost unpleasant, waiting to burst out.

Talla grimaced thoughtfully as he stirred next to her.

He smiled at her, gently, his manner now drastically changed. She found herself being pulled towards him so he could lay his head at her breast, curled up like a baby.

"Wow," he whispered.

"You alright?"

"Yeah," he replied, his voice gone soft. "That was something though. What a relief."

She breathed out a worried laugh.

"Waiting a while to let that one out?"

"I guess so."

He let out a contented sigh.

Talla was stunned. There was no sign of the violent firecracker, no sign of the desperate embers or the fires of nine hells. Just a young man, snuggled up in her cleavage, breathing deeply to restore his stamina.

She rolled over a little on her side and looked down at him. Their eyes met. His were clear blue. An utterly innocent, pale blue, like looking lengthwise down the aqueduct that brought water into the Temple. Nothing but water and reflected sky. It was like looking into the eyes of a child, eyes that have never known the disturbance of any worry or responsibility.

Talla pushed her top up over her breasts to set them free. She shifted her weight, lowering one of her now bare breasts and letting her nipple trace across his lips. Her body tingled.

Slowly, gently, his tongue came out to tease the very tip, even as he exhaled cool air over her breast. The nipple sprouted, pushing into his mouth. She really would have to get a Point upgrade someday. For now, this would have to do.

It occurred to her to wonder how she would look if there had been no Temple. What if there had been no herb to stunt her growth? What might her breasts, her nipples, her whole body, look like then? How might it feel?

J'ree was working the whole nipple now, not just the tip. His lips brushed against the areola, the surface of her breast, sending the tingles back along her spine.

Was it time yet to take Lacy's advice? She'd sworn that J'ree could be taken care of in just two shots if she did it right. No time like the present.

She took his hand and pushed it under her skirt, against her mound.

"Feel how wet it is?"

He nodded, never taking his mouth from her breast.

"Make me come," she said very slowly. "And I'll do something -- amazing -- for you."

He smiled and she felt his finger slide along her slit. She shivered. Gone was her concern over the queer danger this boy represented. He was soft and kind and harmless now, only wishing to please her in the most gentle manner. It seemed to take him ages just to slide that one finger between her lips, to part them and actually touch her clitoris.

She shook and moaned, pushing her breast into his face. He read that cue, sucking nipple, areola and then some into his mouth, tickling the nipple with his tongue the whole time.

But even then, his finger scarcely touched the edge of her vagina. Where another man might already be eagerly penetrating her and probing her insides, he danced around the periphery as if too shy to enter.

Maybe she didn't need him to enter. Maybe he already knew that.

What she needed was that tickling of her clitoris, that ringing of his fingertip around her entrance.

Oh, yes, he understood perfectly what she wanted him to do. That realization drove her over the edge. She rolled over on him, a tiny part of her mind taking care not to actually suffocate him, as he tickled her to orgasm.

The first spasm came suddenly, unbidden, unheralded. Her body, from her chest to her vagina, gave one sudden jerk and then -- perfectly, smoothly -- he finally slid one finger inside her just before the second spasm took.

She hadn't expected him to do that, but it was just right. It gave her muscles something to seize on, something to squeeze and pull up inside her. She moaned. Maybe she even called out his name, or swore out the name of a god. She couldn't say what happened, except that her breasts felt wonderful and her vagina squeezed and squeezed at the intruding digit until her stamina waned and he withdrew, soaked to the palm of his hand.

"Oh, that was nice," she murmured, inhaling and exhaling calmly.