Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 28

'It will be magnificent,' he inhaled deeply and smiled.

He had to accept the idea that, given the way he and Talla moved about, their thoughts might not reach each other when the girls made their strike against the Temple. In that case, the ringing of alarm bells inside the triangular fortress would be his only signal. Day after day and night after night, he waited eagerly to hear those bells.

Then, this particular evening, Zhair'lo had been surprised to discover that the women who arranged Service, in their infinite and random wisdom, decreed that occasionally Fighter men be Served by women outside their Barracks. For this purpose, an accommodation had been constructed containing nothing but a small common room equipped with a reasonable quantity of alcohol, and a large number of bedrooms.

Zhair'lo wondered about the need for such Service, since the lessons received by Talla told him the whole mind-controlling purpose of Service was unnecessary for Heroes. If all the Fighters qualified as loyal to the Temple regardless of how many women they had sex with and how often, why did this building exist?

His lips twisted thoughtfully.

On top of that, the female members of their squads had been handed cards and dispersed across the city to Serve as randomly as their city dwelling sisters. That made even less sense. The power of the Goddess, Talla had been taught, imbued and saturated her Disciples while they rested in the Temple. The Goddess's control was projected onto the men of the city when the women, so imbued, carried her power to the men.

But how could Fighter women, who spent weeks at a time circling the city, be infused with this same magic?

Zhair'lo grimaced as he tried to fathom what trick the Temple meant to work on him and his fellow soldiers. Conclusive investigation was delayed by the sudden arrival of a vast array of dainty women in very fine clothing. Seeing them enter the room, straining to push aside the thick wooden door, a muscle in Zhair'lo's abdomen twitched.

'Strange women, these ones tonight,' he peered at them warily. 'So fragile and layered so thickly with perfume.'

Their hairstyles, long and flowing, felt foreign to him, and he recalled a time he'd accidentally tried to put on Kit's chest armour. These women, with their strange frailty, felt like someone else's clothing. He couldn't fathom why the Temple had imagined these could Serve the men arrayed here. He'd have to be so gentle. Whomever he merited among the girls in white might consider the athletic effort expected by his sister Fighters as bordering on violence.

It struck him then, as soft voices started quietly and casually calling out names in a tradition Zhair'lo vaguely remembered, that every man around him faced the same problem. Large men paired off with tiny women again and again. If they could do it without trepidation, Zhair'lo decided he would also manage.

"Zhair'lo?" a tiny voice peeped up.

His eyes focused on a timid, brown-haired girl in white as she nervously adjusted the pair of sashes that refused to properly cover her breasts. The fact of a Neophyte coming to his bed surprised him. The third rank usually took two years to reach. Had he been eighteen long enough the Temple had added twenty year old women to his list?

Perhaps her promotion was recent? As he smiled and approached her, he watched her adjust her sashes again. Dark, brown eyes twinkled at him in the firelight and he caught a wince when she shifted her upper body around.

"Zhair'lo?" she held out her hand. "Mindi."

"Hi, Mindi," he clasped her hand, feeling its silken softness as he tried to ignore the feeling he was damaging or profaning her skin with his crude, weathered flesh. "We have number sixteen upstairs."

He kept his walking pace intentionally slow, the grip of his hand light. Tara would have mocked him for treating her this way, while Bree and Zia raced ahead. And Del? Del would have raised her eyebrows, wondering why he was interfering with a very simple and easy to follow pattern.

Mindi, in stark contrast to his bed mates of the last several weeks, bubbled over with a strange, airy froth whose nature eluded him. Zhair'lo felt that if he merely pushed her away with his fingertip, she might drift off the floor and float down the hallway or perhaps his hand might go right through her insubstantial body. The hard, repeatedly tested muscles of his recent sexual partners had never been a requirement of Mindi's life.

"What do you do, during the day?" Zhair'lo asked.

"Huh?" her soft voice came back. "Oh, I make breakfast for children most days. Sometimes I do drinks in the Hall at night. Y'know, when we all go back home after Serving? I used to run the big laundry bins and fold clothes, but not anymore."

At this statement, she thrust her chest out.

"Third Abundance upgrade?" he made his voice pretend he didn't know this already.

"Two nights ago," she smiled full of pride.

"And you're out Serving already? Not too sore?"

She blushed, turning her head away as they walked down the hall.

"What?" he prodded.

"We don't get a lot of chances to Serve Fighters," she tilted her head back and forth. "It's kind of a, thing, you know?"

"A thing?"

"You know ..." she trailed off before picking up again, "Exciting and dangerous. You're all so strong and - anyway, they told me I could go if I wanted to, but I'd miss my chance for a while if I didn't."

Zhair'lo suppressed a sigh of realization. Not only her unmuscled body filled itself with air, but possibly her head, too.

'We represent danger to you,' he thought. 'We live out at the edge and fight the monsters so you never see them. You imagine great escapades when really the Temple has no formidable enemies beyond its own gates.'

The honey-stained door to number sixteen beckoned and Zhair'lo waved Mindi through before gently closing them away from the outside world. Even the door, he noted, was made of wood weaker than that of the Barracks. Had his world always been so fragile? He'd never noticed.

Mindi had turned back to face him, standing in the middle of the surprisingly large room. Why, Zhair'lo wondered, was there more than a nightstand and bed here? Not only was the bed twice the width of any he'd slept in before, the nightstand was the width of a dresser and there was a full size desk and an extra wooden chair in the room. No accommodation he'd ever lived in had been so nice.

His puzzlement evaporated when Mindi began, without a word, removing her clothing. It was the skirt that went first, revealing her smooth mound. Breathlessly, her mouth open and her head tilted down, she slid out of the double sashes to reveal her swollen, upgrade reddened breasts.

"You have to be gentle with my tits," she gasped, having suddenly remembered to breathe.

"Of course, I -"

"I know how you Fighters are," Mindi blinked, her eyes darted around the room, "but -"

"How we are?" Zhair'lo approached her slowly, turning his head slightly to the side but keeping his eyes on her.

Mindi twisted her legs to rise up on the balls of her feet and turn her knees inward. Even as she spoke, her eyes still wandered the room.

"You know," her voice contained a mysterious mix of fear and excitement. "All hard and rough."

Zhair'lo reached a point where their bodies so nearly touched he could feel the heat from her breasts radiating into his ribs. He inhaled deeply, inflating his chest so that his shirt grazed her nipples.

Mindi whimpered in response, her arms hanging limply at her side.

"That's how they talk about us?" he teased.

She nodded and, when he inhaled again, closed her eyes against the overwhelming sensation of having her now stiffened nipples come into faint contact with the clothing of a great warrior.

"One point upgrade?" Zhair'lo asked.

Helpless, though not to the point of fainting, she opened her eyes and nodded.

"I'll get another if I can," she whispered. "A month from ... ahhh!"

Her voice had risen to a squeak as he grazed her again. Realizing that Mindi had incapacitated herself with excitement, Zhair'lo unlaced his shirt himself and shucked it aside. He got the distinct feeling that he was an actor here, playing a role for her.

"Is it true, what they say?" she asked.

"What do they say?" he deepened his voice and pressed his chest gently against hers, feeling the residual heat from her upgrade.

"About the way you guys do it."

'Gods,' he wondered, 'what is she expecting? Someone ought to write a small book containing all of the legends and rumours girls passed around about Fighters so we know what sort of beasts to act like.'

He thought a book of crude drawings would probably suffice.

"Possibly," Zhair'lo kept his tone even to hide his ignorance. "What have you heard?"

"That you always do it standing up, so you're ready for battle."

He concluded that the strength of her enthusiasm had somehow blocked her ability to see the gigantic bed next to them.

It occurred to Zhair'lo he could make Mindi do almost anything he wanted. He merely had to declare his desired sex act to be the Way Fighters Do It and she would lap it up like a thirsty horse at the trough.

"Oh, yes," he nodded warily, trying to keep out of his voice any hint that he was humouring her. "We don't usually do that with city women -"

"No, no," she protested, her eyes wetting in her desperation, "do it with me like that!"

Mindi's hands came to life, deftly unlacing his shorts and letting his erection spring free. She stroked him eagerly.

"I can lean on the window frame," she nodded eagerly, feeling him stiffen in her hands.

"Too bad we can't do it outside," he tilted his head in sadness, "for the full experience."

"We can open the shutters, though!"

'This is pretty straightforward,' Zhair'lo thought, thinking how Natta had acted, so long ago.

Mindi, too, had built up a fantasy in her head and given him a role to fill. She turned her back to him and reached to unlatch the shutters. Cool night air flowed into the room as she swung the wooden panels open. She bent over, standing on her toes to lift her hips for him expectantly.

"Come on," she begged over her shoulder, "I'm ready!"

Nine gods.

He slipped up behind her, laying his erection between her taut, bony cheeks.

"Someone might see us," she whimpered.

"A silhouette at most," he assured her.

Mindi ignored him, adding, "I could get in so much trouble."

"Very dangerous," Zhair'lo agreed, catching on now, "part of being a Fighter."

He backed away just far enough to let the tip of his shaft fall past her spread rear. Zhair'lo was stiff enough that he could poke upwards at her lips without help from his hands. Mindi reached under her body with her hand, forcing the swollen head against her clitoris, grinding it in circles and forcing her juices to spread over the middle part of his penis.

Moaning with pleasure and rotating her hips, she started pushing him down towards her vagina and Zhair'lo felt the first tingling of the mesh coming on.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Don't ask," she said. "Just ... just shove it in ..."

'Right,' Zhair'lo remembered with a unseen roll of his eyes, 'like one of those rough, tough, dangerous Fighters everyone talks about.'

With nothing else in mind, he determined to do his very best to fulfil her fantasy, even if she hadn't given him all of the details. Zhair'lo estimated Mindi had at least three rounds in her, though, and counted on her to provide further ammunition. For the moment, he had only to be the slightly reckless, borderline thoughtless beast of a man she was expecting.

'Gods, I hope she's really ready for this,' he thought as he set his erection against the dripping wet entrance to her tunnel.

Then he pushed, hard as he dared, and slid smoothly until his entire length was buried in her. Mindi let out a shriek of triumph as the mesh ensnared their minds.

...

She wasn't really a complete airhead.

Zhair'lo caught that much right away.

Mindi had simply excited herself with fantasy to the point where her brain took a walk.

She had found ecstasy, being ravaged by a big, strong Fighter.

Lifting her hips, she slid as far off him as the mesh allowed, her mind begging him to thrust harder, to slam his pelvis into her cheeks.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her back as he pushed forward.

If there was pain, the pleasure overwhelmed it.

Zhair'lo thumped her again and again, feeling her body shake and break into a sweat with the intensity.

When he tired of the repetitive motion, he reached around her body with his right hand to grip her breast. The mesh told him, unequivocally, how hard to squeeze the sore, upgrade-reddened orb of flesh - he knew it hurt her a little, but a modicum of pain served her fantasy, delivering it just part of the role a mindless beast ought to play.

What else could he do?

Mindi had expectations, but he needed to surprise her.

What would bring out the best for her?

Suddenly Zhair'lo knew.

He released her breast and crouched a little so he could push upward inside her.

"There is one other thing," he let his voice trail off suggestively.

"What?" Mindi's gasp leaked enthusiasm, "What is it?"

"Well," he laid his right hand on her cheek. "Most of the Fighter girls are Tight and Iron, see? I don't know if you'd be able ..."

A surge of anxiety twisted its way through the mesh.

"You spank them?" she looked over her shoulder, her exertion reddened face showing wide eyes.

"If you don't want -," Zhair'lo offered, but he already felt her answer in the mesh.

The fear in her expression came from pretence.

In reality, she wanted to experience what she imagined as the brutality of Fighter life.

"Do it," she turned her head away, "do it like you do to them."

'Here comes the tricky part.'

Done too softly, Mindi would recognize mockery.

Spanked too hard, the whole fantasy faced ruin.

How hard did Bree and Tara like it? They had two Tight upgrades. How about Del and Zia with only one? How much more gentle did he have to be with an Abundance girl?

Bracing himself and wincing preemptively, Zhair'lo pushed his erection as deep as it could go and slapped at Mindi's cheek.

A reaction raced through the mesh.

Pain and pride.

Mindi's triumph at standing alongside the Fighter girls.

"Again!" she cried out, but the time for action had passed.

Orgasm struck them.

Zhair'lo gave one more swat to her cheek as he felt their genitals begin to pulse at one another.

"Yes!" she shrieked.

He grunted, thrusting involuntarily and feeling his seed launch from his body into the deepest parts of her.

All the while, though, he knew he had to hold back.

Mindi couldn't take it the way his usual bed mates could.

...

"Ooh," she sighed, letting his erection slide out of her. She rubbed her cheek, adding, "That's gonna leave a bit of a mark."

'Pride,' he thought, 'she's proud of herself.'

"I tried to be gentle," he apologized, knowing his part.

"It's okay," Mindi assured him. "It's just who you guys are. I knew that when I signed up for it."

Zhair'lo pulled her into an embrace, partly for the post-coital pleasure, but mostly because he couldn't keep the smile off his face and this kept her eyes buried in his shoulder. Somewhere inside him, he knew that Fighters shouldn't smile at times like this. Fulfilling someone else's fantasy constituted a heavier burden than he'd expected.

Pulling her down to the bed, he let Mindi rest her head on the crook of his shoulder and chest. Her cleavage tucked neatly against his rib cage, she curled up to him.

"Do you always do it standing up?" she murmured, slowly regaining her breath.

"No," he replied slowly. "We do have beds, after all."

"Good," she sighed with relief. "I do want to ride you, you know. So you can see my tits moving around."

Zhair'lo noted how the word 'tits' didn't roll naturally off her tongue. She invoked a cruder vocabulary for his sake, or at least for the sake of her fantasy.

"Maybe you'll slide 'em over my cock next time."

She murmured her enthusiasm for this idea and Zhair'lo wondered if he could keep up this act all night.

The barbaric Fighter and his monstrous ministrations might prove tiresome eventually but he hoped to hold on. The greatest difficulty stemmed from Mindi's fragility. As much as he had to fake this 'brutality' she wanted, Zhair'lo also had to make sure he didn't hurt her with accidental excesses of his natural strength.

'This is why the Temple brings us in,' he realized. 'To show us the ones we protect in the city. Mindi is the innocent; the naive. We go out there to keep watch on the wandering barbarians so people like her can live simple lives of laundry and baking breakfast for children. If it weren't for these visits, we might forget.'

Staring at the ceiling, wondering at the implications, he heard a bell ring - a bell with a tone entirely different from the one that marked hours and quarters of hours.

Zhair'lo's mind recognized the particular note and dumped all other thoughts as he waited.

It rang a second time.

'Nine hells, it couldn't possibly -'

It rang a third time.

A pause followed, and he sat bolt upright, nearly throwing Mindi from the bed.

The bell began ringing again.

------===================-------

"Nine hells," the Goddess cursed, rising suddenly from her desk as she, too, counted the bells. "Is that -?"

The second part of the sequence contained only two rings before another pause.

"Imminence!" shouted a woman at the doorway to her bedchambers and guards in ceremonial leathers flooded into the room.

"To the roof," she rounded her desk and walked past the guards as they attempted to surround her.

"Imminence, your safety," the chief of her guards insisted, even as her compatriots moved with the Goddess toward the stairway at the back of her room.

"My safety will be assured by information," she glared over her shoulder. "Information will be found on the roof."

"Clothing at least, Imminence," the guard begged, eyeing the nearly transparent black nightgown the Goddess wore.

The gold skinned woman dismissed her concern, however, flipping her hair back in a shower of angry blue sparks and turning to the back of her room.

As she climbed the spiral staircase from her chamber to the roof, preceded and followed by a retinue of Form's finest women, the bell rang on: three rings; a pause; two rings.

"Check the signals from the gates," she commanded once they had the roof, and guards split off to reach the parapets from which they could see the walls over the many gates of the Temple.

"Form's large gate is sealed already," one guard reported. "The small gate is ready."

Endowment's gate was the next to close, followed by Sweetness's, the guards atop those gates communicating by the waving of coloured flags.

The main gate and the small gates would remain open to let every last woman currently Serving back into the Temple. They only shut otherwise if those on the wall saw invaders within range of the walls.

The Goddess walked past the large, flat marble altar that marked the exact centre of the Temple and approached a round building two storeys higher yet than her rooftop and currently under construction. A spiral staircase around its insides allowed the Goddess to climb as far up as it went.

Two women sat there, both of whom the Goddess knew personally. One, a dark skinned Facial woman named Anakwi, stood at a telescope looking east while the other, a pale Within Officer named Chantal, sat at a small, improvised writing station consisting of a pair of simple wooden chairs and a desk. Neither woman rose to curtsy when their Goddess came to stand behind them.

"Report," she kept her voice soft.

"The Eastern Barracks sounded the alarm," Chantal's voice was full of darkness, even as Anakwi at her telescope continued reading flag colours to her.