Chapter 25 -- The Equinox
Two days after her release from the Royal Residence, Maria Elena returned to her job at the university. There was plenty of work for her because the leaves of all the trees on campus had started to turn and already the grass needed constant raking. Criminal # 101025 knelt in front of the university gardeners and was promptly issued a rake. With no further ceremony she stood up, walked to a section of lawn near the campus administration building, and began gathering fallen leaves. Her supervisor had told her that would be her primary concern for the next month, raking as much as possible during her working hours. Once the leaves from their sections were gathered, Maria Elena and her co-workers had to dump them into specially-built wagons and later move them to an enormous compost pile located next to the university's agriculture department.
In Danubia it was illegal to burn leaves or any other organic matter. Leaves had to be buried back into the soil or transported to collection sites. At the height of autumn, many criminals, especially ones who had spent the summer working outside, were ordered to help collect and transport leaves and garden debris from public parks and also from the yards and gardens of pensioners and other people who were able to gather up the leaves, but not strong enough to transport them.
To add to the effort, the Danubian Church handed over many of the people performing Public Penance, which that year included Cecilia and Jason. For several weeks the couple joined a group of 20 other university students who were performing Public Penance. They wandered around the neighborhood outside the university with their shovels and wagons, taking away the garden debris of older residents and hauling it to the compost pile. The work was dirty and hard, but because they were collared servants they had to do what they were told.
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Cecilia's transition to performing Public Penance turned out to be psychologically difficult. She knew that she had to be extremely careful to adhere to correct protocol at all times, because everyone was watching her. One very important detail that set her apart from hundreds of other people performing Public Penance was her dark skin. It was obvious she was not Danubian, but she was performing a deeply Danubian ritual. She became the focus of much curiosity and people paid much closer attention to her than they would have paid to any Danubian under the same circumstances.
Cecilia was very much accustomed to being in charge, but her collar took away that perceived authority. In class, for example, she had to get out of her seat and kneel whenever she was called upon to answer a question. She had to assume the correct posture, which meant getting on her knees, extending her hands out in front of her, spreading her legs, and arching her back to completely expose her vulva to anyone standing or sitting behind her. By Wednesday afternoon, all of her classmates had seen her in the posture of Penance, which meant that everyone she knew had seen her vagina and anus fully exposed. She had one professor in particular who seemed to delight in her predicament. He called on her continuously and instructed her to come to the front of the class before kneeling and answering so that everyone could see her.
Cecilia knew that she did not have the right to complain, because the entire purpose of Public Penance was to experience humility. Being forced to expose herself changed her personality. Much of her self-confidence had vanished with her clothing. She dropped her bossy abrasive manner of treating people and became more reserved and shy. Jason had told her that eventually her self-confidence would return, but once it did return it would be a different type of confidence and much more profound. During the first few days of wandering around the campus in the nude and exposing herself to everyone she knew; she didn't see how that would be possible.
As Cecilia had foreseen, Jason took a leading role in her life. She quietly followed him around Danube City, watching him and copying whatever he was doing at the moment. She wouldn't have wanted to admit it, but whenever she was not in his presence she felt very uneasy, to the point of feeling unprotected and afraid. She needed to be with him as much as possible. She had always felt that need, ever since she met him, but she had managed to keep that need in her subconscious thoughts. With the collar on her neck she no longer could hide behind her authoritative position or her abrasive personality to conceal her underlying fear of being without her fiancé. She would not be able to live without Jason, and for the first time in her life could openly admit that, both to him and to herself.
Up until she began performing Penance, Cecilia only had a vague idea about what her fiancé did with the Church, since he was not one to push his beliefs on her or anyone else. Now that she wore a collar, the Clergy expected her to understand why what she was doing was spiritually significant. It turned out that Jason knew all about Church teachings and was able to explain them. He was well advanced in his theological training, whereas she knew absolutely nothing. He had memorized a large portion of the Texts of the Ancients, knew the parts of the Judeo-Christian Bible that were relevant to the Danubian Church, and could sing Danubian hymns in their original language. She would have to rely on him to catch up and not look like a total fool in front of the Priestess. One of the very first things he had to teach her was correct prayer protocol, since she didn't even know that.
Even though Cecilia was wearing a Penance collar, officially she was classified as a criminal. Because she was collared, she had a custodian and an owner. Many places in Danube City that previously had been open to her now were off-limits. There were clubs and restaurants that she had been able to go to with her students or with professors that would no longer welcome her. She reluctantly acknowledged that her place in society had changed; that there was no point in thinking she could possibly be the same person or lead the same life she had led before she visited the Temple.
Cecilia's feelings about the Socrates Club changed along with how she felt about herself. She had been going to the criminals' hangout throughout the entire time she had been in Danubia, but always as a guest of Jason or Kim. She could not be a member because she was not collared, thus whenever she was there she felt like an intruder. The reason she really went was because the club was the only place in Danube City where it was possible for her to make love with Jason.
On Friday afternoon Cecilia Sanchez filled out a membership card to formally join the Socrates Club. An assistant manager interviewed her to make sure she understood the club's rules and her own role within Danube City's criminal society. The Socrates Club, which previously had been a place where she felt like an intruder, had become a place of refuge, a place where she was accepted and where she belonged.
That night Cecilia took her place at the microphone on the stage of the club. In accented Danubian she recited her own life, from her experiences growing up, to her studies in Chicago, to her flight to Danubia, and finally her current transformation. She concluded with:
"I don't know if I will be performing Penance for the rest of my life or not. Maybe I have a future, or maybe I have nothing ahead of me except the endless present, the reality of the collar on my neck, until my soul separates from my body. I guess that is something the Creator does not want me to think about, so I will try not to think about it."
She looked at her fiancé, took a breath, and continued:
"Now that I am performing Penance, I know that the only thing people will see about me is my collar. The collar and my nakedness have become my identity to the world. The Creator has forced me to understand that I can't think of myself as a university program director any more. I have to accept that my job is not who I am; it's only what I do. I guess...I suppose...after four years of living in Danubia, I still have to figure out who I really am."
Cecilia left the stage, returned to her table, and cuddled in Jason's arms.
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While Jason and Cecilia were sitting at the table, she couldn't resist doing what she always liked to do, massage his penis and work him into an erection. Slowly she rubbed his thighs and gently touched his testicles before circling her fingertip around the end of his penis. It did not take much to make him very hard. As usual, they left the table and slipped out of the main dining area of the club through a small door on the back wall. As usual, she led him upstairs with her hand fimly gripping his shaft.
Once they were in the room, their normal sex routine changed. Cecilia was in a relatively quiet mood, so instead of straddling Jason, she got on her elbows and knees on the bed and presented her backside to him. He held off on the temptation to enter her right away to concentrate on touching and massaging her widely spread bottom. He gently touched her vulva and teased her clitoris, making her desperate. She arched her back even more, frantic for him to enter her. He continued rubbing her bottom and teasing her, but made no move to actually push inside. He was desperate himself, but he held back because Cecilia needed to be taught a lesson. She was collared, and thus not in a position to give him orders.
"Oh Jason...Oh please...Ohhhhh."
He surprised her by saying: "You need to wait. Don't be so impatient about everything."
