They'd just finished making love, Garrent had gotten up to stoke the fire and Naama lay without covers feeling uninhibited, drowsy and sore. She didn't mind the soreness now, nor had she minded the burst of pain when he'd first entered her, the pain that had built and built accompanied by something else, something pleasurable, though she'd been startled at seeing how large he was when he'd first undressed. She looked around the beautiful room. They were in the Rose Cottage, one of three cottages maintained for the culmination of the claret tantra ceremony.
Naama had always dreamed of being assigned this cottage for her ceremony and even had sketched an entire drawing pad full of pictures based on the description of one of the older girls who'd had her ceremony there. The girl wasn't terribly descriptive saying she really hadn't noticed too much about the cottage implying the ceremony was overwhelming, and by the end of the sketches, Naama had created her own vision of the cottage adding multiple rooms she knew didn't exist, each one filled with glorious embellishments, wallpapers of pinks and greens and blues, furniture that would have been appropriate for the Royal House and even a small sitting room and balcony which opened off of the bedroom. When they'd first entered the bedroom she'd been thrilled to see that while there was no sitting room, there was in fact a tiny balcony hidden behind two story tall spruce bushes which bracketed the little backyard.
The bedroom in her drawings was much like her own only larger and she'd even replicated everything on her walls and everything she'd created up to that point which she sketched scattered around the antique white furniture. She'd added wallpaper with precious little rose buds and mint green leaves accented by caramel colored swirls each tipped with a tiny golden speck. The pattern was similar to the one on the High Priestesses tea service.
Garrent lay back down by Naama, propped himself up on one elbow and traced her breast with his fingertips. He seemed lost in thought.
He was so quiet Naama began to have doubts. Hadn't she followed through on everything she'd been taught? She hadn't fought him, not at all, even following the pain that came when he first pushed himself into her with a single thrust. The girls were prepared for that as that pain was part of the boys due. She'd known the first thrust would come with force, and while she was a little anxious not wanting to react badly, when it had come and the pain had felt like she was being split apart she'd forced herself to give no more than a single cry, taught that while letting the boy know that he had claimed your first pain was desirable, they were also taught not to scream or fight no matter how much it hurt as it would be taken as resistance, something prohibited now and with future lovers.
Truthfully, while the coupling had been painful it hadn't been nearly as bad as Naama had resigned herself to beforehand. After a while even though the pain grew a bit, the sensations became pleasurable. Maybe that was bothering Garrent. Maybe she should have been more reserved, not visible enjoyed it when those sensations came. But she had been taught they should both find pleasure during the experience. Yet despite a lot of the night being for her what happened when he took possession of her body was for him, and part of what strengthened him and provided him additional power was her giving herself in pain and blood.
She had accepted that it was her duty to come to terms with the pain, accepting it as giving over to Garrent what he had every right to claim. But as she had been taught she had then tried to find a way to enjoy the coupling despite the pain and once that occurred to reach an even higher level, experiencing the pain as pleasurable. She believed she had reached that level, that while each thrust initially hurt despite her willingness to accept it, that there came a time that she willingly spread herself wider for him, even lifted her feet off the mattress encouraging him to thrust harder.
"What are you thinking about?" Naama asked him, a wave of pleasure rushing over her as he cupped a full breast in his hand and caught the nipple tightly between his first two fingers.
"You're alright?" He asked. "I was sure I'd seen permission in your expression before I . . . but then with the screams I wasn't sure. . . I just couldn't stop myself at that point . . ."
She exhaled in relief. At the end, when she could see he was working up to an orgasm and trying not to be ruthless in his final thrusts she'd whispered to him,
"Don't hold back, just let go,"
and for a brief second he'd stopped his movements, searching her face for the permission he'd heard in her voice. Evidently he'd found what he was looking for because he slowly, tortuously pulled out of her almost completely, and his hardened stare hinted at what was to come. Then suddenly he'd left her body completely and before she knew what was happening slammed into her with all his strength.
With each of his last thrusts she was certain he couldn't be more forceful, pound deeper into her body yet with each successive thrust he did. She did scream then, a surprised scream at the pain of the first of these and then again, loudly with the final one when he rammed himself so deeply into her she felt her cervix slightly forced open, a new pain she had been told about but also told almost never happened during the first time. Though that final scream had reflected a pain that left her breathless, she realized afterwards as he lay still lodged deeply within her there had been pleasure as well. Intense pleasure.
He looked down at her then with a touch of worry in his eyes but she'd smiled up at him. She brushed the hair from his forehead and replied, "You saw permission, longing even, though I didn't realize how deeply you could enter me. Every time I thought that was it, the limit, but then the next time . . . and the time after that. . . and the time after that . . ." Here they'd both laughed.
"Then you're not traumatized like so many of the other girls seem to be?" he'd asked.
"Traumatized? Wait, what do you mean? We're all fully prepared. I knew what was going to happen, that there would be pain involved but pleasure as well, that if we gave ourselves over the pain that it is your dictate to cause, we can even find pleasure in it. . .No one of the inner courtyard is traumatized," Naama was confused over Garrent's statement, searching his eyes for a clue as to where the statement could have come from. If anything he'd seemed a bit embarrassed.
"I know it's not the way among the girls to talk about the ceremony, or any experiences really," he began. "But I guess there's a little more leniency among the habits of the boys. Oh we don't name names or anything like that," he was quick to interject, "some of the boys just talk about what it was like, if they held themselves back, that sort of thing."
