Hello everyone. I've included a couple of Appendices at the end of this chapter. I'd prefer to make them a separate file, but they're too short for Literotica's standard. There's enough there, as a reference, to keep track of the ranks, the clothing and the Disciplines and Divisions.
Cheers,
Xavier.
Endowment Hall was just starting to fill up with women returning from an evening of Service. Girls in white were quietly doing their rounds, stoking fire pits and preparing drink bars. The echoing voices of the first to arrive were being drowned out into the more comfortable background rumbling of conversation and laughter.
Far out of the way of the commotion, Talla was sitting with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, staring at the empty drink glass in front of her. Having recently returned from a night of Service, she wasn't wearing any underwear. With her legs spread as they were, anyone passing by would quickly become aware of that fact.
But this particular Initiate didn't care.
"Did you know about that?" she asked her friend, her voice a bit slurred.
Tina was sitting on the low table, next to Talla's drink.
"Hittin' the alcohol a little hard tonight?" she asked.
"Did you know?"
"Of course," Tina said. "It's one of the first things they told us. I guess I haven't thought about it since."
"So you don't realize," Talla exhaled, "how ridiculous it is?"
"Ridiculous?"
"Stunting our growth."
As much as she wanted to console Talla, Tina clearly didn't agree.
"It's for your protection," Tina explained patiently. "It keeps us away from sexuality until we're old enough for it. I was eleven the first time I menstruated. Look -"
She lifted Talla's chin in her hand, forcing their eyes to meet.
"Look at the eleven year old girls in those dormitories," Tina commanded. "Imagine them being sent out to do what we do."
"Who says they'd have to?" Talla asked defensively. "They could go or not go as they please, or masturbate until they're eighteen."
"Really?" Tina asked. "I'm two ranks above you when it comes to education. I'm telling you that you're not thinking through the consequences."
"Consequences?" Talla said, twisting her chin out of Tina's grip. "Of course I am. The consequence is that I have to beg the Temple for the scraps of my own natural body."
"Natural?" Tina asked. "What does that means?"
"Natural," Talla repeated. "The way things happen in Nature."
"I've already seen Nature," Tina pointed out. "Cows in little groups around the bull. Weeds overrunning crops. Horses going untamed and useless. Water going where we don't need it. Everything we've done is to break Nature down and make it work for us."
"Which lecture are you repeating to me now?" Talla asked, her voice full of accusation. "Is that Initiate History or Neophyte? First section or second?"
Tina's lips firmed up as if to protest, but she stopped. Talla watched as calculation crossed her friend's face. Finally, Tina's shoulders sank.
"Neophyte, first section," she admitted.
Talla returned to contemplating her empty drink. She'd drunk it far too quickly while waiting for Tina to show up. The lightheaded feeling was coming on pretty hard.
"The question is," Talla said thoughtfully, "what can we do now?"
"Now?"
"What if I stopped taking Aloysia Castus?"
"It wouldn't matter," Tina said. "You've been on it for, what, six years? By that point, they don't even have to give it to us anymore. If I remember right, it's not even in the food of adult women."
"It isn't," Talla confirmed. "Orella told us so."
"Look," Tina said. "I hate how they do things here. So do you. It's just that they've gone too far. They have too much control. But this part, protecting us from sexual predation – that's a good thing, Talla."
"How do you know? Have you seen men attacking us? What makes you think that ever actually happened?"
Tina pursed her lips.
"I haven't seen it," she admitted. "But think of how they raised us."
Talla raised her eyebrows.
"The games, remember?" Tina asked. "When we were little?"
"There were a lot of games," Talla folded her arms impatiently.
She mostly remembered the resource based ones, where players were required to collect tokens representing various food staples or construction materials in order to achieve certain goals.
"Sister-Says," Tina said.
Talla remembered that game mostly for how boring it was. It was one of the games they played in the youngest dormitories outside the Temple, when the boys and girls were still mixed together. One girl would stand at the front of the room, facing the wall. She would call out, "Go!" and the boys at the other end of the room would start walking across the floor. Whenever she felt like it, she would shout,
"Stop!" and quickly turn around to see if she could catch any boys still moving.
If the boys were caught, they would have to go back to the start. The first one to cross a certain line on the floor without being caught would win something, usually a special dessert or a wooden toy.
"You've worked in the dorms, haven't you?" Tina asked. "Do you see how hard it is to get the boys to listen to a girl?"
Talla thought about that.
"So what?" Talla shrugged. "They're kids. Nobody likes being told what to do. That doesn't mean they'd grow up to beat us and turn us into 'wives'."
Tina didn't reply. She merely stared at Talla, her lips pressed together in a sympathetic smile.
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"You'd make a great Primer," Zhair'lo said.
Zoe slid his erection out of her mouth with a long, tongue-fluttering lick.
"You're just saying that because you've spent all your time with those Endowment girls," she reminded him, the ghost of a smile on her lips.
"I've had two Primers from Form," he protested. "Honestly. You're really good at that."
Zoe considered this.
"It must be enthusiasm."
"Enthusiasm?"
"Well it's certainly not practice. I've had access to, like, one cock a month since I turned eighteen – and I wasn't supposed to put my mouth on any of those."
"We can have sex again, you know?"
"I know," she said, licking him from balls to tip. "But I like this. It's fun to do what I want. And right now, I want to do this to you."
Conversation was placed on a back burner as she entertained him with her mouth once more. Lying as she was, across his lap, he was able to reach over and cup her small breasts, one at a time. She smiled in appreciation.
"How is it you have breasts?" he asked.
Comically, she paused with his erection still in her mouth and a confused look came over her face. She slid off him again.
"What?"
"How is it that you have breasts?"
