Seven days of teaching had had a profound effect on all ten of the girls in Talla's group. They had been taught and then tested on hundreds of rules. The threat of physical punishment was more than enough to make them pay attention, although over the last week the the method of meting out that punishment had evolved. Punishment itself was rarer as the Virgin's knowledge increased and errors decreased, but the trade off was that it had become more embarrassing. Rather than bending over their desks when they committed their errors, the instructor would mark simply down their names for later.
The teachers said that this was more in keeping with the way proper Temple discipline was enforced. In "the real world", those who committed crimes and broke rules would have a day to collect witnesses and consider protesting the charge. At the end of that day, the punishment would be meted out with the venue set so that an appropriate number of people would be able to watch.
To imitate this, the teachers and the Virgins would gather at the end of each day. There was another group of Virgins going through training who had started three days after Talla's group and they would watch too. At each gathering, the "guilty" from both groups would be called up and asked if she had anything to say in her defense. There being no such defense, she would submit to her punishment. In front of the assembled Virgins and teachers, the guilty individual was required to lift her skirt up and bend over a table at the front of the room for the appropriate number of swats. So positioned, she would receive her punishment from whichever teacher she had failed.
Of all of them it seemed Sila was taking the most damage – even three swats on one occasion. She tried to hold it in, but let out a mewling cry on the third strike.
Maksa handed out the salve generously.
Talla's head was full of rules. She'd taken one good whip on the third day, while thirty women watched, and that had been enough to teach her. Her butt was soft and easy to sit on, not like poor Sila whose many times abused flesh was a source of constant discomfort. Talla wondered what would happen to the poor girl when they were all required to deal with "the real world" and the whipping stick became a lash.
There was but one thing that remained for Talla and the other girls in her group: the Initiation. No one had clued them in yet as to what was involved. It was an incredibly well kept secret considering the fact that every woman in the Temple had gone through it. Talla remembered the two women who had advised her to dive in and enjoy it. That was the closest she had come to actually finding something out about the ritual.
The last of the girls on the punishment list, Eletta, took a swat on the ass for mixing up the names of the parts of a penis. That was essential knowledge. Each of them had been taught – theoretically - rudimentary skills for handling men. Eletta, a member of the group following three days behind Talla's group, replaced her clothing and returned to her group of Virgins.
"All right, girls," Maksa said, "Your studies are over for today. You may go have dinner. If you are in my dormitory, you have now completed your orientation. You will return here by the seventh bell. Go on."
She clapped her hands and rushed them out of the room.
"Do you think that's it?" Arlia whispered to Talla. "Tonight?"
"I think so," Talla whispered back eagerly. "What do you think we'll have to do?"
"I don't know," Arlia said as she peered in to the distance, "I've thought about it but I don't know. Do you think it will be painful? I know we won't be having sex. Everyone says that comes after the Initiation."
They argued right through dinner as they tried to guess what would happen to them, continuing to discuss possibilities until they returned to their classroom at the seventh bell, as instructed.
"Good, we're all here," Maksa said as Talla and Arlia arrived. "Come with me."
There was no further explanation. The girls nervously followed Maksa through a maze of Temple streets and alleys until they stood before a large circular building with a single door for an entrance. Maksa paused at this entrance and turned to face them.
"This is the Initiation Temple," she said reverently, "Please enter quietly. Inside you will find, among other things, many closets around the room. Please choose one of the curtained ones and stand in front of it. Once you have chosen your places, the rest will be explained to you and you will begin your Contest."
Talla could almost hear the capitalization of that last word.
She entered eagerly, trying not to push the girl in front of her.
Among the "other things" that Maksa had offhandedly mentioned were four spectacular bronze statues. They were done to about double scale and faced outward from a central bonfire whose flames, snapping and crackling, reached two or three metres into the air. Each statue was of a woman standing on her toes, leaning forward slightly with her arms stretched out and backwards, almost touching fingertips to fingertips with the next statue. The heads of the statues were facing up and, like almost every female statue in the Temple, they were nude. The resemblance to other statues ended there.
These statues featured slim women instead of giant breasted ones. Their genitals were free of hair and their legs were skinny. Talla realised that these statues were of Virgins and had a moment to wonder if they might be the only such statues in the whole Temple. Around them were hammered sheets of metal that reflected the sparkling firelight up the fronts of the bronze Virgins to the high domed ceiling.
After dragging her eyes away from those unique shapes, Talla noticed the glossy white tiled floor. Then she noticed the small table – no, altar - facing the door through which they had just passed. Finally she noticed the closets that Maksa had mentioned. If she guessed correctly, that they continued behind the statues, then there must be at least twenty of them. Only the five closest to the entrance on either side had curtains in front of them. As the girls filed quietly in to those ten slots, they could see around back of the fire.
Shanata was there, as were some other women. The others were wearing what the girls recognized as High Temple Clothing. None of them had ever seen it before, but it was easy to spot. A combination of brown and black leather clothing and a bronze mask that had been decorated with golden shapes obscured everything about the women. Besides that, each one had a musical instrument. Two had drums of different sizes, one had a pair of cymbals and the last had a flute. The four musicians stoically formed an arc behind the motionless Shanata, who wore the same scant orange clothing as always, but without the whip stuck in her waistband.
That was a hopeful sign.
Shanata walked around to the front of the fire where all of the Virgin girls could see her. Maksa stood next to her. They paused there, calmly examining the girls. In the back of the room, the women on the drums began beating them softly.
"You are about to take part in a long standing tradition," Shanata spoke, her voice paced to the drums. "For hundreds of years, longer than this Temple has stood, women have undergone this Contest of Initiation, not only as an entrance to the adult world, but as a test to determine who will get to choose her Discipline."
"Compete well in this test," she continued as she walked from one end of the anxious arc of girls to the other, "and you will have your choice of Disciplines. Compete poorly and you will have less choice. Compete poorest of all, and you will have to repeat the Rite. One person from every Rite is required to repeat."
Talla swallowed nervously. So it would be girl against girl. But there was as yet no clue how the competition would work.
"Look behind you," Shanata said, "On the outside of the closet you have chosen are nine symbols. You should recognize them."
Talla looked behind her. Indeed, there were nine symbols carved in small ceramic tiles. These were arranged vertically along the edge of the doorway. She recognized them as the symbols of the Nine Disciplines. The Disciplines of Sweetness were highest, followed by the three Disciplines of Endowment, and finally the three of Form. Pointing outward above each was a wooden peg.
"Your objective in this Contest is speed," Shanata said as she picked up a small wooden circle from a pile on the altar. "You must get a ring on each of the nine pegs, one for each Discipline."
