Talla had desperately wanted to be left alone for a while to ponder all of the things that Shanata had dumped in to her brain, but that was not to be. As she attempted to leave Endowment Hall, she spotted Lara, bubbling with excitement, returning with a clutch of women in white and yellow outfits.
"Talla!" she shouted and starting running towards her.
"Lara," Talla called back. Lara was so happy that, even in her current distracted state, Talla couldn't help sharing the other's joy.
"I did it," Lara whispered as she took Talla's hands. "I did it."
"How was it?" Talla asked. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell of her night with Zhair'lo, but she definitely wanted to hear about Lara's experience.
"Just amazing," Lara said quietly, her eyes still alight. "When he gets inside you and you can feel how turned on he is."
Lara closed her eyes reverently as Talla nodded in agreement.
"And then he just starts swelling up inside," Lara said, clenching her fists in memory. "And you know he's just going to burst any second. And then ... oh ... it's just pulsing and pulsing away, shaking your whole body."
Talla was stymied. That was it? That was Lara's experience? Was she leaving something out? Talla tried to decide how to approach the issue.
"Were you scared at all?" Talla asked.
"Huh? Oh, nervous at first. But I got over it," Lara replied. "I wish I'd been able to talk to you this morning. I'd have been a lot less nervous."
"Yeah, sorry. I'm assigned to the children's dorms."
Lara, still giddy, accepted this without comment.
"So," Talla probed gently, "could you feel what he was feeling?"
Or think what he was thinking? Talla was afraid to ask. It seemed like far too important a thing to leave out. What did it mean if she felt things that others didn't? She was already different enough, what with her quadruple upgrade. She didn't feel the need to stand out more.
"Um, no," Lara scanned the night sky thoughtfully. "I could feel how bad he wanted me. That's about it."
She thought about it a moment more and added, quietly but with obvious delight, "We did it twice."
Talla smiled to cover the calculating going on in her head. The experience she had been through with Zhair'lo was not the same that Lara had had with --
"What was his name?"
"Uh, Tino, I think? Something like that."
- was not the same that Lara had had with someone probably named Tino. Talla and Zhair'lo had been very nearly able to converse inside the Mesh. From the sounds of it, Lara's most invasive experience was that of having her vagina penetrated. With Zhair'lo, it had been so much more than that.
"Congratulations," Talla said.
"Thanks," Lara said. "Now when and where do I get my half skirt?"
"Um ... this way. Let's get a drink."
-----==================----
Zhair'lo squinted his way down the stairs to breakfast. At least the cook and his assistant had serious-sized meals ready. Farm hands weren't small people given to light meals in the first place. A heavy night like that only made it worse. Having been drilled in his mattress repeatedly by Natta, Zhair'lo was prepared to join them in consuming copious amounts of whatever the hell was available.
Give Natta credit: she'd been thorough. He hadn't even been able to say goodbye.
"Heard you had company last night", Kurran said as he pulled out a chair across the table. "Two nights in a row a bit much?"
"Suppose so."
"And the upgrade the night before."
Zhair'lo nodded.
"And another 'un tonight."
Kurran was making fun of him now.
"Wish I had your problems."
Zhair'lo smiled. There was nothing to do but smile.
Truth be told, he was feeling a lot less nervous than he had the day before. He was content and confident that things would work out, somehow or other. The Temple women knew what they were doing, after all. They wouldn't allow a repeat of that horrendous upgrade, would they? Of course not.
Tilgan had joined Kurran.
"And how was that little vixen?" he asked
"She was fine," Kurran answered, knowing very well that the question wasn't for him, "but I wouldn't call her little. She was actually -."
"Jackass," Tilgan remarked, then turned his attention to Zhair'lo. "Hot to trot? Good to go?"
Zhair'lo nodded, not entirely sure it was appropriate to compare a girl with a horse.
"She had that look to her," Tilgan said, analytically. "Despite the long skirt, she just had that look."
Zhair'lo was a bit too embarrassed to speak.
"How many times'd you do her?"
A direct question. He had to answer, no matter his shyness.
"Three," he volunteered quietly. "Well, four. Kinda."
He supposed it depended on the definition of 'do'.
Tilgan and Kurran shared a knowing look.
"The tits on you," Tilgan snorted.
"To be that young again, huh?" Kurran agreed. "Four times in a night."
Tilgan shook his head, saying, "Busy little boy."
Having had their fun, their talk devolved in to work related banter which gave Zhair'lo some time to think.
Natta had left after he had fallen asleep. At least, he was pretty sure that was what had happened. He couldn't remember anything after their last orgasm. Was it possible that he had seen her leave and forgotten? No. Not likely.
There was no question that his encounter with Natta was much more physical, more energetic, than it had been with Talla. With Talla, he'd been so stunned by their mental merging that the two of them had lain there -- apparently for hours -- afterwards.
But which one was normal? He had to ask someone and he couldn't see asking Kurran, especially while Tilgan was there.
Oh, how he wanted to talk to Plin.
-----==================----
Talla had arrived at the dorm shortly after sunrise. As her duties involved food preparation for five hundred children, it was necessary to be there bright and early.
She didn't consider herself an expert in the kitchen, having only learned a bit of the cooking arts while living in the older girls' dorm after she turned twelve. Making pancakes, however, was not particularly hard. Milk, flour and sugar were thrown in to a bowl and mixed. How complicated was that?
The food tasted bland. She'd noticed that the day before and thought it might be characteristic of the meals that day. But no, the food still smelled wrong. Something was missing from it. She supposed that it was children's food, so what could one expect? Perhaps children didn't like spicy food.
That smell evoked nostalgia, though, as it steamed off the grill. She could remember eating food like this a long, long time ago. Everything she'd eaten -- inside the Temple and in the older girls' dormitory -- had tasted spicier than this.
She looked at the children -- boys and girls -- as they lined up to get their breakfasts. She'd been like that once, eating bland food and walking around totally ignorant of the world around her. How wise she felt now, by comparison.
Talla shrugged and went back to flipping pancakes.
-----==================----
Zhair'lo was jogging.
He calculated, based on where he last thought Plin was working, that he could reach Plin in about a third of an hour. And he had to see Plin.
So as soon as the heat bell had gone off, he waved to Kurran and started off. The Temple had finally decided that the afternoon heat warranted a midday nap. The unusual sounding gong was loud enough to be heard by most of the population but was repeated from watchtowers at the three corners of the town regardless. The break the gong gave the citizens of Gern was never less than hour and it was seldom more. It was a chance for everyone to get out of the heat for a while.
Zhair'lo had no interest in napping.
The heat was brutal and running in it would only make it worse, but he had to know what was going to happen tonight. He had to know if he was likely to hurt someone else and there were few people he trusted enough to ask. Plin was one of those people. Marek was the other, but Marek was months younger.
If he could really make it in twenty minutes, that would leave him just enough time to talk before he had to bolt right back. It wouldn't make the afternoon easy, nor the upgrade, but as long as he didn't do it every day ...
He was jogging through empty streets, letting them go by in a heat exhausted blur. It appeared that nearly everyone had decided to take advantage of the heat bell. He imagined that the only people on duty right now would be the guards at the Temple gates.
He hoped that finding Plin would be easy. While Zhair'lo had been hopping around from one vocation to another, Plin was fairly well set as a baker's boy. It made it very likely that Plin hadn't gone anywhere. He would be living and working in the same place that Zhair'lo had last seen him. At least, he hoped so, otherwise this whole trip would be pointless.
Finally. Past the dormitories to the only buildings in the town with people crazy enough to produce more heat.
Bakers didn't sleep inside during the heat bell. That would have required an insanity past their current level of running ovens on the same day people were passing out from heat stroke in the shade. No. Bakers strung hammocks up from pillars and awning posts and took their naps outside, away from their ovens.
His only trouble now, besides a desperate need for air and water, was finding where Plin had strung up his hammock. He counted on the bakers being sound sleepers. None of them noticed him jogging by on his quest.
Around a corner in to the next block. At least the bakers' building in this sector were all grouped together. Now where in the gods' names was -
"Zhai?"
He turned. There he was, still wearing an apron with a cloth in his hands.
"Plin," he panted, out of breath.
"Going out for a run?" Plin asked, incredulous. "What kind of cunt do you think you are?"
Zhair'lo shook it off.
"Had to -- had to talk -- to you," Zhair'lo stammered to his friend.
"'bout what?" Plin wondered. "What could be worth killing yourself like this?"
Zhair'lo's heart was pounding but his breathing was returning to normal.
"I did an Upgrade," Zhair'lo began explaining.
"Good for you ...?"
"It didn't go right," Zhair'lo clarified. "At least I don't think it did."
Plin grimaced.
"Did you come all over the Source?"
"No!" Zhair'lo exclaimed indignantly.
"So you hit the target and ...?"
"Can I sit down somewhere?"
Plin gestured around a corner, away from the sleeping bakers. There were tables and chairs there, protected from the sunlight by an awning. It was a probably a place for the bakers to eat.
"Alright," Plin said as waved Zhair'lo in to chair. "Gimme details."
-----==================----
The assignment card that M'lis had brought back to Talla only had one word on it.
"Primer?" Talla asked.
