He faced a walk home that seemed longer than it ever had.
Zhair'lo knew that there was no reason for them to let him sleep in the Temple this time around. They had returned his clothes in the exit room. No doctor had examined him. A guard had quietly escorted him out through the funny tunnel-road that served to transport men back and forth between Endowment's small gate and it's Augmentation Chamber.
So he stood outside the thick Temple wall and considered his options.
Talla was, last he had seen her, inside the Temple. She probably couldn't get out.
Would that he could have communicated with her somehow, but the way they had of speaking inside one another's heads had so far only worked when they were having sex or in very close proximity to each other.
He had only been able to look at her and she back at him. And with their eyes they could speak to each other of longing. That was as far as it went.
He turned to look at the gate that had closed behind him. The guard who had escorted him was gone. Another guard, who stood atop the wall, had let the metal trellis slide back in place. The wall itself was smooth and tall. Insurmountable, it stood between Talla and him. There was nothing to be done about it. He thought about waiting by the gate, hoping that she might happen by, but there was that guard and it was her job to be suspicious.
So he began to walk home, trudging along the Temple wall, his mind blank.
As he passed by the main gate, it occurred to him that all was not lost. Sure, something had gone wrong this night. Both he and Talla had assumed that her assignment and his Summons would bring them back together. Neither had considered that they could miss each other in such a way. The town was a big place and so was the Temple. It was possible that there were people who lived here that he would never meet.
Gern was big. He'd never thought about it that way before, but walking along the monolithic beige of the exterior Temple wall, he realized how truly large the city was. How wise was it to expect chance to put Talla near him again?
But this wasn't some random search for a needle in a haystack. He was looking for a particular girl in a short white skirt and he knew exactly where she went every day. At least he hoped so. How often did women change their assignments? She should be at the same dorm every day, shouldn't she?
His pace quickened as he thought about it.
There would be more heat bells. They were getting in to the worst part of summer. He could find her again, if he were willing to make that run in to town. And he was more than willing to race every day for such a prize.
He was passing by another gate, a small one with a square at the top of its arch. The circle was from Talla's Division. Which one was the square? He had more questions than answers. Whom should he ask?
-----==================----
Talla decided to watch one more upgrade, just to let her stomach calm. An Adept who appeared to be from one of the Discplines of Form -- if Talla were to guess based on the shocking crimson shades in her hair -- was getting an Abundance upgrade. She found it really odd to see a woman several years older than herself with such a small chest.
She realized that such an assumption was just her own bias. In the few days that she had been in the Temple, she had become so accustomed to seeing women with large breasts that she had to force herself to remember that there were places in the Temple where other features reigned supreme.
The crimson haired woman had, if she were indeed a devotee of Facial, five upgrades to her facial structure. She had coaxed five different men -- six if you counted her Initiation -- to spray her face and hair with semen. She was beautiful, and elegantly so. There was a certain class and presence that came with those upgrades. It was expressed in the way she pursed her lips and the way she gently stroked her Conduit. There was no urgency here; no desperation; no demand. None of that. What she wanted from this man, she brought about with understated skill and grace and a flash of long eyelashes.
Talla watched, trying to understand how this woman could be so smooth. Could a man really ejaculate when stimulated so gently? Her first experience with boys had been her Initiation and so she had only ever thought of it as a race; a thing to be done quickly and so harshly as to be nearly violent.
Would this technique work for this man? And he was a man. She kept trying to tell herself that she was a woman now, but she still took herself for a girl and males of Zhair'lo's age for boys. This Conduit, this man, was larger in every way than every boy she'd ever touched. Someday, she'd be a woman like the red haired woman on the altar below her. And someday, she would give Service to men like this.
What the woman wanted, she received. Holding her man in sway with her eyes, she forced his seed out of him, spraying across her chest. She smiled only slightly, knowing that this tiny change in her expression was all the gratitude that her Conduit needed as he emptied himself over her flesh. Smoothly, without interrupting anything else, she suffused semen and Synergist in to her chest.
Did her lips move? Did she say, "thank you", in some quiet voice? Even squinting Talla couldn't be sure. But the red-haired woman didn't really have to say anything, did she?
The clean up procedure went on as it had before and Talla let her mind wander. Was that what it was to be a woman? To be mature? Would she learn to be as smooth and graceful as that? Maybe not. Maybe it was just the nature of the women of Form, a way barred to her for many years.
What a disappointing thought that was.
There was only one way to go, if her goal was to be like this woman. That way was to proceed as quickly through the ranks as she could. She already had the benefit of her accidental upgrade. The rest was just a matter of Serving the Temple, in whatever capacity they required of her, as often and quickly as she could. She supposed that she would start Serving soon. She ought to be in the schedule by now, shouldn't she? So far it was a history lesson and this night of Priming. Wasn't it time for her to see some real action? She felt ready for it.
Which brought up another problem. Between her anticipation at seeing Zhair'lo, her duties as Primer, her disappointment at missing him, her anger at what they'd done to him and finally her relief at watching him ejaculate without incident -- she had some issues of her own.
"I'm gonna go," she said to Tina, now that the Chamber had cleared of upgrade participants.
"You sure?" Tina asked. She eyed Talla closely, "You okay?"
Talla shrugged and stood up to leave.
"Alright," Tina said. "I'll come with you."
Another shrug. Talla really would have preferred some time alone.
As she exited, Tina in tow, she nearly bumped in to a girl in a long skirt.
"Sorry," the girl said.
"Oh! You're Nadine," Talla said, surprised
"Uh, yeah."
"I'm Talla," she introduced herself. Here was a girl that had just been with Zhair'lo. What should she say?
"How was it?"
"It worked," Nadine replied with a weary kind of happiness. "Finally. Three times I've waited to feel it."
"So you feel, uh, good?" Do you feel what I felt? Did he make you feel the way he made me feel?"
"Yeah. It still burns a bit."
Behind Nadine, Tina held two fingers up in the air and rolled her eyes in childish mockery.
Possibly Nadine wasn't yet aware of what had been done to her.
"Girls," the door guard said. "Either find a seat or be on your way. The next upgrade will start soon."
That stiff admonishment galvanized all three of them in to action.
"Yes, Mistress," Nadine said, speaking first. "I'm going to watch."
"We're, um -" Talla started.
Tina cut her off. "We're headed out, Mistress. Nice meeting you, Nadine."
Upon which Tina jovially took Talla by the arm and led her out. Talla was glad for that. She'd had enough of upgrades for the time being. Was it possible to catch Zhair'lo? She should have thought of that before. It was probably too late, even if she knew which way he had gone ...
"How do the men get in?" she asked Tina.
"From the small gate," Tina replied, still hooking her arm and dragging her along. They had reached the ground floor of the Offices already. "There's a guarded road that takes them to the back of the Augmentation Chamber."
Must be quite a secret road, Talla thought. She'd gone all around the Augmentation Chamber on her first day in Endowment and not found it.
The Offices were quiet and scarcely lit. Having just come from the thundering drums of an upgrade, there was a distinct shift toward silence here. A single guard eyed them curiously.
"Girls," she nodded politely.
