Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 15

She gulped.

"Come on, then," she said. "It's worth the risk."

Hopping to her feet, she pulled him along through the tent flap. There was no need to light a torch. Her body, excited and anxious as she was, gave off enough light to see them safely to wherever she was leading him.

"There must be a table here," she said. "Right? Just like the other clearing?"

"Yes, this way."

He lead her now, until they came to a set of sturdy wooden tables meant as eating places for travelling Hunters. They weren't complicated: parallel planks of wood for an eating surface with more planks, lower down, for seating on either side.

She turned to sit with her cheeks on the end of the nearest table and pulled him in for a kiss. It was deep, passionate and incredibly nervous.

Pulling away, with her eyes closed, she spoke in whisper in the general direction of his chest.

"There's something I need to do," she repeated. "I think you need it, too."

He had cooled just a little, walking around naked in the moonlight, but she pulled him close and welcomed him under her skirt to warm flesh between her legs.

"You're ready?" she asked. "I'm wet enough."

When he nodded, she did the oddest thing -- she pushed him away a bit so she could turn her back on him.

"Talla, I -"

But she was already spreading her legs, opening herself against his erection.

"Put it in," she whispered over her shoulder. "You have to."

Even though she was still standing, the memory was too strong in his mind. The last time they'd been in anything like this position ...

'I know,' she replied in his mind. 'That's why we have to do this.'

He suppressed a shiver even as she tried to steady herself against the table. Neither of them was handling this particularly well.

'Nine hells,' Zhair'lo beamed back. 'I can't believe you have the courage to ask for this.'

"C'mon," she said out loud, her voice cracking. "Do it already. Please hurry."

"Okay."

He bent his knees to dip his body down, letting the tip of his erection slide under her skirt, down between her firm cheeks and then forward through the moisture that dampened her from front to back. The tingling of the mesh began to take hold. There was no avoiding it now. The mesh made demands and the bodies involved were helpless to disobey.

As he stretched his knees, he pushed his erection inside her, watching as her body lit up from her waist to the tips of her hair.

...

Why?

Why?

Why are you doing this? Why are we doing this? Why do you want to remember that ...

To scratch out a memory.

Scratch out?

Erase. Rub out. Write over.

He thought about that a moment.

'I don't want to think about that anymore, Zhai. I don't want it hanging over me. When I turn away from you, I don't want to cringe because I feel the whip.'

'Oh.'

'I want to remember this in its place. I want to remember you, inside me. I want to feel your body against my cheeks instead. I want to remember joy instead of pain.'

Then he understood.

Nervous tension came over the link again, from her to him.

'There's more?' he wondered.

She didn't answer, over the link or in words.

Instead, still shaking with an anxiety he plainly read in her mind, she started leaning her upper body down.

Down, down, down, until her breasts touched the night-chilled wood. That was an unpleasant shock, not just because he sensed the way the cold surface struck her nipples, but because it brought back such strong memories of how it had felt when she'd been strapped to the table in Form.

The link was getting fuzzy, even though they were meshed. Talla found she couldn't trust her thoughts to communicate clearly.

"It has to be like this, Zhai," she said aloud. "We have to take this from them."

"Yeah."

He pushed, ever so gently, to deepen his penetration, and slid half way out. It was going to be mild, this time, because he didn't think either of them would be able to handle it getting rough. He was reminded, quite inappropriately, of his encounter with that girl from Form who'd wanted to be spanked ... no, he put that out of his mind. He didn't need to start hyperventilating now.

In front of him, he watched as Talla stretched out her body, extending her arms to the edges of the table. Her intent was clearly to mimic the way they'd tied her down to that damnable table in Form. Zhair'lo, feeling the roughness of the table's wood grain against the soft flesh of her breasts, began to shake.

This wasn't going to work. It was prying at memories he didn't want opened. Memories of that wood, scraping at her chest as she had convulsed in pain ...

"My skirt," she pleaded.

"What?"

"Take it off."

Deliriously, he obeyed and untied her last vestige of clothing. 'Skirt' was an exaggeration. It was a rectangle of cloth with a tie at the waist. Once undone she took it from him and laid it on the table. It was upon that cloth she laid her breasts, protecting them from the cruel surface.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

"Now finish."

It was still disturbing. Zhair'lo tried to imagine what in his life had been more troubling than this. The test in which he had run after those naked girls? Not quite. The night he'd sat in the waiting room after Talla's first upgrade, wondering what he'd done to her? Wondering if she was even alive? Maybe.

But even in those times, he'd never been so conflicted. The only thing that even came close was the occasion, after he'd been forced to whip Talla, when they'd put him in that room and a very gentle girl had forced herself upon him.

He shivered, but pushed on.

For there was Talla, visible to his eyes, radiant, beautiful as ever. The mesh gave him all of her feelings and her all of his. And yet, there was the searing kiss of the whip, attempting to inject itself into the conversation with every thrust he made, no matter how slow, no matter how shallow.

Talla held on, helplessly. She had put herself in this position because she was sure it was the best way to clear up the mess in her brain. There was no word in her vocabulary for how she felt about Zhair'lo. She only knew that she couldn't go on fearing him, twitching at the thought of him, couldn't go on living with herself while there was this association between him and pain.

So she clung, defiantly, to the edges of table. Her breasts and stomach she firmly pressed against its surface whilst her legs were spread for him and his incredibly gentle work.

He admired the strength it took for her to do this, to place herself essentially at his mercy. Try as she might to pretend that her punishment had been her fault, the fact was that in a very literal sense it had been his hand that had cracked the whip. People could be complicated, but they could also be simple. It was in that very simplest sense that turning her back on someone who had caused her so much pain could not have been easy.

Zhair'lo knew it, because he felt her fear. He felt her shiver, both inside and out, as she let him -- insisted on letting him -- do this.

Somewhere in that sea of conflict, somewhere deep in the abyss of emotions that clouded his mind, the utterly undeniable astonishment he felt at her bravery was the rope he needed to climb.

Talla squeaked in surprise as he stiffened inside her. Positive energy flowed into him.

"Yes!" she shouted as she pushed her hips back at him.

The angle changed then, his hardened shaft no longer running neatly through the length of her but jutting harshly towards her spine.

She moaned and twisted, forcing the angle to something even worse even as he thrust through all her depth.

They would be able to see it this time, so much more clearly in the wide, dark clearing.

While he held himself deep inside her, she felt his head swell up to the bursting point. So she twisted again, and squeezed, and forced the first torrent of liquid into her belly.

As it went out from his erection, so did the bursts of blue light pulse out from where their bodies were joined. It was like a wave of water, falling brightly to the ground and racing across the clearing. As if, again, a bucket of some bright blue liquid were poured out and left to spread. It spilled off the eating tables and through the tents.

These were no ephemeral spirits, either, these bars of light. Tent flaps were blasted open. Trees swayed under the pressure. These were physical forces to be reckoned with.

Talla and Zhair'lo, facing the same direction, watched the effect roll away from them, failing to dissipate until it had spread well into the forest.

"Wow," Talla murmured when he'd stopped pulsing inside her.

She propped herself up on her elbows and watched as the last, weak wave slowly faded out in the distance.

They stayed in that position for some time, both realizing that, spent as they were, this was their last time for this night. Worse still, it would be their last chance for a long, long time.

"What in the nine hells are we?" Talla asked the darkness.

"Do you expect anyone to answer?" Zhair'lo asked, knowing the question hadn't been directed at him.

"The gods, maybe."

"Shouldn't you be looking up, then?"

She shrugged.

"They're suppose to be here to help us, but only when we really need it," Talla said. "We're suppose to be grown up enough to handle the rest on our own."

Trying to take some weight off her stomach, she moved her hips just slightly and accidentally dislodged his waning member from her body. With a hint of sadness, he withdrew. More sadly still, she stood and felt his semen dripping down her thigh. There was enough inside her, she supposed, that those few drops shouldn't be lamented.

"Do you think they meant the Temples to be like this?" he asked.

In the darkness, he could scarcely see her turn to face him. He felt her arms embrace him, though, and that was good.

"I don't know," Talla answered. "The history books say that, sometimes, the Goddesses can call for the help of those above. Sometimes, the gods even respond, but not always."

"So we shouldn't expect them to answer to us?"

"I doubt we're important enough."

Zhair'lo let out a sigh.

"So we take care of ourselves, somehow or other."

They held each other, standing in that jet black clearing, in a silence as soothing at it was absolute.

It was some time before the sound of crickets stirred them from their peaceful reveries.

"You're really going to join the Fighters?" she whispered fearfully.

"Yes."

"Be safe," she pleaded. "For me? Please?"

"I'll do my best," he said, pulling his face back far enough to look into her eyes. "The whole point is for us to be together whenever we want. I won't let myself get killed if I can avoid it."

Her eyes wet but, refusing to shed any tears, she nodded and pulled him closer again, chins to shoulders. They breathed deeply, willing this time to last forever.

There were other matters to which they had to attend.

Talla went over a list of the names of the girls he could trust, verifying that he had taken them all properly from her memory. Zhair'lo now realized exactly how she had tested them and found it fascinating.

"Illya sends her best, as does Yua," Talla said. "But Illya also wanted me to check if you kept her underwear."

Zhair'lo laughed lightly. Yes, of course he had. She could tell from his thoughts.

"I'll tell her," Talla said. "She thought it was really important for some reason."

"Alright," Zhair'lo said. "I'll find a way to get a message to you somehow, once I'm out there. I have no idea how the Fighters do anything at all."

Talla winced.

"Neither do I," she admitted. "I'd have checked with Zoe if I'd thought you were going out there. Hopefully we're joined together strongly enough now we can feel each other even from very far away."

It was Zhair'lo's turn to shrug.

"I don't know how far away they go."

"I don't know anything about them at all," Talla said. "It's weird, for all the studying we do, that they're left out of all of our lessons."

"Anything else? I don't want you to get in trouble for staying out too late."

"My name is Jenni, by the way."

"What?"

"Jenni," Talla said, "is a girl with super dark, black hair, blue eyes, two Facial upgrades and a Tight upgrade. She likes being spanked, in case it comes up."

"Oh, right."

"But I do have to get out of here, before the others finish up."

A last kiss. A final embrace. Fingertips extending to touch each other to the last moment before Talla ran from one clearing to the next. Zhair'lo watched her go for quite some time, making sure that no one from came from any of the tents. As much as he was sad to see her disappear, he was glad she was safely gone. There would be no whip resulting from this evening.

All that was left was for him to to gather his blanket and return to his proper tent.

And think. There was a lot of thinking to do.