Acolyte of the Pleasure Goddess Ch. 02

"When you repeat the prayer, draw your fingertips from the very bottom of your feet and up your legs. Keep them in contact with your skin throughout. Run them up, between your thighs, like this. Up your ribs, beneath and over your breasts. Fold your hands in and draw them up your neck, up your face, over your eyes, to the top of your head."

Delyssa followed along with Mother Corporeal's movements.

"When you reach the top of your scalp, return back down, following the same path. Repeat the litany again, and when you reach your feet, release all the breath from your body, then straighten."

Delyssa did so, repeating the prayer in its ancient tongue. She waited a moment, letting all of the air out of her lungs, before rising up again and turning back towards the High Priestess, who watched the ritual. After a moment, she raised an eyebrow. "You don't feel any different, do you?"

Delyssa blushed. "Not particularly. What did I do wrong?"

Mother Corporeal laughed. "Nothing, child. I spoke of limitations, and this is one of them. The prayer must be spoken in the light of the sun as it rises over the horizon. You will have to repeat the prayer every morning if you wish to keep its protection."

"I see," said Delyssa. Many prayers of power had such esoteric or ritual limitations. "And what sort of protection will this prayer give me?"

"The life of a campaigner is perilous; you've spent enough time in the healing ward to know that," said Mother Corporeal. "This prayer will act as armor around you, shielding you from blows. There is another limitation, however," she continued. "The protection will only last as long as you do not act to harm others. It is strictly defensive."

Delyssa nodded. "I understand. I don't think I want to be fighting anyone anyway."

"You may not always have a choice, child. But your sentiment encourages me. Go through the prayer once more."

By the time Delyssa finished the recitation, Mother Corporeal had wrapped her robe back around herself and stood watching.

"You're a quick study, Delyssa," she said. "You should eat and rest before the morning. We don't want your first impressions with the campaigners to be falling asleep on the road."

"I'm nervous," Delyssa admitted. "I'm not sure I can fall asleep just yet."

Mother Corporeal rolled her eyes. "Ah, the vigor of youth. Well, try to find a way to tire yourself out before it gets too late. Allarane and some of the other priestesses should be finishing a rite in the sanctuary at the moment. Go to the hall and eat, and I shall let them know that you need their assistance. Is that agreeable?"

"Very," said Delyssa. To her surprise, Mother Corporeal drew the acolyte into a close hug.

"I'm asking something brave of you, and I realize that all this is sudden," said the High Priestess. "But already you're a different woman now than you were this morning. I long to see who you'll be once you have spent time in the rest of the world. You have such skill, all you need is experience and perspective."

They broke off their embrace, and with a final smile Mother Corporeal drifted off back to the central structure of the temple. Alone, still naked, Delyssa's head swum with emotions she could not quite disentangle. Around her, the expansive temple gardens breathed in the sighing wind. Beyond the high stone walls that surrounded the temple grounds, the rest of Gra'tan lay sleeping. The temples to the other gods conducted their own, less hedonist rituals, their chanting heard faintly through the air. It was all that Delyssa knew. For all of her adolescence and short adulthood, the world was this sanctuary where want and evil was shut away and love and pleasure -- in all its forms -- was exalted.

She knew that her view of the rest of the world -- the rest of Gra'tan, even -- was incomplete. The memories she possessed of her time as an orphan on the streets of the city were painful but few in number. Her knowledge of the lands beyond Gra'tan's walls was second-hand at best. It would be so easy to stay here, attending to the pleasures of the body and mind. Softness was not a flaw here, but one of the earliest lessons given to young initiates by Shevlana's priestesses is that naivety is dangerous.

Mother Corporeal saw that Delyssa was on the path to complacency and with it, ignorance. It took Kruit but a moment to see how little she knew. But both believed that she could quest out from the temple and into strange and dangerous lands, with strangers for companions, and be better for it. She, in turn, believed them.

She gathered her robe and bundled it in her arms and set off towards the feast hall.

#

Delyssa sat down on a bench at the great hall with a wooden bowl and plate piled high with all that the temple cook was willing to give her. The usual dinner hour was passed, and while there were always some people lingering after the meals, Delyssa found herself the only one eating. She sat naked on the bench, her robe a folded up cushion beneath her.

Her stomach grumbled. Looking down at the food before her, she suddenly realized she had not eaten anything since that morning.

In the bowl was a hot stew: a salty broth of thinned ale, filled with chopped beets, leek and onion, garnished with cumin and coriander. The plate contained a warm cake of barley bread, covered in sesame seeds and soaked in olive oil. Next to it was a spread of mulberry jam, thick and sweet, while the remaining portion of the plate had a pile of roasted fruits and vegetables--figs, apricots, eggplant and pears--atop a filet of fried tilapia. Accompanying the meal was a hot mug of spiced goat milk, the strong scent of which hung in the air, filling Delyssa's lungs.

Delyssa could not distinguish the sensation she felt looking down at the spread of food from lust. Perhaps there was no difference, she thought as she picked up her spoon.

While the various pleasures of the Temple of Shevlana were each enthralling, Delyssa was sure that what she would miss most about life at the Temple were the mealtimes. The feast hall could hold the entire population of the temple, though sometimes it was crowded. Delyssa's fondest memories were not of the sensual ecstasies she frequently had--though those were savored--but of the times when she sat tight against her fellow Servants of Shevlana: hip-against-hip, elbows butting against one another. When the air smelled of plenty and was full of lively conversation; the chattering laughter from the long table of neophytes made a medley with the talk, gossip, and easy flirting from where their elders sat. There was no order to their arrangement: initiates sat with priestesses, and amongst the lower ranked disciples and clerics. When a pair or trio or more acolytes would whisper to one another as quietly as the cacophony allowed, which was little, and set off to find some more secluded and intimate place. Their departure would be accompanied by light cheers, their emptied places soon re-occupied by a newcomer looking for fresh conversation or companionship. At the end of the feast, when the moon was high and the neophytes had been sent off to their dormitory, those full to dozing would be awoken by the entrance of the Temple's cooks, whose arrival would prompt cheering and the slamming of mugs against tables. The cooks would stand at the front of the hall and bow or wave or blush, and eventually (after a brief prayer to Shevlana in thanks) they would be carried off by the bloated crowd to be celebrated as they wished, even if their wish was simply to be tucked into their beds (though it was often not).

Those great feasts, occurring once or twice a month, were to Delyssa all the best that the goddess Shevlana represented. Love that was not just physical, beauty found in friendship and company, a night that had all the pleasures that living could bring, from the savory to the lustful.

The quiet moment that she found herself in now was bittersweet. Had she known beforehand that this was to be her last night in the Temple before venturing out, Delyssa would have preferred there to be such a feast for some kind of farewell. But the humility she could not dispossess herself of told her that simply her first departure from the temple -- and a temporary one at that -- did not merit that sort of celebration. She looked around the mostly empty hall. The benches and tables were clean, as was usual after a meal. The room was lit by large braziers that lined the walls, and the smoke drifted upwards towards the lofty ceiling. An older cleric lay on his back on a bench dozing, the mug of ale clutched in his hands rising and falling atop his belly as he snored. Far down the table from where Delyssa sat, two initiate boys that she knew had a budding romance whispered and laughed with each other, holding hands and oblivious to the rest of the room. There was still tranquility here, she thought as she set aside the now-empty bowl and broke apart the barley cake. Perhaps it was better this way, to slip away without fanfare one morning and quietly return some weeks later. For the clerics napping after the revelries and the lovers whose concentration was solely on each other's breath and bodies, it might be as if no time had passed all from her departure to her return.

The spiced milk she sipped at covered up the sweet smell of the priestesses as they entered the hall, and Delyssa did not notice their approach until two sat on either side of her on the bench, while Allarane -- looking poised but a little more fatigued than when they encountered each other earlier in the bath -- propped herself up on the table to Delyssa's right. The acolyte knew that they had just come from the main cloister, since they all bore the heady odor of incense, sweat, and sex. All three were nude, the pair seated next to Delyssa close enough that their thighs were touching. On her left was one of the youngest priestesses in the temple, Rethe, recently ascended from her position as a mendicant cleric. Her skin was a rich black that drew Delyssa's eye to her bright smile. Other than the short curls that conformed to her scalp, Rethe was entirely hairless, a quality that made the shadowy triangle between her legs impossible for Delyssa to ignore.

As the acolyte took in Rethe's beauty (and proximity) the priestess on her right playfully tugged on Delyssa's arm. Priestess Ollyn was round and warm, pale-skinned and flaxen-haired. There were patches of blushing pink at the joints of each of her limbs, and her nipples were broad petals that made Delyssa's mouth water.

Allarane sat on the table before Delyssa, her feet dangling off the edge. "Mother Corporeal approached us as we finished our rites. It seems that you have had a very eventful day." The priestess pulled her legs up on the table and up to her chest, revealing in full the bright skin of her labia, and Delyssa found it hard to focus on anything other than Allarane's sex, a bead of wetness forming in between those folds. Allarane set aside Delyssa's mostly-finished plate and leaned back in front of the acolyte until she was laying down along the table. One hand coyly reached out and caressed the curve of Delyssa's breast.

"You seemed so nervous earlier in the baths," she said. "I'm proud that you've made the brave decision."

Her praise warmed Delyssa's heart and set it thumping. The beautiful women on all sides of her were overwhelming in their attractions: Rethe leaned towards her shoulder, one warm hand on the small of her back, slowly trailing down towards her buttocks. On the other side, Ollyn took one of Delyssa's hands and planted it on her upper thigh.

Rethe spoke into Delyssa's ear with a dusky voice. "We just completed a fertility ritual in the sanctuary. It was the couple's first time, and they required our full attention."

"It was lively," said Ollyn, "But it did leave us a little lustful."

"Alright, sisters," Allarane said. "Let's stop teasing her." She sat up and leaned close in to Delyssa. "Mother Corporeal asked us to give you a send off for your journey that fits our temple, and that's what we're going to do. Get her arms, Gala."

Allarane's gaze flicked up over Delyssa's head, and only then did the acolyte register that there was another person behind. A pair of strong but soft hands grasped her beneath her armpits and smoothly lifted her to her feet. Delyssa found herself pulled back into the arms of Gala, another priestess. She could feel Gala's small breasts press into her shoulder blades, could feel the priestess' cock press against the back of her leg. The priestess was tall, bronze-skinned, deceptively strong beneath her cherubic curves.

"Is this alright, initiate?" Gala whispered behind her.

Momentarily overwhelmed, Delyssa could only show her delight with a vigorous nod. At her consent, Rethe and Ollyn jumped up from the bench and each grabbed one of her ankles, suspending Delyssa in the air between the three priestesses. Allarane clambered off the table and walked between Delyssa's now-outstretched legs.

"This is to be your time," she said. "Where do you want to be taken?"

The sight of Allarane staring down her body from over her spread sex made Delyssa writhe with arousal. "Take me to my cella," she gasped. "Let's do it there."

"You heard her, sisters," Allarane said.

"Are we to do all the carrying, then?" Rethe said, though she matched Allarane's smile.

"Nonsense. Someone has to carry this," she said, reaching back to the table to heft a double-handled pewter carafe of olive oil.

Still carrying Delyssa between them, the group set off towards the entrance of the hall. The two initiates who were sitting at the same table when Delyssa was eating were now leaving as well. They reached the wooden door that lead to the passageway connecting the feast hall to the main temple building, and one of them held it open as the priestesses approached.

"What favor is this, Delyssa?" one said with a laugh.

"She roves out on campaign early tomorrow," said Allarane. "We're making goodbyes."

"Here, give her your best," said Rethe, and her and Ollyn held Delyssa's legs even wider apart, opening her fully to the other acolyte. The initiate blinked twice before leaning in and giving her a peck on one of her outer folds. His friend stepped in as the other retreated, hefting some of Delyssa's weight with one hand under her thigh while he pulled gently at her hood with his thumb, his palm nestled atop her bush. This initiate gave a long lick upwards from just below her vagina before coming to her exposed clitoris, which he suckled for a moment, sending a lance of pleasure that made Delyssa buck in the arms of the priestesses. The two initiates stepped aside and waved them through the open doorway, where they hustled her down the torchlit passage.

Through the twists and turns of the temple's corridors, they brought Delyssa back to where she -- up until this morning -- contentedly spent most of her time, pleasuring the supplicants who needed her for Shevlana's most holy private rituals. Allarane spread the beaded curtain to the square stone room and entered after the three priestesses deposited Delyssa down onto the mat that formed the small cell's only furniture. It was crowded with the five of them, but all that meant to Delyssa was that they fell over each other in a tangle of limbs as the priestesses collapsed with her onto the floor.

They waited, panting, for their hearts to slow down; the priestesses' from the exertion of carrying her, Delyssa's from being carried naked and open through the halls of the temple.

Allarane sat down next to her head. "Now, do you want us to start anywhere in particular, or should we just let the goddess guide us?"

Delyssa squirmed on the mat. "One of you is going to have to continue what that initiate started," she moaned. "Beyond that, I will let Shevlana decide. I'll say so if I need you to stop something."

The priestesses nodded, and the orgy began.

Allarane tipped the jug of olive oil, first over her own breasts. She kneaded them and trailed her hands across her skin until her whole torso was glistening in the warm light of the hanging brazier. She bent forward and rubbed her chest across Delyssa's, who writhed in aching lust as the sensation of the priestess' nipples trailing smoothly across her own. Between her legs, Rethe and Ollyn worked, cheeks pressed together as they each licked and sucked at Delyssa's folds, finding her own glistening lubrication that smeared their mouths. Delyssa's head was propped up in the soft lap of Gala, who stroked the acolyte's hair and encouraged the others. Delyssa could feel Gala's cock press against the back of her head, another erotic stimulus in the overwhelming multitude.

Allarane was now fully suckling on Delyssa's nipples while fingering herself with slick fingers. The priestess moved from one breast to the other, tugging gently with her teeth. From below, the pressure was building, and Delyssa arched her back in pleasure, reaching her arms back and up around Gala's shoulders. Gala herself was drawing her fingertips across the acolyte's arms, shoulders, neck.

Delyssa felt Rethe's mouth slip away and shuddered at the brief touch of cooler air the absence brought before two of the priestess' fingers entered her and curled upwards, probing. They pressed against that holy spot inside of her and Delyssa could feel her orgasm roiling beneath her skin.

"Do it, Rethe," she gasped. "Do it-- "

Rethe began to fuck her with her fingers, the slap of her palm-heel against Delyssa's clitoris reverberating off the stone walls, its powerful sensation intertwining with the aching waves of her climax from Rethe's fingering. The pressure built inside her and then released, a quaking orgasm that shook itself down to her fingertips, and out through her sex in a gush that splattered both Rethe and Ollyn in her fluids. They laughed, dripping, and kissed each other and then Delyssa's pulsing vagina.

The next few hours were a meld of bodies and climaxes, one after the other. Allarane rode Delyssa's face as she intertwined with Gala. Rethe and Ollyn fell into a tangle of limbs beside them. After a rest where the priestesses cuddled Delyssa on the dampened mat of her cella floor, and long drafts from a pitcher of water that Allarane brought in, they resumed.

Gala next took the center while Delyssa recuperated. The acolyte found herself across from Ollyn as they both played with Gala's cock in their mouths. Their lips met around her penis, and Delyssa tasted herself on both of their flesh. Rethe worked Gala from the back while Allarane kissed the priestess, and it wasn't long before Gala was shaking in her own orgasm, a thin stream of cum pouring out of her and over Delyssa's ready breasts.

Instinctively, the group then turned to Ollyn, then to Rethe. Each woman received the attention of the rest--Delyssa felt the pleasure of giving as much as the pleasure of receiving.

The night grew late, and it ended with Delyssa standing in the midst of the others, legs wide as Allarane ate her from the front and Ollyn from the back while Rethe and Gala covered the rest of her with kisses and licks. The rest of the temple was nearing quiet, the still air interrupted by their gasps and cries. Eventually, Delyssa came again, feeling emptied, nearly numb from her many orgasms.

The priestesses slowly brought her to the ground. Allarane brought her head into her lap as she crossed her legs on the stone floor. Delyssa looked up into the priestess' eyes as Allarane bent over her to return the look.

"You have a long, new day before you Delyssa," she said, her voice coarse and throaty after all of her screaming. "You should let your body rest deep with a lightened heart. I hope that the love we've shared with you tonight will bring you home to us safely from your adventure."