Jaeyern's Sacrifice

This is my seventeenth contribution to:

The 750 Word Project 2024

Jaeyern woke, gripped by a feeling of cold dread. It was no surprise, the same fear had gripped her every morning for months. The only difference was in degree. Even yesterday she had deluded herself that there was a day remaining. But today? Today it was mere hours.

The clock had started when her daughter was born. She had fulfilled her obligation. As her mother had before her. As the womenfolk in her family had for generations. This was the lore of her people. This was the fate of her family. Or at least the females. A year later, they would be gone. And their husbands would be free to take a new wife. Younger, prettier, less tired. The brood mare would be gone.

Jaeyern put on a shift and looked into the crib where her baby was sleeping. She kissed her brow, resigned to never seeing her again. Resigned to her being brought up by whatever slut her husband selected.

But no thoughts of flight entered her head. What must happen had been explained to her by the wise man. Explained so many times that it had become part of her psyche. She felt regret, she felt anger, but, most of all, she felt duty. Duty to every other member of her tribe. Duty to keep them safe. Safe from it.

Jaeyern stood before the entrance. The huts she had left were dominated by wood and reeds and piled stones. Here the very rock had been hewn into pillars and adornments.

Jaeyern listened to the wise man chanting a language she didn't understand. Her husband unsheathed a dagger. With a downward slash, he ripped her shift open and it fell to the earth. She was to enter naked.

All was silent now as Jaeyern took an uncertain step forward, and then another. Her strides became more steady as she approached the portico. She entered the temple with neither hesitation nor a backward glance. The darkness closed around her like a cloak.

Blind now, she walked. As she progressed inwards, a dim light began to appear ahead of her. A minute more and she entered a room, with flickering flames picking out arcane carvings on its walls.

In the centre was a graven stone plinth. Jaeyern mounted it and lay down. The stone was warm, it throbbed against her naked back. She closed her eyes and waited.

There was no sound, but some sense told Jaeyern that she was not alone. She opened her eyes and they darted from side to side. There was no other person there, but she was aware of the very air rippling, as if liquid, distorting the view of the walls where it swirled and pulsed.

Jaeyern felt disturbances near her and suddenly her wrists and ankles were held in an secure grip. There were eddies and vortices surrounding her. They caressed her skin, they squeezed against her hardening nipples. She could see her flesh move as if touched but with no toucher visible. The undulating atmosphere ruffled the thick hair on her mound and moved between her legs.

Jaeyern inhaled sharply as incorporeal fingers petaled her pink lips. She gasped as something lunged into her depths. Her body tensed and strained as whatever was in the room began to thrust in and out of her. The penetration was deep, the movements attentive to her cravings. This was what it was like to be truly fucked. Not her husband's inexpert and brief fumblings; enough to impregnate, not to pleasure.

The invisible invasion of her most intimate opening crescendoed as did the roiling waves of pulsing heat that washed over Jaeyern. She arched and screamed. For the first time she felt all that a woman is capable of feeling, her deepest desires satiated. She was spent. Lying panting on the stone slab. Sweating and with juices dripping from between her legs.

Opening dazed eyes, Jaeyern saw a woman standing by her. Her mother had left before her first birthday, but something told Jaeyern that it was she.

"Mother?"

"Welcome. Perhaps you now understand why no woman ever returns from this temple. It worships us, it meets our every need. You will be as fulfilled as I have been. And, in time, your daughter will join you, as you have joined me."

Her body still trembling, Jaeyern asked. "What is it, my mother?"

"It is everything you could ever want. It is pure pleasure. Beyond that, don't question, just let it serve you. Let it please you."