Sisterhood - Temptation Ch. 23

Vanessa was a very talkative girl. Katharina remembered in particular her loud, open-mouthed laugh. She was laughing now, apparently at something Friederike had just said. Vanessa's thick dark hair was tied in a long braid behind her head, and flew out beside her as she turned to Friederike to giggle something at her, clutching at the other girl's arm. Katharina knew Friederike even less well. She had very bright blonde hair and pale skin, was attractive. She had always seemed a little superior, maybe even snobbish, though Katharina was aware that some girls just looked like that, had a resting expression that appeared to convey hostility even when none was there.

The two other Sisterhood girls passed them, and as they did so Ivy inclined her head and mumbled a greeting. Vanessa waved and laughed again, aimlessly, and then when she and Friederike passed level with Katharina, Katharina exchanged brief smiles of recognition with both of them.

Ivy's steps seemed to quicken for the last few paces before they all rounded the corner and began the walk along the northernmost hallway that crossed the house.

Round the corner, the materials and the colors of the hallway remained the same. The walls were bare, and the slightly irregular flagstones of the floor were covered in the center by a worn, deep red carpet, cut and laid so as to turn the corner in a neat right angle. But the atmosphere altered as they turned. There were no longer any windows onto the courtyard gardens, which now lay behind a bare wall to their right. The moonlight was gone, and the dim orange lighting that shone up at the arched ceiling took its place. Katharina became aware that there had been a faint breeze blowing in from the gardens, a hint of the coolness of water. Her attention was now drawn to it by its sudden absence.

Katharina saw ahead, half way along the length of the hallway, the discreet curtained doorway that would lead down to the North Wing. She noticed that she was nervous. Silence, though she often welcomed it, also gave her space to ruminate and to worry what others might be thinking.

She heard Ivy say something, ahead, but lost it, her attention on her own thoughts. Ivy had perhaps spoken about the two other Sisterhood girls who had just passed by. Katharina saw Josephine's arm around Ivy's shoulders. Then she watched Josephine reach down behind herself with her free hand and fuss at the high hem of her dress. She fumbled in the crease between her slim backside and her thigh, seemed to scratch at herself and flick away a tiny fleck of fluff. Then slowly her hand rose and she very deliberately took the hem of the dress between her fingers to lift it up and away from her body. With a subtle twist in her step, Josephine parted her thighs and for a moment the folds of her pussy were visible in the shadow between her legs.

When Katharina looked up, she saw Josephine's head twisted around looking back at her. Or perhaps not quite directly at her. Josephine scrunched her eyes and stuck out her tongue, then turned quickly away to kiss Ivy on the cheek.

Ivy began talking again, and Katharina turned quickly to Emmie beside her, to see whether Emmie had observed Josephine's little display. Emmie spoke softly, "I suppose you're hoping I will play cute tricks like that too, aren't you?"

"Well..." Katharina looked down at Emmie's long tight dress, the hem at her ankles, "I think you've already treated me quite a few cute tricks."

"Here," Emmie whispered quickly. She took Katharina's wrist and held her hand by the side of her hip.

Emmie's fingertips crept down and slowly gathered up the side of her dress, pulling it into a ruffled bunch just below her waist. Then she guided Katharina's hand under and onto the skin of her thigh. Katharina kept her gaze ahead, on the approaching doorway, and pulled Emmie a little closer. She slid her hand upward and found the elastic of Emmie's thin, silky underwear sitting snug across the cheek of her behind. Katharina slipped her fingers under it and clutched gently at Emmie's backside, holding one cheek in her hand as it rose and fell with her steps.

Emmie nuzzled her head against Katharina's shoulder, and Katharina heard and felt a slight purring sound, a quiet encouragement. Katharina's arm was almost fully extended, reaching down, and it felt as if it would be a little awkward to reach any further between Emmie's thighs. After a few steps, she made a careful attempt, leaning closer. She gripped Emmie's cheek and pressed her fingertips into it to lift it gently aside, then she slid her fingers further inward and felt very warm, smooth skin.

"Mmm, that's it," Emmie whispered, "Keep me excited. Is it far to this place?"

Katharina looked again at the doorway, now looming. "No," she replied, "We'll have to go down a long staircase, but then we're there."

Their steps had slowed, and broken from their rhythm. Though Emmie seemed to appreciate her touch, and was holding close to her side, Katharina could feel the awkwardness of the position. When ahead she saw Ivy and Josephine stop in front of the doorway, she pulled her hand quickly back out and let Emmie's dress fall back into place.

"Down?" Emmie asked.

Katharina rubbed her fingertips discreetly together. She had felt very soft skin, what must have been the ridge just at the edge of Emmie's pussy. She couldn't tell whether the faint clamminess on her fingers was the wetness of Emmie's excitement, or merely a trace of sweat and humidity from the closeness of her body.

"Yeah," Katharina nodded. She was about to elaborate when Ivy spoke.

"Finally here," Ivy smiled.

"Yay!" Josephine hopped on the tips of her toes.

"It's underground. Through there," Katharina turned to Emmie and indicated the red cloth curtains across the wall to their left.

"Underground. Aha," Emmie hummed, "Exciting."

"Like a dungeon," Josephine laughed. She turned aside and put her hand between the curtains to draw them open. She led Ivy forward and through, "Okay let's go."

"Come," Katharina offered her hand to Emmie and led her through after, palming the curtain aside as it fell back into place behind Ivy.

The low arched doorway on the other side was open. Katharina saw the iron hinges where normally a thick metal grill door would have been in place. Earlier that day, she had watched it being taken down, along with some of the other girls of the Sisterhood, those who liked to be present at ceremonial occasions. After Marianne had unlocked the door, Louise and two of the other ka'ini had swung it open then lifted it off its hinges to carry it away. Then others had put up the wooden curtain rail in its place.

The ceiling of the corridor beyond was much lower, low enough to make Katharina feel as if she ought to duck, though it was still about a fist's height above her head. Ahead of them, the passageway led a short distance forward until it became a wide flight of stairs leading downward.

At the lip of the stairs, Josephine halted and turned, "So do we take off our clothes here already?"

"Er," Ivy looked back at the curtains that had fallen closed behind them, "I suppose you could, if you really want. But we're not quite there yet."

"It's a naked party, is it?" asked Emmie.

"Well, naked or, um, scant clothing I suppose," Katharina replied, "Does that suit you okay?"

"Nakedness suits me extremely well," Emmie tilted her head and her lips pursed into a warm, self-satisfied smile, "Or so I have been told."

"I bet," Josephine laughed.

"Okay, well let's get going," Ivy led Josephine down onto the first step, "The sooner we get there, the sooner Jo can dance around and parade her goods in front of everyone."

Katharina and Emmie followed. They forwent the close hold that they had taken on their walk through the hallways and held hands. The steps were broad and shallow. Katharina took two of them in her first stride, but then felt the pull of Emmie being left behind, and slowed.

Ahead, Josephine was plunging quickly down the staircase. "So are you girls going to get naked too?" she asked Ivy.

"You're really interested in the nakedness part, aren't you?" said Ivy.

"Yeah. Of course," Josephine nodded, laughing.

The two other girls pulled ahead, until the stairway turned to the side and curled round and more steeply down, the beginning of the spiral that led beneath the house and into the caverns of the North Wing.

As they too rounded the first corner of the spiral, Emmie turned to Katharina, "I bet it will feel particularly satisfying for you."

"What will?"

"Being, you know, freed," Emmie chuckled, "Liberated from the tight constraints of society."

"Hah," Katharina laughed, "Getting my pants off, you mean."

Emmie looked at her and her smiling lips trembled with a giggle, "It must be very uncomfortable for you most of the time."

"Well in your company, yes."

Hearing Emmie talk about it in her high-pitched, flirtatious voice, Katharina became aware of the lingering discomfort that she had mostly forgotten on their walk through the house. Though the intense and slightly painful hardness she had experienced in Vera's chambers had subsided, she could feel that she had remained slightly swollen, and even a little sore.

After a few turns more she felt the cool dampness of underground, a faint soothing mist on the skin of her face and arms. She discreetly walked her thighs a little further apart as they continued to descend, and felt some of the pressure ease. It was a comfort to know that the North Wing was now close and that she would soon be able to relax and dispense with the careful vigilance that had consumed a small portion of her attention for the entire evening.

She had been in the North Wing before, for several of the assemblies and ceremonies that took place in the amphitheater at its northern end. But then she had only crossed through the main chambers, and they had been dim and empty. She tried to picture the same spaces now, as senior girls had described it, bustling, alive with noise and excitement, many of the girls undressed. She had tried to picture it before, when she had first learned of the Summer Ball, and then again more often during the weeks preceding. But now it seemed suddenly very real, both exciting and a little daunting. Other girls would see her, and be looking at her, as they did in the showers of the dorm rooms. And now there would be dmurrhisi there too.

Emmie squeezed Katharina's hand, "Excited?"

Katharina smiled and nodded, "You?"

"Of course," Emmie replied, "You seem a little preoccupied."

"Oh. No," Katharina shook her head, "Just glad to get here finally. I just hope you like it."

"I'll have you to entertain me, so I'm sure I will," Emmie quickened her step a little.

Katharina listened to the echo of her and Emmie's steps, the soles of their shoes twisting and scuffing on the stone. The same dampness she had sensed in the air she now felt underfoot. She held Emmie's hand tighter, in case she should slip, and they rounded the last turn of the staircase and set foot on the floor at its end.

They stood at one end of a cavelike tunnel. The ceiling was higher, and arched in a semicircle that was in several places dented and broken in where the old stonework had crumbled or fallen through and had been patched up with brick or fresh, smoother stones.

Ivy and Josephine stood waiting. Behind them across the breadth of the tunnel there hung a pair of red cloth curtains like those across the doorway they had passed through at the top of the stairs. There was a continuous, silent ripple in the curtains, a hint of a gentle but insistent flow of air from beyond.