Sisterhood - Temptation Ch. 31

When it fell into place behind them, Katharina was surprised at how firmly the heavy curtain shielded the testing chamber from the noise of the bar area. She could still hear the chatter and the scrape of wood and glass, but it was muted, filtered to a distant blur.

Though the testing chamber was quiet in comparison to the bar, as Katharina's ears adjusted and she became keener to the sounds around her, she had the clear impression that it was louder than when she had passed through earlier, with Emmie, and Ivy and Josephine. The chamber was busier, felt as if it had come alive. And unlike in the bar, where the sources of sound were so numerous as to be lost among each other, here the atmosphere was clear enough that Katharina could listen to individual voices. One was groaning loudly, two others further off were engaged in a whispered conversation. And clearest of all was a particular rich, hoarse voice crying out in breathless jolts.

"Unghh... fuu-u-uuck! Harder! Ha-aa-ar-der! Ohhh... yeah! Fuck... me! I'm... gonna... cc... ome!"

Katharina held still and listened, but she couldn't place where the voice was coming from. It rang out as if from all around, with the reverberation of a pure note of music striking on the stone. She turned to Vera standing beside her, and saw that Vera too was cocking her head, eyes alert.

"Beautiful, isn't it," Vera grinned at her.

Katharina nodded.

Vera's voice hushed. She continued, speaking just above a whisper, "Dmurrhisi, being pleasured. Being happy. Surrendering themselves. At some point in the evening, I always take a moment to sit and listen."

"Oh?" Katharina's skin pricked with a little shiver of conspiratorial excitement. She heard the same voice as before groaning again, softer, exhaling.

"I find an empty bed, on my own. Close my eyes," said Vera, "Meditate. Just focus on the sound."

Katharina glanced at one of the beds beside them. Empty, curtains open. The sheet and pillows inside were ruffled in disorder.

Vera straightened up, spoke evenly again, "But not now. Come. Where did you leave your two lovely friends?"

Katharina frowned, briefly confused. She thought first of Ivy and Lia, looked around as if to seek them out. Then she heard clearly Ivy's voice. It sounded from behind the opposite curtain, the one that covered the archway leading to the showers. Ivy sounded irritated, was barking out an exclamation, ending with Lia's name. The curious coincidence made Katharina wonder whether she had merely imagined the resemblance and it was in fact another girl shouting. But then she heard Lia's peculiar carefree giggling, followed by the clack of high heels on the tiles.

"Ivy and-?" Katharina began.

"Your two lovely dmurrhisi friends, I mean," Vera smiled patiently. She looked across at the opposite archway, "You will join Ivy again in a moment. Let us just have a quick look first."

"Oh no, of course. It doesn't matter, I can join them after," Katharina said hurriedly. She looked up and down the gangway of the chamber. It took a moment for her memory of it to coalesce, then she looked down the length of the chamber, to her left, recalling where she had earlier followed Josephine. She nodded, "This way."

Vera waited for Katharina to lead away, then followed along beside as Katharina walked slowly down the gangway in the direction of the main entrance. She knew that the bed Josephine had led her and Emmie to was on their left, but she was not sure which exactly it had been, only that it was near the far end. Once they had passed the first several beds, Katharina began examining the bedposts. A few of the posts were still bare, but most bore at least one scarf. Even some of the empty beds were marked, with a small collection of scarves left behind by the last occupant. Katharina saw a lot of the white and purple checkered pattern, along with some pink, and blue.

They reached an empty bed on the left, flying a checkered and a green scarf from the bedpost. One or two more crumples of purple and of white were strewn on the bed itself, among the creases of the undersheet, which was dark with wetness. Katharina stared and felt a little shudder of excitement. She paused and wondered for a moment whether this had been the bed where she had last had sex with Emmie.

Then a sound drew her attention and she looked across sharply to the next bed, ahead. Its curtains fluttered briefly and the sound came again, from within. Girlish, tinged with a very peculiar musical laughter that sounded somehow insincere or mocking. Even though it was only a whispered squeak of amusement, Emmie's voice was very distinctive, and Katharina recognized it with certainty.

This one was the bed they had been in. Katharina could picture in her imagination the quiet laugh that had just shaken Emmie's chest, Emmie lying naked inside. She squinted through the dark filter of the closed curtains and saw the fused silhouette of two girls lying together, one perhaps on her back, the other lying halfway atop, her leg slung over the other's hips.

Katharina stopped still, remained standing several paces away. She had often found it a little unsettling, the Sisterhood's strange custom of curtaining beds with this particular dark gauze. It obscured the details but not the image of what was beyond, as if to signal that concealment was intended while still tempting spectation. Katharina knew also from having lain inside the same bed earlier that the outside would be a little more clearly visible to those within than vice versa, because of the light of the chandeliers in the chamber.

She looked across at Vera and made the slightest indication with a tilt of her head. Vera nodded, and examined the bed. She held her jaw firmly set and her mouth closed, seeming also to wish to keep as silent as possible.

Around them in other nearby beds there were other voices, likewise only tittering or sighing, without speaking. One was perhaps the voice that Katharina had heard crying out loudly when they had first entered, but she could not be sure. Here at the end of the two long rows of beds, right by the main entrance, most of the beds had their curtains closed. Katharina reflected that this was perhaps where the most eager girls would tend to place themselves, having just entered from the main chamber.

Katharina looked then at the scarves tied to the posts of Emmie's bed. Two of the white and purple checkered ones, and below them a pink and then a blue one. Katharina could not recall whether she had tied on any others for Emmie and Josephine before leaving them, but the combination seemed about right, given what the two of them had said they wanted.

"So," Katharina leaned closer to Vera and spoke very quietly, while keeping her eyes on the silhouettes inside the bed, "This is where we left them. Emmie is here. I think it might be Josephine with her."

Vera held Katharina's wrist as if to stay her, though Katharina had not moved. Vera nodded slowly, then she narrowed her eyes, and made a similarly slow movement of her head, but shaking it, as if in dismissal, "There is another girl."

"Oh," Katharina whispered. She looked again, trying to make out the outlines of the bodies inside the bed. She thought that the girl on top might be slim, and petite, like Josephine. But perhaps she was also too tall to be Josephine. The full length of the girl's legs was unclear, lost against the shadow of the body of the girl beneath her, and among the crumples of the bedcover. Then she noticed the hair. Too long. Very long. Not Josephine's.

"Yes," Vera's cheeks dimpled with a satisfied smile.

Vera tilted her head upwards and Katharina saw Vera's nostrils flare a little, her chest making short, faint movements as if inhaling. Not wishing to appear to be mimicking, Katharina turned her head away and tried discreetly to sniff at the air herself. There were odors, though faint. Several different traces all blended, difficult to separate. Most obvious was the damp and must of the underground, stirred up and warmed by the heat of the nearby springs. Katharina thought she could make out also the pleasing scent of dmurrhisi girls' excitement, along with the less subtle, salty smell of cum. Behind those, maybe, was something cleaner and more volatile, more plant-like. A perfume.

Vera's hand, still clasped around Katharina's wrist, pulled her back. "Come," Vera whispered.

Somewhat puzzled, Katharina followed silently as Vera turned and retreated back up the central gangway the way they had come.

Vera walked a little more slowly at first, then broke smoothly into the same swift stride as before as they passed several empty beds. "So, that was Emmie, then?" she asked Katharina.

Katharina nodded, "Yes, definitely. That's where I left her. And... her voice."

"Good," Vera smiled, "Then we must leave her."

"Because she's with another girl?" Katharina nodded, half confirming, half wondering.

"Because she's with a Sisterhood girl," Vera intoned carefully, "She is doing well already. I will come back to her later. We should leave her to it and find the other one. Josephine."

Katharina thought back to when she and Ivy had left the two other girls in the bed. She looked up the length of the chamber, then over her shoulder, hoping she could summon some scrap of information, or an intuition as to where Josephine might have gone.

"Hmm. I... don't know. I think maybe she wanted to go to the spa. But she wanted to be with Emmie, I think she said. And, well," Katharina laughed quietly to herself, "It seemed like she wanted to, um, have a lot of sex."

Vera gave a brief snort of amusement as she pulled to a halt. They stood again between the two opposing archways that led into the showers and to the bar space.

"Well. Then perhaps it is best that we separate for now Katharina. You should join your friend Ivy," Vera's eyes brightened with the energy of amusement, "You mustn't forget to enjoy your first Summer Ball, after all. I will look around in case Josephine is in here."

"Oh it's okay," Katharina mumbled, feeling curiously awkward at the mention of the Ball, "I'm enjoying it a lot. I want to help you with... your cause."

"Well, maybe Ivy will know where Josephine is. She may be going to join her now. If you happen to see her, you may find me either here or in the bar." Then Vera pursed her lips and seemed to ponder. She paused before continuing, and looked Katharina earnestly in the eyes, "Katharina. You are a kindhearted girl, you try to think well of people."

"Well, I..." Katharina mumbled again.

"That is good," Vera's face fell into a sympathetic smile that seemed nonetheless subtly to communicate a certain regret, "But do not let other girls take advantage of you."

"Okay. I will... um, try. How do you mean?" Katharina could not help but frown as she rushed to make sense of Vera's statement. She flitted quickly through a first handful of vague, arbitrary possibilities. Ivy? Did Vera mean Ivy? Or Lena, somehow?

"Don't worry," Vera reassured her, "I do not mean anything specific. Just..." she shook her head, "Well, never mind, something else. You remember Lena's girl?"

Katharina nodded, "Not Ellen, but the new girl, you mean?"

"Exactly," Vera reached out and put her hand on Katharina's shoulder to pull her just a fraction closer and spoke more quietly, "If you happen to meet her again, try something. See whether you can get the measure of her."

The phrase struck Katharina as particularly odd, antiquated in the way that Vera's speech sometimes was, "Get the measure of her?"

"I mean simply, try to judge for yourself, dispassionately without being either generous or cynical, what sort of a girl she is. Is she happy with herself? Why is she here? And..." Vera's smile looked briefly pained, "Does she have any weaknesses, insecurities?"

Katharina turned the idea over in her mind. She tried to picture it, meeting the girl again. Leah. She recalled the name with ease this time. She could picture the girl's face and her expression clearly, and it looked entirely inscrutable. To her frustration, Katharina found her imagination straying instead to the sight of the girl's naked body, her full shape and her soft, tanned skin.

"Sorry," Vera stood back and gave a subtle cough, "I see that I have unsettled you Katharina. That was not my intention."

"Oh no, no," Katharina shook herself out of her brief daydream, "Not at all. I will try it. I will look for her too. I understand. She's Lena's, so she's sort of... the competition, right?"

Vera chuckled, "To put it bluntly, yes. So Katharina, go find your friends, look for Josephine, or for this girl. But enjoy yourself also, okay?"

"Okay," Katharina nodded. She felt an excited smile curl across her lips.

Vera smiled back at her, "Good." Then she ushered Katharina towards the left archway.

Katharina hurried through. She looked back once to nod again at Vera, then slipped around the curtain and into the shower room. Powered by a fresh excitement, she skipped forward. The twinge of unease that she had experienced in response to Vera's odd remark about her being a kindly girl had already faded, swept away by the sense of special purpose that came from having another assignment. Albeit a vague one.

Absorbed in her quiet happiness, it was only once she began crossing the floor that Katharina thought to look around her. One of the shower heads was running, she noticed, and for a moment she startled, sure that someone was standing underneath it. But she was alone. The water was streaming down through empty space and onto the floor. She watched the many arcs of water sputter, then slowly wilt and extinguish themselves. The room fell quiet save for the plip of droplets.

Ivy and Lia had perhaps just now finished showering and had exited through the spa, Katharina supposed. She hopped quickly across the room to the tunnel in the opposite wall. She skipped to dodge puddles of water as she went, but just as she reached the entrance to the short tunnel, she felt a splash of cool wetness strike the bare skin just above the rim of her shoe, then soak down between her toes.

She passed through the tunnel and into the cloying steam of the spa chamber. It felt odd, slightly jarring, to walk beside the pool with her shoes and her clothing still on. The steam was so thick it was almost as if she were bathing. As she made her way carefully around the edge of the pool, she felt it seeping through the airy fabric of her blouse, weighing it down with moisture and flattening it against the skin of her chest.

As she crossed the wider space at the end of the pool, she held her arms out in front of her, plowing at the air to waft clumps of steam aside. The air thinned and cleared and she saw the curtain across the main archway, a few slivers of light at its foot where it met the stone floor. She strode over and lifted the curtain to swing under it and into the light.

The main chamber was quieter than Katharina recalled from when she had sat there resting, before encountering Vera. There was the sound of conversations, but hushed, the background murmur not quite loud enough to obscure individual voices. Opposite, a group of dmurrhisi girls in colorful underwear, and some others in dresses, were just exiting the bar. The group turned away and began walking down the empty gangway in the center of the chamber, browsing for seats. Their chatter faded as they moved away, and Katharina turned to watch them depart.

Her gaze was drawn away by the movement of two figures picking their way among the chairs and benches, just a few meters away from where she stood, with their backs to her. Recognizing them, she hurried to the edge of the seating area and called after them as discreetly as she could, "Lia. Ivy."

Lia was closest. Ivy was ahead, leading her by the hand. Lia's pale, bony figure was completely bare, the loose softness of her flat buttocks trembled as she tottered forward.

Lia twisted to look as she heard her name called. When she saw Katharina, her eyes opened wide with a cheerful smile, "Katja!"

Lia turned around and yanked Ivy back with her to march towards Katharina. Ivy staggered and grumbled, then too turned and saw Katharina.

"Ivy," Katharina repeated, smiling.

Lia stumbled back through a cluster of chairs, dragging Ivy behind her. She let go of Ivy's hand and trotted up to Katharina to embrace her. Then she pulled back and held Katharina by the shoulders, looking down at her chest, "Katja, oh wow. You are definitely gonna be our champion in the next wet t-shirt contest."

"Heh? Oh," Katharina followed Lia's gaze down to her own body. An irregular, eight-shaped patch of damp from the spa covered her chest. The fabric of her blouse was almost completely transparent, and showed pink where it clung to the peaks of her breasts.

"What? Oh," Ivy mumbled, staring, "Rack. Nice."

Katharina noticed then that Ivy was herself topless. The waist of her tight pants sat low around her hips, below the same smooth sliver of stomach that her short top had previously bared.

Ivy's small, firm bust gave a sharp bounce as she snapped her feet together and looked up, into Katharina's eyes, "Great. Found you. You went to browse too, huh?"

"Mm Katja," Lia murmured, giggling, "Honk honk. Please promise you'll titfuck me later."

"Lia!" Ivy scowled and rolled her eyes. She turned to Katharina, "Thank fuck you're here Katja. I've been looking after Lia on my own. Had to listen to some of her dumbest bullshit so far."

"Hey. So mean," Lia leaned on Katharina's shoulder, "Ivy gets a bit nicer after she's been fucked. But looks like it's already wearing off."

Lia's particular choice of phrase stirred Katharina's imagination. She wanted to ask what Ivy and Lia had been doing, and was irritated to find that she wanted in particular to know what Ivy had been doing. And whether she had been with another Sisterhood girl. The thought unsettled her, and she felt ashamed. She tried to estimate how much time had passed since she had watched Ivy and Lia set off together for the showers. In her memory, she briefly replayed her experiences since then, meeting Vera, sitting in the bar. She felt that she and Vera had spent quite a long time talking.

Katharina spoke, to dispel her slight discomfort, or conceal it, "So you've been browsing then? Oh, did you see Josephine?"

Katharina noticed that Ivy was wringing each hand around the opposite wrist, gently massaging her own skin.

"Yeah," Ivy replied, "No. I dunno where she went. Bathing maybe, or she found other girls. Did you hit up the testing chamber then?"

"Yeah- Well no, not really. Was in the bar," Katharina replied.

"Alright," Ivy grinned, "Well Lia, you might have been here for hours already, but Katja and me have got some serious catching up to do. Bitch face should be done by now. Let's go plow that pussy beast."

Ivy lunged for Lia's dick. She grabbed it and pulled Lia along after her, marching for the middle of the three curtained archways.

"Hey!" Lia squealed.

"Come on, Katja," Ivy called out, looking back over her shoulder, "Party time."

Katharina started forward, caught off guard by the speed of Ivy's departure. Ahead, Ivy was already ducking round the curtain and through the archway, Lia tottering behind.

As Katharina approached and made to reach for the curtain, she heard a rush of sound to her right. The curtain across the next archway, the one that led into the bar space, fluttered and half opened. She glimpsed the forms of several girls' legs, standing close by on the other side. She thought again of Vera's latest request, and wondered whether Lena's girl, Leah, would be in the bar. She resolved to peek through the curtain and check, just in case she was.

Then she thought instead to look first around the main chamber itself. She scanned the heads of the few clusters of girls still sitting around. Some were far off, near the opposite end, their faces difficult to discern. But none seemed to have Leah's long, thick waves of dun brown hair.