Talla's Temple Ch. 21

"Madra Zen," he cursed under his breath.

"Yes," she murmured back through dreamy, slitted eyes. "She sent me just for you."

A godsend, was she? He did feel reborn the moment she had impaled herself on him.

He could feel her emotions, too, not just her flesh, and so he sensed the real frustration underlying her joking veneer. She'd been holding back a desperate arousal, begging for any man, any erection, to penetrate her. She was so relieved that Shen had woken up and that she'd been chosen to – to what? Have sex with him, yes, but something else too. Shen couldn't say. Was this what the mesh was like for people other than him?

"Don't thrust," she said, ever so caring and soft. "Let me do the work. You rest."

Drowning in ecstasy, he accepted this order and enjoyed the grinding of her cheeks against his pelvis.

"Don't hold back, okay? Just come when you need to. Don't fight it."

He nodded, awestruck by her generosity.

"So hard," she complimented him. "So good."

Her eyes were closed as she too took enjoyment from his flesh.

"There you go," she said gently. "Getting even bigger – let it go, now. Don't fight it. Gimme, gimme."

He could control himself now, if he wanted to, but he didn't. This exercise had something to do with his health. He was sure of that, now. Both women had insisted that he avoid exerting himself. So he thought it prudent to do so and relaxed his body.

"Oh!" she cried, feeling the oncoming orgasm. "Yes!"

So calm and perfect. He released the first surge from his loins, twitching a load of semen down the long, moist tunnel of his – what? - healer?. Again and again, he let stream after stream in to her body. She squeezed him as tightly as she could, revelling in the orgasm that the mesh shared between them.

"Oh, thank you," she breathed, even though he was still twitching inside her. "Thank you – I needed that. Oh ..."

She wiped sweat from her forehead before she opened her eyes. He watched her breasts heaving in delighted exhaustion.

"That was perfect," she said, gently separating their bodies.

"It was," Shen agreed, feeling a contentment that bubbled up from deep inside him. "It's never been that good."

Orna smiled.

"I think you'll get one more this evening," she said. "Just to make sure."

"You'll be back?"

"No," she said. "I just get one a day, if that. Somebody else will be here for you. Now get some sleep."

Shen nodded, already drifting off before she even put her top back on. She'd never bothered to remove her skirt. He wanted to ask, "Make sure of what?" but the question was lost alongside his consciousness.

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The heat bell rang.

A grappling hook running straight through Zhair'lo's chest yanked at his body. He fought it, just for a moment, just long enough to make sure no one was near him.

Then he ran. Going out the back way, through the stables, he wouldn't run in to any of the farm hands who would all be heading in to the farmhouse. He barely had time to think about the possibility of evoking suspicion from his fellows. That long, invisible rope was pulling him with more power than he had sense or strength to resist. He knew who was at the other end of that rope. He could feel her fighting it, too. She had something to attend to, something she was handling with all possible haste.

That was fine. He might get there first, that was all.

The exit at the back of the stable led to tall reeds and a wooden fence made of three horizontal pieces of wood. The highest was too high for most horses to jump, but a boy had no problem slipping between two of them and dashing off in to the forest.

He was out of breath and sweating, but at least he was in the shade now. The closer he got to the river, the thicker and greener the forest got. What Fortune that he knew his way. Fortunate, too, that the forest floor was cleaner than the brambles and thorned bushes that grew in the farthest section of the farm.

Here he could run and at the greatest speed his legs could carry; could let his instincts take over and run the direction he wanted at the speed he wanted. Nothing would keep him from Talla.

A hundred metres later, he hit the edge of the river and turned to run along its banks. There were places where the trees touched overhead, filtering the sunlight in to dappled green blotches that reflected off the water.

A peaceful scene. Serene, even, if it weren't for Zhair'lo, bolting along the sand and dirt fast enough to take flight.

His heart jumped. Talla was loose. She'd gotten away from whatever it was that was holding her. She was outside. He could feel the sun beating down on her skin as if it were his own.

There! She was running now, pulled by the same force that pulled so relentlessly at Zhair'lo. Forward, forward, endlessly forward.

He had to slow to a jog. His lungs were killing him. At least the air was cooler now, but he simply couldn't sprint the whole way, no matter how strong his desire.

Keep running, she urged him.

So he tried to pick up the pace. There wasn't much further for him to run. He could see the spot where the banks of the river thinned out ahead. It would soon be impossible to travel on foot. He veered in to the river, running in ankle deep water, listening to the splash of the water with each footfall.

His side ached. He'd already run, what, at least a kilometre? He had at least half that left before he'd be completely out of riverbank.

But Talla was calling. He had to keep going. Every moment spent walking instead of running was a moment he couldn't spend with her.

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Zhair'lo was beat. She could read that, even from this distance. Even as she felt his suffering, she exhorted him to greater effort. She wouldn't allow anything to come between them now. If she wasn't flagging, why should he? At least he was in the shade, not running through wide, blindingly bright alleys open to the sun.

She cleared the last significant buildings of the town of Gern and began her run down the path out to Harzen's farm. There was some foliage now, just a few bushes as harbingers of the forest ahead. She would feel safer once she had some cover for her conspicuous behaviour; running out in the open when everyone should be taking a snooze. Who was there to see her anyway? It was a faint concern, not even enough to make her check over her shoulder.

She could feel Zhair'lo now, soaking in the water. His heart was calmer now that he was swimming. He would reach this secret meeting place of his well ahead of her. That was fine. It would give him a moment to rest.

Talla was in the thick of the forest now, following a path just wide enough for a horse cart.

She could hear music now, and it wasn't coming from her ears. Flashes were coming in to her head, too. Images taken from his eyes, brought to her mind through the mesh. He was drawing himself out of the water. She could see him brushing brown strands of hair out of his eyes. It made it hard to run, watching as he ran his hands down his arms and legs to sweep water off his skin.

Oh, to touch that skin! She could feel it and she couldn't. The mesh wasn't the same as being there. Not as this distance.

Zhair'lo was breathing hard. His anticipation came through to her like a magnet, pulling at her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs when she most needed to breathe. Form girls wouldn't have this problem. They could run and run and run ...

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Nine obstinate gods, that girl could run.

Marissa was from Form, but not from Tight. She had five upgrades in Iron, three in Facial and one in Tight. She had more upgrades coming, given her rank, but there were Protocols about how long she had to wait. That single Tight upgrade didn't make her a great runner, but it ought to have been enough to keep up with this idiotic Initiate that was dashing off in to the forest ahead of her.

Her quarry was clearly not of Form. Besides the fact that she was violating a rule no Form girl would dare violate, there was also the matter of her breasts which, even at the distance – the increasing distance, gods damn it - separating the two of them, were obviously large. She was of Abundance.

She was of Abundance and she was outrunning Marissa. It was embarrassing. Marissa was now at the point where she only hoped that she could catch up. She was starting to feel faint.

Five Iron upgrades and my lungs can't keep up? she thought. What are you doing out here, running in such haste, little girl? What drives your legs?

What are you doing that you shouldn't do, when you know you should be sleeping?

It's my job to find out, little girl. You're not going anywhere.

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Talla didn't need the blue ribbon that Zhair'lo had left behind as a trail marker. She already knew which way to go because she knew exactly where he was. She yanked it viciously from the tree branch on which he'd hung it and turned to run through a break in the bushes. Zhair'lo was inside her head now, guiding her footsteps along the cleanest, quickest path through the brush. He'd gone this way once already. He knew where to step. She let him come in to her mind and take control of her body.

Guide me, she told him and he did. What a strange sense of freedom, to let her body go like that, casually handed over to another. She hadn't even known that it was possible.

Branches scratched and scraped at her skin. None of that mattered, not with the pain already in her lungs and her calves. Zhair'lo understood their mutual need. He knew well enough to take her as quickly through this mess as he could and never mind the discomfort.

Gods, the song was getting loud.

She spied a fence. Something clicked in her head when she saw the broken gate. That was where she had to go. She took control of her body again. It wasn't clear if that was something she did, or if he relinquished the hold he'd had. Either way, she reached the decrepit obstacle and leapt over it.

There he was, leaning against the well, in the shade of the single tree that had grown in the clearing. He was breathing a bit heavily and leaning over a bit to alleviate the cramp in his side. She dislodged herself from the last thorny branch that had caught on her little white skirt and ran at him.

The song. The song was getting so loud now. So many harmonies, intertwined in to a deafening symphony. And something was crackling in the air. This meeting had been too long denied. The thing that was about to happen was supposed to have happened days ago. Only now that mesh was getting its chance, and it would not be stopped.

He reached out his hands, stepping away from the well, preparing for the violent collision that was inevitable result of the speed of her approach.

Fingers were the first things to touch and a thing like a lightning bolt ran between the two bodies. Both bodies trembled, dizzied by the release of whatever had been pent up between them. Clumsily, half numb from the shock, they ran in to each other and fell to the ground. Cold, refreshed skin touched upon flesh that was hot and sweaty from running.

They kissed, oblivious to whatever it was that had passed between them. They were meshed already, dancing behind each other's eyes, guiding each other's bodies. She rolled over on top of him. His hands found the ties at her back, yanking them loose and setting her breasts free.

Oh, yes, man of mine, she thought, and lowered one of her prodigious mounds to his mouth.

He set upon it hungrily, sucking up her nipple and a good portion of her breast like a starving beast.

Abundance you are, Tina had said. And Abundance you shall be.

What a rush. She pushed her chest down on him, forcing more of her body in to his mouth. She felt his teeth greedily sinking in to her flesh.

Yes, bite. I am Abundance. Use it. Use me.

But time. They only had so much time and there was something burning between her legs.

She yanked her breast away, tearing it from teeth that had left deep red marks around her areola. Their eyes met. They exchanged glares.

Her hands tugged at the laces of his shorts, trying to loosen them enough that she could strip him down. She became frustrated when she couldn't get them undone quickly and instead pulled savagely at the fabric. She felt a report of pain over the mesh as it raked over the skin of his hips. It was of no more importance than the bloody traces left by the thorns and branches that had torn at her arms and legs on the way in.

He was naked, at least in all the important places, but his dip in the cold water had left him somewhat – unprepared – for her.

She didn't hesitate. She was already down there anyway. Her mouth enveloped his manhood as quickly and deeply as she could manage, letting the moist warmth of her mouth enervate that all important organ. It gave her a moment, while she slurped at him, to slide off her underwear.

I don't care about the skirt, he told her through the mesh.

His penis, which had only shown a tinge of arousal, was now erect. That quickly – just that little effort from her tongue – and she had overcome the chill of the river.

Gimme, gimme, gimme, he called to her, his voice echoing inside her head.

She came to him, pinning his shoulders to the grass and lining up their genitals.

"Ready?" she said, the first audible word that passed between them.

"And waiting," he replied.

Through the mesh came the mutual agony under which they had suffered in waiting for this moment. She saw all the women he had bedded, and how they hadn't measured up. He saw those she had Served. No combination had ever come close to matching what they had now, and they weren't even having sex yet.

A last, piercing gaze passed between them.

She slid her body downwards, letting the saliva coated head of his shaft plough open her lips. Talla shivered.

Oh, this is going to go in easy, isn't it?

She tilted her hips, spreading her thighs as widely as she could, letting him slip inside her to the hilt.

It wasn't like meshing normally was, for they were already joined. There was no onslaught of emotion, no adjustment of arousal, no invasion of foreign emotions.

She felt as if they were stepping out in to a moving river. She found herself being swept away from the safety of the banks alongside him. Exhilarated, they sped away together, letting the current move them faster and faster. Their minds were merging. Memories from one were spreading to the other. It was too much. There were things she didn't want him to see ...

The pace of the river's flow began to induce panic. Too fast! They were going to drown and the stubborn integrity of the mesh gave them no escape.

The water drew them down, pulling them under, filling their lungs.

Completely submersed, their panic subsided almost at once. There was nothing to fear after all. Calmness pervaded them.

For a brief moment, they saw each other with only their eyes.

There was Talla, her narrow face framed by short, sweat tacked brown hair. She was hovering over him, silhouetting herself against the gently fluttering green leaves of the tree that shaded them from the cruelty of the day's heat.

There was Zhair'lo, pinned down on the grass, laid out next to the old broken well, his wet mop of hair arrayed wildly about him. His beige working shirt., counterpart to the shorts that she had torn from his body, was loose about his chest.

Every moment of their lung burning sprints had been worth this. Every bloody scratch on her shoulder. Every bruise he had from climbing out of the river. It had all been worth it to experience this, this moment of blissful mutual awareness.

They were content then, having rushed so hard to get to this point, to rest a spell at the point of maximum penetration. He was buried inside her as far as he could go. This was as close as they could ever be to each other, wasn't it?

In that moment of patient consideration, the memories came.

It was hers that came first. An image of a boy laid out on a low bed, dangerously unhealthy. Talla had cradled his head to her chest and begged him to come back to life. Why? Feelings now. Talla was being penetrated, from behind, her rear ringing with pain from being struck. She had done something, something terrible, to the one who was spanking her. She had done something to his mind to make him do it harder.

Why? Why did you want him to hurt you?

Guilt.

Where was the guilt from?

She tried not to think about it, tried to drag their train of thought away. But trying not to think about a thing was only a different way of thinking about it.

Unavoidably, the whole scene was played out for him. M'lis and Adria, tied to a wooden table, mercilessly whipped. She didn't want Zhair'lo to see it, but there it was, laid out for him as vividly as she remembered, every moment coloured with her sense of horror and guilt.

He didn't recoil. He didn't even seem surprised. And so she echoed his own question back to him? Why not?

She saw a girl, lying in sunlit grass with her skirt up over her stomach, hairless genitals bare to Zhair'lo's eyes. Talla recognized Atani and flashed a picture to Zhair'lo, of Atani, almost last among those who had done their Initiations in Talla's group. In Talla's image, Atani's face had lines of semen dripping down -

Then she saw Atani, from Zhair'lo's angle, kneeling at his feet. Why, he wondered in the memory, is she sucking my cock? Another woman was there, striking Atani's ass with a switch of some kind. And then Atani was finishing Zhair'lo off, jerking his semen out on to her breasts.

For some reason, the whole thing was overlaid with a vague sense that Zhair'lo had been insulted.

At least she understood his lack of surprise about what had happened to M'lis and Adria.

"That's what you do to each other?" he asked.

She nodded as concepts came from her mind to his: peace; order; control; orthodoxy.

The punishments were necessary, Zhair'lo understood suddenly, to maintain their society.

Because a man who sees a woman naked has to be Served immediately?

Yes.

Why?

Talla didn't have an answer. Men weren't to be left aroused. It hadn't been explained very well to her beyond that point. It made things unstable – or something.

A gentle breeze blew over their bodies. It cooled his skin, raising goosebumps. It evaporated a bit of sweat from her body and both were suddenly reminded of their physical selves and the urgency of their situation.

Talla shifted her weight, pushing the head of his shaft against one side of her cervix. That brought them both back to the present in a hurry.

"Not much time," she muttered to him.

"How much do we need?" he asked.

She slowly rotated her hips, working him around inside until he swelled against the opposite side of her tunnel.

What should she do with him next?

A wealth of images came to him. Of Nadine, running her nipples along his shaft, of Alli'anya and other women, sourcing upgrades with his penis buried between their breasts. Oh, she would love to do that for him – to bury his shaft in her chest, clutching it to her bosom and bringing them both such pleasure.

If only she had known before! They had already achieved penetration. The mesh was sealed. It could not be broken now except by orgasm.

But he did like her breasts, even if only to watch them moving ... swaying over him as she rocked back and forth. She removed her hands from his shoulders and stretched her arms wide to let him see her more clearly.

Reach for them, she told him, and he did, cupping both from underneath and rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. She moaned as they sprouted under his attention. She was so glad, now, that she'd complained about the pain in her chest and had herself fixed up. What a waste it would have been to meet Zhair'lo and still be in that state!