To Be Outside Oneself

Tonight, after they closed the doors to outsiders seeking to partake in the sacred prostitution rituals of the temple or merely to indulge in their vices in luxury, the great chamber would be spattered with blood and filled with the sound of leather cracking on skin. Priestesses would dance through whips wielded with expert hands, turning this way and that from the biting thongs, surrendering to sensations of pain, pleasure and exhaustion until they found bliss, passed into ecstasy and transcended their bodies to commune with their true self. It made Judith happier with her assigned duty for the evening. Attending to Miriam personally would preclude her from stumbling through the room. Without a taste for pain, and with it serving only to keep her agonizingly anchored to the here and now in most circumstances, she had no great wish to witness or assist with the rite.

*****

The taste of the wine lingered on her lips as Judith finished her penultimate task for the evening. It was not work that any of the priestesses favoured, but someone had to clean the small rooms used to 'entertain' patrons of the temple nonetheless, and with sex out of the picture until Miriam finished with her for the evening, she was a natural volunteer for the task. The scent of raw sex in the elegantly appointed room did nothing to quiet the ceaseless sense of barely controlled lust that roiled in Judith's belly, stoking the flames. Semen and sweat - no women had used the room tonight, or at least if they had, they hadn't left any smell. The spiced tobacco and hashish mixture lent its sweet smoke in small curls, rising from the hookah beside the bed, stirred into the air as Judith changed the bedding on the soft feather mat. Together with the onion and ginger wine Miriam had asked her to drink - no pleasant flavor, but renowned for its ability to invigorate the genitals - the strange closeness to the physical act and the scents had her once again aching in her gown, her cock pressing against the soft cotton fabric.

It threatened to drive her to distraction. There was a danger to the Temple's use of unfettered sexuality, she thought to herself as she finished up the room, replacing the coals for the hookah and placing fresh sundries on the bedside. As powerful a tool as pleasure might be for the pursuit of enlightenment, it also sought to unbalance and dominate a person's life with its free expression. It had done so for her in her first few weeks in the Temple - she had debauched herself freely and without consideration, and spent every night in another novice's bed, her days filled with obsessive and desperate lusting after her sisters just as Cassandra did now. Some priestesses were taken by that impure spirit for months, years, and while happy in their own way, they - as did so many of the patrons - mistook the means for the end.

She envied Mani's state sometimes. The beauty's castration had left her with less provocative lust than Judith held within her, and so made it easier in some ways for her to avoid temptation and to seek out enlightenment. But enough, she thought, and quieted her reverie. I need to attend to Miriam. Her bare feet swept her quietly from the small room as she returned to her mantras, repeating them under her breath as she moved near silently through the hall and into the opium room, where the floral scent of smoke drifted into her nose and a corpulent woman lolled on a fainting couch, swooning in the embrace of the drug.

The fresh air that greeted her in the long hall past the next door was a welcome sobering relief, cool with the night, breathed in by cunning windcatchers that kept the air flowing even here on the wrong side of the building. Tray-atuk vodyeh... Each repetition of the mantra recentred Judith, placed her back in that perfect receptive state, open to pleasure and to the evening's work but not ruled by it. She took the time for one final repetition as she faced the plain and unadorned door that separated the second floor ritual spaces from the halls, and with a final deep breath, she stepped into the antechamber, treading through the shallow purifying pool to enter the ritual space proper.

The black curtain that rippled like water washed over her body as she stepped through it, silk flowing over her skin, tingling with an electric thrill that made her hair rise. She was all the more grateful for her efforts to restore some measure of inner calm as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she was greeted with the sight of Miriam, naked and oiled, lying in wait on a simple bed, chin resting on a palm. Her body was plain, unremarkable, but she held herself there as if the most desireable creature alive, and so she was. Judith's eyes were drawn to the soft thatch of curly dark hair between her legs, hidden in the shadow of her thighs, enticing with its modesty.

With a slight little curling of her finger, Miriam summoned her to the bedside, and Judith hastened to her side without hesitation. Her entire body sung with anticipation and excitement for all her chanting, composure melting away as she neared, and when Miriam silently gestured for her to strip, she found herself blushing as she slipped her gown off and let it pool smoothly at her feet. When Miriam took her by the hand and pulled her down against the soft mattress, met her lips for a soft kiss, all she could do was sigh with pleasure and melt into the plain woman turned beautiful goddess.

There was no foreplay before Miriam pressed Judith onto her back and mounted her, still silent. The arousal of the place, the proximity to the pulsing nexus of energy in the sanctum sanctorum, the wine - all of it conspired to make it unnecessary, Miriam more wet and welcoming than any other woman Judith had ever been with. Their rhythm came naturally together, pulled by breath and the slow rocking of hips, controlled by Miriam as she guided her cunt along Judith's cock with smooth rolling motions, hands running along her own front before she bent backwards, seizing the younger priestess's ankles for stability as they ground together.

In that place, there was no time, no duties other than this most sacred ritual one, and Judith lost herself in it, surrendered freely to the experience, to the sweet pleasure that rippled through her body with every motion of her hips and to the flow of air into her lungs. She let thought go, awareness go, until she was mere instinct and obedience to the subtle signals of Miriam. Surrounded by black silk, she floated in a warm sea of pleasure.

When they came, they came together, Miriam crashing down against Judith with a strangled cry of orgasmic, ecstatic pleasure, focusing her mind despite it, sending it out of her body with her spirit, whispering sweet and silent words into the ether. It was no grand ritual, no great ceremony of chants and spells and sacred swords, but as she slumped forward against the shivering Judith, felt the cum splash into her cunt, felt the energy from them both drain into the spirit body, she knew. And in thanks, she kissed Judith as the hermaphrodite recovered, sweet and soft, whispered her praise, and before she dismissed her, she wrapped her lips around her cum-slicked cock to clean it and reward her with further sighing, shuddering pleasure.

Only when the door clicked locked in the antechamber did Miriam reach between her legs and carefully press the escaping semen back into herself, cant her hips upwards, and lie back to let it make its journey deeper into her body and accomplish its final role in the ritual.