Worshipping at Aphrodite's Feet Ch. 03

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Naama shares her experience w/ first time flashback.
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Part 3 of the 4 part series

Updated 06/07/2023
Created 01/02/2016
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"You can come in. Emerald right?" Naama had returned to her room, a small area that over time she had made fully her own. Part of their instruction was learning the domestic arts in addition to the pleasurable arts. While all girls were required to be instructed in all the domestic arts, once they celebrated their thirteenth year they could begin deciding which ones they would continue to pursue and which ones they would continue only to practice without instruction.

While it was emphasized that the best and wealthiest patrons most capable of protecting them and providing them with a good life preferred well rounded girls, many of the charges in the inner courtyard slacked off on practicing the domestics that they weren't as capable at or just didn't care for. Over time some stopped practicing several arts entirely usually to their detriment. Naama knew one girl who had accepted a patron the previous year who had been passed over by several top prospects first. Each had been initially drawn to the girl because of her stunning beauty and reputation for skill in the bedroom but had not proposed a contract because she had not been capable at several domestics she was requested to perform during the welcoming ceremony. She'd finally had to accept a patron whose patron fee was barely moderate and now was said to live in a small home without the comforts that the wealthy patrons could provide.

Naama was one of the few who was exceptionally talented at a number of domestics and at least passably talented at the rest. Her room reflected this and while she never meant it to show off, the cumulative effect over the years displayed her talent flawlessly. She could not help feeling pleased as she saw the girl look around with an expression of wonderment. Intricately embroidered cloths covered the bedside table and small dresser while almost every inch of the wall was covered in paintings, calligraphy, poetic verse, and hand framed sheets of music for several instruments, all of which Naama played. Her bed was covered in a bright woven coverlet boarded in hand made lace, produced over the course of a year on one of the three looms that belonged to the Sisters of the Inner Courtyard. Small swatches of colorful cloth made into a collage also hung in a frame which had been taken from the hem of the borrowed dresses she'd worn to dances and singing recitals, an honor given to only the girls who'd acquitted themselves the best in each demonstration. Other items that characterized her talent and interests rested on surfaces throughout the room, bringing her a sense of familiarity and home coming each time she returned here.

"I heard you were the most talented girl ever in the domestic arts, but I didn't really understand," Emerald said as she moved towards a painting of one of the courtyard's gardens bathed in the blushing pinks and oranges of sunset. She moved to another painting. "Is this the seaside? Is that really how it looks?" she asked without taking her eyes from the painting of the back of a girl seated alone at the water's edge, the rolling tip of a wave at the very end of it's journey inland just touching the toes of one foot before being pulled backwards again. "Is that you?" With this question Emerald turned to look with awe at Naama.

Naama laughed. "Oh it was meant to be I suppose. I don't know what the seaside really looks like, I just read a lot and over time that was the impression that formed in my head. It probably looks nothing like that. It's just what I was in my imagination."

"I read a lot too," the girl said bashfully as she moved on to look at a poem composed by Naama and written in beautiful calligraphy in royal blue upon parchment paper. An exercise from class her instructor had been effusive about in his praise.

"Which of the domestic arts are your favorites?" Naama asked trying to put the girl at ease. Truth be told she wasn't exactly sure how to start the conversation the girl was here for.

"I guess I like all of them at different times. It just depends on the mood I'm in. Right now it's embroidery and music," Emerald replied matter -of -factly, without seeming ego.

"What instrument do you play?"

"The Kitharis," she replied. The kitharis was a stringed instrument believed to be modeled on the ancient Greek lyre. It was the most demanding of instruments and thus only a scarce handful of girls ever took it up. "You do as well, don't you?" She turned to Namma with a look she could only describe as needful hope.

"This girl craves a friend, someone to confide in, to trust. She's probably puts the other girls off with her versatility," Naama thought, something to which she was unfortunately familiar. She thought of how lonely she had been growing up when the other girls had invited each other to their rooms when allowed, leaving Naama out. "That is why the High Priestess has sent her to me. She doesn't want her to go through what I have." Then and there Naama committed herself to helping the girl however she could and if it meant sharing her most personal, most intimate of experiences and thoughts she would do so.

"Yes," Naama replied. "I heard another girl play when I was first brought here and it was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. I pledged someday I'd be able to play it, as well. It's also said to be a favorite of patrons. The vibrations are said to be. . . invigorating." Naama thought to turn the conversation to the topic in question. Emerald lowered her eyes, a flush stealing across her cheeks. "How very much like me," Naama thought.

"Why don't we sit." Naama gestured to the tiny sitting area by the fireplace, a luxury only a few of the girls enjoyed based on the luck of the draw as far as empty rooms available when a girl arrived. They were almost never lit as firewood was exceptionally hard to come by and what was able to be had usually went to the High Priestess and Lower Priestesses. Yet today the High Priestess had given Naama a few pieces of wood, perhaps to warm the room and make the words flow easier. She knelt and lit the kindling beneath the logs, then returned to her chair where she sat wondering how to start the conversation. She needn't have worried for before she could come up with an opening, Emerald asked in a soft voice, "Does it ever get any easier? The choosing?"

Naama took a moment before answering. "I think it's different for each of us, especially the first choosing. At least it was for me. The other girls didn't seem to have a problem. But for me. . ."

Emerald looked at her expectantly. Naama took a deep breath, let it out and began to talk. She told Emerald all that lead up to that day with the High Priestess and moved forward in time.

"Seeing the outer courtyard at night was far different from how it appeared during the day. At first I was frightened because there was no great market that I could hide my hesitancy within. But then as I carefully gazed around I noticed hardly anyone was still out and those that were seemed already paired. The relief I felt was palpable. That is what probably let me relax enough to open myself up to him when he came along." Here Naama paused and got up to make tea. When it was done and each had their cup, she took a sip and continued.

"He wasn't handsome as such, more boyish with straight blond hair and blue eyes the color of cobalt. I had stopped to rest on the stone wall that circles the great middle garden just as the moon first appeared. Suddenly I heard a male voice say,

"You know, some believe if you wish on the first star you see at night, the wish will come true."

"Looking for the first star, I hurriedly made a wish."

"That the whole choosing business would be easier?" Ember asked.

"That the whole thing would be over," Naama said and they both laughed.

"Well, eventually your wish came true," Ember said after a moment.

"Yes, it did. And when it was over, I regretted having wished that. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After I made my wish, I don't know what came over me, maybe it was just the darkness and the sense of anonymity or some kind of unconscious message that talking with the boy that night wouldn't really count or I would be able to hide, denying I was the one he had conversed with if he pursued it in the light of day. Whatever it was, I felt at ease with him, and he seemed to be with me as well. At least he didn't act like the boys the other girl described, either haltingly awkward or pretending to be experienced actually daring to suggest the ways in which they could pleasure a girl despite the pain of the first night."

"It is not the pain that is causing me not to choose," Emerald said softly.

"No, nor I. It was the choice itself. It just seemed like everything we'd learned, everything we'd practiced, everything we'd thought about since we arrived all lead up to that one ceremony, that one night. As if everything hinged on things going perfectly that night. There was so much riding on it, it seemed, that I couldn't bear the thought of it being with someone who would seek out something more afterwards. There was already enough pressure as it was. And yet I didn't want it to be with something I felt no connection with or attraction to either. I wanted it to mean something at the same time."

"Yes, that's it exactly. I know it's stupid, but I can't help but thinking things like, what if right in the middle I realize I made the wrong choice? Or worse yet what if right in the middle I realize the choice never mattered to begin with and it could have been anyone?" Emerald said with some distress.

Naama smiled.

"You're laughing at me," Emerald said her eyes downcast once more.

"Hardly," Naama said. "When I had such thoughts I believed no one else in the world had ever felt that way."

The two girls, older and younger, smiled at each other.

"The blond haired boy and I talked for hours that night, until the sun came up. We had much in common, saw the world similarly as much as two who had seen nothing of the world could see the world, anyway. I remember feeling lighthearted when I walked back.

"Because you'd finally chosen?" Emerald asked.

"Because I'd made a friend, boy or not, without being bothered by the choosing for at least a night. It never came to mind at all though I'm not certain it didn't for him. It didn't strike me until our third conversation in so many days that this was the boy that I should give my virginity to. Even then, though I'd grown quite comfortable with him, the thought came as a shock. I'd built up so much anxiety over making the choice I couldn't imagine how I'd go about it but in the end it had sort of happened on its own. But that first night when we met there was nothing more than the joy of finding someone I didn't have to guard myself against, who wouldn't make me feel as there was something wrong with me in comparison to them."

Naama took a sip of tea looking at Emerald who was staring at the fire. She could tell she'd struck a chord with the girl.

"I just wanted the first time to be something of consequence, a true rite of passage, but not something that tied me to someone. That was the part I couldn't figure out, how I could have both. It seemed from the girls who came before the boys though respectful either clearly valued the bloodied sheet of the girl's first experience or wanted to hang around afterwards despite it not being desired."

"And you found that?"

"Yes, I did," Naama replied softly.

"What about afterwards? Are you still friends? Do you still. . .?"

Naama laughed. "We see each other around and yeah, once in a while, we still. . . But even if we didn't I know he'd be there for me if I needed him. It's a nice feeling finding someone to rely on."

"Was it what you thought it would be like? The physical part I mean."

Naama sat thoughtfully for a long minute before replying. "Yes and no," she said, pausing again. Finally she went on. "The first time, well you work things out beforehand so there's no question in his mind what you're willing to do and what you aren't, but. . .."

"But?"

Naama sighed, took a sip of her cooling tea and then inhaled and exhaled once deeply. If she was going to help she would have to be willing to actually be explicit. The girl needed an outlet and she'd never feel comfortable talking about the actual acts themselves if Naama didn't start things off. Little did she know when she opened her mouth she'd allow her greatest secret to escape.

"You have to remember even though we have rights, ultimately it's the boy who has the true power. He can make a case for certain privileges even without them being law. Even the nicest boy, even one who is your friend has certain expectations on the night of your ceremony. Practically every girl gets some request or demand for something she didn't anticipate during her first ceremony, predicated on the idea that something else had not been fulfilled. What I failed to fulfill hadn't been my fault but it lead to different demands that I willingly filled lest he think me dishonest."

"What didn't you fulfill that he expected?"

"I failed to bleed."

"Wha... What? Is that possible? Or . . . Oh," Emerald was clearly at a loss. She reddened at her obvious conclusion.

Naama didn't know why she'd told Emerald the truth. If it was found out that neither of the men she'd been with she hadn't . . . never had at all. . . Not even the high Priestess could protect her from those who would come for her. While the sheltered life within the inner courtyard belied the fact, making them believe in the rights they were told they had, they were quickly told of all the exceptions to those rights boys - and men - could use to get around them.

And as it was believed that taking a girl's virginity resulted in enhanced abilities of the men it was also strongly believed those powers lay within the fact it was a blood right, something some men demanded be repeated with the girls they became patron's for. If it was thought a girl gave that one time only blessed elixir to another boy, an undeserving boy or else why would she have tried to hide it, and thereby denied one of the sons of the ruling class their God given right to harvest the power of the a girls first blooding from the juncture of her thighs they would make such an example of her . . . Naama shuddered at the thought.

"Yes, it's possible, and yes he really was the first and no, no one else knows, so you can't say anything."

"But . . . but he knows. Didn't he suspect he wasn't your first? Why didn't he turn you in?" Emerald's eyes were huge with confusion and fear, fear Naama had never meant to put there. Why had she said anything about that? She didn't even know the girl. What made Naama trust her?

But of course she knew the answer to that. She'd known as soon as she'd first seen the girl though she hadn't admitted it to herself until right then. And she knew why.

There was a rarely held ritual that girls could bring about to provide a favored boy with extra strength, extra power. For that was what it all came down to in the end. Who would rule depended less on being born in the right family and more on being born with natural strengths and abilities which were enhance by the girls and women he was with, and ultimately before his ascension to King, a priestess. It was hard for the Priestess, the ceremony, but each knew that if they served when a new ruler came to power they could be the chosen one. The pay-off was that she would become the new High Priestess, the current High Priestess stepping down to enjoy a well-earned life of luxury.

The King retained his strength and power in many ways, not the least of which, it was believed, lay in the girls of the inner courtyard. For each girl, prior to leaving with a patron was required to lie with the King and please him for a night. Naama hadn't worried overly much about that as she still felt far from gaining a patron though a few had expressed an interest, albeit not formally.

Of course, for the ritual to occur though, the girl being suggested would have to be willing. It remained to be seen how Emerald would respond to the idea.

"I was frightened at first when it happened or rather when it didn't happen. But while I saw confusion on his face when I denied ever being with anyone, he didn't doubt me. Has never doubted me. And although the other didn't manage to rectify the matter since he was not my first he'd never have reason to know. Emerald it's very important you tell no one. Even if Garrant were to support me, if others were to know. . ." There, I'd done it. I'd said his name. One never gives the name of the one she'd been with for her ceremony except under a few very rare circumstances. Emerald would have to know now what she had in mind.

Naama felt guilty expecting such a thing from the girl but she could always refuse. And she did intend to be there for the girl, do what she could to alleviate her loneliness regardless. Plus she could always refuse if her temperament wasn't suited or there was no attraction. And if she accepted it would solve the problem.

"Of course I won't say anything," she whispered with conviction. "But you said something about him being able to ask, demand, something else. . .What does that mean?"

Naama knew Emerald was putting off the moment she would have to discuss Naama's request and Naama still owed her answers to her questions before making her petition.

"Because I had, however unintentionally, denied him the power of first blood he was able to ask I let him do something I wouldn't otherwise have permitted something that would be considered parallel if not equivalent. What he asked was something I don't he ever would have except that he knew that it was another way to obtain at least some strength from my first time, it also being something I never would have come close to experiencing before and was something I would not have considered first to display the state of committed submission. I know he never would have thought of it had things gone as they were expected to. He does care about me and though there are times he wants things that are somewhat beyond my comfort level they never approach what he demanded of me that night."

Naama rose to remake the tea and place the last log on the fire. As the soft smoke from the fire passed before her gaze it was as if a curtain fell between her and the girl and she remembered.

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