Temple and goddess | THE SUMMONS | bdsm stories

Once more the inner circle of the colony's noble ladies was gathered in Lavinia's garden room, where they lay on couches sipping wine, nibbling on candies and fruits and indulging in the gossip that was such an essential part of feminine existence in all countries, in all ages, and from the highest to the lowest of their ranks.

"I hear that those two new daughters of Isis have been stirring up trouble again," Livia remarked to no-one in particular. "Seems the lectors had to order them to their home."

"What were they up to this time?" Claudia asked.

"Oh, much the same thing as always with those two. Telling all and sundry how ill-treated they were, and how all we women were abused by brutes of men, and that we should seek to empower ourselves at the men's expense."

"They really are an ungrateful pair," Claudia declared, "They arrived here with nothing, and now they seek to stir up trouble among the very people who took them in and gave them shelter from the barbarian."

"Well, they'll have a chance to show their gratitude soon enough," Lavinia contributed. "They've been here over six months now, and will have to report to the next draft to do their service to the state. No-one gets out of that, as we all know," she added with a wry smile, looking round her friends.

"You more than any," Livia sympathised, "You've only been back from those horrible mills a couple of months, and you're due to serve again in the autumn, aren't you?"

"Don't remind me," Lavinia cried, throwing up her hands in mock horror. "I only just seem to have grown my hair back, and it's almost time to report for shearing again. I feel like a sheep."

"It always seems to come too fast," Petronia said wistfully. "Still we should be grateful we get such an indulged life between services."

"Which reminds me," Lavinia said, "I'm going to ask Gaius for some time off to go to the hills and recuperate in the hot springs of Sappho for a while."

There were indulgent smiles all round.

"No doubt you'll be taking one or two of your prettiest serving girls with you to ensure your complexion doesn't suffer," Livia smirked, "That new girl Dorcia's a tasty little dish. I don't expect you'll be able to go for a month without her pretty pink tongue between your thighs."

"Oh, don't be coarse, Livia," Lavinia chided, though she had the grace to blush a little. "Of course I shall need some attendants to ensure my appearance is respectable. One has to keep up one's standards. Besides," she added in a rather less pompous tone, "it's a damn sight safer than adultery. No-one's going to send me to the block for a little pussy petting with girls."

The conversation drifted along with some more light-hearted ribbing of Lavinia for her proposed rustic idyll with her girls, and some rather more pointed retailing of gossip about the latest notorious adulteries. Then they were interrupted by a servant-girl, who opened the double doors that led from the interior of the house and, without announcing any visitor, dropped to her knees just to one side, a frightened look on her face.

A tall woman, completely covered in a veil, appeared in the doorway, carrying a small casket in her hands. Instantly every woman present was frozen into silence, the blood draining from their faces. The veiled figure swept them with a glance, then advanced to where Petronia lay on her couch. She extended the wrought silver box towards her, lifting the lid to expose the contents.

Petronia moaned a muted "Oh No!" but stood and reached into the casket, withdrawing a jewel in ivory and coral, a perfect reproduction of a female vulva, hung on a silver chain. The assembled women gave a deep collective sigh as she placed it round her neck.

The veiled messenger turned without a word, and moved towards the door by which she had entered, and Petronia fell into step behind her and was lost to sight.

No-one spoke for a moment, all of them stunned to silence by what had happened. Claudia, not understanding, was the first break the silence.

"Oh Gods!" she exclaimed, "What was that about?"

They all looked at each other, as if afraid to speak of it. Then Lavinia, recalling her role as hostess, answered.

"She has been called to Ishtar."

"Called to Ishtar?"

"She has gone to become a Priestess in Ishtar's temple."

"When did she decide to enter the Temple then? She hasn't spoken of it,"

Claudia queried.

"She did not choose, she was chosen," came the chilling answer.

Claudia persisted in her questioning, although the other women displayed an undercurrent of unease, as if to talk of it might bring the same fate on themselves.

"How long will she be away?"

"Until she is forty years of age," Livia supplied, when the silence had become uncomfortable. "She cannot leave the Temple until then, nor receive visitors."

"Except for the clients," someone muttered darkly. "She'll have plenty of visits from men."

Claudia looked blank. Though they were usually close, Marcellus had omitted to tell her of the Governor's description of the service of Ishtar, or his sampling of their wares. Actually she had wondered at his apparent reconciliation to a live of abstinence, but had given it little consideration, though the thought had occurred to her that he was either too taken up with his military duties to have time to think of sex, or was maintaining a discreet liaison with some willing married woman with a complaisant husband.

"Have you not heard of the temple priestesses of Ishtar, and the services they perform on the Goddess's behalf?"

Claudia shook her head in bewilderment.

"The priestesses provide the Goddess with a living vulva, so that she may copulate with men. Between them they keep her ready for sex, day and night. When there is a vacancy, through retirement or other cause, another woman is picked, and the High Priestess leaves the Temple to summons the new priestess to take up her post. It is the only time any of them is allowed out,"

"Does she have no choice?"

"No. She who is chosen by the High Priestess cannot refuse. There are guards to enforce the summons, though you did not see them."

"But how is anyone selected? Why Petronia?"

"That's part of the mystery." Lavinia shuddered as she took up the explanation again. "No one knows exactly, though there are some clues. In the first place they only pick women between the ages of twenty and thirty, and never virgins."

"That's one mercy at least," Claudia said, her tone not unmixed with relief. "It would be a cruel ordeal for a woman to loose her maidenhead to strangers."

"You speak too soon," said Lavinia. "Virgins are not called to become permanent residents of the Temple but every bride, on her wedding eve, must attend the Temple and present her hymen to be ruptured in the service of the Goddess."

The blood drained from Claudia's cheeks, though it left her no paler than her neighbours.

"Is there no escape?" she asked in a low voice.

"From being called, or from maiden sacrifice?" Livia asked in return.

"From either," Claudia replied, unable to keep the horror from her voice.

"For maidens, none," Livia told her. "Nor can they escape by sacrificing their maiden heads in advance. If her mother-in-law found her not intact at her pre-nuptial flogging, she'd either be rejected altogether, though that is rare, or she'd be sent to the Temple, then given a second flogging, a much more severe one, on her return."

"And from the priesthood?"

"Well, besides virgins, pregnant women and nursing mothers are exempt. The new recruits are held in isolation for a month, while they are prepared for service. If they have no flow in that time, they are examined by wise women and a decision is taken whether they can safely be considered without child, or should wait another month for confirmation. In the event they turn out to be nursing a swelling belly, they are returned to their families, and a new selection made."

"What is this preparation?"

"They are marked for the Goddess's service." It was Lavinia who took up the running again. "She alone is to receive the pleasure of the man's exultation, and her human surrogate must not indulge her own pleasure at the expense of the Goddess and her human lover."

She hesitated, as if frightened to name the deed.

"They deprive her of her secret bud of pleasure," she finally got out.

"How deprive?" Claudia asked in a low voice, as if she were afraid to be told the answer.

"With a hot iron," Livia blurted out. "That is the Goddess's mark. A silver crater where there once was a pink pearl."

For a full minute there was absolute silence, each woman wrapped in her own thoughts and fears, then Claudia spoke again, changing the subject to one slightly less horrifying.

"You spoke of the bride's pre-nuptial flogging. What is that?"

Almost with relief, they all started to talk at once.

"Before you are sent to the Temple, on your wedding eve."

"Everyone has to do it, its expected."

"Your new mother-in-law has you strip and inspects you for health and virtue, then flogs you to prove your fortitude. We all went to the Temple, and our marriage beds, with bloody backs."

"And bloody thighs too. Once your new mother has accepted your virginity, you go to present the Goddess with your hymen."

By the time they had all said their piece, Claudia was in no doubt what a bride's fate was in this city, and wondered if she would ever be treated thus.

Perhaps Marcellus was already offering her to one of his new cronies, or some man of influence in the state. She shuddered suddenly, as if some ghost had run its fingers down her spine, or she could already feel the rod across her shoulders, a stranger's prick rudely bursting her virgin veil.

Later Lavinia pressed herself winningly against her husband in their matrimonial bed, letting him have the full benefit of a lush body concealed only by a diaphanous gown of Eastern silk. She rubbed her breasts against his bare chest, placed an inviting hand on his rapidly hardening member, and took up again the argument she had been pursuing for the last hour or more.

"Gaius, darling, I think you're being very mean to me. All I'm asking is a little holiday, just a trip to the Shrine of Sappho up in the hills, where I can commune with nature, and find my own soul."

"Where you can cavort with those pretty young maids of yours and have them lap out your slit," her husband replied, dispassionately. "You can do that just as well at home, and nobody would mind. It's dangerous up in the hills; Barbarians, and all that sort of thing."

"Oh pooh! There haven't been any reports of Barbarians for months. I'm not afraid of them." She dropped into a wheedling tone, caressing his cheek with her hand. "Darling, I've got to do service again this year. Surely you could let me have a little fun before i have to go back to the gang, all shorn and sealed again. I'd be ever so grateful when I got back. Or even just now," she threw in quickly to take advantage of his rising lust, "just feel how wet I am. I'd be so happy I'd be like that for you every night."

"Oh, all right, you can go, but remember, we may not have seen much sign of the barbarians yet, but winter's not been over long, and they might come through the passes at any time. You'll have to take care up there, not go too far from the forts. I can't send much of an escort, either, there are no soldiers to spare, and anyone I do send will have orders to run the moment there's a threat. He's not to risk good men for women who want to risk their arses in the wilderness. Talking of arses, just turn that lovely crupper this way so that I can get into you from behind."

A bargain was a bargain, and Lavinia complied, ready herself to have her itch scratched, roused as it was by the thought of Dorcia's lovely young body cavorting with hers by Sappho's lake.

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