Acolytes (The Enclaves Book 1)

by Nel Franks

  Two weeks after my adventure, it was time for Summer Festival. All the Trading missions were back, and the Most’s office was full of the comings and goings of the traders, strong confident women in black. They had all returned to their self-defence practice, and after classes I heard them sharing stories of the events at previous Festivals when, working as the Protectors, there had been attempted violence.

  ‘I dunno,’ Mistress Callia, the Chief Protector, said. ‘Some men just get so angry when a woman says no. It’s like they think we should do whatever they tell us to.’ She snorted, a mixture of scorn and amusement. It got me wondering. Why would men feel angry? They certainly knew women had the power of creating new life. Did that make them feel powerless? I wondered what it would feel like, to be the one who could cause pregnancy, but then to be prevented from having any say in what happened from there on. I wished it was something I could ask Rove or Anndri. What would it be like to be the partner to a pregnant woman or to a woman with a baby? How connected could you feel? How would I feel if my partner was the one carrying the child?

  As Initiate Acolytes we again had to participate in the ritual greeting of the men at the Gate for Summer Festival. I worried that perhaps the staring man from the tavern in the Male Enclave would be in the crowd, and that he might recognise me. But Panndra reassured me I had nothing to worry about, pointing out that now my hair would be long and flowing, I would be dressed like a woman, and protected as one of the virgin Initiate Acolytes.

  I was also worried about Rosie who was becoming more and more short-tempered as Festival approached. Finally, Tomma and I took her for a long walk to cheer her up. As we walked out to the woods, I tried to broach the subject gently.

  ‘I’ve hardly seen you two over the last few weeks,’ I began.

  ‘Well, that’s not my fault!’ Rosie snapped.

  ‘Rosie, I wasn’t accusing you, I was trying to apologise. I was going to say, tell me what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Why should we tell you what we’ve been doing, when you don’t tell us what you’ve been up to?’ she said, her top lip rising in a sneer.

  ‘Rosie! I’m trying to make up for being unavailable. I did tell you how busy it’s been in the Office. Can you please forgive me, so we can go back to being friends?’

  I was surprised her bad temper seemed so profound.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry too, I suppose.’ She rolled her shoulders in discomfort. ‘I just feel completely cranky and miserable all the time and I ...’

  To my surprise, she began to cry, fast silent tears that she ignored as they slid down her cheeks.

  ‘What’s wrong Rosie? Come on, tell us.’ Tomma put her arm around Rosie’s shoulder and offered her a handkerchief.

  Rosie sat down under one of the trees. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong! I just feel completely different from everyone else and I’m not in the mood for Summer Festival. Everyone is rushing around, getting excited and talking about which men might be coming and how much they hope they’ll get pregnant, and I just think it’s all disgusting!’ Her voice began to crack.

  ‘But you’ve always known that’s what happens at Festival. Why is it making you so upset this year?’ Tomma asked.

  ‘I didn’t know about it when we were little,’ she said. ‘And now I do, I think it’s foul. People go down to the Festival Field and they get drunk on the brew, and they roll around in the field like rutting animals. Actually, it’s worse than animals. At least you know animals are in heat and can’t help themselves, and there’s a bit of chasing and then it’s all over very quickly. It seems cleaner somehow than all the dirty gossip that’s been going around in Agriculture. The women keep comparing various men they’ve lain with to stallions or bulls, and talking about how big their ...’ She went red and stopped talking. ‘Anyway, there are stories about women who lie with one man after another, and Jisel keeps talking about when she lay with three men at once, and it’s revolting!’

  ‘I didn’t even know you could lie with more than one man at once,’ Tomma said in a wondering voice. ‘How do you suppose they do it? I mean, where does everything go?’ She stopped, looked disgusted, and said, ‘Actually don’t answer that, I don’t think I want to know.’

  Rosie went on as though Tomma hadn’t spoken. ‘And I don’t want to go to the Festival at all, and we have to, and I just don’t want to be part of any of it.’ She was shaking and crying again.

  ‘Have you spoken to any of the elder sisters about this, or any of the tutors?’ I asked. I was really disturbed by how strong Rosie’s feelings were. I didn’t know enough to be able to help her.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she sniffed. ‘They wouldn’t understand. They’d just tell me to be sensible and grow up. I don’t want to grow up if that’s what we have to do!’ she wailed.

  Tomma was staring into the distance. ‘Actually, I do want to grow up and do it. Not now!’ she hurried. ‘But I do want to have babies when I’m older. I think it would be wonderful to grow a whole new person inside and be able to bring them to life.’

  I grinned at her description, and she looked embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. I know I have to lie with a man to get pregnant, and I understand what they told us about how it’s done. I mean, if it turns out to be fun as well, or pleasurable, then that’s a bonus, I think. But I know I do want to have a baby, or maybe even more than one. I just wish we could choose someone we knew to lie with,’ she added in a wistful tone.

  Rosie looked accusingly at Tomma.

  ‘You don’t know any of them or anything about how clean they are or what diseases they’ve got; they all come in a crowd and you get to pick one at random who you’ll never see again, and you have to let them put ...’ she stopped again.

  Tomma looked down at her feet and blushed. ‘I just wish we could know one special man and choose to lie with him and have babies with him.’ She looked at me and gave a painful little grimace. I felt so sorry for her. A bit like me, she was going to have to live with an impossible dream and carry that frustration all her life.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned to Rosie. ‘You seem really uncomfortable about what happens when a woman lies with a man,’ I said, trying to be delicate.

  ‘Well, it’s awful, isn’t it.’ she said flatly. ‘Nobody could enjoy that, when they put their body inside yours. It’s filthy. I was so scared at the Winter Ceremony, when that man was leaping around with his huge ...’ she swallowed, and then said hurriedly, ‘a huge erection, and he caught me, and it was all dark and smoky. And then they actually did it, right there in front of us on the altar. It was embarrassing. Something like that should be private, and we should make it as clean and as quick and as, as ...’ she ran out of words to describe what she wanted.

  ‘Perhaps it’s more like that if you’re serving in the Temple’ I suggested. ‘There’s only one man at a time, and he has to be wealthy to be able to afford it, so he might be more delicate about it, and it must be private.’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘I am never going to lie with a man!’ It seemed such an over-reaction, and I opened my mouth to refute.

  ‘But Rosie,’ Tomma jumped in, ‘don’t you want to have a baby? You said you did. And you loved the little ones, last year. Don’t you want to have your own?’

  Rosie began to look a little less adamant.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know! I’m so confused about it all. I just don’t want to go to Festival, and I don’t want to have to see all the women rolling around in the Field. I don’t know whether I want babies or not. I used to think I did, but I didn’t know about lying with men then! I don’t want to have to deal with this now!’ She was beginning to wail again.

  Her anxiety and anger were bothering me. And I was frustrated by her weeks of grumpy self-absorption.

  Taking a deep breath to quell my irritability, I said ‘Well, you can leave and come back up to the Core when the formal part of the ceremony is over. That’s what I’m going to do. Ellina didn’t want to stay down
at the Field. She and I are going to ...’ Now it was my turn to be a bit embarrassed. ‘We’re going to spend Festival night together. We’ll probably go out with a whole group of the older acolytes who aren’t going to the Field this year. You could come with us Rosie, and you too, Tomma, of course.’

  Rosie was becoming quieter and more composed. ‘Yes, I suppose I could not look at what they’re doing. Though I don’t know if I want to come with you and Ellina, Gaia. I’d just be in the way. Maybe I’ll go back to our room and put my pillow over my head.’

  ‘I’ll come back with you then,’ said Tomma, staunch and loyal as always. ‘I don’t care whether I stay at the Field or not, seeing as R ...’ she stopped abruptly, nearly revealing her growing relationship with Rove to Rosie. But Rosie was too busy being miserable to notice the slip.

  ‘Let’s go back and get something to eat. I’m famished. All this grappling with hard issues is very wearing.’ I tried a grin.

  Rosie smiled wanly.

  I FOUND THE FESTIVAL itself a bit of an anticlimax. Rosie looked pale and sick all the way through the procession and had chosen a deep green gown that made her look even more bilious.

  ‘I don’t care!’ she had snapped, when Tomma had offered her a different colour. ‘I don’t want any man to look at me anyway, so what does it matter?’

  Tomma was excited about the Festival, but, knowing that Rove was not going to be present, she was only interested in the procession and the ritual. She planned to come back to the Acolytes Hall with Rosie as soon as we were released from our duties. And I was excited and nervous about spending the entire night with Ellina, for the first time. I loved kissing with her, but I felt uncomfortable when she touched me. Maybe it was because I hadn’t done this before, with anyone? Or, I thought, pushing myself to be honest, maybe it was because she told me how much she liked my body, and I hated it being female.

  The procession and the ceremony in the Temple were the same as last year, although it was the new first year Initiates lead the procession and met men for the first time. I looked at them lining the lower part of the route, their torches held in shaking hands, and wavering with more than the breeze. Their eyes were huge, and they blushed and dipped their heads when the boys moved into place between them. Standing in my allotted position further up the road, I saw how much I had changed in my first tumultuous year of being an acolyte.

  As we processed into the Temple, the mystery of that great space flowed into me, as it always did. The candelabra were all lit, and the Shrine was awash in offerings from women asking the Goddess’s blessing on their desire to get pregnant. The first-year girls and boys with their torches lined the path of the grand columns that outlined the shape of the Goddess’s labia around the central Fount of Life. The boys, new to the Temple, gawped in awe, standing in the midst of such a profound display of female power.

  I could understand how they were feeling. I was plunged into the conflict of emotions which had torn at me so much lately; great love and respect for women and their capacity to create new life, and an equally great desire to escape from exactly that; and experience life as a man. I felt so stuck, and so scared. How could I ever experience life as a man? It was an impossibility. My body was female, my self was male. And I lived in a totally female environment. How could I ever give up everything I had ever known, to live in a state I knew so little about, but which seemed so right to me? In great perplexity, I turned to the sculpture on the Shrine, and offered up my confusion to the Goddess. I wondered, what do You think of women who want to give up Your sacred state of femaleness? The great statue shimmered silently in the candlelight. I turned away, feeling sure that if the Goddess existed, she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.

  At the end of the ceremony, the acolytes were dismissed. Many made their way down to the Fair at the Festival Field. But Rosie, Tomma and I, with Ellina and some of the other older acolytes, made our way back into the Core. Rosie and Tomma said their goodbyes as we approached the Acolytes Hall, and Ellina and I met up with her group of friends and went to the orchard. We dropped behind the group as we walked. Ellina leaned over and whispered, ‘Can’t wait to slide my hand between your legs, Gaia,’ and gave me a wicked grin. My insides lurched; it was exciting, and it was off-putting. I didn’t know if I was ready for that, or for such blatant talk about it.

  A large bonfire had been lit in a clearing, and many of the older acolytes were there. Someone had brought a keg of brew, and large trays of baked meat rolls and vegetable pasties had been cadged from the kitchens. There was apple cider as well as ale, cheeses, and dried and candied fruits for treats. Many of the girls had brought rugs and pillows. A few had brought their guitars and recorders and flutes, and someone had a set of hand drums. We sang all the old songs. One of the girls, an Apprentice who was studying singing, sang long love songs as we all settled down for the night. A large full moon gave enough light to make the shadows deeper and more mysterious. The fire died down to a bed of glowing coals as girls began to lie down together on their blankets.

  Ellina had put a rug and pillows under an apricot tree laden with fruit that gleamed in the moonlight. We snuggled together pulling the blanket over our legs, and spoke softly to each other, holding hands. My heart was racing, and she seemed eager to begin touching, but I wanted something different, more talk, more slow growing of our desire. She began exploring my face and shoulders, gently running her hands over my robe, sometimes brushing across my breasts. Around us we could hear kisses and murmurs and sighs as girls experienced the pleasures of Summer Festival with each other.

  As Ellina began to move her hands under my robe, and across my skin, I began to feel tight and uncomfortable. Her hands slid up towards my breasts and suddenly I had to pull back. I didn’t want her to touch me there.

  ‘What’s wrong, Gaia?’ she whispered, pausing. ‘Don’t you like it when I touch you, like this?’ She smiled, and gently slid her hand across my stomach. I felt goosebumps run across my skin and my belly muscles jerked.

  ‘Yes. Scary and exciting,’ I gulped.

  ‘Don’t you want me to touch you some more? I can stroke across your belly like this, and I can slide my hand down here ...’

  I pulled away from her quickly. ‘Don’t do that, Ellina!’ It came out much more sharply than I intended. I was aware of heads turning towards us as I sat up. I wrapped my arms around my knees as she sat beside me.

  ‘I don’t want ... I don’t know what I want. I feel ... strange. I really care for you, Ellina, and I want to be with you, but this is ... really confusing.’

  I felt embarrassed, and suddenly felt I didn’t belong with this older group of girls. I couldn’t tell Ellina about my feelings, I couldn’t even sort them out for myself. But I wanted her not to touch me where I was most obviously female, the places I felt most uncomfortable about.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ She sounded irritated. ‘You knew what we were going to do when you came here. Why are you acting like this?’

  I couldn’t put my discomfort into words and turned my head away and rested it on my knees. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, Ellina,’ I tried to speak quietly. ‘I thought I wanted this; I did want this, but ... Oh, I don’t know! Something’s not right with me.’

  It was the closest I could come to acknowledging my desire to live as a male.

  ‘Well, you’re right about that!’ she said crossly. She paused for a while, gave a deep sigh, and then lay down and began to stroke my back. ‘Come on, Gaia. Lie down with me again. You’re just nervous because it’s your first time.’ I shook my head. ‘Well, I want to make love with you. That’s what tonight is all about, for everyone. Listen around you, everybody’s doing it. Come on, Gaia.’

  I shook my head again, too miserable and confounded to be able to explain. I got up. ‘I’m really sorry Ellina. I can’t do this tonight. I have to go.’ I stepped away into the silvered darkness, in a moment stumbling over a couple invisible in the blackness under the next tree.


  Ellina sat up, furious. ‘Well, off you go then, Gaia!’ she spat. ‘Go off like a scared child and leave me here. If you’re not old enough to enjoy lying with me, I can easily find someone who is! Don’t bother coming back later to apologise!’ she yelled after me as I lurched away, my face burning, and my stomach in knots.

  As I staggered through the orchards back to the Core, my thoughts kept circling. I knew what intimacy between women was about; it was the norm in our community. I knew when I made the arrangements for the night with Ellina that was how the evening would turn out. I even wanted it to happen, had been looking forward to it. So why had I reacted with such embarrassment and distaste? I was strongly attracted to Ellina, wasn’t I? Why did I get so upset then?

  It wasn’t about Ellina, I slowly realised, or my attraction to her. I didn’t want to be intimate with anybody. That was such a revelation. I sat under a tree, alone, and thought about it. Much of the time, I felt confused about my body. I liked that it was strong and capable when I was practicing self-defence; and I could ignore it when I was working in the Office. I tried not to look at it much when I was by myself. But I was embarrassed by my breasts that felt alien to me. My female parts seemed completely wrong. They were familiar and they worked properly, which was good I supposed. But I didn’t want to have a female body. I really hated the shape of all my genitals, hated being limited to their reproductive purpose. I didn’t want to be tied to the monthly cycle of bleeding which emphasised my femaleness and fertility. I didn’t want to bear children. I didn’t want to lie with a man, but for different reasons than Rosie. I wanted to lie with women, with Ellina, but as a man, to have her excited by our compatible differences, not our mirrored similarities.