by Nel Franks
The Most held up her hand in the sign for silence.
‘My dearest sisters, how precious you are. How precious we all are. Tonight, we honour all of our sisters who fought so valiantly or served so tirelessly today.’
She paused, and all around us, sisters patted each other, or kissed each other on the cheek, and the murmurs of support and thanks rose quickly. After a little while, the Most raised her hand again.
‘And tonight, we mourn. We mourn the loss of those dearest sisters who gave up their lives for us in that fierce battle in the orchard.’
All around me I heard cries of distress. Deaths in a raid were rare. I felt numb, struggling to take in the knowledge that sisters had actually died. The Most unrolled a scroll and began to read. As each name was called, and there were only three of them, cries of anguish rose up from parts of the Temple, as close sisters and friends found out the fate of their missing loved ones.
‘And we also pray for those who have been injured,’ the Most went on, when the first piercing distress had quietened. She began to read a longer list, starting with those most badly injured, and on down to those with minor injuries.
Finally, she finished the list and passed the scroll to the Chief Mistress of the Temple, standing next to her. Then the Most raised both arms above her head, in the signal for full attention, and stepped closer.
‘And one more loss, in one sense, the most severe ...’ She paused and looked even more deeply saddened than before. My mind ran on: who had been lost? It must have been one of the senior Mistresses for her to be so grave.
‘The Outcasts retreated, as you probably know, in the face of our fierce resistance. They suffered heavy casualties themselves, and we have some of their injured in custody now. But they took from us something infinitely more precious ...’ Food, I thought. It has to be the food they stole. Would I be hungry all winter now?
‘They took Initiate Marien. She was tending one of our elderly at home, during the raid. We think she probably did not hear the bells for the acolytes to flee to the cellars. We know the Outcasts have no interest in capturing older women who are strong fighters, nor the elderly or little children who would be dependent. But they do want our acolytes who are young enough to brainwash, strong enough to work hard to earn their keep, and quickly become warriors. We mourn the loss of our dear sister Marien.’
Tomma was staring with her mouth open, her face pale and blotchy. Suddenly she sobbed, a deep guttural noise, and turned to Gaia for support. She sank down onto the cold stone floor, coughing and retching.
‘Oh, poor Marien! She’s so soft, she’ll hate it, they’ll hurt her. She won’t survive. Oh, Goddess, why Marien? She used to stand in front of me at assembly. Oh, she’ll never make it. She couldn’t be made to turn on us, she wouldn’t, would she, Gaia? Oh, Marien!’
A stream of disbelief and horror poured out of her mouth. Gaia crouched down, her arm over Tomma’s bent back, as all around me cries of horror and disbelief rose from the crowd. I felt frozen, unable to react. I hadn’t known Marien well, but she was one of us. She could have been me. I looked around me slowly, and my head felt strange, heavy and stiff. All the Initiate Acolytes were stunned. Many were wailing, clutching each other. The Council of Chief Mistresses all had their heads bowed, and the Most stood abject, waiting for the wave of distress to subside.
A thought, very slow, rose in my cold mind. I hadn’t ever really believed that Outcasts took acolytes. It had always seemed like a story made up to frighten us into behaving properly.
But they did, they did.
Conception
Rosie, Early Summer, Year Three, Initiates
THE MORNING AFTER THE raid was peculiar. The whole of the Core was quiet. Everyone walked silently, glancing around nervously. There was no gossip or hanging around with each other after breakfast. People just went to their activities without talking. It made me feel small, and alone. I told myself it didn’t matter that no-one had enquired about how I felt, that in the scheme of things my terrifying experience really wasn’t so bad. But it didn’t feel like that inside. I was still scared, and I felt as though I’d been through something terrible. But I could hardly complain, could I, when others had nice big visible wounds to show how brave they’d been. Apparently, no one thought it was important that I felt shaky and cold, and jumped at every noise, and wanted to cry all the time.
The training sisters in the House of Healing got us straight back into routine. Work is the best cure for feeling shocked and out of sorts, they said. ‘Out of sorts’ was hardly enough to describe how I was feeling, but as usual no-one asked about me. So, I pushed myself to get back to my studies and my work in the pregnancy clinics and decided that I’d have to just look after myself, seeing as nobody else would.
I found I could still act normally and study for periods of time, but then the shock reactions would come back. It’s odd, but I didn’t think about Marien and her fate very much. But sometimes, secretly, when no-one else was around, I would wonder what her life was like now. Perhaps it might even be better to live where there were only women, and men were the enemy to be killed? Where increase in numbers came from raids, not birth? Just once, I dreamed about living with the Outcasts. In my dream, they were tall fierce determined women, who knew what they wanted. They didn’t want anything to do with men, and when I approached their camp, and asked if I could join them, they took me seriously. They asked how I had fared during the raid. They were solicitous about how scared I had been. They even apologised for terrifying me. They said if they had known how much I wanted to live in a world without men, they would have come to get me long ago. I woke up feeling dreadful, longing for that acceptance, and horror at the risk I had taken in approaching the wild women’s camp. Did I really want to leave the safety and security of my home, and my sisters? I struggled out of bed, shaken, wishing it was true at the same time.
When the memories of the raid did overwhelm me, no-one seemed to want to talk about my distress. I couldn’t work out if my odd fluctuations between fear and normality were due to shock, or my covert fascination with the Outcasts. I shied away from truly acknowledging that, and knew I had to take my mind firmly in hand. I decided that my odd state must have been due to not being close to Marien, that was the simple answer. But Tomma, who hadn’t been friends with her either, seemed devastated, even though their only real connection had been standing close in assembly. She kept going on about Marien every evening; she said things like she felt guilty for not noticing the Marien hadn’t arrived in the cellar, as if she should have been worried about anyone else except me and Gaia. As if! She never asked how I was feeling. I couldn’t stand her over-reaction anymore and decided the only thing I could do was to ignore her and bury myself in work and study. Eventually she and Gaia would have to realise someone else had suffered too.
Three days after the raid, Sister Diammo, accompanied by one of the other Birthing Acolytes, found me in the library, where I had taken to going every night after dinner to escape Tomma’s nauseating repetitions.
‘Sister Suela has sent for the man, Rosie.’
I was puzzled. I couldn’t remember what man she meant. As I stared at her, confused, she frowned slightly.
‘The man in the Temple, Rosie. You remember? Our sister is coming into conception time, and she has sent for the man for impregnation. If you want, you can come with me to observe. I believe it would be valuable additional learning in your studies into conception.’
The raid had driven all thoughts of daily life from my mind. It seemed wrong somehow that ordinary things like sex and babies would still go on after such a terrible event. One part of my mind was amazed I could now consider sex to be a part of normal daily life. But I blushed just at the thought of watching. Did I really want to see this? But I felt I had no real choice and followed her out.
In a corridor to the Conception Rooms, Sister Diammo opened a door I had always assumed was a storage closet. It turned out to be as narrow as a closet, but
long, painted an unrelieved mid-grey, and empty except for a thin slatted bench running down the centre. Ivetta, the other attending Initiate, and I were waved into the tiny room.
‘This is where the attending Mistress sits when a sister is in the room,’ Diammo said in a low voice. ‘From here we can check that our sister is safe and comfortable, and we can hear if she calls for assistance. The room is also used for education, such as today.’
She slid along the bench, faced the wall on the left, and motioned for us to sit beside her.
‘Before our sister comes in, I need to give you some background. Our sister and her male donor,’ she cleared her throat and looked down at her hands, ‘have decided to try for a girl. In order to try to influence the outcome, she has used an acidic douche – dilute vinegar and water, some hours ago. We know that an acidic environment favours but does not guarantee a female pregnancy. We know also that an alkaline environment, achieved with a douche of baking soda and water, can improve the chances of a male pregnancy, which is not her preference. Also, it is now two days before her ovulation, and some of our research has shown that girls may be more often conceived when intercourse occurs some time before ovulation. We don’t know why.’
The other acolyte looked puzzled. ‘How do you know when you’re ovulating, then?’
Sister Dammio smiled and said, ‘Have you not come across that in your studies?’ The acolyte shook her head. ‘Perhaps you have, Rosie?’
‘Yes, elder sister.’ Really, had Ivetta done no work at all? I took a deep breath and repeated what I had read. ‘Ovulation can be detected by taking the woman’s temperature every day first thing in the morning before rising. This is called the basal temperature. Just before ovulation, the temperature may dip by part of a degree, and then on the day of ovulation, the temperature starts to rise. Over the next couple of days, it rises about the same amount above the basal temperature as it dipped before. If you are pregnant, the temperature will remain at this slightly elevated level.’ I was proud of my word-perfect recitation.
‘Well done, Rosie, I think you’ve covered that very succinctly. Perhaps you could read up on it further, Ivetta.’ She looked pointedly at the other acolyte, who blushed a little.
‘To return to today’s events, our sister has been charting her temperature over the last several months of her cycle. She can now predict when her ovulation day is likely to be, and she has timed this intercourse and her activities in order to try to maximise her chances of conceiving a girl. Ivetta, you look troubled, what is it?’
‘Sister Dammio, what about the man? Does he know that she has done all these things to increase the likelihood of conceiving a girl? Doesn’t he want a boy? He’s paid for the privilege of coming to the Temple. Wouldn’t he feel cheated if the odds were stacked against him?’ Her tone was becoming a bit sharp. Anger rose hot in me, that she had given any consideration to the man’s feelings.
Sister Dammio raised her eyebrows.
‘You raise very interesting ethical questions. This particular man and our sister have two children between them already, both of whom are boys who now live in the Male Enclave. You can imagine that she has been delighted to have had children and devastated to have given them up. As they know each other quite well, and he is wealthy, he has agreed that she should try for a girl, as they both know that these measures do not completely guarantee a girl. Thus, he still has the chance of another son. But he cares enough for our sister and is grateful for her work in producing his two sons, that he is willing to have the odds increased somewhat in her favour. Not all men would be so accommodating, it is true. But in this particular case, it has worked well. Do you have any other questions, Rosie, Ivetta?’
I shook my head, my mind seething with ideas about the possibility of being able to separate male from female sperm and being able to produce only female children by artificial insemination. But I bit my lip and resolved to research it all further. For now, Sister Dammio was motioning us to silence.
We heard a door open and close, and male and female voices talking quietly. Diammo slid a long narrow panel on the wall to one side, and we had a view of the whole width of the room through a narrow grille. The grill was covered with a mesh, which I knew from my cleaning looked like a ventilation outlet. Our viewing room was in darkness, while the Conception Room was light and bright. I had a quick glimpse of the sunny pale-yellow walls, with billowing light curtains at the open terrace doors. The light that flooded the room had a hint of green from the surrounding garden, and yet I could not see outside at all. The bed was wide, and very comfortable, I knew—months ago, when I had first started preparing the rooms, I had sat on one once, in great trepidation and shocked at my own forwardness. Like all the rooms, the linen was cream, with fertility symbols embroidered around the hems, to try to influence the Goddess to grant the woman’s wishes.
Sister Diammo motioned for silence with a stern look on her face and we both nodded solemnly. Peering through the lattice, I saw Sister Suela enter the room first, and as she did, she flashed a smile of great warmth towards the grille and the room where we were sitting. Sister Dammio did not move, but I saw her colour slightly.
I was transfixed by what happened next. Sister Suela and the man were both wearing long loose silk gowns. They sat together on the bed and drank wine that she poured from a bottle on the bedside table. They leaned together and laughed gently. At one point he took both the wine glasses and bent over to put them on the floor, then as he straightened up, he slid his arm under her legs and tipped her backwards on the bed. No. No! He’s attacking her! The voice in my head screamed. I clenched my teeth and gripped the bench hard.
But Suela laughed loudly in surprise and grabbed his shoulders as he rolled to lean over her. They laughed, as though they were playing. Could that be right—to enjoy this bestial act? It confounded me – yes, intercourse was necessary, but I had thought it would be done clinically. I focussed back on the couple, who were kissing deeply. The man ran his hand up her leg, catching up her light silk gown. She pressed up against him, allowing his hand to travel up her thigh, and up her back. I could feel goose bumps running up my leg as I followed the progress of his hand.
Filthy! Disgusting! My inner self was hissing, interrupting my attention. I tried very hard not to listen.
They kissed and murmured, rolling towards each other until they were pressed together along their full length. Waves of embarrassment rolled through me as he slid her robe off. Was she not ashamed to be naked in front of him?
Dirty girl! She should be expelled!
Shut up! I shouted in my head. Shut up! I shook my head to stop the thoughts.
Sister Diammo glanced at me. Instantly I felt flushed, hot and intensely uncomfortable. To be observing was bad enough; to be caught reacting was nearly unbearable. Diammo looked back through the grille, calmly watching the couple, and her serene acceptance of what we were doing allowed me to take a deep breath and refocus. Ivetta seemed totally engrossed, a half-smile on her parted lips as she leant forward.
Suela pulled the man’s long gown over his raised arms. I shuddered, knowing I was going to see a man naked. I was surprised to see he didn’t have a hairy pelt as I had imagined. With that, I could relax a tiny bit. But it was too much to look for too long, and I focussed on Suela — her body held no fear or shame for me.
As they continued, my feelings became more tangled. I felt they shouldn’t just be playing. This was a serious event, an attempted pregnancy. How could they be so light-hearted? Shouldn’t they be focussed on the transfer of sperm?
I was shocked at the deeply intimate way they touched. My inner voice was muttering in the back of my mind. But Diammo was watching the couple without concern. This must be acceptable then? I would have to ask later, as I could not imagine that such liberty and invasion of privacy could be tolerated. This was not essential to conceiving, in fact none of what had happened was necessary. Filthy beasts, just playing with bodies! My teeth were clenched so tightly I w
as developing a headache. I looked back to the couple, sweating and moaning now. Was she distressed? My anxiety increased and I almost rose from the seat, as I heard her groan, ‘Oh, don’t stop!’ I sank back down again, struggling to accept that she found this pleasurable. And I was dismayed that she was taking such an active role in the mating. This was much more than just ejaculation for the sake of pregnancy.
Ivetta was breathing hard, and rocking on her seat, distracting me. Oh yes, you’re a little bitch in heat too! My inner voice snarled. I looked back at Suela and her partner just as he began to thrust and jerk wildly, without control. This must stop! Mistress Diammo intervene now! My inner voice howled, but Diammo continued to watch calmly. And then to my great relief, it did stop. He lay down next to her and they cuddled together, murmuring. Why were they doing this? She should be leaving now she had his sperm. Mistress Diammo silently slid the panel back into place and motioned for us to leave the room. I stood up, surprised at how sweaty I felt. We walked silently back to one of the teaching rooms. I felt stunned, shocked, confused and yet also invigorated.
As we sat in the teaching room, Mistress Diammo cleared her throat. ‘Well, have you any questions, girls?’
Ivetta shook her head, unable to look at Sister Diammo, and mumbled, ‘It was good, much ... nicer than I thought it would be. It was more exciting, too.’
Mistress Diammo’s lips stretched slightly, perhaps in a strained smile. ‘Yes, sometimes to observe a coupling is arousing. Sometimes it is not.’
‘It’s not always like that?’ I asked. ‘Not always so...’ she raised an eyebrow at me, waiting while I found the right description, ‘... so playful? They did a lot of things that weren’t really to do with penetration and ejaculation.’
She looked down at her interlaced hands. ‘No, it is not always so light-hearted, or so pleasurable. Sometimes it is quite business-like, I suppose you could say. It is over and done with quickly, and there is little interaction between them.’ That was a relief. Perhaps today was not the norm. Mistress Diammo went on, ‘But here in the Temple, it is generally a positive experience, as you know. Sometimes new sisters are nervous, or new men for that matter, and sometimes men can’t go slowly, and they ejaculate very quickly. That can be disappointing for some women; others are glad it is not too drawn out. But as I told you earlier, Suela and her partner have met on several occasions, so they have had time to get to know each other, and to discover what each of them likes. You could say they are developing a style of sexual intercourse that they both find deeply satisfying.’