Necessities and Vicissitudes

Temmin ate lunch sitting between Allis and Issak at the main table in the Temple dining hall. Across from them sat the High Lover and High Beloved. Temmin looked out over the ranks of low tables and padded benches at the dozens of Lovers, Beloveds, postulants and guests, most in various colors of Temple garb. Servants moved through the hall, bringing, renewing and removing large plates and bowls. Nothing overt was going on, but Temmin sensed an overlying haze of sensuality; the food was all meant to be eaten out of hand, and much feeding of neighbors and licking of neighbors' fingers were in evidence.

"And what are your impressions of the Temple so far, Temmin Supplicant?" asked the High Beloved.

Temmin swallowed his mouthful of bread, tried not to blush, and failed. "It's--I'm--"

"He's a bit overwhelmed, Most High," murmured Allis with a small smile, popping a hothouse grape in Temmin's mouth.

"To be sure, to be sure," said the High Beloved kindly. "The first few days here are always the most confusing. Memorable, too. Do you remember when you came to us, dears?" she continued, addressing the twins. "Once you'd left Amma's House for good and all?" To Temmin's amazement, Allis and Issak both blushed. Oh, he would give anything to make either of them blush like that, both of them always so composed no matter what was going on. He would give anything to watch either of them come apart as Anda had earlier, quivering and screaming. He would give even more to know he was the one who'd done it.

He came out of his brief reverie to find the High Lover eyeing him appraisingly. "Most High?" he said hesitantly.

The High Lover grinned, his aged face wreathed in wrinkles and still handsome nonetheless. "Every day brings its lessons. That's all. When you are done here," he said to Issak, "what are your plans for the afternoon?"

"We will be taking him to the Petitioning Rooms, Most High," answered Issak.

The High Lover clapped delightedly. "I wish I could be there."

Temmin wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, and raised an eyebrow at Issak. Issak only raised one back and finished his wine. "In fact," he said, setting down his cup, "I think it's nearly time to go. Drink up, Supplicant."

Once the three of them were walking by themselves, Temmin asked, "What's a Petitioning Room?"

"It's where we meet with petitioners to the Temple," said Allis, "people who are asking for a blessing."

"Oh!" said Temmin. "Isn't that what's going on in the grand hallway?"

"No," said Issak. "These are rather more personal requests." As Temmin puzzled on that, they came to a warren of little rooms, with lay people in street clothes and Temple garb and Beloveds and Lovers coming and going. "Petitioners come to meet one-on-one with us in private."

"One-on-one? Why?"

"For blessings and the laying on of hands," said Allis. "Come. We can watch from here." She opened a door and led them into a little hallway that ran between two of the rows of rooms. "This is the observation gallery, each set of rooms has one," she whispered. "Keep silent. If you have to ask a question, write it down." She handed him a little pad of paper and a pencil from a pocket on the wall.

As Temmin looked down the hall, he saw regularly spaced little stippled patterns of light, staggered on the opposite walls; walking down the hall, he realized they were windows into the rooms, screened in such a way that someone in the hallway could easily see in but it was difficult for anyone inside the room to see out. Adding to their privacy was the darkness of the hall and the light in the Petitioning Rooms.

Temmin peered into the first room, and his eyes opened wide. The room was softly lit and furnished with one of the low, wide, backless Temple couches, piled with pillows. On the couch, a middle-aged woman reclined, feet on the floor, eyes hooded; her Temple skirt was rucked up around her waist. Kneeling between her legs was a middle-aged man, still dressed in street clothes. He gave a muffled groan, and Temmin saw that he was licking the woman's sex as if his life depended on it. "Can they see us?" whispered Temmin.

Allis glared at him, and Issak took the pad of paper and pencil. He wrote in big block letters, "NO BUT THEY CAN HEAR BE QUIET!!!" Temmin made an apologetic face and turned back to the room.

The woman was running her fingers through the man's thinning hair, and she watched him tenderly as he licked and sucked and moaned. "Show me," she crooned, and the man shifted. His cock was out, and he pumped it desperately so that she could see how hard he was for her, how much he needed her. "Oh, that's so good," she said softly, her voice beginning to shake. "That's so beautiful, so so beautiful, that's so good, keep eating me just like that, fuck me with your tongue, let me see you, show me, Nerr, you're so hard, I can see it, oh Nerr, oh--" She curved up into his face and went silent, eyes closed and mouth open; the man's smothered cries became louder and more pleading in response until finally his seed spurted from him in a stuttering arc. When he'd recovered his breath, he laid his head on her thigh and wept, and she stroked his face and murmured comforting nonsense.

Allis tugged him away from the screened window and down the hall. "What was that all about?" whispered Temmin urgently. "That felt--Should we have been watching?"

"I don't know the exact story, and I'd be willing to wager he doesn't either, poor thing," whispered Allis. "Petitioners know they might be observed, but only by Temple staff."

"Was that a Beloved with him?"

"No. Hush."

They came to the next window. Inside, a plump woman, breasts exposed, cradled a dark-haired woman in her arms. Temmin thought they might be asleep until he realized that the brunette was suckling like a baby, softly playing with the other nipple as she nursed, and the plump woman gently rocked her.

Allis pulled him down the hall again to a window where a burly young man already stood, watching through the screen. He nodded a greeting, but kept his eyes on the window. "NECESSARY OBSERVER," wrote Issak on the pad.

Temmin heard a smack and a soft cry, and looked into the room. A naked young man lay sprawled across the lap of a heavyset older man dressed in Temple garb, his legs trapped between the older man's knees, his arms pinned down with one beefy hand. An angry red hand print was visible on the young man's flank; his captor ran light fingers over the mark, and the younger man writhed. "Be still!" hissed the older man, spanking him several times hard. The young man bucked and choked back his cries as the spanking continued, and Temmin noticed his very hard cock forced down against the older man's thigh.

"Please, sir!" sobbed the young man.

"Please what, boy?" came the growled answer.

"Please--please, I need more!"

"Will you move if I release your legs?"

"I swear I won't--I swear!"

The big man settled the young man's legs so that his prick dangled freely, and he reached down between them to take it. He began slowly stroking as his large hand came down on the already-reddened cheeks. "Not till I say."

"Please let me--please, sir, I'll do anything, please!"

"Anything?"

"Yes! Gods, please, sir!"

"Then shoot for me." He squeezed the young man's ass with one huge hand as the prick in his other visibly throbbed. The young man let out an agonized moan of pain and pleasure and came. As soon as his throes ended, the older man swept him up in a crushing embrace. "Oh, you were so, so good, such a good boy," he soothed, tears in his own eyes as the other man sobbed in his arms. "You took it so well, I forgive you. Now, now. You were so good--here," and he pulled the drawstring of his trousers, revealing an enormous, nearly purple cock. "That's what you want, eh? Take it." The young man dropped to his knees and swallowed the giant prick down to the root.

Allis tugged Temmin away again, nodding to the observer as the three of them moved off. "He's there in case it gets too rough," she whispered. "We can't let petitioners hurt the staff."

Down the row they went, looking in on men and women, men and men, women and women, threesomes--it was all a bit dizzying, and very confusing. Not everyone in the rooms was having sex. More than a few were lying in each other's arms or sitting side by side, simply talking. One woman dangled from the ceiling in an elaborate rope harness, blissfully asleep, while a second woman watched over her and read a book. In another room, a man took notes while another man made slow, thorough love to a woman; in short order, it was clear she was the note-taker's wife.

When they finally emerged from the end of the observation walk, Temmin was blushing and bothered, and he was wishing that Temple trousers weren't quite so thin. He clasped his hands in front of him in what he hoped was a casual manner. To his chagrin, Allis took one hand and Issak the other, making it was clear to anyone walking past them exactly how he felt about what he'd seen from the observation gallery. While no one seemed to pay his erection any mind, he was relieved to be back in the somewhat private Supplicant's Chamber. He turned to Allis. "Who were all those people? What were they doing--I mean, I know what they were doing--some of what they were doing--that is..."

Issak came up behind Temmin and put his arms around him. "Be specific," he murmured in Temmin's ear. Allis walked up to him and trailed her fingers down his chest.

"Specific?" said Temmin. "Ehm. Well. Let's start with...eh...I can't--I can't think with you doing that...oh..." Allis pulled the drawstring of his trousers, and they slipped to the floor.

"Don't think," she said, slipping her hand down his hip. "Just tell us."

"Tell you what?" She drew her fingers down the band of muscle leading to his groin, and he tried not to hold his breath.

"Tell us what you want to know." Her fingers dipped between his legs and lifted his balls, very gently. He let out the breath he'd been trying not to hold, and she kissed him. "Don't think about it, or you won't ask what you really want to know. Just tell us what you thought about it, what you wondered."

"I was wondering," he said all in a rush, "who all those people were--which were Temple staff and which were worshippers? For instance, the big man spanking the younger man--who was who?"

"The big man was the petitioner. The younger man is a Lover," said Issak.

Allis rolled Temmin's balls with a deft touch. "Ah--ah...why did he want to do that, to beat someone like that?" he stammered out.

"He needs to make someone suffer that he knows can not only take it, but craves it," answered Allis, squeezing slightly, and the world vanished for a brief moment.

When it returned, Temmin said, "Who could possibly want that? Either part of it?"

Issak chuckled and pinched his nipple through his shirt. "While you were watching them, we were watching you, you know. Were you the punisher or the punished, Temmin?" Temmin turned bright scarlet, and Allis's fingers moved from his balls to the base of his very erect cock, circling it. "Hm?"

"I--I don't know," he said, eyes fluttering closed. "I don't know."

"You liked the way that boy whimpered, I could tell," whispered Issak. "Your cock jumped every time that big paw landed on his ass. Which was it?" Temmin himself whimpered as Allis moved the ring of her fingers slowly up his shaft, but remained silent. "No matter, these are things we will explore in time." Issak took his earlobe gently between his teeth and sucked at it, and Temmin let out a loud growl. "What else? We were watching you. Tell us."

"The woman hanging from the ceiling--"

"A petitioner," whispered Allis.

"Why?"

"She feels safe and loved tied up like that," said Issak, releasing his earlobe and moving to his jaw.

"Safe? I don't understand!"

"You don't need to right now," said Allis, watching his face intently as she began stroking him. "What else?"

"The people just talking."

"Some of them were requesting the blessing--telling the Beloved or Lover what it was he or she needed," answered Allis. "For some of them, it was the sole reason why the petitioners came, just to be held and touched while they talked things out with someone who wouldn't judge them. So many people receive no loving touch at all. It's why we're here."

"The woman suckling like a babe."

Issak shrugged and gave a small laugh. "It may be she was reliving her own infancy, it may be she just loves titties. They're very nice titties, don't you agree? I've sucked on them myself." The image of Issak nuzzling the plump woman's breasts flashed through his mind, along with the memory of Anda's delicious nipple in his own mouth earlier that very day, and he stiffened further. Issak laughed again, and bit his shoulder. "Just about everyone loves titties, even lovers of men. What else?"

"The first man--the one licking the woman--you said she wasn't a Beloved. So he was the Lover?"

"No," said Allis, "neither of them were Temple staff. She is a lay person, a devotee. She's had enough training to serve in the Petitioning Rooms. Most serious devotees spend a day a week for a year in training, learning how to listen and help, and then they're required to serve one week of the year here in the Temple."

"Ellika is a devotee," said Temmin in sick realization.

"Yes, she is," murmured Issak.

"Does she--has she--" Allis was squeezing the head of his penis. "Oh, gods." He thought of his beautiful sister in one of those rooms, skirts around her waist, and tears formed in his eyes. "Please stop."

"No," said Issak, holding him tighter. Allis kept up the firm strokes, adding lubricant from one of the omnipresent little bottles on a nearby table.

"I don't want to think about Ellika that way!" The tears filled his eyes and began to spill.

"But you do anyway, don't you?" said Allis softly, speeding up.

"No--she's my sister!"

"You notice just how lovely she is, and she's very lovely," Issak said urgently into his ear. "You wouldn't be a lover of women if you didn't notice it, Temmin. If she weren't your sister you'd want to bend her over the nearest table, wouldn't you?"

Temmin was openly crying. "No! She's beautiful, she's my sister, I love her!" He was very close.

"And you love her, and she's beautiful, and deep inside, the Lover in you wants her," growled Issak.

"Yes!" Temmin sobbed, unable to hold back. "Yes! I do!" He came in Allis's hand, and crumpled in Issak's arms, destroyed.

Issak half-carried him to a couch and laid him down as he cried inconsolably. "Sshhhh, ssshhh, it's safe, you're safe," soothed Issak, lying down next to him and stroking his hair. "It's all right, cry it out."

"I don't want to do that with her!" Temmin choked out. "I don't!"

Allis scooted up behind him and held him close against her, rocking him gently. "You don't have to. You don't have to think about it ever again if you don't want to. There, now, it's over." The three of them lay on the couch for a long time, the twins gently petting Temmin as he shuddered until he was all cried out.

"Why did you do that?" he asked in a soft, shaky voice. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes," said Allis, pressing her forehead against his shoulders. "It was. I'm sorry. We didn't know that's what would come out first, but we knew it would be something big. It always is the first time we show someone the observation gallery.

"Our first Supplicant, the first one we chose, what came out then was that she wanted her father. Common as dirt, that one," said Allis, "and nothing she would ever have acted upon nor really wanted to act upon. But there it was. And if you're going to get through this, you need to know what's inside you. Now you know one thing that's inside you, and calling it by its name means it can't ever control you."

"You mean there's more?" said Temmin sleepily. "I'm not sure I can take this every time I come here."

"Oh, you'll take it," said Issak, cuddling him close. "You'll take everything we have to give, Supplicant." The last thing Temmin felt before he fell asleep was two sets of lips pressing soft kisses against his cheek and neck.