Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I enjoyed the cognitive dissonance, which echoed the basic paradox of Bruno and my organizations’ existence in the collapsing modern world. We did everything in our power to create the feeling—the gestalt, to put it more exactly—of the ancient essences at the lowest substrate of our constructed reality, but we frequently had to compromise and put supercomputers where relics of seafaring warriors or conquering legions should go.
On the screen, Giovanna crouched at the bath’s edge and spoke to Ilsa, who sat in the jade-colored water with her platinum hair darkening at the ends where it touched the surface. The camera’s angle gave a three-quarter view of the chamber. The audio feed came through a small speaker on the console, slightly compressed but clear.
“Think about that hair between your thighs,” Giovanna was saying, her voice carrying the quality of patient, inexorable instruction I had long associated with her matronly function, mortifying to an initiate like Ilsa but undeniably productive of superior results in training her for her master’s use.
I watched Ilsa’s eyes go wide as she took in how her mistress’s hand indicated the area below Ilsa’s waist, beneath the water’s surface.
“Think about how it feels now, and how it felt as it grew in. How it made you feel adult, perhaps even how it made you feel in charge of your own body.”
Ilsa’s face on the monitor showed the expression I had been watching develop over the past forty minutes on the feed: the face of a girl whose resistance is not broken but is being methodically, expertly redirected. Her chin was slightly raised. Her eyes moved to Giovanna’s face and then away, then back.
“And consider,” Giovanna continued, “how you will feel when your mistress removes it. When there is nothing left. When you are bare and smooth and entirely visible to whoever wishes to look at you.” A pause, measured and deliberate. “Think about that feeling, columba. Let yourself feel it now, before it happens.”
Ilsa’s lips pressed together. The color in her cheeks was visible even through the monitor’s slight compression of the image.
“Remarkable,” I said, meaning it. “I had my doubts, but I’m convinced she did have a vǫlva’s vision.”
My eyes flicked over to Bruno’s face. As I’d expected, I saw his expression darken.
“Very well,” he said, turning his own attention from the diverting scene in the bath, after a moment, and meeting my eyes. “The Guard has decided to trust your accounts of your vǫlur’s pseudo-paranormal senses. I haven’t seen the evidence myself, so I can’t make my own mind up one way or the other yet.”
“But?” I prompted, relieved that this part of our negotiation at least seemed to have gone smoothly.
“But I see no reason to keep you from initiating her, as long as it happens here, and I can observe.”
I nodded.
“Ideally,” I said, slowly so as not to seem too aggressive, “I’d be able to put her on a bride saddle…”
“We’ll build you one,” Bruno said. “The Guard should have a few of them anyway, so that we can test their efficacy. But I suggest you use Guard methods at first.”
I nodded again, more rapidly and decisively. “Yes,” I said, “it will be interesting to see if she goes to Yggdrasil that way. Though I’ll decline, politely, the offer of a saddle built by the Guard. If I do break this girl the Norse way, it must be in a Norse sanctuary.”
A smile crept onto Bruno’s face. “We’re doing fundamental research here, Magnusson, aren’t we? Our brethren will honor us for the way we break this girl in. As a doctoral candidate, surely she’ll appreciate the irony.”
I forced a laugh, realizing as I did that I felt a growing bond with Ilsa Matthews that seemed out of proportion to the situation. I certainly couldn’t remember when I had looked forward to initiating a beautiful virgin this much; something about the look on her face as she contemplated her approaching submission… a mixture of humiliation, fascination, and unmistakable arousal…
It called to me, and I couldn’t wait to discover why.
“Absolutely,” I said.
* * *
Ilsa
I didn’t think I’d ever stop blushing as Giovanna sternly instructed me in how to wash myself.
“You must get that little cunt very clean, columba, and the hair very soft for your baring. Be thorough with that cloth. Now, inside the sheath itself with your fingers.”
She made me repeat the internal cleansing of my vagina while my face burned so hot that the steam from the jade-colored water felt cool against my cheeks by comparison. The herbs in the bath had made the skin of my inner thighs and the soft folds of my sex feel faintly electric, as though the preparation of my body had begun at the molecular level, long before anything else could reach me there. I looked up at her with raised eyebrows, sure I must be finished.