Chapter 107: The Timetable
The bath did little to unknot the steel cables that had replaced his muscles. Aidan slept like the dead, a dreamless void, until a gray pre-dawn light seeped through the shutters. He woke to the smell of strong tea and the sight of Mei already dressed, her small face set in lines of grim readiness.
“They want us at the Oracle’s house,” she said, her voice quiet. “Before the grove.”
He moved, and his body protested in a symphony of aches. His cock, miraculously, felt only a dull throb. The memory of the previous day was a sensory overload: the slap of skin, the varied cries, the slick stone. The hollowed feeling had been replaced overnight by a deep, muscular fatigue and a buzzing sense of unreality.
The Oracle’s house was not a home. It was a mechanism. The front door, heavy black oak banded with iron, swung open soundlessly before they could knock. The foyer was cavernous, lit by thick candles that did little to dispel the shadows clinging to the high ceiling. Velvet couches, worn bald in patches, lined the walls. The air was close, smelling of rose oil gone stale and something else—a metallic tang, like old blood and ozone.
And there was the sound. A low, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum that vibrated up through the flagstones into the bones of his feet. It was slow, a giant’s heartbeat, but as they walked further in, Aidan felt a nonsensical certainty: it was ticking faster.
The Elder and the Oracle awaited them in a circular room devoid of furniture. A colossal stained-glass window depicting the blood oak dominated one wall, the morning light painting the floor in fragmented shades of crimson and umber. The thrumming was loudest here, emanating from behind the walls.
The Oracle looked even paler in the candlelight, her silver hair a spectral cloud. Her eyes, that unsettling mercury color, fixed on Aidan with predatory focus. “The vessel stands. Good. The first day was… adequate. A foundational baptism.”
The Elder, hands clasped within his sleeves, cut to the heart of it. His voice was dry, final. “The full schedule. You have serviced twelve. There are one hundred and eighty-eight women of bearing age in Crimson Hollow. The window for optimal conception, as divined, is fourteen days. You will therefore service no fewer than thirteen per day, beginning at dawn and concluding at sunset. There will be no days of respite.”
The numbers hung in the perfumed air. One hundred and eighty-eight. Aidan’s mind, trained in logistics, tried to compute it and stuttered. The fatigue in his loins became a cold, heavy stone.
“The mechanics,” the Oracle continued, gliding closer. She circled him, her gaze like a physical touch. “You will be fed broths to maintain your seed’s potency. Tonics for pain and stamina. Your body is not your own for this period. It is a tool of the Hollow. You will fuck cunt. You will fuck ass. You will deposit your essence wherever the lineage requires it. Some wombs are more receptive than others. Some… need a different path.”
Aidan’s jaw tightened. “Understood.”
“Do you?” The Oracle stopped in front of him. “Stamina of the body is one thing. We can force that. Stamina of the will… that is what we test now. You will look into the eyes of woman after woman and give them the same gift, the same ferocity, until your vision blurs and your soul feels scraped raw. Then you will do it again.”
Mei’s hand found his, her fingers lacing tightly with his. She said nothing, but her grip was an anchor.
“Why the rush?” Aidan heard himself ask. The military part of him needed to understand the operational tempo.
The Elder and the Oracle exchanged a glance. It was the Elder who answered, his voice dropping. “The readings are… turbulent. The tree’s pulse quickens. The old agreements strain. We must secure the next generation. Now. Every viable womb must swell with your get. It is the only thread we have to cling to.”
The thrum-thrum-thrum from the walls seemed to crescendo for a moment, a frantic staccato, before settling back into its slower rhythm. Aidan felt it in his teeth.
“Today,” the Oracle said, returning to her placid mask. “You begin with the marked, then the unmarked. The thirteenth blessing, however, will be a dual consecration. Sisters. Margot and Elise of the Stone-Mason’s Line. You will take them together, in the Oracle’s private annex, after the public blessings are complete. Their family line is weak. It requires… a concentrated effort.”
Aidan just nodded. Refusal wasn’t a concept that existed here. There was only the schedule.
The grove felt different on the second day. The novelty was gone. For the villagers, it was now a confirmed process. For Aidan, it was a production line. The first woman, a redhead with a scatter of freckles across her chest, was already wet when he entered her. Word had spread. Their bodies were preparing for him, anticipating the stretch. He worked with a grim efficiency, finding angles that sped the process, controlling his breath to stave off his own climax until the optimal moment. He came inside her with a clinical detachment, watching her face contort with a pleasure he felt only distantly, as if through thick glass.
The sun climbed. The stone grew warm, then hot. Kioni and another attendant wiped him with cold water that evaporated almost instantly. The tonics they gave him between women were bitter, chalky, but within minutes a false, jittery energy would course through him, making his heart hammer against his ribs.
By the ninth woman—a broad-hipped mother of two who demanded he take her anally, grunting “Get up in there, lad, don’t be shy,” as he pushed past the tight, clutching ring of her ass—the detachment began to crack. The raw, filthy act, the crude encouragement, the sheer wrongness of it in the open air, pierced the numbness. A surge of hot, shameful arousal mixed with the synthetic energy from the tonics. He fucked her ass with a renewed, punishing vigor, making her yelp with each deep drive, his balls slapping against her damp thighs.
“Yes! Just like that!” she yelled, her face pressed against the stone. “Plug me full! Fill my dirty hole!”
He did, roaring as he came, his vision spotting at the edges. The release was sharper, more animal. When he pulled out, his cock was smeared with brown and white. The attendant wiped it without comment.
He was a tool. A prized, overworked tool. The realization should have been demeaning. But as the day wore on and the sun beat down, a part of him embraced it. The simplicity. The absence of choice. There was only the next cunt, the next ass, the next clenched, welcoming heat. His mind quieted. His body took over.
The twelfth woman was young, crying silently throughout. He was gentle, but he couldn’t soften his own girth. He came inside her while she wept, and he found himself whispering, “It’s alright. It’s done. It’s done,” until her cries subsided into hiccups. The act felt less like sex and more like a ritual of overwhelming, a necessary breaking.
The crowd dispersed. The grove was empty save for the attendants, the ever-present guards, and Mei. She approached, her eyes searching his.
“The annex,” Kioni said, her tone businesslike. “Come.”
They did not return to the village. Instead, they went deeper into the Oracle’s compound, through a hidden door behind the stained-glass room, down a spiraling stair of smooth, worn stone. The air grew cooler, damper. The thrumming was a physical pressure here.
The annex was a small, round chamber lit by braziers of blue flame. The walls were lined with dark tapestries that absorbed the light. In the center was a wide, low bed heaped with furs. Two women waited, standing nervously. They were clearly sisters, sharing the same strong jaw and wide-set eyes. Margot, the older, had a stubborn set to her mouth. Elise, the younger, trembled like a leaf.
The Oracle was there, a spectre in the corner. “They are prepared. Their cycle is aligned. You will impregnate both, by whatever means is most effective. There is no audience here. Only results.”
Aidan looked at the sisters, then at the bed. The fatigue was a tidal pull, but the tonics and the day’s rhythm had him in their grip. He felt eerily calm. “How do you want this?”
Margot stepped forward, her chin raised. “Me first. The normal way. I need to see it’s done.” She began untying her dress, her movements jerky with defiant pride. Elise just stared at the floor.
Aidan stripped off his trousers. His cock, after twelve uses, was a testament to brutal endurance: thick, veined, reddened at the head, but standing rigidly to attention. Margot’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t flinch. She laid back on the furs, spread her legs, and stared at the ceiling.
He moved over her. No warmth, no kiss, no pretense. He guided himself into her. She was tight, dry with fear. He spat into his hand again, slicked himself, and pushed. She let out a sharp, pained gasp, her body arching. He fucked her with steady, deep strokes, his gaze on her face. Her defiance crumbled into something like shocked acceptance, then, against her will, into ragged pleasure. Her nails dug into his forearms. “Fuck,” she whispered. “Oh, fuck, it’s so deep.”
He felt his orgasm coiling, a tight spring in his gut. “Going to come,” he grunted.
“Do it,” she hissed, wrapping her legs around him. “Put a baby in me. Do it now!”
He slammed home, burying himself to the root, and erupted. She cried out, her internal muscles fluttering wildly around his pumping cock. He stayed there, emptying every drop, until he was soft. He pulled out, his semen already leaking from her.
“Elise,” the Oracle’s voice came from the shadows.
The younger sister was weeping, frozen. Margot, still breathing heavily, sat up. “Come here, Ellie. It’s just a thing. It has to be done.”
Elise stumbled to the bed. She wouldn’t look at him. “I can’t… like that.”
“Then how?” Aidan asked, his voice hoarse.
Her eyes flicked to his mouth, then away, her face flushing crimson. “My… my mouth. And then… from behind. I can’t see you that way.”
Aidan nodded. He sat on the edge of the bed. Elise knelt on the floor between his spread thighs. She stared at his cock, wet with her sister’s juices, glistening in the brazier light. With a trembling hand, she reached out, touched it, then leaned forward and took the head into her mouth.
It was clumsy, timid. Her teeth scraped him. But the heat and the wetness were electric on his oversensitive flesh. He groaned, his hands tangling in her hair. “Use your tongue,” he instructed softly. “Just the head.”
She obeyed, her movements growing more confident. He watched her, this terrified girl sucking him with a desperate, dutiful concentration. The sight, so depraved and tender, sent new fire through his veins. His cock hardened impossibly further in her mouth.
“That’s enough,” he said after a few minutes, pulling her head gently away. “On the bed. On your hands and knees.”
She scrambled onto the furs, presenting her small, pale buttocks to him. He knelt behind her. One hand on her hip, he used the other to guide his cock, not to her pussy, but to the tiny, clenched rose of her asshole.
She flinched. “No, not there, I—”
“It’ll take the seed better this way,” the Oracle interjected, her voice devoid of mercy. “The lineage demands it.”
Aidan pressed the broad head against the tight knot. He was slick with her saliva. He pushed. It was a brutal, unforgiving invasion. Elise screamed, a short, torn sound, before muffling her face in the furs. He pushed steadily, feeling her body violently resist, then relent, accepting him inch by excruciating inch. When he was fully sheathed in the tight, searing heat of her ass, he stopped, letting her adjust, his own breath coming in ragged gasps.
Then he moved. Short, deep strokes that shook her whole slight frame. Her cries became muffled sobs, then, gradually, low, shuddering moans. The filthy, forbidden act, the complete domination of her most private place, unleashed something feral in him. He fucked her ass with a pounding, relentless rhythm, the sound wet and slapping.
“You’re taking it,” he growled, his control snapping. “Taking my fucking come up your ass. Gonna pump you so full for your family.”
His climax ripped through him, a blinding, convulsive eruption that felt like it was tearing his very soul out through his cock. He held himself deep, pulsing into her bowels, until he was utterly spent.
He collapsed to the side, utterly empty. Elise lay trembling, crying softly. Margot came over, gathering her sister in her arms, shooting Aidan a look that held no hatred, only a complex, exhausted gratitude.
The Oracle nodded. “It is done. The vessel may rest. Tomorrow begins again.”
In their room, much later, Mei washed him. She cleaned the salt from his skin, the mingled fluids from his cock and thighs. She didn’t speak. When she was done, she simply held him, her head against his chest, listening to his heart slow from its frantic, chemical gallop.
“I can feel it,” he whispered into the dark, his voice rough. “The part of me that cares… it’s getting smaller. Fainter.”
She lifted her head. In the moonlight, her eyes were fierce. “Then I will care for both of us. That part isn’t gone, Aidan. It’s just buried under what you have to be to survive this. I will remember it for you.”
She kissed him, not with passion, but with a sealing promise. Outside, the deep, mechanical thrum of the house pulsed through the night, a constant reminder that the schedule was already ticking down toward the next dawn.