Chapter 64: The Rival's Cleansing
The days blurred into a rhythm of exhaustion that was both grueling and strangely mechanical.
The Ilima meeting hut became his world. The sagging roof, the smell of unwashed bodies and the sharp, mineral scent of arousal, the flickering lamplight that made the shadows of the waiting women dance on the walls. Ten women a day. Kioni’s negotiated limit held, but it was a brutal ceiling.
Each morning, he was led in after a meal of dense nut paste and bitter tea. Leela would massage the tension from his shoulders, her fingers knowing. Sable would review the order, sometimes swapping women based on subtle signs of aggression or need. Kioni stood watch, her arms crossed, a silent sentinel at the edge of the ritual space.
The women came in all ages and attitudes. Some were shy, hesitant, their touches apologetic. Others were practical, almost brisk, mounting him with a focus that was about as personal as drawing water from a well. A few were hungry, desperate, their fingers digging into his hips, their sounds raw and grating in the thick air.
Aidan learned to dissociate. To let his body do the work while his mind floated somewhere near the smoke-stained ceiling. The initial mix of embarrassment and dark thrill had been burned away by sheer repetition. Now, there was a numb efficiency to it. He’d learned the most effective angles, the pace that would bring most of them to a quick, shattering peak without overly taxing himself. It was a skill, like any other.
“Look at me,” one woman whispered, her face fierce. She was older, with streaks of grey in her braids and eyes that held a sharp intelligence. “Don’t you drift. I am not a chore.”
He blinked, surprised back into the moment. Her internal muscles clenched around him, deliberate and demanding. He met her gaze, and something in her intensity pulled a genuine, ragged groan from him. She smiled, a quick, triumphant thing, before her own climax took her. When she left, she touched his cheek, a gesture that felt more intimate than anything that had happened in the past hour.
After her, the numbness felt thinner.
“You’re getting better at this,” Sable observed that evening as she applied a salve to chafed skin. Her tone was analytical, not praise. “Your average time per subject has decreased by fifteen percent, while their verbal indicators of satisfaction have increased.”
“Great,” Aidan muttered into the mat. “I’m optimizing.”
Leela brought him water. “It’s not just that. You’re… present. Sometimes. I see it. You watch their faces now, right at the end.”
He did. He’d started to. There was a moment, a split second when the tension broke, when hope or hunger or sheer physical release transformed their features. That moment was his. It was the only prize in this endless marathon. The proof that the exhausting, dehumanizing work actually did something.
The oracle observed everything. She never participated, just watched from her stool in the corner, her young face unreadable. Her name was Elara. On the fourth day, as the last woman of the group stumbled out, blissful and loose-limbed, Elara spoke.
“The blessing stabilizes. The community’s energy harmonizes.” She stood and walked over to where Aidan lay spent, Kioni helping him to sit up. Elara’s eyes, those calculating chips of obsidian, scanned his body dispassionately. “But you are holding back.”
Kioni’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “He is fulfilling the terms. Ten per day. He finishes every one.”
“He finishes the act,” Elara corrected softly. “But the spirit of it? He conserves himself. Like a man rationing water on a long journey. The blessing requires a flood, not a trickle.” She tilted her head. “Tomorrow. We will adjust.”
“The agreement was ten,” Kioni said, her voice low and dangerous.
“And it will remain ten,” Elara said, a faint smile touching her lips. “But the tenth will be Nalia.”
A cold knot formed in Aidan’s stomach. Nalia, the first sister. Her frenzied, possessive claiming in the birthing hut felt like a scar on his memory.
“She is already with child,” Sable stated, logic as her shield. “The ritual is for those who are not.”
“Nalia carries the first of the blessing. Its anchor,” Elara replied, her gaze never leaving Aidan. “Her need is… profound. A deep root that must be watered. To refuse her would be to insult the blessing itself. It would unbalance all we have done.”
It was a masterful move. An exception that wasn’t an exception. A way to break his rhythm, to reach the part of him that couldn’t just go numb.
That night, in the cramped hut they’d been given, Aidan couldn’t sleep. The thought of facing Nalia again, in front of an audience, under the guise of ritual, made his skin crawl. And yet, beneath the dread, something else pulsed. A dark curiosity. She had broken through his reserves before. She had made him feel like a tool, yes, but a powerful, devastating one.
“You don’t have to let her break you,” Kioni whispered in the dark. She was awake too, her back against his. “We are here. We set the pace.”
“She doesn’t want pace,” Aidan said, the words hollow. “She wants to drown.”
“Then you don’t let her pull you under. You are the source. Remember that. You are the flood, not her.”
The next day, the air in the hut felt heavier. The first nine women passed in a haze. He performed, he watched for that fleeting moment of transformation, he conserved his strength. The ninth left. The hut was silent, empty except for his wives, Elara, and the waiting shadows.
Then Nalia entered.
She looked different. Not softer, but more concentrated. The wild desperation had been refined into a single, terrible focus. Her belly was just beginning to curve. She ignored everyone, her eyes locking onto Aidan.
She didn’t speak. She simply approached, her movements deliberate, and pushed him onto his back. Her strength was surprising. She straddled him, taking him inside in one smooth, deep motion that made his vision spark. No hesitation, no build-up.
It wasn’t about pleasure. It was about consumption.
She set a brutal, grinding rhythm, her hands planted on his chest, her head thrown back. Elara watched, enthralled. Kioni took a step forward, but Sable put a restraining hand on her arm, a silent warning. This was beyond negotiation now.
Aidan gritted his teeth. The numbness was gone, burned away by a searing, overloaded sensation that was too much, always too much. He tried to retreat into his mind, but she was everywhere, the smell of her, the sound of her rough breaths, the overwhelming, claiming heat of her.
Her eyes snapped open, looking down at him. “Give it to me,” she breathed, the words a guttural command. “All of it. The blessing is mine.”
And something in him broke. Not a breakdown, but a breakthrough. A furious, surrendering rush. He stopped resisting. He stopped conserving. He met her grinding pace with a thrust so deep and sharp it knocked a choked scream from her throat. He wasn’t a tool being used. He was the hand wielding it. He poured everything into her—the fatigue, the resentment, the strange, burgeoning power—and watched as her face shattered into something beyond triumph, beyond joy. It was annihilation.
When it was over, she collapsed onto him, trembling violently, whispering into his neck. Elara let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Yes. The root is watered. The blessing is secure.”
Kioni and Leela helped peel Nalia away. Aidan lay on the floor, utterly spent, his heart hammering against his ribs. He was empty. Drained.
But as they carried him back to their hut, a single, clear thought echoed in the void.
He had drowned her first.