Chapter 24: Neck Offering

Time: Judgment 3, 8237 3:50 PM

I was sitting in a chair by Shephatiah's bed. There was a small reading lamp on by my side, and a thick notebook in my lap that I wasn't paying much attention to. I was quietly waiting for my new wife to wake up.

I was surprised she was still asleep, and I was starting to be concerned. Over the last twenty minutes, her body had jerked several times, as if in distress, and then would settle back down into peaceful sleep, her breathing deep and slow. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my own breathing.

Calming myself did not come easy. I kept running words through my mind over and over again, what I wanted to say. So much would depend on if and how Shephatiah accepted me. My memories flew back to more than a year ago. Abby had gasped in shock and panic when she realized her memories were still intact. As a precaution now, I had locked the bedroom door. I hated doing it, but Abigail's life was also at risk, not just mine.

Would Shephatiah accept me? Would she try to run out of the room screaming? Oh, I prayed she would accept me. I offered the Holy a prayer of hope.

I opened my eyes. Two bright eyes from the bed stared back into mine. So bright! Abigail was rated 0.9, and Shephatiah lower at 0.7, but Shephatiah's eyes were alive with intelligence, so impossibly bright and alive! I cleared my throat and tried to speak.

Nothing came out. Shephatiah decided to speak first. "Are you my husband?"

I stared at her and nodded my head.

"Please sire, where is my marriage book?"

I pointed to the night-table behind her.

"Thank you husband," she said calmly. She rolled over and turned on a second light and began reading the book, sitting in a lotus position on the bed. Her marriage book was in her lap, and she was completely at ease with her nakedness before me.

I tried not to stare. Her body was so physically arousing, with firm, very fit upturned breasts, light, pinkish nipples, larger and much lighter than Abigail's or Michal's. Abigail is a bit leggy, Michal a bit long-waisted, Shephatiah seemed perfectly proportioned. I shook my head to banish the thought. I didn't like the idea of comparing one wife's loveliness against another's. I also didn't like myself leering at Shephatiah's beauty. But the undersides of her breasts looked so soft and inviting. My mind wanted to dwell there, imagine me holding her there, kissing her there, suckling her there, on the tender skin under her nipples and down to her ribs. I finally tore my gaze away and tried to focus on the notebook in my lap.

I stared at some meaningless report while Shephatiah flipped through her pages. Then I heard her gasp and give a strangled cry. She leaped out of bed and knelt before me on the rug, extending a hand signal that requested permission to speak.

"Shephatiah, it's in the book, permanent permission to speak whenever you want to, whenever we're alone. Just talk."

"Thank you, Glorious Mufeto! Please forgive my rude familiarity before I read the book."

"Huh? Shephatiah, relax! And please, get off your knees. Just call me Ilias."

She raised her head from the carpet and nodded gratefully. A moment later she got up and sat on the bed facing me. Her legs were parted, and I found it impossible not to stare for a moment at her crotch. In the wedding tradition of Karbala, her pubic fur had been shaved around her vulva, making it look baby smooth, and her thick pubic fur just above it brushed and tied with a tiny white and blue ribbon. By tradition, I would untie the bow just before copulating with her.

Her public fur was golden, darker than the hair framing her face but so much lighter than the bush of... "Ilias, stop that!" I commanded myself. No comparisons!

Shephatiah saw me ogling her. She smiled and lifted her legs to sit on the bed with her legs folded, her knees near her head and her feet resting on the bed, her heels touching the bottom of her butt. She smiled and spread her legs for me. The backs of her smooth, muscular thighs looked so silky, and her feminine sex was completely lifted and on display for my enjoyment.

I gulped. The ribbon was not covering her clitoris. In fact, the ribbon was drawing my eyes to it. I could see the tiny bright pink tip of her clit emerging from its hood. Shephatiah smiled at my attention and wiggled her feet, stretching her toes and opening her legs and tensing her abdomen until her clit came out and was clearly peeking out at me, just below the white and blue ribbon. My mouth began to water as my mind raced with the thoughts of tasting and licking that cute, tiny pink button.

I shook my head in confusion. Her open offer for sex was distracting me, destroying my ability to think of anything except tasting and mounting her. With a tremendous amount of discipline, I shook myself away from my desire.

"Shephatiah, we have so much to talk about. Trust me, this room is free of bugs. How much do you remember before coming here?"

She looked at me in curiosity. "My marriage ceremony, Glorious Mufeto?"

"Yes. Please, just Ilias, unless you're uncomfortable with the informality."

She nodded. "Forgive me... I know my marriage book says I was just married today. I've received so many years of training Ilias, on how to act. I will try to please you, in all ways possible."

"Uh?" I felt a cold fear in the pit of my stomach. "Shephatiah, your memories?"

"Okay!" She gave me a shy and relaxed smile, playfully wiggling her breasts for me. I stared back in horror. What the Holy was going on?!

She continued, "I remember my train trip here yesterday. I was blindfolded at the stations so I wouldn't see any males and be defiled. I remember being taken to a medical wing very early this morning. I was told to disrobe, and then lie on a table. There were so many straps, I was afraid! Five each, I think, five for each of my arms and legs. The nurses strapped me down. Very strong webbing, I was immobilized. I could hear the Prayers of a Priest over an intercom, and IV lines were inserted into both my arms. Then there were more Prayers, lots of Prayers, offering me to the Holy as a vessel worthy of the eternity drugs."

She frowned. "And then the injections started. The first series made my mouth turn bitter. It tasted like lemons." She clicked her tongue in her mouth. "I can still taste it."

I nodded faintly. "Yes, the preparation drugs, they're known to do that. They briefly modify a key quality of one of the brain's neural transmitters. They deactivate a critical internal defense mechanism. It leaves your brain wide open and helpless against the eternity drugs." I sighed. "The taste will disappear within a week."

She looked at me in a calm, childlike curiosity. "And how do the eternity drugs work?"

I grimaced in horror, but realized if Shephatiah were brave enough to ask, it was my duty to speak. "There are two eternity proteins, delivered separately at the beginning of each of the two long eternity Prayers."

"You mean after my brain has been prepped."

"That's right. The final injections burn away your brain's ability to utilize a key mitogen-activated protein. The result is that the new short-term synaptic connections you make during the day are unable to hold their form. They are completely scrambled by your sleep cycle." I grimaced at the horror and whispered, "Either drug alone will cause catastrophic damage. Together they completely eliminate the brain's ability to form new long-term memories. And the damage is permanent."

She nodded back thoughtfully. "Thank you Ilias. Such knowledge was kept from us girls at the monastery, how the drugs work I mean."

"Shephatiah?"

"Yes Ilias?"

"What do you remember next?"

"What? Oh! Yes husband! Well, there were more Prayers, and the then the final two Prayers of Consecration, very long. Now I understand what they do."

"The Prayers are timed to maximize efficacy of the drugs."

"Oh... I remember lying there, strapped down and crying. The lights in the room became very bright."

"It wasn't the lights. The preparation drugs dilated the pupils in the eyes. It's just another side effect."

"Ah. Well, I think I can see okay now."

"Shephatiah?"

"Yes?"

"After the lights became bright, what happened then?"

"Well, then, here I am now."

I gasped in pain. How have I failed?! In my zeal to protect my identity, how did I make the control override so complex that it failed to function?! My heart broke with the thought that my lack of courage had hurt this precious woman so!

Shephatiah looked in curiosity at my pain. "Ilias? Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?" She rose from the bed and stood before me.

I waved my hand at her. "No, please Shephatiah, sit down. I have so much to tell you, and..." I gasped and began to cry, "... a lifetime of apologies to offer you." I spent the next half hour describing everything, my attempt to save her from the drugs, how I had saved Abigail, my life's dedication to the Holy to end this monstrous virginity practice.