Life and Times of a Priestess: Ch.11 : Dumis (Part 1 - Section 2)

     Danella went with Ravelleon everywhere in those two weeks.  His duties were not onerous at this moment and he could delegate some of his duller duties to underlings amongst his staff.  The war was in a quiet phase as supplies were regenerated and gains consolidated.  It seemed that Pirion was unable to mount an effective counterattack.  Their armies ran at the approach of the Vanmarians.  Life was too precious to them and they would not stand.  He kept this knowledge from Danella largely.  He knew her sympathies and could understand them to some extent.  They were her countrymen.  He surprised himself that he could love one of the enemy so much, but she was beautiful and she was a woman.  That made her an exception.  All men would make allowances for such as her.  He could live with her criticisms of his calling, and his opinions.  He enjoyed arguing with her when they were not engaged in love.  She was intelligent, more so than his wife, who contented herself with the chit chat of women’s concerns and had little interest in the war, or in what her husband did when he was away from home for most of the year.  She helped him to understand the people of Pirion better, but she remained ignorant of the truth of her nation’s sloth, of how it had sunk into thick sand while the free nations of Vanmar cut through the waves, building speed with progress and development while man grew in material wealth and achievement.  But he found he could understand more about how the people of Pirion lived and worked.  They were not schooled to be soldiers any more than they were to create inventions or raise their children to achieve something in life.  Her descriptions of her people confirmed his impressions of their soft weakness.  They were susceptible to the laziness of the flesh, all of them.  Given a choice between building and making plenty, and the sloth of spending all of time in orgies of self congratulated and shallow introductions to strangers, they chose the easy lazy route, and they never achieved anything with their lives.

    He had found, since Danella had enmeshed him in the web of her charms, that his own life had achieved a greater balance.  He had been missing something when he had only his wife to give him the relief he needed.  They had a good marriage.  He had chosen well, and she served him and raised the children well.  She had been a virgin at their marriage as all good women were in Prancir and it had been up to him to teach her the joys of love.  Even to this day she would not suck his penis, even though since his affair with Danella had begun he had once again tried to persuade her, when he visited her in the country, that it was acceptable and pleasurable between a man and a wife.  She had refused as he knew she would.  “That is disgusting, where have you gained the idea that that is normal?” she had asked.  He had not liked the suspicion in her eyes when she asked that, but afterwards he sensed a sort of pity of him in her, as if it was he that had been at fault for imagining that such practices might be normal.

     It was a woman’s superiority which she had displayed.  Even though he was the master of the house and the breadwinner there were some things in which women seemed to regard themselves as having special knowledge.  The province of love and marriage, and all sexual matters which came within that, were deemed to be theirs.  When men transgressed from the rules women had declared they were to be admonished, deprived of sex or pitied.  His wife had chosen the latter, so it seemed.  There was a certain humour in her attitude as if it were the suggestion of a child, and not of a mighty General who had seen far more of the world than she had.  He had wondered why she felt no excitement for such variation of sex.  Surely she must be curious to find out what it was like to take the thick erect penis of the man who was her husband into her mouth for the first time.  It gave him excitement with Danella and it would have with his wife, but in her there was no sign of curiosity, only condemnation and pity.  Maybe she wanted only those techniques of love which would serve her more directly.  Otherwise she was an enthusiastic lover.  She knew she had a good man, a strong man.  They had always liked to kiss and cuddle and the act of love was often prolonged and mutually satisfying.

     Since he had met Danella he had tried to introduce other techniques of the priestesses to his wife.  She would not let him lick her private parts but he had begun to stroke her privates far more than ever before.  He had always tried to satisfy his wife but his experiences with Danella made him realise that he had rarely satisfied her fully.  A woman required a full and long stimulation for the fulfilment of her pleasure.  They had always held each other and stroked each other but now he spent long periods massaging his wife and had been able to persuade her to massage him all over.  She had taken to these new practices with much enthusiasm as if it had been something she had desired in the past but been too polite to ask.  He wondered if she ever wondered at the changes he had brought to their lovemaking.  She had commented that she liked it and asked where he had got the ideas.  He said he had heard about these techniques from other soldiers.  When they were alone without female company at the front men talked more openly about the pleasures they had left behind them, it was only natural.  “That’s disgusting,” she had said, referring to the idea that men should talk about private things between themselves, “Even women do not do that.  You know you will create a bad impression among your fellow soldiers if you participate in such conversations.”

      By comparison with his wife, Danella was so refreshing.  She would do anything in bed and was always willing to serve his every need.  She seemed to take pleasure from making him happy or excited.  It felt like real love should be although he knew that, as a priestess and as a prostitute in Dalos, she was like that with all her customers.  The idea bothered him.  He knew now that he did feel love towards her and although her actions were like real love he did not trust her entirely.  Yes, she obviously liked him sufficiently to want to be with him.  She had given up her life in Dalos to be with him as his mistress in Prancir, but she had been one of the conquered in Dalos, a second class citizen, forced into a life of prostitution, which few Vanmarian women would have accepted.  She had every reason to have accepted his offer just to get away from that sordid life – and yet he had to remind himself, the Pirionite Priestesses did not consider it sordid, they did what they were used to and had no thought of complaining.  Incredible, he thought to himself.  Sometimes he even accepted that it would be a pity if the women of Pirion became more like the women of Prancir, cold, calculating, greedy and opinionated so often.  He had to remind himself that Danella had chosen to leave her friends and compatriots behind in Dalos.  She had done that for him.  What other reason could there be than that she must love him.  She had told him that she wanted to travel the world to see the places she had never seen as a Priestess of Pirion, but there was no reason why she should not have that desire.  She wanted to see Prancir with him.

    And so for two weeks he had taken her out to see the city Dumis – operas, plays at the theatres, restaurants serving the best and the most varied foods in the world.  They had together seen the buildings, the ruins of the ancient temples, the monasteries and abbeys still functioning, the brightest and best of the newer buildings on wide tree lined avenues which had befitted a new Empire, the towers built to the glory of Prancir and progress. In the early evenings or the late afternoons, and often the mornings as well, they had lain in Ravelleon’s huge four post bed making love vigorously and gently, in turns, for hours and hours.  It had been the best two weeks of his life.  He had never realised that a person could have so much pleasure.  Until now his life had been one of duty and of the competition to succeed.  He had enjoyed good times with his wife, many times over the years, and even with previous girlfriends in the old days, but the good times were always bound by the need to show an acceptable face, or by the requirement to return to duty, or by his wife's judgements of what was right and wrong, and of course by the children also.  The last two weeks were a great pleasure, but even so he must return to duty and he would be away from his new love for most of the time.