Life and Times of a Priestess: Ch.8 : Winter In The Occupied City (Part 4: Return Of The Men Of Dalos)

Chapter 8 : Winter In The Occupied City

Part 4 : Return Of The Men Of Dalos

    Gerald informed Sreela that many of the men of Dalos who still worked at the construction camps and at the factories outside the city boundaries were to be allowed to return to the city.  The camps on the outside of the city were to be dismantled and the prisoners would henceforth be treated as low paid workers in the Prancirian way. They would be given enough money to feed themselves and to cover the other costs of living and they would be allowed to travel out to work in the new factories each day.  They were to be rehoused in the city dwellings which were not being used by the Prancirian Army or by those other Prancirians who had come out to work in the new colony.  Those who had been citizens of the city before the conquest were allowed to return to their own homes if they were not being used by the Prancirians, and more importantly allowed to return to their partners and children in the town. They were not the first to return.  First older men had been allowed to return to live and help to look after the women and children.  The old Pirionite systems of food and goods supply had naturally broken down after the conquest.  The farms which supplied the city in the countryside had ceased production during the siege and, as the men were imprisoned, had not been able to continue immediately afterwards.  Then the Prancirians had freed the farmers for production under military discipline. 

     The old balance of social groups, in which each group had known their own place in society and been confident in the sensible fair exchange and distribution of commodities, had gone in the new Vanmarian world.  At first the Prancirians enforced production of food with priority to their own soldiers.  Now they introduced a money reward system like their own in Vanmar.  The farms were paid for their production, but the farms made insufficient money to enable them to purchase much other produce of other types.  They found they were poorer than before in the new Vanmarian economy.  The people of Dalos were used to giving their own labour to communally beneficial activities in return for the benefits of being a member of a community which supplied everything they needed from food to social and sexual needs.  Now they existed in a different world.  There was no longer a Pirionite City Council to direct their labours and ensure a secure life for them.  They were plunged into a new life where money was to be earned and if they could not earn sufficient they must learn to go short on commodities.

    Thankfully being Pirionite they were not likely to starve themselves of  the sexual companionship they were used to as they found themselves living a life less plentiful in material terms.  They had recently suffered sexual deprivation since the conquest of the city.  The women had been initially deprived of their Pirionite partners and lovers when at least half the men were taken to work camps outside the city.  To women of Pirion, unused to the absence or shortage of physical comfort it had been a shock which had lasted many months as only gradually did more of their men return.  Initially the other women of the city like the Priestesses had been abused by their conquerors. In the aftermath of bloodshed fear had hung over them.  They had not resisted their conquerors when they turned to rape but neither had the experience for most been a pleasant one.  Fear had been an essential part of these experiences for women who had never known fear and uncertainty for their own lives or futures before.  As for the Priestesses, life had been harrowing for the first few days.

     As events settled and the soldiers were brought under control life had begun to improve again.  Some of the younger women were placed with Priestesses in the dormitories to ‘work’ as ‘prostitutes’ for the invading army.  So these women, like Sreela and Danella’s group of Priestesses, had been able to continue their regular sexual worship (of the Goddess), albeit with men who were not usually as knowledgeable or understanding of the sexual world of the Goddess as Pirionite men.  Other women, perhaps less attractive or older or who were not Priestesses and had not been included in the ‘brothels’ with the Priestesses, remained in their own homes looking after the children and each other.  For them an unusual period of sexual rationing occurred.  As the fear of the soldiers dissipated and they began to see some of them as potential friends some ladies who were able or desiring of such relationships began to entertain soldiers in their homes.  Their Pirionite upbringing enabled them to be sexually forthright with soldiers whom they could separate from the groups in which most soldiers moved. Being unused to Pranciran ways they were unaware that many soldiers would have been only too happy to pay them small fees which would have been so much cheaper than the ones which applied at the ‘brothels’. 

     They might have saved money which they would need in the hard economic times ahead.  It took some months before many of these women realised that they might earn the money which they now needed in this way.  Some soldiers forged close relationships with the women.  However, there were many of the women who continued to resent and fear the conquerors.  Not being Priestesses and thrust into regular interaction with the soldiers, they remained wary and even hating of them.  Many of these women were therefore restricted in their ‘lovemaking’ to each other, which to many women was not a sufficient substitute for the absent males, or to the few Pirionite males allowed to visit the city.  As the men of Pirion returned at last from the camps their pent up frustrations could finally be released.

     The returning men had suffered far worse than the women, and not only by the absence of sex.  They had at times, largely near the beginning of their incarceration and forced labour, suffered hunger and overwork which had damaged their health.  The psychological impact on men who had lived an easy and enjoyable life before the war had been obvious too.  Conditions had improved  somewhat from the beginning however, and finally they were returning home, and to enjoy the privileges of wage labourers, no longer to be treated as mere prisoners of war, even while war continued to rage to south, west and east.  But the Prancirians considered themselves humane rulers, unlike the Vanmandrians.  Opinion at home and amongst some Generals and officers dictated that a period of normality in their occupied territories begin.

     While away most prisoners had no sexual fulfilment unless it had been in periods where they had worked to repair buildings in Dalos itself and had been lucky enough to be able to enjoy the pleasures of the Goddess with a woman of Dalos, in some hurried moment of privacy.  Under guard such pleasure was forbidden and impossible.  In captivity it was sometimes possible, at night usually, for some men to take comfort with each other if they wished.  Most Pirionite men had on occasions tried such experiences although relatively few practised them regularly. In Pirion a man who preferred women rarely communed with other men.  However, there were many men who were genuinely bisexual and many who preferred their own sex.  In Pirion such activity was encouraged in the worship of the Goddess. These men found ways to hide from the guards and  practise their own natural habits.  Others joined them because of the absence of women.  But most men engaged little in this activity and tended to relieve themselves alone where possible.

     At the time of the Prancirians’ winter festival the men from the camps were allowed back into the city in groups.  As the Prancirians were celebrating a few days of holiday the men of Dalos were allowed back to live in the city.  The soldiers guarding them escorted them into the city, returning themselves for the festival.  Most of them would be given a small room unless they could lay claim to their own homes, partners and children.