CHAPTER 2
Jendra
“Follow me, girls,” Ms. Haspor said, as casually as if she were fully clothed.
We filed out of the cloak room into another corridor, our bare feet padding softly on the plush carpet. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead, trying not to think about the fact that I was walking naked through a Magisterian facility, trying not to imagine what would happen if we encountered anyone.
We did encounter someone: a woman, also naked, waiting for us in a large atrium. She was perhaps thirty, with dark hair cascading over her shoulders and a serene expression on her face. I had to suppress some sort of noise—a whimper or a cry of surprise, I couldn’t even tell which—down in my throat as I saw that like Ms. Haspor, this woman’s pussy was smooth and bare. I couldn’t look right at Mabola out of embarrassment, but out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see that her face, too, had gone red.
“Welcome, young women of Hippolyta,” she said warmly. “My name is Glomana, and I will be your guide today through our Museum of Magisterian Heritage. Please, follow me.”
The museum itself was impressive, I had to admit, though I would never have said so aloud. The first room we entered was dedicated to the founding families of Magisteria—those who had left Earth centuries ago seeking a place where they could practice what they called ‘traditional values.’
Glomana stopped before a glass case. We peered inside—it seemed to contain nothing but a worn leather strap with a wooden handle. “This,” she explained, “belonged to Hendrick the Elder, one of our founding fathers. He used it to discipline his wives and concubines when they needed correction.”
My stomach turned. Needed correction. As if women were children or malfunctioning machines.
On the wall nearby hung a large painting that drew my reluctant attention. It depicted a bearded man—presumably Hendrick—seated with a naked woman draped over his knee. His arm was raised, the strap in his hand, and the woman’s buttocks were painted an angry red. Her face, turned toward the viewer, wore an expression I couldn’t quite interpret. Pain, certainly, but something else too. Something that made my own face grow hot.
“Hendrick’s wife Anya,” Glomana said softly, noticing my stare. “According to his journals, she was his favorite, and the one who needed the most frequent reminders of her place.”
I tore my eyes away from the painting, my heart hammering.
The next room, to my relief, focused on the discovery of gravitium. It was filled with mining equipment and technical displays that would have interested me under differentcircumstances. But I could barely concentrate, still thinking about that painting, about the expression on Anya’s face.
The third room showcased the history of the Magisterian royal family. Portraits lined the walls, generation after generation of stern-faced men and demure women, most of them to my mortification just as naked as I was—but with their folded hands and downcast eyes, no less demure for all that. It was the diorama in the center of the room, though, that drew gasps from several of my classmates and made me approach with hesitant but irrepressible curiosity.
It depicted a royal wedding ceremony in miniature but exquisite detail. The groom stood in elaborate purple robes, while the bride knelt naked before him. And in her mouth—I felt my face burning hotter than it ever had before—in her mouth was his… his rigid penis. The scene was so anatomically explicit, so unapologetically clear about what was happening, that I couldn’t look away.
“This represents the traditional Magisterian royal wedding oath,” Glomana explained, her voice still calm and warm. “The bride demonstrates her submission and devotion to her husband in the most intimate way possible. It is considered a sacred moment.”
The words burst out of me before I could stop them. “How can you possibly bear to serve a man like that?”
Silence fell over the room. I felt Ms. Haspor’s sharp gaze on me immediately.
“Jendra, that question is inappropriate,” she said, her voice carrying a warning that made my stomach lurch.
But Glomana smiled gently. “No, Ms. Haspor, I understand. It must seem very strange to these young women.” She turned to me, her eyes kind. “I understand your confusion, truly I do. But you see, I love my master. To have his penis in my mouth makes me very happy because it makes his penis hard, and that means it feels good to him. Giving him pleasure is my greatest joy.”
I stared at her, searching her face for any sign of coercion, of hidden resentment, of the oppression that must surely lurk beneath her words. But I found only contentment, a genuine warmth that unsettled me more than anger would have.
“But don’t you want… anything for yourself?” I pressed, unable to let it go.
Glomana’s smile deepened. “What I wantisto serve him. That’s what you don’t understand yet—and you may never understand, I know. His happiness is my happiness. His pleasure is my pleasure.” She paused, then added softly, “When I kneel before him and take him in my mouth, when I feel him grow hard because of what I’m doing… there’s no feeling in the galaxy quite like it.”
My throat felt tight. Those pictures were trying to surface again in my mind—the ones I’d pushed away that night in the dormitory, the ones that had made me stop touching myself because they had frightened me with their intensity as much as with their content, the troubling story they had tried to tell.
After we had finished the museum visit, with a room that thankfully contained nothing but models and images depicting the Federation’s triumph over the Vionian revolt and then the Vionian Empire itself, Glomana bid us farewell. Ms. Haspor led us through another series of corridors to what was a sort of transit station. A sleek train waited on magnetic rails, itsobservation car made almost entirely of transparent material that would offer panoramic views of our journey.
“We’ll be touring the original gravitium mines,” Ms. Haspor announced as we filed into the car, still naked, our bare skin pressing against the cool seats. “The Magisterian Communications Office decided to turn them into a vast museum testifying to the Federation’s heritage. Then we’ll travel through the ice itself before briefly emerging onto the planet’s surface.”
I took a seat near the window, grateful for any distraction from the thoughts swirling in my head. The train began to move, gliding silently through tunnels carved deep beneath Magisteria’s frozen crust.
The mines appeared first—vast caverns lit by artificial lights, with machinery that looked both ancient and meticulously maintained. I watched as we passed extraction sites where the rare gravitium ore had first been discovered, the veins of purplish metallic material still visible in the rock walls. Under different circumstances, I would have found it fascinating. I should have found it fascinating.
But all I could think about was Glomana’s face. Her contentment. Her genuine happiness as she spoke about serving her master.
The train entered a section where the ice walls were visible through reinforced viewing panels. Brequa pressed her face against the glass, exclaiming at the way the light refracted through layers of frozen water that had accumulated over millennia. I stared at the ice too, but I wasn’t really seeing it.
