Once a Ing

Once a King

Part 21: The Spells of Fertility

This was a spell of correction.

Anastasia continued training me in the duties of the King--the importance of the retention of the seed; through repeated denial of release--the final release would be more fruitful.

This 'spell of correction' had been created by the Sisters' predecessors for a specific reason--the first King depositing his precious seed prematurely often outside of the seed gate.

While this was no different (indeed he was much better in actually inseminating the woman) than the average male Bagnisko, it was unsettling for some of the women who had expected a somewhat more impressive 'performance' from the Mythical King of Bagnisko.

The sisters had worked out that a more impressive King, also bolstered their image. All of this was secondary to the pressing issue of Bagnisko--the isolated land. Decades without new blood was seriously inbred. The issue was infertility, impotence among the males, and horribly deformed infants when a woman was successfully impregnated and gave birth.

For all of the first King's sins, there had been a noticeable increase in healthy live births. This alone helped maintain the Myth of the King. But a King could not be manufactured, he had to be a virile outsider. True, occasional outcasts did stumble into Bagnisko, but often they were diseased, starved and soon died. Their existence was not greatly known in Bagnisko. Mostly, they died in the swamp, despite the help of the Swamp Dwellers. Those that made it to the Sisters, rarely survived long. Pawel was the first hardy individual to make it to the Sisters in a healthy state, since the first King.

Finally, the Way of the King was completed. Daily sessions on the importance of the retention of my seed. The King's seed and really Bagniskos seed, continued. My seed was mine no longer. I owed my existence--my food, my shelter, my comfort--to the Sisters, the Wise Women of Bagnisko. In return, my seed was theirs, and not theirs but more broadly, my seed was the future of Bagnisko.

More lessons followed. I walked the Way...Learning to walk stealthily, silently. I walked at night with moonlight and without; the Way must be walked swiftly, silently. A glamor from Lena helped. The glamor did not make the King invisible, but transformed the King into a wraith...no one should be spying on the King, or in the King's Way, but if they did, they would be frightened away and overawed by the power of the King.

From the walking and the work on the Way, I was in peak physical shape. In the stypia, I was lean but lean to the point of starvation. With good food, rest and hard exercise, I was more muscular, and my endurance was high.

I had learned to control my seed. I now needed to learn about women, the Women of Bagnisko.

I had known women, but only a few in the stypia. As the Coicie had controlled my arousal, they used me in a manner that pleased them. Without their control, I had to re-learn the needs of women.

And the Women of Bagnisko were as different as the men.

The men (though fit from hard work) were addicted to hard drink and apathy. Their seed sack and penis, although well formed, above the standard of the men of the People, were condemned to inactivity. Except in season, the seed sacks served no purpose and the penises were merely piss hoses.

The Women of Bagnisko, it was true, were not fertile out of season, but their pleasure organs functioned perfectly; it was so to cement the pair bonds that they formed.

In season, their pleasure helped open their seed gate. Hence, the rule that the Bonded Partner always be present at the coupling with a Bagnisko male. Indeed, the Men of Bagnisko rarely could pleasure the females but could on occasion still impregnate them despite being often impotent.

One of Calina's pre-Fertility Time duties was instructing young men that, indeed, their 'piss hose' could be stiffened (enough) to enter a seed gate.

It was a duty she enjoyed, rather too much, and there was some grumbling that her enthusiasm resulted in men getting erections quickly, but then soon losing their seed before it was shot into the woman's womb.

This Lena learned when counseling the Bonded Pairs of women. Often, in her counseling, the failings of the Bagnisko males during the Time of Fertility were detailed. It was not that they were brutes, the women looked forward to a difference. A novelty from the lovemaking of their bonded partner. Bagnisko males often were too deferential, respectful of the women. Not at all the beasts of lust and fertility, the women expected.

The men were often intimidated by the Bonded Pairs, because no Bagnisko man could be alone with a woman, the mating must occur with her Bonded Partner present. The Bonded Partner ensured that the seed gate was opened by pleasuring her mate.

The Way was clear, the King's Way was ready. Anastasia and I would run the length of the Way every night, leading up to the Time of Fertility.

We would end the run at the tower at the coast. We would strip and perform the ritual training that would prepare the King to do his duty. On the night of the full moon, we were on the roof of the tower.

At the rising of the moon, Anastasia cast the spell of correction on me. I rose to meet her eyes...and then, through silent gestures, turned to face not her, but the rising moon over the sea. The reflection of the moon on the sea appeared to be a luminescence that traveled over the waters to the base of the cliff, on which the tower was built.

I experienced the greatest intensity of the spell of correction up to that point. The pleasure of the arousal tested the limits of my self-control. I despaired in meeting the test this time. I had been so successful in the past, but this sensation of the rising of the moon and its luminescence reflected on the sea, proved to be nearly too much.

To add to the intensity of pleasure, I saw as the moon rose in the night sky, the faces of the Coicie I had known intimately -- Ionica, Genowefa, Alla -- and not just their faces as before in the swamp, but the full glory of their naked bodies in the moonlight. They did not appear together as before, but each would present herself fully for a time and slowly fade until another appeared. They appeared and faded in no order, but continued to present themselves happy and whole, intensely perfected in the moonlight, perhaps by the power of the moon, itself.

My passion for them; for all fertile women, continued to grow...I felt I was to fail this test at any moment, but I endured. I endured through a humming that was in my ear, no not in my ear--in my body, vibrating every fiber, giving me endurance even in the extremities of pleasure.

When the moon was full above me and the last vision faded, I saw in the moon a woman I did not know, but who was made known to me in that moment. The goddess that controlled the fertility cycle in the Bagnisko, she was indescribably beautiful and intensely sensual...my eyes were drawn into hers, and her fertility was to be honored...her image was reflected on the sea and in her honor; the honor and fertility of all the women of the Bagnisko, my seed shot from my hardened organ of generation in a high arc, until it fertilized the goddess in the sea.

I fell. I was senseless; as senseless as after too much samahon; nude, exhausted, coated in the sweat of the magic, I had experienced. In this state, I registered that something else, some other magic, was happening not only to me, but in me and around me.

My body remained inert on the stone floor of that tower; my spirit floated about, a drunken spirit, what else could explain what the spirit observed. Below, Lena or the wraith of Lena entered my body, or as before, perhaps my body merged with hers--a shimmering man/woman, dark, light, short and shorter feminine in the extreme and very masculine, a mystery and an impossibility.

I--we were on our backs, still bathed in the light of the setting moon, the light of the goddess. Other figures, wraiths appeared, the two were undeniably women. One was Anastasia, who for a time, had disappeared from the rooftop where she had made magic with me. Next was Calina.

Anastasia was still nude. She slowly, ritually disrobed Calina whose garments appeared to be consumed by an intense fire as soon as removed from her body. The removal of her garments caused Calina to shiver, as though from a great cold and yet her body glowed, as though warmed internally, unnaturally.

They both reclined on the stone roof of the tower, each to one side of me/Lena; our heads nearly touching our bodies separated at the feet by a hand's breadth. We formed a triangle, an arrowhead, the apex of which pointed at the moon.

Anastasia started the chant which was then echoed by Calina, and then finally answered by Lena/Pawel.

Anastasia: "Goddess, we await your time."

Calina: "The Time of Fertility."

Lena/Pawel: "May the man seed breed the womb of the Woman."

This, we chanted over and over, beyond the setting of the moon until the rise of the sun.

In the dawn light I awoke, alone. Tonight, the Season, the Time of Fertility, will begin.

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