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 different circumstances. 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 want is to 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, its observation 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.
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.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made the images worse. The painting of Anya draped over Hendrick’s knee. The diorama of the bride kneeling before her groom. Glomana’s serene expression as she described the joy of submission.
My body felt strange—warm in places it shouldn’t be, despite the cool air of the observation car. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, pressing my thighs together, trying to ignore the sensation building between them.
This was exactly what Ms. Opalin had warned me about. The Magisterians would try to confuse me, to make me doubt my own values, to awaken feelings that contradicted everything I believed about equality and freedom. I needed to stay focused, to remember who I was and what I stood for.
But Glomana hadn’t seemed confused. She hadn’t seemed oppressed or broken. She had seemed… happy.
The train began to ascend, and suddenly we were approaching the surface.
The ice gave way to the thin atmosphere of Magisteria’s exterior, and I found myself staring at a landscape unlike anything I had ever imagined.
The planet’s surface was a frozen wasteland of crystalline formations and sweeping plains of snow that caught the light of Magisteria’s distant sun in spectacular refractions.
Strange ice formations rose like sculptures, shaped by winds that had blown for centuries across this inhospitable terrain.
“It’s beautiful,” Mabola whispered beside me.
It was beautiful. Alien and harsh and utterly beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.
Just like that painting of Anya had been beautiful, in its own disturbing way. The composition, the use of light and shadow, the expression on her face that I still couldn’t quite interpret.
The train descended back into the ice, returning us to the warmth and safety of the underground facility.
The journey back to the reception center seemed to pass in moments, though I knew it must have taken the same amount of time as the outward trip.
I was too lost in my own thoughts to track the minutes properly.
When we arrived, Ms. Haspor stood and addressed us. “Now, girls, we’re going to proceed to what I consider the most important part of today’s visit. Please follow me.”
She led us through yet another series of corridors until we reached a small theater.
On the little stage was a piece of furniture that I didn’t recognize, except that it bore a slight resemblance to an examination chair from a gynecologist’s office.
My attention, though, was drawn by a more immediate furniture-related problem: the seats in the audience of the theater, though definitely identifiable as such, were also unlike any I had seen before—padded and comfortable-looking, but with seat bottoms apparently molded to receive the backside of a young woman.
I felt heat mount to my cheeks just looking at their curved contours.
The surface seemed to be upholstered in high-quality synthetic leather.
“Take your seats,” Ms. Haspor instructed. “And please note that these chairs are equipped with monitoring technology. Your responses today are being evaluated.”
My stomach dropped. Evaluated. This was the part where I had to be at my strongest, but I felt terribly confused.
I sat down hesitantly. To my dismay, the seat felt warm and much too welcoming under my naked bottom. Around me, my classmates were settling into their own seats, some looking nervous, others—like Brequa—almost eager.
The lights dimmed, and a figure walked onto the small stage at the front of the theater.
He was tall, imposing, with striking blue skin that seemed to shimmer even in the low light.
His uniform marked him as a high-ranking officer, the purple and silver insignia of the Magisterian star fleet prominent on his chest.
“Good afternoon, young women of Hippolyta,” he said, his voice carrying easily through the space. “My name is Captain Alpha of the star fleet cruiser Prince Hend. I want to begin by explaining exactly what is happening here today.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping across all of us. When his eyes met mine, I felt something clench in my stomach.
“The seats you’re sitting in are monitoring your physiological responses—heart rate, skin temperature, pupil dilation, and other markers.
You are being evaluated for potential positions in Magisterian civil service or military.
This is not optional. It is a condition that the Magisterian authorities have made for Hippolyta’s continued independence. ”
I wanted to stand up, to protest, to demand to know by what right they could evaluate us like this. But I remained frozen in my seat, my heart pounding so hard I was certain their sensors were recording every frantic beat.
“All Hippolytan girls,” Alpha continued, “are introduced in this way to certain realities about life, about Magisteria, and about the opportunities available to them. What you are about to witness is a demonstration of authentic Magisterian relationships and power dynamics. I ask that you observe with open minds.”
He gestured toward the wings of the stage. “Please welcome my wife, Sala.”