A/N hey guys! So this is the first story I'm posting here-please do let me know what you think! I have so much planned for this story, and just a warning: it's not for happy people. And remember, all sorts of creators live and breathe for comments and feedback (at least this one does)! Please enjoy.

They had prepared me for this. They had. But for some things, there is no preparation; only the precipitous leap that leads to the main event.

I had been legally an adult for a while when I was recruited for this. It was a stroke of bad luck that the last vessel was now out of commission around the same time I was deemed sufficiently mature, but not too old, to be presented before the Oracle, the one who maintained the divine connection between the Council and the Gods.

There I stood, half dressed with a group of unmarried females that varied from very young ages to quite mature and sagging states. The old crone had singled me out of the bunch at once, pointing at me with her bony fingers to come closer.

It is not my intention to be vain, but I know fully well why I was picked—I was small and dainty, long and brown-haired and pretty. Easily handled, and easy for men to use as a receptacle for their seed.

Everything was frighteningly clear to me. My role in this, the aim of the Council, the endless challenges I would face… If only I could go back to my days of youthful ignorance. How ideal everything was to me! There was only one last thing that confounded me to no end; it was how my own parents could sell me out the way they did, at the drop of a few mere sanctimonious words, the gift of some coins, and the name of the Gods and nation.

The Holy Vessel... as if. I was a whore.

The week preceding the opening ceremony had been a tumultuous one, with the family shop being overrun by overeager customers who gathered provisions for the winter coming fast on us. The actual day of the ceremony had been equally horrible. It was cold and damp out. The preparations were torture; the water they used to scrub every inch of my body was scalding, standing in the sun at midday in the sweltering heat—because of course it would get warm all of a sudden, when I needed it not to be—as they styled my hair on the balcony was sheer torture. If I could, I would mock the entire pre-ceremonial preparations, right before the Council. It was as if they believed men needed any sort of encouragement to inflame their passion…

They put me in a cold room at the top of a building meant only for the highest order of ceremonies. It was my first time in this establishment; everything was so modern here that I could not help but gape—the high walls built out of fine stone, the elaborate bed with the delicately woven linens, the golden chandeliers that cast everything in what I might have considered a romantic light, if it were not for these obscene plans built around using my body.

It was as large and intimidating as it was awe-inspiring. It was a small mercy that the Council had allowed my mother in with me, even if she was only to remain for a short while. But it was a good thing as well; I doubt many offsprings would be happy letting their parents watch them doing that.

Her time was quickly approaching. She hadn't been a particularly soothing presence with her coolness and functional affections, but she was better than nothing. She was to leave ten minutes before the ninth hour. My heart felt more and more imbalanced every time I glanced at the clock, because time seemed to be flying by.

"Mother," I said in a voice that bordered on frightened whimpering.

"You'll be alright, my love," said my mother with no feeling and perfunctory stroke to my head. "Just don't forget why you are here." I wanted to frown at her. She could seem so unfeeling when she was afraid.

Yes, certainly, I should relax by remembering that my sole purpose here is to have a child put in me by a group of strange men. "I wish you could stay, Mother," I said instead of the number of profanities I wanted to hurl at her. I meant it. No matter how aloof she could be, she was my mother; my only anchor to safety and sanity. She smiled at me as she would on any other day.

I began hoping she would leave. I glanced at the dial on the stone wall; there was little time left to the arrival of the men.

One of the attendants, who will remain outside the room to supervise the men from a distance (along with a tall, broad guard in armour full with the helmet that covered his entire face) when the ritual begins, brought forth a tray, with linens, a bowl of some clear, thick substance and a plain golden mask.

She dipped her fingers in the strange jelly, and kneeling before me, she made to lift my toga. I jerked away.

My mother tsked at me, shaking her head as if to tell me to hold still. The woman looked at me impatiently. "This is to ease your pain," she explained, "and to rouse the pleasure of men."

"The pleasure of men," I echoed with a sneer. "Of course. By all means, help yourself; they need all the help they can get." The woman shot her a reproachful look before approaching again.

"Rey!" chastised my mother.

Her cold fingers moved under my heavy ceremonial skirts, and shifted aside my smallclothes. My cheeks warmed as she worked between my thighs. Her fingers were so meticulous that I had to bite my lips and squeeze my eyes to keep from shuffling away. She rose back to her feet, and I was a little disappointed by how straight she kept her face. She must have been quite used to doing this.

My mother adjusted my mask over my face. She asked me if I would be more comfortable lying down; no, I most certainly would not. When I did not answer, her hand came to stroke my face; I knocked it away and left her to stand on the bannister.

The woman I now knew to be one of my chief handlers entered and announced the imminent arrival of the men. With a flurry of blessings and reassurances that I could barely register in my chaotic state, my mother left. "Remember, Rey; our family depends on this."

"Yes, Mother. I will do my duty."

I ruminated on those words during the ten minutes of silence that followed. Was it really so? Did my family depend on how well I pleased a group of men?

I swayed back and forth on the bannister, purely to entertain and give myself something to do. And then I looked down.

My heart leapt in my throat at the distance I saw between where I was and the next landing. That was when it hit me, just how easy it would be to jump.

You may think I am being dramatic; but I assure you, you do not know what it is to be torn so morbidly between the need to preserve myself in my eyes, and obscenely curious about what would happen in the evening, that you feel that death would be a kinder fate than the wait in this lonely chamber.

It was when I looked further down onto the next landing that I realised my fantasy to end my life was just that; a fantasy. There were guards up here on my ledge. They looked at me sideways with the insipid expressions of men to whom this has become routine. They could be upon me before I got a single foot up on the bannister.

This realisation made everything come crashing down. My heart plummeted all at once. I was not original, or special. I was just the pretty new whore for the Athens Stud Services to use for appeasing the Council and the Gods. Who knew what brutes I would be served to!

"Your visitors are here," the woman said. I was so startled by her appearance that I gasped, my hand flying to my throat. I snapped around, and my gaze fell on with tall men. Already I could feel my elaborate and flimsily styled hair starting to come loose. The night hadn't even begun, and I'd already embarrassed myself and helped my hair come undone with my lack of composure.

There were supposed to be several of them. This night, I counted two. Both wore masks, as decreed by the rules of this ancient rite set by the Council.

One had red hair, and he held himself in such a stiff way with his neck craned and nose in the air that I was almost convinced his spine would snap if ever someone bumped into him. His mask was fashioned in the shape of a fox. I will call him Orange.

And then there was the other one. He was tall, and dark, and while they were both silent, I could tell from his posture that he was habitually a very quiet man. Befittingly, his mask was blank, a pure black lined only with silver trimmings around the eyes. Stygian black… I'll call him Styx.

Their silence had a forbidding effect on the room; even my handler's warm presence was not enough to counteract their cool aloofness.

I stood awkwardly, unsure how to greet them. My hands were balled tightly by my side; honest to the Gods, I wanted nothing more than to bolt out of the room, even if it was by the window all the way down to the next landing.

"Hello." I inhaled sharply. That was Styx—I knew because Orange nodded in greeting, almost imperceptibly, a moment later. His deep, soft voice was intimidating… and it fit the name I gave him so well that I couldn't help a small smile of satisfaction. I hoped, however, that he wouldn't live up to the reputation of his new namesake, what with all that height and bulk.

"Hello." My own voice was barely a whisper.

We stood in the awkward silence. They didn't tell me what do. They didn't tell me anything. What was I supposed to do?

"If the vessel would lie down," said my handler ever so helpfully. "we could carry on."

"Yes," I whispered as I shuffled to the bed stiffly, trying my best to keep my head up.

Once I was on the bed, lying in the position of a dead person with my arms crossed over my chest and my face turned up at the ceiling, my handler bowed out. "I shall leave you gentlemen to it."

My blood was ringing in my ears. My cheeks were suffused with heat that was becoming unbearable inside the stifling mask.

Sandals shuffled on the floor, and the mixture of anxiety and curiousity that had been eating my mind all along came back full force.

Instinctively I angled my head forward to look at them. It was a mistake; I started to hyperventilate. They had their heads close together—they were discussing something about me. They were both so tall and broad—they could do anything to me. I could never stop them. The handler and the tall guard with the full helmet outside may not hear me if I scream. They could do anything.

A whimper escaped me, and I hated myself for being so weak and transparent.

"Just take it easy…" he trailed off, as if unsure what to call me. "Lady," he finished.

"Uh... would you like to remove your underclothes yourself, or..."

"Or?" I echoed. "Oh!" He was asking for permission. "Umm, I'll-I'm-it's fine, I'll do it." I sat up, ready to remove them, but I couldn't bring my hands to even lift my skirts.

"Actually, could I just keep it on? Could you just… leave them on?"

"As you wish," he almost sighed at length. He was going to join me on the bed. I had to stall him—in that moment, that was all I knew in the world.

"Ummm… actually…"

"Yes," he said, understanding at once as he helped me slide it off. I shivered as his large, warm hands slid up my toga to grab the edges of my underwear and tugged it down.

He straightened, and stood there awkwardly until his companion clicked his tongue. From the corner of my eyes I saw him cross his arms.

"Uh… Could you move up?"

"On the bed? Yes, can you just…" I trailed off as he followed me on the bed, pushing my knees apart.

"I'm—you'll have to open your legs," he said. His hand was apologetically posed on my thigh, but it was just nerve-wracking.

I kept shoving my skirts down without realising it. He was starting to grow irate, I could feel it in the way his hands got jauntier and they worked on me and moved the pillows around on the bed.

"Could you just… we can keep our masks on, right?" I asked.

"We have to," he responded quietly. His hand inched up my thigh,

"Can we blow the candles out?" I pleaded as I moved back on the bed when his touch grew to be too much to handle for me in my precarious state.

He looked straight at me "You know what?" he snapped as he grabbed me by the waist, suddenly out of patience. "We're doing this my way, or not at all. Let's see how your family likes displeasing the Council."

I gasped at the sudden venom, and again when he dragged me off and towards him until my legs were entirely off the bed. When I resisted him by pushing at his chest, he gathered my wrists in one hand and pinned them up over my head. He kicked my knees apart with one shove from his own knee, and before I knew what had happened, he was standing between my thighs. My hands shot down, easily making him release his grip to grab his biceps.

He reached for the back of my leg, and hitched it up high on his waist so our hips snugly fit together. "Oh, Gods," I exclaimed when I realised how aroused he was as my nails threatened to break his skin. My mind was racing—was this how it was supposed to be? It seemed to be so large, perhaps that wasn't it.

He didn't seem to care. He was grinding up against me, head thrown back. His neck was exposed, but still there was something reserved and stilted about the way he pleasured himself against me. I thought this may have had something to do with the presence of his friend.

My head fell sideways, my gaze straight on Orange. He was studying his nails.

The dark haired one was undoing the belt of his toga, and I renewed my struggles. He paused just long enough to hold my chin—as well as he could through the mask—and to give my neck a short, jaunty stroke. "Just relax, okay?" he rumbled.

"This is going to hurt, but you need to keep calm or it will be worse for you," he warned. But somehow I knew his words did not come from malice, so they worked. I kept myself calm.

He snapped the heavy skirts back. I felt something hot and hard prod at my entrance.

He entered me with an excruciating slowness that clearly took his entire resolve, if the way his hands shook on my thighs were any indication. I heard him sigh in relief just as I gave a low, strangled keen of protest. I couldn't even muffle myself with my hands through the bloody mask. I suppose I should be grateful that at least, the men did not try to undress me fully, down to my bare breasts. He only pushed my skirt up to do what we came here to get done. And Orange didn't really care anyway.

It wasn't so bad, after all, I thought. Maybe I could take it until these men got me with child, which hopefully shouldn't be long.

The feeling of fullness… and completion, somehow. But it was then that I realised he was nowhere near fully inside me. He was just holding himself there because he knew it would pain me less this way.

"Fuck—you're too tight," he grunted out as he did his best to push in without hurting me. It was hurting him too, for some reason.

The groan that escaped him when he pushed all the way inside me sent a strange pang coursing through my body. It wasn't quite so pleasurable, or even painful, so much as it was uncomfortable more than anything else—like scrubbing a nail file between my legs

"Let me know when I can move," he rasped. His voice was doing strange things to me; the more I heard from him, the less invasion his erection felt inside me, and I wanted him to continue.

"It's alright," I assured him. "Do what you need to do."

His hips pulled back, and he slowly thrust back into me. The pain was consuming, but so was the need to hear him voice his pleasure. He did it again, and again, going faster and harder every time. I was gripping the sheets hard to keep my pain to myself.

Soon he was driving into me so hard and fast that I had to bite my lips to keep from crying out, even though whimpers and sobs still escaped me. He was touching me softly in other places, such as my arm, or the back of my neck, and that seemed to help me stay clear of the pain, and even put me in a sort of trance in which only he, I, and his cock existed. It wasn't terrible anymore, not when he soothed me this way…

He leaned forward until our chests touched, and that made my high all the more intense. I decided to ignore Orange, ignore the world, and hold onto those broad shoulders and run my fingers in that thick, glossy hair.

He gave a sound halfway between a groan and a hum when I touched him, and he buried his face in my neck as if to kiss me… but then he remembered there was a mask.

He removed it. It clinked when he set it hard on the side table. My interest was piqued; I was desperate to see the face of the man who was fucking me like he owned me, but also I did not want to know. I needed him to remain anonymous, so I could hate him. At any rate, it was not like I could just look at his face, since he was so careful about keeping it buried in the pillow, or in my neck, or in my chest.

"Ah, you're getting wet," he whispered in my ear, and I inhaled in this strange sensation I was learning to recognise as pleasure.

I felt his breath on my neck, the ghost of his lips, and immediately that indescribable something flared inside me—the effect was the same as with his withheld groans, but stronger. All of a sudden, I needed more contact. I craved it. I needed more of him. As if reading my mind, his palm pressed against my breast, and I startled at first but it was perfect for a moment—

And it was lost all at once when he bucked into me harder than ever and with a series of intense, low hisses, he stopped moving and gave a series of full-body spasms that worried me—I thought I'd killed him somehow, and this was his dying struggle. But then I remembered what I had been taught. This was his climax. It looked more painful and pleasurable, with the way his muscular body pulled taut under my hands and jerked, and how he groaned as if his soul were being torn out of him. But even in something so painful looking, I found myself gasping in how satisfying it felt to make man feel this way.

He recovered sufficiently to remove himself from inside me. I begged him to do it gently—for some reason it felt more uncomfortable than anything else he had done. Before he moved again, he donned his mask.

As he rose off of me, he straightened my skirts with one quick tug, and moved to fix his own clothes. His hair was ruffled, his mask sat askew on his face. And he was looking at me. At the end of it all, I lost my nerve, and fixed my gaze on the ceiling.

"Are you alright?" he asked, still panting.

I did not answer because I simply had no will to. Everything felt so surreal.

"Hey? … girl? What do I call her," he added under his breath, almost to himself.

"I think you overdid it," said another voice casually when I refused to respond. It was Orange—this was the first time I was hearing him speak. I would have been surprised by his voice, masculine and surprisingly cool for his wiry figure and unusual colouring.

"Silence, you."

"Can we go?" he asked. "Hey." I realised he was talking to me. "Did the lady lieutenant tell you when we could go?"

My nose prickled. I tried to answer his question. What lady lieutenant? but the moment I opened my mouth, the tears came flooding. Of course, I could not remove my mask, so I could not wipe away my tears, or the snot, nor could I cover my mouth to muffle my pathetic sobs. I sat on the edge of the bed, and buried my masked face lying sideways into the sheets.

"I think we should go." Hiccups and sobs wracked my body.

"Yes, we should go," hurried to say Styx. "Uh—we'll see you."

I thought I saw an apologetic wave from Styx, but I was too busy wiping away the snot after tearing my mask off to make sense of anything.

The stickiness between my legs came with a bout of realisation that made me stop crying quite abruptly. I was a real woman now. I had had a man inside me, finally, and I had given him pleasure. He had taken his pleasure from my body.

It was when they put me in the bath that I understood what to do with this information. I leaned back, and allowed myself to imagine that it had gone differently—that my visitors were handsome young men who cared about me and my pleasure, and to that thought I rubbed the spot between my thighs harder and harder until it became unbearable and I had to pinch my breasts to keep riding the waves of pleasure.

Afterwards, I imagined it was all the work of the man who stripped me of my innocence.

It was a strange feeling, but I couldn't help looking forward to the next time I saw that strange black haired man who was both so considerate and inconsiderate, patient and quick to lose his temper, revolting and appealing…