The Reluctant Seedling

PART ONE - OVUM

It took courage to walk to the Conception Centre for the first time. Rhea's uniform was little more than a wispy white robe, sheer like a hospital gown but with a more flattering cut and practically translucent. Even clutching it shut, her slim figure was visible in silhouette through the fabric, her slender legs and lean abdomen meeting at wide supple hips, her nipples pressing out against the cotton. She wasn't even afforded shoes. It took her a while of psyching herself up in the mirror before she could even bring herself to go outside.

Traipsing from the dorms over to the main building meant crossing through the square, a vast indoor space with groups of people moving hurriedly in straight lines that seemed to cut across every conceivable path. Their eyes were on her, every woman scanning her bare skin as she sped head-down towards the round glass building. They whispered as she passed, "New Seeder-girls today", eyeing her with smiles and staying clear out of respect.

She walked up the concrete white steps to the main building: 'The Conception Centre', though no-one in her cohort called it that. Most referred to it as 'The Ovum', and being inside the blue glass of the great dome it felt fitting. She saw a familiar circle of girls dressed like her, all huddled loosely in the lobby in their white translucent gowns. This was really happening. Some were anxious as she was, sullenly hugging what little fabric they had tightly around their bodies, shifting their weight from one foot to the other in anxious silence. Others stood proud in their near-nakedness, excited and exuding enviable confidence. Throughout training Rhea had been surprised to meet girls that were actually looking forward to seeing a man for the first time. They saw it as a privilege to see a real one. Many of the girls saw this role - the calling to be a "Seeder" - as some great privilege. Rhea could understand neither viewpoint, with no desire to see the muscle-twisted hairy form of one of these beasts. She preferred the rather mythical existence she had given them before coming here.

To keep from another episode of hyperventilating, Rhea tried to focus on any aspect of normality in the atrium. It was nice to be surrounded by fully dressed people for the first time after weeks of exigent training. Women talked in hurried clusters of nurses and doctors, as staff ferried patients in purple gowns to their appointments. There was no music, but there was a pleasant hum of discourse between colleagues, and the palpable air of excited apprehension from the patients. Rhea's ear tuned in on one woman's conversation with the receptionist at the front counter.

"I'm happy to wait, I just wondered how long the nurse will be?" asked the lady politely, despite drumming her fingers impatiently on the cover of her book.

"She won't be long ma'am," replied the receptionist, doing her best to mask her irritation, "I could get you some tea while you wait if you like?" Rhea had overheard the staff joking about how much they hated to make hot drinks for patients, but that it was often the best way to keep them placated. Most people's ability to wait dwindled once they were without their phone. No devices were permitted in the vicinity.

The lady cast her eyes over to the empty teapot to the side, and despite a longing look she shook her head, smiled politely and sat back down.

It had taken a while for Rhea to get used to being without her phone too. No computers, no screens. Paper was so unusual to see in the everyday world but here it was in abundance, stacks of it on every surface. The world inside The Ovum was a bubble from the outside world by design, and Rhea felt alien. This was a bastion of purity that was meant to be revered, but to Rhea it just felt like an impossible standard was always being imposed.

Finally the Matriarchs arrived, greeting them and starting to select a few girls at a time to shepherd off down the hallway. One tapped her shoulder lightly and Rhea flinched. She was always picked first: the curse of being a redhead - an increasingly rare genetic event by today's standards, nearly as rare as birthing a boy. The tall tight-lipped Matriarch regarded her with interest, admiring the smattering of peach freckles along Rhea's pale skin, sprinkled down her slight frame but most concentrated on the bridge of her nose and along her forearms. She felt fragile looking up at the imposing figure in her silvery blue Matriarch jumpsuit. The silky fabric was so fine and loose fitting that it bellowed and clung to her Amazonian frame as she moved. Her authority loomed, allowing her to be smiley and bright whilst simultaneously intimidating as she selected three other girls and then trudged down the corridor expecting them to follow.

Following the silvery blur of the Matriarch as she charged through the labyrinth, each girl was delivered to a door and shepherded inside until at last Rhea was brought to a room marked 'Male Four'. She waited impatiently for Rhea to open the door, then followed her in. Inside was a long windowless room, as sterile as the rest of the Conception Centre, but with the benefit of the natural light streaming in from the frosted glass ceiling. The walls were painted a smooth cool grey, the floor made up of large white tiles up to the centre, the rest of it padded like a gymnasium mat with glossy grey plastic. At the back of the room were large metal shutters, currently closed. To the right hand side of the room were a set of hooks built into the wall, a small bench and some bottles. On the opposite side was a sink, with a wooden bucket, towels and cloths laid out with a bag of toiletries. A woman was kneeling on one side of the mat facing away from them, silent and poised as Rhea came to kneel beside her, just as she had been trained to do.

"Ezett, this is Rhea." the Matriarch said, introducing them. Rhea gave her a quick sidewards glance and was rewarded with a warm smile. Ezett was dark-skinned, with fluffy curls tied back in a bun and sharp cheekbones. She looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties, but her skin had the softness of a much younger woman. Her swan-like shoulders were poised back, echoing confidence backed by experience, her robe hanging nonchalantly open. Modesty had become a luxury of the past to her. She was gorgeous, unsurprising as almost everyone selected to be a Seeder was attractive as a matter of course, but Ezett had a delectable petiteness to her. She was impeccable, from the perfected curve of her eyebrows, well-manicured hands and a trim frame with full pert breasts. They were quite similar in size, and Rhea found herself wondering if they might fit into the same clothes. She missed having clothes.

"Thank you ma'am," responded Ezett without hesitation.

"I know that working with someone new can be difficult, but I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the importance of what we are doing here." The Matriarch continued, it seemed they were compelled to give a speech declaring the worldly importance of the Seeders at every opportunity. Rhea wondered if public speaking was part of their training. "You will have seen that births are down 13% this quarter, and the male-to-female rate is worse than ever. We need to be focussed. The fate of our species relies on this centre, and no link in the chain is more important than what happens in rooms like these."

"Yes ma'am," they barked in unison.

"Good luck ladies." she said, leaving them and closing the door beside her. Rhea sighed with relief, her posture softening as she realised how on edge she had been up till now. One benefit of the lack of technology was no cameras.

Ezett piped up immediately, "It'll be nice to have someone new, my last pairing was horrible!" She turned her body slightly towards Rhea to make for more natural conversation, and so Rhea followed suit, "Did you volunteer?" She asked, Rhea shaking her head in response, "Thank God! The ones who really rally for the cause are always the worst!" laughing with a little snort.

"I was on the Midwifery track," Rhea's voice came out small and crackly, "but I got reassigned to Prewifery because of a shortage. I-" her voice faltered, a sadness overcoming her and threatening to birth tears, "I can't... believe I have to do this..." she said crumbling, and Ezett immediately brought her hand to Rhea's shoulder, just about able to reach comfortably from the distance, offering a reassuring squeeze.

"I got called up back when they were doing national service when you hit twenty-one, I prayed they would put me anywhere but Conception and yet here we are. We get through it." she told her, as Rhea solidified herself. Ezett had kind eyes that glistened as she spoke and Rhea adored her at once. Whilst no one during her training was cruel, there was something about the anxiety of the students and the resolute focus of the tutors that felt passively stressful. There were three months of constant drills and theory, and it seemed to go by in a whirlwind. "The medicine track is always a little risky these days, the pretty ones often get picked out to be Seedlings."

Rhea blushed, trying her hardest not to see this statement of facts as a compliment to her beauty. That term 'Seedling' was slang for newbies like herself in their first few weeks; she had always hated it, but of late she was hearing it so much she had stopped cringing reflexively whenever she heard it. The normalisation of it was concerning.

"How long have y-" Rhea began, interrupted as the shutters were thrust up and open. There was a squealing of wheels and clunking of metal as a chariot of metal bars was wheeled into view and Rhea's mouth fell open and dry. There was a man heavily restrained and entirely naked in the chair, pushed in by two female guards using their full force to move the weight of it into the room. This was Male Four, as indicated by the block "4" tattooed into the left side of his chest, barely visible under the wiry black layer of fur and the large strap holding him down. His thick hairy legs were clamped wide open, his manhood limply presented for a full range of access. Conversely, his face was obscured by a muzzle, but she could make out the green of his eyes and the gruff dark stubble. He had a square jaw and a scraggly mess of thick brown hair that fell to his shoulders. She knew little about the men's quarters beyond rumours, but it was said they were treated like cattle, subject to an unforgiving physical regimen to ensure peak fitness to promote fertility, fed only organic raw proteins and vegetables, rarely allowed beyond their cells. They were cared for only so much as it maximised their yield. Some claimed they never learnt a language, so spoke only in grunts.

Certainly what she saw now only confirmed her presumptions, Male Four was confined even more arcanely than she had expected: his ears covered by padded disks, his head secured on either side by curved metal clamps, and his hands locked behind his back in bulky steel shackles that clanked with every movement. The guards folded the wheels away and lowered the chair legs into four slots in the ground, locking them with specialised keys attached to their belts. The guards stood to leave, their skin lined with sweat and Rhea wished she had been assigned as a guard instead. The pity in their eyes was palpable. Besides the tutors and the Seeders themselves, the guards were the only ones who really knew what it was like to do this role. They turned and left as unceremoniously as they had arrived, pulling the shutter down behind them, and leaving the girls with the hulking beast restrained in front of them. His chest heaved, breathless as if he had been wrestled into the chair by force.

His eyes were fixed on Rhea, scanning her hungrily like fresh meat. The menacing form exuded a power despite his compromised position leaving Rhea paralysed, her training forgotten. None of the plastic approximations of phalluses or role-playing exercises could prepare her for seeing a man - a real man - for the first time, becoming slowly erect at the sight of her.

"I can go first if you like?" Offered Ezett, shuffling forward on her knees and taking his erection in a loose grip. Rhea gave a quick nod, watching as her fellow Seeder retrieved a bottle of lube from a plastic bin built into the floor. She applied it to her hands, then dropped it back in with the rest of the bottles, stroking the full length of him as he continued his inspection of Rhea. Even with the robe wrapped tightly around her, he could make out her lithe figure, and the garment ended so far up her thighs that he could enjoy the entirety of her slender freckled legs and feet. If he hadn't been gagged so expertly, she imagined him licking his lips in approval.

Bringing the tip of his cock to her lips, Ezett employed textbook oral technique, using her hands, lips and tongue in perfect coordination. Rhea had still to master the methods she had been taught, and seeing it conducted so effortlessly by Ezett made her feel inept. Her mouth glided effortlessly up and down his shaft, slurping the entirety of his girth as he was coaxed into a low moan.

Pulling back, Ezett used her hand to keep him at attention and turned to Rhea, "Our first appointment is in 15 minutes, want to practise a little before then?" She asked, and Rhea was speechless but grateful, moving forward beside her and clumsily taking him. Seeing the thick throbbing member in her dainty fingers felt like a strange contrast. He felt raw and wild, while she had been forced to take on a near-immaculate presentation, shaved bare from the neck down, thoroughly cleansed and bleached, her hair tied into a ponytail with a silk white ribbon. It was made very clear that there could be absolutely no risk of the men becoming unaroused. Even her nails and teeth were thoroughly inspected for meeting the strict standards, but still Ezett had managed to exceed them.

Rhea missed wearing nail varnish and lipstick. Almost all technology and chemicals were prohibited in The Ovum, still blamed for the drop in population that plagued their generation. This space was to be free of all corruptive influences, a sanctuary of the natural way, but nothing about this felt natural to Rhea. As she brought her lips to his slick erection, she squeezed her eyes shut and slipped the foreign organ into her mouth. Afraid as she was, there was a pleasing warmth to his member, that was something the training couldn't prepare you for with their silicone imitations. The pictures were plentiful and the shapes and sizes were often described, but having it in her mouth for the first time was even more humiliating than she had imagined. Despite all her aptitudes and abilities, she had been reduced to an object of entertainment. It was one thing being made to repeatedly service dildos in front of a crowd of other Seedlings and instructors all there to do the same thing, but having a man staring down at her while she worked to please him was markedly different. She couldn't help from opening her eyes, startled to see him staring intently back at her, green and angry.

"Okay, remember what they taught you, nice and slow, don't forget to breathe, keep your tongue pushed out." Ezett coached, a supportive hand resting on her back as she rocked her head forward and back, steadily taking more of him as he stretched her jaw wide. She pushed herself to continue but was too tense. Her jaw was beginning to ache and the day had barely begun!

"Can you take over now?" She pleaded, stroking him with a loose wet grip.

"Sorry sweetie, but we're gonna need to take much longer shifts than that, let's keep practising. Okay, yep that's it, keep going just like that." She was firm but kind. Clearly she had trained many girls like her, and watched on reassuringly as Rhea continued to work him in her hands. "Right, now for our first patient I want you to tend to him while I get her setup, then we can swap." Rhea gave a little nod. Her mouth exercises had been continually criticised for being sloppy, but her handiwork was good and by switching between them Male Four was soon moaning like he had been with Ezett. "Right, look he's getting close. Their first time each day is the fastest so you need to be careful, we can get in trouble if we waste any seed. Do you remember about refractory periods?"

Rhea removed him from her mouth, maintaining smooth strokes with her hand, "Uhm yes, how long it takes him to recover after ejaculating and go again," Rhea recited, "It's 37 minutes on average." She wanted Ezett to like her, and could feel herself trying too hard.

"That's it, but for Four I find he only needs like twenty minutes, he's still fairly young for a Stud. When he starts breathing like this he's close." Ezett explained, pointing a dainty finger up towards his face. Rhea couldn't believe how close she was willing to get to him. She was right, his breathing was quick and short now, and she knew from her training that she should be using her mouth to best gauge his proximity to climax. Returning to the blowjob, he groaned thankfully, savouring the sensation of her virgin mouth as she explored him.

Ezett reached forward to loosely grip his balls, lightly pressing the pads of her coffee-brown fingers to the skin. Having worked with him for so long, she knew his tells and had developed an instinct for how close he was to the edge.

"Okay that's it, nearly there." She encouraged, rubbing Rhea's back with her spare hand, "Right, stop here!"

Rhea pulled him free of her mouth, saliva forming a momentary bridge of drool from her lip to his tip as she gasped for air. He groaned with frustration from denial, and she knew immediately that Ezett had gotten her timing spot on, bringing him to the precipice of orgasm and then letting him simmer back down. She hadn't felt any of the signs they had told her to expect, no twitching or tightening and she admonished herself for not paying close enough attention.

It was a relief to be able to sit back on her ankles and just watch. His bulky arms josselled against their restraints as he growled. She had heard that some men enjoyed the edging process, but this certainly wasn't one of them.

"Okay great! That was good! We need to do that two more times before the appointment to maximise the yield. I'll do the second one so you can see." Ezett said, waiting a while before taking over with slow strokes of her hand until he seemed to calm down, then pumping him faster until his frenzied breathing returned, finally she used her mouth, cupping his balls again and slowing when he edged towards climax. It was so effortless for Ezett, but for Rhea it took all her concentration to get it right.

Taking over again with her hands, she whispered, "How long have you..."

"You don't have to be quiet, he can't hear us." She said, nodding up to the discs covering his ears. She spoke at a normal volume. "Eight months, I did a few rotations in Cryo before here, then I got assigned to Male Nine, now Male Four for like half a year. He is definitely one of the better ones, the last guy used to be pretty good at disguising his signals, made a mess of me a few times, but M4 is consistent and well behaved for the most part."

This time, Rhea noticed the quickening of his breath, and Ezett even showed her how to tell when he was close from the sounds he made and the clenching of his thighs. The thickness of his legs were three times her own, and being near him made her feel small. She had to keep her eyes open to gauge how close he was, and it was hard not to find herself examining the first real man she had ever seen up close. Even locked up like this, he was imposing. As she brought him to the edge a third time, Ezett congratulated her on picking it all up so fast. Disgusted as she felt by this whole predicament, she was glad to win Ezett's approval, and even got a certain kick out of the grateful moans from her handiwork.