Gift of the Goddess Ch. 01

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Notes, warnings, and caveats:

* World: As always, my people, places, and magical systems may or may not match what you have come to expect - either from me or from others. I will do my best to fully supply everything that you need for this journey.

* Currency: 1 Gold = 10 Silver = 100 Bronze = 1,000 Copper = 10,000 Zinc (a Copper is roughly equivalent to a dollar, Euro, or what-have-you)

* Levels: Magical Levels will be provided simply to give a point of reference to show advancement in skills for the characters. Spells and Skills will be shown via "System" messages - to let you know what effects are in play.

* Incest: As you will learn, this world shackles (literally and otherwise) women. It limits their ability to do anything without a master - a male to whom they've pledged themselves. Under these restrictions, females can't be picky. If your sister's husband will accept you as a second wife, you'd better have a good reason to decline. If he wants to watch you eating her out, there's little question about how you're going to spend your evening. This story is tagged "incest" for just that reason. The only incest in this series is sex-play between sisters.

~~~

"Gift of the Goddess" contains 11 chapters - and ends with an epilogue that is so short that almost no one will be happy with it. While editing the various segments in the series, I got a wild hair to offer an interlude that I thought I needed to cover. That led to me writing a second quick piece to tie up an important loose-end that I'd forgotten about. Those two stories are included as 'Chapter 12'. This series has dragged me away from projects that I should be finishing. For now, at least, I'm stopping with what I have here: 11+1 chapters. I will submit them all at the same time and they should be released a day or so apart. I hope you like this world as much as I do.

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~~~ Prologue ~~~

Basil Hosmer considered himself to be a media connoisseur - specializing in the curation of erotic imagery and multimedia recordings. In truth, Basil was simply a porn addict.

His obsession had begun when he was visiting his maternal grandparents' home.

On the way to completing a quest assigned by his grandmother - to get the dirty dishes from his uncle's bedroom so that they could be washed - he came upon his first pornographic magazine. He nearly shit himself when - as he was staring slack-jawed at the gorgeous centerfold - he heard his matronly quest-giver coming up the stairs to see why he'd been delayed. The magazine was tossed back to somewhere near where (he hoped) he'd found it. He grabbed up the items he'd been sent for and made a hasty retreat from the den of iniquity.

He met his grandmother at the top of the stairs. Fortunately, the stack of plates, bowls, trash, and silverware in his hands were determined to be more than one person could safely transport down the steps. She relieved him of half of the load and, together, they returned to the kitchen - where the sink was nearly overflowing with water. (Grandma had forgotten to turn off the faucet.)

For the next two hours, the two of them washed, rinsed, dried, and put away dishes. Basil spent the entire time with the image of the buxom blonde model superimposed over every single thing that his eyes focused on.

He was staying with grandma for five more days - his yearly summer break with his mom's parents. Over those next few days, he thought that he'd been careful about sneaking away to dig through the disorganized stack of dirty magazines under his uncle's bed. The next time he came to visit, however, the treasury of forbidden pictures had disappeared.

He carefully searched his uncle's room but could never determine where the magazines had gone. On his third attempt at sleuthing out their new hiding place, the owner of the room had come tromping up the stairs. Basil hastily stuttered out his poorly-manufactured justification for why he was where he shouldn't be. The lie had been carefully crafted and fully practiced before he'd ever snuck up the stairs - but it was spoken without emotion or pause. Basil was sure that his uncle knew what he was up to. He vowed to never be caught there again. He kept that vow.

Back home once more, Basil was desperate to find more pictures to sate his lust. He told his story to a fellow classmate on the bus - on the way to school - and discovered a fellow questor. His friend knew where his father's stash of dirty magazines was hidden and told Basil how he'd found it.

Basil spent that night quietly scouring his own home, looking for his father's collection. He never found it. By the second night of fruitless searching, Basil had determined that his father either didn't have such an archive - or he was better at hiding things than Basil had given him credit for.

Every week or so, after that discovery, Basil made up reasons to stay overnight with his friend. When the two were alone in the house, they dug through the dirty magazines and talked about which models were their favorites and why.

Basil preferred thin, athletic girls. His friend liked curves - the more the better. Eventually, Basil's parents got him a computer - and he cast his virtual net wide. His friend did as well - but got caught almost immediately - and shared his experiences (and the details of his punishment) with Basil. Basil quickly learned to erase the evidence of his activities - preventing his parents from finding him out. By the time Basil and his friend graduated from high school and went their separate ways - they each had USB sticks with their collections on them - hidden safely from prying eyes.

The two of them had been forced - multiple times - to upgrade to larger and larger removable drives - in order to accommodate their massive collections of pictures and videos. Basil's friend collected a bit of everything. Basil was choosier. He didn't do scat or watersports. He didn't care for non-consent and wasn't big on bondage. He had a few anal pictures - depending on the model - but almost no videos of such activities.

Basil occasionally encountered a picture of a transgender person in his searches. He wondered why it seemed like so many thought it was funny to sneak pictures of traps and femboys into collections of females. If those individuals wanted to "proselytize", Basil thought that honesty was probably the best way to go about it - not subversion.

Basil's preferred picture was that of a hot-looking woman on her hands and knees - with her goodies fully displayed to him as she glanced over her shoulder - giving him a lust-filled or doe-eyed look. His second favorite was of them on their backs, legs spread wide, inviting him to devour her body with his eyes - before claiming her as his own.

Each night, before he fell asleep, Basil was careful to make sure that the memory-stick was safely stored away in its hiding place.

~~~

Pamela Barons was not the hottest girl in Basil's class. Neither was she the brightest, fastest, or strongest. She did, however, most closely match his "ideal woman". Her shoulder-length dishwater blonde hair was always a unruly mess, almost greasy looking. It made her look a little wild. Her unkempt appearance drove others away; it drew Basil like a moth to a flame. It had been his ultimate desire - spoken aloud only to his co-conspirator - to ask Pamela out and (potentially) lose his virginity to her. Graduation came and went however and, still, he had not amassed the courage to face her and confess his love (or lust).

On the night he died, Basil Hosmer was staring at a picture he'd just found on the internet. The photo was so close in appearance to Pamela Barons that he was focusing on it at the detriment of everything going on around him.

He was desperately trying to decide if it could - possibly - be Pamela. Basil had swiped away the severe weather notifications on his phone. He'd gasped each time the lights had flickered - worried that he might lose the images he had queued up to be saved on the memory-stick before they could be successfully downloaded.

A massive bolt of lightning arced through the sky, darted towards one of the lightning rods on the roof of the house, changed course to target the huge elm tree in the back yard, and then shot through Basil's window - spearing through his chest - before blasting his computer - which caused it to explode.

The coroner ruled his death as heart-failure but the casket was closed because of the burns - and the shrapnel wounds.

~~~

Basil's mouth was still open - in a silent scream - when he appeared in front of the most beautiful, most naked, most perfect, most powerful woman that he'd ever met. She was standing before him - completely comfortable in her nakedness - waiting for him to regain control of himself.

He was standing as well - facing her - but there was nothing beneath his feet. He was floating in space.

There is - as Basil well knew - no sound in space. That explained why his scream was silent. He stopped screaming and closed his mouth.

"Basil Hosmer," she said. "Step forward."

"So much for that whole 'no sound in space bullshit'," he thought to himself.

Basil stepped towards the woman and found that - somehow - his feet had traction and his steps carried his body towards the goddess-like female - even though the two of them were (in his mind) standing in mid-air (or, he supposed, mid-space).

The gorgeous woman reached the index finger of her right hand out and just barely touched his forehead. He "watched" in awe as the image of the Pamela Barons lookalike appeared in his mind as if it were a real photograph - a life-sized image that completely filled his vision.

The woman tutted softly and the picture that he thought might be Pamela Barons disappeared - to be replaced by one of his favorite models from the memory-stick. That picture moved aside as well and the next one came - and then the next - and the next - and...

The first video arrived. Based on the way the space-woman's eyes flitted to Basil's and then back to the video-clip (shot in POV-mode) it was obvious that the woman had thought that the video was actually a memory of something that Basil had participated in. She thought that it had been him - fucking the girl in the clip.

"Do this," she ordered, "with me."

"I'm... I'm a virgin," Basil gasped.

"A what?" she asked.

"I've never... done those things," he admitted.

"Those memories are yours," she argued.

"They are... borrowed memories," he tried to explain.

"Then I shall convince your mind that they are yours... and then you can show me," she said matter-of-factly.

She took her finger away and - instead - pressed her palm to his forehead.

A sharp pain struck Basil - as if a knife had been slammed into his skull - and then he felt every image and video flood his mind. The pictures became three-dimensional and the videos became training materials. All of them (of both types) were instantly stored into his brain.

"Begin," the woman ordered.

She "lay" on her back - both of them still in the vastness of space - and Basil took his place between her thighs. He'd barely gotten his virginal manhood all of the way inside of her grasping tightness before his cock lurched, his balls spasmed, and his climax began.

"No!" the woman snarled.

She reached out and tapped his forehead. He could feel his ejaculate withdraw, race back up the path of escape that it had just taken, and return to his balls.

"I will tell you when you can cum," she said.

It felt just as good to fuck her as it had before - but now his climax was always just a bit off - so close - so tantalizingly near...

He fucked her for what seemed like hours - maybe even days. Each time she came, she would pull up the image or the video that she wanted him to perform next. He got himself into position and fucked her again - over and over - position after position - climax after climax (hers - not his).

Based on the movements of the sun and the moons (there were two), Basil was convinced that the marathon sex-session went on for several days. He never got hungry, he never got tired, and he never quite attained sexual release.

He fucked her. He made love to her. He pleasured her with his mouth... with his fingers, his toes, his fist,... She had him fuck her in the ass once - but just once. She didn't act like she'd disliked it - she just seemed to prefer vaginal. Oral seemed new to her at first - but she appeared to like it well enough. Overall however, she wanted his cock buried deep in her cunt.

Basil had - after several hours - decided that this woman must really be some kind of goddess. How else do you explain the two of them hovering in space as they fucked - as well as all of the things that she had done with (and to) his mind?

At long last, the goddess finally seemed to run out of things she wanted to try - and she tapped his forehead again.

At that instant, Basil came hard - harder than he'd ever cum in his life. The goddess came with him. When he thought he was done, she tapped his forehead and it started again. His balls were full once more, his climax arrived again, and he began pumping his load into her.... and again.... and again.

His orgasms were other-worldly. Not only did his body pulse with adrenaline and dopamine - like they did before he'd died - but now they were accompanied by a burst of light that seemed to flash through his whole body. It was the same every time - for hours on end.

Finally, after what seemed like days, the goddess stopped tapping his forehead. Basil collapsed forward - onto her body - gasping for air (in space). Thankfully, blessed air filled his lungs. He gulped hungrily for more.

When his breathing had settled, the woman leaned her lips towards his and kissed him. It was the most mind-bending kiss that he had ever received. Considering that his only other "real" kiss had been from a classmate in the 2^nd grade, that really wasn't saying much.

Words appeared in Basil's mind - as if they were written in the air - in front of his eyes - centered just above his natural sight-lines.

The words were golden and glittered. They glowed like liquid gold.

[ Hera, the Goddess of Love, Lust, and Procreation, has offered you a unique class. ]

[ Gigolo ]

[ Touched by Hera, you are a gifted trainer in the sexual arts. Having sex with another person will transfer some of your learning and skills to them - empowering them to be better lovers - thus spreading faith in the Goddess and empowering those who exercise her gifts. ]

[ Do you wish to accept this class? ]

[ Choose: Accept, Delay, or Decline ]

"What is this?" Basil asked.

"Read the prompts. Focus your attention on your answer and use your will to choose it," Hera told him.

"Delay?" he inquired.

"Delay postpones the question for one sleep-cycle," she replied. "Normally, the System would give you an indicator - in the upper left-hand corner of your mind-vision - to let you know that you need to make a class-related decision. I overrode that. Please pick Accept or Decline."

"What happens if I choose Decline?" Basil asked.

"Either way, you'll get dropped onto Gaia..."

"Gaia?"

"The planet below," she replied, pointing.

Basil looked down and realized that there was, indeed, a planet below them. At present, it looked to be about the size of a basketball. It looked Earth-like - but it was most definitely not Earth. He had paid enough attention in Geography class to know that this wasn't the planet he'd been born on.

"The class I'm offering you is the first of its kind. It's something of a priest - but I took the name for it from your memories. I - and, by proxy, the System - will reward your growth by granting skills and abilities. If you decline this class, you can choose any that the System offers you. I have shared your knowledge and skills with the System and it will attempt to offer you things at which you will succeed."

"This class - Gigolo," Basil asked. "I have sex with people to level up - like a video game?"

Hera nodded, smiling.

"Why would I choose anything else?" he asked, mostly to himself.

"I could have just forced the decision on you," Hera said.

"I'm all for free-will," Basil replied quickly.

His mind made up, he focused on 'Accept' and "chose" it.

[ Congratulations! ]

[ Basil ]

[ Gigolo - Level 1 ]

[ Blessed by Hera ]

Hera reached forward and touched his forehead.

[ Class experience has been granted based on the knowledge retained from your previous life. ]

[ Congratulations! ]

[ Basil ]

[ Gigolo - Level 8 ]

[ Blessed by Hera ]

"Holy shit!" Basil gasped.

He'd just skipped the introductory tutorial, it seemed.

"How awesome is that?" he thought.

The goddess smiled at him and tapped his forehead again.

[ Class experience has been granted for sex acts performed in the past. ]

[ Bonus experience granted for sex acts performed with a god or goddess. ]

[ Congratulations! ]

[ Basil ]

[ Gigolo - Level 92 ]

[ Blessed by Hera ]

"I think I love you," Basil told her.

She laughed and said, "You should - you're basically a prophet of mine - or rather a teacher."

"I'm getting paid to... wait..." Basil said.

"Yes," Hera said, reading his mind, "you get paid to show people how to have better sex."

"What do you get out of this?" he asked.

"Believers, followers,... and every couple having sex feeds me a little more power."

"Masturbation?" Basil asked.

"I get very little power from that - more if they're fantasizing about someone in particular - but a lot more when they finally 'get physical'," she replied, grinning as she replayed the clip of the woman in the 1980's workout clothes dancing around to the catchy tune that she'd discovered in Basil's memories.

"Time to be reborn," Hera told him.

"Will I remember you? Any of this?" Basil asked.

"The memories will be fuzzy," Hera told him, a touch of sadness in her eyes. "I had fun. I may have even learned a thing or two. They're going to love you down there."

"Can I have one more kiss before I go?" Basil asked.

She smiled and nodded.

As Basil stepped forward, he realized that he'd probably never get to enjoy those perfect breasts again. He tilted his head forward and captured her stiff nipple between his lips, running his tongue over it and nibbling it a bit before sucking it hard.

Hera giggled, wrapped his cheeks in her palms, pulled his face up, and kissed him.

~~~

[ POV-mode enabled ]

~~~ Gaia ~~~

As if waking from a half-remembered dream, I shielded my face against the blazing sunlight and cautiously opened my eyes to look around.

I found myself standing on the side of a dusty road as a continuous stream of dirty, weary travelers trudged by or drove past. Most of the people wore simple thongs on their bare feet. Their clothes looked like little more than robes. The foot traffic hugged the side of the road - to keep out of the way of the faster-moving horse, oxen, and mule-drawn wagons.

Based on the looks the drivers were giving the pedestrians, I wasn't sure that the teamsters would stop if they hit one of them. The walkers seemed well aware of this unspoken rule - even though I didn't see any of them making eye-contact with those angry-looking drivers.