Searing-bright pleasure falls away, and Ember returns to herself lying on her back in a pit of fused gss. Ishaza kneels over her, her fingers inside Ember’s sex, and sudden embarrassment washes over Ember as she realizes her teacher is looking right into her eyes.

  “Breathe,” Ishaza says. “What day is it today?”

  “Equinox,” Ember says, after a moment. “— kindling day —”

  She looks down at her nude body and the puddle of gss she’s half-melted herself into.

  “Fuck,” she swears, a note of panic rising in her voice. “What — what just happened —”

  “You started to masturbate,” Ishaza says, her tone clipped and formal. “After I had given explicit instructions not to.” There is only a mild rebuke in her voice. “It is to be expected. You are yourself?”

  Ember takes a shaky breath. “Yes,” she allows. “For the moment.”

  “Good.” Ishaza pulls her hand free of Ember’s sex, and the fluids on it explode into the air in a gout of steam. She offers a bck-nailed hand up. “Come. There is a lesson to be taught.”

  Ember takes Ishaza’s hand, and follows.

  ~*~

  Ember and the other three students sit in a rge, open courtyard enclosed on all four sides with heavy stone walls. The ground is charred ash and packed dirt: there’s not a tree or a bde of grass in sight. Maeve and Fianna are still giving each other catty looks, while Camellia looks between them nervously.

  “We are now going to learn how to masturbate in a satisfying way while Kindled,” Ishaza begins. “Inside all of you, a fire has been started. It feeds on your emotions, your sexuality, your instincts, your personality, every part of you that makes you you. And it produces more, more, more. It will burn you away if you let it, or overwhelm you with its passionate intensity. There is only one thing to do with such energy. Cast it out of the body, release it, in the way that all sexual and emotional tension is released — orgasm, catharsis, there are elements of both.”

  Ishaza touches one finger to her own clitoris, her eyes closing. “You start here. At the most sensitive point on your body. Draw the energy through —” Ishaza’s eyelids flutter, her voice slightly huskier — “then run it through the heart, and let it rush outward through every part of you —”

  Ishaza lets out a sigh, and a fsh of fme sweeps over her body, spilling outward from her heart in a fre of light.

  “You will learn how to control it more precisely so you need not expel fme,” Ishaza says. “But for the moment the rough technique is more important. Together, now, everyone. From the clitoris, to the heart, and out in every direction.”

  Ember takes a deep breath, and focuses in at the root of her own clitoris. She can feel the pleasure coiling there, hungry for release, like — like how it was having a cock before, the need to come as a need to expel something —

  She draws the pleasure up, up through her heart, and pride and focus and abstract satisfaction blend together with the pleasure, almost one thing —

  And then out, out, in every direction, spurt it out —

  A bst of fme ten feet tall bursts from Ember’s body and spshes against the walls of the courtyard, leaving the stones crackling and hissing with heat. It feels deliciously satisfying, and Ember sways with the feeling of soft, nguorous warmth that suddenly fills her whole body. The fire in her stills a little, less urgent, less pressing.

  “Good!” Ishaza favors Ember with a small nod. “Now practice expelling less fme.”

  Further down the line, Camellia’s body lets out a small, controlled puff of fme. Ember can’t help but smile — her girlfriend (are they girlfriends?) is doing well, too.

  Ishaza’s gaze darts over to Camellia. “Well done, very controlled for a first release. Keep practicing.”

  Her gaze returns to Fianna and Maeve, neither of whom has managed the technique yet. “Both of you. Think of it as if you were expelling fluids during an orgasm. It’s fundamentally the same process.”

  Fianna rolls her eyes. “Yes, well, not all of us know what that’s like, now, do we? No wonder Ember was first to get it —”

  Ishaza gives Fianna a very ft look. “Shush. I know you are annoyed, but picking fights with others will only hinder you. If you have enough focus to speak you have enough focus to practice.”

  Maeve reaches out and pces a hand on Fianna’s knee. “Listen to her, love,” she says. “Focus.”

  Fianna takes a deep breath, ys her own hand atop Maeve’s… and carefully picks it up and removes it from her knee.

  “Don’t touch me right now,” she says. “Please.”

  Maeve opens her mouth, then nods and closes it.

  Ember looks away from the other two, and returns her focus to herself.

  Up through the clitoris (shivery pleasure), through the heart (love, anxiety, hope) and out… a little slower, this time, let it drag out…

  Ember releases another long fre of fme, this one gentler than the first, clinging closer to her skin. It feels amazing. If the bliss of sex in this body was enough to drown her, the release of true satisfaction feels like a return to solid ground. She feels solid again, less ruled by instinct.

  She should keep practicing this. She should keep practicing this for a while.

  She reaches out, and takes Camellia’s hand.

  Camellia smiles, and squeezes Ember’s hand in return.

  “We’ve got this,” Ember says.

  Camellia nods. “We’ve got this.”

  ~*~

  After several hours of practice, Ishaza raises her hands before her and cps for silence once more.

  “Now that everyone has direct experience of controlling the flow of the fme inside them, I wish to take a moment to emphasize that how this fme develops — the habits, routines, and deliberate control you exert over how it spreads and changes you — will determine a great amount of the course of your newly-immortal lives. It is possible to direct the transformation, but there are many pitfalls one can fall into, and any deliberate effort to change who or what you are should be confirmed with me beforehand as a simple matter of safety. Understood?”

  Ember looks over at Camellia. Honestly, this lecture is nothing she hasn’t heard before a dozen times, and, well, Ishaza hasn’t reprimanded her yet so she must be doing something right. She smiles and nods. “Understood.”

  Camellia meets Ember’s gaze, and gives her a reassuring smile back. “Yeah, I think we understand.”

  Fianna nods sharply. “Yes, Courtesan.” She looks over at Maeve and bites the inside of her cheek.

  Maeve looks back at Fianna, and then away. “... Yeah, understood.” She sighs.

  Ishaza simply nods in return. “Now, then,” she says. “I believe it’s time for lunch, and then we’ll return to the exercise. We’ll be continuing the drill until nightfall.”

  “Yes, courtesan!” the students chorus.

  ~*~

  After a day of practice and a few breaks for lunch and dinner, Ember and Camellia are finally left alone together in Camellia’s room, such as it is. There’s not much more in the cell than a “bed” made of sandbags, devoid of any bnkets or pillows. There’s not even a chair or desk.

  Ember and Camellia sit together on the sandbag bed, and for the first time since they’ve kindled they have a moment to breathe.

  “So,” Camellia says. She looks away from Ember, a deep flush on her face. “I… Gosh.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I still feel a little guilty about Fianna, honestly.”

  Ember shakes her head. “I don’t think that was really — anyone’s fault, precisely. After all, who could resist you?” She bows her head and kisses the back of Camellia’s hand, her eyes alight with mirth.

  “I think that’s quite enough of that for today,” Camellia says, and pulls her hand away — but her ears turn red with the force of her blushing.

  Ember ys her head on Camellia’s nude shoulder, a heavy sigh going through her body. She feels gloriously exhausted after the day she’s had. “Awww. If you insist. But you are delectable, Camellia. I’m really, really tempted. You taste amazing and the way you move your fingers is —”

  “Shush!” Camellia ducks her head. “Yes, I know, I came on to you a few hours ago, it really is my own fault that you’re this — het up — but please, I’ve been masturbating all day, give me a little bit of a rest.”

  Ember sighs and nods. “Alright.” She kisses Camellia’s shoulder and ys down on the bed, adjusting her body on the rough sandbags. It’s really tempting to just drift off. “It’s strange,” she says. “Everything just seems — better, since the kindling. I’m far less annoyed by the roughness of these sandbags and how hard they are, but pleasant sensations are far sharper and more detailed. It’s the kind of thing you want to explore more.”

  “Yeah.” Camellia looks as if she wants to say something, but after a moment she shakes her head and smiles slightly. “... Would you like to try cuddling?”

  “Yeah,” Ember says. “I think I would.”

  Camellia ys down next to her, and gently ys Ember’s head on her breast. It feels soft. Comfortable. Ember presses in, craving the press of Camellia’s body against hers, and lets out a heavy breath.

  “Goodnight,” she says. Her eyes slip closed.

  “Goodnight.” There’s a smile in Camellia’s voice.