The Priestess by Elliot Mabeuse

The Priestess (novella)

Elliot Mabeuse
Ancient/Erotica
Published in 2008

H/h - Prince Nekhet/Tianfhet
Setting: Ancient Egypt.

Read in Nov, 2012.

My rating:

 

                                                    [spoiler alert]

‘Weird’ and ‘meh’ are the two words I have for The Priestess. It’s a really short story, took me about an hour to finish.

Tianfhet or Tia is the sister of an Egyptian priest, Kheneb. At the beginning of the story we find that Tia is being readied to become a priestess too, of the temple of a foreign goddess, Astarte or The Great Lady as her worshippers calls her. She is the goddess of love and war. But here is the twist. Astarte’s worshippers have a different kind of practice; the practice of having temple prostitutes, who are also the priestesses...

You say, whaa??

Exactly! I don’t know if this practice was there in the ancient Egypt (anything can be possible since there were marriages between siblings... ewww!) and as I wasn’t in a mood to do a research, I found the whole concept really weird. All in the name of ‘experiencing the Goddess’; who, it’s said, that possess the priestess (or the prostitute). Afterwards, she has sex with whomever it is that comes to ‘experience the goddess’. In this way, you will never wear the stigma of being a slut. There’s no shame or fear of being ostrasized. You’re free to do anything, sleep with (or reject) anyone because you become one with The Great Lady herself.

Imagine my eye-roll!

So Tia is being readied to become that. She isn’t a virgin, yet at first she’s a bit nervous. But once in the temple, things change. She and Kheneb meet the current main priestess, Lady something (also a temple prostitute). Tia suddenly feels the urge to have a look at this foreign goddess. When she does, she feels that she’s becoming one with the goddess (*eye-roll*). She makes an offering of incense, which apparently is accepted by Astarte. The main priestess decides that there’s no need for selection or anything since according to her, the goddess has chosen Tia to become a priestess in her temple.

Then comes this prince, Nekhet, the 4th son of the Great Pharaoh. He would finance the temple that is being made for Astarte, in return, he wants Tia, whom he sees the same day after Kheneb leaves her there.

I found everything meh. Even though the narratives of the ancient Egypt were done rather well by EM, I didn’t like this whole temple prostitute thingy in the first place. I found it entirely laughable. There was only one sex scene and not as hot as EM’s scenes usually are. 2 stars.

The Priestess can also be found in the anthology, Naughty Bits 2: An Anthology of Short Erotic Fiction.