They say it is a great honor to be chosen.
You sit in the stone pool as your sisters bathe you. You cast your eyes over the slave standing by the pillars with a bronze pitcher of oil, his muscled chest glistens with sweat from the heat of the baths. Your eyes trace lower, over the ridges of his tanned core, to the cloth girdle, clinging to his every shape. But he cannot touch you, no man may, especially on this night. Only the acolytes may prepare you for what is to come.
Steam clings to the surface of the water, fed by springs flowing from deeper inside the caves, where the walls of your carved temple give way to uncut stone and endless dark. One of your sisters combs your hair as another sponges your chest and breasts.
A bead of water traces your collar bone and rolls down the curve of your breast. Your nipples harden to the chill air above vapors of the heated pool.
It is time.