| |
Behind the Niryana shrine there was a rickety old porch hanging over the river on half-rotted pylons. Donella sat there, watching the water rush by through the cracks in the boards, and turning the magysk ring around and around on her finger. She had come outside after a fitful night’s sleep, full of the most wretchedly perverted dreams, and she had been prepared to either throw the ring in the river, or herself.
It was completely wrong to use magy like that, and Earstien would punish her, one way or another.
After a few false starts, though, she found she couldn’t make herself throw the ring away. And in fact, she didn’t really want to anymore. There was something about wearing it, about having the choice and the power to be a man whenever she liked, that appealed to her. The more she thought of her experiences with the ring, the more she felt she wasn’t playing a character named “Sir Donald.” She was, in some odd way, uncovering a part of herself that had always been there, but which she had never dared examine before.
She heard footsteps coming through the shrine, and moments later, Vikker poked his head out the door.
“What are you doing there?” he asked. “That deck doesn’t look very safe to me.” She started to answer, but he interrupted her with a broad smile. “It doesn’t really matter. Come on in and get yourself ready. You’ve got a second chance, and this one is even better than the first!”
As she dressed and transformed herself into “Sir Donald,” Vikker told her Andras was nearby at the hot springs, and he would “likely be in a very receptive mood today.” Vikker wouldn’t explain any more, however, and he kept hurrying Donella along, asking her, “Aren’t you ready yet?”
There was hardly time for her to catch her breath. Before she knew it, she was out on the main road with him. Off to her right, riding up the valley in the direction of the city and the Myrcian compound, Donella saw a small, dark-haired woman in blue silk, hunched low in her saddle.
“There goes Princess Elwyn,” said Vikker gleefully. “Her loss is your gain.”
He raised a hand, and a tiny sparrow flew down from the nearest willow and landed on his shoulder. He spoke to the bird in a whisper. Then it fluttered away to a branch on the other side of the path. “Stay with that little fellow,” Vikker said, “and you’ll find Andras soon enough.”
So, she followed the bird down the road. They turned onto a side trail and headed up the hill into the dense, dark jungle along a bubbling, steaming little creek. There were turnings every few yards, and dozens of old wooden footbridges, and it would have been impossible to find the way without her little guide, who flitted from branch to branch, always ten or twenty feet ahead of her.
At last she arrived at a hot pool surrounded by dense flowering thickets of rhododendrons and azaleas and long trailing bougainvillea. Through the warm mist, she saw a red and white tent with chairs and tables inside, like someone was having a party. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, though.
No, wait. That wasn’t true. There were clothes—men’s clothes—scattered on the mossy bank between the pool and the tent. She heard a low, somewhat drunken voice off to her left, singing the same verse of “The Fair Maid of Brawley” over and over. Then the steam parted, and she saw Andras lounging in the hot water with a nearly empty glass of wine in his hand. His other hand was hidden, doing something vigorous to churn up the water. But she couldn’t see quite what he was doing.
She cleared her throat and said, “Hello.”
He jumped up and spun around, water streaming off his naked shoulders and down over the muscles of his chest and abdomen. She couldn’t help but stare, and she found herself wishing he would stand up a bit straighter, or that the pool wasn’t quite so deep.
“Oh, Donald! It’s you,” he cried, looking distinctly relieved. “I was afraid it might be a certain someone coming back to give me another piece of her mind.”
Now what was she supposed to do? She’d found him, and he was stark naked. She began to twitch and strain against her trousers.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to join me, would you?” asked Andras. “The water is fantastic.”
“Mmm...yes. Seems like it,” she said, not looking at the water.
“Go over to the tent and get the wine bottle first. I stupidly left it up there. It’s on the writing desk. Right by the lute.”
She obligingly went and fetched the bottle. When she brought it back, she handed it to him and started undressing. She got as far as taking her overtunic, boots, and socks off, and she sat dangling her feet in the silky warm water.
“I suppose you know what it’s like to have problems with girls,” said Andras. “Or are you the sort who doesn’t really like women?” He moved a little closer along the side of the pool.
Her hands paused at the laces of her trousers. She felt nervous, especially now that she realized he was staring at her every bit as much as she was staring at him. She saw how he looked—face flushed, eyes wide—and her conscience started to bother her again. He didn’t really want her; he wanted an imaginary man with a made-up name and a fake body.
“The water feels even better when you’re sitting in it,” he said.
He poured her a glass of wine. She took it, but didn’t drink. She couldn’t look him in the eye anymore, and her cock—fully hard seconds before—was shriveling up. This was all so wrong, no matter what Vikker might say.
“If I don’t tell him now,” she thought, “then I’ll never be able to tell him. If I don’t tell him now, how can I ever face him again?”
Grinning, he put a hand on her foot, and then ran his fingertips up her calf and over her knee. It felt so good, but she brushed his hand away and sat back.
“Andras, no. I’m sorry. There’s something you need to know.”
His face fell. “Ah. So you’re not into other men, then.”
“No, that’s not it at all,” she sighed. Turning the ring, she whispered the termination spell, and the transformation of her body was reflected in the growing look of astonishment and alarm on his face. First an awkward grimace of confusion. Then wide-eyed horror.
“What...the...fuck,” he finally croaked out, backing slowly away from her. “Holy fucking Finster. I thought you looked like.... I mean, I knew there was something about you that.... I mean, is this some sort of spell, or are you really Donella?”
“It’s really me,” she said miserably. The way he was looking at her now made her want to go find a different pool and drown herself.
“But...but what in the Void are you even doing here?”
This was it—her one chance in life. If she couldn’t say it now, when could she ever do it? But there was so much to say, so much she wanted to tell him, that it all came out in a confused rush.
“Andras, I love you. There, I said it. I came here to stop you from marrying Elwyn, because you can’t marry her, no matter what your family wants. And there are people who want to stop the marriage, and you’re in danger. At least that’s what I’ve heard. I know you like boys; I found that out in Pinburg. But I’ve got this ring now, so I can be a boy, too. I think I like it that way, but I’m not really sure. All I know is I love you.”
She had her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands curled tight around her wineglass, waiting for him to respond. It felt like months passed before he did.
“Donella, I...I don’t even know what to say.” Opening her eyes, she saw him shaking his head and massaging his temple, like he’d taken a punch and was trying to recover his balance. “I had no idea. But you’re my sister’s friend, and that’s how I’ve always seen you—like another sister.”
“So you don’t love me, then,” she whispered. She pulled her feet out of the pool and hugged her knees to herself. It took her two quick gulps to completely finish her glass of wine.
“It’s not that.... Look, I don’t know,” he stuttered. “This is awfully sudden, Donella. I had no idea, I really didn’t.” There was a clink of glass, and when she could wipe away her tears and look, he was pouring himself about half the remaining bottle.
“Save some for me,” she said, holding out her own cup.
The sensible thing would have been to go back to the Niryana shrine and tell Vikker she had failed. Or at least go hide somewhere in the woods until this crushing sense of humiliation lifted—however many years that might take. But she wasn’t feeling very sensible, and after the first, quick jolt of alcohol, she found she could look at him without wanting to die too much.
They finished that bottle, and then she went and fetched another before Andras even asked. She sat on the edge of the hot spring again, and he lounged in the water, barely concealed from the waist down by the steam and foam. By the time they’d finished their next glasses, there was no awkwardness at all between them, and they talked and laughed about their journeys so far, comparing notes about where they had been. It all felt totally natural. No, better than that. He was closer now, looking at her, touching her arm as he talked, resting a hand on her leg.
A very small part of her mind—almost vanishingly small now and fading fast—told her to get up and leave, but she ignored it. Any sensible thoughts she might have had were drowned out by the shiver of pleasure that ran through her whenever he touched her.
“So you got this ring from the Vizierate people,” he said, grinning. “Show me how it works.”
She did, turning it around, pressing the stone, and whispering the words. This time he was ready for the transformation, and he didn’t seem bothered by it at all. In fact, he seemed to approve quite a bit. He came around so he was right in front of her, dripping water onto her knees, the tip of his nose inches away.
“How real is it?” he whispered. “I see it changes the shape of your body and your face. What about everything else?”
She was almost painfully aware of everything else—it was pushing so hard against the laces of her trousers that she was surprised it hadn’t burst out. “It’s all there,” she said. “Exactly where you’d expect.” Then she leaned in and kissed him.
At first, she was more surprised by this than he was, and she nearly froze. But then she felt his tongue in her mouth, and her body seemed to start moving on its own. She wrapped her legs around his wet, naked back and dragged him closer.
He scooted her right up to the edge, nearly in the water with him, and she could feel him, just as hard as she was, rubbing against her inner thigh. Before she even knew what she was doing, she reached down and touched it. She was gentle at first. She had been too embarrassed to try much experimentation with her own, whatever Vikker might have told her to do. But this was different, and she didn’t want to stop. What had happened to her all of a sudden? She could barely get the nerve to kiss a boy. And now this!
“That’s not really fair,” he said, his voice a low hum in her ear. “You’ve still got your pants on.”
He moved away, and she let out a little whimper of protest when he slid out of her hand. But then he sank down and started unlacing her trousers. He drew her out, then took her deep in his mouth.
“Oh, Earstien,” she thought. “He really knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?”
She wanted to do something for him, but when she tried to reach out, he pushed her down, so she was laying back on the lawn with her legs in the water. Closing her eyes, she let the feeling build.
The sensation was something she had never felt before. Not like this. She had tried touching herself every now and then, but she had always thought it was dirty and wrong, though at the moment, she couldn’t remember why. This was already better than anything she had ever experienced, and it kept getting better, until it was so good she thought she would explode.
Her eyes popped open. There was a rush of heat through her whole body, and then it came surging out of her, up her legs and through her hips, pushing with such force she felt it might burst. He swallowed everything, and kept sucking, slowly and steadily, until it was too much, and she had to pull out and curl up on her side, shaking and twitching on the grass.