The sound of the door opening told Darynn that his student for the evening had
arrived. He put down the quill he worked with, moving slowly, and then covered
the inkwell with a small stone cap. He turned slowly, anticipating the look of
awe in the student's face (they always looked the same). But when he turned, he
found himself surprised, because he had never before had a female student.
"Well," he said.

He estimated her age between fourteen and fifteen years. That age where children
become just perfect for teaching the ways of the advanced magicks he of all the
mages, understood best. Her hair hung about her face and down her back in a black
frame of soft, tight curls. He saw beautiful, powerful slate blue eyes under that
frame, and a tiny, delicate nose hovered above an equally small and expressive
mouth. "Come here, child. Sit, over there, on that stool with the blue pillow,
yes." She moved as he directed, and although she needed her heels on the bottom
rung of the stool, she did manage to get onto it without help. "Now then," he
said. "Tell me your name."

"Aimee', sir." She held out an envelope.

"And your master?"

"Teltirray, Darynn-sir."

"He purchased you?" He opened the letter, which indeed carried Mage Teltirray's
seal on it, as he listened.

The girl shook her head nervously. "No, sir. Well, yes sir. I mean I do not know.
He removed me from an orphanage seven months ago, but the arrangement did not
have the contract exchange of a slave."

"But coin passed hand nonetheless," Darynn said, nodding. Teltirray's last two
students had been girls like Aimee'. They were always girls. Darynn disliked
Teltirray, partially for his tastes and partially for his utter lack of social
grace and manners. Teltirray's last two "students" had apparently found the
stress of living with him unbearable and committed suicide, and he had suspected
from the start that Teltirray merely drove them to madness as a simple method of
disposal. With Aimee's appearance and the instructions in the letter she held out
to him, he felt his suspicions were confirmed.

Darynn examined Aimee' carefully while deep in thought about a personal dilemma
that had not existed before she had walked through the door. He switched his
vision; decades had passed since he had needed to say anything to effect such
change. Under his eyes, she appeared as a conglomeration of green and blue
masses, swirling lazily. "By Sphahis!" he whispered to himself, then caught his
words. This girl radiated power, power he was very familiar with, and Teltirray's
current plan became clear to him. Teltirray sought his skill not so that he might
train an apprentice, but an odalisque.

Darynn became convinced, and smiled to himself. Aimee' would get the training
Teltirray sought, but he would not get just an odalisque; he would get an houri,
as well.

"So, you have come to me to learn my magicks, Aimee'?" he asked.

"Y... yes, sir. He told me you knew best the teachings in the world about the
magicks of the Satyrs and the Megass." She fidgeted nervously in her seat, still
not daring to make eye contact with him.

He rose from his chair. The sound of his seat rocking startled her slightly, and
she looked away. He stood before her and reached out with one hand to touch her
under the chin, to reach into her. He wished her a calmness and she received it,
turning her head back towards him. "Look at me, Aimee'. Tell me what you see."

Her eyes looked into his and her gaze pierced him. Oh, Teltirray, he thought as
he let her in, you do like to play with fire, don't you? "I see a man. Young, but
fully grown. Brown, your eyes, the same color as your beard and hair. You have a
handsome nose, and a wide mouth, but the lips look thick, but not unhandsomely
so. Your body, what I can see of it, shows care, well-shaped and strong. And you
possess power."

"The last. Your opinion, or that of rumors given to you?"

"Mine," she said firmly.

He smiled and walked back to his comfortable chair, slowly lowering a spherical
shutter over the magically glowing orb that sat on his desk. He wanted the
darkness of the room to make it seem smaller and more intimate. He wanted her
trust above everything else. "I want to tell you a story, Aimee', that tale I
tell all my students, of my first encounter with the Satyrs and of my learning of
the ways of love, of power, and of men. That you should hear it intrigues me,
because I have never told it to a female before. Your master tests me, and I do
not like being tested. But do not relay that message to him. You may tell him
everything that occurs... but that. Do you understand?"

"Yes... yes sir."

"Good. Now listen closely."



I began my life as a simple blacksmith's son and the very idea that I might end
up a mage never crossed my mind. I knew my place in the world and I knew that the
worlds of mages lay far beyond my simple reach. Never did the twain meet.

I had a talent for the smithy, make no mistake. I knew how to make steel behave
in manners never seen before or since, and I can still do the same today. I still
smith as a hobby. And as a way of making the tools of my true trade, of course.

Do you know where Daber Wood lies on the map, Aimee? No? Some day I shall pull
out my maps and show it to you, once you have learned to read the simpler ones.
Yes, I intend on teaching you that as well. Suffice to say it should take many
weeks and many forged rivers to reach it walking.

My father had many customers and when I came into my own often he sent me to see
to their needs. As I approached my seventeenth birthday it became apparent to
both him and me that my talents would someday surpass his. Customers more often
requested my presence at their needs then they did his. I must give him credit
for his fortitude and his benevolence for never once did he express grief or
anger at my inborn skills, only joy and happiness at what we both saw as my
future success. He knew that someday I would have the skills to save him in elder
years. And now, although in ways neither of us intended, I do. But we could never
know what would happen to me that summer.

Father dispatched me one morning to the house of a customer who lived on the
other side of Daber Wood. He called himself Thomas Cailleac, and to the knowledge
of our town he had come into his estate and his wealth from a combination of
family and the lucky spoils of war. He had often called me in the past year,
admitting to me once that he enjoyed my natural talents as a worker of iron,
lead, and silver.

Even starting out first thing that morn the ride to his home would take me well
into the day. It would also carry me through the thickest heart of those Woods.
The stories in town often called those woods haunted, or worse, cursed! Men
vanished in those woods, and sometimes, late at night, the sounds of pipe and
drum carried on the wind. My father often warned me about the Daber, telling me
not to ride through them after dark. When visiting Cailleac I often rode through
them in the early evening but often managed to break through them before complete
nightfall.

I reached Cailleac before high noon. As much as I could tell, Thomas lived alone
although his house could easily have hidden a dozen sleeping chambers and staff.
He extended his kindness as always, offering me bread and beer before indicating
the work he wanted done. Iron frames and lead workings held the glass windows in
his home in place but often those frames and working needed mending. He supplied
the glass panes and the lead but he needed my skill to shape and work them
properly. At least, he always said so. But Thomas had told me once of his life as
a warrior and I didn't think him the kind of man to disdain simple physical
labor. I offered to teach him the simple things that would make it possible for
him to do most of the mending himself.

He laughed heartily. "I like your company, Darynn. Sometimes I think of breaking
the windows myself just to have more excuses to invite you out here. But, your
words have sense. Show me."

I taught him the basics of lead and the dangers therein. Then he showed me an
iron fence that had rotted through and the bolts that had come loose in the last
windstorm. Fixing that ruined masonry took quite a while.

I felt his eyes upon me as I work. I make no exaggeration in that. He wore tight
pants of tanned cowhide, tall boots, the kind a soldier should own, and a simple
tunic with a slit 'v' at his neck that could be drawn closed with a strap of
leather. The heat of day sweated the life out of me as I worked and he brought me
water, but as he offered it to me I could feel his eyes touch my skin where my
shirt did not cover me. And his breath, like the scent of warm horses, carried to
my nostrils something that I could not fathom.

For at that age I had known the pleasant company of women but not their
intimacies. And the intimacies of men... pfagh! All I knew of that came from
legends of evil, sickness, and death. What did my town cleric know? Nothing!

Forgive me, Aimee'. I forget that my cleric now thinks my kinds of knowledge
'corrupt' and evil, and I think he knows absolutely nothing. I must remain
focused in my tale.

Have you ever watched a man walk, Aimee'? They all walk in almost the same
manner. All except Thomas. His boots should have leant him a strident, powerful
gait. Instead, his power seemed elsewhere, in his eyes and his broad, massive
chest. His stride came in short, careful gestures, as if he thought about every
step before making it. For a man so long a soldier he looked uncomfortable
wearing those boots.

"You could stay the night," he offered me as I prepared my horse to leave.

"Father will want me home."

"Night falls already, Darynn. I fear for your safety if you walk through those
woods at this hour. It takes you four hours to reach your home from here."

"I only spend the first two in the forest, sir. I will have no trouble."

His eyes darted back and forth, and the concern in his face warmed me. But at the
same time it made me nervous; did he know something I didn't? His nervousness
said he did. Finally, though, he nodded his head. "Take care of yourself, Darynn.
I will want to see you again." He reached out a hand and dropped payment in my
hand. Seven silver, and more than I had asked.

"And you, Thomas. God bless you." I mounted my horse and rode towards the woods
even as the darkness of night fell further.

As I rode, I realized the error of my choice. For the clouds had covered the sky
and neither moon shone through to light my way. At first I felt confident, but
fear began to push that confidence down, so I lit a lantern.

I saw that I had strayed far from the road. I could not see it from atop my
mount. I guessed that I had ridden in a straight line since leaving the path and
that if I turned around and road straight back, I had to reach the road again. As
my horse walked, I heard thunder in the distance. At first it came as a slow
rumble, then it grew louder and sharper and closer. Then a lightning bolt struck
nearby; my hair stood on end, my skin burned. Naturally, my horse panicked and
threw me off. I landed on the ground, cursing, and then as my horse flailed my
pack of tools feel from his back and landed very near my head. A blacksmith's
tools weigh many pounds, and I realized that had they fallen on my head I would
surely have died.

That thought stayed in my head for a long time. The fall had stunned me and I sat
up to collect my wits. And then a young, boyish voice rang out through the woods.
"A human, fallen from his horse!"

Another voice sang, "What shall we do with him?"

And the first answered, "Why, take him, of course!" Suddenly a small crowd of
young boys appeared out of the woods. The oldest looked no more than sixteen, and
the youngest thirteen. I looked around, bewildered, as they threw a net over my
shoulders.

I sputtered and cursed as they drew the net tight. "Unhand me!" I demanded.

"Ah, ah!" the eldest chided me. "You dared to walk through our woods at night,
and now we have you for our amusement."

"What... what shall you do to me?"

"You'll see. You'll like it." He smiled, and fear gripped my heart. The fall had
stunned me so hard that only now did I realized that none of the boys wore any
clothing. Hair covered their legs from the waists to their ankles, and those very
legs ended not in feet, but in hooves. Satyrs had taken me. I knew the end of my
life approached soon.

"I thought... I thought Satyrs only took women."

"We take what we want," the boy replied. "And tonight, our Master wants you."

"Your Master?"

"You will see." They hoisted my net between two poles and carried me through the
woods like a stag trapped in a hunt. Which, in a way, they may have regarded me.
We approached an open circle ringed with torches, and as we approached the winds
seemed to die away. I knew that they controlled the magics of the woods, and here
I saw the evidence.

The circle grew out of the side of a hill, and set into the hill I saw a throne,
covered in shadows. A shape sat in that throne but I could not see who-- or
what-- owned that shape. "Master," the eldest spoke, "We have brought your
prize."

"Good." I expected their master's voice to frighten me, but instead it did the
opposite. I felt warmed by it, reassured by it. And it had a familiar sound to it
as well, as if I knew this Master. "Remove him from the net."

They lowered the poles and removed the net from about me. The Master spoke again.
"Strip him."

The boyish, youthful satyrs tore my clothes from my body. I felt no urge to fight
them. Instead, I felt curiosity, wonder, reassurance, and an uncontrollable
emergence of lust. "Bring him closer."

They did not have to lead. I walked voluntarily and he noticed this. "You want,"
their Master said. "I can see it in your eyes and the way you hold your body.
Good. You will need that. Now kneel before me."

That I would not do. I resisted him. I wanted to have my curiosity satisfied but
not at the cost of my dignity. "Kneel," he repeated, his voice firm and
demanding. The boys grabbed at my arms and my shoulders and began pushing me
down. And although I felt my need to resist him utterly strong and unquestionable
within me, I also felt myself sinking to my knees. But still I looked up, holding
my chin high and defying him.

I watched him stand and approach me. As his face came into the light I recognized
it and I knew his name. "Thomas." But the same hair that covered the boys covered
him, and instead of feet I saw hooves. "You... "

"They call me the Lord of Satyrs of Daber Wood." He smiled, his hand reaching out
to stroke my hair. His fingers touched me and I felt the first touches of his
power within me. "And they name me Awrthom. You may call me that, my beloved
Darynn."

I cannot tell you what confusion lived in my heart, Aimee'. For I knew they
should kill me that night; few whom the Satyrs took lived to talk and those that
did keep their secrets close. But at the same time I knew that I trusted Thomas.
He had always treated me well. And the lust, Oh, Aimee', the lust I felt I cannot
describe. It took me over, it fed me and it burned me.

His legs looked like the trunks of trees under their sheaths of thick, curly
hair. As I looked up I saw his sex, and I will tell you shamelessly that horses
are not so blessed with such enormity, nor angels with such beauty. To measure
it, I saw three hands of length to it and a thickness that rivaled my wrists.
Behind it his sac hung, full and large. Above that a thick tangle of reddish
brown hair protected his beauty from the cold, and above that I saw his lean,
broad chest and belly. He smiled, his face calm and handsome; no woman could
refuse him, as man or as beast.

His hands stroked his sex and it grew harder under his touch, although I will not
say it grew any longer. "You will take this tonight," he said, looking down at
me. "You know how a woodsman splits wood with a wedge, Darynn? Look at this
engine, Darynn. My boys, they call this the Boysplitter." He caressed his manhood
with a closed fist, running his hands along the length of that unbelievable
shaft, reaching the end and seemingly twisting as he stroked. "Kiss it, Darynn.
Bless this body. Worship properly and you may learn the secret of living through
the night."

"Thomas..." I gasped, my tongue thick. All I knew instructed me that what he
asked was evil, but I knew that I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted him to take
me as he wanted to take me.

"Kiss me, Darynn. Kiss my sex. Open your mouth and receive the first of me."

I knelt, my face upraised, and opened my mouth. He stepped forward, one small
step, and the head of his manhood pressed against my lips. For the first time I
knew the taste of a man and I knew I would again never find satisfaction in the
arms of women only. Hear these words, Aimee', that our lessons forbid the taste
of our own sex with good reason, for once we have learned it we will never find
satisfaction in half of mankind alone.

His very largeness prevented me from taking all of him. I could not fit more than
the head of his sex into my mouth, but he seemed to take pleasure from that
alone. I had my eyes closed and I did learn worship at his maleness, tasting him
and sucking him. I felt the slick mass of his sex against my tongue and the power
of his maleness there. I smelled him, his warm, loamy scent, rich and heady,
washing over me with every breath.

"Good little man," Awrthom said as his hands caressed my face. He took his sex
away from my mouth, but I wanted him back, I wanted more. I cried out with need.

He smiled and directed his boys, "Hold him down," and they did as they were told.
They pulled me forward and laid me across a stump that I didn't remember seeing
when we entered the clearing. The very roots came to life as they pressed my
palms to the darkened soil and very soon those roots fixed me into place, a part
of the still-living but soon-dying stump they had brought me to.

Awrthom covered my body with his, the enormity of his sex pressing against my
back. My fear rose and threatened to become blind, unreasoning terror. I had not
anticipated his desire to enter me, to take me. I had thought about it only in
esoteric, indistinct terms. I had not come to grips with his wish to press his
sex to my anus, to push it into me, to fill me and to ruin me. "Thomas..."

"Hush," he whispered into my ear. "You can take this, Darynn, I believe you can.
If you do, if you learn to take my sex and to open your body and your heart to me
at the same time... if you let me become a part of you and share your part with
me, then you will survive. You have strength within you that no one understands.
You have magic, Darynn. Believe in it."

I did not know what to say. I trusted Awrthom but only as I knew him, as the
human Thomas Cailleac. I felt fingers playing with my buttocks and between them,
caressing my anus with a warm cream. "Butter," Awrthom told me. "It will make
loving you easier."

My breathing came faster and my head grew light. I knew fear, Aimee'. And then
his legs were between mine, pushing mine apart. He gave me no preparation, no
time to relax. I felt the head of his sex slide between my greased buttocks,
finding my anus and pushing in gently. My legs trembled and I began crying. Tears
squeezed from behind my shut eyelids. I knew I would die.

He pressed, his strength becoming greater. As his greased rod penetrated me,
ripped into me, I screamed. I knew he had split me. I knew my life even then
drained into him. I felt the head of his sex penetrate deeper. He plunged further
into my guts, Aimee', and I felt every inch as he did.

I heard his voice at my ear again. "You will not die, Darynn, my sweetest boy, if
you open your heart to me. Come, beloved, feel the loving strength of my sex
within you, joining us. Feel the pleasure of our joining. Feel the heat of my
body."

I did. I felt his chest against my back and his legs against my buttocks. I felt
the throbbing of his manhood deep within my body. I cried. I wept for all the
things I had lost in his ravishment. But then I felt something else come from
deep within me. Maybe it came from the tip of his sex; they seemed in the same
place. That thing reached my throat and I felt joy within me. I began to laugh. I
felt mirth and freedom, and I heard Awrthom laugh along with me. And then he
pulled his sex from deep within me. I whimpered.

"You want it back?" Awrthom asked me.

"Yes!" I said. "I want it within me."

"Then have it you shall!" he said as he pushed back into me. Then out again. Then
in. His sex rubbed at the opening of my anus and the head rippled within my guts.

The pleasure took me then. I cannot describe the feelings as he raped my
restrained body, Aimee'. My body trembled at the obscene invasion of man into
man, my legs shook with shock and my eyes filled with tears, but I laughed and I
blessed and I loved Awrthom as he took me with the force only men can muster. My
own sex was hard and rubbed painfully against the wooden table he took me on. He
knew he didn't have to take care with me and I didn't wish him to.

His body pressed against mine like a force of nature destroying a mountain. I
fought my restraints not to get away but to get at him, to drag him deeper into
me. As he pressed his sex deeper into me and his chest to my back, I felt us
being to merge, to breathe together. I cannot describe it any other way. We began
to fall into each other, and I felt the meeting place of our bodies in my
heart... in our hearts. It

was more than a joining, more than a mating.

He grabbed my hips and began thrusting madly. I wanted more and I tried to tell
him so but my voice would only make the sounds of animals. His sex ravished me
and my hole burned at his pounding. My chest rubbed against the wood of the
stump. My legs burned and my wrists ached from my wish for release. I felt
possessed by his enormous manhood and his unquestionable force. He grunted with
every pushing, jabbing thrust that sent a ripple of pain and pleasure along my
back, between and through our bodies. Small gasps escaped his lips, a chant of
"aye, aye, aye," with every thrust and when he screamed his pleasure I did too.
For I felt it. In my heart I felt the coil of his climax explode and in my body I
felt the shooting sperm of his jutting sex bathing my insides with their magical
warmth.

I lifted my hands. Free! They had released me! I turned, but I did not see him.
No one stood in the clearing but me, and I felt I possessed so much strength, so
much fire. The fuel of his sex burned inside my guts and I needed to get it out.
I took to my feet and I began running, chasing something, but what I don't know.
I ran faster, harder, and then the voices began to surround me, boy's voices.
They appeared on my left and on my right, running with me. My feet sprouted
hooves, and the hair on my legs grew thick and entangled. They led me now and I
followed them. We passed through the woods as so much wind and reached another
clearing, this one holding a large pool of still water. They all leapt into the
water and I leapt with them.

We laughed and we splashed and we joked in a language that I had not known until
that day. We touched and I caressed them and they me. On the banks of that pool
our play dissolved into a long night of play, of men and of boys and of hands and
tongues and shafts and holes. I never wanted the sun to rise, although I knew it
must, and I knew that I would return to the world of the living.

With this play that lasted for a night's worth of forever I fell asleep before
the crow of the cock. In my belly and in my backside I held the eruptions of
several satyrs, and in several satyrs they held mine. As I curled up to lay my
head on another's leg and sleep claimed me, I knew...



I awoke in the early morning with a start. Although startled and long dreaming, I
felt fully rested and refreshed. I didn't want to look under the blanket, but I
knew I had to throw it aside and I did. I still had my feet and the hair on my
legs looked the same as ever. I felt fit, although within my belly I felt warm as
well.

I looked at the room and I recognized the windows. Lead, and so I realized I had
spent the night at Thomas's house. As I rubbed my head in confusion my fingers
found a bump, probably from when I had fallen from my horse.

The door opened and Thomas entered the room. "Darynn? I heard you shout."

"I had a dream," I said.

He sat on the bed and smiled. "Part of a dream," he assured me, laying his hand
on my thigh. He wore no boots this morning and I could see his hooves clearly.
"You did not dream last night."

"But I still live."

"You learned the secret to living," Awrthom replied. "I need to tell you
something, Darynn. You have inside more power than I have seen in four centuries.
You have a beauty that some of the gods cannot match. You have a will that you
can train to take advantage of both. If I needed to describe my feelings about
you, Darynn, I would say 'smitten.'"

"Last night we committed such evil. Your very existence belies that evil." I lied
to him, Aimee'. Although my upbringing had ground those words into my head, I did
not feel them. I felt only trust and a growing sense of love for Awrthom, the
Lord of the Satyrs of Daber Wood.

"You know no such thing," he replied. "I only think of action as evil, not mere
existence. Now I have committed what you would call evil in the past in my search
for a boy like yourself. But we Satyrs have different rules and live by the laws
of magic."

"If I told the townspeople they would come here and they would burn you out and
they would try to kill you, Awrthom."

He leaned back, his hands clasped about one knee. "Yes, I suppose they would.
Will you tell them, my beautiful Darynn? Or will you keep this secret, and return
to me as we both will it, and let me teach you of magic? You have the born skill
but no training. You have discipline, but not in the right talents. Let me teach
you, let me show you."

"And the cost?"

"You lived the cost last night. You gave me everything. I would not dare ask
anything more of you but your attention, Darynn." He looked into my eyes and that
presence of lust returned and lived again between us. "But if you want to share
my bed and my pleasure, Darynn, I will whore for you as no woman could ever
give." He smiled as he spoke.

"Give me privacy, Thomas Callieac."

"Certainly." He rose and left. Now alone I felt comfortable enough to dress. I
gathered my pack and left the room, walking towards the stables, hoping to avoid
Thomas. But he had anticipated my needs and he brought my horse to me across the
stable's open field.

Without a word I took the reins from him and I mounted the saddle. "Darynn," he
said as I turned around to leave. His voice tugged at me, the pain and the hope
so readily near. "Will you tell them?"

I looked back on him and shook me head. "I need time to think, Awrthom. I... so
much has happened."

"You cannot go back unchanged. I cannot undo what I have done."

"I know. I will not tell them."

"Darynn," he said. "I will summon you again, if only to fix my broken windows and
mend my gates and shoe my horses. But I will not mention the teaching of magic or
the loving of men until you do. You must choose your path, as blacksmith or as
mage." He smiled crookedly. "Goodbye, handsome Darynn."

I did not speak another word to him as I kicked my horse, encouraging her out of
the gates of Cailleac and now, through the Daber Wood by the safe light of day.

Archmage Darynn leaned back in his chair. Aimee' seemed to almost squirm in her
stool and the effect he thought quite attractive. "Aimee'?"

"Sir?"

"That ends your first lesson. Sometimes a student's life means sitting and
listening to your teacher rattle off a boring tale."

"Your tale did anything but bore me, sir! I thought at points I might cry in fear
or sadness or even desire in the telling!"

Darynn nodded, a smile crossing his face. "In any event, Teltirray has heard it
before. Or at least read it in the records of the Guild. I bid you, Aimee', take
my story with you and think on it tonight."

"I will sir. Do you dismiss me, then?"

"I bid you goodnight, Aimee', but my students I never merely 'dismiss.'" He
grinned.

"Yes sir, I understand." She hopped off the stool and made her way to the door.
Darynn gestured and the lock opened.

"Goodnight, Aimee'."

"Goodnight, Sir Archmage Darynn."




AIMEE', CHAPTER 2


Darynn had sworn decades earlier that he would always consider his life a lesson
and himself a student. Although his opportunities to experiment with the opposite
sex numbered beyond his counting he had never once actually paid any attention to
them or their needs. Awrthom had made him a man of men, in a world of their own
without want or need of women.

Aimee' changed that. She had occupied his thoughts for the entire week, from the
previous Gayobi to the present. In that time he had done a little asking around,
and had learned some things about Teltirray's tastes that bothered him. According
to his friend Bethsany, the mistress of the local brothel, Teltirray had become
more violent in the last decade, although she had as little idea why as Darynn
did. He found himself hoping that Teltirray's violence didn't extend to Aimee'
and that he wouldn't hurt her in the days between her lessons. As the hour
approached he found himself rubbing his hands together before the fire and
assembling his story for the evening in his mind.

The knock came at the door none too soon. "Come in," he said, attempting to make
his voice behave in a manner befitting an archmage. Inside, a corner of his
spirit laughed at him; surely he did no better than any poor boy at his first
occasion with a woman! And he, nigh unto a century old!

The door opened and Aimee' entered. "I have come for my second lesson, sir, with
your permission."

"You have it. No, not the stool again. Come, here, sit by me before the fire."
Nervously the girl crossed the flagstone-and- mortar floor and then his precious
white yeti-fur rug. The rug had been the lesser of two prizes he had won from a
battle with such a creature destroying many a town to the Northeast. He smiled,
remembering the greater prize; a boy named Darrick.

"Settle yourself against those blue pillows. Right." She sat down, her body
trembling slightly. He looked her over; bruises adorned both of her arms and one
smaller stood out even against the reddish skin of her chin. Darynn winced and
determined further to teach her the arts of self-preservation and defense as well
as those of pleasure.

"If you ever have need to speak, Aimee', do so freely. Now, tonight I shall tell
you my second story and you will do something for me. You will remove your
clothing."

She reached for her tunic instantly. "Wait," he said. "I did not tell you to
remove your clothes. I said you will remove your clothes. I shall not tell you
when."

"Then how will I know when to do so?"

"Aimee', I said you may speak freely, but you will address me as 'sir.'"

"Yes, sir. How will I know when to remove my... my clothes?"

"When you feel ready, Aimee', to take off an article of clothing, I want you to.
But not before then."

Confusion crossed her face as Darynn knew it would. Nobody ever gave slaves the
right to address their own feelings. Instead, slaves behaved as ordered and came
to hear every whim of a superior as an order. By permitting her access to her own
simple desires, Darynn hoped she would unwittingly open herself to her deeper
emotions. Sometimes boys in his service cried for hours when he did this, and
afterwards the passion from them exceeded even Darynn's fading memory of his for
Awrthom. He lived for those moments.

But did a woman have those same feelings and same methods of bottling them up and
controlling them? Darynn wanted to find out.

"Y... yes, sir."

"Now then, I shall tell you another tale. This one comes from my learning amidst
the Megass, and of one special Megassi named Ryuchia."



In my twentieth year Awrthom called me a man, told me he had no more to teach me,
and bid me go into the world to find my future. I had no wish to leave, Aimee',
for I loved him. Not just physically, although certainly that phrasing-- "I loved
him"-- had certainly come true by then.

I cried piteously. I wept for myself and I had learned to weep for him, Aimee',
because Satyrs have nothing but themselves and their passions. Awrthom allowed
himself no past, no future, nothing but the immediacies of his present pleasures.
Although I wished to stay in that Satyric haze for all of my existence, I knew
that he and I did not belong to the same worlds. I needed to seek my destiny
elsewhere.

He gave me money. I gave most of it to my parents to help them over my
disappearance. I even had a younger brother by then. I left them in the worst way
possible, I think. I stole out of the house one night leaving only the money and
a note. I think by that time father suspected something about my relationship
with Awrthom, although he never said a word and I think he trusted my wisdom.

I will not bore you with the details of the travel, Aimee'. Awrthom sent me on a
path into the mountains in search of a city the Megassi called Hakkana and a
Megass named Desa.

I knew little of the Megassi except for legends, Aimee'. I knew that they had
grown from the ranks of Dragonkind by virtue of their intelligence and their
capacity for magic, and I knew that even satyrs spoke in warm, awestruck whispers
at the magic they achieved through the exercise of their honest lusts.



"Master?" she interrupted him.

"Yes, Aimee?"

"May I remove my boots, sir?"

"Aimee, I told you that you may remove your boots when you feel the time has come
for you to remove your boots, and such with the rest of your clothes. You do not
need to ask me. If you never feel that time tonight, I understand. I do not want
to make any such demand of you. Understand?"

"I... I think so. Please, sir, do not let me interrupt your story."



As I approached Hakkana I sometimes saw Megassi circling between peaks in the
mountains. The road I walked led through those mountains and, according to one
scrawled sign I passed, across a pass that had claimed the lives of over a dozen
men. The sign, too, warned of Dragons in those mountains, but I rationed that I
had survived capture and rape and even the love of a satyr. A Dragon could do no
worse.

I camped in the hills the day before, and come morning began my ascent for the
pass. I hoped that the Dragons would find me before then. Find me they did. Two
swooped down from the high places in the mountains, flying over me in great,
sweeping passes. Red-scaled and massive, their wings beat the air as they flew
past and the wind they kicked up blew into my eyes and stung with fierce pain. I
had learned magic to alleviate that pain and so use it, giving myself a chance to
stand and examine my examiners.

[Who are you ?] the first one demanded, his voice shouting in my head like a
great storm.

"I call myself Darynn, as my father named me! Awrthom, Lord of the Satyrs of
Daber Wood has sent me to meet with Desa Megass of Hakkana."

[You have a great many friends,] the one spoke again. [You may pass unharmed and
without tribute unto the gates of our city. But if you have lied, your suffering
will amuse us for days.]

Speaking honestly, I had hoped for a ride. Dragons do not have kindness as we
know it, Aimee.' Ah, I see you smile at my little joke. And your boots have
walked away on their own. Good.

I walked for the day and through the night and near dawn I found the gates of the
great city of Hakkana. I slept there at the base of those monstrous gates.

A pain in my leg awakened me hours later. "You," the voice said. I looked up into
the face of the first landed Megass I had ever met. The young of the Megass
perform the city duties for their elders, and this one, barely nine feet long and
still unencumbered enough to have full use of his forearms, apparently served as
a guard.

"I... my apologies, my lord Megass. I have come seeking an audience with Desa
Megass."

The Dragon turned his head to me and I saw him smile. "You know interesting
friends if you know of Desa Megass. Very well, we will show you the way to Desa
Megass, young mage."

He led me past the gates and into the city of Hakkana. City? No, Hakkana covered
an entire plain with its construction. The great beauty of vaulted marble only
served to introduce the marvels of engineering that surrounded me.

The plain apparently sat as an elevated valley surrounded by mountains.

Most people know only rumors of the growth cycle of the Megassi, but it's
relatively easy to understand. Aimee', have you ever watched a caterpillar turn
into butterfly? You know of the sleeping process caterpillars undergo? The
Megassi have the same sort of growth, Aimee', only their caterpillar shape
resembles our shape, human. Or elven, I suppose. They built the central city of
Hakkana for that shape; they spend the first fifty years of life shaped in our
way. These young administer the city as it relates to the world; they perform the
roles of merchant and agent to the adult Megassi.

Somewhere in their fifth or, perhaps, late sixth decade, they begin to undergo
the great change. They do not sleep though the change, Aimee'; every day they
awake knowing that they have begun to change their shape, begun to change into
Dragonkind. Many move awkwardly at this time; They have no reason to learn to
live with a shape that will not feel the same tomorrow as it does today. My
guard, apparently, had some control of his faculties. He spoke well, and he moved
without clumsiness.

As I said, the central city is built for the young who are shaped as Men, but
beyond that the buildings grow ever larger and more impressive, housing as they
do the various centuries of the Megassi Dragons. The architecture is utterly
alien; the homes on the plain look as if they were grown, or like bubbles on the
water, but made from a stone the color of which pleases the owner. The most
common color is white, although some are red, black, green, or yellow. The
mountains that surround the plain are riddled with caves in which sleep the Great
Elders. Very few live that old; most succumb to disease, or madness. Some to
spiritual decay that leaves them lifeless and suicidal.

I was surprised that the guard led me to the central city. I had expected Desa
Megass to be an elder Dragon, and I inquired of it. "He is," the guard replied.
"But you are to be taken to the center to meet him."

The great city of domes passed as we walked, and the houses began to take on more
familiar shapes. I saw Megassi young going about their businesses, cleaning
windows and fixing roofs. They waved pleasantly as we walked; they are not a
mysterious people, not the young. They are as easily understood as you and I.

The guard led me to a circular building, a squat cylinder topped with a cone
roof. The door was made of wood and not large enough to admit him. He knocked. A
Megass youth answered the door. "What may I do for you, sir?"

"This human claims to know of Desa Megass and would like entry."

The youth looked at me, and I examined him in return. His skin seemed pliant, but
it still looked as a snake's: covered in fine scales and tinted with a greenish
hue. His yellow eyes had vertical slits, much like a cat's, and they sat in
shallow, reflective pools that regarded me carefully. "Yes, I know of him as
well," he said finally. "Admit him. I thank you, elder sir, for your kindness."

"May your change await you with pleasure," the guard said, leaving me standing
outside the door.

"Come in, come in," the Megass said. "Sit down. I am Kirustan. Desa will join us
in a moment."

I found a seat and examined the room. It seemed as any common home, although
perhaps a little better aired than my own. The construction was as solid as any
Castle, a privilege of its origin. The chairs were likewise made of stone, and I
knew that it would take all my thew just to move one a few inches.

In the floor there was set a circular staircase leading downwards into the very
rock. From here I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and I shall never
forget what walked up from that place. It was shaped as human, but it was of no
human origin. The body reflected light as if made of polished silver. It had no
imperfections; indeed in places it looked too perfect, gleaming and smooth. Its
eyes shone with a strange yellow light. The ears looked elven, wide at the base
and pointed towards the top. As it regarded me it smiled, and the silver seemed
to flow as if it was quickened. "Darynn."

"You... you know me?"

"Indeed I do," the creature replied. "I am Desa Megass, or at least, what you
will see of me." It chuckled deeply. "In good truth, I sleep many miles from
here. My spirit houses this form while the other sleeps. In here, I cannot do
magic, but that is no matter. I find the world of the children exciting, and the
beauty and song I hear here I weave into the waking magics of my Dragonself." It
picked up a stone chair like a feather and placed it down before me, then sat
down. "Now then, Darynn, tell me what brings you here."

I told him, Aimee'. I told him everything. Of my hopeless love for the Satyr
Awrthom, of the magics he had taught me, of his sending me here. The tale took
over two hours. When I was done, Desa nodded. "You are what I have been looking
for, and I am in Awrthom's debt for the gift he has sent me."

"Gift?"

"Yes," Desa nodded. "Although I cannot do magic in this shape, Darynn, I can
still teach it. I can still guide students who need learning. I have a... a
failure, I fear. Perhaps you can help me change that."

"Sir?"

"Quiet, Darynn. You are my apprentice now."

I thrilled to hear that, Aimee', to be told by this magical being that it had
accepted me as an apprentice. I glanced to the window where Kirustan leaned,
casually. He grinned at me, as if amused. I wondered what his role' was in Desa's
existence, and if I was staking a claim to something he felt he already
possessed. Nevertheless, he seemed earnestly pleased to hear of my acceptance.

"Yes, sir."

"I have several apprentices, Darynn. You are to... Kirustan, leave us."

"Immediately, sir," the young Megass said, taking his leave by the same staircase
Desa had arisen from.

"I am sorry; I do not know of your comfort or concern being a lover of men and
things male, Darynn, and I did not want to embarrass you in front of my other
young apprentice. I should have dismissed him before you told your tale."

"It is the past, sir, that tale. I am not ashamed of what I am."

"Good," he said. "Because it is, in part, what you are that makes you so valuable
to me. I have an apprentice that I took while he was still in Manform, thirty
years ago. He learned quickly, as I promise you, you will. His name is
Ryuchitoran. I fear he has not long to live.

"Ryu, as I call him, was born with two problems. I have trouble deciding some
days which makes his life more unbearable. The first is that he, like you,
strongly prefers his own sex to that of the other. This happens from time to
time; often there are enough of that kind to keep each other happy, and they are
of no trouble to the rest of us. At mating time, even with reluctance most of
them perform admirably, and the females among them I suppose hold their noses and
wait for it to be over; the bodily joy of bearing eggs is something even they
admit to liking, even if they dislike the process required to get there.

"But Ryu has a second, more troubling problem. After his change, it became
obvious. Ryu is a runt."

"Sir?"

"Ryu is growing very slowly. At the present he is only twelve feet long, and four
of that is his tail. This is not a midform, Darynn; Ryu is all Dragon at this
point. But he sleeps with the daily fitfulness of a youth and he grows but
slowly, if at all." Desa fell momentarily silent, thinking. "My newer apprentices
frequently learn the physical basics from their elder peers. Ryuchitoran is one
of my eldest students, and you will be his first. One of the things every
sorcerer must learn is how to teach, to pass on what he knows. It's time Ryu
learned a skill he will need in his old age, even if he does not expect to get
there.

"But in the process, young Darynn, you must do something else. If Awrthom did not
lie about the size of his manhood, you will not find Ryuchia threatening. Few, if
any, of the older Dragons among his kind show any interest in him; he is too
small, and frequently too depressed. I ask that you volunteer for this, Darynn:
Seduce him. Give him someone to feel lust for. You will have the tools, and the
skills of sexual magic that Awrthom has given you tell me that you are the best
person to do so. I will visit you often to give you guidance in your studies. I
encourage you to seek your power in the pleasures of your body." The silver
grinned again. "Encourage Ryuchia to assist you."

He was asking me to become the friend and lover of someone who, as he admitted,
was a dark and depressing soul. But a Dragon soul, nonetheless. And I had come to
Hakkana to learn from him, so I supposed that would be the price I would bear.
Not that I was completely against his plan, Aimee', for it had been several
months since I had loved, or even touched, another, and I think my youthful
manhood got the better of me. I agreed on the spot, a bit overwhelmed by lustful
images of myself entwined with a Dragon.

"Do you accept?"

I spoke immediately, anxious to move forward. "Sir, I do."

He nodded. "Excellent. Come with me, and I will introduce you to your new
teacher." He stood and led me out into the street.

As he led me out amidst the youthful construction, I marveled at the sights
surrounding me. The city was huge, Aimee', indescribable. I have seen only one
city this large since then, Aimee, and that is Arisanti. Yes, I have been there.

The low domes and bubbles that were the Megassi homes cast shadows on one
another, and I was to learn that arguments about who possessed the right to
another's heat were vocal and common. Although the circle wherein the young
abounded in trees and bushes, beyond was only plain red stone upon which their
marvelous houses were built.

"This is his," Desa announced, pointing to a dome immediately to our right. As
large as others nearby, it was the brown of a duck's egg, and it glistened with
the sunlight. Desa led me around. "The door is at an angle to the regular
direction of the wind. In that way, a Dragon may leave his home open and not have
wind blow about inside, but may step out and take wing instantly." We came to a
seam in the side of the dome, a seam that ran up many feet out of sight. He
knocked.

I know not the construction of the Megassi doors, but I would like to know. Like
the wings of a beetle, the doors spread open, making barely a sound as they did
so. "Inside," Desa said.

The smell inside had a slightly stale taste to it. Desa looked at me curiously.
"Describe it."

"Sir?"

"The smell. It's foremost in your expression, young human. Describe it to me."

I did, including the stale taste and an odd, burning smell, like old rope set
ablaze. He nodded. "Ryu has not been keeping his house in order." He cupped his
mouth with his hands as if to amplify his voice, and shouted "Ryuchitoran!"

"Master!" As my eyes adjusted from the blazing sun outside to the darker
interior, I began to see details. The center of the house rose many feet above my
head. Along the interior walls platforms circled at regular intervals, providing
many landing spaces for a creature used to life airborne. A bright circle of
light landed on the stone floor of the dome, indicating an opening at the center
of the dome where Dragons could enter while airborne. From the opposite side of
the dome, two rings up, a Dragon shuffled to the edge, gripped a cylindrical
brass railing and launched himself into the air. His wings spread wide and he
floated down to the central floor. "I am at your service."

"That is good, Ryu, because my request of you is very difficult. I have an
apprentice that I wish you to train."

"Me? Sir..." I examined Ryuchitoran closely. He was as Desa had described him; a
fully formed Dragon, but only eight feet in height, a four-foot tail behind him.
His scales appeared soft and supple, white tinged lightly with green, much as I
had described Kirustan. His body was wide in the middle, and his wings spread out
at least as long as his body in each direction. On his tail the fans that helped
control his flight opened and closed reflexively. His face expressed every
feeling, and even I could read them.

"Yes, Ryu."

"When do I meet him, sir?"

Desa's silvered shape turned to me. "Ryuchitoran, this is your junior apprentice,
Darynn. Darynn, this is Ryuchitoran."

"A human?" I was concerned that Ryuchitoran would view me with disdain, but
instead he seemed earnestly pleased to have me as his apprentice. "Wonderful! But
please don't call me Ryuchitoran. All those syllables get in the way. Ryu is
fine."

"Ryu, then," I said, laughing. He was certainly not what I had expected. "It's
still Darynn."

"Of course it is!" Ryu returned to his teacher and said, "What are my duties,
sir?"

"We have provisions for him, Ryu. He needs lodging, however, and occasionally a
translator. He will be learning the basics from us, although I believe he has a
broad knowledge already."

Ryu looked at me. "How long have you been studying?"

"Three years."

"Can you fly?"

"A... A little," I admitted. "I need practice."

"Then your first lesson will be about sleeping," Desa said. "Ryu, you know where
to lodge him."

"Indeed I do," Ryuchia said. "There are six rings to my home, counting the floor,
and you will sleep on the second." I breathed a sigh of relief; the second ring
did not seem so far away. Ryu smiled, showing his teeth, a sight which I admit
frightened me somewhat. "We Dragons are of the air, and we do not measure our
homes the way you do." I realized his meaning and my gaze moved up to look at the
two rings all the way at the top of the dome. Ryu followed my gaze and nodded.
"Exactly."

"I... I can't make it all the way up there."

"Of course you can," Desa said. "Even I can see that. Ryu, I leave you with your
apprentice and his devices. Darynn, take care. I will see to you in two days. In
the meantime, take your learning from Ryu."

Ryu spread his winds and kicked into the air, circling around his home until he
reached the second ring. "Come on, Darynn. Join me."

I swallowed hard, closed my eyes, and remembered what Awrthom had taught me about
flying. I leaned my head back and opened my eyes. My destination grew closer, and
I began to feel the great drag of the ground as I moved further and further away
from it. The ground is jealous of the bodies that rise from its dust, Aimee', and
is not so giving when we want to leave it.

As the railing grew closer the lift grew easier. I reached out for the brass rail
that was apparently a fixture of each level. On beautiful metal supports it hung
away from the wall, just above the level of the floor, giving Dragons something
to hold.

I climbed over the railing and sat down on the stone of the ring before realizing
that I had not removed my pack. I had managed to fly maybe five dozens of feet
with at least fifty pounds extra on my back. I felt good. "Is it the air?"

"It is you!" Ryu said, laughing. "You looks so stunned, Darynn. In any event,
this was once my home, when I was a youth and so had a youth's bed. My father,
who used to live in this dome, moved far away, and I inherited it from him."

It had a bed, although when I pulled the top sheet up dust flew, making me cough.
"Sorry," Ryu said. "I haven't had time to really clean this place the way it
should."

"I'll manage. Where might I find a broom?"

"Fourth ring," Ryu replied, grinning. "Over there." He gestured with a wing, and
a beam of light shot from a wingtip to indicate the broom.

I surprised myself again by retrieving the broom and returning to the second
ring, although by that time I was worn out and quite sure that I was done with
flying for the day. "What brings you to Hakkana, Darynn?"

"I was sent to find Desa at the request of my former master, who had taught me
all he could."

Ryu's head tilted slightly, as if confused. "You sound sad when you say that."

"Do I?" I asked. "I was not measuring my love for him on the basis of his
teaching. His sending me away hurt a great deal. Moreso than that I left my
parents, for they would not understand the son he returned to them."

"What is your teaching, then?"

I tried to think of a big word for what I was, something ostentatious. But I
could not, and eventually I told the truth. "Sex magic."

Ryu didn't laugh at me as I expected. No, he took me quite seriously. "I thought
that was difficult for male humans to learn. Not enough partners to practice with
or something."

"It can be," I said. "There are exceptions."

Ryu nodded and didn't press the matter. "I'll leave you to clean up your room. If
you desire privacy, there are sheets that can be hung from the hangers that ring
this room and the next. I used the room to the right for ritual research."

I nodded. "Thank you."

"Thank you for being welcome in my home," Ryu said earnestly. "I'll check on you
in a while." He stepped off the edge of the ring and vanished, apparently
dropping like a stone. I heard a soft 'thwap' of his wing as he landed on the
ring where he slept now.



Days and weeks passed by like flashes, Aimee'. I cannot describe the next six
months because they are entirely a blur. My skill as a metalsmith garnered me
much respect, and Desa suggested I direct at least some of my magical skill in
that direction as well. It was probably the most propitious decision I ever made,
because the resulting tools I constructed out of alloys of silver and steel
accelerated the outpouring of power I could achieve in short times. My nature
became more obvious as I crafted my staff, tipped as it was with obvious
phallicism. More importantly, the actual working spindles and dildos, made of
various alchemical woods, enabled me to reach heights I had never thought
possible.

The only aspect of this I have any pride in, however, is my sense. I did not, I
don't believe, ever aspire to more power for evil reasons. My desires were pure.
I wanted to be a mage; I wanted to be the best. More than once I had an
opportunity to grow faster, but at the expense of either Ryuchitoran or Kirustan
or another apprentice, and those I would not do.

As the months rolled by, I began to feel the immense sadness that was a part of
Ryuchitoran. My senses were being honed by the exercises Desa gave me, and more
importantly, they were being honed outwards. A sex mage learns to feel his
insides, learns to know every inch of himself and what one should apply where to
make those feelings grow and manifest themselves. But Desa had no interest in an
apprentice who couldn't see, Aimee', and so forced me into physical exercises to
maintain my strength but also to make me aware of the world about me. That is why
he began teaching me combat.

Those were interesting times, Aimee', to have youthful Dragonkin, man shaped,
fighting me. Hand to hand, with sticks, and then with swords, I learned how to
see my opponent, how to hear him and how to smell him. Six months is not a long
time, but it was enough to make me aware of Ryu.

The cheerfulness was facade', Aimee', for inside he was truly hurting. His
rejection at the hands of his peers was often more than he could bear, and I
would hear him sob in the night, whether as a way to sleep or something from his
dreams, I did not know. In the six months I spent with him, rarely did he have
Dragon visitors. Once, Desa came to visit us in his full dracoform, and the
difference between the two of them was bewildering. Desa was fully three times as
broad and four long compared to Ryu. I started to understand Ryu's pain. None of
his visitors was evidently a lover.

It was in the eighth month, as the snows began to lighten up and the sun returned
more often, that I asked Desa permission to study beyond my ken.

"What are you seeking?" he asked.

"I want to research the library to learn how to look at the origin of a
creature."

Desa looked understandably concerned. "The alchemy of life is one of the most
difficult sciences known, young Darynn. What are you seeking?"

"I want to know what makes a creature large or small."

He nodded. "His tears get to you, too."

"I can bear it, sir, but not forever. He will die without help."

"And you think you can help him."

"I can look for an answer."

Desa paused, thinking. "Very well. I want to know every detail of your research.
In this science, if you cast even a cantrip I want to know about it. Understand?"

I nodded.



Four months more before I could take it no more. From my sleep the sounds of
crying roused me. You have never heard a Dragon cry, Aimee', but describing it is
beyond me. It's a great roaring sound, unmistakable in its sadness and
unbelievable in its depth. I threw aside my bedclothes and leapt off the edge of
the ring, flying down one ring level to Ryu's sleeping dish. A bowl, set into the
material of the ring and layered in cushions, provided him a comfortable bed.

I dropped to my knees. "Ryu," I said softly. It was drowned out in the crying.
"Ryu," I repeated louder. Finally I reached out and touched him. "Ryu!"

[WHAT?] That voice punched into my soul with incredible power, stunning me and
tossing me back against the floor. "Darynn!"

Weakly, I managed to say, "Hi... Ryu."

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"You..." I sat up and brushed myself off. "You were crying, and it wouldn't let
me sleep." I assessed myself. I was still intact.

He looked away. "I'm sorry if my dreams bother you."

I leaned over and touched his wing. "I just wanted to know if there's anything I
can do?"

He looked up at me, his eyes still wet from the crying. "You're an invert too,
aren't you, among your kind?"

"It took you this long to figure it out?" I asked.

"The ways of humans are still strange, but I don't want to be insulting. What are
you... " Imagination is not the most disciplined part of us, Aimee'. I'm afraid
that staring at him, in his bed, conjured up those dreams and pictures I had not
had in nearly a year. "Do you really look at me that way?"

Understand, Aimee', that Ryu had never intentionally invaded my imagination. I am
simply most obvious in my imaginings when they are erotic, and he is apparently
at his most undisciplined when he has just woken up. Together the combination was
the undoing of my secrecy. I had to say something. "Yes. Sometimes."

"I..." He paused again. "I don't know what to say. Is it physical, or are you
really attracted to me?"

"Physically, I am attracted to Dragons, and you in particular, because with you
my fantasies are most possible. Emotionally... Ryu, you have been very kind to
me, and have tried hard to hide your suffering. I do feel for you, and I would
like to help you. I think of you as a wonderful friend."

"But you couldn't... love me."

I smiled and stroked his wing slowly. "Ryu, sometimes I forget that you are three
times my elder when you have moments like this. I could love you. It wouldn't
last forever, because you are a Dragon and I am human and eventually we will be
on our different paths to different worlds."

"But... you really think you could love me?"

"Sometimes I think I already do." That came out of my mouth so fast I didn't have
time to stop it. I controlled my own surprise and continued calmly, "I only
think. It takes more than one-sided lust to make love happen."

He didn't move for a moment, then nodded his prodigious head slowly. "It wouldn't
work anyway," he said. "You humans have that mouth thing we Dragons could never
do."

"There is a lot more to loving than kisses, Ryu." I decided the time to be bold
had come. I eased into his sleeping bowl and slid down to lie next to his body.
"There is touching." I began to caress his impressive chest slowly. His hide
wasn't nearly as hard and thick as I had feared, and it was apparently just as
sensitive to touch as my own. The sounds from his throat would have been
threatening if I hadn't been able to feel the pleasure coming from him.

I decided on what is, perhaps, the most common seduction there is. I gave him a
massage. He cooed softly as I worked. I had plenty of experience in this range,
since Thomas had been such a demanding master sometimes when it came to his own
pleasure.

I learned a great deal about the outside bodies of Dragons. I did not use any of
the cantrips Desa had warned me about, learning instead simply by touch, feel,
and sense. At times he would shift in his bed in response to my touch. His
strength excited me. Through my bedclothes my erection was plainly visible, and I
knew he could feel it when I leaned over.

He never said a word, and by the time I had eased all the tension out of him from
his dreams and probably the fear of what I offered, he had drifted off to solid
sleep. Exhausted by my efforts, I realized that I had made one of the cardinal
errors of magic; I had used everything in relaxing him. I was too tired to fly
back to my own bed.

There was nothing to be done. I curled up next to him and fell asleep. We both
slept soundly. When I awoke, he had left me alone, but he had also left me to
sleep well past sunrise. For that, at least, I thanked him.



My studies progressed another year. That sounds like a long jump, perhaps, but
nothing much happened in between. After that evening neither Ryu nor I mentioned
the incident to one another. Ryu didn't keep his feelings quite so trapped
within, and I saw the blackness more clearly and more often, but he also seemed
to accept it far better.

Instead, I concentrated on my studies, spending six hours every morning studying
magic until my brain hurt and then working the afternoons away either in the
smithy or the gymnasium. I began researching my own spell base. Do you know what
a spell base is, Aimee'? No?

A spell base is a basic spell idea from which one may weave variants dependent
upon one's knowledge and talent. There is a classic spell base called, simply,
"Pain." Alone, it does little; causes an itch. A little additional skill, and it
can cause great discomfort. With the knowledge base that comes from being a full
mage, one can use it to kill with some effort, although it is an uncomfortable
way to die and there are more efficient ways to kill someone magically, like
"Sleep" and a slitting of throats.

I was surprised to find that nobody had ever thought to create a base for
"Pleasure." Bases are very simple to use, but hard to construct. I was determined
to figure out the base for pleasure. I took notes obsessively. And, to be honest,
when it was discovered among the man-shaped males of the Megassi what I was, a
few were willing to help my experiments.

The other major thrust of my research was to be able to construct a method for
visualizing that which shapes a being. I reasoned, and found confirmation, that
all things that live grow into their shape by some unseen mechanism. I was
determined to find a tool for visualizing that mechanism.

I found it. Not unsurprisingly, someone else had discovered it first for the
creation of golems of flesh, although the technique as I read it was very crude.
I refined it.

That is an understatement. When I found it I completely dropped everything else.
Only Desa's threats kept me in the gymnasium and the smithy. Males who knew my
pleasures sent me letters that I left unopened. I burned for nearly four months,
and when I was ready, Desa watched as I cast the spell for the first time. On
myself.

Oh, we are such complex creatures, Aimee'! Even the keys with which we are made
go on forever and are indescribable but in the spinning bands of blue, red,
green, and gold that really do describe what we are. Or at least, what our shape
would be. I spent so long examining what I was, realizing what I could be with
this change or that, that when I was done the sun had set and my body had gone
into such complete revolt over the indignity of ritual penetration combined with
prolonged neglect. I spent the rest of the night on the garderobe, Desa standing
outside and grilling me about my results until dawn.

My research accelerated after that. I discovered I was forging a new kind of
magic, a predictive magic that was based on mechanical processes, not temporal
ones. The fundamental elements were alchemical, of course, but ultimately it
became a purely spiritual engine that allowed me to make a single change, and
then change after change after change until I got what I wanted.

It was something of a shock when I realized, suddenly, that I had gotten away
from the erotic sciences. I had been too busy taking apart the body to appreciate
it. Have you ever been hit on the chin, Aimee'? I swear to you, that is how it
felt. I suddenly spent an entire day addressing old friends, diving into a sort
of blind, erotic haze, unable to think about work because I could think of
nothing else but the males I had neglected.

I took control of myself the next day. I wrote down my thoughts on the bodily
experimentation as much as I could, then turned my attention back to Pleasure. I
think that's my one greatest failure, that I can never pay attention to one
project at a time. I constantly change back and forth.

I received permission from Desa to take two weeks off from the smithy, but not
exercise. I spent those two weeks catching up with every male I knew who was
amenable to my caresses, and in two weeks I had finished a unified base for
spells of Pleasure.

I documented my spell base comprehensively and mailed it to here, to Barraminum
and the College of Mages. Over a year would pass before I heard the reply.

As I crawled into my bed one night, however, a voice from the edge of the ring
interrupted my desire to sleep. "Darynn?"

"Ryu? Hi."

"Hi yourself. You have been gone a long time."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just completed a fully functional spell base, and I
decided to turn it into the College of Mages for acceptance."

"That's quite an achievement." He was quiet for a moment, then said, "Darynn, why
is it you have never asked me to help you test those spells?"

"I... " I was caught. I had wanted to practice with him, but knowing him as I did
I had never felt comfortable approaching him. I wondered if I could bluff my way
through this encounter. "Desa said I wasn't to practice on someone without his
permission."

"That was the animal alchemy, Darynn. His warnings were not related to the base
you created."

"But... you are my host, Ryu. What if I did use them on you? What obligations
would we have? What about addiction..."

"Is that your concern? That I might become addicted to the pleasures you could
give me without your hands? Only if you used them on me with regularity, and then
only if they surpassed the pleasures you could inflict on me with your hands.
Which is something you've never tried anyway."

Almost two years had passed since I had made my promise to Desa that I would
seduce and love Ryuchitoran. I wanted to, Aimee', truly I did. For some reason I
felt reluctance, an inertia to begin. I did not know what I was getting into.
"Ryu..."

"You said once you could love me, but you've never said anything to me about it
since."

The truth welled up out of me then, although I managed to squelch it almost into
silence. Sometimes I curse that Dragons have such good ears. Sometimes I bless
it. "You never gave me an answer."

"What?" he asked, not hearing.

"I said you never gave me an answer."

"I didn't know there was a question."

"Ryu..." I sighed. "If we were to... love... would you understand when I returned
to the world of men?"

"Yes." His word was as simple as that, and as convincing. I reached out my hand
and beckoned him to come to me.

The bed had been made for his changeling days, and as he flopped into it, it
creaked painfully but did not crack, and although his tail draped over the side
he easily fit all the rest of him beside me. His large head lay down next to mine
on the pillows. "I don't know what to do from here," he said.

"I remember touching," I replied. I reached out and stroked his broad chest,
feeling the scales sliding under my fingertips, feeling the caress of his skin.
Dragons have hearts, despite the legends, and I could hear his beating. His
breath, hot and musky, poured over me as he watched my hands relearn the feel of
his body.

People don't believe me when I say that Dragons, if they have any relation to
other animals, are more like the centaurids than humanoids. It must be so because
Dragons have six limbs. They have standing legs, flying wings, and holding arms,
although in full Dracoform these arms end in three-fingered hands that require
close care to keep the nails short enough for them to handle anything.

My dreams and fantasies roiled in my head and I wondered how many of them I could
fulfill in one night. "If I touch you here with my finger," I said, caressing the
underside of his chin and neck, "and then do it again with my lips, do you feel
anything different?"

"Yes," he gasped. "Your lips are strange... warmer, softer. They're wet. I feel
that."

"I do too." As we lay side-by-side, I realized that describing him as eight feet
tall is a misdirection. He is only two feet taller than I, but all of that body
is from his collar to his groin. We were grossly disproportionate. Yet I was
determined to love him, to really take him for my own, for this night.

"Would you like me to try a spell on you?" I asked.

"Please," he whispered, brushing at my hair with one of his well- trimmed
three-fingered hands.

"Roll onto your back, Ryu." He did as I said, and I crawled on top of his chest,
sitting on him. I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling forth the spell I knew
better than anyone else. I thought about the base, felt it settle in my body as I
had envisioned it, mostly as if it were cradled within my hips. I felt my
erection grow, and I mouthed quietly the invocation.

I opened my eyes and looked down at him. His own eyes had widened and his
breathing had become loud. "Darynn..." I turned around and what I saw made me
smile. His own cock had grown out of the hiding slit on his body and come to full
length. Looking at it, I breathed a sigh of relief. Desa has spoken true; he was
actually smaller than Thomas, and by a good bit! I was to learn that Dragons are
not so largely blessed as Humans who, pound-for-pound, have some of the largest
sexes amongst mammals.

The shape was different, as was the color. Against his white hide, his cock was a
brilliant, visible black. The head was covered in wrinkles, but fortunately it
was not barbed like a feline's. I slid down his body, grateful that the simplest
of my spells, "Stroke," had brought my prize out from concealment. "Beautiful," I
said, smiling up at him. I took it in my hand and began to stoke it slowly,
manually this time. The skin on it was very loose and moved easily. "May I kiss
it?"

"Do... whatever... you want!"

I looked up the long length of my Dragonfriend and smiled. "I think I will do
just that." I lay on his body casually as I craned my neck forward and took the
head of his cock into my mouth.

He tasted like... it's hard to describe. Perhaps the best idea I can think of is
fresh paper. After it has been milled, paper has a scent to it that carries for a
while. It was that kind of scent.

But he tasted of flesh, and nothing more. Nothing less either, I might add. I
took more into my mouth, revelling in the control I exercised as I swallowed his
cock whole. It pulsed in the back of my throat. I planted both hands against his
sides and began to slide up and down, my eyes closed, my throat grasping for his
cock. He was beautiful, Aimee', and just to feel his sex down inside my throat
was fulfillment of a dream. The size of a Dragon's sex was a blessing to me but
it means nature was cruel to Dragons, for they mate in flight, and must be joined
only briefly. Unlike their young, Dragons climax quickly, violently, and, I will
add, voluminously. Ryu's back arched so strongly I was almost launched into the
air as his cock pulsed long, thick jets of fluid into my mouth. He roared so
loudly I was afraid the dome would crack. I held on for dear life. I choked;
unwisely, I had assumed that since I could take whatever Thomas could feed me I
could do the same for Ryu, but he had so much more than a human.

"Darynn?" I recall him saying after his eruption had subsided. "Are you well?"

I gasped, coughed, hacked, and finally managed to say "I will live, Ryuchia."

"That was not my question."

"I was surprised. I could not take all of your ejaculation. I need a towel. May
I?"

"If you need it, do not let me stop you from getting it. Go!"

I nodded and rose, still feeling a little dizzy, and recovered a towel. I wiped
myself off, and then returned to bed, still coughing into the towel at intervals.
I wiped Ryu off as well.

I lay down next to him. "I take it my spell worked?"

"The spell was only the beginning!" Ryu replied, giving me a Dragon's smile.
Already his beard was coming in, and I tugged on it softly at the base of his
broad muzzle. "You were wonderful, Darynn."

"All the benefits of good teachers. And the best of friends."

"You sound... sad, Darynn."

I rested my head against his chest, listening. "I... I miss Awrthom. I am not
ashamed of that. He loved me, and as a master he left nothing to be desired. I'm
afraid that here in Hakkana I am often viewed as the master myself, because of my
skill and spell ability."

"You need someone to... master you?" he asked, puzzled.

I stroked his muzzle softly. Appreciate how big he was, Aimee, when I tell you
that his muzzle was as long as my palm and fingers, and as wide, and as thick as
two hands stuck together. "No," I said, shaking my head. "Not as I needed
Awrthom, or as I wanted him."

"Then... is there anything I can do for you, Darynn?"

I thought about my needs, my desires, and my capacities. I debated telling him
the truth. Thus far lying had availed me naught. "Ryu, I need to taken. Ravished.
I need... " I paused for a second, then found the words I wanted. "Ryuchitoran...
would you sodomize me?"

He chuckled softly; the sound reminded me that, although we both thought of
ourselves as youths, this dragon was of the same age as my father. "Yes, Darynn.
When I have recovered."

I closed my eyes and concentrated, feeling the spell base for Pleasure return to
me. There were spells I knew for potency, recovery, and strength. I whispered
them quietly as I cuddled next to Ryu, and then followed them with the spell that
had elicited an erection from him before. I felt his sex against my calf as I lay
next to him. "Are you recovered?"

"You are so impatient, Darynn," he laughed. "I am recovered. How shall we do
this?"

I rose out of bed and walked into the next room, returning with the grease I used
to make my self-penetrating rituals easier. "With this," I said, slathering some
along the length of his cock. I stroked him with my hands, watching the white
grease soak into the folds of his wrinkled skin and dissolve with the heat of his
body.

I lay down beside him, my back against his belly, and squirmed down until I felt
his shaft against my buttocks. I reached behind me and grabbed it, aiming for my
anus. It had been a long time since anyone had been within me, and I wasn't sure
if entry of a living being would be as easy as I remembered, no matter how large
my dildi. That's one thing I've learned... wooden phalli are not even fair
practice for the real thing. I moved down further and pressed my buttocks back
against his shaft. I felt the ring of my anus part, spread open, as his cock
eased into me. I felt the head ease along the short anal canal and pop into me.
More moved within me; the sensation of it sliding past my hole was blissfully
wrenching. But I wanted more, Aimee'. I didn't want gentleness. The time for
gentleness had passed. I needed him to be brutal to me.

"Darynn..." he gasped as the head of his cock slid deep into my guts. "Oh,
Darynn!"

"Yes, Ryu," I sighed. "More..."

"What... what more do you want?" he asked.

I closed my eyes. I had time for one more spell. Just one more. I began casting
it, holding off on the last word of the spell. I held that word in my heart,
because I knew its power. "Ryu... Roll us over, onto our bellies. Lie atop me,
and... take me."

"Darynn... "

"Be rough, Ryu. Be a Dragon. Take me. Claim me."

I felt something like anger flare within him as he pushed over. As I fell
face-first to the bed, he nearly came out, but only nearly. Then he pushed
himself into me again. I felt his cock shove deeply into me, and I felt his hot
hide against my buttocks and I knew he had all of himself within me. A felt a
rhythmic beating begin in the air about us and knew he had extended his wings. I
heard the bed creak as he withdrew his cock from my anus, and then pushed it back
in. He roared a challenge to me: "Is this what you want, Darynn?"

His chest pushed my head against the mattress. I could not answer, nor could I
breathe. Nor did I care. His body pounded against mine; the entire bed groaned
under the beating weight of a Dragon in the grips of heated blood. His shaft made
a mockery of my claims to endurance, and I found myself gasping and loving him as
he did so. As he plundered me all the more, his wings took up more of his weight
and I could again breathe, my head swimming. I could take no more, and he was
straining. I said the last word of the spell.

It did not end! Aimee', his loving did not end then! He continued on for another
full minute before finally roaring his climax, louder than before, stronger than
before! I never dreamed of what I had unleashed in Ryuchia as he loved me that
night, Aimee'! Unbelievable.

He fell, literally fell, out of the air. I barely rolled free of his falling
weight. His breath came in panting, puffing intervals. His eyes were shut tight.
"Oh, Darynn, oh, Darynn," he repeated over and over.

I grabbed the towel we had been using and wiped my buttocks. I was not surprised
to find blood, but with a simple spell Awrthom had taught me I found that, as
usual, I would survive and be well come the dawn. "Ryu?"

"Darynn!" he gasped. "I've never... I cannot..."

"Hush," I said, touching his chin again and kissing him on his beard. "You need
to sleep."

"I... Yes. You do too."

"May I sleep with you?" I asked.

"You may not have much of a choice," he breathed. "I am too tired to fly back to
my bowl. May I use your bed tonight?"

"With my complete acceptance, beloved Ryuchitoran."

"'Beloved.' I like that. Thank you."

"Sleep, Ryu. We will talk tomorrow."

"Yes. Yes, we will, Darynn." He drifted off to sleep, and I joined him
thereafter.



Darynn looked up at the clock and swore softly. "Aimee', my telling has taken far
longer than I had planned, and we will have to finish this story some other day."
He looked at her closely. She had removed all of her clothing but the tunic she
had first so casually tried to doff. She had removed her boots first, and now her
pants and undergarments were gone as well.

"Aimee'? You have not removed your tunic?"

"I... " She looked up, confused. "I did not know when I should. It..." She began
crying. "I did not know..." Tears began falling from her eyes. Darynn pulled her
to him and wrapped his arms around her fragile form. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm so
sorry."

"You have done nothing wrong, Aimee'. Do not apologize for lacking in harm."

She looked up into his face, tears streaking her cheeks. "But... you wanted me to
be naked by now, did you not?"

"Aimee, if you had felt it wrong to take off even your boots, I would not have
berated you. You have done exactly as I asked, and there is nothing to be ashamed
of in that."

"Sir," she moaned pitifully. "Teltirray wants to know when I will begin learning
spells from you."

"Next week," Darynn said calmly. "I had planned to do some beginnings here, but
we will start next week." He held her close, feeling her warmth next to his. He
felt protective of her, an understandable reaction considering his feelings
towards the man really "owned" her, contract or not. "Now, tell me something. You
exposed all of yourself but your torso. Would you like me to guess as to why?"

She looked up at him. He caressed a small streak of tears away. She nodded.

"Teltirray, your master, has taken everything from you. You have no privacy in
where you go, so your boots are no matter. He takes your sex at his leisure, so
your pants are no matter. You learn what he wants you to learn, so your headcloth
is of no matter. He has not got your heart, and you want that kept to yourself.
So you wear your tunic as one would wear armor."

She stared at his face, and then squeezed her eyes tight as her crying came
again, stronger than before. The tears told him he had judged correctly. He felt
no victory at that. She gathered the material of his robe in her fingers and
gripped tightly. He wrapped his arms around her, but she pushed away suddenly,
grabbing at her tunic and pulling it off with an expression that could only have
been a snarl, then looked at him, smiling through her wet face.

He smiled back down at her, holding her as she placed her head against his
shoulder and closed her eyes. He knew what was happening. She had decided that
he, at least, should be allowed to know her heart, if only for the moment. He
thanked her silently for that.

He drew a deep breath, regretting what must come next. "Aimee', I cannot keep you
here."

"I know, sir. I must return to Teltirray."

"Are you afraid?"

She looked up at him. "You know, then. You cannot protect me. So I am not afraid.
I have nothing to fear. What will happen, will happen."

Darynn was stunned by the maturity with which she approached a dismal future.
"Aimee', you will return next week?"

"With your permission, sir."

"That you have."

"Then I will return." She stood up slowly. "I guess I should dress now."

"Yes," Darynn nodded. He watched her as she pulled her clothing on, first her
tunic, then her pants, and her headcloth and boots finally. He found her truly
beautiful in her youthfulness, and he feared that she wouldn't live long enough
for him to teach her anything of use. That would be a tragedy, and he would not
allow it to happen.

"Goodnight, sir."

"Goodnight, Aimee'." He waved as she closed the door behind herself. In his
heart, resolution became real. Teltirray would not have her forever.

He was shocked at his own feelings. Was he leaving the world of men behind, or
was his own merely getting larger? He had never had these feelings for a woman
before, especially not one so immature as Aimee'.


Whatever their origin, they were his emotions and they were real. He would do
with them what he could. He would teach Aimee'. He sat down at his desk and began
making notes.

-- Aimee' is copyright 1991-1994 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. May be distributed freely
by electronic media; hardcopies are limited to single printings for personal use.
AIMEE', CHAPTER 3


Darynn walked through the room again, his robes still flowing behind him.
Everything seemed to be in order, just as it had a week ago. He was concerned
with every detail of the room's appearance; he wanted to put his young student
completely at ease.

Not, he thought grimly, that that could ever be fully achieved. In his head he
reviewed the note Bethsany had sent him describing what she had learned this week
of the situation amidst Teltirray's "girls." He knew now that the original report
of Teltirray's behavior was only a weak shadow of a truly abusive nature. And
yet, the man could be so convincing in court, so calm in council. At induction
services they would sit nearly opposite one another at the horseshoe- shaped
council chamber. Perhaps what bothered Darynn most is that more often than not he
agreed with the direction Teltirray took his discussions.

He sighed. Teltirray was not by any imagination a friend. In person he was
frequently cold to Darynn and his associates, although charming when he needed a
vote or two. Darynn knew the chill arose from Teltirray's too-familiar "disgust"
at the male-to-male love Darynn was fond of.

Darynn stoked the fireplace one last time; late fall chill soaked through his
home, chewing up the warmth of summers, lovers, and the presence of Aimee'. He
waited for her to arrive, knowing that it would be soon.

He was glad that she was not permitted to walk right in; the relief on his face
would have been inappropriate for her to see, and he wanted to present himself to
her as an elder, fully in control. "Enter freely," he said.

Her face peeked out around the door. "Sir?"

"Come in, Aimee'. We are going to learn tonight."

"Sir? After you finish your story?"

Darynn smiled. "Sort of. We are going to start during the story, Aimee'. Come
sit, like before." She settled down onto the white rug, her slim hand caressing
the material as she did so. "We are going to play the same game as before. You
are to remove your clothing as you see fit. You do remember that?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir, I remember."

"Good. Now then, if you will pull back the red sheet of cloth by your side you
will find an array of phalli and such. I have noticed that at times you get
breathless while I speak and I appreciate that. I want you, Aimee', to enjoy
yourself. To touch yourself." He reached beside himself and opened a book to a
certain page, examining only the caption in the upper corner. "Now, when you feel
your pleasure rising, I want you to examine this picture closely. I want you to
try and see it as if it were before you, an object and not a page. Breathe
through your pleasure and open yourself. I am not being clear on purpose, Aimee',
but I wish you to do this. Can you?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir. I will."

"Good. Now, as I was saying last time..."



I spent many more months with the Hakkana. Ryu and I become bedmates, although
that perhaps sounds more physical than it really was. We rarely made love,
Aimee', although when we did I found the pleasure greater than any other offered
to me in all the city. I think part of the reason for that was that I loved Ryu
and not the others, although they were certainly friends and I did not discredit
their worth when they lay in bed with me.

My studies continued apace until I realized one day, while examining my journals,
just how greatly my skill in spell had grown. I could Heal and cause to Sleep. I
could bring suffering to the evil and health to the good. I had learned to
control my desires and answer my pains.

Although I was not the strength you see before you, Desa surprised me one day by
calling on me and addressing me as "Mage Darynn."

"Yes sir?" I will admit, I nearly fell off my chair to hear myself addressed as
such.

"Your learning has slowed." He raised a hand as I opened my mouth to object.
"This is nothing of your own doing. We all know this to be true, Darynn, that
every mage's learning slows at one point. While there is much to be gained here,
you can learn at your current pace anywhere, and I would urge you to find your
way back to your own people. I have a gift for you."

I was still completely taken with his address, much less his short speech. He
handed me a bone case, one used for scrolls. "It is addressed to me, from the
College of Mages in Barraminum. I have decided that you should see it in its
entirety."



Maga Desa of the Megassi.

It is with some disbelief that we read the scroll we have received from you. You
claim to have had no influence in the creation of the spell base we found within,
copied several times with accuracy. After examining the base we found it
difficult, but not impossible, to work with; the complexity achieved is truly an
act of art, perhaps even passion.

That an apprentice of yours, indeed one not even in his thirtieth year, created
this is no small feat. It is not that we doubt you, Desa; your honesty and
worthiness are well known, even here in Barraminum.

We wish to meet this apprentice. Although the purpose of base spell "Pleasure"
is, in our council, of little use, the skill with which it is executed shows us
that this young mage could well and truly be taught to join our college without
sponsor or patron. We wish him for ourselves.

In magi honor,

Talen Silisto, President.

Mage Council of the Known World.



My first emotion, Aimee', believe it or not, was one of stark anger. I looked up
at Desa and said "Of little use?"

"Easy, Darynn," he said, laughing. "I just wanted to show you this. Remember that
pleasure is not greatly thought of in the mages' realm, and even when it is, it
is considered a dangerous toy. Although you and I both know that pain can be as
addictive as pleasure, it is pleasure they are most afraid of." He shrugged. "I
know why as little as you."

"And these are the people you want to send me to?"

"Darynn, they are your people. They know you better than you know yourself; you
cannot live here all your life, young mage."

I sighed, wondering what I was going to do with Ryu. Desa understood without my
saying a word, but I didn't know it at the time. I started to learn when he said,
"I know you have been aching to try your spells on Ryuchia. I encourage you to do
so, Darynn, if Ryu is willing. I wish to watch; just me. I do not imagine you
wishing an audience upon yourselves."

I shook my head, still absorbing everything I had been told in the past ten
minutes. I was being offered a free scholarship at the College of Mages, although
they considered my work "of little use." I was also being asked to leave. And to
do what I had sworn a year before I would do; save Ryu from his dwarf status
amongst his peers.

"I..."

"Go home, Darynn, to your friend. Discuss it. Let me know in the morning. Take
the letter with you." With that, the animated man of silver wandered down into
the darkness of his lair.

I flew back to Ryu's house at all speed. I do not fly often now, nor did I then;
but this simply could not wait for the rate at which my feet carry me. I flew in
from the top and found him sleeping in his bowl, curled up in a ball and snoring
peacefully. I landed on the stone silently and approached him. "Ryu," I breathed.

[Darynn?] he asked silently, not coming very far from his slumber to speak to me.

"I... I think I'm going to be going soon."

He came to wakefulness fast then. [What do you mean?]

"I've been offered a full scholarship at Barraminum. Desa has told me that he's
done all he can to accelerate my learning. I am to my own devices now. He wants
to send me to Barraminum to learn the magics of humans. Like Awrthom, he has
reached his limits."

He switched to speech then. "Do you want to go?"

I nodded. "I... I do. But, before I go, I want to do one last thing with you,
Ryu. I want to cast the Bodily Keys upon you and see if I can help you grow to
the full cast that is your Dragon birthright."

He stared at me, stunned. "You can do that?"

I resolved to sound like a mage, Aimee'. I'm afraid I didn't succeed. I said, "I
can try."

He thought for a full minute. "Then try, Ryu. What must I do?"

"It is more, what I must do to cast this spell on another, Ryu. You know from
where I draw my strength. We will need that. To have any success we must be
loving when I cast the spell."

He tossed his head and chuckled. "Oh, Darynn, you will do anything to get one
more moment out of me!"

I threw my arms around his neck and said, "Yes, Ryu. Because I will miss you. I
can live without you, but I will not be happy doing so."

His wing slid easily around me, enclosing me against his body. "I have learned
from you, Darynn, how to find peace. Let us do this, and whether we succeed or
fail, we will never forget one another."

"Let us hope," I said.



I built a great frame, knitting a net with my hands strong enough to hold a
Dragon. This alone took two weeks. Sliding it into the center of Ryu's home, I
began enscribing the runes necessary to support the spell. They took another day,
and when they were done I slept for many hours more. Then I asked Desa and Ryu to
attend me at moonrise. They agreed.

Ryu arrived early. "That is for me?"

"It is. You must lie on your back within it. I hope you find it comfortable."

"I will see," he smiled, easing himself into it. Slowly he turned over,
struggling. "I feel like a fish in a man's net."

"I hope not. I've not intention of putting a hook in your mouth or clubbing you
over the head."

"Or slitting my throat, I hope," he added.

"No, none of that."

"Are we waiting?"

"Yes," I said. "Desa has asked to witness this. Does that trouble you?"

"No," he replied calmly. "Desa is our master in all things, Darynn, and there is
no reason we should not invite him to watch this."

Desa arrived shortly thereafter. But not through the front door, oh no. Instead,
a wind stirred and then a small gale erupted in Ryu's home as a great Dragon, an
ancient beast of full beard and golden eyes dropped through the hole in the roof
and landed, with little room to spare, on the ground. [Desa Megassi, at your
service,] it said calmly.

"Master Desa," I said, bowing.

Ryu was attempting to climb out of the sling when Desa said [Stay, Ryu. You were
preparing. Continue.]

I picked up my newly earned staff of silver and began chanting slowly. The power
that I wielded now would have frightened the Darynn of three years previous; now
it was familiar, if still awesome in its capacity. I raised the staff over my
head as the chanting took on a life of it's own, pouring from my lips without my
even thinking it. I walked forward, concentrating only lightly, letting the spell
progress in its natural course. Ryuchia was already erect, his head lolled back
against the knitted net and his eyes staring at me, waiting. Pleasure was still a
spell that I could use to prepare my partner rightly for the acts ahead.

I climbed up onto the net, staring into his face. Our eyes peered into one
another's, locked. Our breathing began to come at the same speed and the same
time, our chests rising and falling together. I knelt over his great shaft and
with one hand picked it up, aiming it. My greased anus waited for his welcome
cock, and as I eased down I felt it again slide into me. I almost lost myself
then in the intense pleasure of our joining, but without falter I kept singing my
spell. I leaned forward slightly as he reached up with his inner claws and seized
the staff. We held it together as his wings folded over us. I began my motions,
pulling myself almost off his cock, and then back down onto it.

We rocked slowly as I chanted. The walls of his home began to glow. They began to
get closer, and suddenly they swirled with colors. I watched as Ryu's keys glowed
before my eyes. I began to sing my companion spells, never once losing track of
the great mass of his penis imbedded behind my belly. As we fucked, I began to
explore the changes I could make, the locales I could find.

The spell went on for what seemed forever. I had never had so much within me for
so long. I would not let him climax and I could not find what I was seeking. I
flew over the beauty of his keys, watching them flash before my eyes before one
of the companions rang out with recognition. It had found his keys of growth.

As I manipulated them, dreamed what they would do if I changed them, I realized
that in a few years Ryu would start his growth. The changing of the body and the
growth were not related, and it was only coincidence that they happened to most
Dragons at the same time. It was only a matter of time.

[Ryu,] I dreamed to him, [There is something I have to tell you.] I told him what
I saw, and what I had learned. [I could start it now.]

There was a long, quiet pause. Ryu was thinking, and when he finally spoke my
heart lifted. [If I started now, I would quickly grow so large we could not do
this.] He was silent again, and I started to fear. Finally, he dreamed, [I want
to enjoy my winter with you, Darynn, since you cannot leave until the coming
Spring. Change nothing, human I love. Finish the spell.]

I could have stopped the spell simply by ceasing chanting. But I did not. I
simply shifted my magics, delving deep into pleasure. I cast the greatest of the
Pleasures I knew. Ryu and I shared.

Everything he felt, I felt. I became aware of how small I felt and yet how much
he loved me. I felt both our hearts beating, becoming one. I became aware of his
surprise when he felt how large he was to me, how beautiful. We made love,
Aimee', as only two males can with this sharing. It was the most beautiful moment
of our lives. As his climax grew, so did mine. The staff held over our heads
still, my hands and his claws, we grew closer together as our loving reached its
pinnacle. We were both screaming as we came, shouting out our hearts with
pleasure as he came within me and I came all over his broad, white belly. My eyes
screwed shut in pleasure as it seemed to go on and on.

It ended. I collapsed, losing my grip on the staff and falling against his chest.
He held my staff above us still, then slowly eased it down into the netting.

His shaft shrank within me and then, easily, it slid out my hole, a small rivulet
of fluid following down my leg as we lay together, awaiting the return of our
strengths. "Oh, Ryu," I sighed.

"Darynn," he breathed. "I love you."

I nodded, pulling myself up and kissing him under the chin.

Our tender moment was broken, partially, by our teacher. [Tell me what you have
done.]

"Nothing," I replied, and again repeated what I had learned about Dragons and how
they grow.

He listened closely, attentively, his monstrous head turned in an attitude of
careful thought. When I was done with my report, he looked at Ryuchia. I know not
what exchanged between them, but when it was over Desa looked to the ceiling.
[Darynn, Ryuchia, you have made an old Dragon pleased. It is good. I shall see
you both in the morning.] With that, he took to the sky, leaving me and my
beloved Ryu to our soft cradle and familiar caress.



The winter passed with little excitement; days of study and nights of sleeping.
Ryu and I slept together in happy contentment, and by day we both studied. Now my
studies were calm, orderly, less hectic and demanding. I knew what I needed to do
commit my magic. I was destined, I felt, to be an Archmage, but I knew that I
would only get there at my own pace and any forcing of it would be pointless.

I enjoyed my time with friends more and more, knowing that it would all end soon
and I would begin the journey that would lead here, to the city of Barraminum, a
city of great power and evil. As well you know, Aimee'.



Darynn leaned back against the pillows he had arranged and stoked the fire to
greater warmth. Aimee' sat across from him. "You haven't removed anything," he
observed.

"Every time I did at our last meeting, you would pause. I did not want to
interrupt you." Aimee' smiled and began unlacing her boots, tossing them aside.
Then her pants and her headcloth. "I am as I was last time." Her smile faltered
slightly and then she said, "Sir, would you remove my tunic?"

Confused, Darynn said, "You wish me to...?"

"I am ready to take it off. I want you to do it." She paused for a moment, then
said, "Only to you will I say 'please.'"

Darynn sat up straight and reached for her. "Come here then, if you wish it."

She crawled and sat before him. He closed his fingers on the cloth of her tunic
and pulled the tunic off, placing it down where she could reach it easily. "If
you need it, it is there."

"I will not need it," she replied. "I know of your love for the love of men only,
Master Darynn."

Darynn picked up the shirt again and handed it to her. She took it, confusion and
concern in her eyes. Darynn knew she was wondering if she had done something
wrong. "Hold that, Aimee', while I tell you something. My reputation as a lover
of men and boys may be well and established, but I am preparing to make an
exception. For you. I do not take as students people I cannot love. I am prepared
to take you as a student, Aimee', and I have searched my heart and I can say that
I am prepared to love you."

She started, pulling the shirt across her chest as she did so. Then, with an
angry growl she crumpled it into a ball and tossed it away. Her emotions shifted
again, this time into a smile. "You are kind and concerned, Master Darynn, and I
would be honored."

Darynn was still concerned that she was simply responding to him as another adult
in authority, a view of him he would like to discourage in her. He smiled softly,
sighing as he did so. "What did you think of my tale?"

"It was beautiful, Master Darynn."

"No 'Master' is necessary, Aimee'."

"You truly loved him, Darynn. It was in your eyes, in the way you held you head
and your body as you spoke. Your voice. Oh, you must have missed him so when you
left!"

"Very much," Darynn agreed. "I wonder, did you feel excitement? Did my describing
the love of men affect you in any strong way?"

"Yes, sir! It made me feel warm and a little wet."

"Would you like to show me more, Aimee'? I would like to see you pleasure
yourself before me freely."

"Sir, I... I don't know. Master Teltirray has never asked for anything like
that."

"I just want to watch you, Aimee'. Nothing more than that. Please, indulge this
old man, would you?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir!"

"And remember, when your pleasure begins rising, the image on the page."

"I did not forget," she said. She leaned back against the small mound of pillows
she had arranged for herself, spreading her legs apart slightly. Darynn examined
her closely now, naked.

Her skin, pale and soft, reflected the light of the fireplace in soft redding
glows. Her hair fell down, framing her face and lying over the pillows like a
net. Darryn's breath caught gently as he stared at her. He had almost never seen
a woman this close, and certainly not with all of her clothing missing, and for
all the ruggedness he usually enjoyed, he wondered at how he could miss the
simply beauty that was her flawless skin. Her breasts pushed upwards, and he
found himself able to disregard them; they neither held nor rejected his
interest.

But what captivated his attention the most was her sex. He had never seen one for
real before; he wondered at his own ignorance that had allowed him to nearly
reach his century year without ever seeing the genitals possessed by half his own
race. He knew that fear was an inappropriate response, and anything that could
arise from fear was as well. That included disgust, a common emotion amongst his
own kind. Once that was settled, he had nothing to do but watch.

Her hands caressed the full, rounded lips of flesh that made up the outside of
her sex, scratching with her fingernails gently and pulling them apart. Her
breathing grew stronger as she touched herself, encouraging her passion to
greater heights. He watched as she caressed herself, sliding one finger slowly
within her hole and then coating the rest of her sex with the liquid. One tiny
pearl near the top of her sex grew slowly and after a while she paid it
particular attention. "Darynn, sir, the page... show it to me!"

Darynn quickly scooped up the book and held it before her eyes. "I can see it,"
she said as her eyes locked with it. Her breathing deepened. "I can see it. It's
right..." Her left hand began tracing a visible pattern in the air as she
sighed,"... there."

Darynn felt the magic of the spell she stared at penetrating her. She was
summoning the spell sexually, the way it was supposed to be read. He felt her
body next to his own. She was learning, sucking the knowledge off the page. Sex
magic was something that could only be learned by those willing to do so, and
despite the claims of nearly everyone, very few were open and willing enough.

Aimee' was. In her nigh-ecstacy, she was literally pulling the first lessons into
her lungs with every breath. She twisted and rubbed at her clitoris until the
spell itself began to subside. And then her body jolted, sending the power of the
spell away from herself, into the air. She gasped, returning to herself,
returning to the pillows.

She picked her head up with a jerk and suddenly her hands were clutching for his
sleeve, pulling him towards her with her eyes cast wide. "What... what was that?"

"Magic," he said with slow and deliberate calm. "That's the spell of awareness.
It's the start of learning."

"It felt so... different. Like nothing else."

"Magic is like that," he said. "Like nothing else." He patted her thigh softly.
"You were beautiful to watch, Aimee'."

"Thank you, sir. Oh thank you!" She lunged forward, her arms about his neck,
hugging him tightly. "Thank you."

A little taken aback, it took him a moment to find words. "You're blessedly
welcome." He held her close, feeling her lithe, warm body through the cloth of
his robes. He felt blood surging into his own sex, and although he wasn't quite
hard he knew his cock would feel heavy. "Aimee', I need to fetch something. Would
you allow me?"

"What?" she asked. "Oh... yes. I'm sorry, sir."

"No apology. Just wait here for a moment." He stood slowly and walked over to his
desk, returning a moment later. He handed her a folded envelope sealed with blue
wax. "This is for your master. It is an understanding that you be able to reach
me at any time you feel the need to discuss your magical training with me. And
this," he said, handing her a thin brown book, "is for you. It is the first ten
spells you will learn. And you will learn them all by next week. Is that
understood?"

"This is a spell book?" Her eyes went wide with wonder.

"A spell guiding book. It does not have spells, merely instructions on how to
make them. Do you understand the difference?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Good. Because that's what you need to know. One more thing." He handed her a
second, smaller book. "This is empty. Fill it. Pages for your spells, others for
your thoughts. You are learning to be a mage, Aimee'; you must keep track of
where you are going and where you have been. Here is a pen, and here is ink. Here
is a bag for everything."

She collected everything together in the bag, not sure what to say. "Stand,
Aimee', for an old man, please."

She stood slowly. "You are not old sir. I can see the signs; your body is
youthful and strong and I know the attentions you seek. Do you want to...?"

He understood her meaning and shook his head. "Not until I am ready, beloved
apprentice. I have much learning to do as well."

"Yes sir. Oh, thank you, Darynn, thank you so very much!" She literally bounced
on her heels and Darynn understood her beauty. She was truly woman and child,
powerless and on the verge of magehood all in one person. The more he stared at
her the stronger he swore that she would reach that magehood someday. And
Teltirray would be gone.

"Aimee', I must ask that you dress. It is time for you to return home."

"Yes, sir," she sighed. "Thank you."

"I am merely doing what I have been asked," he replied, winking. "That I enjoy it
is another matter." He watched as he dressed, drinking in the sight of her
buttocks and her legs, watching her shoulders as she pulled her clothing on. She
turned to him when she had finished dressing, her bag over her shoulder. "Aimee',
come here, please."

She nearly hopped over to him. He pulled her close and hugged her. "You have done
something nobody has done for me in many a year, Aimee'; you have taught me new
things about myself. I want you to continue."

"As do I, sir. As do I." She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him
back. "Thank you so much."

"You've said that so many times, Aimee'! I thank you for what you give me as
well. Now, go, before Teltirray begins to suspect what might actually be the
truth."

She nodded. "Goodbye, sir." She leaned over and kissed the back of his hand
swiftly, then disappeared through the door and was gone.

Darynn watched her departure sadly. He hoped, probably unreasonably, that he was
doing the right thing. For the both of them, and for all they came in touch with.
"Good luck, beloved Aimee'," he whispered. "We both need it."

-- Aimee' is copyright 1991-1994 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. May be distributed freely
by electronic media; hardcopies are limited to single printings for personal use.
<html> <head> <title>Aimee', Chapter 4</title> <h1>Aimee', Chapter 4</h1> </head>
<body> "Come here, child, sit down, sit down."  Bethsany patted the couch, trying
to be welcoming to the nervous young girl who stood at the doorway.  "Young" was
perhaps a bit of an inaccuracy to Bethsany's eyes, since she had some girls
working for her who were younger. She walked forward, her eyes scanning the room
intensely. Bethsany saw the careful, analytical training that Darynn had imbued
Aimee' with, but she also saw the youthful nervousness that came naturally to
girls at Aimee's age.  Bethsany tried her best to hire girls who were already
enjoying sex when they came to her; women who did their work out of desperation
were simply not good workers. Aimee' reached out with her hand, touching the
rough texture of the couch, her eyes exploring.  Bethsany watched her for a
moment. "It's a brothel, dear.  My customers expect a certain degree of
garishness."  She smiled.  "Sit down, sit down." Aimee' finally took her seat and
Bethsany took a longer, more careful look at her.  She was what she expected from
Teltirray's tastes; tall, slim, relatively small breasts.  Dark hair and bright,
blue eyes were something of a necessity with him.  Bethsany was somewhat relieved
to see that even after three months the usual signs of abuse that Teltirray
heaped upon his "charges" weren't as graphic on Aimee' as usual; either she was
showing remarkable resilience to his advances or he really was holding back,
probably hoping that between Darynn's magic and her training they would turn
Aimee' into the perfect sex toy for Teltirray's vapid tastes. "Now, then,"
Bethsany began after Aimee' had settled down into her seat.  "My object is to
train you to be as good as any of the girls I have here.  That's not easy, you
know."  She laughed.  "My girls are the very best in the city.  But we will do
our best.  Now, I understand that it's been Darynn's way to tell you stories
about himself, how he got his understanding and so on.  I plan on doing the same.
 So listen closely, dearie, because I don't like repeating myself."

I was born the daughter of a nomad whore.  I don't mind saying that because it's
completely true.  My mother was a good whore, too, and a woman devoted to her
husband and her daughter.  We travelled around the southern continent on a tented
wagon.  There were four wagons in our train and a total of seventeen people.  We
didn't even have a name for ourselves, really; we were just "the people."  There
were nine cities we visited on our course, the same course, year after year.  My
father was a merchant trader and was very good at picking out what one city had
that the next one down the line would need, even after a year's absence.  My
mother, with her deep red skin, slanted eyes and straight, black hair, was exotic
in many of the cities and men would flock to her like flies on butter.  Much the
same they did with me many years ago. We were a friendly bunch most of the time
but we tended to take it very carefully on the road.  A good plan considering how
many brigands there were out there interested in lightening our loads. The
greatest travel we ever took was from Ticonary to Emti, a rough road through a
mountain pass that usually took twenty days or thereabouts.  We weren't to know
it, but in my thirteenth year the Maple Campaign to the North had driven a small
tribe of barbaric Centaurs into the mountain range for refuge.  These were no
gentle Centaurs of the upper valleys.  No, these were the Gespil Centaurs, small,
strong, but magicless Centaur warriors who still sometimes plague the lands of
the Maple region. They fell upon us in our sleep.  Crossbows aimed with silent
accuracy felled our menfolk before they could even shout a word.  It was a most
silent brigandry.  More than half of our men were dead before an alarm was
raised.  My mother fought them off, seizing father's sword and slashing at them. 
It was to no avail; there were too many of them, too many warriors, and as she
hacked at two who leapt and taunted her, one stepped up behind her and ran her
through with his pike.  I shall never forget the look on her face as she died
with her ribs pushed out by the spike erupting from her chest.  She was sad, sad
for me.  She wanted to see me, twisted on the spike horribly to look at me as she
fell.  When her body slumped to the ground the one who had killed her pulled the
pike free, then turned and gave me a smile.  I hated him and his evil grin, I
wanted to wipe it off his face and make him pay for my mother's death and I would
wallow in his pain when I did. "Take her!" he shouted, pointing at me.  "Alive!"
They did that.  Although I fought them, there was really no point to struggling
with two male centaurs.  "Find a bench in one of these wagons.  I'm going to have
me some fun." I begged and pleaded.  Not that it did me much good.  When they
found out I was a virgin, there was a roar of approval, as if it was all one big
joke. Two found a wooden bench, torn from the seat of one of the wagons, and laid
my mother's bedding over it.  It took four Centaurs to hold me, one for each arm
and each leg, as they tore my clothes from me and laid me down on their platform.
Gespil Centaurs are not much larger than humans, Aimee'; they are usually a
little under six feet tall, made more of ponies than full-size  horses.  Their
penises-- I'm a professional, dear, I have to use the technical term-- are not
much larger than a man's.  This one, their leader apparently, had a large penis
even for his species. "Hold her down, dammit!" he shouted.  "I can't fuck her if
she's flailing her feet about all over the place!" The two holding my legs
managed to get my knees pressed to my chest, holding my feet far apart I felt
they would split me in two. The leader reared up on his hind legs, straddling my
body.  He grinned down at me, his teeth showing in a snarl that befitted some
demon more than he.  "You will like this," he said. "May Agas and all his demons
pass you about for their buggery!" I shouted at him.  Sorry, I don't mean to
offend you, Aimee'.  I'm just trying to relate the story as it happened. "I'm
sure he will," he responded.  "But not today."  He lowered his enormous prick.  I
felt it touch my thighs and screamed.  He merely smiled.  They must have some
muscles to control it because with no hands he found my opening and battered at
it, the head of his prick demanding entrance.  He pointed at one of his
followers. "Grease us." The other one smiled.  I felt a hand on my pudenda,
touching me. I squirmed harder, but they held me fast, and as the hand pressed
over my mound it left a streak of some thick, greasy substance.  Then the leader
was back, his prick still hard as ever.  I felt the slick grease helping him,
guiding him into me.  I felt my opening giving way. The pain, Aimee', oh, the
pain.  I shall never forget how awful that tearing agony was.  It blocked out
thought as this Centaur blocked the sun from my eyes.  I screamed and flailed
about.  In my struggle I tore my muscles.  Tears streamed my eyes.  The huge
stallion prick in my cunt bucked and shoved and jammed as it stretched and
tortured me.  He raped me wholly without remorse or shame. I could do nothing. 
His prick within me was a weapon, one I would someday remove from him in the most
painful manner I could possibly imagine.  He repeatedly jabbed it into me, the
snarl on his face-- so many feet away from my clawing hands!-- showing me his
contempt.   I tried to return it, but my tears and pain were too much. My body
responded, Aimee'!  I understand now what happened, but at that time I felt the
greatest betrayal as my cunt throbbed from his abusive prick.  I felt a pleasure
in my being even as I cried, a pleasure that exploded in climax even as he
dropped his scum within my helpless body.  "See?" he smiled as he slid off me. 
"She likes it.  Take her.  I need a new maidservant.  We'll train her good." The
others laughed and nodded.  I learned my Master's name was "Styur."

I was thrown over the back of a horse, one of our horses that they had captured
alive in the raid.  My crying was ignored, as was the blood of my deflowering
streaming down my legs.  We rode on horseback for many miles. We arrived at their
camp, a collection of caves and huts housing maybe fifty Centaurs total.  I was
there removed from the pack animal that carried me and led to his house.  "Uma!"
Styur shouted.  "I have a gift for you.  She's difficult, but you can break her."
The door opened and a Centaur woman looked out.  Her face was ugly, the result of
a burn I was to learn some time later.  Nor was her smile kind.  "She's pretty,"
she said.  "Yes, I'll do wonderful things with this one.  A worthy gift, Styur." 
She turned to a box and pulled out a collar, such as one would fit a dog, and
wrapped it around my neck.  It had once been white, but there were the brown
stains of dried blood covering much of it.  "You see," she said to me, her foul
breath washing over me, "The last toy we had misbehaved. We've not cleaned her
things off since then.  That will be your task." The lock on the collar was small
and brass, but I could never break it.  Styur smiled as he regarded me.  "You
will need to wash, Mosh."  I was to find out that "mosh" is a word in their
language meaning "toy."  It was my new name. I was consequently washed and then
taken back to Uma and Styur's hut.  I was shown my sleeping cloths on the floor,
then given a basket and told to collect the cloths scattered throughout the house
and wash them. I did as I was told.  I had no choice.  There was nowhere to run,
nobody to feed me.  I was alone, the only slave alive in the Centaur camp, the
plaything of their warrior-leader.  I was assured that they had others at time,
but the war and their movements had caused them to lose most of their slaves.  I
asked if those slaves had died on the trip.  "No," Styur replied, smiling.  "They
were eaten." The days and nights passed as winter came closer and closer.  I was
taught to make the fire, to raise the heat, to cook for them. And every third
night or so Styur would tie me down to his bench and have his way with me.  He
was creative in his foul way, tying me face down and then placing bricks under
one side of the bench to lift my buttocks into the air, making his entry easier.
I hated him.  And every time he raped me, I climaxed.  I drew my pleasure from
hating him, from the knowledge that I could have this pleasure, that it was mine,
it belonged to me, I made it despite him. He could never take it away from me
without taking away his prick, his own pleasure at his human girl.  I would fight
the biting ropes and scream and hate him.  He would sometimes gag me.  My fingers
would strain, my wrists pulling against the cords, trying for some way to get
free, as his prick fucked my cunt, rubbed my clit and made me come.  I would
scream with anger and with pleasure. He would get off me and touch my face. 
"See?" he would say. "You're starting to like me more and more." I would curse
him.  Once, I spat at him, and he slapped my face so hard a bruise welted up
there that lasted for a week. In my dreams I wished for a lover who would not
abuse me.  Who would give me what I wanted in fair trade for what he wanted, who
would stop when I wanted him to and who would ask me to stop when he didn't want
to.  I doubted such men like that existed at all.  I sometimes still do,
excepting Darynn, of course, who is too much a man's man to do me and my girls
much good as a lover.  But still, there is much to learn from a man like him. I
dreamed of the day I would be close enough to another human to have the freedom
to kill Styur.  I was surprised when that day came sooner than expected. In my
third month of capture the horror these people inflicted upon my family was
returned a hundredfold.  During the first night of truly deep snows, the alarm
arose in the camp, waking me from a sleep.  I slept with their dog for warmth and
companionship; of all the creatures, she alone loved me for simple things.  I was
kind to her.  Styur found that fitting, that his pets should sleep together. At
first, I was disgusted by his train of thoughts; I was not his pet or his toy. 
My need for warmth, friendship, and my desire to not reject this only friend won
out, and I stayed next to her in the night. I've strayed from the tale.  The
alarm, yes.  Whistles awoke us all and Styur ran from his stone home, seizing his
sword as he galloped out the door.  Shouts and screams erupted.  Some of the
shouts I did not recognize, although they were all distinctly womanly in sound. 
I waited  in the dark, hugging Huna-- that was the dog's name-- closely.  The
sounds of battle rang out, the clanging of metal, the shouts and grunts of
fighters.  The door fell in, and Styur collapsed onto the floor, four great
arrows buried into his manchest, more on the rest of him.  He reached out for me,
gasping. "Help me," I heard him say. Help him?  I stood up, walked to him, pulled
his short dagger from its sheath.  "I'll help you, all right.  Right into Hell." 
I held it up and was about to plunge it into his heart when I stopped and
reconsidered.  I remembered my pledge.  I walked around to the back of his body.
"No," I remember hearing him say.  "Don't." I shoved the knife into his leg,
slicing at the muscles that allowed him to kick.  He screamed, a painful thing
that made me smile.  My hatred for him was absolute, complete.  I cared not the
slightest for him.  The leg, now useless, I kicked up and out of my way,exposing
his privates.  I grabbed his penis and balls in my hands and pulled them away
from his body, wrenching them painfully.  He screamed trying to get away from me
as I cut them loose from his body with the dagger. Blood poured upon the ground
and his body twitched and writhed. I dropped the contents of both my hands on the
ground, then fell to the ground myself, sitting in the doorway, waiting while the
snow fell on me in gentle, fat flakes.  After a while a shape, a human shape,
stood over me, looking down at me.  "Have you done that?" she asked, pointing at
the still-oozing carcass of Styur.  I didn't answer.  I couldn't.  I can't
explain what was wrong with me, but it was simply that I didn't want to do
anything, not even answer a simple 'yes' or 'no'.  She knelt down.  Her face,
partially covered by the open-faced helm she wore, was hardened and covered with
a stain of blood from her nose, but it had a smile that, for the first time in
months, was genuine and lovely.  "I guess you did.  Come here."  As she spoke her
breath streamed away in visible clouds into the night.  She touched my arm and
suddenly I was freed of my paralysis.  I held onto her as if she was my last
touch of life, my last hope of living.  I gripped her with my remaining strength.
 She began to carry me away and Huna began to follow us.  "Shoo, dog," the woman
said. "Huna!" I said, pointing. "What?" "Huna!" "Is Huna your friend?" the woman
asked me. "Yes.  Bring Huna?" She nodded.  "Okay, we'll bring her."  With her
free hand she slapped her thigh.  "Come on, Huna.  You're a... girl.  Good."  She
laughed.  "Come on, girl.  We're going to take you home."  She carried me to the
edge of the camp where the rest of the troops had collected.  There she
introduced me to my new life.

Bethsany sat back on her couch.  Aimee' had curled up into the corner of the
couch, watching her carefully.  Although not a mage herself, she recognized the
signs of idling power within the girl's delicate frame and wondered if the story
had aroused Aimee' defenses. She hoped not.  "So," she said, taking a deep
breath.  "Come, I want you to meet someone." She rose and held out her hand. 
Aimee' took it unsurely, and Bethsany whisked her out of the room and down the
stairs.  "Meli! Meli, where are you, girl?"  The stairs ended in the girl's
leisure room, a space Bethsany had set aside for the women to collect themselves
and relax. "Over here, Miss Beth." "Oh, there you are."  She dropped off the
steps and herded Aimee' in the direction of the tall, black-skinned girl with the
wide smile and the sweet-smelling skin.  "Meli, I want you to meet Aimee'.
Aimee', this is one of my favorite girls, Meli.  She is going to take you aside
and teach you a few tricks that will certainly please your Master."  With that,
she took Meli aside and whispered her instructions into the girl's ear while
casting sidelong glances at Aimee'. Meli finally nodded and walked back to
Aimee's side.  They looked at each as if measuring, then Meli reached out a hand.
 Aimee' took it and both let out a small sigh of tension.  "Hi," Aimee' said.
"Hi," Meli replied.  "Come on.  Let me take you in back and I will show you what
you need." Aimee' nodded and allowed Meli to lead her down another flight of
stairs into what felt like a basement.  The room was warm, though, and
comfortable.  The bright golden yellows and reds that predominated most of the
upstairs gave way to softer pinks accentuating rich blues, comforting, feminine
colors.  "This is where we relax in the daytime," Meli said.  "It's a safe corner
for all of us."  The first room was little more than a hallway, leading off to
other rooms with dubious contents.  "This way." Meli led her down the hall and
into another, small room.  This one had a bathtub of sorts inlaid in the center
of the floor.  The tub, of white, smooth stone, was big enough to hold several
women at once.  It had a spout in the shape of a serpent hovering over it. The
mouth of the serpent caught Aimee's eye.  "Darynn, your teacher, made that for
us.  It is a well-crafted <em>urnen</em>  a device for heating water to our
whim."  Inside the tub was a strangely shaped chair, as if for sitting rather
than for washing.  A rope hung down from the ceiling, crossing through a pulley
there to another by wall, then down into the floor. "This knob controls how
strong the water is, this one how hot, and this lever..."  She grinned.  "This
one controls where the water goes." "Goes?" "Get in.  Sit down and give it a
try," Meli grinned.  Aimee' gave her a curious look, then shrugged and slipped
out of her clothes, slipping into the water.  "Sit in the chair, that's it." The
tawny, black-skinned girl undressed as well, sliding into the tub behind the
chair.  "Now, the first part's always the toughest to get ready for.  Start the
water flowing."  Aimee' looked over and found the one for pressure, giving it a
quick turn.  "Lightly, girl! You'll never get used to it like that!" Meli
admonished.  "Turn it low, right, like that. "Now, reach over for the rope and
pull on it."  Aimee' did as told.  The chair began to rise and tilt in the pool. 
Her legs were slowly being raised out of the water, most of her body with it,
until her mound and her head were just above the water.  The stream from the
serpent's mouth was striking the water between her legs, a foot from her mound. 
"Test it," Meli said.  "See if it's too hot." Aimee' reached a hand out into the
water.  "It's fine." "Then take the lever and push it away from you.  It's a bit
strange, but you'll get used to it."  Aimee' did as told and the water began
moving closer to her mound.  "Just go on, Aimee', you'll like it."  Meli moved
her hands slowly around the other's girl's body, her hands caressing Aimee's
sides, touching her skin.  Aimee's chest rose, gasping, as Meli's hands reached
around and touched her nipples at the same time the water ran up between her lips
and touched her clitoris.  She squirmed and moved the lever, pushing the water
off. "Take it easy," Meli said.  "Some girls like it very hard, others like it
very hot.  But we must all start out carefully." Aimee' nodded and her fingers
gripped the lever a little more tightly.  The mouth of the serpent, made of many
carefully made plates of silver, moved slightly, directing the flow of water
closer and closer to Aimee's cunny.  "That's it," Meli whispered in her ear,
"That's it."  Aimee' felt her breasts flush and grow warm as Meli's fingers
caressed them, pressing against her giving flesh.  Aimee's breath grew hoarse and
ragged as the water played over her clitoris more and more forcefully.  Her
fingers barely touched the lever, her hips grinding against the smooth material
of the seat.  Meli wrapped her arms around Aimee's waist and held onto her,
holding her down, waiting for the explosions to stop. Much to Meli's surprise,
they did not stop.  If anything, Aimee's moans grew louder, her buttocks pounding
against the marble. The moans built  into a scream, and then Meli noticed that
the room had become darker; the candles had gone out, and a wind was building.
Even in as small a space as the bathtub the water become choppy, the air whistled
and spun as Aimee's screamed.  "No!" Meli scrabbled for the knob in the dark,
finding it with her fingertips, and turned off the water. The wind subsided. 
Aimee's breathing, punctuated occasionally by moans, filled the room.  Finally
even that grew quiet.  Meli, still more than a little frightened, whispered,
"Aimee'?" "Meli?" the reply came.  "Are you okay?" "Frightened, but unharmed,"
Meli replied. The door to the room flew open.  "What in the name of Agas is going
on down here?"  Bethsany peeked into the room, looking around at the destruction.
 "What happened." "She... she started to come, madame, and then the whole room
just started to come apart." "Aimee'?" "It was so... powerful.  Meli was touching
me and the water was so strong... I couldn't help it!" Bethsany rolled her eyes. 
"I'm going to send you a message for Darynn, Aimee', that he's to teach you to
keep your magic down when you're just having fun!" "Yes, Ma'am." "Now, Meli, I
told you to show her a nice time, but you were also to teach her how to do her
hair.  Now, get with it, get with it." "Yes, madame," Meli replied, climbing out
of the tub and handing Aimee' a towel.  "Come, Aimee', I will teach you how to be
beautiful."

Aimee', Intermission


Darynn smiled as he pulled the robes tightly about himself. Although inside the
council chamber the fires had kept the meeting comfortably warm, outside the
chill of winter easily permeated the halls  of the Administration Building on the
College.  As he walked away he had the distinct taste of victory in his mouth. 
He thought back... it had only been minutes earlier...

"Master Darynn," Teltirray had said, approaching him. "Master Teltirray," he had
replied gracefully. "I wish to thank you.  Your teaching of Aimee' has been
wonderful.  Her learning is spectacular, her skill growing appreciably in the six
months you have known her.  I admit, I had misgivings.  After all, your...
preference... did not encourage me to send her to you."  He positively sneered
the word 'preference,' a sure sign to him that Teltirray was still dealing with
him fairly, if uncomfortably.  There was no double meaning here.  "I thought you
had nothing to teach.  I see that your knowledge of, well, men, applies to her
skills very clearly."   The grin he gave Darynn made the blood run cold.  He
wondered how much of that 'skill' was applied strictly to the healing arts in a
sense of self-preservation.  "I thank you, especially since you have taken upon
yourself an increase in the time you spend on her training, beyond our agreement,
without asking for an increase in the cost." "Master Teltirray, Aimee' presents a
challenge.  I hope you do not take this wrongly, but I feel I am learning from
her as I have never worked with a woman before and feel most uncomfortable doing
so." Teltirray smiled, taking Darynn's words exactly as he had expected.  "I
understand.  Still, I appreciate beyond words what you have done to her." "I am
grateful." "I apologize for interrupting you.  I see you are in a hurry." "No,
merely anxious to return home.  I have much to do tonight." "Then I shall not
keep you any longer.  Good day." "Good day."  Teltirray had departed.

Darynn walked down the hall, enjoying his success, celebrating with quiet
happiness the nurtured hope that Aimee' might survive Teltirray's abuses unharmed
and that she might someday register at the College as a student... under his
aegis.  So complete was his self absorption that he didn't notice the woman at
the end of the hall until her hand reached out and dragged him aside.  "What?"
The woman stepped back out of reach as his hand came up in a defensive posture. 
"Whoa, Darynn!  It's me!" "Bethsany?" "Right, right!  You could scare a body half
to death if it didn't freeze in here first.  Don't you mages believe in heat?"
"Unlike your usual clientele, mages are not likely to walk around unclothed. 
What are you doing here?" "Came looking for you.  I need to talk to you." "About
Aimee'?" She nodded.  "You're hoping she kills him, aren't you?" "I have no idea
what you're talking about," he said as he put up privacy spells as fast as he
possibly could.  Before she could speak again, he put his hand up to silence her.
 Open mouthed, she stared, then nodded and closed it again.  "Now then.  As I was
saying, I have no idea what you're talking about." "Aimee' and Teltirray," she
said, lowering her voice to a whisper.  "Some of the stuff you've been teaching
her... you're hoping she kills him, aren't you?" The room she had pulled him into
was one of the side classrooms, with the teacher's desk close to the door.  He
sat down on it and folded his hands in his lap, grinning.  "I won't cry at his
funeral." "Don't you think he'll get the least bit suspicious?" "If he does,
that's his problem.  I've taken on an apprentice, Bethsany, and I usually first
teach my apprentice those things he needs to survive.  And besides, most of what
I've taught her are spells that a select group of your clientele, and me if I
were interested in women, find extremely exciting." Bethsany's mouth cracked into
an echo of Darynn's grin.  "I see. Do you really think she can do it?" Darynn
stared out the window where the first heavy snow of winter was falling, making
the fresh, cold air hazy and covering the campus in a layer of white.  Trees were
bending already with the heavy weight of packed snow and from his vantage only
one brave (or foolish) soul was trying to make his way across the quadrangle.
Inside the classroom, however, only the sound of breathing could be heard; the
privacy spells Darynn had put up kept all sound from leaving, but it also kept
sound from entering as well.  No-one would investigate; privacy spells were
amongst the easiest to learn, the most common to use, and the most respected. 
Mages valued their privacy.  And Darynn was an archmage.  No-one would interrupt
him. "Ultimately, Bethsany, of all the people who will ever need to defend
themselves against Teltirray, if anyone can do so successfully, I think she can. 
I think he's given himself a challenge he's not up to." "I don't have your
magical skill, Darynn, but I have to agree with your observation.  She's strong. 
I just hope she's strong enough." Darynn looked out the window again.  "I think
we'll know before the snow melts." "That's not a lot of time," Bethsany sighed. 
"I'll help in any way I can." "Just keep teaching her to be strong, Beth.  That's
what she really needs.  Encouragement." "I'll do my best," she nodded, turning to
leave.  She reached for the doorknob, then stopped and turned around.  "Darynn, I
know you don't care for women's ways, but you've always been kind to me and my
girls.  I don't understand why, except that we understand each other."  Her mouth
curled into an unpleasant snarl.  "I've seen what he does to the girls he gets. 
Get him.  Please." Darynn merely nodded as she left, closing the door behind her
with a click.  He turned his stare out the window again, watching the snow come
down in slow, dry sheets of white.


Aimee', Chapter 5



Darynn looked up from his desk.  Aimee' had entered without knocking this time,
just as he had asked, and was now scanning his bookshelves at a furious rate.  He
cast a small spell to examine the titles she was looking at, paying attention to
the ones she lingered over.  He frowned when he noticed most of them were healing
spells. Still, if that was what she needed, she had every right to copy and learn
them. She selected one and pulled it down, reading through it.  He paid her
little attention, dedicating himself to the spellbook before him on the table;
the way of Deists and their spells was still beyond his ken, although he now
understood some of what the Essentialists did.  He looked up once in a while,
noticed her penquill flying at that furious rate that even he envied in her, then
returned his attentions to his studies. The next time he looked up he saw that
she had fallen asleep in the chair, her own spellbook open but lying across her
chest.  He rose from his desk and walked over to her.  "Aimee'?" he asked,
touching her shoulder. "Huh?" she said, startling awake.  "Oh, sir.  Forgive me. 
I just... needed to rest." He nodded and patted his hand on the shoulder he
touched.  "That is perfectly okay, Aimee', I understand."  He smiled at her. 
"So, no more storms at Bethsany's place, right?" She shook her head.  "No, sir. 
I've got it under control now, I think." "Good," he said.  "I should tell you,
Aimee', that you are someday going to be the most powerful mage in the world at
the rate you learn, but that power and skill must be tempered with learning and
maturity."  He smiled at the shock on her face.  "It is true, Aimee'.  Few people
recognize it, because your talent, like mine, is sexual, and therefore generally
overlooked.  In fact, are you willing to listen to one more story by an old man?"
"Oh, yes sir!" she grinned, sitting up onto the edge of her chair. "Good," Darynn
commented.  "Remember where my stories left off..."

It came to pass in the Spring of my 24th year that I left my beloved Ryuchia,
just as I had left my beloved Awrthom.  This time, however, many of the reasons
for going were my own, not those of a master shooing me out the door.  It was
true; Desa had little more to teach me.  I had grown beyond the peak of learning,
and all was now a straight and understanding path. I travelled down the road on
horseback, armed with spells of defense for most of the travel.  Just once, the
day after leaving the mountains of the Megassi, was I assaulted by brigands. 
There were six of them, all told, who descended upon me and demanded I stand and
deliver my gold and possessions.  They never got within a horse's length of me
before three dragons descended from the sky.  [You are protected by the will of
Desa,] one told me.  [You will reach Barraminum safely.]	They slaughtered the
brigands and consumed them, leaving their possessions upon the ground.  I learned
that day to be a practical man and recovered their gold and their horses.  At the
next town I sold them all and left a wealthier man. I made my way across the
rocky terrain of the northern steppes and found myself in Barraminum after only
two months of travel.  It was not an easy two months, but it was uneventful.  I
learned some hardness on that trip that I wish I had not, but I am also glad that
I did.  I still have not decided on the good or bad of casting 'Stroke' upon a
rabbit, holding the spell while creeping up on it, and then slitting its throat
in its moment of ecstasy.  The idea still bothers me greatly. But it kept me fed
until I reached Barraminum's gates.  The guard at the gate wished to treat me
roughly.  "What do you want?" he said. "Directions to the College of Mages."
"Haw!  And who's your patron?"  He was a foul-faced fellow, all pinched and
dirtied.  Missing a few teeth, too. "I have none," I said. "Go on, get on your
way," he swore at me.  "Nobody gets to the college without a patron.  What do you
think you're doing here, anyway?" I reached into my cloak.  "I have here a signed
letter from Talen Silisto inviting me into the college as an unfettered student."
I showed the illiterate fool the seal and quite suddenly he was nice to me. "Yes,
sir," he said.  He seemed more than a little distraught, an effect I found
rewarding.  "I'll bring a boy to lead you to it." He swallowed and walked away. 
As he did so, I turned my sense of hearing to him and I heard him mutter, "One of
these days I'm going to say the wrong thing to the wrong mage and I'll be
spending the rest of my days searching for Mrs. Right Toad."  I tried not to
laugh. The guard did eventually find someone to lead me through the city, a young
and healthy boy of perhaps sixteen.  I dismounted my horse as he led me through
the gates and to the College of Mages. Ah, the College.  I'm sure by now you're
as familiar with it as any student, but at the time the high stone walls and the
beautiful spiraling towers within were enrapturing to me.  I was entranced by the
mere silvered appearance.  The open-air main building, it's roof nothing more
than magic itself, allowing in the sun and air but not the rain, framed with
great stone pillars.  All wonderful to me. Once my invitation was acknowledged to
be genuine, I was given a place to stable my horse and then led into the Main
Hall, through a hallway and to an office, where I waited for Talen Silisto to
meet with me. Finally, he did.  "Ah, Darynn, you have arrived.  You have no other
name?"  I shook my head.  "Fine, fine.  I am Talen Silisto." He was a tall man,
reedy thin, with fine, strong feature.  A well- shaped face with a sharp nose and
inquisitive blue eyes.  "Come into my office, would you?"  He directed me towards
the door, walking behind me; once he  was in, he locked the door.  Needless to
say, this made me nervous. He sat back in his chair behind his desk and examined
me closely.  I felt probed, inspected, dissected by his careful vision. He
finally pressed his fingertips together.  "So you have recently come from Desa
Megassi." "Yes, sir." "How is Desa?" "Fine, sir, although in his dragon form he
does not get out much these days.  I only saw it twice in the 25 months I lived
there, and both occasions were very brief." "I see," he said.  "Still, it is nice
to hear that he is alive and well and teaching again.  For a while I though I
should never hear from him.  Instead he sends me you.  A student not even 25 who
has already created an incredible spell base.  And, he tells me in private, you
have mastered another spell base that has been nobody's knowledge for centuries."
My jaw dropped when I heard that.  "Sir?" "The genetic bases.  Nobody has been
able to learn those; they're almost strictly dragon lore, and now you wander into
my college knowing them!  Inconceivable!"  He leaned forward.  "Tell me. If I
asked you to, could you write them down?" Taken by surprise, I nodded.  "I could.
 Given time." "Do you think anyone else could learn them?" "Sir, if you're asking
me to pass on my knowledge, I will gratefully to students who can use it.  But I
will not simply turn my studies over to a book for irresponsible students to leaf
through at their whim." His expression took on a pall of surprise, and then he
leaned back in his chair.  "I see.  Desa has taught you very well." "Thank you,
sir." He clasped his hands together on the table.  "I have no illusions about
your first spell-base.  'Pleasure' is as powerful and as dangerous a Base of the
Mind as any I have ever seen.  Most of the mages who viewed it felt the same way.
 We have downplayed its existence because of that very power.  I also understand
that your power is channeled by sexual arousal, so I will be sure that your
teacher is one of discretion in this matter, as well as one acceding to your
needs.  I would take you as a student myself if it were not for my age and my
preference for buxom young women instead.  You have all the makings of a
researcher, Darynn, but you must learn to protect yourself as well." "Sir?" "I am
assigning you to Lien Pappen.  Lien is a sexual spellmaster of no little skill
who will teach you the ways of defensive and offensive magics.  We will work
around your trance- state methods." "None of the other students here will have
knowledge of who you are.  Many are here on anonymous patronages; the patrons
don't wish their neighbors to know they are financing a household mage here at
the college.  You will simply be one of those, richer than the rest, I suppose,
because of the accumulated patronages you already have. Yes, indeed, both Awrthom
and Desa have forwarded to me significant amounts of remuneration to keep you
here."  He smiled.  "I have my doubts, Darynn.  You are young, undisciplined, and
overpowerful. Your power derives from that most dangerous of all human drives,
sex, and not only that, the release of that power proffers you to be a sodomite!"
 He pounded the table with his fist while shaking his head.  "Your life is going
to be difficult, Darynn.  Your teachers are putting a great deal of trust in your
hands.  Do not disappoint us. He reached into his desk and pulled out an
envelope.  "Here. This is your new-student orientation material."  On the back,
he wrote out a name.  Opening the packet, he pulled out what appeared to be a map
and wrote on it.  "And this is where Mage Pappen lives." Finally he wrote out a
note and placed it in an envelope.  "And this is the letter of introduction to
Mage Pappen."  He rose from his desk; sensing a cue, I rose from my chair as
well.  We shook hands as he handed me the packet.  "Welcome to the College,
Darynn." Nervous, it took me a moment to remember my voice.  "Thank you, sir," I
finally managed to say to him.

I followed the directions on the map, walking high and low amongst the buildings
until I found the one I was looking for.  A short wooden building on a stone
foundation, it had a comfortable look to it.  I walked onto the porch and rang
the doorbell.  The door opened to reveal a young woman wearing nothing more than
a short skirt about her waist, and that skirt was made of leather.  The only
other mark on her was an intricate scrollwork tattoo over her heart. "May I help
you?" "I am Darynn, late of Megassi.  I was instructed to hand this to Mage
Pappen." "Allow me."  She reached for the envelope. "Are you Mage Pappen?" "No."
"Then I will not hand it to you.  My instruction say to give it to Mage Pappen."
"Brand, let him in."  The new voice came from a taller man whose age was
indecipherable.  He looked twenty, thirty, even forty.  He looked strong.  "I am
Mage Pappen.  What did you identify yourself as?" "Darynn, late of Megassi." He
descended the stairs and crossed the room to peer at me. "The dragons?"  He
seemed surprised. "The same." "There must surely be some mistake.  I've no ken
for dragon lore."  He opened the letter and began reading it.  "Or, perhaps not."
 He smiled at me.  "How old are you?" "Twenty-five, sir." "Brand, leave us."  The
woman, without so much as a blink, turned and left the room.  "Now then, Darynn,
Unbalance me." "Sir?" "You heard me.  Unbalance me." It took me a moment to get
up the courage to follow his command. I have never simply demonstrated my skill
in public before; it's not often one is commanded to masturbate publicly.  Which,
in effect, is what I needed to do to move that spell at that time. I dropped my
pack and robes.  Leaning against my staff, I reached into my pants and found my
penis, stroking it softly.  It came to life quickly, and in less than nine
seconds I found myself breathing hard enough to summon power.  One second later I
formed the base in my head, the second after that I built an Unbalance over that
base, and in the twelfth second I opened one eye, looked at Mage Pappen, and
released it. The Mage looked happily unbalanced.  "You are he!" "Yes, sir.  I
created the 'Pleasure' base."  I blushed, embarrassed.  "I realize I have
achieved a bit of notoriety from that." "Yes.  We'll have to work on that arousal
pattern you have, get it down from twelve seconds to one."  He grinned.  "You'll
have to find your arousal in the satisfaction of the act, not the other way
around.  We'll manage."  He looked at my staff curiously.  "Is that staff yours?"
"Yes, sir.  It was given to me by Desa Megassi, Master Mage of Hakkana." "Well
then, Mage Darynn, welcome to my home.  You are once again Student Darynn as
well, you understand."  I bowed my head, agreeing to the term.  "Excellent. 
Brand!  Come show Darynn to room three, would you?" The woman returned.  "Come
with me."

Lien Pappen, it turned out, was considered <em>the</em> sexual mage on Campus
simply because he was the only mage of advanced skill who could do sexual work. 
Sex was a consuming passion with him and what he preferred, but it was not what
he did best.  Where his expertise lay magically was in process work.  When I
described the spell I had cast on myself and my beloved Ryuchia, he positively
glowed.  "Darynn, I must ask that I see you perform this spell process." "With
whom, sir?" "I would ask that you perform it on me.  I cannot ask you to perform
it on Brand since she is a woman, and therefore not to your liking." "Yes sir." I
explained the procedures necessary, and he agreed to them.  We arranged a space
in his basement in which to build the equipment necessary.  I felt relieved to be
in my own element again; it had been three months since my arrival at the campus
and I had begun to feel depressed.  I was without lovers here, a state not to my
liking and certainly discouraging to a mage of my studies.  Unlike dragons, the
people in Barraminum regarded my preferences as disagreeable and limited my
attentions to the boyhouses by the waterfront.  Although my allowances would
certainly allow me to wander down there once in a while for relief, I did not
relish the idea of purchasing relief.  I craved friendship and a friendly bed,
not what these places offered. Lien joined me when I announced I was ready.  He
removed his robes to reveal a handsome body underneath; thin, strong, and a touch
pale, his body radiated with an inner sense of composure that comes from being a
mage. I knew my role' here well as he lay down on the bed.  I crawled between his
legs and lowered my mouth to his groin without preface, burying my face between
his legs and inhaling deeply.  He gasped as his cock grew to full proportions.  I
stared at the purple head wavering before my eyes, then smiled as I slipped my
mouth around it, sucking at the silken skin of his cockhead, then feeling press
against the top of my mouth, rippling as it touched the back of my throat and
slid further downwards.  He gasped, his hips bouncing against the bed.  I closed
my lips upon the warming shaft, sucking his cock for all it was worth. It was
more than skill, Aimee', it was pleasure.  Pleasure from the relief of sheer
need.  I needed him.  It was more than his cock, Aimee'; there was something to
his carriage, to his whole being, that fulfilled me.  As I pumped my head back
and forth on his cock, I felt that fulfillment deep within me. He groaned
slightly as I stopped my sucking, reaching for the ointment and applying it to
his shaft.  He looked at me apprehensively as I knelt over his hips and aimed his
cock upwards. I pressed down upon it, feeling it against my anus, feeling it fill
me as it penetrated me.  He was within me.  I picked up my staff and held it out.
 "Take it," I said. He nodded and reached up, taking the staff in his hands even
as I did.  I began casting the spell, stroking his cock within me all the while. 
I was interested in letting him in on the spell, so he cast it right along with
me. Together, our bodies continued in patient mating as we explored his genetic
code.  He marvelled at the process, and the sub-processes that allowed me to
explore more than the visible.  He gasped with pleasure at the spells I had
learned, then told me to "End it." I did.  The spell collapsed.  Unlike with Ryu,
I had no need to see his climax, and as the skilled sybarite, neither did he.  We
ceased our coupling and sat down on the bed together.  "Marvellous," he said,
panting slightly as he cleaned himself off.  "Simply marvellous.  You did not
write any of that yourself, I take it?" "No sir," I said.  "I adapted some
towards my particular method of invocation, but I did not write the spell
myself."  I explained where I had found it and what notes I had had to take in
order to make it useful to me, rather than to dragons.  I also explained the
changes I had had to make in order to make it work <em>on</em> him since he was
human and not a dragon. "Astounding.  That you could take such a dangerous spell,
render it into components in just such a manner.  My friend, you will go far."
"Thank you, sir."

I learned, several months later, that I had a rival.  By now knowledge of both my
invocation speciality and my preference in partners was common knowledge, and I
often took abuse because of either, and often both. But it was not until late
that coming December and the first snows had begun falling on the ground that I
began to appreciate how much hatred Brand was sending in my direction.  As a
woman, she felt that her capacity for multiple orgasms naturally made her better
prepared for the kinds of magic I was quickly excelling at.  However, as we both
found out, that was hardly the case.  She was simply a good student without the
natural skills that I had lucked upon and without the incredibly teachers of
Awrthom and Desa Megassi to back up those natural talents. However the signs
began to show.  Resentment, mostly.  I understand that.  I had wandered in where
she had once been the center of attention and quickly established myself as her
superior. Where she still wore robes of black I had already earned those of
green. Then things began to get ugly.  At first, even the ugliness was somewhat
mundane, consisting of shortsheeting and the like.  The rumors started up that I
preferred little boys, children below the age of puberty.  That all sexual mages
were destroyers of everyone they touched and claimed to love. What friends I had
stuck with me, and I'll grant them that. Although more and more I found it hard
to associate with my peers, simply because they wished to have no association
with me. Then came the violence.  There is simply no other term for it; I was
spat upon, at first, and then I became the target of thrown stones.  The attacks
grew more and more severe as time went on. Magicians, however, are resourceful. 
"Don't you worry," Mage Pappen reassured me.  "They won't get you, but we shall
get them." Mage Pappen did indeed help me.  To his credit we eventually did turn
in most of the miscreants who committed their abuses upon me. Some were
discharged from the school. It was at this time that Brand received her green
robes.  Much to even my surprise, she announced that that was sufficient to her
and that she was heading back to her home to resume her life there, now a
fully-accreditted mage wearing the green. I was surprised; I had fully expected
her to stay and earn at least the blue I now wore.  I asked Mage Pappen about
this.  "You know how it is, Darynn.  Some simply want to know all they can, and
some simply go when they think they know enough." My studies continued.  The
attacks on me lessened, in part because Pappen and I had decimated the ranks of
those who did not approve of me.  I started casting some spells of import, too,
ones that caught the attentions of my fellow students.  Although it took me
sixteen hours to cast, I did one day succeed in an alteration spell that allowed
me my first wereform.  For six days afterwards I could, completely at will, take
the shape of a wolf.  I remember the feelings of fear that created within me,
fear that the wolf shape would gain control. Also, for some reason, requests from
my fellow students for love potions blossomed, apparently on the theory that a
sex magician should be good at them. All of this changed one night when I was
walking through the city.  I had, sadly, succumbed to my needs, and gone
travelling down in the lower blocks of the city, looking for a street boy who
would take my money in exchange for a candlespan of attention.  I wanted someone,
something specific, someone for whom I would feel something, and then later feel
nothing. I walked at odds with myself, accepting, then rejecting one, then
another, never sure of what I really wanted, knowing that in truth I was missing
Awrthom and Ryuchia and that Pappen's attentions were nothing more than that of a
teacher, not a lover.  I missed love, Aimee', truly that is what I missed. A hand
grabbed me by the shoulder.  "'Ey, m'lord, are you lookin' for somethin'
friendly?" "Yes, but I'm not sure-- "  I never got to say another word.  As I
turned to face the man who addressed me, a fist pounded me in the stomach,
knocking the wind from me violently.  I was pushed, shoved, and carried into an
alleyway, where three men hit me further and then carried me in through a back
door into a small room. A cloth was fitted into my mouth to prevent me from
speaking.  I was thrown across a solid wooden table, where rough ropes tied my
hands to the supports.  The room was dark, dingy; only two lanterns lit it up. 
The three who had carried me in were all large and hairy men wearing the common
clothes of laborers.  They tied ropes about my feet, too, but instead of tying
those down, they tied them up to a beam that supported the roof, exposing my ass
to their rough hands. "He's not a virgin," one said, his voice cracked with the
twin abuses of tobacco and alcohol.  "Look a' tha' 'ole." "He's been had by
dragons.  But he'll do you quite well."  I recognized Brand's voice.  What was
she doing here? "Dragons?" the one said.  "'Dor, 'e'll ne'er e'en notice us!"
"It's been a while." One of the men approached and touched my ass with his palm.
"Smooth as a babe's butt," he replied.  "Does nothin' with it but sit on it all
day, I reck'n."  His hand was rough and calloused, the fingers themselves thick
with the muscle of manual labor.  One touched my anus.  He pressed inwards
without spit or grease, his fingers so rough and calloused I felt like I was
being entered by a pine cone.  The pain made me cry out, but the cloth in my
teeth dampened the sound to nothing.  His finger penetrated me to the knuckles
and I groaned.  "Yeah, t' first inch is tight enough fer me."  He pulled me
across the rough table, granting more pain as the raw wood scraped on my back. 
"Take this, lad."  With a rough shove he penetrated me, his cock mercilessly
barreling into my guts. "Could use a little wetness, though." "Ha' this, then,"
one of the other men said clearly.  The one within me laughed, and I felt
something cold splash about my balls and hole.  It felt cold, and then burning
filled me.  The smell told me what  he'd used, and I began to cry from the pain. 
Rum.  Alcohol. These men cared less if they killed me. Another one, to my left,
climbed out of his ragged pants and approached me, pulling off the gag.  "Suck
it, boy," he said.  "Suck it well and maybe you'll live."  He pulled back his
foreskin and stuffed the fetid thing in my face.  The smell was ghastly, as if he
hadn't washed in weeks, and I couldn't bring myself to do as he ordered.  He
grasped my head in one hand and my nose in the other, waving that evil club
before my eyes.  Finally, I had to breathe, and he shoved his cock down my
throat.  "Bite it and I'll hurt you bad." I gagged on the torturous thing.  About
the only mercy for me in this was that the alcohol that ruined me within also
entered my blood and lessened the pain.  I choked while the two men raped me,
used me in their laughter.  The one's cock sawed in and out of my burning
asshole, the other fed me his cheesy meat until both grunted their climaxes and
finally pulled out.  The one who had been within my ass presented his cock to my
mouth.  "Clean it, boy." Another cock entered my anus.  Gone in pain and alcohol,
I barely noticed either of the two cocks being used on me.  I felt, dimly, the
feel of the third man's balls as he plundered my anus, raping the juiced hole
created by the man whose cock I now washed with my tongue.  I could not think.
And then they, too, were gone, and a slim, delicate hand was probing at my anus. 
"Darynn, can you hear me?" "Brand...  Why are you doing this?" "Because," she
said as three of her fingers slipped into my asshole, "You deserve it, you
perverse monster.  The Sodomite Mage. You had to be younger than me, prettier
than me, better than me." Her hand pressed against my burning asshole.  "I'm
going to give you what you want, Darynn, and what you so richly deserve.  I'm
going to remind you of your dragon LOVER," she snarled as her arm slipped into
me, "and then, from within, I'm going to kill you." I needed to stop her.  My
mind raced with all the things I could do to stop her.  I knew spells that would
kill her, but they took time to prepare.  I needed to handle her companions, too.
I thought of a Base, a combat Base, that would help me.  I imagined what it might
look like completed, as complete as a Base can be.  I needed to be right, once,
because that was all the chance I would get.  "Brand," I snarled at her.
"Goodbye, Darynn." "No."  I summoned the base. She screamed as the bones in her
arm snapped.  She looked up, stunned, as I poured power through the base.  One of
the men rushed me and lightning danced around him, knocking him against the wall,
screaming.  Another picked up a bottle and I struck him, too, with the lightning.
 Just as the base 'Pain' could be turned into 'Pleasure', so too can the bases
for healing be turned to suffering. Brand pulled her hand free of my body, unable
to clutch anything at all.  She backed away from me as I willed her to bleed
freely; it ran from her nose and she coughed it from her mouth.  She shook her
head, and in her bubbling throat I heard her say "You... you can't. This..." I
was developing an erection even as she said it.  My combat master had taught me
well; the satisfaction of committing a spell need not have arisen from pleasure,
but instead, the pleasure of winning came from the satisfaction of committing the
spell.  I had won.  I burned her, blasted her, bled her, and broke her.  And then
I blacked out.

"And then?" Aimee' asked. "I was rescued.  One of the men who had been busily
having his way with me ran out into the street, and the screams attracted the
attention of the local guard.  I was taken back to the college, where I attracted
a lot of attention."  Darynn smiled and leaned back in his chair.  "Now, I've
taken away from your studies again to tell you a rather dull and boring story." 
He yawned to make the point. His bait worked; she yawned along with him.  "See? 
I've managed to put you back to sleep."  He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
"Why don't you return home?  We'll continue this later." She sighed and the sound
tore at his heart again.  "Yes, sir. Goodnight, sir." "Goodnight, Aimee'."



Aimee', Chapter 6


Bethsany examined herself in the mirror.  "I still look pretty good.  Don't you
think, Lilli?" "Yes, Miss," the tall brunette encapsulated in leather responded
warmly. "Be honest, Lilli." "At your age, Miss, you will not bring in customers
except for those with certain... desires, but no matter.  I wish to have your
body and health when I reach your wisdom, too." Bethsany turned around and
stroked Lilli's face gently.  "You say the right things, Lilli."  She kissed the
taller girl gently.  A knock at the door interrupted her fingers' probing between
Lilli's legs.  "What is it?" One of the younger girls appeared at the door.  "My
apologies, Miss, but Aimee' is here." Bethsany sighed, trying not to smile
simultaneously.  Loving Lilli was a privilege neither one permitted often,
temptation being what it was, but she also could never pass up an opportunity for
kindness with Aimee'.  "Lilli, will you forgive me?" The brunette nodded.  "I
understand.  I need some commission today anyway." Bethsany laughed.  "Forever
the opportunist.  That's why I like my crew.  Could you let Aimee' in on your way
out?" "I will," Lilli promised, leaving slowly.  As she walked out, she held the
door open, revealing the small, shivering form of the girl who came to visit
every week.  "Aimee'!  The Gods, you must be chilled to the bone from your walk. 
Come in, come in, please, sit down by the fire.  Page, get us something warm for
her to drink. Nothing with liquor, dear, just chocolate or something."  The young
girl who had first peeked in to announce Aimee's presence looked in, nodded, then
disappeared.  Bethsany positioned Aimee' on a short, padded stool by the fire. 
The girl reappeared with a tray holding two steaming mugs.  "Here," Bethsany
said, handing one to Aimee'. "Drink.  You need it.  You look positively white!"
"I am sorry to distress you so, Bethsany," Aimee' said softly. "Master Teltirray
is more confident of me; he says in this weather thieves do not get out so much."
"Nor should healthy young girls like yourself!" Bethsany countered.  "Besides, in
winter brigands need their sustenance like everyone else and with pickings slim
you make a lovely target.  Be careful!" "If any such brigand were to lay a hand
on me..." "You would what?"  Bethsany grinned.  "Lay them low with a bolt of
wizardly power?  Are you to that point, my lovely Mage's student in black?"
Aimee' blushed.  Bethsany cupped Aimee's chin and pulled it up to look into her
eyes.  "There is nothing to be ashamed of, Aimee'. Confidence is the first
measure of any success, be it in Magic or Business or Sex.  But you must know
your limits, too."  Aimee' nodded and sipped at her drink, shrugging off her
cloak and easing to the floor before the fire. Bethsany joined her; however under
her robe there was no further clothing.  "Let me tell you another story,
Aimee'... of what happened to me after my rescue.  Is that acceptable?" Aimee'
grinned and nodded.  "Please!" Bethsany leaned back and began.

"There, there," said my rescuer as she handed me a bowl of warm soup.  "You will
be all right." "Who... who are you?" "My name is Cyl'Dia.  I am a woman of
Darachmod."  That last word made me look up and take notice of her, Aimee',
because I had heard of Darachmod.  It was a city, rumored to be in the very
mountains through which my family had been riding when the bandits had attacked. 
She smiled tightly.  "I see you have heard of us.  The legends are mostly true. 
Drink up.  I will return in a little while." She was gone again, and only Huna
and I were left together.  I held  onto Huna and she let me, being the only thing
in my recent life that had had any stability and kindness to it.  I watched the
women in the camp moving about easily, seriously; there seemed to be little humor
about them.  Slaughtering a camp, even one filled with spirits as ugly as
Styur's, could have held no glee to them. They were all beautiful, tall, strong. 
All of them wore heavy armor that hid what sorts of bodies they had underneath,
but as they stripped it off they revealed tightly fitted, warm clothing that
showed the shapes underneath to be very obviously female.  I wasn't to learn just
how female until later. Cyl'Dia returned shortly with another woman behind her. 
"We are returning, so your eyes must be covered until you are trustworthy. Do you
understand?" I nodded, still frightened.  She reached out and stroked the dog's
head for a moment.  "Huna, huh?  She's a good dog.  What's your name?"
"Bethsany."  I blurted it out as one word. "Beth'Sany, huh?"  Her voice had a
curious stop indicating that she had divided my name into two parts like hers. 
"That's a pretty name.  Beth, this is my commander, Dyn'Valas.  Dyn, this is
Beth'Sany, who we rescued from the centaurs." Dyn'Valas knelt down and examined
me closely.  Then she smiled. "We do not kill slaves, Beth, even male ones,
although we see to it that they make their way in a direction other than
following us.  Do you wish to come to Darachmod with us, or is there a family you
want to go home to?" I shivered.  "I... I have no family.  They killed them all."
 I managed to point down to the ruined and burning centaur village where I had
spent the past months. "All of them?"  Dyn'Valas looked shocked.  She recovered
momentarily and said, "I understand you killed their leader rather...
gruesomely." I managed to shiver another nod.  "He... he used me."  I began
crying, sniffling in the cold, wet of falling snow.  "I wanted to get back." She
patted my head gently.  "That's understandable.  You want to come to Darachmod
with us, then?" I nodded.  "Please." "Cyl, make it so."

I was placed on the back of a horse and blindfolded.  "Wrap your arms around me,"
Cyl'Dia said softly.  "Reach into the jacket.  Go ahead.  I won't bite and it
will keep your hands warm." I did as she said, my fingers reaching in.  Between
my hands and her body were but one or two thin layers of cloth, and underneath it
I could feel her torso.  Even there her muscles were hard, rippling, strong.  She
was clearly a powerful woman in her own right and I envied her.  I wanted to be
like her. We rode on through the day.  I felt strangely at peace, Aimee'. The
blindfold kept me from questioning my surroundings in any great detail and the
best feelings I got at all came from Cyl'Dia, who gave me warmth and comfort and
spoke to me along the way.  She asked me for details of my life before the
Centaurs and I gave that information freely.  I enjoyed my talks with her; they
meant much to me.  After so many months of nothing but drudgery in the day and
cruelty at night, a voice of kindness was something to hold onto. We mostly spoke
of my life.  Not as if hers didn't have as much for discussing, but as if she
held back on discussing it at all until we reached her city. A hollow sound
surrounded her voice and the sounds of horses. The dry, winter smell was replaced
with a slight staleness and I recognized that we entered a tunnel.  No-one spoke
a word until the air returned to the bright coldness of winter.  "Cyl'Dia, you
are excused from your duties to take Beth'Sany to the chirgeon.  See to it that
she is looked after and then, I will find you this evening at your home." "Thank
you, my lady," Cyl'Dia replied.  "Beth, you may remove your blindfold now." I
did, getting my first glimpse of the city of Darachmod.  It was a large, walled
square with houses scattered according to a pattern.  On each wall was a large,
rectangular building built up against the wall, and the houses and other
buildings seemed clustered around those.  The center of the town was very open. 
Each building was carefully regimental in construction, pleasing to the eye,
ordered.  Cyl'Dia led the horse into a stable where girls about my age took the
horse and gave it blanketing, food, and water.  "Come," Cyl'Dia said to me
softly.  "I will show you the chirgeon, and then to home." The chirgeon was a
kind, elderly woman who looked me over carefully, taking special care to examine
my eyes, tongue, and sex. "She has suffered no permanent harm," she finally
assured Cyl'Dia. "She needs proper food and a bath, however.  This thinness is
not natural for her." "Senva?" Cyl'Dia asked, or at least I thought asked, the
doctor. It was not a word I knew. "No, no, not quite.  A healthy middle, I think.
 Bengesk." Cyl'Dia smiled and nodded, but her smile was tainted slightly with
sadness.  "I understand.  Thank you, Chire." "My pleasure.  It was sweet to meet
you, Beth'Sany." Cyl'Dia lifted me into her arms again and Huna followed us out
into the streets.  We made our way into a small home off a side street.  Once
inside, another girl about my age came running up.  "Cyl!" "Myr!" she shouted,
straining to hold me with one arm while with the other gathering the girl into
her clasp.  "Oh, it's so good to see you!" "Are you... are you home, finally?"
Myr asked.  "Who's this?" "Myr'Dia'Nan, meet Beth'Sany.  We found her with the
centaurs as their unwilling slave." "Unwilling?"  Myr seemed to recoil.  "You
mean, they didn't give you a choice?" "Slaves don't get choices," I sighed. "Some
do," Myr assured me.  "I do."  The revelation that Myr was a slave frightened me.
 That she was Cyl'Dia's slave stunned me.  The fear in me grew immense and
suddenly I was fighting Cyl'Dia, slapping at her.  But she still wore the
protective padding that went with her armor and I was doing little more than
getting her attention.  She dropped me, however, in my squirming, and I retreated
across cluttered room to kneel against the wall by the fire.  I expected Cyl'Dia
to confront me, but instead Myr did.  "Wait, you don't understand.  I want to be
here." I looked up at her, disbelieving.  "You... you want to be here?" Myr
nodded, smiling in unmistakable pleasure.  "Cyl is my beloved, Beth.  But I have
not the will or control to be a good and equal lover, Beth.  Someday, maybe, I
will, but until that day I... I accept her yoke of power.  Maybe I never will."
"That's not right," Beth said. "Oh?" Myr asked.  "I am not a child anymore."  She
blushed, looking ashamed.  "But I do not want to be unprotected.  Cyl'Dia gives
me protection.  I agree to that." "And punishment?" "If I have been bad, yes.  I
could leave Cyl at any time, but I'm not sure what I would do if that happens."
Cyl'Dia stood behind Myr, stroking the younger girl's hair with her hand. 
"You're getting there, Myr.  You are confident in your slavery, at any rate." 
She looked up at me.  "Some women, such as Myr, want someone to push them into
adulthood.  Others simply find their pleasure in another's power and stay there
all their lives. And some, like myself, find our pleasure in being that source of
pleasure." "And having your wants met," Myr said. "That, too," Cyl'Dia smiled. 
"I expect none of this, Beth'Sany, from you.  You are my guest until the Spring. 
You can be whatever you want... except lazy, I suppose.  Whether for my reasons
or your own, you will have to aid in the carrying of food and water, cleaning,
and chopping of wood.  I hope that's acceptable?" I nodded, still a little
frightened by the revelation that Darachmod, the city of women, still kept women
as slaves.  "I understand what is necessary," I said. "Good," Cyl'Dia replied. 
"Now, let me show you your bed. You'll be sleeping in Myr's room, an arrangement
she does agree to, right?" "Oh, yes!" Myr replied, grinning.  "Easily!" "Good. 
Then you get her bedding ready.  I have to go meet with Captain Dyn'Valas."  She
stood up again and left, taking a long-coat off  the rack as she did so. "Now,
come with me," Myr said.  "And I'll show you to your room." The house Cyl'Dia
lived in was a large space broken up into rooms by taut expanses of white cloth
stretched over frames of wood. They let light through easily, and I could see
shadows and the flickering of lantern light from those rooms that had them on the
backdrops of the cloth.  Some of the frames slid to allow passage. Through one,
Myr led me down a short hallway and into another room with such a frame.  Inside,
the room was large enough for three or four people to sleep in comfortably.  She
had a chest for her possessions.  I had to step up to get in, though, because the
floor of the bedroom was a wooden platform raised almost a foot and half off the
floor.  "I'm sure Cyl will get you one of your own.  Now, wait here while I get
you some bedding.  It's sure to get colder yet." Myr left me alone for a moment,
for the first time since my rescue at the hands of these women.  I stopped to
take stock of my situation, feeling disoriented.  I was alive; I had people who
seemed safe enough.  I had a sense of comfort for once that was unlike any other.
 Myr returned with a bundle of cloth that hid her face from my view until she
dropped it on the floor.  "Fhew!" she sighed.  "Heavy. And now we have to get the
metal, too." "Metal?" I asked. "I'll show you," she assured me.  "Come.  I'll
need help with this." I followed her into another room with more large chests.
"There."  She opened one chest and handed me some metallic slats, about three
feet long and five inches wide, a little less than an inch thick.  We made
several trips of these back and forth to the bedroom.  "What are these?"
"Sleeping slats," she replied.  She pointed to a spot of floor where wooden slats
the same size as the metal ones we had carried were laid into the floor.  With a
knife she pried them loose and tossed them aside, fitting the metallic ones in
one at a time.  "Heat flows through metal much easier than it does through wood,
see?"  She said.  "At night, before bed, we place coals on the floor underneath
in these."  She held up a metallic pan with a lid.  "These put out heat that
flows up into the metal, and then into our bodies, so we stay warm." I did not
understand.  "Does the heat know where the metal is?" "I don't know," Myr said. 
"It's magic to me."  I nodded. "Come, let's put the wooden slats away and get two
more coal pans for you.  One  for your legs and one for your shoulders.  That's
about where they should go.  There are traps in the floor for you to put them
down.  See?"  She pointed.  I did.  We gathered the slats and put them away.  By
the time we were completing our duties, Cyl'Dia returned. "I see you two are
almost done.  Good.  Myr, take one of the chests for Beth."  She sat down on the
steps of the bedroom.  "I have good news, Beth.  It is the opinion of our Captain
that you may stay here as long as you desire, but it is also her opinion that
that will not be forever.  As long as you provide your fair share of work,
however, you are welcome here in whatever position you wish to fulfill." I
nodded, unsure of what to say or do next.  Cyl answered that for me by holding
her arms out.  "Come and hug me." Which I did, gratefully, throwing myself
against her and feeling those protective arms wrap around me.  I was still
frightened, Aimee', still scared of a future without my family, a future I did
not know.  One that hardly seemed to lead to where I am today! That night, as I
settled down to sleep, I was to get my initiation in another woman's arms.  I had
anticipated Cyl'Dia being the one.  Yes, I think anticipated was the correct
term.  I wanted to make love with her, truly.  I know that I was misunderstanding
my need for protection, my joy at being saved, with the painful sensuality Styur
had awakened within me, and I wanted to share myself with Cyl the only way I had
known how for month. But no, it was Myr who started that.  That first night as I
lay in my bed I was haunted by memories of the dead Styur, fearing his return
from the grave, the touch of his ghost, come searching for the girl who stole his
sex. I must have made noise because I remember fighting a hand on my shoulder
only to wake up and find Myr kneeling by my bedside in only her nightclothes. 
"Beth!  Beth, you must wake up!" "What?" "Beth, you're having a nightmare!  Wake
up!" I finally came to my sense, sitting up and taking stock.  I was still in the
same place; most of the lights were banked low and I could barely see.  Only one
lantern was lit fully, and that in the front room with the tables and kitchen;
suffused through several layers of cloth it  barely lit Myr's features. I managed
to speak.  "I... I was remembering the Centaurs.  It was... horrible." "I can't
imagine.  Forcing you to be something you are not." Myr shook her head.  "Do you
want someone to be with you for a while?" I thought about it, then nodded.  "If
you want to stay with me, I'd like that." "Good," Myr smiled.  She walked back to
her bedding and grabbed her pillow and a blanket, pulling them over to my side of
the room. The pillow fell down by my head, and then the blanket covered me.  I
didn't even know what to say as she crawled into bed beside me; this was not what
I had anticipated.  Almost immediately I warmed to her presence, literally and
figuratively.  The softness of her body pressed against mine, even through our
two layers of bedclothes, put me at ease.  Here, at least, was something I was
familiar with, the feel of a woman's body.  I snuggled up close to her out of
instinct. Her hands wrapped around me, touching me.  I held onto her close, and
much to her disappointment, I'm sure, I fell asleep against her.

When I awoke, she was still lying against me.  Her eyes were closed, and her
mouth was open.  I could see her tiny pink tongue filling her mouth, her upper
teeth clearly exposed and just the lower ridges visible under her full lips.  Her
breath was ripe, as is everyone's in the morning, male or female.  Trust me on
that one, dear. Extracting myself from her grip carefully, I rose and dressed in
heavier robes, then made my way to the front of Cyl'Dia's home to stoke the fire
back to life.  As I was moving wood into the stove for warmth, Cyl'Dia herself
came out into the living room.  Instead of wearing clothes, however, she came out
naked, her nipples pointed and crinkling in the cold December air.  "You've
started a fire," she sighed, smiling.  "Bless you, lovely Beth.  I saw that you
and Myr had gotten closer than I anticipated last night.  Was that a practical or
a friendly thing?" "Practical.  She warmed me and kept the nightmares away." "I
see."  Cyl opened the door and with a staff knocked some snow from the roof into
a bowl, then placed the bowl on the fire.  "In that low set of drawers to your
left, Beth, you will find a drawstring bag with some strong-smelling herbs in it.
 Bring it here." I did as she requested, not sure yet of my position in the
household.  She poured some of the herbs into a smaller bag and tossed the bag
into the warming water.  The bittersweet scent of the herbs filled the front room
and.  "There.  If the smell of <em>taba</em> doesn't wake Myr up, she must surely
be dead."  She was correct; only minutes later Myr came running into the front
room and fell to her knees by Cyl's side, placing her head in Cyl's lap. "See?"
"What?" Myr asked, looking up. "I was telling Beth that the smell of
<em>taba</em> was a Myr- summoning spell." Myr smiled.  "It does smell good."
"Yes.  Myr, fetch us cups." Myr did as she was told, pouring drinking mugs full
of the strange liquid.  I drank it; it was strong in flavor, bitter and hard to
swallow without honey to aid the taste, but I did drink it.  It made me feel much
more awake, banishing the sense of sleepiness that went with waking up. "Beth,
Myr, please get dressed.  We must introduce Beth to the council, make
arrangements for her staying, and the like.  And, I think I would like a bath
today.  Myr, you may join me, and Beth, if you feel you would like to you may as
well." "What... what does that mean?" "I'll explain," Myr said.  "Come, dress."

The council consisted of six crones, really, who examined me and determined by
some criteria I was not privy to that I could stay amongst them.  It was all very
formal, a passing about of swords and a handling of spears and a singing of
flutes and all that.  Nothing I was really interested in. She led me to one of
the buildings along the wall of the city. Women passing us, all wrapped as
tightly in robes and cloaks and warming jackets as we were, nodded as we walked
by, smiling contentedly.  We walked into heavy granite halls and through a
swinging door.  Inside, the heat hit us quickly.  "In here," Cyl said, pulling me
into a closed room off the side.  "Undress." I hung up my cloak, and Myr began
undoing the belt about my waist.  I helped back, and Cyl watched with amusement
as we competed gigglingly to see who could take whose clothes off first. "Okay,
girls," she said.  "Come with me.  Myr, behave.  I know how much you enjoy the
baths but this is Beth's day." "Yes, Miss," Myr said, pouting and grinning
simultaneously. The "baths" were six round, wooden tubs, each over five feet
tall, steam rising from them.  Women lazed in them slowly, sometimes splashing,
some very affectionate to one another.  "We discovered these when we took over
this city; at the time a tribe of barbarians were using these hovels as caves. 
No, we did not build this place, although we have turned it into a paradise." 
Cyl grinned as she walked around one of them.  "Come," she said, holding out a
hand.  I followed her and walked up the steps she indicated and climbed into the
water of the tub.  Five other women floated in the water with Cyl, Myr, and me. 
After spending the day feeling as if I was freezing, the intense heat of the hot
spring water soaked through me straight to the bone.  "Beth, come meet the
others," Cyl said, interrupting my momentary appreciation of their "paradise." I
looked up as she introduced them.  She gave a name for each one, but none of the
names "stuck" to me; I didn't catch the names very well at all.  It didn't
matter.  They nodded, and I nodded back. At first, all I did was soak, allowing
the heat to pour into me. But after a while, motionlessness became boring.  I'm a
person who feels the need to move, Aimee'.  So I did, opening my eyes and looking
at the seven women who shared my tub with me.  All of them were beautiful and all
of them were strong.  I felt safe here; I felt as if nobody would touch me the
way Styur had touched me, at least not without my permission.  That made me want
to be touched, though. I didn't have to wait.  A hand touched my thigh briefly,
then slid away.  From the light motion on water I recognized it as Myr's. I
smiled at her and she blushed.  She eased through the water until she sat next to
me, then whispered in my ear "Do you want me to?" Suddenly I was afraid to say
yes.  Although I did want her to, I didn't know how to tell her.  I'd never been
taught how.  Cyl saved us both by leaning over and whispering in my other ear,
"You have permission to say 'Yes.'" I looked in her face; she smiled at me
patiently.  I turned to Myr and said, whispering, "Yes."  Her eyes alighted as
she closed the distance between our faces, her lips pursed slightly to reach out
to mine.  They touched... I tell you, Aimee', I shall never forget that kiss. 
Nor the feel of her hand as it glided over my body.  I nearly fainted with
pleasure.   As her palm cupped my breast, I felt other hands reach out and
surround me.  Slowly these women lifted me until I no longer rested against the
wood of the tub, but instead lay in their arms, across their out-stretched legs. 
I didn't have to move, Aimee'; like a rag, their hands touched me, stroked me,
warmed me and relaxed me. I felt their soft, feminine hands, so unlike the
cruelty of the Centaur Styur who had mistreated me for so months.  Myr's sweet
lips grasped my own lower and pulled playfully, the smile in her eyes and mouth
unmistakable.  I could see... she liked me, Aimee', and she was happy to have a
new friend like me.  We kissed again, my senses roiling from the loving touch
still swirling about me. I didn't know what to say.  "Don't say anything," Myr
whispered in my ear, as if hearing my thought.  Her lips kissed me yet again;
this time I closed my eyes and wished on her kiss, wishing for a future like
this, one with pleasures unending. Her mouth opened just a little and I felt
shocked as her tongue touched my lips.  I didn't know what to do.  It pressed
gently between them, as if seeking entrance.  I finally let her in, parting my
lips just a little.  If I had been shocked before, it was nothing like this,
Aimee'!  The... the intimacy of it, the unbelievable pleasure of it, is still
indescribable. I became shocked into action at the feel of warm, slim hands
sliding between my thighs.  Myr's hand was still cupping my breast as her mouth
and mine caressed one another in small, playful circles.  I reached out with both
my tongue and my hands, reaching out to caress her tongue, pressed my hands
against the bodies of women I did not know.  Their hands touched back; I felt
reassuring fingertips glide along the backs of my arms and up over my shoulders. 
When Myr stopped her kiss the smiled down at me, I looked around quickly at the
women who surrounded us.  They were all different; some were old and some were
young, some looked so soft and others so hard, Aimee'. They were all women, and
they were all here to love me. I'm sorry; I guess I get carried away.  It's hard
not to, even for me, even after all this experience running a brothel.  They were
all beautiful, Aimee', and I think that's why I run such a wonderful brothel-- I
know how to get beauty out of a woman who wants to be beautiful, no matter how
she comes to me.  I know how to see it and how to enhance it.  And I know whom to
show it to. As they touched me, the hands became bolder.  But always Myr,
Cyl'Dia's slave, was allowed to lead the way.  Her hand over my teat slid down my
belly and over my furred mound, sliding over and cupping my entire cunt the way
it had my breast.  This, strangely, didn't surprise me so much.  I was ready for
it, for since this had begun I had been longing for it.  Craving to be touched
there, touched by someone who had  given me permission to give permission for it,
and would respect me if I  took that permission away.  I craved... love. Does
that make sense, Aimee', to be given the authority to give permission and to take
it away?  It was truly a first for me.  I looked around at the faces of the 
women again, some smiling, some intent, and finally I whispered, again, "Yes. 
Yes, Myr.  Yes." Her eyes glowed as one finger slid down between the lips of my
cunt.  I could feel those thick walls touching her finger, grasping her.  I
imagined they were trying to pull her inside, and I could feel that she wanted to
go, for her finger bent at the knuckle and suddenly it slid into me. I found
myself holding my breath and closing my eyes, seeing nothing and doing nothing
but feeling, Aimee', feeling that finger slowly slide into me.  Not like Styur,
not one monstrous blunt cruel weapon, but a gentle finger, one that knew the
insides of a woman because it belonged not only to a woman, but to one I was
desperately losing my heart to.  The finger touched me inside, touching me in
places where no gentle touch had ever been.  It turned slowly, feeling me
thoroughly, learning me inside and out.  As she touched me, I heard a soft motion
of water and felt warm breath above my mouth.  I opened my eyes.  Myr hovered
above me, and then she lowered her mouth and kissed me again. I was lost to her
completely.  Our kiss was probably the most passionate yet, a total abandonment
of myself and my dignity.  To Neret with my dignity, Aimee', one should not be
reserved in moments like that.  The women slowly lifted me to the water's
surface, and as Myr slid down my chin with her kisses I leaned back and closed my
eyes again.  Someone placed their hands under my head, holding it above water
that I might breathe. Myr's warm kisses touched my neck and finally, for one
brief moment, enclosed the nipple of my breast.  Then she vanished beneath the
water.  She reappeared between my legs, parting them slowly with her hands to
open me, expose me. And then, as if the pleasures before had not been enough, she
kissed my mound.  At first, I felt the breath of her nose against my skin, and
the press of her lips to my pubic hair, and finally the touch of her tongue
against my lips.  I moaned aloud once more as her mouth pressed to my folds,
opening me, exposing me for her tasting. I thought I would die, and die happy, at
that moment.  I felt heat flood my groin and fluid flood my channel, neither
water nor menses. I merely wished for more. She gave me what I wished for as her
tongue pressed and opened, licked and demanded.  The women held my legs open. 
Not against my will, but because of it; I had given my permission to Myr, almost
to do what she would, and they were here to assist in that permission. It was
simply... indescribable.  I am an old woman now, Aimee', and still I cannot
forget that night.  Her tongue pressed in deepwards and downwards.  I wished for
more.  She found those places in my body that few men can, where the pleasure is
simply far too much for even an old body like mine to withstand. She gave me
everything I wished for.  When I climaxed, Aimee', I screamed so loud every woman
in the room knew what transpired in our tub if they did not already.  The women
held me, restrained me, kept me from kicking Myr or myself, from hurting any one
of them. Myr ceased her kisses, picking her head up to appraise me.  I reached
out for her, my hands trembling without knowing what to do next.  She was just
out of reach, and my hand slid down her water- slicked skin, for just a moment
touching her breast.  She tapped the arm of the woman to my right, and they
slowly lowered me back into the water, releasing me. I grabbed her and held her
tight, and then, finally, I cried. Not like I had the first night when Dyn and
Cyl had spoken to me, but total,  utter abandonment to tears.  It was the most
important moment of my life, Aimee', because it taught me the most important
lesson I had ever learned; that to leave an old life behind, one must cry it out.
 One must put it into tears and squeeze it from the body. Myr held me, and
finally all the women closed around us, arms linked, bodies holding.  Among the
seven were girls as old as I to crones many decades my senior.  All held me, all
touched me.  And finally, finally, Aimee', I was finished. Myr petted my hair
gently.  "Are you well, Beth'Sany?" I nodded.  "Yes, Myr.  I am.  In your arms, I
am." "Mistress Cyl?" Myr asked, her tone confused. Cyl'Dia reached down and
petted both our heads.  "Beth'Sany, you are accepted, and you may stay a friend
in my household forever if you so need." Blinking through the tears, I didn't
know what to say, other than "Thank you."  I reached out for her, and she allowed
me to pull her into my embrace.  Warrior, slave, and refugee.  I imagine we made
a strange household, even then.  But for me, for Cyl, and for Myr, it was to be a
working, loving house for many years.

Silence reigned in the small parlor room for a moment.  Aimee' seemed to realize
it was her turn to speak.  "What happened to you and Myr?" Beth's smile was
tinged with an intense sorrow.  "That is another tale for another day, Aimee'. 
Not even the next lesson, but the one beyond that, I will tell you of sadness
that not even love can save."  She stood up slowly.  "I see I have managed to
pull one of Master Darynn's tricks.  I have kept you much past your usual
appointed time simply because rather than a lesson, I chose to tell you tales. 
Come, on with the cloak; although the snows have stopped it is still very cold
out." Aimee' followed Bethsany's directions, collecting up her lesson books and
pulling on her cloak.  She looked up at Bethsany.  "Thank you." "Nonsense, child.
 It's my job.  That it is all true simply makes the telling seem richer.  And
it's good that this old sack of bones relive her happinesses once in a while. 
Good night, Aimee'. Give my regards to Master Darynn when you see him later this
week." "I shall.  Good night, Madame Bethsany."


Aimee', Chapter 7


In the depths of a cold and still winter night, Bethsany stood by the window and
committed an act rare and precious to her: she prayed.  It was Tuesday, and in
keeping with their agreement Aimee' was supposed to come and study with one of
her girls.  It had been three weeks since the last tale; on the two occasions
since, Aimee's appearance had shown clear signs of abuse and struggle, and of the
two occasions, she had looked worse the second time. Bethsany wondered if
Teltirray was getting what he wanted out of Aimee', and if so, would it be
enough.  She knew now of Teltirray and his hunger.  She understood him so clearly
it terrified her.  She knew, ever since she had killed the Centaur who had
enslaved her, what it felt to take the pain of an enemy, and eventually, to take
the life.  She knew that an innocent could bring even stronger sensation.  She
knew how to feed on that.  And she knew she could draw pleasure from it. It no
longer made her wonder.  She knew what kind of person could draw that kind of
pleasure, for she was that kind of person. But she was also stronger than that. 
She knew what it meant to be human and not an animal.  Few animals killed for
pleasure.  Man was one of those few.  More than the pleasure of power, she
understood the pleasures of love.  She understood the joy of sharing.  She knew
that life was for living and not taking. So she prayed, quietly, to a name she
had not invoked in many years.  Kasho, the goddess who gives women strength, had
been her guiding name for many years when she had lived in Darachmod, and now she
called on the name again. A knock came at the door.  She had been staring at the
sky for some  time, and now directed her attention at the ground.  Footsteps in
the snow marked the passage of a lone walker, footsteps that were slowly being
obliterated by the fall of white flakes.  She rose from where she knelt and
walked to the door.  "Yes?" she asked the girl who stood there. "Aimee' has
arrived.  I have sent her to see Rissim." "Was it that bad, Brandy?" The girl
nodded slowly.  Tears stood in her eyes.  Bethsany drew her breath and sighed. 
Perhaps there would be no chance to tell Aimee' the final tale.  Perhaps it would
be better if she crammed both stories into one day.  She debated. What she
wanted, more than anything else, was to save Aimee's life.  To preserve her from
the horrors and pains that Teltirray inflicted upon her in his demands for more. 
She knew that he must have been making demands of both her personal strength and
the magickal strengths that Darynn was helping to build within her. Although no
mage can give another magical strength, when it exists in one, another can help
give it meaning, focus, exercise.  Like the muscles of the body and the mind, the
strength of magic must be exercised.  Like the strength of love, and even that of
compassion, doing leads to the strength to do more.  Bethsany had chosen her
path, as Darynn had his.  She hoped Aimee' would have a worthy path to choose.
"Take me," she finally said.  Brandy turned and walked down the stairs.  Down one
flight, and then another, into the basement where Rissim, the chirgeon Beth kept
in her employ, was applying alcohol to a wound over Aimee's left breast.  It
looked like a burn.  Although she bore it stoically, the pain in the young girl's
eyes was both apparent and undeniable.  There could be no surcease. "Forgive me,
Miss Bethsany, I... The chirgeon will not allow me to kneel." "Don't you dare,
Aimee'," Bethsany said, reaching down to touch Aimee's face.  "You need not bow
to me.  You know that better than I do.  Do not bow to me." "Yes, Miss." "Aimee',
he will kill you." "Probably, Miss.  This may even be our last talk." "I feared
as much."  Bethsany closed her eyes.  "I had, at first, the wish to tell you two
tales in as many visits, one of my day amongst the Braban, and of the day I lost
Myr.  I shall, instead, tell both together, although they were separated by many
years.  I want you to hear both of them, Aimee'."  In her sickened heart,
Bethsany cursed Teltirray.  He at least had the "common decency" to allow his
girls to hide themselves and then kill themselves when he reached this stage. 
Aimee', though, continued to play out the role of student with her teachers. 
Teltirray was as much as telling Darynn and Bethsany what he did to Aimee', and
he did not care if they knew. Aimee' stared, not saying a word.  "Do you want to
hear them?" "Yes, Miss." Bethsany glanced back at the chirgeon and at Brandy. 
Both had heard this tale once or twice before; another sit-through would hurt
neither.

It was in the early summer of the first year I lived in Darachmod that the Braban
came to visit.  Six of them appeared at, or perhaps I should say over, the gates
of the city, smiling and waving. One has trouble imagining the Braban, but if the
Darachmod have a living model, the Braban are it.  Each woman of the Braban stood
over twelve feet tall; each towered over any woman in Darachmod.  One does not
fear women like that, for one cannot; I merely stood in awe of their immensity. 
Having known the love of both Myr and Cyl, together and separately, I felt free
to admit that I immediately knew lust for the women of the Braban. They were led
into the city amongst singing and waving and cheering.  These were clearly
friends, beloveds.  I had heard many stories about the Braban, of how they
assisted their smaller sisters in many a battle, often appearing at the last
minute.  Nobody knew if they were goddesses or mortals or giants; all we knew was
that they were our allies and, sometimes, our final help. That night, Darachmod
became engulfed in a celebration honoring the arrival of the women of the Braban.
 A fire was cast in the center of the city on that hot summer night, pigs were
slaughtered and spitted over cooking fires, and the wine flowed freely. I had a
great surprise that night, although thinking back on it, I suppose it shouldn't
have come so greatly.  As a well-known warrior amongst the Darachmod, Cyl clearly
could hold the attention of even a jaded Braban.  But I was still speechless when
she stepped up behind me.  "I know that look in your eyes," she spoke to me
slowly.  "I know lust when I see it in you."  She laughed gently then.  "I see it
every day when you look at Myr." I swallowed.  "Cyl, do you feel upset that I
feel that way for Myr, but not so strongly for you?" Cyl shook her head.  "No,
Beth, for I do not question the natural order of things.  The moons, the seasons,
and the snows come at their own times and sometimes not at all.  The moons are
always on time, the seasons usually, the snows usually not.  Love... love is
never on time.  You love me in a different way.  You warm me, Beth, and you make
me cry." "Cry?" I asked, turning around.  "I... I do not want to make you cry!"
"It is a good cry, Beth.  Do not be ashamed because I have tears of joy for you. 
I cannot explain.  It comes from within.  Myr is another different thing.  She is
your age, lithe of limb and strong of bone and lovelier than the summerest
flowers to watch.  Do not be ashamed of your love and your lust for her.  It is
nothing to be ashamed of.  Please.  Now, would you like me to introduce you to my
friend?" "You have a friend amongst the giants?"  I asked. "Viselle!" Cyl called
out, attracting the attention of a blonde Braban, one of the largest, sitting by
the fire with a large mug of beer and a larger grin.  "Viselle, I would like you
to meet Bethsany. Bethsany, Viselle.  Both of you are amongst my most counted
friends." Although she was sitting on the ground and I standing, her head and
mine were at the same height.  "It gladdens my heart to know the friend of a true
warrior like Cyl.  How did you come to know her? Cyl, she was  not born here I
take it?" Cyl shook her head.  "We rescued her from a band of brigand Centaurs,
the leader of which was using her as a toy for his gross lusts.  After we
attacked them, we found her standing over his dead body.  A few of our arrows had
slowed him down, but his final death had come from the blood he lost after she
cut off his privates in revenge." "Truly?" the Braban asked me, stunned. I
nodded, ashamed.  I felt both pleasure and fear at the memory. Sometimes, the
nightmares came back. "Well," Viselle said, "That is truly the kind of friend Cyl
should know well, and take care of.  You are so young.  Myr's age?" "Yes, Miss."
Viselle roared with laughter.  The sound echoed throughout the city streets and
passed over me like a spell of stunning.  I'm afraid I pulled away slightly in
fear.  Her monstrous hand reached out to touch my shoulder, and I shied away
further.  "I will not hurt you, Beth.  I want to know you as Cyl and Myr know
you."  I eased; her voice and manner were no longer threatening; with one simple
sentence all my terror drained from me.  Her hand gripped my shoulder gently, and
I sensed the great strength held within it, many times that in my own hand.  It
covered me from my collarbone down to elbow.  Try that, Aimee'.  Place your hand
on your shoulder and see how much it covers. Imagine that kind of touch over your
entire body.  I think few people try this experiment and would be surprised if
they knew just how big their hands truly are.  Perhaps artists, especially those
who can get the hands right, know. "Vis!  Vis!  Vis!" she said.  "Call me Vis!  I
am nobody's 'Miss,' Beth.  I am a bloodied warrior and a true lover of women and
nobody calls me anything but my name!"  She laughed again.  "I cannot imagine
being a 'Miss' anything."  She paused, thinking soberly, then said "Come, sit. 
Tell me your tales." I sat by her side and did as she asked, telling her my
tales.  I had very few by that time, although I think I had more than Myr.  She
had heard all of Myr's before, except for the ones about loving me. Myr managed
to make me blush strongly with her talk, embarrassing me with her frank talks
about my beauty and my enthusiasms.  I had a little revenge by replying back in
kind, although it became clear later in the conversation just how much I had
revealed about myself in the doing. I drank beer, too, and I'm afraid I became a
little drunk. Eventually, as the night grew cool I found myself lying against
Vis' body, my head on her thigh, when I felt her hand caress the top of my head. 
That may not sound like much, but it was ecstasy to me.  "You are very beautiful,
Beth'Sany." "Th... thank you, Vis." "Don't thank me, Beth'Sany.  If you have a
deity, thank Her, for she gave you that beauty."  Her hand stroked my arm slowly.
 I felt her massive body shift slightly, then felt her breath against the side of
my face.  "It is hard for someone sized as I to be subtle, but truly, I would
like you and Myr to join me for the night." I didn't quite know what to say.  I
was frightened; would I even be noticed touching a body of her size?  Would even
two of us matter to her?  She weighed many stone more than we did. My curiosity
and lust won out.  I wanted to know; I had to know. Apparently Myr did as well
because the first thing she said after Vis spoke was, "Do you really mean that?"
"I do," Vis said.  "Your mistress, Cyl, and I had a few occasions between us many
years ago.  Do you remember, Cyl?" "Well I do, Vis.  Take them, if they'll go."
"I am going!" Myr replied. "Then I am too!" I insisted. Vis smiled and nodded. 
As she stood up, I had a strong awareness of several things.  That she had drunk
as much as Cyl, Myr, and I put together, that standing she was even larger than I
had imagined seeing her sitting on the ground, and that should she fall over
anyone in the path of her dropping body would be in serious danger.  So we were
careful to stay with her and yet to also stay quite far out of her way. She led
us to her tent.  The city had not rooms large enough for her or her friends
anywhere, so they had set up tents in the center. Not that tents were required;
the weather was both at its warmest and certainly was also surprisingly dry.  Cyl
had told me that it frequently rained at this time of year. Inside, all was as
one would expect, with the one obvious difference: Everything was scaled to her
size.  She sat down hard on her  sleeping cot.  "Come here," she said, gesturing
to us.  I was easily in range of her grasp and she was still steady enough to
catch me almost without effort.  I giggled and as she gathered me up I grabbed
ahold of her tunic and held on.  "Vis?" I asked. "Yes, Beth?" "May I tell you you
are beautiful?" "It's a lovely lie, Beth." Myr demurred.  "But it is not a lie,
Vis!  You are beautiful." Vis smiled and held out her other hand.  Myr took it;
it was like seeing a massive glove cover Myr's hand and part of her arm. The
delicacy of Vis' touch surprised me, as her hand stroked my back and dragged
purrs from my lips. It's hard to forget that night, so special and different.  I
instantly fell into a wishful trance of wanting to help Vis, wanting to make her
feel a pleasure that we all get so very rarely from the world around us.  As the
three of us stripped off our clothing, Vis tossed her shirt carelessly away, and
it landed on me instead.  I realized just how large she was; the cloth of her
tunic was a tent to me; I could sleep under it and feel protected from colder
winds. Naked, we descended upon one another, we three.  My mouth found her chin
first, as she pulled me up towards her. I cannot get across to you how large she
was.  My feet rested literally in the tangle of her pubic hair even as I strained
to reach up and kiss her cheek.  She was simply a giant.  Her fingers were as
thick as sausages. Myr and I crawled down between her thighs and, with plenty of
room, licked at the enormous expanse of her sex, pulling her lips into our mouth.
 Her clitoris was the size of my thumb, large even for a woman of her size, and
it took both of us to suck on it, in turns.  I filled her by placing my arm
within her, halfway to my elbow before I reached the end of her vagina and
touched her cervix. That, oh!  Aimee', it was like touching magic.  It was a
doorway into that chamber that made her a woman.  Everything else about her was
made to support that one purpose, and there was none other.  I'm sure others
disagree with me and talk about the warrior spirit or the communal strength or
whatever, but to bear children, that is the pleasure of a woman only.  Men have
warriors and men have communities, but they do not carry child. I feel... I feel
so inadequate describing this night to you, Aimee'.  I want to tell you the joys
of touching her, of feeling the wet slickness of her insides surrounding my arm,
my wrist, my hand, of feeling the pulse of her blood against the skin. And when
she returned the pleasure, her massive tongue against my cunt, Aimee', how can I
describe it?  There is no feeling like that in all the world, her broad pad, a
little less accurate, a little more impressive.  The slick wetness that invaded
not just my cunt but covered my thighs.  As she licked me, Myr covered my face
with her own sex, doubling my pleasure until I was utterly lost to it.  I came in
spasm and moans that only Myr's muff prevented from being heard 'round the city
whole! Once my pleasure was sated and we sat down to sleep, I reflected that no
pleasure like that would ever stream through my body ever again.  In a way, I was
correct, for even though I saw Vis every year for the next five years, and though
I was to love with her in  many a warm summer visit, nothing ever reached the joy
and wonder of that first time. The same, Aimee', was true of my loving of Myr. 
Yet my pleasures with her grew greater, not less, at the turn of the seasons. 
With her, I grew to treasure constancy and comfort, not adventure and change. 
She returned that comfort in equal measure. We were lovers and friends, stability
in the changing sea of women. And I did love her so. What changed?  Ah, that is
the question.  For Myr asked for her freedom from Cyl because of my friendship. 
And Cyl granted it without reservation.  I thought myself the happiest woman that
ever lived. What changed, dearest Aimee', was a discovery that started with Vis
and ended with a tragedy.  The tragedy was not something unusual or dramatic,
except perhaps to my story.  Myr died.  In the most simple of ways, too.  We were
picking apples in the city orchard, doing our duty to ourselves and our city,
when she fell from a branch and broke her leg.  The leg never healed; indeed, it
grew worse. Something within her grew out, burst in pain.  Finally, she slipped
into that merciful sleep where the embattled go to escape the pain, and she never
returned.  She died within a month.

Bethsany wiped a tear from her eyes as the girl named Brandy wrapped her arms
around her.  "I am sorry, Momma," the young girl said, kissing Bethsany's face.
Bethsany reached back and hugged her.  "I will be fine, Brandy," she said softly.
 "It is an ancient tragedy.  I know, that makes it no less tragic, but the wounds
of it have healed and now I face a world with less fear.  But perhaps with less
love." "Bethsany?" Aimee's face was stained with slight tears, like the old
matron's.  "How did you come to leave Darachmod?  That was the second half of
your tale." "Aye," Bethsany replied.  "So it was.  And we have not much time to
tell it.  But I shall endeavor to do my best."

In the spring of the following year, as in every year, the women of  Darachmod
prepared to travel down to the city of Melefar to trade the products of the past
winter's efforts.  Darachmod was poor in metals but rich in growing things, and
frequently the lower cities coveted the fruits of our fields.  We used this to
our advantage, dressing our travellers in great baubles of steel and copper,
outfitting our warriors with the brightest of armors.  Lost in all that and as
badly in grip of their testicles as ever, the metalsmiths of Melefar were easy
prey for the deals of our best merchants. I asked to go with them.  It was a
trade I wished to learn and, truth be known, I could no longer stand to live in
the house that Myr had built.  Perhaps not the outside shell, but every trace of
the indoors looked of her and smelt of her.  Her herbs I still found in the
pantry; one whiff of her favorite cilantro and melancholy swept me.  I needed to
get away from my memories, and alcohol did not answer my needs. Dyn readily
agreed, as did Cyl.  Both knew that I might not return, that the men of Melefar
would easily treasure a beauty of Darachmod for themselves, and although I no
longer presented myself easy prey to their crude wishes I knew I could easily
summon the desire of any of their lesser minds. We headed out on a rainy morning
in early spring.  Although the weather was wet, it was also lovingly warm.  I had
come to view all the blessings of nature as gifts, and this was truly one of
them. Better, perhaps, was that by afternoon the rain cleared, the road never so
badly mudded as to foul the asses.  The company was twelve strong; eight warriors
lightly armored astride beautiful chargers guarded my three merchanting
companions, who were named Tann, Fahr, and Fela.  Tann was by far the loveliest
of the three, a raven-haired woman with eyes the palest blue the clearest sea had
ever seen.  Soft and round, she quickly chose me as her bedmate and I joyfully
agreed. Although the beautiful strength of Myr and Cyl and Vis and Dyn had their
attractions, I recognized that I was destined to be a big woman, as I am now, and
I found such a body as Tann's beautiful to behold. At first, I was concerned that
I had become attracted to a woman who had no interest in lovemaking, but I found
a few days later that I was wrong.  She was simply slower than most.  I found
that reassuring.  She wanted my pleasures, but only if we were both sure of our
willingness to share. On the fourth night we camped in the forest at the foot of
the mountains, six days from Melefar, when she finally turned to me. "Beth, do
you think me beautiful?" "Tann?" I whispered, surprised.  "How can you ask?  You
are the most beautiful woman in this entire dozen!" "Don't let Fahr here you say
that," Tann whispered back in the dark, "She's not known for her lack of
jealousy."  I nodded, smiling, as she closed the distance between us and her lips
found mine, kissing earnestly.  I knew by then how not to keep my hands off a
woman and reached out to stroke her belly through the rough texture of the lace
she wore underneath her heavier dayclothes. We tumbled to the bedding as her
breasts tumbled out of her outfit.  Hers were very large and lovely, with a touch
of droop that accentuated her completely.  I could bury myself in them and inhale
forever. On the other hand, although I was destined to be a big woman I was
forever doomed to have small hills for teats, firm but not very impressive.  I
was to forever envy women who had large breasts, but I was also to find great
pleasure in them, too. She giggled as I played with hers, caressing them back and
forth.  "Now, Beth," she chided playfully, "Let me have my fair share, too." She
pushed me back onto the bed and undressed both of us, tossing aside her clothing.
 She smelled of lilacs and light, and her hair had the scent of honey as it fell
in straight lines down about her face.  She kissed me as her fingers sought out
my privates and stroked my lips.  We kissed with our tongues.  She slowly pushed
my legs apart as her fingers sought deeper.  I coated them with my wetness.  She
gasped at my enthusiasm, I think, because she told me later her nipples were not
all that sensitive, and in a city of women large breasts were common.  But I had
gone for so long without the attention of anyone that the caresses of one woman
were more than enough to inflame me. Her fingers went deeper within me.  I was
completely entranced by the feeling of her within me; Myr, for some reason, had
not liked having fingers inside her and avoided putting her fingers into me. What
Tann was doing was something of a treat. She slid down between my thighs and
pressed her sweet mouth to my lips, licking the insides of my thighs.  She told
me to look at her, and I did just in time to watch her pull her fingers from my
cunny and place them in her mouth, her lips pursed around them to catch every
last droplet of moisture.  Then she slid them back into me, her warm breath
sweeping over my mound, and then the touch of her tongue to my mound.  I grew
light-headed with the pleasure she gave me. She licked as well as any woman knew
how, her mouth absolutely talented with its pressures and pleasures.  Her tongue
flickered over my clit and her fingers stroked the walls of my cunt, finding all
the secret places here and there within me, making my chest heave with gasps and
moans. She was a merchant, but like me she was also a farmer, and one of the many
things we carried to market were early summer squash, shaped like a man's sex. 
Although I don't think any healthy man has had a sex that was dark, textured
green, nor have I ever seen one that really had the rounded corners this one did
to make it look round.  She reached into the basket by her bed and pulled one
out; I watched, a little scared, as she pulled it up under her chin between my
thighs.  "Easy," she said gently as the cold tip of the vegetable touched the
insides of my thighs.  It slid along my leg until it pressed against the skin
between them.  Her fingers pulled me a little more open and the tip of the squash
slid into me. I gasped from the cold, for that vegetable was as chill as the
night.  At first.  But as Tann licked my sensitive flesh and coaxed two
explosions from me, she began to slide the squash back and forth. I was fuller
than I had been since killing Styur, and suddenly I knew what I wanted.  I wanted
the attention of man. None of these thoughts, however, distracted me from what
Tann was doing.  At least, not much.  I gasped and twisted under her expert
mouth, until finally I found myself gently hitting her shoulders to get her to
stop; I could take no more. She told me, "You are beautiful, Beth."  But I didn't
hesitate, getting up as the squash slid out of me and pushing her to the bedding.
 I wanted to feast on her. One of the reasons I love larger women is that they
have such soft bellies, and a belly is what defines a woman.  Surely, we have
teats and cunts, but it is in there that I find the definition of woman.  I
kissed and licked hers, punishing it with peppered kisses, licking at her belly
button and her breasts, sliding down between her legs and kissing her large
thighs, looking forward to the taste of her cunny. She had no hair down there.  I
found that a mystery in the extreme, but she later explained that she shaved it
off at her home- love's request.  "It gets in the teeth," she said.  Her cunny
was baby smooth and soft, and as I kissed the lips I realized that the fat of her
body caused even those to swell. Perhaps I make Tann sound to be the world's
largest woman.  Not at all true; she was actually smaller than I am now.  But for
her, the softness was distributed to perfection, in her teats, her softened
belly, her legs and her cunt.  I licked at her as she parted her legs; her fluids
were the sweet droplets of a woman who rarely, if ever, ate meat, clear and, I
swear Aimee', as pure water-blue as her eyes.  She oozed sweetness and I licked
at every little drop that coursed from her hole down the line of her buttocks. I
pressed my face between her thighs, getting myself thoroughly wet as I licked at
her sweetness, slopping as a happy pig against her fluids, tasting the reddening
pinkness of her vagina and suckling, literally, on her clitoris. Apparently I did
a good job, too.  As I seized the squash and pressed it inwards, she moaned and
twisted and came, her fists striking the floor of the tent.  Her legs trembled
and threatened to squeeze me between them, but she knew better than that; I would
have stopped if I lost air, after all. When we were done, we cleaned each other
up as well as we could without leaving to find a stream and bedded down for the
night. As was the custom, we took over an Inn, two women to a room. The best Inn
for our purposes was a place called the Tired Dog, a name fitting with the
feeling we women had as we fell into the place. Tired and dogged. Although I was
well and easily familiar with life in cities when I was 13, I was now nineteen
years old and found my memories and my vision disagreeing on a few points.  None
of them were any great deals by themselves, but added up they made me wonder if
perhaps I had been away from cities too long. The next day we made our deals and
sold our wares.  I was surprised at how easily we wangled deals out of men who,
to other men, looked to be the stingiest and most unfair dealers in all the
world.  It was more fun then was fair, I guess. But at night, as we headed back
towards the Tired Dog, I realized that I wanted this life again.  I wanted to
stay in the city, return to city life and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the
city.  Worst of all, I found myself staring at men with an ache in my loins that
would not go away.  I didn't know what to do with it at all, and I was afraid to
ask Tann about it. That night, Tann turned in early.  Although I probably could
have interested her in play, she didn't seem all that lively that night, as if
the day's contact with men had drained her of the energy to spend on women.  I,
on the other hand, decided to spend at least some of my evening downstairs. 
Three of the warriors from Darachmod were also down there, so I didn't think I
would have any trouble. As I made my way back into the darkened tavern, the
sounds of uproarious laughter reached my ears.  I wondered what they were doing
down there that could be so entertaining. My eyes looked across the room, where
all the patrons were all pointed, and I could see the target of their laughter...
a stage had been erected and a puppet show was in progress.  There were two
characters on the stage, one a man and the other a woman, and through the
artistry of such control as puppets take the woman was beating the man with a
skillet.  The audience seemed to think it was uproariously hilarious. "No,
m'lady!" the man's voice came from behind the curtained puppet stage, "I meant
the fat on the meat!  The meat!" "That's not what you were staring at!"  The
audience roared again.  I guess I missed the starting part of the joke since I
didn't see anything funny in the punch line.  Ah, well.  The play ended shortly,
to be followed by another, again a sort of comedy, this time about a cruel
husband who loses his manhood in the end.  The women in the audience all loved
it, but the men were grabbing their crotches to protect themselves by the time
the play ended.  As I was watching, though, I felt very strange.  Because the
voice of the young man playing all the males parts was entrancing.  I don't know
if it was the fact that, for the first time, there were men all around me, but I
knew that that young man, in particular, was holding my fancy without a doubt. 
His voice entranced me. "We're going to take some air," I heard him say.  "It
gets a bit stifling under here.  Misha, if you will?" A young woman's head poked
up from behind the stage, her hands full of puppet strings and the wooden slats
to hold them.  She smiled as she put them aside and brushed her full, black hair
back out of the way.  My heart felt heavy; and I found myself hoping that she and
the man back there with her did not have something between them.  I was confused,
Aimee', so confused. It got no better when he finally stuck his head out from
behind the curtain as well.  He, too, had a full head of long, black hair. His
eyes were large and bright and he had a smile on his sweaty face that would charm
the virginity out of even the most innocent of maidens.  I had to get to know
him. Then he stepped out from behind the curtain.  Aimee', you don't know what
confusion is until the lust and desires I was feeling are blended with the fear
and loathing that accompanied that motion, for he was a centaur.  Not a barbaric
one like Styur and his band.  No, this young man'taur was well groomed, dressed. 
I wanted him.  And I feared him.  Yet he seemed so likeable, so approachable. 
But, he was an actor.  I didn't know if his look was as much facade as the voice
he took on when he played behind the curtain. And yet, I did not want to fear
him.  I wanted to approach him. So I did.  As he grabbed a mug of beer and
stepped outside into the cool spring night air, I followed him.  He was standing
there, just outside the door, staring up a the stars.  "Sir?" I asked. "Hello,"
he said, turning to me with a smile.  "Are you enjoying the show?  Say, you're
not one of those women from Darachmod, are you?" I nodded, fearfully.  "Yes, I
am." "I understand you had a little trouble with the Gespil last year.  They are
a brutal people, the Gespil." Although I suspected that I knew what he was
talking about, I had never heard Styur refer to his people by name.  I said, "I
do not know the word." "The barbarian Centaurs from the north who were flushed
out in the last great war up there.  They took refuge in your mountains, I
understand.  I want to assure you that not all Centaurs are like that, just as
I'm sure you know not all humans are wont to be kind and loving, either.  I'm
glad your people wiped them out in the end. They deserved it.  And their
bloodline has been preserved elsewhere. We'll keep the breed alive, but hopefully
not the attitude."  He grinned and sipped his beer.  "What's your name?"
"Bethsany," I replied, nervously. "Adam," he said, reaching out a hand.  I took
it, and he shook gently.  "Glad to meet you, Bethsany.  I'm always pleased to
meet someone who actually comes out and thanks me for my work.  It doesn't happen
nearly as often as I'd like." "Adam," a voice came from the door.  "Time to get
started again." "I haven't even finished one mug!" "That's because you're slow. 
Come on!"  The female centaur, Misha he had called her, stood there, waiting for
him, tapping her front hoof. "In a second," he said.  She tossed her hair in
annoyance and walked back inside.  "You see what I have to live with?" "Are you
and she... ?" He laughed.  "A long time ago.  Misha and I work together very
well, but we've no bent to be lovers anymore."  He gave me a curious look.  "Why
do you ask?" "I... I..." He smiled.  "It's just a body and a voice, Bethsany.  I
do this for a living."  With that, he walked back into the Inn.  I watched the
whole show, enraptured by him.  I don't think there was anything to it other than
my curiosity, my lust, and an instinct that said he was right.  He would be safe.
 I wanted him to be, at least for one night, mine. As the show was breaking down,
he waved to me.  "Did you really watch me all night long?" "Uh-huh," I said to
him.  "I... "  I looked away.  I couldn't look him in the eyes and say what I
wanted to say.  "I had to stay." I looked at his face, then away again.  "I... I
need something.  I haven't ever been with a gentle man." "Do you suspect me of
being gentle?"  I nodded, looking up into his eyes.  He laughed.  "You may be
right.  But I am a Centaur, Bethsany." I looked away again.  "I know.  I could
handle that." "How do you know?  You're a woman of Darachmod.  Have you ever
slept with a man, much less a Centaur?" I found the courage Darachmod had given
me and looked into his face.  "Adam, I know I could handle you.  I was not
originally a woman of Darachmod.  I was a slave of the... the... Gespil." His
eyes went wide.  "And you're alive?  Oh Gods, that's...  I'm sorry.  I didn't
know... What are you doing coming to me?" "I... I don't know!" I whispered.  "I
wish I understood myself, but I don't."  I reached out and touched him on the
arm.  "All I know is that I want you... to... " "Take you to bed?"  He sounded
surprised.  I wonder why. I nodded.  "Please?" "What if..."  He glanced across
the room, where one of the warriors from Darachmod sat, watching us with guarded
eyes while we talked. "I will talk to her."  He gave me a strange look, then
nodded. I walked over to where she stood.  "Selam?  I am... spending tonight in
Adam's company." She nodded.  "The time was coming."  She smiled, rested her hand
on my arm.  "Never forget, Beth'Sany, that we all love you much.  One day, you
will understand."  She rose and left, leaving me alone. Alone but for Adam. Like
a guilty child, I followed him up the stairs to his room. Inside, he turned
around (no mean feat for someone built the way he was!) and pulled me into his
grasp.  I was surprised, but the smell of his skin so close to my nostrils
inflamed my desire.  I did not understand it, but it was somewhat akin to the
shame I felt when I had climaxed beneath Styur all those times.  Only, for this
time, I was allowed to feel pleasure.  To enjoy the touch of my centaur lover,
whom I had chosen for my bedmate tonight.  Whom I wanted. "Oh, Bethsany, what are
you doing in my room?"  He looked me in the eyes.  "Don't you know I'm going to
leave tomorrow?  Is that fair?" "Yes," I breathed.  "For there is no danger in
loving you except what you choose to do, Adam.  I just need to be treated right
tonight." "Very well," he smiled, touching the sides of my face with his hands
and lifting my gaze to meet his.  He pulled me close, and I waited.  But instead
of my lips, his mouth first touched my nose, then my cheek.  And then he kissed
my mouth.  I moaned, Aimee', with a lust I knew was pure and honest. 
<em>This</em> was what I wanted, truthfully, and I could not give it up.  I
missed the attentions of men.  Although I loved women, and indeed, once I'd
saturated myself of men for a while had returned to the loving arms of women
again for many years afterwards, now, right now I needed the arms of a man. Adam
was it. My hands roamed his chest, touching his body through the simple shirt he
wore.  I looked up at him.  "Take this off," I implored him. He did, dropping it
to the floor at our feet.  I am not a tall woman, but he was barely taller than I
was.  I wondered at the size of his prick.  I wanted to find out.  I craved the
idea of it being within me. I touched his naked chest.  His skin was light-olive
and creamy soft; my hands glided over it as if they were oiled, even though I
knew his skin was dry.  I looked down and touched his nipples, caressing them. 
He gasped and shivered.  "Strong!" "Sorry," I said. "No, no, I like that.  It's
just that it is a strong sensation. Please, be more careful when you do that." "I
shall," I replied.  I grabbed him by the bicep and pulled him towards the bed. 
We fell into it together, and I laughed gently. "We're being so serious!  This is
pleasure!" "I don't want to hurt you." "If you hurt me, I will tell you.  Just
like you told me."  I kissed him again, trying to treat him with the same
strength I apply towards a woman.  He responded eagerly, and finally his hands
found the courage to caress my breasts.  I gasped and moaned as his hands found
the skin and caressed the flesh of my breasts.  Any of my girls will tell you I
love to have my breasts touched, caressed, grabbed and stroked.  And he did. 
"Harder," I moaned, telling him what I wanted, and feeling him give it to me.  He
pulled at my nipples, and oh, Aimee', when he closed his lips about my nipples I
thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I wanted him, I wanted all of him.  I
felt his hands caressing my thighs, his fingers plying between them, seeking my
insides, and when he found them his fingers made liquid, squishing sounds.  I was
wet.  My hair was sodden with wants, and I admit that.  I wanted him so bad. He
pushed me back on the bed and dove between my legs with his head, licking and
kissing me.  I was pulling up the bedsheets in mad, passionate lust, Aimee'. 
There was no telling what I would do next, I was so crazed at the stroking,
kissing, pleasing touching he was doing to me.  I couldn't go on forever like
that, or could I?  His tongue was probing my secrets, and I knew one rumor was
dead.  The women of Darachmod believed that no man could or would lick a woman
properly.  Oh, but he knew!  He did! I climaxed under his tongue, Aimee', and I
could not believe it when it happened.  I was delirious with pleasure even as I
came, struggling underneath his strong grip.  He was holding me down, stopping my
thrashing body from going anywhere.  Yet I knew if I has said "Let me go!" he
would have. Finally, he did stop, and I think it was mostly because he knew I was
tiring.  I could barely move by the fifth or sixth climax.  Oh, yes, I lost
count.  I looked up from him, brushing the hair from my eyes, and then dove upon
him, kissing him and biting his lips before sliding down to his torso.  And then
onto the horse of him, desperate for more of  him.  I found his prick hidden
between his rear legs. It was large, but after Styur nothing would ever be quite
so dangerous.  I kissed and licked at it, and he needed no encouragement.  It
dropped out and slid forward.  And still, I was a madwoman, because I tried to
get all of it into my mouth.  I went crazy.  I wanted him. He tasted heady, as
warm flesh should, with the sent of horse and man and sweat and even a little
piss as I tasted his prick and felt the slick skin against my tongue.  I slid
down until it was at the back of my mouth and I was gagging.  I wanted more of
him. I took him out, though, and stroked his prick with my hands while I buried
my nose in the musky heft of his balls, tasting the furred sac that carried them
and licking up the sweat that had collected there while he had labored under the
hot flap that formed part of his curtain.  His fingers were still touching my
cunt, still urging me onwards.  I was soaking.  He was hard and gasping.
"Bethsany," he sighed. "Adam," I replied, looking up at him.  I slid off and away
from him.  "Fuck me." "Now?" "Now," I gasped.  I slid off the edge of the bed and
dropped my feet to the floor, spreading my legs wide.  I wanted my ass to be high
in the air, an unmistakable target for him.  He grinned and slid off the bed as
well.  "Very beautiful.  You are a wildcat, Bethsany." "I want to be your mare,
not your cat!" "In either event, you're definitely a pussy worth taking."  He
walked forward, taking care not to step on my feet with his forelegs. I felt his
body cover mine, felt his hands in my hair.  "Beth... How gentle do you want me
to be?" "Not at all," I moaned.  "I've had enough gentleness." "Then if I do
this, it's okay?"  He reached down and gathered up my hair in his hands, pulling
it hard. I moaned.  "Yes, yes, that's more than okay!" He took that as a cue.  He
slid his hard prick up against my cunt and began to push, the head slowly finding
its way inside me, and the rest of it following.  He pulled my hair harder,
forcing my head down to the bed by the bend of my neck even as his huge prick
found its way into my cunt.  I felt him enter me as his prick filled my belly.  I
swooned, passionately wishing for more.  I knew I could take him forever. He
thrust me down to the bed, pressing me against it.  I was sandwiched between the
thrusting of his heavy belly and the mattress, and I was filled with the passion
of his huge and lovely prick.  I came as he fucked me, Aimee', over and over. 
Madly, screamingly. I'm afraid I may have woken up some of the other guests of
the Inn. His back haunches thrust into me over and over, the lips of my cunt
spread open for him and I felt the heat of his balls more than their impact with
every push.  I gasped and groaned, twisted and whispered his name. "Oh, Beth!" he
cried as his climax grew closer, and finally he came with a shout, his thrusts
fast and hard as he finished his act, pushing me down to the bed even harder.  I
feared being crushed, and I found that idea thrilling.  I climaxed again!  He was
so wonderful. Afterwards, he stood up and slid off me.  I didn't move for several
minutes, but lie there quivering as he sweetly grabbed a soft towel and cleaned
the fluids that dripped down my legs.  "Beth, are you alright?" "Uh-huh," I
replied  He reached under my shoulders and slowly turned me over.  I was
completely deranged by then, unable to move from the pleasure he had given me.
"Bethsany, I'd like you to stay until Misha awakens us." "Adam, I would love to."
 He smiled and pulled back the covers for both of  us.  We cuddled together for a
while, and then I fell asleep in his arms. When I awoke the next morning, he had
one arm tossed over me and one rearleg dangling over the side of the bed.  I
can't tell you how good it felt to have a male's arms wrapped around me.  I
wanted it to never end.  But one thing the women of Darachmod taught me, and that
was to keep my promises.  When Misha woke us, I kissed him gently, thanked him,
and returned to Tann.  I let Adam go with just two words.  "Thank you." I spent
another year with the Darachmod before...

A knock sounded at the door of the brothel.  "Bethsany!  You have my student in
there!  Open up, you've had her for far too long!" Aimee' whimpered, and Bethsany
recognized the voice too. Teltirray had come to claim his possession.  Brandy and
Rissim both turned to look at the door, and then both turned to give Bethsany the
same look.  Bethsany returned the glance, equally angry.  "I can't. I can't fight
him." "He'll kill her!" Rissim whispered. "He'll kill us all if we don't,"
Bethsany replied.  She stood up, surprisingly fast for her bulk.  "Rissim, tell
him we're downstairs.  Aimee', come with me." Aimee' joined Bethsany as they fled
down the stairs.  "Rissim is right.  He will kill you." "No.  You're right.  He's
not going to kill us.  Aimee', I may end up hating myself for the rest of my
life, because I've come to like you very much.  But I won't see my household
suffer pointless." She began rummaging through a large, wooden chest, coming up
with a small necklace of silvery links.  "Here, take this.  It was... It was
Myr's.  It has no magic.  It just has my memories.  Take it."  Aimee' stared. 
"It's all I can do!" Bethsany whispered.  "Please." Aimee' took the necklace and
put it on, just as the two women heard the door upstairs rack open.  "Bethsany! 
Where do you have my student?" "Down here, Master Teltirray," Bethsany replied,
trying to be calm.  "I was just finishing up.  I'm sorry it took so long." "Damn
too long."  The tall and imposing Teltirray walked down the stairs.  His bald
head glinted in the lantern light, but he looked as if he meant Bethsany no
harm... at least not right now.  "I came to collect her.  I realized it was late,
and I was walking by. I had assumed she would be home, but when I called my
servant he said she had not arrived."  He reached out for Aimee's arm.  "I see
you have helped her recover from this mornings... exercises."  His smile was so
foul Bethsany had to repress an urge to reach up and choke the life out of him. 
"Good.  Come, Aimee', we have some learning to do this night."  He started to
haul her out of Bethsany's establishment. "Master Teltirray?" Bethsany asked. 
"When will we be seeing Aimee' again?" "Next week, as usual."  He paused.  "If
she makes it through her lessons.  Good night."  Even before she had her cloak
about her shoulders, he tossed her out into the snow, walked out the door, and
slammed it shut behind him. "What do we do now, Miss Beth?" Brandy asked.
Bethsany was stunned at the Teltirray's brazenness.  He had as much as admitted
that he was eventually going to kill Aimee'.  She looked from Brandy to Rissim,
then back to Brandy.  "We call Mabel and Riza.  And we pray."

Aimee', Chapter 8



The bitter cold whipped against Aimee's face.  "My cloak, sir. Please!" "It is of
no matter, Aimee'," Teltirray hissed, impatiently.  He disliked waiting,
especially when a stupid girl like Aimee' slowed him down.  Although even he had
to admit that she was less stupid than most.  Her beauty, like flawless amber,
attracted him to her, and he had known so many months ago that he had to possess
her.  He had arranged with the idiot at the orphanage to "tutor" her, so long as
all record of her existence disappeared off their books.  If she died, there
would be no investigation.  He knew that.  He had paid good money for that little
"feature." He smiled.  "Feature."  The convenience of sloughing off one of these
simple creatures was something he would easily pay for, just to be done with it. 
Especially in these later years, now that he had found a route to power that once
he had only dreamed of.  For that route, though, Aimee' was almost entirely used
up.  Her body could not withstand the pleasures he sought for much longer,
although he had to admit that both Bethsany and Darynn had trained her very well,
for although his need for violence had increased a great deal, so had her
survivability, just by her strength.  He would call on their services again to
train the next one. Aimee' was sobbing silently as he hauled her through the
snowbound streets.  "Silence, girl!" he snarled at her.  That insufferable noise
would drive him mad after too long, and he could not bear to hear it.  "You will
have plenty of tears when we get home." "Sir, please.  I cannot!" "Oh, you
certainly can, Aimee'.  Because I so will that you can." "Sir!" "I said shut up!"
 He released her long enough to slap her across the face, then grabbed her by the
hair and pushed her in front of him. They reached his small, round home soon
enough, and the doors opened to let him in.  "Good evening, sir," his chamberlain
said. "I will be in the upper chambers tonight, Ricar.  See to it that I am not
disturbed." "Of course, sir."  Teltirray watched, pleased, as he bowed and walked
away, his back stiff and strong.  Men were like that, he thought, strong.  Even
the ones who could not do magic deserved his respect far more than the soft,
pathetic forms of the lesser sex, although the magic-less always deserved to be
the chattel of men like him. He led her up the flights of stairs and into his
bedroom. "Remove your clothes." "Sir..." "Do it!" he growled.  "Or I'll flay the
skin from your bones." Aimee' looked away, and Teltirray saw her jaw clenched in
anger. He smiled to himself, knowing that she was helpless to do anything. She
would submit to his whims.  She removed her boots, then slowly undid her pants,
picking up one leg at a time and sliding out of them.  She tossed the scarf
aside, but as she removed her shirt she hesitated.  Teltirray saw a curious smile
cross her face.  "You're dawdling!"  His anger grew as she hesitated longer, but
finally she threw her tunic aside with a snarl.  Teltirray laughed.  "Is my pussy
kitty angry?" he asked, soft and sarcastic.  "Get on that bed!" She hesitated,
and he swore.  Without a word, he thought his favorite spell in her direction,
simple <em>Pain</em>  and she buckled over, agonized.  Her stomach would tie
itself into knots fighting the pain he was feeding her if he didn't let up. 
Finally he did.  "Now, get on the bed, Aimee'." "You'll kill me anyway," she
gasped, looking up at him. He backhanded her.  Although a mage and not a warrior,
he was still a strong man, and she staggered back, landing on the bed.  He
reached down and snatched her right wrist,  wrapping a black band around it.  "I
could make it more painful, you know," he growled. "It already hurts!" "I'll make
it worse, you weak bitch!"  He turned her over, and although she fought, his
strength made her less than a rag doll, and he affixed another black band to her
left wrist.  "Take her," he said to the air, and the bands pulled her into the
air.  She whimpered. "That's it," he smiled at her.  "That's it.  Try and
remember the spells Darynn taught you.  Try and use them.  Save yourself as much
as possible.  It'll just make my pleasure last longer." Aimee' concentrated.  She
tried to find the spells she knew, and in the back of her mind they were
marshalling to her defense.  Chants flowed from her lips, soft and sensuous to
her tongue as they healed her wounds and eased her pain.  "Good," Teltirray
sniggered.  "That's it.  Make it last longer."   Her chest heaved as she
breathed, gasping the words to spells that might make her last one more minute.
She felt his hand caress her belly, her thighs.  More bands went onto her ankles,
and Teltirray spread her legs apart.  His magic glued her to the wall over his
bed like some obscene statue.  She had spent more than one night like that, over
his head, forced to sleep that way for his amusement.  His hands touched her
almost gently.  "Say goodbye, Aimee'." She looked down at him, holding her voice
for a moment.  All she said was, "Goodbye." Teltirray grimaced, taking up a
heavy, knotted scourge in his hands.  "Now," he said, "Scream for me."  The wall
behind Aimee' grew warm, and she felt the flow of magic through it.  She didn't
know what the magic was, but she could feel it coursing into her, as if seeking
something within her.  It wasn't just magic... it was alive. It was looking for
something within her, but she could almost feel it's frustration and she knew it
didn't know how to find what it was looking for. Teltirray was smiling at her,
his eyes alight with madness. "It's a demon," he said.  "A friend.  It...
supplies me with the knowledge I need.  The cost, of course, is you.  Not that I
mind." His smile twisted into an ugly snarl.  "It needs your pain, Aimee', but
eventually even that won't do.  Then, it wants your life.  But it doesn't know
how to find it."  He looked down at the whip.  "Pain is also his map.  And
this... this will show him the way." He shouted as he brought the whip down
against her body.  The blades of black leather crashed against her belly and she
grunted in sharp pain.  The whip fell again, the tails landing hard against her
thighs.  She squirmed, holding her tongue in, trying not to scream. The presence
within her turned, seeking.  The whip came again, against her chest.  Ugly red
streaks grew from her skin. As Teltirray struck her, harder and harder, he began
cursing her.  "I let Darynn teach you too well how to handle pain."  His efforts
grew harder as he slammed the whip into her skin, torturing her, giving her all
the pain and suffering he could inflict.  The presence within her lived on the
pain, enjoying it as much as it seemed ready to enjoy her death.  She could not
afford to give in. The whip was too persuasive.  She bled from a dozen tortured
slashes, the crimson fluid coursing down her body.  Darynn had told her, once,
about how precious blood was, and Bethsany had talked about the magic of
menstrual blood, and she herself knew what it meant to drop it to the soil.  The
whip fell again, and finally she screamed. "Yes!" Teltirray shouted as he whipped
her.  "Scream, Aimee', scream!"  She did.  She twisted and tore at her
impenetrable bonds. Teltirray's face was covered in sweat, his muscles bunched,
the whip flying over his head to strike at her body again and again in long,
angry slashes.  Aimee' cried and screamed as the tears dripped off her chin and
the blood streamed down her body and dripped from her toes onto Teltirray's
pillow. As she screamed, her body fighting without her control, her mind came
oddly to peace.  The demon was coming for her soul, now, and she found she could
live with that.  She opened her eyes. In the background, she heard the sounds of
the whip and the screams of her mouth, but in her eyes she saw only a door.  A
curious, oaken door, encarved with runes, and at the center it read, simply,
<em>Aimee'</em>   She knew where she stood, and she knew there was no reason to
fight.  She threw the door open and waited for the demon to come for her. It
came.  A green, ugly thing, shaped like a man with the head of a cow and the
muscles of some corrupt machine, it charged for her, its face lewd and grinning.
But as it lunged for the door, she felt a coolness about her throat, and then
something... someone blocked her view.  A sword of icy blue flickered in her
vision, and a squeal of indignant pain echoed out in the corridors of her mind. 
Then the body in her way was gone, running after the demon it... <em>she</em> had
struck with the sword.  <em>She</em> was dressed in leathers of the same cold
blue of the sword.  Aimee' looked out, wondering what she was staring at.  The
sky was a light grey color, and before her spread a cold, flat, sheet of dark
grey ice.  In the distance, two figures fought, the woman with the sword, and the
green and hateful demon. The demon sprang for the woman, and the woman blocked
the airborne monster with an easy swipe of the sword.  The demon thudded across
the ice.  "Girl!" <em>she</em> shouted at Aimee'.  "You must kill Teltirray!  I
will not be able to hold this creature forever!" "I don't know how!" "Yes, you
do!  Now go!"  The woman gestured, and a blue bolt flew at Aimee', striking her
body. She looked out into the world.  Her vision was blurred, and Teltirray was
panting, holding the whip in one hand, but he was not hitting her anymore.  "Why
don't you die?" he screamed at her.  "Die, you stupid bitch!  Die!" He looked at
her, his eyes fixed at her.  "I'll make you hurt so much the demon will be sure
to find your soul.  To the Dark with whips."  He reached forward, his hand on her
belly, and began chanting.  Aimee' recognized the spell, <em>The Pain That Will
Kill</em>  and accepted it into her body.  Her nerves began to burn. Teltirray
had used this spell on her before, and she had learned, if not to enjoy it, to at
least understand it.  And as the pain reached into her soul, she heard the clash
of claws and steel within.  She grinned at Teltirray. "Die, damn you!" 
Teltirray's eyes narrowed as the sweat poured from his balding head.  "Die!"
Aimee' refused to die.  She refused to let him win.  As she accepted <em>The Pain
That Will Kill</em>  she recognized the sensation.  She knew that spell.  She had
seen it in a mirror once, as <em>The Pleasure That Sings</em>   She had seen it a
long time ago.  In a book.  Darynn's book.  She knew how to use <em>The Pleasure
That Sings.</em>  And in knowing, she saw the differences between the two spells.
 With an almost casual, contemptuous thought, she turned <em>Pain</em> inside out
and claimed it as her own. The look in Teltirray's face turned from hatred to
shock as he felt his hand burn.  Flames erupted in his imagination.  Surely he
had to be on fire!  He backed away from her, feeling <em>The Pain That Will
Kill</em> for the first time directed at his own flesh.  He screamed as the pain 
became instantly more than he could bear. Aimee' had no trouble maintaining the
spell.  It didn't matter anymore if the power she needed to kill him killed her
as well.  His demon was busy, his power expended, his concentration ruined.  She
had him.  She stepped away from the wall and fell to the bed, crumpling to her
knees.  In her soul, sword and claws clashed.  And she knew who wielded the
sword.  It could only be.  Myr. "That necklace!" Teltirray shouted.  "Bethsany! 
That bitch! I'll kill her when I'm finished with you!"  He leapt for, his hands
upon her, grabbing for her throat. Aimee' panicked, and in her instinctual
reaction her knee came up solidly between his legs.  Pain redoubled pain in
Teltirray's belly, and he doubled over, grabbing at his crotch, his eyes closed
with suffering.  "And, now, <em>Master</em> Teltirray, it's over." Seizing a
heavy candlestick holder from the bedside, she smashed it down on his head.  He
grunted in surprise, but seemed unable to summon any more than that to his
defense.  She struck him again. Over and over until his skull staved in and his
heart stopped beating.  Then, in her own blinding pain from the suffering he had
inflicted with the whip, she collapsed, falling off the bed and onto the floor.
She crawled, slowly, to her cloak, pulling it over her.  The magic had stopped,
and with it her strength had fled.  She had only one thought now, one thing to
sustain her.  Sobbing softly, she opened the door and limped down the stairs. 
She escaped through the service door in the kitchen. The snow bit bitterly into
her feet, making her wince as she walked, but she never slowed down.  The cold
ate at her through the rough, thick wool.  It didn't matter.  Her tears grew
stronger, yet in the dead of winter even the hardiest thief dared not go out, and
she walked across the city, block after frozen block, unmolested and alone. 
Finally, her pain reaching blinding proportions again, she found the door she
sought.  She collapsed in front of it, moaning softly in pain as she scabbed her
knee on the icy stone, and pounded on the heavy oaken door with the flesh of her
palm. A rustle within, a questioning inquiry through the door, a familiar tickle
of magic.  Then, the sudden rush of bolts being thrown and wards being broken. 
The door threw open.  "Aimee'!" Darynn reached down and picked her up, carrying
her inside.  The door closed behind him.  "You must be frozen!" She suddenly
realized that he was holding her.  With a whimper, she threw her arms around him
and held onto him for her life, realizing that she was safe, finally.  Tears
broke out of her again, and his arms surrounded her while she cried her final
cry, letting out the last year of pain and suffering, giving it to Darynn, and
then to the past.  "He's dead," she gasped at one point.  "He's dead." "Are you
sure?" Aimee' nodded.  "I... I crushed his skull."  A snarl crossed her pretty
mouth as her eyes searched Darynn's face, looking for confirmation.  "I dropped
him to the floor with <em>Pain</em> and then I took the candlestick and hit him
again and again and again until his blood and his brains ran over the bedsheets! 
He's dead, Darynn, he's dead!" "Certainly sounds like it."  He gave her a gentle
squeeze. "You're bloody all over, Aimee'." "Hurts," she agreed softly.  "I... I
need to get clean.  And my boots.  I forgot to take the laces out of them.  I
need to get back..." Darynn recognized that kind of logic as belonging to someone
in a great deal of shock and confusion.  "No, Aimee', you don't.  You need to
come with me." "But... Teltirray..." "Is dead, remember?"  He smiled gently, a
smile that hid his fear within.  "Come.  Come with me." "If... you're sure it's
safe?" "Very," Darynn replied.  "Come." She finally agreed and followed him.  He
led her into the bedroom, then through to the bath.  "Sit," he said, indicating
the large wooden tub.  She complied.  He drew warm water for her, and did his
best to clean the wounds that crossed her belly, breasts, and thighs.  The dried
blood softened with the water and slowly he exposed the beautiful girl who lay
hidden underneath all that running redness.  With a few gentle spells he closed
the worst of her wounds, the ones that still wept blood and serum. He found
himself wondering what she would look like in the throes of passion, or even the
pain of whips when the whips were lovingly administered.  It was the first time
in decades he had considered a woman as a companion, and the first time ever that
the idea actually appealed to him.  Yet, it wasn't Aimee's femininity that
appealed to him so much as it was her raw, inner strength.  She had killed
Teltirray, to hear her say it.  And within, he believed her.  He was as sure as
she that Teltirray had come to earn what he deserved. And, curiously, her shape
appealed to him as well.  The effect was indescribable.  Something new, he
realized, and he did not reject the thought.  It did not bother him that he found
someone beautiful just because he was unfamiliar with her kind of beauty.  "Sir?"
he heard her ask. Looking down, he realized that he had cupped her breast in his
hand and was fondling her gently.  "My apologies, Aimee'.  I was... distracted." 
Yet, he could not imagine what he would do with her. Actually, he knew full well.
 He just could not imagine a balance to it, the kind of balance he found among
men, where each could fulfill both roles, as taker and giver, with a woman, even
though he knew full well that most people lived lives of such imbalance every
day. "There will be an investigation, you know." She nodded, her eyes barely
open.  "I know.  I wonder what will happen?" "I do not know."  He stroked her wet
and glistening skin, so red and dark, and found himself wishing he could touch
more of her.  What more did he want? Then, he remembered.  And he smiled.  He
wanted her to undress in his presence and say that she wanted him.  To be as
forward, as forceful, as gleefully hungry to bed him as any boy or man Darynn had
ever had.  For that, he could wait. He helped her out of the tub and dried her
off.  She stumbled a little as she walked, but she finally and successfully
navigated her way to a bedroom he showed her, and finally he pulled the blankets
over her and she was asleep.


Aimee', Chapter 9


"Master Darynn, please be brought forward." Darynn rose to his feet and allowed
his colleagues to lead him into the moon-shaped circle that was the petition
floor for the main council of Mages.  Around him sat his thirteen peers, each of
whom had heard testimony from himself, Bethsany, and Aimee', as well as
additional testimony from several of Bethsany's girls and two of Teltirray's
servants.  Still, he had to admit, the council saw things differently from most
people and he didn't know what their decision would ultimately be. From the
center of the council, Talen Silisto leaned over and looked down at him.  "Master
Darynn, the court has reviewed its findings and considered your testimony.  While
it would normally be outrageous for a mage of your standing to defy the wishes of
a fellow mage and teach that mage's student something other than what was
requested, we find in your case that you taught Aimee' precisely according to the
wishes of Teltirray as best as you, yourself, could interpret.  If Aimee' sought
additional learning from you and your library, as long as her demanded studies
did not suffer in the process, that is the mark of a good student, and you, sir,
are to be rewarded as a good nurturer of that student."  Master Silisto smiled,
and Darynn grinned back.  "This court finds you innocent of any wrongdoing. 
Would you please be returned to your chair?" "I would, sir." "Aimee', please be
brought forward." Aimee stood and, like Darynn before, allowed herself to be led
to the center of the circle.  Darynn watched the hold of her head and found
himself admiring the strength she was showing, as well as the nervousness locked
into her shoulders.  She looked up at Mage Silisto, the hood of her cloak thrown
back. Mage Silisto examined her carefully.  "Apprentice Aimee', the court has
examined your conduct and your testimony, as well as that of your teachers and
those who know you, and we can find no evidence of wrongdoing.  As a mage,
Teltirray had few peers, and in his speciality he had none.  As a man, however,
Teltirray was more monster than human being, and with your revelations and those
contained in his journals, we hereby remove his name from our ranks as an honored
member." "Also, this court has examined Teltirray's last moments in detail. 
Without formality, this ruling will probably face challenge, but we  rule that
you and Teltirray engaged in duel, one that he unfairly skewed in his favor, and
that you are therefore to be benefitted in the manner of one who has won duel. 
In the presence of a Will or Deed of Estate, you are entitled to half of
Teltirray's estate holdings.  Without such a document, you are entitled to all."
Aimee's mouth dropped open, and Darynn followed suit, stunned by the generosity
of the ruling.  Talen Silisto slapped his palm on the wood of the table for
silence, and when he got it, he turned to another standing there.  "Ricar, is
there such a document?" "No such document will be found," Ricar stated evenly.
"Is there such a document," Silisto repeated.  Darynn wondered at <em>why</em>
Silisto needed to repeat it. Ricar stared at the mage, anger written across his
mouth.  Then, slowly, he smiled.  "Master Silisto, I submit to you that no such
Will or Deed can be found." Satisfied, Silisto turned back to Aimee'.  "You are
now the holder of the title to Teltirray's estates.  This is the ruling of this
mage's court."  Silisto slapped his hand upon the table. "Recorder, let it be
known that Master Darynn has been cleared of all charges.  That Apprentice Aimee'
has been, as well.  That the court rules in the duel of Aimee' and Teltirray,
that Aimee' is the living victor.  And finally, that the Council of Mages grants
Aimee' a white card admission to the College, to reside with Master Darynn-- " An
uproar started in the audience.  Darynn looked stunned, but most of them were
beginning to applaud! Silisto banged his hand on the table.  "ORDER!  I will have
order in here!"  He took a deep breath.  "To reside with Master Darynn, who has
been neglecting his duties as a mentor for far too long recently, until such time
as she earned the title of Mage."

The smell of her hair bothered him.  He wasn't sure why, or even in what way, it
bothered him, but it did.  He tried not to listen to his feeling, but they would
not go away merely from wishing.  "Sir?" she asked gently. "Aimee'?" "I wanted to
ask you... you said once, just eight months ago, that you were prepared to love
me."  She turned around, slipping her arms into his cloak and holding him close. 
Surprised, he looked down at the top of her head, inhaling the soft smell of her
hair again. "Would you... are you ready now?" "I..."  He stood, flustered, then
finally smiled.  "I think so, Aimee'."   Much to even his surprise, he felt his
erection growing under her influence.  As he reflected on her touch, he realized
that Bethsany and her girls still held no interest at all for him. Instead,
Aimee' challenged him, excited him, because of her talents, her magic.  And he
wanted to indulge himself in her spirit and her body. He caressed her hair
slowly, and her hands stroked his back, his fingertips arousing the skin and
causing his muscles to tense up almost painfully.  "Come with me, Aimee'," he
said.  She smiled and took his hand.  He led her to the bedroom.  "Sit." She sat.
 He sat opposite her, his hands folded in his lap.  "I feel... uncomfortable.  I
have no idea where to begin with you.  And, more honestly, I am frightened of
you." "If you do not wish, sir..." "No, I have no desire to go back on my pledge.
 Aimee', this may sound odd, but while I love you, and I feel lust for you, and
at my age I should have the wisdom to understand what I feel in here, I do not." 
He tapped himself on the chest to emphasize his words. "Men... Men are easy,
compared to you." "You taught me, many months ago, not to be afraid of what I
wanted or what someone else asked of me.  If I could do it, and I wanted, I
should."  She smiled.  "I learned that lesson very well." She rose and removed
her cloak, tossing it onto the chair by the bed. "This room has so much magic in
it.  I can feel it when I breathe." "Yes," Darynn replied.  "I have had many men
in this room, and cast many more spells."  He grinned.  "Shall we perform one,
tonight?" She stopped, surprised.  "You would do that with me?" "It would seem
the natural course of action.  You are an apprentice.  I am the mage.  I am
supposed to teach you things.  Why don't I show you, by example, a kind of
scrying I'm familiar with?" "Please, sir!" she smiled.  Darynn reached out and
pulled her close, pushing up the cuff on her left sleeve, exposing her wrist. He
knew she was watching as he lowered his head and kissed her wrist, gently.  The
taste of her skin was unlike anything he had ever tasted.  It was salty, like the
skin of men, but it was a different quality from any salt or sweat he had known
with men.  He could not even begin to place the differences. She stood, silently,
while he reached out and untied the bows that held her tunic closed in the front.
 He admired the smooth flawlessness of her body as he exposed it, inch by inch. 
Her breasts, still growing, were already large mounds projecting away from her
body, each nipple pointing away from the other.  He quietly cursed himself.  For
a sex mage, he had damned little vocabulary to describe the beauty of a woman's
body.  And he did find her beautiful.  Her beauty was bound in the way she
breathed, in the way her chest rose and fell with the excitement that was
building between them as student and teacher, friend and lover, and he hated to
admit... man to woman.  The raw flux of power between two loving men was one
thing he appreciated.  Yet the strange flux of power, filtered by the differences
in the sexes, made for a kind of magic he had never known. As he pushed her shirt
down off her back and she shook her hair to free it from where it had become
caught in the shirtcollar, he ceased cursing himself and smiled.  He took her
cheeks in his hands, lifted her mouth slightly, and kissed her.  And then he
laughed. "Sir?" "Oh, Aimee', what I have been thinking in the past few minutes is
just not fit.  Are you ready to share the weaknesses of an old man?" "If they are
yours, sir, I will always be ready." "Very well."  He rose and slowly led her to
the bedside, encouraging her to get in.  She lay down on the covers and,
together, they worked off her breeches.  "Aimee', I have been considering what a
fool I have been for denying myself the special kind of magic that happens not
between two men, but between a man and a woman.  And then I realized how few
people ever learn of the love between man and woman, even when they are made to
learn that."  He shook his head. "You are the first woman I have loved since my
mother, and you may be the last.  It is not... It is not that I have discovered
women, Aimee'.  It is just that I have discovered you." She smiled and reached
up, pulling him down beside her.  "Sir, one thing I have not yet had the pleasure
of is one of my own kind. But I dearly wish it.  I wish to learn." "I am afraid I
shall have to send you to a specialist for that," he mused, laughing.  "That sort
of thing is beyond my understanding." "Yes, sir," she replied, grinning.  "Remove
your clothing, already!" "I have to prepare for the spell, first.  Wait here." 
Darynn rose and left the room.  He walked down the corridor to his magickal
pantry, recovered the items he required, and returned.  Aimee' was idly stroking
her skin, scratching or self-pleasuring, he couldn't tell, and she smiled as he
walked in.  "I waited." "I see," he replied.  "Come, apprentice.  Help me arrange
this spell.  I will need this powder dripped into the groove on the floor that
encircles the bed, and I will need these candles inset into the holders at points
1, 21, 41, 61, and 81.  Clear?" "Yes, sir.  Is there any need to care for the
colors?" "Good question, apprentice.  No, not this time." "Yes, sir."  He
watched, somewhat detached at the beauty of her body but thrilled with the
eagerness in her soul, as she placed the candles down and began the slow and
rather dull task of encircling the bed with the mix he had given her.  He
stripped off the plain blanket and put in its place a large, blue comforter onto
which were sewn magical runes and sigils.  "Aimee'?" "Almost done, sir," she
said. "Join me when you are." He knelt on the bed, naked, as she joined him. 
"Now, cross your legs, close your eyes, and hold out your hands." She did as she
was told.  He looked at her, naked, vulnerable... and yet, he knew that if he
were to arouse her anger, she would prove a challenge, possibly a mortal one. 
Unlike Teltirray, even if he did not see all of it, he knew the source of her
power and he respected it.  He reached over, doused the oil lamp, and settled
himself before her, taking her hands in his.  He closed his eyes. Slowly, he
began chanting, swaying back and forth, feeling the power that was already
heavily invested into this room even when no magick was being performed.  His
soul reached out, examined everything.  His hands moved up her arms, and she
mirrored his movements, until his forehead touched hers.  Their hands roamed, and
slowly he felt her open herself to him.  For the first time, he sensed her hidden
heart, which she had kept protected from Teltirray for all these past months. 
Her mouth began to move, although no sounds came out.  He could hear her breath
shaped into words and knew that those words were echoes of his own.  She was
losing herself to the spell, and that was as it should be. His hand caressed her
breasts, and hers stroked the hardened muscles of his chest.  Beneath her soft
teats he could feel the strength she had earned through Teltirray's unfortunate
"ministrations."  He worried that he was being inept, or too rough, to the
delicate flesh of her body, but she never said a word other than the whispered
spell of scrying they worked together. His mouth touched her shoulder as they
leaned together, and her voice suddenly took form.  She took over the speaking of
the spell, as his mouth explored her soft skin.  Once more he was fascinated with
a taste, a texture, a sensation utterly unlike that of any man or boy he had ever
enjoyed.  He pressed her down to the bed, feeling her body underneath his own. 
His skin came to life with every inch pressed to inch, and the mana flowed about
them in torrents Darynn had shared so few times in his life.  His mouth found her
nipples. They were not so unlike men's, perhaps a little larger than most men he
had been with, but not the largest.  He learned to appreciate the feel of her
breasts, the wonder and excitement inherent in them.  He was fascinated, yet the
spell called him on.  There was more to do. He kissed her belly.  In his mind,
the spell wove on and on, and in his ears Aimee' chanted flawlessly words she had
not known an hour before.  His mouth trailed down to her sex. The scent was...
distracting.  Interesting.  Nothing to write Thomas about.  He lowered his lips
to her furred mound, slowly extending his tongue, tentatively tasting her flesh. 
The words to the spell came a little more breathlessly from her throat.  He
pulled his head back slightly and looked down, taking in the sight, comparing the
pink flesh the color inside a seashell before him with what he knew in his head. 
He licked where he thought her clit should be, tasting at it.  Her legs spread
slowly wider, and a small moan ran in the undercurrent of her chant.  He looked
up and her face showed how lost she was in the magic and the pleasure of power.
He licked at her harder.  His jaw was experienced enough with the taste of men,
but she was proving difficult to follow.  He grinned to himself... his problem
was that the target was so small! He was apparently doing enough, for her
chanting changed in pitch and timbre as she approached her orgasm.  He decided to
let the spell rise with her.  They didn't have to be joined at the hips to make
this work; he had succeeded many times while sucking seed. He allowed her to
continue weaving the spell; he fed it to her mind even as his mouth fed on the
taste and feel of her cunt.  He licked with enthusiasm, appreciating the way she
responded so fully. It was different from men (he couldn't stop making the
comparison), but he had no trouble recognizing it.  He pressed his mouth against
her cunt, licking her harder.  He lay against the bedspread and felt his erection
pressing against the rough cloth.  Her orgasm was growing; he could feel it in
her legs and see it in her heart.  She growled underneath the chanted her spell,
and he could hear the thickness in her voice that heralded the loss of control. 
Her voice grew louder as the muscles in her legs trembled and shook.  He changed
to course of spell from its rotating-growing phase to the outward-seeking phase,
and she screamed as she came, the magickal words shouted from her mouth as a
cruder lover would shout obscenities. His vision blinked momentarily, and when he
looked again the sky had opened up above his head and the world turned below him.
 Only one moon was in sight, but it was clearer and more radiant than he had seen
it in many a year.  He turned around slowly, and Aimee' floated besides him.  Her
eyes were closed and her chest was heaving, one hand over her breasts as if to
feel the air entering and escaping.  "Aimee'," he said.  "Apprentice." "Sir?" she
asked, blinking slowly and opening her eyes. "Look at what we have wrought."  He
reached out for her hand, and she took it.  Drawing her close, he turned her so
that she looked down upon the world.  "We have left our bodies, so important to
our pleasures, behind, so that we may see this." "Is that... that..." "That is
Earth," Darynn said slowly.  "We are many miles from it's surface." "It's round!"
"Indeed," Darynn said.  "And there are other secrets to be learned from this
height.  But out bodies will not long stand the strain of suspension like this. 
It is, perhaps, the strongest disadvantage of sex magic... the tension of
ecstasy, if left too long, will harm us.  And the pleasures of love make us
inappropriate for combat magic."  He smiled at her.  "Come, we must return." "It
is so beautiful," she sighed. "It is," he agreed, giving it one last glance.  He
spoke one more word. Aimee' screamed louder, her climax sweeping past her as
attentions returned to her body.  Darynn held onto her with his strong hands,
hoping she wouldn't buck too hard and hurt his mouth or nose.  Finally, her
trembling subsided.  "Oh, Master Darynn." "Apprentice Aimee'... you were most
beautiful." "Thank you," she gasped, lying down on the bed and breathing hard,
recovering her breath.  "That was... the most beautiful moment of my life." He
crawled up and lay beside her, chuckling.  "It was probably one of the most
interesting of mine," he admitted.  "I did not anticipate your pleasure being so
strong." "You enjoyed it, then?" "Oh, very much," he agreed. She turned over onto
her stomach.  Darynn's eyes floated over her buttocks, so much fuller and rounder
than any boy's he had ever seen.  "Good," she said, pulling herself over his body
and lowering her head to his cock.  Darynn trembled slightly as his cock slid
into her mouth.  He could feel her saliva against his cock, slick and warm when
it was under her tongue, cool as it slid down his shaft.  He heard his own breath
and found he was hyperventilating.  She was good, and he appreciated her talent.
She could take all of it, too, and he looked down to see her nose pressing
against his belly, his entire cock engulfed in her mouth.  She sucked on his cock
so well he felt his own climax reaching for him.  "Aimee'... I'm going to come
soon." She ignored his warning, sucking harder, applying just the right kinds of
pressure to his shaft.  His cock pumped a little, releasing a droplet, his body
wound tighter than a watchman's clock.  A second later, it broke though, making
him shake and groan as his cock pumped her mouth full of his come.  Yet, she
didn't stop!  She kept sucking it down, stroking every last drop from his shaft
until he became so sensitive.  "Aimee', I beg of you... enough!" She rose up and
looked at him.  Her eyes were glazed over, tears streaking her cheeks.  He
recognized the signs of fighting a gag reflex, and smiled, brushing away one of
the small streams of wetness with his thumb. She held his hand to her cheek. 
"Thank you again, sir.  Thank you so much." He smiled and pulled her close, until
she lay atop him.  "It is I who should be thanking you," he sighed.  "That was
wonderful." "Thank you.  I tried my best." "And you did better than many men I've
been with.  Which confirms a theory of mine." "Sir?" she asked. "I've always
thought it was passion and practice which make a good lover, not having a similar
body.  There's a belief amongst inverts that only we know how to pleasure one
another.  You give lie to that belief." She nodded, then laughed softly. 
"Darynn... When Teltirray was trying to kill me, one thought that kept going
through my mind was that if I didn't kill him, I was going to miss class
tomorrow." His laughter joined hers.  "Oh, Apprentice, I do love thee." "I love
you too..."  She looked up into his face. "...Teacher." They lay together for a
long time, and soon Aimee' had drifted off to sleep, turning over onto her side. 
Darynn rose and blew out the five candles; most had burned down until they were
just wicks lying in puddles of wax.  He did one last circuit of his home,
insuring that everything was locked down tight against the cold, winter night,
then returned to bed, one small lantern his only source of light.  As he looked
down at Aimee's sleeping form, he wondered at her resiliency, and at his own
emotions. Despite all that had happened, <em>lust</em> was still not in his
vocabulary, at least not for her.  He would never have sought her out, and he
still had no desire to seek other women at all.  Instead, he that felt he admired
her and sought to protect her.  She was so strong, yet so young and vulnerable. 
One day she would be a great mage, and perhaps that was his eventual legacy.  It
would be the ultimate irony if his greatest student turned out to be a woman, yet
Aimee' had all the natural talent to be the greatest of mages. He lowered the
lampwick and curled up next to her.  After dark, he thought, not all cats are
grey, but sometimes it doesn't matter what color they are.