Commission: Snow Heart Eyes

I really enjoyed doing this commission for @Luna_3391 on Twitter. She makes beautiful art and I think you should go look at it.

*

Eirose's breath comes out in rich plumes. He shudders, partly because he's cold, and partly from distaste. Why the people of Skycrest chose to build this far north, why anyone would, he'll never understand. His boots clump messily through the snow, and the mugs of tea he's carrying slop their contents onto his mittens, ridiculously hot, then ridiculously chilly.

"You know, I hear you coming," says Rain.

"Pfft. That would concern me if I had meant to sneak up on you." Though how anyone could possibly sneak through the knee-deep white... stuff on the ground, he has no idea. He pushes a mug of tea at her over the tumbled stones. She's sitting on one of them. He can't begin to imagine how cold she must be. "You're not wearing your coat."

"I've got a jacket on," she snips--that's the only word for it, snip, her cross tone sharp as the cold. But she takes the mug and wraps her own mittens around it.

"I'm freezing my wings off and you're wearing a jacket."

"My blood's thick enough."

"Mm." He struggles over the stones of the fallen keep, slipping on snow and trying to keep the remaining tea inside his mug. "Don't suppose you could help me."

"It's more fun to watch you," she says, but she holds out her hand for his mug.

He puts a hand in it instead.

A little crease appears between her brows, but she doesn't take her hand away; she steadies him into the scattered ring of stones, mounded with snow, that used to be the keep. He tries not to watch her while he's making his way in, but he can't help it, and his foot slides out from under him.

"Ack!" he says, falling, and then "ouch!" when he lands on his butt, spilling every drop of the tea.

He can't be too upset, though his pride aches. She's laughing in that way she has, the way that makes her shine, and it's even more beautiful in the moonlight, in the starlight. Her hair looks bright white, and she glows.

"Go on, then," he says, trying not to sound like he worships her. "Laugh at the tropical bird man on his bottom in the snow."

She keeps laughing, longer than the joke is worth. It isn't an unkind laugh, not really. "I'm enjoying the sight of your feathers getting ruffled for once," she admits, chuckling, and stands. Offers both hands to him now, a graceful gesture of welcome.

He takes them both, and she helps him rise. He's coated from the waist down in snow. Once he's up, he flaps his feathers, dusts snow from his pants.

She steps in and brushes a little snow from his hair. Suddenly, his lungs don't work.

"Clumsy," she says, so gently, so wickedly.

He feels a terrible urge to defend himself. "I'm not used to this yet."

"I know. But look." She sweeps her arm out to the front, as if to display the landscape.

The keep is at the top of the highest hill for miles, and all around is whiteness as pure as he's ever seen, in rolling billows like waves, coating the pines and frosting the naked branches of other trees. The sky looks like a soft, deep-blue blanket over top, pierced with holes to let light through. And the moon is blazing above, casting silver beams that glance from the snow. A desolate owl cries out a sob that echoes strangely.

"Beautiful," he has to admit.

"Yes."

He looks over at her. She's watching him watch.

"What is it?" she asks.

"If I didn't know better," he says, ears twitching with chagrin and pleasure at once, "I'd think you meant me."

She punches him lightly on the arm, her face darkening. "Pfft."

"Who could blame you?" He turns, poses, preens, spreading his wings high and wide. "I am spectacular."

Her shoulders shake with laughter as she turns away from him. "Don't make me stuff snow down your shirt. I am so tempted right now."

His mouth drops open in horror. That sounds desperately cold and wet. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would."

He sniffs, affecting disdain. Has she noticed it's affected? Has she realized yet what he thinks of her? What he feels for her?  He wants her to know, but part of him wants her never to know. He's never sure where he stands with her, especially since his secret was revealed. She was so angry, and it doesn't seem like the right time to make himself so vulnerable to her.

Not that he isn't already. He feels naked around her, though she's never seen him unclothed. He feels raw around her.

She grabs his coat collar, and before he can pull away, what feels like ten pounds of snow slides down his back, between his wings. He squawks, undignified and involuntary, and thrashes.

It feels awful, but it's worth it to him. She's literally doubled over, hair hiding her face, laughing and laughing.

"You," he says, trying to sound sour and, by his own estimation, failing, "are milking this beyond all reason."

"It's hard not to," she gasps. "You're just so cute when you're complaining about the weather!"

Scowling, he scoops up a pile of snow and drops it onto her head so quickly he doesn't feel the cold through wet mittens. She lets out a squawk of her own, but keeps laughing even while she shakes white snow out of her white-moonglow hair.

"Now who's the cute one?" he demands, almost angry with her for being so... so beautiful. Who gave her the right?

She laughs herself to a gasping stop. "Still you," she says, and launches into a fit of the giggles.

"No, I'm the cold one."

"Fair enough. Ah..." She wipes tears from her eyes, sobering. "Eirose, I wish you'd told me the truth."

This again, is it? He feels a little ill. "I had my reasons."

"I'm starting to see that, but it hurt me. It still hurts me that you lied."

He turns away, tucking his wings around him--for warmth, he tells himself, but deep down he knows he would rather cut them off than hurt her. "I had my reasons," he repeats.

"You already--"

"But," he interrupts her, "I'm sorry for the pain I caused you. I am more sorry than I can say."

"What about Tobias and Ark, huh?"

"Of course, Tobias and Ark. I never meant to hurt anyone. Mostly you, though," he admits. It's a revelation to him; he knows it even as the words roll off his tongue, but before that, he didn't

really understand how precious she is to him. He turns to face her. "Mostly you, because I wanted most for you to trust me. To--to care for me."

She looks away from him, down.

He reaches for her hand, but she folds her arms.

"I wanted to trust you most, too," she says, very quietly. It's almost lost in the heaps of snow.

He reaches again, for her arms, but she steps back.

"It's more than that."

"Then what is it? I--"

"I wanted you to trust me most."

Anger boils in his guts, but he bites back his shout.

"I wanted to think you'd trust me with your life, but you didn't."

"I was meant to tell you, then? Expose my people? It wasn't always my secret to tell, Rain."

She pushes her hair back from her face, lifts her chin. Her look pins his wings out like a butterfly on a board. "If you trusted me, that wouldn't even be a consideration. I would never--"

"No, but you would have treated me differently."

"No! I wouldn't have!"

"Look at how you've treated me since you found out," he shoots back.

She fires a glare at him, so intense he swears he can feel snow melt around him. "That wasn't because of what you are! It's because you hid it from me!"

"Then there's no chance, is there?" He tries to shrug, but it probably looks more like a slump. It hurts more than he thought it would to say, "No chance for us."

"No, I--" She stops herself this time, shakes her head, though he doesn't know at what. "I didn't say that," she mumbles. Her cheeks are redder than they were a moment ago.

"So." He can't help smiling, even though a wind lifts past them from the back, slicing through his wet clothes. "There is a chance."

Her posture loosens, unwillingly, he thinks. Giving up, or relaxing? Her chest expands with a breath.

"There's a chance," she says. With her eyes closed, as if hiding from it.

"Are you sure?"

She shakes her head, slow, but she says, "I'm sure. I guess I understand why you hid it from everyone."

There's nothing he can say to make this better, and for once he doesn't say anything. Keeps his mouth shut, where before he would've said something like, 'Of course you understand. I was right.'

"I still don't think you should've lied to me," she says. "Especially once you knew me. I can understand. But Eirose?"

"Yes?"

"Never lie to me again," she says, and shoves him.

He takes the shove as his due, and falls on his bottom again, harder than he'd thought he would. He doesn't get up, but says, "I won't."

"All right then." She offers her hand to help him up.

Seized by a sudden wicked idea, he puts his hand in hers and tugs her down on top of him. She's heavy with muscle--but she laughs again, and her warmth penetrates her jacket. Her lips are soft and cold. Who made the first move toward kissing isn't important. Her lips are soft and cold, and the inside of her mouth is hot, and she tastes of tea.

When it's over, she rests her forehead against his. Their breaths plume together; he can see where the plumes begin, but when they mix, he can't see an end.

She kisses him again. They're there for a long time, until snow melts through the seat of his pants, until he's sitting on frigid stone.

"You must be cold," she says, touching him with a mittened hand. The aurora begins its spectacular show above, throwing green and violet light across her face. She looks haunted, almost frighteningly beautiful.

"I hadn't really considered," he says honestly, "but now that you mention it, yes, I'm half-frozen."

"Let's go in where it's warm. Well. Warmer." Her lips tilt up, full and soft, and her smile overflows with promise. She rises and offers her help again, and he takes it.

Dazzling light and color plays over them as they walk back, hand in hand. Later they'll remember the mugs--but only later.

Another throwback short. This one's about my favorite stabby boy.

EAGLE EYE AND THE WORM OF SHIRITH

Eagle Eye could scramble a squirrel’s brain with a flung stone before he was out of nappies. His mother—her ashes feeding Yriah’s children and her soul flown to Iunder, bless her—when he was born, Mother had pleaded with Falcon Eye, his father. “Don’t name him Eagle Eye,” she begged. “He won’t be able to hit the broad side of a house.” But it was Father’s-Father’s-Father’s name, and Eagle Eye it had to be, and Eagle Eye he grew into like nobody before or since would ever be Eagle Eye, and he passed into legend even while he lived.

Before all that, though, there was the Worm. Eagle—Father called him Vo, which is Eagle in the Traders’ tongue—met the old monster when he had hair down his breeches to prove he’d one day be a man, but not his man’s height, and fourscore and two years exactly. Father had gone out with some of the Court, being that he was the High King’s huntsman, and that left Eagle to himself, which he liked. That morning he’d gotten his bow and quiver in order, making sure the wood was sound and packing extra strings in his pockets. You never knew. He whetted his hunting knife, stashed a currycomb in another pocket, and set off opposite the way Father had taken the High King and all the tall perfect nobles of the Court, into the wild country southwest of Shirith Valley.

He didn’t know the name of the mountain he rambled on that day, but he knew it in the bare soles of his feet, in his nose, in his eyes, every last inch. There was a great cave mouth in the side, but Father had told him not to go spelunking alone, and most times he did what Father said, especially out in the wild. You never knew, and besides, enough dangerous things lurked in the wood itself that Eagle didn’t particularly want to be screwing around down in the dark. There were plenty of things to talk to out in the sunlight, even if most of them didn’t talk back to him.

That morning when Eagle splashed through the easternmost stream snaking near the bottom of the mountain, the fairies that clustered around it brushed him with glittery fingers as he passed. He skirted the place where the winged serpents gathered; for all they talked, what they said dripped poison in the ear. And he avoided going directly upstream to the falls where the naiads clustered to comb their hair and giggle. Young as he was, Eagle’d been man enough for them some little while now, and he had no desire to be pulled underwater and shagged until he drowned. Instead, after he laid a couple of snares for dinner, he climbed a ways to Vercingetorix’s meadow. Since he was untouched, Vercingetorix didn’t mind him. The big unicorn even let Eagle come close and stroke his silver-white sides, though his pearly wicked-sharp horn was off-limits to curious hands.

Eagle paid his respects. The currycomb he’d put in his pocket was for Vercingetorix. He liked it sometimes, and when Eagle asked this morning whether he wanted currying, he said yes. Eagle brushed him down until his coat almost blinded at a glance. He talked about all kinds of nothing. For all his great dignity he was still a frivolous fairy creature, and vain. When Eagle got through he always had the feeling he’d been talked at by six of the Court’s serving boys at once, but he liked Vercingetorix better. The chatter was more about what was going on in the forest than it was outrageous lies about sex.

After he’d finished, he said good-bye to the unicorn and took his empty belly off to check the snares. One of them had caught him a nice fat squirrel, which he killed quick and roasted slow on a spit, stuffed with young wild onion. He collected some little strawberries while he waited, and ate them after as a dessert, lounging on the flat rock in his favorite sunny clearing. The fairies came to the sweet and to Eagle, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have told anyone, but he sang to them, a made-up story about a slight, dark, suspiciously Eagle-like hero slaying wicked trolls. They loved it, and sang along in their tiny voices with the sounds of instruments, fife and fiddle both, and they touched his skin wherever it lay to the air. They frosted between his collarbones and all over his face, hands, and forearms, even his feet, with glittery fairy dust. It tickled, and the story got lost in his laughter. They kissed his long pointed ears and flittered away, as quick as they’d come, and then Eagle heard other voices speaking hituleti, the People’s Tongue, which he’d grown up speaking.

He rolled off the rock into a crouch and straightened, frantically swiping at the glitter. The voices were young men’s voices, and he didn’t want to be seen like this. It was a rare man the pretty little fairies loved. Mostly it was kids and women.

Eagle hadn’t needed to worry. The three speakers passed by in the trees below. They didn’t notice Eagle in the clearing above, but he saw them, the Duke of Madoc’s twin sons and the Crown Prince.

He heard them talking a little. “We won’t wake him!” said Prince Brother Fox, laughing. “We’ll just go in and strike at his heart. Think of it! Wormsbane, we’ll be.”

At first Eagle thought it was just a brag, but Swift Snake and Swift Cat went on about it, and he saw the direction they headed, and all of a sudden it felt terribly real. How stupid were they? He went cold all the way out to his fingertips. “Never go in there, Eagle, you mustn’t,” he remembered Father saying when they passed the cave mouth together, time and time again. “The Worm would eat Shirith whole if you wakened him.” And Eagle had believed it, believed every word of Father’s stories about the great red fire-breathing Worm that slept beneath the mountain. “The last time he woke, Eleazar burned down half the royal palace and swallowed the flocks,” Father had said. “He carried off Crown Princess Liria and sucked the marrow from her bones in his lair. Just ask that unicorn if you don’t believe me.”

Vercingetorix hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Eleazar, the Worm of Shirith, with his teeth like daggers and his claws like swords, and his wings that blotted the sun! What would Father do?

What would Father say if Eagle didn’t try to stop them? He shuddered to think; and so he snatched up his gear and dashed higher, around the side of the mountain, concealed in the trees and silent on his bare feet, still shedding fairy dust. And in the end he slid down the sharp drop in front of the cavern mouth and fell through brush and trees to land lightly right there, blocking the entrance as best it could be blocked, though that was hopeless. It gaped in the side of the mountain, and even though it was overgrown in spots, still plenty of space remained for the men to pass. “Don’t,” he panted, straightening.

“What have we here?” sneered Swift Cat, at the same time Brother Fox cocked his head and smiled a little with his hair spilling all to one side. Eagle saw—at the same time—Brother Fox’s face beaten and bleeding, like it was when he came down to Father’s house every so often. When that happened, Father always sent Eagle on some jumped-up errand. As if he didn’t know.

“Eagle Eye?” Brother Fox asked now, smiling that smile, which put a tightness in Eagle’s belly that Eagle didn’t quite understand. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Eagle said, and then, rushing, “you can’t go down there, Your Highness, the Worm—”

“Who is this, Fox?” demanded Swift Snake, the other twin.

“Faralt the huntsman’s son,” Brother Fox explained.

“So—not even nobody. Nobody’s little boy.” Swift Snake laughed and shoved Eagle onto the rocks just inside the cavern.

“Snake,” Brother Fox said, reproving, and he was maybe about to say more, but Eagle picked himself up lickety-split, before they could get past him.

“My father’d tell you the same!” He blocked as best he could, squaring his shoulders and feeling small. “He always tells me to stay away from here. Don’t wake the Worm, he says. It could kill us all!”

When Brother Fox grinned that way, Eagle for one moment almost believed him. “It’ll be dead before it can rise. You wait. I’ll bring you a scale, little Eagle.”

Eagle’s nostrils flared. “You’re being stupid!” he blurted, and Swift Cat and Swift Snake narrowed their eyes at him, same time, same gesture, same face. “It’s not a brave deed like you were saying! It’s just stupid!”

“Little nothing boy with fairy dust in his hair,” said Swift Cat. “Maybe he should go first. Sparkly Worm bait.” And he and Swift Snake both laughed, nasty and rough.

“Cat,” said Brother Fox, sharper. “Cut it out. He’s a good kid. Let’s go in and slay the Worm, and then—”

“Don’t do it!” Eagle cried, his voice cracking, now, when he least wanted it to. His accidental squeak echoed in the chamber behind him, and he flushed.

Brother Fox laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly, moving him aside while the twins walked right past. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring you that scale at home.” And then the dark covered him up, his left boot heel the last thing to disappear into the cave. In a moment one of the twins lifted a red blob of mage-light; that disappeared too, and Eagle turned back toward the valley, thinking he should run and fetch Father. But Father was clear on the opposite side. He’d gone the other way, and the High King too, and the God only knew how long it’d take to fetch either one of them back, if they even believed him anyways.

He looked out over waves of green, highlighted in golden summer sun, and the seams of little creeks and falls, the dangerous sweep of the wash directly below. Eagle bit his lip, then turned and padded into the swallowing dark of the Worm’s cave. It didn’t take him long to catch up with the little, bobbing red light; but he stayed a ways off, down and down through the twisting corridors, so they wouldn’t catch him following.

Even here the Worm’s chemical reptile stink reached his nose. They were in a chamber with a ceiling so high not even the mage-light could illuminate it, and the dark seemed to press on what light there was, so the three walked close together, whispering a susurrus of regret. Behind came Eagle with his heart jacking inside his chest so hard he thought it might explode.

What was he going to do about an ancient Worm anyway? A little nothing boy with fairy dust in his hair. What could any of them do? He wished they’d listened to him. Maybe they didn’t see how the mage-light played crimson over hanging rock formations, staining them bloody, but Eagle did. He crept along, bare feet whispering on the stone, and kept his distance, no matter how much he felt like running up and squeezing himself next to Brother Fox.

The caverns opened vaster now, and Eagle could feel the wide emptiness on either side of him, almost as if it pressed on his skin. Rather than growing cooler as they went farther underground, like every cave in Eagle’s memory, this one grew warmer and then baking hot, sending sweat rolling down his back. He was terribly thirsty, and he drank from the small waterskin on his belt, but not much. He didn’t want to risk being heard. Up ahead, the older boys glistened ruby, and more than one wiped a sleeve across his brow. The stench of the Worm overpowered Eagle’s sense of smell, and then Brother Fox and the Swifts disappeared around a bend. Eagle scuttled after.

They had come into the chamber where the Worm lay sleeping. A draft of fiery air blew at intervals: Eleazar’s thunder snores. Eagle felt it, even though the mage-light had only just begun to unveil the massive evil head, big enough to climb. He could’ve fit in one of those nostrils up until a few years ago, and the black horns that curled back from that massive forehead gleamed like obsidian. The Worm’s breath was ancient meat and brimstone and one of his forefeet could have flattened six of Eagle at once. He slept on a mound of gold and jewels and bones.

And Brother Fox and his friends walked right by like it was nothing. Eagle could hardly breathe for fear. He kept along behind, but hunched in small. The closer he got, the more he wanted to turn and run; by the time he walked past the terrible mouth, he wasn’t breathing at all.

Up ahead there was a sharp crack and a jingle of coin, so loud in the chamber Eagle jumped out of his skin and barely managed to swallow a childish scream. And he froze in place, trembling and hugging himself, ’til he could recover a little.

A strange slithering sound made him look to his right, and what he saw—he so near shat himself—he let out a toot of wind and a little whimper, gazing into a glowing yellow eye taller than he was. The slither came again, and Eagle’s breath snagged watching the thinnest membrane flick across that slit-pupil snake eye, and back again. Eleazar lifted his head slightly. “I smell Vercingetorix on you, rodent.”

“He’s—he’s my friend,” Eagle stammered.

“Eagle Eye!” That was Brother Fox, horror in his voice, but the Worm ignored him, snuffling at Eagle’s tunic with a snout at least as big as a cow.

“Unicorns and fairies. Child, they won’t help you here.” Eleazar ran out a tongue black in the red mage-light and tasted Eagle soles-to-scalp in one sloppy lick, closing his massive eyes with pleasure. “Too bad there isn’t more of you. You’re delicious.” He smacked his chops together, and Eagle didn’t think. He bolted, feet slewing on the treasure as he skidded for one of the rock formations nearby. Eleazar’s great head rose on his neck, up, up, when Eagle glanced back.

“Leave him alone!” Brother Fox yelled. “I came for you, Eleazar, you disgusting old earthworm!” And the Worm of Shirith cocked his head to look at the Crown Prince. Eagle’s blood ran chilly. The Swifts cowered behind Brother Fox, like stone, and Eagle tried to wave them over behind the pile he’d found, but they didn’t even look his way; fascinated, they were, by the wicked magnificence of Eleazar, the sheer size of him. The red mage-light flickered out. Eagle clutched at the rocks in front of him. It was so dark, blacker than night, and the Worm’s laughter shook the mountain.

A sound like a drawing bellows on a terrific scale—and fire, blinding, blue at the heart, a blaze no Longnight bonfire could equal, belched from Eleazar’s mouth. The Swifts’ skin blackened under it. Their screams echoed through the roar of the flames. Brother Fox fell to his knees, head down, arms crossed in front of him, and the flames bowed around his shield of magic, a shimmery half-sphere.

Blackness again. Eagle trembled, and then came a whisper and golden mage-light shone out from Brother Fox’s hand. In the other hand he held his long slim blade, and smoke curled up from the bodies of Swift Snake and Swift Cat behind him. The Worm lunged, and Brother Fox dashed aside, but the serpent tongue slithered out for one of the twins. Fast as a lash, the body was in the Worm’s jaws, and the huge scaly throat worked, swallowing.

Eagle touched his bow, and he still wasn’t thinking, at least at the top of his mind. He started to climb the high tower of rocks he’d hidden behind. The other twin disappeared down the Worm’s pale-red throat.

“Come on, you filthy beast!” Brother Fox screamed. Eagle didn’t dare look at anything but his climbing. He reached up to the next hold, set his foot, went to the next and the next. His bare feet carried him up soft. His leather bracer hugged around his arm, reassuring. One shot. He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t listen to what was going on below, the snapping jaws, the roaring, the insults Brother Fox shouted at Eleazar, the Worm of Shirith.

At last, Eagle reached the end of his climb. His balance didn’t fail him. He stood at the very top of the rock tower, higher than all the rest, as high as the Worm’s head when he reared back to lunge at Brother Fox again. It wasn’t quite a man’s bow Eagle had, since he didn’t quite have his man’s height, but it was stout and flexible, and made just to his size, with as much pull as he could possibly manage. He needed both hands to string it.

He nocked his arrow as Brother Fox flung his glob of golden light straight into Eleazar’s face and conjured another. Eleazar slashed out with a claw, snagging Brother Fox’s shirt and tearing cloth, but not flesh.

Eagle couldn’t watch. He let the world collapse to his eye and the eye of the Worm. If he could sink an arrow into that great glowing orb, they might have a chance. He drew full. His foot shifted and the Worm, enraged now, whirled on him. But Eagle had already loosed.

Eleazar batted the arrow away, or so Eagle thought, but his heart didn’t have time to sink before the claw hit the ground and the fletching of the arrow disappeared into the black slice of a pupil. The Worm let out a shattering roar: “You dare?” And he came after Eagle on top of the rock tower. There was no other choice. Eagle flung himself down, tucking and rolling, as loose as he could. His bones shook and he felt himself cracking every time he bounced. At last he lay curled on the floor. Silence now, but for his own hammering heartbeat.

“Hey-la-hey!” Brother Fox shouted, unflattering surprise in his voice. “Eagle, brave Eagle, you’ve done it!”

Eagle tried to stand, but his leg erupted in pain, and he cried out and fell again. He lay back on the cavern floor, staring up at the Worm of Shirith with his mouth cracked wide over the rock tower, gold-red in Brother Fox’s mage-light. Eagle floated into oblivion.

When he woke, it was in a white bed and morning streamed in the window. Brother Fox slept in a chair on one side of the bed and Father snored in one on the other side. On the nightstand was a perfect ruby scale, as large as his hand. His leg was only a little sore, and the room had the green, nose-pricking scent of all-heal salve.

From the door, the High King said, “Well done, Eagle Eye Wormsbane.”

Commission Portfolio -- 18+ ONLY

Here is a completed commission for an anonymous buyer. They requested porn and feels, which is one of my jams.
The content is definitely 18+. Please do not read if you're a minor, or uncomfortable with these sorts of things. 

~*~

The high heels of her boots click, click, click on the paved walkways of the zoo. She buys him an ice cream cone and asks how he's doing.

"Oh, well, fine... I guess," he says.

"Are you uncomfortable?"

He goes red, flush spreading across his face like the spilled strawberry wine from last night. On her white carpet. "No." He's blushing because he's never felt more comfortable in his life, and he doesn't know how to tell her. The lingerie itches just enough to remind him it's there.

"Then I'm not really doing my job," she says airily, and leans down for a long lick on his ice cream cone, eyes bright gems on his over the round metal frame of her sunglasses.

He goes redder.

She straightens, shakes her head. Shiny short hair falls instantly back into perfect place around her head, around her horns. "Shall we go to the monkey house next, or do you want to see the bears?"

"I don’t like the monkey house," he says. He hates the monkey house, with its closeness and stink, but he thinks with her it would be much better. “But if you want to go, we can go.”

She sighs, affecting a pose of annoyance. It seems sometimes like her every movement is a pose, his tall Amazon-oni-woman, his. That still seems wrong, that he should get to call her his. Last night, though, she kept assuring him all through it, even though he had to scream "jelly!" twice. Kept telling him how good he was. "You must have an opinion," she says now.

"My opinion is whatever you want." Whatever she wants it to be, it's hers. She doesn't understand what it means to him, honestly. She doesn't know how it is to have her accept him, even when he wants to be told he has to wear a bra and panties under his clothes.

She shakes her head and stops in the middle of the walkway. Irritated people swirl around them, two people in matching Power Rangers t-shirts, even though hers fits better over the large swell of breasts (conveniently near the level of his eyes). She ignores them even when he glances around, and she puts one hand on her hip. "I want you to tell me what you like."

"Bears it is." She seizes his arm and threads it through hers, glowing a beautiful smile down at him as she leads them off to the bears.

He can't disappear or fade when she's around. That's something he loves and hates about her. He's used to being invisible, and he thought he liked it that way, but when he's with her, they're always drawing eyes.

Regardless, it's a good day. They don't go to the monkey house, but 'round about the polar bear he starts wishing he'd shaved his legs. Wearing thigh-highs with hair everywhere itches worse than the underwear.

Still, he bears up. It's not that hard to deal with; it just reminds him of what she said this morning: "You've got great legs, Kit," low and appreciative while she drew up the stockings, up his legs. He shivers, remembering more, remembering her perfect lacquered nails up his thigh, the little slap on his balls. How did she know?

It's still so new, this holding hands with her in public, this private closeness between them even when they're surrounded by other people. And he likes people looking at them, likes thinking people are wondering what such a small guy could have to offer her. He's not too sure himself, but he's learning to go with it.

Later, he's much more comfortable. He puts his hand on her knee while she drives home, almost asking a question of her with the touch, and she beams like a lighthouse in the gathering dusk. The top's down on her car, and she speeds down the highway, 85 at least. Zips in and out, so easy, with his hand on her knee and a look of deep satisfaction on her wicked plum-colored face. When she pulls into her driveway, it's already night.

"Are you sure you want me to come in?" he asks, when she bustles out of the car. Her jeans flex over her butt. "You don't want to take me home? I mean, my stuff's in the car already..."

"I changed my mind," she says, leaning close to search his face. She lifts some of his hair off his face and inspects him like he's still so new to her. She does that sometimes. "Is this okay?"

"Of course it's okay." He kisses her. She's really close, and he just... kisses her, and she leans farther into the car, almost falling in on the seat.

"Okay." Their faces are still so close, and he feels her smile more than sees it. "I think I love you," she says, almost offhand, as she's turning away.

“Well," he says. "Well. All right. I think I love you too." And it feels natural and good. He's fallen in love with her a dozen times over the few weeks they've known each other, sinking deeper and deeper beneath the surface of her until he's surrounded with no thought of coming up for air.

She grills on her postage-stamp deck, KISS THE COOK on her apron. He does, about a hundred times it seems like. Slow night-time traffic rolls by on the busy road outside her tiny yard. Fireflies dance over the lawns. He’s drinking a frosty beer from some Wisconsin microbrewery and watching her flip their burgers when she says, “So when are you going to tell me your real fantasy?”

He almost spews beer. It’s so comfortable here he almost forgot the intention.

“Last night,” she says, “was incredible. Last night,” she says, more softly, “I felt like you were still holding out on me.”

“I didn’t -- I don’t want to do that.” He rolls the bottle between his palms, nervous, sitting forward. “I don’t want to hold anything back. But I can’t --” He shakes his head.

She’s so powerful, so female. It overwhelms him sometimes, a lot of times. They’ve spent a lot of time together, in bed and out of it, and still he can’t quite get over how bold, how strong she is.

“Take your time,” she says, kissing his forehead, and turns back to the grill.

He turns away, propping his elbow on the railing, and watches the fireflies do their mating dance across the little swatches of grass. Would she turn away, if she knew? Suddenly he doesn’t feel like eating one of her amazing cheeseburgers. “I want --” he begins, stops. Swallows and begins again: “I wanna be your girl.”

"Okay," she says, and she's smiling at him like she's the hot heart of the sun. She tucks an unruly lock of his hair behind his ear.

"That's it?"

"That's it," she says. "Whatever you want."

"But--just like that?"

She straightens to her full height and looks down on him, beautiful and bold. "Do you want me to be upset with you? Do you want me to tell you I don't want to see you ever again? Do you want me to kick and scream?"

"Well, no."

"Then what do you want?"

"I thought you'd--" He gestures helplessly. "I mean, I didn't expect--" With a defeated sigh, he collapses in on himself, slumping low in his seat. "I don't know."

"You were expecting something different."

"Yeah. Yeah, I was."

"I am what I am," she says, shrugging, and goes back to the grill to put cheese slices on the burgers. "You are what you are. I accept you like I'd want to be accepted."

He rolls the beer bottle back and forth, back and forth. "Is it that easy for you?"

"I don't know," she admits. "I guess it helps that I kind of expected you to tell me something like that. After last night."

"That was pretty incredible," he says, laughing with the happiness that comes over him.

She grins, plopping each burger onto a lettuce-covered bun. "Hell yeah it was. You want to talk about a scene for tonight, or just go vanilla?"

"Oh," he says, "let's talk about a scene. Please. If you're up to it."

They eat cheeseburgers and talk it over, and that's how, a couple of hours later, he's walking shyly down the stairs, careful on the carpet in a very high pair of heels.

They're white patent-leather pumps. Where she got a pair that fits his feet, he doesn't quite know. The red fishnet covers his body under the white drape of silk cocktail dress. It feels strange on his sensitive, just-shaved skin, but good, too, rubbing and--just a little bit--scraping. He's shaved everything, and the fishnet cradles him just so.

"You look sexy," she says, from her deep, soft white sofa. She's sitting there in a white vinyl catsuit that sets off her mauve skin and shiny hair. Her boots are white; her gloves are white. She's wearing Pinky, strapped on, and he shivers at the sight of the thick pink dildo rising from her white-vinyl crotch. "Let's go up to the bedroom."

He tilts her a smile from his lipsticked mouth. He wants to go, but he says, "I don't know about these stairs."

She's there in a flash. Even with his heels she towers over him, leans on the stairs' railing, into his space. "No problem." And she sweeps him up in her arms. He squeaks a little, grabs her neck; she grins and carries him back up the stairs.

The bedroom is ready. It's all blues, that room, a fake denim bedspread, blue jersey sheets. Blue carpet and darker throw rug in front of the attached bathroom.

She's kissing him even before she throws him on the bed. Her weight comes down on top of him, hard, and Pinky jabs between his legs, between his ass cheeks. Her hips roll, rubbing Pinky against him through the fishnet. Her mouth is hot, tongue thrusting, and sharp, teeth nipping. He lets her have her way with him, kiss him until his toes curl inside his pumps. He's got a hard-on that has to be obvious, and with her body on him, with her thrusting against him, it won't be long before he comes.

She knows it, too. By now she knows his shivers and sounds, and she stops when he's just short of climax. He groans with involuntary protest; he knows he shouldn't complain, that she doesn't like it very much, but he can't help it.

Snap, and he's cuffed.

She grins again, wide and white. "Well, well, well. Look what we have here." Fists on hips, standing straight and tall, she laughs wickedly. She's like that; it's playing to her, sex, it's fun and exciting.

"I can do anything I want," she says, pacing back and forth, around the bed and back again. "I can make you do whatever I want. Look how nice you shaved for me." She laughs again, stroking the vinyl-clad fingers of one hand across his butt, his taint. He shudders; he's still sensitive from shaving, and a little sore from Pinky rubbing up against him, but he tries not to move.

She cackles and grabs his ankles with strong hands, pushes his legs high with strong arms. "Stay there," she says.

"All--all right." He's spread out and trembling with want for her, and her fingers slide down fishnet calves to the backs of his thighs. She teases him, slow and careful, rubbing his taint lovingly, then his hole. He gasps. scared by how good it feels. But he trusts her to take care of him, too. She plays around down there for a long time, denying him his orgasm again and again.

She crawls onto the bed and pushes his legs down, and his arms, so his hands don't fall asleep. "I want mine," she says, and sits on his face.

He groans blissfully. The bodysuit is crotchless, the harness set up in such a way as he gets a faceful of deep wine-colored pussy and ass. A noseful of the dark smell of sweat and pussy, of carefully washed ass.

"Lick it," she says, muffled by the rest of her body. "Eat it all up."

He slurps from clit to asshole, dipping his tongue into her salty pussy as he passes it. She sighs, long and happy, and he presses his lips to her back door, kisses it like he would her mouth. Feasts on her musk and makes her moan.

"Good job," she says in a shivery voice when he sucks her clit. "More. Do more." Her muscled thighs quiver and clasp his head, blocking his ears. All he can hear is his own blood pulsing, his own groans through his head. He's surrounded by taste and scent, buried alive in it. He can hardly breathe, kissing her there. His crotch feels hot and tight.

She comes and he can feel it on his face, the pulse and tremble running through her pussy and into her legs.

She doesn't tell him to stop, either. He's grunting and licking her all over, and she doesn't get off his face until she comes twice more.

"Good job," she tells him again, and pats his cheek. "You're a dirty girl, aren't you?"

He nods enthusiastically, gasping for air.

She laughs again and moves to the bottom of the bed, between his legs. "My dirty girl." She strokes his dick through the dress, silky material, rough fishnet. He moans, again when she stops, again when she starts; he feels huge, swollen and overly sensitive, and his balls pull up tight.

"I'm getting the lube," she says.

He nods.

"Don't move."

"Yes, I mean, no, I won't." His legs are wide, feet on the bed, the shoes forcing his knees to go wider. She gets up and crosses to the bedside table.

The sliding sound of the drawer makes him shiver, he's that sensitive now. He hears her rummaging, taking out toys. She has quite a few, bullet vibrator, anal beads. She takes out three different dildos, including a gigantic Bad Dragon number with lumps in fascinating places--he didn't know about that one. Anticipation spikes sharply through him, over and over, while she thinks about what lube she wants to use. He's seen two or three different ones already.

His heart’s thundering so hard he can hardly hear anything else now. He’s sweating, and it stings on freshly-shaved pits and balls.

Finally, she chooses, and comes back to the end of the bed. He strains his neck to look at her, but can't make out what she's doing, only hear a long squirt. She grabs the fishnet and twists it, tightening it over his package, and starts fingering him with a slippery vinyl glove. He moans, and loses himself for a little while, one finger, two, three, grinding over his sweet spot.

"Kit."

"Ummmm. What is it?" His eyes are closed, rolling languorous beneath the lids, holy shit, it's so good. She pulls her fingers out.

"I'm about to fuck you."

“Wait, wait--eek!” He squeaks when she nudges the bottle right up against him and squirts him full of cold wetness. There's more squirting, but he's busy shuddering with chilly delight. Then she nudges something else against him.

Pinky.

"Open your eyes," she says, right above him. "Look at me."

He obeys her. She's there, beautiful, with wickedness dancing in her eyes and a broad smile on her face. His wrists hurt when he tries to jerk his hands out to grab her arms. He needs--

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” And she takes him all at once, one easy thrust, not too fast, but nothing like slow. He yells as she fills him up, and she fucks him hard and harder. One of her hands slides under the dress and touches him. The world goes black for a moment that feels like forever. His toes curl inside the pumps, and it burns all the way up his chest to bring tears to his eyes.

She slides out and takes the cuffs off him; he presses the heels of his hands into his stinging eyes as he tries to pull his body back together from the explosion.

He's shaking head to toe. She takes off his shoes and rubs the cramps from his legs before she goes into the bathroom.

While she's in there, he rolls to his side and curls up tight, overwhelmed. And he cries a little when she runs the water, quiet, so she won't hear him. It means too much.

She doesn't come back until he's done crying. Whether it's accident or design, he's grateful. He can look her in the eye again. She's changed into pajamas, a pair of cotton shorts, a TWRP t-shirt washed soft that fits tight over her braless breasts.

Tenderly, she cleans him up with a warm washrag and helps him out of the bodysuit, into his own pajamas.

"Let's go watch Rider," she says, wiggling her eyebrows, and it makes him laugh for the first time all night.

"Okay," he says, taking her hand. She leans down and kisses him.

Later, on that big soft couch, with cheesy Japanese TV washing light over their faces, vanilla float glasses empty and sticky on the table, he holds her close and she holds him. "I've never been happier," he says suddenly.

She smiles down at him. Their eyes meet, and now he's happier than ever.