Raine: The Lords of Satyr (3 page)

Salerno held up a hand, rebuffing the question. “The subject’s family forbids that question and all others that might lend clues as to its identity.”

Grumbles rippled over the audience.

“I object to the term
it,
which seems inappropriate and demeaning,” an Englishman wearing spectacles protested.

“What would you have me called?” Jordan snapped.

“An abomination!” someone shouted from the back of the theater.

Heads swiveled backward, peering toward the far end of the center aisle. Two men had entered unnoticed at some point and now stood there.

Jordan sat forward and shaded her eyes, trying to better see them. The one who’d spoken was rounded with too much flesh, but the other was broad shouldered, narrow hipped, and extremely tall. She felt the tall one’s eyes travel over her. Weighing her. Did he think her an abomination, too?

She squinted, trying to make out his features, but found it impossible to decipher them clearly through the dimness. His bearing was straight, almost rigid, giving the impression he was well over six feet.

Her cock perked to attention under his lengthy inspection and she hunched, hugging her arms around her knees to hide it.

The tall one’s gaze darted up to lock with hers. Sparks of silver caught the candlelight. He’d seen her desire, his eyes told her, and he wanted her as well. But somehow she sensed he didn’t like it.

“You’re a monster. A creature of the devil,” the squat man beside him stated with unshakable authority.

The taller one remained silent, ignoring his companion. So he would not defend her. But then why should he? No one ever had. She would defend herself.

Her eyes shifted from him to the other one. He wore the robes of a bishop. It mattered not what he thought, she told herself, but she could not let his slanderous comments pass unchallenged.

“Why should my external genitalia define me as a monster?” she argued. “For all you know I could be a saint in my heart.”

“Blasphemous creature!” the bishop snarled, shaking a finger at her. “It’s obvious you’re no saint.”

At that moment, a thin, anxious man stepped up to the pair of interlopers at the back of the theater.

Salerno moved toward the center of the stage, obscuring her view of them. Raising and lowering his arms in a flapping manner, he attempted to regain the attention of his audience.

“Gentlemen, please. Let us continue with our debate…”

Jordan pushed herself higher, trying to peer beyond him. But the two men in the aisle were gone now. Disappointment shot through her.

“You will note the presence of labia minora and labia majora as can be found in any female,” Salerno droned on, moving to her side.

Reluctantly, she released her grip on her knees and splayed them. With one hand, Salerno reached between her thighs.

“The labia majora is not fused—” He broke off, abruptly leaning closer to peer between her legs. “What the devil?” He grasped her phallus between his thumb and two fingers. Gently he squeezed.

His excited eyes came up to meet hers. “I’ll be damned. I do believe you have the makings of a hard-on.”

O
nce the velvet curtain had swished open, Raine’s silver gaze had been drawn as iron to a magnet to the figure that half-reclined upon a table ringed in candles. She was splendid.

In spite of her contradictory body parts, it didn’t occur to him to question for a moment that she was inherently female. He simply knew it in the marrow of his bones.

“Pardone, signore,” a voice intruded from somewhere nearby. Distantly, he noted the bishop engaging the annoying babbler in a discussion. But Raine continued to stare at the stage, transfixed.

His gaze made a slow sweep of the figure on the table. She was petite but held herself regally, exuding a presence that had captivated the interest of an entire audience. How many men or women could recline naked in a public auditorium and still retain an air of proud disdain toward the onlookers, he wondered.

The dull sheen of her golden complexion caught the candlelight. Her eyes and hair were dark and lustrous. Her breasts were high, plump, and well shaped, but modest—each of a size that would neatly fill his hand. Her waist and hips were slender but curved. And below, in the nest at the crook of her thighs, lay a shy, delicate cock.

A hermaphrodite.

But why was she here, allowing herself to be publicly displayed like the main course on a platter at a formal meal?

And why did he want to climb onstage, crawl onto that table, and make a feast of her? At the sight of her, his own cock had hardened into a thick, strangled bulge within the crotch of his trousers. A powerful lust had risen within him, almost as though it were already Moonful.

But the moon would not reach its ripest fullness for another week. He’d never experienced a Calling time away from the Satyr Estate, at least not since he’d become an adult. However, it seemed unlikely he could finish his business here in Venice and be home before then. He would have to plan carefully to satisfy his cravings, yet avoid discovery.

When the harvest moon rose in the sky in seven days, his body would alter, becoming more powerfully potent. It would change physically in a way that had once terrified his former wife. During the Calling his mind would be overtaken with the need to rut from dusk to dawn.

Much like it had been the moment he’d laid eyes on the seductive creature onstage.

“Eh, signore?” The apologetic voice nagged at his attention again like a buzzing gnat.

Raine tore his fascinated gaze from the woman at the opposite end of the theater and looked down to see an obsequious man standing before him and the bishop. He was speaking, repeatedly punctuating his words with nervous little half bows. How long had he been standing there?

“Pardone, pardone, biglietti—”

Achoo!
Raine sneezed, silently cursed, and then asked, “What did you say?”

“Si, signore. Pardone, pardone. As I was explaining to your companion, tickets are required to attend Signore Salerno’s medical lecture this evening,” the man told him, obviously relieved to have finally snagged his attention.

“I assure you we have no interest in remaining here to witness such a disgusting display,” the bishop butted in.

Raine’s eyes went back to the stage, but the lecturer had moved in front of the woman now. Several in the audience were standing, hurling questions toward them, and their height further obscured her from his view. She hadn’t been struggling, and her eyes hadn’t been drugged. For whatever reason, he assumed she was here of her own free will. And he had pressing business elsewhere.

Without another word, he pivoted on his heel and exited the theater.

Upon Raine’s abrupt departure, the bishop ended his conversation with the ticket taker in midsentence.

He’d seen the bulge that tented the crotch of Satyr’s trousers. His moody companion might pretend indifference to anything sexual, but that horrendous creature on the stage had piqued his interest.

And since the bishop’s interest had been piqued by Satyr since he’d first seen him at the harvest festival nearly a year ago, he wasn’t particularly pleased to note the fact. He’d come all this way for the lecture on the off chance that this elusive Satyr son might attend. More reclusive than his two brothers, he rarely left their Tuscany estate. Despite the bishop’s best efforts, he’d only managed to spot him a half-dozen times last year, and then only from afar. Yet his infatuation had flourished all the more for being denied.

He scurried into the hallway, watching Raine head for the other lecture hall. His eyes devoured the splendid shape of him. Of his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and muscled thighs.

Many times he’d imagined those very thighs braced as he himself rutted between them. Imagined the cries of ecstasy he might rend from that man’s lips. Imagined him hard and begging.

A sudden idea came to him. Perhaps he could procure the abomination on display in the theater for a private party of three later tonight. If Satyr were stimulated by the charms of La Maschera, perhaps he might not be averse to a certain suggestion the bishop hoped to put to him. Once sufficient wine had flowed between them all, perhaps other more personal fluids might be exchanged between them as well.

He would speak to the surgeon onstage about hiring his creature for the evening or perhaps longer. But if he departed this theater, the white-coated lecturer might escape before he could deliver his request. Yet he couldn’t let Satyr get away without learning where he was lodging in Venice. What to do?

As Raine’s steps quickly ate up the carpet ahead, the bishop made a decision. He turned back to the attendant who had trailed him into the hall. “I’ve decided not to attend the lecture on phylloxera tonight after all. I will take part in this lecture instead.”

“But signore,” the man whined, preparing to launch into his rehearsed speech again.

“Si, si. You needn’t hound me with your complaints again. What is the price of a ticket to this lecture?” he inquired, gesturing toward the door.

At the attendant’s reply, the bishop handed him the money and a little something extra.

“I will pay you again to return here to this theater later tonight and inform me when the gentleman who just went down that hall departs the other lecture for the streets,” he said.

Pocketing his offer, the attendant nodded eagerly and started to move in the direction Raine had gone.

The bishop grabbed his arm, staying him momentarily. “Do not let him know you’re watching him.”

“No, no. Of course not. Rest assured I will be discreet.” Once he had bowed several more times, he was on his way.

The bishop stared down the hall after him, hoping he could be trusted. Then he turned and re-entered the theater

Several medical fools from the audience were onstage now with the abomination, still questing for answers. The hermaphrodite offended his eyes and its speech, his ears. But seeing it being poked and prodded raised his cock. He rearranged the skirts of his alb to conceal the fact and quickly found a seat in the back row.

His hand slipped under folds of fabric, found his stiff prick, and began pumping. On occasions such as this when stealth was required, his bishop’s robes proved extremely useful garments.

The clerical profession was not his first choice, but the family fortune had been lost some two decades ago and he’d been forced to make his way in life somehow. If he succeeded in snaring a protector such as Satyr, it would greatly enhance his standard of living.

His hand pumped on, taking his mind far from the subject of phylloxera or the church. His hopes were in full blossom regarding the possibilities the night held and his lips were still and silent for once as he mentally rehearsed the persuasive words he would ply when he and Satyr were alone at last.

M
ore than an hour later, the crowd in the medical theater had finally exhausted their questions and departed. This left only a select group of five men, each of whom had paid Salerno a premium for a more private examination of her. Once they’d gathered onstage, Salerno swished the curtains closed, cutting off Jordan’s view of the now-empty seating area and creating a more intimate setting for the remaining group.

Outside she heard the clock bell in the piazza strike seven. She wouldn’t be officially free to return home until midnight. Five hours to go.

But no one here was in a hurry to end the evening except her. Wine and a tray of stemmed glasses were brought out, and the men prepared to idle the evening away in her company.

Two of the guests were Venetian aristocracy, she quickly deduced. With nothing better to do and more money than they knew how to spend, they’d lingered here to relieve their boredom at her expense.

A third one was more serious, an Englishman who nudged his glasses up and down his nose every so often. It was likely he at least had stayed for the purposes of true medical study.

The fourth was a large, bearded Sicilian whose deep-set eyes studied every inch of her as thoroughly as the artist had. A back-row type, his interest was obviously selfish and prurient.

The fifth man was a late arrival, one she’d seen before. It seemed the bishop who’d decried her earlier was back for another look. Unfortunately his tall friend was nowhere to be seen.

“There’s nothing here to interest a man of the church,” Salerno said suspiciously, when the bishop tried to make his way backstage to join the others.

“On the contrary,” the bishop returned. His eyes searched the interior of the stage beyond Salerno, lighting on Jordan. “I assure you that my purpose here is not on the church’s behalf. I come asking a favor. One that will benefit your purse.” He whispered something to Salerno that Jordan couldn’t hear.

“La Maschera is not for hire,” Salerno told him, shaking his head.

The bishop’s face mottled, his displeasure at being refused apparent. His tone turned louder and wheedling. “I will pay whatever you deem fair.”

But Salerno still held him off. “La Maschera is mine for this day only. At midnight, it must be returned to its domicile. Now be off.” He tried to swish the curtain closed on the stout man.

“Wait!” the bishop insisted, grabbing the edge of the velvet drape before it could shut him out. “Though the church is my calling, I assure you that I take a strong interest in numerous scientific matters.”

“And in abominations as well?” Jordan asked, pitching her voice so he would hear.

The bishop’s eyes impaled her, stopping the very breath in her throat.

He pulled out some currency and made a show of stuffing it in Salerno’s hand. “When I accidentally bumbled into your theater earlier, I was told tickets were required for this event. You’ll take this I trust in lieu of the usual purchase price?”

Salerno peered inside the bag of coins, jiggling it to test its weight. Grudgingly, he moved aside so the bishop could enter. “Very well. I’ll not argue further. In view of unforeseen developments, I’m anxious to get on with tonight’s examination.”

The clink of crystal told Jordan some of the others had begun filling their glasses. Leaving his guests to their own devices, Salerno came to her side holding a toolcase, a pen, and a small notebook.

“These are new, eh?” he asked her, rubbing a finger along her plumped labia.

She shrugged. Three of the guests gathered around them—the bishop, the Englishman, and the Sicilian—watching as Salerno again palpitated the twin lumps in her labia. Mentally distancing herself from what was happening, she stared at the ceiling, noting a rather large water stain that had been caused by a leak at some earlier time. It resembled a brown rabbit with unusually long ears. She tensed, realizing where she’d seen just such a rabbit before.

In her dreams.

Transfixed, she felt herself fall helplessly into the pit of her nightmare.

“Hello? Hello?” Salerno’s loud voice jarred her. “When did you first notice evidence of testes forming in your labia?”

Her eyes jerked toward him. He was looking at her strangely as though he’d been trying to garner her attention for some time. She swallowed, finding her throat dry. The pull of the dreams was growing stronger, reaching her even during waking hours.

“Testes?” Jordan repeated. “But are you certain that’s what they are? They’re so small.”

He waved her question away. “Don’t quibble with my medical expertise. I know what I see! When?”

“About ten months ago,” she replied.

His cold, veined hands lifted her phallus—limp now—and twisted and turned it, examining. Calipers were brought out of his toolcase to measure its length and girth at rest.

By now, she was inured to such examinations. Or so she told herself. Disassociating herself from what was happening, she continued to locate animal shapes among the ceiling’s water spots.

“From this angle the creature could be male or female,” a tipsy voice said from somewhere behind her. The two Venetians were apparently well on their way to becoming drunk. And from the sound of things, they were busily viewing the portraits the artist had made of her.

Jordan knew which particular drawing they were studying. It was the only one that could be described in that way. It was a rear view. She’d posed for it on her knees, her head bent low to rest on her folded forearms. In that position, the puckered ring between the cheeks of her buttocks gapped slightly. But they were right. It was one view in which she appeared normal, yet it was impossible to tell her gender.

“And who would know the difference in the dark?” came the first man’s slurred rejoinder.

“Not a buggerer like yourself I presume…” Jordan quipped, twisting to fling the words toward them.

The man’s companion slapped the fellow on the back, guffawing. “I do believe you’ve been insulted, il mio amico.”

Too soused to take affront, his friend only raised his glass in a sloshy toast. “A bung is a bung is a bung is amongus,” he singsonged.

Jordan was immediately angry with herself for reacting. Her eyes sought the ceiling again, but the water stains failed to recapture her attention.

“No change in size from last year,” Salerno announced. Having measured her flaccid shaft in all dimensions, he scribbled a notation in his book. Then he asked the question she’d known would eventually come. “On what date did your penis first engorge?” His pen hovered over the page, waiting.

When the dreams had begun to plague her in earnest. When they’d become so frequent and compelling that it had become difficult to discern the difference between wakefulness and slumber. On the night dark masculine voices had begun to whisper carnal suggestions to her, causing her to writhe and gasp. Causing her shaft to harden and lift and to spill its ecstasy, despoiling her bedsheets. But she would tell him none of that.

“Well?” he prodded, scrutinizing her. “Is the question so difficult?”

“Ten months ago, the same as when the lumps formed in my labia,” she answered truthfully.

“I’d like to measure it at full attention,” Salerno told her. “Stroke it into tumescence for me.”

She glared at him, appalled, but he took no notice.

“Shall I do it?” he inquired helpfully when she didn’t obey. “Or one of the others here? Or would you prefer that I bring in a female to provoke it? There are doubtless plenty of whores prowling the streets, even on a night like this.”

Salerno would do exactly that, she knew. He was oblivious as to how revolting his suggestions would seem to her. Even if she explained, there would be no way to make him understand. He was as ever incapable of empathy with another human being.

“Whores?” one of the drunkards echoed, his interest perking. “Where?”

He and his tipsy companion roused themselves to gather with the others around her, intrigued by the prospect of new entertainment.

“I’ll do it. But I require privacy,” said Jordan.

Salerno tsked and blustered, shaking his head. “This is no time for false modesty. I want to observe the process to see if it proceeds normally. Where’s that tub of ointment?”

The bishop located the pot and extended it toward her.

She frowned at it.

“Do you require assistance after all?” the bishop asked.

“Not from the likes of you.” Jordan snatched the cream, swirled two fingers in it, and then curled her torso into the most concealing hunch she could manage. Closing her eyes, she blocked out her observers.

At ease, her phallus was only slightly longer than her palm. She worried at it for a few moments, searching her mind for inspiration. A vision of the shadowy, taller man who’d earlier come into the theater with the bishop sprang to mind. Her shaft invigorated. Six silent men watched her stroke herself to hardness.

“Ah, to be young and have a cock that rises so eagerly,” said one of the drunkards, toasting her.

Two droplets of red wine splashed on her thigh. She stared at them. The splotches looked like—blood. This, too, was just as she’d seen it in her dream.

Her gaze darted around the room, searching warily. Where was the third part of the dream? Where were the ribbons? When would they come to her? And from which direction?

Salerno shoved her hand aside and took the measurements he required. “Five point one inches.” He scribbled in his notebook, and then replaced his silver tool in its velvet-lined case.

The two drunkards watched as the bishop’s hand took over her movements on her shaft, squeezing toward its tip. She put a hand over his to stop him, but his fist tightened on her cap, forcing the slit at her tip to separate like a tiny mouth.

“An excretory canal for urine,” supplied Salerno, leaning over to observe.

“And sperm?” The bishop gazed directly into her eyes. She felt a brief flash of recognition. But she was certain she’d never met him. Surely he only resembled someone else she knew.

With a mighty shove at his chest, Jordan pushed him away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Answer him,” said Salerno, his pen poised once again to note her reply.

Though her blood boiled, she made a show of studying her nails, affecting boredom. “Yes,” she replied.

The Sicilian stroked his beard. “Then do you suppose the subject could actually father a child?”

Salerno eyed her speculatively. “Difficult to say. I suppose a whore could be brought in to test the theory in actual practice.”

“I’ll not impregnate any whores for you,” Jordan protested, pulling herself into a tighter ball and wrapping her arms and the cloak around her knees. “Even if I’m able to. Which I’m not.”

“You deny that you possess testes? A phallus? You deny all evidence of your God-given maleness?” asked the bishop.

“No! In a physical sense I’m not completely male or female. And I accept that. I simply wish in my heart to live as a woman in this world.” How good it felt to say it aloud.

“Are you sexually aroused by men?” asked the Sicilian.

“Yes.” She glanced at the overabundance of sweaty black hair that swelled from his collar and between the strained fastenings of his shirt. “Well, not all men.”

“Disposed toward men,” Salerno noted in his black book.

“So you wish to engage in sodomy?” the bishop inquired.

“Thank you kindly for the offer,” said Jordan, “but—”

The bishop hissed between his teeth, raising a hand as though to strike her before catching himself. “Blasphemous creature! If you must wear the Carnivale mask, it should be the moretta. Lips as foul as yours should remain forcibly buttoned.”

The moretta he referred to was a mask that covered the entire face but had no string attached to tie it fast. Instead, it was held in position by its wearer biting a button on the inside of the lips. This necessitated that its wearer remain mute or lose the mask!

“Have you ever been sexually aroused by a woman?” one of the drunkards inquired, drawing her gaze.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Yes, but likely no more often than any of you have been aroused by a man. Whether its owner is male or female, a beautiful body, face, and spirit combined in one package tends to draw every eye. Do you not agree?”

The men shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to admit the truth of what she said.

“But if you were forced to choose one and only one gender as a sexual partner for the rest of your life on this earth, which would it be?” prodded the bishop.

It was a question that dogged her. Did the circumstances of her body dictate that she could never be satisfactorily partnered for life with only one gender? If so, how could she ever hope to find love—unless she found another hermaphrodite who happened to suit her disposition! And what were the chances of that?

“Must it be one or the other?” she asked. “Can your God not find it in His heart to allow the possibility that there might be a sliding scale in such matters? Can a body such as mine not seek its pleasure with both genders?”

The bishop’s doughy complexion turned an apoplectic hue. “Again you blaspheme!”

“But earlier tonight, you said you do not bleed,” the Englishman insisted, ignoring the outburst. “Aside from your breasts and vaginal canal, what is the source of this belief that you’re female?”

Tapping her head, then her chest, she said, “It’s something my mind and heart direct me toward.”

He nodded, seeming to understand.

Salerno gestured toward her testes and wilting cock. “I must agree with the good bishop. With these new developments, your claim to womanhood seems to be hanging by a fragile thread.”

He leaned low to her ear. “Perhaps my lie to your family was not so large after all.”

She turned her head, whispering, “Then your hold on my family lessens.”

His eyes slitted. She’d spoken unwisely.

When she averted her gaze from him, it fell on the bishop. He’d overheard their conversation, and she saw the flash of curiosity in his eyes. She patted her mask making certain it was still in place.

“What if you were to mate the subject with a man?” the Sicilian inquired suddenly. “If a child resulted, would that not prove it to be a female?”