Shame washed away the peace that orgasm had brought. He must have felt my embrace stiffen around him.
“You’re attractive enough in your true form, but I just want to see.”
I managed not to scoff, outwardly in any case.
Rising back into his seated position on top of me, Flesser gazed down, stretching out a hand to stroke my cheek. “You are one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s not real, Flesser. It’s all illusion.” I turned my head, adjusting so my cheek lost contact with his fingers.
With a sigh he withdrew and sat back, letting his weight rest on my abdomen. “It is more than that. It is what should have been. You should have been the prince. Not Xenith. And I could have been your king.”
The night breeze flowed over us, cooling our sweating skin. I didn’t respond. How could I? Which truth would help?
Had my rebirth gifted a different destiny, I would never have glanced Flesser’s direction, much let take him as a mate. His own transition, though more successful than my own, had barely left him more than an outcast. Everything was proportional, and there were no malformations. Yet Flesser’s appearance was average in every way save one. Those glowing eyes had allowed him to stay part of our civilized society. They were gorgeous, like orange sapphires, but they were his only redeeming grace.
Should I tell him that every time I shift my appearance to be that of Quay, the prince, the cuts on my soul deepen? That I am aware he never speaks the name accompanying my past form? That I know he does not love me? Worse, that despite his effect on me, I have fallen in love with him? That I hate myself even more due to that fact?
Maybe I should let it all out, say it all. He would turn and walk away. Probably fly away as quickly as his insect wings would take him.
I couldn’t understand why Flesser chose to be with me. It made no more sense than the first time he approached me so long ago. If he truly had some physical desire for me, he could use me at his whim, or should he feel the need to dominate, hurt, or shame, he could use my body for any such purpose. Though rare—we fairies are kind and gentle by nature, or so I used to believe—it did happen from time to time. At first, I fought against the occasional rape. No longer. There was no point. But none of that was what Flesser seemed to desire.
In more rational moments, when I put aside my feelings for him, it made a strange sort of sense. Flesser was on the lowest edge of our society, of fairy society—I am no longer a part of it. He was nearly an outcast himself. I doubted there were any who desired him. At least I had been a prince. Could have made him royalty. At least in his delusions.
To my shame, there was little I would deny him. Due to my own delusions, to be sure. Despite knowing the truth of that, there was comfort in nonreality. When his skin touched mine with desire, when the warmth of his body heated my own, when orgasm shattered all awareness, everything was forgotten. There was only that fragment of time. Only that feeling. Only that drug. All else disappeared. Almost.
But I did withhold three things from Flesser. At both our arrival and our departure, I allowed my true appearance to be seen, a reminder of who he was truly with. Despite changing my face, I refused to adjust the reality of my wings. I did not allow him to share in what they were; I held that to myself. And I never revealed that I had contact with my brother. Flesser often directed is envy in Xenith’s direction, I did not defend Xenith or give any retort at all. I had fallen foolishly in love with Flesser, but there was no soul I would trust with Xenith’s and my crime of contact.
Such considerations made Flesser’s presence suddenly bitter and his weight upon me nearly suffocating. No sooner had he shifted and lifted himself to stand above me than I longed for him to return to his previous position, to feel the comfort of his skin, the heat of his desire.
I rose to a seated position, then stood beside him. I allowed him to see the illusion of my face for a moment longer. As a reward, he reached out and stroked my cheek once more.
His jeweled eyes sparked with renewed hunger. “Tomorrow?” Even as he spoke, his other hand began to trace over my chest.
Letting the illusion fall away, I stood in front of him, allowing the starlight to illuminate my imperfections.
Flesser dropped his touch, and the lust passed from his eyes.
Mortification rushed through me at his rejection, but I tilted my chin in defiance, calling on some princely arrogance that remained buried deep within me.
He turned away. “Tomorrow, then.” With no further acknowledgment, he flew off into the darkness.
Five
Over the following weeks, I took to wandering the forest during the daylight hours. At first, I blamed not being able to get the arrow out of my thoughts. Possibly that was true, but my concern over the weapon’s implications were minimal compared to my growing sense of wanderlust. I wasn’t usually so careless. I wasn’t just an outcast fairy. I couldn’t just traipse anywhere I desired as long as I avoided any of the proper population. I was the abomination. There was no freedom for me. No moment where I might forget what I had become.
I’d never broken any rule, save maintaining my relationship with Xenith. That relationship kept me compliant. I couldn’t take the chance of drawing attention to myself and risk losing him.
However, that was before. Before what, I wasn’t entirely sure. But something had shifted. I left the royal confines before sunrise every morning and didn’t return until late afternoon. Countless hours were lost wandering through the changing leaves. Their beauty and the sound of my feet crunching through their ever-increasing depth on the forest floor never took from my mind who and what I really was, but the illusion of freedom did make my fate all the more agonizing. It made the invisibility within fairy society all the more piercing, the infrequent abuse more intolerable. It was torture. I couldn’t stop.
In some ways I was creating my own punishment more than anything my mother could have come up with.
It wasn’t just the limits of my station that began to crumble. Even my own rules lost meaning. I’d stopped forcing Flesser to see my true face, instead allowing the illusion of perfection I should have been be the only thing he saw. I’d kissed him goodbye, with perfect lips. Flawless, unblemished dark skin.
Even if I would never give in to my desire to flee, the longing increased with every passing moment. Still, it could swell to the point that it strangled me, I would not leave Xenith.
To my shame, Xenith was no longer the only reason I returned from my wanderings.
I was in love.
