by M J Marstens
At this, I see Edgar shuffle on his feet uneasily, but again, it’s Mrs. Gerty who answers:
“Yes. Most recently, I was your thesis advisor for your master’s degree and before that, your technologies professor.”
“Ms. Standforth?! You nearly failed me!” I shout angrily.
“My job is to push you to your fullest potential, not coddle you,” she sniffs, looking me up and down. “Although, from your library book requests, I feel I may have failed you.”
Still not cool to punch her?
Irritated, I round on Edgar.
“You have been awfully quiet in this, dad,” I sneer.
Edgar cringes and refuses to make eye contact.
“Well?! Were you one of my professors who failed me?” I demand.
“Professors don’t fail their students, Zahra, students fail themselves,” Mrs. Gerty inserts snootily.
If I ever make it back to Clemenston, I’m requesting the most heinous books possible. . . weird fetish books, sacrificial magick books, dirty, taboo sex books, you name it.
I watch Edgar struggle to speak. Finally, he runs a hand down his face and raises soulful eyes to mine:
“Zahra, I love you. . .”
Oh. Fuck.
No good ever came of those words. . .
CHAPTER 4
ZAHRA
The eight man-gods behind us have been oddly silent during this whole exchange, but at Edgar’s confession, a chorus of snarls sounds and raises the hair on my arms. I shoot them a quick glare over my shoulder. It screams ‘shut the fuck up!’. Thankfully, they get the message and fall silent again. I look to Edgar, urging him to continue, but also to never speak again.
“I was Mark,” he finally says.
Mark?
Mark?
MARK?!
As in: Mark, my first boyfriend?
Mark, who I met freshman year of college and dated on-and-off-again all the way through grad school?
MARK, WHO I LOST MY VIRGINITY TO?
“Yes, Zahra, obviously that Mark,” the Gert says dryly.
Guess I was talking out loud again.
“Oh, so he was one of those fucksticks that couldn’t get you off?” Nyam asks across the room.
Edgar looks baffled.
“What?” he asks the Sun god.
“Zahra never told you? She faked all her orgasms,” Nyam says with ill-concealed glee.
Dick.
“No, that’s not true, Zahra loved Mark and she very much enjoyed our. . .their. . . ah, private time together,” Edgar asserts, while looking to me for confirmation.
I suddenly find the ceiling painting very interesting again. The scratched-out moon phases now make sense.
Damn Moon.
She’s supposed to be a nurturing, motherly woman, not a bloodthirsty psychopath who wreaks so much havoc that I now have to confess my faked orgasms to an ex.
“Is that why you broke up with me?” Edgar’s voice cracks a little when he asks me this.
“I told you why I broke up with you when it happened. I just didn’t feel any real spark between us. . . I mean, months before, I told you we needed to spice up our sex life. . .”
“I thought you meant that figuratively!” he hisses.
“What could possibly be figurative about ‘gag me and fuck me against the windows with the curtains open’?!”
Mrs. Gerty coughs.
Yeah, this might be a private conversation.
“Edgar, can I speak with you alone for a moment?” I ask sweetly.
The eight men behind me growl in unison.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to polish his knob,” I mutter while dragging Edgar to the adjacent conference room.
“Could you be any crasser, Zahra Rosa?” Mrs. Gerty demands.
I stop and pretend to think for a moment.
“Nope, sorry to offend your not-virgin ears.” I snipe and haul Edgar into the room, slamming the door shut behind us.
“Zahra, I can explain.”
“Good, great. I would love an explanation.”
“You’re the Goddess of love. . . I’m innately drawn to you because you represent the highest form of wisdom and insight.”
“That’s your explanation?! That sucks even bigger balls than Mrs. Gerty’s!” I yell.
What a horse’s dick!
With that thought, I lose my shit and smack his shoulder in frustration. I feel an odd, tingling sensation run between us and then. . .
Edgar turns into a horse. . .
With a larger than average male horse’s appendage.
I yelp, astonished, and yank my hand back, but my startled cry seems to unsettle Edgar the Horse and he rears back in fright.
W-o-w.
He really is a horse’s dick.
Suddenly, the door slams open and Caed, Nyam, and Khal come storming in, followed by the twins, Arawn, and Mio. Kane’s massive girth stays to block the doorway. They are looking wildly around for the danger and finally everyone focuses on the horse, who is even more agitated than before.
“Where’s Chiron?” Mio asks.
“Why is there a horse in my office?” Khal roars.
“Ah. . . there’s a horse in your office because that’s really Edgar and Edgar is Chiron. . .so, Chiron’s right here. Ta-da!” I arc my hands toward the horse in a flourish, who whinnies unhappily. I sigh. “I accidentally turned Edgar into a horse. A horse’s dick, actually, since he was acting like one. . . so, can one of you gods turn him back, please?”
Caed and the twins double over in laughter and Nyam and Mio can barely hold each other up between their guffaws. Kane’s face has a hint of a smirk. Only Khal and Arawn don’t look amused.
“Well?” I demand.
“Well what?” Uran asks between chuckles. “You break it, you fix it.”
“What? I don’t know how to fix this! I don’t even know how I did it to begin with!”
“What were you feeling and doing when he changed?” Kane asks me gently.
“I was angry. . . he basically told me he ‘loved me’ because I’m the epitome of love. . . and then I thought he was being a horse’s dick, and I smacked his arm.”
“Ah, your intense emotions and the physical action caused your mental imagery to manifest itself. You are starting to manipulate your powers.” Arawn explains in his sexy accent. “Try to conjure Edgar as himself, while again feeling an intense emotion and touching him.”
Ok, yeah, I could totally do that. I stand before the horse with my eyes closed and softly rest my hand on his muzzle. I mentally try to envision Edgar, while conjuring up some powerful feeling, but. . . which one do I choose?
Betrayed?
Hurt?
Indignant?
Confused?
I think of Edgar’s confession and of him actually being Mark and all the aforementioned emotions seem to coalesce inside me. I again feel my hand become prickly and the soft fur of the horse shifts into the soft skin of a face. I crack an eye open, hoping to see Edgar fully restored.
Instead, I see Mark- who technically is Edgar, right?
Oh- and he’s naked.
Apparently, I can only manifest clothes for myself.
Of course, the guys are losing their shit cracking up again. Whether it’s at me or my naked ex, I have no idea. Someone has the decency to put some pants and a shirt on the poor minor man-god.
“No wonder she dumped your ass,” Caed chortles. “With a sorry excuse for a dick like that!”
“I didn’t want to overwhelm her,” Edgar-Mark explains. “I was her first. I didn’t want to hurt-”
His explanation is cut off when Caed steps up and menacingly grabs a handful of Edgar-Mark’s shirt. Before my eyes, I watch Caed change into a hulking, bright rust-red monster. His golden looks morph into something darker and more sinister. He now sports a full beard, glowing red eyes, like Khal’s when he is in god form, and even more muscles. And he looks like he is about to do some serious damage to Edgar-Mark.
I quickly run
up and wedge myself between the two of them, screaming that this is not how to treat a minor god, even if he is a centaur. I command Caed to change back and slam my arms out to separate the two. Again, tingles whoosh down my arms and it feels like I fell asleep on them.
Caed has been changed back to his human form.
And Edgar-Mark. . .
Is a horse again.
More accurately, a centaur.
Somehow, I restored Edgar to his true form as Chiron.
CHAPTER 5
ZAHRA
Both men seem floored.
“You. . . fixed me.” Edgar-Chiron seems dazed. “You fixed me!” He yells again, triumphantly.
I watch in stunned detachment as Edgar-Chiron changes back from human form to god form.
From an elderly neighbor of mine when I was a kid back to a centaur.
To a colleague of my dad’s and then back to a centaur.
From Mark to centaur.
And finally, from Edgar to centaur.
And then, he remains in god form- a white horse nearly double the size of a Clydesdale (how the hell does he even fit in this conference room?!), with a man’s gleaming blacker-than-night torso and head. His eyes and teeth shine unnaturally against the dark obsidian of his skin.
“Vesta!” he calls to Mrs. Gerty, who is trying to make her way around Kane.
When she sees Edgar (that’s the name I’m sticking with. . . this whole old neighbor-dad’s colleague-Mark-Edgar-Chiron mess is fucking with my mind), she starts sobbing, hugging his lower half of a torso. . . where a human penis would be, you know, if he didn’t flow into the front half of a horse. . .
“Chiron!” Mrs. Gerty sniffles. “Oh, Chiron!”
It’s truly a Hallmark moment.
And like the sap I’m, I find myself tearing up, too.
In a surprise move, Mrs. Gerty releases Edgar and rushes to give me a hug. She is holding me tightly to her starched bosom and I cannot understand a single word she is blubbering out, but for once, she seems one hundred percent happy about something I did. I feel the emotion swell inside my chest. I’m a people-pleaser to the core, even with my hippie tendencies. I wish Mrs. Gerty could be so personable all the time. . .
And like that, Mrs. Gerty is gone.
In her place stands Vesta, Keeper of the Flame. Her body is draped in luminescent, white robes, and what skin is showing glows a faint yellow. Her hair is long and white, but she does not appear aged. Her eyes are also white and seemingly sightless, with no iris or pupil.
“You restored me as well!” Her voice is deeper and echoes with ringing force.
She opens her palms face up and tiny flames leap to life in the centers.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Now we can start accomplishing things. Firstly, Chiron, let us make sure our connection was restored with the Majors when Zahra changed us.”
There is a moment of silence, wherein both Edgar and Mrs. Gerty close their eyes in concentration. In return, the eight Majors close their eyes, too. No one speaks or moves, but then Mrs. Gerty pulses a bright gold and laughs out loud again.
“Yes, Zahra has restored everything!” She turns to face her empty eyes on me, “Thank you, my lady Venus.”
“Ah, you’re welcome. . . can you turn back to Mrs. Gerty and Edgar now?”
I feel selfish asking, since this is their first reunion with their true forms in twenty-seven years, but my brain can only take so much. . .
Thankfully, neither seem too put out by my request and change back.
“Come,” Mrs. Gerty directs in full general mode and ushers us back into the main office. “We need a plan of action.”
Everyone seats themselves in their usual order: the twins on the bench, then Arawn sitting next to Mio, who is next to Kane, a space where the center aisle rug runs, then Caed on the lime green divan, and Khal seated at his desk. Nyam decides to park himself on the edge of Khal’s desk and smirks wickedly at me when I take my usual spot next to Caed. Mrs. Gerty and Edgar stand in between Kane and me, waiting for direction. Of course, Khal the Dictator wastes no time giving them orders.
“We will apprise Zahra of her true nature as Venus and protect her from Lina. In the meantime, do you think you and Chiron can investigate the missing Minors?” Khal asks Mrs. Gerty.
“Yes, we will search the solar system in this dimension before jumping up and searching the others.”
Jumping up? Up where?
But before I can even start to ask the new onslaught of questions burgeoning my mind, Mrs. Gerty and Edgar vanish.
One second they are standing next to me. . .
The next, there is simply air and empty space. . .
Kind of like how one second I was staring at their disappearance. . .
And the next, I’m on my back on the divan, under Caed. . .
Warning: my mental processes have taken an interim holiday due to cerebral overload. In their place, my biological makeup has taken over. Examples of behavior at this level are moaning, hip rolling, begging, and leg stretching (a more polite way of putting ‘spreading’). Please keep all judgement at bay while I enjoy myself, thank you.
“You’re welcome,” Caed chuckles into my neck, before he scores it with his teeth.
Fuck, I’m thinking out loud again. Shut up, mouth! The only sounds you need to be making are sighs of encouragement!
Luckily, Caed does not need my reassurance to continue and proceeds to work his mouth down my neck to the swell of my breasts, where he gives each a playful nip before trailing kisses back up to my mouth. He settles his large frame heavily over mine and stops his gentle teasing to kiss me passionately, pushing his tongue past my lips to explore me thoroughly.
His hands sink into the flesh of my hips, pinning me down and anchoring his body to mine. I love the feel of him blanketing me- solid and warm, pushing against my core. I give a small whimper as he clutches me tighter, and I grind my center along the ridged zipper of his jeans. One hand leaves the sanctuary of my outer pelvis to curl inside my thighs. Our lips never part when he pumps two fingers into me.
“So wet,” Caed whispers, fucking me harder. “Do you like that, kitten?”
Now, normally I’m not crazy about pet names. Baby, sweets, sugartits. . . they all seemed a little ridiculous to me. But when these guys call me something, it makes me feel special. A ridiculous sentiment for sure, but Caed calling me ‘kitten’ makes me want to rub myself all over him while purring.
And the things he is doing to my body?
ME-OW.
“That is our name for her, bratik,” Illu suddenly pipes up.
I startle at hearing his voice. How I could even forget seven other unearthly gorgeous men were watching me get finger-fucked on the divan is beyond me, but Illu’s voice has me tipping my head back to look around.
“Yes, find something else to call her,” Uran commands.
Caed sighs above me like he is really put out.
“Fine. Sorry, little girl, I tried to call you something else.”
I angle my head to the side so I can glare at him while still watching the others, who are upside-down. That twatwaffle purposely baited the twins so he could rub in calling me ‘little girl’. I try to maintain my glower, but it’s hard to look disapproving when Caed is working his fingers faster and faster. I’m racing towards a peak I didn’t even know was in my sights.
Just as my body starts to bow towards his in pleasure, he pulls his fingers out and pinches my clit. Hot and cold tingles course through me and I’m at war between pleasure and pain. Caed is now rubbing himself suggestively against my dripping pussy. My head falls back against the seat in need. I again look to the others as Caed slowly unzips himself from his jeans.
Oh god. Are we really doing this?
Am I ready for an eightsome?
Is that even a word?
How did it even escalate to this?
A damn good question, actually. . . while it’s a struggle to access the mental capacity of thought given how
all focus is centered completely south of my navel, I recall Khal’s words ‘we will apprise Zahra of her true nature’.
Was this their explication?
Or a diversion tactic. . .
Sigh. . . I thought so. . . it pains both you and me that I have to put a stop to the carnal shenanigans, but dammit, I deserve some verbal honesty.
“Stop,” I tell Caed, but the word is breathy and utterly unconvincing.
In my defense, his dick is resting in his right hand and he’s flicking the tip with his thumb, while contemplating my spread and exposed core.
“Stop,” I try again, this time firmer.
Caed’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What’s the password?”
“You mean safe word. . . ah, tapioca?”
To my left, Khal bursts into laughter. Clearly he remembers when I tried to use this word before. . . to no avail.
“That is not the password.” Caed replies.
“But it’s the universal safe word!” I burst out.
“No, it’s not,” Nyam informs me. “Red is.”
“Red? Why red? Why not something cool like pineapple or strawberry?” I ask in earnest.
“You can’t have food as a safe word; what if we are fucking you with said edible, how would we know whether you want us to stop or continue using it on you or in you?” Mio tosses out.
“He makes a good point,” Caed adds, cock still throbbing in his hand. . .
Christ, how do our conversations always deteriorate like this?
“Fine! Sheesh. Red! Motherfuckingred!”
Caed instantly pulls back, his brows raised in superiority.
“Calm down. There’s no need to yell, little girl,” he says, grabbing my hand to swing me into a sitting position.
“Don’t call me that, dickhead,” I snap back, irritated with their games. . . I should have made him get me off first, then I might be nicer. “Now, you gentlemen promised me some answers.”
“I don’t recall saying those words explicitly,” Khal states in his clipped accent.
I attempt to give him my snarkiest look, but get distracted when I see Caed stuffing his monster dick back inside his jeans. The pants look uncomfortably tight. . . I feel so badly for our genitalia not getting the lovin’ they deserve right now. . .