by Bob Dattolo
Her breath caught in her chest before she caught me in another hug, this time pulling my face into her and holding me. “I’m sorry. This has to be so hard on you.” She rumbled deep in her chest for a bit. “I wish I could make this better for you, but I can’t. I can’t even understand why you’d have a problem with it. It’s just not something I grew up with. Most of the rest of us would be equally lost. Rachel would be the closest, honestly. She had issues getting used to things last year, but her nature makes some things easier. She just needed to accept them.” She held me longer before stepping back. “Look at it this way. You saw how Nick reacted to me in the hallway, right?”
I sniffled and nodded. “Yeah? He didn’t seem to care.”
“Right. He didn’t. Now, don’t get me wrong, people will look at you more because you’re new, but that’s it. Once you’re not new any longer, they won’t care beyond what they do for anyone else. Except for Rachel, we’ve all grown up with this. All of us. None of us care in the slightest. You can do this. C’mon, you took down the strongest shifter mage in school earlier today, are you telling me taking a shower is going to throw you? Going to the bathroom? Little babies can do both of those things. They do them without shame or even thinking about it. You can do it, too. I know it’ll be hard, but it’s something to overcome. Like learning to walk. It was hard at first, but you got used to it, to the point that you don’t even think about it. This is like that.”
“Yeah, except…” I looked her up and down.
She laughed. “C’mon. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have anything that I don’t have. That the other girls don’t have. Like was said earlier, the only thing you have that the guys don’t have is a vagina.” She held her hand out again. “C’mon, you’re not under your parents any longer. Step out and learn what it’s like to be part of the supernatural community.”
I took a deep breath and clasped her hand and let her tug me into the shower area, watching the little door close behind me. No, it didn’t latch, either. In fact, anyone walking up to the door would be able to see over it pretty easily, so I guess it doesn’t matter. She moved me to the side and turned on both showers. “Normally, we’d turn them on and let them warm up before getting in, but I didn’t think you’d be okay with that.”
My laugh was quiet. “Yeah, baby steps, I guess?”
The water warmed up pretty quickly, but then she looked at me again and lowered the temperature on one of them. “Sorry, forgot about the blood. You can either wash them on you, if you’re okay getting into the cold water, or take them off and we wash them separately?”
I stuck my leg into the cold water and yelped before stepping back, making her laugh. “Okay, strip then, we can wash them pretty easily.”
God, I so did not want to do this. It took her grasping my shirt and tugging it up before I took it off. It’s torn to hell. “I can’t save this.”
She nodded. “No. Someone probably has magic for it, but for a $20 t-shirt? Not worth it unless you can do it yourself.”
I fingered my bra and sighed. The strap was torn to hell and barely hanging on. Her fingers shocked me when she touched it.
“Damn, she tore you to hell.” She sounded shocked. “How were you able to pull her off of you? I’m not sure I could have done that without tearing her jaw off?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t want her biting me any longer.”
She leaned in and sniffed. “You know you should be a shifter now, right?”
My heart practically stopped. “What?!”
She sniffed again. “That’s how shifters make other shifters? A bite can do it. Granted, not always, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of anyone being as bitten up as you were that survived without turning into a shifter.”
“I…uhh…I’m going to turn into a shifter now?”
She shook her head. “No. At least I don’t believe so. You should have smelled like one already. Before the teachers even showed up in the lunchroom. You still smell the same.”
I’m sure my laugh sounded kind of broken and scared. “Oh…yeah, well that’s good, I guess?” I didn’t catch her slipping behind me and unhooking my bra. “What are you doing?”
She stepped back around front. “C’mon, let’s get your shorts washed.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Like at all. I’m not even sure I can see my comfort zone from here.
Pushing my shame down let me take my bra off. She’s standing here naked without a care, so I have to be able to do this. I don’t want to do it, but I have to be able to do it. And yet…I sort of do want to do it. I didn’t lie when I said sort of liked it earlier, because I did. It’s just, dang, I don’t even have words for it.
I dropped my bra on my torn-up shirt and looked down at my shorts before sighing and sliding them down. They were wet, so they took my underwear down most of the way, so I just slipped them off as well, leaving me naked in a shower with another girl for the first time since I was a baby.
What in the world has my life come to?
She took my shorts and looked them over. “They’re not too bad. Not torn, which I would have expected. It’s just blood.” She soaped them up and began washing them in the cold water. I grabbed my underwear and looked them over. As I expected, it’s just blood there, too. And, yeah, like most girls, I have plenty of experience washing blood out of my underwear. Okay, not this much blood, but it still counts.
I soaped and washed, feeling my nipples get rock hard from the cold water spraying on me. The mix of hot water at my back and cold water on my front felt weird. Having that happen on top of being naked in public, essentially, made it so much weirder.
The warm, wet feeling down low hit me again, and then it wasn’t the cold water making my nipples hard.
She sniffed hard before winking at me. “We’ll be back to our room soon enough.”
I rinsed my underwear. “What…what do you mean?”
My eyes riveted on her finger as she trailed it from her vagina up across a nipple. “It’s time for you to get comfortable with yourself.”
I blushed harder. “I can’t do that!”
She caught me in another hug. I’m getting a lot of hugs from naked girls today. “Don’t worry. You can. This is the new you. You need to branch out and experience new things. Listen to what Rasphael said. Honestly, I’d take every recommendation from her like it’s gospel. She’s famous to supernaturals, or infamous, so to have her interested in you? Even just to the point that you’ve talked to her? That’s crazy.”
She let me pull away as she started washing the blood away again. “I, uhh, she told me that I can call her any time. I should have an e-mail from her with her contact information. Since she can’t be my mom for real, she’s my mom in spirit. Her king didn’t forbid that.”
My shorts slipped from her grip. “Fucking hell…that’s…I’ve never even heard of that before. You have no idea how rare that is. Like totally and utterly rare. The fey don’t get involved except where they want to get involved. You can’t force them for shit. And…they’re ridiculously powerful. She’s even more powerful. I literally have never met or even heard of anyone that could beat her in a fight. Ever. Seriously, if she tells you to do something, you need to do it.”
“What if she tells me something dangerous?”
She stared at me. “If she called me up and told me I needed to chop a leg off, I’d do it. That’s how rare it is to get advice from them. From her? She doesn’t do things for the hell of it. If she tells you to do something, there’s more than likely a good reason behind it.” Her entire body shook as she blinked. “Okay, that’s messed up.” She grabbed my shorts. “These look pretty good. What do you think?”
I looked them over. “Yeah, they look pretty good.” I put them on a shelf with my underwear and she turned the heat up on the other shower.
“All right, time to get clean.”
I settled back under the water and faced her, since that’s how she was standing. I mirrored her,
trying to act comfortable, when I really just wanted to run and hide. And touch myself.
Her nostrils flared every once in a while, and I knew she was smelling me, but she didn’t say anything. “I think you’ll like it here.” She rinsed her shampoo out while I played follow the leader. “Once everything settles with you being new, you’ll start getting into the rhythm of everything. Like we said earlier, our group is really nice. Honestly, the others are nice as well, at least mostly, there are just a few bastards in the mix to make things difficult. Corey’s one of them.”
“What about Lacie and Connor?”
“They’re middle of the road? They’re friends with Corey, so that’s kind of iffy. They’re not normally dicks, but you did hurt their friend, so they’re looking out for him. If you could have fixed him, I doubt anything would have happened.”
I snorted. “Yeah, too bad I have no idea what happened.”
“Right? Anyway, I’ve spent time with every student here at least once if not twice.” She thought for a bit. “No, at least twice.”
“Wait, spent time?” I rubbed conditioner in my hair.
“Sex?”
I came way too close to sitting down suddenly. “What? You had sex with everyone? Like…40-something people?”
She grabbed her soap and loofah. “Yeah? 40-something here.”
“You mean you’ve had sex with more than that?”
Her nose wrinkled as she looked at me. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Shifters are legal when we’re 12, so I’ve been having sex since my birthday. Everyone in my Pack that wasn’t my parents or grandparents. Some folks from other Packs. At get-togethers. It’s a pastime for supernaturals. It’s sort of a go-to thing for most of us. Bored? Have sex with someone. Nothing to do? Have sex. Shifters find it hard as hell to get pregnant, so that’s not a worry for us. Same for mages, from what I understand.”
I thought back. “Huh, Rasphael mentioned that it might not be possible for me to get pregnant, but to take normal precautions?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s about right. I know norms worry about getting pregnant and not being married, but I’ve literally never heard of it happening to a supernatural. I’m sure it has, but it seems to be rare.”
I thought back to my upbringing. “But…you…so many people?”
Her smile was slow and, I have to say, sexy. “Norms have a problem with that, too. When we were talking earlier about being raped, that’s why most supernaturals don’t really think of it like that. Some of it is being given an option for how to handle it, but the other is that we’ve had sex with so many people, that what’s one more? Unless they suck in bed, at least it’s an orgasm. Yeah, you may not have picked them, but it’s still fun.”
“But…what about Rachel and Corey then?”
She shrugged. “Like she said, she wasn’t interested this time around and he was going to force it. Just because we’re ready to have sex at the drop of a hat doesn’t mean we want to be taken for granted. And, honestly, if you hadn’t stepped in, she’d be fucking him right now. No one else could have stepped in to stop it and most wouldn’t have even if they could have. We’ve all been fucked by him. He doesn’t like guys as much, but even our guys have.”
“That’s messed up.”
“It’s sex. It’s part of our lives and something to deal with and move on. Honestly, out of all of the times I’ve fucked someone that I didn’t want to do it with, the only ones I regret are the ones where I fought back and lost. Because then it’s degrading and painful. Every supernatural I’ve ever talked to about it feels the same way.”
“That’s messed up.”
She nodded. “It is. Yet it doesn’t seem like something we can easily change. Even knowing that I’ve been forced doesn’t stop me from doing the same to others. Same for everyone I’ve ever met. I’ve never fought someone into sex with me, but I know others have done it even when they’ve been beaten into it themselves.”
“Why do you do it then?”
She shrugged. “Talking about it now makes me question it, but in the moment? It’s…I don’t know, it’s like marking territory or eating roadkill. I’ve done both. When I think about peeing around property or eating a dead animal that was hit by a car, part of me thinks it’s wrong, but the bigger part will do it again next time around. So…yeah. I can’t really explain it.”
I rinsed the soap off and then the conditioner, thankful I didn’t get a leave-in. Not that we ever had that at home. “So…what’s to stop you from forcing me?”
She snorted. “Well, since you busted Corey’s ass, I don’t see force working. Besides, I bet if you asked Rasphael, she’d tell you to just do it.”
I groaned and closed my eyes. “Yeah…she would.”
We finished our showers and I fought back my blush the entire time I dried off. She squeezed the water from my clothes as I held my shirt and bra to throw them away. I watched her closely as she got done and put her towel over her shoulder again before walking from the shower.
So…yeah, now it’s time for this? I tried to follow her, putting my towel over my shoulder like she did, and threw out my destroyed clothes before joining her at the sinks. She absolutely didn’t care that an open door to the hallway was like 15 feet to the side of us. Granted, you can’t see in directly, but still. I followed her through brushing teeth and putting on deodorant, trying desperately not to wrap the towel around myself. As I put my deodorant back, movement to the side made me look over, only to find Armand and Leticia walking in together.
“Seriously, you can’t tell me that The Hulk is a better hero than The Flash.”
She nodded vigorously, “Yes I can! Look at all the good he does!”
“The good? He destroys everything?!” They put their caddies down at the sink and walked past us. “Hey, Steph, hey, Ceri.” He barely looked at me as they walked by.
“Okay, I’ll grant you that, but all The Flash does is run fast!” They continued on into the shower area and I heard their conversation continue. I peeked around the corner before wandering back to my sink to find Steph smiling at me.
She leaned in, whispering, “Same shower, right?” I nodded. “This is what it means to be a supernatural.”
I followed her out of the shower and back to our room, passing a naked Sarah heading into Paul’s room. When I glanced in, he was just as naked and…happy to see her.
Back at our room, my face turned beet red as Steph closed the door. “No one seems to care?”
She nodded and put her caddy away, hanging her towel on her hook. “At all. Like I said, they’ll look at you because you’re new, but…it’s like having a car. Let’s say you are in a group of people and everyone has a car. Then you get a new friend and they also have a car. You look at their car because it’s new. Maybe you ooh and ahh over it because it’s a sports car or something, but then it fades pretty quickly. If none of your friends had a car, then it’d be a big deal, but here? Everyone has a car.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “I guess…but…Paul was so…hard!”
She smiled slowly. “Yeah. He’s hung, isn’t he? All of our guys are fantastic in bed. Seriously, when you’re ready for it, shifters make amazing partners for sex. Not that mages are bad, but if you want vigorous?” she made an mmm sound and rubbed her hard nipples
My mouth hung open. The combination of what I just went through, saw, and what I’m seeing now? Yeah, it hit me hard, making me moan.
She heard me and opened her eyes. “Come on, time for you to let go.” She turned the light off, leaving us in a sort of twilight that didn’t bother my eyes much. She caught me watching her. “Can you see like this?”
“Uhh, yeah? Pretty well. I’m not sure why, though. Shouldn’t it be almost pitch black in here?” Yeah, there’s some light coming in under the door, but not enough for what I’m seeing.
She nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. You must have sight like a shifter or vampire. Most mages can’t see well without a nightlight or something.”
I
looked around, feeling out of place and, dare I say, naked.
She moved to her bed and sat on it. “Okay, I think you need a baptism by fire, so to speak.”
“What? What do you mean?” I was lost completely and didn’t know where she was headed with this.
She nodded towards my bed. “Sit down over there. Prop your pillows up like I have mine.”
“Okay…why?” She waited until I mirrored her before smiling.
“You liked what you saw earlier?” She slowly trailed her fingers across her stomach to her breasts. My nipples tightened as she touched herself. Hers already looked rock hard. She trailed her fingers across them, and I felt wicked watching her. It took me the longest time to realize I was doing the same thing. It was only when she pinched herself and I felt the grip on my own nipple that I realized I was doing it.
“Oh God…” I’ve never felt like this before. Never ever. It took actual effort to open my eyes again to find her watching me. That turned me on even more. Honestly, I didn’t think that was possible.
She continued touching her breast with one hand and trailed her other hand down her stomach. I wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do…until she spread her legs wide. I’ll be honest, while I’ve changed my younger sisters’ diapers and washed them in the bath, I’ve never seen a vagina like this before. Not even my own. I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open, but I couldn’t care enough to stop it as she trailed a finger up and down herself before lifting her hand slowly and licking her finger.
I moaned hard at seeing someone do something so private. I’ve never done that before or even thought about it, but seeing it was nearly too much for me. When she reached down and touched herself again, I followed along with her, moaning as I opened my legs. Her eyes riveted down on me and I didn’t shy away. After all, she wasn’t, so it didn’t seem right for me to do it.
She moved her finger up and down a few times before licking her finger again. This time I found my hand near my mouth and I could smell myself. I pinched my nipple hard as I tasted my finger and myself for the first time. I felt something warm building down low as I licked at my fingers before copying her and moving back down.