“I will sponsor you. I will rent the office when the time comes. In fact I will be your secretary-treasurer, so you won’t have to worry about drudgery like bills or records or sweeping the floor.”
“You’d do all that? Suppose I get no clients, or mess it up, and can’t repay you?”
“You will owe me nothing. I will own the business. I will issue you a regular paycheck. All you’ll need to do is satisfy clients.”
“Sounds like a dream job. But you’d be taking an awful gamble.”
She put her hands on my shoulders and faced me squarely. “You trusted me when I coiled around you. Trust me in this.”
“I do, I guess. But what do you get out of it?”
“My intuition tells me that this is my dream job too. That I will never regret it. That you have what it takes to make us a success, and we’ll both be fulfilled. I trust my intuition.”
“If you’re willing to gamble like that, then so am I. Let’s do it.”
“We’ll do it,” she agreed. “Now before you change back, let me help you with being a woman. We don’t want anyone to catch on.”
Since Molly left, Mena had lain fallow. I did need help making her viable again. “Okay.”
Syd took me to the bathroom and did things to my hair and face. “Illusion is useful, but it tends to fade when you’re not concentrating on it, while makeup is relatively permanent,” she explained as she brightened my lips and darkened my eyebrows. “You’ll have to carry a small compact with the essentials even in your male state, so that you can Change on short notice. You’ll have to learn to flaunt your femininity. To seduce a man when you need to.”
“Now wait on that! Have sex with a man? I’m not gay!”
“You can’t afford to deprive yourself of a primary tool. Some men become more talkative after sex, and it’s not just a function of the alcohol. Sex brings out the hormones, the endorphins, changes the brain for a while. You need to be as competent here as when sleuthing for clues at a crime scene.”
“I’d retch.”
“You’ll need practice to get over that. I assure you that many prostitutes are gay, doing it purely for the money. If they can, so can you.”
“I just can’t.”
She let it drop, to my relief, and in due course I Changed back to Phil. It had been a most remarkable session.
Thereafter I went into the program. Bear and I were still pals, and Syd was Bear’s girlfriend, so sometimes I Changed and we made a threesome for dinner or a movie, Bear with two girlfriends as had happened with Molly. We were careful to keep the PI project secret from everyone except Bear, who understood and supported it. We had directions in life.
Bear graduated and got a stevedore job that kept him in shape. Syd had an office job that bored her. We were marking time, as I learned the things I needed to be a decent private eye.
When I was sixteen Syd brought up the matter of sex again. By then I had more experience with occasional girlfriends and pretty much knew what it was about. I agreed that she had a point: to be completely reliable, Mena needed to be able to perform completely, in case there was ever an emergency need. She would have to have sex at least once.
Bear and Syd set me up at her house. I Changed, put on a sexy dress with a pushup bra, did my hair, put on makeup, and put in a female condom. Bear agreed that I looked the part; I was a stunning creature. Then Bear and I left and went down to a local bar that was notorious for prostitution. Bear faded back, becoming anonymous. I sat on a bar stool and ordered a drink. I waited for business.
It wasn’t what I expected. A genuine harlot pushed up to me. “What you doing in my spot, bitch?” she demanded.
“It’s a free country,” I said, irked.
“No it ain’t,” a tough looking man said. “You ain’t one of mine, slut. Get out of here.”
Then a heavy hand fell on the man’s shoulder. “Let’s talk,” Bear said.
They went outside together. Only Bear came back. He evidently had not lost his touch. The whore disappeared, having gotten the message: I had my own pimp, and he was tougher than hers.
It wasn’t long before a man picked me up. He had alcohol on his breath and was looking for action. “How much?”
I named a low figure. “But I don’t have a place. It’ll have to be your car.”
“Car it is,” he agreed. He was half drunk, but driving: par for that course.
We pulled into a private alley and he had at me. There was no subtlety. He just kissed me with his stinky mouth, grabbed at my breasts with his sweaty hands, and hauled out his grubby penis. I barely had time to get my legs apart and my panties pulled aside before he jammed in, pumped for about thirty seconds, and spewed his gluey jism into me. Then I got out and he, satisfied, drove weavingly away.
Bear pulled up, and I got in his car. “I need a barf bag,” I gritted.
He had one. I spewed into it, then yanked out the loaded condom and added it to the vomit. There was no other dialogue; he knew I wasn’t in the mood.
As we drove, my disgust at the process slowly gave way to a deeper aversion. I had had sex with a man! I had never felt like a woman, only a man garbed in a female outfit. I had evidently performed well enough; the drunk might hardly have noticed even if I had been a male body. But I hated the very notion of it.
I Changed in the moving car, not caring that it messed up my clothing. I just had to get away from what I had been.
We reached Syd’s house and I stumbled into Syd’s embrace. “It was awful!” I said. “I feel so damned dirty!”
She took me into her bedroom and got my ruined clothing off me. She took a cloth and wiped off the smudges on my body. I let her do it, shuddering with delayed reaction.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You weren’t as prepared as I thought you were. It’s my fault.”
“I feel unmanned. My mouth, my chest, my groin feel filthy, and it won’t wash out.”
“Maybe we can fix that.” She stepped back, got efficiently out of her clothing, and came to me naked.
“What—?”
She drew me down on the bed with her. “Hush.”
Then she started kissing me. I tried to protest, but she continued, and soon I was kissing her back. My limp penis stiffened. Then somehow I was on her, and my member was sliding into her cleft. Her hands clasped my buttocks and hauled me into her. I was hardly aware of thrusting before I was jetting inside her.
As it ebbed, I came to my senses. “What have I done?”
“You re-manned yourself,” she said. “The filth is gone.”
And it was. I remained disgusted with Mena’s experience as a whore, but now there was a more recent experience that overwrote it, making it a bearable memory.
But that was not actually my question. “You’re Bear’s girl!”
“He understands. I did what had to be done, as a friend. I stanched the wound. Now you can heal in private.”
I stared at her. This was a new dimension of friendship. “You’re some woman, Syd.”
“Thank you.”
And Bear, knowing about it, had stayed clear. He was some man.
“Your premonition—did you see this coming?”
“Not in detail. I just knew there would be some stress, and that I could handle it. If I had seen that mistake farther ahead, I would have spared you the horror.”
“It was horrible, but I have gained some understanding. Of more than sex. Maybe I’ll be a better person for it.”
“You’re already a good person, Phil.”
Then she fetched our clothing, and dressed, we rejoined Bear. Nothing more was said, then or ever. Friends did not need to review such details. But they would never be forgotten.
I never had sex again as Mena, but at least I knew I could if I had to. That was what counted. I continued my studies, with Bear and Syd’s support. I graduated from high school, and passed my PI courses, legally qualifying for the position. And so we came at last to the first day of business. And the awful second da
y.
The extended memory had been covered in an instant. “Assuming we have a serial killer,” I said to Nonce, getting down to business. “What background do we have on the victims?”
Chapter 4:
Suspects
“Why don’t you go with Nonce for that,” Syd suggested. “I think I need to close the office for the day, and go home and cry.”
“I know how it is,” Nonce said sympathetically. “I had to brew a powerful grief-null potion just to get through the day after my cousin died. He was my closest friend.”
Syd nodded, appreciating the understanding. I realized that she had been functioning on desperate reserve power, to do what had to be done, but that was running out. “Will do,” I agreed.
“I’ll take you to my apartment,” Nonce said. “It’s comfortable and secure from snooping. Wear this.” She proffered a pin-on badge with the glowing letter A.
“What is it?”
“An anonymity spell, so that folk won’t recognize you and wonder what you’re doing with a Witch. Not that they’ll recognize me as such. We need severe privacy.”
I donned the badge. We stepped out to the street, and Syd exited and locked the office door behind her. Then we separated, Syd and Nonce going home, I tagging along with one of them. There were people on the street, but they glanced at us without really seeing us. Since Nonce was a remarkably pretty woman with more than enough flesh showing to attract attention, that indicated that she too wore an A-Badge. I would have to make a deal with her to get a couple we could use in the business.
Her apartment was in an upscale complex, on the third floor. From the hall it was just one door of five, suggesting a cramped efficiency apartment, but inside it was huge and opulent, with a picture window opening onto an inner court with palm trees, though this was not tropical country. The other doors must be dummies; she obviously lived anonymously well. Which wasn’t surprising, considering the gold she had given us. Witches did indeed have their resources.
There was even a neat broom. “No we don’t actually use them to fly,” Nonce said, catching my glance. “It’s more of a symbol.”
“A symbol,” I agreed.
“Now about my friendly thighs,” she said as she set her purse on the table.
“I didn’t come here for that!” I snapped. “My friend is dead.”
“You need to distance yourself somewhat from that, emotionally,” she said. “So you can be properly objective.”
Syd had taught me that technique, but I balked. “That will take time. I don’t think I can afford to wait. Not while the killer is loose.”
“I can help you with a potion. The same one I brewed for myself.”
“I don’t want a damned potion!”
“You’re being difficult, Phil. Maybe you would be more objective as Mena.”
I stared warily at her. “You knew.”
“I guessed. Now I know. I’m not stupid, especially about magic. I did spot research; Mena has no known identity. She appears only when you want her.”
I was disgruntled. “We Weres don’t regard ourselves as magical. It’s a form of science, or biology.”
“Science fantasy. Call it what you will. Here is my point of the moment: I just tricked you into admitting something you thought to conceal. You’re vulnerable, Phil, because of your understandable grief, and making slips. You can’t afford that, especially when interviewing suspects. Take the potion.”
She was maddeningly right. “Okay.”
She brought a steaming cup from her refrigerator. I didn’t question it; her magic was everywhere. I sipped the hot frothy brew. It was surprisingly good, tasting like soft summer air in a flower garden.
“It will take about half an hour to take proper hold,” Nonce said. “No point in talking business until then. So now the thighs.”
“Nonce, I don’t want your thighs!”
She slipped out of her clothing, showing them.
What a luscious creature she was! I did desire her.
She stepped into my embrace and kissed me before she murmured a spell that made my own clothing leave me and strew itself on a nearby chair.
Everything I had ever been told or ever dreamed about the eroticism of Witches was soon amply confirmed. We spent a remarkable half hour on her plush bed. Every time I thought I’d gotten enough of her, she took a new approach and my desire surged again.
“Are you using magic?” I asked.
“No. I don’t want to mix spells; that can lead to unintended side effects, like impotence or a sexual passion for frogs. But after the grief potion has set, which will be soon, I will do magic if you wish.”
“I prefer to be as objective as is feasible. I love your thighs, but maybe it’s time to turn it off for a while.”
“It has been fun. You’re so young and new and helplessly virile it turns me on. But all good things must come to a pause.” She made a gesture, and we were both clothed.
“How do you do that? I thought your magic was with potions and things.”
“It is. I clouded your mind briefly so that you were tuned out when I washed and dressed us both. It was hypnotism rather than magic. I did it for effect.”
I had mixed feelings about this. “You washed and dressed me?”
“We were pretty hot and heavy for a while. There was sweat and whatnot. I couldn’t let you go out in that state; any Witch would have known immediately what we had been up to. You might have been needlessly embarrassed.”
“I appreciate your concern about the state of my moods,” I said wryly.
“Oh, don’t be a bore, Phil. I’m trying to impress you so we can be a proper couple.”
“A couple? I thought we came here to work out a strategy for running down a serial killer. That it was a business association.”
“That, too, and it’s truly serious business. We’ll work better together if we really know and trust each other.”
I remembered how Syd had said something similar, and proved it. But she had not sought to seduce me, then. “Why do we have to be a couple?”
“Because one of the most powerful facilitators of magical empathy is love. We can do twice as much together if we are in love.”
“Love—as a business deal?”
“That’s putting it a bit unkindly, but yes.”
“So your friendly thighs aren’t just a spot inducement for me to take your case. They have a price.”
“They always do. Ever since Lilith seduced Adam.”
Lilith—the mythical first wife of the biblical Adam, before she was banished and the more conventional Eve substituted. “And Witches descend from Lilith.”
“Of course. That’s our legend.”
The problem was, she was getting to me, and not just because of the phenomenal sex. “Was there something else in that potion? Like love elixir?”
“There was not. You must love me naturally, Phil, or it won’t work.”
She plainly had the equipment to make me love her. Rather than admit that I was losing this game, I changed the subject. “You washed and dressed me. Can you show me how you did that?”
“I will be glad to. Remember my gesture?”
“Yes.”
“Focus on that.”
I focused. Then I saw her come to me where I stood, take my hand, and lead me to the bathroom. I seemed to be in a daze, obeying without resistance. She stood me before the sink, took a wet cloth, and ran it efficiently over my body, cleaning me all over, paying special attention to the thoroughly used genital region. Then she washed herself similarly. Then she led me back to the bedroom and dressed us both. When she was done, she repeated the hypnotic gesture, and I came alert.
“I’ll be damned,” I breathed.
“More fun the other way, no?”
“More fun for me,” I agreed. “You did all the work.”
“I enjoyed it.”
“Now how does love facilitate our mission?”
“True love is an overlapping of the spirits.
It can amount almost to telepathy. To the sharing of awareness and abilities. To complete trust.”
“There’s that word again,” I said. “Why should we trust each other to such an extent?”
“Because we’re both suspects in murder cases. We have got to know, each of us, that the other didn’t do it. Telepathy can reassure us.”
“Suspects!”
“Review your PI classes, Phil. When there’s a murder, the earliest suspects are those closest to the victim, because that’s where the passions are strongest. You were closest to your friend Bear, except for Sydelle. Maybe you killed him to gain access to her.”
“Never!”
“Or maybe she killed him because she wanted better access to you. She’s a suspect too.”
“Ridiculous!
“And maybe I killed my cousin because I had a secret hankering for him and he repulsed me, making me a woman scorned.”
That got to me in part because I had entertained just such a thought myself. She was a suspect in that murder. And Syd and I were natural suspects in the Bear murder. “We are suspects,” I agreed morosely.
“An investigation should clear us, in time. But you and I need to trust each other now. So we can nab the real killer before he strikes again.”
“Or kills one or both of us,” I agreed.
“So now the trust. I am going to do my magic in your presence, so you will fathom my inner nature and know I am innocent, at least of that particular incident. You will do your transformation in my presence for similar reason. We will be connected. Telepathy doesn’t lie.”
“Telepathy doesn’t lie,” I agreed. “Unless a person is lying to himself.”
“It’s not perfect,” she agreed in turn. “But it’s the closest thing we have to absolute certainty. Now how close are you to loving me?”
I had to laugh. “Closer than I like. You are playing me, and I fear you are better at it than I am. But I doubt you love me.”
“Maybe we need another session on the bed.”
“That’s sex, not love.”
“The two connect. There are hormones, mental sets, associations.”
“I think you can make me love you,” I said candidly. “But I don’t see why you should love me. You are getting what you want from me without that.”
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