Stork Naked (12 page)

“I confess I do,” she said. “Because Che—the one in my reality—and I waded through love elixir. Now we long for each other, but don't want to hurt our spouses. It—it's difficult.”

“Who is my spouse, in your reality?”

“Cynthia Centaur.”

“The one converted from human? She is a fine person, and would surely understand. You should do the sensible thing and take a few hours off to abate that passion the direct way. Then it would no longer bother you, and you could return to your respective mates.”

“We—agreed not to.”

“Because you want to be neither unkind nor deceiving with your significant others?”

“Yes, exactly. You understand marvelously.”

“It is because I love you, wherever you may come from. Where is my Surprise?”

“In with my—my reality's Che. He's trying to explain, also.”

“While she's trying to seduce him.”

“I—I fear so.”

He laughed. “Evidently your reality is stricter about such things. I suspect she recognized him as a foreign entity and decided to have some fun with him. She's a marvelous tease.”

“Fun?”

“She is a creature of fun. Are you not the same?”

That took her aback. “I was, before I lost my baby.”

“Which accounts for the odd underpinning of grief I also detect in you. Surprise, I believe I understand your position, and will not try again to seduce you, now that I fathom your identity, though I admit I would like to. Perhaps it would help if you met the other couple.”

“Other couple?”

“This way. This should not take long, and your understanding should increase, and with it your ability to settle your own case.” He changed direction and flew swiftly across the landscape.

She followed, bemused. Here was a Che who knew her and loved her, or an edition of her, and who had the honor to treat her with the respect due one in her awkward situation. So for slightly different reason they did not indulge their passion, just as she had not with Che One. And for slightly different reason, she wished they could. Would doing it with this Che abate her passion for Che One? But then where would that leave him, emotionally?

They landed before a well-constructed stall. “Hey folk, cease your romancing a moment,” Che called. “You have company.”

Two figures came out: a man and a winged centaur mare. “Umlaut! Cynthia!” Surprise exclaimed. These two mere married in this reality?

“Hello, Che and Surprise,” Umlaut said. He looked and sounded exactly like her husband. “You brought your foal.”

“And you restyled your hair,” Cynthia said. “It looks nice. Che surely likes it.”

“I do” Che agreed. “However, there is a matter of somewhat serious import to discuss, and perhaps you can help us come to better terms with it.”

“We'll be glad to,” Umlaut said. He kissed Cynthia. “We can spare two moments from our romancing.”

Surprise almost freaked out at the sight of them kissing, but reminded herself forcefully that this was not her Umlaut. Somehow the matchings had occurred differently in this reality.

“This is Surprise Golem, from another reality, with adapted wings for the moment,” Che said. “She lost her baby, and is seeking it here. In her reality she is married to you, Umlaut. He is the father of her baby.”

Now it was Umlaut who was astonished. “How did that happen?”

Surprise had to smile. “It seemed natural at the time. How did you get together with Cynthia? In my reality she is mated with Che.”

“I was stranded beyond a bog,” Umlaut said. “Cynthia volunteered to carry me across. I admired her form—”

“You couldn't take your eyes off my breasts,” Cynthia said.

“Well, they're good breasts. I was not at that point very familiar with centaurs. One thing led to another.”

“He emulates so nicely,” Cynthia said. “I liked that.”

“Here is a complication,” Che said. “Surprise waded through love elixir with my alternate self, but both being married elsewhere they chose not to indulge their mutual passion. So they are suffering. I thought the two of you might have some input. How would you feel if for example you were married respectively to Surprise and me, and the two of us were caught by the elixir?”

“I can hardly imagine being married to any other creature,” Umlaut said.

“Make the effort,” Cynthia suggested. “Kiss her.”

“But—” Surprise protested feebly.

“What is your objection?” Che asked her.

“Umlaut—he—in my reality he is my husband. I love him.”

“Precisely. This should be an easy coupling to imagine.”

“I admit to being curious,” Umlaut said. “Provided Cynthia understands.”

“I do. I'll even kiss Che,” Cynthia said. She stepped up and did so. Then she stepped back. “Oh, my. He's quite a stallion.”

“Stop teasing,” Umlaut said. He advanced on Surprise, and she was unable to formulate any further objection.

He kissed her, and she felt the familiar rush of delight and desire. She kissed him back, passionately.

“Oh, my,” he said also, taken aback.

“I apologize,” she said quickly. “In my reality I love you. I can't help responding.”

“She loves you,” Cynthia said. “And I could see how I could love Che, had I kissed him before Umlaut. So now we must address the question: how would we feel about Che and Surprise abating a temporary passion born of elixir?”

“They should just do it and be done with it,” Umlaut said. “After all, they are married in this reality.”

“You're thinking because their—our—whatever—relationship is valid here, it would be all right to cheat on our partners there,” Surprise said, annoyed. “That's not good logic, is it?”

“She's right,” Cynthia said. “What's right here is one thing. What counts is what's right there. They should not do it.”

“Though their passion then lingers, interfering with their mission?” Che asked her.

She considered. “Maybe if they brought their partners in to watch?”

“And really really upset them?” Surprise asked in turn.

Umlaut was doubtful. “Would it really, if their partners agreed to it?”

Surprise made a sudden, possibly dangerous decision. “Let's find out. Here are your partners Che and Cynthia. See how they react to the two of us doing it.” She advanced on him.

“That seems fair,” Umlaut agreed uncertainly.

She took hold of him and kissed him, knowing exactly what he liked. She stroked him in the places that turned him on, and whispered the nothings that delighted him. If there was one thing she really knew, it was how to make love to Umlaut, regardless of the reality.

He responded, as he had to. He kissed her back, and stroked her back, only in neither case was it really her back. It was her front. Soon their clothes were coming off and they were both breathing hard.

“Stop!” Cynthia cried. “I can't stand it!”

“Nor can I,” Che said.

They stepped in, and Cynthia was kissing Umlaut, and Che was kissing Surprise. Then he paused, with a visible effort. “But you are not my mate,” he said. “You only seem to be.”

“You made your point,” Cynthia said. “Don't have that illicit affair.” She turned to Umlaut. “As for you, you responded too readily. Couldn't you have managed some decent modicum of resistance?”

“Don't blame him,” Surprise said. “I know how to push his buttons, even when wearing wings.”

Cynthia nodded. “Teach me those buttons.”

“Gladly.” There followed a spot education session.

Then Surprise and Che took off for “home.” “That was intelligent of you,” Che said. “You made a fair demonstration that proved your case. I almost believed you were serious.”

“I got that way,” she said. “It's hard to do a good act without really getting into it. Thanks for rescuing me.”

“You looked like my mate making love with my friend,” he said. “My tolerance turned out to be less than I supposed.”

“It is easy to make sensible decisions when it's not your own ramp getting gored. I needed to know how they felt, not how they reasoned.”

“You were effective in evoking an honest emotional response.” He paused thirty three percent of a moment, centaurs being precise creatures. “May we accelerate?”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“I have learned things about my mate in the course of my association with you. I love you—her. I want to get home to her rapidly.”

Oh. “Of course. I'll fly as fast as I can.”

They flew at top velocity, and soon returned to the Golem house. Surprise Three and Che One were outside awaiting them. “I think they will have figured things out, as we have,” Che said as they glided down for a landing. “I suggest we part quickly and amicably.”

“Agreed.” He was evidently desperate to romance his wife, and the elixir made her understand all too perfectly.

They landed. Che Three swept Surprise Three into his embrace as she took the foal, and they hurried into the house. Che One glanced at Surprise, noted her wings, and spread his own wings.

“Stymy!” she called. “We are returning.”

The stork appeared and joined them in flight. “I trust everything has been resolved?”

“To a degree,” she said.

“Well spoken,” Che agreed. Then, as they gained elevation: “Shall we compare notes?”

“Did she succeed in seducing you?”

“She came uncomfortably close. She knew exactly which, shall we say, buttons to push.”

“She would,” Surprise agreed, remembering how she had used her knowledge to do the same with Umlaut Three. There was nothing like marriage to thoroughly acquaint one person with another.

“Only when she had me ready to, um, perform, did she confess that she knew I was not her husband. She had been teasing me throughout, rather more effectively than I thought possible.”

“Che Three said she was a tease.”

“It is surely an ability you also possess, when you choose to exercise it.”

“Perhaps,” she said, preferring to retain some secrets. “Che Three returned, and naturally assumed I was his wife, with his foal. He was eager to, well, you know, before I explained. Then we visited Umlaut and Cynthia Centaur.”

“The complementary couple,” he agreed. “Your spouse and mine, in our own reality.”

“The surprising thing was that they made a good couple. They plainly love each other. It—well, it broadened my perspective.”

“I understand.” She knew he was not being merely polite.

“It seems that there is no single boy for a single girl,” she said. “Umlaut was dazed by Cynthia's bare breasts, when they interacted, and she liked his emulations, and now they're married. It must have been similar with Che Three and Surprise Three.”

“It was. They were introduced by mutual friends, who I now divine must have been Cynthia and Umlaut. She had always been a fancier of equines, as some girls are, and he much admired her assorted talents.”

“I always liked equines,” Surprise said. “Even Mundane horses. I suppose that's not coincidence.”

“And I have admired your several talents since I learned of them.”

“So one thing led to another,” she said. “It does seem to be a valid match.”

He made an almost humanlike sigh. “Surprise, I fear we are avoiding an issue.”

She understood all too well, but she tried to demur. “I thought we had settled it.”

“That was before we encountered the revelations of Reality Three.”

“Where you and I are married,” she agreed.

“We shall take as given that neither of us wishes to change our state in our own reality, or to hurt our partners in any avoidable way.”

“Given.” He was right: what they had discovered had changed their perspective.

“Yet when Surprise Three addressed me—”

“When Che Three kissed me—”

“There would seem to be more between us than elixir.”

“Have you changed your mind?” She did not need to say what about.

“I may have, depending on your perspective.”

She thought for barely a tenth of a moment. “I may have also.”

“In fact, after Surprise Three—”

“You are not merely willing, but in a manner eager.” As, it seemed, was she, guilty though she felt about it.

He blushed. She had not seen that before. “True, though I would never have imagined such a thing prior to the elixir.”

“Nor would I, prior to Che Three.”

“We have suffered what the Mundanes would call a one-two punch. We can no longer deny its impact.”

“I think we should kiss,” she said. “To see whether what our alternates can do to us is true for us directly.”

“And if it is?”

“I wonder whether what would be forbidden in our reality is proper here.”

“That is a pertinent thought. We are in a reality where our love is proper. That suggests that if we are ever to do what we contemplate, this would be the place. It might even be said that we are not the same people here as we are there. What occurs here need not be repeated there.”

He had endorsed the rationale she had not quite been able to formulate on her own. They could emulate their selves of Reality Three, and thereafter feel no need of anything further. They could abate the effect of the elixir. “Stymy!” she called to the stork flying ahead. “Please go on without us. Tell Pyra that we'll be there soon. She will understand.” All too well, she suspected. Could the fire woman be trusted to keep her mouth shut at home?

“As you wish,” the stork said, flying on. Did he, too, understand? He was after all in the business of delivering the results of such signals.

Surprise shut off that thought. “Let's go below. I do not wish to be observed, even though we may be legitimate, here.”

“I comprehend perfectly, and agree. Legitimacy can have alternate interpretations.”

Indeed it could. She had a mental picture of dangerously roiling waters, yet could not help herself. Her desire was driving her on like the breath of a pursuing dragon.

They circled down, locating a pleasant glade. Of course the most innocent glades could be treacherous; they would have to check it carefully, lest there be a real dragon, or tangle tree, or some other threat. But this one seemed especially appealing.

Che landed first, and his bow appeared in his hands, an arrow nocked. He turned in place, scanning the verge of the forest. She admired his alertness.