Magical Mafias Book 1

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Episode 2: Tell Me, Use Me

Raw Audio for Episode (edited audio coming later!)

Text of Episode

"Tell me."

It was a night after spying and dancing, the two of them both changing for bed, Illa sliding silk on over his skin, Thairn working off the adhesive from her glamour.

"Tell you?" she asked.

"The million things. That would all make me uncomfortable, you're sure."

They had told each other so much over these long years. He still bore Don's stories and others. She bore a few of his, too. Their friendship had worked so long on that feeling: This is the one safe person I can talk to. She sat on the bed, rubbing a wetted towel over her unencumbered chest. "Do you really mean that?"

"Yes."

"I don't even know where to begin." She sighed. "I was always happy they chose you for the engagement, you know that."

He winced, nodded. "You explained your reasons."

"But I wasn't in love with you, not at first. And then... then I was. You're gorgeous, and I can trust you with my life, and when we dance, it feels like flying." She made it sound beautiful. She made it sound exactly how he felt.

"The trust, the dancing... that doesn't feel like close friendship to you?" he asked. "It is also that. But, it feels like... like drinking ambrosia, but more pleasant."

"No side effects?"

"Oh, there are."

He remembered that photo and how it felt to see it. "I think I know the feeling."

"That woman?"

"Yeah."

"There's envy again." She set her towel down. "Cruel feeling."

"Nn." His thumb rubbed his throat, though he hadn't told it to. "I don't know. It's not ambrosia, being with you. Just... comfortable. Though 'comfortable' is no small feat."

"There's quieter parts of it, too. Our letters, our banter. And..." A strained pause.

He waited.

"...that photograph. It made me..." Her arm crossed over her chest, gripping her bicep as if for stability. "Since Harry, since I learned." About his preferences. "I fantasize." She flinched, as if from his unspoken condemnation.

He waited.

"Tying you up, binding--" She clapped a hand over her mouth as if to block the words from coming.

He remembered her question from when she'd seen the photograph. "My wings?"

A restrained nod. She let her hand down, breathed. "Owning you. That, too."

The images came again as she described it. Her fingertips against his neck as she affixed a collar. The pull of ropes--she'd lay them taut and precise, he was sure of it. Orders in that rich-toned voice...

"You don't have to..." she continued. "...you just wanted to know. So, I've told you. All my hidden shames." She spread her hands out, helplessly. "I'm sorry. I've no intention to push it on you."

"It's not shameful." Even if he weren't catching himself fantasizing about it, it wouldn't be.

"Really."

"You've seen that photograph. You really think I'm ashamed?"

"No. And you don't need to be. But, look at me, Illa, I'm not on your end of it, nor am I a human who has no ties to this mess. I'm to be your famia, you're to be my fati, and I want to do that to you? Knowing everything that means? My ancestor Fariel was a fati back in the bad old days, when it meant their famia could control their entire life, all the way down to whether they could open their wings. They would flay me alive to know I wanted to bind yours for... for kink play. There's a reason you never told Shandra what it meant."

"The problem with that was fati like them used to be forced into it, they didn't want it--"

"And you don't want me."

A shock, those words. They were true, as far as she was concerned. They were true, as far as he'd been concerned before this assignment with her. Some part of him was sure they still had to be true, because to know her for nearly a century, and to only start wanting this now, right on the tail end of a failed relationship and all the lonely aches that came with that--

But he couldn't face that pain, and still lie to her in unspoken words.

"I..." He felt his tongue thicken, his face grow hot. Pushed through it. She deserved his honesty. "I think about you that way, sometimes. Since we started this assignment together."

She controlled her response, but her pupils dilated, breath a bit too deliberately slow.

"Not wing-binding, but... a collar, sometimes."

"Like hers."

He winced. "That's the problem. I don't know if that's why I want it, if I just miss her. I wouldn't want to do that to you. Use you to work out those feelings. You're too important of a friend for that."

She was silent for a long moment. Her features too still to betray anything.

She took a breath.

"And if I want to be used?"

It was his turn to go still. To stare at her.

"Not a collar. Not right now. Not your wings. But, if you'd let me. If we could try a little."

He opened his mouth to answer, and the words were just... gone. Nothing in their place but an ache in his chest like longing, a prickle to his skin where he wanted so badly to be touched.

He nodded.

Her gaze trailed down him, and he felt the attention like a physical thing. She gave her own nod, though it seemed more to herself than to him.

"This isn't quite what I think either of us had in mind, but... I see you're wearing glamour, aren't you? Over scars."

He nodded.

"Do you want them?"

All his muscles clenched tight. He swallowed. Shook his head.

"Then I would kiss them better."

That knocked the words into him. "I didn't think they could be."

"I can."

He twisted off a ring. "Then take this one, please." Revealed that tight cylinder of scarring to her, the one that turned his mouth up in an involuntary sneer.

She touched it, then leaned forward and kissed him just above his lip, letting the magic bleed warm from her into his skin. He felt a laxity there, where before there had only been a constant pull of tension. Moved his lips to feel his mouth work the way he wanted it to for the first time in years.

"Would you like the rest?" she asked.

"Please."

She kissed a line down him until her lips were hot to burning from the magic, and past that, searing his skin with healing. It felt good in a strange way, halfway between pain and relief, almost like what they'd been discussing. He could feel it pull him under.

He found himself on his knees before her. Looked down and saw a crisscross of pink, new skin, no more gathered gnarls warping the smooth lines of his body. Breathed and felt it supple, finally free from the endless tug of too-tight tissue. He stared at her, at himself, at her, felt his new skin all over, and stared at her again.

He held still where he was, watched her watching him, those golden eyes so intent on his. She'd grabbed ahold of her bicep again, nails digging into her own skin. Careful to hold back from him.

He lay lax in her arms, eyes fixed on her, whole body given over to her. He felt the focus of her attention, the results of that attention all over him. Wanted to please her.

She could have done anything to him in that moment. Touched him anywhere, asked of him anything. Had he told her it made him like this? Did he care?

But, she didn't touch any of him any further. Instead, she gathered his borrowed pajamas and pressed them into his hands. "How about you change for bed, dear?"

He did, and she didn't look away. Was she looking at the marks she'd left? There were quite a few. Did she want to give him more?

Maybe tomorrow, he could ask for more. For now, the silk glided over his raw-scratched skin. Eventually, she turned away, got dressed for bed. Her attention releasing him.

In its wake came the uncertainty. Had he really? Were they really?

He ran his hand down the borrowed pajamas. Felt her marks on his new-healed, new-bruised skin, where the only stings and hesitations were from something he wanted. Where he could breathe smooth and feel her scratches raw and full, no dull aches from swollen scars, no numbness surfacing amid the sea of sensation. It was enough to relax him into their bed. He'd be sore tomorrow. It would be the kind of sore he wanted.

She didn't lie so far away, this time. Close enough that he could feel her warmth against his wings.

It was easier to sleep than it had been in far too long.

Illa woke before Thairn. He'd kicked off the covers in his sleep, the pajamas too warm for someone used to sleeping naked. Now that it was morning, of course, he felt too cold.

He grabbed the pin he kept by the nightstand, muttering his way through the minor luck spell they each cast every morning, trying to keep quiet.

"See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck."

That done, he looked at her asleep beside him. Ran his hands down the pajamas she'd given him. Why did this feel so right?

They had negotiated nothing like that yet, but he still wanted to do something for her, feel the contentment of service. She liked his cooking. Perhaps breakfast?

The cooking went smoothly, the pleasant rhythm of routine, now that they'd lived here long enough for him to have everything arranged. But, when it was done... he looked at the bed. She was sleeping. Should he wake her? Was this even what she wanted for breakfast... or from him?

Nervousness was part of the experience, too, wasn't it?

No tray, but he could take the plate to the bed, the morning luck pin tucked into a shot glass at its edge. She lay tousled, golden hair tangled around her wrists, morning sunlight bringing a glow to the surface of her bronze skin. He was gorgeous, she'd said. He hadn't a candle to her. He'd just never been sure why that mattered.

Amber eyes glimmered from behind her eyelashes and pinned him with her gaze. His hands clenched around the plate. Was he doing this right? At all?

"Thank you, my dear." She reached for it with one elegantly manicured hand. "May I?"

He let it go, took a step back. She studied him as she ate, expression mysterious.

"Did you make this for me," she asked, "or am I reading too much into it?"

He swallowed. Nodded.

Her fork paused, knuckles whitened. "That makes me disproportionately happy."

It was as if the sunlit glow were inside him. He went and got his own portion as she cast the morning luck spell, sitting--with a hesitant glance her way--on the floor by her knees. Could he--would she let him--he shifted, jerkily, so his head was against her thigh.

She gave a slow, audible breath, and pressed a little closer to him. Did that mean it was alright? He closed his eyes, felt her presence as he ate.

"We should talk," Illa said to Thairn, sometime after breakfast and the dishes. "About trying."

"Right." She couldn't look at him. "You... likely know how these talks go better than I do? I did try to build some experience, but, it was mostly just a little fun around sex, not... whatever it is we're doing."

"Right. Sex. You seem to understand that this isn't that? Not for me, at least."

Was that a reprimand? "Sex is... part of my feelings about this. But it's not all of them." And she'd known most of his relationships didn't run that direction.

"I... sometimes, I develop those feelings. After a while. And others. Romantic, I think, but I don't always know how to distinguish it."

"Shandra?"

"It never felt sexual. Romantic, I don't know."

"So, with me..."

"I wouldn't rely on it. Or expect it. And neither is part of what I want with you right now."

She'd expected to feel pain, hearing that. But, she knew him. He'd told her some of it last night, how he didn't feel. How he did feel. And for all she was in love with him, for all she was attracted to him, it hadn't been sex or even romance she'd envied when it came to Shandra. That she'd been slaked by when she'd hurt him last night and felt him fall into trust of her, seen him answer to her touch and presence. When he'd made breakfast and sat at her feet. When they danced.

Well, perhaps the dancing still felt like romance to her. But he seemed to love it all the same, so, who cared what feeling it was exactly?

"I want you either way," she said, and meant it fully.

There was a flicker of a smile that reached his eyes far more than it reached his lips. "So, what kinds of things do you want?"

"I'd hoped you'd start, as I've only ever had vague ideas. Last night was lovely, and breakfast was nice. Perhaps..." Was her face flushing? It had been ages. "Dressing me, I might like that. You used to help with my clothes, and I'd enjoy it perhaps more than you intended."

He was red. The pale skin of Winter--he had it in his ancestry, that was why his top pair of wings was black--showed it so well. "I like serving," he said. "Cooking, dressing, brushing your hair, even helping you in the bath or doing your makeup, maybe."

"I think I like that. Though we've only a shower, alas, Showers."

"Thairn..."

"Very well, embarrassing nicknames off the list. What else do you like?"

He played with the cuffs of his shirt. "Being told what to wear. And, ah... I think you know some of the rest."

Thairn examined the clues she'd gleaned over the years. "Bondage, of course, especially rope. Pain, obviously, but, for instruments... some sort of beating implements, including, but not limited to, a paddle. Knives. Likely more. I could only ever tell so much."

"You have been watching me. Yes, those things and more. I... is that something you want?"

"The rope, definitely. The rest... if you enjoy it, I likely will. That's been my experience. And, before we forget, should I kiss last night's work better?"

"You never offered to heal me for that before."

"I would have, had you asked. But you caress your bruises like kisses. I didn't want to interfere."

"Thank you."

He gave her a nod. She leaned down to the closest and clearest bruise. He held up his hand, and she stopped, heart off into a sprint. Had he changed his mind?

"You should know," he said, "that when I'm in that state, I can't really say no."

"So, if you agree to anything we haven't discussed..."

"Then, please don't do it, or ask it, until I'm..."

"Sober again?"

"That. For this morning, the healing and pretty much anything in a servant's usual duties are fine."

"I think this morning, I'd like you to dress me? After healing."

"Gladly."

"Good. Ah... I've been wondering. How much can I touch you? And where? I would love to touch your hair, for example."

"Maybe later, on the hair? Shandra used to. It reminds me too much of her, for right now."

She tried what she could to suppress that envy.

"Otherwise, anywhere is fine, as long as it's not my genitals or a sexual touch."

Thairn leaned forward, brushed her knuckles against his cheek. He tensed, but then the relaxation eased through him, as if that, too, were healing.

"Is that everything, dear?"

"Not quite. One more: when you release me, please don't touch me for a while. Otherwise, I'll go under again."

"Very well." She kissed the first bruise, and then began, button by button, to hunt the rest.

"Oh, these are more like what I'm used to." Illa was filling Thairn's bra with silicone inserts, rather than the full prosthetic with glue, since her blouse today had a higher cut.

"What you were used to, at least. Has it really been over 50 years?"

"I can't stand doing female identities. It's too fussy. I wouldn't have done it then, either, but, you remember how few young male assignments the DOOR thought they could risk."

"It's nowhere near as ridiculous anymore, I promise. If anything, it's the less fussy one now." She shrugged. "Though I still like both."

"I'd still find it uncomfortable."

"As you like. Other way, dear."

He adjusted it and began on her blouse, getting her wings through the holes, adjusting the lay of the fabric just so and winning an approving pet for it. He felt settled and giddy all at once, the precision like the click of clockwork in his head, her approval like an ethereal haze.

She took his hand and led him to the vanity, seating herself before it on a white wicker chair with a floral cushion that matched nothing else in the apartment. He assessed what she had for makeup--her skin tone was a shade or two lighter than Shandra's, with warmer undertones and far more yellow. She had a contour set, which he hadn't worked with for an embarrassingly long time; he'd have to ask.

She set a hand over his, guided him to a jar. "This first." Instructions, precise, flowed next and took him the whole way through, until she was made up, and he was back again in that clockwork headspace.

At the end, she left him to recover.

At midday on one of their days stalking their targets around, Illa met Thairn for lunch at a downtown bistro. She'd had a tense morning, if the way she fidgeted with her purse was any indication.

When she saw him, she asked, "Do you mind if I have some fun with you, dear?"

What would this be? He nodded assent. Curiosity thrilled inside him, a new and fluttering feeling. It made him want to take her hand, to feel her kiss on his cheek. It was strange. It suited Ian, at least, that desire. Perhaps he could tell Thairn that that was all right, for their Thea-and-Ian display.

She did half of both, taking his hand and kissing it as if she were yet the gentleman Teddy from decades before. "Then first, be a dear and hang up your coat. But not that scarf, it's so lovely on you." A light brush of clothing control, just to start, enough to make him feel a touch of the ethereal.

And then, at the menus. "Of course you'll want the French onion soup, won't you, dear?"

And then, at the meal. "Be a dear and try some of these latkes, will you?" A fork, presented to his mouth. He ate from it, letting the bistro fade dangerously into the background, hyperaware instead of her eyes on him, her thumb stroking the side of his wrist, the curve of her lips. He swallowed. She continued with her own meal after, only pausing occasionally to have him try this or that, skirting the bounds of subtlety. She had him get up for napkins twice, and dab something off her cheek once.

Enough of it was peppered with "be a dear" that it became its own kind of phrase with its own special meaning. At the end of lunch, she left him for a long trip to the bathroom, enough for him to recover, to feel normal again, to regret ever having to feel normal at all.

He could tell she knew what she was doing, because she deliberately did not touch him when she returned, only, "Was that alright?" And he, in response, turned unsubtly pink and hid his face to smile. He'd have to work on that. But it was worth the flub to see the delight it sparked in her features.

Greta Holloway, a lean woman with a cloud of gray hair and odd-colored eyes, took a long puff of dragonsmoke and released it into the Savoy Saturday crowd. Through the curls of smoke that clawed the air, she watched her stalker approach, his back shimmering with glamour.

He slid into the barstool next to her. Ah, was he making his move now? Her move first, then.

"Buy you a drink?" she asked. That had been the downfall of the last bug to come skittering her way.

This faerie and his absent companion had been following her for quite some time. They played a good married couple, all the touches right, though they danced like both of them were used to leading. Perhaps ordinary wizards had to rely on tells like that: an androgynous face, a slip of the voice. Likely caught a lot of humans that way, by mistake. No, far better to have the eye for the shimmer of glamour, to catch sight of the wings from the corner of her vision. That was the way to know, even when they changed faces. She wasn't sure it was just the two of them following her, but there were only two real faces among what she'd seen of her pursuers, while every other had the blur of glamour. Why wear their real faces at all, she wondered? But she'd seen a glamour worn too long, the way year on year the glamour grew sharper, until Greta wondered if taking it off would show the true face blurry, solidity lost forever more.

She toyed with the idea of ordering him a Green Fairy. But no absinthe in a public bar, alas, so she settled for asking him what he wanted.

"Rum and Coke, please."

"Greta," she introduced.

"Ian."

Ah, yes. She'd heard that name a time or two, passing by them. It was false, of course. Everything about him was, had to be. Fairies didn't have single truth to tell, after all.

She called the bartender over and asked for two Rum and Cokes, no lime for hers. Passed a signaling zap to the woman when she paid. Ian's backup wasn't here tonight. He'd be easy to poison and interrogate. Why was he following her? How much did he know?

"Now, aren't you a pretty young thing," she half-lied, for he'd be pretty to some, maybe, but he certainly wasn't young. That he was pretending to have a wife scarcely mattered. She was pretending to have an affair. It was all lies here.

"Thank you." He looked doubtful.

"Are you worried that you've seen me here with someone?" she asked.

He startled.

"Oh, you've caught my eye before. I wouldn't worry about it, no more than I'm worried that you've let me buy you a drink while your wife's not around." She laughed, putting all the rich huskiness to the tones that would tell all the right lies to him.

"I don't think she'd be worried about you," he confided, or pretended to confide. "But she'd be wrong."

"Really, now?" She let a smile show.

"Really." He took both drinks straight from the bartender, and she barely caught it when he swapped which one had the lime. Thought he was clever, did he? He handed her the one meant for him.

She put a hand near him, right into his personal space.

He leaned back. Half-unconsciously, if she judged it right. Oh, he wasn't used to this game at all, was he?

He tried to smile seductively, but it was a flickering thing. "Perhaps we could dance?"

Ah, he wanted time to set her up. But she wanted him in her claws now, while he was still unprepared and unawares. She set her hand on his, rode out his unconscious flinch as if she didn't feel it at all.

"I'm busy the next few days, and I'd hate to miss an opportunity." She looked into his eyes, and this time it was she who had to hide a flinch. His very eyes were blurred with glamour, something she hadn't noticed from further away. It was like looking in a photograph where something had gone terribly wrong. He must have one of those unusual colors, that was the ordinary explanation. Mundane contacts would be less disturbing by far. She couldn't look at them long. There was something unsettling about them, those blurred-out eyes.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, taking the drink meant for her and swirling it. He sipped.

She gave him a look, and he handed the stolen drink over with an attempt at a flirtatious smile. A few sips in, and the room had begun to feel unreal. She clenched her hand against the side of the barstool, just to try to ground herself a moment. The fae before her felt like a memory more than a person.

She looked into his blurred eyes to see if he was succumbing to it. Fought with her subconscious, even as those eyes deepened into black pools, refracted into compound, like the insect she knew him to be. She could see the shape of his wings now, or at least how she imagined them, gossamer and buzzing.

That was Sleepless Dream for you. She closed her eyes, though it didn't help, since the hallucination from the Sleepless Dream merely told her that she could see through her eyelids. The vision turned him into a true horror, his mouth now a mass of palps, his skin bristling with hairs.

None of this. She was no young stripling, to be taken by her own magic. She settled back into her chair, saw him the way she wanted. He was looking oddly at his own hands, checking the lapels of his clothes, in a way that made her think he likely was beginning to hallucinate. She'd had both drinks drugged, after all.

She reached over to touch him, brought them both into the same hallucination, and pushed her mind against the potion's grasp.

Make him see his companion. She looked down at herself transformed, long, golden hair and bronze skin.

"Thea?" He asked, startled.

"What's wrong, dear?" Greta asked with Thea's voice. She gave a stroke to his cheek like she'd seen Thea do. It sent a shiver through him.

"Nothing, darling," he said, pressing a kiss to her hand as if he really were her husband.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. "Getting tired?" Greta faked a yawn. "We've been jump-jiving all night."

Ian helped her down from the barstool, and she leaned against him heavily, as if she really were exhausted.

"What are you thinking about, dear?" Greta asked.

"Fantasizing about you," Ian lied. He squeezed her hand twice. What was that? A code? She returned two squeezes and hoped it was right.

"Now, that's tempting," she answered. "Too bad I'm tired."

Eric's bartender had helped her this far, but Greta wasn't risking this all to Wingless hands. Especially not if the faeries turned out to know too much. She collected what remained of the potion from the bartender, and she and Ian hailed a cab to where Greta was staying--not that Ian knew that.

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