18. Jeffrey

Chapter eighteen

Jeffrey

I am as pleasantly sore as any morning after taking Odai's ring, even if last night, we weren't man and incubus, but simply two men.

Well, demiboy and man.

I'll miss the forked tongue. And the ring. And all of that form. But at least I never need to miss Odai, not even as I rouse on Monday morning, contentedly in bed, with Odai asleep beside me for the first time.

The mirror above the bed remains. The TV and the chest at the foot of my bed are there too. Odai being free and human didn't erase my previous wishes, so Madame Mattie's should be fine too, and is an official historical landmark. A landmark that might soon be mine.

Mine. Me, Jeffrey, the demidude, who feels a little like he won the lottery. A lot like he won the lottery, because when Odai rolls toward me in his groggy, slowly waking state, the sheets fall off him, showing the naked curves of his body in his reflection.

He is so gorgeous. With my hair fanned out, still curly from last night's shows, I guess I am too. Although I do grab my glasses from the nightstand to clear the images.

Better , I think, as I scan down Odai's body, and eventually back up to find open eyes.

"Just enjoying the view," I say to his reflection.

"As am I." Odai takes hold of the sheets and draws them the rest of the way off us, revealing my curves too. Well, maybe there's a little curviness to my hips, but I don't have the sculpted muscles or perfect ass of Odai. I still love seeing us together, especially when he pulls me closer, and we look into each other's actual eyes instead of the mirror.

Odai kisses me. He tastes… still like spices, but more grounded like something I know I can keep. Even if I fell for an incubus with claws and fangs and two prongs at the end of his tongue, I feel the same rush kissing him now as I did the first time.

I even almost think I see his dark eyes shimmer purple.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

Odai tilts his head. That's the same as the first time too. "Hungry," he says, seemingly fascinated and pleased by that answer. "Shall we get coffee and something to eat?"

"You don't desire anything else?" I bump my nose to his .

"I suppose there is an equally appealing option." He rolls on top of me, grinding his morning wood against mine, and the friction is instantly hot enough to make me pant.

I writhe beneath him, shivering when he latches onto my neck. "Ngnn… you feel so good. I don't know if I'll have enough energy before coffee, but a slow grind is totally doable."

Odai chuckles into the crook of my neck.

"I just wish I could have both, you know? Coffee and you without getting out of bed."

Odai pulls up and presents a to-go cup from Sage.

We both bolt into sitting positions.

"Wait… but I thought—"

"Fear not," Odai assures me, his surprise fading to relief and even delight. He takes a sip from the coffee, and then hands it to me. I take a sip too, if only to wake up more. Just like any food or drink conjured by Odai, the latte tastes perfect. "It seems the universe has allowed me the boon of keeping some of my powers."

"So, you're still…?"

"A djinn. An incubus. It seems I am." He closes his eyes, and his skin turns purple. Then the rest of his incubus aspects sprout, like a werewolf transformation without any need to howl—wings, horns, claws, and all. "I believe the extent of my abilities may be more limited, and I can feel that I am not so long-lived anymore. I will age."

I tug on one of his horns to get his glowing eyes on me. "Meaning, even like this, we can grow old together? If you're still planning on staying, that is."

"I would like nothing more than to grow old with you, Jeffrey." Odai urges me to take another sip of coffee. I do, and then he sets the cup aside and takes hold of my face, claw tips teasing my hairline. His wings curl in around us like a cocoon. Their deep purple webbing, so comforting, has me wondering if maybe I haven't woken up yet.

"When you freed me, you forever sated me, a being who could never be sated, my dear, dear cleric of desire."

I snicker. "I'm still not sure you can call me a cleric."

"But that is what you are. A wielder of nothing short of the divine. You blessed this cursed creature, who now needs and desires only you."

Odai kisses me, and this time, the flick of his tongue reveals that deeply missed fork. He kisses me for a very long time, seeming to enjoy having that tongue back as much as I do. "I was so focused on bedding you last night, I did not realize I could still summon this version of me."

"Are you okay with that?" I ask seriously. We rejoiced that he was human, but now it's been proven he's not. Not completely.

Odai tilts his head again, while still holding mine. "I would miss some of this. Such as how this form titillates you."

"But I want you to want it. If you don't like it—"

"I like it." Odai takes hold of my hands then, saying earnestly, "I have not always liked this form, but that you do makes it feel like more of a part of me. Like a duality that is the true me, discovered in your arms."

"Just like I discovered the real me in yours."

"I do think SJ had more of an impact."

"She did. But you had an impact too. I love you, Odai."

Odai's wings quiver. "I love you, Jeffrey. Now, I would very much like to show you with this body how much I showed you my love last night." He draws my hands into his lap and wraps them around…

Oh .

That's cheating. But if he means what he said, maybe it isn't. Maybe this is just… us.

Odai rolls on top of me again, pinning me to the bed.

"Wait."

"Yes, beautiful one?"

"You always put me first. You always pleasure me . Even last night, being human, or thinking you were fully human, you couldn't keep your hands off me and did pretty much all the work to make sure I was satisfied."

"It is difficult to keep my hands off you." Odai runs them up the sides of my body and rubs firmly over my nipples with his thumbs. "Compelled by a curse or not."

"And I am glad for that." I shudder, body writhing up to meet his touch. "But what I mean is, right now, I want to focus on you. Tell me, Odai…" I can't help grinning as I finish, "What do you desire?"

Odai

This is not the first time I have been asked this, and certainly not the first time it has been asked by Jeffrey, but it is the first time since I have had my freedom. It is strange to be in this form and not feel as though this body is its own chains. But I did not lie. With Jeffrey, this version of me is part of the true me, and I am glad to keep it.

Taking in his lithe form beneath me, I consider his request. I do not mind leading, but to be ravaged rather than perform all the ravaging has its appeal.

"I want to watch you suck my cock as deeply as you can take it," I say, watching Jeffrey give a low swallow, ending with an eager parting of his lips, "while I use my tail to stretch you, until you are prepared enough to sit on my ring. And I will touch you everywhere while you do, laid out in your place, watching us in the mirror and committing to memory the vision of you for all my days. "

"I love you, Odai," Jeffrey says again and clings to my neck to kiss me. He attempts to roll us, but I am weightier in this form, so I lead one final time to reposition us, until I am laid out on the bed as I said I wanted.

Jeffrey is a vision atop me, naked and sleep-tousled with only his glasses on. When I flick my tail to catch his attention, he grasps it and playfully brings its spaded tip to his lips. "If you're going to prepare me with this, maybe I should prepare it." He tongues it along its edge. "I've never asked if it can feel anything."

"It feels," I encourage him.

"Yeah? Does it feel good when I do this?" Jeffrey licks it again, and then takes it into his mouth like he might swallow it whole. Him fellating my tail before fellating my cock is… inspiring, enough that my half-hardness beneath where he sits springs upward to tease between his cheeks.

"That feels very good," I tell him.

Jeffrey continues to suck it, leaving it sopping before he lets it go and shifts down between my legs. When he sucks in the similarly spaded head of my cock, he looks me in the eyes, and only when he closes them as he takes me deeper, do I look up.

I watch myself move my wetted tail to slip between Jeffrey's cheeks where my cock is eager to go. It feels so different like this, not being compelled, not being near madness with want, but simply wanting of my own will and being told yes.

Jeffrey moans around my length as I slip the tail inside him, slowly twisting and moving it in and out of him to open the way. He opens so easily for me now, accustomed to my stretch. Being up on his knees, rear in the air, and legs and cheeks spread as he swallows me, opens him even easier.

I test moving my tail deeper than I have yet gone.

" Mmm …" Jeffrey moans haggardly enough that he has to pause for breath, but his response to my intrusion is to rock his hips back, and then swallow my cock deeper too.

The saliva that drips from the corners of his lips as he tries to take my ring glistens on my skin. Jeffrey's mouth cannot stretch as wide as when he otherwise takes that ring, so he runs his tongue along its ridges.

I want to touch him, but with him so far down my body, the most I can manage is digging my fingers into his locks and possessively scratching my claws over his scalp. I guide him with my hands to the same rhythm as my tail pumping inside him. Using my tail isn't as good as when my cock does the pumping, but it does feel good. I test going even deeper, and Jeffrey clenches around it.

"Odai…" he moans with a shudder.

"Sit on me, Jeffrey, so I can touch more of you."

He moans again when I slide my tail free. His thighs are already quaking as he moves to where I first had him and begins to sit back.

I buck up in my eagerness and spear him to the start of the ring with the first slam.

"Ah!" Jeffrey's head drops back, and when I know he is looking at us, I look too .

He rides me like I asked, slow and mostly shallow at first. I am so enamored with the sight of him, of us—something I could not appreciate when my need for him was half controlled by a curse—that I forget I wanted to touch him until he grabs my hands and places them on his chest.

I squeeze his pecs, thumbing his nipples again. I do love how they react, whether with the rub of skin or prick of my claws. I know Jeffrey enjoys it, but these caresses are for me, for my pleasure. This is mine.

Jeffrey is mine.

"Odai!"

And from now until as long as we live, I am his, and through eternity thereafter.

As I am fondling every part of him I can reach, Jeffrey bends forward, still slowly riding me, but not yet taking my ring like I know he can. "I-I bet… your wings… are most sensitive here ." He touches me in turn with caresses down their webbing.

"Yes," I say, spreading them wider to provide more surface area. "More than their golden edges. More than my tail." I remind him of its presence by teasing its tip around the edges of his stretched hole.

Jeffrey is determined to be the one pleasuring me for he merely grins and bends even closer to flick his tongue over my fangs before he kisses me.

I hasten my thrusts, and at last my ring pops inside him. Thick as it is, it is as sensitive as my cockhead. Having it encased by Jeffrey's tight hole sends a shiver through my body .

Jeffrey rolls upright, and his neck arches back to watch us again. I watch too. And we. Are. Glorious.

I want to go deeper. Somehow deeper .

"Jeffrey… turn," I command. "Ride me backward, so I might find more crevices to fill inside you."

He is quaking everywhere when he complies. The sight of his gaping hole before he skewers himself on me again makes me eager to watch it drip with the coming fullness of my seed.

The new position when Jeffrey arches back again does indeed bring me deeper, my ring spreading his hole wider, but this way, I can see it. I can watch as he takes and takes it, switching between glancing skyward to see us in the mirror, and back to watching me fill him. The movements of Jeffrey riding me has all the grace of a dancer, and I know, I know this is all I will ever want, to dance with him forever.

I touch Jeffrey like this too. Around the mounds of his buttocks. Around the stretch of his hole. I claw up his back—lightly, but enough to leave trails of claim marks—and then wrap my tail around the base of his cock.

"Odai!" he cries again.

Sitting up to hold him against me, I reach around to pump his shaft right above where my tail squeezes, and in that one motion, Jeffrey is done. He spills over my fingers just as I press a claw tip into his slit.

My fingers are quickly coated. I lift some to Jeffrey's lips, and what he doesn't manage to lick clean, I bring to my own mouth and taste him. That unleashes me finally too, and I fill him with everything in me.

As Jeffrey slumps forward, squirming and moaning at how I remain inside him, I let myself look again at the mirror. I appear like the monster that was made of me, and yet, with Jeffrey, I was never a monster. Even seeing some of the worst of me, he still wanted me. I was always enough as I was and never someone to be treated like less than I could be.

For no other master or mistress who I might have called friend could I say the same.

I still shift to a more manageable form, shrinking and softening inside him, so the ring is gone, and it is easier to pull him free of me. I massage his spent hole, letting some of my seed spill free. Jeffrey is mine, and I am his, and there is nowhere I would rather be than with him. No other time and as no other version of either of us.

Mostly human looking, but still fanged, clawed, and quite purple in hue, I drag Jeffrey up the bed to lie in my arms.

He snuggles exhaustedly against me. "Have you ever used those wings to actually fly?" he asks.

"I have. Would you like to experience it sometime?"

"Wouldn't that be too dangerous if people see us?"

"I could take us somewhere first where we would not be seen." I kiss his temple.

"That sounds nice. So… what do you desire to do now?"

"To stay. With you. To keep working with the tour. And perhaps discover some other ways I might apply my talents. "

"Whatever you want to do, Odai, it's your decision now. Except, hopefully not involving any, um, maiming or killing?"

"I assure you, Jeffrey, I have no desires or compulsions to do so. Unless someone ever harms or wrongs you, of course."

Jeffrey laughs. "Okay but consult with me first if you ever actually feel that way. Seriously. So I can be sure they deserve it."

"If anyone ever harms or wrongs you, they'll deserve it."

" Odai ."

I am mostly teasing. "I will never cause you to worry like you have these past few weeks. I promise."

"Thank you. But aside from those larger questions, what do you want to do now , like, for the rest of today? We still have the day off."

"There is something I would like to do."

"Yeah?"

"And it might surprise you."

"Good morning, young one. And… not so young one, if I may be so bold."

The Owner of The Magic Shop is somehow everything I expected him to be.

I was nervous entering his domain, but I can no longer be owned, so I do not fear what desires he might have had should he have ever possessed my contract.

We are at the front counter. There are others mulling about, shopping. I wonder how many know they are in a place of power. A place that exists in more than one realm, sometimes all at once, and sometimes possibly not at all.

Jeffrey hovers behind me, letting me do the talking. I think he too finds The Owner unnerving, despite having come here many times alone.

"I do not suppose you would want this?" I ask, producing my now dormant amulet. It remains duller in shine and color, and while I had considered keeping it, and asked if Jeffrey wanted to, he left the decision to me, and I am not sure I want such a reminder of my cursed years. "I will warn you that it no longer has any power."

"Oh, that is where you are wrong." The Owner takes it, inspecting it with an appraiser's eye. "This is a vessel ripe to be filled. You desire nothing for it? Wish for nothing?" he asks pointedly.

I feel Jeffrey shift behind me. While he knows this place to be more than it seems, I think having an incubus boyfriend is more than enough of the supernatural for him.

And Jeffrey is enough for me.

"I have all I need."

The Owner peers around me at Jeffrey and smiles. "May that always hold true." He gives his fingers a flourish, and after what could just as easily be sleight of hand as true magic, the amulet is gone.

With its departure, a relief settles in me that I too hope remains. Always.

"Since you ask for nothing," The Owner says, "how about coffee? On me."

"The café is open?" Jeffrey perks up, glancing at the nearby counter, where there is a clear sign that reads CLOSED.

"Unfortunately, no," The Owner says, "but I took a page from your book." Another flourish of his fingers produces a gift card for Sage Coffee Shop & Bakery. He hands it to me. "Us neighbors should help each other when we can. I will be sure to send customers your way as well. Oh!" he says when we attempt to leave, looking at Jeffrey again.

"Y-yes?" Jeffrey asks.

"I do hope that diary was useful for you."

Jeffrey pauses, thinking. He showed me the journal, no longer needing to hide it beneath his pillow. While much of it detailed things I am glad to move on from, it also gave Jeffrey more stories to weave into the tours. "You know, not in the way I thought it would be, but yeah, it was useful. Thanks again."

"My pleasure." The Owner tips his hat at us, and we make our exit.

"Coffee and breakfast then?" Jeffrey asks as we cross the street, hand in hand.

"Agreed. "

I take in our small but important street and its many businesses. Our neighbors. Our friends, in most cases. Even Mrs. Sherman at Curves, who I cannot see but know she is likely back in her office, oblivious to how close she came to meeting her end there.

Yes, this is a fine place to live a life.

"Hey, love birds!" a familiar voice draws our attention down the sidewalk just as we are about to enter Sage. It is SJ, hand in hand herself with Cas. "What perfect timing! Guess who took the morning off so I can buy you all coffee?"

"I said I was meeting you later to… hang," Cas explains, "and she couldn't resist joining us, even if it meant ditching on Fluid Fashion for a while."

Later, as Jeffrey informed me, they will not "hang" but will be picking out an engagement ring. I imagine SJ has no idea. The surprise will be joyous, and I am happy for them. Almost as happy as I am for me and Jeffrey.

Although, for us, it was the loss of jewelry that made this real.

"Too bad!" Jeffrey touts back. "We're buying you coffee."

I pull out the gift card to wave it in agreement before SJ can protest.

As I hold the door open for our friends, Jeffrey stiffens beside me, hand still in mine. I follow his gaze to across the street, where another hand-in-hand couple is strolling. I do not know them, but Jeffrey seems to. It is a young man with black hair and blue eyes, and his lovely young partner dressed femininely but also somewhat neutral.

They notice Jeffrey as he has noticed them. Clasping my hand a little tighter, he waves at them. They seem pleasantly surprised and wave back. I will have to ask him about them later.

As we enter Sage behind Cas and SJ, I take another moment to bask in the life I have ahead of me. I bask in Jeffrey, my radiant cleric, my beautiful one, who is ravishing as ever today with his hair down, glasses on, light makeup, wearing his new shorts, mixed with sneakers and a T-shirt that hangs off one shoulder, but oversized in a fashionable way, not to hide. Not anymore.

Perhaps I did help save him. I helped save Madame Mattie's, even if I wasn't able to do enough for the real Mattie once upon a time. But it is enough to have saved something.

Just like Jeffrey, exactly as I hoped, saved me.