xx.

FIFER SHOULD HAVE pushed back when he said they should meet at his house. It was too intimate, and they were just friends meeting up now, and she should have insisted they meet somewhere public.

She knew it was a bad idea.

She'd be tempted to make it into something else. She didn't know why sharing her fantasies with him was so electric. Essentially, she was just masturbating in front of him, and that shouldn't really be that intimate, she didn't think. But it was. She missed it deeply. She missed him.

Mostly, she supposed, she missed being wanted.

The way he'd wanted her, it was heady and lovely.

His house was just as ostentatious as the one he'd had in Shepherdstown. It was full of priceless art and expensive furniture and lined with bookshelves. Yes, he's just a gentleman beast, she thought. And she was coming to see him even after he'd tried to make her his eternal prisoner.

She knew it was a bad idea.

He served her food, but he didn't eat. He sat on the other side of the table and tapped his skeletal fingers in a nervous pattern until she asked him what was wrong and then he exploded.

"This thing with you having babies, how soon did you want to do that?" he said.

She set down her fork. "What? Why would you bring that up?"

"There might be a way I could be mortal."

She picked her fork back up and pointed at him with it. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I wanted… I said it was the only way for this to work," he said. "If we could grow old together."

"You're a skeleton. You don't grow old."

"Yeah, I'm not really sure what that will mean." He held up both of his hands. "The Faerie Queen seems to think I'll just grow skin, but I don't know."

"You'll grow skin? Over your face too? Will you be a deerman?"

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "I really don't know."

"Does that mean you'll have a…" She nodded in the general direction of his crotch.

"Probably," he said. "But I won't… I mean, I know you don't want— So, we wouldn't have sex or anything."

"W-well, if you wanted to. If it was for you— wait, is that why you're asking about babies?"

He blew out a noisy huff of air and settled back in his chair. "Uh, sort of. It's actually kind of complicated."

She waited.

He seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts. "All right, well, have you ever heard the story of Tam Lin?"

"Um, I think there's some book where he's kind of a jerk and the one side of this love triangle—"

"No," he said. "No, not that."

"Oh," she said. "Well, I guess I don't know the story, then."

"So, Tam Lin gets trapped in Faerie, and he can't get out. Well, there's a portion of his prison where he can interact with the mortal world. And he has exactly one chance to get out of there and become a mortal man again. He has to, um, have sex with a mortal woman and get her pregnant. And then—while she's pregnant—she has to wait for the Wild Hunt which he'll be riding with, pull him off the steed he's been put on, and then hold onto him while he shifts into every dangerous creature under the face of the sun or moon, until he finally settles into his final form. If she holds on, he, uh, he gets to stay with her."

Fifer set her fork down again. "Maybe I did hear that story, actually," she said in a tiny voice.

Then, they were quiet.

She began to use her fork to spear green beans on her plate, just one after the other, her mind racing. "So, that's why. The pregnancy thing."

"I can't, um, I would have to possess someone."

She let the fork drop with a clatter. "What?"

"If it even works, I mean, I don't know, but the Queen seemed to think—"

"You can possess people?"

"Well, it's not that much of a leap. I can get inside your head while you're masturbating and see what you're imagining."

"Yeah, you know, that is kind of odd, that you could do that. So, you could just take control of me?"

"Fifer, there are a lot of things I could do—"

"Briars and tangles, you are so creepy sometimes!" She picked up the fork and stuffed all the green beans into her mouth and chewed.

"So, you're not interested?"

She swallowed. "To be clear, we're saying, you possess someone and then have actual sex with me—something I don't even know if I ever want to do—for the purpose of getting me pregnant. I guess it has to be sex, since it's not even your sperm, so I guess that matters magically?"

"I think so," he said. "I was thinking Ross."

"Fuck." She buried her face in her hands.

"You said that he wanted you to birth his children, so—"

"Would this child be his?"

"I guess," he said.

"But also yours."

"Yeah?"

"Is that possible?"

"Well, magic is about ritual a lot of the time. You know how, when you make a potion, it's less about the combination of the ingredients than it is about doing the precise movements and saying the right words? This is like that. We'd have to go through the right motions to make the magic work. It's deep magic. It gets triggered if you do that."

She took a deep breath. "Tangles and briars. Briars and tangles."

He was quiet.

"I would have to talk to Ross," she said.

"No, obviously," he said.

"Is he there while you're possessing him?"

"If he wants. I can let him watch but not be able to control anything, or I can lock him off. I guess that would depend on what you want, too."

"Right," she said. "Yeah, do I want to lose my virginity to both of you?"

"I don't really think of you as a virgin, Fifer, come on. That's not virginity, having a penis inside you. That's reductive."

"Maybe," she said. "But it's still a thing I've never done."

"Yeah, I get it," he said. "And if you don't want—"

"I do want it, that's the thing," she said in a very small voice. "I do. It's actually everything I want."

"Really?" His voice sounded lighter. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah, really."

"So, we can try this?"

"Do you think you're going to be covered in fur?"

He let out a laugh. "I don't know. I can shave if you don't like it."

She laughed too. "Hollis…" She got up from the table and went to him.

He pulled her into his lap. "Fifer. My Fifer."

She took his skull in her hands and kissed him all over. "I love you," she whispered.

"I love you, too."

ROSS SQUIRMED. "I don't know, Fifer. I mean, this is not how I thought this would work when we kind of sketched out this entire idea. I mean, I was very on board with a turkey baster plan."

"Oh, me too," she said. "I don't… I don't want this. But the magic, it's the way the magic works, so we just have to. I mean, we think."

"Yeah, and he wouldn't be making that up, right? Like, he's not… you seem to change your mind about his character is all I'm saying."

"He's going to be mortal. He's going to die. For me. That's huge ."

"Yeah," said Ross. "Yeah." He squared his shoulders. "Okay, I'd be a dick to say no."

"You wouldn't. If you don't want to—"

"Well, if I don't, you're going to find someone else," said Ross. "And it'd be easier for you if it was me. And I always wanted it to be us. I always thought we'd be good parents together, so…" He fluttered his wings. "So, it's just going to be figuring out a lot of logistics, I guess. Some of which will be about the sex, and some of which will be like whether or not you're going to be touring and what happens with the kid while that happens?"

"Oh, right," she said. "Yeah, since I've gone to these mini-tours, it should be easier to manage. Probably nothing with a newborn. That sounds insane."

"Okay, but once the kid's older, like, it'd be no big deal if you wanted to leave him or her with me while you were gone for a week or something. That would be really workable, I think."

She beamed. "Yeah, I think it would. Of course, maybe I won't need to tour, because…"

"Right. He's loaded. So, you won't need money."

"But I'll want to perform, though," she said. "So, I probably will go and play. I think."

"We're just talking about this to avoid talking about the sex."

"Yeah," she said.

"I don't want to watch," said Ross.

"Oh, good," she said.

"Because you didn't want me there either?"

"No, it's going to be weird enough that it's your body. Because you're you, and I don't… I've never…"

"Oh, me either," he said. "No, it's totally weird. But I might have some ground rules of things he can do with my body."

"I think just missionary," she said. "Just straightforward, one and done. And if it's about going through the motions, I feel like, if I'm not pregnant the first month, we can just try again with your sperm and not fucking again."

"Well, is that likely, though? I mean, doesn't it usually take people a few tries?"

She grimaced.

He grimaced. "I mean, it would really suck if we had to try to knock you up again, so I think… you know, it should be sex every time, just to be sure. But the positions do not matter to me. And I mean, you want to… I don't mind your mouth or whatever, I guess. Or even your asshole—

"Ross!"

"I'm just saying!"

"Ross, I do not have a womb in my mouth or my ass."

"Right," he said. "You probably wouldn't—"

"No."

"Just he should not use me to… don't do anything that's going to cause lingering pain? You'll communicate that to him?"

"Maybe you guys should talk."

"Right, of course, because if you're going to let someone wear your body so he can knock up his girlfriend, you should be able to talk first."

She groaned. "This is seriously the worst, most awkward, horrible…"

"I don't know." Ross shrugged. "However, I do think it's cool our child will be made, like, through coitus."

"It really doesn't matter."

"It shouldn't matter," said Ross. "But it does. And it's great, actually. Real sex, and conceived in love, and—"

"I hate you," decided Fifer.

"I hate you, too. I'm so happy you've decided to be the mother of my child. Is it weird if we hug?"