"Live Long and Prosper"
by Brandy Dewinter
(c 2000, All rights reserved)
Chapter 7 - "Reyna's Wish Fulfilled"
"That was strange," Lainey said.
"Indeed," I said quietly.
I was still more shocked by the man's confident assumption that I was
female than by anything else. Lainey must have picked up on that in my
tone, but after a sharp look, she just went back to her chores.
A few minutes later, she said, "I think we still have time to get to
the clinic today."
I nodded. "You're right. I'll go get dressed."
That quickly became another problem. None of my pants would fit, not
only in the waist, where even the smallest hole in my belt barely held at
the widest part of my hips. They were also several inches too long. The
shorts were no better, really, threatening to slip down and reveal all at
any moment. I was swearing under my breath when Lainey came into the
cabin and saw me with shorts all bunched and a foot of belt hanging past
the buckle.
"Oh, dear," she said. "Are they all that bad?"
"Yes!"
"Oh, um, well, let's see." She looked through her side of the
closet, pausing her hand for a second on a brightly-colored wrap skirt,
but she had the wisdom to realize that would NOT be a good idea. Finally
she went to a drawer and pulled out a pair of black stretch pants.
"Here, these should work well enough. We can pick you out something
else after we see the doctor."
I snatched them from her hand, not nearly as grateful as I should
have been. It was then that she noticed that I was still wearing the
Speedo trunks.
"None of your underwear will fit, either?"
"No," I replied grumpily. My damn voice had to break again, though,
and as a result it sounded more like a whine than a valid complaint.
She showed some of the grace I was lacking and didn't comment. It
turned out she needed to wear a pair of stretch pants herself, since
nothing designed to fasten at the waist would close around her own larger
middle, and then we arrived at the issue of shoes. None of mine would
fit, of course, nor would hers fit her, nor would hers fit me or any
damn combination at all. We both ended up in pairs of my sandals, padded
with two pairs of socks, and cinched down as tight as the adjustments
would go.
I grabbed my wallet, looked at it for a minute, and it was just too
much.
Holding it in my hand like it was some sort of mysterious artifact
from an ancient culture, I slumped to the bunk and watched from inside as
tears filled my eyes. Lainey was beside me in a heartbeat, cradling me in
her arms and just crooning little sounds of encouragement.
"It'll be okay, Adam, somehow. We'll work things out. Just hang
in there for a little while longer."
In a few minutes, my personal squall was downgraded to a few
isolated sniffles and Lainey stood up. Without a word, she gathered up
her purse and took the wallet from my hands, placing it inside. When
she was ready, she held out her hand to me and we left.
I hate doctors. And visiting doctors' offices. It's a lot worse
when you don't speak the same language, at least, not easily. We even
had to resort to an English-French dictionary to find the words for some
of the symptoms. The examination was typically intrusive ("Turn your
head and cough."), more embarrassing than ever (a grown man with a child's
masculine 'package', and *tits*), and much more frustrating since the
doctor didn't really tell us anything. I don't think he had a clue,
either. He probably thought we were crazy, when we told him that based on
the scales in his office, I had lost almost 40 pounds and Elaine had
gained right at thirty. In the end, he just ordered the vampires to
attack us and after drawing enough blood to float the Breeze (well, okay,
maybe not quite that much, but I've never liked the sight of my own blood),
they sent us on our way. At least we got them to promise to send our
results directly to the Twilight Breeze, slip 109. I'll say one thing for
the French, and the British for that matter. They haven't sanctified
doctors, and patients are assumed to be able to make some of their own
decisions. In any event, there wasn't any problem at all with providing
us our lab results directly. Maybe that's why they promised to have them
to us in the morning, too, instead of a week later or something.
After the indignities of the clinic, being back on the streets in
stretch pants didn't seem all that bad, so when Lainey asked if I wanted
to get something to eat, I agreed. We had a nice meal in a tappanyaki
place, complete with real beef, and made a couple of other stops before
returning to the Breeze well after dark. I'm sure Lainey was looking
forward to a long, hot shower now that we were in port and hooked up to
the dock utilities. I know I was.
When we stepped on board, though, we found an intruder in the
cockpit. It was a thin little girl, about 14 and very undernourished -
not to the bulging belly terminal stage, but terribly gaunt.
"Can we help you?" Lainey asked, stepping forward.
"Oh, God, I hope so! Have you really been to Tirce's Island?"
"Um, maybe," replied Lainey, cautiously. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because you've got to go back, and get her to . . get her to . .
undo it!"
I found myself sliding around Lainey to sit next to the girl and
hold her. "Undo what, dear?"
"Undo my, um, the way she, uh, did my wish."
"Tirce granted you a wish?"
"Yes, but not, well, it wasn't what I asked for."
Lainey sat down on the opposite side of the cockpit, relaxing in a
show of patience, and said, "I think it might be best if you told us all
of it. Why don't you start with your name?"
The girl gulped, nodded, and said, "Reyna. Now. It used to be
Reynaud. Before I went to the Island."
I suggested with my eyes that Lainey get us something to drink, and
she rose silently as the girl gulped again. From the open hatch, we
could hear Lainey making quiet preparations, which told Reyna that she
could still be heard, so she began her story.
"My friend Phillipe and I had heard the rumors of Tirce's Island in
the bars of the waterfront since we were small boys." She paused to see
how her claim to have been a boy was going to be received, and when we
did nothing but continue to listen, she went on. "That's not all we
learned on the docks, and when we were old enough - Phillipe was 17, I
was 15 - we stole a trawler and set out for the island."
"We found it easily enough on the second day out of port, and pulled
up to the rickety dock we found. It was late in the day so we decided
not to explore until the next morning. Making our way up the hill not
long after dawn, we saw a hut with a garden and some chickens."
"'This must be the place,' Phillipe said, and I agreed. He strode
up to the door and knocked loudly. 'Hey, old woman,' he called, and
knocked again. In a few minutes, we saw a shadow move behind the door,
and then a woman appeared."
At that moment, Lainey appeared from the passageway with a tray of
cookies and the milk we had brought home with us. The girl, Reyna's,
eyes lit up when she saw the food and she started wolfing it down without
an actual invitation. But as emaciated as she was, I didn't mind.
After Reyna had eaten several cookies and drank the milk, she looked
up sheepishly and said, "Sorry, but I . . "
"That's okay, dear," I said, patting her hand. "Just go on with your
story."
Before she could, though, Lainey said, "Describe the woman, would
you please?"
Reyna nodded, and said, "She was old, and well, ugly. I mean, she
had a huge nose, and more wrinkles than I've ever seen on anyone. And
she was nasty, too, always looking fierce. I was afraid, and I think I'd
have just turned and run away, but Phillipe was never afraid of anyone.
He just stood in front of her and said, 'Old woman, we have heard that you
grant wishes to those who come to you, and we want ours.' The woman
looked at him for a moment, silently as though she had not heard, but
just as Phillipe was opening his mouth to repeat his demand, she said,
'And what have you done to warrant a wish from me?'"
"'What do you want?' asked Phillipe. 'That is for you to decide,'
the woman replied. 'If you do something for me, then I will consider
granting your wish.' I think Phillipe was about to ask something else,
but right then a pig started grunting in the woman's little garden, and
I tugged at his arm for him to see. Phillipe smiled and, taking his
knife, motioned me to go with him. I followed, of course. I always
followed where he led. With my help, he cornered the pig, killed it,
and dragged it from the garden."
"'There, old woman,' Phillipe said proudly. 'We have saved your
garden from this pig. And you can have the pig to eat, too. If you
want, I will even carve it up for you,' he continued, waving his bloody
knife about. The woman looked at her garden for a moment, and I realized
that with our chasing the pig, and dragging it, we had done as much
damage as the pig itself had done, but at least it was dead now and could
do nothing more. 'Very well,' she nodded. She was in the shadows, but I
thought she was smiling. It wasn't a very nice smile, if you know what I
mean, but I thought it meant she was pleased with what we had done."
"Phillipe looked at the pig, and at the knife he had claimed to be
ready to use to carve it, and you could see that he was not sure how to
begin. The woman saw that too, and said, 'No, just leave it there and
tell me your wishes.'"
"Once again, Phillipe led the way. You must remember, we were both
teen-age boys, and there was really only one thing we wanted. 'I want
lots of sex, and I don't want to have to pay for it, and I don't want to
have to pay for anything, not food, or clothes, or shelter.' 'Very well,'
the woman said. 'And you?' she asked, looking to me. Well, I knew I had
to do something better than what Phillipe had done. I thought for a
second about what he had asked, and what might have been missing. After a
moment, I realized that he had not specified who he would have sex with,
and it came to me that the old woman might arrange for him to have only
old women like herself, or diseased whores, or other undesirables. So I
said, 'I want to be able to pop the cherry on a sweet young virgin girl
every night.'"
"When I said this, the woman stepped from behind her door and onto
the porch of her cottage. She looked at us both, and said, 'So be it.'
I'm not really sure what happened next. I mean, she moved her hands and
said something, but it's always been sort of blurry in my memory. In a
moment that cleared, and she was standing there silently again, a
satisfied smile on her face that showed no humor."
"I figured we were done and should go back to our boat and home,
and I was wondering why Phillipe did not turn away. But he just stood
there, as though he were unable to move. I reached out to pull him back
toward the trail, when the woman spoke again. 'Leave him be, boy. I
give you three days before your own wish is granted. Use the time to get
back to your home. Now begone. And never return to Tirce's Island again,
or your fate will be worse than his.'"
"For once, I didn't wait for Phillipe to lead. I turned and ran back
across the clearing toward the trail to the dock. But when I reached the
edge of the trees, a squealing pig sound caught my attention and I turned
back. The woman was still standing on her porch, and Phillipe was nowhere
to be seen. But a thin pig was squealing in the clearing, backing away
from a huge boar that had appeared from nowhere. And . . . and . . . "
Reyna broke down in tears, sobbing between her fingers. I put my
arm around her and patted her shoulder, until she finally grew silent,
and then looked up again.
"And what?" I asked softly.
"The pig," she breathed, as though still not believing it, "the
female pig was wearing tattered clothes, as though they had been ripped
apart and draped over her. They were Phillipe's clothes!"
That was too much for her again. This time she curled into a little
ball, a too-thin bundle of sticks, and cried with helpless despair.
I gathered her up in my arms and tried to lift her, but I wasn't
strong enough though she couldn't have weighed anything close to 100
pounds. Lainey stepped up to help and in a moment the girl was in her
arms.
She asked, "What do you want to do with her?"
"Put her in the spare cabin. We'll talk more to her in the morning."
Lainey nodded and disappeared below with the girl while I cleaned up
the detritus of 'our' snack. When she came back, we sat together in
silence for a while.
"Do you believe it, what the girl said?" I asked.
"Do you?"
"I don't want to," I admitted. "But I truly think *she* believes it.
I just don't know."
Lainey just nodded silently, but I knew that she believed Reyna's
tale.
We wouldn't leave the girl on the Breeze by herself, so we waited
until she woke up the next morning before doing anything. I fixed a
little breakfast while Lainey went into town to get us both some new
clothes. My breasts, and whatever the cause I realized that I was indeed
growing breasts, had gotten larger over night, and my hair was black for
almost three inches. I thought it was because it was growing, but when
I stood next to Lainey while we dressed, I realized that I had gotten at
least that much shorter, and that my hair was not really much longer,
maybe an inch that could have just been the split ends sort of repairing
or something. It was getting harder and harder to believe in any medical
reason for the changes in me. Reyna used the time to take a shower, and I
washed her clothes. All she wore were a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, with
worn boat shoes. Her hair, I could see in the light of day, was dark
brown, but lifeless and dull, straggly, with no real style. Luckily, we
had a new hairbrush in our small stock of supplies and I used the time
until Lainey returned brushing Reyna's hair until it looked at least a
little alive and healthy. Another meal hadn't hurt her either.
"My, what a nice, domestic scene," Lainey observed as she stepped
on deck.
"What? Oh, well, maybe," I said, surprised at her observation. I
don't know why I was surprised. I mean, it just seemed sort of natural to
help the girl, and Lainey's comment was nothing but the truth.
Reyna became uneasy, too. Maybe she thought that Lainey would want
her to continue with her story right away or something, but Lainey just
smiled and went below with her purchases. I offered to continue the
brushing, but Reyna smiled in her turn and shook her head. She had a
question in her eyes, but also a willingness and I was about to suggest
she go ahead with her story when I heard a hail from the dock.
"Hello, on the Twilight Breeze!"
"Yes?" I called back, then turned to see a man on the dock with a
package.
"I have a delivery."
"Oh, yes, good," I said, moving to the rail. I signed for the
envelope, obviously our test results, and had to resist the urge to
open them immediately.
"What is it?" Reyna asked politely.
"Oh, nothing to concern you," I replied, not really sure what to say.
The girl nodded, and then turned as Lainey came back on deck.
Lainey saw right away what was in my hands, but she frowned and
looked at the girl rather than urge me to open it. I shrugged, realizing
that I didn't particularly want to share our medical results with Reyna
either. Instead, I sat on the cockpit cushion, holding the envelope still
closed, and suggested, "Perhaps, Reyna, you can finish your story now."
This was not all iron self-control on my part. I was about half
convinced that Reyna's tale might have more relevance to me than the
scientific data in the envelope, and in any event, I wanted to hear it.
Reyna nodded, and said, "After I saw . . . what I saw, I ran back
down the trail to the boat and sailed from the bay. I made it back to
port here in another day and a half, arriving late in the evening. I was
pretty tired, but glad to be home and away from that woman and her
island."
"I had forgotten that we had stolen the boat, though. The
authorities were waiting for me and I was in chains before my lines were
fully tied off. They took me to jail, and I was so tired I slept until
they roused me to take me in front of the judge. There, I was charged
with grand theft. When I could not explain what had happened to Phillipe,
at least not in any way they would believe, they charged me with murder,
too. I was led away in chains to await my trial, figuring that I would
spend the rest of my life in jail."
"They don't put murder suspects in with the general prisoners, and
there was only me charged with murder at that time, so I ended up in a
little room by myself, handcuffed to a chair. That's when it happened."
"What?" I asked.
"That's when I . . . changed. One minute I was Reynaud, handcuffed
to the chair and facing life in prison. The next . . . I was . . . me.
I just shrunk, and . . . changed. The handcuffs were suddenly loose on
my wrists and I could pull my hand from them. I wasn't sure what had
happened, then, but I took advantage of the chance to escape."
Lainey gently prodded her this time. "Then what did you do?"
"I started home, but I knew that the changes in me were more than
losing a little height and weight. I stole some clothes that fit better
and went to visit an older man named Henri who had been a sort of teacher
to Phillipe and me. I told him my story, or at least started to. I told
him I was Reynaud, and that the police were after me. He invited me into
his little cabin. When I was inside, he . . . raped me."
I put my arms around her again, but she seemed better able to cope
with that assault than the memories of Phillipe's transformation. She
smiled gratefully, but continued without losing control. "Henri found out
that I was a virgin, from the blood, and laughed at that. Then he told
me that if I was wanted by the police - he never did believe that I was
Reynaud but he used the threat of police on me for a long time - then I
would have to do what he said."
"The next night, he did the same, and I bled again. This time he
didn't laugh. I think he was afraid he had hurt me or something, but
instead of kicking me out, he took me to some doctor friend of his, or
at least someone who performed medical services. The doctor examined
me and said that Henri must have been mistaken, or got the wrong hole
or something, because I was still a virgin. Of course, Henri did not
believe him, but that night it happened again. He said he could feel
it when he broke my cherry, and there was blood."
The horror of Tirce's interpretation of Reynaud's wish was beginning
to become apparent, but even then we did not understand the whole of it.
"After than, Henri made me pay for my keep by renting me out to the
sailors. He promised them that I was a virgin, and once each night that
was true."
"Oh, you poor dear," Lainey said hoarsely. I found myself crying
again and couldn't talk. Lainey continued, "I can see why you ran away
from that Henri. Come, we must go to the authorities. They would not
allow you to be used that way, even if they think you are a murderer."
"No, you don't understand," Reyna said. "I did not run away from
Henri. Perhaps I should have, but I was so afraid. In France, people
are considered guilty unless they can prove their innocence. It is not
like in America. How could I prove I did not murder Phillipe?"
"Besides, it was my fault. I had wished to be able to 'pop the
cherry on a sweet young virgin girl' every night, and I can. It is
just that it is my own virginity that is lost every night. And despite
the pain and the brutality, when night comes, that is what I 'want' to
do. I did not leave Henri for many years, until one day I found him
dead in his bed, reeking of rum as usual."
"'For many years'?" I repeated in surprise.
"Yes," Reyna repeated. "That was part of the wish, or the curse,
as well, to take the virginity of a 'sweet young girl'. I am young only
in body. My birth was over 60 years ago."
"Dear God," breathed Lainey. Then she composed herself and asked,
"So how do you live now?"
"On the docks," Reyna replied. "The local sailors will have nothing
to do with me. They think I am cursed, and while they are right, I do
not think it can affect anyone else. But they no longer want sex with me,
knowing that I am not like other girls. However, a few give me food, or
sometimes a new boat will arrive."
"Why don't you go to the authorities? Surely if you denied being
Reynaud, there would be no way to prove who you once were."
"On this island, there is only a single orphanage. How long do you
think I could live there before someone noticed that I do not age? And
I cannot get a regular job with no identification. People think I am too
young."
"You came to us for some reason," I observed. "What do you want from
us?"
"I told you that last night," Reyna said. "You must go back to the
island and get the old woman to lift her curse. I heard talk in the bars
that you had been to her island and knew where it was. I want to be
Reynaud again, or even just age and die as a normal girl. Anything but
this unending damnation of hunger, and of need."
"Do you want to come with us?"
"No!" Reyna cried in alarm, standing. "You can't make me do that.
She said she'd . . . you can't make me!'
"Calm down, Reyna," Lainey ordered. "We won't make you come if you
don't want to."
Reyna was still edging toward the dock, watching us both warily. I
tried to put my arm around her and calm her down, but she ducked under my
hands and jumped off the boat. She started backing quickly down the dock,
saying, "Thank you for the food, and a place to sleep, but I, uh, need to
be going now. Please, talk to the old woman for me. Please? I beg you."
Then she ducked between two rows of boats and was gone.
