Xora 3: Shell Game

by Brandy Dewinter

 

Chapter 6 - "Lipstick and Lace"

 

Despite the . . . redefinition of our relationship, Tryx left no doubt that she was still in charge and that meant she still got to use me as her full-size dress-up doll. In particular, now that we were officially 'together', she insisted that I wear ultra-feminine clothes with floppy lace cuffs and lacy jabots below frilly, stand-up collars. In white, of course, though the main part of my dress was a deep red that . . .

Okay, so my complaints were pro forma. The combination of white lace and scarlet woman was . . . amazing. Every time I saw myself in the mirror - and even Titania got tired of teasing me about how often I looked - I saw what Tryx meant about innocent sensuality.

So did she. I didn't know if her interest in me was an act or real, but every time she looked at me there was so much naked lust in her eyes that when I saw it . . . Well, I decided I might as well just quit trying to breathe and let Titania handle it, because there was no way I could manage such complicated tasks on my own, not when Tryx looked at me that way.

*"Always glad to help,"* Titania whispered in my ear, her husky tones a perfect reflection of the driving need I felt. I needed to think about something else. If I could.

Tryx, on the other hand, dressed in an almost masculine way. No, that's not right. There could not, even on a dark night at a distance - in a fog - be any doubt she was spectacularly feminine. It's just that the secondary elements of her outfits had an intriguing element of masculinity. Her skirts were every bit as short as my dresses, but she wore skirts that had a more-or-less masculine belt (if you discount the fact no adult man ever had a waist so tiny). Her blouses had a high, almost formal collar, but it was plain, without the ruffles and lace of mine. Her cuffs contrasted with the color of her blouse, but they were perhaps the most masculine feature of all with a French fold and golden cufflinks. Taken by herself, she was undeniably beautiful, but the contrast with the delicacy of my own clothes made her look dominant and controlling as well. 'Challenging', just as she had said.

We went out to see and be seen, walking beside a moonlit beach (three moons, two of significant size and above the horizon) on a path that just coincidentally passed under the verandah of the villa that Mordant had occupied. For once, my heels were even higher than Tryx's because we wanted to emphasize the differences in our heights rather than disguise it. That shortened my stride to match hers - somehow 'stride' doesn't seem quite right for all the secondary motions that were involved - and we strolled along with the easy grace of paired pumas, the dance of light on rippling hair and shining legs proclaiming our beauty with every pace.

We were lucky. We only had to pass the villa twice before Mordant stepped out onto the shaded verandah. He was the same as his photo, complete to the accessories of a beautiful girl dangling from each arm as another hovered behind.

I wasn't sure if Tryx had seen him or not, so I pulled her to a stop and 'forced' myself to look into her deep, shimmering blue eyes. "You forgot part of your outfit, Commander," I whispered in her ear.

"What?" she asked, whispering in return.

"You forgot your collar pips, *Commander*," I teased. "So you'll have to excuse me if I forget - every now and then - that you're a senior officer and I'm only doing this because you ordered me to cuddle with you."

"Is that some sort of crack?" she asked suspiciously, so I was pretty sure she hadn't seen Mordant yet.

I ignored her question blithely and sighed, "I suppose it's for the best. I'm not as good an actress as you are. If I just, mmm, forget myself in your arms; that would look the most natural right? That's what the mission requires, after all."

For the first time, I saw a real, honest-to-goodness blush on Tryx's features. Cooing softly I asked, "Why Tryxie, are you blushing, or is that Bee?"

She stiffened in my arms and said, "I don't like that, ah, nickname."

*"Uh, oh,"* Titania said.

*"Oh, yeah,"* I replied. The grin in Titania's mental voice told me she wasn't really concerned for poor Tryxie, even though she knew I was just the girl to use an unliked nickname against someone.

*"You can say *that* again,"* she snickered.

*"Why? Didn't you 'hear' me the first time, Ti?"*

*"Hey, you're the one who told me how people use that expression!"*

*"If you say so,"* I replied, but my attention was really on Tryx.

"Not even from your sweet, innocent little, um, companion?" I asked as I used a long-nailed finger to tickle her chin. "Hmm, Tryxie-wixie?"

*"Don't overdo it,"* cautioned Titania.

*"She asked for it,"* I replied. *"If she tells me she doesn't like it, then I'll stop."*

As if in response to that offer, Titania said, *"Tryx says - and I'm not making this up - that having a little fun is fine, but tone it down a little until he sees us."*

I kept my eyes focused on Tryx's blue pools and told Ti, *"Ask her how we'll know when that happens, if we're staying focused on each other."*

Something let Tryx in on what I had already noticed. She moved so that she could see Mordant on his balcony.

*"You told her!"* I accused my partner.

*"Of course!"* she replied unrepentantly.

*"Why?"*

*"For all four of us, of course,"* declared Ti, and Tryx showed that she was right.

Grinning lasciviously, the curvy blonde let a thrilling huskiness into her voice and whispered, "Well, any errors should be on the side of caution, of course."

"And in this case, caution means . . . ?"

"You know damned well what it means, and I can play this game at least as well as you can," she declared, and then she kissed me.

. . and then she kissed me.

*"Oh, god, it's been too long since I've kissed a woman,"* I moaned to my partner. Even as I said it, I knew I'd NEVER kissed a woman like that.

Ti was not impressed by my observation. *"From here, it seems like she's doing most of the kissing. You need to catch up."*

*"Oh, um, right."*

Titania's next observation was much more complimentary. *"Ahh, now that's *much* better."*

*"Shut up, Titty, I'm busy!"*

She didn't. Shut up, that is. And her next, carefully neutral - at least in tone - observation was nearly enough to distract me from Tryx's kisses.

Okay, so that's a lie. But it was surprising.

*"Bee says you do that pretty well. Tryx is, ah, impressed, and it seems she's something of an expert."*

*"You're comparing notes with Bee?!"*

*"Don't worry. You don't have anything to be ashamed about."*

*"You're a damn voyeur!"*

Titania laughed in my ear and said, *"You're just now figuring that out? Careful, or I'll turn you blonde so you have a reason to act so foolish."*

My hidden partner may have said something else. Frankly, I was well on my way to tuning out *all* distractions, except for a nagging desire to find someplace a little more private. With each heartbeat, the amount of additional privacy I would have settled for got less and less. Until I suddenly wanted a LOT more privacy because we were interrupted.

I heard a step crunch on the path, and while I'd have been willing to ignore it - very, very willing - Tryx apparently was not. She stepped back to regard the source of the sound and we saw a man so toad-like that at first I thought he was not human stock. It wasn't clear he had any neck at all, and watery eyes bulged above the widest mouth I'd ever seen on a man.

"Hello," he said, his nasal tones a sharp contrast to the bass croak I expected from his thick throat.

Tryx nodded with minimal politeness, pointedly *not* releasing me from her embrace.

"Please excuse the interruption, but my employer, Oslo Mordant, would like to invite you up to his villa to join a party he is hosting."

I was already beginning to move that way when Tryx's arms tightened about me in warning. Her words were not what I expected.

"Tell your Mister, ah, Mordant thanks, but we have another engagement for the evening."

I sent a quick message via Titania asking what was going on. This is exactly what we had been trying to *arrange* and Tryx was turning it down!

*"She says we don't want to be too easy,"* Titania reported. *"Besides, we have better things to do."*

With that, Tryx pointedly ignored the toad-like man by kissing me again, and since I didn't need to take care of impossible things like breathing at a time like that, I didn't die - for all it seemed I had made it to heaven.

Then I got the sense through the link of a more serious message. *"We want to meet him for the first time in public. While our symbionts can protect us from his drug, he may bring other . . . pressures to bear if he gets us in a private place; things that may require us to reveal our special abilities. I want to delay that until after there are public witnesses who know we're going with him. That should keep him, well, cautious at least."*

The embrace that accompanied her observation was a shared intimacy that shut out the rest of the world, and . . . well, one thing led to another and if she had anything further to say, neither one of us - none of the four of us, for that matter - cared. Unfortunately, we were too public for more than an appetizer. And by the time we got back to our rooms, it was time to get ready for our 'engagement', which turned out to be gambling. Not surprisingly, the resort had a casino. Less surprisingly, Tryx liked trolling for boys in elegant surroundings, even if we were officially off the market.

The outfit she decided she would wear was certainly elegant, sleek and shiny in her favorite eye-matching royal blue. It hugged every delectable curve from throat to knees, then flared out in a wide skirt that accented every move she made. I was a bit conflicted about the style since it was very close to what I had worn on Teton and that had resulted in . . . varied memories. After all, I had ended up kidnapped and dumped in a swamp.

There wasn't any conflict in my feelings about the dress she expected *me* to wear.

"Damn it, Tryx, I am NOT wearing a tent! Let alone a PINK one!"

"It's not a tent," she claimed. "It's very stylish on, um, Palmus IV."

"EVERYthing is fashionable somewhere in the Federation. That doesn't mean it looks good. If you think it's so great, YOU wear it."

"Now, Xora, we've already discussed this. I'm going to be the femme fatale, and you're going to be . . . naive. That way we can maximize our chances of getting Mordant's attention."

"We already GOT his attention, and you turned it down!"

"Don't make me pull rank again," Tryx warned.

I was about to tell her where she could put her rank - and offer to help her put it there - when Titania did that stupid lockup thing on me again.

*"Damn it, Titty, don't YOU start on me, too!"*

*"Take it easy. I have an idea."*

*"You're going along with her?"*

*"Not on a bet,"* she promised. *"There is no way I'm going to let Bee look better than we do. But this . . . 'tent' has given me an idea. Do you remember when we first joined, when I told you I wasn't as nice as Bee?"*

*"How could I forget,"* I snapped. *"That has got to be one of the classic understatements of the century."*

That earned me one of her patented pinch-tickles, but a giggle as well. *"And don't you forget it. But this time it's for your own good."*

*"Uh, oh."*

*"Oh, hush and listen to me. Tryx is not, um, subtle."*

*"I stand corrected. THAT has to be the understatement of the century - hell, of the millennium."*

THAT earned me a wiggle in an entirely inappropriate location.

*"Damn it, Titty, STOP THAT!"*

*"Quiet, and let me finish,"* she ordered. *"Tryx wouldn't know subtle if it slapped her in the face, and Bee just goes along with whatever she wants. I, on the other hand, have greater, ah, insight."*

*"Greater arrogance, you mean,"* I countered, but to forestall another of her . . . intrusions, I quickly added, *"but you definitely have my attention."*

*"Okay,"* she explained, *"this 'tent' as you say, is layers and layers of very light, sheer material. One layer would be little better than going nude, but by the time you get them all on, it's not only opaque, it's basically formless."*

*"Exactly. What's your point?"*

*"Suppose we . . . left out a few layers."*

*"I want to look good, Ti, not cheap."*

*"Oh, you'll look good. Trust me."*

Like I had any choice. Titania was basically my 'skin' all the time anyway. If she pigmented to look like a tight uniform, it was really no more coverage than if she looked like bare flesh. I had been trusting her for clothes since, well, since the first day we had joined.

I had something else I could trust as well. Her competition with Bee was not diminished by our success on our own missions. If anything, it was intensified since the only real challenger to our reputation was Tryx. Whatever Titania had in mind, I knew it would be dramatic and effective at making us look good. I wasn't nearly as confident it would be 'subtle'. Still, I sighed and shrugged.

The whole conversation took only a heartbeat, and all Tryx knew of it was the concluding shrug. Trying, not very successfully, to conceal her smirk of triumph, she handed me the tent and swayed to the mirror for some unneeded primping. She glanced at my garment and at the clock, sending me an even clearer message that nearly got her a face full of fabric.

*"No, Xora!"* Titania said. *"Just go along. Let's go to our room and I'll show you what I have in mind."*

When we got to our room, I started to paw through all those acres of sheer material in an attempt to figure out how to wear the thing.

Titania said, *"Oh, throw that monstrosity away."*

*"Not that I don't want to, but . . . just how many layers are you going to leave out?"*

*"All of them, of course,"* she snickered. *"Go stand in front of the mirror."*

I had never gotten used to the image I saw there, not really. It wasn't a . . . surprise any longer, exactly, but I felt something every single time I saw my reflection, something . . .

*"Oh, quit,"* Ti laughed at me. *"You're aroused by the way you look, and well you should be."*

The protest I felt I should make died in my throat - or my mind, or wherever it was forming. There was enough of the old male Xora in me that I was attracted to the image in a way that was beyond simple emotion - certainly beyond objective self-assessment.

The, ah, leftover part of the old Xora woke up and howled when Titania made the clothes I had apparently been wearing vanish. In my forebrain, I knew there wasn't any real difference in how much I was covered, but that intellectual knowledge was . . . irrelevant when the deeper parts of my mind saw that sleek alabaster tower. My . . response was obvious in ways that had never shown on the old Xora, which was some sort of compensation for the response that was no longer there to show. Good thing I didn't need to breathe any more. Not that my 'lungs' weren't moving in . . . arresting ways.

*"You're welcome,"* Titania said dryly. *"Now be still. This is going to take some concentration."*

*"What is?"*

*"Hush."*

At first, I didn't see any changes. I was, ahem, studying the image in the mirror quite carefully - only to see what Titania had in mind, of course. The arousal shown by my new feminine 'attributes' wasn't diminished noticeably when a blush of embarrassment was added to it. But I moved to step back from the mirror when I realized I was fogging the glass with my overheated breath.

Or at least I tried to move back. *"Damn it, Ti, don't DO that to me!"* I hated it when she did the lockup thing.

*"Be still,"* she repeated. *"The mirror is fine."*

In fact, even as she spoke I realized it wasn't my hot breath that was interfering with the image in the mirror. A quick glance down showed that the fog was real, a shimmering mist that floated about my disappearing form. In moments, it had obscured everything from my shoulders to my ankles.

*"Very impressive, but we might as well be wearing that tent,"* I snipped.

*"Would you prefer pink?"* she challenged.

*"Or course not, but silver-white is . . . "*

*"Just walk over to the door and back,"* she ordered.

During the walk away from the mirror, the gown - or fog, or whatever it was - took on a glowing pearlescent hue that seemed to be radiating a soft light in all the colors of the spectrum.

*"That's not really true,"* Ti said, picking up on my perception. *"I'm just using a little moisture to bend the light that's already there. It works best when you're moving."*

*"It's beautiful,"* I said in honest appreciation.

*"Now walk back to the mirror,"* she suggested, and the smirk in her tone told me I had another surprise in store.

*"How do you DO that?!"* I gasped when I saw the moving image.

The . . . effect she had created truly did resemble fog, right down to the tendency to linger in place instead of moving when I moved. While it did not ever - quite - become transparent, it seemed to drift like the bit of wisp that it resembled, thinning down to a scandalous, figure-caressing film that threatened to dissipate behind me at any instant if I moved just a bit more quickly. When I stopped, it more or less caught up, but the curves revealed when I moved disappeared only gradually as the mist drifted back into an obscuring cover.

*"You like it?"* Ti asked smugly.

*"It's fabulous. How do you do that?"*

*"Call it, 'surface' tension',"* she suggested. *"I've, ah, absorbed some water molecules, and bind them in a matrix that's . . . attracted to your form."*

*"That's not the only thing that's going to be attracted to this form,"* I predicted.

*"Told you so,"* Ti gloated, and I joined her in her snicker. Stars, but Tryx was going to be livid!

*"Make sure you're standing still when she 'approves' your gown,"* suggested Titania.

*"Oh, yeah,"* I agreed, a predatory grin reflected on my erstwhile pouting lips.

Schooling my features carefully into neutrality, I peeked through the doorway. Tryx was still primping and I grinned again as I saw her hairstyle smooth into a sleeker mass more like my own current style. More importantly, the mirror she regarded did not reflect the doorway to my own room, so I slipped into the common area and stood quietly. When the fog effect had settled around me into the requisite tent shape, I demurely asked, "Is this okay?"

Tryx twitched in surprise, and a flush lit her cheeks for a moment as she realized she'd been 'caught' in her hairstyle exploration, but to her credit she quickly suppressed that.

*"She had help, and needed it,"* Titania whispered to me, and I had to fight to keep my modest smile.

Tryx interrupted any further internal communication with an observation. "You changed the color."

"The pink just didn't suit me," I said lightly. Whatever else she may have said about the color was lost as she looked more closely at my 'gown'.

"How did you change the material like that?"

I just smiled again. And she blushed again at the obvious answer to the question.

"Is that really all Titania?"

"Well, some of it is me."

"I know that," she said. "I meant, are you wearing any clothes beside what Titania provides?"

"She meets my needs very well," I replied smugly.

"Indeed."

I could see a bit of irritation in her eyes, but her innate sense of humor accepted the fairness of my . . . improvisation. Little did she know . . .

Nodding, Tryx turned to the door and gathered her purse from the nearby table. "Ready?"

I nodded in turn and moved to pick up my own small bag.

"Oh. My. God!"

"Oh, do you like the way this gown moves?" I asked with wide-eyed innocence.

*"You're shameless,"* accused Titania.

*"You're one to talk."*

"That is . . . how can . . . is that really Titania?" gasped Tryx.

"Well, some of it is me," I repeated with a smirk. "You can probably tell which parts."

*"Damn, girl, that is positively wicked,"* Titania giggled.

*"Quit bragging,"* I retorted.

*"I was talking about what you said,"* she replied. *"You're not nice at all."*

*"Yeah, right, like you didn't know that already."*

*"Okay,"* she admitted, *"but I've got a feeling Tryx didn't know. Not really."*

*"Yep,"* I gloated.

Tryx interrupted our mutual back-patting with a wry observation. "Men from far stars will be panting after you tonight. That's hardly the look of a naive innocent."

"Well, I'm hardly a naive innocent," I countered. "But it is different from what you're wearing, so we'll have more than one 'choice' for Mordant. Isn't that the point?"

Tryx smiled and nodded. "Score one for you. Remind me never to try to upstage you again."

"Like you have anything to worry about - even if you don't cheat."

"Now I'm not so sure." But she asked again, "Ready?"

I nodded, and 'demurely' let her escort me out the door.

 

 

 

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© 2003 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.