Chapter 14: Human Women

Lavender brings Lumenovus another gift, which loosens their lips for another conversation. Lumenovus gives his account of his encounter with the witch who shrunk him.

 I was distracted at dinner, but it was only my half sisters who noticed.  The three of them whispered to each other, looking at me.  Since I was distracted, it didn’t bother me for once.

 All I could think about was that Lumenovus had said he cared about me.  It was more than the fact that he said it.  I saw the depth of that care evidenced by the turmoil on his face.  Every time I began to wonder what Pinvey was telling Bella and Lacey about me, my mind just went back to the simple fact, I knew he cared.  I would smile when I thought of it.  I was sure that was infuriating Pinvey.

 I also felt accomplished.  I had made him feel better, talking to him.  As before, we’d both felt better when I finally left for dinner.  And I was going to see him after, as well.

 After we excused ourselves from the table, I went to the storeroom to grab a bottle of mead as a surprise for him.  I chose a special kind, with a smile.

----

 “How are you feeling?” I asked him.

 “I’m actually feeling pretty good, thank you.  My arm doesn’t hurt so much.  Mostly...  Thanks for talking earlier.  I didn’t mean to be so distant.”

 “You were fine.  And, I think you’re about to feel even better,” I said, producing the bottle.

 He looked at it for a little, thinking.

 “Well?” I asked, itching for a chance to tell him what kind it was.

 “Drinks?” he asked.

 “Yes, silly!  It’s a present...”

 “Well, I am grateful, of course.”

 “But...?”

 “How is that supposed to make me feel better?  I see only one cup.”

 It took me a second to take his meaning.  “You want me to...  Drink it with you?”

 He smiled.  “Hey, you’re a fun drunk.  What do you say?”

 I was smiling too much to say anything.  I broke it open and filled the cup, and handed it to him.  He handed it back.  “Ladies first.”

 I gave a little bow as I took it back, and sipped.  “Okay, now you.”

 He took it and drank.  “Mmm...  Mead, isn’t it?  It’s good!”

 “It’s raspberry!” I said, laughing.

 “Raspberry...”  He made the connection, but didn’t take my meaning.

 “Think of it as their way of apologizing for tantalizing you, and getting you into this fix.”

 “Oh.  Well you know, the way I see it, I owe them.”

 “How so?”

 “If I hadn’t gotten in this fix, I would never have met you.”

 I swallowed my turn, and gave the cup back.  “Lumenovus, do you really think it’s been worth it?”

 “What, you think I can’t handle some cuts or being stuck in this cage?  I told you, I’ve been through worse.  On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone nearly as...  Nice as you.  And I hate to use such a simple word, but...  Since my first night here, you’ve done nothing but shower me with every courtesy, and for no reason other than the goodness of your heart.  You don’t know what that means to me, knowing there are in fact people like you out there.  Even if you aren’t human...”

 Even if you aren’t human.  The words reminded me of the gulf between us.  They stung.  I brushed them off.  I was here to have fun.

 “What are human girls like?” I asked.

 “Like?  Well, there’s all different types.  I mean, what do you mean?”

 “What are their bodies like?  You’re a little shorter than our men but more...  Solid.  You’re bigger.  How is a human girl’s body different from, well, mine?”  The wine was taking hold already, and I had no idea why that was what I wanted to ask him.

 “Hmm.  Well, I guess, if they were our size, or you were my size, I mean, my old size...”  He laughed at his confusion of words.  “If there were an average girl here, which doesn’t even exist, really...  She’d probably be a bit taller than you, still shorter than me.  Her frame would be bigger, like mine.  Wider hips, usually.  A good portion of them would have larger breasts, but not all of them.  Oh, and no wings.”

 “No...  No wings.”  I felt that gulf widen.  Maybe I felt relieved that time, because I really didn’t know where I was starting to go with that line of questions.  “Did you have many consorts, before this happened?”

 “Consorts...  I’m not sure it works the same with us.  Do you just choose them at dances?”

 “No, we can pair off anytime.  It’s just at any events, like dances, everyone is supposed to find love for a night.”

 “Humans don’t have anything like that, at least not where I’ve been.  I’ve seen a few parties, but they weren’t held just for people to hook up.  We couple under different circumstances.”

 “Tell me about them?”

 “Hmm.  Where to start...  Well, the lowest common denominator, when a man just needs a woman and nothing else matters, is prostitutes.”

 “What are they?”

 “Women who will, I’ll say, lend their bodies for a night, for a fee.”

 “Money!  They charge the men?”

 “They do.”

 “You’re pulling my leg.  How can they charge men?”

 He shrugged and laughed, not knowing what to tell me.  “If a guy can’t get it anywhere else, and that’s all he can think of...”

 “Did you do that much?”

 “Ha!  Never.  If I’m with a woman, I’d like her to want to be there.”

 Even though I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around such a strange idea, I was still glad to hear that somehow.  Maybe it was the distaste with which he talked about it rubbing off on me.

 “What else is there?”

 “Hmm...  Now that I think of it, I misspoke.  Prostitutes are not the lowest common denominator.  That would be rape.”

 He said it with a loathing that far surpassed that of the prostitutes.  So much that it took me a moment to ask, “Rape?  What is that?”

 His voice hardened.  “Simon taking advantage of you when you’re in the stocks.  That’s rape.  In my opinion, one of the very worst acts a man is capable of.  Taking a woman against her will completely.”

 “That’s just part of being punished...”

 “It’s still rape, and it happens apart from punishment where I come from.  A woman walking alone in a field may find herself surrounded by four men, who will hold her down while each takes a turn with her.”

 “That’s terrible!” I said in shock.

 “My feelings exactly.”

 “Is there any nice way for humans to pair up?”

 “Of course there is.  The most common might be the same as yours, just finding someone for a night.  That usually happens in taverns or inns, where people are getting drunk.  We can also get married, or stay with someone steadily without getting officially married.”  He smiled sadly, staring at the cup.  “My hope was to get married one day, if I ever finished traveling.  Actually, I was planning to stop traveling once I met the right girl.”  He laughed to himself.  “Well...  That’s never going to happen.”

 I saw something new in the way he was looking at me, but I ignored it.  It almost seemed for a second like he was imagining what would happen if I were a human, and I knew that couldn’t be true.  “So...  Have you been with many women?”

 He shrugged.  “A few.”

 “How would you meet them?”

 “I told you before, I travel and talk.  Once in awhile, there would be a girl who wanted to talk some more.  Once in a great while, a girl would want to do more than talk.”

 “You didn’t get to be with a girl often?”

 “Not at all...”  He sighed.  “I spend a lot of time feeling pathetic about it.  A lot of places, men are judged by their ability to get women.  And it gets lonely...  Like I said though, I never wanted women.  I just wanted to find the right one, and marry her...”

 How can such a nice man have trouble getting women?  Well, he thinks there’s nothing wrong with purple wings.  Maybe there’s something about him that human women don’t like, that you can’t see.  “I don’t think that’s pathetic, I think it’s sweet,” I said.

 “You’re sweet for saying that...  And actually, I don’t feel pathetic any time I really think about it.  It’s how people look at me all the time that makes me feel like that.”

 “I can relate to that.”  I wanted to know more about him.  “What makes a human girl...  Pretty?”

 He picked up on my nervous pause, but only gave me a gentle glance before trying to explain.  “It sounds like you think there’s some golden standard like wings seem to be with your people.  It doesn’t work like that with us.  Guys like different things about women, and they like them different ways.  A woman may be boring to one man for the same red hair that sets another man’s mind to complete distraction.  Others might not care about the hair at all.  Some guys like certain shapes, some like skin or hair color...”

 “When you met a girl you did want to pair off with,” I asked, my voice shaking in spite of the courage lent to me by the mead, “what made you like her?”  Oh, now, why would you ask such a thing?

 He took a breath to think, and a big sip before handing the cup back to me.  We had almost killed the whole bottle.  He grinned, and I could tell he enjoyed the question.  “Well, it didn’t have anything to do with whether or not she was pretty.  Or, maybe it did.”

 I handed him the last of the mead.   “Kill it.  And did it, or didn’t it?” I asked with a smile.

 With a final swig he said, “I’m thinking back.  There’s only been a handful...  And there was nothing they all had in common.  I was attracted to all of them, at the time at least.  They all stood out from the crowd to me.  I think maybe above anything else, it was something I saw in the way they looked at me.  They looked, interested.”

 “A girl could be interested in you, and that’s what would make her pretty to you?”

 “More than that...  It was also how she acted toward the world.  If she was nice.  If she had a good heart.  That’s what makes a girl pretty.  A good heart,” he said, his words beginning to slur a little.

 “And interest in you.”

 He shook his head.  “No, I could think a girl was pretty even if she wasn’t interested.  I’m sorry, I’m getting drunk, and this is hard enough to explain on its own.  It was on those rare occasions that a girl took interest in me that I would...  Pair off as you say.”

 “Oh...  You know, I wanted to ask you before, why would it be so rare?  You’re really nice, why wouldn’t any girl like you?”

 At least the compliment made him smile.  “I’m not what a lot of girls look for.  I might seem strong compared to your men, but I’m really quite small for a human man.  Most women like bigger men.  Girls also, like most everybody, don’t usually care for what I talk about when I travel.  They think I’m weird, and morbid.  Maybe that’s why I’d go to pieces when any did show interest.  It probably would have done me some good to find some more exacting criteria...  That’s how I ended up with that damn witch.”

 “Do you feel ready to talk about that?”

 He laughed.  “I’m pretty drunk.  I’ll talk about anything, just don’t expect me to make perfect sense.”

 “Deal,” I laughed.  Finally, I was getting him to talk about himself.

 “Alright...  I met her while I was speaking at an inn, I think I told you.  She’d followed me to a couple of them.  When I’d pretty much lost the crowd for the night, she approached me.  She was pretty.  Yes, of course, her features agreed with me and all that, but like the others there was something about how she looked at me.  Yet, it was unlike the others.  Her eyes held something more like...  Hunger.  Only softer, at first anyway.

 “She bought me a drink, and the first meal I’d had in over a day.  She got me talking, but more about myself than anything I would have chosen to talk about.  By the time my food and drink were gone, I felt like I’d told her my life story.  That was when I started to have misgivings.  I didn’t know she was a witch, of course, but I did know I had not meant to tell her all that I did.  It was like she had pulled it out of me with some invisible cord.

 “She’d sat closer and closer to me.  She started putting her hands on me, caressing me.  I wanted to part ways, but what was there to do?  As nervous as I was, it had been a long time since I’d had any contact.  I was starved for it.  Or, she was making me feel starved for it.

 “So, I was trapped.  That’s what it felt like, anyway.  She suggested going to her place.  I couldn’t say no.  I think she had me under some kind of spell at that point, already.  We did go to her place.  Then things got strange.  She put her arms around my neck...”  His voice was growing heavy, and I grew excited myself when I realized telling the story was affecting him.  “She started kissing me and...  Asking why I was so sad.  My mind whirled.  Was I sad?  I hadn’t talked about being sad.  She kept asking me.

 “Her repetition of the question was what snapped me out of it.  I think she messed up whatever spell she was weaving by getting impatient.  As she kept asking, I realized she wanted me to talk about being sad whether I was or not.  She needed to be making me feel better.  Every time she asked, a sad memory came to me.  She was pulling them out of me.  I could feel it, and it was a very strange feeling.  Strange enough where I finally grabbed her arms and held her away from me.

 “Her face was different.  The features were all the same, but she looked horrifying suddenly.  Now I saw a raw hunger, and rage at not being fed.  Frustration at not getting what she wanted, as she was clearly used to.  ‘Come on’, she urged, but I fled the room.  I got to her front door to find it locked.  As I was trying to figure out the contraption, I heard her blow air behind me.  Powder flew past my head.  I started shrinking, clothes, staff, and all.  Everything I own.

 “You know the rest.  She put me in a jar, to starve me until I would go to bed with her!  I managed to bump it off of the shelf, make it fall and break, and I fled.

 “I’ll never know why she chose me.  Best guess is I’m a random traveler, who no one will miss.  Because I think she meant to kill me, or trap my soul, or something terrible.”

 “You don’t sound so confused about it, like you said you were that first night.”

 He laughed.  “You really do listen, don’t you?  Well, that’s flattering.  I’m still confused about plenty to do with it.  Like I said, I’ll never know why she chose me.  I’m also confused about what I felt.  I don’t know if anyone had ever gotten me so...  Aroused.  That said, how come it’s also the only time I broke it off between a woman and myself?  And what exactly was that other thing I was feeling, that made me break it off?  Fear?

 “I’ve always believed, at least for humans, when we mate with someone, we exchange something other than our physical bodies.  We share a piece of our selves, we take a piece of the other.  We become them a bit, and vice versa.  I think the witch wanted more.  I think she could have taken a lot of me.  But now, I’m just being silly.”

 “I don’t think you are...”  I thought what he said was beautiful.

 “Anyway...  I think it’s fair to ask you, what makes a fairy man attractive?  To you, I mean.”

 “Me?”  If I’d been drinking at that moment, I would have choked.  “That’s kind of a pointless question...”

 “Come on.  You never thought any guy looked good?”

 “It’s hard to explain...  I used to, all the time.  Any time one was nice to me I felt like I fell in love with him.  Only they weren’t in love with, or interested in, me.  Over time, guys stopped talking to or looking at me.  They were all afraid to be my next crush.  They all ignore me now.  So I ignore them, unless there’s a dance.  Then I look at them, just wondering...”

 “Wondering what?”

 “What it’s like to be held, or kissed...  To dance.  To...”  I trailed off, blushing.

 “You’ve...  Never been kissed?”

 “Never.  Unless my mother counts...”

 He smiled.  “So, you thought guys looked nice when they were nice.  It wasn’t all about wings, like with girls?”

 I smiled.  “I guess not...  Like I said, though, it doesn’t matter.”

 “It should matter.”

 “Why?”

 “You always have your dreams.”

 “What dreams?  We both know my future.”

 “Your imagination.  What you think about as you go to sleep at night.  As you do some menial task, or take a walk.  If you can imagine it vividly enough, it can feel like it happened.  It can be very comforting.  It can be nice to imagine...  Someone there with you.  So, know what you want.  Never forget your dreams.  They matter, believe me.”